Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)00:02 No. 719731 ID: 21e8b4
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"Well, that was underwhelming."
"Eh, don't let it get to you. Gate guard duty's a shit show anyway."
"I just thought there would be a little more...excitement around this guy walking out of the world."
"The exciting part's probably not walking out of this world. It's probably walking into the next one."
"Yeah, but...we don't get to see that part."
"Lucky us."

Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)00:02 No. 719732 ID: 21e8b4
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You are Daro, and the first thing you see when stepping out of the gate is a fallen angel. Unlucky you.

>>719732
Shoot it right in the eyeballs.

Skill check, inventory check.

>>719732
Reach heaven through violence.

>>719732
offer it your hand in friendship, be nice!

no sudden movements. we have no idea what it's capabilities are. it could have extreme dodging skills and your first shot becomes your last. be ready to dodge in any direction, but try bluffing first. something like "why don't you make this easy on yourself and leave before things get ugly"

>>719734
And by that I mean murder the shit out of it in the most expedient way, preferably sparing whatever device it is working on.

so what's known about these things and how do you kill them before they kill you?

Also what skills do you have and what gear did you bring with you?

Tame the beast.

retain safe distance.
can you see what's infront of it. looks like some kind of reassembled device.

Help it get back up.

Confirming hostility before shooting the everloving fluff out of it would be nice, if reasonable, buuuut, if not, then I guess shoot the everloving fluff out of it.

>>719732
"Hello. Beautiful day, isn't it?"

>>719732
It appears to be studying the objects on the ground before it. Some kind of device, or a kit of equipment, it has taken apart? (Do you recognize the objects)?

This suggests intelligence. Which both increases the odds that communication is possible, and that it is dangerous.

What do you know of fallen angels? What is your mission in this outer world?

Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)21:27 No. 719899 ID: 21e8b4
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This is a fallen angel, the first children of the gods. They once served the will of the Finder, but since his loss, they are now only abominations with an unknown agenda. Though they have an eldritch and unfathomable intelligence, they cannot be reasoned with. They can only be driven back with superior force or destroyed outright.
Fallen vary widely in appearance and capabilities, though all have flesh of metal and hearts of magic, totally devoid of life energy or soul. Not all are known, however this particular type has been recorded in the tomes of many prior paladins. The drums on their backs may explode when damaged, their claws and tail are sharp and their feet are quick. They also have an affinity for arcane relics, which can pose problems of their own. This one appears to be studying a broken relic, but is otherwise unarmed. Also troubling is their skill at conjuration. If they are allowed to reach one of the summoning circles that dot the landscape, they may teleport away or summon other, more formidable fallen.
You are armed with an arcane relic of your own design: a gauntlet equipped with a blade of pure energy, impossibly sharp and thin but still unyielding to any force, powered by your own magic. You are also gifted with one of the rarer spells, through the Mother's blood in your veins due to your nature as a Seraph. You have mastered the conversion of life and magic, and to you they are interchangeable. Your touch can grant or steal either of these energies from others, as well as transmute one to the other within yourself. You have another spell which allows you to identify and manipulate the magical properties of relics, which helps you in your own tinkering. However, this takes too much time to be useful in combat.
In addition to your gauntlet, you are equipped with a set of arcane scribing tools, in case you decide to craft, upgrade, or repair any relics with any magical components you scavenge on your journey. You have some water, trail rations, and a firestarter as well. You know that many prior paladins have had to pack bedrolls and the like, but your particular manifestation of the Mother's blood allows you to stay awake indefinitely.
However, like all paladins past, you carry perhaps the most important item on your journey: your Finder's Tome. In this book is transcribed the lore gathered by all paladins past. At least, all paladins past whose tomes made it back to the Heartland. The church receives these tomes, interprets the knowledge contained within, and writes the common Finder's Tome contained in nearly every household. Every piece of history, every sermon, every map, all the accumulated knowledge of the worlds is contained in this tome, and all of that knowledge that wasn't gathered in the Heartland was brought back by paladins. Your journey and the journeys of those before you are the only way the common people have to learn about our worlds, the Finder, and how we came to be what we are. Imperfect, but trying our best to realize our fallen god's vision so that one day we may complete his work and all ascend to the paradise we were promised.
Your tome is different from the common tome in a very important way: it contains many blank pages for you to document your own journeys. That is your quest: to go out into the other worlds the Finder created, learn what you can, spread what you know to any other civilizations you might find, and destroy those who act against the Finder's plans. Also, if you find the remains of any other paladins, you are to collect their tomes as well. When you feel your tome contains enough knowledge of import, you are to return and submit it to the church. Then, your quest begins again, over and over, until you are lost to the wilds. The paladin's journey ends only in death, but through the accumulated knowledge of the Finder his spirit is honored and undying.

Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)21:28 No. 719900 ID: 21e8b4
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The fallen angel appears to be sizing you up, tilting its head from side to side and never taking its eyes off you. Very slowly, it rises to its feet. Though you've read about them before, this is the first fallen you've seen, and it still takes you a moment to adjust yourself to the sight of a mobile beast of unliving metal. You attempt communication, if only to verify what you think you already know.
"Back away now, and nobody needs to get hurt."
Its head twitches violently, and a terrible hiss like dead leaves and distant thunder issues from an unseen mouth, somehow forming recognizable sounds. "h h HH hh uuurr t. tt." Very slowly and deliberately, it takes one step towards you. You tense up and ready yourself for combat. "Last chance. Why don't you make this easy on yourself and leave before things get ugly?"
"ukh kg gh LEEee. thhhhee eenkg gh. gh. Hhh urt ukg lee thhh eengk. gk." Its head spasms again, then it stills itself and stares for a moment.

Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)21:29 No. 719901 ID: 21e8b4
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Without warning, it lunges.

Sketchy 2016/04/29(Fri)21:29 No. 719902 ID: 21e8b4
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You were prepared.

Only when it falls to the ground, you realize how hard you can feel your heart beating. When you finally breathe and collect yourself, you consider that this encounter may not have been so unlucky after all. Your first meeting with a fallen angel was with one so easily dispatched.

Be careful with the corpse. Just because you cut something up does not mean its parts might not have one last bit of life in them.

Make sure there is nothing else in the area and go check what it was looking at before inspecting the body.

Go check out what it was hunched over.

Wait! Don't dismember it into tiny little pieces! Let's talk about its FEEEEEELIIIIINGS!

Disassemble robot arm for crafting components.

Then disassemble the REST of the fallen before its auto-revive protocols kick in.

Check surroundings for more fallen, salvage any remaining life force or usable parts from the fallen corpse, then inspect the broken artifact.

By the way, how large are most of the worlds paladins visit? This one seems to have a crack in its sky.

so anything on the angle or whatever it was looking at that we could use? You said you like to tinker so you might be able to make something to aid you in your quest.

also it sounded like it was trying to repeat what you said to it. cause I could make out ugly and hurt, and it think it also said think. Not sure if it was actually trying to talk to you or was just parroting what you said. Oh well it's dead either way.

>>719902
Check out what's inside the helmet! Or is it basically a metal skull?

Securr the area, collect its remaining power and the artifact it was looking at, then fiddle with the body or the device. (Body first, but make sure you have the item on you if you have to leave in a hurry)

make sure it's fully disabled then examine it's parts. the explosive canisters could be useful in a fight with another. just throw a canister at them.

also, it appears that it was trying to think and talk. but when it had that spasm it suddenly stopped trying. i postulate something inside was in conflict with itself.

Sketchy 2016/04/30(Sat)17:30 No. 720091 ID: 21e8b4
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You kneel down and touch the remains. The fallen have no life energy, only magical energy, but this one is now dead and devoid of both. You've expended a small fraction of your magical power to use the blade, but it's almost negligible since it was so fast. Though you can't recharge by draining this corpse, you will naturally regain your energy throughout the day so long as you keep yourself fed.
After making sure the area is clear, you carefully disassemble what remains of the fallen. You are perhaps a bit more thorough than you needed to be, simply because it is your first time examining one of them. Its insides are difficult to access and full of a black gunk that smells sickly sweet, but you manage to salvage some useful magical components. You gain 2 lesser unbound runestones, a mana capacitor, and 3 bits of scrap metal, and stash them in your pack. The capacitor especially may be useful later, as you can use it to replenish some of your energy all at once in a quick burst. You also remove and pick up one of the explosive canisters. It is very unwieldy and heavy, too much so to carry all at once without seriously slowing you down. Popping it open, you find it full of a greenish fluid. Assuming that this fluid is the actual flammable agent, you think that, with two pieces of scrap metal fashioned into a container and an unbound runestone inscribed to handle the ignition, you could attempt to craft a smaller explosive.
Next you go inspect the relic that the fallen was kneeling over. At first glance, it looks like useless scrap. It does contain a greater runestone, but it has already been bound to an unknown spell, meaning that you won't be able to inscribe your own runes on it to use it as a crafting agent. Out of curiosity, you burn a little more energy on your spell to identify its purpose.
You sit down and reach your mind into the stone. It takes a little experimentation and probing to get anything intelligible out of it, but eventually you get a surface picture of the stone's purpose. It is designed as part of a larger relic, and seems to contain a memory of a location in coordinates. Unfortunately, without more of the relic, you won't be able to discern the spell's purpose. You make a note of the coordinates in the tome and pocket the piece, just in case.

Looks like it could be along the river?

Has anyone tried traveling down the water?

Maybe having part of the spell will help open the way. I would head that direction and see if there might be a hidden way to go farther.

Sketchy 2016/04/30(Sat)17:39 No. 720098 ID: 21e8b4
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You flip through your tome to the map of this world, at least the parts of it other paladins have explored. This is the world of Broken Sky. Named such not only because of the hole, but also because nothing in the sky does what you would expect it to. The sun can jump randomly back or forward, the weather changes in an instant, and it has been known to just go black altogether.
Broken Sky is small, compared to the size of most worlds discovered so far. If you walk without pause, it can be traversed from one end to the other in about half a day.
Speaking of walking, it's probably time to start thinking about where you're going next. Broken Sky may still have mysteries to uncover, but all the paladins that left through the Heartland's north gate have at least passed through this world. Still, you chose this gate as your point of departure because there is relatively little known about most of the areas up here, compared to the other immediately adjacent worlds, and many of the things that ARE known hint at more mysteries to uncover or quests to undertake.
The avatar of the Mother in this world can produce only stillborn children, and her sanctuary is littered with their half-formed bones. She is located to the west. A river runs from the far Northwest directly through the center of this world until it ends in the Southeast. Nearest to the Mother along this river, there are ruins of an ancient civilization. However, no living creatures make their homes here now, other than mindless animals. On the northeastern side are sky fragments under the hole, probably where it fell. You have heard that they are beautiful to behold. There are also summoning circles marked on the map near the Mother's Avatar and near the center.
Near the source of the river is a gate linking to the Spirehead, a land of seas and tall rock formations. It also contains the corpse of a giant, whose bones have formed an island of their own. The creatures in Spirehead are tribal savages with their own heathen religion, but some paladins have been able to gather a few pieces of true lore from them. Converting that tribe would be a great feat.
To the Northeast, another gate leads to the world of Black Lake. Paladins have reported that it is rife with relics, but dangerous. The Mother's avatar of that world was with the Finder's child long ago, but was murdered before she gave birth. The god-child was ripped from her womb by the Deceiver and corrupted into an abomination known as the Atropal. It now creates monsters in a cruel mockery of the Mother's work. Though many paladins have been lost in their attempts, ending the Atropal would also be a worthy task.
Finally, at the very center of the world, under the river, there is another gate leading down into the Abyssal World. The few paladins who return from there describe barely escaping with their lives from dark tunnels filled with the most powerful and ferocious fallen imaginable. There is allegedly a mechanism in place to raise the gate out of the river and grant access. So little is known about the place, that any lore contained therein would likely be worth contributing.
Strangely, the coordinates contained in the broken relic seem to lead farther east than the eastern edge of Broken Sky, but not out to any of the other worlds. It points either to a world that has not been discovered, or to a place between worlds. In any case, there is no documented way to reach that location.

>>720098
What's that tiny island in the lake?

>>720094
>>720096
Sorry, I had to edit the post because I forgot what east and west meant, and your commands are now part of a delicious update sandwich. Do not worry, I am still reading them.

>>720098
Give some of the tar substance a bit of a lick

>>720098
What happens to the water at the border of the world?

perhaps that is the stone's purpose? it can create a passage to this other world. or perhaps you can go through the skyhole and enter it from the outside?

and can the mother's avatar be repaired? fixing it would let this world get a population that could fight the fallen a little as well. taking pressure off the main city and give new followers at the same time.


the material in the canisters probably has a purpose other then explosive, since i doubt the finder designed them that way, it just also acts as an explosive.

I say ruins to sky fragments to black lake.
Possibly stocking up on useful items in the ruins, checking out the fragments as a tourist stop, and black lake for our main deed.

We seem more suited to medium combat instead of heavy, so I don't think the black pit will be something we can live through. The diplomacy goal is alright, but I think we (tgchan) try to talk our way out of problems too much. I'm up for tinkering and medium combat to eventually fight a strong foe.

Is it known how Fallen get into a world? Do they just appear, or do they enter through some way that could potentially be blocked off?

>the coordinates contained in the broken relic seem to lead farther east than the eastern edge of Broken Sky, but not out to any of the other worlds.
I don't suppose it would work to just walk over an cut a hole in the sky? (Or if the sky is uncuttable, to pick up a fragment to usse for something?)
Also, with enough components would it be possible to construct a flying machine? Seeing what's on the other side of that sky hole would be a worthy discovery I would think.

well it looks like we're going to have to go through the ruins to cross the bridge to go north so might as well first stop at the world mother's sanctuary, pass through the ruins and then after we get that far decide if we want to go relic hunting and try and kill a twisted god or try and talk to the tribe to see what we can learn about what true lore they know and maybe try converting them. Honestly after traveling for a bit I feel like we'd have a better idea on what we'd like to do next.

B-line to the nearest summon circle, then destroy it.

Sketchy 2016/05/24(Tue)14:13 No. 725692 ID: 21e8b4
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You survey the map and the coordinates with some confusion, double-checking your numbers to make sure that you got the location right. Perhaps the runestone serves to open up a secret passage into an undiscovered world? The lake in the southeast seems to be the closest, so you think that you should probably search there to see if the means to open up such a passage exists. You're not sure exactly what happens to the water that reaches the lake. You'd assume that it filters down through the soil and feeds into an underground aquifer of some sort, like the kind that must feed the springs in the northwestern mountains, but you're not sure. That may also be worth some investigation while you're there.

You also consider the nearby Mother's avatar, particularly whether or not it can be healed in some way. It's close to the ruins, which are also near to the passage down into the valley that leads to the lake. You decide to make a detour there on your way, not only for the Mother, but also for the nearby summoning circle. Though these circles have been destroyed many times by previous paladins, the fallen always remake them. Still, any way you can hinder their efforts has to be good.

Nobody knows all the hidden ways that the fallen may invade a world, but the circles are one of them. A populace strong with faith in the Finder is like poison to them, which is why they stay away from the Heartland and why nothing in Broken Sky keeps them at bay.

If your investigation of the lake doesn't yield anything, you decide to head north. First, to see if you can find a way to gain access to the sky hole and possibly use that to reach the coordinates. Then, failing that, your ultimate destination will be Black Lake and the Atropal.

Sketchy 2016/05/24(Tue)14:13 No. 725693 ID: 21e8b4
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With your course plotted, you first head to the west. You mostly stick to the cliffs along the border of the world. They rise, rough and impassable, to your left. You've never climbed them yourself, but these cliffs reportedly give way to an invisible barrier reaching up to the sky. On the other side, the land drops into an endless sky, where even the other worlds cannot be seen.

The wildlife seems to be thriving in this world, even if intelligent creatures are not. The plants are flourishing, and the forest is awash in the sounds of birds and insects. You see some sort of slender grazing creature eating some of the foliage, but it startles at your approach and sprints off before you can get a good look.

Still, you try to keep your senses keen in case there are any fallen nearby. Every so often you hear a branch shake or a leaf crunch, keeping you on your toes. You feel like you're being followed, but you never see anything that should be a true cause for alarm.

Sketchy 2016/05/24(Tue)14:14 No. 725694 ID: 21e8b4
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You try to keep your eye on the world's eponymous broken sky for the first hour or so of your hike. Once, you see the light shift, and when you look up the clouds seem different, but not substantially so. As your hike continues, the sky takes up less and less of your attention. That is, until you've been hiking for nearly three hours.

A sudden wind rushes over you, shaking the trees violently. The birds and beasts grow silent. In a mere instant, clouds fly in from the north, blanketing the entire area. A distant thunderclap shakes the ground, and heavy drops of cold rain begin pelting you from above.

You clutch your cloak against you and plod on, keeping an eye out for some sort of shelter in the cliffs. The smell of wet earth gives way to the sickly stench of decay, and you begin to notice bones littered among the leaves. Lightning strikes nearby, and you catch a glimpse of the massive form of the Mother just ahead. You barely have time to comprehend what you've seen, when everything cuts out.

The sky goes black. The sound of heavy rainfall hitting the leaves continues for a moment, then ceases. The air is suddenly still. Your cold, wet cloak clings to you as you peer apprehensively into the darkness, listening intently. Your eyes quickly adjust as best they can, drinking up the reflections of their own pale luminescence. Droplets fall from the trees. Leaves crackle. Something screams.

You can't tell what sort of creature made the sound, but it sounded pained. It definitely came from the west, near the Mother's avatar.

Unless you have a flashlight or some other way of seeing in the dark I'd suggest not running off into the darkness. Stay put until the lights come back on.

perhaps the mother isn't always giving stillborn, just ALMOST always stillborn. go quickly, if it's dangerous you have a full(or nearly full) mana reserve to murder things with.

>Screams
Could be one of the broken offspring of the Mother statue, or could be some sort of Fallen. Either way probably not something we want to run into if we can't see.

>A populace strong with faith in the Finder is like poison to them, which is why they stay away from the Heartland
Do converted populations in other worlds have the same effect? Are there many such stable settlements in the more explored directions out of the Heartland?

Follow the noise. You could find a tamable beast or easy scrap.

>>725712
Yeah, you're here to learn things with what little time you have, go.