Gyr's heart wrenched for Willa... genocide, even of an "evil" species, was still wrong.  He huffed and frowned, kneeling beside the jar, and touched it with his psychokinetic tendril, studying the goo inside.  "A great wave had washed up on the shore near a village," he thought aloud, "bringing with it thousands upon thousands of fish, all stranded on the sand.  A small boy and his grandfather were there as the tide pulled away, seeing how the fish suffered out of the water, and rather than pick some up for their dinner, the small boy grabbed a still living fish and threw it as hard as he could back into the sea.  'They will not live long,' the grandfather said as the boy picked up another one to throw it back, looking across the beach covered in fish, 'You cannot save them all.'  The boy then looked up to his grandfather, still holding a fish, and then threw it with all his might back into the sea.  'I saved that one,' he said, and then picked up another."

The Ulh smiled at Willa.  "Let's save this one."  He reached his telepathy into the jar to sift around for a neural signal to awaken the Umbrean.

Gyr rolled 26 using 1d20+6.  Heal check to awaken the jarred Umbrean (hopefully keeping them jarred but will open if necessary).

    The umbrean in the jar sturred.  The ghostly image from the disc in Jubei's hand flickered.  The green dragon looked confused then vanished, the metal going dark as the lines returned to engravings once more.

  A luminous dragon appeared behind the jar, a small one by their stature but still filling the space.  The shining dragon put one large paw upon the jar.  The dragon let out a low, pained keening and looked at Jubei its glowing face drawn down in sorrow then looked over at the jar.  Placing another paw against the side of the jar.

Jubei went a little wide eyed, again, when the dragon image of the disc disappeared before an answer could be given, only for a new dragon to appear, with the umbrean no less.

He approached and knelt next to the jar. "What is it? What pains you?", He asked then.

    The shining dragon looked up again at Jubei, its golden eyes trying to convey something without words.  Jubei tried to puzzle out what he felt from the dragon as it turned its gaze back on the stiring oozeling in the jar.

[Jubei you may roll Insight to attempt to figure out what the dragon was trying to convey or you can just guess! Up to you.]

Jubei's brows furrowed and he shook his head a little in response, before he straightened himself.

"It is clearly in pain. We should do more than just wake the umbrean.", He spoke as he looked over the others and then Willa.
"Is it okay if I open the jar?"


11:28, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 5 using 1d20+4.  Insight Check, Dragon speaketh to me!

After a concerned moment Willa returned Iron Jubei's gaze with a nervous shrug.  She didn't like being the one to make decisions.

"Is, um, maybe alright?" her eyes went first to Phelan, then Gyr, Krath and finally Moonchild for confirmation.  "But..." Her attention wandered away from her friends to the area they were in.  "Umbreans slippy.  Is no where for to run?"

Dungeoneering Check: 17
Checking the area is airumbrean-tight.

17:13, Today: Willa rolled 17 using 1d20+2.  Dungeoneering.  Escape Room?

(Btw I chose to use dungeoneering instead of perception to have something different to roll, but the modifiers are the same if Perception was the correct skill to use here)

    Willa observed the only entrances to this room were a small vent near the ceiling of the room on the opposite side of the door, and the door into the room itself.  Both had enough room either between the grills of the vent cover or the sides of the doorway to allow and umbrean to squeeze through.  Though it would take several moments, those were very narrow slits.  Maybe as much as half a inch wide at best.

[In other words, it would be three full founds of movement to squeeze through.]

Willa informed the others about the room's containment ability.

"Is good room!  Not easy for to escape.  Maybe can to stand in front of door?  Also someone big for up-there vent?  So not to see.  Else maybe umbrean teleport to?"

Jubei nodded and looked to the huge musadi.
"Krath, if you could take care of that.", He requested and waited patiently, before he would go ahead to open the jar and apply a good old bit of his healing touch to the unfortunate goop.

"Consider it done," Krath replied.
Krath cracked his knuckles and slithered over to the door. He got himself into the ready position, just in case.

    Unsealing the jar before the dragon, Jubei could only fit part of one of his large hands into the jar before he called upon the power of his faith to heal this umbrean of whatever malady afflicted it.

  Light poured from Jubei's finger tips and traveled in small rivers across the oozling.  It was to brilliant to make out details but it did seem to follow a pattern of some-kind, almost like veins.

  The moment passed and the light faded, the umbrean now still and without the peculiar yellow pustules that it had sported before.  She stirred in the jar and as Jubei lifted his hands from it the dragon, which has sat behind the jar was no gone.  As though it had never been there at all.

  The oozling spoke in the tone of one who had just awoken from a long slumber "Wha-who?" the voice was very confused as a head tried to peak out of the jar.

Jubei squinted a little as he saw that both the spirit as well as the postules had vanished. That was... good?

He stared down at the umbrean with implacability.
"Indeed. What do you remember? Who are you and why did you attack us with these machines?", He asked then, a faint growl in his voice that he tried to surpress.

    The umbrean frowned, her eyes glazed over a little as the black ooze turns a ruddier shade.  "I am..."
"I am?" she repeated.
"I am!" she suddenly blurted out as her eyes focused and she looked up at Jubei, clearly straining her forming neck. "Ohmotheritwasntadream!" she rolled around in the jar.

  The frantic umbrean was just shy of shouting "The Stone, there's something in the Stone!  They promised the others a way to get back their old lives.  But it won't work, it won't work!" then she paused.

  "This isn't the dream anymore is it? How?" she looked around and saw her own body and screamed and tried to scuttle out of the jar without much success.  Glass not being the best surface to try climbing, even for an oozling.

Jubei scrunched his brows before he gave a nod.
"Yeah, this is not the dream. Please, slow down a little, take a few deep breaths. Start from the beginning. Who are these 'they' that you speak of? And what stone?"

    The terrified oozling did not hear Jubei's questions she was frantically flailing at the jar causing it to wobble and rattle.  It would seem she would need to be calmed down if you were to make any progress.

Willa looked around for the source of the chorus that, considering all the strange voices and phantoms she'd been encountering recently, concerned her far more than anything else at this point.

Gyr furiously stroked his mane as he stooped to study the crazed umbrean (from a safe distance, of course).  His expertise of psionic tomfoolery came only from being raised in a family of telepathic older brothers.  "Her mind is almost literally shattered," he reported to his comrades (across the telepathic channels, of course, so as not to further confuse the jarred umbrean), "Those yellow pustules had an iron psychic grip on her, and now she's staring at the brilliant sun of free-thought.  Obviously, it's a bit overwhelming," the Ulh then offered, "I could give her a mental nudge but I doubt it would do much good.  She probably needs either some kind of authority figure to adhere to or a friend to give her a hug.  Luckily, we have both options at the ready."  He arched his brows at Iron Jubei and Willa.

04:08, Today: Gyr rolled 24 using 1d20+11.  Insight vs. Crazed Umbrean.

    Willa could not pin down a precise source for the music that filled her ears, its seemed to be coming from all everywhere.  The chorus repeated.

  Moonchild knelt down beside Phelan.  "How much do you know about ritual magic?" he asked softly, his voice clearly now in his control and soundly far too deep for so lithely built a man.

Jubei gave a nod to Gyr and then began to talk more to the panicked umbrean. Shattered or not, she needed to be calmed down a little at first at least, and so he did what he could to help her find something to hold on to.


14:09, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 17 using 1d20+9.  Diplomacy check: Reassure the goop.

    It took a moment and Jubei wasn't sure at first that his words were reaching her but they seemed to be having some kind of effect because the creature was far less distraught now than she had been.  He couldn't be sure if it was what he said or just his tone of voice.  But whatever it was he was doing, it was helping to calm her down.

Willa had spawned alone.  She had grown up in isolation amid universal persecution.  Her formative days began in sewers and ended in a place of education.  Even since, during the wonderful days spent amongst her friends, she'd not experienced the level of sympathy and intimacy that others had.  And as she finally allowed her to look upon the panic-stricken umbrean, empathising with its torment, she did not know *how* to help it.

Of course, there had been moments in her life when she'd felt the comfort of others.  Even if by proxy.  Through lullabies overheard and interactions witnessed.  But her memory had never been...reliable.  Confused as it so often was between those of her own experiences and fragments of former lives.  So recalling the details of any such moment, let alone applying them here, seemed an impossible task.

Despite that, it felt like there was an expectation.  Unspoken, but felt, that the others were waiting for *her* to do something.  It was a sickening and frightening feeling.  As though made to juggle without arms.

Then she had it!  At once so obvious, she was momentarily confounded by how dense she'd been.  All the pain, panic, confusion and claustrophobia this umbrean had to be feeling now. Even the struggle with identity.  It had to be the same - or near as - to that horrible time spent in the dragon cave.  In that tiniest of crevasses she'd so foolishly tried to traverse.  Back then it had taken sacrifices by all of her most treasured friends to save her.  And what form had her rescuer taken?  What power pierced the veil of terror?

Willa began to humm.  Quietly at first.  Unsure and unsteady, but soon louder and stronger.  A tune that she'd only known fleetingly, born from a crystalline flute dreamt not heard.  The tune that Amare had given her.

Performance: 22
18:22, Today: Willa rolled 22 using 1d20+7.  Performance - Live Aid?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:37, Sun 18 July 2021.

    The other umbrean was transfixed by Willa's humming and after a moment joined in humming the tones.
Then she started crying a little saying "It worked." Drying her tears in a moment she began to explain herself seeming to have gained some modicum of calm and resolve.

Mending a Broken Soul:  200 Experience Points and 1 Fortune Token.

  Looking at the scene ahead of him Moonchild noted "I guess my concern can wait a little while." he looked over at Phelan "But you and I need to talk about it, there is something stiring in the magic of this place and the scale of it worries me profoundly."

"We do indeed." Phelan responded, a slight frown on his face. He had stayed out of the discussion - he wasn't necessarily much of a calming influence. Instead the others were much better here as they demonstrated by doing something he could not and probably never really would be able to.

"You did ask about ritual magic, and I'm fairly experienced with it. I grew up around it." He added quietly to Moonchild.

Willa felt all warm and tingly after the two umbreans finished their impromptu mini-duet.  She was so taken that she momentarily forgot the situation they were in and almost set to freeing the other from the jar.

Catching herself at the last, she looked away in embarrassment and shame, before taking a step back.  Uttering a stuttered, "hi" as she did so.  Instead of ending with the greeting with her usual offer of friendship however, she simply whispered, "cousin" to herself.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Mon 19 July 2021.

    The umbrean in the jar took a few deep breaths, closing her eyes.  As she solidified she managed to produce the clothing she had worn and put it around herself in a haphazard fashion.  She tried dressing herself afterwards but gave up in frustration.  The normal skill to dress herself seemingly unavailable to her as she muttered "How do these blasted things work?"

  Now looking very much like an urchin herself but projecting a sense of pride and poise of someone who thought of themselves several times larger and more important than they actually were the ruddy umbrean sat down and began to tell her story...