Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Trick or Treat: Victi Aurora Silverfur

A whispering voice swirls around the trio, looping lazily around each as it speaks. Again, it's entirely unseen, and likely part of the ambient meta-spell wrapping the area. As it passes, wind blows and swirls leaves back over cleared sections, making that form of searching nigh-impossible

Helpfully, the words suggest this isn't a problem. "All that is needed to light the way is in my churning form. I trust not to the beasts and trees the pieces so precious to your sweet victory. While keen eyes will serve you well, keen minds of all kinds will be needed for what is to come."

In her searching, Cavalia does, however, catch a momentary glimpse of a pair of eyes with two-layered irises glinting from the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing before they fade into the darkness once again.

((If anyone has specific somewhat meta-questions on the structures of any machines that are in play at a given moment, like the details of the parts, feel free to ask! I have a whole document describing the setup and can definitely help make sure everything is consistent and making sense. I need to go to work pretty soon, and have a couple things to attend to after, but I will be back! I'll be able to reply to anything posted really soon, too.))

" True, and I for one, would like to solve this. Since you know what your doing, I shall leave the reassembly of this to you, Ember" Another look was given to the machine, making note of what was missing.

Her werewolf form proved beneficial as the strange scent of the machine filled her nose. Its metallic tang reminded her of blood. Though the fog weakened it, a matching sent was detected on the air. She turned and followed it with haste but stopped when the voice spoke again.

" Trust not to the beasts and trees? Then they are not laying around" Her nose was turned to the air once more.

Cavalia pulled up short, narrowing her eyes at the pair of glowing ones she saw in the undergrowth. After they disappeared, it took her a few minutes to blink herself back to reality.

"Here, give me that tube -- I'll try it on the other machine." Collecting the piece from the first machine, she trots over to the second, looking for a likely hole to screw it into.

((I see, so are the gears able to be moved around? Like are the ones outside the machine separate parts? Just need some clarification.)) As this goes on, Ember does his best to locate the hole and get a look at the rest of the mechanism. Assuming these gears are loose or able to be moved in some way, Ember attempts to move one of the gears towards the slot that it appears to be missing from. "I think it means these two machines are all we need" he responded simply, a little eager to see the possibly broken mechanism to figure out what needs to be done to make it function.

Interestingly, there isn't anywhere to screw it in. Putting near other parts of the machine show that the metal of the tube, and especially of the threading along the outside, is identical to the brassy coating of the numerous gears that make up the majority of the assembly.

The mounting points for the missing parts (The shaped slot for the angled gear, the two rectangular worm-gear mounting prongs, the inside of the empty lens ring, and the short axle in line with the nubbed gear) are a silvery steel, more like the inside of the tube. Unlike the inside of the tube however, dull save the insides of the long notches, the mounting points are better polished and smoothed.

It's definitely meant to be part of the machine, but maybe not how it was in that generator...

Currently, no gears already present in the lens array are able to be moved. Parts are definitely missing rather than just elsewhere in the machine. In fact, someone has put a fair amount of effort to prevent the assembly from being disassembled, both with the fixtures and with the light, zappy tellings-off. The parts are definitely elsewhere, but it is almost certain that the threaded tube is one of them.

Cavalia paws the ground in mild frustration. "Could the tube... Connect the two machines?"

"Perhaps, I'm thinking we can find some of the mechanisms. Maybe we should try and figure out what it could be stuck to. Hell, maybe even try to activate the mechanism just to see how it works without the parts." The lupe suggested, wagging his tail back and fourth between his legs. He had little need to be on guard, though the gears in his head still had to turn.

" The machine was activated earlier..." She said as she paced about. " it fell apart" Closer attention was given to the tube. Colors and keys, what all were they missing? " Maybe...it does connect the two but...could parts be hid inside?"

With the voice silent once more, she returned to tracking the metallic scent. Something had to give.

There's a scent of metal in most places around the clearing, as well as a scent of flesh from elsewhere. Following much of a trail of metal-scent leads back to the big tree, which remains warded. But.... there is something odd about the lens array.

Whether Kuroi recognizes the scent of Neodymium and other highly magnetic rare-earth elements, it likely begs closer inspection of the machine. Upon taking such a close look, it may become noticeable that the threaded tube might be able to mesh with some of the gears in there...

Circles were run from one mettalic scent to the other. Though she was not familiar with the scents of this world, her curiosity drew her towards the rare materials until the scent of flesh reached her nose.

It didn't seem to match that of the others, their host perhaps? Which to follow? Keen minds stuck from the mysterious voice and she decided to follow the scent of flesh after making note where the minerals came from.

While they began to sniff around, Ember would try to see how the tube could attach to some of the gears, generally trying to figure out where it could slide into the machine. Alas this was no laser, but more simple than those technological devices even if he didn't quite use one of these machines before. Generally, his idea is to try and figure out where it goes. "Okay, the tube absolutely goes into this thing, somewhere."

The scent of flesh leads to a setup a dozen meters away from the lens array composed of the following:

A cloth screen, stretched across a wooden frame. It directly faces the lens array. Written along the top is: "Shadows dance and tell tales of those fallen to their hunger. Shape them, witness their tale, and the wisdom will guide you to victory."

A small, rotating metal platform or turntable (not the musical kind) controlled by a crank. There's an oddly shaped stick on it from some kind of conifer. There's a small bit of something in a roughly triangular shape at one end, and a clump of needles at the other. Four smaller sticks come out of it: Two coming off just above where the needle are, extending in roughly the same direction, but angled a bit away from them in the same direction, and two closer to the clump. One of those extends more sharply in the direction the needle-side ones extend to, and the other points toward the needles. This assembly is between the screen and the lens array

A severed forearm is bound by a metal cuff to one wheel of a pulley-loop, the other end of which connects to a handle. It extends partway across the screen, also between it and the lens array. It is further from the screen than the stick. All but the middle finger are hooked into an uneven claw shape, with the tips all being positioned to make a flat surface, as if it were pressed against a table or were supporting something. The middle finger is tightly curled so that the tip run flat against the first segment. The position looks uncomfortable. There is no sign of blood or decay, nor of obviously smelly preservation agents. A tag tied to the upper part of the forearm, near the elbow, states that the limb is ethically sourced.

A fishing-pole extending at an angle that makes it not pass between the lens array and the screen.. The line hangs down just to the right of the middle of the screen, right next to the platform with the stick, and goes into a murky bucket.

An unseen magical barrier which blocks access to the hand, and line, but does not block out access to the crank, turntable and stick, pulley-handle, or fishing rod.

This appears to be a shadow-puppet play, though a very strange one.


Ember's experimentation with the gears eventually yields success! The tube slides over the pair of prongs on the pulley-wheel, and meshes with two gears in the machine, the magnetism of the prongs holding it in place more solidly. Even with some parts still missing, whatever chain the tube is involved with doesn't look like it ever connects to those gaps. It may be time to give the lens-array a test....

((Correction for anyone with fast fingers, the barrier does not block access to the stick and turntable.))

A severed arm was far from what she expected but the contraption was most fascinating. After reading the sign, she looked over all the pieces and felt the magic whenever she got near the barrier. " Witness their tale..." She muttered while carefully turning the crank.

The crank rotates the turntable, though quite slowly due to the gear ratio. It just seems to adjust the position of the stick, though that could also be done by hand....

Cavalia blinks at all the developments with the contraption. "I'm going to go find my artificer assistant," she announces. "Maybe he'll be some help... or learn something from all this!" And with that she gallops off.

((Sorry gang! This is fascinating, but I have to bow out so I don't slow you all down; I have a really heavy election volunteer schedule from Nov 1 to Nov 5th and I'm gonna be dead weight in the RP department.))

Ember can't help but make a little smirk at the progress they had just made. "Alright, time to test the reflector lense." he responded, having referred to them as that during his time in that little empire. "We're close to success, I can certainly feel that essence of victory drawing near."