Roll 37
"Er, sorry Bovril!"
Adjust my riding stance and follow up behind Wilhelm, taking Lily with me. Ask her about the sprites.
[4][5]
Lily: The sprites seerve me. Watch.He pulls a flower from her hair and tosses it carelessly toward the swamp. She misses, but a cloud of sprites comes out anyway and lifts the flower off the mud, returning it to her hand and lingering around her.
Lily: They have the capacity of mind alteration. But I have an obligation to you for protecting me against vile magic, the only thing that can really hurt me. So I will keep them off of you. I presume the Lady wants you to enter her castle, where I am not allowed. But I'll be outside if you need me....
Your whole body is burned (1)
...
You have 3 black empty tomes (black tomes must be written in red ink, and gain +2 positive dice if inscribed with an illusionary spell)
Silent Wind of Night: Dispells all nearby items and detatched effects, regardless of origin. Shapeshifts, summons, and polymorphs are unaffected.
Phantom Lake Essence: Dark tendrils emerge from the book, ensnaring enemies that fail to dodge.
Unending Phantasmagoria: Dissolves a dead body to create a reanimated ghost in place of this tome. The ghost can use Shadow Blink and drops a black spell tome upon death.
You have a stack of spell tome pages and a black cover
You have a bloodied ceremonial dagger (Attack power: 3) (attaches to target and Drains it, suppressing it) (remembering a memory teleports this weapon to your hand)
You have a Beech Javelin (Attack power: 3 (thrown), 1 (stab))
You have 10 Javelin memories (lucid)
You have about thirty Hours
You have a royal goblet, a golden watch, and some jewelry
You remember the Lady of Winter
You remember a giant eye
You remember many pixies
You remember a band of Arinthian soldiers and some bandits
You remember a bandit sinking into the ground
Traits and Skills:
Forest Ranger
>Gain +2 positive dice when navigating and moving through the wilderness, as well as performing stealthy actions
Javelineer
>Your targets get +2 negative dice when you target them with a javelin
Noble's Education
>Gain +1 positive dice when learning from writing or conversing about literature
Shapeshifter
>You have unlimited strong memories of forest animals
Cynical
>Others will press any advantage...
Xenophobe
>Foreigners always disappoint
stick with the group, enjoy this moment of relative peace by looking around a bit
The muddy swamp borders the sandy beach, and on the other side along a small cove in the sand there is a black castle built in some ancient style, with three turrets capped by a conic steeple, two tall, one short. The fourth turret must have fallen long ago, as have most of the flying buttresses holding up the outer wall, but there still remains a few, and the whole thing has not yet collapsed so far.
In the swamp, there are reeds and dead stumps covered in fungus. The fungus seems to be the source of the Sprites in the swamp, who emerge from the gills like spores. They act as fireflies, illuminating the dark corners of the swamp.
Somehow, even though there is no canopy above the lake, and the blazing cloudless sky is visible clearly, the light of Ash does not burn you. The swamp is full of green plants, free of thorns and teal coatings. Next to you is a small tree with plump fan-like leaves, that looks extremely fragile. No way it would survive away from here.
...
Your whole body is burned (1)
Your left arm is bruised (1)
...
You have a schematic of an iron arrow trap
You have a steel axe (Attack power: 1) (Deals piercing damage if the attack connects but fails to pierce)
You have an iron mace (Attack power: 2) (If the target has less than 2 damage, deals piercing damage)
You have a charged large greatbow (Attack power: 3 (charged), 1 (uncharged)) (charging takes one turn of preparation)
You have an uncharged Quickbow (Attack power: 1. Can fire twice per turn. Charging it allows you to fire two arrows per attack, four in one turn)
You have 11 arrows in your quiver (Attack power: 1)
There is one recoverable arrow near the Old Fortress Mound
You have an important scroll in a copper cylinder
You have about one hundred Hours
Traits and Skills:
Man of Steel
>Gain +1 positive dice when using melee weapons, as well as lifting and wrestling actions
>Your opponents get +1 negative dice when attacking you
Fists like Hammers
>Gain an additional +1 positive dice while unarmed
Bow Mastery
>Your targets get +2 negative dice when you target them with a bow
Illiterate
>What's a book?
Amnesia
>You have forgotten many things
Leonhard insists on the matter, offering the crystal to Marco. "Wanna investigate what it was used for? Might be useful information." he says, before turning to Angstrom. "There's an audience with the Kaiserin I was invited to. Should probably be there just to check out exactly what it's about, I wasn't given too much in the way of detail."
As you hand the crystal to Marco, it warms up in your hand to the point where it becomes too hot to hold.
Marco: I'm trying to tell you something.You then realize it wasn't Marco that said it at all. It was much higher-pitched, a woman's voice. You didn't actually hear what Marco said. Angstrom also seems to be talking, but no voice issues forth.
Strange Voice: You must find a woman with a scarlet robe at the palace. She wants her own audience with the Kaiserin. If you help her, she will take you to the Lake of Dreams. We can discuss things there.
...
You have a black Cloak of Ash (protects against Ashlight and fire)
You have a Zweihänder slung on your shoulder (Attack power: 4) (can only be used offensively every other turn)
You have a Katzbalger (Attack power: 2)
You have an arquebus (Attack power: 3) (Your opponent gets an extra positive die to dodge)
You are wearing light plate armor (incoming attacks lose 1 attack power if over 1)
You have about one hundred and fifty Hours
Traits and Skills:
Charisma
>Gain +1 positive dice when speaking with others and persuading them
Veteran
>Gain +1 positive dice to defense rolls, and your enemies gain +1 negative dice to their defense rolls
Swordmaster
>Gain +1 positive dice to attack rolls with long, bladed weapons
Sharpshooter
>Your targets get +1 negative dice to their defense rolls
Noisy
>You get +1 negatice die to stealth, and an additional +1 negative die if you are wearing armor
Old Pains
>In cold weather, without thick clothing, you get +1 negative dice to all actions
Archae attempts to identify what kind of library this was from the books. Informational, Fictional, or both?
Swooping down (you are still transformed), you check out a few of the books on the floor and start reading them.
[2][8] The books are historical in nature. They . However, you can't help but notice random words, both Ost and Ont, generally sprinkled about throughout the text. It's rather disruptive.
A few faeries float about among the bookshelves, distributing themselves evenly. A whole torrent of them rushes out of the hole and all around into the shelves, past you. You hardly feel anything as they brush past, almost weightless.
You peer down over the edge of the hole. It's deep, and several meters across. Whatever punched through must have stayed intact even after breaking through layers upon layer of castle flooring. You see splintered wooden planks and supports all across the rim of the hole.
...
You have a pair of wings and a lightened body (+1 Negative Dice to melee combat)
You have a black Cloak of Ash (protects against Ashlight and fire)
You have a green poison slime with Paralysis
You remember a red, blue, and a green spell-slime (weak)
You have a red resonance crystal.
You have a spiny walking stick (Attack power: (attacking head) 2, (attacking other parts) 1)
You have a silversteel falchion (Attack power: (on odd swings) 3, (on even swings) 2)
You remember your time in the wilderness well
You have some sandwiches and citrus
You have a Sprite Trap, labelled with the words "Samantha Magdelene, professor at U.T"
You have seventy-five Hours
Traits and Skills:
Mystical Learning
>Your Aganis spells are reduced in complexity by 1. Spell complexity determines the number of turns it takes to prepare a spell. You can cast early, but each turn you skip incurs a negative die. Complexity rules:
+1 if range is longer than 1-2 yards
+1 if multi-target
+1 if effect lasts more than a single turn, or if a creature is created
+1 if created creature is more complex than a slime
Animal Handler
>Gain +2 positive dice whenever animals are involved, unless you are hunting them
Wilderness Survival
>Gain +2 positive dice for actions involving gathering natural resources, starting fires, tracking, and other survival skills
Photographic Memory
>Weak memories become strong if you successfully cast them the first time
Cannot Speak
>Silence is golden
One-Eyed
>Your targets gain +2 positive dice if you attack them from a distance
"Yes, but you'll have to trust me."
"I can gift you with flight, but I can take it away as well. Are you willing to risk yourself in the sky to my whims?"
If she says yes, then PMing action
Efa: I suppose I trust you this far...Efa sprouts a pair of great wings resembling those ofa bat or dragon. Their surface is sleek and dark, yet unnaturally bright with a dull glow that illuminates nothing.
Efa: I am not well-practiced in this sort of thing. But I suppose you are. Lead the way.You both make your way up the stairs of the cathedral, all the way up to some balcony perched over the edge, overlooking the vast courtyard overgrown with teal grass, as well as the palace which marks your destination.
[5][2] You touchdown roughly atop a turret, Efa landing on all fours rather than like a dignified human being. However, she recovers quickly and you are now able to enter the palace through an open hatch [5][6] that someone left conveniently open for you.
The stone inside the shaft is not painted with the Ashstorm-resistant gel, and so the ladder glows warm with heat. [1][1] It is a metal ladder, so the whole thing is hot, not just the top part exposed to Ash. Efa solves the problem however by just taking off a small amount of the bandage wrapping her head and protecting her hands with it. Burning her special Ash-resistant robe would not be advantageous.
Should you drop down with her, you will find a hallway lined with sword racks and quivers stacked against the walls. In one direction is a passage leading to some barracks, while the other direction has a stairwell leading to the bulk of the castle.
...
Efa's cap is destroyed (no longer absorbs damage)
Traits and Skills:
Secret Powers
>DoOOoobillidabidydappidydap dipigillidydapda!
Current Stat Modifiers:
+2/(max 2) positive dice to attack rolls
+0/(max 0) negative dice to enemy attack rolls
+1/(max 1) positive dice to defense rolls
+0/(max 0) negative dice to enemy defense rolls
It is the 5th hour after noon. Ash is blazing even brighter in the azure sky, burning all exposed objects and adding +1 to all die in a thoughtform roll.
Expected end of Ashstorm: 7th hour. (Next hour: Turn 42)
Author
Topic: Pastblasters - Adventures in Wizardry (Turn 55) (Read 89240 times)