give that guard eternal good luck.
enemies? Nah I have no intention of doing something evil like that besides I got good magic guaranteed for the next 4 spells.
4. The spell works fine and silently. There's no need to tell already twitchy guy that you put an enchantment on him. It might end up in misunderstanding.
[3] "I still h-have to ask you to leave.
Please? Pretty please?"
More people are coming now. Armed, armored, uniformed and rough kind. You have to get pretty good at persuading if you want to avoid incoming troubles. Or at least pretend you are not actually a mage.
(Oh. And I intended to use magic to peel some apples, ha.)
"Anna !" shouts Soleus.
Lead her by the hand, or carry her if it doesn't work. Far from this eerie place.
Just before leaving its radius, examine it with the Eye. Then use a spell to reveal its true nature and incarnate it into a sentient being/something.
[5] Radius of this place is rather fuzzy. You don't exactly remember where it started, but you know where you realized, and that spot should be good enough. Anna can run just fine, the problem is with her mental faculties.
After reaching the spot you pull out the Eye and give the grove a good look. You see... nothing. Or rather the Eye shows exactly same as your natural eyes do. You take a look at Anna to confirm it's working and lo, even she looks normal human female through it (
very pretty one though, a pleasure to stare at), none of the magic stuff on her. You spend few moments wondering whether the Eye is broken or they
both are broken when the human shaped mass of darkness bolts from left settling perfectly over her. You move the Eye on left and the darkness moves with it, but after few moments it moves to right out of view. Returning the Eye over Anna the darkness comes back over her shortly. Repeating this few times you come in conclusion that the Eye, Anna, and probably magic altogether are delayed here.
Time to test your hypothesis. If it is correct, then this is perfect place to waste malicious interactions magic has in mind for you. If nothing else, you have more time to run.
1. It takes long time before anything happens, so long that you are starting to wonder if you failed somehow. When it comes, it comes out of
you. It's red, fleshy and screaming for murder. Right after it appears long metallic crystalline spikes emerge from it and mere moments after it looks much like
this.
"That would be good. Be careful. If you get hurt...Here, take this, if you need me to come just release it. Sorry that it's a spider, but we work with what we have I'm afraid. Actually...I have an idea, and two good spells up."
Reshape a single spider into a non-spider thing so Laudata isn't freaked out, and program it to, when released, find me and then lead me to Laudata. Use the crafting staff, not a spell.
Try on the hat.
Now...Let's properly fix up the fortress. That includes populating it a bit more than just myself and Laudata.
Well, you can do the architecture (although 'defensible' is a key goal), but the people, yes, I would like to have some say in.
There should be enough people in the right skill distributions to ensure the fortress works.
No person should be disfigured, or unpleasant to work with.
An even male-female distribution is a good thing.
They should have names.
That's about it.
Laudata bows and waits for your magic.
[3+3] You target one of the spiders waiting your instructions and unleash the magic. It starts growing and so does five others next to it. They grow and grow, two front legs merging together and two hind legs doing same, body elongating, becoming less arachnid and less scary. But they keep growing larger and larger until you finally have five hella scary looking giant demon wolves staring at you. Their three aquamarine eyes are on same level as yours, their mouths filled teeths, entirely too many, too long and too sharp, too wide smile. You don't think they are any less scary than the spiders were.
Erm, how was one supposed to deal with demon wolves? Assert your dominance? "Uh... sit?" The wolves obey for your great relief. Allright, this is totally how you intented this to go. Yup, totally. You order them to go with Laudata and obey her. She hesitates a bit, but probably ends up figuring that obedient demon wolves are still better than spiders and leaves wolves on her heels.
All right, the next task. Try on the hat. You pick it up and it bites you. [6] Whoah, that's not cool! You grib it harder (and it bites you harder) and throw it on stone floor as hard you can. Obviously this doesn't damage it all. Better dispose it later lest it bites you again. Next task!
Half functional fortress is not ideal, even if damage done to it is mostly reverted. It needs to be better.
5. The spell starts working with the fortress. The main hall expands further into stone transforming it into combined throne and dining room. All original engravings are wiped out (who needs those), bright shining orbs are added to ceiling and pillars though your skylight is left intact. Decorated tapestries are hanged on walls and floor is mostly covered by soft carpets. You have no idea what the spell does to rest of the fortress, but you can only assume it is something good.
You walk to the far end of the hall and sit on your throne. From there you look what was made and see it is good. Very good indeed. Now then, on to next part of the project. Time to fulfill your promises!
5 & 3. You create humans. Twenty of them. Far less than optimal, but that's a good start. They stand up, looking up themselves and their enviroment. Not confusedly, you notice, but curiously. Wide smiles appears on their faces and they laugh, cheer, give high fives around. "I'm alive!" "He did it!" "Hell yeah!" are common utterances. "Thanks man!" is another after they calm down a bit. "The fuck are those?" is next as about half of your golem swarm returns to you.
Hm. Let's read Excavation of Zaaerath.
[6] Zaaerath seems to be ruins of large city in desert area of Kingdom of Arkea. Author claims it was the only city on entire recorded history where mages were not only tolerated but even somewhat respected. Apparently this was because they didn't fuck up nowhere as much mages everywhere else, and when they rarely did, it was quicly contained by very effective countermeasures. Author speculates briefly if the magicians there used some entirely different kind of magic, but concludes it with notion of destructive end of the city.
The city state began its life as central trading hub in crossroads of major trade routes. When wizards arrived about 700 years ago and set up their business, the city bloomed for hundred years growing large and fat, its citizens lazy and content with luxuries produced by magic. It's riches, both magical and mundane, attracted the usual unsavory sort of mages and other criminals, but they were dealt with fast by guards wielding magical weapons and armoury.
The city itself was mostly destroyed in cataclysm whose exact nature was left uncertain because nobody witnessed it and survived. End result was that everybody died suddenly, defenses went haywire and the city became effective kill zone for next 500 years it took for its enchantments wore off. The few working artifacts of power that were recovered afterwards were usually cursed or useless. After this point the author focuses on architectural nature of the city, its layouts including drawn maps, art, list of recovered artifacts and art and who bought them.
You can practically smell the Dice of Order in this story. Lots of them. Though that was rather long time without anyone keeping eye on them so changes are many of them have already been looted.
"Woo. Geez. And that was a five, too. I could have done something useful with that. This barrel, it looks like it won't stop soon, and that would get annoying before long. And could be dangerous. I guess I better try to placate the thing."
I cast "stop being angry at me" at the giant orange juice barrel.
3. It stops being violently angry at you, but remains very annoyed with you. Evidently by random handfulls of sand it throws at you every now and then. Unfortunately your forcefield doesn't protect you from sand.
((I'll just copy this over here so it's all in one place.))
Look around. Where am I? What is actively trying to kill me, if anything?
Right, I forgot your situation description.
[3] So you snatched the Dice from the dungeon, then you made the tower fall, and now you are left with the problem of getting out of partially collapsed dungeon. Most of living and mechanical things probably died off so you are relatively safe from those, but how long does the ceiling hold up is the most important question. Your elation from getting the Dice is only hampered by the fact that magic doesn't have much of foreseeable love for you. Which is rather good to know. Who knows what horrors you could have summoned without knowing that...
Future Wild Magic (9): 5 4 5 4 3 1 2 3 1
Body:
Echantments:
Artifacts of power:
House:
Followers:
Other:
Basic travel gear
Woodcutters axe
Two big kithcen knives
Some food
At coastal city
Impressive arrival
Troublemakes coming
Future Wild Magic: 2 6 3 1 3 3 1 1 3 1
Body:
Echantments:
Artifacts of power:
House:
Followers:
Other:
Future Wild Magic: 1 5 6 2 4 3 3 2 4 5
Body:
Muddy
Echantments:
Magical video conference between certain mages
Artifacts of power:
Eye of Forbidden Sight
Flying house:
Controlled by magical orbs.
Holographic command room
Kitchen: Little damaged
No food
Something new
??
Followers:
Magical mail order wife: Anna
Damn perfect
Golden wedding ring
Traces of violence on throat
Nature of self
On trance
Earthly golem: Tec.
Made from stone, wood and vines
First Commandment: Protect Anna
??
Other:
Aspiring educator
Too sexy illusions: Angry maid
Golden wedding ring
Calm dale
Something wrong
Delaying magic
Hostile to magic
Future Wild Magic: 5 3 2 3 3 5 3 4 1 2
Body:
Echantments:
Protection from Giant Orange Juice Barrel
Artifacts of power:
The camp:
Food reserves: sausages and cinnamon rolls
Grotesque statue of dead mage
Wooden bone throne
Bejeweled golden goblet
One step ladder
Followers:
Other:
Long drinking straw: Blocked
Scale mail pants (appearance only)
Very annoyed animated huge barrel of orange juice
Future Wild Magic (9): 5 4 1 2 3 6 3 6 4
Body:
Sand in pants
Coated in blood and ink
Echantments:
Magical video conference between certain mages
Artifacts of power:
Whispering Staff of Earth (1d4+2)
10 Balanced spell scrolls
Calin's Shredder
Heartbane
Scroll of Healing [6]
Potion of Firebreath [6]
Ancient tower:
Something's missing
Reinforced impenetrable stone dome
Hidden gate
Grid of miniature suns
Simple boulder sentinel
Few simple golems
Siege engines
Silly face carriage
Ermonous animated granite statue of Samuel Marr
Granite statue: This is a ermonous granite statue. All craftsmanship is of the highest quality. It's encrusted with diamond, ruby, quarz and gold. On the item is an image of Calin the Crime Lord. Calin is missing arm. Calin is crying. This artwork relates to thievery of Calin's Shredder and subseguent mutilation of Calin.
Mystery plant in iron and fire cage
Ward of Ingorane: Dome undetectable to Calin and those who associate with him
The Forest: Two huge broken stone ARMs
The Forest: On fire
Followers:
Other:
Lots of maps
Empty paper sheets
Owner of Calin's severed arm
Book: Autobiography of The Most Glorious King Cotlal the First
Book: Excavation of Zaaerath
Book: Raport from Tenhe
Future Wild Magic (9): 2 3 2 3 5 2 5 4 5
Body:
Bitten by feather hat
Echantments:
Magical video conference between certain mages
Artifacts of power:
Staff of Generic Crafting [2d3]
The Fortress:
Carved in mountain
Reconstructed
Main hall
Ornate skylight
Swarm of stone spider golems
Scouting
Inhabitants: 20
New species
Not so polite
Followers:
New species: Laudata
Firstborn
Minor arachnophobia
5 giant demon wolf golems
Scouting outside
Small swarm of stone spider golems
Other:
Well prepared for travel
Quest for godhood: Creator of new species
Small Favours
Glimpse of magic
Feathery brimmed hat
Pair of lead chunks
Redefined topography
Six tents
Few supply crates
Inhabitants:
Many dead peasants
? living and dressed peasants
Permanently Area-Bound Extraplaner Chaos beings of Assistance
Corpse of sea monster in mud lake
Enchantment:
Artifacts of power:
Immobile remains of Advanced Antimagic Warfare Sentinel Model XI
Author
Topic: Wild Mages: Dominic, The Naked Mage (Read 87346 times)