2021-03-14: Woefully Waylaid
- Log: Woefully Waylaid
- Cast: Venetia Vuong, Ashley Winchester, Lily Keil, Loren Voss
- Where: Emulator Zone
- Date: March 14, 2021
- Summary: Trapped in the Emulator Zone by Odessa's interference, a rather unusual group of train passengers try to work to find out what's going on in here. Come for the mind-melting madness, stay for the sniping!
DG: A party led by Venetia Vuong is now entering Emulator Zone. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Redshift *>========================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The train had come to a lurching stop somewhere -- this much, you already know. You also likely know that the 'somewhere' is best qualified as a 'somewhere /else/'. Still, the expanse before you -- pulsing magenta, swirling reds glittering with impossible stars, a sickly swirl of oranges and yellows -- once you make your exit through one of the train car doors is likely not quite what you expected. The appearance of this place isn't all you have to worry about. There are platforms, yes, and a suggestion of a path... ...but they have an orientation contrary to the one you currently face (or think you are facing?). Reaching one of the platform paths might be trickier than it looks -- which way is up? And, for that matter, can you cross the distance to them? But reaching stable ground (such that it is) might be your only chance of starting to make some sense of this dimensional space into which you've been flung. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfVh9Vshfbw =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Maim, Hesitate, Secret==========================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
The train has gone somewhere that is --
Well --
IS it?
Venetia Vuong has almost no idea, but the sickly, nauseating swirls in the middle distance suggest something far more severe than mere odd weather conditions or the gentle influence of a Guardian. At the last moment, a few minutes ago, she had gone to get her things, anticipating a possible derailment or mortar attack.
She is holding onto the gun, for obvious reasons.
"... By the Guardians," Venetia says presently. (She has debarked from a carriage behind, and while the train remains visible, it may be difficult to perceive others from very far away.) As she looks towards the others who happen to be coming off with her, she says, "I want to confirm something here. You're seeing the same thing I am, yes? Red, mostly, like fire but painted fire? Kind of a throbbing veinous magenta? Yes?"
There is a path that leads forwards. But it stands... at strange angles. Everything says you could just walk into it, but in fact it is bifuricated; a leap or at least a vault is required.
"I'd say 'let's await rescue,'" Venetia murmurs, "but that seems like saying 'let's sit here in the house, I'm sure that fire will go out by itself.' Technically, you would be right; the question is... time."
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Redshift.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
The last time Ashley was trapped in a dimensional distortion...
Well.
It's best that he doesn't dwell on that time. For all of their sakes.
He certainly seems to be regarding the terrible whorl of twisting dimensions with appropriate gravitas. Maybe even moreso, in fact. His eyes dart towards the rippling nightmare auroras where their fluctuations are at their most distorted and chaotic, as if waiting for the monsters lurking just beyond the tissue-thin veil of unreality to tear free of their dreaming prisons and into their exposed throats.
It never happens. But he remains vigilant regardless.
"No, this is definitely happening," he says, pulling... of all things, a boomerang, from his pack. He whips it into the void, and the projectile begins whirling in esoteric velocities, revealing the shattered contour of this place's broken space-time. As it finishes its trip, the boomerang returns loyally to Ashley's hand. He should at least be able to determine how gravity and distance are behaving by tossing it out periodically. "Come on. The sooner we get to the source of all this, the sooner we can all get ourselves unstuck."
It sounds vaguely like he's done this before. Because he kind of has??
And it sucked.
It really, really sucked.
DG: Ashley Winchester has used his Tool Magic Boomerang toward his party's challenge, Redshift.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Some oranges and yellows in there, too," Lily answers. "Yeah--like painted fire, with sparkles in."
She looks around thoughtfully, apparently more comfortable with this because she at least doesn't look queasy. She has an ARM out at her hip, a knife in her boot, and a glint in her golden eyes.
"...Agreed," Lily answers that murmur of Venetia's. A leap, a vault... Hmmm.
The medic steps forward and kneels down, placing a hand on the 'ground' as if to feel out the strangeness of this place with mystical sense; there is indeed a pulse of Ether that she uses to try to do something like a radar of magic, though it doesn't seem to give her much useful information. She stands again. "...Useful," she comments on the boomerang thoughtfully. "Yeah. Sooner is better than later. I'll give this a shot."
Lily reaches to her neck, where she pulls out a strange gimbaled pendant, three axes and ancient material, inscribed with an old language. She closes her eyes, and focuses into it, channeling Ether through this remnant of the past. She shimmers out of phase, stepping forward and leaving trailing afterimages with each step. She runs, still trailing images, and leaps out into the air, twisting to where she saw the boomerang twist--there are countless images for a brief, difficult moment, and watching Lily as she does this is as nauseating as looking out into the strange colors.
But if it works right, eventually one Lily will coalesce on the other side.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Redshift.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Cracking open the door to the train, Loren stares into the abyss. It swirls madly back at him, and not even in a particularly inviting way. The young Solaris officer sighs wearily, touching his fingertips to his forehead as if he had a headache.
Loren Voss... wasn't even supposed to be here today.
With that out of the way, perhaps the precise manner of how he got himself into this can be discussed--
HOURS AGO
"So they're not going to chance a pickup around here...? Fine. I'll go the long way, but it's not my problem if it takes days to get there," Loren had muttered to himself, before getting into line to buy a ticket.
...Sometimes the root cause of a situation really is that simple.
NOW
It's bad enough that he's in some sort of alternate dimension (that is what this is, right? he's read science fiction before) with no clear way out. It's even worse because he's here and he's not alone--
Well, it would be more accurate to say, he's not alone and he recognizes some of the people who are nearby (which is to say, people who have similarly vacated the train for the precise reason that Venetia describes). Or rather, he recognizes at least one of those people by voice alone. And the other is...
"I'm very sure this is real," he says dryly, standing atop a fragment of what can be called 'something'. It's definitely something, anyway, and he doesn't care to inspect it too closely. He's had enough problems from that sort of thing already (well, problems and a significant other... it's complicated). "Trust me on this one."
Instead, closing his eyes, he slips off his glasses with his free hand and tucks them away. The other hand grips tightly what might be called a charm -- a simple feather tied to a woven cord. He's absently wound the cord around his fingers.
"Just don't look down. Or up, for that matter. In fact, just don't look," he says, and because there's no such thing as 'going back' now, he goes forward and leaps forward, trying to reach what just might be safe ground out there. Somewhere.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Pinion Charm toward his party's challenge, Redshift.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Redshift *>========================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The train had come to a lurching stop somewhere -- this much, you already know. You also likely know that the 'somewhere' is best qualified as a 'somewhere /else/'. Still, the expanse before you -- pulsing magenta, swirling reds glittering with impossible stars, a sickly swirl of oranges and yellows -- once you make your exit through one of the train car doors is likely not quite what you expected. The appearance of this place isn't all you have to worry about. There are platforms, yes, and a suggestion of a path... ...but they have an orientation contrary to the one you currently face (or think you are facing?). Reaching one of the platform paths might be trickier than it looks -- which way is up? And, for that matter, can you cross the distance to them? But reaching stable ground (such that it is) might be your only chance of starting to make some sense of this dimensional space into which you've been flung. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfVh9Vshfbw =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Maim, Hesitate, Secret==========================
========================<* Emulator Zone - Round 1 *>========================= ============================< Results - Redshift >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 0 --(24)--> 24 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ashley Winchester 0 --(12)--> 12 Pass Magic Boomerang 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 0 --(12)--> 12 Pass Impure Pendant 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 0 --(24)--> 24 Fail Pinion Charm 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Venetia Vuong 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Madness|Maim|Secret(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Venetia Vuong has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Ashley joins her.
Venetia knows Ashley is a fell foe of both low-carbohydrate diets and the enemies of ARMS, specifically Marivel Armitage and co. The details are things she knows but has not perhaps fully internalized. But Ashley is strong. HE will likely survive...
Because Venetia has a Bad Feeling About This. Something about this space is sitting poorly with her, perhaps in the part of her soul that she has refined and forged into an interface with her ancient and gnomic school of Crest Sorcery. ('Ancient'.) She nods at Lily, a person similar to Ashley perhaps in her judgment, as she looks towards the spaces limned by boomerang and magic alike.
She takes a deep breath, lets it out - and -
There he is.
Venetia's quivering complex case of the willies is abruptly grounded when she turns her head and sees that man, the man she has known as
"Thomas," Venetia grunts at him,
because he presents a crystallization point; a place where her anxieties can rest in something familiar and comforting, a guidepoint in this cosmic chaos. Yes: Venetia's sanity will rest, for now, in the familiar patterns of *being annoyed at another scholar*.
"Oh, I'll be sure to take that under advisement. Are the insides of my eyelids alright?" Venetia retorts as she moves forwards, seeing where Thomas leapt forwards and opting to leap at the same angle and
BANG
hit her calf and then hit face-first on whatever nonsense forms the platform. She is abstractly pleased to recognize the texture is not dissimilar to concrete. She is less pleased that she has to feel around to make sure all her teeth are here.
"There's a source?" she asks Ashley: "You're sure of that?"
DG: Ashley Winchester has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Interstellar *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The path that weaves through the expanse of the Emulator Zone broadens at times, opening into larger platforms, such as the one you approach now. Standing upon various sections of this area are shimmering white lights, echoing the silvery brilliance in the 'sky' about you here. When you step on one, you find yourself on a different platform, faced with more shimmering lights. It's a teleporter maze! Can you find your way through? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Ashley Winchester has never actually met Loren Voss before. Or maybe he has, and just doesn't remember? Then again, Loren is the type to have completely forgotten if they'd ever met, too.
For very different reasons, perhaps, but still.
"Absolutely," Ashley answers Venetia when she asks. He continues chucking that boomerang for Lily to follow, but has to keep himself from staring too hard when she starts glitching through already distorted space-time. It's bad enough that the colors are giving him a headache, he doesn't need multi-Lilies prisming across his vantage to drill it straight into being a migraine. "These kinds of things... Don't just happen. Odessa has at least one operative who can mess around with rifts like these. If we get to whatever's causing it and disrupt it, things... should go back to normal."
"I hope."
He sounds uncertain. But perhaps not as uncertain as the path that lies ahead. The sky has shifted. Where there were once striations of eye-jabbing color, there are now fixed and utterly alien constellations. Some of which are mirrored in part by glowing white lights that seem to rise from the cyclopean flagstones all around them. Ashley frowns and steps experimentally into one...
And vanishes! Poof!
A moment later, he reappears from the same pillar of light. "Teleporters," he groans, fishing something out of his pack. It's a strange little box that looks like it's made entirely out of bakelite, glass and polished brass. "I've got no idea if it'll work in a place like this, but navigating through these kinds of things is just what the BOOTY CALL is made for...!"
Ashley pushes a button. The box goes *bing!* and points to a nearby teleporter. "If nothing else, it should lead us to something valuable. So... Let's see where this goes?"
DG: Ashley Winchester has used his Tool Booty Call toward his party's challenge, Interstellar.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Why," Lily says, looking over her shoulder at Loren once they're on... something like ground. "It's almost like you care about the people around you." She says it sardonically, but looks back to Ashley a moment later. "So you're familiar with this kind of effect," she confirms. "Good. I'd rather not go in completely blind."
She finds it kind of fascinating, admittedly. Strange stars loom above, and Lily wonders if they come from somewhere, if they exist somewhere or if this is just some sort of illusion. She doesn't know for sure. But she also notices...
Yes, a relationship between two of them. One that tracks for what she knows of Loren, anyway. ...Considering Lily a bit like Ashley is not unfair, either.
Except for, "If you get hurt running around, I can help you." So can Loren, but she's not going to volunteer him for being nice. Instead, she notices Ashley with the... teleporters. And...
"The Booty Call," Lily repeats. "I see."
"Well, all right. I figure..." Lily pulls out her knife and suffuses it with void Ether, kneling down to carve a mark into the ground through the strange colors. It might even work.
"So we know where we've been."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Knife toward her party's challenge, Interstellar.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"A rift? That means we've gone somewhere else," Venetia says to Ashley. "Another planet, like Lunar?" She looks up at the sky again for a moment. She regrets it.
When she looks down ASHLEY HAS DISAPPEARE-- oh, there he is. Venetia frowns at him from across the void before gingerly stepping into the relevant space and
bwip!
There she is.
She goes back and forth several times before convincing herself that It Is Okay and her molecules aren't going to be instantly dissipated. "That's wonderful to hear," Venetia says to Lily. "Have you been in these environments often, or, ever?" The knife is an excellent idea.
Venetia has no knife with her but she does have some looseleaf paper stuck into the back of a battered textbook in her hip bag. She tears it up into loose shreds, folds them for visbility, and begins to drop them after herself as they go along.
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Annotated Guide to Economic Stone toward her party's challenge, Interstellar.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Of course she has to be here. "Quit looking at it," he tells Venetia. At least she doesn't know him from the time in the canyon but...!
Unfortunately (?) for Ashley, Loren has his memories back, and he has met him before -- but just not in a way that particularly matters for Solaris. Which is to say, Ashley isn't specifically on The List.
...Yet.
"Shut it, Keil," is Loren's oh-so-polite reply. "You don't know what you're talking about."
Unfortunately for him, while he makes that leap of faith he...
doesn't exactly have a great landing.
"Ugh."
Perhaps he should have opened his eyes? Then again, he didn't plummet screaming into the void, either, so maybe a little physical pain is noting in comparison.
He peels himself up off the floor after a moment, checking first to make sure nothing's actually broken. Which, it isn't, so points to team Voss! Standing, he's able to take in for the first time where they've landed, and glances about himself at a starry sky. "Huh... it's kind of pretty." That might be a first, at least for the sort of sentiments that Lily and Venetia have heard Loren express before. Shaking his head, he retrieves from his bag his glasses and slips them on; a moment later he... hesitates a moment.
"I've got bandages. You know. If you mess up," he informs the rest of them, and pulls out a wrapped bar from within his bag. Unwrapping it, he tears off a hunk of it and begins ripping that into smaller pieces. A literal trail of breadcrumbs...! Well, 'processed plant protein product from the Soylent System, in bar form*', but details.
Frankly, they're all in the same boat (boat being 'another dimension' in this case) and it probably behooves him to not... be a jackass for no real reason and pitch in. Hooray?
He steps into one of the pillars of light.
(*it's exactly what you think it is!)
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, Interstellar.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Interstellar *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The path that weaves through the expanse of the Emulator Zone broadens at times, opening into larger platforms, such as the one you approach now. Standing upon various sections of this area are shimmering white lights, echoing the silvery brilliance in the 'sky' about you here. When you step on one, you find yourself on a different platform, faced with more shimmering lights. It's a teleporter maze! Can you find your way through? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Tire===========================================
========================<* Emulator Zone - Round 2 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Interstellar >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Annotated Guide to Economic Stone 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ashley Winchester 12 --(8)--> 20 Pass Booty Call 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 12 --(8)--> 20 Pass Lily's Knife 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Venetia Vuong 15 --(30)--> 45 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Madness|Maim|Reckless(2)|Secret(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Venetia Vuong has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 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> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Which is honestly kind of surprising, not being on Solaris' List yet, that is. He's only a walking apocalypse, after all. A living nuclear inferno barely constrained within the body and soul of a single man. You'd think the God Emperor would want to keep that kind of thing from spilling out all over his backyard!
But, perhaps, it's for the best.
"I mean, it's kind of pretty in a 'this is probably really bad' kind of way," Ashley answers with a huff. The less time he has to spend trapped inside an interdimensional void the better. At least between the rest of the party leaving handy trails in their wake, it's fairly trivial to figure out which ways they've already been and which ways they have yet to go.
...Well, at least they manage to find... Some kind of weird green feather? How strange. Ashley frowns and stores it away in his pack, maybe as a gift for Tim or Lilka or something later? "Looks like there's a way out up ahead," he says with absolutely no evidence other than his Booty Call's furious beeping. "Eh, it's less like another world and more... Uh. Like a space... outside of space? A void where things like demons live."
Demons! What a wonderful imagination this young bluenette has.
...But he seems so confident in it. That could be... worrying.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Emulator Zone *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Crumbling Heavens *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- It's almost pretty here. The 'sky' of the Emulator Zone is draped in delicate blues and silvers, a painter's interpretation of the heavens. But you would stop here to admire them at your peril. Behind you, the translucent path you follow through the alternate dimension has begun to fall away, vanishing into some deeper part of this place. Hurry! You can't stick around here! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Heh heh." Lily seems amused by Loren's reaction. But she doesn't keep messing with him about it for the moment. Instead, she sort of smugly notes that he has to pick himself off the floor, and then less smugly hears him actually compliment something, ever. "...Yeah," she agrees. "It kind of is." ...In a 'this is probably pretty bad' kind of way, sure.
But Venetia is addressing her and Lily looks to her for a moment. "Not exactly like this," she admits, "But it seems familiar anyway. It's an interesting location."
Maybe there's a reason Lily gets along with Ashley, though. She's something of a walking disaster herself. In the physical sense, rather than the emotional sense like most Drifters.
"Demons," Lily answers as Ashley mentions them. "That's very interesting."
She wants to fight one. But she doesn't say that. Instead, she leads the way to the next space they find, and it is nearly beautiful in its way. Delicate blues, fine silvers, another painted worldscape but this time of the sky, not of the fire. ...And the path behind them starts to fall away.
"Shit," Lily comments, looking back and then reaching up to her amulet again. "We've got to move." She looks around--and makes a quick determination. "Hup--" She channels force into the amulet, and reaches out to take Venetia's arm as she does. "This will be a little uncomfortable, but better than falling there--"
The sense of unreality, of not existing or existing somewhere else for a moment is altogether more intense to experience; Venetia does not show afterimages but instead may stutter through time, appearing and reappearing next to a Lily for the next few moments as the Ether-user takes her along for glitching the level.
If Lily's nose happens to bleed a little when they're done, surely a little brain damage isn't a huge problem.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Crumbling Heavens.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
"Yeah. Caina's got some... weird silver key that they use to open these kinds of gates and let demons out into our world. It's a whole... thing." Also he almost straight up banished Ashley into one such void. Twice! The first time, all that happened was that the walls of reality got thin enough that a particular cosmic horror managed to leak directly into Ashley's soul. The second time...
The second time, Knight Blazer broke out of a dimensional fault and almost straight up evaporated the demon-summoning punk.
But he really does not like to dwell on those memories. So he distracts himself by staring up at the beautiful colors rippling across the void. What determines which colors appear? Is it just their minds rationalizing patterns and images that they have no ability to ordinarily comprehend? Whatever the case, these... are actually kind of pretty.
And then Lily cusses, and Ashley's poor innocent ears burn reflexively. "Wh-- lang--" He doesn't finish the reprimand, because she kind of has a point. The floor is falling out behind them! Ashley grabs that boomerang again, mid-run, and hurls it with all his might at the solid ground up ahead...
...It embeds itself into the unreal stone with a heavy *THOKK!* Ashley races after it, the ground quickly falling away not a half-step at his back. He reaches for the boomerang, focuses, whispers a prayer upon the <strikethrough>mini-hakkero</strikethrough> magic boomerang and...
The boomerang... rumbles.
You see, it was made always to return to the hand that threw it. But now, it can't. Now, it's buried too solidly into the ground over there. But it has to fulfill its purpose, and so...
And so Ashley goes flying with a *VWOOP* right for his buried boomerang. Handy!!
DG: Ashley Winchester has used his Tool Magic Boomerang toward his party's challenge, Crumbling Heavens.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia Vuong, who has eaten C-grade food out of cans that they probably wouldn't feed to a dog in Meria Boule, asks Loren, "What's that? It looks good." It is also not... not THAT stuff. If she watches 'Thomas' rip off pieces of some kind of food bar, she's not looking... Elsewhere.
"I believe I'm getting the idea of why I find this so alienating," Venetia tells AShley, "Other than the usual horrifying danger, I mean to say. I think there's something different, about the... ah, yes, that would explain it. If we're outside of normal space there wouldn't be any flows of Ley-type energy, eh?"
She looks at Liliy and nods once. Then she says to Ashley, slowly, "things... LIKE demons?"
Lily says the shit word. Venetia looks back. Her eyes widen. "Shit," she agrees, before starting to run. Her arm is taken and she says in surprise, "Keil, what --"
stutter
slip
scutter
Venetia almost stumbles because she thinks she just took the right step twice.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Crumbling Heavens.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"So you know who did this?"
This, Loren asks, before they start making their way through the maze. "Caina... where have I heard... Oh, right." He scowls, then glances away. "So it's them. Of all the timing," he grouses, shaking his head. It just figures doesn't it, that this is what happens to him...
"Huh? This? It's just-- an energy bar," Loren explains, not particularly wanting to explain that it's the product of an elaborate reprocessing system for the support of the inhabitants of a city way up on the troposphere that -- and this is important -- no one can see.
"Are they demons though, or just some kind of..." He gestures, vaguely. Looking up at the 'sky' here is sort of an exercise in madness (or foolishness, or something...)
After all, he is sort of still romantically entangled with someone that people might call a demon.
And then, just moments after they work their way through that annoying maze, the walkway starts to
fall apart.
Loren breaks into a run, racing across the pathway as it crumbles behind him.
The feather's in his hand again. He'd come to think of it as a lucky charm, almost, after everything that had--
"Can't," he utters, running until his lungs begin to burn, and then running further. Yeah. He can't fail here, like this, after everything that happened.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Pinion Charm toward his party's challenge, Crumbling Heavens.
==============================<* Emulator Zone *>=============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Crumbling Heavens *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- It's almost pretty here. The 'sky' of the Emulator Zone is draped in delicate blues and silvers, a painter's interpretation of the heavens. But you would stop here to admire them at your peril. Behind you, the translucent path you follow through the alternate dimension has begun to fall away, vanishing into some deeper part of this place. Hurry! You can't stick around here! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
=========================<* Emulator Zone - Round 3 *>========================== ========================< Results - Crumbling Heavens >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 32 --(27)--> 59 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ashley Winchester 20 --(15)--> 35 Pass Magic Boomerang 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 20 --(27)--> 47 Fail Impure Pendant 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 32 --(27)--> 59 Fail Pinion Charm 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Venetia Vuong 45 --(15)--> 60 Fail Conditions: Madness|Maim|Reckless(1)|Slow(2)|Tire(1) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Venetia Vuong has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
A key that opens gates and lets demons in. Isn't that interesting? It apparently must be some kind of thing. But Ashley doesn't want to dwell and Lily has no reason to force it, and instead there is the matter of language. She doesn't seem to even notice the beginning of the reprimand, perhaps because usualy when she swears around someone who doesn't like it cuccos are on hand to drown it out.
Venetia is right, though--the Ley flows are at the very least irregular if not completely absent, and that may be the answer indeed. But for now, there is a problem. Whether real demons or simply things like demons, they're somewhere around here.
The good news is that the group makes it back onto the path before it all collapses. The bad news is that it's extremely turbulent doing so, such that Ashley pulled along by the other end of magical force has the lightest landing of any of them.
But they all do land, in the end, and Lily has a bit of a bloody nose indeed as well as a bloody ear, and all of them are uncomfortable, but they're at least somewhere instead of nowhere!
But... Where is the somewhere?
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Emulator Zone *>=============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Albtraum *>=========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The light grows a sickly green in hue. The pressure of the air about you seems to shift; you can hear a ringing in your ears. Something is wrong here -- more wrong than the very nature of the Emulator Zone already entails. They come in swooping from 'above': a pair of them, winged purple creatures with long necks and toothed maws. Brilliant red antler-like protrusions erupt from their shoulders: these look quite sharp. They do not seem as if they are willing to just let you go on past them. Quickly -- strike them down! Image: https://monstersoffilgaia.tumblr.com/post/67557952158/alphabetized-bestiary =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
But ultimately Loren can run no further. He stumbles, landing heavily on the path. Is this where it ends, with him tumbling into the abyss? "Sorry," he exhales, lying there.
...
...He's still lying there a good fifteen seconds later, by which time he should have already fallen if the path were going to go that way.
"..."
Slowly he pushes himself up. It's almost a disappointment, at least to his ego, that the path he had stumbled and fallen upon... remains so sturdy. Standing and dusting himself off, he heads forward, intent on getting away from this particular embarrassment, apparently. He doesn't say anything. His ears are a bit pink, though.
Fortunately (sort of) for Loren, this is when things swoop in out of the skies.
"What the--" he utters, just in time to duck out of the way of one that damn well might have gored him otherwise. It's not alone. There's a flock of furfurs!
Rummaging in his pack, he comes up with a scalpel, which he hurls at one of them with pinpoint precision! And if that doesn't work, he's got a... well there are some bandages in here. He probably won't need those as a weapon, though...
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Albtraum.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
Never doubt the power of BOOMERANG MAGIC.
"Ugh," Ashley groans, shoving himself back up. Not necessarily upright. Not yet, anyway. "...Yeah. Things like demons. Sometimes they're just demons, other times they're... Demon-proximate." He shakes his head, then gestures up at the strange purple deer-fox-owls descending upon them all enmasse. "You know, like those things."
Beat.
"Oh. Oh!" Ashley rolls back into a crouch. His ARM is already in his hands, already loaded with a heavy canister round. He fires it up into the swarm of pseudo-daemonia, the canister bursting...
...Into a swarm of explosively-propelled flechettes!?
What, did you expect him to feed a bunch of demons his delicious pastries!? Only two demons get those. One of them by proxy, the other because she can be bribed with donuts.
He DOES, however, have a canister of INEXPLICABLY FRESHLY BAKED FLUFFY HONEY-BUTTER BISCUITS ready for the party once they're done with the fight. You gotta juice up with some hearty carbs before journeying further into the nightmare-void that exists between worlds.
DG: Ashley Winchester has used his Tool Portable Pastries toward his party's challenge, Albtraum.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
As Loren digs in his pack, he has the sudden and probably vaguely slightly unpleasant of Venetia crawling partway onto him.
WHY??
Rewind for a moment.
Venetia looks up and sees the descending Things. She reaches for a Crest Graph from the pouch -- but then she grinds her teeth for a moment, because...
Because what? Because they feel like they might as well be empty metal cards or a sack of game tiles. Is she just tripping out because of the scenario? Maybe. Fortunately, Venetia is not forced to resort to her rod of command and a bad attitude, hoping that the Ley here is sufficient for Crest Sorcery to gather itself. She has another thing to use.
She has...
A GUN.
She saw Loren crouching and that he would make a stabilizing platform. So, without asking, Venetia's arms are on his shoulders, to cradle the pistol in both hands as she takes care and--
BLAM BLAM!
Right above his head.
BLAM BLAM!
"Sorry about the noise," Venetia mutters, hopefully still within the threshold of Loren's audio reception.
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Gun toward her party's challenge, Albtraum.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily, too, catches her feet after all this, wiping away the blood and rising. "Well, that was unpleasant," she comments, and then looks to Ashley. "Demon... proximate." Pause. "Well, whatever. They bleed, right?"
That's the important question.
But then suddenly there are descending things, and Lily rolls out of the way suddenly to evade one. She doesn't pull her knife--these things are too far up for that. She will enjoy the biscuits later. Before the biscuits, she will enjoy--
Fire. Lots, and lots of fire, conjured out of nothing for the same creatures Venetia is firing the gun at. And the ones Ashley's ARM and the scalpel go at. It's generally heating up.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Albtraum.
==============================<* Emulator Zone *>=============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Albtraum *>=========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The light grows a sickly green in hue. The pressure of the air about you seems to shift; you can hear a ringing in your ears. Something is wrong here -- more wrong than the very nature of the Emulator Zone already entails. They come in swooping from 'above': a pair of them, winged purple creatures with long necks and toothed maws. Brilliant red antler-like protrusions erupt from their shoulders: these look quite sharp. They do not seem as if they are willing to just let you go on past them. Quickly -- strike them down! Image: https://monstersoffilgaia.tumblr.com/post/67557952158/alphabetized-bestiary =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
=========================<* Emulator Zone - Round 4 *>========================== =============================< Results - Albtraum >============================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 59 --(0)--> 59 Pass Gun 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ashley Winchester 35 --(0)--> 35 Pass Portable Pastries 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 47 --(0)--> 47 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 59 --(0)--> 59 Pass Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Venetia Vuong 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Madness|Maim|Slow(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Venetia Vuong has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Blueshift *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Could this be, perhaps, the heart of this distortion? All the paths throughout the Emulator Zone seem to converge towards this point: if you look about, you may see the others who had been aboard the train when it was caught in this alternate dimension. Perhaps beyond here, you might be able to find some way to end the distortion and permit yourself -- and the train and its occupants -- to escape. However, before you can attempt to do that -- or deal with whatever it is in the heart of the Emulator Zone -- you must contend with a particular obstacle. To be specific, you must contend with the color blue. You've never seen a blue like this. It has a particular intensity and depth. It veils the way forward in a way that is impenetrable without being an actual physical object, or indeed with any substance whatsoever. It exists and it doesn't exist. It's in your way and it's not really there. And you'll have to find some way to break through or remove it anyway if you aim to progress any further. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Madness, Injure================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Yes, I see them too!" he snipes at Ashley, digging hurriedly through his pack.
The scalpel hits home. The furfur squeals in rage!
Loren quite suddenly has a woman climbing onto him. "Uh-- can I help you--" he starts to say.
Before, and let us stress, not for the first time, he is partially deafened by a gunshot. His world blurs into a buzz of sound, a roar that seems to take up half of his awareness.
"Why," is his only question of Venetia. He can barely hear a damn word she's saying.
But it does work: a pair of them are taken out by some well-placed shots. Meanwhile, a storm of flechettes -- courtesy of a particular bit of ammo -- take out another two, including the wounded one with a scalpel in it. They fall into the abyss of color.
And the rest of them?
Well.
They burn nicely, for demons. Demonoids. Demon-adjacent beings.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
And past the dead...? demons, there is a zone that is a singular color. A radiant, solemn blue. It does not swirl as best as can be told: it is simply There, a profound presence of Color in the space. The broad curves of the Blue are such that distant clusters of others - PROBABLY the group's other members, or more adventurous sorts from the train, can be seen.
Venetia looks over her shoulder.
She can't see the train.
"To explain myself," Venetia tells Loren, "I needed stabilization to get an accurate shot with the pistol." Her voice has a sufficiently clear note to be heard over the ringing from gunfire.
The blue ripples.
"At least the Ley is a little thicker here. Now, let's see what we can do..."
A Crest Graph is raised. "Purify Ground!"
The sorcery goes out and --
The blue ripples.
Another Graph. "Mud Flower," states Venetia. There is a surge forwards, one that most people present have probably seen because Venetia was really spamming this move on Spira for a while:
The blue ripples.
"Faceter!" A shower of jagged gem shards --
The blue ripples.
Venetia is slightly out of breath.
"... Frustrating," Venetia states.
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Stygian Crest Graph toward her party's challenge, Blueshift.
<Pose Tracker> Ashley Winchester has posed.
That is blue.
Ashley thinks, for a moment, that it seems to be of the exact same blue as his hair. Strange. Have they somehow found a weird window of mysterious space that has caused them to encounter the metaphysical source of blueness of all bluenette hair color? If they break it, will bluenettes cease to be?
Nah. That can't be it.
Well, regardless, before anyone gets to the business of breaking up a strangely stubborn puddle of blue space-time, Ashley hands out snacks! Cinnamon rolls and honey biscuits and donuts-- the best sort of things to munch on before expending a whole bunch of calories smashing your face against the very substance of time and space.
"You know," Ashley wonders, "Maybe the solution is not breaking through the blue... But becoming transparent to the blue? Yeah?"
Is that even possible? Probably not. But what if it is, in their hearts!?
DG: Ashley Winchester has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Blueshift.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
'Why'. Loren's discomfort is at least a minor positive for Lily, as is the fact that these things are very flammable. Lily appreciates that in a monster. But as the monsters burn, she gets back to her feet, looking around carefully and seeing...
Blue.
"Hmm, is it?" Lily wonders of the Ley. She can't really tell; her magic isn't at all predicated on it. She watches Venetia start her magic forward, using her Graphs, and the way the blue ripples. Ashley comes up with an idea...
"I don't know," Lily says. "I'm very, very good at breaking things and not very good at being transparent of things."
Lily pulls something that almost resembles a Graph of her own, but instead of mystical symbols and magical working it's just a metal card engraved with various mathematical formulae and constants that she uses to account for the strange space here. "I'll channel you power," Lily says to Venetia. "It seems like your magic is pretty well-suited to busting through, so one more powerful blast should be stronger than multiple smaller blasts."
She then looks to Ashley. She accepts a cinnamon roll. ...And a honey biscuit. And a donut. And then a second donut.
"Ready when you are."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Restoration Formula toward her party's challenge, Blueshift.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He stares at her as if she's lost her mind. "And deafen me?! Haven't you had firearms training?" Loren is not just annoyed, now -- he might be a little mad!
But the color before them, particularly a color
like that
has its way of commanding attention. "Ngh," Loren utters, reaching up with both hands to clasp at his head. Not this again-- though it's not so much their presence as it is the memory of it.
Anat, he thinks suddenly -- desperately -- the pain bubbling up from where he'd abandoned it. "Ugh," he utters, shaking his head furiously. "No, if this is what's keeping us here--"
And he reaches out as if he could touch it (he can't, not in a way that matters) and tries to wrench at it with a burst of Etheric force. It doesn't budge. It doesn't so much as ripple. Nothing happens.
Loren exhales a forceful breath. Then he slips off his glasses.
Burn, he wills, with all the strength in his heart. ...It's not working. Of course it's not working. He never figured out how to make this work! He's going to be stuck here! He's going to--
"'Become transparent'..." he echoes, shaking his head. It seems preposterous. But it's just about as bad as trying to set the color blue on fire. Then again, it worked for him, personally, the last time. ...Maybe, he should try 'that'. The memory, the one he doesn't want to think about.
But does he have it in him to force that memory to the surface and face it?
Maybe he should have eaten a donut first.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Blueshift.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Blueshift *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Could this be, perhaps, the heart of this distortion? All the paths throughout the Emulator Zone seem to converge towards this point: if you look about, you may see the others who had been aboard the train when it was caught in this alternate dimension. Perhaps beyond here, you might be able to find some way to end the distortion and permit yourself -- and the train and its occupants -- to escape. However, before you can attempt to do that -- or deal with whatever it is in the heart of the Emulator Zone -- you must contend with a particular obstacle. To be specific, you must contend with the color blue. You've never seen a blue like this. It has a particular intensity and depth. It veils the way forward in a way that is impenetrable without being an actual physical object, or indeed with any substance whatsoever. It exists and it doesn't exist. It's in your way and it's not really there. And you'll have to find some way to break through or remove it anyway if you aim to progress any further. =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Madness, Injure================================
========================<* Emulator Zone - Round 5 *>========================= ===========================< Results - Blueshift >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 59 --(101)--> 160 Pass Stygian Crest Graph 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ashley Winchester 35 --(101)--> 136 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 47 --(101)--> 148 Pass Restoration Formula 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 59 --(101)--> 160 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Venetia Vuong 80 --(15)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Collapse|Injure(2)|Madness Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Venetia Vuong is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ashley Winchester is too exhausted to continue! DG: Lily Keil is too exhausted to continue! DG: Loren Voss 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 Venetia Vuong has been fully Exhausted by Emulator Zone! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
=============================<* Emulator Zone *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Across the Galaxy *>====================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- It is a great struggle, but the unnatural color is cleared -- you are able to progress into the heart of the Emulator Zone. The air about you twists into a luminescent yellow glow as you walk into the heart of the Emulator Zone. It is rather akin to being at the heart of a hurricane: all about you unnatural colors dance and glimmer, and matter is created and destroyed. Here, fully, you can appreciate the chaos of the dimension in which you are trapped. And here alone there is a bubble of order. A pair of figures stand here. TO BE CONTINUED...... =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia hurls three or four more spells of increasing violence at the blue. The last one, Compacter, does make a deeper divot in the blue, before --
The blue ripples.
She seems frustrated by this, but also seems to be sweating and tired enough to be willing to take a break. She eats Ashley's biscuit and she does not taste it at all, purely because of her agitation. "What are you talking about," she snaps at Ashley.
A second passes.
"I'm upset because this is cosmically terrifying, Winchester, please forgive me," Venetia mutters to Ashley after this, before watching Lily's own invocation. Lily is able to put a dent comparable to Compacter's in the blue before
The blue ripples.
And then Loren takes off his glasses.
The blue ripples.
Ripples.
Ripples.
ripples.
Loren pours his heart into the burning and the color is a mere irradiance of the electromagnetic spectrum but whatever or wherever it is situated, it does not overlap fully with the 3+1+1 layers of reality that Loren Voss and indeed all of the others have interacted with throughout their entire incarnations and most of the prior ones. It is, however, present in a way that they can perceive - if the human realm is 3+1+1, perhaps the blue could be considered to be 6-3+2.
Does that make sense? It probably doesn't. You may not want to look at it much. When Loren can see his mandala developing, something TWISTS in it and there's a brief suggestion of something that has a horrible outline of a parrot and as Venetia looks at it and indeed as ANYONE looks at it, there is a horrible sense that there's some sort of great gravitic MAGNET in there near the eye of the parrot, the fire burning and moving to form a shape that
doesn't
quite
make it, and the blue does not really ripple so much as RIP. A ragged sheet with undulating, almost fibrous edges. Venetia's jaw tightens, but:
There is light beyond, a healthy light that seems to speak of order and days in the sun. It only seems Yellow, really, after everything you've been walking through.