You wipe the sweat from your brow. It's hellish, this little cave you've hunkered down in, and you don't mean in the metaphorical sense. Veins of sulfur criss-cross the far too close ceiling, and the temperature is just below that where human flesh begins to melt in fat, black drops from the bone. On your chest, your amulet glows a constant icy blue, a source of illumination and the only thing keeping you from combusting as you lie in wait. Outside, the earth trembles. A river of lava, its course very recently diverted, makes its way down the mountainside scant feet from the mouth of your hidey hole.In your hand, Illithuvia is cool and heavy. The blade emits a gentle pulse of calming light, and you hear her voice in the back of your mind."Take heart," she says, "Not much longer now. It should rise with the first plume of black smoke."You resist the urge to roll your eyes. You've been camped on the mountainside for a week, waiting for your mark to show its ugly hide. Now that the volcanic activity's picked up, you've been bunkered down within the inner rim of the crater for the better part of four hours.
A sudden explosion nearly knocks you onto your ass. A plume of acrid black ash erupts from the center of the lava pool below. You narrow your eyes, slowly clambering out of the cave. There. Waves of liquid magma slowly rise and recede from what at first appears to be a surfacing chunk of obsidian. With a mighty bellow, however, the beast rids you of that illusion. Had you not faced beasts of this size before, you would quail at the scale of the monster. You strain your neck to see its face as you look up, its tusks shedding a fiery red brilliance as it sucks in the first breath it has taken in a millennium.You slide down the slope to a rocky outcropping at the edge of the magma pools, more thankful now than ever that you decided to make that trip north and bind a spirit of frost. You can feel the strain you are putting on the Tundra Walker in your amulet. You'll have to keep this short if you don't want to get singed.Your name is Ayren Overwake, Master Totemist and bearer of the Holy Blade.What will you do?-----Previous Threads: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=totem
>>20407766>>20407758HOLY SHIT, IS THAT REALLY YOU?
[[ Rush hour /tg/ bump ]]
Hooooly shit, hell yes totemist quest. How I missed thee. I'll try and be semi active, it's difficult to sneak a peek here and there while at work though.
>>20407766See if you can't lure it out of the magma pool without getting spotted, I'd rather not attack this thing while it's still wading through hot molten DEATH.
>>20407766Holy Shit! Totemist Quest.Okay, we need to lure it farther out, we go in too early it'll just retreat back into the magma and we'll be fucked. Wait a bit, see where it goes, don't strike too early, patience is key.
rolled 77 = 77>>20408038I'm okay with this.Also, by not getting noticed I assume he means with a ranged weapon of some sort. Plink, shift cover. Wait. Plink again, and repeat.
>>20408038You reach into the folds of your cloak, plucking a small charm from its folds. The flare totem reacts violently to the superheated air surrounding you, lighting in your hand. You point it toward the beast, eyes narrowed. This'll get its attention, at least. It's a shame you haven't the reagents for binding such a beast, you think, as the bolt of light and spiritual power hurtles from the turtle-bone tube in your hand. The orb of light bounces around in front of the beast, the spiritual pressure emanating from it going much further toward distracting it than the simple illumination. You duck behind the rocky outcropping, holding your sword before you.You raise Illithuvia, the holy blade flaring to life in your grasp. Twin circles of white light encircle the handguard at diagonal angles, their cog-like shape rooting the blade to your grasp."Get ready." she says in the back of your mind.As the beast's midnight and crimson eyes turn toward your location, you feel the killing intent hit you like a wave of fire. This is a beast that has never been challenged in the periods between its long sleeps. True Dragons and other Behemoths alike do not dare disturb its slumber for fear of releasing a never-ending ocean of fire from deep beneath the earth.
And here your dumb ass is, slipping your free hand into a gauntlet with eldritch designs painted across its length.You duck out of cover, staying low to the ground, and point your newly enshrouded hand at the beast. As you clench your fist a wave of deep purple energy blasts outward, a thin vertical sheet of malignant energy. It lances across the Behemoth's obsidian hide, scoring a few light gouges. Its eyes widen, and the flare orb dancing before it explodes as its tusks glow from a deep red to a brilliant white. Its gaze sweeps toward you again, and you can feel the rock beneath your feet begin to soften. Its tusks glow slightly.
[[ Suggest course of action and roll 1d100 for efficacy. ]]
Fuck, you actually came back. If only I had known.
[[ Okay it appears that whatever errors were happening last night ate a good number of posts in the thread. Is anyone up for continuing this story, or should I just let this lie and pick up the regular quest tonight? ]]
>Oh, this sounds interesting, let's check sup/tg/>TEN THOUSAND OLD THREADSfuck it.[x] Pee on the tusks
>>20412533What regular quest?
>>20412533PLEASE DO BOTH PLEASEDON'T LEAVE US AGAIN
>>20412639Check second post for archives. OP sent out an email to the old mailing list saying that he was going to pick up running Totemist Quest again.>>2041260614 threads, such a hard fucking read.
>>20412664[[Alright. Shall I re-hash us up to the point that the thread was at last night before the errors ate all of our posts, or would you like to play through it again / differently? Fuckin' rollbacks, man. ]]
>>20412738>http://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/20407758/That should contain all the posts made in the thread, so the replay shouldn't be necessary. Maybe a short tl;dr would be nice to summarize.
>>20412830[[Perfect. Thank you, anon. I will pick up from the last story post in that archive momentarily.]]
You stare at the fallen corpse of your foe, brow furrowed. Were an outside observer to see you now, one might think that you were contemplating your most recent victory, or perhaps lamenting the necessity of bringing down such a majestic beast. The hard line that your mouth has become may denote regret, or perhaps a sense of grim determination. A dedication to your work so unswerving, a dedication to the people so unfailing, that you will destroy gods if that is what it takes.In reality, you are attempting to ascertain precisely how you are going to retrieve the Lance of Lions.You chew your lip for a moment. With the beast slain, the blade has reverted to its ordinary shape and size, leaving it buried under several hundred tons of gemstone and likely submerged in a pool of magma. You -like- that weapon. It's served you well through many a battle, and you are loathe to leave it behind in this geothermal graveyard.What will you do, Totemist?
>>20412971Hmm, let's see if our death-gauntlet can do anything to clear the way. If it can, all well and good. If it can't, then we may have to think of something else.I seem to recall that we can transfer different spirits between different totems, correct? If so, let us fashion one out of the gemstone carcass of the beast. See if that will prove useful. Even if it doesn't, that's still a totem, and totems are always good to have more of.If we're not on tight schedule, let's recruit the aid of the villagers who hired us. Say that we have slain the Godbeast, and we give the (valuable) carcass to them, but on the condition that they help us look for it. Take back a sample for them to see (and several more for us to keep), if that will help sway them.>Glad to have you back, bud.
>>20413125You note that the gems that now compose the entirety of the Behemoth's corpse do not seem to be dissolving in the pool of molten blood you have spilled. Taking this as a good sign you flare the wings of your cloak again, flying across the gap of liquid hot death and alighting on the surface of the sprawled monster's chest. You extend one finger of Pluto's Grasp, sending a hair-thin line of violet light into the beast below you. The beam refracts and dissipates as it makes contact with the surface of the gemstones.Death magic, it would seem, is less than effective on dead beings.You shrug, turning Illithuvia in your hand and beginning to carve into the beast the old fashioned way. It is no more difficult now than it was when the monster was a being of fire and rock. Your blade gouges deep rents in the monster's crystalline exterior.>Roll 2d100
rolled 14, 70 = 84>>20413241
>>20413241Glad to have you back Diarca.Rolling the first d100.
rolled 63 = 63>>20413309Derp.
rolled 45 = 45>>20413319And the second one.
>>20413299>14The work is slow going. Though the bulk of the Behemoth below you and the amulet around your neck shield you from much of the heat, you are still standing in a pool of magma, in the center of an active volcano. Close to the edge of that pool, certainly, but still in it. The heat begins to take its toll on you, and you can feel your movements become more sluggish as you work. Illithuvia, occupied as she is with her work carving a hole in this titanic corpse, cannot spare any power to relieve your heat exhaustion. You must simply grit your teeth and press on.>70About half-way into the corpse on of beast, your sword strikes something and rebounds. This instantly catches your attention, snapping your wearied mind from the task at hand to a sense of morbid curiosity. With a few deft swipe you carve out and area around this object, maneuvering the flat of your blade into the gap you have created and prying out the mysterious resistor.There, shining bright among the crimson and onyx shards of the God's body, lies a perfectly spherical orb of brilliant white metal. It is still, but you can feel waves of energy radiate off of it with each passing moment.It would appear you have found a God's Heart.
>>20413446We DEFINITELY keep this.
>>20413446We definitely need to research that thing.
You reach your ironclad hand out to grasp the orb, eyes wide. What a find! You'll need to research and experiment with this carefully. It may be just the thing you need to finally stay the hand of the Speaker. You raise the orb, attempting to get a better look at it in the dim radiance of the caldera, when you feel a rumble beneath your feet."Oh, shit." you mutter, glancing down. The magma is bubbling and surging upward beneath you. You settle a little lower into the carcass of the Behemoth, gripping a crystalline rib for stability."This might be a little rough." you mutter to your blade. Illithuvia remains silent, but you can see the rotation of the twin rings of light encircling her handguard increase in speed.>Suggest course of action, 2d100. First for efficacy, second for advisement.
rolled 74, 90 = 164>>20413953We climb the Behemoth!And then we fly off of it with our awesome cloak!Yeah!
>>20414012Also, it's awesome to have you back, man. Been missing Osyki the Prepared for a long time.
>>20414012Can't ague these rolls.
>>20414012You begin to sink lower into the carcass of the Behemoth, the stop."No. Hell no," you declare to no one in particular. "This is not how I go out."You clamber out of the hole you've made in the Behemoth's hide, the Heart clenched in your hand. Looking up to the sky, you narrow your eyes and throw your fist into the air."Not today!"As the hand holding the Heart of the Volcano surges into the air, the magma reacts with it. With a great shuddering explosion the liquid rock beneath you explodes upward, sending you and the Behemoth you have hollowed out like a life boat hurtling into the air.>74Even as you flip and tumble through the air, you keep a firm sense of direction. Planting Illithuvia in the rocky hide beside you as an anchor, you let out a laugh forged of pure adrenaline as the plume of lava throws you and your gemstone shell hundreds of feet into the air above the rim of the caldera. You wait until you have reached the very apex of this meteoric ascent, lava falling away beneath you, to make good your escape.Wrenching your blade from the Behemoth's hide, you vault off of the side of its bulk with a motion so fluid you could be confused for the lava that had borne you so high. As you drop below the beast's spine, you snap the wings of your cloak open. This will take some very precise timing.>90You swoop down, descending at an angle so that you just barely skim the surface of the now plummeting Behemoth. With what you imagine must be nearly a hundred tons of priceless gemstones hurtling down toward you, you scan the rocky surface for your blade.There.With a few minute adjustments of your wings you bank sideway, scraping the surface of the rock above you. Your legs find purchase, and as you sprint across the uneven terrain of the Behemoth's back you take a moment to take stock of your situation.
>You are high enough in the air that the clouds look distant below you.>You are sprinting across the back of a dead Behemoth, still blazing hot from the pillar of lava that threw it into the sky, one trip or miscalculation away from an ignoble death, crushed flatter than a summer slime.>You are sprinting across said back upside-down, the sheer momentum of the thing above you and the frantic flapping of your cloak all that is gluing you to this rapidly descending meteor of priceless gems.>You are grinning.You wrench the Lance of Lions from its resting place in the Behemoth's back. With a powerful kick, you spiral off of the inverted crag and away from the mass of rock above you. For a moment you are afraid that it is falling too fast, and that it will clip your lower half as you soar away from it. You catch a lucky thermal, however, and surge up and away from the meteor, skimming the surface of the wispy clouds below.Not a bad escape, all things considered.
[[Aaaand that is where we cut things for the afternoon. I will return in approximately six and a half hours with your regularly scheduled Totemist Quest. Catch you all a little after 8 PST. ]]
>>20414275It's good to see this quest back. I missed it.And Osyki has a long way to go to catch up to Ayren in terms of badassery.
>>20414275Yeah, now Brian in a Jar has to come back, and all is well on /tg/ again.
Bump
