2021-04-08: Nature of Truth
- Log: Nature of Truth
- Cast: Seraph Harmaus, Tidus
- Where: Saint Heim Papal State - Ethos Headquarters
- Date: April 08, 2021
- Summary: Tidus heads by the Ethos Headquarters at exactly the wrong (right?) time. But he's not the only one there. There is also a cat (?). In spite of Harmaus' nature, the two more or less get along...?
DG: A party led by Seraph Harmaus is now entering Ethos Headquarters Attack. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Silent Night *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Ethos Cathedral in the Holy City is supposed to be a quiet, but busy place. Men and women in robes should be walking with straight backs and loaded holsters, hurrying about the business of saving lives and souls. Priests, tending to tearful, grateful supplicants. Nurses, greeting patients to the Ethos' one-of-a-kind medical facilities. Now there is only the total silence of death, interspersed with the pop-pop-pop of distant gunfire, the howl of lives cut short. The only among the fallen here that still breathes is a bishop, slumped against a broken pew. He looks up at you and in spite of his injuries, grins at you bloodily. "God... God is dead," he hisses to you, before he breathes his last. ...There is nothing you can do for him now. Picking your way across shattered tile and broken bodies, you eventually find a secret passage that has been left ajar. The walls inside are metallic, clean and sterile, and down a short corridor there is a second door, closed like a bulkhead. Above it is a screen; as you step in, the screen flips on to say SCAN IN PROGRESS... Which is when it floods the chamber with a blast of searing light that scorches the metal and singes your eyebrows. Someone's sabotaged the scanner! The 'scan' only lasts a few seconds, but you won't be able to get into the facility if you can't figure out how to turn it off. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Reckless=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The Ethos Cathedral in the Saint Heim Papal State is known to be a busy, bustling place. The Ethos after all are in possession of some of the most extensive medical facilities in the South Aquvy region, and that's even before one approaches them as a religious order and exterminator of Wels. On any other day, it would be crowded and noisy in this space--
Today, the Holy City is silent, the streets empty.
From within the cathedral of the Ethos, however... a disturbance can be heard.
It's much worse once one walks in the door. Destruction has been wrought here: the dead and the dying alike lie scattered amongst shattered pews. Most of them are far past saving.
Others are by contrast merely past saving: a bishop lies against an altar, one hand to his chest as he breathes his last.
By his side is a longhaired cat. The cat has grey fur tipped with white, yellow eyes focusing on the man as he utters his last word.
"God... God is dead..." speaks the bloody-mouthed bishop to the cat; the cat's tail twitches the once.
"Ah... yes..." replies the cat, watching him as he passes.
"Unfortunate," murmurs the cat, washing one paw a moment more. "We learns little."
With that, the cat parts from the fallen man and approaches the mechanism in the back, blazing with light.
"Was a hidden door...?" muses the cat, tilting his head to one side. His tail twitches the once, as if he were intrigued.
And then, because this cat is an asshole, he walks right on through. ...Humans might have more of a problem, though.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Silent Night.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
With the Elw teleporters now connecting Spira with Aquvy, it's possible for people--including Spirans--to traverse between the worlds of Filgaia and (technically a moon) Lunar with relative ease. There might not be as much *reason* to do so, but Tidus made a good number of friends on Filgaia who helped him and his Spiran friends out a lot when they were caught on that world, so while his prime focus is and always will be Spira (for good or ill), he sure doesn't see any harm in using the key he got from old man Cid to check up on things over on this side. And the Ethos faith is important to Marivel...
Or wait, was it that Sword Guardian...? Tidus, who grew up completely areligious, has trouble telling all these weird religions apart.
So when he comes to the Ethos Cathedral, it's with a frown. It sure doesn't look like the place Marivel took him and the others to once, though maybe it was just a different church? Either way, he's turning and about to walk away through the eerily empty streets when he hears a LOUD commotion within the church, with the unfortunately familiar pops of gunfire. Being a do-gooder at heart, Tidus shoves open the doors and rushes inside.
"Is everybody--" he shouts, and then stops dead. That's because everyone inside *is* dead, and there's no point in yelling. At least, it seems that way at first; then he notices one man still at the edge of life, and next to him, a cat. Tidus hurries over and falls to one knee next to the bishop, already reaching for a potion from his item bag.
"Hold on! Save your breath, you're gonna--"
'God... God is dead...'
"--what?"
But even though he has that potion in hand already, it's too little, too late. The man is gone. Tidus gazes at him with lips slightly apart, sadness and regret obvious in his expression.
Then the cat talks.
"Wait, *what*?" he utters, double-taking at Harmaus. "Was that--it couldn't be. Was I imagining it?"
Harmaus walks away and walks through an apparently hidden door past a mechanism. The cat comments *on* the hidden door. Tidus blinks rapidly, then rubs his eyes. By the time he's done, Harmaus isn't there anymore.
"...This is crazy," he decides, even as he gets to his feet and hurries over to inspect the mechanism. Whether he'll have any luck figuring it out is another story. Tidus is honestly likelier to trigger it to open by accident, which he might do when he pulls out a sphere to give him some better lighting with which to see the delicate details.
DG: Tidus has used his Tool Jecht Sphere toward his party's challenge, Silent Night.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Silent Night *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Ethos Cathedral in the Holy City is supposed to be a quiet, but busy place. Men and women in robes should be walking with straight backs and loaded holsters, hurrying about the business of saving lives and souls. Priests, tending to tearful, grateful supplicants. Nurses, greeting patients to the Ethos' one-of-a-kind medical facilities. Now there is only the total silence of death, interspersed with the pop-pop-pop of distant gunfire, the howl of lives cut short. The only among the fallen here that still breathes is a bishop, slumped against a broken pew. He looks up at you and in spite of his injuries, grins at you bloodily. "God... God is dead," he hisses to you, before he breathes his last. ...There is nothing you can do for him now. Picking your way across shattered tile and broken bodies, you eventually find a secret passage that has been left ajar. The walls inside are metallic, clean and sterile, and down a short corridor there is a second door, closed like a bulkhead. Above it is a screen; as you step in, the screen flips on to say SCAN IN PROGRESS... Which is when it floods the chamber with a blast of searing light that scorches the metal and singes your eyebrows. Someone's sabotaged the scanner! The 'scan' only lasts a few seconds, but you won't be able to get into the facility if you can't figure out how to turn it off. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Reckless=========================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 1 *>==================== ===========================< Results - Silent Night >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(29)--> 29 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 0 --(29)--> 29 Fail Jecht Sphere 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Conditions: Injure(2)|Reckless(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The man passes on without another word, his mouth fixed in a rictus of a grin. The wound had been a terrible one...
Of the cat there is no immediate sign. Rather instead, there is the apparently previously-well-hidden door, the light that shines from within the mechanism inside it (it's almost too bright; it feels warm when Tidus' hand draws nearer too it), and the rest of the facility beyond--
Somewhere, distantly, there's yelling. Gunfire. A scream. But first Tidus will have to pass through this barrier.
"Ah," says a voice, apparently from within the light. "It seeks understanding? But it passes not! Light is much... I thinks this," the voice continues.
There is, to Tidus' eye -- with the help of the sphere -- a slowly blinking blue light on the outside of the mechanism. Pushing it won't turn off the light. Rather, it simply dampens the brilliance a degree.
"Yet it seeks it? Ah, I does what I must."
Tidus may have a moment here to react before the mechanism simply... detonates, burning from within with a brilliant explosion.
"Now," says the voice, "it comes! Or it goes? Matters me not."
Somewhere on the other side of the hissing, sizzling broken mechanism (even the light that blinks on and off here and there can't so much as scorch Tidus thanks to him hitting that button) there sits a grey cat with a red collar...
DG: Tidus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Defense Cannon *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Ethos base is a network of winding, twisting corridors. Straight lines paired with blind, sharp corners, the place at times seems like it was designed to break up sight-lines. To thwart assault. Unfortunately, this leads to your current predicament, as one of the corridors has been set with a defensive turret. You can't tell who set it up - right now, all that matters is that as soon as you edge into the corridor ahead, you hear a gun spinning up, and then spitting bullets down the way! You'll have to think of something to disable it from here! Or else, find a way to get closer! =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Wound==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"What? Hey!" Tidus hears the cat's voice on the other side of the wall, and he bangs on it. "Can you open this thing up?"
Be careful what you wish for: an explosion of searing light follows shortly thereafter, busting the mechanism open and allowing the door to swing wide. Tidus jumps back, startled by the sudden burst of blinding heat. So much for that blinking blue light, but then, Tidus had no idea what it was for, anyway. Instead, he simply stares down at the fluffy gray cat in the red collar.
"What in the world *are* you?" he wonders slowly. He's met Seraphim before, but they've always taken human form, and besides, they couldn't walk through walls. (This was a unique property of the Via Purifico and the surrounding dungeon, but Tidus doesn't know that.) "And what're you doing here?" he adds as he looks up down... a very long and winding corridor. He frowns over his shoulder at the piles of dead bodies. Dead, but... the culprits are nowhere to be found. Did they run away through here?
...It's probably not smart to go in here by himself (talking cat or no talking cat). But he can't just let whoever did this get away with it. It's... too horrible.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," he thus grumbles, creeping inside and pulling the door shut behind him. Just in case.
It's a difficult walk; there's lots of sharp corners and twisting passages, and holding up his sphere for more light only does so much. "What *is* this place...?" he wonders quietly as the two traverse them together--just before he turns a certain corridor.
The clacking of the turret draws his attention. He jumps backwards and attempts to scruff Harmaus and haul him back too as it whirs to life and opens fire. "Woah, watch out!!" he calls whether he successfully grabs Harmaus or not. "We won't be able to get any further if we don't take that thing out!"
He looks down and around them. The sphere in his hand gives him an idea, and a small chunk of broken rock lying nearby gives him ammo. Tucking the sphere away in a pocket, Tidus grabs the rock and *hurls* it at where the turret attaches to the wall. Whether it's effective or not, well, they'll just have to see.
DG: Tidus has used his Tool Jecht Sphere toward his party's challenge, Defense Cannon.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Oh?" says the cat, looking up at Tidus with eyes that practically glitter in amusement. "It knows me not? I see..." That tail lashes the once and then, all of a sudden, the cat stands up. "I comes to investigate. Much happens here. It comes for same, yes? Then, goes we together in search of the truth! Much to find, yet. We goes and finds those yet living?"
There is, after all, still the distant sound of gunshots. Someone, somewhere, is either having a very good day or a very bad day.
...The cat is probably having a good day, to judge by the way he prances down the hallway.
"Ah? It cleans ears out and listens again!" says the cat. "Is 'Ethos Headquarters'. I learns this. Where Ethos comes and goes, where much happens that most know not. Here, back here--"
This is the point where suddenly Tidus performs a Cat Scoop and the cat makes a rather surprisingly high-pitched squeaky sound. "It unhands me!" insists the cat, struggling as Tidus stares down the turret that had just opened fire upon them. "--Ah. Machine? Is problem for it," the Seraph remarks, slipping finally from Tidus' grip...
And begins to shimmer brilliantly with the muted colors of the heavens. Yeah. His plan is apparently to brute force it...
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Defense Cannon.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Defense Cannon *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Ethos base is a network of winding, twisting corridors. Straight lines paired with blind, sharp corners, the place at times seems like it was designed to break up sight-lines. To thwart assault. Unfortunately, this leads to your current predicament, as one of the corridors has been set with a defensive turret. You can't tell who set it up - right now, all that matters is that as soon as you edge into the corridor ahead, you hear a gun spinning up, and then spitting bullets down the way! You'll have to think of something to disable it from here! Or else, find a way to get closer! =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Wound==========================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 2 *>==================== ==========================< Results - Defense Cannon >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 29 --(29)--> 58 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 29 --(12)--> 41 Pass Jecht Sphere 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 15 --(15)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Injure(1)|Reckless(2)|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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. DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - Remains of a Shootout *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you round the next corner, you hear a sudden BEEP and have only moments to duck back before a mine explodes mere inches from the corner! It looks like there's been some fighting here; bodies are strewn about. More annoyingly, it looks like someone was using a minelayer ARM of some kind; the corridor is pocked and scorched, and more importantly, there's mines all over! You'll have to watch your feet and move carefully to get through! =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Weaken=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
To investigate. Yeah, Tidus can't say he's any different. He frowns, but being used to strange speech patterns, Harmaus's way of speaking doesn't bother him now that he's gotten used to the concept of a cat talking to begin with. "Yeah. We can't let whoever shot up all those poor people get away with it," he agrees ("agrees"--Tidus is making some very generous assumptions about Harmaus here).
"The Ethos Headquarters... huh. I thought it was just a cathedral... but it makes sense they'd have their base around a cathedral," Tidus muses. "I don't like that it's all hidden away like this. Reminds me of Yevon."
A backstep happens! Tidus successfully scruffs a cat. "Sorry, sorry!" he tells Harmaus, immediately unhanding him. "But I didn't want you to get caught up in--that." He gestures towards the gunfire.
Tidus throws a rock. Harmaus casts an arte. The turret is indeed taken out of commission--after exploding and clogging up the corridor with rubble and smoke. It'll be a while before they can move onwards again, and that noise might attract unwanted trouble besides... But there's nothing for it but to keep moving onwards, at least for now.
As for Harmaus's cheerful little prance, presumably with his tail sticking high into the air, it *does* seem weird. But who understands cats? Not Tidus.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Like Yevon," murmurs the cat, eyes slitting. "Yes... around religion, most potent 'secrets' are..."
Of course the fact of that gun in the hall before them might make even their attempts to uncover what's secreted away very short ones indeed--
Or rather, it might make Tidus' short and Harmaus' difficult to get traction within. It's all well and good to be able to walk through most obstacles, and it's another thing to possibly not be able to very meaningfully affect... things. Or get lost, for that matter.
Still: it's easily handled. Scrambling right over the rubble, Harmaus proceeds, almost overeager in his pursuit. This situation is not one that he came across because he had need of its secrets, after all -- it's just one that he happened across in his own right and now cannot help but tease at.
Perhaps it may prove to be fruitful in time.
There's more debris right around the corner. Did this happen before someone deployed the large gun? In any case--
Something begins to beep very close by the cat. Turning sharply, Harmaus has enough time to consider it and
vanishes from sight as the mine detonates.
"Was close," Harmaus remarks, reappearing with a shimmer of milky starlight where he had been standing moments before. "A fight here," Harmaus remarks, glancing back at Tidus. "It looks! Is more, yet. Jaeja... such troubles," sighs the Seraph, lashing his tail in irritation. "Walking and going in, out, is... mm, tiring. I does other thing." One of the bells on his red collar tinkles prettily. It's a delicate thing, this bell: made out of porcelain and painted such a delicate shade of pale blue. It doesn't even look half real.
And bouyed by his own powers and the enchantment the bell bears, Harmaus begins to float into the air, hovering slowly across the mine-strewn hall.
"It watches its step, yes?" he says to Tidus, unhelpfully.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Remains of a Shootout.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"No kidding," Tidus mutters in agreement, thinking not just of Yevon but of the Church of Althena, too. "If they're hiding a bombshell around here too, I dunno what I'll say except, 'It figures.'"
Harmaus gets over the mound of rubble first--unsurprisingly, since, again, cat--and Tidus manages a while later, holding his breath before he braves the cloud of greasy smoke. Given that they're underground and in an enclosed space, waiting for it to disperse on its own is going to take *too* long. There's even more debris after it, albeit thankfully a small ways ahead.
Harmaus steps on something that begins to beep. He promptly vanishes. Tidus, who already has guns and explosives on the brain, snatches a chocobo feather from his item bag and tosses it in the air. It releases his magic on him (and Harmaus, technically, even if he can't be seen), and he dashes at abnormal speed forward past the mine. Hopefully he started moving fast enough for it to not send him flying ass over teakettle.
"Thanks," he grumps at the now-floating Harmaus's 'helpful' advice either way. Something about this cat is starting to rub him the wrong way.
...maybe it's just the vibe of this place getting to him. They haven't exactly been getting a warm welcome so far.
DG: Tidus has used his Tool Chocobo Feather toward his party's challenge, Remains of a Shootout.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ====================<* CHALLENGE - Remains of a Shootout *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you round the next corner, you hear a sudden BEEP and have only moments to duck back before a mine explodes mere inches from the corner! It looks like there's been some fighting here; bodies are strewn about. More annoyingly, it looks like someone was using a minelayer ARM of some kind; the corridor is pocked and scorched, and more importantly, there's mines all over! You'll have to watch your feet and move carefully to get through! =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Weaken=========================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 3 *>==================== ======================< Results - Remains of a Shootout >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 58 --(5)--> 63 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 41 --(5)--> 46 Pass Chocobo Feather 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 30 --(20)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Reckless(1)|Weaken(2)|Wound(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
To be fair, Harmaus is the sort of creature that tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way.
"It thinks sharp," remarks the cat, as it gently floats across the room. His crossing is the slower one to Tidus' speedy advance over the debris, but it's no less effective for it. Ultimately, neither of them set off any more of the mines and both come away unscathed. Touching down gently, the cat drops onto his little pawsies, takes one look back at the distance they both crossed and, with a flick of the tail, continues on.
"So it knows 'Yevon' well?" remarks Harmaus, as if he's trying to make some conversation.
It isn't as if he's just about wrapped a stint of his own in service to Maester Seymour, after all, and is now moving on because he's attained the next step in his eternal chase.
DG: Tidus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Bulkhead *>=========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The end of this hallway ends in a wide bulkhead. It is a massive, interlocked thing that's probably quite thick and definitely armored. And yet, somehow, some terrifying force has pounded a deep crack indent and crack into the center of the bulkhead. The bad news is that that's probably around here somewhere. The good news is...you can probably break through with that crack... =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Treasure====================================
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Definitely true.
Skidding to a halt safely out of detonation range, Tidus looks back down the hallway, then over at Harmaus as he lands lightly on his adorable fluffy little feet. "Thanks," he repeats, less sarcastic this time. He's... pretty sure the cat meant that last remark, anyway. "The one thing I'm definitely good at is being fast, at least," he adds, his tone joking. He's good at a few things, but not all of them are relevant in a place like this.
As they walk onwards, Harmaus asks him about Yevon. "I wouldn't say I know it *well*. But I'm close with a bunch of people who do. And..." Tidus scratches his head, thinking of how to put this. "I've seen their seedy underbelly up close and personal," he concludes.
The two turn a corner. A ways down, not too far and in clear view, is a large bulkhead, chained and interlocked and also pounded through in the middle by something that apparently could bend steel. Tidus stares at it a while.
There aren't any other ways through. Not unless you could that crack in the middle of the bulkhead. It's pretty wide, actually. Force it a little wider open and maybe he could even squeeze through.
Of course, the problem is that Tidus only has his plain muscles to try the forcing, but, hell. When his only company is a cat that can walk through walls, what other choice does he have?
DG: Tidus has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bulkhead.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Quick-footed is it? Useful to be, I has found," Harmaus remarks, glancing up at Tidus before trotting along through the battle-scar-ridden halls. "Good defense is well, but best finds I... not struck at all!"
Still, Harmaus asks after Yevon, seeking perhaps still something about the subject that matters only to him.
"Ah. It knows it only passing-wise," muses the cat, pausing now and then to investigate the walls. "But it knows those that does? Hmmm... then it sees much, still," remarks Harmaus, stopping to actually look at Tidus again. "'Underbelly' is common in relgion, finds I. It seeks more. Rips free secrets! Then, it has truths. ...Even if," and the cat comes to a stop before the cracked bulkhead, peering now at the rend in its surface, "what it finds is... unpleasant."
The glass bell at the cat's throat chimes the once. It glows with an inner light, the distant shimmer of a dying star, nearly.
"Nature of truth is... unpleasant. But," remarks the cat, staring at the door as the bell at his throat lifts with the power surging within it, as the Seraph himself begins to float with the force bundling within him, "better it knows. Better pain than lies!"
A pure white light beams from the Seraph's throat, then, straight for the bulkhead.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Prism Bell toward his party's challenge, Bulkhead.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Bulkhead *>=========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The end of this hallway ends in a wide bulkhead. It is a massive, interlocked thing that's probably quite thick and definitely armored. And yet, somehow, some terrifying force has pounded a deep crack indent and crack into the center of the bulkhead. The bad news is that that's probably around here somewhere. The good news is...you can probably break through with that crack... =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Treasure====================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 4 *>==================== =============================< Results - Bulkhead >============================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 63 --(29)--> 92 Fail Prism Bell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 46 --(29)--> 75 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 50 --(15)--> 65 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Overzealous(2)|Treasure(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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. DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Investiture *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Etone limps towards you, hand held against the wound in their side. They still hold in their free hand an ARM. "I don't... want..." they slur, head lolling for the moment as they struggle against whatever force has taken them, their ARM slowly jerking upwards to aim almost drunkenly at the lot of you. "Azazel is... I don't. Don't..." they utter again, as the world about you twists and tilts on its axis, as the hall seems to converge and pull apart in the same instant, and as they, puppeted by whatever power rides them, begin their attack on you. You'll have to defend yourself. But is there some way to also save this person? =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Slow=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"For sure," Tidus says in agreement, nodding down at the cat with a smile. "Dodge fast, strike fast, and you'll get it done fast! You don't need to slice through thick armor in one swoop if you can poke holes in its chinks and move out of the way before they hit you back!" Isn't that right, AURON.
"Passing... Yeah, I guess so. I've been dealing with them for a while, but just as an outsider looking in. And I was never interested in being one, either." He didn't even pray at the statue on Besaid Island--just hung back and watched the others. It felt dishonest to pray to something he didn't believe in, after all. He nods to Harmaus when he weighs in on religions and seedy underbellies, then starts working on trying to pry that bulkhead further apart. It doesn't go well. He can barely register what the cat is saying. Or that white light that beams towaAAAAAH
...
They'll proceed after Tidus patches up his wounds with some potions. Moving fast doesn't help much if you make yourself a sitting duck, as it turns out.
"Better pain than lies, huh," he does muse once they finally move on. "Yeah... I get what you mean." His thoughts cast back to the Summoner's Chamber, deep below Home, and the truths he learned there. "The truth *can* hurt, but--I'm definitely better off knowing than not knowing."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
It may come as some consolation that Harmaus, at least, doesn't make any remarks when Tidus also gets caught up in the SERAPH BEAM as it were.
Some small consolation, anyway.
"Pain is short. Ignorance is long," says Harmaus instead as they continue on in the aftermath (the fact of the matter being that Harmaus probably could have helped with the young man's wounds and... not doing that perhaps going under the radar...). "Truth is ideal. Once it knows truth, it corrects, ah, can correct. Much doing needed once truth known..."
But are the ends justified by the means?
They hear footsteps, the both of them.
"Ah. Friend or foe? It answers, now!" calls the cat, and out of the shadows of the hallway lurches a wounded Etone. She's acting... oddly. One hand pressed against her side, she gasps out a name, utters again that
"I don't-- please--"
Her other hand jerkily lifts an ARM towards the both of them, its muzzle dancing between Tidus and the far wall. When the first shot comes, it screams past Tidus' head but--
What about the second?
"Jaeja," utters the cat, and there is a delicate chime from his collar. The tiny silver bell is ringing...
"Be still," says Harmaus, and the chime that echoes and echoes and echoes, even against the world twisting about and in on itself, seems to evoke exactly that.
A calm. An eternal calm.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Investiture.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Pain is short. Ignorance is long. It's a strange way of putting it, but... Tidus nods thoughtfully. "Yeah. You're right," he tells him. "Just knowing the truth isn't enough. You've got to use what you learned to make things right." His gaze goes momentarily misty, thoughts returning to that night in the Macalania Forest pond. He smiles briefly, then shakes his head to bring himself back to the present. "You're all right, cat."
He might feel differently if he knew that Harmaus could have helped heal him but didn't. But he doesn't know that, does he? And the truth is lost to the darkness.....
Footsteps up ahead. Tidus widens his stance and drops his hand to the hilt of his sword. "Who's there? Did you shoot up those people up above?" he demands. However, what comes into view is a wounded Etone. Tidus blinks, then starts moving towards her. "Woah, hey! What happened? Are you okay?" he asks--just before she utters some weird and frankly disturbing things, then points a gun at him. It's thanks mostly to her extremely shaky grip that she misses, because Tidus is definitely shocked.
Still, there's something--wrong. It's like she's not even in control of her own body. When he recovers mentally, he casts a Hastega spell on himself, then a Waterga spell on her. Hopefully the water will wreck her ARM and bog her down enough that they can knock her out peacefully, or at least get her to stop attacking so they can ask her What The Heck. To that end, Tidus hurls a hi-ether from the Baskar village, allowing it to shower its MP-restoring goodness over him and Harmaus both.
"There's something wrong with her! Try not to hurt her too bad--maybe she knows something!" he tells Harmaus, just in case. Better to make sure they're both on the same page than assume a cat wouldn't go in for the kill.
DG: Tidus has used his Tool Baskar Hi-Ether toward his party's challenge, Investiture.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Investiture *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The Etone limps towards you, hand held against the wound in their side. They still hold in their free hand an ARM. "I don't... want..." they slur, head lolling for the moment as they struggle against whatever force has taken them, their ARM slowly jerking upwards to aim almost drunkenly at the lot of you. "Azazel is... I don't. Don't..." they utter again, as the world about you twists and tilts on its axis, as the hall seems to converge and pull apart in the same instant, and as they, puppeted by whatever power rides them, begin their attack on you. You'll have to defend yourself. But is there some way to also save this person? =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Slow=============================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 5 *>==================== ===========================< Results - Investiture >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 92 --(5)--> 97 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 75 --(5)--> 80 Pass Baskar Hi-Ether 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Overzealous(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Tidus has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Holy Night *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- From the sound of it, you're getting closer to the center of the chaos unfolding within the Ethos Headquarters. Soon, you can even see and smell the fresh signs of battle: bullet holes in the walls, the scent of gunpowder in the air. Blood. You catch sight of him soon after: a grizzled man in perhaps his mid-thirties, taking cover behind a sharp corner between the shots he takes around it. He's not an Etone, that's for sure -- he doesn't have the look or bearing of one. Some of you might recognize him as none other than Jessie Black. At his feet lies a fallen Etone, ARM resting mere inches from his hand. At a closer look you'll realize this one is still breathing - the Etone is injured but not dead. Bullets fly from around the corner. Someone -- or more likely, some/ones/ -- are holding their ground from down the hallway there. "Well?" asks Jessie, without even looking at you. "You gonna fight or gawk?" He ducks out to take another shot. ...The people he's shooting at aren't Etones, either. Dressed in black body armor, as if they were prepared for a stealth assignment of some sort, they don't quite look like any force you've seen before. And they'll shoot you all the same, if you let them. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
This may be the highest praise someone has spoken of Harmaus in some time.
In time, Tidus may well change his opinion on the matter. But for the present, though--
The Etone is struggling with something. Some force seems to be almost puppeting her, forcing her -- even in her poor condition -- to attack the two of them. Or, at least, attacking Tidus (maybe she's not really parsing the cat as a combatant just yet?) as that bullet that goes flying past his head suggests.
The tone rings long throughout the hallway; it seems to assert some order of its own upon the Etone and the whatever force is here lingering. For an instant, she lowers her ARM.
This is where Tidus and his spell intrude. What with the condition she's currently in, she goes down like a felled pine tree, the ARM scattering from her grip. From there disarming her for good is easy.
"Azazel... Azazel is... I don't... feel him now..." she whispers, closing her eyes the once. "The others are... save the others. They came for us all..."
After which she succumbs, falling into a swoon. With a little quick first-aid Tidus (Harmaus has begun to hurry ahead, after the louder sounds of a fight nearby) will be able to keep her from bleeding out, but she'll need proper treatment before long.
...Perhaps, after he's able to get to the heart of what's going on down here.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
The highest praise Harmaus has received in some time, and it's the result of an uninformed opinion. It's fine! Tidus will learn better, probably sooner rather than later.
Together, Harmaus and Tidus manage to peacefully neutralize the injured Etone. He does feel bad about attacking her, but of all the moves he's got, water magic is a lot less harmful than, well, stabbing her with a sword. When she crumples, he kicks her ARM out of reach and catches her. Hopefully she doesn't have a knife on her... but no--it looks like she's free of whatever was controlling her.
"What the heck is Azazel?" he asks--but it looks like she doesn't have the strength to stay awake. Tidus purses his lips, then nods. "All right. We'll do our best. You just stay here and rest."
Which she will, like it or not. Tidus is no healer, but he does know enough basic first aid to bandage her wounds, and he does have plenty of potions and hi-potions on him, being the one who carries the basic items around (Rikku and Yuna split the *good* stuff). After having her drink the healing liquid, he lays her down carefully, then hurries on ahead, wishing Yuna were here. It might be smart to go back and get more people, but they've come so far, and he can definitely hear more gun firing up ahead, and close. Continuing to press onwards might well end up the difference between life and death for some people. After all, that lady did just ask him to save the others.
And others there are: another injured Etone fallen on the floor, and some guy Tidus doesn't know, exchanging fire with some other folks further down. "What the hell is going on?" he hisses, hurrying over to the fallen Etone. Still breathing--he'll give them the potion-and-makeshift-tourniquets treatment too.
The grizzled man doesn't look at either of them; he only fires on the opponents further in, in between ducking behind cover and reloading his ARM when bullets come back. While he's clearly no Etone, he's just as clearly not an enemy of the Etones. "Well?" he growls. "You gonna fight or gawk?" And then he pops out to open fire again.
Tidus looks up. The strange man's opponents are people dressed in black body armor--not Etones either, and carrying plenty of deadly heat. It's not a stretch of the imagination to expect they're the ones behind the carnage up above. "Oh, I'm fighting, all right," he growls, rising to his feet and casting a Hastega spell, this time on all three of them. "You can count on it!"
After all, it might not be smart to bring a sword to a gunfight, but if you can speed everyone on your side up so fast they can run--and attack--faster than the enemy can pull their trigger, it might not matter. Either way, Tidus uses up the last of that earlier hi-ether up on himself and Harmaus, then starts spamming Watergas before running out and giving them a good swording while they're trying to recover from the hail of water and bullets.
DG: Tidus has used his Tool Baskar Hi-Ether toward his party's challenge, Holy Night.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Harmaus is there ahead of him. Waiting, in fact, just a short distance away from the man with the shotgun. Just the once, the cat prods the fallen Etone, as if to see if he's well and truly out of it or still with them. It appears to be the former given that even needling the man's face doesn't rouse him--
"Unconscious," announces Harmaus.
"A cat, huh," drawls the scar-faced man in the longcoat. "Now I've seen damn near everything." This, as he readies his ARM and prepares to take another shot at the group firing upon him (well, them, now) and Tidus makes his approach.
"We move quickly," says Harmaus as the man asks his question, and darts out from around the corner.
He wonders, idly, if the ones in the black body armor can even see him.
Perhaps they can hear the bell ringing at his throat. It's just a single sound against the cacophany, an eternal note that carries into the universe with a single urgent request.
Be quiet. Be quiet. Lie down and be still.
Rest.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Holy Night.
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Holy Night *>========================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- From the sound of it, you're getting closer to the center of the chaos unfolding within the Ethos Headquarters. Soon, you can even see and smell the fresh signs of battle: bullet holes in the walls, the scent of gunpowder in the air. Blood. You catch sight of him soon after: a grizzled man in perhaps his mid-thirties, taking cover behind a sharp corner between the shots he takes around it. He's not an Etone, that's for sure -- he doesn't have the look or bearing of one. Some of you might recognize him as none other than Jessie Black. At his feet lies a fallen Etone, ARM resting mere inches from his hand. At a closer look you'll realize this one is still breathing - the Etone is injured but not dead. Bullets fly from around the corner. Someone -- or more likely, some/ones/ -- are holding their ground from down the hallway there. "Well?" asks Jessie, without even looking at you. "You gonna fight or gawk?" He ducks out to take another shot. ...The people he's shooting at aren't Etones, either. Dressed in black body armor, as if they were prepared for a stealth assignment of some sort, they don't quite look like any force you've seen before. And they'll shoot you all the same, if you let them. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Wound============================================
===================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack - Round 6 *>==================== ============================< Results - Holy Night >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 97 --(17)--> 114 Fail Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tidus 80 --(5)--> 85 Pass Baskar Hi-Ether 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 85 --(35)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Seraph Harmaus is too exhausted to continue! DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has successfully explored Ethos Headquarters Attack!
========================<* Ethos Headquarters Attack *>========================= ===================<* CHALLENGE - Libera Eas De Ore Leonis *>=================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Prevailing over the black-armored individuals, your triumph enables you to press on into the room beyond this one, with Jessie leading the way. What you see within may come as a slight shock, however: in contrast to the halls beyond, this chamber holds an advanced computer system. Rather than monitors, it projects images onto the walls above the consoles proper: you can see at a glance maps of Filgaia, of Aquvy, of the Ignas region. Of... what look like troop movements on the Kislev and Aveh sides of the field, in the latter? Jessie shoulders his shotgun against his shoulder. "Figured they had something like this... one moment." Moving over to one of the consoles, he spends a moment doing something with its controls. "...There. Heh. So that's why." The text that scrawls across the various projections is voluminous... and in Solarian. "Those dumbasses," Jessie remarks, gesturing at the text. "...Don't look at me like that. Of course I can read it. I was born there." Without so much as skipping a beat, he continues, "I guess you could call 'em Solaris' go-fers or something. They monitor and manipulate the surface-dwellers. Have been for centuries. But that ain't why they're up shit creek today." He points at a section of text and after a second of this, waves his hand dismissively. "...Anyway, they're planning a schism. Or were. I'd wager that's the reason we're havin' all this," and here he gestures back out towards the hallway. "Solaris likes cleanin' up its messes. If it weren't for my boy I'd let 'em--" The door in the back slides open, revealing none other than Bishop Stone... flanked by a number of black-armored individuals and others, besides. "Jesiah," he says, his glasses glittering in the light. "I had thought that seemed like 'your handiwork'." Jessie scowls. "I knew it... you ain't changed a bit from back then. Have you... Stein?" TO BE CONTINUED (OOC: You have earned a buff of Hyper and 20 FP in the fight taking place in the scene Cindered Shadows! Let Staff know before that scene!) =Dungeon Conditions: Secret, Save Point=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Between Tidus's speed-up spellwork, Harmaus's soporific bell tones, and Jesse's gunmanship, the black-armored combatants honestly don't stand a chance. Tidus isn't about to kill them outright--but Jessie may or may not be so kind-hearted. Either way, they are not a problem as the three move onwards. Tidus will definitely have to get help for the fallen, injured Etones, though.
Those thoughts dash from him once they step into the next chamber and see some extremely advanced technology. Of course, for Tidus, who hails from Zanarkand, an extremely advanced city, it's like walking into a room back home for a moment. "What in the--?" he utters, staring at the images projected on the walls. Whether Jessie or Harmaus understand the reason for his surprise, no one will know, because Jessie strides forward to use one of the console controls like he's used to it. He even pulls down some strange text, then gestures at it and explains its meaning. Which is all well and good until some more of those black-armored guys come in--along with an Etone...
Tidus stares back and forth between everyone. "What the heck is going on here??" he utters.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah..." murmurs the cat, gaze flitting from screen to screen as he takes in the sight of all the information--
all the secrets
--flowing before them. Indeed, Harmaus' presence may well fade into the background here as he settles in to glean what he can.
And then quite literally fade mere moments before they're joined in the room by Bishop Stone... and others from Solaris.
Truly, for Tidus, this is out of the frying pan and into the fire.