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1. B 2. C 3. D This collection of kindling will be a good warm-up, and a chance for Winifred Whitegraves to put her latest transcription of Solomon's Scorching Scythes to the test.
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Feb 4, 2018 02:28
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:40 |
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Down for The Magnusth Agenda.
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Feb 5, 2018 22:09
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As the spectral flames of Solomon scourge the last of the infernal unlife from the rickety reanimates, leaving only charred bone and drifts of dust and ash, You mutter with long practice the 44th Mantra of Forgotten Flames, naming and subsuming the shades of the departed within the crucible of your soul. These wretched victims of Dracula's cruelty, damned though they may be, will not be forgotten, and may perhaps gain a measure of the rest denied them here, in the belly of Chaos. Compassion for the lost is quickly forgotten, however, as the you enter the Great Hall, striding though the great doors that seem to open just for you, and come face to face with the ancient foe, lounging upon his throne.  The room is immense, cavernous; far larger than it should be, or even has any right to be, in the creation of any mindful god. Eternal night stretches off in all directions not merely absence of light, but an oppressive, all-too-present darkness, teeming with beady pinpricks of scarlet light. The eyes of Dracula's armies of the night, awaiting his order to rend you asunder? Or perhaps the dim stars of whatever hell spawned the Lord of this Estate. Either way, you feel the rising of primal terror within you, and you silently intone the Hammer of Svarog, steeling your resolve and kindling your righteous fury. "Dracula," you utter, no mere syllables capable of containing your hatred. The elder vampire regards you with icy disdain, gaze seeming to instantly dismiss you as a crawling insect, beneath notice. But after a moment, his eyes, utterly bereft of mercy and gleaming with infernal radiance, seem to narrow in recognition.  "God," Dracula sneers. "God? Precisely where do you think you are, child? You have stumbled, or perhaps been sent by your elders, a sacrificial offering, into the very heart of my power. God? "I̼̩̘̳̫̖ ͉̖A̪̻̭M͎̰̬ ̘̞̙̯G̦̻̬̹̖͍͎Ọ̻̠̦̝D͈͚ ̤̻̜̳̫̙̺̯̣H̭̦͙̺̥̮Ẹ̹͍̹͖̦̥R̩͎̹͇̟̼̩E͎̻͖͍̘͙.̹̜̗̼͈." Dracula does not rise, at least not in any way you can see...In the blinking of an eye, he is simply before you, his presence effortlessly swamping you in waves of choking terror. He seems to grow, filling every corner of your awareness, leaving no crevice safe for the tiny, screaming thing to which your mind has been utterly reduced. And then... Darkness. Drip. Drip. Drip.  You awaken. Or live again...you couldn't say. Brackish water drips upon your face, and you pull away, wiping at your eyes with hands that seem sluggish. You find yourself sprawled upon a stone bier in a gloomy chamber of greenish fitted stone, not restrained in any way you can see, and seemingly whole of body, if lethargic. You quickly take stock of your possessions...all present, except... "Where is my book?!" "I beg your pardon, my child," echoes a hollow voice from the gloom. You whirl, hands already flying into the invocation of a Flame Arrow, and find yourself facing a skeletal figure in a nun's habit, holding what appears to be...a bowl of soup?  "My grimoire," you demand, feeling desperately unequipped without it, but maintaining a tough facade. "I'm sorry," the skeleton replies, "I don't know anything about that...I did find this clutched in your hand, though...does that help?" Offered gingerly between bony fingers is what you immediately recognize as two pages from your book. 1. But which ones? (Select two) A. A spell to summon a fiery whip, to scourge your foes. B. A spell to erect a burning shield, protecting you from attacks both physical and magical. C. A spell to embody the flickering of flame, making yourself incredibly agile and evasive. D. A spell to fire a tiny, but lethal star of flame at a distance. E. A spell to purge ills from the flesh, sealing wounds and boiling away ailments. F. Another worthy invocation, capable of:________________. "You're quite blessed to be alive and whole," the skeleton continues, "after confronting the Master like that." "Where am I," you demand, feeling slightly better after tucking the grimoire pages into your gauntlet. "In the Lingering Cells," the skeleton replies. "Durance of the Wasting Legion. But don't get the wrong idea, my child. You're free to go." "You're just going to let me go," you challenge, already mentally scanning the words of your solitary incantation in anticipation of battle and scanning the room. "Of course. Only...you seem quite weak. If you insist on exploring the castle, you'll need your strength." The skeleton gently offers the bowl of soup. "It will do you no harm, I assure you, and it will do you a world of good." The spoon clinks against the rim of the bowl, invitingly. A chunk of what looks like mutton briefly surfaces, before sinking beneath the surface of the savory-smelling broth. Even in this place, after your ordeal, your stomach gurgles. You are alone in a gloomy cell with a skeleton offering you soup. There is a single door, warped and slimy with moisture. It has a bar, but it is not engaged. There is a corroded grate in the floor large enough to admit you, but it gurgles unwholesomely. 2. What do you do now?
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Feb 6, 2018 06:00
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The quest of the Whitegraves scion continues! Magnusth is the GM for the next turn, and appropriately enough, because the choices of spells are: The Remembered Flame Avenges, which conjures the shades subsumed by the 44th Mantra as fiery wraiths, and The Ember Ignites a Thousand Flames, which empowers and enlarges the effect of another spell, and converts it to a fire spell if it isn't already. Also, we totally eat the soup.
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Feb 7, 2018 03:37
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What is the Wasting Legion? They weren't in my uncle Waldemar's notes... What foul watercourse lies beneath that grate in the floor? Might you have anything I could use as a weapon? Do you know any magic you might be willing to share? Have you seen a girl here, younger, but with hair like mine?
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Feb 7, 2018 04:25
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B. Let's not overstay our welcome, lest we become too comfortable. G. 
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Feb 7, 2018 22:13
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C A C
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Feb 11, 2018 15:32
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C C
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Feb 25, 2018 15:51
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C. G.
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Mar 7, 2018 20:36
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A lovely taffeta prom dress Belmont is canon. F Is it a whole chicken we found in a wall? Then get that poo poo out of here. Y Always be secreting. J Getting a good view from above will help us both find the thing, and survive to get it.
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Mar 12, 2018 19:59
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You feel exposed and constrained at the same time; wrapped in cloying layers of pink tafetta and tulle and various other textiles for which you have no ready name or frame of reference. Leather had always been more your speed, a fact of which your Great-Aunt Wendigerd often despaired. "It's not all bursting into crypts and whipping chandeliers, Winnie dear," she would tell you. "The beasts we hunt wear human nobility like haute couture, and we must be ready to pursue our quarry, no matter in what terrain they go to ground." You can't deny the dancing lessons helped your balance and fighting ability, however, at least until your tutor's head detached from her neck one evening and attacked you. Other families don't have these sorts of problems, or so you've heard. Gritting your teeth and girding your dignity, you simply accept your attire as a condition of the battlefield, and turn to the damned servant offering you a questionable libation. "No thank you," you offer with a politesse that makes your teeth hurt, but can't resist adding a little barb. "I'm still quite full," you explain, tapping your jugular. Pushing past the ruffled servant, you make your way through the throng of revelers, trying your best not to make contact with anyone...or anything. Laughter, the clink of glassware, and music just ever so slightly discordant, all whirl around you in a chaotic maelstrom, and between the overwhelming noise, the close-packed bodies of your ancestral foes, and the miasma of mingled perfumes applied liberally in a vain attempt to stave off the stench of the grave, you find your head spinning, and your heart pounding. Your lambent golden gaze appears to have some warding ability, as a number of young, or at least young-seeming, guests begin to approach you, only to quickly peel off as they behold your withering glare. Piercing the crowd without giving in to a most certainly suicidal fit of violence is every bit as taxing as fighting the carnivorous plant, and when you break free of the throng at last, you take a great ragged breath. Taking a moment to collect yourself, you scan the walls and decorative arches and panels, searching for anything that might conceal something of value. Instead, you see a trio of revelers, standing apart from the dance, and elect to interrogate them, instead. You are perhaps an incongruous sight, stalking like a panther in a ballgown, and as you approach the unengaged trio, you quickly draw their curious gaze.  "—so I said to him," a redheaded woman in green masqued as a blue rabbit gossips as you approach, "Prommie, dearest (he hates that, you know...I am Doktor Prometheus Darmstadt, Master of the Clocktower, and I will not be addressed by blah, blah blah,) Prommie, if you had your choice of parts to bolt to the big lug, why didn't you...you know...add a little girth where it—Oh! Look what's stalked out of the terrible night!" She smiles with seemingly genuine mirth, though underlaid with the fundamental cruelty of the undead, and a trickle of claret dribbles down her chin from one of the pointed canines surrounding a pair of protruding buckteeth. "Enter the blush of life, clad in carmine raiment," croons the slender man masqued as a vulture. "No servant, she." "Not yet," comes the near-whisper of the bat-masqued woman, as a shudder takes her slumped shoulders. "But 'ware when His Shadow falls upon..." "Oh lay off, Bathilda," scoffs the Rabbit. "We're all quite fatigued with your dour seeress routine by now?" She looks to you with a keen gleam in her beast's eyes. "Wait...Are you a Belmo--" "No," you assert quickly. "I am most certain not...that." "But you are a hunter," Vulture declares. "Your coursing nature cannot be concealed by mere fripperies. You can't be here for the Lord of the Manor, because you don't look like a drooling imbecile." "Oh stop flirting, you awful creature," Rabbit laughs. "Her reasons are her own, I'm sure...of course, it would be ever so fun if she would tell us..." Too-long lashes bat, and you feel a wave of compulsion wash over you, breaking against your Whitegraves Conditioning. "She's strong," the Rabbit purrs, biting her lip and wriggling her hips. "Fun!" "Salamander," whispers the Bat, "serpent bright with flames white as ash. Creeping across a grave, in the shadow of a great and twisted thorn tree." "Lay off, Spookerella," Rabbit snarls. "Between your rambling and Viscount Dodo's midnight suitor act--" "I am a Marquess," he snaps petulantly, "and it's a Vulture..." "I'm looking for a relic," you quickly interject before the drama can develop any further. "It should be here, in this chamber. Somewhere." "She seeks to join the dance invisible," Bat shivers. "The Spectral Espadrilles," Vulture intones. "What positively awful shoes," Rabbit sneers. "They don't go with anything, and everyone will be sure to see your tacky footwear when you're leaping in midair like a common fleaman?" "I think I've heard of them," you comment. "At least, they were in St. Wigelius's Enchiridion. They let you walk on air?" "Not walk," Rabbit rolls her eyes. "That would be...useful? They just let you keep jumping without touching the ground? Why anyone would come up with something so trivial and pointless is beyond me, but I'm not a Byzantine artificer? Anyway...Fred's got them." "Fred?" Rabbit points to the dance floor, or rather, above it, where two ghostly dancers twirl in impossible patterns. "Frederick, Earl of Ascare," Vulture declares. "Master of Revels. To claim the Spectral Espadrilles, you must challenge him." "Or..." Rabbit purrs, gesturing vaguely to the wall on the right, "you could take a walk in the terrace garden with me? It's a secret place, good for reading and I think someone like you might find it...enchanting? Is she suggesting what you think she's suggesting? "If you're interested in artifacts," Vulture adds, "I could introduce you to Doktor Darmstadt. His inventions are the talk of pale society, and I'm sure he could outfit a fierce hunter like yourself with something...innovative." Doktor Darmstadt the notorious disgraced physician and graverobber? "Rats...rats in the walls, chewing out the eyes from behind, to reveal the true path," Bat mutters. Or...that. Passages hidden behind paintings, perhaps, or just rambling? You're beginning to feel dizzy, and weak in the knees. Being this close to so many vampires is taxing your Conditioning to the limit. If you don't leave the ball soon, you may not be able to leave at all. But to follow a path offered you, or to blaze your own? A. Challenge Fred Ascare to combat, to claim the Spectral Espadrilles. B. Challenge Fred Ascare to a dance battle, to claim the Spectral Espadrilles. C. A or B, with a twist. Overt spellcasting may be impossible, but you're sure you could surreptitiously heat the kelo nuts in your palm to the point of bursting, then hurl them at Ascare to seize the advantage in battle. D. Go for a walk in the garden with Rabbit, and perhaps claim a Grimoire page? E. Accept Vulture's introduction to the mad Dr. Darmstadt. He's sure to have useful tools, if you survive. F. Go do...whatever it is that Bat is suggesting. It might provide more detailed intelligence on the castle layout. G. Enough of this. Surmount the balcony above and exit via the upper floor. H. G, but first go shake down the valet for your gear back! Bee Bonk fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Mar 13, 2018 |
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Mar 13, 2018 19:04
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F: The only song for a vampire dance-off is Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5.
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Mar 16, 2018 04:58
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We're a fighter, not a lover. Thinking too far outside the whip is a mistake. Pick something solo-heavy, and challenge him to show us his fancy moves, then, when he's popping and/or locking in the center of the ballroom, surrounded by his admiring throng, drop a giant goddamned chandelier on them. While everyone is distracted or crushed, call forth our fiery entourage to clean up.
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Mar 18, 2018 15:20
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:40 |
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1E Watch out for fireballs! The obvious inhabitants of this unwholesome Castlevanian "water"way are red palette-swapped mermen! 2B Seek ye Green Froot Loop.
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Mar 26, 2018 03:13
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