WQ - Lightning Ironworks Explores: The Fade

It was something that didn't scientifically seem to make a whole lot of sense. Yet, here it was. Emerath stood on top of a ruined building staring off into the distance, watching as the entire land seemed to be just... dying. He had called upon @Tetsunosuke and @Iván Carl to join him as the first ever expedition into the unknown that the Lightning Ironworks tackled as a team. But what Emerath had expected hadn't even come close to what he was actually seeing.

"An entire ecosystem doesn't just... die like this," Emerath explained to his companions. "Where do we even begin to take any sort of scientific reading here?" he asked, though the question wasn't necessarily directed at his companions. He hopped off the building he was standing on, rejoining them, as he explained, "Nothing but decay. Like a disease swept over the entirety of nature and began to just rot... everything."

Emerath bent down to a plant sticking out of the ground. It was a sickening mixture of brown and gray, and as Emerath touched it with his gloved hand, it simply crumbled away to dust on the ground. Taking out a spare vial, Emerath pushed the ashy substance into it and corked it off for later investigation.

"Keep on your toes here. I imagine that if something didn't die in this, it has to be horribly strong," he cautioned, before realizing that even breathing just felt, stale. The air itself seemed to stagnate beyond belief. "We have a few ruins here we can explore, or we can try going to the edge of the canyon to see if there is anything we can learn from that. Your thoughts, either of you?"

 

The Naryu Canyon... Iván did his research before coming here as part of Lightning Ironworks’ team and found out that this place was supposedly teeming with life before, as any place under the protection and surveillance of Yladians would be. Yladians have always been viewed as the best race when it comes to maintaining forests and wildlife. They were pretty much the elves of the game, which warranted such stereotype.

“The Yladians were supposed to be taking care of this place, weren’t they?” Iván asked everyone and no one in particular, keeping his eyes towards the barren depression that laid out in front of their team. There was nothing but death here, remains of what was once, has been, and never will be. Unless of course they came up with a solution. “Should we interview those who reside close to the area? Maybe they know something that could help us?”

He turned to Emerath who was bent down on the ground, taking his sample for future study. His boss was someone who loved science, especially experimenting, with all his heart. It was one of the things Iván admired about him, one of the reasons he sought out his genius. Iván walked closer towards Emerath. He put a hand inside his coat and took out a small facemask, one of the things he had been Tinkering with as part of Lightning Ironworks. In theory, it would be able to filter any harmful substances in the air, keeping them safe. Of course, they had no idea what was in the air exactly, if there was even anything.

“Here,” he said dryly as he offered the facemask to Emerath. “This should help us with whatever might be in the air.”

Iván also offered one to Tetsuo before continuing to speak, “I’m up for anything, really. We could observe the edge of the canyon before we explore the ruins. Two birds with one stone?”

He put on a facemask as well, making sure to do it in a way that didn’t need for him to lower his massive turtleneck. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust Emerath and Tetsuo. It was more like routine for him at this point. Iván has been hiding his face from everyone, it would seem weird if he just stopped doing it.

 

As Tetsunosuke had heard of the perils that he would face if he would go to the western part of Astorea, he had prepared a lot of things to keep himself safe from what he thought was an epidemic. As he have heard from other people, the area near the Naryu Canyon was afflicted with what they call a strange curse. Slowly, everything near that area died down, from the creatures that formerly inhabited the area, to the trees around it. And the blight continued to spread to the communities near the before-lush area, and they seem to also die down or move away to somewhere else, maybe due to that strange sickness or due to hunger from everything around the village and even within it dying down. More communities fell down due to the blight, and the authorities had seen enough as they spread summons for adventurers to investigate what was going on.

Tetsunosuke's company, Lightning Ironworks, decided to investigate the situation, and he found himself with the CEO of the company and another employee studying the remains of the area near the Naryu Canyon. As he heard the other employee, whose name was Ivan Carl, talk about what happened to the Yladians who were supposed to be guarding the area and retain the greenery here, Tetsunosuke responded, "Maybe they were also affected, and they had to flee this place, Worse, they fell victims to the blight and were now dead, just like the villages around us." He noted the sparsity of the people as they had passed through some villages. "Really, there's something going on within this place, and whatever is this blight, it's spreading everywhere. Well I don't know yet of an organism that affects both plants and animals, and also humans. Maybe this is the first time I should encounter it, if ever. I would dare think even those who died from this did not even know what had come to them, and they doesn't know yet even now that their spirits are still roaming around the place." Everything about the blight was confirmed to be true, and as he was handed a face mask by Ivan, he saw that what he said about the air which might be also affected might be true. And so he took the flask that was slung on his body, took a swig, and then gargled the contents before spitting it on the ground. He then took the face mask and wore it on his face. He then asked Ivan, "Did you place something within this face mask?" He thought that if Ivan had placed some charcoal, preferably from the pits of some fruits, within the masks, it would be more effective in deterring microorganisms from entering their bodies. Tetsunosuke had those kinds of fruits if ever, and he had an apparatus to turn them into charcoal once they had eaten through them. As the CEO Emerath Katou asked them where should they go next, Tetsunosuke responded, "I think we should go to the ruins first. Maybe they hold something which could help us explore the canyon in a much safer way, without us being exposed into more danger than we could possibly handle. We could also observe the canyon from the highest point of the ruins to formulate our plans in exploring the canyon."

 

Emerath was a bit surprised at the split between his employees, but it wasn’t unwelcome. In fact, a smile spread across the man’s features.

First, Emerath accepted the face mask from Ivan, and looked the apparatus over. “I suppose I should have thought of this, but I was too excited about our first real venture as a group that I forgot the basics. Safety and protection,” he admitted, before putting the face mask on. “Thank you, now, to figure out where we want to go,” Emerath’s muffled voice rattled from the mask.

Emerath looked into the distance, and he could see some ruins near where the canyon edge began. “Best of both worlds, I think, since we’re in disagreement. We’ll compromise. Let’s get to those ruins near the edge,” Emerath indicated with a point, “and Ivan can explore the edge while Tetsu looks through the ruins. We’ll all be close enough that we can call out if something happens to help each other.”

Having decided, Emerath walked towards the ruins, and arrived in roughly ten minutes, hopefully with his companions in tow. The ruins were primarily tents and the like, seeming to have belonged to hunters in the area. Emerath pulled on some of the bunched cloth of one of the destroyed tent and it came free far too easily. Before Emerath knew it, he was holding nothing but scraps that had torn apart.

“Everything comes apart easily here. This fade has taken things that would normally last at least a few decades as ruins, and made them crumble so quickly. No wonder the people couldn’t last,” Emerath lamented.

But rather than play with these ruins, Emerath thought it best to do as Tetsu suggested, and find a high point. There was a building that appeared to be sinking into the ground, but it would serve his purposes for now. So Emerath wrote a quick spell in the air with his ring, and launched himself into the air up to the top of the sinking building. Under his weight upon landing, the building shifted, and he had to steady himself as the building sunk roughly another inch.

But here he was looking out over the edge of the canyon, and at all the nearby ruins. “Alright boys, I’ll keep watch from up here. Take a look and see if you can find anything.”

 

Iván noted his young Faerin companion’s thoughts regarding the questions he had posed. Tetsunosuke was definitely onto something. It’s fight or flight, most definitely: Either they stayed here and perished or they left the area. Iván wondered if this place had dark magic, if the dead were truly dead or if it was going to be one heck of a day. He’s fought transformed beings before. There was that cursed village he had gone into with help from a short-haired magic card wielder and a long-haired savage pugilist of sorts, both female. Out of that quest, which involved taking on a vicious monster, Iván was able to procure books that helped him greatly. Was this place also cursed? Or was it something more? Something far more sinister?

“Are you saying this could’ve been the work of an airborne virus? Waterborne? Something that was spreading under their noses?” That could’ve been the case. It was possible. Maybe the organism Tetsunosuke was talking about was some sort of microorganism, not only biological but maybe also magical, and it multiplied and spread itself through the air or water or maybe even just mere physical contact. That would be highly dangerous, especially to them.

When Tetsunosuke mentioned spirits, Iván simply shrugged. He wasn’t interested in that sort of talk, though he admitted roaming spirits could be a problem if they were hostile. “It’s a group effort,” Iván smiled under his coat, adjusting his goggles and nodding at Emerath’s gratitude. “A couple of the other new guys and I, well me and two others, were tinkering with these things. They had been working on the prototype for a few days now. I simply suggested charcoals within the masks could be a pretty effective deterrent against unwanted microorganisms.”

The compromise suggested by the Lightning Ironworks founder was suitable for Iván. It was a genius idea, and although Iván appeared calm and collected, he was pretty much celebratory on the inside, amazed at his mentor’s bright mind. He didn’t hesitate following Emerath further. He wouldn’t hesitate following the man anywhere. Well, appropriate, of course. Anything else would be quite awkward.

Iván looked around them when they got to the tents but found nothing. He sighed. Either they were in hiding, preparing to ambush them, which seemed unlikely, or they had gone. Whether the latter was of their own accord or because they had passed away, Iván wouldn’t know. Perhaps, he will never know. Iván headed close to the edge to do his thing. Maybe he’d find something of value. Maybe he won’t. It was the only thing they could do at this point. Saving this area would come later. Much later.

 

"I'm just speculating it is an organism," Tetsunosuke said, while glancing at his surroundings. This blight had been racking up his mind, this was becoming a puzzle for him. He then said as he was collecting his thoughts, "Really, there are many theories about what this blight really is. One organism, a group of mutualistic organisms, a malevolent Yladian, some experiments on black magic, even a powerful spirit angry on the humans' exploitation of nature. We do not know for sure, until we had fully researched it. And this is the fun about science." He then stared at Ivan with a faint glow in his eyes. Well he was thankful about the face mask that he gave, since at least it had nullified the two former specified theoretical causes. "Well at least we had protection if it should be an organism. Anyway I had brought some distilled alcohol just to be sure about everything. But if this is magic, maybe we should hope that it will not affect us quickly. So, maybe we should go." As he was directed by Emerath to inspect the tents, he moved towards them to look for more clues as to how they should approach the canyon near them.

As he leaned towards a post of one tent to unfurl its entrance, the post cracked, and the cloth that constituted the entrance tore in his hand. Well really, how old was this ruins? Tetsunosuke was quite irritated as he tried to fight the cloth that fell down on him, and after it tore into shreds, Tetsunosuke finally was freed of the cloth. Maybe he would need to be more gentle in touching the tents. He then entered the now-open tent, and saw nothing but beddings and a side table with a lamp on it. Shrugging, Tetsunosuke then moved towards the second tent. He then gently moved the flap, but even then it tore in his hand, and by sheer gravity the cloth continued to tear until it covered Tetsunosuke again. He then heard the words of Emerath, noting how things in here which should last for decades were crumbling easily due to the fade. He then replied, "Yeah, feeling like a superhero here, I am being too strong for the ruins," as he had freed himself from the cloth yet again. He then entered the second tent, and it seemed that he was lucky. Some books were lying on a small table, and what it seemed to be a diary was laid open, a quill pen on it that had scattered some ink on it as if the person who was writing on it ran immediately as if there was an emergency. This should be a gold mine if anything, and then gingerly throwing away the quill pen, which broke as it landed on the ground, he then gently closed the diary, and, handling it with two hands beneath it, he carefully walked out of the tent, and then looked for the ruined building near the tents, where Emerath should be waiting. He then shouted at the building, "Hey boss Emerath, I found a diary of a hunter in here! I can't move any further, this could crumble anytime! More books at the tent where I got this!" Hopefully he could hear his shout, as this diary could be like all other things at the tents, crumbling all of a sudden.

@Pandora

 

To say that Emerath hadn't expected everything to go wrong would have been a lie. But, he hadn't expected for things to go this wrong. Within mere moments, darkness overtook him and his team as the canyon erupted in a thick fog and the building beneath Emerath's feet shook wildly as the man tried his best to keep his footing. The building, however, didn't last. Emerath found the stone giving way as he leapt from the crumbling stone to the dirt below, grunting as he rolled hard on the ground.

Breathing heavily through the breathing apparatus, Emerath felt himself weakening rapidly. He was undergoing the effects of the fade. As he looked to the canyon, he saw what appeared to be a massive creature wrapped in fog. Immediately flashbacks of the crown room in the Bandit Fortress came to mind. Emerath's breath caught, and his heart felt like it stopped as he watched the creature rise up, tentacles coming from everywhere the eye could see.

"NO!" Emerath cried, as he watched one rise up right near Ivan. He was in danger, his crew was in danger, and from the looks of it, he wasn't sure if they were going to survive. Their first mission into the field, and it looked like a suicide mission. How could the Lightning Ironworks prove themselves if they died here? But what kind of a leader would Emerath be if he simply ran away?

The tentacle seemed to target them. It seemed to be focused on Ivan, the closest to the canyon. It was do or die. Getting back to his feet quickly, Emerath didn't let himself be stunned by what he was seeing. All of this defied explanation, and so much of Emerath wanted to rebel against his own senses. But he couldn't. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting.

Emerath quickly scrolled through his palm menu to equip his gauntlets, and charged them with electricity for good measure, not knowing exactly how fighting a giant tentacle monstrosity would work. He set his sights high, and ran for his companion as the tentacle loomed over him. With a battle cry, Emerath released all the pent up aggression he had felt during the crown encounter. He remembered the failure to help Seigi, and the death that she had endured. He remembered all the others who had died. Maybe this was where that creature came from. Yes, that was one explanation Emerath could get behind.

One explanation that he could use to fuel his hatred for this beast.

As the tentacle came down, Emerath connected with it before it could strike Ivan, with a hard grunt, as he caused it to reel off to the side. With a fury in his heart, Emerath shouted to the heavens, his gauntlets charged and ready for more, "You won't take us! We are the Lightning Ironworks! And you have no place in this world! IF I DIE, I DIE DEFENDING THE SCIENCE YOU OFFEND, YOU MONSTROSITY!"

Thrown dice:

64

77

64 + 77 + 15 + 15 = 171
Tentacle HP: 829/1000​

 

Iván nodded at Tetsunosuke, though he seemed to be talking more to no one in particular, "Speculations give birth to conclusions. The more we have of things to go on, the better our grasp of a situation will be." Without turning to the man with blue eyes, Iván started to walk forward, away, to follow the compromise suggested by their leader. "The guys imbued the masks with some defensive magic, though considering we don't actually know the extent and potency of the magic this place contains, if it even does contain magic, that still might not be enough to fully thwart any strong magical effects the air has."

As soon as Iván got to the edge, he began thinking of every possibility that might have resulted to the death of this place as well as every possibility that could save it if not rekindle the life it once had. His mind was bombarded with these thoughts, himself preoccupied with theories of causes and solutions, that he was caught surprised when the earth shook. It was no mere earthquake, too. It was massive, and the cracks it made on the ground summoned fog to come out of it. The smell was horrible, almost intolerable, but it wasn't the worst thing to come out of the crevice.

Another earthquake, a tremor, brought out towering tendrils of deep purple. While most of them paid the group no attention, seemingly unaware of their intrusion, focusing instead on sucking the life out of everything they could, the air, the sand, the trees, one stray tendril, however, massive and intimidating, did otherwise and decided to strike the trespassers with little to no warning.

The hostile tendril was closest to Iván who simply took a step back and marveled at it. Before the illusionist could get squashed by the tendril, Emerath sprung into action, striking it and forcing it in another direction. Inspired by his leader, Iván summoned his hammer and followed up with an overhead smash. Things had escalated quickly, and without knowing if this thing actually had a mind to manipulate, Iván had to settle for bashing it with his hammer. It wasn't as refined as using illusions but it should do. For now.

Thrown dice:

33

18

33 + 18 + 10 + 5 = 66
Tentacle HP: 763/1000​

 

As Tetsunosuke was shouting loudly at the building to gain the attention of Emerath about the diary he had found, he felt a tremor. As the tremor was starting to get shakier, he could scarcely handle the diary. Fearing that it would crumble once it falls to the ground, he quickly manipulated his menu, and fortunately he had the diary stored in his inventory before he would drop the thing onto the ground. As he then ran towards the ruins to save the books that were there, he then saw that the tent crumbled to the ground before being swallowed by a crack forming on it. "Now that's a shame," Tetsunosuke muttered as he saw the tent fall to the crevice, with the books that he had found. Nothing was more shameful than letting any information slip through his hands. Fortunately he still had that diary. However, he would have to restore the pages back in the basement of the Lightning Ironworks so that he would not have to hold the pages gingerly.

However what Tetsunosuke saw after became more noteworthy for him than those books he had found. The crevice where the tent fell suddenly spewed smoke which obscured the view around him. Even the sky turned black as he tried to move away from the crevice. He then thought about getting a sample of the air around him so that he could study about it later. Getting a flask, he then steeled himself to move towards the crevice and then he swung the towards the crevice which was still spewing smoke. He then sealed it with a cork and then returned it to his inventory. It would look like he would have a field day with this one. But as he was celebrating, he then felt as if something was sucking away at his life force. This was it. It was the fade seeping in on his body. Was he going to die? He then searched for his other teammates in the overcast sky, when suddenly, he felt a tremor again. What was that going to be? He then trudged on forward, when he then saw a silhouette of a huge tentacle towards his right. All right then, if he could slice off that tentacle that should be another specimen. He then moved towards the tentacle to see it, and then cut it with the newly-smithed tantou sheathed on his right hip, but as he was nearing it, he then saw that it was larger than he expected. Furthermore, he saw his two other companions fighting the damn thing. Now there's the three of them, it should be easy to dismember that thing and bring it back to the Lightning Ironworks. He then said to the two, "How about cutting it off and bringing it to our basement? Seems like it would be a good test subject. Now, let us haul it back so that we could start our experiment!" Unsheathing his tantou, he then dealt heavy strikes towards the tentacle. He would make sure that it would be dismembered so that they could have a good time experimenting it.

Thrown dice:

66

16

66 + 16 + 15 + 15 = 112
Tentacle HP: 651/1000​

 

Emerath was glad that his team had decided to stick around and fight it out. It wouldn't be easy, as the tentacle swung back around, and narrowly missed Emerath by mere inches as he ducked below the swipe. "Let's focus on staying alive, then we can focus on taking samples. We're scientists, sure, but safety first!" Emerath rattled from the facemask, as he took a step back and the tentacle smashed into the ground in front of them.

"The thing clearly isn't sentient. It's just wildly smashing around trying to find us. No doubt it doesn't have a mind of its own at least. C'mon boys, I'll try to grab the thing as you strike it down!" Emerath explained, as he held his crystallized gauntlets out in preparation.

If they could get this thing under control, at least they'd have a chance to survive. Then they could science the hell out of this place with the knowledge they gained from fighting it. If they survived. Emerath stood his ground, as the tentacle came down on him, and he grasped it as hard as he could with his fists, before pulling it to him and punching the thing as hard as he could to try to get it to submit.

"Alright, I don't know how long I can hold it! Hit it with all you've got!" Emerath called out to his team.

Thrown dice:

13

17

13 + 17 + 15 +15 = 60
Tentacle HP: 591/1000​

 

"I can only help with softening it up," Iván deadpanned in the middle of dodging the tendril's wild swing at him. He raised his basic hammer in the air, shaking it, so Tetsunosuke would quickly get what he meant by his words.

Another wild swing by the tendril and Iván almost got caught. Thankfully, he was able to use the gentle push and use it for his own momentum, rolling away from the damned thing. Iván wondered if he should've gone for a sharper weapon instead. Certainly, some sort of saber or fencing sword would've been a pretty good alternative to a hammer. Sure, bludgeons are useful when it came to striking monsters unconscious but some monsters actually had pretty strong armor. Iván's skill with these weapons weren't that great to be able to smash through certain armor.

Iván nodded at Emerath's suggestion to consider safety first, although deep down, he knew it was pretty much too late for that. If he wanted to contribute to their team's survival, Iván knew he might have to throw his own safety to the wind in order to give either Emerath or Tetsunosuke the opportunity to clean the monster up. He wasn't as physically gifted as the other two. He was more of a magic-user, and magic that relied on a creature's mind as the main target. Quickly looking around, Iván couldn't find any trace of the creature itself. Without a direct target, access to its mind, his proficiency with illusion magic was completely worthless.

"I guess this will have to do," Iván muttered to himself before charging at the tendril once again, the tendril that this time was being held in place, somewhat, by Emerath. Gaining enough momentum, the alchemist jumped in the air as high as he could, aiming to hit the tendril once again with everything that he's go. "So this is how I die."

Iván Smash

(Bludgeon) You don't want to make Iván angry. You wouldn't like it when Iván's angry. If you could actually see if Iván's angry. The guy is always emotionless, it's no wonder some people think he's a robot. Or a bunch of squirrels in a large coat. Iván's weird.

Thrown dice:

21

1

21 + 1 + 15 + 5 = 42
Tentacle HP: 549/1000​