Fire Emblem Tropera

Xel kept his mind open and clean, waiting to see if his raw physical might would be needed to bring death to these phantoms a second time.

If Echo 21 is alive then Xel will attack the unit and defend as a bonus action. Otherwise have Xel move to V3, prepare an attack for range, and defend as a bonus action.

B-TEAM!!!

Railen blinked once then twice before saying, "Wait....You wrote that letter?" like the very idea of Vera being able to be sweet on someone was a rip in reality, a impossible act that even the divine couldn't force to happen.

Attack Echo 20, Wind Tome

PM box is Closed, Indefinitely Friend Code: 3368-4181-6850

Round 20: Player Phase

• Bette moves to U4 and trades her Pure Water for Osroes' Secret Book.
  • Bette continues to T4 and attacks Echo 21 (Dark Sword)!
  • Bette's first attack deals 29 damage to Echo 21 (-8/28).
  • Echo 21 dies!
• Osroes moves to U4 and trades his Pure Water for Bette's Secret Book.
  • Osroes continues to V4 and prepares an attack (Axereaver).
• Grendan moves to S12 and defends.
  • Grendan's Resistance bonus decays to 4.
• Xel moves to V3 and defends.
  • Xel prepares an attack (Brave Clip).
• Sophia attacks Echo 20 (Wind Tome)!
  • Sophia's attack deals 15 damage to Echo 20 (-15/29).
  • Echo 20 dies!
• Talbot Dashes to V5.
• Diane heals Zeera (Heal Staff 10/10, no charge spent).
  • Diane restores 20 hit points to Zeera (18/18).
• Milliana sneezes on the dust being blown up by her wings.

___________________

Round 20: Enemy Phase

___________________

Round 21 Deadline: 9:00pm PST, 7/5.

What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.

A-Team

"One more ghost sent back to the grave.... again," Bette said, flicking her sword.

Bette dash to P5.

Request Diane dash to P6.

Request Zeera dash to Q5.

Bonus link to map.

Edited by nman on Jul 5th 2018 at 12:18:50 PM

After a thorough examination of the room at the bottom of the hole, Grendan flew back up, reporting, "Nothing down there except a cracked wall. I think that other hole goes to the same place, though, so no real need to bother unless we want to risk getting into another fight."

Dash to P5. Suggesting that Diane start heading for Room L13-M16 if Golems can't see her.

I did not expect to have cause to use the line "STOP DROPPING YOUR ASSES!" but DQ 11 gave it to me.

Urging in the strongest possible terms that, wherever Diane moves to, she does not pass through the hole between S6 and O15. Recommending that, instead, she moves to S6 and prepares a use of her Heal Staff for Osroes.

Recommending that Zeera dashes to P6.

Osroes moves to T6. If the group is planning to attack Arentine next turn, he drinks from his Pure Water. If they are not, or if extra-IC conditions are illegal, he instead continues with a dash to Q4.

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jul 6th 2018 at 7:52:09 PM

Move to U3 and defend.

Move to P7, defend

PM box is Closed, Indefinitely Friend Code: 3368-4181-6850

Xel uses Dash action to move to Q6 and defend as a bonus action.

Round 21: Player Phase

• Bette Dashes to P5.
• Grendan Dashes to P6.
  • Grendan's Resistance bonus decays to 1.
• Osroes Dashes to Q4.
• Talbot moves to U3 and defends.
• Sophia moves to P7 and defends.
• Xel Dashes to Q6 and defends.
• Diane Dashes to Q7.
• Zeera Dashes to Q5.
• Milliana nods off.

________________________

Round 21: Enemy Phase

________________________

Round 22 Deadline: 9:00pm PST, 7/9.

What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.

There was a groan. Not the groan of an irritable pegasus rider, or an injured dancer, but like the deathrattle of an ancient giant.

"What was that?" Diane said, pausing as she rounded the corner. She stood still, turning her head slowly, alert for distant sounds.

There was a rumble, and stones around the lips of the various holes in the floor and ceiling slipped free of their crumbling mortar. Bette and Osroes had to step back to avoid a few falling from the gap above their heads.

Then another step.

Then Xel had to scramble as the floor beneath one of his back feet collapsed.

"Run!" someone shouted, and as if in response, there was a distant booming and the entire floor suddenly tilted as the ruin began its final collapse. Diane tackles Sophia sideways as the wall beside her teetered and fell, showering the space she had been standing in with masonry.

Bette wasted no time, taking two steps back to get a running start, then using Osroes' mount as a springboard to throw herself through the widening hole in the ceiling, then reached back down to offer a hand to the next person. Osroes quickly dismounted, helping Zeera climb onto the back of his steed so she could reach Bette's outstretched hand, then turned to help the next. Xel lumbered forward, shifting back to his human form too slowly for Grendan's apparent taste, as he spurred Heath into the air, and the wyvern latched onto the gigantic laguz's shoulders with his talons, lifting him through the gap.

Diane and Sophia helped one another to their feet, and headed to Osroes' helping hand, but something caught Diane's attention from the corner of her eye. There, to the west, through two collapsed walls, was a treasure chest, sheltered in what had until moments ago been a secret room.

Surely, it was foolishness, but in a split second she decided before she even thought about it, and lunged through the falling dust and gravel, landing rolling in the secret room. She dashed to the chest, and smashed its decaying lock with the pommel of her sword, flinging the lid open and grabbing whatever was inside before she even got a good look. Dashing back through the wall, she was just in time to see Osroes lifting off through the hole with Sophia behind him. Sophia pointed to her, and tried to yell something over the cacophony of falling rubble, but Osroes must not have been able to hear her through his helmet, and finished his ascent.

No matter. Diane hadn't studied acrobatics in the academy for nothing. She took off sprinting for the door below the gap. Her feet took the change from horizontal to vertical in stride, and just as her momentum started to die after a few steps, she kicked off, thrusting herself skyward just high enough to catch the lip of the hole, and drag herself up.

The party was fighting their way out past a stream of Vissan treasure hunters, not with swords and sorcery, but with the simple press of bodies trying to squeeze through the archway to outside. Diane took a moment to catch her breath and cough out a lungful of dust before joining the fray, but before her eyes, the terrible spectre of a familiar face appeared.

"You! Why couldn't you all have just left me to my research!" Arentine's ghost shrieked in agony, raising a hand crackling with dark magic.

"I'm sorry," Diane whispered, turning her eyes away from the horrible reminder of what she was taking part in, and reached for the Silence Staff. "But some things have to come to light."

Arentine screamed as her spell dissipated in her hand and Diane took off running again. The doorway was nearly clear, only a single wyvern and its noble rider still waiting, his hand outstretched for her. She took it, and buried her face against the back of Grendan's neck rather than hear the fallen druid's sobs as the ruins formed her grave.

What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.

Grendan turned back to eye the ruin contemplatively as soon as everyone was clear. After a few moments he rhetorically asked, "Wonder why everything started falling apart all of a sudden..."

I did not expect to have cause to use the line "STOP DROPPING YOUR ASSES!" but DQ 11 gave it to me.

After Talbot escaped the ruins, he sighs a breath of relief. He strokes Eighty-Six's mane to see if he's alright. Luckily, Eighty-Six snorts back.

Talbot replies, "Maybe someone touched something that shouldn't be touched?"

Back at Camp or Whatever

"What... no, are you..." Vera held the note out in her hands. After thinking for a moment, she laughed. "I guess your hands are quicker than your wits."

"HI WE'RE BACK!" Bette cheerfully shouted, running right into the former Vissan camp. "We fought a bunch of ghosts and-" she paused, and looked at the letter in Vera's hand, then at Railen, and back at Vera. "And why are you showing him my letter?"

"I... I wasn't!" Vera protested. "He picked my pocket."

"That's not very nice!" Bette said, throwing a punch at Railen.

Scherwiz came running toward the returning party, a look of panicked concern on their face as they churned the sand beneath their feet murmuring "Please, oh please, oh please..." between breaths. They came skidding to a halt as they reached the party, turning fretful eyes from one member to the next.

"Please, please, please be tellin' me ye saved some on yon hidden booty!" they said, clasping their hands over their chest as if in prayer.

"I think I may have, actually," Diane grunted, slipping down from Heath's back, nursing her side where a stray stone from the collapsing wall had struck her. From her cloak she produced the item she had snatched from the hidden chest before the ruins had collapsed, only now getting a good look at it.

"It be... a crown?" Scherwiz said, taking the tarnished semicircle from Diane's hand and turning it over and over. It was more of a tiara, really, the ends terminating in curled designs, and a pair of curved wires adding decoration to the top rim, each stopping short of the center, as if a piece were missing. They turned their attention back to Diane, eyes and lips quivering like a scolded puppy. "That be all?"

Diane shrugged. "Well, that and the Emblem Fragment. You know, the whole reason we were here in the first place?"

Scherwiz wailed and tossed the crown over their shoulder as they turned to walk away. "Ach, as if a wee bit of coal is a proper treasure! Shiver me stern, I be needin' to drown..." they said, and headed toward the Vissan camp, presumably to search for anything with a positive alcohol content.

What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.

"Ungrateful wretch," muttered Xel to himself in response to Scherwiz's lack of thanks to the brave act that Diane did before picking up the tiara from the sand, dusting it, and then inspecting it. He only knew one person that would know enough about Kambacha relics to inform them what it does and he knew that she was nearby but....no. Diane risked life and limb for both this and the Fire Emblem piece and Xel's respect for such courageous strength was greater than any personal concern so he told Diane with a respectful tone, "You deserve to know the value of your hard earned bounty," before pointing north and explaining, "To the north of here lies my village, my family clan Baradraco, and a clan elder with great knowledge of ancient treasures. She can without a doubt tell us about this crown."

Railen meanwhile saw the punch coming a mile away considering that Bette was as subtle as a thunderstorm and simply leaned his upper body to the side when the deadly fist came charging at him before straightening back out. "I give up," he said with exasperation heavy in his voice before he walked away from the mismatched pair, rubbing his temples while having a upset and annoyed look on his face.

Edited by LightToAll on Jul 11th 2018 at 8:52:55 AM

“We could, of course, return to Tasmag; I am familiar with individuals of such skill.” Having dismounted Rsama after the latter’s swift, steady glide to the Kambachan sands, Osroes has returned to the group alongside his ever-faithful companion, taking off his helmet to join the conversation. A little of his pride and stubbornness shows through in his tone before he concedes grudgingly, “That will take several days’ ride, however, and… Hmm…” He looks warily at Bette.

“Still, if you are to journey to the…” How would it translate? Something like ‘land of the rifts’ - but then they can’t be - grrr! “To that place, Rsama and I had best not follow closely.” Osroes glances to Xel briefly, then grimaces. “I would guide you all there; they will, however, know this style of armour, these weapons. The appearance of a cataphract and armoured pegaz in their midst would likely only provoke anger and make them think of you as enemies. Better that I do not appear at all.”

Then he has a thought. “In fact, I might use the time to inform my companions of events.” He looks around. “Two riders would have come here, one a bow-wielding older man, the other a fairly young woman with a fire tome. Were they seen?”

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jul 13th 2018 at 9:49:06 AM

"I'll let you off with a warning... this time," Bette said to Railen with a wink.

"Two rider-NO! I mean, er, no, not that I can recall," Vera replied hurriedly to Osroes. She noticed the blood-stained rag still laying on Athena's saddle, and quickly snapped out her hand to grab it and hide it behind her back.

While sketching the ruins on parchment, Damien glances at the crown Scherwiz dropped as they went off to search for booze. Hopefully, they won't be too drunk before the next mission.

"Jeez," exclaims Damien. "What crawled up their asshole?"

"Unsatisfied greed, naturally," Grendan informed Damien; he had stayed out of the conversation thus far due to not having anything to contribute, but this, at least, he had an answer to.

A tiny grunt of effort drew his attention to Astra, who had apparently found Inuksuk's corpse and was pulling it over to the group. It seemed that the sand had already ruined what he had been carrying, unfortunately. Upon realizing they had been noticed, the tiny manakete asked, "Um... could we stay here... just until the funeral's over?"

Grendan hesitated, looking to the others; while he had no problem with that, due in part to not wanting to leave a comrade (no matter how short-term) to the indignity of an unknown, sandy grave at a forsaken ruin, he was only one member of the company, and could not speak for anyone else.

I did not expect to have cause to use the line "STOP DROPPING YOUR ASSES!" but DQ 11 gave it to me.

Osroes looks over at the newcomer - and recognises him as the dragon from before. He cringes slightly. Whatever he is, he is no sayag… The cataphract steps forward, walking until he stands only a metre or so in front of him, and then kneels, head down, taking his spear and firmly planting it in the ground with both hands. “Healer, I must first extend my most humble apologies to you and ask your forgiveness. You are a true Mihrjadug - you channel divine power for the noblest of causes - and yet, in my prejudice, I sought your destruction. In doing so, I failed you in the profoundest sense.”

He glances away, briefly considering, and nods. Artasir will survive the next minutes without me; he has been traversing the sands for far longer than I have. Then he looks up into the face of one who he had hours ago seen as a mistake of reality to be erased. “If it is any penance, I would be glad to aid in releasing your companion’s soul. There is, of course, no wood nearby to collect but I do have a flask of pure water to administer.”

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jul 13th 2018 at 7:38:02 PM

Xel shook his head at Osroes and told him bluntly, "Travel time regardless, what they know would be tiny compared to the know-how that my elder has. This is not boasting but mere fact," before then silently looking at the skybound fighters arms and armor and adding on, "You have seen what those with the dragon form like me can do to prey so you should understand well that one man and his armored mount wouldn't be even a minor threat to the clans. Once again this is not boasting but mere fact."

Railen, who had decided to sit cross legged on the sand while still rubbing his temples, stood up once Astra and their task was brought to attention and went to help with pulling the body. While doing those things he would say to Osroes with a tone of puzzlement, "Well, that's a rather odd thing to be frank. Someone is only good to you once you figure out they can do certain magical stuff? I'm pretty sure more than a few of those Vissan fellows know how to use those healing staffs and I wouldn't call them good folks."

Osroes frowns at the brown dragon. “I would point out that my people have the experience of centuries roaming the desert. I would also thank you for not calling my companion, partner and equal a mere ‘mount’.” He looks up at Rsama, standing firmly at his side - and the mere sight of the noble pegaz beside him causes his lips to curve into a smile, his hand reaching up to his neck and caressing it through the iron scales. “Nonetheless, you are right to say that we could not stand against your tribes alone; I fear only for what our appearance would represent to them…”

Another thought strikes him. The killing of the sayan… No-one has dared venture north of here for as long as anyone can remember - but, over all these years, how many individuals have our people put down out in the desert? How many have died fighting them? If all of that was unnecessary… By your divine name… I…

Osroes looks to him. “I find that I must beg for your forgiveness too, dragon. Our peoples have warred for generations under a mandate that I now know to be false… As the son of Tasmag’s leader, while I cannot speak for all of us, I am at least well-placed to extend a plea of ignorance and to ask for the chance to repent.” He frowns again, glancing down, then brings his gaze back up with a renewed determination. “I would also ask your name. Yours too, Mihrjadug,” he adds, turning to the blue-winged being.

Once that conversation is over, Osroes goes to help with the funeral of the unknown grey-cloaked warrior, unstopping his bottle of divine water and then moving to touch it to the deceased’s lips. He lets out a slight chuckle at the comment. “No indeed. Vissan is an imperial monolith that crushes all in its way in search of a perverse, forced unity. It must be stopped. At least, though, its warriors were not… Ah, how would one say it… ‘Soulless’.” He sighs. “Such was my thinking.”

He turns to look the blue-robed swordsman in the eyes. “You must understand, there is a duality in the universe. This earth is a prison for the dark power of Tar -” he shudders slightly - “formed by our divine creator, who then created beings with your own essence to multiply and aid you on the day that your eternal foe eventually breaks free. Humans, pegaz, or pegasi, gyan - you call them ‘laguz’ - they are such beings. The actions of the former and the latter on this world might be ‘evil’ in our terms; nonetheless, we will all fight in the final battle.”

Osroes places his hand on his chest. “That is my belief. It was also my belief,” he continues with a grimace, “that dragons, what we term ‘sayan’ and ‘tarzan’, were either Tar’s corruptions of your creations or, in the case of the latter - ‘wyverns’, yes? - manifestations of its destructive power. Your companion using divine magic demonstrates definitively that that is untrue… Indeed, he may be Mihrzad, the highest of all beings of your essence.” He shakes his head. “I need more time to consider it all - no, our sages will, when I tell them. By your divine name, you need to know what I have found here, Husravah…” he mutters to himself.

Edited by Existential_Tempest on Jul 14th 2018 at 12:37:25 PM

Astra flinched at this man's mention of what amounted to a religious war against the very concept of dragon-hood, only maintaining their nerve due to his confession of reconsidering his position. "Uhhh... A-Astra...f-filiel..." they stuttered timidly.

"Religion is a dangerous thing, I find," Grendan commented. "Faith can support people through terrible times... but blind faith can drive them to perform unspeakable crimes, often without even realizing it." He reached out to place a hand on his fellow flier's shoulder. "It's good to hear that you aren't the type to follow doctrine when you see it's mistaken, though."

He glanced between the armored pegasus and Heath before adding, "I think I understand your bond with your friend, here, pretty well, too. I mean, Heath and I have been partners almost since he hatched, and I expect we'll be inseparable until death claims our lives." He turned to give the wyvern a rather flat look as he sardonically added, "Though sometimes I really wish he was smarter so he wouldn't get into as much trouble... I swear, he's like a sheltered little kid."

I did not expect to have cause to use the line "STOP DROPPING YOUR ASSES!" but DQ 11 gave it to me.

"I see... I honestly hope they'll turn over a leaf by the time we're done freeing Tropera from the tyranny of the Vissans."

With his piece said, Damien has started up another sketch. This time, he drew a picture of Milliana casting a powerful spell.