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.