Turn 10: in which the gm remembers that he planned to, and even wrote down, to run an elder scrolls game the next time he started an rtd. But then he forgot and made this instead.
Remember the directions and remember the descriptions!
Then back to Lana:
"I'm used to ailments of the mind and body, Miss Lana, there's no need to blush... Would you mind accompanying me on a gathering trip to find some of these herbs and plants that you speak of? Two can gather twice as fast as one, and we could split all we find? We can ask the blacksmith to come if I am too much a stranger. And why do people not go to the forest? I can't conceive of missing out on such a beautiful place as a forest..."
Ya sure do remember em, yessir.
"Sure, we can go gather some. I'll need to stock up again anyway, I feel like I'll need all the herbs I can get after this. And don't you worry about me." She takes a small knife from her belt, the kind used to cut herbs with. She playfully twirls it around. "If you get any ideas I'm sure I could take you." She gives you a mock scowl, then smiles and gives you a playful punch on the shoulder. "Anyway, it's not like people don't go into the forest. They just don't go deep. Nothing good comes from going deep into the forest, every lad and lass born around here knows it, as if it's in their bones."
The two of you head out of town and into the forest. After a while, you've gathered a bunch of all the plants she mentioned, minus the Magesfire. She stand up and dust off her hands on her apron.
"Well, that about does it I think. Any more of these and we'll have to go get a wheelbarrow. Can't go any further into the forest, either."
"The bad guys you speak of seem to be from Empire. Could you tell me about this Empire."
"Empire, huh? Empire's a pretty big place. They started to our North, beyond the great mountains. Used to be smaller nations, but then they banded together under their emperor. In time, they expanded eastward, then south once they hit oceans. Everyone expected them to come and discuss war or have peace talks with us sooner or later, but suddenly they just stopped." He scratches his head "Other than that, uh. They also have mages, only they use them to make magical apparati. Their magic powered engines of war and such are why they were able to expand so fast. Can't remember if their a religious sort. Sorry, I'm not that good at history and stuff."
"alright... what exactly is an Amandian, and what is an Edhassian? They both don't sound like European folk. Also, do you know where can I get some gunpowder?"
"What's a yu-ro-peon? Anywho, Amandian is someone from here, the kingdom of Amand. Doesn't really matter if you live in the territy of the royal Amandian family or one of their vassals, it's all Amand. Edhassians are people from, you guessed it, Edhassa. They live south of us, beyond the deserts. Weird guys, keep to themselves mostly though.
Gunpowder? Never heard of it. If you mean alchemists fire, you'll probably have to ask either someone from the mages guild or a freelance mage, I guess."
Mage-Sight allows me to see magic.
"Oh. Oh my. I... think I might be in a different universe. And, from my scans, others have been transported too. That doesn't bode well- inter-dimensional travel is one of the few things I can't intentionally do. Either someone has a truly massive source of power, someone has refined the process, or this rule has different dimensional laws than mine."
"Oh, sorry for the ramble there. Did you say that someone has commercialized adventuring? Do they create artificial monsters or something? I'd imagine the natural supply of them would fall rather quickly as soon as people began to hunt them on a large scale."
@Zombie: "What is the Empire, and why did you join its army. Give me a summary of each of the known nations of this world. What deity do your priests serve, and what do they need sacrifices for?"
Divine whether the laws (of physics, magic, etc.) of this universe are the same as the laws of mine. Scan for large sources of power with my Mage-Sight.
((Aight, I'll allow it. Be careful though.))
"Eh, you'd think so, but monster tend to pop up whenever you look away for a second. Never any shortage of the buggers. And I don't think commercialized is the right word. They just made it an official kind of thing, you know? With forms and all of that horse hockey. I guess people just got fed up with being asked for work or having their houses searched for loot by complete strangers at some point. It works, but it loses some of that je ne sais quoi of free spirited adventuring, you know?""The empire, our enemy to the north and east. I am Edhassan. Joined army because I needed money for my family." He gives you a summary of each of the nations of the world. When you ask about the priests, he stays silent, gnashing his teeth together. The necromancer once again sends arcs of dark magic through his body, causing his spine to bend in quite an unhealthy way. "AAAGH, they serve, serve the moon godess. Don't know, what the sacrifices are for."
You [3] try to divine if the laws of this universe are the sale, but you come up with not much at all. Your divinations are wierd, that's for sure. Instead of just gathering information from the streams of magic as you're used to, it's as if you're trying to find a particular stone a large muddy pool. You also get the feeling that someone, or some thing, is watching you when you divine things.
You open your mage-sight and look around. Magic seems to be a little bit everywhere here, and your mage-sight doesn't work all that well from large distances. The only really concentrations that you can see are from deep inside the forest down below, and from Utamur. In fact, when you turn to face him you're blinded by the sheer amount of dark energy coming from him. Shattered images of horrifying things squeeze their way into your mind before you manage to turn off the mage-sight, and you're left with a bit of a headache as a result. The necromancer doesn't seem to have noticed.
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For the record, the villagers have been busy removing the corpses and repairing their homes. In case you were wondering if everyone was just faffing about knee deep in corpses and blood or something.
Also, here's what you know about the different nations, so that we don't need to go five more turns asking who's who. If you've got any more questions about them, just put it in an OOC spoiler and if you should realistically know it I'll tell you outright. I love the rp, but I'm no tourist guide. We can use those actions for more fun things than asking about geographical locations and whatnot. Other worldbuilding stuff is also fair game, it's easy to imagine you guys overhearing lots of snippets of information from townsfolk and the like.
Amand: kingdom, one royal family and a number of vassals. It's where you are right now. State religion is that of the Sun God.
Edhassa: Theocracy. Priests rule everything. Lies beyond the deserts in the south. Revere the Moon Goddess.
Empire: Lies beyond the great mountains to the north of Amand, and also has a large chunk fo the land to the east of Amand. Biggest of the nations in pure size. Their religion is not known.
Wilderness: to the west. Untamed, lawless land. No formal rulers, though different settlements have sprung up. No unified religion to speak of.
The sea: all around the other nations. Pretty wet. Lots of fish.
EDIT: I realize this might seem a bit harsh. By all means, continue asking question IC. I just want to give you all the oppertunity to ask them OOC if you don't wish to spend actions/time on stuff like that.