2022-02-25: What Was (Shall Be)
- Log: What Was (Shall Be)
- Cast: Loren Voss, Ruth Pauling, Lydia Seren, Ida Everstead-Rey, Lan Lilac
- Where: Celesti Wastelands
- Date: February 25, 2022
- Summary: Perhaps it is in dreams that we can best relive the past.
DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Elw Teleporters - Dreaming. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so now. Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long, misty expanse over a grey plain. You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this place. The memories of those who came before await. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He sleeps fitfully, far from the site of his last battle. More than once he's awoken, rolled over to eyeball the time, groaned internally and covered his head with a pillow until darkness would take him once more.
It's some sort of cruel prank, Loren has decided: he can go an entire day without dwelling on things at all, but the moment he's lying on his bed, certain thoughts rise from the depths specifically to torment him.
But eventually, unwanted wakefulness gives way to sleep, and once again, he returns to the realm of dreams.
If he knows one thing, he's never been here before. As a matter of fact, where is here?
Loren turns, and continues to see nothing worth nothing in the mist. The haze -- that's just weird. He's seen some light fogging in the small greenhouse in school, but things like mist, clouds, rain... of course he knows they exist, but they're just words in a book. He turns again, and waves his hand through the air, watching it hardly make any difference. Mist is pretty weird.
Actually, come to think of it-- how did he get here? He can't remember. He frowns and it's a mere suggestion of the rather more disagreeable expression that will come to be, about eight years hence, and only grow after that.
He's a little small for his age, without the glasses or even the freckles that he'll come to bear in time. Loren Voss is a First Class Solarian, and he is ten years old.
He turns again, making a full circle. "Gil? Where are you?" He shivers, involuntarily. Something's not right, and it feels cold. "Gil?! This isn't funny!"
This is another prank, right? It's gotta be a prank. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he finds that they're not quite empty and retrieves a foilwrapped bar.
"Where'd this come from?" he wonders aloud, turning it over in his hands before starting to unwrap it. It's definitely not candy, but at least he's not going to starve until his brother gets here.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Soylent Nutribar toward his party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Living creatures need sleep, and being both host and further generator to a force of ceaseless contradiction and conflict is no excuse on a biological level. To the waking world, the chilling natural rain has been a comfort in easing Ruth into closing her eyes with the daily encounter of her subconscious. She's perched herself somewhere high, let her true form be as natural camoflauge along mossy stone, and taken the weeping heavens above as a lullaby. It is, as a rare blessing for her kind, a happy place when left undisturbed.
She has had a handful of years to acclimate to how almost every dream plays out. When it's not a direct replay of a past event, it's the day's happenings twisted through the filter of Malevolence and her compulsions. The landscapes, without color beyond those objects and people related to these nightmares.
Tonight, she recognizes one of the usual events. A light rain. The pervasive dread of knowing death looms. Her spotter, Alver, shot in grisly fashion as she retreats into the trenches. The Hounding Blade, a peerless swordsman, ready to give chase and gut them all.
Her rifle discharges just as they round a corner. Seconds later, she's running to them, running them through, lifting them up.
The horror on his face. It spoke of betrayal. It spoke of fury. The words that followed, she knows by heart and can never forget. Nor the dulling, crushing sounds of racuous cheers around her... that fade into static. That all fade into gray. Mist.
She knows something is wrong from the jump, closing her eyes and rising - but still 'trapped' in her former shell, as a boy's voice she isn't completely familiar with asks about a 'Gil.' Somewhere in these mists, a woman approaches the lot of them - an elven lady, who looks fresh into young adulthood beyond the distant look in her eyes. She's in the uniform of a rank-and-file specialist of the somewhat ragtag Aquvy Union - a longcoat decorated in foilage and a lowered hood. Those who have met her know that this is Ruth Pauling.
She sees a confused ten year old boy in clothing she does not recognize. Her right hand goes over her heart as her mind races with the usual gamut of impulses and ideas - and settles upon kneeling down before them, rifle held...
And fresh with blood on her coat and the bayonet blade.
"I don't know you." She says, asserting this though there is a creeping bile in her throat that he might be - or was - a victim of a heartless monster. "It's not... this place isn't for you."
As if trying to assert what this place is. And yet, looking down upon the younger Loren, he - and anyone else - can see there's a violet glow in her eyes of an expression entirely different from the one her eyes otherwise have, and they are not kind or reassuring in comparison to the rest of her.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia occassionally shuts down. Or sleeps. Arguably she doesn't need to but sometimes Lydia does things to remind herself of what she really is.
There's a child Loren? Well, there's another child present too that it might be tough to recognize her(?). The gender expression is a bit ambiguous for Kid-Lydia at this age. Nevertheless there are other elements that might make it difficult to tell that she's Lydia.
For starters, her hair is brown and her eyes are back to their old color of green and it's kind of even shaggier than usual. She is wearing adrogynous baskar leathers and has...
...a.... hacksaw...
...in her hands. She has a light grip on it as she approaches Kid-Loren.
"Heeey..." She says to Loren. "Are you busy? Could I ask for your help with something?" Her teeth are sharp.
She holds out the hacksaw and then bends her head forward, showing the appearance of horn-like stubs on the top of her head.
"Could you shave these down for me? Mom and dad get mad when they can see them. They said if I'm not normal I'll have a hard time but I'm too scared. Can you do it for me?"
She looks up at Loren hopefully.
DG: Lydia Seren has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Tonight, sleep does not come easy. Ida took her medicines, climbed into bed, and settled down beneath warm covers with Lola curled up at her side. She lay there, focusing on her breath as she processed the events of the past few weeks: traveling to Guara Bobelo under heavy guard, and fighting Reapers--and Magilou--along the way. Seeing the devastation firsthand. Listening to her mother's voice, quaking with rage and grief, as she sat beside her on the train ride home. The tiny, brilliant light of Gyde's presence, a calming moment in a sea of tumult.
When she does fall asleep, she descends through flickering visions of fire and screams. Tonight, it is her turn to face the dream-world.
Ida's feet come to rest on a path of hazy grey. She opens her eyes, and sees flickering static all about her--uncertainty grips her, and she holds herself, glancing fearfully into the dark. "Hello?!" she cries. She listens for an answer, and hears... something muffled. Ida takes one tenuous step, and...
"Mrrrp," says a familiar voice. A large orange tabby steps out of the mist beside her, snaking nimbly between her calves as he rubs up in greeting. "Admiral," Ida says, and she reaches down to pick him up. His purr is low and deep, like a little benzene motor. Ida holds him close to her chest as she moves on.
Ida Everstead-Rey is all of ten years old, and wearing a blue pajama gown with ruffles at the collar and sleeves. She's barefoot. Her face is softer, less sturdy and world-weathered. "Hello?" Ida repeats.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Lola toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan did nothing of any great exertion or importance today. She's on Lunar, and it was raining in Meribia; because Lan likes a little luxury now and then (and doesn't enjoy camping in the rain) she got a room at the inn and spent the entire day nice and cozy, working on some fancy lace to sell later. She drank hot tea and ate bread spread thick with butter. It was heaven!
She went to bed with sore fingers and another two feet of lace edging added to the spool in her bag. The sheets were clean and cool, and her feet were nice and warm. The rain pattered steadily against the window glass. Lan fell asleep nestled into the pillows.
Dreams are strange things. She wanders barefoot through her village, the harsh sun bearing down on the backs of her legs and the crown of her head. It's too hot to do anything. The orchard is thirsty. The wasteland is at their doorstep.
Lan walks between the trees brought back from distant places that sounded so far away when she was a child. The shade is cooler. Much cooler - almost cavelike, somehow. Her feet disturb a layer of mist hanging at ground level. It feels refreshing and cool; Lan keeps going. Beyond the heat, and the glare, and the scent of leaves...
...Lan emerges into the gray, and sighs with relief. The Dreaming is familiar to her.
The familiar shape is in her pocket. Lan tugs it free and plays it between her fingertips, letting her mind wander so that the spirits of this place can answer. Maybe she needn't have bothered, though... she hears voices up ahead. They, too, are familiar.
...Well, kind of. They're a little... higher.
Lan emerges from the mists into... into... her village doesn't really have a word for elementary school but Ruth certainly doesn't belong in one anyway! "Hey, what's going on? Is everybody okay-- Lydia, no." Because it has to be Lydia, even colored differerently. "Your folks are wrong, okay? Your horns are pretty, don't cut them off!"
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Dreaming Together.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Dreaming Together *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- OOC: If you haven't read +dungeon/info, it is strongly suggested you do so now. Your dreams this night have been eerie and unsettling. Perhaps that is not so unusual; perhaps having dreams at all is unsettling. You dream of your past; you dream of a world turned grey, colorless, and indistinct bursts of static. And then, you dream of an expanse. You are there, now -- a long, misty expanse over a grey plain. You call out -- and are answered. Others are here, too. As you get closer, a light appears in the distance... and that provides a guide to leave this place. The memories of those who came before await. =Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 1 *>=================== ========================< Results - Dreaming Together >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Soylent Nutribar 2 Wits Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lydia Seren 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Paku-Paku 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Lola 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's also not alone. Out of the mists, they came, one after another.
A lady with long ears and weird clothing. He doesn't belong here, she tells him. "I know," he says, with all the petulance a ten-year-old can muster. He lifts his chin, defiantly. "I want to go back. Where's my brother?" There's a pause. "You have really long ears. Are you a..."
Then there steps out a girl in weird clothing. She's kneeled before him, handed him some weird item. "Is this a sword? It looks weird," he tells Lydia, staring at her horns. "You don't shave with swords. Everyone knows you need a razor for that!" He tries to offer the hacksaw back. "Here. Your sword's weird. My older brother has a real sword."
Yet another girl in weird clothing soon follows, accompanied by an animal. Or is it a monster? Loren edges away, making one grab to take the hacksaw if Lydia has taken it (and keeping it in hand if she hasn't), his eyes trained on the weird creature all the while. "What's that?!" he asks of Ida, brandishing the hacksaw before him if he still has it.
Otherwise, he's threatening Ida and her monster (animal?) with a partially unwrapped energy bar. "Is that a dog?!"
Into this walks yet another lady in weird clothing. Loren cranes his head to look at her. There's something--
No. No, it's gone now. He looks between all of those here gathered and asks thus:
"Are you all Lambs?" the young Loren wonders, astonished. "I've never seen a real Lamb before, just the Worker Bees--"
DG: Ruth Pauling has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Margaret - I'm Still Standing *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You're sitting near the edge of a plaza. It's windy, terribly windy, but it's a bright blue day, without a cloud in the sky... because you're above the clouds, of course! It's as natural as breathing. Everyone's here. A big older man. A thin man and a small woman, both with painted faces. A too-short elf woman, already eating a turkey leg. A big guy with a greased-up hairstyle. A dark woman with a head shaved smooth. They're all having cross-chat, but then the big man blows a pitch pipe. Because this is why you're here. The magic's important - it fills your days and your afternoons and more evenings than you'd like. But you came here - you all came through it all, to the magical city in the clouds, to Neo-Vane - for the moments like this. Everyone's eyes are on you. You have a moment to consider, but decades of pain and penury and boredom are pressing behind you. You *have* to sing. What will it be today? =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
There's children here. One is petulant and angry, another scared and asking for help in doing something hurtful to themselves, and yet another looking entirely confused in the company of a beloved pet. Lan, at least, is familiar enough to Ruth that the elf woman has something to direct her boiling emotions towards.
"It's not safe here," she snarls, as she looks to Loren. "I... I don't know about your brother. He might be dead." She just emerged from a place of death. No, emerged means she left. Tactless, like a monster, something pulses. "This place... you should be somewhere... happier, than this." She pauses only in considering Ida's appearance, but her mind drifts. An urgency rises, and it may be that Lan has to be the calming voice to reason as she looks back towards--
An edge of a plaza. It's windy, bright, beautiful, without a cloud in the sky (it's below them). It's not as shocking a sight as it ought to be. It feels familiar, like everyone here is 'everyone' of worth and companionship, talking with one another and chewing the fat (in one short elf woman's case, chewing the turkey leg).
A pitch pipe is blown, and eyes are falling upon the lot of them expectantly. A sense of dread, resignation, but maybe even a relief from what feels like decades of the damages of life.
You have to sing. The soldier among them is now clasping a Crest Graph in hand, squeezing it out of familiarity rather than invoking it or being mindful of it. It feels both cruel, and yet kind, in the moment, and she just lets herself into it and starts to sing.
It's one of the common songs of worship about the Church of Granas, on the deeper end of a Mezzo Soprano voice - not fully trained, but there is a singing voice there that wouldn't completely embarrass itself if she had to share the stage with the likes of Talise.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia says, "Razor...?" She quirks her head strangely. "...That's for the legs. And sometimes chin...! I...I think...?"
Loren's brother has a real sword. Kid-Lydia's eyes widen. "Woah... That is really cool."
Ten year old Lydia wishes she was cool enough to swing a dangerous weapon around. "I'm more of a tech nerd but my tribe isn't super into that but one dady I'm gonna go to one of the big colleges and become an Armsmeister. And then... I'll have a gun."
"...But ugh... I guess if a hacksaw won't do it..."
Despite her request she seems reticient to take back the hacksaw so Loren is now equipped with a ... well a hacksaw
Her cheeks redden at being called a 'Lamb'. "W...well yeah... Kind of. That's why I need to get rid of th' horns, so people don't know I'm a Lamb Girl."
But Lan tells her to not do that!
And that her folks ar wrong?!
Lydia stares with widening eyes at Lan. She's the first person to tell ten year old Lydia that apparently. The blush only gets even worse.
"OH NO A CUTE GIRL SAID I WAS PRETTY AHHHH!!! I USED MY INSIDE VOICE ON THE OUTSIDE AGAIN!!! AHHHHHH!!!"
She covers her face and ends up running onto a metaphorical stage and she peeks out between her fingers.
Her eyes widen slowly as she backpedals.
"A..ahhh...they're looking---"
She tries to hide behind Loren.
DG: Lydia Seren has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
...He was so small, once.
It takes her longer to recognize Ida, and she's not really certain until she hears the girl talk. And even her nightgown is fancy! There's lace on it! It must've cost a fortune - Lan hopes it's comfortable. (Lace always makes her itch and it would be horrible to be sleepy and itchy, a fate she doesn't wish on Ida.) "What a pretty cat," she can't help but blurt out, because just look at it. It's adorable.
Ruth, however, is less copacetic about everything. And Lan can't blame her. That's blood. She doesn't know the woman well, but every encounter they've had has been one of stress and bad blood. And, well... she's a Hellion, out there. Lan steps swiftly between Ruth and the children, guiding Loren and Lydia behind herself. "It's all right. This isn't a bad place. It's the Dreaming. And your brother isn't dead!" she hurries to reassure Loren, without turning away from Ruth. "He's just somewhere else... Maybe he just isn't asleep yet." It's not a lie, not really.
Because Engil wouldn't have been dead yet, when Loren was this age.
Lydia has kind of a moment and Lan stifles a laugh. Guess she always was like this...! The darkness and the gray give way to a bright sky and a sea breeze. It's this dream again. --Again? But she doesn't remember ever seeing this--
"Oh, it's our turn. Come on, let's sing something!" Acting like a big sister comes naturally to her after village life. "My mom used to sing this one to me. Do you know it, Lydia? 'Sky, far away sky. A murmured voice, your dream now turns the wheel of the stars~'"
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's gaze sweeps across the gathered dreamers, keen and bright and perceptive. She straightens up as social etiquette training asserts itself--she might be in her pajamas, carrying the family cat through a hazy mystery world, but she's still Everstead-Rey. Her eyes linger on Ruth a moment, childhood curiosity mingling with trepidition. There's blood on her, and she might be hurt, and her eyes did something funny. Was it funny-magical, or funny-spooky?
Then Loren thrusts the strange packet(?) at her, and he can see that self-discipline warring with the urge to snipe back at him for his threats.
"Hello," Ida says. "My name is Ida Everstead-Rey, of the Guild Galad Everstead-Reys. This is the Vice-Admiral." The cat stirs in Ida's arms, worming against her grip--
And with a twist and leap, he springs free, lands, and trots up towards Loren. His tail is raised, and switches gently back and forth. "He's a cat," Ida says. "Not a lamb. And she's a--" A glance at Lydia, as the horror of what she's asked settles in. "Don't do that!" Ida shouts. "My best friend has them, too, and she always said it hurts if they get cut deep. Don't hurt yourself."
Ida hasn't quite processed the fact that Lydia said her parents told her to do that.
And then the world shifts, and Ida is in her pajamas beneath a strange sky, with rough-looking adults all around. She edges towards Lan and Ruth, eyes huge. And then Ruth begins to sing. Ida pauses, listening respectfully, before adding her own voice to the song. She's not precisely unpracticed, but she's young, and she's used to being poor at music.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"I've never heard about using a razor on horns. But maybe that's different for Lambs?" Loren wonders aloud, frowning in thought. "The grown-ups say you're all wild. Is that why you have horns?"
he nods, enthusiastically. "Yeah! My older brother is almost done at Jugend. He's gonna be a hero, but you know what, I'm gonna go someday, too. And I'm gonna do even better!"
'He's a cat', Ida clarifies. "Is that a monster??" Loren voices, backing away from the orange tabby that approaches him without hesitation. "It's... looking at me!" He sort of haphazardly wobbles the hacksaw in its general direction, without doing anything more extreme than that.
'He might be dead', Ruth tells him then, of his brother. Loren's eyes widen, his expression slackening into something rapidly approaching shock. He's a little too old to just break into tears over such news, but he looks stunned in the moments that follow, his grip on the hacksaw tightening. "Gil-- Gil's not, my brother's-- he's really tough!" Loren blurts out, his face reddening. "He's, he's just not..." His grip on the hacksaw wavers; slowly, he's begun to lower it.
His brother's not dead, Lan breaks in with. "--See?!" He's found some sort of strength with which to buoy himself here and once again lifts his chin as if defiant. "He'll come and take me home. You'll see!"
He just kind of... stares when Lydia wails out loud and covers her face before ducking behind him. "I can see you," he tells her, gravely.
He's quick to fall in behind Lan as she continues to explain. The Dreaming. "So I'm asleep right now? Neat! I have a hard time remembering dreams. I hope I remember this one!"
The world shifts. He can see the clouds below, and there's nothing weird about that. What's stranger are the people around him. He knows them... he thinks?
Or is that the dream talking?
You have to sing. Loren glances this way and that, as if briefly uncertain about this, before taking a step forward and, rooting around in his pocket, retrieves a stone. It's... kind of neat, he thinks, tilting it this way and that. Gil once gave him a rock after a training exercise on the surface, but it wasn't as good as this one... When he holds it like this, it sort of feels like he can do anything.
Holding it tightly, he takes a step forward and begins to sing. Loudly, proudly, and a little out of tune.
Also, not in a language anyone here speaks or would know to speak-- except Lan.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Margaret - I'm Still Standing.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Margaret - I'm Still Standing *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You're sitting near the edge of a plaza. It's windy, terribly windy, but it's a bright blue day, without a cloud in the sky... because you're above the clouds, of course! It's as natural as breathing. Everyone's here. A big older man. A thin man and a small woman, both with painted faces. A too-short elf woman, already eating a turkey leg. A big guy with a greased-up hairstyle. A dark woman with a head shaved smooth. They're all having cross-chat, but then the big man blows a pitch pipe. Because this is why you're here. The magic's important - it fills your days and your afternoons and more evenings than you'd like. But you came here - you all came through it all, to the magical city in the clouds, to Neo-Vane - for the moments like this. Everyone's eyes are on you. You have a moment to consider, but decades of pain and penury and boredom are pressing behind you. You *have* to sing. What will it be today? =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 2 *>=================== ==================< Results - Margaret - I'm Still Standing >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lydia Seren 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Mistcrest 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 5 --(8)--> 13 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The children among them meet one another, between a pensive and inquisitive child, a troubled youngster who finds utter delight in someone showing her kindness and affection, and yet another with firm defiance about what things are and shouldn't be, and the two present adults in the room meet gazes - well, in Ruth's case, no, she doesn't have it in her in the moment as explanations are given.
There's that nagging urge. Sing, sing, that's why they're all gathered here, sing something, get it over with. Ruth goes first, and subsequently... stops, with a hollow feeling in her chest. Among the gathered, her singing might be the 'best,' but something stops her from holding center stage.
Lydia hides behind Loren as he belts out a novel, shameless tune with words that most don't understand but seem to be relatively 'in line' with the feelings and words sung by whoever's memories these are, and there's some laughter and some choice, coarse language.
Lan tries to bring Lydia into it with a song about th esky, far away sky, bringing a touch of brightness into the proceedings as the young Beastfolk may yet be encouraged to follow.
Young Ida's the last one up, and while her singing isn't bad, it seems like within the story of the dream this is about where the memory's greatest emotional response starts to wind down, and she might get a feeling of being cut off, rather than any sort of retort or jeering about her ability.
"Didn't have the heart then," Ruth murmurs to herself as to why she stops singing, a sad smile that doesn't last, as she thinks of the young Lydia's dreams as she considers her rifle. A dream to have a 'gun,' as ARMs were sometimes called out in Ignas from what she remembers.
"Why would you want one of these?" Ruth asks of the young Lydia once she's done singing. The blood still hasn't disappeared. "They only exist to hurt people." And yet, she clutches it protectively.
The scene starts to change among them, towards the next out-of-context memory of someone else's make.
DG: Lydia Seren has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= =================<* CHALLENGE - Lombardia - Breaking Free *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You come to inside of a dark cave -- though you sit in cockpits of your Gear (or, perhaps, a Gear), rather than stand within it. There is so little light in here, but what can be seen causes bits of metal to glint. The cave is, in fact, a hangar. You can see the wings of some aircraft, with propellers upon its wings. Those who might know can recognize it as a Metal Demon Wars-era airplane, though none have ever been found working. Outside of the cave, explosions can be heard -- and felt. The ground shakes underneath your feet. A few cries can be heard from outside, too: "Hurry! Ready the explosives!" "We have her trapped! The Queen of the Metal Dragons!" "If we can get her here... we'll be heroes!" There is one way to escape: a massive set of hangar bay doors, which have been locked from the outside. You will have to bash your way through them. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
"They use swords for horns where you're from? I guess I could try it."
"You shouldn't say that sort of stuff about someone's brother." Lydia tells Ruth seriously now that she isn't afraid of being seen. Even if it's true, CLEARLY Ruth doesn't know that for sure! GOSH.
Lan does mention a familiar song. "o~ I...I felt like I would never be anywhere until I felt your eyes on me o~" She is quiet for a moment before adding, "Granny Halle says I shouldn't hurt my horns either though she didn't call them pretty... But my mom and dad said I'd be unhappy if I kept them... But Granny says I'm lucky that Rigdobrite likes me and that it's a big responsibility..."
"But I want to go out and explore the world! .... But I'm worried that if I do that, something bad will happen."
She looks towards Ida for a moment. Cats don't seem to frighten her. Rather, she thinks the cat is pretty cute.
Ida also insists that she doesn't do the thing to herself.
"I know it hurts." Lydia tells Ida. "But if I don't do it they'll grow to be too big and I won't be able to hide them."
She looks to Loren and nods, completely misunderstanding. "Some lambs don't have horns. Usually, uh, domesticated ones don't. But I'm--you know--beastfolk I guess so it's not like a farm animal, I'm just...got the horns like a goat or lamb would."
Loren says that he can see her and that only seems to embarrass her further. Gahhh...! Why is everybody pointing out that she's VISIBLE today?? In this dream.
"A dream huh...?" Lydia says. "Yeah that makes sense. I wouldn't be called pretty in the real world."
She jogs off and the scene shifts to a dark cave.
And Lydia ... well she doesn't have a Gear though she has got a large hammer in her hand.
Lydia starts tilting to the side as the hammer outweighs the rest of ten year old Lydia's body.
Outside of the cave, explosions can be heard.
"Hurry! Ready the explosives!"
"We have her trapped! The Queen of the Metal Dragons!"
"If we can get her here...we'll be heroes!"
Lydia flops to the side. "Lombardia... That's like the name I picked out. Though instead of 'ombard' it's 'y'-- Lydia!"
DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Tiebreaker V 2.0 toward her party's challenge, Lombardia - Breaking Free.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Solaris calls us Lambs, but we're not really that different from you. We just live in a different place, with less fancy stuff." She doesn't need to explain more than that. Let him be a kid for now. Let them all be kids again for just a little bit. Before the accident happened to Loren's family, before Solaris happened to Lydia... Even Ida seems softer, though Lan doesn't know her as well as the other two. "I hope you remember it too, Loren."
"...Your voice is really nice," she tells Ruth after the singing is done. "I don't know the song you sang. Do you think you can teach it to me sometime?" Even if Lan is a bit suspicious of any Church these days, it's still a pretty song. She's kneeling down in an attempt to pet the cat (it looks so sooooft) when the scenery changes again. "--!" She's no longer kneeling, she's sitting. Sitting in something metal, and stale air, and it's a Gear, isn't it-- Her skin crawls. She wants out. It's not natural, it's so cramped and her legs are sticking with sweat to the seat--
She takes a deep breath and squeezes her hands into fists. It's going to be all right. Don't be scared. Who'll take care of the kids if you fall apart?! It doesn't really occur to Lan that maybe they don't need taking care of. Lan stands awkwardly, shoving the hatch of the Gear-thing open, and points at the hangar bay doors. "O YOU OF FALLING STARS!"
A silver meteor comes from literally nowhere, bashing into the doors. ...Well, she's out of ideas now.
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lombardia - Breaking Free.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"All you need is a heart to sing the praises of Granas... which I was told I hadn't one for it." She replies to Lan, as Ruth finds herself seated somewhere else when she tries to sit down at the table of a dreamscape of a beautiful day. "...I might share." A fleeting moment of some sort of happiness, there.
There's a small little pond of water where she can catch the reflection of an elven ear (although the shape of what she looks at otherwise isn't her), and her eyes go downcast as to not look at it as Lydia talks about herself, what she was born with, and that fleeting moment of happiness does prove fleeting.
"I hate my ears," says the elf, whose appearance as such would be celebrated. "My own parents insisted I was a blessing. A sign... of prosperity, good fortune."
The air changes. It's musty, and there's a distinct smell of... metals. Eyes open half-lidded. She feels tired, weighed down, trapped. As if taking in the feelings of the one whose memory this belongs to, seeing weapons not entirely dissimilar to those occasionally seen in service about Aquvy during the war. Explosions.
'We have her trapped,' and there's a little smile on Ruth's face. She remembers hearing that - but she's grounded back to the reality of another's reality when they call it the 'Queen of the Metal Dragons.' She doesn't know anyone like that. If they can get her here, they'll be heroes, they say, as the very young Lydia flops and waxes excited about her name.
"A dream." Ruth repeats, remembering what Lan said. They're in a place called 'the Dreaming.' The sounds of war build, and they tug at nerves something is tugging onto for dear life, like it's their lifeline to be. The feelings of Lombardia and herself blend in that moment. Hurt. Trapped. But not surrendered.
"I don't want you all here." Ruth says, as she looks to the young Ida and her cat, and the inquisitive and arrogant Loren. "When you were such a monster that any price was worth paying to see you dead..."
"Well." There's a smile that becomes a grin, and those teeth are starting to look mighty pointy. "My parents learned how wrong they were." There is an unpleasant mist filling the space. Guilt. Shame. Regret. Despair - anyone who went to Siddim Canyon will feel that horrible emotional mire, thick with humidity as her form swells. The size difference puts her at about Gear scale only by the boundaries of the memory's owner, a single wing fanning out. A far too lengthy tail. Something demonic, but the exact colorations that would say 'something stone-colored' are hard to discern in this darkness.
She doesn't want them scared or hurt for their sake, and yet, any feelings of such just embolden her to throw herself at the hangar bay doors even more - but there's a will that wants out, to be, and so it happens, as the Crest Graph she was holding while singing prior dispenses with pressure-changing misty magicks along the Crests of Muse and Fray, which might make it easier to bash the bay door down.
She can't give the 'captors' peace today. She can't stop. For better -and- for worse, as is the nature of things.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Lombardia - Breaking Free.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"We don't have horns," Loren insists, shaking his head. "We're the Shepherds. Lambs can have horns, though. Some of them," he adds, glancing around at the lot of them. "Some of the Worker Bees have horns, too. But most of them don't."
There is a pause.
"What's a goat? Is that another animal? We don't need animals where we live." He eyes the cat, cautiously. He's only seen animals in pictures before.
"Really? But everyone says you're the reason the world's in bad shape," Loren protests, though it's the protest of a child who is merely parroting his teachers and not the protest of someone who has come to calcify around that very idea. "That's why we have to take care of everything. Maybe when you can be good you can live with us," he adds, after thinking this over quickly.
And Lan then calls him by name. "--?! That's my name! How do you know my name!"
They're somewhere dark and cramped. There's lights just before him, like they're part of a console. "Is this a ship? Or-- a Gear! I've got a working Gear model," he says, to anyone inside the cockpit with him. "But I've never been in the real thing. --What's going on?"
This particular cockpit is positioned not all that far from the ground, so it's not a long drop for him. He's still holding the rock, he realizes, and he shoves it into his pocket before running for the hangar doors. Sparkling lights spiral towards it before he reaches it and Loren has an epiphany.
"I didn't know you could use Ether!"
When it comes to getting the hangar open -- he's picked up that That's What They Need To Do, and it's a dream -- he has a hacksaw. So he uses a hacksaw against it. Clumsily.
Only to drop it once he spots what Ruth has become, the swirling weight in the air no longer possible to ignore.
"A, a... you're a monster!"
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Lombardia - Breaking Free.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida stops singing before Ruth's song is finished. There's something about the older woman that's making her deeply uneasy--something that she knows, intimately, but that can't possibly be right, can it? She's some sort of soldier, like Aunt Anna was. That horrible, sick feeling settles into the pit of her stomach, like it did when the old governess' face grew stern, or when Isaac Anaheim starts whispering to his friends.
"A cat is a cat," Ida says, looking at Loren like he'd just sprouted a second head, propriety be damned. "He's not going to hurt you. Come here, Admiral. Come here."
The Vice-Admiral, for his part, leans into Lan's hand, indulging in the petting. Then he rubs up against Loren's ankles, impervious to his bravado. Ida reaches down to scoop her pet up, and holds him tight. "Are you from somewhere that doesn't have cats?" Ida asks. "Or sheep? Or dogs? I'm sorry if he startled--"
Ida's mouth falls open as she listens to his words. "...Excuse me?" she says, doing her very best to hide the worry and indignation. "What are you--"
The scene shifts again, and Ida finds herself standing on the cavern floor, next to Loren's Gear. She gasps in shock, even as distant voices speak of--
"Queen of..." Ida trails off. They have a Queen? Had? For a few moments, the weight on her heart lifts, but Ruth brings it crashing down again. Ida screams, and stumbles back towards Lan's machine, hiding beneath it.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lombardia - Breaking Free.
=======================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================= =================<* CHALLENGE - Lombardia - Breaking Free *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You come to inside of a dark cave -- though you sit in cockpits of your Gear (or, perhaps, a Gear), rather than stand within it. There is so little light in here, but what can be seen causes bits of metal to glint. The cave is, in fact, a hangar. You can see the wings of some aircraft, with propellers upon its wings. Those who might know can recognize it as a Metal Demon Wars-era airplane, though none have ever been found working. Outside of the cave, explosions can be heard -- and felt. The ground shakes underneath your feet. A few cries can be heard from outside, too: "Hurry! Ready the explosives!" "We have her trapped! The Queen of the Metal Dragons!" "If we can get her here... we'll be heroes!" There is one way to escape: a massive set of hangar bay doors, which have been locked from the outside. You will have to bash your way through them. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
==================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 3 *>================== ===================< Results - Lombardia - Breaking Free >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loren Voss 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Worry Stone 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lydia Seren 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Tiebreaker V 2.0 4 Brute Effects: Efficient and Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lan Lilac 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Pauling 5 --(0)--> 5 Pass Mistcrest 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 13 --(16)--> 29 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Loren Voss 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1) Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Ten year old Lydia barely comprehends what KidLoren is getting at here but she does helpfully explain, "Goats are animals. I mean... lambs are animals too. That's why I'm called 'beastfolk'." She considers the arguemnt as to why the world is in bad shape. Is that true? Lydia can't really say one way or the other. "I'd rather go to a whole new world altogether" Lydia says. "Or many other worlds. Space--it is the final frontier out there, you see and it's a good place to get away from all your problems because of how big it is."
Luckily it isn't too hard to blow up a hatch in a dream. Even Lydia tripping into it causes massive damag to say nothing of those actively using magic and METEORS and--
THE POWER OF CHILD ABUSE REPRESENTED BY A HACKSAW
And the hangar door just sort of caves in on itself.
"I'm sorry." She tells Ruth. "It sucks when you can't look the way you want to."
But she's briefly distracted by Lan summoning HER GOD.
"OH WOW...!" Lydia's eyes sparkle. "You're a shaman of Rigdobrite too!"
The big blush is back and she places both hands on her cheeks as she runs through--
--totally missing Ruth's badass monster transformation. Then again, Lydia's own teeth are super pointy so maybe--
Well, how is any of this going to compete against 'your horns are pretty' really. Maybe even kid Lydia on some level knows it's bullshit.
DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Citan Uzuki - First Meeting *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When the darkness again fades, you find yourself walking the halls of this place (which some of you might recognize as Shevat) in which you have found yourself. Distantly, you can hear shouts and screams, punctuated by the sounds of combat. There is a small squad just ahead of you, clad in the field uniforms of Solaris' forces. Save for their presence you are alone. One member of the unit turns to speak to you. "Commander, this area should be--" But they never finish their sentence. It had taken just one cut, you realize. The blonde Shevite woman disposes of the rest of your soldiers before you -- your blade is already drawn by now of course -- can even close the distance. And, you realize too, that no part of the way she had wielded that blade had been anything less than beautiful. She is an artist. The blade is her brush. Today you fight a master of the art, the kind you have not faced in a very long time now. A part of you exults in that fact -- that you may fight against her with all your skill. As does a part of you that realizes that she may well destroy you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Reckless==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Even if I'm not Granasian? If that's okay, I'd be happy to learn." The doors fall in on themselves with a horrible crash, leaving them free to pursue, well-- freedom. Or at least 'not being killed because someone thought they were a dragon'. Lan's pretty okay with that, too.
Lan jumps down from the plane's cockpit, touching down gently on the hangar floor. "It's really complicated to explain, but we're not why the planet is messed up. Somebody told your teacher that, so your teacher told you that." It's really all Lan has time for, because even as she's trying to gather the kids up - easy to do with Lydia, who has just met a Star Buddy, somewhat easy with Ida, who is well-behaved and has a cat to look after, and not at ALL simple with Loren who is freaking out about seeing a Hellion for the first time (again). It's a bit like herding Chu-Chus. "Don't worry about it, she's on our side!" Lan hopes that this continues to be the truth.
They scurry out the door, and into another place entirely.
Her hand is clasped tight around something familiar - no, it's not, Lan has only rarely carried a naked blade. This isn't hers. And these--
These are not her comrades.
She's still and silent for a moment as the soldiers in front of her blend with the rank and file of Damzena Base, and Lan wonders if she remembers any of their names anymore.
And then there were no more soldiers left to confuse her, all of them felled in a single instant by someone she's never seen before. She yelps, looks back and forth - and remembers where she is, and why she can't--
"GET BACK!" she howls, throwing down the blade. It skitters off to the side as black vines crawl across her skin, the shaman throwing herself at the unknown Shevite woman. Keep between her and the kids. Don't let them see-- they've already seen--!
DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Citan Uzuki - First Meeting.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Loren's and Ida's fears of what they see is what gets the transformed Ruth to turn her head as she bowls through the hangar door. Proportionally, as the scenery shifts, her own size re-scales appropriately to the 'real' differences in size. Among the Drifter contacts, she comes out a bit larger than Talise (who is a useful comparison point on at least two fronts), but is currently wreathed in enough blackish-purple mist about her shape that finer details are easy to miss.
She has four horns, pointed backwards, and is flicking a serpentine tongue. Some sort of 'normalcy' returns. Every little sensation adds to that nightmarish buzzing that tells her she can never be anything but a monster - and there's a look in her glowing eyes that may put Lan's assertion to the test.
"Fear." Ruth says in a softer voice. It entices, it emboldens, and the screams and shouts - conflict - wins back her gaze.
There is a flash of movement of a blonde woman of Shevite origin (which makes fleeting sense in the moment with fuzzy mixed memory-dream logic) rushing in. Her technique is without flaw, without peer. No wasted movement, no vulgar, desperate, sloppy, emotional undercurrent in every flex and movement. Spellbinding, like a dance. Enticing.
She has never parsed pitched combat against another combatant with any sort of emotional arousal. Ruth's own memories blend as her tail coils around her overly large rifle as she is able to successfully assert her own memories of pitched combat. She was - and is - a sharpshooter. Even accounting for how the rifle seemed it should be (and was) a bit much for her to wield, she proved just as deadly in close combat.
Blade clashes against the shaft, as Malevolence stirs. To look into the eyes of the swordswoman... she can't look away. The emotion that she expects when those from her own memories stare her down, they aren't... there.
Something else is, and a grin crosses her. Whether this situation is really on par with how she would 'normally' feel... it's s mood, as she finds herself standing astride a shaman whose skin is being encroached upon by black vines.
She can already feel blood being drawn by the sting of blade strokes that are near misses from timely parries. A losing battle, a disadvantage... but those eyes.
Enough of a mood to compel her to fight like she still is the monster that 'helped' bring Zoara to its knees.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 toward her party's challenge, Citan Uzuki - First Meeting.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia starts shifting as the dream moves to one of battle. She's her normal age and appearance, now, though the silver armor indicates she's starting to remember a different time, a different memory. "Lan...?" She asks. She turns around a bit. "Loren...?"
"This is a..." She murmurs to herself, stepping into a
Solarian Training Room. Rachiel stands before her, a wooden practice blade in her hand. Lydia sees one in her own.
"Focus...!" Rachiel shouts to Lydia, piercing forward in an expertly displayed thrust. Lydia tries to deflect it--too slowly--and gets hit right in the chest.
"Oh looks like I just disembowled you," Rachiel teases with a smile. "Come on, get up. You're gonna have to look after the others. You're tough enough to look after others."
Lydia grimaces, straightening back up. "Why do you care anyway?" She asks, taking several quick thrusts of her own, augmenting the blade with light-augmented Guardian power just like Rachiel taught her but despite this, Rachiel bats away the strikes as if they are nothing. "It's not like anybody up here cares about you. Otherwise you wouldn't be here!"
Rachiel channels water ether into the blade and sends a spray erupting out from her strike, forcing Lydia to jump back and away from her.
"It's not about being liked, as shepherds it's our duty to look after the people of the surface. Most of us might have forgotten that--but I have not. Besides, I like plenty of people!"
Light glints off of Rachiel's glasses as she forces Lydia back, constantly pushing forward as Lydia rapidly learns what her mentor taught her.
"What, you got a crush on Loren or something?" Lydia quips, using the distraction to trip Rachiel onto her back.
But she recovers quickly, despite the big fat blush on her face. "N-no! I don't like him like that! It's just..."
Lydia sees an opportunity and leaps in, raising her blade about her head--
--Rachiel, still distracted and barely thinking about it, slams Lydia in the gut again and hugs the wooden blade as Lydia gags on the floor.
"Oh gosh..." Rachiel says, embarrassed. "I just don't think it's fair... how Jugend failed our brothers. And our families took the blame. And had to deal with all that talking--Besides...!"
Rachiel brushes Lydia's hair out from her eyes and then lifts her up.
"There is someone I like stationed here. Are you okay? You told me to stop going easy on you--"
"I'm fine," Lydia interrupts, grunting. "Eventually I'll get good enough--Who is it that you like anyway?"
Rachiel stuck out her tongue and didn't answer. Lydia really hoped it wasn't Leah.
Rachiel vanishes though the practice sword remains in Lydia's hands.
She exhales faintly and then charges the Shevat Agent though honestly, even with the skills Rachiel taught her--
--some people are just a cut above, but maybe she can survive long enough for the next vision.
DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Rachiel Medry Is Doing Her Best toward her party's challenge, Citan Uzuki - First Meeting.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"But you're a Lamb," Loren says to Lydia, trying to sort out this conundrum. "Or, wait, are you a Lamb and a Beastfolk? Or are you a Lamb because you're like an animal? Is that also why we call you Lambs?"
In another time, out of another's mouth -- even out of his own, were he several years older -- it would have been fighting words, at the very least. Loren sounds instead like someone trying out the logic here for the first time and BADLY misaiming.
Maybe it's just as well that Lan attempts to intervene a little here, for whatever it might transmit to the Loren she knows.
"Hrmmm..." Loren vocalizes, frowning and furrowing his forehead as if he were trying to think about it but that it also wasn't quite clicking for him yet. "Adult stuff all seems really complicated... Can you show me how to make star-shaped Ether, too?"
His own talents are mostly good for sticking things back together, so far. It's just not as cool as the way Gil can set his sword on fire.
Loren does not pick the hacksaw up again. He backs away a step, still staring at Ruth, and runs through the opening. Even if Lan says she's on their side, he, he--
The world around him shifts. A moment more, and he's not in a cave. He's in a hallway he doesn't know, that he hasn't seen before. There are people walking with him -- with all of them -- dressed in the uniform of Solaris. "Hey! Can you take me home?" he calls out, waving his hand over his head in order to get their attention.
They don't see him. He realizes, after a moment, that there are screams, roars, shouting. And there's a woman.
In about four more years, he'll know the uniform the woman wears. Right now, he doesn't. He can only watch as she cuts down the soldiers around him, his gaze locked dead ahead on her, frozen in mute horror. He's only a child, but this woman might not even falter for that, the child of her enemies.
Lan interposes herself, and this seems to jolt him out shock and into action. He runs for one of the bodies of the fallen, spotting the tell-tale mark of a medical kit. It's nonsense that drives him, really -- get bandages, get medicine. Someone might be about to get hurt.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Solarian Medical Kit toward his party's challenge, Citan Uzuki - First Meeting.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida curls into a tight little ball, burying her face in the Vice-Admiral's fur. He nuzzles against her, and she holds him, trusting in the strange, kind older woman to keep her safe--or perhaps, trusting that she'll wake up and be back in her room if she hopes hard enough. She stays rooted to the spot, even as the environs change again; Loren's relatively-innocent trip into hateful language goes entirely unnoticed, at least by Ida. She works up the courage to raise her head and peer around. What she sees and hears makes her curl up again. But--
But she knows this place. Those uniforms. The anger and turmoil they conjure up pierces through the dream-fog in a sharp ray of lucidity. Ida uncurls and leaps to her feet. Her dream-self blurs, rushes forward.
"LOOK OUT!"
Ida stands in front of Loren, no longer a child in a nightgown, but a warrior in body armor. Exoskeleton covers her arms. She lights a flare and throws it at the swordswoman, knowing full well it will be a momentary distraction at best. From there, it's a purely defensive game as her arms flow through fluid forms that recall a similar battle.
Kalve. Ida remembers their fight in the Photosphere. Determination to stop her beloved's doomed plan mingles with the foreign memory's drive. The feeling's familiar. Part of Ida feels almost envious of the spark within.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Citan Uzuki - First Meeting.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== =================<* CHALLENGE - Citan Uzuki - First Meeting *>================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- When the darkness again fades, you find yourself walking the halls of this place (which some of you might recognize as Shevat) in which you have found yourself. Distantly, you can hear shouts and screams, punctuated by the sounds of combat. There is a small squad just ahead of you, clad in the field uniforms of Solaris' forces. Save for their presence you are alone. One member of the unit turns to speak to you. "Commander, this area should be--" But they never finish their sentence. It had taken just one cut, you realize. The blonde Shevite woman disposes of the rest of your soldiers before you -- your blade is already drawn by now of course -- can even close the distance. And, you realize too, that no part of the way she had wielded that blade had been anything less than beautiful. She is an artist. The blade is her brush. Today you fight a master of the art, the kind you have not faced in a very long time now. A part of you exults in that fact -- that you may fight against her with all your skill. As does a part of you that realizes that she may well destroy you. =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Reckless==========================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 4 *>=================== ===================< Results - Citan Uzuki - First Meeting >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Solarian Medical Kit 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lydia Seren 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Rachiel Medry Is Doing Her Best 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 5 --(5)--> 10 Pass Gae Buidhe/Dearg DC4 4 Combat Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 29 --(5)--> 34 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Reckless(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Ruth Pauling has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- "Father." When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head. The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you... did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?" You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
She's unstoppable. This woman, this force. Lan doesn't dare to back off long enough to use magic, because she'd already committed to this -- this insane action, but... they're just kids. Even in a nightmare, even if Lan doesn't know if it'll carry over... there are things that go bone-deep. Like the instinct to protect other people. Like the desire to live long enough to wake up.
The blonde soldier never hesitates. She moves like she knows where they're going to be before they do. Ruth comes in to parry and block with the length of her rifle, the clash of metal threatening to kick up sparks every time they clash. It's not until Lan grabs for the blade - her bare hands only protected by the faint armor that ink offers her - that she even shows any emotion. It's just a slight widening of the eyes.
Fire, flaring light forces her to recalculate, to take a single step to the side. Lan isn't letting go, and blood runs down her arms. Ink runs down the length of the blade, tendrils worrying at the skin of the woman's hands--
And Lydia comes in with a rush, barreling towards victory with a body built to far more rigorous standards than anybody else's.
Yui releases the sword and the scene freezes. Shoulders heaving, Lan takes two steps back before heaving the sword as hard as she can into the distance. It clatters against the wall and freezes in place, lost to a memory.
Even in a dream, it's an effort to push the ink down. She backs up against the wall and tries to calm down. "...So anyway," she remembers suddenly, drunkenly, "Lamb is a bad word so don't use it. Okay Loren?" There is something like a Big Sister Warning in her voice, buried halfway underneath the shock.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"Father." A pointed word from a young woman's voice, enough to pull everyone from a chilling sight of a fragment of a planet floating about the sea of stars where only a dome-shaped space upon this land is... alive. It's a whiplash, that faint hint of enrapturing charm in the depths of top shelf duelist violence into the weight of crushing guilt. The woman's voice - they have blue hair, going by a reflection - accuses. Is it true? Was someone ordered to do this - to 'your world'... 'to our world, father?'
To Ruth, the whiplash is... welcome, in its own twisted way. That look in that swordswoman's eyes, no one should be looking at her like that. And yet, the weight on her shoulders feels heavier than anything she's felt before.
Lydia assumes a form familiar, a spike of emotional venom boiling anew as she turns her head. To once again look upon Ida and her alien form, to a young man who has yet to reawaken to where he truly 'is' in the timeline of his life, to the young woman who seemed about as cognizant about this space being something outside of the normal subconscious.
"Get out," Ruth snarls with a shrieking hiss as a Crest Graph bearing Muse and Wing clatters to the ground, a stream of water building in an attempt to sweep about as many people off their feet as she can. This might 'save' them in the context of the dream.
She makes no attempt to escape the dispassionate gaze of the young woman of blue hair with the gun. The feelings that got stirred up from the impulses of the previous dreamer stabbed a nerve.
She wants no further part of this 'dream.'
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Rivercrest toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Lan intervenes, because of course she does (how does he know this? he does't know). Focusing solely on trying to find those bandages, that medicine, to get everything ready, Loren barely notices the shadow of the woman's advance.
But he does notice the moment when he turns, medicine in hand, and gazes up to see Ida, no longer a child, but a grown woman.
A grown, armored woman.
Instinct takes over as everyone else fights (not just Lan and Ida, but Ruth and the newly-adult Lydia): with what supplies he can carry in hand, Loren books it for the other end of the battlefield until he there drops to his knees, drops everything he's carrying, and closes his eyes, tightly.
That darkness, that shadow-stuff clinging to Lan's hands. He knows it, but--
He only rises at that final clang, opening his eyes to Lan, just Lan again.
"...Okay," he replies meekly, without protest to the thing she's asked of him. Here in this place he obeys what she asks of him, where three lie dead, where a woman who had tried to kill him moments ago stands by, mute.
Where, and this is the really important part, he is the only child.
He follows after them, through the door.
"Is that... Filgaia?" he finally voices, watching the planet below in silence for several long moments. "...It's pretty. But why is it..."
'Father', calls out the voice in this moment, and Loren turns at the sound.
He freezes, staring down the ARM leveled at him. "Don't!" is his single ringing shout, even as the woman pulls the trigger.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.
Lydia hears Loren say that Filgaia is pretty.
Is it Filgaia? It doesn't feel like a Filgaia she knows-- and then--A bullet launches for her. Lydiat turns, raises a hand--
--and slaps the bullet back down to the floor in a single smooth motion.
"...Lan..." She says quietly.
".......Thanks."
DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Icarus Wings toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Something cold and lifeless presses against Ida's psyche as Yui freezes in place. It takes her a moment to realize it wasn't combat nerves, and another moment to pinpoint the source. Her heart hasn't stopped pounding against her ribs; she looks at Lan, jaw trembling as she tries to form words. It feels like parts of her will grow cold and dead if she gives voice to her thoughts, and she doesn't know why, and she doesn't know why this is so familiar--
But Loren is still behind her. "We'll protect you," she says. Compassion wars with the creeping hollowness. She doesn't quite manage a smile.
Another shift. Ida remembers this, too: the vision of the sundered world. She knows what's coming. She reaches out and grabs for Loren's arm, and the wind rises up around them, pushing with gale-force as she tries to haul him out of the line of fire.
She hasn't had time to process. Every emotion is raw, and they're piling up inside her. But Solarian or not, Ida is not about to sit back and watch a child be shot to death in front of her.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
As she'd always suspected it would, it feels deeply strange to have Loren just agree quietly.
"You're welcome," she tells Lydia automatically, because she doesn't really know what she did that was important. Did she do something good? --Was it the horns? Who would-- her parents said--
She's quiet for long moments as Ida wrestles with something internally, hands held uselessly in front of herself. She's learning that even in dreams, the body still believes what you tell it. Such as things like 'you grabbed a sword again, idiot' and 'you're losing blood'. But it's fine. She's pretty sure that if you pass out in a dream, you wake up in real life. Lan doesn't think she actually heard that anywhere, but it feels logical.
She follows the others through the door, staring once again out onto the surface of a ruined planet. She still doesn't know what it is. It doesn't feel like Filgaia. It can't be.
And when the gun is raised, Lan is already leaping, twisting over the firehose stream of water from Ruth as her personal gravity inverts. She'd forgotten -- but Ida's taken care of him, and Lydia is stronger than space bullets.
DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, Gabriel - Betrayal.
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Gabriel - Betrayal *>====================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- "Father." When you come to, you stand inside of a massive facility. Its steel walls are purple, with an immense viewport looking down on a fragment of a planet that floats amidst the stars. At the center of it is a barrier; outside of the barrier is desolation and ruin, but inside is verdant green, blue oceans, and white clouds. You look upon this... and bow your head. The blue-haired woman behind you speaks. "Is it true?" she asks. "Did you... did you order them to do this? To your world--to our world, father!?" You turn -- and then realize that she holds a gun. In the logic of the dream, it matters not. She fires her pistol, but a bullet hurtles for each of you, to shoot you in the back unless you dodge. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
===================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming - Round 5 *>=================== ========================< Results - Gabriel - Betrayal >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 10 --(13)--> 23 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lydia Seren 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Icarus Wings 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lan Lilac 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Butterfly Ribbon 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 10 --(13)--> 23 Fail Rivercrest 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 34 --(5)--> 39 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Loren Voss 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Reckless(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Loren Voss has successfully explored Elw Teleporters - Dreaming!
========================<* Elw Teleporters - Dreaming *>======================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - What We Leave Behind *>===================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You jerk awake sharply in your bed. You have a cold sweat (if you are able) and you look about, the memories of the dreams lingering -- but for one of you, a memory comes to you, unbidden. It is an unpleasant memory; a memory of strife and struggle. But why does it come to mind now? OOC: One member of your party can submit a +request with text for a challenge. Please make it have a Challenge Rating of 1 or 2, select from any of the four Dungeon Abilities, and build an appropriate set of abilities. Please also provide the text of the card. Include your character's name in the challenge's title. Staff reserve the right to edit and make changes as needed. =Dungeon Conditions: Secret===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Regardless of where everyone is, what they're doing, how, or why... when that trigger is pulled, it's a sound that drills to the soul. For whoever the owner of that memory is... or was... it carries a weight that stings just by virtue of that scenario existing, crystalized into that form that has replayed several times when the Dreaming claims the subconscious of those who have traveled the Elw Teleporters.
For one soul in particular as the eyes and mind reacclimate to the waking world, a memory sticks. A memory insists on being, and lingers above and beyond the disappearing recollection of what strange collective experiences transpired. It is not welcome, but it is yours... so.
Why does it linger as such...?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren awakens sprawled out on the floor next to the bed, the blankets and pillow a distant memory. Staring up into the darkness, he drags a hand down his face.
What a weird dream. The last thing he remembers of it was getting pushed out of the way of danger and falling hard against the... floor. Huh.
He doesn't get up and instead lies there, thoughts circulating about a particular moment from long ago. Maybe it makes sense that he's thinking about it now after a dream like that.