2020-06-12: There Is Always Something Underneath: Difference between revisions
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"It thinks we unfamiliar?" he asks, tilting his head to one side. "Or, what is term, 'out of depths'? Jaeja. We fights against Malevolence for most of existence. Until we realizes..." He rolls his shoulders, winces, and exhales a sigh. "...ah, but a story for another time," says, shaking his head. | "It thinks we unfamiliar?" he asks, tilting his head to one side. "Or, what is term, 'out of depths'? Jaeja. We fights against Malevolence for most of existence. Until we realizes..." He rolls his shoulders, winces, and exhales a sigh. "...ah, but a story for another time," Harmaus says, shaking his head. | ||
He glances over at Kaguya, and slightly, slightly shakes his head. | He glances over at Kaguya, and slightly, slightly shakes his head. | ||
Revision as of 03:17, 19 June 2020
- Log: There Is Always Something Underneath
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Seraph Boudicca, Kaguya, Dean Stark, Seraph Harmaus, Rebecca Streisand
- Where: Baskar Village
- Date: June 11, 2020
- Summary: A small party, consisting of Ida's group, as joined by Harmaus and Kaguya, ventures into the Sacrificial Grounds, keen on uncovering the secrets behind what is going on in the village. ...Perhaps some of them more than others.
DG: A party led by Seraph Harmaus is now entering Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Tangling Ties *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The off-kilter sense that pervades the entryway to the Sacrificial Grounds is all too familiar to those who are familiar with its sickening, inky touch of contradiction. Malevolence permeates this place, and here, it comes in shades that reek of panic and desperation, bubbling like an overstewed kettle in the heart. And it has settled deep into the bones of this place. Deep enough that, as you enter, the grass springing up from the cracks in the stony ground start to seethe and bubble with liquefied Malevolence that rapidly thickens at the soles of one's shoes like an adhesive; if one lingers to longer, that Malevolence will slow them down rapidly, and eventually seal them in place before beginning a deadly, infectious upward climb. Going fast. Going fast is probably a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It's now close to midnight. Above, the moons hang in a star-studded sky, just bright enough to see by. The lights of the Baskar settlement are just barely visible in the distance. A well-worn footpath leads out of the town, and threads its way through the wilderness.
The trail ends here, at the entrance to the ritual grounds.
About a hundred yards back, Ida stopped in her tracks, and craned back her head as if scenting something on the wind. The smell has only gotten stronger since. As the group crests the hill, Ida picks up the pace, and finally comes to a stop. Malevolence coats the grass ahead like morning dew. Ida's body goes rigid. For a moment, she seems to block out everything else--the presence of her friends, the world, and even Harmaus and Kaguya. She breathes in, scenting the air again. Purple-red fumes wick upwards, then into her lungs, then back out again. It's the same technique she perfected as a Hellion to better study the stuff.
"Panic, terror, desperation," Ida says. It's like identifying the notes in an aged wine, except with emotional turmoil. "I'm... unsure of the nature of the contradiction, and if a Domain lies within, I cannot feel it from here." Ida swallows. The breeze picks up at her heels, green sparks dancing outwards as Spiran magic chases away the muck. She looks at Boudicca, and nods. "We must find what happened here."
Ida is scared, that much is certain. But it's a different kind of fear from what she's showed during previous encounters with the stuff.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Zephyr Boots toward her party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The Seraph Boudicca has long, black braids, which tumble all the ways down her back. Through those twin braids runs a long, green ribbon, which comes up and loops about the back of her head before weaving down the other side.
It is not just a cute hair dec. (Though it is a very cute hair dec.)
Boudicca reaches back to rub a thumb over her nouveau vessel, nervousness prickling at her expression as they come to the entrance of the ritual grounds. Make no mistake: even now, she would prefer to be anywhere other than here.
"Let us make haste," she proposes, instead, as she stops twirling that braid to instead reach down and grasp a handful of dry leaves. Crackle-snap, the wind magic releases from them in her grip, and curls about everyone's heels, to give them a little extra pep in their step.
One might note that Boudicca, for her part, doesn't actually seem to make contact with the ground much as she steps out - and only begrudgingly.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Breezeruffle Leaves toward her party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
So how did Kaguya become a part of the group? ...She was in the area. In fact, she was right around here. "I'm going in, you're going in," Kaguya had stated, "So we're going together."
So here she is, now, considering the others, watching Ida thoughtfully.
"It's pretty handy having a former Hellion around I guess," Kaguya says, perhaps as dubious of Ida as Ida is of her. "Just make sure you don't have a relapse or something." It's fine, though. She doesn't have any kind of tracker for Malevolence, has no instruments that properly detect it. Maybe that will change one day.
"Panic, terror, desperation..." She turns to glance at Harmaus, then at the rest of the group thoughtfully. "Then I guess we find out what happened in here if we want to know what's up with this place."
Pause. She looks down at her feet, at the way the muck tries to cling to her boots, and picks up a foot to shake the goop off. "Ugh. Gross. I'm going on ahead."
Her feet curling with wind magic, too, Kaguya picks up the pace. ...She also picks up her mask, and settles it over her mouth and nose. She absolutely makes contact with the ground, but her steps are relatively light.
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean looks at Ida sidelong in concern. He's proud of her for having the courage and strength to face another den of Malevolence after all her terrible experiences as a Hellion, but he's also worried about her for essentially the same reason, for she's clearly also afraid. He'll never really understand what it's like to give in to one's despair like that, but he does want his friends to be happy. Still... it's not like questioning her will do anyone any good. He nods at her description and faces forward.
"Yeah, I don't think any of us want to stick around here for long," Dean says, partly because he sincerely believes that, partly because he literally only just met Harmaus today.
Then Kaguya says, if not a mean thing, then a tactless thing. Dean elbows her--not hard, though it probably wouldn't feel any different to Kaguya if he did. "Hey, don't be a jerk," he chides her.
They all head in. Dean does likewise. Being a pure-hearted young man, the Malevolence doesn't get to him as badly as it might some, but he can still sense it, and it's still some terrible stuff. He marches forward, and when the Malevolence bubbles at his soles, he doesn't stop to check it out.
DG: Dean Stark has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
They are here, at last.
The place that he has so long awaited.
"Ah?" Harmaus murmurs, regarding Ida with fresh interest as Kaguya names her thus as a former Hellion. "It was embraced? Hmm, hmm. We sees how it manages, then. Manages in a place as rich as this!"
It probably doesn't help that he punctuates that remark with a low chuckle. ...Is Boudicca sure that Harmaus is definitely on the level, here?
He does not concern himself with Ida long, however. Sharing a glance -- and a smile -- with Kaguya, the Seraph approaches the entrance.
"Hatred, desolation... truth," he finishes, stretching his arms out, as if to embrace what lies belong.
A ghost of a wince shadows his face as one of his boots begins to sink into the muck. Reaching into a pocket, he pulls out a sachet and inhales from it deeply.
"We lingers here not. We seeks what is within!"
He steps more lightly, now.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Valerian Root toward his party's challenge, The Tangling Ties.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= ======================<* CHALLENGE - The Tangling Ties *>======================= |Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- The off-kilter sense that pervades the entryway to the Sacrificial Grounds is all too familiar to those who are familiar with its sickening, inky touch of contradiction. Malevolence permeates this place, and here, it comes in shades that reek of panic and desperation, bubbling like an overstewed kettle in the heart. And it has settled deep into the bones of this place. Deep enough that, as you enter, the grass springing up from the cracks in the stony ground start to seethe and bubble with liquefied Malevolence that rapidly thickens at the soles of one's shoes like an adhesive; if one lingers to longer, that Malevolence will slow them down rapidly, and eventually seal them in place before beginning a deadly, infectious upward climb. Going fast. Going fast is probably a good idea. =Dungeon Conditions: Slow=====================================================
===========<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar - Round 1 *>============ ========================< Results - The Tangling Ties >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Valerian Root 3 Agility Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 0 --(8)--> 8 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Zephyr Boots 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 0 --(8)--> 8 Pass Breezeruffle Leaves 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Slow(2) Effects: Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Seraph Boudicca has drawn a new Challenge.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pinions of Panic *>===================== |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are certain, strange things in this shrine. Puzzles based on vague signs and vaguer hints. Teleporting crystals. Walkways beneath walkways. A particularly strange addition is a series of large, clockwork gears that seem to jut from ceiling of this hallway you find yourself in, choking out the path forward. The gears can be rotated to allow openings forward through the teeth -- but each time a gear is shifted, the would-be metal it is composed of shimmers violet and shrieks an ear-splitting, rusty shriek of protest, instilling irrational panic into the soul, making it that much harder to keep hold, and keep making a way forward. How good at you are keeping a cool head when you're listening to supernatural nails on a chalkboard? =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca shivers as she spies the malevolence coated grass, but she tries to play it off. Maybe she'll just never get used to feeling this - even if she knows she has to. Getting over the things you're afraid of is part of growing up after all. "Well, guess there's only one way to find out Ida."
As Rebecca's feet sink, she simply leans over to balance her weight off of them, planting her hands down. Then extends her legs up and over, then back down before her hands can sink too far. Then repeats the motion over and over in a forward cartwheel. It becomes even easier as Boudicca's wind magic takes hold and she picks up the pace.
"It was pretty awful of her..." Rebecca comments, "...if you're expecting sunshine and roses out of her Dean..."
Yes, she's talking mid-motion, as conversationally as if she were simply walking. "... well - I guess expecting roses isn't out of the question at least."
Over and over again, she keeps doing this before her hands or feet sink too far, trying not to be too disturbed by the sensation of her limbs sinking into squicky malevolent ground.
She's still looking at Harmaus funny every time he speaks.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida exhales sharply. As much as she would like to dismiss Harmaus and Kaguya's concerns, there's a part of her that worries about that very thing--and denying it could bring about the very disaster she wants to prevent. "I'm frightened," Ida says. Even as Harmaus' laughter sends a chill down her spine. "But I have grown since it last dug in its claws. I swore an oath." Ida steps forwards, and puts a foot down. The grass squelches beneath her shoe. Tendrils of violet curl around her boot like vines. Ida takes another step, and the tendrils pop free.
"And besides, I have good friends here to catch me, should I fall." Dean, Rebecca, and Boudicca are right there. As the group begins to cross, Ida reaches out, and takes Boudicca's hand in hers. If either one of them gets stuck, the other will be there to pull them free. Collectively, the team's wind magic makes the crossing much easier--with steps lightened, and the gunk blown away, most of them make it across with no trouble at all. But when Dean's just within reach of the entrance, the grass snaps up around his legs, trying to pull him down!
"DEAN!" Ida shouts. She grabs for Dean's hand. Together, the rest manage to haul the young man out of the muck before it starts to burn.
Not the best first encounter, but it could've gone far worse.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Kaguya is here! And Boudicca has her own reservations about that, but at least Dean tells her to Stop That, so she just kind of frowns at her. It's her fellow Seraph who earns a sharp reminder: "Compassion, Harmaus!"
She knows he's not very good at talking to people, but he doesn't know what he's talking about.
"Fear is a sensible reaction to Malevolence," Boudicca says, on the heels of Ida's declaration, "but I have seen Ida's strength." She has faith in her Seer! And in her other friends, like - Dean, sinking into the grass.
"Not today!" Boudicca springs back to grasp Dean's arm and help hoist him out. The rest of the way in --
This shrine is a deep thing, deep like lakes or mysteries or the black night sky: there is always something underneath. A walkway beneath a walkway; a crystal which vanishes and reappears; a sigil unexplained.
A gear behind another gear, a lattice of engineering which presents a gate mechanical. The way is blocked - but it could be unblocked, were the gears rotated. They are large enough that the gaps between their broad flat teeth could allow passage.
The only challenge... is not to be... gobbled up.
And perhaps that seems like a gauche metaphor, until Boudicca tries taking a hold of one of those broad gears - with her hands, imagine having hands to grasp objects! - and tries to turn it to a better angle. If these are teeth there must somewhere be a tongue, a throat: it SCREAMS, and only a moment later does the fact that the sound is metal screaming on metal register.
Is it really just a stuck gear..?
Boudicca frowns, and takes a step back, unthreading her brazier-lamp from her belt and hoisting it high. Embers spark in the coals, and Moor Gault's light flickers into existence, smoke from the Guardian's fire wafting out to soothe nerves - and strengthen muscles. "Courage," she encourages them, as she holds up the clawed torch. "We must forge a path through this morass."
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Bestial Brazier toward her party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Eh?" Kaguya asks when Dean elbows her, and then she turns to look at him with a small frown. Rebecca chimes in, and Kaguya thinks about it a moment. Then, she sighs, not just a little sigh but a siiiiigh. "All right, all right," she says, relenting. "I'll try and be nice. Ish." She makes a sort of slide-faced frown as Ida is a person about it. "...I guess that's fair," she says after Boudicca mentions fear's sensibility. "You do have pretty good friends I guess."
She's reluctant to be nice about it but in the face of emotional sincerity she's a little stuck on her usual tack. At least it's simpler to pay attention to Harmaus instead. She looks back to him as they travel in, and grins back to his smile. "Yeah, there's obviously something here." She speaks pretty familiar with him.
But when Dean goes down, Kaguya does actually reach out to help. She doesn't say anything about it unless she's called out, though.
It's a strange place though; Kaguya frowns as she looks around at the iconography... and then looks to the gears ahead. "Ugh. Really? That--aaaaa fuck!"
That actually surprises her enough to make her jump, the screaming. She doesn't like it much. But 'courage'... "What? I was just surprised. Pff, like I care about a little noise?" Her hand may shake a little but not after she puts it up to the gear and shoves herself a path through, steeling herself this time for the next. "It's just some trick. A woman of science doesn't need this kind of thing."
DG: Kaguya has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean smiles broadly and nods firmly when Ida speaks of friends who'll catch her if she falls. "That's right! We'll always have your ba--waaAAUGH!" Irony then strikes, for the grass snakes up around his ankles and tries to snag him down. Fortunately, Ida catches his splayed-out hand as he falls, heaving him up to his feet and out of the Malevograss's reach with the help of Rebecca and Boudicca and Kaguya in particular, who Dean doesn't call out verbally but who he totally beams at. Yay! Friendship!
"Whew!! That was a close one! Thanks, guys." He stomps off the remaining gunk, then grins at Ida. "And you'll be there to catch us too, huh?" At Rebecca's comment about Kaguya, he shakes his head. "I'm not expecting sunshine and roses." Kaguya follows up saying she'll be nice-ish, and he smiles at her. "I'll take it!"
Boudicca yells at Harmaus to have compassion. Dean blinks over at him. Did he say something rude too? (In truth, Dean can't understand a large chunk of what Harmaus says, which definitely contributes to his perception of him as merely weird and not outright creepy.) ...Well, if he did, Boudicca just said something, so it's fine. Onwards!
And further and further they go into the shrine, through puzzles of various kinds. They meet some clockwork gears eventually, and naturally attempt to move them, but when they try-- "YAAGH!" Dean yelps. "Geez!! That was like listening to the screams of the damned!!"
(insert "'fuck' '*GASP*'" meme here)
"Still, that's not gonna hold *us* back!" Dean adds, taking out a sack of salty chalk and dusting up his hands. He nods at Boudicca. "Right! All we have to do is grin and bear it!" Or, for the smarter among them, plug their ears with something. But Dean didn't think of that. He just starts yanking at those gears by hand and dealing with the godawful cacophony that follows.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Purifying Chalk toward his party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Ah?" Harmaus utters, as Boudicca pointedly reminds him to be compassionate. "We are compassionate, yet. Concerned about how it manages, here! Curious, too. Is not every day we meets one who goes there and back. But if it insists, we refrains."
Much like a cat slinking away with its tail between its legs (in the sense of 'I regret nothing and will do it again as soon as your back is turned') Harmaus vantures onwards.
To Kaguya, he grins outright. "Yes! It feels it too, yes? Within this place. 'Malevolence'."
Nearly uniquely to this place, in fact... at least upon the Blue Star.
Further and further inwards they venture, until at last they reach a particular blockage:
"Ah... a long time since..." Harmaus murmurs, approaching one of the gears to lay a hand upon it.
It screams; he jerks his hand back in surprise. "Tcha. It becomes stubborn," he says, as if scolding the thing. "Never mind it. Of little consequence. Worthless. We makes our way through!"
He draws a vial from a pocket then downs the contents in a single go, before -- light streaming from his form -- he grabs onto one of the gears and hauls with all his strength.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Titanforce Extract toward his party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Of course," Ida says, smiling down at Dean.
They come to the wall of gears. Ida studies it for a long moment, thinking back to the similar clockwork puzzles in Weylish Ruin on Lunar. What they're supposed to do here is fairly obvious, but it's an open question as to whether or not this is just an especially baroque obstacle...
Or part of a much larger machine.
Then Boudicca gives the gear a push, and Ida all but jumps out of her skin. She clasps both hands to her chest, breathes deeply, tries to focus. She's shaking. It's as if this obstacle reached into Ida's brain and dragged out the memories of the Trials of the Nahual--the torments she endured alongside Cyre, Jack, and Rosaline. For a moment, she thinks of lying and telling the others she's fine to reassure them. She decides not to.
"That was unpleasant," Ida decides upon. "But it's moving, so it clearly must have been oiled." What it was oiled with is an open question--an open, terrifying question. The joys of Malevolence!
Ida rolls her shoulders to limber up, sets her feet, and places her hands on the gear tooth. Her jaw tenses; her teeth jump on edge. Reddish-silver fluid seeps from her pores, spreading up her arms and forming Hyadean biometal. Having braced herself, she starts to push.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"And that's not going to chang-" She had been trying to reassure Ida, but then Dean sank like a stone. This is not an unfamiliar thing to her - growing up with him, "Dean!" Rebecca calls out, and with a hup off of her hands into a somersault like flip she's...
... well, someone else has got it, but she tried to get over to him. "For the love of... we really need to teach you how to swim." Before Rebecca's exasperation gains a wry shift, "And why not Roses?" As if it were some sort of inside joke.
Before giving Harmaus a look like he just sprouted a second head as he regards malevolence with such enthusiasm that she wonders if he might take a bath in it, "Isn't it literally poisonous to you?"
What a peculiar place though, as they arrive at the gears. When Boudicca turns them though, she quick draws her ARM at the scream - pointing them at the Gear. Hand ready to pull the trigger.
Then she eases off, slipping her ARM back into her holster. She then turns around and arches an eyebrow at Kaguya.
"Oh really?"
With an exasperated shake of her head as the brazier's fire soothes her, she reaches out to the gear. Then leans over and whispers, "Well if a woman of science needs someone to hold her hand..." She teases lightly. "... just let me know."
When it comes to the Gears, she wedges in her foot, and begins to push that way. Her legs are simply stronger than her arms, she knows that very well - and is limber enough to extract herself before any accidents. It also frees up her hands to place them over her ears.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Pinions of Panic.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= =====================<* CHALLENGE - The Pinions of Panic *>===================== |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: brute |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There are certain, strange things in this shrine. Puzzles based on vague signs and vaguer hints. Teleporting crystals. Walkways beneath walkways. A particularly strange addition is a series of large, clockwork gears that seem to jut from ceiling of this hallway you find yourself in, choking out the path forward. The gears can be rotated to allow openings forward through the teeth -- but each time a gear is shifted, the would-be metal it is composed of shimmers violet and shrieks an ear-splitting, rusty shriek of protest, instilling irrational panic into the soul, making it that much harder to keep hold, and keep making a way forward. How good at you are keeping a cool head when you're listening to supernatural nails on a chalkboard? =Dungeon Conditions: Exhaust==================================================
===========<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar - Round 2 *>============ =======================< Results - The Pinions of Panic >======================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Titanforce Extract 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Purifying Chalk 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 8 --(15)--> 23 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 8 --(8)--> 16 Pass Bestial Brazier 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Exhaust(1)|Slow(1) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Kaguya helps Dean, and in this fashion earns +5 Boudicca Points. She doesn't say anything about it, at least. She just privately revises her position on Kaguya, which is the best method for revising her position on Kaguya, because Kaguya can't protest it.
... Kaguya can protest the gears, though. She says what everyone was thinking. (Boudicca was not thinking that, but only because she tends to swear in words the rest of the world left behind centuries ago. What's up with that?) She's hardly the only one to yelp, and each noise of shock shudders Boudicca in turn.
Except for one voice, which doesn't seem that shaken. "You are... remarkably calm," she says, to Harmaus. "Please do take care." If it's been so long since he's last dealt with Malevolence...
Boudicca can't help but worry about him! He's her people!
But though the gears groan and wail, pained expressions which seem ill-fitting to metal, pure chalk makes for a good hand-hold - Dean manages to rotate one of those gears into a good position. Kaguya and Rebecca, hand and foot, manage to manoeuvre another. The third --
It screams at Ida, that blood-curdling noise, and shortly she will find Moor Gault's smoke right beside her because Boudicca is beside her, too. "Are you all right?" She asks, quietly.
Don't worry. Harmaus, with his light, is there to hoist the final gear into place, to give them a path through, lit further by the light of a brazier.
Further in they go.
DG: Kaguya has drawn a new Challenge.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= =======================<* CHALLENGE - The Caustic Clot *>======================= |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You might be walking across a stone walkway when it happens, or ascending a staircase. Or maybe you just finished a particularly frustratingly vague puzzle. Regardless, the second you begin to move on -- there is a hideous, horrifying shriek from the bowels of the shrine that rumbles across the entirety of the building. -Something- reacts to your presence, and from the ground liquid Malevolence -explodes- forth, spearing up through the ceiling in rapidly crystallizing tongues of rock-hard, Malevolent substance. It sizzles with its agitating presence -- and very decisively blocks your way in a frusstratingly desperate clot. It's okay. It's just like a door. And you know how to deal with doors by now, right? =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
Yaaay friendship!
Dean says he'll take it and Kaguya says, "I mean just because it's simpler not to fight if we're working together, that's all." Pause. She looks at Rebecca, and she actually does grin almost pleasantly. "I do like roses," she says. "Any pretty flower with thorns really knows what it's about, you know?"
She looks to Harmaus though and nods. "That's right--Malevolence, here on Filgaia. That's not usual. There's got to be a reason. I didn't get to study it in Hyland more than a little, but..."
Ida mentions it must have been oiled, and Kaguya can see the logic. She wonders, "Is it part of something larger? I didn't think the locals here had machinery like this..." Pause.
"Okay," Kaguya admits as she glances back at Ida with her living metal support, "That's a cool trick. Hey, can I get a sample later? Since we're friends now. Just a little blood. That has gotta do weird things to your cells."
She will not be terribly heartbroken if she is (almost inevitably) rebuffed. But can't blame her for asking, right?
Wait, someone can??? Terrible!
Either way once they're past Kaguya shakes out her arms a little, rolling her shoulders as if stiff. "That was unpleasant," she remarks. "I'll lead the way for this part--it might be dangerous." Pause. "...Because I'm tougher than you humans, obviously."
She does; for a little ways they walk along, but at the end of the path, right as the passage is prepared to open up, something reacts. Something awful comes--there is a horrible shriek that rumbles across the whole building, and Kaguya jumps halfway out of her skin again, wordlessly shouting at the thing back. Liquid Malevolence bursts forth from the ground, and it crystallizes rapidly to block their path.
"Oh, no," Kaguya says, as if angry--no, definitely angry. "No no I am not going to have my way blocked by spiritual gunk, not today." She reaches into her bag and pulls a small silver object, lit by a few green flashing bits on the sides, and kneels down to start to place it on the center of the mass. "If anybody else has a way through that's great, but otherwise I'm just going to blow it up. See how it likes exploding."
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Magnetic Resonance Bomb toward her party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
"Is fine," Harmaus insists, as Boudicca worries after him. "This, what we sought. Seeking Malevolence here on the Blue Star for a long, long time..."
He seems almost... excited, that frission that might come over a person when they're facing down an answer to a problem they've been chewing over for some time.
Because, as Kaguya says, it just isn't found around here naturally. "Yes... it wonders us what happened, here," murmurs the Seraph.
'Isn't it literally poisonous to you?' Rebecca asks Harmaus.
He waves a hand at her dismissively. "Misconception. Myth," the Seraph replies, shaking his head. "We needs only acclimate ourself to it..."
The tainted gears are levered out of the way. A low hiss slips Harmaus' lips as he lets go of the gear and shakes out his hand. For a moment, Harmaus hesitates, regarding the gears again, as if he were considering pulling one of them down to take along.
But he appears to reach some internal consensus and shakes his head. They're soon left behind.
"Stranger and stranger yet," he remarks. "Expected, of 'what lies behind'. None yet prepares for this."
And then liquid Malevolence just jets across their pathway, narrowly missing him.
And rapidly hardens over. "Ah," Harmus rumbles, pulling out another draught and downing it before stepping in to attempt to move a part of the blockage manually.
...Or try an collect a souvenir. Either/or?
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Titanforce Extract toward his party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean tilts his head in puzzlement at Rebecca's joke about maybe Kaguya producing flowers after all. It takes him a moment to get it, it having been a long time since he thought about Kaguya's botany skills, but then he utters, "Oh!! Haha, yeah, maybe you're right!"
Though it's only natural that Kaguya likes pretty flowers with thorns. Dean shakes his head, but he smiles as he does. He's not above poking goodnatured fun at her either, for when Kaguya says she'll take point, he teases, "Awwww, that's so nice of you, Kaguya!" Her adding that it's totally because she's tougher does not in any way dissuade him.
It's just as well that Kaguya takes point anyway, because before long, Malevolence bursts out of the ground like the liquid center of a Gusher. Not that Gushers exist in this world. And unlike a Gusher, it spears into the ceiling and hardens on the spot. Dean gawks at it.
"Rude!!" he concludes. He dusts his hands up again to increase their grip and reduce slippage. "Guess we're just gonna have to knock it down!"
After Kaguya throws a bomb at it, anyway.
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Purifying Chalk toward his party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida manages to make it through the first fifteen or so seconds. That's something. Eventually, though, it reaches a fever pitch--she can feel the anxiety tightening into a hard, dense knot around her heart. Her hands shake. She wants to run and hide.
And then Boudicca is there, beside her, the smoke from the brazier Ida made parting the curtain oa Malevolence. Ida breathes in, and looks at her dear friend. "No," she says, in a shaky voice. "But I will be."
Kaguya then ruins the moment by asking if she can take a sample. Ida's expression twists into a scowl as she turns to the Veruni. "N--no," she says.
Ida's hands are still shaking as Harmaus brushes off Rebecca's very good point. "Do you have a vessel?" she says, her tone decidedly pointed. "Because if not, there is nothing standing between your sensitive spiritual makeup and the ocean of Malevolence we are wading through at present." If nothing else, Harmaus has given her something (semi-)productive to do with her anxiety.
The shrine itself seems to call her bluff. Ida jumps, again, and clenches both hands into fists. Malevolence erupts from the ground, crystallizing into a very solid obstruction. Ida grits her teeth. The desperation emanating from it is palpable. It resonates with her. "One moment," she says, to Kaguya.
Ida draws back an armored fist. Golden-white light boils off her knuckles, engulfing the faintest hint of orange-red fire. Paradoxical confusion skitters through the back of her mind. For the first time, Ida considers the impact of the graft's former owners on the matter of Malevolence.
Only for a second. There's no time to waste. Ida throws the punch, which explodes against the wall in a shockwave of fire and light.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Harmaus engenders INCREASING CONCERN, but in the middle of screaming gears is hardly the time for a deep philosophical discussion on the nature of death for immortal beings, so she doesn't grill him on his ideas about Malevolence.
She just makes a mental note to keep an eye on him while they're down here. ... just in case.
"It is not appropriate to ask someone for their blood," Boudicca informs Kaguya, imparting a Cool Socialisation Hint under the presumption that Kaguya is at least trying.
(Boudicca had to get Cool Socialisation Hints when she was new to society, and now she's paying it forward.)
This is apparently an evaluation which works perfectly well, because Kaguya proceeds to throw herself into danger to protect humanity! ... more or less. "Then I will cede to your example," she agrees, more amicably. Onwards! Behind a tough Veruni, obviously.
But this place is not done screaming. Boudicca jumps back a little, the sort of agitated little hop which might bring to mind a protesting bird. She slips a little more coal into her brazier, and the flames light up again, a spiritual bolster for those breaking through. "Break through," she directs, or suggests, or maybe just hopes.
But there's something about not being able to prepare for this...
Ida asked the obvious question, before. Boudicca's is of a similar strain: "Harmaus... how often have you dealt with Malevolence, yourself..?"
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Bestial Brazier toward her party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca squints at Harmaus as he says it's a myth. Though she doesn't try to refute him.
While she doesn't trust his word, she barely knows anything about malevolence(Most of it from fighting Ida if she were to be honest but she's not about to announce that), and he's from a world that deals with it daily.
"Well if you say so..." She doesn't sound too convinced though. Especially as Ida presses the point. And she simply takes a step back and lets her take point on the Harmaus inquisition.
"Iiii remember." Rebecca replies to Kaguya, and not tersely for once? Strange, she seems to actually be enjoying having Kaguya around this time. When most of the time she hasn't. Did something change? Though she then grins wide as Dean gets a chuckle.
Even past the gears, the malevolence comes at them, bursting out of the ground and hardening...
... Rebecca's not kicking that - maybe it's Kaguya calling it gunk that put her off. Instead she simply draws her ARM and starts unloading on some of its narrower points to make it easier for the others to break it.
"Can it do that on purpose by itself?" Rebecca questions, a bead of sweat on her forehead - as she wonders if something is directing the malevolence here to do these things.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, The Caustic Clot.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= =======================<* CHALLENGE - The Caustic Clot *>======================= |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: brute |Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- You might be walking across a stone walkway when it happens, or ascending a staircase. Or maybe you just finished a particularly frustratingly vague puzzle. Regardless, the second you begin to move on -- there is a hideous, horrifying shriek from the bowels of the shrine that rumbles across the entirety of the building. -Something- reacts to your presence, and from the ground liquid Malevolence -explodes- forth, spearing up through the ceiling in rapidly crystallizing tongues of rock-hard, Malevolent substance. It sizzles with its agitating presence -- and very decisively blocks your way in a frusstratingly desperate clot. It's okay. It's just like a door. And you know how to deal with doors by now, right? =Dungeon Conditions: Overzealous==============================================
===========<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar - Round 3 *>============ =========================< Results - The Caustic Clot >========================= Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 16 --(4)--> 20 Pass Titanforce Extract 3 Brute Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya 16 --(4)--> 20 Pass Magnetic Resonance Bomb 3 Brute Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 16 --(4)--> 20 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 16 --(4)--> 20 Pass Purifying Chalk 1 Brute Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 23 --(4)--> 27 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 16 --(4)--> 20 Pass Bestial Brazier 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(2) Effects: Cleanse|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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> Kaguya has posed.
Rebecca remembers! Kaguya will in turn remember that. But shortly there is Dean, and she siiiighs, put upon. See what she has to deal with? "It's fine. It's just practical," she says, and peers at Boudicca as if sizing up whether she thinks she's nice or something.
Still--Not only no, but inappropriate. "Oh, so?" Kaguya asks Boudicca. She seems to be willing to humor Boudicca, maybe because it's more fun than the alternative about being bothered to her rudeness. "Ah, well. I don't know much about biometal anyway, it'd just be a distraction to other research." So she's fairly good-natured about it, too. It... really does seem to have just been a whim.
Maybe that's worse.
"Harm is about as sensitive as I am," Kaguya says with a laugh to Ida, clearly unconcerned with his safety. But she does sit back and watch the efforts against the wall; Ida's blast of force, bolstered by Boudicca's power. Rebecca perhaps wisely doesn't touch it, but Harmaus is able to dislodge some manually. Indeed, by the time this is done...
"Okay, so I can turn the output on this way down to get us the rest of the way faster."
She puts in the bomb--and the explosion that follows is relatively small, but pulverizes more of the crystalline field--indeed it shatters, and from there Dean's gloved hands get the biggest chunks out of the way so that they can walk onward.
"I don't know much about Malevolence," Kaguya admits, "Just what I learned in Hyland. So I dunno if this means someone's directing it or what... But I think it can just bubble out like this," she tells Rebecca.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has drawn a new Challenge.
===============<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================ ==================<* CHALLENGE - The Illusion of Anxiety *>=================== |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The pathways of the Sacrificial Grounds are grimly linear; after all, there is only one, inevitable endpoint to this place, and there is no escaping that simple fact of fate. However, as you walk across aging stoneways, there is a horrifying shriek from much deeper in the altar -- And suddenly, you find yourself facing two, branching paths of stone. Take the wrong one, and two paths become four. Four become eight. Eight become sixteen. Until you are surrounded by a dizzying, impossible degree of branching options, with no clear sign which is the right way -- and nothing but a growing panic of uncertainty that seeps into the soul deeper and deeper, the more those paths and choices open up. What is the right way, when there is no easy way forward? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca just squints at Kaguya on that remark, as if she's 'Not so sure that's true.' Though she lets it slide. Fortunately the wall shatters. "Well that's a relief."
It's hard to say if it's the fact that they made it through it, or that malevolence can just do that and it doesn't mean some scary Hellion dog is going to jump out and get them.
They come to a tunnel with two branches in a Y. And Rebecca pulls off a glove, licking her thumb and holding it up one way, then the other - like she's trying to feel the air currents. "Left feels better ventilated. which means... probably right to go deeper?" She leads the party right.
... except it turns out to be wrong. When the path turns into four options, each just subtly different.
"Maybe we... double back and check what's down the other path?"
Cut to them doubling back only for the two paths to be replaced by eight.
Rebecca cuts her hand to the side, and calls out, "Now that's just immature!" ... quite maturely. As if she were calling out the malevolence.
"Okay so... let's try our best to remain calm. If it's doing this to us - then maybe there's no right answer. Maybe it's all just about keeping a cool head."
With that, Rebecca takes out her Travel Diary, puts her back to a wall as she unclasps it, opening to a random page and starts reading to herself.
Maybe if she lets herself let go and read some poetry for a while, then she'll forget that growing anxiety gnawing into her chest.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Rebecca's Travel Diary toward her party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
The pillar of solidified Malevolence, or maybe Malevolent material?, shatters under the combined efforts of Deanfield And Friends! (we're (we're) ready (ready) to (to) partyyy!!!) Kaguya then explains that Malevolence can probably just do stuff like this, although she's no expert, either. "It must," Dean remarks, looking down at the fragments as they all walk onwards. "I mean, it literally just did."
Not very reassuring, either way.
Past there, they find a branching path. Rebecca suggests right, and it turns out to be wrong, but when they double back, they've got quadruple the paths.
"Wow! This is terrible!" Dean declares. He pulls out his Danger Sphere. Spira didn't have Malevolence per se, but they could see this kind of stuff, so maybe it's got something on file about this?
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Danger Sphere toward his party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
Ida asks what is, perhaps, a very important question. Slowly, Harmaus turns his gaze upon her.
And he gestures towards himself.
"This body is my vessel," he says, dropping to the singular for perhaps the first time in the presence of all concerned. "Is sufficient," he says, his lips curling into a smile. "And if it fails, I obtains another."
Until the day he's ready.
He feels fine, now.
The pain is just part of facing the truth.
Boudicca asks about his familiarity with Malevolence.
"Ah."
He straightens, pulling away from the section he'd been touching before.
His hand hurts.
He welcomes it.
"It thinks we unfamiliar?" he asks, tilting his head to one side. "Or, what is term, 'out of depths'? Jaeja. We fights against Malevolence for most of existence. Until we realizes..." He rolls his shoulders, winces, and exhales a sigh. "...ah, but a story for another time," Harmaus says, shaking his head.
He glances over at Kaguya, and slightly, slightly shakes his head.
They're able to prise -- or blast -- their way through the blockage, after a fashion. Harmaus comes away with a chunk of the stuff, which he's able to inspect for a moment or two...
Before he's forced to drop it among the rest of the rubble.
His hand is really hurting now.
He's already decided that this is fine.
In a more pensive mood when they encounter the branch ahead, he follows after the rest of them as they head down the one fork, then double back to encounter an... improved alternate version of the same.
"Tcha. Pick one and go ahead," he recommends, selecting a path at seemingly random and heading on down it.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has contributed a Wits Basic Action toward his party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida's lips tighten as Harmaus speaks. For the first time, she realizes she is not seeing Harmaus proper, but the human Harmaus is possessing. She wonders, grimly, if this arrangement was consensual on the human's part.
This time, when that hideous shriek rends the air, Ida simply cringes. It's a full-body thing, tight as a drawn bowstring, but it's over in a few moments. Ida opens her eyes, and focuses on her breath. The air here is thick with Malevolence, but she remembers Lily's exercises all the same. In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. Slowly, the tension begins to boil off.
Of course, while all this is happening, Rebecca has found something distressing further down the corridor. When Ida catches up with her, she frowns, eyeing the branching tree. "Whatever is in here is clearly strong enough to warp local space," she says. "We used that to our advantage at Castle Rabenstein." The Furies were able to change the castle's internal spatial geometry at their convenience--Ida used it frequently when she needed to get a drink in the middle of the night. "Here, though..." She considers Rebecca. "I think you might be right."
Ida pulls her multitool from a pocket and unfolds the file. She starts making marks at regular intervals, focusing as much on the act of filing as her surroundings. Deep breaths.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool ARMS Meister's Field Kit toward her party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
All Seraphim share commonalities, to ask Boudicca; they are one people. She is inclined to be permissive of her brethren, even given their transgressions. But there's something about how Harmaus says that, which...
No, she's worried about him. That much is plain, the way she glances back to Ida.
(There's a reason she's holding up a brazier - empowering humanity to work - instead of digging through those pillars with her own two hands.)
But down the path they go, and the path betrays them. Boudicca takes a deep breath, and then another. "Do not panic," she advises them.
She might be talking to herself.
"If the path obsfucates, we will simply have to mark it ourselves." She pulls out one of those trusty BAGS OF TRAIL MIX, and starts... dropping nuts down as they walk! In this manner, they can at least figure out where they've been before.
So long as the floor doesn't shift under them. Look, it's a plan in motion, all right?
DG: Seraph Boudicca has used her Tool Emergency Supplies toward her party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
The small Veruni nods along to Dean, rather than to Rebecca, on the matter of Malevolence and its apparent properties. "Certainly seems to have."
Kaguya watches Ida and Harmaus for a few moments, and shares that glance with him, before she focuses on his hand for a little while. Burned or something, by that material...
But when they're among the pathways, Kaguya notices Rebecca's trouble. And theirs, for that matter. "So judging the path by the air isn't going to do it," Kaguya reasons at Rebecca's difficulty. "Yeah. We've gotta be methodical here." Uncertainty does not, at first, strain her overmuch; she is used to a certain amount of it, after all. It will take time for it to seep into a quantity that bothers her.
She pulls a small green case and from it, a little vial; she leans down next to Ida as she makes the marks, and fills each mark with a faintly glowing liquid. "All it does is glow," Kaguya says. "But it'll make the marks easier to spot. If we don't find our marks, though, I'm gonna have to try radar or something."
"...Oo, snacks." Pause. "Ugh nevermind I can't eat anything with this gunk around."
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Mad Science Case toward her party's challenge, The Illusion of Anxiety.
===============<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================ ==================<* CHALLENGE - The Illusion of Anxiety *>=================== |Type: exploration |Dungeon Ability: wits |Challenge Rating: 1 | --------------------------< Challenge Information: >-------------------------- The pathways of the Sacrificial Grounds are grimly linear; after all, there is only one, inevitable endpoint to this place, and there is no escaping that simple fact of fate. However, as you walk across aging stoneways, there is a horrifying shriek from much deeper in the altar -- And suddenly, you find yourself facing two, branching paths of stone. Take the wrong one, and two paths become four. Four become eight. Eight become sixteen. Until you are surrounded by a dizzying, impossible degree of branching options, with no clear sign which is the right way -- and nothing but a growing panic of uncertainty that seeps into the soul deeper and deeper, the more those paths and choices open up. What is the right way, when there is no easy way forward? =Dungeon Conditions: Reckless=================================================
==========<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar - Round 4 *>=========== ====================< Results - The Illusion of Anxiety >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Harmaus 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Investigate 0 Wits Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kaguya 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Mad Science Case 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rebecca Streisand 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Rebecca's Travel Diary 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dean Stark 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Danger Sphere 2 Wits Effects: Resilient ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ida Everstead-Rey 27 --(4)--> 31 Pass ARMS Meister's Field Kit 2 Wits Effects: Enlighten ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seraph Boudicca 20 --(4)--> 24 Pass Emergency Supplies 1 Wits Effects: Cleanse ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Seraph Harmaus 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Overzealous(1)|Reckless(2) Effects: Cleanse|Enlighten(1)|Resilient(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus 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: Seraph Boudicca has drawn a new Challenge.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= ========<* CHALLENGE - Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice *>======== |Type: final |Dungeon Ability: combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There is a crystal here, pulsing between shades of purer red, and polluted violet. Touching it transports you all in a seething flash of ley's light and Malevolent contradiction, deeper in to the heart of the grounds, where the Malevolence thrives thickest. And it is here, in a large, circular chamber, that you find it. An egg. A tremendous, black egg, hanging in the center of a large altar. The eggs surface bubbles like boiling liquid, rippling now and then in rhythmic patterns like the thing was breathing. Every 'breath' makes the very earth tremble, sending liquid fissures of Malevolence gouting like a volcanic eruption from the egg's oval surface. And attached to this egg? A multitude of Malevolent chains, running from somewhere else in the grounds into the egg to hold and support its weight. No -- more than that. They are feeding it Malevolence, like an incubating egg thrives and is nurtured on heat. The platform you arrive on contains one such chain leading towards this egg; surrounding it are countless spectres of the fallen -- sacrifices of the grounds from long past still clinging on by the sheer weight of their burdens and the desperation it was spawned from, the most negative aspects of these sacrifices' final moments given horrible life by the Malevolence afflicting the shrine. These phantasms turn on you, and as whatever is inside the egg shrieks, they wail in turn -- and attack. The first one defeated, the chain trembles. The second, the chain begins to crack like it was rusting. The phantasms are feeding and strengthening the chain's binding, and, in turn, feeding and strengthening the egg. Every one defeated, weakens the chain. Defeat enough of these desperate, lost souls, and... =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
"... Happy that you think so." Rebecca smiles at Ida as she glances up from her diary. "I'm no expert after all on malevolence. I prefer fighting something more straight forward, like a skeletal wyvern." She says with a wink.
Each of them takes their own approach to the anxiety of this place. Dean looks into the danger sphere - and while it grants him no specific information, the strange way the pyreflies within seem to interact with malevolence might grant him clues on where the malevolence is the thickest. Boudicca, Kaguya and Ida mark the path.
Malevolence claims some of them. A shell of a nut is gone. A file marking there vanishes. At one point it makes Kaguya's faintly glowing liquid look more like a normal puddle...
Yet the persistence of three of them doggedly marking the path competes well enough that they don't lose their way.
Ultimately though, it's Harmaus' walk down a random path that brings them through. Though the method does increase the anxiety of it for many of them because...
Eight paths become sixteen.
Sixteen paths become thirty two.
Thirty two becomes Sixty Four.
Yet he keeps picking a random path.
128
256
Beyond counting.
And then picking a random path simply deposits them in a singular corridor - as if the maze had never existed, or just didn't matter. RUDE!
Pick at random defeating methodical trial and error is rather frustrating.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
And just like that, there is no more maze.
Thanks, Harmaus.
At the end of the corridor pulses a crystal, with no door to speak of. These places have their own language; that sick presence yearns for human contact.
It's a trap, of course.
Touch the crystal and the environment is touched, too, a shimmer-step to the side of reality all wreathed in purple-red. The image resolves - a chamber with no corners, all filed down. But isn't it natural to take care with those things...
... in a creche?
In the centre of the circle lies an altar; in the centre of the altar lies an egg. It is something like alive, in all the ways an egg is not. It breathes. Malevolence roils from it.
Eggs are designed to lie apart from the mother, but Malevolence has confused this, too: a dozen umbilical cords in the form of dark chains, stretching out to attach to the egg's surface, feeding it, sustaining it.
One of those is attached to this very platform.
This very platform, and all of its ghosts.
Turn your eyes from the sacrifices of the present to the sacrifices of the past. Their eyes turn to you, empty of everything but their despair, their horror, their tears. They are innumerable.
They are angry.
One launches forward, and Boudicca, without thinking, strikes back - embers catching on the edge of her tonfa like a match striking, to burn away what was left. The chain soon shows the logical conclusion of settling these souls: with each one put down, it weakens.
"We must fight!" Boudicca concludes, on seeing this, tonfa in hand.
DG: Seraph Boudicca has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Harmaus has posed.
This reason, perhaps more than any of his other plots and schemes or general distasteful eccentricities, is why no one really likes Harmaus.
Sometimes he turns out to be right.
"Is simple," he remarks, once the paths no longer branch, and they are set on a straight path to the heart of this place.
That throbs, unrelenting, like some sick joke of a heart.
Harmaus is no less keener than before, quick on his feet as they open the way forward.
As they see the egg.
"Ah," Harmaus rumbles, and, sounds like one who has seen a beloved for the first time after a long absence. "Ah, to think here, would be..."
But an approach to it is no easy task.
Not the least because this chamber is flush with angry ghosts.
"Tcha," Harmaus growls. "It is in the way! ...Matters us not. We handles it now! Now, hush!"
He slowly uncoils the fingers of one hand. A single small bell drops from his grasp, held aloft by a red cord.
It chimes its calming, silencing ring once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Stop.
DG: Seraph Harmaus has used his Tool Amulet Bell toward his party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Snacks!!
Aw no she's dropping them on the floor. Even Dean's not *that* hungry.
The team gets through the strange labyrinth of exponential paths. Dean's not exactly sure how? But they didn't give up and they got through and that's what matters. Anything is possible as long as you don't give up!
And as a reward for their persistence, they encounter... an egg. Not just any egg, but a massive egg, wrapped in chains and angry ghosts, roiling with Malevolence. Instinctively, Dean drops into a combat pose, Twin Fenrir flashing into hand. These guys are scary. They're scary, but he won't let them scare him. "Let's take these ghosts out!" he shouts in agreement with Boudicca, and joins the fray.
A spray of gunfire here. A whistle of handle-rods there. And, when one spirit swoops down directly for him, Dean trades his ARMs for his Devil Arm and swings overhead--CLANG--right on that jerk's head.
...
Wait, aren't ghosts immaterial? How did that work??
DG: Dean Stark has used his Tool Ace of Spades toward his party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida doesn't dwell too long on the physics of the infinite branching maze. What matters is that they got through. What lies beyond?
Ida has no context for whatever took place in this chamber. She sees the altar, the grotesque thing suspended above it, the Malevolent chains holding the egg in place. The veritable army of specters surrounding it, all united by their garb, their presence here, and the terror in their eyes. Ida stops in her tracks, struggling to comprehend what could've caused all this. Then the thing within the egg shrieks, and the specters rush them.
"Look away!" Ida shouts. She whips a metal cylinder off her belt, and touches it to an ignition filament in her palm. A fastball throw sends the grenade sailing into the biggest cluster of shades, where it erupts in a blinding flash and a thunderous bang. Ida wastes no time. She sucks in a breath, and whispers something under her breath, soft and prayer-like. It is not a prayer to Granas.
"Moor Gault," she whispers, "guide me." Ida whips Devil's Due from its holster, and takes aim. Phantasmal sparks fly from her hand, and from the weapon's barrel; the Malevolence around her thins, ever-so-slightly.
She opens fire. A tongue of Dragonflame erupts from the barrel, racing towards the shades. The Malevolence in the air starts to burn away, transmuted into pure white smoke that smells of wood-fire and incense. There is no way Ida can purify all this by herself, but damned if she's not going to try to do what she can.
DG: Ida Everstead-Rey has used her Tool Flare Grenade toward her party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
<Pose Tracker> Kaguya has posed.
"Thaaaaat was annoying," Kaguya declares when the maze is over and done with. "Hey, what's this--"
Kaguya is not the one to touch it, but she is present when reality shimmer-steps, and frowns, stumbling with a moment's vertigo as she looks around and sees... awful, chilling things. Chains, stretching out and out, from a breathing, sickly egg. Nausea is not unfamiliar to a girl weighted with illness; she feels some of it here.
But worse are the ghosts; their eyes turn to them, so obviously dead and gone, and Kaguya's eyes widen. It has been some time, since she's been obligated to deal with things like this. A long, long way away from the time she scrambled away from a Skeleton who wouldn't give up.
"Tch........"
Fear and anger go together quite well. Harmaus growls and rings a peaceful bell. But Kaguya instead calls to Dean, "Let's!"
She crouches down, squeezing her eyes shut briefly to avoid Idas flashbang, and with a cry of what seems like rage digs slams a fist into the floor--and rips out a chunk of it that she then swings into the mass of ghosts.
DG: Kaguya has used her Tool Loot Abuse toward her party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
<Pose Tracker> Rebecca Streisand has posed.
Rebecca takes one look at the egg, with dark chains attached like umbilical cords. Rebecca then looks down at the innumerable ghosts and starts. Making a sound in her throat, she draws her ARM bringing it out in a quick flourish while her other brings out her Medium, her arms crossed.
"No argument here Dean." She says far too quickly - her tone sounding less resolved and more as if she'd made a plea of 'Yes please' to the group. Then she starts firing at the charging ghosts in a suppressing barrage.
Though as they get closer, she simply invokes her medium. Hexagonal fire energy rises up around her and suddenly erupts into a curtain of flashfire that erupts forth from each spectral creature, one by one.
Internally though: There's a lot of screaming the closer they get.
If anyone looks at her closely, she's biting the inside of her lip.
Could it be? That Rebecca is actually terrified of ghosts? ... Nah couldn't be. After all she's hanging out with two right now.
DG: Rebecca Streisand has used her Tool Sky Medium toward her party's challenge, Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice.
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= ========<* CHALLENGE - Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice *>======== |Type: final |Dungeon Ability: combat |Challenge Rating: 2 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- There is a crystal here, pulsing between shades of purer red, and polluted violet. Touching it transports you all in a seething flash of ley's light and Malevolent contradiction, deeper in to the heart of the grounds, where the Malevolence thrives thickest. And it is here, in a large, circular chamber, that you find it. An egg. A tremendous, black egg, hanging in the center of a large altar. The eggs surface bubbles like boiling liquid, rippling now and then in rhythmic patterns like the thing was breathing. Every 'breath' makes the very earth tremble, sending liquid fissures of Malevolence gouting like a volcanic eruption from the egg's oval surface. And attached to this egg? A multitude of Malevolent chains, running from somewhere else in the grounds into the egg to hold and support its weight. No -- more than that. They are feeding it Malevolence, like an incubating egg thrives and is nurtured on heat. The platform you arrive on contains one such chain leading towards this egg; surrounding it are countless spectres of the fallen -- sacrifices of the grounds from long past still clinging on by the sheer weight of their burdens and the desperation it was spawned from, the most negative aspects of these sacrifices' final moments given horrible life by the Malevolence afflicting the shrine. These phantasms turn on you, and as whatever is inside the egg shrieks, they wail in turn -- and attack. The first one defeated, the chain trembles. The second, the chain begins to crack like it was rusting. The phantasms are feeding and strengthening the chain's binding, and, in turn, feeding and strengthening the egg. Every one defeated, weakens the chain. Defeat enough of these desperate, lost souls, and... =Dungeon Conditions: Wound====================================================
===========<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar - Round 5 *>============ ==========< Results - Desperation's Chains ~ The Shades of Sacrifice >========== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Harmaus 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Amulet Bell 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kaguya 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Loot Abuse 2 Combat Effects: Cleanse and Sacrifice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Streisand 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Sky Medium 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dean Stark 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Ace of Spades 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ida Everstead-Rey 31 --(8)--> 39 Pass Flare Grenade 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seraph Boudicca 24 --(8)--> 32 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Seraph Harmaus 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Reckless(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Cleanse|Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Seraph Harmaus has successfully explored Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar!
================<* Sacrificial Grounds ~ Desperation's Altar *>================= ================<* CHALLENGE - The Altar's Chains ~ Shattered *>================ |Type: discovery |Dungeon Ability: conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 | ---------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------- As the last of the obstacles fueling the chain are taken care of, the Malevolence-wrought tether begins to tremble. Cracklines form throughout its gleaming, glowing metallic-purple surface, before the contradictory links of it snap, one by one, and the entire thing breaks apart, swinging dangerously low and wild as it disconnects from the egg it had been so chillingly supporting. It shatters into a thousand little motes of Malevolent light before it can swing into -you-, leaving nothing but the chamber, the remaining chains, and the egg. The egg-like structure sags slightly, and small, glowing fissures run through its surface as the thing rumbles. One chain down. With any luck, others will be taking care of the rest. =Dungeon Conditions: =========================================================
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
With a flash-bang, the battle starts in earnest.
CLANG, an angry shade is staggered by Devil Arm. Malevolence does not deign to make sense; it works, somehow. So too do the bullets rip through them. It hurts them. They are hurt, all pain, all suffering.
Clink-chime, an Amulet Bell sounds through the battle. Five Malevolent remnants were ready to tear Harmaus to shreds; five Malevolent remnants curl in on themselves, like sunflowers after dark.
Boudicca lights up, the orange flecks on her cloak glowing red; that fire feeds into Devil's Due, furnace to hammer, as Ida burns away the Malevolence of the memories around her.
Their fire, together, is not the only flame here: Rebecca faces those terrible ghosts, and columns of inferno consume yet more.
But with so many foes standing on this platform, and so few of them, what are they to do..?
Kaguya's solution is simple: reduce the size of the platform. She tears chunks of it out, flinging them at the Malevolent. It is as effective as debris always is: blunt, but the point lands. It would be easy to say, as the shades thin out, that Kaguya's angry destruction of the scenery is what loosens the chain.
It would at least be... partially correct.
One hairline fracture begets another; soon it cracks, one link breaking, another-another-another, and the chain whips wildly but at just the point it would come down on the remains of their platform it loses its coherence entirely. All that assaults them are those little motes of light, as the chain is destroyed.
It is not the only chain here.
And yet... it is one less chain.