Seaside 5: Kinda like One Piece without the anime

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

Of course June is going to crawl through.
If one of the gems is through there, then she has no choice but to crawl through. Convinced that she's trapped in some hidden object puzzle game, she knows that the only way to proceed is to gather all the things and then put them in the right spot. In other words, even though the front door is wide open, she feels trapped in here so long as she leaves it unfinished. And she really wants to get it done before she starts to get hungry or thirsty, because she didn't spot a kitchen in here so she'd have to rely on some dumb food-based minigame to eat. She assumes that finishing the puzzle would just bring her back home.

So,
hands and head first, she crawls through the aqueduct tunnel.



[Coast Crawling]

The kid watches. He thinks the mermaid is both scary and pretty.
The cat also comes out of the shack and watches. The cat thinks the mermaid's lower half looks delicious.


The paladin nods "yes".

"Hey," he says, approaching in a way to appear as least frightening as possible. This includes hands palm forward to show that he's not holding any weapons. "Don't worry, I can heal you."

The mermaid is still frightened at first, and shies away when Zophiel kneels down beside her and reaches towards her gills, but after the pain and numbness subsides she looks a little less terrified about being suddenly trapped on land and surrounded.
In a quiet, hesitant voice, she says, "Thank you."

[bc56]

Selekhael's First Quest

"I, uh, think we should go that way." Selekhael points down the flower-strewn path. "It looks safer than the others." Selekhael is not genre savvy. If she were, she'd know not to go down the safe looking path. "And maybe unbind? If there's, uh, an ambush, we, uh, don't want to be caught in human form." She unfolds back into a celestial lion-coral-eagle-ring.

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June crawls into the tunnel. The walls are slathered with sticky mud, but when she reaches the end, it opens up into a small chamber, not quite large enough to stand up in. More interesting might be the cylindrical object in the center. Another pedestal, perhaps?

[Rebonack]

[Selekhael's First Quest]

Nothing wrong with taking the safest looking path in the Thicket.

Just understand that it won't be any safer than any of the other paths.

Anywho!

Arukhael follows. Ring and orca and lamb and inkcap.

That feeling of surreal, dreamlikeness only grows stronger as our heroes venture deeper into the hedge. White petals rain around them along with strands of glistening gossamer. The air grows heady and thick, the sound of reedy pipes playing somewhere in the unseen distance.

Petals and silk stick to them. Moving forward is becoming difficult.

The music grows louder, threatening to drown out thought.

Lay down.

Close your eyes.

Sleep.

Submitting to this enchanted slumber clearly isn't acceptable. But what shall our heroes do?

Truth would no doubt sear away these lies. Draw their swords and cut their own path!

These instincts are a trick, neither of them have any need to sleep! Invoke the Sphere of Id to dispel this falsehood!

Time seems to run slow in this dreamlike state. Invoke the Sphere of Time to assert reality!

Or, perhaps, some other solution?

[bc56]

Selekhael's First Quest

Yawn. So sleepy. Just... No! Selekhael will not allow herself to be controlled again! A burning power of Id lances out from her, striking at the spell of sleep. A power of wakefulness, of energy, of fury. She will not be controlled. She will not sleep when danger strikes. Her khopesh too appears in her paw, ready for hostiles. Wow, she's suddenly competent when she's angry!

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

Upon reaching the chamber, June tries to stand.
She hits her head.
It is, unfortunately, dark.

So, rather than standing or crawling, she instead walks hunched over, with a hand forward feeling for a wall so that she doesn't blindly run into both a ceiling and a wall.

Eventually, she makes it to the center of the room with the cylindrical object. Of course! It has to be here! She starts feeling around it, first looking for the edges with both hands and then making her way towards the center of the cylinder.

[Recaiden]

The kid watches. He thinks the mermaid is both scary and pretty.
The cat also comes out of the shack and watches. The cat thinks the mermaid's lower half looks delicious.

The paladin nods "yes".

"Hey," he says, approaching in a way to appear as least frightening as possible. This includes hands palm forward to show that he's not holding any weapons. "Don't worry, I can heal you."

The mermaid is still frightened at first, and shies away when Zophiel kneels down beside her and reaches towards her gills, but after the pain and numbness subsides she looks a little less terrified about being suddenly trapped on land and surrounded.
In a quiet, hesitant voice, she says, "Thank you."

"What happened here?"
Anchor comes a little closer and crouches down so as not to be looming over the poor mermaid.

"How did you get hurt like that?"

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June feels around on the pedestal and... Aha! There's a small triangular stone there. It must be the gem she's looking for. Now that she's got it, she just needs to find the passage she used to get into this chamber and get out.

[Vahnavoi]

[Inside the Octahedron]

It is indeed a good question how the murderous thoughts emanating from the flintstone might affect the already disturbed mind of the sea-elf.

But while they ponder the answer, Magdalene succesfully shortens the hallway to the brain room, to just a few meters. When she gets across the armory, she can see the black chair in the middle of the room, facing right. Once she steps into that room, to her right are two big, circular screens again - this time, displaying what Magdalene herself sees.

[5a Violista]

[Subtropical Coastal Ruins]

Success! This is probably the 'low' one considering how she had to crawl to get here. So that leaves a simple one and one that's up high, probably.
She quickly 'pockets' the gem so that she won't lose it in the dark. Since, if she dropped it here, it'd be extremely difficult to find again.

She doesn't completely remember which direction she came from - she's not sure if she got turned around, or what, but...all she has to do is follow the water upstream, right? By following the water upstream she'll get back to the same place as before.

When she touches the wall again, June kneels and starts crawling back upstream. That way, she can go back, reach the wall again, and then continue her pathway to mentally map the space.


[Coast Crawling]

Zophiel continues examining the former-wound to ensure there's no more serious underlying wounds, like internal bleeding or damaged organs or something like that.


The mermaid looks up at the crouching Anchor, and then looks down. She doesn't really want to say this because she's still completely at their mercy, but she still says, "They kidnapped some of our people so we came by to hold some of them hostage," she says. "One of their weapons hit me and because it hurt my gills I had to stay by the surface and got left behind."

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

Success! With an additional gem, June crawls off back the way she came.
But something's off when, after a while, she feels like she's gone further than it took to get into the gem chamber. Maybe she's just misremembering how far the passage was? It's probably not a big deal, right?

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

Of course she is just misremembering how far it was. In the first place, it's dark. She can't see anything, and the darkness messes with your sense of distance. That is why she had to count out her steps while following the wall.

Unfortunately, June doesn't crawl often enough to have properly counted out how far she went. Instead, she just had a rough idea of how long it took which is affected by crawl speed, which can maybe be affected by incline direction and water speed.

As long as she's going upstream, it should be fine.

[Rebonack]

[Selekhael's First Quest]

The intense emotions shatter the lethargy falling over our heroes in an instant, stripping away the illusionary sensations and images to reveal-!

There are no flowers here.

There are only old cobwebs and cocooned remains of desiccated bodies.

Clinging to the thorny ceiling above our heroes is a mare.

Not like a female horse, no.

But a mare in the old sense. A nightmare made manifest. A thing that strikes all the high points of human terror regarding spiders and a slow, agonizing, lonely death. To die alone in a hospital bed somewhere. Forgotten and unloved. The mare realizes that its illusion is broken and tries to skitter away along the ceiling. If it escapes it might manage to ensnare our heroes again deeper in the Briar Patch.

Arukhael is still shaking off the effects of the spell. It's up to Selekhael to end this living nightmare's threat.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

The crawlway continues for some distance more, becoming narrower as it goes. To proceed, June will need to get down and crawl on her belly. Since this wasn't in the passage on the way down, hopefully she should realize she's going the wrong way.

Selekhael's First Quest

"No you don't!" Selekhael spreads her wings and flies after the mare. She slashes at it with her blade. "I, uh, won't let you eat anyone else!" It's pretty clear that's what happened here. Luckily, Selekhael isn't arachnophobic.

[Rebonack]

[Selekhael's First Quest]

Spider mare, spider mare, cleave in half that spider mare.

The mare makes an awful keening scream as Selekhael bisects it, its body rapidly unraveling into gossamer before evaporating away. All that remains are some cob webs and bits of shriveled flesh. It's pretty gross.

Arukhael gives his head a shake.

"Oof, that one hit me pretty hard, thanks," he says to Selekhael. "It's a good thing there are two of us here, otherwise I might have been spider food."

No one wants to be spider food.

Regardless! Our heroes press on!

Soon the passage widens out into a circular chamber supported by several huge, twisted pillars of brambles. An eerie fire burns in a pair of bronze braziers to either side of a pedestal upon which rests...

Something.

Nothing.

Anything?

A roiling mass of primordial potentiality.

Behind the pedestal a flight of stairs descends into the darkness.

[bc56]

Selekhael's First Quest

"You're, uh, welcome. That's thing was really, uh, creepy." Then the pair arrive in what might be the final room. Selekhael stares at the thing. "Wow. That's, uh, wow. Is that what we're here to get?" She's pretty sure it is, so she's already moving to get it.

[5a Violista]

[Subtropical Coastal Ruins]

This is weird, did she get turned around?
Must be. That'd make the most sense. Should've taken more care in that previous room.

She still continues the same way, direction. As long as she's in a stream, it's impossible to be permanently lost, because she'll just have to follow it in one direction or the other until she gets somewhere recognizable.

As long as her nose or mouth stays out of the water and she still has space to move backwards, then it's not a big deal. She can continue. There could be another gem this way, so she has to check what is this way. She's pretty thin, flat, and has a narrow waist, so that's a benefit. She occasionally reaches ahead, trying to check various things like the water level, how much narrower it is, and if it opens up or something.

[Arkhosia]

Spoiler

Show

Bombmercials

"No wait, say ten times faster than a cheetah. Or... a hundred times maybe? Anyone know how fast a cheetah can run? Maybe we should go with fifty times? It's not like anyone is going to fact check this anyway."

"A cheetah can run approximately 130 km per hour, but it's not like they can run at that speed for so long so it's a bit of a misnomer."

"Er-"

"-and our long-range missiles can travel more than 5000 meters per second. We could hit a target more than 10,000 km away in half an hour."

"And-"

"-so about a hundred times faster than a cheetah to answer your question."

"Wow, that's really fast! Way faster than me, probably."

"Probably."

"...well, more than a hundred times faster than a cheetah it is then. So wanna start doing a few test runs? Just running the prop back and forth a few times should probably do the trick."

Moonwell Convergence - VIGIL Airship

"I'm okay!"

"Way better than dead, which I thought we'd all be by now."

It looks like Geneva is responsible for making sure a lot of the crew came on top of that one as the rest of the ship, including the crew members she couldn't reach, look a lot worse to wear.

"Looks like we must have hit a weak point or something." One of the rescued adventures remarks as he gestures at the obelisk ship which have started to flicker in and out of it's invisibility cloak while several hatches starts opening up all over the ship.
It looks as if some error has occurred onboard.

The ship is still moving forward however, right towards the island which they all just left behind. Indeed, if it continues on this course it might just crash into the volcano in the middle of the island.

Bombmercials

The catgirl watches as math occurs, looking a little quizzical. Are productions like this generally so off-the-cuff? "Er, yeah, I can do that. Maybe try a few variations, see what sounds right?"

Moonwell Convergence - VIGIL Airship

"That, or our trio inside managed to do some damage." Blanche grins as she watches some of the ship's functions start to seemingly glitch out, but sobers when she picks up on the trajectory it's slumping into.

"Keep alongside it! We need to be there for as long as possible if our gals manage to make it out for an extraction!" She silently acknowledges that they might have to pull away at some point, but doesn't voice it yet - abandoning Anika to avoid getting caught in an explosion isn't a thought Blanche wants to dwell on until it's absolutely necessary.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June finally emerges after a particularly tight squeeze into a new cavern. The ground is uneven beneath her feet, and there is a slight breeze. It feels like the passage curves around to the left.

[5a Violista]

[Subtropical Coastal Ruins]

Oh, a breeze. That's new, and probably a good sign. It's separate enough from the previous area that there might just be a gem here.

On the other hand, uneven ground is a bad sign. She could easily stub her toes. She'll have to step more carefully to compensate. Even though it keeps on going, as long as she keeps track of where she went then it should be fine.
So, once again, she sticks to the left wall as she continues.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June rounds the corner and is hit with a smell. Luckily, she's also hit with a sight. As she adjusts to the light streaming through a crack in the far wall, she encounters huge piles of bat guano. The source is also clear, numerous bats clinging to the ceiling. And it's hard to see, but something, or many somethings, is moving in the piles. There's another exit over to the right as well, and a faint glint of something red wedged into the crack.

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June raises a hand to her nose.
Gross, it smells like ammonia mixed with dead animals. Sort-of. Not quite, but it smells bad.

With her nose covered and mouth mostly covered and breathing through her mouth, she takes a look around the room. It's great how there's light - this saves a lot of trouble - but to be honest she would rather not be seeing some of these things. Like, whatever's moving. Being only to barely see it is worse than actually seeing it. But, she'd rather not just step in it all so...that's a decent benefit.

What even is in the piles? She can't tell, but...maybe it doesn't matter. She's not planning on stepping in them anyway, where possible. She'll definitely want to wash her feet off later.

So, she scans the room.
Passageway.
And! Red!
The third is likely somewhere through that passageway, she assumes. Either that, or it loops back to the start. She would have preferred this be a dead-end because then it would really simplify the mental map, but...the second one is already right here!

June shifts to walking on her toes, so that she'll have to step in as little of...everything, as possible.
She starts to creep through the room towards that red glint, avoiding as many piles or moving things or anything else as possible.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June squishes her way across piles of guano. Something crawls across her foot for a moment. What was that? The red thing becomes even clearer. It's definitely one of the gems. And she'll have to walk right through one of the largest piles of guano to get there.

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June shivers.
She freezes for a moment when something crawls over her feet.

Once it feels like it's gone, she continues.

She has to walk through it to get there. Luckily, her legs are bare so everything will be easily washed off. So it's not that big of a deal, but it'll feel a little gross. Luckily there seems to be a lot of water around so when she next gets to water she'll be able to wash it off.

She takes a deep breath and holds her breath - not for the smell, as much as it is for preparation.

And, then, she steps through and takes (and 'pockets') the gem.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

As June reaches for the gem, the pile of guano shifts under her feet. Something rises from it. First a pair of antennae, then a smooth, brown carapace. It's a huge cockroach, probably the biggest she's ever seen. Its body is streaked with hardened dung, but easily over a foot long. Its grimy antennae brush against her leg, tasting her. It is, no doubt, a thoroughly disgusting experience.

[5a Violista]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

Cockroaches are disgusting.
Imagine you open up the door to the bathroom.
You hear the scurrying of dozens of cockroaches.
But they're not in the bathroom.
They're in the bathroom door.

That's the memory that comes to mind when she realizes that it's cockroaches here. And this one's huge.

With her foot, she tries to push the cockroach away. If it realizes it's being pushed away, it'll stop trying to go after the moving thing, right? Before it can do anything disgusting or summon its little cockroach friends or...whatever else it wants to do, she quickly grabs the gem.

Unfortunately, she can't remember whether cockroaches are the type of animal that likes to chase things that are running from it so she can't decide whether she should bolt for the next room or go slowly.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

The cockroach is pushed away. But now that she knows what she's looking at, June will no doubt see that all the dung heaps are swarming with cockroaches. That's what she saw moving. That's what crawled over her foot. Most of them are normal sized, but there are more big ones here and there, half buried in excrement. She might want to high-tail it out of there. That unexplored exit is tantalizing, yet far away, across the piles of guano again.

[5a Violista]

[Subtropical Coastal Ruins]

Yeah,
this is gross.

June, after making sure the gem is properly stored - she doesn't want to drop it into a pile of guano, that would be disgusting - decides there's only one thing to do:

run towards the unexplored exit.
As fast as she can.
Meanwhile, try not to shiver.

[bc56]

Subtropical Coastal Ruins

June definitely steps on more than a few cockroaches on her way to the exit. Her frantic path awakens some of the bats, which swarm around her chirping and never quite colliding with her. But when she reaches the end, she can finally rest. The passage makes a twisty path off to the right, horizontally narrow but vertically quite tall. The frightened bats leaving the cave through the crack cause intermittent darkness in the cavern.

[5a Violista]

[Subtropical Coastal Ruins]

Luckily, bug guts aren't the worst thing that could have happened, so in the end it's not quite that bad.

She follows the path. Her eyes had gotten used to looking right at the light in the last room, so it takes a while for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. In order to speed that along, she keeps her eyes closed for a few moments while the bats are flying out. Once she's calmed down from all the bugs and everything, she opens them up again and looks at where she is. The fact that this is a narrow-but-tall room confirms her suspicions that there has to be a gem somewhere in this room, too. There haven't been any climbing or high-up puzzles yet so it only makes sense that there would be one here.

She advances down here, using the intermittent light to look around. It feels like there will be some sort of thing up high that she'd have to climb to, so she especially looks upwards while going down the hall.
Also, looking upwards lets her be distracted from thinking about what's on her feet.

[Recaiden]

Zophiel continues examining the former-wound to ensure there's no more serious underlying wounds, like internal bleeding or damaged organs or something like that.

The mermaid looks up at the crouching Anchor, and then looks down. She doesn't really want to say this because she's still completely at their mercy, but she still says, "They kidnapped some of our people so we came by to hold some of them hostage," she says. "One of their weapons hit me and because it hurt my gills I had to stay by the surface and got left behind."

"What were you going to do with the hostages? I mean, there's like no one left here."
Or maybe they all left to get the hostages back?

Anchor glances back at the boy.
"Do you know of any mermaids here?"