2022-12-02: Coniunctis Viribus
- Log: Coniunctis Viribus
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Xantia, Dean Stark, Azoth, Ruth Pauling
- Where: The Rosary
- Date: December 02, 2022
- Summary: Though their reasons for being there vary from professional, to personal, to incidental, all involved with this venture into the Rosary agree: something needs to be done.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Deflagration *>=========================
| Type: Entry | Dungeon Ability: Brute | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Once upon a time, there had been a space here in the earth where precious
metals had been found in abundance, But long before Meria Boule was even a
glimmer in the eyes of the world, the mines were emptied -- but for a single
deep section. Named the Great Works by students of the School of Mineralogy,
these were both a potential source of great mineral wealth as well as
geological beauty...
And what's more, if their assessments were correct, the Great Works was also
where the Geo Primarch -- a being of yore of great power over that element,
Geo -- now slept.
That was then. Now...
...Now, instead, one will find themselves within a rose garden. As
bruise-colored as the dusk and without a sun to turn their faces towards,
the roses rise from nearly every conceivable stony surface. The first you
might simply brush past, but the further one goes into the Malevolent Domain
the Works have become, the thicker the roses become.
Truly, what the Seraph Harmaus and his allies have wrought is most terrible.
The more their thorns catch, cut, and prick flesh. It will take great effort
to carve a path inwards. But inwards towards the wonders is where the signs
-- still hanging on the wall -- suggest you must go if rescuing those the
Seraph has captured is your aim.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Collapse:_Brute_Down!, Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, and |
| Overzealous:_Brute_Down!_Combat_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The Great Work has, historically, been a geological and sorcerous curiosity. The thought that it could be a Primarch's prison is deeply worrying on multiple levels, given the bizarre eldritch seepage in the Hadal Temple, the creeping void of Xibalba, and the weakening but fearsome wards of the Molten Scar.
But whatever else was here, a Malevolent Domain is here now, and it's manifested in a deeply significant way.
Ida leads the way down the entry shaft, clad in her armored coat and combat gear. Instead of a more conventional light source, she holds a gleaming metal brazier; a flame burns brilliantly beneath the hood. As the first trickles of Malevolence touch it, it starts emitting pure white smoke as the flame she set starts purifying. Ida's prototype is improved from the original draft, but this is a strong Domain. Ida can feel it already. There's something familiar here.
"A garden," Ida says. She breathes in the tainted pollen, scenting the wind--but if a single Hellion is here, they don't stand out so much. "I don't see much of a path ahead, but watch yourselves--there might be wards." Ida shifts the lantern to her off-hand, and holds out her right. Exoskeleton flows down her forearm, solidifying into a single cutting edge from elbow to pinky finger. As she leads the way, the thorns close in, reaching for her--and she hacks at them, gritting her teeth and doing her best to fend them off.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Deflagration.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia hasn't heard anything regarding missing people. What she did hear about is the sudden appearance of a garden, in a place where no garden should be happening. As wonderful as it would be if Filgaia's vegetation were to make a spontaneous comeback like that... well, what the Prophets tried to do at the Spire of Yggdrasil was plenty to convince her that such things don't just happen out of nowhere. Is someone messing with the Ley again? Or...
Regardless, something about this doesn't sit right with her. It put her on edge, in a way she can't fully explain just from the previous experience. Almost as if... there may be something on a deeper level, causing anxiety for reasons that she's not consciously aware of. Something... from the past, perhaps? Does this situation remind her of something that she once knew about...? Needless to say, she has plenty of reason to investigate. And so, as is her wont when something feels this urgent, she went off to do so, right away, on her own, forgetting to even tell anybody.
Upon arrival, things quickly took a turn for the dire. The Malevolence was palpable. By now, she can tell a Domain when she enters one. This changes everything.
Okay, not everything. It certainly didn't change her typical way of approach. The signs are there at the entrance when the party arrives - judging from the smashed thorny vines, someone was here before, not long ago. Unfortunately, everything is growing back so rapidly that it doesn't make the going much easier, but a little bit. It's enough to be able to catch up to a brightly glowing figure up ahead: Xantia, surrounded by an aura of Light, hacking away at the encroaching vegetation with her ARM, while smashing away at it with her favored demolition tool: a hammer-headed fist weapon. She is frustrated, more than anything else.
"Gaaaah! Stop growing so fast! How am I supposed to get through like this?!"
Maybe, just maybe, that is the point here, Xantia
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Mini-Megaton toward her party's challenge, Deflagration. Rally!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The Primarch of Water, the Primarch of Fire, and now the Primarch of Earth... Dean hasn't encountered the previous ones personally, but he's heard about how powerful and deadly they are. That doesn't stop him or even slow him down when he hears his friends have been kidnapped by Harmaus and dragged down to those depths. Though he's got Kaguya to worry about too, he can't not help Ida and the others when they head down to the Great Work.
That all said: the rose garden stinks. Not even in the usual floral way. It just stinks!! That's the fault of the Malevolent Domain, no doubt, but Dean is not a fan of the way the thorns rip and tear at his clothes and skin. Even as he makes faces at it, though, he helps Ida purify the area as best he can with the power of Moor Gault invested in him.
"We'll just have to make a path, then. And I've got just the thing to help!" Dean declares. He reaches for Ace of Spades--but then another thorn stabs him, and he decides he's had enough of that. Grabbing the Original Artificial Mountain Medium, he calls upon the power of Dinoginous to shield himself and his allies against all harm. It'll only last a scant couple of moments, but hopefully it'll be enough to get them past all this.
That power falls on Xantia too, who is coincidentally close enough nearby and more than enough of a friend in Dean's eyes for it to extend to her. He brightens as he realizes her presence and waves over to her. "Heeeyyy! Xantiaaa! Over here!!" he calls, cupping his hands over his mouth.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Mountain Medium toward his party's challenge, Deflagration. Strengthen! Party Brute boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
For such a small creature, Harmaus is capable of causing a great number of large problems. It's almost impressive, really, except for, well, the problems! But though Harmaus Problems may be the reason for being here, it would be a waste not to stop and smell the roses. Or admire the rocks, in Azoth's case.
...Except there's also the literal roses. Huh.
Azoth takes from running a finger against stone to brushing his touch over a rose petal, beeping in curiosity as he looks ahead and sees how thick the vegetation as become. Malevolence isn't unsensible to him, but it can be more difficult to understand how powerful it truly is in a given area, and all its potential effects.
These roses, however, are familiar.
"Right," he says to Dean. Azoth flicks his photon blade hilt into his grip, spinning it idly in his fingers. Instead of his common one-two-three large bladed charge, he keeps it on a small level one to hack and cleave through the gardens, cauterizing the thorned vines where he can.
He stops suddenly, standing as straight as he can with eyes aglow at a frustrated voice. A smile overtakes the entirety of his face. "Xantia?" With a cheerful beep, he starts carving his way toward the voice instead, petals and vines tossed up in his wake.
...It's probably still helpful.
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Falk's Photon Blade toward his party's challenge, Deflagration. Fanfare!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
As far as Filgaia goes, there is a wholly unique advantage the Drifters of the world have when it comes to delving into those Malevolent Domains that occasionally take root.
Ruth. She is a powerful Hellion, who herself bears an undeniable presence when they deign to stop concealing themselves within the shell of her former self. She is dressed as she usually is, heavy clothing layers and carrying a large blanket-wrapped rifle on their back. She doesn't need to say aloud what is plainly sensed - this is a Domain.
Filgaian Hellions typically have it easier in holding themselves on a land where Malevolence is still relatively rare. Most of their Malevolence exposure ends up being from their own, the emotional entanglements of contradiction not straying far from those that they already live with.
The earthy miasma here is far richer than that. That Ruth seems to only slow down towards the back of the group to kneel down before some roses and clasp gloved hands around the stems may be a testament to her strength of will that she doesn't take every invitation to simply let herself out and draw what power she does from what's in the air, in the ground, everywhere.
The thorns do not take kindly to being handled. Ruth seems to zone out as Xantia calls out, and Dean yells back in turn. She doesn't even look to the brilliant lights cast by Azoth's weapon or Xantia's might, or Dinoginous' blessing and Ida's brazier.
She's the last to make pace as she rises.
"This Domain is stronger." Ruth says, with the barest hints of trepidation. There's something more building there she's only just holding back, opening her eyes to show they are still her 'former' gray, raincloud-like color. "I shouldn't alert them... its 'Master,' to my presence."
She can't really use her sniper rifle without channeling Malevolence to give her the strength to do so. What she does offer, however, is a deeply relaxing mist invoked from a Crest Graph bearing Muse and Fray as she follows through the thorny brambles.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Deflagration. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round! Sacrifice! The party will take slightly more Exhaustion this round!
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Deflagration *>=========================
| Type: Entry | Dungeon Ability: Brute | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Once upon a time, there had been a space here in the earth where precious
metals had been found in abundance, But long before Meria Boule was even a
glimmer in the eyes of the world, the mines were emptied -- but for a single
deep section. Named the Great Works by students of the School of Mineralogy,
these were both a potential source of great mineral wealth as well as
geological beauty...
And what's more, if their assessments were correct, the Great Works was also
where the Geo Primarch -- a being of yore of great power over that element,
Geo -- now slept.
That was then. Now...
...Now, instead, one will find themselves within a rose garden. As
bruise-colored as the dusk and without a sun to turn their faces towards,
the roses rise from nearly every conceivable stony surface. The first you
might simply brush past, but the further one goes into the Malevolent Domain
the Works have become, the thicker the roses become.
Truly, what the Seraph Harmaus and his allies have wrought is most terrible.
The more their thorns catch, cut, and prick flesh. It will take great effort
to carve a path inwards. But inwards towards the wonders is where the signs
-- still hanging on the wall -- suggest you must go if rescuing those the
Seraph has captured is your aim.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Collapse:_Brute_Down!, |
| Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Overzealous:_Brute_Down!_Combat_Up!, and |
| Strengthen:_Brute_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
==========================<* The Rosary - Round 1 *>========================== ==========================< Results - Deflagration >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Pauling 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Mistcrest 2 Brute Effects: Cleanse and Sacrifice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Mountain Medium 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xantia 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Mini-Megaton 3 Brute Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azoth 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Falk's Photon Blade 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Injure(2)|Overzealous(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
This Domain will be absolute misery to purify. It's vaguely like Emrys Mire--the Malevolence here is perversely vibrant, manifesting most obviously as the seemingly-endless thornbushes. Ida hacks her way ahead, and Azoth follows closely behind. As long as the group stays together, they'll have a decent enough trail. But then--
"Xantia?" Ida forgets Ruth's advice for a moment, and cranes her neck in the voice's direction. "How did you get--"
A thorny vine as big around as Ida's wrist goes for the brazier. She jerks it out of the way, but the vine wraps around her arm instead, prompting a wordless snarl of pain as thorns dig into her. Thankfully, Dean's on point with the warding sorcery, and the solidity of Dinoginos' blessing dulls the pain. Ida hacksaws her arm free just in time for Xantia to break through the last patch of brambles and join the group.
Together, they make the last push. "Certainly... like their roses," Ida says, looking back at Ruth. "...You don't suppose...?"
DG: Xantia has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Aurum Horizontale *>=======================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Wits | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
You have been here before.
No, not in this part of the Domain. You have been /here/, in this place that
feels out of joint with the Domain itself and so at home for you.
For all of you, if you're all being honest. It is not one distinct spot as
much as it is a fusion, with elements and aspects that reflect some place
meaningful to each of you.
Try as you might, you cannot extract yourself from this incongruous spot
easily. Each of you must contend with the elements of a place familiar to
you in order to release the Domain's hold upon you.
But that may be no easy task.
(OOC: As it says, this is a medley of places near (and dear?) to members of
the party. The GM for this round may decide what the overall aspect of the
space is. Each party member should incorporate and resolve an element in
this place that reflects their 'special place' in their pose.)
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Overzealous:_Brute_Down!_Combat_Up!, |
| Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and |
| Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
As Xantia is doing her best to get through this mess of plant matter and not succeeding nearly as well as she would like, the task suddenly feels easier, somehow. As if the encroaching vines are having a tougher time reaching her, her protective aura suddenly having to do less work. Wait a second, she knows this feeling. It's a distinctive kind of magic, that she's been the recipient of more than once. There's no need to wonder about who this is - especially not as his voice soon calls out to her.
"Dean? Hey, Dean! And Ida too! What are you doing here?" A silly question, she realizes immediately after asking it. "Oh! The Domain, right, that's kind of a Seer thing to be looking into, isn't it?"
And that's not all. There is also... "...Azoth?" There is a slight moment of hesitation, where she isn't quite sure to react. But then she notices his smile and enthusiastic approach, so she can only respond in kind. "Hi! Wow, what a place to meet, huh? But I'm glad you're here." No need to bring up what happened the last time they met, right? Right. They have an Understanding.
There is one more member of the group, who she doesn't know as well. Xantia looks to the preoccupied-looking Ruth with open concern before asking, "Are you okay? The Malevolence is pretty thick here, have you dealt with it before?"
Oh, if she only knew.
Once the path is finally cleared, Xantia speaks a bit more on her situation as the party proceeds. "Not sure how long I've been here, but it sure feels like forever. I just couldn't get anywhere, these things grew back way too fast. Good thing you all showed up!" Especially since Xantia doesn't know the meaning of the word 'quit', this could've ended pretty badly if she tired herself out in a bad spot. But she didn't and it was fine, so she's not going to worry about it.
She's not paying much attention to the immediate surroundings, as there don't seem to be any immediate obstacles ahead. But things do start to get hazy. Unnaturally so. This isn't a natural fog. If anything, it's a spiritual one. One which clouds sight on a mental level, moreso than a physical one. While it may appear that the fog lifts after a time, that's the illusion - every individual perceives their newly revealed surroundings differently. It's somewhere they've been before. It couldn't be here, yet somehow it feels like it is, as if in a dream-like state.
As for what Xantia sees, it's... sand. Nothing but sand, as far as the eye can see. She becomes acutely aware of the agonizing heat, her ravenous hunger... and the fact that she's completely alone. "Th-this is... no! Why? Why am I here? I don't want to be here! I don't... I don't want to be alone!" She looks around, wildly. Where are the others? Wait... which others? There never were any others. She's all by herself out here. She can't remember a time when she wasn't wandering this endless desert by herself. Will she ever manage to find anyone out here...?
Suddenly, she notices that she's holding something in her hand. She's not sure when it got there, but she's clutching it for dear life. ...A shard of some sort of crystal? When did she get that? And why does it feel like she's forgetting something important? Wait, something's coming to her. A memory... somehow, this crystal reminds her of a name. That can't be. She doesn't know any names but her own. Yet it still feels like she knew this one, once. But who? Who is this...
"...Azoth...?"
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Memory Shard toward her party's challenge, Aurum Horizontale. Stalwart! Party shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Yeah! That's it exactly," Dean tells Xantia with a nod. "A few friends of ours are in danger because of this place, so we're here to take care of it!" He pauses. "...Why're you here? Same deal?" After all, Xantia doesn't need to be a Seer to want to help her friends too.
"Stronger?" Dean echoes, looking over at Ruth. His eyebrows furrow in something between concern and dismay. "You mean... than Elise?"
It just now occurs to him that maybe these roses are Elise's, even, as he looks around again. Ida's naturally a mental step ahead of him on that mark, even if the vines try to snatch for her and her brazier. Good thing Dinoginos is on their side. With everyone working together, they make it through the brambles and to the other side. And where they end up, once they pass through an unnaturally thick fog, is...
"...Huh," Dean utters, squinting around them. There's a Heal Berry orchard here, just like the one right outside his hometown. It's... JUST like it. The shape of the trees, the way they're arranged... it's like the whole orchard was transplanted right here. But that can't be it. Right? But this path... when he walks up it, he sees the fence borders, and the ramshackle homes, and...
Dean isn't the type to get homesick. He loves adventure, has spent his life craving it, and loves the life of a Drifter now that he's leading it. Sure, he wanted to be a Golem Hunter, but Golems have become a natural part of his adventures, so he's not sad about it. But...
There's something off about it. There's no people. Capo Bronco is small, but it has its community of people. As he walks in along the stream and around at the homes, there's just no one around. It's an eerie feeling. Like the desert might be closing in... and the more he looks, the more he sees a desert, not closing in but already here, having eaten up his home and the surrounding lands. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
"This can't be real. It's seriously weird," he says aloud. "What do you think, guys? ...Guys?"
He turns and looks around. He's alone. He stares at the empty field for a moment. Then, eyes thoughtfully wide, he pops a fist into an open palm.
"Oh, I get it! It isn't real!" he declares. Elise did those, right? This must be her doing, he reasons. "We just gotta cut through it! Hang in there, everyone, we'll be out of here in no time!"
He summons Twin Fenrir from the ether with a flash of light and fires off a Detector bullet. A green overlay overs the area and sends lighter green triangles spinning forward as minor treasures and hidden pathways--if there are any--reveal themselves. Hopefully it'll show not just him but everyone the way out--wherever everyone else is.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Detector toward his party's challenge, Aurum Horizontale. Stalwart! Party shielded from some Exhaustion this round!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Certainly... like their roses,' comes Ida's observations, '...you don't suppose...?'
"Elise." Ruth confirms. "She's here... but there's another." Ruth, of all people, would know Elise's presence. She nods at Dean's thought. "Yes."
She remembers being with her through Emrys Mire along with the Trial Knight and their allies. It was the first time she ever delved into a Domain far greater than what she herself can project, uneasy and overstimulated while doing her level best to protect her charge while K.K. imparted their wisdom.
'Are you okay?' Asks Xantia to her. 'The Malevolence is pretty thick here, have you dealt with it before?' She squeezes her right hand, feeling the tension coursing through. She has had to individually confront what she did to Elise, and her hand in her being who she is now. Yet, she hasn't absolved herself of the image and memory of a scared, hurt young woman whose inability to then perceive her true self's appearance in turn made a misconception of her virtues as a person.
Her rosary around her right forearm doesn't press into her skin. She's holding herself. Ruth's eyes close as she nods her head gently to Xantia's question, but when she opens her eyes...
Beautiful, opulent marble and gold adorns roses of almost every color except for one. On all sides... the unquenchable anger of a pack of werewolves, the unceasing fright of goblins. The flippancy of harpies, the voraciousness of trolls. The obsessiveness of knowledge-thirsty leeches, the keenly interpersonal desires of devils. All given their space in these illusory gardens, tended to by insectoid-like Malevolence-empowered constructs that surround a queenly figure hewn of flawless marble stone and gold that approaches her.
She takes her clawed fingers, delicately grasping Ruth's gloved hands. Ruth defensively curls her fingers inward.
She can hear her voice.
'Why does my beloved Knight sheathe herself in a wretched form she has long since transcended?' This voice may have never exactly stated these words, but they feed to what festers in Ruth's heart. 'With such wonderful Malevolence within you, those monstrous hands you fear could find a truer shape that reflects your kind, gentle nature as my fiercest, most stalwart Knight...'
The conceit of the Rose Queen beckons the despair within to take its place. Ruth lowers both her hands and her gaze.
'Return to my side. Though the world may spurn and fear you... you deserve a place within my kingdom. My beautiful dream.'
Ruth smiles gently... but cryptically, as a surge of pain twinges through her left shoulder, a great weight in her chest anchoring from the buzzing in her mind. She can hear the others, faintly, from her right.
"I will be back soon," she says to the illusory Elise, walking past her subjects.
There isn't any deception or lies in those words, knowing what she does of this place... though it weighs. It always does. It always will.
Such is the way of her kind.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Aurum Horizontale.
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
Azoth, likewise, stops short once he actually catches up to Xantia. There's a moment that smile of his might fall to something hesitant, but Xantia... is Xantia. She mirrors his cheer back, and his smile falls only to become a softer, warmer version. Glad he's here. Well, there's no reason to doubt it when Xantia asserts something. "...Likewise." He glances to her hands, as if they wouldn't have had enough time to heal since she grabbed hold of his broken, sharp-edged chassis and dragged him from danger when he could do nothing to repay her.
But. Maybe they really don't need to say anything. An understanding.
He glances to Ruth himself. She's more an expert on this sort of thing than he is, but it still feels important to say something. "Don't overdo it. We're here, too." For her, if she'll let that happen. Elise, though... An individual Azoth has seen the power of before. And it's a lot of power.
The fog sets in. Azoth's eyes shine, trying to cut through it, but errors light up in his sensory input. Azoth makes a confused beep, each of his steps spawning geometric lines of light within a spreading darkness. A grid paints a skeleton of a city... but in miniature, as if the ancient skyscrapers were only as tall as he. The scale is wrong, and so is all the color. There's no realism in this depiction: it remains neon lines over an impossibly pitch black. A digital model.
He stops. He reaches out to touch the top of one of the buildings, but where he traces his finger, a groove appears on black like it were being marked by a sharp edge. He withdraws the way organics typically do when they accidentally touch a hot stove. His eyes lose focus, glazed with faint light as he beeps, not in his usual melodic communications, but like chattered code.
Silence. He sends more signals, desperate, urgent. Are they encrypting our communications again? he thinks, and then wonders where the thought came from. One of them usually broke through, eventually. One... of them... He can't remember the number. He can't remember... A voice calls out, and it's familiar, but, that's not his name? Except it is. It is. Isn't it? If he can't remember, there's something he's supposed to do. He reaches into his coat -- oh, right, he's got a coat -- and finds a chunk of quartz crystal.
Azoth's eyes flash back to life. He breaks into a sprint, adjusting algorithms and adapting calculations to account for this illusion and try to navigate past it. "Xantia! I'm here!"
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Oculus ex Machina toward his party's challenge, Aurum Horizontale.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Good thing, yes," Ida says, as she looks down at her arm. Some of the thorns made it through her sleeve, and bright spots of two-tone blood glimmer on the armored fabric. "This is not a good place to be trapped." The vines make no further attempt at the brazier. Ida lifts it high, where it can shed light as well as thin out the domain.
'Elise. She's here... but there's another.'
"Good sense," Ida says, glancing back at the Hellion. "I couldn't pick her out. I wonder who the other is." Who, or what.
The fog thickens. It overwhelms the light of the brazier, and for those few, frightening moments, Ida is alone in the darkness. Footsteps approach, the sound of metal on stone. A humanoid figure steps closer, carrying a beacon of its own. Ida's eyes widen as she recognizes it; the brazier almost slips from her fingers in a moment of mute horror.
The servant-mannikin is a figure shaped from a suit of armor, and animated by Malevolence. It has no face, and its metal torso has the vague suggestion of a butler's jacket molded into it. This must be one of the ones she animated when she could barely animate herself.
The butler-hellion holds out its arm to collect its mistress's jacket. Ida sucks in a breath and walks past it, into the workshop of Castle Rabenstein.
It's all wrong. The shape of the Malevolence hasn't changed, and that is the main thing keeping Ida from panicking and reflexively screaming for the others. This is a trap. It's sensing her memories. Ida walks past a chair too tall for her to sit in comfortably, past piles of metal scrap and tools left lying carelessly. Full sets. Hesiod hadn't gotten around to stealing the 'out-of-place' ones. And for a moment, Ida stares at that empty chair, remembering what it was like to stare at a lump of metal, and feel just as empty as it.
She should be training! She should be creating! She should be preparing to find the Trial Knight's secrets!
And all she could do was sit in this place, a despairing god with only other despairing gods and hollow creations for company.
Ida grips the lantern--her creation, her fire--in one hand, and the multitool in the other.
"Dean? Ruth? Azoth? Xantia?" Ida's boots echo on old stone. The Malevolence clings to her, but it can find no purchase. She's steady, focused. Old memories tighten her chest, but she does not deny them.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool ARMS Meister's Field Kit toward her party's challenge, Aurum Horizontale. Enlighten! Party Wits boosted!
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Aurum Horizontale *>=======================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Wits | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
You have been here before.
No, not in this part of the Domain. You have been /here/, in this place that
feels out of joint with the Domain itself and so at home for you.
For all of you, if you're all being honest. It is not one distinct spot as
much as it is a fusion, with elements and aspects that reflect some place
meaningful to each of you.
Try as you might, you cannot extract yourself from this incongruous spot
easily. Each of you must contend with the elements of a place familiar to
you in order to release the Domain's hold upon you.
But that may be no easy task.
(OOC: As it says, this is a medley of places near (and dear?) to members of
the party. The GM for this round may decide what the overall aspect of the
space is. Each party member should incorporate and resolve an element in
this place that reflects their 'special place' in their pose.)
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!, |
| Overzealous:_Brute_Down!_Combat_Up!, Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and |
| Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
==========================<* The Rosary - Round 2 *>========================== =======================< Results - Aurum Horizontale >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 22 --(0)--> 22 Pass ARMS Meister's Field Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Pauling 10 --(12)--> 22 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Detector 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xantia 10 --(7)--> 17 Fail Memory Shard 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Azoth 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Oculus ex Machina 3 Wits Effects: Efficient ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Overzealous(1)|Reckless(2)|Stupify(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Dean Stark has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Caput Mortuum *>=========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
From where do roses rise?
From the soil, of course -- and fed by sun and rain alike. In a space like
this, however, with no sun and certainly no rain and with rock alone as
their substrate... Perhaps the better questions would be what sorts of roses
might arise.
And what would serve to give them life.
The earth that feeds this immense Domain of a garden trembles at your
approach. Not all of it is suited for serving the roses. Some of the rock is
merely that: rock, and cast-off at that. But that does not mean that the
rock has been in the presence of such Malevolence without being... affected
by it.
It's the dregs that rise from the flowerbeds to face you: all the refuse and
slag which the flowers could not use. Animated by the sheer force of
Malevolence that suffuses this space, this unfeeling stone and sludge comes
for you.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Enlighten:_Wits_Up!, |
| Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, |
| Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, Stupify:_Wits_Down!, and |
| Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia answered Dean's 'same deal' question with a slight shrug. "I guess now it is. I just kinda ended up walking into this, didn't really know what to expect except 'trouble'. But now that I see what's going on here..." Well, she has her theories about the cause, and is completely unsurprised at Ruth's claim that there is 'another', in addition to this Elise who she isn't familiar with. But rather than go into any of that, she simply concluded, "Can't just leave a place like this alone, something bad's bound to happen."
But that was then, and this is now. Right now, Xantia can't even clearly remember these things, her memory clouded over all over again, to match the circumstances to her current surroundings. She finds herself holding the Memory Shard, without remembering what it even is. She doesn't know why it called that name to mind - a name which somehow managed to pierce the mental fog that had her completely in its grasp.
And speaking that name... called forth an answer. Xantia's eyes go wide. "That voice! I know that voice...!" And with that, it all comes flooding back. The memories... and the world.
It is as if five islands that had drifted apart are suddenly pulled back together. For but a fraction of a second, all of the places that shouldn't have been here, but were, are all in the same place. Bits and pieces of each vision all blur together - but while the images fade quickly, some details from the other visions may linger in each of the party's minds as the fog lifts from it.
It's as if nothing happened, on the outside. From one moment to the next, everyone is reunited, and standing in a completely unremarkable part of the Domain, in so far any part of it could be called such. But everyone's memory of these events are completely intact. And as such...
Azoth suddenly finds himself rushed, and tightly hugged, by a very distressed Xantia. "You're here, you're here, I'm so glad! What just happened, I thought I was all alone again, it all felt so real, and--"
Xantia abruptly takes a step back, presenting her shard of quartz crystal. "Heh heh. See? Told you it was magic."
It still is a completely unmagical piece of crystal. But as far as the effects go, well, looks pretty magical as far as Xantia's concerned.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean fires his Detector, and that alone breaks the illusion. He's left blinking in confusion as suddenly everyone is all together and Xantia is giving Azoth a fierce hug. "What was that all about?" he wonders, looking around. His expression turns concerned at Xantia, but--she seems to be okay now that whatever happened has passed, so he gives her a smile.
He looks around one last time. He thinks he sees shreds of something in the Malevolence, but... it's hard to say if it's actually anything or just his eyes playing tricks on him. Or another illusion. The light from Ida's lantern bouncing off the last shreds of fog, maybe.
"We'd better get a move on," he says aloud, and leads the way to encourage just that.
As they move, the roses reassert themselves from the rock and soil. Emphasis on the rock: as the ground grows steadily less soft and fertile, so too the roses grow wilder and sharper. Before long, it's mostly rock, too solid for the roses to find purchase--and rejected by their loveliness and suffused by ambient Malevolence, stony arms rise up and SLAM down at the center of the group, trying to crush them in one blow. Fortunately, they're slow enough to rise that there's plenty of warning.
"WOAH! Everybody watch out!!" Dean shouts, leaping backwards out of the way. "It might be slow, but one blow from that thing looks like it might squish us good, so we better take it out quick!"
He draws Ace of Spades. No better tool than a shovel to deal with a creature of the earth. With a fierce cry, he charges forward and leaps up to attempt to bury that blade into one of its blocky joints!
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Ace of Spades toward his party's challenge, Caput Mortuum. Rally!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
In catching up with the others, and worlds colliding, Azoth catches the bits and pieces of their own realms. Of a little frontier town, of gardens in marble, of old castle architecture filled with unusual servants, but not a type of construct he has not seen before. They are pieces he thinks he should not have seen, but his mind is a series of calculations, always turning data into thought, and already he tries to place each of the pieces. Dean's home in a frontier. Ruth in a place crafted like art, forged in feelings, as Hellions are. And Ida... that's not what Azoth would have guessed, if these are places of meaning. It's not Guild Galad. Is it not hers...?
Then, of course, that expanse of sand where Xantia was alone before everything is as if it never was. Azoth catches Xantia when she rushes him, solid and stable as he hugs back. Before he can try to answer her, she's back and presenting her quartz. Azoth smiles, lifting the shard she gifted him to give its twin a gentle tap as if it were a toast. "Hey, I never doubted you," he says brightly. It's not even a lie. "... An illusion, I think. But I heard you, too. Thank you."
Dean hurries ahead, as they all rightly should, back into the rocks and roses.
It all comes to life, violent with Malevolence. Azoth observes it movements and calls up as many database entries on similar entities -- rock golems and plant beasts and the like -- as possible to adjust his algorithms. None of his ancient database gets tripped over, and his eyes remain a steady blue as he forms a fan of matching energy blades and launches them out into the creature's form, trying to protect the melee by explosively delaying any further strikes from those earthen arms.
"Right! I'll cover you!"
DG: Azoth has used his Tool Randomly Accessed Memory toward his party's challenge, Caput Mortuum.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
For someone whose being is already deeply suffused with Malevolence, the partitions of memory do not fade from Ruth's peripheral sight as quickly. As Ruth comes into Ida's field of vision, Ruth lifts her head and seems to look into the space beyond the lantern and the Seer. The (former) elf's eyes are too keen to ever miss much, to watch flexible metal puppets milling about the fading sight of a basement workshop. Something about it stands out a bit more than the eye-catching sights of massive skyscrapers, desert fields, and an idyllic village. A specific quality, a likeness to the space Ruth herself left.
"...Another Domain?" Ruth catches the faintest whiffs of the deepest shadow of hollowness as it all disappears. She knows of Ida's own battles with Malevolence in a bit better detail thanks to Boudicca, but she never could truly envision what 'hers' was like.
Ruth's company in her own Domain were those of wild beasts that came to Siddim. Those walking metal... things... sort of remind her of what Elise created to serve her. Elise had always exuded a great loneliness no matter who surrounded her or tended to her.
"Was that yours, Ida?" Ruth asks, but this train of thought is derailed immediately as Dean yelps in surprise of the appearance of an enormous slab of rock. Ruth's far enough towards the back she doesn't have to move much to avoid being crushed, but in Althenan elemental theory it is the earth that holds strength over water - something that seems to still remain true when it comes to most Hellions and their own elemental powers.
Ruth falls over from the seismic force, her heart racing as her discordance makes a bid to convince her to release. She sucks in a breath and gets out one of the Crest Graphs bearing Muse and Geo.
All the while, she takes in the sight of the mass of cast-off rock. The idea of something unwanted being fully thrown away, rather than repurposed and remade... it doesn't strike her as something Elise would do. The refuse and slag, animated by those feelings conveyed by Malevolence, does not lie - it speaks to unresolved feelings.
All Ruth can do is channel a large globule of water to crash against it, but as a Crest Sorceress she does feel there's something strange as she invokes it. She's unusual in that there's a specific quadrant of Ley she is most proficient in (a sign of either a lopsided or incomplete education in the field), but she's knowledgeable enough to say this much...
"The forces of Geo are stronger here," she says, though these words may be lost in the panic and haste of the situation.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, Caput Mortuum. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida crosses the workshop, and arrives at the stairs leading up to the rest of Castle Rabenstein. She stops for a moment, and turns to look behind her. The Mannikins keep toiling, ceaselessly, repairing and cleaning and polishing--doing all the things she lacks the energy to do.
The hollowness and despair are the strongest notes in the brew of Ida's Domain, but rage and frustration and self-hatred stand out as well. They come to roost on Ida's shoulders as the dream fades, and she catches a glimpse of... a city skyline? But it's the wrong color. And that's definitely the scent of the Rose Queen's domain, and the feeling of loneliness, and the smell of fresh country air. It all jumbles together. Ida shakes her head.
"An illusion," Ida says, answering Azoth. Then, Ruth... "It was." Ida smiles a bitter smile--
And then leaps as something moves with violent force in the corner of her eye. "Hellions!" Ida shouts, once her feet hit ground again. She lights a flashbang on the spark of her brazier, and then whips it at the nearest of the creatures. Ida's other hand curls into a claw, and purifying flame gathers within. She thrusts her hand forward, and it roars out to meet the earthen Hellions.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Caput Mortuum. Embolden! Party Combat boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia tends to be a bit of a whirlwind like that. Crushed by loneliness one moment, perfectly fine in an instant once she sees a friendly face, easily returning Dean's smile in kind. Perhaps a bit too easily. As much as she appears to always wear her heart on her sleeve, moments like this could give reasonable cause for doubt as to what's really going on in her mind.
Then again, she really does put a lot of faith in that crystal of hers, and greatly values the connection she forged with Azoth through it. With something like that backing you up, how could one ever succumb to despair? After the 'toast' of their respective crystals, she clutches hers tightly a moment longer before returning it to the pouch she'd previously retrieved it from without realizing it. It gives her the confidence to declare, "No illusion's strong enough to beat this magic." She might even be speaking at least partially figuratively when she says that. That's a rarity.
After that, all seems well... for but a short moment, when a Malevolent construct springs forth from the surrounding stone. However, this crisis, Xantia can deal with. In fact, she welcomes it, activating her ARM with a grin. "Just what I needed. Wanna know what I think of your nasty mind tricks? Let me show you!"
She... probably knows that these things aren't actually able to talk, and more than likely aren't even sentient at all. And that they have nothing to do with what happened earlier. But Xantia Logic dictates that punishing one product of Malevolence for what another product of Malevolence did to you is perfectly valid. And she's more than happy to dish out some punishment. The red energy blade sprung forth from the bracer on her right arm lashes out, its wielder all too keen to show no mercy when she sees no reason to.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool ARM Blade toward her party's challenge, Caput Mortuum. Embolden! Party Combat boosted!
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
========================<* CHALLENGE - Caput Mortuum *>=========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
From where do roses rise?
From the soil, of course -- and fed by sun and rain alike. In a space like
this, however, with no sun and certainly no rain and with rock alone as
their substrate... Perhaps the better questions would be what sorts of roses
might arise.
And what would serve to give them life.
The earth that feeds this immense Domain of a garden trembles at your
approach. Not all of it is suited for serving the roses. Some of the rock is
merely that: rock, and cast-off at that. But that does not mean that the
rock has been in the presence of such Malevolence without being... affected
by it.
It's the dregs that rise from the flowerbeds to face you: all the refuse and
slag which the flowers could not use. Animated by the sheer force of
Malevolence that suffuses this space, this unfeeling stone and sludge comes
for you.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, |
| Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Exhaust:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, |
| Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, |
| Stupify:_Wits_Down!, and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===========================<* The Rosary - Round 3 *>=========================== ==========================< Results - Caput Mortuum >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Splashcrest 2 Combat Effects: Cleanse and Inefficie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Ace of Spades 3 Combat Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 17 --(5)--> 22 Pass ARM Blade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Randomly Accessed Memory 3 Combat Effects: Efficient -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(1)|Exhaust(1)|Injure(2)|Reckless(1)|Stupify(1)|Tire(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey 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> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean jabs Ace of Spades into the rocky arm's joint; Azoth blasts it to delay further movement; Ruth calls upon the power of water to take advantage of its weakness; Xantia slices it with an energy beam, nearly cleaving it in two; and Ida finishes it off with a shattering punch of purifying fire. It crumbles into dirt, the sickly purple spiritual energy going up in literal flames.
"We did it!" Dean cheers, having leapt off at the last minute with his Devil Arm. He puts the fiendish shovel away, under his belt at his back. "Now let's keep moving before any of the rest of this rock gets any ideas!"
DG: Azoth has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
==========================<* CHALLENGE - Calcanthum *>==========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Agility | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Once, this had been a high natural rock bridge above an abyss. Only the most
foolhardy would dare to cross it -- to fall would have certainly meant
certain death.
The path across the Domain you have taken has taken you to this rock bridge,
now strewn with thorny roses. Blooms protrude from the darkness below -- a
fall perhaps may not be so deadly now, but the crossing is no less
dangerous.
...Particularly for the roses that now grow here in the first place. They
shimmer purple as you approach and you may find yourself growing weaker.
This is unfortunate when it comes to managing passage over the bridge,
particularly if you should fall among the roses clustered below.
A soft landing, yes, but one that would serve to drain away one's stamina.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Embolden:_Combat_Up! and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
So it was Ida's, Ruth confirms, and Ida affirms with the kind of smile Azoth only puts on when he's trying to drive an unhappy point home. She has her own history with Malevolence and Domains. They need to deal with this one.
Azoth smiles with Xantia's return to cheer. Maybe it's quick, but he gets it. Her optimism is unrelenting. That, he gets less. But he likes being close to it.
The monster goes down and Azoth cheers with Dean, because that's what you do in a victory! Before moving on so the enemy does not respawn on you. Onward, then! Along a path of thorns and roses, blooming into an eerie, violet light.
They illuminate a rocky bridge, uncomfortably narrow and precarious. It stands over what seems to be an infinite abyss until more light flickers below them, like a dusting of violet stars. But it's clear from the example above what they are: more thorned roses, waiting below to break their fall... and to devour their strength with their cursed light, with a difficult means of escaping the pit once below.
Even Azoth's eyes dim in their presence. He closes one eye in a wince. "Oh, that is not good for my battery life." He looks across, seeing no other way by this rose adorned bridge, then glances to the others with a nervous smile and a shrug. "Hurry, but not a haste makes waste kind of hurry, right?" He begins on his path, able to do little more but carefully calculate each step... and hope he's got the balance between speed and caution correct!
DG: Azoth has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Calcanthum.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth takes a moment to kneel down before the pile of spurned earth in its wake and gives it that bit of prayer in the span of time that it takes for it to be Purified. It may not have been 'a person' to start with, but there's a pain there that appeals to the awful, predatory aspects of her Malevolence-fueled nature that she has bent into being a source of kindness and compassion. A mechanism that helps her gently step down from moments of heightened tension, but never fully resolve or disengage.
"Elise isn't like this," Ruth says of the cleansed earth that's left behind. It won't be long before it is suffused with Malevolence anew. She follows after Xantia's and Dean's enthusiastic drive to move forward and deal with the issue at hand. She comes up to the rock bridge now covered in those bruised, thorny roses that invite one to be enervated and consumed. That vibrant, fell purple shimmer from the bed of roses.
Elise's array of rose colors are no more beautiful to those able to perceive them, and powerful enough of heart and spirit to not be overtaken - just as deadly, just as dangerous, just as true and uncomfortable of something being suppressed that demands to be.
Ruth's steps waver. Some of it is due to her less-than-satisfactory choice of boots (that she still mostly scavenges), the rest of it being...
She's already fighting the good fight to keep herself contained - as much for the sake of the others as is her own. She can only be worthy of their pain, suffering, and vulnerability so long as she can be trusted with it, and this is part of it.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Calcanthum.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
It occurs to Dean belatedly that maybe Ida might be bothered by the reminder of the time of her life when she was a Hellion, and he looks over at her in concern. He doesn't know what to say, though--not with Ruth right there too. Still, it's not like Ida anymore to give in to those feelings. She might still have them, but she'll push through them. Dean gives her a smile if he catches her eye, before they all move on.
Before long, they find a land bridge that looks decidedly unsafe, stretching out over Malevolent roses. Dean looks down, then across. "Yeah, let's just face forward," he says, nodding along with Azoth. Not good for his battery life... That's kind of cute, really. Dean smiles, then walks calmly and steadily across the rocky bridge. "So--you think it might not be Elise after all?" he wonders at Ruth as they go, having apparently forgotten Ruth mentioning earlier that Elise was definitely present.
DG: Dean Stark has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Calcanthum.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
For a few, precious minutes, the earth will be clean and pure and inanimate. Ida looks down at it, and then back at the others, and nods. "Looking back is hard," she says, "but important." She doesn't follow that with a 'Right, Ruth?' because that would feel like calling her out, but her gaze focuses on the Hellion for a long moment.
Ida stumbles as she hits the outer edge of the field of roses, but catches herself, and forces herself upright. "Ngh," she grunts, "is everyone else--" Suddenly feeling like their energy is being drained? Ida scowls at the flora below, then traces the vines up to the bridge. "Lovely," she says. "I have a refractor in my pack if you need it, Azoth."
Ida sets out after the others, and her own boots are a bit more suited to the task than Ruth's. The wind soon picks up, and blows at the vines--pushing them away without disturbing the path people have to walk.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, Calcanthum. Quicken! Party Agility boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"Too easy," Xantia says upon the rock creature's defeat, but she doesn't sound very happy about it. She means it exactly the way she said it: that was too easy, the fight was over way too quick. Hence her reaction to Dean's suggestion to move before any more rock creatures happen: "Do we have to?"
She doesn't make a big deal out of it, either way. She knows, best to not tire yourself out needlessly in a Malevolent Domain. Especially when it feels like this one's been actively trying to tire them out. Funny how all of these Domains seem to work somewhat differently. Well, not 'ha ha' funny. Especially thinking back to Ida's, which she has personal experience with. Yeah... she bets looking back on that is hard. Important or not, probably don't need to call that back into memory any more than it already was.
Wouldn't you know it, the next obstacle follows the pattern, the path forward heavily covered in those ominous looking flowers with known ill affects. Xantia takes a deep breath. "Well... guess it's time for this again."
By which she means not just braving the flowers, but also activating that aura of Light again that she was using earlier. She finds that it mitigates the effects of Malevolence somewhat, but exactly how much it helps in this situation is questionable. Whether through the effect of the flowers or active Ether usage, it's going to tire her out either way. But if she has to choose, she'd always prefer choosing to do something over nothing.
She has little problem with the hurrying part. She's not a very good judge of when haste is wasteful (that could only mean haste in the wrong direction, right?), but she can at least match the pace at which the others are going. They probably know what they're doing. While she doesn't actively seek to involve herself in the remarks on this not being Elise's style, she does mumble to herself, "If it is you again, I swear..."
DG: Xantia has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Calcanthum.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
==========================<* CHALLENGE - Calcanthum *>==========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Agility | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Once, this had been a high natural rock bridge above an abyss. Only the most
foolhardy would dare to cross it -- to fall would have certainly meant
certain death.
The path across the Domain you have taken has taken you to this rock bridge,
now strewn with thorny roses. Blooms protrude from the darkness below -- a
fall perhaps may not be so deadly now, but the crossing is no less
dangerous.
...Particularly for the roses that now grow here in the first place. They
shimmer purple as you approach and you may find yourself growing weaker.
This is unfortunate when it comes to managing passage over the bridge,
particularly if you should fall among the roses clustered below.
A soft landing, yes, but one that would serve to drain away one's stamina.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Quicken:_Agility_Up! and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===========================<* The Rosary - Round 4 *>=========================== ============================< Results - Calcanthum >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 27 --(8)--> 35 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 27 --(20)--> 47 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 15 --(8)--> 23 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 22 --(8)--> 30 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 15 --(8)--> 23 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Tire(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Ruth Pauling has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - Alkahest *>===========================
| Type: Final | Dungeon Ability: Agility | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Ahead you can see the, barely visibly amidst the roses that cover it, the
vague outline of enormous humanoid fingers glinting with lapis and turquoise
and studded with fossil bones. Only one other thing presents itself in the
jungle of roses: the distant gazebo-like structure entwined in the thick of
the floral sea.
Here must lie the heart of the Domain, and if what you have gleaned is
correct, it is here where the disastrous Seraph Harmaus must be with his
victims.
You face an obstacle before you can deal with him properly, rescue his
victims, and cleanse the Domain, however. This problem is quite clearly the
enormous gulf between you and the gazebo-like structure cradled at the heart
of the verdant Domain.
Well. Nearly a gulf. There are great roses rising to the stone ceiling of
the Great Works. These blossoms shed their petals eternally, each drifting
downwards into the abyss below. If you were to leap from one drifting petal
to the next, perhaps with the correct timing and just enough speed, you
might be able to cross.
But beware. The petals may be great, and they may hover even with many
astride them, but they cannot float in the air forever. They will fall, and
unless you have left one for the next petal, you will fall with it.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHWQyilncc
J.A. Seazer - Alchemistic Girl
http://ohtori.nu/audiology/albums/13/03_Alchemistic_Girl.html
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Cripple:_Agility_Down!, Overwhelm:_Exhaustion_Up!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, |
| and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"I don't want to have to eat your refractor," Azoth says, drooping with guilt. "Those are valuable!"
Luckily, he may not need to. It's a drain, but they make good time across the bridge with their steady focus, the wind of Ida's boots helping giving them all some breathing (or beeping) room along the path, and the warmth of a Light aura. There is still the exhaustion of the domain, some of them affected more than others... but Ruth was already prepared for suffering when she chose to come here.
Azoth glances to the others as they speak of Elise, gathering the data, but not yet having enough to form his own opinion on the matter. He wears his concern openly, however.
Eventually, they make it to the other side, and Azoth's eyes return to normal brightness once they're well away from the life and battery sucking blossoms. "Everyone all right...? I suppose we can't really take a break here. But I guess I could carry someone?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'Looking back is hard, but important.' Ruth feels the gaze from Ida for a time. She doesn't have an answer in the moment, though as Dean wonders, Ruth looks up to... not directly meet his gaze, but enough to know she'd be addressing him. "She's here. Her loneliness. Her longing. Even then, it's not like her to reject others like... this."
Azoth offers to carry Ruth, who struggles. She shakes her head, and finds her left shoulder aching with the shifting weight of what's on her back. She gives him a small smile.
In the aftermath, ahead from the treacherous path, bruised roses fill the space. It's very Malevolence, isn't it, just to keep piling more and more and more even if it's at cross purposes. Especially if it's at cross purposes. Cross purposes to what? They can only speculate, but to stick with what is true and right there: there's an outline of enormous humanoid figures glinting with laps and turquoise, studded with fossil bones. A fantastic sculpture(...?) that stands out compared to the rest of the environs, to the extent it really can. It's buried in roses.
A distant gazebo-like structure is entwined somewhere in the thick of that floral sea.
"There." Ruth says. "When Elise would seek my counsel, we'd often meet in a place such as this," Ruth says, words measured and careful in a way only Ida could directly appreciate. "It has been... some time since we have seen one another. Who would she have for counsel in my absence?"
Ruth might already know from those who she used to speak and meet with. The others almost definitely know, given a certain NAUGHTY SERAPH... no, no, the other one. The one that's catty-- wait. That doesn't disambiguate at all.
Harmaus. Harmaus is a very naughty Seraph.
There's an enormous gulf between where they are now, and where they want to be. huge petals shed from above, endlessly, into an abyss below, and when one's eyes look down... there's no bridge. When one's eyes look up... the aesthetic of those falling petals may be the only way. They drift at a slow pace, as if some sort of otherworldly desire to savor what is withering and falling, to be lost forever.
"...That's our only way," Ruth says to the falling petals. She goes towards a nearby slope of a rocky outcrop and sets the spell of a Crest Graph with Muse and Wing - the Rivercrest - to create a stream of water that can make for a good, potent slope to just shoot people forward into one of the petals if they're confident in their timing.
She doesn't seem too eager to take that plunge herself, and yet...
DG: Ruth Pauling has risked with her Tool Rivercrest toward her party's challenge, Alkahest. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round! Shortsighted! The party will suffer a penalty next round... but not this round!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Yeah we have to! People are counting on us to save them!" Dean says firmly to Xantia. "We can beat up monsters on the way out!"
The group makes it across safely, at least, though things are a little touch and go with Ruth for a bit. Still, Azoth makes that offer to carry her, so that should be fine too.
"I'm doing fine!" he says, though he does give Ruth another concerned look as she explains that Elise is here, but... is maybe not quite herself.
They move on. Past that path, the Malevolence piles on thicker and thicker. It makes Dean want to pull his scarf up around his nose and mouth, though he knows it wouldn't actually help. Then there's that maybe-sculpture covered in roses, and the gazebo... that Ruth explains she used to meet at something like that with Elise.
Of course, the problem isn't that so much as the massive gulf in between them and said gazebo. There are those massive roses and their fluttering petals, but they don't look exactly stable.
Dean wishes briefly that he had his Freeze Ray bullets loaded.
Nothing for it, though. "You're right. Only way to go but forward," he tells Ruth. He heads back a ways, in seeming contradiction to his words; then, watching the petals for a moment, he breaks into a forward dash and starts platforming the heck out of those petals. Hopefully it'll work out for him.
DG: Dean Stark has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Alkahest.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Great. Wanting to stay and fight more was one thing, but now Azoth's got Xantia imagining Xenia eating that giant refractor she stole. Talk about mental images that completely derail your train of thought. And make you hungry. Or well, remind yourself that you're hungry, it's not like Xantia could ever not go for something to eat. Oh, wait, Azoth is talking about carrying someone now?
"Huh, does someone need carrying? I could carry someone! I could even carry Azoth carrying someone!"
What does this even have to do with anything anymore??
Thankfully, the next obstacle makes what must be done abundantly clear, allowing Xantia to refocus her attention on what's actually important. Squinting at the gazebo from afar, she only wishes she could see what awaits there, but now that it's been clearly pointed out as the goal... they have to go there either way. Preferably as quickly as possible. But there's no direct way over that chasm... is there?
The falling petals are pointed out, and even Xantia, champion of daring to be stupid, looks a bit doubtful at that one. "Are those really gonna hold...?" Welp, Ruth has provided a convenient jumping-off method, and the others seem to be in agreement on this being the only way... so what can she do, but shrug and go with the flow?
As usual, once she commits to an action such as this, she does so with gusto, blasting off through use of the provided water stream towards the platforming challenge ahead. She's completely confident in her speed and timing - that, or fear of certain doom upon failure, was never the problem here. She just can't say she's ever used giant flower petals as platforms before. Is that something she can get used to on the fly? Only one way to find out!
DG: Xantia has contributed a risky Agility Action toward her party's challenge, Alkahest.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"It's there for you," Ida says, her tone that of a friend who insists you take the last slice of cake if that is what your heart truly desires. Fortunately, Azoth doesn't need it--and even though it gets a little dicey, they all make it across. Ida stands back and surveys the terrain. "...Is that a hand?" she says. A sculpture?
It might be--there was art in Setanta's tomb, however unintentional it was--and it might not. Ida stares dead ahead at that gazebo as Ruth points it out. "Harmaus is there, then," she says. "Damn fool's been--is he doing all this for her? Is he using her?
But for the moment, that question is immaterial. Ida clambers up above Ruth's makeshift waterslide, and shakes her head. "Not for long. Be quick, and don't jump on the same one as someone else."
Ida lets go, and falls.
The water carries her up, and sends her flying. A burst of wind catches her, pushes her forwards. Ida tucks in her arms, hits the surface of the petal, and leaps off. She's already angling for another one. A long, tendril-like whip snaps out from beneath her sleeve, grappling hold to a massive stem. The wind carries her up as it retracts.
The updrafts Ida leaves in her wake start to move outwards, providing a much-needed boost for the others, too.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, Alkahest. Quicken! Party Agility boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Azoth has posed.
"For me?" Azoth points at himself, and his pupils grow too big. Just don't ask how Azoth actually 'eats' when he gives it an honest shot. Not that he has to do that with refractors. But he could. Presumably. The thing you shouldn't ask about.
"Loneliness and longing..." Azoth repeats. He can't feel it the way Ruth can. He wonders if anyone can feel it quite the way Ruth can. "But rejecting others leads to more of that, right?" It's not logical to him, but the way he navigates the emotions-to-logic tangle is his own.
Ruth needs not be carried, and Azoth gives a nod of respect, mirroring her smile back. Xantia offers to make a stack of it, and Azoth beeps cheerfully. "Useful, if we need to reach higher up."
He looks up with curious eyes at the sculpture(?), and the the gazebo in the far distance, an impossible amount of flowers between them and it. "... That might be too high, though."
Azoth double takes as Ruth explains the purpose of the gazebo. "Wait, Harmaus? Not-a-cat? No offense, but... he seems like... horrible... counsel...?!" Azoth has yet to experience anything to detest Harmaus over on a personal level, but he has met him!
Petals. Large, falling petals. Their only option for going forward. Azoth closes his eyes, then opens them, brighter. Lines of light surge through his body as he hops a few times on his feet, like a boxer preparing for a match.
"... All right, then," he says, systems overclocked before he leaps at Ruth's Rivercrest, intent on calculating the timing he needs in that risky launch to begin a series of quick jumps to the other side.
DG: Azoth has contributed a risky Agility Action toward his party's challenge, Alkahest.
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - Alkahest *>===========================
| Type: Final | Dungeon Ability: Agility | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Ahead you can see the, barely visibly amidst the roses that cover it, the
vague outline of enormous humanoid fingers glinting with lapis and turquoise
and studded with fossil bones. Only one other thing presents itself in the
jungle of roses: the distant gazebo-like structure entwined in the thick of
the floral sea.
Here must lie the heart of the Domain, and if what you have gleaned is
correct, it is here where the disastrous Seraph Harmaus must be with his
victims.
You face an obstacle before you can deal with him properly, rescue his
victims, and cleanse the Domain, however. This problem is quite clearly the
enormous gulf between you and the gazebo-like structure cradled at the heart
of the verdant Domain.
Well. Nearly a gulf. There are great roses rising to the stone ceiling of
the Great Works. These blossoms shed their petals eternally, each drifting
downwards into the abyss below. If you were to leap from one drifting petal
to the next, perhaps with the correct timing and just enough speed, you
might be able to cross.
But beware. The petals may be great, and they may hover even with many
astride them, but they cannot float in the air forever. They will fall, and
unless you have left one for the next petal, you will fall with it.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHWQyilncc
J.A. Seazer - Alchemistic Girl
http://ohtori.nu/audiology/albums/13/03_Alchemistic_Girl.html
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Cripple:_Agility_Down!, |
| Overwhelm:_Exhaustion_Up!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, |
| Shortsighted:_All_Stats_Down!, and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
===========================<* The Rosary - Round 5 *>=========================== =============================< Results - Alkahest >============================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 47 --(5)--> 52 Pass Rivercrest 3 Agility Effects: Cleanse, Shortsighted -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 23 --(5)--> 28 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 30 --(5)--> 35 Pass Rush 1 Agility Effects: Risky -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Azoth 23 --(5)--> 28 Pass Rush 1 Agility Effects: Risky -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Ida Everstead-Rey 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Cripple|Overwhelm|Tire(1) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1)|Shortsighted(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Ida Everstead-Rey has successfully explored The Rosary!
================================<* The Rosary *>================================
==========================<* CHALLENGE - Ens Primum *>==========================
| Type: Discovery | Dungeon Ability: Conclusion | Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
You approach, perilous leap by perilous leap, the place you had witnessed in
among the roses: that strange, almost incongruous gazebo-like structure that
the roses had coiled about in the depths of the Malevolent Domain.
The roses grow thickly here. All of the Great Works feed the Domain well,
but this spot among all others seems to have been as wondrous soil to them
all.
Ah. Perhaps that might be the reason why. You see it below as you leap
towards at last the white structure held aloft by roses: a single unblinking
turquoise-studded humanoid eye of enormous size. It gazes up at you through
the flowers and it is only when its focus shifts -- sighting you -- that you
realize that it is both awake and aware.
But it cannot move. Cannot do anything now for itself -- or for you -- save
perhaps grant you a blessing as you descend upon the platform that is your
destination.
Even corrupted and made to serve as soil for this Domain, the Primarch
Odziozo retains some of its power.
(OOC: You gain the effect of Lock State and and extra 20 FP in the upcoming
combat scene with Seraph Harmaus! Let Staff know you've earned this benefit
on the date of the scene!)
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVZJhswkKkk
Shinkichi Mitsumune - Confession Elevator ~ Pests of the Mind
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Cripple:_Agility_Down!, |
| Hope:_Exhaustion_Down!, Overwhelm:_Exhaustion_Up!, Quicken:_Agility_Up!, |
| Shortsighted:_All_Stats_Down!, and Tire:_Exhaustion_Up! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Certain death awaits those who fall. They could turn around. They could wait. They could give up. They do not, because they cannot.
Dean, with all youthful enthusiasm and resolve that it's the only way forward, is the first one to take their way forward, and he does so with gusto as Ida lays out the proper plan of approach.
Xantia could turn it into a playful race if she so desired, as she's able to keep pace with Dean and then some. She dares to be stupid, stupid does not dare to take on Xantia. Together, Xantia and Dean lead the way - but there's so many petals that the odds of anyone running into one another's footholds is almost nil.
Azoth is the third one to take the plunge after careful calculation, and he can even go for riskier, optimized paths that are considerate of the limitations of the others - so he's able to stay out of the way while making his own.
Ida lets go after the first three do, and with the help of her Zephyr Boots and grappling tendrils of Living Metal, she can make great time and also provide excellent updrafts for safety.
Ruth's the last to take the plunge as she stares out to the gazebo, and brings a hand to her heart. She knows Elise is here - and something else. Something 'greater.' The stream of water - something that is deeply susceptible to Malevolence corruption by nature - goes foul with the rampant Malevolence.
"I'm coming, Elise," Ruth says.
As the others make their way, they'll take note of something massive underneath. A single unblinking turquoise-studded humanoid eye of enormous size, gazing through the flowers... and moving to focus on the others. It is awake. Aware. It notices.
But it does not move. It can't... but some sort of power washes over those leaping over. A power deeply aligned with the Ley force of Geo, because it is.
Just behind them is Ruth, who is now taking to the air through powerful leaps in her Hellionized state. She can't fly (she only has one wing), but that she has released herself now is a message to who she believes is in incredible peril.
Elise's beloved knight has returned, with all the complicated feelings it all brings.