2022-08-11: Discord

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DG: A party led by Seraphita is now entering Xenobia's Library.
DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Second-Floor Window *>======================
| Type: Entry        | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Xenobia's Library is a large tower. Getting here was not trivial, for it      
  involved a long hike through treacherous foothills that few ever cross. Now,  
  the imposing tower stands before you, with ancient Yevonite sculptures        
  carved on the outside. There is a long pathway leading up to a set of         
  stairs.                                                                       
                                                                                
  Unfortunately, this set of stairs has fallen into disrepair and crumbled.     
  The door is flat against the building, which makes it hard to enter.          
  However, by climbing the statues and decorations, you can reach a window on   
  the second floor.                                                             
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|           Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure! and Slow:_Agility_Down!          |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

Solaris waits for nobody.

The plans at Macalenia went awry, perhaps catastrophically, but there's always something else to do - some way which events can be turned to advantage. One of those routes is by sending Solarian operatives, already in Spira, to other tasks.

Such as Xenobia's Tower.

Xenobia's Tower is in the back end of nowhere; a long walk through hills and near-mountains. Perhaps it would be easier to get there in a Gear, but Seraphita didn't. She wasn't at Macalania, and Grandgrowl is intact, but it would be too obvious if they just sent the Gear flying across the land, even if it could carry everybody else. (It probably could, but it wouldn't be comfortable for anyone.)

Seraphita has been assigned to a lot of exploration and ... 'study' isn't the right word, perhaps, especially given it's Seraphita. But she's been going to a lot of far-flung places and giving reports back, so perhaps it's not a surprise that she's got the expedition out here, too. She's probably not in *charge*, precisely, given who else came along - but it's definitely something the Elements have been up to. She's even been here before!

Not inside, but at least to the structure. "The only entrance I found isn't on the bottom floor! Which is kind of a weird place for it, who puts the stairs to the main door on the outside? But the stairs fell down. So you have to climb up. Or fly up, I guess." SOME people can do that. She can't.

"See, there it is!" Seraphita points up at the door with the broken stairs. "It's not too hard to get to really, you just have to - " Seraphita takes a few steps back, then sprints, dropping some gritty powder as she leaps into the air.

It ignites with a flash of her Ether, bursting and sending her on a launched path in a long arc. Now all she has to do is get to the door without splatting against the wall... which is why she twists so she can hit it feet first. Just in case.

DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Rocket Sand toward her party's challenge, Second-Floor Window. Quicken! Party Agility
boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Step-STEP, step-STEP. Slowly, Leah Sadalbari makes her way across the mountainous terrain. She is dressed in more ordinary attire than her armor... save that her long gloves are absent, and there is open machinery visible on her arms, the synthetic skin partly scoured away enough to show some of the inner workings of her cybernetics. Dark metal bars and gears, though mercifully, the area where they attach to flesh is still obscured.

The Major also didn't go in a Gear. Instead, she's here with the others, and there when they find a structure...

Leah regards Seraphita's jump with a nod, and then snaps her fingers. She leaps into the air, coming to an abrubt stop as she manipulates her gravity module to come down at the second window with enough force that it will be an obvious sound around them.

"So it seems."

DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Gravity Module toward her party's challenge, Second-Floor Window. Stalwart! Party
shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    When Loren had returned from Macalania, it had been rather belated. But it wasn't as if he had been the only one to do so -- some soldiers had gotten quite scattered, and with communications down, they had also been forced to take the long road home.

    For someone as luckless as Loren, is it any surprise he had a similar fate?

    He had reported nothing unusual. It had been the same thing that anyone else had encountered: poor weather, Fiends, and a long trek back.
    He's been quiet since. Surely that's nothing unusual itself.

    He didn't bring Schiehallion, even if it had been finishing repairs from a separate incident off-site and thus been spared the worst. But then, there's no real need for it.
    Funny. He'd finished a survey of this same site just before...

    "Yeah. It doesn't seem to have any viable entry on the ground floor," he answers, shading his eyes as he turns his attention up towards the second floor. "It was the same the last time I was here. We'll have to climb it--"

    Or, jump. If you have those sorts of skills.

    Loren just watches the two make their ascent, his expression carefully neutral-- well, up until the point where he sighs and tries to climb up.
    It's fine. It'll build character, probably.

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Second-Floor Window. 
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia Seren is feeling pretty GROUCHY because a certain KILLER ROBOT did an OOPSIE WOOPSIE and mauled a LANNIE WANNIE.

And so when Lydia is assigned to this mission--her initial thoughts upon seeing Leah and Loren and which are voiced well before she can stop herself is, "So did you guys get Lan killed or did she actually make it?" She can't really blame Azoth for it and really it's even out of Loren's control too but that doesn't mean she isn't sore about it! Because Lan was IS her friend and she doesn't like to hear about her BLOOD FLYING OUT OF HER BODY.

She fans out her wings and floats herself up by propelling rainbows out of the thrusters. Flight's the best part about having your body forcibly converted into a tiny machine colony. That's a fact.

"Bet we're going to have to fight books here." She grumbles due to repeated personal life experiences. "Because true literature should be confrontational I guess."

DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Icarus Wings toward her party's challenge, Second-Floor Window. Quicken! Party Agility
boosted!
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Second-Floor Window *>======================
| Type: Entry        | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Xenobia's Library is a large tower. Getting here was not trivial, for it      
  involved a long hike through treacherous foothills that few ever cross. Now,  
  the imposing tower stands before you, with ancient Yevonite sculptures        
  carved on the outside. There is a long pathway leading up to a set of         
  stairs.                                                                       
                                                                                
  Unfortunately, this set of stairs has fallen into disrepair and crumbled.     
  The door is flat against the building, which makes it hard to enter.          
  However, by climbing the statues and decorations, you can reach a window on   
  the second floor.                                                             
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|         Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, and         |
|                             Slow:_Agility_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=======================<* Xenobia's Library - Round 1 *>========================
=======================< Results - Second-Floor Window >========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraphita                           0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Rocket Sand                         2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lydia Seren                         0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Icarus Wings                        2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah Sadalbari                      0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Gravity Module                      2   Agility Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(17)--> 17                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Seraphita                   0 --(20)--> 20                 Pass
Conditions: Injure(2)|Slow(2)
Effects: Quicken(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

Seraphita just kind of boots through. She's thrown herself around with this so often she knows pretty much exactly where she's going when she launches herself; a quick jet of flame from her arm keeps her on track, boosting her just a little bit higher so that she kicks the entrance open and continues on through, rolling on the other side. "Ta-daa!"

It's not hard for either of the others to fly up, either. Lydia can just ascend on wings; Leah brings herself up a bit more noisily (though probably not much more noisily than Seraphita's impact). It's only Loren who really has to work.

Seraphita did not bring a rope. She rarely needs one. But she does stick her hand out for him to grab and pull him up the last bit.

"What's that about Lan?" she asks, because nobody told her. "Is she okay??" She knows that Loren and Leah wouldn't have attacked Lan (well, probably not, in Leah's case) so it isn't *that*.

DG: Leah Sadalbari has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - The Spider's Web *>=======================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You enter a room that is between the stack rooms. Here, unlike much of        
  Xenobia's Library, one can kind no shelves filled with books. Instead, there  
  is a chasm -- a canal, really, that leads down into darkness -- and a bridge  
  over it. The stone bridge has broken away, though. Instead, there is a        
  massive spider's web -- with huge, thick strands of sticky webbing that make  
  a bridge across.                                                              
                                                                                
  There is, also, a book on the ground. A bookmark is tucked into a page,       
  conveniently; it seems some explorers had made use of it. A trio of           
  skeletons in the webbing suggests their fate. The page shows a drawing of an  
  immense spider and a note: 'During the War of the Magic Emperor, Lady         
  Xenobia was known for an arachnid companion: Lolikea, an enormous             
  spider-like creature that she used when attacking Vane and Meribia during     
  that conflict.'                                                               
                                                                                
  Crossing the gap means crossing Lolikea's webbing. It is terrifically sticky  
  -- each step is an enormous effort, and it is too easy to end up unable to    
  pull free. You may well need to blast some of the webbing away -- or using    
  your might and tools to pull friends free.                                    
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|          Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!,          |
|     Madness:_Wits_Down!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, Slow:_Agility_Down!, and      |
|                             Weaken:_Brute_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"That's a question for Loren," Leah answers Lydia about Lan. "When last I saw her, she was with him."

What she feels about this is not at all obvious; she neither sounds callously uncaring nor especially worried; her expression and demeanor are neutral, guarded. That's all.

But she nods to Seraphita when they make it up. "Your experience will be useful," she tells Loren, and then, at the matter of the books...

"Probably."

She reaches down to help Loren the rest of the way up, as needed, and then will pause, to let the question be answered.

After that she will turn towards the entrance, and head inside. This entrance is between the stacks, more of a window than a door. It's a chasm, a canal, a broken bridge...

Leah kneels down and looks at the book. "During the War of the Magic Emperor..."

There is a web ahead. Leah considers it.

DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Crowbar toward her party's challenge, The Spider's Web. Stalwart! Party shielded
from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Loren goes pale the moment Lydia says those words. Yes -- he manages to noticably pale even in spite of his natural coloration being decidedly such already.

    He doesn't respond, not immediately, his gaze tracking between Seraphita and Leah as they express their concern and the facts of the matter in turn.

    "Of-- course she's alright!"

    He blurts it out, all of a sudden. He hadn't said a thing about this in his report. "--And what's wrong with you, anyway?!" he says, his attention returning to Lydia. "Who asks someone something like that...!"

    He may well come off as a little more brittle than usual.

    Perhaps that's behind the reason for him slipping a few times (never dangerously) as he makes his way up the wall. He'll take that offered hand, though -- Seraphita is strong and hauls him up over the last few inches.

    There are traces of webbing in here.

    "Oh no."

    If he's palmed a particularly smooth stone and gripped it tightly in his left hand, it's surely understandable why. "We don't actually have to go this way, do we?" Of course they do.
    He just doesn't want to think about the giant spider that's (probably) still around.

    Also the webbing is sticky. He'll need to focus Ether to try to unstick himself (or other people) as they make their way across.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, The Spider's Web. Stalwart! Party shielded
from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia says, "What's wrong with me?? Gee, I don't know!! Maybe I'm upset because the reason she's hurt in the first place is because one of my closest friends mauled another one of my close friends because y'all left his settings on Murder."

Lydia does quiet down a bit once she sees that Loren is having trouble with the platforming. She's mad but not 'try to get Loren to trip and fall and die' mad.
"Work in a factory on the surface and you expect safety rails and maybe a big button you can push to turn off heavy equipment but in the sky police your slave robots don't automatically exit murder mode if nobody tells them to stop murdering."

She grumbles all the way, swinging her bat wildly, knocking free excess webbing, but more or less stomaches through the webbing the hard and annoying way. "Spiders are misunderstood," She grumbles as Leah shares information about some kind of super attack spider.

"Ugh this is some world wide web." She complains.

"There needs to be some kind of standards and practices here," She says. "Just because we're the evil empire doesn't mean we can just leave our robots on Kill Mode. I mean you could just do the 'leash' thing like you've got with me, can't you? Or even better yet, how 'bout we just free him so he can live his giant robot life in peace and better the universe by being cute at people."

DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Tiebreaker V 2.0 toward her party's challenge, The Spider's Web. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

Seraphita has been working out to heft Loren up like that, apparently. But that's nothing new.

Leah reads a book. Seraphita doesn't. Instead she wanders over to the webs, crouching down next to them. She picks up a chunk of broken stone from something that probably was from a railing, a long time ago, and pokes the web with it.

Once, because the stone sticks and she doesn't manage to pull it away.

"Don't be afraid! There's no spider here," Seraphita assures Loren. "Because that was a long time ago and it would be dead!" Pause. "Though I guess the web is still sticky so you should be careful about that. I can't pull you out if I can't reach you."

"And as long as you're sure she's all right..." Seraphita looks from Lydia to Loren again. "We are *not* an evil empire," she objects. "But... wait, was it Azoth?" Azoth has attacked Seraphita before too, but she thought - "I thought that was fixed! That's why I went and found Ovelia and everything, to make sure it was."

The real reason, of course, was so that Azoth could meet her again. But she can't say that in front of people. She's pretty sure Lydia will figure it out.

Frowning, as deep in thought as Seraphita ever is, she looks at the web. "I'll go last," she says. And she does - because when she runs across, she leaves little flaming footprints to make sure she's not going to get stuck. It's not enough to burn through the web, but enough to leave black streaks on the surface.

And if someone does get stuck, she has a plan - to use tiny explosives to get them out. Don't worry. This is normal. As long as she's careful, it's even safe-ish!

DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Ether-Primed Explosive toward her party's challenge, The Spider's Web. Strengthen! Party
Brute boosted!
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - The Spider's Web *>=======================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You enter a room that is between the stack rooms. Here, unlike much of        
  Xenobia's Library, one can kind no shelves filled with books. Instead, there  
  is a chasm -- a canal, really, that leads down into darkness -- and a bridge  
  over it. The stone bridge has broken away, though. Instead, there is a        
  massive spider's web -- with huge, thick strands of sticky webbing that make  
  a bridge across.                                                              
                                                                                
  There is, also, a book on the ground. A bookmark is tucked into a page,       
  conveniently; it seems some explorers had made use of it. A trio of           
  skeletons in the webbing suggests their fate. The page shows a drawing of an  
  immense spider and a note: 'During the War of the Magic Emperor, Lady         
  Xenobia was known for an arachnid companion: Lolikea, an enormous             
  spider-like creature that she used when attacking Vane and Meribia during     
  that conflict.'                                                               
                                                                                
  Crossing the gap means crossing Lolikea's webbing. It is terrifically sticky  
  -- each step is an enormous effort, and it is too easy to end up unable to    
  pull free. You may well need to blast some of the webbing away -- or using    
  your might and tools to pull friends free.                                    
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|      Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!,     |
|     Madness:_Wits_Down!, Slow:_Agility_Down!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and     |
|                             Weaken:_Brute_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=======================<* Xenobia's Library - Round 2 *>========================
=========================< Results - The Spider's Web >=========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraphita                           0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Ether-Primed Explosive              2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lydia Seren                         0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Tiebreaker V 2.0                    4   Brute   Effects: Efficient and Rally  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah Sadalbari                      0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Crowbar                             2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          17 --(12)--> 29                Fail
Worry Stone                         2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Seraphita                   20 --(20)--> 40                Pass
Conditions: Cripple|Injure(1)|Madness|Slow(1)|Weaken(2)
Effects: Efficient|Strengthen(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

'Of course' she's all right? Leah lifts an eyebrow. "She could've easily died," Leah points out. "There is no 'of course' about it. Not so long as she keeps putting her life on the line for you and others, Loren." What's wrong with Lydia? Leah doesn't answer that one. That's for Lydia to answer. But the way her close friends interact...

Leah watches Lydia for a moment. She considers her, thoughtfully. And then she moves on.

"Spiders... are fascinating creatures," Leah agrees with Lydia. But there is the matter of a spider being here, and the web is still sticky, and--

As it turns out Seraphita's explosives are necessary. Lydia's bat does a lot of good, and Leah's crowbar gets her through fine, but Loren gets stuck and has more to complain about as Seraphita has the plan to get him out once again. It's safe... ish.

But Leah has more to say about what's said, and, "...We are all of us obligated to do what we must. 'Choice' is an illusion for most people in this world. Some of us simply know that more directly."

She sounds... kind of tired, actually. But it may just be the webs. It's probably just the webs. It would have to be.

"It is not 'fixed' because the primary purpose of Azoth in our ranks is to neutralize, destroy, and kill our enemies. As long as Lan continues to oppose Solaris, she takes her life into her own hands whenever she does. Perhaps that is 'choice'..."

"But do you think she does it only because it's what she thinks is right, Loren?"

DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Locked Away Tome *>=======================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  The hallway that you enter now comes to a dead end. Every wall is filled      
  with shelving. Most of them are filled with books -- numerous tomes, bound    
  in leather and stranger materials, and many quite dusty -- but the one at     
  the end of the hallway is empty, save for one book. That book is bound: a     
  lock is placed on it, with chains that seal it shut.                          
                                                                                
  The spine is telling: 'THEORY OF TELEPORTATION, Published by Vane Magic       
  Guild.' And, indeed, it is faintly aglow; one familiar with the history of    
  magic may be aware that this likely is tied to a teleporter that will bring   
  one to somewhere else in the ruin.                                            
                                                                                
  If, of course, they can open the book.                                        
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|             Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Madness:_Wits_Down!,            |
|   Secret:_Exploration_Up!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down!    |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "I didn't tell him to do that!" Loren yells back at Lydia, curling both hands into fists. Azoth didn't even respond when he had told him to stop. It was like he'd been on autopilot, become the sort of killing machine Loren had always feared had lurked beneath the surface.

    He's still fuming when he reaches the top with Seraphita's help.

    Leah joins in with Lydia. Loren turns towards her abruptly, visibly bewildered. "But--"

    He already knows. That's why Lan hadn't run, even though she might have been able to.
    He appears to struggle for a moment, searching for the right words, but ultimately remains silent for a time.

    "Then what made the..." he says to Seraphita, shifting gears for the moment as she mentions that it's probably dead, and that the web is mere obstacle. Loren regards her in silence for a few moments more. "...Right," he settles for, as if he weren't going to press that matter anymore.

    'We're not an evil empire', Seraphita argues; Loren doesn't chime in. "Yeah," he says instead, when she asks if was Azoth. "He was... I don't know. I don't know what happened at all. He's done this before?"

    Loren hadn't reported it.
    Yet, Leah knows... what occured.

    He doesn't look over at her, or her strange limbs.

    "...I don't know," he tells Leah.
    He doesn't know what all the reasons are why Lan does the things she does. But he can guess after some of them.

    He'll need help more than a few times as he crosses the bridge, his focus to some degree shattered beyond what the stone can help him with. He grumbles, yes, but it's far more muted than his usual degree of griping, attenuated by the thoughts that still run through his head. And eventually they're across, meeting the beginning of a long hallway.

    A very long hallway. It continues for a long time.

    And eventually presents them with a dead end.

    "Great," Loren sighs, turning about to regard all the shelves. He doesn't suppose one of these is a secret switch--

    Well, that shelf does only have one book, but it doesn't look promising. As a switch, that is. The title on the spine on the other hand...

    "Who chains up a book?"

    He's had a death grip on the stone which hasn't let up in the slightest since the conversation in the be-webbed chamber. In the form of a needle-width burst of earth Ether, he expends a bit of those emotions against the book's lock.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Locked Away Tome. Stalwart! Party shielded
from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia's expression becomes impressively deadpan as Leah speaks about how choice is an illusion (for most people). "Lan is opposing Solaris my butt." She says, also looking at Loren. letting the implication in that look provide the context.

She gives Seraphita a long look as she says THAT and then also indicates she needed to be a bit sneaky to get Azoth a chance to meet with someone important to him. The name Ovelia is unknown to her but she can get the gist from context. She doesn't want to get in a big fight but HER FEELINGS are telling her to get in a big fight. It's frustrating.

"Yeah," Lydia says. "Least a coupla times."

She's clamming up a bit for right now now that the challenges are getting a little wackier.

who chains up a book?

"Toldja that we were gonna get attacked by books here." Lydia points out before saying, "Anyway lets hit the books."

She promptly clobbers the chained up book with her giant hammer.

"You say that like my primary purpose isn't the same exact thing." Lydia quips back to Leah grumpily.

That's because it isn't, of course.

DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Tiebreaker V 2.0 toward her party's challenge, Locked Away Tome. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

Honestly, Seraphita has been increasingly unsure of some of the things Solaris is doing (some, not all). But she still believes that, ultimately, they're not evil. Just... wrong, sometimes.

Even saying that much is dangerous. So she doesn't. But an expression that's not her normal eager, happy one crosses her face for a few seconds until she ... well, the unkind would say she forgot about whatever she was just thinking about, but that really is cruel, and not correct. She just wants to distract herself so she doesn't say something she shouldn't.

"Your butt shouldn't oppose Solaris either," probably isn't all that much better on the list of Things Seraphita Is Not Supposed To Say, but at least it's less likely to get her in trouble. "It's fine the way it is!" doesn't make it better.

At the appearance of another book, Seraphita is not looking forward to reading it. But it looks like it's chained down, anyway. "I have more," she says, helpfully, holding up the same Ether-triggered explosive she was holding before; it looks like red-dyed clay, and she can squeeze it in some of the links. It is completely inert and safe to squeeze, squish, and slide in. She could even put it in a fire (she's done it).

Until she performs a very specific act of sorcery, anyway. THEN it explodes.

DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Ether-Primed Explosive toward her party's challenge, Locked Away Tome. Strengthen! Party
Brute boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

"Hmmm," Leah says when Lydia pushes back on Lan opposing Solaris. She doesn't comment about whether Solaris is evil, still. Instead of that, she watches Seraphita for a few moments, and then looks back to Loren. "If you don't know," Leah says, "Then you should be paying more attention."

They continue on. Leah doesn't stop Lydia from being aggressive. Indeed, when Lydia says that crack about her purpose...

"Hm," Leah remarks.

When Seraphita explodes the chains, Leah will be ready to 'clean up' by taking a crowbar to whatever's left, her inhuman limbs much more obvious now.

"And what can we learn here, I wonder?"

DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Crowbar toward her party's challenge, Locked Away Tome. Stalwart! Party shielded
from some Exhaustion this round!
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Locked Away Tome *>=======================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  The hallway that you enter now comes to a dead end. Every wall is filled      
  with shelving. Most of them are filled with books -- numerous tomes, bound    
  in leather and stranger materials, and many quite dusty -- but the one at     
  the end of the hallway is empty, save for one book. That book is bound: a     
  lock is placed on it, with chains that seal it shut.                          
                                                                                
  The spine is telling: 'THEORY OF TELEPORTATION, Published by Vane Magic       
  Guild.' And, indeed, it is faintly aglow; one familiar with the history of    
  magic may be aware that this likely is tied to a teleporter that will bring   
  one to somewhere else in the ruin.                                            
                                                                                
  If, of course, they can open the book.                                        
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|             Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Madness:_Wits_Down!,            |
|   Secret:_Exploration_Up!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down!    |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=======================<* Xenobia's Library - Round 3 *>========================
=========================< Results - Locked Away Tome >=========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraphita                           0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Ether-Primed Explosive              2   Brute   Effects: Strengthen           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lydia Seren                         0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Tiebreaker V 2.0                    4   Brute   Effects: Efficient and Rally  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah Sadalbari                      0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Crowbar                             2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          29 --(0)--> 29                 Pass
Worry Stone                         2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Seraphita                   40 --(20)--> 60                Pass
Conditions: Cripple|Madness|Secret(2)|Weaken(2)
Effects: Efficient|Strengthen(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Shut up," Loren says to Lydia, though there's little force or heat behind it. Oh yes, he knows what Lan's actually attempting to do, despite his assertions otherwise...
    And it no less than rankles him.

    But it doesn't mean he'll fess up to it, either.

    Everyone takes their respective crack at the book. The lock and chains were made of stern stuff -- Loren pierces it through with a burst of earth Ether, but for all that it cracks the lock in two, the lock speedily sticks itself back together again. "That's cheating," is his remark, as Lydia bashes the lock with a bat: again, the lock cracks.

    And reassembles itself. Magic!

    Explosives work a little better: this time, the lock seems almost sluggish when it repairs itself, which means it easy pickings for...

    The crowbar.

    Once opened, the book's inner glow reveals itself in full. Just touching the page will see one transported to a site yet unseen.

    "..."

    Loren, for his part, opens the fingers of his pinkened palm gingerly, gazing down at the stone that rests there. He hadn't even thought twice about holding onto it, but the one who had given him this was...

    "..."

    He doesn't toss it aside, however much he thinks about doing it, and instead, returns it to his pocket before touching the page.

DG: Seraphita has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - For Want of a Ladder *>=====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You enter a room with two stories. The center of the room is open, but there  
  is a walkway with a railing up on the second floor -- and there is also a     
  doorway on that level that leads further into the library. Unfortunately,     
  there is not a door on the ground level. The walls are, of course, filled     
  with bookshelves and books.                                                   
                                                                                
  Climbing up to the second level will require climbing up the shelves. This    
  is a treacherous prospect, as the catwalk on the second level forms a lip     
  you will need to scurry over. A fall would hurt quite a bit.                  
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|     Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!,     |
|            Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, Madness:_Wits_Down!,            |
|   Secret:_Exploration_Up!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down!    |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

"You should be nice to Lydia too," Seraphita says to Loren. "And Lydia, you should be nice to Loren. We're all here together, right? Nobody wants to get in danger here. We can argue later if we *have* to..." But, Seraphita being Seraphita, she'd rather not.

Touching the page brings them elsewhere!

Seraphita dusts herself off when she, too, appears in the two-story room. "Wow! That's a lot of books," she says, immediately wandering over to one of the bookshelves. Not that she's going to read them even if she gets here; she just wants to goggle at the sheer quantity. "Who puts this much on paper? Paper's heavy! You could get even more here with a terminal. I guess they don't know how to make them, only magic teleporting books."

Seraphita steps away from the shelf again, craning her head upward. "And there's no stairs? Are you supposed to get to the top part from up there? But we got teleported down here! How are we supposed to get there?" Pause. "Oh, never mind!"

Because Seraphita has just decided to climb the bookshelves. She has no issues with just clambering up on one, using it like a slightly impromptu ladder - though, with all the books in, the shelves are a bit narrow for her feet, and she's mostly pulling herself up with her arms and bracing against the books. Her legs are stronger than her arms but she needs upper body strength, here. "Come on! I'll open the door up here!"

DG: Seraphita has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, For Want of a Ladder. 
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"My butt gloriously serves the Empire. Praise to the Emperor." Lydia says. "And I gotta admit it's a pretty nice butt. Solaris makes some of the best butts around. See? I'm not complaining about everything. Excellent butts."

Lydia slaps her butt but and there's a resonant CLANG.

Lydia is starting to feel guilty for piling on Loren when he doesn't really have much more choice in this matter than she does. "Yeah, yeah." She says, exhaling out a long sigh. It's hard to keep up the anger.
Sheeraphita tells her to be nice to Loren. She exhales slowly. "I don't blame him for nothin'." That wasn't exactly what she was expressing but them's the breaks when you're frustrated about your friend's blood spraying out of them more than is ideal.

In the next room she spins around on her feet and frowns faintly because she doesn't really see a way up besides...

Uh.

Well. There's some creative options, she thinks. She fwips her wings back and starts hopping from bookshelf to bookshelf. This is the kind of parkour nonsense Lydia did BEFORE being turned into a killer cyborg and she has her wings in case she comically spills onto the floor.

"Is this actually a library?" She asks. "Because this, too, is clearly not up to any code I'm aware of."

DG: Lydia Seren has used her Tool Icarus Wings toward her party's challenge, For Want of a Ladder. Quicken! Party
Agility boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    You should be nice to Lydia, too.

    Loren doesn't answer at first. Grimacing, then, he looks away, and it's only when Lydia caves that he at last says, "...Fine. I'll be good."

    Problem... solved?

    Books are pretty heavy. He used to -- and still does, at times -- lug around a lot of them when he was pretending to be a surface-dweller.

    "They don't know how," he answers Seraphita. "Trust me, if they had another way..." Surely they wouldn't mess around with one book when they could carry hundreds? Thousands?

    He pauses.

    "Wait, is that the-- this room again?" He's taken aback, utterly dumbfounded that of all places they've worked they way back to this one. The room where there are no stairs, no ladders.
    Only shelves, all the way up.

    "Ugh," he remarks at this prospect, before he gets climbing.

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, For Want of a Ladder. 
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

'Be nice', Seraphita says. Leah chimes in, "Seraphita's right. Lose your focus arguing with one another, and you may wind up in trouble." A pause. Lydia doesn't blame him, is it...? Hmmm. Leah watches both of them for a moment, and shakes her head. She does not comment on butts at all.

As they find themselves in the new room though, Leah looks around. "It is a lot of books," she agrees. "Probably many of the books are magical; it's said that old magic books gain a bit of... personality."

"Paper can be a more ideal format for some formulae, for that reason. There are archives even we keep on paper."

This room. Leah does not climb, though.

"...It's the library of a woman who set loose a giant spider on the people. I don't think it was designed to be navigable."

Then she just Jumps straight up, making use of her gravity module to 'fall' into the air for as long as it takes.

DG: Leah Sadalbari has used her Tool Gravity Module toward her party's challenge, For Want of a Ladder. Stalwart! Party
shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - For Want of a Ladder *>=====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You enter a room with two stories. The center of the room is open, but there  
  is a walkway with a railing up on the second floor -- and there is also a     
  doorway on that level that leads further into the library. Unfortunately,     
  there is not a door on the ground level. The walls are, of course, filled     
  with bookshelves and books.                                                   
                                                                                
  Climbing up to the second level will require climbing up the shelves. This    
  is a treacherous prospect, as the catwalk on the second level forms a lip     
  you will need to scurry over. A fall would hurt quite a bit.                  
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|     Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!,     |
| Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, Madness:_Wits_Down!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, |
|               Secret:_Exploration_Up!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down!               |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=======================<* Xenobia's Library - Round 4 *>========================
=======================< Results - For Want of a Ladder >=======================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraphita                           0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lydia Seren                         0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Icarus Wings                        2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah Sadalbari                      0 --(15)--> 15                 Fail
Gravity Module                      2   Agility Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          29 --(20)--> 49                Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Seraphita                   60 --(30)--> 80                Pass
Conditions: Cripple|Exhaust(1)|Hesitate(2)|Madness|Secret(1)|Weaken(1)
Effects: Efficient|Quicken(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraphita has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
DG: Lydia Seren has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Dewey Decimal *>=========================
| Type: Final        | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You come to a large, octagonal-shaped room. This lay at the very heart of     
  the tower, and has tall shelves on each side. These contain a number of       
  tomes, like the rest. However, there are alcoves built into the shelves,      
  with a small stand for a number of important books. First, though, there is   
  the matter of the center of the room. A pedestal rests there, with an open    
  book upon it.                                                                 
                                                                                
  When you approach the book, you notice that it has a stone tablet built into  
  the pages. There, you find numerous stone tiles -- which can be moved across  
  the tablet, and reordered -- that have numbers written on them. The numbers,  
  you realize, could be moved to solve a rather complex mathematical puzzle     
  where the tiles are added and multipled to equal numbers written in the       
  margins of the book.                                                          
                                                                                
  It may take awhile.                                                           
                                                                                
  You do not have awhile, though. When you enter the room, a ball of flame      
  appears over the book, high in the air. Every few seconds, it glows a little  
  larger. You will need to solve the math problem /before/ it explodes.         
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|      Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???, Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!,      |
|     Madness:_Wits_Down!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, Stupify:_Wits_Down!, and      |
|                            Suffer:_Exhaustion_Up!                            |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

"Mine doesn't go clank," Seraphita says, while hanging off a bookshelf. "I think that's probably best though because it would make my tail kind of weird, don't you think?"

She pulls herself up onto the catwalk, vaulting to land on her feet. Lydia parkours up right after her. "Why wouldn't it be a library?" Seraphita asks. "It's just a really inconvenient library. Oh, oh, maybe they had magic elevators here, except they're gone now! Or there's another teleporting book that we don't know about so we can't find the right one unless we pull EVERYTHING off the shelves, and that would take forever..."

Loren has to climb. (Sorry Loren, next time Seraphita will bring a rope.) Leah can jump, but jumping isn't very efficient in a straight line; she has to find something to triangle off of or otherwise reorient herself in midair to get around the lip on the catwalk and land on it properly, and because she's heavy it goes *thump* when she does and dips alarmingly and slightly, causing Seraphita to let out an 'Eep' and head to the balcony pretty quickly.

There's a door up here. Seraphita pushes it open without bothering to check for traps. Fortunately, there is none; it goes into a new room. "Have you been here before?" she asks Loren, eventually remembering what he said. Here again? "Because it looks different to the places we've been to ME."

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Blaming Loren is like blaming the local starbucks assistant manager for a decision made by corporate. Theoretically even blaming Leah is like that, or she would be if she wasn't the secret super cool Darth Vader Assassin Lady named Grigori but Lydia is hesitant to say anything near the idea of 'Can't Grigori Help?' because of the kind of help that Grigori is likely to provide. Plus, she seems to think there's nothing wrong with the current Azoth situation so maybe she should keep her trap shut. To say nothing of needing to be a little careful. She's still hoping to get on the good side of these people and maybe use that as leverage. LEAHVERAGE.

That said she can't really help her general personality.

The group continues on to an OCTAGONAL ROOM. "Oh sweet. This seems...like an important spot." Lydia says. "Gosh, you know, I gotta admit it--I was expecting the books her to try and murder us."

Instead the books try to MATHSSAULT our heroes as they are confronted with the power of SUDOKU.

"Hahhh? This is...???"

BGM INTERRUPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa1BSkL4wp0&ab_channel=BlackScreenRecords

Unfortunately as soon as Lydia starts mucking with the puzzle, a flame appears above the group.

It smiles at our heroes before getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this was just supposed to be math!!"

DG: Lydia Seren has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Dewey Decimal. 
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Loren refuses to enter into this conversation about butts. In fact, he's just going to pretend it's not happening!

    "Who knows," he says, of a saner, non-emotionally-charged conversation topic (e.g. the library and the difficulty thereof of navigating it). "Maybe they were just jerks and took the ladders with them when they left." Seraphita's guesses do have merit -- it's not as if this looks like it's been abandoned long enough enough for ladders and stairs to have crumbled to dust, specifically.

    Still, it means he has to climb the shelves, which sucks. It sucks a lot.

    Has he been here before?

    "Yeah. ...Just before the business in Macalania," he explains, pointedly looking at neither Leah nor Lydia. "I haven't even started the report." It might only end up a footnote, anyway, after all that's happened.

    But this room, this octagonal room into which they now stride, Loren has--

    "This wasn't here last time. Where's the--"

    Lydia's beelined towards a particular pedestal and begun to work with the puzzle resting there. Loren's gaze lingers here. "...Is that a math puzzle?"

    It's a math puzzle that comes with an added bonus: a timer, in the form of certain flaming destruction. "--Wait, who even... oh, forget it! Move over!"

    He's whipped out his medical computer. Sure, it's not really meant for this. But that doesn't mean he can't also use it to complete some quick calculations, much faster than even he can manage.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Dewey Decimal. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Lydia's instincts are probably solid. The kind of help Leah could offer as the Watcher is not always... kind. But then, is there a difference between the two...?

Seraphita's thoughts on what the library might have been before are not unpleasant, but Leah can't properly appreciate them because of the fact that she has to jump around and almost fall off the platform because she's so heavy. SO she's a little busy for that. But the important spot--

"I guess the books are finally getting around to it," Leah comments as the fire appears. Then she watches Loren and Lydia have... interesting, reactions, to flaming destruction.

"Hmmmmm," she says. Now, at this point, she could erect a barrier of Water Ether around the flame, or some other helpful thing. Instead...

"Good luck, guys." She leans on the wall.

Why be a mysterious mentor figure if you can't make the others do the work sometimes?

DG: Leah Sadalbari has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Dewey Decimal. 
<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

"Well, I guess a teleporter *could* put us anywhere," Seraphita agrees with Loren. "Or! Or there's *two* rooms like that and you were in the other one, but they look the same so you couldn't tell the difference, and that's why there's a different room through this door!"

It's all very logical to Seraphita.

Seraphita squints. "That book has rocks," she says, because stone tablets are *not* a way she usually sees writing on. Mediums, maybe, but those aren't Mediums. They're numbers, Seraphita's worst enemy. She was never any good at math.

And then the fireball erupts.

"Ah, that's not what you put in a book!" Seraphita looks from the flame to the stone math tablets to the others. "YOU solve it," she delegates, because there is no way she's doing the math and she is not so proud as to not make someone else do it. So, like Leah -

But unlike Leah, Seraphita starts working at the flame, pulling bits of it out with complex finger movements. Sparks dance around her fingers as she uses her own Ether to dampen the fire, making it grow more slowly and vent flames away from the party, toward the back of the room. "I got this part...!"

DG: Seraphita has used her Tool Lucky Charm toward her party's challenge, Dewey Decimal. Cleanse! All negative effects
will be cleared at the end of the round!
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Dewey Decimal *>=========================
| Type: Final        | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  You come to a large, octagonal-shaped room. This lay at the very heart of     
  the tower, and has tall shelves on each side. These contain a number of       
  tomes, like the rest. However, there are alcoves built into the shelves,      
  with a small stand for a number of important books. First, though, there is   
  the matter of the center of the room. A pedestal rests there, with an open    
  book upon it.                                                                 
                                                                                
  When you approach the book, you notice that it has a stone tablet built into  
  the pages. There, you find numerous stone tiles -- which can be moved across  
  the tablet, and reordered -- that have numbers written on them. The numbers,  
  you realize, could be moved to solve a rather complex mathematical puzzle     
  where the tiles are added and multipled to equal numbers written in the       
  margins of the book.                                                          
                                                                                
  It may take awhile.                                                           
                                                                                
  You do not have awhile, though. When you enter the room, a ball of flame      
  appears over the book, high in the air. Every few seconds, it glows a little  
  larger. You will need to solve the math problem /before/ it explodes.         
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|        Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???,       |
| Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, Madness:_Wits_Down!, Stupify:_Wits_Down!,  |
|                          and Suffer:_Exhaustion_Up!                          |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
======================<* Xenobia's Library - Round 5 *>=======================
=========================< Results - Dewey Decimal >==========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seraphita                           0 --(101)--> 101               Fail
Lucky Charm                         1   Wits    Effects: Cleanse              
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lydia Seren                         0 --(101)--> 101               Fail
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leah Sadalbari                      15 --(101)--> 116              Pass
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC                
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          49 --(101)--> 150              Fail
MediScan v7                         3   Wits    Effects: Rally                
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Seraphita                   80 --(15)--> 95                Fail
Conditions: Cripple|Hesitate(1)|Madness|Stupify(2)|Suffer(1)
Effects: Cleanse|Efficient
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Seraphita is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Lydia Seren is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Leah Sadalbari is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Loren Voss is too exhausted to continue!
DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over.
DG: The party led by Seraphita has been fully Exhausted by Xenobia's Library!
DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
============================<* Xenobia's Library *>=============================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Ultima Theory *>=========================
| Type: Landmark     | Dungeon Ability: Conclusion      | Challenge Rating: 1  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Despite your best efforts, you cannot quite get to -- or are ejected from --  
  the heart of the library. But, on your way out, you find an interesting       
  pamphlet. It is bound in leather, and you note that the name "Xenobia" is     
  written on the top.                                                           
                                                                                
  The first page reads: "I theorize that one can transcend the power of the     
  Goddess. Magic follows certain rules laid out by her. These rules are vital   
  to crafting spells, especially the ones used to enchant, create illusions,    
  and animate objects. But, if we could draw upon her power directly, we could  
  create a power of pure destruction. Of devastation, unforetold..."            
                                                                                
  The rest is fairly advanced magical theory for the Blessing of Althena, but   
  is not quite actionable.                                                      
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|        Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Hw:_???,       |
| Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, Madness:_Wits_Down!, Stupify:_Wits_Down!,  |
|            Suffer:_Exhaustion_Up!, and Treasure:_Exploration_Up!             |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"What??" Lydia backed down earlier but now Loren is BEING MILDLY JERKISH so Lydia runs back over once she's pushed out of the way and presses against him as she tries to help!

Seraphita wisely does not get involved in math though she does pull away some of the fire to make the inevitable less terrible as Lydia and Loren try to solve the same sudoku puzzle simultaneously while absolutely not cooperating.

Leah ALSO intelligently hangs back and just puts up a water barrier around herself.

Naturally this kind of work environment isn't conducive to solving sudoku faster than a rapidly expanding Bomb. There's a marvelous explosion, which doesn't really punch through Leah's barrier, but does mildly singe Seraphita while hitting Lydia and Loren more full on. It's comical grade explosion, though so Lydia is hilariously thrown back and is covered in a thin black layer of soot.

And then a pamplet labeled--

YE SHALL BE AS GODDESS by XENOBIA

FWAPS directly on Lydia's face. She blinks on the floor, pries the pamphlet off her face and gets a bit crosseyed as she reads it.

And she says, "Wow!" She says. "This lady's crazy!"

She offers the pamphlet to Loren for free.

<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Things do not go well.

    The Bomb goes off, after all.

    "I almost had it!" Loren protests, taking off his glasses and wiping soot off his face. Ugh, he's going to taste this for days. "So, now what--"

    He's unceremoniously gifted, moments after, with a particular pamphlet. With trepidation, he opens it.

    "Uh," is Loren's sole comment on what he's reading within. He goes a little cross-eyed.

    "...Let's pretend we didn't see this."

<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.

Leah pushes off the wall. She looks down at the pamphlet once she takes it from Loren's hands.

"Interesting," she says.

<Pose Tracker> Seraphita has posed.

Seraphita is remarkably fireproof, but being able to disperse flame and heat hitting you doesn't do anything to stop the pressure wave or ash kicked up from the explosion. Fortunately, her hair is already crazy enough that, really, it's not going to make it any worse; it's only everything else she has to worry about.

"Ugh I have ASH down my collar," Seraphita says, tugging it out for a moment. Which is a mistake, because that only gets it to slide further down her tight-fitting bodysuit, and she regrets it immediately. She's going to have an itchy back the whole way home!

She pays no attention to pamphlets. She has her own distress to worry about. "I need a baaaath..."