2020-02-20: At Least We Get Paid For This
- Log: At Least We Get Paid For This
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Venetia Vuong, Ethius Hesiod
- Where: Great Sea
- Date: February 20, 2020
- Summary: A small group heads out to explore the local islands -- for the money as well as for, potentially, their own goals. A terrible discovery is had along the way, but all ends well enough... right?
DG: A party led by Josephine Lovelace is now entering The High Seas. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea! *>============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You meet up with the captain of the ship you've signed to assist on its journey -- "The Seneschal" -- long before you even see the boat because the captain has a big problem. Specifically, several key members of the crew are still at the local tavern. They have a number of things they need to attend to shipside for today's launch so they've asked you to go and fetch them. The finding them part isn't hard. The fact that they are somewhat drunk and not coming with you is the more difficult part. You may need to apply a little 'gentle' force here. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/wolfstack-lights =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie needs to explore islands in the Meria region (ideally to the south) for the purposes of her research.
The Guild Galad cartographic institute needs people to explore and map islands for them in the Meria region (specifically Northern Aquvy but details, details).
Together, they're... they're...
Well it's a natural partnership, isn't it? She even gets paid for this.
The captain meets them hat literally in hand at a small inn near to the harbor. As in, she's twisting the hat in her hands as she explains the problem:
It seems that several members of the crew have not turned up for duty on the ship, and she doesn't have the time between launch and now to both pry them out of wherever they've gotten off to (rumor suggests it's a nearby bar) and tend to last-minute business in port.
In short, she'd like to ask a favor.
Josie, for her part, just glances at her fellow recruits for the tour, shrugs, and hops to it.
...The sailors in question are indeed drinking in a nearby bar. To be accurate, they are still drinking.
"...Even I'm not this bad," Josie remarks, one hand on her hip.
Says the woman who showed up to a lecture mildly drunk and kept drinking right through it.
"C'mon now, you lot," she says, approaching the table and slamming her good hand down upon it. "Captain says you're all due in the harbor. Let's get a move on, yeah?"
They jeer at her, loudly.
This makes some vein in Josie's forehead twitch.
She produces, seemingly amnesiac of her comment just moments before, the dreaded hip flask, which she brandishes as if it were a torch.
"Right, then! If that's how you're gonna be, let's make a bet, eh?" She slams the flask down onto the table, hard. "I bet you this fine flask I can drink anyone under the table, right here, right now!"
...Is more drinking what they really need at this moment though?
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage toward her party's challenge, Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea!.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
VENETIA VUONG, out on a sample collection journey which is sharing space with this cartographic mission to verify and update charts, has her own ideas of how to handle this particular problem. "Of course," Venetia had told the captain. "I'll handle it right away." At this point she started rolling up her sleeves.
"WILL YOU SHRIVELLED LITTLE PICKLED BASHI-BAZOUKS GET OUT OF YOUR DOG-BUGGERING CUPS AND LISTEN TO ME THIS MOMENT!" Venetia Vuong bellows as she comes in some moments after Josie has spoken. Venetia stamps the floor with her foot, hands going onto her hip as she tilts her head back, lip curling in a sneer as her dark mask lace makes her eyes seem all the whiter, all the wider, all the more ANGRY.
"All of YOU are scheduled for DUTY and I do not care in this moment about your labor conditions, about your WAGES, about your TIREDNESS, about how you're being mistreated by the boss, about how Filgaia is dying, about how the Metal Demons or Odessa are going to win anyway, about how whatever wretched regional slobocrat you claim allegiance to when you're not on the Thames is certain to win, lose AND draw power, guaranteeing your imminent demise with a triple backflip, BECAUSE," and now Venetia strides forwards and slams both hands on the indicated table, "I have a mission to complete, and each and every one of you are a vital, nay, essential part of this mission, because -"
And now Venetia shoves her head down to give a particularly burly crewman the lazy eye from less than an inch away, close enough to smell her breakfast chopped roast on her breath: "You're going to be DRIVING the SHIP, and I can't exactly go collect rocks on a far off island without a SHIP, now can I? Not unless I get in my GEAR. Hm. Maybe I should call up my college and ask if I can borrow their GEAR. Maybe it'll have our TRUANCY AND SLACKER DETECTING SYSTEM operational. Perhaps we can link it to THE DEVICE!"
Venetia is going for intimidation it would seem.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea!.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
There's that oddball Symbologist that Jay seems keen on keeping around the CaraKin whose favorite hobby, it turns out, is playing dress-up as any manner of what a society perceives as the general stereotype of an outlaw or outcast, and out in Aquvy he does a fine job of looking the part of looking like he ought to be some nefarious pirate raider's deckhands.
He happens to have a similar interest in terms of that specific region of theoretical islands, but the importance of that is either not immediately apparent or irrelevant. There is a problem, and there is a need for this problem to be addressed.
As Josie challenges the layabouts to a simple drinking competition and Venetia screams up a storm, Ethius attempts to make use of the commotion to get behind the counter and procure some opaque mugs. Some of them actually have the brew on tap. One of them... has water.
He has no doubt about Josie's hard drinkin' habits but even he feels compelled to help cheat just so they can get on the boat a bit faster as he starts nonchalantly placing mugs for a competition should the gathered risk the ever greater risk of trying to laugh off Venetia's shouting down.
Even he has a little pause about setting that first mug down before the truant crewmen.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea!.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea! *>============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You meet up with the captain of the ship you've signed to assist on its journey -- "The Seneschal" -- long before you even see the boat because the captain has a big problem. Specifically, several key members of the crew are still at the local tavern. They have a number of things they need to attend to shipside for today's launch so they've asked you to go and fetch them. The finding them part isn't hard. The fact that they are somewhat drunk and not coming with you is the more difficult part. You may need to apply a little 'gentle' force here. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/wolfstack-lights =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 1 *>========================== ================< Results - Because They Are! Men! Of The Sea! >================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Fright(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace 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> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie lays down her offer--
Mere moments before Venetia delivers her ultimatum.
Very slowly she raises both eyebrows, before her gaze slowly shifts to track Ethius as he collects some mugs in the back.
A few of the crew, as Venetia gives them the what-for in no uncertain terms -- one guy in back does attempt to argue back in a very ill-timed fashion (his arguments come mere seconds before Venetia covers them) though he's eventually silenced by an apparent buddy or another -- more than a few of them look like they're having serious regrets about their general life decisions this day.
But several of them are just that drunk, which means that...
"So? Whatcha gonna do, lady, dock our pay?"
"Double it and I'll think about it!"
...they're phenominally stupid.
But on the plus side this also means that they are not precisely noticing that the nice man setting up the drinks may have made an alteration or two to the contents.
Or that their competitor doesn't actually swallow... beer.
...
...In the end, it's a somewhat defeated partial crew that returns to The Seneschal in port, their unlucky champion supported by two of their fellows as they walk.
DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The High Seas *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Wels Swarm *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- It's said that in Aquvy the creatures known as 'Wels' are far more common. This is born out for you while you survey one of the small islands you have come across during the expedition. You've run into not just a few Wels, but a whole host of them. On the bright side, these look a bit scrawnier than most... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/vox-zombius =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
SOON.
The group gets on the boat and they sail forwards for several hours towards the first destination. Venetia does squats and reads a book and doesn't help with anything else.
The landing is on the rock crag sticking partway out of an island with a peculiar shape. The stone part plunges down to the sea bed, with a nearly 200-fathom depth next to it... but away from where this shaft of stone had risen, there is a low and conventional sand-bar style island, no doubt once an atoll that is slowly disintegrating. There is a copse of low, scrubby trees.
And as the group comes round the stony shelter... There they are, groany, grayish, slouching, clad in some cases in raglike shrouds and in other cases in shroudlike flesh. They moan. They hear motion, and they approach...
"Oh, ****," Venetia says. She draws out her bronze rod and points, looking towards the others. "Wels. Do you know how to deal with Wels? Well, I'm no expert, but you want to keep your range."
She draws out a crest graphic. "Faceter," she states.
JEWEL MACHINE GUN!!! (semi-precious only, tho)
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - Wels Swarm.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The ship sets sail without further incident. Soon they are off from Meria harbor!
...The downside about sea-going boats, Josie has decided, in her rough experience of having been on a grand total of maybe three, tops, in her life to date, is that there's not always a lot to do when you're on one.
The Karlsefni and the Fereshte are of course exempt in this calculation, for reasons of being more exciting boats than usual.
But eventually they come across land, and the trio sets out to do what they set out to do.
Which is explore and make some maps of the smaller islands in the Merian seas.
"Hmm, not promising," Josie remarks as they tramp across the island. "It's a bit small, don't you think? What I'm looking for has got to be, hmm, bigger than this..." She tries to make, roughly, a frame with the fingers and thumbs of both hands.
"...Wouldn't that be the kicker, if it were under the sea now..."
She picks up the pace, catching back up with Venetia as the other woman comes into line sight with...
"Fengalon's teeth," the archaeologist remarks, grimacing at the sight of the things. "Heard there were more of them around here. Weren't kidding, were they? Well, then--!"
She draws her rifle, taking advantage of her distance to them (for now) and opens fire, intent on dropping them before they can get in closer.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - Wels Swarm.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is dutiful enough that he does what's asked of him since they are down at least a few able-bodied men. At least, anything that isn't 'show us the lower half of your face' or 'maybe blink more often than you usually do' or anything of that sort. Aside from the topmost layer of a failed charisma check that embodies him, he holds his own. He does not seem to mind the drudgery overly much, on the surface.
When the time comes to disembark and explore their present isle, he offers next to no suggestions as to what they do, which is nice and respectful of both the stronger pesonalities and/or the designated head of the expdition in question. That part is nice when he silently volunteers himself to be nothing more than an extra pair of hands in pursuit of whatever it is he's after.
The problem is that he also tends not to be one to ask for permission to set things on fire, as there is a huge upswell of sorcerous, Symbologically-conjured heat attempting to ignite the approaching Wels just as he asked if he knows how to deal with Wels.
"I am making an educated guess," he says as he ceases speaking to once more chant up a new set of syllables to arcane hand gestures to bring forth another burst of heat.
If Wels really are that much more common in this region, these islands may have a few more fires over the next few days.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Land - Wels Swarm.
=============================<* The High Seas *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Wels Swarm *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- It's said that in Aquvy the creatures known as 'Wels' are far more common. This is born out for you while you survey one of the small islands you have come across during the expedition. You've run into not just a few Wels, but a whole host of them. On the bright side, these look a bit scrawnier than most... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/vox-zombius =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
========================<* The High Seas - Round 2 *>========================= =======================< Results - Land - Wels Swarm >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Injure(2) Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace 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> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"If you want to become an expert, ask the Ethos," Venetia states while she's recovering from the cast of Faceter. The Wels keep on advancing and one might fairly ask what is so spooky about them as one of them loses the greater part of its noggin and seems to pause, groaning in eerie displeasure. (That was from Josie. Several others get winged and disabled, if less dramatically.)
"I suppose they walked ashore or something equally ridiculous," Venetia states. "At least in this flat zone it won't be hard to beat the brush and clear them off. Do good for society, eh?" FOOM! One goes up in flames. Venetia muses, "You may want to be a little leisurely with that, my good man, lest you ignite some precious natural resources."
SOON: Everyone troops back onto the boat.
"What did we learn here today?" Venetia asks.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
==================================================<* The High Seas *>=================================================== =======================================<* CHALLENGE - Sea - Sailor's Nightmare *>======================================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- The shout goes out late one evening -- the worst has happened, the one thing all sailors dread. Part of the ship has caught fire. Out on the ocean, there is nothing as dangerous as a fire on a ship and the sailors struggle to contain the blaze. Smother it, drench it -- to save the ship you must help them fight the fire. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/lowlands =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
For how difficult it was to even go on this journey to start thanks to some drunken, lazy sailors, they get right the hell back out on the water in record time once word comes in that the first stop was full of Wels. Any injuries inflicted are treated on the double, and it seems an island that was marked on a map simply does not exist a few hours west of the one they just visited, so not much to it other than to rest. (They are given assurances if they see a sign of it they'll awaken them.)
Then there's shouting! That must mean that they found that island after all. Ethius awakens ahead of the others - if he even went to sleep at all - and opens the cabin door out to the deck to see the warm orange-yellow glow of life-giving, human-enlightening fire.
Fire, on the ship itself, as yelling sailors do their damndest to put it out. Buckets of water, more shouting, the works. Assuming the other two weren't already awakened by the commotion, Ethius alerts them with a little too calmly stated "our ship has caught fire."
What does he intend to do about it? He seems to take his sweet time deciding to do much about it, but once he decides his life is on the line (at which point his vocabulary has done an excellent job hiding how stupid this man would be to wait to come to such a conclusion), he starts to conjure up not one, but three back-to-back earthen spells to try and smother the flames under sheets of dust.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Sea - Sailor's Nightmare.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"I think we should skedaddle," Josie says, as the remaining Wels are dealt with. "Somehow I've got the idea this ain't all there is of them."
And thus the executive decision was made to weigh anchor in record time. Even Josie's a bit impressed, in the end.
But with the next port of call turning out to be merely illusory in nature, there's not much else to do except a little light maintenance on ARMs, pace about on deck, and then hit the hay.
Shouting in the night rouses Josie from a restless slumber. "Fire? ...Again?" she mumbles, as she tumbles out of her hammock, rifling through her belongings before making her way up onto the deck.
"...Well, hell," she utters simply, gazing up at the blaze. "C'mon, you-- what are you doing?" she says to Ethius, before he sets about the business of beginning to cast.
For her part, she has to approach the matter more... directly. The blaze is threatening nearby on-deck crates, which will become soon more fuel for the flames. She might not have the muscle to move them on her lonesome, but--
"Hey, you! Get over here!"
--with some manhandling and the input of a trusty mattock to help proving some much needed points of leverage...
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, Sea - Sailor's Nightmare.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
FIRE!
It's hard for Venetia to address fire directly. This is the disadvantage of the careful buildup of the way of the Stygian Crest. By carefully emphasizing some aspects of the elemental essences over others, they achieve unusual effects - such as that shower of glittering shards of jewels that ripped into Wels just this afternoon. And they also lack some advantages, such as -
"My country for a ****ing water spout," Venetia says grimly, before looking towards Ethius and saying, incredulously, "You're remarkably CALM about this. Do you know something we don't? Hm? HM?"
PRESENTLY: 'Force Crusher!'
swish thwack FOOM!
Venetia gets a waterspout - if a poorly aimed and rather wasteful one - to shower the deck and hopefully wash any traces of burning fuel into the ocean, where oil can do no harm. She does it by blowing up the sea!!
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Stygian Crest Graph toward her party's challenge, Sea - Sailor's Nightmare.
==================================================<* The High Seas *>=================================================== =======================================<* CHALLENGE - Sea - Sailor's Nightmare *>======================================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | -----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------------------------- The shout goes out late one evening -- the worst has happened, the one thing all sailors dread. Part of the ship has caught fire. Out on the ocean, there is nothing as dangerous as a fire on a ship and the sailors struggle to contain the blaze. Smother it, drench it -- to save the ship you must help them fight the fire. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/lowlands =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
=============================================<* The High Seas - Round 3 *>============================================== =========================================< Results - Sea - Sailor's Nightmare >========================================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Stygian Crest Graph 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Injure(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ===================================================< Dream Chasers >====================================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
That fire sure is spreading quickly, and Josephine has the right of it to coax some burlier figures to move some precious (...less precious, more flammable) cargo out of harm's way before any of the fire could sweep that way. If it goes on for much longer, well... there's a whole lot of dire what-ifs that they can all go over on their own damn time, or past their own damn time if their own damn time is about to run out for a pack of smokes and never come back.
Venetia (also rightfully) yells at Ethius' seeming lack of action until closer towards what might be towards the last minute. Her improvisation by blowing the hell out of the nearby water to splash the deck and drown out some of the fire. It is reduced in size dramatically enough that Ethius can drop the earthen cover atop it and smother it out before the damage can spread any further. Any fire damage out at sea, this far out from land, is severe by default. Not so severe that they can't keep sailing, though, thanks to those two.
"I'm not convinced that was an accident," Ethius remarks to Venetia well after she calls him out on his uncanny composure. He eyes those going about, as some go to help move the removed cargo back towards where it ought to rest in a place that is no longer on fire.
"...I did not catch any suspicious movements," says the man who would probably find one if he looked in the mirror more, but regardless of his paranoia and suppositions, it's time to head back to the hammocks and get. Some. Sleep.
Why would anyone set a ship on fire now, though?
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Creeping Chaos *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You come across a strange and unnatural-seeming tower while exploring an island. As it turns out this is but a prelude to a problem. As you approach the tower, /it/ emerges from through the wall, a dark creature with yellow eyes wearing what appears to be a white robe. Maybe you've heard of these. They're a dread monster of legend: the so-named 'Creeping Chaos'. Some say they're not even of Filgaia. Some say they drag victims away into the darkness with them, never to be seen again. This one looms over you now, as if considering its options. Now is the chance to strike at it, before it can attack! And perhaps, if you win, claim the similarly rumored treasure they are said to hold. Are there really keys that can open even sealed doors...? BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/vox-zombius =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Vault============================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
With some recruitment (done mostly via shouting and pointing and occassionally pitching in with the mattock and all) Josie's able to clear the area, preventing the spread of the flame. The rest comes via the application of water (manually and magically) and of course Ethius' own spells.
Suffice to say Josie is in a poor mood indeed by the time the fire is put out and the ship is deemed safe.
"Neither am I, Owl," she says, giving Ethius a pointed look that might just fly right over his head (metaphorically). "Neither am I."
Though the obvious suspects aside, one is given to wonder...
Who aboard the ship would have a good reason to want to see it go down? The sailors would all know better (one expects), and the three of them...
It's the sort of thoughts that don't precisely bode well on a damaged ship sailing under a night sky, away enough from civilization that no help would be coming their way anytime soon...
Dawn breaks, and with it a shout of land.
Of an island.
A very unexpected island.
It has a tall tower upon it. The tower doesn't look like it should be there.
Nevertheless, repairs are needed, so the ship docks. Our trio after a time head further out into the wilderness (to map and attend to other aims, such as geology and a search for ruins), and approach the rather non-Euclidean tower.
"It don't look half right," Josie remarks.
Before it passes through the wall.
"þ$&*Ø!"
A horrible sound that seems to echo the futility of existence itself resounds through their minds.
Josie's response is to uncap her flask and down its contents in one go, keeping a rather withered bit of eye contact (???) with the thing the entire time. Is this a battle of minds, of standing strong through will alone against an impossible foe--
And then she draws her sidearm and shoots at it.
Oh, so it's just a normal fight then.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage toward her party's challenge, Land - Creeping Chaos.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius seems a little more lively, for a man whose body langauge tends to be so guarded that he occasionally can come off as a lifelike wax sculpture, when there's talk of an island they didn't expect to encounter, to a very strange-looking tower whose architecture both makes no sense, and does not appear to be of any known make.
He is, once again, patient through the surveys and searches between here and the tower, but his gaze betrays where he wants to go, where he wants to look - that specific tower. He starts walking ahead just as Josie remarks the obvious, and it appears.
It appears in a voice unlike anything, speaking directly to them, a sense that does not naturally intersect with them. Ethius does not respond with confusion though he betrays the ownership of the concept of pain through a wincing sound, a clenched shut left eye, and his right hand pressed against his forehead.
When there is a moment where it is not 'screeching' at them - the closest descriptive equivalent to what is going on - Ethius' reaction seems less like a fearful instinctual fight-or-flight response and a well-controlled, purposeful, seemingly knowing hostility.
It starts with a smoke cover provided by the Powder Grenade - which is a satchel activated with Symbology and then further with the application of pressure (often by throwing).
It is supplemented by Ethius, decisively stating once more too calmly, "you don't belong here."
His movements are not well-coordinated with the others, breaking from the decorum in which he generally follows the others' leads with little deviation or originality. Spellcasting rapid-fire, swinging purposefully when he has to switch to a two-handed grip on his quarterstaff to strike at it.
Knowing nothing other than that this is something he would very much appreciate destroying.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Land - Creeping Chaos.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"You know," Venetia says to Ethius, "You're fortunate that people in this era are kind as they are. I've read my history..." She doesn't elaborate on this, being occupied in attempting to sorcery up a way out of fiery doom.
IT SUCCEEDS. Ish.
Venetia immediately locks what doors she can and takes a nap.
What will be, will be.
And then they come to land. "Well, this is impressive," Venetia states. "Given the height of it, I would expect that it would have been sighted long ago, in the distance if nothing else. Of course, the local conditions... hm... Yes, if this sea route wasn't being well travelled... Yes, it's not impossible that it would escape direct notice. Most sailors, after all, aren't giving their surroundings more than a cursory..."
Venetia trails off and gazes upon the FACE OF TERROR!
Venetia feels her back tighten up, sweat glistening on the skin and seeming to pervade the layers of fat and muscle and bone beneath it. The creature is revealed with sudden blinding perfection, moving in a matter that defies matter, in a way that defies the laws they know. Venetia tightens her grip on her bronze rod.
"Futility...?"
INSERT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJvcYDYaeQ
Venetia raises the butterfly-topped bronze rod in her left hand. Her right hand holds a Crest Graph in bronze: They glitter and gleam as she steps back. Violet light ripples around her, settling into green, shading into a gentle washed-out multichromaticism that seems to pour into the ground beneath them. The ocean waves rock and rock and rock and -
waver for a moment -
"May the agony of Filgaia's crust, bound in billion-year tension, be loosed here, for this moment. Strain and crack, eternal stone! Defy the tension of mass itself! TECTONIC."
It's like they're back on the ship for a moment... because the ground is swaying.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - Creeping Chaos.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Creeping Chaos *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You come across a strange and unnatural-seeming tower while exploring an island. As it turns out this is but a prelude to a problem. As you approach the tower, /it/ emerges from through the wall, a dark creature with yellow eyes wearing what appears to be a white robe. Maybe you've heard of these. They're a dread monster of legend: the so-named 'Creeping Chaos'. Some say they're not even of Filgaia. Some say they drag victims away into the darkness with them, never to be seen again. This one looms over you now, as if considering its options. Now is the chance to strike at it, before it can attack! And perhaps, if you win, claim the similarly rumored treasure they claim. Are there really keys that can open even sealed doors...? BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/vox-zombius =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Vault============================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 4 *>========================== ======================< Results - Land - Creeping Chaos >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 10 --(30)--> 40 Fail Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 5 --(30)--> 35 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 0 --(25)--> 25 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Conditions: Suffer(1)|Vault(1)|Wound(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The shot strikes true.
It merely fails to matter in any respect.
Josie makes a sound that might be a strangled sort of laugh as the thing simply absorbs her bullet, its surface rippling without a sense that it had been struck in the first place.
"The hell is this," she utters, cracking off another shot.
To exactly the same effect as the first.
Josie may be sweating now, taking one slow step backwards as she glances at Venetia, still halfway through a spell.
At Ethius, who declares that the thing doesn't belong here and similarly begins to cast.
The immediate world is a blur of competing magecraft after that, of explosive force and rattling tectonics and heat and earth. Of a screaming song that rattles the skeleton and soul on a level too low to be properly 'heard'. Josie throws up an arm to fend off the dust kicked up by the spell (and Ethius' grenade alike), and once the haze clears...
It's not there anymore, in the cratering waste that has opened up here before and about them.
Neither is the tower.
As if both had completely vanished.
"I think," and Josie pauses a moment here to pat herself down for a cigarette (in vain).
"I think we should go back to the beach."
DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The High Seas *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Sea - Storm At Sea *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Dark clouds have been dogging you for some time now, and they have slowly begun to conceal, painting the skies overhead with an angry grey. Flashes cause some of the clouds to, briefly, glow. A storm is brewing, without question. 'Spirit candles' -- a strange light often present in such storms -- lines the mast, making your ship briefly into a beacon if there were anyone (or anything) around to see it; the sailors all murmur about foul luck as the storm roils overhead, threatening its own form of ill fortune. The quicker you move the ship from this region, the better... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/undulata =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"I agree completely," Venetia says, not least because she looks tired out. She hands Josie a silver cigarette case.
The people on the ship are entirely in favor of this too. From above, it would almost seem like the ship jerks back in reverse gear and immediately pulls the fudge away from this accursed island, whose towering menace has not even been properly looted. "I think m'fillings popped out," groans a salty tar, or perhaps tarry salt.
INSERT MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZxNxKVfcI
Fortunately, there is no madness for a time. Clouds roll in. Dinner is served (it's stew - spoiler alert) and nothing much happens.
The stormclouds deepen. For stormclouds they are. There is no good place to turn or to flee - anchorage in that accursed islet that they just departed would be foolhardy - and so the only real answer is to finish your meals quickly and prepare to ride it out.
EXCEPT... That there is a complication.
The stout ship, coming from the Thames, has a central stack for the exhaust on the benzene-fueled steam engine that provides main power. That same stack has long trailing cables on which a sail can be struck - there are other sails that can be put on spars in case the fuel is exhausted, stolen by chemus witches, dumped into the ocean by Ethius for some inscrutable purpose, etc. - and that long trailing cable, now, is aglow.
There is dispute among the sailors, even as the lightning crackles in the distance, towards the horizon.
'Awful...'
'Awful luck.'
'We're haunted now...'
'Sorcery? Jimk, you're a symbologist, ain't you?'
'And as a symbologist... I think... that this is awful luck.'
The wind is picking up. The sailors are sluggish with anxiety at their duties.
Venetia is in the gunwales (towards the front of the ship) and watching the ocean with binocular glasses. The Yashichi ring on her hand is spinning gently as raindrops begin to fall with heavy splats.
"I think," Venetia says, "we ought to get the engine up to st-"
The boat abruptly pitches thirty degrees to the left!
"eeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!"
THE STORM IS UPON YOU. MAKE FOR BELOW DECKS AND POSSIBLY THE ENGINE BEFORE LUCADIA CLAIMS YOU FOR HER BRINY BUDDY
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Yashichi Ring toward her party's challenge, Sea - Storm At Sea.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie dutifully lights up. After that?
After that she gets the hell out of there, a feeling that the crew seems to share.
Things are a little more normal after that.
Even someone like Josie can take a little relief in something approaching normalcy after an encounter like that, something that it seems nearly agreed upon by all and sundry 'of which we will never speak of again'.
Or at least, not until they're back on dry and safe land.
Day settles into night. Night...
Night is complicated by the arrival of ominous clouds.
And light, on the trailing cables.
"That normal?" ask Josie, who until fairly recently hasn't done much time at all on a boat.
The Karlsefni is sort of a special circumstance anyway.
It's raining hard now. The sea is starting to churn, a sight that Josie notes even without binoculars where she is on deck, not far from Venetia's position. A sphere of light bobs gently in the palm of her left hand, illumination beyond that cast by the light on the cables or the flashes of lightning.
"Sea looks pretty bad," she remarks. "So what do you think? Gonna try to--"
The ship pitches at that moment!
"Shit--"
Josie makes a mad scramble for below decks, no doubt intent on the engine room...!
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Sea - Storm At Sea.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is the last to depart from the site of the thing that transcends what ought to fall into one's sight, covered in upturned dirt and looking unabashedly riled by his standards - but he withdraws among the others all the same.
Things go more or less normally from there, for having had terrible luck three islands in a row (...two islands with one no-show in between, which counts as having terrible luck with an island) and the growing terrible weather.
Foolishly, Ethius leaves his incredibly vague and maybe even imaginary business within the cabins to better observe the brewing stormclouds.
"...I do not believe we were ultimately purs--"
ROCKING SHIPS DO NOT CARE FOR EXPOSITION
He gets sent tumbling across the deck, catching himself only by some cables running through. Feet plant into the deck as he wraps an elbow around one rope. He has to hurriedly get the harness for the Hot Air Sack tied around one wrist. From there, one incantation later he can get it filled with sorcerous hot air and start drifting... a bit slowly for one's comfort, but without much fear of the tumbling ship voiding footing.
With one hand now free, he's prepared to help catch at least one person that might tumble free en route to drifting back towards - if not safety - at least a spacious casket within the ship itself.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Sea - Storm At Sea.
=============================<* The High Seas *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Sea - Storm At Sea *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Dark clouds have been dogging you for some time now, and they have slowly begun to conceal, painting the skies overhead with an angry grey. Flashes cause some of the clouds to, briefly, glow. A storm is brewing, without question. 'Spirit candles' -- a strange light often present in such storms -- lines the mast, making your ship briefly into a beacon if there were anyone (or anything) around to see it; the sailors all murmur about foul luck as the storm roils overhead, threatening its own form of ill fortune. The quicker you move the ship from this region, the better... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/undulata =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
========================<* The High Seas - Round 5 *>========================= =======================< Results - Sea - Storm At Sea >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 40 --(0)--> 40 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Yashichi Ring 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 25 --(0)--> 25 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 70 --(15)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Fortunately...
Ships!
Are designed! For storms!
Josie practically plummets into the mess hall and knocks over an empty coffee mug - one of those big squat ones - but she doesn't get hurt. When the ship rocks back the other way she is able to grab hold of a table. And move towards the back.
Ethiius is flung into the air and gets his harness wrapped up and is now floating in the air - he grabs Jimk himself, swaying both of them perilously close to the sea's choppy surface, but the motion is enough for Jimk to reboumd flash some ice pillars on the sea bed. Do they last? No, but they push them both up. "To port! To port!" he shouts to Ethius.
Aerial rescue...
Is a man's... Romance!
Venetia makes her way towards the bridge, which is not fully enclosed, just as the ship's engine begins to hum violently and the ship turns INTO the storm - the swaying is sickening for the rest of the night, and a few inches of water get down in and wash down into the bilge, but the ship's spine doesn't break, and the few electric lights don't even go out!
By dawn, the sky is clear. And so, probably, are your stomachs.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The High Seas *> ============================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - Land - For He Is A Pirate King *> ============== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- It's during the exploration of this island that you find yourself suddenly under attack by pirates. They're no match for your group and you make short work of them, and in the process you find out that there is in fact a pirate lair here, set up within a crumbling ancient ruin. Naturally, you fight your way in. Inside there are more pirates, leading you through a prolonged battle sequence through the corridors of the ruins, until at last you find yourself up against the pirate king himself-- And now the /true/ battle begins. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/infernal =Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Dawn comes. Then day. Then noon. Then land. Wait. Land is not a time.
They do find themselves another island with another ruin whose architecture falls squarely into just about anyone's wheelhouse, i.e. 'rocky' and 'crumbly' and 'occupied by squatters who have a lot of friends who are also squatting.' To be more specific, the nest of a notorious pirate crew the law thought they sank some thirty years ago but yadda yadda yadda
What happens more is that the reason this island gets visitation is because they are being jerks and trying to shoot the ship with archaic cannonballs and also pieces of the crumbly rocky architecture too and that's a jerk move. These events aside, which admittedly this paragraph should have led the conversation with in this stream-of-consciousness disclosure, the ruins are in their wheelhouse.
As is the kicking of teeth, rear ends, and pretty much anything else. For being the remnants and in a few stand-out cases young descendants of a lair of outlaws who have quietly been waiting to take again to sea to terrorize the seas anew, they're out of touch about what three expert Drifters (and a handful of irate crewmen) can do to them.
"I know what you're going to say!!" Says a booming voice of a tall, stocky Beastman right at the tail end of his life expetency but looking no less rugged and powerful for wear, something bear-like, "I'll have you know my diction is within the Queen's Tongue and if any of you went to Guild Galad I wrote at least three of your textbooks and my Mineralogy expertise is reason enough that I will not spend the rest of my days--"
This is the part where Ethius throws a smoke bomb at it, unprompted, and everything about falls apart from here.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Land - For He Is A Pirate King.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Stenton?" says Venetia in the middle of the melee, having thrown several sorcerous blasts to the attacking pirates.
"Stenton, is that you? Class of '59? Dinoginos's mighty member, how in the hell did you become a pirate?? I saw you at the Big Mushroom two years ago! I was still an adjunct! Here, man, don't you recognize me? Hold on -"
Venetia stuffs a banana in her mouth, curls her arms up to loosely resemble a heart, hops up on a table and does a side-wise crouch.
"stpfh thff fufffing bfffufff ah uh ffr yrr blsl wf sssgg n eggfh," Venetia says, around the banana.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - For He Is A Pirate King.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's touch and go there for a moment (or ten).
But the important thing is that they all survive, and the ship is intact, and despite the various misadventures the ship has had in the last few days, it's not the experiences themselves that are the determination of success, it's whether or not you can walk (or sail) away from them.
Yes.
It soon becomes more apparant than ever why the cartography society is funding these expeditions -- the maps are badly out of date. Or in a few cases, nonexistent in the altogether.
Which may be partially because of the pirate problem.
"Where's a good cannon when you need one," Josie gripes. But eventually, they're able to close to the shore.
AND THUS
"Ha!" Josie barks, downing a pirate with a well-place shot. "That's another of them! Anyone else feel like trying me--"
She gets an answer after a fashion.
"Really?" Josie remarks, glancing between Venetia and 'Stenton', her ARM still at the ready.
"Well, don't that beat all."
She then absently shoots at a pirate who comes in with a blade in each hand and one between his teeth without so much a glance his way.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - For He Is A Pirate King.
=============================<* The High Seas *> ============================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - Land - For He Is A Pirate King *> ============== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- It's during the exploration of this island that you find yourself suddenly under attack by pirates. They're no match for your group and you make short work of them, and in the process you find out that there is in fact a pirate lair here, set up within a crumbling ancient ruin. Naturally, you fight your way in. Inside there are more pirates, leading you through a prolonged battle sequence through the corridors of the ruins, until at last you find yourself up against the pirate king himself-- And now the /true/ battle begins. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/infernal =Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
=======================<* The High Seas - Round 6 *>========================== ===============< Results - Land - For He Is A Pirate King >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 40 --(0)--> 40 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 25 --(0)--> 25 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ---------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 85 --(30)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Maim Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >========================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has successfully explored The High Seas!
============================<* The High Seas *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Fortune's Blade *>======================= |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------< Challenge Information: >------------------------------ Once the ruins' trials are overcome, you find in the heart of the place a particular unique treasure: Lain on a single chipped and battered altar is a 'blade' made of coins, specifically an old currency with holes cut through them. The symbol of Chapapanga is inlaid at the 'hilt'. Those who know of such practices will know that these 'blades' were used as divination tools by certain Baskar tribes. Perhaps in the right hands it might still be useful today. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/the-surface =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Aside from incidental scrapes of varying levels of life-threatening violence, the mood lightens considerably as Venetia (re)introduces herself, and there is a lot of uproarious laughter. Stenton, turns out, is correctly identified and laughs, slapping himself in the kn--
Wait. First he slaps the top of Ethius' stupid head because he has somehow positioned his head between slapping hand and knee. That's pretty funny and knee-slap worthy. But instead it's scalp-slapping funny until he hits the ground. Then it's back to knee-slapping.
"Enough, enough, I know her! I cannot say I recognize the others but... were there three here? Well! Funny you should mention, becoming a pirate! As it would so happen... I was owed a sizable sum from a game of cards, and, one thing led to another--"
And one thing leads to another and there is a coin sword. A 'sword' made of coins. Many of the coins are sort of ruined in the process of making them into a 'sword' but apparently there was much ado made about being handed a coin sword, then something something knighting something something BANK DUCHY something something it's really weird.
The symbol of Chapapanga is inlaid at its 'hilt.' Some sort of ritual object... which was likely stolen from some place in the Badlands.
"Hey, thinkin' 'bout it," says a pirate with terrible diction, "if ya didn't have this any more, we wouldn't be pirates, 'n--"
"THAT WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT THING," Stanton yells, "TO THE ABYSS WITH THIS!"
Beat.
"...Or wherever you're happening to go from here, an abyss or otherwise, it's a figure of speech. I'm fond of using those for retracting regrettable things I have said! Three of which I know you overheard and won't repeat because they stopped accepting that as an excuse for verbal indiscretions conveniently at the same time I made them."
Harsh timing. Cool coin sword. Old college friend! Updated maps.
PAY TIME
and ethius got hit on the head again
which he deserves