Session Start: Sat Jun 27 16:49:06 2009
Session Ident: #castlevania
* Logging for #castlevania started
<Holmes> [The intrepid party continues its search of the underground
caverns.  The corridor that they are currently in terminates in a
rockfall, but the movement of air can be felt from beyond the
barrier.]
* Nyyx eyes the rockfall critically. "Will we get crushed to death if
we attempt to break our way through the rubble?"
* Olivia was searching for the start of the gusty wind!
<Adam> Maybe.  I bet if I tried, I could figure out a way to prop up
the ceiling.
* Nyyx nods. "Might be worth checking out what's behind that."
<Charlotte> I hope it's something good.
* Nyyx inspects the rubble and shrugs. "I can't tell whether it'll
collapse without knowing what's on the other side."
* Olivia purses her lips, then says, "Well, I could go find that
out."
<Nyyx> That would be wonderful, Olivia.
* Nyyx smiles.
<Adam> wait... how're you gonna find out what's on the other side?
* Olivia pulls a little something from her pouch and says, "Magic,"
before she dissapates into a fine mist, which seeps through a low
crack in the rockfall.
<Holmes> [Olivia drifts through the crack and follows it for several
dozen feet before exiting in a large worked stone chamber on the
other side.  the walls and ceiling quickly disappear in the
darkness.]
* Charlotte watches Olivia. :O
* Nyyx waits on the other side.
* Olivia makes sure that there's nothing, you know, waiting to eat
them. Also, checking for exits is a good plan.
<Nyyx> Everything all right on that side, Olivia?
* Olivia would speak, but lacks a mouth. It's sad. ; ;
<Adam> That's pretty sweet.
* Nyyx nods. "It is. I assume that she's all right, since I don't
hear any scuffling or screaming."
<Holmes> [Olivia searches around for a few dozen feet in each
direction.  No exits can be seen but the chamber is certainly
man-made and there do not appear to be any living things present save
Olivia.]
* Olivia takes a look at the structural for the cave=in, too, before
returning to the group.
<Charlotte> I don't think anything's dangerous to mist anyay
<Adam> wind is.
<Adam> I made a vampire's life miserable that way, once.
<Adam> Play the right instrument and poof, instant windstorm.
<Charlotte> Oh, good thinking.
<Holmes> [The structural aspect of the cave-in appears to be a
collapse of a series of rooms above the corridor.  The ceiling over
that appears stable.]
* Nyyx quirks a smile in Adam's direction.
* Olivia coalesces back with the group and whews, before saying,
"There's an empty chamber on the other side, a bit dark for me. But
the ceiling looks pretty stable."
* Nyyx nods. "We can clear this rock safely, then?"
<Adam> Hard to say.
<Adam> But if we brace the ceiling properly, yeah.
<Adam> or we could like, teleport over there
* Nyyx nods again. "Whichever is a better use of resources for you."
* Olivia stretches her neck, now that she's corporeal. "Well, if
you've got the teleportation, I won't stop you."
* Olivia points in the rough direction of the room. "It's about
sixty, seventy feet in that way."
<Adam> well, it's that or spend more energy trying to clear the
hallway.
* Olivia half-smiles. "So you have it, then?"
<Adam> Yeah, I suppose.
* Adam flicks open a pouch on his belt and pulls a lyre out of a
pocket that isn't nearly big enough.
<Adam> Everybody's gonna have to grab on to come along for the ride.
<Charlotte> Alright. 
* Charlotte takes Adam's hand.
<Adam> Uh, sorry, Charlotte, sorta need the hand to play.
* Adam shakes her off
* Nyyx puts a hand lightly on the boy's shoulder.
<Charlotte> Oh, whoops. 
* Charlotte puts her hand on Adam's other shoulder.
<Charlotte> This work alright?
<Adam> Yah
* Olivia goes hands on too, over Nyyx's.
* Adam strums a quick tune, singing out softly, o/~ country roads,
take me home... to the place where I belong... o/~ And then space
twists.
<Holmes> [And the party resettles in a dark chamber with a pile of
debris behind them.  The chamber itselve appears to be about twenty
feet tall and runs at least fifty feet to the left and right and
hundreds of feet into the distance.  It appears that the nearby walls
are honeycombed with doors and windows.]
* Nyyx approaches the nearest window and looks through.
* Charlotte peeks through
<Holmes> [An empty dark chamber is all that the party sees beyond the
window.]
<Nyyx> Hm.
* Nyyx continues down the chamber, looking through windows as she
goes.
* Olivia nods and says, as she walks with Nyyx, "Makes sense. Stays
cool."
<Holmes> [Each of the chambers is empty.  After about fifty feet, the
party reaches the far wall which runs hundreds of feet to the left.
More windows dot this wall as well.]
<Charlotte> Maybe this entire place is empty and we can get to what
we want without any trouble.
* Nyyx shrugs. "That'd be convenient, but I wouldn't count on it."
* Nyyx eyes the pane-less windows and sees the broken glass on the
ground.
<Holmes> [While a few large shards still can be found, it looks like
most of the remaining glass is powdered down.]
* Charlotte very carefully examines the area.
* Nyyx helps as best as she can.
<Holmes> [The party sweeps the area.  The full chamber is a
110'x20'x200' rectangular prism.  The entire perimeter of the room is
set with small apartment-like chambers with broken windows and
openings without doors.  The structure of the walls around the doors
indicate that there were once doors on each of the chambers.  The
windows have been broken and blasted to powder.  The search was
so...]
<Holmes> [...exhaustive that several small caches were located.  In
addition, a shaft in the center of the room leads downward.  A gentle
breeze can be felt from below along the broad stairs leading into
darkness.]
* Nyyx kneels by the opening and peers into the darkness below.
<Charlotte> Whew. that was tiring.
* Olivia sifts through the cache stuff! Woo cache!
<Holmes> [Nyyx only sees the stairs descend further into darkness.]
<Adam> There are worse things to find than a few hundred gold.
<Charlotte> A mimic?
<Adam> I hate those things.
* Nyyx waits where she is while Olivia digs through their finds.
<Nyyx> Lucky that we haven't had to deal with one yet.
* Olivia pulls out the tablet of it, and murmurs, "Well. Another
tablet. We've certainly found a place of that people."
<Adam> And unlooted, thanks to that cave in.
<Charlotte> wHEW.
* Nyyx nods. "What's on the tablet?"
* Nyyx is now known as NyyxAFK
* Olivia runs her fingers over it as she inspects it, then comments,
"Incantations, rituals... it's an appendix."
<Olivia> Or errata.
* Olivia looks up at Nyyx. "Only so useful on its own."
<Charlotte> Hey, it oculd point to the existence of other things
<Adam> Yeah... too bad those things were probably the ruined tablets
we found.
<Adam> ...is it magical, O?
<Adam> If not, I could probably try putting them back together.
* Olivia looks over at him and replies, "They're mundane... just
dealing with magic."
<Adam> Worth a try, I suppose.
* Olivia nods. "Will it take a while?"
* Adam pulls together all the fragments from one cache that he can
find, then removes a simple bandore from another pouch.
<Adam> Nope.  Pretty simple magic.
* Adam plucks out a simple, careful tune on the instrument and lets
the magic do what it can to put humpty dumpty together again.
<Holmes> [From the rubble, the party claims three additional tablets
to add to the one claimed from the cache.]
<Adam> Where to now?  There any doors out of here, or are we stuck
teleporting back?
<Charlotte> I don't think there are any other doors, though it can't
hurt to chcek. I mean, if there were, then these might not even be
here
* Olivia socks away tablets. Awesome. "Well, there's the stairs."
* NyyxAFK is now known as Nyyx
<Adam> right, right.
<Adam> Let's get a move on, then.
* Nyyx nods. "Shall we?"
* Adam heads down the stairs.
* Nyyx starts down the stairs.
* Charlotte follows!
* Olivia walks along, humming to herself.
<Holmes> [The party descends the stairs.  About two dozen feet down,
the stairs stop at a landing.  This landing connects through a low
archway to a large open area with destroyed stalls around the
perimeter.  On the opposite side of the landing, another stairwell
descends further into darkness.]
* Nyyx pokes around in the stalls, looking for anything interesting.
<Adam> Huh.
<Holmes> [The remains of cloth curtains and wooden workbenches and
copper tools litter the alcoves and corners of the room, but nothing
of value can be seen here.]
* Adam strolls along with Nyyx.
* Charlotte walks along. "I wonder what happened here."
* Olivia mms faintly, heading towards the stairwell.
* Nyyx starts down the stairwell on the other side of the
marketplace.
<Holmes> [This stairwell descends at a shallow incline and begins to
spiral in on itself.  The stairs wind down about seventy feet into
the dark.  The faint movement of air continues here.  At the bottom
of the stairs, the party sees that the stairs connect to what appears
to be a small antechamber.  One foot wide and one foot deep
indentations line the walls and appear to be rather rustic shelving.]
<Holmes> [At the far end of the room, a low archway connects to a
larger chamber beyond.]
* Nyyx walks through the antechamber, examining the shelves as she
passes by each one.
<Holmes> [Each shelf contains a worn leather robe.]
* Nyyx gingerly unfolds one of the robes, just to take a look.
<Holmes> [The robe is about four feet long and creased badly.  It has
set there a long while.]
* Nyyx carefully refolds the robe and sets it back on the shelf.
* Nyyx takes a quick look at a few other robes, too.
<Nyyx> No markings. They seem to be cut for people of a smaller
frame.
* Nyyx keeps walking.
* Olivia walks after her, nodding slowly. "Much like the skeleton we
found."
<Holmes> [The party passes under the archway.  As they do, each gets
a slight electric tingle.  Not a shock, but enough to put the hairs
on the backs of their necks up.]
* Nyyx stops and looks around.
<Nyyx> Do you feel that?
* Charlotte pauses. "Anyone else... you too, huh?"
<Holmes> [The chamber beyond is low-ceilinged and wide - a square
about 50' on a side.]
* Nyyx nods.
<Adam> Well, either that was a malfunctioning ward, or we just primed
every trap and guardian here.
* Nyyx winces. "I hope not the latter."
* Olivia half-smiles. "Well, it might be a bit interesting if we did,
but hopefully not."
<Holmes> [As the party proceeds, cracks and burn marks can be seen
leading from the center of the chamber outward.  Around the center of
the room in about a 15' radius are set a ring of stone cubes.  Each
cube is encribed only on the surface closest to the center of the
room.  A series of circles and enscriptions are set in the floor
centering on each cube and linking to the enscriptions and rings...]
* Nyyx smiles. "Interesting is one way to put it."
<Holmes> [...from the closest cubes on either side.]
<Nyyx> Well. What have we here?
* Olivia looks around for a few moments, then upwards.
<Holmes> [Above the center of the room is another set of inscriptions
set into the ceiling that mirror those on the floor except that each
ring's enscriptions are rotated ninety degrees.]
<Adam> this can't be good.
<Nyyx> Can you make anything of the inscriptions?
<Holmes> [further search of the room reveals a small cave leading off
from the far end.]
<Holmes> [The movement of air is a faint breeze from that direction.]
* Nyyx 's eyes slide over to the opening of the cave. "Think it's
safe for us to move over that way?"
<Charlotte> Weird that there'd be wind down here
* Olivia nods slowly as she looks around, then says, "If I were to
guess... this might be the room where the rumored outsiders, or
allies therof... were summoned."
* Olivia also points at the cubes. "This script is new." A faint
smile at the group, "You'd think they could just stick with one
indecipherable language."
* Nyyx nods thoughtfully. "Hm. I wonder if this has anything to do
with Hassad or Gregor."
* Nyyx steps toward the small cave, skirting around the summoning
circle.
<Holmes> [The small opening into the cave bends off into the
darkness.]
* Olivia runs her fingers back through her hair as she follows Nyyx.
"It may. These... connections to the impossible seem larger and
larger."
<Holmes> [The cave winds in darkness for several dozen feet and then
abruptly terminates and the wind is channeled upward into the
darkness.  There may be a narrow shaft in the rock overhead.]
* Nyyx swings her gaze upward.
<Holmes> [Whatever is up there is lost in darkness and rock.]
<Nyyx> Shall we take a look?
<Holmes> [A figure appears in the shadows off to the right.  While
the party member's minds tell them that the figure is standing in the
midst of solid rock, they can each see it clearly.  It is a slender
form wrapped in a red shroud from head to foot.]
* Olivia blinks, then says slowly, "Odd--" and then she cuts herself
off.
* Nyyx freezes and turns to face the figure.
<Adam> Well, that's new.
<Holmes> [The figure exhales slowly.  It's breath is resonant yet
hard to follow.]
<Holmes> Figure: "Are you an enemy of the Incarnadine?"
<Adam> No.
* Olivia turns on her smile and says in her most convincing voice,
"Certainly not that I'm aware of."
<Holmes> Figure: "Then here is some advice.  You are about to be
ambushed."
* Nyyx draws her sword and glances around warily.
* Olivia frowns and replies, "Certainly helpful advice. By who?"
<Holmes> [Another voice emerges from the direction of the chamber
that the party just left.  This one is gutteral and deep.]
<Adam> Uhoh.
<Holmes> Voice: "He's there, isn't he humans."
<Holmes> [The figure stands silent.]
* Olivia looks back towards the voice, and then glances to Nyyx,
murmuring, "I... think we have found ourslevs between two old, dear
friends."
* Nyyx shakes her head and prepares to charge.
* Charlotte growns.
<Charlotte> Hell of a time for that, isn't it?
<Holmes> Voice: "Oh, far from it, dear.  Neighbors perhaps, but
friends, never."  [The voice deepens at this and is tinged with
hate.]
* Olivia replies, "I was being sarcastic, Sir Voice." A dagger flips
into her hand and disappears. "My apologies."
* Adam is already shuffling his deck, waiting for hostilities to
commence.
<Holmes> Voice: "How long has it been since anyone lived here?"
<Olivia> We can't quite be sure. Hundreds of years seems likely.
* Nyyx edges around to a position from which she can rush someone
coming toward the cave.
<Holmes> Voice: "Have we really been here that long?  So, you aren't
part of the People who lived here?"
<Adam> Fraid not.
* Olivia pauses, then shakes her head. "No, but we're slowly coming
to understand them."
* Nyyx watches the summoning chamber from her vantage point.
<Holmes> Voice: "Then why are you here?  What have you learned?"
* Olivia licks her lips as she keeps the voice talking. "Some things,
but study takes time." She smiles slightly. "It's quite difficult to
explain if you don't know what's been happening outside these caves."
<Olivia> And still pretty difficult.
<Holmes> Voice: "You would think to play coy with me, flesh thing.  I
can see your shadow selves through the Veil.  You cannot hide
anything from me.  Not you and not that would-be vampire with the
retinue trying to sneak up on me."
<Adam> Wait, what?
<Holmes> Voice: "I ask not to hear you answer, but to prompt your
souls to consider the facts."
* Olivia presses her lips together. "I'm not really playing coy. I am
very good at coy, but it's honestly really confusing."
<Adam> ...you're talking like a sausage.
* Nyyx shrugs in the darkness.
* Olivia then adds, "The shadows are... not really helping us, I'm
afraid."
<Olivia> It's more an unavoidable infection of the world. As I
said... complex.
<Holmes> Voice: "You are not connected to that fool's precious
Incarnadine.  You invade this tomb for trinkets to reach the Veil.
To break it?  You don't know.  You do not offer the proper
placations.  You do not say the names or make the offerings.  You
know nothing.  You cast weak shadows and no light and yet you come
here to grope in the dark.  You babble about lost causes and
infections and yet...
<Holmes> Voice: "...such is meaningless before me.  If not for
boredom..."
* Olivia replies, "Boredom is awfully compelling." She grins
slightly. "Why not spin us a story instead?"
<Holmes> Voice: "My indulgence of you is a human failing.  A wound to
be discarded.  I apologize.  Are you requesting a story?  From me?"
* Olivia smiles, "What can I say? I'm personable. It was a thought."
<Adam> You could totally just teach us all this stuff you're bitching
about us not knowing.  It would make a lot more sense than just
complaining about kids these days.
<Holmes> Voice: "Are you asking me to teach you then?"
<Adam> Yeah, sure.
<Holmes> Voice: "And do you want your story?"
* Nyyx shrugs again. "Might as well."
<Holmes> Voice: "Alright.  I will fulfill both requests at once.
Please, what do you need to know?"
<Nyyx> I hate to use a cliche, but can we start from the beginning?
You just told us that we know nothing. We might as well hear it from
the basics, eh?
<Charlotte> I'm a little lost.
<Holmes> Voice: "The basics then.  In the beginning, there was
nothing.  The living like to believe that light came after, but it
didn't.  Nothing doesn't need light you see.  It needs merely
difference."
<Holmes> [TO BE CONTINUED.  END OF SESSION.]
Session Close: Sat Jun 27 23:26:11 2009