2020-05-20: Know It When You See It
- Log: Know It When You See It
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Seraph Lanval, Layna Manydays
- Where: Deku Isles
- Date: May 20, 2021
- Summary: A group heads out into the islands of the Southern Aquvyan seas for their own assorted reasons, Josie in particular in search of a ruin she doesn't know for reasons she doesn't fully know. But in spite of her various pasts with the others on this trip, things... work out quite well.
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 - The Ol' Heave-Ho *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ship you have signed up to assist upon for the expedition voyage, "The Orange Tree", waits for you at the docks. Once you have spoken to the captain and they've given you the rundown of the planned route and likely obstacles you may face, you're welcomed to board at your leisure. But there's one thing that's become a bit of a sticky problem. There should be some stevedores here to help load the crates of supplies and other assorted large and heavy objects they'll need to take with them on the voyage but lo and behold they... aren't anywhere to be found. You don't suppose you could give them a hand in the moving-and-lifting-heavy-objects front to ensure a timely departure, could you? BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/wolfstack-lights =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The map is, she supposes, better than not having a map at all.
It's just the case that the map has a lot of marks on it and there's no way to tell which one -- if it's any of them -- is the point she's trying to reach. That, and between her duties for Odessa (yes, she has some, particularly of late as regards the upcoming redeployment of the Akasha System) and trying to beat Yvaine to the punch...
Still, though, some of the markings suggest that there are some choice sites dappled among the smaller isles, and it was without too much difficulty that she's signed onto a survey expedition traveling the save general waters. She had a brief discussion with the captain, actually, and they're more than willing to play along if she's paying (she is in fact paying). So this part of business is looking exceptionally bright!
...Less exciting is that fact that she's been waiting on this dock for hours, perched atop the luggage and supplies the ship is... still waiting to load. If this port of call had stevedores about, they've gone AWOL. In fact, here comes the captain to speak now about that very issue!
"...Hmm," Josie muses. "Refund thirty percent and I'll give it a think," she says.
The captain glowers. "Twenty-five."
"Twenty-eight," Josie replies cooly, not moving an inch.
"Curse your black heart, Lovelace! Twenty-eight it is!"
...Which now means that Josie is going to have to figure out how to move this stuff, if she wants her twenty-eight-percent-discount.
"Hmm," she says, hopping off the crate and moving to inspect the problem she's inherited. "Well, this should work right enough."
...She's pulled out a mattock. Is that... safe or sane for moving crates? Opening them, sure. But moving them?
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, The Ol' Heave-Ho.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
One of the things that need loading is a barrel full of Beverage(tm). Mysteriously, it's lighter than it... should be.
Maybe it's the Captain's own business if he wants to load a lighter, emptier barrel.
DG: Seraph Lanval has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Ol' Heave-Ho.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
When you're on the sea, running into Layna Manydays is more of an inevitability than any question of possibilities. As an avid sailor of the seas, of Filgaia and Lunar both, there was nothing she enjoyed more than the ocean breeze as her ship cuts through the waters, going where the wind takes her...
...Of course, this time, she's not on her own ship, and the wind isn't the one dictating the journey. That's fine, though - it was good to mingle with other sailors every now and then. And that's what leads Layna to be among those helping to load the ship.
She lifts a suspiciously light barrel. It sloshes around a bit more than a full barrel probably should. She has a feeling she knows what's happened. ...She doesn't draw attention to it. No one needs to know.
Instead, she spots Josie as she approaches the pile of supplies with a mattock in hand.
"Josie." Layna greets with a polite tip of her hat. She doesn't question the mattock.
DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Ol' Heave-Ho.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - The Ol' Heave-Ho *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The ship you have signed up to assist upon for the expedition voyage, "The Orange Tree", waits for you at the docks. Once you have spoken to the captain and they've given you the rundown of the planned route and likely obstacles you may face, you're welcomed to board at your leisure. But there's one thing that's become a bit of a sticky problem. There should be some stevedores here to help load the crates of supplies and other assorted large and heavy objects they'll need to take with them on the voyage but lo and behold they... aren't anywhere to be found. You don't suppose you could give them a hand in the moving-and-lifting-heavy-objects front to ensure a timely departure, could you? BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/wolfstack-lights =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 1 *>========================== =========================< Results - The Ol' Heave-Ho >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Layna Manydays 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 0 --(12)--> 12 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Conditions: Overzealous(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has failed 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> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Layna."
This greeting is appended to a saucy grin. In fact, the last time they'd crossed paths they had been at cross purposes, but it doesn't seem that Josie bears her any grudge for what happened in the Master's manor. The only question that remains is, does Layna?
Or make that two questions: what on earth is Josie up to now? Though the lack of any (apparent) Odessa operatives at least suggests that 'violence and murder' is not in the immediate offering.
But, as it happens--
A mattock is not a very efficient tool for moving about supplies. She... pushes them with it, sure, but this is not really a productive use of her time.
So she turns to trying to lift things, and with one mostly-useless hand that's not much better.
"Five percent," says the captain. Josie sighs, her shoulders slouching.
It takes Layna, working on her own, some time to load the ship. But at least one of the barrels was lighter than anticipated...?
And in the end, they set sail, while there's still hours of sunlight left in the day.
DG: Seraph Lanval has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Land - What A Cheeky Monkey *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Maybe in a few years you might laugh about this one, but you're sure not laughing now. It's like this: you went ashore, set up a camp, did some expeditioning, and returned to camp just in time to see a monkey taking several important items of yours and scampering off into the forest. There's really not much of a choice for you here now at all: you're going to have to chase it down and reclaim your things from it. But look on the bright side, you'll get a good investigation around the island this way for sure... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/oceana-lonissima =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The journey kicks off to an inauspicious start as regards getting everything loaded and ready to go. The mood remains workable enough on a professional level, if never amicable. With reports about Gomihone now breaching the surface, it's a much tougher sell to want to go out sailing at all... but it's Filgaia. What is a living on Filgaia if it isn't always on the precipice of oblivion or fading hopes of anything better?
They make it to the first island to investigate without much trouble, unless the lighter barrel is a ticking time bomb for something even more serious.
There's muffled laughter coming from within there as this lighter barrel gets carried ashore with any number of other important pieces of equipment for surveying. The owner of this laughter doesn't reveal themselves, but it's all too familiar as to who it is.
Something a bunch of monkeys do not have any familiarity with, or care for, because while the rest are off surveying... Layna and Josie come back to camp for some routine reason or another to find monkeys making off with lots of stuff. One of them's even making off with the barrel! (They should hire this monkey to load cargo because that is one strong monkey, carting off something like that.)
Into the brush and the trees! Where... there's suddenly a lot of bubbles.
Huh.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Bubble Pipe toward his party's challenge, Land - What A Cheeky Monkey.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
Layna doesn't seem particularly troubled by it, either. She's curious about what Josie's after, of course... but for the time being, as long as both their goal's don't interfere with each other, she's fine with getting along.
The loading work isn't easy, though it does eventually get done and they can set sail. Layna keeps an eye open on the sea - she hasn't forgotten those rumors. They can never be too careful.
But, fortunately, their travel goes without incident... it's only when they actually reach the island that trouble arises, in the form of monkeys! One of them steals the peculiarly light barrel, which Layna seems to take particular offense toward, for some reason.
"You've got a lot of nerve...!" Layna shouts at the monkey. She reaches into her coat and draws out a bottle, taking a swig before passing it on and dashing right after it!
DG: Layna Manydays has used her Tool Quartermaster's Stash toward her party's challenge, Land - What A Cheeky Monkey.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Things go without incident, for a time.
Ashore one fine day on one of dozens of little islands scattered about this part of the southern seas, she heads off to do a little expeditioning of her own. This isn't one of the sites marked on the map, sure enough, but doesn't mean it can't be a useful place to explore. She might just be able to get her bearings and figure out if anything might be closer to where they've landed -- she has her suspicions about one of the smaller markers on the map, she just has to confirm it.
So far, so good.
But perhaps nothing could have prepared her for, really, the sight of a monkey making off with... a barrel? Wait, and she recognizes that pouch trailing behind it, all tangled in one of its hands. That's her money! In this moment of moments, she shares a look with Layna: on this, they're aligned.
"Why you little--"
Why are there bubbles, though?
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - What A Cheeky Monkey.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Land - What A Cheeky Monkey *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Maybe in a few years you might laugh about this one, but you're sure not laughing now. It's like this: you went ashore, set up a camp, did some expeditioning, and returned to camp just in time to see a monkey taking several important items of yours and scampering off into the forest. There's really not much of a choice for you here now at all: you're going to have to chase it down and reclaim your things from it. But look on the bright side, you'll get a good investigation around the island this way for sure... BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/oceana-lonissima =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 2 *>========================== ===================< Results - Land - What A Cheeky Monkey >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Layna Manydays 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Quartermaster's Stash 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 12 --(5)--> 17 Pass Bubble Pipe 3 Agility Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 15 --(20)--> 35 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Secret(2)|Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(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> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It's some monkey business, is what it is! It's a chase sequence through some tightly choreographed parkour set pieces, and there's plenty of evil in the middle of all that to pretend to not see, hear, or speak (but maybe touch, that's a loophole, monkeys are okay with touching evil so you should be too, but what constitutes 'evil' to touch is... okay fine moving on).
5r It's a bit of a mess sorting out the retrieved equipment. Josie still has all her money, Layna has all the navigation equipment, and no one has any excuses prepared to the Captain as to why they didn't report back toot sweet.
Excuses cease to matter when one such bubble mysteriously carries this lighter-than-expected barrel back and gingerly plops it on the deck. Maybe this island is cursed.
(Blessed, but shh.)
DG: Layna Manydays 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> Layna Manydays has posed.
The expedition continues! Eventually, the ship lands on a certain island - an island that's the subject of many a dark tale.
"You know, I think I've heard about this island before, aye?" Layna muses. "Rumor tells of an island, just like this one, were sailors and ships alike just..."
Layna mimes a puff of smoke of with her hands.
"...Vanish, without any trace. Survivors who claimed to have witnessed such an event - when they aren't curled up and shaking in their beds - won't stop babbling on about strange towers, and terrible, gleaming yellow eyes coming to drag them away..." Layna says.
Soon enough, they come across a tower... and from the wall, something emerges. A dark creature wreathed in something like a white robe, with terrible yellow eyes gleaming out from the shadows where a face should be with arms out-stretched. It watches them...
...And without missing a beat Layna lunges at it and tries to punch it right in the face.
DG: Layna Manydays has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - Creeping Chaos.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
The place has a looming otherworldly quality that doesn't feel... right, as if the ambience were adjusting to match Layna's scary time-passing ghost story about something like this. Those who aren't taken away into somewhere unreachable, live in quivering fear and uncertainty about the event in question.
Somewhere in all of this mounting gloom of a creeping chaos, there is a sudden building of #-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: +aquamrine mirth... and then there is hearty laughter. The quality of water in all its forms, great and less so. All of it follows the form of a portly, long-bearded middle-aged man who comes astride with a very silly-looking walk. Divine assistance has arrived!
...
He pauses where he is and applies a spritzer attached to a Holy Bottle, a more sober look on his face as he sprays one such yellow-eyed otherworldly horror with all the routine excitement of a gardener applying pesticides.
Spritz, spritz, spritz.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Holy Bottle toward his party's challenge, Land - Creeping Chaos.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Heard stories, eh?" Josie remarks, shortly after they disembark. "Heh, I've seen a thing or two with my own eyes that'd curl the hair of most." She smiles, if lopsidedly, even when Layna launches into a tale about a mysterious tower... and a creature that has been said to drag people away, to never be seen again.
"You don't say," says Josie.
Some things don't bear dwelling on, particularly if
they might just
come true.
Something comes slouching out from inside the tower. Josie's already taking a long, long drag from her flask (she'd gotten it out the moment they'd gotten clear enough to the tower, recognizing its like again). Some things don't bear being entirely sober for, and this is one of them.
"Right! This is for last time!" she says, pulling out the shotgun and unloading. She only pauses in shooting at it once, when a certain familiar Seraph makes himself known--
"Lanval! Long time no see."
...Blam, blam, blam, etc.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage 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 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============================================
========================<* The High Seas - Round 3 *>========================= =====================< Results - Land - Creeping Chaos >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 25 --(13)--> 38 Pass Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Layna Manydays 25 --(21)--> 46 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Lanval 17 --(21)--> 38 Fail Holy Bottle 2 Combat Effects: Resilient ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 35 --(35)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Secret(1)|Slow(1)|Suffer(1)|Vault(1) Effects: Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 35 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> Layna Manydays has posed.
The party lunges into battle before the mysterious being before them can attack on its own. It's for the best - if the legends are true, they must be quite dangerous.
Layna's fist lands true, and the creature leans back with it in a way that doesn't seem... right. Nor does it seem particularly bothered after ward. And when Lanval begins spritzing it with his Holy Bottle, it merely turns to look at him.
Even if this being truly is from beyond Filgaia, it looks like it can handle water just fine.
In the end, it's Josie who has the greatest effect on it, having had prior experience with it. Her plan... is a shotgun. It's a pretty good plan, all told - and soon enough the Creeping Chaos retreats into the tower from whence it came, and both creature and tower vanish into nothing...
...and where they once were, treasure is left behind.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - X Marks The...? *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- They say that pirates sometimes frequent these waters. Perhaps that might explain the rather recent signs of passage here, on an island you are in the process of surveying... and the signs of disturbed earth. Perhaps, here there might be buried treasure. Or something. Though it won't be entirely smooth sailing to dig into the earth -- the pirates were right bastards and planted some large rocks overtop of whatever else was buried here. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/sultry =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Treasure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
This time, the full unyielding assault upon the Creeping Chaos works. It retreats before her onslaught, vanishing along with its tower for parts (or times?) unknown, leaving behind a pile of strangely shaped objects of semi-precious metals. They're pretty nice and bound to help their general bottom line, but it's not what Josie was looking for--
Also, there's a map under the pile of debris. It's pretty clear about which island it is, with some conferring with the captain and Josie's weird map.
And so! There is a slight divergence from the planned path, off for parts heretofore unknown!
Sure enough, the ground here looks like someone buried something here. Perhaps not all that long ago, even? Of course, if the Creeping Chaos had it in its tower, does that mean...?
Best not to complete that thought.
Better, instead, to take to digging.
"Right, this shouldn't take long," Josie remarks, breaking earth with the mattock. Now this is what a mattock is actually for.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, Land - X Marks The...?.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Hello," Lanval says to Josephine with pleasant cheer while he (unsuccessfully) tries to spray the Creeping Chaos. He sobers up (...kind of) after the threat passes, and so the mystery of why that barrel was lighter than usual has been resolved! Until the Captain and crew discover why that is, then that will require an entirely different kind of resolution.
5r That's a future Corporeal Person Problem, though.
"Mmmm, it shure doesh look like a place I'd put good shtuff," Lanval remarks as he comes up to the huge ol' pile of debris. Historically speaking, Lanval is not great for moving any heavy objects. Most of the time he ends up lounging around and doing nothing while the more corporeally inclined handle it.
He does mount one piece of debris this time, then try to stick an arm through... and then his head. Somehow he can fit through any space water can, putting aside the myriad number of physical laws that Seraphim selectively participate in adhering, as if trying to get himself through the cracks and into the shinies first.
DG: Seraph Lanval has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Land - X Marks The...?.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
"...A map, huh? I wonder what it was doing with something like this...?" Layna muses, looking it over. They already got some treasure out of the deal, but finding even more...
...Well, that's something Layna can't say no to, even if it the origins are dubious. And so, she follows the others as they proceed, and eventually they reach the location marked on the map.
"Aye, should be easy enough." Layna agrees with a nod, reaching into her coat and drawing out her drill. She sets it to whirring dangerously, and is about to start breaking up some of the larger rocks for easier removal before pausing.
"Watch out there, Lanval. Drill coming in!" Layna warns before getting to work. It's alright, she's used to this.
DG: Layna Manydays has used her Tool Arm-Mounted Drill toward her party's challenge, Land - X Marks The...?.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Land - X Marks The...? *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- They say that pirates sometimes frequent these waters. Perhaps that might explain the rather recent signs of passage here, on an island you are in the process of surveying... and the signs of disturbed earth. Perhaps, here there might be buried treasure. Or something. Though it won't be entirely smooth sailing to dig into the earth -- the pirates were right bastards and planted some large rocks overtop of whatever else was buried here. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/sultry =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Treasure=========================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 4 *>========================== ======================< Results - Land - X Marks The...? >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 38 --(5)--> 43 Fail Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Layna Manydays 46 --(0)--> 46 Pass Arm-Mounted Drill 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 38 --(5)--> 43 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 70 --(25)--> 95 Pass Conditions: Treasure(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 25 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.
It's okay. Josie passes along her flask. Share and share alike seems only fair after... that. Even a Seraph shouldn't have to think too much about That.
"Don't rightly know," Josie remarks to Layna, though the obvious reason may dance at the forefront of everyone's brains. Maybe they can all decide that whoever it had taken had been a nasty person anyway and sleep better at night.
Still, a chance at some treasure is nothing to sneeze at, soon, after some digging there is... there is a big hole. It's buried pretty deep! And then Josie strikes a rock. Now, a mattock can be used to break rocks! Usually. But this rock is being very resistant.
Enter... one arm-mounted drill. Well, once Lanval is out of the way.
MOMENTS LATER
"Huh. Real silver pieces," Josie says, holding one tarnished coin up to the light. "Can't right make out the mark on 'em but, if I had to wager... Celesti? Thereabouts? They'll be worth something to someone, sure enough."
Lanval meanwhile has had a nice rest and is ready to go!
DG: Seraph Lanval has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Traps Last Forever *>=================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Shortly after coming ashore on this island to begin mapping it, you come across a crumbling ruin, which of course you investigate. The monsters are largely pushovers and the puzzles are unremarkable, but... ...but the traps are fiendish, even after so many years. A hole that drops you into a pit of spikes. Actually, just spikes, everywhere, on just about everything. Whirling buzzsaw blades. Fire-breathing statues. Horrible still-functional mashers. And is that /acid/? You're going to have to negotiate each and every one of these horrors if you want to find out what rests inside. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/harmonium-over-matter =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It is a nice rest! Now for the rest. (sorry)
The fun doesn't stop there, as far as these deviations from the chartered course goes - there's a crumbling ruin within, and somehow, the whole operation has become recursive. There is now a Dig within the abstracted concept of a Dig, but this may also be the echoes of a close encounter with the Creeping Chaos still resonating within the fringes of reason and sense. This rabbit hole keeps finding a kind of measurement equivalent to the concept of, if not quite, achieving the concept of going deeper. There just... is.
If this is a nightmare, at least it's not Spitsbergen.
Whatever the case, it is innocuous enough a ruin except for the sheer density of the traps. Holes into pits of spikes, sharp everythings, and also there's some fire-breathing statues (they are also sharp to the touch too, to keep things complete). Also crushing pistols (that are also bladed) and... acid. (The acid has spikes. They're made of glass. This ruin is equal-opportunity perforation-havening!)
Lanval just reclines on the creepy flat-bodied hollow rubbery horse-headed thing with the fixed, unchanging, painted-on smile.
"'m glad we came outta that one all right," Lanval says, sighing peaceably as he drifts along the DOES HE UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH MORTAL DANGER THEY ARE ALL IN HERE well maybe he's not mortal so he's okay BUT STILL
"'ve enjoyed jusht takin' it eashy taday~"
Maybe the trip will be more chill on that creepy raft, but he's going at a leisurely pace in an environment that asks for anything but.
DG: Seraph Lanval has used his Tool Bouyant Steed toward his party's challenge, Land - Traps Last Forever.
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.
And so, they find silver pieces! Layna whistle appreciatively, looking them over.
"Not bad, not bad. We've made quite the haul and we aren't even at our last destination yet." Layna says with a pleased nod.
Their last destination, though turns out to be quite the ordeal - it's a typical ruin, filled with monsters and puzzles. That's easy enough to deal with. The real problem is all the traps.
"Well... this is gonna be somethin'." Layna says. She reaches into her coat, draws out a bottle of something or other and takes a swig before holding it out for Josie to take. Lanval, too, will find a bottle tossed his way.
"You okay out there, lad?" Layna asks, noting the way that steed of his floats idly through the hallway. She's kind of surprised it's making it through all of this unscathed...
...But then again, it never did seem quite right. It might be too powerful for a place like this.
With that Layna rolls her shoulders and recites a quick incantation, letting the winds rise up around her before dashing off at high speeds, looking to just charge right through everything.
DG: Layna Manydays has used her Tool Quartermaster's Stash toward her party's challenge, Land - Traps Last Forever.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It's been treasure enough that it's making her failure to quite make that discount off her ticket fee look acceptable in hindsight. And then they're off, heading towards a site that hosts a ruin.
"Shouldn't be no trouble," Josie remarks as they head on up.
Famous... last words.
CURRENT BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULDqqmTh19M
Indeed, even from the offset -- hello there, spiked statues spitting spikes -- it becomes clear that this is going to be 'something', as it were.
"Don't mind if I do," Josie says, taking a good long drink before she dares brave that spidersilk netting atop the fire pit. ...The only good thing about this particular setup is that it's easy to flip the monsters right into the traps.
"You know what," she ultimately says, about two deathtraps on.
"I'm comin' aboard." And she hops onto the inflatable 'steed' even if it sort of makes her recant all her childhood wishes for a pony, long after the fact.
Because this beats negotiating the spikes. Or the acid. Or the acid filled with spikes??
Who build this place and why??
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Land - Traps Last Forever.
==============================<* The High Seas *>=============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Land - Traps Last Forever *>=================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Shortly after coming ashore on this island to begin mapping it, you come across a crumbling ruin, which of course you investigate. The monsters are largely pushovers and the puzzles are unremarkable, but... ...but the traps are fiendish, even after so many years. A hole that drops you into a pit of spikes. Actually, just spikes, everywhere, on just about everything. Whirling buzzsaw blades. Fire-breathing statues. Horrible still-functional mashers. And is that /acid/? You're going to have to negotiate each and every one of these horrors if you want to find out what rests inside. BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/harmonium-over-matter =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple==================================================
=========================<* The High Seas - Round 5 *>========================== ====================< Results - Land - Traps Last Forever >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 43 --(5)--> 48 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Layna Manydays 46 --(5)--> 51 Pass Quartermaster's Stash 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Lanval 43 --(5)--> 48 Pass Bouyant Steed 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 95 --(25)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Cripple|Weaken(1) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< 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 - A Crest In Silver *>======================= |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: It seems to be a hand mirror, handle included. The back of the mirror, though tarnished, appears to display an engraving of some beast. Far more interesting, though, is the front: the glass has a Crest underneath it and indeed, when it is used, the hand mirror can produce a brief manifestation of wind, fire, water, or earth, as appropriate to the Crest in the mirror. Even one untrained in the ways of Crest Sorcery can use it. But who made this, and for what reason? (OOC: The Crest involved is up to you: it can be Geo (earth), Wing (wind), Fray (fire), or Muse (water). The mirror might make a good tool, likely Wits or Agility.) BGM: https://failbettergames.bandcamp.com/track/the-surface =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
It says a lot about the three of them that something like this has become banal. So many Drifters meet inglorious ends on the most commonplace of traps, suddenly and without ceremony or import behind such a cessation of life - and here they are, drinking, lounging, and just kind of running (or drifting) through countless death-traps of an unnervingly high density like it's not so much of a thing any more.
(This may yet remain in the realm of lingering Creeping Chaos encounter after-effects.)
Layna's the first one to make it to the vault that this ruin is here to guard. (If it isn't a place for all things spiky to be spiky, it's been a nice sanctuary for a world that has become less appreciative of pointy-ended architecture.)
It's a hand mirror with a handle. She might not notice it now in this lighting, but underneath the glass of the mirror there's a Crest underneath. Something related to a school of sorcery exclusively practiced on Filgaia. If she waves it around, assuming she's in the habit of swinging around ancient and irreplaceable relics willy-nilly, it'll create a brief manifestation of a given element.
Lanval and Josie are taking a much more leisurely way across, and it gets chillingly close a few times... but Lanval seems to know what he's doing, and nothing ever touches them or the raft no matter how improbable.
"...Ya hangin' in there any better than lasht time?" Lanval asks of someone who has had to live with betraying almost everyone she considered a friend, as if it isn't much of a thing for him in the grand scope of things. He has a gentle (and kind of dumb-looking, as always) smile on his face. "I know there'sh been shome really heavy rain over in... Zoara lately."
He takes a sip from his drinking gourd while fire that is also spiky somehow drifts above him. "'m hopin' it goesh out ta placesh that need it more. Filgaia... it'sh a parched world, that," so speaks the one who speaks for the water of the world.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Hah."
This is Josie's response to Lanval, as she keeps a tight grip on the raft with her one good hand. "Guess we'll see if that rain of yours makes it where it's needed, right? Daresay there's places what need it more."
She glances down the once at her hand. It hadn't rained that night, either.
And in spite of herself, she smiles. It's about the polar opposite from the one the Seraph bears. But it's still a smile.
Presently, she takes one look at the prize this place was keeping for itself so keenly, and just shakes her head. "This ain't it. Don't even think this place was old enough, even."
She will answer, if pressed, what it is that she's looking for:
"Don't right know."
But perhaps she'll know it when she finds it.