: This is Kara of the Nameless Nomad. Identify yourself Empyrean station. : Kara said, piping the audio to the intercom system so that the rest could hear.
Can I switch to the Empyrean station and Converse privately instead of broadcasting?
If yes, do so and give them my name and information. However do not provide any more information besides mine, citing privacy concerns of the crew.
If not, then merely give them my name.
Regardless, tell them that Deep Walker Leon's assistants have met me and seen my paperwork and could provide confirmation about who I am. Then ask them if there's something we should do or watch out for.
Name: "Kara" is what most humans call her, though the closest pronunciation would be Kr'ra-Kax
Race: Corven (advantage for climb, disadvantage for falls)
Appearance: She is a crow-like Corven with matte-black feathers. A bit short. Constantly moves her head around, examining her surroundings. Moves her tail up and down whenever she's excited.
Age: Adult, but just barely
Goal: Wants to find artifacts and experiences that she can use to make an (under)world-famous museum. Wants to prove herself to her mother and piss off her brother with her success (both financially and socially).
StatusSacrificed left arm to reverse time (eaten by giant Shluck-like thing). Bandaged and given spider venom for the pain.
StatsStr:9
Dex:13
Spe:13
End:7
Awa:12
Cun:10
Kno:12
Ner:11
Skills1 unspent
Rifle: 1
Medical: 1
Translate: 1
Acrobatics: 1
Caving: 1
Machine Control: 1
Stealth: 1
Geology: 1
Archeology: 1
Navigation: 1
Inventory3 fathoms
Ethral Rifle (scope+bipod) (rifle 3, pierce 3) 7/7
Ethral Rifle magazine 7/7
Ethral Rifle magazine 6/7
Field Lighter (Fire 2)
Grappling Hook + Ethral Silk rope 100 ft
Simple Clothes
Kara's DiaryIn StorageCrystal Tablets (diary about All-Eater and Great Destroyer, inventory, obedience rod instructions, construct assembly instructions)
Church Documents (document ownership and events, and recommend favorable treatment)
Cot
Book (Adventures of Pilgrim)
Deck of Cards
Mechanical Arm (not installed)
Crystal Friend
Bomb collar (unlocked)
All bomb collar remotes
You ask the Empyrean station for a specific frequency for you to broadcast on and they tell you a number.
You tell them your name and information, but refuse to give out any further information. They seem mildly put off by this but then, a few moments and rustling of paper later, they note that you had dealings with the church before and stop asking for further info.
They ask you if the person attempting to touch the Word is a true Chthonic and if so, to keep him with you after he touches it. If not, they say to leave the area immediately and prevent him from touching it.
"Kara. Are you sure broadcasting our situation is a good idea? It seems almost as ill-advised as Adam's attempt at connecting with the Word."
Move further away.
Name: Vikkan Laerthe
Description: A human from Anvil and a moderate Chthonic who was born and raised close in the neighborhood of the Hammerfall boreyard, where his parents were employed as menial workers. Being so close to a place so filled with machinery and boring machines left a lasting impression on Vikkan, who became a furnace helper, then a drivemaster's apprentice until he finally reached the controls of a bore. He's quite good at conducting driving bores and, most importantly, he deeply enjoys his work.
Bore love aside, Vikkan is also generally quite friendly and good-humored even when he's not behind a bore's controls. He is, however, aware of his limitations out of the control room, and he'd rather leave most other matters to more skilled people. What he lacks in intellectual education he displays in polite curiosity, and he tends to be interested in listening even to topics he can only vaguely grasp, making for a good talking and drinking buddy if nothing else.
At odds with his friendliness, he looks rugged, if young. His hair is dark brown and cut short, and he has a well-groomed handlebar mustache (though he's been known to let it grow and style it into a horseshoe at times). A small diagonal scar moves from his right eyebrow to the bridge of his nose. His skin is brown and displays a few burns thanks to a few years of furnace and boiler work. He's fairly hairy, with his shirt's sleeves covering hairy arms and a few spots of scar tissue. His uniform is made of thick cloth and utilitarian, overalls, a long-sleeved shirt and a cap. His major concession to vanity is keeping his uniform and mustache impeccable.
He doesn't have a right hand.Goal: To deep driving bores and having fun while doing it. It's not a difficult dream, even if it can be hard at times.
StatsStr: 11
Dex: 11
Spe: 10
End: 11
Awa: 13
Cun: 10
Kno: 11
Ner: 11
Skills (1 point unspent)
+3 Vehicle (Bore)
+2 Navigation
+1 Defense (Mail Shirt)
Inventory-Conductor's Clothes
-Dynamo Lantern
-Black Book (Copy)
-Field Lighter
-Mail Shirt
-Short Sword
-Rifle
-Knife
-100ft silk rope
-142 Fathoms
-Neck chain (that used to hold a black flame that actually never existed)
-Black Flame
-Clockwork arm
1 Mission and counting
Level 0: +3 Awareness
Level 1: +1 Str, Dex, End, Kno, Ner. 1 skill point unused.
You get someone, one of the many idle masters, to go outside, tie Adam's rope to a rock, and then come back in before you take the bore a good several hundred feet down the tunnel.
The black flame instantly glows bright, webs of interwoven light appearing on its surface. After a moment the light is pulled directly into the Word and the physical black flame crumbles to fine black powder. The Word releases a sound like sheering metal and its multiluminous glow shifts to solid black, the shape of the symbol outlined in an aura of white flame. The entire thing pulses slowly.
Let the bore back away more if it can (see also the message I shot you on the discord).
Is the worm blood still 'active' this turn? If not, be sure to drink a new one before proceeding.
"Darkness is holy, do not fear it. God is a perfect star of black."
Place the palm of my hand in the center of the Word.
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: 11
End: 10
Awa: 11
Cun: 10
Kno: 10
Ner: 13
SkillsDiving: +3
Stealth: +2
Occult: +1
Inventory1 soldier chestplate
Clothing: simple priest robes, shortened a bit so as to less restrict his movements
1 ethral rifle [10 rounds] (pierce 2)
2 black flame
1 Silent Night
4 worm blood
1 minor artifact
1 beaker artifact (found in crystal ruins) => in locker
1 crystal construct
Transport mission papers
1 black book copy
1 black book
1 book "Artifacts of Faith"
1 empyrean city map
1 field lighter
1 radio
6 fathoms
-loaned 40 to Cara (Tiruin)
297 fathoms (payment from pilgrim escort)
1 unspent skillpoint
[2]
You reach forward for the Word. You feel nothing as you touch it, no sensation of touching a physical object, but the world around you shatters. In a flash the world's colors seem to invert, Blinding shadows and darkened light, reflections like holes in the world, the length of black tunnel like a worm of light. Stone goes transparent and matter divides itself over and over until you see each and every subatomic particle in painful clarity. You see around you with no dimming of sight from distance. You see the people in the bore, you see their bones, their organs, their cells, their organelles, the bacteria in their gut, the slow flow of electric current through their nerves. You see the people in Empyrean, you see the blinding black flames in the tallest tower, you see the unearthly number of enchantments that wrap that place in a seemingly infinite number of wards, geas, and strings of coiled power. You see the path you took to get here, you see yourself at every step along it. You look up and see in perfect clarity the miles and miles of stone and then the things that lie above. You see their numbers, their terrible power, their poisonous intellect, their inhuman and literally otherworldly forms. And they see you. And then you look down and you see it. Deep below, who knows how far, through a seemingly infinite webwork of tunnels and living beings, through glowing catacombs and the hollow flames of the antediluvians, through fire and shadow and flowing stone, through beings too grand to comprehend, you see it. A Black Flame. It looks small and distant from here but you feel its presence as though it was the weight of the entire world pressed upon your head.
And you understand. You understand a fraction of the truth, a terrible modicum of what is, unfiltered through any bias or perception. You know what this Word is, this ancient echo of the power that wrought the world. And you know how you have polluted it. You speak the world, unable to keep the force of it restrained in your head.
"See"
To those on the bore, there is a flash of light and then the Word is gone, and you can just make out Adam hanging from the rope where he was before.
Also check up on AsHul, firmly retrieve my moon blade while I'm checking him up.
Name: Alex Wells
Description: A middle aged man standing 5'7" feet tall. He has short brown hair and an unkempt beard.
Goal: Exploring the depths and collecting its wealth.
Stats:
Str: 11
Dex: 11
Spe: 10
End: 11
Awa: 11
Cun: 12
Kno: 11
Ner: 11
Skills:
Explosives 2
Mechanical 1
Survival 1
Caving 1
Chemical 2
Geology 1
1 Skill point
Inventory:
Dynamo Lantern
Field Lighter
5 TNT
Bladed Shovel (Cut 3)
Mail Shirt
39 Fathoms
Crystal box of golem limbs
Golem buddy
Black Flame (Cut 3)
Rifle (Pierce 2) 5/10
8 Structural Junk
Grappling Hook
Moon bladed staff: Currently wielded by AsHul (Cut 4)
You grab your blade.
Check on Ashul. Note also my +1 Mechanical ontop of my +2 Biological.
Charsheet
Stay near Ashul, between him and the group, murakumo drawn and ready. Drett can interact with him, but Nyw will stay prepared to attack Ashul if he attacks anyone. Can't be too careful when the caster gets possessed by demons.
Name: Nyw'geuq Otin Sunam; calls himself "The Lords' Child"
Description:
((Only one murakumo, but hey! Dual wielding them is stupid anyway.))
Goal: Inscrutable, which is code for "I forget to change this thing, way too often".
Stats:Str:14
Dex:8
Spe:10
End:14
Awa:14
Cun:8
Kno:7
Ner:10
Skills:Unarmed: +1
Defense Skill: +3 (Full Plate)
Vehicle Skill: +1
Caving: +1
Navigation: +1
Murakumo: +1
Inventory:
Full Plate Armor [Protective 4]
Crystal Murakumo [Cut 6, Pierce 3, Fragile]
Ornamental Mask of the Child
Probably left in the warehouse:
A hooked cleaver [Cut 3]
Two knives [Cut 2, Pierce 2]
Guard rifle [Pierce 2]
A bunch of bloody guard garments, to be used as raw material.
Examine the flaking carapace. it it an ongoing effect, like an active corrosion, or is it straight impact damage? Try moving about a bit. Does my dented chestpiece interfere with the mechanisms inside at all?
If all that is functioning properly, meet the rest of the group near the exit and prepare to advance.
If the chestpiece is interfering with my innards, I'm going to seek out the mechanically inclined of the team and ask for whatever assistance they can provide, as well as asking Drett, since it's a dream world and doktoring might carry over to the mechanical in this kind of circumstance.
If I'm corroding, I'm gonna stay here and get ready to Dive to remove the corroding bits.
Name: AsHul
Description:Former human. Awful, ugly, indifferent. Currently a dream robot
Goal:To find God
Stats
Str:9 Dex:8 Spe:9 End:11 Awa:12 Cun:11 Kno:11 Ner:16
Skills
3 Diving
2 Animal Handling
1 Survival
1 Weapon skill: Guitar
Inventory
Relic Fragment
Black Book (copy, strata 1,2,4)
2 Silent Night
6 Worm Blood
100 ft of rope
1 knife (cut/pierce 2)
2 Occult Junks
59 Fathoms (One magnetically welded to the wall of his room in the Bore, one "shiny," 57 standard)
168 Fathoms (Team Account. Kept on AsHul's person for safekeeping. Stored separately from his personal funds.
Stored at warehouse during Relic Vision:
Firing Control Module (Brass Brain)
Book of sheet music (from Balaram) [stack of about 100 pages bound by three brass rings along the top of the sheets]
his former bomb collar - made of something like demagnetized neodymium.
One Bone-fretted haunted electric guitar
One mundane acoustic guitar with wave patterns in abalone and turquoise
Notes:
Travellers' guild is offering a relic retrieval job. Local hazards ('living').
Everyone runs up stairs and into the smashed in room where Ashul landed. Drett and Alex start looking him over while Nyw stands by, blade in hand, ready to intercede if anything goes wrong. Ashul stands up, against Drett's orders, and shakes the last bits of damaged metal off himself before looking at the dented chestpiece. It doesn't seem to be interfering, beyond some difficulty in lifting his arms very far above his head. It doesn't stop him doing so, but it feels stiff, like something is catching. Otherwise, he feels unharmed. [16, 18] Alex and Drett aren't entirely sure how Ashul's new body works but judging from what they can guess he isn't terribly hurt so...its probably fine for him to keep doing what he's doing.
Author
Topic: DIG: Heresy (Read 405217 times)