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BURNHEEL Turn

Scene details

Setting: Having successfully solved the Carneliean Mysteries, our heroes venture at Ruidosa's invitation to the Rosian residence of the La Crima family to seek a fabled item that might ward them should they face the flames of Purgation again: the legendary BURNHEELS.

Log

while everyone else was off examining the items gained from the attack. Ruidosa was searching for her mother's BURNHEELS, which would be useful here. You can't just MAKE a burnheel. They're rare materials! It's why they're heirlooms and finding free ones are rare. She believes she's found them.

So Ruidosa has called her friends to the residence. Her mother and sister are still out. Ruidosa looks pleased as they arrive at the ornate house. It's not a manor. But it's large and.... dusty. No one lives here when the vampire family isn't here.

>> BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIBBK1OC0Z0

The main vestibule is just a large common living room. It looks decorated with a large Chandelier, expensive couch and tables, and art on the wall that probably costs more than the house itself. Inset center over a fireplace is a large picture of a man with red hair and unnerving gaze, in traditional noble garb with a red cape.

"Ah.. you're here excellent! I know where the burnheels might be!" she says. She looks around. "They're probably here. In mom's closet somewhere." she says, dramatically. "Upstairs on the third floor!" she says this like she already has them. She does not have them.

Why didn't she get them!?

"Uhm. There's a problem though...." she says.



  It took a while for Reize to make his trip to the residence. After all, Reize had to be hosed down and bandaged up after the entire Vanguards tackled him down while he was on fire. That was not a fun time.

  As Reize arrives at the vestibule, he looks around the common room and he looks at Ruidosa. "Oh?" He then gives a bright smile, "So, where is it?" He doesn't see her with it in hand!

  When Ruidosa mentions about a problem, Reize frowns, "...Does the stairs have zombies in it?"

 


 Ivo had attempted to investigate this fabled item a little by himself. In the wake of their successful experiments in the Rosian Vanguards HQ, and after he had managed to pull their security off of the flaming Reize -- it's fine, everything's fine -- he had wandered the market, where the Star Chasers have started to gain something of a good reputation for their prior heroics against the rogue fire elementals. Unfortunately, every time he asked about these rumored heels, he was directed to a store selling ointments.
 Fortunately, given their recent experiences with both the Hearthkeepers and Daiby's salamander, these turned out to be useful too, since he'd been running out of their supply.
 "What a noble visage," he says, regarding the painting of the red-haired man. "A patriarch of the La Crima family, I presume?"
 Ivo pauses, thinking for a moment.
 "I wonder, did your mother reside here in younger days?" he asks, maybe a little too casually. "I imagine there would be portraits from such times."
 Not that she would necessarily look much different, being a vampire, but Ivo can't help but be curious.
 "Surely they keep the zombies in the catacombs," he then quips to Reize. Ivo just assumes that this residence ALSO has catacombs, like the one in Granse.

"Oh. That's ... Grandfather Porderoso...." she says. Wait are those eyes on the portrait watching Reize!? Well not really. It's a trick of the light, and a painted relief in the eyes, but...

Ruidosa suddenly backs up against the door as it suddenly knocks. She takes a deep breath. "House is Haunted."

She just says this casually. "The original owner from ancient times haunts this house, Lord Vocard, the headless Ghost! He's usually personable and leaves us alone if we leave his body where it rests, but something is wrong. I think some buttholes messed things up when we we're gone."

"My head, my headddddd...!" says a spooky voice from beyond the door. Before the eyes in the other paintings do actually look at the three, and get an angry expression. Before they fly off the wall, spinning at the heroes!

Ruidosa calls out 'FALCATA' slicing a painting out of the air, as it comes for her, before she realizes what she did.

"Crap mom is gonna kill me."



  Reize tilts his head at Ivo, "...Yeah, I guess..." His voice is low as he looks to the side. However, he tenses up a moment later. "... Uhh..." He cannot help but feel that he has a set of eyes upon him.

 Reize turns his head up towards the painting of Porderoso. "...Hm." He leans over to give the painting a stare. Then he looks back. "Naaah. I am just overthinking it."

 As Ruidosa backs up to the door, he sighs. "Oh...it's haunted?"

 Then, the eyes from the other paintings stare at them.

 "ACK!"

 He immediately spins around to kick one of the paintings. "Yaaah!"

 "Rui! We gotta find his head!"

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Magitech Fencing Art: Gale Shield!
Roll(s): 3. Total result is 3. This is a failure (by 7).

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Beating up Paintings
Roll(s): 7. Total result is 7. This is a failure (by 3).


 Ivo looks around wildly, head whipping back and forth, as the paintings begin to whirl and spin about. Is he seeking some sort of vulnerability?
 "If you see that any of the portraits are of the Lady La Crima," he calls, "make sure not to damage them!"
 Now that he has clarified his priorities, he draws Hauteclare, loading a wind elesphere into the pommel and stepping back to try to form a defensive circle with his allies as best as possible. If he can successfully form a wind barrier around them, if only temporarily, he might be able to fix them in place so they can be subdued without causing undue harm to household goods.
 "Gahhh!"
 Unfortunately, in trying to track the movements of the portraits while also making out what they depict, Ivo is a little slow in activating the windburst and, rather than fending one off, he ends up just accelerating one of them right before a corner collides with his head and temporarily drops him, stunned.

It's like being attacked by a swarm of bats except the bats are expensive paintings. She scowls and cowers and finally opens the door the voice came from to--nothing, nothing is there. She races. "EVERYONE OUT OF THE VESTIBULE!" she says. "''BY THAT I MEAN THE LIVING ROOM''" she says angrily.

She hops up and down impatiently as she shakes a hand. "HURRY!" she calls out, waiting for the others to get their bearings and follow her. She fires off some blasts of dark energy at the paintings, to try to buy her friends the time they need to get away and into the hallway.

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Suppressing Fire!?
Roll(s): 15. Total result is 15. This is a success (by 5).



  As for Reize...?

 *SMACK!* "Ugh!" *WHAM!* Ugh!* *SMACK* "Gah!"

 Fight back! Human! Fight back!

 Reize is getting assaulted by the paintings all around, smacked from one side to the next. The painting swarm are having a field day with the explorer.

 Hearing the call from Ruidosa, Reize shields his face as he tries to escape the assaulting paintings. "We're coming! Let's get out of here!"

 One more painting comes out to trip the boy on his way out.

 

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Avoiding the last trip
Roll(s): 1. Total result is 1. This is a failure (by 9).



  Nope! That last painting slaps Reize right on the ankle, and the boy is sent flying out towards Ruidosa's path in a tumbling mess.

 

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Magitech Improvization: Undead Detection???
Roll(s): 3. Total result is 3. This is a failure (by 7).


 Ivo, having suffered some serious damage in the form of a great big welt on his chin, is forced to utilize his ultimate technique: Let Reize Go First.
 "Tactical withdrawal!" he exclaims, in agreement with Rui, before running for the hallway. The tactical part is how he waits for Reize to draw the last of the attacks before hurrying on and taking cover. "Whew."
 He begins fiddling with the sensor on the hilt of the still-unsheathed Hauteclare, trying to tune it to different aetheric frequencies.
 "You said that the Lord Vocard is responsible for this, right?" he asks Rui, still a little dazed from his head trauma moments before. "I've tried to expand the eidola sensor to track more varied aetheric signatures ever since our encounter with those elemental vestiges in the Isle caldera." Undead elementals were quite a bizarre phenomenon. "The sensor can't really track undead for the same reason it can't track living souls, but if sufficient Destruction is concentrated in a single-- there!"
 Ivo brightens as the sensor crackles.
 "Incredible. Such potent Destruction energy," he mutters. "And close by! Can it identify any of Vocard's traits? Besides powerful dark magic, he seems to be..."
 Ivo, parsing an otherwise inscrutable reading, frowns.
 "...a Legendary Seductress...?"
 After a beat, he looks to Rui again, then frowns a little more.
 "Hmm."
 It's one thing that his sensor doesn't work. He can tolerate that. It's Rui's fairly-earned title that he's still struggling to accept.

Ruidosa shoots Ivo a ''look'' when he uses that title again and scowls a little. She looks to Reize as she helps him back up as the paints smack the door one by one on the other side, smack smack smack! This makes Ruidosa wince as she scowls. "Mom is going to kill me. Or kill whoever messed with Vocard's resting place. Speaking of which. To the upper levels..." she says as she starts walking and carefully sneaks. "Quiet..."

That's when the ghastly vision of Lord Vocard himself phases through a wall, about five feet off the air in the hallway, a ghost of a male beastkin of some sort, head rotating free from it's neck, dressed in fancy, period attire that's centuries out of date.

"Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living!" spouts the ghost non-sensically to the group before floating alone up a stair case to the upper level.

"Uggggggh this is gonna be a problem." she says as three ghostly wisps appear in his wake, elemental ghosts!? No just basic undead wisps as they make cute little moans of death and fire out pulses of firey orb energy out at the group!

Ruidosa La Crima curses and takes a hit, smacked in the chest as she was unprepared for the wisps arrival!

Maybe the other two can make out better!

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Surely, Surely Lady Luck will take pity on Reize and help him appear more competent, right?
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 4. This is a failure (by 6).

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Heavenly Crowned Beetle Technique: Chain Lightning!?
Roll(s): 8. Total result is 8. This is a failure (by 2).



 "Ughh..." Reize appears defeated after landing face first on the ground from the last plate tripping him. Once Ruidosa helps him up, he nods at her in gratitude. "Appreciated." With the next plan of action, Reize sneaks along with Ruidosa to the next destination. However, that is cut short as a figure phases into view.

 "Uh?" He looks at Ruidosa and then the three ghastly wisps. And Reize is ensnared by the fiery orb. He grimaces, wailing back before he grits his teeth. He tightens his grip on his boomerangs and then he chucks one of them at the ghost. "Take that!" As it swirls around, the motions are flung towards all three of them.

 


 Ivo, thanks to his supreme tactic of Let Reize Go First, manages to not be hit by any wisp attacks (because Reize is hit instead). Concluding that it would be prudent to eliminate these adversaries as swiftly as possible lest the nefarious portraits pursue them, he decides to unleash some of the more advanced fruits of his research.
 "Behold, the legacy of Kernunnos...!"
 Maybe he feels the need to get dramatic things since haven't been going so well. Reaching into his lightweight cloak, he withdraws a rare double-headed elesphere: a lightning orb based on their studies of the Heavenly Crowned Beetle discovered in Granse, the one tasked with the noble duty of gathering Creation energy from sunlight and bringing it to Kernunnos while he was sequestered away in his secret shrine. Ivo figures it is the closest thing he has to the sort of positive energy attack that might help to banish these wisps. It's not a terrible idea.
 "Haa... uh?"
 But the execution leaves something to be desired. Lightning lances from Hauteclare, but their timing is off, and the arc travels to Reize's boomerang instead. The crystal might absorb some of the aether, which could be a good thing and enhance the impact! Unfortunately, the arc of lightning will keep traveling, and rather than impacting the wisps, it might just go back whence the boomerang came and aim towards Reize instead.
 Everything's going great, in other words.

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Shoving Reize away from a shocking experience.
Roll(s): 11. Total result is 11. This is a success (by 1).

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Dark Orb
Roll(s): 18. Total result is 18. This is a success (by 8).

Ruidosa La Crima watches with wide eyes as the boonerang sails through the air, gets struck and heads back towards Reize. OH KEUNNOS NO. She thinks as she suddenly shoves Reize to the right as lightning impacts where he was a moment ago in front of her. She'll blame Ivo later. "Lord Vocard is insane without his earthly head so he's creating all these problems." she says to him.

She then flings a dark orb of dark energy from her hand at one of the wisps as it takes the brunt of it, dissipating in a puff of blue light.

"Vocard isn't a terribly strong undead but he can still create lesser problems like these. I can't control them. This is his territory." she laments.



 Reize takes the moment to look at the elesphere appreciatively, "Ooh." He never gets Ivo's inventions, but they look pretty all the same.

 However, as the risk of friendly fire from Ivo's invention becomes imminent, Ruidosa shoves him out of the way. "Buh?!" He tumbles over and then he gives out a sigh of relief as he catches himself and the now grounded boomerangs.

  "So we need to find his head!" Reize looks over for an opening, "There! Let's move!" Reize attempts to make his move to pass the wisps slowly dissipate.

 

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Magitech Improvization: Electric Sensor Reboot and Recalibration??
Roll(s): 4. Total result is 4. This is a failure (by 6).


 "R-right...!"
 Ivo is a little shaken up after Reize's close call thanks to the magitechnician's own misfire, so it is all he can do to follow their fearless leader's lead and try to advance as the wisps dissipate. Glancing down at Hauteclare's hilt, he sees that the activation of the Heavenly Crowned Beetle's lightning seems to have reset the aetheric workings of the sensor on his hilt.
 "Alright, let's see..."
 As he moves, he tries to focus on the readings, just in case it is no longer locked onto Ruidosa and is thus potentially able to give them some sort of lead on the location of Vocard's head.
 "I'm not sure I'm reading these signals right," he confesses, "but I've got a lock on a powerful undead target again, and it says... they've got a cute sister?"
 He pauses.
 "Uh... never mind."

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Please don't let me be the only compotent party member blast
Roll(s): 5. Total result is 5. This is a failure (by 5).

Ruidosa La Crima looks to Ivo and scowls again. She'd be able to put up with this if Ivo was being useful. BUT HE ISN'T. Reize also is bordering on this line now. Why is she surrounded by uselessness right now!? So she throws out a blast of dark energy at the next wisp!

It turns... transparent!? The blast helpelessly sailing through it as it blasts through an ornate, ancient stained glass window at the end of the hallway,

"Oh. Oh fuck. Mom is going to kill me! US! SHE'S GONNA KILL US!" she cries as she sobs out.

The two ghostly wisps look at one another before firing off more wisps of blue flame-like blasts.

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Redemption Arc in Competence - Finding the Head
Roll(s): 3. Total result is 3. This is a failure (by 7).

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=10.
Comment: Avoid Further Property Damage to Please Rui's Hot Mom Attack!
Roll(s): 15. Total result is 15. This is a success (by 5).



 Reize had disappeared from the party for a little while.

 'See You Later!'

 During the time, Ivo and Ruidosa were left to their own devices, including facing off against the undead and keeping them distracted. While Ivo's tracker did not have success and Ruidosa causes further property damage....

  Reize finally re-emerges with a round object within a bag.

 "I found the head!"

 He holds it up high. Reize's competence is redeemed.

 OR SO YOU THOUGHT! Unfortunately, it turns out to be a mimic. It's a bag mimic. It grins menacingly.

 "...Ah."

 It immediately tackles Reize down and starts gnawing on the boy's antenna hair. "Arrrgghh why!"

 


 Ivo finally snaps back to attention at the sound of shattering glass. If he can't use his sensor to detect Vocard's head, he'll have to leave that to Reize, who will definitely have a successful redemption arc, maybe. Glancing down at his unsheathed blade, he sees a final current of magical electricity pass from the uselessly reset sensor up Hauteclare's length. Glancing up, he sees the wisps phasing in and out. Focusing on his own deft timing, he flicks his wrist--
 "There."
 --and, actually showing off his precision, Ivo manages to slash through the two remaining wisps as they reassemble, the jolt of lightning remaining in his weapon successfully dispersing them from within. Returning the orbital blade to its hilt with a click, Ivo looks to Rui.
 "In an effort to defend you from the wisps," he says gently, "I broke the window with Hauteclare. You had nothing to do with it."
 Their friendship has come a long way on these adventures.
 "And if your mother must punish me... ah... so be it."
 Some things haven't changed, though.
 "Oh! Nice find, Reize!"
 Ivo turns to grin at the returning youth, and when the bag reveals itself to be a mimic, his grin doesn't falter in the slightest, as though that's what he anticipated, more or less.
 "Bag mimics are rare, I've read."
 It's a nice find of a sort, then.

SOMEWHERE. IN THE GUTTERS OF IVO'S MIND:

"You've been a very very bad boy~"

SNAP BACK TO REALITY:

Ruidosa La Crima watches as Ivo defeats the last two wisps and offers to take fault for the broken window. She tsks and seems to be taken aback a little. "I mean...but... you shouldn't get in trouble for that..."

> Affection Level: +10!

Reize finds himself a bag containing a head! Oh no he doesn't. He found Herman. "That's Herman! Be nice to Herman. Mom will be upset if you hurt him!" she says.

Ruidosa continues up the stairs, finally, to a dank room that's been repurposed into a storage room. Sheets over furniture. Boxes. Old paintings. There's an orante painting of a man on the wall, a beastkin it's Lord Vocard. Ruidosa La Crima pushes the painting aside, revealing a hole in the wall, and a gisrly sight of a body buried inside the wall! The head? On the ground. Quickly picking it up, she plops the head back where it belongs and---!

Ping! The house suddenly feels more peaceful! at rest! And all the strange noises have stopped!

"There." she says as she carefully replaces the painting back in place.

"I wonder what happened...." she says. "At least no one outright stole the head."



 It looks like Ruidosa managed to set things right! With all of the wisps gone and the paintings being put back, everything is all fixed up.

 ... Isn't someone missing?

 "Ooi! Herman, stop that, argggghh!!"

 Reize is idly being dragged by the foot into one of the rooms.

 Herman is happy because he has a new chewtoy! o/~

 


 "What a bizarre phenomenon," Ivo says as he witnesses Ruidosa recover and restore Vocard's head to its proper place. He elects not to comment on the fact that there's a corpse casually kept inside a wall in a storage room here. This is the sort of thing that one must simply pass over in silence when among vampires, he imagines. "I can't imagine why this would happen incidentally *or* intentionally. Who would mess with a decapitated head while ignoring all other possible targets for theft, only to leave it behind?"
 Pondering, he scratches his chin.
 "I mean, I'm familiar with a certain scientist's predilection for collecting unusual brains to use in body-swapping experiments and his usual standards for evaluating them, but..."
 Ivo trails off.
 "...uh, never mind."
 Perhaps this is another question best left unanswered.
 "Well, shall we take our time searching for the legendary BURNHEELS? Or would you prefer to look through the closets yourself? I'm sure it's a lot of work, so I'm glad to assist..."
 Certainly, he could have no ulterior motives for looking through the Madam La Crima's clothing.
 "...especially since Reize is otherwise occupied."
 Is that what we're calling it?

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=14.
Comment: Burnheel Search Check!
Roll(s): 12. Total result is 12. This is a failure (by 2).

Ruidosa La Crima smiles. "This is the room actually, to where it should be." she says, as she starts searching a box. She starts rooting through it as she pulls out a bunch of old clothes. Ruidosa sized. or Tranquila sized. If a bit smaller. "Huh.." she says as she searches and stuffs them all back into the box as she gets to the bottom.

"Not this box..." she says. "Let's check another..." she says.

Meanwhile Reize is being dragged away in the background! She seems non-plussed at this.

Reize Seatlan rolls 1d20>=14.
Comment: Somehow, Reize found the Burnheel?
Roll(s): 7. Total result is 7. This is a failure (by 7).

Ivo Galvan rolls 1d20>=14.
Comment: Treasure Hunting, So to Speak
Roll(s): 10. Total result is 10. This is a failure (by 4).



  It is an unfortunate day to be Reize. The boy had been dragged by Herman into the room. Both Ruidosa and Ivo have abandoned him!

 Reize lowers his head in comical tears as the bag mimic, Herman, is chewing on him like a chewtoy.

 "..I wonder if this is the Burnheel...?"

 He curiously touches it. It reveals another mimic: Temmie, Herman's younger brother.

 Now both mimics are chewing on Reize; river of tears flow down his eyes. "Wwhhhhyyyyy...?"

 


 "Well, then..."
 Ivo begins to open boxes himself. Encountering one full of clothing, he carefully elects to set the lid down and let Ruidosa take care of searching through it when she's ready. Deciding it would be safer for his dignity and health to seek one full of shoes, he turns to another only to find that it contains paper records.
 "Oh... look at this! Notes on her children growing up..."
 Looking amused and delighted, Ivo promptly gets distracted reading.

Ruidosa La Crima rolls 1d20>=13.
Comment: Are the burnhells...HERE!?
Roll(s): 16. Total result is 16. This is a success (by 3).

Ruidosa La Crima ohs! "He found Temmie, good. Mom will be happy to know they're okay." she says.

The records are like looking through a baby book. It's embarassing. 'Little Rui tried to turn into a bat today, and fell down the stairs trying to fly!' 'Ruidosa tried casting a spell, pooted instead!' and similar little things.

Meanwhile...!

BGM > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69AyYUJUBTg

Ruidosa opens the box, searches it to the bottom, and has hope, because this one is full of shoes!

Two fancy red hells! Sparkling in the sliver of light through a window!

The Burnheels!

"I found them!" she says.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!?" finally booms Lady La Crima's voice from the lower level.

"Oh crap." says Ruidosa.