"Yes... I think so?" she says, her voice wavering between confidence and uncertainty. "I'm pretty sure most people in the dream know that they are dreaming--and that they are trapped in some way. But... I could be wrong. Still, I'm sure my father knows what's going on. I just don't know if he knows that I woke up or... if something else happened to me."
He flashed a reassuring smile. "If I go in, I'll look for them." He took her confidence to heart and would keep eyes and ears out for her family if it came to that. "Has your family always lived in this city as it now? Living in the dream most of that time?"
As the party circles around, he only partly listens to what Anthony and Ming are talking about. So she can't enter the dream and her family can't escape it, no wonder this girl jumped right on into their group. She must be lonely.
Once they get to the other wall, he'll try to help Kora look over it in the same way Anthony boosted him over the wall.
Walking along the length of the wall, you eventually reach a point that you think would work just fine to take a peak over. With some help, whoever takes the peek over the wall sees the park that Kora mentioned earlier. Emanating from the back of the Palace of Bones, you find a beautiful park sprawling across the enclosed area. Flowering trees obscure much of the park from your view, though you do manage to get a good look at most of it. You see several paths winding amongst the trees, some of them leading to structures similar to gazebos. You spot a few fountains sprinkling amongst the trees and stretches of grass, though the most abundant things you see look like some sort of gravestone structure. These gravestones are placed along the path about every ten feet or so, though you can't really make out details at this distance. Maybe the park was some sort of graveyard?
Turning your attention back to the palace, a quick scan doesn't really give you much information. It looks wonderfully elaborate and just as beautiful as the gardens about it, but you don't really notice any weaknesses. It looks like there's a few windows on the tower rising from the center of the palace, and you actually see that the tower seems to be in the center of some sort of inners courtyard, but you don't see much else. The sculpted, serpentine dragons along the corners of the rooftops stare at you blindly, their stone gaze looking past you.
Aoufie will wait to see if Kora is up to another scouting mission. If not, he will take is sibling's help in looking over the wall and share what is seen on that side of garden and the gravestones. He was hoping for some noticeable chink in the palace's defenses, but it seems there are none.
"I have an interest in learning more about the gravestones, or does someone rather pursue another path of inquiry?"
The priest didn't care about solving mysteries, he just wanted to make sure the people around him were safe. But it wasn't like they had other grand plans. "That doesn't sounds quite sound like gravestones, but maybe it would make more sense if I saw it. Who wants to boost me up?"Tilting his head at Aoufie, then the others in joking question.
As everyone starts making observations and inquiries about the gravestones, she hesitantly pipes in saying, “That’s the gemstone garden. The gravestones mark the graves of the Jiangshi that work on the city. That’s why the garden is so dangerous. They… don’t like trespassers.”
Kora peeks over the ledge and wonders what Ming means by the Jianshi don't like trespassers, "As in they rise from the grave?" she asks half jokingly, but honestly expects a yes to this question.
"What about finding a way out of this city? A way back to the mist? Should we scope this out to make sure we know where to go once we think we've done what we need to in I'Can?"
Letting Kora back down, Akyan nods. If she hadn't suggested that, he would have. "I agree, we need to make sure we have an escape route before we get ourselves in serious trouble." He turns to Ming, "Even though the city is constantly redesigning itself, do you know if the city boundaries stay the same? To be more specific, do you know if this....gemstone garden, and the manor stay the same distance away from the city limits even when the rest of the city is reorganized? What about the vegetable stand? Do these places stay stationary? If either of these landmarks do, we can at least figure out the best direction to move should we need to get out after scoping these places out more. If we are even still interested in doing so at this point." He glances at Anthony as he says this. He knows that his friends first priority would be to keep everyone alive, something the two of them have in common. Though there's no guarantee that any of the other domains will be easier to deal with.
He didn't bother hiding his relief that the others weren't so impatient to make a dent here that they were willing to jump into high risk, unknown reward scenario with complete abandon. "That is a good place to start. This is probably kind of central to the city right? A palace usually is. So, we should just be able to walk away from it to find the outer wall?"
"Sort...of?" Ming says in response to Kora's question. "Yes."
She turns to Akyan when he addresses her, half surprised that he's talking to her at all. "Yes. They stay where they are with only minor changes here and there, but they don't move around the city..."
She just nods in response to trying to scope out the outer wall. She'd rarely gone that far to the outskirts of the city during her time in the waking world, but odds are it won't be too difficult to find it again. Even if the Four Trees Gate itself is practically impossible to find.
"Sounds... great." *Since the group seemed like they generally agreed, when everyone was ready, he began leading them away from the gardens, more or less directly east on the assumption that they'd eventually find the wall and they could either follow it to a gate or climb over if worse came to worse. "I'm not a great navigator or scout, but I'm an ok meat shield."
Deciding to leave the palace behind for now, the party decides to head east. As they venture further into the city, the towering residences known as the Mansions began to feature more and more water features: ponds and streams running through gardens, elaborate water fountains, statues of fanciful aquatic creatures, and so on. Ming recognizes this as the Wave Ward, the portion of the Mansions that Tsien Chiang decided to design with an aquatic theme.
After about an hour and half of wandering through the increasingly run-down streets and Mansions, you finally catch sight of the imposing city wall that loomed over the nearest buildings. You'd guess that it will probably be another 15 or so minutes until you reach it. Before you continue onwards, you hear a strange grinding noise followed the by the sound a window shattering. Looking to the source of the commotion, you see a monstrous, aberrant beast on the other side of a central courtyard comprised of gently swaying trees around a water fountain. Nearly two stories tall, the alien creature seems to be roughly spherical in shape, though dozens of meaty tendrils sprout from its rough, brownish flesh. The main bulk of its body encapsulates a terrifyingly large, bloodshot eye with a muddy brown pupil. One of its tendrils appears to be rummaging around inside of the buildings, and it makes a grunt of satisfaction as it seemingly finds something inside. Pulling out its thick, ropy appendage from the shattered window, you see it clutches a sleeping form of a child. The child doesn't struggle or even stir from its slumber as the beast brings them close to its central eye for an inspection. The beast's circular mouth comprised of a rings chattering fangs on the underside of its spherical body chitter and scrape against each other to make a sort of disappointed sound as it eyes the child in its grasp.
Anthony silently signals to the others behind him and draws a javelin, holding it aloft ready to throw at that huge eye if the creature moves to hurt the child. Otherwise he’s quiet, giving everyone a chance to prepare before the creature is alerted to their position…hopefully.
((In other words, Anthony is readying an attack triggered by the creature making anything that looks like an aggressive move such as nomming/attacking the kid or lunging in the direction of the party))
Upon hearing the strange grinding noise and the shattering window, Ming instinctively darts behind a building. From there she peers carefully around it to see what exactly made the noise. Her eyes go wide as she spots the creature and for a moment she just trembles.
Run, run, you don't know if you are strong enough, the words spike fear in her as she reaches one hand to her side as if to grasp something. No, I'm not alone now... fear is overturned by slight overconfidence as a glaive materializes in her hand and she grips the pole arm. With this she should have more reach than with her sword, even if she prefers the shorter weapon--which is why she usually leaves it somewhere safe instead of carrying it around. I don't know what this thing is, but... her thoughts are interrupted as she notices the child in the monster's clutches. Briefly, she envisions her own sister hanging limply from the monster's tentacle, but the vision quickly fades. Still, it leaves he quivering again, this time with a mix of both fear and anger.
Nevertheless, she doesn't make a move towards the monster. If it is under Tsien Chiang's control, she has a feeling it won't hurt a sleeper. Especially considering the disappointed chitter it made upon inspecting it's find. If she's right, they would be in more danger than the child if they tried to attack. She glances at the rest of the party, readying her glaive as well as a spell in case she's out of range with her weapon. Under her breath she says, "I... have heard rumors about something like this... but I've never seen it before."She swallows, "Don't attack yet. It may not harm the sleeping child. But..."She doesn't need to say it for it to be obvious what she's thinking--that she doesn't know what might happen and her assumptions could very well be wrong.
Kora stares at the immense creature. It was like nothing she had seen before and she finds herself struggling to listen to her companions in lieu of just being frozen in the spot. She finally nods to what they are saying and readies a moonbeam if the creature is about to eat the child or attack them. She looks quickly at the wall and hopes there aren't more of these...
As soon as he's alerted to the creature's presence, he moves to a defensive position just behind Anthony. A short, ghostly silver-green blade materializes in his right hand as he eyes the beast. He's prepared to throw it at the creature if it makes any move to harm the child, but for now he's plenty fine with doing as Ming says. It's best not to let the creature know where they are unless necessary.
Readying his shield and taking position next to Anthony and Akyan. He nods at Ming's words, he wont move forward until the creature makes his move but he does ready Sanctuary to cast on the child.
Aoufie eyes widen at the sight of such an abomination and silently agrees with Anthony. This could be a fatal mistake but we can't just let this thing eat a child. He grips his Cittern ready to aid his siblings as he doubts his spells can do much harm to such a large creature. He moves to cover by a building waiting to see what happens next.
As you watch the monstrosity, it carefully sets down the sleeping child on the cobblestone street beside it before reaching back into house for some more rummaging. It pulls out a few more people and inspects them closely, setting them down on the street and sighing in frustration after each time. After the fifth person, the creature lets out a low, savage growl of anger before less-than-gently slammed the last person into the ground beside the others. Though not hard enough to kill them, that unfortunate fifth person would definitely have some nasty bruises and maybe a few cracked ribs.
Buzzing with annoyed anger, the creature pulls in its tentacles and rolls over to water fountain. Flattening a few shrubs and crushing a bench in the process, the creature comes to rest against the gurgling water fountain as it looks dejectedly towards the sleeping city folk with its large, unblinking eye. It lets out a great sigh of despair, its spherical body heaving with motion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
"Yes... I think so?" she says, her voice wavering between confidence and uncertainty. "I'm pretty sure most people in the dream know that they are dreaming--and that they are trapped in some way. But... I could be wrong. Still, I'm sure my father knows what's going on. I just don't know if he knows that I woke up or... if something else happened to me."
He flashed a reassuring smile. "If I go in, I'll look for them." He took her confidence to heart and would keep eyes and ears out for her family if it came to that. "Has your family always lived in this city as it now? Living in the dream most of that time?"
As the party circles around, he only partly listens to what Anthony and Ming are talking about. So she can't enter the dream and her family can't escape it, no wonder this girl jumped right on into their group. She must be lonely.
Once they get to the other wall, he'll try to help Kora look over it in the same way Anthony boosted him over the wall.
Walking along the length of the wall, you eventually reach a point that you think would work just fine to take a peak over. With some help, whoever takes the peek over the wall sees the park that Kora mentioned earlier. Emanating from the back of the Palace of Bones, you find a beautiful park sprawling across the enclosed area. Flowering trees obscure much of the park from your view, though you do manage to get a good look at most of it. You see several paths winding amongst the trees, some of them leading to structures similar to gazebos. You spot a few fountains sprinkling amongst the trees and stretches of grass, though the most abundant things you see look like some sort of gravestone structure. These gravestones are placed along the path about every ten feet or so, though you can't really make out details at this distance. Maybe the park was some sort of graveyard?
Turning your attention back to the palace, a quick scan doesn't really give you much information. It looks wonderfully elaborate and just as beautiful as the gardens about it, but you don't really notice any weaknesses. It looks like there's a few windows on the tower rising from the center of the palace, and you actually see that the tower seems to be in the center of some sort of inners courtyard, but you don't see much else. The sculpted, serpentine dragons along the corners of the rooftops stare at you blindly, their stone gaze looking past you.
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
Aoufie will wait to see if Kora is up to another scouting mission. If not, he will take is sibling's help in looking over the wall and share what is seen on that side of garden and the gravestones. He was hoping for some noticeable chink in the palace's defenses, but it seems there are none.
"I have an interest in learning more about the gravestones, or does someone rather pursue another path of inquiry?"
The priest didn't care about solving mysteries, he just wanted to make sure the people around him were safe. But it wasn't like they had other grand plans. "That doesn't sounds quite sound like gravestones, but maybe it would make more sense if I saw it. Who wants to boost me up?" Tilting his head at Aoufie, then the others in joking question.
“Thanks,” Ming says to Anthony. “And… yes.”
As everyone starts making observations and inquiries about the gravestones, she hesitantly pipes in saying, “That’s the gemstone garden. The gravestones mark the graves of the Jiangshi that work on the city. That’s why the garden is so dangerous. They… don’t like trespassers.”
Kora peeks over the ledge and wonders what Ming means by the Jianshi don't like trespassers, "As in they rise from the grave?" she asks half jokingly, but honestly expects a yes to this question.
"What about finding a way out of this city? A way back to the mist? Should we scope this out to make sure we know where to go once we think we've done what we need to in I'Can?"
Letting Kora back down, Akyan nods. If she hadn't suggested that, he would have. "I agree, we need to make sure we have an escape route before we get ourselves in serious trouble." He turns to Ming, "Even though the city is constantly redesigning itself, do you know if the city boundaries stay the same? To be more specific, do you know if this....gemstone garden, and the manor stay the same distance away from the city limits even when the rest of the city is reorganized? What about the vegetable stand? Do these places stay stationary? If either of these landmarks do, we can at least figure out the best direction to move should we need to get out after scoping these places out more. If we are even still interested in doing so at this point." He glances at Anthony as he says this. He knows that his friends first priority would be to keep everyone alive, something the two of them have in common. Though there's no guarantee that any of the other domains will be easier to deal with.
He didn't bother hiding his relief that the others weren't so impatient to make a dent here that they were willing to jump into high risk, unknown reward scenario with complete abandon. "That is a good place to start. This is probably kind of central to the city right? A palace usually is. So, we should just be able to walk away from it to find the outer wall?"
"Sort...of?" Ming says in response to Kora's question. "Yes."
She turns to Akyan when he addresses her, half surprised that he's talking to her at all. "Yes. They stay where they are with only minor changes here and there, but they don't move around the city..."
She just nods in response to trying to scope out the outer wall. She'd rarely gone that far to the outskirts of the city during her time in the waking world, but odds are it won't be too difficult to find it again. Even if the Four Trees Gate itself is practically impossible to find.
"Sounds... great." *Since the group seemed like they generally agreed, when everyone was ready, he began leading them away from the gardens, more or less directly east on the assumption that they'd eventually find the wall and they could either follow it to a gate or climb over if worse came to worse. "I'm not a great navigator or scout, but I'm an ok meat shield."
Deciding to leave the palace behind for now, the party decides to head east. As they venture further into the city, the towering residences known as the Mansions began to feature more and more water features: ponds and streams running through gardens, elaborate water fountains, statues of fanciful aquatic creatures, and so on. Ming recognizes this as the Wave Ward, the portion of the Mansions that Tsien Chiang decided to design with an aquatic theme.
After about an hour and half of wandering through the increasingly run-down streets and Mansions, you finally catch sight of the imposing city wall that loomed over the nearest buildings. You'd guess that it will probably be another 15 or so minutes until you reach it. Before you continue onwards, you hear a strange grinding noise followed the by the sound a window shattering. Looking to the source of the commotion, you see a monstrous, aberrant beast on the other side of a central courtyard comprised of gently swaying trees around a water fountain. Nearly two stories tall, the alien creature seems to be roughly spherical in shape, though dozens of meaty tendrils sprout from its rough, brownish flesh. The main bulk of its body encapsulates a terrifyingly large, bloodshot eye with a muddy brown pupil. One of its tendrils appears to be rummaging around inside of the buildings, and it makes a grunt of satisfaction as it seemingly finds something inside. Pulling out its thick, ropy appendage from the shattered window, you see it clutches a sleeping form of a child. The child doesn't struggle or even stir from its slumber as the beast brings them close to its central eye for an inspection. The beast's circular mouth comprised of a rings chattering fangs on the underside of its spherical body chitter and scrape against each other to make a sort of disappointed sound as it eyes the child in its grasp.
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
Anthony silently signals to the others behind him and draws a javelin, holding it aloft ready to throw at that huge eye if the creature moves to hurt the child. Otherwise he’s quiet, giving everyone a chance to prepare before the creature is alerted to their position…hopefully.
((In other words, Anthony is readying an attack triggered by the creature making anything that looks like an aggressive move such as nomming/attacking the kid or lunging in the direction of the party))
Upon hearing the strange grinding noise and the shattering window, Ming instinctively darts behind a building. From there she peers carefully around it to see what exactly made the noise. Her eyes go wide as she spots the creature and for a moment she just trembles.
Run, run, you don't know if you are strong enough, the words spike fear in her as she reaches one hand to her side as if to grasp something. No, I'm not alone now... fear is overturned by slight overconfidence as a glaive materializes in her hand and she grips the pole arm. With this she should have more reach than with her sword, even if she prefers the shorter weapon--which is why she usually leaves it somewhere safe instead of carrying it around. I don't know what this thing is, but... her thoughts are interrupted as she notices the child in the monster's clutches. Briefly, she envisions her own sister hanging limply from the monster's tentacle, but the vision quickly fades. Still, it leaves he quivering again, this time with a mix of both fear and anger.
Nevertheless, she doesn't make a move towards the monster. If it is under Tsien Chiang's control, she has a feeling it won't hurt a sleeper. Especially considering the disappointed chitter it made upon inspecting it's find. If she's right, they would be in more danger than the child if they tried to attack. She glances at the rest of the party, readying her glaive as well as a spell in case she's out of range with her weapon. Under her breath she says, "I... have heard rumors about something like this... but I've never seen it before." She swallows, "Don't attack yet. It may not harm the sleeping child. But..." She doesn't need to say it for it to be obvious what she's thinking--that she doesn't know what might happen and her assumptions could very well be wrong.
Kora stares at the immense creature. It was like nothing she had seen before and she finds herself struggling to listen to her companions in lieu of just being frozen in the spot. She finally nods to what they are saying and readies a moonbeam if the creature is about to eat the child or attack them. She looks quickly at the wall and hopes there aren't more of these...
As soon as he's alerted to the creature's presence, he moves to a defensive position just behind Anthony. A short, ghostly silver-green blade materializes in his right hand as he eyes the beast. He's prepared to throw it at the creature if it makes any move to harm the child, but for now he's plenty fine with doing as Ming says. It's best not to let the creature know where they are unless necessary.
Readying his shield and taking position next to Anthony and Akyan. He nods at Ming's words, he wont move forward until the creature makes his move but he does ready Sanctuary to cast on the child.
Aoufie eyes widen at the sight of such an abomination and silently agrees with Anthony. This could be a fatal mistake but we can't just let this thing eat a child. He grips his Cittern ready to aid his siblings as he doubts his spells can do much harm to such a large creature. He moves to cover by a building waiting to see what happens next.
As you watch the monstrosity, it carefully sets down the sleeping child on the cobblestone street beside it before reaching back into house for some more rummaging. It pulls out a few more people and inspects them closely, setting them down on the street and sighing in frustration after each time. After the fifth person, the creature lets out a low, savage growl of anger before less-than-gently slammed the last person into the ground beside the others. Though not hard enough to kill them, that unfortunate fifth person would definitely have some nasty bruises and maybe a few cracked ribs.
Buzzing with annoyed anger, the creature pulls in its tentacles and rolls over to water fountain. Flattening a few shrubs and crushing a bench in the process, the creature comes to rest against the gurgling water fountain as it looks dejectedly towards the sleeping city folk with its large, unblinking eye. It lets out a great sigh of despair, its spherical body heaving with motion.
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable