THE GAUNTLET

[Kuromori, Taka]

Post your gauntlet memories here when you're conscious enough to type anything

[Dimitri]

I'll need to edit this later but I'm just putting down a few scattered memories

Friday night:
-Hand Cuff Dog and Hand him to Z, Dog lays down in the shadows, good fun.
-Go out with Lexicus and Z to cut wood for Vampire stakes, something comes at us through the woods. Time to GTFO, come accross one of them, *Time to get ready to body someone* Surprise its Dog, he's playing a prank.... So we cuff him to a stump and leave him in the woods.
-planning is going well Degren makes Runestones

Gauntlet
- Everything is Chaos, just trying to keep everything running luckily Auron is doing a lot of work organizing.
- Dimitri absolutely flips at the Dracosprite. Ian walks off into the corner and goes "dude wtf" to himself
-Giving blood hurts
-eating spam hurts
-I get to see all the awesome boss fights that happened before I joined
-Spend almost an hour looked for Alex, can't find him, starting to get concerned, then floor 3-8 Nero and Gondos (Godo) jump out.
-eventually its our floor's turn
-I had 4 plans, Silver cuffs for Werewolves, Rocks for Vampires, Break white hellions arms, and bypass oil for the Axis. They all work great
-However we almost wipe on room 4-1 to some oozes.

-5:55 am floor 5 party walks in, thinking we have 5 min I snap at Degren to give me his ring and let me charge in. Sharon calls for a bonus 35 min.
-Pierre goes in after a very short break, he's still tired but he's going to give his all.
-I hold my sword to my forehead and prep before I hear anything Sharon beacons me into the waiting room.
- George tries to tell me something with his eyes but I can't read them.
-I have to win Dimitri owes everything to Pierre, Dimitri walks into the room and See's RocSon, words are exchanged, we fight and more words are exchanged.
-Picture perfect ending is I stand up and carry Peirre's body out to the crowd, the fallen hero who faced Rocson with only 10 or 15 min break after a grueling floor 5.
-Problem, OOG all I want to do is collapse, I do.... but something about a time limit in my head, I can't think straight. Then the call is made players can enter the room. I drag myself to the door everything is fuzy then numb.
-Dog gives me a huge hug. not my 5th choice but fuck it he is doing the full RP so I enjoy it.
-Dimitri gets his things in order
-Dimitri swears an Oath
-then sweet sleep.

[Z]

What. A. Game. So much happened that I'm not going to write out 7 pages of it, but will instead post something of a summary

Friday Night
-Got my item for the memories contest alongside the other winners and runner ups, looking forward to using it!
-Went out into the woods with Dimitri and Lexicus so they could do some teaching, I figure this is probably the only chance I've to be in the woods this game and may as well keep watch over them while they are busy
-Dog tries sneaking up on us, and we nearly run him down before we realize it's him, we have a little laugh at his expense
-Knowing that we have a looooong day tomorrow I try to get done what I have to get done half-quickly so I can go to bed, get my staff silvered by Bikbun, donate my potions, and head off

Saturday
-Well, here we go
-Opening ceremony was fun, not what I was expecting but fun!
-Alright, floor 1 is geared up, and going in blind, godspeed Kez, Dog, and Ceridwynn
-They do pretty good! Pretty straightforward 1st floor, giant weed killer worked great, the golem boss was a bit scary but they got through it well!
-Alright, me, Taka, and Bikbun gear up, and in we go!
-Man this is a lot of gear to carry, wish I thought about that a bit more before we went in, I keep dropping things or a back gets in the way while fighting, this is rough
-Start setting the bag I'm carrying down when I enter a room, that helps a ton, until it doesn't
-Hello Shrike! Goodbye Bag!
-Losing that aside, had a ton of fun fights on floor 2, the electrosheep, the Shrike, the Shadow Creature, Mana Turtle, and of course the Necrodancer who I had heard a bunch about and finally got to meet!
-After we finish, floor 3 goes in
-I am so glad I'm not on floor 3
-Floor 4 steamrolls, especially fond of the anti-werewolf swat team that went in, and seeing the Axis was insane
-Floor 5 is hella intense, first time seeing a dollface and that was pretty spooky, the whole floor was cranked up to 11, which makes sense of course
-Floor 5 - Room 10, the Minotaur, they seem to be avoiding it, surely they have a plan right? Time drags on, no fighting, just avoidance, nothing really seems to be going on, come on guys surely we got something right?
-Pierre is caught out by the Minotaur, and decapitated, shit. shit.
-That's when Gull reveals the power he had been saving, the Power of the Loom
- "That's Not how the story went!" Brought tears to my eyes watching the performance
-Even after that magic the Werewolf fight was crazy intense, and time was ticking, we had next to none left and still had to fight Roc'Son
-We get a generous extension which allows Pierre to rest briefly before heading in, Dimitri and me have a short talk as I was planning on heading in 2nd, but decide against it and have him on 2nd and me on 3rd, time permitting, we aren't coming this far just to fall at the final trial
-Pierre goes in, there's sounds of combat, then silence, no one comes out, so Dimitri heads on in, my nerves are through the roof, Pierre fell? After all this prep, he was our number 1 shot, what hope do we have if he couldn't make it? I'm praying softly just outside the waiting room, for Dimitri, for me, for Holdfast
-The Sounds of combat begin anew, longer this time, I swear I hear Dimitri say something but can't make it out
-And then, the door opens, and there he is, half crouched/kneeling, with the totally righteous sword, battered and bruised
-We've done it, completed the gauntlet, but our flight leaves shortly and we don't have long to celebrate, can't leave anything behind!
-It's around 7am by the time we arrive back in Holdfast proper, and what a welcome site it is, we have a pretty great oog discussion afterwards and everyone ehads off to get some sleep

Sunday
-I wake up a bit before noon for some last minute rp with anyone who is up, and have a nice little morning with Lillium, Gull, and Rosco, with a couple others here and there


Overall, what an amazing game, I loved every minute of it, and can't wait to see what the season holds!

[Kez Shiras]

The Gauntlet. Ho, lee, shit. What an amazing, wonderful, stressful night. Maybe the best game I've been to yet, but hard to say.

Friday
- Had to make potions! Got a couple things approved, made a BOAT load of stuff, made some mana, all was well. I suddenly looked up and it was like, 1am! Holy shit!
- some interesting stuff Sharon said while I was making mana that I gotta follow up on with... humm...
- It was late when I went to bed, basically OOG chat in the inn, what a wonderful time it was to try not to be shaking in my fucking boots before the gauntlet tomorrow.

Saturday!
- Wow! Bright and early! Trying desperately to wake up (it was 8 am), ended up conversing a lot with the guild about final prep with potions and the like.
- Lots of contact gel, holy shit. Some gas clouds. Noticed a gas cloud: giant weed killer (4)... hmmm... gonna dibs that one just to be safe. And so, I yoinked it and put it in my pocket.
- "Thirty minutes until teleportation to the sky-" "ALRIGHT GUYS TWENTY MINUTES-" "Guys just as a reminder, 16 minutes until we go up-" "5 minutes!!! Everyone prepare!!" "Didn't we go up yesterday?"
- Beam me up, Scotty. Felt like the glass elevator in Willy Wonka. Looooong walk through the woods, which have changed a little due to cutting! Gonna be super disoriented in May I'm sure. Wetter than I thought it was gonna be.
- Getting ready for the opening ceremony, and expecting some grandiose speech, and suddenly Rob has broken out into musical number? Gonna be stuck in my head forever. Holy shit, how exciting this is gonna be. But at the same time, I was up first, so holy shit how terrifying.
- Getting kitted up with just about every magic item I could imagine. I knew at some point I was gonna forget SOME effect or something, but I didn't expect for it to be the bard song applied right before entry.
- Time to start Earth Wind And Fire!! Shoutout to the puzzlers, Merric, Rosco, and Gull.
- This was mostly a blur, so here are the big moments.

- Laughing my ass off because the first room appeared to be one singular rat. Sure, it wasn't, but still. After scaring myself for days over what could be in there, the one rat was reassuring.
- Sprinting as fast as I could over the pitfall traps just because I could. Ceri and Dog groaning and telling me to slow down and conserve energy. I was excited! What could I say??
- Walking into, a couple of rooms later, the wonderful bear family. The only name I caught was Stanley. Even later, I only caught Archduke Emeritus,,, of the High Bears? Thought it was a social encounter! I loved them! And then Rob charged at me. FML.
- Taking a number of minutes between rooms to figure out what the hell my health actually equalled out to.
- Those. Fucking. Ropin. Holy SHIT they caused us so much trouble. Ow, and also, ow, and also,,,, ow. At least their noses poked up. Can't pin one down, because they'll just burrow again. Can barely hit them, because they're so fast. Mighta been the hardest room for us.
- Ceri took a rough spill while trying to get around the swinging weapon traps. Got a bloody knee, but otherwise all was okay. Phew.
- Around 1-8, while in the waiting room, we ended up getting a Diviner's Draught. We argued for a couple minutes over what room we should use it on, whether the spectators were warning us about the next room, or if they just wanted to tell us to use it eventually. Well, we ended up using it on Room 1-10, so we saw the final boss, and thought nothing of it. We then walked in, and I saw three Giant Weeds staring us dead in the face. I knew how dangerous they were, and how kinda... screwed we were, but I also remembered that Gas Cloud I put in my pocket earlier and was SO excited about dibsing. It was the first potion I pulled out of my pocket. Shattering it on the ground, and screaming the call? God, I felt amazing. I wiped the room out immediately, and all of them died. I felt so right in dibsing what I had gotten, and being able to pull it out on command was great too. I barely saw the details of the room lmao.
- Then it was time for the final boss in 1-10. Previously, with the Draught, I had seen that it was a clay Golem with floating humanoid heads, so we prepared to douse the kiln that it walked out of with a water spell. We also thought that maybe the heads were gonna be the weak point. Either way, we had to be prepared, so I grabbed the Kickstart: Grapple potion, and my maxed Fire Engulfs Scroll. Ended up rushing in and trying desperately to pin the Golem, calling for Grapple 30 against it's Grapple 20, but it's Exceptional Strength broke through. HEARTBREAKING. And in my strongest moment too! Halfway through, the floor turned to quicksand, so it was hard to move around. Anyways, haha, we MELTED it!! I was so worried that the first floor would be undoable for us, or that we wouldn't live up to expectations, but we did it! I am Super proud of that one.

- Okay that that was my floor, but I ended up Puzzling for floors 2 and 4, and got to watch Floors 3 and 5. I will try desperately to remember what I can for each one.
- Overall, puzzling was fun as hell. I was worried they would be too difficult and that fighters would rely on puzzlers for far too long, but they were the perfect difficulty to be Just Hard Enough. A cute little puzzle box, a hard as balls sudoku, and a couple other puzzles were my main go-to. It was fun chilling and knowing I was doing my part while doing what I loved, plus chatting with Sharon while at game is always fun. Teh jigsaws I didn't touch a ton of, but I tired for a bit.
- Almost finishing the sudoku and then realizing it was wrong. FML. Not worth the key to try and fix it.
- I actually did quite enjoy those little ball puzzles. And the hex tile one. Patterns are my shit yo.
- The effing origami one tho. Oh my god. I'd love to see solutions for all of those, just to it can make sense in my brain. I tried so hard, and did not get ANYWHERE.
- What a great experience though. Puzzles are hard to do well for players, and these were genuinely perfect.

- Floor Three, misery and Cold Company, this was Degren, Theo, and Marr.
- Holy shit this was brutal. The Bloodybones, the countless dark rooms, the INSANE 100 sunder damage between two jellies. By the end with them fighting two Jennies, I was completely blown away with how they persevered.
- At around room... 8? They turned to us and said "Oh! Room 10 next, excellent." And, we were laughing our asses off at just how wrong they were.
- Where tf is Auron?? Wait, where tf is ALEX???
- Degren throwing a light potion into a dark room, and immediately having it be picked up. Lights come on, it's Pre-Ascended Nero. Holy SHIT. Explains a lot. Then, Pre-Ascended Godo comes out. Holy SHIT!!! Insane fight, would kill to see it again, I miss Nero.

- Floor Five, Labyrinth's End, this was Degren, Auron, Pierre.
- Holy shit I have never seen a group tighter than them. They just, knew what to do the entire time. gonna keep this short or else I could type all night.
- For starters, it was a solid 4 in the morning when they started the floor. It was basically a boss rush floor.
- Started off with TWO DOLLFACES. Seeing the second one creep around the corner as they were dealing with the first? Terrifying. I miss fighting Dollfaces.
- Eventually dealt with two Phase Spiders, and boy are they spoooky. I wanna fight one of them too, but not for too long. They can teleport? Switch places with people, etc. Insane.
- Maybe Crow Archer? Better version of our fight, where the eyes floating around the centre thing were the weak points, and needed to be killed before they could damage the thing in the middle..
- Also an Iron Golem! Wowie. Could connect with two floating weapons and become a cool cannon.
- Final boss was a minotaur! The tables were arranged like a maze, and silently SCREAMING at them to kill the damn thing instead of avoiding it was painful. But we knew it was deliberate.
- Pierre goes down. Oh Shit.
- Pierre is back up! Holy shit Adrien did an AMAZING job with The Power of the Loom. I sobbed.
- Either way, the fight ends, and what an insane insane fight it ends up being.

- Room 51. RocSon.
- After a generous extension of time, and a wonderful rest, Pierre walks in and attempts it. We can vaguely hear fighting but no damage calls. Woof, it is... scary. Pierre drops.
- Dimitri has to go in, and we aren't sure if we have enough time for another try. It's 15 minutes until dawn, at 6:30 or so.
- The sounds die out, and start again, and die out, and start again. We're all worried Dimitri is dead, and make the appropriate arrangements to leave if he dies.

- Dimitri wins the Gauntlet for us. Holy shit.

- After some OOG talk and fun storytelling, I, go the fuck to sleep until noon. Sunday doesn't exist in these memories because... It didn't happen lmao. oops! Meant to sleep for an hour! Not 3.
Thank you all, cast and players, for an amazing Gauntlet game. I made memories I'm gonna keep forever and I don't feel so new anymore! Maybe I really can fight.

[Ceridwynn Fildais]

Friday night
-Alchemy party was fun! So much mana made
-get some neat rp with Kez and get to discuss alchemy theories
-Also go an awesome call that I can make potion spurs!

Saturday/Sunday
-Nervous as fuck cuz my group is first. People throw all their magic items on us. I get suited up with Vals sword, Dimitris armor, and Aurons anti sunder shield, I feel like a little kid borrowing their cousins neat stuff and accept I will never be this powerful again.
-Starts off with a single rat, which kills all nervousness. Try to leave, more rats to kill as well as a rat king. Knocked the crown off Jesses head so it took maybe 3-4 more floors before I realized it was a rat king and not a bear.
- Mauling immunity song gets us through the first few rooms so we take little to no damage. Bees and bats get thrown at us but cant do shit cuz earth toughens is good.
-I eat shit on the concrete, in front of a bunch of people and die of embaressment a little. I am a small man and Dimitris armor is big.
-We attempt to psycoanalyze our friends. Do they want us to use the diviners draught on the next room? Did they just give it to us for future use? When do they expect us to use it???? Kez uses it and we have to fight a golem, worst case scenario because golem research didnt show any weaknessess and I was told sunder did well on golems, which we dont have without oils.
-Got excited to fight the whipperweeds and even more excited when Kez just demolishes the entire floor with one call
-Fought snakes, lizardfolk, bears (including Stanley), Ropin. At some point we lose the bag with the master earth heals scroll but a quick call brings it back to us when the floor ends
-We theorize what powers the golem, the kiln or the heads, and try to plan. Golem fight starts, it doesnt step on the trap and starts breaking Kezs arm. The golem stands still and we wail on it until it goes down. I keep going because its a golem, it cant be down yet. I am wrong. We do a victory lap and pass everything off.
-Floor 2 absolutely kills it and I get to take notes on lots of cool beasties, like the Shrike and Grandfather turtle. Kudos to Z for attempting to 1v1 the Shrike in the astral plane.
-Floor 3 has a huge difficulty spike and is dark as hell. Lots of neat underwater creatures and lots of screaming from Bloody bones, fuck Bloody bones. Got a good laugh at the slug sticking to Degren.
-They call for more mana, Lilium and I make too much mana
-Dracosprite gets a lot of talking tos in while floors are going on and helps reform mana
-Difficulty spike of floor 3 has made us super nervous for floor 4 but they absolutely kill it. Gull and Ceri are a nervous wreck with Lexicus on this floor. So many good moments, Lexicus killing the moon while Dimitri and Krond mug a dude, breaking white hellion arms, absolutely thrashing the black hellions, throwing Satyrs into their own bear traps, and brutally murdering two Axis.
-Floor 5 continues to kill it. Every play and plan was perfect. Degren hugs a Dollface and petrifies himself. Theres a giant tapeworm. A queen spider makes an appearance with glow in the dark eyes.
-I ask Sharon what my spidey senses tell me about phase spiders and get cryptic, terrifying answers
-Minotaur fight is nervewracking, Pierre goes down, Auron is bleeding out, is everything lost? I ask Gull to use whatever he was going to do to save Lexicus to save us now, hes already way ahead of me.
- "This is NOT how the story ends!"
The minotaur is down, Pierre and Auron are up, Starbombs go off and the minotaur falls.
-People are freaking a little and grabbing their things in case we fall from the sky. I pray and take the wave node and my books, everything else is replaceable. Kez and Ceridwynn share an emotional hug. Sharon is kind and gives us an extension.
-Pierre, the absolute mad lad, goes in after only a few minute break and we all wait and pray. We dont hear a lot but we do hear a yell and then nothing. The group in the kitchen doesnt know hes dead until someone tells us "Pierre failed, Dimitri is already gone in."
-We listen for fighting and eventually hear a yell and silence again. Dimitri is gone and theres nothing we can do about it, we may all be next. Ceridwynn cries. We wait, dreading that Z is next.
After what felt like hours, we are allowed in, walking past Pierres body and into the chamber. Dimitri has won.
Celebrations happen, water is given since Ian looks like hes dying, and we gather our stuff to get thrown back to Holdfast

Some ig/oog chats later, I slept till game was called

[Kuromori, Taka]

I'm definitely forgetting things, but I've just resigned to the fact that I'll either need to post an addendum later on or accept that my memories post doesn't need to be a detailed and complete report of the entire weekend.

Before the Gauntlet:
-Pre-game RP with Z that was basically just throwing pinecones at eachother.
-Seems that I packed all of Malva just to brew two batches of potions and then throw items around

The Gauntlet:
-RIP my dry socks
Floor 1:
-When those plant monsters came out.... Nope. Glad y'all had weed killer.
Floor 2:
-My floor! Absolute Team
-B'ys calm down with the items please god
-Boy howdy that mauling immunity song came in handy
-I can't keep track of my buffs, brain is cooked
-A bear trap! That training came in handy.
-Took the air will unbind you to deal with spiderwebs; was the only person on my team to get stuck in a spider web.
-Lol, lmao. You can't make me keep track of three blade traps at once *crawls beneath them*
-The best way through arrow traps is not timing per se, just waiting for them all to reload.
-And for that matter, 5 metal blade traps shouldn't be so scary when there are 3 tops and you have 20 health and access to infinite sword healing
-Turning the tides on the shade!! Get grappled
-Shrike was easier than expected but RIP that bag with the deserved rest
-"Do we really have to fight the sheep?" "Charging the air 1..."
-Walk into the boss room and see 4 inactive skeletons. By the second I thought "oh", I heard the bongos and went "OH"
Floor 3:
-Haha glad I'm not on that floor
Floor 4:
-Rob goes out and kneels on the floor. Mitchell pulls out a white disc and shines a light on it. "A werewolf? Oh no, this will be tough..."
*Door opens*
Krond and Dimitri rush the scared and confused man, handcuff him, and beat him to death while Lexicus tries to attack the moon itself.
-Don't worry guys, he was just a simulation.
-The counting vampire, I swear. I knew that was his plan, but I didn't think the odds were so good.
-Imagine killing an axis and not hearing the applause. I wonder if they realized they still had to fight another...
Floor 5:
-My puzzling floor!
-While you studied the sword, I studied variant sudoku. This was my time to shine. (And Marr's)
-Boy am I glad I didn't have to solve anything else.
-Sharon casually mentions the Queen Spider was a room 8 fight like it was nbd
-Hearing the Minotaur fight, ahh
-Hearing Gull call a hold, just that moment of "Oh... oh. Oh no."
-Then we heard fighting and then it went quiet with no cheering. It was at this point that we decided to hide for when Sharon came back to tell us we were dead.
-But they won so yay
-We didn't finish the central jigsaw, but Sharon gave us permission to continue in the morning, saying there was a prize.

-I just went to bed after this, wanted to get literally any sleep.
-I could *feel* the rumble of the fights

After the Gauntlet:
-I couldn't sleep in past 8 or 9 so I literally pulled Taka's costume on over my PJs, microwaved some leftover quiche, and started working on the jigsaw puzzle again.
-Realized it was going slow, so I roped Degren into it since he was up. Eventually we amassed over half a dozen delirious LARPers for an endeavour that lasted well past end of game.
-Hat

[Hunter ツ]

I keep closing the tab and losing my event memories so I'm just gonna start posting *key memories* and not stop: Starting with pre-gauntlet and working my way up:

Game On!!!
- Discovered, upon close inspection, the latch to the closet in the vending machine room was broken
- and that I fit inside said closet
> : )
- Waiting in the closet as Salt for the perfect moment to creep out
Vanilla: Saaaaaaaaalt!
- Slithering out of the closet, from behind the door, startling the shit out of a bunch of people in the vending machine room
- I am here to hear all of your complaints! (clearly, the gauntlet is too easy. Challengers are too bold when they can simply come back from the dead. Maybe we'll balance it by figuring out how to recreate the ascended in the rooms )

Waiting this long to do my memories was a mistake, most rooms are a blur at this point, but golly have I got some fun behind the curtain stuff to share. I'll see abt posting some tomorrow if work doesn't consume my soul first.

[Rudi]

Friday
- I arrive, help cast move shit. Then Sharon sets me the task of cutting up sudoku, which i do until bedtime. Very uneventful friday (but i DID get like 7 hrs of sleep in prep for waking up on Sat at 7 AM.)

Saturday
- Bear with me if floors are out of order, the gauntlet was a liminal space.
- I was SO EXCITED to play the king rat. Probably the thing I was most excited to play which is messed up, bc it was literally the first room.
- Redact that, I was ALSO very excited to throw tennis balls at people. I got to do it twice. It would have been thrice, but we simply didn't have the props.
- The origami was fun too! I was pretty floor 1 heavy.
- I loved, loved, loved playing bloody bones. I love being a big strong boi with no regard for self preservation. I'm pretty sure I launched myself every single time I respawned. 10/10.

Other highlights include:
- Watching Ryan count rocks
- The minotaur AND Queen Spider.
- ho ho holy shit the gossamer weavers (or phase spiders? i'm unsure on the final name). Seeing those makes me fear when I have to be around them as Rudi.
- "This is NOT how the story goes!"

Sunday
- Jesse comatose. Jesse come out as Rudi for literally 30 mins when he awakens at 11. Jesse comatose again.
- Casting for this game was wonderful. A true joy. Very fun. My body will never forgive me but it was worth it.

Congrats to Dmitri, our victor and true hero of our story.

[Malva]

Couple extra memories I had in my notes:

-No learning turtle mechanic, only smash
-I'm so happy we managed to get a <1 season player into FLOOR 5
-I need to point out that we managed to narrow our sudoku down to two possible solutions while MISSING a number. I remember thinking like "gee wow, this is pretty difficult for anyone who doesn't do a lot of these..."
-There were actually uh, birds chirping as we were finishing our puzzles? We chose to ignore that.

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