Haggered Appearances, part 4

Log Info

• Title: Haggered Appearances, part 4
• Emitter: Whirlpool
• Characters: Cryosanthia, MAC-B1G, Braelnoir, Edinaz
• Place: A Strange House in the Mythwood
• Time: Thursday, November 19, 2020, 8:35 PM
• Summary: Falling! So much Falling! Falling in the first stairwell, until everyone is lasso'd back onto it. Except it breaks under MAC-B1G's weight, so more falling into the basement. There is no way back up, so the search for Zaya continues. A lever is found behind a painting, leading to a staircase full of traps. This leads into a room that briefly shows the aftermath of the Sorceress Wars. Cryo sees a rune in the middle of it, MAC-B1G disables it, and a steel staircase is revealed. Down everyone goes, past the Acid Nozzle traps to reach another sub-sub basement room. Full of artifice and attractive buttons.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  Appearing, in Order  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Cryosanthia  6'9"     291 Lb     Sith-Makar        Female    A dashingly tall, elegant white-scaled lizard woman.
MAC-B1G      6'6"     303 Lb     War Golem         Neuter    Drab gray primarily metal humanoid with cyan-lit optical receptors.
Braelnoir    5'11"    146 Lb     Human             Female    A tall, pale Acanian woman, branded in silver.
Baz da Ork   7'0"     320 Lb     Orc               Male      7' 320 pounds of metal, muscle and stupid. WAAAGH!
Edinaz
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  As the GM  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Whirlpool              Lb        Otyugh                      I am stinky!
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

"Dis is not an improvement on de weird!" Baz shouts, punching the wall and sending himself spinning.

Cryo yells out some information as people go flying by, in the hopes that it will make some sense to them and perhaps someone will shout back a solution.

"It's a different stairwell!"

"It's conjuration magic."

"It takes longer to repeat than.."

"..It should. There is a short wrap around."

"Like you're in a different space."

"Gonna try stopping you in that space Brae."

She measures out a rope, ties it off, and gets ready to lasso her scale-sister. FLING!

"u
u
u
U
U
U
UUUu-!" You get the point.

Brae, less inclined to aerodynamics than some, is coming down the line fast as Cryo hollars up her suspicions. The Korite clams up and gets ready for the sudden stop she's expecting as she feels the lasso surround her, her velocity changing and she slams into the stairwell. "Gaghk! UGh! Damnit!" She, nonetheless clings for dear life as best she can, "Alright, I'm down!" with a quick scan for a better anchor point.

AS Brae calls out, her voice intermittently cuts off.

Indeed, the moment is disorienting. Once Cryo broke free from the group, they are there, then not, then there, then not. In fact, it's happening pretty fast. Still, the lassoing of Brael breaks them free from the cycle as well and they slam into the wall.

To Mac, Baz, and Edinaz, they are left falling, catching brief glimpses of them as they do.

"Data indicates that...
"... high probability..."
"... spatial anomalies..."
"... location ..."

The construct attempts to note its recent evaluations and hypotheses as it descends. And descends. And re-descends again.

"I think we should try for Edinaz next," Cryo says to Braelnoir, now that she's beside her. "Find or make something to tie another lasso off. Once we get him, we can all go for Baz or MAC Bee. This one honestly has no idea which is heavier, they both are huge."

"And sorry, for the abrupt stop."

She waits as the looping group goes by. "Edinaz! Next!"

Braelnoir grunts a little, still a little ache in her eyes but she affords her scale sister a wry smirk and a nod, "A'ight, I'm on't." With that, she drags herself up to her level and starts to look for something to anchor some rope to. For all her strength, she's half the mass, at best, of anyone else in the group. As she searches, she draws her spidersilk rope from a pouch on her bandolier and sets her scythe aside to start tying a second lasso.

Realistically, grabbing MAC-B1G last is the best plan, since it is heavy enough it will require Baz and Edinaz to help. So the order is set, and Edinaz then Baz da Ork is lasso'd. This leaves all hands available to try and reel in the golem. More achor points are found. Everyone gets ready to pull.

GAME: Braelnoir rolls strength: (5)+3: 8
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls strength: (5)+4: 9

Eventually, it comes time to grab Mac. With Baz and Edinaz's muscles at work, you're able to, after many tries, get the rope around him. Then you're yanking him onto the stair well proper.

It works!

... kind of...

The heavy golem swings into the stair well with a thundering crash and, well, so much for those stairs, you know? And so much for stability. You're falling again, but this time its a short and abrupt one as you go smashing through a few floors of rotten wood and all pile in a heap on the ground. Well...

It worked.

Who would have ever thought that a large, heavy metal object swinging on a line could cause such impact damage to a structure. MAC files that discovery away for future use. Perhaps it could prove to make demolition of deprecated structures more efficient...

Thankfully, the rotted wood absorbed a lot of the impact. Everyone is banged up (or scratched paint in Mac's case perhaps) but otherwise seems not truly worse for wear.
THUD.

...

...

...

"OWwwww...." Brae wheezes from the bottom of the pile, her spikeshod hand flailing blindly from under the tangle of limbs, "Ge-get offf...!"

Falling! Cryo's first thought is 'lev on', enough to activate her boots, although she can't remember if they already were. Disentangling herself from the mass so she isn't taken down with it is the next, along with 'Braelnoir', whom she can't grab and whom her boots wouldn't hold up if she could.

The whitescale is left watching everyone crash through to the basement. She looks around for Braelnoir's scythe, wary that it will be spinning through space towards her, or her scale-sister. She's heard enough about Ghisha's reach from beyond the grave to believe that's possible. That the favoured weapon might still have some hidden curse.

Except, oh! No! There it is hooked on the wall where she left. Cryo pulls herself around with the remaining ropes enough to grab the weapon, then lets herself drift down.

"Is anyone badly hurt? This one can't heal."

"Descent terminated." MAC proceeds to move its manipulators off of anything biological so that it can extert force to right itself and remove its chassis from anything biological. It then pans faceplate to scan the vicinity of the point of impact.

Cryosanthia assists MAC-B1G to get upright and checks its chassis for obvious damage. She moves over to help Braelnoir, then Edinaz and Baz. Briefly she stares upwards through the hole.

"This isn't very promising. Should we explore here since it's hard to fall through the the basement, or look for a way upwards again. This one wishes she had a 'Find the Path' kind of spell, or some marbles to roll around. Seems like that might work better."

GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/engineering: (20)+3: 23
GAME: Braelnoir rolls knowledge/engineering: (20)+6: 26
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls knowledge/engineering: (3)+7: 10

The place everyone in is stable, but forget about using the stairs. This presents a problem, of course. It's not possible to go up without them *easily*, and the other side of the house has that teleporter.

Braelnoir clambors to her feet, "Yeah.. that'll wake y'up in th'mornin...." she groans, shaking her head. She sighs, "Thanks, sis." then, "May's well search, then."

Cryo keeps looking up, "We can't get up there easily. Not without a rope, a winch, or a bunch of magic we don't have. The stairs won't hold. The other side of the house has the teleporter."

"If we head to the centre, we might be able to go through to another wing and find a set of stairs. Since we're trying to find Zaya too, might as well go out to the end of this wing, then head back into the centre."

She looks around at the party, "Any thoughts?"

Braelnoir rubs at her neck an starts to look back up the way they came. Hmmm, she nods to Cryo's words, "Well, we got rope, but we run inta that blinky shit again, I suspect." She adjusts her weapons, squaring thigns away, then, "Stil need ta find her, we might only get one chance ta get outta here. Gonna hafta find our bunny first, anyway. May's well clear the floor and work up.

MAC-B1G's faceplate pans between the biological units. "No superior course of action calculated."

The plan is decided. Explore this floor, trying to head 'outwards' first to the end of the wing, then back to whatever centre of the building might be. Essentialy, sweep the whole thing to elimiate Zaya being here, then see if there is another stairwell in another wing.

"Okay, let's go then." Cryo does her best to determine the 'outwards' direction. She heads that way. "This place reminds me of those slidy-puzzles. The kind with the little squares that you can re-arrange into a picture. Except the house re-arranges, and we don't have the puzzle pieces."

"We could make some, but that would take time. Do you think that's useful?" Step, tailswish, step, call out, "Zaaaaayaaaaaa!"

"Unit designate Zaya, present and identify!" MAC vocalizes loudly.

GAME: MAC-B1G rolls perception: (17)+13: 30
GAME: Braelnoir rolls perception: (9)+8: 17
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls perception: (4)+6: 10

Braelnoir, expecting things to be cramped, slips the scythe behind her back again and uses her sleeves to manifest a baldric for it. There's a sort of methodical expression on her face, though a certain Korite glimmer sparkles behind her eyes, "Used ta have a couple't the orphanage. Used ta be pretty good at solvin'm.' She brings her hands to her mouth and hollars, "ZAAAYAAAAAAAA!"

"Sscaless. I keep getting dust in my eyes." Cryo grumbles, then licks them clear.

So, clearing this side of the house it is before trying to figure out how to go up, or even down, a floor.

The good news is that there's no monsters. Which is weird this close to the Felwood, right? Actually, come to think of it, you're IN the Felwood. A land of cursed, monstrous demons and more, and there's ... nothing. No monsters, nothing having taken shelter in the home. It's just ... empty. Empty and quiet. No answer from Zaya.

This side of the house contains a gallery. On the walls are numerous paintings of ... humans and other scenes from the founding of Alexandros. Interesting enoiugh.

MAC-B1G comes to a halt in the center of the gallery, rotating its faceplate a full 360 to scan the surroundings most efficiently. The panning continues for a second pass, though halts at only 133.24 degrees to regard a particular piece of wall-mounted pigment-layered material. Its torso and lower chassis rotate in place to align beneath its receptors before it steps to approach the aforementioned ornamentation and reach to remove it from the wall.

"It's really weird that this place is empty. You'd think something would have wandered in." Cryo says conversationally after a while. Also, she got used to talking to herself while she was isolated, so sometimes it's her way of thinking louder. "So, if it had wandered in, like we did, do you think it got trapped, like we did?"

She straightens her neck, "Actually, could just refer to Zaya too. She must have come in, found how if you go one way it turns into another if you try to go back. You know I've got some paper, I could try making a multi-dimensional map."

Finally, she's looking over the paintings again, "Hmmm."

GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/history: (2)+3: 5
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls knowledge/history: Trained Use Only: 0
GAME: Braelnoir rolls 1d20+2+1: (8)+2+1: 11 (Human Improv)

"They aren't Sith'makar."

Braelnoir carries along with the others, though she stops with a curious, "Watcha got, MAC?" as she notices it picking up a batch of fine art. Cryo's observation catches her attention and she nods, 'yeah, now't ya mention it, imagine we'd a mixed it up a couple times by now. She arches an eyebrow, "How ya gonna manage that, luv? Different colors or somethin?"

"Maybe... an isometric projection." The whitescale wonders, one of her toe talons tapping thoughtfully, "Or just keep growing it out at ninety degrees and then duplicating rooms, then trying to reconcile them once we have a bunch. It's conjuration, so it's shifting us. It's a bit like..."

"Is it like...?"

She looks at Braelnoir, "Like a Mage's Magic Mansion, that isn't fixed in one form, or the Tower. Maybe there's a room where you can control the other rooms. Or if you can speak to the house just right, will it..."

When Mac removes the painting from the wall, there seems to be a loose panel behind it. Removing that panel reveals a lever that can be pulled.

It's a classic, really.

Braelnoir arches an eyebrow, "LIke that hide hole ya's using ta hide from yer spook?" she wonders. She then turns back to MAC as it examines its prize, "Oh, hey, looks like ya found a winner!"

MAC-B1G drops the decoration to remove the panel. "This unit retrieved data implying some significance to this location." It is not a detailed explanation, but the construct appears to lack detailed data. It studies the lever briefly before grasping it with a manipulator to pull the lever.

"Yes, and yes." Cryo watches as MAC-B1G reveals the lever. "Well, lets all touch Mac Bee in case pulling that teleports the person somewhere, or collapses the house."

The whitescale moves over, then leaps, "waaai... oh well."

Braelnoir turns, edging closer and reaches quickly out to the golem on Cryo's disturbingly valid point.

MAC-B1G says, "That is the function of a lever. If not pulled, they serve no purpose and are thus useless."

The lever is pulled!

... there is a series of clicks. Another painting slides to the side and opens a door that reveals a way down. More stairs. 

Great.

MAC-B1G had no data on the results of activation, nor any to even postulate possibilities. Now, however, it does. Its chassis turns to the new opening to scan it. "Alternate egress point established." Now faceplate pans to the others. "Directive?"

"We have solved our stair problem!" Cryo cheers! Followed by a lizardly whistle and a little tiny dance in a circle. "Spirits up everyone! Helllooooo ZAYA! Are you down there?"

She turns with a grin to Braelnoir, "So, target with the light first, or stress tester first?"

If the stairs don't collapse under MAC-B1G, they're golden.

And Cryo shoved the decision making on Braelnoir. Nasty!

"More stairs..." Brae starts in a soft, breathy falsetto, "YaaaAAAaAAaaay..!" She looks to her companions, then, with Cryo's question, she sighs, "Stress." That said, she digs out her rope and passes an end oh the rope to MAC, then passes the other to her companions, "Just in case."

GAME: Braelnoir rolls perception: (18)+8: 26
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls perception: (14)+6: 20
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls perception: (20)+13: 33

Cryosanthia takes the rope. Her free hand loops through several graceful gestures, her arm sparkles and then her eyes glow. She gives a good look around.

MAC-B1G accepts the twisted vegetable fibers, attaching it to its chassis before stepping forward. "Unit designate Zaya, identify. Other possible threats present, identify." It realizes that it need not ONLY request declaration from Zaya; it would be useful to know if other units or threats were present. MAC then begins to descend the stairs.

No answer from Zaya still, of course. Wherever she is, she's definitely staying quiet.

Descending down the stairs is easy enough. Treacherous, sure, but that's only because of the traps. Boy, are there traps. Each of you identify one. A scythe blade concealed in the wall, an electrified step, and of course, a rune placed at the bottom of the stairs that surely woiuld've killed you had you stepped on it. Because it's a death rune.

You bypass each of these once you've identified them.

TO be fair, they're twisted spider butt fibers, but still.

Brae loops her hand in the rope much as she had for the dunk in the river. She offhandedly remarks, "I didn't do that." as they pass the scythe trap, but otherwise tries to keep alert to any sign the stairs are about to go.

Cryo, likewise, has a loop of rope and a good grip. She's also happy she had her Detect Magic going. That bottom step is a worry and she wishes she had a roach or a rat to toss on it. From a safe distance.

"I think if there is one trap, there's going to be more and there were three traps. So this place is probably full of them. Time for some dust or marbles if you have them. There's a really useful spell I don't know for right now. I guess that doesn't help too much either."

She's about to take a brave inhale, but this place is dusty, so it's careful instead.

MAC-B1G studies the electrical discharge device after it is identified and avoided. Had it triggered it and was rendered immobile, would the tether to the biological units have prevented it from falling, or pulled the biological units through it and any other dangerous devices? Probabilities are calculated based on available data.

That is a secondary use of resources, however; the primary is scanning the surroundings at the bottom of the stairs. "Scans indicate that particulate concentration in air and upon surfaces is more than sufficient. No additional dust required."

Braelnoir nods, "Makes sense. But, that they're bothering ta trap this part might mean there's some value to't." she affirms. On sight of how dusty it is, she uses her sleeves agian, leaving a cloth over her mouth and nose, "What kinda spell'd that be?"

"Right, that's me, bringing dust to an abandonned place." Cryo says cheerfully, "Oh, Find Traps. Actually, I can't cast it. But if we had someone that could it would be really useful!"

The mask is a good idea. Cryo's garments adjust as well. Now she has a face covering also.

MAC-B1G's garments do not alter. It does not bear any. Neither does it have mouth or nose to cover, nor any concerns of inhaling particulates. As a negative, it is incapable of creating a proper linguolabial trill.

Edinaz cuts a strip from the hem of his cloak, and ties it around his face. He holds onto the rope, and nods. "I would say this is an excessive number of traps, but we do keep persisting."

"Part've our charm." Brae quips over her shoulders. She's probably grinning, but... yeah. She looks to Cryo as she muses about the spellwork, "Well... mighta come with a different loadout if I known we's wandering through an old mansion."

....you emerge into a basement, yes.

It's definitely a basement. A large one, actuall, with another set of stairs in the center of the room leading down. You can see the shattered bodies of war golems laying all around here, as if a great fight saw to several of their ends. They're ancient and covered in dust and strewn apart. There are holes in the walls...

...but then you blink. They're gone. Everything is tact. There's no hole in the walls, or even a set of stairs in the middle of the room, though it feels like there *should* be.

It is otherwise just an empty room. Utterly.

MAC-B1G finds the scene quite unexpected... not to mention suden. Cyan optics flicker once as they reinitialize and refocus in attempt to confirm the momentary ...aberration? "Warning. Possible optics malfunction. Recalibrating..."

"Woaw." Cryo hesitates. Blinks, it's gone. "Uh. Wow."

Her eyes are still glowing. She points at the centre of the room. "There is a big room in the middle of the rune. Right there. Ahh! I mean, Rune. In room. There! This one Speaker!" She makes a gargling noise.

She covers her eyes with her hand, tries looking again, "So which is the illusion, which is real. This room is neither empty nor is it filled with ruined look-alikes of Mac Bee. Let me... um... stare at the thing I can see for a moment and see if I remember magical stuff."

GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/arcana: (14)+11: 25
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/religion: (12)+3: 15
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/the planes: (9)+7: 16
GAME: Edinaz rolls knowledge/arcana: (5)+4: 9

Edinaz waits, patiently, to see if anything cycles. After all, that's happened once before. He pauses, hands twitching near the hilts of his swords.

Braelnoir holds, glancing at MAC, giving a soft, "You ok, MAC?"

MAC-B1G's faceplate pans around to face Braelnoir. "No further optic anomaly detected. Systems fully operational. Chassis integrity holding at sixty-eight point three seven percent."

The holes in the wall seemed like combat damage. Probably a battle from the Sorceress Wars. The War Golems surely were Altiam's legions trying to breach those location, but the damage is long gone. While the War Golems varied, some of them were similar to MAC-B1G.

Edinaz pauses. "I don't have any good seeing magic to see through things.' But apparently he has a little magic.

"The... War Golems were surely from Altiam's legions and trying to breach this location..." Cryo says, hesitating. She reaches out and rubs at the wall where she saw a shell crater, "It's flat. The damage is long gone. It's been repaired."

"So... What we saw, it looked like it was from the Sorceress Wars. An echo. Oh no, no... Are we in broken time? Has the time changed?" The first time she says it, she sounds anxious. Then she repeats the question again in a curious tone, "Has the time changed?" Mac Bee, what does your chronometer say. Are your... diagnostics returning error states?"

As she asks, the sith'makar takes out a gift from a friend she knew long ago and pushes a button on it.

The time lights up in red hovering numbers in front of her. It seems nothing out of the ordinary from what she would expect.

"Negative. No errors reported," the construct advises. "Tactical significance of current location unknown. Data incomplete."

GAME: Braelnoir rolls knowledge/military theory: (7)+10: 17
GAME: Braelnoir rolls 1d20+2+1: (8)+2+1: 11 (History - Human Improv)
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/military theory: (6)+3: 9
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/history: (10)+3: 13
GAME: Edinaz rolls knowledge/history: (7)+1: 8

Braelnoir frowns, not particularly comforted by the overlays, and it only gets deeper as Cryo starts to speculate about the greater possibilities, "Hope not. Don't recall any major battles around here, but... nothin' says this wa'nt some skirmish'r somethin'. Maybe some wetwork went sideways."

GAME: Cryosanthia rolls perception: (5)+6: 11
GAME: Braelnoir rolls perception: (3)+8: 11
GAME: Edinaz rolls perception: (12)+11: 23
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls perception: (15)+13: 28

The scale sisters are equally unobservant, and the ranger not much better.

"This one doesn't know how to deal with that rune." Cryo admits, staring, her eyes still bright spots in the basement, "I don't have a Dispell. I don't know if it's a really big trap, a binding, a summoning, or a teleport circle. It kind of looks like... I'm not sure. They usually go off if you touch them, but touch it and hope you don't die isn't a great strategy."

"Edinaz, are there any tracks down here. Can you tell if Zaya got this far?"

MAC-B1G's faceplate pans to Cryosanthia. "This unit possesses magical countermeasures. Detail target."

Braelnoir draws up on talk of 'runes' and glances from her sister, to the MAC as they discuss solving that particular issue. A slow breath, then she turns her attention to trying to pay attention for movement while they're about that.

"Mac Bee, it is a runed circle. Centre point of the circle is in the geometric centre of this room." Cryo explains. She holds her hands up, "This distance, from my position, my left hand is on the center and my right is on the outside radius. Can you resolve the angles and project downwards to determine the dimensions, or do you need more basic estimates from edge of wall to edge of rune? Width of the rune's symbols seem to be about my handspan."

GAME: Cryosanthia rolls spellcraft: (3)+6: 9
GAME: Braelnoir rolls 1d20+2+1: (7)+2+1: 10 (Spellcraft - Human Improv)
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls spellcraft: (20)+13: 33

A study of the circle reveals that it's ... something that can be activated. You saw the memory, what, with the stairs leading down from here. It's perhaps meant to reveal something?> Mac, somehow, is able to activate it. Just a wave of their hand near it reveals the circle and the floor collapses into a set of stairs. Another one. Made from metal.

There are more traps here, of course, but you're able to by pass those between sensing magic and, well... keen eyes. These are more dangerous, generally. Acid nozzles set in the walls...

Metal stairs are less likely to require stress testing, but the construct descends promptly regardless. Acid? Why would one made primarily of metal have any concern for such corrosive substances?!

Edinaz works his way down the stairs, noting the nozzles carefully. He of the eatable-flesh respects them intensely.

Cryo descends the stairs. She keeps track and counts the traps, searching for a theme, and possibly a high score. "Acid nozzle, Acid nozzle, ooo... I think that one is Base. Get covered in the first to then hit that and you'll probably thermal shock too."

She calls ahead, "How is it looking down there? Any more Scythes, arrow traps? A giant metal ball?"

Braelnoir follows along with her fellows, continuing to try and keep an eye out for enemeies, as the trail leads them all deeper and deeper....

Now. There you go.

... you're now in a room *surrounded* by artifice consoles of some kind and machinery. LOTS of machinery.

It's ... very Kulthian looking, actually, interestingly enough. What it does is anyone's guess, but perhaps it explains some of the ... oddities you've experienced so far.