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Author Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus  (Read 272520 times)

Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3105 on: November 27, 2014, 05:01:22 pm »

Let's test that out after this speedy gentleman dies, otherwise it could end in hilarious catastrophe.

Wait until the guy dies, I suppose? Summon more pork queens and direct them at him if he starts getting too close to us.

It takes him but a few minutes to expire, and he does not go quietly at all. It's pretty fun to watch, though, and a little silly, so you suppose that's okay.

"I feel unusually close to my Puritan ancestors, don't you, fellow pilgrim?" Hungry Pete idly wonders. "Now! I suppose it might be time to be moving on. Shall we go slay ourselves some filthy people-murdering, blessing-hoarding profligates?"
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Xantalos

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3106 on: November 27, 2014, 06:05:41 pm »

The DUNKER shrugs.
Yes, let's! And more importantly, hoard those blessings for ourselves!

Onward past the place that guy was guarding! See if his desiccated corpse has any loot first. To the leyline!
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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3107 on: November 28, 2014, 07:49:24 am »

"Almost every wizard has a ritual object. You'll know when you see one. For one it may be a doughnut, for another a magazine. They use it in their rituals to gain access to magical knowledge."

"Magic is really not that great. Most of it is at best useless curiosities and at worst a recipe for disaster. Only few spells are capable of doing any good and those are only useful in certain situations. Not to mention that any casting of any spell may result in a disaster for the caster and those around them if they are not concentrated enough or if they use the spell irresponsibly."


"Besides, and I mean no offense by this, I only give magic to those I feel I can trust. To those I believe will try to use it responsibly or who are capable of learning how to do good with it. And I am sorry to say that I know you for a very small amount of time to be able to trust you."

Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3108 on: November 28, 2014, 12:34:28 pm »

The DUNKER shrugs.
Yes, let's! And more importantly, hoard those blessings for ourselves!

Onward past the place that guy was guarding! See if his desiccated corpse has any loot first. To the leyline!

There's no real corpse to access, unfortunately, just a crunchy, crispy arm poking out of the sphere. It's still clutching the small sword, though! Free loot!

[Body roll: 2-1]

Or maybe not. You're not sure you want to grab the blade and try to pull it out yourself, and the hand seems peculiarly resistant to mechanical abuse you level at it. Pah. Fine! It can keep its dinky little blade. You command powers far more unnatural and amazing anyway.

Also, you know, you might poke your eye out with it if you're not careful.

At any rate, you and Hungry Pete continue onward for a little bit, the queens following closely behind, until you reach an office with a collapsed wall. Intuition tells you that this may be the place you're looking for. As does the presence of people, all huddled up and looking worried.

In the middle is a rather fat fellow, looking to be in quite a bit of pain. A woman next to him is bandaging his hands, the bandages quite red at the moment, and doing so with great urgency at that. Looking on is a rather silly-looking blond chunky fellow with a curiously large head, who immediately looks your way as you approach.

"Vhoa, dude! Zey are here!" he says, looking at the fat guy.

"Aw, shit, it's him again. I should have known. And now he has friends," the fat guy mutters, looking around nervously for something, his face quite pale.

"Yeah, I think we're in trouble," she goes, looking at Hungry Pete, then at you, then at the queens who seem to have followed you inside. "You, uh, mind waiting a second so we can get ready? Shit's a bit hectic right now."

Behind them you can feel the leyline, practically sparkling with wondrous power.

"Ah! You think to mislead me again, fools? I shall not be turned from my quest so easily a second time!" Hungry Pete goes, looking over at the silly guy, immediately encasing him in a white, spiky sphere. It's odd, because just as the angels coalesce around him, you see a terrible resignation in the man's eyes.

"Let's not be hasty here!" the fat guy says half-hysterically, waving his bloodied bandaged hands at the two of you peacefully. "What seems to be the problem? And can we maybe help you out?"

"Yeah!" the woman goes. "We're ready to, uh, make amends!"

"Almost every wizard has a ritual object. You'll know when you see one. For one it may be a doughnut, for another a magazine. They use it in their rituals to gain access to magical knowledge."

"Magic is really not that great. Most of it is at best useless curiosities and at worst a recipe for disaster. Only few spells are capable of doing any good and those are only useful in certain situations. Not to mention that any casting of any spell may result in a disaster for the caster and those around them if they are not concentrated enough or if they use the spell irresponsibly."


"Besides, and I mean no offense by this, I only give magic to those I feel I can trust. To those I believe will try to use it responsibly or who are capable of learning how to do good with it. And I am sorry to say that I know you for a very small amount of time to be able to trust you."

"Noted," Little Tay says, looking over the notes he's taken over the past few minutes. You wonder if any of them say that you're to be killed violently as soon as possible. You're not sure if that's just a paranoid suspicion. He then gives you a dull look that suggests that your business with him is probably done for the moment, at least in his opinion.
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Toaster

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3109 on: November 28, 2014, 12:40:25 pm »

((It's the Fat Guy!))
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Xantalos

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3110 on: November 28, 2014, 04:15:20 pm »

((It's the Fat Guy!))
((Fat guy-off!))

Now now, I'm not sure what atrocities Pete visited upon you, but we just want access to the leyline.
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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3111 on: November 29, 2014, 12:35:23 pm »

Do I know where the DUNKER went? I would really like to question him. And perhaps bring him to justice if it turns out he planned all this.

Else, get back to my room, but try to make it safer, in case of anyone trying to kill me. Lock the door, put something fragile on a chair behind it, make sure the windows don't open from the outside and that the curtains are closed, stuff like that. Set the alarm clock early.

Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3112 on: November 29, 2014, 02:17:23 pm »

Dave continues his contemplation of all things related to underwear weather, and thinks that there's definitely a thing he could do that'd be pretty nifty. Awesome magic, as previously specified, will definitely be required. As will loosening up a bit and being ready for all kinds of things to go wrong.

Really, there's not much thought to be put in this. It's more a matter of chance - whether magic will feel like coming out in massive multitudes or not. It's probably impossible to create proper underwear weather with the storm spell, though perhaps if he were able to make it rain, similarly to the whole dinosaur thing a while back, why, then he might be in business. Although he has to wonder if the Denture God isn't able to help, maybe supply some power, gumption, pizzazz and all the other things one needs to make magic come out in great miraculous gouts and spurts. With the moon thing he guesses much of the volatile power came from the way he was combining shit left and right, which suspicion backed by unvoiced agreement from within his head tells him he's not really supposed to be doing. Maybe having a god on his side would be helpful in this case as well?

* * * * *

"Wicked.  Maybe that's why I can't find Cal.  Anyway, sure, let's go," Larry says, following the tentacles of his host and the light of the captured angel over to what he assumes to be the Wondrous Manse - perhaps the name's a tad dramatic, since it's basically a block of lined, engraved stone with a passageway leading into it.

Inside's not much more interesting - a little empty, with a lot of adorned stone furniture, but nothing else - the stonework is downright exceptional, but it all feels very drab without some contrast.

"Not very wondrous, right? Well, this has been a big problem so far. There's no stuff to work with here on Mercury. Stone, pretty much, since we can't get any damn metal out of the stone because, of course, there's no fuel, no fire and nothing else to tool around with, and the friends of mine who've tried messing with the core and getting heat from that have been kinda shit out of luck thus far. Without fire, there's no glass, no warmth, no illumination, pretty much nothing at all to work with. It sucks the big one. I keep trying to convince one of our angel guys to go to the Kingdom of the Deep and maybe work out a trade or something, but I think they've been misunderstanding what I was saying," his host narrates with an air of immense frustration.

* * * * *

"I'll have to let you take the lead here, I'm afraid. Mister Lee just sort of pushed these weird magazines in our hands and called it a day. My mind went blank and I kind of lost some memories when I read it, but I'm pretty sure he never actually told us how to give magic to others. So, if you'd be so kind?" says John, looking at Mr. Pilton curiously to see what he's about to do.

"Oh well. Guess I do have more practice in this thing. And a very handy tool, no less!" Mr. Pilton says, then pulls out a matchbox from his pocket, turning to the waitress. "Look alive!"

"Wait! Don't I get a say-" the waitress says, but is cut off as the match is struck, a regular-looking flame dancing at the tip of it. The waitress stares at it intently, her eyes glazing over as she instinctively leans toward the flame. This continues for a bit, Mr. Pilton smiling as he holds the match, winking at John.

"It's working!" he whispers amusedly. He moves his hand to the side a little, and the woman's eyes follow the flame, and her head ponderously does the same in a few seconds. After a short while, the woman snaps out of it, prompting an excited giggle from the fellow. She stumbles back a tad, adjusting her glasses, then looks upon Mr. Pilton silently. She slowly mouths a 'what the fuh?'

"I don't really what you saw, dear, but rest assured that it's completely normal and we don't think less of you for it. Now, here's your matchbox," he says, offering her the one he struck a match from, then taking her hand and pushing it into her grasp when she doesn't immediately take it. "Any time you have a question, any kind of question, strike one of those matches."

The woman strikes a match, staring at the flame vacantly as it burns through the match, falling out of her hands as it starts burning her fingers.

"I think she's a natural, personally," says Mr. Pilton to John as the woman gets out of her trance.

"That's really weird," she states.

"You thought it would be otherwise?"

"... point taken, I guess?"

"Oh, and you're going to want to look for leylines if you feel like getting more magic in you, by the by. Give me a call if you need to be pointed in the right direction sometime later," he says, handing a napkin with his number scribbled on it to the waitress.

"Uh, okay. Are there a lot of, uh, wizards around here?"

"Loads and loads. I know more wizards presently than normal people. Well, I think. Depends on what you count as knowing a person. I don't count, for instance, Lauren from Human Resources since I don't know her last name and we've never spoken more than two words to each other."

"Erm. Uh. Well... okay, yeah," she stammers. "Who are you people, anyway?"

* * * * *

THE DUNKER, trying to be the voice of reason since there's probably no way he can be the bad cop to Hungry Pete, addresses the two cornered wizards.

"Now now, I'm not sure what atrocities Pete visited upon you, but we just want access to the leyline."

Hungry Pete looks quite frankly insulted by this.

"I visited atrocities upon them? They sent me across town to the school, right into the clutches of the demon that ate my most promising friend! And their other cohorts killed my flock! I have done nothing malicious or atrocious to them at all!"

"Indeed, sir, you are entirely without fault, and it is with this in mind that we officially repent," says the fat guy on the ground, looking very apologetic. "We have seen the error of our ways, and would very much offer you the leyline-"

"The finger of God?"

"Yes, yes, the finger of God for you to use however you please, as long as you allow us to stay here and conduct some research on it. We won't interfere with whatever you or your friend currently seem to want, since hey, no harm, no foul, right? Use the... finger however you need. It's not like hoarding it is doing us or anyone else much good, right?"

Hungry Pete seems thoughtful.

"Hm. Your groveling is most enticing, but I am not sure if you should be let off that easily. After all, your minions could have murdered us both had we not murdered them first."

"Is the groveling really not enough? C'mon, dude, we did say we're sorry! Right, Jo?" he looks at the woman who's bandaging him.

"Very sorry!" says the woman, wrapping up (so to speak) the bandaging and turning to face the two conquerors and their army.

A muffled apology comes out of the spiky ball of angels as well.

"I say!" Hungry Pete declares. "That sounds all fine and good. But what say you, fellow pilgrim," he asks of THE DUNKER, "that we give these people a test so that they can prove their goodwill?"

* * * * *

Eta, filled with suspicion that has only increased after discovering that the weird donut guy in the suit is actually a vicious murderer, or at least unfortunately involved in helping the unsurprisingly viciously murderous Joanie, retires to her room and puts a chair in front of the door, balancing a fragile lamp on its edge along with a few metal mugs. Surely this is a foolproof alarm system, she thinks as she secures the windows. All things taken care of, she sets an early alarm, at about 8 AM or so, and it is for only about this long that she can successfully stave off sleep, losing consciousness shortly thereafter.

Most unsurprisingly, since it is about 5 AM when she falls asleep, she is extremely tempted to ignore the alarm, since after last night she feels like complete shit, to put it mildly. No way getting up now is going to result in a good or productive morning, she's fairly sure, and that may very well not be just her rather tired brain talking.
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Xantalos

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3113 on: November 29, 2014, 02:34:21 pm »

Eh, leyline first, trials later.

To the leyline!
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Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3114 on: November 29, 2014, 02:42:59 pm »

Eh, leyline first, trials later.

To the leyline!

It's right there in front of you, slightly behind and above the fat guy and the lady.
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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3115 on: November 29, 2014, 02:56:58 pm »

Turn on the TV, hoping for news. Stay in bed for a bit.

Xantalos

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3116 on: November 29, 2014, 03:16:55 pm »

Hmm. Recall how I tapped into the last one, then replicate the process here. LET THE MAGIC INTO MY GIZZARD
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The Froggy Ninja

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3117 on: November 29, 2014, 04:20:06 pm »

"Yo God? Think you could funnel some divine jim jam into my spell matrix or whatever? Make it more powerful?"

Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3118 on: November 29, 2014, 05:39:42 pm »

Turn on the TV, hoping for news. Stay in bed for a bit.

News are very hard for you to concentrate on at the moment. That, and they seem rather banal. There's the castle of dentures, yeah. You can see it. It's cool. It's... uh... a bit bigger than you remember it, maybe?

Probably nothing to worry about.

The monotonous, clear diction of the newscaster is dangerously close to putting you to sleep again. You blink a few times and look at the alarm clock. It's 10 AM now, so you suppose you were on the money on that front. The news have given way to reruns of afternoon soaps. Your sleepiness has barely abated.

Hmm. Recall how I tapped into the last one, then replicate the process here. LET THE MAGIC INTO MY GIZZARD

You recall... you don't really need to recall anything, since you mostly just winged it and then fell several floors to the ground. You try to avoid the latter and, there being no precipices nearby, it seems that you're going to be just fine on that front. You instinctively (mentally, for some reason your instincts don't see fit to guide your body in the direction of it) grasp for the leyline, and there it goes like a chemical reaction - you swing enough will and perceivable compatibility its way and the process is spontaneous, and a small, probably insignificant chunk of your body somewhere in the nasal area feels like it's heated to a boil, then bombarded with antimatter. A white light flashes in your skull, and you shiver as an infinitesimal part of you is replaced by pure lightning, the magical kind that blatantly disregards any kind of physics and that one could comfortably hold in a handy-dandy magical lightning box, the role of the latter currently being filled by a bit of cartilage somewhere inside your face.

You have aligned yourself with a leyline! Extra stat point obtained! In addition, any previously researched Element, such as Lard or Queen, can now be selected as a spell research criterion!

When you can process regular information again, you notice you have a green sandwich in your stupidly open mouth and more green sandwich all over your suit. Hungry Pete's missing his shield, the fat guy's waving his arms around uselessly and the lady's engulfed in a spiky sphere of angels. The sandwich, you are pleased to note, tastes very green. Like vegetables or something. You chew on it a moment to make sure, savoring its intricate improbability.

[Your mind roll: 3+1]

The taste quickly grows overwhelming, and your brain fires unpredictably at this stimulus, this amazing greenness of the bread, the ham, the... fried eggs? And the celery! Who can forget the celery? Your mind shoots into the glorious unknown, plunging into distant soil, taking root, then sending out tendrils as it seeks to find more of what it wants - at the moment, it seems to be dirt that it wants, probably to clear its palate and make itself ready for new things, and soon indeed it brings its great stem out of the ground, reaching toward sweet air and nourishing sun, great tongues shooting off the central axis, seeking all that they can experience, and a great many things does it experience indeed as a fortuitous wind blows its way - it carries scents of distant lands sucked in through many little nostrils on the underside of the tongues, traces of lost knowledge making heretofore unknown parts of your mind excited for more, and a sheer sense of wonder at the previously unknown stimulating you to grow further, reach for it, find its origin...

Spoiler: Your Spell Choices (click to show/hide)

By the time you come to, you notice Hungry Pete standing uncertainly next to a small pit, throwing rather nasty glances in the direction of the now entirely engulfed other people - three separate white spheres. Huh. Seems like he's handling himself, even if he doesn't have the shield.

"Treacherous profligates! You have crossed the children of God one too many times!" he says venomously, probably winding up some nice flames and trying to figure out who to roast inside their shell first.

"WAIT! OTHER GUY! NOT CRAZY GUY!" comes a partly muffled shout from the middle sphere. "HELP! WE CAN UPGRADE LEYLINES!"

"Ah!" he says, looking at the engulfed fat guy. "You first! No doubt about it!"

"Yo God? Think you could funnel some divine jim jam into my spell matrix or whatever? Make it more powerful?"

"I can line up a little godly something-something for your magical ministrations, no trouble at all, dude," the Denture God replies.
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Pancaek

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3119 on: November 29, 2014, 05:39:53 pm »

"It's not really 'us people', really. I don't think most of us actually know eachother. I'm John, recovering alcoholic, pleased to meet you."

he turns to Pilton

"So what's with the matchbox? Mister Lee used a magazine. Is it different for every wizard, or does the specific object used not really matter?"
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