2022-12-14: Best Way to Make Bank?
- Log: Best Way to Make Bank?
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Ruth Pauling, Solitaire Collier, Shige Kiwako
- Where: Lunatic Garden
- Date: December 14, 2022
- Summary: Being a traitor twice over means it's hard to make an
dishonest living, as Josie's found -- fortunately there's a market for treasures from certain ruins, even (especially, if one manages to find what the others missed) picked-over ones like Lunatic Garden. But the thing is, she's not the only one here, and there's a reason Lunatic Garden still has its secrets.
DG: A party led by Josephine Lovelace is now entering Lunatic Garden. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Doors Resealed Too Well *>====================
| Type: Entry | Dungeon Ability: Brute | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
There are multiple doors into Lunatic Garden. Some of them have been opened
before.
Unfortunately, some of those who entered hoped to deter those who might come
after -- perhaps to find something they left behind. When you approach this
door, you find that the stone door has some sort of dark grey crust on it.
This appears to be some sort of ancient, powerful glue -- which has sealed
the entire door into the stone. Getting in will require undoing the sealant.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Overwhelm:_Exhaustion_Up! and Weaken:_Brute_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
The last time Josie had attempted to plumb the depths of the ruin that bears the name -- and no small amount of notoriety among Drifters and archaeologists -- Lunatic Garden, she had run into ARMS in the process, which might have been a little bit awkward.
It's far less likely for it to happen twice around, the way she figures. Still, luck be a lady, and all that business. Not that it'd be a problem for her, now.
Quitting Odessa will do that for you, particularly when quitting involves murdering your boss.
Of course, it's also reason enough for her to keep a low profile of late, which rather cuts the ends off her options while she awaits her own judgement -- but it bothers her rather less than it should. You make the bed you lie in, or perhaps the other way around. Or perhaps this, too, doesn't ultimately matter.
If there's one way to always make ends meet without a lot of awkward questions, though...
"Well, well," Josie remarks, looking the re-sealed entrance up and down. "Hope you lot left something for little old me." According to the tales, the outskirts of the ruin are well-picked-over but that can't be said for the deepest parts. Luck be a lady, and she'll have herself something worth selling -- for less than it's worth, most likely, but beggers, choosers. On her shoulder, Penelope, the pigeon, hunches down as if preparing for to endure whatever's about to happen.
Which is, in this case, Josie producing a mattock from among her belongings and having at the blocked doorway. Maybe she's no archaeologist but it's always done right by her.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Well-Used Mattock toward her party's challenge, Doors Resealed Too Well. Strengthen! Party Brute boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
If it means anything for Josie, Ruth didn't try to shoot her or even threaten it. (Threatening it is pointless, given the typical end result.)
She's been stationed by ARMS around the island for some vague reason or another. Maybe she just felt like sitting along the rocks there, today, breathing in the salty scents and otherwise vibing (by 'if unchecked, unceasingly violent and territorial' standards, fortunately for everyone it's 'checked enough').
Certainly, the sighting will be reported, and that's about as far as 'it' goes. The journey, though, it goes to the doors outside the strange ruin.
Ruth admires the pigeon. She might admire the pigeon less were she aware of the many exploits of Penelope, where being a pigeon might be the only thing keeping her in check from ruling the world.
Somewhere in this sequence of events, she takes a gloved finger down the stone door to take note of the odd gray crust with the handful of gaps. Ruth produces a Crest Graph, a familiar one - the one bearing Muse and Fray. She invokes it and sets it down near the adhesive. This exposed to the elements, if water of some manner could have done it in, it would have. It is, however, a dispenser of relaxing mist.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Speeeeaking of Odessa, Solitaire is in uniform (her old uniform was utterly wrecked) but she as since replaced it. It's a grunt's uniform, the lowest of the low, but the axe on Solitaire's back definitely reeks of a more complicated story. Nevertheless, when she arrives and sees Josie, her eyes are alight with recognition though that little widening of the eyes in surprise pulls back to her usual placcid expression shortly after though she does pull Patience (the axe) free because when the last word of a coworker is that they up and killed your boss along with a number of Odessa goons (and you ARE an Odessa goon), you probably want to at least be a bit cautious.
"Josie." Solitaire says, her voice soft and a bit hoarse. "Why'd you quit? Commander's mad about what Ante."
Seems Antenora's getting her own brand of vengeance.
She turns her head to the door and stares at it for a moment before throwing a Black Joker at the door that explodes upon impact.
As usual she's barefoot at the moment but has her ALMOST NEW shoes in her bag in case she needs some footwear. Solitaire doesn't like to wear the shoes out too fast because they are expensive and she is not made of money. Thrown explosives aside, her posture is not aggressive--at least not yet. Whether she intends to follow orders or not is unclear.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Mistcrest toward her party's challenge, Doors Resealed Too Well. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round! Sacrifice! The party will take slightly more Exhaustion this round! DG: Solitaire Collier has used her Tool Explosive Cards toward her party's challenge, Doors Resealed Too Well. Fanfare!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako only vaguely knows one of these people and that's tangential at best. With all of that said, when you hear about a place called Lunatic Garden, well. She is a cat.
That means she stumbles across a group of people who are clearly familiar. Which is awkward. Her right hand goes up, a short wave. Creepy lantern at the ready in her left. "It's weird running into people while exploring a creepy ruin and all." That's lame. She shrugs. Maybe it'll diffuse the situation? Or you know, make it worse. Hard to tell sometimes. Either way, she starts looking around for anything resembling a pry bar. Or a big stick. Those work too. She's... not kitted out for brute forcing anything sadly. This is totally awkward and she's got her ears twitching at any and all noises. Tails are both all fluffed out and twitchy too
DG: Shige Kiwako has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Doors Resealed Too Well.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Doors Resealed Too Well *>====================
| Type: Entry | Dungeon Ability: Brute | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
There are multiple doors into Lunatic Garden. Some of them have been opened
before.
Unfortunately, some of those who entered hoped to deter those who might come
after -- perhaps to find something they left behind. When you approach this
door, you find that the stone door has some sort of dark grey crust on it.
This appears to be some sort of ancient, powerful glue -- which has sealed
the entire door into the stone. Getting in will require undoing the sealant.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Overwhelm:_Exhaustion_Up!, |
| Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 1 *>========================= =====================< Results - Doors Resealed Too Well >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Well-Used Mattock 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Mistcrest 2 Brute Effects: Cleanse and Sacrifice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shige Kiwako 0 --(22)--> 22 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solitaire Collier 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Explosive Cards 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Overwhelm|Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace 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: Solitaire Collier has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Oak Golems *>========================== | Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information >---------------------------- When you enter the next room, there are a few patches of grass on the white stone. Growing in the center of each is a person-sized, still young oak tree. This might seem odd but harmless, until you enter... and then the trees make two legs unfold, and arms reach out. An angry face appears on each, with black eyes. They strike at you with huge, log-thick arms as they come rushing in to do battle. ============================= Dungeon Conditions: ============================= | Save_Point:_Conditions_cleansed!, Strengthen:_Brute_Up!, and | | Weaken:_Brute_Down! | = Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
To be fair, Josie also doesn't know Ruth's particular affiliations of late. Yes, even though it's been a few months, at the least -- some things she just hadn't needed to know.
"Now there's a sight for sore eyes! How've you been? Hanging in there?"
Josie is at least the same as she's ever been.
Though some of the changes wrought of late might become more evident as the two snipers pick at the door in their own ways, neither of which appear to have much of a notable result, when another joins the motley--
"...Huh," Josie says, turning about slowly to face Solitaire. "Send you to kill me, did they? Right, then--"
Before she can draw, though, a card goes whistling past her head. It explodes when it hits the blocked door, taking the doorway out with it and showering Josie (Penelope having apparently flown the coop for a perch near but out of harm's way) with debris. Taking a step back, she draws a sidearm and takes a step to the side of the doorway, not yet aiming it at Solitaire. "Tell ya what, I ain't feelin' it today, like. How 'bout you make tracks and neither of us saw nothing, yeah?"
And a fourth joins the band!
"First time?" she says to Shige, smiling mirthlessly, as if this is the sort of thing that she runs into all the damn time.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire is not the sort of person who is afraid to take on three people at once. After all, she took more than that on in her first battle. And she IS healed up.
Solitaire does have standing orders to kill or capture Josephine Lovelace but she wasn't actually sent out to do the job. The gun isn't pointed at her yet--Josephine might be serious about letting her go if she just makes tracks. Unfortunately, Solitaire can be nobody but herself and is less likely to back off when a threat is associated with it.
She does say, "Sorry," about the debris. Not intentional? Or sarcasm? Hard to tell. Solitaire's expression is placcid all the way through.
"Didn't send me. Standing orders." Solitaire says. "Only care about your reason. Were you paid off?"
Her gaze slants towards Ruth for a moment. "Ruth." She says.
A catlady approaches but despite being a mousegirl, Solitaire doesn't seem cartoonishly troubled by this. She doesn't look in her direction, keeping her eyes on Josephine though they do slant back towards Shige's direction--but she's really disinclined to take her eyes off of Josephine.
"Yeah." She says to Shige in agreement.
In the very next room though...
...A tree...
A TREE... IS ALIVE!!!!
And it sprouts arms, and legs??? And it body spins around in a circular motion before trotting towards Josie, intending to clobber it--
Solitaire moves quickly herself, taking a swipe at the arm striking at Josephine with Nidhogg in a motion so fluid it seems unreal someone of her frame could swing an axe like that. Black flames erupt out of the axe and engulf the golem's limb as the 'jaw' of the axe bites down rapidly like it's trying to eat the Oak Golem alive. Even as she's doing this, the bulk of her attention is actually on Josephine rather than the oak golem itself.
DG: Solitaire Collier has used her Tool Demon Axe Nidhogg toward her party's challenge, Oak Golems. Rally!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth nods to Josie's question with something like a smile behind it. It never quite reaches her eyes, but since being a part of ARMS she's had a better time of acknowledging and being reasonably attentive - if never fully comfortable - with someone who is happy to see and be with her just because.
She similarly has to shield herself from the debris from the card blast, which more or less solves the problem for them as tension runs cold in Ruth's veins. Outside of the size of the axe Solitaire carries, the mousegirl may not look like much.
There are very few people alive Ruth finds more terrifying, as Josie and Solitaire work out their (perceived?) differences somewhere in that moment.
"Solitaire." Ruth acknowledges her, as she picks back up the Mistcrest (which got flung a short ways towards Shige.) As Shige asks the question while Ruth retrieves it...
"That's the Drifter life," Ruth asides to Shige without meeting her gaze.
How aware or reactionary Ruth is to the news about Josie leaving Odessa is not quite clear in the moment, but she's among the last to follow into the ruin proper. She perks up some when the trees emanate some perceivable desire to do harm - but Solitaire, in the moment, wastes no time moving to protect Josie from the one that's about to bear down on them.
A twinge of pain goes through Ruth's left arm as she hastily pulls out another Crest Graph of Muse and Geo, invoking it to bring a large globule of water down upon the young Oak Golems. She draws her revolver soon after to lay down some supporting cover fire.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, Oak Golems. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako never did find that stick before the door exploded inward. "Yeah that works." She just says, tossing the closest thing to a promising prybar she could to the side. "First time here. Not the first time I've done something stupid." On edge or not, she's trying to roll with it at least. She even takes a moment to smooth her tails out. Which then re-floof. Because of course they do.
The feeling on cartoonish cat and mouse things are there at least. Beyond the obvious tension meaning she's watching the mouse closer than the others. She's jumpier than the rest in a way.
"It kind of is, isn't it." She shrugs. Responding to Ruth that is. If it helps, the cat has no idea who any of them are, group-wise so she's neutral! And jumpy. There are more important things at hand though.
There are trees. Which are odd. The feline beastfolk pauses, trying to figure out what the trap is. Which uh, is it really a trap or is it more of an ambush? She was already on edge enough mostly because she has that brawl vibe going. Thoughts aside, there's a tree running at them and she's short chainsaws or wood chippers to deal with them.
What she does have is a spooky lantern and dark magic. Well they're shadows at least. The creepy ghostlight's shadows start to extend from her own shadow before flicking lights appear above them and the shades of figures manifest from there. Each some vague silhouette of a warrior. Or what Shige thinks a warrior should look like, it's always a blurry line as those figures hack and slash at the things.
DG: Shige Kiwako has used her Tool Scattering Wisps toward her party's challenge, Oak Golems. Embolden! Party Combat boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Now, if it were the first time you'd done something stupid, you wouldn't even be here, kiddo!" Josie says, pairing it with the sort of grin that suggests that they, all of them are probably guilty of the same.
"No?" Josie arches a pale eyebrow, that scavenged Aveh sidearm still directed at the ground. "Well, I'll be a monkey's auntie. So you just happened across and all, yeah?" Her posture remains guarded, as if expecting at any moment for the situation to tilt rather... not in her favor.
But instead, Solitaire has a question for her.
"Nope," she says, smiling in the sort of way that fails to meet her eyes whatsoever. "Would've been nice, right? Get a little tit for tat and all?"
Forget the encounter with ARMS the last time being awkward. This is more awkward, by yards.
"Well, I've work to do and all. So if'n we're to fight, let me know about it soon!" Josie says before ducking through the door.
Perhaps it's almost a relief that there's a tree waiting for them just beyond the unsealed door. Josie frowns, almost thoughtfully. "Well, here's a--"
She doesn't quite finish the sentiment, wheeling away from the animate tree as it comes in for her, wheeling its arms about. Guns, as a rule, don't work well against trees (unless you've got the right gun) so she's traded the ARM in an eyeblink or two for a flask, which she lets slosh in an arc towards the violent bit of foliage. Considering the stench, it's the most rotgut of rotgut liquor.
Which might mean that the tree should burn pretty well given the axe that Solitaire is leveling against it!
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage toward her party's challenge, Oak Golems. Rally!
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Oak Golems *>========================== | Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information >---------------------------- When you enter the next room, there are a few patches of grass on the white stone. Growing in the center of each is a person-sized, still young oak tree. This might seem odd but harmless, until you enter... and then the trees make two legs unfold, and arms reach out. An angry face appears on each, with black eyes. They strike at you with huge, log-thick arms as they come rushing in to do battle. ============================= Dungeon Conditions: ============================= | Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Embolden:_Combat_Up!, | | Save_Point:_Conditions_cleansed!, and Weaken:_Brute_Down! | = Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 2 *>======================== ===========================< Results - Oak Golems >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Josephine Lovelace 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ruth Pauling 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Splashcrest 2 Combat Effects: Cleanse and Inefficie ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shige Kiwako 22 --(5)--> 27 Pass Scattering Wisps 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Solitaire Collier 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Demon Axe Nidhogg 3 Combat Effects: Rally ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Josephine Lovelace 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Save Point(1)|Weaken(1) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace 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.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Okypete *>============================ | Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information >---------------------------- When you enter the next room, the normally well-lit dungeon proves dark. A few gemstones mounted in the upper wall flicker -- and there are cracks, suggesting that the gems that often provided light to these halls were damaged. Then, you hear the beating of leathery wings. A pair of okypetes -- vaguely feminine, fanged creatures with dark black bat wings and long, wicked claws -- sweep down, striking at you in the dark. ============================= Dungeon Conditions: ============================= | Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Tire:_Exhaustion_Up!, and Wound:_Combat_Down! | = Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
"Mm." Solitaire says. It doesn't seem like Josephine is inclined to share her reasons. If it was for money she would've already started swinging that axe at Josephine but despite her willingness to kill, she isn't exactly a rampaging maniac. She doesn't want to swing that axe in a way she'd regret--And Ruth might recall she did, by appearances, do some investigating before she invaded the Blugarde household.
"Was it personal reasons?" Solitaire asks. "Answer that and I'll know." This is just another way of asking Josephine her reason but at least in this particular case, she's allowing some room for Josie to not really get into any details she doesn't want to get into while still answering the questions.
The oak golem doesn't really stand a chance. Solitaire is pretty much stacked against this kind of opponent. Water is a little less of a weakness hit but Ruth follows it up with BULLETS which are still pretty effective, blasting thick chunks of bark off the golem and slowing its attempts to advance with high velocity shards of metal.
Solitaire doesn't aggress on Shige. So far Solitaire's read on Shige is 'typical drifter'--
--well at least until se summons the power of SHADOWS that summon vague silhouettes of warriors that swarm the Oak Golem for her and get a-hacking.
"...Mmn." SOlitaire says to all of that.
Finally Josie throws some BOOZE at the tree and--
--well, the flames from the Demon Axe spread that much more quickly, rapidly engulfing the tree and turning it to ash in a matter of moments.
"Teamwork. Weaponized Friendship." Solitaire says.
Patience who has been quiet in Solitaire's mind so far 'speaks' up to her too.
Where'd you learn THAT troubling comparision?
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
When the tree is reduced to ash, Ruth does take a moment to kneel down and give it a moment of prayer for its passing while she reloads her sidearm. She doesn't look to the shadows cast by the lantern too closely. She sees enough of that (with more vivid, colorful, undisclosed detail) when she closes her eyes at night. It eases some of the tension.
'Teamwork. Weaponized Friendship.' Solitaire speaks, and there's a little sting in those words she tires not to cede ground to.
"You should answer her," she advises to Josie as she ends up taking the lead into a notably less well-lit part of the ruin. Normally, gemstones help provide ample light here to see where one's going, but it seems like they were damaged. Ruth tracks her gaze up.
"...Someone took out the lights," she muses before leathery wings fill the space with their sound. There's two of 'them.' Them being kind of feminine-featured, fanged creatures with bat-like wings and long claws, trying to swoop and strike in an ambush from above. One grazes against Ruth's upper back with a suppressed hiss of pain. A tiny splash of (regular, plain, perfectly normal) red blood hits the ground as Ruth moves to partial cover to draw the Splashcrest again, invoke it, and try to draw one of them low under the weight of a big splash of water. The other...
That's what the sidearm's for.
DG: Ruth Pauling has used her Tool Splashcrest toward her party's challenge, Okypete. Cleanse! All negative effects will be cleared at the end of the round!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako tilts her head at that and says, "Weaponized friendship is... an interesting way of stating that." She shrugs it off, guiding the shadows in their grim work. Hand wreathed in wisps and shades, guiding them. When the work is done, she twitches the lantern and it returns to little more than a spooky ghost light.
She has no advice for Josie. Ruth probably had the right of it, but that's not her place. Instead she follows the woman's gaze upward, lifting the lantern. Trying to light the area for them.
And they're ambushed. Again. The feline's reasonably quick as they lunge out from the darkness. She ducks away, trying to get out of reach, even as the ample shadow gives her plenty of material to work with. The shadows this time equally monstrous in design. Beastial. Maybe lingering shades of the monsters themselves? Or it's a convenient bit of work.
As for the mouse? The axe is given some distance. She knows she's not in the crosshairs, but if you're expecting a glassing... well, you try to avoid the proverbial splash zone. Though if any of them are in danger, she DOES try to shield them with the same shadows she's guiding around, lead by faint wisps of light.
DG: Shige Kiwako has used her Tool Scattering Wisps toward her party's challenge, Okypete. Embolden! Party Combat boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Was it personal, is what Solitaire wants to know. Even Ruth thinks she should answer her.
Josie pauses for a good long moment before she says anything at all.
"Yeah." It's coupled with a smile -- the sort that is hardly a smile at all, a grin only inches from becoming a grimace. "It was personal."
And that's all she seems to want to say on the matter, at least in this company.
"Well, as much as I'd not mind a sit around the fire," Josie says, rolling her shoulders. A small coo echoes throughout the room; Penelope appears to have followed them in, perching amidst the stones high above any of their heads.
And then as they lope in towards the next chamber, it would seem that something is a little lacking.
Namely, the lights. "Ah, Ocypetes," Josie remarks. "Can't keep their damn hands to themselves or none. Well, there's one way of fixin' that, right."
The report of the old Aveh sidearm might suggest the particular method she's chosen, fixing on her target by sound alone.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has contributed a risky Combat Action toward her party's challenge, Okypete.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
"Mm." Solitaire says to Josie. "Then no need to fight. No slaves, no masters."
She seems comfortable with going against the standing orders apparently. So long as Josie left for reasons that could be countenanced, she has no reason to go after her. Vinsfeld can take his own revenge if he wants. Solitaire only cares about her goal and Odessa really could've been better about fulfilling its stated goals. She already has plenty of concerns that Odessa is more concerned about replacing the current hierarchy rather than providing any substansive reform to that hierarchy.
Well, Solitaire doesn't need an organization but allies are a good thing to have. Maybe some will outlast Odessa itself should it all go to hell.
SOlitaire has no idea what an Ocypete is and honestly would have a hard time pronouncing it. "Osh...Peets..." She mumbles.
She looks to Shige. "Mm."
Is that it???
That's it. Solitaire darts in against the Ocypetes, aiming to carve into them with her axe though Nidhogg himself is largely leaving it up to her right now.
"Ruth... Why?" She asks as vague as ever but she's probably why Ruth said she should get an answer.
DG: Solitaire Collier has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Okypete.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Okypete *>============================ | Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information >---------------------------- When you enter the next room, the normally well-lit dungeon proves dark. A few gemstones mounted in the upper wall flicker -- and there are cracks, suggesting that the gems that often provided light to these halls were damaged. Then, you hear the beating of leathery wings. A pair of okypetes -- vaguely feminine, fanged creatures with dark black bat wings and long, wicked claws -- sweep down, striking at you in the dark. ============================= Dungeon Conditions: ============================= | Cleanse:_All_Effects_Removed!, Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Tire:_Exhaustion_Up!, | | and Wound:_Combat_Down! | = Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 3 *>========================= =============================< Results - Okypete >============================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass Fight 1 Combat Effects: Risky -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass Splashcrest 2 Combat Effects: Cleanse and Inefficie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shige Kiwako 27 --(5)--> 32 Pass Scattering Wisps 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solitaire Collier 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Tire(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Much like the Oak Golem problem from before, there comes a point where one may have to take stock in the idea that Drifter parties are the deadly random encounters in place of the creatures that take residence here.
Shige's alternate light source is a real boon for the group, as one of the Okypetes is already swooping back up into darkness and this helps the others with less great night vision to track their movement. If any of the two get close, the monstrous shadows reach out and grasp.
The one that is otherwise out of sight seems to afraid to swoop back down, as Josie takes her shot with that old Aveh sidearm. (It is also freaked out about Penelope being there. Do they know? We'll never know.)
The one that is drenched... that one Solitaire disposes of without any real fanfare or difficulty, and both their bodies go still. Ruth, not quite reacting to the injury she just suffered, once more comes down to pray for them, somewhere along the line as to where Solitaire asks 'why.'
"...Some things should be answered while they can," she says, her right hand going over her heart. Ruth tends to avoid eye contact, but if Shige focuses intently and carefully from where she is... she can see there's a sadness there. Like the eyes are the window between shelter and a storm, and which is on which side may not be that obvious at a first glance. "Or you'll have to live with never knowing."
It's not a great idea to linger in the dark much longer.
DG: Shige Kiwako has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
==========================<* CHALLENGE - Marid Pack *>==========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
The next room has a few patches of grass on the floor. As you enter, figures
rise from the grass: small, round-bodied things with arms, legs, and solid
black eyes. They chitter at you -- and then dance in a circle -- and a wave
of water, waist high, floods through the room.
The Marids surf it, rather than being drowned by it. They come crashing at
you, trying to bowl you over; they also send powerful, magical jets of water
in your direction. You have to fight not only the tiny plant creatures and
their spells, but the rapidly flooding room!
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Fright:_Combat_Down!_Agility_Up!, |
| Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako draws the shadows back towards the lantern as the enemies retreat. That took longer this time didn't it? Maybe it's a trick of the light. She swings the lantern back and forth, checking for anything else while taking a moment to check on the others. "Everyone okay?" Making eye contact with each. Some of those shadows linger, appearing different than the warriors of before. Looking now, more like the remnants of healers of different stripes. The wisps between their hands as though they were casting healing magic.
It should be noted the gunshots in this space do pin her ears back. There's a ringing, she'll probably be hearing it for hours and she mutters to herself about it, but aside from a slight increases in her tone of voice. "Ocyptiwhatsits?" she asks to Josephine, clearly not used to naming things like monsters. Or having her own names that she dubs on the spot. It's about now that she realizes one thing. A hand goes up, "I'm Shige by the way. Call if you need help." and with a pause she mutters, "Should just stick with the simpler things."
Finally Solitaire doesn't seem to be about to pick a fight so.. she visibly relaxes. You know, aside from the ambushes. Plural. "Mm?" she responds just about in time for them toe enter a grassy area full of round bodied... things. With eyes. The water that rushes the room with just shy of a roar about knocks the feline over. When the lantern briefly dips under the water, it doesn't go out. That glow eminating still. She struggles to get her feet back under her. Quicker than some, but it's still surf and those shadows yet again reach from the depths. Clinging hands, trying to drag these marids back under the water while other shadows actually surface. Pirates, fishermen, marines and sailors this time. Shields or even just themselves trying to blunt the blast of water sprayed by the plant creatures.
"The water's rising, are you okay to swim?" She's not the most confident, skirts, full kit... she doesn't let it show on her face, she thinks though.
DG: Shige Kiwako has used her Tool Scattering Wisps toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack. Embolden! Party Combat boosted!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Okypetes. 's what they're called," she says to Shige, listening intently to the dark. "Though I'm sure 'you bastard' 's good enough for a name, yeah?"
They do have a tendency to take what's not theirs.
There's the sound of one small body hitting the floor in the darkness. "Got one," Josie remarks, holding still as she listens for the other. But Solitaire has it covered.
"Neat trick," she asides to Shige. "Shamanic?"
She knows a few things about the Guardianist tradition courtesy of her dear departed sister (the former Josephine Lovelace). But whether or not this is entirely within their wheelhouse, well...
"Don't I know it," she answers Ruth. "And then one day you turn around and it's too late." She smiles, bitterly at that. "Well, ain't that maudlin! And here I am, hardly drunk enough for that or none." Retrieving that flask from before, she brandishes it at the rest of them as if in a sort of toast before lifting it to her lips and...
"Marids," she remarks, flatly, before downing the rest of her flask. "And here's me thinkin' we'd have an easy go of it!"
The tide might be rising but that won't stop her from drawing a bead on one of the prancing water sprites.
Penelope choses this moment to alight on Josie's head, naturally.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Liquid Courage toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack. Rally!
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire nods once to Ruth. That seems to be that. She is no longer staring at Josephine though she isn't avoiding looking at her--it's just that the high-focus tension of her stare has been set aside--Josie's answer seems to have satisfied her.
Ruth speaks of how it is important to answer some things while they can still be answered. Solitaire doesn't disagree but, well, answering the question probably did stop a fight from happening at least.
Careful. More monsters.
Solitaire turns her head to look at the incoming small round things--a wave of waist high water isn't going to drown her. Solitaire sets Nidhogg down on the surface of the water, swinging her body so she crouches down on top of it.
The weapon then promptly surfaces along the water, bouncing around as she kicks the axe up at the last moment to carve into the neck of one of the Marids. Her cheeks puff out.
Bit sore over her saying someone else has neat tricks huh?
Solitaire's cheeks puff out more.
DG: Solitaire Collier has used her Tool Demon Axe Nidhogg toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack. Rally!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
"I'm fine," Ruth doesn't let eye contact linger for long. Those kinds of creatures they just dealt with can inflict wounds that make it difficult enough for the body to heal from them in a timely manner ("timely" defined as "on-site curatives" in this context), but she seems to endure that wound well enough as they come to the little Marid creatures. There's something oddly comforting watching them that just invites her to kneel down and cast a shadow over them.
They dance in a circle, and a wave of water comes. Ruth rises with it. They do not stop flooding the room. They do not stop trying to ram into others, or blast with jets of water.
There's a sudden change in the atmosphere - something Josie has the most familiarity with of the gathered, but Solitaire and Shige both have witnessed 'it' at least the once.
Rain starts to fill the space, faintly blackish-purple along with the color of an overcast sky ready to rain. Ruth doesn't even so much lift a finger (in a conventional sense) as she channels some of her Malevolence solely to establish a frightening presence against them. It's the release of something that threatened to spill over after answering Solitaire's question.
She has a bitter smile that could match Josie's while that's starting to brew, but she stays within the shell of who she once was.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a risky Combat Action toward her party's challenge, Marid Pack.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
==========================<* CHALLENGE - Marid Pack *>==========================
| Type: Exploration | Dungeon Ability: Combat | Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
The next room has a few patches of grass on the floor. As you enter, figures
rise from the grass: small, round-bodied things with arms, legs, and solid
black eyes. They chitter at you -- and then dance in a circle -- and a wave
of water, waist high, floods through the room.
The Marids surf it, rather than being drowned by it. They come crashing at
you, trying to bowl you over; they also send powerful, magical jets of water
in your direction. You have to fight not only the tiny plant creatures and
their spells, but the rapidly flooding room!
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Fright:_Combat_Down!_Agility_Up!, |
| Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
====================================================================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 4 *>==================================================================== =======================================================================< Results - Marid Pack >======================================================================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass Liquid Courage 3 Combat Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass Fight 1 Combat Effects: Risky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Shige Kiwako 32 --(5)--> 37 Pass Scattering Wisps 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Solitaire Collier 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Demon Axe Nidhogg 3 Combat Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------< Party >--------
DG: The party led by Josephine Lovelace 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> Shige Kiwako has posed.
It took some time, but Shige's got her footing beneath her and she's guiding those clinging, gripping shadows. Draging them down and tearing. Eyes almost glowing in the lantern light at this point as she continues to tap into that borrowed power. Or it's a trick of the light. Things are fun that way! "Right. Okythingies. Seems like they were skittish." She responds, belatedly as the attack ends. Trying to seem nonplussed at being soaked to the bone and looking like the miserable wet cat. She doesn't shake herself off at least. Yet.
The other attacks make quick work of the marids. The bounding axe slicing, dicing and sauteeing the critters. (Well, maybe on the latter.)
Josephine's technique is also quite valid for dealing with a myriad of monsters. Albeit in a less flashy manner, it's not a bad thing. Crashing through and rending them apart. "Yeah, Shaman." She admits, her lantern tugging along above the water now, "I think everyone else knows more than I did at this rate, you know that?" She's definitely kind of a bumpkin, but she won't admit it!
Ruth's option gets Shige to skirt away just... subconciously. Sickly rain and other oddities, Shige's not risk adverse, but that seems off even by her warped standards. The creatures there just bolt, assuming they're not too shocked to be rendered otherwise by the others. At least the water's going down. And only a little bit was ruined. Maybe.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has drawn a new Challenge. ==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
====================================================================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 4 *>====================================================================
===========<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel *>===========
| Type: Final | Dungeon Ability: Wits | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Your path leads you to a room deep within the Lunatic Garden. At the end,
you find an ancient altar to Celesdue, the Guardian of the Moon. The altar
is, however, behind a massive shield of light -- save for tiny holes along
the bottom -- as are the doors behind it.
On the side of the room that you enter, though, is a perhaps familiar
pedestal. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their
limbs are articulated.
When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is
inside the now-animated doll.
As a doll, you and your friends can move through the tiny holes. There,
behind the altar, is a massive prayer wheel. You will need to find a way, as
a doll, to reach up and spin it. Doing so, though, could let down the
barrier.
Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into
it.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Embolden:_Combat_Up!, Fright:_Combat_Down!_Agility_Up!, |
| Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Madness:_Wits_Down!, |
| Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
No lords, no masters. Well, that's a thing, Josie reflects in private. Sure enough, she's glad all the same to not have to deal with that business just yet -- there will be a reckoning one way or another -- but, and not for the first time, she wonders what's to become of Odessa.
Or the people it had gathered under its banners. Even if the organization or its goal falters, they won't just return from whence they came.
A storm's coming, but she doesn't know where it will make landfall.
"Sure were. Probably sizing us up, yeah? Lookin' for an easy mark or such-like," Josie remarks on the fact of the Okypetes even as she takes aim at one of the Marids and ends it. "Those lot like to steal." What do they do with it? Who knows!
"Shaman, eh? Got it in one after all!" she says, coupling the remark with a grin and a wink. "New to the business then? Nothin' like jumpin' in feet first!"
As they're felled, the Marids simply dissolve into the water they control with so much ease, which soon (though perhaps not soon enough) begins to ebb and flow away, sluicing off to some other part of the Lunatic Garden. "C'mon," Josie says, sighting something that glimmers. "Seems like it's our lucky day!"
The departing waters have revealed a narrow path, after all, and where that path leads is somewhere familiar to Josephine.
"Well, well, well. So, Shige, looks like this one's right up your alley, right?" she says, gesturing to the altar, blocked from them by a wall of light. "Don't suppose you've any idea how to bring that wall down..."
She trails off as she backs against a nearby stand, one that she should have remembered from her last foray into these halls, and her hand touches a terrible clay doll.
Josie collapses immediately, leaving behind a very confused Penelope.
The doll her spirit now possesses takes a moment to silently take stock of the situation. Right, right, this is where the last time they'd...
With a crude approximation of a shrug, the doll Josie possesses trundles off towards the gap in the barrier. Spinning the wheel in her current state will take some doing, though...
Which might mean that Penelope strutting off after the doll could just be a good thing. If she were to sit on part of the prayer wheel and cause it to start to spin, maybe--
But this assumes a lot, namely that Penelope will do something productive.
DG: Josephine Lovelace has used her Tool Penelope toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth looks over her shoulder at Shige when she even senses that whiff of fear and discomfort. It takes a concentrated effort to yank that particular chain back, as the fell brewing rain subsides, and Ruth watches the Marids scatter. (This is also a WIS save.)
When they get to the room with the strange ancient altar and finds Josie collapsing, Ruth's hand raises up to her mouth and it does not leave when she sees Josie-In-Doll come to life, move and act like she's her, and...
Ruth touches another doll, and she collapses too.
...
"So that's what this is," Ruth-in-Doll says. She follows after Josie and does not do anything particularly noteworthy other than be an extra pair of doll-hands.
DG: Ruth Pauling has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Solitaire Collier has posed.
Solitaire too wonders what will become of Odessa but she imagines she won't have a hand in its fate. She isn't strong enough. Maybe she should have fought Josephine just to try and get stronger--but it felt like an awkward time since they were both here investigating the ruins. And if she killed Antenora, she'd almost certainly have to go all out even if she had help in that fight.
Solitaire also has a feeling something is up with Ruth. She isn't sure what it is, though. No point in asking about it. One gesture towards personal problems today is more than enough.
So she focuses on the shaman. "Why do you think that?" She asks, of her knowing the least.
She quirks her head at the doll and reaches for one and
Solitaire falls to the ground.
EHHHH????? WHAT HAPPENED?? SOLI? SOLIIII??? WHERE'D YOU GO??? WHY ARE ... YOU... A ... DOLL???????
Solitaire looks at her doll hands and doll feet. She looks to Josephine. She looks to Nidhogg.
She grabs at the handle of the axe and drags it across the floor until she gets to one of the small holes.
She tries to walk through with the axe. This doesn't work.
She looks back to Nidhogg.
She looks back to the holes.
The doll-Solitaire holds her head in her hand and starts hyperventilating.
Solitaire! You can still hear me right??
"Mmn!!"
I'll be okay. It'll be okay. Just take one step at a time. I won't move. IF someone tries to take me I'll cut 'em in half.
"Mmnnnnn.n.nnnnn..nnnnn...." Solitaire isn't happy but she does grumpily let go of the handle and make her way through one of the holes eventually.
She's moping.
DG: Solitaire Collier has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Distracted and wringing water from her skirt, Shige glances up as things go quiet for a few. She gives up, the water's there to stay and.. you know. Dry naturally. Fire's not in her repertoire. "Yep, I am. Shaman that is. Ge Ramtos-" she tries flinging her arm out, trying to shake out the most of it at least. "New to this half of the job. This is more... wanting to see more. I used to stick strictly to haunts that were a problem, you know?" So not quite as adventerous.
"Maybe they hoard it like some birds do. Wonder if they'd react to a lack of any shinies whatsoever." She pats the lantern, "Not that I'd leave this lingering anywhere intentionally, but.. you know."
The next room? That kind of is in her wheelhouse, so to speak. "Do you think Celesdue would be upset if I cheated this? I mean... I haven't had any problems with her particularly." Would that cause any problems? She doesn't actually know.
Still, she swings the lantern around and sets it so they can see the situation at hand better. And, you know. When she hops over into one of the dolls, she walks over to adjust one of her ears. And when she walks away, after brushing a hand against the lantern, more shadows follow her, connected to the lantern so she can maybe manipulate the shadow of the wheel inside. Totally looks like the shadow is grabbing the wheel's shadow to turn it right? Still, she helps on the mundane side of things too! The idea of a lingering ghost or.. spirit? She's not sure, too distracted by the idea of the potential earlier fight, the other fight, the other other fight or the other other other.
Still, maybe later she can poke at it. Or at the very least sort it out. She has, after all, met a dead living shaman and that was weird. She'd rather learn the story first.
DG: Shige Kiwako has used her Tool Ghostly Train Lantern toward her party's challenge, Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel. ==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>==============================
====================================================================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 4 *>====================================================================
===========<* CHALLENGE - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel *>===========
| Type: Final | Dungeon Ability: Wits | Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information >----------------------------
Your path leads you to a room deep within the Lunatic Garden. At the end,
you find an ancient altar to Celesdue, the Guardian of the Moon. The altar
is, however, behind a massive shield of light -- save for tiny holes along
the bottom -- as are the doors behind it.
On the side of the room that you enter, though, is a perhaps familiar
pedestal. It has a cluster of strange, handmade clay dolls there. Their
limbs are articulated.
When you touch one of them, your body falls to the floor and your spirit is
inside the now-animated doll.
As a doll, you and your friends can move through the tiny holes. There,
behind the altar, is a massive prayer wheel. You will need to find a way, as
a doll, to reach up and spin it. Doing so, though, could let down the
barrier.
Touching your body will allow you to transfer your consciousness back into
it.
============================= Dungeon Conditions: =============================
| Fright:_Combat_Down!_Agility_Up!, Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, |
| Madness:_Wits_Down!, Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down! |
= Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
=========================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 5 *>=========================
====================================================================<* Lunatic Garden - Round 4 *>==================================================================== =============< Results - Strange Dolls and the Great Prayer Wheel >============= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Josephine Lovelace 37 --(101)--> 138 Fail Penelope 3 Wits Effects: Efficient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Pauling 37 --(101)--> 138 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shige Kiwako 37 --(101)--> 138 Pass Ghostly Train Lantern 3 Wits Effects: Efficient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solitaire Collier 25 --(101)--> 126 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Josephine Lovelace 80 --(15)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Fright(1)|Injure(1)|Madness|Reckless(2)|Stupify(1) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Josephine Lovelace is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ruth Pauling is too exhausted to continue! DG: Shige Kiwako is too exhausted to continue! DG: Solitaire Collier 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 Josephine Lovelace has been fully Exhausted by Lunatic Garden! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* Lunatic Garden *>============================== ====================<* CHALLENGE - Mural of the New Moon *>===================== | Type: Landmark | Dungeon Ability: Conclusion | Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information >---------------------------- Although you have not penetrated to the deepest parts of the Lunatic Garden, you have found a small side room that had been concealed. The door leads to a carved mural -- the carvings hold, but the paint has chipped off -- that shows a Filgaian sky. High in the sky are two moons: Lunar, but also the infamous New Moon. It has hints of its mechanical nature -- something, many scholars say, might be of the Metal Demons. Who, however, could say for sure? ============================= Dungeon Conditions: ============================= | Bad_Luck:_All_Stats_Down!, Fright:_Combat_Down!_Agility_Up!, | | Injure:_Exhaustion_Up_On_Failure!, Madness:_Wits_Down!, | | Reckless:_Wits_Down!_Brute_Up!, and Stupify:_Wits_Down! | = Digger 2.0 ===================================================================
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
It might have worked, is the long and short of it. Maybe the little clay statues might have had enough leverage, if Penelope had alighted atop the wheel, what with the shadow beginning to slowly turn it to the side. It might have tipped the balance, just barely. And then, the barrier would have come down, exposing a part of the Lunatic Garden that has never been seen -- or looted -- in hundreds of years.
But Penelope... remains standing there on the floor watching as the dolls try to tip the balance. Watching as the shadow tries to turn the wheel. She does not help.
And so it is that turning the wheel... is sadly impossible. Eventually the be-dolled must give up on this endeavor and return to their bodies!
"Well, ain't this a pretty mess," Josie remarks, eyeing Penelope who coos innocently from where she now perches among the abandoned dollbodies. "Guess I'll have a look-see around for what all's left."
What's left, as a turn down a side corridor in their exploration of what they can access of the Garden, is a fairly impressive mural, if one where only the carvings remain. Time devours all things, especially paint.
"This again... though now that I look at it proper-like," Josie muses, peering at the New Moon more closely.
Is it a trick of the carved stone or is it meant to look like a machine?
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The sudden rush of panic and discomfort from over yonder tugs at Ruth over there, dropping everything she's doing to go to the moping, upset Solitaire. Ruth's soul is in that of a creepy doll. She can gather the context almost immediately, seeing how the handle of the axe is left near the hole. Within the range of motion available to said doll, there's that... resonance of pain going down her left arm.
To no longer be able to really wield something that has given her a measure of strength and control in one's life...
And, come to think of it it is a very bad idea to leave her rifle over there unattended and not just because of the potential of someone running off from it, even if there's a part of Ruth that would be eminently delighted to never have the body of a heartless monster again and just go be a horrible creepy doll but-- one digresses.
Ruth stays near Solitaire for as long as it takes for Josie to have to give up, return to her body (and figure out that's how to reverse it). That momentary feeling of powerlessness and separation, like there's nothing of worth of someone beyond a weapon that best embodies their desires...
They can both reclaim their prized weapons together.