The guild holds a meeting, and a decision is easily reached: They need to rapidly expand their ranks.
Miss Sara meets with the Faisia elder to try to recruit some young men from his family as guards. He is reluctant to part with anyone, especially as getting military training from outsiders would cost him too much political capital against the other factions. After further negotiations, she cannot talk him down to an acceptable price.
The guild splits into three groups for the year: One guard stays behind to guard the guild property. He reports no serious complications, but is unwilling to guard the guild's property alone again.
The second group consists of Miss Sara, Vorg, Stavros, and the second of the king's guards. They manage to find three potentiates. One does not survive the return trip - Stavros reports that he was rather eager for magic, insistent on not waiting, and secretly had Stavros guide him as he tried to learn necromancy. The potentiate failed; Stavros is quite sorry. He is also sorry that they were still so close to the town, and narrowly escaped their pursuers after the loud and gristly failure. They may need to avoid Zenusonine's Rest for several years.
They also recruit two former farmhands looking for glory, to serve as guards. Armor from the deceased guards is cleaned, then re-purposed to fit them.
The third group is only Eturi and the final guard. She returns at the end of the year with seven potentiates. She seems to have a knack for finding potentiates. A bit of testing reveals that she's also pretty good at finding where the other mages are, too. (Trait discovered: Improved Magesense!)
A ceremony is held for the nine surviving potentiates. They are split off into groups of three, each group goes into the forest led by a mage and guard (in case someone turns into a berserk monster and needs to be put down), and focuses on unlocking their potential.
Only two survive the experience. Most die quickly. One turns into a horrible
thing who's keening wails of agony echo through the forest and village for several seconds before the guard collects his wits and ends its life.
One survivor dies the next day, while trying to figure out what her magic is. The other survivor, (Basel, aged 30,) becomes a sound elementalist. ((You may now celebrate!))
Vorg made good progress training this year, and would like to spend all of next year practicing his fire magic.
Village Report
The local population count is roughly 75.
The villagers live off of hunting, trapping, and fishing.
Traders visit four times per year, to supply the guild, buy furs and sell tools and occasionally luxuries.
There are three main factions, based on families. Two are opposed to the guild's presence, while the Faisia view the guild slightly positively.
Overall, the village remains uncooperative towards the guild.
Financial Review
You earn a stipend of 120 drachma per month.
You spend 50(25*2) per month on food, and 15 per month on basic upkeep.
You spend 40 drachma per month on guards. (5*2*2 on food, 10*2 on wages)
Food and shelter is provided by the guild to its members. There are neither guild dues nor guild payments.
The king's guards buy their own food.
Total costs are 105. Total income is 15.
Possessions Review
Three-room shack.
It is insulated, but has only rugs for furniture. It is low quality, and cannot easily be expanded upon.
Storage/secondary sitting room
Barracks
Male dorm
Three-room hut.
It is well-built and insulated, but only has rugs for furniture.
Storage/primary sitting room
Library
Female dorm
Personnel
3x Guards, paid for by the king. They are light infantry armed with short swords, slings, and partial leather armor.
Their primary mission is guarding the guild and its mages. They will likely follow guild instructions to further this goal.
2x Recruits. They are light infantry armed with short swords, slings, and partial leather armor. They are in training.
Search for recruits!
Send someone out, from three months to a year, looking for those with magical potential.
Consider sending some guards.
Suggested Skills: Level 2 in any magical skill would greatly increase the chances of finding at least one recruit.
Cultivate food.
The traders charge too much for food. Eturi is accustomed to using her magic to grow her own. It would be a drain on her time, especially as the land isn't well-suited for it, but she could grow enough to feed everyone in the guild.
Be aware that the traders would be forced to stop coming as frequently, which would slightly reduce the loyalty gain from luxuries, among possible other effects.
She cannot
start this while participating in another mission.
Explore the Ruins.
An abandoned city is a few months of travel away. Miss Sara would like to explore it. She believes that the trip would be a fun bonding experience that would improve the loyalty of anyone she takes. This would take half a year.
Maintaining the Road.
The dirt road leading from the village to the nearest town needs frequent maintenance, and they will be working at it this year. It's questionable how useful your magic would be here, but showing the guild's face as hard workers would be much better for your reputation than acting like free-loading slackers. Estimated time: 3 months. (Note that, due to close work with the villagers and heavy labor, there will
not be small amounts of on-the-side training for participants, as there usually is for extended quests.)
Financial DecisionsIncluding saved funds, you have enough for two choices. (Feeding so many potentiates was expensive.)
Buy candles and improved parchment storage, making writing easier and keeping scrolls safer. (Only once, increases upkeep).
A loyalty boost is worth considering. Buying some luxury goods and better furniture would help.
The new house could be further expanded, with a dedicated storage room or a more comfortable dormitory for males (2 gives an extra room, 3 gives two extras.)
Personality: Compassion, Magic-shy, Gluttonous
Apparent Loyalty: Low
Magic Skill 1: Sound Elementalism 1
Mundane Skill 1: Smithing 1
Other than having knowledge on hand, is there anything we can do to improve newbie survival rates?
You do not know enough to know that.
Miss Sara hypothesizes that any of the following might help: a highly skilled vitamancer, an advanced series of runes beyond her current comprehension, if the guild were to get someone specialized in the sensing and/or manipulation of raw mana, being able to divine the future to tell new potentiates what not to do, or outright time travel.
Stavros chimes in that binding the souls of potentiates before they try to unlock their potential, to find out from them where the point of failure- Er, would be heavily frowned upon by the gods, and is not something they should try
on people they want to join.Basel says that maybe they should just stop for a while and focus on figuring out magic so they don't just kill ninety percent of their new recruits outright.
Vorg responds that this omake has gotten entirely too silly, and that he doesn't even want to drag Stavros off for morality training anymore.
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Topic: Arcane Guild of Hybise - Ended (Read 15679 times)