Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262589 times)

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #2055 on:** March 05, 2017, 06:46:02 am »

Make sure tap is closed, lid closed, imagine it full of wonderful tasty liquor and ensure the DRINK is real.

TopHat · « **Reply #2056 on:** March 05, 2017, 03:50:07 pm »

"Thank you, I think I will - it's always interesting to explore old towns. I'll come back and see you again before I go, though. Any last bits of advice?"
This should be fun. Just like those holidays to the seaside.

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #2057 on:** March 05, 2017, 08:44:47 pm »

"Okay, so... we're halfway to a solution."

I focus on the rocks again and direct their HUNGER outward, away from the cave.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #2058 on:** March 06, 2017, 10:49:24 am »

Quote from: Toaster on March 03, 2017, 01:37:15 pm

The thrill of paperwork still flowing through him, Thomas nodded. "Yes! Let's be off right away."

Onward toward Elizabeth! No time to waste.

[To The Big City: 4]

They follow you like little ducklings, these newly insured. Occasionally they try to exactly match your steps. Some of them dare challenge the occasional bush or intimidate a passing badger-thing, the latter of which vomits lightning in your general direction, splitting a tree wide open. You quicken your pace.

Occasionally you veer through little valleys, or cross small mountain brooks. There are old roads in some places, but these prove only middlingly useful, overgrown as they are. You go past an ancient aqueduct, a shockingly classical construction that seems to have collapsed into leading straight down, forming the spring from which a brand new river forms, slowly carving a gouge in the earth.

Your progress is not unnoticed either - by the end of the first day you've run into another group that Nobody appears to be familiar with - the treefishers, who try to tempt passing wildlife with shining lures from atop their isolated thickets. You spend the night with them in a remarkably tasteful, if questionably constructed series of tree forts, and as your followers get to chatting with them, it doesn't take long before you and Silver have drafted up another six contracts.

[In The Morning I'll Be Gone: 4]

They seem a spirited lot, these fishers. Also quite interested in finding different thickets, the badgers around here have been giving them trouble. There's a fairly large one, apparently, that's started to grow odd scales and horns. Oh dear, you say, some kind of skin disease? The elder of the treefishers, a man 30 years old at best, would say so - happens sometimes in the north, don't you know. You get old enough and strange things start to happen to you. Usually they don't get this shiny though, thing looked absolutely covered in strange gemstones. Gets sharper every day, Tabernacle adds. He's apparently their scout by virtue of drawing the shortest straw.

You get to asking them if there's any roads nearby. Such as to Elizabeth.

They say yes - there's the old highway from the dead lands, just a few miles to the north. Spiders live there, however. Lots of Spiders. You'd be better off trying to climb the western ridge, Tabernacle chuckles. A lot of people fell off that, another treefisher clarifies. Tall bloody thing, their largest member spits, bottom's strewn with bones. She's heard a thing lives up there, kicks people right the hell off.

Would there be a way around, Silver asks after wincing at this. Southward, perhaps?

There's the highway to the north again, one mentions. That's got a handy ramp and everything. Or was it a tunnel? Lots of Spiders notwithstanding. Southward though, you don't want to go south. Or southwest, for that matter. That's where the wood full of goddamned bears is. Not friendly bears, you feel it relevant to ask. Not very friendly bears at all, Tabernacle nods.

Quote from: Xantalos on March 03, 2017, 04:19:45 pm

Yep, seems like the time to do it. Make sure to save the pithy one-liner for after her head hits the ground.

[Where's Your Head At: 1+2 vs. 4]

Your murder-thought zips toward her head, ripping into her neck in the distraction and coming out the other end suddenly and, you notice, completely bloodlessly. This gives you a moment's pause as a blood-curdling gurgle issues from Rainbow's punctured throat and you feel her suddenly violently thrash in your mind against the legion of hands and teeth encircling her thoughts.

[Don't Let The Walls Cave In On You: 3 vs. 3]

She does not regain her faculties as you manage to keep hold of her, her clawed hands blindly swiping all around you as her perceptions still struggle with your inner temple. You figure this will need a more personal touch.

[We Can Live On, Live On Without You: 4+2 vs. 4]

You spit in your hands and rub them together as you step aside, the horrendous creature surging forward dumbly and instinctively, higher thought processes still eluding her as you step up from behind and place one hand on her head, the other on her shoulders. That done, you begin the process of wrenching it off her shoulders. She resists and tries to fight you off, joints bending at unnatural angles as talons whiff past your face. You adjust your grip - wouldn't want to ruin the skull with a careless tug, would you? It's such a strange skull, too.

[Don't Let The Walls Cave In On You: 6 vs. 3]

Her resistance starts to subside as her mind is drawn further into your temple. A deep and powerful anguish, satisfyingly not your own, streams from the edges of your perception like a half-remembered dream piercing the silence.

[You Get What You Give, That Much Is True: 1+2 vs. 2]

She goes limp in your hands and you conclude the operation by pulling the head straight off, the murder-thought skipping through to sever the spine, sinew and calcified blood vessels all tangled together in her bizarre anatomy. You hold it up in one hand, her mind trapped and suddenly traumatized, and send her body tumbling into a nearby wall with a well-placed kick.

You meet the gaze of her severed head and try to think of something cool to say. You notice that something of a crowd has gathered. Better make it good.

[Where's Your Head At: 2]

Should have, uh, had a hand on your wits there, whatever your name was. Lady. Shit, you should have had something prepared for this.

Rainbow's eyes meet yours in the last moments of her fleeting consciousness as it is torn apart by yours. She devotes the rest of her life to giving you a trio of anatomically unlikely eye rolls, her mouth forming a disgusted scowl before mouthing a word of inestimable contempt.

EXECRABLE

You lower the head by your side and look around. The twenty-odd pirates in the area look on with raised eyebrows. Was that really the best you could do, they seem to ask as they shake their heads. I mean, good job on beheading that ghoul or whatever it was, but really?

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on March 05, 2017, 06:46:02 am

Make sure tap is closed, lid closed, imagine it full of wonderful tasty liquor and ensure the DRINK is real.

You step over to the tap and screw it shut, and give the lid an experimental tap. Seems secure enough, woman on top notwithstanding. You don't have the heart to move her, soundly sleeping as she is. You point and speak the Word.

DRINK

[Word: 5]

The scent of apples and concentrated alcohol fills the room as the barrel hums, sloshes and rather appropriately levitates, a forbidden universal harmony turning liquid inside it as the Platonic ideal of inebriation forms inside it, not so much a beverage as the idea of one, ineffable and possessed of a supreme power that the barrel seems to have trouble containing as it floats upright, the passed-out woman sliding off it gently and falling to the ground, her eyes suddenly opening as she sniffs the air.

A boozy gleam permeates the room as you concentrate the possibilities within. What is inside that barrel, you may possibly ask. And you don't know, not exactly. But it's something you've never drunk before, something you didn't know you needed in your life. But if you do drink it, you feel that very little in the world stands a chance of topping it.

Oh, Kava says, sitting up and rubbing her head from where she fell. Oh, her head. Her poor head. She looks around at the others, who similarly appear to be waking up. She turns to you. Oh god, what happened? How did she get here? What's that, she points at the barrel, and squints a moment. It looks oddly familiar.

Her eyes dart to you as a rising panic cuts through the hangover. Oh dear, she didn't do anything... embarrassing, did she? You have to tell her.

Quote from: TopHat on March 05, 2017, 03:50:07 pm

"Thank you, I think I will - it's always interesting to explore old towns. I'll come back and see you again before I go, though. Any last bits of advice?"
This should be fun. Just like those holidays to the seaside.

He'll certainly catch up with you later, worry not! As for advice, don't let the more enthusiastic functionaries bother you! If they do, you're alive and they're not, and tell them they should know better than to hassle you beyond what you find permissible.

You leave the alderman to his paperwork and head down the stairs out of the tower back into Administration Square, where the eyes of a dozen inhuman statues piled atop the ruins of the rest of the administrative headquarters regard you silently in a way that makes you shiver. Streets wind every which way from here, including up and down, around the steeples, trenches and temples of the massive tell, all piled together like geological strata, broken in places with veins of fresher construction. Few lights abound in the streets, and the sweepers occasionally walk through the alleys, giving you bestial looks as they take a moment to establish that you are merely a feckless gawker as opposed to a filthy vagrant, the two meaningful categories of people in a street sweeper's unlife.

At the top lie the terraces of the town, where winged yet flightless beasts gather and watch the streets below, occasionally crawling up or down along the walls to gather something of interest, you're not quite sure what. Some of them cast their icy blue eyes at the bell towers rising from several places, waiting intently for a particular time. A few non-functionaries have gathered on a nearby rooftop, sitting around a table for a purpose you cannot quite gauge.

Down one of the many winding streets as you walk to take a look around you see what looks to be the merchant quarter, with dilapidated merchants standing in well-kept stalls, closely attended by creatures with needle-like claws that they ceaselessly sharpen. Occasionally one of the merchants gives a dusty, incoherent call into the overall silence of the market, and the light coming from some of the indoor shops looks bright enough to easily outshine most of the rest of the city.

Deeper down than that you hear the huddling and crawling masses flowing like groaning rivers as they are driven by fork-wielding officers of the law and deposited in their appointed residences for their rounds of daily engagement. Further in, you hear the distorted sounds of a band disastrously attempting to play for some kind of social event, and occasional brief flashes of white light.

There are also the temples, of course, whether to gods or machines or something else entirely. Most of them seem empty of anything but their remnant clergy, and down a particularly darkened street you see a primitive-looking adobe edifice illuminated like a lighthouse, a creature with a face like a lunar eclipse welcoming a cartload of barely-conscious worshipers from a surly gang of street sweepers while creatures of a wide variety of disturbing shapes look on jealously from their own empty houses of worship.

And then, not at all far from here in fact, there is also what looks and indeed seems to be denoted as some kind of ancient theater. You hear voices come from within - as crumbled and buried in miscellaneous buildings as it is, the theater nevertheless lets itself be very much heard over quite a distance.

You pause as you wander back to Administration Square. A street sweeper circles, considerably closer now as your presence continues to visibly irritate it, before disengaging. You feel it best not to linger in the streets for long.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on March 05, 2017, 08:44:47 pm

"Okay, so... we're halfway to a solution."

I focus on the rocks again and direct their HUNGER outward, away from the cave.

You say so, the doctor replies, apparently transfixed by the noises of predatory geology until now, but is it the kind of solution that anybody would want? You reassure her, it'll be fine. You've never heard of a problem that you couldn't solve without provoking an unusual appetite where you would least expect it. You snap your fingers and turn to the darkness as you redouble your assault on the laws of reality.

HUNGER

[Word: 6]

You take the ravenous hunger that suffuses the rock and unify it - rather than hunger for each other, they should hunger for one thing and one thing only. You think a second on what that would be. Human flesh? Best not. The sun, the clouds? Too far off. Trees, you decide - the smell of resin and the feel of leaves, this will the rocks hunger for. You force this into them, an insatiable appetite for all things arboreal, and let it settle for a second as the rocks stop momentarily.

It does not take them long to pick up the scent. A forest is very close indeed. Wood, even closer. It contracts like a mineralized jellyfish, a thousand mouths of stone in an amorphous body, and rushes out in a mass of razor sharp fangs as it rips free of the cave mouth and seeks wilderness. Sunlight suddenly bathes the cave and all things within it, nearly blinding you after all this darkness. You catch a glimpse of the rocky monstrosity as it leaves you far behind, moving far quicker than you'd expect of a thing probably weighing several dozen tons. You blink and look again - nothing of it seen as it has disappeared over a hill, presumably having caught sight of its quarry.

Hopefully you won't run into it again. You'd hate it to mistake you for a tree.

The doctor admits to being initially pessimistic, but you have managed it. With minimal damage, even. Now all you need to do is to get the poor creature to follow you out the passage, what do you say?

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Xantalos · « **Reply #2059 on:** March 06, 2017, 01:06:26 pm »

"Don't judge me on my lack of wit, I'm not a pirate. I'm a ... shit, what even am I? I wanna say martial master but that just sounds fucking silly. Well, whatever profession you'd classify me as a member as, it's not one that focuses overly much on wordplay. Or at all, actually. More on murdering people and taking their shit as per my discretion. Well, whatever."

He walks off in a direction before momentarily pausing. "Oh right, that was ... what was her name? Rainbow! Yeah, Rainbow Scarf Head Minder bitch was secretly a ghoul thing. You should probably do more poking of the minders y'all got," he calls out before proceeding off.

Let's go find this first mate and present her with the head of this ghoulish lady, shall we? That alchemist mentioned a reward.

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #2060 on:** March 06, 2017, 01:12:45 pm »

Leif gives Kava reassuring tap on shoulder.

"Good morning, sister. A drinking party happened, of that I am sure. What else has taken place, I haven't the foggiest idea. But the lesson here is that if nobody remembers it, then it didn't happen. And that..." Leif grows silent for a moment, blazing eyes glued at the floating barrel. "...that is something nobody should drink unless they are on their death bed, because you will never taste better drink in the world ever again. I desperately want to drink it, but if I do then there's nothing left for me to chase, nothing else to satisfy my thirst."

I swear this by highest gods and by all creation: wherever my journey may me, this is where it will end! Be it tomorrow or after hundred years, tasting this is the last thing I will do!
...in more serious thought, better secure the barrel so it won't float away on its own or burst apart under ideal pressure. I'm not sure I can replicate this production.

Toaster · « **Reply #2061 on:** March 06, 2017, 01:22:17 pm »

Thomas had heard stories about Australian spiders,what with them being bigger than they had any rights to be. He wasn't too keen on finding that out for himself. "We could go at least look at this ridge? Spiders... no."

Probably best to avoid the bear forest too. Probably those drop bears he had heard about.

Head off to inspect ridge?

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #2062 on:** March 07, 2017, 07:39:32 am »

"What, Oggie? She seems pretty happy down here. She can come with us if she wants, but there's no reason to make her."

As I listen to the doctor's response, I walk to the mouth of the cave and observe the nearby landscape.

TopHat · « **Reply #2063 on:** March 07, 2017, 02:28:32 pm »

Let's go back round the merchant quarter and have a look at what's for sale. Maybe chat with a merchant and see how business is these days?

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #2064 on:** March 11, 2017, 10:58:15 am »

Quote from: Xantalos on March 06, 2017, 01:06:26 pm

"Don't judge me on my lack of wit, I'm not a pirate. I'm a ... shit, what even am I? I wanna say martial master but that just sounds fucking silly. Well, whatever profession you'd classify me as a member as, it's not one that focuses overly much on wordplay. Or at all, actually. More on murdering people and taking their shit as per my discretion. Well, whatever."

He walks off in a direction before momentarily pausing. "Oh right, that was ... what was her name? Rainbow! Yeah, Rainbow Scarf Head Minder bitch was secretly a ghoul thing. You should probably do more poking of the minders y'all got," he calls out before proceeding off.

Let's go find this first mate and present her with the head of this ghoulish lady, shall we? That alchemist mentioned a reward.

They wouldn't dream of talking shit about the repartee of a man who straight murked a weird minder ghoul just like that, no sir. In fact, they were just about to scatter right after briefly checking if the rest of her corpse has any pockets (it does, much to their chagrin).

Some of the crowd follows you as you march with the head over to the great brass ship and make your way to its impressive figurehead. At least you'd assume it's a figurehead - it reminds you of a mermaid constructed of interlocking copper pipes when viewed from the front, and perhaps a little more like a dragon from the sides. From behind it looks a lot like an overly complicated boiler or maybe an insufficiently complicated church organ. And in front of it stands Two Shores, looking up the river, her dress of ribbons billowing in the breeze.

She may have been breathtakingly beautiful once, before a wealth of deep scars, gently curving gouges and a few missing chunks made her merely strikingly gorgeous. She lifts her greatsword to eye level as she looks you over, and from the lack of difficulty she has lifting it you get the sense that using it two-handed is a stylistic choice on her part.

You lift the head to eye level as a retort, the creature's expression frozen and grotesque even when aimed at someone else. You found this wandering around, you mention, called itself Rainbow. The alchemist said to kill it and bring the head over here. Something about a reward.

[Getting Ahead In Life: 4]

She looks to some intrepid merchants that seem to have shadowed you on the way here. They nod to confirm. She looks at you again, a little more skeptically this time, and gives a half-squint at the head. Something seems to click.

Oh, she says in a gentle voice. Icky business. But right you are, good sir. The captain will be well pleased with your thoughtful gift. So how can the Vault of Heavens please you in return, she bows in a faint motion somewhat disproportionate in comparison with the carefree sweep of her sword (quite immaculate, you notice as it nearly takes off the tip of your nose) as she maneuvers it behind herself.

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on March 06, 2017, 01:12:45 pm

Leif gives Kava reassuring tap on shoulder.

"Good morning, sister. A drinking party happened, of that I am sure. What else has taken place, I haven't the foggiest idea. But the lesson here is that if nobody remembers it, then it didn't happen. And that..." Leif grows silent for a moment, blazing eyes glued at the floating barrel. "...that is something nobody should drink unless they are on their death bed, because you will never taste better drink in the world ever again. I desperately want to drink it, but if I do then there's nothing left for me to chase, nothing else to satisfy my thirst."

I swear this by highest gods and by all creation: wherever my journey may me, this is where it will end! Be it tomorrow or after hundred years, tasting this is the last thing I will do!
...in more serious thought, better secure the barrel so it won't float away on its own or burst apart under ideal pressure. I'm not sure I can replicate this production.

Memory loss, a splitting headache and feeling like you're about to blow six kinds of chunks. Is this what being Morag is like? Ugh.

She stands up, still looking at the barrel. She doesn't normally do this, you understand. Or at least she hasn't ever before. She looks down. Her feet appear to have inadvertently taken a step toward the heavy scent of hard liquor. She looks up to see her hand reaching out a little. Okay, no. No! Not again. You're a nice girl, Kava. You used to be such a nice girl.

[The Famous Ol' Spiced: 4]

She notices you shoving a moaning, hungover Moth away for daring to reach for the Holy Cask and follows discontently as you air-roll it out through the passage. Where do you plan on taking that, she asks as you contemplate the passage. You reply that you don't really know. Does she have any suggestions? You guess you could just carry it around until you forget you had it. Works for most other things.

It would be irresponsible to leave it lying around, Kava says, tapping her fingers slowly on the side of the barrel, absently putting her ear to the side to hear the heavenly liqueur sloshing around within. Is, she begins to ask a little dreamily, is hair of the dog something that actually works? She could really use a little something to, she almost continues but shakes her head violently to rid herself of the notion. Okay, there's something really, really off about that thing! It's making her think things she wouldn't think!

Something occurs to her. Wait. You said something, didn't you, when you came in? She wasn't... awake yet, she doesn't think. But she heard something. And it felt kinda weirdly familiar.

Quote from: Toaster on March 06, 2017, 01:22:17 pm

Thomas had heard stories about Australian spiders,what with them being bigger than they had any rights to be. He wasn't too keen on finding that out for himself. "We could go at least look at this ridge? Spiders... no."

Probably best to avoid the bear forest too. Probably those drop bears he had heard about.

Head off to inspect ridge?

The fishers, less confident in the power of your contracts than the first lot, nevertheless offer to accompany you over to the ridge. It's not that long a walk, and you can tell you're close when the trees peter out entirely and all you are left with is a slope that curls upward to a forbidding ridge about a thousand feet tall from where you are standing, its slope gentle at first, but rapidly becoming increasingly inhospitable as rock starts to break through the earth and jut upward like a row of terrible teeth and, most curiously of all, what look almost like fossilized remains of habitation, ruins flooded to fullness with rock that's dripped into them along the ages.

You see an exceedingly colorful vulture floating up above. It appears to be carrying something quite sizable that it drops, splitting it with unusual precision on an unattended sharp rock. It swoops and wastes no time in gobbling up the two resulting halves of what is undoubtedly a human femur. It gives you a look best described as slightly anticipatory and then promptly flies off.

That looks to be something of a climb, you decide to point out at this moment. Tabernacle responds that it certainly is. Not a sheer cliff face by any means. You dare say it wouldn't be all that much work to make your way up it. Of course, the largest fisher says, that's what they all say before the thing on top kicks them off. It is rather a long way down, Silver ventures to add.

[The Ridge of Inescapable Doom: 1]

As evidenced by a man presently rolling down it. Well, you think it was a man once. Right now it's a little too broken to tell, not so much a person as a sack of broken, shattered bones and wildly flopping limbs. Still screaming, however.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on March 07, 2017, 07:39:32 am

"What, Oggie? She seems pretty happy down here. She can come with us if she wants, but there's no reason to make her."

As I listen to the doctor's response, I walk to the mouth of the cave and observe the nearby landscape.

No, the doctor says, she is probably content to remain here. There's a difference. And remaining in a place like this is a very bad idea. She's already gone very strange and it's only going to become worse with time. She'll go absolutely mad, you know. Lose any possibility of lucidity. Probably turn into something that stalks the tunnels and eats passersby for imagined offenses, that sort of thing. You surely can't leave her here if there's anything at all you can do to make her come out, it'd be inhumane and cruel.

You consider this as you step out of the cave mouth. You appear to have gone a little ways from the manor house, and are really very close to what you'd consider the proper wilderness. The surroundings are fairly quiet now, the looting concluded and the peasantry effectively scattered by the multitude of calamities. Anglefork is just about done for, it seems, until someone comes to look for what happened or, even more likely, something moves into the vacuum. Maybe nature will reclaim it. Maybe something worse will.

Does she even know what's happened out here, the doctor continues to say. You could tell her it's, er, safer than before? That she can go out and not hang around in such proximity to the dark forces slumbering beneath the earth and so forth. It'd be unconscionable to leave somebody at the mercy of, she gestures at the cave mouth, the underground. It's an insidious thing, she speaks from experience. It presses on your mind, makes you strange and everything else fuzzy. And over time more and more of it seeps into you. Takes control.

Quote from: TopHat on March 07, 2017, 02:28:32 pm

Let's go back round the merchant quarter and have a look at what's for sale. Maybe chat with a merchant and see how business is these days?

You head on up to see the merchants, and as you get closer you feel like you're the first one to take an earnest walk down these streets for a very long time. There are stalls full of moldering silks and waterlogged spices, crates of fruit subsumed by fungus until they've become as puffballs stinking of congealed waste and a little of fermentation. The attendants to the merchants visibly take offense when many of the sellers do not rush out to hawk something to you, lashing out into them with sharpened claws to get them going. One makes it far enough to stand in front of you, but appears to have forgotten how to speak. It burbles helplessly for a few moments before its embarrassed guardian picks it up and promises to get it fixed by tomorrow, you just come back then and it'll all be sorted.

The shops look a bit more promising. There looks to be some kind of pawnbroker, a three-story affair with signs of three golden balls looking down at you like judging eyes, the tall windows shining very brightly in the perpetual twilight of the streets. A kind of whispered song emanates from the door, which is invitingly ajar and only opens a little further under your gaze as if nudged by the pressure of your eyes. And on the opposite side from that you see a house with what looks to be a tower not so much built as bloomed out of its center, busting its roof in the process, something like A Wizards Shoppe vertically stretching along its side in glowing, strange letters. And further down the main street you catch the smell of fine perfume, probably coming from one of the less abandoned shops that way.

A slightly larger shape comes into view from a side street, a rather tall and only mildly decomposed bastardization of rickshaw and teamster, dragging a cart loaded with what seem to be stone blocks up a rather steep street from the lower levels. He stands at the top and looks back at the cart, making sure it's steadily in place before letting go and rolling its shoulders after what seems to have been a bit of hard work. The cart takes this precious opportunity to roll downhill, and you hear it crash quite a ways off. The fellow looks down the hill, sighs and prepares to go down to get it.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: GM Note (click to show/hide)

Toaster · « **Reply #2065 on:** March 11, 2017, 11:25:01 am »

Impressive effects, really. Must have had to put a lot of work into this natural cliff face to make it show-worthy. "Well, I'm sure whatever lives up top can be reasoned with. Or avoided. Just got to use some common sense. Shall we be off?"

Onward and upward! Maybe swing through that old habitation on the way up if feasible?

AoshimaMichio · « **Reply #2066 on:** March 11, 2017, 11:56:25 am »

"Like I said, it's perfect drink. The ideal liquor. It would be weird if it didn't make people do unusual things by mere close proximity. Spirits normally do that only when they are in your systems, so it's only natural perfection works from little further away."

"I probably said something along the line 'Oh, here's Kava just as she predicted, hugging the dangerous drink barrel like her own baby'. Not entirely unlikely sight after heavy drinking party like that one. And honestly far from embarrasing end of possible hangover poses."

Mind probe these caverns to locate most secure place cask not too far from inhabited areas to put the cask of Platonic ideals in. Perhaps something with lock. I wouldn't put it past myself to carry this around and not take a sample sooner or later. Probably sooner.

TopHat · « **Reply #2067 on:** March 11, 2017, 12:59:06 pm »

"Jesus Christ! Is everyone ok over there?"
Run over to the traffic accident, for want of a better word, and offer assistance.

Xantalos · « **Reply #2068 on:** March 11, 2017, 05:44:26 pm »

Daniels thinks on the matter.

"Hmm. Ya know, I'm not really sure what I want, if anything. I've got a huge order of that bacon maggot stuff already, and before I ran into you guys I was heading to El, but now that I think about it I don't really have to do anything in particular, do I? I'm not on any quests or whatever, and my ultimate purpose in existence is just to accumulate data. So ... I dunno really, I'll let you know. Any chance I could talk to the captain first? I've heard a bunch about him and I kinda wanna see if he lives up to the hype. Maybe I'll sign on with you guys."

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #2069 on:** March 14, 2017, 05:51:13 am »

Quote from: Toaster on March 11, 2017, 11:25:01 am

Impressive effects, really. Must have had to put a lot of work into this natural cliff face to make it show-worthy. "Well, I'm sure whatever lives up top can be reasoned with. Or avoided. Just got to use some common sense. Shall we be off?"

Onward and upward! Maybe swing through that old habitation on the way up if feasible?

You head up the slope, passing the ruined, tumbling, screaming man on his way down. You offer him your compliments on a job well done, you've never seen such a convincing portrayal of a wretched ball of grievous injury. The others glance at each other briefly as the man tumbles down past them. Must have been a new guy, you hear it whispered.

Further up the slope a little before the incline becomes properly challenging is where the ruins begin, the stone of the inhabited structures neatly breaking off the rising ridge. They're not complicated structures by any means, largely looking like ancient rectangular terraces with a few archways on top broken by geology and then worn to nubs by erosion. Invariably the structures are inclined, upset from their original foundation by shifting strata beneath the earth, and further up more than a few structures appear to have broken in half by virtue of the ground suddenly rising or perhaps suddenly falling, leaving an almost neat cross-section of the building it once was, the empty space having filled with groundwater and then entirely mineralized in the space of assuredly very many years.

[Seeking Passage: 6]

As you go for a short tour of the ruins thus exposed, you do find that not all of them appear to have fossilized in their entirety. In particular there look to be a few closer to the top that were exposed before such a thing could occur, leaving tunnels half-filled with sediment, leading into the deep darkness of the hill's interior. Helen suggests that it may not be strictly the best idea to go into such a thing, on account of there probably being beasties in there. Dark places often do, one of the fishers adds. Oh, Lily sneers, would they say it compares negatively to being kicked the feck off the top of the ridge?

You look up from the ruins. There's a ways to go yet, and from here the climb may get a little treacherous regardless of if the presence of anything that wants to kick you right the feck off and send you tumbling downhill.

Quote from: AoshimaMichio on March 11, 2017, 11:56:25 am

"Like I said, it's perfect drink. The ideal liquor. It would be weird if it didn't make people do unusual things by mere close proximity. Spirits normally do that only when they are in your systems, so it's only natural perfection works from little further away."

"I probably said something along the line 'Oh, here's Kava just as she predicted, hugging the dangerous drink barrel like her own baby'. Not entirely unlikely sight after heavy drinking party like that one. And honestly far from embarrasing end of possible hangover poses."

Mind probe these caverns to locate most secure place cask not too far from inhabited areas to put the cask of Platonic ideals in. Perhaps something with lock. I wouldn't put it past myself to carry this around and not take a sample sooner or later. Probably sooner.

Evil spirits, Kava says. That's probably what it was last night, evil spirits. She seems once again relieved. Not her fault at all. What's a girl to do when evil spirits get into her head and make her do all kinds of silly things? Certainly she's got more restraint than the rest of them. She nods and resolutely grins to herself before the headache kicks in again and she rubs her temples. Oof.

You go take care of that, she waves her hand flippantly. She'll go and rest up somewhere that isn't soaked in liquor. Good god, let her just survive the morning and she'll do better in the future. And with that, Kava heads off.

[Ingenious Hiding Spots: 2]

Now left alone, you let your mind scan the nearby tunnels for anything approaching a mostly secluded area. Fortunately, there's a whole cavern complex around here that stretches out as far as you could possibly comprehend - all it takes is for you to go ahead and pick a particular spot. So you go for a bit of a walk in the wilder side of the caverns, where you wedge the cask in a particularly unlikely crevice of a side passage of a chimney of another side passage of a much larger unlit cavern.

That done, you walk halfway back, close your mindsight, turn around six times and carefully erase any memory of the hiding spot from your own thoughts just to be safe. It takes you a second or two to remember what you were doing. Going back, you suppose. Sounds reasonable, right?

Quote from: TopHat on March 11, 2017, 12:59:06 pm

"Jesus Christ! Is everyone ok over there?"
Run over to the traffic accident, for want of a better word, and offer assistance.

You run down the steep street past the sighing teamster. The cart seems to have rolled for almost half a mile down before crashing into the ruins of some kind of ancient workshop. A few shambling citizens have been scattered by the cart's sudden descent, and more than a couple appear to have been run over by it. You rather kindly offer first aid, but they just hiss through collapsed lungs and crushed ribcages and crawl away quietly as a street sweeper also arrives on the scene.

[A Cartload of Stones: 5]

The workshop, you realize, has been run into many times before. In fact, it looks to have been a mason's workshop before it became mere loose masonry instead, a large ancient townhouse atop it slowly crushing it under its weight wherever the structural weakness caused by being hit with a cartful of finely cut stone has permitted it.

Moreover, the cart itself looks to be heavily braced and repaired across the length of many years to the point where it could easily function as a battering ram even if it did not have at least a ton of stone and a hell of a lot of velocity to it. You are about to see if it can be dislodged from the workshop before a slight collapse of the structure you could almost mistake for accidental sends one of its more robust protrusions jabbing into your sternum with a force that takes your breath away.

As you begin to recover, you see the fellow who was drawing the cart unhurriedly approaching. He examines the wreckage of the shop and starts to gather any stone blocks that he can see laying around on the ground, in particular grabbing a wretched citizen trying to make off with one and liberating him of it, then tossing him onto a nearby rooftop for good measure.

He walks over to you. Ah, hello there. Need any help? Don't mind the cart, it does that a lot.

Quote from: Xantalos on March 11, 2017, 05:44:26 pm

Daniels thinks on the matter.

"Hmm. Ya know, I'm not really sure what I want, if anything. I've got a huge order of that bacon maggot stuff already, and before I ran into you guys I was heading to El, but now that I think about it I don't really have to do anything in particular, do I? I'm not on any quests or whatever, and my ultimate purpose in existence is just to accumulate data. So ... I dunno really, I'll let you know. Any chance I could talk to the captain first? I've heard a bunch about him and I kinda wanna see if he lives up to the hype. Maybe I'll sign on with you guys."

[A Just Reward: 2]

The captain will not see you, the first mate regrets to tell you. Not yet. She can, however, deliver a message from you to him if you should so desire.

Employment, however, that could certainly be arranged, as could transport to El. She would suppose the transport would be fairly uncomplicated - they will ask you no questions and you will not interfere with their mission. Work, on the other hand, that would likely involve leveraging your skills of speedy decapitation to ensure the safety of the trip home, perhaps other tasks as circumstances continue to arise. In return, payment upon arrival for days worked in a manner of your choosing in addition to hazard pay. An agreeable arrangement could no doubt be worked out in goods, alchemicals or, in your particular case, data?

Of course, in order to employ you a proper interview would have to be conducted first with regards to your personal history and overall nature. A certain laxness in these processes was responsible for previous hires that proved, she glances at the ghoulish head again, somewhat regrettable.

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