2019-11-09: To Fear Itself: Difference between revisions
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Before it, without remorse, sweeps them from the arena in toto, landing the lot of them before a yellow barrier that stands in a field of white light. It gleams, as if to invite a touch. | Before it, without remorse, sweeps them from the arena in toto, landing the lot of them before a yellow barrier that stands in a field of white light. It gleams, as if to invite a touch. | ||
</poem> | </poem> | ||
Latest revision as of 02:04, 19 May 2020
- Log: To Fear Itself
- Cast: Citan Uzuki, Lily Keil, Elhaym van Houten, Fei Fong Wong
- Where: Linaweyul
- Date: November 09, 2019
- Summary: A small group of the Black Wolves seeks Linaweyul's depths. In the golden labyrinth they find...
DG: A party led by Citan Uzuki is now entering Linaweyul, the First Ordeal. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Atychiphobia *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Fights are not always meant to be won, and the possibility of facing someone who is simply better than you, stronger than you, smarter than you, more talented than you, is oftentimes an inevitability if you throw yourself into conflict often enough. So what, then, do we do against insurmountable odds? The place you arrive at once the first flash of light envelopes you is full of the faint, phantasmal sounds of an unseen audience, cheering and booing in equal measure. This is an coliseum floating in the middle of nowhere, its columns sculpted magnificently, its sandpit arena composed of glowing gold grains -- and there at the center of it all, seethes a truly immense enemy, gray and pulsing with that selfsame golden life, its many arms equipped with a multitude of weapons. Its hide is practically impenetrable, its attacks like a force of nature with each swing. Its skills with its weapons seems almost custom-designed to be just slightly better than yours with your own methods of combat. It quickly becomes apparent that this is not a fight that you can win, as if no matter what you did, no matter how experienced you were, this creature would always just be slightly better. So how, than, do you succeed? Sometimes, victory is not a matter of how we win, but how we lose. Enemy: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-214.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Secret===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
If all he has heard is accurate and on-target, it is not finding the First Ordeal that is the difficult part.
As with any ordeal, it is enduring it.
Lily is the one who had brought it up: a discussion of Lunar had moved into a discussion of Lunar's more unusual locations, which had naturally brought up the forbidden island, and the door to the ordeals within.
The same door that, it had come out, had made itself manifest across Filgaia let alone Lunar.
It seemed, perhaps, that it sought people out -- or at least made itself available to them, should they so choose.
In a sense, it was fascinating.
It was a potential challenge.
A test.
Expressing an interest in lending his assistance, Citan had accompanied them on their search for the portal to Linaweyul.
And it really had taken very little to find it--
"Oh. Might that be...?"
...to the point where it is almost anticlimactic: they walk but down a few streets from their current lodgings en route to the market, and there, quite unexpectedly (though perhaps predictably) there is the golden door to Linaweyul.
"That is, ah, rather... convenient, I suppose."
Leaving it be might make the gate vanish. And so--!
The impression is one of passage, one colored by golden light.
It's impossible to see much of anything at first: there's only the dull roar of a crowd, cheering.
Even when the light dims it's never possible to see them. They may only be theoretically present.
What is present is the wordless and daunting presence of the figure in the ring before them, its many weapons raised.
"--! Look out!" shouts the doctor.
Even that is likely insufficient warning. It's fast--
Faster than any of them.
Stronger than any of them.
More learned and cunning than any of them.
It leaves them battered, soon forced to a far side of the arena, with but moments to plot and enact whatever desperate strategy they can muster.
Pulling himself to his feet, the doctor braces himself a moment against a nearby wall, his gaze in this moment distant, as if he were in another place -- or time.
But whatever had gripped him, he apparently looses with a shake of his head, flipping his ponytail back over his shoulder. With his left hand, he pushes his glasses up his nose.
"This is bad," he notes. "Force alone will not be sufficient to defeat it, if it can be defeated. But can it be outwitted? It bested our earlier gambits..." He hisses out a breath. "...But we cannot run now, can we."
He closes his eyes briefly, as if to focus himself--
The air ripples, wavelets flowing outwards about the lot of them in a more deliberate and demonstrative display of his Ether manipulation than he typically favors. It mends wounds, restores them to a state before they had engaged the creature. Turns back the clock, in a sense.
"...Perhaps, there may be another way. Not to win, but to..."
DG: Citan Uzuki has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Atychiphobia.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
An enemy that can't be beaten--for Lily Keil, that's happened too many times, now. When she was younger, she could manage eventually--if she just kept at it, kept working, then she could come back another day stronger. ...Even when she faced Gryndille--one day, eventually, she was victorious.
As complicated as that was.
But there's some she still hasn't, and she's reminded, then, of them. ...Grahf, seemingly so far beyond, with magic almost impossible to comprehend. Volsung, caring for nothing but his goal. ...Vinsfeld, suffused with the power of a man who brought a nation to its knees.
It is no longer an unfamiliar sensation, but as always, there's that twinge that grabs at her heart--the dismay, the uncertainty of a foe she cannot destroy, the fear of what could happen. As a soldier, it's not that she's eliminated the capacity to feel it--
...She's just learned ways to channel it. And if they are to win, it won't be today. So instead...
"We move to survive!"
Lily shifts abrubtly from offense to defense--As Citan mends their wounds, shadows weap around the group to make them hazier, harder to hit.
Here on this side of the arena, she pushes up from one knee. "No, we can't," Lily says. "...It's stronger. It might be smarter."
"But maybe we can be more stubborn. ...Any landing you walk away from is a good one, right?"
Lily weaves out more protective spells, willing to spend all the energy she has to on this.
...Because...
They must endure the First Ordeal. Lily Keil has been here before, has remembered her past failure. And now, well... Maybe another test is just the thing--a way to show herself the way on the path she's choosing.
So here she is, on the other side of that golden door, hearing the crowd roaring. One thing Lily can do for a long time... is endure.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Atychiphobia.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Undefeatable enemies.
This is something that Elly van Houten has thought about. There are many problems out there -- more than can easily be counted. Many of these problems are things she can affect and impact. She can help some people, she can hurt other people -- bad people in the latter case.
She can't get everyone. She can barely get some of them, even now, having recovered (mostly) from her injury.
And yet, like the story says, when you throw the starfish on the beach back -- it matters to THAT starfish, that's for sure. But there are always more of them.
It is why at times Elly wants to just run away from it all.
This has come to mind right now because she has skidded out for the fourth time away from a bursting wave from this dark trial creature. She pushes herself up again, groaning and blinking slowly. She breathes out as she twists round the long segmented staff, this one in garishly vermilion wood.
"To what, doctor?" Elly asks, her eyes turning to Lily for a moment again, with sympathy, with concern. Almost with a giant gash in her forehead, too, because the creature throws a spike of ice at her which Elly only feels in the faint wispy etheric-weaved sense-of-what-is that she has produced around herself, the trained 'counter' that she has, at last, been able to bring back, if weakened.
Boy, Elly thinks as she stays crouched low, breathing out and then drawing herself up with a slow, aggressive plie`: I wish I could just blow this thing up with Vierge.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Three Stick Nunchucks toward her party's challenge, Atychiphobia.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei sometimes just wants to run away too but he's been pretty chill as of late, if maybe a bit relieved to be away from Spira. There is such a thing as TOO MUCH vacation after all.
"Hmm." Fei says, studying the moves of this strange creature. But--to be totally honest--this is like Fei's fifth trip here. Even the concepts he is in fact afraid of in this place don't really have the same impact. When you know Freddy Kreuger already murdered that guy and you've seen it like 6 times, there's only so many times you can gasp.
But this time he says, "I think I've come prepared for this one." Fei says as he draws out a feather and--
"If it gets stronger the harder we fight...its weakness must be hitting it really softly!"
And with that he darts forward and
*tickle tickle tickle tickle*
"Let's see you overpower the might...of a feather!" Fei shouts dramatically.
The creature grows feathers out of its fingertips and promptly goes after Fei.
"No..." Fei's eyes widen with horror. "NO!!"
*OMNI-TICKLE*
"NOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!"
Fei has been defeated!
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Atychiphobia.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Atychiphobia *>========================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- Fights are not always meant to be won, and the possibility of facing someone who is simply better than you, stronger than you, smarter than you, more talented than you, is oftentimes an inevitability if you throw yourself into conflict often enough. So what, then, do we do against insurmountable odds? The place you arrive at once the first flash of light envelopes you is full of the faint, phantasmal sounds of an unseen audience, cheering and booing in equal measure. This is an coliseum floating in the middle of nowhere, its columns sculpted magnificently, its sandpit arena composed of glowing gold grains -- and there at the center of it all, seethes a truly immense enemy, gray and pulsing with that selfsame golden life, its many arms equipped with a multitude of weapons. Its hide is practically impenetrable, its attacks like a force of nature with each swing. Its skills with its weapons seems almost custom-designed to be just slightly better than yours with your own methods of combat. It quickly becomes apparent that this is not a fight that you can win, as if no matter what you did, no matter how experienced you were, this creature would always just be slightly better. So how, than, do you succeed? Sometimes, victory is not a matter of how we win, but how we lose. Enemy: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-214.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Secret===========================================
==================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal - Round 1 *>=================== ===========================< Results - Atychiphobia >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Citan Uzuki 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Three Stick Nunchucks 1 Combat Effects: Stalwart and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(15)--> 15 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Citan Uzuki 0 --(10)--> 10 Fail Conditions: Fright(2)|Secret(2) Effects: ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Citan Uzuki has failed this challenge! The party gained 10 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
"...to lose," Citan finishes, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance as the creature charges for them, weapons brandished.
"Not to win, but to lose. Then from that loss, learning," he continues, shifting his own power into the enhancements Lily brings up about them. His own use of Ether appears to center around the body, about restoring or augmenting its status -- but here too it seems he can shine, if a little bit. The watervapor weave is fine and nearly missed next to Lily's own more dominant display, but to a good eye or sense, it is more present now than typical.
"What can be learned from is not truly a loss."
Or perhaps, what can be endured.
The magic helps on that, softens the blows yet to come, helps to deflect what is even now incoming.
But it seems as if they cannot land a blow on it, bringing to mind the conflict of lucky every time vs. lucky just the once.
Until Fei approaches it with the, er, soft touch:
"Fei?! What are you--"
Citan's shout almost certainly goes unheeded. But whatever the young man receives for his unorthodox tactics, it does open the door for another when the gambit causes the creature to pause:
Elly lands a blow on it.
Maybe it's a trick of the light, but did that thing... smile?
Before it, without remorse, sweeps them from the arena in toto, landing the lot of them before a yellow barrier that stands in a field of white light. It gleams, as if to invite a touch.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Acrophobia *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The first thing you feel is the wind, gushing upon your face. And then, when you come to completely after the lights fade, you see why: you find yourself perched upon a dangerously small ledge on a tower possibly hundreds of feet up from the ground; the wind rushes around you, a thick mist obscuring anything and everything beneath you. All you can truly tell is that this tower stretches to dizzyingly tall heights... and that shining point at the very peak of it suggests the only way through is up. Scaling this tower, god knows how many feet above anything resembling terrain, is your task -- a task that you might slowly find harder and harder as oxygen gets thinner the higher you climb. Just don't look down! ... Maybe that warning came a little late. Whoops. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Injure=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Being able to smash something in a Gear is always good. Lily, too, was injured then--but as Citan explains, Lily nods to him, and manages a smile for Elly to show she's okay at that sympathetic look. ...Her magic is easy to focus on.
"Yes. Winning and losing... They depend on the time scale. Sometimes it's only a setback, to lose now--to lose the battle is not to lose the war."
But eventually they're in a yellow barrier. It gleams, all right. Lily considers the others, and says, "...Fei, Elly. That was good work. You did something I couldn't." She pauses. "I'm just not going to mention the tickling part to anyone. That's because we're friends, Fei."
See? She's a good friend. But then, she does feel the invitation--and Lily reaches out, and touches the yellow barrier...
The wind can be felt first--all around them, and rushing low, mist obscuring what is below. The tower is tall, so tall, and there is the absolute sense of being high up. Lily blinks, looking around. "This...?"
Being high up; it's a little of an alien fear to her, she who associates flight with freedom, and for a moment she feels a pang at the fact that she's ignoring the power that lets her do so. But then, she shakes her head.
"The only way is up," she says. "Careful." She's... not great at balance, though--she automatically almost falls. So she reaches to her neck, and pulls a pendant out from under her collar; she holds it, closes her eyes, and focuses...
A sphere of violet and blue midnight power erupts from around her, crackling, and as she walks--
She is climbing, then. ....But she climbs downward once, and appears a story above; there are two of her, another place. She falls, tumbling, tumbling--
But at the same time she is standing in place.
Lily's power breaks reality a little. Don't look too hard.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Impure Pendant toward her party's challenge, Acrophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"... but," Elly protests in a quiet voice at what Citan says, but then they are able to press forwards. Her eyes turn towards Fei, and disquiet and unrest in her heart is, for a moment --
Removed? Masked? Anesthetized? Hard to say exactly. Something in that area.
A swinging twisting strike - Did she --
It's hard to say, because the challenge itself moves them forwards.
"I'd say, these trials all seem like they're teaching things that anyone could figure out with ten minutes of thought," Elly says as she gazes up the tower, in its infinite and windy distance, "but..."
She loses her train of thought for a moment. The wind stirs her hair.
"... Maybe it's hard to learn things in your bones, unless you really feel them," Elly says, though there's sort of a forlorn sound to it. She smiles at Lily at the praise, and then she reaches into her pockets, to dig out--
-- is that really -- YES! It's a big old fish-hook. It's one that's probably meant for large deep sea fishes, such as you might catch off the side of the Thames, and after giving it a quick pull and almost catching herself on the barb, she threads the line and pitches it upwards. At the same time her eyes narrow --
-- she can make one particular stone reach out, like a pair of lips, and grasp the hook --
And though the exercise of Ether makes her pause and blink her eyes several times, as if she had just swallowed an entire dumpling and it had pressed the nerves of her throat, it works. Ish. She tests the line, then looks at the others with another firm nod.
"Just don't everyone pull on it at once," Elly says. "I don't think it can hold THAT much..."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Fishing Tackle toward her party's challenge, Acrophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
There are many times when one wins the battle to lose the war.
And quite the opposite as well, at that.
"Yes," Citan replies, picking himself up off of the floor. "Of course, I was not expecting, ah, to have it proven quite so literal as that..." He takes a moment to brush himself off, to readjust his glasses.
Then Lily touches the barrier, and all is brilliant about them.
He's aware of the wind at first, biting at any exposed flesh and well suggesting a great height.
It reminds him, among other things, of a city high in the heavens. As his eyes adjust, he's able to see proper where they're at:
They might as well be perched atop a city in the heavens, for all the height they seemingly possess here.
"...This is another trial," he remarks, after taking stock of their situation.
Perhaps for him, this is a familiar situation.
"Still, it would be best not to fall. ...Particularly, since it appears the only way forward is to climb up." A pause follows. "...Yes. It is one thing to have a lesson explained to you. It is another to have internalized it." He smiles, about halfway. "Even at my age, I am afraid, I am still finding there are things I am yet to fully understand."
His gaze tracks after the former Kislevi soldier then. "Lily...?"
He's reminded, briefly, of a similar stunt she once pulled, back in Spira. His gaze lingers a moment -- in all things he is ever curious.
Until it becomes impossible to look any longer.
He's come a distance from who he was. He stops looking.
It's Elly who presents a more workable means of ascent (for him at least) in the form of that hook and line. "Thank you. That should make the climb somewhat easier."
The rest of it's going to mean using his feet against the tower's surface as he makes his way upwards. Hopefully it's not entirely slick, or it's going to be rough going.
DG: Citan Uzuki has used his Tool Martial Arts Shoes toward his party's challenge, Acrophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei lies on the floor, dead.
"Thanks Lily. You are a true pal." His corpse tells Lily.
When he's revived, Fei finds they're moving on to HEIGHTS. Specifically, climbing up a giant tower for basically forever.
"Well, I'll go last since I'm pretty sure I'm the heaviest, then." Fei volunteers for Elly. "Plus I can probably catch people who fall!"
He pauses a moment before throwing the feather he was using away. Yeah that's enough of that for a while.
"Okay I think I'm good to go."
When it's his turn, presumably he WILL climb via that line Elly is offering but can Fei handle such a venture? It's a mystery.
"Hoo boy." He murmurs. "Anybody feeling a little lightheaded?"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Acrophobia.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== ==========================<* CHALLENGE - Acrophobia *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The first thing you feel is the wind, gushing upon your face. And then, when you come to completely after the lights fade, you see why: you find yourself perched upon a dangerously small ledge on a tower possibly hundreds of feet up from the ground; the wind rushes around you, a thick mist obscuring anything and everything beneath you. All you can truly tell is that this tower stretches to dizzyingly tall heights... and that shining point at the very peak of it suggests the only way through is up. Scaling this tower, god knows how many feet above anything resembling terrain, is your task -- a task that you might slowly find harder and harder as oxygen gets thinner the higher you climb. Just don't look down! ... Maybe that warning came a little late. Whoops. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow, Injure=============================================
==================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal - Round 2 *>=================== ============================< Results - Acrophobia >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Citan Uzuki 15 --(5)--> 20 Pass Martial Arts Shoes 2 Agility Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Fishing Tackle 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 10 --(5)--> 15 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 15 --(10)--> 25 Fail Impure Pendant 2 Agility Effects: Cleanse and Sacrifice -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Citan Uzuki 10 --(30)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Injure(2)|Secret(1)|Slow(2) Effects: Cleanse|Resilient(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Citan Uzuki has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 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> Lily Keil has posed.
Fei has that effect on--
...On Elly, mostly. On Elly.
Regardless, Lily finds herself considering Elly's words. "I think that may be true. Knowing and understanding... are different."
Lily looks over Citan thoughtfully. "Good to know you're still learning," she comments. And Lily nods to Fei, at Elly's work. "I think I can make it..."
As it turns out--Elly's hook, one at a time, careful, works out great! It does make the climb easier, and they all have a chance to learn--that heights, as scary as they may be, are surmountable. That up is a direction they can go.
...Teamwork, too. However...
"Nnn," Lily says, stumbling as they reach the shinining point--and reappear in the central room, a yellow barrier ahead. "Guh... Yeah, I'm..."
The air is back, but unfortunately--it would appear that falling multiple times, being in multiple places without air at once... is sometimes a bit of a strain on the body. On the bright side, she was able to help the others keep to the path with handholds. On the downside...
...That's definitely some blood trickling from her nose, there.
The next trial awaits.
DG: Elhaym van Houten has drawn a new Challenge.
======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Nyctophobia *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- This area dank and dark, though not pitch black -- a long series of corridors, each one blocked off by a sealed door that requires defeating the Hellions assembled to progress further. Unfortunately, these Hellions seem to be impervious to harm... at least, until you exposed them to literally any form of light you can find, from shafts of it piercing through the ceiling, to any you may generate on your own. Light that, sadly, does not last long here when exposed to these Hellions until it is completely snuffed out and unable to be used again; to defeat your enemies and open the way forward, you're going to have to be conservative with whatever sources of light you might have on hand... and eliminate your enemies very, very quickly. Hellion Types: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-205.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-177.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-186.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-851.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Secret===========================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Up at the top, there is a way inwards. There is room just outside for them to huddle together. If they were six or seven, they wouldn't even have that much.
"Lily..."
Elly smiles, even as she leans against the stonework and quietly reclaims her line and hook. "Are you alright? Don't press yourself too hard. I suppose... that's another thing that I say a lot, isn't it. Maybe in a way we're defined by what it is that we communicate most often."
After that, inwards.
Into...
"I think we ran into this one before, didn't we?" Elly says -- mostly to Fei, but also Lily. "I don't think you --"
The door is almost immediately in front of them. A Hellion surges forwards and Elly, too startled to even scream (she makes a noise best rendered as 'gwaaauuh!!' in reaction, but it's quiet), swings her staff around to clock it in its upper body. It reels into a pencil-thin sliver of light coming up from the top of the -- tower? mountainside? -- and cringes, smoldering.
Elly takes a deep breath and lets it out, before her attention turns further ahead. She wills - it takes moments - and there is a sudden crackling sheet of fire, one that briefly reveals several other such beings. They burn, in the light but not the fire, and Elly says:
"Ah."
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Three Stick Nunchucks toward her party's challenge, Nyctophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
They stand there, regarding the barrier at the top of the pillar.
He offers Lily a hand up. How could he not?
Particularly when blood trickles from her nose, just a bit. Without a word he studies her critically, paying particular attention to her eyes. She must have passed some assessment or another, since he ultimately nods and hands over a handkerchief.
"It should stop shortly. I do not see the signs of a deeper injury."
He does not glance at Elly when he comments thus.
"...There is no need to return that," he adds, perhaps in the event he finds himself offered a bloody handkerchief later.
The barrier shines--
All is pitch black. Citan squints into the darkness--
As something moves. "We are not alone in here!" he barks, sidestepping an oncoming Hellion. He can't see, but he still has an impression of where they might be here, in the dark--
As it becomes clear that even a strike into what he imagines should be their vitals (his movements well-hidden in the total darkness here) doesn't cause his opponent to even slow a beat.
As before, it seems they are at wits end against their enemies-- more than one are in here, he realizes.
In the darkness then there is fire.
There is LIGHT.
And he understands what these creatures are weak against.
"Light. Their weakness is light!"
Though it similarly becomes clear that the same trick won't work twice, and their available options are few.
So he takes out his camera and takes a shot, blindly, in the dark.
Maybe it will help. Maybe it will simply illuminate this room enough for the others to see what's before them.
Maybe it will only leave him open for one of the things to strike back at him.
But just as speed is of the essence here--
So is courage, regardless of the unknown foes.
DG: Citan Uzuki has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Nyctophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei hesitates when he sees Lily's wound. Sure, it looks minor but so can a broken neck if you don't look carefully. He exhales in relief when Citan confirms it's nnothing serious.
"We can take some of the rough going too." Fei agrees with Elly. "And we'll be okay too. We can take some licks." But apparently not tickles. Regardless, this is something of a departure where Fei's concern was mostly take everything upon himself and worry desperately about his friends every time something bad happens but he still wishes to look out for them. It's his way of atonement, perhaps.
"mm... Im' not sure I--geeze hellions? It's been a while... Hopefully I remember how to fight them--"
He just sort of naturalyl tries to lead them into patches of light not because he knows of their secret weakness but it's easier to punch and avoid creatures you can see.
At last until Elly mentions they DID this one before. "Oh..? Oh right! I forgot! Wow... I can't believe I forgot this."
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Nyctophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...You do," Lily says, and blinks a few times, shaking he rhead. "I'll be all right. But thank you. The reminder helps; sometimes I get so caught up in winning that I forget." What we communicate most often...
"I wonder," Lily says. "Is fighting itself a means of communication...?"
What does that mean that she says most often?
She takes Citan's hand, though. "Thank you," Lily answers, and applies the handkerchief. It should be fine. She doesn't feel a deeper injury either. It's just... Well. It happens, when she draws on too much. But Fei's answer--"...Yeah, you can. I'll keep that in mind." Some might find it stifling--Lily doesn't. It's... a reminder that helps keep her from going too all-in.
But when it gets dark, Lily naturally doesn't know the score--so she starts as she sees they fear light by slamming nuclear fire into one. ...And then finds--she can't do it again. "What--" She figures it out quickly. She sees them in the room...
"Fine," Lily says. She makes fire, next, like Elly, and uses its light. She rolls up her sleeves, and uses ice for the light her markings spread, circuitry. And then--
Well, then she just starts using darkness. Darkness, to blast holes in the ceiling, to let the light in. One place; another. To blast the floor beneath them.
...Fight fire with fire, right?
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Nyctophobia.
======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Nyctophobia *>========================= |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 4 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- This area dank and dark, though not pitch black -- a long series of corridors, each one blocked off by a sealed door that requires defeating the Hellions assembled to progress further. Unfortunately, these Hellions seem to be impervious to harm... at least, until you exposed them to literally any form of light you can find, from shafts of it piercing through the ceiling, to any you may generate on your own. Light that, sadly, does not last long here when exposed to these Hellions until it is completely snuffed out and unable to be used again; to defeat your enemies and open the way forward, you're going to have to be conservative with whatever sources of light you might have on hand... and eliminate your enemies very, very quickly. Hellion Types: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-205.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-177.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-186.jpg / https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-851.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Secret===========================================
=================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal - Round 3 *>================== ==========================< Results - Nyctophobia >=========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Citan Uzuki 20 --(17)--> 37 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 15 --(17)--> 32 Fail Three Stick Nunchucks 1 Combat Effects: Stalwart and Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 15 --(17)--> 32 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 25 --(17)--> 42 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Citan Uzuki 40 --(10)--> 50 Fail Conditions: Secret(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Citan Uzuki 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.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Phobophobia *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This hallway is wide and open; at the other end is a simple door, with no look, nor need to bash it in to leave this area and progress further into Linaweyul. No -- it's what's between you and the door that's the problem. Floating gold crystal structures blot out this hall, choking it with their presence and making traversing difficult on their own... to say nothing of the sense of fear that emanates from them, filling anyone nearby them with a sense of panicked phobia over nothing but the sensation of fear itself. The crystals hum in perfect harmony, the effect of their phobic song more potent the more there are, inflicting their physiological stress on anyone nearby. To get through, you'll have to demolish these crystals... and try not to succumb to the fear before then. No problem, right? =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Overzealous====================================
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"I think it can be," Elly says, about fighting.
(The Hellions surge forwards. They break down a door. Fei leads and jinks and moves, guiding Hellions. They strike at him despite this. The strikes often fall short. But every blow takes its toll, in energy if not flesh.)
"There's a lot of forms of communication," Elly continues.
(A Hellion is incinerated by Lily calling on the fundamental forces of fissioning material -- well, not quite; any lingering radiation is in the alpha band, quite harmless unless you decide to eat it, and perhaps harmless even then. The bursts are blasting. The darkness she throws out - never makes holes. It seems to plug them. The floor beneath them - does it yield? A Hellion fell into one. Did that same one come back?)
"The trick is to pick the one that works best... if you can figure it out..."
(Citan takes a photograph, like a double-dealing character seeking a single perfect cherry blossom. The flash bulb of his camera casts light into the thankfully-not-actually animated subterranea. For a fleeting moment he gets a sight of the entire Hellion cluster and he may realize if he analyzes it later that space in here is weird, because he could see the door BEHIND the Hellion rippling, drawing closer... But he will also see that he has managed to shoot the bullet, the same 'bullet' of Hellionized flesh that clips him in the hip on its way to the wall behind them. It looks like a tooth bud; as a doctor, of course, he would be familiar.)
Despite it all, imperishable night does yield, however slowly. They breach four doors. The fourth one is desperate. At the end of it there is a yellow field and it casts lights, and it is something of an anticlimax -- for now, well, there is a radiant light source, and so within the reach of that glow, the Hellions simply won't go.
Elly slumps to her knees some distance from the fantastic object before them, and says: "Do you think these are the same Hellions... from before? I wonder if..."
"They're learning."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Mm."
Lily thinks her concerns are well-proven, by what happens. The darkness doesn't work; her power can't quite make the difference, here. Nevertheless...
"I used to be better at that," Lily admits. "...After I went to war, I just..." The sorceress shakes her head, here in the strange room again.
"I stopped wanting to communicate much. Some things, when you see enough of them..."
She trails off, and does not fear the dark. But she does hurt. That's definitely true. Now, however...
"Looks like they can learn the same lessons we can. ...or can they? Would they be trapped here, if they did?"
The next challenge comes, though. This--this is different.
The gold crystal structures block the door, and it's otherwise simple... but there is a sense of fear--a sense of fear that immediately drives Lily back for a moment, her heart racing, as she feels not only her own, but more, everywhere. "I--" It takes her a moment, to push down the panic that their hum inflicts--
...And in the end, she doesn't really. She just fits her hand with the chain inscribed with runes that she uses so well. Jerkily, she wends them through her fingers--
"I won't ALLLOW IT," she growls, and with the power of the booster that magnifies her Ether--
She explodes a spot of gold outright, battering it into nothing. But can she do with the rest, under the strain? ...Before she can't keep going?
Either way, Lily isn't talking to anyone for a few minutes. She's destroying, and maybe that is a means of communication indeed, as surely as the way her hand shakes with each blast.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Rune Chain toward her party's challenge, Phobophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Hoo boy," Fei says of the idea of hellions learning but, well, it isn't too unexpected. Hellions can be people, or animals, and so on. And people and animals can learn. Even in spite of that, a 'hoo boy' is warranted even if that's baout what Fei can manage.
And next up? Flying crystals of fear. Fei doesn't recall this one or, if he would've, the fearful fear surging up in front of him means that he completely forgets anyway.
"Aw geeze." Fei manages, gripping his eyes tightly shut. "This...isn't great."
He freezes in place...but then...
His eyes open up once more, yellowish. His expression more deadpan. He murmurs, "Gotta have some complex here, man, if you keep coming here."
He extends a hand and explodes everything with a simple but effective burst of chi.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool The Other Guy Lends a Hand toward his party's challenge, Phobophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
The doctor does not immediately speak, once they escape that place. Tucking his camera away, he takes a moment to consider the photograph, then tend to their injuries. Ether makes light work of what might otherwise be a more prolongued process; with them, perhaps, he can be more overt about the source of such abilities.
"To open up to others, and in doing so, put oneself at risk can be difficult. Moreso, if one is recovering from a previous wound," Citan waxes, pushing his glasses up his nose. "This has... forever been the gamble one must make to forge connections." He shakes his head.
"Whether or not 'they' can learn those lessons... who can say?"
There is light.
There is--
Citan's shoulders hunch. He presses a hand to his chest, and tenses, his brow creasing with, perhaps, the strain of the song.
"We cannot... hope to hold out against this!" he shouts, his gaze settling on the stones in perhaps a similar moment that Lily does.
"The crystals-- we must break them, now!"
Without further ado, he fishes out his hammer from his belongings and swings it with full force for the nearest shimmering glassy stone.
Perhaps he could be forgiven for not quite noticing the shift in Fei's demeanor just now--
DG: Citan Uzuki has used his Tool Perfectly Normal Hammer toward his party's challenge, Phobophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Patched up, bound, not as wounded any more.
Elly looks towards Lily. Lily expresses herself, communicating THROUGH DESTRUCTION against that object, that horrible thing. Fei turns his attention towards that opening and speaks in a quiet way.
Elly feels her spine crawl. She looks to Citan as she pushes herself upwards. The crystals are radiating a sensation of fear and Elly realizes with a certain dull shock that the reason she did not sense it *immediately* is that she has been *worrying*.
That sensation is freeing for about half a second and then she does, in fact, feel the fear. Her teeth grit and she produces a slightly dusty Gel from that same pocket that held her fishing line. Into her mouth it goes. As she chews into stale lemon, she raises her hand.
Her fingers, almost, snap.
Almost because the noise gets buried in an electrical discharge at one of the crystals!!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Inventory Clutter toward her party's challenge, Phobophobia.
=======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================== =========================<* CHALLENGE - Phobophobia *>========================== |Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 4 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- This hallway is wide and open; at the other end is a simple door, with no look, nor need to bash it in to leave this area and progress further into Linaweyul. No -- it's what's between you and the door that's the problem. Floating gold crystal structures blot out this hall, choking it with their presence and making traversing difficult on their own... to say nothing of the sense of fear that emanates from them, filling anyone nearby them with a sense of panicked phobia over nothing but the sensation of fear itself. The crystals hum in perfect harmony, the effect of their phobic song more potent the more there are, inflicting their physiological stress on anyone nearby. To get through, you'll have to demolish these crystals... and try not to succumb to the fear before then. No problem, right? =Dungeon Conditions: Collapse, Overzealous====================================
==================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal - Round 4 *>=================== ===========================< Results - Phobophobia >============================ Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Citan Uzuki 37 --(0)--> 37 Fail Perfectly Normal Hammer 1 Brute Effects: Stalwart and Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elhaym van Houten 32 --(0)--> 32 Fail Inventory Clutter 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 32 --(0)--> 32 Pass The Other Guy Lends a Hand 4 Brute Effects: None -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 42 --(0)--> 42 Pass Rune Chain 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Citan Uzuki 50 --(30)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Collapse|Overzealous(2)|Secret(1) Effects: Cleanse ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Citan Uzuki has passed this challenge! The party gained 30 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> Lily Keil has posed.
As it turns out, the Other Guy is pretty helpful. A lot of things explode. between that and Lily's sheer flurry of magical devastation, they in short order devastate the strange crystals causing their fear... leaving them to live with the aftermath, and what they have done in their fear.
Citan's hammer worked--it just worked too slowly. And Elly.... Well. Elly has been worrying. Her electricity is powerful--but as it turns out, they are not terribly conductive. The Gel, however, is surprisingly tasty for being stale.
...Except it's tasty like fish, not lemon. For some reason.
Regardless--suddenly they are somewhere else again... and Lily remembers what happened, after this. She feels her injuries largely healed from before... and then she nods, remembering Citan's work. "I've started to realize what changed," she allows.
"...And a big part of that is the two of you," she admits to Fei and Elly.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Phasmophobia *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The final boundary is touched. And in a flash of light... you find yourself in a wide, white arena, glowing with faint ephemeral golden motes. The door leading to the very end of this place remains tightly sealed by a glowing, violet light -- a light that is matched by the glow of the skeletal wraith of a Hellion standing at the center of this room. Bedecked by a host of phantasmal minions, this ghostly sorcerer seems to be your way out of here -- but trying to attack it will simply lead your attacks to harmlessly run through the specter, as if it were truly a disembodied spirit. Conventional attacks will not work -- but at the opposite end of this room? Sits a lone, pulsing violet orb. And the second one touches it... they will find their soul, for lack of a better term, forcibly and temporarily ejected from their body, shoved into the spiritual plane where the demonic spirit and its entourage can be harmed... and it, in turn, can harm you. Ever wanted to ghostfight? No? Well. Too bad. Enemy: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-257.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Wound==============================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Aw." Fei says, cheeks reddening. Saying 'you too!' feels a bit awkard to say here but he does add, "We're really lucky to have you as a friend, Lily. And if we helped even a little... That'skind of a relief! You'n'Leon work so hard."
There is one more flash and the group finds themselves in one last arena. A group of phantasmal minions appear before the group, supported by a ghostly sorceror.
"Oh this one. Did we do this one before? ahhh one way to find out!"
Fei charges! Fei finds himself ejected from his body!
The Fei that remains in his body slaps his face witht his palm and just lays there. Maybe he just sort of naturally fell that way.
"Guys I'm a ghost now!" Fei shouts. "... I guess it's time for... a ghost battle! Man, I wonder what it'd be like being a wandering spirit that has to possess other bodies to interact with the physical world."
He mulls for the moment.
"Well whatever!" He tries to punch the sorceror in the snout.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool RPS Badge toward his party's challenge, Phasmophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.
In the end, he's just not fast enough. The hammer hits the crystal and it breaks, sure enough, but not long after he staggers back as if struck himself by some strange force and drops his hammer.
But fortunately between Fei and Lily, the rest of the crystals do break. Citan finds he can breathe afterwards and turns to regard...
Fei, apparently.
But only for the moment. He stoops after to retrieve his hammer.
They find themselves once again facing the barrier--
Before it is no more.
"This is--"
Citan's assessment of the room -- and the foes facing them now -- will have to wait.
Because his attention is swallowed up by Fei's sudden charge for the orb.
"Fei? What are you--"
He only hesitates for a moment.
"Wait! Fei!"
Fei isn't the only one to make contact with the sphere.
Citan has had more than his share of unusual experiences in his life, but becoming disconnected with his own body is certainly one of the stranger. He regards, disconcerted and puzzled, his own corpse, then stares a moment at his own spectral hands.
"..."
Before his attention shifts to Fei. Who is... punching the phantasmal sorceror.
In the face.
"I wonder if Ether still has an effect," he remarks to himself, only to shake his head (is that right, considering he doesn't have a body anymore, either?). "Fei! Allow me to assist!"
His own strike is a snapping knife-hand strike to the sorceror's right arm. Perhaps it might be enough to break a 'bone', such that it is in this state.
DG: Citan Uzuki has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Phasmophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly's face flushes slightly. "Oh," she says, a little at what Lily says. Or perhaps, to some extent, at having bit into fish that is - well, let's say that Elly did not actually swallow that mouthful of fish. She is not eager to reinvent garum.
"But... thank you. You've been inspiring to me as well..."
After this comes another challenge. Elly - who is not nearly as refreshed as she hoped - stares at the entity before them for a moment, before sucking in a deep bre--
"Fei!!!"
-- actually she runs after Fei because he is running towards a solid object. He stumbles then, and falls, and Elly catches his empty body and stares at it for a moment of dizzying horror, leaning forwards and letting her forehead rest against
the orb
"oh," Elly says, as she gets back out. She breathes out as she turns and sees that the Doctor has adapted to this with mysterious ease. Her eyes shut for a moment and she opens them again, stepping forwards and snapping down
something enormous and strangely shaped but in moments it resolves into its proper shape which is
her nunchaku weapon, which she twirls round.
"Are you the one who made this place?" she asks the being - the spectral wizard.
"Can you tell us why?"
"... but..."
Elly's hair is fluffed out on an astral wind. It doesn't look red right now for some reason. Color masking or something?
"... I have to admit, that... if this is another place, made in order to torment people... the biggest thing you've taught me, is that some ideas are older than we'd hoped." Elly twists the staff around, spins in one single gracious arc --
-- and slams the thing at the side of the wizard's head!!
DG: Elhaym van Houten has used her Tool Three Stick Nunchucks toward her party's challenge, Phasmophobia.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"...Thanks," Lily answers Fei. "And you have." Lily doesn't even argue the idea that she, too, is a valuable friend! Perhaps she's levelled up in terms of self-image.... But either way she doesn't seem to be holding back a secret belief that she's just a bad friend at the moment. "Really?" Lily asks Elly of inspiration. "Hmmm. Thanks. I hope... to be someone who can inspire more than only destruction. Who can bend that destruction to make it... clear the path, for something new, instead of just taking out everything."
....Completely unsubtle worries that she may have been too much a Destroyer, sure, and that that may in the end be what she's best at. But she thinks... a way forward...
Well. The challenge comes. She looks to Citan, as he asks. She looks to Fei, as she sees it. One way to find out...
"Sure, why not?" Lily asks. She touches the sphere. She seems to get it.
"That'd be weird," Lily tells Fei, from her place now--in non-military attire, even. She does have a labcoat on. ...But non-military attire is one thing... "So, this is a spiritual battle... I think, then, that whatever we do--it's communication, that matters. So... I'll communicate in some familiar ways."
Abrubtly Lily Keil is holding a knife. She approaches, holding it in blade-down blade-out grip.
Yeah she's gonna knife fight a ghost.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Phasmophobia.
======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================= ========================<* CHALLENGE - Phasmophobia *>======================== |Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The final boundary is touched. And in a flash of light... you find yourself in a wide, white arena, glowing with faint ephemeral golden motes. The door leading to the very end of this place remains tightly sealed by a glowing, violet light -- a light that is matched by the glow of the skeletal wraith of a Hellion standing at the center of this room. Bedecked by a host of phantasmal minions, this ghostly sorcerer seems to be your way out of here -- but trying to attack it will simply lead your attacks to harmlessly run through the specter, as if it were truly a disembodied spirit. Conventional attacks will not work -- but at the opposite end of this room? Sits a lone, pulsing violet orb. And the second one touches it... they will find their soul, for lack of a better term, forcibly and temporarily ejected from their body, shoved into the spiritual plane where the demonic spirit and its entourage can be harmed... and it, in turn, can harm you. Ever wanted to ghostfight? No? Well. Too bad. Enemy: https://gamefaqs.akamaized.net/faqs/57/72557-257.jpg =Dungeon Conditions: Maim, Wound==============================================
=================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal - Round 5 *>================== ==========================< Results - Phasmophobia >========================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Citan Uzuki 37 --(100)--> 137 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elhaym van Houten 32 --(100)--> 132 Pass Three Stick Nunchucks 1 Combat Effects: Stalwart and Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 32 --(100)--> 132 Pass RPS Badge 3 Combat Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 42 --(100)--> 142 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Citan Uzuki 80 --(10)--> 90 Fail Conditions: Maim|Overzealous(1)|Wound(2) Effects: ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: Citan Uzuki is too exhausted to continue! DG: Elhaym van Houten is too exhausted to continue! DG: Fei Fong Wong is too exhausted to continue! DG: Lily Keil 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 Citan Uzuki has been fully Exhausted by Linaweyul, the First Ordeal! DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
======================<* Linaweyul, the First Ordeal *>======================= ===============<* CHALLENGE - Tales of the Oracle ~ Beginnings *>=============== |Type: Landmark |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The place you come to here feels almost like a stage, immaculately carved from stone and illuminated by the dull glow of blue, crystalline light. That light seems to almost intensify as you enter, and the stage at the center of the chamber lifts upward; from it, crystals sprout like building blocks, forming into geometric patterns until they create things -- moving statues. Living statues. Crystals form into the shape of a village being ransacked -- knights fighting knights in armor strange and unfamiliar. They expand outward, further still, until it shows a land that looks almost like Glenwood, overcome by war and instability. There is the hideous sound of a roar on the horizon... and then crystal soldiers, villages, war, all dissolves away -- until they show a mother, cradling a small baby in her hands. She smiles, sets him down -- and time seems to pass in a rush as that crystal-forged child grows to a teenaged boy, standing over a crystal-wrought cliffside, gripping a simple longsword in hand. A look of determination in his crystalline expression as he sets off on his journey. Beneath, in a script that seems legible no matter what one's language, a simple title forms: 'THE BIRTH OF THE ORACLE' Soon after, all dissolves away, and the crystals form into a single, rectangular box, etched with runes. The box can be taken, if one wishes -- and that scene can be played again, if one touches the large rune at the center of it. =Dungeon Conditions: Secret===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Woops. It turns out that the lich, even when fighting it the way the maker of this ruin intended, is still a friggin' lich. It casts countless spells and eventually Fei just kinda floats spectrally in the air.
"Oof. Yeah. I'm kaput."
And it doesn't even answer questions. And its bones don't even break, being undead, and well--
Lily stabs a ghost. It turns out GHOST TYPE POKEMON are strong against PHYSICAL TYPE POKEMON. Though they put up a good fight, the group eventually is worn down an there is a flash of light!
They find themselves in on a stage. Perhaps the stage of death! A scene is forge. A village being ransacked, knights fighting knights, a land not unlike Glenwood, a baby, a hero? That determination is a familiar look in many a hero.
Or villain.
Beneath it all there is a phrase 'THE BIRTH OF THE ORACLE'.
And Fei frowns faintly. "Hey... I think... I remember seeing this before. But I didn't really think much about it but..."
He looks to Elly then points to the word 'Oracle'.
"Isn't that what Lanval and Boudicca are now? Oracles? Do you think, uh, it might be the same kind of 'Oracle'?"
Hopefully because otherwise these multi-use terms can be real confusing real quick.