exploration mingle: WHAT LIES BENEATH

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: exploration mingle: a dungeon crawl
when: May 15 - June 15
where: The River and what lies beneath.
warnings: likely violence; please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

what lies beneath

One of the major and most highly-valued cultural concepts in Riverview is that of exploration, expansion. Especially now that, with the recent influx of new arrivals, as the portal kicks into high gear for reasons not entirely known, the Inhabited City, already comfortably full, is rapidly becoming overpopulated. With all the refugees from other worlds pouring in from day to day, the city's safe space and resources are being taxed to their breaking point.

Right now, exploration and expansion is key, and each month, the government has decided to focus on a particular objective, in order to unite citizens in expanding, securing, and supplying the city for everyone's benefit.

the story so far

Exploration & Expansion Progress Report ● Flooding in Riverview ● The Guardians of the Deep ● SUBMIT YOUR THREAD

After a successful completion of last month's goal - an initiative to clear out and clean up the amusement park, the Government has turned its attention to slightly more practical matters.

For the past couple of months, there's been some serious flooding in Riverview Quarantine that's resulted in the evacuation of many riverfront properties, leaving many residents in emergency relief shelters. In April, the reason for the flooding was discovered, as the Guardians of the Deep emerged from the swollen river and communicated with mages from Garmarye Magic Research. As April wore down and May began, the Guardians have been gently guided out to sea in the first yearly migration they've had in the many generations before awakening from hibernation.

That's all well and good, but one wonders...if they were called Guardians...what were they guarding?

how it works

● Phases: Each prompt is a different phase of the operation. Characters may partake in whichever part of the operation they choose, whether it is a large and prominent part, or a more of a backseat or support role. Characters may participate in as many phases as they wish.

● Completion: When next month's exploration mingle goes up, the mission featured on this exploration mingle will be considered complete, and game canon, providing the entry has 200+ comments on it.

● Submissions: If your character and/or your character's team has threaded something out to completion, or if you have added and solved a complication to the mission via player plot either on this log or elsewhere in the game, please use the "submit your solution" link above to submit that information so it can be added to the Progress Report.

● Thread Rewards: This month, I have created five different items as rewards with three power levels for each item. Any character participating in a completed thread with at least one other character, for any phase prompt by July 15 will be able to pick a keyword corresponding to one of these rewards when they submit the thread at the link above, threads in each phase corresponding to a power level. Every character participating in a completed thread will be eligible to receive an item. Completed threads must take place on this entry. Details of what the reward items look like can be found at the submission link for use in threads.

● Entry Reward: The reward for completion of this month's exploration objective will be a piece of worldbuilding/lore about the Portal and the first people on the moon.

phase i: the labyrinth

Teams of mages and divers have managed to find what the Guardians of the Deep were guarding. It turns out that underneath the river, there is a labyrinthine maze of tunnels and caverns that appear to be created rather than natural. Divers have managed to bring up a few pieces of rubble that have been dated back approximately 1.8 million years, which is around when historians of the Quarantine theorize that the first sentient people came through the portal and ended up trapped on the moon. Not much is known about these First People, but it is theorized that whatever structure is under the river was created by them, originally beside the river and lost to time, buried by a change in the river's course.

And obviously, everyone wants to explore it!

With a bit of construction and magic, a barrier has been created in the river that splits the flow and allows access to the entrance to the waterlogged underground structure, and initial drone exploration has given explorers a very rudimentary idea of how it might look inside. Circular and at least as wide as the river (perhaps wider), there is a series of labyrinthine tunnels that surround two layers of inner chambers, one in the shape of a ring and one circular.

Phase one of this month's mission is to make it through the labyrinths, mark a path through for anyone following, and clear that path of any remaining monsters or barriers. Characters who complete this objective and hang back to guard the exit route for those going further in will be considered as having completed Phase I for a Level 1 reward.

phase ii: the inner ring

Once the way has been cleared, a smaller group of explorers can move inside the ring-shaped chamber inside the labyrinth. The area looks like it is divided into rooms, living quarters that contain the remnants of lives left behind. A picture of the type of people who lived here emerges through the artifacts that explorers may find - clothing and stone relief carvings not worn away by the river water show what looks like a peaceful reptilian people, druidic and in tune with nature; bipedal with long, serpentine necks, they seem to have achieved peace on their new home before something happened to wipe them out.

Phase two of this month's mission is to make it through the inner ring to access the central chamber, and it's not all safe and peaceful. These were, after all, the homes of the First People, and even in a time almost 2 million years ago, people locked their homes before leaving them - and in this case, they seem to have known they were leaving for a long time and seriously wanted everyone to stay out. Expect every door in this ring-shaped chamber to be laced with traps both magical and mechanical, ranging from rock falls, pits with spikes, poisons, magical thorny vines, and potions or spells that induce hallucinations and elaborate illusions. Pretty much anything you might think of can be found there, as long as it is somehow related to nature, plant life, earth or water or wood or stone. Characters who make their way through the inner ring and stop to guard the entrance, or characters who are felled by a booby trap in the inner ring and have to turn back will be considered as having completed Phase II for a Level 2 reward.

phase iii: the central chamber

Once the inner ring has been mapped out and the traps safely sprung, the way is cleared to the central chamber, the deepest and most protected level of the structure under the river. It seems obvious to anyone who looks at the layout of this place that the whole thing was built to protect the center of the structure and lead people toward it at the same time - to what purpose? There must be something valuable here.

Phase three of this month's mission is to get through the door to the inner chamber and find what treasure might lie inside. The catch? Not only is the door guarded by complicated puzzles that shift and change for each new group that attempts to get inside, ranging from a riddle to glyph reading to games of shape and pattern, but once the door opens, intrepid travelers face another Guardian.

Much like the puzzles, the Guardian inside the central chamber changes form for each team facing it, and quickly adapts to counteract that team's greatest strengths. Whether the team is comprised of regular people or gods, the Guardian will be strong enough to give them an excellent fight. Summoned through magic, the Guardian will take on a different form each time, but has the intelligence level of a dolphin and the ability to understand some speech. Whether the Guardian is fought or tamed is up to each party's discretion, but it must be conquered in order to reach the center of the chamber, where a tantalizing, glowing blue orb sits on a heavily-decorated pillar at the center of the room, along with enough reward items for every member of the party.

Anyone who tries to take the orb, however, will find themselves knocked unconscious for a period of 10 minutes with no ill side-effects. Unfortunately, the orb itself will need to be extracted and studied by a team of senior mages from Gamarye Magic Research - but they couldn't have got there without the help of this month's explorers!

Characters who solve a puzzle at the door to the inner chamber and either tame or conquer the beast in battle, or who are felled while trying will be considered as having completed Phase III for a Level 3 reward.

phase iv: wildcard

Have an idea for a mission-adjacent plot, or want to make up an unexpected plot twist or problem and solve it with your character? Just write up a starter, and don't forget to give yourself props by submitting it for the Progress Report. Your mod will respond to any wildcard submissions with the power level of the reward the character can claim for the original content.

navigation
[Ancient Civilizations: Lost & Found by Alex Feliksovich; bonus inspiration artwork: The Secret Cave by Maxime Delcambre]

Comments

[sentence]

As much as any dungeon-crawler. [ The word spills out of his mouth with a bit of distaste. The expensive hobby of relic-hunting that belonged to nobles fell into Yuri's lap when it became A Thing that he'd have to explore and decipher the world around him and thus insure that he didn't die in the process.

Yuri put his sword back into place, gesturing to a panel Yuri had previously stepped on. The stone was just a hint lighter than the other stone in the ground, implying it was laid there/repaired often enough back when this society reigned that there was a significant difference of age. ]

Look for lighter stone. In the walls, in the ground, wherever you step. Holes in the wall, in the ground, even the smallest slit. You can hammer an arrow the size of a leaf and it'll be just as sharp to pierce something even after millions of years.

[ He's taking this all very seriously.

He's kind of bored of taking it seriously. So he begins to walk. ]

We gotta find you some artifacts, don't we?

[bottombitch]

Dungeon-crawler?

[ Aoba laughs suddenly, thinking Yuri is delivering a joke with a deadpan expression. He completely misinterprets Yuri's distaste for dry humor and plays along with it despite the fact that he looks every bit like a swordsman from some video game himself. The bit about a lighter color of stone being a dead-giveaway sounds like just the sort of thing he'd read in a tip about a game. ]

You mean like an RPG! You're so right~ it's like we're in a dungeon. We even went through a maze, didn't we?

[ Aoba settles down a bit, thinking about his own mission... if it even can be called that. ]

The artifacts are important, sure. But I wonder if maybe this place holds a secret about that illness too. There's so little we know about this place, you know?

Yuri, how old are you anyway?

[sentence]

[ On the other hand, Yuri loves dry humor. He loves it as dry as a desert. It's the fact that he's gotten a bit used to this aspect of dungeon crawling that's distasteful. Glancing back, he gives a confused expression at the 'RPG' bit-- Yuri's no fourth waller and he's never played any games. He meant it super literally.

But he lets it go without question and smiles with ease. That seems to be the easier way to live, after all, not getting your breeches in a twist over everything. ]

I'm 21. You?

[ It'll probably be a while before they bring up their mutual connection or even come to the conclusion, so Yuri presses on, avoiding tiles in the ground and feeling out grooves in the wall. Nothing so obvious as a lever, yet. ]

If there's a secret to the illness down here, I'd be surprised. It seems very short term. [ a pregnant pause ] When you talk about plagues back home, you don't really talk about day-long comas. You talk about entire cities being wiped out.

[bottombitch]

[ That confused expression tells Aoba all he needs to know and he ducks his head, embarrassed. He probably doesn't get it, or worse -- he does and thinks he's just a huge, lame nerd. Sue him, he's a recovering gamer. ]

Heeh... [ Aoba makes another surprised sound. Yuri seems kind of mature for his age AS IF THREE FREAKING YEARS MAKES A DIFFERENCE. ]

I turned 24 in April, although I kind of forgot about it until now.

[ A lot's happened and time kind of flew away from him. ]

I heard it happened before, this illness. There was a man at the cafe who told me he had a friend who survived it.

[ Or maybe it's just him being gullible and believing anything someone tells him. ]

It's alarming, anyway. I don't want to lose anyone to it.

[sentence]

[ Yuri also ran the gauntlet of orphan, having to help raise himself in a community, working his way up to knighthood before falling from grace, and becoming a wanted man. Maturity is all about where you came from, not how old you are! He'd probably envy Aoba if he knew the details of his sexy, sexy life. ]

Twenty-four! Well, I'll be placing my life in your capable hands.

[ Yuri winks, continuing down the spiraling stairs. There's a few moments where he sets off traps before they can hurt them, in this case, a few poison darts. He picks one up and scrutinizes it, thinking the poison probably has no effectiveness anyway after all this time. ]

I don't think you will... there's enough powerful people here who can raise the dead on a good day. That, and I think if they can bring in people from every universe, they can find the universe where this plague was cured and hustle in some doctors.

[bottombitch]

[ Of course, it's the very thing that they clam up about that would give them reason to bond. Aoba was a sort of orphan. Some genetic experiment -- maybe -- along with his conjoined twin, linked by their hair and their abilities to control the wills of others in their own unique way that mankind sought to use to their abilities to serve a unique purpose and elevate themselves to the status of god.

All seeing.

All knowing.

The voice of God commanding all.

Aoba doesn't know the breadth and width of what was planned for him, not like Granny did. He only knows of Scrap and how dangerous it is to use. How she and her knowledge was called upon to entrap and control his abilities once... before she became his guardian in secret.

Now he's just a bystander. A witness. An extra. This is vastly preferable to the alternative, as vehicle for world domination. Aoba trots up to his long-haired swordsman companion and shrugs to adjust the straps on his backpack. ]

R-raise the dead? [ Aoba offers a harmlessly docile smile. ]

That sounds scary when you say it like that. Do you think people can really do that? Or is it just advanced medical treatment?

[sentence]

[ And how he, an orphan, became wrapped up into the bonds of Royalty, the dangerousness of blastia and what had been poisoning their world when they thought it had been saving it. An unknowing knight to the throne when he was once cast out of the position, it'd be nice to sit down where the traps don't lay and share stories.

That, and they're both color-corresponding to their respective Matsu friends.

That's also a thing. Also maybe a thing Yuri could help with. He reaches into his pocket and tosses a small bottle towards Aoba. ]

You see that? That's liquid life. You fall down in battle, you'll prance right back up after taking that. It's medicine, yeah, but I'd hardly call it advanced.

[bottombitch]

[ Unintentionally color-coordinated. Aoba only knew of Karamatsu at first... was embarrassed by his ways and still is... but then, over time, things changed. He grew roots into his new home, and his new home threw roots into him.

Karamatsu became a surprising force of normalcy for Aoba, a friend he sorely needed. Someone to pull him out of his comfort zones enough to explore and seek out a new niche he wasn't quite used to. Sometimes, these bonds turn out to be surprisingly effective, burrowing deep into someone until they realize that life without them is surprisingly, alarmingly too complex.

Aoba is aware of how his own life is influenced by the arrival of the Matsuno family. He knows some have wormed into his life more than others, but he thinks nothing of it. This is normal. He tends to latch onto those he forms bonds with, even if they're bad for him, even if they're just... bad news.

Oddly, though, bad news seems to react like velcro when it comes to help. It catches on, latches on, hangs on like a cold. Aoba's hand reaches out and snags the vial even before he knows it's been thrown, like it was out of instinct. ]

What is it? Some kind of medicine? What's it made of?

[ He's curious. ]

[sentence]

[ Meanwhile, Yuri is not yet even Ichimatsu's friend.

He thinks that the title is earned, and the man has little interest in friendship, but he likes talking to him and he likes sharing time with him. It's worrying him right now that he's down with the sickness (ow wah ah ah ah), and suspects the reason Repede deserted him has something to do with that-- Osomatsu was the one who requested Yuri befriend the more isolating brother, but...

... nah, pity isn't Yuri's gig. But he likes him, though, independent of that. He's a good guy who does good things even if he doesn't believe it. Yuri would like him to believe it, and it's the only distraction Yuri has from the old song and dance of patrol.

Because Yuri doesn't trust people explicitly or implicitly. He doesn't know you either, Aoba. But you seem chill enough. Yuri's cautious, not paranoid. ]

I couldn't tell you, just that it's been in my world for a long time... it's probably made with some sort of Arte. Then again, Estelle is the only healer I know of...