"That seems fair... though where would be safe?  The room where the Brethren-pods were?  Or the one further up the ramp where Eleisai was exploring?" Delfino asks.

Attilisk, the knives just seem to be exceptionally sharp and easily-concealable blades.  The head crest looks like it would attach to one's cranium in a symbiotic relationship, allowing for greater sensory perception of the surrounding environment.

When Paraton begins to look around the room, now better lit with their glowing bubbles, they do fine a crystal that seems to have come loose from the larger mass, this one only being the size of a palm. 



Nu-mar nods vigorously.  It looks around, and points to the bodies in the corner, then the crystal.  "Like," it says, then gestures with dexterous hand-paws in an all-encompassing motion, as if indicating the entire room.  "Then."  It flints its hand-paws apart and then covers its eyes as if against a bright flash of light.  "Then, evil."  It makes a slurping sound like the sathosh made when they were feeding.  "I jump/am thrown," it says, indicating a heaving motion.  "Save Nu-mar."  It points at the dead again, tears on its human-like face.  "Die."

Attilisk's eyes widen as Nu-mar relates his story.  He's never seen a thuman that articulate before.

"Anyone need some sensory augmentation?  Not quite sure if this is my style, so you're  welcome to it.  It seems like it might be a permanent addition."  Attilisk waves the faux-Varjellan head crest to be clear what he's talking about.  Around his waist, he fastens the belt with the blue-metal blades attached.

To Delfino, he replies, "I don't know yet.  Maybe we'll find something soon.  I'd like a room we can lock from the inside, in case there are more sathosh about.  The beasties we're tracking will be able to reach us regardless of where we go, since they can phase through the walls."

"I'm more builder than seer to be true, and I agree that locks make happy inhabitants. If one of you is adept at noticing the unnoticeable, and have a bit of spare iotum, I could fashion a drink that would give you sight in the dark as sure as the light." It would take a matter of hours. Have you found a locking room in your travels thus far? I came from one that could be closed, but no hallways I saw would have led here. I believe it was a God's will that brought me through the walls and ether."

He turns to the thuman, "You are an interesting creature, aren't you? Touched by the Transfigured God to know things beyond your station."

The Seeker addresses Attilisk first:
I thank you both for your offers. As for the crest, it would be a very bad idea for me to disrobe, so I'll have to reject your offer.

Paraton then faces Porgot, offering their hands palm up in thanks
As for the seeing... I seek things. But I do see in the dark already. It is my curse.

I myself found this, they say, showing the crystal. I think I have seen one of these things before, but I'll have to study it before I am certain of what it can do. What I can offer is not iotum, yet, but understanding and comprehension. I have a certain... [COUGH] Knack for finding useful data about the place I'm in. Let's find a place that looks safe, and make it even safer. You think?

Then Paraton goes back to the good thuman  and starts petting it, giving it water from a canteen.
Who's the best? Who? Yes you are! Yes you are!

Attilisk holds the crest out for the thuman to sniff and examine.  "What do you think?  Do you want to sport this mohawk, Nu-mar?  If no one else is interested, I suppose I could give it a go.  All I have to lose is my mind, right?"  He gives a wry chuckle.

Aside from the room you're in, there is the ramp up, the room with the suspended metal spiky ball, and the chambers where Eleisai and Cube came down initially.  Of all the rooms, there was a "control room" of sorts attached to the spiky floating ball room that seemed to have only one exit, so that might at least be easily barricaded for peaceful rest.  You could also go up to the surface, which would take you a couple of hours perhaps.

Nu-mar looks at the crest and cocks his head.  "Try," he says with a shrug, and shudders a bit, probably with fatigue.

Attilisk, your beast-detector, if you check it, gives an indication of the creature being off to the east of the crystal room, about in the direction of the hole-like exit from the room.

Attilisk shrugs and wearily moves to fit the fin onto the thuman's head.  Hopefully, the wires are self-attaching.  As he waits for that bit of numenera to finish doing it's thing, he offers that the group explore a bit more before retreating to the "control room" for the spiky ball.  "It won't keep the worst of them out, but it should keep nearly everything else out.  And I could certainly use some sleep, if possible."

He makes note of the detector's readings and motions to the vent opening.  "Any brave soul care to peak down that pipe and see if we're being spied on?"

I will do it, I just need a minute: this thing I found is... Concerning. If I understand this correctly, this cypher could give me -or anybody who uses it- enhanced resistance in combat. It would also change me permanently and utterly. I don't know.

Ok, this will have to wait for now. I can't choose at this moment. Let me see that hole.

Paraton approaches the exit with care, probing the depths with their quarterstaff, straining their eyes to see in the darkness without alerting anything that might be hiding there.

Paraton: M14/16 (1), S10/14 (1), I8/15 (1).
Paraton rolled a 7.  Discerning realities. Disregard this roll.

Paraton examines the tunnel-like entrance thoroughly. 

Attilisk puts the fin on Nu-mar's head.  The wires burrow in, snugging it tightly to the thuman's skull.  He gives a grimace as it settles itself, and then shakes his head vigorously, the fin flapping slightly, but holding firm.  Nu-mar looks around a bit, eyes dilating and getting an odd blue sheen, and then smiles a little.  "See all," he says.  "No bads," he adds quickly.

Delfino announces to the others, "I will go examine the ramp and make certain nothing else is coming down.  If it's clear, I'll go check the room as well."  With that, Delfino walks up the ramp warily.  About five minutes later you hear a faint shout, "It's clear!"

OOC: If you guys want to sleep in the "control room" once you're done with the crystal cluster room, let me know who's going to be on watch.  You have Cube, Eleisai, Delfino, Attilisk, Paraton, and Porgot, as well as Nu-mar, to rotate through as guards.

"What an incredible beast." Porgot is fascinated by Nu-mar "Once we're done here let's go set up camp. I'm still feeling fresh, be glad to take the first watch. I know not what dangers lie here, but I can raise an alarm with the best of them." He looks over Paraton's shoulder, "Anything interesting in there?"

"I can take second watch.  But I'd like to figure out more about these crystals before we leave them."  As he inspects the glowing structure, wary of it's teleporting capabilities, he idly muses, "Are there bedrolls, or blankets, or even cloaks we can save from those bodies?  They don't need the comfort any more."

Paraton takes a while before answering. With a rasp, they say
I think I see a room on the far end of this tunnel, but I'd have to go see. And there's something I don't like in the tunnel, a barrier of sorts, something that will judge us worthy of passing.

Let me see what's over there, see if it's safe.

The robed Seeker starts down the tunnel, their luminous bubbles lighting the way in a sort-of-comical way.

Paraton: M14/16 (1), S10/14 (1), I8/15 (1).
Paraton rolled 2 using 1d2.  1: stay. 2: go check the tunnel.

There were four blankets around the bodies, including the one that was covering Porgot; it seems the dead were explorers like yourselves.

Attilisk examines the crystals more closely. 

Nu-mar pads around the room quietly, smiling at everyone a little, quiet smile as he gently raises and lowers his new crest.  He pauses in front of Cube, who shimmers a little, (perhaps a shrug) and nuzzles Eleisai.  While still mourning the loss of his friends, Nu-mar seems quite happy to be amongst friendly people once more.



As Paraton approaches the shimmering they noticed earlier, there's a definite feeling of lightness, though no impediment to their progress.  They feel lighter and lighter, until they are not crawling, but floating down the tunnel.  In the room at the end they can see a very large chamber, the top of it lost in the dim light.  It's circular and silvery, a smooth metallic surface covering the inside, with a right-hand spiral in gold going up the walls to the unseen top.  A few items float listlessly further up, and a jagged rent of dark gray hangs in the air a far distance above your head.

"This room might be safer to sleep in if it's the big monsters we fear."  He demonstrates his beastie tracker's reaction to the crystal mass.  "Interference perhaps?  Worth remembering for the future.  I'm hesitant to try to take it apart, though.  Who knows where you might end up if things go wrong."  Attilisk starts gathering the blankets from the dead and dragging the corpses out into a pile near the bottom of the ramp.

Paraton starts flailing in the air and, regaining composure, they grab a wall to propel themselves up. The feeling is magical. The prior worlders ability to build always leaves the Seeker amazed. There's something about it that makes them wary, and they deem it prudent to turn back. Losing buoyance feels almost wrong, after having first experienced, though the stomach thanks profusely for finding a bearing again.

It... seems I'm worthy of passage. Or damned. I'm not sure. I felt a really strange feeling, I floated there, and I could not understand what was up or down anymore.

Paraton describes the large room they've just been in as they help Attilisk move the bodies and clean up for a rest.

I can take first watch. I'm still a bit shook up from the fight and this whole experience.

After the room is cleaned up, and in an obvious search for comfort, they approach Nu-mar and start cleaning the thuman's fur.

Attilisk finds the bodies easy to move, as they are quite desiccated, and can pile them at the end of the ramp near the Wyddno-tree.  Once free of the specter of death, the crystal room seems much more welcoming.  Cube makes a sweep around the room to clear it, and then settles itself in the doorway as a living barrier against unwanted intruders.

The thuman welcomes Paraton's aid in cleaning his fur and curls up next to them, crest flexing slightly.

Delfino comes down fifteen minutes later with a slightly exasperated look.  "Oh, we're staying here, then?  Thought we were going back up the ramp to the control room...  Cube, if you please?"  Cube slides aside, admitting Delfino, and then slides back again.  "I believe those strange glowing orbs in that room we were going to stay in are controls for the floating spiky metal ball, though what purpose any and all serve I am not entirely certain.  Perhaps if we can learn that, we can figure out why people keep appearing and disappearing in this place.  I must rest, though, as every Form needs time to integrate.  If you need assistance in watching for danger, I can do that after several hours."

Staying the "night" is fairly quiet, though those on watch hear occasional odd pings, metallic groans, shifts, and a couple of very far distant screams (or something like them).  All seems well by the time you all wake up, though Cube is rippling in some agitation from its position in the doorway.

"This was not like this when I resumed observation," it says, its surface vibrating with its strange speech.  The bodies removed last night are now hanging from the Wyddno-tree like strange fruit, their forms cradled in the branches.

Attilisk wakes from a restful sleep and packs the reclaimed blanket.  Over his morning rations, he ponders Cube's statement and the corpses now in the tree.  "Did anyone notice any movement last night?"

I... I felt nothing. How.

The Seeker sits up on their sleeping mat and starts taking frantic bites of some kind of jerky and slurps from a canteen strapped to their back, Paraton starts thinking. At no point do they let the light touch their mouth, so the whole process is involved and full of subterfuge. The laboriousness takes on a kind of ritualistic appearance, and Paraton manages to calm down and wake up.

So. Now we have two different ways to go. There's the tunnel I went through last night. That was... Yes, floating was unsettling too. And there's the room we came from and the ramps. What do we do now?

Paraton tries to avoid looking at the hanging bodies as they talk.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:03, Thu 28 Nov 2019.

Nu-mar shakes his head.  "Saw no. Slept much. Tired."  His looks at the strange fruit, and shakes its head rapidly, its new crest swinging back and forth in a somewhat comical manner.  His expression is one of deep concern and some mistrust, and he goes back to Paraton's side, carefully not looking at their face while they go about their elaborate way of breaking their fast.

Attilisk only heard a bit of odd humming last night, some from the crystals, some from down the tunnel out of the room.  He remembers hearing singing in his dreams, though any specifics elude him at the moment.

Delfino taps his mouth, looks at the Wyddno-tree, back at the tunnel, and gives a small shrug.  "The initial excursion was to find the tentacle-beast.  One presumes we should continue in that pursuit lest it return.  Unless we are able to attune this crystal to blanket enough area that it is no longer a threat to the community above?"

"Somehow, I think such an adjustment may be beyond my skills.  At minimum, I don't think it's the first thing we should try.  If we screw up, I'd count us likely to be within 1,000 miles of the Steadfast."

Attilisk looks up at the venting system that Paraton explored last night, and then back toward the exit to the ramp.  "How about this?  We check out the control room upstairs, the one Delfino explored as our sleeping room.  We learn what we can from the controls there.  Maybe I can find another cypher, too.  After that, we check out the room Paraton was in last night.  To me, it sounds like the room I saw in my vision."  He pats his sketch book.

"Indeed, crystals such as these are twisted expressions of the base world, they can be wily forces in the best cases. The transfigured god manifests itself through machines of all kinds, surely his guidance will be made clear in the control room. I concur with Attalisk, we should commune with the machines there and seek direction in his light." Porgot gesticulates with grandeur as he speaks. "The vision of yours must be a message from Him, a signpost to the next steps. Perhaps it will pead us to the fantastic room that Paraton found, and perhaps it will lead us beyond this potentially bedeviled place."

The group can trek back up the ramp (now a pebbly gray and cool to the touch).  The barrier of parts is gone, and there are no swarms of small insects.  There are still the larger cocooned ones that hover in the hollow center of the ramp, glowing in the only source of light.  Partway up you encounter the open doorway into the spherical room.  There is a walkway around the perimeter, but then the rest of the floor and ceiling drop and soar away to make a twenty foot sphere of space.  In the center is floating a spiky metal ball of dark metallic gray liquid that constantly grows and reabsorbs its spikes.  The ceiling and floor glow a soft white light.

Directly across from the entrance is a closed door and halfway around the perimeter is an open doorway into the "control room".  This room is dim, illuminated only by head-sized floating sphere of blue jelly-like substance that are scattered about the room.  Flickers of circuitry-like patterns occasionally flare on the walls.  There is a faint scent of ozone and fruit and a metallic hum that permeates the place.

Porgot stares with wonder at the floating ball of metallic fluid, "Wonderous...." he whispers as they pass the room and into the control room where he looks upon the walls for a control panel and walks to it, trying to understand its switches and dials and what they may control.

Might: 12/12 Speed: 10/10 Intellect: 19/19 E2

OOC: What difficulty level am I rolling against? I suspect I'm rolling intellect but would like to know the difficulty level prior to deciding whether to spend effort.

Attilisk will aid Porgot in his efforts to understand the controls.  If there is time later, he'll sketch some of the circuitry patterns, as well.

OOC: I'm trained in Understanding Numenera, so that should ease his difficulty by 2, yes?