"Yes that's what i am looking for,a power source of it"
The alchemist chews his robe a little and spits philosophically. The projectile doesn't get further than his voluminous beard.
"Naw, can't recall much like that round hereabouts. There is
nothing here that you seek. 'Less you mean the burny things in the sky few nights back. Over in the east thawass. Might take a look-see round there, if I were you."
This guy seems really anxious to get back to his lab. And you feel a lot like leaving him be, and checking out the stuff in the east, weirdly.
Oh, and you gain a puissant clot. It feels exactly like you'd expect having a hunk of raw magical energy stuck on the edges of your brain to feel. You can use it to make wands and staffs and stuff and do magic, check the OP for more details.
Well, not going to press my luck. Vince will definately be interested in the gryphon, even if it isn't exactly what he was looking for. Just gotta think up a way to get it. Time to move on, in any case.
Pack up and head out of here before something goes wrong. I'll check back at the end of the day (to look for a feather or fur or something.), but nothing else now. Then head to the next location, the parking lot in the light industrial area.
Also, do I feel any unspent power?
"Ben, I think we're mostly done here, but you could come with me to the next location, or maybe follow one of these people home. The person with the pendant may be important to keep track of. I'll leave it up to you either way."
(Also gotta remember that the cellphones are going to be liabilities upon commiting crimes, due to the ease of tracking them, and to leave it at home when scamming, or going out to do murder and mayhem. I'm also miffed at the idea that I couldn't walk about six blocks without staring at a phone.. if I ever get a broom, I'm fucked. ;-p)
(I was also thinking of requiring me to put my own blood into something, somewhere, or someone to enable it to be affected under the terms of the deal.)
You quickly find the parking lot, and spend a few minutes searching it. Finally, down by the edge of a muddy river nearby, you find a kappa or water spirit, looking lost and afraid. A small creature, scaly-skinned and high-domed, it stares at you with large grey eyes, and seems to be on the verge of tears. The skin is a little greenish, and rivulets of water pour from a tiny ball of magical energy upon its head.
It beckons you tentatively.
(Quite right about the cell phones. I probably won't take them into account when murdering mortals though, don't worry.)
Can we just say Ben doesn't have a cell? He'd be fine with a radio, but civvie phones are fragile luxury items that have no place in a true soldier's kit. He most certainly doesn't just dislike them because he has a hard time with computers, no siree.
Anyway, he's gonna keep trailing behind Nanami.
"Hah, like I'd want to follow cultists around. These sorts of people are always begging for others to follow them wherever. Let me tell you, Miss, there's nothing to gain by associating with them, they're just children who want attention."
Yup, no phone for Ben. Not like he
was a functional member of mortal society.
You look at the mud-covered little runt Nanami is staring at. Typical woman, it must be bringing out her mothering instincts or something. You surreptitiously aim at it with the P50 through the bag. Just as a precaution, of course.
@Necromancers: What if one were to provide a substitute for the rational mind to a ghoul? Like, say, a computerized/cyborg brain attachment?
@Necromancers: How common are ghouls, vampires, and liches?
@Necromancers: Tell me about skeletons and zombies. How are they made? Are they sapient? What are their abilities? How common are they?
"Goethe, perhaps we should take the string to someone who has more skill in Runic Sight. I have 25 pounds; if we pool our money together, we can afford to buy the tree."
Ask the monks for more information on what the pests are. Go follow OceanSoul, and pool my money to buy the tree with him (if he wants to). Haggle the price of the tree down first. If he's not going anywhere/if I can do this as well, go check out the "pest" in the park.
@N: You mean putting a computer-brain into a ghoul's body? Yeah, not too hard.
@N: Not very common. More common though unobtrusize. Quite common, though not as common as necromancers generally.
@N: Skeletons? Same as zombies. You can reanimate them with small amounts of magic. The amount of magic you put in determines abilities/sapience. Necromancery generally requires rit, and a certain link with death. This link could come in the form of undeath, an artifact, even a morbid expression, though it will change one's nature and warp one's magical ability towards darker paths if used. Fairly common, really: useful for manual labour that require very little thought and initiative. Also make cheap guards.
Nobody is buying the string, so you go check out the pest in the park. See below.
Thank the monks for the tour, and claim that, while we chose not to use their services, we will keep them in mind for future occasions of need. Go with Jimmy and Worthington to the lady (we can buy the tree after the deed, right? confirm this with lady), and, if everyone agrees, cut her string and ask her name. Not sure what to cut with, though. "Anyone got a small blade, of some sort? Also, why do we need sight?"
You and your companions cut the string in several places, there being no objections or reasons not to. The lady looks much relieved, and says her name is Nōhime. She still wants you to follow the string and kill whoever tied it. Clearly, bannana-tree spirits don't like having string tied round their trees.
"Presumably, the string is magically linked to its creator, and someone with enough skill in Runic Sight could trace or follow that link."
"I can burn the string, if that would work."
If the spirit thinks it's a good idea, burn the string.
You don't burn the string yet, because someone wants you to find one end and the other is a goddamn tree. Might be worth burning to learn a simple pyromancy later though.
"Spirit, what did you do to get yourself into this situation? In other words, why were you bound to this tree?"
"I lived long ago in Japan, married to a powerful daimyo. After I died, I was not buried. And my spirit lingered thus, drifting across the fields, until I became anchored by a young bannana tree. The locals revered the tree, building a shrine by it, though they were unaware of my noble background. Several hundred years later, some idiot took a cutting from the tree on holiday, and brought it back to England. Somehow I was transferred too, and have spent the last few years trying to ignore an idiotic hipster mortal who thinks amber has magic antiviral properties and can't see ghosts. Then the hipster tried to sell the tree here, someone tied the string round it, and here I am."
Head out to the Monk's pest hunting job.
See below.
Use my l33t Practicality skillz to determine if the spirit is lying, leaving anything out in her story, telling half-truths, or otherwise attempting to deceive us.
Eh, it makes sense. Her story adds up, though she didn't really go into why a daimyo's wife would go unburied. You also wonder if the man who tied the string has some connection to her past.
The Pest in the ParkBen and Sir Worthington walk to the bit of the park the monks told them to. Hidden by trees on each side, it's a circle of grass about twenty metres across. And in the centre is a pile of leaf mulch and earth stacked around a giant hole.
Sir Worthington peers in. A scorpion as long as him, back covered in writhing grubs the size of footballs, stares back. And begins to scuttle out.
The grubs pour off it, and advance slowly towards you, moving oddly. Their numbers change each time you look, sometimes ten, sometimes fifteen, scuttling over and under one another in patterns that make no physical sense. The mother advances a lot faster, light and air distorting around the poised sting.
Pests indeed.
Name: Nanami Adachi. (Nanami)
Unnatural beauty granted by demonic contract and the adoration of mortals. Slight charisma/popularity boost.
Power from mortal media.
Conscripted into twenty-nineth legion of Amdukias.
Puissance: 2
Ritual: 0
Runic Sight: 0
Banal Combat: 0
Aim: 1
Melee: 0
Agility: 1
Praticality: 2
Inventory: £315
Backpack, expensive camera + memory cards
Quality sketching paper, art pens+pencils, charcoal, etc.
Sketches of self as main character, Amdukias, the non-mortal world, etc.
[Glass Rod Crystal Wand] - Enhanced slightly through media
Puissance: 5/5
Puissant Clots: 1
Bob Howard
Puissant fettle - 1
Ritual potency - 1
Runic sight - 1
Banal combat - 0
Practicality - 3
Inventory: £50, 1d20
{Certificate from Belial; Valid for one Potent Medium}
Puissance: 5/5
Puissant Clots: 2
Goethe T. Helle
Puissant fettle - 1
Ritual potency - 2
Runic sight - 1
Banal combat - 0
Aim - 1
Melee - 0
Agility - 2
Practicality - 1
Inventory: £20, clockface minus one hand, highlighter pens, two kitchen knives, half-empty cologne bottle
From the beast: one bone,
Italian Dinner suit, stored at Vince's place.
[Dog Collar Pendant][Molasses Clockhand Wand]
[Icecream Beast Blood Fur Chalice][Beast Remains Wand]
Runes:
Isolation: you never had many friends or allies, so are used to poor odds. +1 to rolls when outnumbered and alone.
Stoicism: a rune that calms those dealing with shock, tragedy or injury.
Perseverance: despite all the odds, you managed to kill a huge beast using nothing but hot syrup. Bonus to attack and extra damage to powerful or resistant enemies after several turns of combat or aggression.
Dwarven Weapon Storage: learned from a dwarf carrying a small armoury on his back. Increases load of weapons and tools that can be borne without being hampered or slowed down, or collapsing outright.
Ruination: when written, it makes a bad situation worse, and an irretrievable one more so. Learned after the second mission.
Puissant clots: 1
Puissance: 6/6
Name: Sir Worthington the Fourth
Has a pretty crappy wooden broom for a leg.
Stats: Ritual Potency: 3
Practicality 3
Agility: -1 (wooden poles and plastic bristles do not a good leg make)
Inventory: £25, Pint of royal blood (stored at Vince's), blood covered knife,
Stored at Vince's place: mortal's tendons, skull and leg bones.
[Glass Eye Pendant] [Paintbrush Wand]
[Toad Demon Battery Acid Tupperware Chalice]
Novice's Pyromancy Flame - Heal Burn (1P), Create Flame (1P)
Puissant Clots: 0
Puissance: 5/5
Jimmy "Car bombs" Castanza
Slightly slowed by a heavy load.
Puissant fettle - 0
Ritual potency - 0
Runic sight - 3
Banal combat - 1
Aim - 1
Melee - 0
Agility - 0
Practicality - 3
Inventory: £20, very rusty saw, length of pipe stuck to block of concrete, highlighter pen
[Lightbulb Antenna Wand]
[Broom - TIER 3] - Bike handles for steering.
Glock 17
Runes:
Detonation: volatile stuff explodes or catches fire more when you're around it. You can't help it, it must be genetic. Written rune used to detonate volatile substances.
Dead Man Running: you escaped the wrath of a mafia boss. Higher chance of surviving things that should really be deadly.
Mafioso: a mafia hitman, you preferred not to let your targets know they were hunted until after they were spread over an area of three hundred metres. Bonus to carefully planned unexpected attacks.
Alchemical (definitely idiot) savant: you saw an alchemist's shop when wandering around London, and deluded yourself that you understood something of how it worked. Because of the nature of magic, this belief is now partially true. Use this rune to make substances a bit more useful or volatile when used in alchemy.
Trader: a rune that when signed signifies to people that you'd be a good guy to buy from and sell things to.
Reticence: a rune whispered to you by birds perched on phone lines, you can get information without giving away much about yourself.
Bethel: a rune that enhances and aids summoning performed where it is written.
Degeneration: you saw men turned into animals. This rune turns advanced things like steel bolts into crappy primitive things, like wooden bolts.
Entrance: a god tried to break into our world. You now have a +2 in breaking into magic places you shouldn't be messing about with.
Hiijacking: Sand crashed a summoning-party and inserted herself into the centre of the ritual. Things with this rune written on will be more central to events and will conduct more power and magical energy than they should by rights.
Hassle: a rune that allows you to deal more effectively with multiple threats, distractions and tasks at once.
Scrap-crafting: after making a wand with bicycle horns, you have improved at making stuff out of junk. And you were already great at making stuff out of junk.
Oligarchy: a rune revealed to you the first time you flew over London, spelled out in the twistings of the financial buildings and the houses of millionares. Increases your power according to how much money you have.
Punctuality: You're good at getting things done on time.
Puissant clots: 0
Puissance:5/5
Ben Breeze
Stats:
Puissant fettle - 0
Ritual potency - 0
Runic sight - 0
Banal combat - 4
Aim - 1
Melee - 1
Agility - 2
Practicality - 0
Inventory: knife, taser, handcuffs, police baton, stab vest, torch, incapacitant spray, and a first aid kit. All in sports bag
Also a bag of athames, 2.5 legs War Bacon (Vince's Fridge), a worn face-concealing hooded coat.
Two generous Roast Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches
Gunfarmer P90 (44/50) (in bag)
Puissant clots: 3
Puissance:5/5
Steve
Puissant fettle - 0
Ritual potency - 0
Runic sight - 0
Banal combat - 3
Aim - 0
Melee - 0
Agility - 3
Practicality - 0
Inventory: £50
Puissance: 5/5
Clots:3
Author
Topic: COVEN: Gulled Goldsmiths and Lost Locomotives (Read 153613 times)