RECORDING 13: THE FIFTH WEEK.

[foundationmods]

A fifth week in this place begins, with less of your number among you. It's practically routine at this point, isn't it?

Routine, also is the feeling when you wake up - it's clear the Miasma has gotten even thicker. Now everyone is at level 4 - barring the two 'lucky' negators among you, you are all suffering the effects, your eyes flashing a deep, dark purple when experiencing negative emotion.

Any magic that touches the house itself will corrode over time, just like last week. If a barrier is put in place and touches the floor, walls, or ceiling, in a few hours it will be completely consumed by the miasma and fizzle out. Spells or seals will also give off miasma, and healing is still reduced to even the most powerful of spells only healing minor injuries.

You will not be able to save a grievously injured person from death through spells anymore.

The Temperature has taken another dip. It's now in the 50's, and nippy to need a layer or two. As before, the rooms have changed, so hopefully you kept anything essential in the static area.

17 of your number still remain.

...What new horrors await you this week?


WARNING: Some investigations of new areas will contain traps that may be harmful or even lethal.
MIASMA LEVEL: 4
Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday
Main Navigation - IC rules + info so far - Dossiers - Locations

Comments

[noneforall]

[He'll find that the monster's magical signature is too corrupted by the miasma to get a read. However, moving through the house to search for it will yield a different sort of clue: the effects of the creature get stronger in certain areas.

(Of course, given the nature of the kanji, it might be a little hard to find your way or to keep track of your things the closer you get to it. What an annoying paradox.)

You might want to check out the east side of the new area.]

[sageking]

[ Fantastic, really. Having a blast, thanks for nothing.

Time to head more towards the east side, then. Time to slowly walk by the rooms in particular. Of the rooms on the east side—between tool shed, office, or the pool—which one would he feel more off around? He'll test this by walking by each of them slowly. ]

[noneforall]

[Please refer to his username! ☆

As Gilgamesh moves through the hallway approaching the office and the pool, he'll find himself somehow at the doorway of the master bedroom. Uh. Try again? Maybe this hallway is just really confusing?]

[sageking]

[ ...

Well, if he attempted to walk back down that hallway, will he find himself back at the doorway of the master bedroom? Also what if he's leaving like a crumpled paper trail behind. ]

[noneforall]

[Gilgamesh has now arrived at the tool shed. His paper trail shows that he came straight here. Hm.

But! He has at least discovered something about that particular stretch of hallway. It may behoove him to narrow down a location in order to focus his search so the MJBK doesn’t keep leading him in merry circles.]

[sageking]

[ Well, first of all, even given the miasma being what it is? He's closer to the source now.

Time to see if he could narrow down a location by trying to get a read on which room in the hallway has the highest amount of magical energy in it. ]

[noneforall]

[It's fuzzy, but it seems like the pool has a greater concentration of magical energy! Oddly, there's magical ping in the office, too. It might feel familiar, and a little ghostly. Maybe there's a sidequest?

For now, though, will you try the door to the pool?]

[sageking]

[ ...He'll remember the sidequest.

Okay, time to head to the door, and he'll ...

...

Kind of just summon some wind strong enough to turn the knob and gently push the door open because he's wary of just grabbing the door with even his gloved hands. He also had his tablet in hand, and if he saw something attack he was ready to go fire some wind or duck to the side. Anyway was anything happening? ]

[noneforall]

[Perhaps surprisingly, the doorknob doesn't explode under his hand nor does the door itself turn into a Mimic and try to bite his head off! He doesn't even get redirected to another door-- Or does he...?

The pool room no longer looks like a pool room at all.

Instead, the heavy smell of chemicals wafts out and hits his nose, close and cloying, because somehow there are walls of water leading inward from the door. They run from floor to ceiling and continue deeper into the room, twisting and turning and transforming the entire area into what appears to be a labyrinth made out of water.

The water ripples gently, not quite calm enough to be transparent, not quite stormy enough not to be reflective -- it's rather like an imperfect house of mirrors.

So. Will you enter the labyrinth?]

[sageking]

[ He'll push the door all the way open so that it's against the wall outside of the pool area. Then he'll summon a big heavy ass tablet thing with Sumerian written all over it and put it up against the door to keep it open. Things not budging with that against it.

...And then he'll radio in Date. ]

I need your assistance. By the pool room.

There's something I need to check before I attempt to go in to destroy this monster.

[ And now he'll wait. ]

[eyeforai]

[Is it exploration timeeeeeee honestly I don't know because I'm horrible at schedules but he's probably not doing anything terribly important anyways. So when he gets the message from Gil, he'll raise an eyebrow and answer.]

Monster? What are you on about?

[But he'll come around anyways because it's honestly something to do. It... probably takes longer than it should because of the effects of Subete's powers but he's there!! Eventually!! And looking around confusedly because why is there is there a giant tablet and why is the pool some fucking maze??]

...Okay, I hope you have a really good explanation for all of this.

[sageking]

[ He did owe Date an explanation, he supposed. ]

Hmph. Subete unleashed a monster in this house that embodied the word lose. Due to the nature of his powers, this will effect the concept around such a word, and not in our favor. As you've noticed, it could mean things such as 'losing sense of direction', which is why you've presumably had difficulty on the way here.

But it will not be just that should it not be taken care of. Think more broadly.

'Losing a pen', 'losing a thought', 'losing your mind', or even 'losing a life'.

I learned this information from Hikage, as he just learnt it from that book Subete had left behind. By using my own methods, I narrowed down my search of the monster to this room, in which it seems to be hiding in a labyrinth. However, I refuse to walk straight in without having someone else also take examination of the room. I'm not in the habit of thoughtless actions that would be the epitome of foolishness.

[ ... ]

I believe I've explained myself just fine for now, don't you?

[eyeforai]

So you want me to inspect things for you.

[...]

Alright, fine. Just give me a second.

[And he'll poke his head slightly inside the room and use his x-ray to scan through the water labyrinth. Can he see the monster that's the source of this? Does the room otherwise look like its normal dimensions? Any obvious traps? etc.]

[noneforall]

[The room seems to be the same size, and there are no obvious traps!

... That might be because all of the pool equipment has also been absorbed into the water labyrinth. There's flotation devices, towels, and other paraphernalia just scattered all over the place inside the walls of water; it's a whole-ass mess depending on how good Date is at separating things out when they're jumbled like this. How good is the hamster at airport security??

All that aside, there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary floating around in the vicinity. The somewhat corrupted pool is calm, and they are free to venture further into the labyrinth--

Except that, if Date looks closely at his own reflection in the water, he'll notice it's smiling. Hm.]

[sageking]

[ Elevator music could go in here somewhere as he waited do be do be doo. ]

...Well?

[eyeforai]

[He's pretty decent especially if he can also walk around the outside of the pool room to get a better angle on some of those floaters and shit, but some of them definitely won't show up as well on x-ray compared to some others, so! Metal objects he will pretty much get for sure though.

Also are we talking :) smiling or >:) smiling here.]

Besides taking all the pool equipment and sending it up in the air with the water, I don't see anything else that's strange about it. If there are traps, he's hidden them. I don't see the monster you're talking about, either.

[noneforall]

[Surely there must be some edgy hold music for the edgy word labyrinth...!

There's less metal except for the pool fittings and the room furnishings (we'll assume there's benches, probably), and much more foam, plastic and cloth just sort of swaying around out there. Some of the objects are clustered here and there, though it's hard to tell if it's intentional or if it's just some weird property of the water itself.

It does seem to increase the deeper into the labyrinth it is, though. Hmm.

And of course, it's a >:) face. Enjoy that!]

[sageking]

It must be hiding...somewhere, in some way.

[ Which was the most frustrating thing about this. He normally dealt with monsters who didn't hide. Seriously, who the hell did that? ]

Are you sure you don't spot anything odd?

[ He'll suddenly send a few small ice cubes towards the deeper part of the labyrinth. ]

[eyeforai]

[Hmmm okay that face ain't good. Let's look somewhere else.]

No, although there's only so much I can see with all this crap floating in the way.

[...]

Have you ever encountered monsters that could hide inside people's reflections?

[noneforall]

[Gil, did you forget the kanji in question? Some things just don't want to be found...!

Speaking of which, though, the labyrinth receives the ice cubes without any particular fuss -- I guess at this point it's kind of like the Date-reflection or the Gil-reflection has ice cubes going up their nose or something, rippling the >:) faces in question! For a second they look more like >:( faces......... Then... well, the ripple seems to expand and light up, spreading through the labyrinth as though something much larger than ice cubes has passed through.

Some of the pool equipment bobs and weaves a little, but overall it makes it even harder to see through the labyrinth with the naked eye. However, if Date isn't too busy contemplating his mirrored existence off-schedule, he'll be able to tell that some clusters deeper in the labyrinth move less than others. What this means is a mystery.

Also, once the ripples stop -- the ice cubes come sailing back out at them. Heads up!]