2022-10-13: Not Exactly a White Wonderland

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  • Log: Not Exactly a White Wonderland
  • Cast: Loren Voss, Ratatoskr, Lan Lilac, Kaguya
  • Where: Lake Macalania
  • Date: October 13, 2022
  • Summary: Loren and Lan have returned to Lake Macalania in search of a few things they had left behind in the aftermath of Azoth's attack on Lan. But never do things run /quite/ so smoothly as one might like.

DG: A party led by Loren Voss is now entering Lake Macalania - Liberated.
DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
================<* CHALLENGE - Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait *>=================
| Type: Entry        | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Macalania Lake is fraught with many of its own perils: between the ice and    
  snow alone the passage to the temple (or from the temple towards Macalania    
  woods) can be a difficult one. And that's before adding in things such as     
  inclement weather (the drifts are bad enough without more piling on up) or    
  the odd powerful Fiend.                                                       
                                                                                
  At least there's presently a dearth of actively hostile groups in the         
  region, though. That's nice.                                                  
                                                                                
  It's the landscape itself that presents a bit of a pickle presently, though   
  -- remember that bit about inclement weather? Well, there's been no lack of   
  snow of late and the landscape has shifted a bit -- either from the last      
  time you traveled on through, or from any maps or directions you might have.  
  In fact, what you know might well be useless!                                 
                                                                                
  So here's your problem in a nutshell: what are you going to use to navigate?  
  Can you spot anything you can orient yourself by?                             
                                                                                
  BGM: Noriyasu Agematsu - Glacial World                                        
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQdgOlcY1w                                   
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|               Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down! and Stupify:_Wits_Down!              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Did Loren want to come here? No, absolutely not. If he ever says 'yes, I would love to go out into the snow and cold', someone should immediately check his brain because it's clearly been eaten. Sure, there are nice enough things about snow in and of itself, but he would much rather enjoy them from somewhere safely inside -- maybe even with a nice cup of cocoa.

    Definitely not out here. Definitely not again.

    But the problem is... he doesn't really have much choice. Somewhere out there is his brother's sword (at least technically, given it had been burned nearly to slag in a fire and what could be salvaged, reforged) and he's not going to be able to live with himself if he just leaves it there, forever.

    At the very least, if he's going to abandon it, it shouldn't be on another world, so far away from where his brother died.

    That all said, though, he's still going to crab about what he's been forced to do.

    "I can't believe this," he says, surveying the landscape.

    "It hasn't been that long -- why it is it different!"

    Or, for that matter, crab about the most definitely shifted landscape from when he was last here. Where the hell had that business with Azoth even...

    "I hate this," he sighs, pushing his glasses up his nose as he goes for his medical computer. Sure, it's meant for a different sort of analysis than this, but it doesn't mean he can't use it to measure the ambient magnetic field and thereby then calculate where north, and thus east, west, south were. And if he can figure out where those are, relative, he should be able to pinpoint where the outpost was, and then from there...

    Shh, he's doing math.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    AND THEN UNINVITED
 
     "It's like the land itself stood up and sat back down..." A voice spoken in awe, through a tall, wiry silhouette terminating in a horn up top and down low... a particularly bushy segmented plate tail very similar to that of a squirrel's. The silhouette is occasionally broken by the faint glow of a rare, barely-functional Hyadean datapad, gingerly manipulated with clawed fingers with a delicate touch he could afford to apply to other aspects in his life.
 
     Or, like, every possible aspect of his life.
 
     If one had to be honest, it is not at all that Ratatoskr has access to some of the better navigation tools of the two worlds. (One would be surprised what cool things could be found in Odessa's refuse pile!) No, as solid yellow eyes light up, there lies a purer, less mathematical, and more headache-inducing fact in Loren's presence he will have the misfortune to overhear.
 
     "...And that matches what I heard..." A wider grin.
 
     "I'm going to fight it!" And it is this high concept motivation that propels him forward.

DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Corrupted Records toward his party's challenge, Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait. Stalwart!
Party shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Lan is, after several mishaps in snowy environments, properly dressed for cold weather. A thick coat, and long pants, and actual boots, and a warm fuzzy hat that she made while she was recovering in Shevat. Hats can be worked up in no time! And they really help keep you warm, Lan has found.

    She's got too much hair to tuck it all up under the hat, so the rest of it spills free down her back. If nothing else, it helps keep the back of her neck warm.

    The important thing is that she found her backpack! Hicalu's present was still safe inside and everything, along with a nice choice of snacks and perhaps most importantly, the Fire Medium. Everything else could be replaced - even the half-knit shawl for her brother. But mediums don't just fall out of the sky!!

    "Loren!!" Lan calls out, falling (floating gently down) from the sky. She may not have her crystal castle, but she's still got her butterfly ribbon, and she's been using it to doublejump to get a better look at the land.

    ...So far it's all just various shapes of snow.

    Tension buzzes nervously, somewhere above her navel. What are the chances of Azoth leaping out of the snow and running her through twice in a row?

    Which means that when Ratatoskr speaks up, declaring his intent to fight the land itself, Lan just about jumps straight back up and out of the scene. "!!!"

    It may take her a little bit to get her paku-paku working; she's got to get her hands to stop shaking first.

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait. Enlighten! Party
Wits boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya is also dressed for snowy weather. But when did Kaguya get here? Don't worry about it. She's dressed in her usual clothes, but underneath is a Veruni containment suit... which, frankly, is also part of her usual clothes, given the armor it affords. But as she glances around through the snowfields, she hears other voices. Like...

Ratatoskr, who's gonna fight it. That' s fine. it's super fine. But there is a tesion in the air, as...

"Specifically to annoy you, I think. That seems like something Spira would do, right?" She steps out of a snowbank and looks over Loren and then Lan, not so much Ratatoskr because she's pretty sure he has that part covered.

"Nature reclaims land fast," Kaguya says. "You'd think you'd know that better than me, considering that I grew up on a spaceship. And yet, here I am, explaining it to you. Sad."

She gives Lan a thumbs-up. "Nice to see you, Lan."

Then she peers over at Loren's computer. "Hmmm. Not completely barbaric. How about you calibrate it to detect large concentrations of metal? That way we can find the scrap of your doomed outpost."

DG: Kaguya has contributed a risky Wits Action toward her party's challenge, Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait. 
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
================<* CHALLENGE - Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait *>=================
| Type: Entry        | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Macalania Lake is fraught with many of its own perils: between the ice and    
  snow alone the passage to the temple (or from the temple towards Macalania    
  woods) can be a difficult one. And that's before adding in things such as     
  inclement weather (the drifts are bad enough without more piling on up) or    
  the odd powerful Fiend.                                                       
                                                                                
  At least there's presently a dearth of actively hostile groups in the         
  region, though. That's nice.                                                  
                                                                                
  It's the landscape itself that presents a bit of a pickle presently, though   
  -- remember that bit about inclement weather? Well, there's been no lack of   
  snow of late and the landscape has shifted a bit -- either from the last      
  time you traveled on through, or from any maps or directions you might have.  
  In fact, what you know might well be useless!                                 
                                                                                
  So here's your problem in a nutshell: what are you going to use to navigate?  
  Can you spot anything you can orient yourself by?                             
                                                                                
  BGM: Noriyasu Agematsu - Glacial World                                        
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQdgOlcY1w                                   
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|    Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down!   |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated - Round 1 *>===================
==================< Results - Walkin' in a Winter...Oh Wait >===================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
MediScan v7                         3   Wits    Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Investigate                         1   Wits    Effects: Risky                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           0 --(12)--> 12                 Fail
Paku-Paku                           2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratatoskr                           0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Corrupted Records                   2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  0 --(20)--> 20                 Pass
Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Stupify(2)
Effects: Enlighten(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    Lan, he'd expected, insofar as they had the ability to really communicate all that effectively. But still, she'd said that she was planning on trying to collect her belongings soon, and so he'd also thought that... he should do that. Ideally before Leah realized he'd lost it, among other things.

    "Did you find them?" Loren says, turning her way. "What about my sword?"

    Oh and then this is where it happens. Appearing silhouetted by the sun, there is an unmistakable shape, a downright squirrely form, the image of--

    of...

    "Oh, it's you. ...Why in the world would you want to fight that?" Loren asks, as if he were asking a reasonable question for a change. "How would you fight that? You might as well fight a..."

    He trails off, remembering a few things about Ratatoskr. "..."

    Kaguya's approach goes unnoticed, at least at first.

    "What? Who asked you-- and why are you here? --Look, shut up, it's not like I--" Loren appears to realize what he's about to say about himself and instead retorts with a blunt, "--shut up!"

    Which is when Kaguya, having gotten a look at what he was doing with the medical computer, makes a suggestion. "Mind your own business!" Loren tells her, before, as he furtively looks her way, makes a few corrective taps on the screen. "..."

    It's something that even Ratatoskr's own device will suggest: the remnants of the Solaris outpost is over thatta-way.

    (Lan's paku-paku meanwhile returns 'bunny' as its answer. What does it mean? It is a mystery.)

DG: Ratatoskr has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
==================<* CHALLENGE - Inexplicable Ancient Ruins *>==================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  There's an odd rumbling as you make your approach along this stretch of the   
  lake region. Oh no...! The snow here was deceptive -- it had covered an ice   
  bridge which shatters under your combined weight, sending you plunging        
  downwards.                                                                    
                                                                                
  ...You don't fall too far. You appear to have in fact landed in the remnants  
  of some ancient structure or another, the clouds of Lake Macalania's sky      
  visible above. Throughout the structure are Spheres that, when activated,     
  create sections of a massive translucent slope leading upwards. But finding   
  them all isn't easy -- many are well-hidden, and as anyone in a Gear might    
  discover, some may even be above the reach of the average person (but not     
  the average Gear).                                                            
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|                Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!,               |
|   Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and    |
|                             Stupify:_Wits_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    Between Kaguya and Loren in specific, there may be the beginnings of a fruitful intellectual conversation about what one may hope to find or salvage in these parts. Spira has been a place for ancient history of at least a thousand years to be lost, and it seems downright responsible that it might be okay to pick up a few things from about a few months back before they become some of the confusing slurry there.
 
     The paku-paku's answer of 'bunny' may yet prove to be prophetic, due to one thing that happens.
 
     Ahead is...!
 
     a) a rabbit
 
     b) carrying a grenade, possibly sanctified
 
     c) atop the snowbank.
 
     It chews on the pin, removes it, and runs.
 
     Ratatoskr leans a bit closer to see what it is (from a livable distance in terms of injurious force), and then the thing goes off to clear out the cover of snow and reveal it was just an ice bridge that can't support that kind of nonsense, turning it into a slope to send everyone free-sliding down!
 
     Down into a wondrous sight and site that is free of the chilly winds above but is still utterly frigid, a functioning ancient structure filled with glowing Spheres that still form translucent massive slopes that might allow one to climb back up.
 
     ...
 
     They aren't beset by any Fiends from the free-floating pyreflies down here (yet), as Ratatoskr decides to palm a Sphere and watch it create part of a translucent slope. The translucent slope promises no violence or harm, just a way out - and they're everywhere about this structure, in some weird and out-of-reach places that might also be connected to other slope structures and...
 
     It's another reason to idly pass the time and take notes.
 
     "So if you're not here to fight what's here... why are you here?" Ratatoskr asks, whose attempts to reach the Spheres and write down what they do are an attempt to stave off encroaching boredom.

DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Corrupted Records toward his party's challenge, Inexplicable Ancient Ruins. Stalwart!
Party shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "I found my pack. The food's even still good!" It would be, with Macalania Wood's chilly temperatures and the well-preserved nature of Baskar travel rations. Pemmican will last for weeks if prepared correctly. Plus Lan has crackers, too.

    Kaguya's arrival is almost as much of a surprise as Ratatoskr's. Ratatoskr is a natural hazard of the adventurous lifestyle most Drifters live; you're bound to run into him eventually, especially near anyplace with archaeological merit. Kaguya shows up when Kaguya means to show up, neither before nor after. "Hi," Lan greets her, with a small wave. "...How is Demetrioi?"

    "I haven't found it yet," she returns to Loren. "But it's got to be here somewhere. My crystal shards should be right next to it, right-- oh, a bunny!"

    Lan, no, it's a bloodthirsty beast!! ...Er, a problematic lapine with a hand grenade (holiness levels unsubstantiated).

    The slide down into the ruins happens with a lot of shrieking, most of which is Lan and some of which may not be. But she's not hurt, and at the bottom of it all she looks up to see dozens and dozens of softly-glowing spheres. "Oh, wow..." Trial and error seem to be the only way out, but she's still got her oracle paper. Lan folds it meditatively between her fingers, occasionally abusing her ability to doublejump to reach an out-of-the-way sphere. "I left my backpack in Macalania Wood and had to come back and get it, and I still have to find my Gear where I left it in the snow. Also Loren left his sword behind when he saved my life."

    So yeah, that's Lan not-very-subtly trying to compliment him. He's earned a little complimenting!

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Paku-Paku toward her party's challenge, Inexplicable Ancient Ruins. Enlighten! Party
Wits boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya looks a little less ready to crash the world when Lan asks about Demetrioi. "Swell," she replies, shaking her head. "Ehhhhh we're reaching kind of an impasse. By which I mean I'm right, and my colleagues are stupid."

But then, "Hey, say what you will about Ratatoskr, but he knows what he's about," Kaguya says. And she can say this glibly because she's pretty sure there are no spare rockets lying around here for him to play with. But why is she here?

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm," Kaguya says, peering at Loren. As he gets a better look at her, he might notice something very strange: she looks a lot healthier than she used to. There's color in her cheeks; she's not as gaunt. It's different.

"Heh heh heh. Anyway I'm here because I need some materials for an experiment."

Then, as if to punish her hubris, a bunny shows up with a grenade and Kaguya stares at it. "What the--"

BOOM.

"That was bullshit," Kaguya declares, and looks around the sared ground. Some weird srucures, with a Sphere...

"Oh, so you need a lot of stuff," Kaguya answers, and then she thinks about it. "Hmm he saved you, huh? Good work, Voss. I'm glad you did something useful!"

...It's like a compliment.

"Anyway I'm here for some superconductive material. A stock of Ice Gems would be perfect. If we can channel some of Demetrioi's..." She pauses. "Well, I'm not gonna say in front of him," she says of Loren, "But trust me, it's very technical."

"And now I'm helping you guys, I guess."

DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Loot Abuse toward her party's challenge, Inexplicable Ancient Ruins. Stalwart! Party
shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "Uh, are you sure?" Loren's food experience is more along the 'definitely will perish, except for the nutritional bars which will survive the collapse of the sun' variety. Even if it's been cold, is that okay? It was outside.

    Well, that's strange. Kaguya looks significantly less like she's dying!

    Still, they all head off in the direction their surveying indicated, and before long--

    Well, it's Spira and Loren's luck is already in the negatives. Is it a surprise that what happens happens?

    At least it's not a terribly long (or painful) way to a landing, and at least Loren's skills run towards 'shielding'. It could have been worse for everyone all around.

    "Why did the rabbit have a grenade, though..."

    So why is he here, then?

    It's not like it's particularly secret, and so once Loren has picked himself up off the ground and checked for any serious injuries (in spite of everything), he--

    okay so lan beats him to it, that can happen too.

    Slouching as he sighs, he just says, "What she said," before turning his attention to the walls around them. "Shut it, Kaguya. I'm not in the mood." When is he ever, though? Frowning at the walls -- and noting what happens when Ratatoskr palms a Sphere -- he retrieves his computer and begins a temperature scan of the walls. Spheres conduct heat differently, so even if he can't see them well, it should still be able to find them. ...Probably. "So who's Demetrioi?"

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 Combat
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool MediScan v7 toward his party's challenge, Inexplicable Ancient Ruins. Rally! 
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
==================<* CHALLENGE - Inexplicable Ancient Ruins *>==================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Wits            | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  There's an odd rumbling as you make your approach along this stretch of the   
  lake region. Oh no...! The snow here was deceptive -- it had covered an ice   
  bridge which shatters under your combined weight, sending you plunging        
  downwards.                                                                    
                                                                                
  ...You don't fall too far. You appear to have in fact landed in the remnants  
  of some ancient structure or another, the clouds of Lake Macalania's sky      
  visible above. Throughout the structure are Spheres that, when activated,     
  create sections of a massive translucent slope leading upwards. But finding   
  them all isn't easy -- many are well-hidden, and as anyone in a Gear might    
  discover, some may even be above the reach of the average person (but not     
  the average Gear).                                                            
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|                Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!,               |
|   Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and    |
|                             Stupify:_Wits_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated - Round 2 *>===================
====================< Results - Inexplicable Ancient Ruins >====================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
MediScan v7                         3   Wits    Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Loot Abuse                          2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           12 --(20)--> 32                Fail
Paku-Paku                           2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten            
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratatoskr                           0 --(15)--> 15                 Fail
Corrupted Records                   2   Wits    Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  20 --(20)--> 40                Pass
Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Exhaust(1)|Reckless(2)|Stupify(1)
Effects: Enlighten(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    It's a game of hunting down Spheres that create useful slopes back up, and as it so happens, Lan and Ratatoskr - with their natural agility and ability to sequence-break where and when the Spheres are to be activated - they find themselves in humorous situations where they get trapped behind sections. They don't last long. Kaguya and Loren are the ones who are able to work out the correct path to forming the correct path (correct path^2).
 
     It's uneventful enough the focus can remain on what's being discussed as to why they're here.
 
     "You know..." Ratatoskr muses. "There's some forms of Crest Sorcery that do leave crystallized byproducts that act as activated explosives... a technique popular both in the Badlands of Ignas and Celesti-era Zoara!" That might've been fun for him to accumulate on his own except for one key problem about his physiology and incompatibility with the use of any sorcery-related discipline.
 
     "He dropped his sword? He dropped his sword!" Ratatoskr exclaims as Lan points out that a sword's been lost. A sword that might or might not have been a participant of... some key operation or battle or another.
 
     "If we find it, can I have it?" Ratatoskr asks with almost youthful earnest to Loren. "I won't lose it...!"
 
     He doesn't have anything to say about Demetrioi, he peaced out of Alcidamas when he was extremely upset about how much history related to no less than two major battles was erased by that settlement.
 
     ...anyway, yes, thanks to Kaguya and Loren taking the lead on reactivating Spheres, they can come back up out into the cold and snow, and hope there isn't a rabbit that has suddenly found an enormous Ether gatling gun or something.

DG: Lan Lilac has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Snowballing Problems *>=====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Macalania Lake is a veritable winter wonderland: sparkling crystals dazzle    
  as far as the eye can see courtesy of a fresh blanketing of snow. Of course,  
  herein lies the rub. While a snowball fight is typically a fun and            
  exhilarating way to spend a chilly afternoon, it's rather less fun when       
  you're getting pelted from all sides with a whole range of wintery missiles   
  courtesy of some Fiends.                                                      
                                                                                
  Are these packed with ice? And rocks?!                                        
                                                                                
  There's no way to effectively dodge them or spot where the snowballs are      
  originating from, so you have no real choice but to hunker down, shield up,   
  and weather this storm one way or another. Eventually they have to let up,    
  or get bored, or show their hand. Or maybe just run out of rocks.             
                                                                                
  Gears might be in a better position to weather the blows, but their larger    
  size makes them easier targets... not to mention the effect this will have    
  on the paintjob. Alas.                                                        
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|              Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!, and             |
|                        Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!                        |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "?" If Lan asked, would she even be able to follow along? ...Probably not. Especially now that Kaguya is talking about superconductives and things. "I guess this is as good a place as any to find Ice Gems," she nods, because Lan is pretty sure that's a safe contribution.

    Of course she's sure! "Of course I'm sure!" It was safe in her pack, wrapped in waxed cloth. "It's travel food, meant to stay good for a long time. It's mainly berries and jerky bits held together with tallow. Kind of like suet, but for people." Would Loren even know what suet is? There aren't any birds to feed in Etrenank.

    After the others release her from being stuck behind a rock wall (it was getting kind of claustrophobic in there), Loren asks who Demetrioi is. Lan, who completely forgot that Loren and sundry weren't involved in Alcidamas, freezes in a manner that doesn't have anything to do with the weather. "--He was an acquaintance from a village out in Zoara. Think 'a tree that can talk'." That's true enough, and safe enough. "But Kaguya and-- hang on, it's not like he lost it," this time, "He dropped it because I got stabbed and he had to get me someplace safe!" At least, that's what he told her. Lan was unconscious by then.

    They emerge into the sparkling, wintery air. "Geez. I wonder--" PAFF. "--yeOOOWW!"

    Lan goes to one knee, rubbing her ear. From behind snowdrifts, an Ice Flan blurbles and carelessly throws another snowball. On their other side, a team of Murussu and Mafdet mini-golems lob their own projectiles.

    They wandered into the middle of a Snowfiendball fight!

    "Why does snow hurt?" Lan wails, offended. Snow is supposed to be soft and fluffy!! Oh great, she's doing that hand gesture that is a presage to her calling down meteors.

DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Snowballing Problems. 
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Why did the rabbit have a grenade? Kaguya doesn't know either.

"You're never in the mood," Kaguya points out to Loren. "Besides, I mean it! You did something good! I'm not sure why, but you did it!"
Kaguyaaguya, for her part, is pretty good with Spheres. And pathfinding! It doesn't take that much for a super genius. But when Ratatoskr muses about Crs Sorcery, Kaguya says, "That's right." She inclines her head. "These accumulate naturally when energy of the appropriate element collects together--often falling off of Elemental fiends--the ones that form from Crest Sorcery would be about as useful for my purposes. ...On the other hand, I don't know any Crest Sorcerers beside Jay, and she's probably not willing to further my horrible plans, so."

Loren dropped his sword! Ratatoskr wants it. Kaguya laughs like a pirate. Then, Lan explains Alcidamas... kind of. Kaguya looks at her kind of impressed, because she had no idea that Lan could lie nearly that wel. It's pretty cool. "Hmmm. So, a noble thing. Weird, but coole."

PAFF. "It's made of tiny little hard crystals that are compressed," Kaguya says of snow. "So it's kinda jagged and also there's a thing with the force of the throw, and..."

What is she doing while she expalins science? Well, there's an ominous hum as she suddenly pulls a bomb and twists it, hurling it straight back in the biggest snowball fight escalation in Spira's history.

It might be a war crime? It's fine.

"Haaahahahaha!"

DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Magnetic Resonance Bomb toward her party's challenge, Snowballing Problems. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He's never in the mood, indeed, and when she points this out for him, Loren fixes her with a look that only proves her point. "I can save someone if I want to," he argues, folding his arms over his chest. He's not sure why it's a big deal!

    "...What's suet," he asides to Lan, which might answer that question.

    "A tree?" might be a good secondary question to have, come to think of it. Even if the Guado are a bit tree-like they're not really trees.

    But when Ratatoskr says that he wants the sword, that he won't lose it... well.

    Lan's seen him mad before -- he's good at getting mad. But it might have been a while since she's seen him incandescent. "ABSOLUTELY NOT," he roars at Ratatoskr, with utmost feeling. The fact that he even steps in his general direction -- hand going for a sword that isn't there -- might only be a punctuation mark on the fury that is barely contained by Loren's form. "If you put a paw on that sword, I will--" 'End you' might be the implication here, but Loren, perhaps deciding that this is not the best of moments to flip the hell out (especially if he is in fact only packing a standard Solarian sidearm), takes a sudden steadying breath, holds it, and lets it out.

    "...I'm serious," he says, fixing Ratatoskr with a look that might as well be sharp and pointed.

    At least the step up into the frosty chill of Macalania Lake might cool certain tempers. ...Well, until Lan gets beaned by a snowball and it turns out that they've found themselves in a bit of a pickle. "What in the world is going on-- are these really just Fiends? I've never seen--"

    Incoming. Now might be the better time to duck, which Loren fails to do as a snowball takes him clear in the face. He drops like a felled tree.
    That one had a rock in it.

    "Oh, that's it," he says upon rising, a few moments later, because he's never been good at quitting. Scrabbling around in the snow, he fails to turn up any stones, except--

    He pauses for a moment then, after considering it, digs a particular stone out of his pocket and begins to pack snow around it. ...Azoth gave him this. Frankly, he's surprised he hasn't thrown it out already. Except it had been comforting to hold.

    And in this precise moment he's even a little glad he does still have it. It's rock, after all, and he has an affinity for such things, even when they're lobbed at a distance...

    And the stone within used as a focal point for a stony bomb of its own. War crimes? No problem!

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Worry Stone toward his party's challenge, Snowballing Problems. Stalwart! Party
shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    "Talking tree? Talking tree!" Ratatoskr scoffs at the idea. It's about as far as he gets before Loren.
 
     Roars at him. Roaring so hard that some of the snow and ice above shake and collapse, and Ratatoskr visibly even flinches despite standing significantly taller than anyone here if he ever straightens his back and stance out, that endless grin shrinking to a smile as Loren insists he's serious.
 
     "Okay." Ratatoskr responds. Whether this is an 'okay I'm going to touch it' or 'okay I will not touch it' is an exercise for the reader, as they escape to the surface, where they are coming up to...
 
     A snowball fight. Ratatoskr gets pelted by a few as he catches one, and is temporarily transfixed looking at all the way the snowflakes come together in all their myriad shapes and sizes it up. Then he keeps getting pelted, because of course he does.
 
     Ratatoskr draws out an old gun-blade type ARM that has not seen proper combat in his hands, activating something that creates a barrier from it in order to part the large snowballs they are being pelted with.
 
     This barrier function may, by accident, actually be something that help shields against some sort of explosion that may or may not happen because of... the snow being thrown. Yes, the snow, and not the thing that is humming or happens to be a worrisome rock.

DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Derelict Relic toward his party's challenge, Snowballing Problems. Stalwart! Party
shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Snowballing Problems *>=====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Brute           | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Macalania Lake is a veritable winter wonderland: sparkling crystals dazzle    
  as far as the eye can see courtesy of a fresh blanketing of snow. Of course,  
  herein lies the rub. While a snowball fight is typically a fun and            
  exhilarating way to spend a chilly afternoon, it's rather less fun when       
  you're getting pelted from all sides with a whole range of wintery missiles   
  courtesy of some Fiends.                                                      
                                                                                
  Are these packed with ice? And rocks?!                                        
                                                                                
  There's no way to effectively dodge them or spot where the snowballs are      
  originating from, so you have no real choice but to hunker down, shield up,   
  and weather this storm one way or another. Eventually they have to let up,    
  or get bored, or show their hand. Or maybe just run out of rocks.             
                                                                                
  Gears might be in a better position to weather the blows, but their larger    
  size makes them easier targets... not to mention the effect this will have    
  on the paintjob. Alas.                                                        
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|         Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down! and Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!         |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated - Round 3 *>===================
=======================< Results - Snowballing Problems >=======================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Worry Stone                         2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              0 --(0)--> 0                   Pass
Magnetic Resonance Bomb             3   Brute   Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           32 --(12)--> 44                Fail
Force                               0   Brute   Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratatoskr                           15 --(0)--> 15                 Pass
Derelict Relic                      2   Brute   Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  40 --(20)--> 60                Pass
Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Reckless(1)
Effects: 
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    "O you of--" Lan's invocation is interrupted by the advent of another snowball, right in her face. The Murussu got lucky!! And also Lan was standing still. She's quickly buried under concentrated fire (snow). Everybody else is doing much better though! It's hard not to do well when you have a magnet bomb on your side. It saaaaaaaaaaaails on over the makeshift barricade, landing next to the Ice Flan. It doesn't even have time to glorp before everything goes kind of 'THWOOM'. Snow and rocks and pieces of Flan go flying! Something glittery and metallic goes flying too, landing with a 'paff' in the snow. It leaves a saber-shaped hole.

    Somebody should probably get that before Ratatoskr does.

    Speaking of whomst, he's doing really well! From behind his Lost Technology shield, he can marvel at the millions of millions of configurations that snowflakes come in. Is it true that no two are alike?

    Even as he's preparing to cast it away with all the leftover fury of someone who just can't catch a break, the worry stone still manages to lend its strength to Loren one last time. Perhaps the stone is a more stalwart companion than the total mess that gifted it! Loren brains the Mafdet with his snowball, which doesn't do much to it seeing as how it's running away.

DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
====================<* CHALLENGE - All Downhill From Here *>====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  So, you know that thing about snow? About how it's ice, and how ice is        
  slippery?                                                                     
                                                                                
  Yeah, about that.                                                             
                                                                                
  Ahead is a slope. It's rather steep. If you take it down -- and you might     
  want to even in a Gear, because flying is a great way to burn up literally    
  all your fuel -- you'll have to figure out how to navigate the various        
  obstacles that litter the slope.                                              
                                                                                
  Like rocks, enormous pillars of ice jutting up from who knows where, the      
  wintery equivalent of a pothole... you know. Fun things like that, which you  
  don't want to hit while sliding downhill at speed!                            
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|        Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down! and Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!        |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

Kaguya sure doesn't explain the tree. Not even a little bit. But she does notice Loren getting super angry about the sword. A kinder person would wonder if that time she hid it from him might've been kind of mean in retrospect. Insead, Kaguya says, "Hey, go easy on the guy. If you died he'd remember your story! That's cool, right?"

But Loren... also. Does explosions. Kaguya has to consider him for a moment and then incline her head. "Yes," she says. "I can respect that."

The barrier helps, though.

She regards Ratatoskr too. "Good thinking, buddy," she says of his barrier. "Let's keep going, yeah?"

She will even offer Lan a hand up. She doesn't notice the saber-shaped hole. Though she will, shortly.

But snow is ice, and ice is slippery, and the slp ahead is...

"Oh, that's shitty," Kaguya says. "We're not all gonna get up that thing easy."

Vicious obstacles, enormous pillars of ice...

"Hm. I wonder if I've got one of my teleporters handy..."

DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, All Downhill From Here. 
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    There are distinct signatures of light as Ratatoskr disappears and reappears atop an enormous ice pillar somewhere, and then, moments later.
 
     "...This isn't my teleportation device...!"

DG: Ratatoskr has used his Tool Teleporter Fragment toward his party's challenge, All Downhill From Here. Stalwart!
Party shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    'Okay,' says Ratatoskr.

    This only prompts Loren to blurt out a follow-up of, "I mean it!"

    It's almost like he's sort of had this relationship before -- almost like he might have had an elder brother of some sort...?
    How mysterious.

    (Engil always was good at getting even a younger and more chill Loren to flip out. Some things are eternal.)

    But there is a pitched snowball fight, which ends when Kaguya, well, sets off a bomb. Loren's final toss ends up being more of an afterthought.
    But he doesn't miss that final descent of a sword-shaped object. What are the odds! He dives for it, regardless.

    It is, indeed, his missing sword.

    Meanwhile, in Lan's path, a smooth stone at the heart of Loren's broken snowball reveals itself. It is a pretty nice one! Wouldn't Loren be sad if he lost that forever?

    Of course, now that they're here and the deed is done, the course turns itself towards getting the heck out of here. The only clear path forward presents itself as a slippery, icy slope.

    "Ugh," is Loren's summary of this particular obstacle. This is going to suck. Isn't this just his luck? One good turn, followed by a hell of a bad turn...

DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, All Downhill From Here. 
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Clambering her way out of a snowpile is not nearly as fun as that time she got to make a 'snow angel'. Lan takes Kaguya's hand and pulls herself to her feet, brushing the snow off of herself once she's upright. "Eugh. Where'd they-- oh."

    Because when there's a gently thrumming crater left and no sign of Fiends, Lan can kind of figure it out on her own.

    They set off once Loren's gathered up his sword, and right there in front of her is... Loren's stone!

    Lan has no idea where Loren's worry stone came from. She just knows that Loren's Worry Levels are dangerously high at all times and it would be a tragedy if even the smallest ameliorating factor were to be removed!

    So she picks up the rock and hands it back to him, like a particularly vexing retriever. "Hey, you almost lost this!"

    Getting down the slippery slope isn't nearly as bad a time as being pelted by snowballs. That butterfly ribbon was the best thing she ever made.

DG: Lan Lilac has used her Tool Butterfly Ribbon toward her party's challenge, All Downhill From Here. Quicken! Party
Agility boosted!
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
====================<* CHALLENGE - All Downhill From Here *>====================
| Type: Exploration  | Dungeon Ability: Agility         | Challenge Rating: 2  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  So, you know that thing about snow? About how it's ice, and how ice is        
  slippery?                                                                     
                                                                                
  Yeah, about that.                                                             
                                                                                
  Ahead is a slope. It's rather steep. If you take it down -- and you might     
  want to even in a Gear, because flying is a great way to burn up literally    
  all your fuel -- you'll have to figure out how to navigate the various        
  obstacles that litter the slope.                                              
                                                                                
  Like rocks, enormous pillars of ice jutting up from who knows where, the      
  wintery equivalent of a pothole... you know. Fun things like that, which you  
  don't want to hit while sliding downhill at speed!                            
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|       Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, and       |
|                             Quicken:_Agility_Up!                             |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated - Round 4 *>===================
======================< Results - All Downhill From Here >======================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          0 --(12)--> 12                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              0 --(12)--> 12                 Fail
Rush                                0   Agility Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           44 --(0)--> 44                 Pass
Butterfly Ribbon                    2   Agility Effects: Quicken              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratatoskr                           15 --(0)--> 15                 Pass
Teleporter Fragment                 2   Agility Effects: Stalwart             
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  60 --(20)--> 80                Pass
Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Hesitate(2)
Effects: Quicken(1)
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Loren Voss has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party
management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

It is not, as it turns out, Ratatoskr's teleportation device.

Loren says 'Ugh', and Kaguya agrees with him. So she watches Ratatoskr blip his way up, and then she watches Lan figure things out. "Handled, right?"

But she's pretty good at handling the slope, as it turns out. Kaguya is pretty sure she and Loren are going to be less so. So... "Hey," Kaguya says, "Let me handle this."

"You're what, 90 kilograms? Yeah, probably close enough. Sec." Kaguya pulls a small cylinder from her bag and makes a couple of adjustments before reaching out and grabbing Loren's arm. She hits the button and--BLIP.

"They fall from about ten feet up, but they avoid all the jagged ice!"

"Ugh!" Kaguya says, spitting snow out of her mouth as she gets up from where she landed face-down. "Betrayed by estimating human weights!"

DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Wicked Wendigo Wrangling *>===================
| Type: Final        | Dungeon Ability: Combat          | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Ahead lies the end of the path you've followed or made through the lake       
  region, with your destination waiting just in sight.                          
                                                                                
  A low rumbling growl echoes out from somewhere close by, and it isn't long    
  until the source reveals itself--                                             
                                                                                
  As abominable snowmen go, this one is certainly the abominable-est. And one   
  of the biggest, at that -- at about half the size of the average Gear, this   
  fellow is here to chew bubblegum and cause problems and it's all out of       
  bubblegum.                                                                    
                                                                                
  Time to return the favor...!                                                  
                                                                                
  Image:                                                                        
  https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/b/b4/Wendigo-enemy-ffx  
  .png                                                                          
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|     Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!,    |
|                Quicken:_Agility_Up!, and Wound:_Combat_Down!                 |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    He has his sword again, which is good.

    And then Lan presents him with his discarded stone again, which is... less so.

    "...Thanks," he says, nonetheless, when she hands it over with decidedly hard-to-deny good cheer. Gazing down at the stone wearily, he palms it and stuffs it into a pocket. Away from sight it goes!
    )Maybe if he can dissociate it from the person who first gifted it to him, somehow, it might be okay...?)

    Nevertheless, before them is a most imposing obstacle. "Is this really the sortest way?" Loren says, balking at the sight of it. "--Uh, wait, what's this about my weight?"

    BLIP.

    Just like that, he's falling. At a point above the slope, sure, but still falling!

    "I'm not the one who decided to use a teleporter!" Loren protests, struggling to extract himself from the snowy drift he's landed in.

    There is a low rumbling growl, the sort of roar that reverberates deep into the bones (or bone-equivalent, for Ratatoskr). It's followed by the slow thud-thud-thud of the approach of something massive indeed. And there it looms, not very far away from them at all! It's an absolute beast of a Fiend, jaws slavering as it bellows again and charges right at them!

    "Shit-- wait, hold it!"

    Hold it, because Loren is threading Ether into the Tuner, gritting his teeth as he pours his power and focus into a powerful barrier indeed. He should be able to stop its charge -- probably -- but then that will mean the rest of them will have to sort it out.

    Quickly.

DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Tuner toward his party's challenge, Wicked Wendigo Wrangling. Rally! 
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.

 
    Lan is a cheaty cheater, and gets to float gently pretty much the entire way down the slope. How is that fair?!

    "Are you guys okay?" she asks, once they're all at the bottom together. "Are those teleporter things safe? They're not like the Elw ones--" There are some stomping footsteps, and a roar. And behind the roar is a YETI, which is one of the last things Lan (or anybody) wanted to see right now.

    Except Ratatoskr. Ratatoskr is probably over the moon about the yeti. Let him follow his bliss.

    When faced with an opponent many times her mass, Lan knows to use the environment to her advantage whenever possible. The freezing cold, the deep snow... these are its natural environment, not Lan's! But she has one possible trick up her sleeve. Drawing a glass bottle from beneath her coat, Lan uncaps it and swings the bottle in a wide arc, spraying purified water in an arc at the yeti's face!

    ...Whether or not it freezes the yeti's eyebrows off, she flash steps behind it and follows up with a series of knife-handed strikes to the thing's kidneys.

DG: Lan Lilac has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Wicked Wendigo Wrangling. 
<Pose Tracker> Ratatoskr has posed.

    "I'd know if I were holding mine...!" Ratatoskr calls to Lan. "Sometimes I end up in walls..."
 
     And survives such instances fully intact, apparently, which casts some very key laws of physics into question that aren't able to be asked because Seraphim are using those science textbooks to blow out their noses. (You can only put out so many reality-fires at once.)
 
     Today is a bad day for a teleporting device mix-up. Well, some have worse days than others, but moving on.
 
     There's a low rumbling in the ground, and excitement builds in the increasing brightness of Ratatoskr's eyes. For a time, it feels like the entire world underneath them might shift, and then he might get to meet the phenomenon that was - and is - the snow, the ice, the air, the land around it that he's heard so much of! A breathlessly beautiful, unfathomable site whose finer details slip by the day among those few to have seen it.
 
     A much smaller figure appears - not small, but smaller in the vastness of its scope - of an enormous Wendigo. (Smaller? Enormous? That's the difference in scale we're talking about.)
 
     His grin widens, his tail's segments stand on end, and...
 
     "Hyahaha--! So we meet...! So we meet...! You are as described... there's so much I want to know--"
 
     Loren puts up a powerful barrier to hold off the charge just as the Wendigo rushes at them. Ratatoskr voluntarily leaps out of this cover and hurls himself at a far greater, far deadlier, far more mis-identified foe with a zeal any and all of Mother's Metal Demons share, flinging himself in there with a flying knee into reinforced compressed air palm and knee strikes into the seemingly inevitable mauling.
 
     Let him follow his bliss indeed.

DG: Ratatoskr has contributed a risky Combat Action toward his party's challenge, Wicked Wendigo Wrangling. 
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.

"Whatever," Kaguya says as she dusts herself off, "They're totally safe. I mean, probably. The science is sound. But I did hand-construct each one out of parts I had to machine myself, so..."

Oh. There's a growl. "Elw this, Elw that," Kaguya continues despite the danger. "The Elw left! And they left all their crap behind! And don't get me started on teleporter mazes--"

The barrier goes up. That's nice. And then Ratatoskr goes after the Wendigo directly and Kaguya... frowns a little.

"...I wanted to suplex the stupid big Fiend," she complains. "Oh, well."

She pulls out a canister. "Anyway, you guys wanna see something cool? Heheheh." She pops open the canister like a tin of biscuits, and throws three little red spheres at the Wendigo, whereupon they erupt ino gigantic, toothy-mawed tomatoes.

"And they're biodegradable, unlike most weapons. I feel like I should get a medal?"

DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Killer Tomatoes toward her party's challenge, Wicked Wendigo Wrangling. Fanfare! 
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Wicked Wendigo Wrangling *>===================
| Type: Final        | Dungeon Ability: Combat          | Challenge Rating: 3  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Ahead lies the end of the path you've followed or made through the lake       
  region, with your destination waiting just in sight.                          
                                                                                
  A low rumbling growl echoes out from somewhere close by, and it isn't long    
  until the source reveals itself--                                             
                                                                                
  As abominable snowmen go, this one is certainly the abominable-est. And one   
  of the biggest, at that -- at about half the size of the average Gear, this   
  fellow is here to chew bubblegum and cause problems and it's all out of       
  bubblegum.                                                                    
                                                                                
  Time to return the favor...!                                                  
                                                                                
  Image:                                                                        
  https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/b/b4/Wendigo-enemy-ffx  
  .png                                                                          
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|   Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!, and  |
|                             Wound:_Combat_Down!                              |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated - Round 5 *>===================
=====================< Results - Wicked Wendigo Wrangling >=====================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren Voss                          12 --(101)--> 113              Fail
Ether Tuner                         3   Combat  Effects: Rally                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaguya                              12 --(101)--> 113              Pass
Killer Tomatoes                     3   Combat  Effects: Fanfare              
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lan Lilac                           44 --(101)--> 145              Fail
Fight                               0   Combat  Effects: BASIC                
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ratatoskr                           15 --(101)--> 116              Pass
Fight                               1   Combat  Effects: Risky                
-----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------
Leader: Loren Voss                  80 --(15)--> 95                Fail
Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Hesitate(1)|Wound(2)
Effects: 
===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Loren Voss is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Kaguya is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Lan Lilac is too exhausted to continue!
DG: Ratatoskr 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 Loren Voss has been fully Exhausted by Lake Macalania - Liberated!
DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
========================<* Lake Macalania - Liberated *>========================
==================<* CHALLENGE - Learn Al Bhed in 30 Days! *>===================
| Type: Landmark     | Dungeon Ability: Conclusion      | Challenge Rating: 1  |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
  Well, that last obstacle was a doozy. It could have gone much better than     
  that, but even if it's by inches, you've managed to eke on by. The road to    
  your final destination lies ahead of you, and perhaps all the more            
  welcomingly, a traveler's inn.                                                
                                                                                
  You might need it, after all that.                                            
                                                                                
  But your struggles were not in vain. A turned-over snowdrift reveals a        
  battered chest, and within that chest--                                       
                                                                                
  An Al Bhed Language Primer...? True, this won't give one perfect insight      
  into the language but... it's a start! It's a really good start.              
============================= Dungeon Conditions:  =============================
|     Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Hesitate:_Agility_Down!_Wits_Up!,    |
|               Secret:_Exploration_Up!, and Wound:_Combat_Down!               |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.

    "That's not the--"

    You know what, maybe it's better that Ratatoskr chases his bliss. Loren has enough of his own problems right now without inheriting anyone else's.

    Does Loren want to see something cool, though?

    "No!" Loren says, with all the desperate air of someone attempting to have a conversation while struggling with something difficult. The Fiend is really banging against the barrier, this is going to end really badly in short order, unless...

    Well, unless a few things happen at once. Which is, specifically, Ratatoskr attempting to suplex (or something like that) a yeti while Lan goes for the kidneys (???), into which a trio of giant animated tomatoes intrude.

    At one point, Ratatoskr might end up wrestling a tomato.

    But, ah, they're atop a higher elevation area while tussling with a rather large Fiend, which is now thrashing about. The inevitable happens, in the end.

    The good news is, once they extract themselves from the pile of snow they all end up in, a distance down the embankment, that they find themselves (or at least Lan and Loren do) in quite familiar territory indeed. Look, it's that wayfarer's inn they spent some time in! ...It's looking better than it did even several weeks ago, actually. Did someone start fixing it up? Might it be open for business again??

    Pyreflies erupt suddenly from the ice and snow under their feet, revealing that at least they know they won. Technically speaking. And look! The avalanche they were temporarily part of took a chest down with it! It still has its contents within, which reveals itself to be a guide on speaking Al Bhed. Huh.