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magisteriaexe2024-06-16 04:49 pm
magisteriamods) wrote in magisteriaexe2024-06-16 04:49 pm
High Risk Quest #1: The Ghost Signal
Note: Here we go, gamers! The first High Risk Quest for Magisteria. These quests will serve as tiered mini-events which reveal crucial world lore, goings-on, and also tie into the metaplot and the large events. High Risk Quests will trade off in emphasis, meaning tech --> magic --> tech --> magic.
While this quest has seeds for the Tech Path Conflict, it should be noted that it's OTA and also that quite a bit of magic-specific locations/mini-events will open soon. The Magic Path Conflict is brewing in the background and will become more apparent soon, too, so keep one's eyes peeled.
Context & Recap
This quest takes place after The Coffee Shop Mingle, which features NPCs discoursing on the goings-on of High Rise Village. Players are encouraged to look at that.
In the first event, Training in High Rise Village, we learned about a mysterious intruder who infiltrated the Digital Flora Dome and the Neon Nest, two properties belonging to an android named Rosalind Vireo. PCs who restored the properties deciphered a mysterious phrase, "Symphony of Disruption..." Seems portentious! In the above coffee shop mingle, Rosalind speculates as to the possible culprit(s?).
Bling
See the plotting post: PCs can go all out with the cyber weapons on this one, in addition to whatever tech or magic they've learned, whatever canon abilities have returned, and Selena and Titan-7 can also be used as weapons (so to speak) or defenses/back-up. Feel free to write interactions with them or them stepping in however. Of course, the main route to success will be PCs supporting other PCs!
High Risk Quest Continuation: THE WRECKAGE LABYRINTH
The Wreckage Labyrinth
Pursuing the source of the Ghost Signal, Otherworlders and their NPC allies will find themselves manuevering through the alleyways of High Rise Village, through unmarked back streets that they might have a difficult time re-locating in the light of day. It is almost as if new quarters and new corners of the district have simply manifested from the ether. The presence of The Fractured also seems to pave the way, as it can be reasoned that the source of the signal is also where these beings are originating from.
Eventually, the group encounters it: a building which appears to be an abandoned industrial complex. Towering, decaying, it looks entirely at odds with anything Otherworlders have thus far seen within High Rise Village.
As your group approaches the abandoned facility, you will notice a massive, rusted gate. It is partially covered in overgrown vegetation. Upon entering, there's a courtyard filled with debris, broken-down vehicles, and obsolete machinery. The ground is cracked, with tufts of hardy weeds poking through. As you near the facility itself, the atmosphere is thick with the hum of electronics and the occasional flicker of unstable lights, giving it an eerie, almost haunted feeling.
And, once again, the sentinels in the form of The Fractured begin to appear -- these, appropriately, looking all the more like guards than the previous set:
Round Two
[ Ready for round two? Here it is! See below for their identities/abilities.]
BISHOP | OC |
[ This isn't his first time chasing a macabre signal to an abandoned facility and, sadly, it's starting to look like it won't be his last either.
He walks the perimeter systematically, going to the left so his sword arm is facing towards the facility, and moving in such a way that it's always within his field of view as he assessed the area.
Every now and again he stops and looks at the looming structure, eyes darting between each opening, edge, window, gaping hole, even so much as a crack didn't go unchecked. He was on edge, or perhaps he's hunting, either way this was clearly getting serious. ]
....I feel eyes on us...
[ He says out loud, just enough of others near him to hear, but a whisper to whatever maybe out there. ]
B - Inside the Warehouse
[ As expected, visibility is horrendous inside. Rays of moonlight peeking through gaps and windows, casting a ghostly glow around the fringes of the facility, the constant electric hum threatening to make careless minds wander or stray, and the shadows of each abandoned machine making shapes of enemies unseen. Further in, however, the light barely punctures the dark and its only made worse by constant electric hum and the still dead air.
He keeps his wits about him but these things they were hunting were unpredictable, and worse was that he couldn't get a read on whether they acted out of some animalistic action or there was some method to their madness. Their resemblance to the terrors from his world were uncanny and this was unsettling, just like the situation he's found himself in.
He's in a large room with a steel walkway and staircase, perched on the handrail with the moonlight at his back casting a silvery in room as he loomed over like an irrate gargoyle. His blade is drawn from the rise and fall of his shoulders, he's getting worked hard. ]
Hey! Don't come in here! Don't -!!
[ He warned as your figure appeared in the door way, at the same time, something shot out the darkness which he parried while leaping off the rail and onto the rickety walkway. He retreated backwards into the dark between broken windows where the fighting suddenly grew more intense as his blade clashed with more steel, then receding to three blade like tentacles takings jabs at him when he stepped into a ray of moonlight. With quick movement he parried and knotted the three tentacles together before jumping off the walkway and into the moonlight. The tentacles suddenly gone and silence around the room. ]
It's in the dark! Stay away from the dark!
no subject
Rhea'li himself is carrying a rifle supplied by their benefactors, but his Busterfly -- his locally made, mechanical vilekin construct of untapped potential -- clings to his shoulders like an elaborate decoration. His grimoire remains at his side.]
The guard is in the dark, is it? Then let us draw it into the light!
[Using his cybernetic connection to his Bursterfly, he wordlessly commands it, the mechanical insect zipping from his shoulders into the air. With a flare of its wings, it flashes a beam of light into the shadows the tentacles had come from.]
no subject
Turning it's attention to Rhea'li, it lauched itself off the walkway and straight for the Miqo'te but Bishop was quick to intercept - crashing into it mid-air and stabbing it in the chest, though it seems to have done nothing. They clattered to the ground with Bishop launching himself at the intial fall as the creature skid across the ground and into a post and into a shadow. ]
Get behind me!
[ Multiple pointed tendrils shot out from the darkness which he skillfully parried, but at the same time it left him pinned there as he guarded Rhea'li. ]
Augh I'm so sorry I took so long to reply
Raising his rifle, he fires blasts of energy at the tendrils, driving them back from Bishop so the other man has space to go on the offense.]
I'll be fine. Get the main body.
[Rhea'li's bursterfly zips about, tracking the creature to where it's attempting to hide in shadow. Once again, the bursterfly shines a light to expose their assailant.]