Homebrew system thread II, part 2

[Panzersharkcat]

Alfred would be standing watch outside with Rohal.

[Simon_Jester]

To Dale: "Aye. I think I spy traces of that stuff my friend told me about, the stuff that did for poor Bessie. But that was years ago and far away... Huh." He'd want to rummage around in his kit, seeing if he has any handy and expendable containers to take a sample of the water. I assume the poison well has a bucket to work with?

Before he steps too far out onto that floor he'll take a good hard look at the runework. If it's too hard to see, he'll do something no one's yet seen him do before. Take one of those sticks of underbrush we picked up, snap it across, char the ends and mutters a string of Substance magic over it that seems to purify the lampblack out of it. Improvised carbon rods in hand, he jolts it a bit and sparks an arc lamp to life. The tips have to be held pretty close to keep it working, but the illumination's good for close work.

(In an emergency where killing the light would be counterproductive, he casts away the sticks and the lamp goes out almost instantly)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right; it's good workmanship, but not svartalfven- the stonework is too bleak and functional for them, there would be more fancy touches if it were theirs.

Most of the runework has been smashed away in the courtyard; the flagstones have pieces smashed out of them, you're looking for faint traces, remnant imprints- and there are a few still prominent enough, mostly those that resonate with the main work in the large round tower and smaller corner towers.

For a start, whatever this place was for before it was buried, it wasn't too far off what it was used for more recently. From the faint washes of magic ebbing and flowing through it, at a guess the place should be capable of self repair; partly because the crew of labourers and masons that built it, most of them were sacrificed to it- there's human blood and bone in the mortar and their spirits still faintly echoing through the stonework.

That is...mercifully uncommon, and leaves one group in the frame and one only- even the Svartalfven don't usually go that far; makes this place somewhere between seven hundred and four hundred and twenty- six years old. The Terminal Empire, the Black Towers.

Looking at the work around the well, there are some surviving stone- carved runes of the original building- and Larric is not the right person to be looking too closely at them, being as they are crafted by minds obsessed with madness and death. More interestingly, a couple of them have been overlaid with wrought iron runes, obviously intended to moderate or cancel them, and the iron ones are in a lexicon, an alphabet that is almost unrecognisable- would be completely so if you hadn't been down the shelter- hold.

There is a correspondence between that and these; the iron runes are complex and cross- referencing and cross- modifying in a way that seems to belong to the deep past, from the same age and family of theories as the shelter if not exactly the same group. But they were put on after the runes from the Black Towers. Eh?

The chest- height rounded thing appears to be one piece until you look very closely; faintly it is possible to make out join lines, seam lines where the thing should open. There are some magical fields permeating it- the word that comes to mind is containment. Not of a sentient; it's all physical, motion and water and air prominent- or analogues thereof anyway. No obvious catches or levers or keyholes; trigger is probably thaumaturgical.

[Simon_Jester]

Larric is grimly trying to figure out where to plant the demolition charge(s). He's thinking of the sort of thunderbolt-capacitor he put on Alfred's hammer, but with a time delay fuze. So much for his wax tablet; that'd be the piece de resistance. If there's time.

Is that practical? I'd bet on it, for him, although how much effect he'd get is an open question. And of course there's the question of where.

On the assumption that he's got something to put it in, and that the well contains some mechanical means for drawing water, Larric's going to get a sample of the well water very carefully, using all his technical practice, as if he were taking it from a bath of concentrated acidum salis. Trying not to think about the runes, and to concentrate on the job- frankly, his background in Terminal Empire runework probably isn't all that good, since they concentrated on sheer evil and death and things that are simply not what Larric ever really desired to learn.

[OOC: I still have the scar on my knuckle from the one time I got careless with the stuff]

[Kaelan]

OOC - sorry for the lack of posting, the internet has been down in this area for a few days!

IC
First off - Exp spend:
1 Point Physician (9 --> 10)
1 point X-Bow, ( 11 --> 12)
1 point Axe (17 --> 18)

On the Magic Front:
1 point Earth, (3 --> ?)
1 point Motion (2-->?)
I'm not quite sure how the magic advancement works in terms of XP yet.

Now, back to our cave....

Dirt will glance over the runes, realise that he can't read or understand them and move on. Given the magical feel of the place (and the big chest of doom and destruction on the far right) I would hazzard a guess that these rune are more for directing and controlling this 'key stone' of magic rather than general protection of the mounds.

Option 1, break apart the runes. Would advise against it as we don't know what they are controlling and an uncontrolled reaction could be bad.
Option 2, take out the black chest, and with luck the rest should either become redundant or break apart on their own.

Dirt's view is to go for option 2, and he'll start cautiously examining the chest (using his eyes, and not his hands). Looking for any runes, writings or noticeable marks on it.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale takes a moment to concentrate on the "chest" as well. Any visible runes will be closely examined. He'll hold firm the idea of opening it in his mind, then refer to his kind-of-pre-cognition (Consequence - 3) to find out if there are tremors of good idea/bad idea.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I think you may be missing the fact that the centrepiece of the whole place should probably be the thirty foot diameter tower right opposite the main gate. That would most likely be it, yes. It's where the strongest magic is- the entire point of the thing is probably to hold and shelter some kind of ritual place, and it would be in there if the stories and legends are anything to go by.

It may also be the best place for a demolition charge; considering the size of the place and the other mounds, it'd take a lot of demo charges- may not be possible, the place can probably self repair faster than Larric can absorb mana to lay them with, so an uncontrolled reaction might be the best bet. Broken ritual circles tend to let go quite spectacularly, and it could be an entertaining kaboom. Or the act that releases a plague of insanely tormented angry undead spirits, whichever.

The well can be sampled, and oddly the sample- in something presumably translucent otherwise the description doesn't work- looks paler and fainter as it gets further from the stream, to something like water with a fugitive glittering at the right (wrong) angles; still smells utterly vile, though- even through layers of cloak being used as a mask. Seal it and wrap it up well.

Dirt makes a leap of logic looking at the black stone chest; it's not a magical graft on at all, that would be done directly, to the circle. It's a sealed, secure chest with fields within, but not much emanating from it- it's (most likely) an alchemical supply closet, basically. Where the thing, the spirit of the place, keeps the concentrated poisons and mutagens and other drugs used to change and derange. Some of that can of course be done by magic, but both together work better than either alone.

Breaking it open could be disastrous- a spill would probably kill you. Tricking it open could pay off, but you'd still need to be very careful.

[Simon_Jester]

With brisk, practiced motions, Larric seals a slim glass vial of sample with wax- he's probably got at least one jar large enough to seal that inside, and does if possible, filling the intermediate space with a swath of fabric. Seal the big jar for good measure, wrap it in cloth again, job done or hopefully so. Handle with care. Thinks about spells of containment, but he didn't normally work with those much at the lab, it'd take time to work one up that wasn't runic, and he's not sure how to trace the runes properly. Gods know he's not going to go nosing about this place for examples that work... ugh.

Looks up at Dirt, gets a sense of what Dirt's inferring about it from hints on the Substance-Insight radar- "Don't smash it, if you don't already know what's inside. I like having legs, thank you very much!"

(Dirt may not get the latter part, but I hope he gets "don't smash.")

The tower is the center here; he was planning to worry about it next. Coincidentally, is the tower stone black? There isn't much light, but it should be at least possible to tell, in the crackling flare of Larric's arc-lamp before he threw the sticks away in shuddering disgust at getting a close look at some of those runes around the well.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Amazingly not coincidentally, yes. The corner towers, the walls and courtyard are various shades of dark grey, but the main tower is indeed black.

Odd thing is, there are a few more of the iron runes about the place and most of the intact originals, probably the keystones, are covered by them- moderating and binding them to the will of who or whatever took it over.
Whoever that was they were probably not very nice people, considering they were able to adapt so much of the black towers' handiwork to their own ends with minimal adaptation. Either that or they had very strong stomachs. And immune systems, considering the chemical effluvia wafting about this place.

(Dale should probably be praying for a meteor strike about this point- every sense, every instinct is saying that this place should be smashed, destroyed, wiped from the earth. The fact of its existence makes the world a more evil and painful place, it should not be allowed to be. How to make that happen, though.)

Alfred and Rohal can see flashes in the distance, around a low wooded hill three, four maybe miles to the west; magic being cast, nothing earth- shattering but quite a lot of it, and moving- a running battle. That would probably be your diversion, then. Doesn't seem to be getting closer, there's that at least.

Next step's the tower- who's going in? Especially, who's going in first?

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale's concern is obvious on his face. He gives the black tower a stern look before stepping forward and putting a hand on Larric's shoulder.

"This place is foul and must come to an end. We must be cautious; this piece of the Terminal Empire has been coopted by someone or something else. It is not impossible that we could be overwhelmed by the fell power within that tower. I worry that this may be beyond us at the moment. Follow carefully, and fortify yourself against whatever is contained within."

He'll then take cautious steps toward the tower, focussing his senses on the entrance and whatever is in there. Each step is heavy and reluctant. Dale does not want to step inside, but if we can undo the evil in this place, or even just discover more about it for use later, then we must.

[Simon_Jester]

"I know, I know..." he shivers. "You can see it in the runework. I figure on taking a quick look, backing up, and taking a breather to get a real rockbuster ready. Sound good to you?"

Pitching his voice to carry slightly: "Dirt? Could you come with us?"

Larric rounds up Dirt (Dale already being ready to go) and goes in cautiously, probing ahead with Insight-Substance and looking for any concentrations of energy that could be, say, blown up effectively.

[Kaelan]

"Dirt? Could you come with us?"

Dirt raises and eyebrow.
Seriously? We've only just left on ancient catacomb of death up in the mountains and now you heading into one of the black towers!
Oh well let's see if we can disrupt this ancient evil that is vastly over our heads without mutating every living creature within a hundred leagues (ourselves included).

Dirt advances to join the 'Swedish mine sweeping team' approaching the tower....
"Be quick, Not good for us to be here to long"

[Simon_Jester]

"Aye. And..." He looks at his hands. "Maybe we're in over our depth. We'll start like Rohal said. Look, leave, take stock."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right. Sticking your heads in the door then- the main outer door of the tower has been removed, but it opens into an antechamber about three or four feet deep, ten across; get those carbons going again, you're going to need light for this. Either that or avoid using magic as far as possible in there, in case it reacts.

Doors at both ends of the antechamber; on the inner wall, there has been an inscription carved into the stone that has been filled in and plated over with a sheet of bright steel, itself inlaid with script long dead, given the complexity of the characters probably ideographic but definitely unreadable; in the very broadest sense, the magic it reasonates with seems to enforce the message that is written- this is ours now.

There are four rods driven into the wall, protruding out; two of them have things hanging from them, each has a literally wire- frame shield maybe thirty inches across wth runework like the ideographs added across it, a hat/head-dress/ridiculous thing again wireframe scattered with runes- not the same ones, and clustering around the forehead and frontal lobes- and a staff made of some kind of nearly black, incredibly close grained wood, probably from a plant force- grown and warped by magic, with the same thick steel wire making a vaguely dragon- headed sculpture at one end.

Both doors are unlocked, but solid and no way to see in without opening them. Both are colder to the touch than they should be. All of the wireframes resonate with the magic of the circle, it's as hard to miss the fact that it is in there as it would be to not notice a bonfire five feet away. It's reaching out, it's active.

All of you got dumb luck rolls on thaumaturgy, and guess who got the natural one? Fifi. Up until now she's been basically curled up into a ball and trying to hibernate, not happy at all- but she starts bouncing up and down and flapping her leaves and tendrils agitatedly at the things on the wall. Not the head- thing. Head thing bad, and she does a pantomime of rotting and dying. Others, not so bad, although no inclination to trust the staves.

Actions?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Saying this from halfway down the gullet of a misery elemental, for reasons I'd rather not try to explain. Carrying on with this, mostly because I'd dearly love to believe that something in my life, however trivial, can go well.

IC:

Larric infers that the staff and headdress hanging from pegs are instruments of control for the powers of the circle. And, since this is Black Towers stuff, probably closely associated with... what did you call it, "death and madness?" And meant to be worn on a man's head. Therefore, no touchie.

To Larric this would be, yes, time for torches and not arc lamps. He doesn't want his passive detection compromised or distracted by keeping up an active enchantment. Looking slowly to Dale and Dirt in the torchlight:

"Shall we check the doors? Might tell us something we need to pass on downhill, or it might be a step too far..."

[Kaelan]

"Check one door. Gently."

How far up are the wires' in particular is dirt going to be able to move about the tower without touching anything by accident?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Obviously I don't know what's wrong, but I've definitely had moments of feeling like I was basically one of the walking dead, a social and economic zombie, outcast from the rest of the human race. What got me through most of them until things started to look up again was the innumerable other worlds of the printed word; literature the lifeline and safe shelter in the storm. (Remember Phillip Strong's advice to Neal Storm?) Gaming too, to an extent. And hitting people with broadswords, which can get to be surprisingly relaxing once you get any good at it.


I think Dirt's got the wrong end of the lignum necrae staff there; there are no wires loose about the place, what it is is that the headdress/ wizard's- crown things, the sculptures on the end of the staves, and the shields, are all basically wire- frame, not solid, grids and swirls of thick wires of (high iron carbide) steel forming the basic shape of the thing with the ideograph- runes fused onto them. No tripwires- not in here anyway.

Opening the door to the central chamber, cautiously...

first reaction; eep. There's a ritual circle there all right, and it's about twenty feet across- fills the bulk of the chamber, carved into the floor. What look like stairwells up and down on the far side of it.

At nine points around the circle, there is an iron post; rises higher than a man, the sigil of the Black Towers- the last letter of the most ancient alphabet they could know of- atop it. Harness posts, for sacrifices- or apprentices. Three of them have chains hanging from them, and skeletons still in them. All of them are twitching.

The circle itself is laid out in nine concentric rings, around a central plinth; there are runes carved into the floor, a different set in each circle, becoming more intricate the closer to the centre. Flickers of light in the air, crackles of power across the runes; they're being prodded, and if not by you-

The thing looks as if it's trying to act, trying to do something- whether it has the grasp of itself to do anything coherent is debatable. In anyone else's lands, this would be time for the best qualified person to run towards the circle, and everyone else to run away.

What has been done to the circle, in the flickers of mostly red light it is possible to see there is a similar meshwork of wire laid out over it, channeling and controlling, laying claim; and the circle may be trying to break free of it, at least that is what it looks like. One thing, the wire seems to meet in the centre, curving up to a kind of knot above the central plinth, and the emblem on the knot is a stylised mountain.

The staves and the other instruments aren't native to the circle if the style of them is anything to judge by, they belong to the controllers, the people of the mountain; although given that they may not be very much better, Fifi's probably still right about the head- things.

It's dynamically unstable, forces- the power built into the circle and the control built onto it- beginning to struggle against one another. It might be possible to make it go boom; might happen without much in the way of effort actually.

The plan?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Obviously I don't know what's wrong, but I've definitely had moments of feeling like I was basically one of the walking dead, a social and economic zombie, outcast from the rest of the human race. What got me through most of them until things started to look up again was the innumerable other worlds of the printed word; literature the lifeline and safe shelter in the storm. (Remember Phillip Strong's advice to Neal Storm?) Gaming too, to an extent. And hitting people with broadswords, which can get to be surprisingly relaxing once you get any good at it.

I'm seriously considering it. Also- I remember the characters, but I only read Andras's copy of The Vortex Blasters once, so no. Care to share it?

---

The staves and the other instruments aren't native to the circle if the style of them is anything to judge by, they belong to the controllers, the people of the mountain; although given that they may not be very much better, Fifi's probably still right about the head- things.

It's dynamically unstable, forces- the power built into the circle and the control built onto it- beginning to struggle against one another. It might be possible to make it go boom; might happen without much in the way of effort actually.

The plan?

Back up and consult, if Larric has his say.

"We've looked, now we take stock for a minute or two. I'm for doing it out in the fresh air. What do you think?"

He doesn't want to start discussing plans until he's out of the circle room. If the others agree, he strides quickly out of the tower and heads for the entrance to the mound, there to talk with Alfred and Rohal before doing anything drastic.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale feels torn:
- On the one hand, everything about what is taking place in this tower screams at him of suffering and misery which demands a decisive end; destroying this place and its effects is a definitive "good" to which Dale feels himself drawn
- On the other hand, he barely knows what he's looking at and the mystical forces in this place are highly complex. Screwing with them just to see what happens, even with the intent of destroying all of this is not on the menu
- Furthermore... the pent up energy of this evil place is twisted, but what would breaking its containment do? Maybe the whole structure and its spirits would be consumed in the resulting explosion, or maybe it would look like something from Ghostbusters when the containment unit was shut down by the E.P.A. guy. Dale does not want to be that guy. Obviously the refrence to Ghostbusters is out of character, but this is the best analogy for Dale's thoughts at the moment so I went with it.

Dale takes a last hard look at the symbols and set up in the room, trying to drink in the details, then follows Larric. A shudder wracks his body and he is slightly trembling. He feels like he is betraying something by not immediately confronting this place. Internal feelings war with each other, producing outward anxiety and uncertainty of thought.

If Dirt is not moving, he'll lock eyes with the Ogre and twitch his head toward the exit.

[Simon_Jester]

On the way out (assuming we pull back without a hitch), Larric closes the door between the antechamber and the ritual circle room.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sneaking out won't be a problem- the only forces there and able to stop you are already thoroughly preoccupied.

Emerging back into the fresh(er) air is a physical shock- it's possible to not be afraid to breathe again. You may be quite ill at moments over the next few days as your bodies purge themselves as far as they can of the poisons they took in, and there will certainly be moments of fear, but you were careful, made no great mistakes, and should have suffered no serious or long- term effects.

The running fight along the line of the foothills is still happening- there was an interesting moment a few minutes ago, which Alfred and Rohal saw; a fireball reflected back at it's caster, it looks like- a streak of flame that bounced off something solid and ended in gouts of flame at both ends. The fighting's not getting any closer, which is probably a good thing.

The only direct analogy Dale can draw isn't a good one; sanctified ground, if that defeat the defenders and the defences and the physical remains, once the magic is gone, are as easily destructible as any mere material thing. Unfortunately the dark thaumaturgy of the Black Towers doesn't seem to work to the same rules.
Given their usual level of spite and malice, arranging the thing so that if it came apart, it splintered and did as much damage to the surroundings- including releasing angry spirits- as possible? Sounds like them, unless taking it out were to involve a really big bang.



On an out of character note, swordplay in general and dark age violence in particular is a great hobby- but probably best done in controlled circumstances; as random stress relief it isn't entirely advisable.

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:
Naturally. I'm not completely out of my mind, ECR; I just impersonate it once in a while.

IC:
Assuming Dale passes that on, we have a hard decision- Larric had come to much the same conclusion himself.

"I don't know enough to be sure of breaking this place safely. I could spoke its wheel, maybe- remember that trick I did with the hammer in the duel, Sir Alfred?- but I couldn't begin to guess what that would do. We're going to need a bigger wizard, or at least words with one, before we make a move."

He eyes the magical battle. "Do you think Aburon's in the middle of that? If he isn't, we could surely do with his advice. What did he say to do, drum on the ground and hope for the best?"

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The fact that you took that straight or appeared to and assumed I didn't have my tongue in cheek was still slightly worrying, though...
(Neal Cloud, after he got his house and family blown up and was feeling like going to do something suicidally dangerous, was quoted at; "this, too, shall pass." Come to think of it, loose vortexes and ritual circles, hm.)

Yes, that is what Aburon said, although he may be slightly busy at the moment deflecting fireballs and things. Rest of the group concur? Anyone trying anything in the meantime?

[Simon_Jester]

The fact that you took that straight or appeared to and assumed I didn't have my tongue in cheek was still slightly worrying, though...

I also play the straight man on a regular basis. It amuses me to do so.

Yes, that is what Aburon said, although he may be slightly busy at the moment deflecting fireballs and things. Rest of the group concur? Anyone trying anything in the meantime?

I'd figured he might be busy, but it's not like we have anyone else wiser than ourselves on speed-dial. Terminal Empire not-quite-ruined relics are not something we should be playing games with, not at our level of comprehension. If Verone were here we might have more of a clue- but he's not.

Larric's still working out in his head what that runic demolition charge would look like. He digs out his wax tablet- the same one he used to degauss Sir Radulf's greaves, suitably erased with a brief stint on a warm stovetop during the interim, and ready for renewed (and very final) service. It's cold, so he has to be careful inscribing the runes into the wax- as yet, he doesn't start putting power into it, but he's trying to get the preliminaries out of the way in the interests of speed.

He's trying to scribe a lightning bomb with a time delay of... oh, call it "twice as long as it takes to boil an egg," in Larric parlance. Five minutes or a little over. Unfortunately his concept of time is still somewhat medieval- he doesn't have a watch handy. He'd err on the side of 'over five' rather than under. Again, he's not charging it yet, just preparing it.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

(some rolling of dice occurs)-
the notion comes to Larric that there are two problems here, and he may be trying to solve the wrong one; there is the runes-on-mesh controller/inhibitor, which a lightning bomb ought to derange entertainingly and relatively easily, but that may not be an entirely good thing.
The damage Alfred's hammer did to that wall had a lot to do with Alfred on the other end of it, the physical impact weakening the structure for the magic to drive deeper which weakened it for the hammer which- there was a multiplication involved, that you only have one term of; a charge on its' own is unlikely to be as effective, to do as much to the stonework of, or under, the circle.

That said, the pattern flows together well, and this is likely to be a good one; arranging a delayed detonation is harder- it'll have no sense of time either, the easiest way to do it is to leave it almost complete and trigger it with a casting at your own choice- command detonation, if you like. Apart from that, there has to be some changing external condition which, once it matches the trigger condition, releases the power- and what could that be, down there in that cauldron of competing powers?

Larric's trying to figure this out when two birds approach- a sparrowhawk and a falcon- both of them to land nearby. One of them doesn't so much touch land as morph; having animal powers can come in handy at times. It's the druid.

'You've already got to the "how do we make it go boom" stage?' He says, cheerfully; looks slightly singed and there is blood on his axe- blade, fresh tears in his already fairly shabby robe. 'Weirdly, I think we actually have time, I was only half expecting to get away with it- everybody all right?'