Turn 3: Tuesday, 8th of July, 2014Robert:You start your day in the workshop with a major crafting project. The first step is making a standard war hammer, which is accomplished quickly and easily thanks to your supernaturaly enhanced crafting ability. Then you move onto the complicated bit; Infusing the new weapon with the Soft Magium takes a good three hours of demanding metallurgical and magical labor, but in the end you find yourself wielding a War Hammer that radiates with a visible purple aura.
Result = 10
-200 USD for making the hammer
-25 Tiny Purple Gears
+1 War Hammer of The Portal (Heavy Melee Weapon. Struggle Attacks inflict cosmos damage. Maneuvers and Spells that require the use of this weapon may inflict cosmos damage instead of their usual element. This weapon cannot pass through portals, but can damage otherwise intangible portals intangible portals with maneuvers and struggle attacks. If this weapon destroys a portal, it gains an additional enchantment from that portal's power. This weapon can only hold one additional enchantment from destroying a portal at a time.)
Satisfied with your handiwork, you head to the libarary and research Naturia. You quickly find alot of information about the place...
Naturia is a universe of ambient light and floating vines the size of galaxies. Soil and water collects on the leaves of these vines, on which more traditional ecosystems are formed. The sentient beings of Naturia tend to be plants or bugs, and most are highly aggressive. Portals to and from naturia are common, remnants from the realms many failed invasions of earth. You note that most non-mundane businesses dealing in gardening supplies, vegitibles, and/or exotic pets have some means of accessing the resources of Naturia.
A quick trip through the local yellow pages finds you the adresses and phone numbers of several businesses in Tinsel that advertise imports from Naturia.
Results = 13
+ New OpportunityRogerYou start the day by checking out the ring on Jacob; The look of the thing just gives you the chills. Before you can begin a proper investigation, however, the hat cuts in.
"I be suspecting that be a Plaguering. Those things tend to have very advanced curses on them, that respond poorly to investigation and fiddling. Just looking at the blasted the the wrong way could make you or Jacob very sick. I'd get some protection before messing with that, if I were you."Result = 4Promising Jacob that you will figure out some way to check out the ring later, you leave to go about your business for the day. You hit the town, the hat leads to to ask the right questions, and within a few hours you find yourself face to face with with a strange two-foot tall mosquito-man willing to buy both items. He only has 2000 USD to pay in cash, but is willing to barter with some other goods. He clearly specializes in tickets and invitations to exclusive events.
Results = 11
-The buyer is willing to pay 2000 USD for either item, but not both.
-The buyer is willing to sell an invite to a workshop on Manipulation Magic that Krampus is running this weekend in exchange for one of the items.
-The buyer is willing to swap either of the items for a set of two tickets to the Court of Alaska Mortal Outreach Dinner, where mortals get to rub elbows with the local frostpyre population over a 7 course meal.
-The buyer is willing to swap either or both of the items for an invite to a small Recital/Exhibition of several great Jazz Performance Mages, hosted by Lady Rabbus.
-The buyer is willing to swap either or both of the items for a .5% stake in an upcoming 'Job'. Should the job go off without a hitch, a .5% stake should be worth about 5000 USD in cash and a few magical items.
-The buyer is willing to swap both items in exchange for Wargish Divine Casting Lessons. These lessons will take several (not necessarily consecutive) days, and will make you a priest of a savage god from the Wargish Pantheon.
-The buyer is willing to swap both items for a ticket to the multiversal private auction, and a 6000 USD Bidding Voucher.
(Remember that Blackest Market Connections progress towards a new mission counts transactions, not items traded.)
After completing the deals, you head down to the docks, borrow an available set of weights, and sink down to the seafloor for a visit to Davy Jones' Locker. You wander the dark seafloor for several hours, until you eventually stumble upon a small shack seemingly built out of parts from a wreck ship. The windows are well lit, so you decide to give the door a knock.
It is opened by a rather transparent looking dark skinned girl wearing a skimpy dress adorned with bits of human bone. She bids you enter, and sits you down on a couch. She seems glad to have company, and eventually tells you her story.
The girl, who's exotic and unpronounceable name roughly translates to Opal, explains that she was born to a primitive but magically knowledgeable tribe about 1200 years ago. She was selected for her intelligence to become a manipulator, and was banished to another universe to train in the soul magic arts for many decades. She returned to earth as a fully trained manipulator in the late '50s, but was quickly discovered and captured by a Soviet Paranormal Research team. The russians transferred her to an internment facility in siberia, but enroute Opal decided that death was preferable to imprisonment, and used her magic to sink the submarine she was in.
When Opal finds out that you are a trainee manipulator yourself, she offers to swap you some of her old belongings that may be of use to you, in exchange for the components she needs to perform a ritual she has been meaning to complete for some time.
Results = 11
+3 New OpportunitiesUpon returning to shore, you head to the Tavern and ask around about doctors for your facial condition. The bartender is quick to recommend Dr. Samantha Drood, a foreman who is also trained in several forms of magical and mundane medicine. You are given directions to her office, and set out at once.
Dr. Drood, a wrinkly and stern old woman, takes one look at your face and passes you a tube of ointment. She informs you that all of Nick's employees are insured against Plaguerider Attacks, and that aside from her usual duties as a foreman, she is also recognized as a provider by said insurance plan. You are told to apply the stuff before going to sleep, and that you should be clear in the morning.
As you leave her workshop, the doctor pulls you aside and slips you a note. It would appear that she has a need for your services and is willing to pay generously...
Critical Success!
You have been cured of your boils!
New Mission Unlocked! YuriYou dig through the library, reading up on how the enemies of the Quidlings carry out the purges, and quickly discover that almost every purge follows the same general series of steps.
The first, and often hardest, part of the purge is to capture a single Quidling. As a race, Quidlings tend to favor subterfuge, deception, and secret support networks to any sort of standing army or organized government, so catching one can be very difficult.
Once a prisoner is obtained, however, the success of the purge is almost a forgone conclusion. Quidling thought and memory occurs at the DNA level, so at some level every full blooded and mature Quidling carries the entirety of its bloodline's thoughts and experience. Although only the most mighty and wise Quidlings can access their ancestors' minds at will, this information can be extracted from any Quidling through the proper rituals. Those carrying out the purge simply dig into the thoughts of the prisoners' parents and grandparents, find out where the captured Quidling's siblings, aunts, and uncles live, capture them, and repeat the process. Eventually this method can root out every Quidling on a given planet.
Once the Quidlings learn that a purge has reached the stage where individuals can be easily exposed, flushed out, captured, interrogated, and disposed of, they gather together at some defendable position for a last stand. Although Quidlings prefer less direct means of defending themselves, a Quidling army is still a very formidable thing. An individual Quidling is highly amorphous and nearly indestructible, and in large enough groups they can potentially tap into ancestral memories and re-create the rituals and weapons that made them so hated in the first place. On many worlds, would-be purgers fail to break the Quidling defense, and must call for backup. Most tribes of Gailuf or Sa'June, advanced races of superhumans, are more than willing to lend seasoned troops and alien technology to crush a Quidling stronghold at little to no cost to the local purgers.
Results = 13Deciding that you now have a very basic understanding of how the purges work, you decide to re-direct your efforts towards understanding the Quidling in general. A book entitled
The Encyclopedia of Human Subspecies helps out greatly in that regard.
The Quidlings were originally a large religious sect of various humans who took to worshiping Agnash-Quid, the father of Goblins and the god of change, mutation, and treachery. Through powerful rituals and advance science, the Proto-Quidlings slowly warped themselves into a race that defied a constant physical form by obtaining total mastery over their bodies at a cellular and genetic level. Some of these creatures broke off from the Quidlings, interbreeding with various slimes and goblins to create fearsome new species, but the main bloodlines choose to preserve their human heritage, and existed more or less unchanged for several generations.
Since the Quidlings could share in the memories and wisdom of their ancestors, their societies tended to advance and develop rapidly, and since the first Quidlings were already significantly more advanced than contemporary mundane earth, they soon became frighteningly powerful. To make matters worse for the rest of the universe, many Quidlings subscribed to a policy of racial superiority, and felt it was their right and duty to either enslave or annihilate all other branches of humanity. Various Quidling Factions acted on these beliefs, and many were so successful that the rest of the universe became frightened. Eventually an alliance consisting of humans, gods worshiped by humans, and other concerned and powerful beings was formed with the sole intent of destroying Quidlingkind completely.
The formation of this so called Genocide Alliance forced even the more reasonable Quidling bloodlines to align with their racist cousins, and a massive multiversal war broke out. The Quidlings put up an impressive fight, but in the end their foes obtained the upper-hand. Desperate to survive, the remaining Quidlings invented a powerful ritual that scattered their DNA into humans across the multiverse.
Quidling DNA, even in small amounts, is capable of thought and manipulating the person that carries it. Carriers are subtly driven to seek out and mate with their fellow carriers, until eventually a child is produced with enough Quidling blood to manipulate their bodies and hear the call of their ancestors. Many of these Bloodmatched find ways to become full Blooded Quidlings, and dedicate themselves to reviving their race.
Results = 9 Finished with your reading for the day, you return to your room and practice manipulating your body. You make good progress, and by the end of the day, you have figured out how to manipulate your hands and arms into the shape and consistency of various weapons.
Results = 13
+ New FeatureJacob:Even though Roger said he should be able to figure out a way to eventually examine the ring, you decide to ask around town to see if anybody knows anything about curses. Several people in the bar are quick to suggest that you talk to Kestrel, as most mystics know a thing or two about curses.
You track down your boss at Holy Nights, flirting with college girls. Kestrel takes one look at the ring and strokes his chin. "Plaguering alright. My focus is more on discerning information than understanding curses, but Kestrel should be able to handle it. I'll need some time to prepare and gather supplies; it would be bad if I jumped right in and messed it up. Bug Kestrel this weekend, and he will take care of it. We insure employees against Plaguerider interference, so Mr. Claus will pick up the bill."
Results = 9
New OpportunityIt is actually still Tuesday, because the mission never happened, so the Living Silicon isn't in yet.
You head to the library and spend some time researching the liquified plutonium. Sadly there is nothing about using Liquid Plutonium to fuel starships, other than several paragraphs warning perspective ship builders not to do so, as nobody wants that stuff scattered across their atmosphere should something go wrong during takeoff or re-entry.
The books say that the propper use for the stuff is to use it as fuel for heavy construction equipment, which tends to be armored enough to not spring leaks. It also is also used as a component in various rituals to create slime monsters.
Results = 10
New OpportunityYou then return to the workshop and ask around about ship parts, reading off the list Tyrone sent you. To your surprise, you actually get two leads.
One of the elf laborers mentions that there is a bum living in the Elfish slums of the Dungeon Subcity of Clydesdale who uses a set of modified Pseudotardian G-Diffusers to negate potential fall damage during his parkour street performances.
Another laborer, who has worked with the orcish foreman for decades, mentions that he remembers that the engine came with a set of Omni-brakes back in the 90s. He claims the brakes were sold to a Reindeer named Pluto two years ago.
Results = 8
+2 OpportunitiesNathan:You spend the morning meditating and trying to get your memories sorted out. You fare a bit better today, in that you don't work yourself into a rage born of frustration, but clarity and meaning are both still illusive. Still, one memory sticks out, popping into your head over and over again during meditation...
"Promise me this then." You recall hearing a strange female voice say.
"Promise me you will give him a good life. I will love and miss him forever, but here he is only something to mock. Where you come from, he may amount to something."Results = 5After your meditation for the day concludes, you head to the church and ask if you can help out in any way. The clergymen appreciate your offer, and set you up to sort a pile of donated canned goods. This takes several hours, and you are more than happy to help out, but you don't gain any sort of strength or enlightenment from the work.
Results = 4Next you make a trip down to the library, and begin to scan the shelves for books that you find useful or intresting. After several hours you check you have amassed a large and assorted collection of books to check out.
Results = 8
+ The following books, due back in 2 weeks
-The Bare Bones Basics of Non-Mundane Carpentry
-The Big Book of Moves and Spells for Fighting Dirty
-Fist and Palm, The Diary of a Multiverse Traveling Martial Artist
-Mental Fusion: 18 Odd Cases of Two Beings in One
-The Recently Uplifted's Guide to Non-Mundane Pets
-Guide to the Monsters of the North
-Great Conspiracies and Mysteries: Polar Industries
-Great Conspiracies and Mysteries: Kestrel Harrison, The Purge of the Mystics, and the Breaking of the Black Veil
-The Martial Mage's Pocketguide of Gods and Worship
You then try to spend a bit of time researching specific cases similar to your own, but looking for something specific turns out to be rather frustrating, and you decide to call it quits before you end up punching bookshelves.
Results = -1
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Topic: ᕙ(`▽´)ᕗ (RPG) Magia Exquisitis: Grey Christmas IC Thread ᕙ(`▽´)ᕗ (Read 5001 times)