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Fief Name: The Golden Artery

Fief Purpose: Castle Defenses & Dungeon.

Fief Layout:

The Golden Artery and the land beyond is a realm of chaos. It shifts organically, free from the direct control of Lyngel-Lajos, but forever shaped by her influence. When the kingdom was born from the Lake of Echos, it rose into the sky. It is a massive spire of land residing in heaven. The Citidel perpetually floats through a sea of stars. Celestial spheres loom overhead like giants. With the Pantheon's power combined, its trajectory can be controlled, like a ship. As a warden of crossroads and liminal spaces, Lyngel-Lajos' fiefdom is both a wall you pass through and the highways traveled to reach it. These roads run through an Escher-Esque city carved into the earth that hangs below the Citadel. For now, these are overgrown ruins, yet to be populated by more than aimless servants and lost souls. The palace, and its four elemental wings, lie in the heart of a labyrinth.

All roads lead to one of the Golden Artery's gates. There is one in proximity to each tower of Wisdom: Mercury Gate (Ainsworth Tower), Sulfur Gate (Demonology/Name Pending), Moon Gate (Starspire), and the Black Sun Gate (Tower of the Dead). The Moon and Black Sun gates loom in the Eastern and Western walls respectively. The Gates of Mercury and Sulfur lie underneath the Citadel, secret to all but the Pantheon. A moat separates the Golden Artery from the shores of the Royal Woods. Two rivers mingle here and run throughout the rest of the Citadel: Aorta and Vena. The water shimmers with gold licked from the artery's walls. They flow over the palace cliffs into waterfalls. Defying logic, some flow upwards, circulating the waters of Echo below. The same phenomenon exists throughout the kingdom, creating a kaleidoscope of waterways that fall and then crawl back over the edge of the island. The Abyss lies beyond these cliffs, and what was once the Lake of Echoes. The world below is yet ripe for discovery and transformation.

The Golden Artery is an unscalable wall of stone and metal that encircles the Citidel. On the outside, it is beautiful. Mismatched architecture forms an opulent, golden patchwork. Inside, it is labyrinthine and alive. It devours anyone who attempts to navigate the inner sanctum. The walls shift to confuse prey. Few rooms serve any purpose or offer any respite. The rest is an endless sea of twisting hallways, staircases that go nowhere, and nauseating patterns of windows and doors. Natural order dictates none of this should be possible within the dimensions of the wall, but there is no order here. Rooms contain repeating assets, randomly generated and spat out by a sinister algorithm. Servants must guide allies through the maze so they do not become lost. The halls seem to ebb around members of the Pantheon, leading them seamlessly from one end to the other. If Lyngel-Lajos resides anywhere, she has not shared it. Rumor is she wonders her fiefdom aimlessly, just like the monsters that haunt it.

Fief Servants:

Beautiful and horrific statues are carved into the fabric of the Golden Artery. They dislodge themselves from decorative thrones to enact their mistress' will. Stone gargoyles perch in the shadows. Marble maidens watch over the fountains. Keyholes shaped like animals spin riddles. Sets of living armor patrol the labyrinth, hunting trespassers and prisoners. Sentinels are peppered throughout the outskirts of the kingdom, lying dormant and overgrown until the day they are needed.

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In the Golden Artery, Euphoria wondered. Her exploration was aimless. It was hard to tell where one part of it ended and another began. All she knew is that she did not want to be there. And she did not want to be alone. Not now.

She climbed a staircase that descended down into a spire. There were golden flames on the railing. The stairs were marble. Surly a safety risk. She noted the walls had repeating engravings, and she became dizzy with how endless the ornate hell became as she descended down, down, down. It was all very Roccoco and frivolous. An uncultured swine might have mistaken it for Baroque, but Euphoria knew better. It was far less ornate and stiff. All the gold and marble and pastel that airy, playful quality of a fleeting, age. At least the useless college degree gave her something. She sure as hell wasn't feeding herself with poetry these days. Or ever.

At the bottom, Euphoria found herself in a lobby. A tight lobby, with a single, decorative tree at the center. Some ornate chairs. A table where some decorative bobbles sat. No receptionist. No nothing. Not a window. No doors. Not even the mouth of the staircase she swore she climbed down. She searched high and low in the small room for someone, anyone else. Only a lion's face molding on the wall watched her. She was suddenly overcome with the intense desire to escape. When she turned around, a door appeared in the North wall.

[To: The Ratworks]
This message was last edited by the player at 15:28, Wed 07 Sept 2022.

[Grim] Padded into what looked like a lobby ?!? with his rangers.
"I didn't expect this, I don't know what I expected but not this." He said to his rangers. They bobbled their heads.

"Clean your boots my rangers. We will wait here for [Euphoria of the Golden Hands].

He gave orders to his troops to prepare them for the battle to come using [Leadership 2].
Pacing back and forth before them and then as they waited picking out places for them to take cover and snipe from with their bows.

He remained in the open to draw attention and so [Euphoria of the Golden Hands] would see him.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:06, Wed 21 Sept 2022.

Haloise arrives from the Hall of Skye, absently levitating next to Grim and his rangers and wordlessly reaching out to all of their weapons.

[Do I have permission to give callouts to your rangers, Grim?] Haloise asks curiously.

[Grim] Nods. "I agree to it, hello [Haloise]."

Haloise nods once in thanks to Grim before she reaches out to the group of rangers.

[Hello, Rangers of Grim. I am Prydwin, the Princess of Cognition. Do not be alarmed by my presence in your head, this is simply telepathy - in the event of a skirmish, stay within ten meters of the rest of the group so I can warn you of oncoming danger.] While Grim was practicing his sense of leadership, Haloise sharpens her tactical ability.

[From: The Pit]

Euphoria entered the lobby from a door that appeared in the South of room. It didn't appear with any fanfare. It appeared as if it was always there, Grim and Haloise blinking and suddenly, it was there, then it was opening, and Euphoria stepped through. Domonkos was with her. The whole place was lavishly decorated, though somehow devoid of any comfort. Marble carvings and golden foils and sparse plants. It gave off an overall unsettling vibe. Like stepping into a dream where you walked and walked forever feeling that someone, something was following you.

Thankfully the oppressive eeriness was tempered by all the bodies present. The lobby had never felt so alive. "Sup yall," Euphoria said to both the other Godlings and the reinforcements Grim brought. Not exactly professional, but since when had she ever been? "I know a lot of us gathered here today to kick Ghost-Eater ass," oof she had to be careful how she phrased that arrangement of words. "But in the possibility our spidey-friend was mistaken, we've got another situation on our hands. Haloise has decided she wants to try and reason with the endaemon in the Ratworks. And I'm worried about Josh..." She cleared her throat to banish the uncertainty in her voice. Not in front of the troops!

"I stand by my earlier opinion that this should mostly be between Haloise and Josh. They brought the endaemon here." she turned to Haloise then. "I'm going to open the door for you so you can enter his fiefdom. I'm worried about all of us rushing in and making things worse. Josh says he's going to get his hands on Azalea's truth-uh-thingy. It might not be a bad idea to let him see its intentions for himself. I'm... not so sure they're going to feel great about us setting the endaemon free without some kind of reassurance," she told her. Almost pleading with her.

She was open to the opinions of the rest of the party then. But she was incredibly hesitant to just go barging into the situation. But she was also, hesitant to leave Haloise in there alone with Josh. What if he really was in trouble? Haloise felt Euphoria's mind tingle with fear. Fear of her. And by extension, for her. "But it might not be a bad idea to have a someone accompany you... I think it should be Grim," she said. Why? Because he wasn't intimately invested in the fate of the endaemon, not the way she and Haloise were. Her judgment was also clouded by her devotion to Haloise and her despair. Also, what situation wasn't calmed by the presence of a kitten? All she said was: "He's the cute one. If there's trouble, we can always play backup."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:10, Fri 23 Sept 2022.

"Of course I will help. Since it seems we don't need my rangers here I can send them back to my forest. Uhm [Euphoria], do you have servants here ? The place is so different from what I expected. I guess I need to visit everyone at least once just to see what there homes are like, and of course anytime you want to hunt or just stay at the lodge in my wood, you just let me know."

He then looked to [Haloise], "Thank you for helping me organize my troops. I enjoyed working together. I am sure we will do so again sometime."

He was ready to send his troops back and help out as a third party.

[From the Pit]

As Domonkos stepped through the portal Lyngel had created, he took a minute to appreciate the Outer Grounds before adressing the others. They were much more impressive from up close.

"Do you think the spider is a player? I thought he might be a sort of NPC event, since he had some sort of omniscience and didn't seem to realize this is not real. Or like, not not real but... different. You know what I mean".

At the mention of Josh's predicament, Domonkos' frowns ever so slightly. "Yeah, he seems quite perturbed by that daemon thing. I don't know if it's my new body, but I'm sort of numb to fear now. And it really didn't seem like it wants to do harm, right? I think it wants to cooperate, but it's a bit too prideful. If a host is needed, I wouldn't mind letting it tag along, albeit it might get bored since I don't have any crafting projects in mind for the future. Or, you know... if we have to...". Domonkos makes a slashing motion with his thum over his neck to illustrate his point. "If that ends up being the plan, I wouldn't mind consuming it. Just saying"

"Sysling you mean?" Euphoria asked. "I mean yeah, I think he's a player. I know you missed out on our little chaotic pow-wow in the beginning, but we weren't all that aware of what was going on either. Hell, I had someone punch me in the face just to know I wasn't dreaming," she muttered. "My guess is the dude is coping by roleplaying. Understandable. Kinda wish I had more chances to roleplay. Like how you said you didn't want to go by your old name. A letting-go kinda thing. It might be something like that. Or he's just confused."

Euphoria shot Domonkos a look of distaste. Not so much at his nature (hell, she'd seen Grim eat the Ghost-Eater), but at who he offered to consume. Considering how protective Haloise was of the eardeamon, promising to devour it was probably not appreciated. "Ex-nay on the eat-the-deamon-hey..." she whispered to him. More a warning than anything. One day, when she killed someone in front of him, she'd gladly let Domonkos dine on the corpse.

Hearing Grim accept her suggestion, she nodded at him and said: "It's totally up to you. But maybe keeping the rangers around won't be a bad thing. Haloise can telepathically reach out if you two need reinforcements." Or an escape route. "Also, this place is creepy as shit, and the more bodies around the better," she added, before leaning towards Domonkos. "Maybe all of us can kill some time training or playing a game. None of these guys brought board games, did they?" A joke. Definitely a joke. "As for my servants, eeeeeh I haven't super talked to them yet? Most of them are like... creepy inanimate objects... like if you were trapped in the castle from Beauty and the Beast but no one bothered to perform a musical number." Maybe she'd spend this time trying to call on them. Let them mingle with Grim's rangers and grow a personality or something.

Pending any concerns from Haloise, Euphoria would face the north wall and focus the same way she did within the Pit. She was unsure why the Ratworks opened to her before. Just because she was lonely and wanted to talk to someone, anyone? And like so many things in the Golden Artery, the selection was randomly generated. Or, maybe something sensed that Josh had been lonely too, and her own desires were pulled in their direction, like a dousing rod. However it worked, this time, Euphoria specifically desired to see the blacksmith and opened a door into the inner sanctum of his fiefdom.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:26, Sun 25 Sept 2022.

[Grim] leaps once into the air.

"Alright, sounds good. I will leave this team with you and, [Prydwen, Haloise] can continue to work with her tactics. I have no problem with this at all. Well trained defenders can only help all of us."

A door opened in the North of the lobby. The same ornate, golden door that both Euphoria and Domonkos stepped through before. Now, Haloise and Grim had the ability to move through to the Ratworks if they so desired. "Be careful in there. I'm closing it once you two enter," she warned them both. "That way deamon stays contained. Ring my brain if you need anything," she told mostly Haloise. Though either or could probably poke her in the Hearth Chatroom as well.

She then turned back to Domonkos and the Rangers Grim left for them. She was trying to play it cool, but in reality, she was more afraid than ever. Had this been the right choice? Would things end well? Not just for the eardemon but for their pantheon, as a team? When and if they went through, she'd close it behind them, leaving her and Domonkos once again alone.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:34, Mon 26 Sept 2022.

Grim padded along with [Lyngel Lajos, Ephoria of the Golden Hands and Prydwen, Haloise].

He noted the appearance of the doorway, "That is a very neat trick." He looked up at the Golden Door.

---->Ratworks

Domonokos looked back at Lyngel, staying behind as suggested.

"Do you have any plans? If not, I'd like a tour of the Golden Artery if you are up for it. You mentioned riddles?"

Haloise is able to project a deep sigh, at the strangeness of it all. She's been logical the entire time she's been here, in this form, but it's starting to set in just how... fantastical things are here. How dangerous they are, too. She grits her teeth and heads into the Golden Artery proper. She wasn't able to experience vertigo, so the twisting apparati of the travel process didn't effect her much. She notes the way the stone moves in the background - does it 'shift' by making space for the stone that is displaced, or does it simply fuse into the stone behind it, like a Meld Into Stone spell?

...

She's not a nerd, honest. Haloise heads to the Ratworks.

Euphoria was snapped out of her anxious thoughts by Domonkos. "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Walking around here can make you dizzy, though. You haven't eaten anything recently, have you? Actually, I don't think any of us have eaten anything since we got here. Do we eat?" Questions for another day.

"Whatever, I'll literally try anything at this point to keep my mind off things." A lot of mixed, complicated feelings were swirling around in her brain and by extension, her guts. And she did not like complicated. "Honestly, I could go for a punch in the face." Healthy. "If you're up for it, we should find a good place to spar. Against each other, or the Rangers," she suggested, pointing at Grim's servants.

"We... really shouldn't leave them alone. They might not find their way out again."

Before, she had wondered the labyrinth aimlessly, allowing it to guide her wherever it wanted. And that was bullshit. Now that she knew she could manipulate it, to a point, she led the group down a new hallway that appeared, narrow and lit with candles on the walls. It went on for a while without windows or doors. No deviations to trick or distract them. It only seemed interested in guiding the Godlings exactly where they wanted to go. "I don't know if this is a weird time to ask, but we might be walking for a while," Euphoria said. "What did you know about Godhunter before you ended up here? How are you handling things?"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:10, Wed 28 Sept 2022.

"I have not eaten, no. I have this sense of hunger, but I feel is more about evolving than survival."

"Hmmm... I haven't actually tried to engage in combat, so it might be an interesting test. I believe I'm good with polearms and... hardlight weapons. No idea where I would get one of those, but a polearm to practice should be easy enough to find."

At the question about Godbound, some amount of regret shows in Domonkos' expression.

"Hardly anything. I know it was a videogame back at home, but I never actually played it. I really wish I had, it may have made things significantly easier. How about you? Was it a videogame for you aswell?"

[Sysling] enters the Golden Artery from [the Hearth], in a panic-inducing frenzy of existential crisis, and runs around the space like a maniac, trying to crawl through openings only big enough for his new body and searching for somewhere to hide.

The only nooks that Sysling would be able to hide in were the carvings on the wall. The room he was spat out in was empty of furniture, windows, or any of the special touches a handcrafted space would have. Nothing existed here that couldn't be algorithmically generated as some pattern. Like the room of a roguelike, there were repeating candles on the walls he skittered along and little else. He managed to find the open maw of a stone gargoyle, just enough room for him to fit in if he squeezed behind the protruding fangs. Bellow, he'd see Domonkos and the one he knew from the script as Lyngel. Or was it Lajos? Actually, it was both. How that worked, Euphoria herself didn't know.

They walked down the narrow hallway Sysling had popped in. It must have been the favored room of entry because the godling was present. Perhaps she was like a magnet in the labyrinth that the other godlings found themselves drawn to. Like a beacon or golden yarn that guided their way.

"Oh, well now you and I have to spar," Euphoria told Domonkos. She couldn't let him continue through the game without bloodying his hands. Behind them, Grim rangers followed close behind. The hallway was narrow and without deviation, but who knew what would happen if they strayed from the godling guiding them? Unlike members of the pantheon, the Golden Artery did not shift to lead them from one end to the other. It might devour them the way it would any intruder. "Maybe if you ask them nicely, someone will give you a weapon."

It was in the middle of their conversation that Euphoria heard the scuttling. It was ominous because she hadn't met yet her own servants. Was this one of them? And did it exist to serve or did it exist to hunt? Euphoria tried to find the source in the shadows high in the walls. "Eeer uh... yeah - I mean no, of course, I didn't play it! What, you think I'm some kinda nerd? Nope, never touched it!" Hard to tell why she was suddenly so nervous: the strange scuttling turning this simple walk into a horror flick, or the lying out her ass. "Hey do you hear that? Like something is following us?" she asked Domonkos, quickly trying to change the subject.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:58, Mon 24 Oct 2022.

Domonkos is unsure if Lyngel is being sarcastic or not as she suggests he borrows a weapon from one of the rangers, but decides to take her advice regardless.
Turning to Grimm's soldiers, he asks: "Have any polearms you can spare?"

Domonkos notices Lyngel's uncomfortable feeling in her response, and in an uncharacteristically thoughtful gesture, he decides not to push her on the subject. Making use of one of his inherent traits, Domonkos voice comes charged with [Intimidation] and a surprising malice, that contrasts with the tone he had during their prior conversations.
"Whoever you are, I recommend revealing yourself. if you come out on your own, your chances of us not crushing you are significantly better than  if we have to go and find you"