Mist Temple
With the Mist posion delivered to them by Comrade Ivan, the Adventuring Party make thier way to the mist “temple.” Valk gives directions to the ferryman they are using for transport, who is a little un easy about going so close to the mist. However as they get closer to where Valk is leading them they see a fragment hovering just on the boundry with the mists, its surface covered with mist that has creeped up and is slowly disolving the fragment. Just as they are about to land the part drink thier potions and move into the swirling mists, which come up to thier shins. There seems to be a pressure trying to invade their heads, but the effects of the potion seem to be keeping it out. Never the less thier time here is limited. Valk leads the party towards the centre of the fragment, and coming into sight through the mist appears some sort of tunnel entrance. Just inside the entrance there is a boulder blocking the way completly. Valk steps forward looking for a way to trigger a door or something similar, but with no success. When anja takes a look, she places here hands on the stone, and the mists around here begin to swirl. The mist gathers around her, so thick she cannot be seen by the rest of the party. It continues to swil getting thicker and thicker, encompessing the boulder as well. After a time the mist begins to spread, and eventually the party can see anja again, but the boulder has disapeared.
The first chamber in the caves has a large hole in the floor, and on the opposite wall a large map, with some instructions, written in a very old language it reads, “To reach your goal, you must travel through the tunnels in this fragment which have been carved out by the mist. Where it lingers here the mist has become distilled, concentrated, and any protection you have now will provide no defence here. But do not fear, there is a way to transverse these tunnels. Hidden in this room is breathing apperatus that will allow you to travel through these tunnels, however there is a catch, the apperatus has limited range, and need to be regually recharged, to this end there a regular points in the tunnel where this can be done. Below me is a map of the tunnel system, giving you the relative lengths of each of the tunnels between the recharge points. The equipment is designed so that there is only one safe route through the tunnels, that is the route which minimises the largest distance between recharge points.
Valk steps forward scratching slightly at his bristly chin.
“Tunnels, eh? No problem, I can handle tunnels; in fact I like tunnels. Tunnels full of mist, where pickin' the wrong turn means we die down there, our brains all meltin' and runnin' out our ears- yeah, not so good.”
He slouches over to the map and peers up at it, quietly counting under his breath.
“Bastards never seem to do these things to scale. It's the same with the tunnel maps in the City, they don't look anything like the real bloody thing. It's all symbolic. Hmm, well it's a fair bet we start at A, and I'm pretty sure we end at K. A-B-G-J-K”
He looks back at the rest of you.
“Anyone see a better route than that? 'Cause if I'm gonna die on one of these larks I don't want it to be because I misread some fuckin' ancient map.”
“Well assuming you're right about the start and end points, that looks like the best route to me. Want me to go a bit ahead in case things start going wrong?” - Show quoted text -
On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 3:02 PM, joseph williams valk_tiller@brokenworld.chaosdeathfish.com wrote:
Valk steps forward scratching slightly at his bristly chin.
“Tunnels, eh? No problem, I can handle tunnels; in fact I like tunnels. Tunnels full of mist, where pickin' the wrong turn means we die down there, our brains all meltin' and runnin' out our ears- yeah, not so good.”
He slouches over to the map and peers up at it, quietly counting under his breath.
“Bastards never seem to do these things to scale. It's the same with the tunnel maps in the City, they don't look anything like the real bloody thing. It's all symbolic. Hmm, well it's a fair bet we start at A, and I'm pretty sure we end at K. A-B-G-J-K”
He looks back at the rest of you.
“Anyone see a better route than that? 'Cause if I'm gonna die on one of these larks I don't want it to be because I misread some fuckin' ancient map.”
“Well assuming you're right about the start and end points, that looks like the best route to me. Want me to go a bit ahead in case things start going wrong?”
Catequil steps in close to the map and squints, the low hiss of his boiler louder, perhaps reacting somewhat to the presence of the Mists. “Looks like you have the right of it Valk. I can't see a better route”
Hawthorne peers at the map.
“I'd like to be bloody sure that there's no dust or anything on this map … it looks incomplete to me. There's no distance between F and I or F and H.”
He then begins to carefully wipe at the map to see if any additional details become apparent (such as the missing distances or the start and end being marked).
“Yes, I noticed that too. On the other hand I'm not sure that it matters.”
Sarr gets a bit of chalk out of his pocket and redraws the map on an empty piece of stone.
“So we don't know how long we have but we know that shorter trips are better so we can start by getting rid of the longest trips…”
Sarr uses his foot to skuff the chalk lines between H and K and between D and F that are of length 5.
“That doesn't really narrow it down so we can get rid of more.”
He scuffs the lines between D and G and B and E.
“Now this line here between A and D is effectively a dead end so we know there is no point using that. Though I guess we might want to go down there and see if there is anything interesting there…
“Anyway, we still have no unique path so we can scuff out the paths with the 3 next to them. That's AC, CF and IK.
“Now, if we look that leaves point I with only one valid path in or out so there is no point going down there and that is one of the unmarked lengths so best not even go down to see if there is anything interesting. Similarly the path between H to F is just a dead end and has no length…
“In terms of actual path ignoring all the dead ends the only viable path left that I haven't scuffed out as you can see is what Valk suggested. A to B. B to G. G to J and then J to K.
“Of course we can also get to D, E and C safely. as well if we wanted to see if there is anything there. Who knows who might have dropped interesting things down here…”
As Hawthorne rubs at the map, he reveals a little man stood over the A and a treasure chest over the K. He also reveals a 3 on F to H and a 4 on F to I. Finally he finds what seems like a loose stone, pulling on it, a door opens, to one side of the room, inside are 5 helmets with some strange contraptions built in, as well as a button which seems to activate the safty systems, and what seems like a slot to recharge them.
“Nice find, teach, I was wondering where that stuff was hidden.”
Valk gestures to Catequil.
“Quill, best you look at these thingies and make sure they're all full up before we go down.”
Peering down into the hole in the centre of the room, Valk whistles and Adamas, his golem strides noisily forwards. Valk touches the construct's chest which pops open, and then rummages around amongst the bags stuffed inside, eventually pulling out a long length of rope.”
“Okay, Adamas you hold this end of the rope and when we get back you pull us back up, okay?”
The golem nods gravely
“Right, we ready to go then?”
Well, assuming its obvious how these things will recharge. I assume that they charge up here as well… Just nice to know before we head down into the mists. Doesn't matter if we take the shortest tunnels if we spend too long working out how to recharge things…”
Catequil examines the equipment for a while, tapping pieces of metal, twisting rubber tubing and adjusting nuts & bolts. “It looks like the re-breathers are in good condition, but I can't guarantee this without taking them to pieces. It might then take me more than a while to put them back together again successfully. I think given where we find ourselves, we mght want to take a chance.
The party decend into the tunnels, thier helmits whiring to keep them supplied with normal air. In the tunnels the mist is much thicker, almost more like a liquid than mist. You can't see you hand in front of your face, mindfull that there helmets could stop any second, they try to keep the pace up groping at the walls. Eventually the mist begins to thins, and Valk taking point cries back he's found a ladder, climbing up the party find themself in the room, less dense with mist, like the map room. As they look around their helmets stutter to a halt, and the familiar pressure of the mist potion returns. In the centre of this room is a machine looking similar in technology to that of the helmets. A cable is coming out of it, with a fixture that attaches to the helmet, in turn the party connect up their helmet, and what looks like congealed mist is drawn out. Their helmets recharged, they look for a way out, at the other end of the room is a corridor, and they can see at the end of that, 3 tunnels leading back down into the mists, each with a letter scribed above it. However between the party and the corridor is what appears to be a translucent wall. Sarr takes a stone that litters the ground. Throwing it at the wall, it seems to dissolve as it touches it. Anja and Valk begin to look for ways of deactivating it. Anja finds under a pile of stones a swich, that lowers the wall, the party passes through and into the tunnels. They proceed through the tunnels, at the next station, the party are overcome by an urge to kill each other. It is at this point that Catequils words enter everyone's heads, that they are all friends, bound together by fate, that they must overcome this obstacle. After this the urge is still there, but is more easily overcome. It appears that the Ties that Bind Relic has overcome whatever enchantment the temple has, its ideas of Fellowship overwhelming the desire to kill. When they come to the recharge station, this one appears to be damaged. Catequill takes a look, and an important bit seem to have been yanked off. Searching the room, Hawthorne finds a pile of skeletons, clenched in one of thier hands is the part, it is sharp like a knife. Another group obviously made it down hear, but got no futher, sucumming to in fighting. Catequil opens his chest, and pulls out some materals. With some expert skills, he reattaches the part, recharging their helmets they again head into the tunnels towards their destination on the map. As the emerge from the tunnels again, they find themselves at the destination. Before they can look for the relic, dopplegangers rise from the mist. With seemless skill, Sarr Hawthorne and Catequill dispach the creatures, anyone lacking skill with the blade with soon fall to the creatures. But these fighters parry the blows with ease, and counter attack, plunging their swords into the creatures, they explode into mist. At the back of the room are foor sall clam like objects. Opening them up, releases what appears to be a man. Trying to communicate with him has no effect, and closing the clam makes him dissapear. It seems to be some sort of illusion. Futher back are three shrines, each with writing above them. The first says “Ring of Illusion” Putting on the ring will allow you to take the appearance of others, you can take any form you concentrate on, as long as its humanoid.
The second is “Septre of destruction” hold this septre to an object and concentrate, and the object will disolve. The Third is “Circlet of insight” if you touch someones temple while wearing it, you can enter one of their memories, and change it.
“So whose going to be representing mist did we decide? I've lost track… I think it was Anja, right?”
“Anja is indeed the one who brings the Mists to our group, who will help us tie the fate of the Mists to our ultimate ends. It is for her to decide.”
Upon reaching the final room Anja looks across each of the three objects on display. She looks for a moment from the ring to the circlet and after some time walks over to the shrine with the “Ring of Illusion” on it. Without pausing she picks up the ring and slips it on her finger. She looks across at the other party members before focusing in on Valk and concentrating on his form.
Valk looks sourly over at Anja as she stares at him.
“You know what, Anja? I can't help but think you *are* a Mist Mage.”
Anja gives Valk a rather dark look. “Yes, Valk, right now I'm trying to figure out how easy it would be to melt your brain with my mind. And I'm thinking well at least there wouldn't be that much to concentrate on. Say, are you going to tell me I have no soul again?”
After a few seconds, Anja's form swirls and changes, as it begins to settle, there are 2 Valk Tillerman in the room.
Valk balks as Anja shifts into his mirror image.
“Oh for fuck's sake! I spent a month in Department S quarantine, tied to a bed having needles poked into me and tubes stuck up my nose; I've paid for anything I might have said. *And* I apologised. Can't you just let it go?”
He angrily stomps forwards and sweeps the four 'clams' into the group's loot bag.
Anja pulls off the ring, her form reverting to normal, and places it in her pouch. As she readjusts her breathing apparatus she meets Valk's eyes. “You were the one who brought it up.”
“Is it just me or is it getting Mistier in here?” With one of the items taken, the other items begin to disappear into nothing, and gradually the party realize the mist is getting thicker, and decide it is a good idea to leave, as the party make their way back through the tunnels, each recharge point seems to have thicker and thicker mist, until they get back to the first room, where it seems to be little different from the tunnels themselves.
Adamas who is still waiting for them scoops them up, and with surprising speed for a creature made of Diamond, he sprints out of the caves, the fragment seems to be moving deeper into the mists, the Ferryman seeing them coming (and who thinks he isn't getting paid enough for this.) is still waiting, and warms up the fragment. With a massive leap Adamas springs up to land on the fragment which is quickly raised out of the mists.