Light

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

> Grab her arm again. <

---

Aika only managed to take one more step toward the riser between the ground and platform, when your hand seized her wrist once again. She stuttered in that step and shot a uncharacteristically sharp leer at you over her shoulder, lifting her arm in a similarly sharp motion to wrench it free of your grasp. However, you were set on disallowing this, and maintained your grip. "I said let me go," she restated with more emphasis. Your rebuttal was equally filled with agitation, as you sought to remind her of the dangers here. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Stop for one second and just think this through," you urged her to caution. Unfortunately, she seemed unswayed, shaking her head against your advice. "I told you, this is why I'm here, I'm not leaving empty handed," her eyes met yours with a determined glint. "Now let me go!" You couldn't help but shake your head in disbelief. "Listen to yourself! Who just strolls up to a dragon and tries to gut out its heart?"

"I told you, he's dead!"

"You said 'maybe.' If this is one of the most powerful dragons of the First Era, I wouldn't be surprised if- I dunno- maybe it's some kind of trick or trap?"

"Do you really think he'd let us get even this close? Look at him. He's not even breathing."

"All right, maybe not the big scary dragon that needed an army to fell and there's only two of us, of course." You rolled your eyes with sarcasm. "But why not be as careful as possible, right? This place was build to seal Zorkuth away, forever, presumably. If I was going to hollow out the top of an entire mountain for the sole purpose of preventing one of the most dangerous dragons in history from escaping, I think I'd wanna make sure nobody else gets in either. Just in case some old wizard across the country side wanted- oh I dunno- his heart!?" You would have thrown both arms up in the air, but with one occupied restraining the woman you were hired to find and escort alive, only one hand would suffice for expressive gesticulation. As your posture calmed down, your free hand pinched your brow, baffled that you needed to argue against such wanton recklessness. "What- what does he need this dragon heart for, anyway?"

Your reasoning seemed to calm Aika down as well, she no longer tugged to escape your hold. She didn't look convinced, but she also didn't look like she'd take off the moment you released her. With some kind of understanding reached, you slowly unfurled your fingers from around her wrist, which she then coddled in her other hand to rub away the soreness of your tight grasp. "I... That's..." she hesitated to answer, finally choosing not to. "That's not for you to know." As you looked up at her again, you could see a deeper worry in her eyes, one that sunk further down than the concerns of magical or mechanical traps, or even the prospect of a dragon's trick to ambush two simple travelers. There was also the worry that you wouldn't take kindly to such an answer, one that you made sure she was right about.

"Excuse me?" You could feel your skin of your cheeks heating against the frigid air. "My reason for being here is to bring you back to your master. Alive. He never mentioned anything about toying with dragons on the top of the world, but if it's a danger to both you and myself, I think I deserve to know what's really going on here," you justified yourself and finished with a crossing of your arms and one final statement. "I don't care what you were hired to do here, I won't let it get in the way of what I'm here for, which is both of our wellbeings. If your boss really wants this heart, why did he send only you? What in Atros is so important that he's willing to send you on a suicide mission?"

Aika seemed to emotionally crumple under your verbal barrage, shaking her head to let loose her building adrenaline and anxiety before snapping back at you. "This is not a suicide mission! I know what I'm doing, and I don't need to explain myself to you! My master trusts me, and one slip-up and fall isn't going to change that!" After her explosion, her shoulders slumped and she let out a tense breath. "Look, I appreciate your help so far, really I do. But this?" she turned and cast her gaze upon Zorkuth, who still hadn't budged this whole time. "This is far too important. I need- I mean- he needs this. So," she turned back to you, that deeper concern still in her eye. "Either help me or stay out of my way."

---

• "All right, I'll help."

• "Fine, you're on your own then."

• "Wait. We should get reinforcements in case this proves too dangerous."

• "No. I'm taking you back to your master."

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

Thank you everyone for your patience again. I'm juggling a lot on my plate at the moment with moving and a few other projects I'm working on, but I'm still fully committed to this game, and I'll be trying to stick to the Sunday schedule more now that the rocky parts of my moving are mostly over.

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

> Try to solve the glowing statue puzzle. <

Solution Spoiler

Emperor, Knight, Scoundrel, Acolyte

---

"... And that should do it," Aika withdrew her hand from the small glass sphere held by the final statue in the sequence. All six surrounding you both shimmered with an arcane golden radiance, and with a nod from her, you lowered your palm against the central pedestal. Each time you had tried this before, the concentration of energies into the center was meager and fleeting, yet this time it captured the light from each statue into a brilliant shine that focused between the claw that held this central orb, casting long shadows from you both and the statues onto the red and gray banners that hung along the walls. As you looked up toward the door in expectation, it too matched this newer, pure potent light with its own, and the slow churning sounds of grinding age-old stone mechanisms informed you that you and Aika were correct. That did indeed do it, as the door separated into the walls, sliding out of your way and giving you both a view into what lay behond.

Your heads poked through the door in unison, and as you glanced up and down through the massive and dark cylindrical chasm before you, the familiar whistling of wind poured through a hole high above you. A small circle in the high ceiling let in the cold mountaintop air along with a moonbeam of silvery blue that filtered gently down several stories-worth of a staircase that sloped downward around the walls. As you crossed the door and out onto the top landing of stairs, the slightly less cold underground you had just explored stayed behind, and a unnaturally frigid air seemed to settle over you. Even under the weight of your winter-gear, your skin crawled and your shoulders shivered. There were no banisters to protect you from falling, yet curiosity won as you peered over the edge to discover that the decent would most assuredly be fatal should you slip.

With the aid of moonlight above, your view all the way to the bottom of this chamber was unimpeded by darkness. Cast in the ethereal glow was a raised platform of sorts in the center of the room. Surrounding it, the glint of gold reflecting back up to you was a strong contender for your attention, but there was something much more important at the center of the platform. Curled in the poise of slumber rested a shape that no self-respecting adventurer could mistake. Glimmering with tiny sparkles off of scales as white as perfect snow laid none other than a dragon, and quite an old one if tales about their size and age were to be believed.

"What..." your eyes widened as you leaned even further, only to be seized from both the sight of the creature and the danger of the ledge by your new partner. Her tight grip on your shoulder pulled you back to safety. "I wanna get a closer look too, but we should probably take the stairs," she beamed with excitement. "I don't have any spells to help with falling, remember?" Aika winked at you before letting you go, pivoting on her heel, and making her way down the stairs.

Whatever was about to happen was assuredly too important to miss, and so your pace caught up to her briskly as you both plunged deeper into the mountain than you thought possible.

By the time you landed at the bottom of the chasm, the shivering that draped over your shoulders like silk before now buffeted your very soul like a blizzard. The stairs let you go poetically in front of the beast, who had not seemed to respond to or otherwise acknowledge your presence. It remained coiled, its head poking out from a blanket formed by its own wing which folded over its body. Even with docile, closed eyes, the dragon's visage and presence was fulfilling some kind of awe- be it awe inspiring or awfully terrifying, or perhaps both. "Aika," you turned to her, caution coating your hushed words. "Is this- is this what you came here for?" A complete foil to your apprehension, Aika nodded with the giddiness of a child. Her arm and hand outstretched, gesturing to the dragon as she spoke. "You do know who this is, don't you? Son of The Comet Frindiath, namesake of this temple, Zorkuth?" The tale of Frindiath was known well enough across all of Geland, and you confirmed your familiarity with Zorkuth's mother by recounting it. "The general of the Minervan army during the Golden War, and spearhead of the attack on Albrigh at the war's end, that Frindiath? What in Atros do you plan to do here? And don't proclaim it so loud! You might wake him..." You recoiled slightly at the thought, but Aika quickly allayed your fears before instilling new ones. "While she was slain by Roethel the First, he was captured and imprisoned here. But it seems like my mentor's lead was rock-solid. He didn't last long down here by the looks of it." Aika stood on the tips of her toes, giving herself a bit of height to scan the dragon from here. "Strange, dragons usually live a long time. Maybe he simply succumbed to the injuries he had at Albrigh? Or maybe the Daldorans did him in when Geland handed him over? There's no way he'd just let us get this close if he wasn't already dead, right?" While she started off talking to you, she seemed more like she was wondering out loud to herself as she trailed on, eventually taking a step closer.

"Wait," it was your turn to grab her by the arm. "What are you doing?"

"Well- I didn't just come here to look at him. I need his heart."

"You need his what!?"

"Let me go, Verity," she shook your hand off of her. "This is the whole reason I came here."

---

• Grab her arm again.

• Let her approach Zorkuth alone.

• Follow her onto the platform.

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

@Light I think it might be best to gloss over the puzzle. I am stumped... ^^"

@Guardian Angel Haruki

Sure thing. I'm in the middle of a move so most of the week has been either packing or working, so I'll only have time to write later tonight.

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

@Light Just a little stuck trying to figure out the puzzle.
Still interested.

@Guardian Angel Haruki

OK. Let me know by next Sunday if you wanna try it or just have the characters gloss over it.

I wasn't super invested in trying to figure out the puzzle if I'm honest, but I am still interested in the story over all!

@The Muse

Yeah I'm not particularly into the puzzle stuff, as opposed to the narrative choices etc. Still enjoying the game though

@Kassarock

Ah I thought the puzzle would be a fun group thing instead of whoever votes first usually getting their way, but if puzzles aren't something this group is super into I will avoid having to solve them ourselves in the future. Maybe characters will have to deal with them or piece information together still but it'll be more narrative instead of mechanical.

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

@Guardian Angel Haruki @Kassarock @The Muse

As the three players who stuck around the longest so far, are you all still feeling into this CYOA game? If not that's cool, but I'd wanna communicate about it and see if the idea is still good, done for now, or if there was something perhaps more player-direct that maybe we can do?

I understand interests flux and sometimes wane. I've been having fun with you all so far so I definitely value your opinions on this.

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

<Snipped quote by Light>

Got a bad feeling about unsealing this place, but okay, here we go... ^^"

I think we're supposed to have all of the orbs be alight all at once.

My thoughts so far:

*We touch the Fool first, see what we're working with.
*We can also touch the Fool as many times as we need if we get stuck.
*If we can get all of the orbs to be dim, then we can use the Emperor to get them all alight.

@Guardian Angel Haruki

So what do you want to do, then?

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

Only once choice this week, but it's a puzzle-solving write in. Perhaps you all can try solving it together?

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

> "Do you know any magic that can help us decipher it?" <

---

"I'm not savvy with magical seals," you mentioned with a light-hearted shrug. "Maybe there's a spell you can cast that can help?" Aika squinted at you, a leer of slight and musing judgement. You returned to her a more animated shrug and excused yourself again. "What- isn't that how magic works, you just make it do what you want?" You seemed to dig yourself even deeper into this comedic hole, and Aika closed her eyes with a long sigh in response. "N-no, you can't just wave your hands and make anything happen," she explained as she took a step closer to the central pedestal. "I do happen to know one spell that can help but- I swear it's just a coincidence!" she threw her gaze back at you with an intense glare, one that soon after broke into a smile, fully aware of the joke in the room. She shook herself back to focus, and turned her attention to the dim glass orb clutched within the spindly fingers of the stone claw before her. Her hand lifted, not to the orb, but to her own face as she spoke the arcane tongue to weave her spell. You could see a blueish illumination reflecting off of her fingers as her hand pulled away, and as she stepped slowly around the pedestal, the origin of this glow became apparent in her eyes.

"Hmm..." Aika pondered out loud as she scrutinized the orb carefully, and then the other orbs around you two. "It seems like these glass spheres share a harmonized and multi-layered aura of abjuration and transmutation. The aura in its entirety is misaligned, preventing the energy flow needed to operate what is likely some kind of arcano-technological mechanism within the door itself." She blinked, and the spell alighting her eyes faded as she looked into yours. Perhaps she was expecting some equally educated response? Nevertheless, you could only muster a murky "Huh?" She blinked a second time, registering only after that you were confused. "Oh! Right- um- these orbs aren't sealing the door. They're the magical focal points to unsealing it, like uh... like the teeth on a key, for each pin within the lock." You nodded along as best as you could, the analogy certainly helping. "Well then, we might as well try to pick this lock then, yeah?" You gave her a nod of confidence, and she returned it with a smile. As you huddled together around the orbs, you got to work exploring the functions of their light and dark states.

First, the central pedestal. Upon touching the glass, the light from the Emperor statue faded momentarily as the center orb took on a smidgen of a little light within, not nearly as bright. The orb on the door flickered a similar wilting luster before they both faded and the Emperor reignited to a full glow.

Second, the Emperor. As Aika stumbled upon earlier, touching this orb seemed cause to all six of the statue orbs to switch their lit and dim states.

Third, the Acolyte. Each time you touched this orb, it would change its own state, and the Emperor would then match this new state.

Fourth, the Knight. If and only if the Scoundrel was alight, touching the Knight would snuff out the Scoundrel and alight the Emperor, otherwise this orb seemed to do nothing.

Fifth, the Scoundrel. Touching this orb if and only if it is dark and the Emperor and Acolyte are both alight would cause all three to switch states.

Sixth, the Fool. Frustratingly, every time you tried to use this orb, any one of the six statue orbs would instead change its state at random.

Lastly, the Hermit. This orb only changed its own state when touched.

With seeing how the orbs changed their luminescence at your fingertips, the central orb seemed to never glow quite as bright each time. It did seem to glow more true with every glowing statue around it, but you had yet to see what would happen if you could manage to alight all six statues at once. You reached out to the center once more, and in a now familiar flash, the room returned to its initial permutation, only the Emperor held a glowing orb.

---

• Try to solve the glowing statue puzzle.
[Write in: Choose which statues to touch and in which order.]

Adventure Awaits! - Prompt Voting CYOA (Always Open)

Oh, I hadn't seen that anyone voted all week. I thought this was the point where it dies lol. I'll have to work on a post later tonight then.