phantasmalrift | DUNGEON LOG: KEYSTONE SHORE

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DUNGEON LOG: KEYSTONE SHORE

The morning of the 9th, everyone will get a message sent to their communication devices -

Okay, guys! I think we have enough stabilizers to try and get the shoreline stable. If you want to help out, grab your supplies and come on up to the roof!

When characters arrive at the roof, they'll find Top - with a wheeling table full of many copies of the same odd-looking device - the two exploratory drones, and a ramp down off the roof to the ground. (The latter looks a little hastily constructed.)

"Okay," Top says, picking up one of the devices. "Here's the stabilizers. Stick them to walls and stuff - mostly out of the way places where they're not going to get knocked off - and then press the buttons along the side."

They demonstrate, unfolding the set of legs at one end of the device before showing the buttons to anyone who's close enough. "Go ahead and take a couple, especially if you've got one of those space-saving inventories going on, I know there's like four of you with those? Strange got some first aid kits together, too, if you want."

Sure enough, another table nearby has the med kits... As well as traditional paper bag lunches, courtesy of Bottom. Don't question it too much.

"We'll be staying back here to keep track of the stabilization progress and work the drones," Top says, "but don't hesitate to call if you get in trouble! We'll send one of these guys down to get you an evac if you need it."

And with that, you're free to go down the ramp... Or to make for the beach however else you might choose to go.

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March 9th, Day: Tempest Seacaves

[After packing a couple stabilizers, a bag lunch, some canned soups, and all his live ammunition (and some of the paint rounds, you never know); making sure his gun is clean and loaded and ready to go; wrapping the more-or-less functional fishing rod he made in the folded-up blanket Izunia gave him like a bedroll; and slinging the whole mess onto his back, Prompto is ready to go. The little flashlight attached to his clothes comes in handy down here in the caves, though the glowing crystals help, too, of course.]

What's the range these stabilizer things cover, again? How far out do you think we have to go to make a difference?

[Thanks to Prompto's presence, the emotional breeze down here's never going to be gentler than a stiff wind, and he has to raise his voice a little even when it's relatively calm.]

March 9th, Afternoon/Evening: Glitterstone Beach

[Prompto doesn't want anything to do with that blood sea ever again, so it's lucky for him he ends up coming out on the Glitterstone side instead. Delighted by the sparkling landscape, he runs around collecting scales by the handful, even though there probably isn't any use for them. Someone's room is going to be pretty as hell once the field trip's over.

Unfortunately, when the sun starts to set, his flashlight turns back on automatically, drawing a bunch of refraction orbs right to him.]

Wha--aw, crap!

[What are these tiny rainbow Bomb daemon fucking things?!

Later, once the sun's died and all the refraction orbs with it, Prompto wearily makes camp, which basically just means curling up in his blanket and trying to get comfortable on the gravel until the dragon eels come out. Then, awed, he goes to crouch at the lagoon's edge, water lapping at the toes of his boots, and watches the lights. Eventually, he remembers himself enough to take pictures: The colors, the stars, the Fissure-crossed sky above.

He scrolls back through the results only for his breath to catch faintly; he's gone too far. That's Niflheim. There's Aranea.

Here are the guys, back in Altissia, when there still was an Altissia to be in. Suddenly terribly alone, Prompto raises his eyes once more to that little patch of starlight up above, trying to keep it together.]

Guys...

March 11th, Morning: Skyclimb Cliffs

[Prompto's supplies are a lot lighter now, so it's both easier and prudent to head up the cliffs to restock. He searches for eggs at first, then goes down to try prying shellfish off the rocks for a while, but patience has never been one of Prompto's virtues. By late morning, he's sitting in the shade of the northern curve of the cliffs instead, working with some of those colorful scales from Glitterstone Beach.

For the rest of the day, Prompto's out on the rocks as far as he can go, fishing with his makeshift rod. The scales have helped make for a pretty alluring, well, lure, and he's seen Noct do this plenty of times. How hard can it be?

...

...He's so bored he could die.]

[Hey Prompto, mind that you don't trip over -

Yeah it's the usual, Izunia curled up in his chair napping. Or, not quite napping, this time, from the way the blanket shifts and he sits up properly. Unlike Prompto, he doesn't have a flashlight - instead there's a flash of Armiger blue and a vial of fire energy in his hand -

Before he catches sight of the light and relaxes.]

Astrals, I thought you were a daemon there for a moment...

[Prompto yelps and scurries back, clutching his camera protectively, then huffs. Don't scare him like that!]

If you thought there were daemons out here, why're you sleeping out in the open?

[He turns to retrieve his own blanket--it's chilly on the beach, with the sun down--but then the words sink in on a different register entirely. I thought you were a daemon, and that month or so since the magitek production facility evaporates like a bubble, leaving nothing between Prompto and those memories. Especially not after the encounter he had today with a daemon of a different kind.

So he slows on his way to his blanket, then stoops to pick it up, to shake it out.]

Hey. I--Izunia. [That's possibly the first time Prompto's referred to him by name.] ...You've been dead for a long time, right? So you know something about souls?

I don't, it's just - I don't sleep well and I have a bit of a phobia. I don't like waking up in the dark.

[Hey Prompto, guess who else here has a bit of PTSD that literally no one has ever treated? Yeah.

Izunia slides his blanket down to his knees, leaving the fire-element vial - clearly the same as a magic flask if in a different shape - in his lap to provide them with a bit more light.]

A thing or two, yes.

[He wants to ask why, but... It's Prompto, so it's better to let him go at his own pace, he's finding. The boy will meander around to the point eventually.]

[Oh. Okay. Prompto can understand being scared. It's, like, the one things he understands, ever, so if he lowers his voice to be a little gentler, that's all it is.]

Everybody has them, right? Even if...

[He rubs his fingers against the softness of the blanket, then pulls it around his shoulders, unhappy. Back still to Izunia, he draws a slow line through the wet gravel of the beach with the heel of his boot, looking for words.]

Well, what kinds of things don't have souls? Do animals? They gotta.

[He turns to bring the light back, so Izunia won't be stuck with the dark.]

[It's appreciated, Prompto, though Izunia will keep the flask of fire in his lap anyway. It does, after all, also provide a source of warmth.]

Mmm, I can't confess to knowing too much about animals for certain... But all people, yes.

[It has never occured to Izunia to think of Prompto as anything other than a person.]

...What about robots? Like, would Top and the androids have their own, you think?

[Just gonna keep circling around this point until there's nowhere left to circle.]

Those six... Yes, I think probably so. There's more than a touch of magic in them, after all; it's not as though they're simply mechanical task-doers. They make decisions just like humans.

[Where are you leading, Prompto?]

[Prompto thinks about that, then comes to sit on the beach near Izunia, staring out at the snaking lights in the water.]

...What about daemons? ...The ones that used to be human.

If becoming a daemon erases one's soul, then all that I have ever done and loved has been for naught.

[Said fluidly and without an ounce of hesitation.]

Even the worst daemon you can think of has a soul buried deep within the muck.

[And they both know who the worst daemon Prompto can think of is - though to name him at this moment seems somehow wrong.]

[After a while to digest that, Prompto ends up nodding agreement. That makes sense. A soul doesn't have to be all good, anyway, right? Bad souls probably exist. Verstael Besithia probably had a soul, too, or else what ended up in Immortalis? Just... information? A copy of his brain patterns? No, that's not the same as immortality at all. He wouldn't have wanted that.

After a slow, steadying breath, Prompto finally asks:]

If... a baby turned into a daemon before it had time to... to develop an ego, would it have a soul?

[Ah, so that's the reason.]

I don't see any reason that child would be different from anyone else.

Even if they weren't, like--even if they weren't born from loving parents, or--not, even. That's not what I mean.

[He knows not everyone is that lucky. It's not just him. What he means is--]

Even if they weren't... born? Even if they were made for--all they were ever supposed to be were weapons, following orders and never...

[Never having a choice to do anything more. Be anything more. To ever have a choice.]

Even then?

I don't think that the exact method of your birth matters, Prompto.

[And perhaps that's a little too on the nose, a little too much cutting through the dancing around, but -

Someone needs to say it.]

[He cringes away from the sentence, then drops his chin with a quiet laugh.]

Yeah. That's what Noct said, too.

[They're not just talking about souls anymore, are they? Prompto rubs at his eyes beneath his glasses.]

You already know all about me, huh?

I know enough. As I said, I don't have any reason to think of you as different from any other person.

...It matters to me, you know.

[The light disappears as he draws his legs up and wraps his arms around them, resting his forehead on his knees.]

Where I come from. What I was made to do. Whether or not I--was born with a soul, or. Deserve my place, and stuff. It's easy for you guys to say I'm the same as everyone else, but I--I know I'm not.

March 9, Day: Bloodsands Beach

The very first thing on Stone's agenda: food. With there not being a lot of red meat in the station, he's determined to eat a couple sandsharks to hold him over for a while, and then kill a couple more to save the meat. He sits patiently at the shoreline in groundling form, all gray and old and human-looking, until a sandshark attacks... then he shifts back up into the big, black, winged creature he also can be and pounces. He picks up a scratch or two, but the sharks' teeth aren't as effective against scales as they would be against skin, and his claws and teeth are very effective against sand-encrusted hide. Plus, he's bigger than they are.

He wolfs one down, still in the big black dragon-form... then shift back to groundling form, scrubs the rest of the blood off with sand, and settles in to wait again, a little further down the beach, occasionally making little splashes in the waves with one foot to at as a lure. This will be an all-day affair, and he justifies it by setting one singular stabilizer down over by the cliffs. Even once he's done, he half-buries himself in the sand and dozes in the sun to digest.

March 10, Day: Skyclimb Cliffs/The Fingers

Cliffs aren't much of a detriment when you're a winged creature, and they're even less of one when you're a winged creature with an 80-foot wingspan. Stone hardly even bothers with his wings, he just uses his claws and it hardly takes any time at all before then he's at the top, perched there like a gigantic scaly crow, looking out over the ocean and down along the clifftops. He plucks out one of the bottle crabs after setting in a stabilizer or two, pops it out of its shell, and crunches it down, claws and all. If anyone needs a lift up, he's happy to carry them.

Once the clifftop is secure, he shifts back down to groundling form again and wanders down the cliffline to the Fingers-- tripping here and there en route by the tangleweed, which then gets a taste of his teeth so he can free himself. He chews on severed pieces idly as he walks, because hey, he needs his vegetables, too.

Once he gets to the edges of the Fingers and sets down another stabilization device, he shifts again, mostly so he can try to pounce and eat one of the nearest drifting Helios fish. Eating is pretty much his biggest concern, right now, okay.

March 11, Day: Lighthouse and Tempest Seacaves

Today is not all about eating, for once. Stone climbs into the top of the broken lighthouse to investigate and descends the stairs down into the caverns below. This time he has to stay in groundling form-- his other form literally won't fit-- so anyone else down there gets the dubious benefit of his conversation while he finds places to leave more of the devices and prods at crystals curiously.

And gets zapped by one or two, though he doesn't generate a lot of the emotional wind himself-- not until he gets zapped and that ratchets up his annoyance level.

Why wouldn't you be?

[To the heart of it.]

Because...

[He doesn't have a real answer ready, and it's only half because of course, there isn't any answer, he shouldn't be any different. The other half, the more paralyzing half, comes from twenty years of knowing he looks different, he feels different, he doesn't connect to people the same way. There's so much he's never been able to tell people. So much of himself he couldn't share, the way everyone else shares, the way people become part of people, collective.]

It's different for the guys, they know me. They'd keep me around even if I was some kind of soulless monster, probably. But how can you... How can anyone else trust me like a human, knowing I was... made, like that? That I'm something artificial, like--like those fake plastic plants people have in their offices, or, or soy bacon.

Prompto's just taking pictures of those Helios fish, minding his own business, when the noise of something humongous behind him makes him turn.

"Wh-whoa!"

Maybe he ought to reach for his gun--who knows what that thing is, or if it's friendly?--but his first reflex, his forever reflex, is instead to step back so as much of Stone is visible as possible, raise his camera, and take one hell of a picture.

"Got it!"

3/9, morning; Bloodsand Beach

[Aya is strong enough that after taking a couple stabilizers, mostly so she can write about them later - what better way to figure out these things than to just try them out - she immediately nyoooooms off to the southernmost part of the beach, making sure to stay where it's slightly drier.]

Now, where's someplace solid enough to put this...

[Ignoring the directions would be kind of rude for the first one, but uh. Sand isn't exactly very stable, and there sure is a lot of it here.]

3/10, midday; The Fingers

[The nature of these Semi-Precarious Rocky Outcroppings makes it a lot easier to find good spots to put a stabilizer - while it's low tide, she flies into one of the spaces between them and forces another device into the cliffside.

However, just as she's coming back up she's hit with a spray, grabbing onto the edge... and something else grabs back. And that's when her troubles (for today) begin.]

Because you think and feel the same as anyone else.

[To say things with this confidence is a skill required of a king. The unshakable belief - ]

You're not a plastic plant, for crystal's sake. At worst, you're one grown from a cutting instead of from seed. And those grown from cuttings have roots and leaves and flowers the same as any other.

...Plants can do that?

...Many of them, yes. Citrus trees in particular are known to accept branches spliced in from other trees, and so bear multiple kinds of fruit -

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DUNGEON LOG: KEYSTONE SHORE

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Mar 9, night

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OTA

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March 10, the Fingers

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