Luna’s Journal - Gauntlet

Chapter 7 - The Core - 10/22/2022

"Byleth cannot have a child with you... thus your desire is someone you can have a child with." Luna says while recognizing the darkness incoming.

“YES I WANT A CHILD” Ardat shouts.

Ardat’s Greatest Desire - Childbirth

"Woah..." Code says.

Ardat calls Geminy over.

“Yes?”

Spirits of life, spirits of death,
Spirits of the unborn and the spirits of the born.
Come together as one as I ask you
Make Geminy have her all eggs die
Her womb destroyed so she can bear no child at all
Cease her cycles and prevent her from falling pregnant
EVER
Whenever she tries she will fail
Curse her this day forward and all lifetimes ever after
SO MOTE IT BE!!

Thinking of me
But just the same
Reverse this spelll
From whence it came
A thieving lich
To steal a child
And mark Geminy
Byleth's barren bride

“ME BLYETH’S BRIDE!?!?” Geminy says with an understandable shellshock in her voice. “We’d make an awful couple.”

“NOW YOU"RE LIKE ME” says Ardat.

“WHAT?”

"Holy mother just because the unholy wife????" Luna jokes trying to lighten the mood at the worst possible time.

“And I'm like you” Ardat adds.

"That is... holy shit." Code says.

“Nammie won’t stand for this.” Gem says while glaring at Ardat.

"...well this is getting ugly." Luna remarks.

“We'll sddee. seed.. See..”

“Oh so I’m a succubus now?” Gem asks.

“You are barren now. I have your eggs.” Ardat says seemingly regaining some of her focus.

“Wow. So my babies are your babies.” Gem realizes.

"Damn..." Code adds.

“The purpose of the succubus and incubus. We harvest what we need, what we can't make on our own.” Ardat explains.

--

So that explains a lot. Ardat wants a child of her own and Byleth cannot give her one. So instead, she takes Gem’s and forces her to be Byleth’s Barren Bride. So where does that leave the rest of us? Our time is starting to countdown quickly and we’re nowhere close to finishing the battle. Ardat returns Faustus to our side for free at least. And then, I recognize a discrepency to the facts is staring right at me. Game start.

--

"So just to confirm, Byleth is infertile then?" Luna asks Ardat.

“All demons are.” Ardat replies. Faustus offers Luna some of the vodka and brownies in the Taken Waiting Room. As she is in the middle of a pursuit, she finds an excuse.

"I would indulge, but that room is only accessible by Taken and Vigilant. I'm neither." She says with a shrug.

"That's interesting, I'll keep that tidbit in mind. Thank you Ardat." Luna nods.

Ardat seemed to recognize Luna’s reasoning for asking, “Somehow, I don't know how, Somehow he got past it, The 12121, He is Caitriona’s father.” She explains.

"...and just like that, my contradiction fizzles." Luna sighs. Back to the drawing board.

---

She announces to us that 12 hours remain.

We continue trying to solve the song, but once more, another perfectly timed Scholar hit, still a 100% hit rate!, enables me to figure something out about the poem. The last letter in WIND is D. And if the letters A B C D E F G are notes, then the required notes are obvious.

Chris manages to solve 3-2 with DBGCACE, which unlocks Victoria’s SONGSTRESS role!

Songstress: Voice of the Oracle. Used once every 45 minutes to receive a translated line from the fourth key.

She activates Songstress immediately and gets half of the 4th key:
Nobody Will Discover It
Nobody Will Know It

Code used his Necromancer power to revive Jinn, thus the entire crew is back! And on top of that, 3-4 is unlocked. Faustus made extremely quick work of it though!

3-4 - Chaocipher Tongue

"The indentation of the form of a sword is entombed in the stone wall with carved writing wreathed around it, forming a circular frame.

I cleanse and purify this Tool of my Craft from all past energies and negativity.

Essence of the Spirit, bless this Athame by the steel of it's blade, to lend strength and stability to my magick and work. Free it from the granite's grasp so that it may be used once more.

Essence of Air, bless this Sword with the power to direct my magick on the journey I send it, as it alone may penetrate through space and time.

Essence of Fire, who forged this Blade, bless my athame to be the instrument of my Will, free of negative influences and pure in it's direction of my energies.

Essence of Water, bless this Magickal Weapon to be a tool used with love, and in respect for the mysteries. May all spells it casts be within the natural rules of using the Power.”

This unlocks Chris Garnet’s Balanced Blade!

The Balanced Blade - 60/40 chance to repel the mark and 35/65 chance of stopping someone from being taken (roll 5d20 and get 41 and 66 or better.) Unlimited uses when any event causes a player to become marked or taken.

As if unlocking the role caused Ardat to become instantly sober, she began to attack everyone with Marks and Shuts. The battle of the Balanced Blade began. Chris put up one Hell of an amazing fight, but RNG is a bitch and most of the rolls were misses unfortunately. We knew we needed to hurry up before all of Nammu’s Marked were Shut. And of course, our final set of doors became known to us.

Also yet another Premonition is unlocked!