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[Dwarmin]

"We did make the spirits angry, though. All that Brandy gone to waste...

Ah, Taira's still pining for me? She's a sweet lass...simple, yet kind and thoughtful. I could do worse. Maybe I'll marry her, I get out of this business alive. Though I'm unsure about your clans laws on outsider marriages..." He says, flippantly

[SeriousConcentrate]

"Settling down isn't the bed of roses you'd think it is," Logan said as he took another drink. "Well, before you got here, Arvin was talking about ways to find work. My plan is to finish my smoke and my drink and see what kind of rumors I might hear. What about you?"

This was directed at both of his companions at the table.

[Dwarmin]

"Bah, I'm going to settle down after I've made my fortune...hah, said every man ever...

As for it, I think we should take this one step at a time. How about I see what I can dig up among my dusty old books and maps, before you end up spending all your money, trying every drink in the city looking for the 'right one'." Arvin could recall when he and Logan had done just that.

Action: Arvin spends his last resource point 'Digging for Leads (1)'-he oozes into wizards dens, and libraries with exotic books, looking for rare maps leading to interesting and profitable locations to loot. If I end up using my cartography skill, expend 2 XP points on that roll.

((OOC: How does digging for leads work, anyway? Do I have to be more specific? Can teammates help any rolls I make?))

[bahihs]

Couple things:

First, is there anyone else in this party you're waiting for, or can I group you guys/gal together? If so, do you want a party name? (otherwise it'll be "Party A" like before).

Second,

"Bah, I'm going to settle down after I've made my fortune...hah, said every man ever...

As for it, I think we should take this one step at a time. How about I see what I can dig up among my dusty old books and maps, before you end up spending all your money, trying every drink in the city looking for the 'right one'." Arvin could recall when he and Logan had done just that.

Action: Arvin spends his last resource point 'Digging for Leads (1)'-he oozes into wizards dens, and libraries with exotic books, looking for rare maps leading to interesting and profitable locations to loot. If I end up using my cartography skill, expend 2 XP points on that roll.

((OOC: How does digging for leads work, anyway? Do I have to be more specific? Can teammates help any rolls I make?))

you can be more specific if you wish. Usually, I'll give you several leads and then you choose which one to follow. Since you've used a skill to search for leads, you're guaranteed that your leads are not dead-ends (if you succeed the check, that is, which you have). Your party cannot help your roll if it is the same skill, they may seek out their own leads however, using their own money, so long as the skills used are different (or no skill is used). In that case, they will get different sorts of missions, depending on the skill used.

Wizards' dens are an appropriate term. Their inhabitants have seen little natural sunlight, shut up with their books, their pipes, the occasional bag of smuggled herbage. They are creatures with crazed eyes, suspended forever between genius and insanity, with unkempt beards, un-brushed hair and teeth, uncut fingernails. They stand, hunchbacked, weak-limbed and slow - turtles challenging time, and winning.

Here they live, amid paper and wood. No longer practitioner's of magic, they are the transcendent masters of the "True Art", at their fingertips roll the God-magic, the Old-Power; they are walkers of the nameless path. They speak seldom, but their materials are always open to the public. They do not charge for this service, but a donation is customary. You visit several of the den's in town. The smell takes some getting used to, but after a few hours of research you find several interesting leads. After a few more hours of fact-checking and cross-referencing, you've narrowed your count to three:


1. The map of a hidden labyrinth beneath the tomb of Guru Bhurati, constructed far before his time and unknown to the thousands who make pilgrimage to his grave every year.
2. Directions to an ancient fortress carved into the ice wall of Angar, said to be built by a long dead race of diminutive mechanical masters.
3. Another map of the Valley, this one of Queen Zdeska - so cunning in politics she was said to be Sabi, the goddess of guile, incarnate. Some even believe she's still alive, waiting for a chance to return to the surface.

You gain 1 EXP! You lose 1 RP


 

 

[Dwarmin]

((I did try to peg another person, my friend Tiruin. She's on the other side of the world though, so waiting on an answer. If she joins or gives me an answer, we'll be ready then.

Also, call us Wanderers? It's going to be so fitting...))

Arvin came back a few hours later, smelling of the herbal 'remedies' Wizards tended to use.

He slaps down a large sheath of notes and grungy old papers on the barroom table.

"Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time." He announces.

[GiglameshDespair]

Kala waved one cloth-wrapped hand dismissively.
"Pah. If you've got the money, who's to say no? Every family needs fresh blood once in a while. Humans were born to wander, spread and prosper.

As for me, I think I'll rest for a bit."

((I'm unsure it would be worth me using an RP, since you've picked up some rumours.

Wanderers sounds fine.))


-----

After Arvin had returned, Kala nodded towards him.
"Something interesting, then?"

[SeriousConcentrate]

"We did find the right one in the end, though," Logan noted. "Or at least, I did. We may not always get along, but I wouldn't trade Anna for anything."
Logan was also present, eating mutton stew between writing a letter home and taking short drags from his handrolled cigarette. "Hmm? Found something, Arvin?"

[Urist Arrhenius]

I have actions from before that have been missed I believe.

[bahihs]

I have actions from before that have been missed I believe.

Sorry about that Urist, I believe your last action was to attend a prayer service? I'll have something for you soon.

[Dwarmin]

"Well, I got a few leads...

Here's a map to Guru Bhuranti's Labyrinth. I've made the pilgrimage myself, once. It was a beautiful tomb, but I didn't even think there could be something under it...still, it's a tricky job. We're bound to come in contact with other people, and I think you couldn't hide something in plain view for so long. It's no doubt got some inhabitants...no doubt, unspoiled treasure and great danger as well. The problem is seeking something that thousands of people pass by every year without finding.

Here's a map to Angar's Ice Fortress. Even I've never gone that far North. Still, the more remote, the more likely we can find it unspoiled. The texts I read indicated it was built by 'the clicking halfmen of silversteel skin and sunfire eyes.' Whatever that means...

And a map to the valley of Queen Zdeska. I remember reading a story how she seduced six brothers to go to war with one another over a mountain pass, then triggered a landslide to crush on all their armies at once when they converged-before conquering all their lands for herself...I can't help but think if her reputation was not all fluff, she might have planned even this.

I'm absolutely sure none of these are dead ends-at least, technically. They don't lead to the center of the ocean, or off the edge of the world, or into the atrium of the Autumn Queens palace, anything like that. They do lead to...places...that exist...I can guarantee that, at least."

((I'm unsure it would be worth me using an RP, since you've picked up some rumours.

Wanderers sounds fine.))

((If you want, you could do some additional research on whatever place we settle on. Arvin knows where these places are and how to get there, but he doesn't have much info on whats actually in them.

Also, we need a team vote. Can we all agree that whatever RP gets spent finding/researching a new job, will be repaid at the end of any encounter? Either in bonus RP or just extra loot.

And furthermore, Tiruin is having comp troubles ATM, but she tells me she intends to join.))

[SeriousConcentrate]

(I'm fine with that.)

Logan looked over the maps, casually tapping ash off his cigarette on the edge of the table. "I'm not so sure about that ice fortress - at least, not without the proper equipment; spikes, climbing tools, so forth. And the labyrinth should have been found by now. So if you ask me, it looks like the queen's valley is our best choice from these options."

[Dwarmin]

"...Just 'Zdeska's Valley', which is no doubt also a euphemism of some sort. It's the valley of the dead, so it's no doubt her tomb, the same place I just visited...interestingly, one of the scrolls I read were indicated...uhh..." Arvin says, scratching his ear. He pulls one of papers from the pile and reads aloud.

"...Ahem..it goes something like this...

'My name is Queen Zdeska

I almost have a thousand names

        to speak
     
           I almost have a thousand faces

to wear

I almost have a thousand pairs of hands
   
   to do great works

                          I almost have a thousand eyes

to see your lies

My masks all number, ninety and nine

The thousandth mask I seek is yours
 
And

   What's yours will always be mine'

"...Still, I have to agree. The Labyrinth is there, but we have no clues on how to actually find it that no one has stumbled over yet. We'll need a good deal of gear if we wish to head far North. Fortresses tend to be difficult to get into. The Valley seems the way to go...

[GiglameshDespair]

"I'll see what I can learn of the Valley. I'm a mage, after all; perhaps there's something to learn in the magician's circles. A ice fortress sounds rather dangerous, and a labyrinth probably would be best if we had more equipment to deal with that. So the Valley it is.

Of course, what we spend in the course of investigations, it'd be fair to reimburse out of the loot before we split it."

If no complaints, investigate the Zdeska Valley.

[bahihs]

((BTW, by Valley I am referring back to the "Valley of the Dead" that you visited last time. So all the relevant details are the same. Here they are again in case you want to review them:

0. It was created by a duel between Abolar, the God of Fishermen, and Seneope, the First User [of Magic] (they were annihilated by the ensuing reality whiplash)
1. Over 1000 generations of Nobles, Kings, Queens, Concubines, Merchants, Warriors, Scholars etc. are buried there. It is the largest cemetery in the world.
2. There is only one entrance: a staircase that leads directly down into the depths
3. For every person buried (i.e thrown down the staircase along with all their possessions) a personalized tomb is created by the distorted reality and the body is stored appropriately
4. A map is then "revealed" to a "Seeing-Cartographer" through a dream, who then writes the map down and sells it to the ancestor of the tomb (i.e highest bidder)
5. Without this map, the Valley is an endless, ever-shifting, random sequence of rooms; a collection of chaos
6. With the map, the Valley changes itself to match the contents of the map (more-or-less; the Valley is fickle)
7. Anyone that steals from a tomb (even with a map) without permission from an ancestor, is cursed (or so its believed)
8. Anything can happen in the Valley; magic is so concentrated there that reality is less strict (+1 to max RT)

In this case, you have the map (or you copied it, the wizards don't let any documents leave their dens) but not the permission))

EDIT: Ninja'd by Giglamesh, yet this post should cover your action (unless you want more specific information, in that case you'll have to be more...specific).

[Dwarmin]

((Oh, that would have been nice to know.

Have to edit my post...))

Arvin seems to think a moment...

"Oh yes, there is a small matter of a curse. Apparently if you steal from the tomb without permission from an ancestor, you're cursed. Supposedly.

Unfortunately, I doubt we have the resources to find any known descendant..."