The Crystal Sslugs of the Test
Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:24 amSummary of thread (spoilers within):
Action:
- A pagoda-like or citadel-like ship appears.
- 3 Crystal Sslugs appear, possibly dropped off by the Citadel. They seem largely intent on destruction of the Garden, and can even burn adamas.
- Mix, the Sslug of Apathy, goes to the Diamond Watchtower and uses DM Favor to protect the other Sslugs, giving Amatin wings and countering some efforts.
- Amatin, the Sslug of Frost, is the primary destructor. It now has wings and rains lasers and acid down on the garden.
- Osis, the Sslug of Temptation, wrote out a message in a Sslugtrail. Ptah realized that, upside down, the message says Spoiler: show
Osis was eventually trapped (temporarily) in Steepest Durin's domain, but could break out at any time. - The Sslugs have Artifacts implanted into them - Withering Eyes - which are in communication with another being, possibly Ravana.
- A Sslug is made out of physical crystals of code.
- The Sslugs are mindless and undivertable from their intended paths.
- Crystal trilobites with crystal balls for eyes make it difficult to learn things about the Sslug's future.
Action:
- Durin builds a machine to strike at the Sslug's programming. This is one way to distract them.
- Meanwhile, Thrash summons a wave of earth lifting Yerkan and Grey Aides all the way to the Citadel, where they sneak in with a Reality Revision. The Citadel fires more and more ballista bolts as they try to enter.
- The Tawny Trickster also causes destruction in the garden.
- Yerkantricks the Tawny Sneak into an offer to help (made with ill intent). Yerkan then vanishes from his own combat, leaving the Tawny Trickster to take the fall. The Trickster could effect an easy escape, but he knowingly stood in a Refractive Facet where he was oath-bound to help or be imprisoned.
- The Trickster offers payment for his own ransom, but only if a riddle can be answered. Otherwise he is content to slowly claw his mighty way out of his predicament.
- Meanwhile, Durin transforms his own castle into a gigantic artifact-level trap for the Sslugs, guarded by the Council Portal.
- The Sslugs respond. Durin is gravely injured, saved only by the timely arrival of the Lady.
- The Sslugs begin siphoning Eitr from the cracks of the Garden. Thrash asks his one question of the Norns - what will the world be like without Eitr? It will still tick onward, it seems, though at a slower-changing pace.
- A divination by Yerkan of Elish shows a)Spinning b)Wiring c) A roaring big cat.
- Transmitters crystallize around the Sslug trail, giving out their call.
- It is at this point that Ptah figures out the riddle of the carved trail. He gives the name it reveals to Yerkan for Divination. The Norns make a prophecy.
- Ptah suggests retreat from the Garden in the face of these threats. Relations are discovered between Ravana and the rift in the Hamlet of Heroes.
- Everyone readies another three-pronged attack on the Sslugs.
- Yerkan organizes an illusion to make the entire Gardens look deserted and wasted.
- AIiCE, Yerkan, and Durin zap Osis with the Field Proejctor, attempting a hostile reprogramming. Thrash attacks with magma and rips the eyestalks from Osis.
- Yerkan invites the tawny trickster to cause chaos with the lands surrounding his studiolo. The trickster causes as much damage as possible, shutting down the Studiolo and imprisoning its essence in a mysterious globe.
- The Sslugs survive the attempt at destroying them, and many of the gods' heroes are slain. Ptah slows down Time around them, so that they may be dealt with at a more leisurely pace.
- Yerkan, Durin, and AIiCE reprogram the baby Sslug from the Hamlet of Heroes to shield its allies and to later receive commands. This pains the Sslug, and it begins manifesting grotesque vestigial limbs.
The sun rises, the sun falls. Sometimes, it brings something new with it.
The pagoda-tiered outline of a flying citadel puts a stain on the rising of the sun one morning.
It warps in toward the garden, and then dips away below the horizon, cyclopean crystal eye winking out beneath the earth's curve.
But it seems it left a contribution anyway, for as the sun sets, a terrific creaking and tortured groaning comes from the direction of the Arboretum, the finest point of the garden.
Those who rush to the scene see a leviathan sight: 3 putrid Sslugs, made of organized liquid crystal globules, ooze across the garden towards the Realms.
The vermin have too many eyes, and the evidence of alteration is heavy upon them. Unthinkably potent slime melts even the adamas substrate where they crawl. To touch them is death or disfigurement. They effect their horrid urges at a distance with powerful beams of focused red starlight, brought to the ultimate peak of precision in dull, uncaring, steel-matrixed cybernetic eyes.
They break off in three directions, blindly following orders from deep within their coded structure. Trilobites follow where they've been, oracular crystal eyes percolating the waters of knowledge and prophecy with tiny mindless samplings.
Mix, the Sslug of Apathy, veers in the direction of the Diamond Watchtower with unerring accuracy.
Amatin, the Sslug of Frost, slashes deeper on a beeline into the heart of the Garden, accessing the withering gaze of his compatriots for unspeakable alteration of the aesthetics in the garden, raining razor needles of light on the beauty of the Pinnacle Facet, destroying tracts of land forever.
Osis, the Sslug of Temptation, molds its massive bulk into many distracted directions, carving a deep trough into the structural adamas underlying the Garden near the Deific Realms.
Brutally, they cut a quick swath through the Garden's defenders, who quickly abandon the offense and concentrate on removing precious treasures to safer places. Occasionally, flashes of death emanate from an appearance of the strange ship to destroy these defenders. Other times, it rains down trilobites on the priceless artifacts, hiding them from even the memory of the gardeners.