"Oh... You do not mean me... You mean my sire... He no longer speaks as we are speaking now... But I could still communicate with him..." Juniper (junior) lets out a long sigh. "...You have been talking to the old witch..." Juniper then lapses into silence. "...Your offering is very... polite... but... Considering... what I want from you even more... it would be impolite for me... to... take... Hm... Well... Since you have dealt with the old witch... perhaps what I offer will not be surprising to you... I would trade favors... But what I ask will be easier for you... the swift... than it would be for one such... as myself..."

"Of course,", The Lady replied with a wiry smile, of course, "What might we do for you, friend, that might entreat you to aid us?"

"...I would like to show you... It is only an hour's walk away..."

Gesturing to you to follow, Juniper (jr.) shakes the dirt off his roots, and starts walking farther upstream...

(I presume you follow (in your walker)?)

The Duke follows on foot.l Who knows maybe some fruits fall off.

With The Duke, The Lady followed along behind Juni Jnr on foot.
They could return later for the vehicle: after all, she reckoned, here in the vacant apocyliptic wastelands at the End of History, she suspected Grand Theft Walker was not a common crime.

After about an hour, The Lady, the Duke, and Juniper (jr.) reach... a building.

The building seems to grow out of the middle of a very large hill... Or maybe the building was there first and dirt and earth slowly accumulated on top of the back of it.

There is only one visible doorway. The front door is missing, if there ever was one.

Water is gently flowing out of the front doorway. This is the source of the shallow stream you've been following.

"...This... is..." Juniper (jr.) starts to say, but then the face-like part of his body turns to the right.

A sort of hovercraft is approaching from the direction you've just come. There is a human man on it. Its movement is almost silent, except for a sort of shmmmmmmmmmm... noise.

It comes to a stop, and lowers to the ground right next to The Duke and The Lady and the tree-man.

(Orlean, you were worried when you found the walker and no one was on it, but then the skimmer you're riding kept going anyway, somehow knowing where to find The Duke and/or The Lady.)

The scholar looked from under the rim of the parasol shielding him from an imaginary sun. He noticed the three figures beside the skiff and corked his bottle, placing it back in a small alcove. He squinted, looking up as if the moon, scolded him into submission. Opening the bottle once again, the man shook his head and took one last sip of the concoction.

Pushing a few buttons on the skiff confirmed their identities. Rising off the plush chair he looked about to make sure all appeared to be in order before he even spoke. He took a book in his hand, opened it, checked the time, then went back to looking at the three figures and the strange river that appeared to flow out of a doorway. This had become a strange world, since the Dying.

"Hail travelers to Cloister," Orleon Templeton spoke with a stern and confident air, as if he were still in the ziggurat."The Council decided that this expedition would no doubt benefit my studies, so they sent me. And I do hope they backed this sled with supplies. You all look like you need them."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:54, Tue 28 July 2020.

The Duke looks up at the incomming threat but Foers immediatly marks vehicle and passenger as Ziggurat property and he instead of smashing it just flexes his hands into fists a few times and looks at the Lady and their tree host. Maybe he could snag a fruit in the distraction after all. so with all eyes on the new one blabbering nonsense about them needing him he yanks a fruit free.

ooc: 10:25, Today: The Duke rolled 4 using 2d6 with rolls of 3,1.  Hidey.

As the vehicle approached, The Lady said to Juni Jnr, "Please, give me a moment".
She placed a gentle hand on The Duke's forearm, as she'd become accustomed to doing in the last day or so, to reassure her companion.

Then she strode over to that place between the new arrival, and her companions ... ready to accept their visitor.


"Hail, yourself, traveller.
It certainly seems that the Ziggurat Council did send you; otherwise you stole one of their craft to do so, which is unlikely.
Are we to understand that you are here to join our expedition?
And how might we refer to you?" she asked ... and then remembering her manners, she gestured towards the immense man behind her, "This is The Duke, my companion on this quest"


Having not actually turned to look towards The Duke, she was unaware of the ... diplomatic incident ... about to happen there.

Juniper (jr.) seems a bit annoyed. "Now is not the time for consumption," he snaps. Well, it takes him like 15 seconds to say it, but for him that's snapping.

(The Duke gets 1 xp but takes -1 on his next roll)

Juniper (jr.) may be waiting to be introduced...?

"My name is Orleon Templeton, Rialto, researcher in the arcane and lost tech before the Dying," the man in robes
confessed from his vantage point upon the skiff. He worked to hide a flinch when the Duke flexed and was not entirely confident of his response. "My ever-expanding studies have pointed the way to the Cloister all of you seek. Thus the Council has approved my joining you. Additionally, I do bring some provisions that the council saw fit to re-supply you with."

Templeton looks about for a moment. "Though I must confess the environment is much more hospitable than has been in the books of yore.

"...So..." muses Juniper (jr.), "...a Rialto is a kind of researcher...?"

He shakes his head rapidly (for him-- it takes like 10 seconds), and follows up: "I am Juniper... son of Juniper... Your... colleagues... have agreed to help with a local problem... in exchange for... my asking... my father... what he remembers about the Cloister..." Juniper (jr.) gestures toward the building sticking out of the nearby hill...

The Lady seemed about to respond to the newly arrive scholar, when their floral fellow began to speak.
It seemed that he was not going to wait for The Lady to introduce him, nor explain their current circumstance ... and so she stood patiently and politely waiting for him wade through his own.

As the barkcovered man spoke, The Lady eyed The Duke: and she suppressed an amused smirk.
Poor Duke, he hadn't eaten in about ten minutes, and was probably starving to death.

When Juniper Jnr finished his speech, she smiled at the craggy face in the trunk, and returned her attention to the scholar,
"And so it is that you join us at an auspicious moment in this historic journey, Orleon Templeton.
Please, descend and be welcome".

Turning again to Juni Jnr, she asked, "Please what is the nature of this problem you perceive?"

As the decision is made to move on the Duke nods and even seems to try to look guilty which was hard with a mouth full of the weird fruit and then saunters after the tree.

"Your fruits are great. How can it not be a time for them?"

"...Inside this building, water flows forth, as you see. This gives life. But the water is slowly lessening. The answer can only be deeper within the building... But there is a door in a hallway that closes. The door opens again when one leaves the hallway. ...I and my people are too slow to move through the door before it closes. You could do so, easily. I ask that you enter and try to learn what is making the water decrease, and if it can be made to increase again."





"...This is the time for explaining and listening, not for consuming." Juniper (jr.) was getting more and more annoyed, but then his attitude changed, and now he speaks more like he's decided The Duke is a large child.

The Duke happily munches on the last bit of the fruit and then looks at the door and at Juniper.

"Want me to rip the door out? Then you have no problems at all."

He looks at the Lady after that though asuming she wants them to go inspect what is behind. ANd who knows what the new one wanted to do. The Duke was starting to think of knocking some fruits loose but the Lady wanted Juniper to give them important information.

"I... think... that... would be difficult... If you are able to... then come back and let me know... and we may discuss it... further...

When the lady does not say he cant and the tree man says yes he saunters over to the door and checks it out. If he would be getting those nice fruits he was more then willing to rip a door out of its hinges.  He gives the door a solid inspection and if he thinks he can deal with it in the Duke way activates his power fists and rips the door out.

(You're getting a little ahead of yourself. The door is (as mentioned earlier) inside the building at the end of a hallway.)

The Duke enters through the open doorway indicated.

As he does so, the ceiling quickly glows until the room is just a little brighter than being outside.

The room inside is perhaps 25 foot square.

A rather plain fountain trickles water.

Someone has poured glue or tar or something into the base of the fountain so that it won't drain. This means that the fountain is overflowing into the rest of the room. The water accumulates about an inch, then floods over the threshold, and down the hill...

There is a valve control on the right wall.

There is a new doorway on the opposite wall from the entrance, with about three steps upward  to it.

The Lady follows The Duke inside, allowing her companion right of way ... that any Madrid’s will encounter him first.

Seeing the room as it is, she can see that the fountain is the source of the water, and can gather that it’s rate of flow must be slowly ebbing as time goes by.

As it has been running over time, that valve control must be open ... but the source, as Juniper suggests, must be further inside the building.
Through yonder door.

Perhaps it is the entrance to said hallway of which Juniper speaks.
So The Lady casually glides over towards it, testing to see if it will open for her.

Orleon says he has to go look something up... he jumps on his vehicle and returns from whence he came, leaving behind most of the food and drink.




(??? Madrids? Is this Autocorrect for "monsters"?)




The doorway in question does in fact lead to a long hallway, about 40 yards or so. Its ceiling, too, lights up when one enters it.

At the far end is another doorway, open.

One problem that The Lady sees right away is that the ceiling is only 7 feet high-- cramped for their new tree-friend.

The second is that yes, a door starts closing at the far end right away-- and it's two feet thick, of a very, very sturdy metal.

If one runs, then even The Duke could fit through before it closed. The same is true for The Lady. She can see, though, how the same would not be true for Juniper (jr.)

The third problem is that the walls and door are extremely thick (the door itself is more than two feet thick) and extremely durable. Even The Duke can't harm them, nor stop them closing. The Lady, who has been around for quite a long time, suspects that the door closes using electromagnets, and thus would probably just crush anything placed in the space to hold it open.

The Lady had no intention of running down there now.

Turning back to her allies, and the scene before her, she scanned it for any further hints or information that might be useful to them before they did so.
          - rolled 7 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 1,5.  Insightful: to find anything interesting.


"Those doors seem to close when these are opened.
Perhaps they open when these are closed?" she suggested to The Duke, "Perhaps you might step inside the Hallway, and tell me what happens when I close this door?"

"Well," The Lady said to The Duke, "Leave city, leave reality; enter forest, enter fantasy!”, quoting a philosophise and poet she had once enjoyed.

Then, with a quirky smile to her large companion, she said, "Race you!" and without giving him any chance to prepare, or respond, she was off ... full kilter down the corridor, to and through yonder door.

The Lady makes it easily.

(Presuming The Duke runs as well, he will make it just in time (a difference in phrasing owing to the fact that he is, er, wider than The Lady).

If he does not run, he will not make it, but he will be able to go back to the room with the fountain and try again...

I will wait and make sure The Duke comes too before I describe the next area...)

The Duke blinks at the lady and as she darts off he laughs like a kid and then bursts after her his massive bulk needing a little time to get to speed and it also means he has a hard time comming to a halt once though and he almost squishes the lady.