Act I, Part Three: Hints
Gustav[6+1] Motivated by Arkran's insults and his management, and working this time with a lot more care, the workers make enormous progress in a short amount of time, clearing away the rubble caused by the recent collapse and patching up the hole it caused, as well as starting to patch up the more blatant fissures and cracks in the castle's walls.
[5] Ramsay, obeying his orders, begins drilling the soldiers currently inside the castle. He works them hard throughout the day, and has them run around the full perimeter of the castle several times. Meanwhile, some of the town's troops watch on, shouting mockery at the inquisition's forces. Although they try not to show it, most of them are fairly impressed.
[5] Inside the dungeon, you work the pumps like a champion. The engineer designed them for teams of four and probably intended to have a rotation system on them, but you do not let that slow you down, and you make some good progress. Renacido comes in to help, along with Friedrich, but he is not contributing much. You also note that Friedrich may as well not be doing anything whatsoever.
[?] You do not smell anything that might be qualified as stinking, and you see nothing indicating the water might be tainted.
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Friedrich[1] Working alone with Gustav and Renacido, you make considerable progress, although you have the sneaking suspicion that you're not the one doing the heavy work. While the high inquisitor works like a madman besides you and Renacido does his best, you have a hard time working your own part of the machinery, barely contributing to the effort. You decide to blame it on the rust when, at the end of the day, you grow weary of it all and go take a long break.
[?] Despite the engineer's reports on the water 'stinking', you do not smell anything.
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Davian[2] You fail to sense anything particular related to the type of spell that might have been cast on the hamlet. You do note that there is no particular orientation to the magic - it is simply found inside a circle that covers the village's area and some of the land beyond.
The soldiers find nothing.
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Faran [A special event lead to the player being asked some questions on what he did in his situation.]
After having finished your inquiries amongst the citizen, you leave the town to go investigate into the mountains. [2] It is with difficulty that you make the climb, having no particular experience in forestry and working on imprecise information from the townsfolk, and although you do not get lost (the town always remains visible in the horizon), you are not certain you would be able to find the same path again easily should you return here.
[?] Although you are not exactly an experienced forester, you do find human tracks in the area. Since the place is supposed to be empty, according to the townsfolk, you follow them around with surprising ease. [?][Stealth:2+1] Eventually, the tracks lead you to a cave's entrance which has been closed off by a wooden door. Outside, a man is sitting on a crudely made chair, reading a book and not paying much attention.
You approach, and he hears you coming. Surprised, he lowers his book and asks about your identity. You lie, claiming you are a bounty hunter seeking the troll plaguing the area, and he frowns before telling you there are no trolls here. He claims the villagers are just working on suppositions, and that the only tracks he's found are wolves'. He tells you he is a hunter, and this is where he stays during hunting season.
After a short discussion, you tell him goodbye and leave, before turning around to sneak up on him, wishing to observe him some more. [1+1 vs 5] Five minutes in, someone taps you on the shoulder. You turn around to find the hunter staring you down, looking furious. You explain to him that you are an inquisitor and merely doing your full duty by making sure nothing was wrong here, and he almost panics, thinking he's being spied on... [4] But you reassure him that you do not think he's done anything wrong before he does anything regrettable.
You leave the mountains to report your findings to Gustav a day later, leaving out the part where the hunter spotted you while you were hiding.
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Renacido[4] You go into town, looking for able-bodied men, and find plenty. A rough land breeds rough men, and if you could pay them you're certain you could expand your workforce with competent and productive workers. Of course, as one of your peers found out recently, you can't pay them.
[2] You work the pumps with two of the other Inquisitors, and you are not really convinced you do a noticeable difference. Gustav is certainly pumping away like a champion - you're having a bit more trouble. At least, you can tell yourself you're not as much of a dead weight as Friedrich, who seems to be doing nothing at all to aid the cause.
[?] You detect a foul smell in the air after some time spent working.
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Oscia[4] After a long time searching, you determine with some assurance that there is no different magical residue in the town - all of the energies in the area are of a similar nature. Only one spell was ever cast here. Whatever happening inside this hamlet was, the heretic or heretics who crafted the spell did not need any more magic once it went off. This could explain why no horns were sounded and there are no signs of a struggle - if the spell activated instantly, it might have neutralised the entire population of the town at the same time, somehow.
This is some powerful magic, stronger than anything you've ever faced before, Oscia.
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Geldryn[6+2] After some more hours of quick work, you finish organizing the library with Aurion, and have you now a rough idea of the quality of its contents. [2] Overall, you are left disappointed. A large part of the writings found here are of low quality, being either poor representations of religious writings you have seen before or simply books written by and for the lower class on enlightening subjects like the growth speed of potatoes during an average spring.
Some of the books are still worthwhile, though. You manage to find about twenty religious documents of quality which you could use to educate potential priests, and most of the tomes on the region's history seem to be of relatively acceptable quality, being written by what appears to be real historians, although you obviously cannot check their authenticity, having no knowledge of this part of the world's history beyond the largest lines.
[?] Stuck between two books and invisible to the outside eye, you find a strange looking paper that appears to be extremely ancient. On it is drawn a map of the region [1+1] upon which are written runes you cannot recognize. An intricate network of lines covering the entirety of the area is drawn onto it, all of them interconnecting at various points on the map which are all marked by the same rune. You can tell that one of these points stands roughly at the spot where Castle Altburg should be, although there is nothing indicating the presence of civilization there.
Looking over your shoulder, the Loremaster frowns deeply [5] and mutters that he might know what this is. He asks for your permission to take it with him and do some fact-checking before he can tell you with assurance what the map's meaning is. You have a long discussion with him afterwards, talking about what it might be and the implications of this discovery. He explains that he is almost certain this is a representation of a network of leylines, and that a node sits under the castle. [6] Aurion gets a little carried away, and you gain a surprising amount of useful information from this.
The "Leylines" entry has been added to the Inquisition's known lore.[4+1] You continue making good progress studying the engineering books and vastly improving your knowledge on the subject. Soon enough, you should be able to devise some basic plans yourself.
[1] The priest tells you he is still working on finding some good subjects, saying apologetically that some of them are out of town at the moment.
After your readings, you no longer have time to join Ramsay's drills.
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Turn's events: Castle repairs are at 5%, the draining of the dungeons has started.
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Topic: Inquisition - IC thread (Read 6834 times)