Outside 50: Meeting nature halfway

[bc56]

Rivergreen

"Aaaarrrgh!" The wizard screams and flails around in pain. While he's recovering, Myriam steps up and grabs his hands in her grip, lifting him out of the chair and holding him in front of Anchor. "Think he's our guy?"

[Recaiden]

While he's held there, Anchor uses those ropes to try to gag the man and finish tying him.
"Who else would be eating a meal and reading right below the corpse?"

[bc56]

Rivergreen

With the wizard tied up and gagged, he's no longer a threat. The books he had with him are available to read now. He's busy grumbling into the gag and not being able to actually say anything.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[Steelbite Canyon]

"Okay, ah, not particularly helpful in terms o' figurin' out how to keep ya from vanishing, Missy." Atreyu remarks, staring at Magdalene as she starts to go all vanish-y. "If y'got any idea how to keep y'here, I'm all ears."

Not that he has the slightest idea what's going on, but it sounds like Magdalene's not at risk of death at least? Otherwise this would be even more concerning.

*****

[Fort Aegis Resort]

The copper dragon runs on, making a little squeaking noise that might almost be interpreted as...laughing?

The canny little dragon seems to be quite alert and nimble, dodging round the big ol' hole. The two kobolds in pursuit, similiarly, split up and run around either side of the hole.

The woman chasing after him? She's not quite so quick to notice the hazard. "This is your last warn- oof!" One foot goes straight in the whole and she trips, her arms pinwheeling as she goes face-first into the ground.

A towel slips loose, tumbling down beside her.

The kobold bringing up the rear lets out a little squeak of terror, and makes a heroic dive with the bathrobe, tossing it on top of her before the sudden loss of towel has too disastrous a consequence.

Seems the little scamp might get away with his sausage-theft after all.

[Earl of Purple]

Steelbite Canyon

Fido is dead, and can do nothing- and I'm pretty sure Magdalene was able to kill him effectively enough he's not coming back.

The Road Pirate that Calm Reed has captured doesn't resist, and doesn't need to be dragged over to where the other two stand- although Magdalene might not be standing there for long.

The old guy pinned to the ground by plants continues to struggle, but can't get up.

The faint sound of engines can be heard, as a motorcycle- or possibly two- approach along the hidden road into the canyon. It, or they, is a loud vehicle, and still a distance away. They probably won't arrive next post.

[Recaiden]

"Start looking through the books he had for anything matching those diagrams. I mean, if you don't mind?"
The wizard, Anchor pushes back into his chair.
"If I take your gag off, will you have a great explanation? I mean, for the corpses and the aura of death and disturbing of the spirits and all?"

[bc56]

Rivergreen

Myriam starts looking through the books.
While she's busy, the wizard nods, and then when the gag is removed, he angrily replies, "You don't understand! If he gets loose, he'll kill me and then so many other people! He's got to stay bound, or else!" He seems distinctly panicked now.

[Recaiden]

Anchor starts paging through her own spellbook.
"What is he, and how did you get into this situation?"

[Shadowcaller]

[Dimensional Troubles]

"Then we shall wait for her to come here then." A pause. "Which reminds us, the medical facility is probably ready for you now. So at what point do you want to be sedated? We could do it right now should you wish, or we could it do it right before the operation."

---

The scholar groans as she rubs her nose irratetedly. "Is that your actual name? Ambrosia I mean." She asks the dragon who shakes her head.
"Nah, but you should know what it is, right?"

"I-" Whatever line of questioning Ambrosia had intended here doesn't seem to have worked out.

"Megeshi, that's my- our real name." The dragon moves her head closer. "Right? Right?"

"Please, could you be a bit more discrete?" Ambrosia hisses, seemingly eyeing Riss's drone at this point.

Finally, something seems to occur to the dragon. "Oh, whoops." She let's out a loud mental chuckle while looking awfully amused.
Then she turns her long head towards Riss. "Mind leaving us alone for a bit... Riss was it?"

At this point Ambrosia the human(?) steps forward. "Actually, we can discuss this later. I need to reach my friend-"
"-the crazy cat? Yeah, she told me about you, that's why I'm here in fact." The dragon interrupts her again. She seems to have a foundness of that. "She's in that temple-thing with some demons. I told her not to go but she was quite determined. Crazy, like I said."

Ambrosia blinks. "Oh. Well, that could actually work to our benefit as I believe the answers to Riss's questions probably are in that temple as well so we could head there all together and figure out what's going on."

[Fort Aegis Resort]

While that was an amusing sight Ambrosia could not allow herself to laugh at it, though she had to hide her smile as to not offend who she assumed to be their host. She had at least had come out of this with their dignity nearly intact. Just partial nudity and probably eating up some dirt. She was sure this was something they would laugh about once it had faded into memory.

Now though? She expected her to be rather pissed but perhaps some politeness could go a long way there. She will go up to the hole, descending down into it if she had to, and offer the poor woman her hand to help her up if she hadn't already got up on her own. "Need a hand, miss?"

[Deathkeeper]

[iDungeon]

The final door is opened to reveal-!

Another dead end.

The only thing in the room is a huge leering stone face. An ogre of some sort.

Or...

Maybe a cyclops.

Considering it only has one eye?

Its mouth is yawning open and its tongue is sticking out, a grotesque features that takes up the whole back wall.

Jeanette is eyeing it suspiciously.

"Hold up, something's off here," she say as she takes a few steps closer to examine it critically.


[Found a Fortress]

The darkness grows deeper and the words grow brighter until those blazing letters are all that June can see. And then, all at once? The chanting rises to a crescendo as the lightning returns to normal, leaving nothing but the sound of drums not unlike the rumble of thunder. June will get the odd feeling that she just gained something from the wall, something that mingled with whatever power she took from that dragon. A word she could utter. If spoken forcefully a word that could change the world around her.

What an odd feeling, right?

"Wowie, everything is out of order," Pepper says as she goes trotting toward June. "I think this is about the time when-"

The casket atop the dais suddenly bursts open! Inside is a desiccated corpse in ancient, rust pitted armor! It holds a battle axe, frost drifting from the blade.

"-the dragur pops out."

iDungeon

Linus steps up.
"So, do you think that we need to shoot its eye or something?" he suggests. He could try to get his gun out and shoot it.
But so far most of the times he's done that the statue has not come to life.

Found a Fortress

Spako leaps into action, drawing his sword and flying at the draugr, sparks flying. He makes three rapid cuts as he gets into close range, focusing on the creature's legs (because he is short).
"Get 'im in the back!" he calls.

[Rebonack]

[iDungeon]

"This IS an eye-themed dungeon so far," Jeany replies, crossing her arms and eyeing the...

Eye.

"I've just been in enough dungeons to know that whenever you have a big wall-sized bust like this there's SOMETHING going on with it," she reasons. "Also don't ever stick your arm into the mouth unless you don't mind losing your arm."

She learned that one the hard way!

Thankfully her anatomy is such that she can repair that sort of damage.

Otherwise having your arm off is a good way to bleed to death pretty fast.

"Definitely try something. I'll back you up if it gets threatening."


[Found a Fortress]

The dragur is not, in fact, a clown.

It doesn't have a colorful wig. Or a large red nose. Or big silly shoes. It doesn't make any honking noises.

Instead, it says something that... sounds like some weird dialect of draconic? Spako might recognize a word or two. It definitely was something hostile, given that it's moving toward June while hefting that frosty axe.

But then!

It gets slashed by a very smol dragon!

...the weapon passes right through the draugr as if it were made of mist.

Pepper looks puzzled by this, pausing mid-step as she begins cantering forward. "Wait... that's not how it's supposed to work..."

The draugr, meanwhile, turns around and swings its axe at Spako as if he were a golf ball.

[bc56]

Rivergreen

"I don't know exactly, but he came to collect. Me," the wizard replies coldly. "I was surprised the binding worked, but I'm not going to let him go. He's Death. Or a Death. You know, the grim reaper, the psychopomp, whatever you think he is."

[Recaiden]

Anchor cannot help but break into a grin.
This poor foolish wizard. He has had the most terrible luck.
"Amazing. Death himself, caught in that attic? I'm familiar with the psychopomp idea." She has a bit of a history with Death, actually.
His binding clearly isn't perfect, though, or it wouldn't have bothered Myriam, nor had such side effects.
"We may have sort of damaged things on the way in. How does your binding work?"

Anchor's shadow slides up on the all behind the wizard, turning to motion in silhouette to Myriam. It's all okay, try to play along...

[5a Violista]

[Found a Fortress]

Could be one of those ancient clowns, for all they know. The body definitely looks ancient enough.

Luckily, Spako is shorter than the draugr, so June can aim high and not worry as much about accidentally hurting him.
She fires the crossbow at its head.

Presumably, though, it just goes through it like mist too, so she gives up on firing at it. She thinks about how they can stop it. Clearly the best way would be to lead it back to the surface, but they'll be sitting ducks while trying to climb back up that elevator shaft.
"Oh! Zombies lose their powers in sunlight, don't they?" And her armor and weapon stuff seems to have absorbed sunlight like some kind of battery and saves it for later! She manifests the sword in her hand again, and tries to make it shine as brightly as she can, without looking directly at it. "Maybe this'll work as a substitute sun!"

[Morty]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Thariza considers this for a moment.

"We can wait for a bit longer, I guess? Maybe Ambrosia will get here in the meantime."

[Fort Aegis Resort]

Well, this is awkward. Thariza follows behind Ambrosia, not wanting to just mill around, but her help isn't exactly needed right now. Those little dragons sure are mobile. Something tells her this comedy of errors is a regular occurrence.

[Steelbite Canyon]

"It appears we have more company incoming," Calm Reed says as she leads her captive back to the group. "We might not have enough time to interrogate this one."

[Terumitsu]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Hmm. Interesting. Filing that information away for later, Riss remained outwardly impassive; falling back into the robot-like role implied by this terminal's design. "I will go on ahead if you two need a moment." she said, starting towards the entrance of the temple with a slow gait with arms still behind her. Plenty of time to take in the edifice at the rate she was moving at least. "If I meet someone looking for you, should I say you will be following soon?" she asked over her shoulders. Regardless of answer, she would eventually pass the threshold of the temple unless otherwise stopped. She couldn't claim the same confidence Ambrosia held in finding the 'cause' in such a place but at worst this would be at least mildly interesting so a detour of this nature wouldn't be an annoyance.

...That said, hopefully either or both Ambrosias present would have the consideration to perhaps hold on to any conversation they wanted to keep private until Riss was far beyond what might be considered normal earshot. She had made it quite blatant that the whole purpose for this terminal was observation though the muse would find it humorous if neither of them considered the audial as part of that function.

[Shadowcaller]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Ambrosia decides to follow Riss rather than staying with her counterpart and goes so far as making a short jump and slide over the dragons serpentine body to catch up. "That- that won't be necessary. We should all go there together in case more dangerous entities emerge."

The dragon claps her claws together and slowly the bent trees around them start to slowly bend back into their original shape. Then she too follows, moving past Riss in a matter of seconds and then casually floats in front of the drone like someone backstroking through water. Seemingly able to dodge past the trees and other obstacles (like small hills and bushes) without as much as looking at them.

"So you're just a nerd too, huh? I should apologize for how I acted earlier then. You just reminded me a lot of those spy-birds above us." The dragons tilts her head upwards for empathize as there are indeed a metal construct flying above them even now.
Then she stares right back at the drone and tilts her head while giving it a curious, or perhaps suspicious, look. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about them, would you?"

The temple is not far away now. Perhaps they will met those strangely clad warriors that passed them earlier there?

---

Jaccal nods and gestures towards one of the golems. "She will, assuming of course you're speaking of the dragon?"
The golem in question shifts its head towards the floor and projects light from its eyes which somehow turns into an moving image on the floor. It appears to be taken from above and shows Ambrosia, the dragon Ambrosia and another kind of golem that are making their way towards the temple.
"Quite dangerous company." Jaccal remarks as they watch the floor projection.

[Deathkeeper]

iDungeon

Linus nods. Carefully he goes over and approaches the large bust statue. He does his best to get up to the ceyeclops' eye so he can see if there's any slot in it or something like that.
Everyone knows giant statues with big eyes often have slots for gems and stuff in them!

Found Fortress

Well. That didn't work.
Time for Plan B!
Spako jumps back, shape swelling into his true dragon form.
And then he breathes a ton of fire at the draugr. Weaponry and direct heat should cover a lot of bases.

Fort Aegis Resort

Oh no Lucy is in a hole!
The baby dragons in the hole chirp and begin poking at her with their noses.
They're not terribly helpful. Careful of Hiedorel's horns!

[bc56]

Rivergreen

Myriam looks uncomfortable. She's not sure what to think of this.
"I'm not stupid. I'm not explaining my magic to you. I don't trust you." The wizard replies. "If you broke something, you'll regret it."

[Recaiden]

"If you aren't stupid, why did you just squander your only chance to survive?"
Anchor straightens up, all pretense of being apologetic gone, and goes to put the gag back in.
"Okay, this is definitely the guy who did it. The time of death up there matches the disturbance, it being a bound psychopomp explains why you heard it and what happened on the road outside. And somewhere in this room is the way to fix it."
She pauses there.
"I have my opinions, but it's up to you what we should do with him. I mean, death is kind of your opposite, right? Did you find anything in the books?"

[bc56]

Rivergreen

"What do you think of this?" Myriam asks, "Beginnings, stop light, loose life, end." She reads out of one of the man's books. "It's just on the first page. No explanation."
Meanwhile the wizard just glares angrily as he's re-gagged. He mumbles something which might be a curse at the two adventurers.

[Morty]

[Dimensional Troubles]

Thariza huffs.

"You're one to talk. I'm talking about the one which isn't a dragon right now. But I know what she is and I'm fine with that. I trust her."

[Recaiden]

"That could definitely be the chant we're looking for. I mean, it's a bit short, but most of it matches up perfectly."
Anchor reaches out to skim through the other pages of the book.
"Could you bring him up to the attic?"

[bc56]

Rivergreen
"Got him." Myriam hoists the wizard up onto her shoulder with ease.
The rest of the book contains a variety of ramblings, other short poems, grocery lists (mostly consisting of canned food), journal entries, notes to self, etc. Looks like the book just serves as a sort of journal for the wizard.
And up they go back to the attic, which is exactly as they left it. Nothing has changed, as far as they can see.
Wait.
Weren't the psychopomp's eyes closed earlier? It would be easy to miss that they're open now.

[Recaiden]

"Thanks!" she says to Myriam with a cheery smile. Wouldn't want the wizard to go unsupervised.

It would be easy to miss, but sometimes one has to do things that aren't easy.
"Hey there. Got your eyes open?"
Anchor looks the alleged psychopomp over; is there anything unusual about or on him?

But if it's just what they've seen before, she returns to the front of the book and says the words in what seems like the right order.
"End life, loose light, stop beginnings."

[bc56]

Rivergreen

The psychopomp doesn't react. But perhaps its a sign that the binding is failing.
When Anchor reads the words, there's a shudder in the air. The seeming corpse blinks, once. The wizard suddenly gasps and starts shaking violently on Myriam's shoulder. She quickly pulls him off of her, a frightened expression across her face. The trapped psychopomp rises to his feet, his eyes glowing with light, his clothes taking on the aspect of an endless void. He holds a headsman's axe, but is at ease. Spectral wings unfold from his back, ashen in color. He bows to Anchor. "Many thanks, madame. Though I would have broken free on my own, it would have been too late."

[Recaiden]

As he recovers, Anchor closes the wizard's journal and steps over towards Myriam.

Too late for what?
Maybe better not to bring that up right not.
She bows deeply to the psychopomp in return.
"Of course. I mean, your work is often thankless, but you shouldn't be imprisoned like this."

[bc56]

Rivergreen

Myriam looks up from the wizard, who's now frothing at the mouth, at Anchor "I don't know what's happening! He's dying!" "Those who have been cheating their fate often have an adverse reaction upon encountering me. His time has come," the psychopomp says, "He bound me in the hopes to avoid it, but now it is unavoidable."

[Recaiden]

"I mean, he was dying the whole time. It was only by keeping him bound here that the wizard stayed alive."
She's not sure why Myriam is surprised. Downstairs, he mentioned that he would be killed, and Anchor mentioned that he had no chance left to survive.
"Here, set him down."
Anchor tosses the journal aside, opens her own spellbook, and recites "ò̗t̔ͩř̨ͨ͂̒̆̇ͅl̶̴͉̣̣̼̔͞ ͖̜͙̰͚͎̰͏͂ͤ͐̎s̠͏̀ͩ̓ͦ ̢̢̩̻ͤ̄͐p, ò̗t̔ͩř̨ͨ͂̒̆̇ͅl̶̴͉̣̣̼̔͞ ͖̜͙̰͚͎̰͏͂ͤ͐̎s̠͏̀ͩ̓ͦ ̢̢̩̻ͤ̄͐p...", a spell to take away the pain and discomfort the wizard probably feels.

It won't keep him alive any longer; in fact sometimes pain and spite are the only things keeping someone alive, but it should at least give him a cleaner death.

[bc56]

Rivergreen

Myriam sets the wizard down. He calms down, closes his eyes, and dies. The psychopomp nods. "We must be going soon. I have an important appointment to make. But if the two of you have any questions..?"