2018-07-06: A Place Without a Name
- Log: A Place Without a Name
- Cast: Seraph Ragnell, Alisha Diphda, Talise Gianfair, Seraph Nimue, Ida Everstead-Rey, Garrett Stampede, Rudy Roughnight
- Where: The Nameless Spire
- Date: July 6, 2018
- Summary: Seraph Ragnell assembles a group of like-minded adventurers to scale the Nameless Spire and deal with its lord once and for all.
===============================<* Biroclef Ridge *>=============================== Biroclef Ridge is a network of canyons and high ridges that stretch across the southern mountains between the Gododdin region and Pearloats Pasture. The ridges here are narrow and difficult to walk, which makes trade between them difficult. This also aren't blessed by the temperate weather to the north; the land is drier here, except when great storms come rolling in from the southern seas. The network of ridges, canyons, and caverns also forms a maze that many an unfortunate traveler has gotten lost in. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxq2eoLSDY
DG: That's not a valid party leader. DG: A party led by Seraph Ragnell is now entering The Nameless Spire. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - The Loop *>===========================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Hey, look at that! The door to the tower is open wide for you. No weirdness,
no creepy, shifting structure, you don't even have to go through the trouble
of opening the door yourself! Convenient! Within, you find an antechamber,
ostentatiously baroque, gilded with portraits of... a man who has no face
save for his eyes, positioned at each door of the room. Kind of weird. And
the very second you try to go through one of those doors to move on --
--you find yourself walking back through the entrance of the antechamber
again. What? It'll happen again if you try that door once more, and many
more of them besides, and every time you walk through, it seems there's MORE
doors and paintings than there were before. The trick may lie with the
portraits themselves, and those strange eyes -- the direction they point,
perhaps, or the direction they -don't- point, or a pattern in the way one
points versus another. It's all very complicated, and very maddening. But
look at all those fancy doors! So, so fancy.
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Some time ago, when Riesenlied had been selling damaged art of Shepherd Bradamante that was recovered from the Nameless Spire, Ragnell, Ida, and Talise had happened to run into each other when Ragnell had been keeping Riese company and Ida and Talise had come with a curiosity in the art itself. At that point, Ida had demanded answers on *why* this artwork was important due to a deep, abiding hatred for the Hellion Lord of the Nameless Spire, who had tormented her, Garrett, and Rosaline during an expedition through it, and Ragnell explained *her* stake in the matter: once upon a time, that Hellion had been a human who had burned down the village of a Seraph friend of hers. He had joined up with Seraph Bradamante for revenge, and Bradamante brought the man who would become the Hellion to justice, and now he's still here, locked away in this tower... Ragnell similarly wants him exterminated, and whether that's via plain old death or purification, either works for her. Talise hadn't had quite as much of a personal stake, but she'd promised her sword if they'd have her, and more muscle is always good.
The matter had slipped by for some time, each of them having their own concerns. But Ragnell got in touch with Ida and Talise, told them it was time to take out the Nameless Lord and that she'd be bringing a couple of relevant people, and that they could do the same if they wanted to but she was going in on X date whether they showed or not.
Today is X date. Ragnell has brought with her Alisha, Lailah, and Nimue. The former two are for practical reasons, being needed for purification (or more specifically, to gain experience at purification, in Alisha's case); the latter, because she has a stake in the matter as well. She'd told Amaranth as well, but... unsurprisingly, Amaranth had declined the opportunity to go to a Malevolence-infested tower to do battle with a Hellion. Ida, Talise, and any company they may have brought are no doubt in attendance as well as the foot of the Nameless Spire, whose doors are invitingly, suspiciously open today.
"Hmmm... So are they gonna vanish as we get closer, move up the tower, shrink as we get nearer?" she drawls to the others. "What d'you think?" The tower might seem to mock her when they all enter with no problem, but the Lightning Seraph eyeballs the portraits of the faceless man that gild the antechamber. The portraits' eyes watch her. She looks around at the various doors that would *seem* to lead onwards. Then she sighs a bit.
"Let's see, if we calculate the echo off the walls an' compare 'em to the directions o' the various eyes..." she mutters, pulling her harmonica from her travel pack. Then she begins to play a somber melody that Lunar natives might recognize as being an old, old Rolance marching tune. Will it help? Maybe, maybe not. But it might irritate the Hellion Lord in residence enough to let the true path forward slip.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Tarnished Harmonica toward her party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha steps along, with Lailah walking after. Her eyes scan across the surroundings; she peers at the Spire, and the doorway. The princess's expression is not terribly trusting -- but she steps in regardless. "I think..."
They see why, soon enough. She frowns -- and then she tilts her head, glancing at Ragnell. "That is a good idea. Maybe... hm." She pulls out the Celestial Record, and starts flipping through it. "I wonder if there will be a recording -- or sketches. Or maybe some inspiration..."
Lailah, for her part, peers at one of the sets of eyes. "How terrible..."
DG: Alisha Diphda has used her Tool Celestial Record toward her party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
Talise said she'd help, and she's helping.
Talise also said she'd take care of the Bradamante artwork. It had wound up in the hands of the Fox Company's contact, Benedict Greygust. The pieces have landed on display in a couple of places.
More to the point, there's the matter of the Spire's occupant. Her stake may not be personal, but hey, Ida's a friend and so is Rosaline, and Riese for that matter. Hence....
"It's always some kind of weird fuckery. Always," she says with a glance at Ragnell, shifting her shoulders a little beneath the riveted mail she wore beneath her traveler's cloak. She peers ahead towards the tower, then at the portraits on the walls. "...Friendly-looking guy," she murmurs as a brief chill races up the back of her neck.
Then she pauses, frowning and scratching at the back of her neck. "...Okay, so he's just going to repeat the room on us. Lovely."
Dropping to her knee, Talise reaches into her hip pouch for her notepad. She flips to a back page and starts scribbling out a geometric design of some sort. It looks like an overview of the room.
"I wonder if we anchored ourselves to something or set up something to drop behind us," she muses. "Or whether he's just playing with our senses or actively moving us backward every time. Or moving the room physically around us. Hm."
Talise runs a quick test: She pulls out a box of chocolate biscuits, then wings one towards one of the doors.
Then she offers one to Ida, wordlessly and without expression.
DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
X day arrives, and Nimue, just like that, is here! She gives a staggering amount of shit about Ragnell, despite putting out the vibe that she has never once given a shit about anything and screw you for thinking she might, which means... well... being here.
Nimue follows along directly behind Ragnell, and the instant she starts talking about the echoes off walls and other practical uses of sound, instead of just 'haha music is really cool,' she promptly loses interest. Not just in what Ragnell is saying, but, you know, everything, in general.
She reaches into her pack and pulls out a whole raw strip steak. She starts eating it as loudly as possible, chewing with her mouth open. This... is honestly preferable to having her actively trying to figure out the puzzle.
DG: Seraph Nimue has used her Tool Stolen Food toward her party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
To say Ida wants revenge is something of a half-truth. It's certainly something she would like to take away from this scenario, but more importantly, she wants to prove to the Nameless Lord that he made a grave error in thinking that his tower could keep her at bay, and that his illusions could shake her--whether he intentionally set them against her or not. This is now a matter of personal pride, and while Ida's sense of self-esteem has withered even further, that need to appear competent and ruthless and intimidating has only grown.
Footfalls echo down the empty hall, after Alisha, Lailah, and Ragnell. A blue kimono-style top with the sleeves cut off billows out behind her as she walks. It's belted with a length of heavy chain made of some dark metal, which clanks and rattles ominously as she walks. One end is tucked into a pants pocket, and the other coils around her torso, between shirt and overcoat.
Something scuttles out of one of Ida's pockets, perching on her shoulder. It's the little spidery automaton, which immediately gets to work by turning its all-seeing Malevolent eye on the room's metaphysical air currents. "This again," Ida murmurs. She closes her eyes and sucks in a breath, drawing in a small sample of the local Malevolence. As usual, it's that bizarre mix of fear and obsession. "A pleasure to see you again," she murmurs, but not to anyone present. She opens her eyes, and glances at the white-haired woman following after Alisha. Ida doesn't recognize her. Another Seraph? "It could be any of the above," Ida says, her face scrunching up in open distaste as Nimue lays into the steak like a starving animal. Not even Claude is that bad, usually, sometimes.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Loyal Demon Eye toward her party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
"Are you sure," Comes the annoyed voice of one of the pair of Hellions that have come traipsing into the abode of the Nameless One. "We can't just break down the wall." A pause. "I mean I know it wouldn't so much to the trap, but it sure as hell would make me feel better."
The one once known as Jack is a simple creature at his soul.
Hanpan is who he left these sorts of things up to. It has become a lot worse lately of course. It is in his nature now of course.
So Jack...no...Garrett, trails along near the rear of the little procession. Oh his shoulder rests the great, pulsing black blade of his that drips with the same power that suffuses this place.
...it'll be fine. Right?
DG: Garrett Stampede has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Loop.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
A world at war, struggling to deal with demons within and without. The conflict abounds and everyone deals with it in their own way. Some hide from it, others rush into danger, while still others try and find a way to be opportune about it. Yet for Rudy, the young gunslinger, he seems detached and incredibly reactive. Those that have known the young man understand that it was how he was before he started to get to know Drifters. And now, in this new place and time where everything is seemingly alien once more, it is how he is once more.
Thankfully, there are friends that need him and encourage him to move forward or if nothing else there are still things left behind. A city on another world lays in ruins. The jar labeled 'The Adlehyde Restoration Fund' is quietly observed, the Gella mingling with foreign coin as the glass is shifted about. Roughnight sighs. "I'll return, no matter what," he states. "I won't leave you behind. Not when you need help." Those demons are there. Who knows what they have done since so many valiant warriors have been absent. Is there still humanity to protect?
The bottle is put away and slowly Rudy continues down the trail. After all, he heard about some sighting of a strange swordsman with fierce attacks of ice.
Soon, the tower looms. Brown eyes narrow upon it and perhaps guided more by destiny than logic, the Outcast moves onward. Moving toward the enterance, he hears movement and places his back against the outer wall. He pulls out his Personal Radar, clicking a button on the small device. Without warning, he takes out his ARM, firing a single button. Thankfully, it isn't toward anyone else, but one of the pictures. Only then does he realize that not only he take a shot out of one of the possible problem pictures, but also find a lot of people. All people he likely knows on some level, there is one that he actually was searching for. A long pause carries before Rudy offers his wordy greeting to the group, his face slightly awkward as he isn't sure exactly what to say.
"Hello, sorry I shot something."
DG: Rudy Roughnight has used his Tool Portable Radar toward his party's challenge, The Loop.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================
===========================<* CHALLENGE - The Loop *>===========================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
Hey, look at that! The door to the tower is open wide for you. No weirdness,
no creepy, shifting structure, you don't even have to go through the trouble
of opening the door yourself! Convenient! Within, you find an antechamber,
ostentatiously baroque, gilded with portraits of... a man who has no face
save for his eyes, positioned at each door of the room. Kind of weird. And
the very second you try to go through one of those doors to move on --
--you find yourself walking back through the entrance of the antechamber
again. What? It'll happen again if you try that door once more, and many
more of them besides, and every time you walk through, it seems there's MORE
doors and paintings than there were before. The trick may lie with the
portraits themselves, and those strange eyes -- the direction they point,
perhaps, or the direction they -don't- point, or a pattern in the way one
points versus another. It's all very complicated, and very maddening. But
look at all those fancy doors! So, so fancy.
=Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
=======================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 1 *>======================= =============================< Results - The Loop >============================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Tarnished Harmonica 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Loyal Demon Eye 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talise Gianfair 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Nimue 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Stolen Food 3 Wits Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisha Diphda 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Celestial Record 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett Stampede 0 --(5)--> 5 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy Roughnight 0 --(5)--> 5 Pass Portable Radar 1 Wits Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Ragnell 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Reckless(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell 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> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell looks up to stare Garrett in the eye. "Go for it," she says. "But if you're just lookin' t' blow off steam, there's any number o' those portraits of Lord Douchebag you could smash up if y' want to." She half-smirks at Talise, then shrugs. "You're not wrong."
Then she goes back to playing. That forms the focusing undercurrent to Alisha's research through the Celestial Record, Lailah worriedly observing the current state of the old, old Tower, Talise chucking food through doors to see how it reacts with the interspace nonsense within the tower, Ida summoning her mechanical eye to observe the metaphysical wind, Garrett doing... nothing in particular, Nimue doing *less* than nothing in particular, and Rudy shooting one of the portraits.
There is something like a groan in the air that might just be the wind outside and might be something else. The 'something else' comes from the distinct tone of anger as thrown biscuits reveal doubled-back doors, Celestial Research brings up some imagery that repeats within the antechamber, Ida's eye and Ragnell's music correlate lines of sound and air within the room, Rudy's shooting stirs a palpable sense of anger from something that can't be seen, and Nimue is just so obnoxious that one of the doors starts wobbling as if with rage.
"That'll be our way forward," Ragnell says briskly, putting her harmonica away. "Good work, team. Oh, by th' by, I'm not sure y'all have been introduced to one another?" Pointing at people in turn, she says, "This's Alisha, who's here to work on her purifyin'; Lailah, who's here to help; Nimue, who's here t' be a pain in the ass; Talise, who's an extra stabbin' person; Ida, who's got a grudge against her fellow Hellion; Jack, ditto; an'--"
She frowns at Rudy. She was expecting a Rosaline, not a Rudy. "I don't know who you are. What're you doing here?" Then she shakes her head. His shooting earlier *did* help out, even if she's not convinced he did that on purpose. "Whatever. I don't care enough to kick you out; jus' don't get in the way."
Onwards!
DG: Talise Gianfair has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Danse Macabre *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- This place was likely at some point a tribute to the decadence and hedonism of Lunar's nobility, and one need not look any further than this massive ballroom to see that. Gilded and ostentatious, with perfect accoustics and sublime architecture right down to its marbled flooring and painted ceilings, this place was once dedicated to the most lavish of parties... and still is, it seems. Malevolent spectres line this hall, some of them seemingly painted into being, some of them phantasmal, turning the floors, the walls, the ceilings -- even the empty air into their dance floor. They all seem to be laughing, giggling, cheering -- all of them seemingly celebrating something in their wild revelry. Soft chants of "she's dead! She's dead!" can be heard amidst the laughter as you enter this place: and while they don't seem to notice or care about your presence, simply running into these creatures seems to jolt those they contact with a cold, maddening sensation that works through the nerves straight into the brain to induce strange feelings of vertigo. Navigating this space will mean learning how to dance one's way past the revelry of phantoms long past. Hope you don't have two left feet. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"...'Kay then," Talise says with a shrug at Ida before tossing the biscuit underhand at another door. She changed brands at some point; she ran out of Mrs. Mumford's not long after she got back to Lunar.
Rudy adds a bullet. Talise jumps slightly, then looks back and blinks at him quickly. "...Hey," she says.
Oh hey, it's that guy, she suddenly realizes - the last time she ran into him was a year and a half ago. Well, at least he hasn't flipped out and killed us all yet, so he must be on the right track to being the biggest damn hero of all of us.
Soldiering onward, she nods crisply towards Garrett and Rudy - and Nimue for that matter, the three she doesn't know. "Hello. I'm here to put a big knife through a shitheat," she says cheerily enough.
Onward they go, edging through a door and into a gilded ballroom beyond. The splendor of it takes Talise aback; she can't help but feel like a mere urchin for just a moment.
Until the flicker of Malevolent phantasms line the hall. The low, oppressive murmur of chuckles and cheery conversation nags at ears and senses, a few whispers slipping through -
"she's dead" "she's dead" "she's dead"
A chill runs up Talise's back. "...Suggestion," she says with a look back. "Don't touch them." She squares her jaw and begins to move forward -
And jolts back as a couple of the phantasms whisk towards her, coming perilously close to making contact. With a hiss she sheathes her sword, crinkling her nose. "...Shit," she mutters. "Looks like we're going to have to dance."
The armoured swordswoman considers for a moment. She gives Ida a thoughtful look, then Garrett.
Then someone else. With a smirk, she holds a hand out to Ragnell and dips her lashes ever so slightly. "Wanna do me the honour?" she drawls.
DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha looks back at the Hellions. Her expression is guarded and wary; she doesn't really know either Ida or Garrett, as it happens. Her hesitation is clear, as she nods once to them, and then glances sideways at Talise. "Well... I suppose it takes all sorts," she says. "And this isn't the place to be terribly picky about our allies."
"Yes. Let's all work together, everyone!" Lailah says. Then, she glances at Rudy -- and smiles. "And not shoot things too much."
She stops, though, as she sees the flicker of Malevolence -- and the phantasms. Her eyes widen -- and she looks sideways, at Talise. She nods, once. "What should--"
"Alisha...!" Lailah calls out. The Fire Seraph turns, then she extends a hand towards her.
BGM Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbcCG7PkI18
Alisha blinks -- and shrugs her princessly shoulders once -- before she takes the Prime Lord's hand.
DG: Alisha Diphda has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The group passes through the door as others introduce themselves accordingly. Ragnell frowns when she sees the other side. She recognizes this ballroom and the Malevolent phantasms, as well as their jubilant, malicious whispers of her death. Ragnell looks over her shoulder at Nimue and Lailah, eyes meeting theirs for a moment in grim, silent understanding; then she looks back at the others.
"Good idea," she says to Talise, of not touching the phantasms. "I went through this room once. Tryin' to just barge your way through is a bad idea." She smirks Garrett's way. "Though if anyone wants t' try anyway, who'm I to stop 'em?"
Dance, huh. The look in Ragnell's red eyes turn briefly wistful. That would've been her solution back then, too, except it just didn't work out that way. She turns to offer a number to one of her plus-ones--except first Lailah takes Alisha by the hand in a move that makes even Ragnell smile; then Talise offers her hand to the Lightning Seraph first. Ragnell raises an eyebrow, then chuckles and takes her hand.
"Sure, why not?" she says. "A bard ought to have a good sense o' dance along with song, am I right?" She winks. "Let's send up a heaven of a song in Bradamante's name."
Before she heads out onto the ballroom floor with Talise to dance across the room and to hell with every single one of those goddamn whispers, though, she hands out chocolate rusks to everyone who's willing to take one. She doesn't explain their magical properties that prevent one, temporarily, from getting slowed down; either you trust her and eat it, or you don't.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Chocolate Rusk toward her party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
A shot rings out, Garrett spins towards as the sword comes up in a smooth ready stance. Ice swirls down its length for a moment before he focuses on the newcommer into this little play and...
"Rudy?!" He blurts out. "What the hell are you doing here?" A beatpause. "Did something happen to Cecilia?"
...because that is of course the first thing he assumes.
He shakes his head slightly. "Urgh...I mean...you were supposed to stay with her..." A longer pause. Awkwardly so. "...and I see you're still shooting things." The blade is lowered slowly as he takes a deep breath.
"You better come along though. The master of this place is a jackass." He turns his attention to the revealed room and...
..."SEE! Case in point! He's being an asshole!" A beatpause. "And..." He smirks right back towards Ragnell at this. "...I know. I've been here before. But before the Demons turned everything in my homeland to ash...well...I did actually learn how to dance."
And he extends a hand towards Ida in offering, with a smirk towards the other Hellion. "Shall we try this again?"
A pause. "...and Rudy? Try not to touch any of the spirits! They...don't appreciate it!"
...he's totally helping.
DG: Garrett Stampede has used his Tool Glacial Melt toward his party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
"I'm extremely good at being a big pain in the ass!" Nimue says, brihgtly. "My competence is one hundred percent unparalleled! Best in field for sure." She flashes a big, exaggerated V-sign, and gives a knife-edged grin, as she follows along with Ragnell. She glances back to Rudy for just a moment, squinting at him -- but ultimately decides, whatever.
This isn't the first time Nimue has come to this particular ballroom, though she swears she remembers it being way further along in the tower... but then, this tower has never really made sense, anyway.
Dancing, though... part of her wants to just strong-hop over it, but...
... Nimue has always been a creature of music. She steps into the ballroom, swaying on her own; her gaze turns toward Lailah and Alisha for a few moments, her eyes hooding slightly... but for the most part, she lets herself just move with the rhythm.
DG: Seraph Nimue has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida does not startle immediately at the gunshot. After all, Ragnell is right there and uses ARMs, therefore 'Ragnell did it' is a fairly logical conclusion--except Ida realizes a moment later that no, Ragnell didn't shoot anything. 'Rudy?!' Garrett shouts. Ida whirls around to face him, looking every bit as strange and monstrous as she did during the fight with Berserk. Is that chain from Berserk's mace, even? The big Hellion looks down at the young man, as if struggling for words, before Garrett takes point. "Ah," Ida says, as her fellow Hellion points out the dancers. "Straight to the--"
bin baby, whispers a voice just behind Ida's left ear.
no excuse to fight, bin baby
Ida's face twists into a snarl for no apparent reason. "I will enjoy getting to meet him," Ida says. She takes Garrett's hand, takes Ragnell's rusk with her other hand, and eats a chocolate pastry for the second time in ten minutes. She follows Garrett out onto the dancefloor, her footwork elegant and practiced if a little stiff.
"The memories are back," Ida whispers to Garrett, as the two twirl across the dancefloor. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see a chalkboard. She can hear Isaac snickering into his hand.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
=============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Danse Macabre *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- This place was likely at some point a tribute to the decadence and hedonism of Lunar's nobility, and one need not look any further than this massive ballroom to see that. Gilded and ostentatious, with perfect accoustics and sublime architecture right down to its marbled flooring and painted ceilings, this place was once dedicated to the most lavish of parties... and still is, it seems. Malevolent spectres line this hall, some of them seemingly painted into being, some of them phantasmal, turning the floors, the walls, the ceilings -- even the empty air into their dance floor. They all seem to be laughing, giggling, cheering -- all of them seemingly celebrating something in their wild revelry. Soft chants of "she's dead! She's dead!" can be heard amidst the laughter as you enter this place: and while they don't seem to notice or care about your presence, simply running into these creatures seems to jolt those they contact with a cold, maddening sensation that works through the nerves straight into the brain to induce strange feelings of vertigo. Navigating this space will mean learning how to dance one's way past the revelry of phantoms long past. Hope you don't have two left feet. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
"I'm here because of you," Rudy replies, his gaze firmly on Jack as he speaks. "I'll try not to shoot things too much," he offers toward Alisha, but his gaze is still toward the swordsman. Is that some sort of threat towards his would-be ally? There is a hint of frustration in his voice, an odd and unusual thing from the normally gentle lad. Clearly there is something that is brewing underneath the surface.
But others speak, showing that it's not the time. The Seraphs speak however and Rudy frowns, "I see, they are here." While it's unclear how much he notices or hears them, the fact that the boy can sense them at all shows that there has been some change in more than just the boy's mood. Then the advice comes from multiple sources: Dance with the ghosts but don't touch them.
"I can't dance like you all," Rudy states in a dejected voice. "No one has ever danced with me. Not like that."
Then Rudy beams with realization. "Wait, people have asked me to dance before! I remember how they do it!" With that, Rudy withdraws his bowie knife and starts trying to knife the dancers as he moves through, remembering all the lowlifes that tried to gut him like a fish while the young lad was along on the open road. He tries to show grace to avoid being touched, but Rudy still is trying to kill them as that is what you do when you dance with bladed weapons. It's definitely an off thing observe, but he's trying to follow everyone's advice; it seems having friends and allies is hard work!
DG: Rudy Roughnight has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Danse Macabre.
=============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================= =========================<* CHALLENGE - Danse Macabre *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- This place was likely at some point a tribute to the decadence and hedonism of Lunar's nobility, and one need not look any further than this massive ballroom to see that. Gilded and ostentatious, with perfect accoustics and sublime architecture right down to its marbled flooring and painted ceilings, this place was once dedicated to the most lavish of parties... and still is, it seems. Malevolent spectres line this hall, some of them seemingly painted into being, some of them phantasmal, turning the floors, the walls, the ceilings -- even the empty air into their dance floor. They all seem to be laughing, giggling, cheering -- all of them seemingly celebrating something in their wild revelry. Soft chants of "she's dead! She's dead!" can be heard amidst the laughter as you enter this place: and while they don't seem to notice or care about your presence, simply running into these creatures seems to jolt those they contact with a cold, maddening sensation that works through the nerves straight into the brain to induce strange feelings of vertigo. Navigating this space will mean learning how to dance one's way past the revelry of phantoms long past. Hope you don't have two left feet. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Exhaust========================================
========================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 2 *>======================== ===========================< Results - Danse Macabre >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 5 --(15)--> 20 Pass Chocolate Rusk 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 5 --(15)--> 20 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talise Gianfair 5 --(30)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Nimue 5 --(30)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisha Diphda 5 --(30)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett Stampede 5 --(15)--> 20 Pass Glacial Melt 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy Roughnight 5 --(30)--> 35 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Ragnell 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Hesitate(2)|Reckless(1) Effects: Cleanse ================================< Dream Chasers >=================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell 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> Talise Gianfair has posed.
With a quiet smile back at Alisha, Talise nods crisply. "Yeah... some people have pissed off everyone. Besides, Ida's good folk."
Yes, even Hellion Ida.
Sliding off her gauntlets, Talise chuckles and slides her hand into Ragnell's. She's tall enough to lead, though her hands are fairly rough. "Hey," she says with a smirk, "don't you know singing's illegal now? You might get your butt smacked with talk like that."
Talise begins to move anyway, albeit taking a nibble of delicious chocolate rusk first. She even slips in a bit of light singing as she weaves Ragnell through the crowd. Bard or not, there are better ballroom dancers than her, though her timing's basically fine; she does manage to pirouette Ragnell past a couple of phantoms as she twirls along.
Until the phantasms close around the pair. Talise glances over Ragnell's shoulder as the two find themselves in the thick of it. "Gonna need you to trust me on this one," she murmurs.
And then she drops down to her knees, slips her hands under Ragnell's boot, and comes up again - and she boosts Ragnell dramatically into the air and hurls her into a high backflip over the dance floor.
That just leaves Talise. Drawing her sword, she whirls and sweeps her blade through the phantoms; a few disperse. Another drifts through her; she jolts with pain and hisses, sweeping her weapon around her again. Another phantom hits her from a different angle.
Similar problems plague the others. The phantoms cluster around Nimue and Rudy right away, giggling and murmuring and rippling through the two. Rudy in particular runs into the same problem Talise does: Killing them is hard because there are a lot and they're incorporeal. Alisha and Lailah quickly wind up isolated, too.
Garrett and Ida, meanwhile, whirl their way by the huge gap in the phantoms, unmolested. Nice moves.
DG: Seraph Nimue has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================ ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Evicted *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The spectres -- or spectre -- that dominate this place don't seem to want you here. If that wasn't clear by the occasional, bloodcurdling shrieks of someone demanding to get "her" out of here, maybe it will be moreso when the hall you're in literally starts to try to throw you out. Doors spontaneously sprout one after the other in front of you, massive, iron-wrought things sealed tight to bar entry, doors that start swiftly encroaching on you as something screeches at you to leave, leave, LEAVE. But, well. You've already been a rude guest by just breaking into this place. Might as well just go full tilt with it and break down some doors too, right? In for the penny, in for the pound! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
The worst part is: Crossing, as agonizing as it proves to be, doesn't even get them all the way out of the room! Not only does the dancing stop in favor of a thrumming pulse of "Leave, leave, LEAVE!" "Get her out of here!" "Eject her!"
A massive, heavy door slams down in front of the party. At first, it seems like a straightforward enough obstacle -- at least they're past the dancers... and then that door starts to push them back into the dance, while at the same time being joined by another door inches behind it, doing much the same.
"REALLY?!" Nimue demands of... well, anything, really. "Ugh, just -- ugh! Come on! Come *on*!"
Nimue reaches into her pack, pulling out a bottle of... something, and takes a drink before starting to pull at the bars frustratedly. She looks back to Alisha and Lailah, and a familiar scene plays out:
"AAAAAA LAILAH BLOW IT ALL UP I HATE IT"
DG: Seraph Nimue has used her Tool Stolen Drinks toward her party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Lailah! I don't know that this is working!"
"Yes, I fear that it is not!"
The two are crowded -- and the Malevolent phantoms brush them, draining away energy and life. In the end, they have to rush after the others -- plunging for the gap that was made with a dive, rather than elegance, and stumbling in the wake of Garrett and Ida.
Nimue cries out -- and Lailah turns her head, to look at her. She hesitates a moment, before she smiles. "I think these sorts of ironworks are... over-wrought!" She waits, a moment, for laughter. Alisha does not oblige. "...yes, very well, Nimue." She holds a hand out -- and sends a blast of flame into it.
Alisha cracks her knuckles, then stomps forward. She throws a crystal steel gauntleted punch at it. "I have no desire to return to the dance floor!"
DG: Alisha Diphda has used her Tool Crystal Gauntlet toward her party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"Hate ballrooms," Talise grumbles as she kicks through the last of a dancing phantom. She winces as she crams her sword back into its scabbard. With a quick glance to check on Ragnell, she shoulders forward-
LEAVE
A door suddenly slams shut in front of the group, Talise brings herself up short, then scowls as the door edged forward and starts shoving them into another door. "I see this guy is going to continue to be an absolute prick," Talise muses, reaching for her belt.
It is not for her sword. Talise crams her hands back into her gauntlets and waggles her fingers to ensure they're firmly in place.
"Hey. Don't worry about it." Talise urges Nimue with a quick wave.
She rolls her shoulders. "We got this."
And then Talise takes a step forward, reels back, charges up her gauntlets, and proceeds to grab ahold of the door and rip it violently off its hinges. She's trying to leave nothing behind but a frame.
And presumably another door behind it, which she will also attempt to rip off its hinges. With Alisha's punchy help, of course. Talise blinks at the princess and comments, "'Damn, 'Lish. Kind of good."
DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Ogre Power Gauntlets toward her party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"*I* am a holy Seraph, an' edicts against song and dance are for those humans too sinful to stop themselves from using anythin' and everythin' as a vector for their miscreantism," Ragnell says loftily to Talise. Then she winks. "Therefore I can sing an' dance as much as I damn well please."
Except the tone of the room is becoming increasingly more belligerent as the joy of her death turns into aggravation over these interlopers. Talise *heaves* Ragnell into the air, and Ragnell flips in midair to land on a balcony overhead--then promptly gets a doorway slamming towards her, attempting to knock her back off. Ragnell grabs it just in time and struggles against it, digging her heels in. But can she shove it back where it came from, or will she get shoved right back down to the floor?
At least Lailah lives up to Nimue's 'request' and sets things on fire. Ragnell grins despite herself. "Heh," she breathes, then calls down to her fellow Seraphim, "Almost like the good ol' days, huh?"
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida ends up on the other side of the dancefloor, unharmed except for a vague feeling of heartsickness and that stubborn, persistent memory.
The iron door slams down into place before she can comment on how much easier that was than last time, jarring her out of her thoughts with an awful clang. Ida's face twists into an ugly snarl, and she walks up to the portal, bracing a booted foot against the doorframe. "I'm not her," Ida says. "Or her." Alisha and Talise step up, too, grabbing hold of parts of the door. Ida stays put, and starts to push, putting considerable Hellion strength to work. The aura of Malevolence around her amplifies as she strains against the iron.
"Don't think you can keep us out." Ida's voice is raw, ragged. What is she hearing that--
"Your mother belongs in the bin," snarls the voice of a child, from just behind Ida's shoulder. "And so do you!
A chorus of mocking, childish laughter. Ida's teeth gleam. Her eyes glow bright violet, even as her face turns red.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
"Because of me?" Garrett frowns slightly. "...so Cecilia is fine? And Hanpan?" A longer pause as Garrett shakes his head slightly. "Tell me on the other side." He says as he spins Ida across the dance floor.
And he actually does remember how to dance.
The ice magic helped though. He never has been above cheating.
But then there are more problems, in this case an iron door before them. "Oh not this again," He growls as he reaches out. Ida pushes as others step up...
But Garrett...doesn't push. His fingers brush against the iron and almost instantly frost radiates out from them. Freezing the metal. Making it brittle and vulnerable. His powers have advanced since Rudy last saw him. He has more convidence. More control.
...which is both good and bad.
"Leave her alone," Comes his low voiced snarl as he hears that voice, his eyes cutting towards Ida a moment. "Steady on." He adds towards her as he pushes his own power against the Malevolence of the area.
DG: Garrett Stampede has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Evicted.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
Roughnight lives up to his name, coming up rather winded from the ghostly assaults on his being. The magic seems to hit him a little harder, but well, some people are just like that. While others move up toward the doors, he merely waits calmly for people to start bashing their way though. But then there are doors. And more doors. And still more doors. Finally when it seems like fatigue might be a thing, Rudy tilts his head to the side.
"Mind if I help?" he inquires meekly.
CUE LARGE EXPLOSION.
The first of many charges are set, one after another. After a few explosions, Rudy moves toward Ida and Garrett. "Cecilia and Hanpan are fine. It's you I'm worried about. Hanpan is a good friend. He wouldn't leave you unless he had a reason. I came to ask you a question." A glance is given toward Ida as well, seemingly ignoring the whisper and the response from the darkened pair. "I guess for you too."
Calmly the next charge is set and Rudy does his usual thing as he turns away and walks back toward the group (as Heroes Never Look At the Explosions). "I'm not sure if this is the right time or place; don't know if everyone else will understand the question." A glance is given toward the general areas of the Seraphs, as well as Talise and Alisha as he gives a faint blush. It's an odd contradiction as his sheepish chagrin comes right before another large explosion takes place.
DG: Rudy Roughnight has used his Tool Excavation Charges toward his party's challenge, Evicted.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================ ===========================<* CHALLENGE - Evicted *>============================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The spectres -- or spectre -- that dominate this place don't seem to want you here. If that wasn't clear by the occasional, bloodcurdling shrieks of someone demanding to get "her" out of here, maybe it will be moreso when the hall you're in literally starts to try to throw you out. Doors spontaneously sprout one after the other in front of you, massive, iron-wrought things sealed tight to bar entry, doors that start swiftly encroaching on you as something screeches at you to leave, leave, LEAVE. But, well. You've already been a rude guest by just breaking into this place. Might as well just go full tilt with it and break down some doors too, right? In for the penny, in for the pound! =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
=======================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 3 *>======================= =============================< Results - Evicted >============================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 20 --(5)--> 25 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talise Gianfair 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Ogre Power Gauntlets 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Nimue 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Stolen Drinks 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisha Diphda 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Crystal Gauntlet 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett Stampede 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy Roughnight 35 --(5)--> 40 Pass Excavation Charges 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Ragnell 30 --(20)--> 50 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell 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> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue makes room for Lailah to do the thing -- well, really, makes room for everyone to do the thing. It's not something she's especially well-suited to, and she doesn't want to use her comparatively limited number of bombs here...
Talise rips a door off its hinges entirely, while Lailah and Alisha detonate one. Ragnell can't put enough force into the door to avoid getting shoved, though; Nimue moves to help her up instead, and offers a slightly rueful, "... Yeah, just about."
Ida and Garrett, together, manage to rip another door apart -- the cold doesn't seem to help as much as it should, but Ida makes up for any gap in overall efficacy. Before long, the group finally has a path forward through the doors.
Nimue takes it.
DG: Alisha Diphda has drawn a new Challenge.
===========================<* The Nameless Spire *>=========================== =============<* CHALLENGE - When Your World Turns Upside-Down *>============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Gravity doesn't really behave how it should in this place. Architecture and structural integrity, either. This probably couldn't be any more clear as the entirety of the room you're in suddenly just spins around, groaning as it literally turns within the tower itself. And it doesn't matter -how- gravity was behaving when you got here, whether you were walking across the ceiling or the walls or the floors like some boring normal person, because very suddenly, that gravity -reasserts- itself and you find yourself falling. That you might be falling UP really makes no nevermind, does it? It's still a long drop. Or ascent. Whatever. You're the one doing it, call it whatever you want!! =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Bad Luck========================================
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"It is, isn't it?" Lailah answers Ragnell, sweetly.
The doors come away -- but the voices remain, lurking in the distance. Alisha looks over her shoulder, before she drops a bar, and then steps ahead. She lets out a sight, softly, before she steps into the next room. After everyone does, the room lurches as gravity begins to spin them. Alisha's feet stumble.
And then she shoots upward. Lailah starts to shoot downward, but then turns into a small, red bead of light and shoots into Alisha. She knows they don't need to fret over having another person in danger.
Alisha grabs, desperately, for a wall -- and then she gets yanked across the room, with a clang, as gravity's direction shifts again. Her eyes look up, now, at a door on the ceiling. "This... this room is terrible!"
DG: Alisha Diphda has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside- Down.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
Sharp ears perk as something is murmured - something Talise can hear the edges of. She glances back towards Ida, then up towards the depths of the mansion.
"Hey," she shouts. "Lord Blatherskite! Leave her alone."
Casting aside the door, Talise shoulders her way through the wreckage of the frame, keeping pace with Alisha and Lailah. She blinks as the Seraph vanishes into the Princess. She doesn't travel with the woman enough to know how this works.
'because you're shit. shiiiiiiiiit'
"Oh, don't you start now," Talise grunts, flipping a middle finger towards the roof. Which is...
...Which is turning. A deep frown on her face, Talise rubs her chin. "...Huh," she says. "That's odd."
She looks down again and opens her mouth as she realizes what's going on.
Gravity shifts. There is a loud clatter as Talise hits the wall. Then she flies back to the other one as the room turns madly. She groans with the impact, wincing and trying to orient herself to minimize the pain.
She manages a truly insightful suggestion:
"hurk"
DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside- Down.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell nearly gets shoved right over; good thing Nimue, Known Strongwoman, comes over to help! ...yeah. Beggars can't be choosers. "Thanks," she tells Nimue, ruffling her hair. Then she makes a face over at Lailah at her answer. "Is that sarcasm?" Lailah's not generally mean, but she *is* one to mess with her friends on occasion.
But then the room turns sideways. "Ah," she utters. "Ahh!!" And then Lailah turns into a red bolt of light and vanishes into Alisha's body. "LAILAH, THAT'S CHEATIN'!" she yells, even though she *does* get why she did that. Alisha opines about the room; Ragnell calls to her, "Ain't it just??"
Goddess. It almost makes her wish she had a pact with the dumb human, so she could completely sidestep this bullshit. But no, that's not happening! Instead, Ragnell shoves a chocolate rusk in her mouth and then starts attempting to essay the Drifter Wiggler, leaping from one wall to another to another to another as gravity plays ping-pong with itself, as she's had to do several times before. Hopefully she'll have better luck than she's had previously!
Meanwhile, while Ragnell didn't hear the initial whispering at Ida, she *does* hear Talise telling something off. "Oh, is His Lordship bein' a shithole again? Tell 'im to fuck off an' cry about Bradamante kickin' his ass some more," she suggests, tone biting.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Chocolate Rusk toward her party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside-Down.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
"This whole place is terrible!" Shouts Garrett as he takes one step inside and then finds himself flying upwards rather quickly. He shifts his weight, but when he does the room twists again. There is a grunt and a loud clatter of armor as he slams against the stones, looking rather put out to put it lightly.
"I am going to personally remove this assholes head from his shoulders." He growls softly as he forces himself back up. "I'm going to try to create some handholds to make it across!" He calls to the rest of the little group. Though there is a pause as ice magic begins to thicken the air and create spires and pieces to grasp onto and pull across.
"Ragnell, the good ol' days were full of fire, explosions, and gravity manipulation?" He asks with a smirk. A smirk that slowly falls as Rudy is...well...Rudy.
There is at least a touch of relief that Cecilia is fine. And Hanpan. "Well I asked Hanpan to leave. That would be his reason." A beatpause. "Go ahead and ask, I mean if you don't I'm just going to be wondering about it till we get out of this place. And maybe it'll give me something to focus on besides how nice it would be to end this blowhard's existance."
DG: Garrett Stampede has used his Tool Glacial Melt toward his party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside-Down.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell thinks about Garrett's sassy remark. "Yeah, basically," she replies, straight-faced (the only thing about her that is).
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"blar," Talise answers Ragnell eloquently before she gets chucked into the ceiling.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
One of the Seraphim makes herself scarce. Ida barely has time to process the sight of a human-seeming someone condensing into a beam of bright red light and disappearing into Alisha's body. The floor drops out from underneath her, and she twists around, her fingers elongating into black-violet claws. Ida digs both hands into the stone, or failing that, one of those ice platforms Garrett conjures up in mid-air. She clings tightly. Riesenlied's face swims in her peripheral vision.
"You won't stop us," Ida says, even though that is not bringing up Bradamante, like Ragnell suggested. "You won't stop me again!" The gravity reorients itself yet again, with Ida still clinging to that platform. "Princess! Talise! Platforms!" It's almost an order.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside- Down.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue steps into the room, and almost immediately, the gravity shifts beneath her, hurling her randomly. Unlike everyone else, though, she seems... to be... enjoying it? Well, maybe that's a strong word. There's a delighted laugh, followed by a distinctly put-upon "OW NO OW COME ON!!" as she makes impact the first time...
... and then more giggling as she's hurled across the room in a completely separate direction. Nimue, why do you do this. Why do you just act like this everytime something is painful or scary.
After the second time, she starts to try to arrest her momentum with wind magic, as quietly as she can, and starts to gravitate toward Alisha a bit, but... please stop, Nimue.
DG: Seraph Nimue has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside-Down.
=============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - When Your World Turns Upside-Down *>================ |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- Gravity doesn't really behave how it should in this place. Architecture and structural integrity, either. This probably couldn't be any more clear as the entirety of the room you're in suddenly just spins around, groaning as it literally turns within the tower itself. And it doesn't matter -how- gravity was behaving when you got here, whether you were walking across the ceiling or the walls or the floors like some boring normal person, because very suddenly, that gravity -reasserts- itself and you find yourself falling. That you might be falling UP really makes no nevermind, does it? It's still a long drop. Or ascent. Whatever. You're the one doing it, call it whatever you want!! =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Bad Luck========================================
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"My sincerest pardons, Miss Everstead-Rey," Alisha yells as she goes flying a different direction across the room, "but I am a princess of Hyland and you do not command me!"
Someone grew more of a spine in the last year.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"glkh," Talise answers Ida as she hurtles through the air.
She does, at least, manage to grab something. It's an armoire. She dangles off of it by one hand.
"BOY OH BOY do I want to punch this dude in the not-a-face!" she exclaims.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
"Oh great," Garrett mutters as he starts to claw his way around. "...more Princesses."
A beatpause.
"And one day I'd like to hear about the good old times then. They should like a hell of a story." A longer pause. "Anything you know that could help us with this particular case?"
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
The room is troubling, and Rudy himself finds himself being thrown about. He gets dinged about, his seemingly scrawny form pounding against various things. He bleeds, but only gives a slight wince in response, if as if had more concerning matters to deal with than pain.
After all, Jack wants His Questions.
As everything seems to warp and distort as people go each way, Rudy's inquiry comes with a very odd and perhaps chilling question. The fact that it's given with Rudy's normally calm and peaceful nature that he's known for does little to make things better:
"I won't need to fight you, right? I won't need to kill you. Right?"
.Wait, what? Perhaps thankfully before people wonder if Rudy has been replaced with an evil twin or possessed by some spirit, tears begins to form in his eyes, but it never reaches his tone, which is still calm and matter of fact. "I hurt people who hurt innocent people. I just need to know that such won't happen."
The boy continues to bounce off things, not even trying to manage the maze of physics as his brow bleeds from hitting a wall with his face. After all, he's learned that these kind of wounds are far easier to heal than the ones he's worried about inflicting. Or worried about Jack and his 'ilk' inflicting.
DG: Rudy Roughnight has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, When Your World Turns Upside- Down.
===========================<* The Nameless Spire *>=========================== =============<* CHALLENGE - When Your World Turns Upside-Down *>============== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- Gravity doesn't really behave how it should in this place. Architecture and structural integrity, either. This probably couldn't be any more clear as the entirety of the room you're in suddenly just spins around, groaning as it literally turns within the tower itself. And it doesn't matter -how- gravity was behaving when you got here, whether you were walking across the ceiling or the walls or the floors like some boring normal person, because very suddenly, that gravity -reasserts- itself and you find yourself falling. That you might be falling UP really makes no nevermind, does it? It's still a long drop. Or ascent. Whatever. You're the one doing it, call it whatever you want!! =Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Bad Luck========================================
======================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 4 *>====================== ===============< Results - When Your World Turns Upside-Down >================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Ragnell 30 --(20)--> 50 Fail Chocolate Rusk 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 25 --(15)--> 40 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Talise Gianfair 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Nimue 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alisha Diphda 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Garrett Stampede 30 --(20)--> 50 Fail Glacial Melt 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rudy Roughnight 40 --(20)--> 60 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Ragnell 50 --(10)--> 60 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Cripple Effects: Cleanse ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell 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> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Suit yourself!" Ida shoots back. She spends a moment digging her claws in deeper, and in the process, she cannot help but overhear Rudy's agonized question--the tears she knows he's crying, because he's just that kind of person.
Malevolence flares in her chest. A lump forms in her throat. Ida searches for words of reassurance, but cannot find any.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
There is little to be done. Ida, of course, manages to get to platforms -- but no one else does.
It is, after a time of being hurled to and fro, luck that brings them to the door. They get thrown through -- unceremoniously hurled into it, and sent slamming into the ground. Alisha skids over it, on her knees, and panting hard.
The red bead of light flies out, and Seraph Lailah appears. She stands up, pristine, and dusts herself off. "You would have done it, if you could, Ragnell," she teases, lightly. "Shall we be on our way?"
DG: Garrett Stampede has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Work of Art *>==========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The room you come to has no exits. Literally. The door you went through?
What door? There's definitely no door there anymore. All there is here is
one giant painting of what looks like a battlefield in what looks vaguely
like the wide, green plains of the Meadow of Triumph in Rolance. However, it
seems some key players are missing -- empty splotches of white dominate
certain portions of this paintings where people should be. Soldiers, lords,
fighting combatants.
The missing portions are always random, but what is consistent is where they
can be found: floating all over the room, like paint brought to life,
two-dimensional slips of painted people flit about from here to there, like
a fitful tempest of art. When applied to the painting, they'll merge where
they belong -- but not all of these living paintings belong to -this-
painting, and you'll also have to actually catch them first before you can
force them back to where they belong. Once complete, the painting will play
out the scene of its battle and disappear, leading to a way forward. You
just have to wrangle a bit of art first. Not too tough, right?
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
It is suffice to say that in this room there is nothing but chaos.
With Ida being the only one to use the platforms. Garrett is not helped by the question from Rudy that causes him to pause and turn to stare at the young man...
...and promptly loose his grip to go shooting into the next room.
He looked like he was going to reply, and then...well...gravity changed.
As the little tumble of people pick themselves up once gravity rights itself the room they find themselves in a room...with nothing but paintings.
"...I am going to burn this place down to its foundations after this!" Garrett shouts to the ceiling in fustration as he turns towards the painting only to see a soldier scamper off though a field where he shouldn't be...
"The paintings! They are in the paintings!" A pause. "...ok that came out wrong, the figures we need are in the other paintings!"
That was slightly better.
Garrett does try to help wrangle but its...a play for time. A distraction from Rudy's question. His mind gnaws at it, as the young man weeps silently and the fallen knight's eyes close. It would be easy to lie to him. Tell him of course not. Rudy might even believe him.
Instead...
"I don't know, Rudy." He finally says, not looking at the boy. Focusing on the moving figures in the paintings. "But I'll do my best to make sure it never comes to that."
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
Talise ends up being hurled into the ceiling. The armoire is hurled off the wall and smashes into her.
"seriously, fuck this guy," Talise groans from within the wreckage.
The armoire rattles. Then Talise picks it up with one hand and hurls it against the far wall. Chunks of wood scatter everywhere. She's bloodied and battered and scowling, but dropping to her feet again, suppressing the urge to wince as her muscles protest her movements. Shit hurts, y'know.
The room beyond is an entirely different kind of infuriating. Lowering her eyelids slightly, Talise sets her hands at her hips, looking up at the huge portrait in front of her. Well, whichever part of the portrait she can see.
Between blinks.
"So this is the kind of life you lead after Bradamante kicks the crap out of you, huh," Talise says with a small scowl.
The hovering figures drifting through the room float around them; Talise snatches at a couple and flicks them towards the main painting, as if attempting to stick them to it and rearrange it later.
"But I guess it stands to reason," she says conversationally with a shrug at Ragnell. "I mean, I'm sure he's got nothing better to do, what with being a forgotten scumbag whom nobody wants to talk to anymore, much less remember."
DG: Talise Gianfair has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Work of Art. DG: Garrett Stampede has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Work of Art.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
SPLAT. It turns out that the room's spinning outpaces even the Lightning Seraph, and when it stops, down she goes. So does nearly everyone else, notable exceptions including Ida and Famed Cheapter Lailah. "Lailah, I swear t' Goddess," Ragnell grumbles good-naturedly at the Fire Seraph's teasing as she pushes herself up to her feet. "Maybe you shoulda brought Meebo instead, 'Lisha." Also, nice telling Ida off, she doesn't add; it was just pride in the end, but it's good to see her having a spine all the same.
She waves off Garrett's 'request' for more tales about the good old days. "Maybe if I feel like sharin'," she tells him. "For now, you got other things to worry about." Like Rudy asking him if he's not going to have to kill him. Ragnell glances over his way, but... well, that's a matter best left for those two to discuss. Instead, when Talise groans, she grumbles, "I know, right?"
This follows up with a cackle as Talise adds more shit-talk, as well as when she recognizes the room they've landed in now. Ahh, yes, the painting. "Watch out for it attackin' once we complete it," she warns the others before putting out her harmonica. She grins at Talise. "Oh yeah, His Lordship was pathetic in life *and* in undeath. An' I do mean undeath. Whether we kill his ass or get 'im purified, his only fate is dust. Hellionhood only affords you immortality as long as you *stay* a Hellion, an' if you weren't naturally immortal before it happened... well, all the age you skipped out on suddenly catches up to you. Ain't that somethin' t' look forward to, eh, Nim?"
On that cheerful note, she begins to play a jaunty tune on her harmonica. It helps the mind focus, which makes it easier in turn to identify the correct painting pieces and put them back where they belong.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has used her Tool Tarnished Harmonica toward her party's challenge, Work of Art.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"I remember this..." Alisha syas, as she steps in a little after Garrett. She frowns as she looks over the paintings -- and realizes some of the missing pieces are different than last time. Her eyebrows knit, as she looks at him. She nods.
"Yes, that seems wise," she says. She steps forward, and then reaches her hand down to her bag; she pulls her Celestial Record, and flips it open. "I took a few notes from the last time," she says. "About connections we made. But--yes. Ragnell is correct."
"I would say that's the broad strokes of it!"
Though, after Ragnell speaks, she hesitates -- and frowns, but nods. "That... it is sad," she admits. "But... we should purify him, regardless. To be like this, and trapped in such hatred for so long..."
DG: Alisha Diphda has used her Tool Celestial Record toward her party's challenge, Work of Art.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
Nimue, extremely bloody and bruised but acting as if she definitely is totally one hundred percent fine, strides into the next room as if nothing bad had happened, and indeed, nothing bad kept happening over and over again. Please.
She... thinks she remembers this particular configuration of the Spire, actually, though she isn't entirely sure. "Yeah, pretty much," Nimue says to Talise, before looking around the room. Garrett helpfully explains that the figures they need are in the other paintings. Nimue's response is...
... to do less than nothing, yet again. This time, she doesn't even obnoxiously eat; she just lies down on the ground. It's very difficult to tell if she's purposefully being obnoxious or if she needs a second to recuperate after the gravity hellscape.
Nimue does, however, take the time to offer an easy grin to Ragnell. "Oh yeah, that's gonna own," she says, brightly.
DG: Seraph Nimue has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Work of Art.
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
"Okay."
The response is simple, but Rudy gives Jack a thoughtful glance once the world doesn't seem to be spinning. As the people speak of how to proceed, Rudy knows he can't let the mission of whatever is going on to be endangered by unresolved business. "Well, then I'll say this: if you become like Berserk. I'll murder you like Berserk. I don't want you to be a monster, but if you become one, I'll do what it takes. Because I know you wouldn't want to be a bad person. I know you aren't a bad person."
There is another pause as Rudy takes in the next challenge Some sort of living art. This abstract nature of the room causes Rudy to continue to be troubled, as if this were some manifestation of his own woes. "Of course, if I ever become a monster, I'd expect that you'd kill me too. That's what friends do. Because I know I never want to be like Berserk, but I guess you can't always help what happens to you, right?" Rudy inquires, his attention shifting toward Jack and Ida for their final thoughts before taking out the radar and pressing it once. Once the data comes up, he'll take it over toward Alisha and others with a simple question that seems odd (a common theme for Rudy this night seems).
"So, I should have likely asked this earlier But um, what are we doing here? This place makes me feel weird."
The data on the radar isn't exactly clear to Rudy, but it might hold some important information. Sadly, altered reality isn't really his forte.
DG: Rudy Roughnight has used his Tool Portable Radar toward his party's challenge, Work of Art.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida clings to the icy perch for as long as she can manage. When gravity finally stops the self-indulgent nonsense, she lets go, sliding to the junction of wall and floor, rising to her feet, and striding down the hallway with no further preamble. "I told you," she says. Tendrils of Malevolence escape with every breath as she addresses the Tower's distant master. "You made a mistake in angering me, old fool." If nothing else, Ida is both more practiced and more powerful than she was when she first set foot in this place. She has a home Domain of her own, and the Domain she bears with her has grown in might--she knows both of them well.
'I don't want you to be a monster, but if you become one, I'll do what it takes. Because I know you wouldn't want to be a bad person. I know you aren't a bad person.'
"trash,People pick themselves up.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida clings to the icy perch for as long as she can manage. When gravity finally stops the self-indulgent nonsense, she lets go, sliding to the junction of wall and floor, rising to her feet, and striding down the hallway with no further preamble. "I told you," she says. Tendrils of Malevolence escape with every breath as she addresses the Tower's distant master. "You made a mistake in angering me, old fool." If nothing else, Ida is both more practiced and more powerful than she was when she first set foot in this place. She has a home Domain of her own, and the Domain she bears with her has grown in might--she knows both of them well.
'I don't want you to be a monster, but if you become one, I'll do what it takes. Because I know you wouldn't want to be a bad person. I know you aren't a bad person.'
"trash, hisses that horrible whisper. Ida remembers that dream--being bullied, threatened, except the teacher was--
"I'm--not a good person, Rudy," Ida says, her voice low. The length of chain draped around her chest seems to grow warm and heavy as Rudy's words call back memories. That little automaton scuttles off Ida's shoulder and turns its piercing gaze on the Malevolent fragments flying around. It identifies several that belong in the mural--a pair of soldiers, and someone carrying a banner with a crest no one alive would recognize. Ida grips them, gently but firmly, and guides them towards their proper places.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Loyal Demon Eye toward her party's challenge, Work of Art.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================
=========================<* CHALLENGE - Work of Art *>==========================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The room you come to has no exits. Literally. The door you went through?
What door? There's definitely no door there anymore. All there is here is
one giant painting of what looks like a battlefield in what looks vaguely
like the wide, green plains of the Meadow of Triumph in Rolance. However, it
seems some key players are missing -- empty splotches of white dominate
certain portions of this paintings where people should be. Soldiers, lords,
fighting combatants.
The missing portions are always random, but what is consistent is where they
can be found: floating all over the room, like paint brought to life,
two-dimensional slips of painted people flit about from here to there, like
a fitful tempest of art. When applied to the painting, they'll merge where
they belong -- but not all of these living paintings belong to -this-
painting, and you'll also have to actually catch them first before you can
force them back to where they belong. Once complete, the painting will play
out the scene of its battle and disappear, leading to a way forward. You
just have to wrangle a bit of art first. Not too tough, right?
=Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
=======================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 5 *>======================= ===========================< Results - Work of Art >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 50 --(5)--> 55 Pass Tarnished Harmonica 2 Wits Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 40 --(5)--> 45 Pass Loyal Demon Eye 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talise Gianfair 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Nimue 60 --(8)--> 68 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisha Diphda 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Celestial Record 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett Stampede 50 --(8)--> 58 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy Roughnight 60 --(5)--> 65 Pass Portable Radar 1 Wits Effects: Enlighten and Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Ragnell 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Tire(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell 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> Garrett Stampede has posed.
Getting all the corralled pictures into the right place is difficult. The scatter at the slightest movement. But though the help of...well...everyone but a fallen knight that is contemplating and answer and a Seraph that is contemplating the ceiling they manage.
The picture shifts and smooths out into an ornate archway, revealing a hallway down into the darkness...
Garrett meanwhile pauses a moment at Rudy's words. Most people would be concerned by them. Most people wouldn't quite understand them. Many people couldn't comprehend them. Killing a friend? That doesn't sound like something good to promise.
One heavy gauntlet reaches out, frost receding from it. From much of his armor. For a moment Garrett looks more human than Hellion again, even though the black blade still pulses on his back.
He claps one hand on Rudy's shoulder.
"Thanks, kid."
The words are short, and the smile from the knight is tired, but there is truth in those words. Honest gratitude of what Rudy is willing to promise.
What he is willing to sacrifice.
But then he draws a deep breath as he glances down into the dark. "But why we're here? There is a Hellion that needs ending. One that has existed for too long..." A glance towards Ragnell. "...one that does hurt innocents. For fun." He didn't realize the immortality was a side benefit. Though it seems to come with madness.
"So lets go find him, and end the bastard."
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has drawn a new Challenge.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Sound of Obsession *>==================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In this grand antechamber is a series of massive, metal cylinders like organ pipes, or chimes. There is no obvious exit, but when these massive chimes are struck, they ring out -- in a musical note that sounds strangely like a woman's voice. Hitting them further, hitting them harder, increases the pitch of that voice higher and higher as the very architecture around the room -shrinks- away as if in fear of the voice. Get them loud enough, and the baroque structure might well peel away to reveal the treasures that lie beyond -- but do you have the strength of force to meet the obsessive pitch necessary? =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Ain't that somethin' t' look forward to,' says Ragnell. Ida smiles a grim little smile. But wouldn't it be worth it? Being able to be with Kalve for more than just an eye-blink of his lifetime, whatever that may be. Even though they could never have--
Ida shakes her head. Her long, silvery mane rustles behind her. She steps forwards as the mural moves up and out, taking point as everyone walks into the hallway. She pulls one end of the chain from its home in her pocket, twists it around her knuckles so she has a managable length in her hand. "What is this?" she says, as the next chamber congeals out of Malevolence and rock and wood. It looks like a colossal pipe organ, but there's no keyboard. Ida scowls.
"Did he overhear us?" the big Hellion says. "There's no conceivable way this will end well for you!" She raises her voice, as if the Nameless Lord could hear her if she shouted loudly enough. Like she's been doing this entire time. To prove her point, she lashes out with a length of the late Berserk's weapon. It strikes the pipe with a clang, oddly choral-sounding...
And the whole room shudders and retreats, as if in fear. Ida grins. "Hit it again," she says. She does just that, lashing the pipes repeatedly. With each strike, she feels the room's fear grow sharper. It feels good.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"Yeah, I had no intention of letting him off the hook," Talise says with a nod back at Ragnell. "I didn't know Hellion lifespans worked that way, though. I guess it's logical...." Frowning, she looks down at her feet.
'I'm not a good person.'
"Ida," Talise says, "thanks for your help." She gestures to the woman's automaton friend, then steps aside to make room for her to place the phantoms where they belong.
Thoughts linger in her mind as she proceeds along, but she shuttles them aside into the dark corner where most of her doubts live. Ahead, more problems loom - a massive pipe organ giving itself shape. The swordswoman gives her arms a quick shake, then slides her gauntlets back on before giving Ida another look. "I think he's got the idea," she assures with a wry smile. "Let's toot this fucking thing."
Talise does not have Berserk's ball-and-chain. She has her fists. But Talise's fists by themselves could knock out a warhorse. With the gauntlets, they could probably knock out a Humvee. She puts her dukes up in a pretty traditional streetfighting stance, then slams one into the organ.
A choral note soars through the room. She punches it harder and drives the note higher.
"That is oddly satisfying," she remarks.
DG: Talise Gianfair has used her Tool Ogre Power Gauntlets toward her party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"He may have," Alisha allows.
She looks around the room -- and at those huge metal cylinders. Her eyes narrow as she looks over the chimes. Finally, she walks forward, and brings back her fist. She doesn't have a Metal Demon's weapon; she has the same gauntlets she always did. She gives the chimes a good look, and then she slams her fist into them a few times.
She has a good swing -- and a sense of rhythm.
"It is," she agrees with Talise. "But... I hope it will be enough, too."
DG: Alisha Diphda has used her Tool Crystal Gauntlet toward her party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Ragnell smirks at Nimue as she agrees with her wholeheartedly about the Nameless Lord's end, then snorts in laughter at Lailah's terrible, terrible pun. To Alisha, she shrugs. "If I disagreed with ya, I wouldn't have brought ya," she points out. "I figure you really need the experience at purifyin' a Hellion in his league, an' that's why I brought ya." She frowns. "...We can't really rely on Sorey or even Rose."
Meanwhile, Rudy, Garrett, and Ida have their own miniature drama over in the corner. Garrett explains to Rudy what all this is about--or at least the cliff notes version--and the Lightning Seraph gives him a slow nod and frown in return. So Ida told him the story, huh. That's fine. "I 'spect most don't. It's somethin' most figure out as they go, as it were," Ragnell explains to Talise. "Me, I learned it from a good secondhand source." A faint smirk.
"If he did, I got some choice words for him myself," Ragnell adds to Ida, eyes narrowing. Funny timing, that: as the group unders the last (?) antechamber, she loks around and sees massive, metal cynlinders. They're familiar. They look like chimes, or...
"Mmmmmm," she murmurs, shutting her eye as Ida hits one and it makes a beautifully terrible sound. When she opens her eyes again, her grin is wide and wolfish. "Let's hit 'em *all*," she says. Despite this grand gesture, the power is innate: any impact on those chimes sounds a sweet melody that sounds like a woman's cry, and the tower shudders in fear of the noise. Rearing up a foot, Ragnell gives the one closest to her a powerful *kick*. Too bad she can't usf her harmonica to figure out pitch, but right here and now, that doesn't seem terribly important.
DG: Seraph Ragnell has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Nimue has posed.
"Yep! Love dies super quick but you can totally run off hate and misery and despair forever. That's just the way it is on this bitch of a planet," Nimue says, cheerfully, to Talise. "Like, basically, everything is bad forever!"
With that ray of sunshine firmly placed in the room, Nimue turns her attention to that large pipe -- as Ida hits it. She looks to Lailah instead for a moment, considering something... but... no, now's not the time. Maybe later, when they have time to just... sit and talk. Right now --
-- it's time to bang on something, one of Nimue's favorite activities. She pulls out her staff at last, looking at everything... then pulls out that bottle again and takes a drink... and then...
... starts just running back and forth slamming her staff into things. "Whoooo! Hitting things! Yeah! Yeah!!!!"
DG: Seraph Nimue has used her Tool Stolen Drinks toward her party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Talise Gianfair has posed.
"Right, but what's the bad news," Talise answers with a blink back at Nimue, before giving the organ another whack.
=============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Sound of Obsession *>===================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ----------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------- In this grand antechamber is a series of massive, metal cylinders like organ pipes, or chimes. There is no obvious exit, but when these massive chimes are struck, they ring out -- in a musical note that sounds strangely like a woman's voice. Hitting them further, hitting them harder, increases the pitch of that voice higher and higher as the very architecture around the room -shrinks- away as if in fear of the voice. Get them loud enough, and the baroque structure might well peel away to reveal the treasures that lie beyond -- but do you have the strength of force to meet the obsessive pitch necessary? =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Rudy Roughnight has posed.
"Metal Demons that are made to hurt, made to kill... Those are bad people, Ida. You want to do good things. I know you are a good person. Or at least want to be. For right now, until you hurt people, that's good enough for me."
With those encouraging words given to Ida, Roughnight continues onward as Jack explains things. "A person who hurts people forever." A small frown appears on Rudy's face. "That's not good at all. Guess it worked out so many people are here to stop him, once and for all." It's all just so simple for Rudy. At least for matters such as these.
As Rudy glances over toward Ragnell as the mention of hitting them at all is given, the Outcast hrms. He looks about, trying to figure out what the mysterious clue was from the mysterious being. "We can try." With that, Rudy begins to prepare a trio of charges. The idea is simple, give them different times, then throw them in such a way that they all go off at the same time in different locations.
One.
Two. Three
Boom?
DG: Rudy Roughnight has used his Tool Excavation Charges toward his party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
<Pose Tracker> Garrett Stampede has posed.
Most of the cliff notes version just came from Garrett's observations. And his innate dislike of the ruler of this Domain. It only stands to reason that he didn't care about innocents if he treats guests this bad.
Reasons aside, Garrett is entirely fine with this room. Since it means taking out some of his frustration on inanimate objects. Which is always a fun experience.
A vicious grin passes across his face as he draws back one mailed fist to send it crashing against the chimes along with others. No words spoken, just brute force applied liberally to someone else's furniture.
Yes. Very cathartic.
Rudy's words do bring a smile to his lips though and he nods slightly. "You just remember that, Rudy." He murmurs. "You believe it enough for all of us then."
As he brings his gauntlet down again crashing into the pillar and the sound.
DG: Garrett Stampede has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Sound of Obsession.
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================ ====================<* CHALLENGE - The Sound of Obsession *>==================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In this grand antechamber is a series of massive, metal cylinders like organ pipes, or chimes. There is no obvious exit, but when these massive chimes are struck, they ring out -- in a musical note that sounds strangely like a woman's voice. Hitting them further, hitting them harder, increases the pitch of that voice higher and higher as the very architecture around the room -shrinks- away as if in fear of the voice. Get them loud enough, and the baroque structure might well peel away to reveal the treasures that lie beyond -- but do you have the strength of force to meet the obsessive pitch necessary? =Dungeon Conditions: Weaken===================================================
=======================<* The Nameless Spire - Round 6 *>======================= ======================< Results - The Sound of Obsession >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Ragnell 55 --(10)--> 65 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 45 --(5)--> 50 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Talise Gianfair 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Ogre Power Gauntlets 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Nimue 68 --(10)--> 78 Fail Stolen Drinks 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alisha Diphda 65 --(5)--> 70 Pass Crystal Gauntlet 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett Stampede 58 --(5)--> 63 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy Roughnight 65 --(10)--> 75 Fail Excavation Charges 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Ragnell 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Tire(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Seraph Ragnell has successfully explored The Nameless Spire!
============================<* The Nameless Spire *>============================
=====================<* CHALLENGE - The Nameless Throne *>======================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
A throne room. That's as best as this place can be summed up as. A circular
chamber, ornate and extravagent... and dripping with Malevolence. It thrums
through this place like it was the origin point of this tower's misery, and
while the rest of the spire may be too far gone, all of it seems to be
centered right... here. Paintings surround this room, hung on the circular
walls of it, all of them depicting scenes from a war that all seem connected
to the other like an extended panoramic. The scenes of the battle shift and
move, most of them showing people fleeing in fear -- fleeing from the
strange, shadowy silhouette of a woman that seems more demon than human,
unable to make out save for horrible, gleaming red eyes.
And at the center of this chamber is a simple seat, like a sad, lonely
throne. Whispering in a voice that grows louder and louder the closer you
get:
"Are you her...?"
Dare you answer?
OOC: You have unlocked the Namelesss Lord optional boss fight. This is
intended to be a fairly difficult fight with some non-standard mechanics! If
you would like to attempt it, please send in a +request to schedule it.
=Dungeon Conditions: Save Point===============================================
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Whatever eldritch force is animating these pipes, it becomes clear that any old force won't do. Ragnell manages to coax a note or two from hers, but Nimue's policy of randomly hitting things with a stick is not terribly effective. Rudy's explosive charges detonate in mid-air, but the force of the impact causes the pipes themselves to recoil, requiring everyone to step back a moment and stop while they move back into position. Alisha, Garrett and Talise get some incredibly cathartic punching in, and Ida decides to join in. The length of chain whips about like a living thing as Ida strikes chime after chime--it's like it's reveling in the fear invoked by this woman's presence. Rudy's voice forms a strange counterpoint to it, something pure and innocent. It drags Ida out of her thoughts--
"I thought that way, too," Ida says, in between strikes. "Then--this--happened--" What about Demons who just want to live free, without being rejected by strange and distant gods just for being what they are? The statement lingers on Ida's lips, but never makes it out. She feels Garrett's eyes on her, knows what he's suffered, feels like speaking it would be putting a knife in his back.
It hurts. The Malevolent star flares. "One last time--!" Ida says, to take her mind off it. The group lays into the pipes. The whole tower feels as though it's being shaken to its foundations. And then--
Space warps and bends. The room rearranges itself, replacing floor-to-ceiling pipes with grand paintings and trappings befitting a noble. In the center is a throne, turned so it's facing away. Ida steps towards that throne, despite the waves of Malevolence wafting off it. She smiles, but it's as nervous as it is eager. A voice addresses everyone, thin and faint.
"Are you her...?"
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