Vast Expectations (Part 6)
Log Info
- Title: Vast Expectations, part 6
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Faranmidahn, Paenitia, Jinks, Razen, Edinaz
- Place: The Vast
- Time: Monday, February 14, 2022, 9:31 PM
- Summary: Demons and Devils are manifesting around the group, as they slide towards the demon wars. Av-de produces a stone which manages to stabilize the area. Immediately, everyone wants to examine it or have a spare. The centaUWUr refuses, it is a relic of his people, and they press on. There are flashing lights in the sky, a sun setting and rising, in the southeast, and discussions of ways to pass the time and scrying that might be attempted. Finally they come to a valley where they are informed they will be able to look back through time for the missing time... if it's even there at al.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Paenitia 3'0" 34 Lb Halfling Female A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery. Faranmidahn 3'3" 35 Lb Halfling Female Albino Lucht woman. Knight of Spiders. So, SO Fluffy. Jinks 3'4" 39 Lb Gnome Male A gnomish fellow in fancy garb and jewelry. Lysos 5'6" 105 Lb Human/Tsuran Female Dark eyed tsuran girl. Razen 6'9" 258 Lb Half-Orc Male A large half-orc in well loved scale mail. Edinaz 6'10" 296 Lb Half-Orc Male Grey-skinned half-oruch, extensive black ink. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
Previously
The adventurers head out with Av-de towards the Vast. The broken features of time are discussed, and some strange occurrences are observed. There are the sounds of battle, and then it goes from bad to worse.
Things change.
You are surrounded by ghostly afterimages as you move on, yes, faint flickery images of demons engaged in chaotic battle with ... other demons.
There can be no other description for them. Fullscale, monstrous creatures of gore and blood and chaos and pain rending flesh lovingly with their bare hands and claws. All around you.
As if you're in the middle of *their* fight, yes.
"Ah," says Av-De.
"Balls."
Farland agrees with that assessment, "Shit."
Now
"So..." Jinks looks between the impressions and after-images as the word stretches out at length. It serves a dual-purpose; warming up his voice and expressing his inability to settle on what, exactly, to make of the situation. He has his bow in a relaxed grip with two arrows nocked in place. He's squinting at the memory-ghosts.
"oo... we press on ahead or backtrack and take another route before we fall through time and end up actually standing IN the war?" The gnome finally decides to prompt.
"I think the war have come to us." Paenitia says. Once more the world is her oyster, she looks at Av-de, around at her companions, "this will be the fight we enjoin in melee, or from range, or we try as is suggested to escape it?"
A grinning mask glances over her shoulder, "make sure you are strap on."
Faranmidahn considers her mystical arsenal, what remains of it after the trolls, then, "Best we avoid needless sport. There's no telling what calamities we might invite it we get mixed up in their war." she advises, while suppressing the urge to use her detection spells. She wants to see the flow about this place, but expects it would overwhelm her.... or she might touch off one of those selfsame calamities.
"I swear.. this isn't my fault," Lysos says, almost reflexively, panic creeping in at the edge of her eyes. One of her hands goes to her side, a gesture indicative of her readiness to start drawing power in.. "Is this real?" No, she's not hysterical. Honest. Her other hand goes to a slender, non-descript wand tucked into her sash. "Are they going to hurt us?"
Faranmidahn says, "is this just fantasy?"
Jinks says, "Caught in a Whirlpool"
Farland glares at Lysos.
"... I've known you long enough to have reasons to doubt that," he adds, dryly.
Av-de quickly reaches into his satchel and produces a black stone, one inscribed with numerous runes.
"No one move. Not a muscle. The gate-key will solidify time around us and put things back in their proper order. WE use these to pass through safely!"
There's a rumbling pulse from the stone and a feeling of intense pressure behind your ears... and the demons fade into intangibility again.
Av-de breathes a sigh of relief.
"I don't think we can blame the Sea on you, tallman," Jinks offers lightly even as he pats Paenitia on the shoulder to signal his readiness. "Unless you're a lot older than you look, anyway."
Then the centaur is rocking his world and the gnome is left opening and closing his mouth and blinking as he tries to pop his ears. Stopping once to pinch his nose, clamp his lips, and exhale when the previous maneuver fails. "--... ah," he sighs, relieved as he looks around.
"Any chance you've a spare or two for us to hold? So when you inevitably fall through a rift and are lost to the aeons we're not left standing here with limp rope in our hands?"
Encased in her gleaming red armour, the dark lucht's struggles with her ears and the sensations are unobservable. She comes to an equilibrium, and one more speaks in a cheerful voice that synergizes well with her grinning mask. She nods, "Yes, we do not want to be left limp and hanging."
Paenitia is helping.
Lysos opens her mouth to protest, but then her head is imploding. When it's over, she staggers a bit, clutching at the side of her head. "Ow ow ow stars above.." she says instead, wand forgotten. Instead, her hand goes to the grass-woven band she has tied around her wrist, securing the borrowed coyote talisman. "I'd rather not do that again."
Faranmidahn draws Torrent to a halt as their guide advises stillness. She even holds her breath until he sounds the all clear. The pressure is hard to ignore, and locking down her reflexive reaction takes considerable effort on her part.
In the wake of the all-clear, the comments start.
Snerk.
A stifled giggle.
Ahem-hmm-ahem!
"Localized time-stabilization," muses Farland.
"I wonder if we could apply that on a grand scale, prevent any more loss. What is that made of?"
He asks of Av-de, who shrugs.
"The fuck am I supposed to know?" rumbles the centawur.
Jinks remembers his hands and pops free the two arrows, shifting in the rear-saddle to drop them back into his quiver. The gnome considers each of the standing (and riding) party in turn to make sure no one is in any lingering distress.
"You might let him have a look, horseman, and he could venture a guess. We People know a thing or two," he offers along with a friendly smile. "Fingers in a lot of pies, you see."
Paenitia twists around in her seat, looking over the party and their surroundings. Beneath her and Jinks, Ramirez shifts, adjusting hooves and talons. They're moving muscles, slightly. "I have the great need of a spare of one of those, if there are. Is now the time we move, or we wait some more?"
"They are relics of my people, so no, there are no 'spare' ones," remarks Av-de, with a dry tone of voice.
Farland squints at Av-de, then nods to Jinks in agreement. He likes the idea of studying them.
"So this is how you travel through these lands safely? With the help of these relics?"
"It is *one* way we travel through the lands safely. Do not think that had you one of these, you'd be safe. You would not."
"Mmmn.."
In any event, with the demons intangible again, you're able to begin moving on.
GAME: Jinks rolls Perception: (19)+12: 31 GAME: Paenitia rolls perception: (13)+8: 21 GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+5: (13)+5: 18 (Ramirez Perception) GAME: Lysos rolls perception: (3)+10: 13 GAME: Faranmidahn rolls perception: (10)+4: 14 GAME: Faranmidahn rolls 1d20+3: (14)+3: 17 (Torrent Perception)
Faranmidahn gently strokes Torrent's shell a few times to settle him down as the odd pressure was a bit for the arachnid to process. Once he's settled, she flicks the reins and taps with her feet to encourage him to start to move along with the rest of the group as they resume their trek.
"'Safely,'" Jinks echoes, leaning on the word to emphasize the irony but smiling sweetly if Av-de turns to look his way again. "Your standards seem more flexible is all... but then my mother always said I was too persnickety."
The gnome blinks, cocking his head and rubbing at the butterfly kisses-piercings under one eye. "... 'the Great Plague in Acania?'" He makes a thoughtful noise and then turns, distracted, to look in the opposite direction, squinting at shadows.
"Your rock might need to be re-invested, re-carved, or re-enchanted," opines the minstrel. "I think you pushed back the incursions but 'stable' is a relative term."
Once Av-de gives the command, Paenitia clucks at Ramirez and the hippogryph starts moving. As instructed earlier, he keeps his wings in tight and picks his way carefully along. His mistress is on the look out, but there's only so much she can see.
Errant arrows in flight, other things moving on the edge of vision, perhaps that great plague. They may be there, and she looks for them, but a lot escapes her notice.
They carry on.
"Am I the only one thinking this is a bad idea... " Lysos pauses, then says, "Or.. at least a worse idea than it used to be?" She keeps rubbing at her wrist as she sets to following along again once the group is on the move, very intent on keeping her eyes straight ahead. "I sleep badly enough as it is.."
Edinaz speaks up from nearby, "No, you're not the only one -- but everything associated with time and time magic and dead g-- it's all wrong."
"All the more reason to let Navos get back to his real job, right?" says Farland, cheerfully.
Edinaz pauses for a moment. "Does all of the time weirdness mean that Navos is drowning in his assumed portfolio?"
"You keep saying that is the solution. I do think that means what you think it means." Paenitia comments.
"How can anyone even know that?" Lysos asks. "I feel like that's a pretty big assumption to make." Eyes still kept straight forward. "But I suppose assumptions always work out in the end."
"I still remember the chaos when Animus died," Jinks responds, turning away from whatever lost words were spilling there way through the cracks in time. Blinking and frowning, he shrugs at the other gnome. "Time's Father changed his seat and duties but Mulria and Goddess Dreaming made war and their minions died in their shadows.
"And I'm still not convinced Animus will be unchanged in His resurrection. How many of His shards are blackened and wicked now? Or retrieved from the most vile and contemptible? Mulria wants these pieces for Her own devices, too."
Jinks nods at Lysos, smirking in agreement with Paenitia, too. "Look to Rune and understand what can go wrong when a mortal man is risen changed... and you Resurrecitonists seek to amplify that to a scale both divine and profane."
Faranmidahn frowns, but has an awful lot of baggage regarding the Gods to quantify what she would consider a worth answer.
She sighs, "We have a terrible burden of 'what ifs' to weigh, and perhaps deserves more attention than traipsing through the wilds of shattered time would allow us to spare to the task."
"You've the right of it," says Farland to Jinks, more sincerely, "We're not going to rush into anything unless events push our hands to try. I'm not sure the Shards have the capacity for 'change' in quite the way we do. I'm not even sure we could blacken them if we tried. The only thing said to be able to change a God's nature is the Void ... and do we even know if *that's* true? Either way, we'll do nothing without a *great* deal of work before hand, as Griva has shown."
He shrugs his shoulders, glancing to Av-de.
Av-de nods back to him. "Another hour. Perhaps two, if all goes well, and we'll be within a space that might correspond to the times you've mentioned, at least ... as best as we can guess. We do listen sometimes, try to find out 'when' is 'where', but it's always shifting."
"An easy, relaxing hour-or-two ride," Jinks drawls, trying to stay on alert for solidifying stands of light as whispered, lost conversations tease at his ears. "I don't know why we don't do this regularly..."
Edinaz nods slowly. "At the outside, a leisurely three-hour tour." He doesn't look convinced.
"I should have bring the timepiece clock, to see. Do you have a watch to watch Jinks?" Paenitia asks, once there's the estimate, "or perhaps the three hour ballad?"
Might as well have some in-walk music. "The great works before hand is true, and sometimes, the time after time works."
"I don't understand any of this," Lysos admits. "And I don't think I want to. My head still hurts from that," Her hand comes up, making a whooshing gesture accompanied by a short knock against the side of her skull. "Not sure even a song can help much here."
"I know a Llyranesi aria or two that run just over a half-an-hour. I know a half-Mul Aryia that can probably run longer than that," Jinks answers with a chuckle. "Some wyrms sing their histories at length but I've never learned those..."
The minstrel pauses, thinking. "I DO know a song that doesn't end. It just goes on and on, my friends..."
"I *will* turn you into a mouse," says Farland to Jinks.
Av-de pauses, then says, "I know a song about bottles of beer on the shelf. I'm fairly sure it has something to do with a rhyme with 'elf', but I can't recall. By the time anyone gets it out, we're usually entirely too drunk."
In the distance, you can see flashes of strange light. Fortunately, none of them are close by enough to you to be too worried. In the sky, a shower of them seem, to occur, briefly, then vanish. Just dazzling, shimmering rays.
Av-de picks up his pace a little bit. "Here," he says, gesturing in the distance towards a a vale between two hills. "This would be the pass. It's close, and it should let you extend your senses intgo the past with a proper scrying, if there's a past to be found at all."
The Spider Knight scans about the phenomena while the banter flies. She glances toward Farland on his offer, noting, "Zephyr loves mice."
Zephyr being her adorable fluffy coconut puff spider.... that's about the size of a human's hand.
Edinaz looks up at the light, blinking. "I can see how this would do bad things to your head, being out here f.." he trails off, and shakes his head. "This is weird."
Paenitia watches the distant flashes, "Should we shoot the arrows at those? Ramirez and I will stand guard, and Razen and Edinaz too, when you scry. There the scarce supply of the wise wizards for you Farland. Lysos can assist, and Jinks and Sir Faranmidahn give some small assist too, but it going to be on your shoulders."
Ramirez keeps up his careful pace, sticking to the path. His mistress scans for threats, and while everything surrounding them is dangerous, nothing appears to immediately be so.
Lysos shakes her head as well as well, mirroring Edinaz.. then her eyes widen as Paenitia volunteers the tsuran's services to whatever Farland has planned. "A wizzard? I'm not wizard.." she says, sounding almost insulted. "And me being a part of 'extending your senses' into there... that might not end well."
"Farland, darling, if you just want to carry me around in your pocket for an afternoon I'm sure we can come up with something much better than a mouse," Jinks teases lasciviously... the mood spoiled by the thought of a being devoured by a towering arachnid. He issues an observable shudder and sits a little closer to Paenitia.
Following Edinaz' comment to consider the sky, he remarks, "It looks like Illusory and Invocation studies at the Arcanist Cabals..." The lights and patterns fading in and out above. "Not quite the manifestations they should be yet."
Then the gnome is following Av-de's gesture and looking down into the basin. Listening to the centaur he can't help but offer a lopsided smirk. "As something of an expert at trying to forget one's past I can promise you that it's always there. Why not convince the valley things are going too well? Or leave it sleepless and alone with its thoughts..." There's talk of scrying and wizards and he relents, "Those may be more practical approaches..."
"I'm not... experienced in scrying, though." Faran notes to her fellow Knight, "My sister dabbles, but... I'm still not at the level of... expertise required."
"All right, folks," says Farland. "That's the pot. Let's set up there."
Whatever 'setting up' means in this regard. There is an amused eye roll at Jinks.
"It might not! That's why you're all here. But this is also the only way to know for *sure* what's happened to the past. If a part of it really is missing, the consequences are ... dire to consider. But then, I'm sure some of you already know how badly confused the past can get when things go wrong, hm?" A glance to Paenitia.
He begins to draw a circle on the ground, reaching into his pouch to produce a quantity of diamond dust to do it with.
"I have a trick or two," Jinks offers from behind Paenitia. "Once we're down where we need to be and I'll see what I can manage. Between divination magics and a talent for plucking memories from the Weave we might be successful. If not we'll just have to dive in," he's half-joking, having some idea that this end result is inevitable. It's the sort of thing that would make Coyote laugh, after all. He trails off when Farland sets into his preparations.
"What's the game if you're not scrying?" Asks the bard.
"Oh yes. I have the great confusion." Paenitia confirms, then adds, "Ramirez! We dismount, the slope wing." Her hippogryph stretches his wing out in a long, low reach, one that will aid the gnome's dismount. The little lucht is skilled at this, but considerate. Before she hops out of the saddle she selects her weapons, warhammer, sword and large shield, and sets her bow and quiver lower in case she needs to grab it from the ground.
She dismounts, sliding down, to land with a clank. She laughs, "The song and dance, or the standing guard and peering. It could be the many things."
Lysos stays well clear of the circle, shifting her eyes down to her hands instead. Staring at them, fingers splayed, shaking her head ever so slowly, back and forth.
Grateful for the assistance, Jinks pauses to pat Ramirez affectionately before sliding down the wing and stumbling a few steps before he has his footing. He grunts and slides out of his pack, dropping it down to the ground before pulling the ribbon out of his hair to let it fall about his face. "You mentioned that," he asides to the paladina, glancing back at her as he walks over to where Farland works. "You, Aryia, and Seyardu. Off on your adventure while I was looking into the temples' scheming..."
The gnome's eyes lock on the bag of diamond dust and he twirls one of his many rings. He manages to pull his focus away and consider the circle, reaching down letting his fingers dance through an opened pouch at his belt.
A frown and Jinks turns then to Lysos, an eyebrow quirked. "Something troubling you, tallman? Other than..." glittering, ring-heavy hands gestures vaguely around the area.
"The plan is to scry, but first I need to make sure I, and you all, are protected as best I can manage. This is unknown territory we're operating in. We're relying on the thinness of time here to allow me to pierce time itself and peer backwards into it. You'll all be able to see it with me, and as I point out, this didn't go well elsewhere, so..."
Farland clears his throat, then pulls a rather overly large mirror from his pouch -- gotta love those bags of holding -- and sets it down in the circle.
A mirror! 'Ruaaaah!' Ramirez is interested, yes. The ivory peacock steps up and leans so that he can gaze at himself and admire the magnificence. He looks first with one eye, then turns his head to check with the other. His crown is perfect. He rattles his feathers, then raises his tail.
He is glorious. Yes.
Paenitia checks herself as well, requiring only a moment's glance to see that her armour remains shiny, red, and her mask is still grinning. She adjusts her cloak of feathers, then steps back so Ramirez can preen some more.
"So, what the protections we should have are?" The dark lucht asks, and glances at her fellow knight.
Lysos's fingers curl and uncurl a few times before she looks up, staring at Jinks for a moment before she shakes her head. "What could possibly be troubling me?" One of those hands mimics the fancy gnome's gesture. "I mean, it's not like all of this doesn't sound completely..." She trails off, pressing her eyes closed. "Doesn't matter. Everything will be fine."
EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.
OOC
Centaur Related Imagery
https://i.redd.it/y2ix1j7ajpd41.jpg
Zephyr
https://fstoppers.com/photo/322528
https://ifunny.co/picture/my-wife-and-i-are-into-keeping-jumping-spiders-as-20vcOQ8C8
<OOC> Jinks says, "hahahaha"
<OOC> Jinks says, "the centUWUr."
<OOC> Jinks can't unsee it now.
<OOC> Jinks says, "Coming soon to a plot title near you: Gnull and Void."
<OOC> Whirlpool GROAN.
<OOC> Whirlpool approves.
<OOC> Lysos heard about those three hour tours.
<OOC> Jinks says, "There's an eighth person on the boat when they set out from port but the show only has seven people on the island."
<OOC> Jinks says, "They resorted to cannibalism before landing."
<OOC> Jinks says, "He's gilled once and he'll gilligan."
<OOC> Faranmidahn says, "If they weren't busy gorging themselves, they probably wuldn't have gotten marooned"
<OOC> Whirlpool stabs lovingly.