Lair of the Mountain King: Turn 386

[Dusk9]

Eaten decides to experiment, pushing the leftmost button.

[thinkslogically]

Turn 199

A low rumbling starts to shake the Mountain...



Questions looks at the keys. They appear to be fairly normal, multicoloured keys. The keyholes however appear to be set into some kind of faceted crystal or glass... Hmmm...

Finds and Travels hop into the key room just as Questions hits the button...





With a blinding flash, a fantastically bright light is emitted from the machine on the right! As the light hits the three goblins, their shadows judder and come to life! They definitely do not look friendly...



Back in the Forge, Burned and Shell both meditate and recover their MP to full.

Tugs shoves the top chest with all his strength, but it is just too heavy for one goblin to move on its own. Goddamn crates!



Lurks heads back towards the forge and gets as far as the room of doors.



Eaten presses the leftmost button but nothing happens.

Splits spaces out again.

-------------------------------------------

Kurik's missed 2 updates now. Anyone seen him?

[askstoomuch]

hey shadow me, I am normal me. wanna be friends ? you look cool, can your kind speak, have you been with me all my life ? do you like squid ?

[Quarg]

Travels will immediately attempt to climb up behind the light so he no longer has a shadow...

[Dlover]

Tugs frustratedly begins tossing the scrap from the upper crate to the ground to make it lighter.

[M0rtimer]

"Alright, let's get to business... Now, we should do it... Hmm. Hmm. Hmmm..."

"Alright Shell, get in there. See if you can get that thing working and what it's like. I'll start by lighting this forge. Oh, err, wait until this thing is lit first though. That plaque is saying something about that..." Burned says, activating the forge with his flint- Checking for any kind of way the device says how "hot" it is, and possibly ways of maintaining said temperature.

[BeanDip]

Shell will read the plaque for instructions

► Show Spoiler

Reposted here for my own convenience:

Operating Instructions: Please Read
ONLY FOR USE BY TRAINED OPERATIVES (that means you Charges!)
Light forge and ensure forge operative is capable of maintaining a suitable temperature.
Initialize Blacksmith (if you are not a weaver, fill in form 8274-b to request the services of one).
When prompted, insert the raw materials.
Check the power requirements. Cancel project if you don't have sufficient reserves and contact the weavers for assistance.
When the raw materials have been accepted, initiate mental link (FOCUS! If you get distracted now the quality of your finished product will suffer).
You are ready to begin!

IMPORTANT!
Always ensure your forge is lit and ready before attempting to use the Blackmith. Failure to do so leads to delays and can cause malfunction.
Please ensure you have enough energy to complete your project BEFORE you start. Not doing so leads to delays and is annoying for everyone.

If the forge is lit and can maintain temperature, then he will enter the construct and get a feel for the movement. If not he will open the Blacksmith construct and examine the insides without entering it.

[Nolandking]

Lurks head into the forge to see if the other need any help.

[Donnigan]

Finds Truth will head towards Travels, fending off his Shadow and forcibly pushing Questions along if he stands still and just tries to talk to it. If he can make it to the top of the light, he will. Otherwise, he will start fighting his shadow.

[Dusk9]

Rather annoyed at the lack of a reaction, Eaten scans the buttons and pedestal with his magiks, to see if he can figure out why they're broken.

[thinkslogically]

Turn 200!



hey shadow me, I am normal me. wanna be friends ? you look cool, can your kind speak, have you been with me all my life ? do you like squid ?

In the light room, Travels and Finds hurry to climb on top of the lamp, but it doesn't help them to escape their shadows! It seems like entering the beam if light is what triggers them to life.

Questions attempts the diplomatic route.

All three of them are immediately mauled by their shadows.

Finds is knocked down to 4/5HP, but Questions shrugs the damage off.

Travels, wearing nothing but a mage's robe doesn't fare so well and is knocked down to 0/5HP. He is now disabled and must be stabilised next turn or he will die. Which could be a problem, because his shadow is still there and looking ready to maul him again...



In the Smithy, Burned lights the forge and it is soon burning merrily. A small footpump emerges from underneath the forge. Guess that's how the temperature gets maintained!

Shell climbs up into the blacksmith machine and has a look around. Inside, there's quite a comfortable looking chair and a kind of helmet. There's not much else in the way of instructions though.

Above them, Tugs vents his frustrations on the contents of the case and starts tossing out metal ore. He removes about 1/4 the contents and scatters them willy-nilly!



Frustrated by the lack of progress, Eaten scans the device with his magics. It seems like it's a highly complicated and magically-powered device, but there's no indication from the spell of where it might come from. Of course, the panel labelled 'Energy Input' probably gives a clue.

Splits spaces out again.



"That goes there... This goes here... aaaaaaaand... Voila! Hahahahahaha! Let's see how you deal with THIS!"

The rumbling builds to a crescendo and with a sudden CRACK! a large brown golem appears at the teleportation pad!

--------------------------------------------

Happy 200th Update

► Show Spoiler

I've PM'd kurik to see if he's ok and still wanting to play, but if I don't hear from him by Friday I'll open his spot to someone else.

[askstoomuch]

200 posts and we didn't do anything productive

questions stabs the shadow, stop shadow brother! with out me you can not be !

[Dlover]

Tugs moves to the teleportation room, jumping over the tripwire and pressure plate. considering the threat of the golem, decides to continue emptying the chest. New action later on.

We can't go in there to help while the light is on, or we'll just be creating more enemies. This could be a problem.

[Quarg]

I am dead....

[askstoomuch]

I am dead....

seeing as his friend is in need he will jump in front of him trying to block the attack off his shadow, making sure that if it hits something it is him
while he does so he strikes the shadow with his dagger trying to rip it to shreds, if there is time left he trows his blanket cape over travels trying to eliminate his shadow all together

[M0rtimer]

Well... Fuck, this is problematic.

Not counting the golem, we have the three shadows- Now, one of you could stabilize, but does that matter if a stabilized person is attacked again? Thinks, can we get a confirmation- If somebody is stabilized but then attacked again, do they die?

Because if that's the case I fear there's little that we can do... If intercepting the shot is even possible, that would be an INCREDIBLY dumb idea- He would get knocked out instead and then we'd have two deaths on our hands instead of one. (Take note of this Asks)

If it is however possible, then one guy could keep stabilizing him, while the other one should focus on destroying the shadows- Either that or try pushing the button and hope it turns the light off so that we could come to aid without risking creating even more shadows. It should do...

The problem with this strategy is that even so, one of you guys will only survive four more hits, which means that unless the shadows aren't that strong and the third guy can kill them in time, will create one more issue... And coming over to help seems hard to do with the golem.

Eaten and Splits should move left- Hopefully the golem triggers that trap which might buy us some time, and with some luck mr. whateverthehellheisnumbnuts will punch him in the face or something.

Which leaves me to wonder what I and Shell should do... We could go out there and immediately assist in the battle. However, we could also hopefully try to finish the sword and hope that mr. whateverthehellheisnumbnuts is going to have enough common sense to actually use it.
The problem with that is that we aren't one hundred percent sure how long this will take- Best case scenario would probably be inserting the raw materials this turn, and finishing forging the blade end of next turn- Which means that we could give it to the guy after three turns. (As I hold faint hope that the golem might be slowed down for 1 turn by the trap)- If truly necessary, you guys could just run further or come and hide in the forge, though that would probably kill mr. whateverthehellheisnumbnuts and much as I hate the guy something is telling me that is something we don't want to happen

(Or do we and loot whatever he has on him? )

Anyways, thoughts?

[BeanDip]

What about having Shell try to pilot the blacksmith suit out of the room, using it like a suit of armour? Could help in the battle but if it gets destroyed the no Ultima sword.

[thinkslogically]

Well... Fuck, this is problematic.

Not counting the golem, we have the three shadows- Now, one of you could stabilize, but does that matter if a stabilized person is attacked again? Thinks, can we get a confirmation- If somebody is stabilized but then attacked again, do they die?

If someone's at 0HP and DYING and they're not stabilised or healed, they'll die the next turn.

If someone's at 0HP AND stabilised but they take damage again while at 0HP, they're auto-dead. BUT, if you can prevent them from taking the damage then they'll stay at 0HP. It's a precarious place to be, but not necessarily a death sentence.

Alternatively, if you heal them above 0HP, then they'll get the 'dying' buffer back again the next time they're hit which might buy a little more time.

If you have more specific questions re. mechanics I'll answer them.

[M0rtimer]

@Beandip: Somehow I doubt that work, since the giant outside couldn't get in either... Then again, that door was a regular door one moment and another teleporty door the other... Please don't kill me oh mighty GM

@Thinks/Everyone: Well... Then there's pretty much nothing we can do. The only way I could see preventing him taking damage is if someone else were to stop his shadow, but doing so would result in another person unconscious rather than just one. Unless I'm looking at mechanics wrong again- Is HP lost calculated as the total of ATT dealt minus DEF, or each individual ATT worth is substracted from DEF? Pretty sure it's the former though...

We also can't come rushing in since that might risk creating more shadows with that light on, and there's the golem... Besides the shadows somehow being so weak that one hit would take them down, I don't see anything that we could do that wouldn't end up with more people dying.

Sorry Quarg.

The two others could potentially run to the left... Problem with that is that, well, golem.

[thinkslogically]

It's still a teleporty door, I just keep forgetting to draw the 'pops' when you guys use it. But the portal is the size of the door frame so too small for Destyn to fit through

Also, Travel's isn't dead yet (assuming someone actually stabilises him!). It's not over till the fat lady sings after all

[Dusk9]

Eaten pauses for a second....then turns and bolts into the left room, dodging the pressure plates as he goes.

---

You guys seem to be forgetting that we're all awesome magicians now

The Shadows have 3ATK, so Questions is immune to their damage as long as he doesn't get hit by two. If Questions uses his magic to transfer some health to Travels, then that will keep him alive for at least one more turn. Finds can then focus on killing his own shadow, since he has the highest attack - hopefully it will go down pretty quickly.

And if things get really close, we could always try using those potions Questions has. I fully expect at least one to be a healing potion.

[M0rtimer]

The problem is as following: One person would need to drain their own HP into Travels, and he would get knocked out again regardless- Then Finds takes 1 more HP of damage due to his defence not being high enough.
This only gives us two turns to make this work since the both of them only have 2MP in total. Meaning that Finds would have to attack his shadow if we want any hope of doing so in time, but that is way too risky since we don't know if that will make it attack him, hence leading to two people unconcious. But unless the shadows are one-shot, he can't attack his own shadow then that of Travels since they wouldn't have enough MP to sustain him that long.

It's a good thing you point out the potion though. I'm 90% sure that the red potion would end up being a health potion.

Either that or extremely lethal poison.

So we could feed him the potion, which should get his health back up and allow to act. Now that sounds like a plan- Have someone push that button btw, just in case, then feed Travels that potion and start killing the shadows.

Bean, what do you want to do in the meantime? Go outside and help fight, or continue forging and hope that we can do it quickly?

[BeanDip]

Shell's not an offense type so I doubt we'd make it past the golem. Even so, like Dlover said, until that light's off we'll all create shadows so it just creates more problems.

Here's a thought: the shadows seem to attack who cast them. So if we lead the clay golem into the light room it will cast a shadow and that shadow will attack the golem. if it doesn't kill it, it will still hurt it and distract it.

What about attacking the light source instead of the shadows? It seems to be a source of magic so perhaps if you break the bulb, you break the spell. Maybe turn it off again. Questions seems to tanking pretty well so he could drain an HP for Travels and try turning off or breaking the light. If it's magic perhaps someone could spend an MP figuring it out.

Also, the blacksmith machine is named Destyn?

Shell climbs into the blacksmith machine, sits down, puts the helmet on and begins pressing the bellows waiting for the materials prompt.

[M0rtimer]

I believe we should just immediately give him the red potion.

Using only MP to save him, while more efficient, has an incredibly low chance of success, only working if the shadows can be one-shot. Hence instead of wasting one/two turns trying to keep him up with MP, use the potion in the hopes it is in fact a healing potion. I'm quite sure there isn't a much better way to save him, or at least none that I can think off.

That being said, I do like your idea about leading the golem into the light and having a giant shadow attack it and I can't see it backfiring in any way. However, leading them there currently would lead to whatever goblin doing it getting a shadow as well as well as risking the lives of everyone nearby, so... Here's my suggestion:

-Lead the golem left, either engage in battle with it there or essentially stall it- Meanwhile, the guys over at the light room beat the shadows and turn off the light
-As soon as possible, we charge to the right- Every one of us will stand up on the platform where the light can't touch us, as then one of us activates the light and catches the golem in it.

Sounds good?

(Also no the light that brings your shadow alive isn't magic that is just what shadows do I mean where did you get that thought? )

Though honestly, I wouldn't waste a turn researching it while we're in such grave danger- After we've dealt with this threat, yes, but not before it.

Meanwhile I'm not sure whether we should continue forging this sword or go out and engage in battle... It's honestly your decision since while anyone can control this forge, you're the only one who has 3MP who could possibly pilot that blacksmith.

[askstoomuch]

I am really confused now, what should I do ?