2021-03-19: Just Another Stranger
- Log: Just Another Stranger
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac
- Where: Sylvara Great Woods
- Date: March 19, 2021
- Summary: Loren and Lan meet while passing through the Lost Woods. It's not a reunion either of them particularly planned. Fortunately the sudden intrusion of monsters helps!
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering The Lost Woods. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - A Familiar Scene *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- At its edges, along roads and settlements, the Sylvara Great Woods seem normal. But for those seeking treasure or secrets, there are a number of small pathways that lead in further. As you follow one of these, the mists grow thicker and light is sparing beneath the thick and high canopy. You emerge from the path into a narrow clearing. A small pond can be seen, and a few birds chirp by it. There are three small paths: one to the north, another to the east, and a final to the west. You come from the southern path. Whichever one you take, after a few twists and turns, leads you back to the... same clearing. Surely, there must be some way to continue, if you can find the right path. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He pauses a moment within the forest. Hasn't he seen this place before?
"Great," Loren mutters to himself. First he gets stuck on a train that gets sucked into another dimension (losing his replacement glasses in the process...), and now he's lost. It's been a wonderful week to spend traveling.
And he was due back at the Spiran outpost two days ago. Yes, he already sent a message explaining, yes, the message had been received, no, it didn't look like he was going to get into trouble for this...
But it grates against his pride more than anything.
Fine, then. He'll try back-tracking a bit. Digging in his bag, he pulls out a nutritional bar and breaks off a piece, tossing it by that tree. There, now he'll know whether or not he's been here before...
Unless, Loren considers, pulling a face, something eats it.
"...Guess I'll find out."
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, A Familiar Scene.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There are, if he notices them, signs of someone else's passing as well as the nutribar chunks he throws down for a trail. Plant stems bent at unusual angles, small arrows scraped into moss with what might have been a fingertip. They're subtle, though he might remember seeing someone else using them in the past...
Lan is fairly adept at finding her way, even in places where she's never been before. She can ask wind spirits for directions, as a last resort, but for now she's totally fine. Very capable. Absolutely knows which way she's going...
...which is why she passed that very same tree fifteen minutes ago, isn't it.
She sighs, and finally reaches into her pockets for some extra help.
"Eeny, meeny, miney, moe..." she says out loud. After all, it's not like there's anybody else around to hear her. And if there is, maybe they'll be friendly.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, A Familiar Scene.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - A Familiar Scene *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- At its edges, along roads and settlements, the Sylvara Great Woods seem normal. But for those seeking treasure or secrets, there are a number of small pathways that lead in further. As you follow one of these, the mists grow thicker and light is sparing beneath the thick and high canopy. You emerge from the path into a narrow clearing. A small pond can be seen, and a few birds chirp by it. There are three small paths: one to the north, another to the east, and a final to the west. You come from the southern path. Whichever one you take, after a few twists and turns, leads you back to the... same clearing. Surely, there must be some way to continue, if you can find the right path. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Tire============================================
=========================<* The Lost Woods - Round 1 *>========================= =========================< Results - A Familiar Scene >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Stupify(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Loren Voss has posed.
A little bit of time passes.
LOREN... finds after a few roundabouts that he is most certainly back where he'd been. The good news is that a bear didn't eat it! And he knows to take the other path now! Hooray, basic deduction.
But is someone else here?
A little bit more time passes.
LAN... picks her paths with the help of her fortune-telling paper, slowly progressing through the winding trails of the woods. There are bits of some sort of energy bar left here and there, like a trail of crumbs.
Is someone else here?
A little time passes.
The pathes merge eventually, forcing the two wanderers at last into the same space--
Loren spots Lan and freezes in place.
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Ancient Statues and Hidden Caches *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next clearing that you find has a statue overgrown with moss. Much of it is unrecognizable; moss has stained the stone green, and its features are worn away, only to suggest a woman in a dress. She may be elven, but it is hard to say, as the ears are mostly worn away and the hint of a point could only be seeing things. The statue has a small, sealed door on its base. Made of sturdy stone, the door looks like it should hold a cache -- or maybe a way underneath. Breaking the door may damage whatever is behind it, but perhaps some method can be found to open the door. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Treasure========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It seems to just keep going forever, but... well, it's not like Lan has anything to be super worried about. It's not like she hasn't been lost in a forest before, although to be fair that forest wasn't called 'The Lost Woods' either. It was a normal, not-lost woods. She's at least optimistic about things. She could live pretty comfortably in here for a while, probably, depending on what kind of wildlife lives nearby--
She steps off of the path and into a clearing she's never seen before. There! Already she's making progress! And there's even someone else--
Lan freezes momentarily herself, though mostly just out of general surprise and not a crushing sense of feardreadguilt, unlike probably someone else. "--Oh," she recovers quickly. "What're you doing here? Are you alone?" She didn't hear the telltale step-step, step-step of Leah Sadalbari or Lydia's voice, but... well. She didn't hear Loren either.
She looks healthy. The same as she'd looked when they last saw each other. He's not... it worked, right? It had to have worked. He's just lost, isn't he. "Hey, this is nice though, we can help each other find our way out. Right, Loren?" She waggles the folded piece of paper with a bit of reserved cheer.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Ancient Statues and Hidden Caches.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He had, quite frankly, never expected to see her again.
He takes a breath, then another breath. No, no no no, not here, not now. This isn't what he, he just had one a couple days ago, and...
Deeper. He tries to take a deeper breath.
He makes a strangled sort of sound instead and, in an action that will haunt him for days, abruptly bolts and runs, away from her.
She's just like normal. She's just Lan.
He remembers way too much.
That's all.
The fact that he turns and runs through a stand of trees instead of following the path just means that it might be that much harder to follow him. Well, if it weren't for the crumbled bits of nutritional bar that slip from his grasp.
There's a statue in the grove here. He runs around behind it and drops down, hands encircling his knees.
The fact that something just might go 'click' when he brushes up against the stonework probably... won't help him stay hidden.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, Ancient Statues and Hidden Caches.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Ancient Statues and Hidden Caches *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next clearing that you find has a statue overgrown with moss. Much of it is unrecognizable; moss has stained the stone green, and its features are worn away, only to suggest a woman in a dress. She may be elven, but it is hard to say, as the ears are mostly worn away and the hint of a point could only be seeing things. The statue has a small, sealed door on its base. Made of sturdy stone, the door looks like it should hold a cache -- or maybe a way underneath. Breaking the door may damage whatever is behind it, but perhaps some method can be found to open the door. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Treasure========================================
=========================<* The Lost Woods - Round 2 *>========================= ================< Results - Ancient Statues and Hidden Caches >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(25)--> 45 Pass Conditions: Stupify(2)|Tire(1)|Treasure(1) Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 25 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Whatever she had expected - a snipe, a grumble about how she would be lost in some forest and now they're both going to starve to death or something - it doesn't come. Instead he struggles to breathe. Oh, she realizes, the kind smile she'd been wearing slipping away. He's about to have a panic attack. She's not that scary, right--
No, you idiot, Lan interrupts herself harshly. The last time I saw him he was torn open and weak and vulnerable, and he'd just spent weeks an amnesiac, and I- I--
He'd seen something, because she'd been angry, and it had poured out of her like poison and infected him too.
He turns to bolt and Lan stands still as a statue for a long moment. But she can't leave him to run blindly, because she just can't. Stowing the paper away, Lan breaks into a run and follows Loren through the trees. At least he's not thinking clearly enough to be quiet, and he's dropping stuff in his haste. Ewww, it's more of that nutritional bar stuff. Hopefully it won't make the forest sick.
By the time he's found the statue and crouched down next to it to try to recover, Lan is stepping into the clearing across from him, on the other side of the statue. "...It's pretty," she says, because she doesn't know what to say to Loren.
She stays there on the other side of the statue, searching for words for a long moment. "...Hey," she tries at last.
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Blue Bokoblins *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Lost Woods are not uninhabited, and rumors of malice dens and dangerous creatures abound. Among these are bokoblins: spindly, blue-skinned creatures that wield spears and bows and arrows. As you move into the woods, you catch a glimpse of a camp ahead. A small campfire, with a few speared hogs, is there. The bokoblins look up -- snarl -- and grab their weapons. Arrows rain down, as a group of them with spears come charging for you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He shifts his arms, burying his head as he hears what is unmistakably her footsteps treading into the grove.
Why am I...
Something clicks underfoot as Lan enters the grove. With both buttons depressed, something shifts near the statue, opening a compartment into the earth just below it. A colorful chest presents itself invitingly... but it's not Lan's focus at the moment and it's certainly not Loren's.
'Hey,' she says to him. He tenses, as if he would like to draw away but just can't at the moment.
"You," he mumbles, without raising his head. "Did you--"
Something bounces off the statue. It's an arrow.
It's swiftly followed by a good three more along with some hooting as creatures break into the grove the two of them are in. Some have bows, some have spears, and none of them look very friendly.
Loren has already unfolded himself from his disagreeable position near the statue. His hand lingers a moment at his hip but there's no blade sheathed there now. Instead, hitching a breath, he thumbs something twined about his wrist and lets out a shout as he draws upon shielding earthen Ether.
He'd shown her a few hand-to-hand self-defense techniques once upon a time. Now he tries to wrench one of those spears right out of the hands of one of those blue creatures. And once he's done that he'll turn upon them with a vengeance.
...If it works.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Blue Bokoblins.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She stays on the other side of the statue. She wants to go check on him, to kneel down next to him and pull him into a hug and tell him he's going to be okay - but she isn't that girl anymore, and he was never that boy. She isn't sure if it would make him feel worse. So Lan waits and hopes she's doing the right thing by following him at all.
He starts to say something, and the fact that he's speaking to her at all would've been cause for celebration if it weren't for the fact that he was interrupted by an arrow. Of all things!!
Without giving herself time to think about it, Lan lets her body move as it will. An arrow is snatched from the air as it whistles past her ear, and she whirls in place to send it streaking back the way it came. "HYAH!"
It's easier to move than to talk. Step one, break a spear with a well-aimed kick. Step two, stomp hard on a bokoblin's foot and then launch it backwards into a group of its fellows. Step three, uncork her water bottle and splash the contents all over the one waving around a crude, sparking thundersword - and the ones nearest it.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, Blue Bokoblins.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Blue Bokoblins *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Lost Woods are not uninhabited, and rumors of malice dens and dangerous creatures abound. Among these are bokoblins: spindly, blue-skinned creatures that wield spears and bows and arrows. As you move into the woods, you catch a glimpse of a camp ahead. A small campfire, with a few speared hogs, is there. The bokoblins look up -- snarl -- and grab their weapons. Arrows rain down, as a group of them with spears come charging for you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
=========================<* The Lost Woods - Round 3 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Blue Bokoblins >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 16 --(0)--> 16 Pass Ether Tuner 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 16 --(5)--> 21 Fail Clear Water 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 45 --(20)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Stupify(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Loren Voss has posed.
The long and short of it is that Loren's gambit works -- aided by his magic and the distraction that is Lan's bottle of water spraying about -- he's able to sieze from them one of their weapons. The fact that he doesn't know how to use a spear doesn't matter, not when he simply proceeds to part B of his current master plan, which is to lay into them rather wildly with the weapon.
They seem to have not been expecting that.
Also the one with the crude electrical sword outright shocks himself, so that's one problem dealt with.
Still gripping the spear, he turns towards Lan, breathing hard from his exertions right now. The pointy part is tilted towards the earth, so it seems likely he's not going to try and stick her with it. Good news?
"Hey..." he says, after a long, silent moment.
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Timber! *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Much of the Lost Woods is not mapped, which makes the streams and rivers that run through it a mystery. The result is that many of them have no bridges or other safe crossings. You come to one such creek, which is a fast moving one, with steep banks. Swimming it would be dangerous; leaping across is precarious. Fortunately, a tree grows close enough to the creek that toppling it -- at least, in the right direction and carefully -- would create a bridge. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Injure===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
In the end, two Drifters (or one Shaman and one Gebler Captain) are tougher than a bunch of half-naked aggro piglings. The last of them flee into the forest, and Lan puts the cap back on her water bottle. It's almost empty now.
She's pretty sure that if Loren decides to keep fighting in lieu of going back to hyperventilating, she'd do better to let him figure it out on his own. After all, the last time he tried to fight her--
'Hey,' she says at last, and Lan glances at the point of the spear pointed toward the earth before she really feels like smiling again. "...Hey. How are you doing?"
It's such a stupid thing to ask right now, but Lan is Lan. She does want to know.
Underneath the feet of the statue, a chest gleams invitingly. Treasure should be fun, but right now...
"You opened it," she tells Loren after a moment. "That means you should keep it." Because they aren't adventuring together anymore, are they.
Once they're walking again, Lan follows the sound of running water until they find a creek. Kneeling down next to it, she refills her canteen. "...I don't like the look of it. Did you ever hear of those streams that look all normal and placid on the surface, but underneath the current is super strong and then you get swept away and drown? What if this was one of those streams?"
They could try to jump it - Lan could certainly make it with the power stored in her ribbon, but she couldn't carry Loren with her. "Isn't there anything we can make a bridge from?"
Yes, talk about bridges. It's much easier than trying to talk about the ties that bind them.
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Timber!.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Doing okay," he says at length. "...I think."
Exercise can be a good thing to do when you're having a panic attack. Maybe in its own weird way, it had helped him get over the worst of it. As he looks at her, though, he notices that his hand is still shaking. Closing his eyes, he sighs out a breath.
"What about you--" he starts to ask, opening his eyes again. She's not there. Or rather, she's about in front of the statue, pointing at the chest. "Me? ...I didn't do anything." A moment of silence may again pass between the two of them before he ultimately heads down to investigate the chest. There's a clear red stone inside, kind of long and rectangular and cut so it shimmers. He tilts it this way and that, eyeing it in the light. "Huh." With nothing else to do, he pockets it.
And because there's nothing else for either of them to do but proceed, he follows Lan, silent again. He still has the spear, perhaps as proof against more of those pig-guys. Hopefully.
"Huh?" He looks at the stream. He looks back at Lan. And he shakes his head. "I don't... remember anything like that. I don't think they talked about it in our, well... the guides," he finishes, lamely, feeling like a lad of eighteen again. "Streams like this aren't common." For a moment, he considers trying to see how deep it is with the spear, but the slope's a bit steep and he's not as good on his feet as Lan. If he slipped he'd fall in and then he'd really get to find out how deep it is.
"What about that tree?" he answers, pointing at it before walking over towards it. It looks like it's had better days, like a good storm would topple it right over. "I wonder if..."
And he just gives it a shove. This is easier than talking about memories that aren't his own.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Timber!.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Timber! *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Much of the Lost Woods is not mapped, which makes the streams and rivers that run through it a mystery. The result is that many of them have no bridges or other safe crossings. You come to one such creek, which is a fast moving one, with steep banks. Swimming it would be dangerous; leaping across is precarious. Fortunately, a tree grows close enough to the creek that toppling it -- at least, in the right direction and carefully -- would create a bridge. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Injure===========================================
=========================<* The Lost Woods - Round 4 *>========================= =============================< Results - Timber! >============================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 16 --(25)--> 41 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 21 --(25)--> 46 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 65 --(15)--> 80 Fail Conditions: Injure(2)|Weaken(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss 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> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's not like Lan did much either! And while she could use the money from a giant honkin' forest gem, she's more excited about the idea of more water for her canteen. She's a weird kind of practical.
The water is clear as it swirls into her water bottle, which makes her doubly suspicious about why she can't get a clear view of the bottom. It's definitely a treacherous secret death creek of some sort. "They're something Mom used to tell me about when I was little. Apparently she knew someone who knew someone and that's what happened to them." Or maybe it was a cautionary tale, told to keep Lan from jumping into creeks should she ever find any.
Capping the bottle, she lets it drop back to its place next to her hip where it sloshes reassuringly.
"Huh, it ought to work if we can move it-- whoa!" The tree, every bit as old and precarious as it looks, doesn't take much more than a good shove to set it tilting over. This is good! ...Except the part where it doesn't fall straight. A root that refuses to let go clings to the soil of the riverbank, the tree swinging in a drunken arc as it falls.
Water splashes everywhere as the tree comes to rest diagonally across the stream, with one end in the water and the other splayed haphazardly against the bank. But hey, at least this disproves Lan's theory about it being an infinitely deep murder creek. "...Think you can jump from the end to the other side?" Lan asks.
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Ancient Bones *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your destination is in sight. One final obstacle lay between you and the way out of the woods -- such as the ancient Live Reflector that works with your Reflector Key. It is an enormous skeleton. The underbrush has grown around the draconic skeleton, making it hard to pass through. However, the plants seem to shy away from the ribs and bones, and thus getting inside of it would allow you passage through, like a grisly tunnel. However, only the head of the creature is outside of the thorny brush. You need to open its closed draconic jaws (or, perhaps, blow the head off the thing entirely) to continue. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Huh."
Another long, long pause trails out. "Maybe they're more common where you live or something. They never warned us about that." Or maybe they were just a cautionary tale after all...
He gives the tree a good shove. It tips over drunkenly but doesn't quite fall. So Loren, being a smart young man, pushes it harder... and nearly follows it as it topples on down.
More or less, that is. He sighs dejectedly and wipes creekwater from his face with his sleeve. "Well, that just about tracks," he remarks, hopping down onto the trunk. He thinks as he considers their options of the feathered charm in his bag, but this day... he doesn't pull it out. Instead, Loren remains there a moment, and then abruptly charges the rest of the way up the tilted tree and jumps for it...!
He almost makes it across, too. The fact that he sort of lands on the other bank, stumbles backwards, overcorrects and falls to his knees and has to scramble the rest of the way up onto solid ground can perhaps be chalked up as a minor footnote.
"Ugh," is his remark on that ordeal.
But at least it's not far to the Live Reflector now--
"...That wasn't here last time," is his remark as they meet an obstacle in their path in the form of a giant skeleton. "Did I come in the wrong way? Wait, maybe we should..." And he takes a moment to eye the heavy trees around the Elw device and reconsiders that option. "...Let's not," he says, and approaches the bones.
"Wonder how long they've been here. Wait, does the mouth open? ...Is this seriously a passageway? That's kinda..."
He'd rather focus on the bones than the unspoken questions lingering in the air. Unlike those, he knows what to do with a giant skeleton. Taking hold of the top and the bottom jaw, Loren tries to wrench them open.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Ancient Bones.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
At least they can be pretty sure that falling in the creek by accident won't immediately result in an ignoble death! There's always a silver lining somewhere if you look hard enough.
And if Lan looks hard enough, she can see that something has changed about Loren. Not the new and uncomfortable awkwardness, like there's something he doesn't want to even begin to bring up (like what she did), but... he's not as angry. Maybe he's just tired? Or scared?
She watches him scramble up the opposite bank and make it after a close call. Normally he'd have something venomous to say about the whole thing, wouldn't he?
Lan takes a deep breath and hops onto the fallen log, sprinting across and taking a flying leap up onto the bank next to him. It feels a little like showing off, even though she's not doing it on purpose...
"Wait, it wasn't here-- but hasn't it been dead a long time, if it's already turned to bones?" Or maybe he just thinks he was here last time. Trees all look alike. Without anything useful to add, she follows him between the ribs, into a strange passageway made of life and death. "It's-- this is really the way out? Isn't that--" kind of morbid?
Stop being a coward, she tries to tell herself. It doesn't really work. Instead of asking him what's wrong, Lan steps up beside him and tries to leverage her average strength alongside him. "Hnnngh!"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Ancient Bones.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Ancient Bones *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your destination is in sight. One final obstacle lay between you and the way out of the woods -- such as the ancient Live Reflector that works with your Reflector Key. It is an enormous skeleton. The underbrush has grown around the draconic skeleton, making it hard to pass through. However, the plants seem to shy away from the ribs and bones, and thus getting inside of it would allow you passage through, like a grisly tunnel. However, only the head of the creature is outside of the thorny brush. You need to open its closed draconic jaws (or, perhaps, blow the head off the thing entirely) to continue. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
=========================<* The Lost Woods - Round 5 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Ancient Bones >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 41 --(101)--> 142 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 46 --(101)--> 147 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(15)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Injure(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Loren Voss is too exhausted to continue! DG: Lan Lilac 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 Loren Voss has been fully Exhausted by The Lost Woods! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* The Lost Woods *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Fairy Pond *>========================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your path through the woods has been long and arduous. Several times, you have been turned around; while you are closer to leaving, perhaps near the Live Reflector, it has taken much longer than you would have liked. But, you are fortunate, too. You come across a small, tranquil pond in a clearing. Little glowing orbs of light swirl about. When you get closer, you can recognize them: fairies, creatures said to be native to the land. They fly in, laughing, and heal your wounds and take away some of the exhaustion, before vanishing again. =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's not like he can blame her for it. He's the one who pushed the tree over badly, and it's his fault he's nearly taken a dive into the creek twice over now.
He focuses on the gameplan for now, which is to get to the Live Reflector and then...
And then, isn't Lan going this way too? He's going to have to talk about it eventually. ...Right? He can't just pretend that things are fine, right? That he hasn't got one of her memories rattling around in his skull. That it's not a memory that's so bad, he's loathe to even probe at it much.
"I must have come in through a different path," he mutters, shaking his head as he regards the skeleton. "Fully-formed ancient skeletons don't just appear!"
At least he hopes they don't. This forest, as much as it was once a place in which they had both taken refuge (on the borders, a while ago) is just weird. It makes him uncomfortable.
They try mightily to attempt to pull the mouth of the skeleton open! It...
it doesn't work.
"Seriously," Loren sighs, releasing his grip and falling back. He winces a moment rubbing at his upper arms. "...Seriously. Guess we'll have to doubleback. Maybe there's some other way around." He considers, briefly, trying to see if he could just shatter the skeleton and walk through that way but... something tells him he'd just make a bigger mess somehow. Better not.
"There's a path over this way. I'm gonna see where it leads."
After some distance walking that way, they come across something unsual: a small pond in a clearing, above which float a number of glowing lights. "What are these things? --What, are they little... people?"
The fairies of course giggle as they fly in, swirling about both weary travelers and easing their exhaustion before vanishing utterly.
Loren is silent in the aftermath, gazing at the gentle rippling of the water. "Hey, Lan... did you..."
He exhales a long breath.
"...Never mind. Come on. We should keep going."
We, as if they could ever go back to traveling together again in the first place.