Status:Journeymage Shay Masters
Physical State: Scrapped and Bruised, Quite Tired, Drunk
Mental State: Nervous
Magical Capacity: Slightly Drained
Memory Storage:
x8 Fear (Brother's Safety)
x4 Pride (Received and Trained with new gear)
x6 Pride (Saved Grimla's child and life)
x2 Knowledge (Craft bolts from bonemetal)
x1 Knowledge (Ogre pearl use)
x2 Innocence (Playing with Ogre Children)
Travelers Clothes (Worn)
Hooded Surgical Mage's Robes (Worn)
Bonemetal Crisis-Helm (Worn, Enchanted:
)
Utility Belt (Worn)
-Crossbow
-Pouches holding 35 Bolts
-Bonemetal Brute-Blade
-Grapple Hook with 25 Feet of Sturdy Line
Surgical Mage's Bag (Slung over shoulder on stick, Enchanted: Extra Space, Enchanted: Refrigerated)
-Surgeon's Knife Set (Enchanted: Self Sharpening, Enchanted: Painless)
-Surgical Forceps
-10 Bronze Needles
-5 Thick Spools of Unicorn Hair Thread
-Steel Bone Saw (Enchanted: Self Sharpening)
-Surgeon's 'Living' Cloth Wipe (Enchanted: Cloth consumes bodily fluids it absorbs to produce more of itself)
-Journeymage's Diploma from The Lower Fenwick Academy of Surgical Magic
-Final Letter from Brother Clancy
-Dunn's faded blue Mage's Robe
-Dunn's Spellbook
General Mage Skills:
Subschool of Memory Manipulation (20)
Extract Memory - Extracts the power from a specific memory, forming it into a drop of magic the size of a poker chip that mages use to barter with. Using this spell removes the chosen memory from memory storage, but dose not actually make you forget anything.
Consume Memories - Burns the power of one or more memories to learn a new spell from a specific subschool. The spell learned will relate to the memories burnt. The amount of memories that must be burnt to cast this spell is listed in parentheses () next to the subschools' name under the magic talents spoiler, and increases each time this spell is used for a given subschool. Using this spell removes the chosen memory from memory storage, but dose not actually make you forget anything.
Read Memories - Burns the power of one or more memories to learn a new spell from a book/scroll/ect. To learn a spell this way often requires memories of a specific type, such as memories related to medical practice to learn a new surgical spell for example. You may also have to meet other requirements as well, depending on the book or scroll you are using. Using this spell removes the chosen memory from memory storage, but dose not actually make you forget anything.
The School of Surgical Magic:
Subschool of Diagnostic Magic (15)
Diagnosis Target Area - Cast with a weapon in hand and target in mind. Choose the type of injury you wish to inflict (broken arm, crushed brain, pierced heart, ect), and the spell will highlight the area you should strike, while guiding your next shot or blow towards that area for a bonus to accuracy. Can be easily cast in the heat of battle.
Family Diagnosis - Cast with a visible target in mind. The spell will look into the deaths of the target's ancestors going back ten generations, and highlight on the target any bodypart or organ whose failure was the main cause of an ancestor's death. Deaths on the target's mothers side will be highlighted in red, deaths on the target's fathers side will be highlighted in green. This spell makes no effort to differentiate between violent deaths and natural causes.
Tumor Vision - As long as you maintain focus on the spell, all growths, tumors, moles, ect belonging to anybody in your field of view are highlighted in your vision. A simple benign mole is highlighted in white, and the color darkens as the growth becomes more and more serious; Terminal cancer is highlighted in pitch black.
Subschool of Body Manipulation (10)
Replenish Blood - Cast with a visible target in mind. Target's blood supply is restored to normal levels, and minor injuries to the target's major blood vessels are healed. Draining to cast, especially if cast on self.
Set Bones - Cast with a visible target in mind. Targets bones are returned to their normal position, and small breaks are repaired. Spell is painful enough to make most targets pass out. Trying to set more than two bones at once, or repairing large breaks, is very draining, perhaps dangerously so.
Subschool of Transmutation (10)
Reconfigure Blood - Cast with a target in mind. Target's bloodtype becomes AB+. Target's immune system is completely reset, rendering the target prone to infection, but also ensuring that any organ you might have just put into the target is not rejected. Very draining.
Mutate Abnormality - Cast with a target tumor, growth, or infection in mind. This spell extracts the power of a chosen memory within your memory storage, and converts it into a powerful beam of mutagenic energy to be focused on the target. The target will mutate rapidly for weeks, often gaining interesting magical qualities related to the memory used. This spell is often a death sentence for the person carrying the target tumor, growth, or infection, but can be used as a last resort on already terminal infections or tumors. Using this spell removes the chosen memory from memory storage, but dose not actually make you forget anything.
In the morning, you learn that Toogool intends to throw a feast for the colony tonight in honor of you and your great deed. With that to look foward to, you decide to conserve your strenght, avoid the hot furnaces, and spend your day with the colony enchantress.
The enchantress works in one of the lower chambers of the Treasure Caves, on a dock which extends over an underground saltwater pool where the ogres farm shellfish. Through her translator, she requests two fear memories for the day's work, which you provide. She then gets to work.
The ogre enchantment process involves decorating items with engravings, small human bones such as knuckles and teeth, the shell and pearls extracted from the nearby pool, and various colored pastes made by mashing up animal innards with memory chips. It seems far more efficient in terms of memory use than the process used by human enchanters back home in Fenwick. At the end of the day, the Enchantress has only used 2/3rds of her paste and has managed to enchant two new mauls from the bone boneforge, a large human rib that you expect some ogre will use as a body piercing, a large sack-like quiver in which an ogre hunter might keep giant javelins, and, as a favor to you, your Crisis Helm. Sadly the translator is not around while she is working on your helmet, so you have no clue what the new enchantment does.
While the enchantress dose her thing, you are put to work deshelling oysters. The meat is thrown into a huge pot of pickle juice to be preserved, the shells go into a pot of bleach to be cleaned for use in enchantment, and any pearls are passed over to an ogre child named Pulpin who is working with you. Pulpin speaks a bit of civilized language, and explains that that is trained to appraise pearls. The high quality ones are sent to Toogool to traded to the colonies few outside friends and to make jewelry for his mates. Mid-quality pearls remain at the docks, and are used in enchantments. Low quality pearls are sent to a silo near the bloodstill, and will eventually be brewed into pearlspirit for festivals and trade.
+Knowledge Memory x1The feast in your honor is quite an event. The meal itself, made from a strange animal called a Trollpig that ogres use as livestock and pack animals, is chewy and sour, but somehow not unpleasant. The masses are served ogre bloodwine, but for you Toogool breaks open a bottle of good vintage fortified wine from your homeland of Fenwick, that he once received as a gift from his late friend Dunn. Back home, fortified wine is drunk out of small glasses, but you are given half the bottle in a drinking horn, and expected to finish it. Eventually the booze compels you to stand up on your bench and give a speech!
"My brutish friends, your hospitality honors me! But I fear I must not linger long in your home. I will stay until Wor-Rippa gives birth, but no longer. The truth is, I am on a quest!"A cheer erupts, and before you can even continue, Toogool booms out
"Then in the bonefather's name, I promise you the aid of my colony!"You had not expected that. "Umm... Thank you. You see, I came from Fenwick trying to get into the Terminal Woods. I am seeking my brother Highmage Clancy of Fenwick, who had traveled to Deltaport to help the city overcome the plague that terrorizes it, but has not replied to any letters from home for the last two years. He is... missing. I need to reach Deltaport to start my search, but the navy of Terminal Woods isn't letting ships from Fenwick in by sea, and the army of the slaver Cyrus is blocking the coastal route by land."
You pause for a second to let your words sink and and compose your next ones.
"I... I... I've been told that the wisest way to go about this... quest is to find a guide and supplies, and travel inland before crossing into the Terminal Woods and looping back to Deltaport. Along the way, I have also promised to return the robes of the dead mage Dunn to his academy, Eye of Storm Lake, so that they may list him among the honored dead." Toogool considers your words briefly before speaking.
"You have saved the life of my mate, and are owed a life debt. I am needed here, and can't give up strong adult ogres while slave-catcher Cyrus is around, so you will get ogre child. You may have Ippsie, Por-Ung, or Doomtin to serve you for life and do your bidding."Although you are not sure it would be wise to keep an ogre around once you make it back to civilization, you don't wish to insult Toogool by turning him down, and you suppose that even a small ogre is still more than a match for most men. You pause to consider your options.
Ippsie is the largest of the ogre children, and will likely grow into an impressive specimen even by the standards of her race. She can already fight with the Brute-Sword and Flail, and knows how to use a kite shield. Communication might be difficult at first, as Ippsie knows none of the civilized languages, and this could be trouble as the child has a fierce temper and overprotective nature.
Por-Ung is a runt by ogre standards, but has a bunch of useful skills to make up for it. Trained in the outdoor arts, Por-Ung can hunt, track, trap, gather edible plants, catch fish, and navigate the wilds with ease. He is skilled at both making and throwing nets, and is learning how to use a steel trident that was captured with Cyrus' raiders. Por-Ung can speak a bit of the Terminal Woods language, and is very fond of you... to the point where you fear his attention might turn romantic when he reaches puberty.
Doomtin is an apprentice smith, who knows how to work with copper, silver, and bonemetal, and is notable because he suffers a condition called 'Iron Ogre Syndrome'. IOS victims have super-hard skin that is tough to pierce or burn, and largely impervious to pain, but they are doomed, however to die in their late 30's or early 40's when this condition spreads to their vital organs. That is decades away, however, and Doomtin will make a great meatshield and test subject in the meantime.
You wonder if it would be wise to try and bargain for Hor-Shell, whom Toogool didn't offer. You agree with the child's father that the boy is bright enough to someday be a mage. Already he is studying under the colony shaman, so he knows much of local lore and religion, and claims that he can preform feats of divination and fire breathing if provided with memory chips.
While you consider which child you wish to serve the life debt, Toogool pitches a couple ideas as to how his colony might help you on your quest. Needless to say, they both involve you hanging around for at least awhile longer.
"If you give my brewer a memory a day for fifteen days, we can make huge batch of blood and pearl spirits for trade. Our trade convoy will go to Sno-Skull and Pine Labyrinth, and you can go too protected by strong ogre guards and merchants. From either of those places, you can take the Dread Road south into the Terminal Woods, far from Cyrus' slavers."The ogre leader pauses to pick his nose.
"Or... You stay. Provide power to our smith and enchantress. Help my colony grow strong once again. If you do, in several months, all 144 of my able bodied ogres will have full bonemetal armor, and we may march to Deltaport in your name, feasting on the flesh of Cyrus' wicked slavers as we travel! I am tired of launching only small counter-raids against them! They have taken some of my Kin who I wish to take back."Clearly you have some decisions to make...
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Topic: (SG) Sawbones: Adventures of a High Fantasy Surgeon Mage (Read 5684 times)