Lurabo had drawn The Fool to get rid of the first few imps she came across. They'd been marble imps with scorpion claws, twin hooked tails, and rodent teeth. The power of The Fool card sent all of them wandering off of the platform they were on and into the void of nothing beneath it, killing them all. Looking around, her land was composed entirely of deep pits and platforms suspended and connected by bridged, with lights shining from an unknown source as though to highlight specific areas on the land. Lurabo supposed she couldn't fault the name for inaccuracy.
She climbed up the ladder nearest to her, using a bit of physical ability and a majority of telekinesis to make up for her lack of strength. At the top of the ladder, she found two things. The first was a Rust Basilisk, a brown, serpentine monster with a canine mouth, mole claws, a scorpion point at the end of its tail, mouse ears, and a robotic scanner over its eye.
The other item on the platform was a pedestal with a purple orbed magic wand. Lurabo didn't have a wand kind strife specibus, but the wand could be used in alchemy if only she could get passed the basilisk. Fighting it was a no go, but perhaps she could tip the odds. She started by alchemizing her outfit with The Star card, infusing it with the cards power of balance, optimism, and insightfulness, creating the Rising Star Robe.
It was also infused with the card's connection to pleasure and spiritual love, but she didn't think those though be particularly helpful in the present moment as she climbed up to face the rust enemy. The basilisk hissed at her and slithered towards her for combat. Lurabo drew, getting The Chariot, which allowed her to charge into the rust basilisk and slam against it light a freight train.
With a little telekinetic push, made stronger by Rising Star Robe, the Rust Basilisk was knocked off the platform and onto the platform below. It wasn't killed, but between the charge and the damage from the fall, it's probably be easy to finish off when Lurabo had to climb back down. At least, she hoped it would.
The yellow blood took the wand, combining it with her tarot deck to add the Minor Arcana Wand set to the deck. Getting an idea from this, she used the last of her current grist to combined The Magician card with her basic crook, creating the Mystic Staff.
A chance to test out her new wand set and her mystic staff arouse within seconds, a flock of airborne Wax Imps flying at her with airplane wings. She drew the Four and Five of wands, combining dissatisfaction with quarrel to make the imps begin battling each other. She drew again while they were busy killing each other, activating the Ten of Wands at the three imps remaining, filling them with pain and causing them to land on the platform, making them easy targets for the magical blasts from her staff.
With them killed, Lurabo turned to the Rust Basilisk circling the ladder, letting her mind fill with the optimism of the robes, not minding the small shudder of pleasure that accompanied it, and jumped down from the platform to fight.
Jeff had been surprisingly lucky with monster encounters as he walked across the clockwork terrain of LoGaK. Just as he'd accidentally stumbled into a horde of shale, mercury, and rust imps, topped off with a shale ogre. His turret baseball shooter could have handled a lot of it, but he would have still probably been utterly destroyed by them. Would have, if not for the features of the LoGaK terrain.
It seemed that, once an hour, every hour, on the hour, the mechanical environment shifted. Towns, hills, continents, the entire planet would rotate with a rather loud, jarring clicking sound. As the monsters tried to jump Jeff, the rotation hit, the land between him and the monsters opening up and causing them all to be dropped into the mechanisms, grinding them into grist between the gears.
Jeff whistled, "Yeesh. Poor timing." He said as the land closed back up. Checking his watch, he realized that the gear turning had actually been a few seconds late. He wondered what the cause of that was, but supposed it had saved him. Looking across the metallic surface of the land, he saw a town sitting on a turning gear, and figured he could get a bit of information from there.
Arvis combined the gamer's cheat book with his compass, creating the Gamer Guider, a gadget allowing him to navigate his land, since the entire world was essentially a video game. His sprite had fucked off to lord only knew where, so he was gonna have to learn how to get around LoBaV by himself. He'd combined a few different materials he'd found around his and to create a proper bladed hook sword, finding it remarkably good against the imps.
He made a note to avoid the blood river. Not just because it was, well, a river of blood, but because when he'd tried to follow it from closer to the edge, a slick black tendril covered in spikes shot from below the surface and tried to drag him into the river. He'd managed to cut the tendril and sprinted off in the other direction. He'd been on the edge of a meltdown after that, but his conversation with Java over the chat had made it easier for him to calm down.
Task one would be getting to the town and getting items for better gear. He'd take on the rest as it came up. Hook Sword in hand, he took off towards the town, following the Gamer Guide to follow the safer routes.
Yes, Jeff's land was originally Gears and Steam, I realized the typo only after it was posted, and I've now corrected it.
