Strange Aeons: In Search of Sanity II [IC - Group #2]

[BuckGodot]

Björn looks around bewildered and his frustration level ramps up a notch... "What in the name of all that is holy is going on NOW? Can't we have a single moment of respite from all this insanity? I just want to find a way to get out of here and these idiots are going to stand around bickering about voices? But I heard it too... No! I did not! I refuse to let another voice into my head! I commune with spirits all the time... Why should this bother me so much? Ugh! That's not the point! All this standing around is a waste of time! I should just go on ahead and leave the brain trust to argue. For guds skyld, I think I left my sandwich unwrapped back in my area... Great. Now some skulking, tyvende rotte will probably make off with it! And there are those wierd words again! Why do I keep doing that? I wish I knew where they come from... They just pop out of me at the oddest time... Oh... Great... Now I'M off on a tangent... What was I thinking about? Oh. Right. My sandwich... Great. Now I'm hungry. I bet they wouldn't even notice if I snuck back to camp to get it... Meh. I'ts probably gone now anyway. I have to be careful or I'll put on weight... Fortunately, I really like how this new armour fits. I'll have to play around with it some more to see what else I can do... I hope I have time before we go out again. Where ever Winter sends us. She sure seems to like to be in charge, doesn't she? It's kind of alluring... I wonder if she... Nah... She probably doesn't even think of me... Maybe if I cleaned up a bit... Polish my... What the... Great! Another hole starting in my boot! What am I going to do about that? Maybe one of these others has some decent boots... What are they talking about now?" and he looks around at the group...

[lostsole31]

So, all of what just happened above ... Maeni, Jens, and Björn?

Yeah, everyone except Haru heard that. If not necessarily the "voice" of the "speaker" ... at least with the "sense" of them. The only difference is that nothing Björn said was in Ulfen. In fact, you don't "hear" language so much as feel language and the sense of it, and your brain translates it to what best works for language in your own head.

Spoiler: I repeat...

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I repeat, in the future, there is no interjections in other languages, because even though you might be "thinking" in a specific language, what is received is the actual translation, unless the other-language word is part of some common-use in the receiver's language OR the word(s) in question appear to be of a Proper Noun sort.

Haru, you had a question put to you by Gaye..... you did NOT hear anything that was italicized (unless I did it for emphasis) or spoilered.

[ClockworkCorvid]

Corbin neels down and rubs his temples, trying to just not think about any of this. "Okay, Okay, Okay. We all need to take a deep breath and... just try not to... think so loud. This is giving me a headache. What the hell is going on? Anyone have any ideas?"

[meemaas]

"I don't think I heard anything anyone else didn't. Flair demanded answers from you, you yelled back at him, and then Flair admitting that he's going bonkers. It sounds like you all are losing it. I should just count myself lucky that I'm not affected." Haru laughed a little.

[bcool999]

Jens

Finding the noise entirely unconducive to reading, Jens pays attention to Haru's answer. It seems strange to Jens that Haru alone would remain unaffected and tries to think of what sets Haru apart from the rest of the party. The most glaring difference is in fact caused by Jens himself. Haru is the only member of the group who is not a member of the collective. Struck with inspiration and scientific curiosity, Jens drops Corbin from the collective and adds Haru (assuming he is willing.)

[meemaas]

Haru shows no resistance to the collective, probably because it's coming from an ally, albeit a potentially crazy one.

[digiman619]

A thought occurs to Flair "I think this might actually be due to B-Jens." He corrected himself over the new name. "Haru wasn't in the collective was he? That's gotta be why he didn't hear any of us non-verbally speaking. I'm pretty sure that Jens' collective has grown enough that we've been inadvertently transmitting our thoughts through it. I want to test this hypothesis. Jens, remove me from the collective. I'll get back on it in a bit."

As soon as he is assured that he has left the collective, he thinks of something that would offend Gaye if it were said aloud. Once he has it he thinks it 'out loud' as it were to see if he gets a response from the diva. Assuming he gets no response, he then smile and excuse himself and attempt to contact the being like he did before.

Spoiler: What Flair 'thought' at her

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Gaye, I don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't an opera house. No one gives a flying f*ck how well you sing; no one give half a d*mn good you can act. I'm trying to find us a way out of here and your constant sass and undeserved arrogance is actively harming that work. At least one of us is going to die because you are such an unrelenting, egotistical b*tch, and if there was any justice in this world, it would be you!

[lostsole31]

So, Flair verbalizes what Jens was already working out (and why Haru and Corbin were switched in the collective). Jens will, no doubt, drop Flair per his request (otherwise Flair has to "fight" his way out of the collective mentally).

Flair thinks up his colorful monologue, but other than looking at Flair as he might be constipated as he stares at Gaye intently, nobody senses anything. However, everyone in the collective might have their own color commentary on what is happening.

[So as not to belabor the point and spend several game days with what would not take long at the table...]

The mystery is solved well enough. As much to Jens' surprise as anyone else, Jens indeed has a collective in which the members may telepathize with each other, and that is discussed mainly using the voice (because that's how we default as human-like creatures), but also exploratorily when you are part of the collective. There are some key things to remember with the collective-telepathy as you will all learn:

• Telepathy takes the same effort and focus, mentally, as speaking. Aside, of course, from the manipulation of the physical muscles for speech. It also takes the same time. Telepathy is NOT a high-speed download. The same amount of time is required, so telepathy is not a super-rapid means of communication, simply super-quiet.
• In the same way, telepathy is linguistic, but it is not language-based. I know that may sound confusing, but you do NOT "think in a language." You convey a message and the receiver decodes it in the manner that makes sense to them. Proper nouns seem to keep their form (they are their own form of identification outside of the original meaning and origin of a name), but there are no extra-linguistic interjections. It's impossible, because the moment the sender thinks in a different langague, he is STILL thinking of the meaning ... and it is the meaning (not language) that is decoded by the receiver. This means when dealing with foreign language material you may need to still use voice anyway.
• Being linguistically based (or verbal), you cannot telepathize abstract concepts or pictures that you do not have your own ability to verbalize. You don't "project" feelings or pictures, but there still is the same infusion of intonation and feeling that might help to deliver your message, but cannot replace the message any more than speaking can.
• Despite the "fun times" the GM just made to introduce Jens ability, Jens has no ability whatsoever to use Unwilling Participant as a tricky means to read the mind of a hostile member of the collective. They have to be willing to communicate on the telepathic level.
• Telepathy cannot be used for OOC strategy. If you want to strategize, your PCs (and NPCs) still have to coordinate ... and telepathy is not immune to "listeners" with the ability to do such. Also, we come back to the TIME it takes to chat amongst yourselves is no different than in the first point.
• Common parlance for this ability is a verb taking from the infinitive "to tepe." So, for example, "Flair tepes, 'Look out!'"
• This final point is important, especially because Jens can include a hostile party. Jens can manipulate the healing energies among the members of a collective (and other things, but he hasn't mentioned that, iirc). However, this same capacity does not hold true for telepathy. Telepathy is a mental "loudspeaker" - it is contained to the collective, BUT nobody in the collective can be excluded. There is absolutely no stealth option. There is no one PC "dialing up" on just another PC, but other members of the collective are somehow barred. Telepathy is a party-line, and everyone in the collective gets the message - be they a willing or unwilling participant.

Now what?

[digiman619]

Flair nods. "I think that confirms it. I think we'll have to learn to keep our thoughts private, but now we know we're doing it, it should be easier. Now if you excuse me, I have some questions I'm going to ask in the other room." He then heads back to the other room and talks to his mysterious mental guest. "Okay. Now that's been dealt with, who are you and how are you talking me? What is "the outside"?And how do you know that name?"

[digiman619]

Flair returns to the group and asks to be returned to the collective. He has a puzzled look about him, but he decides to focus on the mission at hand. If asked what happened he will say a lot and he only understands a bit of it, but will explain what he knows after they are done here today. He then intructs the group to press forward.

[BuckGodot]

Björn again snorts with derision as Flair starts issuing orders but goes on where instructed...

[lostsole31]

Okay, so now what?

What does press on mean for the group?

[digiman619]

Well, after we check the rooms to the north and south, Flair will open the door at the end of the hallway.

[lostsole31]

The door to the north is the personal effects room. The door to the south holds a room that is totally bound in rubble so that you can't even go in. Do you ignore this room and go to the door at the far eastern end, or focus on this room by doing some sort of excavation?

Spoiler: Marching Order

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Because it was asked on the Discord channel, here is a repost of the two different marching orders your party employs ...

MARCHING ORDER

Björn Björn + Corbin
Corbin Zoo + Bangs
Zoo (gap)
Bangs Maeni + Flair
(gap) Haru + Gaye
Maeni
Flair
Haru
Gaye

[BuckGodot]

Björn starts to roll up his sleeves before he remembers he doesn't really have any that can easily roll and steps towards the rubble searching for the best way to start clearing...

[ClockworkCorvid]

Corbin shrugs, then starts in on the rubble, hauling chunks of it away from the door.

[bcool999]

Jens

Jens assists as well, using his affinity with stone and earth to move pieces of rubble without getting in the way of others.

Spoiler: OOC

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Jens uses Basic Geokinesis to move some of the smaller pieces without getting in others way.

[digiman619]

Flair was going the enrubbled room, but if the rest of the party was convinced that there was something of worth here, he wasn't going to gainsay them. And while he was tempted to sit out the heavy lifting, he knew that if he didn't help it would weaken his position with the rest of the party. He was more-or-less in charge of this group, and if he was to remain in the lead, he couldn't afford to look like a layabout.

[lostsole31]

Other than loose pieces here and there, Björn and Corbin find it incredibly difficult to move wedged stone. Flair can confer with Maeni, and with the latter's expertise, they can determine that trying to excavate what you can only assume is a room beyond would be prohibitively exhausting. To be clear, you do not see a room with rubble all along the "floor" of it ... you see a doorway, beyond which is rubble stacked taller than the doorway. Maeni can also offer that without the proper tools and with the pressure indicating a large rubble stack beyond what you can see, attempting to clear this room would also be very dangerous as well.

Do you continue with this evolution anyway?

[digiman619]

"Listen. I think that this might be a bad idea. I don't think we have a safe way to bring that down, We should probably focus on the other paths for now at least."

[silphael]

"Indeed, we should let that for later... maybe. Or find a way around."

Maeni doesn't really seem enthousiastic about coming later, in fact.

[BuckGodot]

Björn steps back, looks at Flair and shrugs his shoulders, then crosses to his gear, drinks some water and begins putting everything back on to move further along.

[bcool999]

Jens

Jens stops moving rubble and waits for the group to begin moving so he can fall into his customary position.

[SwordChucks]

"If we really need to get past that rubble, I can try to slip through as a small snake and use the brain talky power that Ban- I mean Jens, connected us with."

"It's still probably safer to go the other way though."

[lostsole31]

Björn, putting his sword away (but with his shield at the ready) opens the door at the western end of the hallway. On the other side of the doorway is a vertical pool of blood. You don't see anything but blood. Zoo is a little overdriven by the coppery tang from all the blood.

I need everyone to roll a SAN check after seeing the wall of blood!

Spoiler: Wall of BLOOD!!!

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Please roll your SAN check in spoilers here in IC.

Spoiler: Corbin, Haru, Maeni

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3 SAN Damage: There is nothing ... nothing ... that you have yet faced in this house of frickin' horrors that has readied you for this!

Spoiler: Jens, Flair, Gaye, Zoo

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1 SAN Damage: Let's face it ... it is a creepy wall of blood. The very sight of it chills you, and yet it is just one more horrible sight you've endured in your time here.

Spoiler: Björn

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No SAN damage. Pfft. Blood. You are not squeamish. The bloodlust and ferocity of great Northmen flows through your sinews and your own blood is invigorated by the screams of your enemies. Blood is mother's milk to you.

[SwordChucks]

Zoo shakes his head trying to clear the overwhelming scent from his sensitive nose, but there's too much in the air for him to avoid it.

Spoiler: Sanity

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(1d20+7)[15]

[digiman619]

If, just before the door opened, you had asked Flair what the weirdest thing that had happened to him, he would have said being contacted by a strangely clinical voice that called itself "Cody Rider" would have topped the list; between his talks of code and data (what does cryptology have to do with anything?) and the all the other strange words he didn't understand, it was a bit of a trip. The idea that there was some strange spirit that could whisper in his ear was slightly disconcerting to say the least.

Now that the door had opened, it was a bit of a toss-up. I mean, blood is always a bit disconcerting when it's outside its owner's veins, but even though reality was weird around here, gravity was kind of a constant. Liquids simply don't react like that. "Could it be gelatinous?" he thought. He tried to analyze it rather than react to it, because if he reacted to it, it was not going to be pretty.

Spoiler: SAN

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(1d20+6)[20]

[BuckGodot]

Björns mind reels at the sight and he blinks once, twice, three times before shaking his head and backing slowly away but steadies himself and moves back to his place, drawing his sword.

Spoiler: Björn San check

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(1d20+4)[24]

[bcool999]

Jens

Jens is curious as to the source of all this blood. Was it actually harvested from living beings or is it another phantasm that haunts this place? More importantly though, is it dangerous?

Spoiler: San Check:

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Will: (1d20+7)[18]

[ClockworkCorvid]

"Guh! Since when did blood start doing that!?"

Spoiler: OOC SAN CHECK

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(1d20+3)[5]