File: Dis.jpg (531 KB, 1333x833)

531 KB JPG

Interlude


The broken sun sets once more on Dis. First city, city at the end of the world, the oldest and last bastion of humanity in a world that is reclaiming itself. And overseeing the city from their lofty position atop their tower of vice, one of the tools of that reclamation is having doubts.

Not doubts about anything important, of course. This creature, this monster, this beast of the Earth is occupied by something far more trivial.

The thing most commonly referred to the Paper Bridesmaid tapped a foot of the titular bridesmaid against the ground. At the same time, it let the serpent hiss its displeasure.

“A mild irritation,” the woman said. “When I let Maria off her leash, I didn’t quite expect this.”

The Bridesmaid looks out upon the world in eyes that live in every dice, in every twist of fate. The malicious fate spun by the earth spins out from it and to tell the truth, the woman and the snake are just formalities. Wherever there is misfortune, the Bridesmaid is there. That presence is just as real as anything else.
So it is not uncommon for the Bridesmaid to be many things at once. This is the natural state for what it is. To exemplify both essence and substance, to be a fractal thing where every piece of the thing is the whole thing and the truth of the thing.

But that didn’t mean its attention was equally vast. And now, due to its own intervention regarding the Golemist and Mother of Witches, it was finding it split.
“I thought that she was going to wait. I wanted time to watch it all.”
Sometimes circumstances are just damned inconvenient. To the mind of the Bridesmaid, to whom the suffering of an infinitude of humans and witches alike mean nothing, this was a serious concern.

But as much as it enjoyed the idea of witches bickering, the Bridesmaid had always only ever had one real character of interest in this entire sordid story...

File: orion.jpg (88 KB, 700x959)

88 KB JPG

The Thorn rises from the city around it, a spire of twisted wood that joins the rest of Dis’ towers in its makeshift urban canopy, forever reaching up towards a sun it itself had broken. This is the living tower of the Tangle Workshop and the nexus of the branch offices spread all across the city. This is where the Workshop works tirelessly towards the common good.
Not even you can deny that the Workshop does good. Their tonics, though of odd origin, sustain humans all across the city. Their doctors and medicine men tend to people for free as best as they are able. In all the powers of Dis, they may be the only one not in thrall to either the whims of dead gods or the rule of coin.

But they are monsters all the same and none of their supposed good deeds can weigh upon the scales of judgement you have brought to bear. You are here to claim their shard and even more so, to avenge the death and desecration of a comrade. Abe.
For the sake of a single good man’s death, you would put this whole damned city to the flame.

Tonight, the Thorn burns. It has already begun.

>Wick: 8/10
>Spark: 8/8

A wooden corridor thick with choking smoke and struggling bodies. You catch a sword with your gauntlet, one of the remaining pieces of your sacred runeplate and the man holding it makes the last mistake of his life: He doesn’t let go. You use the sword to pull him forward and with the runesword in your other hand, you run him through.
If he screams you do not hear it. You are deafened by the gunfire, of which there has been a constant barrage of in the background. The redcloaks at work.

You take a swing at a man not yet scythed down by the rifles. He tries to parry you with his own blade and falls to the ground a moment later, both man and sword bisected by runed steel. Behind you, the still-living wood is consumed by holy flame.

It had begun just ten minutes ago. You and the redcloaks had gotten into position on a bridge spanning alongside the Thorn itself, a position with a clear view of its major apertures into the city beyond. From there you had waited, meditating as best as you could until you saw the security forces of the Thorn scramble. Troops mobilized, marching out of the Thorn and out towards... Beatrice. She had done her job.


From there it had been just a matter of flame. And your greatest allies? The sinful flame of your former enemies. Several barrels of Consortium green flame, looted off a shipment and now far more valuable than they had ever been before, charged with a spark from the burden upon your back, proved an ample means of blasting the front doors open.

The Workshop had thought themselves your betters. They had convinced themselves that they could divine your every moment from Beatrice. And in their arrogance, they never expected you to be in two places at one. The front gates of the Thorn had been barely defended.

1/3

>>2714816
And now the Thorn was burning and though it didn’t burn easy, you had flame to spare. The corridors were thick with a smoke that stung the eyes and in the enclosed halls of the Thorn, would kill a man as easy as any fire. You and the redcloaks were riding just ahead of it, safe from its effects as its vanguard.

Alex leads the band, rifle in hands. None of them are particularly well trained in the weapon, having had little beyond the basics taught to them. But they had been basics taught by the best and the cramped corridors suited them well. Every hall was a killing field, a narrow channel through which the only option for the remaining Thorn security was to run in a straight line through a hail of bullets.
Of course, the Thorn was twisted and filled with a dozen little rat warrens. The guards tried to sneak behind the redcloaks through the use of maintenance tunnels and side-paths. And that was where they came face to face with you.

The redcloaks held the wider tunnels well with their firing line and you stopped anyone trying to cut around behind them by virtue of jamming up the narrower paths and doors with your own body. They outnumbered you greatly but what use was that in such a variety of chokepoints?
And every time the redcloaks had finished their work in the hall beyond, you retreated and led your pursuers into the sight of the rifles. And then you advanced forward and it all began again.

You were barely keeping ahead of the smoke and the smoke made sure the halls you cleared before stayed clear. Even if a man could brave the spreading fire, they all still had to breathe. These are old tactics, a long-forgotten means that you had once been taught by a man who was now dead in a Watchtower that was now rubble. Fire was always holy but when you needed to clear out a cave full of witches or cultists, smoke was stronger. Smoke them out and then slay them as they fled.
You couldn’t do that to the Thorn, it’s much too big. But though it was a little different, the principle remained the same.

You take a man’s head from his shoulders, the sweep of the Magisterial sword carving a line in the wall behind him as easily as it parted flesh. And then another guard rushes past their still-falling corpse and grabs hold of your arm! Momentarily pushed back and with your sword under their control, you hear a now familiar whipcrack sound.

2/3

>>2714818
This doorway is too narrow for more than one person to rush you effectively. That’s the only reason you’re even fighting here in the first place. But cracking out past the guard’s shoulder is the lash of a vine, the living whips held by officers of the Workshop’s security force. The tip lashes you across the face and you curse the loss of your helmet as your vision fills with blood. It didn’t get your eyes but it’s split the skin of your forehead wide open.
Taking advantage of your disarray, the guard holding your arm pushes you to the side and pins you against the wall. The next time the whip comes again, it will be closer and more likely to leave its poisonous thorns embedded in your flesh.


>You’re bigger than the guard. Just keep your head down and endure the whip while you kill this one with your bare hands. (Easy roll but you will take damage and be poisoned)

>Try to simply shove the guard out of the way and rush the Thorn Captain (Medium roll)

>Try to drag the guard into the way of the whip as many times as possible. (Hard roll, greater effect if you succeed)

>Other (Specify)

>>2714822
>>Try to simply shove the guard out of the way and rush the Thorn Captain (Medium roll)

>>2714822
>Try to simply shove the guard out of the way and rush the Thorn Captain (Medium roll)

>>2714822
>Try to simply shove the guard out of the way and rush the Thorn Captain (Medium roll)

Alright, I can't really blame people for being less enthusiastic considering how hard I flaked before.

Vote called, writing.

>Try to simply shove the guard out of the way and rush the Thorn Captain (Medium roll)

You wait for the whip to be pulled back before you make your move, swinging your other arm around and grabbing hold of the guard’s shoulder. You don’t need to deal with this one yet, not when the true threat is beyond.

With them slightly pushed back but still clinging to your swordarm, you have the room to raise a leg and kick them in the abdomen. They let go, clattering against the wall as you push past them. You divest yourself of your sword in the process, driving it into the wall for you to retrieve later. It’s a fine blade, better than any you’ve ever known, but it’ll be no good at stopping a whip.

With your staff raised, you rush forward!

>Roll 1d6. The first 3 shall be used to model different stages of Orion’s action.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2715122

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2715122

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2715122

File: dicegods.png (30 KB, 1190x1104)

30 KB PNG

>6,2,6

Roll called. And since you're using the staff, it gets moved around to 6, 6, 3.

Sorry about the delay on this one, been eating. Future ones will be faster.

File: orioncivilianclothes.jpg (162 KB, 1024x1664)

162 KB JPG

>6, 6, 3

The guard scrambles for you as you push past him but you give them another kick as you step past their fallen body. The hall before you is narrow and dark and clouded with smoke. You won’t be able to see the whip coming and even though you can hear it, you can’t hope to react in time.

You’ve fought whips before. The whipcrack is a strange thing. By the time you hear it, the whip has already moved.

So instead you just hold your staff up diagonally before you, keeping your head down as you advance and doing your best to present as little a target as possible. Getting poisoned won’t be the end of the world but it’s hardly ideal! Hopefully the staff will catch it but that’s pretty much all you can count on.

You see the Thorn Captain up ahead and as you do, you hear the whip. Your staff catches the thorny vine, forcing it to wrap around it instead of you. Its thorns click uselessly against the steel of the Duke’s stolen tail as you swing it and the whip into the wall.
The Captain stumbles forward just a bit before dropping the whip just in time for you to slam the butt of your staff into his chest. Armour doesn’t do much against a sufficiently blunt impact.

You knock him back and step forward, using the staff to pin one of his arms to the wall and then swing the other end up around into the thin space where the armour of his breastplate meets the armour of his helmet. He drops to the ground in a limp heap.

A shrill cry manages to actually pierce the rifle-inflicted buzzing in your ears and you turn to see the guard you had knocked aside earlier pulling the runeblade from where you had left it in the wall! They swing it at you clumsily, clearly unused to the sword’s exceptional balance and weight.

But as deadly a blade as that one is, it doesn’t have much on a staff when it comes to reach. You use the flexibility of the Duke’s tail to your advantage as they charge in, swinging your staff out and even as they step back, the tail simply bounces of the wall and whips back around to catch them in the back of the head with a crunch you feel more than you hear.

Your ears are just beginning to clear as you head back towards the redcloaks. The sounds of their rifles have slowed, indicating that they must nearly be ready to move on. You just have to rejoin them and watch their backs as they do so.
With this method, and with the smoke rising behind you, you will clear the Thorn out.

“Orion!”
Alex’s voice is tinny in your ears as you rejoin the main corridor, blood still seeping from your forehead. You sweep it out of your eyes as best you can.
“Are you alright?”

The hall is filling with smoke rapidly rising from the stairwell behind you. But what it has more of are corpses. A rifle against anything else really isn’t a fair fight, not in a city and an age where nobody is expected to be able to use one at all. But you’re not here for fair.

File: Alex_cegremo.jpg (11 KB, 400x269)

11 KB JPG

>>2715471
None of the redcloaks look in too bad of a shape. Grimy, sweating, sure. A few cuts and scrapes. But altogether, the rifles had done their job well. The exception to all this however was Alex. She stands tall as she is able but you can see the open cut along her collarbone where her coat had been split open. It’s been hastily bandaged but not well.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “I just caught a whip. It’ll be alright.”

“Were there any thorns in it?”
It hurts to talk. As much as you’ve been trying to ride ahead of the deadly tide, the smoke has taken a toll on you.

“One. We dug it out just fine before it could do anything.”

You sigh.


>”Just tell me if you start feeling sick.” You need to advance before the smoke catches up.

>”We can wait a moment. Let me see the wound.” Not again. Not ever.

>>2715476
>”We can wait a moment. Let me see the wound.” Not again. Not ever.
>Secure the forward areas, fall back if they send more enemies after you man.

>>2715476
”We can wait a moment. Let me see the wound.” Not again. Not ever.

>>2715476
>”We can wait a moment. Let me see the wound.” Not again. Not ever.

Vote called, writing.

File: orionwithoutarmour.jpg (28 KB, 540x765)

28 KB JPG

>”We can wait a moment. Let me see the wound.” Not again. Not ever.

The hallway is lit only by the flickering torches some of the redcloaks are carrying, with more scattered across the ground and starting small fires. Down the stairwell behind you all is a deep red glow. The windows, such as they are, shed only the pale crimson light of the moon. In this mix of light, everything looks distorted and the faces of men can become those of monsters.

You lay your hand on Alex’s shoulder and shake your head.
“No, I think not. We still have some time so let me see it.”

She frowns.
“It’s not like...him. We know what those whips do. They make you feel dizzy and then you want to puke. I haven’t been feeling that.”

You initially ignore her, lifting her cloak off her shoulders.
“I’m not taking any chances. Do you understand?”

She purses her lips for a moment before giving you a look of exasperation. Her eyes are red-rimmed from the smoke and her face is covered in soot.
“...Thanks.

>Wick: 8/10
>Spark: 8/8

You lay a hand upon her bandaged shoulder, feeling her shudder beneath your touch. Moments later your hand shines with a pearlescent outline as you channel forth Benediction. It doesn’t matter if she’s truly poisoned or not. Just purge it out. From this day forward, you’ll be taking no more chances.

>Wick: 7/10
>Spark: 8/8

Alex closes her eyes as you burn all taint from her body.
“Did it work?”

“I don’t know if there was anything to purge. But whatever it was, you’ll be just fine now.”

“Huzzah,” she says tiredly. They all look tired. “Now I only have to worry about people trying to murder me.”

“Has that been a problem?”

She shrugs.
“When we’ve got rifles? Not really. We aren’t out of bullets yet. I almost feel bad for them. Almost.”

You turn to face the rest of your followers.
“Redcloaks! You’ve done well.”
It doesn’t sound as impressive as you intended. The smoke has reduced your voice to a croak.

For their part, the redcloaks aren’t too impressive either. Only a few can muster a cheer. The others are either exhausted or have a wild-eyed look to them that you can’t place.

“We’ve gained ground into the Thorn!,” you continue. “Now it’s time we put it to use.”
You strip a gauntlet off and hold your hand to the smooth bark of the wall. It can be hard to feel with the heat of the flame and the rush of blood but there is a distinct warmth. A warmth that runs through the entire Thorn.
“It is here. I can feel it.”

1/2

>>2715662

>Take the main stairwell and use that to go up level by level until you find something.

>It’s time to take a proper prisoner who you can interrogate.

>Use the Black Compass. The Workshop might be run by witches but you’re damn sure they employ them.

>Try to get a grip on where people are retreating to or where they are gathering most. Where else would that be but the core of the Thorn itself?

>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way.

>Other (Specify)

>>2715666
>>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way

>>2715666
Shard is priority
>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way.
ONLY IF IT DOESN'T HURT US OR OUR REDCLOCKS

If it does,
>Take the main stairwell and use that to go up level by level until you find something.

Our main priority is the shard, everything else is irrelevant

>>2715675
Oh, it'll hurt you. Not as much as drawing on its Wick but still.

>>2715666
>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way.

>>2715666
>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way.

While roasting our hands more is bad, it seems like the most expedient way to get what we're here for (revenge aside).

Vote called, writing.

>Unveil the lamp post and let like call to like. You know the shards call to one another. If the shards in the lamp were to make contact with the essence spread throughout the Thorn, it would surely lead the way.

“This may tempt you,” you say as you unhook the burden from your shoulders and lay it gently upon the ground. You can feel the warmth radiating out from it even now. “But avert your eyes!”

Only when you’re sure that every redcloak has cast their gaze downwards do you unveil the lamp. The corridor abruptly fills with a heat that feels almost like a physical force as you lift the burning flesh of God up above your head.
You can already feel the pain beginning to start. The holy flame is too pure even for you to bear. Any protection against flame, whether they be magical or not, holds no barrier against the contents of the lamp post. At its touch, stone may burn.

Exhaustion evaporates as the redcloak sing your praises. You bring the lamp post around in a slow swing until the head of it, shining like the sun itself, brushes against the flesh of the Thorn. And when it does the wood does not burn.

Instead a spiderweb of light rises up from the surface of the wood to meet it. Fire calls to fire. Capillaries and channels within the wood itself are revealed, shining through it as if it was transparent. And as you hold the lamp steady, they spread. Channels of soft light spreading all throughout the wood at your side and beneath your feet like a night with too many stars.

The Thorn is absorbing it. It is taking the light into itself. And as it does so, you see the light being spun from the lamp being pulled through the walls of Thorn in a particular direction. The walls and floor of one particular corridor light up, a current of light being pulled through it towards the heart of the beast.

“God has shown us the way forward,” you croak, pain lancing through your arms. “Follow it.”


>Put the lamp post away now. You may have to fight because of that but the path shown to you now will not fade so easily.

>Keep the lamp out. It should ensure that none will oppose on your climb through the Thorn, even if it will exact a permanent toll.

>Other (Specify)

>>2715829

>Put the lamp post away now. You may have to fight because of that but the path shown to you now will not fade so easily.

>>2715829
>Put the lamp post away now. You may have to fight because of that but the path shown to you now will not fade so easily.

>>2715829
>Put the lamp post away now. You may have to fight because of that but the path shown to you now will not fade so easily.

I wonder how many times we can whip Him out before our poor barbecued hands are fall-off-the-bone tender.

Vote called, writing.

File: lamplighterandwitchfanart.jpg (971 KB, 1386x1239)

971 KB JPG

>Put the lamp post away now. You may have to fight because of that but the path shown to you now will not fade so easily.

And with the Thorn drinking in the light, you lay the broken lamp post back down upon the floor and cover it from view. Sparks dance before your eyes as you blink, the light leaving illusion in its absence. But even as those motes fade, the light etched onto the walls of the Thorn does not.

The pain is briefly too much for you to speak but Alex takes up your role with gusto.
“The path has been laid out for us!,” she shouts with a hoarse tone. “We’re nearly done! The eye of the Wheel is on us!”
It is perhaps a little comforting, you think as you desperately shake feeling back into burning hands, that you have found others to lift your burden should you ever fall. But you shake that thought off as the moment of weakness it is. You can’t risk this falling to another. You can’t ask that of anyone else. You have been dragging this behind you for thirty years. To let it slip in the final few days will remain as big of a failure as if you’d fallen at the very start. It must only be you.

But as the light draining through the Thorn leads you up further and further, it leads you to the one part of the Thorn while the rifle might not reign supreme. The grand central stairwell runs all throughout the main trunk of the Thorn and in its twisting spiral, is almost completely free of the long corridors or open spaces that have granted the redcloaks victory up until this point.
You had heard about it from Beatrice and had decided to avoid if it at all possible, to take the lesser stairs from level to level.

But now it is before you and every facet of the stairs shine with stolen light. It flows towards it and then up it and why wouldn’t it? Though they must have added stairs to disguise it or otherwise lend it use, this great internal hollow stretching from the base to the tip must be the central capillary from which all the rest of the Thorn draws upon.
And though most of the guards are absent or are tending or fleeing the fire and the smoke or have been scattered before your guns, the stairwell is not yet undefended. And without the baneful lamp-post to make them unto ash upon the wind, they will oppose your ascent.

>This is a contested effort between Orion and his redcloaks and the remaining members of the Capillary Guard.
>The redcloaks have two members capable of rolling for this action, Orion and Alexandra. They may then make any concessions they wish during the following bargaining stage.
>If they reach 21, they will reach the end of the lightridden road and begin their attempt to breach.

>The Capillary Guard has two members capable of rolling for this action, the Guardsmen and a Thorn Captain. They are in a state of panic and have already made all possible concessions. They can make no more.
>They will roll after the redcloaks and will attempt to reduce their score to 0. If they do, the way ahead is barred.

>Warning. Smoke is still rising...

You run ahead of the rest, stave and sword at the ready to draw any stragglers away from the redcloaks following you. Your heart and mind are united in a constant beat of adrenaline that drowns out the pain and lets you ignore the scabbed over wound upon your face. Lets you ignore every hit you’ve taken, every gasp of ever-present smoke, every divine burn.

You are uttering what has become a constant prayer in your adventures as of late. That if you should be struck down, just let it be done after you are finished! Anything can happen to you then and you would accept it. Just let it be after the sun is made whole.
And until you have seen the new day, you will continue to fight.

You kick a straggler off a balcony and let them fall into the abyss below but as you do so, the sound of shouting up ahead alerts you to something horrendous. There are still Workshop men up above with fight left in their hearts.
You’ll have to do your best to deprive them of the notion.

>Roll 1d6 for Orion’s contribution to the Collective Effort. The first 3 shall be totalled.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2715981
Time for 6 1s

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2715981

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2715981

>4, 2, 2

Writing.

File: lit.jpg (38 KB, 549x731)

38 KB JPG

>4, 2, 2
>8

It doesn’t take long for you to get their attention, even with the smoke rising up behind you. There must be at least twelve of them, lead by yet another guard in a fancy helmet with a poisoned whip. You’ve fought them before, some of them even today. It’s starting to feel routine.

Once they see you, you let yourself slip back past the bend of the stairwell. Sprays of some clear fluid splatter against the wall behind you as you do , raising clouds of steam. And that is what stills you for just a moment. Your plan had been to lead them back down to the redcloaks, to try and maximise the guns for best effect. But now you’re suddenly not so sure.

You don’t know what those spitters do but you doubt it’s nice. And with ricocheting sprays, they’re much more accustomed to fighting in a tight spiral than any rifle could be. You might be leading them towards a gunfight they actually can’t win.

So with that in mind, you stop, reverse and wait. You risk another look and see the source of the shots, creeping doglike creatures with long matted fur. Mixed in with the fur are shaking tendrils of plant matter sprouting up from the animal parasitically and culminating in a long-beaked bulb atop their backs ringed by seven too-human eyes. Steaming spit glistens in beads down the hinged jaw of the bulb as they swivel around chaotically in search of you. There are three of them, led on leashes by guardsmen.

It looks like you’ll have to take these creatures out before the redcloaks can join in. To do anything otherwise...is not worth thinking of. It can only be you. It is only ever you.

>Before Orion’s roll is finalised, you may choose an option during the bargain step to modify his roll.

>Give it your all. Add an additional dice to roll at the cost of exhausting Orion until he can Benediction himself.

>Launch an Immolate up the stairwell. Add a bonus equal to the amount of Wick spent.

>They’re clustered up, it should only take a little stavework to get this done. Add +1 to all rolls at the cost of damaging Orion’s current staff.

>The rest of the men don’t matter, the redcloaks can handle them. Focus on removing the spitters only at any cost. This grants Alex a +2 bonus to all rolls at the cost of a moderate risk of Orion being injured.

>None. This is fine.

>>2716021
>Launch an Immolate up the stairwell. Add a bonus equal to the amount of Wick spent
3
>The rest of the men don’t matter, the redcloaks can handle them. Focus on removing the spitters only at any cost. This grants Alex a +2 bonus to all rolls at the cost of a moderate risk of Orion being injured.

>>2716021
>>They’re clustered up, it should only take a little stavework to get this done. Add +1 to all rolls at the cost of damaging Orion’s current staff.
>ignite weapon: immolate
A 1d4 immolate should be enough, but im okay with adding another Wick or 2 on top of that.

>>2716021
>The rest of the men don’t matter, the redcloaks can handle them. Focus on removing the spitters only at any cost. This grants Alex a +2 bonus to all rolls at the cost of a moderate risk of Orion being injured.

File: fleksnek.png (13 KB, 400x400)

13 KB PNG

Alright guys, I'm going to have a bit of a rest for a few hours. I'll be back later tonight to continue the Collective Effort and the vote will remain open until open until then.'

Sorry about the first day of the thread being so slow.

>>2716021
>Launch an Immolate up the stairwell. Add a bonus equal to the amount of Wick spent
3
>The rest of the men don’t matter, the redcloaks can handle them. Focus on removing the spitters only at any cost. This grants Alex a +2 bonus to all rolls at the cost of a moderate risk of Orion being injured.

>>2716024
>>2716177
I know that Vanilla immolate has the advantage of range, but Ignite->Immolate will cost largely the same and leave us with a burning stick in the same span of time.

>>2716195
What do you mean by "Ignite->Immolate"?

>>2716207
>With the Ducal Firecrafting honing it, additional Wick can be spent when activating this Rite to store another Flame Rite or Benediction within the ignited object.
Ignite Weapon->store an Immolate in it

And with his additional upgrade on Immolate, we can ricochet the Immolate to go for the Spitters or whatever else we want to hit.

Alright, I'm back. Writing.

>>2716211
I don't see the point of this ability to be honest. What's the difference between storing a power for later and just casting it later?

>>2716244
Honestly? It didn't really have a point until you got Dead King's Crown which made it relevant since it let you use free Wick points. That's most of the reason why I made Dead King's Crown at all.

>Launch an Immolate up the stairwell. Add a bonus equal to the amount of Wick spent
>3
>The rest of the men don’t matter, the redcloaks can handle them. Focus on removing the spitters only at any cost. This grants Alex a +2 bonus to all rolls at the cost of a moderate risk of Orion being injured.

It doesn’t take you long for you to come up with a plan. Not that you have the time to think in the first place. Your actions are dictated by a series of perpetually ticking clocks, none of which are truly under your control. The descending guardsmen, the ascending redcloaks behind you, the thickening smoke…
It would only take one of those catching up to you for all this to end in disaster.

So with that in mind, you unsling your wick and round the corner once more with it held out in front of you. You are already drawing forth the Flame Internal before you even see them so their first sight of you again is a gout of liquid flame spraying forth and up the stairwell!

>Wick: 4/10
>Spark: 8/8

The fire clears a path for you to charge forth, wick clattering to the ground as you raise your staff! You don’t need to worry about anything else. These men are but fodder for the guns. As long as you can remove these abominations, the rest will be taken care of.

>11/21

>Roll a d100. On a 40 or less, Orion is injured. Only the first roll shall be accepted.

Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>2716248
Glad I could wake up to see a new thread

>>2716251
welp

>>2716248
rolling just in case

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>2716248
>>2716254
wait, what the hell?

>>2716251
Accepted. Incidentally, it's ironic that I just mentioned Dead King's Crown because I forgot/ to ask for a roll for it in regards to the Immolate.

Feel free to provide a 1d3 roll, anyone. I'll accept the first one.

Rolled 1 (1d3)

>>2716258

>4

>14/21

The first of the spitters meets an abrupt end at the end of your staff, the tip of the Duke’s tail swinging around in a long arc and smashing its blunt stump of a head into a pulpy mess. There’s no bone. And as its host dies, so does the hideous bud sprouting from its back.

You jump a step to avoid a gobbet of acid and then you sweep the legs out from underneath the offending creature, sending it rolling down the stairs. With the guards still recoiling from the torrent of flame you had unleashed ahead of you, that gives you the time to grab hold of the third spitter and, ignoring how its tendrils seem desperate to wrap around your gauntlets, you toss it over your head and down the full length of the Thorn’s hollow interior. You don’t hear it hit the ground.

The remaining spitter has caught itself and gotten back up on malformed legs but it made the mistake of doing it much too early. It didn’t roll far enough away. You break the jaw of the parasitic bulb with one good swing and watch as acid spills helplessly forth to dissolve its own whimpering host.

You know not from whence these creatures came but they are no more. And with that-

One of the soldiers stabs you in the back. Of course. You don’t have your breastplate anymore. How could you be so foolish…
You look down to see the edge of bloody metal poking out through the front of your stomach. It punched right through.

You fall to your knees with deliberate effort, wrenching the blade out of his fingers and letting it stay in the wound. The only thing worse than getting stabbed in the back by a sword is...is letting them pull it out again. At least this way it’s still plugging the wound a little.

And as another soldier approaches, apparently believing your fall to be accidental, you leap from your crouch and grab him by the waist, spear tackling him and carrying you both down the stairs. He gets the worst of it but you have a sword sticking out of you so you’re ready to call it even. The two of you hit the landing as a tangle of limbs and an entire universe of pain.
This isn’t going to end well. You can only hope that Alex gets here in time...

>>2716268
**********

By the time you catch up to the Lamplighter, he is lying almost insensate on the landing with a corpse as his only companion. And all around him are Workshop thugs.

Your name is Alexandra. But that is only one of the names people have had for you over the years. They also include things like urchin, scum, thief, whore, liar, cultist, thug and fanatic, not to mention a wide range of epithets you don’t even want to think of now. And on the flipside, some would call you holy or a soldier of God. Chosen by the Wheel.
You vastly prefer Alex.

But there’s no time for introduction in a place like this, where the smoke stings almost as bad as the godlessness that echoes forth from every fiend here that pretends to be human. And Orion...Orion! At first when you see him, you think him dead. You’ve seen plenty of corpses after all. Would one more be that important?
Even if it was the greatest man to have ever lived? The man who destroyed your life and in doing so, created it?

But you also know he’s too much of a bloody-minded arse to die that easily.

“Fire!”

>Roll 1d6. The first 3 shall be used for Alex’s roll. Alex has a +2 modifier to all rolls.

Rolled 5 + 2 (1d6 + 2)

>>2716275

Rolled 6 + 2 (1d6 + 2)

>>2716275

Rolled 4 (1d6)

Called.

>7, 8, 6

>35/21

********

The light is just about to pass from your blurred vision when you hear the gunfire. This close, in this confined of a space, it sounds almost like the Wheel God himself. But it is not of course. Just one of his servants.

The next thing you see is Alex as she gingerly rolls you over, the sword still embedded in your gut. Her worried face swims in and out of your vision.
“Are you alright?”
What a stupid question to ask someone like you.

“I’m fine,” you grunt, more in belief than in certainty. “The lamp! Do I still have it! Is it still there?”

“Yes! You...You have a sword in you.”

“Nothing important.”
With Alex’s height you slowly lever yourself into a sitting position. You’ve lost quite a lot of blood. Looking at the dark red puddle pooling all around you makes you feel ill so you look anywhere else instead. The redcloaks are standing around you but none save Alex have dared to touch you.
“I’m going to need your help, Alex.”

“What? I mean, sure! What is it?”

“One of you get a bandage ready! Something good!”
And then, speaking quietly just to her.
“I’m going to need you to grab hold of this thing and pull it out of me.”

You don’t think that had been the answer she had been wanting. Still, she only screws up her face. She doesn’t falter or back away.
“Okay. Should I do it now?”

“Hold on. Let me walk you through it. This is...this is important. Can you see the hilt? I can’t see it but I know it’s sticking out my back somewhere.”

“I see it.”

“Good. Now, don’t grab it just yet. Just rest your hand on it. Curl your fingers around it. Don’t put any weight on it!”

She does her best. In return, you do your best to suppress the jolt of pain that she causes anyway as the sword within you moves just a barest fraction of an inch. You don’t need her to see that she’s hurting you. Some hurt has to be done.

“I’ve got it.”

“Back off everyone. Give her some room. Secure the perimeter or...or something.”
Your breath, and thus your words, is coming in short and hard gasps now. This next part could make or break your entire life and with it, that of the world. And right now the crux of the matter isn’t even in your hands.
“You’re going to pull the sword out Alex but you can’t move it. You just need to pull it straight out in the same angle it came in. Don’t let it twist in your grip or drift further down, it’ll just tear up more of...more of me. Do you hear me? Right out of the way it came!...Please.”

1/2

>>2716326
This is a dire wound but it is not, theoretically, a fatal one. Not for you. The Wheel God blessed your people with an unmatched talent for survival and with that came the ability for flesh to knit and the body to make itself whole. And you, you’re better than most at that. If you hadn’t been you would have died long ago in the wasteland.
But even so, this should still kill you. It should kill you beyond any reasonable doubt. In this world, where the sun is dead and the God of Man no longer holds dominion, death is the fate of all Men. But you, and maybe you truly are the only one left in the whole world, still possess some of God’s teachings. Some of his holy light. The rite that was taught to you by the heretic Saint Belle. If you had been less hardy you would have died. If you had chosen a different Benediction to learn from her, you would have died.

The same footsteps that have carried you so far upon this path have taken precisely the steps needed to keep you alive. And that is all you need to know that you do not walk alone.

“Be careful Alex,” you croak. “But not too carefully. You’re going to need...some force. My whole body’s clenched around it and I can’t relax. So just put your back into it and get it out in one go.”
By all that is holy, let her pull it free in just one try. More than one and the blade is liable to act like a saw while still inside of you. And that might be beyond even you.

“What if my hands are shaking?”

You don’t turn around to look at her. You can’t really afford to at this point.
“They won’t. Now on the count of three. One...tw-urghk!”

Alex doesn’t wait. You hear her mutter a brief prayer as you begin your count and then before you can fully work up your own nerve, she pulls it free so quickly that you almost don’t notice its absence.

And then you feel the pain and yeah, you’re noticing it now! You’re really noticing it! You nearly slump back over as even more blood flows free and even as you collect yourself and marshal your Flame Internal, your arms suddenly want to move. They shine with the holy light of Benediction but your muscles have finally failed you. You can’t drag them to the wound.

You need to do it though. You need to do it right now. If you don’t-

You fall over.

Alex catches you before you hit the ground, the sword clattering down the stairs somewhere in the background.
“Where are the bandages!,” she cries. “Just give me your damn shirt!”

And before any further blood can slip free from the wound, she grabs hold of your hand still aglow with the light of Benediction and with only a moment’s hesitation, shoves it into your stomach.

>Wick: 4/10
>Spark: 8/8

Lamplighter, heal yourself.

>The Benediction of Relief activates Dead King’s Crown. Please roll 1d3 to see how many excess points of Wick you automatically gain for it. Only the first roll shall count.

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>2716329

>>2716329

>>2716329
at minimum this should cost 2

>>2716346
so we've got a 4 Wick powered benediction, and we can find out how much more it will cost for a proper heal.

.....I guess this means Alex is too busy to worry about bringing that 35 any higher.

Writing.

>2

The power ebbs and flows, bringing in the tides of Benediction to a weary shore. And though Alex holds your arm in place, the blessing still takes hold. The only question is how much of yourself are you willing to spend?

>4 Wick: Seal the wound shut for now. It can be bandaged and might tear itself open later but at least you can move. A temporary measure.

>6 Wick: This won’t stop the pain or the dizziness but it should keep everything where it should be until your own body can heal itself.

>8 Wick: Work from the inside out to vanish the wound. You’ll still need a bandage to stop the blood but you won’t have to worry about anything else. You’ve still lost blood however.

>10 Wick: Undo the wound entirely and in addition, reinvigorate yourself to make up for the blood you’ve lost. Good as new!

>>2716357
>6 Wick: This won’t stop the pain or the dizziness but it should keep everything where it should be until your own body can heal itself.
Looks like we're on ignite weapon duty all over again

>>2716357
>>10 Wick: Undo the wound entirely and in addition, reinvigorate yourself to make up for the blood you’ve lost. Good as new!
Full Heal. We've got a Boss Battle in a moment. We've got Dead King's Crown and Ducal Firecrafting, along with Benediction of Relief's Power Number (4), we can afford to lose the Wick.

>>2716359
Speaking of which, Dead King's Crown has made it much better to have a Power Number of 1,2,3.

File: sleep.jpg (114 KB, 577x515)

114 KB JPG

And with that, I must sleep. Vote will remain open until I wake. Goodnight.

>>2716357
>8 Wick: Work from the inside out to vanish the wound. You’ll still need a bandage to stop the blood but you won’t have to worry about anything else. You’ve still lost blood however.

>>2716357
>10 Wick: Undo the wound entirely and in addition, reinvigorate yourself to make up for the blood you’ve lost. Good as new!
We will likely need all our physical ability to book it from here.

>>2716357
>>10 Wick: Undo the wound entirely and in addition, reinvigorate yourself to make up for the blood you’ve lost. Good as new!

This will be a nice morale boost too. Can't let the leader show too much weakness to his flock.

>>2716359
>>2716426
>>2716415
Support.
>tfw we appear literally unkillable to our followers despite constantly getting injured

>>2716357
> 8 wick

6
>>2716358

8
>>2716413
>>2716540

10
>>2716359
>>2716415
>>2716426
>>2716532

File: lampOP1.png (2.18 MB, 1465x1313)

2.18 MB PNG

Alright I'm awake and I'm going to be resuming the session earlier than usual to make up for the fact that I have a work shift later today.

Update in an hour.

>10 Wick: Undo the wound entirely and in addition, reinvigorate yourself to make up for the blood you’ve lost. Good as new!

Lacking any better option, you give it everything you’ve got. The rush of Benediction is like being struck by a lightning bolt! Your whole body spasms for a moment and when feeling has finally returned, you shake yourself free from Alex’s grip and hold your hand to your wound yourself.

>Wick: 0/10
>Spark: 2/8

Molten wax dribbles down your forehead and mixes with your blood as the Spark flares to life. And it is like that, with holy flame crowning you, that the redcloaks see you slowly rise back to your feet. You can feel the Benediction still at work within you. White light clings to your form like a cloak.
“Thank you Alex.”

The redcloaks cheer, the sound coming creakily from smoke-damaged throats. And why wouldn’t they? You are invincible, demonstrably so. You can walk the edge of the abyss and be untouched.Blows that would kill a mortal man are nothing to you!
And only you and Alex know just how truly close you came to death. You give her a glance and she smiles, her hands still covered in your blood. She won’t tell.

And with that petty affair taken care of, you are free to survey your surroundings. You are surrounded by corpses, wooden breastplates and helmets punctured by shot. But not enough. And there’s one distinctive helmet you can’t see anywhere.
“Thank you all, I should be saying,” you say, pitching your voice to quieten your followers. “But where are the rest of them?”

“They ran,” Alex answers. “The officer and some of the others got away. They’re up there somewhere now.”

“That’s fine. They may try and ambush us later once they regroup but it’ll be nothing we cannot handle. We have no further need of this stairwell anyway. We are here.”

The light still channeling up the walls of the Thorn’s central stairwell terminates here. This landing is wide and has three doors but one only one is rimmed by light, absorbed power flowing into it and past it. The sign above the door is almost impossible to read with the light streaming through the wood upon which it is carved but you manage all the same.

Biomanufacture Block, Containment Wing #1

The door is locked and it remains so for almost five seconds after you try the doorknob. A quick slice with the runesword takes care of that, letting the door swing open with the bars and bolts behind it severed. But it is only then that you notice that your sword come back bloody.

The door swings open a few inches and then stops. Behind it, wedging it shut, is a thick curtain of what appears to be some sort of pale gray moss. Sparks dance along its bulk, light draining from the current that passes it and into the luminescent growth.

1/2

File: orionandbeatricefanart.jpg (108 KB, 640x960)

108 KB JPG

>>2717100
And it bleeds. The wound inflicted upon it by your sword as it sliced through the door can be clearly seen, shallow gouges in the living fabric. Beads of human blood well up from the torn edges and slowly drip to the wooden floor.

Alex stops, doing her best to peer over your shoulder.
“What is that?”

You watch the light dance across its surface for a few more seconds.
“This moss has a Wick.”

“What? But how?”

“I think I know.”
You won’t speak it however. Not aloud. A Wick is the divine essence of humanity. It is the common trait shared between First, Second and Third Men. It is what a witch trades away forever when they make their dark bargain. No other creature has it. Nothing.

You won’t be able to burn your way through this moss. It used to be a friend of the flame.


>Cut your way through it and clear it out. You’ll be bloody at the end of it but it’s all it deserves.

>Give it fire.

>You can take another doorway. One of them will connect with this ‘Containment Wing’ somewhere.

>Perhaps you should tell the redcloaks after all. It will only be worse within.

>Other (Specify)

>>2717103
>Perhaps you should tell the redcloaks after all. It will only be worse within.

To end this sort of thing is why we're here.

>>2717103
>>Perhaps you should tell the redcloaks after all. It will only be worse within.

-Cleansing Benediction-
Cost: 1 Wick (Light Required)
This Benediction dispels minor curses and other magical stains of the Dark from the target, provided that the target still holds fire within their heart and is a child of light. Stronger curses will require a more powerful Benediction but may still be lessened by this blessing. When used on a creature of the Dark this Benediction makes them extremely uncomfortable.

-Purging Benediction-
Cost: 1 Wick (Light Required)
This blessing requires Orion to touch the target and to remain in contact for a temporary duration as the Benediction slowly pulls it out all poisons from their bodies and burns them away. This works on magical poisons as well but not against magical poisons that explicitly protected against such means. When used on a creature of the Dark this Benediction can disorient them.

Would either of these work to destroy this place? If it's all one living being with a wick if we dispel the magic that turned this human wick or wicks into plant matter, we can destroy the whole damn thing. If I had to guess I'd say this is the result of complex alchemy which is basically potions/magical poisons.

Thoughts?

>>2717156
probably take more than 1 wick to due, but maybe.

Vote called.

But also...

>Collective Effort Roll

>35/21

>The surviving members of the Capillary Guard are regrouping, hoping to gather enough reinforcements to push back down the stairwell and confront you!
>If this succeeds, you will either be forcefully driven from the central capillary or else take casualties.
>Roll 1d6. The first 3 shall be totalled.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2717232

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2717232

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2717232

>Perhaps you should tell the redcloaks after all. It will only be worse within.

“I won’t keep this from you. Not when you have all already seen the culmination of the Workshop’s work with Abraham. You know what they did to him. And this shouldn’t be too shocking.”
You show them the bloodstained sword, running it across the frayed and bleeding edges of the moss itself.
“I don’t know how or why or even what but this thing has the essence of Man. It bleeds. It was us. This is what they’ve done.”

The semi-circle of redcloaks around you widens as they look at the growth with new eyes. For some, this idea might be even more discomforting than seeing what happened to Abe. The idea that they just have it growing here!

“I don’t care what good this place has done,” you say. “To unmake the form of Man is a blasphemy towards the Flame that made us and disgusting besides. They might heal the sick but all that means nothing when they have something like this. Or like Abe. So just be prepared. Past this thing, death will be a mercy.”
You stand back and hold your sword high, ready to begin your grim work but you are stopped by someone daring to lay a hand upon your shoulder.

It’s Alex. She’s slung her rifle across her back and has unsheathed the runeblade that you gave her, the one you tore from the clutches of the cultist mayor of a town called Sacrament.
“No need to dirty yourself,” she says with faux cheer. “Let me handle it.”

“And besides,” she continues in a whisper as she steps past you, “you need to conserve yourself, don’t you? You’re not as unkillable as you let on.”

And with that, she turns and hacks deep into the mossy curtain. Blood sprays free but she just closes her eyes and steps forward, carving further into it even as undoubtedly human blood oozes down and covers her. She takes another step forward and slashes a path and then repeats until a hole three feet deep has been torn through the post-human overgrowth.
She stands and pants at the end of the newborn tunnel, blood dripping down all around her.
“God,” she unthinkingly blasphemes, “that was way thicker than I thoug-yip!”

Something thin burrows through the broken heap of moss around her and wraps itself around her ankle. You barely get a glimpse of it before Alex is pulled from sight.
“Alex!”


>Charge in!

>Launch an Immolate straight through the tunnel.

>Get in there but take this methodically. No need to risk yourself more.

>”Open fire!”

>Other (Specify)

>>2717300
>Get in there but take this methodically. No need to risk yourself more.

>>2717300
>>Get in there but take this methodically. No need to risk yourself more.

>>2717300
>”Open fire!”
>Charge in!
if the moss thing is doing it, then shooting everything will make Alex a much less important target.

If it's a Thorn Captain or something else, we need to get in there NOW.

>Collective Effort

>>2717232
>2, 2, 4
>8
>27/21

The remnants of the Capillary Guard do their best to regroup with other guardsmen, stopping stragglers from fleeing and sounding yet another alert. It mostly goes unheard however.
The bulk of the Thorn's forces are desperately trying to protect the Chemist from what was believed to be the Lamplighter's full force and those that are left in the spire itself have been thrown into disarray. The ever-growing fire and smoke are acting as barriers all throughout the Thorn, preventing the many parts of its remaining security from making contact with one another or the central stairwell.

It falls to the Capillary Guard's Thorn Captain, a relative new promotion with little experience in such a crisis. She survived the Lamplighter's suicidal attack upon their spitters but now it falls to her to keep morale up and to regroup the Guard!

>Roll 1d6 for the Thorn Captain. The first 3 shall be totalled.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2717300
>Charge in!
>>2717343

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2717343

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2717343

File: lamplighter2.png (311 KB, 343x484)

311 KB PNG

Rolled 5 (1d6)

Well the tie doesn't seem to be breaking anytime soon and I'd rather do a few more updates before I have to go to work today, so I'll just roll it off to the Dice Gods.
Evens charge, odds methodically.

>Get in there but take this methodically. No need to risk yourself more.

You very nearly trample your way through the mossy tunnel after her but you catch yourself at the last moment. Alex volunteered to carve her way through because after you told her what it truly was, she thought it’d be easier on you if she did it instead. She knows you’re not invulnerable and that you’re already tiring. She did it out of consideration for you.
So what kind of repayment would it be if you just rushed in and threw yourself in danger for her sake?

You raise your hand to stop the redcloaks behind you, who had been panickedly raising rifles.
“What are you doing? If you shoot into this, you might kill her! Leave this to me!”

You aren’t going to blunder in and waste Alex’s consideration. You’re going to trust that whatever is out there, she’ll be able to survive for the few seconds it takes you to clear your way through properly!

You step into the mossy burrow Alex carved and start clearing, cutting away from around your feet as you slowly wade into it. It’s a few feet thick so it’ll only take you ten or fifteen seconds to do. That leaves ten or fifteen seconds for Alex to die or worse but you’ll not risk yourself for that. Not when the future of all the world weighs upon your back.

Your resolve to do this however, is tested direly when you hear Alex scream. You cut your way free to find yourself in a darklit room with sheets of gray moss hanging from the walls and coating the wooden floor. The light travelling through the walls shines through but only barely, being devoured by the still-growing moss.
It’s nearly impossible to see how big the room is or what is in it but as you raise your wick to make a light, something barrels through a flimsy wall of moss straight for you!

You’re ready for it however! It hasn’t caught you blundering in with foolish abandon but instead with both sword and wick in hand!

>Roll 1d6 and add a +1 modifier. The first 3 shall be used for the three stages of this action.

Rolled 6 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2717448

Rolled 4 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2717448

Rolled 1 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2717448

>7, 5, 2
>Defending, Keeping your footing, counter-attacking.

Writing.

>7, 5, 2

You step to the side as something large barrels past you into the wall, feathery tendrils whipping past you! You endure their blows without even shifting in your position and even as one of them whips around low to try and make you lose your footing on the blood-smeared ground, you manage to lift your foot just in time!

And then you bring your boot straight back down on top of it, grinding the tip of the prehensile fleshy whisker to paste and inducing a high-pitched scream from the creature before you. White light flares around you as you do so, Benediction still flooding through your muscles.

>The Benediction of Relief’s Power Number grants you 1 Wick!
>Ducal Firecrafting grants you an additional 1 Wick!

>Wick: 2/10
>Spark: 2/8

And though your return swing bites only empty air, the light of the refreshing Benediction combined with the tiny star adorning your brow give you just enough light to see by when the snuffling creature reverses back towards you.

It’s a bloated bulbous thing, a single warty bladder with a wrinkled mouth as wide as its whole body. It doesn’t have eyes as much as it has clusters of them, two huge eye sockets each filled with at least a dozen human eyes each. Adorning it are patches of feathered whiskers and there, beneath its belly, you can see a struggling shape wrapped up in at least seven of them. The creature’s underbelly is transparent and disgustingly porous, foul-smelling purple secretions flowing freely from its veins and through its skin to drip slowly onto the struggling Alex.

The creature’s mouth opens to reveal a fat and pallid tongue that morphs halfway into a struggling pair of wretched human legs that flows seamlessly back into tongueflesh. And as much as you don’t want to, you recognise that form of half-merged aberration. It’s the remnants of the creature’s original body. Whatever foul process had been unleashed upon Abe had also created this abomination.


>The sword doesn’t have the reach to fight past this thing’s attacks. Switch back to your staff and Ignite it.

>It might be Wick-consuming but if it truly was of Man...unleash a Benediction of Relief.

>Work to get in as close as possible. Cutting Alex free is your top priority.

>Unleash an Immolate!

>Lure it back through the tunnel into the guns.

>Other (Specify)

>>2717501
>It might be Wick-consuming but if it truly was of Man...unleash a Benediction of Relief.

>>2717501
>Work to get in as close as possible. Cutting Alex free is your top priority.
>Self-Ignition, becoming a ball of fire that cannot be grabbed
>Store a healing benediction using Dead King's Crown, to heal Alex's burns as we pull her out while still on fire.

>>2717501
>Work to get in as close as possible. Cutting Alex free is your top priority.
>Self-Ignition, becoming a ball of fire that cannot be grabbed
>Store a healing benediction using Dead King's Crown, to heal Alex's burns as we pull her out while still on fire.

Wouldn't this thing have protection from flame too?

>>2717510
>>2717512
How about we just don't burn her in the first place?

>>2717539
only Lamplighters are protected protected from flames. Regular men still burn. It's just that fire won't utterly destroy them with 2x weakness.

>>2717540
because we don't know how many grabbing tendrils it has, and this is a grappler?

>>2717542
The healing isn't perfect and it takes time. There's no reason to injure her when we have other options.

>>2717554
the healing is a bonus, the primary goal is getting her out without getting trapped too.

>>2717564
...and burning our most capable fighter.

>>2717567
She's choking to death or worse in there, and you want to spare her from minor burns.

Also, you DO know that Relief was incredibly Wick inefficient when used on Abe, right?

>>2717501
>>Cleansing Benediction. One Wick.
>This Benediction dispels minor curses and other magical stains of the Dark from the target, provided that the target still holds fire within their heart and is a child of light. Stronger curses will require a more powerful Benediction but may still be lessened by this blessing. When used on a creature of the Dark this Benediction makes them extremely uncomfortable.

>>2717501
>>>Cleansing Benediction. One Wick.
changing from this>>2717512

Vote called, writing.

>>2717578
>>2717580
wait WHAT? This won't make it uncomfortable, and whatever was done to it was not a curse of Dark. This will do NOTHING.

Being a bit slow here because I'm getting ready to work.

>Collective Effort

>1, 2, 5
>8
>19/21

The Thorn Captain was ultimately unsuccessful in her attempts to marshal her men to try and take back the stairwell. But even as the remnants of the Capillary Guard dawdle, a far more dangerous and inexorable enemy is rising up behind you.

Smoke.

The fire below was still raging and the smoke in the stairwell is growing ever thicker. Your plan was to use the smoke to disrupt the Workshop forces and to protect your back and in those functions it performed admirably.
But smoke, unlike flame, kills and smothers without recognition or discrimination. If you dawdle too long you risk being smoked out yourself.

>Roll 1d6 for the smoke. Only the first one will apply. Though the smoke has only rolling party, it will continue until you leave or until you find a safe secure from its choking advance.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2717653

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2717653

>Cleansing Benediction

You sheathe your sword as the abomination flounders back towards you, squirming through the sheets of hanging moss. Instead you take up your staff and hold it before you as you had just done to the Captain and his whip.
The first tendril goes wide and by the time the second tendril is caught by your stave, you’ve charged in and caught the monster by its lower lip. Bubbling saliva pools around your gauntlets as you rip the thing’s gaping mouth wide open!

And there, facing its surprised and toothless maw, you wedge your staff. The flexible metal of the Iron Duke’s tail sways but does not bend. That leaves you free to plant your palm straight into the vulnerable soft flesh of its vile gums.
“Be cleansed!”

>Wick: 1/10
>Spark: 2/8

The entire monster flinches for a moment, every whisker uncoiling and going limp for just a moment. Only for a moment but a moment is enough. You hear Alex gurgle as she is dumped unceremoniously to the floor as every tendril grappling her spasms.
And now that’s she free, all you need to do is-

The beast’s tongue lashes out, sweeping both you and the staff to the side with unstoppable force! You’re knocked off your feet and sent rolling through several layers of clingy gray moss. The creature lurches forward towards you and then stops dead, a shrill keen coming from its throat that you’ve never heard before.

It then slumps over with its transparent and oh-so-soft belly slit right open. And rising from the carcass is someone who you almost don’t recognise as Alex for a moment. She has the old runesword still clutched in one hand but aside from that, there are almost no distinguishing features. She is covered from head to toe in blood, smeared moss-stain and purple ichor, a silhouette of gore where only her wide and staring eyes are clear.
“Thanks,” she mumbles.

You climb back to your feet, clearing moss out of the way as best you can.
“Are you alright?”

“Don’t worry. Most of this blood is yours. You or the moss. That thing didn’t do more than dribble on me.”

You don’t have the time to check her over or to inspect the room because with a faintly audible sigh, the moss draping everything slowly draws back. The two of you are standing in a simple wooden room, the walls and ceiling stained with blood and ichor and moss residue.
And standing before the two of you is a door and through it you can hear...a song? No, too discordant. No words. A tone. A buzzing melodic tone that continues without tune or end. The door swings open of its own accord.

1/2

>>2717722
Beyond the door is what you could only call a garden of some sort. A long corridor where the walls shine with collected light. The floor is covered in dirt and a thick coat of pale white grass beyond that. And sprouting from pots assembled along the walls are rows and rows of singers. Pale little flowers that shine with a faint light of their own, each orchid assembled in an incredibly discomforting approximation of a human shape. They are the source of the noise.

The corridor ends in a blank wall and standing before it is a man in a white cloak. He is stocky and blonde and aside from the matter of his gender, an obvious twin to the woman you had killed earlier. He is unarmed and alone and yet, this doesn’t seem to bother him. Instead he spreads his arms in a gesture of welcome, backed by his unearthly choir.

‘Good evening. My name is Dr Surrex, former chief of Wick Studies. You could say that I run this place now. Is it possible that we could talk this out like civilized men?”


>It’s a trap. Stab him!

>It’s a trap alright but the doctor himself is probably it. Keep your distance and don’t respond.

>Just lob an Immolate in and shut the door.

>”I only want one thing. Give it to me.”

>”No.” There is more you could say to condemn him and the Workshop. He’s not worthy of words however.

>Other (Specify)

>>2717726
>”I only want one thing. Give it to me.”
I also want to see this building burned to ashes

>>2717726
>Unveil your lamp

I really have to go to work now. Vote open until later tonight when I come back

>>2717726
>”No.” There is more you could say to condemn him and the Workshop. He’s not worthy of words however.
>>2717732
I feel like we should use this as sparingly as possible. Our body can't take much more of it.

>>2717722
well, I guess I was wrong. There ARE components of Dark in this particular experiment.

>>2717726
>"Open Fire."
>Watch for a trap. Pull out the lampost if we need to know where to go next

>>2717726
>It’s a trap alright but the doctor himself is probably it. Keep your distance and don’t respond.

>>2717732
We didn't bring enough wet naps and cornbread for much more of that. We should at least hold off until the Redcloaks can secure some to-go boxes.

>>2717726
>It’s a trap alright but the doctor himself is probably it. Keep your distance and don’t respond.

Tried talking a couple times already. We deeply regret it, given their treachery.

>>2717726
>>”I only want one thing. Give it to me.”

>>2717726
>Send Alex back for the redcloaks
>”I only want one thing. Give it to me.”
>Stall the guy until the gunmen arrive, then shoot him.

Alright, I'm back. Vote called and updates resume in an hour.

>”I only want one thing. Give it to me.”

Surveying the surreal scene before you, you give Alex a nod. She understands your meaning and ducks away. She’ll get the redcloaks into this den of horrors and when they do, they can shoot this blasphemer. You’d rather not go close or even attack at all. When has the Workshop not met your every attempt with some new and secret horror? Nothing is as it seems with these people.

And while the Workshop and the Thorn have always been strange and uncomfortable, for some reason the sight before you now is one of the strangest. This strange little garden corridor that leads nowhere and hidden behind a filthy moss den. How did this Dr Surrex even get here? How did he know? Where does the channel of light lead from here, save just deeper into the Thorn’s walls? And you’d prefer not to look at the ‘choir’ on either side of him, though you can’t stop yourself from hearing their song.
“What do you say?”
His voice is so much like that of Dr Erunt, the dead woman who dragged Abraham down with her.

“I only want one thing. Give it to me.”
You also want this whole damn tower to burn to the ground. You’ll refrain from mentioning that however. It’s possible that you might be able to get something from him.

“The shard. I didn’t expect anything else. That was an interesting trick with the capillaries there.”

“Where is it?”

“Tch. To earth with you! Why would you expect us to ever give you that? You are a monster and a slayer of men. Why would I have any respect for someone who has done what you have? A star shone in Dis today. What possible whim or judgement could make that worth it?”

“God’s.”

“A dead tyrant. You and everything you stand for is nothing more than a post-mortem spasm in his corpse.”
The eerie tone of the choir grows louder, the orchid-people swaying back and forth as one, their hands thrust out as if coordinated prayer.
“The shard is not here. This light you have followed, this is its terminus. The shard is deep within the Thorn, at the very base of it all. See how the light flows into the structure itself here? This is a dead end.”

The redcloaks form up behind you with their rifles levelled at the doctor. If this perturbs him, he gives no sign. Instead he simply adjusts his white cloak.
“Have we reached the end already? I must admit, I had a fantasy of making you see reason. But you are diseased.”


>”Fire.”

>”What could justify all this?”

>”If you are still here, all that tells me is that more stars are needed.”

>”Why even heal people if this is what you do? What’s the damn point?”

>Don’t kill him. Not yet. He is going to show you where the shard is.

>Other (Specify)

>>2718267
>"Given what you've done to men and witch alike, I'll prefer slayer any day. Fire."
killing or punishing witches is one thing, but I think Orion would also take offense at turning them into even more dangerous weapons. For one, it makes it impossible for them to atone.

>>2718267
>”Fire.”

Dude is delaying us.

>>2718269
This. But Doctor Buttsex here is probably going to turn into a monster, or explode, so I think having an immolate ready to incinerate whatever is left after shooting would be prudent.

>Collective Effort

>>2717653

>3
>16/21

The smoke thickens...

>Roll 1d6 for the smoke. Only the first one will apply. Though the smoke has only one rolling party, it will continue until you leave or until you find a safe secure from its choking advance.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2718293
wow, this must be a LOT of smoke.

Vote called, writing.

File: Choir of the Surrexerunt.jpg (52 KB, 605x504)

52 KB JPG

>“Fire.”

You take a step back. You don’t understand what’s going on here but neither will you tolerate it. For a long moment, the only sound is the chorus of the swaying orchids and the rustling of the broad grass beneath your target’s feet. It’s not hard to find words though. You’ve been preparing your judgement for some time.
“Given what you’ve done to men and witches alike, I’ll prefer slayer any day. Fire.”

You take another step back as you speak, letting the barrels of the rifles past you. You keep your wick ready however, even as the guns go off and gunsmoke mixes with the smoke in the air once more. It’s painfully loud in such a small place and Dr Surrex crumples in a bloody heap with no resistance. And that’s it. He is dead.

You had been expecting more. Was he going to spring a trap like his probable sibling had? Could he become a beast himself? But no, just the usual result of a man being shot by several rifles at once. The walls glow with stolen light. The flowers wave and sing in unison. The blood stains chalk-white grass.

“That was easy.”
Alex joins you, still covered head to toe in gore. You can barely tell there’s a person beneath it all if weren’t for her eyes.
“I don’t like those queer-sounding flowers though. Should we smash them?”

You stare at the swaying things a little while longer and, for the moment, ignore the question. Instead you pose one of your own.
“Where do we go from here?”

“What?”

“The Thorn feeds on the light. The shards call to one another through this great big system. But the light leads here and then just...vanishes into the walls. Wherever it’s being siphoned, there’s no door or corridor leading to it. We can’t follow.”

“He said it was somewhere near the base, didn’t he?”

“Then why would the light flow up here first?”
>This is a dead end and you are running out of time. Leave.

>There must be more to this blind alley. Why would they build it? Inspect it further.

>Inspect the doctor’s body.

>Search the mossy den of the beast that was once a man.

>Other (Specify)

Additionally,

>Have the garden destroyed.

>Let the plants sing. It’s probably just a trick.

>>2718313
>>2714816
>It had begun just ten minutes ago. You and the redcloaks had gotten into position on a bridge spanning alongside the Thorn itself, a position with a clear view of its major apertures into the city beyond. From there you had waited, meditating as best as you could until you saw the security forces of the Thorn scramble. Troops mobilized, marching out of the Thorn and out towards... Beatrice. She had done her job.
Where's Beatrice?

>>2718315
Beatrice is at the Chemist's, not here.

>Have the garden destroyed.
>There must be more to this blind alley. Why would they build it? Inspect it further.
>Be very careful with the doctor's body. It can explode or turn into a monster or infect us with flesh-eating microbes at any moment.

>>2718313
>Burn it all dow-
wait. I am....70% serious about this, wow. I mean, we could just fire-dig through to a less smoked area and keep moving from there. The damage we would cause would interrupt whatever function happens to the light even if we don't know the secret.

>Burn it all dow-Have the garden destroyed


>>2718315
Having a nice chat with the Golemist.

>>2718317
+1
>>2718318
Burning stuff that seems like a trap seems to be a good idea.

Interlude

Consider the tree, the flower the blade of grass. All the inhabitants of the plant realm. They are undoubtedly creatures but they possess such a different existence from the lesser meat, from humans, from the children of the Earth. For you see, only in plants does life find its purest expression.
It is common wisdom that plants were born of the mingling of earth and flame, when the great god URs corpse fell atop the Wayward Flame and crushed it into the mud. UR would form the very base of the world adrift within the Sea of Mud and the Flame would later have its means of vengeance baked into that very Sea itself. But there was a mingling of the two essences all the same.

And this, people say, is why the earth brings forth life that seeks the sun. Plants are born of earth but sustain themselves, to varying degrees, on light. Those that needed light the most have all died out save where the Workshop had done their best to save them. The plants most attuned to earth however, the nightflowers, have thrived in the broken wasteland of the world and Men would do well not to trust them. But no matter their place on the spectrum, all plants bear the same origin: An accident. They were not designed or created like the cycles of Man, born from the Flame’s vengeance or all the children of Earth born to fight them.
Only in the plant realm can you see life unshackled by the whims of gods and there, if you look, you can observe another peculiarity. With no gods to tell them to thrive or die the plants have more or less figured it out on their own. Plants that do not thrive die off while plants that are suited spread themselves. And so over the years, unaided by the design that has made every other aspect of the world, plants change themselves.

This is the true potential of life and it is one that Man, forever under the tyranny of Creation, cannot know.


-Forward to A Treatise On The Herbological: A Revised Edition For The New World, published under the name ‘Dr Spinae’

Vote called, writing.

>Destroy the garden.
>Burn it all down.

Alex doesn’t have an answer to your question. You didn’t really need one. Instead you just take a torch from one of the redcloaks. You handed them all out at the start of the assault to assist in the fire-raising and this one been’s burning well since then. Things tend to that as long as they stay close to you and the lamp-post on your back. Get some distance and well...fires fade and what burns does not.

“First of all,” you say. “We put this little place to the torch.”
You toss the torch into the room, aiming straight for one of the little dancing flowers. The dissonant tone somehow changes into something that is almost a scream, just as it was previously almost a song. They don’t stop swaying as they burn but the sound becomes increasingly high-pitched.
“He said that the shard was at the base of the tower. But why would we believe anything he said? Let’s burn it out first.”

The fire spreads across the grass and when it touches the body of Dr Surrex, engulfs it as fast as it did the flowers. Much too fast. But aside from that, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the corpse. He just...died. For apparently nothing.
The last time a Tangle chief did that, you paid the price. These people don’t wage war on an axis you understand.

So you’ll all stay back until the room has been burned black. And then with all the distractions out of the way, you might learn the truth of it. If nothing else, it could be that you could just use the lamp-post to burn a way into the center of the Tho-

The song-scream of the dying flowers heights into what feels like an auditory spike shoved right into the back of your skull! You stumble back and before you can help it, fall to your knees. All around you everyone else is doing the same.
The choir’s final song is overwhelming, a sound that seems to override all thought and accesses a primal instinct straight from the body itself. Your vision blurs and in moments you are seeing double.

Two Alexs keel next to you, their hands plugged over ears fruitlessly. But then something strange happens. One of them stays down, sinking ever deeper under the choir’s assault but the other...she rises to her feet.
She looks down at you and then extends a hand stained with your own blood. She’s trying to help you up.

Meanwhile the other vision of Alex continues to cower in shock. You thought you had been seeing double. But no, something far stranger is in play here.

You try to rise but cannot seem to sort one limb from the other. The sound is so much that it has invaded all other senses and muddled them all together. Alex, or one of her at any rate, is still holding out a hand. You can’t get up without her assistance.

>Take it.

>Do not.

>Other (Specify)

>>2718342
>>2718325
>inb4 destroying the garden was all part of his plan.

>>2718342
>You can’t get up without her assistance.
That's weak, do it without her assistance.

>>2718342
>>Take it.
Are we going into the spirit realm?

>>2718325
Spinae seems pretty interesting, shame we crushed him with an orbital strike.

>>2718342
>>Burn it all down.
How did this win over the other?

>>2718353
+1 if >>2718348 isn't valid.

>>2718342
Holy crap, I want to fight imps and witches already. At least they won't turn fire itself against us.

>Check whether we're seeing double of everything else, including especially our own body

>>2718357
Oh. It's called 'I am very tired and misread your earlier post where you +1'd one vote and questioned the other and mixed them around'.
Maybe I should get some sleep. This isn't a great point to end on though.

>>2718342
>Unveil the Lamp
fuck yo illusions.

Hey Ouro lore-wise is there a notion of out of body experiences or would Orion think what's going on right now is blasphemous madness?

>>2718363
There is none.

>>2718342
>Take it

Vote called, writing.

>>2718318
>>2718313
Finally. More Fire can't be bad.

>Take it

Once again, matters move beyond your comprehension. The scream of the dying choir, something that should have ended long ago, now persists as a single painful and eternally drawn out note. You can hear nothing else. You cannot even hear the crackle of the flame.

You look down at yourself and here, the blurred vision suddenly ends. You can only see you. But the moment you lift your head the world discombobulates once more. You can see Alex twice over and overlapping but while your vision has been doubled before, you’ve never seen the doubled image change. But here it is as it was when you last looked.
Alex is on her knees with her hands over her ears. And Alex is still standing, extending a gorey hand to help you up.

You don’t know what this is but witchcraft is probably involved somewhere.

You take Alex’s hand and your vision snaps into perfect clarity. Alex pulls you up and there is only her. There is no Alex left lying on the ground. Your sight is singular.
“What was that?,” she asks.

“I don’t know. Where are the others? Where did they go?”

“What others?”

“The redcloaks!”

And then all of a sudden, the silence is banished and you hear the painful sound of the choir once more. You smell only smoke. And your vision doubles.

Alex stands before you twofold. In one, she has taken your hand in a bloodstained grip and is leading you away. In the other she has taken your sword and held it to her throat. She is dying. And this can be true, all at your whim.

It has to be true. These are the only things that can happen. You are helpless on your own.


>Keep hold of her hand.

>Kill her.

>Other (Specify)

>>2718380
>Other (Specify)

Lay a Benediction upon ourselves and Alex.

These people don't play winnable games

>>2718380
>Unveil the Lamp
can't kill yourself if you're too busy praising the sun

>>2718380
>>2718385
Seconding this.

Ever play a shell game? The ball is under NONE of the cups.

>>2718386
This is a good idea too.

>>2718387
>>2718386
Either of these.

>>2718385
This

>>2718342
>Alex, or one of her at any rate, is still holding out a hand. You can’t get up without her assistance.
>>2718380
>Alex is on her knees with her hands over her ears. And Alex is still standing, extending a gorey hand to help you up.
>Alex stands before you twofold. In one, she has taken your hand in a bloodstained grip and is leading you away.
Where did the gore come from?

>>2718396
dude. How many times has Ouro mentioned that Alex is covered in Orion's blood?

Vote called, writing.

>>2717100
>And only you and Alex know just how truly close you came to death. You give her a glance and she smiles, her hands still covered in your blood. She won’t tell.
>>2718342
>She looks down at you and then extends a hand stained with your own blood. She’s trying to help you up.
>>2718397
Oh yeah. I assumed that was part of the illusion.

>Other (Specify)

It nearly had you for a moment there. You almost played along. But whatever this is, it pushed too strong and too quickly and made itself too obvious. This is some sort of mindtrap. Nothing you’ve ever encountered before but simple in design. Something to force you to keep making choices in what you think is reality.

But the only true reality is that ear-piercing shriek and the smell of smoke.

If it had stayed subtle it might have been able to lead you away. But killing Alex for no reason? Why? Why would that make sense? And come to think of it, why were you so certain that you needed assistance to get up? And that’s the trap. It’s the certainty that there are only two options. You don’t know how this is being done, some kind of curse or your mind being undone through sound alone but all you need to break the spell is to reject the choice your senses give you and to do…literally anything else.

And as you turn away from the false vision, your eyesight worsens, the painful sound increases and your nose and throat fills with smoke. But that’s just fine. The bad sensations are what’s really there. You just have to unveil the lamp-post. Or make a Benediction. Or do any other third option.

…

And just like that, you open your eyes to a room filled with a silence broken only by the crackling of flames. The flowers are dead, they must have stopped screaming a while ago. And for you at the very least, time has begun to move properly again.

You are standing next to Alex as you were before, her hand still in yours. But her eyes are closed and all around you the redcloaks writhe or crawl upon the ground. Some have latched onto each other in the same way you and Alex have. They are all still trapped in a game with only bad choices.
Behind you, the flames in the garden room die down as it starts to run out of things to burn.

“Sure, I’ll come with you.”
Alex is speaking to you but not, you suspect, to you. She’s speaking to her own double-vision. You wonder what scenario it is that she sees. Will it turn to violence as quickly as yours? Or was it something about the nature of your own mind that made such an obviously hideous act spring up so immediately?

And if indeed this is the real Alex and you are awake right now, you really did take her hand in reality when you did it in the dream. So if you had been forced to choose an act of violence…
They, and previously you, are all as sleepwalkers. You would have killed the real Alex and she would have died without even knowing she was.

You extract your hand from her grip but she doesn’t seem to notice. You wave a hand in front of her face. Lacking any other option, you then slap her across the cheek. Your gauntlet comes away coated in a mixture of moss and monster’s blood but otherwise has no effect.
They are trapped in a labyrinth of false perception that only they can free themselves from.

1/2

>>2718415
As you ponder this, you hear something creak in the former garden hall. The fire has ravaged the place, scorching the living walls black and in doing so, forced them to peel back from around the secret doorway they had been actively concealing. The hallway continues onward and it is lit with stolen light. The doctor really had been lying, trying to throw you off at the last moment. The shard is just ahead.

But Alex and the redcloaks might not be able to come with you.


>The shard is most important. They can stay behind. You will be quick.

>Stay here and do your best to protect themselves from each other until they rouse. That tunnel isn’t going anywhere.

>Lay a Benediction upon Alex to lift her from the influence. But you don’t have enough Wick to do that to everyone…

>Other (Specify)

>>2718416
>>Other (Specify)
Unveil the lamp post and try casting a benediction. Surely no illusion can keep out the truest light of a god!

>>2718416
>Unveil the Lampost
if we leave them, they'll die to smoke

>>2718416
>Lay a Benediction upon Alex to lift her from the influence. But you don’t have enough Wick to do that to everyone…

Also start singing a hymn with Alex to draw then back to themselves out of habit.

Yes, I'm suggesting a Minmei defense.

And with that, I really must be getting to sleep. I will leave this vote open until I wake. And also before I go...

>Collective Effort

>>2718293

>5
>11/21

As you and your companions lay senseless, the Thorn continued to burn and the smoke continued to rise up the central stairwell. And friend to the flame you might be, you still need to breathe.

>Roll 1d6 for the smoke. Only the first one will apply. Though the smoke has only one rolling party, it will continue until you leave or until you find a safe place secure from its choking advance.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2718430

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2718430

>>2718441
SAFE

>>2718443
BASED blue violet ID saving us from blasphemous lavender ID

>>2718424
Sure lets try this, support.

It might be better to get the shard first so we'd be at maximum power, but I don't want our party killing themselves while we fiddle around with ripping the shard out of the wall or whatever.

>>2718416
>>The shard is most important. They can stay behind. You will be quick.
>>Awaken Alex.

Leave 'em. The shard will replenish our Wick, probably. Alex will just have to defend them by herself.

>>2718416
Let's try this >>2718424

>>2718467
Agreed. I much appreciate the blue violet anon that stopped me from making a terrible error.

I think we're going to have a bit of an image problem after this guys, first we destroyed the one source of light the city had, then we dropped an orbital nuke and killed hundreds of innocent people. On a funeral no less. Now we're torching and likely destroying an organization that provides free medical care and lifesaving tonics to the city. Our best friend is a witch, and to top it all off we've been colluding with a literal earth god.

Even if we restore the sun I don't think people are going to like us desu

>>2718798
The people of Dis aren't going to like us, you mean. But they have never been a factor. We're not restoring the sun for them.
Remember, they are sinners who didn't like the sun much when it was whole, who collude with witches and imps, who treat the Sun Cult as a nuisance.

>>2718798
>Even if we restore the sun I don't think people are going to like us desu
Wow big fucking deal
It's almost like you forgot how shitlife is outside of Dis

>>2718821
>>2718828
Calm down friends I was making a tongue-in-cheek post about how insane we must look to onlookers while we wait for Ouro to return.

>>2718833
We do appear to be an invincible, insane, militant, cult leader terrorist, with a like-minded flock. They're certainly not treating the Sun followers as a nuisance now.

>>2718798
This is why we need to move on to the Supervillain Paradigm.

I'm awake and I don't have work today! Session resumes in an hour.

>>2718798
PR was never exactly Orion's strong suit nor priority

>>2719064
>PR was never exactly Orion's strong suit nor priority
He's surprisingly well-informed on politics, though. When we were trying the whole 'get the city to acknowledge us' thing, he had ideas about that.

>Lay a Benediction upon Alex to lift her from the influence. But you don’t have enough Wick to do that to everyone…
>Hymn

You have escaped the mindtrap but in doing so, you have found a choice more impossible than anything it could dream up. You cannot possibly neglect the shard but nor can you just leave your companions behind. A Benediction could free them but…

>Wick: 2/10
>Spark: 2/8

You don’t have enough spark left in you to help everyone. But at the very least, you can return Alex to her senses. You grab hold of her shoulder and using your arm as conduit, channel the Cleansing Benediction. You watch the white light transfer from you to her, eating away at any curse or influence of the Dark. And even though you still don’t understand what spell she is under, it serves another purpose. The mindtrap might be able to obscure most senses but you’d wager the feeling of being blessed is beyond it. That and the cleanse should wake her up.

>Wick: 1/10
>Spark: 2/8

“Wait. This isn’t...right. It’s not what I should- it doesn’t make any sense!”
Alex’s eyes fly open and she lashes out, almost striking you right in the face as she twists away from you. She flinches.
“What was that?”

“Something that wasn’t real. I woke you from it, now I need you to help me wake them.”

“You blessed me, I felt it. But I can’t do that for them.”

“And I don’t have enough of it left to go around. Can you think of anything else that might wake them?”

“Hold on.”
She hesitantly strolls over to the closest redcloak still lying upon the ground and then, with a sudden savagery, kicks him in the stomach!
“Come on Walstan! Get up!”

“That won’t work. We need another way to reach them.”
And just then you are struck by an idea. A profoundly ludicrous-sounding one but earnest one all the same.
“They are brothers and sisters of the faith. This can’t change that. We just need to remind them of their place and what they fight for.”

“You mean like back in…”
Alex stops for a few seconds before taking a deep breath.
“Back at the temple. But it’s gone now. Everyone we were fighting for there is dead.”

“I know. And we need to remind them of that. If we speak a prayer or sing a hymn, something they’ve all done so many times, it might call them back to us. But I don’t know what you sung at the Temple and I’ve never been a good singer.”

“Hymns aren’t about singing good,” she says bitterly. “It’s about singing them together and remembering who you can’t sing with anymore. So maybe it’ll actually work. And I think I know one that might be appropriate.”

As it would turn out it was one you knew as well. The Sun Temples of Dis received a steady influx of refugees from the wastelands that was once your home. And though some of their practices might have deviated in the process, some stayed true.

1/2

>>2719144
As you already knew, neither of you are good singers to begin with. You were never choir material to begin with and your last true practice was decades ago. Alex is better but she’s never been trained in her life. And you both sound hoarse tired because you are, the smoke nearly makes you choke and the only choir to back you up is the sound of the flame. The two of you sound bitter and beaten and neither of you can stay in time or even on tune. But it is a choir all the same and a far more welcome one than the one you’d just been subjected to.

”There are loved ones in the glory,
Whose dear forms you often miss.
When you close your mortal story,
Will you join them in their bliss?”

“Will the Wheel be unbroken,
By and by, by and by?
Is a better Age awaiting,
In the sky, in the sky?”

“In the joyous days of childhood,
Oft they told of wondrous flame-”

That’s as far as you get before Alex breaks down into a coughing fit. And as far as you can see, it’s had no effect. They remain as trapped as ever.
“It was a good try,” you say.

“No it wasn’t,” Alex says bitterly. “The Wheel is broken and there ain’t no better Age. It was a dumb choice and I should have done something else. Now we just look a right pair of fools.”

“And it is up to us to set it right. Do you think they’ll be fine if they just stay here?”

“It’s hard enough to breathe as it is.”
Alex, as much as you can see any of her under all the blood, looks conflicted.
“What we do?”


>You won’t be gone long. You need at least one person’s help. They can stay a while.

>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.

>Perhaps you can drag them all into the hidden doorway? If you close that, the smoke shouldn’t follow. The only thing you’ll lose is time.

>Other (Specify)

>>2719146
>>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.
>Have her drag them into the hidden doorway out of the smoke.

>>2719146
>>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.
>>Perhaps Alex can drag them all into the hidden doorway?

>>2719146
>>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.

>>2719146
>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.

>>2719146
>>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.

If we level up we may be able to heal them. Hopefully that doesn't involve a boss battle or prolonged puzzle sequence.

Interlude

It has long been in the mind of Man to change oneself, to grow and define their own purpose. All children must do this after all and it happens on both an individual and societal level. I am a firm believer in an individual’s right to self-definition but I cannot ignore the truth of the situation. Man was not meant to ever define itself. Humanity was created for a purpose and that purpose guides us. To make war, to make beauty, to survive. And for these purposes, anything not necessary for them has been discarded by divine will. But why shouldn’t a Third Man be intellectual? Why couldn’t a Second Man possess strength? Why couldn’t the First Men survive?
We are alive and life, as it does in the plant realm, constantly seeks to change and redefine. We possess a mind and a will and thus both the recognition that we can be something different and the desire to be so.

But despite this, neither the biology or history of Man was ever ours to define. This is what it means to be designed. We are yoked to the burden of Creation.

-Excerpt from The Tyranny of Creation, a controversial handbook first published thirty five years ago under the name ‘Dr Spinae’

Alright vote called. Just one more thing...

>Collective Effort

>>2718430

>2
>9/21

As you spend your time, the stairwell outside becomes more and more choked. You'll have to move quickly.

>Roll 1d6 for the smoke. Only the first one will apply. Though the smoke has only one rolling party, it will continue until you leave or until you find a safe place secure from its choking advance.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2719231

>>2719234
good job!

>>2719237
Alex has 8 collective effort points to get everyone into safety. Not too bad.

>>2719234
At least we touched the heart of the smoke!

>Alex can stay behind to look after them and make sure nothing happens. But you need to go to the shard NOW.

“You’ll have to stay behind. Take care of them while I’m gone. I won’t be long!”

She throws a poor attempt at a salute.
“Right! Do you think we might be able to drag them into the hall and shut it behind us? That should stop them all from suffocating at least.”

“Great idea but I won’t be able to help. I have my duty and you have yours. I’ll try to make it quick.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I get it. This is important.”
She bends down and grabs a redcloak by the shoulders before starting to drag them towards the ruined garden. She manages this for about a second before looking back to you.
“Then what are you waiting for? Get going!”

You turn and run through the embers of the garden where the bark covering the back of the hallway has peeled away from the fire to reveal the continuation of hall deeper into the Thorn. The fire has mostly died down and in your rush, you almost accidentally step on Dr Surrex’s charred corpse.

He didn’t burn right. Flesh doesn’t burn into charcoal like that. And now that his cloak has burned away, you can see the remnants of his legs fusing directly into the soil. You don’t know what to make of that save that you probably shouldn’t touch it.

You push aside the living barrier and emerge into a corridor blazing with stolen light. The energy of the lamp-post still courses sluggishly down the channels in the walls that were explicitly designed to carry such energy all throughout the Thorn and nourish it. You’ve been tracing those capillaries in reverse, leading you slowly but surely towards the spire’s beating heart.

The hall quickly narrows into something much less artificial, a twisted cranny through the heartwood. It also takes on a downward slope and you have to slow down just to make sure you can fit the burden upon your back through a few tight squeezes.
And then it widens once more and you find yourself in a mirror of the garden you just burned down.

The passage flattens into a long corridor leading to a simple metal door wedged awkwardly into the wood. And growing from the walls are the same hideous flowers, each one bearing a tiny spark upon their petals and each one stretching out petal-limbs in the shape of Man.
And you can hear them once again, a buzzing song-drone that worms its way into your ears past all resistance.

What should you do? If you avoid destroying them, do you avoid their pain? Or is it an inevitable part of hearing their song and that it culminated upon their death was because you forced it out last time? What should you do?


>Burn it down once again. These things make you uncomfortable.

>Cut them from their stalks.

>Just run for the door!

>Retreat

>Other (Specify)

>>2719303
>Cut them from their stalks.

>>2719303
>Just run for the door!
The effects got way worse when we harmed them

>Collective Effort

>>2719231

>1
>8/21

You are now well and truly clear of the smoke, so this Collective Effort has lost all power to hurt you. The same does not apply for those you have left behind however.

>Roll 1d6 for the smoke. Only the first one will apply. Though the smoke has only one rolling party, it will continue until you leave or until you find a safe place secure from its choking advance.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2719322

>>2719331
oh no

>>2719303
>Just run for the door!
I don't want to risk another huge scream on the off chance it takes out Alex as well.

Vote called. Writing.

>Just run for the door!

There are so many more here than there were in the first room. So many.

But after a moment’s thought, you decide that you’d rather not risk another scream. You can’t afford it and besides, it’s possible that it might resound loud enough to hit Alex again as she gets the redcloaks to safety. So you won’t burn them, you won’t cut them. There’s no need. You can see your target ahead of you, the door at the end of the hall. You just have to reach it.

So you run, the lines of buzzing orchids becoming a blurred line to either side of you as you rush for the door. And as you do so, it seems that the song grows higher and higher in pitch until it becomes a hideous whine. You don’t bother covering your ears, it won’t work. You just run faster.

You don’t question what these things are or what was sacrificed to give birth to them or even if they were a success of whatever experiment they were meant for. The answers for those questions are bound to evil. You just run faster.

You don’t stop when the whine becomes words, when you hear people begging and pleading for their lives. You don’t stop when the voices of men, women and children demand you to. You just run faster.

You especially don’t look to either side as the choir-flowers start to transform. That would mean having to look at the truth of them. You just run faster.

And then when you slide to a halt in front of the door, you grab the handle and pull it open. Or at least you try. Somehow the click of the lock can be heard through all the cacophony. You keep your eyes and ears focussed on the door as best you can. Anything to not hear or see what is now behind you.
And as you thrust your sword through the lock, you hear the scream.

>Roll 1d6 for Orion's race against time. The first 3 shall be used.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2719401

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2719401

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2719401

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2719401

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2719401

Writing.

>2, 3, 6

Your first slice is ineffectual, missing the lock mechanism as you use your momentum to thrust the thin blade into the steel. Even with what must one of the finest swords of the Second Age, a masterpiece among masterpieces, this gives it trouble.

Runes of edge flare to life as you try to pull it free, to have a second strike but behind you the unseen choir takes their tool upon your ears, eyes and mind. The world itself seems to shake and blur as the raw biology of the brain is turned against itself.
You swear you can feel something upon your back. Fingers rustling against your shoulders, begging you for help…

But if you give in and turn around now, you will surely be lost. So you keep your head forward and try to ignore the abomination even as the world unravels around you. The sword in your hand almost seems to go limp one moment, transmuting in substance from solid to liquid and back again.

But even as these, these…weapons do their best to have their way with you, you pull the sword free. And this time, the second strike is true. The door swings open and you step through but not before being subjected to one final glimpse of the choir’s true form.

And then you are collapsing on a field of ivory grass and you have slammed the door behind you and the song is gone save for the echoes still trapped within your own skull.

You made it. But not without a few more scars.

>Orion is now cursed! Whenever he (specifically, not anyone else) rolls a 6, an unpleasantness visits itself upon him from within.

You shake your thoughts free and slowly rise to your feet. You are in a vast wooden cavern filled with a pleasant warmth, standing in a field of long white grass. The walls rise into a dome above you and they blaze with rings of light. And amongst the grass are curated gardens, small fields of bright flowers in shades of red and blue and yellow. You stare at them for a moment, lost in memory.
These are dayflowers, the flowers that could not survive the loss of the sun. You have not seen them since the day you lost everything.

You take a deep breath. It is a mixing chaos of floral scents, each one painfully familiar and each one having been absent from your life for thirty long years. If you were to blind yourself to the wooden roof above and to just let yourself see the grass, smell the flowers, feel the warmth of the light basking above...you would be standing in the world as it used to be. As it should be. As it may never be again.
This is the world that you grew up in and the world that you lost.

In the distance, up against the far wall, you can see a shape that is obscured by its own light. Some incomprehensible silhouette, a growth or tree of some variety. And you don’t need the pulsing heat of the lamp on your back to know that at the far end of the cavern is the very heart of the Thorn. The shard of God that has empowered it.
1/2

>>2719484
You take a step forward and, for not the first time since this hideous assault began, you feel as if you were in a dream.

A dream that is nearly cut short by an ambush.

You see it only by accident, a flash of something moving through the grass and only long-trained battle instincts pull you to the side and stop you from being impaled! The creature that leaps from the grass is a ghoul of some sort but a strange one. It is a patchwork creature but many of its stitches are small, precise and unwitched. Its body bulges and thins in strange proportions due to implanted patches of raw muscle wrapped around their torsos. And when it opens its mouth to hiss at you, you see only a stub where the characteristic tongue should be.
But the claws are the same and it was those claws that nearly took your life. You dodge to the side and ready yourself for combat!

But it is not alone! At least six more stalk towards you from all directions, mixed abominations of witch-stitch and Tangle alterations. They might be ghouls but you don’t know really what’s different. You don’t know what they can do to you.

And you are so very tired already.

>Wick: 1/10
>Spark: 2/8


>Regardless of what has been done to them, ghouls are your business. Ignite your staff and do your best. (This will require a roll)

>Use Self-Ignition to try and just run through them and make a mad dash for the far end of the cavern.

>Ghouls are not easily mastered save by a witch. Find the witch and with its absence, the ghouls should flee this place of light.

>Retreat for now. This would be much easier with the guns of the redcloaks by your side. Even just Alex would suffice.

>Other (Specify)

>>2719485
>Use Self-Ignition to try and just run through them and make a mad dash for the far end of the cavern.

>>2719485
>Regardless of what has been done to them, ghouls are your business. Ignite your staff and do your best. (This will require a roll)

>>2719485
>>Regardless of what has been done to them, ghouls are your business. Ignite your staff and do your best. (This will require a roll)
If we store an immolate, will it work even if it only rolls a 1 or 2 on the 1d3 and we don't supply more Wick?
I'm guessing cutting them down would definitely give a curse, but burning them is the all around safest thing to do.

>>2719485
>Use Self-Ignition to try and just run through them and make a mad dash for the far end of the cavern.

Vote called, writing.

Wait nevermind, I misread somehow. This is a tie. I'll leave it open for ten more minutes and then roll it off if it continues.

>>2719485
>Regardless of what has been done to them, ghouls are your business. Ignite your staff and do your best. (This will require a roll)

Time to tip the balance, and I think we should save the self-immolation for the big boss behind these ghouls.

Fair enough. Called and writing.

>Regardless of what has been done to them, ghouls are your business. Ignite your staff and do your best.

The sword won’t do you any good, not against ghouls. It lacks both reach and has too much of an edge. It would just make it worse before it got better. You hurriedly sheath it as you back away from your attempted ambusher, doing your best to keep all the other ghouls in your field of vision.

You ready your staff and just as the first lunges for you, you set it aflame!

>Wick: 1/10
>Spark: 2/8

The staff bursts into flame and just that is enough to forestall the first one, sending it momentarily fleeing from your presence. And that itself is interesting. These creatures aren’t really puppeted at all. So how is the Workshop controlling them?

But that momentary fear is just that: momentary. You are now surrounded. It is time to get work.

>Roll 1d6 for Orion. The first 3 shall be collected for his action and since he is using a staff, they will automatically fall in their best order.

Additionally,

>Roll a 1d3 for Dead King’s Crown and choose what Flame Rite or Benediction is using that Wick to be stored within the weapon ignition. Only the first d3 will be used.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2719691

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2719691

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>2719691
Cleansing benediction.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2719691