AsHul will spend the TimeSkip examining his brass sphere and sheet music. Alone. Far enough away from his Fathom not to have any awkward yet hilarious misadventures in that regard.
Name: AsHul
Description:Former human. Awful, ugly, indifferent
Goal:To find God
Stats
Str:9 Dex:8 Spe:8 End:10 Awa:12 Cun:10 Kno:10 Ner:16 (currently at -1)
Skills
Diving: 3
Animal Handling: 2
Survival: 1
Inventory
Relic Fragment
Black Book (copy)
1 Silent Night - calming. gives advantage on diving rolls
3 Worm Blood - steadies nerves (restores to max)
2 Occult Junks
3 Fathoms (One magnetically welded to the wall of his room in the Bore, one "shiny," one standard)
One Brass sphere with clockwork innards (From Balaram)
Book of sheet music (from Balaram) [stack of about 100 pages bound by three brass rings along the top of the sheets]
You discover that your ball is some manner of clockwork brain, sort of like the one that runs the bore though smaller. You can't really tell what it is or does without hooking it up and interacting with it a bit. The sheet music is...well its sheet music. Maybe playing it will explain things more? Or maybe its just sheet music.
If I had the opportunity, I would fight this like my life is on the line, because it totally is. I'm unconscious, so this is your chance to have me not have any say in what happens.
Name: Wiellste Gunsmithy
Description: A young Ethral, no taller than 4 feet. Her fur is unpatterned and a milky white. Usually wears a rather plain quilted brown silk cloak, and a polished copper mask with symmetrical, spiraling lines etched on the sides.
Goal: Wiellste is like many Ethral in that she seeks to gather knowledge about the world before all else. Though being an Ethral from Knot, her skills are largely more on the practical building side than the scholarly side. She isn't particularly invested in the teachings of the Tenebrous Church, but the idea of the spheres intrigues her, especially Balarim, with it's writings and technology.
Stats:
Str: 7
Dex: 12
Spe: 9
End: 8
Awa: 7
Cun: 15
Kno: 13
Ner: 11
Skills:
Weaponsmith 2
Diving 2
Pistol 1
Bore 1
Translate 1
Stealth 1
Inventory:
Silk cloak
Copper mask
Ethral revolver 6/6
1 Fathom
You wake up feeling like complete and utter crap maybe 10 minutes before the bore reaches its destination and have to be literally carried out.
Time skip away.
If we have time to do stuff during the timeskip, continue my tests with the crystal babies per my previous action.
Name: Clate
Race: Shluck
Description: Being a Shluck, Clate is rarely seen outside of his environmental suit. Inside, he is the standard albino mollusk, with his only true defining characteristic being the alternating white/borwn pattern of his beak, much like on a nautilus shell. His environmental suit and exoskeltons are full of scuff marks and small blemishes from work, but the knowledgable observer will notice that it is mechanically kept in tip-top shape. He wears a toolbelt and a satchel to store his tools and other knickknacks, and has a blue cap perched on top of his helmet.
Goal: To create great works of craftsmanship and become filthy rich in the process.
Stats
Str: 8
Dex: 10
Spe: 8
End: 10
Awa: 9
Cun: 16 (+3)
Kno: 12
Ner:10
Skills
Electronics 1
Mechanical 1
Biological 1
Chemical 1
Occult 1
Weaponsmith 1
Armorsmith 1
Stealth 1
Steal 1
Explosives 1
Inventory
Clothing: A tool belt that can be modified to fit the exoskeleton, a satchel and a blue cap with "If it ain't broke, fix it" embroidered on.
Bladed Shovel - handle coated with chrome stuff
Silk rope (100ft)
TNT x3
Dynamo lantern
Field lighter
Path markers x10
8 Octaherdrons - supposedly replicate materials
2 gold cubes
1 container of Pseudomagnetic mortar
labradorite/Obedience rod
Slate box with multicolour crystal toothpick - supposedly turns someone into a gemperson.
Metal spike with gems on it - apparently some sort of crystal people fashion item.
7 structural junk
30 chemical junk
5 Fathoms
Crystal Babies
1. Dodecahedron, no limbs, rolls. Fist sized.
2. 8 sided diamond (looks like Ramiel from EVA and floats). 8 inches to an edge
3. Crystal snake. hiss. 18 inches long.
4. Spiky daddy long legs like Irony has. 1 foot legs, fist sized body.
5. Thing looks like (see pic). about 8 inches to a side.
6. Thing that looks like a Strandbeest. Foot long, 8 inches high.
7. Wheel sort of thing that has a fat inside edge and tapers to a sharp edge on the outside. Foot and a half in diameter.
3 Grinds and pokes
4. stabs with legs
5. bumps
6. also bumps.
7. Does flying sonic the hedgehog spins with its sharp edge.
OK for the moment no one is in life threatening danger. May I time skip us to the mob base? Or does someone still have potentially life threatening actions they'd like to take?
Yeah, let's just get on with it, we can fight the man another day.
Could I carefully study the beaker artifact during the timeskip?
"Expert swordplay, honorable ancestor. It seems the being from beyond has retreated back to its realm."
Name: Adam Blavatsky Darvaza
Description: A young man of slightly pale complexion and eternal 9 o’clock shadow, he was raised in a small village. While the village priest and passing mystics droned with endless sermons of the Church and their teachings, what had always captivated young Adam’s attention more were the stories of his Granny.
Old stories of the world as it once was, before people were forced to flee to the caves and crannies of this damp hell. Of warm days where pleasant green plants tickled your feet as you walked through them and a cool breeze blew through your hair. Where food was plentiful, nature was benign and endless vistas reached as far as they eye could see.
Adam was nominally a card-carrying member of the church, though he mostly did it for the connections and perks that brought. They were powerful and had ancient lore, all things he would need to fulfill his true heart’s desire: to return to the surface, vanquish the madness that tainted their homeland and reconquer paradise.
Goal: Plunge the secrets of the depths below to find an answer to the horrors above.
Stats
Str: 10
Dex: 10
Spe: 10
End: 10
Awa: 10
Cun: 10
Kno: 10
Ner: 13
Skills
Diving: +3
Stealth: +2
Occult: +1
Inventory
Clothing: simple priest robes, shortened a bit so as to less restrict his movements
1 minor artifact
1 beaker artifact
1 black book copy
1 black flame
1 Silent Night
1 field lighter
17 fathoms
(loaned 6 fathoms to aigre)
1 crystal construct
[19]
Uh...you're pretty sure its probably dangerous. Maybe poisonous.
The return to Mason, and then Anvil, is quiet. The guards eventually manage to find Kara and the artifact she's carrying. They don't bother to take it from her and instead search the rest of the bore and herd everyone except those in the control room and those...getting to know each other...into one room to keep an eye on them. It is at once both tense and boring. Eventually the bore slows and clangs into a holding dock, the hiss of pneumatic clamps and the shake as they snap into place alerting everyone to the stop. The guards waste no time, corralling everyone, even those in the cockpit and Auft (and her new lacky) and driving them out of the airlock. They pass back through towards the warehouse but as soon as they step out into the cavern it becomes clear that things have changed.
The warehouse is not burning or anything so dramatic, but it is damaged. The windows are shattered and there are several large dents in the metal, all apparently made from within. The double doors leading into the building have been blown off their hinges and through the opening there is clearly a great deal of destruction inside. There are corpses on the ground outside, some simple victims of gun fire laying in pools of blood, others burnt or mangled via unknown forces. In the center of this, standing facing the doorway you've all just come out of, maybe 20 feet away, is a group of men. A procession, really. There are maybe a dozen men in the garb of Aspirants, and half that in the robes of full Guides and Delvers. They're all armed; their robes constricted with gun belts and straps holding scabbards. Two are wounded, obvious bloody holes or gashes in their cloaks, but they don't seem to notice it. In front of them are two abominations in a combination of dark robes, silver masks and clean white bandages which completely covers any exposed flesh. Their gloved hands, hold long black metal poles which bifurcate at their apex and form an arch. In that arch is a bell made of something that looks even darker than the black metal. The abominations sway slightly back and forth, not just their arms but their whole bodies, the motion multiplied by the long poles and rocking the bells in a steady motion. The bells make no audible noise but everyone can
feel their chime. It rolls over them like invisible waves, ebbing and flowing with enough force to make most people unconsciously sway against it, like leaning against the wind.
At the front and center of this group is a man. He's not a very intimidating man, considering the armed procession behind him. He's maybe 5'5", in his early 60's, his face pale and starting to really show his age, the wrinkles deepening around his closed eyes and faintly grinning mouth. He has a small, pointed beard with no mustache and is mostly bald with a crownline of wispy white around the back of his head. He has his hands behind his back and a serene look on his face, as though he was meeting with a friend. Around his neck is a silver chain hung with maybe two dozen rather large black beads, with a black flame sitting in the center. But what makes everyone really take notice is his robes. He is clearly a member of the church and his robes are
dark. Not quite the light annihilating darkness of the rumored upper echelons, but something very close.
"Hello." He says, his voice like warm velvet, as he opens pure solid black eyes to look at the group, "You must be the unfortunate souls forced to do the bidding of these...highwaymen. Fear not."
At that the men behind him open fire. Not a wild spray of rounds either; a series of concise bursts overlapping into a short lived roar. Everyone dives to the ground or flinches back or otherwise dodges away but the shooting ends in a second or two and when they look up the guards are dead, each one killed by a cluster of rounds to the chest and head. The Old man looks back and forth for a moment and then walks carefully across to one of the corpses. He draws back his sleeve to expose a pale hand and reaches down, plucking the guard's remote from the body. He looks it over in an odd way, as though appraising the craftsman ship before closing his eyes and smiling down at the group.
"The chains wrought by the faithless cannot withstand the might of the faithful." He says to no one in particular and pushes a button. The collars all beep and then break apart, separating into two halves that clank down to the stone.
"In any case, you all have done a great favor for the Church, however unwitting or involuntary it was. We desired to have this artifact ourselves, but it seems like these brigands wanted to ransom it to us. Ahhh, they thought themselves clever." He says as he walks among the dead, eventually coming up to Kara, who is standing next to and leaning on Nyw for support. He opens his eyes again and seems to be examining her missing arm before shifting his gaze up to the package on her back. "Ah, there it is."
Nyw carefully shifts his weight, subtly placing his bulk between the procession's shooters and Kara. The old man's head turns slightly towards Nyw and his smile deepens before he steps a few paces back, hands raised in a supplicating gesture.
"Of course we would not think of simply taking it from you by force. That would make us no better than these ruffians, after all. I propose a trade. Let us say...That bore you used, this warehouse and whatever is within, and..." He reaches one hand into the opposite sleeve of his robe and comes out holding two Fathoms. Not normal fathoms, the 6 inch long, 4 inch wide, platinum and gold fathoms, each worth 1000 fathoms. "And a modest sum. With the compliments and favor of the Church, of course."
Author
Topic: DIG: Heresy (Read 413644 times)