THE ASTROLOGER'S TOWER FINALE

===> COH <===>

	WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR INTREPID PROTAGONISTS ... they had made their way inside the tower, mapped out the rough layout, and sprung a few traps! Of note to anyone with Perception 3+, or perception/memory merits would be that the mapping did NOT reveal the location of what they came here in search of in the first place!

	AND NOW OUR STORY CONTINUES...

	Alzbeta keeps the shotgun aimed on whatever might might be there. Her tongue is ever-so-slightly out, in order to improve accuracy. She slowly steps forward into uncertainty.

	Mr. Fu keeps near Ying Yue, so as to allow MoGui to do what he does best - set off and survive traps! Raiders of the Lost Ark, this was decidedly not. The tiny dragon seems perturbed. "Things seem to be running out of time," he offers hopefully helpfully as objects and such disappear from view.

Emrick says "Well, great, no clue how to fix that. As long as /we/ don't get zipped outta time it's ok though." he says as he follows the others.

Kaati moves a little like a Special Forces recruit, the rifle held just-so against her shoulder. She /moves/, skippin much of the ladder to land in the basement, ready to fire.

	The basement of the tower is devoid of any inhabitants. Mostly its crates and crates of stuff. Shelves. Supplies. Oh, and a small glass jar containing the aforementioned homunculus.

	"You would think that we would be going up the tower instead of down. But it might be down." Ying Yue says, still strangely transformed in to her current form.

	The room, in fact /all/ the rooms so far, are lit by orbs containing what appears to be electrical light. But they don't particularly look technological in construction. They do seem to be flickering on and off at irregular intervals, however.

	Alzbeta walks around taking a look at the various things, keeping her shotgun aimed on whatever might be in front of her. Looking for anything that might stand out.

	Fu leans in to mutter to Ying Yue, "The Celestial Heaven's chi is being pulled down from the top, yes. But I suppose this is the ground and root of the pull." The little beast looks perplexed.

Emrick looks at the homunculus closely but as it's bio-organic he shakes his head and leaves it be. Next he'll move to one of those orbs and take a look.

	The orb examined by Emrick flickers, then goes completely dark. SLowly, one by one, the rest of the orbs seem to be doing the same

	"Then we are going deeper? Maybe I was looking at the map upside down, but it seemed that the guardians were in the higher levels." Ying Yue says as she stays behind that all seeing others.

"Mostly, it's bad to leave any possibility of enemies behind you," Kaati says quietly. "Or the thing you're actually looking for." Then she slings the rifle to climb back up quickly. She moves, charting her path to the next obstacle--the first of the guardians.

	Folks will ascend up two levels (having already dealt with the main floor!). On the second level, is where there appears to be a bound spirit of the wraithkind, flickering and out of view to those without wraitshight, and stuck in a repetitive loop!

	The wraith is your standard issue wraith, except that it seems to have ... fifteen arms, give or take, all of them gesticulating in strange arcane gestures as it repeats a path that's vaguely circular.

	Mo hangs near Ying Yue and Fu as this deep onto the weirdness is a little outside his comfort zone! The dhampyr was still mostly an aspiring shaman and hadn't gotten the hang of stuff just yet to be easy-breezy about it all.

	Fu frowns, "That looks like something to hold emissaries of Shuma-Gorath," mutters the tiny dragon as he watches the gestures and eyes the wraith's path.

	Ying Yue moves up and looks at the wraith, "I agree. Maybe something went wrong while it was trying to accomplish its task. Whatever it was warding must have got loose." She looks at the ground that would be in the path of the circle that is forever being drawn.

	Inside the "circle" paced around by the wraith, things appear fairly normal, but if you look long and hard enough, the space distorts in anomalous fashion!

	"Right, who's best with ghosty things?" Kaati asks. "Or we can just keep going and set this guy free when we're coming d--" She tips her head, birdlike. "Oh. That's interesting."

Emrick just looks at those speaking with a raised eyebrow "I can't see anything so I'll follow yous' guys lead." he nods

	"I can talk with them," Alzbeta says, "but they don't always listen to me."

	Suddenly? Fu is jerked towards the circle! The little dragon lets out a yelp as his claws dig into the floor to slow the pull. "THOMAS! I REQUIRE ASSISTANCE!"

	Bits of eldritch energy spark and begin arcing off of Fu's body, pulled into the circle. Anyone with spirit magic and lore might recognize it as some sort of essence drain effect.

	"Ganawendamaw' wiin!" Kaati snaps out, grabbing a stone from her pocket with one hand, a feather from her hair with the other. She slices both down through the air with a gesture, in a plane between the dragon and the circle.

	Fu's little claws dig into the floor, slowing the pull, but not stopping it. The azure dragon seems to be losing his luster as more of his chi is siphoned from his person and lost into the circle!

	A giant eyeball suddenly materializes in the center of the circle the wraith paces around and gesticulates about. The eyeball trains its hoary gaze upon Fu as if he were some delectable little morsel!

	Mo screams as he sees his Guide get pulled towards the circle, and his chi pulled apart. "SHOOT IT!" He'll nudge Alz to do something with the shotgun before he rummages around in the pack he pilfered from the Della Passaglia corpse for something to throw at the circle.

	Alzbeta hops around wildly in random patterns, making like "enh" noises before finally blasting the spirit in just the right place.

	The shot from the shotgun passes over Fu, through the circle, and then. Just vanish. Upstairs, there's the sound of something metallic being peppered with impacts.

	Mo just dives for the floor and grabs at Fu's foreclaws, taking hold of the dragon and trying to hold him in place. But clearly, it is a tug of war!

Emrick can't see anything so he'll just get in front of the little dragon and put his foot in front of it, so it has to be pulled through or around him to keep moving.

	While they have the thing 'distracted', Ying Yue pulls out one of her own feathers, grimacing as they are not simply decoration and are actually growing from her. She then starts to chant quietly, and as someone has already done the hard and long part of summoning a spirit, she begins the rite to bind it. Likely in to that plucked feather.

	As Mo struggles on the floor to hold onto the little dragon, the messenger bag he had pilfered from the revenant's corpse comes open and spills its contents onto the floor - a journal, something that looks like an old fashioned hand grenade, and something wrapped up in some sort of leather, and bound fast with silk.

	Alzbeta yells in spirit-language, "Hey you! Stop that! It's not nice and you're going to regret it!"

	The Eyeball in the center of the circle trains its gaze upon Alzbeta, even as Fu relies on Mo and Emrick to keep him from being sucked into the circle. The little dragon is still bleeding chi into the circle, however, and looking the worse for wear!

	Kaati blinks for a moment, and frustration and anger pass across her face as she pockets the stone. "Ingwekinan, inanimikon!" she says sharply. Like Emrick, she sets herself between them: this time one hand grips something at her throat before stretching out toward Mr. Fu, while the hand with the feather reaches toward the circle. She *glares* at the circle, and chants the same words a couple of times.

	It is not a quick and easy thing to do, binding a spirit, so it will definitely take some time to complete the rite. Ying Yue is focused though, and as long as the eye remains on the others, she will do her best to keep the chanting going.

	Mo is on the verge of tears, desperately hanging onto the little dragon as the dragon's chi dims and ebbs. Fu, he wraps a hind leg around Emrick's ankle, doing his best to hang on and keep from being pulled into the hungry gaze of the Eyeball looking spirit in the circle. The orbs in the room that provide lighting flicker on and off like crazy, and upstairs and outside it sounds like a thunderstorm From Hell has suddenly arrived!

Emrick looks to Ying Yue and hopes she's doing something to help, as he can't actually see what's going on. He'll stay where he is and use his weight (and str 5) to anchor the little dragon.

	There's a sense of lightning in the air, that charged feeling that comes before a storm. The lightning comes out of the circle and into Kaati, though, a flickering hint of light that's taken through her body, in one hand, out the other, streaming toward the dragon. The Dreamspeaker keeps saying the words, fast, her voice hard through gritted teeth after a moment.

	A horrible feedback type sound suddenly fills the air, playing havoc with any heightened senses and people's sense of balance. But Mr. Fu begin to look a little better as Kaati helps juice the little spirit's Power up even as the circle had drained some of his chi!

	Alzbeta reaches down to yoink something from the ground. Her shotgun aims at the ground as she examines whatever it is she just found.

	After some time, the feather that Ying Yue is holding goes from the pure white that it is supposed to be to a deep shadow black when the binding is complete, after which she drops it to the ground, not really enjoying having something like that in her hands. SHe'll need to find some place to get rid of that feather before the binding's hold breaks.

	And just like that? Most of the nonsense and threat subsides. Fu relaxes, looking tired and beleaguered, but growing more hale, as Kaati re-infuses the spirit guide with primal energies that had been lost! Emrick proved to be a stout enough firewall to buy time for Ying Yue and Kaati's schticks to Do Their Thing - thank the gods for strapping young lads such as he!

Emrick looks to the feather and Ying Yue. "You want me to make something unbreakable for that to go in? Would that help contain it at all?"

	Alzbeta holds out a jade key. "Weren't we looking for something like this?" she asks. Alzbeta then looks around for confirmation.

	"Ingwekinan... inanimikon," Kaati chants, looking over to the dragon, her eyes dilated to black.
Ai pages: Hmm Ai might be fine. Since Mogui was at Sabbat court the other day.

	Ying Yue shakes her head. "That belongs in the umbra. It was likely lashing out due to the fact that it was captured here. Trapping it forever would not be in good balance. it needs to be taken back and released." She then looks over to the key. "That is what was being looked for I believe."

	Mr. Fu's eyes brighten a bit, looking over towards Alzbeta as he examines what she holds out. "The key! You found it!" He's still too tired to hop up and fly over, but the news, and Kaati's charge-up, significantly brightened his outlook. "We should go. Without the key, the tower will not be long for this world. Not with the Jade Emperor's wrath being pulled down into it." He looks to Thomas (aka Mo) and scurries up into the dhampyr's hands.

Emrick nods "Sweet." he taps the button on his glasses "But the automaton is upstairs, and I'm not leaving here without it." he says matter of factly. "But you guys don't need to go with me if you don't want to." he bends down and runs a hand over his sneakers, which start to glow visibly, and then gets into a runner's stance.

	Kaati takes a deep breath or two, and stabs the feather back into her hair... hopefully there won't be a windstorm. She looks over to Emrick. "No," she says simply. "Don't risk your life over that. We'll find you another one." Her eyes narrow a little. "I'll teleport you, if I have to. And that would suck, because then we couldn't be friends, yeah?"

	Mo grabs the now empty messenger bag, and carefully places Mr. Fu into it. Then he eyes the journal, and the hand grenade that had fallen out of it. "No, we'll all go." Fu pokes his head out of the bag, "The quickest way out is up. Below is disappearing." DISAPPEARING? Fu looks to Alz, "You! Keep close! The key will protect us from the Jade Throne's wrath!" Then he looks to the daughter of dragons, Ying Yue, and motions her over with her feather-trap.

	Alzbeta gives a single emphatic nod, and once again aims her shotgun in front of her --- which might be right at the backs of those she is now following.

	Kaati blinks over at Fu. "Oh," she says, shouldering the rifle, and shooting Emrick a look of apology. "Onward and upward, then."

Emrick nods and says "Right, was just gonna Flash up there and be back before you guys even moved more than a few steps but if we're all going up then nevermind that." he says with a chuckle

	Ying Yue picks up the black feather and holds it carefully. "Up we go then." SHe agrees as she starts to move.

	The final level of the tower is a real mess. There's an old Chinese man, dressed entirely in white robes, with a long white beard and long hair done up in a top knot, held in some sort of energy field. AHA! THE ASTROLOGER, PRESUMABLY! Then there's the automaton, desperately manning some sort of strange looking machine, that's sucking down celestial energies from the heavens. Except the machine is unstable. Which will render the automaton inert from a aetheric surge. And true to Fu's instinct? There's a tele-portal up there. But ... a tele-portal to where?

	It's also open to the naked sky up here. And effectively a Shallowing, of sorts. Any which way you cut it? This is not a place anyone wants to linger at for very long! It just feels unsafe and dangerous!

	"And how many of you can safely make it down to the ground from here? I would not want to risk the portal." Ying Yue says as she pulls a small patch that looks like some sort of small bandage out of a pocket.

	"I can manage, probably. Unless anybody here wants to call us a nice big dragon to get us to the ground?" Kaati murmurs. She starts breathing slow and deep, slinging the rifle onto her back and drawing a knife from a sheath at the back of her waist.

Emrick zips over to the automaton at faster than should be able to move speeds and picks it up like someone scooping up a beloved pet. That done he looks to the others. "I can't, but I can call for someone to get me wherever that takes me." he nods to the teleportal "So I'm good. I'll just pop through and then have them pick me up." he chuckles "Life's an adventure right? Maybe it goes somewhere cool."

	Mo gives Em a grin, then looks to Alz, "You have the Key, right? Everyone join hands, we can use it to steer us through the dragongate."

	Alzbeta nods and tucks the shotgun under her armpit, though without engaging the safety. She takes the hand of her 'buddy,' Kaati, and then looks for the next hand to take. Alzbeta turns to look at Kaati and smile.

Giving Emrick and Mo a doubtful look, Kaati says, "I might just take my chances. I try to avoid strange portals in the otherworlds. And, I mean, no offense, but I don't know any of you." She gives Alzbeta a taut little not-quite-smile as she frees her hand from the woman's.

Emrick takes off his belt and uses it to basically lash the automaton to himself, not wanting it to be lost in the jump and then goes to link hands. "Suit yourself." he says to Kaati "I can't fly so this is the best option for me." he nods "Be safe." he adds on with sincerity.

	Mo takes Em's hand with one hand, and then reaches for Ying Yue's with the other. "Everyone else together, then!" He looks to Alzbeta, "Hold the thought in your mind's eye. And then we all go in together, and we all come out together."

	The Dreamspeaker slashes her arm with the knife, wipes it and sheathes it. Then she straps the rifle onto one leg, for some reason, and fixes the messenger bag to her belt somehow. "Travel safe, and Luna guide your way," she says, looking at each of them as if to cement something in her mind.

	Mo mutters to Em, "This is why we need to recover the Captain's zeppelin!"

Emrick huffs in humor "Well let's go do that already, flying via mechanical junk is much more my speed than deatomizing." he nods and then focuses as well

	Ying Yue seems hesitant to take the hand. "Fine. We use the portal. I would have prefered to fly down..." she says taking MoGui's offered hand finally.

	Mo gives Ying Yue's hand a grateful squeeze. "Always better to go through with someone that knows their way around the spirit things. Mr. Fu will be tired from the ordeal."

	Chanting softly, Kaati paces to the edge of the crumbled walls. She calls something out, louder, and the cry of a hawk answers. Wings--not white, but a varied brown, the wings of a hawk or falcon--shimmer into existence. She leaps, braving the lightning.

===> Log ended by user <===>