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Author Topic: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 44 - The Markets  (Read 141820 times)

Niccolo

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1020 on: March 11, 2014, 03:42:41 am »

So, things are falling into place. Thuun is serving as my storytelling mouthpiece, which is mighty obliging of him - so nice I decided to let him live through the dream. Thankfully this dream sequence only lasts the one turn, eh?


- Turn 42: What is Life? -
The afternoon of your second day in the city is passing. Money is yours and with it comes both great opportunity and great danger…

Day 2: Afternoon



With his new understanding, Thuun is more then ready to risk his own death. He has seen that Life begets Death and Death begets Life, and if he must die so that others may live, that is what he must do.
Thuun first examines the orb.

Thuun gets weirded out by the priest’s glowing eye

Thuun fixes the cracked orb and spirals into unconsciousness.

"Hello again, young Healer. To stay is to learn the truth, but as you know you may well die. Are you ready this time?" Sariel’s voice rings through your mind as you eye the frozen figures of the Elves all around you.

You nod. ”Yes, I'm ready now.”

You can’t see her, but you know that the angel is smiling. "Very well, young Healer. Watch and learn.”

With that, time resumes. It appears to be moving faster than normal, as though you’re skipping ahead to the pertinent part. The sun quickly climbs to its peak far above your head and then, all of a sudden, everything’s back to normal speed. You look up at the sun and see the Orb of Solvarion curiously overlayed with the sun itself. Perhaps a remnant of your recent magical working? Or perhaps you needed to fix the Orb to truly understand.

Suddenly, to one side of the sun a spot of red appears. ”What is that?” you ask. There’s no answer and you feel quite alone in this strange time, alone and unprotected. The spot extends into a ruby line, a brilliant scarlet gash perpendicular to the sun. It reaches down and touches the surface and the sun flashes, all of the colours of magic as Solvarion fights back. But the attack came on too suddenly for the half-asleep God and within a minute the ruby gash covers half of the sun’s surface.

Solvarion fights back incessantly, forcing scarlet shards to fall away from the line. Soon the sky is spattered with red, yet the sun is inexorably being cut still. Within another minute, the grisly murder of Solvarion is complete. You watch, aghast. The Orb overlays the picture for an instant and you see that the two colours of the orb, black and white, no longer swirl together. The sun is split into a black and a white half, a miniscule chunk of the white attached to the black all that remains of their join.

The white half slowly turns pink then red and you understand. The being that did this didn’t just kill Solvarion, he stole the God’s power over Life itself. And then…

And then the shockwave hits. The physical force of the furious battle high above you has only just reached your location. In an instant, the fury of the conflict flattens and burns the entire nation of Elves. Thousands die in the blink of an eye and then cease to exist at all. Trees wither and turn to ash; plants crumple and then crumble.

And you are left standing in a graveyard the size of a nation, even as the red light overhead fades and you are left in pitch blackness, one by one the stars appearing overhead as your eyes adjust, once more revealing the piles of ashes that used to be an entire people.

 "The truth, young Healer. And those red droplets have since fallen to Maska. On the fifth day of the Ten Day Night, they landed across Maska and congealed into the curse that you have faced, powered by my father’s divine gift of Life.”

You’re dumbfounded. This is so far beyond anything you could have imagined. ”Wait, I thought I had to go to a city on the coast to learn all of this?”

The presence of Sariel is pensive. Finally she appears beside you, gazing somberly up at the spot of inky blackness wrapping around a tiny core of white, the only remains of her father. "Not from me. My siblings and I know no more than this. But you humans, ever clever and eternally inquisitive, have stumbled across something, in Shas Tule. A seer there, one who knew the truth of things, has taken great care to hide what he learned from all divine creatures so that the being above could not find it. Subsequently, neither can I learn it - all that I know is that it exists.”  She shrugs. "I pity you, young Healer. Yet you and your companions are the only ones in the position to save your world. We cannot interfere more than we have - all of our powers are bent to trying to heal my mother, who somehow yet lives - so it falls to you to destroy this curse as best you are able. Now… sleep, and heal. I pray you don’t lose heart from this sight, for to do so is to die...”

Her voice fades and you slip into the blackness of a dreamless sleep.



You awaken in a simple bed, your wounds sewn shut. The seer is sitting at your bedside. Curiously, his bookshelf has been pushed across the bedroom door. You see out the window that the moon has risen, her three pieces glowing a muted grey. But is it just you, or are they drifting inexorably closer?


Go to the shooting range and practice shooting 2-3 arrows in rapid succession. Then try and see if I can use telekinesis to shoot an arrow and make it go where I want it to go. Return to the Inn with the rest of the crew before it gets too late
You wander out into the afternoon sun, your bow and quiver over your shoulder. Maybe you’ll go burn off some excess energy at the range. Yeah, that sounds nice. Now that your eyes no longer glow like bog-lights, you can probably walk down the street unhassled!

You find your way to an archery range and pay a few coins to enter. You set ten arrows point down into the dirt at your feet, focus your mind on the target and practice a few shots, limbering the bow up. Finally you decide to see how many arrows you can have in the air at once.

(4) You fire off an arrow and before its barely halfway to the mark your second arrow is already strung, drawn and fired. Both arrows thud into the target, but alarmingly off-centre. It would appear that you can fire two arrows in rapid succesion, but you can’t quite focus enough to keep them dead on target.

Skill: Doubleshot. You can fire twice in one turn, but each arrow takes a -1 to hit.

You’re about to walk down the archery range to retrieve your arrows, but you stop and reach out one hand instead. ”Return” you order them. (4) One by one, your ten arrows wriggle loose of the haybale target and slowly tumble through the air. You catch them one at a time and slip them each into your quiver. Finally you decide to see how well your newfound psychic abilities mesh with your archery!

(3) Your first try is to nudge the arrow mid-flight, but that fails miserably. You can’t quite keep your mind to pacing the arrow, falling behind and only tapping the feathers.

Next you decide to draw a mental line, a spring by which to pull the arrow in. (1) The haybale comes rocketing down the range towards you instead, pulled forwards by the mental spring! A lucky roll is all that saves you from being buried in hay. Luckily, nobody saw the antics - or is too scared to say anything - so you rapidly re-stuff the target bale and drag it all the way down the range to its place.

Finally, you decide to mimic a lodestone, keeping in mind that you don’t want to launch the haybale at your face again. (5) The process works remarkably well! Your arrows curve in mid-flight, unerringly hitting the bulls eye. You find that it can’t save you from a terrible shot, but it’s still a lovely help.

Psychic Skill: Guided Shot. By focusing your mind on the target, you can gain a dynamic bonus to your shot. The extreme focus results in a -1 to dodge and you can only fire one arrow at a time.

Mentally exhausted, you retrieve your arrows and wander back towards the inn, aiming for the taproom where the five of you shall surely be meeting once more.

Upon your arrival, you see three of the others, but no Thuun. He must still be at the temple. Curious…


Hurry on back to our room at the inn. Stay away from any people until this point!
You run back towards the inn, the thousands of gold in the sack over your shoulder calling to you like a siren to sailors. (5) You manage to make it all the way back to the inn without seeing anybody! You hurry up to the room, startling Ekoka from his reading, and stuff the sack as far under your bed as possible. You resolve to discuss it over dinner with your companions… Perhaps they don’t need to know exactly how much was awarded?

With that settled, you settle into a seat and pull a random book off of the room’s shelf and open it, whiling away the hours until dinner time...


Baldur goes and purchases a sturdier wagon and a couple of horses to pull it for when the party leaves the town. Assuming that we have the money to, obviously.
”I’ll get you the money tomorrow!” you growl at the merchant. ”I only want to order one.”

The merchant shrugs. “I don’t take orders. If I did, I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to work, let alone sleep! Come back tomorrow and you’ll have your horse and wagon. It’s normally fifteen hundred , but if your wagon’s in good nick I’ll trade it to you for a thousand.”

You mutter darkly and leave without another word for the wagon merchant. You can’t do much bargaining just yet, since you have no collateral to back it up with, but tomorrow you’ll probably be able to take that thousand gold down a notch or two. Hopefully Lyu was successful in getting the money from the duke, or else you’ll all be stuck in the tiny carriage with the rickety wheels all the way to the city on the coast.

You kill some more time in the markets, perusing goods and the odd services,until the sun begins to set. Finally you head towards the inn so as to meet your companions for dinner.


Read the fire book.
The book describes some truly arcane uses of Fire magic, such as the best temperature to remove only a certain amount of skin from a person. It waxes lyrical on how to adjust and maintain temperatures, even varying them across a single spell. It also describes the various ways Fire magic interacts with other elements and after reading. Fire and Wind create lightning? That sound pretty sweet. And quite handy to somebody of your skills.

You marvel at the knowledge you’ve gained. You feel properly in command of fire magic now, able to create jets of flame to scorch your foes! No more dropping houses on priests, now you can just burn everything.

Awesome.

Welcome to Rank 1 in Fire magic! You can create jets of flame of up to twenty feet and can put out fires with your will.

As the sun goes down, you nudge Lyu and head for the taproom to meet your companions…


Spoiler: The Players (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: March 27, 2014, 04:50:55 am by Niccolo »
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What's wrong with using magma? That's almost always the easiest method.
I have issues channeling it properly to do that method. I end up flooding the fortress with magma.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1021 on: March 11, 2014, 07:21:28 am »

((Why is Water magic still 0?))

"Alright. Is there anything else we feel we must do before we leave town?"
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Niccolo

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1022 on: March 11, 2014, 09:10:26 am »

Because every time I update it I forget to update my google document with the direct information. Which gets copied across.

Welp, it's fixed now. Thanks for spotting that.
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What's wrong with using magma? That's almost always the easiest method.
I have issues channeling it properly to do that method. I end up flooding the fortress with magma.
Check out my RtD!

Harry Baldman

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1023 on: March 11, 2014, 10:09:39 am »

((Why is Water magic still 0?))

"Alright. Is there anything else we feel we must do before we leave town?"

"Maybe find our healer? He seems to be highly important for some reason!"

"Also, you may be interested to know that I have..."
Lyu lowers his voice, "ten thousand gold - the Duke was rather generous. Shall we split it equally?"
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BFEL

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1024 on: March 11, 2014, 11:27:13 am »

First thought in my head: The curse can be affected/possibly CONTROLLED using Life magic.

I would be fucking SCARY as a mage in this world :P

Any chance the markets would still be open? Oh wait, we still have tomorrow, because carriage merchant dialogue.

The cloak/armor/extra sword can wait then.

Thank seer for his help. Query about the bookcase thing. Get to inn if there's no priest lynch mob waiting outside.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1025 on: March 11, 2014, 02:16:12 pm »

((Why is Water magic still 0?))

"Alright. Is there anything else we feel we must do before we leave town?"

"Maybe find our healer? He seems to be highly important for some reason!"

"Also, you may be interested to know that I have..."
Lyu lowers his voice, "ten thousand gold - the Duke was rather generous. Shall we split it equally?"
"That would be equitable."
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1026 on: March 11, 2014, 02:51:23 pm »

"Ten thousand gold? Good. We could use it. We'll split it later, once we've got all the supplies we need, and a new wagon and some horses."
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1027 on: March 11, 2014, 02:56:14 pm »

"Ten thousand gold? Good. We could use it. We'll split it later, once we've got all the supplies we need, and a new wagon and some horses."

"Better to split it right away while it's still there, friend. Who knows what might happen to a big honking bag of gold overnight. Let's spread the wealth between us, eh?"
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1028 on: March 11, 2014, 02:59:14 pm »

"Better to split it right away while it's still there, friend. Who knows what might happen to a big honking bag of gold overnight. Let's spread the wealth between us, eh?"

"We should spend it on supplies we need first. It's more fair that way and nobody has to pay out of their pockets for things we need. And if we lose all of it overnight we probably deserved it."
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1029 on: March 11, 2014, 03:04:40 pm »

"Does it matter that much when we split up the money? How about a compromise--we split the money now, so it's not all in one place, then if someone makes a large number of group purchases or a large purchase for the group, we can pay him for it."
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1030 on: March 11, 2014, 03:07:42 pm »

"Does it matter that much when we split up the money? How about a compromise--we split the money now, so it's not all in one place, then if someone makes a large number of group purchases or a large purchase for the group, we can pay him for it."

"Yeah, let's just do that. Big bags of money make you very few friends in this cruel world!"

Split the cash between us - that'd be four ways, right? We'll pay Thuun his bit later.
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1031 on: March 11, 2014, 03:15:01 pm »

"Does it matter that much when we split up the money? How about a compromise--we split the money now, so it's not all in one place, then if someone makes a large number of group purchases or a large purchase for the group, we can pay him for it."

"Good idea."
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Pancaek

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1032 on: March 12, 2014, 04:46:06 pm »

"Sounds good to me. I'll just pop out for a bit to do some shopping then, money has to flow, after all"

be given money! Go to market/shop district and look at special arrows, bows and/or upgrades for my bow. Just look, don't actually buy anything yet.
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Niccolo

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1033 on: March 16, 2014, 02:39:14 am »

Okie dokie.

So, it's evening time. You four are splitting up the money (I'm assuming that Lyu is going to hold onto Thuun's two grand) and going shopping... Okay, well, there is a Nightmarket, but... well... things can occasionally get a tad rowdy. And there's a couple of pickpockets, muggers, etcetera. You know, business as usual. Anyhoo, assuming that the splitting of money takes very little time, tell me what else you want to do this evening, like Pancaek did.

Speaking of which... Pancaek, this is bronze-age fantasyland... what upgrades are you going to find for your bow? I'm not entirely sure what you're aiming for, really.
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What's wrong with using magma? That's almost always the easiest method.
I have issues channeling it properly to do that method. I end up flooding the fortress with magma.
Check out my RtD!

Harry Baldman

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Re: Roll to Go Mad: Turn 42 - What is Life?
« Reply #1034 on: March 16, 2014, 02:59:39 am »

Speaking of which... Pancaek, this is bronze-age fantasyland... what upgrades are you going to find for your bow? I'm not entirely sure what you're aiming for, really.

((Maybe he could get a composite bow? That is, of course, if this is not too damp an area.))

Hole up in inn and guard that moolah!
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