Chronolark - Part 6

Log Info

• Title: Chronolark - Part 6
  
• GM: Whirlpool
• Characters: Aznara, Thoth, Reithak, Tlanexhuani
  
• Location: The Badlands
  
• Summary: Adventurers are asked to go to Genrivia, in order to uncover magical artifacts that might help find temporal anomalies.

The door rots.

It loosens. It breaks down, the hinges giving way ...

... and then it runs back the other way. It's happening at regular intervals, now, and with little variation in the time it takes back and forth.

GAME: Thoth casts Haste. Caster Level: 7 DC: 18

Aznara eyes the door. "I wonder", she says, in a tone of voice akin to someone who's thinking aloud, "what would happen if we were to toss something through the door while it was at its weakest, such that it'd be -in- it when it reforms..."

As the group stands before the door, knowing very well they may need to get to the other side to get their prize, Thoth takes a moment to consider the situation. Until finally, it touches its chest and brings it to its own chest. The symbol of an Ankh appearing before it, and then spreading out onto its allies. "This one suggests we just use this burst of speed to get through." Thoth offers.

"It might be worth trying to see what it does to something caught in the cross fire... cross door? Might be worth seeing what happens before it's our rears getting caught in it." The large egalrin considers, tapping one foot that suddenly rattles the floor faster than intended. "Or, well shit, no time for experiments if that's what I think, guess we're going through before that wears off!"

"Stuck in door iss very bad," Tlanexhuani offers his not-entirely-expert opinion. He did come rather close to that with the stairs, though. "We go?!" It is one part urging and one part question.

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea... but other than throwing something at the door, I don't have any other ideas -- but I don't feel good about being the first to try", Aznara says, hands going to her hips.

GAME: Thoth rolls Reflex+1: (11)+6+1: 18

GAME: Reithak rolls reflex: (14)+5: 19

GAME: Aznara rolls reflex+1+3: (17)+10+1+3: 31

GAME: Tlanexhuani rolls reflex: (8)+5: 13

Thoth, seemingly anxious, decides to quickly move forward. It's used to being under a state of haste, so it times itself as best as it can, and leaps through right as it's about to turn old and worn-away enough that the moment its body passes through, it should be gone in that moment!

Aznara watches as Thoth goes through, aiming for the point in time when the door's 'gone'. Narrowing her eyes for a moment, she watches the 'time'-pattern of it... then takes a few steps towards it and dives at it, aiming to pass through at that same moment. She tucks herself into a ball, like an acrobat or gymnast, to make herself be in the doorway for as little time as possible -- aiming to land in a tuck-and-roll sorta way on the otherside, to roll back up to her feet.

"Alright, alright, no time to dawdle!" The large egalrin squawks, breaking out into a sprint after Thoth, pausing just a moment so that she could jump through without crashing into the metal bird, or the non metal person as well. It's not a graceful landing as the inquisitor ends up looking like their prior aged feather duster disguise, but she picks herself up shortly after. "You all okay? No one got caught by the screwy time door?" She wonders out loud.

GAME: Tlanexhuani rolls will: (5)+3: 8

Even with Thoth's magic, Tlanexhuani is not as quick nor spry as others, or perhaps his timing is merely off. Once more he moves a heartbeat late and he inadvertently experiences his earlier statement about the door. He is caught by it, though only for a moment, before he pushes himself the rest of the way through the reforming door.

As Tlanex pushes through, the door breaks all together, shattering into a thousand little pieces of wood and stone that are aging rapidly back and forth before the door *restores itself* all together behind them, repairing that damage too.

You are now in what appears to be the remains of some kind of workshop. Things are still aging back and forth here, giving you a glimpse into its past. Clocks. A lot of clocks. Mirrors, too, interestifnly enough. Some beakers. A whole lot of seemingly random and ancient tools scattered across the tables that disintegrate and then reform, alongside the parchments atop them that do the same thing.

You're here to grab whatever you can od these things, that's for sure.

But most telling is at the center of this old lab: A rapidly spinning ball of steel and gold, pulsing irregularly with light, hovering there under its own power.

EAch pulse seems to indicate the trend forward or backwards.

GAME: Thoth rolls Knowledge/Arcana: (4)+15: 19

Glancing about the room quickly, Aznara states the obvious: "Clearly, that glowing ball is the source of the temporal fluctuations..."

She eyes the ball, adding, "I don't know a thing about this sorta stuff, though. Anyone else got a clue?", she adds, after a moment, then starts to make her way about the room, carefully avoiding touching anything that's stuck in a time-loop, while still trying to see what there is to see.

Tlanexhuani straightens up to his more normal posture and blinks slowly at all the mirrors and clocks and... The glowing, hovering sphere is even more significant. It's glowing and hovering! The pulses are also conspicuously timed. He stares at it for some time, watching it to see if he might gain any understanding of it.

Thoth watches Tlanexhuani having to push through the door and gets caught for a moment. It tilts its head, watching Tlanex in that moment. It chirps, then carefully asks; "Art thee 'alright'?"

It glances around, distracted for perhaps being at fault if something bad were happening with Tlanexhuani. But the Sith-makar seems just fine. "This one is uncertain." It answers Aznara distractedly. Pause. "But this one can tell it's dangerous."

"Whoa! Hold on now, hold on!" Reithak shouts, but the egalrin is too late to actually help Tlanexhuani through. The egalrin sighs, and takes a look around the room. "The orb is the obvious thing, yeah, probably. We should see if there are any books here that we can carry. And, well, I'm worried what might happen when we do grab it. put it in the bag and stick that in another bag or something? Then if time gets screwy, it'll destroy one bag without breaking the other maybe, but to be honest, I got no clue if that'd even work."

GAME: Aznara rolls perception: (14)+11: 25

GAME: Tlanexhuani rolls knowledge/arcana: (20)+8: 28

GAME: Reithak rolls perception: (3)+13: 16

As she wanders about, Aznara offers, "Maybe it's just the light that the thing emits and just covering it with a cloak or something will fix things?", as she pauses to look at some things atop a table. She tilts her head to one side for a moment, then pulls her haversack around and opens its top. She stands there, her haversack held open and one hand extended over the table. The next time the time-looped things in the room hit their 'fully there' moment, she snatches at something and tries to stash it into her haversack in a quick motion.

(OOC NOTE: Aznara's haversack is a Handy Haversack.)

"This one is... not harmed," Tlanexhuani assures without full assurance. Or he is distracted by the glowing orb. "Touch that iss maybe very bad." He points a claw at the orb, in case there was any doubt what he referred to. "But not leave it here..." A pause to think. "If other bring here, must also be thing to carry it?"

GAME: Thoth rolls Perception: (4)+8: 12

Thoth considers the object that Tlanexhuani points at, completely failing to spot Aznara stash something into her haversack. Instead, it's just focused on how it could deal with the orb and the box itself. It then shakes its head, grabs one of its metalic feathers, and drops it onto the orb to experiment what will happen to the orb.

"This one reminds, we are in a hurry. Others entered the building above."

GAME: Aznara rolls reflex: (17)+10: 27

There's a definite thumping sound from upstairs, and then quiet.

Thoth watches the little feather suddenly get protected. The plasma globe forming around the orb, ZAPPING the feather, disintegrating it. "I believe you biologicals would say... 'shit'." It chirps, before looking to Tlanex, then to Aznara. "We need that box." And proceeds to point to it.

Tlanexhuani blinks as the feather vanishes, and not in a good way. "Ssa, no touch!" His prior 'maybe' is now a 'definitely.' He follows Thoth's pointing and adds another, "Ssa. This one have .. slippery claws. Let other get." His fortune with objects fading in and out in time so far is perfectly imperfect. Though he takes some responsibility. "This one can carry, after in box.,"

Aznara looks over at the mention of a box. "What box?", she asks, even as she follows the others' eyes to the object in question. "Want me to try and snag it, too? Though... if it's always falling apart in time with everything else, it might be hard to get the orb into it... talk about having to time things really well...", she adds, moving towards the chest in question and watching it as it cycles.

"Yeah, shit, thoth, coulda just asked me for one of my feathers. Mine are replaceable after all." Reithak huffs as she finishes taking a look around, not having found much of note, aside from everything in the room being a noteworthy object in some regard. "Can we grab that safely? Should I? Tlan already got pretty bad from the door, you were grabbing that rat earlier, s'better for someone not time grabbing like me to do it, or someone who already did? I'll give it a try if I have to, and the sooner we're moving, the better. Something's coming upstairs, and I doubt it's those magic heads trying to sell us anything."

Thoth looks towards Reithak and calmly explains; "Correct, but this one wanted to see if it would 'age'. Metal does not age as quickly as biological matter." In other words, it was prepared to carry the orb, even just for a short period of time. It has survived all these ages, clearly its construction is rather well made. But it isn't immune to disintegrating plasma. "This one suggests we hurry, grab the chest, and try to put it over the orb."

GAME: Thoth casts Detect Magic. Caster Level: 7 DC: 15

GAME: Aznara rolls reflex: (11)+10: 21

GAME: Thoth rolls Spellcraft: (2)+15: 17

Aznara listens as Thoth starts calling out timing about the chest's fading in and out through time, and reaches out to pick it up when, with Thoth's help to find the timing, it's cycled to 'fully there'. Then she holds it up with both hands for a moment, waiting to see what'll happen when the light flashes, again, and the cycle starts anew...

"Got the box? Good, good, no clue why it's not moving anymore, but I'll take that as a good sign, and we shouldn't stay longer than we need to once we grab it." Reithak says, watching the others finish taking it. "Once we have it, we hightailing it out of here, or should we check out that dark corridor?"

"This one suggests we now use the box to capture the box, and prepare for trouble. This one doubts we'll be able to avoid whatever is upstairs." It pauses for a moment, before helpfully adding; "This one also believes there is a 56 chance that, according to the patterns of Adventures this one has participated in so far and read up about, the beings coming downstairs will be immune to the troublesome time idiosynchronies of this location."

GAME: Thoth rolls Knowledge/Spellcraft: (8)+Knowledge/Spellcraft: 8

GAME: Thoth rolls Spellcraft: (19)+15: 34

GAME: Aznara rolls reflex+3+2: (2)+10+3+2: 17

GAME: Aznara rolls reflex+3+2: (2)+10+3+2: 17

GAME: Aznara rolls will: (1)+3: 4 (EPIC FAIL)

The chest seems to remain whole once in Aznara's hands, so she walks over to the sphere and tries to use the chest to scoop up the thing up... and bumps it with the lip of the chest, making it fall. Without, apparently, thinking about it, she lets the chest drop and reaches out to catch the orb... and, after a very brief moment, drops it into the chest and closes the lid on it.

She remains down on one knee, having dropped down to put the orb into the chest, for a moment, then stands. As she does, her skin seem to darken a bit, and her hair's silvery-whiteness loses a little bit of its sheen, going more simply 'white' than it once was. "Well... it's done", she says... and her voice sounds perhaps a little deeper, and she looks down at her hands, closing them into fists and then opening them again a few times. "Did all the wierd time-looping end?", she asks.

v

Thoth tries its best to direct Aznara's cadence. Watching her drop the chest, reaching to catch the orb. But.... things go wrong for just a moment. And Thoth stares at her as it can detect that the magic touched her.

Even but for a moment.

"This one is more concerned by thine changed form." Thoth remarks. "This one believes these are signs of rapid magical aging. And this one does not believe it currently has access to undo this kind of influence upon thee. Perhaps it would be wise to give the box to me, so thine biological functions do not end up further impaired than thine voice has already become."

...indeed, the time looping ends.

All of it. The room descends into a state of decay and dissaray around you.

... and then above? Above, there's a loud, great crash and you can hear multiple sets of feet scrabbling at stone.

... stone on stone, actually, oddly enough.

Grinding. Time to get out of here.

You make your way out, more easily now, and go up the hallway you came in, but now you have a problem:

The stairs are more or less ... gone.

"I... felt a wash of something run through me for a moment", Aznara says in reply to Thoth's words, nodding and stepping away from the orb's chest when he offers to carry it. "If anything, I'd say I didn't 'change form' so much as I got older when I touched the thing... can't really tell how -much- older, but darkening skin is a sign of aging for my folk...", she adds, as she follows along with the others to where the stairs... used to be.

Reithak was waiting with bated breath so as to not interrupt the process of containing the sphere. Unfortunately, such precautions did nothing to stop the mishap, and again before the egalrin can be of much help, it's over. "I'm not going to bother asking, but I hope you're alright. Sooner we get this out of here and to a proper researcher, sooner we can figure out how to get it fixed. This thing seems to work in reverse after all, just a matter of figuring out how."

"No, how to get out of here is the current question? Seems this place is... normal, for lack of a better term. No forming stairs to go back up."

Tlanexhuani looks at Aznara with this admission. Peers, even. Probably with concern, though Makari expressions are not so conspicuous to softskins. "Are ... alright?" His focus is there and not upon the stairs no-longer-appearing-in-this-scene. Admittedly, he and they were not on the best of terms when they were present.