Outside 50: Meeting nature halfway

[Earl of Purple]

Wrecked Motorway

"Very! Don't inhale them, wear a mask! Anything that filters it! And don't get bit! You'll turn if they get in your bloodstream or lungs! How do you not know this?" The guy on the van has pulled out an old disposable mask, with straps repaired and replaced with shoelaces, which he'll throw down to Tristan. It... might do the trick, it's been worn pretty thin. He's covered his own mouth with a slightly less worn-looking non-disposable mask.

Tristan knocks over another zombie, smashing its knees and leaving it pulling itself along with its arms. The robot smashes another's head open with her foot, revealing a large, onion-like bulb in the skull. The corpse still twitches, but not much. Then she throws a rock, which hits the zombie at the base of the ladder, knocking it down and cracking its skull with a puff of spores. It goes down hard, arm splintering and leaving a dislocated hand gripping the rungs. The broken-legged zombie under the bike is crawling forward, heading towards Tristan's ankles. The one remaining upright is also headed towards Tristan, but to do so has to walk through the gynoid. The one she threw earlier has pulled itself off the car, and is lurching towards the van. Tristan and the gynoid are now on the other side of the van to it, so it can't see them.

[Ironsmith]

[Wrecked Motorway]

That was good information to have. Even if she wasn't at risk of infection herself, she was going to have to do something to decontaminate once the threat had been neutralized. Rescuing the humans from the threat of being bitten wasn't going to do much good if she ended up infecting them anyway.

Seeing a zombie heading towards her, presumably to get at the human behind her, she simply reaches forward and grabs ahold if it, firmly, by the neck, halting its advance. Ao far as she could tell, this was the last one that might pose a genuine threat, and stopping it from attacking was more important than destroying it.

She still didn't quite know what to make of them. There were no zombies on her world, nor had she been in much of a position to speculate about what they'd be like. In her mind, they were showing all the signs of malfunctioning robots, despite their clearly organic nature. As such, unnecessary harm was... well, unnecessary.

[Rebonack]

[Thermal Lake]

Step one?

Go down.

As Kothar descends into the darkness he'll likely notice a gurgling sound that grows steadily louder. Here and there huge brass cogs stick out of the walls, but they're absolutely motionless. In spite of the water they don't look corroded in the least.

Upon reaching the bottom of the well he'll notice several things.

First?

A huge drain surrounded by several fan-like scoops. Some sort of turbine? The drain is clogged with debris and detritus from the lake, reducing the flow to a tepid crawl. Not nearly enough force to get the turbine spinning. Maybe that's what drives all the gears?

Second?

There's a huge bio-luminescent eel down here.

It doesn't seem happy about Kothar's intrusion.

Eel attack!


[iDungeon]

Come on Linus you can totally change up the pattern like that.

As you knock the boss' health down their attack cadence gets harder. That's just basic boss battle logistics.

"Shoot," Jeany mutters as she picks herself up, glaring at swarming meyetes. She grips her bone sabre with both hands, focuses on it, and then lets loose a wide, sweeping slash along with a fearsome shout! A broad wave of psychic static explodes from the weapon and sweeps over Linus. It's too diffuse to cause much harm to a human, but it's plenty enough to send the meyetes rolling away dazed and wounded.

"No time for laying around!" she shouts at him while jockeying for a good position to keep the monsters away.


[Wrecked Motorway]

Oh hey.

Mask acquired!

Tristan will quickly tie it on, though he isn't sure how much it's actually needed. His anatomy is weird. And magical. But no reason not to play it safe, right? He definitely doesn't want an onion growing where his brain ought to be. Faced with the threat of zombies slowly crawling toward him he settles on walking briskly to escape.

"There's actually a really good reason why I don't know all of these things but now isn't a great time to summarize," Tristan calls up to the knightsel atop the van. "I can do some plot exposition once we're clear of the shamblers. You aren't hurt, are you? Can you climb down?"

He's counting on the (probably a robot?) keeping the remaining ambulatory zombies occupied for the time being. She seems really strong and quite intent on protecting he and the guy on the van which Tristan really doesn't have any objections to.

"Thanks for the assist, by the way, Green," Tristan calls out to the woman currently strangling a zombie. "This definitely would have been a tougher act going solo. Three's a team, y'know?"

[bc56]

Thermal Lake

Okay, that machine looks promising. It's probably the way to either raise or lower the water level. Kothar swims towards it when...
Giant eel!
Luckily, this isn't the first monster he's faced underwater. He draws his axe in one hand and swims away from the eel, angling for a clear window to attack its flank as it swims past him.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus sits up, dazed. His sword is in her scabbard because of course she is. Well, he only has a vague idea of what's going on with all the throbbing of his head and the ringing in his ears but he's pretty sure that's a giant boss trying to eat him again so right, better point Sword at it and blast it again.
It's a good thing he let her absorb a hit before he got clobbered. At least he thinks he did? Because he doesn't think he'd be sitting here dazed if he had not, in fact, gotten clobbered. Hence the need for blasting.

Found a Fortress

"So June." inquires Spako.
"You wanna ride a dragon again?"
Surely a merry trip to the fortress shall ensue.

[Rebonack]

[Thermal Lake]

Eel battle time.

Kothar deftly avoids the eel's strike which is fortunate. It probably has two pairs of jaws and if it bit him he would be losing some chunks.

He counter attacks with AXE!

The eel does not like axe.

It didn't even get wounded very badly, but that was enough to cause it to retreat.

What?

Animals don't usually fight to the death unless under very trying situations.

This means Kothar is free to try to figure out what to do with the drain.


[iDungeon]

One more sword blast straight to the eye!

The megameyete rears back, bellowing in pain, right as Jeany rushes forward and plunges her sabre into the monster's belly! Once again, with a shout of rage, she lets loose a blast of psionic power from the weapon.

But this time?

This time the weapon is buried in a foe.

The result is very messy.

With a gurgling moan the monster topples over, its body rapidly incinerating in an inferno of blue flames. As the ashes fade all that remains is... some strange crystalline heart-shaped object? Like a valentine heart, not a beating heart. It just sits there, floating a few inches off the ground and slowly rotating.

Also?

The doors unlock!

Yay!

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus staggers to his feet and shuffles over to retrieve his shield. It's lightly scratched but it should be fine.
And then collect the weird crystal thing? Looks like loot alright.
"Well that kind of sucked. We got through it though. And think, only a whole third level to go!" he groans as he tries to see if he can get this weird crystal thing into a bag.

[bc56]

Thermal Lake

Kothar lets the eel flee and dives back down to the machinery. He uses his outsize strength to push on the gears and turbines, and attempts to break through the debris blocking them. Hopefully this works, if not, he'll have to try something else, and he's not great at the clever approach.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Looking closer?

It's an eye.

A weirdly shaped eye.

Linus has collected an eye containers! His maximum number of eyes increases by one! Actually it just improved the the defensive abilities of his sword and shield a bit but hush.

And then?

Down our heroes go to discover!

A pile of loot.

It's a treasure room!

It consists mostly of gold and precious metals for destabilizing local economies, but that's not all. There are little statues. And some paintings. And fancy jewelry. And ancient books. And a marble pedestal with a pink pearl resting on top of it.

"Okay I was expecting more than just a treasure room but I'm not complaining," Jeany says as she begins picking through the loot, taking only the stuff that looks like it'll fetch the best prices.


[Thermal Lake]

Kothar pushes on the turbine fins!

Moving them actually isn't THAT hard, but this does little to get the machine working again. It's the current from the drain that turns them, and the current is too weak thanks to all the junk blocking it!

Most notably?

There's a skeleton right in the middle of the drain with lots of other junk stuck to it.

Stupid cloggy skeleton.

Should Kothar try moving closer, the skeleton's sockets will glow a baleful red as it tries grabbing at him with bony claws.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus goes up and happily takes the last pearl and slots it into his sword.
He’ll probably also grab some jewelry and maybe even a statuette if it looks valuable and/or magic enough. Hopefully nothing here would have adverse effects from an adventurer recklessly touching it without checking it first. But everyone knows that doesn’t happen in the final loot room!

[Murkus]

The Green

"Oh. Um. Well. I don't really know much at all about lady's clothes. If you're giving me a choice um, do you have something that might go with my scales?" Artie asks.
Given that her scales are shimmery and green and gold that might be hard. "Oh and no sleeves." She pulls up her sleeves a bit to show that she has wings on her arms as well, currently crammed into the sleeves of the sweater.

[The Green]

"Mm... well... how about..." Viviana flexes her hands toward the forest, fingers spread, and a balmy wind gusts in from the cool darkness of the deep wood. It swirls around Artie, supplying her with a new outfit.

[Deathkeeper]

The Green

Artie jumps, startled.
”Oh, I-“ She supposes she really should have expected someone living out here to be a little magic, shouldn’t she?
Artie giggles at the feathery outfit.
”I feel like I’m dressed for a ball! I didn’t take you for a fashion designer.” Vivi seemed much more simply dressed to have come up with something like this.

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

June bites a lit so that she won't seem too excited.

"...Yes," she says. "I want to."

It's probably a very exciting trip that's so indescribable that it can't be described.

Also, her hair's probably a windswept mess by the time they are on solid ground again.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

Also of note down there?

A strange pillar made of black glass and covered in glowing blue sigils.

"Don't touch that thing until you're ready to go," Jeany warns as she weighs an emerald in one hand skeptically. "The pillar will send you back up to the surface."

Well.

That's fancy.

Also?

With the final pearl in place the full power of the sword is unlocked! If Linus leaps into the air while holding the sword aloft a pair of ethereal wings will bear him higher! He can fly for a limited time, but it will consume the stored power that fuels the barrier and the sword blast to do so. Also?

Linus will get the distinct impression of a swan made of stars.

The sword can, it seems, communicate in ideas and in pictures but not so much in words.

If Linus knows anything about astronomy he might recognize the constellation Cygnus.

Hmm...

Doesn't seem like any of the treasure down here is trapped, either.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus smiles and gives a proper greeting to Cygnus.
With that he can nab any and all particularly expensive and/or magic items that they can fit into his and Jeanie's bags and then they can head out!
Mission accomplished!

[bc56]

Thermal Lake

Ah there. That skeleton is stuck in the machinery. Once Kothar breaks it free, it'll...
Oh no, it's undead!

Kothar is grabbed by the skeleton. However, he's still as strong as a giant, so it's hardly worrying. He rears back a fist wreathed in holy lower and slams it into the skeleton's midsection with tremendous force. If he can smite this thing into pieces, it should solve both problems at once.

[Gullara]

[A Hunter must Hunt]

Yeah, that stabby spear really proved just how calm she was.

Anika holds up her palms as a show of no ill intent. "Whoa, whoa, let's start over shall we? I just, uh, haven't met anyone like you before." She offers her hand as if to shake the pixies. "I'm Anika Sunfletcher and I'm a kaldo'rei. Who're you?" If Mimi doesn't seem interested in shaking a hand who probably could hold all of her, Anika will instead use her hand to beat her chest. She had seen that being a relatively common gesture of respect. Just wished she wouldn't have to hit her own boobs to make it.

[A Hunter must Hunt]

Mimi doesn't react to the offered hand, the motion's meaning passing her by. She looks skeptically at Anika for a bit and then lowers the tip of her spear. "I'm Mimi. I guess this is outside of any pixie tribe territory. But this is where I hunt, so don't be pushing in on my territory willy-nilly." She warns.

The Hegemony Flagship

An alien saboteur! A green man from outer space, mutilating our engine for his own vile purposes! Even worse than that, however, is the horrific mess the creature leaves in its wake! Soot, grime, scorch marks, maybe even some oil spots or coolant splattered about. Admiraltok picks himself off the ground with an irritated scowl, already thinking about how long it's going to take to scrub all the soot and grime from his stupid white uniform. Gods, can you imagine how much worse it could've been if he was even closer to the explosion when it happened? Blegh.

"Who in the hell are you?" the cyborg questions the beast, one hand sliding to the gun at his hip the empty space where his sidearm would've been, if he'd wisely had it sitting in its holster. Instead, it flew out of his hand when he got knocked back by the explosion, and now it's...oh! Right there, on the floor beside him. He crouches and reaches a hand out for it, careful not to take his eyes off the brute as he does so. Good, we'll need that if we're going to vaporize this ugly lug. Gods, is he ever hideous. Hideous and vaguely familiar somehow, too. Have we seen something like this monster before?

[The Hegemony Flagship]

The great, green beast grins toothily as Admiraltok dives for the gun. As he does that, he swings the machine over his shoulders by some crude cable straps. He pulls a cord and an engine revs to life. Electricity arcs between two antenna on the contraption and Admiraltok can taste ozone.

He laughs. "Ya don remember me? Too bad." He points at the gun. "Goin' to shoot me wit dat? Try it." To provide some encouragement, the brute lunges forward deceptively quickly to grab the Tok.

[Chaotic Bob]

ABAJ - Day 3

"Oh no, Nemeth. The blood wasn't on your furnishings. It was on you. From when you made that horrific mess of my friend and her room along with your shorter accomplice. Perhaps you washed most of it off but you can't ever get quite all of it. And Jeb saw the room so he would have seen all the other footprints."
For the last part G'nichi raises an eyebrow-ridge and tilts his head dramatically.
"Looking down? I look down on them? These people you walk around calling 'transients' to their faces? I'm disgusted by this game and everything around it, but at least I use people's names. I've been here 24-hours and you've shown nothing but contempt.
Besides, if I was one of the demons why on Earth would I go for the only person who stood up for me yesterday? Why wouldn't I go for one of the people pointing the finger at me like Jeb? Of course, two people apparently decided that Mari's sins were their most pressing concerns. I haven't a clue what she could have done to deserve that"

"Hmph, I gave everyone here a home. This is my land, which I have graciously lent towards the unfortunate exiles who would have been otherwise left to the tender mercies of the forest."
Nemeth scowls at this part, more than he already was.
"Every single human in this room has committed crimes that had them expelled from the comfortable lives of their fellow humans. Little Mari was no different, I'm sure. At least she was smart enough to try to leave when she had the chance."

Most of the other villagers all look supremely uncomfortable here, except for Jeb, who just looks his usual annoyed, and Lady Eiko who seems as serene as always.
"Your lives are all a blink in the eye of the forest, I have no need to hold a grudge against anyone here. You'll all have passed into colorful memory in the time it would take me to remodel my manor. Far less reasons than you could possess. Wasn't it that girl who brought you to this little village and got you trapped here in the first place? That would seem a fair recipe for revenge to me..."

A hand (Yuu's) passes G'nichi the ritual wine at some point in this.
Jeb thoughtfully places the bloody footprint on the ground in front him.

Atsushi carefully begins to stand up for G'nichi, but is pretty quickly interrupted by a grinning Yuu.
"G'nichi doesn't seem the sort to murder someone showing him kindness."
"I mean, no one here really seems like a killer, but look how that turned out, huh?"

[Rebonack]

[DUNGEON COMPLETE!]

Linus touches the obalisk and-!

He's wherever he was planning on going when he had originally gotten onto Riftline.

Huh.

Well.

That's handy.

Just do a dungeon delve and you can skip a train ride!

...probably more practical just to take the train.

Wow is Linus ever going to have a story to tell when he gets home...


[Thermal Lake]

When you're a paladin every problem looks like smite-fodder.

Well.

Except sick people. That's lay on hands fodder.

Anywho!

Skelesmite!

The undead creature is blasted to bits, allowing the debris to go swirling down the drain! The rushing water begins turning the turbine and-!

Gets stuck.

Hmm.

There are some concerning grinding noises coming from the mechanism. There must be something stuck in the-

Oh.

The eel.

When the gears started turning in the eel's nest it... uh... had an industrial mishap.

How is Kothar going to get that eel out of the gears without getting ground into hamburger himself? He better think of something fast or the mechanism might get damaged.

[Shadowcaller]

[A Hunter must Hunt]

Mimi doesn't react to the offered hand, the motion's meaning passing her by. She looks skeptically at Anika for a bit and then lowers the tip of her spear. "I'm Mimi. I guess this is outside of any pixie tribe territory. But this is where I hunt, so don't be pushing in on my territory willy-nilly." She warns.

[A Hunter must Hunt]

"How were I supposed to know this was your territory though?" Anika remarks, putting her hands on her hips again as she looks around the area. "You should totally put up more skulls around it so people know. Probably some in the trees too so you can also tell from above." Animal skulls were a classic territory marker.

"But hey, if this is your territory, you wouldn't know if there were any sabers around here? Y'know, cats?"

[Deathkeeper]

ABAJ - Day 3

"Quite the contrary - the one who sent me here is sadly safe outside of this town and will get words at a later date. Mari found me after it was already too late and I had entered the fog. Had she not I would have been out there until dark, whereupon I would have met my grisly demise like the librarians. And then she stood up for me at yesterday's Banquet when Jeb was already ready to give me the boot on principle. Mari saved my life more than anyone here. And then the two of us gave the Demons an out to stall this deathtrap which you promptly spat on."
He passes around the wine as he's supposed to.
"Ah yes, how gracious of you to sit in your huge arcane manor while these people here live in shacks. Let's face it: I would be shocked if there's any reason you lent anyone anything other than to make yourself feel important. Which of course might be why you'd be upset when someone actually how did you put it, 'was smart enough to leave.' Poor Nemeth doesn't get to play at being a gracious lord when everyone realizes the city is a brisk afternoon jog away."
He shrugs.
"Of course if you're not lying and you truly don't care then it doesn't really help your case. After all, there are two demons. If one had no opinion at all then they simply went with what the other wanted. As for me, my point stands: why would I go for the only person standing up for me when there were already a few cursing my name?"

[bc56]

Thermal Lake

That's not good. Not for the eel, not for the machine. Kothar swims to where the machine is grinding the eel. The machine seems like it will probably come out on top here, and Kothar is not sworn to protect animals. He knows what he should do. He raises his axe and brings it down on the trapped and injured eel again and again, helping the machine along. It's bloody work, but it needs to be done.

[Rebonack]

[Thermal Lake]

That poor, poor hacked apart eel.

Eventually the gears begin turning again, clanking sounds echoing through the watery depths as the turbine begins to spin.

The water level in the room begins to decrease as air replaces liquid.

Probably a good thing for Kothar since he would have to breath eventually.

Though it leaves a question.

He had to swim down through that well and now there is a torrent of water rushing through it to feed the turbine.

How is he going to get back up again?

There comes another series of clanking sounds as two exits open up at opposite ends of the chamber. One looks like it has a dangerous plenitude of whirling gears inside it. The other is a sloshing, water-logged hallway full of fishy smells.

What's it going to be, Kothar?

[Earl of Purple]

Wrecked Motorway

The robot grabs a zombie by the neck and it ignores her, trying to press past and reach Tristan on the other side. It doesn't break free, but it's struggling a bit. The one that can no longer walk from the bicycle impact continues to crawl after Tristan. He might want to actually do something about it, since zombies typically don't tire easily.

"No, there's one on the other side of the van. Hang on, I think I've got it. Coulda done the lot, but my spear rolled off!" And it's much harder to deal with seven zombies when your only weapon requires getting in arm's reach of them. He drops to his belly, grabbing his claw-hammer as he does. He fends off the zombie's arms and holds his breath as it spits yellowy spores at him, but he swings quite hard and cracks it in the skull a few times, until it falls over and the onion-like bulb spills from the opened head. Then he'll climb down the ladder, ignoring the hand still gripping it. He'll thwack the one at the bottom of the ladder as well, just to be on the safe side.

[Rebonack]

[Wrecked Motorway]

Guess they DO need to clean up the zombies slowly crawling toward them, don't they? The triplets find themselves in a mental discussion whilst stomping on the remaining zombies.

I've always wondered how zombies can just MOVE AROUND all willy nilly. I guess they make a little more sense than skeletons.
Dunno. Probably magic. Who cares?
I care! It doesn't make ANY SENSE. Motions like these require complex neuromuscular coordination. Does the plant have chemo-sensors? Some kind of muscle fiber analog?
Um... I d-don't think they really need those things. We didn't have any of that until we got cured.
UGH. Don't remind me of the faerie thing. That was awful.
It was a little nice...

Yeah!

Stomp on those zombies, Tristan!

Once all the plant infested undead are destroyed Tristan will check to see if any of those vines are ripped open. Just in case there's any visible physiology that makes sense or if impossible magical plants are just animating corpses for giggles.

"You're pretty fortunate that help came along," Tristan calls out. "I'm Tristan, by the by. Not sure who Green is."

[bc56]

Thermal Lake

Kothar takes deep breaths of air once the water recedes. Looks like he has two options before him, but the choice is easy. He heads for the fishy, watery hallway. He can deal with swimming and fighting underwater. He's much less effective against a machine.

[Ironsmith]

[Wrecked Motorway]

She didn't seem to notice Tristan was talking about her. Apparently, she didn't quite grasp the concept of a nickname. "Are you injured?" She asks, still holding the zombie at arm's length, despite the fact that it was still trying to get past her. They certainly looked the part of a pair of broken AIs.

[Chaotic Bob]

[ABAJ - Day 3]

Nemeth opens his mouth to argue with G'nichi some more, but Jeb cuts him off.
"Give me your shoe, Nemeth."

The elf looks baffled for a moment, until Jeb points a finger at the bloody footprint paper in front of him.
"Shoe."

He again opens his mouth to protest, but Jeb seems to have a special way with his glares and the words sort of fizzle in his mouth. It's possible Nemeth is also just a coward in the face of alternative authority.
"You're going to give me your shoe, or we're going to start the vote now and I'm not seeing a lot of reasons to disagree with the outsider here."

Nemeth glances around, somewhere between furious and confused, but isn't seeing anything akin to support anywhere else. Yuu, for all his weird reactions to things today just seems very interested.
"Those aren't even proper shoe prints what would this prove-"
"You've got skinny feet, it'll be close enough."

Clearly very reluctantly, one of his vine-embroidered shoes is pried off and tossed Jeb's way, where the older man holds it to the paper below.
It's slightly bigger than the print, but only slightly, and in roughly the proportions one would expect in a shoe-print versus something like a sock-wearing footprint.

A frown crosses Jeb's face, but the frown of someone who has laid eyes on something deeply repugnant.
"Hm. Still think this is it, outsider?"

[Deathkeeper]

ABAJ - Day 3

G'nichi nods. Some part of him lets out a sigh of relief. He can't keep momentum in times like this. His anger usually sputters out after a few minutes.
"The source of the magic I cast is very reliable. The trail led straight to his chambers, with no mistake."
Properly speaking since he didn't break into the room there theoretically could have been someone else in the chambers. But Nemeth seems to hate everyone around him too much to have someone sharing his bed.

[Earl of Purple]

Wrecked Motorway

The survivor grabs his spear, the aluminium sport's javelin, and will approach Green to dispatch the zombie she's holding back with a single thrust to the back of the head. As Tristan dispatches the others with a well-placed boot, he answers the questions. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm Endurance, from a place called End of the Road. It's not there any more, though. How about you guys?" He looks Tristan and Green over, rather impressed and slightly concerned by the state of their attire- everything he wears is old, scavenged and haphazardly repaired.

One of the zombies does have split vines, leaking a thick, viscous, yellowy sap at some pressure. Tristan- or one of his component personalities- might be able to recognise that they use hydraulic action to move, meaning they're likely hard to burn and vulnerable to desiccation. Probably a bad idea to touch the stuff, though.