Cairo

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Biscuit turns thoughtful at both Mercurius' observations and Malkaban's extended monologue. It's not quite an answer, at least not a concise one. "So... you're a lazy artist who can't negotiate? That doesn't sound like any boss I know." The Chib shrugs her shoulders and steps aside. "I tried." she comments, turning to look at the others.

Ohh it'll be fine! 😁 Now we just need Flickwit's lantern oil on Malice.

Great! I've marked half an hour off the flask in Shaun's sheet.

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Back at the Donner grave... Biscuit joins Ludwig by the grave, although she doesn't have flowers to place there. She dips her chin and stands in respectful silence until the young man is done with his prayer. "Let's make sure to tell Mirabelle the good news. She'll be so happy to hear she can visit the grave again!" Out comes the skeleboss... Biscuit's contributions to the more recent fights have been meager to put it mildly, but at least she's been swinging her Pigsticker at the baddies alongside her companions. For this one the platinum-blonde Chib goes back to her original tactic, however, seeing how the large skeleton appears to be different from the bumbling ones they've come cross so far. She steps forward and waves timidly at it, swallowing down a fear reaction. "Hello... Malkaban, is it? It says you're the 'boss', but is that more of an honorary title, like a 'doctor', or can you in fact be negotiated with?" she asks.

Shaun's set on the plan to light the torch only once Malice is in combat. However... would you allow ignoring the Agility check if I consume, say, half an hour's worth of the oil Shaun carries in a flask to drench the torch and thus make it super easy to light?

I'm okay with Flickwit taking care of the oil 👍

Also as a heads up, I will likely be unable to post this weekend.

I've posted Shaun's plan IC, based on what we've been discussing here. I took some liberties there with the torch, I hope that's OK with you ! You can then react to it IC by turning down the rest of Shaun's plan and propose Doørfin stand by the entrance instead. Here's where I see us being positioned per Shaun's plan (brown is Shaun, red is Doørfin):

Shaun Shaun grabs a lit candle from one of the gravestones on his way, then sets himself up some 20 feet to the side from the tunnel entrance. He selects a 4 feet deep open grave, deep enough for him to hide in and leave his backpack and Truthsinger out of sight. He then extracts an oil flask and flint and steel from his pack and curses silently as he realizes he has no torches. Seeing Doørfin approach he gestures the dwarf his way, speaking in hushed tones and only once the dwarf is very close. "Can you spare a torch? I figured we have yet to try burning that witch to death, might as well give it a go." Once the dwarf hands over one of his torches the man makes sure everything is set up: oil flask for his right hand, torch for his left, flint and steel in a pocket, short sword hanging from his belt. The candle he has dug in firmly in the soil at the bottom of the grave so that it won't fall over. "This would be easier if someone else could toss the oil at her..." he comments to Doørfin, again speaking in a very low voice as he goes through his plan and indicates each of the items. "You can hide there against the wall where you shouldn't be immediately visible from the tunnel. I'll toss the oil flask on Malice when she enters the cave. You then keep her busy while I light the torch either from the candle or with the flint and steel, and toss it at her as well. I can't light the torch in advance, lest she spots its glow from the tunnel... but the dim candle light should be less suspicious, especially as the grave blocks most of it."

Shaun has a full flask of oil, that hasn't been used to refill the lantern. Shaun also has a lantern which was originally full and could provide 4 hours of light. 1 hour and 20 minutes of that was used during the tunnel transit and to get a rough idea of the cavern (), leaving 2 hours and 40 minutes. Since then by my count we've used 10 minutes to examine the graves / candles, another 10 minutes to examine the northern end of the cavern, and 2 hours to rest - assuming we kept the lantern burning while resting; we didn't say we're turning it off so it's fair game. After that Shaun turned the lantern off (before Novia and Doørfin started exposing the wooden floor at Malice's grave), leaving 20 minutes of oil in the lantern. Flickwit's oil flasks have not been used to refill the lantern. Shaun can hurl Flickwit's torch at Malice once he douses her in oil.

Yeah I'd rather not break the lantern. However Shaun is game with lighting a torch for tossing at Malice if someone takes care if dousing her with oil. Edit: needs to be someone else's torch though, Shaun has none.

Shaun's lantern. Since Novia came running from the tunnel mouth warning of Malice's approach and to shut the lantern, I assumed she had left the lantern with Shaun. You can see where Shaun already snuffed the lantern.

Ohhh, good thinking with the phylactery idea!

Shaun Hearing Novia's warning Shaun is quick to snuff and stow the lantern, before starting to move back towards the tunnel using the candle light. "Was Malice alone?" he asks Novia in a low voice. "Forcing her to fight from the tunnel might be more beneficial to her than us. She has the upper hand one-on-one," he comments to Doørfin. "But perhaps the tunnel entrance is still the best place to set up. If there are open, shallow graves close enough, we can hide out of sight in them and hopefully get the jump on her."

Very nice, got my Animal Summoning back! Edit: Based on what Malice said, it sounds like she has company. Shaun didn't hear her words, though.

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Biscuit also spots what the bones are up to, and follows Mercurius' lead in pouncing on the nearest skull and trying to grab it. "Hey, get back here!" she hollers at it as it manages to hop out of her limited reach.

I want to check what's in Malice's coffin / whatever that wooden thing buried in her grave is. However, I don't want to do that exhausted. It also doesn't make much sense to me to slog through the tunnel to a better place to rest, then slog back here to investigate the grave, then presumably slog back through the tunnel a third time. I don't think we have any good food to eat, so eventually we're going to starve. We shouldn't waste that limited time going back and forth 😅 So.. rest in the cave?

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. The pressure wave from the mana grenade is but a gentle breeze by the time it reaches Biscuit, making her hair and cloak and the mist around her dance gently. She looks down at a skull that rolls to a stop not that far away, with the spiral icon floating above it. "Oh dear. We could have avoided this, you know?" The Chib lifts her face to look across the battlefield at the remaining Skelemen. "It's not too late to reconsider!" she hollers.

And posted! Fingers crossed we find something that'll work in our favor.

Shaun Shaun has slowed down considerably since the group first entered the cave, taking longer and longer to respond, or process an idea and get to the doing part of it. He finally gestures at Flickwit with the two-handed sword, held weakly. "Myself as well. I had little to give to begin with, but that stretch of tunnel took the rest it would seem. I need a moment... or two, to gather my strength." The wizard glances towards Doørfin. "I believe we have not yet fully taken in the far end of the cavern. Perhaps there is a nook for us to rest in. Either way, I would leave digging up graves for when we are rested. If it is Malice you dig up now, I fear I'm not of much use in a fight."

Spoiler warning! Don't read this thread if you don't want to find out what's happening behind the scenes and just want to read the finished product. In Tess mentions she'll file her medical assessment of Rhyne's gene therapies with the ship's JAG officer. That calls for a Reason (9) + Science (3) Task roll to determine the accuracy of her work, and the roll (above) tells me she did a fine job: 15 and 2, where 2 is not only a success but results in Momentum on account of her Forensics Focus. I'll use that Momentum immediately to create an Advantage: Advantage: Analysis of Rhyne's Gene Therapies Tess has filed a very accurate and comprehensive analysis of Rhyne's gene therapies with the ship's JAG officer, which will prove useful later.

ACT 3, SCENE 3 The camera cuts to white, staying that way for a moment before the Legacy slides into view in a low three quarters shot. A slow orbit of the ship is accompanied by Tess's voiceover. Chief medical officer's log, stardate 6472.76. The Legacy has now been stuck in whitespace for two days. The engineering team has completed their inspection of the ship and report it structurally sound. They've also remedied issues with our sensors, though we're still not detecting anything notable out there. Several shots follow, showing the crew working on modifications to the ship and observing artifact readouts on various screens and portable tricorders. Although their actions are not accompanied by sound it's obvious a good portion of them aren't able to speak and are using other means to communicate. Chawas has continued to lead efforts into understanding the artifact now that we're able to monitor its status externally. Her team's updated stations on the bridge and key locations around the ship to provide readouts on demand. The beacon I mentioned previously continues to transmit without fail, but so far there's been no response. Meanwhile a small team of engineers, scientists and medical staff have determined the artifact's current activity levels don't pose a risk to the ship and crew. The camera cuts to the hangar bay where it approaches a workerbee. Several crew members from different disciplines are gathered in a ring around something in front of it. As the camera booms up to look over them a misshapen, discolored piece of scientific equipment held in one of the workerbee's claws becomes apparent. A crew member is scanning it with a tricorder, looking concerned. Exposure to whitespace beyond the ovoid-shaped bubble generated by the artifact is to be avoided however. While our sensors now show the area within it to vaguely resemble interstellar space, anything crossing beyond becomes invisible and otherwise undetectable, and when brought back is malformed on a molecular level. The scientists theorize the laws of physics in whitespace are incompatible with our own. The camera transitions to the officers' dining room where the senior officers are gathered for a briefing. Rhyne is standing at the front of the room, going over readouts presented on the screen next to him using some kind of device to produce captions on the display as he remains unable to speak. He looks serious as he switches to a view showing what looks like genomic data. The other officers appear taken back by whatever it is he's showing and telling them. Tess' voice, too, becomes ever so slightly more hesitant. Commander Rhyne will provide a full report on his own findings, which I've independently confirmed. They'll show that the commander has in the past been subjected to gene therapies which he swears to have been unaware of. The therapies resulted in commander Rhyne's immune system mutating an otherwise benign virus contracted prior to his transfer to Legacy, leading to the disease the crew is dealing with. I'll file my medical assessment separately with the ship's JAG officer, but legal ramifications aside I believe we now have a place to start looking for a cure. The camera does a few more cuts, showing different meeting rooms with small groups from a different discipline each gathered over gadgets or information on projects they're running. Some of them are communicating through sign language. As for the disease, some eighty per cent of the crew are now showing the symptoms, of which over half have lost their ability to speak. In response department heads are piloting various ways to adapt, ranging from sign language to text-to-speech communicator attachments. The captain has called for a second meeting later today to present the senior officers with an emergency solution for situations where these methods would prove insufficient...

ImpBiscuit A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head. Prior to the appearance of the skelemen... Biscuit looks surprised by the presence of guns in what she had understood to be a medieval-style video game. The fanciful way in which some of the weapons appear makes her take a careful look at the piddly sword just hanging from her belt. The Chib subtly adjusts her cloak so as not to draw attention to an implement that clearly doesn't measure up to everyone else's. "The back of the group sounds good to me. Let's get those flowers delivered!" Out come the skelemen... Biscuit regards the animated skeletons from the back of the group, initially taken back by their sudden appearance but soon more focused on their amusing conversation. "I'm rather attached to mine!" she quips, the obvious answer to their plans. "Terribly sorry! Now may we pass please?"

That sounds reasonable. The map might not show for example a mechanism (even an unhidden one) to open a passage. If Shaun and Flitwick participate I believe we then roll for exhaustion, because noted that we've now come down from an adrenaline high and need to either rest or risk it. It's appropriate that my next IC post for Shaun acknowledges that choice. (and also that Shaun thinks Doørfin might be on to something with his comment about Malice's freshly disturbed grave)

You too! I'm also occupied this weekend and unlikely to be able to post. As for rest vs. risk exhaustion, here's the tally as I understand it: No need to rest, let's push on: Doorfin, Novia Risk exhaustion: Shaun Let's rest: Flitwick Looking at the map there doesn't seem to be any other obvious way out of the cavern than the way we got here (the bit in the top right corner appears to be a dead end), so we could have Shaun and Flitwick rest while Doorfin and Novia search for hidden passages (and in the process keep watch). That's my suggestion. If no one objects we do it, if someone objects please provide an alternative so that we at least keep discussing what to do. Of course, although we're doing this OOC I suspect there's going to be an IC consequence to delaying a decision so let's also keep that in mind 😅