Dungeon Life Quest (DLQ) 67 - Cold Shoulder Edition

> Actually, if we don't bring Nate and Amy then have them organize an attack on the Warehouse.

>no need to kick over the salt shaker.

And yet you are.

nice LE ZELDA gif XD

To clarify, you are also voting to NOT take the Hatchet Man? No judgement either way, just wanna know your mind.

Hrm. I say we give him the option of coming, but inform him of why we're only bringing undead.

Then again, the Diviner didn't blow up all the people so maybe it only worked on animals?

He could be useful as a diversion attacker. Also he seems pretty badass. It would be a shame for him to die right when we finally get started on getting him his hearts desire, but then again he's not super important to us.

Aight folks, I'm fuckin' wiped - and this vote needs some room to breathe in any event. This level is going to be...different...from the others.

So I'ma crawl into bed and pass the fuck out, in the hopes of getting an early start in the morning after dishes and doin' this with the effect I'm aiming at.

Questions, comments, discussion, feedback, and criticisms remain welcome and appreciated.

Thank you all for reading and participating!

Have a good night, and remember - Don't Take The Bait. Also, my headcanon for how Nate looks.

I samefagged for Crescendo.

:B

IS IT TIME TO START SHITPOSTING!

My body is ready.

...

>cao cao
so what did this crazy bastard pull off immediately after delivering that message?

Funny enough, nothing. That is like the one time he's actually just fucked. But Guan Yu was an honor fag and Cao Cao had spared his life earlier and treated him like royalty so he got the motherfucker to spare him.

And then later conspired with Wu to kill him and his eldest son.

> Travel for speed

I'm having a suspicion here. Let's do this as fast as possible.

> Don't

We'll be taking the Hatchet Man and John with us. That would make our party ... Bri, Hatchet Man, John? Anyone else? Amy would not be useful in the cold (no flight) and Nate is already covered by the Hatchet Man... hm, could River/Sultan bring something critical to the table here?

> Keep them in reserve

Nate, Amy, River & Sultan do make a good strike team, but... I do fear though that they lack the diplomacy of Bri, which I imagine to be key in dealing with the Debtor. He seems like a man who can be reasoned with. I'd prefer to at least attempt that. (In that he isn't an immediately apparent crazy person.)

>Travel for speed.
We don't want the Diviner to have a chance at ganking us with her sympathetic bullshit. Good thing we have a former native to guide the way. Hopefully she won't be able to fuck with John the way she did the vampires (James still needs to get staked, before he kills anybody in the Basement or elsewhere).

>Don't bring Nate & Amy, but the Hatchet Man can ride along.
I'm..reasonably certain that Brianna, Sir Fetch, the minions, and Hatchet can handle this. Whether or not there are a thousand and one traps to dodge around is yet to be determined.

>Encourage a second group (Nate, Amy and River) to assail the Warehouse.
I'm pretty sure we can trust the lovers and little sis to do good. If the Debtor is worth saving, at least. Hell, Silence might even know who he's running from.

Speaking of which, we have no idea what Lora thinks of the man. If the pixie companion is any indicator, he might not have made a deal with a demon, but a /fae/. Which would mean he is /really/ up shit creek without a paddle.

Remember, it's not just Brianna, its Sir Fetch and the minions as well. We haven't actually field tested the Boar, but Vim and Vigor make useful little scouts.

Hell, if there's any animal remains (like wolves or bears), we could make /even more/ minions. Do animals count towards a zombie army? I do think we've been leaning towards having an elite strike force rather than overwhelming numbers.

We should zone John out like before and use him as a surprise druag.

>> Travel for speed

>> Bring Nate
Nate can stopgap replenish with death, but Amy is not quite as sturdy. If she had specced for pure speed, maybe.
>AND
>> Keep them in reserve

>Zone out John
NOW, should Bri spend the whole trip in deathstealth?

I think the Shade transformation can be reserved for when we enter the Diviner's fortress lair.

I wonder if Sir Fetch reads as Brianna through divination, since as her familiar, he is technically created from part of her soul. Could make for some opportunities to deceive the cold-hearted bitch.

Doubt it.

> Travel for speed
> Don't bring Nate and Amy
> Encourage a second group to assail the Warehouse

Hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard.

>> Travel for speed
>AND
>> Don't
>AND
>> Keep them in reserve

Contingency plans. Be prepared not just for shenanigans in the Broken Jaw itself, but aimed at the people outside.

Didn't we get an answer to this when we were dealing with the Traitor?

I'm up. Morning stuff, then calling and writing.

Alright, CALLED, WRITING. Our winners were:

> Travel for speed
> Don't bring Nathan and Amy
> Encourage a second group to assail the Warehouse

Which means that instead of hitting Interlude Time at the end of this section, we'll be swapping to them.

Strap yourselves in, folks.

"We've got Silence here," you tell River. "Henrietta's reinforcements are coming as well. Maybe now's a good time to remind Ordo and the Black Anvils of what we were talking about, with all of us being in this together, but I'd like you, Nate, Amy, and whoever else you think is appropriate to infiltrate the Warehouse and see what you can see, maybe even make a play for the chain."

"I...alright," River agrees. "I'll trust your judgement."

"And we'll figure out if I fucked up when I get back," you tease, warmly. You get a laugh out of her.

You settle in with the cuddle pile. Everyone's nervous, and it shows, but there's not a lot you can do about that.

Everyone knows the risks.

Lora says nothing tonight, and just shakes her head when you try to talk to her. The angel has a distant, unfocused look in her eyes. Quietly, she rolls the sphere of void to you with her foot. You toss her Feathers in exchange.

"Keep him safe," you ask her.

Lora nods, silently.

You pass the evening watching the twin worlds orbit their sun and observing the miniature weather crossing their faces.

All too soon, it is time.

Amy melts away the ice that blocks off the Broken Jaw. You ride at the front of your boar, with John just behind the scythes on its back and the Hatchet Man taking up the rear. Getting the saddle made had been a bitch, but it's utterly worth it; your ass is going to be /so sore/ by the time this is done.

Amy hops up on the undead boar's head and gives you a fierce kiss. "Come home," she murmurs, her wings flitting. "...I worry about you."

You give her a guilty grin. "Would it make you feel better if I said I worry about me too?"

The half-harpy gives you a tight hug before hopping down and winging away to rejoin Nathan and the other team.

"Excited, Hatchet?" you ask, urging the boar forward.

"Interested," he admits, his mild tone ever-so-slightly 'up'. "I suspect that associating with you will give me a veritable menagerie of new foes to face."

"Hatchet, stick with me and you'll kill the sorts of things they put your name in legends for."

The passage into the Jaw is a wide, roughly circular tunnel. The air gets chillier as you move through it, but the /cold/ doesn't blast you until you cross into the Jaw proper. The wind in this place howls across the ice, creating a constant, low shriek that blows shards of frost across the floor.

This is winter's land. All you can see is ice. It sheathes the snow in blue-white and makes vast, chipped fangs where water once dripped. As you watch, the tip of a hanging icicle shears off in the wind and is whipped away, faster than the eye can follow.

"Home," John breathes. He points, just past your shoulder, at a raised structure faintly sparkling with witchlight. "That's Cannot Hold. She'll be there, at the center of the place."

You nod and urge your boar forward. Fetch squawks supportively from his place just in front of you. The ice shoes do their job remarkably, giving the skeleton purchase on the slippery surface.

But you're hearing something, in the wind...

"Shadows," your grandmother's voice says, "are among the most useful servants."

You stop up short, heart pounding in your chest. In the icicles around you, you can see yourself, as a young woman, in your grandmother's house. Everything is as you remember it; the smoke, the hard expression on your grandmother's face.

The sacrifice, and the terror in his eyes, which won't stop pleading with you for mercy.

"You were pretty young, for a murderer," a female voice echoes, across the ice. "Wait for it - there we are."

You watch the knife slide home, see your shadow distort. Kat flickers in response, with rage and fear.

"The start of a long and fruitful career, Bri," the female voice coos, smugly. "Though you really only hit your stride in the Dungeon, eh? All those poor harpies, rotted alive. They suffered, you know. Would you like to see?"

"SHUT UP!" you scream.

"Aww. Miss Hard Choices can't handle a dose of truth."

"When I get there -"

"You'll kill me and defile my corpse, yes, yes." She sounds almost /bored/. "You dress it up in pretty traditions and protestations of duty but you're still a necromancer. Still a heretic. Still just one bad day away from becoming your Aunt. It's tempting, isn't it? To just /make/ people listen to you. It's not like they're ever really interested in understanding. But the dead don't have to understand. They just /obey/."

John lunges forward and saws on the reins of the boar; it steps sideways obediently, narrowly dodging a massive spike of ice.

"MOVE!" the draug yells in your ear.

"You won't find me as easy to kill as my allies," the Diviner crows.

You can hear the ice shifting.

The Diviner's already more interesting than I was expecting...

You lash the reins, and the boar surges forward, just ahead of a rippling line of icicles. Its shod hooves dig in, throwing up sprays of ice and frost.

"This is /my/ realm, heritor. It obeys me as your defiled slaves obey /you/."

You choke back a sob, and you're not sure if it's rage or guilt but right now, you don't have time to care.

> Full speed; try to outrace her attacks
> Try to move more cautiously; you can hear her ice-shaping coming

* * * *

Welcome to the Broken Jaw, folks. This level will be featuring DICE ROLLS, as foretold in prophecy/previous threads. Brianna's actions will be rolled on a D6, plus and minus modifiers based on your choices, her condition, the environement, and changes made by previous decisions.

If you can't tell, this is also going to be the short level.

Right now, Brianna is MOUNTED (+1), INJURED (-1), RESTED (+/- 0) and has Fetch & her allies to help her observe (+1), for a total modifier of +1.

Let the voting begin.

Rolled 4 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

OH FUCK PANIC!

> Try to move more cautiously; you can hear her ice-shaping coming

I, ah. I shoulda been more clear; I'll make the roll on my end, when I call the vote; you'll all see the results.

> Try to move more cautiously; you can hear her ice-shaping coming

Hoo boy. What does she have that lets her do a sympathetic-

Motherfucker, the vampire stole a clump of hair or something from us, didn't he? Clever bitch.

I'm presuming you want dice rolls after the winning vote's been chosen?

>> Full speed; try to outrace her attacks

CHAAAARGE!

See . I'll be using Veeky Forums's die roller so everything's visible and above-board.

>> Try to move more cautiously; you can hear her ice-shaping coming

Oh boy time to get guilt tripped without our input.

I know at this point Bri's her own character, but I sincerely doubt she'd be that easy to fuck with.

Sorry Vox

Wait, one roll? Not best-of-three or -five?

We'll have an even chance of success or failure?

YOU MONSTER!

Sympathic magic, remember?

I'm betting she had the vampire that escaped take some hair or something.

> Offer feedback
> Apologize for offering feedback

user pls. You're fine.

That explains how she got us to see that, what it doesn't explain is why we should feel bad about it.

Unless She's MAKING us feel that way.

>unless she's MAKING us feel that way

In the same way she made the vampires freak out, yes.

I just don't want to be lumped in with that railroading asshole who show's up every once in a while.

I would've preferred that we got to decide how Bri feels, UNLESS the bitch is making us feel bad.

This lady murdered a whole fucking floor, her trying to guilt trip us is mildly hilarious.

Guys, Bri's immune to mind control as long as she has that pin in her hat, remember? But the stuff the Diviner is saying is the stuff Bri's always down on herself for. "Good people don't do what I do." "Good people don't know what I know."

Just because she's starting to think more positive doesn't mean she's better yet.

Yeah, pretty much this.

I don't know where you guys got the idea that Bri's immune to guilt at this point.

It's not that she's immune to it—she's been /drowning/ in it for years. The time since she's had Nate and Amy to really help her has been like the first real breath of air she's had in ages.

And now the Diviner is trying to push her head back down.

Fuck.

That.

Shit.

Rolled 4 + 2 (1d6 + 2)

Called, writing.

Winning vote: Move cautiously. You gain ALERT (+1 when dodging). You are MOUNTED, INJURED, RESTED, AIDED, AND ALERT (+1, +2 when dodging).

You resist the urge - the powerful urge - to go charging straight ahead in favor of a somewhat slower, evasive action. It pays off; the Diviner's ice shaping is wickedly fast, but the ice has to gather itself, and you can hear it before it goes off. Fetch, John, and Hatchet call out to you, hearing and seeing what you can't with your eyes ahead towards your foe.

Cannot Hold seems so far away, right now.

For all of her information, though, the Diviner can't seem to read your mind. She has to figure out where you're going next, and you move unpredictably in response. Your boar leaps over one emerging spear, clearing it just ahead of the ice, and lands still running.

You can see snapshots of your life, in the ice ahead. You watch Kat crush the skull of the necromancer in the Mine, with vicious glee. You watch yourself hack off Amy's wings.

"You just can't stop hurting people, can you?" the Diviner calls, over the sounds of the ice and your mount's galloping hooves. "And it's always /you/. You don't let others do it, even when they want to. Needful work, la Croix? I think you like the work."

In the distance, between you and Cannot Hold, a wall of ice begins to rise.

You're in it. A little girl holds up her kitten, dead these past four days, and /begs/ you to save it.

You watch her cry, when you tell her you can't.

"Past and present," the Diviner tells you. "Natalia was an idiot for trying to foretell the future. Everything you could ever want about a person is in the past, and in the present."

You could try to plunge through, hardening the boar with your own life force and trusting its scythes, but if the wall's to thick she might just crush you in it. Cutting left has the faint pulse of death; cutting right is an unknown.

> Plow through (become FATIGUED; applies /after/ this roll)
> Cut left
> Cut right

It's a good tactic on the Diviner's part, to be honest. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. We've racked up a pretty long backlog of Good Deeds to be Punished for, and she's hitting it where it hurts.

>> Cut left

This is getting real Nito

>Cut Left
Can't afford the fatigue, not yet. Death-sense assist seems likely to assist us rather than plunging into the unknown

>> Cut left

Something pulsing with death is likely to be either something we can use, or something we are equipped to defeat.

>Cut left
There wasn't anything left to kill down here, so the chance that it is beneficial are somewhat good.

>> Cut left

Do we want a complete unknown, or do we want a likely ambush by leftover vampires or draug?

Neither option's that great honestly, but at least we have experience with the draug.

Rolled 5 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

Called, writing.

Hot damn, you are going quick through this one.

Lovely! Another high roll!

You angle left, hard.

"What's the plan?" John yells.

"There's death ahead!" you call back.

"What does - oh, right, sorry! I was thinking about before!"

"What was before?" you ask. The ice is extending, trying to cut you off.

Your boar leaps over it at a low point, and you hear the wall stop growing immediately.

"Hunter's village," John explains. "Maybe twenty people, most of 'em went draug. When the game died and all the water froze over..."

You plunge straight for it. You can see phantasmal igloos in the distance; the telltale signs of a ghost projecting its memories. Three ghosts remain inside of what is now no longer even ruins, their gear in tatters and all the flesh eaten from their bones.

They regard you silently as you aproach, fast and hard.

"Do you want your revenge?" you call out.

"Don't you dare," the Diviner snaps. "Back to death, you idiots!"

The ghosts nod.

> Protect the boar! (upgrade MOUNTED bonus)
> Defend us! (gain GUIDED)
> She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

No roll for this vote

>> She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

> Defend us! (gain GUIDED)
Help us attain your revenge!

>> She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

I think that we may need this bonus very soon.

Plus, asking ghosts to defend us against the terrain... doesn't strike me as the most brilliant idea.

> She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

ZOMBIE ARMIES!

>> She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

Go give her hell.

>lumped in with that railroading asshole

Hey fuck you, I have a point exemplified by you complaining.

When somebody else creates the army, and you just redirect it back to the source, does it count as ZOMBIE ARMIES?

I believe at that point it's SEIMRA EIBMOZ.

I regret nothing.

Shit, we brought the Daughter's eyes, right?

>She's there! In Cannot Hold! (gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS)

Go, ghost friends, we will be there to finish your work.

Yes. My bad on not mentioning it and/or putting it on the sheet; lemme correct that now.

No worries, just wanted to make sure we could head-explodey the cunt right proper.

Also if we'd been assaulting the Daughter normally, I'd've been somewhat miffed that you used "See No Evil" for the Diviner.

This way, it just adds another layer of funny to what's going to happen to her.

So Vox, tell me truly.

If you are just killed, you get a sick swanky revenge ghost if your death was particularly brutal.

But if you get draug'd you dont? And I don't mean the draugs we ambushed and burned alive should get chance to have draug ghosts bent on revenge towards us. But do they not get a chance to go spooky and get revenge for being draug'd in the first place?

So, let's say I want to torture somebody to death in the most horrrible manner possible but I don't want to have to deal with shitty revenge ghosts. If I quickly rez them as some sort of undead and then immediately kill that undead, have I circumvented the revenge ghost phase of that person?

I thikn with the draug the ghost that would normally rise gets shoved back in the body (and bound to the will of the less-scrupulous necromancers). When the draug dies, the soul is probably too 'exhausted' to stick around.

Why people rise as more corporeal forms of undead rather than ghosts is a debated topic. Some forms, of course, actually involve the ghost - revenants & those servants the Moneychanger used, for instance, are both variants on the basic theme of 'ghost possessing its own corpse'.

Draugs, on the other hand, tend to be formed from people who were so afraid to die that they turned to betrayal and cannibalism to escape it. When they die /anyway/ (or continue their depredations after surviving), they claw their way towards sweet life, fighting not to die, to avoid the Sunless Lands with all their might. Rather than the business which motivates ghosts, their drive is to /live/.

TL;DR these ghosts were the people who got eaten before there were any draugs.

As far as preventing a ghost from someone you torture, it's fairly hard. The Moneychanger, if you recall, tortured her victims to create her servants, making ghosts fairly immediately. What you /can/ do is capture said ghost right off the bat, generally with iron and silver, and dispose of it as you will.

There are cases of particularly strong-willed or obsessed ghosts surviving multiple slayings or banishings, which is why it's considered better to resolve their business than to attempt to destroy them. Ghosts with resolved business tend to stay dead.

Called, writing.

"She's there! The witch of Cannot Hold drove your kin to madness and betrayal! Vengeance can be yours!"

The skeletal jaws of the ghosts slacken into a screech to rival the wind, and they stream towards the Diviner.

Gain DISTRACTED ENEMY in 2 ROLLS. You are ALERT, AIDED, INJURED, MOUNTED, and WELL-RESTED (+1, +2 when dodging)

"Coward," the Diviner snarls. "You were always a coward."

"You don't /know me/," you snap.

"I know why you told your grandmother that you wouldn't learn death-in-flame," the Diviner returns. "I know why she refused to teach you the slaying spells. Just couldn't trust you, could she?"

"SILENCE YOURSELF, WITCH!" Fetch calls from in front of you.

The ice shimmers, showing a small village in the swamp under siege by the dead. Behind them, hard to recognize without her hat, is Aunt Carol. Corpses throw themselves at the village's wall, pounding against the wood, howling in hunger.

"She knew you'd turn into /that/," the Diviner snarls. "And now you're playing with fire. Did you enjoy it, when those harpies died in /agony/?"

"Brianna, up high!" Hatchet calls, wrenching your gaze from the ice. Something almost like birds is - those aren't birds.

"FROST KITES!" you call. "Elementals! Iron and flame!"

They're closing in fast.

> Order Kat to provide cover (gain COVER; injure Kat)
> Spur the boar with necromancy (gain CHARGE, become FATIGUED; FATIGUED applies after this roll)
> Run for high ground to fight (??)

> MFW I realize I wasn't clear
> MFW there is no face

To be clear, Bri is saying to /use/ iron and flame. The frost kites are ice birds.

> Spur the boar with necromancy (gain CHARGE, become FATIGUED; FATIGUED applies after this roll)

Fuck fuck fuck

We have John and Hatchet to fight her directly, we can afford a bit of fatigue.

> Order Kat to provide cover (gain COVER; injure Kat)

We can't afford to get bogged down, and getting FATIGUED isn't that great either. We need to break through to the Diviner soon.

>Spur the boar with necromancy (gain CHARGE, become FATIGUED; FATIGUED applies after this roll)

Rolled 6 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>Do a barrel roll!

Well that is a crit roll..

I laughed.

Calling in five, I need more coffee.

Rolled 4 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

> Order Kat to provide cover (gain COVER; injure Kat)

Drink linch! Drink!!

Can't stay to see the rest but hope you anons kill this bitch real good.

>Order Kat to provide cover (gain COVER; injure Kat)

We need Bri fresh as possible for the finale, plus for splatting the Daughter afterwards.

>> Spur the boar with necromancy (gain CHARGE, become FATIGUED; FATIGUED applies after this roll)

Fatigue seems more likely to be something we can push through and deal with while we're still in the Jaw than Kat being injured.

>> Order Kat to provide cover (gain COVER; injure Kat)
Though I dislike injuring Kat, the Boar is our only real means of getting there so I don't think we can afford the fatigue.

user, I think it's us getting fatigued, not the boar.

Rolled 5 + 3 (1d6 + 3)

CALLED. Winner: order Kat to provide cover.

You gain COVER (+1 when DEFENDING). You are DODGING and DEFENDING.

Jesus fucking Christ you guys are on a roll.

This will only make it all the more crushing when we roll a series of 1s right at the final boss.

Not gonna lie, glad this streak is running hot... and also glad that the voters are taking reasonable precautions rather than charging ahead blindly. Also glad I got outvoted on the sled, because holy crap...

"KAT, SHELTER!"

The shadow hooks the boar with its claws and stretches above you like a kite in the wind, and not a moment too soon. You jink and dodge, avoiding as much of the hail of icy feathers as you can, as well as the rapidly-increasing spikes of ice that the Diviner is sending at you.

"Why are you really here?" she snarls at you. "Don't say justice. You didn't promise those dead men /justice/. I could see killing the Vintner for what he did to your lover. Hell, I /applaud/ it. Lisa? She was scum. But this isn't your fight, necromancer. You have /nothing to gain/. You'll go further and further down into the dark. You'll /suffer/. You'll lose the people you've come to love and end up just like your grandmother, a withered old crone turning her children into husks just as miserable as she is!"

A strong headwind blasts towards you, from Cannot Hold, and you scream your fury into it.

You can taste John's fear, but the draug grips the saddle for all his unlife is worth.

Then the ice beneath your mount's feet starts to crack and break, revealing water beneath.

"MY PLACE!" the Diviner snarls. "MY DOMAIN! MY WILL IS LAW!"

Your boar can't swim, and you really cannot afford to fall into this water.

> Spur the boar (gain CHARGE, become FATIGUED; FATIGUED applies after this roll)
> Take off and force the Diviner to split her attention (gain FLIGHT, lose AIDED and MOUNTED, allies lose COVER)
> Try to circle back and find a route not over frozen water (risk another ENCOUNTER)

>> Try to circle back and find a route not over frozen water (risk another ENCOUNTER)

The Diviner will be gaining DISTRACTED right about now...