Yukari Quest IV - A Z-Machine Adventure

[Hanzo K.]

Maybe the black bits are pieces of a scattered colorcloud?

[Hello Purvis]

>Communicate a desire to leave to Maribel.
>Attempt to reopen the gap.

>You express a desire to leave to the amber cloud, and then return to the slit of gray. You make an attempt to open it, and feel it open without issues. Before you can move toward it, you can see the purple light of the gap, and then stumble out onto the rocky plain.

>_

[Yaersulf]

>Wait for Maribel to appear.
>"Well, that was interesting. Are you ok?"

[Hello Purvis]

>Wait for Maribel to appear.
>"Well, that was interesting. Are you ok?"

>Maribel stumbles out just after you, nearly tripping into you.
>She takes a moment to get her bearings, then says, "I'm fine. What happened that scared you off?"

>_

[Validon98]

>"Nothing, it was just a little disorienting and I doubt we would be able to do much there. Let's find another gap."
>Which gaps were nearby again?

[Hello Purvis]

>"Nothing, it was just a little disorienting and I doubt we would be able to do much there. Let's find another gap."
>Which gaps were nearby again?

>"Really?" says Maribel. "I think we had only begun to look around, myself. But maybe I just want to get out of here so much that I'm okay with being there..."
>There is one along the southern slope of the crescent, which you have investigated. The other one that you found is along the northern slope of the crescent.

>_

[Validon98]

>"Well, if we have little luck elsewhere, we'll return to this gap."
>Travel to the gap at the northern slope of the crescent. We might as well try new things.

[Hello Purvis]

>"Well, if we have little luck elsewhere, we'll return to this gap."
>Travel to the gap at the northern slope of the crescent. We might as well try new things.

>"Right," says Maribel.
>Will you be taking Maribel along?

>_

[Validon98]

>Of course. Leaving her behind could put her in danger. It's better if she stays close.

[Hello Purvis]

>Of course. Leaving her behind could put her in danger. It's better if she stays close.

>You open a gap to the northwestern region and step through with Maribel.
>As you step out, you see that the colors here are darker, like they should be.  Shadows crisscross the ground, coming from tall, spindly arches of stone that tower above you. As far as you can see there are arches, some too small to crawl through some large enough to easily slip your house through.  Their rocky exteriors are twisted and and narrow, some leaving you pondering how they could hold up under their own weight.  You cannot see any patterns among them, but raise up in lines, creating implied corridors between them.  The ground is smooth here, save for curious lumps that arise from it. The cold feeling you get in your stomach tells you that they are roots long before you note their bark-covered exteriors.

>_

[Shadoweh]

> Ponder on color-related things as we look at the area. Did any of the colors give off the same feeling as the roots? There was no sense of sky but we were walking (floating?) on something. Was the repulsing colors where the ground would be?

[Hello Purvis]

> Ponder on color-related things as we look at the area. Did any of the colors give off the same feeling as the roots? There was no sense of sky but we were walking (floating?) on something. Was the repulsing colors where the ground would be?

>None of the colors gave any feeling that matches the sense of ill ease that the roots give you. Thinking on it a bit more now that you are in a more traditional environment, it didn't feel like there was any ground and you were floating.  You don't think the red parts corresponded with any kind of ground.

>_

[Shadoweh]

> Where's the gap we sensed?
> Continue pondering colors. We were in one of the colors when we appeared and essentially floating through it, weren't we? Or were we floating in a void of color?
> Ask Maribel her opinion on our color thoughts as we look for the gap.

[Hello Purvis]

> Where's the gap we sensed?
> Continue pondering colors. We were in one of the colors when we appeared and essentially floating through it, weren't we? Or were we floating in a void of color?
> Ask Maribel her opinion on our color thoughts as we look for the gap.

>You have to look around a little before you can sense the gap. It is some yards away, though a corridor of arches of differing heights. You noted a few roots growing between the arches.
>Looking back, you feel that you began within the green region. It wasn't immediately obvious; being in the green didn't seem to obscure the other regions or make them appear to be different colors. It was rather like a very thin mist, you suppose.
>"Hm?" Maribel rasps, as you summarize what you've considered thus far. "I think that all makes sense."

>_

[Validon98]

Green was probably grass, though that does make me wonder what the orange was... Suika, perhaps? If so if we go back to that place later we should try investigating the orange a little more. If it was Suika we might be able to gather all of the colors together.

>Walk carefully in the direction of the gap, taking care to not get too close to the roots.

[Hello Purvis]

>Walk carefully in the direction of the gap, taking care to not get too close to the roots.

>You make your way toward the gap, carefully stepping around the roots.
>"Are you okay?" Maribel says.

>_

[Validon98]

>"I am, I'm just not certain about these roots. They do not exactly feel like a nice warm cup of tea, if you know what I mean."

[Hello Purvis]

>"I am, I'm just not certain about these roots. They do not exactly feel like a nice warm cup of tea, if you know what I mean."

>"Really?" says Maribel. "They're just big roots."

>_

[Validon98]

>"I keep sensing a feeling of uneasiness from them. It might not be a good idea to go near them."

[Yaersulf]

>"They also burned me when I touched them."
>Glare at the roots.

[Hello Purvis]

>"I keep sensing a feeling of uneasiness from them. It might not be a good idea to go near them."

>"They also burned me when I touched them."
>Glare at the roots.

>You give the root a look as you describe what happened with them.
>"Wait, they what?" says Maribel. She breaks into a fit of dry coughs, before adding, "Really?"

>_

[Mr. Sacchi]

> "Yeah, really."
> Keep making our way around roots and towards the gap.
> "Seems like these roots are special though, they weren't the only roots I've found in this place, certainly, but the only ones to give me such a feeling."
> "Do you not feel it?"

> Once we're there, assess Mary's state and our own, do we look any different after that color trip?

[Hello Purvis]

> "Yeah, really."
> Keep making our way around roots and towards the gap.
> "Seems like these roots are special though, they weren't the only roots I've found in this place, certainly, but the only ones to give me such a feeling."
> "Do you not feel it?"

> Once we're there, assess Mary's state and our own, do we look any different after that color trip?

>"That's very strange," says Maribel as she follows you around the root and toward the gap.  "I haven't felt anything strange at all from them, and they certainly haven't burned me! They were all over the mountain I climbed to get here, too."
>Examining yourself and Maribel, it doesn't seem like either of you look notably different from before going through the colors.
>You reach the gap with little trouble, just some rattled nerves from the roots being nearby. Just getting close to it, you can tell something is wrong with it. It's not just broken or stuck shut or anything like the other gaps you've seen. There is something palpably wrong with this one. There is foreign element tied to it, something that has deeply set in and stained the gap itself. It is quite difficult to examine with any kind of detail.

>_

[Mr. Sacchi]

> Have we ever encountered anything like this before?

> What can we say about it? Do try our hardest to make out any detail whatsoever.

Should we tell Mary that there's something wrong with this gap guys? Considering that we have our parenting hats on right now, I don't know if that's the best option.

[Validon98]

Letting her go into it without her knowing what exactly is up with it would also be a terrible idea. Like I said earlier, if we have no other choice we can explore the color gap again and see if we can't figure something else out with it.

[Hello Purvis]

> Have we ever encountered anything like this before?

> What can we say about it? Do try our hardest to make out any detail whatsoever.

>You have encountered gaps affected by outside forces before, but they are quite rare. This one, however, feels more than affected. It feels dangerous.
>The details of it are obscured by whatever has affected it, rather like ink spilled across a page. You will need your magnifying glass to learn more. However, you can discern that outside being affected by something, this gap has some other issues, but you are not sure what they are.

>_

[Mr. Sacchi]

> Ponder whether the roots being so close to this gap is a coincidence or not.

> Well, this gap is pretty much unusable then, aside from this we have the color gap... What did we get from examining the third one, again?

My problem is more like, if we don't go in, she'll ask what's up, if we say "There's something dangerous in there" that will make her scared, if we avoid it saying we "don't know" that will also make her scared because how can Yukari Yakumo not know about gaps. And if we try to explain that, we have to mention the lack of our magnifying glass... Not even Ran knows of our tools so...

[Hello Purvis]

> Ponder whether the roots being so close to this gap is a coincidence or not.

> Well, this gap is pretty much unusable then, aside from this we have the color gap... What did we get from examining the third one, again?

>There had been roots close to gaps before, but you don't think they've been this close. You can't say for certain that these two things are related, but you feel that there has to be something to it.
>The third one seems to be disconnected from its opposite end. You would need your vise grips to make it usable.

>_

[Mr. Sacchi]

Guess our only option is colorland then, anybody has any objections to going back?

Ah, yes.

> List of gaps that had roots close to them.

[Hello Purvis]

> List of gaps that had roots close to them.

>Thinking on it, the only one you can remember having roots particularly nearby was the one in the especially unstable chamber in the caverns. There were some not too far from the gap that took you to the ruined city, but they weren't in close proximity.

>_