2018-10-12: The New Church
- Log: The New Church
- Cast: Neriah Parringer, Agatha Pyrelight, Yarobeleedt, Erzebet Lefanu, Seraph Ragnell, Ambrosius, K.K.
- Where: The Monastery of St. Syndaia
- Date: October 12, 2018
- Summary: Neriah and a group of allies climb to an ancient monastery, domain of a demon ages old, in the hopes of winning the Cult of Valmar a home.
DG: A party led by Neriah Parringer is now entering Monastery of Saint Syndaia. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Cold and Endless Stair *>=====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
An unnatural winter has fallen over the valley overlooked by the Monastery
of Saint Syndaia. The monastery itself is built into a cliff face a solid
kilometre above sea level, its stone outer walls imposing and its ancient
cathedral tower looming against the ice-laced rock wall, concealing a deeper
cavern network behind it. The only way to approach this place is a winding
stair that ascends the mountain, built alongside the towering pillars of an
aqueduct.
The stair is a treacherous, tiring ascent. Each step is simple enough - but
there are so many of them that even a fit Drifter could be worn down by the
climb. And several of the steps are slick with black ice. There is a stone
handrest you can grip, but it's only about waist high - and beyond that
handrest is only the vast abyss of the valley below. It doesn't help that
it's frightfully cold.
Climb to the top if you can manage to not fall, freeze or collapse from
exhaustion halfway there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
DG: K.K. has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
High above a valley plunged into an endless winter, upon an ice-caked cliff, an ancient structure waits.
Long ago, some builder must have constructed this place as the world's most secure monastery - a solid kilometre up, with a stone outer wall facing the world. Only a stair up the cliff face leads up to the ancient structure - a staircase now riddled with ice and snow, just like everything else in the valley.
And yet... snow at this latitude seems almost ridiculous. It's rare on Filgaia.
Neriah can feel the spite and malice in the air even as she walks slowly up the stairs, her robe a single, bloody slash of red against the whites and blues of the frozen cliff face. Something is watching them - a presence she can feel, palpably. "So the lord of this place isn't too happy having visitors, I see," she murmurs as she brushes a strand of hair away from her cheek.
She shrugs, then glances back towards the band of assorted travelers with her. Most of them were invited along because they've proven to be good allies - even friends. (One has proven to be a decent mascot, Yaro.) "This place seems to have been taken over by an archdemon of some kind. It doesn't have much interest in helping us, but it's the one creating the winter. We'll have to remove it," she says quietly as she begins to move up the stairs again.
And she stops. Her heel hovers above a patch of black ice.
She sighs and steps over it, bringing her foot down on a patch of rock. It slows down her ascent - but Neriah keeps moving, nevertheless.
"Watch out for the ice," she says with a look back over her shoulder. "There's a lot of it."
DG: Neriah Parringer has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
You didn't expect Agatha to do much work herself, did you?
Any sort of climb is a thing that Agatha is just... not doing. Instead she is reclining in some sort of collapsible divan chair, carried by six rather large, brutish looking men with unnaturally grey complexions, rippling bare chests, some odd combination of trousers and loincloths, as well as a scarf wrapped around their heads which reveals nothing but what appear to be a pair of glowing red eyes in their depths. They hoist the red haired witch up on the shoulders, and as Neriah explains what is going on, Agatha simple gives a warm and amused chuckle. "Well, this should be interesting to say the least," she comments, pulling out a fan and gently waving it in her face as if to cool herself even in this frigid climb.
"Still, at least it means I'm unlikely to be bored for the afternoon, unless this 'demon' proves to be one of those cowards who hides at the back of the castle and allows the fodder to do all the fighting. ...not that it's a bad plan, but its not as entertaining as dealing with them personally."
As she speaks, the minions continue to work together to provide their mistress with passage upwards. It is by no means quick, but it's steady.
But really... not quick at ALL. If Agatha isn't the last one up, it will be because she wasn't laughing too hard at someone else who slipped and fell.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt will take any excuse he can find to ditch scouring the frozen wastes of Elru - something he's done for five or six decades prior to his attempt to claim glory for himself at Arctica - just to... attempt to claim glory anywhere else, with Mother's victory nigh. Wounded and degrading as he is, he is still an advance scout. There is value to him being stationed to a section of land he knows initimately, but his innate selfishness punts that logic aside in favor of his own whims.
This technically is not his own whims. Even the comfort of knowing that Mother is awakened and is about to kill all the humans is enough to give him enough courage to deny the entreaties of ^That^. ^That^, who brings Yarobeleedt and others into... another frozen waste.
He can rationalize this as being another intelligence gathering mission. He's presently dressed in a not-at-all convincing heavy robe that only barely conceals the fact that he is one of the anathema invaders of Filgaia and fails to give the proper illusion of being someone with two legs and not a giant slug-snake-slime body. He's already part-way (like, eighth-way) up the spiraling stair clinging on for dear life.
From under the hood, shaded just so to hide any features, the weird robed thing shudders.
"out of Elru, for this? This is ^Right Elru^ then, if just left Elru?!" A conundrum for our times, constructed of verbal nonsense.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet Mara Lefanu is staggering. Dazed, a little. She has the coat to endure the weather so she isn't complaining of the cold, but she has not seemed all together... together. Her heavy iron indicates why she is along, probably. She has occasionally eaten some snacks out of a box of food she has brought. Squashed-down spinach rolls. Scooping up handfuls of snow and crunching them up to suck for water. In all, a strange woman.
"Hanh?" she says, walking forward in her stupid heels over the patch of black ice. "What do you mean? It's pretty... I want to eat it... ugh... Oh, do you mean on the ground?"
Her attention turns towards Yarobeleedt. "What language were you born speaking?" she asks.
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
"Not language of rude, from country of rude!!" So not from wherever the Shadow King rules. (Wait, what?)
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Well, this sure is pleasant.
Ragnell chews thoughtfully on a crunchy-chewy chocolate rusk as she considers the stairwell leading up to the monastery high above, a single railing the only thing blocking explorers from a long, long drop. The drop doesn't particularly bother Ragnell, who has never been afraid of heights, but... honestly. Honestly. "You sure you don't wanna pick a forbiddin' castle closer to a grocery market?" she jokes at Neriah, tossing a rusk her way too. More twice-baked goods get handed or tossed around until everyone has a delicious snack that contains a magic that keeps one from slipping or slowing down, a useful enchantment indeed in a situation like this; then she starts the climb.
An archdemon creating the winter. Well, that does explain a thing or two. "Should be fun," she says brightly, before snorting at Agatha insinuating that a demon would be a coward for letting minions fight for it. To Yaro, she helpfully explains, "Nah, it's forward Elru, with a back ward." 'Helpfully.' Erzebet gets a nod--Ragnell's not seen or met her before--but if she's helping out, then whatever. She doubts she knows all of Neriah's buddies.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Chocolate Rusk toward her party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Neriah Parringer had been a useful ally in the past. She had assisted him many times before, so it was only appropriate that when she came to him with an invitation, Ambrosius accepted. He was always one to repay his debts.
Neriah's venture takes them to a land of ice and snow. Ambrosius observes it impassively. He's come here today dressed for battle in the body armor of a Veruni soldier. He has, however, still draped his poncho around his shoulders. The body armor provided protection from the elements, but this was still a treacherous climb.
He doesn't speak, instead offering Neriah a nod in thanks for the warning as he continues careully up the steps. He could, potentially, attempt to take control of the ice and move it out of their way, but if the master of this monastery was responsible for the cold, it was possible doing so might alert them.
Better to take it safe.
DG: Ambrosius has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Cold and Endless Stair.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Cold and Endless Stair *>=====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
An unnatural winter has fallen over the valley overlooked by the Monastery
of Saint Syndaia. The monastery itself is built into a cliff face a solid
kilometre above sea level, its stone outer walls imposing and its ancient
cathedral tower looming against the ice-laced rock wall, concealing a deeper
cavern network behind it. The only way to approach this place is a winding
stair that ascends the mountain, built alongside the towering pillars of an
aqueduct.
The stair is a treacherous, tiring ascent. Each step is simple enough - but
there are so many of them that even a fit Drifter could be worn down by the
climb. And several of the steps are slick with black ice. There is a stone
handrest you can grip, but it's only about waist high - and beyond that
handrest is only the vast abyss of the valley below. It doesn't help that
it's frightfully cold.
Climb to the top if you can manage to not fall, freeze or collapse from
exhaustion halfway there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Cold and Endless Stair *>=====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
An unnatural winter has fallen over the valley overlooked by the Monastery
of Saint Syndaia. The monastery itself is built into a cliff face a solid
kilometre above sea level, its stone outer walls imposing and its ancient
cathedral tower looming against the ice-laced rock wall, concealing a deeper
cavern network behind it. The only way to approach this place is a winding
stair that ascends the mountain, built alongside the towering pillars of an
aqueduct.
The stair is a treacherous, tiring ascent. Each step is simple enough - but
there are so many of them that even a fit Drifter could be worn down by the
climb. And several of the steps are slick with black ice. There is a stone
handrest you can grip, but it's only about waist high - and beyond that
handrest is only the vast abyss of the valley below. It doesn't help that
it's frightfully cold.
Climb to the top if you can manage to not fall, freeze or collapse from
exhaustion halfway there.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
====================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 1 *>==================== =======================< Results - Cold and Endless Stair >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Neriah Parringer 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ambrosius 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Erzebet Lefanu 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yarobeleedt 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agatha Pyrelight 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Chocolate Rusk 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Neriah Parringer 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1) Effects: Cleanse ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer 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> Neriah Parringer has posed.
Neriah pauses to give Agatha and her divan a look. "...There's an idea," she muses, brushing a curl back into the shadow of her hood. "Now all I need are some additional minions."
Dropping back a few paces, Neriah falls into step with Erzebet, giving the young woman a considering look. "We can have some ice cream later on," she says with a dip of her lashes, seeming unbothered by the other woman's bewilderment but more than happy to help guide her along a little. "But you should certainly be careful where you step...."
She catches a rusk from Ragnell and takes a little bite. "...I like this one because it's high," she remarks. "And the cold will abate soon. Once we complete the transaction."
Ultimately it's Erzebet's disorientation which works against her. Halfway up, the group hits a patch of black ice, with Erzebet's foot hitting it first - but she's able to collect herself and continue to climb without seriously inconveniencing herself. It is a little harder for Agatha's porters, who keep slipping as they encounter little patches of ice. Their ascent slows the entire thing down, but eventually the group gets to the top.
Neriah lowers her eyelids a shade before looking back towards the Pyre Witch again, watching the divan ascend the last few stairs. "...That'll be easier when this place thaws out a little," she assures quietly.
That same, persistent sense of sullen watchfulness can be felt. A cold, hateful attention is upon the seven - and it's only becoming more obvious that they are being watched.
DG: Yarobeleedt has drawn a new Challenge.
============================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>============================================
==============================================<* CHALLENGE - Snow Surge *>==============================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
As you traverse this long corridor, the monastery begins to rumble around
you. It's soft at first, but it's growing ever louder and the vibration only
continues to mount.
The source of it explodes through the back wall.
It's an enormous surge of snow and ice. An avalanche sliding down the cliff
face slams into the monastery wall and bursts through a weakness in the
masonry. Snow piles into the corridor, gushing towards you and building up
second by second. If you're not quick enough to keep ahead of it, it'll
simply crush you.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
A chocolate rusk beans the back of Yarobeleedt's silly hooded head, and he screeches from being startled, flailing about until he catches himself... hm. He might not yet really know that Ragnell's there - but that means he can still be messed with.
The lot of them step forth inside the monastery proper, and there doesn't seem to be much improper about it. The corridor that leads deeper inward seems to fan out the ice and snow outward by some sort of architectual or sorcerous trick, leaving an aged but well-paved stone path in which to continue forward. Something Yarobeleedt habitually does, because he's an advance scout. It's in his nature to go ahead, as much as it is his nature to be all finder's-keepers and just be the first to something out of sheer childish competitiveness.
"Why quiet? It so qui." Um. Well, yeah, that's true, it is kind of quiet.
There's a rumbling in the distance that Yarobeleedt feels through the rest of him. He turns a sharp look back (sharp, somehow, despite his entire head being shaded out). It's not coming from any of them.
He has an excellent idea. "Hm! It is safe?? Go ahead. I go abu--"
WHUMP, goes a great wave of ice and snow that just accelerates from 'distant rumbling' to 'right on top of them', slamming through the stone like it just took a mortar shell (it sort of did, made of ice and snow) that engulfs Yarobeleedt and hurls him out a nearby archway--
Or would, had he not been holding malformed, pulsating, kinda gross-looking hooks (spoiler: those are his hands, presently) to clutch onto it for dear life with a screech as more and more of it just gushes through. He only just manages to cling on for dear life.
Now's the time to run and gun for it, or maybe run and flamethrower for it. Additionally, for those slower, Yarobeleedt's dangling lower body - still robed up - may yet provide an excellent thing to hold onto as a means for one to swing from one end of this growing avalanche of snow filling the corridor to the other, with impotent protest on their part.
DG: Yarobeleedt has used its Tool Clutch Harness toward its party's challenge, Snow Surge.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
Neriah nibbles on the rusk before pulling her hood up a little further.
The quiet of the corridor suits her. The soft click of her heels interrupts the muteness, but even that sound barely seems to penetrate. Until that rumble begins. It grows ever closer, and Neriah tilts her head a little to one side.
"We may have a problem, Mr. Garbles," she lets the blobbiest member of the party know.
The wall gives way. Chunks of stone are propelled ahead of the wave of snow. Neriah boosts herself upwards with a sudden high leap, grasping for the ceiling and managing to get ahold of a hanging light fixture. Snow begins to pile up beneath her as it hits the more robust far wall; her feet dangle, but they won't for long.
"Get ahead of it if you can," she calls over the roar of the snow, before swinging herself back to the floor. Robe billowing, Neriah hits the ground in a crouch, then springs forward even as the snow surges up behind her, threatening to swallow her up. Towering heels dash against the floor as she vaults herelf into a run.
Shadowy afterimages flicker after her, little fading outlines of Neriah caught at various stages of running that eddy away within a second or two of manifesting - like a smoke trail. She takes a look back, checking up on Erzebet, then holding a hand back towards her in the event she needs to latch on.
DG: Neriah Parringer has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Snow Surge.
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Agatha's minions operate on the basis of slow and steady, so as not to make the mistress uncomfortable. This means they take a really long time for feats of agility like this. Which is not unexpected, and Agatha does not insist on speed... even when it is an inconvenience for her allies.
They are, however, capable of putting on quite a burst of speed when the need arises. And in this case, the need has... well, not exactly arisen as much as descended from on high. The sudden onrush of snow and ice is something of a concern, true. But Agatha isn't too worried. Actually crushing her to death would take some doing, and the minions are always replaceable.
"Oh dear that does look unfortunate," she calls out. "Better get a move on, lest you get the cold shoulder from this place!"
Really she'd be amused to see what folks do when crushed under snow, but it was an outcome to be avoided at best. And so Agatha's minions just... run for it. They cover the open ground at good speed, but an avalanche is fast and they don't have much to do besides go in a straight line and hope for someplace to escape to. The roiling mass of snow plunges down towards them, and the Pyre Witch looks back at it, a little annoyed. And as it is about to catch up, she raises one finger, preparing to throw a spell if need be.
It's going to take SO LONG to dig out of this, she swears. And if it breaks her chair... well, she's going to be very put out.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Snow Surge.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
It's definitely high up, that's for sure. Ragnell imagines the view of, and from, the cliffside monastery must be fantastic, all told. Hopefully it'll be worth the climb--though at least the climb goes better than it otherwise might. There's some slipping, some slowness, but nobody falls off the cliff or anything. It's all good.
Ragnell pops another rusk in her mouth, though the others will have to make do with having the ones they've already received last (except for K.K., who receives their first one just now at whatever point they arrive). They'll need to make it last when one of the walls collapses to let in a rushing wall of snow. As if that sensation of being watched by something that deeply resents their presence isn't bad enough.
"Hope y'all can run fast!" Ragnell calls to the group before breaking into a sprint to get and stay ahead of the indoors avalanche. "Better'n gettin' behind it," she adds to Neriah, and to Agatha, after that pun of hers, "You're givin' me chills here, Aggs!"
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Chocolate Rusk toward her party's challenge, Snow Surge.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - Snow Surge *>===========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
As you traverse this long corridor, the monastery begins to rumble around
you. It's soft at first, but it's growing ever louder and the vibration only
continues to mount.
The source of it explodes through the back wall.
It's an enormous surge of snow and ice. An avalanche sliding down the cliff
face slams into the monastery wall and bursts through a weakness in the
masonry. Snow piles into the corridor, gushing towards you and building up
second by second. If you're not quick enough to keep ahead of it, it'll
simply crush you.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius carefully observes the monastery as they enter it. As a man with an interest in history, this place naturally held interest for him. It was quite old...and rumbling quite intensely??
Behind his helmet, Ambrosius frowns. Yarobeleedt, ever the most helpful(?), suggests that it is safe, and that they go ahead.
Ambrosius elects to do just that. He goes on ahead and grabs onto Yarobeleedt, knowing that the Metal Demon will do anything in his power to save his own skin. In that, at least, he can rely on him for something.
An avalanche was serious business, even for someone like him. Even if he survived it, it might very well sweep him off the face of the mountain. Better to play it safe.
One question remained, however - was this an active attack by the monastery's master, or sheer coincidence?
DG: Ambrosius has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Snow Surge.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
A calamitous rumble. A strain of stone and ice. An explosive burst of rock and snow.
And just as mother nature demonstrates that it is not a thing to be lightly trifled with in the form of a crashing wave of ice and slush and cold --
-- a flash of metal sings its way past the fleeing party.
It is with a simple -=SHUNK=- that a shortsword's blade bites into the nearest purchasable selection of solid ground. From its hilt unspools a long, glowing thread of scarlet, winding back, and back, and back, past the party members, towards the swift, hellacious encroach of that avalanche.
Where a single knight in white armor swings upon that spun red rope like they were riding the storm. Off they soar, with little explanation as to how they got there or why or even perhaps why there is an avalanche following them. No. They simply sweep in, and then past, with intent to scoop up the fleeing Ragnell as they go to help give her an extra boost of speed in her rush towards safer ground, providing only one bit of helpful advice to the rest that booms past the tinny warp of their faceless helm:
"FLY."
And thus enters K.K..
On the back of an avalanche.
Kind of casually swiping that chocolate rusk as they go.
They know their priorities.
DG: K.K. has used their Tool Highly Exclusive Lifeline toward their party's challenge, Snow Surge.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
"Oh thank you darling," Erzebet tells Neriah. "You're buying? It's a date." She takes a deep breath and lets it out with a plume of condesnsation - and then she skids out, landing on her ass directly. "Hmf," she says, scrambling back up and saying to Yarobeleedt, "Just talk in your native tongue, I'll probably recognize it..."
Then she looks at the rumble.
Her eyebrow twitches at the sight of the avalanche. She reaches to her hips and draws out her weapons, hefting them up. Will she shoot the oncoming snow? Can she cause some sort of localized global climate change sufficient to see the end of snow before -
Oh no she just wanted them out for running. She occasionally dumps a steaming-hot round into the ice in front of her, in order to avoid another pratfall, which would now have MUCH higher stakes.
"IS THERE AN INVISIBLE PERSON HERE" Erzebet shouts as she runs, head flicking round. "I can see you with my glasses, don't try to hide!" She nods in passing to the armored figure of K. K. but has little past that to say right now.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - Snow Surge *>===========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
As you traverse this long corridor, the monastery begins to rumble around
you. It's soft at first, but it's growing ever louder and the vibration only
continues to mount.
The source of it explodes through the back wall.
It's an enormous surge of snow and ice. An avalanche sliding down the cliff
face slams into the monastery wall and bursts through a weakness in the
masonry. Snow piles into the corridor, gushing towards you and building up
second by second. If you're not quick enough to keep ahead of it, it'll
simply crush you.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Snow Surge.
============================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>============================================
==============================================<* CHALLENGE - Snow Surge *>==============================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
As you traverse this long corridor, the monastery begins to rumble around
you. It's soft at first, but it's growing ever louder and the vibration only
continues to mount.
The source of it explodes through the back wall.
It's an enormous surge of snow and ice. An avalanche sliding down the cliff
face slams into the monastery wall and bursts through a weakness in the
masonry. Snow piles into the corridor, gushing towards you and building up
second by second. If you're not quick enough to keep ahead of it, it'll
simply crush you.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 2 *>======================================= ================================================< Results - Snow Surge >================================================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Neriah Parringer 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ambrosius 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Erzebet Lefanu 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yarobeleedt 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Clutch Harness 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ K.K. 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Highly Exclusive Lifeline 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Agatha Pyrelight 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer 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> Yarobeleedt has posed.
There is a rapidly decreasing ratio of Hallway to Avalanche, and everything goes white.
In its wake, there is a smooth, round, hollowed-out tunnel of snow in which K.K. and Neriah stand at the opposite end towards a door forward (that is covered in more snow). Agatha will find that her chair has survived, but... where's her manservants?
The snow rumbles from underneath, and the manservants try to trudge forward like absolutely nothing bad happened, walking on re-iced ground paved by Erzebet's ARMs fire while bearing the bodies of those who could not outrun the avalanche. They will quickly realize their mistake and promptly drop the recovered to pick back up the chair.
The Metal Demon and Veruni are, momentarily, embraced together in a thin icy shell. This is a situation that is not enjoyable for either and that icy shell will not contain them for long. There's a bit more digging through the snow ahead to do, but they can go forward.
This avalanche is not their death.
It is a warning.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has drawn a new Challenge. ========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>========================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 2 *>======================================= ================<* CHALLENGE - The Bears Are Not Your Friends *>================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Little can really live in this monastery save monstrosities friendly to its overfiend. These creatures are no exception. Taking up residence in a snow-filled chamber, there are three or four of them, each resembling nothing so much as a gigantic polar bear - with six arms, massive talons and fangs, and a huge spiral horn vaguely resembling a narwhal's. As they spot you, the huge creatures bellow with fury and come barreling straight at you, claws flashing, horns leveled to try and impale you upon them. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
One might have expected Agatha's minions to have been crushed by the snow.
Agatha herself is sitting on top of a melted out portion of the avalanche, looking quite annoyed for a moment at the lack of people carrying her around. She regards the chair for a moment, and decides that it's probably not worth it. Who knows if it was going to hold together much longer, given the beating it just took. Instead she looks back at the mass of snow and narrows her eyes for a moment. "Who said you could sleep on the job?" she demands, and gestures with one talon tipped finger.
Six mounds rise from the snow, the grey colored men shrugging off what must be hundreds of pounds of snow as they trudge forward and the beck and call of their mistress. They almost seem to flow through it, their passage almost effortless and leaving little trace as they take up positions around Agatha. "There!" she declares, satisfied. "Now that we've settled THAT..."
There is a sudden bellow from nearby... and suddenly a door further into the monetary bursts open, nearly ripped off its hinges as a massive paw swats it aside. The huge, malformed bear-like creatures that emerge seem less than pleased by the avalanche's disturbance... and even less pleased to find uninvited guests. Almost as one it lumbers forwards, several more emerging from the door as the dinner bell is sounded - and unexpected guests are now back on the menu!
The Pyre Witch merely looks annoyed, and raises one hand. Flames dance across her fingers in response, and she chuckles quietly. "Well, this is a bit more what I'd expect from some demon holding a castle. I'd give at least four points for style - what do the rest of you say?"
And with that, she snaps her fingers... and the lead bear creature is engulfed in a pillar of black flame.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"I'm totally buying," Neriah assures Erzebet with a little dip of her lashes. "I know a good place. Lots of flavours. Nice atmosphere."
And then she bounds ahead of the snow - and blinks once, when the Trial Knight comes surging in. But so does more snow. She sets her jaw and begins to slip through the door, hopefully followed by as many of the group as possible. "As you can see, the owner is in little mood to sell," she opines to K.K., her voice quiet.
The bursting open of the door all but confirms what everyone already knew.
The monstrous bears come lumbering through and attack outright. They know not what they do. They know not where Neriah is. In fact, Neriah's nowhere to be found. She seems to have simply vanished.
Until, just behind the onrushing bear heap, a patch of ice-covered brick wall warps oddly.
Something steps forward. The pattern of the brick wall drains away from the shape of a heavy cloak - and it fades back to the standard, bloody scarlet which has become Neriah's standard. Stepping into the mass of dreadbears, she holds her right hand like a talon.
"I don't have time to play with your pets," she says, presumably to the homeowner of this place, as she lays her hand on the bear's shoulder. It bucks and spasms oddly.
And then it begins to shrivel and gradually collapse on itself, growing steadily greyer and thinner. Parts of it begin to flake away. Neriah's eyes blaze, the sigil centred on her palm pulsing with ghostly light as she sucks the lifeforce out of the beast.
DG: Neriah Parringer has used her Tool Chameleon Cloak toward her party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius finds himself glad that he chose to wear his armor today. He crashes through the ice encasing him, shaking it off and taking a look around to determine the condition of everyone else.
"...A modicum of resistance." Ambrosius states, breaking his silence. And even more than that is soon to follow, as giant, bear-like creatures emerge from within the monastery, charging violently at them. In fact, one of them goes right for him. Ambrosius dodges to the side, flinging his arm out as he does so.
In response snow and ice immediately liquifies and is sent flying toward the beast, attempting to sweep it off its feet with concussive force. He immediately follows that up by drawing his revolver and unleashing several shots toward vital areas. Even if it doesn't kill it, it will most likely make it think twice.
He then glances toward Agatha.
"...Inadequate." He concludes in response to her question.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
<poem> 'What do the rest of you say?' The Pyre Witch asks the rest, as the assembled are beset upon by fiendish dire polar bears.
Yarobeleedt communicates in his true native tongue for Erzebet's sake, that or... he's screaming.
That's definitely screaming, when factoring additional context like 'being picked up, stretched and squished, batted around like a toy.' The figure within the robe scrambles to escape the grasp of one of these 'pets,' and something does loosen.
A rubbery effigy of Stare Roe, the Guardian of Light, which goes *squeak* as it hits the icy floor.
Yarobeleedt reaches out and slams a hook-like protrusion into it, which resists puncture and once more goes *squeak*. Stare Roe. That statue got destroyed, and he couldn't be there for that. The weird thing that someone or something left him for ^Creased Mousse^ last year, out in the wastes surrounding November. Looking at it reminds him of all the things he hate, and all the glory he does not get to have.
...But it reminds him of something else.
"Fu fu fu. So sillYYEEEEAA--" His gloating is cut short by the dire polar bear hurling him into the wall, clutching the thing tightly with another *squeak*. What does it remind him of? Their breath gets all raspy and weird as they rise.
"Still fight?? Not flight?" Yarobeleedt tries to crush the Stare Roe squeaky thing between his hands. It just goes *squeak* again, never to breaking point. "All ready win!!"
And then he's on top of the dire polar bear closest to him, slamming sharp malformed weird weapon thing in one sleeve and more *squeak* in the other - less a means of turning a squeaky toy into a weapon and more like trying to inflict further violence on said thing in hand by slamming it over and over again, with angry but triumphant gibberish.
...
And yes. More of *squeak* *squeak* *squeak*, which overpowers any audible quotation that might approach coherency.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"You always gotta make an entrance!!" Ragnell shouts K.K.'s way as they sweep in dramatically, scooping her up as they swing forward just ahead of that avalanche. But this means that Ragnell does *not* get encased in snow and ice, so she'll take it. With a wide grin and an arm around their shoulders, at that.
When they land, Ragnell sets down with light feet, smiling at the armored knight before folding her hands behind her neck and surveying the snow as the others pop out one by one from it. Or summon others all at once, in Agatha's case. "Y'all dead?" she drawls. "No? Cool."
There comes a roaring bellow, and Ragnell turns to see a six-armed polar-bear-ish kind of creature. "Mmmm, four points outta how many now?" Ragnell wonders to Agatha, a Seraphic glyph forming at her feet. She twists her hand around, and a spear of thunder forms next to her. "Pierce through! Shock Lancer!!" she calls, sending the bolt of lightning forward towards the creatures.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"'Twas merely the swiftest way to gain entry into the estate, Ragnell."
Let it not be said that K.K. is not willing to make an entrance, no matter how disastrously it might end.
And then pass it off as a matter of practicality.
The Trial Knight moves swiftly, a rush of white and gold against a backdrop of similarly cold hues. But however swift they move, others are not so lucky -- and ultimately, they end up swept away, ushered in a most unseemly manner into the next tribulation that awaits them.
It is there that the knight ultimately lands, armor gleaming with polish and dusted with snow and frost as they come into a crouch. They free Ragnell then with the loosening of their arm, coming to a full stand as their arms cross over their chest, their weapon disappeared into fragmenting light. Where did the rusk go? Nobody knows. But it's certainly not there now.
"'Tis well good, then," they begin. Those motes of light linger as their hand outstretches,
"that we've no intent to buy."
One liner, or utterly serious answer to what was clearly dry wit?
You decide.
There's little time left to wonder, though, because as soon as that door bursts open, that light is already consolidating into the massive, halberd-like edge of a white-bladed war scythe to intercept the horned thrust of one of those demonic bears and cleave it straight off the thing's skull.
"'Tis always fight, squeaking one," announces the knight to Yarobeleedt -- right before they leap into the tide in a whirling dance of violence that could be called mayhem if it weren't so graceful, so organized -- so unerringly confident and precise, hacking limbs, heads, and using the momentum of the beasts to inspire them to skewer their own allies in an endless flurry of motion.
"Come then, creatures! Let us see if you are up to the task!"
DG: K.K. has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward their party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends. =========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 2 *>======================================= =================<* CHALLENGE - The Bears Are Not Your Friends *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- Little can really live in this monastery save monstrosities friendly to its overfiend. These creatures are no exception. Taking up residence in a snow-filled chamber, there are three or four of them, each resembling nothing so much as a gigantic polar bear - with six arms, massive talons and fangs, and a huge spiral horn vaguely resembling a narwhal's. As they spot you, the huge creatures bellow with fury and come barreling straight at you, claws flashing, horns leveled to try and impale you upon them. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken=================================================== ------------------------------------< TOOLS >------------------------------------- |Player |Tool |Lvl|Ability|Effects | |Neriah Parringer |Chameleon Cloak |1 |Combat |Cleanse | |Ambrosius | | | | | |Erzebet Lefanu | | | | | |Yarobeleedt |Toy Guardian |2 |Combat |Embolden | |K.K. |Fight |0 |Combat | | |Agatha Pyrelight |Fight |0 |Combat | | |Seraph Ragnell |Fight |0 |Combat | | ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet finally focuses on the wrecked sedan chair and the arising shadowed men. "I want those," she muses to herself with thought, glancing at Neriah and asking her, "Will you get me a sedan chair like that as well?"
Staggering forwards then, she hits a patch of ice and skids out, stumbling. She lands on her knees with a hiss of pain and skids outwards, twisting around and ending up hearing a demonaic squeaking as she turns her head to be shown -
Well, what is it?
It's horrid - mutant creatures - a bear force bar none. Erzebet doesn't get up, but the savvy may remember she has her guns in her hands. She lowers them, levels them clumsily. A last ditch effort to protect herself? No:
The guns speak JUST fine. BLAM! BANG! BA-BANG! CRACK-BLAM! SNAP! The bullets fly - not just bullets but streaks of intense cherry-red material, angled upwards to perforate and permeate the bearlike creatures. Hair begins to scorch, flesh to burn! Erzebet doesn't get up off the ground until it's over!
She never reloads.
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has used her Tool Haborym toward her party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends. DG: Ambrosius has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Bears Are Not Your Friends.
========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>======================== ================<* CHALLENGE - The Bears Are Not Your Friends *>================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Little can really live in this monastery save monstrosities friendly to its overfiend. These creatures are no exception. Taking up residence in a snow-filled chamber, there are three or four of them, each resembling nothing so much as a gigantic polar bear - with six arms, massive talons and fangs, and a huge spiral horn vaguely resembling a narwhal's. As they spot you, the huge creatures bellow with fury and come barreling straight at you, claws flashing, horns leveled to try and impale you upon them. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
===================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 3 *>=================== ==================< Results - The Bears Are Not Your Friends >================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Neriah Parringer 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Chameleon Cloak 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ambrosius 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Erzebet Lefanu 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Haborym 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yarobeleedt 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Toy Guardian 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agatha Pyrelight 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Neriah Parringer 30 --(20)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer 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> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
"I don't know, maybe a thousand if I'm feeling like a low number," Agatha replies with Ragnell with a wicked smile. No one ever said she was being nice to this demon - just giving him some credit for just a little creativity. "After all, how many here can really resist showing off when it comes down to it?"
To call this a challenge might be exaggerating just a little bit. The mutant bear things stand little chance the moment that they blunder into the invaders little shindig. By spell, bullet, blade, and raw fury, the beasts are cut down with little to show for their efforts. A savage mauling is had by all, and swiftly all that is left is the swirl of ashes, the whisper of snow blowing over open floors, and the steady 'drip' 'drip' 'drip' of blood from the creatures wounds as they lie still on the floor.
Agatha looks around and scoffs after a moment. "Well, if the goal was to make us lower our guard by sending weak, pathetic monsters at us... I'd say that the demon has succeeded so far."
The Pyre Witch is dismissive - and thus far she has seen little to prove her wong.
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=======================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Gate of the Saints *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
A half-dozen ancient statues line the back wall of this chamber, each one
iced over badly and showing chips and lost extremities. However, they all
depict robed figures, some male and some female, with hands held out and
cupped as if to give up an offering. They're carved in a style reminiscent
of Nisan icons of saints. In the midst of them stands a big stone door - and
subtle runes glow from behind the ice caked over it. Forcing the door is
simply impossible.
But similar runes glow from the hands of the six statues. They seem to want
you to place something there.
But what is it that the Six Saints could want? What offering might satisfy
them enough for the door to open for you?
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet pushes herrself upwards. She breathes in deep of the scent of burned death.
"I am into it," she declaims, before hustling her bustling inside. "Oh! It's not actually warm but the RATIO!" she declares. "I am here for the RATIO!" Her glasses have fogged up and she walks forwards heedlessly afterwards, nearly smashing into a statue's extended hands before coming to a halt.
To be clear, since it's an important distinction: she stops, controlled and deliberately, *just* before she would have hit her head. She does not topple backwards. After this she takes off her glasses and wipes them on her skirt, which is hoisted scandalously up to do this. As she does this, Erzebet squints with her dark-ringed eyes at the statuary. "Hmm... some kind of pleading... Those runes are suggestive but I can't tell which script they're in, and unFORTUNATEly this isn't like the ideograms in Aquvy so I can't approximate..."
"Did you know," Erzebet says as she reaches into her coat and digs out a ten gella coin, putting it in the hands of one approximately male statue, "that the alphabet in Ignas is thought to have been an independent invention? We've been having quite a few arguments in Linga over which came first, and I know it's something of a cucco and the egg question, but it has a lot of implications."
She takes back the coin and puts a small printed thick book with a moleskin cover in the proffered hands. "But we have strong evidence because we have found some old tortoiseshells, probably oracular materials - they have what are clearly proto-Aveh letters formed into shape clusters which in turn can be recognizably derived into ideograms. But I think that's bullshit."
The book is reclaimed and she puts a silver cigarette case into the hands instead. "I'll tell you why. Because the ideogram for 'God' in the Aquvy script is by this reading made by torturing together 'sky crash' and while I could see that referring to RIGDOBRITE, that's just not at all what you'd call the idea of an all-encompassive divinity. Am I right?" She looks to K.K. for backup.
Her glasses flash and she turns to look, unseeing, straight at Ragnell. "TAKE OFF YOUR MAGIC RING!" she shouts at her suddenly, even as she reclaims her cigarette case. "Also I have no idea how to open this one. Any ideas, team?"
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
"That sounds very convoluted and difficult to me," Agatha states with a slight frown on her face. "Really, if this has something to do with the Guardians, I don't really feel like there is much need to jump through their hoops. I've seen the Guardians demand such ridiculous things of people, and I see no reason to humor them."
The witch turns around and looks at her minions. "So, do any of YOU have any suggestions on how we should properly get through this door without giving these fools what they are looking for?"
Six pairs of red eyes hardly blink. But as one, the six minions suddenly produce a pickaxe each, raising them up into the air with a silent gestures of victory and menace.
At the same time.
Agatha looks back at Erzebet. And the witch smiles in quite the wicked manner, her black eyes with their glowing yellow irises narrowing. "Well, the boys say we just wreck it all and see where we end up."
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"I'm not dead yet, no," Neriah answers Ragnell over the sound of her chosen bear shrieking in mortal peril.
When it's all over, she smiles neatly and begins to move towards Erzebet, laying her left hand (not the soul-sucky one) on the other woman's shoulder. "The chair might be mine," she admits. "But I'm always happy to share."
Pulling her robe around herself, she moves along after Erzebet, keeping her hand half-held out as if she needs to be ready to catch the woman with the glasses. Her attention is more on Erzebet than it is on the statues. But when her ramblings turn to that, she arches her eyebrows, first impresed by the knowledge, then startled by the demand that Ragnell take her ring off. "It' a good ring," she remarks mildly. "But I didn't know any of that. I know a little about old ruins, but I'm pretty in the dark about language." Stepping forward, she lays a hand in one of the statues' hands, her other holding her excavator's lens. She squints through it, looking the statue in the eyes.
After a moment, she lowers the lens and slides it into her robe. "But the rock has its own language," she says. "The stone they carved these from. It was obviously done pretty lovingly. Like an act of worship. They want us to offer their god something. But I guess the thing here is?"
Neriah curls her fingers around the hand of the statue - and the weathered stone begins to shift.
On Lunar, Neriah was able to warp a Statue of Althena - a thing suffused with divine power. The statues here have no such divinity. The statue rapidly darkens, beginning to transmute into black marble. The saintly features adjust themselves. Before long, the statue is beginning to look like a marble Neriah.
"The thing here is?" Neriah says. "My God has dibs on my stuff. So I'll just take."
DG: Neriah Parringer has used her Tool Excavator's Lens toward her party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell chuckles at Agatha's demon-pointed sass. "Figured it'd be somethin' like that," she drawls. To K.K. and their lofty insistence that it was the most expedient way to get inside, she simply snorts. "Uh huh."
Bear massacre ensues. It's quite... grizzly.
The group moves on into a room with multiple statues, hands held out in seeming supplication. The door beyond them is stuck very, very shut. It seems like they'll have to put something in those hands if they want to make the door open. Ragnell looks about for any sign of objects to be taken down and rearranged or what have you, pausing for a moment to admire Erzebet's thighs when she uses her skirt as a lens cloth.
"Not much o' one for subtlety, are your boys?" she remarks to Agatha as her servants raise up their pickaxes in unison. Well, there *are* six to six. Erzebet goes on and on about Filgaian language, which is fairly interesting but not as relevant as she probably thinks it is. "This kinda set-up doesn't seem like the Guardians' style t' me. Might be one o' those other religions, what were they called again?" A quick glance to Neriah, as she seems like she'd know. Either way, the Seraph reaches into her poncho, and--
"Uhhhh, sorry?" Ragnell utters, eyebrows rising when Erzebet seemingly yells at her. She's looking in her direction, but her eyes aren't actually focused on her, so it's hard to tell if that was on purpose or not. Either way, she doesn't have a magic ring, so she doesn't take it off, though in fairness if she did have a magic ring, she wouldn't take it off just because some chucklefuck (if, admittedly, with very nice legs) told her to.
Instead, she pulls out her harmonica and begins to play a somber melody. If these statues want something, perhaps a song will do. And if not, hey, maybe it'll inspire someone *else* to figure out what they want. And if not that either, well, it's a pleasant, if sad, song to listen to!
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Tarnished Harmonica toward her party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt is the last one to join them. The bear he was attacking is already well dead by the time he really lets loose onto them, due to K.K.'s perfection of form, but he doesn't stop hitting that dire bear. What was once - still is, but what was once singly but now isn't - mere desperation and cowardice seems to be giving way to something else.
It's almost like there's an unbridled glee in someone who lost something, hasn't gotten it back, and never will get it back, just taking it all out on a someone or something who can't do anything about it. After all, Mother is back. They won. He is winning against something already dead.
The robed figure slithers back along with the rest as Erzebet delivers a scholarly thought about language origins as involves the runes.
"You are not giving change!!" The robed figure complains. "That is how little sense!!"
He has only the gist of what they're looking at. Statues, holding out hands expectantly (at least one is missing a hand, more due to a statue's decay and less an intentional artistic decision to simply not give a hand). Yarobeleedt gibbers some more as they rub their sleeve ends together. Something metallic whines and grinds softly underneath them.
Somewhere nearby, a statue warps into Neriah's visage with a troubling unlight that once struck him within the Starfall Saloon back at Adlehyde. But no, so full of spite, Yarobeleedt does what comes natural.
He spits into the hands of one of the statues. A small plume of smoke rises from where the fell yellowish liquid makes contact, the venomous fluid not seeping down to the ground but remaining in the statue's grasp, like it has no choice but to take it.
"Is free~" Yarobeleedt says.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius observes for just a moment longer, but once he's certain that the beasts aren't about to stand back up he returns his revolver to the depths of his poncho.
They move further on into the monastery where they come across a door surrounded by statues. Ambrosius studies them, though he finds himself glancing toward Erzebet as she launches into an explanation. It was interesting, really. Partway through, though, he turns away from her, drawing a silvery device from within his poncho.
He holds this up to the door for a few brief moments, muttering to himself. To those not familiar with Veruni technology, which is most people, it's hard to tell what he's doing. He's analyzing the door itself - it's structure as well as possible weaknesses.
"Its structure is faaascinating... I daresay no human would be able to force them open." Ambrosius stares. No ordinary human, at any rate. ...But few of those present here were human, and those who were could hardly be considered ordinary.
DG: Ambrosius has used his Tool Advanced Multi-Tool toward his party's challenge, Gate of the Saints. DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
With a single, elegant sweep, K.K. eliminates the last of their enemies. Blood splatters from their weapon across the cold floor seconds before the war scythe disappears entirely, and the knight wades on past the assembled bodies, heedless of the accumulation of gore and giblets their armor has collected.
"You are a curious thing, are you not?" they seem fit to wonder instead, their unseen attention still felt in the way the weight of it focuses upon Yarobeleedt. "I have seen you before, amongst the legions of Siegfried's Metal Demons. Have I not? You make a sound most peculiar." This, it seems, has been what has been on their mind since the violence erupted. Not the bears, not the avalanche.
"I wonder -- might you be some derivative of the Pow Hammer?"
This single, completely reasonable, line of thought.
And with that bizarre question delivered, the Trial Knight will wait with all their considerable patience for the answer before turning their attention on those statues. "... Hm. 'Tis a sight both striking and vexing in equal turn. For what do they yearn?" They step forward, bootfalls echoing across the ground as they advance towards those statues. It seems debatable, for a time, if they are listening to Erzebet's curious ruminations, until --
"Divinity matters little in what skies one brings crashing around them or not," that answer comes, without hesitation, as they lay one clawed gauntlet upon the outstretched hands of that saint.
"'Tis belief upon which a god's laurels lie."
A second passes by in which they simply allow silence to lapse, dipping their head as if offering nothing more than prayer unto the saint.
"She bears no ring. Her magic is her own. She similarly apologizes for your erroneous commentary."
K.K.: translator.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Gate of the Saints.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Gate of the Saints *>=======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
A half-dozen ancient statues line the back wall of this chamber, each one
iced over badly and showing chips and lost extremities. However, they all
depict robed figures, some male and some female, with hands held out and
cupped as if to give up an offering. They're carved in a style reminiscent
of Nisan icons of saints. In the midst of them stands a big stone door - and
subtle runes glow from behind the ice caked over it. Forcing the door is
simply impossible.
But similar runes glow from the hands of the six statues. They seem to want
you to place something there.
But what is it that the Six Saints could want? What offering might satisfy
them enough for the door to open for you?
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
=======================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=======================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Gate of the Saints *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
A half-dozen ancient statues line the back wall of this chamber, each one
iced over badly and showing chips and lost extremities. However, they all
depict robed figures, some male and some female, with hands held out and
cupped as if to give up an offering. They're carved in a style reminiscent
of Nisan icons of saints. In the midst of them stands a big stone door - and
subtle runes glow from behind the ice caked over it. Forcing the door is
simply impossible.
But similar runes glow from the hands of the six statues. They seem to want
you to place something there.
But what is it that the Six Saints could want? What offering might satisfy
them enough for the door to open for you?
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
==================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 4 *>================== =======================< Results - Gate of the Saints >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Neriah Parringer 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Excavator's Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ambrosius 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Advanced Multi-Tool 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Erzebet Lefanu 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yarobeleedt 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ K.K. 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Agatha Pyrelight 35 --(0)--> 35 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Ragnell 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Tarnished Harmonica 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Neriah Parringer 50 --(20)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Stupify(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer 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> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
"Everyone says 'oh that's so complex why do you care,'" Erzebet says, shimmying her hips as she makes her fake voice of the hypothetical straw-cucco she's condemning. "But these things are important!"
She looks at the half-dozen goons. "Works for me, but let's see if we can avoid breaking the evidence first," she says as she fishes out a cigarette and gets out of the way. As she ignites it on the barrel of Haborym, she gives Neriah a slightly eye-fluttering look. Then the guns get holstered, even as the statues warp...
"Don't TOOT it! Who gave you a whistle ring anyway. This is ridiculous because my ARM knows you're there and I can hear you talk but you're invisible," Erzebet then says to Ragnell.
As K.K. explains, Erzebet gives the Trial Knight a withering sort of look and flicks ash onto the sacred ground. Her eyes roll slightly. She has not recognized the Trial Knight for what they did yet. To Erzebet, K.K. is just... some asshole.
This will change abruptly at some point, probably.
Whether it's the distortion of one of the statues with Neriah's corrupt power or Yarobeledeet hocking the devil of all loogies into one, melting out most of one hand, the door is jimmied open. There is a loud stone TONK and the door recesses inwards, swinging in a couple of degrees. Erzebet stalks forwards and gives it a kick, which actually works out well - stone doors are usually balanced.
"I feel so much better now. Miss," Erzebet says to Agatha, "I'm sorry for being cranky. I was in a gunfight just before I..."
She trails off, troubled, and is silent for a while afterwards.
DG: Yarobeleedt has drawn a new Challenge.
============================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>============================================ ==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Mirror Maze of Ice *>========================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- Once this chamber was wide open and easy to travel through. Not so anymore. Dark ice has leeched over everything and formed into crystals, displaying unnaturally flat faces and forming prisms that jut everywhere - and in every one of those faces, the reflections of your group are captured. Each reflection captures even more reflections. You can see yourselves dozens of times in every face. You can see yourselves dozens of times reflected in the ceiling and floor. Each step is slippery and treacherous - and yet the greatest danger is that you can barely figure out where the walls are, much less where the exit is. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
When the Trial Knight addresses the creature who seems to struggle with being coherent and/or on the right side of an oncoming avalanche, they have doubtless seen many at least put up some front of being willing to look them face-to-faceplate.
The robed creature does no such thing - Yarobeleedt edges away subconsciously as they start to bring their curiosity upon them. They would not even look upon themselves reflected upon the white armor. If their words ring true, Erzebet's in the company of one of the natural enemies of humanity.
The bizarre question asked, they clutch the little Stare Roe effigy ever closer to them like they want to crush it utterly, but can't. They just get a *squeak* instead, as if timed to answer the query about whether they're a Pow Hammer derivative.
"Is that insult?! Outsult? Those words with pepper...?!" Incredulous, Yarobeleedt's lower body undulates blatantly under the robe as he goes on forward past the lot of them into this chamber full of dark ice arranged just so into incidental passageways that twist and turn.
What also twists and turns are images. Images that are captured and further reflected, until they are refracted and distorted into twisted images that may not individually reflect one's psyche given true form to some dark magic. It just looks weird, and has no real deeper meanin--
"Fufufu. Look at you. So weak! Meek. You dare peek?" Yarobeleedt postures at his own reflection, which postures back because that is what reflections do. This escalates until he starts swiping his arms at it, ineffectually, because his reflection is a perfect match.
It's a reflection on black ice, so thick as to basically be a permanent feature of this chamber. None of it leaps out at them. It's just a headache to traverse and make sens of which way goes where, made worse because the hooded thing keeps screeching at it.
Footing problems go without saying, for it's still ice.
DG: Yarobeleedt has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward its party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
'I wonder -- might you be some derivative of the Pow Hammer?'
'*squeak*'
Ragnell snorts with laughter. It's not subtle.
Erzebet clarifies, in her own charming way, that she may not be able to see Ragnell but she can hear her. Good to know, especially since Yaro and Ambrosius over there can't do even that much, but, well. The Lightning Seraph raises an eyebrow at her choice of verbage, as well as her all-around attitude, then deliberately plays an extremely loud, extremely *sour* note on her harmonica. Just to irritate her.
These purposefully sour notes continue after the doors are kicked open and reveal the black ice all over the cavern walls beyond. It might be nigh impossible to tell one surface from another with all the reflections, but perhaps a discordant, screechy "tune" that might well rival Yaro for ear-bleeding cacophony might help them figure out which surfaces are dead ends and which lead further in by way of how the notes echo off their smooth surfaces!
Or maybe it'll just be extremely annoying. Ragnell considers both a win. Translate *that*, K.K..
(One might start to understand how and why she and Nimue are friends.)
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Tarnished Harmonica toward her party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"I think it's Nisan," Neriah admits as she looks towards Ragnell, shrugging one shoulder beneath the folds of her robe. "Either way, it's also covered in ice and pretty old. I'm sure an archaeologist would have fun with. Ah well. If we know one, they can root around before I redecorate."
She catches that look from Erzebet. Dipping her lashes just a shade, she smiles one of those smiles which only shows its true depth in the gleam that dances behind her eyes.
The gleams in the ice say something else.
Reflections of Neriah stand in countless reflective ice sheets, only a subtle icy haze obscuring them. A thousand scarlet-clad Priestesses of Valmar, at all different angles, holding the same pose. Slowly, Neriah lifts her head, adjusting the lenses on her excavator's eyepiece. "I see," she says to the open air, as if to challenge someone who isn't there. "You're out of tricks, so you resort to this kind of stupid trickery. But the truth is... this place is going to be mine. Ours."
That sense of malevolent spite in the air only mounts.
Neriah coolly ignores it. She gestures with an imperious flick of her hand.
And several of the Neriahs in the glass begin to move on their own. They're not even moving in ways consistent with each other. A couple of Neriahs turn to look towards the ceiling. Another three Neriahs wander to the edges of their reflections. Yet another explores the background of hers. Another mirror Neriah cranks her head around 180 degrees and stares disturbingly at Yarobeleedt for several seconds.
The real Neriah watches through her lens, smiling a wicked little smile and letting her reflections explore the panes as she searches the mirrors themselves for the path.
DG: Neriah Parringer has used her Tool Excavator's Lens toward her party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Hmm, this was actually more clever than Agatha would have given this demon credit for.
The endless number of mirrors that they were encountering would make passage quite difficult through all of this, although the witch simply smirks for a moment as she walks past Erzebet into the mirror maze. The witch is hard to offend, as she seems to look on everything as a source of amusement - even those who struggled and threw venom at her. Not that she felt anyone here had done that - but she was sure that the demon at the end was going to give her quite a show when they arrived. Hopefully some 'puny mortals, thou shall perish before my evil power!' and all that nonsense. Which was really amusing when you considered this group.
But the maze was challenging. Agatha holds up one finger for a moment, a black flame appearing on the tip. "Oh please don't hurt yourself posturing before that fearsome foe in the mirror," she states to Yaro, more than a little sarcasm dripping from her voice. "As beautiful as this all is, I think I prefer a non-mirrored maze."
And with that said, Agatha lets the fire drop from her finger. It lands in her shadow... and suddenly that shadow expands upwards, crawling up the walls in a rather creepy and unnatural way. For a moment there is the suggestion of... something moving in that shadow. Perhaps the flicker of an eye opening and closing, a mouth yawning open in a silent scream before being swallowed by the darkness once more.
It DOES block many of the mirrors, making passage less confusing. But probably MUCH more creepy.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
One of the reflected Neriahs actually pouts a little when Agatha's shadow covers up her particular ice sheet.
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Agatha just looks at Neriah and smirks, walking further into the maze with just a hint of a sassy swagger to her hips.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
*squeak*
Horned helm tilts. And for a curious few seconds, K.K. just listens in silence to Yarobeleedt's rambling words, as if truly taking the effort to understand their strange contents.
"... You are not, then," is what the Trial Knight ultimately seems to surmise from it, as the pathway opens to them.
They sound almost disappointed, in some subtle way. But maybe it's just a trick of the ears.
And it is then that their own reflection appears to greet them. It is almost turnabout, for how little the armor of the knight shows other than others' reflections within its polished shine, and it is enough to make the knight pause, however briefly, as they come upon the maze of darkened ice. That withering stare of Erzebet's goes unremarked upon as they advance upon the first of their many reflects, placing a single, armored palm against the cold surface.
"Mm. Clever trickery," they muse. "... But trickery nonetheless."
Light gleams at their hands as they lift upward. "I have known what I am for some time now. No reflection may confuse that." And then, in a true demonstration of sharp intuition --
K.K. smashes down that wall with a massive hammer.
"Let us proceed apace." And thus they will continue. If they find a dead end?
A sharp application of titanic force might well help, as all learned scholars know.
All this, as that sharp, off-note music continues undaunted.
"She likes you ill," explains the knight to Erzebet, almost as a matter of fact. "This music is for you. It is likely she finds your personality as shrill as her music and is attempting to reflect such."
At the very least, the knight seems to just be playing the messenger.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
"I am no archaeologist...but history does interest me." Ambrosius comments with a glance in Neriah's direction. He turns his attention back to the doors as they're forced open, leading into a maze of mirrors. It's...quite disturbing, really. Behind his helmet, he frowns. This will certainly make progress a tad more difficult.
Fortunately, some of them have useful talents to help them progress...though that discordant tune makes him frown even more. He powers through it, though. He has his own contributions to make, anyway. The silvery device he used before is adjusted, and it emits a beam of light from its tip. Not the sort that burns or cuts...it just a light. A light that bounces off of the various mirrors this hallway consists of. In a way, this'll help make their passage easier by painting a clearer picture of what was mirror and what wasn't.
DG: Ambrosius has used his Tool Advanced Multi-Tool toward his party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>========================= =======================<* CHALLENGE - Mirror Maze of Ice *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- Once this chamber was wide open and easy to travel through. Not so anymore. Dark ice has leeched over everything and formed into crystals, displaying unnaturally flat faces and forming prisms that jut everywhere - and in every one of those faces, the reflections of your group are captured. Each reflection captures even more reflections. You can see yourselves dozens of times in every face. You can see yourselves dozens of times reflected in the ceiling and floor. Each step is slippery and treacherous - and yet the greatest danger is that you can barely figure out where the walls are, much less where the exit is. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet remains silent as she slips into the ice maze. She looks at Yarobeleedt, before he disappears from her view and is replaced with herself.
She hears the words of the Trial Knight, considers them, and informs K.K., "Do you mean she dislikes me... or do you mean that she appreciates the allure of my wan and pallid complexion?"
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Mirror Maze of Ice.
============================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>============================================ ==========================================<* CHALLENGE - Mirror Maze of Ice *>========================================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- Once this chamber was wide open and easy to travel through. Not so anymore. Dark ice has leeched over everything and formed into crystals, displaying unnaturally flat faces and forming prisms that jut everywhere - and in every one of those faces, the reflections of your group are captured. Each reflection captures even more reflections. You can see yourselves dozens of times in every face. You can see yourselves dozens of times reflected in the ceiling and floor. Each step is slippery and treacherous - and yet the greatest danger is that you can barely figure out where the walls are, much less where the exit is. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 5 *>======================================= ============================================< Results - Mirror Maze of Ice >============================================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Neriah Parringer 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Excavator's Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ambrosius 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Advanced Multi-Tool 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Erzebet Lefanu 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yarobeleedt 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ K.K. 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Agatha Pyrelight 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Ragnell
DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer 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> Yarobeleedt has posed.
It's not even smoke and mirrors. It's just mirrors. There are many of them, but all they can do is reflect what they see. What do they see?
As if egged on by Agatha's teasing, Yarobeleedt redoubles on trying to fight off this lesser creature who seems to match what he does perfectly. The sharpness of his arm-bladesspineswhatever he's holding (no, those are his actual arms) seems too dull to even scratch them, and it frustrates. How can he not overcome the thing before him?!
There are more practical means at play. The annoying harmonica sound provides echoes to follow through the passages, and the reflecting light of Ambrosius' multi-tool helps find a path to follow. With this guidance, however insulting in intent one of them might be, Erzebet can traverse it with no issues to speak of.
Between Neriah and Agatha, however, take things a little more... differently, as extensions of themselves traverse about the ice. They get a sense of there being a someone, or a something, on the other 'side' of all of this, that they can draw ever nearer through their own lacking means in which to dissuade them from coming further. Agatha's obscurity of some of the mirrors helps those still going about it a more traditional way. The Neriahs in the reflections will all have their attentions turned towards their target, from a direction and heading none else can see. Yarobeleedt's attention jolts away as one Neriah looks at him, pulling him away from the foe of the moment--
Then K.K. just smashes it. Fractures form in ice so thick it should never break. The spider cracks fissure and expand outward, further and further, until the whole thing explodes into countless shards that reflect the gathered before all of them - the shards, that is - can be crushed underfoot. All that is left is a hall... and a door.
Yarobeleedt seethes, compacting and grousing at the backside of K.K. who he believes in his selfish pettiness just showed him up. He slinks along behind the rest, thinking awful alien thoughts.
DG: Neriah Parringer has drawn a new Challenge. =========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 5 *>=======================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Cold Flame *>=========================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
In the nave of the cathedral which makes up this monastery, a cold blue
light shimmers.
The sanctum of this place is locked entirely within a sheath of ice. Vast
icicles dangle from everything, creeping down frozen pillars, rising from
the floor in spikes, encasing the cracked altar and frosting over ancient
religious frescoes which had worn down to mere ghosts with age anyway.
Scattered about the chamber, several skeletons frozen in ice attest to the
deadly nature of this cold - for at the centre of it all, atop a pedestal of
mottled blue and white marble inlaid with silver, an immense coil of flame
burns with icy cold, casting a light of ice. Its flames lick through the
room - and even to come into contact with them is to risk being frozen to
ice, piece by piece.
The Cold Flame, a demon ages old, lashes out with icy fire that threatens to
freeze each adventurer, with blasts of ice that chill both body and soul,
with maddening whispers that threaten to drag the mind into incoherent
delusion. Even getting close enough to strike it takes courage, for braving
the flames is to risk becoming a frozen corpse. The demon has made this
place a veritable shrine to itself.
And it does not want you here.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"You know, I know you're bein' bad," Neriah remarks when Agatha slides past, "but I can't hate that sass. I just can't."
Beyond the room of mirrors, a long corridor lies, thick with ice and mist. Neriah pushes back her hood, freeing her long, luxuriously dark curls, and steps out in front. Without breaking her stride, her long-legged gait translating into a poised, slightly swaying strut, she holds a hand out in front of her, towards the door at the end of the hall. It's huge and barred with steel.
Or rather, it was. It disintegrates in a burst of unshining magic.
The sanctum within is a place of both ice and flame. The frost here is practically a liquid and a gas at the same time, writhing across the floor and up the walls like flames that freeze. Icicles jut from the floor and ceiling, undulating sickeningly like tendrils. And at the centre of it all is the source of that malice. A vast, icy blue ball of what could be flame, if not for the fact that it's colder than it's actually possible to be - and if not for the fact that the hisses of words in a language lost to time and incomprehensible by man or demon tug urgently at the thoughts, infiltrating the edges of consciousness with the stirrings of madness.
Neriah diesn't break her stride. She walks straight towards the Cold Flame. "Hello," she says crisply. "I'm Ne-"
The Flame emits a hiss that comes from everywhere and nowhere - and in mid-sentence, a billowing coil of icefire erupts from the floor and swallows Neriah up. When it melts away, an icy figure shaped roughly like a curvaceous demon worshipper is left standing in the middle of the room.
"At least let me finish my sentence," Neriah grates a few seconds later - and a section of wall blurs as she emerges from it. Valmar only knows how she managed to move that fast. She holds her hand out, energy beginning to well.
The Cold Flame isn't in the mood to talk. Those maddening whispers grow more and more vicious as it begins to call forth columns of the frozen fire, seeking to swallow up the villainous seven. Icicles lash out like pseudopods to slice and impale. The air itself seems to congeal around the seven, as if to take their breath away.
DG: Neriah Parringer has used her Tool Chameleon Cloak toward her party's challenge, The Cold Flame. (New BB Message (7/113) posted to 'Daily Spotlight' by Lan Lilac: It was a joke about a joke...)
<Pose Tracker> Agatha Pyrelight has posed.
Agatha does the sass very well, and she enjoys it so very much.
Maddening whispers might be terrible for some people, but Agatha actually makes a show of swooning somewhat as the Cold Flame speaks. She narrows her eyes in an amused grin, and states, "My my, I've not had someone talk dirty like *that* to me in quite a long time. It's a pity you have to die horribly, however."
No matter what one might say, Agatha was here to take care of business... and that business was slaying this demon.
The minions all pull out their pickaxes without an order from Agatha, but they seem to know exactly what is expected of them here. Pretty much as one, the six of them hurl themselves into the fray with the Cold Flame, each of them trailing shadows and black fire from their weapons as they leap to the attack. One is brought down immediately, shards of ice slamming into its body and hurling him across the room, where he lies bleeding black ichor from his wounds. The others close in relentlessly, taking hits in exchange for being able to swing their accursed weapons towards the master of this manor.
Agatha meanwhile stands back, speaking incomprehensible black words and launching curses towards the demon. Because why get her hands dirty? She has *people* to do that for her.
DG: Agatha Pyrelight has used her Tool Minion Onslaught toward her party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
No trouble whatsoever. Ambrosius notes with some pride that the works of a demon are nothing compared to the might of Veruni ingenuity. He makes his way through the hall of mirrors in much the same fashion, eventually leaving it to find himself in a long corridor. No mirrors, but plenty of ice...and beyond it, the chamber where the master of the monastery resided.
Had it lived here for so long it no longer possessed a physical form, or was the icy flame always how it represented itself? Either way, it attacks Neriah. It has proven itself a threat. The room grows colder, colder even than before, and the air tries to steal his breath away.
This would not be an easy fight, but he would not allow himself to be deterred here.
He backpedals as icicles lash out at him and gestures outward, attempting to liquify them and send them flying back in a slicing blade of water in a single motion. But would be able to wrest control of them away from the Cold Flame?
DG: Ambrosius has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"A firm mislike."
This comes almost instantly to Erzebet's counterproposal, with such certainty as there could be no doubt as the Trial Knight marches forward with the crunch of ice beneath bootheels.
"Though doubtless given her lecherous skirt chasing, that may well be one of the parts about you she could well live with."
And this, too, is said with an utter certainty.
So it is that the knight arrives, their hammer cracking apart into light as they fall into step beside Neriah with only a, "Fall not behind, squeaking one. Pow hammer or not, 'tis no place to linger," to Yarobeleedt to acknowledge his jealous slithering. As they make their way into that sanctum, the chill settles in deeply and unabating. Doubtless, some breath should be seen as they speak, like any living thing in such dense and unforgiving cold.
But none comes, at least in any way visible.
Frost has begun to glaze at the bloodied white of their armor as they look upon the almost slithering mass of ice, wavering like tongues of flame centered around that broiling cold flame.
Neriah begins to speak --
-- and the moment she is consumed in cold flame is the moment that K.K. rushes forward, presenting a sharp imposition between the Cold Flame and the Worshiper of Valmar as if to be a wall to prevent further harm. Whispers assail them, growing in tempo, intensity.
"You know not," hisses the Trial Knight between searing flashes of light, as a spear draws itself between their hands,
"what merciless fires I have been forged in! But you shall know so SOON ENOUGH!"
And as icicles drive into them, impale through segments between armor, carve into polished white and batter like the angry fist of god, or something worser still --
-- the Trial Knight stabs forward with that lance, straight towards the center of the flame.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward their party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=======================================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 5 *>=======================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Cold Flame *>=========================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
In the nave of the cathedral which makes up this monastery, a cold blue
light shimmers.
The sanctum of this place is locked entirely within a sheath of ice. Vast
icicles dangle from everything, creeping down frozen pillars, rising from
the floor in spikes, encasing the cracked altar and frosting over ancient
religious frescoes which had worn down to mere ghosts with age anyway.
Scattered about the chamber, several skeletons frozen in ice attest to the
deadly nature of this cold - for at the centre of it all, atop a pedestal of
mottled blue and white marble inlaid with silver, an immense coil of flame
burns with icy cold, casting a light of ice. Its flames lick through the
room - and even to come into contact with them is to risk being frozen to
ice, piece by piece.
The Cold Flame, a demon ages old, lashes out with icy fire that threatens to
freeze each adventurer, with blasts of ice that chill both body and soul,
with maddening whispers that threaten to drag the mind into incoherent
delusion. Even getting close enough to strike it takes courage, for braving
the flames is to risk becoming a frozen corpse. The demon has made this
place a veritable shrine to itself.
And it does not want you here.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
------------------------------------< TOOLS >-------------------------------------
|Player |Tool |Lvl|Ability|Effects |
|Neriah Parringer |Chameleon Cloak |1 |Combat |Cleanse |
|Ambrosius |Fight |0 |Combat | |
|Erzebet Lefanu | | | | |
|Yarobeleedt | | | | |
|K.K. |Fight |0 |Combat | |
|Agatha Pyrelight |Minion Onslaught |3 |Combat |Fanfare |
|Seraph Ragnell | | | | |
================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"It means I think you're obnoxious," Ragnell tells Erzebet once the group is past the place of mirrors, putting her harmonica away. "Learn t' discern meanin' from context, language lady!"
She neither confirms nor denies K.K.'s assertion that she's pretty okay with Erzebet's pale, silky skin.
A corridor stretches out before them. Neriah takes point, disintegrating the door beyond and leading the way into the sanctum beyond. It's cold as balls inside, and while Ragnell is less affected by the raw elements than most as a Seraph, there's something about this chill that goes beyond mere temperature. The whispers therein at the demon's heart of malice fray at the ears, at the mind, at the very soul... Ragnell's teeth grind as her fingers twitch over the butts of her pistols. The creature attacks without even waiting for Neriah to finish speaking, but that's fine by her. It means they can just get straight to the point.
"*Goddess*, they jus' keep gettin' more annoyin', an' this one doesn't even have a nice rack to make up for it! How 'bout you jus' DIE!" she declares, unloading scorching lightning bullets from the twin muzzles towards the center of that frozen flame.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
Yarobeleedt's body starts to harden in the cold that is colder than the scientific concept of it defines as possible. There is a sick, wet-sounding set of squelchy pops from how his less solid form has to expend so much energy to keep flexing. Moving. It is painful and irritating... and yes.
It is also scary, as he curls about himself on the ground coming up towards the ancient demon surrounded by the skeletons encased in ice. Fallen humans. Of course. They've already killed plenty. This one probably has, or had, things that acknowledged and respected it.
He shudders as words are said that he cannot ever comprehend the depths of. A billowing coil of icefire flies out and washes out above Yarobeleedt...
...leaving an iced-over cube of the effigy of Stare Roe to slide into the corner, where it may never thaw.
The right to destroy that thing is taken from him.
Then there is an eardrum-piercing screaming as the hooded thing hurls itself forth. The disguising robe - an injustice to the word 'disguising' if there ever was one - shatters underneath its creases being hardened into inflexible, brittle pieces that cannot stay together under the stress of motion. It reveals the ochre serpentine thing in all of his... lack of glory.
For those that have seen him, he looks even worse off since the return from Lunar. Lunata's well-earned revenge has made it harder for him to keep one of his arms coherent. The more solid one still reconfigures seamlessly into any number of twisted melee weapon shapes by the creature's imagination. The opposite arm drips, protrusions far more temporary in form before the unstable biomass recedes back into a form that only grudgingly acknowledges it's a limb.
His upper torso was once much more stable in form, a rigid set of ochre armor. Now it, too, seems to be a churning morass of metallic life-stuff, from the combined force of the once-Hollow Asura Ida, and someone else he thought a strange black-ponytailed coward. He is that much more blobby, that much closer to being a melted mass of inviable Living Metal, fit only to be recycled material for a new polyp.
For his foibles and his shortcomings, he is fast. His arms whirl chaotically through anything and everything in his way, all sorts of beyond-incoherent angry screams as he just throws himself into it.
It is not bravery that compels this creature to strike, or anything resembling a virtue.
It is the fury of a Metal Demon that knows scarce else other than a world and lifestyle of glory and conquest he never was able to partake to the degree he desired, put on visceral display without grace or ceremony.
DG: Yarobeleedt has used its Tool Toy Guardian toward its party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Once this initial suppressing fire is done, Ragnell then trades her pistols for a grenade. She pulls the pin and throws it overhand towards the demon, to explode with crackling light and pulsing heat an instant later.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Plasma Grenade toward her party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet lets out a slightly dry chuckle at the translation from the Trial Knight. "I can tell I've upset you..." she says, though she almost coos it. She's not talking to K.K.
She pulls her coat closer around herself as they keep on moving closer. She stares ahead as the source of the chill, the cold, is revealed, and tells Ragnell, "Oh thank you" even as the Seraph lunges forwards.
Others move. The miserable form of the tormented Demon. Ambrosius's water, the dark curses coming from Agatha as her minions move to intercept. Erzebet takes a deep breath and reaches down to draw out her weapons. They bite into her hands and Erzebet briefly realizes just how COLD they are.
Fortunately for her -
"Let's see let's see... Seven times five... yes, that's good." The barrels of the guns cross before her.
"That means Fire Starter!"
The guns are uncrossed and a huge spark forms between them that rolls forwards, spiralling with strange circular motion, seeming to ricochet between them like one of those pinball machines they have in Kislev. Bouncing, each bounce making it grow as it moves merrily along. The last bounce brings it right up to the cold flame. It's impressive, sure, but will it be more than a transient heat?
Yes because now there's a bucketful of a compound analogous to the legendary 'Adelhyde Fire' inside of it, which slops over and into the ancient horror.
DG: Erzebet Lefanu has used her Tool Haborym toward her party's challenge, The Cold Flame.
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - The Cold Flame *>=========================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
In the nave of the cathedral which makes up this monastery, a cold blue
light shimmers.
The sanctum of this place is locked entirely within a sheath of ice. Vast
icicles dangle from everything, creeping down frozen pillars, rising from
the floor in spikes, encasing the cracked altar and frosting over ancient
religious frescoes which had worn down to mere ghosts with age anyway.
Scattered about the chamber, several skeletons frozen in ice attest to the
deadly nature of this cold - for at the centre of it all, atop a pedestal of
mottled blue and white marble inlaid with silver, an immense coil of flame
burns with icy cold, casting a light of ice. Its flames lick through the
room - and even to come into contact with them is to risk being frozen to
ice, piece by piece.
The Cold Flame, a demon ages old, lashes out with icy fire that threatens to
freeze each adventurer, with blasts of ice that chill both body and soul,
with maddening whispers that threaten to drag the mind into incoherent
delusion. Even getting close enough to strike it takes courage, for braving
the flames is to risk becoming a frozen corpse. The demon has made this
place a veritable shrine to itself.
And it does not want you here.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Tire============================================
====================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia - Round 6 *>==================== ===========================< Results - The Cold Flame >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Neriah Parringer 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Chameleon Cloak 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ambrosius 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Erzebet Lefanu 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Haborym 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yarobeleedt 15 --(5)--> 20 Fail Toy Guardian 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 15 --(0)--> 15 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agatha Pyrelight 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Minion Onslaught 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Plasma Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Embolden and Liabilit ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Neriah Parringer 90 --(25)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Madness|Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Neriah Parringer has successfully explored Monastery of Saint Syndaia!
=========================<* Monastery of Saint Syndaia *>=========================
======================<* CHALLENGE - A Home of Their Own *>=======================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
With a last, echoing hiss, the Cold Flame gutters and vanishes into nothing
- vanquished, perhaps, though truly dead may be another story. And as it
fades away, a breath of warmer air begins to move through the sanctum. Its
spell will begin to weaken, and the endless winter will slowly pass.
To explore the Monastery further will be to find that the outer
monastery-cathedral structure blocks off view of a recessed hollow in the
cliff wall, into which several more buildings have been built into the rock
- storage buildings, small houses, a small church, accessible via various
stone balconies and stairs. There's even a big courtyard which has been set
aside as a garden. One shed even houses a cargo elevator, frozen stiff right
now, but eventually able to descend through a carved rock shaft to some kind
of secret entrance far below. Ancient frescoes cover some of the structures,
probably Nisan and probably fairly old.
I mean, they'll probably end up being something else soon. But enjoy them
while they last.
The Cult of Valmar has gained a home base! The Cult and its allies are,
broadly speaking, free to use it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
For all that the monsters inhabiting this ancient monastery were a joke, the Cold Flame itelf is a far more serious opponent.
Agatha's minions hurtle towards the ball of icy fire - and several of them don't come back. They wind up frozen into rapidly-crumbling effigies of ice upon contact with the bitter fire. But she has minions to spare and a willingness to take casualties. And she brought friends who have a little more to hurl.
Blurring between billows of flame, flickering in and out of existence and blinking to one side of a fusillade of ice spikes and then around to the other, Neriah hurls magic of her own, dreadful unlight ripping into billows of frostfire. Screaming faces of demons rip through icicles, smashing them. The Flame gives as good as it gets; guttering with each impact, it lashes out at Number Eight with waves of flame, forcing Neriah to hunker down behind her defensive shell.
Bullets of lightning tear frigid tongues of fire as Ragnell opens up; the flame whirls and spirals madly, then screeches under the impact of that grenade of heat and light. Icicle tendrils whirl upwards, slamming towards the unseen Seraph - seen clearly enough by the Flame, for it doesn't need a body - to try and impale her. More icicles are shattered as Ambrosius fires a blast of water into the fray. Some of his water blades are frozen into new icicles - but still more slam home, thinning out the Flame's defenses.
It gives K.K. and Yarobeleedt a window. The ice doesn't seem to be able to do much to whatever it is that Yarobeleedt is made out of; he attacks in close, the greatest peril of all, ending up with ice creeping up that blobby arm. But it actually works to his advantage: It lets him hold a shape to it a little longer and land blows that scatter the flame. Then the Trial Knight strides in, dodging through flame and icicles, and splits the Flame with a powerful thrust. Gouts of it spill everywhere.
And retreat soon enough. Erzebet unleashes the dreadful flames. The bouncing globe of fire roars through the room, melting away ice and burning off mist, until it gloms in on the largest flame. Billows of icefire hiss into vapour and vanish upon impact. The intense fire of Haborym grinds down as more and more of its fury is spent. It won't be enough to kill the Cold Flame entirely.
But it will be enough to vanquish it. With a last, fading hiss of pure rage, the Cold Flame shrinks in on itself - and it vanishes with a glimmer.
Neriah lets her breath out in a rush. She steps out into the middle of the room. For a moment, she doesn't say anything - just holding out her hand as if to test the air.
A breath of it moves through the room - noticeably warmer, and more dry.
"You're right," Neriah says to Ragnell, smoothing her robes briskly and flashing a satisfied smile. "We need way more adversaries with nice racks. Life's better that way."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The Cold Flame is vanquished. Ragnell dusts off her gloved hands and hooks them in the pockets of her denim jeans with a satisfied smile. The temperature in the room is already beginning to appreciably rise.
"At the very least, it's somethin' nice to look at while the rest of them are bein' stupid," Ragnell tells Neriah, giving her a crooked smile back. She's not talking about the demon. "Anyway, now that we've cleaned house, how's about we take a stroll, have a look-see 'round the place?"
Whether anyone else wants to do that or not, Ragnell will excuse herself at an easygoing pace to explore the now-freed-ish monastery.
<Pose Tracker> Yarobeleedt has posed.
The Metal Demon continues flailing dangerously at the space once occupied by the Cold Flame, all rationality degrading. Their breath goes raspier, more strained, stopping only as the freezing-over less-solid arm hits the ground underneath hard enough for parts of it to shatter and flake. There is a shrill squeal as Yarobeleedt recedes from that position to recoil in pain. The room warms noticeably. Over in the corner, the ice that encased the Stare Roe effigy goes away, leaving... a perfectly intact rubbery icon of one of the two-dozen-or-so mortal foes of the Metal Demons, as Yarobeleedt shifts gears to pounce it and jealously take it back into his possession.
It's weird, but nothing that comes out of his mouth makes a whole lot of sense, why should his brain?
The melting metal creature gibbers some more - stimulated by something in some way that only might be interpreted as 'probably should be left alone.'
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
It's a difficult battle, and the intense chill radiating from the Cold Flame doesn't make things easier. Ambrosius can feel himself slowing as the battle progresses...but fortunately, they eventually emerge victorious.
His stance relaxes as the air seems to become warmer with the Cold Flame's disappearance. And, after some consideration he removes his helmet, stowing it away. His eyes soon find Neriah.
"...It is done. What are your plans from here, Miss Neriah?" He asks.
He'll probably, at some point, make an effort to preserve some of those ancient frescoes as data, but for now he remains where he is.
He did not want to be an impolite guest, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
Lowering a hand to her hip, Neriah smiles wryly back at Ragnell. "I don't know, they've got attributes I enjoy. But I'm pretty forgiving."
No she isn't.
Ambrosius is the one to ask a pointed question. "A few," Neriah says as she tosses her head in a luxurious ripple of raven curls. "I gathered a group of followers on Lunar and I've begun to gather some here as well. I intend to move them in here, redecorate and make this place our home. The centre of the new church." She holds her arms out, turning to gaze around the slowly thawing sanctum. "My new church," she intones more loudly, her eyes flaring and her smile widening to a fierce, jubilant grin. "The fulfillment of destiny."
She inhales, steadying herself a little, before turning to look back towards the group with a proud smile. "Let's go explore," she answers Ragnell. "I'll think of a name later. Either way, you're all welcome to come and go as it suits you."