2018-10-16: Settling The Past
- Log: Settling The Past
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lunata Croze, Lily Keil, Leon Albus
- Where: Ruins of Memory
- Date: October 16th 2018
- Summary: Venturing into the Ruins of Memory to evaluate Lunata, Loren finds his path crossed by none other than Lily and Leon; making a truce of sorts the four venture into the depths of the ruin to face what lies at its core.
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Ruins of Altered Memory. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Speed-Running Old Content *>=================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- To reach the Ruins of Altered Memory, one must first cross through the Ruins of Memory proper. Although many of the dangers in the Ruins of Memory are no longer so great, and you may know of them, it still takes time to get through them -- unless you do something to shave time off. Perhaps some pits are leaped over; perhaps some secret doors are known. Whatever the reason, you should hurry! You will know when you reach the door into the depths of the Ruins. The large, double doors are covered in Elw runes. Those runes are inert, without any light to them. Nonetheless, when you approach, the double doors of stone open -- revealing chambers of dark green stone, occasionally alight with the glow of strange, spectrally lit blue torches. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Injure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
In all truth, Loren could have taken it easy straight up until the point where leaving for the mission to Elru was mandatory. But this would have been unwise, for at least two distinct points:
The first of which being that slipping too far out of form would put things into jeopardy. The second being simply that it would make any future work alongside Drifters in Elru -- it could happen, he's in the dark on specifics but knows the trend to expect at least some of them to manage to nose their way over there -- tricky if he'd vanished off the map for a few months and nothing to speak for it.
And there's a third angle, as well: Lunata's a curious girl with curious skills. Much like he had once done with Lily, over a year ago, now is a good time to attempt to further assess what she is capable of.
And the Ruins of Memory is known for being a 'safe' location to explore. He can see what she's capable of and run through the paces himself.
...Of course, 'safe' may be relative:
APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES AGO
"Hmm. The floor here seems unsta--"
He never quite finishes that sentence as the flooring gives way. Dust rains down upon the fallen medic below. Slowly, with a groan, he picks himself up off where he's landed and readjusts his glasses to squint up through the hole. "...Damn. I wonder if there's a way back up." Or if he's going to have to 'create' a means to climb.
Such thoughts are derailed by the slow -- but hastening! -- sound of rock against rock. Loren turns to face down the approach of a boulder rolling towards him.
"..."
One full second of silence passes as he stares at it.
Then with an immediate about-face -- and invocation through the device he hastily slides over his right wrist -- he rabbits off in the opposite direction, a pulse of Ether propelling him onwards down the maze of trap-filled corridors.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Speed-Running Old Content.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
You know, the last time Lunata saw Loren was... Old Petra, where she spent approximately most of the dig playing with an Aquasol spritzer that Loren had to grab from her and complain that it wasn't a toy.
It is stark, then, the difference between her then and now; geared in a Yggdrasil combat jacket with frankly absurd ablative armor plating overlaying her white dress, alongside a half-gas mask with a skull pattern hanging from her neck, Lunata looks kitted out for war. A black matte shotgun piece hangs on a ready-holster on one side of the jacket's straps, while her familiar katana hangs on the other side.
Speaking of speedrunning, though...
...damn. I wonder if there's a way back up.
"Yeah..." Lunata responds for a moment, and shifts as she reveals that there's a somewhat bulky metal box strapped on the belt behind her. She pulls what looks like a vaguely gun-shaped device and reels a length of cable out of one end, and launches it up and is suddenly high-velocity boosted... hopefully over the boulder, where she kind of just starts wallrunning with the momentum afforded by the Cable.
"I remember a shortcut -- this way."
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Yggdra Cable toward her party's challenge, Speed-Running Old Content.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Nothing is safe, and even the strongholds of memory will inevitably crumble to dust in the wake of new betrayals.
...It's with similarly depressing certainty that Lily Keil is unsurprised that the Ruins of Memory seem different than before. ...Unfortunately, she's without the notes she made on the dungeon on her earlier forays into it, thanks to a certain ex-assassin's sticky fingers. She is not concerned, however. She has Leon with her, and Dog. It's a perfectly suitable party for down here. And...
APPROXIMATELY FIVE MINUTES AGO
A boulder--is it the same boulder?--freezes in place for half an instant before it bursts from the inside, spraying rock shrapnel everywhere... and revealing Lily Keil, in dark fatigues and armored jacket as always, looking between Loren and Lunata in the moment. A way back up...
"What do you know? We have company."
Lily steps forward. She... looks like she's already fallen down a number of pit traps, frankly. The ARM at her side hangs there without being lifted, for now.
She glances to Leon, then to Lunata, "We're going with you."
Hup! She starts climbing back upward towards the path to a better door. Dog barks happily before she starts scrabbling up rock.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon is, in fact, with Lily.
The boulder shatters apart into so much ice -- and then Leon drops down, clinging to the rope. He looks at Lunata for a moment, and he blinks in surprise -- then nods, as he lowers himself from the ceiling. His boot-clad feet hit the ground with a crunch, and then he turns his head to look at Lily. Loren was regarded with only a brief glance.
"Do we need to kill him?" he asks her, in a polite and nonplussed tone. "He matches a description you gave me, so it seems reasonable enough." Then, he draws Argent Divider, turns it, and a round blows the skull off a nearby Spartoi trying to sneak up on them.
"Good afternoon, Lunata!" he adds, a little cheerful.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Climbing Rope toward his party's challenge, Speed-Running Old Content.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Speed-Running Old Content *>=================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- To reach the Ruins of Altered Memory, one must first cross through the Ruins of Memory proper. Although many of the dangers in the Ruins of Memory are no longer so great, and you may know of them, it still takes time to get through them -- unless you do something to shave time off. Perhaps some pits are leaped over; perhaps some secret doors are known. Whatever the reason, you should hurry! You will know when you reach the door into the depths of the Ruins. The large, double doors are covered in Elw runes. Those runes are inert, without any light to them. Nonetheless, when you approach, the double doors of stone open -- revealing chambers of dark green stone, occasionally alight with the glow of strange, spectrally lit blue torches. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Injure=========================================
====================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 1 *>===================== ====================< Results - Speed-Running Old Content >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Ether Tuner 1 Agility Effects: Quicken and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Yggdra Cable 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Climbing Rope 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Reckless(2) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What Loren had expected: somewhat meek, slightly goofy, equipped with powers beyond her ken for some reason Lunata.
What Loren got: Lunata overtly loaded for bear and then some.
He may have had to double check her name.
What happened here?
It's a question for another time perhaps because he's currently taken a spill and found himself in a bit of a fix.
To say nothing of other entrants into what should have been a standard easy exploration and observation routine.
"Keil-- what are you--"
'This way,' Lunata suggests and when that alternative is on the table, he takes it, diving after her into a sidelong passageway just moments before the boulder would have overtaken him. It rumbles on towards destiny.
A destiny that means it ends up flash frozen and burst into flinders. Pray for the poor trap-crafter, that they planned for the event someone blew up their cunning trap.
But there are other perils than rocks--
There's the matter of the very same pit traps (and not to mention the trouble that's had trying to climb back up -- perhaps going through some of the tunnels down here will lead to better results).
Oh, and they're not alone down here. There are skeletons. Why are there so many skeletons?
It's nothing a few bullets -- as Leon finds -- or swings of a blade, or spells, can't manage.
"I heard that," comes the response from the 'medical student', as he, a short distance away, lays into some of the skeletons with his own sword.
In the end, the winding route through the lower reaches of the upper stratum of the ruin leads the mixed group to a gap in the wall.
An entrance to another, newer section.
DG: Lunata Croze has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - Ball of Crushing *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- After you step into this hallway, the door behind you slides down and locks shut. That 'click' noise, alone, might be worrying to a veteran ruin explorer. More concerning, however, is the way that a massive stone ball drops down on the far side of the hall. It fills it almost completely, and begins rolling towards you! Outrunning it isn't an option -- but obstructing or destroying it may yet be. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
There's a pause as Lunata leaps down onto the other side and settles, as the lash of the Yggdra Cable reeling back in snaps against the box with a frankly worrying high-powered hiss of gas. Is this thing safe to use...? (The short answer is 'no', as she once told Josie, because it has the side effect of 'has a chance of high impact death'.)
"... hey, Miss Lily, Mister Leon, Thomas," she waves to the three of them. Well, the last time she saw him was still under his psuedonym... at least in person. There's a brush of her jacket for a moment as they have to contend with skeletons for a moment--
--and when they finish, with a final cleave of a sword and spell, she stares towards the gap in the wall. She speaks up.
"I heard this ruin can show you... memories. Thoughts. Your past." Her expression very subtly sinks for a moment, a coldness coming over her. Icy, even. "There's... something I need to settle."
Once they pass through, however, the door behind them slides down and locks with a positively Zelda-esque camera angle.
'Click'
"... oh," Lunata stares towards the incoming boulder, frowning as she opts to just run towards it. Run towards it?? Perched to a marathon sprint, she vaults into the air and decides the best way to deal with a runaway boulder is--
--to dropkick it??
DG: Lunata Croze has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Ball of Crushing.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Then your hearing is average. Your doctor will be pleased, I'm sure," the mercenary captain says to 'Thomas' with a smile. However, his expression screws up at what Lunata says. "Show you memories?" Leon asks Lunata, glancing her way. He frowns, for a moment. His expression screws up, thoughtful--
But softens, slightly, at the icy look in her countenance. "Mm. Lunata... well, we'll certainly stick with you."
He steps through, and his eyes are drawn -- briefly -- to the strange colored rock here. But, only for a moment. First, he hears the 'click.' Second, he sees Lunata running at the ball. Not away from it. He grits his teeth, then yanks on the cable. Leon swings it, securing it across the tunnel ahead, and then ties another length off on the opposite side of the wall. To, he decides, catch the ball.
"Duck low," he says. "And run to the right corner. We can squeeze through there! If, er, if we don't just break the thing."
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Ball of Crushing.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"No," Lily answers Leon eventually without even pretending to be subtle about it for Loren's sake. "We could use the extra pair of hands right now. He can come with us."
A look to Leon suggests she wants to know what brings the two of them, Loren and Lunata, into this ruin together themselves. ...But see? It's not all violence.
"...If that's what it takes, then, we'll back you up," Lily answers Lunata, after an appraising long of her own at that icy stare of hers. As they step inside...
Lunata runs towards, not away. Of course she does. "Tell me if you get injured," Lily says distantly to Loren, and steps up, walking not running behind Lunata as she wends the chains of her magical booster about her fingers and hand, the runes inscribed in metal attuning once again quickly. There is a hum of Ether, of raw destructive force, as the shadows around Lunata abrubtly gather and darken, sharpening her features, drawing attention to her movements in the way they begin to fade into nothing, suffusing her with magical force.
And it pulses harder as the magical instruction is amplified. Dropkick...! Support!
"Let's just break it," Lily says instead, one-eyed stare on the boulder.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Rune Chain toward her party's challenge, Ball of Crushing.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Come with you?" Now he might be a little taken aback but--
Loren's expression settles and fixes into the one of the unamused. "I'm sure you're a riot at parties," the young officer says flatly to Leon.
Lunata's comment comes as a well-timed interjection, perhaps sufficient (for now?) to avoid an increase in local levels of hostilities.
This Lunata is somewhat more reminiscent of the girl he'd met once before.
"...Show you 'your past'?" He looks no less than skeptical now, his forehead screwed up as if he's trying this one on for size and finding it wanting. "Are you sure it's not just a hallucination from, well, a gas leak or something?" He glances over at Leon and Lily, as if to size them up, then regards Lunata for a moment once again. "I suppose we'll just have to find out."
They don't get far beyond the next door when there's a click best described as 'ominous' and an all-too-familiar rumbling sound.
'Are you kidding me', his expression says, to the universe at large.
"Suits me," he says to Leon in the next moment. Breaking it would be ideal but if they can't do that...
"Why, so you can watch?" he snipes back at Lily.
The floor below him vibrates with precision-point Etheric stress, rolling forward in a wave towards the ball to puncture and hopefully destabilize its innards.
He, in the meanwhile, is running back and to the right.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Ball of Crushing.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - Ball of Crushing *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- After you step into this hallway, the door behind you slides down and locks shut. That 'click' noise, alone, might be worrying to a veteran ruin explorer. More concerning, however, is the way that a massive stone ball drops down on the far side of the hall. It fills it almost completely, and begins rolling towards you! Outrunning it isn't an option -- but obstructing or destroying it may yet be. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
===================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 2 *>==================== ========================< Results - Ball of Crushing >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Rune Chain 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Reckless(1)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Leon's suggestion is a sound one -- but unfortunately, the runaway boulder is of enough strength that the cable stretches, hisses, hisses-- and eventually each end of the cables that he's attached comes loose with a 'snap!'. Fortunately, the momentum's been broken enough for Loren's spell to start to destabilise it--
--in time for Lily's power to ensconce around Lunata as her shadow sharpens and her heel winds up piercing through the boulder. She looks astonished, definitely not expecting it.
Hold that L to your forehead, boulder.
"... gas leak?" Lunata sounds just a bit confused. "That sounds more contrived to me than magic, to be honest... but I guess we'll see if it's true or not. So far it's just been boulders," she remarks as she pats herself down again.
She looks at Lily and Leon, nodding as she says, "I appreciate it..."
DG: Leon Albus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - Cucco Spectrals *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You enter a vault, where the ceiling is so high that it vanishes in the darkness above. The torches in the wall sconces flicker. Then, the room fills with spectral imagery: lines of blue form the outline of buildings from Adlehyde, including distant Adlehyde Castle. All is still for a moment. And then, they come. Swooping down from on-high, with their clucks of challenge and caws of promised violence, cuccos sweep down one after the other. They scratch, claw, and peck viciously. Just how clucked are you?! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Stupify, Injure====================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon and Loren make ready to duck under.
Lunata and Lily, together, shatter the boulder into so much rubble. Leon stops running, and then he yanks his climbing rope down. He spools it up, calmly, and rests the coil of it onto his belt. He shakes his head, before he looks towards Lunata. "Let's not jinx it, yes?"
As they step forward, they find that the light of this place flickers. The blue light in the wall sconces shine outward, and then the first blue lines begin to trace out. The familiar, to all of them, outline of Adlehyde. "I... see what you mean," he says, to Lunata. "Our memories. This is before the first Metal Demon attack. It--"
'BUC-CAW'
"Oh, bloody hell!" Leon swears. Argent Divider swings up in a hand -- and his first shot blows through a cucco. However, with a press of a button, he deploys his newest tool -- the very one he worked on during the sojourn to Lunar. A trio of triangles unfurl, panels unfolding to create wider triangles, which fly upward. They swivel about him, before they shine. A barrier of silvery light appears, to catch the first of the incoming cuccos.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Raid Funnel toward his party's challenge, Cucco Spectrals.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Actually," Lily answers Loren almost breezily, "He is. And a good dancer on top of that."
Maybe Lily is ill; she certainly doesn't seem inclined at the moment to do further violence than she already has towards the group at hand, though Loren's explanation... Is irrelevant as far as Lily's concerned once she watches Lunata pierce the boulder. Nodding in satisfaction, the sorceress waits for Lunata to come back to the group.
"Not comfortable with the idea that a mere blasted ruin can read your superior thoughts, Voss?" Lily asks without open venom but certainly with a bit of bite.
'Why, so you can watch?'
"As for that, I was thinking first aid, but I can't say I wouldn't take some pleasure in seeing you bleed." Blunt, direct, and entirely casual somehow. She agrees about not jinxing the thing, but the light--ah, the light, before the battle--
"Dog!"
The black-furred canine leaps to obey Lily's command in an instant, pulling healing berries and rushing to Lunata, to Loren, and to Leon with some for each of the group as Lily herself begins to channel her Ether into defensive shielding for the others.
...The strangest thing, really, is that none of the cuccos fly at Lily. None of them move to attack her at all.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Dog toward her party's challenge, Cucco Spectrals.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"Adlehyde....." Lunata whispers with shrinking pupils. She glances about hurriedly. "One year ago-- on that day, when the skies darkened... and..." as Leon swears and they hear that deadly 'BUC-CAW!' in the air. Unfortunately, a certain Hyadean isn't here to pacify them with unrelenting and neverending love.
Lunata's shotgun clicks as she brandishes it.
It's a ridiculous combat piece, matte-black with an engraving on the side: 'Zeldukes is in Heav' ... ... ... yeah, it ends there. Shouldn't it be 'Heaven'? Apparently, but there's signs of the shotgun barrel being sawed off.
... bad luck, Lunata.
She charges forward and launches a synchronous shot with Argent Divider towards the same cucco--
Balsamic!
--is seen whirling about with Orochi-Agito brandished as she ducks underneath the triangular barrier Leon's summoned, a flurry of three hits that suspends her in midair before she drops next to Dog to accept a berry--
Aromatic!
--and cleaves down with an overhead swing that she dashes on through with a swinging flourish; she breathes a little hard as she dives forward to the thrust of the flock and attempts to drown the cuccos in a sphere of cuts--
Spicy!
--cut cut cut--
Smoked Spicy!!
--CUT CUT CUT--
Sumptuous Smoked Spicy!!!
--and hopefully, they'll be winner, winner, cucco dinners.
DG: Lunata Croze has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Cucco Spectrals.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"I wasn't asking for your opinion," he says to Lily on the topic, before following it up with -- after Lunata explains -- an eloquent "Shut up. Drawing himself up before he presses on without further comment.
At least, for the moment.
It takes Lunata to completely take the wind out of his sails, commenting that his suggestion might be the more convoluted scenario. "Well... gas-induced hallucinations from intrusions in rock beneath the surface are known to happen..."
He notedly doesn't press the matter.
At any rate, he skids to a stop as Lily and Lunata cause the ball to explode into shards that bounce, briefly, off the wall and glances back at them.
He may momentarily look over at Leon as if to silently inquire, 'you're dating that'?
Lily meanwhile answers his comment from before, which may or may not prove the gist of his point. "I figured. You always struck me as a sadist, Keil," Loren remarks, in those fleeting moments before light shimmers. Is this some vision of the past?
...Clearly, this is in those moments before the Metal Demon attack. While he hadn't been there at the time, he had been flown in shortly after, in time to face down the...
...
"what the hell," Loren says, in precisely the tone the case implies.
And after that, he's just flat-out mobbed by furious hens. They flap at him without mercy, with talons that tear and beaks that peck. He can't even go for his sword-- there's no room to swing--
So he does the next best thing and grabs a handful of objects at random from the depths of his bag and hurls them at the mobbing birds in a spray.
Some of them are Aquasols. They won't even break when they hit the ground. Hey, free healing!
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Cucco Spectrals.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Cucco Spectrals *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You enter a vault, where the ceiling is so high that it vanishes in the darkness above. The torches in the wall sconces flicker. Then, the room fills with spectral imagery: lines of blue form the outline of buildings from Adlehyde, including distant Adlehyde Castle. All is still for a moment. And then, they come. Swooping down from on-high, with their clucks of challenge and caws of promised violence, cuccos sweep down one after the other. They scratch, claw, and peck viciously. Just how clucked are you?! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Stupify, Injure====================================
====================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 3 *>===================== =========================< Results - Cucco Spectrals >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Dog 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Raid Funnel 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Slow(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
--Lunata gets smacked by a random cucco mid-combo.
Disgusting...
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Sharing Heal Berries, Dog is able to keep them all upright through the worst of the cucco onslaught. They don't cease for a time. Gunshots from Leon, bladework from Lunata, and random thrown objects from Loren do much of the work. When the cuccos fall, though, they vanish into bursts of light -- whisked away into nothing in the blink of an eye.
Leon sighs, afterward. The raid funnels swivel, then click back into place upon his belt. He turns his head to look at the others.
"It seems there is more to this place than boulders," he concludes.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Orc Hellion Spectral *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this room, the dark green walls shimmer. Phantom images of the city of Lastonbell appear, as it looked during the invasion by Hyland. Flames lick off roofs; crackling embers can be heard. Then, in the center of the room, a hulking, green-skinned figure appears -- a Hellion, save made only of solid blue light. Even the 'Malevolence' roiling off it is, in fact, an illusion. However, the hammer in its hands is more than capable of causing real harm. Which you may discover, as it swings it for you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You didn't have to ask," Lily answers Loren, 'helpfully'. Speaking of helpful, she definitely doesn't back him up on her knowledge of situations wherein hallucinations underground have been reported. That would be much nicer than she's inclined to be. Instead...
"I try to give whatever task is at hand my all," she replies, dry, at being called a sadist. But this, now--
"You're getting good with that weapon," Lily tells Lunata as the older of the two dusts herself off... and Dog ends up looking right up at Loren in particular, tilting her head thoughtfully at the medic. "Ar?" she seems to ask, curiously.
"I don't mind the boulders, at least. They're good training. But..."
Lily leads the way forward this time, and green walls shimmer. Lily frowns as she starts to recognize it, discomfort evident in the curl of her lip. "...I have a feeling--"
The Hellion swings its hammer at Lily's blind side and sends the woman crashing into a building. It's... a moment before she comes out, and before that--
Dog charges into the rubble and barks at Lily. Not long after--
Gunshots. Lily just empties her entire weapon straight into the spectral Hellion ahead of them, every huge pistol round center mass.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Dog toward her party's challenge, Orc Hellion Spectral.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"They're not done with us, yet, it seems," Leon declares, as the walls begin to shimmer again. He tenses--
But a moment too late, as the Orc Hellion appears. However, there is a quick sign that it isn't a true Hellion: Leon can see it, and his eyes widen with realization. "This--this is what they look like! Then it must--"
Later, he tells himself.
Leon clicks the button on his belt. "Lily, hold on!" he shouts. Lily's weapon issues a loud report. A moment later, the raid funnels have unfurled -- and then spin up, twisting around. This time, they crackle with light. Then, a trio of energy bolts is sent hurtling towards the Hellion.
"Did anyone actually see these things?" he asks.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Raid Funnel toward his party's challenge, Orc Hellion Spectral.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata kind of glances towards the barbed riffs between Loren and the rest, though she's not particularly clear on what the animosity is about. Loren's snarky, sure, but he didn't seem that much snarkier than most boys his age that Lunata knows.
"I mean... maybe I'm biased, but magic's basically been the story of my entire last year, so..." Lunata has to point out. A pause. "Or lost technology. Okay, maybe if it's gas from an Elw device..."
... that's more believable than gas from a trapped rock formation??
She cuts the chatter, though, as Lunata hefts the shotgun up again. She looks to Lily. "... I know a day'll come when I have to rely on what I've learnt, not what I've been given--"
A pause, with a snarl as Lily's sent flying; she disappears and reappears in a blur of speed to helmbreaker-style split the Hellion's head in twain.
"--so I intend to make it my own!"
DG: Lunata Croze has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Orc Hellion Spectral.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
At Lunata's response to further push what is, technically speaking, probably the correct narrative here, Loren just grimaces. "Fine. Fine, I get it. I get it. It's probably some weird thing from beyond, here to mess with our heads again," he mutters, settling back into his usual mood state of 'sour grapes'.
He can say one thing for certain, as the spectral cuccos are fought off.
It's definitely not a hallucination. ...Unless he's inhaled more than a little of that gas, too.
Maybe he can't entirely rule it out.
He hisses out a wordless annoyed breath and stoops, gathering up some of his scattered supplies.
Light shifts. Blurs. Brightens--
This city, he remembers, because he just about got nailed by a clocktower as it came down.
He's in a better position, too, to see what's coming out of the haze. But for the color and the insubstantial 'haze' to the creature, he'd almost say it was a perfect recreation of a Hellion. "Keil--" he barks in warning, a little too late.
In involuntary sympathy he stifles a wince. The body's like that sometimes.
"Spread out, that hammer's got a wide reach!" he shouts, before casting forth certain elements of his item spread (that is, the parts that aren't pointy or inappropriate for granting healing or support in the middle of a bit of pitched combat) at his for-now teammates.
It also means that this time he gets a better look at that device that Leon unleashes upon the 'Hellion'. What is that? ...Ugh, something else he might have to add to a report. So much for his vacation.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Orc Hellion Spectral.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Orc Hellion Spectral *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this room, the dark green walls shimmer. Phantom images of the city of Lastonbell appear, as it looked during the invasion by Hyland. Flames lick off roofs; crackling embers can be heard. Then, in the center of the room, a hulking, green-skinned figure appears -- a Hellion, save made only of solid blue light. Even the 'Malevolence' roiling off it is, in fact, an illusion. However, the hammer in its hands is more than capable of causing real harm. Which you may discover, as it swings it for you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
====================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 4 *>===================== =======================< Results - Orc Hellion Spectral >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(15)--> 20 Fail Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 5 --(15)--> 20 Fail Dog 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 5 --(10)--> 15 Pass Raid Funnel 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Conditions: Injure(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
As Lily rises from the smoking ruin of what was a first floor before she ran into it, she answers Leon, "That's what some of them look like. ...I guess I could try to describe more of them..." But for reasons, she's been reluctant to do that; she remembers... spiders. The look of Malevolence from her.
But they have looked to her, they have helped. She nods sharply to Lunata next, still firing, "That's how," she agrees with grim pride in Lunata. "Keep at it."
She doesn't draw attention to Loren's moment of sympathy if she noticed it, though. Or his bark of warning. ...She just glances at him, as now--
Loren's healing items are useful in the moment. Lunata's bladework is expert, hacking through a helm. And the strange objects around Leon crackle with light and hone in sharply on the spectral Hellion.
...Unfortunately for the group, while it does fade away... It doesn't do so quietly. Its body falls, and as some of them move up closer--
It explodes, and in a flash of green light and searing flames the room is dull and empty again.
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Forest of Pillars *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next room that you enter is cavernous, but it is not empty. Pillars of a variety of heights, none quite touching the ceiling, fill the room. In many cases, they are too close together to squeeze through. However, clearing a path does not /just/ require brute force. Instead, you need to carefully carve a path through... lest you be caught in the midst of collapsing dominoes. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Stupify, Injure====================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
For a moment, it looks as if they've bested the spectral Hellion. "Did that do it--?"
Light flares out as if in an answer of a sort once anyone gets so much as inches near to the body.
And the room detonates in a flare of green light.
Nothing remains of the Hellion.
Also nothing much remains of the floor.
It, at least, isn't a long drop down, but it is a somewhat problematic drop:
As they will quickly ascertain, the shattered floor has dropped them into a maze of densely-packed pillars. Some allow a mimimum of passage between them, but for the most part one might as well attempt to walk through a wall for all the good it would do. There should be some way out through here -- distantly, a greenish light is glowing. But it's going to have to be through the pillars, first.
"...Try not to drop the place on our heads," he asides to Lily, as he takes a step forward. Loren puts one hand on a nearby pillar and as if gauging its positioning, immediately then subjects it to a shattering pulse of earth Ether. He should be able to just rupture it where it stands--
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Forest of Pillars.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Gh...!"
Leon isn't ready for the floor to give way, after the Orc Hellion's body explodes like that. The green light blasts him backward, and then he falls down. He falls into a heap next to Loren, slamming into the ground. He stands up, slowly, and sets to dusting himself off. As he does, he takes a good look around.
"Strange," he concludes. "The place looks like, if we're not careful, it could fall and trap us. Or worse."
He steps up, after Loren. Then, he gives a solid shove to a pillar -- trying his best to knock it away from one that leans towards them, ready to topple.
"You think you'll find an answer, here, Lunata?" he asks, a moment after he does. "In your memories?"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Forest of Pillars.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata gets blasted clear back and tumbles along the ground with that last expression, with a loud groan as she rubs against one side of her and shakes her head to clear the fuzziness off. She could use a Dog (tm)-brand assist right now. "Geez..." she lifts her head up. "That was... Lunar, wasn't it?" A pause. "I didn't get to do much there..."
She scowls for a moment. "Nearly died to some jerk with a Fire not-Guardian."
She has to look curiously to Leon. "Hey, Mister Leon... what's that device of yours? Some kind of ARM? It's pretty neat..."
She cuts the chatter before too much else after they descend, though, staring towards the pillars and shaking her head gently.
For once, the girl doesn't do anything outlandish -- but looks towards what Loren and Leon's done and pushes. She looks to the Black Wolf Captain.
"... I wonder if it's an answer I'm looking for, or just... closure. Tying loose ends... but honestly, if it's boulders and pillars, maybe not-- oof--"
DG: Lunata Croze has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Forest of Pillars.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...Any landing you can walk away from," Lily mutters as she picks herself up too off of the ruined floor now that they've fallen through. Dog picks herself up too... and noses against Lunata, like she can kind of tell that she needs the assist. But Lunar?
"I got arrested," Lily offers Lunata. Then, for some reason, she looks at Loren and grins faintly, as if over a funny joke. It doesn't last. "Nearly died some myself."
Stretching, Lily checks her weapon before holstering it. "You've got a point though. We go blasting around here and we really will drop the place on our heads."
So instead of going along without thinking first, Lily adjusts the chains about her fingers again before reaching out with one hand and closing her eye.
"Closure... Closure is almost a luxury, sometimes. But I do hope you can find it, boulders or not."
There's a crackle of black lightning and a building sense of pressure as power builds, and builds, and then abrubtly shifts higher--
Lily opens her eye and a column of shadow erupts from her hand, about the size of her through the pillars ahead. It does not knock over all the pillars.
...But if it works, it sure does bore a hole through a big set of them big enough to walk through.
"Careful... I could only compensate so much for how old these things are..."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Rune Chain toward her party's challenge, The Forest of Pillars.
=========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Forest of Pillars *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next room that you enter is cavernous, but it is not empty. Pillars of a variety of heights, none quite touching the ceiling, fill the room. In many cases, they are too close together to squeeze through. However, clearing a path does not /just/ require brute force. Instead, you need to carefully carve a path through... lest you be caught in the midst of collapsing dominoes. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Stupify, Injure====================================
====================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 5 *>===================== ======================< Results - The Forest of Pillars >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 20 --(15)--> 35 Pass Rune Chain 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 70 --(10)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Injure(2)|Slow(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"It was," Loren answers after picking himself up and dusting himself off. "Don't worry, it wasn't anything fun or pleasant." His gaze meets Lily's for a moment and though he doesn't give her a wrathful look or receive any particular revelation, he does lock eyes with her when she grins at him.
Though Lunata's at once the focus of his attention when she mentions a Fire not-Guardian.
"...Large and red? With horns?" he asks, as if this might hold the answer to a particular conundrum of his of late.
(Because it sort of... is.)
She even does him the favor of asking after that device of Leon's. He doesn't even have to say anything, just listen.
"Closure, huh..."
He shakes his head and puts his hand to the pillar he's chosen to attempt to destroy.
No chance of that.
The pillar Loren's selected shatters easily, yes.
The problem part of things is that it shatters too easily. Parts of it fly wide, which strike other pillars.
It's at the same moment that Leon and Lunata discover a key fact about these pillars: whatever they're made out of, the stone is brittle. Shoves quickly shatter stone, sending the things teetering backwards to fall into the forest of pillars--
Which fall.
They fall, joining those knocked over by the flying pieces of the one Loren's shattered.
They all fall.
...Just not in the part of the room where Lily's dark shadow cuts on through. There, the falling stone is absolutely obliterated. Everywhere but that path is littered with stone shards and dust.
"...Ugh," is Loren's assessment, as he brushes stone bits off of himself.
DG: Lunata Croze has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Alone in the Dark *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Your trek through the emerald halls of the Ruins of Altered Memory ends in a spiral staircase. It leads down into an oxagonal chamber, cut of the same emerald stone as the rest of the room. A hallway leads beyond -- into a honeycomb of treasure rooms, nooks, and hiding holes. Those are visible through a shimmering portal, where a blue energy field has risen and blocks your way forward. When you step into the room, however, darkness pervades your senses. You are driven to your knees, as your memories are pulled forth -- and you are overwhelmed by them. The torches all go out, and darkness overtakes the room. You are trapped within a memory. It may be pleasant or unpleasant. However -- until you succeed this Challenge or are helped in the next -- you are not aware of reality. It is STRONGLY suggested you OOCly do your +acts and then draw the next card immediately. It may affect what happens. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Injure==========================================
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Soup of the Day toward her party's challenge, Alone in the Dark. DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Alone in the Dark. DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Alone in the Dark. DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Mikaia's Mirror toward her party's challenge, Alone in the Dark.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Alone in the Dark *>====================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Your trek through the emerald halls of the Ruins of Altered Memory ends in a spiral staircase. It leads down into an oxagonal chamber, cut of the same emerald stone as the rest of the room. A hallway leads beyond -- into a honeycomb of treasure rooms, nooks, and hiding holes. Those are visible through a shimmering portal, where a blue energy field has risen and blocks your way forward. When you step into the room, however, darkness pervades your senses. You are driven to your knees, as your memories are pulled forth -- and you are overwhelmed by them. The torches all go out, and darkness overtakes the room. You are trapped within a memory. It may be pleasant or unpleasant. However -- until you succeed this Challenge or are helped in the next -- you are not aware of reality. It is STRONGLY suggested you OOCly do your +acts and then draw the next card immediately. It may affect what happens. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Injure==========================================
===================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 6 *>==================== =======================< Results - Alone in the Dark >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 35 --(20)--> 55 Fail Soup of the Day 4 Wits Effects: Liability, Efficient, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 35 --(20)--> 55 Fail Mikaia's Mirror 1 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 35 --(20)--> 55 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(0)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Injure(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Lunata Croze has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - With Some Help from My Friends *>=============== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Finally, at least one of you emerges from the illusory prison of memory. With that, you can enter the other's memory -- and help draw them out of it. You can choose who helps who, based both on successes and desires. The degree to which memories might be seen by others is left to player discretion. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
The team of Ls not so much approach the bottom-most layer of the Ruins of Altered Memory as they plumb through it, as the pillars brittly collapse and stone crashes upon stone, and the floor succumbs before them and they're swallowed into the darkness. The last thing Lunata sees is the darkness emitted by Lily-- and even that disappears, to a much more final and immuring darkness...
...
hey...
"Hey... are you all right...?"
Lunata Croze opens her eyes.
A white-haired girl is looming over her, looking deeply concerned but blossoming to a warm smile as she does so; she plants a hand over her black and white waitress outfit. "I'm so glad...! You've been out for so l--oorrkk??"
Orochi-Agito's blade protrudes straight through the waitress' back. She slacks and collapses against the curved blade, but another white-haired waitress one comes through.
"W-what was that noise-- aah??!!"
...
Lunata Croze's eyes have been open for a while now. But she wonders how long it's been. In the backdrop, Adlehyde is in flames, consumed by the assault of metallic demons thought to be myth. The sound of Dragons screech through the night air; flecks of embers provide contrast to the hue of orange consuming the city.
The sound of crunching bones emits from underneath her boots as she paces upwards, atop an ever-growing pile of Lunatas that seem to have no aim but to come her way. Some of them are dressed in her sunday best; others in waitressing outfits; others yet in the Yggdrasil jacket that's more familiar--
"You are no longer needed."
Such are her words as she throws the most recent of Lunatas that have come her way, broken and tattered. The bucket and sponge she was carrying on her way to the Zeldukes statue clatters uselessly against the ground.
"What good will that sponge do? What good did it do to Zeldukes' statue? You are useless. Useless!"
Her eyes flash with indignation and anger.
"I will have certainty. I will have--"
Her blade flashes again as she tears down what feels like the twentieth Lunata to come before her. The Lunata pauses, before falling down in a crumpled heap, another body onto the pile of putrid blood and gore.
"I will have no more doubt!"
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Somewhere, very close by, the Starfall Saloon's daily blackboard hangs along one chain -- and drops to the ground, where it is consumed by flame.
TODAY'S SOUP
........
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Soup of the Day toward her party's challenge, With Some Help from My Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"An ARM, yes," Leon says, with a glance back at Lunata. "One we found in Ash Hare. It took some time to get it working, however." He looks ahead, and watches as they begin to break through the pillars -- bringing some of them down. His eyebrows knit, as he thinks. "Closure's nice, when you can find it."
Then the pillars come falling down. It takes Leon awhile to force them all off him, and get clear. It takes a little longer to shove himself out, and then take a few deep breaths. He steps after them.
And Leon enters darkness.
As he comes to, he finds himself younger. He holds his hands up -- looking down at small hands without callouses or scars. His lips part, and he blinks his eyes a few times, before he looks up through the gentle drift of falling snowflakes, which have already dusted over Nortune's distant, red frame. Then his silver eyes turn, towards a black-haired eleven year-old girl standing in the corner of a snow-covered garden.
Lily has a dusting of snow about her shoulders in her perch in a small play area out behind the school, on the opposite of her usual route. Dressed in black-and-fur to keep warm, her back is to the doors out, and to the windows. It's a long coat over her dress, and a hat from which her long black hair spills down her back. But her hands are out and forward, her gloves in her lap. She's intent on something.
If one could get the right angle, one could determine that the bright young girl is intent upon the small ball of fire between her hands, which crackles merrily and warmly before her.
This is not, as far as people are aware, common behavior for the black-haired girl. She's a little distant, yes, but not considered unusual except for being very pretty and very talented.
Now, however, is fire, and not even an expression of wonder so much as satisfaction.
The snow threatens to fall more anytime.
Leon spots Lily and recognizes her. Their fathers are friends. Of course, he doesn't know much about her beyond that; beyond the handful of conversations, all short by virtue of the fact that Kislev's children aren't expected to say much when in the company of parents. Leon slows to a stop.
Then he sees the fireball, cradled between Lily's hands, and his silver eyes go wide. He gasps, and it's too sharp to not be heard.
He takes a step backward, quickly. "S-Sorry!"
She freezes except to turn to look at him, and then she recognizes him easily. Her golden eyes meet his in a moment of wariness, of waiting to see what will happen, because she recognizes him as her father's friend's son but doesn't know him any better than he knows her.
"No, um--" She frowns at herself, and waves her hand quickly inward, gesturing him to come closer. "Shh!"
Hesitantly, he walks over, hands sliding down nervously into the pockets of his coat. His eyes dip down at the black glove that fell on the ground, before he looks at the girl in front of him.
"Okay," he says. "I'll be quiet." His voice is a whisper, before he leans forward, then he asks with a little more excitement than he ever had in his voice before: "Was that magic?" He shakes his head quickly, looking at her. "I didn't know anyone our age could do magic."
He starts talking, and the gold-eyed girl actually smiles when she hears how excited he is, just for a moment before she remembers it's serious. It still remains like a ghost on her face. A pause, and she finally does glance away, a little shyly. "Yes. Just a little magic, for practice, and because it's cold....I don't know anybody else our age who can do it. I've just... always been able, for as long as I can remember."
She looks back up at him, "...You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"
Leon sees the anxiousness in her expression; he hears it in her voice. He opens his mouth, and then he closes it again, before he shakes his head. "...I won't tell," he says, "if you don't want me to."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed. <SoundTracker> https://griffinmcelroy.bandcamp.com/track/besieged
"What's with this room?" Loren asks, gaze drifting across the eight walls of the chamber and lingering at last on the barrier that cuts off their path.
And the world goes dark.
...
...
It's possible to feel alone in a crowd. He's never been entirely sure which is the worst of it -- the whispering?
Or the silence?
Passing through the halls of Jugend is an ordeal in and of itself, some days.
Ever since his brother died.
I wonder what would happen... if I quit Jugend...
No. There are still things to try for. There are things he needs to do.
And, he's not entirely alone.
Tablet clutched against his chest, the much younger Loren stands as still as a statue outside the classroom, his gaze fixed on the far wall.
Are they staring at me? Are they whispering again? ...I don't want to know.
Just bear it for now.
He's waiting as he always does, outside the classroom. Just waiting for his only friend left. The others all drifted away over time. Excuses at first. And then nothing. It's like he'd become a ghost.
Only he's left, but... it's fine, as far as Loren's concerned.
If you can still talk to me and smile... I think it's fine.
Micah had a nice smile. Was it too much to think...
He's aware piecemeal of the voices filtering in from the classroom, rousing from his reverie state in the hallway.
"...don't tell me you're still hanging around with that idiot Voss..."
Laughter. Micah's laughter. Did it always sound that unkind?
Already, he's drawn himself up, tense, rigid. Already, he feels as if ice has replaced the blood in his veins.
Not again. Please... not you too.
Before his supposed last friend in the world admits to the other in the classroom that he can't seem to shake him.
"...just won't take a hint..."
Go in there. Confront him! Let him know you heard that--
...What good would it do?
It's pointless.
He starts forward as if his limbs had turned to stone. And as if another part of his world hadn't come crumbling away, turns to walk away.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, With Some Help from My Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
The shadow pulses through. There is devastation, everywhere. Stone shards, and dust, and they all fall into darkness...
There is not closure, here. There is not an answer to Loren's irritation. Instead...
When Lily opens her eyes, she doesn't remember that there was only the one. She is a young girl again, looking at Leon with a burnished gold gaze. A wisp of wind cuts off a few words, its faint howling like a little reminder of how long ago it was, a little hint of distance.
"...Is it dangerous?" Leon asks, quieter, a moment later. "If people find out?"
"Mm." Lily nods, looking still at Leon. "Really dangerous. I don't know why, but there's people who'd try to take me away. Daddy says I can't tell anyone..."
Beside the memory, an older Lily stands, dressed in dark clothes and a white jacket, her hair worn loose, both eyes intact. She has her head tilted to the side a little, watching the children before she shakes her head.
"You look the same," she murmurs. "...Kids," she sighs, and shakes her head, turning away.
The woman in the white jacket steps to the side, and leaves no prints in the snow, leaves nothing to disturb the memory. She simply fades from it. And she appears once again...
...
Lily, wearing her white jacket, steps up behind Lunata as her blade keeps flashing. Blood and gore pass before her; a splatter of it touches the lapel of her coat. She watches Lunata in silence, one after another, another--
"You deserve that certainty. Anything that would steal your life..."
Lily reaches out her hand. "Come with me. Destroy it."
But at the same time, she is elsewhere. She is not here among the ruins of Adlehyde alone, but also watches a single boy in a crowd, in the halls of Jugend. So many pass by. So many speak, as Loren thinks. He is younger. Keil if anything is older still, both golden eyes on him as if studying a subject in an experiment, not watching an enemy. Micah laughs... but as the boy turns to walk away, the corner around which he steps has the woman in the white jacket looking down at him. "Will you always sit and suffer, stewing?" she asks. "The ice you feel can be your weakness dying away, if you let it."
But in that snowy courtyard, Lily looks at Leon again, and smiles. ...And both of them suddenly feel something the children do not see; something wet at their hands, wet and warm and--
Ah. Dog is there. And a world outside the memory awaits.
It awaits for all of them.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Mikaia's Mirror toward her party's challenge, With Some Help from My Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata pauses for a moment, in the midst of her strangely sedate slaughter. The flickering flame of Adlehyde yet still burns in the backdrop of her mind, but she gazes towards Lily. In her white jacket, with her black hair; that isn't a Lunata.
She listens to her.
"Mother," she starts after a moment, "won't be enough. Mother won't be the end."
She slakes Orochi-Agito's blade on the sleeve of her jacket, staring down towards its gleam for a moment.
"Jacqueline will continue to tear herself apart for the sake of the world. If not Mother, then perhaps Sin. Or Gebler. Or Malevolence and the Trial Knight. Her goal cannot be complete before all enemies have been eliminated."
The gleam in her eye is almost manic, yet something solidifies into a dark resolve as she steps down from that pile.
Come with me. Destroy it.
"I will destroy anything that gets in her way. I will eliminate any obstructions in her way."
Her expression is flat and grim as she closes her eyes, finally. She takes Lily's hand.
"... that way ... she ... and by extension I... can finally know peace."
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
An older Leon appears next to that older Lily. His eyes turn towards her; unlike her, he wears the usual black and dark grey suit, with a duster, and he blinks at her outfit for a moment. "Mm. You, too," he says. He turns after her.
His footprints do stay behind, though, as he walks away -- and follows after her.
His brow furrows for a moment, as everything begins to fill with light -- as the room sits on the cusp of coming back into focus. Something about that memory; something about who he saw.
What is he missing?
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, With Some Help from My Friends.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
A woman with a white coat. That's an anomaly already among the throng of students, standing out even to a young man otherwise benumbed to the world.
Blue eyes meet gold.
And she says something to him.
Asks him if he will always remain silent, bitter, seething.
He knows at once that no one else can hear her but him.
"I..."
He swallows.
"I'm... tired of it. Tired of wanting. Tired of being weak..."
He takes one step towards her, then another.
He reaches out a hand, tentatively at first.
But he reaches out.
Tears past this memory, through darkness and back into light.
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - With Some Help from My Friends *>=============== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Finally, at least one of you emerges from the illusory prison of memory. With that, you can enter the other's memory -- and help draw them out of it. You can choose who helps who, based both on successes and desires. The degree to which memories might be seen by others is left to player discretion. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
===================<* Ruins of Altered Memory - Round 7 *>==================== =================< Results - With Some Help from My Friends >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 60 --(0)--> 60 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 55 --(0)--> 55 Pass Soup of the Day 4 Wits Effects: Liability, Efficient, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 55 --(5)--> 60 Fail Mikaia's Mirror 1 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 55 --(0)--> 55 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Injure(1)|Save Point(1)|Stupify(1) Effects: Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Loren Voss has successfully explored Ruins of Altered Memory!
========================<* Ruins of Altered Memory *>========================= ================<* CHALLENGE - Empty Memory Storage Crystal *>================ |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The honeycombed treasure rooms cannot all be explored in one trip. Many are empty; others contain only a few scraps and gems. You find a small blue gem within one of the treasure rooms. When you touch it, you feel a pulse -- and then nothing. Although it takes some testing and work, you come to realize that by focusing on a memory, you can put a memory inside of the crystal and allow others to view it. This would doubtless fetch a price in Linga. It may also have other uses besides, should you wish to keep it. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Yes. Yes, I believe you will." The woman in the white jacket meets Lunata's gaze, that manic, that terrible resolve there. She seems to approve, given her small nod, the way she squeezes Lunata's fingers when the girl gives her that hand.
Elsewhere, she turns towards Leon for just an instant as he answers her, and smiles, a hint of something unspoken in her expression, a light sigh and a shake of her head. But what was it? What is he missing...?
The little Lily looks over her shoulder before the memory fades into brilliance.
And finally at Jugend, Loren understands quickly what is going on. Golden eyes remain on Loren's without malice; only interest, only judgement, only analysis. He reaches out... Oh, it's tenative. It's slight.
"Then one day you'll wake up."
Through darkness, and back into light; the party of them is there, and it is not sudden or harsh, it's just like opening one's eyes on waking. The honeycombed treasure rooms stretch out before them... But ahead, there are small, blue gems. Lily blinks, looking around... and steps towards them.
"...Memory," she realizes, unbidden. "You can..."
She takes one of the gems and holds it close to her heart, silent in thought.
"Did you find what you were looking for, Lunata?"
Lily looks from Luanta to Loren, and then back to the girl, then. ...Dog just stands by Leon for the moment, a silent guardian.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata steps through that light; they all do. She doesn't particularly suspect that the Lily-looking person within the memory; she blinks and looks about them for a moment, frowning very quietly as she asks her that question.
Did you find what you were looking for, Lunata?
Lunata is silent for a moment. She picks up the small, empty blue gem for a moment. She closes her eyes, and focuses on it for a moment. She only answers...
"... yes."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He stands there, head bowed once memory and past give way to the present. For the moment silent, Loren's gaze remains floor-wards.
One hand curls into a fist at his side and he then strides forward through the door to one of those treasure rooms, as if impelled by no less a desire than to insert as much space between memory and reality as possible. Approaching the array of crystals laid out before, he reaches down to pick one up, holding it up against the light.
'Did you find what you were looking for?'
The question wasn't meant for him. He but glances at the others.
Pensive, his gaze turns back towards the crystal and his own hazy reflection there.
I don't know. What I want...
Still silent, he exhales.
How do I take it?