exploration

[inthenightmods]

EXPLORATION

ACTIVE EXPLORATION SLOTS: 0/8

Explorations are currently OPEN. They will close again when we run out of active exploration slots.

Building a structure may be done at any time and does not affect the active exploration slots.

•••
The forest engulfing Beacon is dense and uncharted, but that just means there's never a shortage of cool stuff to discover lurking off the beaten path. There's always new locations, plot clues, or extra resources to be found, so although venturing into the woods is always dangerous, the rewards may just outweigh the risks.

Once you come up with a plan, please fill out and submit the form below. We'll respond in one of two ways, depending on the nature of your exploration:

• In most cases, we'll respond with a single write-up detailing the outcome of your exploration. For example, characters venturing out into a particular part of the woods may discover a new location! In that case, you'll receive a full description of that new location, along with any other details worth noting, such as forest spirit encounters or difficulties along the way. If your group would then like to react to any of this or explore that location after its discovery, you can then respond with your own write-up of everything your group would investigate, and we'll let you know what happens as a result. And that's it! Then the exploration is wrapped, the location becomes available to the game at large, and you're welcome to thread out any details of the exploration if you like.


• In limited cases, an exploration request will open a dialogue between the players and mods to determine the outcome of your exploration. For example, characters attempting to interact with forest spirits may get the chance to play out that encounter, whether it be a pleasant conversation or, uh, the forest spirit trying to kill you, since that happens sometimes. Explorations of this nature will not always result in a response like this, as it'll depend on our availability as mods. If you're interested in doing an exploration like this and don't want to leave it up to chance, PM us! We'll work with you to schedule an encounter.

Regardless of which type of exploration you end up with, what you do during an exploration is entirely up to you, so feel free to get creative! We always try to reward creativity in some way, even if it's not a success in the way that you hoped for.

•••
Before you embark on your quest, here's everything you need to know about explorations:

• Exploring uncharted territory is intended to be dangerous, and there is always a risk of failure, injury, and other setbacks. If you're not on board with these risks, exploration may not be in the cards for you.


• That said, the exploration form includes an opt-in for serious injury and death. If you aren't interested in having your character(s) at risk for that stuff at this time, you can let us know upfront. Please keep in mind that opting out of serious injury/death does not mean you're opting out of the above risks of failure, injury, and other setbacks. Those risks are always in play during explorations. In addition, while opting out of serious risks doesn't mean you'll get a watered down exploration, some discoveries lurking out in the forest are reserved for risk-taking characters. For example, opting out of serious risks eliminates the chance of running into the hostile green-eyed spirits, so characters interested in pursuing green-eyed spirit plot threads will have to put themselves on the line to do so.


• If you choose to opt into the risks of serious injury and death, your character's safety is forfeit and you give the mods the right to maim accordingly (though, of course, we'll check permissions posts in doing so). This does not mean that groups opting into these risks will always be tormented and killed! It's just helpful for us to know your preferences and expectations upfront. Please keep in mind that opting into the risk of serious injury or death applies to the whole group, not just individual characters.


• Explorations into the area of Beacon currently occupied by the Parade will always be extra dangerous. Characters will run the risk of encountering the Parade itself, but besides that, the Parade's presence gets all the forest spirits in the area extra revved up, increasing their hostility. We'll give you the "danger zone warning" at the top of the exploration if you're about to head into Parade-infested territory, as characters may be seriously injured or killed at any point during an exploration within the parade route. You can check the Parade's schedule on the calendar page.


• Chance of success will be left up to a mix of mod discretion and RNG. We'll typically use a RNG to determine what you find, if anything, but we'll also take player/character ingenuity into account. In short: If you have a solid, creative plan, you're more likely to be rewarded for that. Aimlessly wandering won't always get you nothing, but it's less likely to earn you something neat for your trouble. (However, please do be encouraged to follow the dumb idea that's in your character's heart. We will reward for IC idiocy, too.)


• Having torches from the bonfire with you will also increase your chance of success, though be careful: If you lose the torches while exploring, someone will have to recover them or they're lost forever. Additionally, you must request torches through the item request page in order to take them on explorations. Torches not logged through the item requests page are not considered game canon.


• Once you receive a mod response to your exploration, you will have one week to tag us back. If that week timer runs out, we'll consider that exploration closed, and mod responses will stop. You're welcome to handwave your own IC conclusion to the exploration at that point. To be extra clear: the time it takes for us mods to respond to your exploration is not included in that time limit. The timer starts fresh each time we tag you back.


• Explorations over two weeks old will be wrapped in the next mod response. This is to prevent explorations from dragging on for too long, which will slow up our system, but more importantly, it'll make for awkward timing issues in the game! We don't want to leave players waiting on exploration outcomes to be able to engage with the rest of the game.


• Characters may only embark on one exploration at a time, no matter how small. Pretty self explanatory! One at a time, please. If you play more than one character, you may send them on concurrent explorations, but keep in mind that we might deny exploration requests like this to give other players a chance to hop in.


• We will only accept a maximum of 8 active explorations at a time. If those 8 slots fill up, we'll close the queue to new submissions until we're able to wrap some of the active adventures. This number is based on mod availability.


• Explorations will always be closed during events except under rare special circumstances. Similarly, explorations can't be forward- or back-dated to happen during an event. Go do event things instead!


• You can also submit an "exploration" to build a new structure on this page! Just use the appropriate form below.

To EMBARK ON AN EXPLORATION, please fill out the form below:

<b>player name(s):</b> (please list ALL PLAYERS involved with the exploration!) <b>character(s):</b> (please list ALL CHARACTERS involved with the exploration!) <b>area of exploration:</b> (please be as specific as possible! we need to know where your character is/is trying to go.) <b>date(s) of exploration:</b> (you may forward or back date by up to two weeks from the current date.) <b>plan:</b> (what, specifically, are you doing? this is the place to detail the plan in full, so be sure to include all of the relevant details so that we can factor it all into our response. consider questions like: what's the goal? are you bringing supplies or torches? does anyone have experience or training that could assist with your plan? is anyone already injured or impaired? tell us what your plan is! AS A REMINDER, EXPLORATIONS WILL TYPICALLY ONLY RECEIVE ONE RESPONSE TO DETAIL THE RESULT, so it's important to be clear about your intentions and plans!) <b>is your group willing to accept risk of serious injury/death?</b> (a simple yes/no is all we need, and please only give ONE ANSWER for the whole group. a "yes" here doesn't automatically mean you'll all die horribly, and a "no" doesn't mean you won't get anything cool. we'll check permissions posts before injuring/killing characters.)

To BUILD A STRUCTURE or ALTER THE SETTING, please fill out the form below:

<b>player name(s):</b> (please only list the names of the players ORGANIZING construction/alteration.) <b>character(s):</b> (please list ALL CHARACTERS involved with construction/alteration.) <b>location:</b> (please be as specific as possible so that we can add it to the map!) <b>start date:</b> (when does this project BEGIN? based on the details you provide in this submission, we'll let you know how long it will take the characters to complete the project.) <b>plan:</b> (this is the place to tell us how the construction/alteration is going to happen! hit us up with as many details as you have, as we'll be using this plan to determine the length of the project.) <b>description:</b> (what does the finished product look like? this is the description as it will appear VERBATIM on the setting page.)

Please note that with the recent discovery of the medical center, each player may only explore the medical center ONCE for the time being in order to give everyone a chance to get involved. If exploration requests die down and there are still areas to be uncovered, we may lift that rule. We'll make an announcement in the OOC comm should that happen.

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Comments

[reigniter]

After finding the bridge posts, Ignis and Prompto will return to the Village general store to find rope and ax to fell down the tree.
In the meantime, Noctis will search for a narrow spot up and down the river so he can warp across it or he will look for any kind of stone for warping point in the river. His warping is fast and range decent enough for that- if a tree can make a makeshift bridge.

Once Noctis is on the other side and Prompto and Ignis return, they'll start chopping down the tree. It will take them some time, as they are not particularly skillful, but they should manage to cut down a medium-sized tree- tall enough to reach the other bank of the river.

Noctis will secure it on his side, against the post, so it doesn't roll over, and Ignis and Prompto will do the same on their side.

As they slowly make their way across the tree trunk to the other side, Ignis will clean branches off (to not get in the way) and make dents in the trunk (for easier stepping and to reduce the slipping chances). Hopefully, they don't disturb fishies in the water...

[inthenightmods]

What a great plan! The boys manage to pull it off without too many hangups, and a few splinters and sore muscles later, they've got themselves a bridge! Well done.

While the river below remains relatively undisturbed through all this, although as Prompto begins to make his way across, he'll suddenly find himself slipping on the bark as though it's been overgrown with the slick moss of the riverbank. A branch snaps, the tree rolls to one side, and Prompto is tossed off the trunk, falling helplessly to the river below as Noctis and Ignis look on, and he hits the water that's much too cold for summer—

And then he's back on the tree like he'd never left.

Only Prompto will have seen this. For Noctis and Ignis, it looks as though Prompto just paused briefly, his face blank.

Anyway! Would the boys like to continue on to the village, or do they have another destination in mind?

[reigniter]

Yes! They definitively continue into the Village.

Prompto is under the impression he's going crazy though. But he won't mention anything to the other two about his falling experience... YET.

They will snoop around the village to see if it is habitable (maybe snag a hut for them because room at the Inn is homey but too small for three grown guys). They reach the Library and, of course, enter.

Ignis is very eager to explore it and see what kind of books it holds. They light their way with the torches they borrowed but make sure not to set anything on fire. When they reach shelves Ignis will curiously pull out a book and sit at the nearest table to look through it, while the guys look around.

Noctis is going to look around for a Librarian that he heard about. He wants to offer the spirit pretzel in return to not eat books and Ignis.

[inthenightmods]

The Librarian is, naturally, lurking around. There's a lot of shuffling noises and strange groans, but if Noctis keeps up the search, sooner or later he'll find them. Sort of. See, the thing is, why limit yourself to just the floor, huh?

The Librarian's here, all right, they're just five shelves up, crawling around like it's the third act of Hereditary, defying gravity in favor of

They chirp the moment Noctis notices them, an inquiring sort of sound. What's up?

[broplaints]

Well that's not creepy at all. You know they make ladders for that, right?

But he's not here to judge you. Much, anyway. He's here to offer you food.

A nice, freshly ( well, it was fresh when they left this morning ) baked pretzel. The soft kind like you'd get in a food court at the mall. A peace offering to please not eat anymore books.

Or Ignis. Ignis' are friends, not food.

But he'll also ask if there's anything the librarian likes to eat in particular, so that maybe he can bring it next time.

1/2

[inthenightmods]

Oh, they like that. With a happy little huff they scurry downwards, fingers just barely visible as they grip the shelves. The pretzel is taken, sniffed once, and then is . . . eaten, presumably? It's difficult to see what's happening, but the pretzel disappears within four bits, so.

The chirp again, the sound decidedly more pleased, before staring pointedly at Noct. Are they thinking? Hmmm . . .

After a few minutes, they grab Noct's hand and lead him to the desk, where they have a few pieces of paper. They seem to be drawing . . . oh, no, it's writing!

[inthenightmods]

ALL

[broplaints]

Well. Alright then.

Noctis will go along when pulled. Will wait patiently as the librarian scribbles. And when he reads the word, he's more than a little amused.

Congratulations. You've just earned the Endear Yourself To Noctis achievement.

He doesn't have anymore food on him now, unfortunately. But, lucky for the librarian, the boys did recently move to village. Which means every couple of days, mostly in what would be the evening, Noctis will be bringing more. A little plate filled with whatever they had for dinner. Or a basket with leftover bread and bagels and muffins. Basically, he's chosen to share Ignis' cooking with you. And he doesn't even like doing that with Prompto.

[inthenightmods]

The Librarian is thrilled. They eat the food as quickly as possible each time it comes, naturally, but more and more there's a sense of warmth when Noctis enters the library. Happiness, joy . . . it's a little like being at home, that same feeling of safety.

After three weeks, the boys get a little present. It's . . . a necklace! Very old and somewhat rusted, the pendant a very small locket. It can't be open (or maybe it just doesn't), and the color's all tarnished, but it's very much a gift meant to serve as a thank you.

[broplaints]

I'm not crying you're crying.

You're welcome little buddy. Noctis will happily accept that locket. He'll fasten it around the handle of his lantern and keep it safe always. He'll also start hanging out for a little while each time he comes. Maybe even help put some of the books back. He likes that feeling. It reminds him of being with his dad.