2021-04-23: Siddim Canyon (Side B)
- Log: Siddim Canyon (Side B)
- Cast: Seraph Boudicca, Ida Everstead-Rey, Venetia Vuong, Ruth Pauling
- Where: Celesti Wastelands
- Date: April 23, 2021
- Summary: A Malevolent Domain that has formed from Siddim Canyon in Northern Zoara needs be addressed... and the story of the ill-fated village that fell in the late years of the Celesti Civil War is told. Several teams descend upon the location to deal with it - and its Domain Master, should they be present. This scene ICly takes place on May 1st, 503 PC. (Second of five runs.)
============================<* Celesti Wastelands *>============================ Decades ago, the nation of Celesti ripped itself apart in a vicious civil war. Outside of a handful of settlements, its former territories are lifeless. The remains of trenches, bunkers, and barbed wire lines serve as lingering reminders of the conflict--scars that have yet to heal. The earth is dry and barren, and much of the groundwater has been contaminated by biological or chemical weapons. Travel through the Wastelands is treacherous. The roads are pockmarked with shell craters, and Reapers have been known to haunt its blasted plains. A handful of functional rail lines cross the wastes, but these travel directly to their final destinations. The shattered remains of ghost towns dot the landscape. Some may yet hold things of value, but experienced travelers know better than to go treasure-hunting on a whim. The war-dead of Celesti do not rest. Ghosts aren't even the strangest things one can find here. As the war dragged on, both the Congressional Knights and Aquvy Union dug up ancient weapons to aid their efforts--including, it's rumored, ARMs from Zeboim. These rumors draw both the daring and desperate into the wastes, and more often than not, to their end. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HwM11d2FQ DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Gentlewoman Adventurer Ida!
DG: A party led by Seraph Boudicca is now entering Siddim Canyon.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - The Knocking on Death's Door *>=================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The trail you've followed takes you to Siddim Canyon - and sure enough,
there's that whiff of Malevolence within. A powerful Hellion is - or has -
been here, away from the remnants of society that dot the Celesti landscape.
The ambient Malevolence carries the distinct feelings of guilt and regret.
You don't get much time to appreciate it (...in a sense), as you are
interrupted by the sound of four cracks of a gunsmoke rifle. There are no
bullets whizzing by, no sound of something being impacted. There's enough
boulders and rocks along the way you can move to for cover, and you might
want to do so to be safe. By the time you figure out whether or not the
source of those four shots might be trying to shoot at you, it may be too
late.
(NOTE: Failure only indicates your team taking a long time to learn they are
in the clear.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Slow=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
May 1st, 503 PC. Several terrible things have happened one after another about St. Heim - but right now, this is a problem that can be addressed promptly, and should. Hellionized wildlife tried to descend upon Port Rosalia, but four years after Port Timney's own problems, the Drifter community a) knows what's going on, b) has several individuals capable of dealing with the source of it, and c) have a few more extra years of power, experience, and better equipment for handling this sort of thing.
'Uncle Abe,' a feared corporate enforcer (read: an Employee-of-the-Forever among hired thugs), broke down completely on seeing those creatures. A survivor of one of far too many ghastly events of the Celesti Civil War, he's able to get everyone to where the suspected Malevolent Domain lies via a handy map - but he doesn't come with them. He doesn't want anything more to do with his memories of what happened there.
Those intimately familiar with Malevolence can 'smell' it (no, in this region it's all uppercase - SMELL it) before they can pick up any other sensory perception of the spiritual venom. The guilt, the shame, the regret - all of it pooling together about Siddim Canyon before them. Filgaia's weakened spiritual ecosystem makes it all too easy for a Hellion (...or Hellions?) to set up shop and spread their influence. How long it's been here, how powerful its Master(s?) are... that's a lot harder to gauge than it would be on Lunar. Siddim, long since destroyed, has had no reason for anyone to ever come up here. Until now.
As the team approaches, there are suddenly four booms of a gunsmoke sniper rifle. They're distant, but... not distant enough for anyone to safely assume they're not being targeted. No bullets whizz by, no streaks are seen, no impacts are heard. Various terrain features can make for useful cover while making the approach, and figuring out how much danger they're in from the jump.
If any. One can never be too sure in a Domain.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
There are some gifts, you see, that are given too much --
The Seraph Boudicca was grateful, to Uncle Abe; she could not fault him his hesitancy, but his map has proved deeply useful for her and her friends, coming here. (She has specifically requested the aid of her mighty companion, the illustrious VENETIA VUONG, so that Boudicca would have additional sorcerous support on this dangerous journey; while Ida and Dean are capable ARM-wielders with considerable martial might, Boudicca knows the power of a well-placed spell, too.)
The metaphysical presence of Malevolence is a strange beast, of course; at times a tickle at the back of the neck, at times a pounding in the ears. And now, it seems, invasive to the nose, as Boudicca's wrinkles, on the approach to the Domain. (They're making the final approach on foot, though perhaps a car took them most of the way here.) "It grows thick," says the spirit, as if she has just encountered something a little queasy, "it gathers here..."
She reaches up, fingers pressing against the ribbon through her dark hair, and shakes her head. "Its beginnings are unclear to me," she says, a little less fey about the edges, "but sooth this is the Domain, just as Uncle Abe has said. We must --"
BANG, reports the rifle.
"Er," Boudicca interrupts herself, looking about like a groundhog trying to find its shadow. "Perhaps this is a poor environment for --"
BANG BANG, reports the rifle, and Boudicca stops giving her long-winded speeches in favour of crushing some leaves and releasing wind magic to help everyone hurry off to cover.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Breezeruffle Leaves toward her party's challenge, The Knocking on Death's Door.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
To say Ida has had a rough week is putting it mildly. Stone's betrayal--and the subsequent chain of events--wounded her both physically and emotionally. She's still recovering from her injuries. She's afraid for her family. She might think of herself as a lapsed Granasite, but the Church has been gutted, and good people died because of Solaris' machinations.
So why is she here, willingly walking into a Malevolent Domain? Boudicca asked, of course, but there's far more to it than that. It's difficult for her to picture 'Uncle' Abe as a victim of anything, but whatever happened at Siddim traumatized him. Something happened there, and Ida's betting that precise 'something' made it fertile ground for Malevolence. Ida has her duty. And more importantly, she has to get back on the horse somehow.
Ida follows Boudicca closely, clad in her freshly-repaired trenchcoat and light body armor. She raises her head to scent the air as Boudicca comments on the Malevolence. Like a somellier testing the bouquet of a bottle of wine, she analyzes it for its intensity, elemental aspects, and associated emotions.
"Regret," Ida murmurs. "Guilt--"
BANG
"Sniper," Ida hisses, and as she does, she's in motion. She reaches out to grab for Dean and Venetia, possibly dragging them after her as she throws herself to the ground behind a boulder. Bright green lights dance like fireflies at her heels. Boudicca's helpful breeze gains a ferocious crosswind; any sniper has to calculate for wind, after all, at such great distances.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, The Knocking on Death's Door.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Venetia Vuong has been... busy. She has been... researching. Something arcane. She had to regrow some blood, obviously, but that was a while ago. People who have spoken to her have said she has seemed frustrated, in a specific way beyond her somewhat bad attitude in general.
It was mostly in Guild Galad. But she was glad to get out there with Boudicca.
BANG
"Well, that's awful," Venetia says, having dived for a rock the moment she heard the first gunshot. The rock has since harbored her almost entire, curled up like a squished-up ball of biscuit dough. "I don't think, E-R dear, that that's an emotion, though! Bit of a break in the series, eh?"
Moments pass.
"I don't think I heard any ricochets," Venetia advances, hesitantly. "Perhaps they're firing in the other direction? See if you can spot a ladder or a nest or something. Just be, quiet, about it, I suppose."
Venetia has gotten out her own gun, but it's a pistol, and despite propaganda from the COUGAR unit, you actually can't get reliable accuracy with a pistol past like ... ten yards? Twenty maybe if you're really strong? Unless you're REALLY cool, obviously... and Venetia is not that cool.
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Knocking on Death's Door.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
=================<* CHALLENGE - The Knocking on Death's Door *>=================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The trail you've followed takes you to Siddim Canyon - and sure enough,
there's that whiff of Malevolence within. A powerful Hellion is - or has -
been here, away from the remnants of society that dot the Celesti landscape.
The ambient Malevolence carries the distinct feelings of guilt and regret.
You don't get much time to appreciate it (...in a sense), as you are
interrupted by the sound of four cracks of a gunsmoke rifle. There are no
bullets whizzing by, no sound of something being impacted. There's enough
boulders and rocks along the way you can move to for cover, and you might
want to do so to be safe. By the time you figure out whether or not the
source of those four shots might be trying to shoot at you, it may be too
late.
(NOTE: Failure only indicates your team taking a long time to learn they are
in the clear.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Slow=============================================
=========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 1 *>========================== ===================< Results - The Knocking on Death's Door >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Breezeruffle Leaves 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Boudicca 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca 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: Seraph Boudicca has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
===============<* CHALLENGE - For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls *>===============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You hear the sounds of gathering wildlife, but the timing couldn't be any
better. You can make out an abandoned building that has all the hallmarks of
being a small church of Granas. No door bars your path. From inside, the
place looks... completely untouched at all, which is odd as it is the best
functional shelter from the elements here. A large bell is within reach just
up a staircase, and appears intact enough to be able to be rung.
There's a pressure - an urge - trying to convince you to leave. Like it'
doesn't want to set foot in there to begin with. You get a sense it fears
the bell most of all, and that idea may prove useful. If you can ring it, it
will repel any oncoming wildlife - as if this discomfort is shared by all
who have succumbed to the Domain. Such an act will prove an emotional drain
as much as it is a physical one.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Exhaust==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The cautionary steps are taken. The breeze kicks up and shifts around the sense of shame and regret, as a helpful crosswind is formed to try and disrupt any further ability of a theoretical sniper from being able to hit at this distance - unless they can calculate successfully for a localized freak set of gusts to throw off a shot.
Such a shot is never taken. Boudicca will not sense the presence of another soul, and Venetia's observation about the lack of ricochets gives a new possibility: if someone is here and shooting, they aren't shooting this way. Could it be another team? (It's unlikely, because that ARM's sound is not like any that anyone in the usual circles use.) Those four bangs - like knocks on a door - do not come back.
They don't find a ladder or anything else leading to a would-be nest, so... they're not here.
They can hear the running of a distant river through here, and - aside from the pervasive Malevolence - appreciate that there is still ample greenery in this part of what was once Celesti. So much land has been lost to war. This part could support life again - and once did, comfortably, going by an abandoned building up ahead with faded but legible signs that this was once a house of worship for Granas.
Also, on the subject of supporting life: there's wildlife. They're the same general shapes seen in the attack that came close to Port Rosalia - the sphinxes, the lion-dogs, and so forth. They are fast approaching, and that church is the best cover available. The door is not locked, they can just run right in there and reposition.
From the doorway, it's intact enough to be viable shelter from the elements, but it doesn't seem as though anyone has been of the mind to use it as such. It's all untouched. There's still so many useful items and supplies, that the presumed Hellion occupant(s) just never got around to acquiring. Up a staircase, a large bell with an attached rope. It could be rung.
The pressure of the Domain increases significantly for anyone that sets foot in there. It can't be put into words, but the feeling is there. It doesn't want anyone to be there. (...as if it doesn't want to be there itself?) The shame. The guilt. Like it doesn't... deserve that sanctuary. To hear the sound of that bell.
Is this a sentiment shared by the wildlife? If so, ringing this bell might give them all space to breathe, but the discomfort grows ever harsher the closer they approach (which may mean that yes, this is something worth doing if the Domain doesn't want you to, historically speaking).
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
This isn't a pleasant task, ahead of them; regardless it is a task, and more to the point a task they have a duty to attend
(Boudicca wasn't here to attend to Solaris's crimes, though she was suitably horrified when she heard of them. She was busy with... something about orphans in Djose and some suspicious figures. Who knows what Boudicca does half the time she's not here? It's probably a fun little side-adventure with NPCs which doesn't involve any murder whatsoever.)
"The other direction..?" Boudicca echoes Venetia, looking out once Ida's crosswind has provided some confounding protection. "I do not... see any evidence, but... perhaps over here..?" Off she goes to investigate further towards the river, only to find a lion-dog which was resting behind one of those rocks.
"PERHAPS THIS WAY INSTEAD," Boudicca corrects herself, scrambling back and running away from the wildlife she's alerted, towards--!!
Oh, good. Church. That's going to make Ida feel much better.
But Boudicca doesn't have much time to apologise as she opens the door and hurries them in. Her teeth grit, lips pulling long over them, like the grimace of the sphinx whose burning question would appear to simply be 'but how do Seraphim TASTE?'; it is the precise expression of someone who has been hit in the face with a brick, and also hit everywhere else, with several additional bricks. "How... alarmingly familiar."
She glances to Ida, and adds: "Are you all right?"
(Because it's familiar for a reason.)
Her fingers twitch and in the moment which follows she finds the strength to raise her hand, grasping the brazier made from her erstwhile claws. With Moor Gault's fire she lights the coals within, sparking reassuring smoke and heat. "This guilt," she insists, "is not ours. Let us press forward and demonstrate." And perhaps, with that torch, the bravery can be a little easier.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Bestial Brazier toward her party's challenge, For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Not being shot at: Good.
The rest...
Venetia has not had much chance to deal with Malevolence at length. She has never been to Aveh and when she eventually does go to Aveh she is going to call it bad names, probably, because she knows where the best places on Filgaia are, even if she tries not to be too much of an ass about it; but the point here, dear readers, is that Venetia Vuong never saw Krosse.
She moves hastily, under the guidance of Boudicca, as she feels-- something. Something in the air. A feeling. Venetia understands that much at least. There is a sense here, like that subtle sense in an old building. Venetia could swear she's felt it in the library but perhaps it's all in her head? In her head there. Here, of course, it's more objective.
It reminds Venetia clearly of the helplessness she had felt in the *insufficiency* of -- but never mind that, not for now. The fire burns enough for her to breathe once in, and once out. Demonstrate, Venetia thinks. What does Boudi mean by -
Her eyes turn up towards the bell. Behind her lace mask, they widen. Venetia had been reaching into her hip pouch for a Crest Graph, and indeed was holding one - though the pattern was turned inwards, so it wasn't clear which one. She pauses, and she puts it back into the pouch, her finger running over the smooth bronze of its back, as she gazes up at:
"Do you want to know something funny, Boudicca?" Venetia says, as she shrugs the hip-back in which she carries her graphs and bits and pieces. She sets it on top of a pew laden with crates, pausing for just a moment - but the ten pounds or so of gear do not make the difference between 'a Granasi pew' and 'a bunch of burnable wood.' After this she unbuttons the sleeves of her travelling dress and rolls them up all the way, past her biceps.
"I recognize it," Venetia says. "Not the... Malevolence, exactly. That feels like I'm being teased at school by someone I can't hit. No, I mean up there. That's a Three-Ay, that is. Do you want to know why I'm calling it that? Weird name for a bell," she continues as she strides forwards, fingers clenching into fists, "I know, but here's the wonderful thing: Do you know where the greatest bronze foundries of the world USED to be?"
"Just downstairs from where I grew up," she continues, before gripping the bell rope firmly and up high.
"If we were at leisure I'd climb up and check the maker marks on it, but I suppose there's no time for it. So hie, ye devils, because you're not riding up the back of some glib Drifter with a hole in his pocket," Venetia says as she pushes herself up on her tip toes. "Against your blandishments stands a student of Chau and Bulman! So --"
Venetia pauses, on the veritable cue of some sort of great emphatic thing. "This is actually a very big one, here," this more towards Ida, "d'you want in on this action, it might rip loose."
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Stygian Crest Graph toward her party's challenge, For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida laughs at Venetia's joke as she lies behind her rock, but it's strained. She's too busy counting the shots, glancing around as much as she can--that is a big gun, and no one's wounded, but she doesn't see so much as a scratch on the landscape. No bullet holes. No tracks in the earth. After a moment, Ida undoes the straps on her pack, and lifts it just above the rock. Nothing happens.
"You're right," Ida says, to Venetia. "I don't think that anyone was firing." And to prove it, Ida rises, and absolutely nothing happens. "Four shots," she remarks. There's only three of them. It's possible that they aren't the targets, but Ida looks around and doesn't see anything beyond a dilapidated structure in the distance.
She glances over in Boudicca's direction just in time to see the Lion Dog poke its head up.
One hair-raising sprint later, Ida slams the church door shut and bars it with a heavy plank--one that was apparently left around for that purpose. The door rattles as the Hellions pound against it, but it holds for now.
Boudicca asks a question. Ida shakes her head. "No," she says. "I haven't been, since St. Heim." She looks up and into the nave of the church, where the great bell rests. She tries not to think about the bodies, and the blood--about Father Xiao's dying request. She still has to tell her mother.
"You're right, though," Ida says. She walks up to the bell, the stairs creaking beneath her feet. As she draws closer, the presence grows more intense. "I don't think we should leave," she says to Venetia. "Why should we?" This is an act of defiance as much as it is one of practicality.
A pause. "...Void 47?" Ida says the word as if it's the name of a dead man. "Then let's give it its proper due, one last time." There are no striking implements nearby. Instead, Ida draws back her fist, and introduces bare knuckles to fine cast bronze with as much force as she can muster.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
===============<* CHALLENGE - For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls *>===============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You hear the sounds of gathering wildlife, but the timing couldn't be any
better. You can make out an abandoned building that has all the hallmarks of
being a small church of Granas. No door bars your path. From inside, the
place looks... completely untouched at all, which is odd as it is the best
functional shelter from the elements here. A large bell is within reach just
up a staircase, and appears intact enough to be able to be rung.
There's a pressure - an urge - trying to convince you to leave. Like it'
doesn't want to set foot in there to begin with. You get a sense it fears
the bell most of all, and that idea may prove useful. If you can ring it, it
will repel any oncoming wildlife - as if this discomfort is shared by all
who have succumbed to the Domain. Such an act will prove an emotional drain
as much as it is a physical one.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Exhaust==========================================
=========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 2 *>========================== =================< Results - For Whatever Else The Bell Tolls >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(13)--> 13 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 0 --(13)--> 13 Pass Bestial Brazier 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 0 --(13)--> 13 Pass Stygian Crest Graph 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Boudicca 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Fright(1)|Slow(1)|Suffer(1) Effects: Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca 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: Seraph Boudicca has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Earthbound Dead *>========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The lost nation of Celesti is swarmed by the restless dead like few other
places on Filgaia. Siddim is hardly any different in that regard, as spirits
and reanimated corpses turn the corner and aggress with the same antipathy
for the living as any other - so consumed by torment without discord in
their lingering feelings, they give no ear to the surrounding Malevolence.
Most of the corporeal ones appear to have met their end by ARMs fire, and
none of them are fresh. The most astute among your party may notice instead
that some of the wounds' inflicted are recent - bullets can be retrieved
from them once put down. All of them come from the same kind of gunsmoke
ARM: a sniper rifle.
It appears honest attempts were made by the perpetrator to see them on their
way to the Garden of Toldoka, the afterlife set aside for those who suffer
beyond death in the teachings of St. Calucion - but it will be by your
party's hands that they can find peace.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Treasure========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Boudicca leads the way, and as she ascends she can sense there's other Hellions starting to gather upon the roof of the lost church. Beyond a window, a brightly-colored hawk - a Simurgh - flaps reinvigoring wings of hatred while screeching, joined by a pestilence-bearing Caladrius (a white-bodied vulture). But they don't throw themselves inside, even if the vulnerability is there.
Venetia and Ida together ascend, Ventia grabbing the rope. It doesn't feel fragile or frayed, for its age. As Ida rears back her fist and fights against the gloom of the Domain, the lingering feelings of whoever (however many whoevers) calls this place theirs, the bell rings its loud, deafening gong-like echo as its lip collides against the construction that houses it, recoils, and rings again.
The rope holds. A spike of shame stabs through the atmosphere... but the Hellionized creatures outside scatter. The aforementioned Simurgh and Caladrius Hellions, Boudicca can see, perch somewhere around the canyon walls and continue to stare - but their gazes lower away. There is never a feeling of comfort that comes from doing so, but the actual physical danger - this one - has passed. (If Venetia is curious, she can see that the maker... wow, this bell's got a famous name attached to it, maybe even the name she was referring to, the sort that does not come cheap to humble villages. A gift from someone extraordinarily rich?)
The team continues along through other similar ruins of the village. There are small, humble homes. They were small, humble homes. Now they're rubble. Burnt out, collapsed... the Civil War did not discriminate as to where it was waged. As cliche and dismissive as it may sound, the horror isn't that it happened here.
The horror is that it happened in so many places like this, leaving behind--
Shambling corpses emerge from various crevices and places that provide passable shelter. This part of Aquvy is no stranger to the sight of it. Many of their more defining features are... not there any more, but there's enough left of them to move, to utter pained, anguished, angry vocalizations, joined by incorporeal balls composed of faces like shapes. (Ignas would refer to them as 'Balloons.')
They were here long before the Malevolence settled, and most of them have not taken any of it in, suffering and undead on their own terms and rules as-is. Some of them bear somewhat newer wounds than others, though that is difficult to discern in the moment.
The Hellionized animals dare not approach them. A beard-bearing bull a bit too close to the party for comfort - a Shedu - bows its head and tries to look away. (They may still be stunned from the sound of the bell, though?)
This doesn't stop two of the corporeal undead from throwing themselves upon it, screeching as they take out their feelings upon it. Upon anything at all - and that distraction might not last long.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Ah..." Boudicca reaches out, to hear Ida's response, patting her on the shoulder briefly. She doesn't really have any words to make all that better, not here in the middle of despair, but she's here too.
And so is Venetia! "A Three-Ay..?" Boudicca prompts, as the sorceress tells her tale, holding her brazier aloft so the smoke can reach them. She listens, and responds to her query about foundries thus: "Near the... brass mines?"
(Boudicca might not know very much about how metal works.)
"Oh!" She exclaims, to hear the correct answer.
And lo do Ida and Venetia RING THE BELL, and the world might shudder but the Hellions scatter just the same. "Your efforts have warded them away," Boudicca reports, looking out. "They do not wish to meet the gaze of its vibration."
That might not be... entirely how senses work, but in an area of high Malevolence like this, spirits can get a little strange.
"'Tis safe to continue on," she concludes, and this at least is sensible enough.
Out into the village, and safe, it turns out, is a relative term. Once and once again left homeless, and Boudicca comes to a threshold -- once two stories -- now only evidenced by those few railings which would have held the floors aloft. Half a solid-wood beam, which would have housed a door, once upon a time.
Her fingers rest upon it and come away covered in soot. No wonder. The house collapsed under the force of fire, so long ago.
"This devastation is..."
Something which hides motion in its shadows, gnarled corpses of buildings which herald gnarled corpses of men. Boudicca turns to hear the groaning, hand to her chest. "These -- these are not Hellions!" She exclaims, and it is an exclamation, to her; Boudicca comes from the moon, after all, not Aquvy.
She watches in drawn horror as the undead fall on the Hellionised beast; she takes a step back, and draws her tonfa. "What are we to do?!" She exclaims, but the answer to that comes as soon as the undead finish with their last victim and turn their attention on the living. What she'll do, it turns out, is summon the wind to bolster and shield the others.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Earthbound Dead.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
The mark is not prominent, but Venetia can see it. She sees -- no; it's the wrong shape.
The bell tolls, even if it was not made by her grandfather; it tolls, and Venetia feels her ears throb a little, but in this time she tightens her mask and her hair's wrap and nods once to Ida. "Yes," she explains to Boudicca once the tintinnabulation no longer so swells. "Stock model. You see, all these Granasi places with their bells - the bells had to come from somewhere, right? And I mean, to us it's just a question of molding. We had standard models. In the big cathedrals you'd get what they call a carrillion - the bells would have different notes. You could play songs with 'em."
As they emerge, Venetia - having re-equipped herself - sighs.
"Ah," she says, "yes, well," and then her eyes close for a moment and reopen as she shifts round the contents of her hip bag. "This isn't very cheerful, is it? So I'll leave it to Ida to explain these in more detail, I suppose, but these are... Well, their concentration is a little surprising, but these are..."
Venetia raises the pistol up and holds it sternly as the wind stirs stray locks of her hair, making decorative feathers on her mask rustle.
"Bronze, but close," she tells Boudicca. "One moment."
> SHOOT GUN
What more is there to say? The gun fires - Venetia discharges all five rounds - she then dumps brass out, speaking quickly as she plugs in a new quintet of rounds. "We had tin, naturally speaking, and tin is a little less common than copper. Bronze is actually an alloy, you see, tin and copper and usually a bit of something else. So naturally, why not smelt it there? You just have to bring in the copper, and we got that from 34 historically, and more recently I think they ship it in from - hold on -"
The gun speaks again.
"I'm going to cover you if you're going to run in," Venetia tells Ida in her minor cloud of gunsmoke, "but I can't spare too many more rounds, unless we loop back right quick and find a bevy of this caliber in the church."
"47's just below 41, where I'm from," Venetia explains to Boudicca. "There was an igneous intrusion that interrupted the tin seam pretty badly and made a kind of natural boundary."
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Gun toward her party's challenge, Earthbound Dead.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida accepts Boudicca's pat with a small but grateful nod. It's not going to remove the fear or the pain or the guilt, but it does make the burden a little lighter. In a place like this, even that is immeasurably valuable.
The bell tolls. Ida's lips twist in a grin as the Hellions retreat, and the pressure abates. "Good," she says, glancing out the window to see several of them taking flight. She looks back to Venetia, then Boudicca. "...I think we might've seen into the heart of this Domain's creator. "To feel shame at the sound of a tolling bell--this bell, specifically, or would any suffice? Did they live here, or..."
Ida trails off. "Right," she says. She follows Boudicca into what's left of the village.
It's not a pleasant sight. Ida saw dozens of these little ghosts towns while searching for Yvain, but their numbers only made everything so much worse. "Do you remember," Ida says, "when we spoke in Rolance, and I told you about the wars that ravaged the land? This was one of them. There was a nation here, called Celesti, and it tore itself apart." People lived here, once, and then the war happened, and...
Something moves in the brush nearby. Ida steps back, eyes widening as the earthbound--a small sampling of the war-dead of Celesti--come to unlife, and fall upon the Hellion. "Defend yourselves!" she cries. Ida whips out a flare grenade, lights it, hurls it overhand at the biggest cluster of undead. "The dead don't rest here," she says, to Boudicca. "Not all of them!" Venetia offers to cover her, but Ida shakes her head. "I'll handle it." In a flash, she's holding both her ARMs, and laying down fire with pinpoint precision.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Earthbound Dead.
=============================<* Siddim Canyon *>==============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Earthbound Dead *>=======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The lost nation of Celesti is swarmed by the restless dead like few other
places on Filgaia. Siddim is hardly any different in that regard, as spirits
and reanimated corpses turn the corner and aggress with the same antipathy
for the living as any other - so consumed by torment without discord in
their lingering feelings, they give no ear to the surrounding Malevolence.
Most of the corporeal ones appear to have met their end by ARMs fire, and
none of them are fresh. The most astute among your party may notice instead
that some of the wounds' inflicted are recent - bullets can be retrieved
from them once put down. All of them come from the same kind of gunsmoke
ARM: a sniper rifle.
It appears honest attempts were made by the perpetrator to see them on their
way to the Garden of Toldoka, the afterlife set aside for those who suffer
beyond death in the teachings of St. Calucion - but it will be by your
party's hands that they can find peace.
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Treasure========================================
========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 3 *>========================= ========================< Results - Earthbound Dead >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 13 --(5)--> 18 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Boudicca 13 --(5)--> 18 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venetia Vuong 13 --(5)--> 18 Pass Gun 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Boudicca 40 --(25)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Treasure(1) Effects: Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca 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. DG: Venetia Vuong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Siddim Canyon *>==============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - The Black Reaper *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Your path has forced your team to take a higher road along the canyon,
already treacherous from mud, debris, and whatever manner of hostile
creature you can think of. This stretch of road warps into the sight of a
city unfamiliar to most of you - one that doesn't look like this glimpse of
it these days, as shouting and weapons fire come from those clad in dark
brown uniforms with shiny chrome helmets.
There's too many of them. Even with your accomplishments, there's the sense
there's too much - you need to find a place to hurry and hide, through the
cross-fire and chaos. Not all hope is lost: something moves quickly, clad in
black - but there is no fear in their appearance. They brandish an ARM
unlike anything seen before, single-handedly repelling them. A famous event
of the Civil War, circa 477 PC, is unfolding before you. You just need to
get somewhere and hide until it's safe.
(NOTE: Those who fail this challenge get a closer look at who this is: a
tall man dressed in black with nothing but kindness in his eyes who will
take anyone caught out to safety without any sort of dark
Malevolence-infused twist... save for one of the sharpest pangs of guilt by
the Domain in their wake.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Between Venetia and Ida mounting their counter-offensive with Boudicca's support, the native undead populace are vanquished between Venetia's well-placed gunsmoke fire and Ida's flare grenade to thin out the ranks. Anything lingering, their own standard methods (like More Gun) take care of the rest. Those who evaporate under a cloud of incendiary fire leave behind... huh. Large caliber rounds, a distinctive yellow hue. There's another strange quality to them: it's about a 50/50 split between old, weathered ones and ones that are either newer, or well preserved.
During the Civil War, to differentiate between similar-looking calibers of bullet, maufcaturers often found some sort of coloring agent to help with at-a-glance identification and prevent all sorts of mishaps, as some shapes looked similar but had enough differences that it could (and did) lead to jams and misfires.
They suffered wounds from ARMs that use this caliber of bullet years ago.
They did so again much more recently. The curious may wonder if it was from the exact same ARM, but... such a coincidence would be in the realm of fiction, wouldn't it?
For Ida specifically, the event in itself may raise an interesting question as a former Domain Master. When a Hellion asserts themselves over the world, everything within their Domain twists into something in the image of what drives them. That anything still lingered this deep within a Domain and showed such active resistance... how is such a thing possible? As the dominant power within a space, it should be a trifle to expunge these foreign elements... but here they are.
There's enough collapsed ruin ahead that trudging along the valley is dangerous, but there's a detour of a path that takes them up the canyon walls. (It's the main route now, thanks to said collapsed ruin.) It's muddy, it's slippery, and...
It's loud. The overcast sky seems about the same, but that's the only likeness when one looks back around them. A stretch of road from a more urbanized environment, of which Siddim never was. The architecture style matches that of the northwestern ends of Zoara - no, one can even see the Grand Cathedral of St. Calucion.
That's a landmark of Guara Bobelo, which is no longer around (as anyone would know (or care to know)).
They are beset upon by people in dark brown uniforms with shiny metal, chrome-like helmets - the Congressional Knights, from the Civil War. They are numerous, and... even in better(?) 503 PC times, to the level of prowess the three of them have, it feels like there's far too many. A sense they need to run, a sense they should get somewhere safe as cross-fire happens.
There's a blur, clad in black, who does not show this sense of dread or fear. An ARM seems to form out of nowhere - or they're drawing that fast - but now's not the time to gawk and figure out whether that's a friend or foe in the moment.
Rational sense will eventually dispel those emotions, but they may not have an 'eventually' to work with.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"I see," Boudicca listens closely to Venetia's tales, "so they are not unlike cakes..."
Wrong type of molding, Boudicca.
"And so the bells." She turns to Ida, dipping her head. "I know not," she concedes, to her questions on the ringing. "It is... difficult for me to see the edges of this, here. Invasive, it encroaches so much further."
If it's a standard model of bell, as Venetia says... but then, even if the bell is standardised, Boudicca thinks, it could still have held special meaning for them.
Unfortunately, these days, the only meaning which seems like it matters to them is violence. In the town --
"I remember," Boudicca says, to Ida, and the words are underpinned by their sorrows.
And then, shortly afterward: "Take care!"
And finally, when they've finished, she turns to Venetia, whose story she has been listening to throughout this, and asks: "Forty-one... so, is this whence Chau and Bulman have come?"
(If she's their student, that stands to reason, doesn't it?)
It stands to reason why she would be so curious as to the tale, just the same; the Domain of this place may have some curious factors but to Boudicca, and surely still to her mortal friends, it is DEEPLY unpleasant. There is anchoring in a tale just as much as in a magic spell, though Boudicca knows Venetia capable of both.
Heading up, Boudicca opts to float an inch or so above the ground rather than risk slipping, though she looks back often to ensure no one else is, either. "The path wends," she cautions, "thine steps be sure... I feel it does not shallow..."
The depth, she means. They're climbing higher, but there's no sense of LESSENING to the aura around them, from her perspective. Or, perhaps --
BANG.
That's not a sniper. Or at least, not just a sniper. What are the sounds of many guns retorting?
"Ah!" Boudicca exclaims, to see those uniforms, to remember the war as Ida told it. "We must not tarry!" She reaches into her pouch and haphazardly crushes a handful of leaves, into the breeze; it picks up at their heels, to help them flee the scene of open battle.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Breezeruffle Leaves toward her party's challenge, The Black Reaper.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
Pop pop pop; watching zombs drop.
And yet it feels futile, doesn't it?
The historical reality of this space, curiously LIVELY in its way, makes Venetia more thoughtful than she might have other been. She collects one of the dropped rounds, turning it over, and then getting out an oilcloth bag with which to collect several of these. As they keep on moving, Venetia answers Boudicca.
"Our neighborhoods in Guild Galad. They're numbered - they're all underground, they use pumps to circulate air. More or less in order... As for Chau and Bulman, they were, hm, well, this is a little mystical."
Venetia takes a deep breath and slightly regrets it as she picks along. Her boots creak. "They were faculty at my college, something over a hundred years ago - let's see, it's '03 now, isn't it? So it would have been a hundred and fifteen years ago that they ended. See, Dean Chau was a Crest Sorceress who had been hired as a mining trainer, but she had ambitions, and Dean Bulman was her husband. Big fellow. So, they were able to gather up some faculty and independent tutors and found the actual SCHOOL, but they *also* put together what we now know as the Stygian school of Crest Sorcery. That's what I use."
Venetia waggles a hand in the air. "So in a sense I'm their student even if they were both dead over a century ago. They're quite the thing on campus, although sadly Dean Chau had no children. I mean, sadly in the sense of some kind of inherited position, but that's not really proper for a college, now is it? But we read their writings and everything. Very interesting styles."
"And -"
BANG!
"WHAT in Dinoginos's name is THIS new hell," Venetia exclaims as the leaves guide them and she makes to flee, possibly clutching at Boudicca's metaphorical (or literal) shirt tail in the process. "Gah! Those are - What, the Congressional Knights? Ugh!!"
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Black Reaper.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Bullets fall to the ground below. Some of them, of course, are the ones Venetia and Ida just fired at them, but many are not--and as Venetia steps forward to inspect them, Ida follows suit. She plucks one off the round, cradling it in the palm of her hand as she inspects it. "Hmm," she says. "Looks like a seven point six two times 54 millimeter. Standard fare for heavy gunsmoke rifles back during the War." She slips it into an oilcloth pouch, and bends down to pick up another. "The coloring is odd, but some manufacturers used to do that to help distinguish one type of gunsmoke ammunition from another." She considers the second bullet, her brow furrowing.
"...And this one could've been fired yesterday, but it's the exact same caliber as the others. Same scoring pattern--perhaps fired by the exact same gun." Her frown deepens as she looks down at the bodies surrounding them. Almost all of them have bullet holes. Some of those holes have been there for decades.
"I think we may have found our sniper," Ida says, and then reality twists and shudders. Ida's eyes widen ever-so-slightly as it registers; she'd gotten intimately familiar with sensation while living in Castle Rabenstein. She'd used it to shorten travel time through the Domain--even to cut down on midnight trips to get water. Now...
"Guara Bobelo?" Ida blinks. She stares at the scene before her, one that she's only seen in history books. "Yes. Yes, those are--Malevolence phantoms, but they can still kill you!" As she speaks, she makes for cover, dashing across the broken rode for a length of dessicated wooden fence. Again, the wind kicks up at her feet, speeding her passage and providing a crosswind for incoming gunfire.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, The Black Reaper.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - The Black Reaper *>=======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your path has forced your team to take a higher road along the canyon,
already treacherous from mud, debris, and whatever manner of hostile
creature you can think of. This stretch of road warps into the sight of a
city unfamiliar to most of you - one that doesn't look like this glimpse of
it these days, as shouting and weapons fire come from those clad in dark
brown uniforms with shiny chrome helmets.
There's too many of them. Even with your accomplishments, there's the sense
there's too much - you need to find a place to hurry and hide, through the
cross-fire and chaos. Not all hope is lost: something moves quickly, clad in
black - but there is no fear in their appearance. They brandish an ARM
unlike anything seen before, single-handedly repelling them. A famous event
of the Civil War, circa 477 PC, is unfolding before you. You just need to
get somewhere and hide until it's safe.
(NOTE: Those who fail this challenge get a closer look at who this is: a
tall man dressed in black with nothing but kindness in his eyes who will
take anyone caught out to safety without any sort of dark
Malevolence-infused twist... save for one of the sharpest pangs of guilt by
the Domain in their wake.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
=========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 4 *>========================== =========================< Results - The Black Reaper >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 18 --(5)--> 23 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 18 --(5)--> 23 Pass Breezeruffle Leaves 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 18 --(13)--> 31 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Boudicca 65 --(20)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca 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: Ida Everstead-Rey has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
==========<* CHALLENGE - Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife *>==========
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Ahead of you is a climb up a crumbling fortification from the Civil War,
itself behind a completely different climb of a steep hill. Fortunately, all
of you are secure about the path you are taking through this ruin without
fear of anything crumbling or going wrong. You just have to make the climb -
and it is arduous, stressful, and taxing.
It is made all the worse when more of the Hellionized wildlife appear.
Creatures of instinct without greater capacity for higher thought, slaves to
negative emotions. Nothing good can come from their involvement... until at
least one of them makes a gesture that seems kind. Maybe they move something
out of the way, or throw down a rope. It is as though they can sense the
mounting distress, and feel drawn to it in some form.
The question is whether or not your party notices this in time, as the
situation grows ever more tense with their presence. It is a novel
experience, but Hellions have always been creatures of contradiction.
Helping outsiders get to the heart of a Domain does seem against their best
interest, and yet, here they are doing just that anyway.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
As Ida says, these are Malevolence Phantoms - though going by her personal experience, these ones seem more coherent within this Domain, compared to the one powered by the Anomalous Orb on Mount Manfred. By Ida's deductions about the rounds they've collected... a worrisome picture (one of many, collect all *DOUBLE-DIGIT NUMBER*) can start to be painted. They can start to be painted after they get to cover. If cover has ample painting supplies (it does not, unless one has a sanguine medium in mind).
Boudicca and Ida get to cover. Venetia falls behind, interrupted from her lovely exposition walk as she is swept up by that black blur--
Of a tall man dressed in black, of reddish hair, bearing kindly blue eyes. The ferocity of movement displayed by this figure moments before is no longer there before the intercepted Crest Sorceress. A patch over the left side of his chest shows three colors, left to right: blue, yellow, brown. A white, outline-like eye adorns it - the flag of the Aquvy Union as they hoped to take the destiny of Celesti in their hands. (This, as is well-known, did not come to pass.)
Venetia will find she is not in mortal danger for long, as this Malevolent Phantom... does not act in malice, helping see her to the other two. There's kindness in his eyes, and the stabbing pain of emotional guilt. There is no stabbing, no blood. He looks upon them before taking his leave and returning to the battle, where the warping of reality fades before...
A climb that sucks. The hill is steep, it's rain-slick (it's raining now, so it's going to be even slicker... and rainier), and it's going to be stressful - but it's a path that leads up towards a crumbling fortification, and the Malevolence is ever stronger that way. That means it must be closer to the 'heart' of the Domain, and where they need to go... and this is the closest to a proper route that exists. One that, after a closer look, they would be confident is the way to go even if it weren't the only option. As long as there are no further problems...
...like more Hellionized wildlife showing up. Almost all of them looking in Venetia's direction. Another Shedu (another bearded bull like the one taken out by the undead) draws nearer. A Simurgh stands perched atop the climb, peering down towards her...
The Simurgh nudges a rope with a beak, helpfully(?) knocking it down.
The Shedu nudges aside a large boulder that does not roll in the path of any of them, falling off to the side harmlessly.
A Qilin - a large, deer-like figure - watches close by. Not one of them move further to aggress or attack - but this may not matter to well-honed fighting reflexes. Hellionized wildlife are driven by the worst emotional impulses, incapable of weighing higher thought as to the hows and whys of their actions... but that's not what's going on right now.
Their very presence does not reassure when the climb itself is difficult - but can anyone hold onto their nerves?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Oh, the pumps! Yes, I know them!" Boudicca, who is not much enthused about Guild Galad, still perks up at the mention of the air pumps.
(Well, she is a WIND Seraph.)
And so Venetia tells the tale of Chau and Bulman, off into the past. "The Stygian school... beneath the earth, I see. And the vastness of your magic is based in this specificity..? I am impressed, so used am I to the generalisation of Man." Maybe it's no wonder that Boudicca would praise doing many things from one particular source; amongst Althena's Blessing, that focus defines the Seraphim.
So too is she impressed by Ida's tales, leaning over to peer at the bullets. "And you know all this simply from their markings..? I could not fathom how. They are as metal as metal is, to my mind." Perhaps that is why Boudicca is still in search of her ideal number of grenades.
The phantoms have figured out their ideal number of grenades, though.
That number is 'yes'.
And so when the battle falls over them, Boudicca scampers -- and too late does she look back to see that one of her friends has failed to scamper. "Venetia!" She cries, reaching out, only for a black-clad man to sweep upon her --
-- and --
-- rescue her?
Boudicca hurries over regardless, so it's a good thing the warp fades before a bullet can catch her. "Are you well?!" She asks, insistent, and she even forgets to float such that her greaves make a big puddle-splash coming up to her. "No harm has come to you? Here," she fiddles with her backpack and pulls out an Apple Gel and a water skein, "please take care in these dangerous places..."
Boudicca: is fussing about her friends again. Maybe that's an even worse sign than the fey turns of speech! Or maybe it's just normal, and particularly underlined here.
(Ida also gets water and Gels, of course. Boudicca has enough fussing for all her friends.)
When they manage to keep going, though, Boudicca can't help but feel a little on-edge. "I know 'tis more complex than that," she says, as she jumps to see a Simurgh helpfully knocking down a rope, "but to see these animals thus taken..."
She can't quite take the Qilin out of her sight. "I tasked myself with addressing these some centuries before I realised the extent of Hellionisation," Boudicca reveals, audibly unnerved. "It is difficult for me to believe their instincts would lead them to this. What agonies drive deep enough to press a beast to assistance?"
She can at least make herself climb the rope eventually. Perhaps with Ida's help.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Emergency Supplies toward her party's challenge, Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Are we near the location?" Venetia asks, about Guara Bobelo. From the sound of it, she genuinely did not know. She probably just showed up because of Boudicca's request, and may have figured she could just take Boudicca's share of any treasures! What a wicked woman.
But then a black blur whips round her and --
-- For a moment Venetia wonders, ah yes, this is -- gods and guardians damnit, this is the fifteenth time I've thought 'gee I'm going to die right here right now' and I am *sick* unto *death* *despite the irony* of this *fucking* *impression* --
But then she is... helped along.
Venetia puts a hand on her Graph pouch in case she has to move fast, but the Phantom is not trying to lure her into an ambush or lull her into a false sense of security before vomiting evil into her nose. When the Phantom separates from them, she is momentarily taken aback.
"Well yes," she says to Boudicca, "I mean, that was strange right now - oh, thank you - er, yes, thank you - yes, I'm fine, thanks." She eats the Gel without thinking about it, which hushes her up for a moment. She even offers a smile to Boudicca in silent thanks, before looking up the steep hill and -
"... Alright," Venetia says eventually. "Alright, I mean, this thing's just dropped a rope for me," Venetia continues, looking at the others. A boulder is pushed out of the way. She points upwards. "For all of us. This is bizarre. Do you have any possible idea what's going on? Like, I mean to say, I don't have - gahhh!!"
Venetia kicks a nearby rock in frustration. As it is not a large rock, the rock loses, and rolls a couple of yards downhill. "None of this makes SENSE. It feels like it's MOCKING us. Do you ever get sensations like that, E-R?" (This is how Venetia has ground down Ida's last name, naturally.) After this she begins to climb up the rope, or perhaps more accurately uses it to steady herself. "I mean, is this some sort of... mathematical thing? I feel like an ignorant child to even advance it, but does this Hellionising act like..."
Venetia pauses, and starts from the top. "This place was already haunted by the shades of the dead, metaphorically if not literally. Is it that if you add Malevolence to such a place, that you flip the sign again? Like multiplying a negative number by a negative number, and getting a positive one?" (Is that how math works? Venetia *did* go to college.)
DG: Venetia Vuong has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"The act of firing a bullet leaves behind marks," Ida explains, and she holds up one of the projectiles--one of the older, more worn-down ones--for Boudicca to see. "See the grooves, and the pattern they make?" They've been ground away by time, but there's still a distinct helical pattern where the bullet expanded against the rifle's... well, rifling. She holds up the second bullet, one of the newer ones. "The pattern is identical. At the very least, it's the same make of firearm."
And then there is no more time for lessons, as the ghosts of the Civil War descend upon them.
Ida, along with Boudicca, makes it to cover--and when her Oracle cries out, she glances back, eyes grown wide. She hisses out a breath between clenched teeth, and her hand darts for Devil's Due, but the black-clad phantom is faster. God, they're so fast. One moment they're halfway across the battlefield, and the next, they're dropping Venetia off and departing without so much as a word. Ida stands there, stupefied, before she snaps back into reality.
"Are you all right?" she asks. Ida takes the gel and water obediently, but she's more concerned with Venetia's well-being. "This is... bizarre, even for a Malevolent Domain.
The rain begins to fall again as they walk onwards. Ida looks up at the sky, which has been overcast this entire time, and holds out her hand. She looks at her palm, as if expecting it to collect oily, Malevolence-tainted muck, but it's just... normal rain. "Whomever made this experienced the war. I don't think it's just collecting ambient emotion--it's too focused for that." As they reach the hill, Ida looks upwards, and prepares climbing tools. She lets Venetia vent.
"Absolutely," she says. "Wait, that rope--" Ida's head tilts up, and she startles, visibly, at the sight of the Hellions collected above them. Once again, her hand darts for her ARM, but...
"This is most definitely a new one," she says, turning to Boudicca. Ida reaches into her pocket, running her fingers along a familiar piece of metal in a familiar, steadying motion. "Usually Malevolence steals and empowers the dead," she says. "But those earthbound resisted it, somehow. They were shot to death by someone, and then... shot again, by the same gun, far more recently? And this rain..."
Ida looks up at the Hellions again. "I think we may be dealing with a Hellion who is not only new to their power, but... at peace with it, somehow?"
Once she's calmed down enough, Ida begins to climb. She uses the offered rope, but is careful not to depend on it.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool ARMS Meister's Field Kit toward her party's challenge, Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
==========<* CHALLENGE - Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife *>==========
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Ahead of you is a climb up a crumbling fortification from the Civil War,
itself behind a completely different climb of a steep hill. Fortunately, all
of you are secure about the path you are taking through this ruin without
fear of anything crumbling or going wrong. You just have to make the climb -
and it is arduous, stressful, and taxing.
It is made all the worse when more of the Hellionized wildlife appear.
Creatures of instinct without greater capacity for higher thought, slaves to
negative emotions. Nothing good can come from their involvement... until at
least one of them makes a gesture that seems kind. Maybe they move something
out of the way, or throw down a rope. It is as though they can sense the
mounting distress, and feel drawn to it in some form.
The question is whether or not your party notices this in time, as the
situation grows ever more tense with their presence. It is a novel
experience, but Hellions have always been creatures of contradiction.
Helping outsiders get to the heart of a Domain does seem against their best
interest, and yet, here they are doing just that anyway.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
=========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 5 *>========================== ============< Results - Friendly Neighborhood Hellionized Wildlife >============ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 23 --(5)--> 28 Pass ARMS Meister's Field Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 23 --(5)--> 28 Pass Emergency Supplies 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 31 --(5)--> 36 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Boudicca 85 --(0)--> 85 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm|Overzealous(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 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 Boudicca has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
====================<* CHALLENGE - The Tragedy of Siddim *>=====================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your party comes out on top of a derelict fortification - and there are
screams underneath an overcast sky, as Malevolence shifts the world to
something else. There are people here, far below. Those knowledgeable of the
Celesti Civil War would know immediately: they are bearing witness to the
Tragedy of Siddim, early 490 PC, where an oligarchy-sympathetic village saw
to the health of several high-profile Congressional Knight soldiers wounded
in another battle. They were tracked down by the Aquvy Union, and...
The details are not important. The ambience of regret tells you all you need
to know: this was wrong. What happened here was wrong. In the past-present,
the memory's owner felt much differently: they did not relent. Four booming
shots of a gunsmoke rifle at a time, they kept shooting. They kept killing.
They kept going. You are bearing witness to the act of a heartless monster.
A heartless monster not far off to the group's right, in the form of a
cloaked woman wielding a bayonet-fitted sniper rifle that looks too large
and too heavy for her to bear. Exact features are hard to make out, but you
know more than enough that she's the one you need to stop.
Signs of weakness in her left shoulder does nothing to slow nor dissuade her
from turning that against people who can fight back. She wields that bayonet
with a skill rivaling that of any duelist, and wields capable Crest Sorcery
in the form of offensive water spells. All of it comes together with a
ferocity and skill that might have given a Quarter Knight pause (if they had
proper equipment to match them).
Stopping her is a token gesture at best - but one worth making, if it helps
bring anyone here any peace. (There is a faint sense it also includes who
you're fighting.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
When a former Domain Master says this is 'most definitely a new one,' that should alarm anyone. Ida, of the entire Drifter community, is the best reference for what it's like to be a Hellion - and one strong enough to assert themselves against the spiritually perceptible fabric of reality. Could it be that they are being silently invited by its Master?
They have not spoken. All there is to go by are the feelings in the air, and Ida's conjectures. All of the Malevolence is in a gradient of despair. Guilt, shame, regret. If this is a Hellion new to their power, the ability to construct a Domain of this scale this quickly is a problematic development. Even Tobit Calice, who was a full-on monster before taking the 'gift' of Malevolence with remorseless glee, did not project one this large.
There are many questions - but the intent of the beasts does not appear to be in direct question. Boudicca is not attacked in her moment of worry or fussing, the Simurgh cocking their head towards her for as long as it takes for her to cease worrying (as much).
The Shedu does draw closer to Venetia at a casual pace, resting on its haunches as she asks whether they're being mocked. It sits there and watches, but it does not challenge her ascent.
The Qilin, in the distance, approaches until Ida finds it within herself to make the climb, and then it draws no closer. Is it concern, or do they find peace in the momentary discomfort? No others join them on the ascent, and none spring a trap when they get to the fortification where the Malevolence grows its thickest yet.
Something else awaits.
There is screaming and panic below, and it sounds too real. Malevolent Phantoms tend to have some discordance in their voices, as if playing back possibilities of misremembered words, events, and places twisted to one's worst fears and foibles, but this sensory distortion is at its minimum - and Ida will be found to be correct in the most horrifying way imaginable.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Just like what they heard at the outskirts of the Domain, but now as if right next to them - like the knock of a door. A cloaked woman wielding a bayonet-fitted sniper rifle - it's huge. She is currently knelt behind cover, firing off four rounds. That rifle has a kick. It'd make anyone wince to see how she lessens the recoil - a combination of putting more of her left arm around it, and some deft movements of her right hand between chambering her next round and adjusting for this recoil. Each movement, a chance to catch and snag her fingers. Each recoil, great distress to her left arm.
But that's not what's truly painful to witness - it's what she's doing with it. Who she's shooting, they're... it's not a thought worth completing. To take it in with the sense of sight alone is enough.
Ida would recognize a younger 'Uncle' Abe immediately, trying to run for cover with someone in tow who does not make it, put down before they can even see their features. When he makes it to cover, the shooter strikes something heavy above him as if to ensure he would be crushed.
The shooter looks to the group - no matter how human(?) her shape and proportions, that's a monster. Her left arm shudders as she rises to engage them, bayonet blade scraping noisily against the battlements, sparks flying as she just goes at them with a ferocity and drive that Berserk... might have had interesting opinions about.
With a flourish, a Crest Graph is drawn, and a heavy torrent of water tries to throw anyone who would still stand against her back, or knock them off the battlement, this fortification, to the chaos below.
The oppressive sorrow of the Domain reaches its greatest as this replys, and twists, to the circumstances of a re-enacted past in the present. It's thirteen years too late to stop what has transpired.
Would putting this heartless monster down, even as a replayed memory, bring any peace?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
A Hellion at peace...
Boudicca has never had much need for maths, but the calculus involved in this would surely be challenging even if she were a fiscal expert.
"It is as if they wish for us to press on," Boudicca notes, on the wildlife, in deep concern.
She really should have been concerned, considering what was waiting there.
Boudicca sees the sniper, yes, but she has seen before that the guilt, the anguish of the Domain; she does not linger on the woman in focus. She looks to --
"No!" Boudicca cries, reflexively, as soon as her gaze follows the bullets to where they lead. Where they cannot lead; where they have already led. At once she leaps forward towards the figure, tonfa in hand -- through the water torrent, charging it without a care for the pressure of the flow -- with every intention of striking the gunwoman's hands so she cannot pull that awful trigger any more.
She does not dwell on, it already happened.
There's always something she can do.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Tragedy of Siddim.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
There was a point in time when Ida would've found these feelings debilitating. Guilt, shame, and regret are some of her oldest, closest companions, and while the flavor is different--they've come from someone different, after all--they hit close to home. In the wake of Stone's betrayal, they've found new context, and new traumas to latch on to. Father Xiao's last words play in Ida's mind, over and over, as she ascends. She remembers Stone's cold sadism, and the real face hidden behind his mask. She remembers Billy's guilt--a guilt she experienced with crushing clarity when she claimed her first life.
She reaches the top. She plants one hand on the ground, and then the other. Ida hauls herself upwards, rests on her knees a moment, and rises. She breathes in, feels the weight of the Domain around her. "...This is the center," she says. "Or at least the densest part."
Four gunshots. It's as if the sniper is right there with them, and that's because she is--but so is the village, brought to hideous, terrified life. For a moment Ida stares, openmouthed, at the atrocity playing out before her eyes. Those aren't soldiers. Those are townsfolk, fleeing for their lives. "Is this--" Ida chokes out, her voice tight with rage. "Is this what they wanted us to see?"
Then the sniper notices them. Ida feels a sense of relief through the animating rage. As the shooter raises a crest, Ida reaches for a flare grenade, whipping it free and touching it to a Dragon Filament in her right palm. The metallic canister flies in a high arc, over the flood, and erupts with a bright magnesium flare and a thunderous, stunning BANG.
Ida's gauntlets form as she leaps towards the woman, jumping from rock to wall to pile of tumbled masonry. By the time she reaches her, claws gleam at her fingertips. Boudicca goes to disarm, but Ida has something a bit more permanent in mind. She grabs for the woman's forearms, and tries to dig in, lacerating them lengthwise. At the same time, she brings a knee up, exoskeleton forming a hard biometal striking plate beneath the fabric of her trousers. It's like being hit by a metal pipe.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, The Tragedy of Siddim.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Venetia tells Ida. "Am I bleeding somewhere I can't see?" She doesn't sound genuinely upset so much as perhaps not used to clucking. Back down they are, and at the apex she pauses, feeling herself sweat.
The rain doesn't help. Rain isn't great in general.
At the top, things resume screaming and struggling and panicking. It makes Venetia feel a brief moment of interior dissonance when she perks up at this - tenses up perhaps being more accurate - but she is also somehow RELIEVED, as if the noise of people having a completely futile battle is somehow a *familiar thing*. She grimaces.
Then a cannon fires. No, there's a cannon beind held by. There's.
The mix of fatigue, gradually increasing but not yet critical inner fury, and outright confusion at this triply anomalous realm means that it is Venetia who is the slowpoke when they are confronted by the charging woman. It also means that she is doused with that high pressure water, which shoves her back -- but Venetia deals with it in her own way.
By throwing herself forwards! Onto the cold, wet, muddy ground. The touch is its own minor benediction, and despite the necessity of crawling one filthy bodylength forwards to avoid slipping back and falling to an ignoble demise, Venetia rises again without many difficulties.
"Who knows what you actually are," Venetia says as she hipes out the gun, clicking back the hammer with a flexion of one long thumb, "and I imagine you aren't listening. Here, though, I'll give you some life advice. Shooting people's generally a bad thing. The main exception is:"
Up comes the gun as Venetia sights down the notches on the top, right at the figure, aiming at the belly as Ida and Boudicca contend from up high. "When they're killing other people."
Now it is her turn to make the sound, BANG. She only manages one shot - her arm jerks afterwards, from the poor position - but hey: sometimes you just need one good shot.
DG: Venetia Vuong has used her Tool Gun toward her party's challenge, The Tragedy of Siddim.
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
====================<* CHALLENGE - The Tragedy of Siddim *>=====================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your party comes out on top of a derelict fortification - and there are
screams underneath an overcast sky, as Malevolence shifts the world to
something else. There are people here, far below. Those knowledgeable of the
Celesti Civil War would know immediately: they are bearing witness to the
Tragedy of Siddim, early 490 PC, where an oligarchy-sympathetic village saw
to the health of several high-profile Congressional Knight soldiers wounded
in another battle. They were tracked down by the Aquvy Union, and...
The details are not important. The ambience of regret tells you all you need
to know: this was wrong. What happened here was wrong. In the past-present,
the memory's owner felt much differently: they did not relent. Four booming
shots of a gunsmoke rifle at a time, they kept shooting. They kept killing.
They kept going. You are bearing witness to the act of a heartless monster.
A heartless monster not far off to the group's right, in the form of a
cloaked woman wielding a bayonet-fitted sniper rifle that looks too large
and too heavy for her to bear. Exact features are hard to make out, but you
know more than enough that she's the one you need to stop.
Signs of weakness in her left shoulder does nothing to slow nor dissuade her
from turning that against people who can fight back. She wields that bayonet
with a skill rivaling that of any duelist, and wields capable Crest Sorcery
in the form of offensive water spells. All of it comes together with a
ferocity and skill that might have given a Quarter Knight pause (if they had
proper equipment to match them).
Stopping her is a token gesture at best - but one worth making, if it helps
bring anyone here any peace. (There is a faint sense it also includes who
you're fighting.)
=Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
=========================<* Siddim Canyon - Round 6 *>========================== ======================< Results - The Tragedy of Siddim >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 28 --(5)--> 33 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 28 --(5)--> 33 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Venetia Vuong 36 --(5)--> 41 Pass Gun 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Boudicca 85 --(35)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Vault(1) Effects: Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Boudicca has successfully explored Siddim Canyon!
==============================<* Siddim Canyon *>===============================
===============<* CHALLENGE - Clouds Over The Clear Sky (2/4) *>================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Your team manages to overturn the perpetrator of one of far too many
tragedies during the Celesti Civil War. You see gray eyes under their hood,
filled with tears. They whisper as they fade: "Could anything good ever come
from this? I wanted to believe... that others believed so."
A light rain casts a tragic air on a ship at sea. 'You' find yourself held
at ARMpoint, at least one knife to the throat. "It's been real," says a
scarred, bearded man who is smiling on the surface but his eyes tell a
different story, "most of us got to live... but without work, there's no
living left. The Union lost. The Clear Sky'll get hunted down before long."
He paces, looking out to the sea. He explains how the plan is to turn 'you'
over to a Meria Boule contact to cash in on a bounty that's only good if
'you' are alive. All the adventures 'you' had with these privateers
throughout the War are for naught - as if all of them regretted ever
throwing their lot with the Union. All as if it were foolish to ever expect
a long-term friendship after the War - or even during it. 'You' have an idea
come to mind as regards a loaded cannon... but this plan doesn't see
fruition within the scope of the vision, which fades.
As the memory fades, you return to where you fought the ghastly memory: the
top of a rotted fortification in the present. The same as where you fought
them... and the heart of this Domain. Its Master appears to not even be
here, so you have time to spare in exploring and preparing for the
opportunity to purify the Domain.
While preparations are being made, a cursory examination reveals nearby
farmland tended to by - presumably - the Domain Master. There's no
Malevolence cheating at play: the work is sound, and the field has a decent
harvest of fast-growing vegetable crops that are edible (though you should
purify them first, to be safe). They've even managed to grow Kuko Berries
here, non-native to the region but famed for helping 'make the corners more
round' when chewed. There is also a pen full of chickens that have
Hellionized into Cockatrices, but they are well cared for. (They are docile
so long as it is raining, lest one suffer a case of temporary
petrification.)
You can tell that the place is lived in, but devoid of much in the way of
creature comforts. You don't see a bed, a blanket, or a proper tent - as if
the tenant would rather sleep in the elements. The fortification does have a
few rooms that are protected from said elements, and upon closer inspection
you can see they save that space specifically for things that should. Things
such as maps of the area around Halim, and all sorts of scribbled notes
about its local mines.
You see this level of organization and planning with would-be bandits.
There's no sign there's more than one person who lives here, but it's sign
enough that the settlement of Halim is in danger of a Hellion attack of
unknown scale.
Your team gets ready to coordinate with the others.
=Dungeon Conditions: Vault====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There is no time in history where any of this could be left to stand. Twelve years out from the end of the Celesti Civil War, many of those wounds are still bleeding. To see that something like this has happened, for their own eyes to see. Even accounting for the way Malevolence will twist and alter any conflicting emotion into its worst interpretations, it is not worth pondering how it went down without the lens of massive guilt. The Domain's ambience speaks enough: this was wrong.
The gathered do not compromise in their feelings. Boudicca takes the monster by surprise as she hurls herself through that water and strikes at them. They try to parry through their rifle, and Boudicca will find that leverage is not this monster's friend - smacking it down and getting the bayonet blade stuck in the masonry (and also smacking a finger on their right hand anyway, forcing them to shake it out).
Venetia shouts her advice - is this a presence capable of communicative interaction? That's a good question, even as the Stygian Crest Sorceress comes to her own conclusions - a turn of the shooter's hood reveals they might be wearing more on their head under that... or... does she have large ears? BANG, goes the gun, as it slides into the midsection.
Ida makes sure she gets no opportunity to do anything about it as a flare grenade flies free, bouncing off the shaft of the rifle but popping up enough that it's right where it needs to be to blind and deafen her foe. Her forearms are ripped from her weapon (with more resistance than Ida may expect, but not enough to stop her) as blood stains the sleeves and a satisfyingly crunchy impact hits the ribs to double her over.
Enough to shift the hood and show tear-stained gray eyes. It's too late for regrets for someone like that, in the moment, being held to consequences for what they did - but the world around them starts to fade to a voice. Her voice, which sounds familiar but maybe not to immediate identification: "Could anything good ever come from this? I wanted to believe... that others believed so."
Soon, 'you' are on a boat, going by the rocking underneath and the sound of shifting waves - held hostage? A scarred, bearded man has a smile on his face but not in his eyes as 'you' have ARMs pointed at 'your' throat. There's the pressure of one knife there, pulled back as if the one threatening 'you' realizes maybe sticking the blade that close is a bad idea. The Clear Sky - a famous privateering ship during the war. The Domain owner's memory places them - currently 'you' - there.
The Aquvy Union had limited ability to do anything about the oligarchy's sea trade with other nations. The Congressional Knights were the forces of the establishment of the time. It was theorized broadly they looked to this as a way to disrupt that without bringing the ire of the other Aquvy powers on them, as they expressed neutrality to the conflict. This is confirmation of... something already thought to be truth. No one wants to bring the wrath of Meria Boule's naval forces upon them - a fact that seems to come to 'your' mind as this grizzled man of the sea talks about cashing in on 'your' bounty with someone from there.
You don't get to see this come to fruition, as it all fades back to the old, rotted fortification that has fallen into further disrepair since the tragedy. The same place where you fought the shooter. This is where the Malevolence is most conentrated... and it comes with a discovery unto itself: there's no one here to stop you. No one to greet you.
The Domain Master is absent. Whatever theories as to the hows and whys ('how powerful they are vs. how much time spent here vs. how strongly they felt about this place,' etc.), cleansing this fortification may be enough to dispel the Domain. Its Master may not be cooperative if they wait for them to come back.
The answer to any thought of 'how much time spent here' is soon answered: this is someone who has lived here while. Long enough to have small farm plots (the Kuko Berries are noteworthy, they're not native and... they must really like them). Long enough to even have a pen for Malevolent cockatrices that are mostly chill as long as it's raining, but... on closer look inside the fortification proper, there's plans drawn up like one might see at a bandit's hideout. Plans concerning Halim, all sorts of scribbled notes about its local mines. (They seem to be written by someone left-handed.)
The scale of the threat is not clear, but there is a threat.
One thing at a time - everyone needs to gather and get their bearings. This is not a small Domain and there'll be plenty more clean-up work to do.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The figure stumbles back. Ida meets their eyes, her lips twisting in a snarl. The rain washes the blood from her talons, and sticks her hair against her scalp.
"You wanted to believe," she says, to an entity that is almost certainly an echo--something that cannot hear or understand her. "And it came to this. You did this." She shudders, once, a full-body thing; the hammer of guilt-regret-shame comes down on her, but it meets with a soul grown strong from continual trial. Her crimes took place elsewhere, and they never bore fruit as twisted as this.
And then--
The memory washes over her. Ida closes her eyes, and holds perfectly still until it ends. Her talons flatten and dull, turning into fingertips. She presses a hand against her temple. "A Union soldier," Ida says. "And not just any soldier--a markswoman with a distinctive shooting style. We have a lead." She looks at her two companions, feels the anger uncoil from her heart. She lets it go. It's served its purpose. "My aunt was a Union soldier, too. She might know who we're dealing with." A long pause. Ida looks around at the dilapidated fortification. "But we also have to deal with this. We can't just let it fester here."
SLIGHTLY LATER
"...My word," Ida says, as she kneels before a patch of tilled ground. "Who could need this many Kuko Berries?" She regrets even asking. Alcohol doesn't grow on trees, but Kuko Berries do, sort of. They serve a very similar purpose.
A pause. Ida looks at the plants, lips curling into a frown. "Whomever they were, they had enough of a conscience left to become a Hellion. As... strange as it may sound. Malevolence needs conflict to grow, and if someone has no sense of remorse, well..."
EVEN LATER
Ida stands before the maps. Her frown has grown more severe. "Someone's been snooping around our holdings," she says. She presses her hand to her temple, again, and tries not to think of Summer. "But why?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"And we will not," is Boudicca's reassurance, to Ida.
Before then she was silent. Perhaps it is the horror of the thing.
---
"It could be the conflict between what is known and what others know," Boudicca points out, to Ida, "but here the remorse laid deep."
---
Boudicca repairs the fence of the pen, where a post has slumped.
---
"Perhaps," Boudicca supposes, "there is something in the mines."
---
The simplicity of the conjecture does not fully communicate the way it keeps her awake that night.