2019-05-27: This Land Is Lively
- Log: This Land Is Lively
- Cast: Amaterasu, Kaguya Alathfar
- Where: Thunder Plains
- Date: May 27, 2019
- Summary: The sisters head out into the Thunder Plains for some reconnaisance, and in doing so, have a little heart-to-heart of a sort.
DG: A party led by Amaterasu is now entering Thunder Plains. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Everstorm *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The far borders of Guadosalam eventually give way to the barren rock of the Thunder Plains. Here, the storm holds sway: respect it, fear it, but never underestimate it. In the short distance one of the lightning rod towers receives a strike; the dark heavens are briefly illuminated. Following the towers provides the safer -- though by no means risk-free -- route through this land, but not all the towers are completely functional anymore. Some are more reliable than others, but while hearsay and rumor may suggest this or that path, they're no replacement for evaluating a route for oneself. Which way will you head? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Exhaust========================================
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
It's worth noting that Amaterasu has, over the course of her career, faced failure. She has lost comrades -- good friends and good soldiers -- and she has suffered injury, been forced to stare down the blackness that almost all soldiers may face.
And she continued on. Whatever happened -- her life, their lives, their victories, their failures -- it mattered only that she served her people and the cause. Everything else was immaterial.
And yet, for all that, Operation Mi'ihen had been different.
At every other battle in her life, Amaterasu had seen a clear way forward. She simply did what was necessary, she did not dwell on the specifics long, for therein lies the death of a soldier's mind.
Operation Mi'ihen had been different than any of that. For the first time in her life, she is uncertain how to proceed, how best to fell what cannot be felled. For a little while at least, Amaterasu hadn't entirely been like herself.
She has been turning her attention to other, lesser tasks. Slaying Fiends. Retrieving materials the researching arm of their venture require. Assisting the Guard all throughout.
Today is no different.
Save for one thing: she is not alone today.
Lightning snaps across the sky.
"I hear this land is lively," she comments to her sister. "Do you think you can keep up, Ka-ya?" Her mouth turns in a slight smile, one that is neither kind nor mocking.
Her gaze for now rests on the far horizon, where a bolt strikes a tower; the sky us alight with the flash.
"Show me what you've learned. Find the best route for us."
DG: Amaterasu has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Everstorm.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
By now, Kaguya has recovered entirely from her injuries in the Operation; indeed, she operates almost like a girl possessed, moving forward with an iron certainty that's more... fevered, than her younger self. Certainly, she seems to be entirely unfazed by the horrible puissance of Sin, by the terrible losses in the battle. She said, once, that she does not consider it to be the end--she seems to believe it.
And she has had things to do, since. With the loss of one of the ships carrying some of her work, Kaguya has been forced to repurpose a few components; she has been adjusting others, preparing more still. Indeed for this very purpose Kaguya has asked Amaterasu to retrieve a number of items over time from which she's been able to extract more useful elements than most Spirans would understand were possible. But today...
"Oh yeah," Kaguya says. She grins back--and, neither kind nor mocking, Kaguya takes it as challenge and encouragement both. "I like it. It's exciting, you know?" A beat, "And lightning goes for the tallest thing it can find-~!"
A nod, though, at the instruction--and Kaguya pulls a small object from her things, a tablet that was... once a fairly ordinary example of Veruni equipment, and has since been modified in various ways to serve on Lunar or to Kaguya's needs. "So, tower one, tower two, tower three... Ambient weather conditions..."
Kaguya taps some keys on her screen, going through calucations. "...Here," she says, pointing to where they'll start. "We hug this hill line, and that gets us an optimal ratio of risk versus access to the caverns that might have something more interesting in them."
"Expect Fiends, though. The ones here are weak against Water effects, if we have any."
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has used her Tool Radi-74 Tablet toward her party's challenge, The Everstorm.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Everstorm *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The far borders of Guadosalam eventually give way to the barren rock of the Thunder Plains. Here, the storm holds sway: respect it, fear it, but never underestimate it. In the short distance one of the lightning rod towers receives a strike; the dark heavens are briefly illuminated. Following the towers provides the safer -- though by no means risk-free -- route through this land, but not all the towers are completely functional anymore. Some are more reliable than others, but while hearsay and rumor may suggest this or that path, they're no replacement for evaluating a route for oneself. Which way will you head? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Exhaust========================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 1 *>========================= ==========================< Results - The Everstorm >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 0 --(0)--> 0 Pass Radi-74 Tablet 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Reckless(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Amaterasu 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> Amaterasu has posed.
It's yet another change from the girl Amaterasu had known. Once, Kaguya would have...
...perhaps even this is a result of her illness. With little to fear, she can tackle even the presence of an abomination like Sin head-on.
By contrast, Amaterasu has one potent fear that she bears close to her heart.
Amaterasu has gauged the effect on morale among the Guard.
Their reaction to the operation appears to have been quite the different one from Kaguya's. They have lost their great hero.
The -- the Veruni -- should use the people of Lunar but not count on their being the edge they need in the conflicts to come. If indeed they have not yet been broken by Sin.
"Indeed," Amaterasu speaks. "Lightning seeks the highest point and often does strike more than once. But it does not there remain: it will jump to whatever it can touch afterwards." Her gaze remains hooded, leveled now on Kaguya and Kaguya alone. "So be careful what you stand next to, Ka-ya. Hmm hmm..." That smile lingers a moment more before vanishing utterly.
She is silent, then, as Kaguya relays her assessment of current conditions and the environment.
Then she nods. "Understood. Lead the way, then -- remember that what you predict you must be prepared to endure. Such is the way in a battle."
Her expression doesn't change when Kaguya mentions Fiends.
Her eyes, though. Her eyes are that of one eagerly seeking a fight.
The pair of them walk ahead into the stormswept land.
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Lightning Maze *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The gap between functional lightning towers can be considerable in places. Take the situation ahead -- it's a long way between where you walk now and where safer ground awaits ahead. Worse, the lightning is striking the ground ahead quite frequently. However, all is not lost -- the strikes are regular and appear to be following a particular pattern. If you could tease out the shape of this storm's path, it should be possible to work out a safe crossing without even the need to race the storm. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Overzealous====================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
Once, Kaguya was a lot shyer when it came to most things. Oh, she'd spend so much time in the arboreums on the Locus Solus, sure, among her plants. Is the change illness? Little to fear, now, a need to charge on?
But then, Kaguya doesn't believe for an instant that Ghaleon is gone, not really. How can you kill a dead man? It doesn't make sense to her. But if they reach the limit of what the humans can do, then maybe they have. Until then...
"...Ouch," Kaguya laughs, mock-wounded. "Schooled on electromagnetism..." She dips her head, accepting, and then does so--she leads the way. What you predict, you must be prepared to endure...
"Yeah," Kaguya agrees thoughtfully with her sister. She wouldn't have thought to put it that way, except, "It's leadership, too."
In point of fact there are a few Fiends along the way--strange creatures made of roiling gold bits, angry quick lizards... but they're no match for either of the two Veruni, Kaguya herself focusing on the Elementals with her magical abilities and leaving the quick lizards to Amaterasu.
But they come to a stop a ways' ahead. "Hmm. No useful caches yet, but..." Confident from her success earlier, she looks to the lightning ahead and the way it's intensified. "...Hey. I wonder."
Tap tap tap, tinkering with her tablet. "...Here, there's a pattern--there, there... forty-five degrees away..."
"Watch this."
She heads up. "I want to see if this works."
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has used her Tool Radi-74 Tablet toward her party's challenge, Lightning Maze.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
Amaterasu, with less inside information on the man named Ghaleon than her sister...
Only saw the tattered remnants of a cape, left amid the ruined wrecks of bodies both tragically living and mercifully dead.
She did not dwell on any of those factors more than necessary then, and does not linger on such things now.
"Indeed. Remember that unlikely is not the same as impossible," her sister states, before reminding her of one other thing, the core that sleeps at the heart of leadership. It's improper for a leader to recklessly endure danger. But a leader should be prepared nonetheless. War spares none.
Which speaking of, here come a series of weakling Fiends. Amaterasu lances a pair of quick lizardlike things with her spear as swiftly as a scorpion's stinger; they never did stand a chance.
And all around, the lightning continues to snap out of the sky.
"There is a lesson in this, Ka-ya," Amaterasu says, regarding the storm. "The lightning does not consider its action, it merely acts. Thinking overlong can be the end of one on the field." Her green eyes follow now the pattern the series of bolts here seem to be making, then drift low as if to see whether they are seeking something on the ground.
"Indeed. A pattern. One errant step and you will taste the power of the storm." She gestures, with her free hand. "Can you find the way through?"
Kaguya tinkers with her tablet, tells her sister to 'watch this'.
"Show me," Amaterasu says, watching her sister. "Kaguya."
DG: Amaterasu has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Lightning Maze.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - Lightning Maze *>======================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Wits |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The gap between functional lightning towers can be considerable in places. Take the situation ahead -- it's a long way between where you walk now and where safer ground awaits ahead. Worse, the lightning is striking the ground ahead quite frequently. However, all is not lost -- the strikes are regular and appear to be following a particular pattern. If you could tease out the shape of this storm's path, it should be possible to work out a safe crossing without even the need to race the storm. =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless, Overzealous====================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 2 *>========================= ==========================< Results - Lightning Maze >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Radi-74 Tablet 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 20 --(10)--> 30 Fail Conditions: Overzealous(2)|Reckless(2) Effects: Enlighten(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Amaterasu 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: Amaterasu has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Getting The Drop On Larva *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The constant storm makes for poor visibility; ambushes by Fiends are a constant threat on the Thunder Plains. But this is a knife that cuts both ways. It is also possible to get one up on the Fiends. Take, for example, the Larva that bobs just ahead, unaware of your presence. A somewhat troublesome Fiend, these things are known for the interesting objects and items that may be dropped once they are defeated. Strike now, and they could be yours. (Image: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/6/6e/Larva-enemy-ffx.png) =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Treasure==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
Maybe it would be more reassuring if Kaguya told people more of what she was thinking, as a rule, or explained her processes. ...Maybe. That is however a rather different world than this one.
"...That's true," Kaguya mutters darkly about the unlikely and the impossible. She has learned that lesson, after all. Here...
The Fiends naturally are dispatched instantly--Kaguya's strange nature magic is not Water, but she holds sufficient raw power to overcome the Elementals anyway. Andthen, with the lightning--
"...Mm. Don't overthink, right?" she asks. "Get too lost in your head, you can't fight."
Kaguya puts her tablet away, and steps forward. "Heh. Well--"
Kaguya steps to the side, continues forward--then makes another step. Lightning crashes beside her. This is good enough... until the next hits where she steps, crashes through her all at once with a terrible sound and an unpleasant smell. Except--
Except that she doesn't move. She doesn't let herself fall back, or do more than freeze--before stepping forward again. Another strike. This time, she doesn't change directions--she just steps through another, and then another, five in all before she gets to the check point, faintly smoking, without her weapons even drawn. ...She's still standing.
Amaterasu will have better luck, but then, watching her little sister get zapped probably isn't great either. And still not great luck.
"...It's fine," Kaguya says, turning back towards her older sister when she hits the next tower. "Because I learned something else about battle, in the last while."
"...Things will go wrong. It's not if you or your allies slip up, or get unlucky--it's when. So sometimes, the way through doesn't involve avoiding risk or danger or pain at all. ...Not if you can endure it long enough to finish your mission."
There's something hard in her voice, and it may be the lightning, or it may not. Kaguya shakes her head, brushing off her sleeves. "Ugh, I liked this tunic. Well, I guess maybe I overthought it after all, huh?" She laughs, and she's 'normal' again--like turning a switch.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Don't think," Amaterasu says, inclining her head in a short, curt nod. "Do."
Thinking is how you end up staying up at night staring into the darkness.
Thinking is how you end up drinking like your mouth is full of dust.
Don't think. Do.
Kaguya takes the lesson to heart.
Lightning
s
t
r
i
k
e
s
"Kaguya--"
Don't think. Do.
She runs through the storm, heedless of the pattern. The only thing that matters in this moment is--
Kaguya isn't the only one to be struck.
She can't reach her like this, as she reels for the moment. Kaguya, in the distance, continues on.
Kaguya isn't the only one to power through the storm. Sparks still sizzle across the exposed metal of Amaterasu's armor as she takes the last few advancing steps to the safety of the tower here now.
Where Kaguya awaits her.
Her free hand plants on her sister's shoulder and there rests. Amaterasu says nothing.
The fingers of her hand squeeze a little more tightly than her expression -- neutral, stoic, distant -- would suggest.
"Plans fail," Amaterasu states.
"People die. If you get caught up in your original plan, then you, too, will die."
Her gaze might as well be a million miles away. Another bolt strikes the earth in the distance; a shower of stones follows in its wake. "And sometimes the only way out is through. To complete the mission, regardless of the cost. ...But you must be able to complete it."
She parts from her sister, treading lightly now. Her free hand lifts as if to caution her sister to 'wait'.
She points at a Fiend, a short distance away. It does not seem to have seen them.
Glancing back at her sister, her expression speaks a thousand words, chief among them:
'Here's how to bring something to completion'.
From a pocket Amaterasu produces a stopwatch -- Veruni make, of course.
She clicks one of the buttons.
Starting the timer...
And leaps skyward, Valkyrja's blade flashing with a light to briefly rival that thrown from the heavens in this land.
DG: Amaterasu has used her Tool Stopwatch toward her party's challenge, Getting The Drop On Larva.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
But thinking is how Kaguya gets where she is--thinking is what makes Kaguya avoid the simple, doomed action... and tries something smarter, something different. But then--she isn't a soldier.
She's something else.
And she notices the additional squeeze on her shoulder, can tell when her sister is worried, and on the one hand--on the one hand she's spent a long time shrugging off worries, finding them stifling. ...There's something a little nice, maybe nostalgic about it here, though...
She smiles once, but only briefly, and doesn't explain why.
"...Resilience is good. Stubbornness is less. You have to know when to change tactics. Adaptability, right?"
Another bolt; the ground shatters again, blasted still longer... and she considers it. To complete a mission.... But...
To think whether it's possible, too. Maybe Kaguya doesn't think of that enough. Maybe.
But rather than confronting that, she instead gets the Fiend ahead of them because she notices the 'wait' and does so without argument, pausing, still. She looks to Amaterasu... then to the Fiend. She notices the timer--
And smirks. She knows what that means. She might as well almost hold back and wait, frankly.
In point of fact she does, more or less; she turns to watch Amaterasu strike, and in the process, starts pulling a few potions from her things, to patch them up from the previous danger, stepping forward once she has them ready.
The way she watches her sister's light is not altogether different from how she watches Sin--not identical, not the same... but a same fascinated intensity all the same.
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Getting The Drop On Larva.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ==================<* CHALLENGE - Getting The Drop On Larva *>=================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The constant storm makes for poor visibility; ambushes by Fiends are a constant threat on the Thunder Plains. But this is a knife that cuts both ways. It is also possible to get one up on the Fiends. Take, for example, the Larva that bobs just ahead, unaware of your presence. A somewhat troublesome Fiend, these things are known for the interesting objects and items that may be dropped once they are defeated. Strike now, and they could be yours. (Image: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/6/6e/Larva-enemy-ffx.png) =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Treasure==========================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 3 *>========================= ====================< Results - Getting The Drop On Larva >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Stopwatch 4 Combat Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 30 --(25)--> 55 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Reckless(1)|Treasure(1)|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Amaterasu has passed this challenge! The party gained 25 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> Amaterasu has posed.
"Yes. To continue to try the same tactic in spite of failure is worthless. To attempt the same tactic in spite of failure at the cost of one's life is more than worthless. A soldier should never die in pursuit of a pointless cause -- we are tools, but we are not tools to be wasted," Amaterasu lectures, her gaze on the horizon still.
What does that make the Moderates? They continuously attempt to win a war they have no chance of winning. Every one of them she kills is a tool that they have wasted.
And yet they show no sign of relenting, no matter how much of their blood she spills.
Her fingers at her side twitch briefly as she takes in the sight of the defenseless Fiend.
Before she draws out the stopwatch and shares with her sister a meaningful look.
Which is followed by her lesson.
The Fiend may never have known what hit it. It may as well have been struck by one of the bolts flung by the endless storm. She lands, pinning it to the broken earth with Valkyrja.
The fiend dissolves into Pyreflies. With her free hand, Amaterasu hits the button again and checks her time.
"...Point two three. Slower than anticipated," she announces, then glances back at her sister.
"A true warrior needs only one strike."
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Where Lightning Strikes Twice *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Something under the ground here is attracting more than its fair share of strikes. This becomes obvious almost immediately as you enter this expanse of territory: lightning strikes once, twice, thrice... This is not particularly good news for you, being so close to the strikes. And then you see it. Half-submerged in the rock, it looks like some piece of Machina, drawing the strikes to it. If you break it, the strikes should stop. But, to break it, you'll have to get even closer than you are now. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"...Mm." Kaguya nods, and the delay is not uncertainty, but solemnity--she knows, now, as a leader, what it is to send soldiers out--not just to see lives lost, but to know that she did so not by snapping bones herself but by snapping her fingers. But maybe most notably--
She isn't that 'we', really.
"Yeah." She doesn't even prickle at being told something she already knows, like frankly she might've back then--because this is a little too serious for that, it's a lesson worth repeating. And well, the Moderates...
Maybe it means they need a new strategy. Kaguya doesn't think as much about the battles between her own people. Instead--
The fiend wouldn't have been defenseless, to others. Its powerful plating requires strength, a piercing weapon, to get through. Kaguya notices that, all right.
"Hmm. Maybe wind resistance?" Kaguya muses about the speed, and then, "Heh. ...You are that, huh? In a way I really can't be. ...But that's all right. If I've learned half enough from you, I think it's enough, since..."
"As a scientist," Kaguya offers, as she starts forward again, "I need a lot more than one strike to get anywhere. ...But if I have warriors to work with..."
Kaguya's eyes settle on an object on the ground, as the lightning strikes again and again and again ahead of them--not at them yet, but ahead, beside a half-submerged wreckage. "Then I can plan a strategy to bring us all victory."
She considers the obstacle before them. "...If you've still got power in your shielding module," Kaguya says, "Then I've got a bomb that can do the trick here. I just need to get close enough to plant it where it can draw on this electromagnetic field." She pulls it from seemingly a sleeve, a little metal thing, handmade, blinking with green light; its basic shape is a fat disc. "Whoever built that old machine should be honored it'll get to meld with a Veruni bomb."
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has used her Tool This Week's Best Guess toward her party's challenge, Where Lightning Strikes Twice.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
It's the lesson everyone learns as they start to lead. Your orders will get someone killed.
So be certain you do not get them killed pointlessly. Every life in your hands is one that has spent until now training to get to the place where they can be so used.
Respect is important. Understanding is important.
As is the same for the enemy.
They are a tool used against you, and thus must be destroyed. They will treat you and yours with precisely the same regard, after all.
This is the game of war.
"Most likely," Amaterasu says, glancing up at the sky. "The storm has altered the windflow here. The rain, too, changes how I move and must then fall." Her lips tilt into a slight smile here. "More plans," she says, "that must be changed."
Valkyrja's glow fades; the weapon folds back up and is returned to its place at her back. "Yes. And you must direct your warriors to require only one strike. Efficiency is key in war," she explains, as they tread on ahead.
Something in the distance is attracting strikes. Amaterasu watches it for a moment, perhaps silently calculating how far the charge might spread, or perhaps, how difficult it might be to destroy it.
"I do," she says, with a single crisp nod. "The charge should be sufficient. ...Give me the bomb, Kaguya."
Already, light begins to suffuse about her, hazy glow nearly lost in the flashes nearby. "I'll place it. I know how to set the charge for one of these."
DG: Amaterasu has used her Tool Shielding Module toward her party's challenge, Where Lightning Strikes Twice.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ================<* CHALLENGE - Where Lightning Strikes Twice *>================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Something under the ground here is attracting more than its fair share of strikes. This becomes obvious almost immediately as you enter this expanse of territory: lightning strikes once, twice, thrice... This is not particularly good news for you, being so close to the strikes. And then you see it. Half-submerged in the rock, it looks like some piece of Machina, drawing the strikes to it. If you break it, the strikes should stop. But, to break it, you'll have to get even closer than you are now. =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer===================================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 4 *>========================= ==================< Results - Where Lightning Strikes Twice >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 20 --(5)--> 25 Fail Shielding Module 1 Brute Effects: Rally and Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 25 --(0)--> 25 Pass This Week's Best Guess 2 Brute Effects: Cleanse and Liability -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 55 --(15)--> 70 Pass Conditions: Suffer(1)|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Amaterasu has passed this challenge! The party gained 15 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: Amaterasu has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - So Close Yet So Far *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Many of the towers are not in good shape. Some of them don't even function properly anymore. This creates longer, more dangerous stretches between what passes as safe areas within the Thunder Plains. This gap before you now is one such problem area. Of course, if you were to run the distance between, perhaps the risk might be minimized. What's more, as the rain eases off into a 'lighter' phase, you can see in the distance something glinting. Best to push on ahead, before you lose sight of that, too, once the rain inevitably picks up again. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
Respect, understanding--these she's better at. ...Well, understanding of this kind, grasping the gravity of things. Life out in the wastes of Filgaia, or on the battlefields of Lunar--both are different from abstractions in the lab, protected from such harsh realities by... Well, Amaterasu, for one.
But the game has its rewards.
"I could get you average weather patterns here," Kaguya offers. "After the upgrades I did for your helmet, it's trivial to have sensors that can stand up to this place for as little as a few days."
One strike--efficiency. Kaguya thinks, about the war that's coming, of her plans, and what she'll have to direct people in. But she also thinks...
"Man," Kaguya says, hefting the bomb and handing it up easily, "You have no idea how good it is to be working with somebody who does know how to set one of these," she admits with a perhaps surprisingly sincere laugh. "It's a modified design, but as you see, the trigger mechanism's the same. I'll hang back and observe," Kaguya says, though at this point she actually pulls from a carefully placed holster her modified shotgun-style ARM, checking its charge and readying it for use. "And watch your back."
Just in case of Fiends. As it turns out, this precaution is unnecessary--and as is the nature of battle, there are hits involved. Amaterasu is struck multiple times on her way to the target, and her shield cannot block all of them... though it blocks enough that she gets the job done, discomfort aside, and once the charge is set and she can move back--
It explodes in green flame. The lightning doesn't strike here for a little while.
"...I mean, I also use a barium alloy for amplification," she adds pleasantly, "And it makes it a cool green, right?"
....Still a teenager.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Weather updates, is it?" Amaterasu muses. "I'll consider it. It might be useful if the rest of Spira is as unruly as this stretch. And perhaps useful for future engagements. The Moderates have used EMPs before."
Which is to say, perhaps if something can endure the Thunder Plains it might resist the worst that the Moderates could bring to bear in the internal skirmishes.
She takes the explosive from her sister, eying it carefully to ensure she can see where the device's trigger sits. Just like usual, regardless of the modified internals. She nods but once.
"Understood."
With that, she makes her slow and steady approach to the thing attracting the strikes. The going is not easy -- the shield can't deflect or even dampen all of the blasts.
But all she needs is to cover herself enough to get close -- and ensure the bomb doesn't get hit.
Interesting, runs the though as she makes the final approach and places the device. It's some sort of ancient mechanism.
Regardless, it must be destroyed. She hits the detonator and moves at speed -- through the strikes once more -- to get clear.
It explodes in a cloud of green.
"You always did like the flashier effects, Ka-ya," Amaterasu says, rising to her feet.
The strikes stop here for a time. Even the rain seems to lift, the haze about them vanishing.
"Come on. This won't last," she tells her sister. "Show me that you've been keeping up with your cardiovascular exercises."
She says that, and yet, Kaguya may notice that in spite of the craggy land and its many dips and valleys, Amaterasu runs ahead in nearly a straight line of a dash... including right up the low wall of a lightning strike crater.
DG: Amaterasu has used her Tool All-Surface Boots toward her party's challenge, So Close Yet So Far.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
There's a reminder all right of the conflicts between their own people. Maybe Kaguya's research can unite them--if they see what she has in mind, they might accept it, too. "I can calibrate it for that. They probably don't have anybody as smart as I am," she says casually, and it sounds more like a factual statement than an attempt at bravado the way she says it. She's gotten a lot of experience here, too...
Still, as interesting as the device was, now it's gone. Kaguya grins back to her sister. "Of course I do, 'cause they're awesome," she explains neatly. "Ah, yeah, true enough. Still, nice going." She puts away her ARM--she largely keeps it put away here on Spira--but as even the rain lifts, and it becomes a matter of exercise...
"Ah," she says, and watches Amaterasu just run straight ahead. Up a crater. "...Showoff," she says, shaking her head and pulling a syringe from among her things instead, popping off the cap and lifting up the hem of her tunic to get at her hip. "Well--" Jab, depress.
She breathes in sharper, and is fast in the next moment, nowhere near as unrelentingly steady but adaptable--she jumps over the rough parts, slides against a hill wall and rolls to avoid a bolt of lightning, and chases after the much taller woman ahead. "Better living through science, Mat!" Kaguya calls back over the storm's din.
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has used her Tool Formula AM-17V toward her party's challenge, So Close Yet So Far.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - So Close Yet So Far *>====================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Many of the towers are not in good shape. Some of them don't even function properly anymore. This creates longer, more dangerous stretches between what passes as safe areas within the Thunder Plains. This gap before you now is one such problem area. Of course, if you were to run the distance between, perhaps the risk might be minimized. What's more, as the rain eases off into a 'lighter' phase, you can see in the distance something glinting. Best to push on ahead, before you lose sight of that, too, once the rain inevitably picks up again. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Secret=============================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 5 *>========================= =======================< Results - So Close Yet So Far >======================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 25 --(2)--> 27 Pass All-Surface Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 25 --(2)--> 27 Pass Formula AM-17V 2 Agility Effects: Cleanse and Sacrifice -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 70 --(20)--> 90 Pass Conditions: Secret(2)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Amaterasu 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: Kaguya Alathfar has drawn a new Challenge.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Iron Giant *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the distance you can see it -- sunlight. The end of the storm. And beyond that, Macalania Forest. A low bellow stops you in your tracks. From the haze of the storm emerges a huge armored Fiend bearing a heavy iron sword. An Iron Giant, one of the more fearsome creatures of the Thunder Plains. It is intent on your destruction. Do not allow it. (Image: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e7/Gemini_%28Blue%29-enemy-ffx.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929025528) =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Bad Luck==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
Perhaps even access to Lunar itself might unite people, particularly if the Moderates can also be convinced of the futility of their cause. There is only one future for their people, and those who would choose any other path only invite the total destruction of the Veruni.
As long as Filgaia itself is a poison to them, there can be no other way.
This planet is their home, and the stars are closed off to them.
"It's doubtful," Amaterasu agrees.
She has personally slain many of the Moderates best and brightest -- those that didn't have the sense to hide or be more circumspect about their leanings and talents, that is. Threats in any form cannot be tolerated.
That, alone, has been her mission over the last several years: wholesale elimination of the tools of the Moderates, whoever they may be.
The storm lightens just for the moment. Amaterasu takes advantage of it and runs, unheeding of the terrain or obstacles.
She goes right over them, in fact. In heels.
What Amaterasu does through skill and equipment, Kaguya does by application of chemistry. When Amaterasu glances back over her shoulder, she is at once surprised and satisfied to see her sister catching up behind her.
...Even if it is through the use of pharmaceuticals.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
Maybe, maybe--all good reasons for Kaguya to continue her work, and see this through. At least that long.
Rather than dwelling on the simple pleasant nature of her statement being accepted immdiately, though, Kaguya gets to the running. She always thought the Moderates were just--
Well. Most of what she knew about them came from her family, after all. Maybe that says enough. Now, though...
Kaguya, in flats, rolls her shoulder and then the other once she comes to a stop. She beams back. "Can't use that one too much," she admits as she stows the used syringe, prpearing to dispose of it later, "But between that, Lunar's better air, and the conditioning I've undergone to be a knight, you'll find I do a lot better than I used to there. That compounder I told you about--some of the medicine she formulated specifically strengthens muscle and bone in Veruni. It'd have applications even for normal aging issues, brought back."
But while she'd love to talk about pharmaceuticals... as they see the sunlight, the forest, there is a noise abrubtly, and the ground rumbles. The armored Fiend approaches.
"...Heh," Kaguya says. Is this one.... Is this one bigger than usual? It must be, though Kaguya doesn't notice that much. Instead, "Fascinating. From the Pyreflies it's clearly a fiend, but it takes the form of a small Gear. I wonder--did Spira have them, once?"
It rolls at her, first, and Kaguya steps at the last insitant to avoid the first swing, which shatters the ground where she stood, before she settles into a fighting stance--hands up, body loose, telegraphing nothing.
"Bet this one's too unruly to bring back for Ambrosius," she muses sadly, her one concession to the clear power of the great Fiend before them.
DG: Kaguya Alathfar has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Iron Giant.
<Pose Tracker> Amaterasu has posed.
"Yes, I can see that. You would have been winded before even with a drug," Amaterasu points out as she slows her pace. The storm is growing ever lighter here, which suggests that they might be reaching the outer limits of the plains themselves.
"This compounder. They are a human? And they have made improvements upon medication that even our best have not managed?"
But Amaterasu interrupts even herself, lifting a hand as if to indicate this line of questioning cease. She can feel it more than hear it.
A Fiend approaches.
"Hmm. This one is different from the rest. I don't suppose that Ambrosius had a theory for the forms they take," she comments, drawing her spear -- which telescopes outwards -- in a single fluid motion.
It is rather like a Gear, now that she looks at it.
"Capture images," she instructs her sister. "I will draw it out long enough."
Valkyrja's blade blazes bright.
"He will need to content himself with image data alone."
And with that she dances into the fray, using its slower speed as a means to circumvent its attacks just long enough for useful imaging to be taken.
After which she will seek its weakness, should it have one.
DG: Amaterasu has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Iron Giant.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== ========================<* CHALLENGE - The Iron Giant *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- In the distance you can see it -- sunlight. The end of the storm. And beyond that, Macalania Forest. A low bellow stops you in your tracks. From the haze of the storm emerges a huge armored Fiend bearing a heavy iron sword. An Iron Giant, one of the more fearsome creatures of the Thunder Plains. It is intent on your destruction. Do not allow it. (Image: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e7/Gemini_%28Blue%29-enemy-ffx.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929025528) =Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Bad Luck==========================================
=========================<* Thunder Plains - Round 6 *>========================= ==========================< Results - The Iron Giant >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amaterasu 27 --(100)--> 127 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya Alathfar 27 --(100)--> 127 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Amaterasu 90 --(5)--> 95 Fail Conditions: Bad Luck(2)|Secret(1)|Wound(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: Amaterasu is too exhausted to continue! DG: Kaguya Alathfar is too exhausted to continue! DG: The party has failed this challenge! All party members are now Exhausted. This attempt is over. DG: The party led by Amaterasu has been fully Exhausted by Thunder Plains! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
==============================<* Thunder Plains *>============================== =====================<* CHALLENGE - A Touch Of Lightning *>===================== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- At last. You've reached the outskirts of the Thunder Plains. Sunlight breaks through the edges of the eternal storm; lightning and even rain are but a memory for you now. Before long you will start to reach the outskirts of Macalania Forest, and beyond that lies... Something at your feet catches your eye. It's a strangely-shaped stone, almost like a root, or perhaps a piece of coral, but with a faintly glassy touch to it. ...It's said that when lightning touches sand, it sometimes fuses the sand into glass. Then, perhaps this might be proof of that? =Dungeon Conditions: Wonder===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya Alathfar has posed.
"And complaining about it," Kaguya adds brightly. She's ready to talk more about her compounder, too--but the battle interrupts that. There's little room to talk and fight; powerful they might be, but ignoring a big metal Fiend is a good way to be a powerful mess.
"Don't think so," Kaguya says. "Maybe we can develop a hypothesis..."
Kaguya's prepared to fight it--but Amaterasu's instruction is wise, and, while she might be a General now... her instincts mean that even before she thinks about it she steps back and starts to go for her things. Once she does think about it she answers, "Not like we'll get useful sound data here. There's no time to set up a full suite, but..."
Kaguya pulls a strange device and uses it rather than her weapons; her contribution to the battle is to hang back, dodge, and take pictures while Amaterasu fights. And indeed, they get a lot of images.
Unfortunately, the battle takes a while--two Veruni are certainly capable of defeating one Iron Giant, but it simply doesn't have a physical weakness that they can exploit, so between slowing down for pictures and the sheer time necessary to wear it down--it's tiring enough that all the running and lightning has time to catch up. Eventually, though...
-=-=-
"Lot of good data," she admits. "Man. Next time, I should bring some extra grenades." At least they know how to fight it the brute force way. ...Which...
Well, most who've tried to fight that kind of Fiend like this have just straight died.
"...But yeah, since you mentioned," Kaguya says as she walks, "She is human--and her talents are wasted among them. Some of their bandits actually tried to capture her for her abilities to make curatives even when she was younger--just that, not thinking of what she could do with the right backing. ...Plus, she had a new perspective--no matter how smart you are, if you can't change your tactics..." She draws on their conversation from before, and then comes to a stop, kneeling before an interesting, strangely-shaped object with a glassy sheen.
"...Fascinating," she says. "This... This could be useful..."
And if it's not, hey. She can shine it up and make it a pretty gift for her 'compounder.' Either's fine.
"We should take a break before we keep going--if nothing else my armor's useless slag at this point, I need to dump the dead weight."