Session 18:

The rules set no bounds on what is possible.

I don’t know if this is a result of the collapsing reality that is acting as a setting, or if it's an inability on my part to present the rules in such a way as to create events bound by rational or logical limitations.

The result, I feel, has been a spiraling and inconsistent narrative with confusing algorithmic jargon interspersing it.

My equipment might be malfunctioning.

* The Author

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Arm rental - (1d4) 1

Little City Upkeep - (1d8) 8

Filigree remaining - 34

Focus: 2

“Just what was it you were doing back there?”

It’s Redarn. After a moment to recompose the group, he approaches you while the rest of them spread out a bit to look around.

He’s looking at the little city, an eyebrow tilting up from behind his glasses.

I say “I’ve got a map of the greasy metal stuff that's all over.”

I show him.

“The grimefoil network of an Emitter Ape, surely.” His head is sideways and tracing the windows of the ascending floors of the tower you now occupy. “Elk, this piece of equipment has shown what seems to me to be an impossible level of practical application.”

He stamps his right hoof in a staccato pattern, a signal to the others. They begin to gather around the two of you.

He points to a few sections of the red light and suspended stone that make up the depiction of the grimefoil network that surrounds you.

“As it stands, there is no clear path upward. There seem to be concentrated nodes of this stuff at certain junctions. If we can disrupt them somehow, it should dissipate large portions of the webbing.We could tunnel our way into the lair like this.”

He motions the tip of his finger along the little city version of the filing cabinet you pulled down, which is still embedded and propped up by the floor above you.

I say “I can probably poison them.” I hold out my hook arm.

The Woolings back away with quick instinct, after which Boppen settles and approaches. He eyes the porous bit under the point where rust toxin secretes.

“Dread coil rust toxin.” She says. “It’s linked to the rustwood somehow. There are some theories that suggest the toxin is actually a parasitic entity in seed form. It catches a ride on local animals then soaks into plant life it lands on, where it thrives by consuming the very essence and spirit of the plant, twisting it in unpredictable ways. It seems well suited to the task at hand, I’d say.”

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I find the closest node that Redarn pointed out and whip my arm at it.

Elk patter form - Break (1d12) 2 of 2

7

+

Display of muscle – Dreadcoil Arm (1d8) 5

Display of cunning – Wooling Crew (1d10) 8

8 (Highest)

15

Vs.

Test of Guts - Emitter Ape (1d12)

11

+

Grid Nest layer - 1 of 6 (1d4)

4

You’re able to latch your tongue-arm onto one of these nodes quite easily, but the heavy grimefoil has dried and hardened into a thick bark-like material that you have to wrestle with a bit before the hook sinks fully in.

Once it does, however, you feel a gush of rust toxin pulse from your shoulder and down through the extended spring arm, and is delivered into the node.

There are some sparks and the heavy cracks of arcing bolts of electricity and the hook spits out and furls back toward you.

In the span of only a moment, sprawling tendrils of the attached grimefoil turn to thin wispy flakes the colour of dried autumn leaves. They drift and dance over the ground for a moment before settling.

You manage to repeat the process twice more as you work your way up the filing cabinet ramp, but the stress put upon your arm has exhausted the coils, and you find yourself producing no more toxin for the time being.

I’ll climb up to the next floor, if I can, then.

You can. You scramble up the filing cabinet to where it meets the floor above you. There’s about a foot and a half of cement foundation before the floor itself starts. A cross hatch of heavy metal framework coils about the floor you attempt to get up to. There’s only a small portion where there’s a gap that could be crawled through, but it’s difficult to see what's on the other side.

I’ll climb through, but I want to try to do it quietly.

Test of cunning vs.

Emitter ape - Cunning (1d8) 8 + Grid Nest Layer - 2 of 6 (1d4) 4

12

Elk – Cunning (1d10)

6

As it stands, the Emitter Ape will hear you and you will lose 1 focus.

That’s fine.

So you lie flat on your back and are pulling yourself through this gap in the wireframe lattice growth. As you do, some of the crumbling tile is jostled loose and there's a ceramic snap as your weight leans into a vertical tile barely supporting a strut of metal above it. The mass of mazing metal frame shifts and groans above and around you. As you pull yourself fully through, there’s a screech of sharp metal on polished material as the point of your rapier pencils across upturned tile.

There’s a small clearing immediately beyond the hole you climbed through, but it is closed in by the foundation of a climbing, spindly tower of dense black gleaning metal. A strange kaleidoscope of interwoven poles and crossbeams.

You hear a rhythmic plinking of flesh grasping and releasing metal handholds. Something swings and jumps about the tower, which spans the next several floors, piercing through and crumbling them.

You again feel the threatening psychic presence of something transmitting its attention straight toward you.

You feel the gaze of those pale yellow eyes dipping and dancing above you, swinging in lazy predator’s circles. Closing in.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

Then the groan of substantial weight, the whistling of sliced air. A pendulum of rebar laced cement, big enough to set a table on. It is suspended by what looks to be chorded rustwood, and swings in a violent arc toward you.