"I... What did I do?" Bree examines her hands, which are splattered with evidence of the carnage that was left behind in the farmhouse. She shakes her head quickly, in an attempt to clear it. Successful, Bree responds quickly, "Much appreciated, you guys. I don't think those two were interested in anything but coin.. They mentioned having seen your odd looking bit of silver, as well as your necklace." She motions to both Jim and Gerald, perplexed and slightly annoyed. Bree pulls out her own talisman from underneath her clothes, the opal a shimmering stone licked with shades of scarlet, flame, and gold. "And this stone was blue..."
Action: Check myself for injuries, then accompany Jim to look for anything useful, studying my changing artifact a little while rummaging through the items inside.
Looking yourself over, despite being in shock and seriously weakened you are free from wounds. ! That is before you notice that there is fresh blood running from your nose, the lighter crimson mixing with the already drying darker red muddying up your hands a bit with blood. It ceases after a few minutes though, and is followed by an intense headache. ! Feeling like the worse hangover of your life you stagger and sit down beside Jim, the two of you leaning up against the shack and looking like a pair of war survivors.
“Hehehehe, It’s like a strong liquor or something isn’t it?” Jim laughs a bit then winces from pain.
“Strong liquor may be an understatement, I actually feel like I may have had a small stroke or something. Wait, how would you know? Wasn’t some other dude doing the spell casting?”
“Ugh I think he was just using the part of me that can do it, except for the possession he didn’t seem very ma… powerful or talented in any of this. That may be why he decided to try and kill us off and take me over so quickly, it was like he was scared that I’d beat him off even easier in a few days.”
Pulling out the amulet you see that it’s begun to flash through different colors with some sort of urgency, and attempting to look at it with your headache only makes the pain worse.
“Jim, you can see that this thing is changing color right?”
“It is? Looks like a normal blue and red gemstone to me.”
“Huh… wonder what it means that I can see different colors in it then…” ! suddenly the gemstone flashes white and then fades back to its normal color, you feel as though there is a small amount of strength syphoning back into your body and the headache alleviates itself somewhat.
“Well… I actually FELT that though, what did it just do Bree?”
“I don’t really know I feel a bit better now though.”
! Despite feeling better you are too exhausted to try and search through the house, and content yourself resting against the wall for a bit while Marcus rummages around. You and Jim just sit there on the cool grass underneath the night sky and bond over mutual pains for a while.
Gerald made his way back, gathering the team.
"...alright...so these things we got have ghosts in them? That can take control of us?" he said, his voice lower than usual.
"And these things you're all doing, it's mag..." Gerald cut off his own sentence, as if mentioning it would bring a legion of hunters on them at that very moment.
He continued. "Anyway, I'm glad you're alright Bree...and someone needs to look at Jims wound. I don't hold it against you, anyway, so don't look so glum."
Gerald decided now would be a good time to look at his own coin. If something was in there, he wanted to find out what...
Action: Examine my own coin, trying to be alert in case something strange happens or tries to control me.
Moving away from the group a bit you set about looking over the coin as best as you can in the dark. ! It appears to be noticeably heavier than most metal, almost approaching the weight of what you believe gold to be. You spend some time trying to... sense you suppose, if there is anything more to it than just being an unusual coin. ! After some time you begin to feel as though there is something there, actually you begin to feel two different things inside the coin. One you feel to be almost disconnected or uncaring, and the other angry and trapped. ! Deciding that being possessed isn’t in your list of things to do today you go to put the coin back in your pocket, but of its own accord your hand takes the coin and flips it into the air. As it spins the silver side takes on a deeper luminescence and almost glows, while the other side gets a darker red burn to it. Moving to catch the coin you nearly grab it when it bursts into flame. ! Reacting to the sudden change, you trap it in an orb of air, as it continues to burn and spin while pushing itself towards your outstretched hand. You can feel the heat licking at your skin as the coin forces itself closer and closer to your exposed skin, ! and with a flick of your wrist you send it rocketing into the ground where it sputters and smolders before finally going out.
You leave it in the ground and head back to the abandoned farm house, sick of the cursed object. Just as you get back to the house you feel warmth spreading from your pocket, and reaching your hand in you pull out the coin. It glows faintly and is slightly warm but otherwise doesn’t seem that it will immediately burst into flame again. Sighing you put it in your pocket and go to see what Marcus has found.
Partial Knowledge-Catch-Wind-???-???
Check on Bree to see if she is alright then talk to Gerald to see how badly I hurt Jim. When that's done quickly scout the area in case there are signs of where they were going to take Bree. Afterwards carefully enter the farmhouse to retrieve my arrow and look for anything that may be of use.
You go to ask Bree if she’s okay, but you see that she is spending some time talking with Jim who has already regained consciousness. Deciding to let them rest, you just quickly catch Gerald and ask him, “So what sort of condition was Jim in anyhow?”
“Well the arrow head passed clean through the other side, and the shaft seems to have blocked off any bleeding. I don’t know how bad it’ll be when we try and remove it but for now he’s fine.”
“Good… keep an eye on him, I’m going to scout around a bit and make sure we are safe.”
Before he can respond you move off into the darkness, the moon’s coming out from behind the clouds somewhat, and it lets you see that it’s only about 5-6 hours till sun up. Sighing you make the best of the meager light and search for any tracks or paths that could possibly indicate where they came from or were going to. ! In a short amount of time you find where they had been coming and going from the abandoned house, and following the footpath come across where it splits off going back towards Rutsett and off towards the east. ! Upon closer inspection you find that it appears as though a group of 5 or so people passed by here a few hours ago, one of them apparently dragging some sort of object and another bleeding. Guessing that it must have been a larger group of the same people, you hurry back to the abandoned house. ! Inside the building, you are largely unaffected by the blood and death, having been a hunter you’ve skinned and gutted animals before and while it is another human this time, you feel little sympathy.
You tug the arrow out of the man’s corpse; however the arrowhead remains stuck in the body. Tossing the arrow shaft in your bag you set about searching the two men and the room. ! On the larger man you find that he had a knight’s sword hidden underneath his leather vest, it is made of high quality steel and the blade features an embossed pattern of angles and demons fighting, it bears the insignia of some minor noble house. You guess that he must have stolen it, though the hilt bears the name Sir H. Elric. Thinking back, wasn’t this man’s name Harold? Shrugging, you set about checking the rest of him and the other man. Finding a knife that’s far worse than yours, and some coppers, taking the money you turn to then look at the stuff on the table. ! Most of it is just Bree’s stuff, and you gather it up to hand back to her, though you do find a set of 3 pages of paper.
! The first page is just a detailed list of instructions. You scan it and after it gets past things such as ‘Don’t get noticed, don’t get caught’ it becomes very interesting. The instructions seem to be a list of questions and topics to either bribe people to find out the answers for, or to torture someone into telling you; the information being defensive information about Rutsett such as how many trained guards does the town have, what the population of adult males is like and if there is any form of town garrison. It also includes finding out where all the political leaders of the town live, as well as where the popular gathering places are. ! The second page has a lot more useful information; it is a decree telling a “Lord Jace’s” troops to accept the newly recruited ‘Mercenaries’ and released prisoners as full members of the ‘Revolutionary Force’. It repeats a number of times some sort of moto ‘United against the Puppet King’, and refers to the Inquisition being murdering bastards with no regards to god’s law. Something about the combination of the style of the decree, the orders given to his troops and the idea that there are convicts working for him gives you the feeling that this Lord Jace is a very desperate man at the moment. At the bottom of the page it has an insignia that matches the one on your new sword. ! The third page goes into greater detail on the Revolution, giving rather specific details about a supposed takeover of the local area including but not limited to Rutsett. Blatantly stating that the mountainous northern county of Surwall will belong to Lord Jace as the starting spot of his campaign or he will die trying to exact revenge against the corrupted leaders of Waarwigh. Specifically it goes into a rant about how King Rendal III is nothing but a coward and a bastard who allows innocent people to be killed all in the name of the inquisition. ! The plans for staging the initial rebellion are set to begin 2 nights from now. That only gives you 48 hours to make use of this information before a force of mercenaries, criminals and soldiers are going to march on Rutsett as well as 4 other villages that make up Surwall county, including the town of Surwall itself.
Gathering up the papers and Bree’s belongings you head outside and get everyone together. Handing Bree back her bag you then begin to explain the situation to the others of your group and once you finish going through the pages information you say,
“So I get the feeling this man is obviously at odds with the Inquisition…. Which with the way things are going for us, it could work out well. On the other hand he appears to be employing psychopaths if that smaller guy was any indication, and we’ve already killed two of his troops. There is also the issue that he is declaring war against a country far larger than just Surwall County, and we have no idea what sort of state the realm is in outside of our own little town.”
Everyone just sits or stands and soaks up the information, and eventually you snap them to attention. “Look regardless of what we have to do in two days, Jim is still shot and Bree is coated in a man’s blood. Not to mention the two dead guys lying in the building behind me. We need to do something before sun rise… which is only 5 or so hours away now, not to mention the fact that I’m tired as hell so I imagine you all must be exhausted.
Gained Steel Knights Sword
wake up and just sit there quietly in a mix of exhaustion and shame at nearly killing my friends, try to get a little rest while the others go about their business
! Managing to regain consciousness after Gerald unceremoniously dumps you against the side of the building you look around a bit confused though too exhausted to actually get up. When you see Bree come out of the building soaked in blood you nearly have a heart attack before realizing that it isn’t hers. Leaning back against the building as best you can with a piece of wood stuck in your shoulder, you try and make the best of the bit of down time. After coming up to date a bit with Bree (read her turn) you manage to get a bit of shut eye, this time of your own will. It’s not long however before Marcus wakes you up and tells you with the rest of the group some shocking news.
+1 Health
**Everyone needs to read Marcus's turn and it is assumed you know everything he does if you are with him at the moment.
Author
Topic: Hunted Magi -Turn 7 (Read 7818 times)