Insanity Clinic For The Moderately Brandofandonitis Afflicted

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

The Clinic: Calano's Office

Emma scratches the fur under Telrao's chin and giggles as Telrao's tail tickles her.

"What are we going to do now? Should we go to Layra or try something else.  What do you think, Telrao and Calano?"

@Ookla the Crow @Ookla the Floofy

[Medium he/they]

The Clinic: Calano's Study

Calano immediately goes to the large armchair by the side of the fire, to sit and think. He'd just encountered feline.. what were they, Gods? Or something? Still, the ramifications of these divine cats ruling over worlds untold was weird.

There was so much he knew, and so much he didn't know.

He thought for some time before saying, "The road to Layra is long and complicated, and would require us to be asleep and vulnerable here in the study, our reality. From what I can understand, we'd have to hop into my dreamscape, find Jason, hop into his dreamscape, and then he would guide us to Layra. And, I'm pretty sure Jason's reality is my dreamscape, so the issue would be explaining to you how to Dreamscape Hop, and falling asleep and waking up at the same time."

He looked at the fire. "That or we try to see what we can do to fight Kaos." Something came to Calano's mind, and he stood and walked over to his large planning table.

He sent out a mental message to Bookwyrm; Bookwyrm. What's your status?

@Ookla the Perpetual @Ookla the Myopic @Ookla the Floofy

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Crow

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

19 minutes ago, Ookla the Crow said:

He thought for some time before saying, "The road to Layra is long and complicated, and would require us to be asleep and vulnerable here in the study, our reality. From what I can understand, we'd have to hop into my dreamscape, find Jason, hop into his dreamscape, and then he would guide us to Layra. And, I'm pretty sure Jason's reality is my dreamscape, so the issue would be explaining to you how to Dreamscape Hop, and falling asleep and waking up at the same time."

 

The Clinic: Calano's Study

Emma raises a eyebrow and walks over to the wall, her finger glows with dark power and she draws a imprint of a door. Stabbing the middle of the door with her finger, she creates a portal between realities. Emma grins, observing her handywork.

"I think you forget that I'm overcharged right now and connected to a being that subverts the rules of reality."

@Ookla the Floofy @Ookla the Crow

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Myopic

[Medium he/they]

The Clinic: Calano's Study

Calano opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Well," He began, "I just sent a message to Bookwyrm, so we should wait a bit so we have a clear connection for when he replies. Whenever that is, whatever he's doing."

@Ookla the Floofy @Ookla the Myopic

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Crow said:

He sent out a mental message to Bookwyrm; Bookwyrm. What's your status?

Outskirts of Tal'rin

Bookwyrm solidified the mental connection.

We arrived at Tal'rin to find it burned to the ground. The culprit was a magical being made of fire and ash that seemed to be corrupted by Kaos. We defeated it, but we were to late to save the village.

Luckily, most of the villagers hid in a cellar beneath their central building. We have a collection of about...three hundred people who just lost their home. Do you know anywhere they could stay while they figure out their future?

Bookwyrm paused. None of them have Brandofandonitis, as far as I'm aware, so the clinic might not be the best place...

Oh, and there was another group of them, led by their warriors, that managed to escape. We don't know where they are.

As he sent the message and waited for a response, Bookwyrm walked over to @InfiniteInsanity, @Ookla the Debonair, and @Ookla the Shadowed.

"I just recived a communication from Calano," he said. "With luck, we'll have a place for these people to go soon."

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Perpetual
Accidentally submitted early, editing to finish.

[Medium he/they]

Insanity Clinic: Calano's Study

Calano thought for a moment, then looked at his planning table. He scribbled something down. 

Send them to the Clinic. Rooms are being prepared for them and they will be finished momentarily.

What else?

@Ookla the Perpetual

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

Just now, Ookla the Crow said:

Insanity Clinic: Calano's Study

Calano thought for a moment, then looked at his planning table. He scribbled something down. 

Send them to the Clinic. Rooms are being prepared for them and they will be finished momentarily.

What else?

@Ookla the Perpetual

Outskirts of Tal'rin

Uh...I found a weird stone in their cellar. Bookwyrm sent a mental image of it, and the runes around it, to Calano. I have a memory of the runes in one of my copperminds.

A few of the runes were connected to the Worldseers, but the rest were unfamiliar to me. I'm fairly certain it's connected to one of the Archives. Perhaps a key of sorts?

I'm not sure what it means.

Bookwyrm called out to the villagers. "We have a place for you to stay, while you figure out what your next steps are. The people there are kind and caring; they'll make sure you have what you need." Bookwyrm summoned a row of Wyrmholes for the villagers to walk through.

"And what about the rest of our people?" someone called.

"We'll make sure they know where you are, and that you are safe," Bookwyrm replied. "You have no need to fear."

Slowly but systematically, all of the villagers of Tal'rin entered the Wyrmholes to the Clinic.

[Medium he/they]

Insanity Clinic: Hallway

"Emma, I'll be right back." He said, and teleported to the hallway where the Wyrmholes appeared. People were flowing in.

He clapped his hands to silence the bustling villagers, then spoke in a booming voice. "Welcome!" He shouted, "All down this hallway are perfectly furnished rooms for you. Should you need anything else, you need only say it out loud, and the room will accomodate you. If needs be, you may send for me specifically, but that should not be necessary. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to speak to Bookwyrm."

The villagers began rummaging around, claiming rooms and building a small community. Calano stepped through the portal, and stepped up to Bookwyrm, clapping him on the shoulder.

"It is good to see you again, my friend," he said, "Now, where are these runes? I believe I've seen a couple myself before, but I'd like to see them with my own eyes, if that's alright."

@Ookla the Perpetual @Ookla the Myopic

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

Ruins of Tal'rin

@Ookla the Crow

Bookwyrm smiled. "It's not a problem." Bookwyrm turned and pointed towards the center of the burnt village. "This way." He gestured for his team to follow. [@InfiniteInsanity @Ookla the Debonair @Ookla the Shadowed]

Bookwyrm led Calano to the door to the central cellar. He opened the trapdoor and climbed down the stairs, summoning a sphere of Nightfire for light. He led Calano to the circle of runes at the back wall.

"That central piece held the stone I found," Bookwyrm said, pulling out the white wedge-shaped rock and showing it to Calano.

Quote

Thaidakar, I don't know if you had anything in mind with that stone, so let us know if we stray to far from what you imagined.

@Thaidakar the Ghostblood

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Perpetual

[Medium he/they]

Ruins of Tal'rin

Calano took the stone and studied it for a minute. He looked up at the runes on the back wall, the two wider circles. The space in between is where the white stone went."What do the runes connecting to the Worldseers mean?" He asked, "Like, what do they say? From what I can tell from other Runes I know, this inscription is a Puzzle Key." He tapped the stone in his hand, "This one is the puzzle itself, short, yet complicated. One person can't do it alone. The outer circles," He said, gesturing to the wall, "Are directions to somewhere, and, if I'm correct, the outermost circle is a preview of the information we'll find. You, me, and someone else should be able to translate it all and find something. Perhaps the Archive."

He stepped up to the wall. "I haven't seen such a thought out, well preserved Puzzle Key in centuries."

Quote

I think this works well, but feel free to correct, Thaidakar.

@Thaidakar the Ghostblood @Ookla the Perpetual

[Shadowed they/them]

“Ooh, a secret puzzle? How exciting!” Matra peered over Bookwyrm and Calano’s shoulders to catch a glance of a strange-looking white stone. “Can I have a look?”

Quote

Matra would probably be able to translate the runes with her abilities, but if you want to drag it out a bit then that’s fine. I also have no idea what @Thaidakar the Ghostblood is planning so my ‘translation’ would be completely uninformed.

 

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

Ruins of Tal'rin: Central Cellar

@Ookla the Crow

"The Worldseer runes talk about an Archive, so I think that part is confirmed. The rest..." Bookwyrm looked closely. "They're coordinate parameters. A special kind of system for calculating interdimensional travel. But I can't read the numbers themselves. The rest seem to be in some kind of cypher, so while I recognize the symbols I can't quite tell what it's saying."

1 minute ago, Ookla the Shadowed said:

“Ooh, a secret puzzle? How exciting!” Matra peered over Bookwyrm and Calano’s shoulders to catch a glance of a strange-looking white stone. “Can I have a look?”

Bookwyrm stepped aside so that Matra could take a closer look. "Do you recognize any of the runes?"

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Perpetual

[Shining Silhouette he/him]

54 minutes ago, Ookla the Perpetual said:

"We'll make sure they know where you are, and that you are safe," Bookwyrm replied. "You have no need to fear."

Slowly but systematically, all of the villagers of Tal'rin entered the Wyrmholes to the Clinic.

Quote

GASP

WOAH

Silhouetted entered the Wyrmhole.

[Shadowed they/them]

15 minutes ago, Ookla the Perpetual said:

Bookwyrm stepped aside so that Matra could take a closer look. "Do you recognize any of the runes?"

Matra peered at the stone. “These seem to be coordinates, although I’ve never seen a coordinate system like it. It reads… let’s see… 24.896-8.783-74.280. and then…” her head snapped up suddenly, “I know this. This is a children’s song, from among my people. It goes like this:

[seven] lost treasures

Scattered over the lands

Maybe, one day, you will hold

That treasure in your hands.

Maybe, one day, you will be

The one to finally find it

Be brave, my love, in the Land Of Dreams

Where you shall seek to bind it.”

She stood for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘But what does it mean? It’s just a nursery rhyme.’

Quote

I have no idea how many Archives there are, so I just put seven because why not. Please feel free to correct me on that.

Side note - please ignore that piece of extremely high-quality poetry and first-class use of the word ‘it’ for several different things. For all of our sanity.

 

[Medium he/they]

Ruins of Tal'rin

"All nursery rhymes have deeper meanings. They have for centuries. So what we have here is a Puzzle, a Location, and a Known. All three core components of a Puzzle Key. The Puzzle should grant us access to where the Location shows, and the Known will be what's inside. This nursery rhyme is the Puzzle, the Location is the middle circle of interdimensional coordinates, and the outermost circle is a preview of the Known."

Calano put a hand to his head, "My gosh.. all we need is someone to decipher the coordinates."

@Ookla the Shadowed @Ookla the Perpetual

[InfiniteInsanity she/her]

1 minute ago, Ookla the Shadowed said:

Matra peered at the stone. “These seem to be coordinates, although I’ve never seen a coordinate system like it. It reads… let’s see… 24.896-8.783-74.280. and then…” her head snapped up suddenly, “I know this. This is a children’s song, from among my people. It goes like this:

[seven] lost treasures

Scattered over the lands

Maybe, one day, you will hold

That treasure in your hands.

Maybe, one day, you will be

The one to finally find it

Be brave, my love, in the Land Of Dreams

Where you shall seek to bind it.”

She stood for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘But what does it mean? It’s just a nursery rhyme.’

 

Ruins of Tal'rin: Central Cellar

Insa gave Matra a strange look. In all honesty she found what Matra had just done really really cool. But at the same time it made her feel slightly useless. She could only do one language even though she had tried to learn others. She was still quietly struggling to keep the electricity from doing whatever it wanted to. She wasn't good at anything that really seemed useful. She felt more in the way than helpful.

Insa looked at the wall and the people who were down in the cellar. Then she turned and very quietly snuck out of the cellar. 

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

The Clinic: Calano's Office

Emma being bored, closes the portal and focuses on making a difficult portal. One that would lead her where she could help. A sense of sadness and worthlessness seems to flow through and Emma steps through without a second thought.

And Emma promptly falls face first into the ground infront of Insanity.

@InfiniteInsanity

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Myopic

[InfiniteInsanity she/her]

Ruins of Tal'rin

Insa rushes to help Emma up. "Are you okay?"

@Ookla the Myopic

[S. Stormy she/her]

Quote

What happened? Don't forget to @ me! If you do, I'll come back! I just get distracted easily!

 

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Quote

So, basically, my plan is that you need the stone and maybe a few others to get to the location. It's this large, underground stone labyrinth of an archive the same sort like the other ones. I can't rp until either later today or on Friday, so I can't do Thaidakar scenes for a while yet. How about this one leads to another stone which leads to another stone and then finally to the one that, when you say the words, teleports you to the archive? Or you could find out how to say the inscription in the native language it's in and then it teleports you to the archive. Thaidakar is currently climbing down the stairs.

 

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

@Ookla the Shadowed

Quote

Seven is exactly the number that I had in mind, actually. It's a nice number, and the Worldseers like it. And considering the Worldseers were key in the creation of the Archives, it makes sense.

@Thaidakar the Ghostblood

Quote

An idea came into my head, and I want to run it by you. What if there's a stone for each Archive? (And a puzzle key for each stone.) This would somewhat correspond to the seven treasures in the poem. It would still be somewhat convoluted and complicated to access each archive from the stone...maybe each stone leads to a chain of stones that ends in the Archive. (We could still find them through other methods, like we did with the Fourth Archive.)

Just wanted to run it by you.

@Ookla the Pencil Taxi

Quote

We're in a cellar in the burnt ruins of the town Tal'rin, deciphering a cryptic message and set of coordinates that will lead us to the Sixth Archive. Insa tried to run away for character development reasons, only to be intercepted by Emma.

@Ookla the Debonair

Quote

What's your character up to right now?

Ruins of Tal'rin: Central Cellar

Bookwyrm took out his magical tome-which was the size of a small notebook at the moment-and wrote down the numbers that Matra had translated.

"I should be able to calculate the exact location by plugging the numbers into the parameters and cross referencing that data with the interdimensional structure of this multiverse. The system was devised by my organization; I should be able to figure it out." He snapped the notebook closed and tucked it away. "It may take a while, though. And also..." he nodded to the stone that Calano was holding. "The parameters require a key. I can't transport us there unless we can figure out how to access the magic in that stone. And I don't know how we'd do that."

Bookwyrm turned to see Insa crouched down next to Emma, who was lying on the ground. He dashed over.

"Emma? Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

@Ookla the Myopic @Ookla the Crow

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Perpetual

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Quote

that does sound like a good idea. As long as it takes at least over a day or two, I wanna have some Thaidakar scenes down there before y'all make it there.

@Ookla the Perpetual

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Perpetual said:

Bookwyrm turned to see Insa crouched down next to Emma, who was lying on the ground. He dashed over.

"Emma? Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

@Ookla the Myopic @Ookla the Crow

Quote

I had actually thought that Insa was in a clearing somewhere, far away and Emma just steps out of a portal there.

 

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

23 minutes ago, Ookla the Myopic said:

 

Quote

Oh.

I misunderstood.

Do we just go with it?

 

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Perpetual said:

Quote

Do we just go with it?

 

Quote

I was just going to kind of ignore what you put, if you don't mind.

@Ookla the Perpetual

Ruins of Tal'rin

Emma grins, "I'm fine. I lived in only a cave for a long time. Though the scenery shifted on the Nethergrim's whims."

Emma grimaces, "as did my clothes and my food and basically any control I had over myself. I was a living doll in the hands of a child. Either I had to do it or she would force me to. A lot worse than a normal inhabitation because it was a bond and so we knew each other's thoughts. Sometimes I couldn't tell myself from her."

@InfiniteInsanity

Edited December 8, 2022 by Ookla the Myopic