Horizon Walkers (Game Thread) Dead

[Josh123914]

"Being called upon for aid is not proof of one's leadership,"
Nettil smiled at that, acknowledging Iura's understanding of the situation,

"If there is no leader, I would like to suggest someone with experience and presence. It does not matter who, as long as they know how to tackle a group."
That, however, wracked Nettil's head. The idea of formally designating a leader in a group of near-complete strangers is only going to foster discontent. However, she decided it best to hold off an argument on that.

Looking over to Jensa and Kyras, who seemed to recover from their ordeal. Their burns began to subside, and fresh skin clean of any scars or blemishes were now in place.
Nettil looked back to Iura's hand, which no began to turn a faint reddish colour, as did the portions of Nettil's hands that touched the water moments before.
"Iura? Your hand?" she beckoned. Nettil crouched on the ground and started rubbing her own hands with dirt, then got back up and moved past Iura. "It'll itch for a while, but we should be fine afterwards" she said nervously.

"The water here is strange and foreign, try to avoid, umm, falling into it?" She warned to the rest of the group.

After this, Nettil plopped herself down next to Myrreh and the water.
"What are you thinking?"

The water had a faint blue hue to it in addition to the glow. No bubbling was occurring, however there seemed to be a large stick of some sort at the bottom of the pool.

Meanwhile, up in the sentry, a small ladder to the roof showed a view that was blocked by the dense foliage of the jungle, however some sort of light was flashing to the distant east to them. And the foliage seemed to thin in a narrow area from the settlement towards the light.

As well as this, papers in a contemporary text were strewn across a table. Some of them were spared an inky demise.

Over and away at the large feast table lay dozens of small jars, each filled with dead or decaying fruits, spices or... animals. Insects, mostly. Even the occasional rat.

 

[DarkRawen]

"I don't know you, and i don't know what you can do. Its just some drops from the spiders, should be fine."

Iura nodded, though he had to admit that the hostility was frustrating. He, who could not lie, being distrusted. Of course, none of the others knew about that, and he had several times been advised to keep that part of his nature hidden. He was not entirely sure whether he should follow that advice or if willingly holding back information that could be important was sinful.

I suppose it depends on the situation.

And in this case, it was about the aid of someone else.

"I understand your hesitation, but know this; I cannot lie, it is simply impossible for me to do so. When I say that it will not harm you, that is nothing but the truth."

With that, he let the glow fade, the stranger would likely not trust him either way.

"Seems your team mates need some help, their skin is going crazy."

"What?" he asked, and looked over at the others, distraught. What had happened? Neither of those had fought. What had they done to earn such injuries?

"Iura? Your hand?"

He had not noticed the pain before Nettil pointed it out, it was indeed red.

What did I do... the water, was it not?

So that was the effect of the glow. A shame, he had hoped it would resemble those springs at home, that made one refreshed and clean. The condition of his hand got worse rather quickly. Skin was about to peel off, and he started healing his hand, hoping for that to be it. If so, he would offer his help to the others, but he did not know what kind of water it truly was.

I better make sure it will not be more of a harm to heal it with magic than to leave it alone.

He noted Nettil's warning about not touching the water, though it brought a worrisome thought to mind, not on his behalf, but for the others.

"If the water here is unsafe to drink, where will we get water from? It would be unwise to go without." He had some water from home, but it was far from enough to fulfil the needs of the others alongside his own.

 

[hiei82]

Seeing as Nettil was busy, Ai decided to continue without her. First, she pulled on a glove from her supplies. Based on the reaction the others were having to the "water", it wouldn't be wise to touch it directly. She'd likely be sacrificing the glove, but it was to a worthy cause.

After assembling her lab, she turned her attention to the lake. Before she took the sample however, she noticed something odd. There was a stick at the bottom of the lake. Normally this wouldn't be odd at all; things fell into lakes all the time. The issue was that the lake seemed to react negatively with living material. If that was the case, why was the stick apparently unharmed?

Gathering a few pieces of wood from the nearby jungle, she tosses some wood - both living and dead - into the lake, near the shore. The results were surprising. While the still living wood didn't seem to react, the dead wood did. This implied that either the stick in the water was either recently submerged and therefore still "living" for the time being, or there was a unique property to it. Since the living wood seemed resistant to the effects of the lake, she went back to the jungle, gathered a few pairs of long greenwood and used them to pull the submerged stick as close to the shore as possible. Unfortunately, to get the stick she'd need to put her hand in the lake.

Which meant she needed to know what the water was first; bringing her back to the original line of questioning. Using one of the glass flasks she had, she carefully dipped it into the lake using her covered hand; filling it up with the strange liquid. As soon as it was sufficiently full, she removed the flask and quickly carried it over to the portable lab. She poured the flask into a new container carefully then placed the original, contaminated flask off to the side. Finally, she removed the glove by pulling it down her arm from the inside with a pair of fingers, turning it inside-out in the process. She tossed the glove aside as a casualty of alchemy, fully expecting the contaminated water to burn through the leather at some point.

With the clean flask, she slowly split up the water to perform several different tests. The first indicated the substance was actually alkaline rather than acidic. This offered some possible solutions to the stick problem, but little else. Next she attempted to distil the substance. The result was more expected. The substance WAS water, it just had a contaminant of some kind; a glowing blue particulate. She distilled more of the water until she had both some clean water and a large supply of the basic, blue substance. With this collected, she took a small amount of sand and used it to cover the blue grains. This filled the flask nearly to the top. Finally, she applied a cork and slipped the substance into her pack. All of this she noted in a journal for "future study", including notes on the approximate location of the lake relative to the original horizon gate they'd used to enter.

Returning her attention to the stick, Ai pulled out the vials of acid she'd taken from the spider. The acid would enable her to get the stick. Using one of the vials, she coated her now-consumed glove's partner in the acid. The glove sizzled in response, but that was fine. it was designed to survive acid for at least a time. The real point was to lower the pH of the glove's outer layer to act as an ablative protection against the lake. As soon as this was done, she reached into the lake and grabbed the stick, pulling it free as quickly as she could. Once it was free, she lay it on the shore and removed her glove the same way as the previous glove before returning her attention to the stick.

Spoiler: OOC

The last paragraph assumes that the edge of the lake is shallow enough that an elbow length leather glove is tall enough to reach the bottom without water spilling into the glove. If this is not the case, let me know and I will remove the paragraph

 

[Josh123914]

Nettil looked at the procedure Ai was going through, and concluded that she almost certainly would not be much help.

She decided to head up to the sentry to see what Jensa had been doing. Her skin was beginning to flake off, but the itchiness was suppressed due to some fabric she had bandaged herself with. Arriving up in the room, she saw Jensa dispensing a hoard of flies out the window and towards a seating area. Nettil checked over Jensa's shoulder and saw a glow in the distance, and a spot where the jungle appeared to be less dense.

"Oh, good. There's a Horizon not far from here." She concluded. "That or a lake."

Moving away from whatever Jensa was concentrating on, and instead looked over to some papers on a nearby table. She scooped up a handful and brought them down to the others. They were mainly from someone with terrible handwriting, but the message from them were clear.
Nettil cleared her throat and began "According to these" she said, holding the half-degraded parchment in the air. "This area had no people in it until a few months ago. They were experimenting on the water, trying to find out if the healing properties could be distilled."

"But it wasn't working. Non-native species couldn't survive in the water. Ai can probably explain why at this point. Hmm" Nettil squinted her eyes at the parchment for a moment. She then pulled out a random seed from her pocket and tossed it into the pond. It fizzed for a moment and then a loud crackle and bang could be heard.

"Sorry everyone. Needed to know how it would react. The fool writing the log wrote the non-native plant seeds either "was violently exploited", or "was violently exploded".
That still left the question of the dead driftwood, but Nettil was confident Ai already had an explanation for that and then continued. "They then started experimenting on living beings. Feeding insects the bark and leaves of local trees here and then tossing them into the water... One thing led to another, and suddenly there are now giant spiders. Lovely."
Nettil pursed her lips at that. "Its been a few months now. If those are the only things thriving on this world then I am leaving"

 

[booksv2]

Watching as the group either does something with the water, many of the things making Hissa think he should keep away from it and defiantly not take a drink. Walking over and watching someone play with the water and keep moving it from container to container he frowns as each time the person he is watching does switch containers for the water something seems to be different.

Shaking his head and walking around that female with a wide berth he walks over to the lake and squats next to it. Pulling one if his arrows out of his quiver Hissa slowly dips the tip in the water and watches as it starts to bubble and disolve like he had dropped a piece of meat in spider acid. Frowning and dropping the arrow into the water he stands and takes a few steps back careful to keep all the water away from himself. Scratching his jaw and looking around Hissa takes a few more steps back away from the lake. Just as a small explosion happens behind him making Hissa spin quickly ready to run he glares at the person who was reading something and commenting on seeds or... who even knew.

Sighing to himself Hissa things.
I was hoping they would have someone as a leader i could talk to. Well... They seem to each be doing their own thing, so i am going to see if i can find some place to rest.
Shaking his head again and turning away from the group at the lake Hissa walks over to one of the buildings on stilts. Grabbing the ladder sticking out from under it and giving it a shake he makes a face and jumps on one of the legs, climbing it easily he leaves scratches and claw marks in the wood. Getting to the top and in one of the windows Hissa looks around and takes in the sparse room. A wood bed with a few cabinets and a table several things seem to have been taken long ago.

Walking over to the bed Hissa gives the slats a push and grunts, cursing under his breath, as two of them break because of rot. Sighing and sitting on the floor Hissa curls up on his side and closes his eyes, listening for anyone below to start making a racket or calling for him.

 

[DarkRawen]

Iuratus sat down as Nettil read the letters aloud. It was regrettable for such a thing to have happened to those living here. Then again, perhaps it had been their own nature that had caused it, trying to disturb a beautiful glimmering water and make it into something they could use for their own benefit. Sure, he was curious about it, as were several of the others, but experimenting with it had been going too far.

Hubris and greed among mortals, that is not something new.

Even so, he did not think they had deserved to die out like that. The spiders were one thing, odd spiders that did not withdraw out of fear when obviously overpowered and that spat poison. He looked at his hand, his skin always had a clean quality to it, but he could see that there was no mark. Was that his own abilities? Or the water?

Regardless, it seems it would do us little good to try to change its properties.

"Oh, good. There's a Horizon not far from here."

"I see," Iura said, and got up. "There is little reason to stay, then. Unless the rest of you need a moment to rest, of course," he added, glancing at the odd lizard-like being that had gone to sleep in a tree.

"Even then, we should make haste. The spiders could return, if not something more dangerous."