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[Kadzar]

Haggle for a map.

[Zecro_The_Scourge]

Haggle for a map.

Also ask where the shop-keeper obtained that book.

[RAM]

Enquire as to the relative locations of Tarnin and Tranin.

We ARE sort of hungry, and rats sound easy enough, we should look into dealing with that.

Before we face the rats we need to have a reliable means of disabling rodents, practice with runes until you have a damaging something at a distance, see if you can produce a small lightning-bolt from a pet cloud, or spontaneously freeze something by concentrating cold air.

[fergus]

> Wonder what a euphoria adder is.
> Haggle for a map.
> Inquire about the impish horror.
> See how long the courier job will take.

[zomara0292]

> Wonder what a euphoria adder is.
> Haggle for a map.
> Inquire about the impish horror.
> See how long the courier job will take.

> Get more information about the rat job

[Evil Lincoln]

Turn 4:

Alara: "I'd like a map please."
Shopkeep: "Alright, 10 coppers."
Alara: "How about 7 coppers?"
Shopkeep: "How about 8."
Alara: "I'm willing to go as high as 7."
Shopkeep: "Fine, seven it is."

You have obtained a map! To bad it took all your money, oh well, at least you know where those jobs actually are now.
Let's take a look at it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The map covers the north western part of the Empire of Tir. The unclaimed lands aren't far to the east, with the academy only just within the empire's boundaries. To the west is Turst, it's the closest city, the largest city in the northern part of the empire in fact. to the south there is the Great chasm, from what you know it is a huge black scar on the earth which stretches all the way from the capital to the unclaimed lands. Criminals can choose to be thrown into the chasm instead of a death sentence, they instead of a death sentence because a few people have survived the fall and somehow made it out, but they've gone insane of course. To the southeast is the yellow canyon, they call it that because it's a yellow canyon. If you intend on going further into the empire then you should travel towards Turst and then south. But there is probably more work for a mage along the borders of Tir or even in the unclaimed lands, there are plenty of people living out there, mostly exiles and brigands though so you hear.

Tarnin is around 2 day's travel from here if you go cross country. Following the roads is safer but it will add half a day to the journey. You might be able to reach Targen tonight if you travel after dusk.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You may as well get some information out of this shop keeper, he doesn't seem to mind you asking questions, he probably gets this from every mage who comes through here.

Alara: "Where did you get this book?"
Shopkeep: "I got it from a retired mage a while back, he sold it to me at a very very low price condition I only charged 20 silvers for it and only sold it to a mage who would need it fresh out of the academy. He said he wished he had it in his early days and it would have saved him a lot of trouble. So far no mages who actually use runes have come through here though."

Alara: "What do you know about Hilda's rat problem?"
Shopkeep: "Oh she always has a rat problem, she refuses to replace the cellar hatch so rats get in all the time, to be honest I think she just likes it when people visit her."

Well you are sort of hungry so a free meal would be nice. You don't really have a way to kill rats though, it would be risky to try to use runes without a guide so you'd have to just blow them around until you beat them to death with a stick or something. It would be much easier to set up traps with runes or enchant your boots or something. If only you had that book... Wait a minute.

Alara: "Would it be alright if I borrowed the book for a bit, I wouldn't even have to take it out of the store."
Shopkeep: "You use runes?"
Alara: "Yes."
Shopkeep: "Well, alright, I'm not stupid you know, haggling over a matter of 10 coppers isn't something that someone would do unless they were very low on funds. So I'll let you borrow the book, but don't take it out of the store."

You can now reliably use runes. You can enchant your gear and probably remember one sequence of runes off by heart. You could write down a sequence too, but you run the risk of accidentally enchanting whatever you take it down on. You should also keep in mind that all enchantments you make will use up some of your magical power. If you over stretch yourself the enchantments won't work at the magnitude your intended them too, they are liable to fail and you won't be able to use your regular magic.

Alara: "What can you tell me about Targen's 'impish horror'?"
Shopkeep: "Oh that's nasty business that. From what I heard a few days ago this demon comes into town, only a little one mind you. It's been burning crops, killing livestock and much worse things. It takes their children in the dead of night, then tortures them, their parents find them in the morning covered in scars and not saying a word and the first night a baby went missing. Just gone. They would have killed the thing but it's to fast and quiet for them. It disappears during the day but they don't know where too. They've searched the woods, every building, nothing. They sent for men from Tarnin, the soldiers keep watch over the children while they sleep but the damned thing still manages to take them. If you were to kill it then the whole town would be in your debt."

Alara: "Do you know anything about a euphoria adder?"
Shopkeep: "Nope. I saw the request on the job board but Blackstone is out in the unclaimed lands, wouldn't catch me going there, I've got a shop and a wife to look after."

Alara: "Alright, one last thing, I'm guessing it would take about two days to go from Targen to Tranin?"
Shopkeep: "Yeah that'd be about right."

Spoiler:  Author Notes: (click to show/hide)

Because everyone has probably forgotten Turst was around a week's travel(I think it was a week) south of Mayard's village (although I probably should have called it a hamlet).

Now about enchanting and runes and magic and such. Remember you are fresh out of the academy and didn't receive a full education so you aren't that powerful. If you used all your power you could make a concentrated gust of cold air(it wouldn't instantly freeze anything though). I'm not sure how I feel about lightning I have a feeling that if I let you use it you would never use actual wind so basically you would just be a lightning mage, which I didn't want which is why it wasn't an option.

Also: I completely forgot you wanted to be a snob to this guy. Oh well. I'm sure you can find it somewhere in your heart to forgive me(I hope).

EDIT: This update took a while because of real life stuff and me being unsure about what the local area should look like. I'd like to update more frequently but I lose track of time or have things to do.

[fergus]

Alright, plan:

• Go talk to Hilda about her rat problem
• Tomorrow, go to Targen
• Ask about the impish horror
• Pick up the package that someone wants to send to Tranin
• Go to Tranin
• Maybe go to Tarnin to hunt gnomes?
• Why are all the city names so similar?

[RAM]

We need to figure out how to enchant food to draw all the rats out of the house, some sort of scent-based effect...

[Zecro_The_Scourge]

Alright, plan:

• Go talk to Hilda about her rat problem
• Tomorrow, go to Targen
• Ask about the impish horror
• Pick up the package that someone wants to send to Tranin
• Go to Tranin
• Maybe go to Tarnin to hunt gnomes?
• Why are all the city names so similar?

[Armok]

> try to see if you can make a sequence of runes that, when engraved on a food item, will force air down the throat of any rat that tries to eat it, untill it bursts and dies form internal bleading.

[Ochita]

Or you know.

We could just scare the rats away normally. That or stomp on them. Long story short, our magic seems to be a little bit weak as it is.

[Grek]

The rat plan sounds good, as does the eventual Tuan-Targen-Tarnin route. As cushy as that archeologist job looks, it's out of our way and we don't actually know anything about archeology. That said, we're not really in a position to be killing an imp. We'll need to get some enchantments going if we want to do that. And, in order to get enchantments, we're going to need to write some runes down. We can memorize one sequence, but that's nowhere near enough. However, I can think think of one way to safely write down a rune sequence:

After we eat out next meal of bread, cut up the paper it comes with into a bunch of little squares of paper. Each paper gets a rune written on one side and a number written on the other. Each rune goes on a seperate scrap of paper so it doesn't interact with the other runes and each gets a number so we can reference it later. Next, we get one of the other papers from one of the other bread-meals and write on that. Instead of writing down a rune sequence as runes, we write it down as a sequence of numbers, Later, we cross-reference the sequence of numbers with the numbered rune drawings to re-construct the rune sequence in the right order.

[fergus]

After we eat out next meal of bread, cut up the paper it comes with into a bunch of little squares of paper. Each paper gets a rune written on one side and a number written on the other. Each rune goes on a separate scrap of paper so it doesn't interact with the other runes and each gets a number so we can reference it later. Next, we get one of the other papers from one of the other bread-meals and write on that. Instead of writing down a rune sequence as runes, we write it down as a sequence of numbers, Later, we cross-reference the sequence of numbers with the numbered rune drawings to re-construct the rune sequence in the right order.

I like this, but do we have anything to write with?

[Grek]

The stick of charcoal. What'd you think it was for?

[fergus]

Oh, I didn't recognize the picture.