2020-09-22: What Rests in Such Faraway Lands
- Log: What Rests in Such Faraway Lands
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Clarissa Arwin, Ethius Hesiod, Yulie Ahtreide, Seraph Ragnell, Seraph Harmaus, Azoth
- Where: Faraway Lands
- Date: September 22, 2020
- Summary: Delving into the Faraway Lands site once more, the group that has come here finds their metaphorical doorstep darkened by not just one but two Seraphs. But is even that force sufficient to handle the menace of the site?
DG: A party led by Ida Everstead-Rey is now entering Faraway Lands. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Unpowered Doorway *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are several entrances to Faraway Lands, rather than a single central doorway. Famously, all of them are locked tight and difficult to enter. Many a Digger has been turned back at this point, unable to enter. The door that you find simply won't budge. A little inspection shows that it is meant to rise up into the wall of the facility. The button to open it does nothing. With a little investigation, you can determine that the door has no power. If you can somehow restore power, the door may open. Otherwise, you will need to either destroy or move a massive slab of steel. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Slow, Weaken====================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's a bit strange to think of ruin-delving as a relaxing activity, but it has been a very, very stressful few weeks.
Ida has been to the 'Faraway Lands' facility before, and she's returned with a group of trusted friends and also Ethius Hesiod. The facility is as foreboding as ever, but eventually they manage to find the entrance Ida marked on the little map she made of the place.
"Fingers crossed," says Ida, as she approaches the button. She reaches out a gloved hand, gives it a gentle press, and--
Nothing happens. Nothing happens whatsoever. Ida frowns, glancing up at the light above the door, and notices that it, too, is burned out. "I think the power might've been cut," she says, reaching for a leather pack that hangs at her hip. "Clarissa, Yulie, would you care to watch my back? This may be delicate..."
Ida pops open a maintainence panel and gets right to work. She pulls out a small voltimeter as well as her trusty wire-finder. She's no Emma Hetfield, but she can manage basic electrical engineering.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool ARMS Meister's Field Kit toward her party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Clarissa actually doesn't bat an eyelash at traveling with Ethius. She's used to being in the company of a stoic young man who doesn't explain things about his background.
Felius Arwin just glances at Ethius for a second. That's it.
Clarissa can't recall having been here before, at least, so she leaves things to Ida. With the door simply not budging, the blonde girl nods to Ida quickly, moving to a position just behind her. "I think there's something that might help," she advises as she fishes out her mother's dog-eared old notebook. "Mom and I ran into one like this years ago and she opened it pretty quick. Let me see if she wrote it down...."
Leafing through the pages, she quickly finds what she's looking for:
found a door. one of those techy ones. didn't wanna open.
solution: kick it.
i mean i had to kick it really hard to be fair
Clarissa blinks, then looks up at Ida. "...I think if you press it a little harder...?"
DG: Clarissa Arwin has used her Tool Melissa's Notebook toward her party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius passes odd glances back at Felius every so often. They must both be fluent in uncomfortable staring and are delighting in finding native speakers in which to convey complex concepts such as 'staring' and 'glaring' and 'gazing' and 'peering' and... it's a very complex language, okay.
Ethius comes along - again - after a recent failed foray involving a generator acting strangely as he got in position to deal with it in his own way, but part of it is from Yulie's curiosity about the place. There's a lot of uncertainties in the air from his time on the Warwing, and so few opportunities for the Caravan Kinship to be in an area long enough he can have another look. As Ida takes the lead on the button and finds it doesn't work...
He's getting out the Spectral Lens, and with one tiny little electric zap later, a soft teal glow is lost to the desert sun as he tries to take a better look at the button and ensure that it is connected to the door and not connected inexplicably to, say, buried explosives.
(He has already checked for buried explosives twice on the approach. He is not going to find any.)
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Yulie has also been to Faraway Lands before! Just the other day, in fact, but she found her adventure cut short. After taking a day to rest up and recover, she's back at Ida's invitation. She was always glad to accompany her good friend, of course... but a part of her had already been wanting another go at it.
Was it... stubbornness? Curiosity? ...She's not sure, but not being able to make it before just makes her want to see what's in there all the more. It's not a feeling she's used to...
...But, maybe it's a sign she'll make a proper Drifter yet.
And so, here she is again, standing outside an unpowered door. This time Ida takes point in dealing with it.
"I can do that." Yulie agrees with a nod. And with that she turns, keeping an eye on their surroundings just in case something happens that she needs to alert everyone to.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has used her Tool Calucion's Journeys toward her party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
What's that? An electronic door that won't open because it lacks electricity? Sounds like a job for a Lightning Seraph.
It's only after everyone else has had a go at attempting to open said door that said Seraph makes her presence known, too. "Yo," she drawls, strolling out of the shadows at the back of the group. "Looks like y'all need a little juice. Well, I was plannin' on takin' a look on my own, but I don't mind havin' a few meat shields around, so how 'bout I take care o' that door?"
If the others agree, she'll jolt up the door with enough power to open it up. If not, she'll shrug, say, "Suit yourselves," and walk through the door as if it weren't there.
Damn cheating Seraphim.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah," rumbles a perhaps unfortunately familiar voice. "The door works not? Yes, yes, is a problem. We looks at it!"
Perhaps he's taken his cue from the group clustered about the console -- and the fact that the door is still closed.
But it doesn't take long before the man -- nondescript, at least, by the standard of the average 'Drifter' (e.g. middle aged, bearded, weatherworn appearance and clothing) -- finds something else that catches his eye.
"It is, what is word... lucky day, yes?" he remarks, studying Ida as she works. "We had hopes to finding it again, and here is it! It went there and back, and so we would has words with it," Harmaus continues, tilting his head to one side.
He provides no explanation about why he's here.
And even less assistance with the door!
"Ah, but here is... maybe not good place, yes?" the embodied Seraph allows, glancing over at some of the others.
Perhaps specifically, Ragnell.
"Needs more private."
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
None of Azoth's encrypted programming activates as he approaches the ruins. Not yet. Maybe this one has nothing to do with him. Maybe he won't know until he's in the deepest depths of it.
But first, he has to get past a door. And at that door is a group Drifters he didn't expect to find. Oh, but Ragnell's here too! Hello Ragnell! She gets a particularly bright smile.
Azoth approaches everyone else almost shyly, giving a tiny wave. "Ah... Greetings. If you don't mind, I could take a look," he says.
Azoth approaches the maintenance panel, his eyes giving a small glow as he looks over the construction. He glances between Ida and Ragnell, then gives a vague pointing gesture. "It is a guess, but..." And then, for a guess, Azoth suggests an oddly specific amount of voltage for Ragnell to use, and which wires Ida may want to connect.
DG: Azoth has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Unpowered Doorway.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Unpowered Doorway *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are several entrances to Faraway Lands, rather than a single central doorway. Famously, all of them are locked tight and difficult to enter. Many a Digger has been turned back at this point, unable to enter. The door that you find simply won't budge. A little inspection shows that it is meant to rise up into the wall of the facility. The button to open it does nothing. With a little investigation, you can determine that the door has no power. If you can somehow restore power, the door may open. Otherwise, you will need to either destroy or move a massive slab of steel. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Slow, Weaken====================================
=========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 1 *>========================== ========================< Results - Unpowered Doorway >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass ARMS Meister's Field Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yulie Ahtreide 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Calucion's Journeys 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clarissa Arwin 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Melissa's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(8)--> 8 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 0 --(8)--> 8 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Slow(2)|Stupify(2)|Weaken(2) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"There's no power," Ida says, glancing back at Clarissa. Already she's identified which wires are still 'hot'--there's a few--and which are cold. Alarmingly, there's a great deal of corrosion going on, so she takes a moment to strip it out as best as she can and unspool some new wire. Ethius' Spectral Lens proves immensely handy in analyzing the contents of the fuse box, and determining what goes where. Yulie keeps lookout, and in the process....
"Ragnell?" Ida says, blinking. Well, she's not going to turn down that offer. "Certainly." She gestures to the deactivated circuit--
'We had hopes to finding it again, and here it is!'
Ida's skin begins to crawl. She knows that voice. She was privately hoping she'd never hear it, ever again. "Now is not the time," she says to Harmaus, her voice tight. But Ragnell's initial estimate of voltage turns out to be a lowball--the light at the top of the door flickers, but nothing else happens.
Thankfully, a mysterious young stranger shows up and gives a very precise value. This has the net effect of distracting Ida from Harmaus and giving the door enough juice that Clarissa can open it with a button-push.
"Thank you," Ida says, looking Azoth up and down. "Who might you be?"
DG: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Navigating in the Darkness *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this room, you get a brief look at a confusing, twisting, S-shaped path through stacked plastic crates. The room once was used as a storage room, and it seems portions were sealed off to store things in plastic crates. Many of those are scattered -- but then you miss a lot of the details, because the power flickers and dies. You are left in the dark. You can navigate your way through -- and maybe check some of those crates. However, you may want to hurry, as the voice of one of those half-phantasmal monsters called an 'Unknown' echoes out in something between whalesong and a child's voice: "Rrraaaaoooooom--ssshhh... m o m m y?" You may want to hurry. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Secret==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius shoots a glare over his shoulder - he is startled by the sudden appearance of that voice and that owner with the strange speaking style, because he did not notice his presence prior. The two of them came to blows some time ago. He draws a hand back over and away when he realizes it's too far out for him to disguise his spellcasting, but decides that act alone would give away preparatory intent.
Ragnell has him looking over his other shoulder but otherwise he doesn't speak up one way or another.
They get inside. He doesn't say what he knows of Azoth (having been present on the Warwing attack out on that flight deck). He subconsciously takes the lead because something looks weird. The construction of the path is unusually S-shaped, with plastic crates stacked about haphazardly... like a blockade. A partially toppled blockade, but there's no signs of any battle damage here. No scratches in the metal, no blast marks. Just the stillness of the air of a place that almost never sees the sun aside from what rays make it in through the malfunctioning doors above.
The power flickers and dies, suddenly, to no cause - as it doesn't appear anything was activated or drawing what power is coursing through here. It is dark. They're professionals and shouldn't have any problem organizing some way to navigate forward (hand on wall, etc). At least a few crates are open, and maybe they can grab some neat-looking things in the dark, but...
"Rrraaaaaooooooom--sssshhhhh..."
That does not sound like anyone's voice.
"...m o m m y?"
They don't see who or what said it, but there's someone (...something) else there.
Ethius has the Spectral Lens out for another activation even though it's running warm and is at risk of fogging when he gets the electrical spell out, looking for anything he can that might resemble a lightswitch as he bangs a shin on a crate he couldn't see.
Things are not going to remain orderly.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Seraphim begin to appear out of nowhere - Seraphim Clarissa even recognizes. Ragnell in particular draws a slight widening of her eyes as she stands to one side, tensing slightly. She hasn't had direct dealings with her, but she was there for the battle with the infant Clysmian of Desperation - and she'd been told who had stood in the way of some of them.
"Why are you here?" she asks with a blink. "You're not trying to raise another of those dark Guardians, are you?"
Azoth isn't recognized at all, but Clarissa nevertheless draws a breath to greet him with a gentle smile. "Hello... please, if you're willing to help, we'd like that. My name is Clarissa. It's nice to meet you."
Clarissa has no reason to suspect this newcomer of anything. Ragnell and Harmaus, however, have rap sheets.
As they move inside, Clarissa and Felius stick close together. The room doesn't seem all that unusual to her--
And then things go dark. Clarissa sucks in a breath, instinctively flinching closer to Felius, who doesn't seem to have so much as blinked. "Well, that's a problem," she murmurs after taking a second to compose herself.
Delicately, she feels along the line of boxes, trying to get her bearings - but she pauses as a chill races down her spine at the sound of a whisper that can't come from any single one of them. She clutches the notebook in her breast pocket.
Mom....
...Mom, what would you do...?
DG: Clarissa Arwin has used her Tool Melissa's Notebook toward her party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"*Ida*!" Ragnell utters back at the martial artist in nearly the same tone of voice. At Clarissa's question, she hurls both hands in the air and drawls, "Dang, ya got me. I'm jus' raisin' dark Guardians 24/7, seven days a week. If I'm breathin', I'm raisin' a dark Guardian. Shit."
Fun Seraph facts: Seraphim don't actually breathe.
Harmaus meanwhile indicates that maybe they shouldn't talk about her. Ragnell eyeballs him. "You got a lot o' nerve sayin' that about *me*, you know that? Whatever, though. As long as you stay away from *her*, I don't care what you do."
At least Azoth is happy to see her! Really, that only indicates his naivete. Ragnell wiggles her fingers at him in greeting all the same, though. As for Ethius--maybe she'll harass him at some point, but for right now, she lets him be (his baseline paranoid).
Once they're through the door, everyone travels onwards further into a place with confusingly twisted paths, and... and... hm. That's really quite an ominous-sounding voice.
Ragnell takes out her harmonica and starts playing a soothing melody. Sh, sh, little one. Your mommy's not here, but here's a lullaby to put you back to sleep all the same.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Polished Harmonica toward her party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Yulie's on lookout, which means she sees it as others arrive - several others, actually. Yulie doesn't know any of them, so she looks just a bit hesitant. Her eyes linger, for just a moment, on Ragnell. Yulie has never heard of or been told about Seraphim before, so she has no reason to know why this is strange...
...But, if there was any question about whether or not she could see them, that solves that.
It's at this moment that the door opens, thanks in part by information provided by another stranger. The party continues forward, into a room stacked with crates...
...And then suddenly, the lights cut out. Yulie knows the generators in these places aren't in the best condition... but, there's something else here, too, that makes this even more of a pressing problem.
There's a horrible sound, and a voice somewhere between whalesong and a child's voice. Yulie breathes in sharply... but, if you could see her face now, one could see that she's less scared than she is...
...Sad.
"...An earthbound spirit...?" She murmurs. ...She doesn't know for certain that's what it is, but... it gives off a similar feel. If it is... then, as a Paladienne, it's her duty to try and ease its woes.
"...It's okay. Let me talk to it. I can... try to free it." Yulie says, and steps forward, into the open.
"...I can hear you. You're... lost and afraid, aren't you? It's okay... I can help you, if you'll let me. It'll be alright... Everything will be alright." Yulie entreats the open air, clasping her hands together.
It's too dark to read, but she knows this is what Calucion would have done.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has used her Tool Calucion's Journeys toward her party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth beams as the door comes open before his attention falls back on Ida. "My name is Azoth. I wold like to tag along. I won't get in the way." He turns to Clarissa with a friendly smile. "Thank you. It is nice to meet you, too." To Yulie: "The both of you."
He eyes Ethius, pondering if he should greet him more knowingly, but Ethius is keeping quiet. So is Felius. Azoth tries to mimic their language of brief glances and half nods as a greeting instead. Harmaus gets one, too.
Once inside, he spends his time peering into crates before the lights go out. For a moment, his eyes are two little beacons in the darkness before he dims them.
...Maybe he should be making them brighter.
Even if he did, it wouldn't be enough to light the way. Azoth frowns as the voice wails. Maybe its sorrowful wailing is a falsehood... but that would only make Azoth more sympathetic. Yulie chooses to address it. Under the safety of that darkness, Azoth pulls a drive from his coat and shoves it into a port in the back of his neck -- his shield override, forcing him to keep a protective dome of energy up, but still allowing him to focus on the other threats. It gives off a faint, illuminating sheen of its own, encompassing him and Yulie to guard her during her efforts, but with the boundaries visible for anyone to join in.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Shield Override toward his party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah?" He tilts his head as he regards Ragnell. "What thinks it we says? We says nothing to it," says the Seraph to Seraph. It's unclear whether he's misunderstood, he's being dense, or whether he's he's deliberately obfuscating matters. "But we talks at it," Harmaus says, immediately whirling back at Ida. "Another time. It knows things we must," he determines, just before the door opens.
And he follows them inside.
"Now, we seeks further secrets yet!"
The way forward is a winding one, traveling hither and thither--
Into the dark.
"Jaeja," grumbles the Seraph, and there is a milky-purple shine of delicate light as Harmaus works his arte. It dances in the air by him like an aurora in the night sky.
A howling moan rolls through the air.
"We are not alone. It shows self to us!" he demands, in the semi-lit darkness.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida finishes looking Azoth over, noting the odd glow in his eyes. "A pleasure to meet you," she says. She extends a hand to the young man, expecting him to approach for a handshake. Does Azoth understand handshakes??
Ida gives Ragnell a dry look, eyes half-lidded as she packs up her tools. "Well, I don't think this place would be very conductive to such dark designs," she says. Humor? Well, if it keeps her mind off Harmaus' presence...
For all the good that does. Ida feels Harmaus' eyes on her, and cannot suppress a shudder. "I have a name," she says, her voice cold. She follows the others inside.
The wailing starts. Ida almost trips over a crate, but steadies herself. She reaches into her satchel, pulling out something by feel alone--a small disc that she attaches to her coat. Light spills from it, illuminating a section of the room that is too tiny to make anyone truly comfortable. "Yulie," Ida says, her voice tight. "Be careful." She doesn't fault the young woman's kindness, but she doesn't want her to get eaten by a monster.
The voice calls out again. Ida redoubles her efforts, searching for the door.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool ARMS Meister's Field Kit toward her party's challenge, Navigating in the Darkness.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Navigating in the Darkness *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this room, you get a brief look at a confusing, twisting, S-shaped path through stacked plastic crates. The room once was used as a storage room, and it seems portions were sealed off to store things in plastic crates. Many of those are scattered -- but then you miss a lot of the details, because the power flickers and dies. You are left in the dark. You can navigate your way through -- and maybe check some of those crates. However, you may want to hurry, as the voice of one of those half-phantasmal monsters called an 'Unknown' echoes out in something between whalesong and a child's voice: "Rrraaaaoooooom--ssshhh... m o m m y?" You may want to hurry. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Secret==========================================
=========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 2 *>========================== ====================< Results - Navigating in the Darkness >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 8 --(12)--> 20 Pass ARMS Meister's Field Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yulie Ahtreide 8 --(12)--> 20 Pass Calucion's Journeys 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clarissa Arwin 8 --(12)--> 20 Pass Melissa's Notebook 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 8 --(12)--> 20 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 8 --(12)--> 20 Fail Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 8 --(12)--> 20 Pass Shield Override 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 8 --(12)--> 20 Pass Polished Harmonica 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Madness|Secret(2)|Slow(1)|Stupify(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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.
There's another rumble as something falls over. (That's Ethius. He bumped his head getting up from banging a shin on a crate.)
(yes, again)
A harmonica tune plays - it may not be the most soothing when put through the choice of instrument, but Ragnell is no slouch at tuning it to fit the occasion best she can as she gives the rare kinda-sorta-well-wish to the restless dead(?).
As Clarissa centers herself and Azoth steps forth to produce a shielding light before what's around them, Ida's gotten her hand around a doorframe. She knows the way out and can call the moment anything goes wrong - something, anything. Harmaus casts a light and can see something unspeakable - let's say its name is Unknown for that is what it basically is - as Yulie moves forth with intent to sooth.
"...M o m m y...!" It is mournful, phantasmal - but they do not attack in any sort of meaningful capacity before Yulie can render her help to the earthbound spirit. It will fade without further incident.
The light goes back on. Ethius clutches his head. Once more, the room returns to being a strangely empty place for all of its crate-filled mess, but the mournful sadness and fear has passed.
They can move on.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Faraway Lands *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Vault Door *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The end of the smooth, metal hallway that you enter ends in a massive vault door. This huge steel door has a wheeled locking mechanism -- set to some combination forgotten millennia ago. Now, the only way through is brute force. Of course, blowing apart a vault door is not something to be done lightly -- or easily -- or, unfortunately, quietly. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
"I'm Yulie - Yulie Ahtreide. It's nice to meet you too." Yulie replies, offering a polite curtsy in Azoth's direction at the introduction.
Now, however, in the dark... she notices Azoth moving to protect her in the faint light. She can't say anything right now, with her focus on the spirit, but... she appreciates it - appreciates that someone else feels the same way.
The spirit speaks again - but doesn't attack. And so, with Azoth's help, she has an opportunity.
"Let us recite holy verses, and release these whispers of lament. I pray you will find peaceful rest... Focus on the warm feelings in your heart. Someday, you shall find the path to the garden of Toldoka..." Yulie recites, as she's been taught. For a brief moment, fragmented thoughts and feelings flood into her. She inhales sharply, shutting her eyes tight. Sadness, fear, and longing takes over for a moment, and she wipes away tears that aren't her own, but are, at the same time.
...And then, the presence is gone - maybe it's just settled, or maybe it really has been set free. But either way, with the lights back on, they're free to move forward. Yulie takes a deep breath, taking a moment to recenter herself.
"...Thank you, everyone. Shall we... move on?" Yulie says.
The way forward, after that, eventually leads them into a long, smooth hallway... and at the end of that is a huge, steel vault door.
"...You... don't suppose they wrote down the combination somewhere nearby, do you...?" Yulie says consideringly, and then sighs. "...No, probably not."
Whether or not it even works is another question entirely. For now, there's nothing for it to but to try and destroy it.
"I'll try to cool it down a little..." Yulie says. She brings out a gem of crystallized elemental energy - something familiar to most users of sorcery. In this case, ice - Yulie draws the power from the gem and sends directly it toward the sealed door, aiming to ice it over.
Its power drained, the gem loses its light and crumbles into nothing.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has used her Tool Magic Gem toward her party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Clarissa would squint at Ragnell suspiciously, but it's dark right now.
Finally, though, they're able to slip through, eluding the plaintive spirit. Clarissa emerges pale, but offering up a grateful smile Yulie's way. "Thank you... yes, let's continue on."
And on they continue - square into a door. Clarissa rests her hands on the arches of her hips and moues her lips. The expression looks curiously pouty on her, though it's evident enough that she's lost in thought more than anything. "It's certainly a problem, isn't it," she muses.
Yulie, at least, has an idea. Clarissa blinks twice, then smiles again as she draws a slim bluish wand from somewhere on her person. "I think you've got the right idea there. Let me try something too, Yulie."
As Felius stands back, Clarissa draws the jeweled tip of her cane along the outline of the door. Wherever the gem touches, ice bleeds out, filtering into the seam between door and wall. There is a creaking sound from within - metal beginning to strain and chill under the pressure of the Cane of Lyra's spell.
DG: Clarissa Arwin has used her Tool Cane of Lyra toward her party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
(Azoth does understand handshakes! Lydia can be thanked for showing him how that works. And like he learned from Lydia, he's a bit... enthusiastic in the shake.)
Once Yulie finishes giving peace to their unknown encounter, he regards her with a warm smile. But he doesn't come up with any words in response, turning inward instead. She was the one on the Warwing. Why is the world as it is that someone would be hunting her?
Moving on, Azoth squints at the massive door, calculating how much of his body he might break on if he threw himself directly into it. More than he'd like, most certainly.
He pulls out a mechanical hilt from his coat, spinning it around in his fingers as he bounces on his toes in preparation, then activates the arm so it produces a bright blade.
Charging... Little more power.... a little more... The shape of the photon blade pulses and grows until what was more a long sword becomes nearly as big as Azoth himself. It seems to have "weight" to it, judging by how it sinks back in Azoth's grasp. Or is he just playing around? (Yes.) Azoth leaps forward with an unnecessary, "Hup!" and smashes it into the ice weakened vault.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Falk's Photon Blade toward his party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Isn't that good for Azoth? He's making new friends already. Ragnell observes this with a faint smile, then considers the unabated dark. Too bad Clarine isn't here, she reflects; she'd be happy to light things up. Ragnell can do that too, given the nature of her powers, but she doesn't like being *too* useful to humans. Too bad. At least the way past this area, now that the strange-voiced thing has been pacified, is better-lit.
"Life's usually not that easy," Ragnell remarks to Yulie, of the door combination. "It might be written, in pieces, all over the dungeon. But who knows where all the pieces might be, or how they'd fit together?" She pulls out a wax paper package from within her poncho. Inside are deliciously spicy, meaty snacks. "Here. Take one," she offers to the group at large. She'll take one herself, too. They're magically prepared snacks, ones that will help give a boost to everyone's endurance. They'll need it if they're going to force this door open.
For her part, Ragnell will chew away at her spicy jerky; then she'll pull a gun and attempt to just freakin' blow the rotating device off. Worth a *shot*, right?
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Spicy Jerky toward her party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is more or less okay aside from the tumble. He does not get in the way of the funeral rites, but he does internalize some of the names spoken. He has, historically, been shown to be cooperative when it comes to funeral rites and putting bodies to rest. (There is absolutely nothing priestly about him.)
His gaze trails Azoth as they traverse down that hallway towards the huge vault. The gaze passes by Felius too because of course it does, their eyes may have been piloting their worthless meatsack bodies in search of worthy conversation partners at long last.
Ethius takes note of Yulie's leading technique as the Cane of Lyra by Clarissa starts to begin to twist things - and then again back at Azoth draws a bladeless hilt that produces a light blade of appropriately interesting and noteworthy power. He takes a piece of the snack RAgnell offers but does not pop it in his mouth as he makes with the expected high yield melting spell.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida glances at Azoth, noting the faint shimmer of his shield. She gives the man a nod of silent thanks, and steps inside as well. As Yulie recites her Order's holy words, she bows her head ever-so-slightly--enough to show reverence, but not enough to impede her vision. Please work, Ida thinks. She no longer has faith in the same vision of Granas, but if Yulie can ease the spirit's pain...
The lights turn back on. Ida looks at Yulie, and sees the remnants of tears on her face. "You did well," she says, offering the young woman a gentle smile and a pat on the shoulder. "And thank you for helping keep her safe," she adds, turning to Azoth.
The vault door proves to be a bit out of Ida's wheelhouse. As the others open up on it, she hangs back, taking the offered jerky and eating it. It's delicious! The fact that she's eating it at all demonstrates some level of trust in Ragnell!
Only once the vault door has been hit with every bit of supernatural and technological firepower in the team's arsenal does Ida step in and put a shoulder to it--not because she's lazy, of course, but come on, it's a vault door. Ida just has raw muscle power, and that can only do so much.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Vault Door.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It has name? Then tells us it!" says Harmaus to Ida, his expression one of great mirth.
"Ah, here is it--"
Harmaus sets eyes on, perhaps not for the first time, something that should not be seen. "Kshhhht--" he hisses out, averting his eyes from the sight of it.
But his light doesn't fade. Not until Yulie has had her words with it and send it onwards -- not until the lights proper turn back on. Slinking onwards without further word, the Seraph's mood is a dark one.
But then there's a door.
"Ah... it blocks us," he addresses it, hands on his hips as he eyes the solid door before them. Striding forward, he gives it a tentative knock with the back of one hand, then turns back.
To Ragnell.
"We takes it," he remarks, pulling a bit of jerky without so much as a how-you-do and then summarily rips off a piece.
He watches as others turn forces -- magical and otherwise -- upon the door, chewing thoughtfully.
"Not enough, yet," he remarks in the end. Pulling a vial from his belt, he downs the contents in one go (...to wash down the jerky) and then--
Also pulls out a gun. Who keeps giving Seraphs guns?!
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Titanforce Extract toward his party's challenge, Vault Door.
=============================<* Faraway Lands *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Vault Door *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The end of the smooth, metal hallway that you enter ends in a massive vault door. This huge steel door has a wheeled locking mechanism -- set to some combination forgotten millennia ago. Now, the only way through is brute force. Of course, blowing apart a vault door is not something to be done lightly -- or easily -- or, unfortunately, quietly. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Tire===========================================
========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 3 *>========================= ===========================< Results - Vault Door >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 20 --(12)--> 32 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yulie Ahtreide 20 --(12)--> 32 Fail Magic Gem 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Clarissa Arwin 20 --(12)--> 32 Fail Cane of Lyra 1 Brute Effects: Strengthen and Fanfar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 20 --(12)--> 32 Pass Titanforce Extract 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 20 --(12)--> 32 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azoth 20 --(12)--> 32 Fail Falk's Photon Blade 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Ragnell 20 --(12)--> 32 Pass Spicy Jerky 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 40 --(10)--> 50 Fail Conditions: Collapse|Secret(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
"Thank you..." Yulie replies, accepting the compliment and the path on the shoulder from Ida. She also returns Azoth's smile with one of her own.
And so, they find themselves in front of the vault door.
"Mm... I suppose that's true." Yulie admits, as Ragnell points out that life just isn't that easy. It'd be nice if they could just find the combination... but that'd take more time than they have. She does, however accept a snack! "Oh, thank you!"
And then, it's time to deal with the door itself.
"Then... let's work together, Miss Clarissa...!" Yulie nods toward Clarissa as she brings out her Cane of Lyra. They both join forces, then, both freezing the door from within. Ethius follows this up, then, with a high-powered melting spell - it's effectiveness all the greater when combined with the ice from Yulie and Clarissa.
With this done, Azoth brings out a photon sword, giving it power and strengthening it before taking it to the door, even as Ragnell and Harmaus open fire on it.
With that done, Ida sets her raw strength to it.
And the result is...
...The door looks in a bad way, but ultimately doesn't budge. This huge door is several feet of solid steel - it's going to take a lot of effort to break through it. They'll have to repeat this process several times, and by the time the door actually opens they'll no doubt be exhausted, physically and resource-wise.
Those not held back by a corporeal form may very well have already taken the opportunity to just... phase through it.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Later, suckers," Ragnell says just before walking through a goddamn door.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Closing Path *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you have seen, many of the doors in Faraway Lands are powered. These steel doors lift up into the wall when some presses a button -- or when someone approaches. The one at this end of the wall, however, is raised... and begins to lower when you approach. If you want to get through, you will need to run through -- and not get separated or, worse, crushed. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Suffer=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The door--
does not give in easily. "Tcha," Harmaus growls, reloading his ARM as Ragnell... just walks on through. Regardless of his provenance, this is not a trick of which Harmaus can currently deploy.
Not without losing a hard-won tool, that he's unwilling to relinquish just yet. So he, with the others, joins in with again battering the door.
Until it ultimately gives in the wake of their assault upon it.
The ARM again holstered, Harmaus shakes his hand out as he steps over the wreckage. For the moment he's got a self-satisfied smile on his face all the same--
Well, until he trades a glance with Ragnell, which is for a moment full of knives. But blink, and it's gone. What's that about?
The hallway from here is a relatively straight-shot affair, marked by the occasional powered door. Press the button, the door opens, and you walk through. Until a particular door is reached where this is... not so much the case.
The button is here.
The door is way down there.
The door also, after the first press, begins to slowly close as one approaches it. Harmaus notes this nearly immediately after the first press, then doubles back, palming a particular object.
"It runs fast, yes? It all runs fast. Or it gets crushed!" he says to the lot of them, flashing a grin with far too many teeth. Inhaling the contents of the pouch in his hand, he strikes at the button once more. The door raises.
And he races for it, at double speed.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Valerian Root toward his party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Doors, Clarissa is told, are like that.
Breathing a bit heavily, Clarissa proceeds through the ruins of the door. She throws a smile to Yulie nevertheless, getting the sense that smiling at Yulie's going to become a trend so long as they're together. "See? There's not much we can't accomplish as a team...."
Getting through the door ahead of them might test their combined mettle, though. Largely because Clarissa isn't the fastest person in the world.
She sprints outright nevertheless as the door begins to close. As she nears the door, it occurs to her she's not going to make it.
"Please don't close on me!" she shouts at it irrationally before diving to the floor and letting her momentum carry her in a baseball slide intended to take her under it at the very last second...!
DG: Clarissa Arwin has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth staggers back from their collective assault, catching his balance on one foot. He settles back down and pouts at the door, then goes right back at it. By the time they finish, his charge is depleted beyond his initial calculations. It's still within the margin of error, however. Press onward.
When they come to the horrible door, he watches a few moments. Observing. Calculating. But eventually, one must act. Legs that actually have to set upon the ground are not what Azoth was designed for, but Azoth's practiced well enough in this chassis. He bursts forward, trying to make his dash under the door before it can turn him to scrap.
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida sags against the wall, shoulders bowed with exhaustion. She's not sure whether to consider this a moral victory, or a pyrrhic one. "Ngh," she mumbles, as she stirs herself back to alertness. If Boudicca were here, this would be where she'd fret over Ida and be sure she'd gotten a drink of water. Boudicca is not here, so Ida does this herself--she takes a long swig from a canteen, and dabs at her brow with a handkerchief. A moment later, she realizes that she doesn't see Harmaus. He's gone on ahead.
Ida follows, and catches up just in time to watch the Seraph demonstrate the door mechanism. She's seen this one before, and her brow knits in focus. "On the count of three, then. One--"
Harmaus pushes the button. Ida feels a momentary flash of annoyance, but then rockets off after him. She leaves glowing, green-tinted footprints in her wake; motes of emerald light waft up from them, stirring the air into a forceful tailwind. It should help even the slowest of them.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius has to apply that spell a few times to get the vault door to be anything other than a vault door. He looks away from the group to pull down his mask to have himself a sip of Gooey Stuff. (HE HAS A PERFECTLY GOOD SNACK IN THE SPICY JERKY WHAT THE HELL)
He makes sure it's covering his face again when he's done. There is a faint stain, cursing him to have to deal with a syrupy, sticky, gooey thing sticking to his mouth and face. He'll rock it.
Ethius takes a risk by keeping towards the back every time they come across a button-activated door, since it stands to reason at least one might be tied to a security system. This is good practice in most forms except for the one that truly manifests. He's about at the back of everyone when Harmaus trips the distant door that intends to close on anyone who can't reach it in time.
The strange Symbologist takes off in a short jog at a pace of Will Not Make It(tm). It may be less of an issue for him, because he may up and try to melt the door again when it's closed... but then he draws that staff with the gnarled, ancient, elderly character to it with the dangly and jingly fancy bits, holding it up high and slamming the butt of it down on the very ground--
*S L A M!*
* SHNG SHNg sHNg sHng shng . . . *
It tends to compel just about everything to stop, as if asking the very room to stop and listen to what the bearer of the staff has to say. To stand, and listen to wisdom that...
...apparently involves Ethius not saying anything and picking back up his jog.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Staff of Audience toward his party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
"Yes..." Yulie agrees with a nod, returning Clarissa's smile. It may have been exhausting, but none of them would have been able to get past that door if they didn't work together.
...Well, except Ragnell, but Yulie is starting to discover that she cheats.
They come across another door, and this one, fortunately, is open! ...But, not for long, as it soon begins to close on them.
If she had a bit more time, Yulie might be able to use a Gather spell to get everyone through the open door the moment one of them makes it through... but, the situation isn't exactly conducive to the sort of focus that takes, so the only thing she can do is try to run. While she can be quick she's not particularly agile, so she follows in Ida's enchanted footsteps to help make up for that.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Closing Path.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
RRagnell flashes Harmaus a long, toothy, white grin of her own. No bad blood *here*, promise.
CLANG CLANG CLANG goes the next room, which threatens to crush them all if they don't scoot something fast to the other side. Ragnell is fleet of foot; more importantly, she won't get crushed to death if she should end up proving too slow.
She should make it, though. She's just naturally speedy, thanks to her nature.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Closing Path.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Closing Path *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you have seen, many of the doors in Faraway Lands are powered. These steel doors lift up into the wall when some presses a button -- or when someone approaches. The one at this end of the wall, however, is raised... and begins to lower when you approach. If you want to get through, you will need to run through -- and not get separated or, worse, crushed. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Suffer=========================================
=========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 4 *>========================== ===========================< Results - Closing Path >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 32 --(22)--> 54 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yulie Ahtreide 32 --(22)--> 54 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clarissa Arwin 32 --(22)--> 54 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 32 --(22)--> 54 Pass Valerian Root 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 32 --(22)--> 54 Pass Staff of Audience 4 Agility Effects: nothing -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 32 --(22)--> 54 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 32 --(22)--> 54 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 50 --(20)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Hesitate(2)|Suffer(1)|Tire(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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 Harmaus has posed.
Harmaus slides through the door as it begins to close. He's followed not long on his coattails by his fellow Seraph--
And not far after that by Ida, who may have just placed herself here with two Seraphs and a still-closing gate of a door. It in fact looks for a long terrible moment like that's going to happen: Azoth is only inches away from it, while Yulie and Clarissa are still several feet away, as it begins to reach that point of no return--
SLAM.
SHNG SHNg sHNg....
The sound reverberates through the hallway.
The door's movement slows.
Stops.
Motion, for the moment, has ceased. The very corridor seems to be waiting, almost, as if in anticipation for--
Now is the time for the remaining few of them to leg it. It's almost easy to get through.
As if in belated realization that no words are forthcoming, the door slams shut mere moments later. It seems almost disappointed.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Closing Path *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you have seen, many of the doors in Faraway Lands are powered. These steel doors lift up into the wall when some presses a button -- or when someone approaches. The one at this end of the wall, however, is raised... and begins to lower when you approach. If you want to get through, you will need to run through -- and not get separated or, worse, crushed. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Suffer=========================================
DG: Azoth has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Unknown *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this hallway, it is darkened. The power has been cut off here; the lights, at best, only flicker. Which is when you hear a voice echo out: "Nnrraaaaauuuuum... w h y mmhhhhhn d i d aaooonnhhh y o u mwaaau f o r g e t?" The wall near you shifts. Plates crack and fall away; the metal bends and buckles, as a viscuous fluid around a core of rotting flesh, rock, and skeleton comes out. The creature that emerges is an Unknown: a thing of protoplasm around that core, which reaches out a tentacle-like arm -- trying to grasp at you. Whatever flesh it touches begins to stiffen, and harden. And, if one doesn't find a way to cure it, turn to stone. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Injure=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth leaves the hungry wall behind, stumbling to a stop to bend over with his hands over his knees in feigned exhaustion. Well, his battery is lower than he'd like, but fatigue doesn't hit Azoth the same way. He rises once he feels he's suitably passed off the gesture and beams at Ethius. "Thank you! That could've gotten uncomfortable." To put it mildly.
It's with good cheer that Azoth continues forward into where good cheer goes to die.
Azoth stops with the first sounds of the voice. Briefly, he wonders if it isn't a glitch in his memory trying to untangle its corruptions. But this auditory data clearly has the vibrations of external--
Azoth glances over his shoulder first, then lets loose a startled series of beeps in warning as pretending to not be robots take a massive back seat to dripping flesh tinged with a foul smell warning of a terrible fate beyond its own decay.
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small stone: a piece of amber. Grasped tightly in palm, Azoth holds it forward, and an energy shield forms, but this time there's the image of a massive arachnid projected across the dome. Azoth himself mimics the horrible screech of such a hypothetical ancient creature, trying to direct all tentacle related contact to the buggy illusion. The pile of rot shambles ever closer, groping out with limbs that multiply enough for all, slowly, then faster, until it's flailing in desperation for anything to grab hold of in its pained moanings.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Bug in Amber toward his party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
The last thing Clarissa needs is to get chomped up by a wall.
As Azoth continues forward, Clarissa moves along behind, moving Strahl Gewehr up to shoulder level in readiness. She's growing tired; this place is beginning to wear her down. Into the dark they step--
"w h y"
"Ida, I hope that was you," Clarissa says, her voice disembodied in the low light, yet pinched with anxiety.
Something bursts through the masonry as something obscene intrudes upon the group. With a shriek, Clarissa leaps back, her face going pale as she gets her first glimpse of what is coming for them. The shadows and darkness only compound things. She can't make out all of it at once; her mind is left to fill in what the dark conceals.
Her mind cannot find anything wholesome to fill in - only abomination.
"What is with this place!" Clarissa yells, her voice choked with disgust and horror as she cranks Strahl Gewehr forward in a two-handed grip and starts shooting like her life depended on it. The light of the ARM is blinding, slashing through the murk of the hallway with dazzling brilliance.
Spots dance in front of Clarissa's eyes as she practically blinds herself with her own gunfire. Privately, she's grateful.
DG: Clarissa Arwin has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Everyone makes it past the press, which is good, because it would be really unfortunate if anyone had gotten squashed to death. Of course, there are more dangers up ahead. The last time they'd found themselves in a darkened room, there had been something very sinister within. This time is no exception--except this time, there's just enough illumination to see a crack in a nearby wall, and a tentacle oozing out from within, as a gurgling voice asks w h y . . .
"Really hope it's not Ida, 'cuz that wouldn't say great things about her pipes," Ragnell quips, even as she sinks into a wary, combat-ready stance.
Then the monstrosity *bursts* through, and Ragnell snaps up both pistols and opens fire on the thing. She's not the only one. Gunfire lights up the room. Really, gunfire might not be enough. Ragnell pauses long enough to pull out a grenade, unpin it, and hurl it at the abomination. Not content to wait for the countdown, she twirls a gun and fires on the grenade just as it falls right before the thing, setting it to *explode* with crackling electric force.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Lightning Grenade toward her party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Yulie has to take a second to catch her breath after hurrying through the door. She offers Ethius a nod when Azoth thanks him.
"Y-yes... thank you, mister..." Yulie says, offering him her own thanks. They continue forward... and, that's where it happens.
Fortunately for Azoth, she's too startled herself to think anything of those warning beeps. She backpedals quickly away from the wall as a voice echoes out.
"This one sounds... angry, and upset...!" She warns, a cold chill running down her spine. "I don't... I don't think I'll be able to pacify it like I did the last one..."
She reaches into her coat, and draws out two items. One of them, a holy symbol of the Paladienne order, and the other, a Crest Graph.
"Calucion's blessing be with us...!" Yulie murmurs, holding the holy symbol tight and clasping it over her heart. It begins to radiate a soft light, brightening up the dark room little. ...But, it's not just for show - anyone touched by the light will find that, should they be touched by the Unknown, their petrification will rapidly reverse.
With the other, she holds her hand out. Three metal rings bearing a spiral design spin in front of her, the Crest Graph at the center.
"Sanctify...!" Yulie calls out. A beam of golden, purifying light descends as if from the heavens to rebuke the violent spirit.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has used her Tool Holy Symbol toward her party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The odd man knows when it's safe to stop jogging through closing doors (mostly the same as anyone else - past the door). It's when things start to take a similar turn to earlier with the S-shaped hallway with the crates that he holds an open palm out in preparation for what he thinks he's better prepared for.
He is wrong. There is no mechanical tell for something coming through the masonry - to Ethius, it's like it came out of nowhere. (...aside from the wall, the wall is not nowhere) and joins Clarissa not in screaming, but being just as startled.
He falls upon reflex - grabbing a satchel, enchanting it, and throwing it at the monstrosity in a giant cloud of dust under the on-the-spot thought that it may mess with its sensory perception of them. He can't be sure. He keeps stepping back.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The light winks out again not long after that.
"Ah? It outens the lights again?" murmurs the Seraph, who snaps a finger to generate a small shimmering streamer of light. One would think that he would have learned the last time but--
"Kshhh--" hisses Harmaus, recoiling from the sight of the thing that manifests before them in the gloom. "It silences itself, and it does it now!" With one hand, Harmaus palms something from a pocket within his jacket, brandishing that fist before himself as if it were a holy symbol of some stripe.
And then curls open the fingers of that fist to release the tiny silver bell threaded on the end of a crimson cord.
It rings once.
"Shhh. Shh, it quiets!" exhorts the Seraph.
Twice.
Be still. Be still. And stop.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Unknown.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida stops for a moment to catch her breath, and then checks to make sure the others are okay. Even Ragnell gets a visual check-up; Ida knows perfectly well she can phase through that door if she wants, but still.
Then the light begins to flicker. A faint susurrus catches her ear, close to--but not quite--actual words.
"No," Ida says, to Clarissa. There's a horrible moment of lingering tension, underscored by the not-voice. Then the wall breaks open, and the horror spills through. "GRANAS' BLOOD!" Ida screams, and she stumbles back, whipping something from her belt on pure reflex. A small metal canister catches the flickering light as it flies, its fuse burning. "Look away!" Ida shouts. The flare grenade cooks off inches from the monstrosity's gelatinous flesh.
But Ida seems to have the same idea as Ragnell--a grenade alone won't put it down. Both of her ARMs clear leather, and she opens fire, sending a stream of lead downrange. The muzzle flare of Devil's Due is bright enough to see by, for brief flashes, while its 'twin' Devil ARM seems to suck in that light.
Ida stands between Yulie and the monster, putting Etone gunplay to work in its most efficient, violent form.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Unknown.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Unknown *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you enter this hallway, it is darkened. The power has been cut off here; the lights, at best, only flicker. Which is when you hear a voice echo out: "Nnrraaaaauuuuum... w h y mmhhhhhn d i d aaooonnhhh y o u mwaaau f o r g e t?" The wall near you shifts. Plates crack and fall away; the metal bends and buckles, as a viscuous fluid around a core of rotting flesh, rock, and skeleton comes out. The creature that emerges is an Unknown: a thing of protoplasm around that core, which reaches out a tentacle-like arm -- trying to grasp at you. Whatever flesh it touches begins to stiffen, and harden. And, if one doesn't find a way to cure it, turn to stone. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Injure=============================================
=========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 5 *>========================== =============================< Results - Unknown >============================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yulie Ahtreide 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Holy Symbol 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clarissa Arwin 54 --(12)--> 66 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Bug in Amber 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 54 --(12)--> 66 Pass Lightning Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 70 --(20)--> 90 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Hesitate(1)|Injure(2)|Maim Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Azoth has posed.
The Unknown of rot and fluid lurches with a shriek as the group erupts into action. Bright shots from Clarissa's Strahl Gewehr strike into its body, piercing through flesh and embedding into the stone core. It hurls itself at her in a manic charge, all tentacle limbs reaching out to coil around her and flinging fluid haphazardly toward her with its hunger for contact, each drop that hits to seep in and spread as stone. It shrieks, as if finally finding the soul responsible for its pain. "w h y !"
Azoth flinches, calling out to Clarissa, but is drowned out by the creature's wails. Yet a bell cuts through the clamor and it stops cold, some of its limbs falling limp at its side, but others carried by their violent momentum. Grenades fly, one shocking, the other burning, and it convulses with a rattled, haunting sound as more and more flesh is torn away by the continued assault. Powder engulfs its body, and in the haze, the only enemy it can find now is that bright illusion of a bug, seizing its attention until holy light consumes it and takes it to a better place. All that remains is dust and old bones.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Lightning Eater *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the very center of Faraway Lands, you find the Generator Complex. Rather than a single room, it is a series of locked rooms. You make your way inside of one; the locked door is not so difficult to tend to, be it by brute force or intellect. In this room, you find the ruins of an ancient generator. The column that once ran floor to ceiling has been broken and damaged. Chunks are torn free; in other places, it is dented inward. Sparks explode and erupt, but sporadically. However, when you enter, the damaged generator sputters to life-- No. Instead, the thing that did this emerges from it: a Lightning Eater. This being of pure electricity takes on a vaguely lizard-like shape, stomping out, and screeches -- before rushing at you, trying to bowl you over! And, unfortunately, it is between you and the door on the opposite side, which leads to the heart of the dungeon and its treasures. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Exhaust===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Brass casings roll across the ground at Ida's feet. She doesn't holster her ARMs until she's sure the thing is no longer a threat. Once she does, though, she takes a moment to breathe, steady herself, and confirm that the others are all right. In the flickering light, she sees the creeping curse as it spreads across Clarissa's flesh. "Yulie!" Ida cries, eyes wide with alarm. She gestures to Clarissa, and lets the Paladienne do the rest. Please work, she thinks.
Thankfully, it does.
Once that scare is over, the team moves on. The lights keep flickering, but no more of those hideous things reveal themselves--this appears to be an electrical malfunction of a more mundane sort. Signs on the walls seem to point towards something; their writing has been rendered illegible with time, but Ragnell--and Azoth--can sense a powerful electromagnetic field up ahead.
Ida reaches a door, and spends a minute ratcheting it open via the manual release. The field starts growing in intensity--the smell of ozone permeates the air, and static electricity begins to build.
Inside is a generator column. It is very clearly nonfunctional, yet it keeps sputtering--
Ida's eyes open wide as something rips free in a brilliant arc of lightning. Rather than ground out, it takes shape, forming a powerful quadrupedal build, and hungry eyes. Those eyes lock directly on Ragnell's, and it lunges, hissing!
"FLARE!" Ida shouts, winging another flashbang at the creature as it charges the Seraph. The grenade cooks off with a bright magnesium flare, momentarily stunning the thing. Ida proceeds to fill it with lead.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius' head turns as he is piqued about the flickering of the lights - he knows something's a bit different about this one. A more mundane electrical malfunction. A hand goes to his forehead. Did another Drifter team start to reroute power from one place to another to deal with an obstruction? If they're at the depth he thinks they are, from his previous experiences, then that means--
The scent of ozone builds. He starts moving ahead as he sees the generator column. His eyes narrow.
"There's somethin--"
Nope. Quadrupedal lightning fiend gets to introduce itself, and Ethius dives right the hell to the side and low to avoid being struck by a building bolt of lightning that turns into the aforementioned quadrupedal creature. He gets out the second satchel and makes with the expected - one Symbological spell, a quiet activation, and one toss of a now activated smoke bomb to further agitate and allow the rest more space and allowance to do as they will as he keeps another eye on the generator that it just escaped from.
He might have to deal with that one too.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Another earthbound spirit is freed. This time a bit more violently than the last, but... Yulie is glad that they don't have to suffer anymore. But it's as she recites the prayers that Ida calls out her name, and Yulie realises there's something else at stake.
"R-right away...!" Yulie stumbles a bit as the Unknown's feelings of anger and despair at being forgotten in this place wash over her, but it doesn't stop her from reaching Clarissa's side and performing some quick healing to counteract the spirit's petrifying touch.
"How does it feel now, Miss Clarissa...? Are you alright?" Yulie asks, offering her a smile.
They're able to move on after that. The flickering lights bring her some amount of concern that another spirit may attack, but it doesn't happen - instead, they find another malfunctioning generator. It reminds her of the one that stopped her and her previous party in its tracks before... but this time, something different happens.
"Ah!" Yulie gasps in surprise as a lizard-like mass of electricity emerges! It looks like it means business. She shields her eyes with a hand as Ida sends a flare out, before drawing out a Crest Graph and backpedaling out of the monster's range.
"Let your wounds be healed...!" Yulie says. She focuses on providing healing to the party this time, though she still keeps that holy symbol held tight in her hand. It's more for comfort and reassurance than an actual need this time.
DG: Yulie Ahtreide has used her Tool Holy Symbol toward her party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Clarissa shrieks as she finds herself partially encased in stone. The petrification spreads rapidly. "Ah-- ah--"
Blessedly, there's Yulie. The young woman steps in, doing her work with kindness and efficiency. Clarissa breathes a sigh of relief as her body begins to return rapidly to normal. Slouching, she smiles up at Yulie lopsidedly, a hint of colour reaching her cheeks. "it feels alright, Miss Yulie... thank you so much. I'll be okay to go on now."
Things could have been worse - far worse - but for Yulie's being there.
They move on, Clarissa managing to keep up, though she's clearly tired. It doesn't deter her - she keeps pace nevertheless before they emerge into another chamber. The girl's eyes widen at the sight of the generator before her.
It's not the only thing before her. Clarissa gasps and darts back as the electric fiend bursts into view. Shielding herself with her arm, she darts away from the worst of its assault before swinging Strahl Gewehr forward.
The blast she fires off is much bigger and more brilliant this time - but she sags a little as she fires, pouring something more than energy into it. Her cheeks pale visibly, as if the gun's drawing on her own vital energies.
DG: Clarissa Arwin has used her Tool Dandelion Sacrifice toward her party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Harmaus, meanwhile, merely glances over at Clarissa as the curse begins to take hold and cocks his head to one side inquisitively. "Jaeja," he mutters, before shrugging and turning to walk on ahead.
Is it because he's just that callous, these days, or because he knows the others have it handled?
(Guess.)
He's towards the front, as it were -- he had waited by a door until Ida arrived, only to follow her just a touch too closely into the room -- when he stops, his nose wrinkling.
"...Tcha. Something is here," he mutters, narrowing his eyes in the gloom. "We smells it."
And, unhelpfully, he drops back as the thing rips free from the generator, leaving Ida and the others behind to face it--!
Or so it seems. From a little ways away, there is again the delicate chime of a tiny little bell.
Quiet, says the bell. Quiet, quiet.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Everyone's attacks pour onto the abomination; it shrieks and demands an answer, but ultimately is reduced to ash.
Ragnell holsters her guns with an effortless twirl, sparing Ida but a glance as the martial artist visually checks in with her. By all appearances, she is totally unruffled, shrugging off the horrific encounter like it's nothing. She even sounds like it too, drawling, "Welp, *that's* gonna haunt my nightmares."
It thus might be easy to overlook the actual thing she *says*.
But one disgresses. The lot of them still need to move onwards. It's not like Ragnell could have a heart-to-heart with anyone here, anyway, and it's not like there's anything they can meaningfully do. The monster is dead; they killed it and protected themselves; it's time to move on to take down the next challenge. Perhaps this is the attitude that allows her to seem as though she isn't bothered at all in the first place.
And if others are injured, well, that's what they've got a healer in the party for. No need for her to take action there, either.
It's not much farther now. Ragnell isn't familiar with this place, but she *is* familiar with the flow of dungeons of various kinds. She's had a very full life so far, and while she could be wrong, it feels like they're nearing an end. It helps that she senses an electrical field nearby, just up ahead, past the illegible writing on the wall.
"Hmm," she mutters, tipping the brim of her hat up. She says nothing else, though. It doesn't seem particularly dangerous--no more than anything else they've faced so far, anyway--and the others will notice soon enough anyway.
But then they arrive at the generator, and something *does* appear: some kind of monster that tears itself free, cascading in lightning in the form of some kind of beast. It turns to lock eyes with Ragnell, then charges with a hungry roar.
Ragnell leaps backwards as she pulls another grenade. "You wanna taste o' me? Eat *this*!" she shouts, pulling the pin and chucking the grenade directly into the creature's mouth.
Hopefully she didn't just heal it.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Lightning Grenade toward her party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth watches in worried stillness until Yulie brings Clarissa back to full flesh. Good, she's all right. So is everyone. But to think he originally intended to come here alone. Success might have been impossible.
The generator becomes a point of interest until Azoth's thoughts begin to itch, like a pale static playing in the background of every process. Alarm shoots through him, his hair raising up like a frightened cat thanks to his sensitivity to electrical charge.
Why does a lizard made of lightning exist?!
But the lightning eater lunges for Ragnell, and Azoth lunges for the lightning eater in turn. He swings out his fist as if to punch it, but amber still in hand, a shield forms as he rams it directly at the lizard. Arcs of electricity dance across the surface of the shield and Azoth's eyes brighten for getting so close. Too close. But it wants to eat Ragnell!
So he tries to keep its attention, manipulating his shield with twists of his wrists and focused energy to make the spider illusion dance. "Hey, over here...!" Wait no, he has to provoke it. "You... You wispy little cirrus!"
He tried.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Bug in Amber toward his party's challenge, Lightning Eater.
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Lightning Eater *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the very center of Faraway Lands, you find the Generator Complex. Rather than a single room, it is a series of locked rooms. You make your way inside of one; the locked door is not so difficult to tend to, be it by brute force or intellect. In this room, you find the ruins of an ancient generator. The column that once ran floor to ceiling has been broken and damaged. Chunks are torn free; in other places, it is dented inward. Sparks explode and erupt, but sporadically. However, when you enter, the damaged generator sputters to life-- No. Instead, the thing that did this emerges from it: a Lightning Eater. This being of pure electricity takes on a vaguely lizard-like shape, stomping out, and screeches -- before rushing at you, trying to bowl you over! And, unfortunately, it is between you and the door on the opposite side, which leads to the heart of the dungeon and its treasures. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Exhaust===========================================
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Lightning Eater *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the very center of Faraway Lands, you find the Generator Complex. Rather than a single room, it is a series of locked rooms. You make your way inside of one; the locked door is not so difficult to tend to, be it by brute force or intellect. In this room, you find the ruins of an ancient generator. The column that once ran floor to ceiling has been broken and damaged. Chunks are torn free; in other places, it is dented inward. Sparks explode and erupt, but sporadically. However, when you enter, the damaged generator sputters to life-- No. Instead, the thing that did this emerges from it: a Lightning Eater. This being of pure electricity takes on a vaguely lizard-like shape, stomping out, and screeches -- before rushing at you, trying to bowl you over! And, unfortunately, it is between you and the door on the opposite side, which leads to the heart of the dungeon and its treasures. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Exhaust===========================================
=========================<* Faraway Lands - Round 6 *>========================== =========================< Results - Lightning Eater >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yulie Ahtreide 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Holy Symbol 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clarissa Arwin 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Dandelion Sacrifice 4 Combat Effects: Fanfare and Sacrifice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 66 --(25)--> 91 Fail Bug in Amber 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 66 --(12)--> 78 Pass Lightning Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 90 --(30)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has successfully explored Faraway Lands!
==============================<* Faraway Lands *>=============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Depleted Kizim Fire *>====================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Inside of the central vault of Faraway Lands, you find a room with shelving across the room. Here, you find green crystals lying on the shelves. These are all a dark color, and quite dim and cool. These are the famed Kizim Fire: crystallized energy, but that energy has since depleted. Although it couldn't be used as a power source, these crystals could sell for quite a bit of gella -- or be used for research in places across Filgaia. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Azoth tries. Really, he does. But the lightning-eater shows no interest in his clever illusion--why should it, when there's a delicious electrical current right there in front of it? Ragnell shows it she's no easy meal, though, throwing her lightning grenade at just the right moment. Rather than hitting the eater directly, it catches the dust released by Ethius' powder grenade, resulting in a truly fearsome fireball. The explosion sends stray bits of reactor casing falling to the floor. The lightning-eater reels back, screeching its electrical cry.
There is the tinkle of a tiny bell. Quiet, Harmaus insists. Quiet. The static fizzling around the creature grows dim, and its movements grow sluggish--which gives Clarissa and Ida the perfect opportunity to put ARMs fire into it. Yulie stands behind the crew, her presence providing tangible reassurance.
Thankfully, though, healing is not needed. The lightning eater dies with another sizzle-pop of arcing lightning. The chamber is silent and still. And yet...
There's a door open on the far end of the room. Something gleams inside. Ida gives the crew a once-over, smiling at Azoth. "That's a clever trick, there," she says, "pity it didn't fall for it." And then, an actual honest-to-God look of concern for Ragnell. "Are you all right?" she says. "Really all right?" They proceed into the door.
"Is this... Kizim Fire?" Ida murmurs. It has the right shape, but it's so dull.
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
Breathing heavily, Clarissa takes a second to regroup - but she looks towards Ragnell with momentary concern. As much as the Seraph has done some questionable things, Clarissa can't not check if she's alright.
Soon enough, though, something new's been discovered, and Clarissa's widening her eyes as she shoulders up next to Ida to inspect the dim but recognizable shape.
"Ida, you're right," she breathes as she pulls out her mother's notebook and leafs through to a dog-eared page. "It is Kizim Fire... this is what it looks like when its energy has been depleted. Mom and I found one like this once when we were digging an old ruin. There's not even a charge...."
Delicately, Clarissa runs her finger along one of the crystals.
Nothing happens. "...or even any residual power," she murmurs. "They're mostly good for academic study now. They couldn't hold a charge anymore."
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius sneaks off during the explosion. (He probably was not consumed by it by accident, though that is a distinct possibility.) It turns out he's already gauged if it's safe to get past the generator, and something's caught his eye already as Ida murmurs it out loud. He was there when Mariel guided everyone through the facility and located live, active Kizim Fire. His eyes go back to looking across the gathered - they hang on Harmaus' host for a little longer, as Clarissa confirms it - though she reaffirms that they're mostly good for academic study now. No charge... no threat to anyone.
"...You see no potential for trouble, then?" He asks of Clarissa. For a man whose body language is so carefully guarded, there's probably just enough among those familiar with him that the fact he's asking means he already has his own conclusions.
He starts to reach a hand out. (He is in physical grabbing range of a depleted crystal, but he's a Symbologist and an extended hand can mean a lot of things...)
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
A bolt of lightning snaps just past Harmaus' head. The Seraph doesn't flinch: he continues to hold his hand outstretched as the bell chimes, the sound carrying well in spite of its small size.
And then, quite suddenly, he palms it, silencing it, as the creature dies.
Striding forward without a care for the others, he regards the prizes laden inside that door, but doesn't head inwards until Ida and the others do--
And listens, quite fascinated (to judge by his expression) as Clarissa explains what it is... and what it can no longer do.
"It wonders us... where is 'Fire' lit? We feel no heat, here. Only power like, ah... thunderstorms!" He bares his teeth, almost as if in some sort of self-amused grin.
And because he cannot, apparently, keep his hands off of anything, he's picked up one of the depleted crystals, turning it this way and that.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Yulie ends up not having to heal anyone! She prefers it that way, honestly - it's better when no one has to get hurt. She sighs in relief as the electricity dies down, and she's finally able to see what lies beyond it!
In this case, it's shelves full of dim, green crystals. Kizim Fire, according to Ida - and depleted ones, according to Clarissa.
"...Do you think people would buy them...?" Yulie says consideringly, approaching one and looking it over. "My friends and I could use some more traveling money..."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's hair frizzes with even more alarm as his efforts fail. Should he have insulted its mother? Does it even have a mother? And its hypothetic mother wasn't the one trying to eat Ragnell!
Once the battle is over and won, he rushes over to Ragnell to look her over in unguarded concern. "Are you all right? I'm so sorry. I thought it would work."
But everything is still and lizardless now. He gives Ida a weak smile. "Not clever enough, he laments. At least no one was hurt because of it.
But his little moment of guilt seems over once their prize is revealed. Azoth bounces up to the shelves as if he weren't completely exhausted by the ruins (he's like a cellphone -- he works until he doesn't). "What a beautiful color!"
Even as he gushes, he analyzes the composition carefully. These could be important. A shame. He wanted to add it to his collection.
He turns to the others, none of his disappointment showing on his excited face. "One's enough for me! Can I?"
<Pose Tracker> Clarissa Arwin has posed.
"Definitely," Clarissa assures Yulie with a gentle smile. "Mom and I sold one for a pretty good price, and that was years ago. Once you factor in inflation, we'll get even more today. If you give me a bit, I can find Mom's receipts and see how much we got for it...."
To Azoth, she nods. "I think it's fair to split them up equally between us. After all, we were all in this together, right?"
Ethius is reaching out for the crystals. Clarissa blinks at him a couple of times.
"Would you like one, Mr. Hesiod?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Dust and lightning combine to create a massive fireball, and it consumes the lightning beast, leaving it weak to the ARMs fire that ultimately destroy it. Ragnell lets out a low, slow breath, then looks around at the others.
It's honestly always a surprise to her when humans care about her. This is especially so given that her status as Rotten Destructive Sneak is generally known. It should be less surprising from Azoth, who is *not* human, that he would try to come to her aid (and the illusion might not have worked, but he did *try*), but they barely know each other; meanwhile, Clarissa looks at her with implied concern, while Ida asks her outright if she's all right. Ragnell gives them all strange looks. Then she chuckles and tips the brim of her hat down.
"If I wasn't, d'you think I'd tell you?" she points out. And then she strides forward without waiting for a response. This would look a lot cooler if Azoth didn't then run up to her, apologizing for his gambit not working. Once again, she looks baffled, then shakes her head. "It's fine. An' I'm fine. Don't you worry 'bout a thing."
Classic Ragnell.
Beyond the door is a room with shelves filled with dull crystals. Ragnell has never seen them before, though she notes that Ida calls them Kizim Fire. Like Ethius and Harmaus, curious little scamps that they are, she reaches for one of the crystals, aiming to inspect them as she listens to Clarissa's explanation.
"So no rechargin', huh," she comments. "That's a shame. Wonder what's the point of keepin' 'em in storage if they're just junk now, though." She gestures all around them. "This doesn't exactly look like the garbage disposal."
Harmaus is right, though. They have a sort of electric feel to them, even if that energy is gone now. She might take a few for herself, just to see if they really can't be recharged at all.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Or for personal experimentation," Ida says, because this is something new and untouched for her and she wants to at least poke at it a little. "They do. Academics interested in energy production, sorcerers looking for esoteric components for their work--" Or for aesthetic value, as Azoth points out. "Of course," Ida says. "You earned it."
She seems content to let Ragnell's Ragnell-ism slide. One must keep one's reputation as a dark and treacherous scoundrel intact, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
'Would you like one, Mr. Hesiod?'
"Y--" Ethius is interrupted by Azoth just bouncing right the hey up and gushes over it, and he's forced to give space as others start to crowd around and stake their claims. This culminates in other series of events where the universe decides there's enough for everyone here except him, where he is mostly left staring.