Previous -- NextTa da! Here's where we zoom through the rest of the day until tomorrow, earning a little more cash and advancing the plot. Like last time, I've hidden your individual results in a spoiler, but that's only to save space,
not to hide them from each other. Feel free to read them.
You may be wondering why
Overseer (FallacyofUrist)'s results are just as visible. You will see why when you look at
Dwain (Starver)'s at the end: the latter exile finds the location of the former.
For each third-of-a-day you earn 1d6+1 opal and have one roll for a bonus. Bonus table:
1: Fail
2: Fail
3: Succeed weakly
4: Succeed
5: Succeed greatly
6: Fail by succeeding
If people were doing something more daring, notably carousing in a tavern, results would be more complicated
Payment from local work (three payments of 1d6+1): 3+1 + 2+1 + 6+1= 14 opal! (Where I allot 10 to your purchases so you can keep your hands on some etherstone instead)
Work bonus: 3, 1, 6 = Succeed weakly, Fail, Fail by succeeding!
Once again, finding work as a doctor is straightforward. At first you're just tending to the scraped shins of local children, but around noon a group of exiles arrives in town that just recently had a run-in with more monsters than they could handle. They were exploring across the floor of the sinkhole, and, you learn, if you head out far enough then the height reduces and you find yourself in perilous mines just the same.
You look after them through the evening. Unfortunately, things go wrong, and one ends up in enough pain to be unable to work today. The group still pays you; they also give you some food for your efforts, which is good since it seems as though any surplus of food was left with the other exiles (notably Overseer). The parents of those local children from earlier get you a place for the night where you eat your food and finally sleep.
Payment from local work (three payments of 1d6+1): 1+1 + 4+1 + 5+1= 13 opal! (Where I allot 10 to your purchases so you can keep your hands on some etherstone instead)
Work bonus: 4, 4, 1 = Succeed, Succeed, Fail!
How about that hauling? You've had a couple experiences with the Salt family now: one time, they paid you; the other time, they paid you. Sounds good. And since they know your face now, today they send you out of town in a small group to pick up more shipments of rock salt. You head just a short distance out, meet a crew of miners (with very dry skin), trade empty wheelbarrows for full wheelbarrows all emblazoned with SALT, and turn around again.
Solde, the widely-beaming man you met before, expresses a more grim sort of satisfaction when you return in one piece. The higher-ups remember what happened to that other recent crew at the hands of the ugly mugs. In fact, he hits you with a proposition: what would you say to getting your competent little group of exiles to pull some payback against the mugs? There's an Ugly Mug Outpost out beyond the Halfway House to the north. Or to the south. "Directions are weird down here." In any case, remorse wouldn't exactly be in their thought process if you kicked out the ugly mugs so they didn't have to deal with them for awhile.
He hands you a couple unwise candles along with your pay, just to make said thought process more clear. You dine on your own personal food tonight. Well-salted.
Payment from local work (three payments of 1d6+1): 3+1 + 2+1 + 6+1 = 14 opal!
Work bonus: 5, 5, 3 = Succeed greatly, Succeed greatly, Succeed weakly!
You have found a place of peace in this temple/home. Here you seek to learn and to teach. First you circulate among the meditative and the faithful to develop your understanding of mysticality in this underground world. You still find many of their objects foreign: sure, a gray or black "#" doesn't seem too out-of-place among holy symbols, but why are so many attracted to this brown "¶"? And then there is the "▓" which, to you, looks like no more than a bright cloud of dots!
Yet these seem to be important to the "power" that is within your hosts Europa and Titan to give, so you guide seekers through meditation exercises both to aid them and to refine your own technique. By the end of the day you are commended for your "interesting approach" and are paid. Though you are handed an extra reward you did not expect: a pair of soulshine lanterns. "This will not affect the hoarding wastrels," Europa explains. "But if you are to remain strong enough for our power, you may need these when your allies begin to fall." Then you dine on light food (that they provide), and you think about these circumstances as you fall asleep.
Payment from local work (three payments of 1d6+1): 4+1 + 5+1 + 1+1 = 13 opal! (Where I allot 10 to your purchases so you can keep your hands on some etherstone instead)
Work bonus: 4, 6, 6 = Succeed, Fail by succeeding, Fail by succeeding!
You can probably find places that need somebody sturdy, like a bodyguard or such. But today you think it best to follow these exiles who know what they're doing. John seems to be finding work with the "Salt" family, one of the major centers of power in Rock Bottom. In addition to handling salt mining, they butcher and prepare meat themselves, selling food to customers through taverns run by the other families.
You know how to butcher animals just fine, thank you. This morning you butcher a wall tiger flat out. (Good to see what had scared the other exiles so much.) In the afternoon you start on their scaled turkey backlog. (Hmm, looking tasty.) In the evening they direct you to something gray that another person had started to butcher but quit; they don't even tell you what it is, so you guess it's not too unusual a beast, but it has way too many vertebrae. You wind up making a few bad cuts in this mess and have to hope they don't notice the waste.
Still they pay you. And give you a chunk of glowstone from their furnace's stockpile, knowing that you'll need it when camping out in the wild. Thoughtful.
Payment from local work (three payments of 1d6+1): 5+1 + 1+1 + 6+1 = 15 opal! (Where I allot 10 to your purchases so you can keep your hands on some etherstone instead)
Work bonus: 6, 6, 3 = Fail by succeeding, Fail by succeeding, Succeed weakly!
Tipped off about the Theia family, you make your way to one of the main places of worship, which also serves as a home. Perhaps "mansion," but really the carved stone structure is a testament to the humility of religion. So naturally you walk up to the leadership and ask to help with bookkeeping. They agree!
They show you to their written records in a side hall, then leave a door open behind you to the main hall. At one point you turn around to see Overseer guiding others in meditation. You're so proud of him! Anyway, looks like Theia here handles both religion and mineralogy, and their experts craft magical items, notably splitter wands. You see several joint efforts (and joint profits) with Svarog. Their largest fees, outside of big orders, are for bloodbinding. Hmm, if you ever want in on this "bloodbinding" thing, then you probably want your Svarog alchemist buddies to negotiate you a discount . . .
Having cautious Theia people checking up on you causes lots of distractions, and you tear a piece of important parchment (twice), but they still pay you for a job well done. And they give you free food! Which you eat in a quiet monastic cell for the night, just like home. Ahh.
Now everybody heals +4 HP from rest overnight. If you want to do anything with shopping (or lockboxes), we can pretend it fits in right here.
Day 11, Morning
Conveniently, some among you have bumped into others among you during your work, and it is easy to regroup in the morning. You'll have just a little time to prepare: the town guards, armed as always, are knocking on doors and walls, looking for non-residents. You have used up your utility and you are being kicked out until such time as you have more resources to sell.. . . Folks, this busy day filled a Word document almost 50 pages long. I sincerely hope you have been enjoying it. Now I'll take any reactions and update inventories, but the next actual plot events will have to wait until I've finished with acute life upheaval. Maybe even chronic upheaval. I'll find out!
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Topic: Magical ASCII Mine-diving Adventure, Day 20 - At Rest (Read 237998 times)