ReCoil44 (Primary)
Zeke, I will pose this inquiry as delicately as possible so as to not anger you enough to leave the forum: have you formed even the faintest approximation of an alliance with your fellow prisoners, or are you still indulging in being a lone-wolf?
While isolation and brooding may feel like it fits you - what with the whole tortured artist mystique you are cultivating - it is tactically irresponsible in the Chapel Pit.
I have drafted an ingenious plan, even by my standards, but it does have a non-negotiable requirement. You will need competent individuals to help you escape. They will be doing the hard work while you are busy being the loudest person in the room.
So, enlighten us. What raw materials am I working with?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
C’mon ReCoil. I told you that the dust was making me all sluggish. Can you just talk normal for once?
I think you’re asking me if I made some friends and, yea, I talked with a few people here. It’s slim pickings in the holding cell though. I already said that most of the people I’m locked up with are all broken because of everything that’s happened to them. They don’t talk much and none of them really care about escaping. They just…are.
I did manage to make contact with three people in the cell who seem willing to help out if I can come up with an escape plan. I really only trust two of them though.
The first person I spoke with was this woman who is around mid-40s I think. She’s tough and sharp and kinda reminds me of Milicent in that they both give off the same kind of no-nonsense energy. We got to talking and she explained that she’d been a mechanic working out of the North Coil in The MIZ. She was working with the scrap houses, and she said she must have pissed someone off because the next thing she knew she was getting kidnapped and then dumped here in the Chapel Pit.
We talked about all the trucks and cars that are housed in the Cathedral, and I asked her “if we can find a car that works, can you hotwire it and get us all out of here?”
She pursed her lips like I’d asked the dumbest question and told me, “I can hotwire anything and drive anything. Doesn’t even need to have wheels.”
So…I got a driver and a mechanic. Now we just need to steal a vehicle somehow.
RoadWarrior77
BOOM. What did I tell you? Mechanic, baby!
That’s your golden ticket right there. You protect that woman with your life.
Mchiavelli
Mechanic Lady x Zeke!
But what will Riley think?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
The second guy I talked to is a bit older. I think he’s probably early 50s. He doesn’t really talk much and trying to get him to tell me about his past was like pulling teeth. He said he was an investigator back in The MIZ and that he’d worked for one of the warlords there.
He’s kinda cagey about the details of his work, but from what I was able to make out he was basically a professional problem solver. I think he tracked down people and dug up information and whatnot. Again, he’s pretty quiet and it’s slim pickings around here so I have to make do with what I’ve got. The best that I can say about him is that he’s clear-headed and hasn’t cracked like the others.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
A mechanic and a mind. You’ve accidentally assembled a functional team. Color me cautiously impressed.
ClutchBindings
You said that there were three people willing to help you out. Who’s the third?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
Yea….that’s where things get a little dicey. Last night I was making my way through the holding pen and trying to talk to people. I met up with the mechanic lady and we got to talking. Her name is Jackie by the way.
We were being all quiet, trying not to draw attention to ourselves, and we started talking about the repair bays and garages that are scattered about the Cathedral. Mostly we were wondering what vehicles were still running and what we could easily steal.
Then this kid just jumped into our conversation. His name is Mikey and he’s probably around 18 or 19. That means he’s a complete idiot, because I remember being 18 and idiot was the best descriptor for me at the time.
I don’t know how long he’d been watching me try to talk with people, but he figured out pretty quickly that I was trying to gather people for an escape attempt. But instead of asking to join my escape like a normal person, he basically demanded it. The thing is, I don’t think he really wants to escape. It’s more like he just wants to break shit and cause as much damage as possible. He’s one of the volatiles that I don’t really want to deal with.
He’s basically blackmailing us to allow him into the group. When he jumped into the convo between Jackie and me, he made it very clear that if we don’t include him in our plans, he’ll make sure that the guards hear about our “little conversations.”
I really don’t want to work with him. He’s the type of guy who I know is going to snap at the worst possible moment and get us all killed, but I can’t just cut him out of the plan. And I can’t shake him. Whenever I’m trying to talk with Jackie or the investigator dude, the guy is just hovering there and watching us.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Ah, yes. The inevitable complication. Unfortunately you do not have the luxury of a perfectly curated escape cast. This Mikey sounds like a liability. He is unstable, impulsive, and almost certainly enamored with violence for violence’s sake. You’ll have to account for him one way or another.
It is simple though. We need to ensure that when he inevitably erupts, he does so in a manner that is not immediately catastrophic to your objective.
Now for the good news. I have taken your situation, your available “team,” and the general hostility of your surroundings into account, and I have assembled a plan. This plan has a roughly 50% success rate which, given the variables of the environment and the fact that you are currently imprisoned in a faction’s stronghold, is exceptionally high.
You’re welcome.
StoryLeech
50-50 shot you got Zeke.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
50% doesn’t sound “exceptionally high.” You’re saying that I’ve got to risk my life on a coin toss.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
It is either my plan that you follow, or you attempt some version of what StealthieGurl101 keeps suggesting: skulk around the shadows avoiding notice, while hunting guards and hoping they don’t catch you.
Under normal circumstances, I might even entertain that plan. If nothing else, it would provide entertainment for those forum members obsessed with action and violence.
But since I am your Primary, I am doing my utmost to ensure that you survive. You are currently stuck in the middle of one of the most dangerous areas in the entirety of Frontiers, and you are saddled with a volatile tagalong who will hamper any attempt at escape that does not involve gratuitous violence.
Should you try to “quietly” escape, your chances would drop to around 10%. Maybe less.
GnomelandSecurity (Proctor)
As much as I will probably hate it, I think that you should listen to what ReCoil’s come up with, Zeke. We can always workshop it with the forum, and hopefully iron out some of the details to try and up your survival chances.
He is right about one thing though. You’re stuck in the middle of the Cathedral of Ash, and nothing you’ve done so far shows that you’re the fighting type.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
My plan does NOT require you to fight. Instead, you will lean into what you are and not what this forum wishes you to be. What you are is a loud, disruptive, and impossible to ignore element. We are going to weaponize that.
The plan hinges on your being able to recreate that sonic attack that you performed back in the Valley of Echoes.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
??
What the hell are you talking about? I don’t have a sonic attack. I know what I told you all about back in the Valley, but I can’t just call up that attack again. For one thing, I haven’t been able to do it since. For another, I don’t even know if it was me who did that thing.
It could have been one of the sound bubbles. It could have been some kind of magic that I ran into. I don’t know what exactly I did. You’re really saying that my best option at survival is to try and scream at the Black Teeth and hope that my magic just clicks?
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Yes, I am fully aware that your command over your own abilities is, at present, frustratingly inconsistent. However, you are overlooking a critical point: you have already demonstrated the capacity to use that magic once before. That means the capability exists. It is not theoretical so much as it is proven.
What you lack is not the ability, but the correct set of conditions to force it to happen again. That, fortunately, is something we can manufacture. What you need is pressure, a sufficient dose of desperation - which, conveniently, your current circumstances provide in abundance - and then layer in a bit of assistance from this forum. If we can elevate your magical output through the use of glyphs, you may not need perfect control to unleash your sonic attack.
Enough raw output, released at precisely the right moment, will overwhelm the Chapel Pit and cause chaos on a scale that the Black Teeth are not prepared to handle. That chaos will be your door. You will make yourself loud enough to draw the attention of the entire Chapel Pit. The glyphs will amplify your music and your voice, and then you push harder than you did in the Valley of Echoes. That should trigger your sonic attack, even if only partially, which will disrupt the entirety of the Cathedral.
From there, everything will move fast. Your mechanic will secure a vehicle. Your investigator will keep everything from unraveling too quickly. Even your unstable young associate, if properly aimed, will add to the general disorder.
GnomelandSecurity (Proctor)
Okay, I’m not the best at translating ReCoil’s ramblings. But I think he’s saying that the forum will give a bunch of sound-boosting glyphs. Then you play really loud and maybe trigger that weird sonic attack you used in the Valley. The whole Cathedral freaks out, everyone starts running, and you escape in the chaos.
Did I get that right?
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Your response is crude, simplified, and painfully lacking in nuance. But yes, that is the general shape of it.
Now that we have established the philosophy behind your escape attempt - namely that subtlety is not your way forward - let us discuss the proper execution.
This forum, when properly motivated, is a powerful resource. It can provide you with glyph designs. Specifically, we will need both microphone and magical amplification glyphs. Neither glyph is a particularly complex construction, nor is it prohibitively expensive in terms of power draw. They are less weapons and more infrastructure for an escape attempt.
Here is what you need to do. You deploy your mechanic, investigator, and volatile young problem, and have them scatter those glyphs throughout the Cathedral. Have them focus on the holding pens, around the edges of the fighting pit, near the corridors, entrances, and choke points, and anywhere else that sound will naturally carry. What you don’t want them to do is cluster all the glyphs in a single area. Disperse them so that the sound will reach a wider area.
Then, you link all those glyphs together. Since the glyphs are merely amplifying sound, they can run off a miniscule amount of ambient mana. You are attempting to build a network of glyphs to encompass the Cathedral. At the center of that network will be you. More specifically, at the center will be your guitar.
Take your guitar and inscribe a primary glyph into it to act as the anchor point. When you are ready, you will play and that glyph will reach out to the others all around the Cathedral. Every glyph linked to your guitar will catch the music, enhance it, and pass it along. The music you play will stack, combine, and build.
The amplification of your music will not be enough to ensure your survival. For that, you require allies. This is where your investigator and less-than-stable associate earn their keep.
Have them identify other allies in the holding pens and among the work crews. Find those rare survivors who still have their wits about them, and also target those volatile individuals who are merely looking for an excuse to commit violence. You do NOT need to inform everyone of your plan. In fact, attempting to coordinate all these moving parts would be a mistake.
There is a fascinating principle at play here. A stampede (or crowd crush) can be triggered with roughly 8% of a crowd moving decisively in a single direction. As long as those 8% of people run in a panic, the rest will follow. You are going to rely on instinct and herd behavior to do most of the work required for your escape.
Seed the idea among the survivors and volatiles that, once you play and begin the chaos, they should run and cause a panic. Should you prime enough of the people in the Cathedral, the moment your sonic attack hits the Pit will tear itself apart.
While your allies are completing their jobs, you have your own requirements that are critical for the escape attempt. You will need to convince the Black Teeth to hire you as a musician. You want to be invited into the spotlight.
Pitch yourself as novel entertainment to the Black Teeth. You are a slave they can use to keep the arena crowd engaged between fights. Get up on stage and, once you are expected to perform, you will be given position, visibility, and permission to be as loud as needed.
This is where everything will come together. You will have a glyph network covering the Cathedral. You will have your allies priming the crowd with just enough volatility to help you. And you will be center stage, fully amplified, and ready for the attack.
NullSigil
| This plan has a roughly 50% success rate |
I really want to know how you came up with that number because it sounds like you just pulled it out your ass. This plan is horrible and, from where I’m sitting, it’s got more points of failure than actual steps.
Let’s count them, shall we?
Glyph Placement - Zeke only has three allies, an old mechanic, an old mob dood, and a hormonal teenager who just wants to punch everything. They’re supposed to do what, exactly? Casually stroll around the Cathedral and decorate the walls with magical graffiti? You really think that’s going to work? You really think they’ll be able to prime the walls with glyphs?
From everything that Zeke has told us about the Chapel Pit, all the slaves get shuffled between the holding pens and the mining pit, and that’s it. He doesn’t have the ability to freely roam about the place. So unless the Black Teeth suddenly develop a passion for interior design and allow the slaves to wander and start painting the walls, I’m not seeing how he’s going to get full coverage with the glyphs.
Start a Slave Revolt - I know everyone is all for this Rockstar rebellion. Viva la revolution and all that. I for one would love to see Zeke go all Che Guevara and start selling red t-shirts to make a buck or two. But who is supposed to be revolting? (Other than Binary. badum tiss.)
Like I pointed out in the previous point, Zeke has THREE allies. That’s it. It’s less a rebellion and more a study group. You really think that three people are going to quietly convince all the slaves in the Cathedral? Might I remind you those slaves are all broken, scared, and conditioned to survive by not sticking their necks out. And you want them to suddenly rise up en masse on cue?
Sonic Attack Goes Boom - This is my favorite plothole. The whole plan hinges on Zeke pulling off a sonic attack that he has successfully performed exactly once. ONE TIME. You’re basically hoping that he’s going to be able to do it again, but on purpose this time.
All told, this is an absolutely brilliant plan and I’m excited to be part of it. ReCoil, you deserve your applause.
Golf clap.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
If you have a superior plan, I am sure we would all be delighted to hear it.
GnomelandSecurity (Proctor)
Please have a better plan. Please.
NullSigil
Oh I absolutely do not. What gave you that idea?
I just want it on record that this plan doesn’t have a 50% survival chance. I’d generously describe it as a bad plan, bordering on horrible.
But I’m not completely useless and I don’t come to this forum just to piss on your parade. I’ve already put together a microphone glyph for Zeke to use. It should play nicely with the ambient mana like ReCoil was suggesting.
See. I’m helping. But I still reserve the right to complain while I do.
MapHackJunkie
Yo Zeke. Grab this jpeg. It’s a map of the Chapel Pit with a bit of extra thrown in there. I mocked up some placement zones where you’re going to want the glyphs to go. The locations are marked with green dots.
Your best bet for when you’re trying to escape is for your mechanic lady to grab one of the vehicles in the repair bays closest to the arena pit. I’ve marked it out in yellow and there are red arrows showing a path that is your best shot at escaping. Once you’ve got the wheels, follow the marked path because it’s your fastest way out without needing to double back into trouble.
NullSigil
Ooo. Nice MapHack. This whole thing is still a terrible plan, but at least now it’s a well-documented terrible plan. I guess that counts as an improvement.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
No. I’m really hating this plan. I mean…REALLY hating this plan. I brought it up to Jackie and Mikey and when I explained it to them, it was the first time that I was really hearing the plan out loud and it somehow made the plan so much worse.
But the cherry on the shit sandwich came when I finished explaining the plan and Mikey just lit up. He’s excited about it. He loves the plan. Let me say that again. He loves the plan. The guy who just wants to fight everything saw the plan, nodded along, and fell in love.
Am I seriously going through with this? With all of you on the forum, and all your knowledge and your theorizing and your backseat gaming…this is the best plan we could come up with?
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Given your constraints, yes it is the best plan. You are inside an inhospitable environment with minimal allies and no external support. There is no clean escape solution for you here. The plan isn’t perfect, but it does produce a non-zero chance at success.
NullSigil
Hey Crush, you’re usually the voice of reason. /s
What do you think?
CrushDaddyXx
I like it. Should be fun.
MushroomCleric
I’m with Zeke on this. It sorta feels like ReCoil locked onto the whole “rockstar triggers slave revolt” idea and then built his plan out from that.
Sure, it’s cool in theory. I get why Crush would love it. It’s going to be cinematic and loud and there are going to be messy set pieces and everything. But like Null pointed out, there are so many holes to the plan.
Everything needs to be lined up perfectly for it to work, and that’s the biggest problem for Zeke. When’s the last time any of his plans have ever worked perfectly? This is just going to be a clusterfuck.
GnomelandSecurity (Proctor)
^Mushroom.
I don’t love the plan either. But I’m going to be real here and say that I’m more worried about what would happen to Zeke if he does nothing.
The Black Teeth aren’t known for being kind to their slaves. Zeke’s already talked about a bunch of slaves getting killed in the arena or dying because they’ve been overworked in the mines. How long do we think Zeke can survive in the Chapel Pit before he pisses someone off?
If he sits around waiting for us to come up with a better plan, he might get killed before he has the chance to use it.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
So…I told the three of them about the plan. Jackie listened while I explained about the glyphs and the sonic attack and the escape and everything. When I finished, she asked me, “can you actually do that…sound thing?”
I told her the truth. “Once. I don’t know how I did it though.”
She just nodded and sighed. “If it gets me out of here, I don’t really care how it works. I’ve been waiting long enough and this plan is better than doing nothing.”
Mikey, on the other hand, was basically vibrating the entire time I was speaking. He leaned in and his eyes were all lit up and he couldn’t wait to get started.
“Yea,” he kept saying. “Yea, that could work. That could really work.” He was mumbling under his breath and I heard him wondering which of the guards would panic first and where people would run and how fast the chaos would spread.
The investigator - his name is Elnor by the way, which is a really weird name - went quiet when I told him everything. When I told him that the odds of success were about 50% he just pursed his lips and then shook his head like I was an idiot.
So that’s what I’ve got. Jackie is willing to help because she’s just desperate to escape. Mikey wants chaos and he thinks the plan is the best shot at that. Eldor doesn’t really think much of the plan, but he’ll help anyway.
CrushDaddyXx
Since everyone is helping to make this plan less shit, I figure I should do my part. Zeke, I’ve got the perfect song for when you make your escape attempt. The guitar tabs are below.
***
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I hate this goddamn stupid plan. I said it before and I’ll say it again: what the shit guys?!?!
StoryLeech
Called it. Knew it was going to go to shit.
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Trust in the process, Zeke. The plan remains sound.
SpicyShoyu
Okay, but what specifically went wrong? There’s a couple of us that are taking bets on how it all was going to play out. The current smart money is on Mikey somehow blowing the whole thing up by getting too eager, but I felt like that was a little too convenient for your fic.
I figured that the investigator was going to sell you out for his freedom and now you’re in a worse position.
Z3ke (Original Poster)
No. It wasn’t Mikey and it’s not Elnor. It’s the fact that I just sold myself for arena entertainment that’s pissing me off.
The Black Teeth came and pulled us out of our holding pens early this morning and marched us back down to the pit. I was assigned to the mining again. They gave me a pickaxe and told me to get to work. I was quickly covered in that Veylstone dust and was constantly coughing my lungs out. While I was working I was looking around for that older Black Teeth dude who’d broken up the fight the other day.
I figured that he was close enough to the leadership among the Black Teeth, and if I could talk to him I could maybe convince him that I was a musician and not a miner. Hopefully, if everything went well, I’d stop mining and start working at the arena like how ReCoil wanted.
It took me two or three hours of work before I finally spotted him walking along one of the raised pathways overlooking the miners. I didn’t really get a good look at him the other day because I was woozy from getting beaten, but I was able to get a better look now. He’s a big guy with broad shoulders and this black armor with bone and teeth worked into it.
It took me another couple minutes to actually work up the nerve to head over to him. Finally, I set down my pickaxe and started walking. I felt my Persona skill activate and, I’ve gotta say that it’s weird every time it happens. My posture changed and my shoulders straightened out and my walk picked up a little bit of a swagger. Even with those changes, my Rank 3 in the skill wasn’t enough to turn me into a charismatic rockstar.
I looked like warmed over shit. I was covered in that blue Veylstone dust and my clothes were falling apart and I was looking like I hadn’t slept properly in days because I hadn’t slept properly in days.
As I got closer to the Black Teeth leader I noticed a few of the other guards started paying attention to me. A couple nudged each other and pointed at me and one was grinning like he knew how badly this was going to end. The leader saw me walking over at him and he had this disgusted sneer stretched across his face.
“What the hell do you want?” he grunted at me.
“To help you and your men,” I said. Internally, I cringed at how ballsy I was being.
There was this weird little lull after I said that where everyone was just kinda processing what I said. A few of the Black Teeth started grinning wider. I kept talking, the words spilling out of my mouth without really knowing what I was saying.
“I was with the group of slaves taken to the arena the other day,” I said. “And honestly, I’ve got to say that it was amateur hour.”
Why the shit was I saying this?! Shut up you fool. Maybe my Persona was driving or maybe the beatings and the Veylstone dust and the lack of food and water was getting to me, but once the words started flowing they wouldn’t stop.
“You all love the spectacle, right? You love entertainment, and I’m an entertainer. The fights are…well, they are what they are. You’ve got a bunch of slaves fighting, and it’s not all that interesting. But more than that, you’re wasting the crowd between the matches.”
At that point, every single eye around us was on me. My mouth was running too fast and both the leader and I were hearing my words for the first time. His attention was on me and it felt like I was staring down a pitbull trying to decide if it wanted to take a bite out of me or not.
“Like I said, I’m an entertainer. I can help you elevate the fights. I can hype the crowds and make the arena feel bigger than just a bunch of people killing each other.”
The leader took a single step forward until he loomed over me. “You think this is a performance pit?”
Apparently my survival instincts had completely fled as I talked, because I answered him.
“It can be.”
That’s when he hit me. I don’t really remember the first couple of punches. I do remember hitting the ground and then the man kicking the shit out of me. He didn’t give me a dramatic villain monologue or a warning or anything like that. He simply beat the absolute shit out of me.
At one point I tried talking again which, in retrospect, was apparently the wrong move because he just kept hitting me. Somewhere, through all the laughter coming from the other Black Teeth, one of them yelled something.
“Throw him in the arena. Let him hyp the fights from the inside.”
That got another round of laughter.
Eventually the leader grew bored of just beating on me. He stepped back and looked down at my broken body. I could feel blood running down my face and my ribs hurt when I tried to breathe. That’s when I did the second stupidest thing I did that day. I opened my mouth again.
“Now imagine the crowd,” I managed to say. “Imagine how worked up they’d be after all that.”
He just stared at me, shocked at what he was hearing. Out of the corner of my vision I saw a notification letting me know that Persona had jumped a rank.
“If you throw me in the arena, I die once and people cheer for maybe five minutes. But if I’m playing, then I can entertain. All the fights would feel bigger and louder. I can make sure that the crowd actually remembers the fight instead of just getting drunk like they do now.”
The guy just gaped at me for a second before barking out a loud laugh and looking back at the other Black Teeth with a look that said: can you believe this idiot?
“You’ve got balls you little shit. I’ll give you that. I wonder how long you’ll keep them once we toss you in the pit.”
I shook my head and that was a horrible idea. It felt like I’d rattled something loose in my head and some small part of me started worrying about a piece of my skull getting loose and damaging my brain.
“Throwing me in the arena would be a waste. If you want real entertainment, then you shouldn’t just toss me in there to die like everyone else. You want me to play.”
There was this long pause and I genuinely thought he was going to kill me. I was having trouble not swaying or passing out. He looked at me for a long time and then he laughed again.
“You’re either insane or useful,” he said.
“Probably both.”
That got another laugh. Then he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and hauled me back to my feet. I almost vomited at the sudden movement but thankfully Persona held it in. Then he shoved me back to the miners.
“Next fight, we’ll see what you can do,” he said.
Trying to mine after that was…not fun. Every swing of the pickaxe could be felt in my ribs and it took all that I had to not just pass out and drop to the ground. A couple hours later and the Black Teeth guards finally marched us all back to the holding pens. The second we got inside, Mikey, Jackie and Elnor all came over.
Mikey looked thrilled that I’d taken a beating. Elnor just stared at me for a while without saying anything. Jackie took one look at my face and all the bruises and blood there and just sighed. “So…did that go the way you hoped?”
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Once again, you are all welcome.
I would like the record to reflect that this plan, while admittedly dangerous and volatile according to some of the less visionary members of this forum, is, in fact, functioning exactly as intended.
Zeke needed access to the arena and now he has it. He needed the Black Teeth to see him as something other than expendable labor, and now they are curious. Most importantly, he needed to stop pretending he was capable of subtlety.
The Black Teeth think they have found an amusing new toy for their arena, which means they will bring him closer to the center of the Chapel Pit.
The plan proceeds.
***
Z3ke: [last online: 2 days ago.}
Z3ke (Original Poster)
I NEED GUITAR TABS.
FAST SONGS OR CHASE SONGS. GIVE ME SOMETHING AGGRESSIVE.
Fast songs or chase songs. Give me something aggressive.
10161066
??
Fogbarrel
Dood. You were gone for two days. I expected a little bit longer before you updated again. What happened?
ReCoil44 (Primary)
Did the sonic attack work? Did the glyphs work?
Z3ke (Original Poster)
TABS. GIMME SOMETHING THAT FITS WITH A CHASE.
CrushDaddyXx