2022-01-19: Saviors and Tyrants
- Log: Saviors and Tyrants
- Cast: Ruth Pauling, Seraph Ragnell, K.K., Elise Riesdale, Seraph Harmaus
- Where: Volgran Forest
- Date: January 19, 2022
- Summary: Crucible brings a set of new allies to the far-off reaches of the Silver Star, Lunar, to see for themselves a Malevolence-filled domain: Emrys Mire. What fresh revelations await within the foulness of the swamp?
DG: A party led by Ruth Pauling is now entering Emrys Mire. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ =====================<* CHALLENGE - Vanguard of the Mire *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Even at first glance, one thing is clear about Emrys Mire: this is not a pleasant place. A murky haze lingers in the air above the muck and slime of the swamp, punctuated by the looming form of countless giant fungi. Allegedly, other people venture the mire in search of its secrets, but save for the ramshackle road leading to it, there's little evidence of such. A sloshing from the swampwater might point at one reason why: some of the fungus is a little more mobile than others, their forms twitching with a garish purple as they advance onto land. They don't seem particularly friendly -- they'll have to be dealt with before you can progress. But the mire is hateful and foul. Whatever gains you make won't be easy... or without cost. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Crucible, having found new allies in fell seeds planted in Filgaia, has now seen it fit to bring them to see to the land - the world, in which their power comes from. Keys secured, they are directed to a place Ruth was familiar enough with seeing... but didn't think much of as anything other than a strange place: that crystalline structure in the Lost Woods.
What was seen beyond... that's going to be a reaction for another time, for the horror of Azado only gets the briefest glimpses. There is another place they are to be taken, across the waters, to a landmass down south.
Glenwood... and in the air, no matter where one goes, is brimming with the pulse of repressed negative emotions finding air to simply be. Malevolence. While at a level 'lesser' than their respective Domains, it instead packs a punch with the variety of emotions on display. Where despair and conceit were becoming dominant upon Zoara, there's so much more. Hatred. Cowardice. Lust. Greed. Obsession. Selfishness. Despair and conceit are no greater, no lesser in quantity.
It's equal parts refreshingly invigorating and painfully uncomfortable. She's more alert, more awake, more 'there' than she's been in a long time, as some of it passively seeps into her own accumulated morass to be internalized the same way one does tinnitus. (That she lived - and still lives - with a severe case of it may be a fringe boon of experience in easing this unique brand of chronic spiritual pain.)
In turn, her own Malevolence adds to the spiritually noxious ambience of Glenwood. That she is a Hellion of her level of strength, and radiates the feelings she does, may be but one reason many of the weaker roaming Hellions give them a wide berth. It's no small feat, for one from the Blue Star.
All the while, she keeps close to Elise. No form of Malevolence is ever truly 'comforting,' but she is ever familiar with the lesser Hellion's own radiating conceit - and receptive to her unabating loneliness that ever desires more to her vision for the world. She tries to keep her close, or hold her close should she express fear or discomfort of her environs.
----
"Here...?" Ruth asks only to the strength of her ability to hold her reason to something she should know the answer to. To east of the battered city of Lastonbell, they are met with a foreign Domain neither of the Hellions hold sway over. Hatred bears down upon them at a capacity too great for Ruth to drown out with her own as their mobility finds itself challenged by the knee-high swampy murk. Fungus rears up, foul and angry at the intrusion.
The single-winged gargoyle Hellion hisses as fungus throws itself into a wing flexed inward as a last-second shield. Not even the grip of her clawed feet mitigates that impact, shoving her back with a pained hiss as the accumulated agitation of the journey expresses itself with a burst of her rainfall - threatening to quietly shear the ambulatory fungal Hellions as she summons a much larger globule of water like she might have from a Crest Graph.
Whatever wisdom or action there is to be shared in the heat of the moment... that's at the perogative of others more experienced in the matter.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, Vanguard of the Mire.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell has some decent defenses against Malevolence, due to the pure nature of her mission; this doesn't make it pleasant or easy to bear, but it does mean she's not going to dragon out if exposed, even if exposed to relatively high concentrations of it. This means she can both hang out at the Rose Queen's Palace and get her boots all over the fine furniture, and it means she can head into a gross disgusting swamp and appear none the worse for it. She does have to keep her guard up, but this is, honestly, most of the time anyway. Despite how she acts.
"Gross," she thus states eloquently of the swamp and its murk and the fungi that lurk within. When one burbles towards them, she draws a grenade from her travel packet and tosses it up and down in one hand. With a look to one side, she checks in on her companions, such as they are: a bizarre mix of Hellions, Seraphim, and... who can say? For her own part, not unlike how Ruth stays close to Elise, Ragnell errs towards hanging around K.K., though the motivation is a *little* different.
"Where else?" she drawls to Ruth, before that grenade lands in her palm with a definite *thump*. This time, she tears the pin out with her teeth, then CHUCKS it at the fungus. Hopefully for its mouth. That's a spicy meatball!
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Lightning Grenade toward her party's challenge, Vanguard of the Mire.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
There are many and more homes to densely congealed Malevolence on the Silver Star. Indeed, just arriving on Glenwood is itself doubtless an experience to the unintiated yet spiritually aware: for Malevolence to simply exist, woven throughout the land as if it were as natural as the plains, the mountains, the air. As natural as breathing.
But to see it in full tragedy, its presences is well-seeped into the history of the swamplands now known as Emrys Mire.
One need only look at the fungal blooms seething to overlarge life before Ruth Pauling to understand that fact. Quivering Hellions forged of fungal life slop out of the mire onto dry(ish) land, hurling themselves upon the greater Hellion. More yet still advance rapidly from the hidden depths of this deep swamp, tendrils of debased, eukaryotic life flying free from them for Ruth with strange, burbling hissing sounds--
"Here, indeed."
And with a flash of light, each and every one of those malevolent, mossy limbs is severed in a rain of fungal parts that swiftly dissolve into putrid purples in the face of their attacker.
Armed with a massive white war-scythe with gold accents and a blue blade, somehow the Trial Knight's armor remains a pristine white as they land in a crouch in the middle of the swamp -- as if in direct defiance of the malevolent muck of this place. They rise with a gracefully spinning flourish, the wide, vertical blade of their weapon looking to cleave through the Hellion threats before them without so much as a second's thought.
"The Malevolence yet seethes in earnest from this place. It shall suffice for our purposes. And your melioration."
For now, it is all the Trial Knight has to say before they dive after the fungi Ragnell pins down with her grenades, scythe becoming spear in a brilliant, shattering flash of light as they look to gather some of that wildly dispersing lightning upon the blade of their weapon and run their foes through on its electrified tip.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Vanguard of the Mire.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
Elise's had come, enduring the separation from her walled garden and the journey here, across a distance she would have never thought possible even before her ascension.
And she was rewarded. Harmaus's descriptions had only added to whatever tidbits Elise gained from mentions from K.K. and others.
Even the mire, with the murk and slime that lay heavy in the air, is so much more alive than the bone-white dry fields, cleansed and scarred of all life. "To have mushrooms this large.... Is this the result of Malevolence, or the inherent fertility of this land? A combination, perhaps?" Her reaction to the Malevolence has left her somewhat out of ease, but this is more to the unfamiliarity to these richer tones. "Even the Malevolence... it's a wider array of emotions. A precious bounty given for all, it seems."
She has stayed by Ruth's field of protection, given her slower walking speed and mobility. Her form has its disadvantages, compared to Ruth's. "Here what?" She is examining a glowing, but otherwise harmless mushroom as she says this, rising up and looking over at the Ruth, then to the group, then back to Ruth once more.
"I see. To strengthen us, yes, this will do."
The muck may slow Elise even more, but her rosey vines do her dirty work for her, drawing out of the shadow to her back. They surge to her knight's aid, fragrant with blossoms for her, and thorns for the fungi coming from them all. "Ragnell, was that... a grenade?" Elise finds it in herself to smile, slightly. "I suppose a tool that is handy is better than magic that is not."
DG: Elise Riesdale has used her Tool Blumensprache toward her party's challenge, Vanguard of the Mire.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Here," replies a particular voice from down near the earth's height.
This is a place where the rules of the world are not simply inverted, but tilted sideways: that force pulses out from the very essence of this patch of land. Malevolence may be a fact of this part of Lunar, but it is in its own in a space such as this. Even the foolhardy give the Mire a wide berth if they can.
A place like this is more than just dangerous.
"Is beautiful, yes?" Thus speaks up the voice from below, where Harmaus trots at just a few steps behind Elise, as if he were a loyal pet trailing his beloved mistress. His longfurred tail swishes through the air once, twice, his eyes taking in the spectacle that dances before his eyes.
"Is strong, here. Much care needed here, my lady," he purrs, advancing just up to the waters' edge. "Untempered, it consumes much, yet."
Harmaus' eyes seem to almost sparkle in the aubergine light. "I has faith! My lady overcomes this trial, yet! But... ah. We has... greeters," Harmaus remarks. "Noisy, noisy. Shh, shh. Too much, too soon!"
At his neck there chimes then a single tiny silver bell. Be still, it sings out. Be quiet, be still. And forever cease.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Vanguard of the Mire.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ =====================<* CHALLENGE - Vanguard of the Mire *>===================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Even at first glance, one thing is clear about Emrys Mire: this is not a pleasant place. A murky haze lingers in the air above the muck and slime of the swamp, punctuated by the looming form of countless giant fungi. Allegedly, other people venture the mire in search of its secrets, but save for the ramshackle road leading to it, there's little evidence of such. A sloshing from the swampwater might point at one reason why: some of the fungus is a little more mobile than others, their forms twitching with a garish purple as they advance onto land. They don't seem particularly friendly -- they'll have to be dealt with before you can progress. But the mire is hateful and foul. Whatever gains you make won't be easy... or without cost. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
===========================<* Emrys Mire - Round 1 *>=========================== =======================< Results - Vanguard of the Mire >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Splashcrest 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 0 --(12)--> 12 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elise Riesdale 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Blumensprache 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Lightning Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ruth Pauling 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ruth Pauling 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.
DC: K.K. switches forms to The Trial Knight!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Already, K.K. meets the vanguard with the clean, shining blades to harvest and tear asunder those Malevolence-fueled wills come up short - and bringing a shining clarity within the muck for troubled, challenged eyes to follow.
A silver bell chimes. Be still, it sings out. Be quiet, be still, and forever cease - the fungal masses halt their movement, though Ruth's face is in a perpetual, feral snarl as some of the absorbed hatred from along the trip just bubbles to the surface.
Elise has a more measured observation of the richness of the Malevolence here, and it is a mire in all ways as she imparts her will upon the environs to summon fragrant blossoms - rosy, colorful, and rooting the stilled masses on the spot.
RAgnell cleans up the ones that do not have the will to even dare approach the Trial Knight, fitting an electrical grenade inside the 'mouth' of one such creature which explodes and takes out the rest in a chain of electrical power. Their hatred releases from their destroyed forms... but Ruth does not breathe deeper of it, turning to Elise (and her new cat-like companion, who speaks of how beautiful it is) as she tries to pull herself down from the high.
'The Malevolence yet seethes in earnest from this place. It shall suffice for our purposes. And your melioration,' so K.K. declares, and Elise decides that yes, this will do.
Wordlessly, her knight bows her head and follows as the Domain continues to gradually, glacially impart itself as the Hellions themselves do to it.
DG: Elise Riesdale has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - To Great Heights *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Sections of the swamp betray pieces of its forgotten history. For instance, ahead lies the remains of some ramparts, half-covered in and half-melded with more of the vaulting fungus that favors this place. It was built to last a thousand years or more and indeed it has in a fashion. It still looks reasonably stable, and stands quite high; if climbed, one might be able to take stock of the entire area from here and consider anew the ideal approach. Of course, the fungus and the crumbling state of the wall, combined with the height, mean this won't be a particularly easy advantage to claim. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Secret=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
Here, is beautiful, yes? Harmaus's question draws a nod from the Rose Queen. "It is all beautiful. To even have a mire, Malevolence or no, and have life. To have soft moss buckle beneath my feet, the echoing calls of mischief and harm beyond, to feel moisture collect on the skin and soak cloth, to see life not struggle simply to exist, but instead thrive to the point of sweet rot. To have decay, there must be life." Sparing time to draw the tips of her claws along Harmaus's back (if he allows for a scritch), Elise smiles. "I hope that all are well after those greeters?"
As Ruth turns back towards her queen, Elise bows her head. "What do you feel of this, Ruth?" She may be treading through the same murk as Ruth, but her admiration of the greenery shouldn't detract from the status of the person who was willing to be at her side, like always. Her clawed fingers rest on a structure as she asks her knight, and Elise is surprised when it feels like what may be a man-made structure. ".... Interesting." She uses the claws on her index and middle finger to delicately draw back some fungus, exposing the ancient stone underneath. "A settlement of some sort, in the past?"
It may be scaleable, with some effort.
Drawing her vines about her, Elise has them assist her up one step; at least allowing her speed to match the others more capable of such physical tasks, without the inelegance of exposing her own weakness. "It may hold, underneath our weight. Shall we ascend? We may gain a better view of this place."
DG: Elise Riesdale has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, To Great Heights.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Bit o' both, yeah, probably," Ragnell remarks to Elise about the size of the mushrooms. The comment on bounty gets her a dry chuckle, though. "Sure 'nough. Bounty as far as the eye can see an' the heart can feel." And later, when asked about a grenade, she chirps, "Sure was! Fun, ain't they?"
She grins over at K.K. as they reap lesser Hellions with their scythe, one of several weapons in their arsenal. The fun doesn't last that long, though, because Harmaus fluffs on over to Elise and rings a bell until she feels him by her side. Ragnell knows well he's here with/for the Rose Queen, but that doesn't stop her from rolling her eyes at his back. She can be allies with someone and still dislike them! Happens *all the time*.
Still, the battle goes well. The fungal Hellions are defeated, and Ruth and Elise can glut themselves as they please. And, as it turns out, they don't please. Ragnell watches them a moment; then she moves on with the group.
Soon they come to some ramparts, covered in decay. Despite this, it looks to be in reasonably good condition. It might even be climbable. Of course, looks can be deceiving, as this entire group well knows. Ragnell peers up to the top, one hand tipping up the brim of her hat.
"Could be. Well, why not?" she remarks to Elise. "Nothin' ventured, nothin' gained." Which is why, naturally, she grins over to K.K. and gestures upwards. "After you." Once they unleash their line, she'll take shameless advantage to climb up after.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, To Great Heights.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'What do you feel of this, Ruth?' Elise asks the question of her knight. She closes her eyes and tilts her head up, and it doesn't matter if she breathes or not - it's there, flicking her serpentine tongue out at the tantalizing emotions that attract her so. "Anger... and pain."
Until now, she was able to identify a clear 'source.' Of Elise's loneliness, of Summer's frustration. Here, it's feelings that are overpowering and don't have a clear source - to her. It reaches both to a woman who desperately wants to deny she was the monster she was before this, and to an impulse to reach out and exacerbate that pain from a position of false security.
I didn't do this. I didn't bring this pain and anger. She knows with certainty. A truth that stops it from tearing too deep into a psyche still adjusting to this while asserting what of her feelings are hers.
Both sides of her contradictory nature meet fleetingly on one point - it's immense, in a way she's simply not used to, as Ragnell throws devil may care towards the ancient stone that Elise unearths. She remembers Ragnell's cutting words and flippant attitude towards her and Elise, as she quietly grips a Crest Graph that was - and is - useless, in her state.
Yet she carries it regardless, and continues to practice it while in the guise of a person she considers an irredeemable monster... but here, as her true self, there's no need or even ability to go through the casting motions. Her despair manifests, holding it long enough to communicate before Ragnell, Elise, and anyone else looking to forge their way up.
"I'll wash the stone." Not try. She will. That anger keeps poking at her guilt, and doubtless the feedback it will give for what she intends to do will not be easy to keep at bay, as reminiscing over that Crest Graph brings forth another rain that tries to wash down some of the growth that might oppose their presence.
She will make the scaling attempt soon after, though she is large and the character of her flesh does add conern to the level of physical stress it might give to the structure.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Rivercrest toward her party's challenge, To Great Heights.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Yes, yes, my lady sees Mire's truth. Much veiled from our eyes is, here! Much goes that none sees. But, ah... we finds it. We finds it, drags it out." His amber eyes sparkle, as if at the thought of it. "What is saying? Ah... it reminds me. 'No stone unturning'?"
In this, once the messy business is over and done with, he permits Elise her scritch, which may again provoke an eyeroll from Ragnell -- to achieve his ends, Harmaus does not appear to believe such beneath him.
"All is well, my lady. All is well!"
And he trots, gamely, over and through the muck. Not a spot clings to him.
Not a spot.
And in time, they come to some of the lingering foundations yet unclaimed by the mire. "My lady thinks well," Harmaus proclaims, continuing to lay it on thick. "But, I taxes her not."
At his throat is yet another bell, this one made of pale porcelain. It chimes prettily when rung, the artes woven into it amplifying Harmaus' own powers: soon, trailing what may as well be starlight, he rises into the air, fur tossed gently as if there were a mild breeze blowing through this space.
"Then we sees what sees," rumbles Harmaus, lifting straight up into the air as if he were born aloft by wires. "It hides not from my sight, above."
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, To Great Heights.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
"What you see before you is life of a different sort."
The metal-warped words come in the aftermath of the inhuman - for varying flavors therein - party's blitz upon their Hellionized welcome party. Electrical arcs still dance dying patterns along the sharpened edge of their spear before the Divine Arm disappears entirely into fracturing fragments of light.
"Life run rampant within the fertile soil of Malevolence."
Wading past those flickering motes that was once their weapon, their faceless helm tilts in Elise's direction as she peels back fungus to reveal the crumbling remains of civilization beneath. A settlement of some sort?
"This mire was not always so. Humans once dwelled in these depths, an age ago," is their answer. "By claim of legend, 'twas the abode of a foul sorcerer, graced by madness' touch. The Wyllt, they called this wizard."
With a tilt of that horned visage, the knight regards the vined structure for a quiet moment. As if the pair were of one mind, Ragnell has barely so much as gestured before the knight nods and, without a word, manifests a pair of elegant white short swords.
It takes only a fluid flick of their wrists to embed both into the surface of the ramparts; spools of glowing red thread flow from their hilts towards the ground.
The knight takes hold after, gesturing for Ragnell to take the other; unlike in other times K.K. has explored lands and ruins of old, though, they do not warn the others against using those lines. It seems to be open to any who wish to make use of.
Despite their apparent thinness, they're quite sturdy, at least.
The knight spares a look towards Harmaus, for a silent moment, before their attention falls in turn upon Ruth as they all ascend, as if waiting for her answer to Elise.
DG: K.K. has used their Tool Highly Exclusive Lifeline toward their party's challenge, To Great Heights.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ =======================<* CHALLENGE - To Great Heights *>======================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Sections of the swamp betray pieces of its forgotten history. For instance, ahead lies the remains of some ramparts, half-covered in and half-melded with more of the vaulting fungus that favors this place. It was built to last a thousand years or more and indeed it has in a fashion. It still looks reasonably stable, and stands quite high; if climbed, one might be able to take stock of the entire area from here and consider anew the ideal approach. Of course, the fungus and the crumbling state of the wall, combined with the height, mean this won't be a particularly easy advantage to claim. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Secret=========================================
===========================<* Emrys Mire - Round 2 *>=========================== =========================< Results - To Great Heights >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 0 --(29)--> 29 Fail Rivercrest 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(17)--> 17 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 12 --(29)--> 41 Fail Highly Exclusive Lifeline 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elise Riesdale 0 --(29)--> 29 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 0 --(29)--> 29 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ruth Pauling 20 --(15)--> 35 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Secret(2) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ruth Pauling has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
'Anger... and pain.' That is Ruth's answer, a bitter brew against the sweetness of Harmaus's bells and the unity between Ragnell and K.K., opposites that manage to harmonize as well as a pair of instruments in a duet.
Elise feels the instrument that is Ruth's despair. "... Yours.... or...?"
Some stones are better left unturned, lest the sun bleach them all dry and wilted for exposing what was underneath it all.
But it is why Elise lingers, not going up that rampart as the water streams down, cleansing its face.
Like a rebuke for trying to wrest it free from its slumbering decay, the water may clean some, but the slime many of the fungus growing on it makes it much more slippery to climb. It could be managable at first, but the further up, it becomes too much effort for little reward; even halfway the fungus towers too high to see over.
Only Harmaus may be able to see whatever may lie above, but would he tell what he saw, if anything useful, or would he lie instead?
"The Wylit. A wizard, graced by the mark of madness," Elise echoes. ".... If you had told me this in another lifetime, I would have said it was the beginning of a decent fairy tale."
Her tone suggests she does not mean this as a slight, given the upturned ends of her lips. "But fairy tales often yield a truth within. Be it a moral, or the underpinnings of an older tale. Like the mossy mire over a wizard's old abode."
Seeing as the climb yielded no results, Elise points further in. "Let us go, while it's still light. I fear we would be considered strangers to those that would tread at night."
DG: Seraph Harmaus has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Vile Beast *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Home to fungus, poisonous swamp, crumbling building ruins, and an ever present haze, Emrys Mire is already not a pleasant place to explore. Then there's the matter of the Malevolence suffused into the swamp fumes... and the creatures that dwell within it. The hellion that stands before you is one such creature -- even to those unable to see it for what it is, it's an oversized brute of an animal. Bearing wicked claws and teeth, it sneers at you before it tilts its head back to howl to the heavens. A fight is imminent, and by the look of this hellion's size, it's not one that will go over easily. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Anger... and pain. So speaks Ruth, the one among their merry band which he has only observed in passing before -- and from a distance. He has been watching her as he's watched her before: with a mix of caution and intrigue.
"It speaks more of pain?" he asks her, sidling up alongside her for the moment. "And anger. I listens it."
"The Wyllt," Harmaus repeats, tilting his head to one side almost owlishly. "I hears tell of it long, long ago. The Wyllt. Stories say, mad wizard. Bad wizard. But it wonders me. Where lies truth? What finds the Wyllt? Its legacy yet lies amidst crumbling stone! ...That, it learns me."
Indeed, so does he float up to the top of those ramparts, alighting gently atop crumbling stone. He perches above for a time, only the very tip of his tail visible from the ground below.
And then, without further ado, he leaps from the top of the ramparts to land again on the mossy ground below.
"We heads north," he says, trotting again towards the path that leads directly into the mire's muck.
He does not say what it is that he say, nor what about it prompted his very pointed haste to reach that space.
It is light in the swamp yet. This means of course that the gloom of the tainted land is less than total, an overcast early evening in light quality compared to what will be once the sun sets. Though, if the faint glowing motes that float in the air, that dance across the muck and the slime, that hover in the undergill of mushrooms are to say anything about it, there will be some light in the darkness.
Some light, and not enough to see by.
The water ripples, far from their advance through the mire. This is rarely a good sign even in a land untainted by Malevolence.
It's less so when the monstrosity erupts from beneath the water's surface, appearing as nearly some unholy amalgam of crocodile, bear, and wolf. Baring its many teeth, the Hellion almost seems to grin before its oversized maw splits as it emits a howl to the heavens.
"Enough," says Harmaus, silver bell ringing once at his throat. "We has no time for it. It stops now!"
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Vile Beast.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Hmm. Sure, go for it," Ragnell tells Ruth, casually, as if it's no big deal either way. After all, Ruth seems agitated rather than enlivened by all this Malevolence, despite Malevolence being the literal source of her power. And doesn't everyone like to feel useful?
Meanwhile Ragnell does indeed roll her eyes again at Harmaus, though less at his accepting scritches and more at his (in her opinion) obvious sucking up. Then again, is it really sucking up, or is Harmaus just hype to find out myriad truths, as is his usual? ...no, he's definitely sucking up. Ragnell eyes him, but opts to not comment. Picking a fight with him here isn't going to accomplish anything.
Instead, when K.K. materializes their lifelines, Ragnell smiles anew and takes the other line, as her companion silently offers. It's a quick climb after that--but unfortunately, it turns out the rampart isn't quite tall enough for them to actually see anything useful--or at least, the height on it that they can climb to.
"Fun climb, though," she remarks on the hop down. She rests a hand on her hip as she looks over at Elise and chuckles. "Strangers, huh? Sure 'nough. After all, what around here is scarier than us?"
As if in response, Malevolence wafts up in a thicker-than-usual wave from the swamp, bringing with it a massive Hellion of claws and teeth and perhaps ravenous hunger. It howls to the heavens. Ragnell pulls the pin on another grenade, and as its shrieks shake the world, she chucks the explosive once again for its maw.
"Go for the throat," she quips.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Lightning Grenade toward her party's challenge, Vile Beast.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
The climb is a long one. And the further they go, the denser the crust of fungus and moss grows, as if every ounce of effort in the ascent just made them grow all the more resilient and difficult to climb in response.
All it takes is one errant scrape of a metal heel across fungal-slicked stone before the knight's hold slips. The sword's foothold loosens against the density of the fungus; both weapon and owner fall rapidly towards the swampy earth below.
Is is with a crash and a splash that K.K. lands on one knee in the shallow waters of the mire, their hand raised to catch their sword before it can kiss that same Malevolence-soaked mud.
"... Be assured," they begin, in the aftermath. Their weapons both dissolve into crackling light as they rise to their feet once more, swamp water sloughing off their armored form. "You shall find the truth of your nature nestled within the truth of this mire. 'Tis only up to you to discern meaning from it, one way or another."
That faceless helm turns towards Ruth once more, upon whom Harmaus affixes his curiosity. Elise asks if it is Ruth's own. But it is only when the Light Seraph completes his ascent and weighs his judgment on their next destination that the knight speaks, turning smoothly upon their heel.
"Do you see only ill within those twin sentiments?"
And so they trek. Their march is a steadfast one -- one that pauses only upon the subtle ripples within the swamp. The fingers of their right hand spasm, once.
And when the abomination surges forth in all its chimeric glory, the knight's response is immediate, leaping -back- to gain distance from the beast.
Normally, they would charge into the fray. But this time?
This time, they linger back. Maybe they're just unerringly confident in Harmaus' ability to take care of the creature himself, even as the others join the fray.
Or maybe they just want to see how their guests from Filgaia deal with this foe.
Either way, it is well after the fight has begun in earnest that a tome manifests above the knight's helm. The pages flip. Text begins to chart a path across a path in glowing cerulean script.
"Move anon, cat."
Is the warning Harmaus earns before a screaming lance of shadow plummets from the heavens above him, straight for the Hellion.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Vile Beast.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Here. Everywhere." Ruth clarifies, another flick of her tongue as she tastes of the suffused air for more of it. As Ragnell muses, this stuff is the source of her power - it should be an endless wellspring to draw from, free real estate without the Domain Master bearing down upon them. It stands out, as she takes in K.K.'s lecture of this land. Life run rampant within the fertile soil of Malevolence - to a degree she has never seen. Even through her Domain covered a vast area, the majority of its land still behaved for the most part as expected. Water acted like water, earth acted like earth, even as it conveyed her guilt, shame, regret, and all of that.
Ruth is one of the first to climb back down, seeing the difficulty Elise is having of scaling it, as if preparing to catch her - but no such dramatics are necessary. She tastes again of the anger and the pain.
'Strangers, huh? Sure 'nough. After all, what around here is scarier than us?' Ragnell muses. Ruth looks down not to the Crest Graph she was holding, but her own hand. A sad little smile, looking at that largely unchanged hand save for coloration and minor adjustments for proportion, curling her fingers as if to better obscure them.
Scarier than the Wyllt, the supposed mad wizard at the heart of all this? K.K. assures that they will find the truth of their nature nestled within the truth of this mire. That it'll be up to them to discern meaning from it.
But does she see only ill within the anger and the pain? Ruth's eyes are drawn to the Trial Knight, which means by default looking to herself - to her 'monstrous' hands and the shape of her elven ears (which are also, compared to her former self, largely unchanged).
"No. I wouldn't say that... I've never felt so much of it in one place." That she may be having, consciously, her first true encounter with a Domain far greater than her own natural one. Something Elise herself may already be used to, in comparison, as her knight's is larger than her.
The beast emerges - an amalgamation of crocodile, bear, and wolf, reflecting both its simple natures and the values of the Malevolence that permeates the mire. A curdling howl stirs the blood... and there is a quelling silver bell that does nothing to convince Ruth's discordance to be quelled as her eyes close and her heart beats a bit faster.
The impulse doesn't tickle so much as it ascends and takes its place.
She draws the rifle in a smooth motion, Malevolence channeling most readily through the stabbing pain that should be preventing her left shoulder from hefting it. Her tail wraps around the shaft of the rifle, the heart-shaped barb at the end dangling and glinting off what light remains of the day above - and drawing in the ambient hatred as her one wing flares out in an intimidating threat posture.
The manner of a kindly soul when nothing about her appearance supports this (a contradiction, of course) steps aside for a wide-eyed, gleeful smile as the lengthy tongue tastes at the pained creature's emotional state, holding that oversized, naginata-bladed sniper rifle out with one arm as she defies the laws of leverage and pulls that trigger, four times - each one a deafening boom, each violent recoil mitigated by her tail and an act of will - and then just rushing in there to stick that blade in deep as she feels the rise in emotion, with only the faintest underpanning hint that she'd try and push them away from the others. To protect them? To gleefully take in the emotional turmoil for herself?
It's exactly as Ragnell just said, even in jest - what around here is scarier than them? This is the Hellionized shade of who was once one of the greatest monsters of the Celesti Civil War.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 toward her party's challenge, Vile Beast.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
It's a tactic that Harmaus has found to work well on Elise, leaving her ignorant of how obvious it is. It feeds that curiosity in her, drawing on the narrative she feels attuned to, drawing her into the story book instead of being the consequence.
It's what helped draw her here, though K.K. and Ragnell were first to plant the seed.
And it's the reason why she gladly follows Harmaus deeper into the murky mire, to the north. Though, in this case, it's also because she seems to see more, and that direction is as good as any, at this point.
Ragnell quips, and Elise nods with a small curl of a grin. "I would hope so, or this trip would be ill-fated indeed."
As the beast seems summoned to their hubris, Elise concludes that Ragnell is much better to be around when they're facing terrible beasts, rather than defenseless fine furniture.
"You will *stand aside*!" The small frame of the porcelain skinned Hellion is not help Elise's command, but the weight in her voice is not hampered by it, either.
Especially when lengths of thick vine lash past her like angry vipers, closing the distance that provides the only means of defense outside of Ruth's watchful gaze.
If it could tear away from the glee of tearing through the Hellion in front of them with each shot of that rifle. Like a fairy tale laid over an old myth or a mire over an old wizard's lands, Ruth's domain laid over Elise's.
Which is the one who carries the weight?
DG: Elise Riesdale has used her Tool Blumensprache toward her party's challenge, Vile Beast.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Vile Beast *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Home to fungus, poisonous swamp, crumbling building ruins, and an ever present haze, Emrys Mire is already not a pleasant place to explore. Then there's the matter of the Malevolence suffused into the swamp fumes... and the creatures that dwell within it. The hellion that stands before you is one such creature -- even to those unable to see it for what it is, it's an oversized brute of an animal. Bearing wicked claws and teeth, it sneers at you before it tilts its head back to howl to the heavens. A fight is imminent, and by the look of this hellion's size, it's not one that will go over easily. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
===========================<* Emrys Mire - Round 3 *>=========================== ============================< Results - Vile Beast >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 29 --(3)--> 32 Pass Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 4 Combat Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 17 --(3)--> 20 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 41 --(3)--> 44 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elise Riesdale 29 --(3)--> 32 Pass Blumensprache 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 29 --(3)--> 32 Pass Lightning Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ruth Pauling 35 --(30)--> 65 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Secret(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ruth Pauling has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The bell chimes forth and, ah, the Hellion becomes stuck in the place where it had arisen from the muck only moments before. Not even its eyes bulge in shock: it is simply stilled, frozen in place by that single chime but for the moment.
It's all the time that Ragnell and Ruth need both, to pepper it first with grenades and then, with four echoing shots, take gouges out of the thing's body. There are holes where there should be flesh.
And yet, time becomes unstuck and the Hellion begins to lunge in spite of the gravity of its injuries.
Only a maze of thorns keeps it from reaching the bulk of their numbers.
It's all the time that's required. There is from the heavens cast a great spear of shadow. A grey-white blur alone speaks to Harmaus' removal of himself from the vicinity of the spell; indeed, he alights, neatly, just at Elise's side.
Ragnell isn't wrong for being a little disgusted with him.
"Long waits me for seeing its power," Harmaus remarks, gaze tilted K.K.'s way but for the moment. "It impresses me." His tail twitcha-twitches once, twice. "Surprised it not uses it more."
Indeed, there is nothing left of the Hellion. Nothing at all.
"We go," Harmaus says then, prancing off ahead into the half-buried trail.
He is eager, now. What had he seen?
DG: Ruth Pauling has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Mudfall *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Mud is a fact of life in the mire -- even away from the waters of the swamp, the ground is heavy with moisture and dry soil, as it's typically known, doesn't appear to exist. This makes for miserable slow going from the very start, but the fact is, here in the mire things can always get worse. It's getting worse now. Perhaps something shifted upstream, as it were. Or perhaps something is on the move through the swamp, sending the sudden wall of mud you now face your way. You'll need to stop or power through it, lest it overtake you completely. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
When that Hellionized swamp creature tries to lunge at the lot of them, held at bay by Elise's vines, Ruth is going for them too - and stabs short when they are simply unmade by K.K.'s power. There is no lingering sense of watching something in pain start to find peace, no fleeting catharthic sense of being both the cause of, and relief of, pain and suffering. There is nothing in its wake to behold or mourn, and the blade sticks into the mud as a wide-eyed, grimacing Ruth exhales a breath that simply won't leave as she looks over her left shoulder to the gathered... and in it, a perfect reflection of the crazed grimace she is presently adopting while the Domain's pain and anger surge through her. She's not a monster, she says, while looking all the world like a starving beast who might try to make a light snack out of Harmaus if he were in arm's reach. (He is not. Whether this is a good thing or not is a matter of perspective.)
She'll be among the last to continue going in contemplation of this reflection, moving along the dire atmosphere of the mire. It lacks in identifiable landmarks. Nothing to rise above the muck of negative emotions that feed the swamp's spiritual miasma. They can only go forward, towards that indescribable, yet intuitive destination where the Malevolence is thickest. Even above the water, the ground depresses underneath them no matter how light or graceful they may be. Each step threatens to swallow them whole, were it not a sense of purpose and will guiding them.
The 'threats' escalate, from upstream, where disturbed muck rises in a crescendo of agitation that does not fully coalesce into a coherent Hellionized state of being a thing of will, but a force of nature exaggerated nonetheless - rushing towards the lot of them.
Aggression escapes Ruth's throat in a screeching hiss as her conjured rainwaters try to pound against it, as if in vain, tail clutching at a Crest Graph as if invoking the idea of relaxing, depressurizing mist as she just hurls herself wholesale at the wall of mud anyway.
She positions herself in front of Elise in the process, but it is vague as to whether it is a vestigial reason in the throes of fury - or what is enabling her to dig that deep for sake of her desires.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Mudfall.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
'Long waits me for seeing its power,' remarks Harmaus.
Without a word, the Trial Knight begins their forward trek, the sounds of their armored boots sloshing through the swamp their only initial response as motes of shadowy Althena's Blessing whisp their way upward where once stood a Hellion.
'It impresses me. Surprised it not uses it more.'
"Power means naught," comes their answer, at long last, as they step beyond Ruth.
"On its own, 'tis but bombast."
They stop, briefly, ahead of where Ruth lingers in contemplation of what she has seen cast upon the Trial Knight's helm. That same horned affair turns, to regard the Hellion over the knight's armored shoulder.
"You have never felt so much of it in one place, for you had but not the sense to," comes their belayed reply to her observation.
"Mayhap now with eyes open, you may yet find the answer you seek in such reflections, Moss Knight."
Malevolence thickens with every step. And yet, for all that K.K. seems to radiate none of it, they take the increasing density of its presence in remarkable stride. Their forward march never ceases, and save for passing, sidelong glances Ragnell's way. The muddy muck sinks deep beneath the weight of their armored footfalls...
... and immediately stops with a bracing pivot as that muck begins to shift beneath them.
"Take heed," warns the knight.
"The land is not our ally."
Ruth, bursting with aggression, turns pounding waters against that malevolent wall of mud. And K.K. --
-- K.K. advances rapidly upon the wall hands held high --
--for the gigantic warhammer that simply BURSTS into being within their grip, right in time for a titanic, downward swing meant to blow straight through that barrier of earth and ill intent.
'Power through it' seems to be the Trial Knight's preference.
DG: K.K. has used their Tool Where Did You Get That Hammer toward their party's challenge, Mudfall.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The enormous Hellion falls. Once it's dead, Ragnell looks around at the others. For that reason, she catches Ruth examining her own reflection in the Trial Knight's armor. Something like a smile quirks at one end of Ragnell's lips. "Don't care for what you see, Ruth?"
Elise gets a grin, though. Ragnell is *definitely* better to be around in a fight than in a castle, all considered.
Then Harmaus prances off as if he's in charge. Ragnell eyeballs him. Then she shrugs broadly, arms spread wide, and saunters after.
The prancing and sauntering won't last long. While Seraphim may not be affected by physical matter the way physical beings are, this is no ordinary swamp; Malevolence sucks at Ragnell's feet like the mud sucks at the others'.
It's really quite terrible! Especially when that mud takes actual Hellionic form to rush at the lot of them!!
Far be it for Ragnell to waste someone else's effort, though. Catching K.K.'s occasional glances her way, she maneuvers herself behind the Trial Knight, using them as a shield as they simply plow through the wall of mud, hammer-first.
At least folks will get to share in smoked meaty snacks, assuming they're willing and/or able to take them, as Ragnell hands out some spicy jerky before taking a bite of some herself. They have a magic to them that helps prevent exhaustion, so they're practical *as well* as tasty.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Spicy Jerky toward her party's challenge, Mudfall.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Would Ruth consume Harmaus, if given half a chance? An uncertain thing. Be as it may, Harmaus does not seem to regard Ruth with anything more than an intent interest, regardless of the power that remolds her flesh. He is unafraid -- indeed he treats her almost like what an entomologist might to a particularly rare beetle. But most beetles are not composed of a power that is antithetical to an entomologist's very being.
And still, he persists.
'Power means naught' says the Trial Knight.
"Ah?" wonders Harmaus, gazing up at K.K. with a typically feline, unreadable expression. They do not blink.
'On its own, 'tis but bombast.'
"Jaeja," murmurs Harmaus, tailtip twitching the once as it lashes through the air. "It does as it wills."
They do not linger in this space, moving along with intent through the sludge.
The muck trembles.
"The land, yet?" remarks Harmaus, standing stock still as the swamp begins to swell and rise about them. "Tcha-- it defies me not!" he shouts, as if to declare his opposition to the very force of nature -- to the very force of unrest that animates the mire -- itself.
Ruth might move to guard Elise. K.K. might rise to meet the tide. Ragnell might make use of K.K.'s own defiance.
Harmaus doesn't move a step from where he'd stopped, the light ringing sound of a glass bell at his throat the only harbinger of what is to come. Light swells in a bubble about his form, growing bright, bright, ever brighter.
Before then exploding outwards in an eye-searing burst through the muck and mire.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Prism Bell toward his party's challenge, Mudfall.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
Harmaus is rewarded with another attentive scritching of his head as he lands at Elise's side. "We are all grateful for the Knight K.K. and Seraph Ragnell's help, indeed."
'Power means naught', says the Trial Knight, and Elise considers. ".... Like a loud orchestra, without a conductor to bear out a proper symphony..." she muses, softly.
But the pleasantries are not enough to break from the call of violence just yet.
"Ruth," Elise says gently, as her knight turns with that wild light still in her eyes. "I did not realize this would affect you more... then again, you are bearing your fair share of combat." She's using her vines to haul herself over the muck, unheeding of the all the warnings evident still in Ruth's body posture. She lacks the speed of desperation, confident that her presence is all that's needed to center her knight. Overconfident, even.
A small spray of tea roses springs from one hand, a vivid yellow with a blush of pink, which she offers to slide into some crook of Ruth's ensemble. "To center you, if you feel the need."
The vines twist, and Elise glances from the side, towards the three others, as Ragnell offers some jerky. Maybe there's a clue in how Elise doesn't even find it odd to accept it, but she does take the time to nibble it delicately, like it was a scrumptious tea cake.
The mud flows, and if the Rose Queen was unable to use her vines, she likely would have been swept away if not for Ruth's presence. "Gather close. No one will lose a step in my presence."
Extending her arms out, her vines snake through the mud like the heads of a hydra, catching onto anything that threatens to be swept away from the flood, or lifting any who need an extra bit of lift.
DG: Elise Riesdale has used her Tool Dornreben toward her party's challenge, Mudfall.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Mudfall *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Mud is a fact of life in the mire -- even away from the waters of the swamp, the ground is heavy with moisture and dry soil, as it's typically known, doesn't appear to exist. This makes for miserable slow going from the very start, but the fact is, here in the mire things can always get worse. It's getting worse now. Perhaps something shifted upstream, as it were. Or perhaps something is on the move through the swamp, sending the sudden wall of mud you now face your way. You'll need to stop or power through it, lest it overtake you completely. =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
===========================<* Emrys Mire - Round 4 *>=========================== =============================< Results - Mudfall >============================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass Mistcrest 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Prism Bell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 44 --(5)--> 49 Pass Where Did You Get That Hammer 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elise Riesdale 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass Dornreben 2 Brute Effects: Rally and Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 32 --(17)--> 49 Fail Spicy Jerky 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ruth Pauling 65 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Tire(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ruth Pauling 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: Elise Riesdale has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - Only Unpleasant Things *>==================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Here ahead of you and tilted in a perilous direction in the muck stand the remains of a large complex, still largely intact. To judge by what structures yet remain -- pillars, spires -- this must have been the focal point of the settlement, possibly serving some religious or sacred purpose of some sort. Though it would be hard to tell much about it now, with the facade so eroded. Time and the elements have done great damage to the past here. The morass stirs at your approach -- something unwelcome awaits you here. The crablike creatures lurch from the waters of the mire. Once they were freely living things -- now only the term 'living' applies. Moving jerkily as they are impelled by the purple fungal threads woven thick through flesh and bone, they advance towards you. It doesn't seem as if there is any easy way past them. To proceed, you must put them down. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Suffer===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Don't care for what you see, Ruth?' Ragnell asks. She has mixed feelings, and everyone knows what 'mixed feelings' tend to parse as among her own kind, as K.K. tells them that maybe she will find the answer she seeks in those eyes open. Those eyes don't close, or dim, going into the issue ahead.
The mud is cast aside, explosively, with the gigantic warhammer of indeterminate previous placement. Naught slows the Trial Knight's will nor way. For the excess hurled to either side of them. The land is not their ally, so it is their foe, their adversary - and K.K. is among the most formidable of them, as any among mortals would know.
To their side, Harmaus declares it will defy them naught as the excess mud to that side tries to swerve and envelop, until the shape of it collapsing around the Light Seraph hardens from the heat, flakes, and is thus unmade under a powerful burst of light that still blinds beyond the thick veil.
To the other side of them, Ruth takes the brunt of the excess muck with another pained hiss. So deeply aligned to water, despite her appearance, the weight of the earth is heavier against her - but she hears the gentle, worried voice of Elise, a taste of something grounding the upsurge in Malevolent urges as Elise uplifts her. Wordlessly, Ruth is assisted, though not unscathed.
Ragnell is able to avoid another stark challenge to her sense of purpose against the encroaching corruption thanks to her placement behind the Trial Knight, but the muck does up and snatch her share of the jerky, as if to indulge itself as the wave of emotion ebbs to be transferred into the ground beneath all of them. (It is not particular about what it consumes, but for all the choices offered, the muck will 'snack' well today.)
Somewhere in all this, there's a piece of jerky. Her tail makes the decision to snatch it (gently, in so much it never touches Ragnell's hand) and bring it closer as the mire's grime sloughs about Ruth's form as she stays close to Elise and her lingering concern. "...Thank you," to both of them.
She has ever been used to being the apex predator of the Malevolence ecosystem in Zoara, a title she still yet holds - but a big fish in a small pond, as her head breaks the surface of the metaphorical water of this greater ocean. (Whether she's able to breathe, metaphorically, is yet to be seen.)
The truth of the machinations of 'the Wyllt,' as they were blamed, lies ahead.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
With the muck no longer preventing their progress (but still slowing it down to the point of Elise needing assistance from her vines), the group can progress, slowly, as long as they take care to step where their feet can make a comfortable foothold on something solid.
More ruins can be made out, their shapes evident in the thick morass of gloom. These are in better shape somehow, the pillars still standing, the potent air still charged with a sense of the sense of something long ago, something sacred. Something _once_ sacred, maybe.
The muck shifts around them, and little creatures lurch onto higher land, whatever delicate mannerisms their legs and claws may have once had now under the control of the fungus that commands them, woven through their flesh like precious ore through stone.
"Is this leftovers from the wizard's doing?" Elise's lips dip in symmetrical frown, her body pulled away slightly by the vines she uses to assist her movement. "I see. The fungus is... parasitic, I believe. Stand back; I shall like to try something."
Her eyes wake in open fascination as they come closer, her fingers drifting outwards from her chair, each claw tip tracing paths in the Malevolence smog--
--and then she clenches that hand tight into a fist. "It would be unwise of me to not pull my own weight."
Not all that writhed under the murk was an ill omen; dull green shoots prickle up from the ground, assembling a thick knotty bramble that tries to squeeze down on several, without mercy, while barring others from joining in temporarily.
"There. I did not want any of my allies becoming tangled. Proceed."
DG: Elise Riesdale has used her Tool Blumensprache toward her party's challenge, Only Unpleasant Things.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
At some point before and after the hammer's swing and the burst of mud its opening renders, K.K. has secured a piece of jerky.
By the time they move on, that jerky is gone. It's hard to say how, or why. Did it fall? Did the knight pocket it for later? Or did they eat it? And if so, how?!
Perhaps the greatest mystery of all...
The rain of mud has left globs of its swampy presence smeared upon the once pristine-white of K.K.'s armor, but they seem to care little for this face, wading implacably through the opening they have cleaved through what was once a wall of malice.
They stop only upon the precipice of that crumbling complex, as their warhammer dissolves into so much fragmenting light. Their arms crossing their chest, they consider the ruins with their faceless helm cocked toward the left.
"'Twas a place of import," they muse, once clawed hand lifting to scrape across the moss-sheathed remains of a fractured wall.
"But to what, time has long since made mockery of."
The drag of their hand pauses. Their fingertips twitch upon swampy stone.
And that is when they emerge, one by one.
Time for C R A B.
"... Mm."
It is there they remain, even as the battle begins. And there they stay, once more, not pressing an immediate and overwhelming blitz, as Ragnell at least would know they are typically so prone towards.
Once more, they stay back. To observe, and consider, just how their guests from another world deal with, and - most importantly - react to this threat.
It is only when those surrounding, crab-like creatures are engaged and their numbers begin to dwindle that something manifests within K.K.'s hands: a bow, easily larger than them, as intricately wrought in white, blue and gold as their other weapons.
Large enough that the arrow the knight nocks upon its shimmering blue bowstring is not an arrow at all, but a great lance of matching colors.
"These creatures' wills are not their own. It has been strangled from them, one and all."
And it is only then that lance flies free with a BOOM of its loosing bowstring, sent punching through the ranks of those crabs.
And for any of them caught within the lance's path, the Malevolence that bursts forth from them seems to seize up. There is a sensation throughout the ruins, like a powerful pull upon the soul...
... before all of that vaporous Malevolence is drawn straight towards the Trial Knight, only to vanish, as if sucked within some unseen container.
Perhaps a cold comfort to the crabs. But this is the only mercy that can be provided, now.
DG: K.K. has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward their party's challenge, Only Unpleasant Things.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
The vines are a welcome foothold, amidst the mire. Harmaus does not shy against using the passage proffered, running along them in his attempt to move ever more quickly towards whatever he had seen in the swamp.
It becomes clear, after a time -- what stands in the center of the swamp is the ruined remains of a tower. Well-strung with the crawling corrupted growth of this place, even without intervention from other entities a close approach would have been difficult.
And there are yet others here.
"I knows not," Harmaus says, pupils narrowing as he focuses his attention on the fungal crustaceans. "Is fascinating, yes? Dead, and yet walking! Behold, this power of Malevolence!" His tail quivers a moment, as if he were thus held by whatever emotion courses through him.
"Ah," he remarks then, as if coming to his senses. "Still, problem in our path, yes? All that moves must move not. So," he continues, gazing on the slowly advancing monsters.
"I stops it here."
And at that, the silvery bell at his through r i n g s
but once more. Now is the time to let go.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Only Unpleasant Things.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
With the wall of mud hardened and shattered, it's a relatively simple matter for Ragnell to pass through largely unscathed by the Malevolence that permeates it. She tips her hat to Ruth in a silent 'you're welcome' and puts the rest of the jerky away for now, chewing as she strides forward. The five of them make it to more solid ground, and past there, they find more ruins. They also find more enemies, and Elise calls up her vines to trap and crush the crabs to the considerable extent that she can.
She pulls her paired pistols from their holsters with a twirl and a flourish. Despite this maneuver, she doesn't actually fire with them, merely hanging back with K.K. to observe the battle, ready but not joining, until at last the Trial Knight pulls out their enormous greatbow.
"It's actually dead horrible," she remarks after they weigh in. Her tone is neutral enough that one might assume her usual seeming frivolity to her words. All the same, she channels her Seraphic magic through her guns, and unleashes a lance of her own--more properly a Thunder Blade, coursing with lightning and sending out a tremendous burst of electricity in all directions from where it lands at the center of the crabs that remain.
Harmaus gushes about Malevolence. Ragnell makes another face. This is getting to be a theme.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Only Unpleasant Things.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth lets Elise take the lead as she uses her concern for her to ground her feelings - and trouble comes anew. Her tongue flicks several times at the encroaching, fungus-possessed crabs like a serpent might in tasting the air at a future meal. Pain and anger, on the emotional senses. (On the physical, no commentary.)
She contemplates the enormity of Elise's question and K.K.'s earlier discourse about the passage of time. Of all of the 'strong' Hellions to emerge in Zoara, all of their existences are at a much compressed scale of time's passage - and many of their underlying causes 'in play' ar at least readily identifiable.
This is a pain and anger that has lasted far longer than anyone she knows of... and that tongue flicks a few more times as if there's something she's trying to search or feel for that's not there, as K.K. spells it out further.
'These creatures' wills are not their own. It has been strangled from them, one and all.'
Eyes gaze upon the baubles wrapped tightly upon her exposed right forearm as Harmaus points out how 'is Dead, and yet walking!' Undead are not a novel concept where she's from. (Curiously, in her Domain, the vast majority of undead there were not afflicted - as if the cause of which they clung to life were so utterly unyielding in their hatred and sorrow they simply would not give her conflicted feelings an ear.)
There's a 'pull' on the soul as K.K. makes good on drawing Malevolence out of the nearby weaker Hellions, and a gritting of Ruth's teeth as her Domain flares in response, to push back against an ancient nurtured morass of Malevolence as it flares out in rainy mist, grabbing a Crest Graph that simply cannot do its function beyond be a part of the mortal underneath all this that has not been eroded - rainwater building into occasional large splashing globules of water.
She defies the gentle call of the silvery bell to let go, just as she grounds herself against K.K.'s pull at the Malevolence of the lesser creatures. She will be. Be what?
She will be, flooding the captive crabs to wash them back and away, whether that achieves anything at all - competing against another force that cannot do anything but be, now, as that water may help further confuct and spread Ragnell's lightning strikes.
"It is," she says in a hushed tone to Ragnell's observation.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, Only Unpleasant Things.
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - Only Unpleasant Things *>==================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Here ahead of you and tilted in a perilous direction in the muck stand the remains of a large complex, still largely intact. To judge by what structures yet remain -- pillars, spires -- this must have been the focal point of the settlement, possibly serving some religious or sacred purpose of some sort. Though it would be hard to tell much about it now, with the facade so eroded. Time and the elements have done great damage to the past here. The morass stirs at your approach -- something unwelcome awaits you here. The crablike creatures lurch from the waters of the mire. Once they were freely living things -- now only the term 'living' applies. Moving jerkily as they are impelled by the purple fungal threads woven thick through flesh and bone, they advance towards you. It doesn't seem as if there is any easy way past them. To proceed, you must put them down. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Suffer===========================================
===========================<* Emrys Mire - Round 5 *>=========================== ======================< Results - Only Unpleasant Things >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 37 --(0)--> 37 Pass Splashcrest 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 25 --(0)--> 25 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.K. 49 --(0)--> 49 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elise Riesdale 37 --(0)--> 37 Pass Blumensprache 2 Combat Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 49 --(0)--> 49 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ruth Pauling 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Ruth Pauling has successfully explored Emrys Mire!
================================<* Emrys Mire *>================================ ==================<* CHALLENGE - My Last and Greatest Work *>=================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the very bottommost chamber of the still-standing remnants of the complex, the air is cool amidst the stonework, a contrast to the stifling breath of the mire. Here and there moisture beads the walls, glittering faintly in any light brought to it. The stone floor is heavily engraved, the whole of this chamber at the bottom of the complex encircling a heavy capstone. Clear water leaks from beneath it, in a slow trickle. Perhaps this chamber was once used for a sorcerous working -- even now the traces of a great enchantment can be felt in the air, permeating the floor and in particular the capstone. But without question the thing that stands out the most is the absolute array of blades thrust into the breaks between the stonework around the capstone, a forest of masterwork forging and all as perfect as the day they were quenched. While a few will prove more difficult to extract than others, others slide free quite easily. They're light, keen-edged, imbued with holy purpose. The arrangement itself is interesting, as if the blades formed a magic circle of sorts. You notice also that the walls of the complex are teeming with Malevolence. It won't harm you any as long as you don't stay here overlong, but the mire's corruption seems to be burning afresh in this place... =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
With Elise's own command for her allies to stand back, she does not see anything odd in K.K. and Ragnell doing so, or attribute a meaning beyond proper cooperation.
And Elise would not have thought to attack the source of their immortality, having not thought too far about her domain, or exerted it to the subtle (and then not) degree of Ruth's. Could she even deprive something of what she so freely exudes?
Crabs caught in the pull of that lance crumble into the dust they were always destined to become, some not even daring to evade from it due to the coaxing nature of Harmaus's bells. The others are fried at the center of one of Ragnell's bursts of electricity, a few giving a brief frenzied jerk as they relax to the embrace of death they long evaded.
That lightning is carried out by Ruth's control of water, its charge radiating out and up the legs of any crabs that remain alive.
The brambles, full of bounty, open in sprays of tiny pale pink flowers that would herald raspberries in a normal place and time, but as the extension of Elise's own shadow, they just begin to collapse into the murk, their job done.
".... Trial Knight." Ruby irises study the white knight with interest, having noted how that Malevolence was pulled in, how she *felt* it, even. "If I hadn't known better, I would have thought you one of the Seers yourself, with how you took in their Malevolence. Or, perhaps, are you are one that takes a different approach?"
Elise had not grown up with the dualities of Shepherd and Malevolence, of corruption and purification. To be a Seer didn't make one an enemy anymore than being a Seraph would.
Harmaus desired the Malevolence's power for his own goals, but K.K.'s words bear a note of caution.
"I wonder. Malevolence let wild would be like this bramble," she muses, running a finger along the prickled mass of thorns that still stands, still holding the remains of ancient crabs. "If not kept in check, it would overgrow the area and stifle any life at all. Not a true source of power."
A thorn pricks her finger, and instantly buds an infernal white, drawing a glimmer of alarm from the Rose Queen until its pinker notes fill in the petals.
"... Are you two playing the part of the gardener, pruning away dead and disease for the bloom you desire?" 'To what end' would be the next question, but perhaps for another time.
If they answer or not, there's still the question of what lies further within.
<Pose Tracker> Elise Riesdale has posed.
Deeper within the ruins lie some remains of the former occupant's deeds, preserved by the surrounding stonework. Moisture coats the walls, sparkling with each person's passing as they go further within. At the very least, even if it is still moist here, the ground is solid, and one can see their feet (or paws), crusted with mud as they still may be.
It's almost as if there was a well here, leaking crystal clear water from the capstone that exudes the weight of past enchantments.
The capstone has its 'attendents', each being swords miraculously still in fine condition despite being open to the air and wet conditions.
Malevolence still has its place here, existing in the background like a guest that never got the hint to leave.
"Interesting. You would think these would be all rusted, but they look like they had just been polished." She cracks a smirk, peering towards K.K. and Ragnell. "Perhaps this was part of the reason you two came here? I do not mind, of course; the trek has been eye-opening in many ways."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Malevolence whispers around the Trial Knight's palm. It winds its way through their arm, until the smoky fumes of discordance disappear within the seams of that muddied white armor.
And with that, to any sense that matters, the Malevolence simply seems to be gone.
'Behold, this power of Malevolence!'
The knight's claws curl inward faintly.
But the weight of the Knight's attentions seems to be wholly upon their Hellionized companions.
Elise weighs her question of the knight's ability. A Seer, or someone who walks a different path?
"No. There is no purity to be found in this act. And the path that leads to it is one that none else treads."
Cryptic though that answer may be, it seems this is all the knight has to say on the matter; whatever the case, the lingering remnants of the fungal Hellions' Malevolence is nowhere to be found as K.K. pushes deeper still into the heart of this place. Swamp-soated metal crunches against more solid stone when next they speak.
"There is beauty in life overrun, just as there is in the careful clip of a gardener's shears in their perfect garden. But 'twould behoove you well to know the follies that lie in both. How long can a garden be tended, before what is but the natural course grips upon it?"
They turn their sightless gaze upon Elise, but their question is for the queenly gardener and her stalwart knight alike.
"Is there point in pruning, if one knows the weeds may only be staved for so long?"
---
Swords. They ring the stonework in exacting, purposeful patterns, shining with holy and pure intent even as Malevolence throbs its relentless, dissonant pulse throughout the walls of this chamber.
K.K. stands upon the fringes of this place once they finish their descent, their unseen stare focused upon the swords that so intently decorate stone.
Perhaps this was part of the reason they and Ragnell came here?
"... Mm," exhales the knight, beyond the tinny warp of their helm. "'Tis as I remember." Perhaps that alone might be answer, but...
"No. This place serves a purpose not wrought in madness, but necessity. Legends change with tide and time. A savior may become tyrant within the perspective of a single generation." One gauntleted hand gestures outward.
"This, however, is truth: what our natures are matter little, in the face of the actions we take, and choices we make."
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The 'Moss Knight,' as Ruth is occasionally referred to, follows lest she allow herself to sink into the muck. The Trial Knight's removal of the Malevolence within the creatures that besieged them gives her time to 'breathe' in her own discordance, as the anger and pain of the mire slowly begins to assert itself against it. Is 'it' up ahead, that their allies (and/or Greek Chorus Eating A Huge Pile of Popcorn) wish to show them? She gives Harmaus and Ragnell an approaising look, glints of forming tears as she emotionally approaches a tenuous center.
'Is there point in pruning, if one knows the weeds may only be staved for so long?' The Trial Knight speaks of the idea of futility, of a battle that can never be truly won - only fought until one can't, and Ruth's silence is instead punctuated with a sobering moment where her right hand grips at her left shoulder.
To follow Elise to the ruins, where crystal clear water forms and streams from a capstone. In Ruth's time as a Hellion, there has always been something deeply captivating - and a little intimidating - about pure, untainted water. Something that speaks of power and defiance in staying and being untouched, despite water's nature of being something everyone and everything takes from, and everyone and everything gets into. (This forms some of the basis as to how Holy Bottles work against weaker monsters, a phenomenon in which she may yet become acquainted with even if she is much too strong to be fully cowed by it.)
She's brought out of her little reverie as her tail scrapes where the tiny streams of water's purity ceases to be maintained, to where the Trial Knight speaks of familiarity - that this is not a place of madness, but necessity. To what end are these swords placed, the gargoyle's eyes dart, until they meet the reflective face of the largest broadsword here - to see herself, again. She kneels before it to have a better look.
'Legends change with tide and time. A savior may become tyrant within the perspective of a single generation.'
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
CIRCA EARLY 480s PC
There are racuous cheers among those still present among the trenches. The Hounding Blade has fallen, their cooling body left to stare lifelessly up above. Their face speaks of a pain far greater than a physical wound.
She can't bear to look. She can't un-hear the cheering. Numb, to all but something seizing in her chest as her fellow Aquvy Union soldiers celebrate what they believed was a turning point in the war. Her rifle became ever heavier to bear.
CIRCA LATE 480s PC
They cowered as she strode by with that furrowed brow. A team of nine tried. She only had four shots until she had to reload, and even if she did, the ninth would be enough. That was the logic of a brilliant tactician who betrayed the Union, willing to consign up to eight lives to death to take her down.
All nine fell.
Her uniform was stained anew, but not one was hers. Someone holding only a heavy shield cowered before her, and she could see herself in the reflection.
A wicked smile followed. The shield bearer, one of her own, ran like she was going to run him through just for being in her way, as she rolled against the growing persistent ache in her left shoulder. She enjoyed those whispers. It was everything she wanted to be.
A monster. Unstoppable, feared, and altogether insatiable. Just as she viewed her inspiration of her once savior - to follow in the footsteps of the late Black Reaper.
HERE - RIGHT NOW
'This, however, is truth: what our natures are matter little, in the face of the actions we take, and the choices we make.' No amount of reminisence allows one to escape the Trial Knight's word. Even when effectively deaf in one ear, the whole of it is uncompromising and crystal clear.
She still holds the weapon that has spilled so much blood. She finds herself once again in a series of conflicts that threaten to echo the worst of the Celesti Civil War. But she is not a monster. She cares that people are hurt, that she can't turn away from pain.
There is an anger and pain here with no clear source. No 'Wyllt' to come and blare their feelings out for all, even in this place of temporary reprieve. She bows her head, rises up from the kneel. Nothing she has done then was defensible, or redeemable.
There was nothing to her beyond the pain and misery she brought and inflicted, and yet... someone... someone did something unthinkable...
...
She internalizes the pain and anger absorbed from the mire, integrating them into her Malevolent shade in ways imperceptible as her mind and soul are abuzz with all manner of actions and choices spawned from repressed feelings that desire and demand being, no matter what values or truths they might contradict.
She looks to Elise again, and to herself - to the hands she so detests, lowering them. "So it matters not who we appeal to as we live as we are." To the seeming hordes of Drifters who just want to give hugs and talk them out of what they're doing as they bare arms, to Granas Himself - who has notably not smote her, in a land His scripture does not account for (and that Ragnell's and Harmaus' very existences fully contradict).
"...As we must."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Pity," is Harmaus' remark as the creatures falter and fall under their combined assault. Only Elise's words, as she turns to address the Trial Knight, stay him on his course otherwise into the crumbling ruin that is the tower. Only that, and the peculiar trick he had just witnessed. Unblinking, his attention rests on K.K. alone.
"It wonders me alike," rumbles Harmaus at last. "Useful, useful. I would learns it! Or, ah... borrows it? Holding Malevolence within... difficult, yet. Painful."
As it should be -- it is nothing but poison for a Seraph. But on this point, none have yet moved Harmaus' rigid viewpoint concerning.
Elise, though, wonders something troublesome.
His tail twitches, his whiskers flare. "Ah? No, no, my lady! Is not 'bramble'! Is healthy, growing without culling. Strong. Potent. We sees here true nature of this star! Ah, but... there is meddling, yet. Those burying truth in curses, pain, lies." He fidgets where he stands, as if he were discomfited.
But it is on this point, or at least he thinks, that the Trial Knight agrees. "Yes. The natural state of things, here," Harmaus remarks. "Much control leads to much pain. Better to release it. Peel off false ways, return to what was..." He sounds almost longing for a moment.
Once, there had been perfection. But now, no more. Tail betraying his lingering agita, Harmaus turns to proceed into the ruin.
- - - - - -
There are blades, here in the depths of the ruin. Still they hold their edge, and their sheen. Tentatively, Harmaus approaches one of the swords, prodding it with one paw on its flat.
"...There is much sleeping, here. I feels it. Faint, faint, but living yet! Does my Lady feels it?" he asks, craning his head up towards Elise, regarding Ruth's own reaction to what lies unwaking.
And even with the wards failing, it is still well beyond his ability to call forth.
"Savior. Tyrant. ...But words. It matters me not," is his final declaration. "On this, we agrees, Trial Knight. 'Choice' is important."