Galeini the GREAT was in minor distress due to the less than grandiose nature of his last smoke bomb but the plume was enough to keep his spirits high. Now seeing he had no chance of evacuating the castle before the mole beast got to them, Galeini T. GREAT decided to book it up and outside of the castle. He began scouring the grounds for a cannon. Even if the cannon itself didn't have any gunpowder left to fire, Galeini the GREAT had more than enough on his person to blow this castle sky high and a little bit of flash paper would take care of the wick.

"Foul beast of below, prepare to fall to the might of the Masters of EVIL!"

Finding a black castle against a dark sky and darker mountain was actually kind of difficult. Especially when the would be 'Masters of Evil' kept the place dark, save a few rooms. Apparently it was supposed to be spookier that way, but Pouri thought someone just wasn't paying for enough wood for torches. The path leading up to the castle was equally dark and treacherous, supposedly to obscure it from the more heroic of society. The earthquakes were new though. So was the giant molerat, and the lasers. The bombs too.

Pouri raised an eyebrow. It hadn't been that long since the last convening. The group had the budget for this but not more lights? Jeez.

The blight mage continued moving, munching on something pungent and ignoring the battle that they assumed was a defense measure and making their way to the castle's main entrance. They turned the handle, finding it unlocked (probably because no one would get through the monster and lasers and bombs), and stepped inside. They looked left, then right... then shrugged to themselves, choosing a random path and hoping it led to the meeting hall.

Throughout the chaos that happened, Marina watched as bolt after bolt of lightning scorched the molerat's body. Triumphant, Marina smiled--her teeth, some sharpened to a point, glinted in the light flashing from the sky.

The best flailed as the rain began to flood the grounds below. Wind flowed through the window that Marina stood close to, sending her hair smacking against her face. Some of it got on her mouth, and she tried to spit it out, but only more entered. She had to stop grinning and gather the hair from her face as the ground beneath the castle rumbled.

"Oh no," Scara said and then coughed, trying to hide their remarks.

Marina turned to face Scara and the rest of the room but suddenly was overtaken with a throbbing head and nausea overwhelming her senses. Drained of energy, Marina stumbled as she walked towards her servant. She tried to stand again but fell to her knees right in front of Scara. Her servant looked Marina in the eye, their eyes wide with surprise.

"Uhhhhh..." Scara uttered.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Marina said and started to gag while lifting her free hand to feel her face. "I have a fever." Sighing, she turned to look at one of the Council members use a smoke bomb.

Ziebach looked away from his bomb as Marina collapsed from the strain of casting that lightning spell. He went over, not even looking at whether he made an explosion or not. If he did he guessed that would make him a cool guy, but for now he squatted down next to the woman and her servant. "I don't think we have a healer. Healing magic is kinda...you know...not evil. So..."

He reached over and pat her on the back in an attempt to make her feel better.

"There there." He said.

Scara looked at the council member that approached their master with a raised brow. Before they could tell them not to indulge Marina, they patted her on the back.

Marina herself frowned but before she could shout at them, vomit rose in her throat. "Oh no." She said herself and then ran to the nearest corner to puke her guts out.

Ziebach Looked up at Scara, maintaining that same stone expression and tone. "Was it something I said?"

@Vatonage 6 - Overblown Success
There is a rumble through the earth as the roots start drilling down, one final subdued earpiecing scream splitting the sky as the beast is destroyed. You watch as the branches hungrily reach towards the stars, seperate trees beginning to intertwine as they hungrily seek upwards.

You no longer feel droplets of water on your face, the great canopy blocking out the sky. It is eerie, in the shade. A claustrophobic pitch darkness pricked only by the light of standing torches. You hear the plinking of pebbles rolling along, and look down to see one butt against your feet before sliding over and lying still. You do not see the landslide but you hear it. A great roar from the east cliff and the taste of dust on the air. How big is it? How dangerous?

Gain Title: Mother of Yggdrasil
New Region: Yggdrasil. This has several questing locations within.
New Questing Location: Tunnels of the Molerat.


@GentlemanVaultBoy 5 - Success
You launch the magic bomb into the hall and hear a satisfying KABOOM! There is a beautiful plume of powdery purple smoke that shoots up into the air, but no one can see it because everyone is currently standing under the pitch darkness of Yggdrasil. The ground shakes, groans and cracks into fissures. But the shaking doesn't stop and the sounds only grow in volume.

You wonder, briefly, about the stability of Black Castle as the region is hit by an earthquake.

---

4 - partial success
You pat Scara on the back. It is relatively reassuring, but not the most reassuring, just kinda nice.

@Dark Cloud 1 - catastrophic failure
you throw a punch but send yourself shooting back into the wall of dirt behind you, feeling the gnarled roots of the trees twining around you as you sit their stunned. Suddenly, you realise you are surrounded by these growing roots, and they just keep going!

You look up to see what looks like some kind of orb rolling towards the corpse of the Molerat.

Oh no! You are trapped in the hole with the bomb and the magically altered roots, what do you do to try to get out of this situation?

@ZAVAZggg 1 - Catastrophic failure
you run outside seeking the creature but find yourself surrounded by what appears to be a magical darkness. Tiny sprites flicker in the night, you know they are trying to lure you astray! More then anything else, you hear a great roar and the shaking of the ground.

That must be the beast! To the East of you! You are definitely sure it is the beast and not, in fact, a landslide.

@Kenshi 1 - Catastrophic Failure
Syrzan heads down the spiral staircase, but they flatten out beneath his feet! He goes sliding down the smooth surface, round and round in a spiral, getting dizzy! Just when it seems he will hit the ground, he finds the floor give way beneath him.

FOOSH! You find yourself in a ball pit, the sounds of eerie children laughter filling the air around you. You glance around to see climbing frames, some sort of - inflatable jello castle? - and myriads of tiny, bug eyed children with stony blue skin and tiny pig noses. Their legs elongate into strange hairy appendages reminiscent of a spider, and their arms seem a little too long to be human, their forearms tapering at the elbow and enlarging into oversized hands at the wrists. They dissapear into padded tunnels, sweep down slides and climb up rope ladders before dipping out of sight.

One of the children in the ballpit with you picks up a ball and tosses it towards you.

---

4 - Partial Success
You decide the appropriate reaction to this situation is to summon a giant cheese illusion. You go to cast it, but instead summon a very small cube of brie. Now, how had that happened? Oh well. It smelled particularly delicious at least.

@rocketrobie2 5 - Success!
You expertly keep your footing as you navigate the battlements, paying no heed to the occasional rock that skips off the side of the castle. Aha! that's when you spot it, just as a great shadow starts to encroach the castle. A beautiful, pristine cannon, shapely size, expertly stacked cannonballs nearby. Is that the new model out of the Kingdom? It must be something someone stole on a recent expedition. It's so impossibly perfectly designed, and exactly what you need.

The world around you is plunged into darkness.

@Yankee 4 - Partial success
You meander through the hallways, finding your way through a very nicely decorated library and reading room. A golem shushes you as you walk by into one of the many grand halls, this one in a more viking-esque longhall style, with a roaring fire on one side. You pass through the art gallery, This one - lets see, was this the one that linked to the Blue Medusa? - and through the vault of forbidden magic. Then there was the trinket pit, the curios and collectables room, the ballroom, the dwarvern slave laundry room (eegads, dwarves was so bad at laundry. What was the point in enslaving them in the first place? Ah yes, you remember. It was to make them utterly miserable doing something so against their nature) there was the antiquated fish pond that had seen better times, Ada's Golem workshop (better not tell her you popped by. You're not sure if she'd be mad at you for interloping or talk your ear off about a recent discovery, but either way you didn't want to find out) the Siren Cavern, the pit of dispair... You shelled out a gold piece to the bridge troll in the end, and he told you you waaay overshot it.

It takes you many hours to find your way there, and you are tuckered out. This castle has too many stairs. You have some nice postcards, though.

@RainyHigh 1 - catastrophic failure
You trip over your own feet, puke over your shirt and then faceplant the cobbled ground, your nose starting to bleed. You remind yourself that a few minutes ago you bested a legendary beast, and lament how far you have fallen.


@VeyrinDay@Vatonage@Dark Cloud@Gentlemanvaultboy@RainyHigh, anyone else who got a hit on the creature in time
While words of your deeds have not yet spread far, you have changed the balance of the world by killing a Legendary Creature, and the power released on it's death has forever changed you as well. This comes with it's own prestige... and consequences.

Gain: Legendary BeastSlaye - You have contributed to the kill of a legendary beast and all that comes with it.

Gain: Fragment of Soul - Minor: You have been morphed and now have a higher success rate of digging tunnels and sniffing out rare mining resources.

Gain Fragment of Soul - Powerful: You have absorbed part of the essence of the legendary creature. Gain one of the following:

• That's one big ass tree you got there, and it's kind of blocking out the sun and kind of going up beyond the clouds. You could prune it or leave the area in darkness.
• Did this creature have loot though? The whole exploding it a myriad of ways might have ruined some of it, but who knows?
• Nice new tunnel system you got there, probably connects to a bunch of places too

I laugh at the others, but frown at my dragon.
I attempt to pick up the molerat corpse.

The sky darkened, all light save for the torches of the castle snuffed out by the canopy that now stretched out above the castle. Trees. He shuttered. Enemies of mountains everywhere. What did they think they were, sending their roots digging ever greedily downward, invading the homes and tunnels of the things that lived down there. Always plotting to choke the life out of any technology they could wrap their appendages around.

The mountain made its displeasure know. Any boy from the mines would know the rumble of a landslide, racing down to swipe that abominable cancer from its side along with anything unfortunate to be caught in the way. That meant the castle. In addition to that he suddenly felt all his hair fall out of his head and began to feel very worried he may have contacted some disease from the woman now throwing up in the corner. But along with it came another feeling. Tiny, needily pricks of not-quite pain racing across his body from all directions. What was that? It felt familiar. Was this the ambient magic that so suffused the ancient castle? Were the stones of the wall calling out for a savior? What did it want him to do.

Ziebach closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling out the subtle differences in the sensations around him. There had to be something. Most dwarf holds had secret levers and buttons, their uses lost to time save that they were to be pulled in the event of emergency. Why would this evil castle not have the same? This was the meeting hall, if they were anywhere they would be here.

He felt around with his new senses for secret buttons and emergency switch's to activate the castles magical defenses. If he found one he would run over and use it.

Scara looks at the council member and replies, "No, she's just difficult."

Meanwhile, Marina went to throw up but tripped over her own damn feet. She flailed forward and puked all over her black leather vest and then faceplanted to the cobblestone floor. Wiping nasty arse and putrid vomit from her face, she discovered her nose was bleeding.

Not only that, nope! She grew whiskers.

Marina let out a wail, a quick one, as she held back a sob. She then used motioned for her servant.

"Scara! My staff!"

Once Scara handed her staff to her, Marina then would attempt to use a cleaning spell.

And then the castle began to tremble once again. But the council of Evil destroyed the beast of a molerat!

Syrzan stared at the odd child and wondered if his or her brain would satisfy this weird urge he has.
Shrugging his shoulders as if answering his own question,he seizes the child by their shoulders and attempts to eat their brain.

@Mae

Gimlen continues on to the castle,but walks around to the back side of the dark fortress.
"Hmmm, now if I were a hidden lever, where would I be?"
The Gnome uses his knowledge of secret doors, and searches for the button or lever.

@ZAVAZggg 1 - Catastrophic failure
you run outside seeking the creature but find yourself surrounded by what appears to be a magical darkness. Tiny sprites flicker in the night, you know they are trying to lure you astray! More then anything else, you hear a great roar and the shaking of the ground.

That must be the beast! To the East of you! You are definitely sure it is the beast and not, in fact, a landslide.

It was, in fact, a landslide.

'Good going genius, now we're tumbling down the side of a cliff while covered in a metric ton of mud.'

Maere let out a low growl as he tumbled about, and though he hated to admit it, Seggorath was right. Thankfully this was naught more than an embarrassment to the demonic swordsman rather than anything legitimately lethal, though it still hurt his pride nonetheless. After what felt like hours, in truth it was quite hard to tell, Maere finally felt himself come to a stop. Letting out a heated sigh, he began the arduous process of clawing his way back to the surface, the armored gauntlets that came with his carapace helping greatly in this regard.

"Damn it all." Mortus writhed in the grasp of the roots, trying to grab his arcane focus and swearing while he did so. Grasping the metal object, Mortus uttered a sequence of incantations for the spell of teleportation so he could get out of the hole.

Muttering a powerful spell, Shandris raised her hand, full of greenish magic, into the air. "Begone, foul beast! Return to the earth from whence you came!" She shouted, directing the hundreds of branches and roots towards the beast with a wave of her arm.

Whilst she was expecting her magic to be powerful—of course, why wouldn't it be—Shandris, however, hadn't expected it to be that powerful. A great tree rose before them, and the very ground shook from the core. "Aha! Nature returns once again to this rotten world!" She announced, laughing with fervor as whiskers began to sprout from her cheeks.

Interesting, Shandris thought, rubbing one of the newly sprouted whiskers between her fingers. But a sudden growth of facial whiskers was of no current matter; the great tree Yggdrasil stood before the druid—her very own flesh and blood! Or maybe it was wood and water? She wasn't some philosopher or something like that, after all.

However, as much as she wanted to bask in her glory right now, there were still more pressing issues at hand. Almost all of her fellow "villains" had disappeared, and the ground had begun to shift, giving way underneath the castle. Smirking, Shandris thought to use this to her advantage, deliberately chosing to leave the others to their own fate as her eyes began to glow a greenish hue once again. Pointing her magic towards the castle with a manical laugh, she sought to entwine Yggdrasil's roots within the building's foundation. Not only would this save the castle from total collapse if she could pull it off, but this way there certainly wouldn't be any way her rivals could remove the tree without suffering the consequences of nature's wrath!

"All this shade will make all of my magic too easy. There is no fun in evil if it comes naturally." Galeini the GREAT monologued to himself as he loaded up the pristine cannon with his own concoction of gunpowder and a cannon ball. Galeini the GREAT then took aim at the great tree, about half way up it's mighty trunk, and fired!

@DraconiWarlord 2 - Failure
you go to pick up the corpse but buckle under it's weight, unable to lift so much as a single digit of a paw. This creature is huge, and the carcass will be a problem to dispose.

@Gentlemanvaultboy 3 - Mixed Success
You recall the location of one of the emergency buttons, removing a castle brick to find a strange magical lock mixed with wires and sparking electricity. A pad of lighting up buttons flicker to the tune of an unheard beat. Blast, what was that password again? Top-left top right center center bottom right left? Top middle top middle bottom middle bottom middle left right left right center center? Ho humm, you remember they talked about this alot at Black Castle orientation day, but that was so long ago...

@RainyHigh 1 - Catastrophic Failure O.O
You attempt to use a simple cleaning spell, but feeling muddled, switch some of the components over. As you parse the last syllable a flash of red lit smoke fills the room and you see the flash of silvered teeth! Looks like you have summoned some creature into the chamber with you, but the red fog roiling around you makes it hard to see...

@Kenshi 2 - Failure
The strange child wriggles out of your grasp and lets out an ear piercing scream! All unblinking eyes turn to look at you eeriely, as one child runs off to fetch the parents...

2 - Failure
You look around for a secret button or lever, but find none, though you were expecting one. Had you misplaced it? or had it been moved?

@Dark Cloud 6 - Overblown Success
The roots writhe around you as you pull the best incantation out of your memory, the arcane focus growing hot in your hands as you murmur the words of power to utter perfection. You are blinded by a white light, a sense of dizziness overtaking you momentarily before it dissipates. Your eyes adjust and you realise you are staring up into the noonday sun. Sheeps baa nearby, and you look down to see a young shepherd eyeing you with a mix of suspicion and fear.

Where... where are you?

Looking around, you see no hint of Black Castle nearby, nor giant trees that should definitely give a hint to it's location. A curious ewe bumps against your knee.

@Vatonage 5 - Total Success
The new power of the legendary beast pulses through you as you weave your spellwork. Your magic springs forth from you, and you feel Yggdrasil buckle to your will. Gargantuan roots tangle with jagged rocks and fine stonework, the great granting access to the roof and other areas thanks to this change. Black Castle is firmly in place now as the ground still shakes, safely anchored - and melded - to Yggdrassil.

@rocketrobie2 2 - Failure
There is a hiss and a sputter as the fuse ignites and then pitters out. For a moment you contemplate sticking your head in front of the cannon to get a better look, but then think better of it.

"Curses!" Galeini the GREAT yelled as he shook his fist at the cannon. This machine was obviously faulty. No chance it was his own concoction of explosive powder. Seeing the cannon as a lost cause, Galeini the GREAT went back inside the castle to find his fellow nare-do-wells and hopefully do something about the avalanche. Of course Galeini the great could just use his powers of mysticism and the occult to get away, but what sort of example would that give the rest of the team?

Galeini came upon Ziebach messing with something in the wall. Of course! The castle's defences! That was exactly why Galeini the great had come back to the castle. He confidently strode over to Ziebach and the panel to give a hand.

"Marvellous thinking Ziebach! Let the castle save itself!" Galeini said as he began to try and help Ziebach turn on the castle's defences.

Ziebach was thankful for Galeini's help. He knew he should have taken notes during orientation. The flashing lights of the panel perplexed him, but at least the castle stopped shaking as it was melded in place and held by the great tree. That was a hemp to his concentration, yet still it wasn't enough.

Wait. He stopped concentrating on the blinking light. What did he need the password for? What he not an artificer, a forger, a creator of machines? Why should he have to be bound by the petty machinations of his predecessors? In the tunnels, when the dwarves fond their efforts to mine stymied by particularly tough rock, flooding, or breaking into a cave full of demons they did not despair. They didn't let the problem cut their productivity. If an impassible obstacle presented itself you did not stop, you cut into the wall next to you and circumvented the obstacle entirely.

They called it HACKING!

Ziebach's fingers began to move very fast across the buttons, arcane sparks jumping from them as worked. "Ahhhhh-tatatatatatatatata!" he deadpanned as he did so, without really knowing why. He did not search for the password. He would create his own. He was going to hack the castle and bring it under his control to stop the avalanche.