Adrian:Today you are really feeling it! Your fingers fly across the keys on your phone and within 30 minutes you create a simple laser app/hardware mod. Your first test of the device leaves a nasty scorch mark on the wall, so you move to another room, hoping to avoid Tohsaka pinning the blame on you.
Inspired by the communication crystal used in the last raid, you start coding up a mod that will allow you to stay in touch with people at the manor while you are out and about. Again you work quickly and with inspiration, producing a mod/enchantment that in theory will allow any radio device to pick up Tohsaka’s signals. (New Spell: Laser App. New Spell: Crystalline Radio)
1d100+15 = 93 + 15 = 108You head to the forge to work on the shotgun, but find that it is still waterlogged, dejected you return to your room and try to lay an enchantment upon it without the help of Kestrel’s fire room. You sit around for an hour, trying to find inspiration. Eventually you decide that you want to make the gun spit lightning and start working on that. Following your intuition you scratch a few powerful runes into the surface of the weapon and install a switch from your toolbox. You are fairly sure that your mod works, but you do not want to test a lightning weapon in a building that is still damp from Kathryn’s mishaps. (You can now set your gun to lightning mode. In lightning mode, you may add 10 damage to any successful non-resisted attack. Lightning mode may offer some elemental advantages. Crit fails have worse consequences in lightning mode.)
1d100-5 = 88 - 5 = 83Laser App: An app/hardware mod/enchantment that can be cast on any handheld electronic device. This hardware requires common household supplies that can be found by spending an hour searching any magical residence, or two hours searching any mundane residence. If you don’t have a toolbox the search time is doubled. The coding portion takes an hour and requires a knowledge check. Once completed you may use the device as both a weapon and a laser pointer.
Crystalline Radio: An app/hardware mod/enchantment that can be cast on any device that receives radio signals and outputs audio. Grind up a clear or pink crystal and mix the resulting dust with glue. Tactfully rearrange some of the wireing in the device, using the crystal glue to seal it back up. You must then install your app onto the radio. This can be time consuming if the device has no means of digital input or storage. The installation is not complicated however, and a simple Mech Sprite should be able to pull it off if given enough time. Roll against connection when preping the crystal glue. Roll against knowledge while modding the radio hardware. Once complete the device will be able to pick up signals on Tohsaka’s magical frequency.
Harman:You seek out Tohsaka and report to her on the completion of the assassination. She is freaking out about the water, but tones down her insults and yelling long enough to thank you for a job well done, and give you a decent sized payout. She also takes the baseball stone, saying that she will appraise it for you, and let you know what it does before you make your decision on whether to keep it or turn it in for Aura. Tohsaka asks you to come back tomorrow to ask about it. (+7000 USD. -1 Gemstone Basegrape)
Kathryn is found in the dining room, working on the water problem. You offer the book, and she accepts. Just as you are about to turn and leave, Henry emerges from a bathroom, naked from the waist down and screaming like a maniac. He claims that there is a monster in the flooded bathroom, and that it stole his pants. You enter the bathroom, but find no monster. Making a note that Henry is likely some sort of crazy person you try to settle down and read your book. Your mind however seems intent to focus on the traumatic encounter with Henry and his manhood, leaving you unable to make much progress on the book. (-1 Performance Manual)
1d100-5 = 17 - 5 = 12Eventually you give up and decide to take advantage of the flood to experiment with water magic. Heading out into the common area you begin to mess around with the Skull Centipede, but find that is has no interest in dealing with water... perhaps if it was sundown and you were facing west. You decide then to focus on other objects in the room, seeing what you can make them do. Eventually you figure out how to turn any object into a sponge. When you release the spell water spurts from the object in all directions. You use this technique to slowly channel water into the basement river by selectively spongeifying the walls and floors. (New Spell: Spongeify)
1d100+10 = 77 + 10 = 87Spongeify: A spell cast on any non-living object. The target turns into a giant, soft, absorbent sponge retaining its size and shape. Roll against connection to cast. Roll against connection every 3 rounds to maintain. When you release the spell or fail a maintenance check the object returns to normal, spraying any water it picked up in random directions. One per combat, by passing an intuition check, you may attempt to cast this spell out of turn on an object or weapon that is about to strike you or an ally.
Kathryn: You spend several hours going from faucet to fossett, Shelly at your side to serve as an audience, switching off your outta control magic. Each plumbing fixture takes about five minutes to calm down, but eventually you get the hang of it. Once the root of the problem is taken care of, you begin the long and tedious task of magically shoveling the water out the windows or into drains.
Harman eventually shows up and offers you a book of performance magic he claims he took from that Blake fellow’s locker. Just as you accept it Henry bursts from a restroom half naked and exposed to the world. He screams and rants about a pants stealing monster in the restroom. You run in with Harman to check, but find nothing. How could that Jerk possibly lie about something as serious as monsters in the drains? (-1 Performance Manual)
Eventually you get back to work, and by the end of the day only a few rooms are left flooded. Tohsaka gives you a truly nasty look as you head to bed, but makes no move to kick you or anybody else out of the house. (Progress towards comfort with Water Effects: ¾)
1d100+25 = 39 + 25 = 64Ariel:To escape the water, you grab your collection of magical tomes and head for the nearest local library. You pick a corner off to the side of the room, so mundane people will be less likely to read over your shoulder, and crack open your new books figuring them out one by one.
The first book is
The Scholar’s Guide to Magia-Arthropodology, Volume 9: Western United States & Canada. The book seems to have few if any spells, focusing more on describing bugs, insects, and crustaceans with magical properties that can be found locally. The book seems to be sorted by longitude at which the bugs are most common as opposed to any sort of alphabetical order, which you find quite nonsensical.
The True Patriot’s Guide to Casting: Aiding Democracy Without Alerting the Mundane Government, is the title of the second tome. It seems to be a more recent work, full of tips and spells to help mages partake in cold war era spying!
The third tome is simply named
Movie Magic. The book is full of spells designed to help the magically inclined producer or director enhance every aspect of the filmmaking process. A red note scribbled on the inside cover, ‘Quit using magic in the films. Edison might be catching on’, seems to date it back to the early era of American filmmaking.
Satisfied with your brief overview of the new books, you decide to return to the Plant Magus Journal in search of more information on Pixies. Finding the information is tough. Whoever wrote this was quite scatterbrained. Eventualy you find about 8 pages with information on Pixies, much of it redundant, and start to put the information together. Pixies are small winged humanoids who feed on soul energy while growing, and use photosynthesis once fully developed. Pixies are born with magic potential, which on earth is greater if they are fed a powerful soul before germination. A soul of power level 3 is generally recommended to ensure the Pixie is born with a spell that has some combat use. Any soul stronger than power level 3 will likely produce a rebellious pixie. Pixies will draw their common knowledge and mundane skills from those around them while they are growing; the author recommends planting on a university campus for this reason. Soil type and lighting do not matter to a growing Pixie so long as it is fed a soul before germination and watered at least once a day.
Just before you put the book away something catches your eye. A phone number with an adress in Barstow CA. The contact information is circled and the words ‘good source of magic seeds’ is written next to it. (+Magical Merchant Contact Information)
1d100+20 = 71 + 20 = 91You find it impossible to round up the kids for a proper lesson today. Shelly is busy serving as an audience for Kathryn, and the other three have made the most of the situation by turning one of the staircases into a water slide. You can neither catch them, nor convince them to come willingly.
1d20+15 = 2 + 15 = 17Henry:You wake up first thing in the morning and decide to scatter the mousetraps. You pick out several places that the water has yet to reach where you suspect that a mouse may frequent. Satisfied that the traps are taken care of, you decide to go help Kathryn. Auto Success
You throw on your swim trunks and a disposable cheap t-shirt and track the detective down. You follow her around for awhile, but she doesn't really have need for you. Still, you tag along and make small talk, waiting for the chance to help in any way you possibly can. You can only stare idly at the girls in their swimsuits for so long however before you feel the need to go to the bathroom and take care of some business.
As you take care of business you spot something moving in the show out of the corner of your eye. It does not look human. You freeze up in fear, afraid to move your head and get a good look at it. You sit in still silence for several minutes before a tentacle whips out of the shower and grabs you by the leg! You leap to your feed and try to break free, but another tentecle grabs you by the shorts and begins to drag you towards the shower! You struggle hard, and eventually manage to slip away from the beast... and out of your swimsuit as well.
To the shock of Kathryn, Harman, and Shelly you burst out of the restroom half naked screaming about Krakens in the shower! When you lead them in to take a look however the creature is gone. The others glare at you angry, annoyed, and a bit embarrassed.
You take a long walk of shame back to your bedroom and fresh pants. Along the way you pass and shock the rest of the kids who are sliding down the wet stairs for fun. Kestrel also floats by on a full sized hovercraft and offers to tell you what that creature was for 200 buck. He also snaps a picture ‘for blackmail purposes.’
Even the walls seem to laugh and make snide comments. You spend the rest of the day hiding from the others in your room. (-Swim Trunks. Shamed! Tomorrow take a -10 to any action where you are likely to encounter other people. If the Maptools session happens before the next turn on the forums, just RP your shame properly, and you will be excused from this penalty.)
1d100-10 = 6 - 10 = -4(Jeebuz Crypt. The dice hate you. I’ve never seen anybody this unlucky in a forum game before. I decided to end your day after the first crit fail to save you from going through the second one you rolled. Perhaps Karma is telling you to try other actions...)The water has receded. The -5 Penalty is over.