2022-01-14: That Which Lingers
- Log: That Which Lingers
- Cast: Ethius Hesiod, Azoth, Lily Keil, Lan Lilac, Seraph Harmaus, Magilou
- Where: Guadosalam
- Date: January 14, 2022
- Summary: An unorthodox group ventures beyond the Gate, in search of what is transpiring below Guadosalam. But behind the Gate, that which should be by rights dead still lingers...
DG: A party led by Ethius Hesiod is now entering The Hidden Gate. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Machina Sentry *>======================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your group approaches the gate. You can see it from a distance: a large stone gateway built into the natural cavern wall of Guadosalam. The stone doors have carvings in them -- traditional Guado carvings, with various faces of fiends engraved into the stone. The doors are closed, though they seem to be able to be pushed open. There are pyreflies drifting out from the crack between the two doors. The plaza between your vantage point and the gate is an open space. You chose to come later in the day, when there is a smaller guard... but it seems that guard is employing a machina to keep an eye out: a huge spotlight, which they sweep across the field in a pattern. You will need to run ahead of it -- because the Guado Guardians have rifles, and shoot at whoever they catch in the light. But, if you can cross quickly, you can get through the stone doors. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Exhaust============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Thanks to some inside help - inside help that is directly traveling with another party, but not before giving what information and help they can - the various Drifter teams and other associated parties of interest are able to descend deeper into Guadosalam's natural caverns. It is exactly as they told them - a large stone gateway.
It does not appear to have any sort of locking mechanism... or perhaps it was removed? Pyreflies flit out between the cracks in no small number, and it is conventional wisdom that huge piles of pyreflies mean one of two things:
a) the water is about to look beautiful, and/or
b) There are going to be a whole lot of Fiends.
"This is unusual." Ethius remarks to the gathered. The particulars as to the hows and whys he's being forthcoming to the collected are arcane and weird, but he's always a weirdo. "Machina equipment is being employed in no small number ahead," he says as he keeps low and hidden behind some of the natural cavern walls. "I have not previously observed the Guado using them prior." He's not wrong - most of their hands are too big to handle models most anyone else on Spira could, but there's enough down here to suggest they've been in employ for some time.
A huge spotlight sweeps the space ahead, missing sight of the gathered. In its wake, indeed, there are Guado Guardians wielding altered machina rifles (and one has a flamethrower, which seems deeply ill advised in these environs). If they end up calling attention to themselves, well...
It might make it easier for the others to slip in, but it's a fight best avoided as Ethius finds a higher vantage point to climb to. He points to where he intends to go as he reaffixes the fit on the harness of the Hot Air Sack, and gets to Symbologically filling it with hot air to try and hover above as much of that as possible.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
As the groups split off, Azoth has no qualms following along after Ethius' leads. Grace had her own reaction to Hesoid, which while likely a critical data point, did not piece together all of the Ethius puzzle. But what sort of A.I. would Azoth be if he judged others for their secrets, some of which quite possible came with an unscrupulous past? A hypocritical one. Moreso given, based on what Xantia's said, that Ethius may not have all the puzzle himself to give.
Azoth's eyes glow brighter in response to the pyreflies. "How can you tell?" he asks Ethius of the machina, then stops, looking to the Guado. "Ooooooh, those kind of machina." Not everything called a machina is some kind of autonamous war construct for Azoth to hope is a friend...!
(As if Azoth, given the chance, wouldn't attempt to befriend a flamethrower. But today that would be a bad idea.)
The spotlight passes by and Azoth flinches back, his own eyes flicking almost completely off in response to not end up being their own spotlight.
He watches the way it travels and tries to calculate its patterns and pathways. But even if he gets that right, he still has to outrun the thing... Which he tries to do by simply dashing and weaving through what he hopes is non-spotlit space.
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily Keil is here to help, in her way. She has a feeling that whatever the former Maester is up to, it's going to require some firepower... which is why she's surprised at what Ethius points out:
"They are using a lot of it, aren't they?" And there's a gun up there. Lily narrows her eyes. "I see..."
Lily is probably not going to befriend a flamethrower, either. And she's fine with secrets; they aren't necessarily her business, after all. But the spotlight is a problem...
Lily considers, and then reaches up to the amulet at her neck. She is dressed in an Al Bhed style at the moment, with goggles down at her collar near the amulet and armored clothing. Not to blend in, but for practical reasons; her eyes at least are normal for now. And in the spotlight--
Lily steps forward, and a blue shell of magic erupts around her, becominga nother Lily, and another Lily, and another. Where the light touches them, they disappear in an instant; shots hit air.
It's a little hard to look at.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan will admit, if asked, that she doesn't know much more about Yevon than she did when she first left Spira. But it seems weird that the Guado, who are supposed to be super into their anti-machina religion, are using machina. Maybe it's just another example of 'do as we say, not as we do'. There are plenty of people on both worlds who like to live by that motto.
Kneeling down in the shadows of the cavern's natural walls, she watches the spotlight for quite some time, trying to figure out if it follows some set pattern - and if it does, trying to memorize that.
"You know, someone once said something about flamethrowers. It's like, even a sword can be used for other things, but a flamethrower is only good for setting things or people on fire. Like, a lot of fire." She frowns, because it seems silly to be a little put out by something that obvious, but...
But burning to death is awful. (Maybe she's only thinking about it because of Gwen.)
When she's as prepared as she'll ever be, Lan stands up and lets a thread of magic activate her silver ribbon. With footsteps as light as air, she darts across the plaza - and hopes her pale hair won't stand out in the dark!
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Some who have come have come in order to help.
Others have still yet further goals in mind.
It's a little bit funny, in the abstract. Not all that long ago, technically speaking, Harmaus had allied himself with Maester Seymour. But that was before he had found the Maester's role one that was, for him, no longer necessary.
(The Maester, as it happens, was very likely reaching the same conclusion more or less -- the Seraph was simply a little quicker on the draw).
How the tables have turned. This is a job that may have been easier for him, once, had he retained that alliance. But so be it. So goes it.
Harmaus moves with a catlike tread for that is in fact the shape he bears as he approaches the gate. He takes but a moment to regard the others there gathered, yellow eyes narrowing at the sight of a few.
"Alone I am... not," he remarks, looking this way and that. A long, fluffy tail twitches the once, as if thereby to expel any agita he may contain.
"Much they are, here. It is not far? Or Fiends coming?" Harmaus speaks again, tilting his head to the right. "Ah... and many machina. Burning machines. Is problem," he rumbles.
At his neck a single delicate porcelain bell tinkles cheerily. Harmaus begins to lift from the ground, hovering in midair as faint swirling lights circle his form. It is as if he has been caught presently by a slight breeze, ruffling his fur.
And the, in that moment, he streaks ahead, light glittering in his wake.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
Anyway, Magilou is here. No one invited her, she just appeared. And now she's in your party, whether you like it or not!
"Burning machines is no problem," she interjects, stepping up behind Harmaus with a single wagging finger. "And," she asides, to Lan, with an entirely straight face: "you say that as if you've never had to cook some marshmellows in a hurry."
Magilou, that's not what flamethrowers are for!
"Hey, kid," she adds, to Azoth, "I bet that flamethrower wants to be your friend. You should go say hi. It'd be funny."
Without explaining just how it would be funny, she backs herself up against a tree, and flicks open one of the books on her skirt. With a low "yoooooooooop!", Magilou proceeds to catapult across the field, hopefully while that spotlight is checking out a distant corner.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Super Pop-Up Book toward her party's challenge, Machina Sentry.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Machina Sentry *>======================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Your group approaches the gate. You can see it from a distance: a large stone gateway built into the natural cavern wall of Guadosalam. The stone doors have carvings in them -- traditional Guado carvings, with various faces of fiends engraved into the stone. The doors are closed, though they seem to be able to be pushed open. There are pyreflies drifting out from the crack between the two doors. The plaza between your vantage point and the gate is an open space. You chose to come later in the day, when there is a smaller guard... but it seems that guard is employing a machina to keep an eye out: a huge spotlight, which they sweep across the field in a pattern. You will need to run ahead of it -- because the Guado Guardians have rifles, and shoot at whoever they catch in the light. But, if you can cross quickly, you can get through the stone doors. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Exhaust============================================
========================<* The Hidden Gate - Round 1 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Machina Sentry >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Super Pop-Up Book 4 Agility Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Impure Pendant 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ethius Hesiod 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ethius Hesiod 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> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius quietly weighs to himself as to whether it's his place to discuss whether or not flamethrowers can be friends. He decides perhaps it is best for everyone to determine that for themselves as everyone goes about their own tactics and tricks. He makes no overt voices as to who can or can't come - perhaps out of resignation that he has never been able to prevent people from doing that.
If he even was of the mind here to begin wtih.
Those who go high - like Magilou, Ethius, and Harmaus - run into no problems (though Ethius nudges his head against a stalactite he couldn't see in this lighting, but he's fine).
Those on the ground - Lily, Lan, and Azoth - are able to make the perilous trek where they thread the needle of opportunity with the posted guard. Lily's own distortions of space and color are the MVP for those on the ground. The guard with the flamethrower does catch sight of something and take their leave to look for something that is no longer there. On the other hand, the flamethrower will never make friends from abroad now. :(
Harmaus is the first one there. Harmaus will find that the stone doors will open without so much a fuss... but eerily, without sound. There is a whole lot of wailing from the pyreflies within, in their usual OooOooOooooOOOOoooo'ing. But they do not protest, nor welcome. They're just there, waiting to become Fiends by an as-of-yet unknown mechanism to the gathered. Or get put in Spheres, which none are equipped to do.
There is only a short amount of time to admire the traditional Guado carvings of various Fiends (the vast majority of which are those that surround the local area, maybe archaeologists more familiar with Fiend populations will have more to think about) before urgency sees them step through into the unknown.
The biggest surprise - that the door itself is not an obstacle - is only scratching the surface.
DG: Azoth has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Tunnel *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are signs throughout the caverns that Seymour's agents have been working here. Occasionally, beams are built to support a part of the ceiling or wall. Periodically, markings on the wall can be seen. There are even a few spheres, inside metal fixtures, placed onto walls here and there. Sometimes, this engineering is suspect. When you approach one such wooden brace, the ground rumbles; then the area ahead of you collapses when a beam snaps. You may need to clear the area of rubble -- because otherwise, you will have to double back and find another route. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Stupify==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth smiles at Lan, gravitating more toward her and Lily on their trek. There's just a touch of guilt in it -- only for a moment -- because he does have his mixed feelings about presenting to Lan with the persona after all she knows. But it's a necessity. The least he can do is look remorseful about it, even if it has to be subtle. "I'm less flammable than most. So you can always get behind me."
Magilou says the flamethrower wants to be his friend, and Azoth squishes his index fingers together in a most bashful fashion, shyly averting his eyes. "Do you think so? Oh, but, but I wouldn't have any idea what to say."
When they make it to the other side, he puts his hand to his cheeks with a delighted smile. "Did you see that?! I think it noticed me...!" He abruptly looks more serious as he looks to do the doors as they open, the air filled with pyreflies. Ahead they go, with Azoth glancing down to Harmaus. "Please be careful, kitty!"
They pass into the caverns, the ceiling supported by make-shift beams. The walls are marked, sometimes with spheres fixated into the walls with metal in ways that do not seem all together structurally sound. A dangerous creak groans, releasing with a splintering snap. Azoth tries to beep an alarm and signal everyone to get back, but it's drowned out by the the thunderous roar of a cave in.
Once the dust settles, they're left with rubble on the path ahead. Azoth puffs his cheeks in annoyance. "But we know they passed through this one!" he says, getting his photon blade to charge the blade, each moment making it a size larger until it's something suitably ridiculous. One, two, three...! Azoth taps his toe to the ground and leaps at the rubble to help cleave through it.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Falk's Photon Blade toward his party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Fluffy...
Lily notices that Harmaus exists, and also that he talks, and is a cat. A Seraph? Maybe. The point is, she notices him, and does not call out to him to be careful because she's busy deciding what to make of him. It's easier to focus on Magilou, or Lan, or Azoth, or even Ethius.
"That's true," Lily says to Lan of flamethrowers. "But sometimes what you really want is fire." A beat, "I'm not particularly less flammable than anything else, so I might take you up on that," she says to Azoth.
But on the other side... "Heh." It noticed Azoth. That's nice. It's fun. The wailing of Pyreflies, though...
Lily considers. "Right. We've got to get through." Lily reaches into her things, and pulls a small violet crystal that contains a bit of extra magical power. She focuses into it, closing her eyes, and then extends her other hand--
Bits of rubble begin disintegrating in bursts.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Power Crystal toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius doesn't voice in time when he notices the suspect engineering work - it feels some combination of amateur, or perhaps done in a hurry out of necessity. He brings a finger up to his masked lower face as if to call for quiet. Cave-ins are never quiet. He wants to be extra certain this isn't going to call attention from outside, or just ahead. (There is the non-zero possibility another Dig party might come up and ask what the ruckus is.)
In the interim that it takes for him to decide the space is just well-ventilated enough he'd be willing to try and melt a way through, a great huge photon blade and pure sorcerous disintegration come into play against the rubble, and he finds himself in the role of sorting aside some of the easier-to-move debris instead.
"I do not believe this was an intentional trap," he contributes to that conversation as he decides conserving the metaphorical MP pile (a.k.a. calories) may be the better option lest they encounter something he absolutely needs to melt ASAP (such as, say, a larger machina construct).
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Is problem, is no problem," sighs Harmaus. "Small change, but big change. Yes, yes, it plays with words! I understands this," he continues, glancing the once back at Magilou. "And yet, it wonders me."
"How long finds it amusement such?"
So he says, before he begins to float, his own natural magic augmented by the bell's enhancing arte, and slips easily across the field of fire.
"Be careful, says it? Ah," murmurs Harmaus at Azoth's words, touching down neatly as the enchantment fades away. "It minds itself first! Whither lights wander, woe waits! --It sees, I plays games with words also, yes?" Thus does he also address Magilou from before, tail twitching the once as he trots on ahead.
...Just as something creaks, and though Harmaus' body is but spirit stuff, he still finds himself hesitating in those critical seconds before the wall comes crashing down.
"Jaeja," he cannot help but utter all the same. "If passage there is not, then break through. Is simple solution. Yes?"
As if to provide his own answer, the glass bell that hangs from his red red collar begins to shine bright, as Harmaus too begins to lift up into the air, a small star being born at his throat.
And then it explodes outwards, a great and terrible beam of light.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Prism Bell toward his party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Magilou isn't wrong. It's just that Lan has a Medium of Moor Gault and she's really really good at cooking things with it. ...Come to think of it, when was the last time she actually summoned the Guardian of Fire? "Even if you're less burnable I'd rather we didn't test it out though, you know?!" Azoths are not for burning!!
The gate opens silently. Shouldn't there be a groan, a rasp, or... or at least a squeaky hinge? This isn't how ruins usually work. There's always some kind of massive--
This is the part where she bumps into Azoth's outstretched 'look out for the dangerous thing' hand. The unrelated clatter and rumble of the ceiling caving in is well-timed, but only Lan knows why.
It probably wasn't intentional, at least. "This happens a lot," she remarks without any particular ill feelings. It's a ruin, cave-ins happen all the time. Jaeja, says something at her elbow. Lan, face blank, cranes her neck to glance at the spectral cat. She's heard that crickety-rickety speech pattern before.
She thinks about the crunch of a throat underneath her heel and releases the breath she's holding, before going to work shifting rocks. "..."
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"It's impolite to ask a lady's age," Magilou chides Harmaus, waving a finger. Did she think he was asking her how long she's found amusement, instead of how long she plans to find amusement..?
Speaking of open questions: is Azoth being serious? Magilou looks plenty amused, whether he is or not. Luckily, she's too busy sailing overhead to continue teasing him, and -- the door's not a wall anymore!
To the ooo-ooo-ooo of pyreflies -- does she get a soft gauss filter, too? -- Magilou saunters on in. And despite Ethius's attempts to get them to be quiet, she still claps for Harmaus. "Nice alliteration! I knew you had it in you, buddy!" Seraph or otherwise, apparently Magilou is friends with the cat. (Whether he likes it or not.)
"... wow," it's not long before she remarks, hands laced behind her head, "this is some truly rubbish cross-bracing."
She pauses, and asides, "... what? I studied civil engineering three hundred years ago." With another beat, she adds: "Won that bet, too." It's an epic in three sentences, and she doesn't get to relate the whole story, because it's not too long before --
RRRRUMB--
"Well that's what happens when your cross-bracing isn't riveting!" Magilou concludes, stomping a foot as the dust clears to reveal a block in the path.
She promptly turns to examine one of those spheres held in their fixtures. "I'm sure you can handle it," she places all her trust in them, with a lazy wave of her hand.
DG: Magilou has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Collapsed Tunnel.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Collapsed Tunnel *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are signs throughout the caverns that Seymour's agents have been working here. Occasionally, beams are built to support a part of the ceiling or wall. Periodically, markings on the wall can be seen. There are even a few spheres, inside metal fixtures, placed onto walls here and there. Sometimes, this engineering is suspect. When you approach one such wooden brace, the ground rumbles; then the area ahead of you collapses when a beam snaps. You may need to clear the area of rubble -- because otherwise, you will have to double back and find another route. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken, Stupify==========================================
========================<* The Hidden Gate - Round 2 *>========================= =========================< Results - Collapsed Tunnel >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Prism Bell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 5 --(4)--> 9 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Power Crystal 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Falk's Photon Blade 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ethius Hesiod 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Slow(1)|Stupify(2)|Weaken(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ethius Hesiod 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.
Azoth gives his chest a thump with a nod to Lily. "You can count on me! But ah... Maybe run, too, just in case." There's powerful sorcery in the world that can burn through even metal. Then there's the non-fire kind that does it, too. (Ask Ethius! Response not guaranteed.) He smiles back more nervously at Lan. "But only if it comes to that...! Promise."
Is Azoth being serious about flamethrowers? Excellent question! Moving on.
He smiles at Harmaus. "Don't worry, I'll watch myself, too." This is a friendly conversation they are having! It even has wordplay in it! The friendliest.
Collapsed cave ins are less friendly. "Poorly made, huh? Were they in a hurry, or just bad at it...?" Or maybe it is, indeed, the very nature of cavernous ruins.
Azoth makes his energetic cleaves through rubble, with Lily outright disintegrating other debris, and Harmaus blasting his way through the collapse with beams of light. Ethius and Lan perform the tedious but important task of using the space the more destructive are creating to push the rubble into an actual, workable path.
Magilou successfully does nothing.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Slippery Light *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The cavern you move into is a narrow, twisting hallway. Mercifully, it is not dark, for the sheer amount of pyreflies make it well lit -- though the light plays tricks on the eyes in places. More than that, though, you find the rock below grows slippery and slick -- almost like it has water on it. It begins to dawn on you why this is so: the pyreflies are in semi-solid form under your feet, and making it easy to slip and fall. One tumble, and you could go falling down the twisting depths. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Injure=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Hah. Sure." Lily is one of those with fire that can melt through metal herself, though not perhaps so efficiently as Ethius's. She considers any cat that's willing to argue with Magilou has got to be interesting enough to be dangerous. Especially if he can conjure light like terrible beams and stars...
"Impressive work," she says to the Seraph. "What should we call you, anyway?"
Ethius is probably right about it not being a trap, she thinks. And Lan--well...
"Things break," she says to Lan and Magilou both with a shrug. "more often when I'm around." A beat, "You studied it, huh? Anything useful?"
Lily starts forward--and slips, nearly falling. "Gh--"
She catches herself on a rock, her glove slightly torn from the impact. Then she looks down, and sees; the pyreflies... "...They're almost solid," Lily reflects. "But only almost."
She looks to the others. "Be careful."
Then she draws on that terrible, strange magic of hers again, the one that feels so unnatural and dizzying to look upon: many Lilys fall. One does not.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Slippery Light.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius quietly remembers when he was almost point blank for the birth of a star, and wisely covers his eyes and ducks when Harmaus uses his own considerable hold over light itself to burn a path through. (That's because he's light in the shape and the will of a particularly naughty cat, but shh.)
"It is not uncommon for those with long lifespans to have eclectic interests in conjunction with societies built with those of much shorter lifespans in mind." He's not sure where he got this assertion from, and he refuses to comment on the quality of Magilou's wordplay in the moment. Maybe he will fall apart into tiny pieces if anyone saw he cracked a smile. Did he? Can he? Who knows. But that's as much of a response as he's giving it, as they journey into the 'almost solid' hallway. He checks the fit of the Hot Air Sack's harness again, having already decided he's not going to chance it. AS he peers down towards the pyreflies that are almost - almost - a solid foothold, he considers whether or not this, too, is a recent development here.
He doesn't know enough about how pyreflies are artificially shaped to be able to say one way or another. He's been too fixated on the distribution of machina and overseas technology to pay it much mind.
"I suspect they believe time was not on their side," Ethius says to Azoth as he breaks from speaking to go through the Symbological spellcasting rituals - chanting and gesticulating - to fill the repurposed patchy-lookin' loot sack with hot air and use it to try and float through in case his footing falters.
This runs into complications when by necessity his eyes have to track over the many, many not-colors of not-Lilys.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Slippery Light.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"I suspect they were in a hurry," Magilou says, to Azoth, before she turns to Lily. "And boy, I'm glad you asked! Flying buttresses do wonders for tall ceilings, but does that look relevant to our current situation?" Magilou starts off as if she's going to tell her something useful, and ends up just wagging her finger at the cavern.
She pouts at Ethius, whose smile quotient is being obscured by the poor lighting, probably. "My interests aren't eclectic! The rest of the world is just catalectic!" That's probably some sort of Rhyming Foul, but it's technically valid.
As we come to the caves, let us note here for the peanut gallery that Magilou's Super Pop-Up Book is still Super Popped-Up behind her, and isn't going to be caged again any time soon. She can only open the Super Pop-Up Book once.
"Only almost?" Magilou asks, before she saunters off to go poke at an updraft of Earthpulse energy: a Geotree. She doesn't have information for this area yet, after all, so it's only after she finds it amidst the pyreflies that she can say, "... do your thing, Bienfu!"
There is a VAST SIGH from somewhere around the region of Magilou's heart. A much more pipsqueakish voice emits: "... Normin Breyve..."
And all a sudden, Magilou kicks up a surfboard which seems for all intents and purposes to surf on the spiritual energies of the room -- which ought to take her over those semi-corporeal Pyreflies without a word of complaint.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation! toward her party's challenge, Slippery Light.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah? Is impolite, yet? How times change! I remembers it well," Harmaus speaks, without saying what, precisely, it is that he found so memorial.
"Heh heh. We all watches selves, yes?" rumbles Harmaus, yellow eyes glittering with some amusement at that particular choice of words from Azoth.
Lan finds Harmaus to be familiar. He, however, has already recognized her; he is content enough to continue on his way without reminding her of why she would find something about him to be familiar...
Perhaps more than familiar.
"Was mere effort," Harmaus rumbles, as if in vaguely aggrieved (but still self-amused) response to Magilou.
The way forward is soon carved, and one among their number asks of him his name.
"Harmaus," he answers Lily quite simply -- and bluntly, at that. "It sees ones of me before?"
Harmaus scarce wastes the effort -- proceeding ahead towards the gap they've again carved. The ground underneath his feet however is strange--
"Tcha," snaps the Seraph, porcelain bell at his neck chiming the once as he again takes flight to there hover in a nearly-invisible swirl of shimmering light. "Ground is... not. It is tricksome. So goes it -- I walks it not!"
In such a manner he proceeds, down and ahead where the ground refuses to be reasonable.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Slippery Light.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
What happens if, someday, it's the wrong Lily that's left behind at the end of one of Lily's efforts? ...What if it's already happened?!
More importantly, perhaps, is the matter of the ghost cat. A Seraph, technically - Lan knows what it is. Are Seraphs really just ghosts? Is it Lan's fault that there's a ghost cat here?! What if he's come to haunt her?!
Wait a minute. She's a shaman, dealing with spirits of all kinds is her literal job.
...Does that mean that Boudicca was murdered too? That's not cool! Boudicca is super nice!!
Lan dusts her hands off once the last of the rubble is shifted aside. Right. She just needs to figure out if exorcism or purification is the correct course of action here, and send the cat off to the next world. Unless being a Seraph is like a punishment and now ghost kitty is working off its sins! Oh no...
To everybody else, Lan has been perhaps worryingly silent for a long few minutes now. Plus she keeps shooting increasingly concerned glances at the cat.
But now they're finally through the cave-in, and free to take in the glorious sight of... of... "Wait, they're all... gloopy," the blonde frowns, crouching down next to the slippery spots and running a fingertip through some of it. "Are you okay?"
Yes, she's asking the pyrefly gloop. It declines to answer.
And since everybody else is doing their best to just avoid walking on it, Lan decides to do the same. She stands up, channels more starlight energy, and leaps-- floating far along after the others, only touching down twice. Super bunny hop!
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Slippery Light.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth has been on the wrong end of Lily's fire before, much like Ethius' magic. It's how he knows. But when he's in Drifter mode helping his friends, sometimes, he's got to eat fire. (And if he's in override mode fighting his friends, often, he's got to eat fire.)
"I think this dedication to playing with words is getting a little hectic..."
As they travel along, he glances to Harmaus. "You sound just like someone I've met before. We fought a Lightning Eater! Human, though. Middle aged. Beard." Azoth gestures around the bottom half of his own beardless face. "Bit scraggly, though. You look much fluffier." Because that is, indeed, how Azoth first met Harmaus. His impeccable robot memory can place the manner of speech, but he doesn't know enough about Seraphim to know they can be body stealing cats.
This strange, slick footing has Azoth giving a flinch as he tries to cross and the predicted calculations are all very wrong. Because of a missing variable... and an incredibly unfamiliar one. Azoth hesitates, eyes scanning the area for several moments longer than he tends to before committing to action.
"With us coming after them, I suppose that's exactly right," He says to Ethius. "And it hindered us more than anyone. But I have decided I still don't like it."
Lan asks if it's okay, and Azoth leans toward her, voice volume low. "Are you okay?" he asks. That's the first thing she's said in a while.
Calculating, calculating, recalculating... Azoth, sadly, is ground bound at this level of power output, and risks his steps forward and hopes he isn't about to learn by trial and a whole lot of error.
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Slippery Light.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Slippery Light *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The cavern you move into is a narrow, twisting hallway. Mercifully, it is not dark, for the sheer amount of pyreflies make it well lit -- though the light plays tricks on the eyes in places. More than that, though, you find the rock below grows slippery and slick -- almost like it has water on it. It begins to dawn on you why this is so: the pyreflies are in semi-solid form under your feet, and making it easy to slip and fall. One tumble, and you could go falling down the twisting depths. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Injure=========================================
========================<* The Hidden Gate - Round 3 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Slippery Light >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 9 --(5)--> 14 Pass Normin Breyve - Geoboard Activation 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Impure Pendant 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ethius Hesiod 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Injure(2)|Stupify(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ethius Hesiod has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
What if there's a 'right' Lily for things to go horribly wrong? What if that's already happened, too?
"...Hm. So no, nothing useful," Lily confirms from Magilou--though she says it rather good-naturedly, as if ribbing a friendly acquaintance rather than showing any genuine annoyance. She considers Ethius's words, too. "...have you remembered anything about interacting with such? Or is it just the same ones we've seen?" she wonders of him.
She figures time wasn't on their side, but....
"I don't particularly like it either," Lily admits to Azoth. And then she 's thoughtful. Is Lan okay? Lily's not the one to ask, for the moment. Instead, she considers Harmaus's question.
"Your energetic signature suggests a Seraph," she answers him. "But I've never seen one who looks like you." Pause. "Excepting Bienfu, I suppose." Who is the closest...
But they all have their various ways of getting over the pyrefly problems. Lily is there, and now there. Hramaus flies. Magilou surfs. Ethius's hot air sack is trusty and reliable. And Lan...
Lan leaps!! It works well. Finally, Azoth's calculations see him safely across, albeit with a couple of close calls.
Once on the other side, Lily looks back to the others. "We should be careful."
DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - The Mirages of Pyreflies *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The tunnels that you enter are rife with pyreflies. It gives the entire place an eerie light; walls of cavernous stone sometimes shimmer and shine, incandescent. As you move down this hallway, though, the pyreflies grow ever thicker -- until your eyes seem to play tricks on you. The shining light of the pyreflies seems to reflect some of the tunnel ahead; it makes turns and branches seem closer. It makes it so your eyes can't discern how close the walls are or when a path splits in two. You will need to find a way to not rely on your sight to navigate down the tunnel. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Slow============================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It says words strangely," Harmaus remarks, one ear flicking fleetingly. "But, Seraph I am. It sees rightly, however it sees! I am... cat-seeming now, yes? Other Seraphs seeming as animals. But not! Not truly animals. Seraphs," he says again, as if to make this particular part of the equation absolutely plain. A cat he is... not.
"I meets it before?" Harmaus regards Azoth curiously a moment, tilting his head to one side. "Hmm... yes, I remembers it now. Was... jaeja, and not even eight hundred." The cat... sighs, shaking his head in a rather more uncatlike fashion; more catlike is the twitch-a-twitch of the ears, as if he were aggrieved in some form. "Matters me not. I am now, not as I was."
Over the way his magics -- augmented with the arte locked into that single charm of his -- see him without incident. But it is not the floor alone that is flooded with Pyreflies, as they will all soon find.
The walls are infected with their number as well.
"...Is strange," Harmaus is forced to admit, as they walk a time through this hall of mirrors. Even as his form swells with his own light in an attempt to illuminate the way ahead, his shine is only reflected further, the dazzling array perhaps only making it harder to see what lies ahead.
"Strange, and tricksome!"
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Without the urgency in which to catch up to Seymour and see to his current ambitions (and/or stop them, definitely 'and' for anyone among the living given his stated goals), it takes Ethius some time to even have confidence in letting his feet touch down to the pyrefly-lousy passage. It is nigh-on impossible to tell prismatic pyrefly light from what /isn't/, until he can find enough of a stretch of solid kind-of-gray color in which to decide that yes, this is ground. It's something difficult to take for granted as he squints and tries to find some place to look that isn't... an indiscernible series of sights of hallways of distances unable to be determined.
He gets out the odd eyeglass he carries around and goes about zapping it alight, attempting to hold it up to his face until he runs into two very unique problems:
a) this concentration of pyreflies make it impossible to see anything, and
b) Harmaus is kind of helping in this context but this is one where it is explicitly not
And he winces, shutting an eye closed as blurry greenish-purple streaks follow that space on his eyeball.
...He has an idea. He takes the Hot Air Sack's harness off, puts it over his head (it looks silly, it's a mess of locally sourced fabric scraps masquerading as a viable envelope) and brings the Spectral Lens' up to his other eye.
The best he can do is determine if there might be any set traps ahead. The actual way forward... that's for someone else.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Huh? Oh, I'm okay. Just... thinking about something. Like, how ghosts become ghosts." When Harmaus is probably not close enough to hear her, Lan leans closer to Azoth and explains, "I fought and killed someone who spoke just like it does." Because now that Azoth mentions it, it had been an older man. With a beard. There, on the steps of a holy place. "And now there's a ghost cat who talks just like that man did, and shoots giant magic beams just like that man did--"
And then Harmaus - because that is the cat's name - returns and explains... sort of. Well enough, anyway.
The pyreflies are so thick around them now that Lan almost feels like she's breathing them. And that's gross! "Ugh," she huffs, waving a few stray ones away from her face. "Shoo! Which way are we even supposed to go...?"
She reaches into her pocket, slipping out a folded bit of paper. "Eenie, meenie, minie..." This is clearly Advanced Baskar Magic and not a children's toy. But despite looking a bit silly, Lan's paku-paku has hardly ever steered her wrong. "Let's try this way, and then turn left at the third... no, the second fork," she pipes up, squinting at the marks on the paper.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"Nope!" Magilou confirms, to Lily, with cheer.
Magilou sounds completely thrilled at Azoth's contribution to her rhymes, exclaiming: "Azoth, you delightful little dialectic!" Does she realise just how accurate she is, saying that..?
She winks to Lily, and says: "Oh, trust me, Harmaus here isn't even the first Seraph to be a cat. He's much less tubby, though." Is she calling Bienfu fat, or...
(She's not.)
"Aww, aren't you?" Magilou needles Harmaus, on the topic of being different to how he was. How much have any of them really changed?
A thousand years ago, and today, Magilou says: "What's wrong, Ethius? You don't look like your usual perky self." Something about the line makes her grin, as she steps forward, gesturing vaguely.
"Here," she says, unhooking a journal from her skirt and flicking it open. "I'll tell you a story." She speaks without looking forward, to where her feet fall in the myriad reflections of pyreflies; she moves forward without looking at all.
"Beneath our feet and our hearts lies a world defined by its relations," Magilou reads off the page, entirely too casually. "When you cannot trust your eyes, where shall you turn? Oh! Fancy that," she adds, brightly, as she turns to the left on what seems for all the world like a whim. "It turns out that nonsense was the answer all along! Tragic!"
Either Magilou knows where she's going, or she has full confidence in getting lost.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Mayvin's Accounts toward her party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - The Mirages of Pyreflies *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The tunnels that you enter are rife with pyreflies. It gives the entire place an eerie light; walls of cavernous stone sometimes shimmer and shine, incandescent. As you move down this hallway, though, the pyreflies grow ever thicker -- until your eyes seem to play tricks on you. The shining light of the pyreflies seems to reflect some of the tunnel ahead; it makes turns and branches seem closer. It makes it so your eyes can't discern how close the walls are or when a path splits in two. You will need to find a way to not rely on your sight to navigate down the tunnel. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Slow============================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth's calculations... check out! He brightens once on safe ground, hit circuits abuzz with the positive feedback of success. "Careful it is!" he says with a salute.
The accuracy of Magilou's play back could pierce him through the core, but he practically sparkles with the praise instead. "It's all an exercise in becoming more idiolectic."
"So that was you?" Azoth blinks, wide eyed at Harmaus. But then he smiles faintly. "Now is now. And you're as much as a cat as other Seraphim are human," Azoth says, knowing they are not human, but only happen to have some similarities. "Sorry for calling you a kitty before, Mr. Harmaus."
Lan explains her worries, and Azoth scratches a cheek. "Not really a ghost," Azoth says, as if to confirm for Lan what Harmaus already sort of explained. "But... we'll keep an eye on him." Azoth's confident with the data he has that Lan wouldn't go killing someone without sufficient reason. He's forced her into a violent corner himself. (Not Harmaus, though. Or Magilou! Give it time.)
And then pyreflies are everywhere. Azoth's eyes are round and wide as he admires the sight and tries to track the energy patterns around him. It is a strange phenomenon, unique so far to Spira, with more confusing applications than Azoth had given it credit for before today.
He adjusts his own spectrum of visual light, trying to determine the perfect balance of decreasing the noise from the pyreflies while still being able to navigate the path ahead. With Lan giving directions and Ethius looking for traps, he tries to take point to judge distance. "Maybe no one else should look directly at any of this..."
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Oculus ex Machina toward his party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Strangely. Hmm. Lily looks back at Harmaus with a lifted eyebrow. "Do I?" Pause. "I thought so, then. I see. I suppose there's no reason Seraphim would be limited to humanoid shape." Magilou even confirms it. "Hmm."
Magilou knowing things isn't strange. Magilou mentioning Ethius's 'usual self' is strange, somehow--something about the delivery... And then--
The thicker pyreflies--Lily can't... see, well enough, not with the spectral lights blocking and muddying the way. She frowns, Harmaus's admission coinciding with her issue. Lan has her paku-paku, but Lily finds that the main tool she has right now is... a knife. A knife...
Lily pulls her combat knife, and it practically leaps into her hand, the way she's accustomed to it. Then she focuses, and traces her fingers down the blade; shadow coats it as she does, and she lifts it up, letting it 'pulse' outward from there--and then reaching down to cut in an esoteric pattern that seems un-obvious to the observer.
"Don't need vision if..."
She closes her eyes, and lets the magical signature guide her.
"What if you don't have relations? What if you're singular?" she wonders of Magilou.
She doesn't join in on the fun earlier, though. Instead she just says, "Probably better not to," to Azoth.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Lily's Knife toward her party's challenge, The Mirages of Pyreflies.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - The Mirages of Pyreflies *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The tunnels that you enter are rife with pyreflies. It gives the entire place an eerie light; walls of cavernous stone sometimes shimmer and shine, incandescent. As you move down this hallway, though, the pyreflies grow ever thicker -- until your eyes seem to play tricks on you. The shining light of the pyreflies seems to reflect some of the tunnel ahead; it makes turns and branches seem closer. It makes it so your eyes can't discern how close the walls are or when a path splits in two. You will need to find a way to not rely on your sight to navigate down the tunnel. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify, Slow============================================
========================<* The Hidden Gate - Round 4 *>========================= =====================< Results - The Mirages of Pyreflies >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 14 --(0)--> 14 Pass Mayvin's Accounts 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Lily's Knife 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Oculus ex Machina 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ethius Hesiod 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Injure(1)|Slow(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ethius Hesiod has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn *>================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The path through the cavern leads you to another plaza -- this one built in a natural cavern, with a high ceiling -- and another set of stone doors, like the ones you entered from. These doors are closed, though a faint glow can be seen from behind them. There are no guards in the room -- it seems like it should be a simple walk. As you enter, though, the air shimmers. Pyreflies swirl together -- and take the form of an older man, silver-haired and with a mustache. He is well-muscled and strong, but his tattered blue and black clothes are utterly sodden. More than that, there is a gaping and bloody wound in his chest. The ghost of Blue Master Lunn looks up. He rasps out: "No... not... yet!" And he launches forward, with a flying kick, and then a brutal swing. He will need to be fought off -- whether he is a true Unsent or merely some ghostly apparition. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Much changed," Harmaus professes. "As it has. A glutton is time, yes?"
Cats, not having shoulders as such, can't shrug. Still, the tip of Harmaus' tail swishes, and it may be the same, when Azoth apologizes. "Matters me not," is all he has to say on the subject. It simply floats under his threshold, at least when it's an honest error.
Magilou may be a separate matter here.
Perhaps, anyway.
Ethius does his best to discern whether there might be traps -- and in so doing in a rather unorthodox manner, determines that some of the pathways in actuality have no floor. It would not behoove anyone to traverse such paths.
Most, though, simply meander. Some loop about again, and others seem to go to nowhere but dead ends.
An ear flicks as Magilou tells her tale -- that of a world, or so he hears it, that is not at all as it seems. His tail swishes once, his brilliance for the moment dimming. But only for the moment. "I perseveres, against even lies," he says, all light once again. Harmaus' own efforts here... well, they probably serve as a good reminder not to look directly at the light. At any of the lights.
The other resources pulled upon by everyone to use anything other than their eyes alone work much better. Just as Magilou's account and Azoth's own assessment have suggested.
It's the joined force of the message that Lan is able to discern from her paper and the signature that Lily can read even with her eyes closed -- cut for a moment into the essence of the world with her knife -- that see them, sightless but not senseless -- on their way.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"No no, I mean I know it's a Seraph. But Seraphs and ghosts are... well they're not the same thing, okay, but they're really similar and anyway it's kind of weird that a Seraph used to be a human being... or inside of one," Lan realizes slowly, turning her head to look at Magilou (and Bienfu).
But that's not the same.
At least it's pretty comforting to be able to just ask normal everyday spirits for directions. This is a normal thing that Lan does all the time. It's normal! And between all of them, they manage to figure out the meandering maze of pyreflies!
They're treated to the sight of another plaza, even taller and grander than the one they'd entered through, and another set of doors threatening to spill pyreflies into the room if they should be opened. "Maybe we're almost there!" She's allowed to be hopeful, okay?
But the pyreflies already milling thick at the edges of the cavern mill restlessly at their approach, rushing towards the empty space in the middle of the vast room. She's seen it before - people who can't let go of this world and travel to the next. They all have. But who waited for them here?!
The form of an older man appears before them, wounded and dead, but his will still burns bright in what passes for his chest. A mortally wounded warrior stands before them, unwilling to budge even though with wounds like that he must be dead.
"No... not... yet!" he rasps out past blood-flecked lips, and flies at them with a speed that belies his age.
Lan, being sort of near the front of things, rolls with the kick that sends her flying. She lands into a somersault, bleeding off momentum until she can reorient herself and come back swinging - metaphorically, because Lan's physical power is in her hips and legs rather than her fists. He goes for Lily next, swinging a powerful fist for the sorceress's face. Lan leaps, floating high above for long moments before descending towards the attacking form of Blue Master Lunn heel-first. "HhhhaaaAAAAAAAH!"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius doesn't look like his usual perky self. He has a bag on his head. "I assure you, this amuses me far less than it sounds as though it amuses yourself." He says, with only the faint creeping downshift of speaking tone into admission of defeat as he has to settle upon this to make use of the lens.
"But I would not advise stepping forward in that direction." Beat. "If that is you." Another beat. "I would make the same suggestion for anyone."
Would he? Who knows.
He bonks his head on something along the way, but that is as far as the levity goes. Things may not quite dim, but they approach a point where it's not quite as blinding so he can take the bag off his head and not be blinded again. He does not manage this in time before the visage of a dying, no, dead man appears, clinging to life. A flying kick beans him upside the head before he gets the bag off.
NEver mind, that's levity, unless it killed him. Then it becomes hilarious and maybe even highly convenient.
Ethius coughs a few times, and his neck hasn't been snapped, so no, he's among the living and also is now spitting blood from a bit cheek into the sack. Convenient that's there.
He rolls feebly face-down, propping himself up on his elbows as the others buy time in the older man's fury and desperation to cling to life. He doesn't identify him, nor is he of the mind to because his head is ringing. He just knows that's a hostile, as he grabs one of the satchels at his belt.
It takes him a little while to do the incantation because he bit his cheek and his vision is sort of blurry, but at some point he is satisfied with the gesticulations and chants to just hurl the satchel at him. If he did it right, it should explode into a cloud of dust and smoke.
Highly combustible, if it does.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.
"No man is an island," Magilou responds to Lily, entirely cheerfully.
And to Harmaus, she wonders: "But how will you persevere against memories..?"
Magilou, for her part, does so with randomness, picking a path without paying any attention to what's in front of her eyes. (She does, at least, not step where Ethius suggests she doesn't.) At some point, her account of the Earthpulse shifts; she starts talking to Lan, instead.
"From time immemorial we have slaved to each other," she's still so cheerfully casual, about the whole thing. "Mortals and immortals have a certain amount of openness to exchange, wouldn't you agree? Don't you think would be easy to speak with someone else's mouth, given all that?"
She laughs, and waves her journal. "Oh, don't flinch. It's tit for tat." How can she say something like that as if it's a joke..?
They step out, the image resolves --
Magilou settles back, a hand on her hip. "The lost son of Meribia, huh..?" She shrugs, and sits herself down, on a stone. "He's dead," she informs them, obviously, "so I hardly see the need to bother."
Instead, she... deals out a hand of cards..?
"The Hanged Man," Magilou muses, to herself, as she turns one card in the spread over. "Well, a certain amount of sacrifice..."
Trailing, she doesn't pick up the rest of her sentence.
DG: Magilou has used her Tool Fortunetelling - Trickery toward her party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Tcha. It asks nonsense to me. I persevere! I overcome," answers Harmaus to Magilou, tail lashing from one side to the next as if to speak to his agita.
The Pyreflies are thick within this space.
"Not sleeping, yet," Harmaus rumbles, stopping a moment in the midst of the swarm. "Not gone yet... it shows itself, now!"
It may not be in response to his call. It may only be an accident of timing. But it is here in this moment that the swarm coagulates, and there, standing before them...
Is he Unsent? Or a different sort of hungry ghost?
Recognition flickers in Harmaus gaze.
"Ah... so was it here? How fallen, Blue Master Lunn! Supplicant to She, that Goddess of Lies! Is it waking, now? Is it aware? Ah, is it instead asleep and walking both?"
Light shines at his collar. The bell is but a simple one, silver, small.
"I shows it how proper sleep! Now, stop!"
The bell only rings once but it seems longer, the ringing continuing to echo on and on.
Stop, it says.
Sleep, it says.
And end.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
The past is a glutton. Harmaus does have a way with words, Azoth things. Troublesome thing as words are. But maybe that's why Harmaus and words get along.
"I suppose now might be a strange time to mention I have one inside me some of the time..." Azoth says to Lan, smiling sheepishly. "Not right now though!" Never expect Azoth to warn anyone when Ragnell is with him.
The pyreflies continue to be a herald of terrible things to come.
"Ethius!" Azoth cries out, title dropped for an urgency that still comes too late before their mysterious companion is kicked to the ground.
It's a miracle they haven't run into any Fiends as it is, but when they're finally attacked, it's by a man who keeps his shape. Unsent? Something else? Someone important? That's hardly relevant. They're being attacked, and it must be met in like force.
Azoth darts in front of him, offering up a shield to guard Ethius while he goes through his chanting. He does it through the amber stone, bug projected more to obscure Ethius during the incantation than to act as a legitimate distraction against a skilled, undead martial artist. Magilou can do fortunes behind it too, if she feels like it.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Bug in Amber toward his party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn. DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"I'm not a man," Lily replies smoothly to Magilou.
To Lan, "Hmm." Is it weird??? She isn't sure. Seraphim can go inside things just fine. Why not people? Except of course is the person is unwilling it might be a difficulty...
Then, unceremoniously, Lily Keil opens her eyes only to be punched in the face by one of the most powerful martial artists Lunar has ever known. There is a spray of blood as she falls back immediately, hurtled from her feet--and luckily her stance was light, because it means the blow didn't sink in as hard as it could've otherwise. Sailing backward, Lily hits the ground hard, and from that part of the battlefield there is silence for a long few moments.
THe others identify him for who and what he is. From Lily's position, however, rises a cloud of black smoke. The sorceress rises, eyes blackening in more ways than one, in a storm of arcane might. Hovering off of the ground, Lily lifts her hands towards the 'sky' far above. "Then die again," she says, and her voice is strange, as if doubled.
Light shines from above them, and rocks and debris begin to float upward, as if in a strange gravity, until there is a sudden explosion of nuclear fire, like a miniature sun, localized on the Unsent.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn.
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn *>================= |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The path through the cavern leads you to another plaza -- this one built in a natural cavern, with a high ceiling -- and another set of stone doors, like the ones you entered from. These doors are closed, though a faint glow can be seen from behind them. There are no guards in the room -- it seems like it should be a simple walk. As you enter, though, the air shimmers. Pyreflies swirl together -- and take the form of an older man, silver-haired and with a mustache. He is well-muscled and strong, but his tattered blue and black clothes are utterly sodden. More than that, there is a gaping and bloody wound in his chest. The ghost of Blue Master Lunn looks up. He rasps out: "No... not... yet!" And he launches forward, with a flying kick, and then a brutal swing. He will need to be fought off -- whether he is a true Unsent or merely some ghostly apparition. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
========================<* The Hidden Gate - Round 5 *>========================= ==================< Results - The Unsent - Blue Master Lunn >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 10 --(17)--> 27 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magilou 14 --(5)--> 19 Pass Fortunetelling - Trickery 2 Combat Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 10 --(17)--> 27 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 10 --(17)--> 27 Fail Bug in Amber 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ethius Hesiod 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Wound(2) Effects: Embolden(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Ethius Hesiod has successfully explored The Hidden Gate!
=============================<* The Hidden Gate *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - The Farplane *>========================= |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You make your way through the stone doors at the end of the tunnels. The doors open up onto a small ledge in an area that, impossibly, appears outdoors. There is a sky that seems to be perpetually in sunset -- and you find yourself overlooking a lake or an ocean. In the distance, there are shores with greenery... and the roar of waterfalls nearby. But there are also other, more alien things. For one, there is a gaping, impossible hole in the middle of the ocean; a solid blue sphere, wreathed in darkness, floats above it. There are also pillars of water that rise up into the clouded sky. It dawns on you, perhaps: this is the Farplane. And Seymour's agents, for some reason, have began digging their way into it... and it is flooding the caverns below. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Not yet! Not yet!" the dead man rasps again, swatting Lan out of the air before she can make significant contact. A meteor kick might be a fine tactic against a normal opponent, but he is -- was -- Blue Master Lunn. And Lan is far, far from being a worthy opponent for him. She goes sailing like a ragdoll, crashing into Azoth's shield - which doesn't break! And neither does she, thankfully, but give her a minute.
Thankfully, Ethius and Harmaus have more strategic methods of defeating a juggernaut. The burst and whoosh of smoke and dust disorient him, slowing him in just the right place for Harmaus's echo to catch hold. Lunn staggers, swaying on his feet. "Not ... yet ..."
The missing son of Meribia, Magilou says, turning over a card. Dead.
"I am not..." Lunn struggles. "I am..."
He goes to a knee, gaze lowering to the floor. to his not-quite corporeal body. To the glistening hole in his chest.
"...Ah."
The miniature sun that Lily conjures engulfs a pillar of pyreflies, burning and cleansing.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
In the wake of all of that, it is uncertain if there are less pyreflies than there were before. Pyreflies appear(ed?) to be indestructible, only able to be told to go away and stay in the Farplane... but the space is clear(er). Once everyone gets their bearings, Ethius - walking widely around the cavernous space away from where the nuclear fire lingers, somehow he doesn't feel itchy or hot so he imagines he's all right, leaning out towards an outdoor space as he rubs the side of his head. HE blinks a few times.
"We should be underground," he remarks as he looks up towards the seeming sunset... overlooking bodies of water ahead, with roaring waterfalls and verdant scenery teeming with more of those pyreflies.
A solid blue sphere floats above the middle of the ocean, wreathed in darkness. He remembers now, vaguely, from a previous visit to Guadosalam from when he incidentally observed some of the funerary customs of the land.
"...This is the Farplane," he says as a few more pyreflies flit out into the caverns where they emerge from. "There is another direct entrance aboveground. Culturally, the Guado appear to have practiced absolute loyalty to their present leadership figures. From the covert nature in which information was given... it seems they would not have been challenged had they begun an excavation further up."
There's something of import here to Seymour, something that required him and his loyal agents to go ever deeper beyond those stone doors. But what?
The pyreflies have this to say:
oooOOoooOOooooOOoooooOOOOO
(so, nothing unusual, or helpful at all, thanks wailing pyreflies!)