In the vast and lonely void...Mark decides to find a better vantage point on the soul of this sinister beast, and begins to climb on the handholds, finding them relatively easy to navigate. Traversing the breadth of the eel this way, he comes to a spot where the handholds stop, aside from one strangely circular one - feeling around it, Mark does believe this to be some kind of hatch, which seems like an odd thing for an eel to have. Though it does seem like a very convenient way to get to the soul, especially given Mark's lack of quality cutting implements. Seeing no better method for doing so, he tries twisting the handhold, and is pleased to note that it does seem to be giving way - about three turns of the handhold and the hatch comes open, revealing a shaft bathed in red light, a ladder leading deeper down into the eel along its side - not one to let opportunities go to waste, Mark climbs right down, the hatch automatically shutting behind him as he descends to what he thinks might be the middle of the thing.
He then finds himself in a narrow, cramped hallway filled with odd elongated metal structures - like segmented pipes, shiny and dark, with protrusions similar to the little horns on vertebrae. In fact, these might just be spines, though there's a whole lot more of them than Mark would reasonably expect in an eel, even a giant one. The interior is humming very loudly, and Mark has occasional trouble standing as the eel veers this way or that. The hallway seems to have two openings along the side, and one opening at the very end, which is where Mark notices the soul he's been looking for, kept in some kind of smaller vessel he can't quite make out from here.
Meanwhile,
Morton evaluates the urgency of helping good surgeon Mark.
"But... Good surgeon Mark! He could be in danger, or--or..." he begins to say before it strikes him that there's probably not much he can do for Mark that Mark couldn't somehow manage for himself, probably by some ridiculous method or another.
"You are right, good mage Wilma. I shall ferry you to the light. But after I see you out of the realm, I'll go back for good surgeon Mark. One must never leave an ally behind.""I'm, uh, sure he's all right," says good mage Wilma, though it's clear she very much doubts the fact herself. They say nothing more as Morton starts to pick up speed toward the light, hoping that it makes some kind of difference at least. Barely a minute passes, however, when Morton suddenly gets a bit of a bad feeling.
[Morton's dodge roll: 1]
And as he considers what this could possibly mean, he suddenly finds himself in complete darkness along with good mage Wilma, who inadvertently separates from him when they impact an unpleasant, though mercifully soft wall and each go their own way. Morton finds himself tumbling down some sort of passage, eventually coming to a stop against another, even softer wall, an impact that almost distracts him from a great metallic sliding sound from right behind him, a slam indicating that some sort of door just shut behind him.
In the ruined Black Tower of Eckledun...Scott flits about distrustfully as he and Francine exchange words. Wonder where she is - above or below? Seems unlikely she could be very near to the destroyed bits.
"Tell me, what was being discussed?" he asks.
~Well, this is going to need some context, so here goes: Susanne's head suddenly exploded. Literally. She was our diviner and, well, director... and looking out the top window, Tom saw that there was some kind of pink stuff happening in town, and pretty massively at that. So that's instantly a high alert for us and HQ. He sent word to the guys down south, like we're supposed to, and then then they all - except for me, since I could follow along without being there - met where you are now and quickly decided that the best thing to do when your director's head explodes was probably to evacuate and not hang around for long - I was going to go join them, but it'd take me a bit to get there, and I told them they probably should go right away without me... and they did, but something happened with the teleport, and then I heard them screaming - mentally screaming, I mean - and then there was a huge explosion, and the tower nearly fell over, but it seems to be kind of holding up for now?~ Francine nervously recounts, then pauses.
~Long story short, I think they're all dead now. And I don't want to move too much because my room's a bit safer than outside, and I'm not sure I can even get down from my floor - I think the stairs are out, and I don't dare even try teleporting after what happened.~She mulls over something for a moment or so, then speaks once more.
~It... wouldn't be too much to ask for you to help me out a bit, would it? I can't get down on my own, and you should have telekinesis. I just need to get clear of the tower, and preferably the town as well. I'll only need one big mostly skyward push.~At the bottom of a ditch...Kevin quickly checks if his clothes haven't suddenly melded into his flesh, a vital part of any morning for him. They have not, so he removes the outermost layer, and then proceeds to try and will some food into existence for himself.
[Will roll: 1-
2]
He looks at an empty patch of weeds, and imagines a lovely steak materializing into being on the spot, his mind wandering through the delights of its texture, smell, flavor and the sheer hunger it will serve to alleviate, the satisfaction building inside him as he sinks his teeth into it, drawing a healthy amount of cooked juices out of it, his entire being orienting itself for an incoming meal, which feels... a tad stringy. And cold, and... it kind of hurts?
Kevin opens his eyes, and notices he's bitten his own hand. Rather deeply at that. It's bleeding quite a lot. And it says quite a bit about Kevin's current state that he is sorely tempted to actually keep at it to see if he can get a decent chunk out of his hand to at least chew on for a while.
In a mostly sealed entrance chamber...Sigmund strides toward the closed door and checks out what its problem is, since it doesn't seem about to open for him at any point. He orders it to open, but it remains steadfastly closed, and stepping around this way or that or even giving it the pawing of its life doesn't help.
What catches his eye, though, is that the mechanism for the door is magical in nature, and seems to be based on receiving a command - or, rather, an impulse of activity within a two meter radius - from some other magical apparatus, and the mechanism has the same kind of janky coordinate system attached to it as the pillar.
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Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 538199 times)