Open Exploration: The Old Capital.

[thequestgiver]

Where: The Old Capital
When: RD6, all day
What: The Hero of the Mountains has come and gone from the Old Capital, just passing our heroes on the way. Time to explore the city in her aftermath?



On the surface, the Old Capital looks much like Schwanheim, only without the two rivers flanking the castle. It's much smaller, the houses father apart and older looking that the more crowded capital, and far more ordered. It has the feel of a city that was planned out. The castle stands in the center, simple, yet impressive, navy blue banners flapping from the the towers that grace each corner, acting as gateway to the 4 wide streets that slice through the circular town like the spokes of a wheel, dividing it into sections. One quarter is the market and craftsman district, the road leading to the castle lined with stalls and merchants with goods on blankets, side streets winding down towards the less sightly businesses. Flanking it on both ends are two housing districts, the smaller homes closer to the market, getting larger as they head for the 4th district, full of large mansions and an impressive church.

There's a large clock tower in the market district that matches the one back in Schwanheim, and a bulletin board much the same.

The clock is stopped, the board blank, and there is an eerie feeling as if something is just... missing. A lack of bird song. A lack of breeze. An odd feeling of stillness, almost as if one were walking through a ghost town even though there are still people about their daily chores as if nothing's wrong.

Comments

Let us know how this works?

[brosif]

"A direct approach is out of the question, then."

A frown. Taking a dagger from her side, she tosses it towards the barrier with a speed that speaks to centuries of training.

[thequestgiver]

As it reaches the barrier, the dagger begins to slow, hitting the same force as the heroes have felt. But oddly, it doesn't arc down as it looses speed, but continues on the same path until it finally stills, mid air, barely a foot from the castle walls.

[shorterinperson]

Alanna made a face. That was some powerful magic at work, and she had no experience with the sort of spell-work that might tear it down. But the dagger was still there, just hanging in the air, and she couldn't stand around and do nothing.

She reached out a hand to direct her power and sent purple fire into the dagger. A rather extravagant use of her energy, but it wasn't as though she was using it every day.

[thequestgiver]

The energy, too, slowed to a crawl, though not a the same rate, the fire hitting the dagger before it had stopped. Now covered in the flame, the dagger resumed a very very slow motion, crawling a few inches more before again stilling, the flames around it also seemingly frozen in place, showing no motion.

[knowsmorethanyou]

"All right," Aralu said after watching the knife stop again. "Despite physics not working right, we still seem to have inertia. Things with more energy go farther."

She paused, frowning. "It's less like a barrier, and more like time is slowing down near the castle," she said finally.

[sorcerous]

"Perhaps if we all tried together," suggests Loki.

He has been watching, from a distance. His own attempts had failed, and he'd turned away, in frustration and anger. But if the barrier was attacked from several fronts.

"Some way," he murmurs, thoughtfully, stepping among then, "to combine our efforts."

[shorterinperson]

Alanna reached for her dagger impulsively as she spun to face the newcomer.

"Teamwork?" It could certainly work, but she didn't trust Loki in the least.

"And how would you benefit from helping us?"

[knowsmorethanyou]

"The same way any of us would benefit from getting in there, I suppose," Aralu said dryly.

"It would seem that we need to get something's inertia high enough that it can't be stopped. Mass or speed. Or both."

Aralu looked up at Loki and the others and shrugged. "An object in motion stays in motion, and the greater the mass and energy the harder it is to change the motion. Basic Newtonian physics."

She nodded at Alanna. "Although redhead 2's magic worked too. Higher energy level between solid and... I've never been completely sure what state of matter magic is."

[sorcerous]

An airy shrug. Ice crystallizes over his fingers, twisting into a dagger of his own. It will disappear when she stops reaching for hers, and in the meantime, his thumb caresses the ice.

"Mysteries are made to be revealed," he says, simply.

His eyes flick to Aralu. "A combination of magic and motion, perhaps?"

[knowsmorethanyou]

"It's what seems to have done the best so far," Aralu answered with a shrug.

[brosif]

"Perhaps our knives are better aimed at the wall?"

Sif has a vested interest in Loki and Alanna not stabbing one another. She looks around the area, wishing for not the first time that she were at anything resembling full strength.

She spies a long, thin banner, hanging near the town square. And two light posts, not exceedingly far from one another or the castle. She tilts her head towards both, and goes off the retrieve the banner. The goal is to make a rudimentary slingshot. Having one sent from the capital would take too long.

“I can help with motion. But we need a projectile, and all the magic you lot can manage.”

A pause.

“Possibly. I have no idea how that all works.”

[shorterinperson]

Loki's knife didn't make Alanna any more comfortable, and the knight opted to keep one hand on her own weapon. Just in case.

"If any of you have any more specific ideas, now might be a good time to bring them up."

[knowsmorethanyou]

"Getting something with a lot of mass moving as fast as it can sounds like the best way to get something to the walls. Of course, we still don't know if that will actually do anything, or if we'll just have something sticking to the walls."

Aralu casually made sure she was between Alanna and Loki. The last thing they needed was to start fighting among themselves.

[Besides, Faolan would be very upset if Alanna and Loki started fighting! But she would never admit that as part of her reasoning.]

[brosif]

She comes back up to the group, banner in hand.

“It doesn’t have enough give for what I was thinking. But it will hold a rounded projectile well enough, and I can spin it around before throwing for further leverage. Like rocks through a window.”

She’d had experience enough that that, growing up.

[sorcerous]

"And magic will propel it quicker still," says Loki. The knife in his hand crackles to frost, leaving his hand tinged a slight blue. "Do any wizards or mages number among you?"

[shorterinperson]

Her hand lingers by her knife, but she lets go of the handle.

"I have a gift for healing." But she's not sure she wants to trust him with her power.

[knowsmorethanyou]

"And my specialty is knowing things, which isn't too helpful when it comes to actually doing them."

That was other people's jobs.

[brosif]

No, it wasn't helpful. But Sif let that go unsaid. Instead, she turned her attention to her friend.

"Alanna. Please."

If she didn't trust Loki, perhaps she could trust Sif.

Speaking of Loki: "Can you manufacture a ball of ice? About the size of one of the crystals Eir decorates the healing rooms with?”

[shorterinperson]

She narrowed her eyes at Loki, but finally let her hand drop.

[sorcerous]

Loki lets out a little 'mm' sound, of dissatisfaction. "Now that we've all disregarded our paranoia," he says, "yes. I can."

He glances between them, then sweeps his cape back and kneels. He holds out his hands, and begins to draw water from the air, the ground, from everywhere. It slowly crystallizes, wrapping around itself -- a growing globe.

[brosif]

She holds the banner out, to take when the ball is fully formed.

“The more power put into it, the better.”

She speaks to both mages present.

[shorterinperson]

Alanna channeled her power into Loki, perhaps a little more forcefully than was really necessary, for him to use however he needed. She still wasn't happy about any of this.

[knowsmorethanyou]

Aralu watched, nodding satisfaction at the preparations. "Straight at the wall. I think. And then we hope they explode."

[sorcerous]

A twitch; he absorbed the power, but the force of it actually hurt a bit. Another reason for Loki to detest this pathetic mortal form he's been stuck in, since he got here.

Then the ball is loaded into the banner, and Loki holds up a hand, ready to propel it as fast as possible. He's hoping this barrier is something like a bubble, with surface tension that holds obstacles fast until it is punctured.

[thequestgiver]

As with the knife and magic before, the ball begins to slow as it hits the barrier, but with all the magic wrapped around it, it continues on much farther, much faster, though no where near as fast as it had been when thrown.

It's been reduced to a crawl when it finally hits the castle wall, ice splinters shattering out in poetically slow motion as the magic wrapped around it begins to spider up the walls like lightening, moving ever so slowly, but surely causing cracks in the stone and mortar even as the splinters of ice are still falling.

With every crack, the energy seems to move just a fraction faster, the wall where the ball had hit starting to crumble in slow, but increasingly faster motion. A stone starts to tumble out, it's mortar crumbled to dust. Then another. Then another until the entire section begins to fold in on itself, a cloud of dust starting to billow out, meeting the knife as it finishes it's journey, only to be knocked from the air by yet another falling stone.

Faster and faster now, almost too fast, the ground shaking as the outer wall continues to fall until it's all just a pile of crumbled rock and dust.

Behind the gathered heroes, there is the deep bong of the clock tower bells as they begin to chime the hour.