2020-12-27: Another Time, Another Place
- Log: Another Time, Another Place
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Ratatoskr, Venetia Vuong, Allison Storm
- Where: Elw Teleporter Network
- Date: December 27, 2020
- Summary: Dreams can be strange things, can't they?
DG: A party led by Josephine Lovelace is now entering Elw Teleporters - Dreaming. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so now. Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long, misty expanse over a grey plain. You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this place. The memories of those who came before await. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
When she wakes, she wakes into a gray and misty space.
There is no sign of a bed. No sign of a room, in fact, or any suggestion of the place at all in which she had been when she had settled in.
Although to say that she 'settled in' would be a lie -- more like she tossed and turned, never fully settling into a proper night's sleep at all. Isn't that a laugh -- babies can sleep as instinctively as all that. Sheep could do it. Maybe fish slept, she wasn't rightly sure. But sleep had proven as illusive as...
Well, as the mist that now surrounds Josephine Lovelace.
She should be on edge. Instead, she feels darkly amused by the joke of it all. Look at this: sleep eluded her so badly that now she's gotten lost somewhere strange.
Fumbling for a moment, there is an arc of light in the fog thereafter from her from her spot in the grey expanse. The scent of ozone betrays what it might have been.
As does the little spot of light that is the burning end of her cigarette. She exhales deeply, adding smoke to this place.
Why not. When you don't know where you are and don't rightly care, why not light up.
And she can sense that she's not alone.
"Any of you lot feel like sayin' howdy?" drawls the archaeologist. She begins to walk, towards a sole patch of brightness that seems to be somewhere in the distance.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Pack of Cigarettes toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
The Al Bhed are minding their own business, getting ready for more great news about how their Reflector Keys have been working... and making more, because iterating on exciting new concepts is one of the few joys left to them in a world devastated by Sin and oppression.
Then, unsolicited, there is a Ratatoskr who just shows up before a startled assistant who is done assembling something out of what was once an Elw ornamental, functionally useless doorknob. In retrospect, maybe assembling exciting new tech out in the open where any weirdo metal squirrel-like crazy thing is a terrible idea!
"What's that?" Ratatoskr asks. "What's that!"
The technician in question stares blankly into those solid yellow eyes from their own masked lenses (which, in this instance, is the exact same yellow), puts it down, and picks up a pistol.
"I know I saw a bunch of warriors carrying things like that... is it a medal you gave out for that Bevelle operation?" Ratatoskr asks inquisitively. "I wish I could've seen that... I noticed they were carrying them when I fought some of them a few days ago... so I wanted to know..."
The Al Bhed tinkerer, calmly, raises the pistol.
"Can I have one?" Ratatoskr asks. "...I want to keep it for historical purp--"
"If I shoot you in the head first, then deal."
"Deal!" Ratatoskr responds without thinking about it.
A LITTLE TIME LATER
Ratatoskr is nursing a killer headache. He also learned that you don't get any extra keys if you let them shoot you a few extra times, but that's okay, he'll treasure this one for what it is.
Also the headache. That pistol was rad. That's a headache worth treasuring for as long as it's there.
SOME TIME AFTER THAT
(vaguely defined moment of time where a cursory examination of Hoel helps him figure out what it actually does)
ANOTHER STRETCH OF TIME AFTER THAT
Ratatoskr has an active imagination, and even sleep does little to dampen that. The Metal Demon hordes were conditioned to, by and large, only think of conquest, war, and glory. As neonates, it was ordinary routine to make sure they were surrounded by stimuli that would help condition this. Diagrams for teaching tactical markings and language surrounding their vision before they slept. Repetition of spoken commands to be played as they sleep.
Ratatoskr, in defiance of this 'childhood', sometimes achieves enough lucidity to allow his imagination to go wild about any numer of weird ways humans prepare, or playing over exaggerated ideas as to what military unit would win against another military unit that never could meet in actual reality.
...
Tonight, though, a flash of the memories of one of the very last of old Hyades, staring down oblivion by Mother and their lingering resentment. Something he can't unsee. It wasn't glorious. It wasn't engaging. It was... somewhere he wanted to look away. He wasn't sure he cared where.
In reality, his movement when he goes on all fours is blisteringly fast - he was to serve as a battlefield messenger, after all - but never quite fast enough, running headlong towards the grey, colorless static. For that moment, he was gripped by that fear and despair an ancient predecessor was. Enough to shock anyone awake.
He does not.
Ratatoskr's solid yellow eyes light up with an intensity that tends to be reserved for adrenaline-pumping fear - the sort he generally only feels like in situations where, say, Id throws a temper tantrum and tries to kill everyone on the Photosphere. He didn't have a name for that feeling then.
A voice. He knows that voice - another Odessa operative. He just thinks back to any number of war hero types, as if to comfort himself. As if scrambling for something, someone, anyone that might've been able to stand up to Mother there, back then, if they were there back then - as if flipping through the datapad he does not really have on him.
"Josephine Lovelace?" All formal like, as if reading the name off a list. "Josephine Lovelace!" Ratatoskr tries to move through the fog. Her voice in this moment is the closest emotional tether he has to getting re-centered.
To the uninitiated, Ratatoskr is a tall, limber male figure dressed primarily in well-worn blood red Hyadean battle armor. His body shape has a lot of features resembling that of a squirrel. Digitigrade legs, a huge segmented metal plate tail. His head is anything but that, with a sharp-toothed grin that is never less than a smile, solid yellow eyes that can only dim or brighten, and a horn upon his head that looks like it can shoot laser beams. (it totally does.)
DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Corrupted Records toward his party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Which one of you did this," says VENETIA VUONG.
VENETIA VUONG, who is in all capital letters, is wearing a nightgown underneath her usual hip belt and side pack for Crest Graphs, gun holster, and other tools of adventuring. It's got a little embroidered and rather battered 'hobgobs and night flowers' pattern down along the hem. She is also wearing her hair loose, for once, which reveals it is pretty long, and her mask is a fluffy thing with a soft interior lining and black cloth, giving her an obscurely raccoonish appearance.
It does not reach her voice.
"Is this the afterworld? I was told the afterworld was a world of never ending happiness," Venetia complains further. "Where you can always see the sun, day or night. But I don't see any sun, I see you, Josephine, and I see -- who are you?" this to Ratotskr.
"Maybe we have to cross the barren plains of incompetence before we can reach the prize," Venetia muses. "Alternatively we are not dead. I don't know why death is on my mind. Probably Spira, as well as eating that head roast for supper."
CABEZA DE VACA: THE TASTE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING. Also it leaves you with a cow skull.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Allison Storm has posed.
Allison is in the cockpit of a state-of-the-art Pan-Galactic Federation starfighter, flying through some kind of nebulous cloud that's shot through with arcs of lightning. As she flies, luminary spectres shaped like starships appear in front of her, and with expertise she fires the spacecraft's laser cannons, shooting through the images while simultaneously rolling to avoid their counterfire. Each time one receives a hit, it explodes into pixels, a number appears briefly, and the blue-haired fighter pilot swells with a sense of accomplishment.
The pilot's green eyes shift to the right, marking a matching fighter flying in parallel. She nods to the other pilot, visible through the crafts' canopies but masked by a flight helmet. The other pilot nods back.
The cockpit radio crackles to life.
'Any of you lot feel like saying howdy?'
Allison reaches out to press her call button.
"Vermillion Five, saying howdy! Who am I talking to?"
As she lets the button release, an asteroid suddenly looms in her cockpit's viewport.
"Shit!"
Returning her hand to the controls, she deftly swerves to the left, avoiding the asteroid and crashing nose-first into a willow tree.
More voices come on the radio, but it's full of static as warning lights flash red through the vessel to indicate that crashing into a tree was not in the best interest of its occupant. As the cockpit begins inexplicably to burn, Allison coughs and reaches for the canopy release, then lurches out of the starcraft.
She realises too late that she's discharged herself into the formless, misty void.
"AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHH!"
The first that any of the other dreamers see of Allison may be the white-and-black jumpsuit and blue ponytail as she tumbles down from above. Fortunately, terminal velocity is not so terminal for the dreaming, and her impact with the nebulous ground beneath them seems to only leave her a bit dazed as she staggers up to her feet.
"Where... am I?" she asks, holding one hand to her head.
The question, as it turns out, is not just directed at the others - it's also directed to a small electronic book-like apparatus that she's produced from inside her jacket, opening it to reveal a screen which begins to speak.
<<Your location appears to be... *static* ...Please be aware that this region is under U-P-3 guidelines.>>
"Great..."
DG: Allison Storm has used her Tool Starfighter's Guide to the Galaxy toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so now. Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long, misty expanse over a grey plain. You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this place. The memories of those who came before await. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 1 *>=================== ========================< Results - Dreaming Together >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Pack of Cigarettes 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allison Storm 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Starfighter's Guide to the Galaxy 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ratatoskr 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Corrupted Records 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
'Josephine Lovelace!' comes an all-too-familiar voice.
Josie comes to a stop in the fog and exhales a deep (smoke-ridden) sigh.
"It's 'Josie', squirrelboy, we've been over this," she says, shaking her head. "Try again."
But there is a long, long pause that follows that and then ultimately a,
"Though you're a sight for sore eyes in a place like this, right?"
'Which one of you did this,' says another familiar voice.
Venetia gets a glance and a raised eyebrow, at which point Josie glances down at herself to reveal she's only in leggings and a nightshirt... and for some damn reason the rest of her kit strapped atop it. Her right forearm and hand are well-wrapped in medical bandages. "I think there'd be more fire or suchlike if I was dead," Josie quips, her mouth pulled into a lopsided smile. "Leastways, the way I've heard. So, Vuong... what do you think? Bad dream? Sorcerous prank? Some artifact we unknowingly dislodged in a recent ruin? It's been a while since I had a good ol' curse from the grave on," the archaeologist continues, gesturing wildly with her cigarette.
The haze is starting to lift, which is a good thing because--
Someone lands with a scream, then rises to her feet to ask where she is.
"Huh," says Josie at length. She glances upwards only to meet more grey fog. "Well, welcome to the party, such that it is," she says, then gestures towards the light patch in the distance... which seems to get closer than it should be getting the more they head in its vague direction. "I say we keep on that way. At least it looks different, yeah?"
DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= ==============<* CHALLENGE - Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria *>============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The streets of an Aquvian city are aflame. The city is impossible to recognize; one lost long ago, though the mountains look like ones visible from Aquvy. You walk forward through it -- and there may be great alarm, as Metal Beasts look to you for approval. Then, they lope ahead. They are cut down in a moment, as a single slash of a saber hacks through them. A man with long, dark steel-blue hair steps forward. Harthcourt Valeria looks younger than the paintings of him showed; he also has two eyes, not one. Did he not lose one in a battle with some great champion? Such as-- "I have heard of you," he says. "Boomerang, they call you. I name you an honorless cur--and I will strike you down!" Saber drawn, Harthcourt Valeria leaps for you, and seeks to draw blood in an instant. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Forwards they go. Ever onwards. Into the gray gloom.
"How do you do," Venetia says to Allison. "I like your boilersuit there. Very chichi. Do you sleep in it?"
Something comes into view... A sggestion of mountains. A shape of buildings. And then something rears out of the resolving view and Venetia reaches for her Graphs but -
"... Are they... friendly?" Venetia says warily as one of the Metal Beasts looks to them as if for approval. It opens a great maw and then turns to skip merrily ahead and, in a sudden shimmering trice, be split asunder by a saber and the approach of --
"I have heard of you!" says the great hero.
Venetia looks over her shoulder at the others. "Boomerang, they call you!" HARTHCOURT VALERIA continues:
"You must be confused," Venetia says.
"I name you an honorless cur--"
"Well then you can kiss my a"
"AND I WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN!"
"GYAAAAAAAHHHH"
Venetia's response is to pull out her gun and try to shoot Harthcourt Valeria in the torso while screaming 'gyaaaaah'.
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Gun toward her party's challenge, Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
"Hyahaha--! It is you..." Ratatoskr's voice trails off, his manic energy trailing off into breath-y, almost choking - coming off the tail end of an emotionally vulnerable moment, like 'Josie' were somehow the heroine of the modern era that could have gone to that time back in Hyades' final days and won, somehow. Somewhere in this land of rest(lessness), the energy level is allowed for a moment to drop. To take a moment and breathe. His tail droops as he comes down to a three-point stance.
He freezes up as he takes notice of someone or something he's never seen before - Allison Storm. There's a likeness to another he once locked fists with, in a vague sense, from the dress style. He doesn't think much of the electronic book-like apparatus.
"...Do you know Air Slash?" Ratatoskr asks. "I've seen it. It's great. I fought a warrior who knew how to do it at least twenty times in rapid succession--" It's a total non-sequitur until he is asked 'who he is' by Venetia.
"...Dead? Dead!" Ratatoskr scoffs. "No... you are not dead unless you are forgotten--" He pauses. It's weird to think someone is asking him who he is. He's not interested in who he is. He's interested in who they are. There is a faint familiarity there. "I'm Ratatoskr! Designated Rapid Attacker of the Metal Demon army! Witness and soldier of Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus' Odessa... but--"
The scene changes. Flame, everywhere. Destruction. A welling sense of disappointment that he has never known the depths of. Anticipation, itching. An expectation. A...
Desire.
He bares that grin in an open, sharp-toothed mouth as he breathes and lives it when he sees a single slash of a saber. Two minds, displaced in time and space, hold the exact same thought in unison.
"...Harthcourt Valeria...?" There is a minor discordance. Ratatoskr's voice ends with a querying tone. Something deeper within stirs as if think-knowing without doubt who this is.
'I have heard of you,' that voice. 'Boomerang, they call you. I name you an honorless cur--and I will strike you down!'
There is no discernible difference in Ratatoskr's thought processes and reactions from when Harthcourt Valeria leaps for him. He can't. He has been overtaken by the desire. The slaking of thirst he has long sought, that he will drink deep of.
Two Metal Demon warriors, acting as one within this moment plucked from space and time, raise a forearm and act to deflect the oncoming blade. No hatred, no anger, no disgust for their insults.
Only feeding that bottomless well of all-encompassing want for this very moment! Right here! Right now!
DG: Ratatoskr has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Yup, it's me alright. Say, you been digging about in any weird ruins lately? ...Actually, do your lot sleep? I know Sun--Riesenlied did..."
They press on into the bright spot in the fog. The world resolves into a scene of a battle.
Is that... blood.
Josie's reaction -- in spite of her companionship (is that the right word for it?) with the squirrel-like Hyadean -- is to go for her gun when the Metal Beasts amble over towards her. Then again, she's seen in the past how this usually goes, down to and including the moment in which where they'd sown chaos in the streets of Adelhyde.
But this time, it's almost like a pair of friendly dogs spotting their master.
...There's fire on the wind. Her nostrils flare.
And she turns to see someone who
looks familiar.
"...Junior?"
Well, sort of. Maybe if you added on a few hard decades.
Her hand lingers on the grip of her shotgun a moment yet. And then it dances into her hand and before she even parses what the man's saying she's already pulling the trigger. Her messy braid slides over her shoulder to hang against her back; even braided like this her hair is quite long.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria.
<Pose Tracker> Allison Storm has posed.
Allison's eyes flit around the area, shifting from Josie to Venetia, then from Venetia to -
"What the hell is that?!"
The electronic book-device is instantly turned on Ratatoskr, held out at arm's length as if it were a gun or something that might ward away the squirrel-person.
<<Subject not found in the Pangalactic Database. Reminder: this region is under the protection of U-P-3. Would you like to switch to silent mode?>>
Flummoxed, the blue-haired pilot quickly holds the device up to whisper a meek 'Yes.' to it before tucking it back away under her jacket.
Dreams have a way of carrying the dreamer along on their current, and thus soon Allison finds herself introducing herself to the others - "I'm Ally" - and sauntering along with the herd like a good sleepy sheep.
"Only if it's cold," she informs Venetia matter-of-factly. "It's a damned pain in the ass if I wake up needing to - aww, that's cute!"
Distracted from finishing her thought by the Metal Beasts scampering off on their mission, Allison gets one of those dopey grins on her face that you get when you're dreaming because you forget that looking cool in public is important.
Suddenly, she finds herself - along with the rest of the party - being faced down by the notorious Harthcourt Valeria.
He also killed those Metal Beasts.
There is absolutely no sense of recognition on Allison's part of the identity or gravitas of the swordsman - but she looks pretty annoyed at the fate of the nameless minions.
"Hey! Out of our way, asshole!"
The idea behind the boilersuit becomes evident as Allison rushes Harthcourt Valeria, vaulting into the air with a forward handspring to put herself above the gunfire as she starts to spin vertically. An arc of electricity trails after her foot as she extends it, bringing it down toward the swordsman with a truly shocking axe kick!
(Can she actually do that? Sure - in her dreams.)
DG: Allison Storm has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= ==============<* CHALLENGE - Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria *>============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The streets of an Aquvian city are aflame. The city is impossible to recognize; one lost long ago, though the mountains look like ones visible from Aquvy. You walk forward through it -- and there may be great alarm, as Metal Beasts look to you for approval. Then, they lope ahead. They are cut down in a moment, as a single slash of a saber hacks through them. A man with long, dark steel-blue hair steps forward. Harthcourt Valeria looks younger than the paintings of him showed; he also has two eyes, not one. Did he not lose one in a battle with some great champion? Such as-- "I have heard of you," he says. "Boomerang, they call you. I name you an honorless cur--and I will strike you down!" Saber drawn, Harthcourt Valeria leaps for you, and seeks to draw blood in an instant. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Exhaust========================================
==================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 2 *>================== ================< Results - Boomerang - The Blood of Valeria >================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Allison Storm 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Gun 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ratatoskr 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Reckless(2) Effects: Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
As she fires dream bullets into a man who does not seem to resist them, Venetia thinks: Wait, they let that guy into Odessa? He's some kind of fast attack unit. Is this why Odessa is such a problem?? She has heard, largely, of friendly Hyadaens along the lines of the storied Riesenlied, she of the draconic roundness and amiability. But this man is -
Some kind of... rodent??
Then she is struck by the blade!! "ARGH" Venetia says as Harthcourt Valeria turns on his heel to face Ratatoskr. "What that person knows, I know not," Harthcourt Valeria tells Ratatoskr. "But I will let you in on a secret."
"I do," he says.
CONSECUTIVE NORMAL AIR SLASHES
In this extremely accurate and historically valid storm of localized vacuum destruction, Harthcourt is momentarily immobilzed. He is shot with the shotgun with a scattering noise like Josie had just shot the side of a train boiler, and then he is axe kicked in the shoulder. The shoulder goes 'pop' and Harthcourt Valeria says, "A futile maneu-"
And then he suddenly clutches at his eye. "What... ah! AGH! HSSSHHH-"
Then he begins to evaporate into the mist itself.
Venetia struggles to her feet.
Her eyes turn to Josephine.
Then to Allison.
Then to Ratatoskr.
Slowly, she says, "I don't know if you'd recognize him given everything, but that was Harthcourt Valeria. But I don't understand why he called us Boomerang. Isn't that one of your hoodlum friends, Ratatouille?" It is good to know, perhaps, that Venetia isn't faking this.
But the flow of time cannot be stopped, even in dreams...
* Josephine unlocked achievement, 'You'll Put Your Eye Out'
DG: Ratatoskr has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Krelian - Light Up the Skies *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you come to, you are inside the cockpit of a Gear. Perhaps it is your own; perhaps it is another. Whatever the case, the Gear that you are inside has taken to the skies, and the roar of its engine fills your ears. A brilliant blue sky stretches outside of the main monitor of your Gear, and below, you can see islands of northern Aquvy -- though with far less desertification. In the sky, ahead of you, are dozens and dozens of Solarian Gears. White and glorious, they streak forward, ahead of two aerial battleships -- and a crack-/BOOM/ of an airship's cannon thunders past. A cry comes out, from one of your squadmates: "Commander Krelian!" the young woman says. "Are we to engage?" You have little choice. The Solarian Gears sweep into your squadron. Blades clash; rifles fire. The midair battle is brutal and intense, over skies familiar and alien at the same time. But carving your way through the Solarian Gears is the only way forward. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
The exchange is exciting. Ratatoskr runs a clawed hand across his torso where he presumes he got sliced up by at least half of that. A number of the contours and damages in the armor are familiar, but... the feeling is ephemeral, and there is no quicksilver to be had on his palm even if dream-logic makes him think he just got sliced through a few times. The emotions fade away, and he cannot hold the moment in perpetuity.
"...Boomerang was one of the Quarter Knights at the time of Mother's end," he explains. "...He's been alive for a long time... it was said he fought whoever he pleased, be it those of Filgaia... or others within the Metal Demon ranks. Any were met with the same ferocity. Fights to the very death." Beat. "He befriended one of the very Guardians of Filgaia - those called sworn enemies of Mother - named Luceid. Guardian of Desire..."
It sounds haunting, but he's grinning at the end of it. "He fought Harthcourt Valeria... I wonder who else he crossed blades with." He wants to know! He wants to feel what it was like. (He would either be satisfied by it very quickly or dead, but such is the impetuousness of youth.)
There is a sudden turbulence among the lot of them. Around them, the sky... but that's straight ahead, decorated in any number of complicated read-outs as they find themselves seated within the cockpit of a Gear. (Whether it is a vehicle they are familiar with, or another... dream logic!)
The engine's roar deafens as it is punched to the limit to get to the skies. A brilliant blue sky, sullied by the sight of dozens upon dozens of Solarian Gears. Beneath, the islands of northern Aquvy are lost to one's sight and focus. Two aerial battleships are escorted by these Gears... and an airship's cannon thunders right the hell past in a narrow miss. Only through iron nerves (or just being too stunned by what's going on) does one avoid it.
"Commander Krelian!" A young woman asks, as if uncertain. "Are we to engage?"
The Solarian Gears answer for them. Blades lock as rifles fire, sometimes both at once. The skies are full of light, explosions, deadly debris, and... well. Danger. All of it is danger.
Ratatoskr does not know what these buttons are, or what they do. But it feels right to press them, to push ahead. "...Engage? Engage! Hyahaha--!" He laughs at the doubt, like it's one big theme park ride even if there are moments where one's heartrate spikes over dangers it feels like someone else recognizes.
DG: Ratatoskr has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Huh," is Josie's remark, verbally at least. Her lips curl into a smile; she spins the shotgun over in her grip in some variant of a victory flourish. But Harthcourt Valeria quickly vanishes as if he'd never been--
"Who?" says Josie, and perhaps that's all anyone really needs to know about how well she knows her Aquvy history. "He called me -- well, us -- Boomerang. Now that one, I've met," she says, slinging the shotgun against her shoulder. "Had a dog with 'im. Or should I say..."
Luceid, the Guardian of Desire.
"Bingo. ...Heh. Never thought I'd get to dance about in his dream, or whatever this is."
As if to underscore that sentiment, Josie finds herself in a familiar cockpit. Once, a very long time ago, she'd borrowed the Wieglaf. But it hadn't been...
"...We're flying," she remarks, trying to orient where she is from the screens. "Ain't that..." Her geography's better than her history -- it looks like Northern Aquvy, perhaps during better days. She leans back in her seat a moment and hikes up her nightskirt, fishing for a garter-height holster in which there is a...
Flask. She uncaps it and takes a drink. Might as well: even in a dream, she's entirely too sober for this for her tastes.
'Commander Krelian'. Her brow crinkles.
"Ain't those... Solaris Gears," she says, sitting up in her seat and reaching sharply for the controls.
The weapons system controls, to be clear. She's not about to mess around with these bastards.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage toward her party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
<Pose Tracker> Allison Storm has posed.
The discharge of electricity from Allison's descending foot is tremendous, a shockwave (just like in the entertainment vids she watched as a child) rumbling out amidst the violence before the boss starts to evaporate into the mist. Nothing about this sequence of events strikes Allison's dreaming mind as out-of-the-ordinary.
Neither does finding herself suddenly seated in the cockpit of a Gear, despite the fact that she's never been inside one. Still, it's similar enough to places that she has been for her mind to fill in the gaps and convince itself that this is a situation where she's confident and in control.
"That's a helluva lotta bogeys," Ally remarks, because 'bogeys' is the universal standard term for airborne enemies. "Don't worry, I've got this!"
As Josephine is reaching for the weapons controls, Allison reaches for the flight controls, with the intent of setting the Gear into a barrel roll! An elegant and effective defensive maneuver - when one is piloting an airplane or fighter craft.
For a giant metal humanoid, perhaps less so - assuming she's even reaching for the controls that she thinks that she is and isn't fighting over the flight stick (there's a stick, right?) with someone else.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Gears can fly? Venetia thinks.
Mine doesn't.
She stares ahead even as new information pours into her sleeping brain. Josie has seen that entity, Boomerang. Well, Venetia thinks, no wonder we don't hear about Harthcourt much. And he's with...
...
"Engaged?" Venetia answers. "But we haven't even gone out for dinner yet."
Venetia looks down at the console in front of her.
"Attention team! I have gone temporarily blind due to an enemy weapon! Remind me which button fires the -- things."
"My dear lady," Venetia says, largely towards Allison, "Do you know what the (cucco!) these buttons do? Because this entire thing has some kind of a scheme but I don't think that I have time to read the manual and -"
The hatch pops open. Venetia leans back as the wind sucks out her sleep mask. "GAH!! ****ING AIR PRESSURE!!" she shrieks into the slipstream.
Eventually the hatch closes again.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies. DG: Allison Storm has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Krelian - Light Up the Skies *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When you come to, you are inside the cockpit of a Gear. Perhaps it is your own; perhaps it is another. Whatever the case, the Gear that you are inside has taken to the skies, and the roar of its engine fills your ears. A brilliant blue sky stretches outside of the main monitor of your Gear, and below, you can see islands of northern Aquvy -- though with far less desertification. In the sky, ahead of you, are dozens and dozens of Solarian Gears. White and glorious, they streak forward, ahead of two aerial battleships -- and a crack-/BOOM/ of an airship's cannon thunders past. A cry comes out, from one of your squadmates: "Commander Krelian!" the young woman says. "Are we to engage?" You have little choice. The Solarian Gears sweep into your squadron. Blades clash; rifles fire. The midair battle is brutal and intense, over skies familiar and alien at the same time. But carving your way through the Solarian Gears is the only way forward. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 3 *>=================== ===================< Results - Krelian - Light Up the Skies >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allison Storm 5 --(18)--> 23 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 5 --(18)--> 23 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ratatoskr 5 --(18)--> 23 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Reckless(1)|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
Unfortunately for Allison - really, for a bunch of people in any circumstance this ever happens in a logical space with continuity of action and consequence - Ratatoskr is hitting ALL THE BUTTONS. If an 'any' key exists, Ratatoskr has made that historic discovery in locating its presence. He doesn't know what's going on other than a fight. He doesn't pilot Gears. He knows he's getting to pilot one!! This is terrible.
"...When we are neonates..." He says in a moment of waiting for something else to stop flashing because he's enraptured by the readout (it's not a good one, it's a weird, ancient gauge with no modern equivalent for something critical that's making metaphorical frowning faces). "Every cycle, we'd see and hear the same things. Signals... the color of blood. Commands." Ratatoskr says, as if sullen. "...Some of the ones who get wounded in battle go into torpor, which is like that... but longer. There was this one advance scout at Arctica Castle who fell into it for months..." He never asked what they saw while they did that. In retrospect, he never really was compelled to ever speak with them again after they made up something about children being the most frightening warriors of all humanity. He never forgave them for lying about that.
Forget that guy. Possibly the first time, ever, Ratatoskr has ever truly thought that.
"Now, every cycle... I see whatever I want when I rest...!" Does he see a way through this without getting them blown up? Answer... no.
"Bogey?!" He yells at Allison as she shows off her stuff, prompting him to start fighting for control. "Bogey!! Those are Solaris! You should get names right!!" He scolds, all while Venetia is yelling for help on what buttons to press. ("Commander, do you copy? Should we engage? This... this isn't the time for jokes," which can be heard as Venetia narrowly avoids getting sucked out.)
Josie, one of the adults in the room but the adult-est because she just had something to drink, just punches it and sends their Gear - and somehow carrying everyone else, as if what is shared and what is not is strange and inconsistent depending on where people are looking at a gien time - forward through the battle.
Commander Krelian was Commander for a reason. The odds were against him and his squadmates, but he punched a hole through that line. Upward and onward he went on the offensive. Upward and onward.
Upward and onward, to momentary dead noise and fading memory as another grasps at their consciousnesses.
"Have you been to that place in the desert? Under a big hole," Ratatoskr asks off-handedly, "there were so many strange lights..."
(He can go into more detail when this happens on-screen.)
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ===========<* CHALLENGE - Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality *>============ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- "You can't keep the extraneous cosmetic markings." You find yourself within a chamber of metal, glass, and plastic. The ambient noise of underlying technology feels overbearing, as if inherently unpleasant. Your attention is held by a stern-looking older woman bearing large wings from their back. You recognise their authority, though their military(?) uniform is unfamiliar. She stands beside a mannequin of a human male, which contains tattoo-like markings all over its surface... except for the left arm. "Its presence impedes the application of several key techniques." She scolds as re-draws shapes around the figure by her touch, impressing them upon the left arm. The display is unambiguous in its message: there is no compromise. "You are to schedule its removal by this evening." As she leaves, you look over your own left arm to see a tattoo depicting a tree with spiraling wire-like branches. Mounting sorrow grows within you, though set on a foundation of determination. How do you prepare yourself (or otherwise console the others) to shed the sentimentality that stands between you and what must be a greater cause? =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Suffer=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"So you lot do dream." Sleep, she'd known. And she'd assumed dreaming. But it's one thing to assume a thing and another to know it.
"Heh... hope they're good ones. Better than this, eh? One hell of a dream. Fancy that, me dreaming of you three..."
One hell of a dream indeed, if it involves jumping from a duel with a fearsome human warrior and jumping to a dogfight in a flying (!!) Gear. Which, speaking of...
In all fairness, Josie's Gear-piloting skills extend to Wieglaf and... that's it.
But she's taken apart the consoles of a few scrapped Gears before, and has even seen the guts of machines that would put even Solaris' finest to shame.
That, and she's a little drunk and more than a little lucky. She works it out; the machine lurches forward.
Lurches... to victory!
The physical presence of the cockpit fades away. She feels for a moment like she's floating through fog.
"In... the desert. You mean that place the Al Bhed were tryin' to--"
There were so many strange lights. She blinks owlishly in the face of them now, her dark-eyed gaze zeroing in on the woman. The winged woman? Josie stares longer than she ought to earning a sigh of irritation from her.
Her gaze flits to the mannequin and she is visibly taken aback. The shapes are different, but there's no mistaking it. "...That's Symbology."
The winged authority figure sighs. "Indeed," she says, before continuing her statement, "And you are to schedule the removal of the unauthorized markings by this evening." Hers is a tone that brooks no compromise, and Josie looks down at her bared left arm to see...
It's not her tattoo, but it fills her with a sense of grief. Of something else that needs to be given up to attain what she needs to accomplish.
Yeah. That's a familar feeling, there. Her left hand curls into a fist and she turns away, her right hand stiffly covering the tattoo. Even in a dream that wound doesn't heal.
The fact that she slips a cigarette between her lips after and lights it with a snap of her fingers is just rote at this point. "Don't that beat all," she murmurs, exhaling smoke. "And it ain't even my tattoo."
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Pack of Cigarettes toward her party's challenge, Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
"Usually I dream about more people," Ratatoskr adds, and that's about as far down the rabbit (...squirrel) hole as anyone should go. So the narration is moving on. His eyes light up as Josephine mentions the place the Al Bhed were trying to get into, but he's interrupted by the gaze of a strict, feathered woman he has never met but somehow understands is an authority. Someone you don't talk back to. Even if he would totally fight them, whoever they are.
It's someone else's feelings and impressions putting a dampening on that.
He's quiet as Josephine mentions what it is. Sorcery systems are cool, and he knows a bunch of the surface basics mostly from being zapped by different kinds of it. There's always that fascination with things one knows are out of their grasp to truly understand and utilize, but sorcery is a common weapon among the natives of Filgaia. It's something to try and remember and keep, to the extent he can... but here.
"What?" Ratatoskr's voice grows livid. "What!" And then again. "What!! This is.... I don't get it... I don't get it... I don't get it!!" He's shouting. Impetuously, like a child. He's only eighteen-to-twenty-four, in some ways he's not completely out of there yet, but it's not in him to rise up and protest. Some broader emotion presses against that.
"I don't... I don't... who would ever want to erase a part of themselves?!" Fight or flight kicks in, but he's still dream-world stationary. Wherever he's sleeping, his body's acting as though this were a nightmare unto itself. "No! Nononono.... I, I... I can keep it..."
The imagery of that tattoo is intricate. The dream world is fleeting. He doesn't have the data pad active and working in the real world, but he mimes the motion as if it were. "Come onnnnn..." He doesn't know what it is. A tree and some branches? Those are weird branches. It doesn't matter he fails to understand what or why. Just that it's about to be lost! Lost forever. He can't accept it. He can't, he can't, he can't.
It's not clear that he's capable of crying in the normal sense. The tone of his voice conveys the equivalent well, though.
DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Corrupted Records toward his party's challenge, Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality.
<Pose Tracker> Allison Storm has posed.
The controls don't do what Allison expects them to do. She maybe almost even gets them all sucked out into the atmosphere. Allison herself is flung across the cockpit, between the shift in air pressure and the sudden forward thrust of the vehicle.
Clearly, this isn't a failing on her part - it must be the dream itself that's causing her to fail. The blue-haired pilot scowls as she steadies herself and rubs her hand against the back of her head as she slumps down...
...and catches herself against a bulkhead that wasn't there before. The scene has shifted again. A strange look of relief crosses her face as she spots the winged woman. Allison exhales a sigh. "Oh, stars, it's good to see you, ma'am," she addresses the woman respectfully, quickly pushing off the wall and standing at attention, snapping a salute.
She glances askance at Ratatoskr, a vaguely annoyed expression crossing her features. "Hey, Sergeant Squirrel, cool your jets! It's gonna be okay, this is..."
<<*** ***** ***>>
The device in Allison's jacket, having detected that the party is no longer in a UP3-applicable zone, pipes up as if to fill in the rest of Ally's commentary - but it's not really here, and the dream isn't really hers, so it seems to only give some indiscernible chatter - but still, the guide's helpful drone has a way of inducing its audience not to panic.
DG: Allison Storm has used her Tool Starfighter's Guide to the Galaxy toward her party's challenge, Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Somewhere....
New.
Different.
The interior reminds Venetia of a Dig-out - such as Fila del Fia - but in its state of height and abundance. She is pleased to see she has not been killed by gears, but instead she is being told some kind of scolding by a - -a -
Mother? Venetia thinks, in the generic sense.
That sense of sorrow, of loss, of --
-- "Ghhk -" Venetia puts the heel of one palm against her forehead, because this sense of helplessness, of authority... something about it is making her pulse pound behind her eyes.
"... It's like we're in the mail room at the ****ing Memory Cube depot!" Venetia says.
"Well, whatever this is in the way of a misaddressed letter, I don't have any interest in doing what just some bossy person tells me to do," Venetia continues. "Interferes with several key techniques - telling me to get one of these out when it's all well done and must have cost a pretty penny - I'd like to see you tear your own skin off, Miss Hot Wings, see how you like it!"
"You could have at least said PLEASE!!" Venetia concludes. (Her sleep mask has come back, somehow.)
"Leaving me alone here, going to get my arm skinned... like to see you go sit on a chair of nails! I'm going to remember this one!"
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ===========<* CHALLENGE - Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality *>============ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- "You can't keep the extraneous cosmetic markings." You find yourself within a chamber of metal, glass, and plastic. The ambient noise of underlying technology feels overbearing, as if inherently unpleasant. Your attention is held by a stern-looking older woman bearing large wings from their back. You recognise their authority, though their military(?) uniform is unfamiliar. She stands beside a mannequin of a human male, which contains tattoo-like markings all over its surface... except for the left arm. "Its presence impedes the application of several key techniques." She scolds as re-draws shapes around the figure by her touch, impressing them upon the left arm. The display is unambiguous in its message: there is no compromise. "You are to schedule its removal by this evening." As she leaves, you look over your own left arm to see a tattoo depicting a tree with spiraling wire-like branches. Mounting sorrow grows within you, though set on a foundation of determination. How do you prepare yourself (or otherwise console the others) to shed the sentimentality that stands between you and what must be a greater cause? =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Suffer=========================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 4 *>=================== =============< Results - Ethius Hesiod - Shedding Sentimentality >============== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 10 --(8)--> 18 Fail Pack of Cigarettes 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allison Storm 23 --(0)--> 23 Pass Starfighter's Guide to the Galaxy 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 23 --(0)--> 23 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ratatoskr 23 --(0)--> 23 Pass Corrupted Records 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Injure(1)|Suffer(1)|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
A few things happen, more or less at once.
Ratatoskr grapples with the reality of losing something with meaning, attempting to bargain and find another way through. Allison attempts to reason with him.
Venetia, meanwhile, takes a more direct approach, berating the winged woman who blinks, clearly stunned by the outburst.
Josie slips into the background of the scene aboard the -- well, wherever they are, still smoking pensively.
At least, until someone comes up from behind to tap her on the shoulder and point at the 'no smoking' sign. Josie gives them a dire look.
They may be disparate -- the means they've all chosen. But they're all means of managing grief. Anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance...
And even this space melts into fog, fading away into the grey and empty nothing.
DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- "Father." When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head. The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you... did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?" You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Father."
Venetia Vuong folds her arms. "I've heard enough of - this," she says, and you can tell from that pause and the slight sway in her otherwise quite upright carriage that she has gotten sight of what stands beneath that viewport -- that view of a destroyed world, or... or something. She closes her eyes for a moment, and turns around.
"This is nothing but a crossed wire! Poorly addressed mail! I don't even know if the rest of you are even here, though you seem like you've been acting as I'd expect you to do, though we hardly were on close acquaintance. I doubt you'd be admitting to various things if you had a choice in it."
"So let's leave this farce," Venetia tells Allison - smiling at her - even as the memory woman behind her pulls out a gun and points it...!!
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
And everything resolves again.
It's crystal clear, in fact, especially when Josie glances out the port window down at the planet (that's a planet, she thinks) that has been devastated by some...
...some...
And she turns, struck by a distorted sense of deja vu, even as Venetia suggests that if this is a dream they should walk away from it, that there's no telling if this is even shared or that any of them but the dreamer is real.
And she turns, in time to see another daughter draw a gun.
She hasn't used a gun before, Josie realizes. But it doesn't matter, that little fact.
She doesn't utter anything so much as a half-uttered swear as she jerks sidelong, attempting to come at the inexpect patricidal girl at an angle.
As if she could disarm her thus. And then?
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.
The strange thing is, as the moments pass, Ratatoskr remembers the anger and rejection but the exact details of what it is and why are... fleeting. Something he wants to keep, but now can't remember what it was or why it's so important. The whiplash of--
Poorly addressed mail, as Venetia puts it.
"Farce...?" Ratatoskr doesn't turn. He's enraptured by the sight he's seeing, even if the emotional depths of it are... something. "Farce!"
He starts to turn his head to boyishly complain and yell towards Venetia as he cranes his neck at the exact same pace that this memory holder did in this moment. He sees a gun. It's a weird feeling that strikes him that he doesn't have a word for, but there's no time for a word.
His palm cups at where he would or should be holding that busted crystalline personal teleportation device. A reflex, an associated thought and expectation that what would happen - as if to suddenly teleport himself out and about. Does dream logic comply with his expectations?
There is a likeness in the emotional air of whoever they're viewing this through, compared to the nightmare he was going through at the beginning. His tail stands out on end, plates flaring out as if bristly. He...
...he wants to wake up.
DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Teleporter Fragment toward his party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Allison Storm has posed.
The world is once again alien to Allison Storm.
It only takes the faintest nudge of imposed memory to draw her attention out through the window to the devastated world beyond. Her head finally turns slightly as Venetia speaks to her.
"Leave...?"
Something about the sentiment resonates.
"It's all I really want to..."
There's a tingling at the edge of her senses, even before she sees the gun come up out of the corner of her eye. And with a squeak of advanced synthetic materials, the jumpsuit-clad pilot twists, throwing herself into a corkscrew tackle - at Venetia?
It's a strange moment to attack - though an alternative interpretation could suggest that she's actually trying to knock the other woman out of the impending bullet's path while minimizing the chance of taking a lethal shot to her own person.
"Get down!"
Okay, that probably was the intent after all.
DG: Allison Storm has used her Tool Flexible Flightsuit toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- "Father." When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head. The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you... did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?" You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
==================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 5 *>================== =======================< Results - Gabriel - Betrayal >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 18 --(101)--> 119 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Allison Storm 23 --(101)--> 124 Pass Flexible Flightsuit 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 23 --(101)--> 124 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ratatoskr 23 --(101)--> 124 Pass Teleporter Fragment 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 80 --(15)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Josephine Lovelace is too exhausted to continue! DG: Allison Storm is too exhausted to continue! DG: Venetia Vuong is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ratatoskr is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over. DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has been fully Exhausted by Elw Teleporters - Dreaming! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= ==================<* CHALLENGE - Awakening from the Dream *>================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You jerk awake sharply in your bed. You have a cold sweat (if you are able) and you look about, the memories of the dreams lingering -- but also another presence in the room. Fearfully, your eyes turn to the side -- a flicker of movement, at the corners of your eyes. But when you look, there is nothing there at all. Maybe it was your imagination. Maybe... it was nothing. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Josie moves to stop the gunner. She movs fast. Ratatoskr moves to get away - he moves, in a sense, not at all, and in another sense, very fast. Venetia, who despite her weird fluffy sleep mask is obviously a human being with at most some kind of face scar or disease, smiles at Allison.
Who then tries to tackle her.
Venetia appears to know enough martial arts to sink back into some kind of a ready stance, brow furrowing in sudden tension when
BANG
the round goes through her with sufficient velocity to
A burning pain to some. A loud startling noise to others.
The dream has ended.
But there isn't anything in your bedroom that wasn't there when you went to bed, save perhaps a stray mouse...
... RIGHT?