Eclipsed Moon Quest Episode 128

Eclipsed Moon Quest Episode 128
Sheets and Info: pastebin.com/u/phantomcrossing
Twitter Account: twitter.com/Artemis_QM
Ask.fm Account: ask.fm/Artemis_QM
Archive: suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Eclipsed moon

Quest Start

The night time streets are illuminated along their uncertain curves. Uneven rings and spirals matching the darkened yet polluted washed out stars above. In the distance and above is the black wrought iron lady, of latticed beams and tapering height. Seeing it, wreathed in light from this distance in this enchanted city reminds you readily of when you scaled a spire inspired by her to even greater height though presented in orange and white.

You are not Mikage Chiba. Alas you are but a mask for the girl and her previous need to escape herself. To that end you are most unfortunate to be no longer necessary...however your eventual dissolution into the whole like some of your sister masks has not yet come to pass. Likely because you of course are possessed of some unresolved personal issue, but it is true you are far more obviously together and nuanced than they.

To a titter of your own reserved laughter, you hurry along through the late streets of Paris toward your present goal. Somewhere beneath the city is a well of intersecting ley lines of the very earth’s supernatural power. As one whose soul is ruled and is in turn meant to hold dominion over that power you thought to snatch it up while you were here. You think it bares mentioning within your own mind again that you are in Paris, as you adjust the casual shoulder bag full of baguette you acquired from the closing sale of a bakery.

Perhaps we are ahead of ourselves, no? Who are we actually? Why are we now in Paris? My my those are a great and valuable set of queries to meditate on for just a moment.

You are after a fashion Mikage Chiba. Second year highschool student, former magical girl, and presently a fractured hero trying to protect and support the succeeding generation of guardians of love and justice lead by your younger sister. Your mother and older sister were magical girls before you, protecting the world with power born of the moon.

Some time ago you abandoned being Sailor Moon; the mantle shared by your mother, elder sister, and now your younger sister, after what you thought was your costly and personally traumatic victory over a great evil. Recently you learned the truth of your own victories and losses, and became embroiled in present concerns quietly supporting your younger sister against enemies who share a common connection to the ancient kingdoms of Silver Millennium and Elysion. It is worth noting that this ancient world fall and the destruction of those kingdoms lead to the death of star crossed lovers who would later reincarnate in the present and grow to be your mother and father after their own adventures.

Truly it was a romantic story, and you harp on that a moment as you are now in fact in the great city of love. Oh, to swoon over it...as complicated as the situation of your heart is.

You find yourself in gay Paree for a curious reason of course. While attempting an infiltration of the enemy organization which plagues your fair city of Tokyo, and apparently smaller pockets of infestation abroad, you stealthily followed those with whom you met through an unexpected doorway bridging fathomable but still unlikely distances. All without your notice as well.

While the enemy ventured faster than you could follow by means of an aerial vehicle to the west, you found something else to entice you in the opposite direction. Your current mission, a wellspring of power beneath a part of this foreign to you city.

Though you come to an impass. You could keep traveling toward the city proper and then find some way straight down...or you could simply find a way into the mysterious underground yourself…though perhaps it would not do for a young woman such as yourself in this guise known as Daphne to traipse around in sewers.

Though there remains the matter of scouting out if the doorway to this place moves in two directions. If it does not, you have a contingency for how to get home. Lest you were to give in to your normally inner but presently outer Francophile and remain in Paree for the foreseeable future.

>Look for a manhole cover and traverse the underground
>Find an old church with a nigh underground gated door into the catacombs
>The Seine or its related tributaries or canals in the city, perhaps a storm drain will offer you passage
>Perhaps it is time to summon your contingency of travel, here they can help you even if it’s a bit selfish
>Cast a spell or use a power
>Write in

>The Seine or its related tributaries or canals in the city, perhaps a storm drain will offer you passage

Thirty minutes voting window for initial vote and 15 minutes window for subsequent votes.

Timer starts with first vote cast- and why the hell do you just use a helicopter in suburban Tokyo!?

Sorry, watching Crystal Episode 30 and enjoying the hell out of it. Especially since for some reason Crunchyroll's commercials are all on mute.

>The Seine or its related tributaries or canals in the city, perhaps a storm drain will offer you passage

>>The Seine or its related tributaries or canals in the city, perhaps a storm drain will offer you passage

Okay, writing.

How is everyone today?

Also suptg is acting strange today. Is anyone having any problems with it?

Tired, but fine. Trying to figure out what to watch this season.

Suptg seems fine on my end. I was about to head out for dinner.

Like, stuff that was just recently archived shows up as forbidden.

Just missed the vote. Might have leaned toward the church option.
Will need to consider picking up more travel options in the future. Is there a spell of some sort for traveling through the ground?

Hmmm, sparking with inspiration, you realize that the greate Seine river runs through the city of Paris. More than that, there are a number of tributary streams, canals, and runoff paths for the water in the city. More than a few of them, and in some cases the banks of the river itself, have a few large storm drains.

Thus far in your life you have never been let down by exploring storm drains! Well, they have served their intended purpose and led to terrible experiences, but there is a certain value of those things leading you toward your goals so why not.

It doesn’t take long for you to find such a small canal, though dry at present.

“Tres Magnifique!” you squeal to yourself and hop down into it and walk with a low profile ever toward the direction you sensed the wellspring of earth power within.

Eventually you find such a storm drain and with calculated effort peel back a protective and recently applied safety grating enough for you, your bag of bread, and your carefully held beret to slip inside.

Within you cannot help but shiver, for within is cool and damp.

This is of course little concern to you as you press onward. After a few bends and turns, leaving you slightly turned around, you come to a T intersection with a larger waterway, stepping down out of the storm drain you find yourself on a raised ledge with water flowing sedately through the middle and another ledge along the far side.

>Venture left, against the current
>Venture right, with the current
>Cast a spell or use a power
>Drop or change your guise, to whom?
>Attempt to use insight to navigate this uncertainty
>Give someone a text, call, or online message
>Write in

>Attempt to use insight to navigate this uncertainty

>>Attempt to use insight to navigate this uncertainty

okay give me Insight!

dice+1d20+6 vs DC 17, best of 3. 1s and 20s wild.

Rolled 15 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Rolled 18 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Rolled 9 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Alright, writing.

slight delay

This is Artemis.

Nice work there!

Recently applied grating? Hm.
Oh no. I just realized the one scenario where Daphne would likely lose her head and forget about what she should be doing. The art and history groups that hold secret meetings and showings (illegally) in the Paris underground.

Maybe it’s time for Eclipse.

Wait, I thought I was the one to roll a 9.

Taking a deep breath, you let the sound of running water slowly drown out the city above. Soon after you feel a pattern form in the back of your mind and begin to walk against the current of water. There is a certain feeling of foreboding that vibrates through your bones and settles as your course through additional forks feeding into the flow against your path, against the back of your skull in line with the path you walk.

After a time, you come out in another sewer area with a raised platform, though this one with a chained guardrail, and signage to indicate this location might be part of a tour. More than that, you come to a boarded off passage, and work free a loose panel of wood. Eventually, tracking the unseen idea you follow, you squeeze into a narrow gap between the foundation of two buildings extending into the sewer system...and down.

Though it is dark, and you hear a chortling laugh in the distance before it fades away, you can see clearly. Part of your current power is born of darkness, and you in turn are a child of it, your eyes pierce the veil and in detail reveal this thin pathway widening into unhewn stone and water slicked stairs sinking further below.

-Careful, Princess,- warns Zoisite in an unusually serious tone, his phantom beside you, -I sense there is something amiss down here,-

“Oui,” you whisper, “I have felt it too,”

Eventually, at the base of the stairs, you see carved nonsense writing on the wall...and come to a rough and low ceiling fork in the path...down the path you feel will lead you to what you seek there is but darkness. Down the other path you can distinctly hear voices in conversation.

“What is this?” you whisper to yourself and clutch your bag tightly.

Near the voices, as innocent as they sound, you feel a terrible presence...

>Investigate these voices
>Continue on your path
>Cast a spell or use a power
>Change guise
>Write in

>Change guise
This is where Eclipse comes into play

>>Change guise
Eclipse time

>Change guise
The Endymion regalia.

>Investigate these voices

>Write in
Keep the bread safe!

writing

Voices, that means witnesses. Oh no! Someone might see you in the depths of Paris!?

This cannot stand, at least it cannot stand while you are still so how you say, exposed. Subsuming yourself and your guise beneath dessert folds of dark cotton, you cease being Daphne. Hiding the bag within the amorphous folds of your cloak which could hold a theoretical wealth of roses as ammunition, you become suddenly aware that at a moments notice you could call any of the ten loaves you had purchased to hand...or summon a rose from the costume itself.

Clad in dark regalia, you stand as Eclipse within the dark. The voices down the one path begin to approach, and as a light crests the edge of the fork you step back into the shadows intent on hiding yourself in the narrow stairwell only the find it is no longer there.

“Are you sure we came this way?” says a deep voice in the local tongue, “I do not see any of the trail markings we left before,”

Three distinct voices…and the way you’ve come is gone!?

>Use your mundane stealth skills
>Become invisible
>Make no effort to hide yourself
>Specifically call out to them, what do you say?
>Write in

&

>Stay where you are
>Dart down the path you came here to follow
>Head in the direction of these explorers
>Maybe you just stepped into the wrong spot, search for the stairs up
>Write in

>Use your mundane stealth skills
>Head in the direction of these explorers

>Become invisible
>Dart down the path you came here to follow
We have a reason for being down here, let's not mess around now that we aren't Daphne anymore.

Looks like we have some contention.

Extending vote window by an additional fifteen minutes

I guess I'm just worried that it's statistically likely that something terrible is gonna happen to these people.

>>Become invisible
>Head in the direction of these explorers

This one.

Counting, was distracted by life.

Also, yay off work time!

We were going to do this before going Daphne, she was to blend in better on the way. And because Paris.

Admittedly, nondaphne might've gone into the underground by a different path, but she got us here pretty well.

Well, looks like you're heading in the direction of those explorers, but we're tied for invisibility and actual stealth...so, COMBO.

Is not that our usual modus operandi?

Rolled 5, 10, 14, 20 = 49 (4d20)

yeah, the bigger contention was what way you went.

SO! Stealth Rolls!

dice+1d20+31 opposed roll, best of 3, 1s 20s wild

Perception of the three lost people
modifiers +5, +8, +4

Rolled 1 + 31 (1d20 + 31)

Rolled 7 + 31 (1d20 + 31)

BTW, finally found where the "all the crafting" power was. Crafting Mastery, under Archmage (which we can access through Path Dabbling), which grants access to all item creation and doubles the speed for those you possess otherwise.

Rollin'!

Rolled 11 + 31 (1d20 + 31)

>three lost people
>fourth presumably not them rolls 20

>1
Well our bonuses are mighty, but I wonder what bonus the 4th has.

Surge?

Glad someone is paying attention.

32 vs 20+???
...
Yeah, Surge. Be the Bat.

What's this? Do I hear a call for Surge?

y/n?

y

>y

Yes.

y

n

Rolled 7 (1d8)

Writing, and SURGE

1 away from an even 40....

Woo!

Still solid.

Fading from sight, you stick to the edge of the wall and move away from the vanished stairs. Moving through the left tunnel at the fork, you follow the voices through the long passage and into a wider chamber. Here there are indented shelves in the walls, and an oblong shape. Skulls and bones are slotted into the place, perfectly visible to your darksight but still illuminated by the passing light of the lost souls you have encountered.

You say that because of the mosaic upon the floor and ceiling of this chamber. Reds and oranges interspersed with white small tiles depicting horrible scenery of flame and wings. Feather and leather. Of hell.

They are three. One tall young man, bald, in a broad athletic shirt and spelunking gear which includes a headband mounted lamp. Another a smaller woman with dusky skin with a smaller shoulder held camcorder and a similar climbing harness. The last a nervous and unshaven fellow in a tracksuit, swinging a larger flashlight around wildly.

They do not see you, but you can feel eyes drawing toward your faded form in the dark. Pulling on the inner energies of your starseed, you suppress your presence further and hopefully avoid detection. For some reason you very much do not wish to be noticed...the air here is thick with something dire.

This chamber has five other pathways besides the one you entered. And after the stairwell vanished behind you, you make sure to leave Zoisite and Kunzite to keep eyes upon the correct pathway. The trio converse in French.

“Well, if the chalk is gone...maybe someone is just playing a prank on us?” the woman reasons and lowers the camera to her waist as you refresh your invisibility, “Children run around these tunnels too, right?”

“No,” the man in the tracksuit groans and turns wildly around, “Not this deep. We shouldn’t have come down here,”

“No, we’re just turned around. Near duplicate chambers aren’t unheard of,” says the bald one with resolved tongue, “It’s just a trick to confuse would be grave robbers...now let’s get some broll of this chamber,”

She does, as you observe them for a moment they whip and turn to watch a howling screech from one of the other tunnels.

“Sacred blue,” the twitchy thin man shouts and levels his light at the source of the echoing sound, “Those aren’t punk kids trying to prank us,”

“Alright, let’s get out of here,” the woman says quickly and begins toward the pathway next to your path.

Something is down here, an evil presence. And if its eyes aren’t already upon you, they are upon these people here.

>Let them go where they will
>Use control shadows to frighten them toward your path
>Use control shadows to frighten them toward another path
>Cast another spell or use another power
>Telepathically reach out to the presence here
>Use insight to try and find this thing, it may not be safe to seek the wellspring while it roams
>Reveal yourself as Eclipse to them
>Reveal yourself as Daphne to them
>Write in

>Find the wellspring

Some purifying energy sounds like it’d be just what this place needs.

>>Use insight to try and find this thing, it may not be safe to seek the wellspring while it roams

>>Telepathically reach out to the woman
-Stay calm, go . What stalks you shall be seen to.-
I think we could persuade well enough for the to work.
>>Use insight to try and find this thing, it may not be safe to seek the wellspring while it roams
Let us see what stalks down here.

>Use insight to try and find this thing, it may not be safe to seek the wellspring while it roams

Writing

give me an insight roll

best of 3

dice+1d20+6

1s and 20s wild, vs DC 14

This is me.

Rolled 3 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Rolled 7 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Rolled 10 + 6 (1d20 + 6)

Writing

Its herding them. That much is obvious to you as the woman leans toward the direction opposite the screeching in the dark. She leads them off as you take a deep breath and focus on your extrasensory abilities to find the malevolence you are sensing in the...well...in the catacombs beneath Paris.

You didn’t quite expect your journey to the sensed Earth Node to bring you this deeply and dangerously into another place, but here you are. It will be dangerous to try and dive into the power you seek here with this thing roaming about, more than that there is the safety of these people to consider.

Well, you hope this thing focuses on its hunt. Then it won’t see you coming.

This place seeps into you, quietly racking your awareness with pain and rage and suffering. An old festering wound, and it doesn’t have a true location. It is the location. Pieces of regret and hate swarming from fragments of stone, dust, bone and blood left to sit for well over a century.

You feel the phantom manifestation and foci of this permeating evil intent rush through the chamber from the direction of the scream and several of the other passages. Flowing like a river into once intangible force as it somehow does not notice you and roils after the three unlucky souls it seeks to torment.

It will mimic the sight of the dead and worse to this end, as you see it with your power of Dark Knowledge. This true and vile haunting born of human suffering.

No ghost. No poltergeist. A gestalt. A creature born from the ideas of many.

In the darkness, seeing perfectly clearly, after the torrent of hate passed you in chase of the fleeing and terrified living. With resolved care you calmly trace after it, and hope your intervention will force it to create a manifested avatar that you may fight directly.

This genius loci.

Eclipsed Moon Quest Episode 128
End

I hope you guys enjoyed today's thread, Veeky Forums

And congratulations, you've stumbled into the plot of a horror movie. Let's see if you can do some good before claiming that Earth Node in this unexpected detour.

>And congratulations, you've stumbled into the plot of a horror movie.

I say we call in the Sailor Planet Teleport for backup.

This is not going to be pretty.

This seems fine.
We're all fine here.

Been fun!

At least this horror movie has an unexpected twist of something stalking the monster as well.

It's ok, we have a magic justice light to bring to the party.
I knew we'd need a light like this!

Moonbeam?

Oh yeah. Introduce it to some nice light with form revealing tendencies. Back that up with some shadow manipulation in the other hand and we can take a lot of fight out of it's indistinct form.
Next question will be how well we can tackle more distinct force it might have.

The hard part is trying to kill a place not a person.

>At least this horror movie has an unexpected twist of something stalking the monster as well.

Less destroying the place in this case, need to either exorcise it or cleanse it.
Either approach calls for either wrestling a physical manifestation, or finding a proper touchstone for the area to focus upon.

In hindsight, the Earth Node is probably the central point that has allowed these energies to pool here. Though there would be concern whether we can cleanse fast enough to protect the others if we had b-lined for it.

Honestly, while we have it as a backup, it would be best to avoid it given the flashy nature of it.

I'm worried that a monster haunting the catacombs might be a challenging encounter. Not just a straight fight, but like a puzzle boss or something.

Also porting in might be cramped down here.

Fair point.

Imagine it will be tricky, fortunately so are we.

And now the so g is stuck in my head.

I am unfamiliar with this.

The song from the first trailer for the new TMNT film, tricky.

Ah, was trying to figure out what song So G was.

This monster is the kind of thing that a wide area purification seems to be the most useful weapon to use. After all, this isn't a creature, it is a physical place. If we had the fixed gold crystal we would be set for a kinda easy time.

Well, we could try to tap into it, but that can be problematic.

Given the lack of form, maybe we should engage from dreamspace?

I recall that we did finally purchase some roses through Dad's supplier, I hope we have some of those in there as well going into this mission.

Also, loaves in the cloak is super awesome and amusing.
I wonder if we could cast our rose spells into them. Baggett Lance would be fun.

So that combined with Mythic Craft Wonderous will allow us to alter, modify, change the form of, and combine all types, and allow work on wonderous items to proceed at an amazing pace.
Alternatively, there is still Divine Source, if we can handle it.

Go to throw a rose, throw a baguette instead...just confuses ancient underground evil. While perplexed, we shadow claw it in the soul.

can we really sleep down here?

Might be a more forceful attempt than usual sleep, since this thing isn't sleeping, closest analog to the astral space we seem to have access to.