Riven lifts the monocle to his left eye and scans the room as the box is examined.
"Chess pieces...black and white rooms.Possible correlation?"
He waits in the chess room using the monocle to look around to see what comes of the chest opening.
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Aterro was shocked to his core as Ashlyn hugged him softly, the warmth of her form seeming to come through his heavy armor. 'Torm strike me dead but I'll never understand women,' he thought.
He followed the group along, keeping his own council in this odd place, but as the chess pieces are discovered, he asks Wan, "What know you of these game pieces? Is this a trap to be solved, or simply a random room with neither purpose nor meaning?"
One of the knights has been moved recently. The two rooks are covered in vomit and look awkwardly positioned against the other pieces.
The black line beneath Wan twists and turns, growing in complexity and weaving a tapestry across the floor. It draws out an image of an old man who looks identical to Wan'di, surrounded by scenes of extreme war and violence.
Though grown complex and intricate, the line remains unbroken from one doorway to the other.
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With the OCD of a man who likes crisp lines and a spear attack along the horizontal, Aterro, almost without thought, wanders onto the chess board. Unsure of what is covering the pieces, he moves them with his foot, gently pushing them back to their starting positions.
If he encounters no resistance in repairing the board to a perfect starting-state, almost idly, expecting nothing, he'll push out the white king's pawn two steps.
Then he'll nod, as things will be as they should be.
Tenchi stays off of the chessboard as best as possible, and then follow Wan'di along the path.
Just as you move the chess pieces around, you feel multiple presences in your head, trying to take control of your limbs. You are able to resist them.
Riven continues examining the objects he found in particular the strange rust colored bag with a small fuzzy object within. He removes the object examining it closely.
The bag and object are of unknown origin to you, apart from Wan'di's Detect Magic spell causing it to glow.
Wan'di keeps moving careful to stay on the line, Well I guess it couldn't be easy...
Leaving the chest, Thratch follows Wan on the black path in the next room.
As Thratch steps onto the black line with Wan, the pattern again starts to shift, growing in complexity.
Wan notices it's taking much longer than he thought to cross.
Vehemence follows Wan'di, adhering to his steps as closely as possible. He steers clear of all possessed pawns and kings.
Let us find someone whose mettle is worth the meddling... Lady Capilli!
Vehemence remembers the blue benefactor and her penchant for trifling beauties, and begins to fight in himself, weighing the risk of foreign crafts' dangers with the reward of potential leverage or secrets to pathways of greater dominion.
It had been forever since he had heard the welcoming cries of urgent prayers, or even the ability to give to those prayers the furnaces' blessing.
He'd take on any sod barbarian he met at this juncture, for either nostalgia or blood.
Wan'di shouts as he moves, I don't know if anyone can hear me, but this thing is showing me what I fear! Be careful, I assume things get much worse leaving the line!
As Thratch walks the line the pattern expands, adding images of wrathful gods, starvation, angry authority figures and members of the party. The pattern grows in intricacy and complexity, weaving across the floor.
Then Vehemence joins, and the pattern expands further and grows still more complex.
The line weaves and expands to add Vehemence's fears, growing more complex and intricate.
Images spring forth of the Furnace King in chains, his kingdom torn asunder, his wife forever lost to him. The delicate lines convey an existential emptiness of all hope lost forever, of bonds that will never be broken.
For those journeying their lines, now their resolve is tested.
Thratch and Wan hold steady in their determination, but the threat of nothingness is too much for Vehemence and he begins to falter.
He stumbles and falls onto the white space on the floor, little that remains, and is immediately overwhelmed by fear.
As the terror grips your soul, you feel as though the only thing that will release you is to do something that will endanger either yourself or someone else.
For now, Thratch and Wan continue on walking the ever-more complex line to the other side.
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Thratch yells out, Holy f&&%, he's found me! Then he realizes that it's just the images in the lines, and Garund really isn't here.
Then he sees the rest and his fears lay out in front of him. The fear of getting caught by his old guild master, Garund. The fear of disappointing his new friends, which he considers his new guild. The fear of going hungry - like he did as a child. The existential fear of the existence of gods and morality - which would mean that when he dies, he will be punished for all his sins and crimes.
But he holds fast. He may be guilty and haunted by his fears, but he realizes that the only consequences here are dread and a fugitive mind.
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Riven watches the procession of people attempting the room on the right and pays notes how they push on despite claiming to be facing things they fear. These living creatures were alien to him in their logic, why would they be so reckless without taking time to collect data?
Perhaps they knew something he once had, a sense of mortality and that life could not be ordered. His eyes wandered to Thratch and he suddenly has a flash of nostalgic memory to another young man he had known once. He'd been a friend, full of spirit and optimism, until the empire came to their village. He too had been reckless following Riven around as they got into trouble.
A glitch in his memory cut to the young man tied to a post in the middle of the town and lashed 15 times for some offense. Blood and tears stained the ground...
Riven looked down at his hand holding the lash...only there was no lash, only a small ball of fuzz. He dropped it to the ground as he came out of his trance.
He moved to examine the box first and than the chainmail shirt.
You aren't able to identify more about the box through Arcane knowledge.
Riven drops the ball of fuzz onto the ground with some force.
The ball of fuzz turns into a lion, which then looks at Riven and the rest of the party and begins to sniff around the room, batting at the chess pieces.
Riven readies his shield in sudden surprise as the lion appears but seeing the lion is not hostile he studies it.
"Either a magical construct or a dimensional summoned creature. Do you understand my words? If so do not go near the chess pieces."
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Like a sucker punch from the gods- hell, even Remorse himself- Vehemence falls to the floor.
The images flock around him, prodding his mind further. He comes to face a deep seated foe unconquerable, one enemy hidden which he never considered; enslavement to a perverse and unknown power. Their imminence was palpable to him- the chains. He had never fathomed the true horrors which may befall him in his current state of finite weakness- he was always the one on top, he was always the apex, if not the challenger.
He had never once fathomed in his existence that he could become the quarry; that he could become a slave. Death was impermanent to him; he was not a mortal, that he should be bound by his blood. He would always be, in one manner or another. Eternity was always before him, always as a deer waiting for him to ensnare. In this moment he pondered for the first time the chance that would be divorced from any exaction of his own will. To be subservient to that of an other.
He was coming to terms with the vulnerabilities that came with being nothing but a wanderer, but to have even that ability to rebuild replaced with the chains of servitude... He would have none of it. If he did not fight in this moment, Vehemence perceived that he could lose whatever amount of fight he had left.
"I WILL NOT BE AS SOME PALTRY- Djinn caught in a BOTTLE!"
The furnace king spits as the words hoarsely echo from his gut. The words were wracked with pain. He knew he had only one way out of this sentence: he must do as he had done thousands of times before: to gain power through blood. His fell magic had kept him sustained up until this point, but if he were to give sway any further in this moment to weakness, he feared that those who wished to bind him as the devil he was would be upon him, with their chains... with their circles.
His eyes flit frantically. The terrors were prying into his soul and laying him bare. He felt them burying him alive. He sook for a shovel to dig himself out with- a heart to dig in to.
And at the apex of his weakness, his blackened pupils find the small one whom he'd come to admire- Thratch the thief.
Vehemence has no time. The tendrils of fear subsuming his consciousness demand violence. It's not as if he's an alien to this; it's how he's made a living for millenia. But he has no time. No time for tricks, no time for more delays. Instead of summoning the brand which he oft employs, he suffices for one of the mundane daggers he's kept on his person.
Some stray idea sprints across his forehead, saying almost comically: The blade would be big enough, he's a small enough kid.
Another part of his mind was shouting deaf threats.
Thratch was a friend! After sojourning so long, in so many places in contention and isolation, he had found one who accepted him easily- without knowing who he even was. The terrible furnace king of Uaelnosque. The spineless monarch of self-preservation.
He held the haft in his hand, and beckoned that HIMSELF be before him.
Vehemence hollers to Thratch, half to scare, half to alarm. At one point in this madness he didn't know what he was doing anymore.
He just had to make it all stop, the alien craziness in his head.
I've done worse to better for less...
A meandering thought chides him. He tries to blame his son for this mess, but he can't even bring himself to that anymore. He feels so soft, so conflicted in every way.
He strikes.
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Riven's head snaps up from where he was focused on the lion at the yell from Vehemence. He watches as the dagger flashed and the Furnance King attacked Thratch who not long ago he spoke words of preserving existence.
"Cease hostility at once!"
He moves toward the doorway stopping before entering the room a slot opening up on his wrist and a small scroll full of arcane text appearing in his hand.
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The dagger slices into Thratch - a deep cut.
Ow! You f~~!er!
Thratch rolls back to absorb the blow as best he can, droplets of blood flying off him, and then leaps from one part of the path to another on his way to the far side of the room.
The magic of the room has entrapped him. I must get him out!
Come on, Furnace King. This way. Good little King. Follow me, Thratch says, trying to pull Vehemence out of the room.
As the new mechanical man calls for the hostility to cease, Thratch yells out, No! Stay back! Too many in this room can cause chaos! I'm pulling him out through the other door! I got this! I know what I'm doing - trust me!
I sure as f+~@ hope I know what I'm doing.
Back to Vehemence, Thratch gets into his roll, a roll he was very used to from his youth. That of the taunt. He thought of everything he knew from Vehemence, and used every bit of dripping torment he could muster.
Come, oh Impotent Lord! You who lost your throne to a BOY! A snivling BOY who outsmarted the king of passion! The throne-less, who will be forced to rebuild not your own kingdom, but that of your son's as he wraps his chains around your neck!
Come to me, Throne-less, for I embody the spirit of the one who trapped you here. I am REMORSE!
Oh god, I'm going to get myself killed.
Tenchi joins his companions walking the line, which shifts further to add his fears. The lines add visions of Tenchi's lord destroyed, his family made ronin, causing despair and dishonor.
Tenchi's resolve holds true as he's confronted with his worst fears. He does not allow them to dominate his will, and anything less would be dishonorable.
Wan begins to shuffle along the lines faster, I new that weirdo was crazy but hot damn is this room getting to hot for me.
Vehemences' eyes widen, not in a glare but in a gasping shock.
Thratch was effortlessly confusing his already throttled mind.
So many urges clashing with ever pervasive curses.
"YOU CAN'T..."
The words escape him. He can't allow the force to ensnare him. He has to fight. He has to fight- NOW.
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Aterro holds at the entrance as Kusinagi joins the conga line in the oddly scary room, and looks on with a mix of curiosity and an odd sense of comeuppance as the communist-theif finally seems to be getting what's coming to him. "Ha! Ooo! Careful, there, good Thratch! He almost ended the dance! Ha! Good swing, Vehemence, give him what for!"
Still, the warlock seems a bit too eager in his bloodletting. 'Twould not do have the lesson be learned too richly.
"Careful, now, Thratch. And remember: The man who has nothing can still have faith."
An orange cloud of glowing dust leaves the WarCleric's hands and flies gently at the thief, settling about his shoulders and suturing the worst of his wounds.
Aterro holds up a halting hand at Riven. "Stay thy path. Let us take it one at a time. 'Twould seem that this room's greatest threat is the man next to you."
Riven turns his head slightly to encompass Aterro as he speaks. "My intention is not to attempt to cross the room. You encourage hostility between your companions...this is...illogical. I do not acknowledge this as acceptable parameters for relationships. Vehemence and Thratch accelerate toward the unknown which poses a greater threat to their existence then returning to this room and resolving this chaotic factor."
Riven keeps his place at the door, ready to burn the magic item at his disposal to hinder Vehemence if he somehow gains a deadly advantage on Thratch.
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Tenchi will pop his neck and then walk up to Vehemence and attempt to shove him towards the nearest door.
Thratch stumbles as he tries to move to the exit, falling and touching the white space.
As you land on white space on the floor, he fears that have been taunting you in the patterns take full hold and you're as gripped as Vehemence is.
You feel that you've let down your group, everyone that's important to you, and as the terror grips your soul, you feel as though the only thing that will release you is to do something that will endanger either yourself or someone else.
You also understand why Vehemence chose to attack you.
Thratch screams and runs blindly into the next room.
They've found me! Gotta run gotta run gotta run gotta run gotta run