20k Leagues Under the Sea: Baritones

[idolpro]

[The elevator deposits you in the interior of a spacious submersible with a decidedly steampunk aesthetic. All of the metal is brushed bronze, and the navigation tools look to be turn of the century]

[Through the periscope, you can still see the sky; the water visible through the circular windows is a pale blue-green, kissed by filtering sunlight]

Comments

RULES

[idolpro]

[The following rules are visible scrawled on a piece of paper on the navigation desk:]

Welcome to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!

Your goal is for your team to travel a distance of 20,000 leagues in your submersible. The teams that continue the longest will win a ~fabulous prize~: instant and painless revives, and full healing for one team of their choosing.

The journey won't be easy, though. Every time you choose to take your submersible further into the briny deep, you run the risk of suffering a fatal setback imposed by the challenges of the sea.

You can turn back at any time, safely surfacing. However, fortune favors the bold, and once you ascend, you cannot return to the challenge.

So the decision each round is up to you: will you boldly press onward, to discover the unknown? Or will you return to the realm above, and leave behind the ocean's watery secrets?

ROUND 1 DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

[Are you ready to set out on your grand journey to experience the undersea world and all its wonders? y/n]

[Please roll a 1d100 and submit your result with your decision]

Re: ROUND 1 DISCUSSION

[firstworldproblem]

How exciting! Who here doesn't mine a little pain and suffering just to see how far we can venture?

Re: ROUND 1 DISCUSSION

[wineanddie]

Truly, what is a victory if it is too easily gained?

Re: ROUND 1 DISCUSSION

[syckophant]

Oh good! I don't have trauma from a previous game in which we were stuck in a ship that went horribly wrong!

[The humor helps take the edge off.]

Let's at least try to double-up on it. Let's die from being crushed or a disease so I don't get a new fear.

ROUND 1 SUBMISSION

[idolpro]

Re: ROUND 1 SUBMISSION

[wineanddie]

PROCEED ONWARD: YES

DICE ROLL: 12

ROUND 2

[idolpro]

"A slight declivity ends in an uneven bottom, at fifteen fathoms depth. Here, there is no fine sand, no submarine prairies, no sea-forest. It is the coral kingdom.

The light produces a thousand charming varieties, playing in the midst of the branches that are so vividly coloured. You seem to see the membraneous and cylindrical tubes tremble beneath the undulation of the waters. You're tempted to gather their fresh petals, ornamented with delicate tentacles, some just blown, the others budding, while a small fish, swimming swiftly, touches them slightly, like flights of birds. But if your craft approaches these living flowers, these animated, sensitive plants, the whole colony would take alarm. The white petals would re-enter their red cases, the flowers fade as you look, and the bush changed into a block of stony knobs."

[You take in the sights through the portholes, beholding the wonders of the sea. All around you dark shadows loom, but your submersible hums like a well-oiled machine, performing the duty of keeping you safe most admirably]

[At this depth, the pressure is beginning to increase. It will be more dangerous to continue from here]

ROUND 2 SUBMISSIONS

[idolpro]

[You think that you could coax the submersible's delicate robotic pincers to take a sample of coral and bring it in as a keepsake from your journey. Would you like to try? Please roll 1d100 to attempt to retrieve it]

[Are you ready to continue your grand journey to experience the undersea world and all its wonders? Please roll a 1d100 and submit your result with your decision if you plan to continue]

ROUND 2 DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

[failedsafe]

[LILY'S FACE IS AGGRESSIVELY PRESSED AGAINST THE GLASS!!!!! PEERING INTENSIFIES]

ROUND 3 DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

[Sadly, you're unable to get the coral]

"There are rays of gigantic size, five meters long and with muscles so powerful they could leap above the waves, sharks of various species including a fifteen–foot glaucous shark with sharp triangular teeth and so transparent it is almost invisible amid the waters, brown lantern sharks, prism–shaped humantin sharks armored with protuberant hides, sturgeons resembling their relatives in the Mediterranean, trumpet–snouted pipefish a foot and a half long, yellowish brown with small gray fins and no teeth or tongue, unreeling like slim, supple snakes.

Among the bony fish, you notice some blackish marlin three meters long with a sharp sword jutting from the upper jaw, bright–colored weevers known in Aristotle's day as sea dragons and whose dorsal stingers make them quite dangerous to pick up, then dolphinfish with brown backs striped in blue and edged in gold, handsome dorados, moonlike opahs that look like azure disks but which the sun's rays turn into spots of silver, finally eight–meter swordfish from the genus Xiphias, swimming in schools, sporting yellowish sickle–shaped fins and six–foot broadswords, stalwart animals, plant eaters rather than fish eaters."

[You take in the sights through the portholes, beholding the wonders of the sea. All around you, your submersible hums like a well-oiled machine, performing the duty of keeping you safe most admirably]

[At this depth, the pressure is beginning to increase. It will be more dangerous to continue from here]

[You think that you could coax the submersible's delicate robotic pincers to catch a fish and bring it in as a keepsake from your journey. Would you like to try? y/n]

[Are you ready to continue your grand journey to experience the undersea world and all its wonders? y/n]

[Please roll a 1d100 and submit your result with your decision if you plan to continue]

[To try for the keepsake, please roll another 1d100]

Re: ROUND 3 DISCUSSION

[firstworldproblem]

[Looking around.]

I see no harm in trying to catch a fish. I simply do not know how to store it.

[failedsafe]

Oh man, any one of these looks like they could kill us terribly. [SHE'S SO HAPPY!] I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE!

ROUND 3 SUBMISSION

[idolpro]

[failedsafe]

96 for the fish BABY!!!
89 for continuing i guess. it's not as important as feesh

ROUND 4 DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

"The mountain along the sea floor rises only 700 to 800 feet; but on its far slope it crowns the receding bottom of this part of the Atlantic by a height twice that. Your eyes scan the distance and take in a vast area lit by intense flashes of light. In essence, this mountain is a volcano. Fifty feet below its peak, amid a shower of stones and slag, a wide crater vomits torrents of lava that are dispersed in fiery cascades into the heart of the liquid mass. So situated, this volcano is an immense torch that lights up the lower plains.

"This underwater crater spews lava, but not flames. Flames need oxygen from the air and are unable to spread underwater; but a lava flow, which contains in itself the principle of its incandescence, can rise to a white heat, overpower the liquid element, and turn it into steam on contact. Swift currents sweep away all this diffuse gas, and torrents of lava slide to the foot of the mountain, like the disgorgings of a Mt. Vesuvius over the city limits of a second Torre del Greco."

[You take in the sights through the portholes, beholding the wonders of the sea. All around you, your submersible hums like a well-oiled machine, performing the duty of keeping you safe most admirably]

[At this depth, the pressure is beginning to increase. It will be more dangerous to continue from here]

[You think that you could coax the submersible's delicate robotic pincers to take a sample of the lava and bring it in as a keepsake from your journey. Would you like to try? y/n]

[Are you ready to continue your grand journey to experience the undersea world and all its wonders? y/n]

[Please roll a 1d100 and submit your result with your decision if you plan to continue]

[To try for the keepsake, please roll another 1d100]

Re: ROUND 4 DISCUSSION

[wineanddie]

[ DRINKS ]

Is anyone particularly attached to lava?

Re: ROUND 4 DISCUSSION

[syckophant]

I don't really need lava...

[Sucking down a second drink.]

Should we continue?

[failedsafe]

[is just laughing gleefully, madly, over the fish still.]

ROUND 4 SUBMISSION

[idolpro]

Re: ROUND 4 SUBMISSION

[syckophant]

18 to go forward, we're passing on the souvenir this turn!

ROUND 4 RESULTS

[idolpro]

"Gentlemen," says a calm voice, over the intercom, "there are two ways of dying under the conditions in which we're placed."

"The first way," it goes on, "is death by crushing. The second is death by asphyxiation. I don't mention the possibility of death by starvation because our provisions will certainly last longer than we will. Therefore, let's concentrate on our chances of being crushed or asphyxiated."

[The submersible continues to sink into the murky quiet of the depths. Perhaps that is what makes it so easy to hear the deceptively soft snap as the thin crack down the glass begins to spread, branching quick as lightning the full width of the view port. And perhaps for a moment, you feel assured that somehow, miraculously, the pressure inside and out reaches equilibrium as nothing happens.

But that reassurance would be short-lived, as the tiniest piece of glass shoots forward into the vehicle, water spraying into the breach with the full power of the ocean's depths behind it, all apparently singularly focused on meeting you in its watery embrace]



[Only you can say what exactly happens after that. But eventually you wash up elsewhere...]

WINNER'S BONUS

[idolpro]

[As soon as the winners are announced in endgame, you may notice something pop up on all of your phones: a notice that, as winners, you get to choose one team to fully heal and revive]

[When the first person inputs an option, the popup disappears from every phone and the healing and revival commences]

Re: WINNER'S BONUS

[firstworldproblem]

We will heal Bad End = Dead End!