2021-10-01: Memorial, Shememorial
- Log: Memorial, Shememorial
- Cast: Ines Colina, Magilou, Jacqueline Barber, Ruth Pauling, Seraph Harmaus
- Where: The Cape of Breath
- Date: October 02, 2021
- Summary: A group descends into the depths of Capel Coffa -- and it is a most unusual group indeed. What secrets coil in the depths of the Elw ruins, and will they be able to uncover them?
DG: A party led by Ines Colina is now entering Capel Coffa. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Into The Depths *>======================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A few things can be gleaned about Capel Coffa from the outset: first of all, it's clearly an Elw ruin to judge by the flowing nearly-organic architecture visible from the outside, deep within the crevice in which it has been enclosed. The second thing that can be safely assumed is that this place was made to be protected from the outside world. For what reason is not immediately clear: if it was to protect the inhabitants, then the question arises of how they would ever leave the place easily on a regular basis. ...Because to get into the Elw ruin you first need to negotiate the drop down to the white-doored entranceway in the stone, far below. The tight walls of the rocky crevice make most forms of flight tricky business. This will be tiring -- and potentially painful if one slips -- going. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgWiOju3P4 =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure=============================================
DG: A party led by Ines Colina is now entering Capel Coffa. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Into The Depths *>======================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A few things can be gleaned about Capel Coffa from the outset: first of all, it's clearly an Elw ruin to judge by the flowing nearly-organic architecture visible from the outside, deep within the crevice in which it has been enclosed. The second thing that can be safely assumed is that this place was made to be protected from the outside world. For what reason is not immediately clear: if it was to protect the inhabitants, then the question arises of how they would ever leave the place easily on a regular basis. ...Because to get into the Elw ruin you first need to negotiate the drop down to the white-doored entranceway in the stone, far below. The tight walls of the rocky crevice make most forms of flight tricky business. This will be tiring -- and potentially painful if one slips -- going. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgWiOju3P4 =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
The Elw Ruin of Capel Coffa has been a frequent visit for Drifters in the region, but from reports there is ever more in the old ruins. hat's why Ines is here- if there's something of value in here, it'll cover costs for a while, or at least cover some medicine costs. She looks down at the drop. "...Pretty steep," she mutters as she dismounts Furacao, the horse remaining calm as usual, even with a giant claymore strapped to his side. "And a bit of a squeeze. Great."
Ruin diving is one of those jobs when being big can be a problem.
She pulls her whip from her belt, and cracks the the tip against the wall of the descent, where it freezes in place. It's not quite abseiling, but it'll work for their purposes. She gets ready to start her descent when, almost lazily,the sword unsheathes itself from Furacao's side, and floats over to Ines.
"Deciding to come with me, huh?" As if in confirmation, it moves to sit against Ines' back. "Guess so." With a grunt, Ines starts climbing down, reaffixing the whip as she needs. "Here we go, then."
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou, who is also here, disappears from the party (insomuch as they have one) for a short time before they attempt to descend into the ruin. When pressed, she replies: "There was a geotree right there! You can't help but touch it!"
What a geotree is and why it is so tempting she leaves as exercises for the reader. Whether she picked anyone up in her brief sojourn is also left as an exercise for the reader. ... she looks like she came back alone.
"Nice sword," she comments, to Ines, cheerfully. "On a scale of one to ten, how haunted is he? Ballpark estimate." Magilou, that's a mean thing to say about someone else's claymore. Not all claymores are mega-haunted.
As she looks down that steep, horrible drop, she snaps her fingers. She's never /quite/ as alone as she looks, which may or may not be blatant narrative redirection. "Well, looks like there's no way down. Oh, Biiienfu... o/`" Her singsong tone, as she laces her fingers together in front of her and streeetches them out, makes sense to /one/ person here.
And so a voice, much more pipsqueakish than her own, emanates from her: "Why do I always have to... right, right! Normin Breyve..."
Subsequently, a runic board, all aglow in ancient neon-blue writing, appears by Magilou. She hops onto it like a surfboard, and -- with the requisite "Wahoo!" -- proceeds to surf down the narrow edges of the drop, one hand trailing on the claustrophobic edges of the near wall.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation! toward her party's challenge, Into The Depths. DG: Ines Colina has used her Tool Runic Whip toward her party's challenge, Into The Depths.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Capel Coffa... it's been a while since Jacqueline's last visit, but with recent developments, she has good reason to revisit the Elw memorial ruin - and so, today finds her at the edge of the crevice leading toward toward the ruin proper.
"This is going to be a bit of a climb... here, have this." Jacqueline says, reaching into her bags. She draws out a bottle of pale green liquid and, with a Mystic touch, it settles over everyone in a glimmering cloud. It promotes freedom of movement in those it affects.
With that done, Jacqueline begins to climb down. She aims to make her way down slowly and carefully, and as such will probably be one of the last ones to make it.
...As long as she doesn't slip, that is.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Into The Depths.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
SOME VAGUE AMOUNT OF TIME AGO
In Kattelox, Yvain and Yulie visit Ruth. When the latter - a long-troubled young woman talks openly and happily about being around her friends, Ruth attempts to buy time to decompress (or rather, not compress further) to go buy them something else at the nearby vending machine. It should be a heartwarming, unambiguously happy thing, for someone who long distrusted adults - and finding there's something especially ugly within the former elf - being able to say with confidence and a smile that someone like her is a friend.
Especially after a difficult conversation when the Rose Queen and herself met with two individuals far more knowledgeable about who and what they are than they themselves were.
RIGHT NOW
"...I am." Ruth responds, having followed along with Ines. She's still within her former self and has managed that for the duration of the trip to here, a habit that's something of a luxury among those cursed unto Hellionization. She keeps close to Ines within allowance, the larger Beastfolk being allowed to take point as Magilou happens from the direction in which she's deaf. (Fate has conspired to ensure, somehow, her left side is always facing Magilou before she approaches.)
Her eyes follow the claymore, just in time to be startled by Magilou's appearance and quizzical probing about how haunted the claymore is - and further feel that churning when she hurls herself into the drop without much care in the world (beyond caring to call upon the power of the Normin Breyve first, which is more care than the world generally deserves).
Jay's Mystic-granted spritz of Rapid Remedy brings a twinge of pain in her shoulder as it loosens some of its stiffness as she stands and watches the others engage down the drop. She hasn't put much thought into why she was willing to go all the way out here, specifically - as though a question she were asked still haunts her (among all the other things that does).
When she gathers her courage to look into the drop, she sees there is an obstruction she might be able to help clear with the descent. "I'll help clear that... that jagged spike. It looks like shrapnel." She clutches onto a Crest Graph like it were a precious thing as she casts forth a stream of river-like water to come and try to wash and dislodge it out, so that there's more space for the decent for everyone else.
She'll come down the ropes too, once her left shoulder better adjusts to the Rapid Remedy's effects.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Rivercrest toward her party's challenge, Into The Depths.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Magilou did not, in fact, come back alone. There had been someone else near the geotree.
Whatever that is.
But it's not a fact that would be readily apparent to the outside world -- after all, only Magilou makes her approach to the rest of the group investigating the ruin.
The fact that Magilou is never, technically, alone remains veiled to the rest of the group. As does the fact that she is in fact at present technically a crowd. After all, as the saying goes, two's company, three's...
So the fact that it almost sounds like a delicate porcelain bell is ringing as Magilou makes her descent atop the board may be taken as instead the presence of some charm on her person. Which, for a moment here as a white-gray paw extends from her body...
...is technically true.
Dingle dingle dingle.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Into The Depths.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - Into The Depths *>======================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- A few things can be gleaned about Capel Coffa from the outset: first of all, it's clearly an Elw ruin to judge by the flowing nearly-organic architecture visible from the outside, deep within the crevice in which it has been enclosed. The second thing that can be safely assumed is that this place was made to be protected from the outside world. For what reason is not immediately clear: if it was to protect the inhabitants, then the question arises of how they would ever leave the place easily on a regular basis. ...Because to get into the Elw ruin you first need to negotiate the drop down to the white-doored entranceway in the stone, far below. The tight walls of the rocky crevice make most forms of flight tricky business. This will be tiring -- and potentially painful if one slips -- going. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIgWiOju3P4 =Dungeon Conditions: Tire, Injure=============================================
==========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 1 *>=========================== =========================< Results - Into The Depths >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ines Colina 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Runic Whip 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 0 --(17)--> 17 Fail Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 0 --(17)--> 17 Fail Rivercrest 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ines Colina 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ines Colina 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> Ines Colina has posed.
The descent is many things, but smooth is not one of them. It's slow and exhausting, but at least everyone lands okay. There just may be some unwanted slips and slides and scrapes, but that's how it happens. At least there's wave for Magilou to hit.
"Pretty haunted, honestly. I mean I found it in a place full of sword ghosts." The claymore does not seem to be complaining much, shifting a little on Ines' back. "...the hell is a geotree?"
Either way, Ines is remaining pretty calm, perhaps a surprise for those who have dealt with her recently. Is she a little more down to earth?
DG: Ruth Pauling has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Race Against Time *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- An announcement rings out as you step into this corridor, echoing out in a number of languages as sirens ring before hitting upon one which you speak: "Fire detected in this location. Please evacuate." There is no fire. --There must be some sort of glitch in the system, but there's no way (and no time) to convince it of that. Gleaming crystalline-blue suppression doors are beginning to slam down in the corridor as jets spray some sort of fluid. Time to run for it, lest you get trapped by a fire suppression door. =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth's one of the last ones down, a hiss escaping her lips that might put certain individuals on edge given the other contexts in which she does that... but this seems to be a completely normal, ordinary, not-sadness-monster hiss of pain, bringing her hand up to her shoulder as she finishes rappelling down with the others - but her eyes do catch that weird paw coming out of Magilou at one point. For all the aches and pains she suffers within the shell of her former self, her eyes are about as keen as they always have been.
"..."
It all leads into a clean corridor in this eerie, abandoned place of remembrance. So well-maintained that there's the telltale hums of power and soft lights of a place that pretends it still exists and functions, and then...
Sirens ring. Deafening sirens, followed by a variety of voices, and then one everyone here would know:
"Fire detected in this location. Please evacuate."
There's no fire, unless someone feels like burning something. There are, however, gleaming crystalline-blue doors slamming down all around them, already cutting off a few avenues of potential escape to the sides - but they seem to be going in sequence, closest to the entrance first, and then towards the end. A chance.
If they can run there fast enough, as jets spray a fluid of some kind they don't have time to sit around and figure out if it's non-toxic or won't stain/ruin their clothes any more than Digging generally does.
In Ruth's case, considering the nature of her state of (over)dress and poor quality of boots, can put up a reasonable expression of 'a decent jogging pace that might not be fast enough' as she invokes the Crest Graph in her hand again, trying to use a stream of water to help carry herself and maybe others along the distance as tension ratchets up.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Rivercrest toward her party's challenge, Race Against Time.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline takes a moment to dust herself off as she finally reachs the bottom of the ravine. She looks, briefly, toward Magilou as Ines asks her question. ...She can't help but be curious about what a 'Geotree' is, herself.
Nearby, though, is the entrance to the ruin. Jacqueline follows the others inside, taking an interest in the construction and current condition.
"It's very clean... I suppose you can count on the Elw for good automatic maintenance practices." Jacqueline says. ...Or at least she would think that, when suddenly, an alarm goes off. She looks around quickly, looking for any signs of weaponry emerging from the walls.
"Did we activate a security system?" Jacqueline asks, just as a variety of voices, each speaking a different language sound. "...No, it looks like the fire suppression systems have accidentally activated... Everyone, let's move!"
The effects of Jacqueline's potion still linger from before, so she doesn't bother to fish one out. She breaks into a run, taking advantage of Ruth's spell to move forward quicker. As she does, though, she begins to gesture with her left hand, invoking one of the Crest Graphs currently set into her gauntlet to create a series of earthen pillars along the walls to prop the doors open and, hopefully, give them a little more time to escape.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Race Against Time.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Magilou is not alone.
This is almost never not the case for the witch, but it is more the case now as the group strides into the ruin.
As somewhere within these halls, an alarm sings. No, not a security alarm, but...
"Jaeja," says a quite different voice from somewhere on Magilou's person. This, just moments before a cat spills out of her body and drops down onto the floor. An impressive grey-white tail swishes the once.
"It wonders me. No fire, yet?" the cat muses, apparently content to spend the precious seconds looking hither and yon. "And yet alarm sings out! Problem, problem, yes... especially if it gets caught! It can run, yes?"
And off the Seraph goes, that little ceramic bell at his collar jingling pleasingly. If light -- muted auroric smear and all -- billows from the cat's feet, it's...
...huh. Well, it's probably magic?
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Race Against Time.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Jingle, jingle...
Magilou can host forty-nine souls, so sheltering one more than Bienfu isn't much of an imposition on her. Would her party members protest if they knew such a devious cat was in their midst? Probably. That's why she's smuggling him in!
She surfs down on the spiritual waves of the ruin, and the literal wave Ruth provides, and she even has some cool Mystic sparkles, courtesy Jacqueline. Once she comes to a stop, she grins, to Ines. "Sword ghosts! Imagine possessing a sword."
There is a brief pause here, as if Magilou is actually imagining possessing a sword. Or making someone else do it. Biennnn...
She does explain Ines's question after a beat or two, at least. "Why, they're vents of spiritual energy, of course! A Geotree serves as a conduit between the Earthpulse -- or whatever passes for it on Filgaia," Magilou waves a hand, handily handwaving the entire question, "and the surface world. Since this Geoboard," she points down to it, "works by pushing against those spiritual waves, you need to find the Geotrees in order to teach the board where they are in the first place. Besides!" She wags a finger, cheerfully. "They tickle!"
Magilou asides, a moment later, as the alarms begin to blaze: "Oh, but you'll need a Normin on hand to use them. It's Normin technology, you know. They stumbled upon it all on their own!" Wait, so Magilou has a Normin on hand...?
HERE COMES THE SHOCKING REVEAL:
Wait, no, Harmaus tumbling out was probably just coincidence. Magilou looks awfully casual about the lack of fire in the area. "No fire whatsoever, kitty-man!" She reports, a hand shading her eyes as she theatrically looks back and forth. "So it's probably not worth worrying about!"
That same pipsqueaky voice, emanating from inside her, wails: "Biennnn!!!"
"Oh, fine," Magilou hops on the geoboard again, and proceeds to surf along the ground to what is still, however briefly, an exit.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation! toward her party's challenge, Race Against Time.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
The hiss does get Ines to look up to the Hellion. "...You alright there?" For all her previous encounters with Ruth, there is definitely a working relationship there. Maybe even a strained friendship? It's complicated. Either way, she seems concerned. Still, there's a smirk from the shark woman at Jay's comment. "Yeah, and if we could steal the trick to those cleaning things, we'd be richer than all of Guild Galad."
Unfortunately, the alarm puts Ines on edge. "A fire, down he-"
And then a cat falling out of Magilou just stops her in her tracks. "Valmar's teeth!" She would have many more questions, but the situation has become to run as a crystal door slams down behind them. "Leg it!"
She swings out with her whip, using it to pull herself forward, and being willing to sling it back and pull if anyone needs an assistant.
DG: Ines Colina has used her Tool Runic Whip toward her party's challenge, Race Against Time.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Race Against Time *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- An announcement rings out as you step into this corridor, echoing out in a number of languages as sirens ring before hitting upon one which you speak: "Fire detected in this location. Please evacuate." There is no fire. --There must be some sort of glitch in the system, but there's no way (and no time) to convince it of that. Gleaming crystalline-blue suppression doors are beginning to slam down in the corridor as jets spray some sort of fluid. Time to run for it, lest you get trapped by a fire suppression door. =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple==================================================
==========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 2 *>=========================== ========================< Results - Race Against Time >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ines Colina 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Runic Whip 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 17 --(17)--> 34 Fail Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 17 --(17)--> 34 Fail Rivercrest 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ines Colina 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Cripple Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ines Colina 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> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Somewhere in this exchange, when Ines asks how Ruth is, she doesn't look her in the eyes. "I'm fine... now." She represses, almost relents, represses again, and just keeps the conflicting feelings churning under the surface. Though they met in less than great circumstances, and continue to intermingle every so often in less than great circumstances, there's a part of her that feels more comfortable with Ines right now.
But nonetheless this is not a comfortable time! This is a terrible, scary time, unless you are a witch on a cool geoboard surfing with the waaaaaave (the wave is made of Bienfu's tears), and a Seraphic cat introduces themselves to their strange little laughter(?) and otherwise astute observation. Ruth doesn't have a chance to ask yet if the cat talked. Harmaus doesn't quite move at light speed but he doesn't need to go that fast to squeeze under a door before it fully closes - not that it gets much chance to do so, because rock pillars from Jay give some time.
Ines will have to reach out and whip someone through to the other side (or two) when she makes it beyond the very last door with Magilou and Harmaus, the latter two having themselves a neck-and-neck photo finish of who goes through first, because Beinfu's tears and wails of sorrow may travel at a speed comparable to light after all (no).
However that's all settled, on the other side the crystalline door shuts loudly behind them as something noisily fills the space behind them. More sirens, more blaring alarms and words - but it's all behind them. Whatever the 'fire' is, it's being dealt with.
Ruth, for a moment, sits down and takes in a breath that doesn't leave, letting her dull copper hair just spill in front of her eyes as she regards the Light Seraph. A part of her recalls that Elise has mentioned a similar presence before. She fumbles around words and terminologies because they're associated with other things that happened that have been difficult for her to fully unpack.
"Are you a Seraph... then?" Her voice steadies on the outside as she looks up. "A friend of yours?" Vaguely in MAgilou's direction, thereby leaving her vulnerable to being talked to by Magilou.
DG: Magilou has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Verdant Recursion *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This room seems unusually small when you enter. It showcases an Elw garden in miniature: the plants resting in pots, a small bubbling spring, the mossy stone paths. And somewhat atypically, a choice of two glowing tiles set side by side in the middle of the mini garden. When one of the tiles is stepped on, you are taken to a room that seems unusually small when you enter. It showcases an Elw garden in miniature: the plants resting in pots, a small bubbling spring, the mossy stone paths. And somewhat atypically, a choice of two glowing tiles set side by side in the middle of the mini garden. ...It's a teleporter maze, and a fiendish one at that, with each room appearing just like the last. Is this what the Elw considered recreational...? But perhaps there is no way forward but through. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Stupify========================================
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Ruth has a lot of repressing to do, and Magilou is nice enough not to reach in and rip it all open. She'll just hand Ruth a pair of scissors and make encouraging noises, which is totally fine.
"Wheeee!" Magilou crows as she surfs the literal and figurative wave to safety. She kicks the board up into her hands, and then dismisses it in a puff of logic.
This might have something to do with the voice wailing from inside her, "Miss Magilouuu... I'm so tiiiired..."
"Oh, stop fussing and have a nap," Magilou tells herself(??? ??????). Apparently, you don't just need a Normin to use a Geoboard, but using a Geoboard is a real workout for Normin. The Normin who is apparently invisible inside Magilou, just like that cat was, until recently.
(Magilou wonders if swearing by Valmar's teeth made Riley sneeze.)
"This rotten little cat," she jazzhands towards Harmaus, Resident Horrible Cat Who Has Knocked Several Things Off The Shelves, "happens to be an old friend of mine! So do try to get along, won't you?" Is this Magilou's idea of making sure the party remains cohesive? An... an effort was made.
(Wait, how old is Magilou that she can be old friends with a Seraph, anyway???)
Luckily, even if someone does want to kick Harmaus like football, they're already in jail for a thousand years. Because on looking around the room they escaped to, it's as claustrophobic as a cell. Much nicer, though: it's a recreational tiny box, complete with nice little garden.
"Sooo, what," Magilou remarks, after the appropriate amount of time for the camera to pan around the room, "are we in some gardener's art installation..? What a frankly baffling choice of artistic expression." She takes a few steps in, gesturing to Jacqueline. "But hey, look at all these shrubs! Potion vendor, you can make a bunch more potions with this, can't you?" Foot to a tile --
In a flash, they're in a recreational tiny box, with a nice little garden.
"...?" Magilou verbalises a question mark perfectly, and stomps on the tile again.
In a flash, they're in a recreational tiny box, with a nice little garden, and Magilou is not nearly friendly enough with flowers to notice the fact that the hydrangeas are tiger-lilies now.
"Oh, I get it," Magilou says. "This is my own personal hell. Cool. Love it."
She opens up an old leather-bound tome, and flicks through the pages. "Let's see, the last time everything repeated itself over..."
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Mayvin's Accounts toward her party's challenge, Verdant Recursion.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Yes, yes," says the cat-shaped Seraph. "But it minds its place, yes? Unless learns it much secrets yet! Walks it through doors, too?" Which might be a little bit of teasing from Harmaus' end of the room. It seems they're acquainted in some form or another, even if the fact that this is a relationship (of a sort) that stretches back centuries may not be readily apparent. But anyway.
To be quite fair, even if present company didn't have reason to be at least concerned about Harmaus' presence here yet, well. They're sure to gain it soon enough!
But this is now, and in this moment as the Elw ruin echoes with ancient alarms, Harmaus is making a swift getaway. Is he convinced, perhaps, that Magilou won't make it on her own?? Aren't they friends or something?
Well. Maybe.
To both of those questions.
"Was close," Harmaus remarks, once they clear the doors and foam. "Ah? It wonders about me?" Harmaus remarks, tilting his head to one side as he gazes up at Ruth. "Yes."
"It calls me Harmaus, for that is my name," the cat adds, as he starts trotting towards one of the little panels within the garden. "This place... interests me. No Malevolence, yet. But... such secrets!"
If anyone is less than pleased with him being here -- or for that matter, the way that Magilou introduces him -- he doesn't seem to even pay it much heed. ...Yet, that is. There is a panel to investigate.
A minute or two passes after he vanishes through yet another panel-portal, even as Magilou and the others realize the trick of this place.
Then a minute more.
Harmaus appears at the panel behind the lot of them and sits down, washing his face in a way that can only be agitated.
"Tch," the Seraph complains. "Is tricksome."
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Verdant Recursion.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"A conduit between the Earthpulse and the surface..." Jacqueline repeats, consideringly. She nods to herself, then. "I see... I'm familiar with the concept, but I didn't quite realise they could be used that way."
...At a cost, apparently, judging from the way Bienfu wails.
And that's when a cat appears! A cat Seraph, specifically - Jacqueline can recognize that easily enough. Whether or not she recognizes Harmaus specifically, though, is another matter... at least until he says his name, at which point she takes a bit more notice.
"An old friend, hm? Well, it's nice to meet you." Jacqueline replies.
They all make it through the fire suppression doors, and into an unusually small room.
"The Elw were fond of these, I think." Jacqueline says, before glancing toward Magilou. ...She probably shouldn't answer to 'potion vendor', but at this point she's just accepted it as part of Magilou's... Magilou. "I could, but... this is a memorial ruin. I'd prefer not to take more than I need to."
And then... teleportation! Jacqueline considers this for a moment, and draws out her notebook and a piece of chalk.
"Alright... let's mark this room with tiger-lilies as 'Room 3', since it's the third room we've entered." Jacqueline says, stepping clear around a tile and drawing a '3' on the wall with the chalk. "If we find ourselves back in this same location, this will let us know. I recommend that we proceed slowly and try to work out which rooms are connected to each other - and, try to stay toget-"
As she's saying this, Harmaus wanders off on his own, and eventually returns.
"...Welcome back." She greets with a nod.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Verdant Recursion.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Harmaus." Ruth repeats the name. She keeps pushing 'it' down, putting on a little smile that might even be genuine. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Ruth." Harmaus likely already knows. (a.k.a. Dame Moss.)
'No Malevolence, yet. But... such secrets!' The word still feels uncomfortable to hear, but what truths involving them are? When she looks up and follows into the small garden, she's not sure what Harmaus expects that's 'Malevolence.' Because this place...
She does find the courage to step on a flashing panel as Magilou first disappears, and there's that strange disembodied feeling across a span of time that should be 'instant' but there's a displacing feeling she can't quite put her finger on, to find herself in...
A room that looks almost exactly the same, and she's there to hear Magilou's grousing. 'This is my own personal hell. Cool. Love it,' comes the witch's sarcasm, but that's the last thing Ruth pays mind to when she just takes in what she's here for.
To the worlds-weary among the lot of them, who have traveled far and wide and seen so many things terrible and wonderful... this may now just be a quiet, but beautiful garden neatly folded away mentally as 'this is an Elw place, these are the things we expect of Elw locations.'
To Ruth, who has spent almost her entire life in Zoara - and all of it besides on the dying planet of Filgaia - the miniature garden is an entrancing thing that even in such tiny scale carries an otherworldly beauty and cleanliness she can't dream of. She only gets one teleport segment in before she finds herself kneeling down in front of the miniature recreation of the garden, and just takes a whiff of the tiger-lilies. She's been to Sylvaland a handful of times, but somehow this enclosed space just has that touch to it that the entire breadth of its intact forests don't quite match.
What was once Celesti used to look so much less barren and dead, her mind wanders in unproductive directions as she kneels down and listens to the bubbling, tiny streams within the box of pure, clear water that she has trouble acknowledging existing because it's so clear.
It's likely she'll be taken out of this reverie the moment someone's attempts to go through the maze comes back to this space, to find her knelt down and in the way.
...
Maybe the acknowledgement of how she helped take away some of Zoara's life and beauty, how it can't look anything like this any more, is...
Ruth cracks a much sadder smile. "...No, this is a hell being shared," she says to a Magilou who isn't here.
Some of the tension drains from her mind and into her heart.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Verdant Recursion.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
She'll have to accept Ruth's 'I'm fine... now' for now, but it's not ideal. But she's on different rules. For anyone who got yanked, it's rough and a little painful, but it's better than being stuck behind the bulkhead.
Magilou and Harmaus seem exceptionally casual about this, so she shakes her head. "A talking cat? Sure, why not." Ines gives a shrug, noting that the cat is also rude. The talk of Malevolence, though, that's a concern. Fine. As they come into the garden room, Ines raises an eyebrow at the panels, before her fears are confirmed. "Oh good. Teleporters. My favourite."
The Geohound has been around this block a few times, and she places her fingers on the amulet around her neck. She pulls a piece of chalk from a pouch on her belt, and tests to see if it'll leave a mark on the Elw floor, or if it will get cleaned off before they get back. "May as well try to leave a trail."
DG: Ines Colina has used her Tool Family Locket toward her party's challenge, Verdant Recursion.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ======================<* CHALLENGE - Verdant Recursion *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This room seems unusually small when you enter. It showcases an Elw garden in miniature: the plants resting in pots, a small bubbling spring, the mossy stone paths. And somewhat atypically, a choice of two glowing tiles set side by side in the middle of the mini garden. When one of the tiles is stepped on, you are taken to a room that seems unusually small when you enter. It showcases an Elw garden in miniature: the plants resting in pots, a small bubbling spring, the mossy stone paths. And somewhat atypically, a choice of two glowing tiles set side by side in the middle of the mini garden. ...It's a teleporter maze, and a fiendish one at that, with each room appearing just like the last. Is this what the Elw considered recreational...? But perhaps there is no way forward but through. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Stupify========================================
==========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 3 *>=========================== ========================< Results - Verdant Recursion >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ines Colina 10 --(12)--> 22 Pass Family Locket 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 34 --(24)--> 58 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 10 --(12)--> 22 Pass Mayvin's Accounts 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 34 --(24)--> 58 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 10 --(24)--> 34 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ines Colina 40 --(15)--> 55 Fail Conditions: Reckless(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ines Colina 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> Magilou has posed.
"See? Such a rotten cat. Absolutely no manners!" Magilou replies to Harmaus, entirely chipper. The fact that she totally did walk him through a door (so to speak) she leaves entirely implicit.
She also leaves Harmaus volunteering his name up to him, for some reason, though he does, indeed, introduce himself. Interesting! Magilou thinks.
And lo, does the TELEPORTATION MAZE take them.
"Memorial, shememorial," Magilou waves a hand, to Jacqueline. "They're dead! What do they care?" Are they really dead..? Well, that's a reasonable assumption, as far as Magilou is concerned. Jacqueline and Ines have similar ideas about chalk, but Jay will find herself finding rooms already marked, as she tries to solve the puzzle.
Meanwhile, Harmaus finds himself bounced between two or three rooms, which, horrifically, have catnip growing. This probably isn't a result of Magilou sassing him, because Magilou has never been here before.
Ruth teleports to a room of her own, and has a moment of sadness which is very poignant and does not solve the puzzle whatsoever.
It's Ines who manages to reap the best benefits of Marking their Trail: she keeps managing to find unmarked paths, blazing a trail outwards. Sometimes Magilou is also here, following advice written down centuries ago by some mysterious hand, because teleporter puzzles are eternal. She is remarkably unhelpful about the flower prison.
In the end, helped by various chalk markings, the party will manage to reunite... and there's a door out. "Somehow," Magilou remarks, "I feel like we missed the optional treasure." A hand to her hip, and she cocks herself half one way, half the other. "... oh, well! It's not like I need to level up these days!"
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE PARTY, MAGILOU?!
DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ================<* CHALLENGE - The Prettiest Security System *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The corridors of the Elw complex of Capel Coffa wind and twist like the branches of a tree. Perhaps this was meaningful -- or aesthetic in some sense -- for the Elw when they made use of this place, but it makes understanding where you are difficult. And it also makes preventing getting boxed in by, say, the roaming security system a little tricky to do. Which, naturally, has just happened. But rather than being -- just for example -- a squad of hovering drones, it seems the Elw had a different aesthetic preference. It consists of a swarm. A swarm of shimmering butterfly-shaped automata. They're very pretty. They also have lasers. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Not cat," Harmaus says to Ines, though it's protest for the sake of protest. "Not cat. Seraph."
Ruth, he remembers quite well. Quite well indeed. Moss and roses. Though, personally, if he were asked what name he would give to Ruth, it would be 'thorns'. Thorns can be quite deadly for their size. There had been one time, a long time ago, when a single thorn had nearly lain low a charge of his.
His interest at the moment is in the blossom. But the thorns have their own charm. He regards her keenly, his yellow eyes glittering. Does he know what Ruth is? Can he scent it?
The fact of the matter is that he does know, but he's not about to tell. Not just yet.
"Manners? Means it lying, for good impressions? Feh," remarks Harmaus, curling his lip as if scenting something foul. "I am as I is. I tells no lies."
Technically speaking, this is a lie. But the cat's never been one to own up to his own code.
Still, after a moment more the cat-shaped Seraph, bristling with frustration, investigates again one of the panels.
... ....
...
Harmaus returns from wandering the gardens in good spirits!
...but he's still dissatisfied.
"Is strange memorial," he remarks, once they wind their way out of the mirroring garden. "I understands it not. Elw... I hear of them before. What knows it of 'Elw'?" It appears to be a question that anyone can answer.
Though there isn't much time to answer it in, for here come some... butterflies? Have they escaped another garden?
wait those aren't butterflies
they have lasers
"Shh shh, shh shh!" hisses Harmaus, the small silver bell chiming at his throat. "Bugs, it stills!" And indeed, that's what the echoing chime urges the automata to do: to stop what they're doing and remain so.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, The Prettiest Security System.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There's something about the sneer of Harmaus that doesn't quite reach as offputting or discouraging as it might, barbed as those words are - but when Ruth is compelled to keep going, eventually, she comes with the rest. Her right hand's over her heart, trying to close her eyes and to try and keep the sight of the miniature garden as long as she can in imagination. It doesn't last very long.
It never does.
"I don't know," she answers Harmaus, "but it's beautiful here." A quiet reverence for something the world of Filgaia no longer is.
Butterflies are pretty too, but even in the usual swirl of emotion her eyes are yet to be fully clouded by tears - she can see there's something wrong with the butterflies. The ones she's seen before don't move like that, and the shapes of their bodies...
Lasers. She practically dives into cover in a way not fitting of someone carrying so much (physically, in this case - she does have that wrapped-up rifle to her back) as the chimes of Harmaus' silver bell briefly mesmerizes.
Very briefly. Her left shoulder twinges in pain again at the sudden movement in which she goes not for her revolver, but for another Crest Graph - the one with Muse and Geo together that she invokes in a big ol' sphere of water to splash down upon the laser-shooting butterflies.
It is, to a discerning eye, a remarkable amount of self-control to just not let herself go out there in a moment of tense, possible do-or-die against a fate that isn't terribly dignified. Death by laser-shooting butterflies...
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, The Prettiest Security System.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Kitty-man," Magilou asides to Ines, sly, when Harmaus insists he is Not A Cat.
Magilou... is mean. But at least she doesn't have any manners! (Wait, is that really a good thing..?)
Tragically, before Magilou can spoil the plot on the Elw, (the spoiler is that Magilou doesn't know anything about the Elw), the logical progression happens. "What do flowers attract?" Magilou wonders, airily. "Monsters and butterflies... gotta tick off all the boxes!" They're already a party of monsters (and Jacqueline), so naturally now the butterflies have come, too.
Magilou proceeds to lean against the wall, and pull out a deck of tarot. "Still... it's an interesting question, isn't it?" She wonders, and doesn't quite explain that she means the question of the Elw. She shifts to the left a little to casually get out of the way of a laser, closes her eyes, and draws a card.
Turning it about, green-purple eyes opening, she considers it carefully. "The seven of swords... is that what you think..?" She asks the antique tarot cards, as if she's not having this quiet moment in the middle of a desperate butterfly battle.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Fortunetelling - Trickery toward her party's challenge, The Prettiest Security System.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"There's not much to say, I'm afraid. The Elw were-" Jacqueline starts... but before she can get any further, they're accosted by laser-toting robot butterflies!
"Security drones...!" Jacqueline gasps, backpedaling quickly before drawing out the Lifeweaver's Codex. "They're individually weak, but in large numbers like this they pose a threat! If you can, try aiming to deal with multiple at once!"
She shuts the book and stows it away, then. Harmaus urges the automata to be still and Ruth splashes them with a burst of water, so Jacqueline aims to take advantage of the situation. She gestures with her right hand to invoke one of her Crest Graphs and send out a quick bolt of electricity, infusing them with a static charge that repeatedly shocks the affecting drone, while continually jumping to the drones closest.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool The Lifeweaver's Codex toward her party's challenge, The Prettiest Security System.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
"Fine. A talking not-cat." Ines can be a jerk sometimes.
The wonders of the traditional methods, she eventually gets out of this teleporter hell, waiting for everyone else to join her and Magilou. The talk of manners gets a shrug out of Ines. "I'd say about one person in five means it when they say that. The other four just want an excuse to be a dick without getting punched in the throat."
Ines is content to let Jay explain, since she's the one with knowledge and smarts. Unfortunately, she gets cut off. "Time to earn your keep."
Without any other input from Ines, the Claymore moves into the sky, slashing at the drones. It's probably bigger and slower than the drones, but it can fight in their zone and hit hard. The Sword Familiar strikes out, leaving Ines to do what she does best: Keep people alive. She summons up plates of metal to take hits for them, as best she can. It's easier without splitting attention.
DG: Ines Colina has used her Tool Haunted Claymore toward her party's challenge, The Prettiest Security System.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ================<* CHALLENGE - The Prettiest Security System *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The corridors of the Elw complex of Capel Coffa wind and twist like the branches of a tree. Perhaps this was meaningful -- or aesthetic in some sense -- for the Elw when they made use of this place, but it makes understanding where you are difficult. And it also makes preventing getting boxed in by, say, the roaming security system a little tricky to do. Which, naturally, has just happened. But rather than being -- just for example -- a squad of hovering drones, it seems the Elw had a different aesthetic preference. It consists of a swarm. A swarm of shimmering butterfly-shaped automata. They're very pretty. They also have lasers. =Dungeon Conditions: Maim=====================================================
==========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 4 *>=========================== ==================< Results - The Prettiest Security System >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ines Colina 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Haunted Claymore 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 58 --(17)--> 75 Fail The Lifeweaver's Codex 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Fortunetelling - Trickery 2 Combat Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 58 --(5)--> 63 Pass Splashcrest 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 34 --(5)--> 39 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ines Colina 55 --(20)--> 75 Pass Conditions: Maim|Reckless(1)|Stupify(1) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ines Colina has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Is consequences, for speaking truthfully," is Harmaus' response to that. It seems almost as if he may consider it a fair-enough trade...?
"Beautiful... hmm," muses the cat-shaped Seraph, similarly taking a moment to regard the place they're in. With a face like that, it's hard to say if he finds it beautiful-- or if he would consider beauty to be something else altogether.
"Yes, yes. So goes it -- here is monster and insect aplenty!" chatters Harmaus, as he lets the chime further echo through the space they now inhabit.
The moment that follows is a tense one. As Magilou divines on the nature of the Elw, lasers are loosed by the butterflies to impact and rebound against the metal plates summoned, and returned in kind with sorcery as the echoing chimes of that tiny bell urge the automata to hold their places. It will take a particular amount of effort from Jacqueline, to see the beautiful drones fully stilled and downed, but in the end...
There are just fragments remaining. A bit of colored glass from a wing here, a still-sparking piece of antennae there.
And the hallway, leading on ahead.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Capel Coffa *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Access Denied *>======================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Ahead of you is a delicately-spun bridge, seated across a span; water improbably flows in the depths of the complex below. Across the bridge stands a single white door, giving the (likely incorrect) impression that it is made of porcelain. Tall in comparison to the rest of the doors in the complex, it is a certain thing that whatever is most important to the Elw lies beyond. The moment you step onto the bridge a blue light washes over you. That's when the alarm starts. When the door to the back shimmers over with a pearly-blue light. [NON-ELW ENTITIES DETECTED. INITIATE DEFENSE PROTOCOL.] The sentinel automaton that descends from the compartment on the ceiling above you manages to be both incredibly hostile and vaguely insectoid in its appearance and form. Great translucent wings spread from its back as it takes you in its sights and engages. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1usoOVrybQ =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Weaken=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The smoke finally settles. Jacqueline breathes a sigh of relief, feeling just a little winded from all the spellcasting it took.
"...Alright. Let's get moving." Jacqueline says. She leads the way forward, the corridor eventually giving way to a long, delicate bridge across a water-filled chasm. At the other end of the bridge there is a single tall, white door.
"...Be careful. This place is dangerous." Jacqueline warns. The reason why becomes clear the moment they step foot onto the bridge and a blue light washes over them. Immediately an alarm sounds, and the door is covered by a pearly-blue barrier.
"Above!" Jacqueline shouts, backpedaling as another insectoid sentinel descends from the ceiling. Unlike the butterflies they just faced, there's only one this time. But also unlike the butterflies, it's much bigger.
"This is another Elw sentinel... it's greatly improved over the last ones we faced! There's only one of them, but we're caught in a bottleneck here. I recommend aiming for its wings or its sensors to even the fight!" Jacqueline advises. Once more the Lifeweaver's Codex is stowed away. This time, rather than relying on her sorcery, she draws out a bottle of orange liquid which is hurled at the sentinel, where it splatters over it and its surroundings. This potion is special - it soaks into machines and gets into their inner workings to cause malfunctions. Maybe it'll give them a bit of an edge.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool The Lifeweaver's Codex toward her party's challenge, Access Denied. [OOC] Seraph Harmaus says, "ah, can i bluray my last pose, i meant to add something but it escaped"
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Above! Magilou hops backwards with surprising alacrity, given the way she was strolling into the room with her hands laced behind her head a moment prior. "Oop!" She exclaims, as she takes position behind the rest of the party.
"You seem to know an awful lot about these bugs, Potionita," Magilou says, to Jacqueline, despite that definitely not being her name. "Something you'd like to share with the class?" There is a big sentinel bug which might make conversation difficult, Magilou! Not everyone can make aside comments while the battle's raging!
And so, the sorceress of peerless might, Magilou, proceeds to...
Sit down on the bridge and draw out some more tarot cards.
"You all have fun with that," she says, as she lays out some cards, past, present, and future. That last one, unveiled, turns out to be... "The three of wands?" Magilou muses, to herself. "How uninspired. But what's left uncharted, I wonder...?"
A beat, and she glances up: "You might want to take a step back, by the way."
Magilou returns to her cards. Shortly, the person she warned to take care will find that a majestic trout LEAPS from the waters below, to flounder right into one of the sentinel's sensors.
The cards told her that????
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Fortunetelling - Trickery toward her party's challenge, Access Denied.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Monsters and butterflies,' Magilou speaks of what flowers attract.
'Yes, yes. So goes it -- here is monster and insect aplenty!'
Even when peace is won, by remaining in a single peace, Ruth's expression dims as the words dance back to something said in another individaul's voice, free of a face beyond a reflection of those who behold it.
'To them, you 'are' monsters.' They said. 'Hideous. Heartless. Ever shall you be.'
She looks upon the destroyed butterflies, reaching down and picking up a glass shard or an antennae here and there. They aren't living things - but she can see they were more than just decoys. Lidded eyes fixate upon the colors of the shard of glass in her gloved hand, where she can see a partial reflection of who she once was.
She doesn't want to look at that any more, and she won't need to, following after as Jay warns about how dangerous this locale is. They come to a bridge where a blue light washes around them. Ruth freezes in place, and Jay calls above as the insect-like sentinel descends on its shining wings. Her heart races as it slices into her, missing her...
But not the thing that binds the rifle, as a whiff - and appearance - of Malevolence radiates off of the bayonet blade that tips down and sticks into the bridge. More pain shoots up her left shoulder as she instinctively kneels down and faces her back to grab hold of it, the abrupt motion and 180 loosening the heavy rifle out out.
'These are the names that have been cast upon you.' She reflects on those words, moreso than Jay's helpful run-down of what this is. 'If you would accept it, embrace it with all your might. If you would deny it, prove it with every ounce of conviction within you.'
She lets herself out of there - an emerging singular wing out the right shoulderblade rising to parry an incoming strike with a borderline feral, shrieking hiss as she takes hold of her rifle and plows right into it, trying to push it away from the rest as she lets difficult feelings bleed through into something that does not appear to be expressing them.
Despair-laced Malevolence fouls the otherwise tranquil air as the Hellionized Ruth - a gargoyle - makes good on being an additional reason why Magilou suggests some step back.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 toward her party's challenge, Access Denied.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
They advance.
This place is dangerous, says Jacqueline, as they approach the bridge. "Ah?" wonders the Seraph, looking this way and that. "I sees not dangers, yet. From where comes it? Below? Above?"
Blue light washes across him as he stands there atop the bridge, the white door standing like an invitation across the distance... that soon cannot be reached. "Dzaa!" the Seraph snarls, bristling with being thus prevented from accessing the room -- the potential loss-of-access to any secret appears to affect him as strongly as that which he seeks. But this isn't the only problem they face.
It comes from above, as it matters.
"Is sentinel? Bigger, stronger than others? I see, I see. Yet, it still just a bug!" Harmaus proclaims, and again, the bell at his throat chimes.
"Stop, sleep! Die!"
That might have been a fish just now, but the Seraph is woefully focused on one particular aim, and that is the complete destruction of the construct that just happened to get in his way at a critical moment.
He really doesn't have, as the children put it, any chill.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Access Denied.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
The Claymore returns to Ines' back, without her touching it- indeed, it seems to avoid her hand. And independent weapon. "Lead on." Magilou seems content to bother Jay, and Ines is happy to keep an eye out. When Jay calls out danger she looks up and, appropriately, swears when the sentinel arrives. "What's with all the damn bugs!?"
The sword looses itself at the sentinel, while Ines conjures a wind carrying rust and corroded metal, firing it straight for the insect robot. The sword has to dodge, and if it had a face it would be giving a sour look. Ines doesn't notice.
And then Ruth's rifle sounds, and Ines flinches. She knows what that means. "Hey, don't go overboard here, right?" Yes, sure, their lives are in danger. But Ruth cutting loose could be a bigger problem.
DG: Ines Colina has used her Tool Haunted Claymore toward her party's challenge, Access Denied.
==============================<* Capel Coffa *>=============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Access Denied *>======================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Ahead of you is a delicately-spun bridge, seated across a span; water improbably flows in the depths of the complex below. Across the bridge stands a single white door, giving the (likely incorrect) impression that it is made of porcelain. Tall in comparison to the rest of the doors in the complex, it is a certain thing that whatever is most important to the Elw lies beyond. The moment you step onto the bridge a blue light washes over you. That's when the alarm starts. When the door to the back shimmers over with a pearly-blue light. [NON-ELW ENTITIES DETECTED. INITIATE DEFENSE PROTOCOL.] The sentinel automaton that descends from the compartment on the ceiling above you manages to be both incredibly hostile and vaguely insectoid in its appearance and form. Great translucent wings spread from its back as it takes you in its sights and engages. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1usoOVrybQ =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Weaken=============================================
=========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 5 *>========================== =========================< Results - Access Denied >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ines Colina 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass Haunted Claymore 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 75 --(5)--> 80 Pass The Lifeweaver's Codex 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magilou 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass Fortunetelling - Trickery 2 Combat Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Pauling 63 --(5)--> 68 Pass Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 4 Combat Effects: None ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 39 --(5)--> 44 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Ines Colina 75 --(0)--> 75 Pass Conditions: Slow(2)|Weaken(2) Effects: Embolden(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Ines Colina 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: Ines Colina has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ========================<* CHALLENGE - Break Through *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- However you dealt with the sentinel automaton (or didn't), a more pressing matter presents itself when it comes to piercing the heart of the ruins of Capel Coffa to begin with: The pearly-blue light still cloaks the far door. Whatever security alert was triggered, it's still in effect and preventing you passage beyond its doors. You'll have to work out some way of breaking through if you want to get any further (and not to mention, potentially escape the sentinel if it's still about). But how do you break through a barrier of light itself? BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGHKV12USHo =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"'Potionita'...?" Jacqueline repeats, momentarily befuddled. She shakes her head to clear that thought from her mind and get back on topic. "Well, this isn't my first time in this particular ruin. I like to compile notes on everything I've encountered, as well as consulting the locals and other people who've been inside for what they know - and where that fails, I have the wisdom of those who've come before me to fall back on."
She pats the bag in which she's stowed the Lifeweaver's Codex, but further discussion will have to wait because there's an enemy ahead of them!
...It's a powerful foe, but unfortunately for it, it's facing a powerful party. The magnificent jump of a trout, timed well enough to obscure its sensors, is enough to decide the battle. The party lays into it, and soon the security drone is sent toppling into the waters below in the time it takes for the trout to also complete its return trip.
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
The Sentinel disposed of, it still leaves them with a problem. A big damn light barrier. As they approach it, Ines taps it with her fist. She's not burnt but... "Sturdier than a damn rock." She mutters, as she looks back to everyone else.
"For lack of a better option, I'm thinking we go with overwhelming force." Which is when she backs off, and starts summoning a spear of metal on her fist, ready to charge.
Unless you have a better idea?
DG: Ines Colina has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Break Through.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Earlier, some vague and unspecified time ago, she excused herself from Seraph Yvain and Non-Seraph Yulie. Somewhat fresh off that choice meeting by Crucible within Elise's Domain, she wasn't able to accept at face value Yulie considered her a friend that she was happy to spend time with - the definition of 'not seen as a monster.'
And yet here, the casual, jokey mention of monsters being among them isn't something she was comfortable with either, picking at the sentiments she professed to the Trial Knight and their snarky Seraph companion. Upset at not being seen as a monster, upset as being referred to as one. That's a contradiction.
The automaton does not validate nor deny any of these things, as it disappears. It leaves her with a bundle of bunched-up emotions and her back is presently facing to them. They can't see that wide-eyed look of her glowing purple eyes. Ines, specifically, voices concern and worry, and she fixates upon that. Her forked tongue flicks between her lips as she faces over her left shoulder like she has the scent of it.
The tension finds a trickling of release in the form of tears as the vitrol drains back to her heart.
"I'm sorry, Ines." They have to leave it at that, there's a big damn solid light door problem to deal with. Logically speaking, that's as close to being an impossible, impassible wall as it gets within the Elw's technological development.
Shouldering the rifle with her left arm as her stronger(?) true self, her right hand rests on the solid light wall, where she can see that faint reflection of herself in it. A faint purple-black mist rises from her, in much the same manner as the Mistcrest - it's not physical force, but as Harmaus has pointed out, there is no Malevolence here, not yet.
Elw hardware may not have accounted for how Malevolence just messes with everything at high enough concentration - there might be enough despair within that mist to bring what's creating that light wall shield to despair itself.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Break Through.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Goodness," Magilou remarks, to Ruth, lightly. "Does the Emporer have no clothes?" She's looking at her wing as she says that, but she leaves the question, and what it might mean, open-ended.
Meanwhile: there's a barrier. "The mighty secrets of the fish are not to be drawn upon lightly," Magilou remarks, as if she totally was behind that fish. "And so, I am left powerless. The horror! The sheer reversal of our fortunes..!"
She holds a hand to her forehead, and swoons against the side of the bridge. "Oh, if only there were one amongst us with peerless sorcerous might... if only we could blow apart this barrier in an instant..!"
Magilou shortly spin on a heel, and goes to try and open the door... they just came from.
"Orrr," she posits, casually, "maybe you just... you know... tell the security system to cool off. I mean, that's what this is, isn't it? Soooo..." She proceeds to walk out the door, close it, and then open it up and walk back through, as if just entering the room again without triggering the now-defeated Sentinel would be enough to fix this problem.
Conveniently, that means Magilou doesn't have to punch a barrier.
DG: Magilou has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Break Through.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Potionita," Harmaus echoes, an amused light dancing in his golden eyes. Cats can't smile -- they don't have the facial muscles to do it. But this might be close enough. Still, his attention darts a moment towards her bag, towards where the tome is kept.
Harmaus will remember that.
It's not the first time, too, that he's seen that form of Ruth's -- he's known from the start what she is. His whiskers bristle, and perhaps an outside observer might mistake it for shock or surprise at seeing what she is.
It's not that. He's just keenly interested, particularly in seeing of what she is capable.
But the bug is just a bug in the Seraph's view, and it goes hurtling down to some place below. At the sound of a splash, the Seraph hops up onto the ledge of the bridge, walking the railing as he glances below, as if to confirm that it's definitely not moving anymore.
"Is destroyed," he states in the end, hopping down once he reaches the other side. But there's a problem there -- a problem in the shape of that barrier.
"Jaeja," Harmaus is prompted to say again, flicking an ear as if agitated. "Barrier remains, yet. Ah, but it wonders me... Ruth. How long is it such?"
Meaning, how long has she been a Hellion?
His tail lashes when Magilou suggests they all back up and try again.
"No," is Harmaus' reply, and at his neck, a glass bell chimes. Prismatic light pours in to that point at the Seraph's upper chest, then and--
There is a blazing beam of white light, right for the barrier.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Prism Bell toward his party's challenge, Break Through.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline looks briefly toward Ruth, in the aftermath of her attack. Jacqueline is concerned for her, of course. To cut loose like that..."I think... in this situation, I'm going to have to agree." Jacqueline replies with a nod toward Ines. Normally Jacqueline would try to come up with a clever solution, but... well.
"Unfortunately, I don't know a thing about Elw technology. I know someone who does... but she's not here right now." Jacqueline replies, shaking her head.
In other words, time for overwhelming force!
Jacqueline draws a Crest Graph from her deck, setting it into one of the slots on her left gauntlet.
"I recommend standing back." She advises and, with a gesture, a pillar of earth rushes up before them, looking to slam into the barrier with great force.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Landscaper Crest toward her party's challenge, Break Through.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ========================<* CHALLENGE - Break Through *>========================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- However you dealt with the sentinel automaton (or didn't), a more pressing matter presents itself when it comes to piercing the heart of the ruins of Capel Coffa to begin with: The pearly-blue light still cloaks the far door. Whatever security alert was triggered, it's still in effect and preventing you passage beyond its doors. You'll have to work out some way of breaking through if you want to get any further (and not to mention, potentially escape the sentinel if it's still about). But how do you break through a barrier of light itself? BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGHKV12USHo =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Exhaust========================================
==========================<* Capel Coffa - Round 6 *>=========================== ==========================< Results - Break Through >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ines Colina 32 --(101)--> 133 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 80 --(101)--> 181 Pass Landscaper Crest 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 32 --(101)--> 133 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 68 --(101)--> 169 Fail Mistcrest 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 44 --(101)--> 145 Fail Prism Bell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ines Colina 75 --(15)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Collapse|Exhaust(1)|Slow(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Ines Colina is too exhausted to continue! DG: Jacqueline Barber is too exhausted to continue! DG: Magilou is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ruth Pauling is too exhausted to continue! DG: Seraph Harmaus is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over. DG: The party led by Ines Colina has been fully Exhausted by Capel Coffa! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
===============================<* Capel Coffa *>================================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - In a Forgotten Archive *>==================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you attempt to break through the doors, the light enveloping them shines strangely and engulfs you. In a flash, you are in another location within Capel Coffa altogether. Compared to the places you have seen here before, this space seems off, sterile, clean. Empty. In here, books are stacked on the shelves behind faintly shimmering white light, sealed against time itself perhaps in this negative white space. You find one book that is not sealed. It rests, as if someone had simply discarded it, on the floor near a shelf. The titling on the cover is plain. De Re Metallica Or, 'on the nature of metals'. But just as you take it into your hands-- It shimmers just the once and vanishes, pages still fluttering in an invisible wind. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt-m0CodQZg =Dungeon Conditions: Secret, Madness==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"How long..." Ruth's voice trails off as a few more puffs of the blackish-purple mist escapes her nostrils in an exhalation. Somehow, she gleans what's being asked correctly while Magilou asks that question of hers. "...Four years."
Sometimes asking a Hellion just coming down from an emotional outburst - however well-wrangled in the cosmic scale of how that might be measured - to do basic arithmetic is asking for trouble.
This doesn't seem to be one of those times, keeping part of her gaze level on Ines as she's preparing to try and whack the barrier. She's the only one to express outward worry about what just transpired.
That's the metaphorical equivalent of being given a piece of candy, and the greatest hope the collected can have is that she has a taste for that specific kind of worry-candy and not all of the worry-candy there is
<Pose Tracker> Ines Colina has posed.
"I just want you to keep in mind when you throw that sort of power around. Make sure it's worth it. And you don't regret it."
Asking doesn't work. Neither, apparently, does overwhelming force.
What does occur, is that light engulfs them all.
And then they are somewhere else, in a sealed library. "...Great. Just great." She grumbles, hand meeting the seal and being unable to get past it. "Have we got anything here, or is this a bust?" Ines looks around, before picking up a book off the floor. "De Le Metallica, huh. Anyone know wha-"
And then it vanishes in her hand, disappearing to who knows where.
Ines swears. It's colourful and Spiran.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Magilou walks in on a flash of light, and finds herself in her OTHER personal hell:
A library where she can't touch any of the books.
"Hey, who locked all the shelves?" Magilou demands, poking at the barrier. "This is an outrage! I'm licenced to wield books! My entire skirt is books!"
Luckily, Ines manages to find one book, at least. And as soon as Magilou sashays over --
"Okay," Magilou says, holding up her hands, "just so we're clear, here, I did not absorb that book."
Can Magilou even do that..?
(Well, Seraphim DO come in a lot of shapes and sizes...)
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ines lectures (rather appropriately) the seeming recklessness in what she did. Hellions being themselves is always going to be a cause of something getting out of hand. They are bundles of contradictions and negative emotions, and that one they have right there isn't any different.
"...A bit... late for that." She laughs, bitterly. She stops laughing when the teleportation effect happens, making her seize up in place - it's a sensation she's not familiarized with so much yet, anchoring to Ines' disappointment as to not go down a path of other, more regrettable reflexes as the interesting book is picked up... and disappears.
Her tail's already quietly helped reload the rifle in the interim, but she doesn't feel another soul in the room beyond those already here, and she's holding enough of her reason not to turn it on any of them. She's not a monster.
...
"I'm... I'm going to wait for the rain." She doesn't want to return to Elise feeling as off-center as the way she has since that day, but... 'they' did offer to show them how to master Malevolence, and yet...
okay yeah she feels conflicted that's not even a point of suspense or mystery there