DUNGEON - BELLMARE MOUNTAINS, PT 1

[phantasmods]

Expedition day dawns with the androids in a final flurry of activity - this time, it's in the glider hangar, where they're furiously setting up racks of heavy coats, piles of warm socks, and snow boots, as much as they could manage to pull together. If you've already got your own, great! Otherwise, you can grab some here, though it will be in the usual amount of mismatched Keystone chic.

There's also a variety of emergency flares and the like. Strange is there to admonish everyone to take at least one - unlike Earth flares, they're magical and silent, and will recharge over time - just in case.

Because you're going up into the mountains, and even more so than the usual abandoned places that you explore, it's going to be dangerous just by the nature of the place, nevermind what you might find up there. Incendia was the biggest market for the Bellmare mountain resort, after all, and you're all quite familiar by now with how long that's been abandoned. More to the point, it's far easier to lose track of each other in the snowy slopes. Keep your phones handy and look out for each other, as well as anyone else you might find up there.

Indeed, in addition to the clothes offered for you now, Strange will push extra warm clothes on anyone with hammerspace, and Down, surprisingly enough, has emerged from their usual place with a good number of extra communication devices to hand out. You should still have signal in the mountains, even in a blizzard, but it's better to be prepared for things to screw up.

Once you're all bundled and ready to go, it's off with a wave, into the land of ice and snow.

[OOC: There is an exploration header for each area of the dungeon! Please limit yourselves to 3-5 characters per thread, and don't double dip in order to allow everyone the chance to explore! Otherwise, feel free to top-level as normal.]

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

[CHAIRLIFT! What's going on in the place where you actually operate the damn thing, besides ice? Are there wires, is there a magical rune, is shit broken, is there an operating manual?]

[phantasmods]

[ It looks like pretty standard stuff! Please don't make me pretend I know what the operating station of a chairlift looks like. The main problem seems to be that the exposure to the constant ice and snow of Bellmare has frozen over pretty much all the mechanisms of this thing, both magical and manmade. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Okay, well, time to get some heat going. Which Church can do! He's been practicing with his elemental magic for several months now. He's still not great at it, and they still get a little wild with his emotions, but he doesn't abysmally suck at it anymore. He summons up some flames at the tips of his fingers to start melting all this white bullshit away.]

[phantasmods]

[ White bullshit: melted. You're in.

Well, not yet, exactly. The workings aren't gummed up with ice anymore, but they don't seem to be actually, uh, working. Maybe it's a power supply problem? Nothing seems to be starting up, anyway. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[...Whhhhaaaaat if he gives some of it a zap of electricity like he's a Sith lord?]

[photoshooter]

Hey, does that thing work?

[Prompto sorta hops, sorta trudges through the snow up to where Church is working with the thing. The snowboard he was hauling vanishes into the Evil Blue Armiger so he can help if need be.]

Are you jump-starting it?

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He's real glad that magic ignores things like space age armor, cuz electricity should probably not normally be able to run from the inside out of...space age armor. But here he is, zippy zapping through his armor.]

No, and yeah, in that order. Trying, anyway.

[phantasmods]

[ The entire thing gives a sort of wheezing groan and judders before coughing out a plume of acrid smoke from one of the panels. There's a smell in the air like a burned fuse but with a weird, almost minty tinge to it. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Ah, shit-- [Nope okay nope, that did something but sure seems busted.] ...Did I break it? Shit, I broke it, didn't I.

[photoshooter]

Hang on, let me see.

[Prompto's poked around in the magitek labs enough to get a sense for this world's bullshit. In waving the smoke away to get a better look, he manages to waft it straight into his face. Cough, cough.]

Eugh. ...Minty. Weird.

[Is it, perhaps, pepperminty?

Also, can he see that busted fuse? Is it fixable?]

[phantasmods]

[ you got me there, hashtag

The wiring inside seems to be the now-familiar combination of magic and circuitry that most of the tech in the labs runs off. The fuse inside isn't a strictly electrical one but is in fact a fire crystal, similar to the ones in Incendia, that has been adapted to serve as the fuse for this system.

It isn't fully burned out, but it's come disconnected from the wiring around it. It's glowing but with only a faint whisper of light. ]

[photoshooter]

Okay, I think I can just...

[Even as he narrates distractedly to Church, Prompto's reaching in to reconnect the wires to the crystal. Sorry, crystal. You are probably going to die but you're gonna make this thing move. BLAZE OF GLORY.]

[phantasmods]

[ Blaze of glory indeed! There's more of that horrible scalded peppermint-y smoke and then the crystal suddenly blazes bright with magic. And heat. You uh, might wanna get your hand out there.

Potential hand-setting-ablaze aside, that seems to have done the trick! The machinery groans hideously but things look as though they might be mostly functional now. The downside is that the fuse as it is likely won't last for more than a single round-trip. ]

[photoshooter]

Ow!

[Prompto yanks his hand back and shakes it out, then sticks his fingers in his mouth.]

Thun uhff a bifth! Nnnnh.

[8^8]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Whoa! The fuck did you do?

I mean. I think? That it's working? I think it's working!

[photoshooter]

Ah duth--

[He takes his fingers out of his mouth and blows on them.]

Just reconnected the fuse. I don't think it's gonna last much longer, but I ggguuuueeesss it's working for now? Gonna have to totally replace it soon enough, though.

[He blows on his fingers one more time, studying the chairlift above and listening to the workings groan.]

...Going up?

[motherfucking_ghost]

We can probably scrounge a new fuse out of somewhere. Right? Other things here gotta use fuses. Or is it like a magical fuse? Cuz...we might have those lying around too.

[photoshooter]

It's kinda magic! The fuse is made out of one of those crystals we keep seeing everywhere, a fire one. But I wouldn't know how to make one myself if all I had was the crystal, you know? I don't know enough about magitek. But I'd recognize another one if I saw it!

Should we look for some? I wouldn't want to get stuck halfway up.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Why can't we just, like...shove another fire crystal in there?

I'm gonna shove another fire crystal in there.

Tell my husband he can have all my shit if I burst into flames. [church no...]

[photoshooter]

A fuse isn't just--do you know what a fuse is?

[motherfucking_ghost]

It's sure not a magical fire crystal where I come from, but here we are.

[photoshooter]

Well, yeah, me neither, but it's not just a crystal here, either, you know? Just like fuses back home aren't just metal and glass. They're like... designed to do the thing?

[motherfucking_ghost]

...Well, fuck. I guess it'd be stupid if it was that easy. [He rubs the back of his head, which really is just...him rubbing his helmet.] Should we catch a lift, orrrr gather as many people here first and then lift?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto shuffles his feet in the snow a little as he considers, but the next thing he says seems to have nothing to do with the question.]

Are you, uh, Leonard in there?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Yyyyeah?

Oh, the armor--yeah, I guess some people haven't seen me in this yet, heh. Yeah, hi, in retrospect mentioning anything about my husband around you is probably a bad idea that I regret.