aionmods | PLOT & INVESTIGATIONS

PLOT & INVESTIGATIONS

Story Plotting

The catch-all page for plot inquiries, NPC threads, investigations, player plots, plot suggestions, and everything else under that banner. Frequency of replies to NPC thread requests will be subject to mod availability, but we will do our best.

INVESTIGATIONS

This is where you come to seek out conversations with NPCs, have your character investigate the setting, or otherwise declare that your character is doing something we should know about. We are open to doing unsolicited NPC call-out threads but reserve the right to cut them short/handwave if they don't seem to be going anywhere or to limit their scope if we are overburdened. NPCs are not always guaranteed to be up for prolonged conversation, but you can try. To attempt to contact an NPC please put their name in the subject line. For conversations of general plot importance, we may ask you to make an closed log.

For investigations, you can freely use this page to have your character seek out information about the characters, setting, or plot. We do ask that you keep investigations to 1-3 inquiries at most, and to have those inquiries be somewhat related. If you want to investigate things that are completely unrelated, please put them in a separate comment. Additionally, please be specific about the approach your character is taking to find out information; their method will greatly impact how well it goes for them.

PLAYER PLOTS

Aion Teleos is designed to be open to player plots, and would be glad to accomodate them! Let us know in a comment below that you/your character is doing and how you'd like to approach it as a player run event. Please put the words "Player Plot" in the subject line.

PLOT SUGGESTIONS

If you don't specifically want to run a plot yourself but have some vague ideas of an event type you think would scratch an itch for the game, please let us know. We don't guarantee we'll use these ideas, but we will keep them in mind when designing future events.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A torch is fashioned from the dig sight around him and lit with a small fire spell. He heads down the stairs without much concern - if the stairs collapse from age he will use his ability to fly. He will look around the area curiously while descending.

It's mostly just stairs for a while, which seem solid enough, but since Emet-Selch is keeping such a close eye on his surroundings, he may notice more of those colored lines appearing on the ceiling above him. At first, it won't seem very notable, but then Emet-Selch's particularly keen eye for magic will notice a pulse of energy working their way down them, eventually arriving just overhead.

At which point, the energy pulse will seem to react to his presence and explode. Some manner of green smoke will pour into the space around him from the space above roof of the tunnel, followed by a spray of something liquid. If that liquid manages to touch him, it will immediately begin to burn his skin and clothing. Acid, apparently.

Some of the acid starts beading in a perfect circle around the shield he's summoned prior to entering. Ah, there are the traps. So he steps back under the stairs that form the spiral overhead for a quick escape from the rain. Best not to rely on a shield alone.

He flicks a wrist out and summons his mage staff. Disrupt the lines, break the seal, break the enchantment. Ideally without collapsing the ceiling. At least that's the working theory when he raises his arm to send a few spikes of ice hurling upward. Hopefully, they won't melt by time they get to the seal. Though the smoke obscuring everything won't help matters either.

If it doesn't work, suppose his next options are to flee out of the tunnel or risk jumping and going deeper to escape from the smoke.

He'll find that, as he retreats, the acid seems to begin gradually melting through his magical shield, which is a bit weird. Thankfully, since he's already ducking out of the way he'll be able to cast it aside before it gets to him, but it's certainly a caution.

The acid will start to burn through the ice, though they do manage to strike through the ceiling first. Unfortunately, the seals seem to have already ruptured a physical compartment above the stairwell that is letting the acid in, rather than creating it via magic, so the acid continues to dribble over them afterwards. If he freezes the ceiling itself, however, it may block the gaps enough that he can dash past all of it.

If he holds his breath too, at least; breathing the smoke that's filling the hall seems plainly detrimental.

He puts a sleeve to his mouth and nose and coughs from the smoke. His eyes start to water from it too, but this would have to do for the moment.

Given the acid is dripping more, it certainly seems like he'd punctured something as opposed to broken the seal. So, casting a sheet of ice it is! Which he does one-handed to make sure his sleeve stays where it is.

With the debatably largest threat out of the way, it's time for an air spell to try and break up the smoke, which he casts immediately after.

The air spells works well to clear things out, pushing the lingering gas out the way Emet-Selch came. The ice seems like it won't last indefinitely, but it's enough of a delay on the acid that he can scoot down the stairs.

At the base of the stairs he comes to another door, locked in a similar manner to the gate at the top of the stairs had been, with strands of colored materials binding the stone together. Same as the above, he can also just explode his way through.

Will he do so?

The lack of time is definitely apparent. That's why instead of walking down the stairs, he walks right off the edge and lets himself float gently down to the floor. Then he approaches this new door.

Of course, rushing is where mistakes are made. He'll check the door and try some of the same methodologies he tried on the first one - albeit at more of a rushed pace - before finally resorting to a strong magic spell to force it open.

The forceful magic spell sets off a chain reaction, the web of colored material cracking and exploding into bursts of rainbow dust. After that, he'll be able to haul open that final door. This one is a bit thinner in construction, as if intended to be opened more casually, while the heavy blocks of stone up top functioned as its primary defense.

On the other side lies a expansive but timeworn alchemy lab. Though currently left mostly in shadow, there are points of light scattered across the room in the form of crystals and faintly glowing liquids within bottles. Plants that look like they might have once been kept as ingredients are either terribly overgrown or dead. Books with dusty, yellowed pages lie open, filled with scribblings in a language Emet-Selch will not understand.

In the interior of the room there is an impressive assortment of alchemy tools, with unknowable arrangements of bottles and pipes once used to process materials. There is a more traditional cauldron set up there as well, with nothing but grimy sludge lining its bottom.

Which means... his clothes are dusted in a finely colored rainbow tint. Amazing. He would look particularly excited about that. The door is pried open quickly after.

Inside looks strangely akin to a magician's atelier. He would give a cursory glance around without touching anything at first. Then he begins to explore. Books are looked at first and a few pages turned - as he makes a note to take them back to his room for later as they might not survive when the ice outside melts. The glowing bottles are examined next, a few are taken and slipped into his pocket to examine at a later time.

Then he walks over to the plants and fulls the overgrown ones aside. Perhaps there is more, or perhaps there is another trap waiting.

There doesn't seem to be anything beneath the plants that isn't featured elsewhere in the room. The overgrown plants are strange in that they must be capable of growing entirely without sunlight, but maybe that's not so surprising in the laboratory of a mage.

As for the books and the bottles, he'll be able to collect some of them. A lot of the bottles appear to have knocked over or cracked, their interiors reduced to sludge or evaporated away. Notably, though, there are a few vials with contents that look very similar to the Kenoma poison that they feed to new arrivals. With his True Sight, the mark of the Kenoma in them is unmistakeable.

Besides that, though, choosing bottles to take will essentially be random. There's is no labeling system to be seen.

Strange that there would be bottles with 'poison' like that down here. This place is old and hidden. Not to mention underground, buried, with traps to prevent others from getting in... someone was doing something they wanted no one to see and they abandoned it in a hurry. What were they doing down here that needed to stay so far out of sight?

He makes for one of the cauldrons and runs his finger along the bottom before rubbing the substance between his fingers. Transmogrification...into what? It seems those texts would provide a clearer idea. He walks again to the open book and carefully flips through the pages for anything. A diagram. Notes he could read. A hint of something to go on at a glance. They would need to be translated to find where to go next, certainly.

For now, it would be wise to gather what he can and leave. Books, vials of that 'poison', and the take a plant for good measure. It seems worth making a few trips to gather everything needed. Hopefully, teleportation would work for getting it all back to his room. This place is hidden for a reason and he would need to keep these materials just as hidden until he understands their purpose.

When he flips through the books he'll find some diagrams, but mostly just drawings of plants and other similar things, which is fairly standard for an alchemical journal. Even those drawings, however, are only labelled in that same unreadable text.

He can grab an overgrown plant that resembles a drawing he finds, since that might be of the most interest. Beyond that, he will find he is able to teleport away. If there were any defenses against that sort of thing before they have seemingly eroded the same way the protections on the doors did.

A couple of trips are made back and forth to gather everything that seems useful. He even takes one of the cauldrons (Why not?). Once he has taken all that seems relevant enough, he stands at the outside entrance where the first door remains.

With a magic spell, he collapses the entranceway that was unearthed from the townspeople's hard work. The interior stairway and atelier are (probably?) mostly intact, albeit under some unfortunate conditions once the seal of ice melts and acid pours free. Though the spell could very well have some unforeseen side effects.

No one could know about it until he's discerned its purpose. So it would need to remain abandoned under the earth as it had been for many years.

He won't notice anything go immediately wrong, though if he ever decides to teleport into the lab he'll find that the acid is now everywhere. In the meantime, however, he has his loot.

[Feel free to place this event wherever it fits on Emet-Selch's personal timeline. There are no specific time requirements on our part.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

PLOT & INVESTIGATIONS

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