To New Horizons(2nd ed game, game thread)

[PurpleXVI]

Lorath

It took a bit of careful searching and a stubbed toe, when he finally found it it was because of him almost tripping over it, not because of actually seeing it, but Lorath managed to locate his shield.

Once back on course, nothing seemed to care to burst out and assault him, occasionally something would brush against his leg or disturb the water as it swum past him, but those creatures all seemed to either be perfectly ordinary fish, or not hungry at the moment.

In the room where he'd fallen, he managed to find the object that he'd seen floating on the water before. All it looked like, though, was a shard of thick, curved crystal or glass. It didn't seem to have much use, though it was curved enough that if someone was to smooth the edges, it might make a serviceable bowl.

The wooden door, half-submerged as it was, proved to be difficult to open. It was swollen into it's frame, and the handle was as rotten as the rest of it, coming off as soon as he grabbed it and pulled. However, Lorath was able to pry it open by bracing his legs against the wall on one side of the door, under the water, and digging his fingers into the soft, crumbling wood near the frame. There were a tense few seconds where he wondered if the wood or his arms would give first, but then the door creaked and almost half of it tore away with a squelch. The sewage-like odor of rotting plant matter filled the air as the innards of the barrier were exposed, almost making Lorath gag, but at least now he could continue.

Beyond the doorway was a room even darker than the one he'd come from, it was hard to make out anything at all, but a bit of searching around the walls with his hands confirmed that large parts of it had collapsed, leaving not much of it except for a narrow, twisting passage across it and a few small hollows along it.

At the other end of the passage was another doorway, though this one didn't have a door in it, which lead to a room about the size of a broom closet. A bit of searching around with his feet told Lorath that the room contained stairs leading down, but investigating them would involve diving into pitch blackness.

As the elf backed out of the small room, he felt something brush against his head softly, further investigation revealed it to be a rotting arm protruding from one of the walls. It's dimensions felt human, it was buried up to the shoulder, it wasn't moving and it looked like it had been buried when whatever collapsed the room had happened.


Ulik, Evon

Trudging ahead like a sleepy zombie, Evon boldly stepped through the doorway. Ulik could hear him splashing around for a bit in ankle-deep water, then he let out a low moan that could have been a badly mangled: "Duuuuuuuude." It was answered by another moan, and Evon began to shamble back towards the doorway, followed by the sounds of the previous shambler.

First Ulik's raft stepped out, then his new "friend." It had apparently once been a human woman, and still looked like one, partially. Her red leather armor was nothing but tattered rags and her short, blonde hair was matted with filth, her eyes were sunken and her paleness would make a vampire ask her to go sunbathe for a while. She looked like she hadn't slept for months, and judging by the way her clothes hung loosely on her gaunt frame, she hadn't eaten in that long, either.

Three eyes, each a different colour, appeared to have sprouted from her forehead in some haphazard sheme, and small, multi-coloured horns poked out through her hair, also apparently without any pattern to their placement. Parts of her skin had become thick, dark and leathery, almost like inch-thick calluses. Under her skin, wide black veins seemed to run along her muscles, contracting and relaxing as she moved.

She looked at Ulik, made a hungry sound and started ambling towards him, shoving Evon out of the way as she did so, the unresisting man stumbling into the wall. Bone-like blades of varying lengths and widths began sprouting from her body as she approached, some sticking out at meaningless angles and positions, others from her arms, as though she'd strapped a sword to them. Their sources seemed to be small parasites, like the one that had attacked Ulik in the abandoned house. None looked bigger than the blade of a short-sword, but they all looked plenty sharp.


Balth, Gan, Bas, Tamora, Anne

(OOC: Since CD has expressed his dislike for the game, I'm going to assume that his character is an NPC for the time being, then dispose of him eventually unless he changes his mind.)

"It was rather a gamble, coming here," Balth told Tamora, as he handed her back her equipment, "For all we knew, you could have been stuck somewhere inside the cliff, in a cave or some such. Glad to see that the gamble paid off, though if it hadn't been for the druid, we would all likely have been dead."

As the ranger clenched her fists, she found that nothing seemed to not be working as it should, though her joints felt a bit strange, it was as though they had all gained a few extra degrees of movement.

The ground where Tamora and Gan had burst forth looked normal, though the earth had been churned up some by it. It felt as densely packed as any of the other land in the clearing. As Bas passed near it, he briefly felt a presence probing him, examining him, and then retreating. It was accompanied by forest smells, rotting things, growing things and the damp smell under the thick jungle vegetation, though they left with it.

[ 02-23-2007, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath took the crystal object and placed it in his pack. It might not be worth anything, but he would have to discern that on his own. At the least, it could be used as a bowl or cup of some sort. While he was putting it into his pack, he spent a few seconds freeing his new trouser snake so that it could be swung at an enemy who got too close.

Once inside the room, he immediately covered his face wit his hand. The smell... oh God, the smell! He considered leaving, but what might have been in the room ushered him onward. When the arm brushed against him he ducked down, trying to get away from it. He would have to return to this room later, it seemed, and possibly investigate the staircase. For now though, he went back out and through the other open doorway. If only he had listened to his instructor when he was talking about the Light spell instead of doodling various scenes involving his classmates, he might have been able to do more with the staircase at the moment.

[ 02-23-2007, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: Man Who Fights Like Woman ]

[Caleb808]

Ulik circled around the undead creature so that it was between him and the waterfall while the wounds on his wrist reopened and began to bleed once more. He spun his hands in progressively larger circles, his blood hovering in the air instead of spattering in random directions, until a small red cyclone appeared in front of him, distorting the air with heat waves.

Just when his circlular motions could get no wider and the growing cyclone threatened to consume him, Ulik made a shoving motion and sent the burning winds toward the creature. If he didn't destroy it outright, he hoped to at least knock it over the edge and be rid of it.

[ 02-24-2007, 05:07 AM: Message edited by: Caleb808 ]

[Kazilan]

Bas crouched and ran his fingers through the grass at his feet.

"We've arrived at our destination, it would seem. Once you two recover sufficiently we should do some exploring. I'd also like to try and determine what was controlling the animals that attacked us, although we will need to tread carefully while we do so. Does anyone else have suggestions?"

[Armen]

Tamora

“I don’t think I’d like to travel too far tonight,” Tamora said in response to Bas’ last question. “Does this seem like a reasonable place to camp?” She rose to her feet and examined herself as best she could as yet unable to decide what to think about her slightly altered appearance and threw a resigned if confused look at Anne hoping to avoid her question about what happened in the cliffs. She stretched gingerly discovering a wider range of movement that she would have to be careful to keep control over. She would rest tonight and then run through some fighting drills in the morning to make sure.

“I’m happy to explore this area further and to investigate the strange behaviour of the animals that attacked you. I wonder if it's significant that both of the attacks we have experienced have been during storms.” She looked up at the cliffs behind her and turned to Anne. “Could you climb these do you think?” she asked.

[ 02-25-2007, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[PurpleXVI]

Lorath

The passage opposite the doorway that Lorath had forced open led into a twisting corridor full of right-angled turns. The floor was pitted and full of debris that had fallen when roots had forced their way through the ceiling. He often had to duck completely underwater to get past them, and once he almost got stuck, pinned for a few seconds between roots and rock until he managed to wriggle free and continue.

There were many side-corridors and doorways, but those that hadn't been blocked off by collapses, which only served to provide more for him to maneuver around, were sealed by featureless stone doors with no apparent way to open them.

Eventually, after about half an hour of wading, getting progressively colder and more soaked, he saw light up ahead. The corridor ended as it joined a larger, more natural-looking, cave, that extended far out of sight to both the left and the right. It was a long, wide thing that was entirely filled with a rushing river, the river moved towards something noisy far away on his right, it sounded like a waterfall.

A few feet of pathway extended out over the river from where the corridor ended before it abruptly stopped short, apparently having collapsed. Crossing the river from the end of the pathway to the other side, Lorath could see the occasional tip of a stone pillar, suggesting that they had once supported the rest of the path.

On the far other side, the elf could see another doorway. Above him, water was constantly dripping from the ceiling, and an impressive collection of stout stalagtites had formed, many of them covered in patches of fainly luminescent fungus which threw enough light for him to see by.


Ulik, Evon

Ulik's magical blast of superheated air caught the woman dead-on. For a half-second her matted hair billowed backwards and her soaked clothes dried, then they began to instanteously combust. First, the multi-coloured eyes on her forehead went, they shrivelled up and fell off, revealing themseves to only have been stuck on the surface. Next, blisters began to form on her skin as her hair began to smolder. Then, one by one, the various inhuman parts began to drop off of her. First the blade-beetles let out their piercing shrieks and dropped off, black smoke billowing from their carapaces as their insides burned. Then the heavy calluses began to wilt and turn to dust. Last to go were the brightly coloured horns, the little nubs seemed to first swell, then pop and deflate, revealing themselves to have been something else entirely.

As the last of them was destroyed, a change happened in the woman's ordinary eyes. Thus far, she had soldiered on bravely against the wind, oblivious to the pain, but now it was clearly marked on her face. She staggered backwards against the gale force, screamed in pain and began flailing at her burning hair and clothes as the wind overwhelmed her, pushing her over the edge of the waterfall. Her scream continued as she dropped, then was suddenly cut off, probably by an impact with something hard or with the water's surface, but considering the length of the drop, it was probably a minor point which of the two she hit.

Evon gave Ulik a tentative thumbs up, then sat down and tried to make a bong from one of the beetles after knocking the ash out of the chitin.


Balth, Gan, Anne, Bas, Tamora

"I don't have a particular preference as to where we go," said Balth, in reply to Bas' question, "But if you all intend to head much further south or eastwards, I'll have to leave you. My tribe will begin to wonder where I am, if they aren't already, I was only supposed to be gone for a week while I scouted out the jungle for any trading partners. I'll stay with you as long as you remain near the cliffs, though, that won't make my trip back any worse. The only suggestion I can come up with is to let mysteries remain mysteries and get out of here before the animals return, your magic might not work next time."

The cliffs looked climbable to Anne as she studied them, very smooth, but full of hollows and handholds. It was a few hundred feet to the top, however, the main question was whether her strength, and her luck, would hold out all the way.

Gan remained quietly in the background, running his fingers over his elongated limbs and testing his joints. Tamora's bird had folded itself up and appeared to be resting on top of one of the stone slabs in the clearing.

[ 02-25-2007, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: PurpleXVI ]

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath walked out onto the broken path, and stopped before it ended. Looking out on the sets of pillars he had to cross and the distance between them, he quickly devised a plan. First he reached into his bag, and pulled out his length of rope. After he tied it into a lasso of sorts with a loop which could be tightened or loosened as he pulled on the longer length of rope, he cast Strength on himself. Then he cast Enlarge on himself, to make it more likely that he could reach each pillar.

His process for crossing the river was surprisingly simple. First he would throw his rope to grasp around one of the pillars ten yards away, and when it finally wrapped around he would pull it tight while it was still above the water. When the rope was secured to the pillar he would wrap it around himself as well, and pull himself across by way of the rope. Then he would pull himself up onto the pillar and repeat, until he was on the other side.

[Caleb808]

Ulik assists Evon with the creation of his beetle bong. When it's complete, Ulik takes a hit of Evon's stash and rests to recover from his wounds.

[dplax]

Anne

In the slowly fading sunlight Anne examined the crevices, hand and footholds the first couple dozen feet of the cliff offered.

"If the cliff is as easy to climb all the way as the lower parts of it, then it is definitely doable. I still would prefer doing it in full daylight and after resting though. Today has tired me out and I fear I might make a mistake if attempting the full climb now."

She paused for a moment, judging how much time was left until sunset, then throwing another glance at the lower areas of the cliffs, plotting a course.

"I'll climb to a height above the canopy of the trees and try to see whether I can spot where we are on the map we found earlier."

She reached inside of her pocket and placed her coins - 5 gold and 12 silver - on the ground, before placing her flute and dagger next to them. Anne then reached again to her pocket and a puzzled look appeared on her face.

Slowly, she withdrew a small, about two inches wide silver cup from the depths of her pocket. Her puzzlement only grew as she saw what the object was...she did not remember how and when it had entered her possession, but from the engravings at the circular base of the cup, she could tell that it was elven-made, though she did not understand the writing, it being made in an ancient form of elven.

"I don't remember having this cup..." she softly whispered.

Placing it down on the ground next to the rest she checked that her pockets were now fully empty. She did not want anything falling from them while climbing.

She walked to the base of the cliff, and tentatively tested the strength of the rock with one hand before starting to climb to an approximative height of fifty feet in order to see over the trees.

[Kazilan]

Bas took a seat close to the cliff with a good view of Anne's ascent, his staff resting horizontally across his legs.

"Let's rest here then. My only suggestion is that we keep away from the center of the clearing."

Bas looked up and marked Anne's progress. While he did not expect anything to happen, he wanted to be ready in case she fell or the cliff somehow attacked her. Given the events of the past couple of days, he didn't know which was more likely.