File: 1393374940991.jpg-(35 KB, 400x400, Foundry Map.jpg)

35 KB JPG

>>30487055
You huddle under the weathered bulk of what was once, centuries, even mellenia ago, meant to be an avatar one day. Now it is little more than a delicately carved, crumbling, stone and crystal skeleton that'll never move or fight.

Pulling your glow stone free, you exert your will, and feel a portion of it devoured by the stone, an infinitesimally small portion of your energy and mental stamina absorbed by the divine magics of the crystal to ignite it in a brief pulse of light that illuminates the maze crumbling avatar skeletons around you.

You see that there is one skeleton placed for every 4 meter square space, high above you, in the shadows made stark by your glow stone, you see briefly that the machinery high above is rusted or crumbling as well, long cables, made of some kind of clear glass like substance. They currently are empty. The tubes dip down from the center of the chamber over the central glowing pit of the chamber, hanging motionless above it.

In the corners of one side of the building are a large number of boxy like constructions, a ramp on each side of the room leads up to and into them, the nearest one is back to the doorway from which you entered, towards the strange bug like creature that left the gash in your arm.

In the opposite direction is a large raised platform, your light doesn't reach it so you have no idea what is on it.

The glowing pit remains at the center of the field of broken down avatars.

What do?
>Don your armor now that you've got some cover from the statues.
>Put more distance between you and the bug thing.
>Prepare an ambush for the bug thing.
>Investigate the pit.
>Investigate the large raised platform
>head up one of the two ramps (indicate which) to investigate the box shaped rooms.

>Need a roll no matter what you do.
>You are the little red dot on the map.

Rolled 80

>>30487250
>Don your armor now that you've got some cover from the statues.

What die roll?

>>30487328
see >>30487055
>>Conflict Resolution is handled by highest of three 1d100s rolled. Criticals occur on a roll of 100, or when doubles or triples are rolled by the first three. Critical misses (roll of 1) trump all but critical successes.

Rolled 16

OP needs more formatting. Maybe split it into two posts.
>dat QTG complaint
Rolling for hips.

>>30487403
I'll split it up between two posts next time.

and with that roll, she's got no hips to speak of apparently. Or we can leave it to the first draw fag who takes an interest to draw her I guess?

>>30487250
>>Don your armor now that you've got some cover from the statues.

>>30487500
that was a d20 mate

>>30487316
>>30487527
You manage to get your armor into position with a good deal of speed and silence, the leather straps closing fast against your skin. It's still uncomfortably tight in the chest region, but that's to be expected considering the armor was probably meant for a man originally.

You manage to get your armor into place just as the buzzing and hissing of the bug thing becomes fully audible once more. It's followed you into the foundry ruins, though you can't see where. The flash of light from the glow-stone destroyed what night vision you had built up in the gloom outside, and the creature has already moved away from the doorway you entered by. You can hear the clacking and scratching and buzzing of the creature's movements as it stalks between the Avatar hulks surrounding you, searching for the prey whose blood it has already tasted, your blood.

You can try to avoid it, or try to confront it... you have no idea how it tracks, if by smell, or sound, or sight, but you'll be blind for some several more minutes while your eyes readjust to the darkness.

>[] Set up an Ambush
>[] Try to sneak back out without the creature noticing you.
>[] sneak into one of the other areas of the foundry ruins (which one?)
>[] other

You can combine options as well if you feel like it makes sense, set out a plan of action, use your equipment if you think it's for the best.

File: 1393376711714.jpg-(37 KB, 400x400, Foundry Map.jpg)

37 KB JPG

>>30487772
forgot picture.

>>30487772
How large is the creature?

>>30487795
The creature is a beetle with two legs and a set of insectile wings it uses to balance. It's about the size of a small pony. It's mandibles are about as long as your forearm. So far you've seen that is is capable of kicking down with its legs hard enough to score solid stone with its claws. It doesn't appear to fly so much as hop around and slice things up with its mandibles. It has a long tongue that it used to lick your blood from it's mandibles after slicing into your shoulder with it.

Other than this, you don't know anything. It's not one of the creatures your father told you about from his hunting trips before he disappeared, and it's not anything that ventures close to the village. Considering the sheer variety of monsters and beasts in the Forests, it's not surprising that you've not heard of anything like this, this is one of the smaller beasts, only the larger beasts (or creatures that attack in vast packs or swarms) venture close to settlements.

>>30487772
>[] sneak into one of the other areas of the foundry ruins
the closest one with a closable door

>>30487772
Could we make any of the avatars functional?

>>30487982
The closest area is the pit, which is glowing gently, but you have no idea if it leads anywhere. You can't tell if the ramps lead up to doors or not, but you get a feeling that the inhabitants of the Old Empire either were not big on doors (considering something as valuable as an avatar foundry has four open holes in it's walls), at least not as you understand them.

>>30487982
The Avatars around you were in the earliest stages of assembly. There MIGHT be one, amongst all of them, that could be made operational, but all the ones you've seen were basically skeletons, the framework that would be built upon to make a full Avatar. And even that has been eroded away by centuries without a protective outer skin to prevent the fundamental divine magics at an Avatar's core from being harmed.

That said, you're free to explore amongst the decayed parts, you might get lucky. But I'll need a roll, unless you don't care if the bug thing notices you.

>>30488109
Head to the pit. If it doesn't lead anywhere attack the bug.

>>30488109
Jump in the pit. Resist urge to shout 'geronimo'.

>>30488154
>>30488191

You run for the pit, throwing caution to the wind. Immediately, as your foot steps echo through the large chamber bouncing off of odd walls and the ruins of war-machines-never-to-be, you hear the clattering and the buzzing. As it begins to hunt you. The sound of it getting closer and closer.

As you reach the edge of the pit, you see a stair way, wide enough for two men to walk abreast, spiralling down the side. At the bottom seems to be some kind of bubbling liquid above a grate about 4 stories below you. Machinery, mostly intact machinery from the looks of it in the glow, rests ontop of the grated floor.

You manage to skid to a halt, then jump down onto the stairs below, a jarring fall, but the stone holds beneath your feet, and it puts you out of the immediate view of the thing hunting you.

You can head down towards the machines, or prepare an ambush for the bug when it comes into the pit, it's only just small enough to get down the stairs, it won't be able to maneuver on them, you hope.

>>30488365
Let's try to push the bug into the liquid.

>>30488407
I'll need a roll for it.

>>30488365
[x] this >>30488407
then jump down on top of it, maybe run a few floors down first though

Rolled 19

>>30488446

Rolled 13

>>30488446

Rolled 81

>>30488446

>>30488497
oh thank god

>>30488407
>>30488457
>>30488497

The creature apparently had caught sight of you the moment you leaped down, because the chattering and buzzing only grew as it closed on you. It leapt down at you, only to fall right onto your dagger thrust.

There is a sickening crunching noise, and thick, gooey, bug blood, cool and slimey and viscous, gushed out of the gash you made in the underside of its thorax.

You heave, gasping from the effort and the sudden weight, as you help the creature over you and down into the pit.

It lands in the middle of the machinery, where the grating does not cover the strange bubbling liquid. Previously it was dark, black, like water in the dark, it's appearance obvious only by the movements, shine, and bubbling of the surface. As the creature falls into it. It lets out an ear piercing screech, like air escaping from a punctured air bladder, high pitch and horrid. As you watch, the liquid under it begins to bubble and froth, and glow the same purple color as the glow coming from the machines, and the creature sinks down into it. Just before the mandible sink below the surface, you see they have taken on a hard, crystalline texture before disappearing below the surface.

The creature following you has been vanquished, and it's death has awoken the machinery down there, which begins to hiss and crackle with new life. The glow of the machinery amplifies even as the glow of the liquid below it grows bright as day.

Do you go down to investigate? Or do you want to explore the rest of the complex first?

>>30488817
Investigate

>>30488817
Investigate. Keep watch on the liquid in case it starts rising.
Can we get turned into a crystal golem? That might be fun.

>>30488848
>>30489034
You descend towards the machines. The liquid bubbles and froths as if it were boiling, but you feel no heat radiating off of it. It is completely opaque as well, you can't tell what happened to the bug creatures that slipped below the edges.

The machinery is... odd to say the least. Strange glass panels cover it. You've only seen glass one other time in your life, intricate carvings of stained glass on an Avatar guarding a large caravan that passed through the village nearly a decade ago, you can barely remember it, but this glass is far clearer, you can see the shapes and strange metal or ceramic bits below it. Strange symbols carved or painted onto the surface below the glass.

Right now, all the arrows point to the left sides of the surfaces under the glass panels, against very light colors. Darker colors sit on the right hand side.

Directly above you can see the strange clear tubes hanging directly over head, the purple glow of the liquid below you reflected off of them. Perhaps they are made of glass as well? Though how they prevent them from cracking when hung like that is beyond you.

There is a single large lever directly in front of you, and next to each glass panel is a switch, some of them are flipped up, others are flipped down.

>>30489284
Pull the lever.

>>30489284
Obviously the lever causes the fluid to be pumped through the pipes. We shouldn't mess with it.
The switches might change the direction of the flow or something.
Is there anything we could stick in the fluid for a bit, then pull back out to see what happens to it? If not, cut a few inches off the end of our rope and try that.

>>30489410
>>30489440
I need someone to decide whether the lever gets pulled or not. Otherwise I'll flip a coin in a few minutes.

Probably going to want to get to the magimechs soon if you want more players, OP.

>>30489530
Wait to pull the lever. Let's see if there's a functional avatar above.

>>30489410
its like you want to kill us. that is likely to spill some of that liquid and turn us into avatar food

File: 1393383555687.jpg-(288 KB, 622x683, P-Avatar.jpg)

288 KB JPG

>>30489440
>>30489641
>>30489689
You decide to forgo the lever fro the time being. Instead you dip a cutting of the hemp rope into the liquid.

As you draw it out, you see it crystalize, then disolve slowly into glowing liquid that dribbles down through the grate into the pool. Only a drop or three, far less than you'd have expected given the amount of rope dissolved. You've seen this substance before, though not of this color, and never so much of it. Avatars put it off when they are activated. It is the exhaust, the breath of life, Divine Essence which powers them. Legends spoke of a time when the Old Empire used the blood of the gods themselves to power it's wonders, perhaps this is it? Liquid Divine Essence, though how divine essence is kept in a liquid form rather than disipatting back into the air is beyond your understanding. Perhaps you recharged it by sacrificing a living thing into it? Much as how warlocks are said to break down the living, both man and animal, for the divine essence within them?

Heading back up, you wander amongst the broken avatar skeletons. The vast majority are broken down, disfunctional, some have even begun to actually fall apart beyond simply crumbling on the surface.

As you explore, you notice they are more and more complete as you walk towards the raised platform. Walking up the ramp to the platform, you find avatars in various stages of completion. Some of them might even be salvagable for parts, though you lack the tools to take them apart.

At the furthest end of the platform, you find a single intact avatar. It is almost entirely completed, it's body a white sheen, like glazed porcelain, but to the touch it feels like metal.

>cont.

File: 1393383991519.png-(6 KB, 400x400, Foundry Map.png)

6 KB PNG

>>30490019

Further, under the porcelain plates, you see what look like thick cords, dull and without power, but obviously inscribed with spell tattoos almost too small to see. Under closer inspection, you see that the almost too small to see spell tattoos are made of yet smaller markings, probably more spell tattoos. Your eyes water before you can make out more than that.

It has 3 arms, 2 on the right and 1 on the left and several glowing gems. It holds no weapons, nor is it robed as you have often seen more humanoid avatars done before (usually with tapestries that explain their history and exploits). The left side arm is disportionately large, but incredibly strong looking, and better armored than the other two.

The eyes of it are dead though, and you can see in the chest cavity, where an Avatar Pilot would sit, there is no heart, the spell spun orb that would power it. In addition, there is nothing to give it's body spark and life. That would take divine essence to power it for the first time, either killing the person to be given to it, or you need another resource. When the cities build them, they either take a volunteer, or a criminal, or sacrifice one of their nearly destroyed Avatars to fully activate it.

You need two things to activate this one. The heart, and a source of energy.

For more information I either need a roll, or you need to improve your ability to see in the room, currently it is still to dark to see clearly this far from the glowing essence pit.

Rolled 88

>>30490155
lets get some info

>>30490155
Activate the light stone.

>>30490205
>>30490210
As you illuminate the hall, you're able to see the piping high above, and notice for the first time a series of drains below the Avatar.

It appears that this was an activation platform for Avatars, assuming you can find a Heart for the Avatar, you think you can figure out which of the dials will lead to this place, allowing you to pour the liquid Divine Essence onto it and activate it.

What do you do?

You can explore the remaining two chambers in here (the boxy rooms near the cieling in the opposite corners). Or go to explore the other sections of the ruin, such as the temple or the living areas.

Rolled 54

>>30490632
lets keep looking here. first checking the room on the right hand side

>>30490632
Explore the left chamber.

>>30490632
Maybe those switches below are the control room?

File: 1393387562469.png-(6 KB, 400x400, Foundry Map.png)

6 KB PNG

>>30491144
Possibly.

>>30490791
>>30490896
You decide to explore both chambers, but the right hand chamber is closet of all. As you walk out you see that roots have climbed in from the door on the right hand side of the large chamber, the forest has utterly claimed any ruins that lie further away from the central plaza.

Up the ramp leads to a series of boxy chambers, the remains of scaffolds cover the entire area, with large glass panes sticking up from the centers of large tables. Many of these are shattered, but more are intact, several glow gently, ghost lights and symbols flickering over them. Staring at the symbols makes your eyes hurt though, much like when you try to stare too hard at the marking on broken divine magic pieces. But the vast majority of panes are blank or broken.

Grooves run on every surface, most of them covered by glass, all of the grooves run to the glass panes, and to several other stone and metal objects that are obviously worn down and broken. The grooves all eventually lead up to a hole in the ceiling.

You do come across some strange leafs of a smooth substance, it's thinner than the parchment you've seen before, and light, impossibly smooth. It feels like it would come apart in your hands like cobwebs, but it holds together. Each of the sheets is covered in strange symbols that look like spell-tattoo designs. There's several such sheets in all, but all but one of them has the symbols marked or running, or scratched, impossible to read. The single intact sheet you can't read at all besides the strange symbols on it. It would probably take a scholar from the universities, or perhaps your Great Uncle to decipher these.

The chamber is otherwise unremarkable, it has multiple platforms, stair cases rusted into oblivion, and an open doorway leading out to a bridge leading to the right side chambers.

I'm happy I pushed for adventure last time. I like this avatar way more than the other one.

>>30491624
You'll have fun with this one I'm sure. It's got some tricks up it's sleeve you can be sure.

>>30491409
Check out the left chamber.

>>30491759
This.

Can you define what a core is exactly OP ?

>>30491759
>>30491409

make sure to take the sheet with us

>>30491834
A Core, or Heart, of an Avatar is basically the core operating system and power source for an Avatar. Those tattoos you got on your arms and neck? They interface with a core which is positioned right behind your head. They tend to look like a biomechanical heart with spell tattoos carved into them. Without one, the Divine Essence cannot be drawn into the Avatar, nor moved about to create movement or allow the casting of spells. They're the rarest of components, and if an Avatar is destroyed in battle, if it's heart can be salvaged, a new Avatar can be made from it. If the Avatar was merely damaged beyond repair, not entirely destroyed, it'll even retain enough base level divine essence to jump start the new Avatar, rather than requiring a human being (or other intelligent being) to sacrifice themselves to jump start it.

>>30491759
>>30491853
You head across the bridge after pocketing the leaf of spell tattoos.

The left chamber is very similar to the first one, at least at first glance. Rather than desks with glass panes on them though, there are glass coffins, in each of them sloshes that gently bubbling liquid, like the stuff from the bottom of the essence pit. These do not appear to have been activated however like the essence pit was. There are two such coffins not filled with liquid however. Both of them contain bodies. The first coffin has been broken open, a skeleton in tattered but impossibly fine rags and broken finger bones seems to have managed to smash its way out of its coffin.

The other is not so lucky. Scratched cover much of the inside of the coffin, and through them you see a mummified corpse, the finger tips worked down to the bone. The face too desiccated to be able to tell what happened.

There are levers and switched besides each of the coffins. and groves running down from them to a large glass covered hole in the floor. A distant purple glow feeds up very faintly from the bottom of the hole.

>cont.

File: 1393390139636.png-(6 KB, 400x400, Foundry Map.png)

6 KB PNG

>>30492243
You can try to open any of the coffins, or inspect the corpse of the person who managed to break out of their glass coffin.

You can go back to activate the devices in the central essence chamber. You think you can probably guess which of the devices works for the Avatar you wish to activate.

You can head back to the central plaza, and from there to either the Temple or the Living Areas of the ruins.

Or you can do something else.

>>30492309
Inspect the corpse's clothes. If they survived all this time intact we should loot them.

>>30492309
Inspect the bodies first.

File: 1393392526832.png-(14 KB, 400x400, HolyMarkOldEmpire.png)

14 KB PNG

>>30492337
>>30492383
You pull the skeletal body free, it falls apart, the cloth it's wearing ripping and tearing, but not like any substance you've seen before. Rather than breaking with multitudes of little threads snapping as you would expect of even the finest cloth, it stretches and warps, growing thinner and thinner, like when you pull spider's silk from the sides, or like a soap bubble growing wider, until it snaps. The upper half of his body falls free with a clatter of bones and dust, and a strange gem like amulet bounces free of him. It looks like a playing card, but is translucent and the bottom edge beveled and has strange ridges and protrusions out of it.

One mark is left intact on his suit, you recognize it as a symbol recognized as a holy symbol amongst most traders and quite a few villages. The exact interpretation varies, and your village has always been one to worship it's ancestors rather than some ephemeral concept, but else where the symbol is generally considered to be a holy symbol of protection.

If you look closely at the card shaped amulet, it has the same symbol set into it, barely able to be seen when light shines through it in the right way.

>>30493020
Grab the card. Break the coffin with the mummy in it.

>>30493020
Get that amulet. Put it on.

Check the other coffin.

>>30493126
>>30493115
You grab the card and slide it around your neck. The cord is still good, for now, if a little tattered and old, you'll probably want to replace it. Once your bandages are removed it'll itch something fierce.

Breaking into the coffin with the mummy takes some doing. You eventually managed to smash it open and release centuries, or millennia old air from the inside of the glass coffin. Looking inside properly, once you get over the dusty stench, you can see this one is in a similar garment, only he has a series of vertical lines of varying thickness on them put onto either shoulder. Otherwise the garment he's in is bare. You can't see any way to get it off of him without cutting it off, there are no seams or openings or clasps. It's as if he was simply sewn into it, if the term 'sewing' could be applied to a cloth not made out of threads.

>>30493233
How many coffins are there?

>>30493254
There are easily about 30 in total, all in different parts of the asymmetrical chamber. But only two of them are not filled with the dormant state of the fluid that is at the bottom of the essence pit.

>>30493233
Examine the lever and switches on the closest coffin.

>>30493233
check the next chamber

>>30493441
You've explored all of the chambers in the Ruined Avatar Foundry. You can explore further out into the ruins, or you can try activating some of the machinery down in the essence pit, or something else if you suggest it.

>>30493419
Each coffin has 1 lever and 2 switches. The lever is near the foot of the glass coffin, set right above the glass covered grove that leads down to the floor and the hole at the center of it.

The two switches are set at the top. One of them has the image of a half circle turning inside of another, larger half circle, the other has a strange marking on it. Half of it is the right side of a skull as seen from the front, heavily stylized obviously, the other half is of a single wing and half a halo.

>>30493568
Set both switches up and pull on the lever.

>>30493611
The switches on the scratched up, and now shattered open, glass coffin cause a wirring noise to occur, and for sparks to fly up from the edges of the interior of the coffin, while the glass lid of it jerks a bit, then goes still. The sparks die out after a bit, but not before landing on the bones of the skeleton exposed from it's strange clothing. Those bones crystalize, then quickly melt into a bare few droplets of bubbling liquid that quickly evaporate. The clothing itself is uneffected by the sparks.

You can hear a sucking noise coming from the bottom of the coffin through the gaping hole you bashed in the glass lid once you throw the lever. Nothing else occurs.

>>30493841
Pull the lever on one of the unbroken coffins.

No magi-robot battles...

Too much puzzle...

Interest...

Rapidly...

Waning...

>>30494250
I like exploring ruins.

>>30494348
Action first, slow bits after you've aquired some regulars.

>>30493881
Pulling the lever drains away the gently bubbling liquid, leaving behind an empty suit similar to the one inside of the coffin that had been broken open from the inside, bearing the holy mark as well. It drains down the groove, under the glass protection covering the grove, occasionally bubbling up from the cracks. It drains away entirely down the hole in the central hole of the chamber. There's a brief flash from the bottom of the hole, then it goes back to it's normal glow.

>>30494250
>>30494408
Trying to introduce the world here. Magirobot battles are coming I promise. And I'll slip some more action sequences into the other areas of the ruins. It's my first time, and I'm sorry for any slowness. Next time I do something like this I'll start it off with a bang.

>>30494552
Go check on the avatar.

>>30494552
If we cut it open could we put the suit on?

>>30494649
Yes. But you have no way to secure it really.

>>30494603
You leave the room and go to check on the Avatar unit. There's nothing changed about it.

>>30494552
Hm, I'm looking forward to some Ivory Typhoon action if we get that far.

>>30494709
I've never heard the term before? Is it from an anime? Manga? Game?

>>30494705
>I've never heard the term before? Is it from an anime? Manga? Game?
Anyway. To lay out the options as I see them currently.

>1: You can go fiddle with the machines in the essence pit
>2: You can go back to the plaza and then explore either the temple or the living areas of the ruins from there
>3: You can head back to the village (in the pitch black night I might add) to gather people to come salvage this place.
>4: You can pitch a tent and wait till morning.

>>30494874
>>1: You can go fiddle with the machines in the essence pit

Still need to see what that lever does.

>>30494705
>Yes. But you have no way to secure it really.

If we cut it in half we can use the top like a shirt and the bottom as pants. Since we're going to be around that liquid it would be a good idea to wear something resistant to it.

>>30494962
There was heavy objection to this before. As long as no one disagrees in the next 10 minutes, this is what you'll do.

>>30494992
Alright. You quickly take out the strange garment, and cut it in half, wearing it under your armor and clothing as you say. It stretches to accommodate your shape, though the sleeves and legs are a little long on you, but not by much. It fits comfortably under your existing clothing like a second skin.

>>30495027
You decide to head down into the essence pit once more, and once there, you take the slightly rusty lever in both hands and heave on it. With a chattering, clanking noise, the pipes lower down from the cieling, and dip into the bubbling, roiling liquid below the grate. The stuff is quickly pumped up into the room. You see all of the gauges that have the switches flipped up on suddenly light up and chance, and a great rumbling fills the entire complex.

Lights begin to turn on, machinery, with centuries of rust, begin to crank and turn, an all mighty racket is made in the foundry as the liquid essence is pumped into machinery that no longer is able to be powered by it but is attempting to move anyway.

With a terrible CRASH one of the machines on the ceiling shakes itself to bits, smashing down upon the broken remains of so many avatars, pulverizing them. And another, and another, and another. nearly the entire central area is obliterated by falling machinery. THere are spurts of liquid essence draining away, but the switches on panels suddenly turn themselves down as if they have a life of their own, the panels they're next to turning red.

You see that there are far more active panels, even ones that have turned red, than there are appliances in this building. And you can hear a dull thrum coming from elsewhere in the ruins.

It appears the Foundry was more than just a place to build Avatars, it seems to have awoken the entire ruin.

To be fair though, you're pretty sure now you know which panel is linked to the essence activation pipe hanging over the intact Avatar, it's turned off, and not red. When you climb to the top to see the damage, you can see nothing on the raised platform has been damaged at all, including the intact Avatar.

>>30495256
Activate the avatar.

>>30495387
You go back down and activate the device. There's a loud splashing noise from above, and then nothing. The switch flips back up.

Heading back up, you find that the avatar is now glowing, but that glow is disipatting. The spell-work on it fading away again to the dormant state it was in. Without a heart, it simply will not be able to move for long.

As it is... you might get 20 minutes of movement out of it, assuming you don't activate any spells while inside of it, those will use up even more power. At the moment, you can control it, but you can't act as it's battery, nor has it received enough energy to remain permanently on in any case.

>>30495457
Go back to the room with the coffins in it. I'm assuming it held people to boot up the avatars.

>>30495484
It did, and perhaps to power the entire complex that once played home to this foundry. But there is no heart there. They are very obvious, appearing to be a biomechancial heart with spell-tattoos carved into them, a heart sized for something as large as an Avatar (which is, on average, about 15' tall. yours clocks in at about 17').

They stand out. If there was ever one inside of the Foundry it isn't there now. You also notice on your second run through that there's no actual equipment for making spell inscriptions into materials. Nothing that might have been used to create the spells on a heart. This place seems to have been an assembly and activation area more than anything else. Perhaps the specific parts were made elsewhere in the ruins?

>>30495550
Temple is probably the best bet.

>>30495550
How tall is the village mech?

File: 1393404968451.jpg-(93 KB, 580x450, 489de7ac7afade2b6b22263f7(...).jpg)

93 KB JPG

>>30496211
Garmaniz, the village mech, is about 22' tall, it's a bit freakish in it's size really. As far as Avatars go though, it's size and the number of limbs are the only unusual things about it. It's a pure physical combat Avatar without any spells worked into it. It's survived a number of villages being destroyed. The skulls on it's necklace represent the number of villages it has failed to protect but has seen the survivors on from. Though that's not so unusual in this world. It's a rare village that last more than 5 generations without something resulting it in being wiped out, and the survivors, usually protected by the village Avatar, find a new place to settle down, usually in the abandoned remains of another dead village nearby. Garmaniz might have, at one time, had weapons capable of casting spells when used in conjunction, but now it's weapons are just massive iron, brass, bronze, and copper tools of killing any monsters who attack the village.

>>30495694
You come back to the plaza, it's the dead of night, but all of the lights have gotten much, much brighter. And there's activity in the forests around you... lots of it. There is a brilliant glow of energy corruscating through the obsidian forest that surrounds the large gem like orb in the center of the plaza, and you can tell that the ruins of the temple and living areas have obviously been activated, turned on.

You probably don't have that long until the local wildlife comes sniffing around for whatever prey has been flushed.

>cont.

>>30496409

As you approach the temple, you see a pair of brilliant orbs above the main door way, something large enough for even an avatar to fit through, light up, slowly opening as if they were eyes. The pair of orbs rotate in their stone sockets, following you as you approach. You can't help but feel that the legends of Old Empire ruins being 'alive' in a more literal sense might have some credence when those strange glowing stone eyes are watching your approach, like eyes over a gaping maw. The maw in this case is the doorway. It looks like a pane of glass had tried to slide up from the bottom of the door while another slid down from the top, but the glass was shattered and cracked, and all it does, in the glow from the chambers inside of the temple, is make the door way look like a fang filled maw.

>Press on?
>Let superstition get the better of you and go explore someplace less creepy looking? (where?)
>Other

>>30496451
>Press on

Hopefully we can activate the mech before monsters show up.

>>30496451
>>Press on?

>>30496543
>>30496628
As you move into the building, you find yourself in a deep hallway, leading further and further in. There are many strange spell signs along the walls, some you even recognize from those your uncle regularly applies when attempting to fashion or repair crude divine magics.

As you go in deeper and deeper, you find yourself in tall chamber, along its walls are many acloves, each about the size of a man, most have statues, or some kind of item inside of it, others are completely empty. There is a large platform in the center of the room, with a bridge attached to it. it's about knee high to you and easy enough to step onto. A small, waist high alter sits at the center of the platform. A strange glowing light hangs above it, little threads of light formed into a strange wire frame with many little beads of light hanging inside of it.

>You can take your time, and thoroghly search the temple chamber. But time taken might allow the monsters outside to block access back to the Foundry, and you will certainly run a higher risk of activating any defenses with such a search. But you also stand a chance of finding them first.
or
>You can roll and try to find it quickly. Critical successes may yield other treasures as well. Critical failures will certainly activate the defenses, and not only here, but in the other activated complexes as well.
or
>you can do something else, as you suggest. roll for it if you feel it needs to be done quickly or carries a risk for yourself.

>>30496886
>>30496886
>You can take your time, and thoroghly search the temple chamber. But time taken might allow the monsters outside to block access back to the Foundry, and you will certainly run a higher risk of activating any defenses with such a search. But you also stand a chance of finding them first.

>>30496886
>You can take your time, and thoroghly search the temple chamber. But time taken might allow the monsters outside to block access back to the Foundry, and you will certainly run a higher risk of activating any defenses with such a search. But you also stand a chance of finding them first.

>>30496949
>>30497053
You ignore the sounds of what is moving outside, and work your way through everything slowly, carefully. Your first discovery is simple, you manage to make the platform at the center operate, it lifts you into the air and revolves the bridge around itself, allowing you to access the acloves and what they contain. The vast majority are empty, broken, or contain materials that have long lost their usefulness.

You manage to avoid activating several fairly obvious traps, some kind of micro-Avatar constructs, beings refueled by you turning on the Foundry's pumps and such.

You manage to find something very interesting though. A spell-worked blade, sized for an avatar. It's edge and flat covered in intricate spell-scripts, not nearly so intricate as the woven bands under the plated surface of the Avatar you wish to revive, but still more intricate than many a similar weapon you've seen before. It's a long blade on the end of a pole nearly as long as the blade itself, a weird mix of sword and polearm, about as tall as you are.

You also find a strange container. There is a sideways slot on it, about as wide as a playcard, but with holes for teeth cut just above and below it, like a key slot. The container is large, about the size of your torso.

Finally, you find a strange book. When you touch it the dust flys off of it as a strange image woven of light appears and hovers above the cover. It's the same shape as the Avatar you're seeking to revive. There are no other markings on the smooth black skin of the book. There is a heavy lock binding the tome shut, impossible to open, and without a lock. Perhaps it is locked by some sort of magic?

You can take any, or all of these, or interact with them as you see fit. But you've taken so long that you will almost certainly have to fight, or avoid the monsters that no doubt now wander the ruin.

>>30497189
>about as wide as a play card
>large as our chest
its a heart, use the card necklace

>>30497189
How heavy is the sword? Could we use it as a spear? I have a feeling we'll need more than our knife soon.

>>30497189
if the sword/spear isn't super heavy then grab it, try to open the box, and is the book big enough for us to put in a bag
all for sneaking past any creatures, or we could lead them to activate one of the traps

>>30497262
You can manage to heft the spear, but it is unwieldy, it was never meant for human hands. Even gripping it is difficult. You can fight with it, and you're almost certain anything hit with it will sure as hell stay hit, but that's assuming you can swing it without losing your balance. It's possible, it will just be difficult.

>>30497258
Your amulet slips into the chest, popping it open with an audible humming noise as the top slides back slowly. Inside of it is an Avatar Heart, but like none you've ever seen before. It is not equal parts pseudo-flesh and metal, no, it looks like it's carved from glass, but when you touch it, it feels as if you're holding a living thing. You can feel more than see the spell-tattoos etched into it's surface.

It's large, very large. It will only JUST fit into your pack, and you have to hope you don't tumble or it could very easily fall out. Luckily such Hearts are built to be very durable. If they weren't, it would not have survived the thousands of years of containment, chest or no chest.

>>30497287
You can't fit both the book and the heart into your pack. And yes, you could lead the monsters into the temple easily. It is said that the Old empire built their glittering towers to live above the monster infested wastes and forests, the traps should hopefully be triggered as easily by them as by a human intruder.

>>30497318
Take the sword. Might be easier to use it as a thrusting weapon though.

Are there any other exits from the temple?

>>30497318
Take the heart and sword
>sneak into foundry
>activate it

>>30497373
None that you can see, but you can roll to see if there's some hidden. They have those in temples right? You're sure you've heard adventurers when they pass through talk about hidden passages and temples often.

>>30497388
The sword-spear is heavy, but it's able to be wielded easily enough. The heart goes into your pack, where it bulges out from the strapped down cover. The sword-spear will be easier to wield as a thrusting weapon certainly, but it will still be cumbersome.

Either search for a hidden passage, or attempt to sneak out from the front. Either way, I need a roll from you guys.

Rolled 9

>>30497469
Search for a hidden passage

Rolled 2

>>30497469
Peak out the front first.

Rolled 48

>>30497469

Rolled 80

>>30497469
SNEAK

File: 1393410539766.jpg-(82 KB, 620x400, c489c2788b0d00646acfa450c(...).jpg)

82 KB JPG

>>30497544
>>30497612
>>30497577
Going to count these as 3 rolls for sneaking out the front.

You manage to get out there, and you see something massive. It knocks over the obsidian trees, uprooting them. Every step it takes, the massive beetle with fungus and trees growing on it's plates shakes, and a few scales come loose from under it's hide.

Under closer inspection, those scales look an aweful lot like the thing that tried to eat you before. They grow, shaking off a slimy coating and slowly kicking out their sharp legs and their mandibles slowly unfolding.

You can hear the swarm of them moving through the obsidian forest, and you only barely avoid them. However they sense you, the sheer number of them seems to be keeping them off your tail...

It's not until the very end, when you're at the home stretch, that one of them senses you and leaps. Your spear-sword catches it, spearing it through before it can make a noise. It's bug blood drips out onto the stones and across the blade, which glitters and shines even through the new sheen of sickly dark green slime coating it.

You don't have long before these creatures, or whatever preys on them. Senses the kill and the spilled blood.

>>30497728
Leave the corpse and get the heart to the mech. Is it powered up already?

>>30497728
ditch the corpse, if we're lucky the others will see it as a free meal, get to the Avatar and power it up

>>30497728
honestly the Avatar is our biggest prize and key to getting out of her in one piece, anything else we can either come back for or send others to explore

>>30497753
>>30497799

You pull the blade free from the corpse, the weapon sliding free easily. You rush into the building, running up to the pedestal as quickly as you can. Power still sits in the still dormant Avatar, but it's been leaking out. Inside of the chest cavity, the place where you'll rest while controlling it, you can see a hollow deeper inside of it, just above where your head would be. It has several holes, places for the major arteries and veins of the glass like heart you now carry fit into the sockets.

The Heart thumps once, then twice, and the power flows through it. Coallescing. Then it stops beating, but the glow remains, still circulating through the body. You can see a mark appear on the heart. You recognize it, a symbol your Great Uncle Taught you. 11. It drops to 10 about a minute later, as the heart beats, very slowly.

There is still power in the Avatar from when you delluged it in essence, even after so long waiting with the power just sitting in it and leaking out. For a proper power up, it either needs to drain someone dry, or it needs to be flooded with essence again, this time with the heart, to bring it properly to life. Right now it is in a half awake, half dormant state.

What do you do? Do you take the chance the monsters will not follow you to bring the Avatar Fully to life? Or do you head out and take them on now? Are ten slow heart beats enough time to drive the monsters off?

Rolled 37

>>30497728
If we turn off the lights will the monsters stop coming?

I image we could haul a lot of loot in the mech.

>>30497858
Power it up. Drop the sword and backpack to run faster.

>>30497866
Possibly, but chances are that even if this group leaves, whatever feeds on them will probably be attracted by the corpse of the new born.

>>30497858
they out weight and size us and we're outnumbered. placing our hope in awakening he Avatar

>>30497922
>>30497876
You drop your backpack and weapon by the Avatar and rush to the Essence pit. You takes the steps 3 and 4 at a time, running along the ring as fast as you can. Getting down to the panel and throwing the switch that activates the deluge that floods the dormant Avatar.

You don't even wait to find out if it's going to pop up again, you just run back. You're barely able to breath by the time you're halfway up, and there's a sound like a gong filling the air around you. A heartbeat.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Each time the sound fills the chamber, echoing, and growing quieter and quieter. Until finally the sound can't be heard. But you can see, as you crest the top of the essence pit, through the wreckage, the mist like flow of essence evaporating slowly off of the Avatar. It's limbs shudder and shiver with contained desire for movement, the new life born inside of the divine statue wishing for its first true movement.

You run. You can hear the chattering and chittering, and it doesn't matter. What matters is reaching the Avatar. Your Avatar. You manage to get to it, and slide yourself into the chest cavity, your arms sliding to press against the sides of the chamber, your legs fitting into special grooves along the back as the structure of the chamber cradles you.
>cont.

>>30498072


And then there is nothing but blinding whiteness, you feel searing hot pain lance across your spell work tattoos, the bandages covering them burning off under your clothes, reduced to a fine dust. You know this Avatar now, it is yours. You can move it, though not all of it's secrets are open to you. It's spirit rocks against your mind, demanding it's first command, no, not command, it's first call to action.

As the haze of light clears from your eyes, and the pain dulls, you see a shimmering wall of divine essence containing you within the chamber, as plates of the strange porcelain white metal slide down to provide additional protection for you.

You feel something against your, no, your Avatar's back begin to unfold, as a large circle unfurls behind it's head and shoulders, giving it a Halo as the Avatar comes to life, limbs flexing as it takes it's first step, towards the wave of monsters flooding into the foundry.

>End Chapter 2.

>>30498079
can't wait for next time
>make for the sword, kill all bugs
if we get to name the Avatar I vote Tribus (three)

>>30498079
sorry for ending it here guys. I'm dead on my feet here.

I'm intending to start the session off at the same time tomorrow, but I might have to take an hour+ long break mid way to deal with IRL stuff.

And yes, you guys do get to name your Avatar.

>>30498079
Thanks for running. I'm enjoying it so far.

>>30498124
Got a twitter OP?

>>30498145
No problem. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

>>30498226
Yeah, listed at the top.

https://twitter.com/AvatarPilotQM

I'm glad you guys are enjoying it. I know it's been a slow start, but I kinda wanted to establish the world a bit before jumping right into the magitech mechs. Why they're necessary, what they come from, and set the tone for the world this'll be in.

After this, you guys will get to choose between heavy duty travel and such, or some kind of city-building schema. What I might eventually do is have it more 'city-building' in the form of a caravan or something, but until then it's all up in the air.

>>30498279
I still can't wait for
>Mom: Gee, I hope that daughter of mine kept her promise and didn't go exploring in the jungle
>MOM MOM, check out what I found in the jungle! Can I keep him?
>....

>>30498124
Seems like a pretty good place to stop for the day to me. Thanks for the thread, OP.

Also, I both love and hate you for running this quest, since I was in the planning stages of a fantasy-ish mecha setting for a quest myself.

>>30498310
>Also, I both love and hate you for running this quest, since I was in the planning stages of a fantasy-ish mecha setting for a quest myself.
Sorry dude, I was originally going to run a steam punk based one based on this:
http://www.goodman-games.com/dragonmech.html

and have it run in tandem with the campaign of it I'm about to run for my group of friends.

But yeah, QTG gave me the idea to move to magitech based ones (I believe the suggeston was 'powered by not ripples'), and then I read a 4e or Pathfinder or 5e design document talking about "Points of Light" (I think it was 4e). a full day of trauling for pictures of golems that looked like holy statues later, I booted up Avatar Pilot Quest.

Also at least one arc in the future will likely be a sonic the headhog reference arc simply because you can power your mechs by rendering them down into divine essence with the right equipment (rather than your Avatar slowly sucking you dry over decades), and that was apparently enough for somebody to latch onto it as a robotnic reference.

>>30498372
>you can power your mechs by rendering them down into divine essence with the right equipment (rather than your Avatar slowly sucking you dry over decades)

So wait, you render down Avatars into divine essence and feed them to other Avatars as fuel?

Like Avatar cannibalism?

>>30498425
You could, but it would be incredibly inefficient. Making Avatars is VERY difficult. If you REALLY wanted to use one as a source of power, you'd just suck the divine essence contained within it, so it shut down and went dormant.

In fact, some of the most feared and coveted Avatars do just that.

Warlocks will, however, render down their captured slaves and victims, or any and all animals they can capture, to get and store their divine essence and use it to power any Avatar they might have (assuming they don't use it for their particular brand of magic).

There are also Avatars of strange make, usually MASSIVE ones. The size of towers and castles. These either will kill the person piloting them, or require the sacrifice of about a dozen criminals before hand to keep them powered.

After all, it's easier to get criminals than it is to get an Avatar Pilot skilled enough to control such a monsterously large Avatar.

And yes, there are monsters that fully warrant such a huge ass Avatar to protect against.

>>30498467
oh, question for you guys.

Should I use the logo image I started with this time? Or should I stick the name onto the image of your new Avatar?

>>30498507
Up to you, though be aware that people can miss unfamiliar pictures when glancing through the catalog.

I know I missed most of the latest Into the Aether quest thread because it wasn't the usual image.

>>30498553
That's why I think it's best to choose now you know? I might just stick with the current one because it sticks out. It looks interesting, and it's eye catching.

Also it was the image that inspired my decision for the whole 'holy look' for Avatars.

>>30498563
oh, and if you can keep the thread alive until this upcoming evening, I'll just pick it up here.