Look for Eccentrica.
[Mind: 11+1]
Eccentrica, fortunately, is pretty easy to find - just look for an audience, or a place that might host one. One of the larger tents hosts her as well as a strangely transfixed committee of Frog People, and all of them presently seem to be staring at the cracks in the warm ice floor, crowding around a great metal spike driven into it, even now emanating enough warmth to reach you at the edge of the tent.
You observe as they engage in what looks like some sort of rudimentary communication, although rather than staring at each other they seem to stare at the reflections in the ice. It's a strange scene to behold (particularly the glimpses you catch in the ice, which do not at all seem to correspond to , and one you're not sure you should disturb.
Oh shit, this isn't good.
"Heeho! What are you doing in the water?"
Shit out Make a simple strand of spider silk and lower it into the water so Heeho can grab a hold of it. Attach one part to the ground behind me so that I don't have to carry all of the weight myself.
Heehoo doesn't seem inclined to answer you as he quickly becomes locked in a staring contest with a highly intelligent, predatory marine worm.
[Finesse: 7+1]
You sling your abdomen over the edge of the jetty and start to spin a long strand of webbing - you decide to go with the relatively sticky kind, just in case Heehoo has trouble parsing your instructions. And sure enough, about half a minute later it does attach successfully to his shoulder - you let it cover a considerable portion of him as the harbor worm watches bemusedly.
Of course, it's roughly at the point where you start pulling the guy up that the worm starts to protest -
violently.
[Body: 10 vs. 4+3]
Fortunately, Heehoo is a bit too slippery for the damn thing to pull him back into the water, and with a bit of pulling you manage to have the shiny gentleman dangling on the string in no time, the worm chomping at him from below, going for several leaps that reveal its total length to exceed 30 feet at the very least, but you manage to keep the bastard from having too many essential bits chomped out of him, and soon you have him dragged up to the jetty reasonably safe and sound, in body if not necessarily in mind.
Eccentrica really wished she'd taken a few more electives at the galactic stripper academy, but, well, she was a focused professional. Still, she'd do the best she could. After all, she appeared to have been led off by herself and there wasn't anyone around to help.
Lacking any means of drawing on the hard ice, she pulled a couple spare bills out of her outfit and began, with the frog people's help, attempting to use them to communique pictographically.
Try to understand the frog people's question, provide visual aids.
[Mind: 9]
The faces of dead Fly Presidents may not be the best way to try and communicate, but it's what you got, so you try and make the best of it, showing your many singles to the Frog People, trying to find something, anything that they recognize - one Frog Person in particular takes one of your singles and, recognizing a fly on it, gives it a slight taste, and unfortunately finds it inedible as well as reinforced against most kinds of environmental influence. The elder finally settles on one thing - the Eye of a Million Facets on one of the anti-counterfeit markings, which seems to fill her with an uncommon sort of unease.
You're at something of an impasse here as you try and gesture at them, and they croak at first, but then give in and try to communicate purely through gestures as well, and things lead naturally into a sort of interpretive dance as you try and get each other's ideas of what you want across - you want to find out what it is they're going to do with you, naturally, but to understand that a certain level of communication should be established - you should- wait.
You glimpse something in the floor as the dance continues. The frogs reflect between the cracks, the ice looking like a mirror at first. But the longer you look, the more you see something else. The reflection, you get the sense, only
appears twisted, the shapes of your questioners bending into the reliefs of the ancient Frog People. But a funhouse attraction it is most certainly not, for as you stare a moment longer, you notice something - from the estranged shapes of the Frog People something emanates. It is intent, curiosity, coming in clearly like a sudden revelation, but refusing to subside.
Forbidden dances - how, where, why did you learn this, why do you do this? The ice appears to ask these questions of you, as the frogs reflect in it. You step away from the Frog People a little, so as to better assess their reflections. They, noticing you looking down, cast their eyes to the floor as well. First at their reflections, then at yours - you look down at yourself as well, and begin to move and reflect.
It takes a few minutes of experimentation before you have it down - you manage a word, two words, three words - yes, three words at a time is the best you manage before noise begins to set in, but it is enough, enough to send simple messages, to ask simple questions, to introduce yourself in the simplest of terms.
Gained a cursory understanding of ice communication Find my way out of the ice caves. Use the machete to mark the walls as I go, so I can tell if I start backtracking.
[Mind: 8+1]
See, now there's thinking with your head. Your machete hums to life as you start carving gouges into the walls to mark your passage, and otherwise keep at least one of your hands on one at all times. You go deeper at first, then turn around and go to the left, and then to the right, and through what feel like a million variations of the same goddamn passage, but eventually you manage to come upon a Frog Person, seemingly one that's been ranging rather far from the others. As she beholds your machete, she is confused a moment, but the menacing hum of the plasma convinces her to leave shortly enough - you follow and menace her appropriately to motivate her to find a crowd, which she fortunately does! Wisely you elect to turn off your machete before relative civilization properly kicks in, and the Frog Person loses you quite readily among her largely identical (well, to your eyes anyway) peers and you can refocus on the more important things - namely, getting out!
Rather fortunately, this also seems to be within easy reach - the secret, as it turns out, is not going down or up, but rather you need to go a little ways to the left, then to the right, and eventually you find yourself at an exit, a large icy archway leading to sunny white arctic desert outside, a rather amazingly ancient staircase of a thousand steps at least leading all the way down to what seems to be a valley (or whatever the equivalent is in a giant glacier - crevice?).
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Topic: The Pillared Garden: A Miracle of Rare Device (Read 26104 times)