Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262312 times)

Toaster · « **Reply #1935 on:** January 08, 2017, 10:39:57 pm »

"Ah. Uh. Yes, sure."

With the passing of the fury of battle, the lack of appeal of the situation began to rise.

Is there anything visibly useful in the beast? Fork it if so. If no, put the thing down with the sword.

Maybe see about using said sinew to fix that bag? Get some of the blood off first please

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #1936 on:** January 09, 2017, 03:03:27 am »

Shouting sounds like a good idea. I'll do that after resting in a dark, relatively clean sport.

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #1937 on:** January 09, 2017, 07:49:43 am »

"Hm, keep your eye out for any bottles. I have an idea for getting any chemicals we might need, but it's probably more dangerous to attempt inside. Do you know anything besides alcohol that would be useful?"

As we talk I start heading to the next unexplored room in this part of the house. Does it seem like we've still got a lot of exploring/ransacking to do or have we seen most of the house now?

Xantalos · « **Reply #1938 on:** January 09, 2017, 04:54:39 pm »

Ah, excellent. It would probably be better if I remembered how to cook, but them's the breaks.

There isn't any water and/or pots around here, is there? If not, there's probably ... I dunno, I could spit them on some sticks and roast them like marshmallows or something.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #1939 on:** January 10, 2017, 08:09:21 am »

Quote from: Toaster on January 08, 2017, 10:39:57 pm

"Ah. Uh. Yes, sure."

With the passing of the fury of battle, the lack of appeal of the situation began to rise.

Is there anything visibly useful in the beast? Fork it if so. If no, put the thing down with the sword.

Maybe see about using said sinew to fix that bag? Get some of the blood off first please

[Evisceration For Fun And Profit: 2]

As with all fine things in life, the usefulness of a gently steaming pile of bloody organs lies in the eye of the beholder. So if you were to ask, say, a wandering artisan chef or perhaps a complete lunatic on what they could do with this, you'd no doubt would get some form of answer. As it is, however, you're in no mood to get elbow-deep into a still-living creature's innards to harvest its sweetbreads or some nonsense, so instead you draw the sword. The creature shrinks as the blade comes into view, uniformly gray. You raise it quickly and stab it into the thing - no sound is made as it pierces flesh, and the whimpering of the creature is cut off suddenly by a faint whoosh as air rushes into where it once was.

One must compliment you on the choice of material. Livelier than stoat and man, different in many senses. A welcome comparison to be sure.

[A Fistful of Sinew: 3]

As for the sinew in your hand, the blood seems rather an integral part of it that no amount of wringing into the nearby crater of toxic waste can fully remove. You're fairly sure there's something you're supposed to do with it before it's properly suited for repairs, but what that would really be you can only guess. Drying seems like it could go both ways. Burning doesn't seem like a good idea. Smoking, perhaps? Or is that only for food?

Ultimately you just decide to wash it in a nearby puddle and thread your needle with it. Bit of a chunky thread to be sure, but the needle's chunky enough in its own right that you suspect this was the way it was meant to be used anyway. You realize somewhere midway through your repairs to the bedroll that you'll have quite a bit of sinew left over by the end of this. About two feet of it, in fact. This intuition proves accurate as you manage to reseal the bedroll adequately. Still smells like blood (as does the tent, you realize), but you suspect that's just something you'll have to get used to. Claire does not stir one bit as you sit there stitching for about an hour, sleeping soundly with an oddly content, almost happy expression on her face. Must be having a fine dream.

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on January 09, 2017, 03:03:27 am

Shouting sounds like a good idea. I'll do that after resting in a dark, relatively clean sport.

[Gimme Shelter: 5]

No shortage of alcoves here. No beds, unfortunately, but between a particularly menacing set of stalagmites off by the side you find a rather well-concealed hidey-hole, where on an overhang above the uncomfortably small entrance you locate what looks to be a kind of guard post, seemingly completely empty - there is a hole in the wall permitting easy view of the chamber, resembling an arrow slit greatly in its construction. It takes a bit of doing to climb up there, requiring full use of your one and a half legs as well as your teeth (side note, the fungus on the walls turns out to be perplexingly delicious).

Beside the arrow slit is a fibrous little bit of bedding, recently used and very orderly, as well as what is clearly a shaft leading upward, complete with a black little trap door at the top, similarly in excellent condition. You decide to be a little more alert than usual in your sleep habits as you lay down to recover, and set your mind's alarm to whenever someone sees fit to bother you before slipping into restfulness.

[Unconscious Perception: 1]

It's a much-needed bit of rest, you find. Lets your stumps scab over, and your body at least somewhat recover from being sliced nearly to bits by that damn dragon. Luckily for them, nobody appears to have worked up the courage to come and poke you while you rest.

However, they do appear to have left something instead, seemingly very gently lowered through the trap door - a basket of apples, you'd guess from the shape in your mind's eye.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on January 09, 2017, 07:49:43 am

"Hm, keep your eye out for any bottles. I have an idea for getting any chemicals we might need, but it's probably more dangerous to attempt inside. Do you know anything besides alcohol that would be useful?"

As we talk I start heading to the next unexplored room in this part of the house. Does it seem like we've still got a lot of exploring/ransacking to do or have we seen most of the house now?

Some form of oil would no doubt be appreciated, the doctor says. Nothing too exotic, mind you, any kind should theoretically do, though obviously the purer the better. Beside that, perhaps some acid or vinegar? She's heard good things about aqua fortis, or maybe aqua regia if you can find some. And soap, soap might work as well.

[The Country House Expedition: 5]

There are two more rooms remaining, and this next one appears to be something of a doozy - the doctor claps her hands together as you enter. A library, ah! Look at all the shelves! And indeed there are quite a few, lining each wall with a few more in the middle, each shelf half-full of a wild variety of scrolls and manuscripts, the other half strewn about on the floor as they have been shaken out of their resting places. The doctor steps to a particular section - history! She- wait, what's this? They've got Urban here! And Fontaine! And Innocent too! What nonsense is this? She pulls a scroll out with a clearly displeased expression. Sun-priest apologetics! The descending moon theory! Bloody heliocentrism! Good heavens, she doesn't even know where to start on- shouldn't they have burnt these? Where's the actual history then? Bewildered, she starts rooting through the shelves and the piles where , each new tome causing even more frustration. Rubbish, all of it!

You leave her to it for a moment and look at the other shelves. There's a fairly meaty section of natural philosophy on a variety of topics, even printed primers and pamphlets on alchemy with curious names like The Spheres or The Seasons, their neatly and uniformly printed volumes very much standing out from the artisanal illuminated manuscripts surrounding them. There's what no doubt used to be a whole shelf full of what looks to be original Sun-monastic research on the growing of grapes and making of relatively drinkable wine. And a few manuscripts on the geology of the northlands, even a single anthropological pamphlet on "the myriad folks of the clan-ridden north". You do get the feeling, however, when you discover that "An Inquiry Into The Mechanism of Splintering" appears to have half its volumes very conspicuously missing, that there used to be more here.

One shelf in particular appears to have been completely empty even before its collapse - a single scroll describing best policies on trade with El (such as how exactly an inspector is to determine the difference between their gold and pyrite, and how to spot an alchemical counterfeit coin) would indicate that this was possibly the section on law. The romance section, containing quite a lot of extremely dog-eared and supremely salacious prints of foreign fiction, most of them incredibly fresh and rich in full-color pictures, leaving the single unburned piece of chivalric romance looking downright destitute in comparison, looks to have been nearly bursting with tomes on its end.

And finally there is a section on cartography, which appears to have rested back against the wall and thus not fallen over - the maps here look rather good, if a bit rich in dragons, clearly denoting both the nation of Benzerwald and quite a few places beyond, including the Kingdom of the Dead to the east, the wondrous land of El to the west, the patch of northlands right up to Elizabeth and even slightly beyond, with particular attention devoted to the seven coastal free ports. There's even a map of the very far south, delineating improbable shapes of distant shores with frankly ridiculous names.

Quote from: Xantalos on January 09, 2017, 04:54:39 pm

Ah, excellent. It would probably be better if I remembered how to cook, but them's the breaks.

There isn't any water and/or pots around here, is there? If not, there's probably ... I dunno, I could spit them on some sticks and roast them like marshmallows or something.

[Kiss the Cook: 3]

Hey, it's not like your companion's likely to complain, so you just stab a twig through all three potatoes and set to roasting them adequately. And adequate is, you suppose, indeed a good word to describe your efforts, the potatoes in question looking somewhat more edible after some time spent above the fire. In a fit of creativity you consider using your murder-thought to peel them, and soon you have a perfectly acceptable mash of potato (and maybe some peel as well, most of it kind of exploded off in the process) ready to eat.

Alphonse, naturally, is still asleep. So you poke him gently in the foot with your vicious mental projection and that springs him to attention quickly enough. You give him your handful of mash. He looks at it in confusion for a second. You motion for him to put it in his face and he decides it best to comply without protest, gobbling it down with extreme urgency. Yes yes very good thank you, he says, very good mash-thing you made there he is now well fed and there are no further problems aside from terrible exhaustion and he thinks he maybe sprained his ankle but that's no problem really did he already say the mash was very good?

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Toaster · « **Reply #1940 on:** January 10, 2017, 08:52:05 am »

Probably part of the authentic experience. Oh well.

Night night.

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #1941 on:** January 10, 2017, 10:39:39 am »

"Apples? Great."

Mind lift them right into my mouth and eat. Then hover up and see what's behind the trapdoor.

TopHat · « **Reply #1942 on:** January 10, 2017, 01:58:21 pm »

"Ah yes, very funny, now stop. I have to take him to the town."
When that doesn't work, try staring them down. Regardless of results, get a hold on the mummy before the swarm arrives.

Xantalos · « **Reply #1943 on:** January 10, 2017, 07:36:16 pm »

((Well, seems I've accidentally formed this duo.))

Daniels shrugs. "Just making sure you don't go dying on me and all. Just because I could kill you effortlessly at any moment doesn't mean I will. You haven't treated me badly or crushed my flesh or tried to kill me like pretty much* everyone else I've killed, and I'm travelling with you, aren't I? Heck, when we reach El I'll probably let you go live your own life if you want. Now then, what're you saying about a sprained ankle? How does one fix that?"

Teach me how to medicine, Alphonse!

Toaster · « **Reply #1944 on:** January 12, 2017, 01:03:54 am »

Note: I am away until Sunday and probably won't be able to post.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #1945 on:** January 13, 2017, 10:25:05 am »

Quote from: Toaster on January 10, 2017, 08:52:05 am

Probably part of the authentic experience. Oh well.

Night night.

You squeeze into your bedroll and, lacking a night light to symbolically extinguish, fall asleep in the perpetual dusky canyon-light, a sudden wave of exhaustion carrying you into almost immediate dreamless oblivion. It's both comforting and subjectively very brief, for when you open your eyes once again things look suddenly much brighter. The tent smells a little less like blood, the meadowy scent of the surrounding plains wafting in through the tent flap accompanied by downright idyllic god rays. You wriggle your way out of your bedding, noting that Claire seems to have already woken up and gone outside. Supposing they're all waiting on you in that case, you waste no time in getting up and out yourself.

[Morning Has Broken: 6]

No sooner do you get out and stretch yourself than you hear a call from a ways off. The ranger, it seems, is shouting for you to get over to him this instant, with Claire, looking rather wet and with her clothes only half on at the moment, following some fifty feet behind. He sprints in your direction, continuing to shout! The worms are coming! The worms are coming! Get over here man, the worms are coming!

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on January 10, 2017, 10:39:39 am

"Apples? Great."

Mind lift them right into my mouth and eat. Then hover up and see what's behind the trapdoor.

Not apples, you discover. A bit too clammy and fleshy for that. Definitely some kind of mushroom, probably quite elaborately cultivated. The flavor of it is nevertheless quite fantastic, and each one appears to be something different. The first two or three only serve to drive up the appetite - it's only when you're about half through the entire basket that you feel like you've had a hearty enough breakfast. Not bad, anonymous cave dwellers! Not bad at all! You grab the basket and start to contently hover upward toward the trap door, still in a reclined state as you get up close.

[It's A Trap Door: 5]

You give it a polite knock and the door ripples and rumbles. Who goes there, it asks. It's you, you reply enthusiastically! And you're not about to take any guff from a trap door, so open the hell up and let a man pass before you have to get rough. You've got a Word burning a hole in your skull and you need but the slightest excuse to use it. This gives it some pause. Grr, it says! Harumph! Show a door no respect, and it's liable to hit you on the ass on the way out! Bear that in mind, it grimly warns before slowly opening. There's a good door, you tell it as you float on through.

The room above is unfortunately not very well lit, so you have to make do with mindsight as you get a feel for its shapes. And lively shapes they do appear to be, a sizable cavernous hall gaping before you, leading deeper into the stone. You reach for its edges with your mind in each direction, but they appear to retreat at the slightest touch, growing wider and wider as you try to scan them. Little shapes of noise jump into your eyes, a train of nubile dancers moving hand in hand before retreating into darkness, an uprooted tree stump somersaulting without any regard for gravity, a round table spinning and circling you like a disc in flight.

You push forward with your thoughts, and notice that things appear less certain the further you go. You question the dark and it questions back - who's asking? Whose tendril is this? Who let the minder in here, huh? Who the hell do you think you are, touching the dark without permission?

Quote from: TopHat on January 10, 2017, 01:58:21 pm

"Ah yes, very funny, now stop. I have to take him to the town."
When that doesn't work, try staring them down. Regardless of results, get a hold on the mummy before the swarm arrives.

They don't seem to think this is funny at all. Deeply gratifying, perhaps, but not at all funny. The feticheur glares at you with holy fervor, shaking her stick resolutely as you approach and open your eye wide.

[Death Glare: 5]

You start to glare and your face-scar complies, opening wider and wider, your facial features growing sidelined as it parts and shows more of itself. The feticheur tries to meet your gaze, but as the light grows blindingly bright and terrifying beyond comprehension, you sense her resolve suddenly break as she jumps back and turns away, breaking into a surprisingly quick sprint. The scar lets out a hiss as the air before it starts to ripple, but you reason that going further is perhaps ill-advised, and instead snatch up your helpless ward from the ground.

This proves well-timed, because no sooner do you do this than you are set upon by the swarm.

[Gotta Get A Grip: 3]

One hand is probably not enough, you figure as you are lifted off your feet and a thousand ravenous mandibles begin to peel your fingers away from your ward. You lock another around its throat. You are presently flying, you think - the corpse beetles are somewhat impeding the view. The mummy groans and shrieks and moves to take shelter in your arms.

Wait, that's a great idea! Do a hug! Decrease your surface area! You bend your head down and lock limbs with your mummified friend, and both of you make a reasonably small sphere. You feel yourself lurch downward, the beetles struggling to lift you, their mouthparts sliding off you, breaking under strain. Something slips as the insects start to bite into you particularly desperately and deeply, and finally their wings fail and you begin to fall in earnest, falling into ice cold bogwater, thousands of beetles going for a suicide dive to attempt and drag you back out.

[The Black Water: 1]

What you hit when you reach the surface of the bog is not quite water. It grabs into you like a hundred icy claws, actively pulling you down, devouring you and the insects on you like a ravenous beast. It forces itself through your skin, feeling like petroleum in your veins, your body spasming to try and get it out somehow while you try and balance this with not losing hold on your mummy companion, getting dragged down all the way as the bog itself seems eager to crush the very life out of you.

Quote from: Xantalos on January 10, 2017, 07:36:16 pm

((Well, seems I've accidentally formed this duo.))

Daniels shrugs. "Just making sure you don't go dying on me and all. Just because I could kill you effortlessly at any moment doesn't mean I will. You haven't treated me badly or crushed my flesh or tried to kill me like pretty much* everyone else I've killed, and I'm travelling with you, aren't I? Heck, when we reach El I'll probably let you go live your own life if you want. Now then, what're you saying about a sprained ankle? How does one fix that?"

Teach me how to medicine, Alphonse!

Oh no he doesn't think he'll die or anything sir he's just saying he might not be able to keep up with you on the road is all and you don't have to worry about him going anywhere no sirree and please don't try to fix it he's sure it'll sort itself out without whatever sir cares to do it please no attempts at medicine okay?

[First Aid: 3]

You give him a skeptical look. He's not up to something, is he? If he is, you feel you should make him aware that while he's not on the shit list yet this can be very easily corrected. You put your thumb on one side of his ankle and your index finger on the other and gently push them together. He shrieks horribly. Must be actually sprained! Okay, so what were you supposed to do to fix that? Er maybe just leave it alone and it'll heal on its own please sir, Alphonse begins to say, but you decide to hear nothing of it. You figure you gotta rest it, ice it, compress it and probably elevate it. You can do two of those with the means present. So you tie Alphonse's foot to the top of the bed frame. Don't move it from that spot, you instruct. Gotta keep it elevated. And don't go anywhere. Then he'll be healing up just fine. Oh thank you sir that's very useful advice, he says, he'll stay here then and not move at all like he was going to that's fine yes thank you.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #1946 on:** January 13, 2017, 11:05:42 am »

I think I am Leif Erikson, miner, not minder, descendant of great vikings. And clearly you haven't seen real darkness yet, like one in the well. Now that was dark, so don't get so pissy.

Move in direction of the answer, perhaps it is not mushroom induced hallucination. Let's make friends!

TopHat · « **Reply #1947 on:** January 14, 2017, 04:31:29 pm »

No, having survived all that I am not going to drown.
Swim for it! And do not. let. go.

Xantalos · « **Reply #1948 on:** January 14, 2017, 06:25:51 pm »

"Huh, you're a lot more scared of me than I remember people being. Then again, I suppose I wasn't exactly associating with normal individuals myself. So, how long do sprained ankles normally take to heal?"

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #1949 on:** January 15, 2017, 07:14:06 pm »

I grab a few maps: a map focusing on Bemzerwald, the map of the far South, and a couple depicting other foreign areas.

Then I head to the last room in the house.

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Author Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262312 times)

Toaster

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

AoshimaMichio

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

penguinofhonor

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Xantalos

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Harry Baldman

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Toaster

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

AoshimaMichio

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

TopHat

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Xantalos

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Toaster

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Harry Baldman

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

AoshimaMichio

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

TopHat

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

Xantalos

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol

penguinofhonor

Re: Our Salvation: Halfway To Sheol