Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262432 times)

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #2340 on:** September 23, 2017, 08:42:31 am »

Quote from: Toaster on September 20, 2017, 12:08:47 pm

((Got it; thank you.))

Oops. Well, this can't be all that bad, can it?

Look around. Is there another way out? Or anything of interest?

[Is There Anybody Out There: 4]

It's dark down here, but not completely so. As your eyes begin to adapt, you realize that something must be shedding light into the area, and set out to look for it.

The basement itself is immaculately tidy, not a speck of dust to be found wherever you walk. Pseudo-furniture including desks and chairs lines the walls, all made of stone and largely impossible to move, stone boxes filled with stone books populate some corners, wholly useless even if they weren't written in lorem ipsum.

Strangely, you come across a trio of rats in one of the corners of the basement, where the light seems ever so slightly brighter. They don't appear to pay you any mind at first, and instead seem to be working on some kind of topological solution to what looks like a very severe knotting in their tails. As you begin to slip closer, however, all three look at you with gleaming rodent eyes and study you astutely, but say nothing in a way that for just a moment makes you wonder if this is just because they don't want to. One keeps an eye on you as the two others sniff around their joined tails and try to pull them apart somehow.

Quote from: Xantalos on September 20, 2017, 03:35:23 pm

"Well, that was productive. Let's go to Peaks again, Linda - perhaps we can figure out what that lock coming to life was all about."

Go find Peaks with the intent of asking her Linda questions. I say intent because that might get derailed by the sight of Mr. Fischgartner.

You look for her in her cabin, but she seems to have gone out by the time you get there - next you check on the deck, and find a lot more than just the alchemist herself. Two Shores appears to have emerged from whatever business the captain had her on, though she looks to be in rather low spirits at the present time. But the strangest thing of all is the man in the black-and-gold paisley bathrobe and slippers, looking equal parts confused and thoughtful at the happenings all around him.

Mr. Fischgartner, you say with utmost certainty, causing him to turn around in surprise and the other two to register your presence - Two Shores takes an uncharacteristically awkward bow while Peaks very jovially pantomimes tipping her hat, the sudden appearance of this new friend seemingly having elevated her mood to unprecedented levels.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on September 21, 2017, 08:01:34 am

"Yeah, that sounds like something that would come in handy," I tell the speaker. "I don't want to impose, but is there anywhere that we could stay for the night? We should probably wait to leave town until the morning. Any little room would be fine - the doctor prefers a mattress, I believe, but I'm fine sleeping on the floor. And Oggie can just hang out nearby."

The speaker tells you to hold on a moment and heads upstairs, coming back about twenty minutes later with some writing supplies. They set up at a dining table as they set about dipping their quill in some ink and starting to write up the requisite documents, which you workshop along the course of the next hour or so. The speaker themselves is clearly somewhat new at writing documents of any kind, but with the doctor's help, your useful suggestions and Oggie's vaguely unsettling presence keeping things moving along at a brisk pace, you've soon drafted up a monster hunting license. Two monster hunting licenses, actually, one made out to your name and the other made out to Dr. Beryl Butler, which is what your companion's actual name turns out to be (from the Butlers of the old capital, seemingly a long and distinguished line of manservants and toadies). Noticing that the doctor gets one, Oggie wastes no time in demanding one for herself as well, settling just for Oggie of Anglefork as the best approximation of what she remembers her name to be - it will be useful, she says, to have a document to shove under noses of those who question her snapping necks.

After the papers are stamped with a High Speaker's prized seal (they technically have a city to themselves, the speaker says, so they count a little extra in the Assembly), The speaker also gives you a badge - only one to share between the three of you, they say, since there weren't any more in the box they found in the town hall. The words "Sheriff of the Crown" have been very decisively scratched out of the silver badge, and instead "Monster Hunter" appears to have been freshly pressed into it with a knife blade in messy letters.

When the speaker presents papers to each of you and pins the badge on your long, though scorched stoat-shirt, you feel a little bit odd. Your name on a scroll of parchment and actual legal status. It gives you a brief queasy feeling before clearing, replaced by a new confidence as you see the doctor tuck her license in a pocket of her traveling dress and, after a moment, receive Oggie's license after she disappointedly realizes she does not have anywhere to put it (need a bag of some kind, she mumbles).

After the papers are done, you inquire about a place to stay the night. The speaker shrugs - you're technically a hero of the city, so you can go wherever you like, flash the badge and papers and tell them to put it on the city's tab if they're bloody well bothered by the expenses, eh? Though if you want a recommendation, they used to work at the Count's Arms - couldn't say what they renamed it to since the purge, but probably something colorful - was a colorful kinda place, the Count's Arms was.

Quote from: DoctorMcTaalik on September 22, 2017, 04:22:25 pm

Rindle blinks a few times. "Sure, why not."

Best to play along for now. Follow crazy, and meet the other probable crazy. Assuming this Two-Shores is in fact real, and not a figment of the woman's evidently large imagination. You never know with these types. Ponder my own existence, and my relationship to Peaks and that Daniels' guy- though not in earnest, as I have no real reason to take Peaks' ramblings as anything other than entertaining (if mildly concerning) lunacy.

Peaks opens the door to her cabin and bids you to follow. If you think she's crazy, she says, you're sure gonna love getting to know the others.

The halls of the Vault of Heavens are all well-done in machined bronze and dark parquet, lit to perfection by white alchemical lights. It reminds you most of something like a luxury yacht - though there are clearly quite a lot of crewmen, perhaps as many as fifty, the decks seem spacious and made more with aesthetic concerns in mind than brute practicality. Well, the officers' quarters do at the very least - you don't really need to head down to the lower decks as Peaks is confident you'll find first mate Two Shores up on the deck.

[Officer On Call: 4]

And as it happens the crazy woman is quite right. Up on the deck among the shuffling masses of lower-ranking sailors, all of which give you questioning looks before Peaks wards them off, is Two Shores Will Become One At The Threshold Of Hell - Shores for short, Peaks nods and smiles. The first mate is simultaneously bizarre and impressive to look upon - dark-skinned and curly-haired just like her friend, her age seems quite indeterminate as she stares off the edge of the deck. She certainly is among the most immediately beautiful individuals you have ever seen despite being absolutely the most scarred, her facial features nearly half made up of a web of deeper and shallower gashes that weirdly suggest a perfection and symmetry all its own, an impossible masterpiece of scarification.

As Peaks hails her brightly, the woman turns a little sluggishly in her flowing dress of ten thousand ribbons, a claymore hanging loosely by her side in a long scabbard. Though keeping a very neutral face, you perceive the vaguest hint of sadness in her eyes before a more obvious look of surprise at your appearance comes over her.

Peaks, she says in a low voice, who is this? She gives you a piercing look before addressing you more directly. Why are you wearing Peaks' robe?

For her part, Peaks seems delighted to make the introduction - this is a fellow that materialized out of some flesh that she borrowed, he is likely to be of a similar stock as their mutual friend, though perhaps not as immediately obviously capable as- well, anyway, he seems to be one of those. And it does also occur to her that she didn't actually ask your name yet, which is an unforgivable rudeness against someone who turns up naked in your bed suddenly and-

Mr. Fischgartner, you hear a voice from behind you and immediately turn, spotting someone you unquestionably are able to identify as Mr. Daniels - a man wearing a red-and-gold vest and breeches, arms crossed over his chest as he examines you from a distance. At his feet you see a small clay manikin wearing what look to be two peg legs, pattering about on the ground, and slightly to the left of him you spy a terrifyingly murderous, formless presence gnawing at the guardrail, the crewmen seemingly knowing enough about it to give it a wide berth.

Mr. Daniels, Two Shores bows while Peaks merely gives him a polite nod and a hat-tipping motion in lieu of an actual hat.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Xantalos · « **Reply #2341 on:** September 23, 2017, 04:40:11 pm »

Daniels' eyes flicker over the gathered trio. Peaks was happy, evidently she'd had a breakthrough, accidental or no, and Fischgartner was the result. Poor bugger, he'd have to give him a bit of orientation probably.

His brow wrinkles in concern as his gaze pans over to Shores - low spirits was one thing, everyone has bad moods, but awkward? He'd known the first mate probably less than a week all in all, but awkward was not a word used to describe her. He'd have to have a chat with her later on, see what was awry.

But first things first, dealing with the probably disoriented interdimensional traveller. He claps his hands and rubs them together a few times. "You're probably confused as to how you got here," he addresses the new arrival. "You're from Earth, right? Woke up somewhere strange, naked, not really sure how the hell you got here? Sounds about accurate?"

DoctorMcTaalik · « **Reply #2342 on:** September 23, 2017, 04:58:07 pm »

Rindle shrugs, and nods. "More or less, yeah. Your friend here tells me I grew from a chunk of your muscle, or something."

Xantalos · « **Reply #2343 on:** September 23, 2017, 05:39:36 pm »

Daniels raises an eyebrow. "That ... hmm. I suppose that does make some sense, yeah. Gotta wonder what causes it, but that's a question for later. Anyhow, what have you been told about your situation? I'll do my best to orientate you to the world we're in, so if you've any questions, ask away."

Toaster · « **Reply #2344 on:** September 24, 2017, 12:40:59 pm »

((Oh good, a rat king.))

Odd. "Do you need some help?" The absurdity of addressing rats was far outweighed by the rest of the past few days.

Do they want help? Try to help? Back off if they don't.

penguinofhonor · « **Reply #2345 on:** September 25, 2017, 08:21:28 am »

I ask for directions, then thank the speaker and start making my way to the Count's Arms.

TopHat · « **Reply #2346 on:** September 27, 2017, 05:23:21 pm »

"Of course, sorry - I hadn't expected such a violent effect. Are you okay?"

I didn't exactly cover in first aid training, but give it my best shot anyway.

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #2347 on:** September 28, 2017, 05:05:09 pm »

Quote from: Xantalos on September 23, 2017, 04:40:11 pm

Daniels' eyes flicker over the gathered trio. Peaks was happy, evidently she'd had a breakthrough, accidental or no, and Fischgartner was the result. Poor bugger, he'd have to give him a bit of orientation probably.

His brow wrinkles in concern as his gaze pans over to Shores - low spirits was one thing, everyone has bad moods, but awkward? He'd known the first mate probably less than a week all in all, but awkward was not a word used to describe her. He'd have to have a chat with her later on, see what was awry.

But first things first, dealing with the probably disoriented interdimensional traveller. He claps his hands and rubs them together a few times. "You're probably confused as to how you got here," he addresses the new arrival. "You're from Earth, right? Woke up somewhere strange, naked, not really sure how the hell you got here? Sounds about accurate?"

[Friendly Conversation: 1]

Two Shores and Peaks converse between themselves as you take up Mr. Fischgartner's attention, inquiring about each other's day and making small talk about the happenings experienced by one crewman or another, and offering comments about the splendidly flawed nature rolling past the deck as you sail downriver toward the Sky Rig. They even chat about the weather, and Peaks shares with Shores a joke that she heard about the writer and the scissor salesman, which neither you nor Shores appear to find terribly funny. They seem to be killing time, occasionally glancing in your direction as they continue to talk about what books they've been reading lately.

Quote from: DoctorMcTaalik on September 23, 2017, 04:58:07 pm

Rindle shrugs, and nods. "More or less, yeah. Your friend here tells me I grew from a chunk of your muscle, or something."

[Friendly Conversation: 2]

The two women carry on their own conversation as Mr. Daniels takes his first steps on educating you on the matters surrounding being tossed unwittingly into a strange and alien world and gifted with obviously supernatural abilities by some terrible eldritch beast. Their conversation seems altogether less potentially interesting than yours, involving mostly the weather, lunch plans and awful jokes. You almost have to wonder how someone can talk so much while saying so little.

Quote from: Toaster on September 24, 2017, 12:40:59 pm

Odd. "Do you need some help?" The absurdity of addressing rats was far outweighed by the rest of the past few days.

Do they want help? Try to help? Back off if they don't.

The lookout rat sniffs at you, and deems you an acceptable meddler in their affairs. You're not sure what its criteria are or whether you should be honored to be included. You look at the knot of tails and, true enough, seems to be a bit of a sticky wicket.

You start by unraveling the actual knot, which is easy enough when you have eight fingers and two thumbs to work with. Then you turn your attention to the much more daunting problem at hand - the fact that these three rats appear to have fused together at the tail somehow, forming a weird bulbous node that pulses rhythmically at the center.

[A Puzzle of Rats: 5]

The trick, you discover with some experimentation and a strangely good intuition, is the pulsing. When it starts to deflate, that's when you pull and voila - you've got a few more inches of rat tail for each of them. Then pull again and the same thing happens, and then try again about several dozen times. It's a little hypnotic, you find after you notice that you've managed to produce about six feet of tail in every direction, the rats looking back in slight wonder as the odd little tail-node seems to be having an odd little heart attack in the middle. You don't think it'll hold up to much more than what you've already done - perhaps another tap at most. The rats look equal parts fascinated and terrified as they look on, but offer no further input.

Quote from: penguinofhonor on September 25, 2017, 08:21:28 am

I ask for directions, then thank the speaker and start making my way to the Count's Arms.

The speaker is happy to direct you, though the directions themselves are slightly byzantine and the location is a little south of what used to be the bad side of town. You continue to hear celebration in the streets, the good news front having passed during your business in the speaker's house. Amid an awakening local population you make your way to the Count's Arms.

[All Hands: 2]

Eventually you get there, or at least to the right place. The doctor was kind enough to write down the precise directions, so you can and do double check because where you wind up certainly doesn't look like an inn. The Count's Arms might have inhabited an inn once, mind you, but it appears to have grown beyond its old shell, which is left in this former location still burst open and deflated, an enterprising clan of stoatfolk having moved in and somehow had two dozen or so children that swarm the ruin like maggots. Innumerable washing lines hang along buildings in the area as a cool breeze blows.

You go up and ask a likely-looking stoatman about whether the Count's Arms happen to be anywhere, and they just laugh and say that they're probably about somewhere, but that four horses can get pretty far apart when you spook them right and proper so they couldn't begin to tell you where to look.

Quote from: TopHat on September 27, 2017, 05:23:21 pm

"Of course, sorry - I hadn't expected such a violent effect. Are you okay?"

I didn't exactly cover in first aid training, but give it my best shot anyway.

She's quite all right on balance. A spontaneous dislocation of most of her joints is a small price to pay for a complete reversal of petrification, as the old saying goes. A heck of a lot of things you'd accept if you could only move again. Case in point!

About half an hour later you've managed to puzzle through the process of putting Cindy back together. She's pretty happy that you're so patient with her in this trying time, and even happier when she finds out by the end that she seems to have become double-jointed in the process. She puts one of her legs behind her head in celebration while balancing on the other as she spreads her arms - don't have to force it or anything, neat!

[Delightful Gifts: 3]

As Cindy does a celebratory cartwheel in the main chamber (her skirt going interesting places in the process) you avert your eyes in a gentlemanly manner and notice that the rest of the girls - perhaps a dozen or so - are staring at you specifically. Their petrified expressions are mixed - some look curious, a few look terrified, another one is vaguely disgusted at the breaches of decorum and several others seem almost pleading. All of them, however, have edged a little closer from where you recall them being.

Noticing the attention you're getting, Cindy stands up straight and shakes her fist at the other girls. She also offers some comments on the watchers' overall hygiene, parentage and the hopeless distance of their latest bill of clean health, first to the room at large and then going into some upsetting specifics through a whisper.

[Lovely Cindy: 5]

Anyway, Cindy says at last, still side-eying the other girls, it's about time she and you got out of this godforsaken whore museum. Come on, she knows where the madame keeps her savings - grab those and pop out through the back entrance and you'll be gone before you can say "embezzlement".

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Toaster · « **Reply #2348 on:** September 29, 2017, 12:54:16 pm »

"Okay... once more and you should be good."

Talking to rats barely registered on Thomas's absurdity index at this point.

Finish the job.

Xantalos · « **Reply #2349 on:** September 29, 2017, 06:09:51 pm »

Proposal to retroactively slot in conversation with Mr. Fischgartner if it happens here, so that interaction with others won't be overly sidelined.

After concluding his conversation of uncertain length with his fellow wellspawn, Daniels turns to Peaks and Shores. "So, first things first. Two Shores, are you okay? You seem ... out of sorts, if you don't mind me saying so."

Show concern for the wellbeing of another person - a novel thing for Daniels so far.

DoctorMcTaalik · « **Reply #2350 on:** September 30, 2017, 06:52:00 pm »

Rindle snaps back into reality. "What was that? My condition? Peaks hasn't said too much- only that I manifested here, that I may or may not be dead, something about... nether-flesh?" He frowns. "Yes, I think she said I was nether flesh... Actually, this whole situation here is giving me sort of a Hellish-vibe.

Xantalos · « **Reply #2351 on:** September 30, 2017, 08:08:18 pm »

Daniels shakes his head.

"No, this isn't hell - or if it is, pretty much every religion is wrong to a hilarious degree. You're in a different world, basically. Ever read Narnia? Sorta like that, only we've basically been plucked from Earth and manifested here by the will of an interdimensional entity to be used as research probes. ...not really like Narnia now that I think about it."

DoctorMcTaalik · « **Reply #2352 on:** October 02, 2017, 12:32:55 am »

Rindle slowly nods. "Narnia meets Saw. Got it. So... this entity. Some kind of ethereal, abstract thing? Like a god? Or will my captor have the courtesy of showing itself? And what kind of research, exactly?"

Xantalos · « **Reply #2353 on:** October 02, 2017, 02:31:19 am »

"Sorta ethereal, or at least it doesn't have a body in the physical sense. It won't reveal itself as such, but you can go meet it if you choose; it resides in very certain types of darkness, which I assume functions as a transition to the extrauniversal void it inhabits or something like that. I wouldn't really recommend it though; it seems to think like a giant computer or something, and if you ask it anything the answer will cost you a connection - basically the sum total of your relationship with a person, if you give it up that person loses all ability to even recognize your existence. Deal with the devil-type stuff, you give it connections or sources, which is basically people, and it can give you ... basically anything, but if you phrase it incorrectly you won't get what you want and there's no refunds. As for research, it seems to be interested in how sapient beings interact for academic purposes. At least that's what it's told me. My advice, don't bother with it unless you need something you can't get any other way."

TopHat · « **Reply #2354 on:** October 02, 2017, 05:23:22 pm »

"... A kind offer. I'm not sure it's right to leave everyone else like this though, when I could literally fix them with a glance."

Express moral issues with the recommended course of action.

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Author Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 262432 times)

Harry Baldman

Re: Our Salvation: It Is Written

Xantalos

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DoctorMcTaalik

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Xantalos

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Toaster

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penguinofhonor

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TopHat

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Harry Baldman

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Toaster

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Xantalos

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DoctorMcTaalik

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Xantalos

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DoctorMcTaalik

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Xantalos

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TopHat

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