2018-08-11: Shouldn't It Be Enough
- Log: Shouldn't It Be Enough
- Cast: Fei Fong Wong, Ethius Hesiod, Sephilia Lampbright, Rebecca Streisand, Avril Vent Fleur
- Where: Mount Manfred
- Date: August 11th 2018
- Summary: Lead by Fei, a group ventures into the depths of Castle Rabenstein once again in seek of answers, in order to try to help a trio of lost souls.
DG: A party led by Fei Fong Wong is now entering Castle Rabenstein. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Don't Wake Bitey *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The front gates of Castle Rabenstein are closed and barred. On top of that, the skeletal, Malevolence-animated form of a truly massive wyvern is sprawled out in front of them. It looks like it might be asleep, as odd as that sounds. (He may or may not have a snore bubble coming out one skeletal, ice-rimmed nostril.) You might be able to climb the wall and access another entrance, but whatever you decide, you'll need to be quiet about it. If you get past the wyvern, you might be able to get inside without being noticed. Wake it up, and you'll have a problem on your hands. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Bad Luck===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong, after some papping and reassurance from Dean, has decided to try busting in to Castle Rabbitste--Castle Rabenstein one more time to reach Ida and, well, something something maybe stop clobbering folks out of nowhere and let someone purge the malevolence from you so it stops making your problems worse.
Yeah, Fei doesn't think that track will work either.
He has either asked you to come along (Rebecca, Avril) due to being responsible individuals who might be able to help people not die, a kindhearted individual that may help appeal to Ida's better nature (Sephilia) and well Ethius came along too.
The front gates of Castle Rabenstein are,naturally, closed. There's a skeletal wyvern napping in front of the castle and Fei exhales.
"Well," He says. "Let's get this over with."
He quietly moves along, attempting to scale the wall without waking an undead wyvern that, Fei suspects, is hungry and cranky upon being woken up.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Don't Wake Bitey.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius comes along. He doesn't really say why, this is normal by now. The trudge up Mount Manfred, he does not let himself get weighed by the ambient anxieties and fury. He's going there, and the natural deathly cold does not prove enough to stop him. He comes to the front gates of Castle Rabenstein, eyeing the skeletal wyvern.
Ethius wraps the harness of the patchy-lookin' sack as he finds a higher vantage point to start with. The only 'risky' part of his plan is that there is a small bit of sound and a small flash of light to signify the successful casting of a Symbology spell, but at his starting distance he'd have enough clearance to back away if things get bad. Once the burst of hot air fills the former bandit loot sack, Ethius floats from his higher vantage poitn to a much higher part of the castle walls - in turn minimizing the amount of potential squeaks and squeals that might come from trying to scale it.
What his stake is in Ida, Rosa, or Garrett - if any - remains unclear. He just believes he needs to be here.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Don't Wake Bitey.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephilia Lampbright is here because...well, she's a kindhearted individual who hopes to appeal to Ida's better nature. You can tell how kind-hearted she is by how much she's glowering at Ethius, pointedly jotting notes in her journal while glaring.
She's a sneaky sneaky because she's not babbling, too busy giving Ethius the silent treatment.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Don't Wake Bitey.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"This isn't a good idea." Rebecca has repeated in intervals on the way here. "I mean - Avril saw what the courtyard looked like. What if - whatever beat these three silly decided to come back while we're there?" Any one of the three would be a tough fight. All three together...
Something that could beat them is not something Rebecca wants to face on a good day.
All the same - she's here despite her complaints.
And now that they're within hearing distance of the Wyvern again.
Rebecca is quiet as she sneaks past to the castle walls - and tries to make the climb. One hand-hold after another. Looking back down at Avril - she smiles and hanging off by one hand and a foot - pantomimes a curled over wave with the other.
Apparently that's her signal asking if 'the sea' would mind lending a hand.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Don't Wake Bitey.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
In the end, they just can't leave it like this.
It's a horrible situation to be trapped in. The nature of Ida -- and the others -- affliction is dire, heartrendingly so. And yet, either they will ultimately succumb to it or cause great harm to someone she holds dear.
Unless, that is, it's possible to reach them and pull them free.
But is even that possible...? Is it too late?
Is there only one kindness Avril can offer?
"..." she breathes at first, at Rebecca's comment. "If whatever that was arrives once again... we shall flee," she says simply, shaking her head. "Nevertheless. I believe Dean's heart is made up in this matter. We must know more if we are to assist him, must we not?"
Her gaze settles on the wyvern, asleep once again; she quiets once they approach.
Just as before, then.
Demonstrating her agreement with a single nod of assent, she produces the Medium from the bag she's brought slung over a shoulder.
She whispers her prayer: "Lucadia."
Light extrudes from the Medium in a shimmer of blue-white.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Don't Wake Bitey.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Don't Wake Bitey *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The front gates of Castle Rabenstein are closed and barred. On top of that, the skeletal, Malevolence-animated form of a truly massive wyvern is sprawled out in front of them. It looks like it might be asleep, as odd as that sounds. (He may or may not have a snore bubble coming out one skeletal, ice-rimmed nostril.) You might be able to climb the wall and access another entrance, but whatever you decide, you'll need to be quiet about it. If you get past the wyvern, you might be able to get inside without being noticed. Wake it up, and you'll have a problem on your hands. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Bad Luck===========================================
======================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 1 *>======================= ========================< Results - Don't Wake Bitey >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sephilia Lampbright 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has failed this challenge! The party gained 5 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "Well I know it's not a good idea," to Rebecca. "If I did good ideas I'd still be in a prison." At least he...knows himself? Nevertheless, he doesn't seem to be as upset about Ethius's presence as Sephilia is which frankly surprises him because Ethius set him on fire more than once and has only gotten shadier since then and Sephilia is maybe the kindest person he knows? Well, nobody's perfect he supposes though Sephilia might still have the right idea here.
Unfortunately, it seems they aren't quiet enough because Bitey does wake up and cock its head over at the group. It's tail smashes the side of the wall and everybody falls off that aren't named Ethius and Rebecca and they all land on Ethius's hot air sack and have to be carried up that way. The poor air sack has to do some extra have work this time.
Luckily Bitey does not, uh, get a chance to bite them but it's ... it's really not a good start to this adventure and thanks to the added weight, the team has to start a bit farther out than normal.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
================================================<* Castle Rabenstein *>================================================= ==============================================<* CHALLENGE - Sculpting *>=============================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- The wall ahead looks like it's been recently repaired, and the only door within it doesn't have a conventional knob or keyhole. Instead, there's a perfectly-round hole in the center--and there's more than enough stone lying around for you to carve into the appropriate shape. If only it were so simple. The rock is saturated with Malevolence. It does not want to take that shape. It resists your attempts to sculpt it, but it can't hold out forever, can it? If you're persistent, you can wear it down until it finally gives up and does what you want it to. It's for the best, really. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Stupify=====================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The extra work translates to Ethius having leg muscles pulled by anyone gripping him and scalding his hand something fierce with the amount of extra hot air he has to cast and put out in order to maintain altitude. That he's able to do this while a big undead dragon looks ready to bear down on them is remarkable, but that is enough of that.
They haven't quite made their way indoors just yet - Bitey's awakening necessitates the use of an alternate entrance possibly of their own making. Ethius has a visible limp as he runs a hand along the walls with a studious eye. A finger touches on a groove unseen before - a perfectly round groove.
"Here." Ethius calls to attention this hole. It looks less a 'hole in the wall' and more 'part of a would-be door.' Sort of? It looks like it's meant to be part of a passage, and there's plenty of stone here to carve into an appropriate shape to slot in the mechanisms needed to make this be one.
The rock, itself, is saturated with the purple miasma. Ethius places a hand on it like it's nothing, giving it a glare.
"Mister Fei, did you bring your chisel?" He asks of them. "I believe we can carve ourselves a door. This part of the wall appears weak." It also looks like it was a more recent addition - like maybe they tried to fix a hole, or open a new door, but gave up?
"If need be, I can melt off the excess." Ethius says. He actually gets right to that, applying an incredible amount of heat to start.
It starts to melt, and then it stops. Like it doesn't want to be melted. It doesn't want to do anything but be a rock.
Ethius narrows his eyes at it further. He might need to be convinced to cool off a bit and let others coax it into being what they want it to be and not just BRUTE FORCE IT INTO SLAG but... this is him.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Sculpting.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephilia rolls her eyes. "Leave this to me an' Chauncey, *Ethius*," she says acidly. "You don't need to do anything noteworthy." Chauncey's digging claws are rapidly affixed and the plush doll embiggened, and he gets to work on trying to carve the stone. Provided Ethius backs off long enough.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Digging Claws toward her party's challenge, Sculpting.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"You make it sound so easy Avril." Rebecca says lightly on the fleeing part - but when she says that Dean's mind is made up. Eventually she just nods. "Yeah... there's no changing his mind when he's like this."
Before she gives Fei a wry look, "I don't think staying in prison is the gold standard of sound judgement."
-=-=-
Cue climbing. Cue Bitey waking up. Cue Rebecca hastily helping everyone who Ethius is ballooning on up up and over the wall.
-=-=-
"Sheesh - I didn't know doing that trick burned your hand if you kept it up long enough. At least take a gel or something Ethius."
And yet - there's a hole in the door. And there's a rock of the same shape.
And Rebecca's eyes narrow as it shifts itself to not do what it's supposed to. "What the-? How are even the rocks of this place all wrong? Don't tell me she's taught all the rocks not to be conformists or something?"
All the others have better ways to force it to do what it's supposed to. So Rebecca just stands guard and let's them work.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Sculpting.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
"So, we must do our best to support him." Then, she glances away. "I, too, would like to assist Ida."
In a way less final than the route that keeps presenting itself to her.
=-=-=-=
Up the wall Avril goes, once the rope's cast over the side--
But this is the point where things go RATHER LESS WELL than previously.
Bitey wakes up. This in turn forces a bit of a scramble on Avril's end of things as she and the others rush to grab ahold of Ethius to use his hot air sack to cross the distance properly. Which unfortunately also puts them all down in a part of the castle she hasn't seen previously.
"Is everyone alright?" she asks, after checking herself over post that landing. "Ah... Ethius, if you need assistance, I am able to make use of this Medium," Avril says, chiming in with Rebecca's own view of the man's injury. She produces said Medium again, immediately.
But she doesn't move in with a healing spell quite yet. Not when Ethius attempts to use his magic to reshape the door and...
The door doesn't want to do that.
Avril inclines her head a degree to the right.
"A door that does not wish to change... hm. Perhaps, if I were to introduce it to an alternative..."
She trails off into silence.
Ice forms at the fingertips of her free hand, then with a sudden upwards gesture, radiates outwards in a trailing shooting star of glacial cold for the rock.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Sculpting.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong says, "When you commit an unforgivable crime there's nothin' more reasonable than going to prison for it." He shakes his head. "But sure, for most folks."
---
Fei doesn't even want to think about the 'final' way. He refuses to consider that option. Instead everybody seems to come to a hole in the wall. Not like a 'hole in the wall' but a literla hole in a wall and a lot of rock. Fei squints a bit as he looks around. "...Well this is a ... weird area. Didn't think Ida and the others were really the artistic types."
He gives Ethius a small nod to Ethius and adds, "Well it might be easier to uh...make a key." He draws out his chisel and adds, "Let's try that first? I think that's how it's supposed to go. If that doesn't work then ... sure we'll try uh, exploding it. But I think there's better tools than a chisel for that method."
He gets to work with a piece of work, squinting as the rock reshapes itself back to normal.
"Okay...triple time it." Fei breathes as he starts slamming the chisel in speedily.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Sculpting.
================================================<* Castle Rabenstein *>================================================= ==============================================<* CHALLENGE - Sculpting *>=============================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- The wall ahead looks like it's been recently repaired, and the only door within it doesn't have a conventional knob or keyhole. Instead, there's a perfectly-round hole in the center--and there's more than enough stone lying around for you to carve into the appropriate shape. If only it were so simple. The rock is saturated with Malevolence. It does not want to take that shape. It resists your attempts to sculpt it, but it can't hold out forever, can it? If you're persistent, you can wear it down until it finally gives up and does what you want it to. It's for the best, really. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Stupify=====================================
===========================================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 2 *>============================================ ================================================< Results - Sculpting >================================================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sephilia Lampbright 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Digging Claws 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 15 --(5)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 5 --(15)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Overzealous(2)|Slow(1)|Stupify(2) Effects: ===================================================< 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> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Some grasp the emotional weight of the ambient Malevolence and choose to assist the rock into taking a new form almost on its own terms. Once Ethius backs off and Avril takes a go at it with glacial cold, the rock should become brittle and simply easy enough to break outright if they had to.
It doesn't want to. It wants to be a rock. It doesn't want anything to change. It wants to be a rock forever, free of the influence of what people might do to it. It grows increasingly anxious and worried about this. Fei keeps hammering at it with his chisel, and it doesn't want to. It won't.
Chauncey just straight up tears into it, as though driven by Sephilia's spite in the man - as if to reassure it and say that no, Ethius won't have their way with it, let them help you. Somewhere in all this, Chauncey still doesn't quite carve it to ribbons - it does something almost as good.
The entire slab is excavated and allowed to come to rest as it comes flattening itself down on the ground. It would be nice if it could have stayed in the wall, but Chauncey was kind to simply remove it without letting anyone hurt it further, and so they're allowed passage inside as Ethius takes five to apply any offered magic or medicine in which to ease the burn on his hand.
"Miss Sephilia." Ethius remarks, back turned to her. "Regardless of your misgivings, I assure you I must be here."
But... he's not a friend of Ida, Rosa, or Garrett, is he? Why must he be here? He already knows.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ ===================<* CHALLENGE - Let Sleeping Cats Lie *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You find yourselves in a room filled with easily over a hundred small specters, very simple in shape but unmistakably feline. Most of them are sleeping, while others are merely lazing around contentedly. Virtually every horizontal surface is covered in them, and simply finding a place to step is an ordeal. The few awake stare at you unblinkingly as you attempt to cross the room. Their eyes glow like cold embers. Their ectoplasmic fur drains heat from anything that comes close. You don't want to wake any of the rest, as that would cause a chain reaction resulting in... Well, you don't even want to think about it. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Exhaust============================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca is silent at first when Avril mentions she'd like to assist Ida. It feels like a hopeless cause given what she's seen but... "... If it's what you think you need to do." After all. She did say she'll be stupid together.
"I don't know Fei. Seems to me like you're good enough punishing yourself without prison being in the equation."
-=-=-
And then the slab is broken through. The next room has a simple plaintive noise. mii~
From the tiny little kitten that was laying down - that looks entirely unperturbed by the wall falling. It comes up to Rebecca, "Aw - you're so cute. How'd you wind up in a place like?"
Rebecca leans over and extends a hand. The kitten stands up on its hind legs and Rebecca's fingers come down.
She jerks them up like it's a hot stove. "Yow! What the? Cold- cold - cold!"
Waving it as she takes three hasty steps back. miIiIiIiIii
The timbre of the kitten's mew sounds like nails on a chalkboard - as it's coat becomes translucent. Frost begins to rime the floor around the kitten as its eyes blank out.
Other cats are twitching from their resting places. Rebecca slowly looks at the others and claps both hands over her mouth then take a short hop over the kitten - trying to light foot it around the obstacle course of cats.
Of course they'd lay in the most inconvenient places.
She thinks - but doesn't say.
What a horrific security system.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Let Sleeping Cats Lie.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephilia's eyes widen. "Th-they're so cute but--but--oh gosh--my Dad's journal says you should *never* touch a cat in a dungeon!" She slowly starts to pick her way through, trying to avoid the cats as much as possible. "Or anywhere. Never touch strange cats. They'll claim you."
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Let Sleeping Cats Lie.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius looks ready to draw his weapon when there's that cute little mewling that echoes through the vestiges of anxiety over abrupt change. Rebecca learns the hard way of the danger before he can do much of anything of it, as he puts the harness for the Hot Air Sack on the other hand. Stepping onto something for elevation - a footrest which one hopes is not a cat? - he once more goes through the usual Symbological casting process to fill the sack full of hot air and attempt to drift along the chamber. He lifts his legs upward as to make sure they don't dangle down and brush one of the sleeping cats about.
He feels that biting cold just passing over the one Rebecca tried to play with. A biting cold like no other - a sense of cold that transcends whatever deep-seated understanding he has about the nature of heat as a whole. It adds another layer of urgency to the proceedings to not let a leg dangle or brush them.
"Yes. That is sage advice." Ethius agrees, his opinion not at all asked for.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Let Sleeping Cats Lie.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril, too, feels as if it may be a lost cause. And yet, she doesn't want to give in to that voice that continues to whisper, at a level that only she can hear, in the back of her mind.
You already know the best answer, don't you?
=-=-=-=
Avril channels ice against the rock, as if to freeze and force it into the form they need it to take.
It continues to refuse. Only when Sephilia takes Chauncey against it does the slab finally give way, moving to allow them passage at last.
A kitten-like chirp rings out against the stone walls of Rabenstein. Avril blinks, then glances down at the tiny fluffy kitten.
"Ah--" she breathes out.
Rebecca reaches to give the kitten a pat.
And jerks her hand away. "Rebecca--!" 'Are you all right' might as well be written in her gaze alone as she rushes over to put a hand on her friend's shoulder, only to back up herself as she follows Rebecca's gaze along the room...
There are many cats. The cats are stirring.
And glances back down at the cat Rebecca just touched. "These... are not cats," Avril states, her brow furrowed. Her bootheels click as she too steps lightly over the frosty kitten. "I believe we will want to proceed with utmost caution."
And to assist in that task, as others begin to make their way across on foot, and as Ethius produces his hot air sack, she produces the Original Medium.
Once more, there is prayer and a light.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Let Sleeping Cats Lie.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei gives Sephilia a concerned look as she starts sassing out Ethius but Ethius isn't a gentleman who needs him speaking up for him especially since he's not sure he should. He does tell Ethius, however, "Please don't do anything too reckless. It's a fragile enough situation."
Fei pockets his chisel once more and follows the group along. What if it is a lost cause, Fei? Are you going to do it? She's your friend. Is the kindest thing you can do for her is to just end it? Those kind of thoughts come from a Fei he doesn't want to believe exists.
r
He too is surprised by dangercats being so danger. He stalls when Rebecca pulls her hand back and he looks towards the cats, grimacing faintly.
"This is a bit on the nose." Fei mumbles. "Yeah, let's ... let's be careful." Hopefully Avril's medium and that air pack will be enough, because in this case, the alternative may be exploding cats and that is definitely not something Fei wants to do. He's not a monster!
...
He's not a monster to cats!
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Let Sleeping Cats Lie.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ ===================<* CHALLENGE - Let Sleeping Cats Lie *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You find yourselves in a room filled with easily over a hundred small specters, very simple in shape but unmistakably feline. Most of them are sleeping, while others are merely lazing around contentedly. Virtually every horizontal surface is covered in them, and simply finding a place to step is an ordeal. The few awake stare at you unblinkingly as you attempt to cross the room. Their eyes glow like cold embers. Their ectoplasmic fur drains heat from anything that comes close. You don't want to wake any of the rest, as that would cause a chain reaction resulting in... Well, you don't even want to think about it. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Exhaust============================================
======================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 3 *>======================= =====================< Results - Let Sleeping Cats Lie >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 25 --(30)--> 55 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 25 --(15)--> 40 Pass Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sephilia Lampbright 25 --(30)--> 55 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 20 --(15)--> 35 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 20 --(30)--> 50 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Overzealous(1)|Slow(2)|Stupify(1) Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Beneath her glove - it feels like her finger has frostbite - but she can't stop to check. Avril's look of concern is plain but right now they have to get through this and-
A cat's tail twitches right to where her next footfall is going to be made.
The intense YOWL of a cat having it's foot stepped on wakes up a half dozen.
Which causes a chain reaction as Fei almost runs into two more - and Chauncey touches another. Soon the room is bitter cold. The heat being leeched out of every corner as cats scramble to greet them with blank-faced gazes.
Fortunately Avril's spell allows several of them to leap high enough to use Ethius and his hot air sack as a platform to acrobatically swing across the room.
They come out of the room with bitter cold and teeth chattering - but fortunately when the door is shut - the cats are all shut in with it.
They hear a hundred horrible mews wailing with their desire to be let out.
Half of them probably would come straight back in but that's besides the point since the door is closed.
Rebecca has to keep moving for a while to get the feeling back in her fingers and toes.
"Noted Sephy."
Rebecca finally says after the fact. Taking wisdom for wisdom. She's usually the sensible one and she's not going to get mad at someone else saying something sensible.
"Last thing I'd want is any of those claiming me and following us home."
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - Spectral Footsoldiers *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The twisting corridors of the castle deposit you on a narrow parapet overlooking the frozen plains. Ahead, you hear footsteps--and as you watch, the spectral forms of a half-dozen armored soldiers condense out of mist and Malevolence. All of them carry swords, and the insignia on their tabards is the royal crest of fallen Arctica. Their leader shouts something in a strange, distorted voice that sounds like a corrupted recording. At their command, the rest of the soldiers draw their blades and attack. They might be mere shadows of Arctica's finest, but they fight with all the grim determination of the real thing. The real thing, which no longer exists. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Lucadia thus invoked, Avril moves quickly and carefully.
One cat pops open an eye as she passes, then rising from its resting place with a streeeeetch, makes a leap after the trailing dance of her long silver hair.
Avril cries out in shock. The cat yowls as its prey is pulled from it hastily. Another dozen cats awaken to join the others stirred in their wake.
An extremely hasty retreat -- heedless of other cats they might stir -- becomes necessary; they race collectively for the far door and shut it.
Shivering, Avril leans up against the wall, arms wrapped around herself and teeth chattering. "Ah... that was... close," she exhales, before pushing herself away from the wall.
In time for a door not far along the parapet they've exited onto to slam open and the soldiers to emerge.
Like last time, Avril thinks, her heart skipping a beat.
Medium is traded for ARM. She stands at the forefront of her group as the soldiers charge in.
"Prepare yourself," she informs them, before pulling the trigger and launching herself forward. Absolute Zero's brilliant beam is lashed once, twice, hissing as it rips through the air.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Beam Whip Mode toward her party's challenge, Spectral Footsoldiers.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Chauncey is once again embiggened. "Chauncey, let's teach these jerkheads not to mess with Foxington and Lampbright!" The big plush doll wades into the fray. The fracas. The melee. The--you get it.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Spectral Footsoldiers.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is caught by more than one cat and he cries out in shock as his temperature rapidly lower. He quickly starts hugging himself even as he's afflicted with the blue status effect.--Oh wait no he's just blue from being exceptionally frozen and low temperature. He can't even focus enough to try and offset it with internal chi manipulation in his body so he just has to deal with it.
When they finally make it out of the room, he rests his hand against a wall and swallows faintly. "Had to try again didn't you, Fei?" He pulls himself back up and adds, "Well no sense in giving up this quickly."
But of course now there's another problem: Soldiers. Fei grimaces again and he looks at the crests on their body.
"Arctica." He says, closing his eyes before he nods once and darts in, flicking his RPS Badge into the air to draw the attention of their 'eyes' before he punches out fire from both of his hands at the spectral men!
"If we can just find a place we can rest at a bit..." Fei mutters to himself.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Spectral Footsoldiers.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius once more has to go overtime to keep the altitude maintained. The other hand is appropriately scalded for the effort as he narrowly escapes being frozen solid along with the rest. He considers a lower-end ambient heat spell to warm up, but even the 'lowest' he has is not... meant for anything resembling a friendly campfire gathering. Even his own teeth are chattering, and so there is a HARD TRUTH among the gathered who have not seen under the bandanna - Ethius has teeth. Who knew?
He rarely lets himself look so vulnerable. He remembers Fei's polite request not to do anything too reckless. It is a fragile enough situation.
"Indeed," he says way too late in the next room, "Mister Fei. The situation is fragile." Just repeating and agreeing? Okay, maybe this means there won't be a Crazy Ethius Moment again. (There probably will be.)
The door opens, and soldiers emerge. There is a substantial volume of them - half a dozen, one for each with one left over. They move with a desperation and resignation that this would be their final hour - an hour whose resolution would not paint them at their finest. Ethius stares at them not as though he were to treat this as trivial... he could not. It would be unlikely that he could match one in a straight battle, hand-to-hand.
Ethius moves to run past. He's a bit tough to follow, as though he were comfortable with moving in these kinds of situations. Through churning chaos, era-defining conflicts, he attempts to move by with a duck, a weave, and a roll as though he were peripheral to what was going on.
As though absolutely none of this - to the phantoms, very real - snippet of blood-stained history that would be a defining moment for what would come.
This much does not concern me, is what Ethius decides.
(This probably counts as a Crazy Ethius Moment.)
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Spectral Footsoldiers.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
And then come a half dozen foot soldiers of- "More of them from Arctica." She says as she remembers what Riese said.
Avril's at the front lines so she naturally thinks they've been bought some time. She was all but unstoppable up there - that doesn't mean she doesn't want to back her up though.
Rebecca draws her revolver and spins it into her hand - then thinks better about it. Drawing out her medium and invoking it - and something about the battlefield just shifts.
It's something subtle - intangible.
Not to her though. Because now she's standing on just the right convergence of elemental ley energy.
"Let's light a fire in their hearts."
An intense blaze erupts into their ranks as naturally she thinks fire is going to be more effective against ghosts from a country that sounds... real cold.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Sky Medium toward her party's challenge, Spectral Footsoldiers.
============================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - Spectral Footsoldiers *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The twisting corridors of the castle deposit you on a narrow parapet overlooking the frozen plains. Ahead, you hear footsteps--and as you watch, the spectral forms of a half-dozen armored soldiers condense out of mist and Malevolence. All of them carry swords, and the insignia on their tabards is the royal crest of fallen Arctica. Their leader shouts something in a strange, distorted voice that sounds like a corrupted recording. At their command, the rest of the soldiers draw their blades and attack. They might be mere shadows of Arctica's finest, but they fight with all the grim determination of the real thing. The real thing, which no longer exists. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
=======================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 4 *>======================== ======================< Results - Spectral Footsoldiers >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Beam Whip Mode 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sephilia Lampbright 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 35 --(12)--> 47 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Sky Medium 3 Combat Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Fei Fong Wong 30 --(20)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Slow(1) Effects: ===============================< 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.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Bloody Stream *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The door ahead is sealed with a complicated series of runic sigils. A large, gold-plated bowl set into the floor offers a clue as to what might open it--it's covered in brown splotches, and reeks of old, dried blood. You passed by several channels and storage tanks on the way here, and if you're clever about it, you could break them open and get what you need to bypass this lock. If not, you can always offer it your own. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Wound=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
"Indeed," comes Avril's reply. "We have a long distance to go yet."
Before the soldiers come, bearing the insignia of a dead nation. Noeline, Avril thinks, as she drops the edge of the beam whip through a wayward spirit. At least this should be laid to sleep.
They charge with blades, forcing Avril into a more defensive posture before she strikes out again; the moment becomes somewhat more chaotic, an instant that Ethius well takes advantage of.
Something changes about the battlefield -- Avril can feel it, as muted as it is. It's the shifting of a Ley Line, isn't it. She's not in the right place to make use of it -- as best as she could, given her leanings -- but Rebecca is.
Fire follows the lash of the lightbeam whip. It dances, as if caught high in the wind.
It catches, joining the fire-chi laden punch Fei drives at one of the three remaining soldiers.
Before, flames still burning high, Chauncy charges in through the pitched battle, seeing to the remaining two in a flurry of claws.
Embers but burn when the spirits are at last quelled. The parapet is quiet save for the howl of the wind.
The door is open.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei grins over at Rebecca. It's a good line: 'Let's light a fire in their hearts'. It's nice to be recouping a little quite frankly.
Indeed, it's only after the battle that Fei seems to realize something Ethius had just said. "Did you...just call me Mister 'Fei'?" He's called him that before actually. "Just Fei's fine. Mister Fei is my father."
He pauses for a moment before clarifying for Ethius lest he get confused. "My..My father is probably not actually called Mr. Fei. Just a small joke."
He really hopes his father is not Mister Fei at least, but truth be told he can't be entirely sure about that. Still, nevertheless, the group moves on through that open door.
And behind that door.... ANOTHER DOOR!
It's a door covered in strange runic sigils. There's a gold plated bowl on the floor as well. There's brown splotches. Blood? Fei squints in bewilderment. This is gross.
But Fei isn't so inclined to offer his blood either so he looks to the others. "Any ideas?"
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is not free of the raging war that carries out behind him. He may have been clipped by an arrow, or by the arc of someone's sword - but he doesn't linger. He needs to move ahead, and move ahead he does... up to a room filled with ruinc sigils, all the way down to a gold-plated bowl in a place that stinks of old blood. Executions? Many must have perished in this chamber, and for what?
Ethius kneels down as if he has to be sure, running one of his gloved hands across the old, dried blood stain as if--
"Blood." Ethius states the obvious. He would have known this had his eyes tracked to the storage tanks, some of which also seem to have blood. Some of it seems more recent but it may be just the trick of whatever sigils might have maintained said blood. This is not a well-maintained chamber, by his reckoning.
He takes out the eyeglass thing of his and gives it a singular zap of Symbological electricity after the usual casting process, and holds it up to one of his eyes. The mechanism matches the bowl to the door ahead, which seems kind of obvious. The brown splotches make the matter more clear-cut...
"It desires a blood sacrifice." Ethius remarks. It should be noted that he is now standing well away from any sharp point or apparatus to be used for blood withdrawal. He is the single least-liked person in the room among them - the one the fewest amount of people would miss if anything bad happens.
But if asked, he would flatly deny offering any of his blood as though the matter were gravely important he not do such a thing. He would be more inclined to remove or even just bust open a tank and let the pressure spray it into the bowl because-- well, let's not get that desperate yet. That's just theoretical talk.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bloody Stream.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephy makes a face. "Eiw. Chauncey an' I can...kind of...do the thing, to make it work. Heavy lifting, I mean. Not...not bleeding." She points at the tanks back on the way in. "I bet there's some in those, otherwise why have them...?" The claws are affixed and the big doll lumbers over on Sephy's instruction, prepared to separate a tank and heave it up in his big, strong plushy arms.
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has used her Tool Digging Claws toward her party's challenge, Bloody Stream.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca sweatdrops as it sets in what Ethius called Fei the 'Mister' "Y-Yeah it can at least wait until he's like twenty five before you start calling him Mister at all." There are exceptions though - like if it's a real little kid. Like it's some rule of adulthood... or something.
She doesn't comment about Fei's dad.
Behind that door is another door. "I wonder what those tanks are holding." And that door is creepy And the bowl is creepier.
Rebecca doesn't volunteer a finger to scrape the dried fluid inside but...
Ethius points it out.
"Oh blood sacrifice - that's all it desires."
It also gives her an idea as to what she thinks the tanks are holding. "Well here's what I have to say to that idea."
Rebecca says as she draws her revolver - points it at a tank without looking. And pulls the trigger.
Again and again. It's aimed at the same spot on a tank. Trying to keep her shot grouping as tight as possible.
Maybe she's hoping one will spring a leak and make this easy?
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bloody Stream.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril watches this exchange with widened eyes, glancing between Fei, Ethius, and Rebecca. "Then, there is an age limit to when you may call someone 'mister'? Hmm. I see. I shall ask the men that I meet how old they are, if that is what is proper."
avril no
This is before they pass into the next room. And once they do, any sign of cheer rapidly drains from Avril's expression.
"Blood..." Avril echoes, gazing upon the stained bowl before them. "I thought as much. A blood sacrifice?" Her expression moves beyond thoughtful sobriety, into something best subtitled 'grim'. "Then, perhaps it might be asking that of us."
She approaches the bowl, dragging off the glove from her left hand. Absolute Zero's blade manifests afterwards.
She pricks her forefinger.
There is no hesitation. Not even a wince. One single sparkling red drop descends for the bowl below.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bloody Stream. DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bloody Stream.
===========================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Bloody Stream *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The door ahead is sealed with a complicated series of runic sigils. A large, gold-plated bowl set into the floor offers a clue as to what might open it--it's covered in brown splotches, and reeks of old, dried blood. You passed by several channels and storage tanks on the way here, and if you're clever about it, you could break them open and get what you need to bypass this lock. If not, you can always offer it your own. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Wound=======================================
======================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 5 *>======================= =========================< Results - Bloody Stream >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 60 --(20)--> 80 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 45 --(20)--> 65 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sephilia Lampbright 60 --(15)--> 75 Pass Digging Claws 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 47 --(20)--> 67 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 55 --(20)--> 75 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 50 --(10)--> 60 Fail Conditions: Overzealous(2)|Wound(2) Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Sadly, it seems that offering a blood sacrifice isn't actually going to help in this case. Maybe it helped in the last timeline but sometimes probability just has another path in mind. Nevertheless, it was certainly worth a shot! What's the worst that could have happened?
Also unfortunately, it doesn't seem like Fei punching at the door has any effect aside from bruised knuckles, nor does the electricity. Rebecca's bullets ricochet off a bunch of tanks resulting in some comical ducking and weaving to avoid getting clobbered by the ricochet.
Indeed, the only reason they're able to eventually get through that door at all is thanks to the mighty power of Chauncey Foxington.
Fei manages a tired smile as he looks at Sephilia. "Guess he was able to do it after all."
He exhales faintly and steps through.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
================================================<* Castle Rabenstein *>================================================= ============================================<* CHALLENGE - Plasma Globes *>============================================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- Castle Rabenstein features many forms of lighting--mostly magical torches in sconces and arcane runes. The strangest, though, are floating glass spheres about the size of a human head, crackling with electricity. While these strange Hellions are useful as a light source, they can be less than cooperative with intruders. The group that's been following you turns hostile with no warning, and starts erupting, one by one, spraying the area with electrical arcs and bits of broken glass. Get out of there! =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The lighting grows stranger as they pull through into the next chamber. Some of it seems to be flashes of lightning, in fact. Is it storming outside? Can they see outside from here? It's difficult to say, but it's probably a trick of the light.
"My belated apologies if my formality is offputting." It generally kind of is, the way Ethius talks - it's always a Mister or Miss person, no matter the circumstance, like he were reading off a general script about 'this is a polite way to refer to people.' A lot of what he says seems scripted.
The reaction when one piece of lighting reaches out and shocks with lightning unnoticed and unsolicited is absolutely genuine, as Ethius visibly recoils with a rare pained yelp as glass shards from the explosion fill the air. One lodges into his shoulder, unnoticed for the layers of clothes he has on.
That brings to attention that the flashes of lightning are actually Hellions - glass spheres full of plasma - all of them looking ready to explode in a burst of glass shards and electrical mayhem. They all start to converge on everyone's position.
It's dark ahead. They might not be able to see where they're going, but they have to move out of there. Right now. Ethius covers his head as he dashes down the halls.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Plasma Globes.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephilia shrieks and runs. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT, ETHIUS!"
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Plasma Globes.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
"Considering the circumstances that led us to this moment in which we are presently moving to escape," and there is classic over-wordy Ethius, managing this in a moment of high stress, "I may not be in a position to debate against this conclusion, yes."
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca laughs awkwardly at Avril, "I-I'm not sure that's necessary Avril. Just sorta trust your instincts on who's old enough."
Sacrifice is required.
Once that's over. Rebecca says - "Huh. I didn't know you could apologi-
And then comes the lightning, and the glass shards.
"Run." Rebecca comments - making sure Avril has started to do that before she takes off herself. Real fast. Fortunately training for acrobatics makes you a real fast sprinter in general.
"LOOK WHO CARES ABOUT THAT WHEN IT'S DEMONSTRABLY THE FAULT OF WHOEVER LIVES HERE!"
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Plasma Globes.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
"He once tried to steal my journal! He's a bad man!" Sephy argues.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Well it's more that...Fei is a first name." Fei explains to Ethius. "So if you wanted to be formal, then it'd probably be..."
He pauses for a moment.
"On second thought, Mister Fei is fine."
He is promptly electroexplodesharded by a shattering lantern and he hits the floor in a heap. "He tried to steal your journal??" He groans. "Why would he try to steal your journal???"
He presses his hand to the floor, and then another, and gradually pushes himself back up to his feet. He wobbles briefly before he starts running again. "Ethius, don't steal the journals of young girls! I know you haven't had a sister before, but stealing the journals of young girls is a big no! It's like Being A Decent Person 101!!"
An electrical blast hits near his feet to punctuate this statement.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Plasma Globes.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius keeps running along as Sephy brings back that age-old faux pas, and then suddenly he blinks and shifts his gaze back behind him. Wait... her journal. The journal in which she has doubtless recorded almost every memorable, interesting step of her journey, detailing discoveries and finds for future generations to see what's on Filg--
...
He holds that thought for later. There is more pressing business on hand. (More pressing than the exploding plasma globes which is, in fairness, super-pressing.)
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
'Just sorta trust your instincts on who's old enough,' Rebecca says.
R "Oh, I see. Then, I shall do my utmost," comes Avril's response.
The sacrifice is not enough. Only direct, brute force is sufficient to force the door open. And beyond it--
There's a snap in the air. The scent of ozone.
"Ah--"
'Run,' Rebecca says, quite clearly.
Avril breaks into a sprint, trading the now bladeless ARM for the Medium. "Lucadia-- please!" she invokes as she races, headdown and straight for the other end of the hall.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Plasma Globes.
================================================<* Castle Rabenstein *>================================================= ============================================<* CHALLENGE - Plasma Globes *>============================================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- Castle Rabenstein features many forms of lighting--mostly magical torches in sconces and arcane runes. The strangest, though, are floating glass spheres about the size of a human head, crackling with electricity. While these strange Hellions are useful as a light source, they can be less than cooperative with intruders. The group that's been following you turns hostile with no warning, and starts erupting, one by one, spraying the area with electrical arcs and bits of broken glass. Get out of there! =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
===========================================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 6 *>============================================ ==============================================< Results - Plasma Globes >=============================================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 80 --(5)--> 85 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sephilia Lampbright 75 --(10)--> 85 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 67 --(10)--> 77 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 75 --(10)--> 85 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Fei Fong Wong 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Overzealous(1)|Wound(1) 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.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
They cut it close. It's not just the exploding plasma globes, it's the darkness. This place invites a panic just by being. They might stumble over one another, into walls, into maybe even bodies, into all sorts of nasty things - but Avril's call to Lucadia is heeded, and she puts forth a clear path to the other end of the hall. Just follow her. (Follow Fei also, who may or may not have been doing proper trailblazing independently.)
Some way or another, the rest catch up. They might be zapped, they might be lacerated, they might even have a few glass shards stuck in them.
"I had my reasons." Ethius settles as regards the journal thing. He does not seem keen to share them or elucidate further as he draws his quarterstaff and advances onward. He may as well not have had any reason at all to try and steal Sephilia's journal well over a year ago by now, then, huh?
Maybe someone else here should keep a closer look on it just in case.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - A Spectre of Guilt *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Mist swirls though the vast hall before you, cloaking the walls and ceiling in shadows. The screams and shouts of battle echo through the fog, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Phantoms dart through the mists, half remembered figures from a battle long since over. Memories of a man stuck in time. Suddenly, spectres loom out of the fog, shadows with solid features. Six figures. Knights all of them. Some wield swords, some wield bows, some wield spears. Lead by a massive man in armor they turn to face the opposite end of the hall as one. The last figure in the line, a woman with a sword, is solid enough to almost be real. She smiles slightly as she draws her weapon. "Make them pay for every inch," booms the leader. Then come the whispers, taunting, cutting words whispered on the swirling purple mists. 'You should have saved them.' 'You let them die.' 'You should have fallen with them.' As the whispers grow, so does the sound from the opposite end of the hall. Metal scraping against stone. The whirling of gears. The screech of metal plate sliding across metal plate. Massive figures form out of the mist. Demons of Metal. At their head is a massive hulking 'man' in armor, spear held upright. On one side of him, a floating cloaked figure that seems to snatch and discard corpses with long, tendril-like manipulators. The six Knights turn to face down the Demons, raising weapons. The doomed last stand. The Demons' horde is beyond counting, filling up the room, the noises they make amplified by the mist. The knights charge. Can you save them? Can you save her? He couldn't. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Once they're out of immediate danger. Rebecca might need a few cuts and burns treated, but she flanks over to Ethius to thwap him on the back of the head lightly with her palm.
"Yeah there's no reason good enough to steal a girl's journal."
She says a touch breathlessly - with a sense of total.
"Still doesn't mean that was his fault though."
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
The Guardian's blessing carries her thither, safely, unscathed.
Sometimes the Sea Guardian can be quite fickle in her whims.
"Is anyone hurt?" Avril ventures, the Medium held close to her chest once they all reach the other side and regroup. "Here, allow me to tend to your injuries..."
There won't be much time to do it in, if anyone takes her up on the offer. Shouts ring out as mists swirl in, cloaking the hall in which they've found themselves with their presence. "Someone is--"
The mists part, just enough to show a part of the tableau playing out before them.
Just enough. A woman, with red hair, brandishes a sword. Her smile is grim but no less meant. Perhaps she might lose today, such an expression suggests, but she will do so with blade in hand.
With her, the rest of the knights stand their ground; their leader pledges this defiance to the last drop of their blood.
And with it, come the whispers on the wind.
"...Arctica," Avril voices, spotting the insignia on the knights.
Arctica. Then, Jack -- Garrett. Then Noeline, Riesenlied...
The massive shadows that face down the knights remain still veiled. No, there are more beyond them, aren't there--
Even if they fought with the strength of a hundred men each, these knights are doomed.
Avril feels for a moment as if her heart has taken up residence in her throat.
This is but a memory. They fell years ago. Taking up arms here now changes nothing, speaks the pragmatic voice in the depths of her mind.
Avril instead shakes her head, drawing out Absolute Zero with a hand that at first trembles then steadies.
"No," she replies aloud, to herself.
It won't change the past. But it might change a future.
She races in to meet with the knights, lashing Absolute Zero out towards the oncoming horde of Metal Demons. Light comes forth.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Beam Whip Mode toward her party's challenge, A Spectre of Guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephy looks around. "What IS all this stuff? Is this even Lunar? I--augh, no time! CHAUNCEY!" The doll is embiggened, and Sephy passes him up a weapon from her perch in his backpack.
The Folding Chair.
"Let's wreck some phantoms!"
DG: Sephilia Lampbright has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Spectre of Guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"Nothing serious." Rebecca plays it off as Avril asks that. Though it's not because she's trying to act tough or anything.
And then the mists part. Spinning a revolver into her hand - she points it at the leader. Only to see it's a red-haired woman.
Pointing the muzzle down. She watches it play out.
It's a doomed last stand. She gets that sense.
It's not the kind of thing she ever wants to be a part of.
Oh sure she grew up hearing of stories like this. Of heroes and self-sacrifice.
She wanted no part of it though. And she especially never wanted Dean to have a part of it. Let him be a Golem Hunter.
Let Avril find what she's looking for.
Let her be a circus sensation.
Let them live out safe and happy lives.
Even knowing this isn't real - she wants no part of it.
She finds herself scared someplace deep down in her soul. She just wants to run.
And then Avril says no.
And then Avril charges in.
And a certain panic in her turns into resolve in an instant. "Material!" It's a fervent whisper. "Prismatic Dreamer!"
Concentric circles form in the air - showering the Metal Demon ranks with multi-colored light.
There's nothing that can be done for ghosts of the past.
She can back a friend up - protect a friend.
Isn't that enough?
Shouldn't it be?
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Sky Medium toward her party's challenge, A Spectre of Guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Make them pay for every inch.
And there's more whispers but that's the one that gives Fei the most pause, strangely enough. What good did making them pay for every inch do? The Metal Demon invasion of Adelhyde wasn't any less brutal. No, he thinks, it's just the war as it always was. People hating each other more than caring for one another. Perhaps they could have fled this unwinnable battle but instead they fought to the last.
like idiots
But it's not like his fault, at least, right? It's not as if he had something to do with the destabilization of Elru or Arctica becoming an isolationist nation or their army being fewer in number. It is not as if he failed to stop the Veruni.
He sees the knights, now fallen. He looks towards the knight that would become Lady Harken. He's heard the story.
"...You can still save her, you fool." Fei mutters quietly before he turns towards the man clearly representing Siegfried. He walks right on up and when he stops before him, he takes in a rattling breath even as the spear comes for him.
"You killed her people and her father. For what? A god? Why can't you see the truth?"
He holds out his RPS Badge, a reminder of his own sins, and he throws a palm strike for 'Siegfried's' center mass.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, A Spectre of Guilt.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius accepts the help for the injuries as the next issue presents itself. Ethius' gaze rises as figures appear again in the mists. There is a vague familiarity to their appearance... in so much they might be part of the same order as the knights that accosted them earlier? The knights that were not his concern. He is here for a reas--
Metal Demons.
The Malevolence would normally feast on this sudden change of thought, as though an inconsistency internally. He does not once consider the true history that has already happened. At least six Knights stood to fight the Metal Demon menace. All of them died. (All but one, it turns out, but he is not quite in on that detail.)
Ethius slams the butt of his quarterstaff down. It is like a crack of thunder.
"Miss Sephilia." Ethius addresses her. "You may disagree with my actions." Like stealing a young girl's journal, or trying to! "You will know this."
He takes a Powder Grenade in hand from his satchel, and goes through the enchanting work. Given the gesticulating component, it's amazing he's able to pull that off with both hands holding something. Maybe the spell was designed with this possibility in mind, the need to be able to do this with both hands full?
Ethius' gaze hardens.
"I will do anything I must." Part of 'do anything' involves throwing down a smoke cover as he comes in behind the knights...
...past them...
He does not comprehend that he may well be making it worse by indulging in what might be someone else's sad what-if fantasy. What if they were strong enough? What if they weren't a coward? What if, what if, what if...
These nuances are lost on Ethius completely. Fei can recognize this Look in Ethius, in so much that sort of thing is ever worth remembering for when one is possessed of a far superior Look. That is the Look of an Ethius who has decided that he must, at any cost, completely move to obliterate something. No, beyond obliterate.
Erase.
"I call to a star that enables the patterns of life itself, its existence itself an unstable, unsustainable chaos..." That incantation should send something crawling down some spines. The precursor to a Symbological spell of incredible yield - the exact same one that defaced Diablo. (The same one that made Absolute Zero barf on itself and spit out a super beam.) If Ethius is able to complete the difficult incantation and set of gestures uninterrupted, the call of the infamous Solar Storm will touch down and subject the hordes to incredible heat from a solar prominence brought down close enough to risk one's suspension of disbelief.
Arctica did not have this intervention. This intervention may not have done anything, even if it did.
Ethius does not grasp the past brought before him. He only seems to see the present.
To the end of some future of some kind he seems intent to create, which involves setting things on fire, apparently.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, A Spectre of Guilt.
============================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - A Spectre of Guilt *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Mist swirls though the vast hall before you, cloaking the walls and ceiling in shadows. The screams and shouts of battle echo through the fog, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Phantoms dart through the mists, half remembered figures from a battle long since over. Memories of a man stuck in time. Suddenly, spectres loom out of the fog, shadows with solid features. Six figures. Knights all of them. Some wield swords, some wield bows, some wield spears. Lead by a massive man in armor they turn to face the opposite end of the hall as one. The last figure in the line, a woman with a sword, is solid enough to almost be real. She smiles slightly as she draws her weapon. "Make them pay for every inch," booms the leader. Then come the whispers, taunting, cutting words whispered on the swirling purple mists. 'You should have saved them.' 'You let them die.' 'You should have fallen with them.' As the whispers grow, so does the sound from the opposite end of the hall. Metal scraping against stone. The whirling of gears. The screech of metal plate sliding across metal plate. Massive figures form out of the mist. Demons of Metal. At their head is a massive hulking 'man' in armor, spear held upright. On one side of him, a floating cloaked figure that seems to snatch and discard corpses with long, tendril-like manipulators. The six Knights turn to face down the Demons, raising weapons. The doomed last stand. The Demons' horde is beyond counting, filling up the room, the noises they make amplified by the mist. The knights charge. Can you save them? Can you save her? He couldn't. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
=======================<* Castle Rabenstein - Round 7 *>======================== ========================< Results - A Spectre of Guilt >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 85 --(5)--> 90 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 70 --(5)--> 75 Pass Beam Whip Mode 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sephilia Lampbright 85 --(10)--> 95 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 77 --(10)--> 87 Fail Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 85 --(5)--> 90 Pass Sky Medium 3 Combat Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Fei Fong Wong 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Fei Fong Wong has successfully explored Castle Rabenstein!
============================<* Castle Rabenstein *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - A Dragonbone Sphere *>====================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A perfect sphere rests atop a workbench of some sort, among a variety of metalworking tools. It's warm to the touch, and smells of ozone and hot metal--it has a distinctly metallic sheen, like treated, polished Dragonbone. Inside, Malevolence pulses against the shell containing it, as if begging to be freed of its prison. It feels like it's desperate to tell you something, but what? (OOC: You should send an @mail to Ida about this Discovery! Be sure to tell her who else came into contact with the sphere.) =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
This is where so many stories crossed paths. An event that occured before she can remember anything (much of anything) at all, an event that marked the final gasp of a once-great nation. An event that meant so much for what came after--
Wasn't it here also that the roots of the tragedy in Aldehyde were sown?
Of Wayside's founding and eventual fall?
The statues, and those who seek to claim this world for themselves?
This is just a memory. It can't change.
And yet.
The plush fox's folding chair slams into a horde of smaller Metal Demons. They topple, felled.
But there are still so many.
Light, thin yet endlessly sharp, neatly bisects another group as Avril closes in from a different angle upon the horde.
But there are still so many.
The mist-heavy hall is lit by a series of brilliant circles, prismatic light falling upon the multitude of opponents.
But there are still so many.
In the midst, the knights continue to fight.
But there are still so many.
Fei takes things to the leader of the lot of them, pushing through the horde to deliver that one well-honed strike to the Shadow of Siegfried.
But there are still so many of them. Even the fall of their leader-- even this doesn't--
Dust had obscured the demons' view, allowing the sorceror time to slip in close, close enough to--
Erase.
It.
All.
The world burns a hideous white.
The world burns.
There are no more Metal Demons.
The moment sight becomes possible again, there is nothing here anymore. Gone, phantoms of knights and monsters. Gone all trace of anything that had once been.
It was just a memory.
Gone all, except the orb, hovering atop a workbench and pulsing with a sickly light.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
"I--I've seen one of these before," Sephilia says quietly. "The Trial Knight dropped one, or left one, for Talise, back...well, anyway, it had like...memories? in it."
She pauses meaningfully.
"I'm not sure it's right or fair to our friends to try taking this one. Whoever it belongs to, I bet they wouldn't want their memories rummaged through any more than I want to hand over my journal."
She glowers again at Ethius, but without much force. Unless it looks like he's making for the orb.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Nothing is left. This pleases Ethius. Nothing is left of them. He is uncertain what else might have been lost in that great ball of flame, but he is certain that it is all right. It is as he told Sephilia. He will do what it takes.
He will also do what it takes to get a grasp of the workbench, the metalworking tools...
Fortunately for Sephilia, Ethius moves to the various tools first. He grabs a few, to some criteria that doesn't make much immediate sense, if any. Maybe he hit his head on a memory and is forgetting that these tools aren't his, and also that they're all tools and if he's going to grab one he should maybe grab all of them. But no, he's going for specific ones. It's weird.
"Miss Sephilia," Ethius says without looking to her, "can you truly attest that what is there is what you say it is?" Is he going to go for it?! She's already hesitant to let people take it-- and then he places a gloved hand on it. He's wearing gloves, as he likes to. He seems to take the idea that wearing gloves would keep him safe from what might happen if he does touch it, as though an idle thing to inquire he holds in equal importance to stealing a random assortment of tools.
His priorities are strange.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
There are no more metal demons.
"We did it." She says tiredly - before walking over to Avril - raising her hand for a high five.
She's not even half as energetic as usual. All the same. They still did it.
And there's just an orb.
And Rebecca says with a touch of exhaustion, "I don't think it's the same thing Sephy. After all - you don't display your memories in a place for all to see. You hide them - or keep them on your person. There's more than one of them living here right? Any of them could just come upon this and touch it. At least a journal has a cover so if someone picks it up they can just bring it back to you."
There's a light shrug, "If all it takes is a touch - then there's no semblance of anything to show you wanted it to be kept private."
Walking up to it - she goes cross eyed under her new spiritual senses. "Besides - I get the impression this thing wants to be touched. Normally that means I'd be wary but..."
A strange sort of smile of sorts forms on her expression, "I get the impression that these three are the kind that want to inflict their pain who comes in arm's reach."
So after a moment - she puts her finger to the orb.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
No more metal demons. It's not something that fills Fei with joy but it is something that had to be done to get through the castle. Punching through an apparition is not the same as the real deal. If Fei tells himself that enough he'll believe it which is good because it's not like it's false.
"Memories, huh?" Fei says as Sephilia reveals the purpose of the orb. He doesn't immediately move to lick the magical object but he does close his eyes for a moment in thought so maybe he's considering licking the power orb.
It is wrong of course to peek through a lady's journal and a power orb filled with memories is probably qualified as a journal but Fei can't deny that they got nearly eaten by a dragon and actually electrocuted a fair bit just to get here and this may be what is neccessary to help Ida out. He isn't going to let proper protocol stop him from learning anything he needs to in order to help Ida. It's already plenty hard, this might make it easier.
"I think in this case, it should be an exception." Fei says eventually. "She needs our help and we're out of time. We can't affordto take it easy."
He reaches out to touch the orb.
<Pose Tracker> Sephilia Lampbright has posed.
Sephy hesitates. "I...this is..."
Does PEER PRESSURE work on Sephy?
"I can't do it. They're my friends and I don't want to invade their privacy."
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
The horde was endless, truly. For a nightmare, at that -- they would have fought until they collapsed, dragged down by the sheer weight of the man's guilt. For he had been certain he had failed them, hadn't he--
But demons and dream both had been obliterated instead in an explosion of light, leaving them alone in this empty hall.
Once is not enough -- wounds do not easily scar over. Did anything change?
"We did," Avril voices, glancing at Rebecca as she approaches her. There's but a moment of hesitation, followed by a glimmer of realization, and here she lifts her hand to properly (well, it's not quite forceful enough but she's pretty close to it) give her friend a high five.
Then, there's the matter of the orb itself.
"...Hm." Sephilia thinks this might not be the right thing to do, if it holds someone else's memories. But as Ethius voices his sentiment, Avril nods. "Yes. We cannot be certain this is what it may be. And furthermore..."
She glances away. "Even if it is a memory... we might need to know. From what Ida said before, it seems that they cannot help themselves. Perhaps this may be a request, of a sort."
She pauses, then approaches the orb herself, laying her bare left hand upon its surface. "Besides I... would not wish any of you to do this alone."