[F29] <<Yzaslanik>>

[Cardinal 0]

Floor 29
<<Yzaslanik>>
Party Limit: 4 | 20+ Posts
Repeatable

Rewards:

• 1500 Experience Points
• 1500 Col Each 
• Unlocks <<The Yellow Sign>> Quest

Requirements:

• Obtain a set of [Graveyard Cleaning Supplies].
• Explore the cemetery.
• Defeat the Pallid Mask.

Summary:

Occasionally, a harsh storm blows through the Kineallen Parish, leaving the grounds to degenerate from dust and debris. When this happens, a peculiar outlier before the cemetery happens to be a set of gravestone cleaning supplies, manifested when it was once not there. Somehow, the winds seem to cease once it rests in one’s inventory. Perhaps there is more to the graveyard than first meets the eye.

Outline:

PART I | THE FLOCK

Players must gather at the edge of the Kineallen Parish. There, the storm that occurs will make it impossible to move forward. Players must roleplay the retrieval of the gravestone cleaning supplies nearby, which will cause the storm to weaken, but not subside. This will allow them to explore the cemetery grounds.

The derelict graveyard, while not tended to as far as players are aware, have remained its disposition, with some exceptions from the wear of weathering harsh conditions. However, the newfound pages amongst the site are an oddity, even for days calmer than this one.

Upon inspection, the ink on these pages have been smudged by a wetness; these words have been pitifully lost to time.

Players will need to investigate and explore the cemetery. While doing so, players will roll for modified LD. Each roll will result in its player taking an unmitigated 100 DMG environmental damage, regardless of the result. If players do not have <<Survival>> equipped, out-of-combat healing is nullified during this section of the quest.

When the collective LD has met a threshold of 30, players may proceed to the next step.

PART II | CULL OF THE LAMB

Most of the steles in the yard are found crumbling, and the ones still intact are mostly devoid of names. A few larger markers may have its script illegible or vandalized. Finally, the players will come across one still in pristine condition, with its dirt recently unearthed. Its inscription is dedicated to the players.

From the ground where its coffin would lie rises an ominous figure: The Pallid Mask. Here, as the Parish’s groundskeeper, he is ready to return your souls to the grave.

Players will have to defeat the Pallid Mask. 

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ENEMIES:

<<Pallid Mask>>
Wields a scythe shaped from bone, sharp enough to catch a glint under the moonlight.
The mask? It does not have one.

HP: 1500/1500 | DMG: 150 | MIT: 150 | EVA: 2 | LIGHT MOMENTUM: 1 | HEAVY MOMENTUM: 50

LONG LIVE | All sources of healing done by Players are increased by 25%.
NO EYES | The Pallid Mask performs critical hits on an MD7+.
BIORESONANCE | If the Pallid Mask lands a successful attack, allies of the target will receive half of the Final damage as unmitigated damage.
TEARS UNSHED | Players are to tally the amount of health restored by allies from any source during the fight. When the Pallid Mask dies, this value is dealt to all Players as mitigated damage. Health restored past a Player’s Max HP should not be tallied.

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Epilogue:

Spoiler

In its final moments, it rears up its weapon, past the point of its health bar draining, and executes a final cleave. Precision is its key – while the bluster around the players begin to die down, so too do the pages, now bright yellow, circle around the graveyard and settle in an elaborate design. The Pallid Mask is nowhere to be seen… and yet, in its absence, the hue of gold burns bright, searing, in the night.

 

[Cardinal 0]

Any Floor
<<The Yellow Sign>>
Party Limit 4 | 20+ Posts
Prerequisite: Must have completed <<Yzaslanik>>
Repeatable

Rewards:

• 5000 Experience Points
• 5000 Col Each 
• If the Pallid Mask is attacked:
  • Unlock Extra Skill: <<Orchestrion>>
    At the start of combat, roll CD once. Note that value down. After a number of rounds have passed corresponding with the CD value, ST-B is automatically unlocked.
• If the Pallid Mask is not attacked:
  • Face of a Stranger | TIERLESS TRINKET | TAUNT, SNEAKY III (???)
    A featureless white mask that fits your face perfectly.

Requirements:

• Dream of the Kineallen Parish.
• Travel to Carcosa over 2 posts across all party members.
• Search for a way out of the dream on an LD15+.
• Defeat the <<King in Yellow>>.
• Perform a curtain call, and wake from the dream.

Summary:

It is in dreams that I wake from my slumber and step into the realm of the living. I take out a book that my friend has gifted to me before, when the sirens stirred and drank of the lake they were borne from. Before she blacked out, she said something about the world collapsing in on itself before the fourteenth fall of the apocalypse descends upon us. The book is yellow. The water by her night stand warns of our caution. But the ambience is merry, and the party seasoned. She garnishes the party with the call of the unknown. 

In the corner, I kick the cup of liquid aside. We cry as we sing, waltzing along the line between reality and fragmentation. Outside, the sky sheds of velvet, in the way that trees with their boughs hold up their drinks, a celebration of their greatness. The lock on the book is golden. Beyond my emptiness, there is an inflection upon the great and terrible yawning of dawn. Where we stand, unshaking, the sidewalk giddied out of its mind, the reaper bursts aflame and all, at once, the city is finally, finally somber.

The book remains untouched. She takes out a quill and inkwell. I open myself.

Outline:

PART      | CARCOSA

The players will begin this quest in their dreams. If multiple players are undergoing this quest as a party, they will begin it independently from each other. 

This dream places the player into the graveyard of Kineallen Parish. No matter where they look, upon the horizon, the gold city of Carcosa will be their destination. The players must take 2 posts to travel towards it as their dreamscape morphs and blends together with the memories of their past, distorted – if not of nightmares, then of an unreality nonsensical.

PART      | CANOVACCIO

Each dreaming player will start to meet up with each other in the city of Carcosa. How the city of Carcosa appears is up to the players’ interpretation; a shared perception or otherwise individual illusion. For player guidance, an official description is provided below:

Carcosa is set to a backdrop of a misty, white sky, dotted with blackened stars. Its buildings take inspiration from Michiel Schrijver paintings; surrealist and brutalistic, with their facades devoid of detail, save gaps as windows. Each of these constructions are crafted out of smooth stone, solid as concrete, painted gold. 

A lake exists somewhere in the city, its surface still, and underbelly dark, of blackened cracked marble accented with white streaks that swirl. Potted Tundra plants litter the city in no discernable pattern, and red tiles that lead players across the Carcosa labyrinth stand out from the stone pavement. At the heart of it all, the largest hall stands as one of the only few circular structures in the land: a theater that is forecasted to house the greatest show of all.

As a party, the players must look for signs of a way out of their dreams with a modified LD15+. Each player may roll once per post. On failed checks, the next player will roll with an additional +2 LD, which stacks up to +14 LD. On a success, the <<King in Yellow>> will appear.

The players must defeat the <<King in Yellow>> to progress.

PART      | CODA

When the <<King in Yellow>> is defeated, players will continue to remain in their dreams for one additional round, which occurs outside of combat. During this, the Pallid Mask will appear, sweeping away the remnants of battle left on stage. Players may choose to attack them as a post action to end the thread early. The quest completes as the players wake from their slumber.

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Enemies:

<<King in Yellow>>
the auteur: ever-present, everlasting, ever-watching.
with wings of red he fulfills the dream of blood.
in yours, he fulfills your nightmares, too.

HP: 895 * (Player Count) | DMG: 355 | MIT: 813 | ACC: 7 | EVA: 7

DREAMSCAPE | Consumable items, besides Teleport Crystals, are not allowed during combat. Using a Teleport Crystals will wake the player up, failing their quest, but allowing them to retry again. Falling to 0 HP, however, will still result in character death. If the player has <<Survival>> equipped, its potency is increased to +50%.
CENTER STAGE | The <<King in Yellow>> spawns with 3 <<Mnemotyi>>. The <<King in Yellow>> cannot be killed, only brought down to 1 HP, which ends combat. All of the <<King in Yellow>>’s attacks will be AoE, but will occur only every other round.
CURTAIN CALL | If the <<King in Yellow>> is not brought down to 1 HP by his 10th turn, combat forcibly ends. The <<King in Yellow>> then deals his (Current HP - 1) to all Players as unmitigated damage. The quest completes successfully if all players are alive upon [CURTAIN CALL]’s resolution.

 

<<Mnemotyi>>
a simulacrum crafted out of glass: a memory, of joy, despair, or both.
malleable and disrigid, a formless figment of the imagination, puppeted by the one, the only–

HP: 250 * (Player Count) | THORNS: 80 | MIT: 50 | EVA: 3

THREE ACT STRUCTURE | Mnemotyi cannot be looted. All other abilities of the Mnemotyi are disabled. Upon each Mnemotyi’s death, they apply [DEATH OF THE AUTHOR] to the <<King in Yellow>>. [DEATH OF THE AUTHOR] will remove 221 MIT, 2 ACC, 2 EVA from its victim. The party may also choose one of the Mnemotyi’s abilities that the <<King in Yellow>> will gain, bringing it into play. Once an ability has been added to the <<King in Yellow>>, it cannot be chosen again. 

THE AUDIENCE | Every round, the players' party gains a stack of [ANTICIPATION]. Each stack of [ANTICIPATION] grants +100 Overhealth, +2 DMG, +2 EN Regeneration, +10 Battle Healing, +1 ACC per player, up to a maximum of 5 stacks.
THE RUN CREW | On posts at the start and end of a thread page (eg. Posts number #20, #21, #40), the attacking player character gains +200 unmitigatable Final Damage to their strike.
THE ORCHESTRATION | When this ability activates, make a separate roll. Note the CD value rolled. Track the number of turns that pass from the ability’s activation, including the <<King in Yellow>>’s. After a number of turns have passed dictated by the rolled CD value, the turn owner may gain one of the following buffs to apply for that turn itself:

• ST-B is automatically unlocked for the turn owner, or
• +5 ACC to the turn owner, or
• +300 MIT to the turn owner, or
• +30% HP Recovery to the turn owner, or
• +50 EN to the turn owner.

If the <<King in Yellow>> benefits from [THE ORCHESTRATION], he attacks immediately. Damage on his attack on that turn is unmitigatable. He also restores health equal to 10% of the damage dealt. He returns to attacking every other round starting from his next turn.

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Epilogue:

Spoiler

The players wake up from their nightmare. Those who feel that something is off may find a white mask upon their face, evaporating into pixels a moment after its removal.