2019-02-15: Violence Is Our Language: Difference between revisions
(Created page with "*'''Log: Violence Is Our Language''' *'''Cast:''' Character :: Loren Voss, Character :: Lily Keil *'''Where:''' Gunsmoke Desert *'''Date:''' February 15, 2019 *'''Summ...") |
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*'''Where:''' Gunsmoke Desert | *'''Where:''' Gunsmoke Desert | ||
*'''Date:''' February 15, 2019 | *'''Date:''' February 15, 2019 | ||
*'''Summary''': ''Shortly after [[2019-01-14:_Jewel_in_a_Dreadful_Crown| | *'''Summary''': ''Shortly after [[2019-01-14:_Jewel_in_a_Dreadful_Crown|Jewel in a Dreadful Crown]], Lily and Loren have an altercation. It leads to complications, however...'' | ||
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<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed. | <Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed. | ||
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If the sensors were online, he'd get an interesting tale of it. He braces for a charge, watching her movements. | If the sensors were online, he'd get an interesting tale of it. He braces for a charge, watching her movements. | ||
Something <span style="color:#87AFFF">squirms</span> in the corner of his vision. His gaze darts to it. | |||
She charges in that moment. | She charges in that moment. | ||
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Something still breaks through the barrier. Something causes Schiehallion to stagger, all alarms screaming about-- | Something still breaks through the barrier. Something causes Schiehallion to stagger, all alarms screaming about-- | ||
FLIGHT UNIT DAMAGED. USE OF UNIT NOT ADVISED. DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO EXTERNAL ARMORING: 90; DAMAGE OUTSIDE RECOMMENDED SAFETY RATIO. RETREAT RECOMMENDED. | FLIGHT UNIT DAMAGED. USE OF UNIT NOT ADVISED. DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO EXTERNAL ARMORING: 90%; DAMAGE OUTSIDE RECOMMENDED SAFETY RATIO. RETREAT RECOMMENDED. | ||
''...that's bad.'' | ''...that's bad.'' | ||
Latest revision as of 02:22, 21 February 2019
- Log: Violence Is Our Language
- Cast: Loren Voss, Lily Keil
- Where: Gunsmoke Desert
- Date: February 15, 2019
- Summary: Shortly after Jewel in a Dreadful Crown, Lily and Loren have an altercation. It leads to complications, however...
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The Schiehallion, while not the newest or best Gear that Solaris could field, is still no pushover, particularly in comparison with the Gears so often used by surface-dwellers. Not only does it boast superior shielding -- as a heavy support Gear, its primary goal is to protect the pilot while providing combat assistance -- but the webwork of Ether-boosting systems within it make it a formidable foe on the field.
Any normal Gear wouldn't have been able to budge it if Loren had decided to hold his ground.
Unfortunately, the Gear Lily is using is no normal Gear. He can tell that already, struggling against the machine's grip--
--and frankly, the inertia. She had come in out of nowhere, as far as he's concerned, even if he had shut down the support systems.
"You're crazy!" he snarls, over their now-shared frequency, manually firing thrusters as he tries to dislodge her, to take to the skies.
But Schiehallion flies -- and steers -- about as well as a wheelbarrow full of bricks. And she won't let go.
He tries something different.
Sighting the approach of the desert -- scrublands beyond Nisan exposing less and less rock -- he angles downwards, trusting in his Gear's armoring to cushion the impact.
Before rather suddenly tilting into a head-long roll, G-forces plastering him back into his seat as he works to attempt to slam her Gear, first, into the sands below.
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with Suffer Not a Witch! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Loren Voss's Suffer Not a Witch for 96 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
No, Hellerune is a strange Gear itself, brought into Lily's hands by some strange luck or ironic fate. And now, of course, she is here; Lily Keil appears to have circumvented the larger battle entirely... for this purpose.
"That's true." Lily replies over the same frequency in a calm only edged by the obvious focus she's exerting to keep her grip, compensate for thrusters, continue moving backward. The desert approaches, and they make it farther and farther away from the populated border--
Down. Hellerune's great hands shift to compensate, but it's too quick--maneuvering thrusters along the Gear's sides abrubtly fire to cushion the impact as it hits the ground, and the earth in all directions shakes with the impact. "But you're angry and getting sloppy, and I don't aim to let you loose on the civilians back there."
It may, or may not, be a surprise--but the feeling of Ether builds, at first detectable because of their close range... but then brighter, bigger. The whine, the feeling of Water in the air twisting--
It's an Ether Booster, unmistakably.
From Hellerune's hands, everything close through the air turns abrubtly to ice; flakes of it crash forward towards Schiehallion, becoming a great mist all towards the other Gear to freeze over systems that aren't sufficiently shielded.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Mist Burst! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Loren Voss critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Mist Burst for 49 hit points! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's in fact precisely the sort of machine a Lamb should not have in their possession.
Though Loren is not so far ahead of himself that he thinks he might get a chance to claim it for Solaris.
In fact he's barely thinking beyond the immediate moment in and of itself.
Her voice is counterpoint to his own.
He has control yet in his own, but it's held fast within a trembling edge. He's furious, and if anything demonstrates the ends to which this might go, the violence with which he attempts to shuck her--
--and then slam her--
--might do.
"What do you think I am?" he snarls back, treading sand as he urges the Gear upwards. "'Let loose on the civilians'? Don't be ridiculous--"
He can almost taste the tang of her Ether in the air. He draws back, shining shields flashing into being before and about him. With no computer on to guide or support his decisions, it's now all him.
Ice crystalizes across gem-hard light, flashes fleetingly across forearms. He doesn't think it's done damage, but without a diagnostics scan, he can't tell for certain.
"...Who's sloppy now, Keil?" he asks her, before taking a breath and allowing his will to slide out and into the networked amplifiers.
And outwards, about him, as forceful as a steam vent.
He takes another breath as that power settles in, before reaching over to release manual control.
If he's going to fight, he needs support in piloting this thing.
SYSTEM RESTORE MODE INITIATED. BOOTING...
...though coming back from system override, particularly after what had happened to it, is going to take a moment.
He assumes a defensive posture, as if daring her to strike him.
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Loren Voss with Power Element! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Loren Voss's Power Element for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You're telling me a bunch of 'Lambs' aren't acceptable losses for you?" Lily snaps back. But Loren knows how to use Ether with his Gear more than well enough--Lily scowls as she spots the shielding, narrows her eyes as she looks through her displays. She can feel the amplifiers... Even before the steam powers him.
...There's no indication, naturally, that Lily is using much support. Instead she looks over--
Lily Keil is not known for avoiding dares.
"I know I wreck things," Lily says then, as her Gear shifts its arm and pulls a gigantic lance from its back. "Why do you think I brought you out here?"
She shifts--her Gear sidesteps, and with a flash of shadow, Ether resonates again. This time, though, it isn't the sharp, biting chill of frozen Water; it's cloying, blinding...
And there are two Hellerunes for an instant, one on either side of Schiehallion; both charge in, identical, with a hack of their weapon.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Mirror Step! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Loren Voss critically Guards a hit from Lily Keil's Mirror Step for 51 hit points! GS: Riposte! Statuses applied to Lily Keil! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Over this? Spare me," he snaps back at her. "Just some idiot girl in over her head in-- in, whatever that was! It's nothing to risk an incident over!"
He'll keep the thought that Neriah's potential threat level absolutely should be elevated by command to himself for now. That, a battle he has no hope of rejoining, is no longer his immediate concern.
Here's hoping the paperwork already won't be the pain in the ass he's thinking it's going to be.
The system is still initializing, in the meanwhile, a steady crawl up from the abyss. In the meantime, it's all him. No warnings. No backup.
"I was about to ask," he replies, watching her Gear intently. "Typically massive property damage is your specialty."
Her Gear is fast. He'd already made note of that.
In a race of reflexes, hers is likely to win.
So when in an eyeblink she appears to vanish--
When she appears to come in from more than one direction--
He doesn't guess which is real. He doesn't move. Shields snap up, shimmering light faintly visible under the desert sun.
There is force behind the strike, enough to crack against the shimmering barrier and send sparks arcing along the expanse of it. He can feel, if muted, the resonance that skims along from there and across the armored plating. Still no readout, no sense if that did damage anything in Schiehallion, or how much the shields absorbed.
He can't hold like this forever. The shielding components are in the forearms, which means he can't use the ARMs, and he needs to feed the shields Ether; with her speed he can't count being able to outdamage her even with shielding. And there's no time to waste thinking on all these factors--
He urges the massive Gear backwards, away from her; the Gear reaches for the still sheathed ARMs along its lower back.
Got to keep his eyes forward, at least until the system's back on.
Got to get a little space.
And remember that she has the advantage of speed--
The pair of Gear-sized ARMs snap into Schiehallion's hands. No targeting assistance either. It's fine, he thinks.
He doesn't aim at her as much as in her general direction. A feint, in a sense, as he takes survey of the terrain, tries to plot out his next move.
GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with False Eclipse! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Loren Voss's False Eclipse for 131 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Are you really that blind?" Lily snaps in return. "You think that was some idiot girl? As if you care about an 'incident' you could blame on others anyway!"
Lily flips a couple of switches in her cockpit, quick-quick-quick, and looks back to her display. "So it is. And now your Gear is the only thing within miles to break."
Lily had counted on Loren blinking--but he didn't. His readouts may not work, but her assessment of the damage is insufficient so far--it's going to take a while, at this rate. ...However, she has plenty of fuel, not having been in a fight before this...
Back, back--the Gear opens fire; the weapons it uses are sufficiently large that even in passing it lights up the edges of Hellerune's armor. The Gear is already in motion at that though; Lily shuts off the damage alarm and positions her machine towards a better attack position. "Speaking of," she starts, and the temperature around her Gear plummets abrubtly, mist coasting off of it before its weapon ignites into a roiling blaze.
"<Got you,>" Lily murmurs, in a strange language as she abrubtly charges again and hacks down outright.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Blaze Arc! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Loren Voss guards a hit from Lily Keil's Blaze Arc for 199 hit points! GS: Loren Voss enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Tch. You're making assumptions," he replies, and it's a fair assumption his expression is quite the dour one at this juncture. "But think what you want!"
He doesn't have the 'excuse' others might have, anyway. Not with that black stain on his name.
And then she points out one particular thing about the matter of 'breaking things'.
"Civil," he mutters, in response. "Then, fine. It's time you learned some manners, Keil!"
Fuel. Let's not forget fuel.
Particularly with his own gauge lingering around the halfway point. Heavy Gears have the advantage of defense... but not only are they slow--
They eat fuel like it was going out of fashion. Of course, the tanks are also sized to compensate, but it's no reassurance.
Especially after what he'd done in the last fight.
She lingers, hanging back. Alarm bells go off at the back of his mind. She's up to something. Perhaps he could strafe and make up for the fact that the system's not up--
RESTORE MODE: 97% it reads, and it's been reading that for seconds, as if it's hung up.
Great great great, that's just what I need, runs the thought in a rush. Probably needs a full reboot, can't do that mid battle, going to have to live with it and--
She's says something, she's--
If the sensors were online, he'd get an interesting tale of it. He braces for a charge, watching her movements.
Something squirms in the corner of his vision. His gaze darts to it.
She charges in that moment.
His attention snaps back to her -- too slow -- and he stares, frozen.
The blazing weapon swings downwards in the same moment that the announcement scrolls suddenly, SYSTEM BACK ONLINE. THREAT DETECTED OVERHEAD. DEPLOYING EMERGENCY SHIELDING.
Which it does, in a sudden oil-spill shimmer of light.
It doesn't stop the weapon's edge. But it does slow it, enough that the polearm drags a gouge across the outer layers of armor rather than cutting deeper.
"--Initiate target lockon," he says to the computer system, missing only a single beat. He doesn't bother putting a gap between her and him now: he draws on her.
His heart pounds once, twice.
Reticules align on the screen.
And he discharges both ARMs.
GS: Loren Voss has activated a Force Action! GS: Loren Voss enters a Counter stance! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with Aphelion Purge! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has lost 1 Combo! DC: MISS! Lily Keil completely evades Aphelion Purge from Loren Voss!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Heh. Maybe I am!" There's a sudden whine in the cockpit of grinding machinery as she prepares her strike. It's true; there are things she doesn't really know about him. But think what she wants, is it? "Should I imagine otherwise? Are you going to tell me your superiors have Aveh's best interests at heart?"
A beat, "...Though being fair, it's not like I care much one way or the other about them."
Lily's usually up to something--but in this case, she's up to more. She does not recognize the thing that squirms in Loren's vision; she does not appear to see it at all. Instead, she swings, and even as the shield erupts in a shimmer of light, Hellerune's tight slash gouges armor. She's in close, now; it makes her vulnerable in turn, which is something she knew would happen. he says nothing to her... and that suggests he's preparing.
After all, she knows better than to think one good strike will take him down.
This close, dodging is impossible. Moving fast enough would violate the laws of physics; both ARMs are drawn, and Lily lets go entirely the motion controls for the moment. Instead of working them, she breathes in--
...It's not the normal feeling of Ether, this time. It's just the sense of drawing, like the plug has been pulled from the drain. A swell of nothingness gathers--
The air between Gear and Gear shatters; in an instant it is gone, replaced with nothing at all. No light passes through the airy cloud of un-matter; the shots disappear within it, consumed by an achingly hungry void, until it collapses, consuming even itself.
...No, not collapses--condenses. Hellerune's hand is suddenly behind it, and the noise of the battle, of the desert, of the wind--all grow still.
"I was raised in a Colonel's house, Voss. I know manners."
The condensed point shrinks further--and then erupts into crackling bolts of unmaking, the air wracked with the shockwaves of wind rushing to fill gaps.
Inside her Gear, Lily's featureless black eyes stare into her display. ...Somehow, even her calm words have an edge of something ugly, just this instant.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Omega Protocol! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: COUNTER! Loren Voss strikes at Lily Keil with a counter attack! GS: Loren Voss takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Omega Protocol for 392 hit points! GS: Loren Voss enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Loren Voss's Counter Attack for 80 hit points! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"They're getting what they deserve," he says simply, apparently declining to elaborate on what they're doing in Aveh. "What all of you Lambs deserve!"
Direct control under Solaris, for their own good.
Kislev, Aveh. Krosse, Lacour, Adlehyde. Nisan. They're all the same, once you peel away the traditions. Just rot, when they're left to their own devices.
But it may be an argument for another time. He'd seen something now, in the thick of it, something that writhed like a creature he'd thought gone and fled. But he looks, and it isn't there.
Lily remarks on it not at all. Did she not see it either, or--
And even the threads of that go hurtling out of his grasp. She's in close; he takes that moment and throttles it for what it's worth--
And Hellerune.
Vanishes.
His shots barrel in through empty air.
Are consumed by it.
That which collapses to a single point. "What--" he vocalizes.
INCOMING, warns the computer. He raises an arm, light glinting as the barrier raises--
The point of darkness erupts outwards in a pulse ravenous enough to steal even silence. The bolt rips through the barrier as if it were wet tissue paper.
Plating cracks, smoulders. A length along a leg is obliterated. Ash boils off the battered Gear.
Red light, alarms ring out inside the cockpit -- as the damage report scrolls down the screens, Loren seriously considers shutting down the computer system once again. Instead, gritting his teeth against the pressure of her Ether and the cacophany, he snaps off a response in the heart of the roiling chaos.
The Gear continues to smolder as he urges it back, breaking off from the near-clinch distance they've found themselves in.
She knows manners, she says.
"Could have-- fooled me! You rabid witch! I saw what you did in Bledavik!"
He doesn't just talk. Ether bundles through the amplifiers, pulses outwards.
Water, the source of all life--
Which lashes out for Lily's Gear in a single blade-like jet.
GS: Loren Voss has activated a Force Action! GS: Loren Voss has spent 3 Combo on Gatling, including 2 on Gatling! GS: Loren Voss has attacked Lily Keil with Aqua Origin! GS: Loren Voss has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has completed his action. GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Loren Voss's Aqua Origin for 56 hit points! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Loren Voss has lost 1 Combo!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
What they deserved. Lily's mouth twitches, and for an instant there is no reply at all; not when he expands it to include all 'Lambs' as he does. An argument, it could be. But in her cockpit, Lily Keil finds that her hand shakes along the controls; she is tense, still for an instant save for that vibration.
But that only makes her power easy to call on. She gets control, after everything vanishes, breathes in--hears the vocalization. Even as the blast impacts her, too, rattling her in the cockpit, Lily looks to her displays to see the damage done. She calculates quickly; how much can she use after? What can she do next? Another few switches are flipped, a dial twisted, as she tries to reroute coolant towards the whining Ether Booster of her Gear. They are close--...Or they were close. His is backing away...
'I saw what you did in Bledavik!'
Lily remembers. She remembers, the time that stretched hour to hour, minute to minute, until she couldn't keep track anymore; the delirium that accompanied it. ...The eventual escape. She remembers the feeling of power, the sprays of blood from faces she didn't even bother to look at.
Ether pulses, and Lily responds practically on autopilot herself, her Gear shifting spear before itself, arms ahead to block sensitive systems, heat bleeding off of it to strike back at the jet--but it's blotted with unnatural black in some of its flames, which almost obscures the deep gouge the jet of water carves across forearm, shoulder, chest.
"You... saw," Lily repeats, and her voice is very, very quiet.
Hellerune's arms lower from its defensive stance; they both heft the spear, setting it between the two Gears, angled upward.
"You... saw."
The feeling of Drive in her veins; she remembers that, too. "So it was rude, was it?" she asks, and she is strangely calm. Almost as calm as she was, back then. Except... An explosion of flame erupts over her shoulder. Of ice, beside her Gear's left arm. Gear-scaled blasts, aimed at nothing in particular--not really even controlled.
"...You don't like it when it's the lives of your own--people you know--that are treated like nothing, do you?" The Gear gleams with menace, still. "I wasn't strong enough, then. But when i think back to that time..."
The spear glints--and shadows erupt around the Gear again as it disappears entirely from radar. With a blur, it rushes forward, past, slashing with red dripping from the blade like blood--except it isn't blood. It is light, and it is taking something in its wake.
"...I should've DONE WORSE!"
GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action! GS: Lily Keil has spent 4 Combo on Gatling, including 3 on Gatling! GS: Lily Keil has attacked Loren Voss with Witchrazor! GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo! GS: Lily Keil has completed her action. GS: Loren Voss has activated a Force Action! GS: Loren Voss guards a hit from Lily Keil's Witchrazor for 210 hit points! GS: Lily Keil drains Loren Voss! Lily Keil gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The blade of water slashes out; he can see some of the damage rend, before the flames roiling off the strange Gear obscure it altogether. Taking a step back again in the wake of his attack gives him the time to check a half dozen things in rapid positioning -- readjusting his positioning, assuming defensive posture, checking damage reports, system power, stability, incoming messages, the lot of it.
Nothing's incoming from Nisan or the ship. It's possible he's out of range from the nearest signalling pickup, he realizes. All the more reason to finish this fast--
The sand shifts underfoot, somewhat more suddenly than it had previously. Perhaps if he had been paying attention to such things, Loren might worry about the presence of a sandworm.
But he has something more dangerous than a sandworm to contend with.
Lily's tone has shifted.
He remembers -- involuntarily -- a struggle in the dark. Her, redolent with power amplified by a stolen drug. Of bone shattering pain, of those broken bodies, the blood smeared across the wall.
The understanding of failure. The shame of it.
Everything that had followed.
"Yes!"
He grits his teeth, gripping the controls within the cockpit ever tighter.
"I saw!"
"If I had it my way, a beast like you would be eliminated!"
...Does that mean Solaris doesn't want her dead?
Earth rises at his behest, forming from nothing whatsoever. This is his signature manipulation of earth Ether with intent to cause harm writ large, scaled for a Gear. The lance of stone begins to hurtle through the air--
Only to evaporate into nothing but shining crystalline light, the Ether repurposed in the blink of an eye as Lily proves the faster.
Something still breaks through the barrier. Something causes Schiehallion to stagger, all alarms screaming about--
FLIGHT UNIT DAMAGED. USE OF UNIT NOT ADVISED. DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO EXTERNAL ARMORING: 90%; DAMAGE OUTSIDE RECOMMENDED SAFETY RATIO. RETREAT RECOMMENDED.
...that's bad.
ALERT! TERRAIN INSTABILITY DETECTED. ALERT! EVACUATION RECOMMENDED.
"...What?" he utters, staring at the screen.
His gaze lifts to the camera view.
As the desert beneath the both of them unfolds and pours down into the depths to the darkness below.
Taking them with it.
DG: A party led by Lily Keil is now entering Stalactite Cave. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Just Dropping In? *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- It's a known fact among natives that there are areas in the Great Aveh Desert where the bedrock is less-than-stable, and that those who wander or raise a ruckus can discover these sections quite by accident, often sending the involved parties plunging into the depths of the sea of sand, usually never to return. Whether it's just bad luck on your part or you're intentionally seeking such an opening, you've found one of those little weak points in the Great Aveh Desert yourself; the drop down into the cave below whether purposeful or not is quite the fall even for a Gear or similar machine. Now your task is a relatively simply but potentially daunting one: negotiate the fall without breaking anything. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It is something like a finish. A struggle in the dark; a figure floating, emotionless. Bodies, and blood. Blood, blood, blood. It may as well be in Lily's vision for the moment, red staining everything as she rushes. The lance of stone rises, with Loren's words. Something else sounds out, and it is not only the alarms that scream in the moment.
Lily does not appear to notice.
Hellerune brings its lance down, and Lily presses the advantage; already, she starts to draw through the Ether Booster, reversing the flow to absorb that barrier, and she does not notice the ground is crumbling. Not until...
They start to fall.
<...Control yourself.>
<...What...?>
<You're falling. At this rate you'll destroy yourself with your enemy. Now, maneuver!>
<...Acknowledged...>
Falling, falling, falling, Hellerune abrubtly ceases its attack; its spear is stowed behind, as Lily checks over the damage to her Gear. Its flight unit, too, is in trouble; the uncontrolled burst of Ether has shorted many of its systems. Lily scowls, flipping switches, assuming flight mode controls by pulling back--and then breathes.
"Voss," she says. "I'm not a beast. Now if your flight unit isn't working... Hang on."
Hellerune shimmers, again, with shadow--and violet pulses through its aura, as Lily channels Dark Ether through its systems, tugging with all boosted power to rip free of gravity, to slow the fall, maneuver to land. It is not a pleasant kind of channeling.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, Just Dropping In?.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
What passes from Loren's end as the world comes out from under him and his Gear -- fortunately, for whatever dignity remains for him, not transmitted over the radio connection -- is a short wordless yell followed by a string of Solarian profanity.
This is it, this is it, this is how he's going to die, in some Emperor-forsaken pit in the middle of the desert and they're never going to even find his body, this damn Gear is going to be a tomb, he can't even see how far down it is, how much time is remaining to him before--
In the middle of this, Lily's voice intrudes over the frequency they've been sharing.
She's not a beast.
"Could have fooled me!" comes his retort. He takes a breath; it doesn't do the trick so he takes another, and hands shaking, hits the thrusters.
They've not enough to allow him to take flight with the processing unit for that function damaged. But it's better than nothing -- perhaps it'll slow his fall.
She's certainly noticed that he's falling rather than flying, despite Schiehallion being more than capable of it under (if slowly) under normal conditions.
Ether blooms outwards around the both of them.
"I hope you have a plan, Kiel. Because if I die down here--!"
He'll...
...well, possibly haunt her?
He hasn't thought that last part through. Possibly understandable, under the circumstances.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Just Dropping In?.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ======================<* CHALLENGE - Just Dropping In? *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- It's a known fact among natives that there are areas in the Great Aveh Desert where the bedrock is less-than-stable, and that those who wander or raise a ruckus can discover these sections quite by accident, often sending the involved parties plunging into the depths of the sea of sand, usually never to return. Whether it's just bad luck on your part or you're intentionally seeking such an opening, you've found one of those little weak points in the Great Aveh Desert yourself; the drop down into the cave below whether purposeful or not is quite the fall even for a Gear or similar machine. Now your task is a relatively simply but potentially daunting one: negotiate the fall without breaking anything. =Dungeon Conditions: Injure===================================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 1 *>========================= ========================< Results - Just Dropping In? >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Injure(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Wandering Wels *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The shaking of the stone underneath your feet is the first sign that something is terribly amiss. With a dull hollow moan -- far, far too near to a human voice for the comfort of the mind -- what can be best described of as a loosely-humanoid Gear-sized /mass/ comes rolling up through a crevice that should have been a touch too narrow for something that size to fit inside. It's a Wels, known to some as a 'Reaper', a monstrosity more well understood in Aquvy to the southwest. What it's doing down /here/ is anyone's guess, but you have only moments to respond to its openly hostile salvo. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Fuck off," Lily growls back at Loren in concentration, and she does, for the moment, have a plan. Use of thrusters is probably for the best--but Lily's spell comes forth, and being within it lends the darkness a strange shimmer, like the night sky but somehow choking.
However... it works, more or less. When the ground approaches, despite their speed there's an instant's lurch as their momentum saps away to almost nothing, and they fall as if it had only been a few feet instead of however many it was in that long, long drop. The shadowy magic fades in an instant, as caverns stretch out, beyond.
"...I had a plan," she answers, finally, briefly out of breath. "Don't be such a pessimist. Is Gebler training that fatalistic?" ]
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It slows the descent enough, in the end.
But while it's true that a heavy object and a light object fall at the same rate, it's also true that an elephant falls different than a mouse. Hellerune may not be a mouse, per se, but...
While Schiehallion doesn't break upon impact, it still drops to one knee and takes a moment to rise.
"Shut up," is Loren's response, his gaze skimming his incoming diagnostics. Why yes, he would like to run a patch protocol and reroute signaling to redundant systems, thank you, computer.
The 'headlights' flick on down here in the gloom, and he gets his first look at their surroundings.
Silence reigns in the cave.
Other than the low groan that rattles out from the throat of the great thing shambling their way. "You had a plan." He pauses. Schiehallion draws both twin ARMs, discharging spent casings from before. "Great. Do you have a plan for that?"
His plan, it seems, is to open fire on the wayward Wels.
Perhaps a discussion of how they're hoping to get out of here will get to wait for after.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Wandering Wels.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It's the sound, more than the visual, that gives Lily the cue. She frowns, checks radar, and there it is. The great Wels ahead of them shambles forward, and whatever the plan was is going to have to adapt to include it. ...As Loren mentions, naturally.
"You're the one who said I'm good at excessive violence," Lily answers over radio as Schiehallion starts firing. For her part, Lily turns Hellerune, and the Ether Booster whirrs to life. There's a pulse of power, before red radiance begins to gleam around the both of their Gears, somehow reinforcing damaged plating against all standard procedures.
"So obviously I couldn't do anything except that," she comments.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Ether Booster toward her party's challenge, Wandering Wels.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Wandering Wels *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The shaking of the stone underneath your feet is the first sign that something is terribly amiss. With a dull hollow moan -- far, far too near to a human voice for the comfort of the mind -- what can be best described of as a loosely-humanoid Gear-sized /mass/ comes rolling up through a crevice that should have been a touch too narrow for something that size to fit inside. It's a Wels, known to some as a 'Reaper', a monstrosity more well understood in Aquvy to the southwest. What it's doing down /here/ is anyone's guess, but you have only moments to respond to its openly hostile salvo. =Dungeon Conditions: Fright===================================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 2 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Wandering Wels >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(0)--> 0 Fail Ether Booster 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Injure(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Watch Your Step *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you well know for yourself, the stone ceiling of the caverns are rather less than solid. But it's not just the short sharp rainfalls of sand coming down from above that you should be concerned about -- there are also considerable amounts of sand underfoot, particularly right here where you're piloting your machine now. In large enough quantities under certain conditions, sand can become almost like a liquid in behavior. To wit: the footing's bad here and you may slip or slide, or worse, depending on your machine. Negotiating this may be tricky. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Weaken==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Why, aren't we satisfied with our lot in life," Loren comments, pausing a moment to discharge another rain of spent casings. She might not be able to see his face, with him safely in the heart of his Gear, but rest assured, he is scowling.
The fact that he can see -- per his system reports -- that she is indeed reinforcing damaged sections on his Gear only makes his mood at the moment worse.
The Wels meanwhile is having quite the bad day. Already full of holes from the earlier salvo, it lumbers forward just in time to receive another bevvy of Gear-class ammo to the head.
This time it's down for good, collapsing in a limp pile along the cave path here.
Ejecting more spent casings, he holsters the ARMs.
"...Any bright ideas, Kiel? The desert surface has to be at least 200 sharl above us. Or were you thinking about living down here with the Wels?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Time spent whining is time wasted. You adapt and move on. You'd know that, if you were trained for special forces." Lily can practically hear the scowl anyway. If anything, it improves her mood a bit; it gives a little outlet for her irritation. And as the Wels goes down...
"Yeah," she answers, radio crackling. "I have some ideas." She ignores the crack about living with the Wels, for the moment, as Hellerune's great form begins to step forward, forward, towards what appears to be a rocky wall ahead of them.
"...We look for a way up. If we can't find it, then we find a spot we can secure for repairs. I can do at least enough to get a Gear moving."
"But first..."
Hellerune barely seems equipped with ARMs at all; instead, there's a pulse, and then golden light erupts forward, shattering the wall and revealing the chamber behind. Sand is raining down all around them, naturally... and there's a path of it ahead. Nevertheless, it's a way forward.
"Sensors detect an elevation shift in this direction. Let's go."
Again, Hellerune shimmers, and disappears from sensors, though not from visuals--in visuals, it merely blurs. Lily has activated again whatever that shell is, and her Gear seems able to walk over the treacherous ground.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, Watch Your Step.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren's grip tightens around his controls, pure unbridled hate coloring his expression -- unseen to Lily. "The perfect little soldier, are we," he mutters, just under his breath. Squaring his shoulders, he briefly debates the merits of simply eliminating her here and now.
...But then not only would he still be stuck down here, there's no assurance he'd be able to down her anyway. Or that he wouldn't then be left with a truly Pyrrhic victory, her destroyed and him with a ruined machine. Given the size of that Wels...
He has no choice but cooperation.
"Just so you know, I'm out of range. No signal. So if you were thinking of calling for help, well, you're out of luck." This was true aboveground, but at least he might have been able to create a distress signal and hope that it got picked up somewhere on a sweep of the area. Down here, everything's out.
"Fine. I don't think we have any other choices. Battery's halfway down as it is."
There's nothing for it but to follow her Gear.
"Where did you get that thing, anyway," he comments; it's not so much a question as a statement of his continuing irritation.
"An elevation shift, huh."
He's got a reading on it, too. He'll have to go carefully; this thing already steers poorly and that was a bad landing earlier. And if there's any cracks in the outer plating, he'll get sand in the works for his trouble, too.
All another reason, perhaps, for him to squint at the way her Gear manages to move across the unstable ground ahead.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Watch Your Step.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =======================<* CHALLENGE - Watch Your Step *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you well know for yourself, the stone ceiling of the caverns are rather less than solid. But it's not just the short sharp rainfalls of sand coming down from above that you should be concerned about -- there are also considerable amounts of sand underfoot, particularly right here where you're piloting your machine now. In large enough quantities under certain conditions, sand can become almost like a liquid in behavior. To wit: the footing's bad here and you may slip or slide, or worse, depending on your machine. Negotiating this may be tricky. =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust, Weaken==========================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 3 *>========================= =========================< Results - Watch Your Step >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 10 --(15)--> 25 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Fright(1)|Weaken(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Keep It Open *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Someone must have been doing excavations, mining, or /something/ down here. There are small signs of it here and there -- long-abandoned shovels and picks, where the sand and rock hasn't completely swallowed them up. But these are mere suggestions next to what stands before you now: a heavy iron gate, perhaps once built to keep the intruding sands out of one section of the cave or another. While the gate still lifts -- perhaps suggesting /someone/ might still be around to take care of it -- it won't stay open on its own. If you want to get through to the other side, you're going to need something or some way to hold it open. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily has already undergone the same calculus; two is better than one down here... And in any case, she has a point to prove. Maybe to herself, as much as to Loren, that she can do other than follow that impulse. That she can put down her emotions long enough to stay rational.
"I wasn't planning on it," she answers instead of snapping back, though there's a little something like casual arrogance in it. She leaves it at that to instead say, "And in that case, we'd better move along."
On the bright side, Lily's Gear makes enough of a path that Loren can follow it without Schiehallion falling or sinking into the sands. ....This is just the good news, though; the bad news is there is sand getting into the works, and he has to use more fuel and battery still to compensate with maneuvering thrusters. Still, they make it through.
"Yeah. And this?" Lily asks. "...It's had some modifications. But I found it in a downed cruiser during the battle outside the Temple where the Guardians spoke to us. Abandoned Aveh salvage."
"Better in my hands than yours."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Progress is at once better than expected, and worse than expected.
To wit: he gets across without serious incident, but he still has to use up valuable fuel and battery power in the process, and there's the fact that there's definitely sand gumming up the works now. No question. Even if the computer weren't giving him a report on decreased reaction time in the feet, he can tell just by how the Gear isn't moving right that things are rather amiss.
"I can see that," he says, trailing behind the Hellerune. "...So I was right, it's stolen."
Must have been a prototype, something Gebler had been shipping along with the Aveh units before it got lost.
"I disagree. Just like your friend back there in Nisan," meaning the 'repurposed' segments of Vierge, "we will see that Gear returned to us."
Though there is a moment of silence, perhaps as he recalls his current situation.
"...Eventually."
Eventually, indeed -- particularly when the shifting sands reveal a certain trajectory towards a part of the caves. There's a gate ahead -- solid, with no way to see what's on the other side -- and it's open a touch.
"Hold it," he says, running a quick scan of the mechanism. "...Looks like it's still working."
He pauses. Schiehallion stoops briefly then hauls the gate open, releasing it at its apex. It begins to slide shut once more -- easily, as if it's undergone some maintenance recently, though not enough to say, actually fix the device.
He grabs hold onto the end of the gate once more, lifting it. "...What a pain," he comments, holding his position--
And activating a particular mechanism within his Gear. It's going to eat up more of his remaining battery life to do this but--
His Gear has become a focus point for ambient Ether energies. Heightening them. Making them just that much easier to use. Smoothing off any rough edges.
"Okay. Kiel, break it or jam it, or whatever it is you're going to do. Just make sure this thing doesn't close." He's still holding the gate open.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Ether Resonator toward his party's challenge, Keep It Open.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Sure. Stolen from the enemy. Standard in warfare, isn't it?" A beat, as she actually laughs faintly. "Yeah, is that so? Well, I plan to return it to you sooner or later--with bells on."
Eventually, yes. Lily doesn't continue the threats for now--instead, she looks ahead to the gate, considers it as she looks it over. A few taps activate her scanners. "So it is, more or less. It--"
Loren's Gear opens it up, and Lily watches and senses both as the Gear focuses Ether around them. The cue seems fairly obvious, as far as Lily is concerned, even before Loren directs her. So of course, Keil can oblige.
"...All right," she says. "On it." Pause. "Turn on your thermal shielding."
That's about the only warning she gives as she lifts the Gear's hands to help channel power, and abrubtly the air around them chills--and then heats, powerfully. The gate's mechanisms burst into golden nuclear fire, power enough to melt steel--and melt it does, turning the mechanisms that would allow the door to close itself again to so much slag over the course of long moments, Ether flowing freely for a few moments.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Keep It Open.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Keep It Open *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Someone must have been doing excavations, mining, or /something/ down here. There are small signs of it here and there -- long-abandoned shovels and picks, where the sand and rock hasn't completely swallowed them up. But these are mere suggestions next to what stands before you now: a heavy iron gate, perhaps once built to keep the intruding sands out of one section of the cave or another. While the gate still lifts -- perhaps suggesting /someone/ might still be around to take care of it -- it won't stay open on its own. If you want to get through to the other side, you're going to need something or some way to hold it open. =Dungeon Conditions: Tire=====================================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 4 *>========================= ===========================< Results - Keep It Open >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(12)--> 12 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 25 --(12)--> 37 Fail Ether Resonator 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 60 --(10)--> 70 Fail Conditions: Tire(2)|Weaken(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - A Platforming Puzzle *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The cave complex under the sands proves to be staggeringly vast, with high vaulted caverns. Rocky and largely-flat-enough outcroppings jut out amidst the stalagmites and stalactites, making it possible to ascend upwards and across with well timed jumps through different sections of the cave. In fact, from down here, it almost looks like something is sparkling up there. ...Just mind the jutting stone spikes from the floor and ceiling when you're heading up. Hitting one of those things could smart. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Wound==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"With bells on," he repeats, flat as always in his lack of amusement at her phrasing. "Fine. We'll see. One of these days."
But the future is another country, and the one now asking for their paperwork is the present.
He lifts the gate, angling himself to present it rather than himself as the target. It just needs to be jammed open. Something so that it sticks long enough to permit passage rather than a faintly embarrassing affair where they both hang around holding the door for each other. "Hurry up. This thing weighs at least a half dozen karn." And Schiehallion's going to wear down even more of its battery if he just stands there.
'Turn on your thermal shielding.'
"Wait, what--"
Suffice to say he does. He makes use of the amplifier device to similarly layer a shimmering barrier of Ether atop it--
It's not quite fast enough.
Or 'enough', period.
The following detonation is massive: the gate is rendered into several dangerous projectiles, part of the rock wall is obliberated. Schiehallion, flung against the far wall, extracts itself a moment after the dust has finally settled.
"...Next time give me more than a half-second warning," he mutters over the shared line, running a diagnostic followed by another -- costly -- expenditure of fuel reserves to shore up damaged sections.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
That's sure what she said. ...One of these days; the present has enough going for it indeed. With the gate largely open, Lily can work to aim... but the truth is, she's not entirely accustomed to Loren's booster, and the specific way it amplifies her power throws off her calculations completely. What was meant to be a pinpoint strike on two points erupts around the both of them, and Lily too finds Hellerune hit by some projectiles, though not thrown against a wall in the same way.
"...That's the frequency you use for resonating? It's... strange." Lily shakes her head. "Whatever, next time I'll know the variable."
She doesn't apologize, naturally; instead she leads the way into the next chamber. and this complex is indeed incredibly vast. While flight is an issue, jumping is something that could work. There is something above, sparkling... but both above and below, there are traps, natural spikes.
"...Try to follow me," Lily reports over the radio. "This could be tricky."
She activates the shroud again, though doing so this often and deactivating it after is beginning to drain its power reserves. Maybe one more shot, before she's through until it recovers. ...She declines to mention that.
Instead, she starts forward, her Gear strangely agile, once again.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, A Platforming Puzzle.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"That's a standard frequency for resonance. What's so strange about it?" he replies. "Maybe you're the weird one." Maybe it's normal for people like her, who have and make use of Ether despite not being from Solaris. He doesn't know, though -- there's too many unknown factors, too little data.
She doesn't apologize, and he, frankly, hadn't been expecting as such -- if she had that might, in truth, have thrown him.
Once he's sure that Schiehallion's leg isn't going to fall off or some other dire fate, he urges the machine onwards, after Lily's own. The chamber ahead is larger.
But this, as a survey of the scene reveals, is not a good thing.
"Are those spikes?"
A pause, as he zooms in with a camera.
"...Those are spikes. Why are there so many spikes? Did there... use to be water here or something? Ugh, who knows the history of this region..."
Not Loren, that's for sure.
Lily, meanwhile, jumps.
"...Wonderful," he groans, already dreading how this may go between the Gear's damage, handling even when it's in top form, and the close quarters ahead of them. "Well, here goes nothing."
He at least can make use of the thusters when he attempts that first jump. If he guns them gently, perhaps he won't make close, personal contact with the ceiling.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, A Platforming Puzzle.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - A Platforming Puzzle *>===================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The cave complex under the sands proves to be staggeringly vast, with high vaulted caverns. Rocky and largely-flat-enough outcroppings jut out amidst the stalagmites and stalactites, making it possible to ascend upwards and across with well timed jumps through different sections of the cave. In fact, from down here, it almost looks like something is sparkling up there. ...Just mind the jutting stone spikes from the floor and ceiling when you're heading up. Hitting one of those things could smart. =Dungeon Conditions: Hesitate, Wound==========================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 5 *>========================= =======================< Results - A Platforming Puzzle >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 12 --(0)--> 12 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 37 --(5)--> 42 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 70 --(20)--> 90 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Wound(2) Effects: Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Calamitous *>========================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you progress through a broken sand barrier, there is a sudden roar of engines from overhead. If the sound along weren't enough to suggest the source, its sudden appearance from behind a series of stalactites will. It's a Gear. Quite possibly the largest Gear you've ever seen. This absolutely enormous white Gear barrels for you, jets flaring. Whoever's piloting the thing isn't or refuses to answer any hailing -- and in fact, for those knowledgeable about the construction of Gears would note one particular thing: there doesn't seem to be an entry point for a pilot. Is it autonomous? But such academic questions may be best left at the metaphorical door: it's firing rockets and you had best defend yourself. (OOC: The GM for this round should hold on posing the aftermath until the next card is drawn.) =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Reckless=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily pauses, at Loren's reply. There's a delay, before she answers. When she does...
"Yeah," she admits. "Maybe so. It's just not very intuitive to me, is all."
That's strange enough on its own; but here, in the great chamber ahead, she gets ready for movement. The questions he asks are fair enough, but there's little she can add to them except going on ahead. The history of the region? Well...
"Yeah," Lily answers. "Indications suggest that this area used to be much wetter, and much greener. Just like most of Ignas. We'd be able to tell more, if people could do more study without being hit by the sandworms. ...Or the skirmishes between Aveh and Kislev."
They do make it through. Loren, careful, does not make spike contact with the ceiling--he just hits a few rocky outcroppings from the side, and then steps on the base of a spike with his Gear. Not terrible damage... But it's adding up.
Hellerune is waiting when Schiehallion makes it across, though, just in time to break through another sand barrier and move forward.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Huh. He tilts his head, as if to privately consider what she's just said.
'Maybe so'.
He'd said it more as a flippant comment, but the more he thinks about it...
Her style of Ether is strange. Those marks on her skin. The elements she brings to the fore. Maybe if he knew more about rogue users it would be different -- maybe he'd be able to make sense of it, somehow. But...
He shakes his head in the end -- this isn't the time or the place to dwell on it. Probably Command already knows somehow, anyway...
"Not just here. Most of Filgaia's declined," he says, angling up for that first jump. "But it looks like the water's been here more recently. Maybe the last couple thousand years? Sooner? I'd have to take measurements," he allows at last. "Anyway, it's not important."
Not as immediately important as making that jump.
He, at least, doesn't smash into the ceiling. It doesn't mean he gets off scott-free, though. Engineering is going to personally murder him, he decides, staring deadpan at the damage report from that last crash. They're still salty about having to do those repairs from the whale-spirit... thing he'd faced on Lunar.
They're certainly not going to let him get off lightly on this. But there's no helping it.
"Why are there so many barriers? Is someone living down here?" he asks, as they push through the barrier.
His answer is in the form of a Gear's engine, roaring as the machine descends from on high.
"You know what, forget I ever said anything!" he shouts to Lily, starting to go for the holstered ARMS before thinking the better of it and drawing forth a cleaving torrent of water Ether to rend at the machine's armoring.
"--That thing doesn't have a pilot!"
There's no sign of an entry point anywhere, he's realized -- it's an enormous autonomous Gear.
DG: Loren Voss has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Calamitous.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily lets the matter of her Ether drift into silence for now; truth be told, she's well aware by now that few others use Ether quite the way she does. The closest she's seen still have key differences; for all that she's learned, she's no closer to clear answers, no closer to solid explanations. But she knows for certain by now that she doesn't do things the way Gebler does.
The polarity of elements... It's a strange concept to her.
"That would be my guess," Lily says. "...But yeah. No time to measure, no reason to make the time. Maybe your scientists can check it out sometime--if they care."
Barriers--that's a good question. Lily doesn't have time to answer before the machine descends with a roar, though. "--You're right--I don't--"
The Ether torrent crashes out, and Lily directs Helelrune to the side, moving to flank with Schiehallion. If he's going to use Ether, then--
"Not one of yours, then," she murmurs, as she focuses--and Loren can feel it easily, the feeling of Water Ether but focused strangely, as if it were merely inverted Fire instead. It can be disorienting--but more to the point, there's a whine and bursts of cold erupt into snowflakes and gigantic icicles, building on the slashing water to frost the thing over, ruin its joints, crack armor--
"You're more damaged than I am--pull back!"
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Ether Booster toward her party's challenge, Calamitous.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Calamitous *>========================== |Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As you progress through a broken sand barrier, there is a sudden roar of engines from overhead. If the sound along weren't enough to suggest the source, its sudden appearance from behind a series of stalactites will. It's a Gear. Quite possibly the largest Gear you've ever seen. This absolutely enormous white Gear barrels for you, jets flaring. Whoever's piloting the thing isn't or refuses to answer any hailing -- and in fact, for those knowledgeable about the construction of Gears would note one particular thing: there doesn't seem to be an entry point for a pilot. Is it autonomous? But such academic questions may be best left at the metaphorical door: it's firing rockets and you had best defend yourself. (OOC: The GM for this round should hold on posing the aftermath until the next card is drawn.) =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Reckless=========================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 6 *>========================= ============================< Results - Calamitous >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 12 --(12)--> 24 Fail Ether Booster 1 Combat Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 42 --(12)--> 54 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 90 --(0)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Fright(2)|Hesitate(1)|Reckless(2)|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Lily Keil has failed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw. DG: Loren Voss has drawn a new Challenge.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Art Of War *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Something is seriously wrong with this Gear -- win or lose against its initial attack, it just keeps coming at you. It must be preprogrammed somehow or remotely controlled -- no sentient pilot would push a random conflict so relentlessly with so little regard for their own welfare and that of their Gear. Continuing to fight it is always an option, but it may be a Pyrrhic victory should you succeed. There are other options -- a look around you turns up another one of those heavy sand barrier gates. They're built to hold firm against the weight of an incredible amount of sand. Perhaps if you could distract the Gear somehow, get through the gate, and activate the controls to close it, you could trap the berserk Gear in here like an angry bee under a cup. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
If they care.
Someone, somewhere might be investigating -- if they have the time, the funding.
The interest.
His society, though, favors martial endeavors. Prefers research along particular lines not often found in caves under the earth. Or, for that matter, far off into the heavens.
But such things, as with the question about the barriers -- maintained and functional, for the guts of a cave under the desert -- fall to the wayside, as the strange white Gear makes its appearance on the scene.
"No!" He pauses. "I don't think so!" He doesn't remember seeing a Gear like that one, but he's still somewhere to the bottom of the foodchain as befits those First Class citizens in the medical wing of the military.
But he thinks he'd remember if anyone were saying something about autonomous Gear models.
'Pull back!'
"It's fine!" he shouts, over the shared frequency, "The armoring's still--"
ALERT: INCOMING MISSILES announces his computer.
"--shit--!"
There is an explosion; thanks to the ablative armoring, he's at least still alive and the Gear can still function.
Lily, too, may find that this Gear is coming out all guns blazing, and may encounter her own difficulties.
"Fall back!" Loren shouts, falling into a dash away from the Gear as it attempts another strafing run with missiles. "--There! There's a barrier there! If we could trap it in here--"
He draws up short, dust and sand rising in a short wave behind him.
"Quick analysis request: scan stability of stalactites. Answer needed now," he says to the computer system.
He takes one breath, then another. His heartbeat thuds onwards, pounding against his chest.
Blue eyes skim the data results. "--Got it. Keil! I'll be right behind you! Close the gate as soon as I'm through!"
In this moment, he doesn't consider that it may be ideal for her if she closed him in here with the Gear. But thought is a luxury in moments like these.
Drawing his ARMS, he takes quick aim at the ones the system had read as being least-stable; they break off from the roof and splinter upon the ground. Upon the white Gear. Whereupon he guns his engines and rockets through the gate.
DG: Loren Voss has used his Tool Tactical Interferometer toward his party's challenge, The Art Of War.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It's not as if the Black Wolves are some expansive organization with a research wing; Lily can't sponsor research into this, and Aveh wouldn't allow it even if she could. So it is; there are more mysteries on Filgaia every day, even as the wastes spread farther and farther.
But that Gear is here, and Loren can confirm that he doesn't recognize it. The possibility that he's lying occurs to Lily, and she discards it just as quickly; it wouldn't be his style, sounds sincere... And it doesn't look familiar to her, either. There's not much time to guess about it.
The missiles explode, and that's only the beginning; rapid fire guns open up and rattle hard against Hellerune's plating--already lighter than average, sending alarms blaring as another system is made vulnerable--and her usual stealth maneuvers are depleted. "Right--" Where? Loren finds it. A barrier, and if they trap it...
"Sounds like a plan," Lily answers over the same frequency, and shifts around, moving to flank the monster. It, indeed, would be convenient to her in some ways to close it. And yet...
Hellerune picks up an ARM--finally showing it from a secret holster on its wrist--and shooting out come strange shells that burst all about them, between the air, throwing up a jamming frequency that is impenetrable to sensors. And then--
Then, she takes off at full speed, through the gate just ahead of Schiehallion...
...And slams the controls to a closed position.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Starshel Rounds toward her party's challenge, The Art Of War.
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Art Of War *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Something is seriously wrong with this Gear -- win or lose against its initial attack, it just keeps coming at you. It must be preprogrammed somehow or remotely controlled -- no sentient pilot would push a random conflict so relentlessly with so little regard for their own welfare and that of their Gear. Continuing to fight it is always an option, but it may be a Pyrrhic victory should you succeed. There are other options -- a look around you turns up another one of those heavy sand barrier gates. They're built to hold firm against the weight of an incredible amount of sand. Perhaps if you could distract the Gear somehow, get through the gate, and activate the controls to close it, you could trap the berserk Gear in here like an angry bee under a cup. =Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
========================<* Stalactite Cave - Round 7 *>========================= ==========================< Results - The Art Of War >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 24 --(0)--> 24 Pass Starshel Rounds 3 Wits Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loren Voss 54 --(0)--> 54 Pass Tactical Interferometer 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Lily Keil 90 --(30)--> 120 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Reckless(1)|Stupify(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Lily Keil has successfully explored Stalactite Cave!
=============================<* Stalactite Cave *>============================== ===================<* CHALLENGE - Old Man Bal's Storytime *>==================== |Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Just then, in your moment of greatest need, you stumble across what is clearly someone's home. It's not much -- more of a shanty built into the rock and buttressed against the sand and assorted rocky debris that threatens it -- but it's clearly in use. You'll need to leave your machine outside but the door's unlocked. Inside, the occupant, an elderly man introducing himself as 'Old Man Bal' squints at you suspiciously, but appears to be curious about you and the outside world. Apparently he's a 'fossicker' and a Gear Mechanic of a sort, down in these parts for reasons he doesn't divulge far beyond the fact that the place is a good source of materials for his 'collection' (largely fossils, it seems, judging from the shelves on the walls). He's more than happy to talk to you about them. He claims that he's found no humanoid skulls older than about ten thousand years, thus disproving evolution. This is nonsensical according to every other intellectual and religious authority on Filgaia -- history clearly says people have always been on Filgaia. And yet, he'll continue to insist even if this is pointed out to him. And thus, cementing his status as some manner of kook, he launches into a strange story: It's a legend, he says. A story about how humans once lived in paradise with God, until people ate a forbidden fruit of wisdom that so angered God that He drove them out. Angered by this in turn, the people used their new wisdom to build mighty giants and made war with God. Furious, God then lay waste to those who turned against Him, destroying them all. Wounded Himself by the battle, God seized paradise and took it with Him into the sea where He still sleeps, His last action only to create pure and right-minded people to live on Filgaia. These people would have been the ancestors of everyone on Filgaia today. It's not a legend that the Church of Granas, or that any other of Filgaia's major religions, have ever endorsed. The good news is, he also tops off your fuel. It's free. So at least there's that, in exchange to listening to some weird hermit tell you about his crackpot theories. =Dungeon Conditions: Secret===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Several things happen in rapid succession:
The special shell from Hellerune detonates, causing the Gear to swerve.
Right, as it happens, into a cloud of shattered stone. Disoriented, the Gear has sufficient difficulty following after the both of them as their Gears charge through the gate to make pursuit temporarily impossible.
And then absolutely impossible as the several-karn gate slams into place. The caves shudder and quake as it seemingly continues to smash and batter itself against the wallls of the cavern it's trapped within, but eventually even this ceases.
Suffice to say, seeing if it's dead or not is not a recommended course of action. They head onwards, leaving the closed gate behind.
And arrive, after a few twists and turns, at someone's home.
Here in the rock, under the desert, away from anything even remotely qualifying as civilization.
The resident in question is even at home, emerging at their approach.
He spots Lily first, as she approaches the little home in the rock. "Hmm. I thought I had heard the sound of Gears..." the old man starts say, before trailing off into a certain troubled silence at Loren's approach, soon on her heels.
Loren, who is wearing the uniform of a Gebler Lieutenant.
The man appears to run a quick calculation of a sort in his mind, shakes his head, and gestures towards the both of them to follow him in, though not without another critical eye towards the uniformed young man... and a careful, critical glance at Lily.
As if he's assessing something.
"Quite the ruckus back there. I suppose it was the both of you? The desert has claimed more than its share of victims over the years. Count yourself lucky that you're in one piece."
Inside is homey for... what is essentially a home made out of a small gap in the rock wall of this place. A wall with a display of skulls lines one wall. Some handcrafted seating fills the room elsewhere. Beyond that, some remnants of machinery, some assorted books and tools, and... there's little else to speak of.
"Make yourselves at home, I suppose. You can call me Old Man Bal, most do." He vanishes into the back room, leaving the pair of them alone in this strange little home of his.
And with, apparently, his collection of skulls. Good news, only some of them are human!
"...I think this guy's crazy," Loren comments, gazing at the array of skulls. "If he comes back out here with a knife..."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
No, Lily Keil isn't planning to go check either. She continues along through the cavern, rock as far as the eye can see--which isn't all that far, in this much dark--and at the home...
Well, on foot, Lily is not at all in a noted military uniform, but she still carries herself like a soldier. ...And she sure doesn't look Solarian, even before the visible circuitry at the collar of her shirt. She watches him assessing...
"No relation," Lily comments, proactively. She doesn't really want anyone thinking she's Gebler. And as for the ruckus-- "Yeah. Both," she agrees. She follows, though, laconic as ever, looking around at the skulls, the seats...
"Thanks," Lily answers. "...Nice place."
She looks over the skulls, thoughtfully. "Maybe," she allows. "But it's not a bad collection. I can't even place what all of these come from."
Beat, "What, afraid of an old man? Live a little. Worst that happens is you get a few blade marks. Scars on a soldier show character."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
The old man arches one single grey eyebrow at her comment, his expression shifting by degrees to a different but equally mysterious look. As if he may be wondering, privately:
'Were you two fighting before you dropped in?'
He may be a wise old man.
But at the moment, he's not here, leaving the two of them -- hopefully with the fight wrung out of them for now through their ordeal -- staring at a display of skulls. "Who knows? I don't collect skulls, personally," Loren comments.
Before outright scowling at her additional comment. "I could do without that type of character, thank you very much," he replies, his tone flat.
Before he straightens a few degrees and glances back over a shoulder.
Old Man Bal has returned, with catlike tread.
"Admiring my collection?" he asks, and without much in the way of prompting, explains that he's collected them from this cave and across much of Ignas.
And then goes on to point out something interesting. The animals skulls demonstrate change over time. But the human skulls do not.
Moreover, he has never found a human skull in rock older than about ten thousand years.
So what does that mean?
Perhaps, he says, that evolution -- specifically the idea that people evolved from other animals on this planet, as taught by several authorities both religious and secular, is incorrect.
This is where Loren protests, if briefly. "Now come on--"
And Old Man Bal tells them a story.
A strange story, about God, and how God lived with people in paradise. About how people wronged God and God cast them out of paradise. How people struck out at God and waged a mighty war against Him with the giants they crafted. How God struck them all down, created a pure-hearted people, and, taking paradise with Him, descended into a long sleep that continues to this day.
Something about the story must have struck a nerve in Loren, for he turns his head to stare, nakedly consternated, as the man tells his story, a story that Lily has never heard anyone tell before. Not Ethos, not Nisan, not...
"That's... just weird," Loren settles for in the end, shaking his head.
It's all nonsense, but parts of that... the sea, and paradise. Are they referring to 'Etrenank'? This guy might know something. Or someone told him something they shouldn't have.
"You've been down here alone too long, old man."
This may be part of the reason why the old man turns away from them, sniffing as if mildly annoyed. "Think what you want. Regardless, who knows the truth of this world...?"
He paces a few steps, back towards the room he had vanished into before. "I could tell from the sound that both of your Gears are damaged. Bring them to me and I can conduct some repairs."
Silence lingers a moment more.
"And if you would like to return to the surface, it is not far from here. But do try not to drop in again. I came down here for the solitude, not to be bedeviled by guests."