[KQ] The Breaking Point

It was hard to concentrate. Hard to think or feel or anything. Her lungs burned and vision blurred, everything felt as though it was on fire. And yet she pulled herself up, squinting at the giant snake - that apparently was there - holding Krosis firm infront of her. But it wasn't just the snake. There were more people...Rory...a young woman she vaguely recognized...a man she also vaguely recognized but not fully. The woman reached to take her arm, and Roana looked at her, almost in confusion. Leave? Bloodshot blue eyes glanced back towards the light. Leave? No. She couldn't. Get these people out of here. Roana grabbed Amalia by the arm and looked at her with sudden clarity. "I'm sorry. Get everyone out." she urged, truly looking as though she felt sorry for what she was doing. Eyes went to Rory next. "Get everyone out of here! Grab Kristopher on the way!" Then louder as she twisted towards the light - that had to be the key - "Everyone retreat!" Then, running as fast and hard as she could she charged and jumped, aiming for the light. Roana tells everyone to retreat - specifically asking Rory to grab Kristopher's body - then run and jumps into the light! Roana 'Cause it makes me that much stronger Makes me work a little bit harder It makes me that much wiser So thanks for making me a fighter

key quest

Roana lunges and the snake seems not to be focused on her. As she enters the light, she disappears.

Rory was a rather small thing in that moment, hiding behind the dead guardian and the anxious bear he had conjured up out of nothing. He felt guilty every time—did he give them life, a consciousness, only to take it away in an instant?—but desperate times call for desperate measures. And this was, well.. dire, at the very least.

Amalia stepped past him, but Jigano came to him, a hand upon his shoulder; with an anxious whine he took it, didn't want to let it go, wanted to pull Jigano back up with him—

His throat was burning. His eyes (his everything) were running. Lungs full of dust...

He didn't need more prompting. Lucas's reasoning, Roana yelling out orders... It was the first time in a while that she had made any sense, though who the fuck was Kristopher? And then she promptly stopped making sense, as everyone did not include herself, because she was gone from his field of vision again, lost in the sound of running footsteps.

Well, fuck her, then. They had tried, but if she wanted to leave her kids orphaned, that was on her. She didn't have to be the one to explain it to them. Fuck.

He scuttled low in the water for a while, looking for someone injured, and only made it a step or two before finding what was, probably, Kristopher.

Only, he was very dead, his head severed cleanly from his shoulders.

Yeah, no, fuck that.

He wasn't going to stay any longer in that hell just to get a dead body out. "Ama! Jigs!" he croaked, desperately, wanting them to come with him, away from this nightmare place and the way his vision shifted and shimmered. Coughing violently Rory fell against his bear, grabbing it by the scruff and burying his face in its fur. He couldn't tell which way was out anymore, but the bear had more senses left, and they both knew to not go to the snake.

Low and shaking he allowed the summoned creature to haul him into the stairwell, up and up and up, back towards the night.

---

Rory WITHDRAWS from the KQ. ktnxbai #contributedzero

Lucas clever as the devil and twice as pretty ”Oh. Oh I see,” Lucas murmured, aware only that his mind was not working quite as it should and that something within him was telling him that he absolutely would die here if he didn’t leave. He thought briefly of calling out to the Voice, to petition for help from what was essentially a higher power in this realm, but of course pride prevented him. The snake, too, offered little in the way of solutions, and Lucas was about to hiss a curse under his breath when the warrior woman abruptly did something that seemed simultaneously brave, stupid and meaningless. What precisely was jumping into the light meant to achieve? Did she know something the rest of them didn’t? Either way, Lucas was all about self preservation. ”More fool you, girl,” he called over his shoulder, having turned away even before Roana had jumped. His body was not obeying orders as efficiently as it had been, and his tongue felt too thick in his mouth. It was a clumsy and foggy sighted Lucas that staggered from the room, splashing his way away from glory and treasure and heading up towards clear air and freedom. He could apologise to the Voice later. Lucas withdraws from the KQ! Fuck that.

AMALIA

you're staring at the sky
watching stars collide

Yells at Roana to stop because the Voice can't be allowed out, coughs a lot, grabs Kristopher's head and follows Rory and Lucas out.

REAL POST WILL COME.

---

Amalia withdraws from the KQ

The snake didn’t attack and Roana urged them to run, and for a moment Jigano felt hope that they might all survive this (oblivious to Kristopher’s body hidden in the water behind him).

One shining moment.

And then Roana charged the light.

What.

The.

Fuck.

But her body didn’t sizzle or burn. Her charred corpse didn’t fall back to the ground. The light continued to burn, clean and bright, and Jigano’s watering eyes widened as the familiarity of the shape sank past his fear, adrenaline thrumming brightly in his veins and spurring connections in his brain.

Oh.

Lucas fled behind him, Rory and Amalia following swiftly. The gas burned his eyes, his skin, his lungs, even through the mask he had fashioned, but he had withstood worse. The snake had been angered by Lucas – by an Ascended – and also by his fiery lantern… but it had not been hypnotized. Even through his tears he could see the intelligence in its white eyes.

His habit of asking too many questions was finally going to get him killed, wasn’t it?

Setting the lantern down behind him, Jigano drew in a careful breath behind his sleeve as well as his mask – and then held it as he bowed to the serpent, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

”Guardian of the Light,” he said in the speech of the Attuned as well as out loud, ”what must we do to be allowed to pass beyond the Barrier?”

key quest

Attuned.

The serpant's mouth closes for a moment. It coils and tightens around the base of the well.

At the top of the Spire something has been accomplished.

Something has been opened.

The walls rumble and shift. Debris and small stones begin to fall, and then a few larger ones. The ground quakes and the walls groan ominously. The thick and smothering smoke continues to billow.

You may passsssssss into the light to leave thisssss placccccccccce. It replied in a voice that was without gender and sounded like sand upon some otherworldy shore.

---

* The items are as follows
1. A large mason-jar of glass containing what looks like glitter
2. An enormous mirror which is cracked down the centre
3. 4 shrunken skulls attached through the eyes on a rope
4. A cylindrical container about the 3ft long
5. A large and old looking bag
6. A rolled up piece of material
7. A cracked compass
8. A whip
9. A sapphire amulet
10. A small box with numbers on it
11. A small box with dots on it
12. A small box with a circle on it.


Your initiative order is Jigano. Keep in mind that your 'turn' is only about 6 seconds long. If you try to do too much, your latter actions will be ignored or rolled at disadvantage.

Ending HP

Jigano: 121
Snake Guardian: 120

You have 12 hours to reply.

The Spire shook and Jigano balanced himself against the trembling, dodging the falling debris nimbly as he looked up, cursing inwardly. What was going on up there? Something had happened, but what that meant for his friends still stuck on the stairs...

Hiding a cough in his sleeve again, Jigano turned his gaze back to the serpent, nodding grimly before he spoke again. Safrin told me of the portals," he said, keeping his breaths shallow and guarding them as best he was able. He took a hesitant step forward, trying to move away from the poison smoke. "Can you escape this place, if it begins to fall down on us?"

key quest

Debris fell in earnest now as the smoke grew ever denser.

The snake gave no response to the mention of Safrin or portals, its intelligent and wizened eyes clear as it spoke to answer: I will remain whatever my fate.

The walls begin to buckle.

---

* The items are as follows
1. A large mason-jar of glass containing what looks like glitter
2. An enormous mirror which is cracked down the centre
3. 4 shrunken skulls attached through the eyes on a rope
4. A cylindrical container about the 3ft long
5. A large and old looking bag
6. A rolled up piece of material
7. A cracked compass
8. A whip
9. A sapphire amulet
10. A small box with numbers on it
11. A small box with dots on it
12. A small box with a circle on it.


Your initiative order is Jigano. Keep in mind that your 'turn' is only about 6 seconds long. If you try to do too much, your latter actions will be ignored or rolled at disadvantage.

Ending HP

Jigano: 102
Snake Guardian: 120

You have 12 hours to reply.

He could feel himself beginning to falter, breathing growing more labored as debris pattered down and his blurred vision made it hard to see, to dodge all of it. He stumbled forward as a block shattered where he had been standing a moment before and fetched up against the snake, if he was allowed to, hands supporting him against its pale scales. Looking up into its eyes he blinked, pleading.

"Come away! Through the portal or outside with me, to safety! Please! There has been too much death here already!" Dimly he thought he saw the cracked treasures arrayed on the shelves behind the creature, but clearer still was the memory of Rory, tell him that he would only forgive him if he came out again...

If this place collapses your guardianship won't be needed anymore anyways!"

key quest

Breathing is nearly impossible now, with or without the cloth.

Silently the snake stares. It knows its options. It has made its choice.

A large rock falls now, striking Jigano's shoulder. Dust mixes with the toxic gas making the visibility nearly nothing now. The ground once littered with moss and puddles is now largely cracked.

There are two ways out, both of which will cease to be an option very soon.

---

* The items are as follows
1. A large mason-jar of glass containing what looks like glitter
2. An enormous mirror which is cracked down the centre
3. 4 shrunken skulls attached through the eyes on a rope
4. A cylindrical container about the 3ft long
5. A large and old looking bag
6. A rolled up piece of material
7. A cracked compass
8. A whip
9. A sapphire amulet
10. A small box with numbers on it
11. A small box with dots on it
12. A small box with a circle on it.


Your initiative order is Jigano. Keep in mind that your 'turn' is only about 6 seconds long. If you try to do too much, your latter actions will be ignored or rolled at disadvantage.

Ending HP

Jigano: 66
Snake Guardian: 120

You have 12 hours to reply.

Spun about by the stone, Jigano bowed his head in defeat. He had wanted to save the great serpent's life, its wisdom, it's loyalty and honor...

But those very qualities would not allow it to be saved.

I would remember your name, Guardian, he said in the speech of the Attuned, coughing too badly to speak aloud. If you would give it.

He looked longingly to the light, curiosity burning through him even brighter and hotter than the pain of his wounded shoulder, and his past, his soul, the core of him, yearned to go through it, to the world beyond, to the place he had learned of in Safrin's books...

But his heart pulled him back, pulled him away from the answers to his questions and the questions still in need of answers. Pulled him, stumbling, to the door, and the lantern he scooped up to light his way through the choking smoke and dust.

Pulled him up, up the stairs, and out into the moonlight, grim and bloodied and coughing, but alive.

---

Jigano withdraws from the KQ!

key quest

The stones shake and the room collapses in on itself.

The way to the portal is obscured, the room drowned in stone.

---

The room collapses and the portal is blocked! Oh no!

All treasure is lost! So sad!

Those who participated fully will receive +2 stats (Roana, Lucas, Maea, and Jigano). Unfortunately Rory, Amalia, and Are do not receive credit!

Ending HP

Jigano: 45
Snake Guardian: ????