Outside 50: Meeting nature halfway

[Rebonack]

[Mountain Peak]

Mostly unharmed is pretty good for having just thrown down with an obsidian golem or whatever the heck that thing was.

That Guy eyes the club laying in the snow. It's probably important or something, right? He's getting that feeling that they might need it because-

...?

Reasons.

So he scoops his toes under the haft and tosses it up to himself.

"Geeze this thing is hefty."

Definitely a brutal weapon.

"Me? No one in particular," he replies cryptically. "And this-!"

He makes a wide, sweeping gesture with one hand.

"Is a mountain peak. With weird magical engravings in it. There's something hidden up here. Probably. I saw the seal from up in the air and decided to take a closer look. Then John Cleese decided to clobber me and you arrived shortly there after."

Then his attention is turned back to the peak.

There really isn't much up here that is indicative of... hidden things. Just the weird seal that seems adverse to rocks and snow piling up on top of it.

...maybe they should check out that small stone shrine in the middle of the peak?

Was that there before?

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus hides the fact that he kind of likes puzzles. But maybe it wouldn't be as fun in total silence as it would be with music.
"If only they were all that easy." he laments as he follows Jeanie through to the next room. The key he picked up jingles lightly in his pocket.

[bc56]

Mountain Peak

"You knew him?" Kothar gestures to what remains of the knight. Obviously that guy knows him, or he wouldn't have said his name was John Cleese. The reference is lost on Kothar.
Kothar approaches the shrine cautiously, weapon at the ready. "He was protecting this?"

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Onward!

There's a short hallway that jaunts to the north, ending in none other than an elaborate locked door!

Exactly the sort of locked door that leads down to the next dungeon level.

"Finally," Jeany grumbles. "I was getting tired of all this ice."

We're just about there, Linus!

Just one more level to go.

Hopefully it isn't absolutely huge like this one was. Though if it WERE getting through it probably wouldn't be that bad if someone didn't keep vanishing for months at a time.

Anyway! Just try that key and hopefully there isn't another boss encounter on the other side or something.


[Mountain peak]

"What? No, I didn't know him," That Guy replies, confused.

It takes a few seconds for him to realize-

"Oh! Right, the name. No, see, there was this actor named John who played a black knight that yelled 'None shall pass!' You probably just haven't seen it."

Since.

He's a lizard dude with an axe who is maybe (probably?) a paladin.

Do lizard people do cinema? Or even plays? That Guy has no idea.

"Anyway, he was probably guarding something. I only got here about a minute before you did. I've visited plenty of mountain tops but this is the first time I've met a knight on one. Usually it's bears," he recounts as he follows Kothar toward the shrine.

The building is a squat stone structure sticking out of the rock. Judging from the lack of joints it looks like it was carved rather than built. Considering how flat the top of the mountain is it makes one wonder if it used to be pointier up here. There are no windows in the shrine, only a small rectangular opening for a door. Both of our heroes will probably have to stoop to get inside.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

"Don't say that, it'll only make the next environ worse." Linus chides her as he sticks the key into the big door.
He's expecting there to be something menacing in there but this place has surprised him plenty of times.
So opening up the door, they find....

[bc56]

Mountain Peak

Kothar crouches down and enters the shrine, axe held out for light and protection. He doesn't understand what that guy is talking about at all. He knows what an actor is, but he doesn't know any actors named John. And he definitely isn't familiar with movies (but he is with plays).

[Purple Eagle]

Blackheart Woods

"They look interesting. A bullet with a name on? I wonder who wanted to shoot her." If Karasu isn't familiar with that particular piece of soldier's lore, that might be confusing. "Do you have see any locks? We might be able to try it. Looks interesting enough it might be magic, maybe it opens any lock or something. Can I have a closer look at that pen?"

Natalie takes the papers and reads through them. "Nothing here particularly relevant to what I do, but... I guess all these things have something to do with death. Objects of empathic, sympathetic or morbid significance, so... Stuff that meant a lot to a person, stuff that resembled a person, maybe, as they died, and stuff that killed a person. The egg's unusual, though. Eggs aren't death- they're usually symbols of life, aren't they? Since they hatch and a baby comes out."

The symbols carved into the skull include an Ankh, upside-down on the skull's forehead above the eyes, the alstrological circle-and-cross symbol for Pluto, the crescent-and-cross of Hades, the zodiac symbols for Scorpio and Cancer, and the back of the skull is dominated by a carving of a bird with a humanoid head.

[Blackheart Woods]

Karasu isn't familiar with it, and so merely looks confused. "Know her?" She asks, curious. "Saw a lock as we got in, I think. Maybe it's the key?" She suggests, but hands over the pen when asked.

"Maybe the egg is for a deadly creature... or it's undead, somehow." She suggests as she ponders the egg for a little while, before deciding the symbols on the table are more interesting.

"Recognize some of the symbols: there's an ankh, this is Pluto I think... Hades... Scorpio and Cancer zodiac, that's it. Got no idea on what they mean in this context, or for the human bird." She rubs her chin. "Doubt they're random, though, so maybe it all means something? Hades means death, ankh means life... got any ideas, Tali?"

[Gullara]

[A Hunter must Hunt]

The druid frowns. "Why do people keep asking me that? No, I didn't hit my head. Well, I mean, I do sometimes but that's completely unrelated!"

Once again she gestures at Mimi. "What's relevant is how tiny you are! I figured some evil gnome must have shrunk you down or something."

[A Hunter must Hunt]

"What?! No I'm not!" Mimi jabs her spear accusatorially in Anika's direction. "You're huge. A giant! Who... lumbers, yeah." She claims. "I'm normal sized."

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

June spends some time looking at one of the waterfalls and composing herself. Back when the draugr was mist, the waterfall was pretty intimidating but it's less-so now.

She eventually goes over to the chest to look at it, since everyone else is too. "So, what's mithril made out of, anyway?" she asks.

[Shadowcaller]

[A Hunter must Hunt]

"What?! No I'm not!" Mimi jabs her spear accusatorially in Anika's direction. "You're huge. A giant! Who... lumbers, yeah." She claims. "I'm normal sized."

[A Hunter must Hunt]

Anika puts her hands on her hips as she looks at the pixie in utter confusion. "What, so you're saying that the entire world got enlarged except of you for some reason- oh wait, you're actually just that tiny." She scratches her head as this relatization dawns on her.

"Well... that must suck? No wonder you're so angry."

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

The door leads into a pretty small room, comparatively speaking.

Thirty feet cubed.

Jeanette eyes it suspiciously.

"Never trust thirty foot cube rooms," she mutters, eyeing the walls suspiciously.

In the middle of the room is what looks like a trap-door leading to some downward stairs, but it's currently sealed.

Just the like door behind them.

BOOM!

Yep.

Definitely a boss battle.

Jeany grips her sword in one hand and her pistol in the other, ready for whatever threat the dungeon might throw at them!

...

A single meyete skitters out of a mouse-hole in the wall.


[Found a Fortress]

"Pretty sure that's it," Pepper says as what looks like metallic dust begins peeling off her armor and chewing into the mithril, causing the cloud to grow steadily larger.

Magical nanite swarms are a scary thing.

Also in the chest? A spell book, some health potions, a magic robe, and a weird irregular orb that looks kind of like a giant golf ball? Pepper scowls at it. "Don't touch the beacon," the gaiad warns.

And to June's question, "I think it's one of those magical fantasy metals that isn't on the periodic table, like adamantine or vibranium or something."

It'll take a few minutes for Pepper's armor to finish eating the mithril. As it does said armor will grow increasingly shiny and silvery.


[Mountain Peak]

That's okay.

When you're dealing with someone who is existing in a dream you can basically expect them to not make much sense occasionally.

Thankfully the mountain is, thus far, conforming mostly to normal laws of physics and logic instead of doing weird dream things like being somewhere else when stepping into the shrine. The axe lights up the interior nicely and-

Oop. Spoke too soon, maybe. The inside of stone shrine is definitely bigger than it has any right to be. And it looks... odd. Like stone... branches? all interwoven with each other. A twisted thicket stands at the center of the chamber with bright white light streaming out of gaps in the rock. The air feels electrified and the a sound like low, distant thunder fills the chamber.

That Guy grins.

"Okay, that's got to be whatever the thing is," he says, moving toward the mess of stone vines. "Wonder how to get it out of there..."

Aside from the container, for lack of a better word, at the center of the room there are also five pedestals around the chamber's periphery. In front of the container is a small stone block with a hole in the top of it about the size of the club that was dropped by the knight.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

"Oh, it's gonna do that thing where the real boss shows up and stomps on the little one, right?" Linus whispers.
Video games aren't his thing as much as Hector's but he's definitely seen that gag before.
He keeps his weapons ready for whatever is planning on popping out.

Found Fortress

"Oh is it that thing again? I think I've heard of it. I'll take anything that seems magey." He says with a yawn. That all sure was exciting.
"So now we look for a back door, right? There's always a back door in these things or some kind of alternate path up." He'll probably have to get small again. Shapeshifting so much really tires him out...

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

Looking in the chest and looking at the stuff that's pulled out by the others, June decides that the potions are probably rancid by now. They were guarded by a zombie, which probably makes them really old, and they must have fermented or coagulated or something, by now. It's a wonder the robe hasn't been eaten by moth babies. "Okay, I won't touch it," she says. Probably dangerous.

"I guess magic metal makes some sense." There's not really anything useful in the chest, she thinks. So, June starts looking around again, looking for the back door that was mentioned. "I was expecting all those -" mithril, adamantium, vibranium, or anything else "- to just be rare alloys but I guess if magic exists it makes sense that the material science would have to reflect magic, too. Metals would make a lot of sense to interact with magic in different ways, because of their makeup."
She's just talking, trying to force it to make sense. It's working, too! Starting to make sense. "The armor I've got is probably some kind of magic metal alloy, too," she says. Maybe the 'back door' is by the waterfall, she thinks: that's where she would hide one, so that's a good first place to check.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

Jeb makes no move whatsoever to bar G'nichi's entrance to the dining area.
There wouldn't be much point.

Within, we find nearly half of the village present.
Sumiye is behind the counter, as she frequently is, putting together food. It's probable this is her stress-relief. Atsushi, it seems, has returned her for the purpose of helping her with this.

Old lady Kawa and the elf Nemeth are seated together, though they aren't actually speaking, and the two teens Hana and Yuu are seated at a different table entirely.

Absences here appear to consist of the logically expected (Fudo, Lady Eiko, the boy with Eiko, Jeb) and Mari.

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

G'nichi takes a moment to stop at Kawa's table. Hopefully she'll talk to him given that he helped him this morning.
"Good afternoon, Ma'am. Are you still doing well?" he asks, trying his best to sound polite and respectful.
"Ah, I don't believe we've been acquainted." he adds to the elf.

Kawa seems to have been lost in thought, as she looks slightly surprised when G'nichi addresses her.
"Oh? Oh, it's you. Yes, I am well...thank you. As well as can be expected..."
She's not dead. So. Could be a lot worse.

The elf, contrastingly, looks very slightly smug with a tiny smile on his face. But that could just be resting elf-face.
"Indeed we have not. You're charmed, I'm sure."
No, nevermind. He's actually just smug.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

"Oh, I hope not. If I was hit by a spell as well as everything else I don't know what I would do." G'nichi jokes. He would have smiled but the smug look made him want to deflect having to say yes to that.
"I'm glad to hear it, Ma'am. You can call me G'nichi, sir. I think someone has mentioned your name but I've been having trouble keeping everyone's straight. I have been trying to get to know everyone. It seems...proper." Well and practical, but making it sound like you're doing it because anyone could die at any day sounds nicer than saying you're doing it to track down killers.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

Kawa's gaze slides back and forth between G'nichi and Nemeth for a moment, before dropping back down to the table. She seems tired.
The emotional energy between these two is very divergent.
"A delight to see someone respecting etiquette, regardless of how imminently pressing their mortality may be."
The smug smile creeps oh so slightly wider.
"The local transients call me Nemeth, you may do so as well."

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

Oof. Transients? Is he going to start calling G'nichi a mayfly next?
"Well, I believe all of our mortalities are pressing at the moment. Unless you have a plan for the contrary?"
He would very much like to hear it as well.
Hm. With the place crowded he can't really do his super blunt questioning. He'll have to be...political.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

Of course not, some other jerk elves already have a monopoly on that slur.
"Why, of course I do. But why would I share such a thing with you?
He's not pretending to respect G'nichi at all.
"A waste of words, when you're likely dead either in the night or morning."

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

"Perhaps because working together might actually result in more of us living or not getting voted to death?" G'nichi replies. But he doesn't want to stress out the poor woman, so he won't press the issue.
G'nichi will make a passing attempt to greet the other people and at least establish a name-by-name basis. He wants these people to know him and not think of him as some person that they can casually murder. If he can he might lightly bring up the issue of what they're doing to prepare for the night or the Demons but he doesn't want to do so overtly. He mostly just wants to see if they appear to be hiding anything.
Once he's talked to everyone, that only leaves Mari to talk to.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

Nemeth seems like the sort who wouldn't really be heartbroken if everyone else here died, so that argument seems...ineffective.
Just has that horribly unpleasant smile.

Tonight's plans for everyone are very consistent.
Go back to their individual rooms/homes. Wash themselves. Pray. Sleep.
It's a bit creepy in its consistency.

The most suspicious person in the room is Nemeth by a mile, but Yuu makes rather unusual light of the whole situation and seems to treat most of this as a game, as best G'nichi is likely to determine. They could both be hiding things, but Nemeth is blatantly disinterested in sharing and Yuu is just...hard to force focus on. Hana is trying to rein him in, but it's questionably effective.
Atushi seems a bit distracted, but that's probably still just him chewing on thoughts from their earlier meeting, rather than anything suspicious. Sumiye is bland, by comparison here, just focused on feeding people.

Mari, however...is still not here. Sumiye offers that she suspects she's probably either at her room or at the graveyard, if G'nichi mentions that he's trying to find her.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

Well, G’nichi knows she isn’t at the graveyard so he’ll check his room. Really he just wants to see if she’s okay. Maaaybe ask her point blank if she’s a demon because she seems like the type who wouldn’t bat an eye at the question. And with that he would have asked everyone....except the child with the priestess. He will make that pledge all over again if this god forces them to kill a child.
And he has one more plan: cast Ken into a good vantage point in view of the main square once he has spoken to everyone. He isn’t sure if the demons may strike before or after his weapons “reset” for the day but if it’s before Ken will be able to tell him who is sneaking outside. Of course this will require pulling an all-nighter but he’s done worse.

[Earl of Purple]

Blackheart Woods

Ankhs are a sign of life, when the right way around. This one has been inverted. The egg is very large; the egg of the extinct Madagascan elephant bird.

"Surprised you don't know that. It's a... not quite a soldier's trick, but, well. There's a saying, amongst soldiers. Somewhere out there, there's a bullet with your name on, and someday it'll find you. Or so it goes, amongst soldiers. I'd guess someone either carved that name in the bullet because they wanted her dead, or maybe... maybe she did it, so that the bullet that would find her has done so already, and she'd be more likely to survive. Just a saying, mind, and I don't know how accurate it is." It's something Natalie picked up from one of her father's friends, quite a long time ago. "I dunno. I didn't see the lock, where was it?" It could be the key to anything, really- or it could not be.

Natalie takes a closer look at the pen, grimacing at it. "I think this pen's reservoir here has bloodstains in it."

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Fort Aegis Resort]

Copper, brass and silver? Quite a diverse coloration on their scales there so she couldn't but help but wonder what their other parent looked like. Assuming of course they were their biological parents. Not that dragons would have to obey the laws of genetics. She knew that each dragon born in her own world looked completely unique regardless of their ancestry.

"Oh, hello sir. Do you need some help?" She offers as Sylvess seemed to have both his claws (and tail) quite full managing his hatchlings.

[Steelbite Canyon]

Calm Reed leads the retreat towards the motorhome she disabled. The bikers might not look there, at least not initially, and this could give them the advantage to strike.

[Fort Aegis Resort]

Normally, seeing a dragon would unnerve Thariza. Knowing that Ambrosia is one helps, but she still associates them with the forces of pure destruction from Tyria. It's difficult to be afraid of someone with little hatchlings clinging to his tail, though. She doubts they could handle those two even if asked to, but she supposes it's only polite to offer.

[Fort Aegis Resort]

"O-oh, no, don't worry! Everything i-is under control!" Sylvess answers, awkwardly scooping his children up with considerable difficulty, and placing them on his back, attracting a few peeps of protest from them in the process. He slips into the water and turns to face his guests, with a rather hesitant, nervous smile. "Hi. I'm, um, Sylvess. One of the o-owners of this, um, this e-establishment. A-and I understand you wanted to talk to me?"

*****

[Steelbite Canyon]

Atreyu follows after Calm Reed, muttering a quite curse under his breath. This day had not exactly gone according to plan. "Still got a fair amount o' magic at the ready, fer whatever good it'll do. Ain't sure what our best plan is at this point. Any ideas?"

[bc56]

Mountain Peak

Kothar closes his eyes and presses his hands together. His divine senses spread out, examining the power in this place, trying to determine its nature. "Touch not. Could be dangerous."

[Chaotic Bob]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

Well, G’nichi knows she isn’t at the graveyard so he’ll check his room. Really he just wants to see if she’s okay. Maaaybe ask her point blank if she’s a demon because she seems like the type who wouldn’t bat an eye at the question. And with that he would have asked everyone....except the child with the priestess. He will make that pledge all over again if this god forces them to kill a child.
And he has one more plan: cast Ken into a good vantage point in view of the main square once he has spoken to everyone. He isn’t sure if the demons may strike before or after his weapons “reset” for the day but if it’s before Ken will be able to tell him who is sneaking outside. Of course this will require pulling an all-nighter but he’s done worse.

She could be at the graveyard, if she arrived after he left. It has been a little bit and visibility outside being what it is, it wouldn't have been terribly difficult to miss each other.

Anyway, going over to the dormitory area where he and Mari both room is the correct choice.

The fog-muffled noises of impacts become apparent first, the sounds of fists, then the silhouette of another relentlessly pummeling another one against the side of the dormitory building.

But it's just Mari punching some stacked up bags of grain, currently dressed in some loose-fitting clothes more suited to a city gym-goer, than the neighboring villagers' garb.
Under her breath, she appears to be muttering colors in no readily apparent order. Currently she is on chartreuse, burgundy, and azure.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

"Oh, hello, Mari. Are you well?" G'nichi calls. He wants to get some information out of her without alarming her like the rest. Though he also wouldn't mind coordinating since, well, it looks like if no one acts particularly suspiciously he, she, and Nemeth will probably be first on the chopping block. He's not terribly worried about the elf's well-being, though.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

Halfway through "magenta", G'nichi says his piece and Mari proceeds to hit a bag wrong, subsequently followed by an interestingly spliced series of highly vulgur terms.
Responds after that brightly enough, though it doesn't seem entirely sincere.
"Hey, G'nichi. Uh, well technically doing good though my wrist hurts a bit now. Learn anything fun in town?"

She steps away from the bags to go sit on the nearby dormitory stairs, where she starts unwrapping some cloth from her knuckles.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

"Well, I was insulted by a few people, I learned that there's a bigger town called Shimono next to this place which isn't on the maps even though here is. Sadly none of the wolves in our mists have deigned to tell me of themselves. Though I suppose I haven't asked you or the boy with Miss Eiko." G'nichi does his best to look nonchalant. "If you were a demon you'd have told me, right?" he asks with good humor. It's not exactly a delicate question but he thinks Mari (or Yuu) would take the direct question better than some of the older folks.

[Chaotic Bob]

[A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2]

"Only a few, huh? Sounds like an improvement."
The handwraps are tossed onto the stair step next to her and she leans back, taking some deep, exerted breaths.
Seems she's probably been beating up those bags for awhile, or otherwise exercising.
"Do you think it's weird that this place is on a map at all, regardless of big ol' Shinomo?"
This is presented as a serious question, as her breathing is calmed down, shortly followed by a (sad?) laugh at his blunt question.
"Been called one before, but not today at least."

This comment in particular perplexes Ken, as it also appears to be a rather serious answer presented as jest.

[Deathkeeper]

A Brisk Afternoon Jog - Day 2

G'nichi sighs.
"Well, that does make almost everyone. Either people are better liars than I thought or Eiko is right." He stares up at the foggy sky.
"Mari, everything about this place is weird. Between the death game, the nightmares, the fact that people worship a god that makes them play children's forum games to the death. I'm not quite as concerned about the map." G'nichi is a bit more concerned about surviving the night. He doesn't even know if he has the Spider role or that was just the Spider saving him last night! Nothing is clear!
...though if the spider was indicating that the Spider saved him instead of that being a dream indicating himself, that would mean that not only are the Demons people who would go after an outsider instead of someone more tactically valuable - it would mean the Spider was someone who actually cared enough about him to protect him instead of themselves on the first night. And he didn't make many impressions last night.
This possibility is actually significantly more useful to him short-term as it does say a lot about who the Demons might be.
"So Mari, this is a dumb question, but you think someone who was given a role would...know? It just feels weird walking around and not actually knowing if I was supposed to be doing anything."