2018-05-31: Chapel of Madness: Difference between revisions
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[[Category:Chapter 1]] | [[Category:Chapter 1]] | ||
[[Category:Chapter 1, Act 3]] | [[Category:Chapter 1, Act 3]] | ||
[[Category:(Plot) The Dark God's Children]] | |||
Latest revision as of 17:11, 25 September 2019
- Log: Chapel of Madness
- Cast: Jacqueline Barber, Catenna, Ethius Hesiod, Elhaym van Houten, Fei Fong Wong
- Where: Felkirk Village
- Date: May 31, 2018
- Summary: A team of Drifters visits the village of Felkirk....
=============================<* Pearloats Pasture *>============================== Pearloats Pasture is the agricultural heartland of the Rolance Empire. It stretches through the center of the empire, from Lastonbell in the east to Pendrago in the west. The eastern half is a rolling, hilly meadow. Shepherds tend their flocks here, and must keep a careful eye because of the danger of roaming monsters that have only grown worse in recent days. The western stretches of Pearloats are where the countless grain fields and farms of the Empire are. In the last year, nearly constant rainfall has dampened the fields and the capital of Pendrago, and made the roads muddy and dangerous. This state has drawn out more bandits and monsters than before. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQK2PufIbzI
DG: A party led by Jacqueline Barber is now entering Felkirk Ruins. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
==================<* CHALLENGE - How Quickly Ye Draw Near *>==================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Ahead of you, the shape of the ruined Fellkirk Village looms low on the
horizon, the shapes of buildings seeming unnaturally dark no matter what
time of day or night you arrive. And yet... as you draw close to the
village, you draw farther away. It's not that you aren't moving.
It's that the village is actually /moving away from you/ a little bit with
every second.
Even when you stop, the village seems to get farther away. And if nothing
else it seems to be moving away at the right speed. Or is it moving away at
all? Isn't that a house not too far away? Shouldn't you run to keep up with
it? Or does it matter?
<BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKtlEOX392I>
=Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The village of Felkirk had been there, in the back of Jacqueline's mind, ever since she went and was thwarted by it once before. What had happened there? What had caused the place to become so...distorted? Could the land ever be healed, or would it remain there, like an eternal scar?
She had to do something. She couldn't leave it alone.
And so, she begins the trek up to it once again. Not alone, of course - she would never go here alone. She feared that if she did, she might find herself consumed by it.
Approaching the ruins, however, is not as easy as simply walking up to it. As once approaches, it's as if the village continues to move away into eternity. And this time, they can't cheat - they don't have Lydia's portals to give them an easier time of it. They have no choice but to chase after it.
If chasing after it even helps. Sometimes, it feels as if they're not even moving. Like they're stuck.
Stuck just like they are.
"I...appreciate you all joining me. I know this endeavor may be a bit foolish..." Jacqueline murmurs as she runs. She'd passed out several potions to everyone before they got too close, and she takes a sip of one now.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, How Quickly Ye Draw Near.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"This feels rather unsettling," Catenna murmurs as she follows along behind Jacqueline, on approach to the village.
The approach feels like it has taken a very long time.
She'd left this one to Jay the first time around, busy as Catenna herself had been travelling with Drago's caravan of illegal dancers and merchants. Her time's become rather more free since then, and her friendship with Jacqueline led her to follow along, silver sword in hand and cloak wrapped around her.
The anxiety in her friend's face had caused determination to set in. She could not sit by while Jay faced the challenge all by herself. "No, it is not foolish," she says as she takes a sip from the potion. "You wish to help. If there is a Malevolent Domain at work here... perhaps it is something I can help."
Right now, though, getting there is the problem. And the village seems even farhter away than it did a minute ago.
Picking up her speed, Catenna breaks into a run, her tail and cloak streaming behind her. "Did it do this before?" she asks Jay as she runs towards the receding village.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, How Quickly Ye Draw Near.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Not many talked about the experience at Fellkirk to Ethius' recollection. Which is, in a way, good. However, he knows that whatever's going on here, it's not going to go away if ignored. The increasing hostilities being reported between the warring armies of Glenwood puts something of a time limit. If Hyland pushes further through much further, their ability to investigate this place could be lost. Ethius is not keen to having the Caravan Kinship stand around in the thick of it.
This is a problem for the future. Right now...
Catenna nor Jay would be alone. Ethius would once again offer to come along in that sort of way he does, once again dressed up like some sort of local ruffian who forgot to change out his vocabulary as part of the 'act.' If there is an act. He remembers, only in vague terms, the emotional shock that came from the heart of the village... but he can't turn away from this. Kourin saying she did not recognize this phenomena was reason enough for him.
"Yes, Miss Catenna. It did indeed appear to try and move away from us on a prior expedition," he says as he drifts by at a milder pace than might be warranted courtesy of an already inflated Hot Air Sack. He ceases further description of the previous run in order to gesticulate and chant a refresh of a Symbology spell to keep it airborne, maintaining his momentum without risk of tripping over something unseen on the ground.
The unlight of the unday sky surrounding the village might be obscuring a thick root or rock to trip or stub one toe's on, after all.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, How Quickly Ye Draw Near.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
ELLY VAN HOUTEN is HERE and DID NOT WEAR HER BOOTS!
Where are they?
OVER AT THE TZADKIEL CRASH SITE
"Shoe repair again," complains van Buskirk, a Gebler trooper who was, in fact, actually in the military forces... he was an MP. Now, like most of the REMFs in that force, he has to do actual work.
"Shoe repair," groans MacDougall, Ether specialist (support). It's a happy groan.
"Ha ha! You're hilarious, Klar," laughs Lucky Bergenholm.
"She's not joking," says van Buskirk.
HERE
Elly is wearing leather sandals because they, like shorts, are comfy and easy to wear.
She takes the swig of the speed potion. "It's no trouble," she tells Jay. "I've had to deal with all sorts of things... but, I suppose I'll have to be a little difficult, and insist on a share if we find any money." She smiles, to take the edge off.
Then she looks to Fei. "You'll want a share too, won't you? If nothing else we need to help Hammer get working capital together..."
And then they jog forwards. The wind ruffles Elly's sundress a little. Is that a -
That is absolutely some kind of ARM holster. Oh, THAT'S why she's relaxed. She can probably kill an entire regiment of native troops.
"... I wish this wasn't... a little bit familiar now," Elly says, mid-trooping along, eyes tracking after Catenna and Ethius the Airborne.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, How Quickly Ye Draw Near.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong has just recovered from his cold and is feeling great! Surely going on this adventure will be a good time! Actually Fei is getting a little used to these places trying to make you miserable almost as much as they're trying to inflict actual harm, but Elly's around so he's in a good mood. And he seems pretty comfortable with the Carakin too! So there's that.
He has a bag along his back that contains rations, emergency alcohol, and assorted healing items. "Yeah he's been on my case about not pushing harder for it." Fei admits to Elly. "I mean it's easy when it's like you find a bag of money, but sometimes you don't find anything easily splittable."
He is walking along. Honestly, he might not have noticed what was going on if Elly hadn't pointed out.
"Hm?" He sees the town trying very hard to stay away. "huh... Familiar?"
He can think of a few places. "Anyway, don't worry about it Jay. Carakin's good people."
He does look a little wary of Ethius, but not overly so.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, How Quickly Ye Draw Near.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
==================<* CHALLENGE - How Quickly Ye Draw Near *>==================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
Ahead of you, the shape of the ruined Fellkirk Village looms low on the
horizon, the shapes of buildings seeming unnaturally dark no matter what
time of day or night you arrive. And yet... as you draw close to the
village, you draw farther away. It's not that you aren't moving.
It's that the village is actually /moving away from you/ a little bit with
every second.
Even when you stop, the village seems to get farther away. And if nothing
else it seems to be moving away at the right speed. Or is it moving away at
all? Isn't that a house not too far away? Shouldn't you run to keep up with
it? Or does it matter?
<BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKtlEOX392I>
=Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate=================================================
========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 1 *>========================= ====================< Results - How Quickly Ye Draw Near >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 0 --(15)--> 15 Pass Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(2) Effects: Cleanse|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 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> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"...Thank you. I appreciate it." Jacqueline replies, with a nod and a smile toward Catenna. She was glad one of them among them could handle Malevolence - it was entirely likely that they would need it. And Ethius answers about the nature of this place.
"Yes. Last time, we, um...we cheated." Jacqueline answers succinctly.
She smiles then, turning her attention to Elly and Fei.
"Oh, that isn't difficult at all, really. But...I believe Fei might be right. I don't expect to find any money here. You're certainly welcome to a share if we do find some...but if not, I'll see to it that you're compensated regardless." She replies. She smiles, then, and nods toward Fei.
"...Thank you."
As it is, though, the trip to the town itself is an exhausting one, though Ethius's Hot Air Sack allows him to more easily control his mobility and reduce exertion.
Jacqueline's potions will help those who've taken one to keep going...but even with that, they might find themselves tired out.
Still, they do arrive at the ruins eventually. ...Or was it the ruins that snuck up on them?
Either way...
"We're...we're here." Jacqueline says, taking a moment to catch her breath.
They're here. And all that entails.
DG: Catenna has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Yawning of the Earth *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
All of a sudden, there is a horrible grinding sound from the earth beneath
your feet - a sound that is more than that of tearing rock.
The earth itself splits beneath you. Chunks of rubble peel away as the
ground begins to divide into a yawning rift - but more than that, you can
/feel/ that those jagged rocks jutting from the rims of the chasm are fangs,
and the flames gouting from the depths of the rift are tongues of flame
lapping at you. The mouth of this tainted earth is itself gaping open to
swallow you up.
Only a feat of exceptional swiftness will allow you to bound from rock to
rock and find much-needed safety and solid footing.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna does not have sandals! She has doeskin boots that come most of the way up her calves. They go nicely with her shorts and vest.
Catching the town is exhausting. Catenna downs what's left of her potion, but she's still breathing heavily as she reaches the edge of the town.
Whatever's happening here...
...feels unsettling. The remains of the buildings seem to have somehow come unmoored from reality. Between blinks they phase in and out of existence, as if the village is both there and not there, ruined and not ruined. Sometimes the buildings have even moved in between glances. Catenna stares into the chaotic space ahead of the group, her eyes widening slightly.
"This is not Malevolence," she murmurs - before a horrible screech from underfoot cuts her off.
With a rasp of rock, the ground yawns open beneath the group of adventurers. Catenna gasps and staggers backwards even as the earth itself rips open like an immense, yawning mouth. Ghost buildings dangle over the edges of the chasm. Catenna herself recoils as gouts of flame lick up from the depths, like a tongue attempting to snare her.
The Moon Shaman stares across the rift, buildings flickering in and out of existence on either side of it. "...There must be a way across," she murmurs, before tentatively beginning to try and find a few footholds that seem solid.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Yawning of the Earth.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly feels a sick lurch in her stomach at the walk. The fumbling. This isn't Malevolence? Something else? Joy dissipates quickly. The ground opens -
AT THE TZADKIEL
"You okay there, Klar?"
HERE AGAIN
Elly scrabbles for purchase, ends up grasping onto the ground with one hand as she slides first one yard, then two, then -
A realization seems to come to her, all at once.
BGM INTERRUPT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY5WE66YKcU
As the flame glows lambent red, Elly calls out, "Whatever it is -"
Her free hand comes up in front of her. Her fingers curl. Her hand turns... as if to reach out. "Don't panic. I..."
can i really, Elly thinks. Then: I don't have to do it all. Just enough.
The flame is beyond Elly's immediate power, or is perhaps rooted in some higher (or lower) Authority that her Ether cannot challenge. But the rocks! The rocks are a different story. In the immortal words of Tila Tequila: They're big stone rocks. Elly's etheric patterns skitter off the depths of the hell of burning flames, but they reach for minerals and shapes begin to bloom.
Heart-shaped ones. Ridiculous, perhaps. But as Elly's head tilts forwards, the sudden manifestation of clumpy blunt heart shapes of particolored dun-brown stone starts to resemble something more than a goofily feminine novelty. They look like... hand holds.
"Remember - the pillar, Fei? In the cavern? With, um, with the Guardians?" Is Elly making a fond memory, or a SUGGESTION?
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Yawning of the Earth.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
By the time they make it there, Ethius has to stop and touch down on the ground and allow the heated air to disperse as to give the hand within the sack some rest from being roasted. As he touches down, he casts a gaze over to the open holster that the red-headed young woman has on her person. He yanks the glove off the hand previously inside the makeshift hot air balloon to shake it out. One of those fleeting moments of humanity, the idea of having to deal with some low-key ache that he seems to otherwise uncannily restrain from even the tiniest nuances of expressed body language. (It must sting like heck.)
Nothing seems to come of that momentary Look(tm) at the holster, as his eyes track around for the possible reappearance of the welcome party from the first time. Just in time for Catenna to weigh in her expert opinion of what this is, or isn't.
As if agreeing, the ground opens up right underneath them. Ethius is metaphorically caught with his pants down. An inadvertent stumble sees him drop the removed glove into the abyss. Because he is just shy of entering free-fall himself, he has no choice but to put the disrobed and stinging hand back into the mostly-deflated sack and slur out the syllables to the proper spell as his other hand wildly flutters fingers. He catches himself before he can descend too far into the yawning abyss.
He lifts his knees up on reflex as a gout of flame lashes out at him. He can't get much vertical lift - his drifting is largely helping him maintain his current altitude instead, as he tries to drift towards the nearest handhold (heart-shaped or otherwise) with a cursory sweep of his gaze to be absolutely certain of everyone's locations and bearing.
Another gout of flame spits up higher, as if mocking, dancing before his face before receding.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Yawning of the Earth.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
No, it certainly wasn't Malevolence. Jacqueline wasn't sure what it was. If it was Malevolence it could be purified, but this...
...Well, that was why she was here - to see if anything could be done about it.
What happens next comes as quite the surprise. Jacqueline doesn't recognize the trouble until it is already upon them, and she is usually keen to such things - the earth itself tears itself open, like a great maw attempting to consume them.
"A-ah!" Jacqueline yelps and jumps quickly. This would be a great time for earth pillars...though she can only guess as to whether or not they would betray her, as well. Fortunately, Elly has a better idea, and the means to actually do so - she generates hand holds, which Jacqueline readily makes use of to aid her generally-stable footing as she tries to escape.
th any luck, her potion's effects will still last long enough to carry her through this...
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Yawning of the Earth.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "You cheated?" in confusion. "Did you ride Muni?"
He has to assume they road Muni. How else would they cheat??
Of course then the ground opens up. That's not really good. Fei jumps into the air quickly to avoid falling into lava and dying but he underestimates just how much the ground is going to open up. He doesn't have time to think about how strange the chasm is or anything like that.
Elly mentions something and Fei says, "Yeah I--" He paues. "Ahh, right I could--!!"
He reaches for his medium.
There's a dotted outline of a medium where he used to hold onto it. Apparently the last guy who used it forgot to put it back in its normal spot.
"Ah--" Fei begins before crashing into the cavern wall, scrambling to use Elly's handholds.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Yawning of the Earth.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Yawning of the Earth *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
All of a sudden, there is a horrible grinding sound from the earth beneath
your feet - a sound that is more than that of tearing rock.
The earth itself splits beneath you. Chunks of rubble peel away as the
ground begins to divide into a yawning rift - but more than that, you can
/feel/ that those jagged rocks jutting from the rims of the chasm are fangs,
and the flames gouting from the depths of the rift are tongues of flame
lapping at you. The mouth of this tainted earth is itself gaping open to
swallow you up.
Only a feat of exceptional swiftness will allow you to bound from rock to
rock and find much-needed safety and solid footing.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Yawning of the Earth *>======================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
All of a sudden, there is a horrible grinding sound from the earth beneath
your feet - a sound that is more than that of tearing rock.
The earth itself splits beneath you. Chunks of rubble peel away as the
ground begins to divide into a yawning rift - but more than that, you can
/feel/ that those jagged rocks jutting from the rims of the chasm are fangs,
and the flames gouting from the depths of the rift are tongues of flame
lapping at you. The mouth of this tainted earth is itself gaping open to
swallow you up.
Only a feat of exceptional swiftness will allow you to bound from rock to
rock and find much-needed safety and solid footing.
=Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
==========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 2 *>=========================== ========================< Results - Yawning of the Earth >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 15 --(20)--> 35 Fail Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 20 --(20)--> 40 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 10 --(10)--> 20 Fail Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse|Resilient(1) ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 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: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>===============================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Scratch Scratch Scratch *>====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
As you move between houses that are simultaneously both ruinous piles and
freestanding structures all at the same time, there comes an eerie sound.
An echoing *scratch scratch scratch.+dgsetchallenge 104=It comes from
everywhere and nowhere, all around you. After a few seconds, it comes again.
*scratch scratch scratch.*
*scratch scratch.*
And then space itself rips open and a set of inky jaws extrude and attempt
to latch on to one of your party members.
The creature leaning through the walls of reality defies description,
fluctuating rapidly, like a half-completed glimpse of a nightmare - like a
Rorschach inkblot, appearing to be one thing to someone and another thing to
someone else. Yet it's still reaching out of thin air to try and pull one of
your party members in. You may not want to allow it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Elly may be holding her hearts in her hands, but climbing out of the literal mouth of hell in a place where reality doesn't seem to operate the same way the rest of the world does may be too big even for her hands to hold.
Bodies thump against rock walls as, even as the group attempts to float and/or clamber over or out of the rift, it shifts around them. One moment Elly's halfway up the chasm; the next, she's back down at the bottom again. Flame washes over all of them; it torches Catenna's cloak and singes her hair, and she recoils from it, nearly losing her grip. Feu reaches for his Medium but to no avail. The handholds provide the only respite - but it's a small one.
It takes a lot of effort. The chasm seems to want to swallow everyone up. Soon enough, though, they somehow manage. Struggling handhold by handhold, each manages to scrabble up to the top.
Catenna is the last to flop at the edge of the chasm. "Moon's sake," she pants as she collapses to her hands and knees, gasping for air. She looks back.
Only to blink as the chasm is just suddenly gone.
"...Something is not right here," she murmurs.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Staggering up in a desperate and tense dragging horrorshow, Elly doesn't remember when she held onto Fei or when Fei held onto her, or when they helped others. She lays for a moment on steady ground, panting. Lactic acid has to dissipate before she can move. Just a moment.
Elly pushes herself up on her hands as
>>+dgsetchallenge 104=
something
shifts
The chasm is gone. "What?" Elly says, looking to her left. To her right, a massive horror rips out of space itself with imperious, disgusting ease and it ripples to try to clutch her in in its jaws. To Elly it resembles a gigantic dog, like one of the pre-approved clone-line pet animals that could be found here and there in her home.
But gigantic. And black. And with eyes round about. She is gripped up, snapped up, kicks, wails, and is SWALLOWED right before the eyes of Fei F--
There's a flicker of that weird corona that happened once before and then an enormous BANG as the underside of the creature's jaw is explosively ruptured, spilling hot red electronic light everywhere, instantly vaporizing into hologram roses as Elly rolls her way free, sidearm in her hand. Her mouth opens and closes as she looks at everyone, but she seems beyond word.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool High Caliber Sidearm toward her party's challenge, Scratch Scratch Scratch.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
>>+dgsetchallenge 104==
"Something feels like it is very off," Catenna murmurs, wiping sweat away from her brow.
A second later, something rips its way through the world wall.
"WHAT," Catenna shrieks as the monstrous thing emerges. To her, it resembles nothing so much as a gigantic flytrap with eyestalks. She sweeps her sword out instinctively without hitting it, widening her eyes as Elly is swallowed up. "Elhaym!" she cries, beginning to rush forward.
Elly's got this. The redhead erupts from the mouth of the hideous inkblot. Catenna gasps as Elly's freed; she darts over to kneel next to her, resting a hand at her shoulder as if to check if she's alright.
She looks up. Narrowing her eyes, she brushes her free hand over one of the Mediums at her belt. "Celesdue, please," she murmurs, before chanting a few words in the largely-unknown tongue of the Zortroa.
The laws of physics play bizarrely here. And yet, the force of gravity seizes the misshapen monstrosity anyway. Distorted, fluctuating limbs and appendages shudder and slouch as Catenna struggles to drag it out of the hole in the world wall. "Quickly!!" she urges, voice pinched with strain.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Celesdue Medium toward her party's challenge, Scratch Scratch Scratch.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "What the hell--" as the chasm WARPS around them and tries to consume them. It's pretty awful but at least nobody ACTUALLY gets eaten.
"This..." Fei says. "This is some nonsense." He just lays there for a while. "I can see why y'all cheated." Maybe they should've cheated this time too!! Unfortunately--
>>+dgsetchallenge 104==
Fei jolts up when Elly is SWALLOWED. "No!!" He shouts. "Ell--...eee..." She is already kind of exploding out of the thing's mouth. "Be careful--we don't want to hurt Elly!"
He reaches into his pouch and draws out the most important tool of Fei's. That's right. It's the RPS Badge. He flicks it into the air and launches a chi blast into it, sending it refracting off it and into different points on the beast's body, particularly avoiding Elly with frankly room to spare.
"Why did you want to come back here Jay!!" Fei has already reached this point from 'in a pretty good mood'. "This place is just broken!" He glances to Ethius, maybe wondering if he can debug reality.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Scratch Scratch Scratch.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius isn't clear on the series of events that sees him lie sprawled out on the ground after narrowly escaping a plunge to a fiery death. One might be able to hear him breathe even through the bandanna around the lower half of his face. He might be rattled. In lieu of a glove that has been lost to the abyss, the strange man has decided that wearing the deflated Hot Air Sack like one might an oversized, ragged mitten is an appropriate measure to take while trapped at the mercy of a hellish village that does not operate on any laws of logic or etiquette.
>>+dgsetchallenge 104==
His mind swims as his eyes track to the sky of a color that should not be at this time of day, or any, and it strains to convey this information through a mind that cannot - or maybe should not - see what he is. There is a swirl of sound and color that should not exist within this space not far off from himself, but yet, his comprehension lags even as one among them disappears--
BANG
Ethius tumbles off to the left, drawing the sack-mitten-hand inward with a slurred set of syllables in a defensive posture as Symbological spellcasting lights go off. That's the spell he uses to deflect small arms fire. He is not presently being targeted by small arms fire. This is a needless defensive gesture that seems deeply ingrained like a reflex, but at least now he's upright and alert as eyes track the spilling red electronic light against the ground. What he sees ahead of him...
He can't make sense of what it is. All that's left to do, then, is to grab one of the satchels at his belt, enchant it with another Symbological spell, and hurl it at the nightmarish fluctuating thing to provide everyone a smoke cover to back off to safety.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Scratch Scratch Scratch.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Right when it seems like things were at their bleakest...the chasm vanishes, as if it was never there. Jacqueline, caught mid-leap, does not make the next jump, because her destination...
>>+dgsetchallenge 104=
...no longer exists. She crashes into the ground before hauling herself up with a groan...and finding herself face-to-face with what she can only describe as a demon. A massive creature with too many jaws...one of which snaps Elly right up.
"E-Elly!" Jacqueline cries out in shock. She feels a slight bit of relief when the creature's underbelly erupts and Elly spills out, and rushes over to her side.
"Here, take this..." She urges, drawing out a potion and offering it to her. Right now, she feels this may be useful to the situation than whatever she might contribute to the fight.
And then she looks at Fei, uncertain for a moment.
"...That's...that's why I wanted to come back. It's broken, but...I couldn't leave it alone. If there's a possibility that I can do something about it, I need to try..." She replies.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Scratch Scratch Scratch.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
====================<* CHALLENGE - Scratch Scratch Scratch *>=====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
As you move between houses that are simultaneously both ruinous piles and
freestanding structures all at the same time, there comes an eerie sound.
An echoing *scratch scratch scratch.+dgsetchallenge 104=It comes from
everywhere and nowhere, all around you. After a few seconds, it comes again.
*scratch scratch scratch.*
*scratch scratch.*
And then space itself rips open and a set of inky jaws extrude and attempt
to latch on to one of your party members.
The creature leaning through the walls of reality defies description,
fluctuating rapidly, like a half-completed glimpse of a nightmare - like a
Rorschach inkblot, appearing to be one thing to someone and another thing to
someone else. Yet it's still reaching out of thin air to try and pull one of
your party members in. You may not want to allow it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
==============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>===============================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Scratch Scratch Scratch *>====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
As you move between houses that are simultaneously both ruinous piles and
freestanding structures all at the same time, there comes an eerie sound.
An echoing *scratch scratch scratch.+dgsetchallenge 104=It comes from
everywhere and nowhere, all around you. After a few seconds, it comes again.
*scratch scratch scratch.*
*scratch scratch.*
And then space itself rips open and a set of inky jaws extrude and attempt
to latch on to one of your party members.
The creature leaning through the walls of reality defies description,
fluctuating rapidly, like a half-completed glimpse of a nightmare - like a
Rorschach inkblot, appearing to be one thing to someone and another thing to
someone else. Yet it's still reaching out of thin air to try and pull one of
your party members in. You may not want to allow it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
=========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 3 *>========================== =====================< Results - Scratch Scratch Scratch >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Celesdue Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass High Caliber Sidearm 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Jacqueline Barber 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Injure(2) Effects: Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber 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: Ethius Hesiod has drawn a new Challenge.
==================================================<* Felkirk Ruins *>===================================================
=================================<* CHALLENGE - Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess *>=================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
The rain pelts the remnants of this village unmoored from reality, puddles
welling between structures that are both there and not there. And yet, for a
moment, the clouds overhead roil - and as you pass some of the larger
puddles, something reaches out of the water for you.
Your own reflections.
With every puddle you pass, your empty-eyed and pale-faced reflections,
distorted by the rainfall against the surface of the water, begin to chant
something in a horrifying tongue, reaching out of the water to try and drag
you into whatever endless abyss the puddles hide. Their hands coil like
bitter talons, dripping with the tears of Althena or something worse,
longing only to bring you into the water with them and be with you always.
=Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The Thing gains a hole, a hole-in-hole that becomes something else with a coronic burble. (Elly helpfully rolls clear.) Fei administers a shrieking burst of natural, organic light that makes the thing spray... salt? Is that salt?
Gravity pulls the thing down. A grenade lands upon it. The smoke rises and tries to help everyone, to shield them, to guard them, but it seems like Ethius has somehow set the thing on fire. Or at least on erosion. It's vanishing... fading...
There is a sense of contracture.
Elly takes the potion.
"I feel," Elly says as she gets herself upright, "that we should... um... Okay. This is going to sound a little strange, but forgive me." She drinks the potion.
"Can you define - without using any, um, pronouns like 'they' or 'it' - what your goal here is? I don't mean to judge you... but if this is any sign of things, it's going to get worse before we get to the... center."
Elly blinks. She felt like she was going to say something else but it left her lips almost immediately.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
They are afforded a moment of calm, in so much that this place can ever be described as such. Rain falls from above. It feels cool, if at a temperature that is at the exact amount it needs to be in order to be mildly uncomfortable. Light discomfort is as comforting as it's going to get, and after the trials they went through, they've earned that grace. Ethius takes point as they traverse down the muddy, dirty roads of the fallen(?) village with nary a soul in sight.
"This doesn't belong here." Ethius states simply. "In our previous expedition, we were able to reach the cathedral at the center of this location." That he can confidently describe it as 'center of this location' when 'this location' seems intent to challenge everyone's spacial reasoning as to what anything is, where anything is, or what have you...
As Ethius continues to discuss the reasons for being here, water stats to pool around them. It's subtle. The rain has been falling at a measured rate that is fast enough to allow this to happen, but soft enough that it might escape notice.
At first.
"Ideally, we find the root cause and eradicate said cause - person, item, or otherwise - before such can cause further disturbances." As Ethius passes, there is an emtpy-eyed, pale-faced stranger walking in a perfect reflection through this puddle. Others may notice this too.
The puddles grow in number, in size. They might have to splash through a shallow lake of rainwater, at this juncture.
"I believe I can see the cathedral ahead. After--"
SPLASH!
A gloved hand reaches out and snatches one of Ethius' legs, and he's forced to look the horror in the eye - himself?
He's not alone. Everyone is being grabbed by their doppelganger from within whatever hellish watery abyss lies beyond the puddles underneath. Their grasp pinches, as though their clammy fingers were nails. Rain falls down their cheeks, turned to the color of blood upon touch of pallid, clammy flesh.
Ethius, for his part, tries to work one last burst of sorcery into the well-beaten Hot Air Sack in order to try and stop himself from being pulled in.
To take this straightforward path might have been too careless.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Hot Air Sack toward his party's challenge, Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Not gonna lie - the rain's almost refreshing, in its own way. A weary Catenna turns her face up towards the heavens with a tired sigh, letting the droplets pepper her face.
As she begins to move along behind Ethius, she frowns faintly, giving her lumpier friend a pensive look. "...Then whatever is causing this must be there," she muses as she passes a larger puddle. Her reflection slips past just as she does. "All I can tell is that it does not feel like Malevolence...."
Something splashes. Catenna gasps as she realizes what it is.
And then a cold hand grips her ankle. She recoils, whirling away and staring in shock as her own reflection reaches out of the puddle. The dead-eyed doppelganger grasps at her calf; the moon shaman squeaks and backs up.
She reaches another puddle - and her reflection reaches for her out of that one, too.
"WHAT," Catenna squeals uncharacteristically as she does the only thing she can think of.
She runs. As fast as she can.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline exhales as the thing vanishes. Was it...gone? Maybe. Was it dead? That depends on whether or not it was ever truly alive - she is not convinced that it was.
Jacqueline glances to Elly as she speaks, frowns, and thinks...but Ethius answers first.
"That...isn't exactly how I would put it, but...essentially, yes. I want to understand what is happening, and if there is any way to prevent these...distortions," She says, waving her hand to indicate the area around them. "...From occurring, or, failing that, spreading further than this village."
And yet, she fails to notice the puddles...until she steps through one, and is met with a familiar face - her own, staring back at her with empty eyes that pierce deep into her soul.
Is that truly why you're here?
Jacqueline backpedals quickly from her own grasping hands, taking another sip of her potion.
Or are you just curious...curious enough to risk your life, and the lives of those you claim to care about?
"I-I don't...need to hear this..." She mutters, quickly gesturing at the puddle with her left hand. The puddle begins to freeze over and she breaks into a run, trying to avoid further graspings from those shadows that look far too much like her.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Rapid Remedy toward her party's challenge, Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I guess it's possible," Fei admits. "That it could spread but--"
He sees his reflection in the pool waters. Fei doesn't get mad or frightened, he just thinks 'Great. It's one of these places'.
Of course a bit more unexpected is them actually reaching out for him rather than simply trying to taunt him or anything. It grabs at his leg and Fei dips partially through a puddle that shouldn't be that deep. They're 'puddles' after all not pools but Fei kicks himself free and rises again, considerably wetter.
"That was close." He murmurs as he tries to move on ahead without being seized again.
He glances to Elly periodically to make sure she's managing okay.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I don't," Elly begins to say to Ethius.
"I don't know if," she begins again.
But someone's speaking to her.
The face in the puddles is different from Elly's, mirrored at a bad perspective. Puffy cheeked, definitely. Haughty, perhaps. They say something but it doesn't make any sense. It's like a made-up language. It does seem to shock Elly, who looks at one such reflection.
Another one talks in a similarly imperious tone. That one, Elly gestures at. Lightning crashes; droplets fly;
"Fei - ah - I don't even know what this is. Please -"
And she extends a hand towards him.
"Just - just say something, alright? Something silly. Tell me what you were drawing. SPEAK LOUDLY, PLEASE."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess.
==================================================<* Felkirk Ruins *>===================================================
=================================<* CHALLENGE - Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess *>=================================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
-----------------------------------------------< Challenge Information: >-----------------------------------------------
The rain pelts the remnants of this village unmoored from reality, puddles
welling between structures that are both there and not there. And yet, for a
moment, the clouds overhead roil - and as you pass some of the larger
puddles, something reaches out of the water for you.
Your own reflections.
With every puddle you pass, your empty-eyed and pale-faced reflections,
distorted by the rainfall against the surface of the water, begin to chant
something in a horrifying tongue, reaching out of the water to try and drag
you into whatever endless abyss the puddles hide. Their hands coil like
bitter talons, dripping with the tears of Althena or something worse,
longing only to bring you into the water with them and be with you always.
=Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck, Exhaust========================================
=============================================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 4 *>============================================== ===================================< Results - Bitter Tears of an Unfeeling Goddess >=================================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Rapid Remedy 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Hot Air Sack 2 Agility Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 45 --(20)--> 65 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------< Party >-------------------------------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Exhaust(1)|Injure(1) Effects: Cleanse|Resilient(1) ===================================================< Dream Chasers >====================================================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber 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> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei is asked for some help and he reaches out to Elly, for her hand. "I'm here! Uh something silly... something ... silly. I uh... uhhh.. I fell in the water so I guess i'm a little wet behind the ears! ... when it comes to comedy!"
He reaches out and manages to take hold of Elly's hand. He feels for a moment that he could run to the ends of the world just like this. But he doesn't focus on that right now. He focuses on Elly.
"I was drawing that super spy!" Fei says, loudly as requested. "Then I did some sketches of the kids. The new ones that Nall was taking care of! It'll be okay!"
DG: Catenna has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
=================<* CHALLENGE - The Statue in the Town Square *>==================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
Once, this part of town must have been the village square - you can see the
shops and homes arrayed around it, both as collapsed ruins and ghostly
afterimages of houses that once were as reality reflects both past and
present as one. Only one road seems to lead towards the steeple of the
church in the distance, where the warping of reality seems strongest. And
yet, that road is blocked - by a shimmering, distorting field of eldritch
energy, pouring like a fountain from a large jug held by a statue in the
centre of the square. It is a charred bronze statue of a bearded man. Some
local hero, maybe.
The statue rotates on its base - it looks like it was once part of a
fountain, but the water is gone and the jug spews blockage magic now. The
good news is, you could likely turn the statue and move the shield to
unblock the road.
The eerie part is how, in your peripheral vision, you swear you can see the
statue watching you and smirking as you work.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Wound=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Jay wants to understand. Ethius wants to destroy. No matter the core purpose for deciding to stride somewhere they simply should not be, they are all united (in the very short term) towards the single purpose of not drowning. The things the watery doppelgangers chant - most of it nonsense - grow ever louder as they redouble their efforts to pull their less-drowned counterparts into the drink with them.
The majority of them won't have it. Fei navigates it like a champ. Elly's lightning evaporates much of it, the scent of ozone wafting as she's given space to get reassurance from the former.
Ethius and Catenna both struggle, as what remains of the puddles after a good Ether-powered zappin' seems to see the doppelgangers converge in what's left. There is a 'pop' noise from the inflated Hot Air Sack as one of its patches rupture open, and hot air escapes in a visible cloud. Catenna chances through quantity, until one last trip might see her fate sealed...
It's Jay who will be their savior here, empowered by her Rapid Remedy, to try and help them towards the next dry(-ish) patch on the other side of these eldritch bodies of water.
Even as they all make it through, behind them, the watery doppelgangers continue to hiss in tongues and flail their arms, begging for them to be stupid enough to walk back and let themselves be caught. (No one is.)
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Running isn't easy when there are a lot of puddles.
With a gasp, Catenna staggers as one of her doppelgangers grips her ankle and pulls. She widens her eyes as the phantom clambers out of the puddle - but as Jay casts a potion her way, Catenna is able to grab it.
And smash the bottle in the doppelganger's face. The puddle demon screams and recoils with a faceful of glass shards as Catenna, pale and breathing hard, staggers to her feet and follows the others.
Catenna's limping noticeably by the time she reaches what seems to have been the centre of town at one point. The shimmering ghosts of buildings flicker in and out of existence around it - most of them beyond a field of phantom light that blocks off the road ahead. The light streams from the jug held by a large bronze statue, acrest what seems once to have been a fountain.
Catenna blinks up at the fountain, pressing her lips firmly together. "...I can see the church steeple just past here," she murmurs as she limps forward, towards the statue. She carefully climbs up onto it, laying her hands at the base of it.
The Moon Shaman suddenly looks up, at the statue's face. Her teeth click together as if she's seen something.
"...Perhaps not," she murmurs, before wincing as she begins to try and push the statue. Slowly, painstakingly, it begins to rotate - but she's not all that strong on her own, barely able to budge it.
DG: Catenna has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Statue in the Town Square.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
It would seem that Jacqueline isn't the only one being tormented by her reflection. Elly...to Jacqueline she almost seems to be experiencing it worse than she is, but she is glad at least that Fei is there to help.
They're drawing close. Jacqueline can feel it, and she can see it, in the distance. It had given them difficulty, but they are close now...
...For how little meaning that word has in a place like this, where the land and reality itself can shift seemingly on a whim.
Buildings flicker in and out around them, but even while not present they wall them in. There is only one path forward, and that wall appears to be blocked by a wall of light, pouring forth from a jug held by a statue of a man.
"...Catenna, are you alright? We can take a moment to rest, if you need to tend to your leg..." She says with a hint of concern, noting her limp.
She rummages through her bag, drawing out yet these potions which she distributes to the party. These ones have the added benefit of giving everyone just a bit more strength - both to help them keep going, and to deal with the obstacle before them.
"Just a bit further, everyone..." She murmurs reassuringly.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has used her Tool Brewte Force toward her party's challenge, The Statue in the Town Square.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
=================<* CHALLENGE - The Statue in the Town Square *>==================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
Once, this part of town must have been the village square - you can see the
shops and homes arrayed around it, both as collapsed ruins and ghostly
afterimages of houses that once were as reality reflects both past and
present as one. Only one road seems to lead towards the steeple of the
church in the distance, where the warping of reality seems strongest. And
yet, that road is blocked - by a shimmering, distorting field of eldritch
energy, pouring like a fountain from a large jug held by a statue in the
centre of the square. It is a charred bronze statue of a bearded man. Some
local hero, maybe.
The statue rotates on its base - it looks like it was once part of a
fountain, but the water is gone and the jug spews blockage magic now. The
good news is, you could likely turn the statue and move the shield to
unblock the road.
The eerie part is how, in your peripheral vision, you swear you can see the
statue watching you and smirking as you work.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Wound=======================================
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius falls behind as he wrestles with his watery double. A powerful heat spell forces the puddle to evaporate, struggling to pull his leg out of the resulting deep mud. When Jay hands out a bottle of the Rapid Remedy, he pulls down his bandanna and takes a deep whiff of its contents. He has to follow at the pace of a jog at best as they come towards the town square. Double-checking to make sure his bandanna is back over his face and to also wrap the ruptured remains of the patchy sack back around his hand as a makeshift glove, his gaze levels as Catenna mentions what she sees ahead.
"I suppose our way forward is clear," he comments plainly as he staggers towards the bronze statue whose magical light from its well-sculpted jug seems to be a deterrent from future movement. Ethius eyes the jug, as he edges around the perimeter of the statue's base.
"I am of the mind that sealing the jug's contents could prove the ideal way towards neutralizing its value," so he says. He could have said 'I'm going to melt the thing shut' in less words than that. He'll take a whiff of the Brewte Force potion's contents if they talk him down from it and convince him it's better to try and push it instead.
...Otherwise, there is Symbology, there is incredible heat, and an attempt to melt the top of the bronze statue's jug, to warp it as such to try and shut it closed.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Statue in the Town Square.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh, really! That - that is very good," Elly calls back to Fei, speaking loudly and without clarity. As the puddles dim behind them, one of them turning to glare daggers (not literally) at Elly, she mumbles to Fei, "Thank you..."
There it is. "A cathedral?" Elly says, but the flickering shadows of a town make her pause.
She reaches into a hip bag.
"I'm not even sure what it's spraying," Elly says, but she pulls out - a small gray tube of something? "Take the white bit off," she says as she swaps it with Jay for a potion: "It's got a gray paste in it. It's a lubricant..."
Hopefully it won't catch fire from Ethius's effort.
"... Is it your first time here?" she asks Catenna then, with a sort of genial effort.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Crash Kit toward her party's challenge, The Statue in the Town Square.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei says, "You ok?" to Elly. He gives one last glance to the puddles. He doesn't comment on what he sees, but he lets out a measured breath to steady himself again. "Thank you too. I think I'd have had more trouble if you hadn't spoken up."
He looks towards Ethius as he mentions sealing the jug. That's a good idea, but too many hands on that jug and they're more likely to smash it to bits
Instead Fei focuses on the statue. Did he catch a look?
"I'm going to try something." Fei tells Elly and lets go of her hand. He approaches the statue, closing his eyes and taking a moment to reach into his pocket--
--and then he promptly punches the statue as hard as he can.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Mother's Cross toward his party's challenge, The Statue in the Town Square.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
=================<* CHALLENGE - The Statue in the Town Square *>==================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
Once, this part of town must have been the village square - you can see the
shops and homes arrayed around it, both as collapsed ruins and ghostly
afterimages of houses that once were as reality reflects both past and
present as one. Only one road seems to lead towards the steeple of the
church in the distance, where the warping of reality seems strongest. And
yet, that road is blocked - by a shimmering, distorting field of eldritch
energy, pouring like a fountain from a large jug held by a statue in the
centre of the square. It is a charred bronze statue of a bearded man. Some
local hero, maybe.
The statue rotates on its base - it looks like it was once part of a
fountain, but the water is gone and the jug spews blockage magic now. The
good news is, you could likely turn the statue and move the shield to
unblock the road.
The eerie part is how, in your peripheral vision, you swear you can see the
statue watching you and smirking as you work.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous, Wound=======================================
==========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 5 *>=========================== ===================< Results - The Statue in the Town Square >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jacqueline Barber 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Brewte Force 1 Brute Effects: Fanfare and Strengthe ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethius Hesiod 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Catenna 65 --(5)--> 70 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Crash Kit 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Mother's Cross 4 Brute Effects: None ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber 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> Catenna has posed.
"I... I think I am alright," Catenna assures Jacqueline with a wan smile, though her face is rather more pale than it usually is. She's managing to keep her emotions in check, for the most part.
Save for the little lines around the corners of her eyes, and the haunted look behind them. Catenna does not normally let it show when she's frightened. Right now, fear has tied her insides into a horrible knot, and she's doing her best not to think about it.
Taking a quick drink from the potion, the limping Shaman eases aside as Ethius attempts to just melt his way through the problem.
Elly's talking to her helps. Catenna smiles faintly, nodding. "Yes... I could not accompany Jay the first time. I do not come to Glenwood often...."
All the while, Elly lubes up the statue. It begins to turn a little more easily. But Catenna's muscle alone just isn't enough.
Fortunately, there's Fei Fong Wong. He steps up and decks the statue. Between potion, grase, and Ethius closing up the jug, the statue spins wildly on its base before falling over and smashing into a thousand fragments.
The shield vanishes. The statue's head rolls several metres and stops on the cobbles.
Catenna shudders and looks away. She could've sworn it was giving Fei an accusing look.
"...I hope we do not come back much more than this," she murmurs.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Ye Who Enter Here *>======================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
At the very heart of the village of Fellkirk is the largest and most
imposing of all the ruined buildings: The church. And yet, to approach it is
to find it both ruined and not ruined. One moment the holes in the roof are
there and one moment they aren't, the steeple is both there and gone between
blinks, and the stained glass windows shift rapidly between bright colours
and cracked ruins and twisted things in black and red. The doors stand
closed, flickering between normal doors and doors hanging off their hinges
and doors etched with erratically-drawn symbols that pulse in a horrible,
lifeless white light.
Hunched before the door is a slender figure in a long cloak - but it's hard
to tell if the cloak is white, black or red, the colour changing between
blinks. As you approach, the figure turns to face you, pushing their hood
back.
It's hard to tell if it's a man or a woman or some kind of dead creature
because its visage flickers between all three to form a madness-inducing
confusion of overlapping phantoms - all that seems constant is an
unnaturally wide skeleton leer of madness and eyes that have been subsumed
by roiling white pools of madness. Shrieking in speech that garbles together
like several voice recordings played backwards, the church guardian holds
out its hands and unleashes jagging streams of white and black energy,
crackling like lightning and dripping like blood, twisting into faces like
grasping claws and screaming faces, seeking to rip through both your body
and soul.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Exhaust=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline winces as the statue is...reduced, essentially, to nothing. Well, at least it was gone. She nods to the others and then continues forward...and there, they reach the church itself.
The door is shut.
The building itself, however, seems to shift rapidly - all at once, it is as if it is destroyed, intact...and twisted into something else untirely.
And standing before the door is a slender figure in a long cloak.
"You're back, I see...I don't suppose there's a chance you'll let us through without any trouble...?" Jacqueline says. In response the figure turns, removing their hood...and then letting out an undecipherable shriek that seems almost to assault the mind itself.
Their arms lash out, unleashing terrible white and black energy. Jacqueline leaps back as a bolt crashes into the ground where she once stood, searing and tearing apart the land. One could only imagine what it would do to a person.
"Be careful! I can't...I can't predict what they're going to do!" Jacqueline warns, backpedaling and drawing out a Crest.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Ye Who Enter Here.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
The church guardian is new to Catenna. But then, most of this has been new and unsettling. The sight of the guardian, unclearly man or woman or even alive and yet shrieking something she can't comprehend, leaves the Moon Shaman taking a half-step backwards, shifting her weight to her good leg and holding her sword defensively across her body.
It gleams with a meaningful twinkle of silver, and she looks down at it, her lips pursed firmly.
The sword... the one Cyre gave her. Even with him not here, it feels like he's here, at least in this way.
Dreadful energy tears up the turf around her. Catenna darts away from it with a hiss of breath. Her free hand clutches her Medium tightly. "Perhaps there is a way to make this go a little more smoothly," she murmurs as she grips the tablet, focusing her mind through the chaos around her.
Catenna's spells are never all that impressive to see. In fact, it's hard to tell she's even casting until the semi-dead, shrieking church guardian is suddenly hauled into the air. The entity is flung backwards as Catenna shifts the tug of gravity upwards.
She attempts to slam the monstrous guardian violently into the wall of the church and then drag it back to the ground with a crash!
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Celesdue Medium toward her party's challenge, Ye Who Enter Here.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Jay can at least predict what someone else among them can do, or will do - and that's throw down a smoke cover, as Ethius looses the second and last satchel from his belt the very moment the slender figure in that color-changing cloak so much as shrieks and thinks of flinging waves of white and black energy once Catenna is done forcefully repositioning them.
It will not stop them from shrieking and flinging waves of white and black energy, but one imagines it will give everyone a chance to breathe, focus fire, and also maybe not have to suffer a fully clear visual of the mind-bending madness that is this particular opponent.
Ethius offers no pithy commentary of hope, or pleading for whatever's there to listen. Somehow, through the haze, his gaze seems to pierce the clouds of dust that permeate this battlefield before the chapel ahead. The eyes are not wet with tears, narrowed with fury, or much of anything to speak of as he finishes the final syllables of a higher-yield electrical spell, flexing the fingers appropriately as he regards the vague visage of the spectral threat.
The same purposeful gaze of a someone - or a something - that appears to have more than readily accepted that he means to do whatever this is incredible, unyielding harm to the brink of complete annihilation if such is even possible.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Powder Grenade toward his party's challenge, Ye Who Enter Here.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly raises her hands. She seems surprised at Fei's mad skills and raw unbridled fistpower. The head rolls and she gives it, on pure reflex, a momentary look.
And then they are faced with the slender cloaked figure. For a moment Elly flashes to a figure in armor, but heavier, and a world away - right? - but then
It comes! The discontinuity is huge but perhaps less shocking now, after everything. Numbed by long exposure, feeling a sick throbbing headache in the back of her head, Elly van Houten stares at the creature and she reaches for the flows of Ether and she finds nothing. For a sogging, deathly moment she feels the proximity of death.
Then she remembers.
There is a simple answer to Elly's problem.
For this red-black-white monster before her is a monster true and pure. Many of the creatures she has met and fought may be inimical to human life, and to Elehayym van Houten in particular, but they do not have *no* place in the world. Does the shark not have its reef, the bear its riverine woodland, the lion and the buffalo their Cape? Even the wracked and mutated things, too often, are the fruit of human hand... but are they so different from cattle bred to grow fat and succulent on dried grass and coarse grain?
But this! If this were human once, Elly cannot tell.
But she has an answer.
A solution.
Elly draws her weapon. Helpfully reloaded!
It is pretty big. She does not need to aim super good.
Instead of BANG this gun goes CHOOM and there's a streak of chemical smoke behind it.
And then, the explosion!
She lets the weapon droop in her hand even as dust and gravity strike out. Her eyes are a little too wide. She may be slightly checked-out, right this moment.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool High Caliber Sidearm toward her party's challenge, Ye Who Enter Here.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong doesn't seem to feel any guilt over that.
He shakes out his hand but upon seeing Elly's surprise in her eyes he looks a bit sheepish over it all. Because he's a Lamb, you see. He says, "I thought it was gonna do something spooky." He asides to Elly.
Of course, it seems like they might've pissed someone off, something that's flickering between many different forms. "Perception...or time...?" Fei murmurs to himself. It's pretty horrifying, and is about to say something but--
CHOOM!
Fei slowly closes his mouth. If Elly's willing to take that shot--then he has to be willing to fight unrestrained here too. His head slowly ooks back towards the multi-coored monster. Three in one, really.
"It might be a mercy," HE tells himself before he flicks his RPS Badge to distract the beast before his hand bursts into flame as he throws an explosive series of punches for the creature!
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Ye Who Enter Here.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Ye Who Enter Here *>======================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
At the very heart of the village of Fellkirk is the largest and most
imposing of all the ruined buildings: The church. And yet, to approach it is
to find it both ruined and not ruined. One moment the holes in the roof are
there and one moment they aren't, the steeple is both there and gone between
blinks, and the stained glass windows shift rapidly between bright colours
and cracked ruins and twisted things in black and red. The doors stand
closed, flickering between normal doors and doors hanging off their hinges
and doors etched with erratically-drawn symbols that pulse in a horrible,
lifeless white light.
Hunched before the door is a slender figure in a long cloak - but it's hard
to tell if the cloak is white, black or red, the colour changing between
blinks. As you approach, the figure turns to face you, pushing their hood
back.
It's hard to tell if it's a man or a woman or some kind of dead creature
because its visage flickers between all three to form a madness-inducing
confusion of overlapping phantoms - all that seems constant is an
unnaturally wide skeleton leer of madness and eyes that have been subsumed
by roiling white pools of madness. Shrieking in speech that garbles together
like several voice recordings played backwards, the church guardian holds
out its hands and unleashes jagging streams of white and black energy,
crackling like lightning and dripping like blood, twisting into faces like
grasping claws and screaming faces, seeking to rip through both your body
and soul.
=Dungeon Conditions: Madness, Exhaust=========================================
========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 6 *>========================= =======================< Results - Ye Who Enter Here >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Powder Grenade 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 70 --(5)--> 75 Pass Celesdue Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass High Caliber Sidearm 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 55 --(5)--> 60 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Rally ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 80 --(0)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Madness|Overzealous(1) Effects: Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Jacqueline Barber has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Holy of Holies *>=======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
To step inside this once-Church of Althena is to walk into yourself. And as
you do, you can feel /them/ watching you.
Them - the faces that loom in the sky. Peer from the stained-glass windows
that are simultaneously both loving depictions of Althena and monstrous
depictions of twisted faces with too many eyes and too many jaws and too
many animalistic and demonic features. Them - the phantom shapes that seem
to hover around the edges of the memories and fears that this place merges
with. The indistinct shapes of pale-eyed men and women who sit and stand and
walk and float all at the same time, gathered around you like an audience of
thousands and yet one. They are there even though your nightmares tell them
they cannot be here, in this place where you once felt fear.
You remember when you felt that fear, don't you? That time in your life when
you suffered terribly. The moment when hope was nothing more than a fading
star on a distant horizon. That nightmare that felt more real than reality
could ever be. That memory you don't want to face. That bad dream you don't
want to face.
You face it now, here, before you, as real as it ever was. And the phantoms
and the stained glass horrors watch you as you confront and grapple with
your suffering, and they revel in it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm, Fright================================
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
The guardian whirls on Catenna as she prepares her spell, but before it can send a bolt her way, it finds itself interrupted thanks to an explosive round from Elly that interrupts it and knocks her back. This gives Catenna the time she needs. The power of Celesdue is invoked, gravity slamming it backward into the wall before it is dragged to the ground and immobilized.
From there, a cloud of powder erupts into being around it, courtesy of Ethius. This provides the entire party with cover against it, as Ethius brings his own lightning to bear.
The guardian wails wails, and sends out bolt after bolt...but Fei closes in, weaving through the assault, and unleashing an explosive series of punches upon it.
The guardian's wail becomes long and strained...and then, it appears to almost melt away.
Was it dead? Or was it even truly alive in the first place? That answer eludes them...but before them, the door opens.
The time for that question is over.
Now.
The interior of the church awaits them.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
It was a Church for Althena once. Fei hates churches.
It doesn't seem so bad at first. The feeling that people are watching you in a church is nothing unusual. There doesn't have to be people there, even, for you to feel like there is something judging you. It doesn't even matter if they ARE judging you. That's how Fei sees it. It is a trial for people to seize metaphysical prizes of the soul, and each one is similar and different to the rest.
Fei looks up and around. "It's like a broken mirror." Fei whispers as he gazes at those monstrous faces. "Their light, their very image distorted away from what it once was."
Fei has felt fear many times before. So much fear. Is it any wonder that he's a coward? He comes to a stop, looking at the stained glass. The phantoms reflect suffering back onto Fei, but only he sees what he sees, only he hears what he hears. He doesn't speak of it, nor does he talk to the phantoms. He's learned now that everybody has their own problem to deal with.
He walks forward without really thinking. He walks through Adelhyde as it burns from the machinations of the Metal Demons. Adelhyde turns into Lahan. Timothy and Alice ask him why he killed them. Dan, a boy he once was close with, accuses him of being a monster.
He passes by a battle. A ship rams itself into another. Fei pauses for a moment and then keeps walking.
A fantastic city sprouts up around him before melting in nuclear fire.
Past the window's stains he sees little flashes of light being snuffed out.
I'd want it to hurt-! I'd want it to hurt and hurt and hurt and I wouldn't want it to stop! I would never - WANT to get used to it!
Fei closes his eyes, then laughs a bit to himself. He's not sure why those words came to mind, he never heard them. But he does admit, "Well said."
And he takes a sculptor's chisel from his toolkit and swings it for the window with all his strength.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Artist's Toolkit toward his party's challenge, Holy of Holies.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius throws his back up against the damaged wall outside of the cathedral as the... thing... melts. He casts a look at Elly as they all file into the church proper in some vague, unspecified order, but doesn't say anything. From somewhere in that ridiculously generic ruffian get-up, he gets out that eyeglass of his. He allows a finger to poke out of the dumb raggedy fabric lump that is the ruptured Hot Air Sack slash makeshift glove to finish casting the spell and process necessary to activate it.
Last time he - and the rest walked in, they were caught unaware. This time, if he gets a jump on what they're looking for, what's causing this, he won't be able to b--
Something alights through that lens. He should know it's weird. The Spectral Lens doesn't 'report' like this. He cannot look away from it. It is not a single light, but a series of them, arranged like so.
An overwhelming sense of... fear? Anger? He feels strongly. Felt strongly about something in the past? He's feeling strongly about it right now as he finds himself taking off running into the church. The light of the Spectral Lens has since faded, indicating it should be deactivated.
He can still see those lights. He can see how the lights twirl. They're trying to evade him and he can't let it. Not as long as it... is? Has? Is it something about what it is or what it has? Is it both? These questions try to fill his comprehension as he races about the inner sanctum like a six-year-old child on the perfect summer evening - like nothing else matters but to run.
Like there's nothing but void, all around, save for these lights. That these other colors, they can't... get closer. That he has to get to these lights that are trailing away. His eyes feel heavy, like it has been days since... what? He dares not blink. His stomach feels light and weak. He's a sorcerer, the need to consume more is a necessity, but there's a sense that he's even hungrier than that. That he cannot, or will not, and must not, give in to any of these moments of vulnerability inherent to the human condition.
He has to. He must, or else... what? For those who can look into his eyes as he fails to disregard anyone he might run past, into, or over, they are wild. They are distant.
Kind of like the time someone had to pull him out of submerging himself into that pool of evil water in one of those Malevolent hellholes that kept cropping up around Filgaia.
DG: Ethius Hesiod has used his Tool Spectral Lens toward his party's challenge, Holy of Holies.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
It's over. Catenna lets out the breath she'd been holding unconsciously, before watching with surprise and worry at the sight of Elehayym van Houten hauling out her big guns.
Whether it's dead or not - or if it was dead to begin with - isn't a question Catenna wants to grapple with. The church awaits them. And she can feel the energies within.
The Moon Shaman hesitates at the door. Her fingers tremble against the frame just a little. The lump in her throat feels like it's about the size of a cinder block. With a gulp, she forces it down, then steels herself and soldiers through.
this is your time... my daughter.
The voice is low, female and dignified, with a quiet kindness to it. Amid the chaos, amid the staring faces, there is a small spark of serenity. Another woman, not unlike Catenna.
She is not in a place she has known before.
There is no gentle moonlight streaming through the canopy.
Only the faces.
A tablet of stone in the woman's hands.
One she has known before. One she has never known.
i grant you this blessing, not because you are my favourite.
not for the circumstances of your birth.
but because
you of all of them
understand
what it is the faces leer horribly
that you must do
"But I don't know," she hears herself speak. from among the flickering ghosts
there are faces like hers
sneering girls
sneering like they always do
sneering at mother's favourite
(and she smiles, mother did, like she always did, with that kindness)
(that kindness with a little smug satisfaction in it)
(never knowing what it was like)
(to be the favourite)
(yet to be so different)
(and inferior)
"I have been through this," Catenna murmurs. (and oh, their eyes)
(burn into her back)
(like little whispers of jealous mocking)
of course you shall
because you alone
are the one i chose
Catenna bows her head and closes her eyes. Lifting her familiar stone Medium to her heart, she presses it there. Clasping her hands over it. (and oh, the sisters stare) She sighs, and sinks to her knees. One hand descends. She begins to lay out stcks of incense and lights them. The clarity of their scent centres her. (and oh, the sisters' whispers, the whispers, like a million knives, bleeding her young heart of all its hope)
As the clarity surrounds her, Catenna folds her hands together. She tunes out the phantom of her mother's favour. Of the sisters. (and oh, the sisters) She focuses entirely on one thing.
"<Blessed Celesdue,>" she whispers in her own tongue. "<To walk in your light was to walk a lonely path of a thousand scourges. But I walk it for you. Please... please, here, in your place of strength... please, lend me your serenity.>
"<Please.>"
The faces only watch. Her mother only watches, with that kindly smile, so full of gentleness, so full of self-satisfied assurance.
Catenna whispers that plea again.
DG: Catenna has used her Tool Ritual Incense toward her party's challenge, Holy of Holies.
===============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>================================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Holy of Holies *>=========================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
----------------------------< Challenge Information: >----------------------------
To step inside this once-Church of Althena is to walk into yourself. And as
you do, you can feel /them/ watching you.
Them - the faces that loom in the sky. Peer from the stained-glass windows
that are simultaneously both loving depictions of Althena and monstrous
depictions of twisted faces with too many eyes and too many jaws and too
many animalistic and demonic features. Them - the phantom shapes that seem
to hover around the edges of the memories and fears that this place merges
with. The indistinct shapes of pale-eyed men and women who sit and stand and
walk and float all at the same time, gathered around you like an audience of
thousands and yet one. They are there even though your nightmares tell them
they cannot be here, in this place where you once felt fear.
You remember when you felt that fear, don't you? That time in your life when
you suffered terribly. The moment when hope was nothing more than a fading
star on a distant horizon. That nightmare that felt more real than reality
could ever be. That memory you don't want to face. That bad dream you don't
want to face.
You face it now, here, before you, as real as it ever was. And the phantoms
and the stained glass horrors watch you as you confront and grapple with
your suffering, and they revel in it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm, Fright================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Who is here?
For Elly - for Elly it would make sense to see the orphans of Wayside, or her classmates, or the people of Lahan, however remote her own responsibility. That would make sense. That would be logical. Even her classmates of yore would be reasonable.
That isn't who is here for Elly.
Elly sees people in serried ranks. A number of them. They rise up as she walks past and they are all wearing clothing that she recognizes dimly from historical costumes. Open lapels like flowers on the chest instead of a sensible high collar. A forest of them turning to look at her. Elly finds herself glancing over her shoulder.
They start to rise. But as Elly looks at them they all just seem to be...
Watching? Some of them are applauding. She can see some of them speak but their mouths don't make sound.
In the back some men shuffle and then wheel around and these Elly recognizes: the details are different but the grim efficiency of a tactical helmet is shaped in this moment only by the anomaly that those helmets expect returned gunfire. They look at her and they focus and Elly can feel some kind of choking stunted thing inside of her body, not just in her lower abdomen where she's used to it but in her SOUL, something desperate and belated trying to reach outwards, denied but trying to avoid what's staring her right dead in the
Elly jerks violently as if struck by something. A spasm passes through her.
The aisle is empty, but Elly stares down it anyway, goggling, still feeling a visceral tension that fades only slowly.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Holy of Holies.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline has been here once before.
This was the part she dreaded most - it was as if she was walking right into her own mind, with her doubts, fears, and repressed memories playing out around her as pale-eyed figured look on, judging her silently.
Last time she was here, it was too much for her.
What then, would it face her with now?
Jacqueline shuts her eyes tight as she proceeds forward. Slowly, carefully. Attempting to block out everything. Attempting to prevent herself from recalling those nightmares.
She had already reflected on those. They were always there, always a part of her. She could not allow them to be turned on her like a weapon - they were experiences to learn from, not a blade to be aimed at her heart.
At least...that is what she tries to tell herself.
She has to be strong, and get through this.
Has to be strong.
"I must be strong..." She murmurs to herself, repeating it over and over. She clasps her hands together.
DG: Jacqueline Barber has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Holy of Holies.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
=======================<* CHALLENGE - Holy of Holies *>=======================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
To step inside this once-Church of Althena is to walk into yourself. And as
you do, you can feel /them/ watching you.
Them - the faces that loom in the sky. Peer from the stained-glass windows
that are simultaneously both loving depictions of Althena and monstrous
depictions of twisted faces with too many eyes and too many jaws and too
many animalistic and demonic features. Them - the phantom shapes that seem
to hover around the edges of the memories and fears that this place merges
with. The indistinct shapes of pale-eyed men and women who sit and stand and
walk and float all at the same time, gathered around you like an audience of
thousands and yet one. They are there even though your nightmares tell them
they cannot be here, in this place where you once felt fear.
You remember when you felt that fear, don't you? That time in your life when
you suffered terribly. The moment when hope was nothing more than a fading
star on a distant horizon. That nightmare that felt more real than reality
could ever be. That memory you don't want to face. That bad dream you don't
want to face.
You face it now, here, before you, as real as it ever was. And the phantoms
and the stained glass horrors watch you as you confront and grapple with
your suffering, and they revel in it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Overwhelm, Fright================================
========================<* Felkirk Ruins - Round 7 *>========================= =========================< Results - Holy of Holies >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jacqueline Barber 55 --(100)--> 155 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ethius Hesiod 70 --(100)--> 170 Fail Spectral Lens 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Catenna 75 --(100)--> 175 Fail Ritual Incense 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 60 --(100)--> 160 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 60 --(100)--> 160 Pass Artist's Toolkit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Jacqueline Barber 80 --(10)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Fright(2)|Madness|Overwhelm|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Jacqueline Barber is too exhausted to continue! DG: Ethius Hesiod is too exhausted to continue! DG: Catenna is too exhausted to continue! DG: Elhaym van Houten is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fei Fong Wong 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 Jacqueline Barber has been fully Exhausted by Felkirk Ruins! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
=============================<* Felkirk Ruins *>==============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - Take Ye to Church *>======================
|Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The fear pouring through this place, swirling in a flickering illusory
madness, begins to overwhelm you. The nightmares you thought were just
nightmares loom in your peripheral vision. The faces of your friends seem
horrifying and distorted, as if you can tell they're mocking you. The
illusory blurred shapes moving everywhere are becoming too confusing to
track. You can tell that it is growing more and more powerful the closer you
get to the heart of the church... but you can't tell why.
All you can do is run. Run for the sake of your sanity.
=Dungeon Conditions: Bad Luck=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Their pleas aren't enough. Not against the faces in the windows. The ghosts of memories and fears from younger years and earlier times. Not against the phantom men who meander through this place.
But one of the windows does give way to just one person. Fei Fong Wong and his sculptor's chisel.
Glass shatters. The horrifying face in the window fractures and falls away. For just a moment, a stream of sunlight, dim but tangible, radiates through the window.
It does not dispel the ghosts. Not at all. Jay, Ethius, Catenna and Elhaym are left to grapple with the nightmare. But Fei and Fei alone receives a moment of respite. The nuclear fires dim. In their halo, he can see all the way to the nave of the church - to where a statue of Althena lies.
A statue like no other. The snowy white marble typical of such statues has faded to a mottled, chaotic black colour that gives her smile an almost mocking cast - and the statue itself pulses subtly, its boundaries seeming only vaguely defined, as though it were hinged to reality only tenuously. To step closer to it is for those nuclear fires and memorial terrors to grow stronger and more palpable.
But to get too close right now is impossible. Fei has seen it only from afar - but the resonance of the dread power is growing too strong. The group will be forced, again, to flee.
But Fei, in his moment of lucidity, will spot something sitting on a broken pew on his way out - sitting there, discarded and forgotten.
A dark grey newsboy hat with a black feather in it.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Broken window! A million shades of light!
But mostly the sun. Fei looks up towards the sun, for a moment the world vanishing away. The statue of Althena. If his suspicions are even remotely correct, it's a nerve-wracking metaphor at best, and part of the actual problem at worst. He reaches out to try and destroy it but his fingers feel like they're melting. He snaps his hands back and looks to the others. "Sorry, I guess this is too much for just us. I think we'll have to send in a bigger crew."
He'll guide Elly back out if he has to, everyone really one by one if he's gotta, but he has a feeling they're all pretty willing to back off. At first it seems like the trip might've been a bust but Fei spots something.
A hat.
THE HAT!
Fei snatches it into his hands, squinting at it, his eyes focused on the feather. It feels like Lily's style--
--but then he remembers, "...Neriah." He says. "Neriah did this."
His mood is kind of low for the rest of the day.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline tries to be strong, really she does. But this place...it's stronger than her. She tries to shut it all out, but that only allows them to pry in deeper. She can't escape it, and soon she finds herself dropping to her knees, her arms wrapping around herself.
This was not something she could fix.
She's lost in the nightmares...but fortunately, Fei manages to draw her out of it. And then, he finds something, and says a word that brings her right back to reality.
"...Neriah?" Jacqueline repeats, surprised. She hurries, over, and...
That hat.
It was all too familiar.
"Th-that's...I don't...I don't understand..." She replies, wrapping her arms around herself again.
...Is this what she meant?
Is this what Neriah meant, when she approached her on the pastures of Pendrago what felt like ages ago?
...Unless pressed, Jacqueline doesn't say another word as she follows the others quietly out...
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is not among one of the ones who rejoins proper reality with ease. He continues to circle around the church chamber. His legs must be tired. His lungs must be empty. Something compels him to keep chasing this... something or another... even as he bangs shins against damaged pews. That the chase ends up taking him back out the way they came is more providence rather than any willful action (unless someone forcefully guides him out), at which point it all catches up.
Pain. Hunger. Fatigue. The need to blink. A yearning, forgotten longing to... find someone or something, that one's normal. He clutches the mass of fabric around his hand tighter, as though that means the world for some Guardian-forsaken reason.
...
Wordlessly, his gaze follows that of that newsboy hat. For all the addled feelings that have conviction but no real context to attach them to, an immediate likeness jumps to mind that would have sooner had he been of more sound mind to be receptive to hearing the name and not... running around the inside of the church like a lunatic.
...
The hand covered in a busted, ragged sack goes to his forehead as he closes his eyes. 'Who' or 'what' is no longer in question. The next step he takes, specifically...
All he knows is that he must take that step. Whatever form that will take.