2019-10-13: Strange Bedfellows
- Log: Strange Bedfellows
- Cast: Yue Rohay, Avril Vent Fleur, Shalune Amira, Dean Stark, Kaguya, Rebecca Streisand
- Where: Macalania
- Date: October 13, 2019
- Summary: A ground of humans and small group of Veruni -- Avril included -- land in the shrine of water beneath Macalania Temple. With little other choice, they set out to explore where they've ended up, though their alliance is perhaps a somewhat fraught one.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
An insidious war has come to Macalania. A free-for-all, between the forces of the Guard and Veruni; Yevon and the Al Bhed; the Drifters and Odessa. Then, in stark contrast, a wedding announcement reception -- and in the midst of that, a second wave of assault from Odessa's special forces, Cocytus; then the arrival of Sin and the consequent defence by Lombardia, even if that wasn't enough... there was Solaris.
And now they have fallen, one way or another. Fallen--
Fallen into the frozen depths below.
...
...
blblblbb...
...
...
It's ridiculous, when Yue stops to think about it. Since this morning she has fought, in the approximation of:
* Acacia (and taught her how to use her Ether while also getting shot at)
* Random errant Yevon monks and Al Bhed troops
* An Odessa battalion, including a Gear, non-lethal
* A thoroughly chuffed and buzzed Elhaym van Houten, who was touching her hair
* Pursuant to that, a really nasty glass of champagne, in hindsight
* Several Sinspawn
* Sin itself, for a short while
But now she can't even think about that much, because her lungs are full of water and try as she might, she can't tell up from down and regardless of Lily Keil's medications and Amaterasu's healing both, fighting Sin kind of Does Things to your wounds.
... oh, dear minder ...
She might die here. After her people left her behind for another world to die in flame, so long ago... she is now going to die in frost and water, in another world.
The irony is not lost on her.
As her consciousness begins to slip...
She vaguely spots the extremely round shadow of a Certain Old Golem Friend swimming down for her.
... promme ...?
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
She's falling.
Again, she thinks, her gaze up towards the vanishing points of light above. Soon she'll hit the water beneath. It's only a matter of time.
The only reason she even came here was because there had been -- as there had been so often -- the feeling she must be here.
She'd walked into a warzone and come through unscathed.
She'd made some new friends (?).
And then...
And then just as she'd reached the door to the temple -- just in time to witness the chaos inside.
Just in time to seen the floor light up with the glow.
Just in time for them -- Solaris -- to vanish.
Lydia, with them.
She wasn't in time to do anything but watch.
To do anything but realize, too late, what was about to happen in the place she was in--
And everything had gone to pieces anyway.
And she'd fallen.
She's falling.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune hadn't had much time to react when she dived after Lunata on the back of the Little Dipper, and the only thing she did have the chance to really do was accelerate, downwards and towards the undead girl. She'd thought she was prepared for the rush of the water hitting her, and was ready for it to be cold - but not to be absolutely freezing, nor having the surface of the water hit her like a ton of bricks.
Sheer momentum had gotten her to the point where she could grab for Lunata's hand, and pull the girl up towards her - but with most of her breath already lost from the impact and the Dipper shorted out, hauling the other girl back up to the surface hadn't seemed like it was anything she could manage even with her occasional bouts of determined strength.
She's still trying, at least, kicking her legs against the water as she tries to drag against the pull of Lunata's dead weight and the bulk of her pack, full of memories she can't bear to let go. Part of her really wishes she'd planned this out more, or copied the Minder's suit or something--
--and the rest of her swivels dumbly in the water, watching through squinted eyes as a lurking shadow in the water resolves itself not into a fiend, but a friend. One with big floppy waterwings and an oversize snorkel.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean had come here chasing after Avril--and Rebecca is no doubt here chasing after Dean--so Dean missed out on quite a few things that Avril was just in time for. He, himself, was in time for the collapse of the bridge, and so found himself falling too. Falling towards water.
He still mostly can't swim.
He at least can manage to hold his breath for a little while, but the impact with the water bursts most of it out of him. He would panic... except then he spots a Large Friend. One that's equipped for underwater adventures, no less.
"Hmmgdphdhrprorhrmphhh!!" he utters, bubbles bubbling, as they do, out his mouth during his ill-timed gushing and full-armed waving.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Kaguya, too, is falling. She went for the temple--she did exactly as she promised--and then... explosions. There are things she missed, things she heard from people on the way through. ...Not a ton, naturally. But along the way she decided it was for the best to abandon the finery, to pick up some things on the way, and she's wearing a much too large cloak as more or less a poncho. And here... Well. She's falling into the water. She feels dizzy. She feels... something. And--
Oh, right. That's cold. Because water is terrible.
"Blrbrbrbrlrb!!"
Kaguya complains nonverbally as she goes into the water, and starts fishing around her things before--"Blrbrb?"
Dean!! Kaguya makes a face--and reaches out for the boy in front of her. "Blrbrblrb!! :( Blrrrrrb..."
Where's that damn underwater breather????
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca too is falling. She's just falling a lot more gracefully.
And slowly. The reason for this is because every few seconds.
Thup. Thup. Thup.
Rebecca is a human shaped blur in a controlled descent downwards. Every so often the trajectory of her descent changes from her making contact with a portal that she's formed upon falling debris.
Also she's a bit of a show off.
When she finally makes it to the bottom, she lands on her feet on a stretch of ice, arms stretched out as if she were actually being observed by an audience.
And then immediately breaks off into a panicked run one way then the other - trying to pick up the shape of Dean.
"Dean-? Dean!"
And then she spies his telltale red scarf in the watery depths.
"Gosh darnit Dean! This is why I wanted you to learn how to swim so you could avoid-"
And then she sees someone else in there - grabbing onto him. "-Kaguya?"
-=-=-
Not long after, Kaguya hears an ice floe screaming at her from nearby.
Yes screaming. It sounds like a very loud.
"BLRBBBBLLRBBBBB!"
The ice floe has an arm sprouting out of it, beckoning her close to the circular portal like shape that has an image of open sky on the other side.
And Rebecca removes her head, gasping for air, "COLD COLD COLD COLD COLD!"
And then she plunges her head back through the portal.
"BLRBBLLLRBBBBB!"
There's a lot of that going around today apparently, as Rebecca gesticulates, pantomiming for her to come closer.
She's a few seconds away from swimming out there and just doing it herself but she'd rather not have to fight the two of them flailing if Kaguya can do it on her own.
Saving one person from drowning in the water is bad enough - if it's two then this is going to hurt.
DG: A party led by Yue Rohay is now entering Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Bubbled From Harm *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You fall. Fall, fall, fall... into the shadowy, sapphire depths of Macalania Lake. Perhaps it was the unending numbers of Odessa's rank and file, filtrating through portals in endless waves. Perhaps it was the tidal wave you scarce outran at the apex of the battle between Lombardia, Queen of the Metal Dragons, and Sin itself. Perhaps the fierce fighting in Macalania Temple has sent you plummeting down to the depths below. Whatever the case may be-- You do not meet a frigid, wet end in this abyss. (BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKOJbeymd4M ) There is a blue light from below. Slowly, but comfortably, a round sphere of water cloaks itself around you. You find yourself dry and with air to breathe, as you descend to the structure of an ancient shrine hidden underneath the frozen surface of Macalania Lake. The bubbles are pliant and sturdy, but impede your movements a little. Try to coax yourself to float down towards the shrine... and keep tabs of who you're with-- So that you do not risk losing each other again. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Portal Guns toward her party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm. DG: Yue Rohay has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm. DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Formula AM-22X toward her party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm. DG: Dean Stark has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm. DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Sea Medium toward her party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Trapped inside the bubble that forms around her shortly afterwards is a bedragged and soaked figure in a rainbow of colours - there's a solid mass of wet pink hair hanging around her face, a soggy white robe that falls somewhere between that of a swordsman and that of a summoner, a vivid sky-blue skirt, and an unpleasant amount of oozing black speading across its folds from the corpse on her lap.*
One tentative experiment later and Shalune's now sat up against the side of the bubble with a hand in Lunata's hair, half of the Little Dipper pushed through the filmy surface in a way physics should absolutely not allow. A steady stream of churning water marks the way in which the scooter propels the two of them onwards and downwards.
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Little Dipper toward her party's challenge, Bubbled From Harm.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
The blue beneath rises up to snatch her out of the sky as she plummets to its surface
and at last breaks through.
At the last possible second her eyes widen. Dean? --Rebecca?
Before she is swallowed up by the water.
A light shines from beneath the deep. Lucadia's Medium.
Resonating, perhaps, with Avril's wishes, in the presence of so many others here.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Bubbled From Harm *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You fall. Fall, fall, fall... into the shadowy, sapphire depths of Macalania Lake. Perhaps it was the unending numbers of Odessa's rank and file, filtrating through portals in endless waves. Perhaps it was the tidal wave you scarce outran at the apex of the battle between Lombardia, Queen of the Metal Dragons, and Sin itself. Perhaps the fierce fighting in Macalania Temple has sent you plummeting down to the depths below. Whatever the case may be-- You do not meet a frigid, wet end in this abyss. (BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKOJbeymd4M ) There is a blue light from below. Slowly, but comfortably, a round sphere of water cloaks itself around you. You find yourself dry and with air to breathe, as you descend to the structure of an ancient shrine hidden underneath the frozen surface of Macalania Lake. The bubbles are pliant and sturdy, but impede your movements a little. Try to coax yourself to float down towards the shrine... and keep tabs of who you're with-- So that you do not risk losing each other again. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
==============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 1 *>=============== =======================< Results - Bubbled From Harm >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Little Dipper 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Sea Medium 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Formula AM-22X 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Portal Guns 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Yue Rohay 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Yue Rohay 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> Yue Rohay has posed.
Everyone is falling.
"... happy... birthday... to me..." Lunata mumbles, voice drowned by her mouth rapidly filling with iced lake water. Shalune races down even as the Little Dipper starts to gutter, and drags the ex-waitress as she starts to swim and gets encased by the surround of the bubble... and a Large Friend.
Dean, Kaguya and Rebecca have a Very Meaningful conversation in the language of blrblblrbrr.
Fortunately, Dean spots the shadow and is able to latch on enough for Rebecca to go and assist Kaguya. Where IS that underwater breather?
The Shadow is revealed to be...
Big Shal.
Big Shal, with Golem-size goggles, a snorkel (that isn't actually reaching the surface), and a cute Golem-size floatie that's... helping?
Big Shal's grabbed Yue and moved down to the bottom, where--
Where bubbles surround them with warmth, with light... slowly drawing them down, safely, to the visage of a long-forgotten underwater temple.
Where everyone finds themselves mysteriously... dry, once the bubbles dissipate and they find breathable, ancient air underneath.
What is this place?
Lucadia's Medium resonates...
Yue flutters awake after a moment, coughing heavily as she holds onto her stomach. There's a lot of people she doesn't recognise here, and people she does know -- Shalune... Shalune, and...
Her expression falls when she turns to face Avril. She's looking a lot paler than usual.
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
====================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>===================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Darken Eyes *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- (IMG: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-145.jpg ) Without warning, a swarm of free-floating eyes encased in black scales descend from above. Unlike so many of the eyes dotted on the walls of the shrine, these eyes float freely -- though fortunately they're more intent on violence the old-fashioned way rather than sending you back to the entrance again. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Bbbbbbbullshit," Kaguya gets out, once she's breathing in the bubble and then on the ground having fallen. A moment ago, she saw an ice floe screaming at her. There was an arm in it. And there was Rebecca. And there--
Well now she can talk and that's the important part, frankly. "This is old. And why'd it have to be Lucadia? And..."
She looks at Avril. Kaguya frowns, for a long few moments. "You..."
She turns, and--"Wait, what? Who shot Lunie? Lunie, what happened?"
Kaguya is for a moment conflicted--and then looks between Avril and Lunata and--
"Thanks for the assist, Dean," Kaguya says. "Knew I could count on you."
"Anyway look I've got some questions--"
"SKREEEEEEE!"
Kaguya blink blinks and looks up--somehow free-floating eyes in scales make a terrifying noise as they slide through the air out to this platform, crashing towards them and trying to do murders.
"Oh I do not think so," Kaguya says, reaching into her things--
"And pulling a set of Smoke Bombs that she hurls all at once up into the cloud, before following up with a Silver Hourglass to delay them for the others. "C'mon! Kill these things so I can steal this dead chick's clothes!"
Kaguya kicks the Odesas body at her feet. "I'm FREEZing down here!"
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Extravagant Inventory Overuse toward her party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Suddenly there is less Golem and more Rebecca and Kaguya. Just as Dean latches onto Big Shal, Friend To All, he double-takes at the latter. Reaching out for her hand when she reaches for his, there's then a SPLOOSH, and here's Rebecca, also flailing and screaming but for different reasons. They go through the portal, and then there is a blue light quite aside from the temple, and suddenly *everyone* is there, including-- "Avril!! *There* you are!" he declares, relieved.
His relief is short-lived. It doesn't occur to him to wonder about the bubbles or why they're all suddenly dry and relatively warm, though that *is* pretty weird. More importantly, Shalune's carting around Lunata's hole-y body, and he outright *gasps* at the sight of it. "Lunata?! Wh-what--what happened?" He turns to Shalune, going pale. "Is she gonna be okay?!"
This would be a more absurd and much sadder question if Lunata weren't who and what she is.
Kaguya's blaseness about the whole situation only puts him more off-kilter, though he at least manages an, "Um, you're welcome?"
Then there's more screaming, of a yet different kind. He turns and looks to see a whole bunch of monsters winging their way close. Twin Fenrir flash into his hands, and he whirls them around, smacking hard into the monsters as they charge in. For the coup de grace, he swaps his ARMs for his Devil Arm and swings the demonic shovel down HARD on one creature's head. He grimaces at Kaguya's utter lack of... good graces, we'll call it.
"H-hey, I'm not beating up monsters so you can rob the dead," he protests. "And come to think of it, I've got some questions for you, too!"
He doesn't recognize Yue at all, but things are happening kind of fast right now. There'll be time for introductions later.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Ace of Spades toward his party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Big Shal is cradling Yue in her hands as the Veruni awakes to the sight of two round lit-up-yellow eyes peering down at her. There's a slow moment of the sort that the golem is very good at, a peaceful silence as the machine studies the scene in front of its eyes and processes that information. Satisfied, the golem carefully lowers Yue to ground, not letting go until she's managed to find her feet.
Then there's a rumble, and a low -fwoomp- of frigid water pluming upwards as the golem clears its snorkel.
Shalune grits her teeth as the bubble dissipates from around her, hauling Lunata up onto her shoulder, heedless of the other girl's 'blood'. It isn't quite a fireman's carry - she needs a little while to get her bearings and her energy back to manage something like that - but it's kind of close, and it gives her enough leverage to stagger forwards. "C'mon, c'mon. You're safe. We're gonna get you someplace warm and comfy," she mumbles to the other girl, then grimaces a little as she looks around her. "... eventually."
She finally pays attention to those who have arrived with her; Dean and Avril and Rebecca are a relief to see together as one, and she breaks into a bright grin at the sight of them before levelling an astonished one at Yue instead. "M-Miss Yue! Are you okay?! Wah, you can't swim with those on, they're gonna get rusty and gross! Up you get, c'mon, we gotta move--" she blurts as she tries to manhandle Lunata over, the better to peer over her Veruni... aunt?... to see if she's alright.
Turning a little at Kaguya's question, Shalune actually hesitates for a tiny moment. There's a sulky response on the tip of her tongue; it'd be easy to blame the Veruni for a lot of what's happened. But it wouldn't be quite correct. "Basically everyone did," she whispers instead, her voice sour. "... I dunno."
She's had a long day, so perhaps she can be forgiven for not explaining further when the bats sweep down at them. This time she does manage to heft Lunata over one shoulder, reaching for the katana at her belt - and past it, to the compacted form of her shotstaff. Rather than extend it fully, she flicks half of it out - then sights haphazardly along it as she uses it one-handed as some odd kind of cut-down laser rifle.
DG: Shalune Amira has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
All of a sudden the bubble that had formed about her breaks, effectively depositing Avril down here, on this place at the bottom of the lake. "Where...?" she begins to utter, her gaze coming to linger on Yue for a long, perhaps uncomfortable moment.
Yue seems familiar, somehow.
But...
"Who--" she starts, just as a shout of 'there you are!' breaks from a certain blue-haired young man. Her gaze and attention with it wrenches in his direction. "Dean! --Rebecca!"
She hurries on over, leaving perhaps even the presence of Kaguya -- to say nothing of Yue -- well behind.
"I am extremely sorry. I felt..." Her hand rises to rest at chest height. "I had the sense I had to be somewhere else and--"
She turns, finding herself the recipient of a long weighty look from Kaguya; her only response is itself silence, a quiet question that she does not voice.
And then Kaguya asks who shot Lunata.
Her attention averts. It can do nothing else but avert, shock etching its way across her face. "Lunata! Whatever has happened to her, Shalune?"
The answer is hardly one that settles matters. 'Everyone did'.
"..."
But before Avril can voice anything more--
They are under attack. All of them.
Her gaze hardens, in a distant echo of a woman she may have once been. Absolute Zero flies to her grip; its blade manifests.
Dean may argue with Kaguya about the ethics of taking a dead woman's clothing -- Avril focuses herself upon the one thing she knows she can do now.
Her white blade streaks through the air. She is not merciful to the Fiends.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
There are... people around. Of course, Yue does not necessarily ignore them. The way Kaguya speaks out to Dean -- Dean? She knows him? Is he another Veruni, or a human that she's on good terms with? It's not particularly uncanny that she might have a relationship with other drifters--
Avril, he says. Avril... Avril...
Even as Big Shal sets her down, and she looks up towards those wise yellow eyes of Big Shal's... she still hasn't really moved.
Lunata does look rather horrible -- she's taken on approximately a full-auto salvo, a shotgun and some other gunshots; she's not... bleeding per se, but where the bullets punctured look more like a porcelain doll's cracked skin, with some of that inky-black stuff seeping out where it hasn't clotted.
Shalune's encouraging Lunata, but she's not... really responding. Like her jaw locked up, finally, or maybe something came loose. She is staring at her though.
Shalune is addressing her. She's barely reacting to her. The shackles are totally going to get rusty and gross... well, if they were regular shackles, but one imagines a magic circuited anti-Ether pair of shackles to have niceties.
"Put... put the girl on Promme," Yue sounds sufficiently distracted, but still can advise Shalune to have Big Shal help.
But Avril is behaving...
...
She's heading over to those two.
To Dean and Rebecca. Are those her... friends? She has young folks like those as friends? How? Why? Is this a trick? This is a trick.
A trick...
...
"So... that is it," she whispers, eyes half-lidded. "I understand now."
She almost sounds free as she laughs faintly, melancholic, looking towards the swarm of Darken Eyes as she launches a demon fang rather effortlessly from her heel -- then another, and a third, and a fourth; there's a hiss from the effort of energy as she lands near Big Shal again.
"I must be dying. The flash of everything, powerful memories, thoughts, rushing towards me as I expire... I have heard of the phenomenon before."
Even in her dying thoughts, Kaguya is doing what she does best, stealing a dead woman's clothes.
DG: Yue Rohay has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
One moment Rebecca was about to dive right into the frozen water - which flares with Lucadia's blue light.
Bubble.
"Well this is weird-"
Experimentally she fires her potal gun to the side of the bubble. Which reveals she can't actually fire it outside of the bubbles confines. It's totally useless, but also does bring the others into her field of vision.
"Dean! You safe over there? Avril - where are you?"
'Thanks for the assist, Dean. Knew I could count on you.'
Rebecca pinches the bridge of her nose, "Why does noone know how to swim?"
The sight of Lunie shot causes Rebecca to become a touch more grim.
Instead of just waiting around, she decides to stretch the rest of the way down. And then upon landing.
SKREEEEE
Her eyes slide over to Lunata again. Then on the dead Odessa Soldier that Kaguya is threatening to rob.
Then over to Avril.
Her lips part as if she were going to say something... and then...
Yue's faint laugh disturbs her out of it.
Rebecca simply takes out her Medium, and invokes it - nearly fumbling in the motion. Ley energy rising around her in a Hexagonal pattern.
Ice cold winds begin to slash at the Eye monsters as effectively as any blade.
"You're not dying - and your life isn't flashing before your eyes."
She answers evenly, though her tone is terse, like she's faintly disturbed beneath the surface.
"... Unless you've seen Kaguya threaten to steal a dead woman's boots before."
... a moment passes.
"You definitely have. Haven't you?"
She doesn't say what she's really thinking about Yue right now. Not at all.
Perhaps she simply wants her to stop staring. To stop laughing.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Sky Medium toward her party's challenge, Darken Eyes.
====================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>===================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Darken Eyes *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- (IMG: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-145.jpg ) Without warning, a swarm of free-floating eyes encased in black scales descend from above. Unlike so many of the eyes dotted on the walls of the shrine, these eyes float freely -- though fortunately they're more intent on violence the old-fashioned way rather than sending you back to the entrance again. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
===============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 2 *>================ ===========================< Results - Darken Eyes >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shalune Amira 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Ace of Spades 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Extravagant Inventory Overuse 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Sky Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Yue Rohay 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Yue Rohay has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Shalune Amira has drawn a new Challenge.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Eye Won't Stand For This *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Lefay, the Shrine of the Water Trial, is dotted with an endless number of eyes upon its walls. Direct contact with their sightline brings unsuspecting Drifters back to the entranceway. It is a devious trick of the ancients. A trick designed to prey on the limited patience span of human Drifters. The more times you return to the entrance, the more short and irritated one becomes. The easier it gets for one to perform a mistake. But enough gaze-averting. Enough looking away. If someone unpleasant is staring at you and making you uncomfortable, you don't have to deal with that. Just punch it right in the eye, or something! =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"What??" Kaguya asks. "She can have the ones I'm wearing, and she's not using them!" Scowling at Dean, Kaguya gets back to work on the monsters. "But I'm cold!"
Fight fight. "...You don't know?" Kaguya asks. She eyes Shalune, suspiciously. But after a moment, she has bats to worry about, and as she thinks about it--one suspicious girl to another suspicious girl--maybe Shalune has a good reason for hiding it. "Well, I tried to keep my soldiers away from her, anyway. I've got a couple things Jay might be able to whip up into a potion for her if we can find her later."
Sure, she heard the quiet, whispered part. But it's rude to point that out, and Kaguya has some manners. ...Even if she usually doesn't care to use them...
In point of fact the group makes short work of the fiends. They're all experienced attackers by now; Dean's two-prong assault ending with a shovel smashes one; Rebecca's gunplay works well. Avril's utter lack of mercy is horrifying, and also, effective. Yue of course is dying, while Kaguya's mostly playing crowd control--but Big Shal is a great protector, a solid wall, and Shalune, while she takes some damage in the process, successfully covers Lunata from any damage at all.
Once the monsters are gone, Kaguya turns to Rebecca and lifts an eyebrow. "I can swim. It was just frigid!" Pause. "Also I don't usually take footwear because Veruni feet are very delicate and human shoes aren't good enough." Are... Are those boots heels? They must be. Because now Kaguya has sat down next to the woman and is taking some things. "Anyway if one of you religious types wants to say a prayer for her or whatever that's cool I'm sure she was a very nice evil soldier. And you know, that's a job I can respect."
Unless stopped, Kaguya in short order has taken much--but she wraps the soldier's coat back around the body's shoulders, buttons it up proper like, and arranges her in a dignified position. "See? I'm not a savage."
...They're a little large, but hey--she didn't charge.
"Also you're definitely not dying, Yue. I mean, you probably should be, after all this. You're mega old. But you can't, because I have questions for you, and there's no way I'd let you die. Do you need me to carry you or something?"
"Anyway Dean you can ask me questions, too. It goes both ways. But if the first question is 'Oh, great Kaguya, mighty and powerful, will you help us?' the answer is 'Yeah, I super will, as long as you guys help me, because I feel terrible'. So there's that."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"... sorry," mutters Shalune almost immediately, dipping her head down a little as she winces in guilt - and then sucks in a breath, and does her best to pull her spirits together into as she looks to the others. Sulking doesn't suit her, really, and she'd rather not dwell on it too hard, even if tensions are running high. "Lunie was protecting Seymour," she decides to simply come out with it. "She was doing her very best to hold out against everyone trying to breach the Temple. Odessa, the Wolves, the Veruni... me."
Whatever her thoughts on Yevon or Seymour might be following the revelations at the party, there's a note of pride in her voice. Shalune would be the first to admit she's had to grow up in fits and spurts - and it feels like that again now, as she stands a little taller in defence of her childhood friend with a glare of defiance. Quite what she's defying Kaguya on, she's still really sure, but she can work on that part.
She's also not sure if Lunata can hear her right now or if she's descended into a fugue, but the pink-haired girl meets the other girl's stare with a solemn and determined frown. It feels important to say it, at least. "You did really good, okay? I'm going to get you someplace safe. And then we are going to have some cake," she adds, and if all it's possible for that declaration to include venom for anyone that dares get in their way, she's managed it.
It says something about how she's feeling right now that she visibly hesitates at the sight of Big Shal stepping closer, gripping Lunata a little closer to her out of a protective instinct - but she looks to Yue, and gently nods as the golem carefully takes Lunata's body in its hands. "... take care of her, okay? I'll want her back."
"If you die, Minder's gonna kick my ass," she adds rather bluntly, "And there's no way that Big Shal would allow something like that either. Heck, I will Material Summon Granny if I have to," she threatens - and then offers a tiny, quiet smile in encouragement. "... take a second if you need one, okay?"
Not that she's practising what she preaches. The mechanic is obviously somewhat out of patience for anything other than the people she cares about, because as the corridor widens and becomes lined with strange eyes, her brow twitches. Mumbling under her breath, she reaches for her Medium, kneeling to touch the stone of the Temple--
--and apparently just decides to preemptively wall all those suckers up.
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Material - Dinowhatsit toward her party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Rebecca mentions that she isn't dying. And honestly, if she were acting rationally, there'd be plenty of evidence against it too -- such as the fact that she has to fight herself out of danger, rather than just... sit there and let everything drift before her very eyes.
...
But they don't call them defence mechanisms for nothing.
She does stop laughing, though, because if she doesn't, she doesn't know what'd happen. She might break down.
"Something just as ludicrous, perhaps..." she mentions to Rebecca, while looking at Kaguya. Now even Kaguya is pointing out that she isn't dying. She also has a question. Does she need carrying? "Ah. Now Kaguya is pointing out I am old. That is cruel... is that not cruel, Big Shal...?"
A pause. The Golem tilts her head for a moment.
"Ah. Mmm."
The Golem tilts her head the other way.
"You're so wise, Big Shal."
A bigger thumbs up.
Shalune does grouse that if she died, Minder's going to kick her butt. "... minder," she whispers, looking around. She's really hoping to not find her here, but... what would that mean for the girl? Being trapped in Spira? She really should not have fallen off that cliff... or got caught in that Sinspawn wave... or fell into a tidal wave..
Kaguya's kind of right. She should be dead by now.
"Mm. Then... if I am not dead..."
She points towards Avril gently as they walk, chains jangling on her enormous shackles binding her arms together.
"Who is that...? She can't possibly be--"
*ZAPP*
...
...
She gets zapped and sent back to the entrance.
A moment later--
A bright white line appears on one of the walls. Very slowly, the masonry
starts to uneasily sliiiiiide apart in the
direction of gravity
with a hiss.
--*SLASHHHH*--
The eyes
panickedly blink as their
wall-advantage starts coming apart!
Oh no, don't get split apart, eye, this is no time to be eyeing the situation.
Yue steps through the new opening she's made in the dungeon, flagrantly breaching the unspoken trust between Digger and Dungeon.
"Where was I," she mumbles.
DG: Yue Rohay has used her Tool Zantetshoeken toward her party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean rushes over to Avril and Rebecca, grinning at the sight of his friends. "I'm fine, don't worry about me!" he reassures Rebecca--though he makes a face soon after. "Heyy, I'm working on it, all right? Swimming is hard!" Then he turns to Avril and reassures her in turn, "Hey, it's okay! As long as we're all back together again. Besides, I'm used to you running off 'cuz of places you feel like you have to be! Your gut feelings are usually on the money! Right, Rebecca?" He brightens at Shalune and Big Shal. "And we've met up with some other friends, too!"
Though his spirits dampen when Shalune explains that 'everyone' shot Lunata. "...She *is* gonna be okay, right?" he asks, worried. He pauses when Yue starts going on about her dying. "Are *you* gonna be okay?" he asks. "Do you need a Heal Berry? My friend Avril's got healing magic, she can patch you up if you need it!" Then he blinks over at Rebecca and *her* strange reaction to Yue, before finally remembering his manners and thrusting a hand out to Yue. "My name's Dean, by the way! Dean Stark. What's yours?"
Whether Yue deigns to shake his hand or not, Dean next makes a face at Kaguya. She does have a point about the clothes, but those questions... "Were you always this much of an egomaniac, or did you get worse on Lunar?" he asks first, as he gets to digging a grave for the dead woman. It takes, perhaps, less time than it should. Though speaking of evil soldiers: "No, actually, I wanted to ask why you're getting in the thick of all these wars. Didn't you leave Filgaia and come here so you could lead a peaceful life without worrying about dying young?" Or did he, perhaps, have entirely the wrong read of Kaguya this whole time? No, surely not! She just said she felt terrible. Surely she means about ramping up all the fighting and murder.
Regardless, once the woman is buried, and a large rock set where the head should be in lieu of a headstone, Dean heads up and into the temple. He pauses, looking back at Yue and her conversation with Big Shal. "Oh! Are you a friend of Big Shal's?" he says brightly. "That's awesome! Any friend of Big Shal's is a friend of mine! --huh?" He blinks when she points at Avril. He looks at her, then looks back. He opens his mouth.
*ZAPP*
"That's my friend Av--wait, weren't we just here?"
This will repeat many times before Dean manages to make it through. It probably *will* result in eye-punches, complete with dusted knuckles.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Purifying Chalk toward his party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Dean forgives her, as she had expected he might. If a little weakly she smiles when he says he's used to it. That her feelings are usually spot-on.
"This time... I am unsure what it was I was meant to accomplish or see," she murmurs, bowing her head.
Perhaps the only meaningful thing she accomplished was helping that woman, Eleanor.
Or... meeting that man.
Ashley... Winchester. Something about him...
Something about him made her skin crawl. Something about him made something deep inside her scream.
He'd given her hot chocolate. It had been wonderful.
Other than that, she had only seen... what she could not change.
Combat breaks out before things manage to tread much further down this particular lane of conversation.
She's aware -- dimly -- of Rebecca's response to that familiar/unfamiliar woman, who utters a strange thing indeed, in those fleeting moments before she closes on the eyeball creatures.
There are pyreflies.
She lowers her blade after, twisting about herself to gaze at the others.
"..." Her gaze settles on the one thing now that seems to form a center in the chaos of the lot of them crossing paths. Which is...
The dead woman.
"I... do not know what is generally said for the dead," she admits. "I understand... humans are typically buried..."
She had learned that on their travels. When a body dies, they are set to rest forever in the earth.
"But I do not think... that will be possible here," she continues, no hint of taboo when it comes to discussing the recently dead, or Kaguya's (mis)treatment of a corpse, or anything except what might be done with a body.
Discussed in such a plain, nearly academic fashion, too.
Her gaze lingers between Yue and Kaguya after, and it's only when her friends begin to walk past and towards the path ahead that she turns, herself, to join them.
And stops dead.
"Dean-- Rebecca--"
"Everyone--"
He vanishes. So does Yue. They reappear soon after.
"...Ah," Avril finishes, her expression dismal as she turns her head from the eyes that line the path.
"...Do not meet their gaze," she says, and perhaps inspired by that fracture of one wall--
Absolute Zero vanishes. The blade is replaced by a hissing tendril of light. Keeping her head down, Avril breaks into a dash and leaps, licking the trailing length of the beam for the wall.
And the eye that there rests.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Absolute Zero Beam toward her party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"If you put even one one hundredth of your golem enthusiasm into it you'd already swim like a fish Dean!" Rebecca sounds a little exasperated - albeit affectionately so.
Rebecca just rolls her eyes at Kaguya's comment. "Delicate huh? Yeah I did notice that Elvis' feet are pretty dainty. Tell you what. We make it out of here alive and you pursue your true calling in a Rolance Ballet Company."
Yue however, quickly turns Rebecca back to... more serious again. She finds herself just watching her with this sort of grim... wariness. "Dean maybe..." And then Dean goes right up to her and offers his hand, "...wait a bit on introductions..." Rebecca lets out this long sigh.
One step at a time she starts to close the gap between herself in Avril. It's a gesture that seems almost... protective, one of solidarity. Like she wants to quietly conspire with her on the issue of this mysterious woman with far too large shackles. She almost makes it in range of her. Except that Dean starts to answer Yue first.
'That's my friend Av-'
"Dean wait! Don't just te-"
Rebecca accidentally meets the sightline of an eye and blips away just after Dean is blipped away - finding herself standing alone.
"... ... Of all the times-"
On her way back she simply draws her ARM and tries to put a single bullet through the darkened pupil of each eye she encounters. "At least this place is nice enough to put a target on everything I need to shoot..."
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"...It's okay," Kaguya tells Shalune. "I..." She stops. She thinks about the answer. "Wow..." She looks over the unmoving Lunata. "Lunie's pretty hardcore. It must've been hard for her to fight a bunch of people she liked. That's really impressive. When she wakes up, if I'm not here--would you mind telling her that? It's cool if you think my approval wouldn't make her happy or osmething."
Kaguya just assumes she's asleep with her eyes open like dead chicks do. She has little exprience with the undead, or the kind of dead, and thinking about it too much used to creep her out.
To Rebecca, "Are you kidding? Ballet's way harder than fighting. Trust me, I tried it, since everybody was all 'oh you're so small and dainty' and nope. Besides, I'm not really the girly type."
Though apparently she's still growing her hair out--it's much longer than the last time they saw her. But to Yue, "Is it cruel? I mean, you're my favorite old person, if it helps," Kaguya tells Yue. "...or maybe you're my oldest favorite person. I mean I guess a lot of people in my life count as old by most standards." She pauses. "...Is... Big Shal that wise...?"
But Dean has a very valid question. "Actually I'm in a really bad mood worried about my sister and a lot of other things and talking like I'm the coolest thing in the whole solar system makes me laugh! ...I did get used to people hopping around and jumping when i said jump, but I also found out that actually humans don't act in rational, reasonable ways at all, and my predictions that super counted on that have instead seen religious wars happening!"
Then she sighs, her shoulders falling. "Nah, I was hoping to find a way to end the bigger conflict and all the wars but instead I found out that might be pointless so..." She gestures. "Anyway I'm still dying it's just slower here. Still faster than you guys. But maybe not faster than you guys, because helping out is pointless and maybe Odessa will finally do Filgaia in!"
...She's really, really not having a great day. ..If anything--she actually looks tense, a little glassy-eyed, of all things, like she's genuinely upset instead of just homicidal.
"...Mm," Kaguya answers Avril. "Well, it's like a tomb..." She thinks about it--and then drapes the cloak she'd been using over the body, like a shroud. "...Rest in peace, lady. I hope whatever you were fighting for was important to you."
Then she considers Yue--
"But yeah that's her. She doesn't remember being her, but Lord Volsung told her she's her, and sometimes she's scary like in the histories and other times she's just normal or the normal kind of scary. I don't know what the deal is and it kind of makes me mad that I don't know."
She walks ahead, looks up at an eye and--bloop.
"...Son of a F---" An explosion--maybe the sound of a cucco? Blocks what Kaguya says back at the entrance, but she shouts it pretty loud. ....There's the sound of scuffling a moment later, as if she might've had to fight something. And then--
"Oh no you're not getting away--oop--"
She falls down a pit while following Yue. And a few moments later...
===!BOOM!===
Another eye just bursts apart abrubtly as Kaguya bombs the weak point in the floor and then jumps back up. "Okay forget that. That's not cool. This place is not cool."
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Magnetic Resonance Bomb toward her party's challenge, Eye Won't Stand For This.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Eye Won't Stand For This *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Lefay, the Shrine of the Water Trial, is dotted with an endless number of eyes upon its walls. Direct contact with their sightline brings unsuspecting Drifters back to the entranceway. It is a devious trick of the ancients. A trick designed to prey on the limited patience span of human Drifters. The more times you return to the entrance, the more short and irritated one becomes. The easier it gets for one to perform a mistake. But enough gaze-averting. Enough looking away. If someone unpleasant is staring at you and making you uncomfortable, you don't have to deal with that. Just punch it right in the eye, or something! =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
==============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 3 *>=============== ====================< Results - Eye Won't Stand For This >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Zantetshoeken 4 Brute Effects: Efficient and Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Material - Dinowhatsit 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Absolute Zero Beam 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Purifying Chalk 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Magnetic Resonance Bomb 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Yue Rohay 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Yue Rohay 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> Shalune Amira has posed.
With her hand in her hair, Shalune pauses - and realizes that even after everything, she still likes Kaguya's brand of chatter, especially tempered by her worries. That's kind of annoying, she pouts to herself, and then shakes it away. "... I'll... figure out a way to tell her, I promise. But it's starting to get too hard for her," she admits, and sneaks a glance towards Lunata as she golem carefully gathers her up. "... or more like, it has been for a long while now. But there's no way for her to just stop."
Shalune's silent throughout the burial; she takes that cue from Avril, in a way, glancing at the other girl as she bows her head. Mumbling a Granas prayer really doesn't feel right, so instead she does her best to make the sign of Yevon. It's rough and ready, but perhaps it's good enough, so long as there's no lingering regrets. Shalune suspects there might be, after everything.
"You were busy being worried," Shalune drawls a little as Yue scores a line right through the dungeon and steps on through. She's always been the sort of person to feel better from helping other people, so the smile she offers is at least quiet and understanding, and she risks a pat on Yue's arm - gingerly, recognizing a shellshocked look when she sees it. "Which, I get it. But I'm sure Minder's safe. And we'll find her. Right? Something brought us down here, so it'll bring her too."
She visibly pauses, conflicted; once upon a time, she would have equated herself and Dean. She still does, really - they're both the same sort of upbeat and they've got a lot of interests in common. But she bites at her lip as she glances up at where Lunata lies in Big Shal's arms, and then draws in a slow breath. She's spent months working through this herself, and it's not something she can communicate gently or quickly just like that. "... not really, Dean. Um, sorry. Whatever happens next, it's gonna be... really hard. Just try to stick by her if you can, okay?"
Then he vanishes, which is a little awkward.
Left with weighing up Avril and Rebecca's caution on one side and Yue's distress on the other, the pink-haired mechanic frowns. Instinct tells her to shut up for a moment, which lets her catch Kaguya's explanation, missing holes and all, and gently try to fill in the gaps. She doesn't get far, but perhaps that's alright. "... c'mon," she spurs instead, beckoning Big Shal forwards. "Any more stupid eyes and we blow them up. I want a place I can set a fire or something."
DG: Yue Rohay has drawn a new Challenge.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =================<* CHALLENGE - The Aquaphant in the Room *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- In the myriad hallways and twists of the Shrine of the Water Trial, you encounter an unusually sorry sight. One of the Fiends that patrol this temple, the Aquaphant, has fallen into a large break on the floor. It doesn't appear able to escape its fate. On the one hand, that is quite advantageous -- you could sneak around the creature and save yourself an unnecessary fight... But the glint of treasure underneath the floor offers a different scenario. Perhaps support and kindness can help the Fiend free. But what awaits at the end of this? A random encounter, or the first step to being best friends with a mythical water creature? What will you do? =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
With her hand in her hair, Shalune pauses - and realizes that even after everything, she still likes Kaguya's brand of chatter, especially tempered by her worries. That's kind of annoying, she pouts to herself, and then shakes it away. "... I'll... figure out a way to tell her, I promise. But it's starting to get too hard for her," she admits, and sneaks a glance towards Lunata as she golem carefully gathers her up. "... or more like, it has been for a long while now. But there's no way for her to just stop."
Shalune's silent throughout the burial; she takes that cue from Avril, in a way, glancing at the other girl as she bows her head. Mumbling a Granas prayer really doesn't feel right, so instead she does her best to make the sign of Yevon. It's rough and ready, but perhaps it's good enough, so long as there's no lingering regrets. Shalune suspects there might be, after everything.
"You were busy being worried," Shalune drawls a little as Yue scores a line right through the dungeon and steps on through. She's always been the sort of person to feel better from helping other people, so the smile she offers is at least quiet and understanding, and she risks a pat on Yue's arm - gingerly, recognizing a shellshocked look when she sees it. "Which, I get it. But I'm sure Minder's safe. And we'll find her. Right? Something brought us down here, so it'll bring her too."
She visibly pauses, conflicted; once upon a time, she would have equated herself and Dean. She still does, really - they're both the same sort of upbeat and they've got a lot of interests in common. But she bites at her lip as she glances up at where Lunata lies in Big Shal's arms, and then draws in a slow breath. She's spent months working through this herself, and it's not something she can communicate gently or quickly just like that. "... not really, Dean. Um, sorry. Whatever happens next, it's gonna be... really hard. Just try to stick by her if you can, okay?"
Then he vanishes, which is a little awkward.
Left with weighing up Avril and Rebecca's caution on one side and Yue's distress on the other, the pink-haired mechanic frowns. Instinct tells her to shut up for a moment, which lets her catch Kaguya's explanation, missing holes and all, and gently try to fill in the gaps. She doesn't get far, but perhaps that's alright. "... c'mon," she spurs instead, beckoning Big Shal forwards. "Any more stupid eyes and we blow them up. I want a place I can set a fire or something."
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Dean asks if she's going to be okay, and mentions her name again -- my friend, Avril. Avril... she looks as if she hasn't aged at all. Well, that isn't a statistical improbability -- she also hasn't aged at all, and the cause is literally round and in front of them... as far as she knows.
Dean offers his name.
He's starting to dig a grave, though, and she blinks a few times and starts helping to dig in turn -- because maybe there's something about respecting the dead during a time of dying fervour that'll get her... extra points? Who's she going to face anyway? Dan Dairam?
Ugh. Please not Dan Dairam. She'd rather face the Calamity again before Dan freaking Dairam.
He starts remarking about Kaguya, and he has a point -- she'd thought Kaguya would be happier on Lunar, having a peaceful life, but... it clearly didn't work out that way, between the Guard and the Golems. Dean interjects again when he points out Big Shal, and--
"Ah. Yes, Big Shal and I go... way back. Though you should thank Shalune as the reason she is with us now," she pats the Golem on the side.
She doesn't miss the way Rebecca steps in the way, protective-like, when she asks about Avril. ... It's almost familiar, maybe. Because she kinda sees the young Yue inside of her. Grumpy. Protective. Clingy? How nostalgic, whatever it may be. But Dean asked for her name earlier.
"I'm Yue," Yue remarks quietly. "Yue Rohay. I am a Veruni..." She glances to Rebecca. "Just if that might be a problem." Because of all the mannerisms so far, it seems like Rebecca is the guarded one. ... also that's rapidly starting to become her catchphrase, she thinks. How pathetic.
She tiredly chuckles as she says after Kaguya reassures her that she's her favourite old person, and... well, perhaps more soberly, as she notices that Kaguya looks... genuinely upset. She tries to distract her:
"... you have an interest in ballet? I could teach you sometime." Of course the person who fights flawlessly in heels is... good at ballet?
She pointedly doesn't talk about religious wars and predictions gone awry because... well, she's been there. It's not pleasant.
There's a more dire revelation though.
Yeah that's her.
Yue's colour leaves her even more.
She doesn't remember being her.
She doesn't remember?
She doesn't remember... anything.
All that grief. All that rage. Despair. The bargaining. The guilt and feeling of betrayal. The long, cold solitary nights. The awful cold feeling of steel folding chairs. The dripping. The stink of burlap sacks over her head, and the way she can see the red dot of a camera on a tripod in front of her. The silent, passive, unemotional whirr. All the pain of seeing the form of the Locus Solus rising as conflagration engulfs her.
All of that.
Nothing. Just like that.
"... ... ..."
She notices she's having a panic attack.
She's glad she's been physically conditioned so hard she's not showing ... most of it.
*HONKKKKKKK*
She's so glad she has a distraction too. One of the large Fiends that patrol the elephant -- a blue Elephant the colour of aquamarine -- has... has...
Aww, it's gotten stuck in a large hole on the floor. *honk*, it honks, sadly.
Well, you don't know if it's hostile or not (it isn't right now), but you can spot the glint of treasure from the floor underneath...
Yue doesn't move yet.
... she kinda wishes she could honk sadly right now.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"I really didn't do that much. I mean, sure, I built her a couple of new limbs, but I was mostly already copying stuff that was already there," Shalune lightens her voice as she chirps back to Yue, apparently able to work in tandem with the Veruni convict without much effort or worry. "I mean, that's the big dirty secret of inventing things. You mostly just sneak your way onto the shoulders of everyone before you, and then jump a lil' bit higher."
She takes pains to continue on a little, discussing the finer merits of technology theft for a little while and filling the air with information on Big Shal's ball joints as the golem herself looks on. She might have a slight smile of pride on her face at getting to explain some of this, but there's a glint of worry in her eyes as well. She's spent enough time around shellshocked Lunatas to recognize when people are feeling at their wit's end, and both Kaguya and Yue seem to be skimming pretty close.
And she's not sure how well Yue will take it, but Shalune cannot help but be Shalune when it comes to seeking out friendly contact at times of stress and Lunata is rather indisposed - so she tries gently placing a hand on the convict's arm with a light frown.
She lets it slide back off again as their next 'trial' is revealed. "Ah-- oh, jeez," she blurts as the poor Aquaphant makes its predicament known; she furrows her brow at the sight of the stuck creature, advancing slowly as she realizes it doesn't look about (or even able) to attack them. "Did you slip, big guy? How'd you even get down there in the first place?" she wonders gently in that sort of soothe-a-dog tone, trying to reach up once more except this time to pat the fiend on the head.
They're just pyreflies, she reminds herself. Just bits and pieces of memories and regrets. ... she's not really sure how to handle that thought.
"Okay, hold on-- actually, can you shoot a bunch of water over yourself?" she amends, thinking to herself as she takes out a slim plate of stone and not honestly sure if the fiend would even understand. "Let's see if we can't sorta wiggle you out of there." A few moments later, a tiny spectral image of Dinoginos has been Materially summoned, slipping through the cracks around the Aquaphant. There's a repeated series of 'bonk's as it tries to nudge the Aquaphant up and out from below.
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Material - Dinowhatsit toward her party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril doesn't offer up a single prayer for the deceased.
There simply isn't a one she knows, not by heart. Leaving the duty then to Shalune, she moves to turn away.
Only to hang there, her back to Yue and Kaguya, as Kaguya openly names her.
Who she is.
And that she remembers nothing.
"..."
You see? murmurs the voice from the old thing in the dark.
Slowly, Avril turns towards the two of them, her expression perfectly, absolutely neutral.
"...Yes. This appears to be the truth. I am she, though I remember it not," she says, her gaze resting on Kaguya for a moment, a glimmer of an unspoken question in her gaze.
Before her attention shifts to Yue.
"You are..."
Truly, she would have never guessed had Yue not spoken of it. Had Kaguya not said a word.
"...I see." Her gaze averts. "If your goal is to return me to their side," she says, her eyes back on Yue now, staring her straight on and unflinching, "then I shall tell you now: I refuse."
Maybe it's her nerves. After the growing strain since Luca. The pressure from the events above, more weight on an unsteady edifice. Or being here now, with Kaguya -- who has in her eyes a strange light -- and this woman, unknown to her...
She falls silent, watching her. Watching her watching her.
But even ice melts, in a manner of speaking.
Yue doesn't show a sign of distress.
Maybe it's her own silence. Maybe it's something else. But after a long lingering moment, Avril takes a step forward.
...An Aquaphant has poor dramatic timing, it seems. Her gaze fleetingly averts, then returns to Yue. "Are you... all right?" she hazards, to a woman she had spoken too so bluntly moments before.
The Aquaphant remains in this moment a... secondary concern.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean asks Shalune if Lunata's going to be okay. She responds in a less-than-favorable way. He droops, because Shalune might have been through a lot, but so has Dean. "Oh." He perks when Shalune goes on to hint that Lunata will at least still be *alive*, though. For. You know. A relative value of 'alive.' "Okay! I'll do--"
*vanish*
"I'll do my best," he concludes a significant amount of time later. "Gosh, this place is terrible!!"
Other things of note: Dean nearly lets Avril's name slip to Yue. But when has it ever been a problem to say Avril's *name*? He does notice Rebecca's glaring in retrospect, and hesitates before saying anything, so naturally Kaguya just spills the beans anyway. By this time Yue's introduced herself and said she's Veruni, though, so Dean can't really see what the problem is, as long as she doesn't try to outright kidnap Avril. "Nope, no problem," he tells Yue of her Veruniness. Not unless she wants to *make* it a problem, as so many Veruni do, but it doesn't seem that way. At least, if there *were* gonna be a problem, Avril makes short work of it by calling it out and refusing. Dean grins at her and nods firmly. "What she said!"
Kaguya makes more of a problem of it, but she makes the problem in the opposite direction, insinuating that she was trying to make peace and, gosh darn it, those humans just wanted war so badly and she just happened to get swept along and is totally innocent of any wrongdoing. Dean buys her story, though; he naturally wants to believe in his friends. "Oh man, I'm sorry it turned out that way, Kaguya," he thus tells her in all sincerity. "You're still sick too, huh? That sucks... We were all hoping things'd be better for you here."
An Aquaphant happens. It's adorably stuck in the floor. Poor li'l guy! He squats down next to the Fiend. "Too bad we don't have a bunch of soap... That'd make wriggling him out way easier for sure! Lemme see if I can't loosen the edges there, help dig 'im out." And so he dusts up his hands with salty chalk, then starts digging away at the edges of that hole.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Purifying Chalk toward his party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"Your loss." Rebecca says to Kaguya on the subject of Ballet. Frankly Rebecca has always loved the idea of Ballet even if she's never experienced it. If a ballet troupe had come through Capo Bronco instead of a circus, maybe that's where her dreams might have shifted.
"Pleasure to meet you. The name's Streisand." Rebecca says tersely, omitting her first name, her tone maybe indicates maybe it's not a true pleasure. "And it's not a problem by itself. You're just acting kind of strange, and a Veruni is pretty strong. So it just puts me on edge when you're being all erratic around my friends and me. Maybe if you explained what's going on in that head of yours - I might be able to figure out if it's a problem or if it's not."
Kaguya tells Yue though, and Rebecca finds herself sucking in a breath. What kind of reaction will this Veruni give to... Avril? Reverence? Awe? Ambivalence? Wariness? Fear?
She can't see through Yue right now. In her silence. And it makes her wonder - without really getting any answers.
The Honk however causes her to draw her ARM and... she slowly aims the muzzle lower as she notes what it is.
"It's just a fiend isn't it? Wouldn't we be better off just... destroying it?"
Rebecca suggests without any real shame despite the fact that Dean and Shalune are trying to get it free.
"I can get a real clean shot at it right now... stuck like it is."
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Thanks," Kaguya answers Shalune, unaware of the annoyance at hand. Smart, but not... well. Not this kind of smart. "Mm... Yeah, I kinda bet. It seems like it. I mean, signing up with Yevon..." She gestures. It implies to her that it must've been hard. "I get that, though. Sometimes, it gets hard, but..."
"You've come too far to turn back, right? You've done too much to just give it up."
Kaguya doesn't say any more about that for now; if there's more said, she pretends she doesn't hear it, or maybe she really doesn't in her brooding, in the burial. She might not have only been talking about Lunata, anymore despite it all.
She can't say much about the Minder, though.
The vanishing is super awkward.
Kaguya isn't really ready for peace, not yet. Maybe she never could be, after everything that's happened. Maybe once; after all, there was the peaceful, gentle girl on the Locus Solus, once, who wanted nothing more than to study her plants, and spread flowers across a world.
"They've met a lot of jerk Veruni," Kaguya explains for Yue on Rebecca. "...Heheh. Me included, I guess."
But that happens--the distraction--and Kaguya blinks. "H-huh? Really? I mean, um--I dunno, I've never been... all that graceful, or anything, as our people go..." But she doesn't sound disinterested, more--low in self-esteem about that issue. For once. It's kind of strange, probably, to see Kaguya as anything but super confident. "Well--hey do you do it?" But--the revelations. The dire moments...
HONK.
"Uh?" Kaguya blinks, looking away from Yue who she'd started staring at. Instead she glances at Shalune, and grins. "Yeah," she agrees. "It's real true. You can be super smart, but you can accomplish a lot more with extra stuff to work with first, right? I always liked how you were able to use our stuff so well." Pause. "Well no at first I thought it was super weird. But I like it now."
And then, "Yeah. I mean, I was ready for war, right? To take over, that a lot of people were going to get hurt. But they were so focused on the religious part instead of on the practical part and I... didn't expect it, at all. I was willing to do a lot of things to take down Sin, to handle it, but... It just didn't go like I thought. I need a new plan." Pause. "...Yeah. I was hoping so too--then I could just, get the sick Veruni to come up here, right? I already had a place that we wouldn't have to fight for; my lands would've been perfect."
The elephant--aquaphant? Kaguya's first instinct is the same as Rebecca's, but... But still, uh... "I guess we're using the nice approach on this one, huh? Ah, well. I can do that. Hold on..."
Kaguya starts to pull some materials from her bag, a few odd... sticks. They glow. "I gotta set these up..."
Then she starts to pull one of her bombs--and takes it apart. "Hey, those of us who aren't immortal ancients, don't get near this green gunk, OK?" Pause. "Not unconscious Lunie either I dunno what it'd do to her."
She starts to apply it down, working on it. "This is going to weaken the tile around it so we can break that apart; then it can climb out, or Yue and me can pull it out."
She pauses. "I mean, Rebecca," she says, getting her name right, "That's kinda my instinct but if everybody wants to be nice I mean whatever, right? I'm cool either way, but..." Pause. "It is kinda cute."
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Magnetic Resonance Bomb toward her party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room. DG: Yue Rohay has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room. DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Aquaphant in the Room.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =================<* CHALLENGE - The Aquaphant in the Room *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- In the myriad hallways and twists of the Shrine of the Water Trial, you encounter an unusually sorry sight. One of the Fiends that patrol this temple, the Aquaphant, has fallen into a large break on the floor. It doesn't appear able to escape its fate. On the one hand, that is quite advantageous -- you could sneak around the creature and save yourself an unnecessary fight... But the glint of treasure underneath the floor offers a different scenario. Perhaps support and kindness can help the Fiend free. But what awaits at the end of this? A random encounter, or the first step to being best friends with a mythical water creature? What will you do? =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
==============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 4 *>=============== ===================< Results - The Aquaphant in the Room >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Material - Dinowhatsit 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Purifying Chalk 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Magnetic Resonance Bomb 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Yue Rohay 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Yue Rohay 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> Yue Rohay has posed.
Shalune offers a hand to her arm as Yue finds herself frozen in place. She's also talking about what she did for Big Shal, but... that kind of washes off off her right now. (She might appreciate it more in the future, though.)
Kaguya sounds a bit self-conscious about ballet, but Yue tilts her head. "... Duogrammaton's television makes ballet look like this impossible, effortless art, but... art exists at all levels, right?" she offers. "Even if you do it for fun, if you enjoy it."
Kaguya asks her if she does. "A little, yes. I was interested in ballet, after it was taught as part of a curriculum," she answers, then clears her throat. "'Approach your target inconspicuously at a dance party... there may be missions requiring this sort of subterfuge,'" she's mimicking a drill sergeant.
"Streisand..." Yue remarks, then quietly nods. Rebecca points out that she's acting kind of strange. A Veruni is pretty strong...
... are they? She guesses she's thinking of people like Ambrosius and Elvis and... ah. Modern Veruni. Right? Maybe if she explained herself...
But Avril moves to look at her.
To look at her.
With that look-- with those eyes, the very same ones, there's no mistaking it. She wants to look away. She can't. She's remembering that day. She remembers father. She remembers the others with her, on that team. She remembers the hallways, the chandeliers...
She remembers father. Father before. And father after. A full salvo of bullets from a Veruni elite's machinegun.
If your goal is to return me to their side, then I shall tell you now: I refuse.
There's a long, stunned, shocked silence. Avril is saying something that, to cut straight to the cliche, does not compute. The very thought of an Avril -- an Ice Queen -- that so firmly abdicates her authority, her power, her governance... her cruelty.
A trick?
Dean distracts her a little. Nope, no problem, he says. It's... unexpected, right now, perhaps. But quietly relieving at the same time.
... then Avril turns back and asks if she's all right.
"... I am a prisoner in Veruni solitary. I do not have much of a stake in returning you to the Radical's side..." she answers. It's a deflection, the closest thing to a response she can say right now.
She pauses, as she lowers her head. "... but no. I am not... all right."
But hey! On the topic of Aquaphants--
Kaguya slathers some green gunk that people who aren't immortals should totally not touch and the floor dissolves; Dinowhatsit seems to take that as a challenge and starts om-nomming through what Kaguya's weakened.
Dinowhatsit holds its tummy a moment after and bwees out, having a tummyache.
Dean sprinkles some salt chalk on his hands as he gets to working -- and pulls more of it away for Avril to help and Rebecca to... to stand guard. Fortunately she doesn't have to shoot because--
*pewww*
The Aquaphant boings down as enough of the floor breaks it free. It trumpets out a triumphant *honk*, points to the treasure, and leisurely strolls away.
...
...
Victory??
DG: Rebecca Streisand has drawn a new Challenge.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Your Very Own Tales of Skit *>================= |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Your party arrives at an antechamber anchored by a mystical point of power. It provides protection from nearby wandering Fiends. It is also mysteriously designed for camping equipment like Tents to be pitched and set up with ease, just as the light-warriors of old once did. ... So much has happened. Odessa. The last-minute miracle of the Guts-Dozer. Lombardia. Sin. Maester Seymour. Jyscal's sphere. And his once-assistant, Krelian. ... There is time. Time for you all to mentally digest everything that has happened. Time for you to start to pick yourselves up and rebuild what has been broken. Time to you to affirm what you must take back. What you can't lose again. There is time now. Take it. Because you are all /worth/ this time. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
After Dinowhatsits strolls off, Rebecca finds herself just staring at Kaguya for a moment, before holstering her ARM.
On the other side is an opening into a large antechamber. A faintly glowing blue light is overhead, gently illuminating the stonework of this area with light that gently ripples like light reflecting off of water. Shadows on a wall.
It's never the same way twice. Yet unlike most light of this color - it's soothing. As if it calls one to rest and reflect.
"There's no fiends around. Let's just... take a minute - to take a load off."
There's stone benches around - that make it easy enough to have a seat.
Rebecca finds herself settling down on one of them and taking out her poetry journal. Starting to scrawl something, every so often looking up at each member of the group as she writes.
Am I losing my mind here? Is Kaguya playing nice or does she just want me to think she's playing nice? Maybe she's right. Maybe in those scenarios going along with the group a little is the mature thing to do. And then there's that 'Prisoner', Yue. She.
Rebecca holds the implement to the page. And eventually she turns it around and starts tapping the opposite end down in a quiet rhythm. She steals a furtive glance at Avril that seems shy, then clears her throat, and starts to talk.
"You know we've all been through a lot getting here. So much that I can't even... wrap my head around it all sometimes. But all I can think about right now is one thing."
Her eyes slide over onto Kaguya. Like she's about to ask her something - maybe about the War she's waging.
... but frankly, she's not really surprised about Kaguya going in this direction. And it's not what she's really thinking about. Eventually they move over to Yue. The 'Old Timer'.
"You say you don't have a stake in returning Avril to the Radicals. Fine. I believe you."
Perhaps it's just like a kid - to confront someone on something she clearly doesn't want to talk about. Something clearly upsetting to her. The wiser thing would be to give it a wide berth, not engage with it at all...
"But - that doesn't mean you don't have a stake in Avril."
... but all the same - she finds that she cares too much about what people think of Avril... that she would take that risk.
Maybe that's why deep down she knows she isn't really as grown up as she'd like to be.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Rebecca's Travel Diary toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune lends an ear to the discussion around Avril, open curiosity warring with the relatively single-minded focus she finds herself carrying right at the moment. Briefly, her attention flicks towards Kaguya and Rebecca - and then she looks back down to spurring the little Dinoginos on. "I don't need any kind of reason to help. I'm just real tired, and it's been a real long day, and I'm not gonna shoot a fiend who's got themselves stuck and is feeling really sad," she mutters solemnly.
Tactfully, she doesn't elaborate on whether she means the Aquaphant or Lunata.
What does happen is that her mood visibly sinks when Kaguya mentions Yevon, and talks about how it must have been hard. Her head sinks a little; she nearly reaches up to pull her bobble hat down, before realizing she's not even wearing it, hasn't ever since she took up her Spiran disguise. She kind of wants it, right now. "... Yevon was gonna help her. At least, so we thought. Lunie basically counts as an Unsent, right? And then all this happened."
She offers a sulky look towards Kaguya. "I'm still kind of pissed at you, by the way. Your bombs suck," she grumbles as a rather rough explanation as to why. "You'd have to do better than that to catch me out, and that's not a challenge." But the Veruni's discussing a bigger, wider plan, and Shalune bites gently at her lip. She's not-- great at the idea of 'the many over the one', she knows that. She's the wrong kind of idealistic.
But she's slowly learning to accept these things, or at least accept that they might be more complicated than they appear, and she drags a hand through her mess of pink. "... next time... you need to talk to more of us. I think you'd have had a lot more people trying to help you. I mean-- I'm human, sure, but if you wanna drag me to Laila Belle and sit me in front of a research station, go for it. I'm all for tryin' to help."
Her earlier remark about wanting to set a fire turns out to be prescient; the space they enter into is wide and safe and even if the stone benches aren't exactly comfortable, she and Big Shal can certainly manage to make it comfortable. They work together without a word, as Shalune lays out a couple of blankets on one of the seats and the golem lays Lunata gently down onto them - and then tucks her in with a gentle pat.
With that done, Shalune turns to the fire, puffing as she takes out - of all things, not a bizarre fire-making gadget but an old-school tinderbox. The golem obligingly opens a compartment on its waist; inside is stocked some slightly damp firewood, a campfire kit, and a bag of provisions she'd thought to squirrel away in case of emergencies. Before long, she's absorbed in humming to herself, working a knife in her hands before adding things to the pot.
She might not be as good as Lunata, her knifework rough and her cooking style kind of guesswork - but she can still manage a homely sort of aroma to go with the chance to rest.
DG: Shalune Amira has used Lunata's Tool Soup of the Day toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales Of Skit.
She'll even steal tools...
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Bag of Tricks toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
With the Aquaphant dealt with, there is little else here to cause anyone further grief. Rebecca calls for a time out, but Avril...
...Seems for the moment as if she hasn't heard her. Her gaze is on Yue alone.
"You are... a prisoner."
It's there that her attention hangs. Of all things.
Lydia, she remembers, and she has to blink, to keep her eyes from watering, Lydia had said that her people were being kept prisoner by...
"So they keep even Veruni as prisoners." There is a long pause, and her right hand curls at her side, unbidden. "The... Radicals."
It's familiar. Had someone mentioned it to her recently? Or...
The thing in the dark is little more than a weighty presence, shifting in the corners of her mind. It offers her even less than it usually does.
It cannot reach up into the daylight, in the end.
Yue, though, says that she is not alright.
"I... see."
She glances, sidelong, at Dean, as if to ask him in silence what she should do. Right now, it's as if she's become frozen, rooted to the spot.
Maybe it's a relief when Rebecca breaks into this tense moment.
'You don't have a stake in Avril'.
And Avril is able to take a step back, stiffly, and at last looks away.
Seemingly torn, her gaze returns to Yue, darts towards Kaguya...
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has used her Tool Mirror of De Soto toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean waves to the Aquaphant as it trundles away. It even pointed out a treasure for everyone! How nice! Less nice is Kaguya's response--"Wait, so you *did* wanna wage war??"--and Rebecca pointing out that Yue not wanting to bring Avril to Volsung doesn't mean she doesn't have an interest in her. Dean pauses at this, looking back and forth between Rebecca and Yue and Avril, mouth working a few times, before he decides the wise thing to do would be to say nothing at all. Dean knows that his way of understanding things isn't often the way most people understand things. So, when they find a place to sit and relax and think, he decides to sit back and listen.
And also have some soup. And maybe also review the Danger Sphere he got so long ago from a Crusader who'd been working with an Al Bhed to make a sphere compiling all the dangerous things in Spira... As he clicks through the information contained therein, he wonders if that Crusader, whose name he never even learned before Operation Mi'ihen went down, ever finished the final version, or if it's lost... He catches the look Avril sends his way and returns it, but although he tends to beeline straight towards the future, when things are complicated like this, he can become terribly indecisive... He wants to do the right thing, but what do you do when it's not clear what the right thing is--or if there *is* a right thing at all?
Shalune likewise talks about complicated things, like Lunata's wobbly relationship with life and death, and Kaguya's also wobbly relationship with life and death if in a different way. Dean frowns, thinking, as he passes the sphere from one hand to the other... but for now, he continues to listen. Sometimes that's the best thing you can do.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Danger Sphere toward his party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Mercifully, they come onto a large antechamber with a soft blue light overhead. Stonework illuminated from the ripples of light reflected off the water. It's soothing. It invites them to rest, and reflect.
Rebecca suggests they take a break.
She keeps quiet, standing by the wall on one side.
She listens to Shalune for a moment longer. About how Yevon was going to help her friend. And then this all happened. And she's cooking too...
... Lunata is beginning to stir a little, with a soft groan as the aroma of soup starts to hit her nostrils. Which shouldn't work, but some things are just so intrinsic to yourself that you can't help yourself.
"... parsley... you need parsley..."
Yue notices something else, though. The way Rebecca steals furtive glances to Avril. Shy, uncertain. But insistent. She clears her throat, though, and she pays attention to her.
You say you don't have a stake in returning Avril to the Radicals. Fine. I believe you.
Then she follows up:
But -- that doesn't mean you don't have a stake in Avril.
...
...
A LONG TIME AGO
Prim. Proper. Dressed in the full garb of the Veruni military academy, epaulets and all. Her hair -- long even back then -- held in place with two golden clasps in the form of two tails, as she marches down in her boots.
"Just-- what do you think you're doing?!" shouts a young Yue, face red.
The redhead turns, adorned in full armour. Yue notices that her lips are full and robust, as they curl into a mischevious smirk.
I thought you didn't care?
Yue's face flares up as she turns her head away.
"T-that doesn't mean I don't have a stake in watching you! You dummy!"
NOW
"You are right," Yue answers Rebecca firmly, perhaps seeing a little bit too much -- and knowing full well the risk of seeing something of yourself in someone else is that projection comes next.
"I am all ears. What can I do to assure you? What can I answer for you?"
Avril mentions that she's a prisoner. The way she says, So they keep even Veruni as prisoners...
Don't have another panic attack. She clearly doesn't remember.
It's almost a dramatic pause, before Lunata gurgles out again:
"...parsleyy..."
DG: Yue Rohay has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
It's unreasonable and unacceptable how cute the Dinowhatsit is. Kaguya refuses to comment on it. Even if it did bwee. ...Bwee... "Good enough for me," Kaguya says. "I don't really feel like killing something right now either."
She pauses about the bomb--"...Eh, heh. I figured you'd be able to beat it," Kaguya says, "If anyone could. Or that you'd guess the password." A beat, and a sigh. "...Can I, though? I mean--I don't think... I don't think good people can change the world. But..." She bites her lip. "They wouldn't listen to you," she says, looking into the distance. "I don't want any of you getting anywhere near Laila Belle. Or the Control Zones. Just... stay out. For your own good. I appreciate the offer, and... maybe I'll ask a little, but..." She looks at Dean. "I mean, I thought it was the best way. Yevon wouldn't work with us, so we crush them quick, minimize casualties by avoiding a long, drawn-out war with quick, brutal strikes--end it, so we can move on to fighting Sin, and eliminate the threat to everyone. And I was fine with it. ...Just, I guess... it wasn't like the war in Glenwood. It's... it's different."
A soothing, blue space; a space of flickering light that is easy on the eyes. For the first time in a while... Kaguya can do with sitting down. Resting a little. Just a little, anyway. She moves, and sits on a bench, too, heavily. ...In the moment, just how light and frail she still is seems a little more obvious.
Parsley. Parsley, Avril... and Yue.
"I... don't think I can eat," Kaguya says, apologetically. "It smells nice, but... My stomach's really unsettled." She shakes her head.
She listens, too. "The Radicals will do more than that," Kaguya points out. "I mean, I guess... we will. I don't care about Veruni politics." Rebecca's thinking about one thing. "Or I mean, they don't do me any good. Not that I'm leaving the party, or whatever, I just--there's too much going on right now to worry about all that."
"Hey, Prisoner," Kaguya says, wryly. "Ain't it a pity that I can't hear anything you're saying? You could be answering all kinds of questions and I just didn't notice. Must've blown up that bomb too hard."
But she continues, then. "For the record." Kaguya waits until she has Avril's attention, to continue. "...I have a stake in Avril." Kaguya looks to Rebecca, too, speaking seriously. "I still have no plans to take you back--and I'd run interference from someone who would, if I could do it without causing myself too many problems with command. It's the opposite, of wanting to take her back. Take you back." She focuses again on Avril.
"...I've learned a few things, but not enough. What happened, back then? How much matches what's in our records? What's the 'truth'? That's what I have to know. And I want you to know it, too."
"Everything I thought I understood... It seems like the foundations are wrong. And I don't know, yet. What to do. What I need to do, what I should."
"Who it is that I can't forgive. ...So, yeah. I've got a stake. I won't let you give up, on learning. Because we both have to know. We have to know all of it. That's the only way. ...The only way... to know what we have to do. To know how..."
"It's just the only way," Kaguya repeats, closing her eyes.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Your Very Own Tales of Skit.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Your Very Own Tales of Skit *>================= |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Your party arrives at an antechamber anchored by a mystical point of power. It provides protection from nearby wandering Fiends. It is also mysteriously designed for camping equipment like Tents to be pitched and set up with ease, just as the light-warriors of old once did. ... So much has happened. Odessa. The last-minute miracle of the Guts-Dozer. Lombardia. Sin. Maester Seymour. Jyscal's sphere. And his once-assistant, Krelian. ... There is time. Time for you all to mentally digest everything that has happened. Time for you to start to pick yourselves up and rebuild what has been broken. Time to you to affirm what you must take back. What you can't lose again. There is time now. Take it. Because you are all /worth/ this time. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
==============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 5 *>=============== ==================< Results - Your Very Own Tales of Skit >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Bag of Tricks 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Mirror of De Soto 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Danger Sphere 2 Wits Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rebecca's Travel Diary 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Yue Rohay 80 --(0)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Save Point(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Yue Rohay has passed 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.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Avril might notice something in the reflection of the mirror along the periphery. At first it's simply her tapping that worn down writing instrument, but that slows. Then stops - before a journey of her fingers begins in the reflection of the mirror. A flexing and unflexing - it seems more shy than uncertain. Until eventually the tips of her fingers are just brushing the edge of Avril's hand.
Rebecca doesn't look at Avril right now. There's just a slow blink of her eyes.
"I don't know." All this time she had left Yue hanging without an answer. "Maybe nothing." It's an admission perhaps - that maybe nothing Yue can say can put her at ease when it comes to an unknown directed at one of her friends.
"How about you start by just saying... what the words 'Ice Queen' mean to you, personally?"
It's a rather blunt question isn't it? One that might be painful for Avril. Perhaps that's why she made contact before saying it.
Kaguya then sets the record straight, and Rebecca simply watches her out of the corner of her eyes, still looking straight at Yue. "I don't think we have any intention of giving up on learning 'the truth' Kaguya. No matter what that means. It might change some things forever..." A finger curls around the side of one of Avril's. "... but there are some things that no amount of truth can change."
The Danger Sphere shows Dean an image of... Dinowhatsits in these tense moments. Does that mean it's a dangerous thing from Spira? Obviously not.
Eventualy all of them eat their fill of Shalune's soup, which is a welcome thing given Macalania's lingering chill...
... with these things aired out a little - will it make what's coming any easier to deal with though?
DG: Shalune Amira has drawn a new Challenge.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Asura's Wrath *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- An enormous Hellion awaits you at the end of Lefay, the Shrine of the Water Trial. This is Asura. (IMG: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-207.jpg ) Asura, shelled in armour and bearing three pairs of weapons -- paired battle forks, twinned gear-like warhammers, and matched glimmering greatswords of water. He wields each of these enormous weapons one-handed, seemingly unencumbered. His howl shatters the very chamber you engage him in, and combat soon follows-- --and after several rounds at it, it's clear his six-armed guard is impeccable. You'll need the brilliant in your team to stop his movements. You'll need the powerful in your team to breach his defence. You'll need the adroit in your team slip through and deal lasting damage. You'll need the soothing in your team to tie this plan together long enough to work. But that is why you are all here together now. Past all the horrifying hardships you've survived together. Overcome this Water Trial together. Because you all can /do/ this. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"I know, I know, jeez!" pouts Shalune at the open air, as she takes out a little wrapped sheaf of paper and sprinkles some of the herb in. "Just 'cause I add it a little later than you doesn't make it any worse, I swear. It can't blend into the flavour that much, surely?" ... which says really all that needs to be said about Shalune's instincts when it comes to cooking. The interplay of flavour and spice and texture is a heck of a lot harder than knowing what happens when you hit something with a hammer.
Dean gets an extra bit of bread for his patience with things right now, delivered along with an apologetic smile. And toasted, because it's just a little soggy. But it's still good, she promises! "... sorry. ... it's been really hard on her, and I don't think sugarcoating it is gonna really help her. I know it must be rough to think about. I've been there too."
Kaguya gets a nod of understanding first and foremost - and she gets some bread, too. "I get it. Um, honestly, I'm mostly just doing it to try to make Lunie a bit more comfortable," she admits with a sheepish grin. "But when your hungry catches up to you, it's gonna suck. At least try to get something stodgy down." She hovers for a moment, and adds in a fake sort of whisper: "I kind of already spent a lot of time 'round the Control Zone anyway, y'know. I got real good at potshotting drones out the sky."
It's easier to say that than address Kaguya's worries, because she's not really sure how. 'We live and learn' doesn't really cut it here. "... I dunno. You might be right when it comes to changing the world, but..." she murmurs, thinking about Jay, and about how many people she'd leave alive if she possibly could. "... I'd like to hope people would understand, at least. Maybe not 'condone', but... maybe that'd be a little help."
"I don't think that Yue's a bad person," she adds gently to the air in general. She doesn't really have the patience or the lack of tact to insert herself into a conversation that important, but she does feel the need to pipe up in quiet defence. "She likes to make out like she is, but she's too worried about everyone else to really be bad."
It becomes time to move on, eventually. Already, Shalune is a bit suspicious that there might be a nasty surprise awiting for them; the layout of this 'Trial' is a little suspicious, and the rest room feels like the calm before the storm. What she doesn't expect is for the storm to be a massive six-armed Hellion, bristling with weapons.
She's forced to gawk for a moment, as Big Shal amicably sticks close to the back with Lunata held securely in her hands. "How do you even move that many arms?!" Shalune blurts in indignation, the voice of someone who absolutely prototyped a similar system for the Rephaim before giving up on it. The rest of her is a little more serious; before she even knows what she's doing she's unfolded the Little Dipper and swept forwards on it, laying down a pattern of fire to try to restrict the fiend's movements.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Lunie!" Dean exclaims, perking, when he hears the hole-riddled girl start moaning about parsley. But even if she's talking, she's not really going to be *okay*, is she? As Shalune points out. He sobers, then shakes his head. "You don't have to apologize. I appreciate you telling it to me straight," he tells her. "It's hard thinking about your friends suffering, and I hate that she is, but... we can't help her if we pretend she's not, right?" He dips his bread in the soup. "A'yway, thihh ihh goo' houp," he says around a mouthful. At least he focuses on eating after that.
After he finishes eating, he frowns slowly at Kaguya, considering what she says. "I guess... I get where you're coming from," he says slowly when she explains she wanted a quick war. "But I can't agree with war at all. I'm glad you were trying to make it so there were as few people hurt as possible, but I think *any* people hurt would be too many." He sighs. "But it's true that Althena's Guard was *really* eager to pick a fight... Sometimes people are like that. I don't know what you can do to stop people like that if not fight back. I know sometimes you have to take a stand." He nods to Rebecca when she chimes in. "Yeah. At the end of the day, I'd rather know an unhappy truth than believe in a happy lie. If we know a truth that sucks, we can work on making it something good!"
Awww, Dinowhatsis. Although it's strange that it's in there in the sphere, Dean smiles at the sight of it anyway. It's shaped like a friend! So, putting it away, he looks over at Avril to make sure she's okay, then gives Yue a thoughtful look when Rebecca asks her what she thinks of the title 'Ice Queen.' Then the group moves on.
There's a big ol' Hellion on the other side!! It's got a punch of arms, too. But not as many ARMs as Dean!! Summoning Twin Fenrir into his hands, he opens fire on Asura, then charges in to whallop it with the gun-sticks. The coup de grace, as he's been doing a lot in dungeons lately, is a great big KA-BONG from the Devil Arm, Ace of Spades (so named by Dean, because it's cool). "Take *that*!" he concludes triumphantly.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Ace of Spades toward his party's challenge, Asura's Wrath.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
Yue stands patiently as Rebecca works through her answer. Giving her time. No sense in rushing her. She was the one who asked, after all. She doesn't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe nothing she can say-- nothing she can do-- can put her at ease regarding an unknown to a friend.
She gets that.
But...
How about you start by just saying... what the words 'Ice Queen' mean to you, personally?
"... ..."
She really knows how to cut straight to the heart of the matter, doesn't she?
She looks to Avril for a moment. Then back at Rebecca. Here, being pressed so directly, she finds it ironic that she's less anxious and in less trepidation than she thought she would be. Maybe the simple truth has something beautiful, in its simplicity.
"... the Ice Queen ruined my life," she answers. "But it was also my fault. It was a lot of peoples' faults."
She sags after she answers. She really wishes she had a cucco feather in her mouth to lilt. The jangle of her chains is heard, as she listens to Kaguya. Gives her the freedom to say what she wants, that she won't listen because boy, those bombs are loud. But also gives her piece on Avril.
How she's learnt a few things. What happened, back then? What is the truth?
The truth...
"... ... I can piece together enough. That I can say for certain I do not have much of a stake on this Avril. You understand what I mean, do you not, Streisand?"
She lowers her head.
"The way you look at her protectively. The way Dean encourages her and speaks. You are fast friends. There is no fabrication there."
She chuckles extremely wearily, saying, "It makes one wonder if everything they ever felt and endured through is nothing but a lie, with a flip of a very fateful switch."
But...
"Let me tell you one other fact, out of appreciation for your apprehension." She steps just a bit closer, if Rebecca will answer her. "... I am imprisoned for the crime of Regicide."
The Hellion rises, however, as Shalune starts calling out and she steps forward to act, but--
Big Shal puts a hand on her shoulder.
"... Promme?"
Big Shal lifts her head to where...
A figure has risen out of the back.
An undead, ex-waitress figure who's... limping forward. "Parsley..."
She springs forward to seize the massive Hellion by the waist -- despite the fact she can't possibly wrap her tiny arms around his enormously sized tree trunk of a body.
She does it anyway.
And slowly but surely, taking advantage of Dean's shots and the KA-BONG from his shovel, with a ferocious undead uproar, the inky blackness of the holes riddled on her body oozing outward as she summons her infernal strength--
"... PARSLEYYYYYYYY ...!!"
And then Lunata suplexes the Hellion.
DG: Yue Rohay has used her Tool An Old Golem Core toward her party's challenge, Asura's Wrath.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
The Ice Queen ruined her... Avril pales.
She has had some intimation before, of course. No, more than some. But to see this woman here, now so clearly underline what she had done...
She cannot speak. She has no voice at all now.
She wants to run away, reject it. Bury it deep. But what the Trial Knight had said was truth. The further the division reaches, the more she will break into pieces and be consumed by it. The only way is... to...
'For the record', Kaguya speaks...
Ah. Yes. A 'stake' in her. To--
Her attention swivels Kaguya's way and something -- some mix of shock, surprise, and of course, alarm -- all bloom in her expression at once. "You would... do... that?"
She wants the truth. And more than that-- she wants her to know it.
Silence resumes. Weighty, heavy. There's something in Kaguya's eyes that...
She bows her head again, afterwards.
Avril does not meet Rebecca's gaze either, her attention low, on Rebecca's writing hand then fluttering sidelong.
To her mirror's surface.
Wherein...
Something happens.
Avril's form tenses, as if she were holding herself in check...
And then she simply exhales.
And does not move her hand. If Rebecca seeks the back of her hand, she will be able to reach.
But they cannot sit here forever. Eventually, she rises to her feet, slips the mirror away... and heads with the others into the chamber beyond.
Where stands a--
"That is no Fiend," Avril states, drawing her blade with only a small flourish. It is pointed at the Hellion.
"What is Malevolence doing here?" But she shakes her head; there is no to seek the answer to this question.
"We must move in with purpose. If we strike at it without a plan, we..."
This may be when Lunata stirs from her rest and springs forward.
"We..."
Avril tilts her head to one side as if considering what has just even happened.
"This seems unusual," she remarks to Shalune. "Even for Lunata. ...She seems upset about the parsley."
...
Perhaps seizing this opening for what it is worth, she, too, closes on the Hellion, taking Dean's strike for the additional advantage it might present.
DG: Avril Vent Fleur has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Asura's Wrath.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
From somewhere within the resulting destruction comes the cry. It may be their salvation. But it may portend further destruction. It is the Sulk of Ages: "Oh, like dried parsley's any worse. It's all parsley!"
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Yeah," Kaguya agrees with Rebecca. "Some things you learn... things can never be like they were, before. I'm not so sure that that can't change things, though." She finds herself pensive, thinking about it. And indeed--she looks at Dean--
"I know," she says. "You're gentle, like that. It's just--I don't think it's possible, to avoid people getting hurt at all. Without me doing anything, people like Matilda's mother are the ones who suffer." She pauses, though--nods. "...The truth no matter what, huh...? I'm... I'm not ready, to say... everything. For now, just--I just can't really share your optimism. And when I think about it... When I think about it all, I just--I get so mad. I dunno what telling you the rest would do." It mixes, for her, the way both of them talk.
"Heh. Yeah that's fair. If she can complain she's doing better, right?" A beat, "...Yeah, I'll try." Fake whisper--Kaguya sees her point. "Yeah," she admits. "You get it. Better than I did." She didn't see much of Veruni territory before she left it. It all came together... later.
"Yeah. Some of them would get it, or try. I know. But that makes me want to tell them less, y'know? If that... makes sense." But she looks at Shalune with something like--not quite gratitude. But like for once someone sees her. It might be strange--it's a look she hasn't given since long, long ago.
She's not sure. But Yue? Kaguya would agree. For all that she's super cool. But the Ice Queen...?
Kaguya tilts her head, looking over Yue. That different. As if this one, is different from that one...?
"Are they different?" Kaguya wonders. "Or is it just because she doesn't remember...? Would she change, if she did?" She looks at Avril. "I don't mean to talk about you like you're not here. It's just--I guess part of you isn't, huh?"
"Man, though. Everything being a lie--big mood, right Yue?"
Kaguya does have a strange look in her eye--speaking of anger. Speaking of lies. And when Avril looks at her with that mix--"Yeah. Yeah, I would. This is more important to me, than... anything."
But when they move on... "Man. That thing looks cool." Beat. "Malevolence... Yeah, we haven't seen any in a while, despite all the humans around." The Trial Knight and she have had some talks, too. "Despite it being Lunar. It must matter..."
They have to have a plan. They have to work together. Is that the lesson? "...If I go all out," Kaguya says, "I..."
She knows, she thinks. She can't do it, without destroying more than this thing. That anger will overtake her. That rage, that--that... what's the word...?
"What the--" Lunata moves forward. "...All right. Fine--I'll work with you guys--hup!"
Kaguya reaches into her bag--she throws a pair of strange, golden stars at Avril, and they burst into magic--the Twin Stars letting her stretch her power so much farther than she usually could.
And then... Frag Grenades, to bust open its defenses. She lets the others focus on those strikes. She stands back. And truth be told--
...She's not sure she has the energy, to mix it up in melee.
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Extravagant Inventory Overuse toward her party's challenge, Asura's Wrath. DG: Shalune Amira has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Asura's Wrath.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
The idea that the Ice Queen ruined her life...
... Rebecca's memories of that time when her experienced merged with Avrils feels incomplete. She just remembers how it felt.
"That's how it usually is." Rebecca notes, on it being a lot of people's faults. "I don't know you - so I'm afraid I can't offer more than my condolences."
'I do not have much of a stake on this Avril.
"... I get what you mean. Sure."
However, does she agree with it? Rebecca finds herself listening to Shalune's statement, that she doesn't think she's a bad person, that she just likes to make out like she is - but she's too worried about everyone else to really be that as everyone rises, and her hand finally leaves the proximity of Avril's.
She does start to say something to Kaguya, "I'm... not so sure that that's..."
And then... Yue says that. And something inside of Rebecca seizes up - visibly startled. Rattled.
Shalune said she's not a bad person. Shalune never said she was a good person though. I don't think good people commit Regicide.
"You're trying to get a rise out of me. So instead of asking what you mean by that - I'll tell you this instead..."
Rebecca leans in at that moment, and
"... I don't just like this Avril. I also like the parts of her... that you don't."
I just don't know if I'm a good person either.
Taking a deep breath though, as she straightens up, she tears her eyes away. "... But because of that... I think it'd be pretty unfair of me to tell you... that all 'they' felt and endured was a lie."
Avril calls her attention to Malevolence and...
Rebecca looks up at the Asura Hellion. Way up.
Rebecca starts invoking her Medium. Just as Lunata Suplexes the Hellion.
The Hexagonal Rise in Ley Energy rises - and freezes at that moment, like a lingering pulse in the air.
"... ... ... I guess there are worse things to get upset over." She answers Avril.
Before the gathered energy strikes with purpose - blasting the Asura Demon's head with a spherical blast of concentrated flame.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Sky Medium toward her party's challenge, Asura's Wrath.
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>==================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Asura's Wrath *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- An enormous Hellion awaits you at the end of Lefay, the Shrine of the Water Trial. This is Asura. (IMG: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-207.jpg ) Asura, shelled in armour and bearing three pairs of weapons -- paired battle forks, twinned gear-like warhammers, and matched glimmering greatswords of water. He wields each of these enormous weapons one-handed, seemingly unencumbered. His howl shatters the very chamber you engage him in, and combat soon follows-- --and after several rounds at it, it's clear his six-armed guard is impeccable. You'll need the brilliant in your team to stop his movements. You'll need the powerful in your team to breach his defence. You'll need the adroit in your team slip through and deal lasting damage. You'll need the soothing in your team to tie this plan together long enough to work. But that is why you are all here together now. Past all the horrifying hardships you've survived together. Overcome this Water Trial together. Because you all can /do/ this. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
==============<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial - Round 6 *>=============== =========================< Results - Asura's Wrath >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yue Rohay 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass An Old Golem Core 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Avril Vent Fleur 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Ace of Spades 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Extravagant Inventory Overuse 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Sky Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Yue Rohay 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Yue Rohay has successfully explored Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial!
===================<* Lefay - Shrine of the Water Trial *>====================
============<* CHALLENGE - The Proof of Spiritual Power - Lefay *>============
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
It is a long and hard-fought battle, but in the end, your team has managed
to overcome Asura.
Dissipating into motes, the Hellion gives you an approving expression, as if
it has been lifted from a great burden. At long last, you can feel, a great
and ancient anger has finally found peace at your hands.
A great, bright blue light erupts from a nearby altar and suffuses the
entire room with a feeling of power -- a feeling not dissimilar from another
trial of spiritual power you may have visited before in your travels, Uzda
il-Jam. It envelops your person for but a brief moment, but you feel your
spiritual presence strengthening further...
Acquired
Proof of Spiritual Power -- Lefay!
When the light subsides, you discover that great stone tablets have taken
their place. Engraved upon them are the secrets of powerful water and ice
magics only known to some of the most powerful mages in Lunar. If you are so
inclined, reach out and absorb the knowledge the ancients in your travels...
or if you do not possess the Gift, reach out with an object or weapon -- and
suffuse it with the power of water!
(OOC: You have discovered the spells of Waterga and Blizzaga! A character
with the Gift of Althena's Black Magic may apply for these in their next
character advancement! Alternately, if you lack the Gift, you can opt for a
water or ice enchantment on your weapon or tool.)
---
A shimmering portal erupts from the ground once you've finished your
business with the tablet. It expands further and further, until it
overwhelms your senses...
And before you know it, the scent of salt and the noise of gentle waves has
replaced the ancient ambience of the Shrine. You and your companions are
standing on a large, rusted aircraft carrier inhabited by varied folk -- the
Thames.
You have arrived in Filgaia!
=Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Every so often, Shalune can have the occasional flash of inspiration. It's not that she's smart, really, but she does enjoy people-watching, and she can put two and two and two together. Rebecca's protectiveness mixes with Avril's reticence and Yue's distress in her mind, gets run through the bit of her brain that's learned that Yue likes to be playful with words and not always say what she means, and even in the midst of the battle her mouth hinges open to pop out:
"Yeah, but. Did you actually do it?" she wonders aloud, and the solemnity of the question is a little at odds with the way she continues afterwards, as she slides under a sweeping axe and pivots her shotstaff upwards as its tip explodes into crimson light in a web-like array of shots.
"I mean, you just talked about the 'Radicals', and Kaguya doesn't have the best opinion as far as any Veruni is concerned. And Granny's a crotchety old grump and she had a lot to complain about politics, too. Promme-- Big Shal wouldn't be nearly so kind if you'd actually done it. You'd get a really stern lecture at least. And it sounds like your Ice Queen is all kinds of uncided, which kinda makes a lot of stuff a bit moot, right?"
She has to pause as Lunata goes on the attack, and furrow her brow as she kicks the Little Dipper off the floor into a sideways sweep, mostly to avoid the creature getting suplexed into the ground. For a moment, she looks terribly glum, because she had a distinct image of Lunata The Suave Samurai and it's kind of taken a kicking as of late. But there's relief, as well, even if there's an urgent frown.
Still - she hesitates just a moment longer, and looks to Kaguya. "... it... kinda does. ... um. Ask Lunata how I hovered around her for ages. It took a while for me to get to where I am now. It doesn't make it any easier for either of us to deal with, I think, but we're getting there. You-- maybe you two should talk properly," she wonders. "Just-- when she's calmed down."
And as Lunata delivers another raw suplex and the Asura's form starts to dissipate away into raw Malevolence, Shalune guns the Little Dipper forwards, sweeping under the twisted form in a dive that pulls her up next to her childhood friend. She has only moments to act, to quell the violent rage - and stuffs a spoon of soup into Lunata's mouth, pumping her fists afterwards. "D'you think I improved?"
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.
"... I wonder, Shalune ..."
She steps forward as she helps people from where the battle's wrapping up, because she wound up not participating because of... Big Shal's wisdom? Perhaps the Golem is trying to protect her in some way she can't piece together right now.
"... does it really matter what the truth is?" Yue asks. "Kaguya's said it. Let us say there was a lie. A lie that is told to ten people, repeated a hundred times, printed on a thousand books, and shared across tens of thousands of generations of people."
She lifts her head up to the ceiling, staring at those blue waters again.
"... does it matter at that point what the truth is?"
She can't help but chuckle further when Rebecca approaches her and tells her like it is, though.
Yue looks at the young acrobat back in the eyes.
"... Good," is her answer. "If you are truly committed to what you say... I think you need that kind of resolve. ... I think Kaguya does too, but that is beside the point," because she's sort of listening in on Kaguya's own opinion about what it is that needs to be done.
She looks to Avril again as she steps forward and curiously looks towards the tablet, for scrutiny.
There is a smirk as she turns to look over her shoulder.
"And you are right to not trust me. Nothing good comes out of trusting disappointing adults."
Lunata is still mostly just a panting, grunting, groaning gorilla at this point. She'll get over the parsley... at some point. Perhaps one can say they'll have a parley about the parsley.
Then she gets a spoonful of soup into her mouth.
"... ..."
She pulls out and remarks: "Fresh parsley."
thanks for your contribution lunata