[Nexus] CURATOR I: The Evil Has Landed

[The Alexandrian]

[Lobby]

The chirping doesn't stop. Oh no. It slinks like a drifter from shadow to shadow, as stealthily as the Spy. First it is in front of the drow. And then behind. And above. And below. Around and around and around the whining spreads like an infectious plague. Red eyes peer out of every single atom cloaked in the darkness.

But before something terrible can come to pass, the dimming lights flash in a bright surge of power!

Something entirely different enters the room. A young, golden retriever puppy trots into the "lobby."

"Hello? You're not here to rob us, are you?"

It cautiously inquires.

"I don't want to have to scrub blood out of these nice, soft carpets again."

...

[Hattish Thing]

Lobby

Um.....No.

[The Alexandrian]

[Lobby]

"Oh! Splendid!"

The chipper puppy smiles as she hops up onto a nearby couch laden with cushions and pillows.

"In that case, welcome to CURATOR! Unless you think this is a winery, in which case, this isn't CURATOR and welcome to the winery! The guildmaster has been kidnapped, so I'm in charge temporarily, since no members are around."

"I think."

"That's how de facto thing-a-mabobs work, right?"

[Hattish Thing]

Lobby

.....Nobodies here. Do you know if it is possible I could join?....I have lost my physical body...

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Temple]

Reinholdt frowns. Not much time to be fiddling with locks then. He does so hate to cheat, but sometimes, you just gotta roll with the very scary dents.

So he heads over to the totally secure lockers and casts a quick spell to try and unlock and open them. Used to be a cat who couldn't fly once. It's how he opened locked doors he couldn't reach.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

The harsh grinding of rock against rock rumbles through the chamber as the circular slab of rock before him rolls aside. Pneumatic machines hiss ahead as light floods into the room from this new tunnel. In the center of the adjoining area, a fist-sized white crystal pulses upon the top of an old black, iron pedestal. Three oak doors with tiny chinks in them, large enough that Mister C might squeeze through, stand in the wall to the left, right, and front.

Exploration time, perhaps?

[Weathered Ruins]

Yeah let's start. Exploring the doors first by having a look through the holes starting with the left on. Best to check for everything befor trying to get the treasure.

[The Alexandrian]

[CURATOR Central - Lobby (of Darkness)]

The puppy tilts its head to the left a tad as she stares at the ghostly apparition! She doesn't blink. At all. It is sorta creepy.

But her yip-yaps are perfectly delightful!

"Yeah! You can join! Just don't stray too far off to the sides of the property. I'm continually receiving reports of a herd of zombies moving in from the west."

"I'll kill them all eventually. There's no need to worry about it."

The puppy smiles.

The hitherto unnamed drow shade may get the feeling that there is more to this puppy than meets the eye as she, the puppy, Lintha, slides a membership form over to the shade to fill out!

Paperwork! That's kinda boring...

You know what would improve the paperwork? Excessive sparkles floating down from the air! Yeah! That's exactly what will happen!

-------
[Water Lake Hylia Temple]

And what's inside the locker? An alien device, of course! It looks like a...a...

A mold-encrusted sandwich, which Reinholdt hopefully will never be able to find a use for and...

A humming, glowing, neon-blue cube. Mysterious and ancient, it is. Perhaps it is a long-sought after map of the area? Maybe it is a key? Whatever it is, its functionality must be crucial to something around here!

That wall doesn't look like it will hold even for a solitary minute more.

-------
[Weathered Ruins]

In the room to the left is a door on the opposite side of the room. The floor in that corridor is wooden, oddly slanted downward and divided by hundreds of tiny slits into seemingly trivial segments.

In the room that lies between the left and right rooms is what appears to be a bucket filled with a mysterious popping, purple liquid.

In the room to the right, there appears to be giant monster with no eyes guarding an elevated pedestal which no doubt houses something required to solve these three puzzles.

The nebulous monster-cloud of blackness twists itself toward the door as Mr. C peeks through the hole in the door and examines it!

How did it manage to detect the relatively small lizard?

[Hattish Thing]

[CURATOR Central - Lobby (of Darkness)]

The puppy tilts its head to the left a tad as she stares at the ghostly apparition! She doesn't blink. At all. It is sorta creepy.

But her yip-yaps are perfectly delightful!

"Yeah! You can join! Just don't stray too far off to the sides of the property. I'm continually receiving reports of a herd of zombies moving in from the west."

"I'll kill them all eventually. There's no need to worry about it."

The puppy smiles.

The hitherto unnamed drow shade may get the feeling that there is more to this puppy than meets the eye as she, the puppy, Lintha, slides a membership form over to the shade to fill out!

Paperwork! That's kinda boring...

You know what would improve the paperwork? Excessive sparkles floating down from the air! Yeah! That's exactly what will happen!

Javert Baen're's shade/ghost begins to fill out the paperwork. So...What do you people do here?

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

Reinholdt swiftly goes to grab the strange glowing blue cube before flying up the ladder, literally, to the chamber above.

If you're going to be chased by a monster, you want the high ground. He'll shut any doors behind him that he can and do it as quietly as is plausible.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

In the room to the left is a door on the opposite side of the room. The floor in that corridor is wooden, oddly slanted downward and divided by hundreds of tiny slits into seemingly trivial segments.

In the room that lies between the left and right rooms is what appears to be a bucket filled with a mysterious popping, purple liquid.

In the room to the right, there appears to be giant monster with no eyes guarding an elevated pedestal which no doubt houses something required to solve these three puzzles.

The nebulous monster-cloud of blackness twists itself toward the door as Mr. C peeks through the hole in the door and examines it!

How did it manage to detect the relatively small lizard?

[Weathered Ruins]

So I got again someone which senses have replaced his view. God damn I'm a cameleon MY main ability is to trick the view of people.

Well if he is in the last he will obviously try to get alonge there first. If he can manage to examine the room even more and the monster not going to kill him he will do. After all he thinks that this is just a random event, that the monster turned around.

[The Alexandrian]

[Weathered Ruins]

Oh come now, Mr. C! Do not despair! This trial is far from over! It can be bested with a spur of human reptilian ingenuity!

If Mister C remains on the door for too long, moving about the whole time, the monster will slowly drift closer to the door. Again, that's not good at all.

However, Mister C has the option of entering any of the chamber in any order. Maybe this isn't the correct chamber to start off with?

-------
[CURATOR Proper - Lobby Leading to the Infinite Elevator]

"We hunt treasure, raid tombs, and preserve historical relics for the benefit of posterity!"

Lintha smirks! How could this paranormal party not know what they did here? They probably plundered its family crypt or something!

Probably not, but y'know...

"I want to ask you a personal question. It is important that you answer me truthfully."

"Do you like chocolate chip cookies?"

-------
[Lake Hylia]

Reinholdt will emerge into a pitch black chamber. As he gently shuts the door behind him, he shall hear a guttural chant near his position! It gets louder. And louder. And louder. Before it dies away in an instant.

Guess the dumb beast went the other way down the rabbit hole!

Now to light up the room, somehow.

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

Reinholdt pulls out... a flashlight. And turns it on.
Man, he has everything in those pockets.

Actually the glowing blue cube might be light too.

[Hattish Thing]

Lobby
Excellent....Information. I died. I need to find a way to put my soul back. House Xar'cha. They are guilty of my murder. I don't like it much. Javert Baen're will NOT be made a fool of!.............I prefer peanut butter cookies. Javerts incorpare red spectral eyes flash.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

Oh come now, Mr. C! Do not despair! This trial is far from over! It can be bested with a spur of human reptilian ingenuity!

If Mister C remains on the door for too long, moving about the whole time, the monster will slowly drift closer to the door. Again, that's not good at all.

However, Mister C has the option of entering any of the chamber in any order. Maybe this isn't the correct chamber to start off with?

[Weathered Ruins]

Yeah best thing he runs out like hell. If he manages to escape he goes to door Number 2 and enters.

[The Alexandrian]

[Weathered Ruins]

Do you hear music? I hear music. Music originating from that bubbling liquid in the cauldron in the middle of room 2. It looks like a reflective fluid. Sweet, sweet melodies flow from it.

Not much else in here.

Or is there?

-------
[Lake Hylia]

The glowing cube would indeed impart some illumination to the chamber, but likely not enough to navigate a chamber by all on its lonesome.

Reinholdt will find that he has emerged in a meagerly-supplied janitor's closet. There are cleaning supplies littering the walls and a...

A vacuum? But not just any vacuum. A Hoover vacuum.

Wait...

The rest of this adventure isn't going to be formatted like a point and click adventure game, is it?

It shall be starting next post, if you'd like.

-------
[Lobby]

Lintha raises an eyebrow. She hops to her paws and skips over to jump up onto the table in front of Javert.

"If you want information go on over to NO. That's their speci...specyia..."

"Job."

D'aww! Lintha cannot pronounce the word specialty right! Though she contorts and twists her tongue every which-way possible, she can't do it!

The drow shade already knows that Lintha is a really, really strange puppy.

Do you think he'll ever figure out that she is not a puppy in her true form.

Nope! She's something much more adorable and formidable.

She's a...a... A PONY!!! ... I think. >.<

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

Interesting as that might be, two weeks to find out that you can't find the light switch to the dark room might be extending things even longer than necessary.

It is particularly odd a spaceship would have a vacuum cleaner though, so Reinholdt inspects things more closely, half-expecting some sort of illusion.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

Music in a bubbling thing.. oh no.. oh no.

"If I'm not mistaken this is the way to cool down the monster behind door 1. UP! UP AND AWAY!"


His little sentence to get the wings from the armor. He flies around first havin a look over the whole room. If there isn't anything other than the misic bubbling water. He will land at it's edge. Testing how hot the water is. Hopefully the cauldron isn't hor otherwise I doupte he could land there.
And now a last action so this get's on. If it is obviouse that the bubbling is caused by the music, Mr. C will go diving.

[Hattish Thing]

[Lobby]

Lintha raises an eyebrow. She hops to her paws and skips over to jump up onto the table in front of Javert.

"If you want information go on over to NO. That's their speci...specyia..."

"Job."

D'aww! Lintha cannot pronounce the word specialty right! Though she contorts and twists her tongue every which-way possible, she can't do it!

The drow shade already knows that Lintha is a really, really strange puppy.

Do you think he'll ever figure out that she is not a puppy in her true form.

Nope! She's something much more adorable and formidable.

She's a...a... A PONY!!! ... I think. >.<

Javert merely glares. NO......doesn't particularly enjoy my...company. What exactly is it this place does? Javert asks , his voice rasps.

[The Alexandrian]

[Lobby]

"..."

Lintha stares at Javert bemusedly. How could he not know what this organization does when she informed him of that golden chunk of intel right off the bat? Memory issues abit much? She doesn't know. She's somewhat clueless about how drow and their entire ilk function.

All she knows is that drow tend to lean toward being...

Uncivilized.

Yes. That is the kinder word for it, she supposes.

"We collect treasures from long dead societies and cultures for the good of all sapient beings. Duh. We raid tombs, excavate ruins, and sometimes filch exhibits from private collectors or museums."

Yep! CURATOR isn't above thievery! Not at all.

-------
[Weathered Ruins]

Affirmative. There is nothing else noteworthy stuck in the chamber. The basin of liquid is room temperature. It shouldn't burn or cool Mister C. Being a reptile and all, he may even find it soothing, to some extent or other.

Diving into the liquid causes it to part, revealing a humming chess piece glued to the bottom of the container. A rook, in fact. A black rook. It is clearly connected to the monster in the other room, but how? And how will it help him solve his problem with sneaking past it?

-------
[Lake Hylia]

True, true. Point and click games are terribly drawn out, all things taken into consideration. Text-based games can be even rougher...

And the vacuum cleaner is, in fact, real! It is more futuristic than I let on, which should immediately be indicated by closer inspection. It may or may not have its own rudimentary AI unit and a complicated computer bay set into its hose.

The dust collection bag hooked into it appears to be full too.

Yes. The state of the bag may factor into the selection of routes available for Reinholdt's travelling. ...

[Hattish Thing]

Lobby

There, he had gotten the creature to say it! Excellent. Javert slides through the air with a faint rustle.

Well, I myself know of a certain cunderground area filled with....interesting items of immense arcane vlaue. I came here to join you, and perhaps have a party of the organization find these artifacts.

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

Well it either means someone is still vacuuming and never changing the bag or someone just bought a new vacuum cleaner when this didn't work or something else. Rein doesn't know. He still finds the whole thing odd to find.

He does carefully and quietly peak back out of the room to see what his options are in terms of exploring.

[The Alexandrian]

[Lobby]

"Well, everyone is out right now."

Lintha explains in a mirthful tone. She noses around underneath the coffee table for a minute, puppy tail wagging to and fro excitedly before...

Pulling out a large stack of paperwork about twice her size and hauling them up onto the table. They're a little damp from puppy slobber, as she can only transport them via her mouth. Lintha nudges them toward Javert with her healthy, wet puppy-nose!

"If you want to lead an expedition, you need to fill out all of these papers. Lucky for you that nothing else is really going on right now so you can get started immediately!"

Paperwork! The bane of happy, well-adjusted people worldwide!

-------
[Lake Hylia]

It looks as though there is a hallway leading to the left and right of the broom closet Reinholdt is chilling in! Both ways are dark, and without the illumination of an active light source, seeing everything that lies down the paths is nearly impossible. The power of a flashlight would reveal a door to the right, a bloody streak splattered upon the (noisy to walk on) tile floor. There are also colored lines leading to the left and right. A purple line runs to the left. A yellow and cyan line runs to the right. A green line additionally streams off to the right. The green line is thicker than the rest, oddly enough.

Doesn't sound like any guardians or monsters are patrolling these halls at the moment.

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

The lines probably represented paths to important places.

So... floating over the floor so as not to make a sound that way, Reinholdt will follow the green line.

Float float.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

First things firs. Mr C tries to make out if the music ids coming from the stone itself. he has an idea which means the monster is allways one cell next to the music and so he could maybe controll the monster.

[Hattish Thing]

The lobby

Javert summons a ghostly pen and begins writing, and signing, and writing. He's done in around 15 minutes. He asks. Is this right?

[The Alexandrian]

[Lake Hylia]

Floating! Darn! That's cheating! Now the monsters won't be able to locate Reinholdt via the pad-pad-padding of his feet!

And we've already seen how "skilled" the creatures are at pursuing someone using only a scent trail.

Hey? Where'd Liz get off to? I haven't heard anything of that non-melancholy gal for awhile now.

...

Uh-oh?

Nevermind that. The green line leads straight to a sealed door labeled in large, white, block print!

Woah! Deciphering that would be a pain in the neck! That is definitely not Common on that door.

Hmm. Doesn't look like there's another way into that room. The front door doesn't look like it wants to open up either.

There's probably some sort of trick to it. A key or something weird like that.

-------
[Weathered Ruins]

The music is actually being produced by the highly reflective, magical, bubbling fluid. Mister C is thinking along the right lines, but the solution might be less convoluted than he presently supposes.

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[Lobby]

Lintha takes the papers gingerly between her teeth and rapidly scans through them checking for completeness!

"This looks about right."

She pauses abruptly, looking up at Javert as if assessing something.

"Did you know that this whole building was built over a temple dedicated to Athena? Yep! That got teleported to the Nexus along with another item of interest that rested within it. A stout shield of great worth. A bracer unlike any other. The Aegis. While everyone else is off exploring the focal point of the Lady of the..."

Uh-oh! That's classified information! The members weren't supposed to know about that!

"...Sky..."

Yes! Good save! Good save.

"...you could go down there, locate the source of the paranormal activities that are occurring here every so often and **** those apparitions down for me."

Lintha smiles confidently!

"You'll be fairly compensated for your efforts!"

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

All three of Rein's companions are missing. He just has to presume they're safe, cause he sure isn't going to run around calling their names.

Reinholdt frowns and holds out the cube he got, seeing if he can't activate it somehow to get the door to open.

[Zefir]

[Weathered Ruins]

First on let's check on the stone. Am I right if there isn't a way to get anything out of any room?

[The Alexandrian]

[Weathered Ruins]

Mister C could try flying or rolling the basin out of the room, though I doubt that would work out well for him in the end.

He might be able to get the fluid out of the room, though. It is moving away from him as though it is charged and repulsed by whatever he is made out of. Moving the liquid out is just a matter of Mister C orienting his body correctly.

He could also move the chess piece out of the room with ease.

-------
[Lake Hylia]

Would you look at that! Exposing the cube to the door in such a way that the cube touches the door causes it to fuse to the door like a doorknob when significant force is applied to it. Reinholdt may now choose to turn the door handle and open the door leading into the generator room. There are wires and huge metal turbines littering this average-sized room. There are also six important-looking throw-switches on the wall to the left. A monitor to the right is powered down. That looks to be vital equipment too. There's a switch in here controlling the door. There's also an unmarked box.

And there's also what appears to be a dead wizard, tattered robes still clinging to his bone. Although he is quite old, the robes don't appear to have aged a day! He also might have other cool stuff on him, if systematically searched!

Of course, Rein might want to exercise caution in this place as well, as it would appear as though something recently nibbled on and frayed a set of electrical wiring running from the right of the room out to the left.

[Reinholdt]

[Lake Hylia]

Reinholdt first attempts to remove the door handle cube from the door once the door is open. Looks like it could be nifty elsewhere.

If he's unable, Reinholdt uses a shotgun to make sure the door remains propped open and doesn't seal him in. Just by putting the gun in the way and such. Not by shooting the door.

But hey! Dead guy! Dead guys almost always have something of value. Reinholdt goes to check him out and give him a proper search over. Loot the bodies!