2022-03-19: Dreaming in Pale
- Log: Dreaming in Pale
- Cast: Fafnir, Ethius Hesiod, Seraph Harmaus, Gwen Whitlock
- Where: In a Dream
- Date: March 19, 2022
- Summary: One soul's dream of a time and place left behind draws in the slumbering minds of others... for good or for ill.
DG: A party led by Seraph Harmaus is now entering Hadal Temple. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Flow of the Deep *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Devour and destroy... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. You could manipulate the water wheel shrouded in eyes and tendrils near you to push water into the other cistern and trap them, but it's quite the complex mechanism -- be careful, or you might well push water into your side of the bank. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Tonight, he dreams.
It's one of the richer, more vivid ones, drawn from memory, or perhaps his imagination--all he knows is that he is young again, a neophyte scout setting off into the tundra beyond the Photosphere. All he has seen of the "promised land" is wind-swept, majestic desolation. The xenoforms that make their homes here are unlike anything he's ever seen--bulky quadrupeds with long, thin legs and branching horns, great tube-shaped things that tunnel beneath the snow and ambush the unwary. Things that travel underwater and through the air with only the most rudimentary of anatomy. Everything is terrifying and wondrous, and it is all fleeting. It all must burn to make way for a new paradise.
How sad that this is so.
The lone scout traces a path through the snow, step by careful step, and ducks into a rocky overhang--a cave mouth carved by the steady drip of water. His camouflage cloak shimmers around him, leaving his shape recognizably humanoid, but indistinct. He taps two fingers to the radar mapper on his belt, and it hums as it starts cycling up--
Memories that are not his own bubble up into his mind. For a few, terrifying seconds, he sees pitiless blue eyes fixed on him, feels himself pinned to something burning-hot. A scream echoes in his ears, raw and ragged. He recognizes the voice.
"Astrid?!" Fafnir's voice echoes down the cave. There's no response. He starts to run, and the walls shift around him, growing staring eye-glyphs and twisting into unnatural, eerily organic shapes. He reaches a door, and it's covered with glyphs he can't read, and those eyes.
Static.
"ASTRID!" Fafnir shouts. He bangs on the door with both fists, but it's solid stone, and it must weigh at least a half a ton.
Something moves in the shadows behind him. He turns, one hand halfway to his sidearm. He doesn't even have an autologous ARM yet, a device made for him from his own flesh. The things--the Deep Soldiers, the zombified, twisted remains of his troops--shamble towards him, whispering. Fafnir goes rigid as bone-deep combat instincts struggle against fear and confusion. His hands settle on an old wheel made from something strange--wood--except wood doesn't squelch beneath his hands. Fafnir screams. He fumbles his ARM out of its holster, and presses his back to the door, taking aim. Maybe they don't see me? he thinks, as if his raw desperation could make something true.
DG: Fafnir has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
There's one of the natives(?) here - the enemy(?) - in a vague shape that is identifiably that of a human but they have taken great pains to hide as much of themselves as they can. Their eyes, they have not. Pitiless, almost emotionless, with such restrained body language they may well be an automaton. They're holding a faintly glowing eyeglass of a cyan color in one hand.
"Why are you withdrawing?" They ask - a male voice. "That wheel is the only way to flood them out." They act as though they cannot see or understand the wheel shrouded in... all of that, gloved hands reaching out to try and give it a spin. "It is not clear which direction, but we do not have the luxury of time or choice."
In its own way, someone like this might be one of the scariest things in the room from the audacity to not blink or hesitate before this thing of mortal terror and endless horror for the victims of... that.
When did they get here, why, to what relation? It's not certain.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Seraphim do sleep, after a fashion.
Not days before, Harmaus had been investigating a strange occurance to the north -- not far to where had once stood a place that had once been close to his heart. It has been a long time since those days, and many old memories had been stirred afresh. But, ah, of course he had not gone to the place where people had once lived and died.
Nothing at all remains. Not even a brick. The world has wiped clean the palimpsest and even his eye can no longer find any trace of what had been here, once.
Perhaps he is the only one with any memory of it remaining in the world. Such is the lot of a Seraph.
He had meditated on that when he had fallen into reverie, and here...
...he awakens in a place tinged with blue, with a dull power unlike that of which he is accustomed upon Lunar. It is no place he has ever set foot into before.
"I finds myself in such places," remarks Harmaus aloud, eyes narrowing as he takes in their surroundings. "Ah, but away, away," he remarks, sight settling on the soldiers. Glancing up at Ethius, whom he has found himself near, he takes into account at last the presence of the other. "It wonders me... sees not I one such as this?" Harmaus asks of Fafnir. "A wheel! Spins it round, and round again, finding flooding's font! Here, we sees it -- shall it seize it?"
Harmaus, notably, does not do more than call out the presence of that wheel, apparently content that the others here will be more than capable of turning it and causing the desired effect.
...To be fair, he doesn't have hands.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The Hadal Temple was the beginning of many strange tales for many acquaintances and friends of Gwen.
It's not a very pleasant place.
It's not a very pleasant dream, either, if Gwen were to proper rate it.
And then someone starts yelling.
Rubbing her face as she strides up right aside the neophyte Fafnir with the certain sort of courage that can only come from a dream, Gwen just walks past Fafnir and, directly placing her thankfully gloved hands on the wretched wheel, attempting to help Ethius reason out the exact measurements of what and where to turn with a piece of chalk, marking right over the eyes that struggle against the pressure of it.
"I can't swim," Gwen says plainly, turning to face the screaming Fafnir. "So if this place floods, you have to haul me out--"
She had pegged Fafnir as familiar in some weird way from the back, and used dream logic to deduce that they were familiar because they were a friend.
But, in a way, they are still a friend, so Gwen still seems to stand by her statement after that initial hiccup.
Which is when she spots Harmaus.
She frowns, sighs, and shrugs. ".... I've had worse dreams." Turning on one heel, she points further in. "Let's keep moving, shall we?"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Courier Kit toward her party's challenge, Flow of the Deep.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Flow of the Deep *>====================== |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- A primordial scream rings through the air the instant you enter the Hadal Temple. Devour and destroy... Something moves. Creatures emerge from the darkness, moving with an eerie, undulating grace. They're humanoid, barely, and their bodies are still clothed in patchwork armor and the tattered remains of uniforms. Bits of shell and scale and bone obscure their faces. These are Deep Soldiers, and they have broken through one of the cistern gates. You could manipulate the water wheel shrouded in eyes and tendrils near you to push water into the other cistern and trap them, but it's quite the complex mechanism -- be careful, or you might well push water into your side of the bank. (INFO: In this dungeon, certain statements will be marked in Blue. These Blue Statements can only be seen by the one posing the Dungeon Round (or a volunteer if agreed upon), and represents both the speech and the corruptions of the Temple. The drawer is free to believe or disbelieve, but the rest of the party won't be seeing or hearing anything in Blue!) =Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm================================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 1 *>========================= ========================< Results - Flow of the Deep >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Courier Kit 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Rally ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm Effects: Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>==============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Gaze of the Pale *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
A wall near you crumbles -- and beyond it, you come literal eye to eye with
one of the Primarch's own eyeballs. Its iris shimmers ominously--
Look upon the world as I do...
--The world turns upside-down, and inside-out. Your senses start reporting
nonsense, as though they've been all swapped around. The Eye is gone, and a
new field in the Temple opens before you...
The calming scent of blue cascaded upon the landscape.
The chalk-white trees ahead burst with mirth and pleasure.
The savoury noise of ice and frost, a truly delicious feast to your
tastebuds.
The acrid screech of deception that reminds you of the danger you're in.
You need to snap out of this before the other hazards of the Temple catch up
to you -- but where does one sense end and another begin?
=Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Runt. Weakling. Coward.
Berserk's invectives thunder in Fafnir's ears as he takes aim, and tries to defy the fates heaped on his head. They sent him to scout because he wasn't developing as quickly or as significantly as the others of his coterie. They sent Regin with him because they knew Regin would keep him--and the other scouts of his new coterie, all cast-offs of one kind or another--in line. For a moment, as Ethius addresses him, he wonders if it's Regin, come to bail him out and then take him to task for it.
It's not. Regin was never that cold about anything.
The blur that is Fafnir's face fixes on Ethius. His hand trembles as he holsters his sidearm. He--he hears a voice, a voice he remembers from other dreams. He knows she might be a human. He does not remember her name. "My squadmate's in there," Fafnir says, his voice tight. "If this is the only way, then--"
A small xenoform pads across the stone, and addresses him. "What," he says, glancing between Harmaus and the soldiers and Harmaus again. The former is merely baffling in his incongruity. The latter...
He knows them. Knew them? He sees faces he half-recognizes beneath the growths, and remembers a dreadnaught that bore her name. He named it for her.
Fafnir grips the wheel with both hands, and feels the eyes tensing up beneath him. He starts to shove, using Gwen's chalk marks to guide him. Ethius and Gwen lend their muscle as well. The wheels turn with the sound of creaking, tortured wood. Water floods into the cistern. The door grinds open as the horde halts in its tracks.
Another scream echoes down the tunnel--Astrid's voice again, this time positively feral with rage. "ASTRID!" Fafnir shouts. "STAY STRONG, I'M COMING!" He starts to run, drawing his weapon--
And then one of the walls falls away, and a huge, unblinking eye stares him in the face. Fafnir skids to a halt, transfixed; a gust of icy wind blows the hood from his head, revealing him. His hair is bright red and trimmed into a crew cut; his face is lean and beardless, and his eyes are bright emerald green. He looks young, or more accurately, like a prototype of the man he will one day become. He doesn't even have the red markings on his face.
Fafnir blinks once, and wonders if he's about to die. The memory of the Primarch of Muse speaks to him, and everything changes.
Fafnir sits down, the cold of the icy forest a brilliant blue. The crunch of his body settling into the snow smells crisp and sweet, like food he's never tasted. Food--
Quite suddenly, there is a takeout box sitting in his lap. It steams lightly in the air, and when he opens it, he finds...
Maekir dared him to get this, didn't he? It's full of human food, things he has no names for. He placed the order using one of their mobile communications devices, and read the human words without understanding what they meant. He unwraps a 'burger'...
Fafnir takes a bite. Alien flavors--sweet, salty, savory--burst onto his tongue, and the synaesthesia turns it into a symphony, a psychedelic panorama. He focuses on the fluffiness of the outer casing, the satisfying density of what must be protein-rich material inside. There's a crunch inside, too, something lightly acidic and sour.
Fafnir looks up at the others. "You... can take some if you want," he says.
DG: Fafnir has used his Tool O'Malley's Takeout Box toward his party's challenge, Gaze of the Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah... sees it me?" Harmaus purrs at Fafnir. "Dreams not I such. No idle illusion, is it! Hear tell, has I, of slumber's shared spaces... jaeja." He sighs, as if this were weighty, indeed. "Then we sees what solutions slumber suggests! It walks with me, yes? I walks ahead."
With that, stepping over whatever puddles might remain as if he were not actually touching the ground, Harmaus does precisely this, advancing in the direction of the door ebe before that long scream echoes out.
The scenery seems to shift, in a way that so few real spaces do, and without the tell-tale throb of Malevolence, Harmaus knows for certain he must be in some dreaming-space.
It had, in fact, been but idle speculation prior-- but this is the truth he has found, and he has seized upon it like it were his prey of choice.
It's cold in this place -- or rather, it has the suggestion of cold, the suggestion of a place near and familiar to Harmaus.
"Long, long time... it is," Harmaus remarks, gazing upon one of the crystalline trees. It's almost as if he can see his own reflection there in the ice.
Perhaps it also shows him as he was. But as he was is as he has been -- an eternal Seraph, born as he now stands. The world around him is shifting, twisting, distorting the nature of his qualia. When he breathes in, he can hear the wind rustling through the trees. He can taste the sound of the rattling branches. And yet -- what is that?
An enchanting smell. A real smell.
"Yes," murmurs Harmaus. "I tastes it. I tastes, and anchors it me!"
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Gaze of the Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The strange human man has a hand on his forehead when Fafnir shouts, eyeing Harmaus from the corner of their vision. His appearance is about as fuzzy as a dream's finer details might be - whether he's another collective dreamer or just someone's misplaced cognition within this series of events is not clear in the moment. This may be true to life, sometimes, in that he is a thing that happens.
"I do not have high prospects for survivors," he asides to Gwen and Harmaus alike without directly looking at them as he says this. There's something disconnected about all of it, for an otherwise smooth insertion within the present context of the Hadal Temple underneath the destroyed Guardian Statue of Schturdark. He's taking off after Fafnir's screaming and shouting as the eye falls upon them.
He stands there in that strange sensory space. The frozen, beautiful forest of blue. Snow billows about him, refreshing like a spring breeze (...in winter?). There are moments where it's like he could disappear entirely within the field, as if he and a snowy blizzard could be seen as one.
The Spectral Lens is still warm, still casting the same cyan hue that's easy to miss within the idyllic(?) landscape. There is an offer for him to take some food that sounds like a distant reed. If he can get the eyeglass up to his eye, the 'report' would not be kind to his sight.
It'd anchor in a 'real' sense, perhaps.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Gaze of the Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
His squadmate is in there, Fafnir says. Astrid, Gwen realizes, as he yells her name.
"Then we'll go get her." It doesn't matter if it's a dream, as Gwen is figuring with the comprehension hard won from many debilitating dreams, some similar and dissimilar to this one in terms of strain to her senses. "This ain't like me bein' trapped in there. Astrid's likely able to survive, as long as we get there. Harmaus is right- we'll be gettin' answers, one way or another, but I'd like the one where he gets reunited with her." For once.
The wall falls away and an Eye appears. Gwen looks up at it, momentairely holding back. Should she... say something? Could this Primarch, be it dream or no, know her past history?
Would they care, in the way a human would? Or a Hyadean? Or a Seraph? Or... Ethius is human, right?
She has to look away, looking aside towards her motley group of friends and fiends.
Ethius is reassuringly himself, at least, as is Harmaus, which is strange to really consider. But Fafnir...
Sometimes it's hard to remember the clear differences between human and Hyadean. Like before, he feels... like a friend.
And against the brilliant backdrop, he feels handsome, even, but in a way Gwen realizes is related to how the ice and frost around them feels like a feast.
Like she wants to be here forever. It even smells delicious, like...
A takeout box?
"...." She shouldn't insist, but her stomach, in spite of not being physical, does the insisting for her. ".... I think I'll take you up on that." She takes out a fork and knife, dividing the goods as necessary and where needed.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool Courier Kit toward her party's challenge, Gaze of the Pale.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>==============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Gaze of the Pale *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 4 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
A wall near you crumbles -- and beyond it, you come literal eye to eye with
one of the Primarch's own eyeballs. Its iris shimmers ominously--
Look upon the world as I do...
--The world turns upside-down, and inside-out. Your senses start reporting
nonsense, as though they've been all swapped around. The Eye is gone, and a
new field in the Temple opens before you...
The calming scent of blue cascaded upon the landscape.
The chalk-white trees ahead burst with mirth and pleasure.
The savoury noise of ice and frost, a truly delicious feast to your
tastebuds.
The acrid screech of deception that reminds you of the danger you're in.
You need to snap out of this before the other hazards of the Temple catch up
to you -- but where does one sense end and another begin?
=Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 2 *>========================= ========================< Results - Gaze of the Pale >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 22 --(29)--> 51 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 10 --(17)--> 27 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 10 --(17)--> 27 Pass O'Malley's Takeout Box 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 10 --(29)--> 39 Fail Courier Kit 1 Wits Effects: Resilient and Rally ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 20 --(15)--> 35 Fail Conditions: Overwhelm|Save Point(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Wail of the Wall *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- This blue walkway ends at a massive ancient gate of thrumming leyline patterns. The gate spans the entire hallway, blocking the way forward. There is a mechanism upon the other side, but the only way for you to proceed from this side would be to lift or destroy the gate, but beware, as it will wail in agony as it is damaged, bleeding a viscous blue blood as if it were flesh. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Distracted and fearful Fafnir may be, but he has his pride. "I'm not an it!" he snaps, casting a venomous glance at the small talking xenoform.
The box contains enough food for all of them, should they choose to partake. Harmaus wrestles a few french fries (skin-on, salted) from their cardboard box. Gwen tucks into some sort of salad with mixed greens, crumbly blue cheese, and spicy fried chicken. Ethius contents himself with staring into the Spectral Lens. Three-quarters of the group has an incongruous picnic. It takes a while, though, for the Primarch's influence to fade--even as a memory, Rahab's powers of illusion are tremendous. Refocusing was necessary, but they've lost precious time.
Fafnir leaves the garbage behind him, piece by piece, to make a trail. "Regin taught me this technique," he says to Gwen. "You're less likely to find recent detritus in places like this." Fafnir's shoulders bunch beneath his camo cloak. "Mother damn it, of all the times for him not to show up--or Sieg, or Enki--"
They turn a corner, and come to another wall. It's striated with streams of alien energy. Fafnir plants a palm and pushes, but like the door before it, it does not give. "Dammit!" He shoves again, harder. When that doesn't work, he fumbles something out from beneath his cloak--a small brick of something wrapped in silvery material. Fafnir sticks it to the wall, presses his finger into an indentation, and stands well back.
The shaped charge is nothing special--it's just an emergency demolition pack issued to scouts just in case. It probably won't do the job on its own.
DG: Fafnir has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Wail of the Wall.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"It is thing, yes?" Harmaus replies, placidly. "Then it is it. Is simple. But needs it I explainings again?" His long, fluffy tail swishes from side to side gently, as if to suggest that this matter is pleasing to him. "Can explain as many as needed!"
Harmaus has never been known -- of late, at least -- to be a kind or gentle Seraph.
Still -- there is the matter of an impomptu lunch (delicious fried potatoes, delectable to the tastebuds of the form that Harmaus bears) and this is rather grounding, but it still takes time for them all to do this. And around them the swirling cold of the dreamscape proceeds.
"Sees I others. It dreamings much, too, yes?" Harmaus asks of Gwen and Ethius alike. "Cold calls cloyingly... but called such cold comfort! Much lost in ice. Buried eternally in snow. I proceeds."
There is a gate, far ahead of them.
"I unearths."
Harmaus has begun to hover in the air above the pathway, light shimmering about his small form as power begins to build in one of the bells at his collar. It's little more than a glass collar but it has begun to shine with a light that seems to nearly seek to blind with its intensity.
Then, light surges forth in a great destructive beam, Harmaus as its point of origin.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Prism Bell toward his party's challenge, Wail of the Wall.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Yeah, ain't sure if this'd make you feel any better, but Harmaus calls everyone an it. Ain't exactly sure why, but it's his thing. He can be an asshole, but also a powerful one." Gwen says this despite Harmaus being right there, munching on her salad with abandon. "But that reminds me, just so you guys know, in case y'don't already. If I remember right, the Primarch here's name is Rahab. Primarch of water n'... illusions, I guess? Not, like, strictly, but they do a lotta illusion stuff."
She says that, as they eat their food (sans Ethius) in a very pleasant landscape. "Maybe, if we do encounter them head on? I could.... reason with 'em. Maybe." She finishes her salad by popping that last bit of chicken in her mouth. "It wouldn't be the first time I did that in a dream."
But it's not the same circumstance. Or the same Rahab from the same time, really. Or the same memories. Either way, her last encounter wasn't the friendliest, but it was also one she wanted to be in forever.
Like she was home, with family.
It's a taste of a memory she uses to her advantage as they come against this gate. Fafnir and Harmaus make their mark on it, and, first waiting to see what Ethius does, Gwen attempts to complete it with a wall shattering slam of her right fist.
It's hardly the sort of strength a human should have, and by the way she favors her right arm, it's clear that's the source.
At least she's using that stolen power towards Fafnir's goal.
DG: Gwen Whitlock has used her Tool ARM-ored Fist toward her party's challenge, Wail of the Wall.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
STaring into the Lens has an undesirable effect - a yelp of pain (a humanizing moment) and clutching one eye, which is... personally enough to get Ethius to exist in the... real... space? One less layer of a dream space? A more agreeable, coherent consensus of a dreamspace as pertains to the memory of Hadal Temple.
As Harmaus speaks to him, Ethius holds a strange, shiny... metal stone, in his hand? When did he pick it up? He wasn't seen picking it up before. 'It dreamings much too yes?'
"The last thing this extraction needs between parties is an argument over the use of pronouns," he waves the hand holding the cooling Spectral Lens. "The unearthing you describe needs to be kept to--"
A bright light builds behind Ethius (Harmaus) as Fafnir has already stuck a demolition pack into the wall. He stares blankly (while a blinding light behind him builds). As Gwen waits to see what he intends to do, he's working on a nearby other section of the wall with a Symbological spellcasting ritual to call forth an immense concentration of heat to try and melt away that wall.
The area appears well-ventilated enough for it.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Wail of the Wall.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Wail of the Wall *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- This blue walkway ends at a massive ancient gate of thrumming leyline patterns. The gate spans the entire hallway, blocking the way forward. There is a mechanism upon the other side, but the only way for you to proceed from this side would be to lift or destroy the gate, but beware, as it will wail in agony as it is damaged, bleeding a viscous blue blood as if it were flesh. =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Tire========================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 3 *>========================= ========================< Results - Wail of the Wall >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 51 --(0)--> 51 Pass Prism Bell 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 27 --(0)--> 27 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 27 --(12)--> 39 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 39 --(0)--> 39 Pass ARM-ored Fist 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 35 --(20)--> 55 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(2)|Tire(2) Effects: Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Breath of the Dragon *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Sound pierces you the moment you enter this room, the ground rent by a bone-chilling roar. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, clearly dead, hovers above you, its tattered metallic skin wreathed in tendrils of water and pockmarked with bulging eyes. With a snap of its neck, it opens its mouth and breathes forth an awful taint, encroaching upon your position quickly. Erase me... You'd best flee before the creeping taint spreads further -- you don't want to be around to find out what it may do to living matter. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Suffer=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
'It is thing, yes? Then it is it.'
"Shut up, creature," Fafnir snaps. Gwen's reassurances dampen the burning anger building inside him, but it's like throwing a wet blanket on a sizeable fire. It might extinguish part of it, but only for a time.
At least the wall is a convenient target. The shaped charge detonates first, and the wall erupts, spraying Fafnir with brilliant blue blood. An unearthly howl of pain echoes through the room. Only Fafnir can see the hideous wound, hear the sound, and taste the vile oh Mother it's in his mouth.
As Harmaus unleashes his blinding, spectacular display, Fafnir fights off both terror (at the sudden display of alien sorcery) and horrible nausea. He does not look at Harmaus afterwards; he lurches to the side, and fights the urge to vomit. It might be a display of raw stubornness in the face of aliens exerting their unfathomable, incomprehensible power, but he's a Hyadean warrior, dammit, and he's not going to show any more weakness. He forces himself to look at the door, to listen to its screams.
"I think we're close," Fafnir says, as he regains composure. "Astrid! If you can hear me, name, duty, and cohort designation!" He's already running through the door, out into a tunnel wide and tall enough to swallow a good-sized town whole. It's positively cavernous, and dark, but as Fafnir emerges, something ignites in the distance, the brilliant hues of the Primarch's power.
Something--someone--roars.
The dragon swoops. Fafnir's eyes widen to dinner plates as he recognizes her, in all her glorious, hideous ruin. He knows what her Dragon looks like when its hide is whole, when its armaments haven't been ruined by centuries of neglect. She was the second to ever craft such a form, after him. She chided him for his recklessness. He told her someone had to be first, and if things went wrong, she could always rip him out of his war form and beat sense into him.
He recognizes Astrid. She does not recognize him.
"Astrid," Fafnir whispers, his voice low and strangled. "No."
She's diving. Fafnir whips up a hand, and a wire grapnel whizzes out from behind his wrist. More grapples deploy as the first catches hold, lifting him off the floor. The weight settles across the endo-steel of his harness, keeps him from pulling his arm out of his socket as he rises into the air. "ASTRID! ASTRID, IT'S ME! STOP!"
She doesn't listen. A tainted chill spreads from her jaws, seeming to taint the very air as it rushes past him. Astrid's neck cranes, following through to try and chase the others down.
DG: Fafnir has used his Tool Aerial Maneuver Webbing toward his party's challenge, Breath of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah? Creature? It creatures me? Jaeja..." Harmaus sighs, then glances in Gwen's direction.
"'It' is correct term! It accepts this? Or does not accept? Matters me not." One might as well argue with a wall...
"Primarch...? Knows not I this word. It speaks me more of 'Primarch'. Primarch Rahab..." Harmaus rumbles. "Dealer in deceptions? I learns it. Weary am I of tricks and lies!"
Perhaps this is a demonstration, then, when Harmaus unleashes but a fraction of his power and deals such serious damage to the wall that had blocked their path forward. The glow ultimately ceases; Harmaus drops slowly back onto the pathway. And something, not so distantly, screams.
Harmaus moves as steadily as a beam of light, shimmering motes cast into the air about him. It can be assumed that he has no altruistic interest in Astrid's condition, of course.
"...This, the force of Rahab's might?"
So speaks Harmaus of the taint that pours forth from the dragon like rot from an infected wound. "Knows I this form! This shape-- ah! Even Her servants, overcome! This power!" Rapturous for the moment, Harmaus has not failed to notice that the corruption is spreading towards their direction.
This is not Malevolence.
This is something quite different.
"--Flies, I!"
At his neck, the tiny porcelain bell has rung -- it's so delicate it seems scarce even there.
He leaps into the air, taking flight.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Breath of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
It may be a dream, but as Gwen sees Fafnir try to reason with the decaying state of Astrid, she can't stand it.
Fafnir get any answers like this. Not if he dies here and sent straight back into his current self.
".... Fafnir, _she's still alive_. What you're seeing is a vision of the past." But was it exactly like this? How did Astrid become as she did?
"She came back to look for you. I'm from your future, Fafnir-- though, around then, I dunno what you think of me there. But I know what I think of you!"
Gwen snaps the glove off her right hand and waves it around, trying to catch the dragon's attention with the gleam of her hand and its power, stolen from the dead progeny of dragons. "Astrid! It's me! The one who screws things up! Gonna screw this up for ya too, because I ain't gonna let you get Fafnir here when you ain't in the right space t'appreciate 'im!"
She fires a flashy shot of energy into the air to further this fact.
Even if she dies here in the dream, it wouldn't be the first time. She'd be used to it.
"Guess the Stranger's visits got their own advantages..."
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Breath of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius holds a palm out - the ever-present sorcerous equivalent of drawing an ARM on someone - at the distant roaring. It's something bigger, something more dangerous than an open hand, murmuring the same two syllables over and over while a thumb flexes. It's chambering, to cut a fraction of a second off of an intended spellcast if proven necessary to do so.
There's a widening in his eyes where there wasn't when they were being besieged by other creatures - a sense that there is someone there entirely mortal and aware of it.
There's a sharp glance in Gwen's direction as she makes her assertions, tying the harness of something mid-jog before finishing a spell to fill it with hot air and try to get floating after.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Breath of the Dragon.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Breath of the Dragon *>==================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Sound pierces you the moment you enter this room, the ground rent by a bone-chilling roar. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, clearly dead, hovers above you, its tattered metallic skin wreathed in tendrils of water and pockmarked with bulging eyes. With a snap of its neck, it opens its mouth and breathes forth an awful taint, encroaching upon your position quickly. Erase me... You'd best flee before the creeping taint spreads further -- you don't want to be around to find out what it may do to living matter. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Suffer=============================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 4 *>========================= ======================< Results - Breath of the Dragon >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 51 --(28)--> 79 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 27 --(40)--> 67 Fail Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 39 --(40)--> 79 Fail Aerial Maneuver Webbing 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 39 --(40)--> 79 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 55 --(15)--> 70 Fail Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Slow(2)|Suffer(1)|Tire(1) Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has failed this challenge! The party gained 15 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - An Ancient Password *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The next gate you come across is peculiarly out of place -- a metallic wall of high technology, thrumming with leylines. There is a functioning metal door with a keypad upon it -- but the letters are ancient and unintelligible to you... until a cold whisper briefly tells that these are the script of the Zeboim. Failing that, you seem to be able to see white, mercurial blood prints on the keypad -- this could drastically reduce the amount of guesswork needed to pass through. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Tire===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Harmaus takes to the air, effortlessly weaving between streams of chilling, tainted death. For a moment--as he tenses his forearm to retract one grapple, and twists his thigh subtly to launch one mounted at his hip--Fafnir feels deeply, furiously envious of the mysterious xenoform's might. It must be part of the dream, and nothing more. It just doesn't make any sense! It's a more palatable and less despair-inducing problem than everything else that's going wrong.
Gwen is shouting at him. He hears her words, but they're not making any sense. "RUN!" he shouts. "GWEN! DON'T--!"
He remembers her name...?
Several things happen in quick succession.
Astrid dives for Gwen, skeletal claws extended. A wingbeat sends Ethius' air sack on a perilous, bobbing course; the sharpened edge of that wing severs one of Fafnir's grapples. The Hyadean screams as he falls from the air, and lands with a soft crunch in a snowbank next to Gwen. He quickly checks to see if nothing's broken--nothing seems to be--before grabbing for Gwen's collar and dragging her the rest of the way, if she'll let him. There's a side-passage that's far too narrow for Astrid to follow them, at least immediately. And at the end...
Blood dribbles from a mending wound on the back of Fafnir's scalp. He puts a gloved hand to it, and takes fingers away, stained with quicksilver. Just like this panel. "Mother," he whispers. "What happened here...?" He glances down. There's another... takeout box? It's sitting at his feet, as if mocking him, reminding him of a bet between friends. "This is--a dream. A nightmare? But--we have to--"
Zeboim. The ancient tongue? Fafnir doesn't recognize it. Instead, he goes by blood, wiping his hands off with some takeout napkins before getting to work on the passcodes.
The ground trembles beneath Astrid's feet. She's stalking back and forth out there, with the tirelessness normally reserved for the dead.
DG: Fafnir has used his Tool O'Malley's Takeout Box toward his party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
There is but a streamer of milky green-purple light as Harmaus takes flight without wings, then is gone.
He does not reappear to assist them in their moment of need against the dragon, either -- rather instead, they find themselves abandoned to their respective fates. It would not be unreasonable to assume that he's simply gone from this shared space, utterly vanished.
Until their paths take them to the blocked door, its entrance sealed by a keypad. There, sitting by the door and washing a paw with all the nonchalance of a cat after dinner, is Harmaus.
"Slow. Sloppy," remarks Harmaus, lifting his head. "But servicable, supposes I? Ah, but it is timely! Here comes it, with hands." Settling himself before the door, his tail swishing softly, Harmaus glances up at the pad. "At impasse am I, but perhaps, through portal shall it pass?"
His eyes glitter.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The bobbing course sends Ethius a further ways away from the rest, threatening to open up a situation where further hostiles could divide and conquer the lot of them - he may be the last to be able to get to that side passage in order to escape the zombified Astrid dragon. Touching down, Ethius takes a few rapid steps of a characterization close to 'startled, rattled' as he catches up to the sight of where further bloodshed and tragedy must have happened. He comes down to a kneel near Harmaus, tracing a gloved finger across the ground for any trace of the quicksilver that Fafnir's already taken note of.
"We are here for a reason." Ethius states firmly, despite being a stranger to Fafnir in reality, someone who was nearly disintegrated by Harmaus' light, and someone who almost indirectly killed Gwen with the use of a Solar Storm.
To Gwen, putting this together, it might be strange that he doesn't seem as guarded in the moment as he normally would be.
"Whoever came before us left us a message." An attempt to be reassuring to Fafnir, or...
The odd eyeglass is out again. He holds up a hand before playing with the keypad based on the stains, just to play it safe and make sure the keypad is connected solely to the door and no other prospective hazard or other inconvenient mechanism.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
Gwen looks up, surprised. Fafnir said his name?
Does he remember her name from the last time they met? Or maybe, through his connection to Ida...?
Thankfully, when Fafnir lands in the snow and yanks Gwen back, she's already trying to back away. Sure, it was likely certain death, but that didn't mean she couldn't try to back away. "Sorry, was tryin' to distract her!" she apologizes, when everyone's safe in the side passage.
As they try to figure out the panel (and Gwen tries to not find Harmaus's swishing tail so cute), Gwen notices Fafnir's distress. Walking by him, she places a hand on Fafnir's shoulder, much like she's done for Ida and others many, many times. "It's okay. We're here. Harmaus's got his reasons for bein' here, but I doubt he's gonna leave until he gets what he wants out of this. Ethius... he's a good egg."
Nodding at a oddly level Ethius (which is no less appreciated by Gwen), the courier adds, "It's... a vision quest, best way t'think of it. The kind that warriors have. And all vision quests need guides, so you got us!"
Though, really, it's just as likely Harmaus's vision quest all along. Or Ethius's.
If he doesn't shrug it off, she gives the shoulder a squeeze and comtinues on. "Let's get a bite t'eat. Are your wounds healin' up okay? Ethius, Harmaus- you two doin' good too? When everyone's set, we'll get this show on the road, eh?"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, An Ancient Password.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - An Ancient Password *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The next gate you come across is peculiarly out of place -- a metallic wall of high technology, thrumming with leylines. There is a functioning metal door with a keypad upon it -- but the letters are ancient and unintelligible to you... until a cold whisper briefly tells that these are the script of the Zeboim. Failing that, you seem to be able to see white, mercurial blood prints on the keypad -- this could drastically reduce the amount of guesswork needed to pass through. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Tire===========================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 5 *>========================= ======================< Results - An Ancient Password >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 79 --(9)--> 88 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 67 --(0)--> 67 Pass Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 79 --(0)--> 79 Pass O'Malley's Takeout Box 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 79 --(9)--> 88 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 70 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Slow(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Harmaus is easy to miss--his pale fur blends in with the snow and gloom and bleached rock. Fafnir doesn't notice him until he speaks. The Hyadean's eyes narrow, and he bares teeth in a snarl; the only thing keeping him from lashing out at the Seraph is the too-recent memory of alien sorceries ripping through stone. Fafnir forces his face into an expression of muted distaste. It comes far too easily.
Coward.
"What message?" Fafnir says, his voice raw and full of pain. "What happened to her?" Gwen said something about the future, earlier. Pressing a hand to his temple, the soldier wracks his brain, his thoughts twisting and roiling like the clouds of a thunderstorm. Someone said something to him in another dream. He'd died? But he was still alive. None of this makes any sense.
Gwen rests a hand on Fafnir's shoulder, and he tenses, reflexively. His camouflage poncho is smooth, and slick with melt-water; there's light, flexible armor beneath it. Fafnir turns back to her, and his face twists. "I'm not hungry. Astrid..."
The door, at least, gives him a problem to solve. Ethius' lens detects the light of the Ley pulsing beneath the surface; it may be corrupted by Rahab's presence, but it flows from rune to rune, highlighting a pattern in the panels. Fafnir rules out some of the bloodstains from this, and investigates others. After a few minutes, the door slides open. A gust of gelid aid rushes past them, blowing the young scout's poncho back.
Beyond lies a field of snow, and then a rime-dusted waterfall. Icy waters well up from somewhere beneath the earth before plunging into the depths. They don't have time to linger. The air above them grows even colder, and reality inverts with a sickening, shuddering *pop*. The half-skeletal head of Astrid's Dragon emerges from the hole, eyes burning with the Primarch's light. Jagged, serrated teeth gleam against the exposed bone of her jaw.
"Run," Fafnir says. "RUN!" But there's nowhere to run, except downwards, towards the water, and the thing lurking beneath its surface. Fafnir can see its eyes, the vast, shapeless bulk of its tentacles. It feels like...
"Did you do this to her?" he asks, and his voice is like a drawn blade, a cocked ARM. "Did you do this?" There's no answer. Fafnir lurches forwards, feet churning up the snow as he rushes for the edge. Daredevil courage grips his heart, aided by raw terror and desperate, burning rage. He hurls himself off the cliff.
"LET HER GO!" Fafnir roars, and while his voice breaks, there's a hint of the fierce, defiant anger that will one day become--became?--something for Filgaians to fear. He whips an arm out, and a grapple fires from behind his wrist, latching onto the cave wall with a snap-hiss. Fafnir reels himself in, and isn't halfway there before he fires a second grapple from his boot; that pulls him sideways, stabilizes his flight somewhat. It's still terribly reckless. He's already survived one fall.
DG: Fafnir has used his Tool Aerial Maneuver Webbing toward his party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Somewhere in all this exchange, once Fafnir ascertains the correct course of action to getting the door open, Ethius shoots a look over to Gwen.
"This is a delicate matter. We are here to locate..." He stops. "We. We? We." He dwells on that. 'We.' Another awkward pause follows, as he eyes Harmaus too, letting Fafnir run ahead with all the urgency, anger, and fear of a worst case scenario he seems to 'get' by osmosis but there are building snarls in the train of logic as to the hows and whys of here.
This may be a mistake, because they are living in the middle of one of Fafnir's worst nightmares... in a frigid landscape where none can afford to stand around and let the cold settle in. To say little of the 'pop' noise that gets the eardrums complaining in kind. The fallen Dragon that hounded them prior appears again, and there appears to be only one route of escape as the lot of them are cornered before a waterfall.
Taking up the rear, Ethius looks upon the fearsome visage of the dead Dragon and can feel a rising tension in his chest. There are limits to his discipline, limits that may have already been crossed.
"Don't let him out of your sight," Ethius says as he holds aloft a gnarled wooden staff adorned with bell-like trinkets, slamming it into the ground with a metaphysical force as haunting ringing fills the path. The command for all natural forces to stop. Stop, and listen to what the wielder of the staff says. (Except for the part where Ethius, once again, crank calls nature.)
He makes a convincing argument for being a wizard - backing away and following suit some moments later when it becomes clear that Fafnir is, indeed, going to hurl himself out of everyone's sight.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Staff of Audience toward his party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
A young soldier Fafnir may be, but he's still a soldier. A Hyadean one, at that, back during the reign of Mother in all her authoritarian grasp on their culture and mindset. "She's... not like this. Certainly not dead or whatever. She's even fought me a coupla times. I also know 'bout how she cares about you, and you her," Gwen answers, pulling her left hand back as Fafnir clenches his body. "As for the message, I think that's up to you. We're probably here to find out our own answers as much as you are." Maybe it's a journey for all of them. Gwen.... is simply focusing on the person who seems the most affected by it all. If Ethius had been in a similar state, or even Harmaus, Gwen realizes she'd be just as likely playing the same role for them. Or trying to. And likely miserably failing, in Harmaus's case.
Because that's just the sort of person she's always been, at her core. She could care less about a mystery or a message; she wants people to find theirs the same way she's found hers, so long ago.
"Yep, it's a 'we'," Gwen agrees with Ethius, grinning. "Unless y'mean somethin' else."
The way she keeps finding her mystery, even still. Maybe, that's her message.
Looking over and down the waterfall onto the lands below, Gwen whistkes. "It still is really pretty down here. Kinda sad it's so dangerous; I'd come back here more often if it weren't. That, n' the whole 'can't swim' deal." She shrugs, and nearly falls over the waterfall's edge herself when the ground shudders. The air is ripped through with a loud shriek, and the Metal Dragon comes down. "Shit, this is a dead end!"
But not for those willing to jump. Like Fafnir, thankfully aided with his grapple. "What the- h-hey! Where y'going?!" The Metal Dragon snaps forward and Gwen is forced to duck, rotting metallic flesh flashing by too close to her nose for comfort. "I-I'll try t'follow but he just jumped! I can't fly!"
She'll have to try to climb down.
".... Fafnir, I'm gonna come after you!!"
It's as much a warning as it is a head's up, as she tries to quickly scale down the rocks beside the waterfall.
Which was immediately a bad idea, she realizes, as her next stop, after her hands slip, is one of those lovely looking trees a few meters below. "Shitshitshit, this is bad!"
DG: Gwen Whitlock has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Gwen asks Harmaus how he's doing. "Ah? Is fine," he answers simply, having already trotted over a few steps to watch the proceedings. As he had been when they arrived, he appears to be far more concerned with the washing up to be had than the puzzle with which they are in the process of resolving. "Strange place, stranger circumstances but... is fine. Learning much, this night... ah, or perhaps day?"
The door opens after a period, grinding slowly as it reveals the passage ahead.
"We locates?" Harmaus remarks, echoing Ethius's remark. "Yes, yes, we locates. Somewhere here, rests Rahab. But only in a dream! Deeply, deeply, deeply yet... do not desist! No harm comes, whatever we attempts!"
Which is a fair thing for him to say. When he wakes, it will be in his proper corpus. For others, it may not be so.
There is a field of snow ahead of them. Harmaus leaps through the drifts for a time, glittering light trailing each high jump.
But only for a time. From the depths of the frozen waterfall ahead rises that half-dead dragon, awash with the Primarch's power.
He had said this was a dream and they should not fear death, but it is one thing to die in a dream and another to die before the end has been reached.
"Fly, fools!" snaps Harmaus, leaping over the edge without hesitation. There is only just the tiny ring of bell. Light swirls about him, filling him.
He flies down alongside the frozen waterfall, the ice shining green-violet-yellow with his celestrial trail.
DG: You must use a Tool that matches the Challenge's Dungeon Ability. If you do not have one, use the matching Basic Action instead by typing +act Brute DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Fall of the Dragon.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - Fall of the Dragon *>===================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- You are at the top of a flowing waterfall, broken by the roots of the chalky trees that have oft dotted the Temple's landscape. Below, eyes and tendrils break the surface of the icy lake like waves -- the nest of the Detestable is close at hand. The Detestable Pale draws near... The water's surface breaks and lashes. A bone-chilling shriek splits the air, and something massive rushes at you from above. A fifty-foot Metal Dragon, perhaps the same one as before, throws itself at you. Its flesh is riddled with tears and rents, and it is clearly dead, but it still moves. Tendrils of lashing water stress at its shaven metallic flesh. Bulbous, distending eyes burst from the cracks within its bones, dripping with mercurial blood. You've no way forward but down the waterfall -- but be careful you do not slip, for it may not be mere water at the bottom of the basin! =Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 6 *>========================= =======================< Results - Fall of the Dragon >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 88 --(5)--> 93 Pass Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 67 --(5)--> 72 Pass Staff of Audience 4 Agility Effects: nothing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fafnir 79 --(17)--> 96 Fail Aerial Maneuver Webbing 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gwen Whitlock 88 --(17)--> 105 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 80 --(0)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Save Point(1) Effects: Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Gwen Whitlock is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Fafnir has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>==============================
================<* CHALLENGE - Flash of the Detestable Pale *>================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Your descent downwards has finally taken you to the edge of the basin, to a
hideous mass of bulbous eyes and writhing, tainted tendrils. In the center
of the mass is a brilliant blue-white light, a pinprick of primordial energy
that threatens to shear away at your very being.
Those of Filgaian sorcerous inclinations may know that this is a Leyline...
and being exposed to it for long periods of time is in no way healthy.
The voice of the Primarch is audible to all:
Immerse thyself...
...within the Pale...
...Call upon my name...
...and walk beyond the Ley...
As the undead Dragon descends, the Leyline shimmers and starts to burst with
ardent power, spitting out dangerous bursts of raw magic in its wake. You
could potentially use it against the beast, but be quick, lest you be
exposed to Filgaia's very own lifeline!
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Fafnir's second grapnel is well-aimed, but the rock shelf it sinks into starts to groan the instant he puts weight on it. Water has seeped into the stone over centuries, producing hairline fractures with each freeze. What looks, at first, like a stable part of the wall... isn't. Fafnir has just enough time to stare, wild-eyed, at the stone before it cr--
*STOP*
The pulse of Ethius' authority washes through the cavern. Gwen loses her footing in that same instant, but the water seems to cradle her as she flows down the waterfall. It's cold and deeply unpleasant even without the Primarch's presence, but she won't drown. Fafnir lands beside her once again, grimacing and shifting his weight onto his left leg. "Gwen," he says, "what just--what happened?" It's like everything just stopped, and it feels like something did it, but he doesn't know what. It wasn't the Primarch, was it? He remembers what Gwen told him a few scant minutes ago, and he presses a hand to his temple. "Not dead. Then why...? I just--"
The Primarch's presence wells up, and Fafnir feels the alien heartbeat of Filgaia crashing against his consciousness like waves. He snarls. "Stop," he growls. A burst of purest blue crackles past his right ear, missing him by inches. Above, Astrid wheels about, and prepares to dive. "Astrid, Mother, I--if you can't stop yourself, I--!" Fafnir rushes forwards, letting his reflexes take over. He uses the webbing with pinpoint precision, now, just like he did in urban-reconnaissance training; he makes little, sharp pulls, moving from icy stalagmite to boulder to stalactite to frozen tree. The Ley crackles around him. It feels... horrible, but it doesn't burn like it should. It should reject him. This world should reject him.
Why isn't it?
DG: Fafnir has used his Tool Aerial Maneuver Webbing toward his party's challenge, Flash of the Detestable Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Slowly, Harmaus alights on the floor of the basin below.
Never before has he stood so close to the pulse of the Blue Star. Never has such a title before been so apt, for all is awash in the energy of Muse, a deep blue throb down in the nucleus of this space -- what had once been and what may yet again: this former throne and prison both of the Primarch Rahab, 'Hadal'.
"This force... I feel it. No, more, more than that," Harmaus murmurs, standing before the Leyline's point. This is a brilliance brighter -- bright as -- the sun in the sky. In truth Filgaia is itself a star.
"Hear! Here beats its heart!" Harmaus calls out, the throbbing mass of emotion and force washing over him. "What finds us within? I will seek it!"
Even now, the once-stalled dragon descends.
"Now! With Blue Star's power... end it!"
Even now there is the chiming of a bell. That green-violet auroric light trails out behind him as he takes to the air. He is a comet: the Leyline is his star. He moves to orbit it as perilously as any wandering star might, on his own most-erratic pilgrimage.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Fairy Bell toward his party's challenge, Flash of the Detestable Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius, last to disengage from the encroaching Dragon, would be far too slow to follow Harmaus' directions were he not successful in... stopping the flow of things, if only for so long. The Hot Air Sack's makeshift envelope fills with Symbologically conjured hot air, and Ethius starts drifting from on high - but some sort of unseen pressure pulls him down lower, lower, and lower, lifting up a leg to avoid contact from the bluest of the blue force of energy filling the cavern.
In reality, he was here - he traveled through this place. The sensations are oppressive in their familiarity, only a pressing focus on 'being here for a reason' enough to anchor the subconscious to not be overwhelmed by the memory. Context... is touch-and-go, as these scenarios often are.
There's a vacantness in his gaze, where it is normally sharp and unwavering, as a free hand goes to his forehead. As an incredible battle of recollection and ephemeral opportunism happens underneath, he seems to float forth aimlessly beyond 'the direction away from the dragon.'
"...I'm not here for them," he asserts, cryptically, without so much as looking to what goes on beneath.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Flash of the Detestable Pale.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
The tree cracks from the impact of Gwen's body falling against it, and then she falls, tries to grip on more stone, and, eventually, she's in the grip of the water itself, bone-chillingly cold.
But, at least, she doesn't drown.
Sputtering on the ground and shivering, Gwen looks up at Fafnir. ".... 'Dunno," she finally manages, unable to offer much else for Fafnir's questions.
Oh Guardians, it's calling to her. Nope, this is not a good thing, she's not doing this _again_. "Rahab, real sorry, I don't think I could survive a second time, Barely survived Setanta. Can only take so much."
She's still coughing as she gets up. The cold, at least, made her a little adverse towards moving towards anything at all, even the siren song of what lies beyond.
'Now! With Blue Star's power... end it!'
"Wait no, that's Setanta's--" She's running awkwardly towards Harmaus, her body bareky responding to her commands. It is a dream, so the exposure to this amount of cold does not kill her, but it's still deeply unpleasant.
But the burst of blue from the equally dangerous Primarch forces the courier to press her hands over her eyes. "Gh...!"
Damn it, she can't stop any of them!
She can barely stop herself....
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>==============================
================<* CHALLENGE - Flash of the Detestable Pale *>================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Your descent downwards has finally taken you to the edge of the basin, to a
hideous mass of bulbous eyes and writhing, tainted tendrils. In the center
of the mass is a brilliant blue-white light, a pinprick of primordial energy
that threatens to shear away at your very being.
Those of Filgaian sorcerous inclinations may know that this is a Leyline...
and being exposed to it for long periods of time is in no way healthy.
The voice of the Primarch is audible to all:
Immerse thyself...
...within the Pale...
...Call upon my name...
...and walk beyond the Ley...
As the undead Dragon descends, the Leyline shimmers and starts to burst with
ardent power, spitting out dangerous bursts of raw magic in its wake. You
could potentially use it against the beast, but be quick, lest you be
exposed to Filgaia's very own lifeline!
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
=========================<* Hadal Temple - Round 7 *>=========================
==================< Results - Flash of the Detestable Pale >==================
Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraph Harmaus 93 --(13)--> 106 Pass
Fairy Bell 2 Agility Effects: Quicken
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethius Hesiod 72 --(13)--> 85 Pass
Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fafnir 96 --(13)--> 109 Pass
Aerial Maneuver Webbing 2 Agility Effects: Quicken
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gwen Whitlock 105 --(X)--> X
Effects:
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Seraph Harmaus 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass
Conditions: Suffer(1)
Effects: Quicken(1)|Resilient(1)
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Seraph Harmaus is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fafnir is too exhausted to continue! DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has successfully explored Hadal Temple!
==============================<* Hadal Temple *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Befouled Crest Graph *>==================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- With a thunderous roar, the Primarch departs, its mass pulling deeper into the earth like water being sucked down a drain. Within a minute, it's gone, and its departure reveals a path in the wreckage around its nest. It leads to a cliff-face, overlooking a cavern saturated with a thick haze. Sitting inside, half-buried in the earth, is the hull of a massive, derelict skyship. Between the mist, the sheer drop, and your own exhaustion, you'll have to wait another day to get there. With the Primarch gone, though, you're free to explore its antechamber. On one of its walls, you discover... what appears to be a stone Crest Graph, etched with the mark of Muse. You can feel the Primarch's Taint upon it, however... whether you keep it for your own -- very possibly dangerous -- experiments in magic or destroy it is entirely up to you. =Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fafnir has posed.
Up above, Astrid lets loose with a bone-shaking roar. Fafnir doesn't need to look to know she'll be on them in a matter of moments. Harmaus streaks ahead to his right, a brilliant blur of color surrounding his corpus. Out of all those here, he's the one who has the best odds of surviving direct contact with the Ley--after all, it's his birthplace, and his home. Ethius and Gwen and Fafnir are mortal, and are left in the Seraph's dazzling wake. Memories of Ley-bolts spray everywhere. One misses Fafnir's right thigh by inches. One comes dangerously close to Ethius' head. One whizzes by Gwen's right shoulder, leaving a cold, tingly, and deeply disconcerting feeling in that limb. She can shrug it off, but... is that a tiny fraction of what Astrid felt?
Above, Astrid descends like a raptor stooping towards its prey, claws bared, jaws agape--
The Ley erupts. Wild energies slam into her; her wings snap up, and she overshoots her landing site, slamming into the edge of the icy lake. Her body gouges out a great furrow in the rock and ice. Stressed bones bend and break. Half-decomposed flesh tears. The Ley tempest dies as swiftly as it began.
Tears well up in Fafnir's eyes. He runs towards her the moment he sees her war form starting to disintegrate--and as he does, the environs of Hadal Temple start to fall away. A Photosphere barracks floor replaces the cold, rocky ground. The air takes on an alien scent. Astrid sits on the bunk below Fafnir's, wearing a new combatant's jumpsuit, and cradling something in her hand. Like him, she looks... young, unfinished. Her face and body are softer, and she's smaller--a far cry from the hardened spear-bearer she will one day become.
"I found this," Astrid says, and she looks up at Fafnir like nothing happened. "One of the humans dropped it as they ran. I think it's... related to the energies they channel."
A memory. This Astrid is not the same Astrid who was terrorizing them mere moments ago. Nevertheless, Fafnir does the unthinkable.
He sweeps her into a tight, warm hug, even as she squeaks in surprise and glances around furiously in case any of their superiors are watching.
Fafnir looks at the others through a blurry haze--his focus is on Gwen, but Ethius has earned some, as well. "Thank you..." he whispers.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
For Ethius, his consciousness - his place in this landscape - starts to go blurry as he's fighting himself to wake up, back to the waking world he has very specific things he needs to do. He is momentarily distracted by the sounds his boots make on the Photosphere, and out of habit puts one hand over his mouth as his bandanna disappears. Somehow, that entire episode is the most memorable part of it outside of the encounter with Mother proper, like the fact it happened at all continues to bother him.
The conversation between Fafnir and Astrid feels as though he were right there, in one of the places the speakers currently occupy - but he's not acknowledging their faces. It's not his concern.
'Thank you,' Fafnir whispers with gratitude, and the in-dream Ethius closes his eyes. As if he knows... he's never supposed to be hearing that.
He leaves the long-suffering duo to their devices within this snapshot of subconscious en route to something that may well one day be subject to something like this.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Gh!" Gwen grunts as that ley bolt whizzes by her right shoulder, the entire ARM jerking in response.
Her left hand holds onto her right ARM and she glances up, her face still wrinkled in a wince. It hurts, just to feel a little bit of it. Was this what Astrid felt, if just the tiniest bit?
The dragon sails overhead, and disintegrates. Gwen wouldn't be able to move, even if she wanted to- her body is spent as is.
But, maybe, it was enough, as she witnesses something she never thought she'd ever see: Astrid and Fafnir, together.
Gwen quietly weeps through her smile, quickly wiping her eyes with her forearm and quickly giving Fafnir a thumbs up.
He may think she's actually distraught to see this otherwise, as Zed had been.
.... Maybe, somewhere, Astrid is having this same dream.
Gwen can only hope.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
There is brilliance beyond brilliance, the closer Harmaus descends towards the Leyline, each pass taking him nearer to the pulse of the planet. One final swing close to this fragment of the Blue Star's might and then--
Ah, there is light.
The world around Harmaus erupts into a cascade of endless light, the whole of his awareness, the whole of the world about him taken up by it. Here, in this place of all places, he can feel.
He can know.
When the light fades, when the scene changes, he is nowhere to be seen.
Nowhere.
For him, the dream continues, if down a separate path.
For him, the dream tells him of ceaseless glory and endless knowledge, and him, the sole heir.
Alas, but only tatters shall remain when he awakens, but it will not all be in vain.
...Perhaps.