Merry The Drunkening To Everyone

Sorry about no updates for a while, but with Christmas and New Years and work keeping me busy for a while things are a bit annoying.

I think I'll put the game on hiatus until after I come back from traveling, which will be around 18 January. I don't think I'll have either the time or the internet access to provide updates anyway.

So, well wishes for the New Year and hope you guys don't forget to come back.

On a related note, I'm going to be ending the game during the first half of 2010; work is going to be eating up a lot more time than before, so I'm going to have to cut down on side projects like this. However, I don't want to just drop this without finishing it, so I'll get you to Vladimir for a rather... interesting battle which I've had planned for some time.

How long the game lasts will depend on how often we do "live" IM RP sessions (the more we do, the faster we get through the material). Ideally the final battle with Vladimir will be done in one of these.

Late Evening, Day Three - Part 3

As the party stand debating what to do, the armed warrior woman looks over at the party, and shouts towards you, "Hey! You out there! Help me deal to these rampaging beasts and I'll assist you in your endeavours! I need two of you to fight alongside me!"

[There won't be an update later this week, obviously, as its Christmas, and I'll be away for a week. However, for those interested, here is the partial summary of events. Anyway, I hope you all have a good holiday, and I'll update you next week.]

Late Evening, Day Three - Part 2

The party heads around the corner, at first continuing to the right, then turning south following the sounds of combat. They stop outside a doorway, just as an almighty collection of cheers, growls, howls and other more monstrous sounds erupts through the open arch with the force of a strong breeze.

Inside the chamber, you see a ring of staggered seating ringing the outside, where a vast number of humans, animals, monsters, and all sorts of in-betweens have assembled, cheering (as best they can) to the two combatants in center of what appears to be some kind of combat arena: the floor, covered with sand, is splattered with blood, severed digits, rotting limbs and even scorched skeletons. The edge of the seating is surrounded by some kind of shimmering magical barrier.

The most recent combatants are still in the center of the ring; a large minotaur, and a pair of centaurs lie dead in the middle of the floor, slowly being dragged away - rather uncoordinatedly - by a team of wererats who seem to spend more time squabbling and hitting each other than on their actual duties. Two werewolves lie on the ground; one dead, and one clearly wishing he was. The sole "survivor" of the battle appears to be a tall, strong, muscular woman in leather armor that does a lot to hide her femininity. Still wielding a very big sword, she glances around before stabbing the wailing werewolf in the neck. He dies not long afterwards. She appears to be very tired, but is determined and continues to hold on to her sword.

Around the arms of the woman and the creatures, you see colored bands. Around the woman and the werewolves are red bands; the minotaur and centaurs have blue bands, while the wererats have rather stained white bands.

The "boss" wererat starts slapping and knocking together the heads of the wererats dragging the bodies over to the far left corner of the room (the north-eastern corner) where there is a hollow cavity in the staircase. The wererats finally get back to work, and begin stripping the monsters bodies and pushing them into the cavity, where you begin to hear some rather alarming sounds. One of the wererats pushes another inside the cavity as they argue over who gets to keep something taken off of one of the werewolves. It disappears into the darkness with a cut-off scream and a loud "crunch".

The call goes forth from an amusingly pompous fat wererat who shrieks a few barely discernible words into a black orb he holds in his hand. From a black box hanging from the roof in the center of the room, a slightly more intelligible voice cries, "Next challengers, enter the ring!" You watch as the force field begins to flicker.

Late Evening, Day Three

[Leremy casts Probe at a cost of 12 MP]

Leremy learns the following information about the room, its inhabitants and its contents:

• The mirrors appear to be a special type of superluminary mirrors; that is, they are mirrors specially treated with a magical potion that increases, rather than decreases, the luminosity of light reflecting off of it. The mirrors also seem to be removable; after all, if one breaks it would be much easier for any nefarious evil villain to send a lackey to stick in a replacement than go down himself to fix things.
• The candle, which is hanging in a small glass-framed lantern in the middle of the room, appears to be non-magical. It is about half the size of a standard candle. The lantern itself, however, does appear to be magical, or at least the glass is: it appears to be the type to filter out certain magical objects, so that there may be something else inside the lantern other than just the candle that cannot be observed either through regular sight or with more magical "visions".
• The walls and ceiling of the room appear to be normal; the floor however is pressure-sensitive.
• The young boy reading the book looks to be about ten. He had blond hair which is beginning to show signs of darkening, is dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. He does give of the noticeable magical markings of being a werewolf, and the book he is reading, "The Lycanthropic Omnibus" reaffirms this. He has a determined, if somewhat sad, look on his face. The book is not inherently magical, although obviously would be of interest to magical users.
  
• The middle-aged woman tending to the roses is oddly dressed in a light blue ballgown, which has become dirty and torn from tending to the thorny plants. Her shoes appear to be made out of some kind of golden material. The roses she is tending to are definitely magical, but there are a lot of them, each appearing to have a different magical property which changes every second: their scents seem to have either a restorative or punitive effect on the body, the petals and leaves would be useful magical ingredients, while getting pricked by one of the thorns would appear to have some kind of random transformative effect.
• The old man appears to be a little tipsy, though otherwise he seems to be just as he appears. The rocking chair appears normal, although the contents of his silver-lined flask appear to be some kind of fairy-mead-laced beer, so would also have some kind of magical effect if drunk.
  

As Reginald examines the doorway, he notices that there appears to be a gap in the wall. Examining it with his fingers and eyes, he sees that there is a sliding door, though how it operates he cannot tell from any sensory examinations he can make at the moment.

[I'm inferring that you guys want to move along the corridor rather than go into the room. So...]

The party heads along down the corridor for a short walk before coming to another intersection, branching east (the way they had just come down), south and west. To the south-west they can hear the muffled sounds of fighting: screams of pain, the clash of weapons and bodies, the snarls, growls, and cries of attack, and the thunk of heavy bodies hitting the ground.

[I'll be working on the "catch-up" document for those who are a bit lost, which will be of all the actions since the introduction of Reginald and Ferron to the previous update, including the IM RP session.]

Evening, Day Three - Part 3

Continuing to their right down the corridor presented, the party soon stumble across a doorway to their right [the west]. Through the doorway, shining through candlelight reflected through carefully positioned mirrors mounted on the walls, light trickles out in an almost celestial image.

Inside, wandering around, you see three people doing various, disparate things: a young boy with holding a large book, slowly reading through the outsized pages; a wiry, attractive middle-aged woman who tends to a large planter filled with red roses; and a wrinkly old man slowly creaking in a rocking chair, drinking out of a small metal flask.

To the south, the corridor continues on, though from the rather bright light emerging from the room the party can barely see the end of the corridor not too far from where they are standing; there appears to be a right turn in the corridor ahead.

Evening, Day Three - Part 2

[Sorry about the delay, it took me a bit longer than expected to get out from being under the weather. Also, I'll start working on the recent summary for those interested once my current work commitments for this week are over.]

The rather large party head off to the east, following the right-hand wall away from the room with the once-spinning floor plates. Continuing a little past the intersection of hard gray stone as the flickering light of their light source shows that the eastern end of the wall, the party see on the northern side of this corner the ancient curved scripture of the Arcana language.

After a few moments of translating, the party manage to discern that the text seems to say "The fountain is as vivid as gold." A quick search of the area reveals nothing else.

Evening, Day Three

[Re Character Sheets: Kit generally makes actual character sheets, though I can send you a possibly unintelligible spreadsheet page of your character.]

[Also, this will hopefully be the last of the short updates. I'd write more, but at present I'm actually sick and tired.]

The party steps out into the corridor, where they see stone passages branching off to the north, east and west.

Early Evening, Day Three - Part 3

[New map: you're currently standing "on" the entrance to this level.]

[Another quick update for today, as I have to unpack and repack for leaving this evening. For the sake of expediency, I will assume that the person who has the best ranged attack will try to fire the arrow-plus-rope.]

Musashidan fires an arrow from the wooden bow; it sails across the room and... it hits, embedding itself into the wall.

The party then ties the rope taut (say, by grabbing a loose stone from the first floor and weighing it down the hole).

[The Archivist casts Change Miscellaneous Object at a cost of 10 MP]

The rope begins to stiffen and harden, its surface smoothing from plaited cord to smooth hard metal as it becomes a pole; one end attached to an arrow, the other hanging down the hole in the floor.

The two most nimble characters, William and Musashidan, flip a coin... and upon winning, or losing, the coin toss, he climbs along the pole towards the doorway. When his feet touch the other side, the plates halt in mid-motion, as though someone had just switched off the music they had been listening to. If it had been the luggage carousel at the airport, you would now be worried about getting your bags.

Fortunately, it's not and and the party isn't here for national flights; the party can now safely cross the floor.

[Just as some general housekeeping notices:

1. If you wish to have a summary of game events, let me know by next week, so I know how far back I need to go. I'll work on it after that.

2. If anyone's wishing to quit the game, it'd be really handy if you let me know. With the number of people "playing" being as high as it is, doing the calculations and updating things takes a fair amount of time; if I can shrink this down a bit, that'd save time and make things easier for me and better for the other players.

3. I hope people have a good Thanksgiving. I promise not to attack the party with a horde of Haunted Sweet Potatoes... or do I?]

Early Evening, Day Three - Part 2

The party manages to pull everyone and everything up with them.

They discover themselves in the middle of a room, with a large amount of spinning plates on the floor, that rotate and swirl around. The rope hangs down the hole in the center of this room, where there is a small stationary ledge (which is now very crowded with the number of people in the party).

A door lies to the north.

[The room is about 3 x 3 "squares" in width (using the old maps for reference). The plates are spinning around in such a way that anyone wishing to cross over will have to be very quick on their feet, or get spun around and suffer damage. The pattern of movement is in concentric rings leading to the edge, with each floor plate spinning separately in a random pattern.]

Early Evening, Day Three

[Short update today because I only have (maximum) one hour of internet today.]

The party is standing below a rope which has been determined leads up to the upper level of a dungeon.

[Points to note: in case there's any confusion, all the players still have their hands, and nobody can fly.]

Everyone can climb it except for Gauronne, Reginald, and Archie.

TFDC IM RP Session Has Finished!

If you're wondering, it's on now. Come along if and when you can.

My AIM account is automatawriter, IM me and I'll invite you into the RP.

EDIT: ... and we're done again. Here's the transcript for those that missed it: here.

The next one will happen near the end of January or early February.

Live TFDC Session Saturday 14 November

The times are as follows (slightly amended):

CET 9 PM - 5 AM
GMT 8 PM - 4 AM
EST 3 PM - 11 PM
MST 1 PM - 9 PM
PST 12 PM - 8 PM
NZDT 9 AM - 5 PM (NB: Sunday)

Hope to see you there.

Morning+, Day Three

[To make up for the fact that the next week or so is going to have a somewhat bizarre update schedule, this update is going to be extra long; which will give us a nice little set-up for the "live" RP session being held this Saturday (I will be posting the time for this tomorrow after I've done a bit of time zone calculation for your benefit).]

Part 1 - Chapel
The party walks down the corridor, following the map back to the "chapel". The large cold corpse of an ogre lays outside in the alleyway, and the party tiptoe around this to go back into the bare, stone-walled room with the cross-based floorplan and the faux golden candle holders on the walls..

With a few matches, lighters, and casts of Light and Fire Bolt, the party members move from wick to wick, lighting the candles in their auric holders. Each lit candle causes the gold coloring to flicker and glimmer.

William and Musashidan, being the fastest in the party, run back to see if lighting the candles has had any effect on the magically darkened area that lies to the east of their current position. When they arrive there, they discover that, despite the idea being a clever one, it hasn't proven to be effective in the goal to provide light to the darkened area.

Upon reading from his sonilumigraph stone's record of the notes from the others about the events regarding the issue - having been hit unconscious means that his own memories of that time are... sketchy - Gauronne is able to piece together a theory: it seems likely that the original candle flames were some kind of magic illusion, which transformed the ogre-guarded cell into a priest-maintained underground chapel. When he cast Siphon, the illusion-providing light was destroyed, and thus the ogre attacked.

Since the candles seem to have had no effect on the magical darkness, the party continue onwards...

Part 2 - Puzzle Panel
Arriving at the wooden panel with the empty sockets, the party inserts the small silver shield into the cavity relating to the sun. Grag scuttles out of reach, not wanting to be near the silver. The shield slides into place. And then, without warning...

Nothing happens. No satisfying click of correct placement. No chorus of angels. No warm glow surrounding the party members.

Just a silver shield in a cavity in a wall. If a shield could be smug, this one would be: it's sitting in a nice comfortable cavity having a strange assortment of creatures looking at it. If it could talk, it would probably be mocking you: it's a small silver shield, so it probably has a superiority complex; "I mean, those wooden and iron shields are just so... ugh... common... *mumble*gold*mutter*lumen*grumble*shield enhancement drugs*cough*"

Checking back to see if this has illuminated the dark area, the party are somewhat disappointed. It appears that not even DOOM music will illuminate this area!

[NB: the silver shield is still in the wall, so if anyone wants to get it back again, just let me know. Also let me know if anyone wanted to cast "Probe" at the root; it was suggested, but nobody said they'd try it.]

Part 3 - The Magic Wall, or "Button, Button"
You arrive in front of the magic wall with the grating that supposedly functions as some kind of magic door.

First, you try the brute force method, which means exhausting all possible cases of... um... bashing down the door. However, this doesn't prove to effective, despite the particular enthusiasm of Grar.

Trying a more subtle approach, Mephis flies up through the grating, and over to the other side, after one of the party members lobs a light source over.

As the little yellow bird wriggles its way through the bars, it begins to shine and glow, as if it were made of gold. As it drops to the floor, the brightness becomes almost too glaring. And then, with a poofing sound, Mephis - normal, human Mephis - is standing on the other side. After taking a little time to get used to his old body - after all, it has been a while - he presses the button, and the grated wall begins to crack and break away from the rest of the wall, creating a proper doorway. The wall, grating and all, then slides down into the ground, opening up to allow the adventurers a chance to go into whatever lies beyond.

[If anyone wants to cause a temporal anomaly and alter their actions to one of the events, they can do so, just let me know.]

[Also, here's an awesome little treat for us. A big heap of thanks to Blueballs for this; any character inaccuracy is due to me not describing things properly in 1-2 sentences, and if you have a problem with it, I will transform you into Rhett Butler*.]

[From top left: Garg (with Mephis sitting on his head), The Archivist, Sarah, Gauronne, Musashidan, Leremy and Kit. I didn't have a physical description for Ferron, Reginald and James to give him; Blueballs has offered to do them too, so if you could either add to your reply, PM or IM me a quick sentence or two describing the physical description of your character.]

[*Unfortunately people might not get the reference, so here's the appropriate line of dialogue as explanation: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." - Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), Gone With The Wind.]

Update Staggering Notification

No, this doesn't mean that I'm going to be transforming this update into a deer.

I've found out that I'm going to be without internet access for most of the week after next (November 22-29). Therefore, the updates will happen on the following days over the next couple of weeks:

Wednesday 11 November (may be Tuesday, depending on where you are in the world).
Saturday 14 November (IM "live" session)
Wednesday 18 November
Sunday 22 November
Thursday 26 November
Tuesday 1 December and then back to the regular update schedule.

Early Morning, Day Three - Part 2 (Summary)

[NOTICE #2: The "live" RP is being held on Saturday next week, in case you missed that below.]

[NOTICE: Currently, I'm considering holding another IM-based RP next week. It's tentative at the moment, since it'll be on the day before I leave to go away, and I understandably have a lot to do, but it might be the last chance for a while and I want to give the new players an opportunity to experience this (and it might be a good way to get through all this first-floor stuff before moving on up). If I can get an idea about who's going to be available, I can judge to see if it would be worthwhile. As a reminder, it's held on AIM (since the majority of players seem to have already had accounts set-up on this service, though I'm happy to try something else if it's even less of a hassle) on Saturday/Sunday at 4PM to 11PM EDT (which I will convert to your time zones in the next update if asked).]

After the introduction of The Archivist, and Grrag... Grarghr... Rargra... the wererat, the party begins to reassemble its gear into their backpacks in preparation of departure.

[Just to summarize things as they are, as there have been a lot of new players joining and the game has been going on for a while now. Since I can only really guess where people are now, I figure now might be a good time for a summary and status update.]

Character Status

Mephis has been transformed into a canary. Currently, his gear is being "carried" by other members of the party (we're assuming it is William who is carrying it for the moment).
Male 23; CHANGES: 10-10-10-10-10-10-10; HP 20, MP 20, RP 5, XP 960 [1].

Sarah has been transformed into an anthropomorphic ferret. [IIRC, Sarah is also looking to be "cured" of her current condition, at the player's request.]
Female 22; CHANGES: 13-16-0-12-12-10-10; HP 20, MP 16, RP 6, XP 1025 [2].

William is still human, and has been so the entire game.
Male 24; CHANGES: 12-10-0-15-10-10-13; HP 23, MP 10, RP 6, XP 960 [1].

Gauronne is literally sheepish; having been turned by a transforming slime into an anthropomophic ram.
Male 70; CHANGES: 7-20-32-3-2-5-5; HP 10, MP 52, RP 2, XP 1085 [2].

Kit began the game somewhat unusually, having somehow obtained a cat's ears and tail.
Male 19; CHANGES: 10-10-10-10-10-10-10; HP 20, MP 20, RP 5, XP 920 [1].

Leremy, like his acquaintance Mephis, has become transformed - though less drastically - into an avian; he has been altered somewhat into an anthropomorphic sparrow. [Until noblelyon can get back access, I'll try to do the best I can by taking over for him.]
Male 18; CHANGES: 10-5-32-13-5-10-2; HP 12, MP 37, RP 4, XP 910 [1].

James is also human, and has remained so since the beginning of the game.
Male 20; CHANGES: 12-15-4-12-10-9-8; HP 17, MP 19, RP 5, XP 560 [1].

Musashidan has had a rather more... canine time of things; after having been introduced to the party in the form of a futuristic suited husky and cured, he has just recently been cured of the wolf form of lycanthropy.
Male 2 (yeah, I'm going to need this again); CHANGES: 25-8-0-15-0-15-5; HP 30, MP 8, RP 6, XP 635 [1].

Reginald is a reasonably new addition to the party, so is still human.
Male 24; CHANGES: 16-6-4-6-20-12-6; HP 18, MP 10, RP 7, XP 0 [1].

Ferron is another new person so is quite human.
Male 23; CHANGES: 10-15-0-12-1-11-21; HP 20, MP 20, RP 5, XP 0 [1].

The Archivist (Archie) is also quite new, so is still human. His companion, Grrarghgrllfrg (Garg to his... friends?), is less so, being a wererat.
Male 21; CHANGES: 5-15-25-5-10-5-5; HP 10, MP 40, RP 3, XP 0 [1].

Current Map

There are two unexplored areas of the map. The first lies in the darkened area beyond 11, and lying south of the party's current position; the other lies in the large square area surrounded by references 1, 2, 3, 12, 9, and lying north of the party's current position.

The Unexplored, Unexplained or Unnatural

2: Magic "Door"

The party continues to the north. Eighteen metres (48 feet) down the corridor, just before the passage makes a left-hand turn, Gauronne's perusal of the walls spots a small barred opening half a metre (one and a half feet) in height, and about a metre (three feet) across, near the top of the wall.

Furthermore, it is apparent to Leremy and Gauronne, and to a lesser extent the remainder of the party, that there is something particularly magical about this wall, as it is almost shining with magical energy.

The magic of the wall doesn't seem to want to relinquish the secrets of the area beyond very easily; though Gauronne is able to get one small glimmer before the force of the wall repels his efforts: there is some kind of button on the other side of the wall that would seem to open the wall like a door.

5: Arcana "Don't turn on the light!"

Along the way, Gauronne and Leremy notice some Arcana writing. It is rather basic, but the message is rather cryptic: "Don't Turn On The Light!" has been written with a feeling of earnestness.

6: Portal Exit

Journeying along the slightly slimy corridor, they pass by what looks to be a sealed doorway. The Arcana carved into the doorway's stone arch frame denote this as an "exit only" portal gate; an entrance portal - such as a trap, or entrance to a prison, or perhaps an emergency exit - is set up in one or more places and directed, via the runes, to the "address" of this exit portal. Anyone or anything passing through it will immediately appear in this chamber.

10: "The Chapel"

As the party continues down the left hand corridor, you see a thick wooden door frame going into what is set out to be some kind of small underground chapel, with a few walled-off sections that appear to be crypts. Sweeping the doorway with a large, old-fashioned broom is a plump, jovial-faced priest in a brown cloak. He is currently whistling hymns to himself. The chapel glimmers strangely with the candlelight from the wall's gold-looking candlesticks.

...

Meanwhile, the investigation of the "chapel" proves interesting. It seems as though the entire "chapel" was in fact an illusion. Although the walls are as described, none of the furnishings that the party saw earlier are actually there, aside from the candles in the faux golden candlesticks; all of these appear to be out.

11: Darkened Area

The party continues along the corridor, stopping in front of a passage into which light just seems to stop. You can't see anything in there: walls, treasure, monsters, anything. It's as though all light were being absorbed.

This darkness, obviously magical in nature, seems to be the result of runes carved into the stone; it appears as though the only way to illuminate the area is to turn on some kind of light source somewhere inside this section of the dungeon. Any other light sources, magical or otherwise, will be absorbed by the darkness spell, in order to fuel itself.

12: Puzzle Panel

In a small alcove, where a large root has broken through the wall, the party discover a strange panel in the wall. This panel has an elaborate painted image on it [note: the word "elaborate" is used rather loosely in this case]. There appear to be some rather odd pieces missing from the image, and slots carved into the wall behind them to fit different pieces..


[There are six "missing pieces" in the image. There are numerous things which may fit into each spot, though only one correct set. The general type of object that fits into each slot is:
(1) A staff.
(2) A small shield.
(3) A large shield.
(4) A sword.
(5) A sphere or a ball.
(6) A book.

Gauronne learns that the panel appears to function as a safe; likely behind it there is some great treasure or other. The panel is obviously enchanted: there's no possible way that an axe can cut through it, for example; it has also been insulated from all intrusive magical attacks. The chamber behind is lined with a magical "skin" that prevents magicians from probing its contents.

From his own knowledge, he can tell that the items that fit into the slots are not only very particular in their design, but will be of high quality: nobody goes to the effort to store valuables in this manner only to find out that a piece has degraded with time, or accidental or deliberate damage.

[After talking with Blueballs, I realized I might need to explain: unless otherwise stated (by any you when designing equipment, or by me) all small shields are round, and all large shields are kite.]

After Archie has his meal, the party decide it's time to move.

Early Morning, Day Three

[Re: Introductions: Probably not necessary, though I won't stop you from doing so if you want.]

The party settles down to rest, everyone eating and drinking and relaxing.

Before heading in for the night, with some mediation between Gauronne and Leremy, Musashidan is healed of his lycanthropy: his limbs slowly revert back to their usual human shape, the gray fur sucking back into his body, revealing his normal pinkish flesh. Even his tail shrinks back into him; although the rip in his pants where it burst out is still there.

[Note: if any of the players object to this, let me know and it'll be altered faster than Season Nine of Dallas*.]

[For "tonight" I'll assume guard duty goes in alphabetical order: Ferron, Gauronne, James, Kit, Leremy, Musashidan, Reginald, Sarah and William.]

[Also, we have a new player and character joining us today: The Archivist will be played by Blueballs.]

During William's turn, he notices a commotion to the west; from out of the darkness, a wererat approaches. William goes to draw his sword, but before the wererat pounces it seems to slow and stand there in a daze. His eyes glaze over as his hairy shoulders slump, his long pink tail waving back and forth on the ground.

A tall, skinny guy with a scruffy, unkempt, disheveled look and most prominently dressed in an over-sized blue cloak that glitters in the party's light approaches with a very large book, which dwarfs his chest, clutched tightly to him as he dashes forwards to catch up to the wererat. The wererat appears to be obeying his commands for the moment, very slightly mimicking the young man's actions.

[The Male Wererat is currently being Commanded by The Archivist.]

[*If this is too obscure a pop culture reference for you, go to the Wikipedia page for Dallas (TV show), and search for "dream".]

Late Evening, Day Two

Coming together into one big party after some , our adventurers begin to converge towards the tiny unexplored portion near the area that has been magically darkened. If any of them had hoped to find something of more interest than a continuation of the wall, they were sadly mistaken.

Musashidan's condition continues to deteriorate: his feet begin to slide around in their boots, the ankles thinning and sliding out while the balls of his feet expand out, puffing and forming leathery padding underneath. Dark claws, similar to the ones he has on his fingers, now sprout from his misshapen toes. His legs continue to reshape, the transformation edging up his legs, which reshape to allow him to run quickly on them with either a bipedal or quadrupedal stance. The muscles in his legs continue to swell and grow, becoming very powerful, reaching a maximum strength unattainable by normal humans.

[Musashidan's Humanity has dropped by 1 to 4; while his Nimbleness and Strength have increased by 1 to 16 and 7 respectively.]

On top of that, the party is beginning to feel the strain of their adventuring: fatigue, hunger and thirst are beginning to build up in the party members.

[Sorry if you were expecting an update yesterday; I should have mentioned I was going to delay it in order to give people more time to respond.]

Evening, Day Two - Part 3

																V	Dungeon Exit
			5		#											1	Intersection
														2		2	Magic “Door”
																3	Intersection
6																[4]	Intersection
																5	Don't turn on the light!
																6	Portal Exit
				@	$	3										7	Door (Unlocked)
																8	Intersection
																9	Intersection
7				13		12										10	Ogre “Chapel”
8							9							1		11	Darkened Area
									11							12	Puzzle Panel
				10												13	Intersection
																	Unlit Regions
							V									@	Current Locations
																#$

[Fyger: at the moment, only larger bits of silver are affecting Musashidan. That will change as time passes...]

[Sorry again about the delayed update. There won't be a "live" RP this week; as I simply don't have any time to spare at the moment. And I'm going to test out this new method for posting maps... it doesn't seem to allow me to change the widths of the cells without editing code, which is slightly. On the other hand, it's not nearly as blurry. Anyway, tell me which style you people prefer.]

[James is at $; Kit, Sarah, Reginald and Ferron are at #; everyone else is at @.]

Kit catches up to Sarah, and meets and greets Reginald and Ferron. James wanders into the corridor.

Musashidan's transformations continue; his fingernails begin to lengthen, darkening, and sharpening; his hands twist and reshape into a coarse blend of front wolf paws and human hands. His arms stretch out, strong biceps and triceps forming. Fortunately, his forearms don't quite resemble Popeye's; that would just be stupid.

[From the tail transformation, Musashidan has temporarily lost 1 Humanity (to 6) but has gained 1 Coordination (now at 26); the arm transformations cause a loss of 1 Humanity (now at 5) but a gain of 1 Strength (now at 6)].

[This was a quick update, due to time constraints. I'll be moving the new party en masse to that gap between 9 and 1, which seemed to be the general consensus and the next logical step, unless I missed something. I've also been getting contingencies set up for when I go away on the off-chance I can't post and have to rely on others by writing likely scenarios.]

Evening, Day Two - Part 2

[Yes, sorry, I messed up Sarah's description; I should have mentioned the ferrety alterations she has undergone. So thanks to Xandre for catching that. Also the people in the Main Party Minus Sarah got 40 XP instead of 20. I didn't realize the typo until I was writing this update.]

Kit goes east, then turns north, catching up with Sarah, and two strangers - Reginald and Ferron - at the corner. For their part, the two men see another young man, with cat ears and a tail, approaching from the south. After the strangers have introduced themselves to Sarah, Sarah relaxes a bit; even more so when Kit appears.

Meanwhile, James picks up the long wooden pole that the wererat was using. Afterwards, consulting his map, he sees a small unexplored patch in the central-eastern section of the map, which may lead into the larger north-eastern quarter that is largely unexplored. The darkened area is also yet to be explored.

[James acquires a Long Wooden Pole]

William stands away from Musashidan, who begins to feel better the further William stands from him. Meanwhile, Musashidan's changes continue, as the back of his pants begins to press outwards, before a two-foot-long gray, furry lupine tail bursts out, tearing a medium-sized tear across the top of his pants in the process.

[Advanced Warning: Over the months of November-January inclusive, I will be away a lot (mostly for conferences, a month to a month-and-a-half total "away time"); often in places where my internet and/or free time will be severely limited. I'm going to try to keep the update schedule going as per usual, though I may ask someone to take over for me occasionally, or not do an update. That also rules out having another IM roleplay for quite some time, so I'm going to try to see if Saturday/Sunday - the same time and day of the week as the previous one - next week may be a possibility.]

No Update Until Friday.

Due to attending a conference, I will not be able to do this update in sufficient time before the one on Friday, so I'm canceling it. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Evening, Day Two

Main Party (- Sarah)

As Sarah heads off, the remainder of the party quickly decide to scout out the rest of the area, before heading on to follow her, figuring she's probably smart enough to run away from any monsters she encounters if she can't handle them herself.

Whilst walking along the winding corridor, the party spots a spark of something glittering up ahead. On the ground, a silver sword has been knocked off the wall. Two dirty, hairy wererats, one with a long wooden pole, were poking at it, trying to push it along the corridor; when they see the party, they attack.

After defeating the wererats, the party continues along to explore what is left of the windy passageway, coming out the other side to discover they are once again at a familiar intersection. The silver sword is theirs for the taking. Musashidan starts to notice that, in the presence of that this sword and while standing near William or Mephis' backpack, he starts to feel sick and unpleasant.

Dirty-gray fur begins to flow and ripple out of him, splotches of pink skin disappearing as fur rolls over him like water; starting at the top of his head - his own human hair graying and changing - and cascading down his face, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, legs and only stopping once his feet are also furry. The fur naturally is incredibly itchy, and makes Musashidan feel somewhat hot inside his clothing; though after some moments the heat of transformation cools down, as the skin underneath thickens a little.

[Musashidan has temporarily lost 1 Humanity (now at 7) but has gained 1 Endurance (now at 16) due to this transformation.]

[Numbers]
20 XP earned per main party - Sarah member.

New Party (+ Sarah)

As Sarah travels along the corridor, to make her way back to see what lies in the unexplored region between 9 and 1, she comes across two strange men.

Ferron and Reginald, in their part, pass through the door. They spot a strange closed portal in the door (at 6), but after some time of not getting through it, they continue on their way. Eventually, they stumble across a girl with glasses and long dark brown hair, currently alone and with a map clutched in her hand.

[I assumed these are the directions you wanted to go, I wasn't sure on some of them so I had to guess a little. Plus I thought this would (a) help to break up the party a little, (b) bring the two parties together, and (c) means that Sarah avoids having to battle with any of the other wererats.]

Late Afternoon, Day Two - Part 2

Main Party

[Kit and Gauronne cast Probe at a cost (for each) of 1 MP]

Kit and Gauronne learn that there is no danger in taking the shield; it is being held on the wall by a giant metal nail used for such purposes. The shield itself is well-formed and apparently well-maintained, but other than that appears to be just a normal shield.

Because they both determine that it is safe, Kit decides to take the shield.

[Kit acquires a Polished Silver Shield]

New Party

Reginald and Ferron move along the western branch until they hit the wall again; along the way they come across the body of a large dead ogre with a giant wooden club still gripped in his loosely clenched fist.

[I just realized that you might have wanted to stop at the "chapel" and had a look around; if you do, that's fine; I can take you back there.]

[As for warnings for traps and the like: if you spot it, you don't trip it and get given a warning. The amount of warning depends on the nature of the trap and your characters' attributes in particular areas.]

[Cubist: Yeah, I do agree on the puzzle thing, but I just wanted to check things out with you guys first. Though just be aware, I can come up with some very complex puzzles, so I hope you guys like a challenge!]

Late Afternoon, Day Two

Main Party
[Gauronne casts Probe at a cost of 5MP]

Gauronne learns that the panel appears to function as a safe; likely behind it there is some great treasure or other. The panel is obviously enchanted: there's no possible way that an axe can cut through it, for example; it has also been insulated from all intrusive magical attacks. The chamber behind is lined with a magical "skin" that prevents magicians from probing its contents.

From his own knowledge, he can tell that the items that fit into the slots are not only very particular in their design, but will be of high quality: nobody goes to the effort to store valuables in this manner only to find out that a piece has degraded with time, or accidental or deliberate damage.

Catching up to the rest of the party after their random walking, they discover a small silver shield (combat level 7) mounted on the wall. It is highly polished, despite having been trapped in a dungeon for goodness knows how long, and is of a high quality.

It strikes several party members that it is odd that lycanthropes would be converging around something of silver, but it does seem as though the shield has not been tampered with in some time.

New Party
Meanwhile the other two adventurers head down a short corridor; after which they are confronted with a T-junction, with paths running east, west, and south (along which they had just walked). Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) they did not encounter any wild beasties that could have done them damage.

[LED as micro-light source: Yes, that's fine.]

[Aside: The map for the next level is set; I'm just adding in some interesting places to visit. I'm just wondering what preference people had towards that - are battles more interesting, or are puzzles, or what. I'm going to put anything I can think of in, I'm just curious as to what might be people's preferences in the matter so I can work out percentages of "challenges".]

[Aside 2: I do realize combat encounters have been a little bit too easy - with one possible exception - but when I organized this map I wasn't really expecting there to be as many players as there are now. I'll try to fix it for the rest of this map, although obviously I don't want to give too much away at this stage. And it's definitely in mind when I work on the next level and beyond...]

Afternoon, Day Two - Part 3

Main Party
With some party members deciding that delaying any more is unnecessary, they head along to the corner below 4. Soon enough, William's caution proves correct, as a wererat leaps out of the darkness of the western corridor.

This is a rather suicidal move, and the party makes short work of him... well, her in this case.

[Numbers]
Because there are so many people in the party now with access to lycanthrope-killing equipment, a solitary wererat isn't going to cause them much trouble; therefore, I'll just report XP gained and say "Your winnar! XDXDXD." I'll also do this in future if the battles are 1 round.

20 XP earned per main party member.

New Party
The new pair of adventurers return to the dungeon; now they must decide on a direction to take. It's not as though the centaurs are going to make great company, particularly now...

[So, it's probably time that the new party start exploring the dungeon. I'll leave the when and where up to all of you.]

[Also, the contact limitations in the previous entry have been dealt with, so I'm available for random on- or off-topic chatting again.]

Afternoon, Day Two - Part 2

[Reminder: Cubist (4) and Xandre (3) - Unassigned Level Points; can spend one Reroll Point to get a better score (maximum of the rolls is the number of points, range is 1 to 7).]

[Also, if you want to contact me, please read this.]

Main Party
Kit's shield-poking of the root doesn't prompt any hazardous outcomes, despite its malevolent tentacle-like appearance.

Sarah inspects the panel, but finds nothing else of interest; either about the purpose of the panel or the exact content or whereabouts of the things which fit into the slots.

William heads off down the other branch, discovering that the other path joins up with the path south of 4. Since the rest of the party seemed reluctant to travel that way before

James creates a rough sketch of the image; his knocking suggests that there may be some kind of cavity behind the panel, although the echoing of the cavity suggests it's not a very big one.

New Party
[Yes, Detect Traps and Danger Sense are passive constant skills.]

Meanwhile Ferron and Reginald introduce themselves to each other.

Afternoon, Day Two

[First, let's welcome two new players from FA: zenfidelity (playing Reginald, who happens to have his own character blog) and Ferronic (playing Ferron). They're not going to be immediately joining up with the main party because I was rather impressed with the blog entry zenfidelity made; so currently they are located at position "v" on the map (the entrance).]

[Second, and somewhat associated with the first, is that we're starting to get to the point where the number of people playing is becoming a little too large for one group; both in the practicality of the game world, and in the real world (particularly when dealing with creating balanced combat scenarios, and gathering people online at the same time for "live" sessions). It might be an idea to split the party into two groups of five, acting in tandem to cover more ground, and converging occasionally to mix and match equipment and party members. On the other hand, this will mean more substantial updates, which means that I may have to change the update schedule to three times a fortnight rather than twice a week. And there are some gameplay disadvantages to this approach as well. That's why I'm leaving it up to you guys.]

[Third, I'm hopefully going to have the C++ code for the combat encounters done tomorrow; this ought to speed up combat a bit. Although it will need a bit of tinkering if you decide to split the party.]

[Fourth, I need to know how Cubist and Xandre intend on spending their Level Points, so I can update your character sheets.]

The party travels down the corridor, hoping to avoid any more combat encounters for the present. In a small alcove, where a large root has broken through the wall, the party discover a strange panel in the wall. This panel has an elaborate painted image on it [note: the word "elaborate" is used rather loosely in this case]. There appear to be some rather odd pieces missing from the image, and slots carved into the wall behind them to fit different pieces..


[There are six "missing pieces" in the image. There are numerous things which may fit into each spot, though only one correct set. The general type of object that fits into each slot is:
(1) A staff.
(2) A small shield.
(3) A large shield.
(4) A sword.
(5) A sphere or a ball.
(6) A book.
Also sorry that my drawing skill sucks.]

Meanwhile, a pair of men enter the dungeons through the entrance, to be greeted by the disturbing sight of two dead centaurs and a mass of evidence that someone - or something - has been here before...

TFDC IM RP Session Has Begun

If you're wondering, it's on now. Come along if and when you can.

My AIM account is automatawriter, IM me and I'll invite you into the RP.

EDIT: It's finished: 7 hours of (hopefully) rather interesting encounters and adventures.

A brief summary of events: After Mephis got turned into a canary, the party learned of a couple of possible methods to cure him of his current condition. They then came across what, at first, seemed like a priest in a chapel, which later turned out to be an illusion over an ogre; the resounding epic battle very nearly cost Gauronne his life. They then discovered an area of magical darkness - light source unknown; and upon trying to discover if there was more to the message DON'T TURN ON THE LIGHT! they had discovered earlier, they had an encounter with a werewolf, before deciding to head down the passage (to the south of #3) after discovering that those coming off of 5 both lead to potential hazards.

This doesn't nearly do justice to the amount of RPing that went on; I'll upload the transcripts to my scraps in FA for those who missed it and anyone else interested in reviewing them.

Here it is.

Will Mephis be restored? Is Sarah's brother in the magical darkness? Will William ever get transformed? Did Gauronne pick up a spirit from being so close to death? How did Kit get amnesia? How far can Leremy push his luck? Where's James' buddy? And did Musashidan catch lycanthropy? And what's the mysterious thing south of 3? What's with all the unanswered questions? Is this Lost or something?

Well, I guess you'll have to wait until Tuesday to find out...