NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited August 2020
Mahnmut
You quickly survey the ever-escalating situation...
The two junction boxes on your level have been destroyed, but you can see one on the backside of the Astral Core one level above you. On all sides, Automatic Soldiers are pouring into the chamber.
I mean, am I this body, or this mind? Are both things intertwined, or separate?
I’m dead. Pretty soon. But what if I accept that I already am? What if I died long ago, and like the kindly paladin ghost, I am a spirit serving the forces of good?
What is time to the dead?
And if time is nothing to me, surely so is space.
This is it for Fernando. I see no option within the fiction that allows me to break free, defeat fifty robots and ascend high enough, quick enough to be of use in this final battle.
So I’m going to make an offer directly to you @Nips
I’m going to Defy Danger with Wisdom to leave this body behind and possess an automatic worker on level 3, and immediately rip out and destroy a box.
Wei looks for his companions as he rumbles along, gaining speed.He notices one companion in particular missing...
Fernando...the pile of automatons on the first floor...
There was no way to get down there and aid his Paladin friend...
The only way is to destroy the machine powering these things before they kill him...Perhaps some of these automatons will follow me...
Wei leaps off the catwalk, bear-form shifting and morphing to a halfling for the briefest of moments and then to an eagle, screeching and flying to the nearest junction box, digging claws in and ripping out whatever he can grab.
[OOC: sorry folks - work has been kicking my ass of late, distracting me]
[OOC Am I remembering correctly that I'm the blue on level 2 next to a destroyed box? I see the two boxes on level 3 - is the 3rd remaining box opposite me on level 2? I'm assuming that the case and my flavor text reflects that, but change ot to moving up to level 3 is I'm mistaken.]
Otto attempts to make his way around the core to the other side, where he hopes to find another junction box. He carefully looks for the next foot and hand hold, checking to make sure a protrusion or bundle of wires will hold his weight. "Tarnation I wish Harley was here. Mama didn't raise a mountain climber!"
geth roll 2d6+2 for Defy Danger (DX)
Defy Danger (DX):
2d6+212 [2d6=4, 6]
|_
Oo\ Ironsizide
0
Options
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited August 2020
{No worries, everyone, about keeping up on posts! Everything is stressful, the world is a dumpster fire, and the summer is long. I'm not moving any faster, for sure! We're moving at the pace we can sustain, so we'll just keep moving forward as we can!}
Hawthorne
With a lithe deftness normally reserved for the professional spire-scalers back in the home isles, you leap and grab a support leading to the next catwalk up. A few perfectly-placed hand and footholds later and you have pulled yourself up and over onto the catwalk above. You land quietly, and the nearby Automatic Workers and Soldiers seem to pay you no heed as they rush off.
It only takes a moment to realize why: across the gap from you, on the inner catwalk nearest the great machine, Otto is racing well ahead of a pack of servitors as he makes his way to the back side of Astral Core. From your vantage point, you can see he'll be greeted with a pack of defenders just as he reaches the junction box at the presumed end of his sprint.
What do you do now?
Otto {DM's note: Yeah, you are on the 2nd floor on the frontside, and now you're headed around the right side to the back.}
You take off at a rapid pace, easily picking your way down the inside catwalk closest to the Astral Core. The odd protrusion and piece of broken catwalk barely slow you down, and you're just about to round the bend to the backside of the machine...
{More Note: Because the catwalk wasn't actually challenging, I'm going to let you carry that roll into the next move you make. So make it a good one!} {Last Note: Between you and whatever Hawthorne brings to the upcoming moment, the two of you will have a decided advantage against any obstacles in your way!
What do you do now?
Wei
You shed your ursine armor just in time to slip your diminutive form down the gap between the catwalk and the Astral Engine, the massive crowd of pursuing Soldiers stymied by your sudden disappearance below the floor. You have to think quickly, though, as the sudden lack of floor continues for quite a drop! You quickly search the echoes of nature's voice, and the wings your arms have formed lift you safely out into the air.
You have 2 hold, and gain the following move:
Deft of Wing: You may spend 1 hold to add +1 to any roll to avoid harm or danger.
Roll Hack & Slash to attack the nearest Junction Box!
Fernando
Buried under the crush of automaton bodies, you consider...existence. You notice a looseness, a slight disconnect between your physical being and your existential one. Maybe you are just a spirit in a tin can? Or are you a force of nature, held barely in check by a thin metal shell?
Your eyes blink, and you notice something: a blue, foggy haze scintillating throughout the room. Through the tiny gaps between limbs and bodies, you see that same haze forcefully ejecting from the wounds in the Core. It reminds you starkly of the Astral Sea as it fills the chamber with further and further density, almost as if the room were a glass being filled from a pitcher from within. Are you, can you, be a fish in that newfound sea?
As you've heard them say, a rising tide lifts all boats.
(I'll cut you that deal, with this caveat to you: the place you find yourself in is currently, literally, violating the natural laws to its own purposes. Beware what you might find in failure, that it may not be what you expect!)
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited August 2020
Wei
Your talons land square and deep in the brass plate of the junction box, puncturing violent holes into the inner workings of the mechanisms behind. You rend the fragile construction with counter-twists of your raptor claws, and something electrical breaks loose! A jolt blows through you faster than the thought can process, and a follow-up gout of forceful blue steam knocks you into the air clear of the machine. After a panicked moment of tumbling, you right yourself and see the damage to the node is sufficient to render it inoperable.
Geth, roll 1d6 for Shocking! (Damage, IGNORES armor)
Fernando (For Endless's Eyes Only!)
Your metal body fails against a crush of added weight, and the sensation of your torso crumpling under the mass is the last physical sensation you feel before you jettison yourself from your corporeal tether. Your existence is reduced to your most immutable Self, with no bounds to define yourself against.
And then you feel yourself pulled, violently. Something catches you, pulling you into taut loops, rendering your immutable self into a....conduit. Or a loop, run through...something you can't quite feel, but that nonetheless has its hold on you. It is draining. You are exhausted. You are threaded with hundreds, thousands of likewise souls, driven in rings and circles for specific eternities. And you know that makes no sense, deep down in what's left of your existence.
Yet, as your selfhood is pulled through the existential-equivalent of a hula hoop for a short eternity, you think you hear a voice in the impossible distance. Unmistakably, Sir Tormlin reaches out to you somehow.
"Hold fast, young knight, and endure! The great machine is nearing its end, however momentary! And when that time comes, you must be ready to strike! The souls that you find yourself traveling in concert with will soon find themselves directed by your guidance and mine, and the vengeance of the unwilling will finally be visited upon the architect of this abrogation of the natural order!"
You steel yourself for the trial ahead, despited the continued drain of having your existence wrenched by the Astral Engine.
{So, your spirit is stuck in the Astral Engine! And it's draining you slowly of your spirit's vitality! So here's what I need you to do:
Describe for me, in spoiler tags, how Fernando's spirit resists the drain of the machine. Then, choose an appropriate stat and Roll.
If Fernando's spirit holds on long enough for the Machine to be disabled, he avoids being ground down into spiritual nothingness and will be poised to retake the fight in the physical realms again! Depending on how long it takes the rest of the team to deal with the machine, this may require multiple checks!}
Three moments intertwine as Fernando’s spirit is torn apart.
—Yes, Sir Tormlin, my Master... my... dad. I’ll hold on dad.
A little fish in a big ocean. However...
Lord of the Dawn, shield me from this darkness, for yours is the glory and you shall raise me up...
—I’m sorry I fell in battle, allowing you to be slain. I was a poor squire then, but I will see that it was not in vain.
Time. Space. What do those mean to the dead?
Lord of the Dawn, renew me as you do the day, gift me the chance to right these wrong...
How long am I dead? How large is a soul?
Eternity. Infinitely. This can not contain me.
Fernando’s first action is simple. They’re not small. They’re a giant, burning, radiant as the sun. Fernando’s scattered soul collides back together like a star being born.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Holy Ghost
Holy Ghost:
2d6+213 [2d6=5, 6]
Endless_Serpents on
+1
Options
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Wei
You swoop in a wide arc, circumnavigating the chamber while maintaining your height, until you see it: the second of the two mechanical nodes supplying the great machine with vital control on this level. Surrounded by Automatic Workers in every conceivable direction, the route to the junction box would be impossible to navigate for a pedestrian.
You, however, are a winged force of nature.
You drive headlong through the blades and bardiches of the defending soldiers, planting your talons once more into a weak pair of conduits leading into the box. Once again, with a twist and wrench, you destroy the fragile mechanisms and their connections to the great machine.
This time, however, the blades and bardiches catch up with you.
Geth, roll 1d8+2 for Stabbing and Slashing (Damage, Armor Reduces)
Fernando
You are a spark, an impossible fire, a golden blazing godhead at the crest of a growing wave. The blue hue of the tight circles of spirit energy turn yellow and red, burning outward into hazy spirals and and more complicated shapes.
There is a leak. The paths are no longer so rigidly constrained, and the unthinking flow of souls trailing ahead and behind are no longer beholden to the strictures of an architected path.
You provide direction for the collected masses, forming first a wave, then a crest, then a tsunami...
(You have the force of will, but have you harnessed the desire of these collected souls? Roll!)
An Increasing Fog
With all but the final junction box destroyed, the great Astral Engine is guttering and spewing massive clouds of scintillating blue gas into the chamber. The machine struggles to maintain its cohesion, but it is a device too finely crafted, too perfectly architected, to fail even in the face of its increasing damage. Yet damaged it is, and the density of the fog permeating the room has reached levels preventing you from seeing even a few handful of feet into the distance.
It is here, in this impossible cyan cloud, that you notice it: the scintillation at its most defined. It seems as individual grains hanging in the air, yellow and red and gold amongst the blue backdrop. And a few, here and there, glow brighter.
The hue of the entire room begins to shift, slowly, from the unnatural blue to more and more the warmth and color of the sun.
Otto and Hawthorne, now's your time! Make your moves!
Fernando, for all his newfound glory, is also warrior.
“Get it together you lot! Stop fighting to survive, and fight together!”
He leans down and scoops you a bundle of souls, and instructs them to pull the others free of this terrible engine. Soon a hundred or more souls are joined in hand, helping each other up into the light.
Not long after Fernando has them in regimented lines.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Get it Together
Get it Together:
2d6+211 [2d6=4, 5]
Endless_Serpents on
+1
Options
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Wei
With the gaseous fog getting denser and more distracting by the second, you are able to dive down past the catwalks your assailants are on and find free air. That said, you're now a bit lost in the fog...
Fernando
An innumerable number of souls form ranks, well more than hundreds. The entire geometry of the non-space begins to shift at your barked commands, forming a semblance of a flat field.
Rank and file, rank and file go the impossible aspirants. Though they had little form or visage to speak of just moments prior, now they form a shimmering-gold array of warriors. Their appearance echoes your own, though you can see within each soul their unique desire. To be free. To move forward. To move on.
You hear the exultant shout of Tormlin, nearer even now than before. "They are ready! You are ready! Lead them on! Glory be the Light, that you may shine ever brighter!"
(The last of your preparations are made! You await only for your companions to break the dastardly machine, and you may sally forth!)
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Hawthorne
You spin on one heel, staff in hand to meet the onrushing crush of workers...but you're already a beat too slow. An axe head come crashing down, and while you manage to interpose your quarterstaff the edge of the blade bites into your shoulder.
Geth, roll 1d8+2 for Shunk! (Damage, armor reduces)
The wall of steel warriors presses in on you, and you've become thoroughly entangled in a melee on both sides...
Actually, though hemmed in and a bit sliced up [that was a good chunk of my HP], I think Hawthorne takes a deep breath and then throws himself back into the fray.
Otto makes his way to that last junction box, squinting to see through the fog. He stabs at the box with his trusty blade, striking true!
[OOC: IIRC and I'm carrying over the defy danger roll from before as a Flawless Bladework roll (my INT and DX bonuses are identical) and so have at least a 12...)]
Geth, roll 1d8+1d4 for damage
(Galvanic and Burst techniques. Galvanic 'numbs a limb' from electrical discharge. Burst adds the 1d4 damage and the forceful tag.)
[OOC - heh. The craptacular roll had to happen at some point.]
damage:
1d8+1d42 [1d8=1] [1d4=1]
ironsizide on
|_
Oo\ Ironsizide
+1
Options
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
( @Mahnmut You should have added +Bond for Otto, bringing you to a 7. I can't imagine how you wouldn't have a bond with him at this point, so I'mma just add that in...)
Hawthorne
Despite the distance between you and Otto, you create a mighty racket! The nearby throngs of Automatic Soldiers hone in on you, and the mass standing in front of the final junction box turn to look in your direction, momentarily distracted, when...
Otto
...with a duelist's trained lunge, you weave your lightning-arcing blade between two servitors, piercing the front of the last vital component of the massive Astral Core.
And in the first heartbeat after, you fear nothing happens.
By your second heartbeat, the Soldiers have trained their blades on you, driving them down in dismembering arcs.
And before your third heartbeat, a spark.
Then like the lightning that struck it from your blade, the fragile juncture explodes outward in a impossible spray of blue mist and energy!
*buh-thump*
Into The Mists
Before you can process what's happening around you all, the thick blue mist coalesces into an ever-increasing fractal network of crystal formations, first on the exterior of the Astral Core and immediately radiating out into the room.
There's a long moment of panic when you realize you're becoming trapped in this formation of micro-crystals growing around you. Your body slowed, the pressure building, your hindbrain in a fight-or-flight mode where neither option is fully available to you. You hear the slow screech of metal being crushed, and the density of the crystal around you threatening to stop you permanently.
Your perception grows hazy, and you're no longer sure where the line between the physical realm and the beyond lies.
The crystals solidify until your entire perception is overtaken by their glowing blue-white energy....
...but somewhere in the depths of a distance imperceptible, the mote of a golden aura appears before you...
Fernando
And then the moment arrives! The great plain your legions are arrayed on is suddenly surrounded by a forest of glowing blue crystal. You perceive that the veil between the mortal realm and this astral subdomain is now broken, and you need only lead your forces onward!
Fernando's moment of glory is here! Describe for the gathered party how he leads the legions of souls across the Boundary Mortal to crush the Baron's forces, bring victory to the party, and end the Baron's immediate schemes!
The crystal around Otto is shattered in a moment of twinkling light and the sound of hooves!
Otto is grabbed by the arm and carried swiftly to Wei by a fiery figure on the back of a flying horse! They circle once and ascend!
Fernando!
Arrows of golden light strike once, twice, three times each against every last automaton! Legions of marching spirits, banners like heat waves billowing behind them, strike the pierced servitors down with spears of sunlight!
The pegasus clatters through the remains as its rider bounds vertically from it!
Fernando!
The baron in his pompous hulk of an automaton barks orders to his servants, but it is far too late! The place is falling apart around him!
He turns—THOOM!
The figure that burns like summer wildfire locks hands with the baron, and the pair begin to wrestle.
Fernando!
The barons hands, then arms, melt under the strain. They pull them off by the shoulder joints, then boot them into the legions of spirits marching below. The baron is torn apart in short order.
Fernando leaps down after, landing lightly. The fire cools until he becomes a soft, golden glow shaped like a young man. He picks up the barons head, closes his eyes, and the liquid metal drips through his fingers.
“May the Father have mercy on your soul, and in your eons of torment, eventually find virtue once again.”, his voice echoing with righteous grandeur, “Um... anyway, I’ve got to go now lads.”
The legions of the dead cut a dozen holes into the engine’s walls, and drummers begin to play, loud and deep, a sound that travels for miles around.
“Ready yourselves! Soon we will depart for the glorious sun!”
There’s a way out of this malfunctioning mess on every level... and perhaps, perhaps help will hear the drums.
Otto takes in the events unfolding before his eyes. They are unlike anything he has every seen before, and that's a fact.
“Um... anyway, I’ve got to go now lads.”
Fernando's words focus Otto's attention on Fernando himself. The continuing chaos falls away.
“Ready yourselves! Soon we will depart for the glorious sun!”
Otto sheaths his sword. My gods kid, you're goin' out in style Otto straightens out his jacket. Time to send you out in style. Otto claps his boots together, stands ramrod straight, and salutes the young... spirit?... as Fernando leads the final charge. "Give 'em hells kid!"
Wei shifts back to halfling form, watching the events unfold with rapturous eyes. "This is not the end, friend Fernando," Wei whispers. "If the spirits will it, we will see each other again."
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited September 2020
Within The Coruscating Aura
The world is flame and light, the trailing paths of arcing arrows ablaze and sword swings burning gashes into the real. You feel the crystal formations holding your physical forms hostage melt away in a burning instant, like dry tinder put to the torch. The heat is soothing, comforting, despite the visceral violence being tread across every space of this room.
A host of radiant warriors brings utter destruction to all but yourselves, and Fernando stands at the center of it all, defiant and glorious beyond measure.
The light of his fervor begins to grow in intensity, and your every sense begins to be overwhelmed by the nova of energy and willpower driving it.
You have only a scant few moments to react. Otto salutes. Wei whispers. Hawthorne catches his breath. Toth attempts a conjuration.
The room burns yellow white, the light overtaking every space it can find here.
The veil between the Real and the Beyond is gone, melted away utterly, and you take a short breath out of reflex.
Fernando
“Ready yourselves! Soon we will depart for the glorious sun!”
You hear, nay feel the words ringing outward from your persona. The legion, one by one, turns toward a great glowing sun in the distance, and begins to march. You watch, quietly, never more proud in your short life. As the last of the wayward spirits passes you you turn to follow them but a hand on your shoulder stops you.
Tormlin. He's smiling, and the warm glow of the sun starts to fade as the blue-black wash of the astral sea begins to roll back in to its rightful form.
"You have shown more grace, more fervor, than this world deserves. You have rightfully earned your place in the court of the Father, having brought salvation to all of these lost souls. Even so, it is your choice whether to go to that glorious sun or return to the mortal realm. Your life was halted before it hardly began, and I think the Father would be proud to see you carry on his voice and will among the living once more."
The ghost smiles warmly, one last time as he begins to depart into the astral sea.
"Regardless of your decision, know that I am ever proud of you, and ever watching over you."
...
Wei
You blink, and you're standing in a glade more verdant and filled with life than you could ever conceive. The trees around you breathe with a vitality you can feel in your bones, and the presence of the innumerable creatures hidden in the foliage around you is overwhelming. You are seen by all living things, and you look up to a crystal blue sky.
A gentle, cool breeze blows past you, and you can hear it speak. It speaks with the volume of a whisper, but with the import of a hurricane.
"The natural order is restored. The damage that was done will heal. You have done a great service, Child of Life."
You inhale in an invigorating breath, and then you blink. As quickly as you were there, you are once again not, and your vision is met with the dark.
Otto
You blink, and are very confused for a moment. You're sitting in a well-appointed parlor room, a small table before you with two cups of steaming tea and a pot to one side. Across from you sits Aunt Syndy, a coy smile across her matronly face. When she sees the recognition in your eyes her smile grows broadly, then she sips from her cup.
"It's not every day, Otto, that you get to dance across the Mortal Veil as if it were a line in the cobblestones. You've acquitted yourself quite well, quite well indeed!"
You're taken aback a bit. It's not enough that the weirdness of the day isn't your usual fare; you're a boots-in-the-stirrups, sword-in-hand kind of man. But to be sitting across from Aunt Syndy when moments ago you were in a chamber being savaged by fiery spirits? Extra weird. You're not even sure what to make of it all.
The kindly matron sees you shift slightly in your seat, and waves a hand in your direction.
"It's all right, dearie! This sort of inchoate interlude is unsettling for even the most practiced of us, those that deal in things both mortal and beyond. No worries! Drink your fill, and I promise you all will be right as the earth under your feet and the sky over your head in no time."
She smiles, once again coyly, and sips from her cup a second time.
You look down into the tea cup, its black fluid rippling gently. You sip with eyes closed, and open them to darkness once again.
Hawthorne
You calm your breathing, and close your eyes. The sound of a bass guitar doing jazz improv quietly fills your ears, and when you open your eyes you're standing on a darkened street corner back on the isleships. A lamp overhead shines a stark circle of light on the cobblestones, and within its glow are yourself and a loosely-robed young woman. Oddly, the source of the music is all around you but seemingly coming from nothing. Her features are magnificent, but at the same time elusive.
"Brother, have you a story to tell?" The woman's voice is a low purr, enticing and enchanting. "You've been away from my eyes and ears for a short while, and I am desperately intrigued to hear your side of things." Her back arches slightly against the stone wall behind her, her every small motion smooth beyond measure.
You catch yourself, trying to find the words, and she smiles at you disarmingly. Before you even realize it, you've recited the tale of the past few days. Beat for beat, moment for moment, she hangs on your every word. Your monologue is smoother, more practiced, than you ever think you could muster. With every verse she takes a measured step closer and closer to you, and by the time you've finished she has her arms around your shoulders, face to face.
The woman smiles, warmly and genuinely. "That is quite the tale," she whispers in your ear. "I am glad to see you lived through it all!"
She separates from you and smiles again, this time with a deep coyness.
"I look forward to hearing your next tale, storyteller."
She winks.
You blink, and when your eyes open again they are met by darkness.
Exilis
You concentrate to maintain your flight down the astral path you're on, but suddenly you lose track of your compatriots. You're pulled violently to one side, down a path of blue light energy in the astral dark. Even without your mortal senses, you can tell that you're alone.
Very, very alone.
An untold number of moments of panic later, the thin glowing line of energy you are pulled along curves ever just so. You are certain you've lost the course, and begin to pray inwardly for a sign, any sign, for a direction to fling yourself.
And then you hear it. An eagle's cry. Your eagle's cry! You don't know how, but Iugo is calling out to you across the boundaries separating the real and the etheric, and you train yourself on its voice. There. You don't know where there is, but you know with all your existence its heading.
And you throw yourself toward it like a ballista shot.
Your astral form lances out into the black void. You feel something break, pop, under the force of your will and immediately you can perceive a light in the distance rushing at you with a meteor's speed.
The voice of your Iugo cries out again, and you pierce your self through the veil back into the material plane.
You wake to the rough tongue of Iugo lapping at your face, and find yourself atop a familiar tower. After rousing yourself and taking stock, you tend to your compatriots' mounts when your eye falls on the nearby lift. You rub your chin contemplatively, when you hear the sound of marching drums in the distance...
The Long Climb Out
You regain a semblance of physical consciousness, shaking the wild grogginess of incorporeal existence from your mind. Opening your eyes, it's dark; the room previously containing the Astral Engine is ruined and silent. You're overcome by a moment of panic, but then your eyes adjust and perceive a minor mote of purple-blue light moving toward you. Coughing through an upheld sleeve, Toth picks her way across piles of broken machinery and ruined automatic workers and soldiers. The globe of glowing brilliance, diminished but steady, leads her to you where she helps you pick yourself from the rubble.
"My magic works again, thank the makers, but only just. Whatever fallout remains from the destruction of the Baron's contrivances is still confounding most of my auguries, but I was able to find us a way out."
One by one you gather and then with Toth in the lead you make your way up a dark access tunnel. The climb is shallow but steady, and despite numerous possible side routes Toth leads you on with determined vigor. Just as your wits seem about to break from the quiet march you break from a tunnel into the bright of day.
You are met by a familiar sight, for once.
The steading tower greets you as if you were old friends, its doors still wide from your exit the several days prior. After a wearied climb up the tower's stone stair you're met with with another friendly sight:
Exilis! You thought him lost to the astral sea, yet here he stands, tending your mounts. He turns to you and smiles, then nods towards a machine on the roof a short distance away. "I managed to work the lift and secure us an extra conveyance out of here, just in case we needed to lift off with more passengers in tow. It's a hell of a machine, I'll say, and the higher-ups back at the isleships will undoubtably want to send salvage teams back here to scout for more after we report back."
The group of you mount up, and make your way off the barony isle to return home.
In the hold of the flying machine, unseen by all, an Automatic Soldier with a peculiar insignia emblazoned on its chest lies stowed and dormant...
Fernando, as far as he goes for me, is gone. I didn’t intend to play a complicated character, and truth be told I never really knew if he was a ghost inhabiting a robot or a robot that thought it was a paladin. I hope I wasn’t a bother.
Thank you all for playing. Thank you @Nips for running it.
Posts
You quickly survey the ever-escalating situation...
The two junction boxes on your level have been destroyed, but you can see one on the backside of the Astral Core one level above you. On all sides, Automatic Soldiers are pouring into the chamber.
Where do you go, and how do you get there?
I mean, am I this body, or this mind? Are both things intertwined, or separate?
I’m dead. Pretty soon. But what if I accept that I already am? What if I died long ago, and like the kindly paladin ghost, I am a spirit serving the forces of good?
What is time to the dead?
And if time is nothing to me, surely so is space.
This is it for Fernando. I see no option within the fiction that allows me to break free, defeat fifty robots and ascend high enough, quick enough to be of use in this final battle.
So I’m going to make an offer directly to you @Nips
I’m going to Defy Danger with Wisdom to leave this body behind and possess an automatic worker on level 3, and immediately rip out and destroy a box.
Should I fail, I will Take my Last Breath.
Do we have a deal?
Fernando...the pile of automatons on the first floor...
There was no way to get down there and aid his Paladin friend...
The only way is to destroy the machine powering these things before they kill him...Perhaps some of these automatons will follow me...
Wei leaps off the catwalk, bear-form shifting and morphing to a halfling for the briefest of moments and then to an eagle, screeching and flying to the nearest junction box, digging claws in and ripping out whatever he can grab.
geth roll 2d6+2 shapeshift Eagle
geth roll 2d6+1 defy danger dex
[OOC Am I remembering correctly that I'm the blue on level 2 next to a destroyed box? I see the two boxes on level 3 - is the 3rd remaining box opposite me on level 2? I'm assuming that the case and my flavor text reflects that, but change ot to moving up to level 3 is I'm mistaken.]
Otto attempts to make his way around the core to the other side, where he hopes to find another junction box. He carefully looks for the next foot and hand hold, checking to make sure a protrusion or bundle of wires will hold his weight. "Tarnation I wish Harley was here. Mama didn't raise a mountain climber!"
geth roll 2d6+2 for Defy Danger (DX)
Oo\ Ironsizide
Hawthorne
With a lithe deftness normally reserved for the professional spire-scalers back in the home isles, you leap and grab a support leading to the next catwalk up. A few perfectly-placed hand and footholds later and you have pulled yourself up and over onto the catwalk above. You land quietly, and the nearby Automatic Workers and Soldiers seem to pay you no heed as they rush off.
It only takes a moment to realize why: across the gap from you, on the inner catwalk nearest the great machine, Otto is racing well ahead of a pack of servitors as he makes his way to the back side of Astral Core. From your vantage point, you can see he'll be greeted with a pack of defenders just as he reaches the junction box at the presumed end of his sprint.
What do you do now?
Otto
{DM's note: Yeah, you are on the 2nd floor on the frontside, and now you're headed around the right side to the back.}
You take off at a rapid pace, easily picking your way down the inside catwalk closest to the Astral Core. The odd protrusion and piece of broken catwalk barely slow you down, and you're just about to round the bend to the backside of the machine...
{More Note: Because the catwalk wasn't actually challenging, I'm going to let you carry that roll into the next move you make. So make it a good one!}
{Last Note: Between you and whatever Hawthorne brings to the upcoming moment, the two of you will have a decided advantage against any obstacles in your way!
What do you do now?
Wei
You shed your ursine armor just in time to slip your diminutive form down the gap between the catwalk and the Astral Engine, the massive crowd of pursuing Soldiers stymied by your sudden disappearance below the floor. You have to think quickly, though, as the sudden lack of floor continues for quite a drop! You quickly search the echoes of nature's voice, and the wings your arms have formed lift you safely out into the air.
You have 2 hold, and gain the following move:
Deft of Wing: You may spend 1 hold to add +1 to any roll to avoid harm or danger.
Roll Hack & Slash to attack the nearest Junction Box!
Fernando
Buried under the crush of automaton bodies, you consider...existence. You notice a looseness, a slight disconnect between your physical being and your existential one. Maybe you are just a spirit in a tin can? Or are you a force of nature, held barely in check by a thin metal shell?
Your eyes blink, and you notice something: a blue, foggy haze scintillating throughout the room. Through the tiny gaps between limbs and bodies, you see that same haze forcefully ejecting from the wounds in the Core. It reminds you starkly of the Astral Sea as it fills the chamber with further and further density, almost as if the room were a glass being filled from a pitcher from within. Are you, can you, be a fish in that newfound sea?
As you've heard them say, a rising tide lifts all boats.
(I'll cut you that deal, with this caveat to you: the place you find yourself in is currently, literally, violating the natural laws to its own purposes. Beware what you might find in failure, that it may not be what you expect!)
geth roll 2d6+2 Hack n slash
geth roll 1d6 damage
geth roll 1d6 bonus damage if 10+
Your talons land square and deep in the brass plate of the junction box, puncturing violent holes into the inner workings of the mechanisms behind. You rend the fragile construction with counter-twists of your raptor claws, and something electrical breaks loose! A jolt blows through you faster than the thought can process, and a follow-up gout of forceful blue steam knocks you into the air clear of the machine. After a panicked moment of tumbling, you right yourself and see the damage to the node is sufficient to render it inoperable.
Geth, roll 1d6 for Shocking! (Damage, IGNORES armor)
Fernando
(For Endless's Eyes Only!)
And then you feel yourself pulled, violently. Something catches you, pulling you into taut loops, rendering your immutable self into a....conduit. Or a loop, run through...something you can't quite feel, but that nonetheless has its hold on you. It is draining. You are exhausted. You are threaded with hundreds, thousands of likewise souls, driven in rings and circles for specific eternities. And you know that makes no sense, deep down in what's left of your existence.
Yet, as your selfhood is pulled through the existential-equivalent of a hula hoop for a short eternity, you think you hear a voice in the impossible distance. Unmistakably, Sir Tormlin reaches out to you somehow.
"Hold fast, young knight, and endure! The great machine is nearing its end, however momentary! And when that time comes, you must be ready to strike! The souls that you find yourself traveling in concert with will soon find themselves directed by your guidance and mine, and the vengeance of the unwilling will finally be visited upon the architect of this abrogation of the natural order!"
You steel yourself for the trial ahead, despited the continued drain of having your existence wrenched by the Astral Engine.
{So, your spirit is stuck in the Astral Engine! And it's draining you slowly of your spirit's vitality! So here's what I need you to do:
Describe for me, in spoiler tags, how Fernando's spirit resists the drain of the machine. Then, choose an appropriate stat and Roll.
If Fernando's spirit holds on long enough for the Machine to be disabled, he avoids being ground down into spiritual nothingness and will be poised to retake the fight in the physical realms again! Depending on how long it takes the rest of the team to deal with the machine, this may require multiple checks!}
(using 1 hold for +1)
geth roll 2d6+3 hack and slash
geth roll 1d6 damage
geth roll 1d6 damage if 10+
—Yes, Sir Tormlin, my Master... my... dad. I’ll hold on dad.
A little fish in a big ocean. However...
Lord of the Dawn, shield me from this darkness, for yours is the glory and you shall raise me up...
—I’m sorry I fell in battle, allowing you to be slain. I was a poor squire then, but I will see that it was not in vain.
Time. Space. What do those mean to the dead?
Lord of the Dawn, renew me as you do the day, gift me the chance to right these wrong...
How long am I dead? How large is a soul?
Eternity. Infinitely. This can not contain me.
Fernando’s first action is simple. They’re not small. They’re a giant, burning, radiant as the sun. Fernando’s scattered soul collides back together like a star being born.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Holy Ghost
You swoop in a wide arc, circumnavigating the chamber while maintaining your height, until you see it: the second of the two mechanical nodes supplying the great machine with vital control on this level. Surrounded by Automatic Workers in every conceivable direction, the route to the junction box would be impossible to navigate for a pedestrian.
You, however, are a winged force of nature.
You drive headlong through the blades and bardiches of the defending soldiers, planting your talons once more into a weak pair of conduits leading into the box. Once again, with a twist and wrench, you destroy the fragile mechanisms and their connections to the great machine.
This time, however, the blades and bardiches catch up with you.
Geth, roll 1d8+2 for Stabbing and Slashing (Damage, Armor Reduces)
Fernando
There is a leak. The paths are no longer so rigidly constrained, and the unthinking flow of souls trailing ahead and behind are no longer beholden to the strictures of an architected path.
You provide direction for the collected masses, forming first a wave, then a crest, then a tsunami...
(You have the force of will, but have you harnessed the desire of these collected souls? Roll!)
An Increasing Fog
With all but the final junction box destroyed, the great Astral Engine is guttering and spewing massive clouds of scintillating blue gas into the chamber. The machine struggles to maintain its cohesion, but it is a device too finely crafted, too perfectly architected, to fail even in the face of its increasing damage. Yet damaged it is, and the density of the fog permeating the room has reached levels preventing you from seeing even a few handful of feet into the distance.
It is here, in this impossible cyan cloud, that you notice it: the scintillation at its most defined. It seems as individual grains hanging in the air, yellow and red and gold amongst the blue backdrop. And a few, here and there, glow brighter.
The hue of the entire room begins to shift, slowly, from the unnatural blue to more and more the warmth and color of the sun.
Otto and Hawthorne, now's your time! Make your moves!
Wei is going to attempt to fly out of danger and regroup.
“Get it together you lot! Stop fighting to survive, and fight together!”
He leans down and scoops you a bundle of souls, and instructs them to pull the others free of this terrible engine. Soon a hundred or more souls are joined in hand, helping each other up into the light.
Not long after Fernando has them in regimented lines.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Get it Together
With the gaseous fog getting denser and more distracting by the second, you are able to dive down past the catwalks your assailants are on and find free air. That said, you're now a bit lost in the fog...
Fernando
Rank and file, rank and file go the impossible aspirants. Though they had little form or visage to speak of just moments prior, now they form a shimmering-gold array of warriors. Their appearance echoes your own, though you can see within each soul their unique desire. To be free. To move forward. To move on.
You hear the exultant shout of Tormlin, nearer even now than before. "They are ready! You are ready! Lead them on! Glory be the Light, that you may shine ever brighter!"
(The last of your preparations are made! You await only for your companions to break the dastardly machine, and you may sally forth!)
Geth, roll 2d6+1 Hack and Slash
You spin on one heel, staff in hand to meet the onrushing crush of workers...but you're already a beat too slow. An axe head come crashing down, and while you manage to interpose your quarterstaff the edge of the blade bites into your shoulder.
Geth, roll 1d8+2 for Shunk! (Damage, armor reduces)
The wall of steel warriors presses in on you, and you've become thoroughly entangled in a melee on both sides...
What do you do next?
[OOC: I think we need a bit of a shove @Nips
Perhaps throw us a bit of good luck?
@Mahnmut @Cheeseliker @ironsizide @Elvenshae
Let’s put this bastard down, we’re so close!]
But is anyone nearby to Aid first?
Can I help? :biggrin:
You've marshaled your assets to be at the ready, but the time is not quite here!
@Mahnmut
It's hazy, but you can absolutely aid Otto on his run toward the last junction box!
Geth, roll 2d6 Aid Otto
I guess I can't get close enough to make a difference, with the seething mass of metal in between!
[OOC: IIRC and I'm carrying over the defy danger roll from before as a Flawless Bladework roll (my INT and DX bonuses are identical) and so have at least a 12...)]
Geth, roll 1d8+1d4 for damage
(Galvanic and Burst techniques. Galvanic 'numbs a limb' from electrical discharge. Burst adds the 1d4 damage and the forceful tag.)
[OOC - heh. The craptacular roll had to happen at some point.]
Oo\ Ironsizide
Hawthorne
Despite the distance between you and Otto, you create a mighty racket! The nearby throngs of Automatic Soldiers hone in on you, and the mass standing in front of the final junction box turn to look in your direction, momentarily distracted, when...
Otto
...with a duelist's trained lunge, you weave your lightning-arcing blade between two servitors, piercing the front of the last vital component of the massive Astral Core.
And in the first heartbeat after, you fear nothing happens.
By your second heartbeat, the Soldiers have trained their blades on you, driving them down in dismembering arcs.
And before your third heartbeat, a spark.
Then like the lightning that struck it from your blade, the fragile juncture explodes outward in a impossible spray of blue mist and energy!
*buh-thump*
Into The Mists
Before you can process what's happening around you all, the thick blue mist coalesces into an ever-increasing fractal network of crystal formations, first on the exterior of the Astral Core and immediately radiating out into the room.
There's a long moment of panic when you realize you're becoming trapped in this formation of micro-crystals growing around you. Your body slowed, the pressure building, your hindbrain in a fight-or-flight mode where neither option is fully available to you. You hear the slow screech of metal being crushed, and the density of the crystal around you threatening to stop you permanently.
Your perception grows hazy, and you're no longer sure where the line between the physical realm and the beyond lies.
The crystals solidify until your entire perception is overtaken by their glowing blue-white energy....
...but somewhere in the depths of a distance imperceptible, the mote of a golden aura appears before you...
Fernando
Fernando's moment of glory is here! Describe for the gathered party how he leads the legions of souls across the Boundary Mortal to crush the Baron's forces, bring victory to the party, and end the Baron's immediate schemes!
The crystal around Otto is shattered in a moment of twinkling light and the sound of hooves!
Otto is grabbed by the arm and carried swiftly to Wei by a fiery figure on the back of a flying horse! They circle once and ascend!
Fernando!
Arrows of golden light strike once, twice, three times each against every last automaton! Legions of marching spirits, banners like heat waves billowing behind them, strike the pierced servitors down with spears of sunlight!
The pegasus clatters through the remains as its rider bounds vertically from it!
Fernando!
The baron in his pompous hulk of an automaton barks orders to his servants, but it is far too late! The place is falling apart around him!
He turns—THOOM!
The figure that burns like summer wildfire locks hands with the baron, and the pair begin to wrestle.
Fernando!
The barons hands, then arms, melt under the strain. They pull them off by the shoulder joints, then boot them into the legions of spirits marching below. The baron is torn apart in short order.
Fernando leaps down after, landing lightly. The fire cools until he becomes a soft, golden glow shaped like a young man. He picks up the barons head, closes his eyes, and the liquid metal drips through his fingers.
“May the Father have mercy on your soul, and in your eons of torment, eventually find virtue once again.”, his voice echoing with righteous grandeur, “Um... anyway, I’ve got to go now lads.”
The legions of the dead cut a dozen holes into the engine’s walls, and drummers begin to play, loud and deep, a sound that travels for miles around.
“Ready yourselves! Soon we will depart for the glorious sun!”
There’s a way out of this malfunctioning mess on every level... and perhaps, perhaps help will hear the drums.
“Um... anyway, I’ve got to go now lads.”
Fernando's words focus Otto's attention on Fernando himself. The continuing chaos falls away.
“Ready yourselves! Soon we will depart for the glorious sun!”
Otto sheaths his sword. My gods kid, you're goin' out in style Otto straightens out his jacket. Time to send you out in style. Otto claps his boots together, stands ramrod straight, and salutes the young... spirit?... as Fernando leads the final charge. "Give 'em hells kid!"
Oo\ Ironsizide
The world is flame and light, the trailing paths of arcing arrows ablaze and sword swings burning gashes into the real. You feel the crystal formations holding your physical forms hostage melt away in a burning instant, like dry tinder put to the torch. The heat is soothing, comforting, despite the visceral violence being tread across every space of this room.
A host of radiant warriors brings utter destruction to all but yourselves, and Fernando stands at the center of it all, defiant and glorious beyond measure.
The light of his fervor begins to grow in intensity, and your every sense begins to be overwhelmed by the nova of energy and willpower driving it.
You have only a scant few moments to react. Otto salutes. Wei whispers. Hawthorne catches his breath. Toth attempts a conjuration.
The room burns yellow white, the light overtaking every space it can find here.
The veil between the Real and the Beyond is gone, melted away utterly, and you take a short breath out of reflex.
Fernando
You hear, nay feel the words ringing outward from your persona. The legion, one by one, turns toward a great glowing sun in the distance, and begins to march. You watch, quietly, never more proud in your short life. As the last of the wayward spirits passes you you turn to follow them but a hand on your shoulder stops you.
Tormlin. He's smiling, and the warm glow of the sun starts to fade as the blue-black wash of the astral sea begins to roll back in to its rightful form.
"You have shown more grace, more fervor, than this world deserves. You have rightfully earned your place in the court of the Father, having brought salvation to all of these lost souls. Even so, it is your choice whether to go to that glorious sun or return to the mortal realm. Your life was halted before it hardly began, and I think the Father would be proud to see you carry on his voice and will among the living once more."
The ghost smiles warmly, one last time as he begins to depart into the astral sea.
"Regardless of your decision, know that I am ever proud of you, and ever watching over you."
...
Wei
A gentle, cool breeze blows past you, and you can hear it speak. It speaks with the volume of a whisper, but with the import of a hurricane.
"The natural order is restored. The damage that was done will heal. You have done a great service, Child of Life."
You inhale in an invigorating breath, and then you blink. As quickly as you were there, you are once again not, and your vision is met with the dark.
Otto
"It's not every day, Otto, that you get to dance across the Mortal Veil as if it were a line in the cobblestones. You've acquitted yourself quite well, quite well indeed!"
You're taken aback a bit. It's not enough that the weirdness of the day isn't your usual fare; you're a boots-in-the-stirrups, sword-in-hand kind of man. But to be sitting across from Aunt Syndy when moments ago you were in a chamber being savaged by fiery spirits? Extra weird. You're not even sure what to make of it all.
The kindly matron sees you shift slightly in your seat, and waves a hand in your direction.
"It's all right, dearie! This sort of inchoate interlude is unsettling for even the most practiced of us, those that deal in things both mortal and beyond. No worries! Drink your fill, and I promise you all will be right as the earth under your feet and the sky over your head in no time."
She smiles, once again coyly, and sips from her cup a second time.
You look down into the tea cup, its black fluid rippling gently. You sip with eyes closed, and open them to darkness once again.
Hawthorne
"Brother, have you a story to tell?" The woman's voice is a low purr, enticing and enchanting. "You've been away from my eyes and ears for a short while, and I am desperately intrigued to hear your side of things." Her back arches slightly against the stone wall behind her, her every small motion smooth beyond measure.
You catch yourself, trying to find the words, and she smiles at you disarmingly. Before you even realize it, you've recited the tale of the past few days. Beat for beat, moment for moment, she hangs on your every word. Your monologue is smoother, more practiced, than you ever think you could muster. With every verse she takes a measured step closer and closer to you, and by the time you've finished she has her arms around your shoulders, face to face.
The woman smiles, warmly and genuinely. "That is quite the tale," she whispers in your ear. "I am glad to see you lived through it all!"
She separates from you and smiles again, this time with a deep coyness.
"I look forward to hearing your next tale, storyteller."
She winks.
You blink, and when your eyes open again they are met by darkness.
Exilis
Very, very alone.
An untold number of moments of panic later, the thin glowing line of energy you are pulled along curves ever just so. You are certain you've lost the course, and begin to pray inwardly for a sign, any sign, for a direction to fling yourself.
And then you hear it. An eagle's cry. Your eagle's cry! You don't know how, but Iugo is calling out to you across the boundaries separating the real and the etheric, and you train yourself on its voice. There. You don't know where there is, but you know with all your existence its heading.
And you throw yourself toward it like a ballista shot.
Your astral form lances out into the black void. You feel something break, pop, under the force of your will and immediately you can perceive a light in the distance rushing at you with a meteor's speed.
The voice of your Iugo cries out again, and you pierce your self through the veil back into the material plane.
You wake to the rough tongue of Iugo lapping at your face, and find yourself atop a familiar tower. After rousing yourself and taking stock, you tend to your compatriots' mounts when your eye falls on the nearby lift. You rub your chin contemplatively, when you hear the sound of marching drums in the distance...
The Long Climb Out
You regain a semblance of physical consciousness, shaking the wild grogginess of incorporeal existence from your mind. Opening your eyes, it's dark; the room previously containing the Astral Engine is ruined and silent. You're overcome by a moment of panic, but then your eyes adjust and perceive a minor mote of purple-blue light moving toward you. Coughing through an upheld sleeve, Toth picks her way across piles of broken machinery and ruined automatic workers and soldiers. The globe of glowing brilliance, diminished but steady, leads her to you where she helps you pick yourself from the rubble.
"My magic works again, thank the makers, but only just. Whatever fallout remains from the destruction of the Baron's contrivances is still confounding most of my auguries, but I was able to find us a way out."
One by one you gather and then with Toth in the lead you make your way up a dark access tunnel. The climb is shallow but steady, and despite numerous possible side routes Toth leads you on with determined vigor. Just as your wits seem about to break from the quiet march you break from a tunnel into the bright of day.
You are met by a familiar sight, for once.
The steading tower greets you as if you were old friends, its doors still wide from your exit the several days prior. After a wearied climb up the tower's stone stair you're met with with another friendly sight:
Exilis! You thought him lost to the astral sea, yet here he stands, tending your mounts. He turns to you and smiles, then nods towards a machine on the roof a short distance away. "I managed to work the lift and secure us an extra conveyance out of here, just in case we needed to lift off with more passengers in tow. It's a hell of a machine, I'll say, and the higher-ups back at the isleships will undoubtably want to send salvage teams back here to scout for more after we report back."
The group of you mount up, and make your way off the barony isle to return home.
In the hold of the flying machine, unseen by all, an Automatic Soldier with a peculiar insignia emblazoned on its chest lies stowed and dormant...
Good game! Glad I got to come back and join in.
Fernando, as far as he goes for me, is gone. I didn’t intend to play a complicated character, and truth be told I never really knew if he was a ghost inhabiting a robot or a robot that thought it was a paladin. I hope I wasn’t a bother.
Thank you all for playing. Thank you @Nips for running it.