Seaside 5: Kinda like One Piece without the anime

[bc56]

Lost Beach

There's a bank of levers June might be interested in.

"Bridge"
"Door"
"Windows"
"Ventilation"
"Bailing"
"Orrery"
"Cannon"

No lights, but there doesn't appear to be any electrical devices in the tower anyway.

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

Maybe Anchor doesn't need to eat, but Zophiel would prefer to eat sometime today. Especially if there's going to be fighting.

But, "Yeah. You're right," Zophiel admits. "When hiring would be the best time to use that."

"Well...I might get in trouble," Amatheia says. "But. . .the fact that I'm not there right now probably will say something good. I think."



[Lost Beach]

June isn't entirely sure what 'Bailing' or 'Orrery' refer to. Maybe Selekhael does.
And...cannons seem pretty useless.
Ventilation might be okay.
Bridge! Easier way to get here! And door!

But, actually, thinking about it...she still has to test whether this will work. Windows might be the best bet for that: they'd be the most obvious, since they'd bring in light.

She pulls the 'Windows' lever.

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

The swordsman is about to conjure another ball of fire, when he remembers he still has that piece of obsidian. He reaches into shirt and shows it to Frigate. "I can light it up, but there's something I want to try first. I found this. It's what was left when I freed two fire spirits from depths of that cave. Let's see if I can get a spark out of it."

He approaches the readied cannon with the skull-shaped stone in hand. He'll try tapping it against the cannon first, the rubbing it in his hands and blowing at it as if's a burning coal. If none of that gets it heated up, he starts chanting birthing words of fire and waving the stone around. If none of that works, he draws his shorter sword and strikes the stone with it. Too bad it's not flint.

[Recaiden]

"Well, we wouldn't want that."
But what happens to Amatheia really isn't important right now, is it?
"We should be back with the captives in a couple hours, hopefully."

So Anchor turns and heads up the switchbacks towards the town proper with Zophiel.

[5a Violista]

Amatheia decides she's going to stay here in the river for a couple hours to see what happens. If the kidnapped mermaids do come back with her, then that would be a pretty great excuse for letting the prisoners escape, she thinks.


So, Zophiel and Anchor (and Briar) return to the city.
By the time they get there, they have well over an hour before Anchor has to be at the gate.

Also, they find a food cart that is still open, even this late. Probably going to close soon, though. It sells a fried rectangular breadlike thing that has (your choice of) cheese, meat, or cheese and meat. They also have little tiny fried round sandwich-like things that have crunchy freshwater crustaceans and peppers in it.
"Well..." the paladin says, "to be honest, this probably doesn't count as dinner, but I'll still pay for it." Since he did lose that bet way back when.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

When June pulls the windows lever, a grinding sound comes from around the tower. Slowly, sealed panels in the walls slide open in a shower of dust, allowing sunlight and fresh sea air to filter into the tower. Selekhael calls down. "Did you open the windows? Thanks! I can see much better now!"

[Recaiden]

"Thanks. I mean, you don't have to, since yeah, it is too late to count as dinner."
Anchor will order some tiny fried crustacean sandwiches for herself, and a bread rectangle with meat for Briar so she can give the meat to the dog.
"But that just makes it more of a nice thing to do!"

[Earl of Purple]

Forgotten Pirate Cove

Passing the obsidian skull over the match lights it, and it burns down to fire the cannon. It's quite a big boom, bigger than Frigate expected. The skull increased the explosivity of the gunpowder, propelling the lead cannonball faster than usual. It thwacks heavily into the jade archway, shattering the stone and bringing the arch down. The tunnel beyond is still currently navigable, though harder to access. Maybe another two blows will do it, though this time Frigate's going to talk the swordsman through it.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

Oh!
That's great.
June doesn't need the dim light anymore, so...well, it was kind-of useful. So, she considers where to put it.
...
Maybe just an apron pocket. One of the smaller ones.

"Yeah! Found some levers," she calls up. "Not sure what they all do! When you finish up there, you can look at them!"

After looking at the lever labels once more, she decides to pull the Bridge and Door levers.

Then, she decides to go upstairs to see how it's going there.


[Coast Crawling]

Zophiel gets a mixture breadsquare and one crustacean sandwich, then he pays for all of what everyone ordered.

"Plus," he says, a little sheepishly, "you are my daughter so I ought to have been doing this for a long time now."

[bc56]

Lost Beach

"Can you come up here first? I
need to find the right mould to make the key! I could use some help!" Selekhael shouts.

There's more grinding sounds, but no obvious change from the door and bridge levers.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

"Sure!" June calls up.

"On my way!" Leaving the levers behind, she goes back to the ladders.

June ascends.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

On the floor with the living area, there's now a door unsealed from the wall and a narrow metal bridge leading back to shore. Up on the forge floor, the forge is burning brightly and Selekhael is rummaging through a lot of small moulds. "Help me, uh, find the one that matches the broken key." She says. The key has an ornate, detailed handle. June will have to look for one that matches its design. There's the pile of moulds by the dumbwaiter that Selekhael is looking through, but there's another by the forge and another near the stack of ingots.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

June nods. "Okay," she says. She gets a good look at the key and tries to get it in memory. Pretty important, since the broken key will stay with Selekhael so June won't be able to compare it to the holes.

She first goes towards the pile next to the stack of ingots, to look through those.
Rather than trying to see if there's one that's really close, she instead looks for any that are certainly not it. She figures it'd be easier to narrow it down first. That's how puzzle games tend to work, too, she thinks. So, all the ones that are close or similar go in one pile, and all the others in a different pile.

While looking, she says aloud (talking helps her concentrate), "So what do you think he needed this many different keys for, anyway? Think he was some kind of collector?" Or - this is the idea that she's going with - "Maybe there really used to be this many different locks hidden around the island. What do you think?"

[Vahnavoi]

[Forgotten Pirate Cove]

"That was easier than I thought!" , the swordsman exclaims, looking at the wreckage, then at the piece of obsidian, then at the wreckage again. "Let's do it again!" He follows Frigate instructions and gives the tunnel another two shots. "We have to test this cannon with an ordinary match later. I think this stone is doing some extra work here. I haven't seen mere powder give such a kick before."

[Recaiden]

Anchor can't help but think back to some of the times she went without food, back in the ether wilds, and heavily says "Yeah." But in a much brighter tone of voice continues "I mean, you've got a lot of catching up to do." and digs into the sandwich. Not bad, with all those peppers.
She figures they should keep walking along the streets while they eat, though. No reason to linger here.

[5a Violista]

"Yeah, there is," Zophiel says, agreeing, also walking towards the city exit that she needs to be at. "It's just been too hectic to just sit down and...talk. Especially between the storm, and weird cultists, and kidnapped mermaids, and everything else."

Plus, at this point in time, Zophiel still is under the impression that some things are better left unstated and ignored, and he's resigned to the fact that he suspects he only has less than a year and a half left in existence with no chance of relief and that's not really something he's prepared to face yet. And talking about any of it with someone else is basically an admission that it's going to happen. Don't get him wrong: he's ecstatic to see that his daughter is doing fine. He's just doesn't even want to think about the certainty that he'll have to leave again without explanation. As long as you don't think about something, that means it won't happen, right? That's how it works, right?

"So I haven't been doing anything particularly interesting," he claims. "Just...studying up on magic seals and history of my homeworld." And getting revenge, but that stays unstated. After encountering that Saint of Forgetfulness, it's not like he regrets it or anything.

[Recaiden]

"It has been one thing after another, hasn't it?"
"So, where was I? It was after the robot clone thing that I started studying magic. Got into a lot of trouble with it, honestly. Then I ran a library for a little while, that was nice, but I mean, it was too small. I got restless, so I went to GLoG to learn about medicine and healing, and I mean, also for dumb embarrassing reasons. And I started traveling the land to fight demons and overthrow wicked kings and so on."
"I did take a break for some revenge that I can't really talk about."
Anchor takes a moment to break open the meat-bread and give a bit of food to Briar.
"So you must be a magic seal expert by now."

[bc56]

Lost Beach

Most of the moulds aren't for keys, but for other objects. Wrenches, plating, cogs, etcetera. It's easy to exclude the larger ones as being for larger parts. That leaves June with a small stack of molds for small things. A quick search through those turns up a couple keys, all ornate like the broken one, but each different. But now June knows the size and shape of a key mold. But where's the one they're looking for?

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

They're nearing the right gate.
In a few minutes, they'll be on the main street that leads to it.

"Oh, wow," the paladin says. "That sounds like you were really busy."
And "Medicine and healing are pretty important," says the paladin who can naturally do magical healing. "It really does sound exciting."

But, he shakes his head: "Not so much an expert. I just have a lot of practical experience with them." Which, tbh, probably qualifies him to be an expert. "Like, with enough time and after looking at something hard enough and the right tools, I bet I could use them to do whatever I need," he explains. "But...these sorts of things get exponentially harder and I don't know all the shortcuts or simplifying things that someone who apprenticed in it would know."


[Lost Beach]

Oh, good! Knowing this will make searching through the other pile much easier. "Hey! I'm going to move all of these that it might be to you," she declares, as she starts to do exactly that. "Since you have the key, you could compare them more closely. I'll do the same with that other pile by the forge, and then once they're all together I'll join you looking at the key and the molds."

After June finishes moving all the key molds closer, she moves over to the forge-pile to repeat the process, looking for which ones it might be. And since she can automatically exclude a large number of the molds without even looking at them, that makes it a lot easier to separate them out.

It'll be after a while that she joins Selekhael with comparing the molds directly with the broken key.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

It takes a little more searching, but June finds the right mould. Selekhael takes it and places it in a prepared slot in the forge, tightening clamps to hold it in place. She sets up a funnel above it and then places a small ingot in the funnel before moving the whole assembly into the fire. "Okay, uh, can you work the bellows? I'll, uh, be able to tell when it's ready."

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

"Whew, that took way longer than I was expecting," June says once they're finally sure that they have it.

She nods and goes over to the bellows. "There was actually a lever down there for ventilation," she says as she looks at the bellows. She has an idea on how it works, and looks at it a little longer to make sure she's got it. She starts using them. "Like this?"

And, she keeps on talking. "Was wondering if the ventilation meant automated forge ventilation or if it just meant the whole tower. Didn't want to try it out in case it messed something up."

[bc56]

Lost Beach

Soon the fire is blazing good and hot. Selekhael stands a little closer than might be recommended to look at the key. "It was, uh, pretty stuffy in here before the windows opened. Maybe the ventilation is so it can be not stuffy but, uh, have the windows closed? Like, uh, if it's raining?"

It's a minute or so before Selekhael tells June to stop pumping the bellows, and a few minutes more after that before she declares the key ready. She pulls the mould out, cracks it open, and lets the key fall into a bucket of cold water with a sharp hiss. It'll take a little bit to cool.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

"Yeah, maybe that's it," June says.

She doesn't really bother commenting on Selekhael standing too close. June's okay with a little heat, so it'd make sense if a lion-bird-who-can-swim-really-fast-but-is-called-an-angel would also be okay with a little heat.

When told to stop, June stops. But she stays by it, just in case she'll have to do it again.
When it ends, she goes over to the bucket to watch.
And watch.
And...it's done!
"Oh! Great!" she says.

After waiting just a little longer just to be sure, she reaches in to grab the key. Pretty excited. "Let's go see what's in there!"
She quickly goes back to the ladder and climbs down - practically jumping after getting halfway down the ladder - just to be able to open that chest a little faster.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

June races down the ladder and unlocks the chest. Nestled in a pile of old papers within is another glowing green crystal shard, pulsing with the same rhythm as the one June already found. Selekhael climbs down the ladder after June. "Another one? What's it for?'

[Shadowcaller]

Moonwell Convergence

Things could certainly be going better right now. Saint Lazarus grits her teeth, and tries to bury the flood of memories and feelings swelling through her. She makes a mental note to try to avoid biting into any other elementals, and to especially avoid chowing down on any demons It doesn't seem to be too good for her spiritual and mental well-being, after all. Last thing she needs is to be a ghoul and a demon, after all. That'll take even longer to cure, probably.

"I vote we get out, too. That's two out of three votes, and I don't know anything about demon flight controls; so let's get going," she insists, now that there's nothing left to stop them from running back the way they came.

[Moonwell Convergence]

Awen is back to her own body.
After getting slammed against the wall and everything else, everything aches and is in pain is magically swapped to feel like bliss and pleasure, leaving her rather disoriented and giddy. And to her, there is the heavy floral scent sticking in the air immediately around her, that originally made that demon sleep.

She flexes her fingers. Yeah, they feel normal.
What is...
Huh...
She blinks, and then realizes the situation they're all in.

Remembering the feeling of tearing her own throat out, she hesitates before speaking up and shouts, "We either need to shut that off right now or evacuate!" She starts to lower her broom towards the ground, but then spots her hand and how hard it's shaking. She shivers at the memory of what she did.

Moonwell Convergence

The bear gets up and looks to Saint Laz, then Awen and finally the panel that Awen was indicating. Not having the faintest clue how to work the thing Anika feels like the adventurers exit might be a good strategy in this case.
She makes a bear noise, nods and then walk up to Saint Laz to offer her a ride on her back. If the ghoul knight should take it, she will then charge out into the corridor with the sirens sounding off everywhere.

She isn't going to stop until they reach the ladder they entered through where she will turn back into her humanoid form with Laz still on her back. "'kay, don't think I carry you up the ladder. But you can get up anyway, right?" Anika is expecting a yes so she will wait a moment for Saint Laz to get off before starting the climb.

If Saint Laz can endure having to look up at the druid's bikini-clad butt the entire way, she will eventually reach the outside of the ship.
There she and Awen (who I assume have used her broom to get here) can see that the ship is flying straight towards a mountain which may or may not be an slumbering volcano.

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

June looks at the crystal.

"Huh. I don't really know," she says. She reaches into her pocket to grab the shard she already has. "I guess Hidden Object Puzzle rules are coming back..."

She grabs the chest's green shard, and holds the two next to each other. She tries to press them against each other, just in case they magically connect. "We might have to find all of them and then something will happen."


[Moonwell Convergence]

Awen does fly her broom back down the hallway, making sure her hair is gripping tightly on the broom (because she doesn't trust her hand to hold tightly on it enough). (And, really, she doesn't even have to be sitting on the broom, just holding it, to fly.)
This, mercifully, saves her from having to stare at bikini bottoms, because she can just fly up while the other two are discussing how Laz has to climb on her own.

She hovers just slightly above the ship.
Awen glances at Anika: she knows that Anika can fly, but she doesn't quite know if she can fly and carry Laz at the same time. "Oh, good, fresh air again." In there was really stuffy and hot. "So...come on, let's get back to our ship."

[Recaiden]

[Coast Crawling]

They're nearing the right gate.
In a few minutes, they'll be on the main street that leads to it.

"Oh, wow," the paladin says. "That sounds like you were really busy."
And "Medicine and healing are pretty important," says the paladin who can naturally do magical healing. "It really does sound exciting."

But, he shakes his head: "Not so much an expert. I just have a lot of practical experience with them." Which, tbh, probably qualifies him to be an expert. "Like, with enough time and after looking at something hard enough and the right tools, I bet I could use them to do whatever I need," he explains. "But...these sorts of things get exponentially harder and I don't know all the shortcuts or simplifying things that someone who apprenticed in it would know."

"Well, I've done a lot, but I mean, that's because it's been a long time."
"But it's definitely been exciting.

Anchor considers. "So you are an expert, just not the very best."
"You could probably still find a seal-maker to apprentice with somewhere here."
They should probably split up before getting to the main road, but that's not quite yet.

[5a Violista]

[Coast Crawling]

"Yeah, I probably could," Zophiel says. "I'll keep my eye out in case I find one," he then adds even though he's not really sure there'll really be enough time to actually learn from one.

But, keeping it on that topic, he asks, "You happen to know anyone like that?" Zophiel has finished eating the fried food he ordered.

[bc56]

Lost Beach

The crystals don't stick together immediately. But one side of them looks it's the same shape. When those sides are held together, it does fuse into one piece, a green crystal the size and shape of a human heart which pulses with bright green light regularly. "Ooh. That seems like it should do something." Selekhael looks more closely at it. "It's shaped like a heart. I wonder why?"

[5a Violista]

[Lost Beach]

Selekhael asked an obvious question.
"...because hearts are cool, obviously."
June holds it up so that Selekhael can look at it more closely.

June looks at it a bit more, and starts timing the rhythm of the pulses. "Or maybe it's because it pulses kinda like a heart."

She thinks some more.
...
. . .
"Oh!" she says.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" June runs over to the ladder up, and places the heart-gem into an apron pocket again so that she doesn't accidentally drop it. "Remember that robot upstairs?"
"Did it have a heart?" June doesn't remember whether it did or not.