"ARMOUR OF CUDDLES MY ASS! DISENCHANT IT, SMASH IT, JUST MAKE IT STOP MOVING!" Sora backs off again and lashes for the cracked sections. If they could just take off its sword arm, or make it unable to hold together, she would be safe!
Seeing the tide of combat turn, Nathan turns to bring his spear down into the armor's helmet.
Himnon tries to damage the armor.
Tags: Close, Piercing 1 (GM removes one non-range tag, so no piercing)
Ysolde creeps along the passage, holding her Lantern aloft. The girl no doubt looks fairly harmless, wearing a slightly glowing chain shirt that goes down to her knees, with weathered pants that are muddied up to the calves, her bare feet (She abandoned the platformed shoes she wore in the temple less than a mile into her journey) leaving bloody footprints every other step. her (Decorate) wings are muddied and disheveled.
This is an unnessesary risk, you should go back Antares says over their telepathic link
I can hear people up ahead, They sound like they need help She replies aloud
You're right, but be careful, it could be a trap
The goddess clearly had a sense of humour the day she made you, a craven guardian
And the day she made you, a flightless Skychild
You're mean today! Ysolde pouts, half joking, but still a little hurt
This exchange is cut short as they turn a corner, and walk in on a scene, of pure chaos, as a tattooed mage casts forth power, vaguely Reminiscent of Shy's powers, two spear-wielders, one clinging to the ceiling, the other incredibly fast, attack a suit of armour, which appears to be moving on its own, and A beautiful skyfolk twirls away from the armours blade. Antares instinctively protects Shy and Ysolde, But the saint herself freezes under the presure. Antares breaks the spell quickly The torchlight, use the Torchlight!He screams over their link.
She raises one hand, and points toward the armour, and then says, in the same voice she uses to soothe Antares, Stop that thing from hurting them
[ooc]It is temporarily blinded and stunned
Follow me if you want to get out of here She calls to the group fighting the beast.
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Kara looks over at the new speaker, a grin from ear-to-ear already plastered on her face as the battle-heart rises within her. "Get out of here?? We've only just begun, Ysolde! But you can stand off to the side...if you're too afraid."
Kara kept trying to bring herself to like Ysolde, but the race-bond between her and Sora drew the two winged-folk together, making her seem like a third wheel. Not the she was jealous. Of course not. What a silly suggestion for you to make.
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With the last solid hit, Kara wedges her spear under the one leg the the animated armor had managed to plant and trips it, the massive suit plunging heavily to it's knees. The agile skirmisher finshes the maneuver by kicking the immobile armor in the back, and the steel breastplate smashes to the ground.
Kara leaps on the thing's back, fouling attacks by anyone else, and holds the spear high in a killing blow.
"Hold!" she calls out from her metal perch. "Mayhap this thing is a slave like us, some spirit trapped by the whipmaster's vile whim. Perhaps it, also like us, has intelligence enough to make amends for it's past deeds.
...or perhaps 'tis naught but a machine made for killing.
You hear me, animated thing? If you have desire for redemption, then show now humilty. Give us the sign of the Missio...or embrace the peace you have earned this day!"
Sora's head snaps to the new arrival..."YSOLDE?! How did you get here?! Were you captured too? But then...forget this, I'm OUT!" Sora abandons all attempt at assault to hide behind her.
Looking...oh, her poor wings. They're in such a mess. She's already got stunted wings...that blasted church had ruined her. She had no idea what they'd done to her. Perhaps...she should have a word with their head.
Sora slams her chain down on the armor, it whips its arm up, and the chain wraps around it scraping and squealing, leaving even more damage, but it pulls its arm to the side exposing Sora, who gets a gash along its side for her trouble
A new comer arrives at the top of the stairs and causes the light from the sapphires around the room to swirl around Cuddles and it seems to bind it in place.
Mean while, Himnon send a crackling spell into the cracks on the armor, and they begin to widen, but the spell seems to fizzle and not be effective
Nathan moves back towards Cuddles and drops off the ceiling to attack the prone suit of armor, it creates a huge rent in the help, knocking open the face plate, revealing a glowing light from within, at the same time Kara slams her spear into the chest plate again and again causing it to explode in a shower of molten metal.
Inside there are a 4 more sapphires, but they only faintly glow. The armor attempts to raise its blade, but it is unable to do so, though it keeps trying, and Sora immediately flies back and away, grimacing at the pain in her wing
What do you do?
Nathan's mouth opens in a smile, and the glow of one of the sapphires shines through. He drops the rock into his hand and spits on the floor. "See? The armor's mostly harmless. No idea what you were so scared of, Sora."
Sora breathes heavily, clutching her side. "Somebody...someone take that sword off of it. It might be why it's fighting. And while you're at it, punch Nathan. That thing is not 'mostly harmless'."
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Kara puts one small but tough foot on the arm of the fallen armor.
She looks at the four weak gems in the chest, then at the strong gems along the wall.
She wonders if there would be some way to repair, or replace the gems, and maybe get the armor to work for them...
...but she is not very learned in such things.
Kara finds her self an xp in the back of her brain. She gets it in her head that the best way to figure it out would be to take the old gems out. If she did that then she could probably figure out how they work.
Sora ponders how to get the armour to cooperate. The Whipmaster had intended to give it her. Surely he had a means to make it work for her?
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"Craven?... but he's so pretty," Shyness barely manages to get out before bumping into the back of her friend with her broom.
"You know these people, Ysolde?," she asks with just a touch of jealousy in her voice. "You've been everywhere," the red-haired girl adds as she pulls her hood down just a little more, just seeing the armor and sword fall to the ground. "Oh, I've seen a picture like that in one of my books. It's..."
Amaranth is not quite content just leaving the armor as is. The threat at least seems mitigated for now. She dashes off to Sora.
Are you alright, Sora?! Oh gods if I'd known...
Shyness immediately knows that removing the gems is a terrible idea. What you have found is very valuable and very rare. It is an example of the lost art of gemhearting. The glowing gems are through a lost process implanted into the armor which then gives it life. Each of the four gems is responsible for a different thing. One makes the legs work, one the arms, another gives it sentience and the last is what keeps it "alive". She also know that the four gems being implanted can siphon power from each other to keep from crumbling to dust. If they all crumble it will "die"
Sora forces a smile through the pain. "Relax, Ammy, it's not your fault. I..." Sora starts coughing. While she's only taken a wound to the side and the leg, they're both pretty bad. Her wing isn't looking quite right either. "Sorry...oh god, this hurts. Sis, I don't know how you got here, but can you help me out? Maybe tell me who this is with you?" Sora slumps against the wall, still holding on to her side.
Yeah, sure Ysolde says, helping her sister to stand. What happened to your shoulder? she asks.
This is Shyness, she's nice, you'll like her. She's a witch, and she says to leave the Gems alone, she wants to study the armour she says, already accustomed to being Shynesses voice. she gestures for Shy to come over here They're nice people, this is my sister, Sora. She has nice, real wings she folds her own wings tightly to her back, now wanting them to be compared.
She sits her sister down, and goes to work binding her wound as best she can, with strips of cloth . What happened to your wings, you're missing a lot of feathers? she asks, getting mre concerned as she continues to examine her sister What were you doing down here, all of you? she asks, suddenly very concerned, as the evidence piles up.
"Hey, you do too. There's no need to hide them." They were beautiful, even if they'd been left stunted. She winces as the cloth is applied. "That said, you're going to want to keep them away from Nathan - the idiot in the hat. You two wanna be wary of him in general. He'll go for anything that moves. ANYTHING. Even his own sister. The pervert's slept his way round the entire place...almost. I'm sure he'd try it on more than a few times with girls as pretty as you two." Nathan receives the universal look for "Stay off my sister" as Sora talks.
She lets out another gasp of pain as Ysolde keeps working. "That armour's where I lost the feathers. It...oh god, it hurts, you know it does, but they'll be back quickly enough." Ysolde missed it initially, but there's a cloak of feathers tied about Sora's waist. They're unmistakably from her wings. The amount here is enough to warrant some of the most gruesome tortures and executions their kind has to offer. It raises big, bad questions. She's otherwise unclothed apart from it. Everyone but Ysolde, Shyness and Reno isn't really wearing much, if anything.
"We were all slaves down here. Ammy excepted - fire lady. She's been looking after me as much as possible as one of the guards. Been worked through hell for god knows how long by that a$&&!$% Drazhu. Which really makes me wonder why you two are here."
Ysolde suddenly becomes very uncomfortable, realizing she might have to explain the intricacies of fornication to her new friend. No no no, sweetie, not a nightmare monster. I'll explain it to you later she says, trying to emulate the nuns who instructed her all her life, and not realizing howcondescending it sounds.
She deflects momentarily by inspecting the brand on her sisters shoulder They did this to you? she asks, before swooping in, ostensibly to check the shoulder further, and whispering in Sora's ear I will give you anything if you can give her that talk instead of me, before going back to cleaning Sora;s wounds
after Sora answers, she turns to Kara and inquires about the crates.
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Nathan pops his sapphire into place where the others indicate the thing's reasoning draws power, and indicates with a gesture that they should wait to replace the other stones.
To the newcomers, and little miss presumptive introduction, Nathan flashes a smile, thumbs his nose, and leans against the wall. "I mean, if dreams are your thing, I know a few plants we could experiment with."
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Sora's watching out for something like this as Nathan starts to abuse her lack of knowledge. She didn't even care if she got the wrong idea. He deserved it.
Warning delivered, she's back to chatting with Ys. "Yeah. One of his subordinates, the Shipmaster, did this. It was going to be something else, but then one of his fellow lackeys suggested this." Sora starts whispering. "This guy is known to the others as the Whipmaster. As I find out later, the guy had fallen for me. I think it was his idea of claiming a bride...he REALLY regretted it later when he found out what that meant. He'd been buying my feathers from another guy, the Tunnel-Keep, too - basically had to just take it as he plucked my feathers just to have my wings free. Back to Whippy, the guy's the perfect example of 'lovestruck ignorant outsider', so he's untouchable for stuff like this by our law. Didn't even touch me too, despite what he did to other people. Seemed like he was turning himself around, too. Power of love, huh? Put his awful stuff together with what I found, and I get some really bad mixed feelings. Guy's dead, so I can't find out if he'd have changed."
Sora passes Ysolde the Whipmaster's journal to look through. Better to see to understand. "Keep it intact. You'll understand why. And Sis? I'll give Shy the talk, but you owe me one. In the meantime, what you did earlier? Do it to Nathan. PLEASE. He's been bugging me so much. Kara - the lady with a spear and the rags the don't really cover her - and Ammy have been helping to deal with him, but oh god, the level of perversion is unreal with him. He's obsessed."
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Ysolde smiles at her sisters plea. if Sora is so against him, maybe she should get to know him better. Antares butts into this train of thought You picked one hell of a time to go through puberty.
We should get back to the surface. Shy and I have a little camp there. we could get you guys rested and cleaned up. She offers, helping her sister back to her feet, and steals a glance at Nathan before going back the way she came. She calls back from the tunnel Does anyone know how to tighten armour, because I think I did it wrong with this suit.
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Shyness recoils from the Nathan fellow at Sora's warning. "I-I'll just get the other st-stones," she stammers. While doing so, she investigates the sconces, wondering if they are some sort of recharging stations.
She then proceeds to switch out the red stones for the blue, once Nathan is away from the armor.
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The sconces are just that. Apparently these sapphires were literally just being used for light. A practice begun by Barrholo Gratzpin the last great gemhearter
Though a little late, Himnon tries to examine the armor from afar, not to mess with Shyness's tinkering, to see if he can reveal anything else about the mysterious artifact.
"Ys...you're telling us to go back to the surface, but we still don't know how you got here in the first place. This is a slave pit, and we've been stuck here a long time. If it was that easy, don't you think we would have long, LONG before now? How on earth did you get here?" She leans in. "And seriously, read that thing or hand it back."
Sora gestures to Kara. "Can you help my sister out? You're probably the best suited to it of anyone here."
Shyness proceeds to pull out the sapphires from the wall sconces, and put them into Cuddles one at a time, with Himnon calling out tips here and there, as she replaces each successive one the previous ones crumble to dust. Once they are all in there is a flash, and they start to pulse slowly. Nothing happens, but the pulse stays steady.
Welcome to the first end of session, check your bonds and alignment. Mark an xp if you fulfilled or advanced them.
Did we learn something new and important about the world?
Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
Did we loot a memorable treasure?
For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.
You can resolve as many as you would like. If it starts to get too out of hand I will say something