Borderlands II - This is the OLD game thread

[Kafen]

Durant jokes with grim humor. "Right, what are we collecting, again?"

[Jerrard]

"We ain't collecting nothing." Boomer frowns, "We look at this portal thing and see if we can blow it to the skies." The dwarf groans.

[Stik]

"See how, Boomer. Not if. 'If' suggest we're going to try," Barber says, quietly.

The cave is fairly dry, not too cold, and quiet but for the echoes of voices and footsteps and the occasional sigh of wind, but the strong scents of multiple corpses, the worm-thing in the first chamber, and the pig sty combine to make the place very unpleasant.

The violet light pulses randomly, in silence.

[OOC] The purple-lit chamber awaits. Is anyone entering? [/OOC]

[Jerrard]

"Fine, lets see how we can blow this thing back up to whatever god left it behind." The old dwarf replies grumpily "Lets get out of here, worse than a three month siege this place." Motioning to the warriors to lead on the dwarf stays in the middle, weapon at the ready.

[Kafen]

Durant asks. "Where do we start?" He bend down a little to look at the place from a lower angle and inquires. "How far away do we need to be when you destroy this thing?"

[Ismaels-Legacy]

Bastian starts looking for inscriptions or sigils of any sort. Perhaps the easiest way to destroy it would be to break the enchantment, rather than to make it explode. Granted he'd prefer to see it explode....

[Jerrard]

"Well that I'd be up to smarter ones than me, boss tells me to blow something, I blow it." He winks, "Lets move." With that he approaches the purple glow, "Watch that pool tho."

[Stik]

The pool is a pool in name only. The water in it does not seem to behave properly at all. Nor does the fog above it. Both seem to be moving on their own, and on their own timetable, and slightly out of sync with normal time. The effect is disconcerting, particularly when coupled with the shimmering light.

The stone that makes up the object resembles basalt, albeit with odd-colored inclusions, and is quite different than the surrounding walls, giving the impression that this was built elsewhere and placed here rather than being carved from the living rock. The object is not in the best condition, being chipped and cracked in numerous places. Visible on each of the arching pillars are odd carvings, like lettering in an unknown alphabet, running in four parallel vertical lines on each one.

[Ismaels-Legacy]

Bastian swallows, again, trying to maintain his breakfast. With some effort to ignore the pool, he begins to examine the writing. Arcane languages were never his strong suit. Languages IN GENERAL were not his strong suit. Obviously the writing DID something, but it was hard to determine whether it created, restricted, or maintained the effects of the pool. Idly, Bastian retrieves a make-shift weapon from one of the corpses and sticks and end into the pool and withdraws it, seeing if anything happens.

[Jenara]

"You sure you wanna do that?" The dwarf nudges Bastian, "Really?" he eyes the pool checking it out for somewhere he can damage the pool.

[Ismaels-Legacy]

Withdrawing the weapon, Bastian shrugs. "My initial guess was that it is a portal, but I figured I should check and make sure it's not corrosive, or worse, alive."

[Stik]

The end of the polearm pierces the violet mist, although there is a small amount of resistance as it moves, like pushing one's hand through water, and a bit of vibration can be felt through the weapon's haft. The edge of the mist, where the weapon's haft crosses it, coruscates slightly, and emits a low chattering/buzzing sound no louder than a bee would make.

Strangely, as the weapon crosses the barrier, it appears to bend, somewhat like the effect encountered when pushing a pole into clear water. But not quite, because in this case, the effect varies as the weapon moves. The far end of the weapon seems to be moving more slowly through the mist than the end that Bastian is holding - lagging in time behind the movement of the part outside the mist so that the weapon's haft seems to bend and warp more and more towards the tip. The mist billows inside in reaction to the weapon passing through it, but much slower than one would expect.

The effect reduces as the weapon is withdrawn, and there is no lasting effect on the appearance of the mist, apart from a few ripples around the point where the weapon entered, which quickly dissipate, or on the weapon.

"Is that how you usually do things, priest? You see something you don't understand, so you poke it with a stick?" Barber's tone is jocular, but with an undercurrent of fear.

[Ismaels-Legacy]

Bastian chuckles and replies, "What? You expected me to kneel down and pray for guidance?" Bastian's eyes glaze over for a moment as an idea occurs to him. "This is made of stone, correct? It can be, conceivably, destroyed by detonation. If this is a portal, and we are concerned with damaging the cave, why not send through an explosive charge that would explode on the OTHER side of the portal?"

[Jerrard]

"Would work in theory, but you'd have no idea what youd be blowing up."

[Stik]

"We do not even know what this thing is, much less what it does or how to operate it. What if it is a ranged weapon, like the one that created the Dark Ward, and these grotdier were tasked to secure it?" Barber says, quietly.