Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

Aran takes the compass. He doesn’t have pockets so he’ll just have to hold it.
”Well, thank you. I’ll uh, treasure it.” Assuming it works. He’s not sure if it will.

[Arkhosia]

Substation X-Ray

Only the eye? Hell, Blanche was happy to settle for that! It wasn't like she had much capacity for damage here, so she wasn't going to complain about managing to handicap the creature. Nodding at her father's advice and directions, she rushes off to follow Callie through the entryway.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

"If you don't treasure it, it won't work. So I hope you're being honest. Oh, here. I'll put it on for you." She'll take the compass back and stretch the shoelace cord around Aran's neck, so he's wearing it like a medallion.

The hoopoe disappears, but the child doesn't seem to notice. "I'm going to give you another choice, Mister Bear. You can wake up now, or stay asleep for a bit longer and explore some more. But I can think I'll be waking up soon." Fortunately, time is weird in dreams, so they had plenty of time to talk in.

[Deathkeeper]

[Hunted Honey]

"Well...do you think I'll find anything? If I keep looking around, I mean. I know that if I wake up what awaits me is carrying a jar that's too heavy to carry and finding out if that honey did anything to me. Not sure what happens if I stay." Aran says, almost as much to himself as to the girl.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[The Blue City]

Curious how eager this place is to shepherd us, hmm? I wonder if Feia got fed up with her prey stalling for too long before falling into whatever trap she has planned for them. Oh, and on the subject of traps, here's one now!

Because the key-dragon has to be a trap of some sort. They've spent a whole couple of minutes here without something trying to kill them!

As they enter the room, blue-robes takes a moment to scan the walls. Extra dark stone is a little weird, sure, but the primary concern is in making sure there's no magic laid into the walls that's going to activate and zap them all.

Needs, you have a very strange approach to puzzles. I don't think you need to, mmm, make a lock to fit the keys. If you want a door to open, you can always just blast the ceiling until it breaks."

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

"You might find a nightmare, or another dreamer like myself. Or something else, like a chocolate fountain. Anything's possible, in dreams." He could walk through a door and find himself in a dream of falling, or flying, or whatever else. Dreams are odd.

The child is also not quite as present as she was, and her appearance and outfit changes when Aran's not looking. She's an albino boy in a black suit, now her former female appearance but wearing a princess dress and a tall conical hat, now she's elvish, now human again, and so on.

[Deathkeeper]

[Hunted Honey]

"Well, I guess I should probably wake up, then. Ursa is going to be waiting for me. I can't just wander aimlessly in this dream all day." Aran admits. Though really, he just doesn't want to encounter any more scary things.

[FireFox]

[Substation Xray]

"Yeah, well. Welcome to the Nexus Kid," Reinholdt tells Blanche, as he rubs his shoulder. His now very sore shoulder. He's used to some heavy kickback, but this was another level. Reminds him why he doesn't use this gun hardly ever.

He gets to work reloading the one shot wonder. "When facing down a superior force, you need to outwit them. Flap your mouth. And right now whatever's going on isn't in a talking mood. So follow Callie. I'll cover and be right behind you," Reinholdt says, taking aim again, bracing on the other shoulder and waiting for Blanche to move. If that biological tank even looks at the catgirl, it'll get shot again in a different leg. Well, perhaps. Rein's aim is worse since he's swapped from his dominant side.

Substation X-Ray

Only the eye? Hell, Blanche was happy to settle for that! It wasn't like she had much capacity for damage here, so she wasn't going to complain about managing to handicap the creature. Nodding at her father's advice and directions, she rushes off to follow Callie through the entryway.

[Substation X-Ray]

The wounded creature doesn't seem able to stand, much less charge, anytime soon. Reinholdt could use up one of his rifle cartridges and bruise his other shoulder if he wants to be sure, but he'll be able to cover Blanche and then get into the tower himself without having to kill it.

The square tower is hollow on the inside, but not quite empty. The ceiling is shrouded in darkness at least 50 feet above them. A large cylinder directly in the center protrudes from this murk like a waiting mouth. If you look closely, you will see other objects floating in this shadowy sea. If enough light reached them, their glass and shiny mental surfaces would sparkle like a school of fish in the sun. As it is, however, they more resemble the spires and stained windows of a sunken cathedral.
In the middle of the structure someone has painted a mural on all four walls between 15 and 25 feet off the ground. Navy blue, purple, and green mix for a deep ocean scene. On top of this base is a mythical monster somewhat shaped like an oarfish combined with a whale. It has a horizontal fluke on the end of its tail and several pairs of broad flippers evenly spaced out along its serpentine body. Its head mostly resembles a dragon's, with curved horns and spiky fins, but its muzzle is very elongated like a crocodile's or gar's. Wrapped around the entire interior of the tower, it has been carefully painted to devour its own tail. The beast's body is colored in an panoply of weak whites, scintillating silvers, and pearlescent paints. The way the colors ripple through the scales make it look like it's swimming. Bright white LED tubes have been set in fixtures on the top of the monster's body, on all four sides of the tower, that light up the rest of the mural and the bottom of the building.
At the bottom of the building, the wall opposite the garage door entrance has wheeled tool chests and and a black 4 wheel drive pickup truck in front of it. The right wall has some locked cabinets and work benches set against it, as well as an outward opening cellar door in the floor in front that has been blown in with a small explosive to access a stairwell leading down beneath the tower. The left wall is bare, save for a fire extinguisher and AED mount, but the floor in front of it is marked with yellow tape for some sort of descending freight elevator that is controlled by a small podium. The middle of the concrete floor has a black circle 5 feet across set in it. It has a hinge on the side, suggesting it's supposed to swing outward like a hatch, but there are no grips, handles, levers, or really any visible way to open it at all. And rather than being made out of some reinforced metal like the garage door they came in, the cellar door to the right, or the elevator to the left, it looks synthetic.

Callie is crouched by the stairwell with her foxy ear twitching as she listens with magically enhanced hearing. "Elevator's electronically locked and the attackers haven't bothered with it. If we can hack it I think that'll be the safest way in. I sensed water, a lot of water, under that hatch. And beneath that something divine and nasty. It's sealed tight. I mean magically. And the wards? Not there to keep people out, but something in. Fastest way into whatever's going on here is down these stairs, but I can hear gunfire and smell smoke. How're we doing this?"
While she looks like she's calmed down a little bit now that she's under some cover and has something to do, she's still talking way too fast.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

The child grins and clicks her fingers, and Aran should find himself waking up. He's probably human now, and there's a compass in his hand. It looks like the cheap, tacky one he had in the dream, the one made of plastic, but... this one's not plastic. And it doesn't wobble in ways it shouldn't. The case is polished brass, with an alchemical symbol on the bottom; a triangle with a cross growing from the bottom. The needle is silver, and around the edge of the dial are more symbols. The presumably north position is marked with a sickle-shape, with a bar across its hilt, the west position marked with a circle with two curved bars rising from the top, the south position with a circle above a curved line pointing upwards, with a cross growing from the bottom and the east position with a star in a circle. The dial is behind a polished quartz window, and it is suspended on a platinum chain.

If he tries to remember what the compass looked like in his dream, he'll remember this one, not the cheap plastic one the child appeared to give him.

[Reinholdt]

[Substation X-ray]

"Oh that's just what we need," Reinholdt says, looking around the room after he backs into it. "The sealed Ouroboros Dragon. Couldn't they have just put a sign?" That mural seems massive compared to say, 'don't feed the apocalypse within'.

"I'm not a hacker. I dunno about Blanche. Callie are you able to get the elevator working?" If she can steal an AI, she can surely make a floor go up and down. Right? Regardless, Rein puts away the elephant gun and moves next to Callie by the cellar door, clicking on a flashlight and shining it down the steps.

[Arkhosia]

Spoiler

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[Substation X-Ray]

The wounded creature doesn't seem able to stand, much less charge, anytime soon. Reinholdt could use up one of his rifle cartridges and bruise his other shoulder if he wants to be sure, but he'll be able to cover Blanche and then get into the tower himself without having to kill it.

The square tower is hollow on the inside, but not quite empty. The ceiling is shrouded in darkness at least 50 feet above them. A large cylinder directly in the center protrudes from this murk like a waiting mouth. If you look closely, you will see other objects floating in this shadowy sea. If enough light reached them, their glass and shiny mental surfaces would sparkle like a school of fish in the sun. As it is, however, they more resemble the spires and stained windows of a sunken cathedral.
In the middle of the structure someone has painted a mural on all four walls between 15 and 25 feet off the ground. Navy blue, purple, and green mix for a deep ocean scene. On top of this base is a mythical monster somewhat shaped like an oarfish combined with a whale. It has a horizontal fluke on the end of its tail and several pairs of broad flippers evenly spaced out along its serpentine body. Its head mostly resembles a dragon's, with curved horns and spiky fins, but its muzzle is very elongated like a crocodile's or gar's. Wrapped around the entire interior of the tower, it has been carefully painted to devour its own tail. The beast's body is colored in an panoply of weak whites, scintillating silvers, and pearlescent paints. The way the colors ripple through the scales make it look like it's swimming. Bright white LED tubes have been set in fixtures on the top of the monster's body, on all four sides of the tower, that light up the rest of the mural and the bottom of the building.
At the bottom of the building, the wall opposite the garage door entrance has wheeled tool chests and and a black 4 wheel drive pickup truck in front of it. The right wall has some locked cabinets and work benches set against it, as well as an outward opening cellar door in the floor in front that has been blown in with a small explosive to access a stairwell leading down beneath the tower. The left wall is bare, save for a fire extinguisher and AED mount, but the floor in front of it is marked with yellow tape for some sort of descending freight elevator that is controlled by a small podium. The middle of the concrete floor has a black circle 5 feet across set in it. It has a hinge on the side, suggesting it's supposed to swing outward like a hatch, but there are no grips, handles, levers, or really any visible way to open it at all. And rather than being made out of some reinforced metal like the garage door they came in, the cellar door to the right, or the elevator to the left, it looks synthetic.

Callie is crouched by the stairwell with her foxy ear twitching as she listens with magically enhanced hearing. "Elevator's electronically locked and the attackers haven't bothered with it. If we can hack it I think that'll be the safest way in. I sensed water, a lot of water, under that hatch. And beneath that something divine and nasty. It's sealed tight. I mean magically. And the wards? Not there to keep people out, but something in. Fastest way into whatever's going on here is down these stairs, but I can hear gunfire and smell smoke. How're we doing this?"
While she looks like she's calmed down a little bit now that she's under some cover and has something to do, she's still talking way too fast.

[Substation X-ray]

"Oh that's just what we need," Reinholdt says, looking around the room after he backs into it. "The sealed Ouroboros Dragon. Couldn't they have just put a sign?" That mural seems massive compared to say, 'don't feed the apocalypse within'.

"I'm not a hacker. I dunno about Blanche. Callie are you able to get the elevator working?" If she can steal an AI, she can surely make a floor go up and down. Right? Regardless, Rein puts away the elephant gun and moves next to Callie by the cellar door, clicking on a flashlight and shining it down the steps.

Substation X-Ray

The murky space above and the strange yet intriguing choices of architecture and decoration shrouded within go largely unnoticed and unappreciated as Blanche enters the tower, only giving the mural's contents a cursory observation as her eyes do a quick sweep of the room. More attention is paid to the contrast between it and the more modern and utilitarian aspects of the building. At first she would assume the place to be an ancient shrine some folks converted into a garage, but those LEDs suggest it's not just clueless strangers setting up shop; they must know about the sealed-up divinity underfoot, maybe even revere it if they took the time to light up or even create the mural... which raises the question;

"Why the hell would you put that thing in the garage?" Blanche questions, gesturing to the hatch after Callie speaks. She shakes her head in regards to the hacking question, switching the safety on her mosin-nagant before exchanging its place with the P90 slung across her back and performing a quick inspection. "No idea how to do that sorta thing, I'm afraid."

[Gullara]

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