Two and a half weeks later, Tammy and Alex hadn't made much progress on their camp. Turning trees into boards with only hand tools was proving difficult. Nobody had gotten hurt yet, but it had been close on two occasions. They had gathered together enough uneven boards to make a shack, but were waiting for Lyssa's return for an extra pair of hands. For now, they slept under the stars, hoping the good weather continued.
During Lyssa's turns with their only axe, Alex had tinkered with various ideas. He had successfully made, in order, an automated crank for a crossbow, a necromantic sensor linked to a trap trigger, and a slow copy machine. He had tried and failed to make homing projectiles.
Lyssa greatly appreciated the upgraded crossbow, which began reloading automatically when a bolt was inserted. It didn't reload noticeably faster than she could, at least with her current bow, and it was a bit bulky, but it didn't tire her. Alex could vaguely feel its existence. It felt a bit fainter while she was out hunting. When he had pointed it out to her, she'd been ambivalent.
The sensor could be set to trigger when it sensed motion in whatever area Alex defined. It could be pre-set not to fire at certain people. It would still fire at his minions, but Alex thought he could remove that later. He could link together multiple sensor/trigger combos, if they were close enough together, giving them nearly the same magical upkeep as just a single sensor/trigger combo.
His final success, his copy machine, worked by slowly moving a sensor over a page. If it detected color, it made a dot at the same place on a second page. The copies were of a decent quality, but copying a 'normal' sized page took about eight hours. Alex wasn't confident it could reliably turn a page by itself without tearing it, and would need more practice.
"I think .. I'm done .. for today." Tammy sat down beside him, breathless. She watched him carving a mechanism for a few minutes while she caught her breath. "If Lyssa doesn't return tonight, I'm going to go look for her in the morning." She shook her head "I should have gone instead. She still thinks this is a game or story. If she-"
"Hey there, relax." Alex reached an arm around her shoulder and gave a friendly hug as he cut her off. "She only went to look around. They're not going to imprison her just for, what, being a traveler interested in them? I'm sure she just got caught up in a festival or something."
She didn't return that night.
Around noon the next day, a contrite Lyssa returned wearing an unevenly bulky bag, leading an angry-faced Tammy. "Alex .. I saw a chance and I thought it would be helpful to-"
"She took it upon herself to steal a skeleton."
"It was safe! The graveyard is outside the village, and it's behind hills and tress so you can't see it!"
"So, alone, you couldn't see anyone before they found you digging up their father. You got very lucky."
"But nobody saw me and I brought back a skeleton for Alex..."
Command up! Capacity up! Mechanics up!
New spell: Bone Mechanism.
New trait: Talentless Carpenter.Health: 6/6
Mana: 0/10 [+1/night] [1 upkeep/day] (1 dormant)
Minions: 2/4
Temporary Modifiers:Traits:Feminine
Rainbow eyes and long rainbow hair
Talentless Carpenter
Magic Skills:Necromancy Bone 1: Initiate
- Command- May reliably control 4 undead
- Projection-- May sense minions "deaths." Vague proximity sense.
- Speed--
Blood 0: Unknown
Shadow 0: Unknown
General
- Speed 0
- Capacity 10
- Recharge 1
- Mage Sight 0
Mundane Skills:Architecture 0[1]
Military Logistics 0[1]
Mechanics 1
Farming 2
Clerk 2
StatsStrength 6
Dexterity 4
Constitution 6
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 7
Charisma 8
Karma 5
Bone
Animate Skeleton 1 - Animate an already prepared skeleton, under your command. They will obey commands literally, to the best of their ability. They are roughly as powerful as a typical farmer.Loosely limited to human-sized skeletons.
Costs 2 mana.
Casting time of 30 minutes.
Upkeep of 1 mana/skeleton/day.
Call Spirit 1 - Summon a deceased person's soul. Targeting requires a person, place, or object of great sentimental value. This will fail if the soul has been claimed by a deity, and alert said deity. The spirit can only interact with the mundane world through dreams. Summoned spirit is not bound.Casting time of 30 minutes.
Costs 1 mana.
Necromantic Mechanism 1 - Create a mechanism with a control matrix. This will generally be a sensor (motion or pressure) linked to a trigger, although more creative applications are possible. One "mechanism" may have as many as five sensors and five effects.Costs 1-2 mana.
Casting time varies
Upkeep of 1 mana/set/day
9 days hardtack
0 Iron, 6 Copper coins (1 iron is 10 copper. A cheap inn room and six meals costs five copper.)
20ft rope
Good Knife
Small Backpack
2x Small Saddlebags
Basic construction tools
Bag of nails
Lyssa
Healthy
Extremely Loyal
****Trapper [Good Kit]
***Tracker
Tammy
Healthy
Extremely Loyal
****Crossbows [Good Self-Cranking Crossbow, 20 bolts]
***Negotiation
Undead Copy Machine (Dormant)
May copy a page in 8 hours
Debatable creates evil books
((I'm ret-conning what I'd said last turn about only having 100 nails. I should have left it vague.
Tammy's crossbow now counts as a minion.
Alex can spend time meditating to recharge mana, and maintain more minions/enchantments. Currently, the copier is dormant, since you don't have ink or paper. It's safe to leave a minion dormant for a week at a time. Alex needs to be on-site to re-activate and maintain dormant minions. Upkeep is cut to around 10% while dormant, but it will take time to maintain if you have more than a few. It takes time to reactivate dormant minions, and cannot be done by a dumb trigger.
Alex may meditate to gain more mana. He will get 4x as much mana recharge for a day dedicated to meditating. Meditating increases the recharge skill faster.
The rolls for magic skill-ups were {73}, {76}, and {76}. I found this mildly amusing.
You rolled a {1} on the construction skill-up. Do not expect Alex's minions to be remotely useful for carpentry-work.))
Author
Topic: Necromancers, Shadows, and Octopi (Suggestion Game) (Read 11522 times)