DUNGEON ♛ GISELA TOWERS

[boardmaster]

GISELA TOWERS
20 MAY (VALLARIA) 2016

High in the skies, the howling winds tangled around the Gisela Towers make it difficult to hear anything. The monolithic structures believed to exist only in legend or harpy memories loom over you. The thick ropes of ivy crawling up the length of each tower is the only sign of life. Every now and then, shadow seems to pass overhead. It might just be a trick of the light.

Instead of the usual suspects, another familiar face comes forward to greet our Heroes: the devil-may-care Lei, captain and commander supreme of the Airy.

Lei Nervous that your commanders ain’t here? Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. So! Here we are at this… thing. Something something tragic romantic tale about a dragon and a phoenix. Anyway, it’s stupid and you don’t gotta know. Ask one of your commanders later or bribe me with a drink. Now for something more important— [ the winds roars loudly, muting lei’s voice. but heroes can watch his hand gestures and actions as he teaches them how to use the grappling hook: aim and shoot the gun. maybe twirl it with a fancy flourish first ] —did you get that? All right, good! I don’t have enough hooks, so you’re gonna have to share. And take good care of them, I want them back! Now get in there and clear it ASAP! I ain’t got all day to fly you all back home!

Basic info on the dungeon can be found here. Dungeon mechanics can be found here. All OOC questions about the event may be directed to the thread below.

ONE ♙
One does not simply walk into the Gisela Towers. The only way in is up the long and weathered staircase that wraps around the structure. However, the thing is riddled with missing steps, weak stones and slippery condensation from the cloud cover, so you’re going to need a little help. Should you attempt to climb the stairs, they will crumble beneath your feet at best and bury you beneath their rubble at worst.

This is where Lei’s newfangled(?) contraptions will come in handy! The pockmarks and small ledges created by weathering in the first tower’s structure could prove useful. There are, of course, a limited number of grappling hooks available, so you’ll have to partner up if you want your party to get anywhere. Parties of four are given two of these guns, while the poor souls with less party members get one.

Gisela’s gale-force winds will knock you around and make it seem like the towers are close to toppling over. However, as you make your way up you’ll see that the towers are actually far from abandoned.

MONSTER ♟ Ocypete
Weak against Lightning	Strong against Wind	Immune to None
Regarded as abominations of the avian world, ocypetes are BIRDS the size of horses, which would be incredibly advantageous if they had wings. The offspring of a human and a harpy, ocypetes have HUMAN ARMS that they use to scale surfaces and strong TALONS that can crush rock. They don’t fly, but they do RIDE THE WIND with the use of their long tail feathers, which possess magical wind properties and are nearly twice as long as they are tall. They would look almost elegant if they didn’t have a tendency to flap their arms while gliding. Legend has it that when the phoenix left the towers, the ocypetes were accidentally left behind because dragons plucked their wing feathers, making them look kind of funny. Now with a few millennia’s worth of abandonment issues on their semi-feathered shoulders, they’ll seek to prevent Heroes from ascending the towers by any means necessary with an odd variation of Airy MARTIAL ARTS. Their TAILFEATHERS may be acquired as loot.

What will Heroes encounter once they finally make it inside? More broken staircases, more monsters, even stronger winds blowing in from cracks in the walls and the foot of the tower (which is open to the air), and no floor whatsoever. Gisela’s Towers are hollow! The only footing to be found is on small ledges: some similar to those outside the tower, some that look more artificial; and intact sections of the stairs winding around the walls. You’ll need magic or some ingenuity to stay on your toes—literally! If you lose your grip or footing, it’s a several thousand foot drop back to Gresser. The quickest way down… and the deadliest.


TWO ♙
The treacherous and exhausting climb brings you to a more sturdy area that looks a little less like a wrecking ball just passed through and more like some kind of hive. Blocking your way are dozens of sturdy-looking nests suspended like particularly ugly balls of twine from the walls. These are home to the insectoid Aellos. Tearing the nests apart for loot is only a good idea if you want angry swarms after you.

MONSTER ♟ Aello
Weak against Fire, Lightning	Strong against None	Immune to Wind
Aellos resemble large eagles more than the DRAGONFLIES they’re supposed to be. Mature Aellos can fly, but the flightless and fuzzier larvae are just as formidable. They can HYPNOTIZE with their dozen kaleidoscope-like eyes, rendering targets IMMOBILE but still aware of their surroundings. In order to free them, a fellow Hero must gaze deeply into their eyes for at least 15 seconds. These monsters are also able to SPIT a gelatin-like substance that will stick Heroes to any and every surface and also each other. FIRE will reduce its stickiness. The larvae use hit-and-run tactics: they hunker down in their nests, peek over the edge and launch gobs of spit. The flying aello like to drop their SPIT BOMBS from above and occasionally also release a POWDER that ruins visibility and makes you sneeze. Feeling adventurous? Why don’t you give the spit a lick? It’s actually totally EDIBLE, tastes like jello, and is filled with mana. Just be sure to heat it up so you don’t get your mouth stuck shut. Their GELATIN SPIT and INSECT PARTS may be acquired as loot.

The staircases at this altitude are in better shape than the ones you have—or haven’t—been using. That doesn’t mean they’re any less dangerous. Not only do the Aellos chase you down here; traps are hidden in the steps as well. Some may act like quicksand, trapping an unwary Hero halfway into the stone. Others are enchanted with wind spells that can toss you up in the air, the long way back down to the ground, or blow your skirt upward. There might even be some that provoke the pesky bugs even more!

This floor has flowers and trees creeping their way in from the outside and covering every inch of the place, including treacherous weaknesses in the path. Behind these overgrown plants is a mural depicting a sensual dance between a dragon and a harpy. In order to advance, at least two Heroes will have to mimic the dance painted on the walls to open the door.


THREE ♙
A barrier prevents you from progressing any further. Magic, physical attacks or sheer willpower will do nothing. To dissolve it, you must create a concoction from the random ingredients available on the table and splash it on the barrier. There is no set recipe, so trial and error and a little creativity will be your friends! Along with your trusty party Bishop, of course. (You did bring one, didn’t you?) Those not well-versed in alchemy may end up with potions that explode upon completion, splashing party members standing too close with a variety of strange side effects ranging from mild body horror to a bad case of halitosis. The unfortunate effects seem to differ from Hero to Hero, and they last for a few minutes to a couple of hours.

Once your party crosses the barrier, you will find yourselves outside. The skies are darkening, but you’re still able to discern another tower wrapped in the clouds. A bridge once connected the two structures, but most of it is missing. Use those grappling hooks!

Upon entering the second tower, a marble floor at odds with everything from the last tower will greet you. Lift your head and you’ll find that the rest of the tower is also hollow all the way up; those heights allow room for fountains and waterfalls. It’s a suitable area to replenish mana and rest. Parched throats can be quenched with the sparkling water all around you, but approach any waterfalls and they will start moving in a very unwaterlike way.

MONSTER ♟ Celaeno
Weak against Lightning	Strong against Fire, Earth	Immune to Water
Possessed by pride and cursed by the phoenix’s wrath, these dragons are nothing like the ones you encountered before. Celaeno resemble huge snakes made of water and possess ENCHANTED SCALES that float through their bodies and render them extremely RESISTANT to both magical and physical attacks. You will have to find WEAK POINTS in their protective aura. Hopefully you have a Knight or Bishop on your team to find those weaknesses as soon as possible! Each dragon’s weak points differ. Fortunately, all Celaenos go down easily once you find that soft spot. They use their long, slender tails like WATER WHIPS to knock down or douse their targets; the force of a tail may equal that of a fire hose at full blast! The only time it sheds its armor is to shapeshift into a WATER PRISON that can trap one or more enemies. Try not to attack it while a Hero is trapped inside; it will hurt your friend as well! Use STATUS EFFECTS to confuse or distract them so the prison loses shape. Their ENCHANTED SCALES, SMALL GEMS, and DRAGON WATER may be acquired as loot.

Without any stairs in sight, the way up lies in those dragons. After their defeat, their magical scales can be put together to form a boat that can ride the waterfalls upwards to the top floors.


FOUR ♙
The skies continue to change once you reach the top. Black clouds begin to close in, stray bits of land that have broken off from the main island hover nearby, and a sudden torrent of powerful mana may disorient your party. A storm is approaching.

Just as the first chunk of hail falls from the sky, a mighty roar reverberates through the darkness. Something very large lands on the walls of the tower and causes a tremor that whittles chunks from the tower and actually rolls the clouds back; is that the toll of thunder, or just more roaring?

Finally, an impressive three-headed dragon emerges from below. Once it has perched itself on the tower, one head speaks in a rumbling growl.

BOSS ♟ Tianya the Thrice-Scorned
Weak against Lightning	Strong against None	Immune to Wind, Fire
“Did that phoenix send you?! Tell her she cannot return! Not even over my dead body!” Unsurprisingly, Tianya ─the dragon once wed to the phoenix─ is more than just a legend. He lowers his heads and another loud, guttural cry fills the skies. For now, he remains STATIONARY at the top of the tower. All three heads attempt to SWALLOW a Hero whole if they get too close. Should you go on the offensive, you may be able to chop off at least one head before he’s pissed off enough to move. The fallen head writhes in agony as it moans: “It hurts… it burns…” At this point, Tianya takes flight. The strong GUSTS from those wings can launch a Hero right off the tower. Use your grappling hook(s) to play floating island hopscotch: evade devastating dive attacks and run from the MANA BEAMS shot from his mouths. “You’ll never understand! I never wanted her!” As you travel from island to island trying to get close enough to deal some real damage, Tianya hides in the CLOUDS to launch ambush attacks. Eventually, a PHOENIX descends from the heavens in a burst of fiery light. However, it’s not the phoenix of legend; it’s actually one of Tianya’s spells, and it will burn away most of your mana if any of its flames make contact. MANA EXCHANGE may be the only way to continue this battle... Once Tianya is down to one head, he will immediately rise higher into the sky. “My last words are for her and her alone.” After Tianya is defeated, the storm clears; Enprise’s twin suns shine once more. That precious DUNGEON CORE floats down, blanketed by a SINGLE LARGE FEATHER, golden and shining in the light. “It’s warm… She was always warm…” A SCORNED DRAGON HEART and a MYSTICAL PHOENIX FEATHER may be acquired as loot.

As soon as both core and feather touch the tower, an ominous rumbling and shaking begins. The Gisela Towers are falling apart and it’s now a race to escape before you’re buried under the rubble.

And don’t forget the grappling hook(s); Lei wants them back.


FIVE ♙
All that’s left of the Gisela Towers is rubble. The dungeon has been conquered, the island reclaimed, and the ruins of the old regime can now become the foundations for something new: the site of the harpies’ homecoming after hundreds of years.

LOCATION ♟ Gisela

An ancient sky island that has existed since time immemorial. What enables Gisela to RIDE THE CLOUDS may be an even greater mystery than the mechanisms powering the Airy. The island appears most frequently above Gresser, though its extraordinary altitude makes it DIFFICULT TO LOCATE. The landscape of Gisela is overgrown with JEWEL-GREEN FORESTS, crisscrossed with gorges and dotted with networks of small caverns. But its crowning glory is the THIN GLEAMING WATERFALLS that flow from its edges and into the sky beyond. The water is embraced by RAINBOWS and condenses into CLOUDS when Gisela is high enough, lending to its unusual weather patterns. Although the island initially seems largely uninhabited apart from the Gisela Towers, there is a SEALED OFF AREA that, when viewed from the air, looks suspiciously like LUSH, TILLED FIELDS. Should you ask Lei about this, he will only give you an unusually stern warning against disturbing it. Looks like you’ve solved the mystery behind the pai tiles. Now that the menacing Towers have been demolished, a variety of animal life — usually airborne — will begin to appear on the island. Some of them you’ve never seen before! The fall of the Towers also uncovered the existence of HOT SPRINGS below; newspapers speculate wildly about the source, but most agree that it must have something to do with the renewed vows between phoenix and dragon. The few structures already in place on the island have been speedily converted into BAZAARS manned by Airy harpies. Most specialize in legal alchemical gimmicks, but there’s always another side to these things. Everyone’s here to soak in the breeze, and by that we do mean everyone. In response to the tourism boom, NEW AEROPORTS have also opened in both Gisela and Gresser to provide reliable transportation between the two locations.

Comments

screams

[mitotic]

[ This is the part where Sakura almost fumbles.

Not because she can't keep her balance (she can) or because the pose is too complicated (it really is not) but because she wasn't expecting Naruto to tug her in. It is a closer match to what's on the wall, which no longer merely suggestive now that she's become a live model of it. It's...

Well, it's bad. She knows what it would look like to an onlooker — which she can't help but be aware they have, and she happens to be married to him, and this happens to be their best friend who seems perfectly oblivious to all of this. Of course he is.

Her first instinct, in her fluster, is to shove away from Naruto, but then the whole wall shudders and begins to shift, just slightly. She can't believe Naruto was right. She can't believe this is working. She can't believe he doesn't notice how weird this is, but she would rather fall through a hole in the floor the hundreds and hundreds of feet between here and the ground than draw attention to it, so she says nothing as they move from one pose to the next.

And she absolutely does not look anywhere near Sasuke. ]

[acknowledges]

[Maybe it's always been easy to write Naruto off. He never seems to know what he's doing, at least not in the entirety of any one act, and it'd be a simple thing to say that this is no different. But he thinks with his body. He learns by doing- touching, moving, fighting, feeling- they're the best teachers he's had and the lessons he'd been able to commit to memory. Naruto knows, in the abstract, what they're doing. He knows it must look bad because he can feel Sakura not looking at him the same way he can feel Sasuke's gaze pointed nowhere else.

What keeps him together is familiarity. Sakura knows him- she knows him sometimes better than he knows himself. They have spent years as two fixed points, alternating around one another in fractured orbits- tilting hopelessly where Sasuke's gravity was meant to be and where they'd gone so long without. She holds him together. When he'd been too weak to walk, she'd carried him. She'll know he isn't trying to embarrass her or take advantage. That he isn't trying to make a fool out of her. She can't look at him and instead of fighting it, demanding to be seen, he lets her be.

One of Naruto's palms presses flat to the bow of her spine- the dip where it joins her hips, and his touch is like sunlight. There are only a few more poses to move through.]

Roll into me. [He says quietly, against her temple, where she won't have to see his face. His opposite hand rises, smoothing its way down the lean arch of her ribcage and line of her stomach to wrap around her thigh, easing her body towards him.] Lemme take your weight, Sakura-chan.

[penitents]

[ Objectively Sasuke knows it must have been impossible for Naruto, who reaches for people so easily, to be as stilted as Sasuke is in a situation like this. Naruto, whose light has pulled so many people out of the dark, just like Sasuke himself. It isn't often he is reminded so sharply of what those few years apart did to the three of them: that where Sasuke ran away these two only grew closer.

He can see the color rise in Sakura's cheeks when Naruto's profile vanishes into her hair, telling her something Sasuke can't hear from his separate position. He watches the way Naruto's thigh fits snugly between Sakura's legs and the way her grip tightens on him so she won't fall over when Naruto takes most of her weight.

Sasuke exhales shallowly, a tremble of heat on the tip of his tongue that makes him cinch his jaw and swallow before it can morph into a sound. He has the fleeting thought that this kind if intimate, sensual dance between his wife and best friend is something that should make him jealous as an outside observer. Instead, he is too aware of his heartbeat and the warmth pooling low in his body, of the painfully slow grind of the mural sliding aside behind him. ]

[mitotic]

[ She wishes Naruto wouldn't do that. That he wouldn't whisper so intimately to her, because she can feel the heat in her face and she's a grown woman, dammit, and this is basically a mission. There's no reason she should be getting worked up about this. It all shifted so abruptly, and dimly, she wonders if it would have happened at all if it weren't for who she's dancing with. She and Naruto had always been close, bound by a profound loneliness that comes not from not having anyone around, but by the absence of one person, someone most people had given up on in the years since he left but that neither of them could let go of, even when they (well, she) tried. No one ever really understood their shared grief; how could they? No one else had lived it. The bond between them was different than the one she shared with her husband, which was different than the one her husband and her friend shared, which was again different from the dynamic between the three of them together. Aging, promotions, marriages, children: nothing has ever changed it in any essential way, not really. And it wasn't romantic or sexual, but there were lines that neither of them had ever discussed, and that they hardly even acknowledged as existing in the first place, but that they both carefully and resolutely did not cross all the same.

She's pretty sure they just tripped over one, and Sakura, who has grown to be more sure of herself than she ever was as a girl, is at a complete loss for what it means for them. Try as she might to pretend this is just another mission, guilt and something else twists in her chest. She doesn't know what else to do but follow her cues, and pray that Sasuke's silence isn't the coming of a storm.

The last pose requires that she give all her weight to him as he dips her; she lets go of the tension in her shoulders as she arches her back, trusting Naruto the way he trusted her on the grappling hook, the way she always has. ]

mother of god

[acknowledges]

[Change is easy to feel. It takes practice and a special kind of attention, but Naruto has spent years living in the hearts of others and he's intimately aware of what it's like- to be swept up in that kind of movement. Fundamental shifts are quiet on the outside. They're found in the tiniest places in someone's expression, or in the set of their shoulders, the twitch of a finger. But inside is something else entirely. He remembers seeing the inside of Sasuke's heart. He remembers the way Iruka had felt. He remembers Gaara and Obito and the moment of quiet they'd shared before everything moved at once.

This isn't a big adjustment, and he's not sure where they're now headed- but like the point of a compass they have tilted just slightly. A different trajectory.

Sakura accepts him. Her body becomes an extension of his own and the inverse also becomes true. In their last moment Naruto isn't sure where he ends and she begins- only that they're making this thing together and at their backs a wall has opened. He eases her up with equal gentleness, guiding her to her feet and slipping his fingers from her body and Naruto feels himself thrumming, somehow. She must be embarrassed. Part of him is sorry.

He looks at her face just long enough to say, wordlessly, that he's grateful- and then his eyes move to Sasuke. What he means to offer is a sort of defiance- an opportunity to take any anger out on him instead of Sakura and a responsibility for his actions. He isn't sure what he finds there instead.]

haha... ha

[penitents]

[ He can see it and hear it, the moment their careful movements stop and the resounding thump of the wall opening fully. Their bodies intertwine exactly the way the mural had depicted, but what reaches a fist into Sasuke's chest and squeezes is the unbearably gentle way Naruto lets Sakura go again. Something about it telegraphs that he hasn't really let her go, that even without their hands or bodies touching Naruto still has a hold on her, somehow.

Sasuke knows what that feeling is like.
Naruto has a talent for taking the most raw parts of a person and keeping them safe.

Realizing the intensity of his own attention, Sasuke refocuses on Naruto's eyes when they find him. His friend can't know what he finds in Sasuke's expression because Sasuke himself doesn't quite understand it. The depth of his feeling for Naruto is indescribable, but his bond with Sakura is also one that transcends any kind of sense. For all the fury Sasuke is capable of housing inside him, there's no flicker of it in the wake of what he just witnessed. He thinks they probably expect him to be upset about this whole situation, but he isn't; what he feels is an ache of longing, one he doesn't know the origin to in the moment. ]

Let's go.

[ He says into the stretch of silence, and even though he swallowed before speaking his voice is heavy and rough. ]

[mitotic]

[ Has Naruto ever let either of them go, really? Have any of them fully relinquished each other to their separate selves? Even when Sakura had not seen her husband for years, and when she and Naruto went weeks barely seeing each other outside their jobs, they are still a felt presence in even the most remote corners of her life, like air in her lungs. Air that, in the moment that Naruto pulls her up to stand on her own two feet, is so thick that it's nearly oppressive. Thick and charged with something Sakura can't give a name to; or perhaps more accurately, something she avoids giving a name to.

In a way, the look Naruto gives her is both comforting and not, but she understands his intent. Wordless, she squeezes his arm before she, too, lets him go, her own reassurance. She doesn't think he had ulterior motives. Whatever passed between them — it was unintentional, on both their parts.

But then there's Sasuke.

It's incriminating of her that she still avoids looking at him, but it would be equally incriminating if she met his eyes and he saw how flustered she is. This isn't something that happens to her with other people. This is the sort of thing that happens when he makes an off-color comment and she can't tell whether he means it the way it sounds or if he's messing with her. She'd made up her mind to find her composure before facing him, but the harsh quality to his voice when he speaks makes her eyes snap to him anyway, expecting anger. It's not what she finds.

Sakura has always been the scientifically-minded of the three of them, someone who weighs and calculates and builds hypotheses. In this, she draws a blank, and then tells herself that there are better times to figure out what's passed between them, like when they're not in the middle of a ruined floating temple. Or, you know, never. ]

Yeah. [ With that, she shuts the loose rattling thoughts away. With one last glance at Naruto, she steps forward, past Sasuke and into the newly revealed passage. ]