Turn Seventeen, Part One: In Which The Party Expands And Once Again The Title Is Obnoxiously Spelled For A Cheap And By Now Overused As Well As Overly Long Gag, Which Is Defined As The GM's Futile Attempt To Make The Reader Laugh
Since the golem is slow, it always goes last in the initiative roll... assuming Elizabeth isn't enraged. Which, well, is the case.
Taren: 3
Elenor: 2
Hel: 3
Apollo: 4
Rath: 4
Remy: 6
Liz: 1
Remy:Grab Ratherio's hand while he's distracted and shake it.
Suddenly remember there's not enough magic to cause even a tiny explosion. Curse and draw my knife.
(5) "If you wish to use my gunchucks, you must pay by the minute!" Remy then proceeds to draft a contract, to be signed in blood, and gets his knife ready in anticipation. And to slash Liz, but really, that girl's going down anyway, so obviously taking care of your financial situation is more pressing.
Taren:Plunge Broadsword > Rock, Hold on!
Then cast any spell that is purposefully useful to the situation to break the golem's shield.
If he cannot hold on, he tries to swing or push off the rock and plunge that broadsword into the golem instead!
Both ways: Swear incoherently.
(4) Thankfully, your situation seems to be stable. Somewhat. It's also uncomfortable, but stable, which means that Taren now tries to magicify the golem's shield... the resistance from the cockpit shield makes you not even bother, and the body shield already looks rather flimsy. It's actually redirecting most of the energy left to the cockpit, so casting your spell would be of little benefit. The disjunction aftereffects should dissipate soon as well... hm. Full magic access should return to you soon.
Until then, you can only hope that the sword can hold your weight.
Ratherio:"What?! No! I'm already in dept!"
Turning his attention back to Liz&Co, Ratherio suddenly has an ingenious idea! He shoots the gunchucks at the left crystal!
"Oh, I forgot to ask, but how do these work?"
(5) "I wish not to buy this thing - we're party buddies, riiiight?" Remy is not convinced, but thankfully he doesn't force you to sign the contract. Before that happens, you shoot instantly, a good one-two, as you congratulate yourself. The remaining crystal looks even more damaged.
Apollo:"Ow. Thanks." Apollo blushes and gets off of the zombie girl. Seeing the magic spilling out of the damaged construct, he adopts a magicy stance and saps the energy from the golem, to enchant his rifle.
(2) Maybe being on the other hand of the room is somewhat related to this, but your magic-harnessing-fu proves ineffective.
Helskaya:Gather as much residue magic as possible into a small leather pouch!
(5) The magic! Must harness it for later licking! But regular old magic is notoriously hard to keep in a pouch. Crystal Magic is the solution!
Takes quite a bit of concentration, that one's certain. But your labor pays off, and you have four - smallish - Magic Crystals, which you shall henceforth keep in a leather pouch.
Elenor:Elenor stands up, moves even further away from the golem, moves his feet in a diagonal position while lifting his shield and returns to the disciplined example of a defensive stance. If the battle is not yet over, he attempts to taunt Elizabeth. If she actually manages to hear it through her rage and go for him, he strikes back. Nastily. If shit ensues instead, he tries to block and roll with the attack.
(6) Elenor sighs. Overall, this fight has been ridiculous, a disappointment, and a ridiculous disappointment - a waste of time, bluntly put. It's time to end it all.
For what's about to happen (if all goes well), he'll need one hell of a defensive stance, and one hell of an insult... the former, that's taken care of, now. The latter... hm, what to use... What's going to hurt her... Uh... ah, that might work.
"Heeey! Elizabeth!" She reacts, appparently. Good, she can hear you.
"You know, ever since I met you, I've wondered about one thing. One thing, only."
Now she's curious. Good!
"And that's... hey, Elizabeth. If you are such a powerful and omnipotent mage..."
Artistic pause. Now for the finisher.
"Why are you so flat?"
Golem/Elizabeth(6) "Why, you - ALRIGHT THAT SETTLES IT."
Elenor trollfaces. Mission accomplished. The golem is rushing at him, and Liz is mad indeed. (6)(2)(1) It revs up a great swing... well, that's just telegraphed from ten miles away. Elenor
dances around it, taunting her while he's at it and dodging a few more clumsily aimed blows. This does not help her rage, and the subsequent attack is a fair bit harder for him to avert - he manages to block it, but barely, and his defense collapses against the next one - the force of the attack overpowers him, and he is thrown onto the ground. In defeat, the golem pick it up.
"Say that one again." Elizabeth commands, but then she is thrown off by confusion. Elenor, dangling from the golem's fist, sword and shield on the ground and clearly defeated... this Elenor is smiling, as if he won.
"What's so funny about that?" she asks.
"Oh, sorry, it's just that..." His grin grows even broader.
"Your golem... is already dead."
"WHAT?!" But Elenor's calculations were correct. The strains she'd put on her summon were to be the final straw, and now the second crystal has broken. Elenor is dropped as Liz is frantically trying to save the situation.
"Everyone, get into cover!" he shouts. "This is gonna be one huge explosion!"
And it was a huge explosion. Golem glowing up, transforming into light and all that.
--
"I concede defeat." Elizabeth states. To the dismay of half the party, she still has a shield on. "We return to town now." She starts chanting, and a dimensional circle appears on the ground.
"There was a treasure chest..." Elenor notes.
"And it's empty."
"Oh. Well, then..." They start stepping into the circle.
"Er, guys, what about me? I am still stuck on this ceiling? Hello?"
--
Fast forward, one good night's sleep (on Elizabeth's expenses) and a rescued Taren later. It is about ten o'clock, and the party is sitting in the Bureau's waiting room to get rewards and briefings. The amount of explorers wishing to talk to Elizabeth is rather... staggering, especially for how early it is. There is, in fact, a numbers-drawing-machine in there and little number cards. Every so often, someone is called in by a secretary, who is about as plain as it gets. There is not much to do... well, a few ancient issues of Adventurer's Weekly and a Draw-By-Numbers book. So, the only pastimes are sleeping, being bored and staring at the other adventurers.
One is about as much of a stare-magnet as it gets, at least if weirdness is to be concerned. She is cheerful, young, disturbingly pink, frilly and disturbing in general, with a remarkable and vocal interest in the zombie goth, who is currently somewhere in the corner, silently stinking.
The other adventurers are about as normal (read: weird) as adventurers come. There is one ridiculously buff guy who does not appear to know the concept of "shirts", but wears armor gauntlets, greaves, boots, a scarf as long as himself and pants with a combined codpiece-belt buckle-thing. His stubble is manly. His haircut appears to have forfeited to his hair. The second adventurer sports pale skin, gray hair, is probably female, most likely young and is almost entirely covered by a black cloak with hood which seems to absorb the light. She appears to wear a bell on a chain. The third one is totally a ninja, if his belt buckle is to be believed. He wears baggy clothes and mostly black/grey, his hair is spiked and dyed bright green, and he also wears a scarf in vibrant orange. A blade is attached to his right forearm. Adventurer number four wears red, worn wizard robes with matching hat, looks somewhat undefinable and wimpy, like a scared ferret. He bears a knobbly staff. The fifth one is silent and sits in the corner, his grey hair covering his entire face, dressing in black and white. He bears a billiard cue, and the hair over his face is dyed in such a way that the symbol of an eye is seen. Finally, there is a woman sitting in the corner with white hair of improbable length. Her skin is rather colorless, but riddled with scars. She wears a black jacket, chest bandages, baggy red pants and slippers, and is unarmed. Also smokes much to the chagrin of everyone else.
Then there's a couple of less interesting adventurers around as well that nobody cares about, but that still have number cards. Therefore, might potentially take time.
Boredom.
--
We're splitting the turn again, also with the purpose of introducing the new character. Hello, IronyOwl! His sheet is not formated yet. Note: Yes, all or nearly all of the described characters might be plot relevant.
--
Character sheets.
Helskaya Arkut (lawastooshort)
Status: Normal.
Injuries: None.
Equipment: Pair of knives (one large, one small),
northern white bear jawbone on necklace, northern white bearskin.
Inventory: Wet stone, firestone, pot, spoon, three leather pouches varying in size, pestle and mortar, dried meat rations for several plus more days, filled waterskin, flour, Lesser Herbal Medicine, Lesser Blade Poison, Rusty Axe, random precious metal baubles, 0 cp.
Skills: Herbal Medicine; Shamanic Magic; Knowledge (Legends of the North)
Spells:
Shining Shamanic Healing Finger!, Transform: Raging North Bear, Summon Water Elemental
Elenor Warsen (Caellath)
Status: Still hurts, somewhat.
Injuries: Small pains.
Equipment:
Masterwork Armor, Longsword, Crossbow,
Dragon Crest Shield, small well-crafted crossbow.
Inventory: Medical kit, small supplies bag, 5 cp, Potion of Lesser Healing, Painkiller Potion, Gibberish Paper, Map Shred, Rations Listing, some longbolt ammo.
Skills: Result-oriented swordsmanship, Dodger's Agility, Marksmanship, Medical care, Taunting.
Spells: None. He's notoriously unmagical.
Apollo Anderson
(Spinal_Taper)Status: Normal.
Injuries: Some remainders of yesterday.
Equipment: Reinforced lab coat, cheap leather armor,
Dagger,
Rudimentary Rifle, Officer's Scimitar,
Inventory: Bullets, Gunpowder, various pouches and bags, Experimental Painkiller (?) Potion, 4 cp.
Skills: Alchemy: Chemistry, Alchemy: Potion brewing, Alchemic Magic: Rudimentary Enchantments (quantum amount +1), Metal Working (quantum amount +1).
Spells: Enchantment: Better wearability!
Taren Creyn (Tiruin)
Status: Normal.
Injuries: Well-treated ones.
Equipment: Broadsword, Crossbow, Longbolt ammunition (quantum amount -4), white cloak, grey tunic, belt, solid holey leather boots, buckler.
Inventory: Whet stone, one filled waterskin, Cloth, lots of rations, ratman cloth, 3 cp.
Skills: White Magic: Healing, Anatomy, Swordsmanship, Marksmanship
Spells: Menscur, Fogili, Nonsens, Mendia, Leonic Cleanse,
Vi Vanita.
Ratherio Houston (borno)
Status: Normal.
Injuries: Those scratches might become scars.
Equipment: Purple robes of death!
TM, Wand of death!
TMStaff of death!
TMDagger of death!
TM Ring of death.
Inventory: 0 cp,
Debt notice, Scrolls of: Leaden, Monovolt, Lesser Silence, Flare Arrow.
Skills: Black Magic: Death Magic, Black Magic: Chaos Magic, Agility
Spells: Kortuch, Leaden, Costrus.
Remy Maelle (Remaelle)
Status: Slight... hangover?
Injuries: The chest hurts every so often.
Equipment: A spirit talisman, knife, leather armour, traveling clothes, a backpack, Vintage pair of Chain Revolvers, buckler, 14 cp.
Inventory: Bedroll, rope, tinderbox, enough food to last a few days,
Debt notice,
officer's helmet, Contract.
Skills: Shamanistic Magic: Elementalism, Agility, Quick Reflexes, Hand-to-Hand Combat.
Spells: MEGA BRAND
Maka R'lyeh-Voile (IronyOwl)
Appearance: A thirteen-year old girl with vibrant pink hair and glowing pink eyes. Wears a frilly pink magical girls' outfit and uses a magical girl's scepter as a walking cane.
Personality: Maka is an insane wizard from an entire family of insane wizards. Her eldest brother is some sort of wraith/shade thing. One of her sisters is something called a Brood Mother now. Her grasp on normality is about as tenuous as a pig's on fine dining, and she tends to interpret the lack of nightmarish abominations everywhere as a clear sign of the inhabitants sucking. She's fairly cheerful and friendly otherwise, but that just means it's all the more disturbing when she casually asks what they're going to do with the corpses or begins laughing maniacally at the presence of fresh test subjects. Her common sense is also rather selective- she understands basic dangers like not jumping down darkened holes or going up against superior forces, but considers freakish mutations and berserk minions unavoidable if you want to actually accomplish anything. In short, she's a Fucking WizardTM.
Bio: Maka is actually an ancient demon of great power. Well, alright, that's not actually true, but she was totally almost close to twenty before the incident happened, and she's definitely got at least one fiend somewhere in her family tree. It's also a lot easier and cooler to say she's a demon than that her Uncle Talon performed an experiment on her, resulting in her unadvanced age and brilliant coloration, and that for some reason that was the final straw and warning sign that she needed to get out or become some sort of inhuman freak. Physically, that was. In any case, she put on a frilly outfit, grabbed a magic scepter (which she later learned could function as a classy walking cane), and headed off in search of adventure and chances to grow in power and ability.
Skills: Creating Servants, Augmenting Servants, Dodging, Debilitating Magics.
Maka's adept at summoning, raising, mutating, and otherwise producing and altering minions for herself, as well as weakening things and avoiding attempts to harm her. She tends to be reckless and unpredictable, though, resulting in a lot of minions more powerful than intended but with an unexpected weakness, who are unstable or tenuously controlled, whose first act is to try to kill their creator, or other such shenanigans.
Items:
Scepter: An enchanted scepter with a golden head studded with gems. Oddly enough it's a melee weapon- Maka really just took it because it fit, and didn't really consider taking something practical until it was too late. It amplifies the user's blows and adds its own magic force to the attack, resulting in very colorful beatdowns. Technically magic attacks can be channeled through it, but since it doesn't augment them that's not especially useful most of the time. Maka carries it mainly as a symbol of classiness and authority over her minions, which she'll be getting some of any day now.
Frilly Dress: A rather strange, frilly, very colorful outfit.
Surgeon's kit containing a suspicious amount of scalpels and other cutting instruments, rather large and well-kept butcher's cleaver, bonesaw, hacksaw, a handful of glass sample vials and tiny jars, several rolls of stitching material, coil of rope, two sets of manacles plus keys, backpack and belt with pouches.
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Topic: Roll to Explore the Dungeon: Ch.2 T.38: Do you even praise the King? (Read 120511 times)