Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[omada]

C C C C C.....

Okay...

B

[Harry Baldman]

You decide to not get too fancy and just look for some nice and adoptable scamps for the Queen's purposes.

258 S.I., the New Year

2

It's after about a month or two that you've managed to get a fairly solid grasp on the Queen's family - she does have a sister in her late thirties somewhere in the east of the country, but she seems to be an old maid and, if anything, even weirder than the Queen herself. The whole branch that the Queen's own dynasty represents seems to be fairly unusual, a thinning line of old blood aristocrats from the days of the Empire itself. And if you don't do something about it, it's also a line in serious danger of petering out within a generation.

Prospectively Queen Iouni would have seemed like a great choice for the founder of a new dynasty - young, eligible, with an appropriate pedigree and hardly any threats to her supremacy from within her family. This was ostensibly before the nature of her troubles had become clear. You wouldn't go so far as to blame old Vaskir for failing to anticipate this, but you nevertheless feel a little put out by having to deal with the fallout.

5

Before you can resolve to do anything further, however, Captain Bukhar turns up to your office in his usual carefree manner. You look up at him from your dismal study of family trees and genealogy.

Right, he says a little awkwardly, there's this little situation developing among the ranks. The little guy, Assante. He's talking to people about some kind of silly buggers unionization thing. Grassroots effort or some such crap. Going behind your back, chief.

Alarming, you say. Especially alarming given that you've heard nothing of it.

Yeah, the captain says, nobody really takes him seriously. Most of the other Jovanast rats are pretty happy with how things are run here. They don't appreciate him rocking the boat.

Good, good, you say. Does it seem like the situation might resolve itself?

Maybe, the captain says. You want he should make the agitator disappear? He's pretty good at that sort of thing, just so you know.

A) Better have a talk with Assante about this and make it clear that you do not at all appreciate this kind of thing.
B) Go ahead and dispose of him, he's exhausted your patience with this.
C) Look more actively for a project that you can put the bastard to work on. Got too much energy for his own good.
D) Let him do his thing, he's mostly harmless anyway.

[Kashyyk]

C

We don't have to make him a lieutenant afterwards, but I think it would be good to direct his energy towards something useful rather than just murderising the guy.

[birdy51]

Indeed. Call it bureaucracy and send him to whatever equivalent of the Alaskan Branch there is. C

[chubby2man]

B

[Harry Baldman]

You resolve to figure out something to keep him busy, and send Captain Bukhar off after telling him to hold off on the disappearing of any of your minions. Better to do these things like your predecessor did, you feel.

258 S.I., A Relatively Pleasant Midwinter

5

After giving the topic some thought and rejecting a few of the more ridiculous proposals, you can think of a few things that'd benefit from a wonk like Assante being put to work on it - first of all, there's that whole witch business. What are witches? Where do they come from? What do they do, and how do we stop them from having visions about murdering the Vizier? Then there's the whole thing about the Queen being unwilling to bear children in the conventional, simple and easy way and now you probably needing to solve the problem with liberal application of demons, again. And, you suppose, there's probably something gnome-related as always. You could send Assante to make friends with some gnomes and request precious wisdom from down low. That has a nice, roughly even chance of either making him useful or getting rid of him permanently.

You're about to think of more, but you are called upon by the Queen once again. She's quite worried about something, it seems. And what that something is, quite predictably, turns out to be the Vizier. He's not been seen outside the laboratory for a solid month, she says. And she sent down a servant to take a look at one point, and he hasn't come back in a week. Suffice it to say, she's begun to worry.

A) Assante! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the Queen's cellar and figure out what that damned Vizier has been up to!
B) You think you'll go have a look in that case, and take a fine bunch of operatives with you just in case. The Vizier likes you, right?
C) Better give it a couple of months, you figure, wouldn't want to disturb him while he's on the verge of a breakthrough or anything.

And if you don't want to send Assante down there, you'd like to:

A) Send him on a witch inquiry to get to the bottom of their particular nonsense.
B) Put him on the task of figuring out the arcane birds and bees.
C) Have him seek the everlasting and all-encompassing wisdom of the gnomes.

[10ebbor10]

B
C

[Prophet]

B
C

+1

[heydude6]

B A

I bet the witches cursed him and we might need to get them to uncurse him

[VoidSlayer]

B B

[chubby2man]

B,C

[Harry Baldman]

You send Assante off to seek the aid of the gnomes. Aid for what, he asks. You respond that he's a clever guy with a lot of relevant knowledge, and that you're sure he can figure it out on his own. And with that he's off.

Meanwhile, you get a team together and prepare for your least remote expedition yet - a trip to the cellar! The Queen wishes you a fine trip in between moments of wringing her hands nervously.

Congratulations! Spymistress Kalja has embarked on an operation!

1

The first thing you realize upon going down the stairs is that they're rather longer than the construction plans you studied beforehand would indicate. Roughly a mile or two longer, and spiraling in way that you find somewhat implausible and, eventually, branching out in several directions. Fortunately, some of your operatives have brought lanterns. Unfortunately, these same operatives are also as a consequence the most visible of your crew, which comes into play when, as the passages grow deeper and gently hissing cracks start to populate the walls regularly, a certain crack suddenly opens and some form of strange horror your fellows glimpse for but a second seizes one such operative, pulling them into the wall, never to be seen again. And then, when you turn around, another appears to have suddenly gone missing as well. You hold out hope for a few moments before a distant screaming and horrid crunching confirms your suspicions.

Shit, now you're getting Lethop flashbacks. You got out of that one by the skin of your teeth.

Operatives Left: 10/12

A) Well, at least you know what these walls want. Pick the operatives you'd miss the least and sacrifice them to whatever dark power rules here for safe passage.
B) Consider less obvious ways to appease the evil forces hounding you.
C) Try to outsmart the predatory presence, and trap it somehow for your operatives to kill or at least substantially injure it.
D) Continue to try and navigate through these endless corridors - either it will start making sense soon, or it'll start to make little enough sense that you can get where you want to go.

[chubby2man]

D

[omada]

B She already got a bit used to demon stuff. She must have read something in the library

[heydude6]

B