wildestlogs | A Very Dank Side Quest

Perception
Need: 66 (Fail)
Saturday: 88 (Fail)
Guts: 11 (Pass)

More of the chamber is revealed as they flee through the door into the next area. The ruin ahead is massive, over a hundred feet in length, with thin rows of columns towering well over their heads. The blue light Need spotted earlier glows from the colossal tree roots puncturing the solid stone ruins. They illuminate a semi-circle of statues framing the tribunal of some form of ancient court. The massive stone blocking their path is revealed to be a sullen-faced winged statue on the other end. A door to the hidden tunnel from where they came.

There isn't much time to gaze at the sights, as the spirits fill the hallway behind them with howls and moans. Even though they were fleeing into the larger space, they would be pursued by the blight of them close behind.

Guts breaks off his attack to follow Saturday's lead, darting through the cramped passageway with Need clenched in his teeth. As he makes his way through the door, he spots a second lever nestled into the stone steps. There's a dull twinge in his Brand that suggested something in the mechanical works might be magic. Old magic. But there was no time to ponder that.

:Statue to your right - a switch!: he fires off the thought the same way he would've barked for his Raiders. A bit loud, but only from the urgency of a fight and lack of filter that the thought-speak granted them.

She passes that on without embellishment, handling the two perspectives, indicating fairly precisely where Guts saw the switch to Saturday with a sort of faint hallucinatory arrow, not big or bold enough to blot out anything important. Secondhand she picks up the impression from his brand and tells the girl, :There's magic in it. Be ready just in case.:

There's no chance of Guts switching to Need in the open space, not against these enemies. Just as well, she's going to have to guard herself against bloodlust and remain coolheaded. So far she hasn't really been able to contribute but Need's not worried about that. If the fight with the corpse-constructs - she sees the word 'zombie' in the two living's heads, but Need is old and doesn't always keep up with terminology - stretches on this is a better place to try something.

Regardless, her time is likely to come sooner or later. Need's got a better idea of what she's working with magically. Aside from healing and adjusting peoples' bodies and senses, she's been knocked down to a level roughly equivalent to the magic she could work after just a few hundred years in the sword, but that's better than it's been in the Wilderlands. It may be useful.

The arrow's a neat trick. Saturday slices the hand off a lurching ghoul and leaps, pushing off the crumbling skull of another zombie. The switch takes a hot, hairy moment as dead arms try to grab her from behind, but she lashes out with a kick as she slaps the switch. For a moment she could almost be dancing, stretched in a graceful arabesque - except for the part where her foot's gone through a zombie's dusty ribcage.

:Got it!:

Stone grinds loudly as the door behind them seals shut, leaving the mass of shambling bodies locked in their original tomb. The stragglers that make it through are not much of a threat, with a few downed by Saturday on her way to the lever, and another group of bodies dashed to splinters by a swing of the Dragonslayer.

With a heavy clunk of the adorned door, they're left sealed in the massive, semi-circular chamber. At first, the moaning continues faintly, spirits spilling through the cracks like black tar, half-formed arms reaching outwards towards the living flesh. A brief flash of light outlines the statue, an ejection of old magic, and the phantoms wail as they're banished from the border they were attempting to traverse.

The next chamber waits before them, silent as a grave. It stretches over a hundred feet up, and expands an even greater distance lengthways into the darkness ahead. Endless rows of columns frame hallways on each side, interspersed with rubble and glowing, pale blue roots. The roots themselves were thick enough to form organically winding paths where they intruded unnaturally from the towering ceiling.

The immediate area around them, the apse of the decrepit building, features a dias in its center with a podium. Adorning the round wall were seven statues built into the columns: two gryphon-like creatures guarding the corners, four winged figures in armor, and a central robed figure that formed the secret door, holding a feathered staff with a set of scales hanging from the tip. The winged beings looked close to angels or Furies, depending on the imagery one was familiar with.

Once the danger subsides, Guts withdraws his sword and takes Need out of his mouth.

"Did you feel that?" he asks.

He reaches into a leather pouch, where the necklace they'd pilfered off the corpse was tucked away.

"I think this thing just resonated with whatever the hell just happened."

:I can't sense much more than what you and the girl are picking up on, not coherently: Need says. By now, other than the wrapping of her grip, she's clean, the ancient metal of her blade and quillions gleaming softly like they'd just been polished with goatskin. She sounds disgusted. :Can't even tell what kind of warding that is.:

Admitting ignorance smarts but after all different worlds usually have different magic, and she's too old to pick those up without a lot of time to study. Absolutely Need will keep making efforts at it but she's hoping not to be here for the years it would take to comprehend all the rules.

She doesn't attempt to direct the living on where to look. A long time without eyes of her own has cured Need of that bit of autonomy and made her decent at noticing things from a glance or peripheral vision. :Didn't know you had gryphons here. You two will just have to look around the old fashioned way.: Without firelight to blind him, she'll make Guts' vision brighter again although it's not as dark here overall.

"We don't." he adds, about the gryphons."At least, there didn't used to be. Everything changed when these weird branches started appearin' in the sky."

With all the bizarre occurrences, Guts had lapsed on using the thought-speak, but quickly catches himself. Who knows if that creature that had been following them was sealed away, too.

Saturday holds herself in in full readiness for a few heartbeats after the door grinds shut, all senses straining. Only when she's sure there's nothing there does she relax, and fish into a pocket for a little square of cloth.

:Bloodless things,: she remarks, wiping corpse-dust and withered viscera from her blade. :Thank god. We get into many more scraps like that, I'm going to have find something to polish with:

She doesn't need to, strictly speaking - Elder Brother is a magic blade, and holds his own edge very nicely - but the ritual calms her, marks the boundary between the woman and the killing machine. Elder Brother sinks back into her arm as she takes in the chamber, whistling.

:Branches? Like tree branches? We got roots here - they look familiar?:

:Only got a glance of 'em, on nights with a full moon. You could barely see 'em at all. Nowhere near as bright as these ones.:

He remembers the strange sight vividly: barely visible branches silhouetted against the bright disk of the moon.

Now that they had another moment of quiet, he gives Need a little wipe down with his cape, dusting off whatever flaked skin and dry flesh got stuck in the quillions. His own blade could take a heavier beating before he needed to tend to it properly.

Need is returned to his belt as he rejoins Saturday, getting a look at the tall columns and the snaking roots between them. The ruins were ostentatious, even compared to the lofty palaces in Windham.

Need wouldn’t be harmed without a wipedown but appreciates it anyway. She passes that along, the image of that delicate tracery. It’s beyond her what it means, she didn’t have much to do with other realities even in the heyday of interest in them, thousands of years gone.

:The magic from that statue that up and shooed off the drifting spirits didn’t touch me. That doesn’t mean much. I’m bound to this thing more tightly than you children are to your bodies, if anything. Hard to drive me away. Anyway it does seem to suggest something, damned if I can tell what.:

She sends Saturday a private, :You all right, girl? That thing grabbed for you hard, seems like.:

:Doesn't feel like it left any traces.: Saturday tells Need, ignoring, or perhaps not understanding (perhaps deliberately), any interest in her emotions about the attempted intrusion. Her mind is as calm as it ever is; there's always something under the surface, but her control is like a thick layer of ice. The things in the depths can burn and scratch and bellow all they like; they're not getting out unless she lets them. :Should be fine.:

:Whatever this place is, we can probably assume it was warded against spirits for a reason.: she thinks at both of them. :It looks like it was maybe some kind of council area? Ritual site? Receiving hall? That dais could have had a throne, or the ritual focus. Both?:

She casts her gaze around, looking for runes, or, if she's truly lucky, a script she can read. She does know a few.

:Usually important places have signs or pictures or something about what the place was for and why it's important... pretty universal urge, that. Labeling things. Anyone see anything?:

In the dim ambience of the winding roots, a closer look at the architecture of the apse would reveal inscriptions in the stone. The closest analogue would be Latin, leaving the alphabet semi-readable but the words and grammar too alien to parse at first glance. A word or two might stick out, but without context did not illuminate much.

The inscriptions sit at the upper ends of the columns, near the friezes depicting vignettes with the winged figures, at the bases of the statues, and at the top edge of the stage.

Edited 2022-07-01 06:29 (UTC)

:This looks pretty different from how things were written in Midland.:

By now, they would have caught on that Guts isn't really one to go burrowing his nose in books. He doesn't immediately think himself to be of much use here.

Saturday does not wish to discuss it, and Need accepts this with a phantom suggestion of a shrug. She's not going to put her metaphorical hand into that basket of serpents without being invited.

Need's been around a very long time and picked up - and lost - a lot. Still, she can't claim to have ever been able to read every language ever written in her time on Velgarth, and a lot of those she could, she knows she's forgotten. At a bleared half-glance it does seem like one of the words might be a rendering of something close to 'toad' as it's pronounced in Mage Wars era Kaled'a'in, phonetically spelled using an alphabet from Rethwellen relatively recently, but after a moment that obviously becomes a coincidence. There are just only so many ways to shape a symbol.

Need contributes with waspish regret. :I can't say for sure but I don't think that's an alphabet I know. And, yes, I know spells related to comprehending language, but no, they don't see fit to work right now. If we find someone who can read it, I may have better luck.:

She's also not going to tell them she can try to remember some of the configurations of letters and see how they recur now or later. Need doesn't like to promise things unless she's confident she can follow through, and with a roll that bad, she's not confident.

Maybe popping spiritside would help. Then again, maybe that would set off the spell on that statue. She'll keep that in the back pocket. :Don't think we've got a choice but to go on and get closer to those roots, but I'm open to suggestions.:

:Sweep the area, first? I don't feel anything moving, but I only get about six feet out.:

The space is large, but not as open as it appears; the statues and pillars make for convenient hiding places, not to mention a great place to ambush someone's Guts' size. Saturday could maneuver through them easily, but without Guts to tank she's only half as effective.

She squints at the writing. It looks like nothing - like the placeholder doggerel 8-Bit uses when she's designing netsites.

:Maybe we should try to copy that script? Might show up again later, I don't know. Can't you sometimes figure out languages from like, seeing it used a bunch? Dunno what we'd copy it with, though:

:We'll fan out. Can't sense anything around, 'cept that the Brand's gone numb.:

Guts touches the back of his neck, feeling fresh blood continuing to ooze slowly. By now, he could distinguish between that and the sharp pain of an immediate threat.

His footsteps echo in the decrepit ruins as he walks through the aisle. His sword would be too large to fight properly between the columns and the stage area, like wading through an orchard of stone trees. The central nave near the roots, open as it was, left him in a better place to fight if he must.

Engravings Investigation (INT Check)
Need: 93 (Fail)
Guts: 96 (Fail)
Saturday: 45 (Fail)

The jocks did not take courses in Magic Latin.

Room Exploration (Perception Check)
Need: 43 (Pass)
Guts: 63 (Fail)
Saturday: 73 (Fail)

As the two of them explore, turbulence trips Need's senses spiritside. Although the glowing roots appeared to be solid structures to the untrained eye, she could see that they were more akin to rip currents on a shore. Thunderous rivers that would suck them in if they got close enough to touch. And the way they branched out all over made that mistake an easy one to trip into.

Guts, making his way down the central Nave, could sense the dull ache of his Brand but is unable to pinpoint anything in particular. What he does see comes from approaching the center area: the other half of the colossal building. To the North and South, another set of passageways, the north-facing hall clogged by rubble.

The parallel aisles frame the nave in a rectangular pattern, with a few scattered columns knocked on the floor. The central root snakes upwards and out of a hole in the ceiling, getting a glimpse of more pitch blackness outside. Further forward, beyond the arcing roots over his head, a court-like area mirrors the one they'd just passed at the Eastern side of the building.

Saturday, staying by the first dais, gets the opportunity for a closer look at the engravings. At the top of the dais were four crests, arranged like a compass, framed by a field of constellations. The symbols appeared to be elemental in nature: one fire, one for stone or earth, and two that appeared to symbolize some kind of flowing wind or river. Without context or color, it was difficult to tell which was which, exactly.

There were two central figures engraved prominently in its front: a floral elven figure and an armored one in a skull helmet. They were facing each other, the latter surrounded by spearmen and the former by more mythical looking creatures. Despite the presence of an army, the imagery appeared to symbolize a union rather than a war.

Edited 2022-07-01 21:04 (UTC)

The luminous structures suddenly remind Need of the reaching tendrils created during a Gate spell, which form at a near terminus and search for and latch on to a far one. After that space is bent between them and instant travel from one terminus to the next is possible. That magic took more power than she usually has readily available, so she's never made a study of it and has forgotten much of what she did know. Too bad.

:Don't get close to the roots, children. The same way they brought us here, they'll take us somewhere else. Very fast.: They might be a quick exit if things get hairy enough, but she's dubious. Unregulated Gate energies, if this is similar at all, can't be trusted for that; if something swept up in them reappears at all, it's not in the same condition. :That means no going into the hole in the ceiling, I think.:

The Gatelike tendrils are causing a ferocious, chaotic intangible current, but Saturday's still close enough that Need can keep track of her and what she's looking at. Four crests set thus, surrounded by stars... she'd smile if she had that reflex. The Twins she worshipped once were represented sometimes with symbols vaguely like that, though again it seems like coincidence. Four is just an important number across many cultures, as are seasons, as are elements and stars.

Edited 2022-07-01 21:31 (UTC)

:Well, I guess we got an escape route of last resort, if it comes to it.: Throwing herself to the mercy of the astral currents yet again is pretty much the last thing Saturday wants to do, but she will if the other option is death. :If it does, we wanna make sure we're joined up physically, too. Better odds of ending up in the same place:

She may not be educated or trained as a proper mage in any conventional way, but she has enough hands-on experience to know that.

:Let's see...: She crouches by the dais. :I got some pretty standard elemental symbolism here. They use four, looks like the usual ones. Air, fire, earth, water. And some sort of union of opposites theme? Death and life, looks like. Plus constellations I don't recognize.: Staring at the engraving, she focuses, and tries to communicate the image clearly to the other two. :Anything ringing a bell?:

Edited 2022-07-04 07:19 (UTC)

:Preferably the kind of last resort where the alternative is definitely becoming giblets. The current on those things is mothering powerful. You might well get torn to pieces or cast into the Void.: Not that these can possibly be the same as Gate-tendrils - for one, they're not waving and reaching, and the kind of energy expenditure it would take to keep such enormous, prominent tendrils in existence would drain the strongest mages she's ever known to death in hours - but Need is not an optimist.

It's disorienting being shown a clear, large image like this, even with Saturday outlining the parts she feels are important. Receiving and interpreting that information while also being able to process one's own senses and act is a skill that takes developing. Still, given the circumstances she's wary of Guts turning back to see for himself. She can feel the blood beaded over his brand and fitting itself into the crevices around the nails of the fingers that touched it. Even if she couldn't pick up on his sense of what it meant, it would be a bad omen. There's a lot of cover out here...

:Her life-and-death figures are that flowery Elf, here, and someone in skeleton armor, here,:: she tells Guts, passing those smaller images along. Her lurking suspicion of the world around them is evident in each word.

:Sounds like it could have something to do the protection spell.:

He remembers it, even though it had happened a while ago. 'The Formation of the Four' as the little mage Schierke had said. She had brought up the Four often in her magic lessons on the ship. He knew very little about magic, but they were some of the most prominent spirits and they spoke about it often.

Guts closes his eye, remembering the day he was leaning against a mast on large, square-sailed ship. The splashing of waves beating its massive wooden hull sit in his ears. The creaking of the wood was all around them. On the center of the deck was the girl Schierke in her purple robes and hat, a blond woman sits across her, the name Farnese comes to mind. They appear to be in some kind of meditative state.

Farnese mutters a chant:
'Oh Blessed King of the East
Whose spirit rises over the mountains as a zephyr
and whose golden raiment gleams like the sun.

Oh Blessed King of the West
Whose name trembles even the water spirits who caper beneath the waves.

Oh Blessed King of the South
Brilliance greater than everlasting flame is thy majesty.

Oh Blessed King of the North
It is for thy rule that all living beings of the Earth rejoice.'

Farnese repeats something in a language he doesn't understand. But the effect of the spell soon follows. Iridescent ribbons like an aurora cradle the ship in a brilliant astral display, the traces of each summoned element dancing in the curtain. A warm feeling in his chest, the pride one feels for the accomplishment of someone dear to them. It's been a few years since then, but he would never forget that.

Edited 2022-07-05 19:28 (UTC)

:Last time I got yeeted into the astral without a set destination, we got backlashed into a hell dimension.: Saturday tells Need. A few images come with it, leaking out around her best efforts to hold the door shut. A tortured figure (her father? feels like) in a cage; her hands, killing students, killing friends -

Saturday shakes it off with an irritated snort. :It's not my first choice. But it's there.:

The memory Guts shares doesn't spark any bright ideas from her. It's some kind of magic - looks shaman-y - that's all she's got. Elemental invocations are pretty common, and there's more magical schools where she's from than you could name in a lifetime. She leans in for a closer look at the Life and Death figures instead, raising a hand to trace their carved faces.

:I wonder if... I dunno. Like this was all made for some kind of ceremony or something that went wrong.:

Edited 2022-07-07 03:04 (UTC)

It's a strong, well-formed memory, offered up like a gift. Need lets herself soak in it for a moment, the details, the emotion. The pride and affection Guts feels and the bittersweet aspect of remembering someone who he's years apart from are heady. But she also really wants to get into the muscles of his eyelids and open them back up. He's confident of being able to hear anything moving around. She is not.

:I was using that,: she says to him of his eye, trying to keep centered and focused. Saturday is not offering her memory to share but some tantalizing, uncomfortable hints of the experience well up anyway. It might have to do with the girl's horror of possession. Need keeps her metaphorical hands to herself in both cases. :Well. Let's try not to let it come to the point of finding out.:

Not having more eyes out is aggravating. Normally even when there are few people there are animals, or spirits less bound to the livings' senses than Need is. Anything could be here and she just doesn't know.

:Less metaphor and more literal? The bodies fell like they'd been trying to get away from this spot or somewhere beyond it. The one you made a torch from had long ears.:

:Those carvings look familiar, too. I know 'em. I think.:

He obliges Need once the message is dispatched, opening and seeing only more dark ahead.

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