"Well..."
"I do have a plan. But you're probably not going to like it."
Ask if the guy could dress as a woman. We could go to those abandoned trade areas at night, he acts as a bait and I watch closely while hidden behind a stall. Assure him that I'm a master wizard hunter and that he has nothing to be afaird of because he's not really a woman, so he agrees to be the bait during the night.
Name: Randolf Osborn
Appearance: Ugly as hell. Smells like rotten fish. Very brutish.
Magic path: Channeler Ascetic
Mana: 0
Strength: D6
Speed: D6
Endurance: D12
Knowledge: D4
Will: D12
Senses: D4
Ongoing effects:
Inventory:
Sealer Suit D4
White Robes
Shield
Wooden Club D6
Backpack
Lantern
100 feet of rope
29 gold coins
4 silver coins
Air bladder
Aqua Vitae???
"I have an idea. First you need to dress as a woman and then-"
"No."
"Aw come on man, what is one night in a dress compared to a lifetime of justice!"
"No."
"How about just a wig?"
"No."
"Skirt?"
"No- thats worse than the wig! Do you not know how to haggle?"
"...So have you heard of a-"
"No."
You ask about the monster processing and the refer you to someone in the underground sections of the arena. You find them in a sunken stone abattoir near the edge of the underground maze; there are all manner of beasts piled in their room, a large stone slab, numerous clay jars sealed with wax paper and twine, and a pit. The man is busily hacking through a corpse, expertly seperating out pieces and placing them in pots before sweeping the refuse into the pit.
Start talking to the man, say that I'm interested in his work and in monsters in general. Maybe help him out a bit. Try to get a feeling of what he's like and whether he'd be amenable to letting me dig through some monster corpses before he cuts them up in return for us, ahh, accidentally dropping some change. All very subtle, of course.
Related to this, is there a decent chance for me to find a word inside a corpses that has (presumably) been dead for a while?
Finally, could I use my word 'sharpen' to temporarily sharpen my senses, to improve the odds of finding a word? Or maybe 'viscera'? Or a combination of those two?
This is a port town so all sorts of people end up betting.
What kind of goods pass through this town? Only boring/normal stuff like food or cloth, or also some more interesting things like artifacts or foreign made machines or something?
A doctors bag will be about 25-30 gold here. Cheaper if you can haggle someone down.
Yeah, shop around for a filled doctor's bag, try to negotiate a good deal. If I can negotiate down to 15 gold or less, buy 2 bags.
Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.
Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d10
Will: d8
Senses: d10
Mana: 32
Ongoing effects: None
Magical materialsVacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Inventorydissection knife: d4
gun: d8
long sword with glowing runes
6 weapons (2 knives, 2 swords, 1 warpick, 1 halberd), d6 or d8
Thaumic flamethrower (50 thaum tank, d10 str requirement, armored fuel tank) + extra canisters with compressed gas
18 smokebombs
Medium armor: d6
fitted suit of d8 armor (for ecalir)
NOTE: ecalir's armor is now also d8
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)
2 x shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Alchemist’s Gear
250 gold worth of precious gems
Sack of jewels worth 314 gold
5 silver
an ingot of platinum (40 mana)
A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
High quality backpack
donkey for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
good quality book&pen
You start to explain things to the butcher and he interrupts you after a few sentences.
"Ain't no one coming down here to dissect out of curiosity. If you were one of those types with the time and money to do it, you'd just buy the corpse and have it taken to your estate or whatever you have. So you're either here to try and steal and smuggle guts or you're a wizard who wants some magic from the beasties." He punctuates the last sentence with a cleaving blow from his knife.
"If its guts you want, you'd best be leaving, but if its magic then I'll make you a deal." He looks up at your blank and somewhat shocked expression, "I've had two others like you come in here before." He says, grinning.
There is some chance, but it goes down with time.
You could use the combination or just one or the other. Both would make it easier.
Most of it is mundane, obviously, but there's also a market in artifact and items from other shores, along with slaves, women, men, beasts, and just about anything else.
[2v7]
You shop around for a bag and attempt to haggle people down from their starting prices but you end up annoying them so much that they actually raise them.
YOOOOOOOOOLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Drain. Simultaneously, explode her head. Even if it's not perfectly accurate, it should stun/ko her, hopefully preventing the construct from attacking if I can't fully drain it in time. If any of the minions try to attack me, parry with the Kukri.
Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign decent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. The clothing that she wears is very minimal.
Mana: 5
Method: Flesh-Inscribing Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion
Strength: d10
Speed: d6
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d8
Will: d8
Senses: d6
Ongoing effects: Okay?
Inventory:
Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Paints and brushes
Kukri (d6 weapon)
[1][7v5] -5 mana, +1 mana
You whip your head around and point a finger gun at the lady while digging your fingers into the painting man's back and tearing some mana out of him.
"Bang."
There's no real build up or warning, the air in front of her face just explodes with enough force to completely deafen you and badly impair your vision. She goes down, holding her face and screaming in a completely horrific way. Blood is pouring out between her fingers and her screams are half gurgling.
[4v5, 6v3, 6v2]
You leap back and draw your Kukri, squaring up with the two thugs (who seem mildly disoriented and blinded) and the painting man. The painting steps forward with a flourish and brings his blade down at your head. You catch it with the Kukri but only deflect the blow so much. It slams into your wooden armguard and shaves off a large chunk of the right one. The guard draw things that look like square machetes and advance, but you easily out space their blows and, with a twist of your wrist, jerk their weapons from their hands.
(The dice, they hate me.)
Okay. Next up, do another hug. This time instead of summoning something, try to use the Enlarge word to disable the weapons of any antmen who attack. Enlarging those blowguns or whatever they're using to make them unusable, or making those hook-poles too unwieldly to actually use.
Saeko Hirahara
Japanese girl with a long black braid and a white and red dress with long gloves and stockings.
Invoking Empath
Str d4 -> d6
Speed d8
Endurance d10+1
Knowledge d4
Will d10+1
Senses d8
Items:
1 mana (+6 mana last turn, -6 mana for a spell.)
114 coins (gold)
d6 armour: The outfit, naturally. Weighs as if it were d4
Backpack
100ft Rope
Waterskin
Compass
Hat
Sun Goggles
Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand.
Location: Crocus
Status: Fine. Burn scars on arms.
Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.
Mental stats are possible, but harder or more complicated.
[8v3][5]
You scramble away from the fallen bug thing and into your guard's arms. You pull five mana from her and notice that her face is growing pale and tired. You're pulling too much power from these people; take much more and they won't be able to keep going.
You switch back into defensive mode, waiting for a bugman to attack so you can counter. Its dangerous but also the most conservative use of your magic. The downed bugman rises to his feet and immediately catches another crossbow bolt, this time in his head. It seems to...well he slows down but he doesn't stop. He trudges forward, leaking ichor from a ruined compound eye and chittering loudly with fluid covered mandibles. He grabs at you with his bare hands and you consider for an instant if this counts as a weapon worth shrinking.
[4]
You decide not and just try to dodge away.
[4v2]
You duck under the grab and circle around behind him, arms up in your best fighting pose. Its not very good but damn it, you're trying.
Hmm. Do I have a way to check if this is a magical ailment since I'm a channeler? And do I know someone else I could ask for help saving the boy that might be more knowledgeable?
Name: Nina Morellis
Appearance: A young, red-haired woman, green eyes, somewhat unkempt. She's had Adam for as long as she could remember, and has a bit of a reputation as a harmless nut. The town guard are okay with Nina though, occasionally getting her help keeping a mage secured by having her drain their mana so they can't cast. Since they don't have a proper magehunter available, having a local civilian channeler they can bring in as needed is a big help. And Nina tries to be on her best behavior with them to keep their relations good. Nina herself works as a healer, living out in the poor part of town, and has an erratic schedule based on the needs of those who want her help. so she has a lot of free time, but also gets woken up in the middle of the night a lot. add in Adam's occasional antics and she doesn't get to have a stable sleep schedule.
Magic Path: Channeler, Invoker.
Materials: Sound
Mana: 5
Strength: D4
Speed: D6
Endurance: D10
Knowledge: D8
Will: D10
Senses: D6
Inventory: Backpack, padded cloak (D4 protection, Light armor), Lantern, doctor's bag, waterskin (air), hammer, 2 silver, air bladder, white robes.
Inhabited by a spirit which takes the form of a floating disembodied limb that constantly melts and reforms into other body parts. She calls it "Adam."
Location: Mesothorium
Cabal: None at this time.
[5v6]
You put your hand on the child and try to sense any sort of magical interference or infiltration. You can feel...something but you have no idea what it is. Its magic but...you can't say what.
Adam slithers over your shoulder in the form of a pancreas and whispers "Bloodlust. Consumed".
There are other healers you know but they're not in town. A day or more off for a message to reach them, another day or more for them to come here. Cutting it close, but might work.