JungleBook/Session04
Last time
In center of the room, a pillar of radiant water, five yards across, flows straight up. Light ripples across the glass walls of the chamber; the air seems charged with moist energy. Power crackles and drips from the mosaic tiles underfoot; their pattern is a sunburst, centered on the column of water. <Ana> "If you had some sort of magical jewel, does this look like the place you'd keep it?"
<CaptainVaschir> "I wouldn't, but for anyone else it makes a certain sense."
<CaptainVaschir> "My bet it's what's causing the water-column thing, and we're in for a dowsing when we find and grab it."
Two arches, spaced equidistant around the curving wall, lead to stairways like the one which the pair just descended.
Vaschir looks up, hoping to confirm that they're now in the broken tower in the middle of the domes that he saw from above. It certainly looks that way. The high ceiling is made of glass, and he thinks he can see the outlines of the tower's broken walls, silhouetted against the bright glow of the water. When he looks back down, he and Ana are no longer the only people in the room.
- dissolvegirl is now known as Ana
The man walking across the room, toward the column of water, is best described as big-boned. He's tall, and far from fat, but he definitely is on the stout side.
His indigo and orange robes, cut in an archaic style, shimmer with thread-of-gold embroidery.
Despite the startling nature of the man's appearance, Ana and Vaschir both quickly realize there is something odd about him.
(Or perhaps because of the startling nature of his appearance.)
Although the very air of the chamber shimmers with magical moisture, his clothes and short, feathery blond hair seem perfectly dry.
His footsteps make no sound, nor do his robes as the folds of cloth move against each other.
<Ana> "Hello?
<Ana> "
He walks through the water that has flowed down from the room above, and causes no ripples; the shifting light emanating from the column of shining water does not cast a shadow behind him.
He takes no notice of Ana's greeting, stepping into the column of water and sinking directly down, out of sight.
<Ana> "Spooky."
<CaptainVaschir> "I'm guessing that's whoever's buried here, this is a tomb, right?"
<Ana> "Yes, I suppose."
No sooner has he left, than more figures, armed and armored in jade battle panoply, burst out of the chamber's entrances in uncanny silence, charging toward the water column.
They leap into it and also vanish, downward.
<Ana> "Should we try to follow?"
Ripples of watery light curl their way across the chamber's smooth stone walls.
<CaptainVaschir> "Maybe, I want to see if the show's over yet or not"
Minutes drag on. Liquid energy sloshes invisibly against Ana and Vaschir's feet, cool and moist.
<CaptainVaschir> "That seems the whole deal. I really hope the vengeful spirits of any or all of those guys aren't still lurking around down there."
The stout man reappears, rising up through the water. He is wearing a broad smile and a different outfit.
<CaptainVaschir> "I stand corrected."
<Ana> "Costume change? Hm."
He steps out from the column; three quick, silent steps across the room, and he meets the short, teal-haired woman who has just emerged from one of the stairways.
He sweeps her up in his arms and kisses her enthusiastically.
After they're done, he sets her back down and they walk back up the stairway she came from, disappearing around the bend.
The pillar of magical water gurgles and ripples like a vertical brook.
A drop of water condenses on Ana's nose and drips off.
<CaptainVaschir> "Think there's any more?"
<Ana> "Well, the show could be continuing around the corner, but even if the people are dead I don't think it's any of our business."
Vachir suddenly has a very close-up view of the ghostly man's back, as he walks straight through the pirate captain.
<CaptainVaschir> "Right. Let's go plunder whatever we can and then beat it."
<CaptainVaschir> "ACK! That was disorienting."
<Ana> "Works for me."
He is accompanied by a woman dressed all in black, and a man carrying a sword. The three of them seem to be having a silent argument.
The trio enters the water and sinks from view, still gesticulating angrily at one another.
<CaptainVaschir> "Well whatever this place is or was, it seems just about all the important crap happens down in that hole," Vaschir says, and moves towards the water column.
As he draws closer, cool water begins condensing on his skin and already-wet clothing.
<Ana> "After you."
CaptainVaschir Vaschir takes a breath and steps into the column.
A frisson passes through him as he enters the magically-charged liquid.
He hangs suspended in the middle of the shining water, perfectly weightless.
<Ana> "Is that as fun as it looks?"
CaptainVaschir looks downward, trying to figure out how to maneuver in the stream.
The water looks to extend downward for some distance. Rings of darkness seem to indicate points at which it passes through holes in floors; he can see one directly below him, and another further along, almost obscured by the water's shimmering light.
Although he is not moving, Vaschir senses a definite upward current in the water.
Experimentally paddling at the water, he finds that he can move easily through it.
The water seems to offer very little resistance -- it's much easier for him to get moving than would normally be the case underwater.
CaptainVaschir turns an arc in the stream, only showing off a little, and heads downwards.
Ana leaps into the stream and follows suit.
Vaschir quickly gets the hang of maneuvering in the water, and touches down lightly on the lip surrounding the hole in the floor, one level down.
The water slides smoothly off him, slurping back into the column, as he steps out.
This chamber is much smaller than the one above it, but is still circular.
Its walls are tiled with what appears to be jade, weathered by the centuries but still in remarkably good condition.
The murals depict attractive, naked people and graceful fish-tailed gods frolicking amid stylized waves.
There are three doors, set equidistant around the curving wall.
As Ana swims after Vaschir, she sees someone floating up from beneath her.
Ana swims more quickly, trying to get out of the way before she collides with the other person.
As the figure draws closer, she can see that it's a dark-skinned woman, wearing only a large towel.
<Domino> The blond man appears for a moment before Vaschir, sitting before the walls bearing a paintbrush and palette, then fades away in a sparkle.
The woman steps out of the water right next to Vaschir, and moves toward one of the doors.
She mimes opening it, then steps through the solid metal and glass.
CaptainVaschir oogles her appreciatively, as there's no one present to dress him down for his uncouthness.
Ana lands on the floor with Vaschir, looking mildly disconcerted.
<Ana> "Do you always look at the dead like that?"
<CaptainVaschir> "Not usually, since you ask, I'm usually too busy rifling through their posessions."
<Ana> "Anyway, do you think they're showing us where to go?"
<CaptainVaschir> "It's worth checking out, at least, even if it's not expressly for our benefit."
CaptainVaschir walks to and tries the door the phantom woman walked through, seeing if it'll open or not.
Fortunately, its metal parts seem to be made of something that's proof against corrosion; its silvery hinges squeak loudly, but it opens with only slight resistance.
The room it opens into is quite large, and shaped like a half-circle.
Its walls, like those in the anteroom, are tiled with playful seascapes.
Three large, wedge-shaped baths are set into the floor.
Broken pottery and stonework can be seen in the corners of the room, and some of the mosaics are badly damaged, shattered as though by powerful impacts.
The place is quiet, except for the sound of water dripping, but it is far from empty.
<Ana> "This isn't terribly useful. I don't know about you, but I feel I've bathed enough for one day."
Apparitions of people fill the room.
<CaptainVaschir> "I'd say I've bathed more than enough for a whole week, let alone a day"
Some of them recline in the baths; others walk about the floor clad in towels, robes, or nothing at all.
<Domino> A short woman breaks the surface of one bath without a ripple, sending phantom droplets into the air. She another woman, sitting at the bath's edge, into the water, giggling. It would probably be indecent to stare.
One of them is dressed in black jade armor, and wields a brutal, blunt-tipped daiklave.
He leans forward, pressing his mighty blade against the guard of a slender woman who wears no armor, but carries an even larger weapon, a shining golden sword almost as long as she is tall.
Just as it looks like the armored warrior is about to overpower the blue-haired woman, she spins away from his blade, striking him a backhand blow with her fist.
He flies across the room, bounces off the damaged portion of the wall, and lands in one of the baths. There is no splash.
The woman dashes past Ana and Vaschir, and out of the room.
The rest of the bathers continue going about their business, unperturbed.
<CaptainVaschir> "Unless I'm mistaken we're getting bleed over from multiple events in here all at once"
<Ana> "That would make sense."
Reflected light writhes across the ceiling above the baths.
CaptainVaschir walks over to the particular bath the black-armored phantom landed in, wondering him his remains might still lie at the bottom.
Ana turns to the walls, seemingly admiring the mosaics, but really looking for loose tiles.
Peering over the shoulder of a well-built young man who is making eyes at the equally atttractive (and naked) young woman on the other side of the pool, Vaschir notes some damage to the bottom of the bath.
A number of broken tiles are scattered across the bottom; the floor beneath them is cracked.
There's no sign of a corpse, though.
<CaptainVaschir> "Don't mind me, folks," Vaschir deadpans, before leaning in closer to both examine more closely the damage and grab any loose jade bits he can.
Ana begins scooping up what's on the floor as well, and occasionally attempting to pry loose any tiles which seem on their way to falling, as well.
The water gurgles around him, cooler than one would expect from a bathhouse. Unfortunately, the floor tiles all seem to be made of worthless marble, their unpolished sides crumbling and pitted with age.
Ana manages to pry loose a green jade tile, about the size of an Imperial obol, from the caudal fin of a happy-looking mosaic mermaid.
<CaptainVaschir> "Crap," he says, although since he's still in the process of pulling his head out of the water is sounds more like, "blublublbub."
<CaptainVaschir> "As tempting as prying up all the jade in here is, maybe we should hold off until we've found the jewel? With any luck it'll be in even more opulent surroundings."
<Ana> "In which case, we can exchange our money for better things. But no reason to keep from taking it, just in case.
<CaptainVaschir> "Point."
<Ana> "Should we go see what's behind door number two?
<Ana> "
<CaptainVaschir> "Sounds good."
Looking around the chamber, they notice two doors, one on either of its flat sides.
CaptainVaschir heads for the one they did not come in through.
Ana follows.
Every so often, ghostly people come and go through the door.
More seem to be going than coming.
Like the other door, this one produces a tooth-gnashing screech as it is opened.
The room on the other side is about half the size of the bath.
It's also much darker; there are no large bodies of luminous water.
The wall tiles glow softly, casting a dim bluish light.
Ana squints, trying to get her eyes to adjust more quickly.
Marble benches are situated along the walls and throughout the room.
Piles of dark debris litter the floor; several of the benches seem broken.
CaptainVaschir searches the walls for hooks, suspecting this might be a changing room for the baths.
Damage mars the walls; dark slashes where the tiles have been torn off.
<Ana> "This looks even less promising."
He doesn't see any hooks, or places to store clothes.
<CaptainVaschir> "Well if we watch for a moment we'll probably get to see someone kicking ass or something."
He does notice that many of the piles of detritus seem to consist of collections of stones, mixed with dark powder.
In the dim illumination, three doors are visible: the one they came through, one which presumably leads back to the anterooom, and another whose dark outline stands out against the softly-glowing wall murals.
A small group of phantoms, consisting of two men and a woman, is sitting together on one of the benches, against the far wall.
CaptainVaschir rummages through the nearest debris pile, in an attempt to figure out what it was.
<Ana> "Let's make sure we keep track of where we're going. Don't want to get lost on the way out."
<CaptainVaschir> "Alright"
It's difficult to see in the low light, but one of them looks like the blond man; the others seem to be the people he was arguing with on the floor above.
They seem much more relaxed -- and far less clothed -- here.
The blue-haired woman, who is no longer wearing a stitch of black, leans forward and makes a curious gesture above the pile of debris.
It seems like she's ladling something, onto something that's not there.
In the shadows, other ghosts come and go.
<CaptainVaschir> "Ah, steam baths"
Ana nods.
Many of the ones sitting down seem to be making the same kind of gestures.
The room certainly contains no steam anymore. It is cool and damp, just like the other chambers.
The smell of mildew is noticeable; the fungus must find this dark room more hospitable than the relatively bright environment of the other rooms, or perhaps some quality of the glowing water discourages its growth.
<CaptainVaschir> "By my math that door," he gestures at the one that leads neither back into the baths nor the one that, presumably, goes back to the antechamber, "is the only one in this room we don't know about."
<Ana> "Then let's go!"
<Domino> One of the jade-armored figures from upstairs dashes, hard to see in the darkness, through the door from the antechamber. It looks left and right before an unseen forces flings it like a ragdoll against the far wall, where it lands on one of the broken benches. It rolls over and crawls through the nearest doorway.
As Ana puts her hand on the door latch, two more figures burst through the same door, weapons flashing.
CaptainVaschir backpeddles, involuntarily.
The armored woman slashes with hooked daiklaves; the robed man wards off her blows with his staff.
Ana is noticeably startled.
The woman drives the man back to the far wall; her weapon traces the pattern of dark, damaged portions of the mosaic.
Two more armored warriors rush in from the direction of the baths and join in the attack; the staff-wielding man moves his weapon with inhuman speed, but is clearly on the defensive.
It is only a matter of time before his staff is knocked aside, and the largest of the armored figures cleaves clear through him with an enormous jade axe.
CaptainVaschir winces slightly, expecting a phantom shower of gore to erupt.
The man's body slips from view with a curious ripple; the warriors turn and exit the room, weapons still held at the ready.
The same man, sans staff and robes, throws back his head and laughs at something the blue-haired woman has said to him.
The only sound is that of water drops, falling one after the other from the ceiling.
<CaptainVaschir> "...Well, at least we know what finally happened to that guy, horrible as it was."
<Ana> "Yeah."
CaptainVaschir moves back towards the door they were about to try a moment ago.
This time, there is no interruption -- nor, thankfully, any ear-splitting screech of corroded metal! -- as the glasswork door swings open.
The next room is also dark and musty, but brighter than the last; it is lit not only by the murals, but by a stone basin of water in its center.
Like the last room, it contains stone benches.
Its walls also contain many nooks and niches, seemingly carved into them.
Many of them are fitted with little glass doors on silver hinges.
CaptainVaschir starts poking through them, curiosity and greed competing for the role of primary motivation.
Some of the doors are smashed, or hang half-torn-off from their hinges.
None of the nooks contain anything but centuries-old mold and muck, which might have been dust in drier climes.
Attempts to poke through the detritus win him nothing but a hand covered in slimy, black mildew.
<CaptainVaschir> "Yuck," He says, moving to wash the gunk off in the central basin.
<Ana> "So much for saving the best for last."
The dark-skinned woman they saw earlier walks through the door, crosses to one of the nooks, and takes off her towel.
<CaptainVaschir> "yeah, no kidding."
<Ana> "I think we happened into the gym wing. I wonder if there's a more formal area we would have better luck in?"
The towel vanishes as soon as it leaves her hand; she moves to the basin, mimes splashing water on her face and hands, and leaves through the door opposite that to the sauna, which presumably leads back into the baths.
<CaptainVaschir> "Probably on one of the other levels. At least I hope this place is more than a massive bath complex"
<Ana> "So where to now?"
<CaptainVaschir> "I'm thinking back to the water column and go down another level."
<Ana> "Works for me. Let's go." Ana heads back to the column of Essence, and dives in.
CaptainVaschir follows, keeping an eye open for any more alarming phantasms.
The column of water grows very bright as they descend further.
Just below the lip of the next floor down, there is a grating of some dark material, blocking further passage.
Beyond it, the bluish, shimmering light is almost too bright to look at directly.
The light seems to be centered around a smallish, ovoid object suspended in the water, but it's difficult to see.
It might be something solid, or it might just be an immaterial nexus of energy.
Ana reaches out for it tenatively.
As her hand approaches the grate, she feels the upward current increase immensely, to the point it is difficult to force her fingers further.
Against the bright, silvery-blue light, her fingerbones are silhouetted within their flesh. Her skin tingles almost painfully, but soon begins to go numb.
Her bones start showing more clearly, but the light isn't getting any brighter.
Ana draws her hand back.
<CaptainVaschir> "Hope that isn't what we're here for."
Her fingers slowly regain feeling, with the painful prickling sensation of a sleeping limb.
Ana shakes her head at Vaschir, and motions to go back, since they're effectively underwater.
Strangely, his words carry perfectly through the water.
CaptainVaschir points around at the antechamber of this floor, into which he has already stepped.
Ana's hand looks much paler than usual -- or rather, slightly transparent.
Ana gets out, and examines her hand carefully. "That probably was not my most intelligent moment."
It feels strangely tender, almost rubbery, but the feeling quickly fades, and her skin regains its normal healthy tan.
<Ana> "You try it now."
Within a minute, her flesh is back to being fully opaque.
<CaptainVaschir> "Let's looks around this level first, that may not have hurt but it certainly looked unpleasant."
They seem to be in another anteroom, similar to the last one.
This one, however, has no murals on its walls; they're tiled with black glass.
There is a mosaic on the floor; half of it is tiled in some kind of yellowish material, the other half in black, within an outline of the same yellow.
Watery essence flows, spitting and bubbling, in the grooves between tiles.
There are only two doors in this room.
One opens from the yellow-floored half, the other from the dark half.
<Ana> "The yellow looks more inviting, what do you think?"
<CaptainVaschir> "Works for me, let's see what yellow has to offer."
A tug on the handle, and the door swings open easily. Liquid essence drips from its frame.
The room beyond the door is roughly rectangular.
Its walls are tiled with glowing mosaics, in soothing, abstract patterns.
Their light seems to ripple slowly.
There doesn't seem to be any furniture; the floor looks clean except for the mildew growing between its large marble tiles.
The two far corners are cut off by large, stained-glass folding doors.
<Ana> "Those look promising."
<CaptainVaschir> "They're definitely different, I'll give them that much."
CaptainVaschir heads towards the lefthand stained glass door.
Ana follows.
His luck can't last forever; this one is quite balky, and it opens only with much squeaking and rattling.
It opens into some kind of short hallway, leading to the left and right.
To the left, it opens onto the corner of a small, dark room; to the right, that of a substantially larger room.
Ana heads left.
Directly across from the door, strings of shiny beads obscure another opening.
CaptainVaschir follows.
A few steps take Ana into a dim room; a basin of water set into the floor, large enough to make a comfortable bath for two good friends, casts cyan shimmers on the ceiling.
<Ana> "Hmmm."
Marble plumbing, in a state of disrepair, clutters the other side of the room.
The water laps quietly against the smoothly-curved lip of the small bath.
<CaptainVaschir> "This emphasis on baths, even for a water palace, seems a little over the top if you ask me," Vaschir says, walking back to check out the small dark room connected to this.
<Ana> "At least we can be reasonably certain this was not always underwater."
He passes the bead curtain, and comes into a larger, darker room.
Ana follows.
Across the room, another hallway opens into it; presumably, the one opened onto by the righthand folding door.
Like the first room, there doesn't seem to be any furniture; the room is bare.
The walls are tiled in the same luminescent patterns.
Whoever built this room made some odd design choices; the rear wall bears three narrow openings, and a larger nook against one wall.
CaptainVaschir walks over and peers at the openings, seeing if they actually lead anywhere.
Ana heads towards the largest nook. "I have a feeling this is it!"
In the nook, the blond man is sitting in a nonexistent chair, apparently writing on a nonexistent desk.
The passages are barely wide enough for a stout man to walk through; they curve back into darkness.
Ana peeks over his shoulder to read what he's writing.
He's not actually writing on anything visible; only his quill is part of the vision.
As Ana watches, he sets the quill down -- the stylus vaishing as it leaves his hand -- and stands up.
Rubbing his chin, apparently deep in thought, he begins pacing the room lengthwise, just in front of the rear wall.
After a time, the teal-haired woman he greeted so happily earlier enters from the direction of the bath, wearing a light nightgown.
<CaptainVaschir> "Here we go again."
The man notices her; they approach one another, and have a short conversation. He looks frustrated, she looks concerned.
Eventually, he gives her a reassuring hug, and she departs.
As soon as she is out of sight, he begins pacing again, this time crosswise.
His path takes him straight into the first of the small openings, which is just big enough for him to enter without brushing the walls.
Ana follows curiously.
A few seconds later, he emerges from the opening next to it.
Ana makes her way through the claustrophobic passage, which describes a tight arc.
CaptainVaschir also follows, after waiting a few seconds to prevent bumping into Ana
It doesn't seem to lead anywhere; there aren't any doors or other openings, just glassy tiles.
It just leads from the room and back.
<CaptainVaschir> "That seemed oddly pointless."
The ghostly man silently paces through the strange passage several more times, before returning to his imaginary desk.
He picks up his quill, but immediately sets it down, a look of exultation passing over his face.
He leaps up and takes three quick steps, turning on his heel and entering the third small opening.
CaptainVaschir tails him, hoping he'll stay visible long enough to lead to what they're looking for.
The passage is only a few paces long. The man is standing in front of a blank wall, moving his hand back and forth at about eye level.
His hand stops, and he mimes pulling something off a shelf; a scroll appears in his hand.
He turns and walks through Vaschir, smiling exuberantly.
<CaptainVaschir> "Crap," Vaschir says, emerging.
Ana sees him come back out and sit down at his desk once more. He unrolls the scroll and peruses it briefly, then stands up -- the scroll vanishing as his attention leaves it -- and strides down the hall toward the bath, calling out silently to someone in another room.
<Ana> "Okay, so maybe this wasn't it." Ana sighs heavily.
<CaptainVaschir> "Pity we can't hear what everyone's saying, for all we know they're constantly saying things like 'Go grab my special jewel that I keep in the following location!'"
<Ana> "indeed."
The sound of dripping water echoes quietly down the hallways.
<CaptainVaschir> "Wanna keep watching blondie here, or go check out the black-tiled room back off the antechamber?"
<Ana> "I'll follow you to the other room."
CaptainVaschir heads there.
They head back through the first room, which is now populated by several people sitting on invisible furniture, apparently having some kind of tea ceremony.
CaptainVaschir pauses to watch for a moment.
The blond man pours tea from a delicate china set, gracefully serving his friends.
The teal-haired woman, the blue-haired woman in black, and the pale-skinned robed man -- this time without his staff -- speak among themselves as they drink their tea.
<Ana> "Does everything in here revolve around some form of liquid?"
The robed man says something that makes the other three look very grave.
<CaptainVaschir> "Apparently."
The blue-haired woman's dark eyes glint as she spits out a venomous, silent word.
The blond man replies, gesturing dismissively.
The conversation continues, with much emotion but little obvious meaning.
CaptainVaschir loses interest and continues on.
Passing back into the antechamber, they enter the opposite door, the watery magic of the place clinging wetly to their skin and eyelashes.
This door opens into a single large room.
It appears to be roughly the size of the calidarium on the floor above, but lacks any benches or baths.
Like the back room they just left, its far wall is an architectural prodigy, riddled with small openings.
CaptainVaschir starts looking into the openings as before, not anticipating any great finds.
A number of phantoms, dressed in elegant finery, move across the polished tile floor.
Most of them are in pairs, performing the steps of a dance neither Ana nor Vaschir recognize.
Ana stops to admire the dancing momentarily.
As Vaschir peers into one of the openings, he sees the blue-haired woman, dressed in gauzy black skirts and shining orichalcum jewelry, round the curve with her dance partner, a tall, dark man with silvery wires woven into his beard.
They couple effortlessly navigate the twisty passage, which just happens to precisely follow the path traced out by their dance steps.
Outside, Ana sees the blond man, dressed in orange and blue robes, and his teal-haired partner, wearing white silk and a heavy jade torque, dance into another of the passages.
CaptainVaschir finds himself wondering if they modified their dance to match the corridor, or if it was intentionally built solely to fit that style of dancing.
Ana follows the main couple into the other passage.
Its ceiling seems to be curiously beveled, such that one side is high enough for the tall man's head, the other just clearing the short woman's.
As Ana makes her way into the passage, which twists and turns just like the one Vaschir investigated, she finds that its ceiling also twists and turns; at all points, it is just above both dancers' heads, despite their difference in height.
At points, it intersects with other passages; she sees at least one other couple moving through them, though only the pair she is following seem to use this particular one.
<CaptainVaschir> "I've just had a terrible thought."
<Ana> "Do share," Ana calls from her passageway.
<CaptainVaschir> "I saw a couple dancing through one of the corridors, matching it's twists pefectly. I'm guessing you're seeing about the same, right?"
<Ana> "Well, this corridor is perfectly matched to the vast disparity in the couple's heights, why?"
<CaptainVaschir> "Well I just had the idea pop into my head that maybe it's not so much that they are dancing to match it, as it may be changing to match them."
- Signoff: Domino (Quit: )
<CaptainVaschir> "I'd also say it's a pretty fair bet everyone here was some manner of Exalted/Anathema/whatever, too."
<Ana> "Well, that's fun."
The dancers continue their graceful ballet, occasionally swooping through the tunnels without missing a step.
<CaptainVaschir> "What I'm working towards, here, is it might do...whatever it's doing...for us too. Or we might just smash into a wall or something."
<CaptainVaschir> "Lemme double check something," Vaschir moves back into the corridor he explored earlier, to see if anyone else is moving through it and if it's altered at all.
Ana chases down Vaschir and pats him on the back. "I am wholeheartedly for any plan which involves you running voluntarily into a solid wall."
The corridor seems to be empty; the couple using it earlier is back in the main room.
CaptainVaschir turns a savage grin on her, "everyone here's dancing in couples."
It looks exactly as it did when he first explored it, looping crazily along in a pattern which just happens to precisely match the path of the phantasmal dancers who passed through it.
The walls look completely solid, tiled in dark glass.
Ana makes a face. "If I'm doing this.. You're leading. I need something to laugh at later. Do you even know how to dance?"
CaptainVaschir begins running a chanty through his head, getting mentally in tune and step in preparation to do something either brilliant or truly foolish.
CaptainVaschir laughs, starts to whistling a tune to get into step, and grabs Ana. Twirling and turning quickly in step with the simple, repetative jig, the two pick up speed as they head towards the wall, Vaschir picturing the last time he was in port and danced this same dance on top a bar top to the rythmic table-thumping of his shipmates!
Ana winces.
The wall gets closer and closer. Beside them, one of the ghostly couples moves (much more gracefully) toward one of the openings.
The phantoms pass smoothly into their opening.
...just before Ana and Vaschir crash solidly into the wall.
<CaptainVaschir> "oof!"
They bounce off with a bone-jarring THUMP.
Ana immediately begins slowly, meticulously smoothing her poor, maligned hair.
<Ana> "I hate you."
Around them, the immaterial dancers continue with their revelry.
<CaptainVaschir> "Well I said it was a terrible idea to begin with, didn't I?"
CaptainVaschir fetches his hat and puts it back on.
<Ana> "Wait, let me hit that wall one more time." She gives it a solid kick, not wanting to injure her hand-- more to hear the sound again than to damage it.
THUMP! goes her foot against the wall.
<CaptainVaschir> "Yeah, show that wall who's boss!"
<Ana> "Does that sound normal to you?"
<CaptainVaschir> "Maybe. I see where you're going with this, though, try hitting it with something metal."
<Ana> "Get me something metal, and I will."
CaptainVaschir produces one of his smaller, duller knives, in case this is an elaborate setup so she can stab him.
Ana slams the knife into the mortar as hard as she can, in the hopes of getting some leverage for knocking out a brick of glass.
She jabs the knife into the seam between two tiles; little chips of mortar fly off with a "chink!"
<Ana> "There's something on the other side of the wall, I know it."
With a bit of work, she gets one of the tiles to loosen.
The inch-square piece of luminous mineral pops free and clatters to the floor.
With one tile gone, it's easier to pry more off.
<Ana> "See?" Ana peeks inside.
There's soon a small pile of gently glowing tiles at Ana's feet; her hands and face are covered with masonry dust.
It looks like the tiles were set into some kind of mortar; there's not a hole in the wall -- yet -- just a patch of exposed cement.
Ana keeps prying off bricks.
CaptainVaschir starts chipping at the underlying mortar with another knife until he slips and skins a knuckle. "Shit!" He snarls and slugs the wall in reflex frustration.
Her blows against the mortar are now producing a distinctly hollow-sounding noise.
As Vaschir's fist flies forward, he feels sudden, warm strength surge through his arm.
His hand strikes the wall with the force of a piledriver; although he feels no pain whatsoever, the wall shudders, cracks spiderwebbing through the mortar.
Dust sifts down from the cracked wall.
CaptainVaschir looks in wonderment at the wall, then at his fist, then back at the wall again.
LIttle bits of plastery material begin to fall out from around the fist-shaped crater in the wall.
As he and Ana watch, the back of the crater crumbles away, leaving a small, dark hole.
Ana makes a small noise of triumph. "See what you can accomplish when you become frustrated with inanimate objects?"
With a sound similar to that produced by blowing across the top of a bottle, cool, moist air begins to blow out of the hole.
<CaptainVaschir> "That really should have broken my hand or at least hurt," Vaschir finally says, after staring a moment or two longer.
CaptainVaschir shakes his head, as if to clear it, and looks into the hole his wrath has created.
<Ana> "You're a demon now, remember?"
<Ana> "Or a demigod. You know, whichever."
Beyond the hole, it is dark -- but as his eye adjusts, he begins to make out a shifting, silvery light.
<CaptainVaschir> "Yeah well, this is the first major benefit I've seen of it is all."
It appears to be emanating from somewhere blocked from sight by the crazily twisting back side of the wall -- which looks less than an inch thick.
<Ana> "Well, why don't you knock out more of the wall so we can go inside?"
<Ana> "And if 'not dying' wasn't a major benefit of whatever happened to you, you must be hard to impress."
<CaptainVaschir> "This was a little more unequivocal than suriviving the wreck," Vaschir says as he tests the remaining mortar, checking how weakened it was by his punch, the better to pull down without superhuman effort.
The mortar is pretty durable stuff, but his blow seems to have cracked it enough that it will be possible to create a larger opening with merely mortal levels of exertion.
CaptainVaschir starts kicking and pulling open an opening big enough to pass through, the better to get at the obstructing back wall.
With a couple minutes of sweat, he and Ana manage to create an opening large enough for a person to squeeze through.
<Ana> "After you, since you did so much of the grunt work."
They're both covered with mortar dust, which is quickly being converted into pale gray mud by the exceptionally humid air.
CaptainVaschir attempts ineffectively to brush off the mud, and proceeds through to the back wall, tapping it to test how resiliant it's likely to be.
It actually opens up behind the wall; the obstructions he saw earlier are just the looping walls of the passageways.
<CaptainVaschir> ah
There's not a lot of space back here, just a few feet to the rear wall, which looks to have been stripped of tiles.
Squeezing past one of the protruding corridor walls, Vaschir sights the source of the light.
Ana follows curiously.
In what must have been the far corner of the ballroom before the false wall was constructed, a niche in the wall houses what looks to be a stairway down.
Silvery-blue light, similar to that cast by the column of water in the center of the structure, shimmers up from it.
CaptainVaschir starts down the stairs.
Ana follows quietly, absorbing the scenery.
The cool, damp breeze, moaning softly around the curves of the irregularly-shaped chamber, seems to be emanating from the stairway.
The stair spirals downward, its marble steps slick with watery essence.
CaptainVaschir walks slowly, being careful not to slip.
As they progress downward, more and more dew becomes noticeable on the walls; the tiles sport patches of glowing algae.
Before too long, they emerge into a large room.
The chamber is roughly circular, larger than any of the other rooms they have visited so far.
From three sides, three streams of shining water run toward the middle of the chamber; as they near the center, they flow up ducts which arch gracefully from the floor.
The water pours from the top of the ducts, down into a radiant pool; from the center of the pool, a column of bright water erupts, shooting straight upward through the ceiling.
The floor is inlaid with swirling, occult patterns, traced out in black jade.
Structures cling to the arched ducts.
Constructs of strange curves and angles, giving the impression of asymmetry through their very perfection, the stone-and-mortar buttresses and flanges surround the glowing pool ilke a bramble.
Ana and Vaschir are facing the space between two of the aqueducts; the alien whorls and arches curve down and in, appearing to protectively cradle a blocky stone dais, and the ornate sarcophagus that sits atop it.
<CaptainVaschir> "Bingo."
<Ana> "You want to pop the top, or shall I?"
The top of the coffin is inlaid with metal, shining a strange blue-gold in the shifting light.
Flickers of movement fill the air around it.
<CaptainVaschir> "I'll do it," Vaschir says, walking up to the sarcophagus.
A great many long, slender filaments writhe through the air, moving across the strange architecture with an unsettling, coiling motion.
Ana follows a few steps behind, just in case.
They seem to all converge to a point above the pool, just to the side of the fountain.
As Vaschir approaches the sarcophagus, the tendrils move all around, him, some even passing through him. This close, he can see that each one it tipped with a small, black, tripartite pincer.
The tiny claws move about, patting and caressing the sarcophagus and the weird edifice surrounding it.
CaptainVaschir pauses to examine the design of the sarcophagus lid.
Although their motion is disturbingly foreign, the two Solars get the unavoidable sense that they are seeing a phantom of the being who built this strange tomb.
The lid of the coffin is worked into the detailed likeness of a person.
It looks exactly like the blond man they've seen frequent visions of, portrayed in shining metal and polsihed lacquer.
His likeness is disturbingly, flawlessly lifelike, as though his blind chalcedony eyes will at any moment shift to begin watching the graverobbers.
CaptainVaschir examines the lid for any catches or releases, testing it to see how best to remove it.
His investigation does not reveal any kind of seam or latch.
The full-body deathmask is adorned with several accoutrements, though, which look like they might be removable.
Ana goes to investigate the place to the side of the fountain, where everything converges.
CaptainVaschir proceeds to fiddle with the casting, trying to get off anything and everthing that can be removed.
A golden torque encircles his neck; what appears to be a crystal-clear droplet of water, the size of a chicken egg, is set into it.
<CaptainVaschir> "Think I've found it here," Vaschir calls down to Ana.
<Ana> "That's great! Do share."
His hands are encased in golden gauntlets.
Ana trots up to Vaschir, peering greedily.
Droplets identical to that in the torque adorn each segmented metal glove.
CaptainVaschir examines the torque, looking for the easiest way to remove it.
Around them, the threadlike limbs shift; their nexus, an orb not much larger than a small fist, bobbles past them, held up precariously by the numerous long, skinny legs.
A multitude of blue eyes blink at them from the orb, and then it departs, bobbing away with startling speed, up the stairway.
It takes some time for all of its very long tendrils to follow it.
<Ana> "That was odd."
Quick inspection reveals a catch behind the neck, which causes the heavy neckwear to release.
<CaptainVaschir> "Can you think of any reason I shouldn't remove all the plunder?"
<Ana> "Not really. We saw the way the guy died-- we could pledge to avenge his death or do good in his name or something. We're all Solars here."
<Ana> "There's no reason for you not to remove it all, unless by 'remove it all' you mean 'remove it all and not share with my dear friend Ana.'"
<CaptainVaschir> "There are many things wrong with that last sentence but for the moment I'll ignore them," Vaschir says, unhitching the clasp on the torque and pulling it free.
Ana touches the crystal drop on the necklace. "Do you think that's the stone?"
She feels nothing; her finger passes straight through the droplet.
<Ana> "Huh?"
Although her eyes tell her it is there, all her finger feels is an empty socket.
Ana pokes at the ones in the gauntlets, too.
Again, she feels nothing.
<Ana> "Oh, man. This is not good."
As she leans down, her amulet falls out of her shirt.
CaptainVaschir mimics her actions, seeing if he too is holding something that doesn't seem to be there.
As it swings on the end of its chain, she sees that a drop has appeared in it as well, in the round depression at the center.
A sparkle from the ornate golden astrolabe still hanging from Vaschir's belt catches her eye.
<Ana> "Now this is just weird. That wasn't there before.." she points out the drop to Vaschir.
Two more crystal-clear drops have appeared on it, again in sockets which seem designed to hold them.
CaptainVaschir follows her gaze downward to his belt
<CaptainVaschir> "Huh," he says, bringing the astrolabe up to examine it.
<Ana> "We're still short one mysterious jewel of power."
<CaptainVaschir> "Apparently. Maybe ought to follow that glowing orb-thingy after all."
CaptainVaschir attempts to remove the gauntlets as well.
It takes a little bit of wiggling, but the heavy, armored gloves come off without much trouble.
Ana goes back to the part of the room where everything converges, and looks around.
CaptainVaschir heads down to the pool, examining the point where the column of water emerges.
The silvery water seems to be trying to flow up their legs. Its radiance casts eerie, shifting shadows above their cheekbones.
From this vantage point, they can see that there are two more sarcophagi, spaced evenly around the pool.
<CaptainVaschir> "hey hey, more loot, err, sarcophagi!"
The pillar of water erupts upward in a strange reverse-splashing motion; at the point where it disappears through the grate in the ceiling, there is the same orb of radiance they saw earlier, from above.
Ana hops into the pillar of water, attempting to swim up to the orb.
Droplets of water follow crazy, upward-spiraling trajectories from the point where the three streams pour down into the pool.
CaptainVaschir vaschir heads clockwise to the next sarcophagus
As she approaches it, she feels the same numbing tingle as before; her vision begins to dim, the world around her going ghostly and transparent.
Ana grits her teeth and grabs for it.
She grays out, the sound of water rushing in her ears, but just before everything fades into insubstantiality, she feels her hand closing on the watery orb... it feels like it's passing through her, or she's passing through it, but she manages to get hold of it.
Ana feels like she is floating in nothingness.
She no longer has a sense of up or down, right or left.
She doesn't even know if she still has a body.
The sound in her ears could be her heart beating, or it could be the endless stream of the water, pulling her toward somewhere...
CaptainVaschir looks over towards the water column, wondering how Ana's doing with...whatever it was she was trying to do.
He sees her floating limply in the water, the outlines of her body blurring.
Her skeleton is clearly visible, dark shadows against increasingly transparent pink.
The last shreds of her clothing are rapidly dissolving.
<CaptainVaschir> "Ah shit," he says, dumping his precious, precious loot unceremoniously to the ground and proceeding at a jog to the pool.
She's holding something in her hands, curling around it like an unborn child as she grows more and more insubstantial.
<CaptainVaschir> "This is easily the dumbest, least well thought-out thing I've ever done," He says, wading into the water towards the upwards column.
It seems like Ana hears something splashing in the water, but she isn't even sure she is the one hearing it.
<CaptainVaschir> "I mean she's a braying pain in the ass who keeps blaming me for innocently chucking her into the ocean to escape the kraken," He mutters to himself as he swiming up the stream towards her.
By now, the only thing remotely solid about Ana is her amulet, which appears totally unaffected by whatever process is dematerializing her body.
<CaptainVaschir> "And she'll undoubtably rip me off for my share of the loot, which is all of it!" He thinks, unlooping the chain on the astrolabe from his belt and using it to hook her amulet.
Vaschir sees shreds of cloth drift up past his face, rapidly dissolving; his hat is carried off by the current, and is completely gone by the time it reaches the grating above.
Ana's amulet catches on one of the astrolabe's flanges with a solid-feeling clink.
CaptainVaschir attempts to swim against the current furiously, to pull both of them off of the orb that's obviously dissolving them both.
Fortunately, Ana doesn't seem to have much mass left; it's easy for Vaschir to pull her down to the bottom of the water-column and into the pool.
She remains curled in a fetal position around the orb.
But as they reach the pool, Vaschir feels the solvent influence of the powerful Water essence begin to fade.
His clothes, tattered around the edges, are no longer dissolving before his eyes, and he no longer feels like his body might soon join them.
CaptainVaschir pauses to mourn his lost hat
Ana blinks almost sleepily, dazed and mildly befuzzled.
In the water at Vaschir's feet, she begins to slowly regain solidity.
The parts of her body underwater still look transparent, like a submerged jellyfish, and her skeleton is still clearly visible beneath cloudy muscle and skin, but she is becoming more opaque by the second.
CaptainVaschir sits on the lip of the pool, resting his chin on one hand, waiting for her to wake and the perfect moment to mention her abject nudity.
After a minute or two, she can see solid objects as more than indistinct blurs.
Captain Vaschir sees that the color has returned to her eyes.
<Ana> "What the hell happened?"
Her bones are no longer visible; her skin darkens back to its normal hue.
<CaptainVaschir> "What happened is you've got no ground, ever again, to bitch about me chucking you to the Kracken."
<Ana> "Hey, I got us the stone, didn't I?" She pauses, her voice more uncertain. "...Didn't I?"
<CaptainVaschir> "Beats me, you were so dissolved that I couldn't see, let alone pry open, your hands."
Ana looks down groggily and lets out a shriek. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CLOTHES?!
The orb she grabbed starts bobbing away atop the water, back toward the column of water. It's no longer shining; it looks just like one of the gem-drops from the artifacts, except cloudy instead of perfectly clear.
<Ana> "
<Ana> "Get that! I'm not going after it again."
<CaptainVaschir> "I didn't do a damn thing," He cracks half a smile, "the didn't come back with the rest of you."
CaptainVaschir dives after it, attempting to arrest it before it gets back to the column.
<Ana> Covering herself, me begins looking around for something to drape over herself or hide behind while demanding half of Vaschir's clothes.
The droplet squirts out of his hands, jellylike, a couple times, but after a great deal of frantic splashing, he catches hold of the soft orb.
CaptainVaschir very cafefully he moves back to solid ground, keeping a sharp eye for any signs of dissolution.
Ana's eye is caught by one of the sarcophagi; the figure carved into it is that of a slim, well-proportioned woman with bright-blue inlaid hair. A cloak or cape of some sort is draped over her body, black shimmering with gold highlights at the edge.
Ana grabs the cape with an air of desperation, and wraps it around herself, seeing that it goes down to her ankles. "Now then, Vaschir, you're going to give me your shirt."
Vaschir can feel wet power emanating from the droplet; subtle waves of warmth wash up his forearms.
Holding it, something is different about his vision.
The room is filled with indistinct phantoms, which seem to vanish when he looks at them directly.
A confused impression of overlapping tendril-limbs tangles in his peripheral vision.
CaptainVaschir lets his eyes go out of focus and attempts to ignore Ana
The colored glint of jade armor and weapons hits the corner of his eye.
Ana walks over to Vaschir, and when she gets closer, notices the strange dazed look in his eyes. "Are you okay?"
He catches glimpses of teal hair, a gold-capped staff, a slim figure in black.
A large blond man with a gold shining around his neck.
CaptainVaschir continues to pan slowly over the entire room, muttering a soft "give me a moment" to Ana.
<Ana> "Okay, but in exchange, you're giving me your shirt."
The ghosts seem to crowd the room, going about business rendered incomprehensible by their confused overlap.
He can tell that they seem to be the same people as the much more substantial phantoms they've been seeing all along.
<CaptainVaschir> "Not on your life," he mumbles in a half-awake fashion, trying to order and make sense of the who mishmash of images.
<Ana> "In which case, I forsee extremely bad things happening to you. Possibly in the groin region."
<CaptainVaschir> "I can see them everywhere, different from before"
With some effort, he manages to focus in on certain images, but they don't seem to be doing anything important.
Some of them are just standing around.
Others are walking about nonchalantly.
<Ana> "Don't get too attached to that thing, it's Omabwa's bail."
CaptainVaschir walks over to the large blond man, watching to see if he reacts to Vaschir's approach.
One of the jade-armored figures removes his intimidating dragon helmet and surreptitiously picks his nose.
CaptainVaschir snorts, amused.
The black-garbed woman tugs unhappily at the hem of her pants, trying to get an unflattering wrinkle out.
The phantoms seem just as oblivious to Ana and Vaschir's presence as their more-visible kin.
CaptainVaschir attempts to reach out and touch the man he's approached on the shoulder, to see if he's as insubstantial as the previous phantoms.
From the stairwell, a large number of tiny black claws loop out and latch onto the wall, floor, and ceiling.
The tendrils pile out, drawing the small blue-eyed orb with them.
<Ana> "I think we should go.. now."
The vision is much clearer than the ones Vaschir is seeing now; it's tough for him to even see them while it's in sight.
Its insubstantial legs pass straight through both of them as it bounds along.
Many of its claws are carrying bits of tile and masonry, in a confused jumble.
Situating itself so that its body is near the center of the chamber, its long legs stretching clear across the room to clutch the ceiling and walls, it begins quickly and haphazardly placing its building materials onto the strange tomb structure.
As each bit of stone and tile leaves its claws, it vanishes.
CaptainVaschir shakes his head, trying to snap out of it so he can grab his loot and flee.
Despite the distraction offered by the phantom constructor and the images crowding in the corners of his vision, he manages to concentrate on the golden glimmer of the loot lying in the pool.
He scoops up the heavy orichalcum artifacts and splashes back out.
<CaptainVaschir> "I don't think it's really here either, but we ought to hit the road anyway," he says, tossing Ana his doublet without much apparent thought.
On the way, he passes the last sarcophagus; the man depicted on it is wearing a broad gold-chased belt of some kind of scaly leather.
Ana quickly slips it on when Vaschir is facing away from her.
His hands are clasped over a sheathed short sword, its scabbard worked in jade inlay.
CaptainVaschir stops to grab that, his greed fighting to overpower this otherwise surprising moment of clarity and drive.
Ana inspects the tomb she appropriated the cloak from; the golden pommel nut of a dagger glitters at her hip.
Ana picks up the dagger, glad to be armed with something other than a broken rod of glass.
Vaschir scoops up the sword and quickly undoes the belt, which comes off easily.
By now, the pirate captain is beginning to feel the weight of the very dense orichalcum items, but the thought of how much they are worth gives him fonts of strength!
<Ana> "I think you should give me the belt."
<CaptainVaschir> "Under the express understanding that this is a temporary expedient to be followed by reassessing of who gets what once we get back to land, I will give you the belt."
The slender, threadlike limbs of the constructor seem to have shifted their focus; it's now concentrating on doing something to the wall. Or was concentrating on doing it, at whatever point in the past is represented by the vision.
<Ana> "Excellent. I just need something to keep the doublet down while swimming back to dry land."
<Ana> "Anyway, let's get out of here. Make sure the stone doesn't get away from you.
CaptainVaschir secures the orb in one of his belt pouches, being careful to pin the flap down so it doesn't get free somehow.
The leather seems a bit worn after its close brush with dissolution, but still sturdy enough that he doesn't need to worry about it giving way.
Toting their loot, the pair makes their way quickly up the stairs and out of the room.
Ana and Vaschir swim back up through the column of water, gingerly testing it first just in case it's suddenly acquired the dissolving properties which almost did Ana in.
Fortunately, the dangerous essence of pure, uncontrolled water still seems confined to the focal point below.
It only takes them a few minutes to make their way back to the place in which they entered the manse; the blue-glass door seems to be holding against the water pressure, although thin rivulets of water are trickling from the seam between panels.
It takes much more effort to get the door closed behind them than it did when they were going in -- it's hard to find purchase when the water all around them is attempting to push them in along with the door -- but with some effort and (less grudging than either of them would care to admit) teamwork, they are able to seal it behind them, keeping the building unflooded for possible future looting.
Or rather, "exploration."
Their heads break the surface of the lake; the air, uncharged with water essence, feels refreshingly crisp in their lungs.
Struggling slightly against the drag of their weighty loot, they paddle back to the leaning tree, where the red guide snake (and Vaschir's boots and coat) are still waiting for them.
As they reach the shore, the bright stars sparkle above.
