I've been up since 6 am, and working since 7 without a lunch break. My brain isn't all here.

All is forgiven. I can understand a long workday.

I stand by my comment.

Ruan, I'm liking the game so far. I've never played an actual RPG on paper before, and so something like this, with no rolling or traits and so on, is right up my alley.

Also, I think it's cool that you've noticed some of the very random actions of the characters, such as Beefy's hitting the wall or the Lady running her hand along the hallway, and worked it into the discovery process. Very cool.

Was lucky your character was doing that, actually. Had she not been doing so, you guys would've had that construct coming at you with no obvious way out. You guy's probably would've gotten it, but the construct would've been dangerously close.

Still trying to find the alphabet. No luck. HOWEVER! I found this very kick ass site that has all sorts of alphabets: current, ancient, undeciphered, fictional. Check it out!

If you were familiar with it, you probably would've figured it out by now. Might still manage to find it though.

What's amusing me is all of this is causing me to start to be able to read it without references...

Forgive me if I missed an obvious repeating symbol. I'm working from memory at the moment as my employer blocks images from this forum.

You're almost being unfair now, Ruan.

Not on the right track, then? Damn.

One of the things you said is, actually, spot on.

I can't very well make it -too- easy on them. The original version of the puzzle didn't even have this many hints.

In your guys' defense, I don't think I've ever seen someone get that puzzle right. My roommate has used it a time or two, and it always seems to come to this.

Alright, essentially the way combat works is simple. You roleplay whatever you intend to do to either attack or defend, such as 'XX attempts to whack a spider!' Then I do some basic rolling to see how well the attack works.

The key thing here is if you want to improve your roll, you improve your roleplay. The above example would get essentially a straight roll. Someone who puts more into their action, gets more of a bonus to it.

Once again, keep in mind that you cannot do 'closed roleplay'. Let me go into a bit more depth what you can and cannot get away with in combat here.

You can't post 'XX's mighty thews smash into the spider, breaking it into pieces and pieces!' You would have to say something closer to 'XX's brings his mighty fist down at the spider, trying to smash it to pieces'.

You can take minor control over thing so long as it doesn't force a change. For instance, you could say 'XX trades blows with the spider, each dancing around the other.' Think of it like minor dodges and parries before a main blow - perfectly fine to use those.

You can take damage and injuries to yourself to give yourself a better hit. This can be as small as scratches to cuts to even more. The more damage you yourself take, the better the hit will be. Rather obviously, this can be rather dangerous. You're sacrificing defense for offense.

You can roleplay working together to set up a dual attack, or to aid one another. In fact, it's an excellent way to help one another, as it also has the advantage of giving you more chances to add to your roleplay.

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The general rule I use with regards to roleplay combat is the rule of cool. The cooler the roleplay is, the more likely it is I will allow it.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Combat is free-flowing. Don't worry about free strikes or moving from one combat to another. Just keep in mind that if you aren't fighting something, then that something is probably double-teaming someone else.

Any other questions, just ask here.

Real obsidian is brittle and will shatter easily so I figured smashing one against a wall is worth a try. It's anyone's guess (except Ruan's, of course) whether the material these things are made of will behave similarly.

So. Uh. Sorry about dooming everyone to creepy living stone spiders. *cough*

On the plus side, smashing?