2021-07-25: Literal Children
- Log: Literal Children
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lan Lilac, Lily Keil
- Where: The Dreaming
- Date: July 25, 2021
- Summary: They've all been to the Dreaming before, but this time something's... off.
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Elw Teleporters - Dreaming. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>=======================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so
now.
Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not
so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your
past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of
static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long,
misty expanse over a grey plain.
You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a
light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this
place.
The memories of those who came before await.
=Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's not sleep, not really. If it's anything, it's--
One moment in a steep descent, trying, trying to--
Something crashes into him, into his--
He crashes into the wall, too hard, too fast--
And now he stands here in the void of grey, looking around himself.
Something happened. Maybe? Or maybe all of that was a dream. It doesn't feel real in here at all. Loren glances around again, turning a full circle as he tries to get his bearings. But there's no sign of anything at the horizons, the bordering grey. There's absolutely nothing that he can see in this 'no-place'. He frowns, patting himself down. Weird. His clothing doesn't feel right, not like the uniform -- wait, that was just the dream. Well, it's not his nightclothes either, or his casual wear.
It's more like the sort of thing he would have worn as a child, he thinks, looking down at himself.
Something's off.
But he finds after a little more searching the thing he was looking for. Powering on the medical computer, he tries to see what in his immediate surroundings he can get a read on. Temperature? Gas saturation? It's not really meant to do things like 'scan surroundings' ('scan body' is what it's meant to do) but he'll just do what he can.
Because this... this, he's got nothing.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Owwww..."
A child wanders out of the fog, rubbing a lump on top of her head. She's dark-skinned and pale-haired, and while her eyes are currently closed in pain, she might look familiar. It's just, Lan Lilac was definitely taller the last time anybody saw her.
She's barefoot, wearing a simple (and apparently well-loved) wrap dress decorated with colorful embroidery and beads. There's a scuffed leather bag on a strap across her shoulder, and it looks to be holding an assortment of somethings. Even at this age her hair is long, though it's not yet the thigh-length mane that's her pride and glory in the waking world - just mid-back, and yet her beloved ribbon is still tied in a neat bow at the back of her head, probably by her mother.
Lan opens her eyes, lowering her hands to cup around her mouth. "Moooooooom!" she calls into the grey. "Uncle Giiiiil? Hicaaaluuuuuu...!"
When there's no answer, she digs into her bag for a paper flower, already pre-folded (and a little dirty at the edges). "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe..." She's getting really good at folding these ever since she learned last month! The thought cheers her up while she tries for an answer. "Spirits, please show me the way, okay?"
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"-Stupid fire!-" The little girl with black hair stomps once, looking up at the woman in the wheelchair with a big frown and her hands balled up into fists at her sides. She could be nine, or maybe a little younger, but her bright golden eyes shine in the morning light.
"Young lady, we've talked about how you speak! In our language, now." Marie Keil speaks firmly, though not unkindly, waiting for Lily to continue. The wheels of her chair loom large as she takes her hands off of them to cross her arms, and it is a standoff. ...Not one that lasts all that long, though.
Lily sighs, slouching. "Telling the fire which direction to burn is hard," she says instead, in the common language. She looks fairly miserable about it, and her work is still unfinished. "I can't do it..."
"Yes, you can," Marie says, and then relents with a small smile. "...Oh, come here. We'll take a break and get some fresh air, all right?" She uncrosses her arms and Lily comes forward to give her mother a hug, smiling again once she does. "Okay!"
"Now, go get your shoes. I'll be right along."
"Okaaaay," Lily answers, and starts off for the door, crossing the threshold--
Into nothing. It's a featureless gray plain. She blinks, and looks around, and it becomes hard to remember what she was just doing. "Uuuugh," the black-haired girl complains. "Where is..."
"Where is everybody!?"
She hears indistinct static, nothing else at first. "..." She is pale, with long black hair, dressed in a sober gray dress appropriate to her standing as the daughter of an important military figure--and thick, against the cold of Nortune. She looks around, and suddenly in her hands is a knife that she turns over and over; it looks much too big for her, frankly.
"...Right. If you get lost, make markings to show your path." Lily kneels down and cuts the gray featureless plain, digging a gouge in the ground, and then steps forward, doing the same in a few more steps.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Knife toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>=======================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so
now.
Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not
so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your
past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of
static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long,
misty expanse over a grey plain.
You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a
light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this
place.
The memories of those who came before await.
=Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 1 *>=================== ========================< Results - Dreaming Together >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass MediScan v7 3 Wits Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Lily's Knife 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The temperature on here is off. It doesn't feel all that cold -- comfortable, which would suggest to him that it's aligned with the temperature of the human body -- but the device is telling him different. Particularly as he swivels around in the direction of the voice that calls out, a voice that is vaguely familiar yet also utterly not in the slightest--
He has to look her over twice before he gets it.
"Lan? What are you doing here? And why are you... looking like that?"
They're not alone. There is another.
Who she is doesn't click for him at all in this moment. She's just a weird girl wearing clothing that's only vaguely identifiable to him as 'probably Nortune'. She could be anyone.
"Uh..." Loren says.
She's carving into the grey. Somehow.
"What are we standing on?"
Their feet don't quite touch the ground, as Lily will discover. And as for Lan...
'BEHIND YOU' says the answer in her fortune teller.
Behind you, where lamplight dully glitters, far in the distance.
Behind you, and into the cold.
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
===========<* CHALLENGE - Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames *>============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You awake again. You know, in an instant, that it is a dream. The people
that you have journeyed with are here. It is a wooden home, with a style
remniscent of Glenwood and Meribia. Paintings are on the wall, with fine
adornments on the walls and nightstands. However, the heat is most
oppressive.
Flames lick from under the door. There is a reddish glow to the whole of the
room, a terrifying light that presents a simple fact: this house is aflame.
You hear screams from below, a woman and a child. There is a massive, loud
CRASH--
--and the screams cease. You feel your heart shudder, remembered pain and
sorrow swelling. But the desperation to flee is there, and more powerful.
The only way out is a barred window, an iron grate covering it. It is hot to
the touch. But if you can break free... then you may escape.
=Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Tire=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They say that if you got lost outside the village, stay in one place. If you keep walking it makes you harder for the grownups to come and find. But Lan doesn't think she's leaving any footprints for her aunts to follow - a theory she doesn't think to test until she comes upon the sight of another girl about her age, digging at the non-ground with a knife that looks like it belongs to an adult. A quick look down at her feet confirms it - there's no dirt to disturb, no rocks or weeds to move.
Well, even if she hasn't gotten an answer from any spirits yet, this is probably a good sign!
It doesn't occur yet to Lan that maybe she ought to be afraid of someone holding a knife, even if they're her own age, because Lan has never been more than a mile outside of her village before, and has rarely met anybody she wasn't at least distantly related to.
"Hi! Are you--" Digging a hole, she wan going to ask, when the wind calls her name. Lan turns to look despite knowing better (the wind is usually invisible)--
But it's a boy. "Oh, hi to you too! I'm Lan!" she tells them, excited because it's pretty novel to meet two people in one day. "Why am I like what? And how do you know my name?" Oh no, what if he's a mischievous kind of spirit? Mom did say that sometimes spirits like to play games and trick people...
Lan stares at Loren, and then looks back to the girl. They're both really pale. Maybe they're aliens?!
She looks down at her paku-paku--
And when she looks up, she's in a place she's never been before. An entire kind of place she's never been before. A room that isn't made of earth or stone, but entirely from timber.
Flammable wood, like the base of a bonfire, or the funeral platforms some other Baskar build in the desert.
It's so loud. Her heart hurts. Someone has left her, someone was eaten by the flames, and soon she'll be eaten too--
She swipes at her eyes with the crumpled fortune-telling paper before shoving it into her bag. "C-c'mon, we can still make it, okay!?" She has to be brave for the others. "Through the window! Break the glass and maybe we can fit through the bars!"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Huh?" Lily notices her feet aren't touching the ground. That's weird. "Dunno," she answers Loren about what they're standing on. Then she looks to Lan, who had greeted her, and waves back at her. "Hi," the dark-haired girl says. "I'm Lily. It's nice to meet you." Pause. That's what she's supposed to say, she's pretty sure. "You're dressed weird," she says to Loren, and when she looks away, she too sees the wooden room. ...And the noise. And the flame. There are screams, and Lily screams too despite herself for a moment--but suddenly--
"Fire..." She bites her lip. Her hands are smooth, and completely unburnt, without a single scar. Nevertheless, she looks afraid in a knowing sort of way.
Lan is being brave, and Lily nods. "Right! I can--I can get through!!"
She turns towards the barred window and lifts her hands. "Flames... GO!"
Red-glowing circuitry blazes all about her hands as a column of fire erupts from her palms to blast through the window, and in the process takes up a lot of the oxygen that would've let the fire spread to them.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Demolition Formula toward her party's challenge, Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Looking like that," he repeats, wrinkling his brow. His nose wrinkles too, and it's the absence of a familiar sensation that prompts Loren to reach up and touch his face. His glasses are gone. He-- didn't lose them again, did he?!
The look on his face may briefly say everything.
"How do I know your... what?"
He stares at her for a long moment, his gaze then turning towards the black-haired girl. It's weird. She's pretty small-looking, but it's like they're about the same height.
"...But your name is Lan? And, you're...?" he utters, in Lily's direction.
'Lily', she says.
He stops dead for a moment, staring at her. Seriously? Really-- no, this has to just be a coincidence. He can't just be dreaming about Lily Keil, except in inexplicable child form. That would just be absurd!
But that's not what he presses her on. What he says instead is--
"It's not weird!"
BEHIND YOU, says the paku-paku.
NORTH.
There's enough time to blink. Then there's heat.
Terrible heat.
Two someones scream downstairs. "What-- shit," he says, looking this way and that. "We have to get out of here!"
He's reached in his pockets for something, anything, but all he turns up is a single comfortably smooth stone. He grips it tightly in one hand as he stares at the window and wills, with everything he has--
The room shudders suddenly, violently, vibration fed through up through the foundation and through the walls. The window.
Perhaps it will weaken things, just enough for the flames to do the rest.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
===========<* CHALLENGE - Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames *>============
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You awake again. You know, in an instant, that it is a dream. The people
that you have journeyed with are here. It is a wooden home, with a style
remniscent of Glenwood and Meribia. Paintings are on the wall, with fine
adornments on the walls and nightstands. However, the heat is most
oppressive.
Flames lick from under the door. There is a reddish glow to the whole of the
room, a terrifying light that presents a simple fact: this house is aflame.
You hear screams from below, a woman and a child. There is a massive, loud
CRASH--
--and the screams cease. You feel your heart shudder, remembered pain and
sorrow swelling. But the desperation to flee is there, and more powerful.
The only way out is a barred window, an iron grate covering it. It is hot to
the touch. But if you can break free... then you may escape.
=Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Tire=============================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 2 *>=================== =============< Results - Lord of Calamity - The Consuming Flames >============== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(18)--> 23 Fail Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 5 --(10)--> 15 Pass Demolition Formula 3 Brute Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(18)--> 23 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(15)--> 35 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Tire(2)|Weaken(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan isn't strong enough to break open the bars. She's not even sure she can break the window glass. But if everybody works together, they can escape! Right?! They have to!
The flame that answers Lily's call is wild, not quite tamed - a bright and gusting thing, sparks peeling off and dying in midair as they suffocate, but it's strong. Maybe by itself it wouldn't have been enough, but the forces of the dreaming earth itself shudder through the frame of the room. The glass cracks from the force of the blast, shattering in shards that twinkle red in the heat...
And so does the wall. The wild flame knocks the bars out of their moorings and punches a hole in the wooden wall. The sudden rush of cool, outside air almost takes their breath away...
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
================<* CHALLENGE - Margaret - I'm Still Standing *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You're sitting near the edge of a plaza. It's windy, terribly windy, but
it's a bright blue day, without a cloud in the sky... because you're above
the clouds, of course! It's as natural as breathing.
Everyone's here. A big older man. A thin man and a small woman, both with
painted faces. A too-short elf woman, already eating a turkey leg. A big guy
with a greased-up hairstyle. A dark woman with a head shaved smooth. They're
all having cross-chat, but then the big man blows a pitch pipe.
Because this is why you're here. The magic's important - it fills your days
and your afternoons and more evenings than you'd like. But you came here -
you all came through it all, to the magical city in the clouds, to Neo-Vane
- for the moments like this.
Everyone's eyes are on you. You have a moment to consider, but decades of
pain and penury and boredom are pressing behind you. You *have* to sing.
What will it be today?
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"It's weird," Lily insists casually.
"Oh! Oh!" Lily, who is clearly afraid of the fire, notices Loren's indiscretion, though not his stone. "You said a bad word!" she complains.
But it's a complaint that cannot keep her full attention. Not when she feels Earth magic all around her, and notices the very walls blast out. "O-oh? What's..."
It's cool out here. No, not just because it's cold, because it's windy. Up above the clouds they stand, and everyone is here. The pitch pipe makes happy music...
The city in the clouds is all around them, and Lily feels the pressure all of a sudden. The... the need to...
"W-what?" she says. "I'm not--I mean--I don't--"
But they have to sing!!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"You're weird," Loren retorts, without even thinking about it.
This will likely not improve matters minutes later when he utters, panicking over the flames, a particular swearword. "What? We're-- so what!" he snaps at her, his concentration broken at a critical juncture. The flames intensify! "What are you, twelve--"
She's probably not even twelve yet, really.
The window breaks. The heat dies down. It's cool in here.
...Out here, to be precise. Where are they? It can't be Etrenank because he can feel the wind on his face.
And Loren realizes that everyone's looking at him intensely. It's his turn to sing.
Aren't... some of these people...
That's it. This is some kind of horrible nightmare. There's nothing else it could be. He fidgets with the stone in his hand. It's getting quite warm.
So is his face.
"I... I," he says, shifting uncomfortably under the INTENSE PRESSURE. "Look..."
This is hell. He's in hell.
"...fine."
Closing his eyes, he begins to warble uncertainly the national anthem of Solaris, the only thing he knows all the lyrics to that he can dredge up out of sheer rote memory in the heat of this particular moment.
It's in Solarian, of course.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Cool, beautiful, windy, serene... everything that the burning room wasn't. It's like being washed clean from the inside out, and Lan takes a deep breath - partially because shes breathing hard from leftover fright, and partially because it feels like she could drink it down and never get enough.
She turns to make sure the others have come with her, and breathes a sigh of relief to see them both. Lily, and... "Wait, of course my name is Lan. Were you trying to find someone else?"
S-she's just going to continue the conversation from where they left off?!
"Are you both okay? That was awful! But how did you do that thing with your arms like that? Do they hurt?" she asks Lily, and it might be that they were drowned in the questions of a sheltered Baskar child... if it weren't for the sudden pressure.
Everybody with stage fright or social anxiety recognizes it. That creeping, crawling sensation, and then the sudden clutch of realizing that everybody's eyes are on you. That there's something you're supposed to be doing and you're not doing it, why aren't you doing it, don't you know how--?
Lan, who has never once experienced this in her life, steps forward with her hands raised to clap.
"..." What on earth is he saying.
"Ooooooooooooooone fine day I took a hen to markeeeeeeeeeeet, and I traded her for a song...!"
Apparently, even made-up ditties about barter economics are preferable to Loren trying to sing.
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing. DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Demolition Formula toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
================<* CHALLENGE - Margaret - I'm Still Standing *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You're sitting near the edge of a plaza. It's windy, terribly windy, but
it's a bright blue day, without a cloud in the sky... because you're above
the clouds, of course! It's as natural as breathing.
Everyone's here. A big older man. A thin man and a small woman, both with
painted faces. A too-short elf woman, already eating a turkey leg. A big guy
with a greased-up hairstyle. A dark woman with a head shaved smooth. They're
all having cross-chat, but then the big man blows a pitch pipe.
Because this is why you're here. The magic's important - it fills your days
and your afternoons and more evenings than you'd like. But you came here -
you all came through it all, to the magical city in the clouds, to Neo-Vane
- for the moments like this.
Everyone's eyes are on you. You have a moment to consider, but decades of
pain and penury and boredom are pressing behind you. You *have* to sing.
What will it be today?
=Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 3 *>=================== ==================< Results - Margaret - I'm Still Standing >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 23 --(3)--> 26 Pass Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 15 --(3)--> 18 Pass Demolition Formula 3 Brute Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 23 --(3)--> 26 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 35 --(20)--> 55 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Tire(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Uh-uh!" Lily answers Loren. "I'm--" Pause. She has to think about it. "Nine!" But why does she have to think about it? Probably no reason. But once they're in this other place...
"Oh, um..." Lily smiles at Lan, for a moment, but it fades with the pressure.
The signing goes well, actually. Loren starts a national anthem but Lan, who doe snot have the anxiety the other two do APPARENTLY, starts singing more loudly. Barter economics!! Lily stops in relief and then bites her lip, thinking.
"...Well, when I do magic I get these symbols," she says to Lan, low so she doesn't overrule the singing. "Like this..."
Lily casts a spell on the group of support, and it burns a little--but in a good way, a warm way, that bolsters and protects. ...And then she joins Lan by humming a little. Quietly.
Everyone claps. It's a very nice moment. Right?
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
=================<* CHALLENGE - Krelian - Light Up the Skies *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
When you come to, you are inside the cockpit of a Gear. Perhaps it is your
own; perhaps it is another. Whatever the case, the Gear that you are inside
has taken to the skies, and the roar of its engine fills your ears. A
brilliant blue sky stretches outside of the main monitor of your Gear, and
below, you can see islands of northern Aquvy -- though with far less
desertification.
In the sky, ahead of you, are dozens and dozens of Solarian Gears. White and
glorious, they streak forward, ahead of two aerial battleships -- and a
crack-/BOOM/ of an airship's cannon thunders past. A cry comes out, from one
of your squadmates:
"Commander Krelian!" the young woman says. "Are we to engage?"
You have little choice. The Solarian Gears sweep into your squadron. Blades
clash; rifles fire. The midair battle is brutal and intense, over skies
familiar and alien at the same time. But carving your way through the
Solarian Gears is the only way forward.
=Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"You're nine," Loren sighs, in that moment after their arrival into this strange windy place and before they're all put on the spot to sing. "Great. I've ended up minding a couple of children."
Loren, it should be noted, probably looks about no older than eight or nine himself.
He shakes his head at Lan's question. "I wasn't looking for anyone," he insists. "I just found myself here. And now I'm stuck with both of you," he says, shoulders slouching. "And quit worrying. I'm fine! I've had worse than that before," Loren insists, shaking his head.
He still hasn't introduced himself, has he.
Singing. Singing happens. He lapses into silence after a while, glancing about himself, then awkwardly rubs at his throat as if he were uncomfortable ('as if he were uncomfortable').
"Look. Just shut up," he says, scowling. Still, it seems to have passed muster somehow? Everyone's clapping.
It makes him feel even more ill at ease.
Loren glances away, and in that moment, finds himself gazing at a display screen inside a Gear. There's a particular jostle just then that he knows quite well. He's--
He's flying a Gear.
He reaches for the throttle and finds it's difficult to reach, as if his arms were too short. Wait, hasn't he had this dream before--
"Shit," he whispers, watching through the camera displays as missiles come down in a rain for his position, hard. This is a dream about being Krelian, somehow, except on the side of someone else (Shevat?) and it makes absolutely zero sense already. The fact that he's having weird difficulty with the controls is just a bonus.
He spins his Ether through the Tuner wrapped around his left wrist, feeding it into the Booster that has to be living somewhere in this Gear. He'll make a shield, he'll make as many shields as he can fuel. He has to survive this battle, too.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She can at least make up songs and listen at the same time, even if her lyrics do suffer a bit for her split attention... you can't just replace 'hen' with 'pig' and call it a new verse!!
But apparently that doesn't matter to the audience, or maybe Lily's bolstering magic is just that powerful! It hasn't occurred to Lan that most people aren't going to be heartless enough to boo at literal children.
She takes a bow, beaming with pride, after they finish up. "Thank you!" She always knew she was destined for greatness! This will be the start of a new career for Lan, the beginning of her journey as an accomplished shaman-and-entertainer! It's going to be kind of hard to tour while she's still learning magic, because Lan also hasn't learned how to ride a horse yet, but this is so promising that she'd be silly to ignore the chance of a lifetime!
"Do you guys know 'A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob On the End'? I'm not supposed to sing it but I think it'd be okay if Mom's not here--" She looks down, digging into her satchel for a bottle of water, which she opens before looking up--
--into something incomprehensible.
Flashing squares of light, scrolling lines of what might be words in a language she doesn't remember. It stinks in here. The air is stale. Someone is barking words-- at her??
Frozen in shock, Lan loses her grip on the glass bottle, which falls to the floor of the cramped space with a dull 'clunk', water spilling freely into the interior of the machine.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Clear Water toward her party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Hmph!" Lily looks at Loren, up and down, and scowls at him. "I could beat you up," she says instead. "So don't make fun of me."
Stuck with them. "We're stuck with you," she says. But it's more fun to watch Lan make up songs, so Lily claps along too. She tilts her head at the question though. "You know songs about wizards...?"
It's for the best maybe that that doesn't happen. But maybe not, because Lan is having a lot of trouble, and suddenly Lily is too in a Gear and blinks in alarm. "Aah!" But somehow she knows how to pilot it; she She feels the shields Loren makes in a Gear near her... and sets her jaw. She looks around, and notices Lan having so much trouble, that determines what she has to do. "It's okay, Lan!" Lily says, and starts flipping switches. "Engaging..."
Luckily the interior of the Gear is water-resistant, though there are sudden sparks and Lily moves in alarm, bringing up her hands and glowing again with strange markings--
All around their Gear, flames begin to erupt as the Ether Booster in the Gear picks up Lily's spellcasting, causing great machines to explode in sudden, uncontrolled bursts.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Krelian - Light Up the Skies.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
=================<* CHALLENGE - Krelian - Light Up the Skies *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
When you come to, you are inside the cockpit of a Gear. Perhaps it is your
own; perhaps it is another. Whatever the case, the Gear that you are inside
has taken to the skies, and the roar of its engine fills your ears. A
brilliant blue sky stretches outside of the main monitor of your Gear, and
below, you can see islands of northern Aquvy -- though with far less
desertification.
In the sky, ahead of you, are dozens and dozens of Solarian Gears. White and
glorious, they streak forward, ahead of two aerial battleships -- and a
crack-/BOOM/ of an airship's cannon thunders past. A cry comes out, from one
of your squadmates:
"Commander Krelian!" the young woman says. "Are we to engage?"
You have little choice. The Solarian Gears sweep into your squadron. Blades
clash; rifles fire. The midair battle is brutal and intense, over skies
familiar and alien at the same time. But carving your way through the
Solarian Gears is the only way forward.
=Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Injure============================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 4 *>=================== ===================< Results - Krelian - Light Up the Skies >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 26 --(5)--> 31 Pass Ether Tuner 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 18 --(13)--> 31 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 26 --(5)--> 31 Pass Clear Water 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 55 --(20)--> 75 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
"Father."
When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls
are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet
that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of
the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue
oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head.
The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you...
did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?"
You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the
dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each
of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Beat me up?" Loren scoffs, as if to cast doubt upon her claim. "I'd like to see you try. What are you going to do, kick me in the shin?"
This may mean that he's definitely asking for it, as it were.
"A wizard's staff?" Loren echoes, nonplussed in this particular instance. "Why would you want to sing about a wizard's staff?"
Oh Loren. But at least once she starts singing it he'll understand (much to his dismay).
Lan isn't in his Gear (wow, it's really hard for him to reach the controls) so this won't be a repeat of another dream he's definitely had. Instead, something just as alarming happens as hexagonal-tiled shields bloom into being before their Gears--
He glances up and in this moment the screen is a dark mirror. He can see himself.
And he's definitely not an adult. He's the spitting image of what he had looked like at about eight or nine, right down to the ill-conceived haircut.
"..."
Loren has no words at first.
"What-- what's going on here?! Why am I--!"
Lily will be faced with her own challenges, meanwhile. Her Gear seems to almost fight against her, like something about her being were unable to completely interface with whatever technology this Gear is using. Strange: in the current day she has no such issues.
But this is a dream. And in the dream, this Gear fights back. As if she did not belong, perhaps--
*Thok* goes the water bottle, slamming into some panel in the Gear. It's waterproofed in here, yes, but the right amount of force at just the right time--
Power surges through the Gear.
Their enemies are nothing before her power.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's loud, and it's cramped, and Lan has never, ever even heard of a place or a thing like this, even in a story from one of her well-traveled relatives. It's not exciting, it's not exhilarating, it's not even worrying. To a young girl for whom even glass is a precious resource, to be entombed in light and electricity is just plain terrifying.
Thankfully, Lily and -- who is he, anyway??? -- the boy seem to be more comfortable in these circumstances than Lan ever will be.
The Gears around them explode, power surging through them. Voices cry out and are silenced. Lan squeezes her eyes shut and presses her hands over her ears, because she's not going to cry, she's not going to cry--!
When they all alight on their feet in front of the big window, Lan is crying a little. Sniff, hic...!
She doesn't ask what that was, and she doesn't ask if they're all right -- she just throws her arms around both of them, a quiet wail smothered in her throat. "u, uuu...!" So maybe they can all be forgiven if the sight of a ruined world doesn't get as much fanfare as it really deserves. "...hey," she realizes, pulling back far enough to wipe at her eyes. "Just who are you, anyway?" This to Loren, of course, who she's pretty sure by now is not a mischievous spirit come to lead her and Lily astray into the Badlands.
But he could be. She's been wrong before.
The view through the window, eventually, gets Lan's attention. She doesn't really understand what it is, but... isn't there something sad about it...? It looks like it's dying.
When she turns back to speak to them about it, mouth opening to form words, it's then that she sees a woman raising a pistol at their backs. "--NO!"
The star in her heart flares silver, the shine of it lighting up her ribbon and her eyes as she grabs for their hands and kicks off of the floor, all of her magic surging toward the desire to live.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"If Lan weren't singing I'd show you," Lily challenges Loren, pointing at him and shoving with one hand once. But that's all she does for now! That's enough. In the Gears...
It works. It works OK, and Lily is able to bring out her power, but... "It... it doesn't want to obey me," she says with a frown. "It's... it's weird..."
But it works, and she looks to Lan, crying. "Hey, are you..." Her arms come up around both of them, and Lily hugs her back. So she doesn't notice the world at first anyway; she notices Lan. "It's okay," she says. "I'll keep you safe. I promise. I..."
Who is Loren? It's a good question. Lily wonders too. But before she finishes her sentence she sees the view through the window, and hesitates. "What's..."
But a woman raising a pistol--Lily blinks, suddenly--
Her eyes turn black. A dark barrier erupts behind her, strange blue light crackling in all directions,k making her hard to look at. The bullet may just pass through her without harming her, if this instinctual strange magic works.
"I'm... supposed to fight," she says. "So I'll fight."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Lily shoves him in that moment and he staggers back a step under her push, something that shouldn't happen.
His mind is still deliberately overlooking the fact that a literal child is about his size...
The battlefield fades. The world will never know that this fight was won by a group of literal children.
It resolves again after a couple blinks. Loren reaches out for the console (one that he can, irritatingly, barely see over; forget the death of a world for now, thank you) to steady himself and that's when Lan catches the both of them in a great big bear hug.
That's right, he realizes, as his mind grapples with this latest bit of sensory information. He's literally nine years old right now. That's why this child-Lan can wrap the both of them in a hug.
Also, she's crying. It makes something twist horribly in his chest, because his body might be different but it's still him under the hood. "H-hey..."
He's about as good at this as he ever was. But eventually she lets go, which makes things a little less awkward.
"...Loren," he answers after a bit. "You really don't remember?"
Or maybe she's actually 'back then' in the way that he's definitely not.
But Lan sees something he doesn't. Loren turns his head just in time to sigh the barrel of the gun, the flash of the muzzle. It's impossible to dodge a bullet, logic speaks to him. Not at a moment like this--
And he still reaches for Lan's hand, because he wants to be wrong.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
"Father."
When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls
are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet
that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of
the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue
oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head.
The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you...
did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?"
You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the
dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each
of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 5 *>=================== ========================< Results - Gabriel - Betrayal >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 31 --(5)--> 36 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 31 --(5)--> 36 Pass Impure Pendant 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 31 --(5)--> 36 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 75 --(35)--> 110 Pass Conditions: Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Loren Voss has successfully explored Elw Teleporters - Dreaming!
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - What We Leave Behind *>=====================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
You jerk awake sharply in your bed. You have a cold sweat (if you are able)
and you look about, the memories of the dreams lingering -- but for one of
you, a memory comes to you, unbidden. It is an unpleasant memory; a memory
of strife and struggle. But why does it come to mind now?
OOC: One member of your party can submit a +request with text for a
challenge. Please make it have a Challenge Rating of 1 or 2, select from any
of the four Dungeon Abilities, and build an appropriate set of abilities.
Please also provide the text of the card. Include your character's name in
the challenge's title.
Staff reserve the right to edit and make changes as needed.
=Dungeon Conditions: Secret===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
It's really difficult sometimes, to be a kid. Lots of things happen that don't make sense, and people make all kinds of decisions for you, and then sometimes there is war. Sometimes there are children touched by it who must grow up too quickly, who shoulder burdens they're yet too young to bear. Some of them wither under the yoke, and some become monstrous to survive.
What will these children grow up to be, one day?
"Sorry," Lan sniffles. "I don't remember. Did we meet before?" Did she forget? Mom says she's always got her head in the clouds and it's true, but to forget that she met alien kids???
At least she didn't get tears or snot on them. That would be awful and she'd feel really bad about it, once the idea occurred to her to do so.
But the only thing that occurs to her now, even as Lily erupts with some fel magic, even as 'Loren' reaches for her hand, is that she wants to live. She wants to live and she wants them to live, even though she just met them. "LILY!" She can't look. She can't cover her eyes, there's no time--!
The bullets hit Lily's barrier with an offcolor spark, but no actual sensation of impact. They pass through like mist, like a memory... like a bad dream. There's no sound of impact against the metal walls, there's no sudden crack and explosion of glass being breached. The shots just... cease to be, in any way that matters. Overhead, Lan and Loren are weightless, held in space above Lily's shield. "...I'm sorry," she tells him, reaching out to take his other hand too. "I promise I won't forget again..."
And she freezes, and he freezes, and she freezes, and the purple walls are fading to g r a y
"Mnnnuff," Lan groans, slowly opening her eyes at the bottom of a ditch.