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It was inevitable

15 (42.9%)

Winners don't do drugs

6 (17.1%)

I'll be back

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Drink the Kool Aid

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Groovy

3 (8.6%)

Insane in the membrane

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Total Members Voted: 35

[Lenglon]

((Unless you meant that as a notification to the other characters around you that they can do this IC if they want.))

((Meant it as a notification to other characters around me that they can do that IC if they want.))

[NAV]

"Should I attack?"

[Xantalos]

((Holy shit, I'm still alive?))

[Parisbre56]

((Holy shit, I'm still alive?))

((You got lucky and only one parasite got interested in you. You got a 6 at most rolls. And you happen to have a penalty on most of those rolls, so they turned to 5. Plus, with some changes, that plan would actually be very good, due to reasons. You could say your character did something so stupid it came full circle and became smart.))

[Xantalos]

((Huh. THE DICE PROTECT THEIR FAVORITE PUNCHING BAG))

Alan can't think of anything after that experience besides the following:
I'm a fucking genius.

Keep slowly edging towards the light. Keep perfectly still if I sense any octopus coming near me. Utilize the hole that one punched in it for seeing purposes.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

((Whoops, missed the last turn due to reasons.))

Campaign

Zechariah sighs, having taken in the turn of events. He didn't think that Alan would be so... unaware.
Then again, it would seem that Zechariah is wrong most of the time, if not all of the time. At the very least, he should be putting his powers to use right about now and not internally shaming himself for not knowing any better.

"I really hope that they cannot detect light, because that would seriously inhibit my ability to manipulate crystals at this time. Though, considering Irene's fireballs, I guess not."

Use Irene's fires to construct some crystal shields in front of me. Keep them jagged and sharp, so that I may break them apart and send them flying at enemies if needed at a moment's notice. Mainly, however, aim to use them as defensive items and move them accordingly to defend teammates as necessary.

[NAV]

Sling a boulder aiming to take out as many of the damn things as possible. Then defend self and others with the sword.

[Parisbre56]

Campaign

Campaign, Ike!

"I'm kind of glad this doesn't seem to be actual powdered metal in the air. I kind of like not being on fire," Ike observes as he watches Irene try yet another of her zany, showy schemes. Truly fire is the ultimate element of buffoonery.

"Either they're unintelligent or lack sensory organs. Meaning I can do this without giving us away."

"Astute as always, my dear."

Step away a bit from the group discreetly. Listen for yellow land octopus ssp. invisible in the area, and pay attention to the octopuses I can see. Do they look like ssp. yellow or ssp. invisible (var. visible)?

In fact, is it entirely correct to say that ssp. yellow and ssp. invisible (var. visible) are true subspecies at all? Is there a gradient between the two that may indicate it is instead healthiness and abundance of food that separates them rather than a genetic gulf?

Whatever may be the case, this is clearly a job for Ike, naturalist extraordinaire! Prepare to dodge!

((Are you sure about that powdered metal bit? Because based on the research I did when building this place, copper powder has an ignition temperature of around 1000^oC and does not explode in standard conditions, so combined with non-standard environmental factors and the weird physics of the place you are in, the risk of sustained fire should not be that great. It should just turn lightning and Irene's fires green, make fires a bit stronger and cause small fires around thunder strike craters without causing immediate problems. It's far more likely to die by all the nasty things copper can do to the body in the long term when inhaled. Then again, I know nothing about chemistry, so I could be entirely incorrect, in which case we simply attribute the whole thing to magic. Anyway.))

The creatures close to the portal are mostly of the yellow variety, with a small number of them being of the whitish yellow variety. ((Which I just noticed I accidentally wrote as whitish white when I was giving you the description.))

As for hearing them, you can't detect any of them nearby, although you do sense some descending the end of the canyon walls as they make their way closer to the pillar of light.

From the specimens you were able to observe so far, there does not appear to be much gradience between the two kinds you've fought. Then again, maybe the transformation from one to another requires a particular event to happen, something that happens quickly enough to leave little room for gradients to appear.

You prepare to dodge while taking mental notes for your book "On the Origin of Yellow Land Octopuses by Means of Unnatural Occultism, or the Decimation of Pesky Parasites in the Struggle for the Portal". You briefly wonder how a caricature of a tentacled Ike would look like.

Irine, Campaign
"Either they're unintelligent or lack sensory organs. Meaning I can do this without giving us away."

Direct my four circling spheres of flame to split into 16 (or if doing this makes them too small to be effective or sustainable, a smaller value, if I could split them further and remain stable and effective, then a larger value. I'm (Lenglon) estimating their size right now.) and send them arcing up and then down upon the parasites. as individual parasites fall to the rain of fire, collect the flames from its body and send them arcing up and on to another one, or split to target two if the amount of fire is sufficiently large. the one orb I'm keeping near me, stays near me for use against anything that gets close. start at the parasites nearest me and advance as the distance starts to become a strain.

You split your fires into about a dozen spheres, select some of the closest parasites you can see and send the spheres towards them in a long arc. The attack seems to be going well at first, as your aim is good and the creatures make no visible effort to get out of its way. However the moment the flames engulf them, they begin squirming, moving quickly and erratically, trying to get away from the fire. You do your best to keep an eye on their movements and adjust your attack accordingly. You manage to incapacitate more than half of your targets, however it is going much slower and is much more mentally tiring than you would have liked.

((Whoops, missed the last turn due to reasons.))

Campaign

Zechariah sighs, having taken in the turn of events. He didn't think that Alan would be so... unaware.
Then again, it would seem that Zechariah is wrong most of the time, if not all of the time. At the very least, he should be putting his powers to use right about now and not internally shaming himself for not knowing any better.

"I really hope that they cannot detect light, because that would seriously inhibit my ability to manipulate crystals at this time. Though, considering Irene's fireballs, I guess not."

Use Irene's fires to construct some crystal shields in front of me. Keep them jagged and sharp, so that I may break them apart and send them flying at enemies if needed at a moment's notice. Mainly, however, aim to use them as defensive items and move them accordingly to defend teammates as necessary.

You create a few light shards, drawing from the sphere Irene keeps by her side and arrange them in a defensive formation. They are not many, but hopefully you won't need many.

Sling a boulder aiming to take out as many of the damn things as possible. Then defend self and others with the sword.

You execute a perfect sling-tsar combo, using your power at exactly the right time and sending your stone-turned-boulder flying towards the creatures. It hits them like a bowling ball, crushing and incapacitating about twenty of them before it slows down and comes to rest on top of a crack on the ground. Quite impressive for something made out of a spare pair of pants.

Everyone except Xantalos
As the more ranged-combat-capable among you unleash their attacks, there is a notable shift in the movement patterns of the creatures surrounding the pillar of light. They start moving in your general direction, converging on your position. It is not an attack at the moment, it is more of a shifting of a flow, a drain becoming a stream. They are moving a bit faster, but not much faster than before. However their sheer numbers along with the fact that more of them seem to be arriving every minute does make this shift rather problematic.

River takes the lead, his body low and ready to pounce. He motions for you to follow him.
"Theri, stay with Irene and Zechariah.
Nikolai, remember your leg.
Move quick. Do not let them swarm you. Do not let them grab you."

((Huh. THE DICE PROTECT THEIR FAVORITE PUNCHING BAG))

Alan can't think of anything after that experience besides the following:
I'm a fucking genius.

Keep slowly edging towards the light. Keep perfectly still if I sense any octopus coming near me. Utilize the hole that one punched in it for seeing purposes.

((I am looking at my screen, shaking my head and smiling because the actions of your teammates mean you can continue unhindered barring some very bad rolls or very bad ideas.))

You continue moving forward for a while, covering a bit more than a quarter of the distance to your target. The shapes and colours visible inside the pillar start to become a bit clearer for you. However they are still too distorted to make out.

Unfortunately, you are forced to stop when something makes the ground shake, almost causing your box to tip and fall into a small crack in the stone beneath you. And then you are forced to stop again as more of those creatures pass by you, mostly ignoring you and your box. Probably has something to do with those orbs of greenish fire falling upon them. A few of them run their tendrils over it, causing a sound of flesh being dragged across paper to be emitted and making it move a bit. Still, it looks like once the bulk of them pass you by, there will be little standing between you and the pillar of light.

And then you notice something alarming. There is a sword-wielding humanoid shape obscuring the light coming from the pillar of light in front of you. And it is getting closer to you. There are more of the octopus creatures passing by you, you can hear them even now. One could say you have been... boxed in.

A lightning strike provides momentary illumination, allowing you to see a that what approaches is a human with the back of his head and his torso covered by whitish yellow land octopuses, their tendrils wrapped around the body parts tightly, causing his neck and cheeks to bruise and his armour to dent. He is staring forward with unmoving dead eyes, unblinking like the eyes of a snake.

((And then this happened, causing even more amusement.))

Staging Area

"Hrm. Definitely not where I was, I was falling through the sky before. Probably not a hallucination, neither I nor my subconscious designed this room. Probably. Not that the decor is bad, it's actually quite interesting, though personally I would throw in some metal, probably steel. Then again, my subconscious could be changing things up on me and this actually is a dream, but I don't think it's that time of the month. Not that I really care either way; worrying about that philosophical crap takes up too much time. Time that could be used for science. And monologuing."
Continue sitting for now.

Something red flashes on the receptionist's holographic display.
She presses it, says "Yes sir. Right away." in a serious tone and releases it, the red spot disappearing as she does so.
That done, she looks at you and speaks in a softer, more jaunty manner.
"He will see you now."
She makes a gesture towards the door closer to you, a double door made of the same dark plastic and with a glass door handle.
"Right through there."
With that, she returns her attention to the holographic display on the reception desk in front of her.

[Xantalos]

((Hehehhhehehehe.

Would you classify Silly String as a thing Alan could summon?))

[Parisbre56]

((Hehehhhehehehe.

Would you classify Silly String as a thing Alan could summon?))

((Hmmm... I think I'll allow it. Sounds like something you could find in a house.

Slightly relevant, I was surprised to see that Wikipedia says silly string is used at weddings. Those must be some very fun weddings.))

[Xantalos]

((Excellent. This'll go well even if it goes horribly.))

[Salsacookies]

Survival

Well, I'm behind a burning car, with no gun, and a bunch of angry thugs want me dead. I am going to push my car onto one of them. Crush a thug with it

[Wolfkit]

"Ah, yes, of course. Wouldn't want to be late for a meeting, especially with someone I don't know. I don't know anyone worth having a meeting with _{they all just tend to yell at me about 'Your experiments keep destroying sections of the city!" Feh. No appreciation for mad science.} so obviously this time it will be someone with appreciation of science."
Get up and walk through the double doors. Scribble cryptic comments on my clipboard while walking through the doors.

[Harry Baldman]

((As far as I know, any sort of metal dust in the air is very bad news if you have an open flame around. For example, examine this link over here - says that copper powder may form an explosive mixture with the air and that the autoignition temperature for a cloud of copper dust is 700 degrees Celsius, which makes sense when you consider that the flammability of anything goes up several degrees when it's in airborne dust form (like how cocaine clouds violently combust when ignited, apparently). If it's really copper dust in the air, shouldn't the lightning strikes cause the entirety of the surrounding area to violently explode? A quick search tells me that a lightning strike can heat up the air it passes through up to 50 000 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems like it should technically be enough to make it ignite and go boom over a certain area. Of course, I'm not a chemist, either, so there might be some nuance to the whole thing, even if it seems a little counterintuitive to me that there'd be enough copper dust in the air to produce green flames (which would indicate there's enough of it to ignite and even predominate in the flame in the first place), yet not enough to violently explode all of the things at breathable oxygen levels when exposed to an open flame. It probably depends on the wonkiness of the local physics.

EDIT: Though I guess the flammability problem is offset if you make it copper (II) oxide or something similar instead. Cu²⁺ actually would produce green flames rather than blue-green ones like elemental copper would (though I still don't think it'd color all the flames green, just the ones without another fuel source - could be wrong). Not sure it coloring lightning is entirely plausible, either. But probably best not to dwell on that overmuch.))

Campaign, Ike!

"You guys might want to consider pushing forward or at least trying to pass through the portal - I have this feeling there's way more yellow land octopuses around here than any of us may have dared to suspect!"

Spoiler: IkeNotes (click to show/hide)

There's doors that respond to touch and behave like funny glass bubbles. Behind the one to the left is what can best be described as a dark spider singularity. It seems to mean us harm, which is further evidence of its spidery nature. It has already given Jesus a fire and shockwave-based makeover. Also, the shadows vibrate and absorb sound at the same time.

Jesus smells okay, in other news.

River increasingly reminds me of Ted.

Yellow land octopuses are apparently present and possibly quite dangerous!

Update: yellow land octopuses aren't so bad when you stab them in the center of mass repeatedly and firmly!

The room on the right has a set of four large eggs, surrounded by eight sizable benches and eight not-so-large eggs.

Clearly whoever built this place has a strange fascination with the number four, or multiples of four. This either completely rules out or utterly confirms the involvement of the Nipponese.

I am starting to get slight flashbacks to the start of the previous mission!

Yellow land octopuses can become invisible! Or maybe there's a breed or species of invisible land octopus! May require some breeding to get a clearer picture of their relation. Still yellow on the inside, though! In addition, they appear capable of making mortal mindslaves without any trouble at all.

In addition, people live here. Or humanoids, at least. They seem to have been subjugated by the yellow land octopuses, or octopodes. One's a nice red and purple lady, and the other one's dead as a doorknob.

Also:

Well, the creatures' anatomy is the same. Just a small central part filled with organs with a large number of very thin and long but surprisingly strong tentacles sprouting out of it.

Slicing a tentacle in half, I discover that they lack muscles, which kinda begs the question of how they managed to move them in the first place. Instead, they are composed of four tubes (two large and two small) arrayed around a central part that feels and looks like very flexible cartilage. Around those tubes are very small, almost invisible clusters of black things, (some sort of organ, probably) that correspond with very small dimples on the outside. Maybe they emit something from there? Or maybe it's some sort of sensory organ? Or maybe it's used for camouflage? Or communication? Who knows. The area between the tubes and the skin of the creature feels very mushy and soft, breaking apart easily.

With careful observation, you notice that when the tendril twists, a large number of very small spikes are pushed out of its skin on the inside of the curve. You can't discern whether this is meant to inject something like microneedles or if it is just a means to grapple things and achieve better friction.
A quick inspection of the place the creature wrapped its tendrils around my arm reveals very tiny yellow needle-like things stuck in my skin, although none of them have managed to penetrate it.
An inspection of Nikolai reveals something similar. The fact that his skin has become more red around that area and has started to bruise prevented me from noticing it with casual observation, but he appears to have very tiny holes around the places the creature wrapped its tentacles around him, some of them bleeding slightly. Hopefully he won't start turning into any sort of octoman.

After that, I move to the central part of the creature. A thing of note is that it lacks any sort of visible mouth, eyes, nose, means of excretion or any of the other things I'd expect the central part of a creature to possess.

A large section of the central part of the creature is composed of two sacks, one larger, containing that yellow goo (or white with a whitish tint in the case of the later ones) and the other containing a black substance. Each of them is connected to the tubes that compose the greater part of the creature's tendrils, the black with the smaller ones and the brighter one with the larger one. The rest of their insides are filled with organs, although I can't tell exactly what they do. They have some connections between them, but they don't reveal much. Curiously, while I can identify many organs connected to the bright tubes, none of them are (visibly) connected to the dark ones.

Their insides don't smell so good, especially the ones of the creatures I encountered earlier. Smell like rotten and oil. Now that I think about it, the earlier creatures looked far worse than the later ones. The later ones were more of a whitish yellow than pure yellow, they were slightly larger and their internal organs were in much better shape.

Gee whiz!

In addition, I think Darkstar just sucked out a woman's life force with a straw? Or maybe cracked her like a giant egg from the sound of it.

Smells registered in the wastes outside that wacky teleporter building - copper most prominently, as well as hints of ashes, dust, ozone, basalt, sulphur and the inimitable musk of the yellow land octopus. Lily-livered fellow travelers seem very affected by it.

First question - is anything coming after me right now? Me specifically as I am stepping off in another direction, that is?

If not, circle around the charging mass of yellow land octopuses and move in the direction of the portal. Brandish knife in any case.

If yes, stand next to our blasting experts and ward off any attackers who get into tentacle range.

[Toaster]

((Slightly relevant, I was surprised to see that Wikipedia says silly string is used at weddings. Those must be some very fun weddings.))

((Now I wish I had stashed some in my tux somewhere.  Would have made mine more hilarious.

Then again, after dropping a chocolate-covered strawberry on her wedding dress, I was already on thin ice...))