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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2020 7:10 pm 
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Location: Praise be to the sticky elastic bands of the Healing Gauze
It comes to you slowly at first. The beginnings of consciousness seep in where before there was nothingness. Vague recollections of what came before. Here and then gone. Fleeting glimpses of home shrouded in darkness. A hand wreathed in shadow reaching out to you, grabbing and pulling and dragging you under. Leaving you... here.

Where is here?

You open your eyes.

Shivering, the cold piercing through to your very bone, you behold your surroundings. The world around you is covered by a thick fog. An obscuring darkness that suffuses itself through everything around you. Through the shroud you see a figure. A tall individual. Featureless in the darkness, though you can tell it's gaze (if it even has anything that could be said to be eyes) are upon you.

"It's cold out. You should find somewhere to Warm yourself before the Light is gone."

Shivering, too cold to think, you blink to try and clear your vision. To try and get a better look at the individual before you... but they are gone. Vanished in the infinitesimal transition between one blink and the next.

Cold and confused, you lift your head and take stock of your surroundings. The world comes into focus, yet still seems partially faded out...

The Human finds himself in a small, square room constructed entirely of cut stone. A set of stairs in one corner lead down into the building below, and each wall surrounding you contains a large window allowing a great view in every direction. One of the walls holds a sconce containing an unlit torch. Off to the side of the room is an empty brazier and a couple barrels. Light Fog creeps in from the windows and you feel cold.

The Drow finds himself on the grass outside a wall near a gate that seems to lead into a city of some kind. Buildings can barely be seen in the distance, but they are somewhat vague and hard to define. It's almost as if their shape subtly shifts from one moment to the next. Heavy Fog covers the area in thick, rolling blankets, and gets thicker the further you get away from the gate and wall until it becomes Darker and completely Obscuring. For the moment you find yourself in a patch of Light Fog near the wall and leading into the gate. You feel somewhat cold.

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The Drow: Alertness: +4 Roll: -1 Total: +3

The details are sparse but your eyes manage to catch an errant detail despite the cling of shadow. Before the figure that woke you up vanished you managed to catch the glint of gold.


The Dwarf finds himself in a darkened room. A basement of some sort, though you can't make out much in the way of details. Cracks in the ceiling overhead allow small amounts of light in, and more light can be seen coming from stairs leading up to the next floor on the opposite side of the room. A Light Haze permeates the room and leaves you chilled. You can see more of the haze pouring into the basement from upstairs.

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 Post Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:44 pm 
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The drow examines the grass and the gate.

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 Post Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:13 pm 
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The Human takes stock of himself.

Cold. Where am I?

He begins to check his pockets one by one, seeking out his phone.

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 4:54 am 
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The Drow examines his surroundings. He can tell, from his position on the ground, that the grass is cold and damp to the touch. On closer inspection it seems to still be alive, though it is pale and sickly looking. Sparse. It is clearly not thriving.

The gate looks to be some manner of old entryway in the style of castles and fortresses. Two massive doors made of reinforced wood and an iron portcullis designed to be lifted out of the way or dropped into place in times of danger.

It has seen better days.

The portcullis is pitted with rust and has numerous pieces missing. The largest of it's missing sections seems to have fallen outward from the gate and landed on the ground nearby, massive chunks of iron decorating the landscape. The doors themselves have broken inward. The left door is in pieces and the right, though still intact, has fallen off its hinges.

The Drow: Engineering: ?, Roll +2, Total +2. Target +3

Something doesn't seem right about the scene, though you can't immediately figure out why. All you can tell is that the gate is open, in shambles, and the various pieces look really really old.

The area continues to be blanketed with Heavy Fog. The distance is still Dark and Obscured. The Drow feels cold.

The Human makes a good showing of checking his pockets. Each and every one of them. They are absent of phones, both yours and others. In fact, they are absent of anything at all. No phone. No wallet. No keys. Nothing you'd expect to normally have in your pockets. Not even pocket lint itself makes an appearance. All you have on you is the clothing you're wearing. Clothing that is not warm enough to inure you to the cold that is surrounding you, the cold that is causing you to shiver.

Light Fog continues to creep in through the windows. You are still cold (and it seems you might have to get used to that until you find a way to warm yourself).

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 5:52 am 
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The human mutters under his breath.

No keys. No wallet. No phone.

Either I had way too much synthenol last night, or I've been kidnapped. Either way, bad news.

Windows looking out, stairs leading down. He steps up next to the window and, briefly, glances around and out of it. He tries to get a view of whatever is outside while hopefully avoiding the notice of any kidnappers out there.

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 3:06 pm 
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The drow unthinkingly falls back on his military engineering background to appraise what's odd about the gate (Engineer 3) before he tries to appraise whether the grass gets cropped or is growing uneaten/unmowed. If the latter he'll consider whether he can line his clothes with it.

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 5:25 pm 
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The Human tries to take a look out of the window. By virtue of it being such a small room, all he has to do is stand up and turn his head to get a full view out of any window he chooses. It appears as though he's in some kind of tower. He's pretty high up in the air. A quick glance around seems to suggest that this is a watch tower attached to a gate leading into a walled city. Fog blankets the landscape as far as the eye can see, lighter in some patches than others.

You can just barely make out a road leading into the city from the gate. The buildings on either side of the road prove too vague to make out beneath the blankets of fog, but you can follow the course of the road as it reaches, and continues through, what appears to be some kind of town square at the center of the city. On the opposite side of the city is a huge castle surrounded by yet more walls. The gate leading into the castle is open. The castle's drawbridge is down. Thick fog is pouring out of the castle gate into the city.

Looking down, you see that the doors to the gate attached to the tower you are within are standing wide open. As with the castle, fog is pouring into the city from outside.

Turning to glance outside the city, all you can see is fog. Fog, and nothing else. It's thick, dark, and completely obscuring.

Light Fog continues to pour in from the windows. The roads inside the city are covered in Light Fog. The tallest portions of the castle are edging close to being Obscured, but vague shapes can still be seen outlined in the fog. The lower levels and the gate of the castle are just barely visible. The city itself is Shrouded in Mist from fog that is so thick you can barely see through it. Outside the city, an impenetrable wall of fog and darkness blankets the horizon as far as the eye can see, Completely Obscuring what may lay beyond. Curiously, despite how dark the fog seems to make things in the distance, you can still see what is in front of you. There seems to be some small amount of light in the surroundings. At least enough to see by, though you don't see any visible sources. The Human is cold.

The Drow inspects the gate even closer, memories flooding back to his mind to aid him in the task.

Engineering: 3, Roll: +2, Total: +5, Target: +3

The Drow examines the gate. He looks a the thick iron of the portcullis. Inspects the heavy wood of the doors. Though these materials are old, this damage wasn't done by time. From the way the portcullis is ripped outward, the way the doors are laid inward, an extreme amount of force had to have torn the gate asunder. An explosion? No...

Something stands out. Feels odd. No explosion did this, and no siege weapon could account for the way the portcullis was ripped outward...

The Drow examines the pieces of the portcullis closer. The way the pieces are ripped and bent... it almost looks like some sort of giant hand grabbed the iron and simply wrenched it free of its housing. Closer inspection of the doors shows further evidence. Though faded by time, the right door shows an ever so slight print of a giant fist. The left door, on examination, can be pieced together around a single shatter point where it was similarly struck with enough force that it simply broke instead of coming off the hinges like its brother.

Whatever did this had to be big. The gate from the doors came off of is ten feet tall, by your estimate.

A quick examination of the grass shows it to be about calf height. It looks like it may have been picked at here or here, but not recently. It's thin, sparse, and really rather damp. You could stuff your clothes with it if you wanted, but you'd still be cold until it dried out. You might still be cold then, too.

The patch of grass you're in and the road through the gate is covered in Light Fog. The immediate surroundings beyond that are covered in Heavy Fog and distance continues to be Obscured in Darkness. The Drow feels cold.

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 Post Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2020 8:20 pm 
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The Dwarf is stubborn. He sits and tries to remember who he is for at least an hour. Once that fails, he concludes he's been the victim of some evil sorcery. He looks around for a stick or a rock, something that could be used as a weapon. Then he heads upstairs.

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:08 am 
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This place isn't familiar.

Where am I? Why - wait, who am I?

Memory loss. Nothing in my pockets. These two together... don't lead to a pleasant conclusion. There are two major possibilities here, and this doesn't look like a hospital. I need to figure out where I am, and find a jacket.

The Human heads downstairs. Slowly, stealthily, cautiously.

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 1:48 pm 
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For some reason the idea of leaving a potential resource sitting unused bothers the drow. He draws his bastard sword and cuts a medium sized armload of grass, shakes off the worst of the water and binds it into a bundle. Then he heads in through the gate; all this open space doesn't seem to be all that good for his morale.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 4:53 am 
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Location: Praise be to the sticky elastic bands of the Healing Gauze
The Dwarf looks around the basement for a bit, trying to find something that might make a suitable weapon. There's a fair bit of rubble and debris. The occasional barrel. Bits of wood and stone. The wood is old and crumbly. The pieces that might have been a decent size to swing around are too rotted with time to amount to much of a weapon. The Dwarf does, however, find a nice stone. About the size of his fist. Good heft. Fits nicely in his hand. Swing it around easily. It's really a rather nice stone.

Weapon in hand, the Dwarf heads upstairs.

He finds himself in some kind of large and decrepit stone building, off to the side in an out-of-the-way alcove. Seems like it might be some kind of temple? A raised platform at the head of the building has the remains of a statue, crumbled to various large pieces instead of in one magnificent whole. The Dwarf can make out various shapes in he pieces of the former statues. A wing here. A hand there. Long flowing hair. Perhaps some kind of angelic or deific being? In front of the statue there sits a stone lectern, flanked on both sides by bronze braziers. The lectern is worn and the braziers are tarnished with age. An aisle leads down from the dais to a large door on the opposite side of the building. Both sides of the aisle are littered with the debris from many wooden pews that have long since been destroyed by time, collapsing sections of roof, and apparently the odd vandal.

No hostiles stick out. No obvious signs of evil sorcery, except maybe for that ever present fog.

Light Haze creeps into the building through the door, windows, and various holes in the walls and roof. The Dwarf feels a little chilly.

The Human heads towards the stairs, leaving the room behind. Slowly, cautiously, the Human makes his way down the stone steps.

Stealth: 3, Roll: +0, Total: +3.

He's not quite as stealthy as he might like, at least at first. There's not much light and the stone is old and worn. Some of the steps have cracks that could potentially jostle loose fragments and others are covered in debris that his feet could kick about. As the Human descends the tower, though, their steps are light. Their footing is sure. Despite the treachery of the steps, he is able to move down them with relatively little sound.

The Human exits out the base of the tower into the city, the gate just to his left. He can feel the chill of the fog from as it pours through the gate into the city. The doors of the gate stand wide open and the portcullis looms ominously above.

The fog is thick in the city, but suspiciously thinner along the main road you can see. The buildings and smaller paths leading off the road can only vaguely be made out, though some patches are thicker and thinner than others. Some patches are completely Obscuring, others are merely Heavy enough to make the contents difficult to discern. Now that you're on the ground, it's difficult to make shapes out in the distance, but you can still just barely see that town square towards the city center. The fog outside the gate is too dark to pierce with sight.

The streets are covered in Light Fog. The sections of city you can see are Shrouded in Mist. The world outside the city is Obscured Completely. The Human feels cold.

The Drow makes quick work of the grass with his blade. Tying it into a bundle is somewhat difficult given how thin and frail the stuff is, but he manages it after a few false starts getting used to the materials.

Taking the bundle in hand, the Drow heads through the shattered gate into the city proper and is met with a field corpses. Whatever tore through the gate may have been the prelude to an ancient battle of some sort. A large open space that looks like it may have been a market plaza is littered with the skeletal remains of humanoid figures long since passed. Formations here and there mark where various military engagements must have taken places and knots of soldiers had fallen together in arms. Stalls of various shapes and sizes, most rotted and falling apart after years of exposure to the elements and the immediate aftermath of battle, dot the area.

The scene is eerily still and quiet. A place like this should be filled with life. Bustling with activity. Citizens going about their days and nights as the city lives and breathes, their movements and patterns the gentle inhale and exhale of a center of civilization. Instead it sits, cold and lifeless.

Across the plaza from where the Drow stands now the streets continue on into the city. The vague outline of a castle can be seen off in the distance. It towers above the dense patch of fog to the left of the road. You have to crane your neck back to look, but your pretty sure the castle extends farther into the sky than you can see (though that's not saying much, everything beyond a certain distance is Obscured by the fog). There's no immediately visible straight path to the castle, but if you followed the road you may end up in front of it.

The streets are covered in Light Fog. The Market Plaza is covered in Light Fog, though to your right after a good distance it gets abruptly cut off by fog so dense it Obscures your vision. Large sections of the city around you, in fact, are covered in fog so thick it's Obscured. You can sometimes make out the occasional building that is only Heavily covered in fog, a vague shape in the soupy mass clouding your vision.

Your eyes have an abnormally hard time picking out shapes in the fog, even as sharp as they are. You think you've made out a shape but then the fog surges forward only to recede and reveal a new shape or line that hadn't stood out to you before. Then the fog covers it up again and it's gone.

This section of the city is largely Shrouded in Mist. Fog continues to pour into the city from the gate. The Drow feels cold.


Last edited by Kajin on Thu Feb 27, 2020 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:42 am 
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Okay, that was a surprise. I honestly did not expect the way out to be unlocked.

The Human takes a moment to listen carefully. This silence is... unnatural. He tries to see if he can pick up on any signs of life.

Music playing. Cars driving. Electric lights. Cellphone ringtones. Anything but this all-pervading silence.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 12:26 pm 
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The Drow goes poking through the marketplace to see if anything interesting or useful happened to have been left behind. Preferably something like wax that wouldn't rot, but he's not in a position to be too picky. He keeps an eye out for anything that moves or makes noise as he goes. For some reason limited lines of sight and low ceilings don't bother him as much as they might.

He's also curious about the battle, if he sees anything odd (like evidence only one side did all the dying) he's going to examine it further.

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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 12:42 am 
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Hmm, an old church. I should probably look for water or some grub.

The Dwarf stands stone still to see if flowing water can be heard.

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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 6:14 pm 
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The Human takes a moment to stop and listen for any sounds that might be apparent in the world, but only silence greets them. A gentle breeze stirs by, but it makes almost no noise. Rather odd, that. A city of this size would definitely have something for this breeze to stir. Cause trees to creak, grass to whisper. Whistle through and around buildings.

But all he can hear is the sound of the breeze passing by the objects he can see before himself. Everything Obscured by fog is silent to an almost deafening degree.

Moments pass and nothing stands out. The Human and his immediate vicinity remain largely unchanged, though fog continues to pour in through the open gate.

The Dwarf stands stone still, listening for water. He hears nothing but the sigh of a gentle breeze as fog pours into the church from outside. The walls and ceilings are damp with moisture from the fog, but they don't coat it in a thick enough layer to drip down in substantial amounts. Nothing stands out in this, the main area of the church. Nothing seems to be stored here but places to sit and speak.

The Dwarf and his situation remain unchanged.

The Drow does his poking about the market square.

Investigation: ?, Roll +2, Total: +2.

The market square looks like it might have had a fair bit of variety, and was hit during business hours. The stalls (or at least, the remains of the stalls) are all at least partially occupied by the contents they must have had when the day started and very little in the way of looting seems to have taken place. Finding anything useful, however, seems to be something of a trial. Whatever happened looks to have been a long time ago, on the order of years. Various stalls that look like they may have sold fresh food are covered in stains and detritus. Bones leftover from long since rotted meat on one stall. Husks and seeds from vegetables and fruits on another. Solid, rock hard masses that may have been preserved foods but have been sitting untouched for a long time.

Down the aisles. Old, threadbare linens. Tattered leathers. Rusty tools. As the Drow is walking along, though, he manages to spot a relatively undamaged oil lamp hanging from a hook on one of the stalls. It's rusty and worn, but a cursory inspection shows it could maybe still be functional... a quick look inside the cap and it seems to have a small amount of oil left. Whether it will light, you have no clue. First you have to find a way to light it.

After perusing he market square, the Drow goes to examine the battle itself more carefully. Individuals lay about that may have been civilians, judging by their plain manner of dress and lack of weaponry. Large numbers are scattered about the market square, sometimes in small clusters. Merchants trying to eek out a living. Shoppers that might have been browsing the wares. Families just going about their day. Knots of soldiers lay here and there, all of whom having clearly fallen in battle. The initial group near the gate is the most well armed and armored. The rest are all in varying states of arms. Most of them look like they just threw on a helmet along with whatever else they could and waded into the fight, though they're all similarly equipped in manner of arms. Swords and shields, pikes, and crossbows. The weapons and armor look like they're mostly either broken in combat or fell to the elements. Nothing you immediately see is of use.

Amongst the bodies you occasionally find these... things. Humanoid in shape, much like the other bodies, but they're larger. More twisted. The bones look sturdier and are coated in a thick, oily film. Their hands are tipped in wicked looking claws. There aren't nearly as many of these bodies as the others. As you approach the largest of these creatures (a specimen easily approaching nine feet tall), something catches your eye. This creature is laying atop one of the guards, having apparently collapsed upon him in death. Clutched in the hand of the guard is a dueling pistol. Flintlock. Very fancy looking, with intricate carvings and fine craftsmanship. It seems to have weathered the years better than the other arms surrounding you.

The Drow and the vicinity around him remain unchanged. Fog continues to pour in through the shattered gate.

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