Help Clate if possible/needed. If not, go up and check out any remaining barrels (look with wizard eyes first to ensure no deadly surprises await). If also not possible/needed, then could I ask for an update on the last strata of the black book? Any progress?
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.
After his encounter with a Word of God, the edges of his vision are flickering with black flame and his skin is extremely pale with what appear to be black veins instead of the normal blue ones. It also forced him to reevaluate his views on the cthonic church and god.
Goal: Plunge the secrets of the depths below to find an answer to the horrors above.
Stats Str: 11
Dex: 11
Spe: 13
End: 12
Awa: 12
Cun: 11
Kno: 10
Ner: 14
SkillsDiving: +3
Stealth: +2
Occult: +1
Flammenvision! InventorySoldier's chestplate
Clothing: simple priest robes, currently worn long to hide the black veins
Rubber Suit
1 ethral rifle [10 rounds] (pierce 3)
2x black flame
2x smoke bomb
1 flashbang
3 Silent Night
4 worm blood
1 minor artifact
1 minor artifact belonging to Rhea
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
portal knives design
123 fathoms
-loaned 40 to Cara (Tiruin)
3 unspent skillpoints
[3]
The barrels are open, but their contents are still worth looking into. You give them a scan with your wizard eyes and find out a few things. First, that cloak Kara is wearing has some magic in it. Specifically its woven into the mirrors as your eyes see them as that familiar lack of existence. If you had to guess, judging by the nature of the thing, it has a powerful reflective magic on it, a mirror shield of sorts.
The net is mundane but those teardrop crystals are all interconnected as though by thin, invisible wires. Their purpose is interwoven between them, though you're still not sure what that purpose could be.
The spiky thing on a stick though, you're damn sure thats a gun. There are eddies of energy swirling around it like slow motion whirlpools.
The big wall tablet is equally obtuse in its meaning to you, but you notice regular patterns in the structure of the crystal. Maybe its information that only one of the crystal race can decipher?
"Nah, I don't think it ever had a will of its own, just a set of instructions for it to follow. After we left the ruins it just sat still doing nothing, until Clate gave me the control rod."
I'm not touching the fishhook net thing, that thing looks dangerous. But the colorful gems might look nice in my museum and they seem like they could fetch a good price, if nothing else. Or maybe I could make them into a crown or something... Anyway, try to scoop the gems up and put them in my purse or some other suitable container.
Anyway, if nothing horrible happens, try to find anything of archeological value like statues or tablets or something that looks like it might have been used in their day to day life.
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.
StatsStr:10
Dex:13
Spe:13
End: 9
Awa:12
Cun:11
Kno:12
Ner:11
SkillsRifle: 1
Medical: 1
Translate: 1
Acrobatics: 1
Caving: 1
Machine Control: 1
Stealth: 1
Geology: 1
Archeology: 2
Navigation: 1
Unspent: 1
InventoryHeavy Crystal Armour
Golden pin (in forearm)
Crystal Friend (with riding harness +
Obedience Rod)
Radio
35 fathoms (1% royalty for flame)
Ethral Rifle (scope+bipod) (rifle 3, pierce 3) 6/7
Ethral Rifle magazine 7/7
Ethral Rifle magazine 6/7
Crystal WeaponField Lighter (Fire 2)
Grappling Hook + Ethral Silk rope 200 ft
1 Dynamo Lantern (Light 3)
1 Knife (Cut/Pierce 2)
2 Slave Traps
Simple Clothes (with hood)
Cot
Book (Adventures of Pilgrim)
Deck of Cards
Kara's DiaryIn Storage15 chemical junk
22 mechanical junk
Crystal 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)
Metal Card with the address of the Gilded Crow (corven Gangsters of Goldshore)
Mechanical Arm (not installed)
Bomb collar (unlocked)
All bomb collar remotes
A large number of shiny gold-like messenger path rocks
The Gems do not horribly maim you when you pick them up and deposit them in your bag. Lovely.
[16] You search this room, then head downstairs and search the golem room and sadly find nothing (at least nothing that can be successfully freed) of historical interest. Perhaps in another building? [8] You wander out onto the street and poke around until you find an open door leading into a room that is not so overgrown. Inside you push through ruined rooms until you find a wall of what appear to be life sized statues lined up in a series of square alcoves. They are statues of different species, different intelligent races by the look of it. Some are known to you- antediluvians, fungal men, Moles- but many appear to be missing or alien to you. There are birdmen, but they still have full wings and no arms; little more than giant birds. There are what appear to be churning amalgamations of fluids in a humanoid shape, Lizardmen in a bowed, gorilla posture, a Cluster of slugs, Giant, long legged crabs bedecked in plate armor, and a stack of huge yet compacted crickets, each vastly different in shape and apparent purpose, arranged like a totem pole.
There are no humans, no ethral, no undead. Hmm.
Right. Thanks, my previous post was meant to be in torques to Kara. I will fix it to make it more clear
Name: Rhea Alcove
Description: A female human with blonde hear. She holds a Hooked Cleaver in her right hand and wears a Mail Shirt for protection. She wears a denim shirt and denim jeans, along with tennis shoes.
Goal: To explore and learn as much as she can
Stats:
Str:10
Dex:10
Spe:10
End:10
Awa:10
Cun:11
Kno:10
Ner:12
Skills:
Weapon Skill(Cleaver): 1
Diving: 1
Unarmed: 1
Persuasion: 1
Defense Skill(Mail Armor): 1
Survival: 1
Biological: 1
Caving: 1
Navigation: 1
Animal Handling: 1
Inventory:Free Clothing
Worm Blood x2
Organic Junk x2
Hooked Cleaver
Mail Shirt
Think about Gesh
Gesh the sphere?
[20]
It has a silly name.
Heh. Gesh.
I'm gonna just list a bunch of question/info I want to know, in the hopes of having most of it answered by the overmind. To speed things up, so the other players don't have to wait too long on my slow ass.
1 - What was the weapon exactly?
2 - What was the mistake? Trying to convert them by force? Waging war?
3 - Am I understanding correctly that to get the crystal overmind back, I'll need to find this solution next to the molten heart?
4 - Can it give me the knowledge/means to make more crystal toothpicks? So I can create more comrades?
5 - Rather than restore it's connection to ALL crystal entities, is there a way to restore it's connection to specific entities. IE, me.
6 - What are its plans should I manage to somehow restore its guidance/connection?
7 - Would it at all be open to peaceful co-existance with the other races? Tell him that the crystal race and what they did in the past has been mostly forgotten by the other races, and that so far I've made a decent amount of comrades without problem. Co-existance seems totally possible.
8 - Can it give me any tips/pointers how my crystal powers work? I'm sure that, as a recent crystal-convert without any guidance, there's aspects I haven't figured out yet
9 - Can it give me the knowledge of the crystal language that they used on their tablets to communicate to other species? So I can translate those for my comrades?
Bonus: 10 - Is there anything it wants to tell me of its own volition? Knowledge, a mission, a message? Seeing as I'm probably the only remaining crystal-convert right now.
Name: Clate
Race: Shluck
Description: To bring back the crystal race
Stats
Str: 12
Dex: 8
Spe: 10
End: 13
Awa: 12
Cun: 8
Kno: 14
Ner: 15
Skills
Natural +3 Caving
Natural +3 Geology
Natural Mute
Natural No clothing
Natural Stonesenses
Natural Stoneshaping
Unarmed: +2
Weapon skill: Stone Blade +2
Stealth: +1
Archeology: +2
Weaponsmith: +2
Navigation: +1
Armorsmith: +1
Chemical: +1
Inventory
Bladed Shovel - handle coated with Pseudomagnetic mortar
Knife (cut2, pierce2)
TNT x5
Dynamo lantern
Field lighter
Path markers x10
"Muggy"(skull mug scrimshawed with "can we fix it?" on the side, "No, it's fucked." on the bottom. Has trigger on the inside of the spine-handle that, when squeezed, caused the mandible to open and close)
100ft silk rope
6 Octahedrons - supposedly replicate materials
1 container of Pseudomagnetic mortar
labradorite/Obedience rod (on loan to Kara)
Silver ethral pendant: small silver pendant in the shape of a compound eye wreathed in white fire
Ethral archive promissory note
443 Fathoms
Crystal Babies
2. 8 sided diamond (looks like Ramiel from EVA and floats). 8 inches to an edge
5. Pryamid with stumpy limbs
7. snake golem. Its larger than the original by several times and rougher, sort of like a squirming line of uncut gemstones, each the size of a human fist.
Warehouse/bore storage:
Bomb Collar
Slate box
Spool of thermoreactive wire.
Acoustic guitar (Metal + guardbone, totally mundane.)
Mail shirt (Made to integrate directly into the exosuit, protecting surface that houses Shluck including head.Protect 3)
Rifle (pierce2, 6/10 magazine)
Small Knife from crystal barrel
Small bowl from crystal barrel
roll of very thin and flexible stone
small cube of the extremely dense material
sharp pyramid shaped wedge thing
3 structural junk
30 chemical junk
1 gold ingot
1. Dodecahedron, no limbs, rolls. Fist sized.
6. Rolling Orb
3. Crystal snake. hiss. 18 inches long.
4. Spiky daddy long legs like Irony has. 1 foot legs, fist sized body.
1. A method of spreading crystalization to all.
2. In attempting to spread the overmind broadly, it was spread too thin and too fast, essentially tearing it to pieces and spreading it out in a vastly weakened form, anchored to major concentrations of crystal.
3. The overmind believes this t be the case. There is a crystal thing out there, a compound of sorts.
4. Yes and no. Those are slivers of the true crystal, the true being which gave rise to the race. They were not made, they were given. But the location of the nearest branch is known, albeit beyond the reach of the current map.
5. You are already connected right now. If you mean to keep this connection beyond this location, no. Not as it is.
6. To rebuild, and to continue to spread the communion of the crystal. Though it has been weakened in this time, it has waited patiently to continue its spread. Eons are nothing to one such as the Crystal.
7. This is a bit hard to translate but can be best described as skepticism. It held such relations in the past but it found organic life to be highly unpredictable and fickle, wavering between comrade and enemy every few hundred years- a time period it considers unreasonably fast. The weapon and the conflict that brought it were the result of its frustration with the other races and their insubstantial nature.
8.Your abilities are weakened and lessened because of the state the overmind is in. If it were restored, its connection to the Crystal would be reestablished and thus its powers would be more accessible to you. You should be able to bud off golems and effortlessly form weaponized constructs but you are sadly limited now.
9. You are given this.
10. Its desire to be whole once again is clear. Its desire for your safety equally clear. It has no words, as such things are insubstantial. Its feelings and desires are clear to you, what more can be asked?