(Astral Dive II) The Staircase

[Crystal]

There were lots of things fighting for Crystal's attention here (a yelling Acanthus, reality-defying architecture, actually teleporting like that), but there was something in Phoenyx's effortlessness that made him gasp involuntarily. The first Talon definitely made a strong argument for the Arrows - not that the Warlock was interested himself, but it was nice to know they weren't all talk.

He looked at Puck indulging his spirit of exploration and took a few careful steps around the platform himself, testing whether it would hold their weight or crumble further. He could probably try to teleport to safety again if he fell, but his scientific fervor didn't go that far - he was contempt not knowing that for certain for now.
The portal however looked interesting and after Puck's question he made his way over there. That interest quickly turned sour when his memory produced the translation for the runes. He could be wrong, though. Had to be. "Hey Phoenyx, care to give me a second opinion on this?" He called out to the other two Awakened. "This doesn't really say 'Valley of the Thunder Lizards', right?" It was moments like these where he hated his eidetic memory - he really could have used some plausible doubt on that one.


While waiting for someone to refute his translation, he looked around the maddening stair-scape - surely there had to be something more comforting around.

1 success

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-28 14:15:47	Crystal rolls 3 to study the unstudy-able (Wits 2 + Comp 3 - 2) (10 Again)	8, 4, 3	1 success

How often can we retry a fail in that regard?

Active Spells: -/-
Equipment: -/-
Willpower 3/6
Mana 5/10

[Phoenyx]

There was a nod as Puck went to look around. Crystal's gasp drew her eyes to him, and the smirk spread a little wider at him. Obrimos Pride, it was a thing.

Phoenyx went to look around as well, only found herself watching the path of stairways interlinking and leading off into different ways.

1 success

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-28 16:21:07	Phoenyx rolls 5 to Examine the Astral Space: Int+Investigation (10 Again)	6, 9, 1, 5, 6	1 success

Crystal's voice jolted her from where she had been staring at the portals... How long had she been looking at them? She hadn't been aware of her surrounding s at all. It was unnerving, and she shook her head before heading over to the others.

"That is the symbol for Thunder," she said, pointing. "It is the only one I know for certain. I believe that one is lizard?" she added with less certainty. "High Speech of today is obviously very fragmented - It has not been one of my areas of study. But I know enough magic to recognise those two. Was Thunder Lizard not an old term for dinosaurs?" she asks curiously.

Walking up to the portal, she gently lays a hand on the stone of the portal. "Are either of you proficiant in the Space or Fate Arcana? Perhaps we could tell where it leads."

[Yumyumcrow]

The three Awakened stand on the damaged platform.

The platform does give a good vantage for examining the escher-staircase. However the misty environment, and the slow but steady rotation of the stairs make it difficult to count the number o portals and landings. It does not help that while there is no feeling of falling, studying the stairs definitely gives the visual impression that they are.

Both Crystal and Phoenyx manage to count about 10 individual landings. The varied state of the Portals on each landing throws off their count.

For Puck the time the other two spend studying the esher staircase is... annoying. The Libertine feels like it was a long time, even if he can't actually describe a sense of time passing in the Astral Sea. He explores every nook and cranny on the platform and finds nothing else of note: the platform is simply eroding away and given its general appearance, the Libertine would probably be right in thinking that it was once part of the larger staircase structure at some point.

You can keep retrying at a -1 dice per attempt until you run of dice pool.

You may also use team-work if you wish.

[Puck]

Excitement abounds!

Eyes are wide with the revelation of what lay just a doorway away. Thunder lizards? Dinosaurs?! And these guys are just staring at a staircase? For how long?! Who's terrible idea was it to check out all this crap anyway? Why do people listen to him? He sounds like a bore. People should stop. It's time to prove Puck learned nothing from Jurassic Park, and everyone needed to be on that page stat.

With a newfound focus Puck reexamines his surroundings. Now though, his excitement is guided by purpose. A singular need to see a dinosaur in person. Seers? Over it. Drunk staircase? Go home. There is one goal now. It's just a matter of checking the boxes so the others will come with.

Perception things!

I forgot the -2 to examine the stairs, but it doesn't alter the final results.

  4 suxx Wits+Comp on the platform, 2 suxx Wits+Comp-2 on the stairs.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2021-03-29 18:13:19		Puck rolls 8 to Perception (Stairs) (Wits+Comp) (10 Again)		2, 9, 3, 5, 8, 6, 6, 4		2 successes
2021-03-29 18:12:57		Puck rolls 7 to Perception (Platform) (Wits+Comp-1retry) (10 Again)		8, 6, 10, 5, 10, 5, 2, 8, 6		4 successes

Spellz- 2E Fate Sight and Armor, Winds of Chance

[Crystal]

Gazing into the not-landscape made Crystal almost dizzy. Like the creeping feeling of vertigo once the line of K hits, but without the giddiness. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, focusing on the more or less solid ground to regain his sense of balance. The Obrimos unfortunately seconded his translation - he kept his eyes closed for another moment and then addressed the others.

Crystal skillfully ignored Phoenyx' question about Space. He wouldn't call his mastery of the Arcanum 'proficient'. One thing he was certain of though: "Dreamscape or no - I don't really know if I want to meet any dinosaurs." Puck seemed a bit too exited, though. Maybe it was time to change the topic away from this specific portal - time to get nerdy. "So I think I'm counting 10 landings.. can't be too sure though. If we want to have a definite number we should divide the space so that there's no overlap in observations? Or maybe we should go to a different landing and see if the view gets better." If he had to choose between Dinosaur-land and teleporting it'd be the latter

Suggesting a teamwork-effort here if we decide to neither enter the portal nor move to another landing.

Active Spells: -/-
Equipment: -/-
Willpower 3/6
Mana 5/10

[Phoenyx]

Phoenyx sighed audibly. Puck was jumping around like a small child, and she did not like being ignored. "I realise we can be secretive of our talents by nature, but this is a realm of magic. It will need magic to understand, magics I lack skill in. I can fight and fix your injuries. I will protect you both if danger arises. However we need to co-operate, even if it means revealing something of ourselves, or we will not get very far here."

Her piece said, she moved back over to the others, eyes following Crystal's verbal pointer back to the platforms. "I believe you are right. It seems quiet enough - we should spread out, see what the other portals say. Scream if you get in trouble." There was another small smile. Gallows humour seemed to be her main humour.

The Arrow made to leap to another platform, the better to look around.

I'm up for a teamwork to map around a bit better. As I'm up I'll throw the supporting roll now for expediency:

failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-30 08:01:24	Phoenyx rolls 4 to Watch the Astral: Int+Inv-1 (10 Again)	4, 5, 6, 1	failure

Well, that was no help! Good luck Crystal!

[Crystal]

Aw shit, that's not what he-
And off she went. He meant mapping the surroundings from here or move on as a group, but clearly the Obrimos has found her footing and grew comfortable here. Much like Puck, apparently. He pondered for a bit, and came to a conclusion: maybe he [i]could[i] try using Space to get a better sense of the dimensions - what better way to understand the bullshittery around them than with the Arcanum known for such things? He muttered some High Speech to go along with his focus - this one was a freebie.

Once he got the right words, he tried to conjure up the Imago: a simple spell, beginner level shit, just gaining some understanding about anything beyond the three dimensions the Lie wants you to believe in. Spatial cause and effect, 'correct' angles and relations - they could all go out of the window and he was here to see how and why.

Casting failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-30 09:58:51	Crystal rolls 4 to casting Spatial Awareness (Space 1 + Gnosis 1 + HS 2) (10 Again)	3, 4, 1, 6	failure

Except nothing happened. The landscape remained confusing and infuriatingly alien. He could feel the blood rush to his head. Yeah, he never really used the Arcanum, but it's not like he wanted to get the place's blueprints or impose the Lie onto it. He closed his eyes and tried again.

Retry failure

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-30 10:01:42	Crystal rolls 3 to cast Spatial Awareness (Sp 1 + G 1 + HS 2 -1) (10 Again)	5, 2, 1	failure

Nothing. He involuntarily scoffed and and cursed under his breath. How the fuck was he supposed to use his grand Supernal talents when it either didn't work or went horrifically wrong whenever it did? "Fuck this." Probably not loud enough for either of the other two to hear.
He needed something, just a little success to not completely tilt off the rickety landing he was on. Breathe, then fuck all this Magic shit and use your fucking head.

2 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-30 10:12:37	Crystal rolls 5 to map his surroundings (Wits 2 + Comp 3 - 3 + WP) (10 Again, WillPower)	7, 9, 1, 9, 1	2 successes

He tried to exclude any landings and portals he'd already counted, comparing them to his perfect memory and tried to get a more complete picture of what's going on.

Active Spells: -/-
Equipment: -/-
Willpower 2/6
Mana 5/10

[Yumyumcrow]

Puck is getting antsy - a bundle of barely suppressed energy as he goes over the platform again and again. There is method to his madness, of course, and on his last pass he can confirm that there is nothing else of note on the platform; no threat; no imminent danger. The platform is solid - whatever has happened to it has not damaged the platform's overall integrity and it isn't going to come flying apart or dissolve away any time soon.

Puck's actions throw off the Arrow's timing and she looses her count, leaving Crystal to wrestle with calculating the size of the esher-staircase alone.

Quite independently, the Acanthus (sheer luck, catching a full view of the staircase between the fast moving clouds) and the Mastigos (raw effort and careful computation) come to the opinion that the staircase has at least 20 landings or platforms built into its looping structure. That would mean around 40 individual Portal, of which half are definitely lit. The remaining Portals are either unlit or stutter and spark randomly in the aetheric gloom.

There is a lot of debris circling the staircase ranging in size from pebbly dust to full blown landings. The mages can estimate that there a total of 10 more active Portals's floating around the esher structure (not counting inactive Portals and others that flash and stutter randomly).

Phoenyx prepares to move...

@Xadun please roll Resolve + Gnosis for Phoenyx

[Phoenyx]

3 successes

Date	Action	Roll	Result
2021-03-31 07:08:28	Phoenyx rolls 7 to Move through Astral Space: Res+Gnosis (10 Again)	9, 10, 9, 5, 6, 1, 4, 3	3 successes

Sorry, I don't have any narration for there really.

[Yumyumcrow]

Phoenyx runs and jumps...

And launches herself upward, leaping from platform fragment to platform fragment until she alights on the shattered remnants of another landing that was above and to the left of the platform Puck had chosen.

The landing Phoenyx moves to has one Portal; it is still glowing with the Atlantean runes for "THE STORYTELLER" glowing faintly on the lintel.

This platform offers a much better view of the curvature of the esher structure.