2019-01-03: Luna Interlude
- Log: 2019-01-03 Luna Interlude
- Cast: Pearl, Lemina Ausa, Seraph Lanval
- Where: Luna Temple, Elru
- Date: 3/01/2019
- Summary: Three completely normal adventurers descend into the Luna Temple, looking for... something. Anything, really. Preferably with monetary value
DG: The party hasn't entered the dungeon yet. Please use +dungeon/enter for your first draw. DG: A party led by Pearl is now entering Luna Temple. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - A Trick of Faith *>=======================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Facing onto an open cavern deep beneath the mountains, the entryway to this
temple is a splendid place - built from pale white bricks and soaring,
graceful columns of a frosty white marble, hauntingly lit by a subtle,
blue-tinged white light that streams not from a single source, but from tiny
crystal globes that hang suspended from the ceiling in places, held by
silvery chains - and, bizarrely, several more are affixed to the floor and
hang /upwards./
Because that's the problem with this chamber: There's an arched doorway in
the wall across from you. But it's several metres up, and there's no
stairwell leading to it. Or rather, there /is/ a stairwell.
But it leads from the ceiling. It approaches the doorway and stops at the
/top/ of it. It is an upside-down stairwell.
The way those lamps hang upwards from the floor is the clue. There must be
parts of this room where gravity works differently. It must be possible to
somehow jump up to that stairwell and land upside down on the ceiling and
walk inside. But the question is... can you make the jump without hitting
your head on the ceilingfloor?
<BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l6OLPnDGq8>
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
It's an odd sequence of events that leads to this motley crew making a run to the Luna Temple. How is it, after all, that a member of Althena's Guard is leading a heretical Seraph and a companion of the of the Destroyer herself into a ruin?
The main reason is that Pearl is not outwardly showing her alleigances, at least at the moment. Clad in heavy winter gear, including a mask to hide her most recognisable features. As a result, most of her face is obscured, and her silver hair is tightly bound under said mask. If it were more of a uniform, one could almost mistake her for some masked cultist from the moon, but there's no chance of that.
"Here we are." Pearl says, looking into the cavern. The room seems inverted, with lamps hanging from the floor into the air, and a stairwell from the ceiling. It is, as a great many things here seem, completely unnatural. "Let's see if we can get in."
With that, the masked woman starts moving towards the stairwell, and taking a gamble, she leaps upwards trying to drive her claws into the stairwell. If gravity works with her on this, good. If it doesn't, well, she's had to drag herself by her fingertips before, even if the fingerholds are probably fewer than when she was in training.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, A Trick of Faith.
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
There's something vaguely familiar about that voice, but Lemina, frankly, is too self-absorbed to actually commit people's voices to memory before the hundredth or so meeting. It's fine. Lemina does *not* obscure herself in any way, and thanks to her command of fire magic, has not even appreciably changed her dress for these environs.
Cracking her knuckles, Lemina looks up toward the ceiling; seeing that upside down stairwell, her face lights up. "I was thinking of installing one of these in the Trial Cave! Once we... clear it... out. Of everything." Lemina lets out a long, slow sigh. That's gonna take some doing. "All right," she eventually says, taking a second to change her shoes. Even with her magic, that's a little cold for her -- buuut...
Lemina attempts the jump. Lemina... does... not have a lot of leg or core strength. This is probably going to be hilarious to watch.
DG: Lemina Ausa has used her Tool Chiro Sandals toward her party's challenge, A Trick of Faith.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It's easy enough to get Lanval to come along. Something something 'Luna Temple' he may have misheard as 'Lunar Temple' and a part of him feels that tinge of nostalgia for something he's not going to ever get to have again, even as things seem to be getting largely better on Filgaia - 'better' in so much as 'Mother isn't about to eat it.'
On the greater scale, the planet is still dying.
"Mmmm." Contemplatively, the portly phantom staggers along past the inverted lamps and plants himself up against the wall as he peers up at the weird door that's all upside-down. "Who putsh a door there... ha ha ha!"
He makes an 'effort' to wave a hand up at it. He can't reach up to it from there, even if he stands on the very manifestation of his tippy toes. "...Thinkin' 'bout it, if it'sh a temple to Lunar," no, it's not, he absolutely misheard the supposed name of this place, "I gueeeeeessh the door'd be... higher up..."
One eye opens half-lidded as the claw-bearing spelunker among them just up and tries to jump into the stairwell up there. Oh. That's a stairwell, upside-down. Is everything in this place upside-down?
Gravity is one of the few forces of the universe that Seraphim seem to largely play ball with. He staggers back towards where the other two are making their big leaps of faith and... kind of stands on his tippy toes and waves a hand up in the air like he were expecting the forces that be to want to pull him up.
DG: Seraph Lanval has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Trick of Faith.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - A Trick of Faith *>=======================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Facing onto an open cavern deep beneath the mountains, the entryway to this
temple is a splendid place - built from pale white bricks and soaring,
graceful columns of a frosty white marble, hauntingly lit by a subtle,
blue-tinged white light that streams not from a single source, but from tiny
crystal globes that hang suspended from the ceiling in places, held by
silvery chains - and, bizarrely, several more are affixed to the floor and
hang /upwards./
Because that's the problem with this chamber: There's an arched doorway in
the wall across from you. But it's several metres up, and there's no
stairwell leading to it. Or rather, there /is/ a stairwell.
But it leads from the ceiling. It approaches the doorway and stops at the
/top/ of it. It is an upside-down stairwell.
The way those lamps hang upwards from the floor is the clue. There must be
parts of this room where gravity works differently. It must be possible to
somehow jump up to that stairwell and land upside down on the ceiling and
walk inside. But the question is... can you make the jump without hitting
your head on the ceilingfloor?
<BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l6OLPnDGq8>
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
==========================<* Luna Temple - Round 1 *>=========================== =========================< Results - A Trick of Faith >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemina Ausa 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Chiro Sandals 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Pearl 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Pearl 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> Pearl has posed.
It is not a good start to the approach.
Gravity is definitely weird around here. It is also not a hundred percent obvious. Pearl attempts to dig her claws in, but is not able to get a hold. She sails past, only for gravity to shift under her as she moves forward, and she is slammed roughly into the stairs. It takes her a few very rough moments to find the sweet spot to the gravity shift.
Lanval has similar problems. The forces of gravity DO lift him up, face first, into the stairwell, before starting to drop him again. Like Pearl, it takes a few tries to find the right part where it switches over.
Lemina actually lands rather smoothly thanks to her magical footwear, but she has to wait for the other two to make it through. It takes some time.
DG: Lemina Ausa has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Eschereal Qualities *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The architecture of this enormous chamber defies explanation.
You emerge from a simple rectangular doorway, on a white marble terrace with
a stair going upwards and a stair going downwards to your left and your
right - and yet the platforms they connect to are not horizontal. You have
to step off the stairs in a way which would cause you to be walking on a
wall. Other stairways jag off from them at insane angles. They ascend to
planes which would cause you to walk on the ceiling, or extend to another
wall going a different way. Even more confusingly, stairs that go up
sometimes leave you at a lower level than where you started. Doors that seem
to go to one place often take you to blank walls... which you can then walk
up. Every single surface here has its own gravity field, and you can walk on
virtually any part of the bizarre geometry.
If you can make sense of it all. And if, once you've figured out the absurd
contortions of space and time going on here, you can find the door.
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
Oh, Lemina thinks, faintly reminded of the Nameless Spire, as she looks up the stairwell. It's going to be one of *these*. She takes a deep breath through her nose as she waits for her compatriots to jump up with her.
Once they *are* all up there, though, she starts to actually head up those stairs... and it's worse than she feared.
She ascends the stairs, and is deposited... about ten feet 'below' (relative to their frame of reference) Pearl and Lanval. "... Hmm. That's pretty mega-weird," she says, doubling back. "I think... we have to, like -- make a map of this." She kicks the wall in mild frustration -- and promptly finds that it is its own, gravity-possessing surface.
"... All right," Lemina says, with faint resignation, putting on her reading glasses. "I guess... we're going to have to do this the slow way."
DG: Lemina Ausa has used her Tool Reading Glasses toward her party's challenge, Eschereal Qualities.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval, being a water elemental and generally compelled to come to rest where water itself may - which tends to be the ground - finds the situation novel but also kind of disturbing when he goes up, then down, then eventually back up. He kind of wants to lay on the ceiling for a while to be absolutely sure that this is what is happening.
"Sho, I'm thinkiiiiiin'~" These are big, huge, heavy words for someone who technically does not have a brain, as Lanval comes seated at the edge of where the ten foot shift in elevation would occur, "'m good at falling." THEY ALL ARE THEY ARE SUBJECT TO GRAVITY like what was just said, no brain.
"Shooooooooo 'm gonna go fallin' fer a while!" Lanval declares as he puts on those dumb mood-ruining novelty glasses, because this makes perfect sense to him. He rolls along down... aside... above... the steps like one big pratfall, with all the grace of a descending raindrop navigating the environment en route to its final resting place on the ground.
This doesn't help the mental mapmaking process much if he's just going to tumble about all of it.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Amber Tinted Glasses toward his party's challenge, Eschereal Qualities.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Oh good. Impossible geometry. Pearl just stares at the sight beyond the door. "Why would anyone design this?" She asks, frustration clear in her voice. And then she pauses, realising she knows someone who would design this and makes a mental note to make sure they never find this terrible place. And they're only just through the front door.
As Lemina starts to lead the way, Pearl looks around and tries to get her head around the dungeon ahead of them. This is well and truly outside her expertise. She looks at the nearest hybrid wall-floor, and digs the claws on the end of her gloves into it. Not to gain traction, this time, but to leave a marker to show that they passed this way. It may be difficult to track when you can walk on any surface, but it's something she can actually do here.
"What-" Pearl manages to get off before Lanval jumps off recklessly. THIS is the Seraph who tried to kill the Red Priestess? THIS is the threat to Althena?
Pearl sighs, again with frustration, and starts trudging after Lemina.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eschereal Qualities.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Eschereal Qualities *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The architecture of this enormous chamber defies explanation.
You emerge from a simple rectangular doorway, on a white marble terrace with
a stair going upwards and a stair going downwards to your left and your
right - and yet the platforms they connect to are not horizontal. You have
to step off the stairs in a way which would cause you to be walking on a
wall. Other stairways jag off from them at insane angles. They ascend to
planes which would cause you to walk on the ceiling, or extend to another
wall going a different way. Even more confusingly, stairs that go up
sometimes leave you at a lower level than where you started. Doors that seem
to go to one place often take you to blank walls... which you can then walk
up. Every single surface here has its own gravity field, and you can walk on
virtually any part of the bizarre geometry.
If you can make sense of it all. And if, once you've figured out the absurd
contortions of space and time going on here, you can find the door.
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
==========================<* Luna Temple - Round 2 *>=========================== =======================< Results - Eschereal Qualities >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Amber Tinted Glasses 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemina Ausa 15 --(5)--> 20 Fail Reading Glasses 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Pearl 10 --(20)--> 30 Pass Conditions: Reckless(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Pearl 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> Lemina Ausa has posed.
Lemina stares in slight horror at the Seraph as he starts to roll along. And rolls... and rolls... and sure enough, manages to roll to the exit. It's not, strictly speaking, the most efficient route; if you're *walking* it -- as Pearl and Lemina have to -- it's actually among the worse routes, due to making relatively minimal use of the soft-teleportation features of the doors.
But it's better than trying to navigate this hellscape, so Lemina cautiously follows the Lanval-proven route rather than try to innovate.
DG: Seraph Lanval has drawn a new Challenge.
===================================================<* Luna Temple *>====================================================
========================================<* CHALLENGE - Serene State of Motion *>========================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
A soft, shimmering music fills this circular chamber, humming like
crystalline chimes, vibrating like harpstrings. Beyond the white haze that
hovers beyond the ring of pillars, concealing entrance and exit from view, a
circular, open floor dominates the area, tiled in an interlocking pattern of
white and black marble hexagons.
And moving across it, as if drawn by the ethereal music, clouds of
shimmering blue butterflies flutter, each composed of a subtly glowing
energy. They whirl themselves into shapes like men and women, and they move
across the floor, fluttering in the semblance of exquisite dances. Human
figures composed of thousands of magical butterflies of light dance in
patterns that match only the ever-changing pulse of the music. They move in
serene circles around a series of hovering orbs of light, arrayed around a
single statue: A great gold crescent. Periodically, the crescent pulses with
light, and a butterfly dancer will vanish.
The only way out of here seems to be to move to the music.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval sits at the... let's just say 'the end' of the nonsense with one lens cracked out of the dumb novelty glasses. This happens all the time. What's more novel, more interesting, is how the room seems to lack a character for 'the ground' or 'the way they came in from,' all disappearing into a white, ethereal haze. There is a sensation that they're standing (or lying down) on something level, but something dream-like. A dream-like sensation that coalesces into something a bit more coherent, to a ring of pillars and an interlocking floor of hexagons made of marble, white and black.
Music - soft, distant, serene - fills the air, as though a harp were quietly being played from somewhere unseen and unheard.
Something seen and heard are the fluttering wings of blue butterflies of light that shimmer into existence, gathering together into shapes of... people? People that are dancing, with striking and graceful choreography that is not just the fanciful coincidence of butterflies flying a certain way, to the music that seems so distant and peaceful, in circular motions around hovering orbs of light about a statue of a gold crescent.
Sometimes, the crescent pulses with light, and a dancer's form disperses.
"...Shong 'n dance," Lanval says far too calmly for someone who just pratfalled his way here, sitting on up and taking out a fancy-looking smoking pipe that instead produces bubbles. "Mmm. Ish that how they shaw the world above...?" Contemplatively, he takes a long drag off a bubble pipe, which is very silly.
Bubbles fill the air. There is a quality to the way the butterflies and lights come together that can be hard to fully perceive. For some reason, the motions they make are in much, much greater clarity reflecting off the bubbles.
Huh.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Bubble Pipe toward his party's challenge, Serene State of Motion.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The most horrifying part of this whole routine is that Lanval's approach works. Pearl's brief attempt at markings is disrupted by just... following the flow, so to speak. The last marking she attempts is less a marking and more just trying to crush a chunk of a pillar with her bare hands.
tShe is not great at controlling her anger.
And once again, the dungeon throws a situation for which she has no preparation: Dancing. That's the sort of thing that is not only banned on Lunar, but also one of those frivolous things that people with her upbringing are expected to not waste time with.
And Lanval is continuing to be ridiculous, which doesn't help Pearl's frustration with the whole affair. She is starting to think that, just maybe, this was a bad idea. Too late now, though.
"So are we expected to simply follow the butterflies?" She asks, trying to make sense of the dance floor. She grumbles, but then starts to try and simply follow the locations, if not the precise steps, of the butterfly dancers.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Serene State of Motion.
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
Lemina fixates on the music for a moment -- music isn't something she knows from a *study* perspective, though she's starting to get the sense that she really ought to, judging from her numerous experiences in ruins where this sort of thing proves important.
She is not an especially big fan of the dancing butterflies, though; that puts her a little *too* in mind of the Nameless Spire, especially when they turn into people. Lemina does not dance -- that's *definitely* not her style of engagement with music.
So she stubbornly does not; she attempts to just move along with the dancers *without* dancing, like a brat. Nodding to Pearl, she says, "That seems like it's the case!" extremely helpfully.
DG: Lemina Ausa has used her Tool Chiro Sandals toward her party's challenge, Serene State of Motion.
===================================================<* Luna Temple *>====================================================
========================================<* CHALLENGE - Serene State of Motion *>========================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
A soft, shimmering music fills this circular chamber, humming like
crystalline chimes, vibrating like harpstrings. Beyond the white haze that
hovers beyond the ring of pillars, concealing entrance and exit from view, a
circular, open floor dominates the area, tiled in an interlocking pattern of
white and black marble hexagons.
And moving across it, as if drawn by the ethereal music, clouds of
shimmering blue butterflies flutter, each composed of a subtly glowing
energy. They whirl themselves into shapes like men and women, and they move
across the floor, fluttering in the semblance of exquisite dances. Human
figures composed of thousands of magical butterflies of light dance in
patterns that match only the ever-changing pulse of the music. They move in
serene circles around a series of hovering orbs of light, arrayed around a
single statue: A great gold crescent. Periodically, the crescent pulses with
light, and a butterfly dancer will vanish.
The only way out of here seems to be to move to the music.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
==============================================<* Luna Temple - Round 3 *>=============================================== ==========================================< Results - Serene State of Motion >========================================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pearl 25 --(0)--> 25 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Lanval 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Bubble Pipe 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lemina Ausa 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Chiro Sandals 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Pearl 30 --(20)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Reckless(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse ===================================================< Dream Chasers >====================================================
DG: The party led by Pearl 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> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It does appear to be that what is ultimately being 'checked' is where one's feet fall, among the hexagons, and that is an easy enough task to follow among the more corporeal members of the expedition team. The Water Seraph stays seated for a while in his corner of the chamber, watching the other two go about it how they will. He can feel the increased anger and irritation in the one among them he's less familiar with, contrasting the mega-flippancy of Lemina as they step the right steps in terms of where their feet fall.
"Mmmm... it'sh kinda shomethin', they'd imagine life up there were like it," Lanval comments as he rises and promptly staggers and stumbles the correct way after them, not quite matching the bodily movements of the butterflies themselves but otherwise letting himself go along with it as the three of them maneuver around the great crescent statue of golden hue, towards whatever lies beyond.
DG: Pearl has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Lunar Bunny's Spice *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
In the centre of this colonnaded chamber, a large white marble statue sits.
It depicts a gigantic rabbit, seated, carrying a mortar and a pestle.
Out of the mortar, though, jump several creatures. They're almost as tall as
a man and resemble nothing so much as rainbow snakes with butterfly wings.
They shimmer as they emerge, but their attacks are not beautiful at all:
They hurl themselves at you, attempting to either bite or spit venom,
depending on whether you're fighting them in close or from a distance.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl's attempt at following the steps is uneasy, but it gets her through with relatively few mistakes. Eventually making it to the other side, Pearl's attitude continues to get surlier. "I hope whatever this temple is protecting is worth the effort." She mutters, as she takes the lead again, only to stop as she sees what appears to be... a giant mortar and pestle. With a giant rabbit holding the pestle. "What in the world is-"
Fortunately, this is interrupted by a number of angry, colourful serpents burst forth from the mortar, their long bodies held aloft by shimmering butterfly wings. Not a second passes before these creatures suddenly attack, some diving to bite, others spitting acid.
This is much more to the masked woman's fancy, striking out with her claws at the creatures diving out at her. Her attacks are somewhat brutal, when they connect. She has no qualms about severing wings or slicing along the creatures stomachs. Under her mask, she is grinning cruelly.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lunar Bunny's Spice.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
For Lanval, who is misunderstanding what the temple actually is, finds the whole thing kind of quaint but sweet. The people of this world must have imagined the distant world to be an idyllic, quiet, peaceful little place where butterflies play to some distant, beautiful music. To look at Filgaia as it is today, to consider what it has suffered, one would imagine the imagination would instead be tinged with fear and trepidation, that there would be waaaaaay more threatening depictions.
"Ha ha ha! What'sh the rabbit even doin'," Lanval asks the inanimate statue. The mortar responds with 'the rabbit is carrying SO MANY FLYING SNAKES seriously come have a look' and the mortar is showing its flying snakes who are not at all friendly, inviting, serene, or anything good. Well, they're colorful and pretty, so there's that.
Lanval sits down and withdraws a bottle full of shiny white liquid - a Lunarian Holy Bottle, naturally - pours some of its contents into the gourd, and then whirls the gourd around the attached rope to spray monster-repelling sanctified water pretty much everywhere, to try and set a no man's land (...no monster's land) to stop them from crossing, and - more interestingly - snipe down the spit venom with the whirling water.
Somehow the idea that there would be this suddenly threatening thing seems kind of deeply upsetting and hurtful. He knows they don't keep snakes in mortars up there, come on, why would anyone do that...
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Holy Bottle toward his party's challenge, Lunar Bunny's Spice.
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
"*Right?*" Lemina shoots over to Pearl, reflecting, "They usually do, but sometimes it's just, like, pottery or something. It's really hard to find a buyer for that kind of stuff if you aren't, like, mega-connected... it's kind of a pain." She lets out a small sigh, saying, "Anyway -- let's just keep going." She stays to the rear of the group, with a quick glance to Lanval as he asks what the rabbit's doing.
"... Apparently, the rabbit's trying to kill us," she offers, with a slight grimace. Fortunately, she's near the rear of the group, which gives her plenty of time to map out the ideal spell for the situation.
Which is to say, she starts blowing everything up. When you have a hammer, a lot of problems look like nails.
DG: Lemina Ausa has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lunar Bunny's Spice.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Lunar Bunny's Spice *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
In the centre of this colonnaded chamber, a large white marble statue sits.
It depicts a gigantic rabbit, seated, carrying a mortar and a pestle.
Out of the mortar, though, jump several creatures. They're almost as tall as
a man and resemble nothing so much as rainbow snakes with butterfly wings.
They shimmer as they emerge, but their attacks are not beautiful at all:
They hurl themselves at you, attempting to either bite or spit venom,
depending on whether you're fighting them in close or from a distance.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
==========================<* Luna Temple - Round 4 *>=========================== =======================< Results - Lunar Bunny's Spice >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 25 --(0)--> 25 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Holy Bottle 2 Combat Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemina Ausa 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Pearl 50 --(20)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Injure(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Pearl 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> Pearl has posed.
The snakes swarm, and are rebuffed with force. Magical explosions and varieties of Lunarian kung fu are unleashed upon the creatures. A few bites and some acid spittle gets past the defenses of the group, but ultimately, they are unable to fell the intruders to the ruins. Eventually, they lie on the ground, unconscious or dead. Or possibly magically exploded.
For good measure, Pearl kicks the pestle held by the rabbit statue as she passes it.
"Well then," Pearl starts, taking a mental note of Lemina's behaviour, "we'll just have to hope there's something in here we can sell easily." Greed seems a good motivator for any drifter, if she is to continue the act. Still, she takes note of Lanval. She had written him off as an incompetent drunk, but his combat skills seem legitimate. Something to keep in mind, at least. "What does it matter? She finally responds to the comment of 'what the rabbit is doing'. "It provided an obstacle, it no longer does. Let's keep moving."
DG: Lemina Ausa has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
================<* CHALLENGE - Whispers in the Darkest Night *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You walk through the exit to the previous room together.
Each of you walks into this one alone and in near-total darkness.
Somehow, you've been separated from the rest of your party. As you look
down, a faint glow hovering around you allows you to see your hands, but not
much else. You can make out no other glows. You can see no other signs of
light. You can feel a floor under you, and when you move across it, each
step rings out with an echoing tick of footwear on marble.
But there are the sounds. Each footstep, each whisper, each shout, carries
and echoes, as though through an endlessly vast chamber. When one of you
moves or calls out, you can hear each other's voices, as if from a long way
off. They mingle with other sounds - whispers that you can't quite trace the
source of or understand the words of, fluttering sounds like butterfly
wings, the very faint shimmer of windchimes.
With care, you can navigate towards one another by trying to make out the
sounds of friends from the ambient whispers of the endless dark.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
"I agree!" Lemina says, helpfully. Now starting to verge on exhausted, she proceeds forward.
Despite having been utterly certain she could smell the alcohol on Lanval a second ago, when Lemina steps into the next room, she finds herself... alone. Still wearing her reading glasses, she pops them up and down a few times, blinking as she concludes that,no, it's not just dark, she's *really* alone.
A theatrical sigh follows. It's *noticeably* loud.
She starts forward, her footfalls making a distinct clack as she calls, "Hello?" amid the endless darkness.
DG: Lemina Ausa has used her Tool Reading Glasses toward her party's challenge, Whispers in the Darkest Night.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval finds himself - as do the others - alone. Complete darkn-- well, not complete. He can see his hands, thanks to a faint glow around him. There's nothing else other than that...
A tinge of fear and worry, greater than a tinge, fills the water elemental. It is another uncomfortable brush with inevitability - all the mortals he's been having a lot of fun with, lately, will one day not be around. This deposit within the darkness, however fatalistic this track of mind goes unexpectedly, is a stark reminder of this.
He hears Lemina's sigh, and her 'hello?'
He suddenly feels a lot better. He has no idea where to go, but he can hear them, so he imagines once any of them know which way to go they'll yell 'hey, this way,' or something, so he does something else to pass the time.
He raises and lowers his hands. It feels like the scant illumination follows his hands more than anything. This is kind of weird.
Then he puts back on the stupid novelty glasses - even though it's down a lens - and then...
One eye opens half the way, and he can feel his smile widen. Oh, wow, this looks neat. He starts to laugh jovially at the novelty of how it looks, his laugh carrying through the darkness like a constant pinging beacon of... um, laughing.
And being really amused by how one's hands look, or something.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Amber Tinted Glasses toward his party's challenge, Whispers in the Darkest Night.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
A few moments ago, Pearl was sure that her... 'fellow adventurers' were close by. It becomes rather obvious that now this is not the case. Instead, she is surrounded by darkness. Pearl's first instinct is to be as silent as possible, while she waits for her eyes to adjust to the light level.
It rapidly becomes clear that this is not going to happen.
Instead, she is alerted to the sound of Lemina's call, from seemingly far away. Fine, something to follow then. She starts moving, still as quietly as possible, toward the voice. Lanval's laugh echoes out next, providing another thing to focus on. If she moves towards the midpoint of the two, she should be able to find them both soon enough. And so Pearl stalks through the darkness.
Like she was hunting down a target.
This means she is not contributing much to the detection thing, as all her instincts go against that. It's really not helpful.
DG: Pearl has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Whispers in the Darkest Night.
===============================<* Luna Temple *>================================
================<* CHALLENGE - Whispers in the Darkest Night *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You walk through the exit to the previous room together.
Each of you walks into this one alone and in near-total darkness.
Somehow, you've been separated from the rest of your party. As you look
down, a faint glow hovering around you allows you to see your hands, but not
much else. You can make out no other glows. You can see no other signs of
light. You can feel a floor under you, and when you move across it, each
step rings out with an echoing tick of footwear on marble.
But there are the sounds. Each footstep, each whisper, each shout, carries
and echoes, as though through an endlessly vast chamber. When one of you
moves or calls out, you can hear each other's voices, as if from a long way
off. They mingle with other sounds - whispers that you can't quite trace the
source of or understand the words of, fluttering sounds like butterfly
wings, the very faint shimmer of windchimes.
With care, you can navigate towards one another by trying to make out the
sounds of friends from the ambient whispers of the endless dark.
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
==========================<* Luna Temple - Round 5 *>=========================== ==================< Results - Whispers in the Darkest Night >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearl 25 --(28)--> 53 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 20 --(28)--> 48 Fail Amber Tinted Glasses 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemina Ausa 30 --(28)--> 58 Fail Reading Glasses 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Pearl 70 --(10)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Injure(1)|Stupify(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Pearl 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> Lemina Ausa has posed.
No one actually manages to connect with anyone else here. Pearl's not making enough noise; Lanval's a little too amused by the glowing in his hands; Lemina has never once listened to others in her life and has no intention of starting now.
As a result, everyone makes it to the exit of this particular room alone. Poor Pearl, who is stalking the others by sound, has the easiest time of it -- she can hear both of the others cease to be in the darkness at the same time, and has that angle to work from, which is better than nothing.
... It's still really, really rough.
DG: Seraph Lanval has drawn a new Challenge.
===================================================<* Luna Temple *>====================================================
=========================================<* CHALLENGE - Moonlight Butterfly *>==========================================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
Tiny motes of light drift this this pillar-lined room, high-ceilinged and
spacious. They drift like pollen, each emitting a faintly-heard sound like a
plucked harpstring, vibrating endlessly in the air. Together, they weave a
somnolescent chorus of soothing sound. Some drift slowly upwards; some drift
slowly downwards.
Their source hovers high above the room. Drifting above all of you is the
immense shape of a shimmering blue butterfly. Seemingly made of light, the
immense butterfly sheds those motes of light from its wings like spores.
And they dull the senses. They cloud the mind. Just walking amongst them is
enough to evoke a powerful urge to go to sleep. It's all you can do to keep
your head from slumping and your eyelids from sagging. The urge to yawn is
overpowering. Even holding up your weapons and focusing on your spells seems
too much of an effort.
Somehow, you will have to overcome the sleep spell and bring down the
butterfly if you are to avoid sleeping here for all eternity.
=Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Stupify==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
However they navigate the darkness (or don't, in at least one stand-out case), the three of them will catch the tiniest motes of light that tease the sight and guide them towards a space whose character is easier to discern if only just so. Enough to make out pillars, a high ceiling, just a vast open space. As any of the wispy sparkles drift nearby, they emit a faint noise like a harp being played, the vibrating sound carrying through the air.
More motes join this chorus of a peaceful, inviting sound within the boundless dark.
The eyes may soon train upward, to the very sight of a blue butterfly who shimmers like the uncertainty of a peaceful dream, made of light. With the flap of their wings, more motes of light fill the space, only affording a modicum of clarity of sight before the senses start to dull.
Fatigue. The urge to just up and fall asleep. The butterfly makes no overt aggressive gestures beyond increasing the saturation of these motes.
"Mmmm." Lanval grunts. He'd like to rest, sure, he does a lot of resting. But he hasn't really caught back up with Lemina or the other one. So he knocks back a drink, as he does, and tries to continue staggering along.
"It'sh a pretty butterfly." Come to think of it, he saw others a lot like this up in that secluded forest clearing back up on Lunar, with the Celesdue statue. Huh. Maybe this is a Celesdue temple then. That makes a bit more sense.
"Do ya wanna drink? Huh? Ha ha... it'sh fiiiiine, friend of them'sh a friend of mine... heyyy, c'mon," says Lanval to the much larger light-butterfly who is much more intent on helping everyone come to sleep. He tries to hold a bottle up to invite it closer. It doesn't. He can't really gauge how far away it is. He staggers forward.
"I inshisht~ ha ha ha!" Lanval accidentally throws an arm up high enough that he splashes a lot of Holy Bottle water juice at the thing. "...Ooopsh..."
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Holy Bottle toward his party's challenge, Moonlight Butterfly.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Emerging from near total darkness into a room lit by thousands of tiny lights is, probably, an improvement. When Pearl emerges last to find the other two, she is caught offguard by the sight before her. It is remarkable, and to other eyes, perhaps beautiful. Someone more artistically inclined could make a beautiful piece from this.
For Pearl, it is another thing that needs to die, which is perhaps beneficial in this situation.
She sees Lanval make his drunken introductions to the butterfly, and growls under her breath. "Maybe try treating this as a threat instead of a drinking partner." She states, her brief grudging respect for Lanval's fighting ability fleeing from her mind. As the sleep spell threatens to overtake her, Pearl pulls something from her belt- a smoke bomb- and hurls it at the creature. With luck, it should obscure the creatures senses and even the playing field a little.
She can already feel the magic starting to sap her strengths, her limbs becoming heavy. So before she becomes too weak to move, Pearl launches herself skyward. She doesn't seem to think this will be an impediment to Lemina's magic. Or maybe she just expects to be caught in the explosions. After all, it's what she would do if the situation were reversed.
As Pearl closes, she tries to drive her claws through one of the wings to bring the butterfly spiralling down, and then to rip and tear at whatever she can get her hands on. The knowledge of a time limit serves to make her fight even more furiously, while she still can.
DG: Pearl has used her Tool Striking Shadow toward her party's challenge, Moonlight Butterfly.
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
Lemina looks up at the butterfly almost immediately upon entering the room; one of dungeoneering's truths is that the longer you do it, the more inclined you are to look up. It's a reflex that isn't often rewarded, but when it is, it's *really* rewarded. She spots it immediately, of course, and unfortunately, well, Lemina weighs about a hundred pounds and doesn't like to work out.
She's *really* tired. It's almost immediate. She takes a moment to breathe, and to roll her shoulders a bit in hopes of shaking a cobweb or two out; nothing's really doing. So, naturally, she does what she's inclined to when presented with just about any large butterfly, or indeed, much of anything at all:
She starts chanting until explosions happen.
Actually getting the words out is a little difficult, though; she can feel her tongue not *quite* wanting to respond correctly, feel her focus fading just a little. But at least she tries.
DG: Lemina Ausa has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Moonlight Butterfly.
===================================================<* Luna Temple *>====================================================
=========================================<* CHALLENGE - Moonlight Butterfly *>==========================================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
Tiny motes of light drift this this pillar-lined room, high-ceilinged and
spacious. They drift like pollen, each emitting a faintly-heard sound like a
plucked harpstring, vibrating endlessly in the air. Together, they weave a
somnolescent chorus of soothing sound. Some drift slowly upwards; some drift
slowly downwards.
Their source hovers high above the room. Drifting above all of you is the
immense shape of a shimmering blue butterfly. Seemingly made of light, the
immense butterfly sheds those motes of light from its wings like spores.
And they dull the senses. They cloud the mind. Just walking amongst them is
enough to evoke a powerful urge to go to sleep. It's all you can do to keep
your head from slumping and your eyelids from sagging. The urge to yawn is
overpowering. Even holding up your weapons and focusing on your spells seems
too much of an effort.
Somehow, you will have to overcome the sleep spell and bring down the
butterfly if you are to avoid sleeping here for all eternity.
=Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Stupify==========================================
==============================================<* Luna Temple - Round 6 *>=============================================== ===========================================< Results - Moonlight Butterfly >============================================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pearl 53 --(3)--> 56 Pass Striking Shadow 4 Combat Effects: None ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Lanval 48 --(3)--> 51 Pass Holy Bottle 2 Combat Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lemina Ausa 58 --(3)--> 61 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Pearl 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Stupify(2)|Tire(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===================================================< Dream Chasers >====================================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Pearl has successfully explored Luna Temple!
===================================================<* Luna Temple *>====================================================
===========================================<* CHALLENGE - Phantom History *>============================================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
The room you find yourself in is dark and quiet, save for a dimly-lit area
of pale marble flooring. You can see neither walls nor a ceiling here. The
prize waiting for you is total silence.
Until filmy shapes begin to appear. Tiny blue butterflies. They drift lazily
through the air, but soon quicken, drawing out faint, glowing blue lines in
the air - and within seconds they've sketched out a hazy scene for you. A
deep forest, shimmering with blue.
Into that forest, a figure walks tentatively, also composed of thin
filaments of blue light. It's a man, that's for certain, with long hair and
a cloak patterned with bold geometric patterns. He's holding something in
his hand.
From within the treelines, more filmy blue figures appear. Their features
are hard to make out, save for angular eyes and a few braids - and the fact
that there are monsters accompanying them. The first figure stops and holds
his hands up...
...And the scene fades into so much soft blue light. Everything goes silent
again. It is just you in the room now.
What was that about?
You should @mail Catenna about your discovery!
=Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The mortals among them have the right of it right then and there - a much more intricate understanding of how much danger they're actually in. Pearl chides the drunkard spirit and goes about brutalizing the butterfly which is presently recoiling from being splashed with Holy Bottle water, as the masked spelunker just utterly tears the thing apart. It is somehow visceral, but bloodless, watching its essence be torn apart.
Lemina, with a discipline that exists within her spellcasting no matter how carefree and shallow she may seem, goes about exploding the shorn light butterfly bits to even smaller bits, until the collective effort renders the offending blue light butterfly into a countless number of motes of light that all forcibly scatter. Scatter as in fleeing from destruction...?
...Or instead scatter, as if to make way for what should catch the eyes, as they all feel the marble flooring underneath. No walls, no ceiling, and only silence.
Filmy shapes appear. Tiny blue butterflies appear, doing as they do before they pick up speed and draw out lines of glowing blue. Their work is immaculate, for the time it takes to them to make it.
A deep forest, as blue as the butterflies themselves. Within, a figure composed of this same blue walks, a long-haired man in a cloak with geometric patterns, holding something indeterminate.
From within the drawn treelines, more blue figures can be seen - features vague, aside from angular eyes and braids... and creatures accompanying them. The first figure stands with their hands held upwards...
...
It all fades away, leaving the three of them in the room.
Nothing of material worth appears to be left, other than their very lives.
"...Can't shay I know any of 'em," but all three of them are from Lunar, so the water spirit's almost certainly not alone on that sentiment as he strokes his chin.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Killing things is one of the few skills Pearl has. Surprisingly, she has not executed them as much as she'd like since coming to Filgaia. The butterfly makes up for lost time.
When she finally lands, she sees the shapes form, and watches it, slowly. She also does not recognise any of the figures, but she doesn't feel it necessary to point that out. Still, she tries to take it in. "...What is this?" She asks aloud, even if she isn't likely going to get any answers straight away. Humans controlling monsters? Well, humanoids, at least. Or are they somehow coexisting? Without context, however, it's nothing more than a strange show.
"I don't believe we can sell this." She states, after a while. So much for that.
Still, that was not the big discovery here. Not for Pearl, at least. The real item of value is the knowledge that, in at least one case, the Fiends will not be that hard to isolate after all. And that is something Pearl can use for herself very easily.
<Pose Tracker> Lemina Ausa has posed.
Lemina spends a good few seconds lying on the floor as the butterfly starts to disappear. Maybe she'll just... hang out here for a while. She knows that that's probably the worst idea of those available, though, so she starts to sit up, and --
-- sees the figures. Immediately, she's on guard a little; nothing materializes, though. At least, nothing of any threat level. As they start to disappear, Lemina blinks a few times, and tries to figure out how she even feels about the vague knowledge of... *something*, they've just encountered.
She settles for, "... yeah, can't sell that. Spooky."