2022-01-08: Falling Walls and Terrible Dolls
- Log: Falling Walls and Terrible Dolls
- Cast: Seraphita, Azoth, Loren Voss, Tabitha deVriese
- Where: Deku Isles
- Date: January 8, 2022
- Summary: Seraphita decides she'd like to explore Lunatic Garden and makes it happen (with a little help from Major Sadalbari). Terrible doll experiences ensue.
DG: A party led by Seraphita is now entering Lunatic Garden. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors *>=============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are multiple doors into Lunatic Garden. Some of them have been opened before. The one you find seems promising. The door is a stone one, and has grooves cut into the siding from being opened before. As you get close, though, the door opens -- and then it collapses, coming out of the hinges and collapsing right for you. Needless to say, having a large stone slab fall on your head wouldn't be a great start! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Overwhelm==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita knew about the Lunatic Garden but had never been to it. Still, it's definitely worth sending a party to investigate any Metal Demon-era ruin and so she's finally managed to convince a few people to come along with her (or, at least, they have been sent to help her, which amounts to the same thing). Sometimes the life of a Solarian officer isn't all sunlight and roses.
Someone appears to be enjoying herself, though.
"I heard that if you get all the way in," Seraphita chatters, excitedly, "that there's some really old stuff left there! I want to see if there's anything for real, or if it's just, you know... junk and monsters." She scoots her foot along the white stone leading up to the door.
Which is just sitting there. Seraphita looks at it suspiciously, and only then starts to advance on it. "I bet it's stuck," she says.
It is not stuck. Rather the opposite, because as soon as she gets one hand on it it starts to tip outward! She tries to hold it for about a second before she realizes she's not going to be able to hold up a stone door with stone reinforcement and collapsing stone wall by herself and instead kind of shoves herself backwards, bouncing once on her feet. "Aah! The door is attacking me!!"
DG: Seraphita has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Given it's Seraphita, Azoth may well have been 'convinced'. Not like he can refuse, but given Seraphita's efforts and attempts in dealing with him, there's less animosity traveling through his circuits. But it is, in the end, still a Solarian task.
"You'll find something interesting, all right," he says. Then he pauses before he shoots his whole arm up in the air to signify he has a question. "Juuust confirming, but you guys prefer the social persona, right?" He glances to Loren in particular. "This default one, specifically? No special requests?"
Tabitha gets a small glance. He has less data on her preferences (or on what would annoy her specifically, and if he wants to).
But what appears to be their path inside in is, in fact, attacking them. Azoth gives an alarm beep of warming, scrambling to lunge back out of the way.
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It wasn't 'convinced' as much as 'voluntold' in Loren's situation -- well, at least mostly not convinced. He had given Seraphita a 'I'll think about it' as an initial response, only to receive a message that he would be assigned to her team for this particular expedition a short while later. The message had not been signed by anyone in particular, but it had come through some... highly official channels. Which, really only suggests it had come from one person and one person in particular.
Which asks the question: how quickly does Leah Sadalbari get apprised of the comings and goings of her brother-in-law?
So this is 'Lunatic Garden'. It hadn't been too far from here that he'd...
He doesn't want to think about that now. Instead, he focuses on what's in front of him and not what lingers behind.
"Some really old stuff," Loren seemingly agrees, shaking his head as Seraphita expresses particular excitement about their coming to this site. "And it'll be behind some murderous traps. Or have a huge monster guarding it." He sighs, as if to underscore his own feelings on the matter. "...Fine. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."
He's not the only one assigned to this mission, though.
He can't quite hide his feelings when Azoth addresses him so, his mouth twisting as if he were faced with something unseemly. "Can you... not phrase it like that," he says to Azoth, rather than say it outright. Not for the first time, he regrets reading so much science fiction. Maybe, he can contrive to bring up the rear in this case? Where's a robot's weak point?
"--Look, whatever, as long as you stop being sooooooh no," Loren vocalizes, suddenly jerking his gaze upwards to the ceiling as whatever Seraphita had done just then -- or maybe it was unrelated altogether? -- seems to start bringing bits of stone down upon them.
He beats a hasty retreat. Or attempts to, anyway.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha deVriese hasn't been easy to find ever since some dastardly fiend killed her father and ended the experiment that had defined her life! There's not much information available on that other than a PARTICULARLY cryptic communique about personnel transfers, but, really, it's not like clarity is a frequent thing when you work for Solaris.
But she's here. She's abandoned the old standard uniform for a catsuit that certainly fits her style a bit more, and had her hair cut to a stylish, shorter shag type of look. One arm below the elbow is a more obvious prosthetic now, a bright red gauntlet that hums occasionally with internal energy supplies.
The gravity-master agent stands aside, eyes scanning across the wreck curiously. "They didn't really build for flash, did they," she muses, idly. "We'll want to be careful about 'really old stuff'. Sometimes that's what the monsters are."
She looks to Azoth with a bit of curiosity, and then waves her flesh fingers dismissively. "Oh, this one seems alright," she says, with a laugh. She's not usually the one...being annoyed, you see.
She struts up to the door, but she's not quite expecting things to go wrong IMMEDIATELY, and startles when it starts falling out. She lashes out with her machine hand, a surface nearby illuminating with light; Tabitha begins not so much flying toward the point as falling toward it, and ends up standing horizontally when she lands.
DG: Tabitha deVriese has used her Tool Graviton Anchor toward her party's challenge, The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors *>=============== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are multiple doors into Lunatic Garden. Some of them have been opened before. The one you find seems promising. The door is a stone one, and has grooves cut into the siding from being opened before. As you get close, though, the door opens -- and then it collapses, coming out of the hinges and collapsing right for you. Needless to say, having a large stone slab fall on your head wouldn't be a great start! =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Overwhelm==========================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 1 *>========================= ================< Results - The Problem With Oft-Opened Doors >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraphita 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabitha deVriese 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Graviton Anchor 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraphita 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm|Slow(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita 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> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita didn't really worry too much about who decided to join her, or not. She figured Azoth might like to get out (and though she didn't think she pressed him, orders may feel differently), and she doesn't know who sent Loren - it wasn't her! Tabitha... Seraphita doesn't know Tabitha well, but was happy enough to get someone else. She is unconcerned about the lack of clarity in her transfer.
(Actually, Seraphita probably spent half the time down trying to get to know her, because she didn't.)
The door is angry today!
Seraphita manages to hop backwards with another longer leap and escape much more than some initial strain and getting a shower of rock dust and gravel blown at her, which means she is busy for about five seconds shaking her head to get it out of her hair (and ears).
Azoth, too, is fine - he doesn't even get the dust. Tabitha does, but only because her gravitational trick has drawn some of it along with her, causing weird eddies in the air. *She's* clean enough, but it looks cool.
Loren gets it worst; a shower of debris from the cracks in the ceiling. Not a real rockfall, nothing that will pin him or block the corridor, but enough to bruise when it falls from the ceiling. Still, it could have been worse... and now the door's open.
"Stupid door," Seraphita decides, pausing to pick some small rocks out of her collar before they slide down and bother the back of her neck for the next five hours. "Is everyone okay? That means you too Loren!"
DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Marid Pack *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next room has a few patches of grass on the floor. As you enter, figures rise from the grass: small, round-bodied things with arms, legs, and solid black eyes. They chitter at you -- and then dance in a circle -- and a wave of water, waist high, floods through the room. The Marids surf it, rather than being drowned by it. They come crashing at you, trying to bowl you over; they also send powerful, magical jets of water in your direction. You have to fight not only the tiny plant creatures and their spells, but the rapidly flooding room! =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Stupify, Injure==================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
And the situation at hand isn't even accounting for the presence of Tabitha deVriese, whose impact on Loren's life has largely been to the key of suffering. Maybe if he doesn't make any sudden movements...?
It seems dubious, though.
He doesn't quite get clear in time, and gets pelted by a few considerably-sized fragments of masonry for his pains. Still, the fact that a largish, Loren-squishing-sized fragment of rock has fallen about six feet to his left does give him a moment to pause and reflect. On one hand, that would have solved all his problems really quickly. On the other, it... would have been bad. He makes a face.
"It's fine!" he calls back, once the dust has more or less settled. It's nothing that will scar or leave any lasting marks (not that his particular range of talents would have had a hard time with either if it had) and he's still alive, so there's no point in worrying.
Well, too much, anyway.
"...Did the reports say this place was stable?" he asks, stepping to it as they press on ahead. He's not about to linger on the doorstep if more of the lintel is about to come down, so to speak. "If it's not--"
There's grass in the next room. That's not as important as the other thing, the part where little round creatures step out of the grass and chitter excitedly at them all.
"Are they.. friendly?" Loren asks, glancing askance at the others as the little things join hands and start to dance in a circle together. He's not sure how to proceed here.
The moment when the wave of water follows, with the chittering things surfing excitedly atop the swell, makes the situation both much easier and much worse. Particularly when they follow that up by shooting magical jets of water at everyone involved!
"I should have realized--" Loren manages to get out, before being knocked under by a swell. Fortunately, he doesn't stay down long, rising to the surface a moment later to gasp for air. White light radiates outwards from him in the next moment: Ether drawn up and through the Tuner at his wrist, shed outwards in a by-now well-practiced display of his warding technique.
"They're quick! Seraphita, don't give them room to move!"
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Marid Pack.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Asset that he is, Azoth doesn't get deeper information on anyone than the usual. That's still enough for Tabitha's situation to be concerning. And Loren's situation...
That's always been concerning.
Persona it is! After his last venture with Solaris agents, he predicted as much. "How do you want me to phrase it?" he asks Loren, knowing the answer is that it not be phrased at all. But stone doors have an unfortunate way of rudely cutting off conversations. (Azoth, no one wants to be a part of this one.)
He gives a quick glance to make sure everyone's all right, even Loren. Especially Loren, given the situation.
At the sight of the Marids, Azoth perks up with cheerful beeping. "Aw, cute, right?" He knows damn well the behavior of such creatures, but if agents of Solaris find this scenario life threatening, then he has been programmed with all the wrong parameters for how to fight alongside them and any consequences are not his fault, mathematically speaking.
The consequences are an aquatic assault.
"Oooh nooooo," Azoth bemoans, completely deadpan. He tosses his piece of amber to himself and then projects an energy shield through it, image of the ancient arachnid there with a punch forward into the Marids. Azoth synthesizes some horrific beast noise, trying to put the fear of the eldritch unknown into them and spook them off -- or rattle them enough for someone else to deal with.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Bug in Amber toward his party's challenge, Marid Pack.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"They didn't say it *wasn't* stable..." Seraphita pauses as she steps through what used to be a door, crouching down for a moment. "Maybe some Drifters came this way and blew the door open! There's some marks, see?"
The marks might be scorch marks. They might also just be damaged stone from other reasons. After the door fell, it's a little harder to tell. Maybe if she spent some time, but - like Loren - she doesn't really want to hang around in the doorway for any longer than she has to!
"Aw, they are cute!" Seraphita hasn't seen a marid before. She agrees with Azoth on at least part of it, though. "Do you think they want us to dance too?" She steps forward, fully intending to do that.
Before a wave of water washes across the room!
Seraphita is dragged by the swell, pulled off her feet. She comes up sputtering, her ears drooping even further than usual and trailing water, her hair significantly less voluminous (which doesn't mean not at all, just less). She spits out a mouthful and makes a short gesture with her left hand.
The simple way would be to throw a fireball. The complex way would be to throw a bunch of fireballs. The *most* complex way is to throw one superheated fireball but control it; she throws it at one of the marids, then swerves it sharply around a water spray and at a second one, jerking it into a corkscrewing path at a third. It's the best option for not wasting most of her power against the water, because the last thing Seraphita wants is a ton of steam; she probably could handle it but she knows how to protect herself from heat.
Not that there's no steam, of course. There's still some. Just a lot less because of how controlled the sphere of white flame is. "Very rude! I would have danced with you...!"
DG: Seraphita has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha is not, despite working for the lizardman conspiracy, an actual lizardman, and cannot be deceived by staying motionless. She flashes Loren a grin and wiggles her fingers at him like 'I'll get to you :D'
She hops off the stone she ended up attached to, recalling the anchor. She idly swipes dust off her hips as she saunters back up to the group. "Nothing I saw said it was unstable, but it's a ruin full of who-knows-what, so stability's pretty relative, huh?"
Thusly: Marids.
"Oh, hello little one!" she cooes, squatting down on long legs to get a closer look.
She nearly gets biffed completely in the face by a wave of water, but manages to uncoil into a HIGH jump before that can happen, and ends up standing on the ceiling. She huffs, pulling open a dark-colored compact, and briefly checks her eyeliner, opening her eyes wide to check the corners in the mirror. "Honestly," she huffs, and then points her hand down toward the Marids. With her fingers pulled back the ether cannon lens in the palm becomes obvious.
Also making it obvious: The blasts of ether raining down!!
DG: Tabitha deVriese has used her Tool Compact toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Marid Pack *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next room has a few patches of grass on the floor. As you enter, figures rise from the grass: small, round-bodied things with arms, legs, and solid black eyes. They chitter at you -- and then dance in a circle -- and a wave of water, waist high, floods through the room. The Marids surf it, rather than being drowned by it. They come crashing at you, trying to bowl you over; they also send powerful, magical jets of water in your direction. You have to fight not only the tiny plant creatures and their spells, but the rapidly flooding room! =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Stupify, Injure==================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 2 *>========================= ============================< Results - Marid Pack >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraphita 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Bug in Amber 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabitha deVriese 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Compact 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Ether Tuner 3 Combat Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraphita 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Injure(2)|Overwhelm|Slow(1)|Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita 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.
Loren catches that look from Tabitha.
He rather wishes he hadn't.
It isn't a question that Azoth will get an answer to, no. But perhaps he can guess at the likely answer nonetheless.
"Maybe," Loren allows, at Seraphita's remark on the provenance of the damage to the door. Perhaps it was all a result of some previous expedition into the site. "Or maybe it's just hundreds of years old and falling apart." He rolls his shoulders and sighs, as if to underscore his feelings on the matter. And then, in a rare more-optimistic take, offers, "...Maybe it's just falling apart out here."
Maybe. Hold onto that thought!
At least the first thing they run into is an attempted death-by-drowning and not, say, death-by-falling-stone.
Which, speaking of!
The Marids' spray bounces off the Ether shields that Loren has conjured, which is a good thing, because they've begun to amp it up from 'water gun blast' to 'cannon shot force'. And then, their joyous squeaking breaks into a piping chorus of terror, for there in their midst is a great huge bug.
This makes them rather easy pickings for the one-two combo of 'controlled super-heated fireball' and 'Ether blasts of death from on high'. One by one they emit a short shriek as they are summarily ended, and eventually, the rising tide subsides entirely.
"...Well, let's keep moving," Loren says, nudging aside a Marid body with a booted foot. He makes a face that's faintly of the 'euugh' caliber, before doing just as he suggested.
Ugh, and he's soaked now, too...
DG: Azoth has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next white stone room you enter seems empty, at first. There is only a single, sealed stone door at the end (which it does not open) and a pedestal in the center of the room. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their limbs are articulated. When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is inside the now-animated doll. There are small slots along the floor -- at the base of the walls -- and inside of those are well-hidden switches. If you can arrange to touch each switch simultaneously, this will open the door. However, you cannot speak as a terrible doll. Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into it. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Exhaust=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth shakes the water out of his hair before fluffing it to remove more of the excess. He smiles brightly, as if they had not all been attacked and nearly drowned, but then, Azoth's got a lot less to worry about with water than most.
"Guess we'll have to do our own dance later."
Hummig, Azoth bounces down the halls until the upbeat tune comes to a sudden and abrupt stop once he enters the next chamber.
He immediately walks back out of it. "Bye."
Unfortunately, he fails to find an alternate pathway (or, quite simply, if anyone so much gestured for him to stop, he couldn't leave) and sulks back into the room. Cheeks puffed, Azoth leans against the wall and motions to the dolls. "Interfacing with these objects causes a number of errors in my system. I can't guarantee safe and stable operation if I were to touch one."
Pause. This is enough time for someone else to have already touched one.
"...But I can safeguard your inert bodies."
With a flick of his wrist, Azoth opens his palm, light projected from it and producing a holographic image. Eye bright, he gives few taps against the floor with his toe to produce vibrations so he can draw out a predictive map of where the switches might be found.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Holographic Display toward his party's challenge, Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"I'll dance with you," Seraphita promises Azoth.
She will, too. It is only a fragment of her terrible power.
"Were you checking your makeup before we did a fight? Because you're supposed to do that after," Seraphita adds to Tabitha, as they move through the halls. "Or at least, that's what Tolone told me... I don't really use a lot of makeup that needs touching up so it doesn't matter much."
She steps away when they get into the next room, almost bumping into Azoth trying to leave it. "Aw, there's nothing dangerous in here!" She thought he was trying to get away from something dangerous, but all she sees are little toys. Seraphita, being Seraphita, immediately walks over to try to pick one up.
Which... doesn't work.
Seraphita overbalances and lands on her front instead of bending down to pick up the doll. The little doll waves its arms around and then runs around the fallen Seraphita in a circle, slowing down to look at her more closely. It's funny, she thinks, I don't think I look quite like that in the mirror. Are my ears really that big or did they just fall weird when I fell over? And ugh, all my things are still wet from the marids!
She can't speak, but she sure just tried. The clay doll doesn't have a mouth, though, so it's hard to tell. She points at herself, hoping Azoth sees it, and makes lifting gestures. She can't possibly pick her own body up and she's not going to try, but the way she landed looks uncomfortable to her.
And she *can* listen to Azoth. Wait, she's supposed to do something like this? But she's tiny! She waves her little doll arms again and attempts to hop, but the clay doll isn't really set up for that and just kind of wobbles on its feet instead. She wanders over to Loren, looking up at *him* for a few long moments before scooting off toward one of the switches indicated by Azoth.
This is really, really weird. But at least nobody can hear her thinking about it, as Seraphita's approach to thinking is often to wire her brain to her mouth and talk it out.
DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Lucky Charm toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren does his best to try to wring out his clothing and hair. It doesn't really help. Neither does the attempt to dry off his glasses with said soaked clothing. He is, he thinks, squinting at the lenses, not sure what he expected. Sighing, he tucks them away into his bag -- it isn't as if he needs them to see.
That all settled, he moves along, hardly willing to hang around in the event there were more of them. No, he's--
Bumped right into by Azoth who has seen something he doesn't like in the room beyond.
"Hold it," he tells Azoth, before squinting at the array of odd clay dolls against the back wall. "Kind of creepy," he agrees. "But what do you mean, 'causes errors'? They're just clay--"
Seraphita, being Seraphita, has just picked one up.
"...dolls. Ma'am!"
Leave it to Loren to not even shout out her name at a moment like this. In any event, he'll at least immediately confirm that she's alive, just...
"What's going on here?" he asks Azoth, before then noticing that the doll Seraphita had touched is moving. Something by one eye twitches. "Wait, is this one those..."
Loren has a lot of regrettable experience with things of this general nature. "Ugh," he opines. It's then that he notices that the doll is looking up at him.
"Right... we'll figure this out, Ma-- Seraphita. With the scanner he'd just used on Seraphita, he runs next an analysis on the room for any anomalies it can detect -- which, since it's a medical device, limits it to things like temperature and electrical signals. One would assume that it's unnecessary to take a room's pulse rate.
...Hopefully unnecessary.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
"I didn't intend to let them hit me again," Tabitha notes to Seraphita with a grin. "...and I thought I felt it smudge a bit."
She alights with the rest of the Solaris crew after they handle cleanup on the beasties, and follows into the chamber of the dolls. She grimaces. "Not particularly my style. Perhaps something with a cuter dress?"
Then it eats Seraphita's soul.
"...that ain't right," Tabitha says, as the doll starts waving. She scratches at the side of her head, thoughtfully, but then casts her eyes to the side of the room. "Feels like I read something about that in the old gospels. Might need one or two more to...go in the holes."
Then she thumps Loren on the shoulder. "Loren! You love adventure and dark places, right?"
DG: Tabitha deVriese has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==============<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches *>=============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The next white stone room you enter seems empty, at first. There is only a single, sealed stone door at the end (which it does not open) and a pedestal in the center of the room. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their limbs are articulated. When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is inside the now-animated doll. There are small slots along the floor -- at the base of the walls -- and inside of those are well-hidden switches. If you can arrange to touch each switch simultaneously, this will open the door. However, you cannot speak as a terrible doll. Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into it. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Exhaust=========================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 3 *>========================= ================< Results - Strange Dolls and Hidden Switches >================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraphita 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Lucky Charm 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Holographic Display 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabitha deVriese 15 --(25)--> 40 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass MediScan v7 3 Wits Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraphita 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Fright(1)|Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita 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> Azoth has posed.
"I look forward to it!" Azoth shoots back to Seraphita with a robotic beep-whirr. Part of the persona he announced putting on here, or a genuine statement? Listen -- this is the entire problem with Azoth.
But. Dolls. Creepy dolls. Azoth is not of the opinion dressing them in different outfits would improve the situation. ...But nor can he contest it would make it worse. Maybe Tabitha's on to something.
With Seraphita's silent request, he bends down to gently scoop up her body and support her in a more comfortable position. Loren asks him what this all even is, and Azoth shrugs his shoulders. "Magic? I'm an artificial intelligent, not a sorcerer." And apparently his database does not contain anything helpful enough to mention.
But there is data enough to collect between Loren and Azoth, and Seraphita is manipulating her doll well enough. Whether Tabitha or Loren or both choose to contribute, or the team finds a way to guide Seraphita into dealing with all of it, the job gets done and the puzzle gets solved.
Once it is, Azoth gently stands and sets Seraphita back on the ground, holding a moment to help steady her. "There. Good?"
Organics seem to handle the affair better, but they're still unpleasant little dolls, if you ask him...
DG: Tabitha deVriese has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ========<* CHALLENGE - Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes) *>========= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The white stone hallway turns and leads to a door that, when opened, leads to a terrace outside. The terrace has green grass on it, kept alive by ancient magic or technology. There are also vines growing across the ancient ruin's walls. There is no immediately obvious way forward; no second door to enter, no stairwell leading onward. But, up above, you spot a door on a higher ledge. The path upward involves scaling the mostly sheer wall, using vines. As you climb, a few recesses reveal themselves to have spike traps -- which shoot out to impale you, as you get closer. =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Exhaust=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
Tabitha goes to some lengths to make sure Loren gets dolled because she just wants to make sure she has that memory, and then if necessary also participates. This...might lead fairly directly to her getting dolled alone because that's just how that works.
Regardless, all goes as the Emperor wills it and soon enough the door is open and everyone is occupying their native body again. Onward!
Tabitha leads the group through a few winding hallways until they come out onto...the exit! Hooray! Wait, no!
Tabitha steps over to the edge of the terrace, she looks down across the surroundings with a frown. "Lovely decor," she says. "But rather lacking in stairwells, I think. Pole...invisible platform?"
She looks around some more, then turns around and sees the wall they came in from. "Ah! Vines. That should do it. Do watch out for those alcoves, dears!"
She then thrusts her hand forward and triggers a graviton anchor, which soon sees her falling upward toward the revealed door.
DG: Tabitha deVriese has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes).
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Right," Loren replies to Azoth. "I'm not sure why I even asked." He sighs. Again.
"No, I don't!" is Loren's squawk of a reply as Tabitha thumps him on the shoulder. He's dropped the medical scanner, though (a result of her hearty thump) and when he goes to try to grab for it, it creates quite the opening for Tabitha to do as she pleases.
"Wha--" is approximately the last thing to escape his lips while he still has them, before his perspective shifts enormously.
Has his haircut always looked that bad? On second thought, he doesn't want to think about that now. Or any of the other more existentially-oriented questions his current position in life has him facing. The point is, there are switches, and it's not like he can erase this particular moment now that it's happened, so he's just going to... deal with it. At least unlike other experiences he's managed to have in life, it's an easily turned-about one.
He's keen to get out of there as soon as possible once he's back to normal, though.
Is that it? Are they back outside? Is it over and can they-- no, they're too high up for that. But there doesn't seem to be anywhere to go except...
"You're kidding," he says to Tabitha, who is not kidding. "...And what's in the alcoves? Snakes?"
It's hard to say if snakes would be better or worse than what's in there, which Loren is certain to discover for himself as he ascends the vines. He really hated this part in physical education at Jugend.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes).
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Once Azoth has put her body into a position other than 'faceplant', Seraphita is willing to help out by reaching under things and clambering around and flipping switches. She may need some help, but that's just how things are.
And eventually the door opens, and she returns to her body. It takes her a moment to figure out she can hop back in, but she does! She immediately stands up, tugging her sleeves straight.
"That was *weird*," she declares. "And I look so different from the outside! Do I always look like that? I didn't know I was all..." She trails off, not having a good word to use. "Like that," is what she settles on. "And you all looked real different too! Which is weird because I always see you from outside? But I guess not from down that low unless I'm standing on my head, and then you'd be upside down."
Seraphita spends a few moments trying to get her hair floofed out properly as they move, which amounts to pointing her open palm at it and pushing a lot of hot air. It's as good as a hairdryer, if her other hand can just stop everything from tangling... it just looks *wrong* wet and bedraggled. And her poor ears, too.
She stops (not done, but better) when they get to the outside. "Oh, it's not so bad. Do you want a lift?" she asks Loren, before adding to Azoth, "You can fly, right? I don't know if I can lift both of you..." Seraphita is stronger than she looks, but not *that* much.
Either way, Seraphita starts to climb the vines like ropes. Loren may dread gym class, but she never did. A couple times, she pulls out a handful of what looks like gritty sand from an inside pocket of her jacket (or whatever you want to call it) and tosses it downward.
Where it explodes, sending a kickback of kinetic force that Seraphita uses, surprisingly casually, to jump off of in midair and re-grab higher up. Hopefully she's not carting someone along when she does it, because that makes it a *lot* harder.
DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Rocket Sand toward her party's challenge, Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes).
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"Because it's an absurd situation and the chance of obtaining an answer through inquiry is worth the effort cost?" Azoth offers Loren, innocently enough.
Once Seraphita back with her own version of events, Azoth smiles faintly. "It is different, seeing yourself from outside and so..." He holds his fingers about an inch apart. "Minuscule. I suppose everyone does look different than I used to think at this size, too... Perspective is everything."
Oh. That might be part of why he hates the dolls.
No more dolls. Only wall! Azoth looks up the steep climb, then beeps cheerfully at Loren. "I hope it's snakes! I've been practicing." Azoth mimics a hiss sound.
Azoth dusts his palms off together, then hops up onto the vines to begin his way up. At least if he gets hit with any traps, they won't have him bleeding on anything. Or anyone. Still could do some damage, though.
"Fly? Not in this body. And I can't even float ominously at this power output...!"
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes).
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ========<* CHALLENGE - Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes) *>========= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The white stone hallway turns and leads to a door that, when opened, leads to a terrace outside. The terrace has green grass on it, kept alive by ancient magic or technology. There are also vines growing across the ancient ruin's walls. There is no immediately obvious way forward; no second door to enter, no stairwell leading onward. But, up above, you spot a door on a higher ledge. The path upward involves scaling the mostly sheer wall, using vines. As you climb, a few recesses reveal themselves to have spike traps -- which shoot out to impale you, as you get closer. =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Exhaust=========================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 4 *>========================= ==========< Results - Treacherously Ancient Vines (But Also Spikes) >=========== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraphita 20 --(17)--> 37 Pass Rocket Sand 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 20 --(37)--> 57 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabitha deVriese 40 --(17)--> 57 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 32 --(37)--> 69 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraphita 60 --(15)--> 75 Fail Conditions: Cripple|Exhaust(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Seraphita has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ===========<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel *>=========== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your path leads you to a room deep within the Lunatic Garden. At the end, you find an ancient altar to Celesdue, the Guardian of the Moon. The altar is, however, behind a massive shield of light -- save for tiny holes along the bottom -- as are the doors behind it. On the side of the room that you enter, though, is a perhaps familiar pedestal. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their limbs are articulated. When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is inside the now-animated doll. As a doll, you and your friends can move through the tiny holes. There, behind the altar, is a massive prayer wheel. You will need to find a way, as a doll, to reach up and spin it. Doing so, though, could let down the barrier. Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into it. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Reckless========================================
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
It is not snakes. It is only a little bit like snakes! In that they are dangerous pointy cylinders. Which isn't a cylinder, really.
Tabitha makes it up mostly unharmed, although she mis-aims her anchor and has to finagle her way around the platform from its bottom. Seraphita finds her path mostly clear, and the rocket sand makes it easy to clear sections that might require full-on backtracking.
Loren and Azoth experience...geometries.
Between the lot of them, it takes a good few minutes to fully clear the wall, and takes several more before all the stab wounds are patched. "Spikes!" Tabitha says. "Was not expecting spikes. Spiders, maybe, but not spikes."
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
"I didn't grab a spike," Seraphita says, because she didn't. "I hope nobody did! Those are pointy and if you grab one in a ruin you can make yourself sick if it's rusty." Pause. "Well, probably not you, Azoth."
The party enters another room. A large room, with an altar to - well, Seraphita doesn't remember the name of the Moon Guardian but she knows a crescent when she sees it. There's just this annoying wall in the way: shimmering silver light, like moonlight.
Seraphita flips a pebble at it with her thumb just to check. It bounces.
"Oh, they have more dolls up here," Seraphita says. Which means she's going to need to touch one again, judging by the slots under the wall. But this time, *she's prepared*. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a little polished stone on a short chain, just long enough to wear as a bracelet if she was so inclined.
Seraphita peers through the wall for a few moments. She can see the prayer wheel, looming behind the altar, and she bets that's what they have to mess with. "Hmm..." She's thinking hard. Her brow furrows. And then, all of a sudden, her eyes light up.
"It's Celesdue! I forgot."
The important matters handled, Seraphita sits down next to the pedestal with dolls on it, then reaches up and pokes one. The advantage this time is that she doesn't fall over because she's already sitting. Tiny again, Seraphita scoops up the chain, waves and then heads toward one of the little slots, going into it and over to the altar... and the prayer wheel.
She tries to hop to grab it, but she can't. She's too short. So she tries to toss the weighted part of the lucky amulet up and catch the wheel so she can pull it, but her aim's a little off.
...She might need help. Being a tiny clay doll is hard.
DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Lucky Charm toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren just gives Azoth such a look, as if he's expecting him to sprout horns or otherwise thereby prove his true form in some manner.
"I don't want to think about it ever again," he says, of his experience when Seraphita remarks upon it. In fact, he would really like to stop thinking about whether or not his soul is still trapped in a doll... gah!
To be fair, it wasn't gym class that he dreaded (though his marks on sprinting, climbing, and so on were never... good) as much as certain applications thereof. That, and aside from hand-to-hand physical defense, it wasn't as if they had focused much on practicalities (defined here by Loren as 'the part where you hurt other people') for his curriculum. Studying medical and Ether application and tactics and officer roles and Gear piloting tends to limit your electives.
"Huh? No, I'm fine," he insists, shaking his head when Seraphita asks he'd he'd like a lift. Getting a lift would be a good idea, but the last thing he wants is deVriese making some sort of comment about-- something, and so he's going to climb up himself. "What are you going to do," he remarks to Azoth as he starts to make a slow ascent, "tell them to leave in snake? Can't, ugh, stand snakes--"
One hand reaches for the edge of an alcove -- it's a handy handhold, snakes or not.
It's not snakes, though. It's spikes!
"WHO PUTS SPIKES IN A WALL!?" is Loren's howl to an unforgiving world once he's landed on the terrace again and tended to the immediate wounds that result. Getting up there will take time. And probably more wounds.
What meets them above is...
Loren makes a disagreeable noise and sits on the floor for a moment, clearly demoralized by the prospect of this again. "Fine," he says, perhaps to the world at large. "Just give me a moment." Watching as Seraphita goes on ahead, he saves himself a little time and sets a particular item out on the floor before one of the dolls. With yet another weighty sigh, Loren reaches for the doll in question and... yep, he hates this perspective. Carefully picking up that medical scanning computer, he as a doll walks ahead through the tiny space in the wall and emerges to the other side.
Using a medical computer as a stool is most certainly not standard operating procedure but it might pass merit given that he's only about so tall. He gestures towards Seraphita's doll form. If this isn't enough, maybe he can lift her up while standing on the medical computer?
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth smiles back at Loren, unrelenting. He does not grow horns, although arguably his true form does have them -- just not of bone and keratin.
Spikes! Sharp and terrible and enough to scratch the metal of Azoth's hand, tearing at synthetic skin. "Not snakes!" But Loren does not like snakes. Important information. Once they're up, he pinches his synthetic skin together, forcing the edges to bond while the others take a breather. "Spiders would have been even better..." he laments to Tabitha. Then he nods to Seraphita. "It'd be best to let me grab any rusty, sharp objects."
Onward! ...To more dolls. Azoth puffs up like chipmunk. He observes the others and the prayer wheel, debating if he can get out of this one. This time, the calculations of success drop dramatically if he does not join in the effort.
"...I suppose I'll have to risk it this time." He brightens into a cheerful smile. "Ah, well, I probably won't go haywire and turn on you!"
Azoth does not sit, for his part. He reaches out to touch one of the clay dolls and winces, arcs of electricity dancing across his body while the magic of the dolls assists in this surreal, wireless connection, filtering sensory data back to a machine that this Guardian magic wasn't designed for. Every motion of 'his' doll is stilted and slow, each reactions a few seconds later than it should be.
The core of the AI remains able to generate a holographic outline of the wheel and everyone's positions, and while not able to speak, can try to point helpful instructions with arrows and glowing depictions so everyone can appropriately work together. ...And he has to make his calculations accommodating his own delays.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Holographic Display toward his party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Tabitha deVriese has posed.
"People who don't want you climbing their wall?" Tabitha asks rhetorically to Loren's howling anger at putting his hand on spikes.
She does, at least, help people up if they need it. And then: More stuff! "Oh, an altar," Tabitha muses, pacing around it. "Covered on all sides...something of value, perhaps."
And then...well, it becomes obvious soon enough. Everyone else figures it out! She's not dumb she's just useless. Big difference! She saunters up to one of the dolls, settles into a sit next to it, and touches. Boop!
Slump.
A tiny doll rises!! Tabitha-doll bounces up and down and actually attempts to 'look' at herself. The results are inconclusive because the clay doll has no face.
Time to totter over and figure out that prayer wheel...shame she never actually READ those gospels...
DG: Tabitha deVriese has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ===========<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel *>=========== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your path leads you to a room deep within the Lunatic Garden. At the end, you find an ancient altar to Celesdue, the Guardian of the Moon. The altar is, however, behind a massive shield of light -- save for tiny holes along the bottom -- as are the doors behind it. On the side of the room that you enter, though, is a perhaps familiar pedestal. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their limbs are articulated. When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is inside the now-animated doll. As a doll, you and your friends can move through the tiny holes. There, behind the altar, is a massive prayer wheel. You will need to find a way, as a doll, to reach up and spin it. Doing so, though, could let down the barrier. Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into it. =Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Reckless========================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 5 *>========================= =============< Results - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel >============= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraphita 37 --(101)--> 138 Fail Lucky Charm 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 57 --(101)--> 158 Pass Holographic Display 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabitha deVriese 57 --(101)--> 158 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 69 --(101)--> 170 Pass MediScan v7 3 Wits Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraphita 75 --(15)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Cripple|Madness|Reckless(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Seraphita is too exhausted to continue! DG: Azoth is too exhausted to continue! DG: Tabitha deVriese is too exhausted to continue! DG: Loren Voss 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 Seraphita has been fully Exhausted by Lunatic Garden! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Mural of the New Moon *>===================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Although you have not penetrated to the deepest parts of the Lunatic Garden, you have found a small side room that had been concealed. The door leads to a carved mural -- the carvings hold, but the paint has chipped off -- that shows a Filgaian sky. High in the sky are two moons: Lunar, but also the infamous New Moon. It has hints of its mechanical nature -- something, many scholars say, might be of the Metal Demons. Who, however, could say for sure? =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.
Seraphita already investigated herself as a doll. It's just something everyone does, apparently.
But more importantly: prayer wheel.
Seraphita can't get her lucky charm hooked around the thing at all, but Loren's unusual use of a medical computer gets her a little bit higher, especially if Loren is willing to pick her doll up. Azoth manages to guide the two of them to the correct position, and Tabitha joins in, giving that last little boost of assistance.
And then...
Nothing happens. Seraphita dangles, her clay doll feet well off the ground. The prayer wheel is stuck - the axle is rusted and seized up, and while the group has just about managed to get into a position where they can try to move it, it simply refuses to move.
Seraphita dangles for about twenty seconds, bouncing occasionally, trying to use her dolls body weight to unstick it. It does not move even a millimeter. After about another half minute, she unhooks herself and hops back down to the computer, and then the ground, walking back toward her body.
"Well that's stupid," Seraphita declares, once she's standing upright again. "It's stuck! I could move it all by myself if I could just get over to it!" But, sadly, it is behind a forcefield. "Azoth, you didn't have to come in with us..." She saw how slowly it was working for him.
"...but there's another door over here, I saw it when we came in. Let's at least go look at *that*."
'That' is a mural, carved and once-painted though most of that has flaked off or chipped free over time aside from smudges and flecks of remaining colour. The lack of contrast takes Seraphita a few moments to realize exactly what she's looking at: "They drew the New Moon all metal," she says. "And I mean, that's what the people with telescopes say, even some Lambs know that. Maybe it has something to do with this place! Or they're sending us a message about Metal Demons! On the moon! The other moon!"
"...maybe not," Seraphita admits, after a few moments longer. "We should take a picture anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The effort isn't quite enough. Azoth re-establishes connection with himself with a series of glitched beeps and a strange twitch. He gives his chest a firm whack with the heel of his hand, and the percussion maitenence seems to get his eye glow steady, at least.
He smiles through a wince at Seraphita. "You asked me along to help. Sorry it wasn't quite enough."
But they don't leave with nothing, it looks like. Azoth leans in, peering at the mural, and especially its metal moon. He pauses in his computations, giving a few robotic beeps, then steps back. Once. Twice. He holds up his thumbs and forefingers to fake a frame, tongue sticking out as if in concentration, eyes bright. Finally, he closes his eyes with an audible click.
"Done!"