July, Year 1
"So here's the new plan, we're going to be swapping a few of you around a bit because of various emotional trauma. Pansies. Anyway, we're going to keep trying to talk to this thing, see if we can't shove some ethics in it's nightmarish head. Someone get some guys to get the bodies out of there too, maybe clean the walls while you're at it. It's filthy. Anyway, apparently someone didn't get the memo to actually sell our stuff, so he's been replaced. We've put out some advertizing, hopefully we'll be rolling in the big bucks any day now.
On another note, no more telepathy on the zombies. It's existentially depressing and I can't be having any of that smartass psychologicalwhatsit in my company. Get their meaty bits working and maybe we can get those guys who died to the giant off their cold asses. Den Smithson, out."
You switch around your scientists' research roster, ensuring that none of the same scientists have to do work with their new phobias. The new scientists you hired are set to work on translating the giant and working on the resurrection rune. The previous, more traumatized scientists begin researching other runes, such as the destruction and creation runes and enchantment runes. You fund a PR push to advertise your guild. Hopefully that ad Duncan paid for will be some help.
The new translation team get to work as soon as they can, fascinated by the rune giant living in the lab. In the two months of its life it has grown quite a lot, and has to lie down and crawl to move around. It doesn't seem to mind, though. They manage to transcribe the spoken runic with the written, and understand some of what it has to say. The head scientist of the translation research is Dr. Monroe.
"Good news, sir! We can understand most of what the giant is saying. Bad news, sir, is that we can't speak runic."
"Well, start practicing! Learning a language isn't hard, doctor."
"It's not that sir, it's just that to pronounce the language properly we need 11 tongues. But, we have a workaround! All we need to do is to write down deactivated runes and lay them out to the giant to read!"
They get on that, trying to ask the giant what its name is and how he can speak if he's only a month old. "My halaj is Dath. I am Rune Ganit. I am reincarnation of the Runic God, Dath-Baal. Thank you, malal, for birthing me into my hojah. As a gift of thanks, I will not destroy your race. I see that you know runic, the language of the ganit hok, the great ones. I am happy to share my knowledge with you, in exchange for..."
"For what?" Dr. Monroe writes.
"For my beloved, Hola-Baal. She died when the monra, the world, was created, for she loved the world and would not leave its birth. That is why of all the worlds in the starlands, yours has life. I want you to bring her back, like you brought me back. I will help you in any way I can."
Dath shares his knowledge of runes with you. You can create almost all the ancient runes of the past! However, to make new variations you must research. Ask the GM for the lexicon of runes.
Meanwhile on the resurrection front, you forbid the use of telepathy runes on zombies. The new research team happily agrees to, after hearing the story of the previous scientist who did so. Since Dath has given them the runes required, the resurrection rune gives the user full control of the zombies until the rune is destroyed. The rune must be held in hand by the user and the command must be spoken aloud. You tell them to resurrect the dead scientists in Dath's lair, but you are met by fierce opposition by a few of your older scientists and staff. They do, however, agree to take the bodies out of the room, and Dath lets them through unharmed.
In the PR section, you commission more ads to sell your new runes. You can't really efficiently mass produce them just yet, but you create a few and have a few hundred or so in stock. You get quite a good number of buyers, and you soon sell out most of your stock, earning 50,000 Cor. Your guild has also gotten some fame from this. Duncan's ad also helped, which is displayed prominently on cereal boxes, featuring Duncan, the swaggering suave man posing with a rune while eating a bowl of Slime-Os.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen everywhere! It is a cold, cold summer here on the 23rd Floor, just like any other time of the year, but that doesn't stop people from taking the week off from their guilds and go skiing up in the mountains. Eternal King Richard III has sent us his warm regards, wishing us a happy summer. Meanwhile, Interstice Thaumaturgy, whom we've previously interviewed, has sold their runes to the rest of us, and boy are we excited to see them in use. Hold on, they are in use!
In the final boss room, the guild Horror Spike has used the runes in their fight against the Undead Frost Minotaur, Deathkill. The runes were hugely successful, the destruction runes easily bringing down the horned giant cow. Leader of Horror Spike, Baroness Murder, had this to say, "These runes were instrumental in our success. Now boss fights will go so much easier, thanks to these runes."
With Deathkill dead and killed, we can finally progress to the 24th Floor, as soon as the Pathfinder guilds give us the OK.
Menial Staff: 1 engineer, 15 mechanics [Done!]
Scientists: 8 scientists [3 researching] [5 standby]
Assistants: 15 assistants
Guardsmen: 3 adventurers, 10 men-at-arms
Dath, Rune Giant
Translation [Done!]
Resurrection Rune [Done!]
170,000 Cor [10,000 Cor/month]
4 Fame/10 Fame (My friends have runes from them. I'm gonna buy one next week!)
You're on the path to fame! All good rolls everywhere this month and we've even beat the Floor Boss, thanks to you guys. On the Floor note, since you're a Arcana guild you don't really need to move your guildhall down, but it doesn't hurt to have an outpost. You can also upgrade your current guildhall to allow more workers and better equipment.
On a world-building note, each Floor is the size North America. There are about 1,500 guilds, and the population is around a million in the entire Tower. There are permanent settlements colonizing the entire second and third Floors, with children and schools and farms. The natural monsters there, slimes, rats and boars, are relatively harmless and even domesticated and made into many daily life products.
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Topic: Dungeon Guild (TSG) (Read 11194 times)