Ocular Viewing #6 A micro viewing or so I thought

[For those not familiar with these chronicles, via the oculus and its machination within my iFruit, I am following the adventures of a dungeoneer named Murkstav through what professionals would call an extraction mission, though many times the man just seems to be CRAWLING through a subterranean world, a DUNGEON for the senses]

REASSURE, REWARD

The hero, the man with the sword, a dungeoneer, needed to be reassured of his reward, needed to make a break and cut bate, make a profit. He noticed the alchemist’s room about him, with an iron furnace and pipes and loads of ingredients around. There was a pumper, a giant iron engine that coughed, Murkstav looked around, bitter with the oil dropping like butter from the ceiling.

Disgusting as the ooze flowed, the subterranean warrior sick with sweat and oil, like heated butter about him, turned and observed his surrounding for anything of value. Everything in his core could not let him return to his TENSION ALLIES with an empty hand. Strange how his guild needed proof for these strange adventures, these dives into the deepest of realms.

Murkstav got his bearings, checked the dressing on his wound, which seemed (7) no better or worse than before. He looked about and wondered if anything, anything at all in that place would somehow salvage this situation.

DungeonWords PORTAL, LOOT, SPIRITS

The man looked up to an archway, wide with a stone trim, complete darkness beyond. He looked at a few carrion tables filled with strange liquors, when smelled scented of simple spirits and liqueurs. He never met an alchemist that was not a drunk, as if the human body itself was a catalyst for simple metals turning valuable. He looked under the tables, seemingly scientific and found a wealth of loot. (MONOLITH) Bars of silver, gold and platinum, perhaps too large to carry but sometimes in extractions, you don’t have to know or make your way back. He clasped two platinum and a gold and snuck them into his backpack. He noticed upon the treasured monolith strange symbols, strange images of a FANATICAL cult, the bars were so inlayed the dungeoneer wondered if there would be more money in trading them to the dwarves. Placing the bars in balanced pockets, he hoisted his backpack over his shoulder, and did not mind the extra weight.

Extra weight for extra pay, not a problem.

Looking to the portal Murkstav looked up into the shaft, knowing full well that he really had no where else to go. The fire above did not look like it had any intention of letting him pass any time at all in the near future. With that he strode into the portal...

NECROMANCY, ACOLYTES, NET

(The thing that troubles me about this method of ocular observation, using a mechanical device rather than a scroll, is the fact that one uses more than one lens. In the referral of dungeonwords I notice I use all three words, but it is the way it is happening, and who am I to question the ocular oracle?

In the room just beyond Murkstav (odd that the oculus has shifted to other people) the men waited, dressed in robes of purple and silver trim, nets in their hands to capture this intruder. There were four of them, bald with hawk noses and expressions of intense hate. They watched Murkstav stealing the bars inlaid with sacred imagery, cursing his form and planning his demise.

Murkstav took one look back, but his instincts suddenly did not push his foot forward. Something was amiss, something indeed and one would ask the oracle if the dungeoneer’s skills would tell him of an impending doom.

(yes and)

Tabletop Desktop

Desktop becomes Tabletop

I am stunned by the amount of writing I have been doing with the Oculus (though I do combine the orignal oculus with oculus12 which has a more FU resolution) in my hand. It is not a game, it is not a system, not even a tool. For me the oculus is a different, liberating way of looking at one’s own mind. While I have been hung up in the mechanics (more obsessing over them than anything else) or dismissing any writing as not good enough, the oculus has said just look, just observe and note what you are watching, adding ‘why is it important’? So my thanks to Geoff Osterberg for this creation.

It’s freed me and I appear to be burning the keys with it. Though I must say I do feel slightly guilty that it is not going into a proper journal, but rather into a computer. But then again, it is the bane of not only myself, but the modern man.

 Here is an example, a small one of what the Oculus can do...

Oculus Viewing #3

Experiment with the device continues as I journal the limits of its parameters. Today I focus once again on Murkstav, an adventurer in some alternate earth. I believe he hails from a place called Rivermoon though the locals seem to refer to it as Rilun.

Though let me intercede with a few words about the Oculus itself. It haunts you. I am not sure if it is the way the narrative is made but the Oculus is easy to obsess, almost like picking a good yarn on Netflix. Throughout my travels I have been continuously of returning to the Oculus, of opening the lens once again. No matter the scenario. I am not so much reminded of the Oculus as much as I see more and more opportunities to use it out in the wild. 

20,13 Escape, Nature

The oculus has been thrown. I believe that it is continuing the story of Murkstav, he has escaped the nature, escaped the forest which threatened him. Some fighting is being revealed to me, with swamp-like things (pun intended). He was not winning, with dripping mucous coming from the trees, a nauseous white light surrounding the scene. The kind of white that happened during a hangover in the eighties. There is a will out there, something that I cannot see in the lens but is out there in the forest, a strange feeling indeed that Murk is no doubt feeling. It is waiting out there, haunting him. and for this reason he goes to escape, wildly flying out in the realms.

Motherlode, Gibbous

This lead him to a cave, an open one that while seemingly a cave appears to be an entrance with stairs and old torches around. The Oculus has heralded a Gibbous Motherlode, running into a cave our hero walks in, perhaps too desperately and falls into a cavern, and there is the motherlode, a vast chamber of treasure, with a light far off in front. Surely in this mess, of piles and piles of treasure there is somethign that catches the eye.

Summonarium

Ye gods, our hero, intrepid has fallen right into the middle of a summonarium, the treasures abound an offering for the thing coming through the vortex of blue and black. Cursing in his breath, Murkstav pulls his sword and clerics around him go to seize him, he is perturbed if not annoyed and is... 

we got ourselves a yes but.

Murkstav fights off the clerics, three in all and is wounded, let us see if dungeonwords can resolve conflict. What happens when the clerics are slain, to the summonarium, the portal?

Chained

The thing is chained to the entrance, fighting with its head but it seems a collar and it fights to get out, Murkstav circles, a thought in his head, he does not want to touch the treasure for fear of releasing the demon. He moves about toward the light that appears to the left. Though remember, Murkstav is bleeding. Let us pull the oculus out and ask it but one thing, how bad is the wound?

Solve

Oh yes this is something Murkstav will just have to figure out.

Scrawl Session 3

Our heroes are in deep trouble, the party is split and things are looking rather unripe. A ramp has separated the two groups: Swann and Jestur and Malfor and Onilio. Alas how does it happen, sounds like a serious serious session with the good ol’ mantrap man. The Gods have not figured on how to get them out of there, thus we switch stories to Otilio and Malfor- the farmer still out from the fight with the Ettin. 

     Malfor coughed, his mind racing after the soul-ring grasped his consciousness from the lost worlds. Upon the brink of death the white-gold carried him forth, returning him to the realm of the living. We wakes but he is very weak, the ring pulling his consciousness from the brink of doom. It floated there and the metal surrounded his spirit until it rushed back to the mortal world of wonder, an greatness to behold. But Malfor returns incredibly weak and tired, barely able t carry his wondrous stuffings.

     Otilio heard the heroes fall down the hall. Heard the familiar slide, it was an old trick devised by a more intelligent culture, but he thought but could not place the magnificent tiles upon the service. The Gnorc entered the tomb from its eastern face, coming across it upon the cliff he scaled with a party. 

     The Gnorc, Otilio rushed down the corridor from where his new-found companions recently screamed from, he found nothing, the handle was on the base, he did notice the curtains waving a bit and the sand-marks of a drag or scuffle. 

     “They must be about here, I am sure of it” he thought to himself. Blazing forth toward the room, the Gnorc knew that this only meant doom to touch the torch but surely there was an alternate trigger. He noted about there was a sconce in the wall behind the torch

     Gnorc grabbed a length of rope, tying it about his waste and flung it over one of the railings supporting the curtains. Hanging himself from the waist he placed a torch upon the sconce. He felt a click, closed his eyes and hoped for the best. 

     Deep below Swann and Jestur fought flinging the remains of a former guest into the leech-flooding hole, they suddenly heard a clang, and the iris of the hole shut, slicing a leech in half.

The Logos Dungeon- Sessions 1 & 2

The Logos Dungeon- Summary of Sessions 1 & 2 using Dyson Logos's map, John Yorio's solo-play technique and Mark's rpgsolo.com amazing gm emulator. 

     A vision, a haunting dream of an open tomb, haunts the dreams of a magically-addicted scholar Igbold. His concubine sells the map that he scrawled in a night-terror stupor to the highest price at an Unnamed Tavern. 

     That highest price was to Jestur, a story-teller of ill-repute, a concoctor of tails and perhaps this very one. An former jester, he convinces the captain of a palace guard, Swann, to go into the business of treasure-hunting. 

     “Even a barbarian can do it!”

     “Barbarians have axes and rage”

     “Well I’ve got this!” Jestur responded, holding a wooden scepter with a jingles hanging from it.

     The two travel toward the location of said map, whereupon they come to a field of desolation, a promised crop gone horribly wrong, a tiny estate confiscated by the king. At the center is Malfor, a shattered farmer with a large bag, with all the tools of his now dead trade. Without much convincing he decides to join the troope. After all, as Jestur explains “Reaping monsters has got to be easier than reaping wheat!”

     After spending the night in camp, the neophyte-adventures venture forward to their destination- an opening in a cliff that glows at night like a beacon. Not many have talked about it, but surely it is the glow of gold. 

     “Too easy,” Swann remarked. 

     “Scared?” Jestur asked. 

     “No just putting you on your guard. It is a lovely shade of filthy rich is it not?”

     At the entrance to our yonder tomb, the trio find the walls lined in spectacular golden plates, each more valuable than the next. However something odd is amiss, the cave is crowded with riches. Pouches purses and packs lay piled high against the walls. 

     Thinking it is an offering, the three put their savings on the piles. 

     “One thing I know my friends is you take the gold when you are leaving!” Jestur gestured. 

     Moving south into the wide high tunnel something was amiss, the men of this accidental company faced a horrible monstrosity that had taken the cave as its refuge- an Ettin. A fierce battle was waged, where the Chivalier swung his sword but was dashed against a wall, dazed; the former-Jester threw bags of gold at the creature; the Farmer impaled and injured the creature but was so wounded he was lost from the battle and perhaps this world. A possible new ally, a tall greenish gnome fought mightily, strangely for his race, with an odd ferocity that none could compare. It was he who cleaved into one of the giant's heads, and continued to best it as our original comrades distracted it.

     Finally the fall of their most inculpable comrade, Malfor, the Farmer, drove the Chivalier to dare a splendid slice upon the creature- who fell barely missing Jestur.

     When the dust settled, the two survivors raced to their friend, seeing him on the brink of death. Gnome approached, Jestur realizing that he was not a gnome but a Gnorc- a gnomish with veins of orcish lineage. Taking a ring from his hand filled with rings, the Gnorc placed it upon the fallen, explaining it as a magical lure to the farmer's spirit. Not a way of catching but a way of catching souls.

     While Otilio, the Gnorc, attended to his patient, Jestur and Swann moved ahead in the tunnel. There they saw a wand burning brightly as a torch floating in the middle of a chamber that opened to the west of the corridor. Silk curtains tied with golden rings neatly invited the visitors. This Jestur found all too inviting, and despite warning from a shouting Otilio, he took the wand which was in reality a clever lever. Swann reacted instantly, as if saving the King himself, he rushed to Jestur and pulled him by the neck to escape the dividing stonewall.

     But it was too late and the two suddenly plummeted as the floor became a slide, carrying them to a dug-out chamber filled with sand. Locking them in place Jestur and Swann were not alone and they soon discovered that perhaps wearing armor in the desert sands is a good idea. For the floor moved and waved as hungry things snaked up and down toward them.

     Grabbing Jestur leg for a supper, the man screamed as Swann hacked at the creature.

     

An Inspired Dungeon Crawl

     The dungeon to come, the scrawled map on leather, scrawled upon by blood more than ink; had come to Ingabod in one of his maddened magical infusions. The rooms spilled out like tentacles about the eye, and when he woke, sliding beakers, decanters, books and scrolls to the side, he had absolutely no idea what he was looking at. Yet the woman who had the disgrace of sharing his bedchamber, and his loins, knew precisely what she was looking at. 
     She was looking at a purse of gold.
     So with delight, and to Ingabod’s surprise, she accepted his foot on her flank as he kicked her out of bed. But with a swoop and a yelp, she also took what the magic-addict had scared on the fine lamb’s skin (a piece had been torn to wrap about his member (just enough to keep his essence out of her, for fear of gaining more power than Ingabod) that place, that unknown place, that dwelled more in the madman’s mind than in the treasure-laden realms of the continent.
     Taking the leather, the strumpet followed the twisting paths away from that dragon’s lair, off to a tavern, or a plaza, to sell to a random cast of characters, enough to pay for another chamber, another night another meal, until another called for her to warm his bed.
     So there it was before Jester, the lambskin, promising riches more than he had heard in the thrones of kings. For surely if these manner of men could do it, he could as well...