W5 🛸 PLAYER CYOA: FUCK IT WE EYEBALL (ALLI) 🚀 GUY, MARGARET, OWNER, SIDON

[dropoffs]

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DAY 3 - GROUPS

[tombtaker]

REJUVENATION CHAMBER

[tombtaker]

[ Hello Margaret and Owner. You hold each other’s hands and skip off down the hallway together, assured of each other’s good intentions towards one another.

It’s a long walk, and without Sidon to help lift rocks and yourselves over the harder parts of the journey, it’s exhausting. But it’s important, to keep pushing forward. To go forth is the mandate of the soul, after all.

After a while, you enter another chamber - this one smaller than the Dawn Crucible, but intricate. Inside is two empty platforms at the center-back encased in cylindrical glass. They are labeled (because you can read:) "Terminal RE 01" and "Terminal RE 02”. One is heavily cracked, the glass shattered on the floor. The other is fogged over, but intact. There are purple crystals affixed to the top of them, still very slightly glowing with … something.

Waiting.

Well? ]

[bossbabygirl]

[well. she's keeping one eye (get it) on owner, sure he's planning something against her and ready to react if he does. but can she use her arcana to see what this is and how to use it?]

[discomfort]

[ well, as soon as they're in he is also just walking as far from margaret as he can because he doesn't trust her. it's fine. he walks over to the shattered one, to maybe get a better idea of what happened here?? does it look like something from the outside broke it? ]

[tombtaker]

[ she may use her arcane wisdom to figure out that yes, these are quite magical. as for what EXACTLY they do … even with all your education and newfound magical prowess, it’s still ancient technology. The gem on top is reminiscent of the strange Luxon Beacons you might have heard tell of at one time. Something to do with … manipulation of the body. The soul.

Owner, your whispers are even more powerful than before, and these certainly have a lot to say. Feelings of pain and age … turning into relief. A reversal of hurt. But, the whispers in your ear think - if it can heal, surely it can …

It looks broken from the inside out. ]

[bossbabygirl]

[so maybe these could be used to help channel whatever was in that platform better? bring it closer without interference? she will try to inspect what broke it.]

[discomfort]

[ owner just gives margaret a look. inspect your own thing.

but also this feeling, is it coming from this particular spot, or is it just this room in general without any real specific origin point? ]

[tombtaker]

[ yalls trial day investigation!!!!

It seems like something around human sized broke it - like maybe a foot kicked through the glass from near the bottom.

The feeling definitely originates from the glass tubes in this particular spot yeah. ]

[bossbabygirl]

[fine she will go check out the operational one then and see if she can get it working!]

[discomfort]

[ fascinating... if he pokes his head through the hole and looks inside, is there anything still in here or nah? ]

[tombtaker]

[ with a 4, Margaret starts to poke around and ……… something cracks, ominously. Magic energy sparks through the air, and she feels suddenly very tired and drained. Like it just took something from her instead of healing.

Poking his head through the shattered glass hole full of sharp edges, Owner can see there’s a skellington. :) It’s wearing a bracelet. ]

[bossbabygirl]

[well, fuck. that's no good. it's frustrating because she's the one who deserves to succeed at these things, she's the one who was picked and who has the drive and intelligence. but she'll pause for a moment and lean against the wall to catch her breath, watching whatever owner is doing.]

...

[discomfort]

[ not the bracelet

unfortunately he has no problems with just reaching in closer to get a good look at these bones. is it the type of skellyton where it has obviously been here a very long time, or is there still meat on them bones... what kind of bracelet is it... he will get as close as he can to investigate. ]

THE ARBORETUM

[tombtaker]

[ Guy and Sidon! Best friends forever! You head off the other direction - talking fondly of your favorite people from your past. Charles and Arthur. Wow. I wonder what they’re up to right now? Probably something really cool.

It’s a long walk. Going in this place is rough and exhausting, but with the journal giving you encouraging back rubs and Sidon’s strength and Guy’s dexterity, you’re actually probably doing okay. Y’all really split off your more physical party guys into one half and sent your tiny little babies on the other side, huh.

Eventually it gets … dark. I guess I never made a call on if Zora have dark vision or not. Well. I guess that’s up to Nu, I won’t impose a head canon upon ye. But it’s very dark. You can hardly see a few inches in front of your faces, actually. Perhaps the only way to track where the other of you is, is by the slightly ominous glowing light of the eyes from their body. I’m sure that’s a good sign.

You can feel the ground start to change under your boots, however. From hard rock and slippery ice to … dirt. The crunch of leaves. You accidentally run a shoulder into something and hold out a hand and can feel that it’s … bark. You’re in a deep, wooded forest, eerily silent. But something rustles in the trees. ]

[polliwog]

[ WE REALLY ABANDONED OUR LITTLE GUYS!!!!!!

that's okay, today sidon doesn't care. he thinks they're probably fine and if they aren't they'll be okay later! can they like, actually see out of these red hell eyes?

i googled if sharks can see in the dark and they apparently can so he can have a little dark vision as a treat. he tries to keep an awareness of where guy is, but can he spot any movement out there? ]

[tombtaker]

[ to keep things boppin’ ill go ahead and answer this - you can’t actually see out of them, at least, not on the material plane. And perhaps they grant sight of other kinds but not in the sense that you can like. Lift your hand up and see out of it. You dig?

He can have a lil dark vision as a treat. He can see in shades of black and white and red … but there’s no large movement he can see. Just shifting leaves. ]

[polliwog]

[ mystery eyes... they do help him spot guy in the midst of all the branches and darkness, at least. he's torn between leaving him behind, expecting him to follow in the way a prince expects to lead any charge, but also not really sure if he ought to leave his back exposed.

but he's not a coward, so he'll go towards the rustle of leaves. ]

[mansplains]

Sidon, can you see?

[ guy is also heading towards the rustle... what do your zora eyes see, sidon ]

[tombtaker]

[ with a 20 … I don’t think Sidon sees anything. He senses it.

There’s something out there. Whatever it is, whatever has survived this long in these empty woods, under hundreds of meters of ice and snow and cursed magic, it probably isn’t something you’d like to meet.

But, you don’t HAVE to tell Guy about it. After all. You can see it. Feel it. He can’t. ]

[polliwog]

[ he stares out blindly, sensing, feeling the presence of something underneath his skin and through his eyes move like a warning. of course he's going to tell guy! guy is his friend. ]

Ah, I can't see very far ahead.

[ ...or he would, but it just doesn't seem important. it's not something guy needs to worry about? he'll take care of him, eventually. he stays in place instead, listening and doing a whispers check. ]

[mansplains]

[ brain check! can guy tell this stinky sushi is lying? ]

Here, let me go ahead. I can feel my way around. [ with his dex int and charm, he can charm the darkness. trying to shuffle past sidon ]

[tombtaker]

[ THE ARBORETUM

- its big ol' woods. just huge trees and endless dirt and its eerily quiet
- It's really fucking dark in here! The only lights are some very dim yellow lights in the distance and the lights of your red eyes which are all glowing and creepy and horrible
- you have a friend!! he's big and weirdly quiet for such a big fuckin' guy. Mind control and brain blasts do work on him. If you use healing around him, he absorbs it and sends it back as Damage. Hooray! He is called a Reverser.

The whispers check ........ it's strange, but. You get the sense from this creature that it's a horrible, painful mishmash of a dozen different animals and monsters, all selected for their brutal nature and efficiency, manipulated to have magical properties. All in the service of killing rival mages, or perhaps, even divinity.

The oddest thing is that you feel strongly it can understand you, somehow. That maybe it's not all animal. Something in that terrible mix might be ...

Guy! You cannot fuck the concept of darkness, I'm sorry to say. But you could easily use Charm to determine if someone is lying or not. And a little bit of newfound Intelligence can't hurt.

With a 20, you can easily see through Sidon's lies.

The eyes grow impatient.

]

[polliwog]

[ oh! a friend! sidon is very rarely afraid of monsters to begin with, and this one is... maybe not quite a monster to begin with. not all of it. there's pieces of it that might be saved, even—but the pieces that can't be salvaged need to be removed. it needs to be freed from its suffering, and he can do that.

maybe then he can bring this one back, too. but first, it isn't a mindless beast, so he will find it in the dark and compel it forward. a little tap against its brain noggin with a friendly suggestion to come forth and greet guy. ]

[mansplains]

[ ok some shit is going on, and guy slips past sidon to silently go a little further, hand hovering close to his sward. also time to try to charm sidon!! ]

What's going on?

[polliwog]

[ oh, he is much too insane right now to charm out of his conviction, sorry. ]

Nothing!

[ what's going on is that i rolled a 16 so their monster friend is charging at guy now. the compulsion won't last long, but it does follow through, with the sound of breaking branches. ]