Alphabet Chocolate

67 HP

MAX HP

100 EN

MAX EN

Alpha was startled as Nalani began, once again, reciting strange words and familiar consonants. Her oddities from the trip had been prickling at her thoughts; Alpha wondered why she would know and speak with letters that seemed to be otherworldly. Regardless, she trusted her friend and that trust had led her to follow Nalani unquestioningly and unflinchingly in the face of frequent adversaries (of the stone, artistic kind). She had glared at Ornson, ready to defend Nalani with several barbed words (consisting of calling him a raisin-cookie eating pistachio) before she had responded with a nostalgic passage. She quickly filled in the blanks: "And God said, let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness."

She looked around, sheepishly rubbing her head before fumbling to explain herself. "Uh, that's what she meant I think, just with strange sounds. I kinda had to remember parts of the bible and stuff cause my grandparents wanted me to join some weird religion-church-cult-thing when I was, like, five."

Then she took a breath before turning to Nalani [not before tossing a nasty glance at Ornson's way at the insinuation that Nalani (pure, kind, gentle, and candy-loving Nalani) could have anything to do with demons and whatever it was that hurt Terry (and did that thought put a damper on her already solemn mood)]. She'd give her friend the benefit of the doubt. She always would. "Uh, you can read this stuff, right Nalani?" she jabbed her thumb in the direction of all the statues and mystical writings. "Haha, that's so cool! Of course the awesome friend of the great Alphabet Chocolate-and Terry-" she held the dog's paw up and animatedly maneuvered it to give a wave. "Would be able to do something that amazing! You should totally lead us or something, Nalani! You'll be great at it!"

She approached the pit and looked around before gesturing above at the shining light which illuminated the small area. "Look, boy!" she grinned and placed the dingo's cold body near the edges which soaked in warmth. "You stay here and warm up; it's not good to get a cold before I revive you, after all! I'll go help out Nalani and the others, okay?" she gave him a reassuring pat (with a sickening squelch of slowly decaying flesh meeting her touch) before returning to the group. She gave them a salute. "I'm up for anything! You guys just go ahead and figure it out and tell me what to do!"

OOC: health potion consumed - 0/3

 

Though not entirely sure on how to proceed, the man could only take a stab in the dark upon seeing the stillness of his companions. Letting out a sigh, Jack would step forward while serving as the guinea pig. Reaching for the most recent crystal they had obtained, the man would begin to inspect the device while attempting to use it. Considering how the blood crystal had functioned, perhaps it would grant him abilities similar to a portal gun or something entertaining?

Should that be the case, he’d simply pour energy into the crystal in order to activate the built in feature while teleporting each pillar into place as he deemed fit. Should that not be the case? He’d continue tampering around with the crystal until discovering how to properly make use of it.

Judging from previous encounters, the liquid pooling at the base of each statue ought to provide the power while the crystal itself served as the primary medium to cast, no? The statues themselves seemed fairly useless considering they did nothing despite still being connected to the liquid while lacking the crystal. Based on these connections, the crystals alone should function… but were that not the case… he’d try switching the roles around a bit. Perhaps the crystals were storage units, processors to refine the energy or something else to contain the energy leeched from the liquid?

Instead, he’d try drawing energy from the crystal. Should the device empower him, he’d take the same approach, attempting to use massive quantities of energy to levitate the stones in place. As for what the final result would be? He’d simply spell out the letters in the order they were pronounced by Nalani.

Left to right, top to bottom.

AEID, BCED, XUYZ, SAEI

Or at least that’s how he thought it went…

 

In for a penny, in for a pound. If they received the translation of the characters carved into the pillars, she would follow Jack's lead and attempt to help him with what he was doing. She wasn't going to outright help with the heavy lifting, as much as she was going to use her 'other' magic to stabilize the pillars he was trying to lift to keep them from swaying too much or toppling over.

At least until they got to one point. "Wait, Jack. Keep it hovering."

"XYUZ..." she bit her lip, mulling over something. She knew there was something about this, she could remember it. Scratching the back of her head she tried to remember the series of events until it hit her. "I think this goes differently, doesn't it?" she'd begin, tentatively.

"Perhaps this goes X-U-Y-Z instead?" she looked at the healer, wondering if he was going to accept her input or not. They weren't exactly the best of friends, one might say their relationship so far wasn't even good. But he was still an ally and she was willing to do what she could right now in order to make this mission a success. "What do you think?"

 

Jack agrees to this amendment.

 

Lucia couldn't help a somewhat begrudged expression as she looked at the puzzle with a heavy sigh. There was naturally a myriad of ways things could be taken or assumptions that could be made. She looked at things as they stood with a furrowed brow and a bothered expression, this was certainly not her forte. She was particularly learned in a few things, she felt she could speak pretty well and had keen enough insight to make calls when necessary. Puzzles however were not in her wheel house, of that she had no doubt at all. She leered at the moving pillars wit a heavy sigh oblivious to what the answer could be, even cursing this game for having such an open ended and troubling thing as if it were mocking or joking or something more rude.

There were just too many possibilities, some more likely then others no doubt, but what did 'likelyhood' matter when the answer could just be needlessly wrong? what guarantee was there that the most reasonable and logical conclusion was the correct one when the most spiritual or braindead answer could also be applied and tested or tried. Really, the maker of the puzzle could create any innane answer that might not even have to do with the subject matter if they wanted to-- and had Lucia been the puzzle maker, she no doubt would have orchestrated it that way; how better to kill intruders then a puzzle that's not actually a puzzle? That thought in mind prevented her from stepping forward. She simply wasn't going to be helpful here making her shake her head in wait hoping the others had a good solution.

 

Confused as ever as to why she could understand the language, Nalani followed along with their wishes as she read out the seperate words, everything flooding back to her from the past few days. The letters danced through her head as she read them out, seemingly caught in some kind of concentration mode as she didn't do anything but search for the answers she had been looking for for so long. What do they mean? Whatever they did, she was finally finding out.

As the letters slipped into place, her eyes shimmered with excitement, looking at the words and back to Ornson when he passed the eye pack over, taking it from him hurriedly and holding it up to her face, peering through. Before her were words that made perfect sense to her with the power she had been given by the curse, and carefully she read it, "And god said there be light… there was light, the light that destroyed our pantheon and shattered our heavenly thrones... the reckoning had come and we exist no longer.” What does it mean?

The answer. It was so close. Her hands almost shook as she handed the eye back to Ornson, looking at the group as her eyes landed on @Jack Anders, resident puzzle solver and one of her closer companions, finally voicing the question that had drove her almost insane the past few days, "What does it mean?"

However, just as she said that, her eyes shot open with surprise, moving back to the edge of the cliff to peer into the pit. There were four spaces, and multiple letters. Maybe... They spelled something? Excitement seemed to climb as she pieced the pieces together, pulling the words from her own understanding of the bible, something which Faye believed with much certainty, God... Light... Divine... Deity... It was right there. Obvious, right in front of them. So that's what it means.

She didn't even tell anyone what she was going to be doing as she approached the end of the cliff and positioned herself near the S. Then, using Arcanamacy, she teleported a small distance over to the S pillar. She hadn't even expected it to happen, but as soon she landed on the pillar, the S slid down and the others on the row rose up. It had been a spur of the moment/she wasn't in her right mind decision, but as soon as she did so, she turned to the rest of the party, "We need three more people, one on U, one on E, and one on D." She didn't even care to explain why, but she seemed so adamant on it happening and confident in her choice, it was hard to say no to the Felis.
​

Nalani Rosa

77 HP

MAX HP

90 EN

MAX EN

-10 energy via teleport​

 

Lucia only rubbed her head, puzzles certainly weren't her forte, but the moment the arrangement was made, the only intelligable idea was "DEUS", the type that made her think of some kind of bizarre Deus Ex plot twist. The 'god in the machine' as it were. Almost immediately after the thought came to her, Nalani ventured a guess all her own which made Lucia rub her temples a little. Was it allowed to be right? Would this type of simple but not simple method really work? Bitterness was her first reaction, these kinds of puzzles always made her feel sour and flustered. She didn't feel the clues were helpful or adequate, how could they make a certain conclusion from this alone?

If it would help though, Lucia wasn't above trying to take a hit for the team. In the end she could only sigh and leave it up to chance and Fate. With a jump, she'd try her best to make it to the D point, provided it wouldn't kill her. If all went according to plan she'd at least make an effort to do her part.

 

Despite his disdain for puzzles, Jack remained standing in place while trying to figure out the next step. To be honest, his brain had been quite addled for the last couple of days in this dungeon considering the amount of overwork it had been subjected to. Thankfully someone else had come up with an idea. Turning to the Felis once, he’d survey the pillars once more before nodding with understanding.

“Sounds about right. Good job, kitten.”

He’d move to pat the woman on the head between the ears. Afterwards, the dark haired support would stop to mull over how to proceed. Should he misstep, the wrong letter would indent, trapping him at a lower tier of the platform and most likely forcing their hand to commit to the wrong letter sequence. It wasn’t as if this was rocket science or anything though. Having taken the proper precaution, he’d perform a running jump and step on the letter “E” of the second row.

After placing himself in position, he’d wave at someone else from the side while calling out to indicate how best to proceed.

“Someone hop on the U in the third row!”

 

Alphabet Chocolate

72 HP

MAX HP

100 EN

MAX EN

Alpha listened to Nalani and Jack's commands and, sliding Terry to the bottom edge of the platform, she set him down gently before quickly climbing atop and landing on the U. "Haha, got it!" she grinned, satisfied in her victory in the endeavor. "Good job figuring it out, Nalani!" she cheered before plopping down, crosslegged, on the pillar. She looked expectantly at Ornson, willing the old druid to take the last spot. She had been somewhat rude to him and, while that dislike still festered, she still considered him a part of the team. Maybe a bit of teambuilding exercises and participation would help ease her ill will towards the man (she knew that it wasn't his fault that Terry was in this condition, but her attempts to shove off her own reservations against the various members of the crew simply led to more negative feelings in general and, she supposed, perhaps it would be easier to be neutral with an artificial intelligence program than with real, live people). "You can do it," she rooted for the old man half-heartedly, deeply ashamed of herself.

OOC: health potion consumed - 1/3; goes on the U.

 

Aaron watched as the group worked with the puzzle. He didn't know much about puzzles, or things like that. As such, he stood off to the side, watching intently to know of any threat before it appeared. Likewise, if anyone would get hurt from this puzzle, he would be able to assist by casting some healing magic on them. He sighed heavily. He felt useless here. He shook his head.

"I need to stay focused, not zone out," he muttered to himself. He cleared his throat and called out. "Let me know if I need to do anything, I'm currently just on watch and healing duty," he shouted.

 

It was a pity they couldn't bring this issue to a more permanent resolution, but they had knowledge and moreover, she still have their lives. For the players, that might have mattered little but Amalia was certain it wasn't the case for good old Ornson. She watched Ornson perform what appeared to be a spell, stepping back out of caution. Only when he finished did she look at the portal that had opened with some mild surprise.

This couldn't be something a druid was capable of, well, normally at least. But she wasn't going to squander this golden opportunity for them to get out while they still could. She didn't quite run towards the portal, but her pace approaching it certainly was hasty.

She hesitated, just slightly in front of the portal, sticking a hand into it, unsure of how to describe the feeling before she put on a brave face and marched into it. Her world seemed to swim, her feet felt like they were hanging - but she wasn't free falling either. Slowly, the world seemed to spin less and less and her feet found purchase on the ground.

She sighed in relief, looking around then back at the exit, wondering if the others were going to come out or if they were all going to be sent to different places.

 

Alpha stared at the spirit wolf with widened eyes and a hesitant smile. "Terry?" she murmured, hope glinting behind teary orbs. She dropped the dog's paw for a brief second as she approached the imprisoned canine before them. The gigantic peeper was completely forgotten, shoved into a distant recess of her mind, as she made her way toward the mist wolf. "Hello there," she said faintly. Small breaths overtook her speech and her weakness of heart strongly showed in her fragile demeanor.

She knelt down and stared straight into the exhausted dog; dimly listening to Ornson's words with growing horror. Frozen still in place, she could only watch as Ornson stepped forward to touch the wolf and, with that, formed a portal out of here. The only thing that ran through her mind at this moment, however, was the musings as to how to keep Terry with her. Again. Forever.

Then, with determined eyes, she reached forward. "It's okay, Terry! I'm not going to abandon you this time!" she screamed frantically, pupils bloated and hair sticking up like a wild creature. "I'll take you with me and we'll go back home together and I'll give you all the fish sticks you want and we'll have all the fun and I'll even let you eat some bees that you always try to catch even though it'll sting you and I'll—I'll..." she drifted off, panic running through her as she grasped at something, anything, before running off to the portal. That was definitely Terry in her arms, wasn't it? Her heart began to thump and beat and she found that she couldn't concentrate. It had to be Terry, though. She was sure of it. It just had to be, she thought as she leaped into the portal leading to god knows where.

Thrown die:

43

 

As all the words slid in place and Nalani found herself relaxing finally at her success, she watched what unfolded before her. It was all very confusing, but what's done was done and at this time, she just wanted to get out of here. She turned her gaze towards Alphabet, watching her as her friend slowly slipped into insanity. Okay... She really needed to take a small reality check, even though part of Nalani was worried for her.

She turned her head towards the portal as the status effect blinked at her health bar, signalling their exit. Well... This was it, right? No more fighting, no more stress? Or would there be more on the other side? She turned her gaze back, glancing around the room for a quick moment before nodding, smiling gently, "Well... I guess this means farewell." And with that, she hopped through the portal.

Thrown die:

67

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