floatingplot | [Team Dragons, Part 2]

[Sliding down to try and remove more debris from the screen and see if he can't get it going!]

Finding out what happened may be our only way out.

[The screen flickers to life.]

Captain's Log
4/11/1405

Our station the Hopefin had finally departed the airlock. We had risen up towards the surface. We believed we would see the sky again. But just as we passed high enough to have real hope... explosions rocked our vessel. A recorded message said to be from sympathizers of the Servants declared what they had done. Our God was wrong, and we could not be allowed to return to the surface to cause more war. We would all perish together.

We impacted the dome around the city, and to my unimaginable horror, broke through. As we fell, I had hoped the station would plug the hole it created, but it was not to be. Fortunately, what sages remained were able to patch the hole, but doing so cost them dearly. This dome is now... our very last.

Everyone underneath perished. Some from the water, others from the crash of the ship itself. Even on the ship... I have always had a hardy constitution, and I believe it saved me this time. No one else was so lucky. I have been in the hospital since that crash, though I return now to the site of it to see the ruins of our final hope once more. There is no more material, no more energy, no more manpower. We will indeed perish down here, drowning in our own despair-

Error, low power. Error, low power. Please insert [static]-

Welcome to [static] space station tourist board, where would you like to go?

[The power is almost out.]

[ Reads, tilting her head. ]

Where is there to go?

...The Hopefin, maybe.

[Poking at the board.] Or the project to get to the surface at all.

[The board replays:]

I have been in the hospital since that crash, though I return now to the site of it to see the ruins of our final hope once more. There is no more material, no more energy, no more manpower. We will indeed perish down here, drowning in our own despair-

Error, Hopefin cannot be found. Error, Marine Vessel program discontinued in [static]...

[That final bar of power is flickering.]

[ what does flickering bar mean :|a??? ]

...The hospital?

...What about the crash site? Or maybe the launch site, since they're probably close to each other...[Thinking!]

Since I don't know how, um, comfortable you'd be in the hospital.

[The screen pulls up a map.

The launch site is marked X, and you are on it. This wreckage of a building is all that remains.

Notably the map that comes up shows you that in the centre of the city is a large temple, and that temple?

Is marked with a gate symbol.]

--Oh, perhaps there... I think I recognize that symbol.

It's worth looking at, it certainly seems important.

[WELP climbing back on.]

[ OFF WE GO TOWARDS THE CITY CENTER ]

[In the centre of the city...

It was a glorious thing, you can see white marble through the soot, broken statues littering the ground that once rivalled the Michael. Far larger than any of the temples on Atuin, this is the temple to the god itself.

And it is patterned in waves.

There's heavy double doors on ground level, enough to admit even a dragon.]

[...Sweet unholy faerie tits.]

I think this is the place we need to be.

[ Circles around it a few times, before landing in front of the doors. ]

Is it a church?

It's a place of worship. I think it's closer to a temple than a church. It's...probably to the Ocean God.

What ocean god?

[ Gonna shove the door open with her head anyway. ]

[This level of temple is covered in cracking tile murals, no doubt once beautiful and colorful. They show a simple story:

The God appears on a world of raging water, alone.

He builds an island, and He crafts people to live on it, people in His image with all the traits of Humans, Long, Bast and Angha.

They shine like a beacon, so brightly that things begin to reach towards the world. Black things that eclipse the moon and sun, things reaching with twisted limbs and baring fractal teeth.

So He reaches into the crystal heart of the world and breaks away four crystals.

In His hands, they become four people, each a pale mirror to His own brilliance, for they only have one trait each of the species.

The blue-robed one, holding a sparkling rainbow fire, him merely the human body.

The red-robed one, casting dice with a smile, she who possesses only the glorious wings of the Angha.

The green-robed one, grasping a halberd, with the strength of the Long.

The yellow-robed one, wielding a sword, with the ears and eyes of the Bast.

Those four kneel at the four corners of the world and keep away the dark things while He stands king over all.

It ends there.

There is an altar at the back of this room, a heavy wooden thing, with a priest slumped over it clutching a scroll.

In the far corner there is an door opened to the first steps of a spiral staircase leading upwards.]

Edited 2012-06-14 06:14 (UTC)

...The ocean god who is supposedly evil, in this place.

[He slides down to take a look at the scroll, unless that staircase is somehow big enough for a dragon.]

[ She inspects the murals closely, very intrigued by art where the videos had failed to really capture her attention. ]

So the ocean god created the other gods, but he is evil? Why would that be? My captain, my Jacob, he says that his God is neither good nor evil so why would any others be the same?

[ Wanders back over to him, inspecting the priest-- she doesn't know how to read, anyway. ]

It is a shame it is so faded. I would like to see it restored.

[It isn't, which will be presenting a rather interesting challenge.

The priest is robed, not monstrous, untouched by the contamination of magic madness somehow. The scroll unrolls into a map of the ancient world.

It shows five cities.

East Blue, the city drenched in magic on the surface, attributed- To Isate, wait, what?
Atuin, the floating city of Cang Long.

These two, at least, aren’t changed:

Sakmet, the city of Metoth.
Saena, the city of Angha.

Those four each have a red cross somewhere on them, an X marks the spot in places you might know as untamed wilderness where nothing is. Totally. Of course the tourist and other modern maps of the cities are entirely accurate, trust your gods.

And the fifth, the capital in the center of all four:

Righad, the capital city.

There’s an extra new addition to the map, a messy scrawl of ‘Dome Righad’ on a piece of blank ocean.

But the map doesn’t end merely with the world. It shows a blank stretch of stars, and there’s an X up there, too...]

...[Nnnot good.] We need to find the way out, double time.

[He glances over at the stairs--are they even big enough for a dragon? And then looks for other ways up or somewhere further into the temple.]

[ ...maps! I can read maps! ]

Oh, oh, keep this, I would very much like to find those X's when we get home. Perhaps there is treasure, and then I will be able to buy something nice for Jacob if I can go home.

Perhaps I can fit up the stairs. [ ...and i will... try ]

[Luckily with the decay of the temple, forcing yourself inside isn't impossi-

yes you did just get stuck mid staircase.]

...A....Aleda. [Oh my god.] Aleda, can you back out?

[ ...sob what is my life...

she. she does try to! Gently, so as not to being down the whole staircase, sucking in her gut. ]

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