Ritti lets out an unconscious gasp, despite having no fear of heights. "Woah. This is great! But now I'm stuck."
Ritti looks about, gauging the distance to the other spires, trying to get a sense of scale of the castle. A brief smile crosses the thief's face. She pulls out a piece of chalk and scribbles a message to the next person to make it up here. She ends it with a personal flourish and laughs before putting the chalk away. Having no lack of time, she examines every inch of the spire closely - including lying down and leaning out over the edge - hoping to find a secret door or some way down aside from the 'express route'.
Hit Points: 9 | 9
Non-Lethal: 5 | 9
1/day Magic Fang:
(20) Sling Bullets: xx
Seeing only a trap door above and what appears to be a floorless room, Gaar'ak would decide to become rather adventrous. Kneeling down in the hallway, he would decide to put his face into the unnatural blackness to see what he might find.
Ritti Rallo
Hidden amidst the brickwork is a stone trapdoor leading downwards.
Shuo and cie
As far as you can tell, the door is not trapped and nothing can be heard beyond the doorway.
Archibald and Garr'ak
As you lean into the darkness, you start to feel dizzy and...
...you suddenly feel cold, clammy hands clamp onto your face, and slowly, but strongly, they suck you into the room. In the darkness, you feel cold and damp. You do not know where you are. You see only darkness all around you...
A voice calls out from the depths.
"Twisty fate and lucky falls, why, 'tis only to me you should call. You may choose to undo your fate, before the others decide it's far too late!"
"Well, that wasn't very smart."
Ritti updates her chalked message and heads through the trap door carefully, lighting her tiny lamp if it is dark.
.
"Well, the door doesn't appear to be trapped." Hearing Duke's words and seeing him nod, Shuo acknowledges Duke with a return nod. He then turns his gaze to Eiron. "Eiron, are you..."
Shuo stops talking as he begins to hear the mysterious voice seemingly calling out from nowhere. He assumes it's a hallucination caused by the ring, that the black taint from his hand has finally reached his brain and is beginning to drive him mad. The voice's message must be a manifestation of his desire to be rid of the cursed silver band adorning his finger. Of course he wishes to undo his fate, but a hallucinated voice can't help him do that. Shuo is quite surprised at the voices skill at poetry though, when he himself normally struggles to even think of a pair of words that can rhyme. He could almost laugh at the absurdity of it.
Shuo briefly considers trying to keep hearing this voice secret from his companions, fearing that they might abandon him if they suspect he's beginning to go mad. After all, they've only just met one another and the main thing that has them working together is a mutual desire to escape this prison. If he's become a possible liability, what reason do they have to keep him around? In the end though his conscious makes him speak up. If he's going mad then he's going mad, and there's no sense in possibly putting his companions lives at risk from not knowing. The last thing he wants is for someone to die because he finally loses his mind at a moment they are depending on him.
Shuo sighs, then hopefully asks Duke and Eiron: "This might be an odd question, but did anyone else just hear a strange voice?"
He is about to tell them to open the door when he hears the mysterious voice echo through his mind. Undo his fate? Why he wanted out of here of course. Shivers went down his spine and he paused from pushing forward, frozen like a statue. I wish I never found this place... curse you for oversleeping Eiron... why would they leave me behind?
He finally is able to move when Shuo, who he had completely forgotten about for those few seconds, spoke. "A voice? haha..." He gives no further answer. Must. Get. Out! "Cmon we need to hurry!" and he pushes past the others through the door and into the next room, sword raised!
"Weal for me...WOE FOR YOU!!" Garr'ak would shout as he starts to blindly swing his Lucerne Hammer.
Upon hearing Duke's response, Shuo gives a big grin. "Thank the gods, I thought I was beginning to go mad!" The smile quickly disappears from his face as he sees Eiron charge through the door. "So much for a plan." he sighs as he follows Duke, bringing up the rear of the group.
Ritti Rallo
The trapdoor is unfortunately locked.
Shuo and cie
As you charge recklessly into the next room, you find yourself...
Strangely in a familiar place. In fact, it looks exactly like the room you were just in... except that you're on the ceiling now. As you look behind you, you see back into the room you came into... and if you stare across the room you are in now, you can just make out your backsides...
Garr'ak and Archibald
"Weal"
You suddenly find yourself back in the hallway next to Archibald, facing the dark nothingness, but alive.
"Weal... at a price."
Each character who said "weal" gains 1 point of depravity and acquires the following symptom:
The Price to Pay: As long as you carry any Relic or item worth more than 1 gold piece in value, you get a -1 penalty to Reflex as the skin around your hands and feet cracks slightly to reveal small droplets of molten gold. Strangely enough, only you can see this effect.[/b]
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Garr'ak would take a moment to reorientate himself before shouting and bursting into action.
"This place is full of nonsense!"
As he shouted, he would move towards the trap door and use his lucerne hammer to start and break it open.
Shuo's stomach feels slightly queasy as he tries to comprehend this bizarre room.
"What an odd place! Hmm...I wonder."
Shuo puts away his shovel and pulls out three copper pieces from the money pouch attached to his belt. He drops the first piece from his hand to see which direction it falls. The second he throws up at what was previously the floor but is now the ceiling, and sees if it comes back down or stays up there. The third he throws at Eiron's reflected backside to see if the coin actually hits it or if their reflections are some sort of trick.
Attack (with coin aimed at Eiron's butt):
Skulking around alone in this creepy castle for as long as she had, Ritti was fairly convinced she was the only person here. So when the voice sounded in her head, she dismissed it as just another part of her vivid imagination. Unfortunately, the cracks in her hands told a different story.
The cunning thief loses her cool briefly, ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmyGOD!
Then she summons up her pluck and ignores the weeping wounds in her skin and focuses on getting down.
Ritti Rallo
Your meager skills manage to unlock the trapdoor. As you open the trapdoor, a gust of warm air wafts up to meet you. You face a winding stone staircase.
Shuo and cie.
Duke, you walk backwards from where you came and see yourself slowly reenter the room before you realize you are back where you started. Looking up, you see no one but peering through the door you can see the rest of your teammates on the other side.
Shuo, your first coin falls to the floor, your second upwards to the ceiling and then back down again as normal, and your third coin hits duke in the rear, which he feels himself. Looking down, you see the coin at his feet.
Archibald and Garr'ak
There is no more trapdoor. Faded light floods down from above, accompanied by a blast of warm, humid rain.
Ritti heads down the stairs quietly, lighting a lamp if need be.
"Hey! What was that for!?"
Eiron ignores the coin and walks slowly forwards. Cautiously looking about. Looking to see if the cells are the same and if the skeleton is still there.
Garr'ak would take some time to strap his lucerne hammer to his back before moving down the hallway a bit to get a running start.
"Time to get out of here."
Finally, he would burst into a sprint and jump up to try and grab the opening before attempting to pull himself up.
Shuo bends over and picks up his coins, returning them to his money pouch. "That was for recklessly charging through the door Eiron. You could have gotten us killed! Also, I wanted to see if that was really us over there or if it was just an illusion. It looks like it is really us though. Some sort of magic must be involved in this."
Looking around the room, Shuo tries to see if there's anything new that might be helpful that he can now see from his new viewpoint in the room.
Perception (take 20):
"I wonder if changes we make to the room we were in before effect this room, or if ones we make to this room effect the previous one."
Shuo removes a piece of chalk from his pocket and draws crude drawing of the sun to the side of the door frame, then heads back through the door and draws an equally crude sketch of the moon on the other side of the door frame. He then checks both rooms to see which sketches appear in which room.
Ritti Rallo
Area #14: Sunlit Spiral
This winding staircase descends from the pinnacle going ever downwards. Sunlight shines brightly through numerous small arrow slits, and colored glass set within them give off a scintillating array of colors.
As you go down the stairs, you feel slightly warm.
You recover health as if you had spent a night resting.
Shuo and cie
Walking around the room, you can only notice that though it seems similar to the previous one, and that everything's in place, there still seems to be something a little bit off about being here.
Changes you make in this room affect the other room and vice versa, it's as if the same two rooms were the same except for not containing living beings at the same time...
Garr'ak
You jump up and...
Area #15: The Ultravires- Deck
The deck of this ship is obscured by a torrent of rain. You seem to have come out in the center, right besides the mast, but the prow and aft of the ship cannot be seen. The ship's rigging groans above you and rain and wind lash at you.
"What the he..." Garr'ak would growl as he pulls his Lucerne Hammer from his back and starts making his way towards the aft of the ship looking about carefully for anything of use.
And keeping an eye out for anything danger...
Archibald follows the orc.
"There has to be a door somewhere, or else how could we have managed to get thrown in here in the first place! It must be hidden somehow.
Shuo feels the walls of the room for any hidden doornobs, passages, or switches that may be concealed, searching the place room by room for such a thing. If he fails to find anything in the upside down room, he goes back to the original room and tries the same thing.
Perception (take 20):
Shuo and cie
Duke wanders back into the original room but finds no other door. Shuo searches around and finds only the door that seems to link back to the original room.
Garr'ak and Archibald
As you move towards the aft of the ship, you come across the ship's wheel on the aft deck (a raised portion.)
A door is built into the raised aft deck, most likely leading into the captain's quarters. A reddish light shines from the tinted glass windows.
Archibald listens at the door.
"I have a suspicion that the door may be somehow enchanted. Perhaps if we all go back into the original room and try going through it again it will take us to another place. Barring that, maybe destroying the door will help."
Archibald
A lot creaking is heard beyond the door... but the rain makes it hard to hear much else.
Shuo and cie
After wandering around again for quite a bit, when Duke is struck by a brilliant idea. He manages to maneuver to roughly the spot where the noise was heard and after tapping around for a bit, is rewarded with a hollow echoing thud.
For having discovered the secret of the inversed room, the Collective earns 100 XP
Ritti sits in the sunlight on the stairs and enjoys the feeling of safety for a few minutes. Before she continues down the stairs she examines the arrow slits and colored glass, looking for anything unusual about them.
Eiron wanders back and forth between the reverse rooms aimlessly. Racking his brain for ideas but none come. He watches Duke tapping and is intrigued at his plan. "now what? " He says after he hears the hollow sounds.
Eiron puts his sword away and his shield down. Pulling out his morning star he says, "Might this help?" he gives it a few practise swings.
Garr'ak would ignore the door for now and make his way up onto the aft deck with his Lucerne Hammer at the ready. He wanted to make sure they found no surprises at their backs when they entered the room.
While up there he would take his time to thoroughly investigate the area for anything of use.
Shuo pulls out his hammer and crowbar and offers them to his companions. "Go ahead, use what you need. I'll use the shovel myself." After his companions take his offered tools or decline to do so, Shuo will pull out his shovel and begin to dig at the hollow spot, putting away any tools his companions decline.
Archibald tries opening the door cautiously.
Ritti Rallo
The warmth you feel seems to occur whenever you pass in front of the stained glass windows, and only those that sunlight pass through.
Shuo and cie
Smashing hard and strong, you manage to sunder quickly through a section of the floor/ceiling. Looking through the hole, you see open blue sky, and below that, water. In fact... it seems that the hole opens up from a wall... which is obviously weird as you find yourself on the ceiling...
Archibald and Garr'ak
The aft deck has nothing of immediate value... but amidst the sleek rain you catch a glimpse of something moving in the water below. A long, dark, spined shape.
As for Archibald, you open the door and peer inside. All you can see is a wooden desk littered with paper, a rough bed, and cabinets filled with clutter.
Garr'ak would make his way back down to Archibald to inform him of his findings.
"Not much up above, but something lurks in the waters below. Something I would rather not meet face to face. What have you found?"
Not waiting for an explanation, he would push past Archibald and start to look about with his hammer at the ready for any objects that might dare skitter about.
"Be careful, you almost got blood on the papers."
"How the hell did we get put in here if there is no door out?!" Eiron wonders. He would be glad to get out of this hallway finally. He checks behind him againg before holding tightly onto the "floor" and sticking his head down.
"Best not to dwell too much on that line of thought. Real or not, I'd be willing to bet anything out there can still kill us." Shuo looks out from the opening and tries to determine the approximate distance to the nearest point of land.
Perception:
"I hope I'm not the only one who knows how to swim."
Garr'ak and Archibald
As you enter the cabin's quarters, a strong gust of wind slams the door shut. Papers and books go flying around the room. Assuming you look through the documents, they seem to be all about nautical charts, but none of them seem familiar to you.
Shuo and cie
No land can be sighted unfortunately, and the rocks do fall down towards the water.
Eiron gazes out for several moments longer before pulling his head in, starting to feel dizzy. Was there any hope? Eiron felt trapped and it was the worst feeling he had ever felt. What would his unit leader do? He wouldn't panick. He would have a plan. Tjink Eiron, think!!
"Good idea Duke. I'll see if there's anything worth while above us. Shuo takes off his pack and pulls out his 50' long hemp rope. He ties a knot around his waist, and secures the other end to the nearest securely shut cell door. He then lies face down on the floor and slowly inches himself to the hole in the floor, going through it in such a way that the lower half of his body is still in the room while the upper half of his body is through the hole and he is looking up away from the water towards the top of the building. He is primarily interested in how high up the roof is, and how easily climbable the wall seems to be.
Perception: