Haggered Appearances, part 3
Log Info
- Title: Haggered Appearances, part 3
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Cryosanthia, MAC-B1G, Braelnoir, Baz da Ork, Edinaz
- Place: A Strange House in the Mythwood
- Time: Friday, November 06, 2020, 8:56 PM
- Summary: Exploration of the house continues. Cryosanthia notices a lot of conjuration magic, and that the layout has changed. The party heads upstairs, the kitchen is gone, instead they appear to be on the fourth floor in the hallway. There are lots of doors. Reluctantly, the party explores them, finding nothing of interest. Even the stairway they came up has vanished, but another one soon appears. Taking that one, the going is fine until the stairway collapses. Everyone falls, and falls, and falls, apparently looping. Cryo determines there are two spaces to fall through, and lasso's Braelnoir to make her stop in the second one. This successfully slams the merc into another set of stairs... out of sight of everyone else! The screaming continues.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing, in Order =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Cryosanthia 6'9" 291 Lb Sith-Makar Female A dashingly tall, elegant white-scaled lizard woman. MAC-B1G 6'6" 303 Lb War Golem Neuter Drab gray primarily metal humanoid with cyan-lit optical receptors. Braelnoir 5'11" 146 Lb Human Female A tall, pale Acanian woman, branded in silver. Baz da Ork 7'0" 320 Lb Orc Male 7' 320 pounds of metal, muscle and stupid. WAAAGH! Edinaz 6'10" 296 Lb Half-Orc Male Grey-skinned half-oruch, extensive black ink. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool Lb Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
The cellar is actually fairly empty. Oh, sure, there's some old crates here and there, askew and rotten with dampness and time.
And that's when it happens. A brief, disorienting feeling of all around *vertigo*, a thrumming futher beneath your feet as if *something* was making the whole house briefly vibrate...
"That's... not a feel better thrumming." Cryo says, feeling sympathetic vibrations in her throat. Not pleasant when someone else moves your vocal chords for you. She whips her head around, listens, "Scales! Did we plane shift?"
Her eyes are still glowing, she's still looking for something magical to worry about. She stares at the ground. "Well, everyone get ready. That you Zaya?"
Braelnoir does an odd little two-step as she feels the ground vibrate under her feet and her equilibrium briefly flutters. A quick shake of her head to get everything sloshing in the same direstion, then, "Th'fuck was that?"
"Warning. Significant probability of geological instability," the construct warns, primarily for those who may not have noticed.
"We should make a game of it, guess what is going to pop out." Cryosanthia says, moving so she's standing beside Braelnoir. She hooks her hand into the silver-haired woman's belt. "How unstable Mac Bee One Gee? Is the floor going to collapse, should we stand near the edges or hold onto the stairs?"
"Unknown." The construct responds. "Insufficient data to calculate probabilities."
Braelnoir twists some to look over her shoulder as Cryo siezes her belt, "Mebbe we found Kae's bunny." she quips, then starts to look about some more, her spikeshod fist clenching tight and coming up in a general warding posture, while her hammer is held tense beside her.
"In case the floor goes," Cryo offers as an explanation. "Mac Bee, positioning near a wall would be better for you." She waits a moment, then stomps on the ground a couple times, "Zaya, do you hear us? We're here to help you."
"Command confirmed." MAC accepts the logic in this statement and takes several heavy steps to position near a foundation wall.
So much magic, but brief. Conjuration, judging by apparent ambient aura! Something 'big' happened, it's not clear what.
"Ahhh... ah! Something happened." Cryo says, her eyes still glowing as she looks about, "So much magic. Big, and brief. I think it's conjuration, by the aura. Not sure what it did. Really big aura though, everywhere."
"Magic?" Baz sniffs disdainfully. "Ifna it be a problem I ask Kor ta shove it where de sun don't shine. Dats a town far, far away from here." Small black eyes blink as the Ork peers about. "We gots a plan now?" He asks, brushing a thumb along the curve of his vicious looking scimitar.
Braelnoir growls slightly, then "I'm a target, luv, best ya get clear. Spread out so we don't get tagged all'at once." She doesn't like the idea of being inside when things have been 'conjured' all around them, sounds too much like being in the killbox, "Anyone hear movement? How's it look up the way we came?"
Now against a wall, MAC rotates and elevates its faceplate to attempt line of sight on their point of ingress. "Access point remains." Whether it remains at all, remains viable, or remains open, it does not specify.
Plane Shift is conjuration.
"Okay, well, just a moment. I have a bad hunch." Cryo slips her hand out of Braelnoir's belt. She makes sure her weapon is in hand and her buckler seated properly, then mounts the stairs. "This one is going to run up high enough to see out the windows and if anything has changed. Call loudly if something appears, this one plans less than a minute absence."
She does as she said.
Up the stairs the sith'mkara doesn't find herrself in the kitchen. She is, instead, in a hallway.
Braelnoir is playing target, but moves close enough to at least see up the stairwell.
On her own, with the others waiting downstairs to see if she comes back in one piece or snack-sized, Cryo rushes up the twenty steps to the kitchen. In theory. As it works out, she's in a hallway not the kitchen. Familiar in some way? Nope! It's a completely new hallway. One she's in for sure on her own.
"Ahhhhhm!" She thrums musically, turning on the spot with a swirl of tail and flying down the stairs again. At the bottom of the flight, she announces, "Upstairs has changed around."
"Upstairs wot? You find the house wine or something?" Baz asks as he heads towards the stairs himself. It's time to go up and see. Under his breath the great green armored monster mutters. "Why does it always 'ave tae be weird? It's always weird! If I see some gnome sniffin me boots I'm eat'n him."
"What." Brae replies flatly, shaking her head. Of course. Spooky is as spooky does, an all that. Hrm, "Still got that scroll Mer gave me, if ya think it might help?" Even as she speaks, the merc is unfastening one of the pockets along her bandolier.
When no eruption appears imminent in the cellar and given Cryosanthia's warning, MAC steps from the wall to achieve a better line up the stairs. "Clarify nature of alteration."
"No house wine. No kitchen. Brand new hallway." Cryo says, swinging out of the way of Baz as he stomps up the steps. She lands on the basement floor, crouched and ready even though nothing is apparent. "Protection from Chaos? It might, but it wears off so quick it's almost best to wait until you see a problem."
The whitescale addresses the machine, "Like puzzle pieces reconnecting, that stairway goes to a hallway now, not one we've seen. Didn't want to go any further in case it shuffles again and we get separated."
"Come to think of it, might explain why Zaya's tracks just stopped."
Head up the stairwell Baz peers around and frowns. Then he stomps all the way up and promptly punches the first wall he gets near and yells at the house. "STOP BE'IN WEIRD!" Likely his spike covered gauntlets leaving indentations in wood. Then the big Ork yells down the stairwell. "Shes right, everything moved!"
Braelnoir slips the scroll out and offers it over to her sister, "Yeah, doesn't do me'ny good, here." She thinks on the rest of that for a moment or two, then, "Well, this just gets better'n better. Ok, we might hafta stay close, after all. Ain't good if'n we get separated an this place shifts again." Hmm, "But, what the hell.. ZAYAAA, YOU HERE?"
As Cryo said, the stairs no longer lead to the kitchens you were in, but raqther, what would appear to be a hallway. In fact, judging by the windows, you now appear to be on the third or fourth floor, one would have to guess.
MAC-B1G ascends the stairs. Regardless of the altered destination, it is their only avenue of egress from the cellar. It scans the updated discharge point. "Collating..." As it collects additional data, it joins in the renewed search. "Unit designate Zayaa, respond and identify," is vocalized at increased volume.
There's no answer from the hallway, anyway.
There's another little sensation of vibration but nothing discernable changes this timn.
Cryo takes the scroll, she gives it a quick scan then rolls it back up and tucks it in her belt. Everyone is heading up the stairs, it seems, so the whitescale brings up the rear. She flicks her hands through a graceful, arcane gesture and the light traces, flickers and ends up on her eyes again as she renews her Detect Magic. "I think that vibration was another reconfiguration. Not sure what is triggering it."
For his part Baz is simply slouching in the hallway waiting for everyone else. There isn't much point in him wandering around and the house seems to have learned it's lesson from his punching it earlier. "Mebe we just burns it down right? If we hear screaming dats where da girl is. If we don't hear anything den she already dead."
Braelnoir hrm's and carries on up the stairs as well. She cants her head a little at Baz's suggestion, then, "It has a certain direct charm, but we're probably supposed ta bring her back alive if we can. 'sides, she could be helpless, an' we don't know she's an enemy."
MAC-B1G does not appear concerned with sudden configurations. At the least, they cannot remain in place as there remains a search to conduct. There are now simply more areas to investigate. "Location via incineration is inefficient."
"It's a good idea but I think she could be alive, screaming, and we wouldn't hear it. I bet the house affects sound strangely." Cryo says, following Braenoir, determined to keep her in sight. She'd like to keep the whole party in sight, but Baz is already around a corner, so she'll have to settle for three out of four. She keeps moving to reunite the group, get everyone together in the hallway. "Well, let's check some doors."
As she looks around, the sith'makar recites to herself, "I sat there simply weeping, the carpet always creeping and the portals all around me creeking The Doors The Doors the Doors!"
Doors! It could be worse. There could be water.
Baz da Ork snorts, "Ah'm gettin' too tired fer dis." A fist like a wrecking ball crashes into the wall again.
Braelnoir nods, "Alright, I'll take the doors, be ready t'respond, ok?" She edges along to try and overtake the pace and starts to look over her rectangular nemesis for a moment, looks back to make sure people are kind of back a safe distance, then reaches out with her fully shelled hand to try the doorknob.
The doors lead to various bedrooms, it would appear, though they have long since fallen into disrepair like much of the house. That said, with all in the hallway upstairs, it would appear that at *some* point, the stairs you came up became ... another bedroom?! What?!
Either way, there is no longer a way back downb to the basement you were in, and it isn't clear when that happened.
"Aaaaa.... yum. Hm." Cryosanthia follows Braelnoir, close and at the ready. Her eyes glowing as she watches for clues. She manages to miss the stairway becoming something else.
"Well, did anyone see some full length mirrors, or a full bath-tub? I think it's gone weird. Perhaps we should look for ... well things that could be doorways, like a wardrobe or a grandfather clock, if we aren't finding something behind the actual doors."
Baz da Ork punches the wall again, shaking dust down from the ceiling. "House! Yer bein' weird! Yer gonna git it."
Braelnoir snerks and shakes her head as she realizes things have shifted again, "Someone's dickin' with us." She reaches toward a wall with her shelled hand again and, index and middle fingers together, tap-tap-taptap-taps the wall, then cranes her neck with a sidelong glance along the ceiling as she listens for a response.
The whitescale stares around, her eyescales glowing brightly, "Still seeing conjuration magic, lingering but dissipating. It is not coming from any place specific, it's more ambient."
She exhales, "Let's open every door in the hallway then move from one end to the other, see if something happens."
MAC-B1G's faceplate pans a full 360 as it attempts to map out the modified layout. Noting the room formerly-known-as-stairs, it advises, "Spatial relations dubious. If alteration continues, high probability that 100% exploration will require infinite time and effort. Estimated usage remaining on this unit's nethericite reactor: four-hundred seventy-three years, eighteen hours, eleven minutes, thrity-three seconds."
GAME: MAC-B1G rolls perception: (11)+13: 24 GAME: Edinaz rolls perception: (13)+11: 24 GAME: Braelnoir rolls perception: (3)+8: 11 GAME: Cryosanthia rolls perception: (6)+5: 11
"This one might live that much longer, but would get hungrier much soon. This one is not Merek, I have not transcended the need for food." Cryo replies, still looking around, still not seeing very much. "I'm getting nothing."
"Yeah, I got a date 'fore then." Brae notes offhandedly, then starts to move to the next door to quick once-over and open.
"Not dyin' in dis place." Baz adds.
The party can see out the window, and know which way by the exterior they arere going. The choice is either go 'towards the middle' of the house, or towards the west end of the house.
Edinaz is keeping quiet, checking doors and generally trying not to step on potential pressure points.
"Advised course of action: determine current perimeter boundaries of structure prior to detailed interior scans," the large construct offers as it heads westward allong what appears an exterior wall (due to windows).
"Okay, well, let's follow MAC Bee. Everyone stay in sight." Cryo advises, stalking along behind the golem. She pokes the wall a few times with her dagger, and her eyescales continue glowing. Hopefully this will start to make sense. Somewhat futiley she calls, "Zaya? Are you there?"
Off you go, then, heading along the exterior. You reach the end of the hallway and are confronted, after a a few minutes, with the worst thing possible.
- ... they are confronted with ... a DOOR.
The door is openable and peering inside reveals a set of stairs leading up and down. Definite stairwell, servants access no doubt, to the other floors. It looks rather ... creaky.
GAME: Braelnoir rolls knowledge/engineering: (5)+6: 11 GAME: Cryosanthia rolls knowledge/engineering: (15)+2: 17 GAME: MAC-B1G rolls knowledge/engineering: (19)+7: 26 GAME: Edinaz rolls survival: (1)+13: 14 (EPIC FAIL)
The stairs look stable *enough* to handle Mac's and Baz's weights, but it's not 100%. No tracks. No hearing things.
Edinaz looks at the stairs. "D'you think they're safe?" A pause. "Really, only one way to find out."
"Structural integrity sufficient." MAC's faceplate pans to the flank to regard those following. "Ascend or descend?" That is the question. Long distance to Toha: Cryosanthia hugs!
"Ascend! Upwards! To strike at the heavens!" Cryo suggests eagerly. Really, her chosen role as a flamboyant swashbuckler is being put to the test. She'll break out a harmonica and some clackers and start adding motivational music next.
"Ha! Got no better idea, m'self. Up't is!" Brae laughs, "Since i'm stil screaming target with's torch, wan' me go first?"
"Fine, up da stairs." Baz pushes past and stomps up, his armoured form filling the passageway like a mobile block.
Edinaz pauses. "Let's go up. Might as well see what's up there." A glance to Brae. "As long as we go quickly, sure."
GAME: Braelnoir rolls dexterity: (12)+3: 15 GAME: MAC-B1G rolls dexterity: (1)+2: 3 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Edinaz rolls dexterity: (4)+4: 8 GAME: Cryosanthia rolls dexterity: (18)+4: 22
MAC-B1G's forelimbs rotate up and over behind it to grasp Braelnoir at biceps. They then reverse the same course, primary manipulators rotating at the apex to place Braelnoir ahead of it per request. "Unit designate Braelnoir, additional designation: point." Perhaps it is the construct equivalent to 'after you?'
It was a matter of time.
The stairs *are* solid enough, mostly. If you're careful.
You're all careful.
The only problem is that, even with care, occasionally things do go wrong. Bad luck, really, and not enough time to correct it. Mac's foot goes through stair when he takes a careful step and that just casues a chain reaction that causes the stairs to just.. crumble.
You are all now falling thorugh the stairs.
- ... and falling ...
- ... there's that sense of vertigo again.
- Still falling.
There's that sense of vertigo again ...
...still ... falling? In fact, yyou're fairly sure you've been through the same set of floors a few times, now.
Except Cryo, until she decides to and dives after everyone. Her boots of striding and springing have a third quality, which is levitation, and while it has mostly gotten her foundling in trouble the sith'makar has been practicing turning them after sudden sinkings.
Like stairs falling out from under her.
There was a reason she stuck by Braelnoir earlier. While she was quick, she wasn't quick enough to grab her scale-sister and now she's dropping out of sight. This might split the party, which is why Cryo makes the decision to shut off the boots and dive after them, kicking off the wall to get some speed. Hopefully she'll catch someone before she finds the ground.
This seems more and more unlikely as the stairs start to loop.
Edinaz twists as he falls, grabbing one of his javelins and trying to jam it into the wall. Sparks and debris starts to spall off the sides as he tries to dig in. Well, that's the theory. Really, he's just trying to hold on to the javelin.
Due to its construction, MAC-B1G is rather dense. While this can make many noncombat tasks a trial, there is at least one at which it excels: falling.
The silver tressed merc is, admittedly, a little surprised by the actions of the golem, though with the sudden paradigm shift from the timely collapse, Brae's protest from her sudden headlong plumment mostly comes out as: "Wait, whathe-F
U
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Cryo falls, which is easy. Catching Braelnoir, is not. Nor it seems, possible, as her boots aren't able to carry both of them, especially at their current acceleration.
After a few loops through she abandons the flying rescue and tries for something else. Engaging her boots so she can hover, looking for something to tie a rope off on, then making a lasso. A net would be so much better, she didn't bring one, and her Officer's Goblin Knife has nothing useful in it. Except the toothpicks. Which aren't useful now. It also doesn't contain a rescue plan which won't involve slamming someone against the wall when the rope catches them.
GAME: Cryosanthia rolls perception: (10)+5: 15 GAME: Cryosanthia rolls spellcraft: (17)+5: 22
"Dis is not an improvement on de weird!" Baz shouts, punching the wall and sending himself spinning.
The whitescale has halted herrself and she is *really* sure she is .. .not in the same stairwell she was a moment ago! Actually, this one looks all together. She is just, in the middle of it and falling now through the gap since it's a wrap around type deal. Either it got fixed, or she was transitioned to a different stairwell in the building when she started to fall.
While obviously distracted with falling, the whitescale can now sense the conjuration magic and is fairly sure she changed where she was within the building at some point during the fall. The others are around, all falling on the same side now. However, the falling pattern takes a little longer to repeat than it should, like they're transversing a different space, however briefly, before returning to fall again. It's a very small margin but noticable
GAME: Braelnoir rolls reflex: (12)+5: 17
Cryo yells out some information as people go flying by, in the hopes that it will make some sense to them and perhaps someone will shout back a solution.
"It's a different stairwell!"
"It's conjuration magic."
"It takes longer to repeat than.."
"..It should. There is a short wrap around."
"Like you're in a different space."
"Gonna try stopping you in that space Brae."
She measures out a rope, ties it off, and gets ready to lasso her scale-sister. FLING!
GAME: Braelnoir rolls reflex: (12)+5: 17
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UUUu-!" You get the point.
Brae, less inclined to aerodynamics than some, is coming down the line fast as Cryo hollars up her suspicions. The Korite clams up and gets ready for the sudden stop she's expecting as she feels the lasso surround her, her velocity changing and she slams into the stairwell. "Gaghk! UGh! Damnit!" She, nonetheless clings for dear life as best she can, "Alright, I'm down!" with a quick scan for a better anchor point.
AS Brae calls out, her voice intermittently cut s off.
