MOD PLOT ↠ BEFORE THE GATES | PUZZLE LOG

[faderifting]

WHO: Bastien, Byerly, Cosima, Derrica, Edgard, Ellis, Flint, Gwenaëlle, Josias, Loxley, Marcus, Mobius, Redvers, Sidony, Tiffany, Tony, Viktor
WHAT: Puzzles and sacrifice
WHEN: Mid Kingsway
WHERE: A temple in Arlathan Forest
NOTES: See also OOC post, open log.

The search pays off, after a few weeks, when a team—every team, independently, separated from the others by foliage and time, and unaware they aren't the only ones—stumbles upon a sizable contingent of Venatori and their allies making steady progress toward a ruined temple complex. It's too large a group for any four- or five-person team to combat directly. But they can outrun them. Whether they dash ahead of the enemy unseen or pause first to ambush or delay them, they'll beat them to the ruins. The forest is so densely grown up around and over its remnants that it's impossible to get a sense of the full scale, but something about the size of the walls and doorways arching high overhead, the opulence of the carvings and mosaics even encrusted by millenia of moss, suggests an important site. And there's a feeling, too, a spine-prickling sense of mingled excitement and foreboding, that whispers this must be the place.

That feeling is confirmed by the contents of the mosaics lining the walls, depicting a glowing golden city with a familiar arrangement of spires and towers. Looking at it causes a strangely powerful sense of deja vu until someone puts it together—these same towers now haunt the Fade, their blackened heights always visible, never reachable. The mosaic of the city circles what looks once to have been a great temple hall, perspective sloping to draw the eye to the only other doorway out of this space, an arched portal opposite, gilded to appear as if it's part of the mosaic, as if walking through it might take one through the walls of the golden city itself.

Each team will reach this temple alone and will travel through it alone. As far as they will be able to tell, they are the only ones to have made it here—perhaps the only people to set foot inside it in a thousand years or more—and the combination of time distortion and crystal lapses will make it impossible to determine otherwise. They can send all the messages they like while inside the complex, but will receive no replies until it's all over. As far as they know, they are the only people with this chance to investigate by far the most promising site Riftwatch has found in the forest. The enemy is going to arrive soon to take whatever is here, and if they leave here now who knows how long it might take to find it again.

Once they're inside, their passage through the temple will follow a linear path, with no opportunities to branch off or divide their party. There is a single route to follow, and the walls are still high and sheer and thick enough to stop them going over or under or through. Each room will present a new trial, a puzzle to be solved, feats of strength and cunning and bravery to be accomplished before the way forward is revealed. If they take the time to clear away some of the vines and study the statues and reliefs, they'll find that each room is dedicated to one or more of the Elvhen gods, which may provide clues if they know their pantheon.

Comments

cw injury description

[youwonscience]

"Hang on hang on hang on," she says, gesturing to Tony and Ellis. (Viktor presumably already holding on, or maybe just in the least danger of doing something.) "Does anyone else hear that?"

Depending on how much anyone hangs on, is quiet, or attempts to hear, there is indeed a steady thumping from the direction of the door they came through. It's getting louder. Someone might have heard it sooner, if their focus hadn't been split. Cosima's the closest to the open door, having taken the pause as a moment to scoot back and try to clean the condensation off her glasses, so maybe she always would have heard it first regardless.

There's not long enough to speculate.

Cosima is already in the process of flying through the air when she has the disjointed series of thoughts: is that a bear, fuck, not usually aggressive unprovoked, Fade touched?, trained guard bear? For the others, the swipe is almost elegant in the way it sends Cosima up and over, but the way she hits the wall involves a sickening crunch. She yells, involuntary, as something in her arm gives. She crumples to the ground, still conscious but stunned.

(In the smallest of victories, the bear doesn't step on and crush her glasses when it turns toward the other three.)

tfw you forget how tag order works

[heorte]

Is it simply the appearance of the bear or the bear's displacement of Cosima that sends all three of the offending pieces sliding down towards Ellis?

Maybe it's just bad luck. Or worse timing. On his end, Ellis doesn't see the exact cause. What he is made aware of is being suddenly, painfully pinned into place by several moving parts.

At least they'd meant to move these. That must count as a kind of silver lining.

Or it would up until the point where anyone considers that there is a loose bear, Cosima is injured, Ellis is trapped with his mace out of reach and Tony is the only one on hand to deal with the bear.

"Viktor!" is possibly a cross between stay there and do something about this. It's purely adrenaline, a pained reaction struggling towards some kind of decisive movement when Ellis can affect none.

[grindset]

After that rough 1.2 seconds of okay and yeah and prepared effort, so much happens. Viktor's shuffling back from the gutter, they're lining up the puzzle, they're hanging on—he's both in the least danger of doing something and least in danger, furthest from the door—

Cosima goes tumbling, the puzzle tips askew. There's an animal in here, so terribly corporeal it verges on surreal, and Viktor stares at it with a startling lack of comprehension while the requisite switches flip in his brain: another second or two that, in contrast, feels shamefully long. At last, a chemical flood, grinding reengagement.

Ellis says his name; he understands immediately that it means both fix this and be careful, and the second part gets an instant veto, because who has time for that in this economy. If it seems like he's considering crossing the gutter, he isn't, but his mind has just done, and in a flurry of panicky observations it concludes there's nothing for him to do there.

"Hold on," he says in a rush, and pivots away,

or actually goes clattering away, inspired by the sudden proximity of bear. Much too close, but not coming for him directly, which is nice because the only reason knocking his ankles together doesn't result in him totally eating shit is the wall catches him.

Something, there has to be something— everything is a mosaic here, everything is a secret, even the floor has patterns, there has to be something—

[propulsion]

If there's anything stopping the bear from simply chowing down on the crumpled human it just knocked on its ass, its the prospect that the three other squeaking little bipeds in the room might interrupt it.

This proves to true when Tony—torn between desperately scrabbling to get Ellis loose and the very real and immediate threat of Yogi enjoying his pic-a-nic—makes his move on a tinnitus-filled delay. The flames had risen and then fallen sharp when the puzzle locked back down, so he scoots over the barrier as one hand clasps the wrist of the other, twisting the silver, rune-inscribed rings that are set there—

Bright green energy briefly floods the room as lightning leaves his gauntleted palm, jagged and viridescent and carving a burning stripe up the bear's flank. He'd had this fantasy where the bear kind of roars in pain, stumbles, gets locked into some kind of stare-off with him while Ellis gets free and flanks it and then it's Christmas.

But it's a bear and not a person, so when it does react, it immediately moves way too fast for something of its size, considerable jaws closing on metal gauntlet on landing. A more dispersed flash of energy erupts uselessly to this side as Tony is driven to the ground with a grunt, and a more pained yell when the bear wrenches its head aside in what is a far too earnest effort to try to rend limb from body.

[youwonscience]

This is why she doesn't do field work, she thinks for approximately the one millionth time, but she's amazingly not getting mauled. Yet, at least. Once the stars clear from her vision, she uses the arm that isn't shooting pain up to her spine every time she jostles it to lever herself up against the wall. She gets to a point where she can lean against it with her upper back, bracing herself with her feet.

Glasses-free, everything is out of focus, but the big moving shapes are easy enough to track. She'd love to help any of the others, especially Tony, but for the time being, she knows her best bet is making herself less of a liability. She raises her shard hand (small favors that it's the good arm) and shakily summons a shield. She's not sure it will even help with the bear; she's only ever tested it with projectiles. Better than nothing, though.

Glancing in the direction of ... she's pretty sure Viktor, based on build and where Ellis was before she lost her glasses, she asks, "Can I do anything one-handed?" As he seems to be the person she's most likely to be able to help, if she can help anyone.

[heorte]

A mangled scraping noise punctuates Cosima's question as Ellis makes a second, then third attempt at wrenching himself free of two heavy stone pieces.

"Kick my mace over to me!" is the kind of suggestion that doesn't take into account Cosima's missing glasses at all.

Ellis is watching Tony and the bear and trying to weigh up how he can manage to rip himself loose. The armor is dented, bending further with every passing moment.

[grindset]

Energy floods and crackles, and only after a regrettable flinch does Viktor turn his head to see, catching only the last microsecond of discharge. Cosima's shield brings him back. No immediate answer; he's following snaps of thought between the unravelling puzzle and the wall, the floor. There's something here, there must be, his mind has seen it but he hasn't caught up with it yet, it's just pinging furiously, waiting for him to catch on.

Ellis makes a pertinent suggestion, and Viktor waves at Cosima—flaps his hand, really. It hangs there after, loose, index finger raised above the others. Yes, it says, do that. Kick the thing. But he might need her in a second.

Tony's strained sounds, the bear's strange growling breath, the dull scuffling and scraping. Instinct wants to wrench his attention that way, but whatever violence is being perpetrated there, goggling at it will accomplish nothing—and anyway, it doesn't sound like—

Well, he's heard worse. It doesn't sound like that.

Something catches. His spindly body moves, as quickly as it ever has, heaving two half-skipping steps to a seemingly unremarkable arrangement of spirals. His crutch falls with a ringing metallic clatter on arrival (hopefully not a sound the bear finds appealing). There he frantically skims his hands across the mosaic, claws and scrubs the moss away, prods each spiral nucleus—nothing, nothing yet, but he's sure—

[propulsion]

"Son of a bitch—"

Tony's doing amazing.

And his gauntlet is breaking. Tragically, expensively. He can feel wires snapping and interlocking pieces popping out of place from the force of the bear's crunch-power, yellow fangs glistening where they're locked around rings of metal that are doing an admirable job of stopping his whole arm getting snapped in two.

So there's that. This time, when another eruption of green light bursts from his palm, it comes with the musical sound of the now misaligned crystal lens shattering. A barrier, directed nowhere, but it's stunning and dazzling and allows him a second as the bear rears backwards to scrabble around with his other hand, find some jagged piece of debris on the ground, and bring it around to strike across the creature's snout. Once, twice.

With a snarl, the bear releases that arm to rise up, where the moment between that pause and surely just eating Tony's whole face is very slim, but it's enough, turning his shard to fire it point blank, a burst of damaging green that compels the bear back another foot.

Tony twists around in urgent attempt to scrabble away. Help help little help over here—

[youwonscience]

There's too much happening and she doesn't feel qualified to be useful for any of it, but she has to try. She runs toward what she is pretty sure is Ellis's mace, dropping the shield so she can use her good hand to stabilize her bad elbow while she runs. (It doesn't really work, and she's letting out a steady stream of profanity as a stress release measure.) She has the brief and horrifying thought that the mace might be too heavy for her to move, with her foot or otherwise, but she manages to line up a good solid kick fueled by adrenaline that gets it more or less where it needs to go. She hopes.

She wants to go to Tony, but Ellis is the person actually in a position to help; getting him his weapon is the best she can think to do for now, and she hopes Tony won't pay for her making that call if it was the wrong one.

[heorte]

The mace does move. It does angle itself in Ellis' direction.

More or less.

Cinched as he is, Ellis has to consider what he might sacrifice to get hold of the mace that's come to rest just beyond his reach.

But rather than make that calculation, he trusts in the relative proximity as being enough when he grabs a piece of rubble and flings it hard at the bear's face. It strikes and bounces off, and Ellis can only hope it's enough of a distraction to redirect the bear away from Tony.

[grindset]

The stone gives beneath Viktor's thumb. Again, again. Nothing. He looks up, around, glimpses the same pattern on another wall: just one, repeated nowhere else. It isn't close. He can't— but Cosima's hurt, she can't see, Tony's being mauled, Ellis is being crushed, there's no time.

"Cosima!"

He whirls, gestures frantically, pulls her in by the arm if she's near enough—an extremely rare event, he never reaches for anyone—not anyone, ever—

"Here— here, press here. This one. The puzzle will reset." He thinks. "But wait, wait for me, it has to be together," he's pretty sure. It all comes out in a rush, breathless, before he pushes off from the wall and hurls himself into a hobbling stride, leaving the crutch behind. Over his shoulder, "Count us down!"

Again, further, "On three!"

This time, when he stumbles—not a surprise, it's never if, but when—the wall isn't close enough to catch him. It's a hard fall; he feels it in his teeth. Adrenaline surges for the sounds behind him, and in a burst of strain he's clawing his way up, groping for that same spiral, the stone nestled in its nucleus, ready just in time.

[propulsion]

Bonk. It's a little comedic, the way the rubble piece connects against the bear's thick skull, bounces away. Maybe they can all laugh about it later, if nothing else traumatic happens.

In the bear's distraction, it gives Tony an opening. Enough to get back on his feet, shaking free a few loose pieces of broken machinery on his arm as he keeps his eyes locked and focused on the creature. It gives a deep-chested groaning roar, shuffling backwards as it sizes up its options. Tony hovers his hand out, bare shard pulsing ribbons of green in readiness—

The bear turns, yellow fangs and rolls of muscle, in pursuit of Ellis. A second of delay, as Tony furiously flings a wall of green force from his palm, causing it to stumble.

[youwonscience]

She has approximately half a second to be grateful that Viktor grabbed her good arm and not the broken one before he's guiding her into place. She's close enough to the pattern he indicated that she can see where it's obvious to press, and she focuses on that, trying not to dwell on roar in the background, the flashes of green she can see out of her peripheral vision.

They're going to be fine.

"Three," she says, loud so she's sure Viktor can hear over the fight. "Two."

If she had her glasses, she might glance back to be sure Viktor's made it to the matching symbol. In their absence, she just takes a breath, like stepping into thin air and trusting something would catch her.

"One."

She presses the spiral, as firmly as she can, and there's a gut-churning minute when nothing happens at all.

But then he's right, he's right and the entire puzzle starts to reset. "Thank fucking god," she breathes, resisting the urge to sag against the wall so she doesn't accidentally press some other lever.