Novama

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: what'll we do
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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The mirrored chamber breathed with quiet menace. Every surface shimmered with reflected movement, light bending and warping until the space seemed alive. On the throne of dark water Kavros Dern continued staring down the party.

When he spoke, his voice was a low current that rolled through the hall and pressed against the skin.
“Alive,” he said, as if tasting the word. “You came all this way for that? Curious. Most who enter my Domain crave power, not mercy.”

He leaned forward, his massive frame shifting. “I was once a man of muscle and obedience. Now I am the hand that shapes thought. These walls listen to me. They remember what I desire. It goes without saying I'll not leave with you.”

The runes along the mirrored floor brightened at his words. Mist swirled low around the party’s boots. The sweetness in the air deepened, clinging to their throats. A faint hum began to crawl beneath their skin, the party would be reminded of the ever present drug in the mists of the labyrinth.

“You may leave,” Kavros continued. “Walk away. Or kneel, and learn what it means to have purpose. Serve me, and I will let you share in the Domain’s gifts. It grants power that no mortal hunger could ever fill.”

Aramis's study of the mist would discern the mist was not actually water vapor but of shaped mana like a spell.

A faint smile tugged at Kavros lips. "You a mage by chance? A scholar? I can give you a number of secrets I have found and power if you join me" Kavros offered specifically to Aramis.

Kavros leaned back . The mirrored floor rippled outward, faces drifting beneath its surface, silent and watching. The scent in the air grew sweeter still, heavy with promise and corruption alike.

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: moving ahead. this is the guy you were sent to find
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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The time blurred together in the twisting dark. Had it been hours or days?

The path beneath their feet wound through chambers of stone that bled water from every seam. Faces carved into the walls watched them pass, their empty eyes filled with faint light. Sometimes the corridors seemed to breathe, narrowing as if the labyrinth itself grew restless. Food soured quicker than it should have, and the torches burned low, the air thick with damp and the faint sweetness of the lingering mist.

They slept where they could. Sometimes under dripping arches, sometimes in alcoves filled with fallen statuary. The silence pressed close. In dreams, voices whispered from the water. In waking, their echoes answered back.

By the time they reached the heart of the maze, the air had changed. The stillness had a pulse, slow and measured, as if the labyrinth had a heartbeat of its own. A final corridor opened before them, leading to a room bathed in reflections.

The chamber was wide and low, its floor a mirror of black glass that rippled with the faintest touch. Pillars rose from the surface, covered in runes that pulsed faintly like veins of molten silver. Every wall reflected every movement, endless versions of themselves watching from all sides. At the center stood a throne that seemed carved from the same mirrored stone, its back spiraling upward in unnatural curves.

Mist pooled beneath the throne, and from it, a figure took shape. The water shimmered upward into the likeness of a man. Calm faced, regal, and wrong in a way that made the skin crawl. Like a thug that took the time to cleanup that morning. His voice came soft and cold, echoing through the mirrored walls.

“So. You’ve come this far.” His tone carried the faint amusement of a predator already full. “Tell me… what is it you seek in my house, if not the gift that keeps the weak from breaking?”

The mist stirred again, shapes forming along the water’s surface. Hands. Faces. The faint glint of eyes just beneath the mirrored floor. The air felt charged, as if the reflections themselves were waiting for one wrong answer.

The figure smiled, faint and sharp.
“Speak carefully. The walls remember every lie.”

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: Locke's ranged ability has no range on it so that was a blessing this time around. Evie's fairly hurt from the suicide charge.
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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Evie’s charge carried her through the worst of the shards. The water blades struck her arms, her side, her legs, each cut shallow but burning like fire and leaching her strength. She staggered through but she left a trail of blood that spread into the pool around her.

Yumi read the water as if it spoke to her. The faint ripple gave the mage away. Her scythe flashed in a perfect circle, and the mist tore with him. His body was cut clean through, and the pieces slid silently beneath the water. His presence in the room ended in that same instant, leaving behind only the sorrow he had stirred.

Locke’s visor gave him ghosts to aim at. He would fire rounds that bit into the water and stone instead rather than his allies that neither he nor they knew were in his line of fire rather than the slain mage.

Aramis’s mixture hissed and steamed where it spread across the shallow pool. The reaction pushed against the mist, seemingly burning pockets of it away until the center of the chamber came into view. Faces carved into the stone pillars visible as they dripped steadily, their endless tears feeding the pool.

Androph stormed into the space with hammer raised, only to find no enemy left to smash. His armor hung in tatters, his skin soaked and his breath ragged, but he stood among friends once more. The struggle had wrung the water’s grip from him.

The mist thinned, the clutching currents in the water eased, and the room’s cruel hold broke. What remained was still heavy with damp sorrow, but it no longer pressed into their lungs. They could move again, they could see again, and they could breathe without choking on grief.

At the far end of the room, the next path revealed itself. A passage stretched into darkness, mist curling toward them from its darkness. The labyrinth was not yet done with them, and the way forward was open.

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: androph's superstrength ability was F grade. locke and evie are being directly attacked
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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The chamber pulsed with the sorrowful mist, every breath dragging heavier with the weight of it. The fog clung close, curling around legs and arms like grasping hands. Sound seemed to warp in the haze, muffled and twisted, as though even voices did not want to carry far.

In that perfect stillness Yumi achieved, she seemed to melt into the mist. When Aramis glanced toward her again, she was simply gone, no trace but the faint swirl of fog where she had stood.

Androph’s struggles grew desperate as the choking water coiled tighter about him. He roared, muscles straining until his armor tore free in a violent rip. Metal splashed into the depths and the dwarf burst free of the grip that sought to drag him down. He staggered upright, drenched and panting, bare hide glistening with water and blood where the shards had cut him, but he was breathing again.

Near the entry, Evie’s hands would seal Locke's flesh beneath though the plates themselves gaped with cracks. Roscoe’s nose twitched furiously, but the dog gave a frustrated whine and shook his head, the mist bending every scent until none of it made sense.

Aramis's spell hummed in the microspace around him in the fog. The mist was not natural. It pulsed with an alchemical signature he knew: something refined, addictive, the kind of thing that burned a man hollow even as it granted him strength. It had seeped into this place, and the longer anyone lingered in it, the more likely cravings would take root.

Locke swept the haze with his visor, sensors crawling across the chamber. At last, movement flickered at the edge of his readout, a disturbance of form where there should be none. At the same moment, Yumi caught the faintest shadow slipping through the mist across the water’s surface. The mage was not gone. He was circling.

The air shifted. Water coalesced in the fog, rippling into a new assault. Shards hissed to life, not scattered this time but drawn into a focused spray aimed directly at Locke and Evie’s group. The attack came fast and sharp, cutting through the mist in a whistling arc.

mage of sorrow

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: tricky water man
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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The water blades slashed out, jagged arcs screaming through the chamber. Androph met them head on, his hide turning some aside with little more than shallow cuts, but one shard found purchase. It bit into his arm, drawing blood enough to sting and remind him that even his toughness had limits. He would not slow, not willingly. Yet the moment his boots struck deeper water the floor itself seemed to drag at him. The pool clutched his legs like living hands, slowing each step until only his unnatural strength kept him forcing forward at any pace. He drove ahead, hammer raised, only to find the mist so thick that the mage he’d charged was gone. Worse still, the wall of fog swallowed his allies from sight. He was alone in the gray.

Back toward the stairs, Yumi’s scythe spun like a storm. Her blade cut cleanly through the volley of water shards, breaking them to harmless spray before they could reach her or Aramis at her back. Aramis stayed tight to her, but their movement was no freer than Androph’s when they hit the water and in fact it inhibited them more in comparison. Each step dragged as if unseen chains held their ankles, the water clinging, pulling them down with every motion. They could see only one another, the rest of the group lost to the suffocating mist.

Closer to the stair, Locke’s instincts carried him into the barrage. He pulled Evie and Roscoe into a safer line, interposing himself against the strike. The shards ripped across his armor, scoring through plate and flesh beneath. The pain would be sharp and punishing, two deep wounds opened across his frame, but his shield held (armor damaged enough to not offer anymore protection). Evie and Roscoe were spared, the worst of the blast turned by Locke's body.

The chamber seemed to grow quieter after, the air thick with mist that swirled around the pillars. Faces carved into stone wept into the water, their sorrowful reflections shifting with the ripples. From somewhere unseen, the mage’s voice carried again, low and echoing.

“You came to drown… so drown.”

A surge moved through the pool around Androph’s legs, not simple resistance this time but force. The water rose like a living thing, crashing to try and sweep him from his feet, its strength sharpened by the drugged mist. (E grade attacK) And yet the direction of the spell’s master remained hidden, the voice carrying as though from every corner at once.

mage of sorrow

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: bigger party but bigger problems now? Combat has started so 3 actions max and first action should involve defending yourself from the blades probably. If you gonna use an ability, make it very obvious you are using an ability.
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist @Ducksworth @ImaginedBird

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The chamber seemed to tighten as Evie’s words echoed against the stone. The mage lifted his chin, pale eyes glimmering through the haze, and his mouth curled into something that was not quite a smile.

“You came for Kavros,” he said, voice carrying with a low resonance that shivered the water around him. “He is deeper still, where the mist runs strongest. He does not walk among the unprepared. You will not find him by force of will alone.”

The mist thickened at his gesture, rolling low across the water until the mage was swallowed and the pillars blurred into silhouettes. Faces wept harder, rivulets streaming down to join the pool, and in their tears the reflections of the party warped and writhed. Each surface offered some memory of grief, sharpened to a cruel edge: comrades buried, family lost, failures replayed. It pressed at the mind with a steady pulse, as if the chamber itself sought to end them through the the despair of their pasts.

The water rippled.

“You will drown before you see him,” he intoned his voice bouncing around oddly in the chamber making it sound like it came from all around the party.

The water's surface convulsed noticeably. Shortly after from the fog, shards of water drawn razor thin, like glass, screamed through the mist, fast and unpredictable at the party.

mage of sorrow

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: Let's get back in the swing of things
mentions: @supamusu@Moonberry@JonTheArchivist

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The sorrowful mask trembled under Evie’s hand, and for an instant it was cold and slick as if rain clung to its surface. Then it unraveled, dissolving into pale threads that drifted away into the air. One after another the other, faces unraveled as well, leaving the stairway bare.

From below came a breath of thick mist, rolling upward in heavy waves. It carried a bitter tang, sharp on the nose and tongue, and it lingered with weight. The appearance of the mist likely tickled at the back of some of their minds, but of what?

The stairs shifted as the ruin answered the selection of the mask. Stones groaned, slabs grinding against one another until the passage stretched downward into darkness. Roots tore back into the earth, leaving the path clear as though it had been waiting for them.

The chamber that opened below was broad and low, filled ankle deep with still water. The surface gleamed dull and gray, disturbed only by ripples that spread from the base of leaning pillars. Every pillar was carved with human faces locked in grief, tears spilling forever into the pool. The steady drip echoed in the hush like the beat of a dirge. The mist clung thick in this place, drifting low to the water until it seemed to soak into the surface.

At the far side a figure rose from the haze. He was no half ruined wretch like the one they had seen above. His back was straight, his eyes shone with dreadful clarity, and his movements carried calm control. The mist clung to him like a shroud, feeding vigor into his flesh, sharpening his voice until it filled the chamber.

“You chose sorrow,” he said, each word sending ripples across the water. “Now sorrow will claim you.”

The pool shifted at his command. What had seemed shallow water thickened around their boots, pulling at their steps. Every motion dragged as though regret itself had weight. Around them the carved faces seemed to stir. Reflections bent and twisted in the water, each showing failures and griefs that were not wholly their own, whispering them back in broken voices.

The mage stood steady at the center of it.

mage of sorrow

Hello

@DarryOut welcome to the show. What sorts of rps and stuff are you interested in? ^^

[Ryke - Dungeon] Languishing Large Loner

OOC: We are shooting for twice a week in post frequency. Everyone is currently in scene and likely prepared for rp prior to arriving. Post as much as you want and ping people you are talking at. My posts move the round/time. Contact me if interested in joining.
mentions:

The jungle pressed close on every side, its canopy heavy with the damp weight of autumn. Great leaves sagged under beads of water, and the air carried the bitter sweet musk of rot and blossom. Long forgotten walls jutted from the undergrowth, pale stone etched with faint, eroded sigils that once marked the grounds as sacred. What had been a place of cleansing in ages past now lay quiet and broken, a shell reclaimed by roots and vines.

The group came upon it all at once. The bathhouse ruin rose from the jungle floor, its cracked pillars leaning toward one another like the ribs of some ancient beast. Vines clung to every surface. Fountains long dry sagged beneath the weight of moss. And at the heart of it, a staircase once hidden by a collapse had cracked open, stone tumbled outward into the ferns. The path led down into shadow, a mouth that exhaled faint mist with the rhythm of slow, sleeping breath.

Signs of habitation lingered nearby. A dead fire pit, scraps of leather strapping, the flattened marks of bedrolls on the grass. Whoever had camped here was gone, whether deeper into the ruin or scattered by the noise of gunfire already spent. The silence that followed felt heavy, expectant.

But the stairs were no longer empty. Masks drifted in the air above them, shimmering faintly with a sickly glow. Each bore a different face: joy, sorrow, rage, disappointment, others and they bobbed like buoys in an unseen current. To step onto the stair without brushing against one of them seemed impossible.

Behind them, the jungle murmured with insect hum and the groan of shifting branches. Before the party, the bathhouse lay open, the labyrinth waiting.

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