"Getting seen would be bad I think, yes," he spoke softly, glancing up to the sensors just a little down the corridor.  "I'm ... not that good at moving quietly, but since I'm not glowing so much it's impossible, we certainly should try." he turned to regard the two they had met on leaving the Forbidden level.

"Unless you think better, we should avoid any active elements," he whispers with a gesture to the 'whistler'

"Yeah, let's keep our distance from the whistler--and time 'Is' an issue---I may not be very sneaky, but I'm kind of nimble--and if we've got our more aware fellows to guide us, we should be able to cross the pressure plates safely"  Danae finished--then pointed over to Dena.

"And you can just fly over them, can you?"

"I can." Dena answers, turning away from her examination of the elevator door reluctantly.  "But I cannot carry everybody through the tunnel, I get too large in my warform.  Perhaps I should go second, to provide extra defenses if our leader encounters an enemy."

Dashu thought about Dena's statement for just a moment and gave it due thought and then said, "I think I'll be able to help Xurizu out more if I'm second."  He noted the concern in Dena's voice and tacked on, "Don't worry, I'm not a bad fighter myself.  We should spar some when we get the chance.  You two stay close though.  I think Dena and I might be the better fighters but we need the two of you conscious when we get there to shut this thing down.   I'll feel better if we can don't get too spread out.  We should be off though."  With that he proceeded to follow Xurizu down the hall.

Aided by Xurizu's keen senses, the group moves steadily if somewhat awkwardly down the next adjacent hall, crouching or stepping over sensors as they are pointed out. Progress is at times frustratingly slow compared to the seconds ticking by. Even Xurizu nearly steps right beneath the 'eye' of a ceiling sensor before suddenly halting his steps, backing away carefully. Everyone holds their breath for a moment, but it seems that brushing near these particular sensors has no effect whatsoever.

Nothing the group can immediately notice, anyway.

Danae has a more difficult time of it. Despite her limber reflexes, she steps wrong at a crucial moment and triggers one of the pressure plates, on the heels of Dena flying effortlessly above them. A panel in the floor suddenly opens beneath the Dawn Caste's feet, and she has a split second to catch herself before plummeting into the shaft below. Dena, if she wishes, is close enough to make a grab for Danae to catch her.

The plate seems to have activated another unfortunate consequence: the corridor ahead is starting to close off. 50 yards away, a new wall starts descending from the ceiling to close off their eastward progress. Will Dashu and Xurizu make a run for it? It's almost certain they will be separated if so, but on the other hand, they will save the need for half their group to take a detour.

[6 minutes, 40 seconds remaining.]

---

OOC: Sorry this took a while. I'd like to at least resolve this post and get another one posted before Weds. :)

Danae - roll Wits+Athletics. Dena - make the same roll, if you intend to help Danae. Whoever rolls higher, I'll add 1 extra die to for teamwork and use that roll.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:21, Tue 16 Dec 2008.

Dena wastes a precious tenth of a second deciding to help and then she rolls in midair, placing her feet on the ceiling before kicking off for speed.  With one smooth movement she whips the length of chain down ahead of herself in an attempt to wrap it around Danae and give her an easy grip.

[Private to GM:
11:08, Today: Tervila Dena rolled 2 successes using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,10. Wits+Athletics.
Added 1 die for a stunt.  Can't believe I forgot to buy any athletics building the character.  How deep is the shaft?  If possible I'll keep flying down the shaft and give Danae a second shot if this fails. ]

Dashu, not knowing if the others could easily find the controls without Xurizu or himself decides to make it a point to stop and let the path shut.  He hopes this deture isn't going to set them back too much.  He looks back at Danae and cooly asks, "You okay?"

"Are you okay?" Xurizu asked as Dashu did, not thrilled at the door closing up ahead, but not wanting to leave the pair behind either.  "Looks like we're going to have to chance the Whistler."

"Hurry up and move!" Dena yells from inside the shaft, voice echoing off the rock.  "See if you can hold the door open, at least.  If you can't try to break it until I get her out of this hole."

Dashu reached down, took Danae's hand as Dena pulled her out of the hole and waited for her to catch her balance.  He then responded, "Both of those are little bit out of my ability.  Besides I doubt we'll be able to do the damage we need to in the time we've got.  The detour will probably be quicker.  Let's hoof it."  Dashu then turns and tries to help Xurizu detect the new route.  Once everyone is on their feet, the route is planed out, and ready to go, he takes off with the group.


[Private to Tervila Dena: Dashu's not going to have the strength to break through a wall and I think our storyteller wants us to navigate a maze.  If we try and break the walls of the maze we might just get penalized with more time knocked off the clock.  Try if you want though.  Dashu's just not the character for it  :)]

Danae does manage to find a handhold as the floor opens beneath her. Her fingers cling to the edge of the pit, and both Dena and Dashu are able to pull her up to safety. Dena, looking down the shaft, sees that it is at least a couple floors deep and has a very noxious looking liquid at the bottom of it.

By the time Danae is on her feet again, the wall ahead has already slammed shut completely.

Fortunately, the group does not have to detour from the beginning. There is another path nearby that heads north, likely meeting with the path they'd seen the whistler automaton at. Or they could attempt to break the wall that just came down, though it'd make a great deal of noise.

---

OOC: Breaking the wall - Everyone who participates in breaking it will need to roll like they're attacking an inanimate object. Wall has 0 DV, of course, and is made of no ordinary material -- it's solid metal rather than stone. It has 20L soak and needs to take 80 total HLs to destroy it enough to pass through.

How long it takes to break depends on how many attack rolls you have to make, and your weapon speed. Don't use non-magical weapons to break it, they'll shatter. And don't use your fists unless you have a way to do lethal damage with them. You can of course flurry each attack if you think that'll make it faster.

If any of you instead decide to take the detour, roll another Perception+Awareness or Int+Lore.

Xurizu, as Danae is hauled to safety, considers instead the route they will have to take away from here.  He thinks about the tempo of the lights on the walls of the corridors, the distribution of the sensors, everything he can remember about where they have walked already.  He isn't basing the route he selects on any knowledge, just a gut feeling for the heart of the maze, and the now quickest way to get there ...
[Private to Gatekeeper: Spending motes to boost perception equal to the amount I get back from any stunt.]
This message was last edited by the player at 07:39, Fri 19 Dec 2008.

Dena runs her hand quickly along the metal of the door.
"Very hard." she comments.  She examines it a moment.  "I can destroy it but it will take all my essence to do so.  Is it worth it?"

Then a crafty look crosses her face and she examines the wall next to the door.  "But. . . did they reinforce the walls as well or are they mundane stone?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:04, Fri 19 Dec 2008.

Dena, looking at the walls, finds herself disappointed to discover the construction is similar to the door. The entirety is reinforced metal, man-made and ancient, part of the oldest corridors built as part of the core structure of Five Coils.

Xurizu, with Dashu and Danae supporting, move on ahead to scout the north detour. As expected, it does meet with the next adjacent east-west passage. The sensors along this corridor are fewer, but there are several one foot diameter sea-urchin whistlers drifting along it at specific points. There aren't any of the pressure plates, though, or any other traps, at least not any you can see.

You get the idea you really don't want to get the attention of those spiky sentinels. Danae has seen their make before and knows they are not actually combat machines, but they may trigger other unpleasant traps.

[6 minutes 15 seconds remaining.]

---

OOC: The group can choose to...
- Just take the next corridor.
- Try to divert the whistlers toward a different corridor.
- Try to sneak past the whistlers.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:51, Sat 20 Dec 2008.

Dashu takes a look around and sees the spiky devices and seems to be confused as to what they do.  Stands perfectly still, trying to take note of their behavior to see if he can deduce how they work.  Unfortunately he's not too good with machines.  However, machines are usually made by people to serve a certain function.  That function can be deduced from seeing way the machine operates.  However perfectly immobile devices do nothing to glean information from.  He searches the ground to find a piece of scrap metal roughly the size of his fist.  He then picked it up and handed it to Dena.  "We can try to distract them by throwing this and making some racket down the hall.... unless someone objects." 

"That seems like a good plan." Dena agrees.  "Everybody move back a few steps so we can retreat quickly, I'll try to ricochet it to make as much noise as possible."

Dena examines the lump a moment in her hands, then winds up like a baseball pitcher and bounces it down the corridor away from the group, as noisily as possible.

Xurizu, for his part just nodded in response to Dashu's suggestion and Dena acting on it, stepping back and studying the corridor they would travel down, should the distraction work, making sure to memorize sensor locations so that the others could be guided quickly and efficiently away from the Whistlers and towards the Gatekeeper.

The scrap of metal strikes as noisily as Dena would like. One of the three whistlers on the eastern side of the corridor starts drifting toward the sound. A few more bits of debris thrown that way is enough to attract another to join it, though the third one remains stubbornly in place.

The first tricky part of this little experiment is the moment the two urchins heading west move past the corridor the four Exalts are lying in wait in. They flatten against the wall and hold their breath, hoping to remain unnoticed.

Meanwhile Xurizu has gotten a good idea on how to evade the next series of sensors, the patterns all but burned into his memory. With his guidance, they should be able to pass through them without much trouble at all. There's still one whistler in the way -- but one is enough to overpower, should they not make it past quietly.

---

OOC: Dex+Stealth or just Dex if you have none. You'll only need 1 success to evade notice from the sentries heading toward the distraction, so a WP may be in order.

It'll be hard to evade the one whistler -- you might want to think of just trying to smash it, too. It's not a combatant so there won't be combat time. Just try to do as much damage as you can to it in a single attack (or flurry) and keep moving on.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:29, Sun 21 Dec 2008.

Dena waits while the drone rotates in place, timing a lightning-fast flying dash to go over the top of it while it's sensor is pointed towards the floor.

[Private to GM: 21:21, Today: Tervila Dena rolled 2 successes using 6d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 with rolls of 1,6,7,4,8,3. dex. ]

Dashu flattens himself against the wall and holds his body perfectly still.  He kept his breath shallow as the two machines sped by.  When Xurizu moved, he moved with him.  As they approached the last Whistler he turned once again to Dena.  Dashu and nodded to his head to show he would let her break it.  He probably could do it himself but she's shown herself to be far stronger than he.

Xurizu presses up to the wall in the dead spot between a couple of sensors as the pair of Urchins fly past, climbing a little up the wall to be out of their typical sweeps as they reach their closest approach then dropping down lightly.  He starts to move as soon as they're past, leading his three companions swiftly through the field of sensors until they reach the third whistler.  He's more than willing to let the fighters of the group handle this one.

"Damn...  Sorry about that..."  Danae apologized quietly when she got out of the pit--and was rather silent for a good long while after that too--for good reason, she had made a rather bad mistake, and it would be entirely inappropriate to continue with the snarky commentary after the fact...

When the time came to deal with the Whistler though--and when the group of other ones came along back--she took a look at the remaining one, pointed towards it, then put a hand on her own sword, as if trying to ask the others if she should smash this one, instead of simply leaving it and risking another alarm.

Assuming there were no objections--she would steel herself...  And in a flash of motion, cover the distance when it's sweep left the group--bringing her weapon down a full three times--the very limit of what can be done in the blink of an eye--and channeling some of her still limited essence supplies in the process.

With any luck, it would be enough to disable the thing...

[Private to Gatekeeper: Sorry about that slowdown--in any case, spending a WP on the stealth

Then flurrying three attacks on the Whistler, spending 4m on Second Melee for each--which probably cleans my personal pool out again]

The two whistlers moving westward do not see the Exalts in the corridor at all. Their single-mindedness upon finding a disturbance to examine is perhaps a flaw of design, but Danae figures that's why the Gatekeeper employs many of them at once -- to increase the probability of successful sweeps.

As soon as the two disappear down the corridor, Dashu, Dena, Xurizu and Danae use the window of opportunity to act. Dashu is able to slip right past the third whistler before it can even see him. Unfortunately, it does sense the others -- triggering a high pitched whine that emits from the sea urchin shaped sentry.

---

OOC: I already rolled for Danae's attacks, but I figured that I'd wait and see if any of the others will smash it to shut it up first.

(note: she does do enough damage to disable it, but I just wanted to see because Danae will 1) flare, 2) use pretty much all her motes if I proceed as written.)

Having already planned to deal with the whistler should it spot her, Dena wastes no time thinking when it makes a sound but charges at it, forcing her essence into the black jade staff as she crosses several yards in an eyeblink.  The staff's form is slippery and resistant and Dena resorts to brute force of simply flooding her essence into it to get the weapon to obey before bringing it in a forceful smash against the probe, then kicking it against a wall to use as an anvil for a final crushing impact.

[Private to GM: 17:57,
Flurry attack.  Well that's some unimpressive dice rolling.

Today: Tervila Dena rolled 3 successes using 6d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 with rolls of 2,10,2,5,6,7. Third Staff Strike.
17:57, Today: Tervila Dena rolled 3 successes using 7d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 with rolls of 2,8,2,7,7,6,4. Second Staff Strike.
17:57, Today: Tervila Dena rolled 2 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,3,5,5,7,9,6,2. First Staff Strike. ]

Fortunately for Dena, the whistlers don't seem to be much for dodging, and exhibit no obvious weaponry. Each and every one of her blows rings true, caving in the spherical body, knocking off several of the spikes jutting from its surface in the process. More thorn-like appendages clatter to the floor as Dena pounds the automaton into the wall, leaving it more like a misshapen spiked saucer than a sea urchin in shape.

More importantly, the whistle sound appears to have been abruptly silenced, and gives the opportunity for the group to move on before the other whistlers return. Danae finds her attack unnecessary, unless of course she wants to pummel the thing more, just to be sure! (If she does, the entirety breaks apart in an explosion of sparks and smashed up bits of metal, but her sword will be severely damaged by the effort, as well.)

Progress continues, with Xurizu and Dashu still taking the lead. They move eastward until the passage they are at ends in a T-intersection. Eastward is a solid wall, while the north and south offer two different paths.

Northward, a long gap in the floor leaves no way to get across except by jumping or flying over, or possibly climbing the walls if one were skilled enough to do so. Much like the pit Danae nearly fell into, it is about two stories deep and contains an unknown liquid at the bottom, but covers nearly three times the floor space as the first one.

Southward is a series of crackling electric fields covering the passage from floor to ceiling. They are not perfectly solid but look dangerous to touch. It may be possible to deactivate them, perhaps by diverting or grounding the charges. It would take more time, but south is closer to the core.

At this point there seem to be fewer sensors to avoid. The traps are likely becoming more difficult as a result.

[5 minutes 30 seconds remaining.]

---

OOC: You can...
- deactivate charges with int+lore
- jump pit with dex+ath
- fly over pit (no roll), can potentially make multiple trips to carry others

also, spotting traps: perception or wits+awareness, unless I'm told otherwise I'll assume Xurizu is leading the roll with teamwork again.