Turn 1
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Quickly! Scrounge around for the best, shiniest stuff!
Head to the armory as fast as possible and grab anything that looks useful.
Also run to the armoury. Grab anything that doesn't look like it'll fall off in the first battle.
I... Will search through the armory.
The armory is a large, high-ceilinged room which is far too spacious for its current contents. Before this compound was abandoned, it probably doubled as a gymnasium or a training hall, some place where initiates would learn to use weapons of various sorts. Now, the training equipment is nothing but a layer of sawdust on the floor, and the weapons may not survive extended fights.
The old equipment racks are still relatively sturdy, most likely because they're made from stone and bronze rather than wood. The equipment, on the other hand, is significantly worse off. Most of the iron and steel pieces have turned into piles of rust, and the few bronze items are heavily damaged, missing handles, or even crumbling away.
The occultists gather up anything which is remotely useable, laying it out on the floor so that they can piece together individual sets of equipment. This stuff might be junk, but it's
free junk, and a definite step up from bare hands, to boot. The final haul is a cracked warhammer, four rusty shields, three battleaxes with brittle handles, five heavily chipped swords, and assorted pieces of iron armor. The armor is, by and large, jagged enough to give the wearer tetanus, but that's probably better than broken bones or stab wounds.
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You guys can distribute this stuff amongst yourselves, since you probably want to determine your own loadouts. Feel free to make other actions as well.
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...wait, now I realize you meant "chests" as in the body part and not the loot container. Whoops.
Look in the living quarters. Corspes would be fun to play with.
Fredwill stroll casually into the living quarters and inspect the place thoroughly. He pays attention to the magical signs and cues, and looks for objects of that nature, as well as scouting out the best quarters for himself.
Name:Fred
Description:Short, redheaded, grey eyes, thin. Generally friendly and positive.
Strength: 1
Endurance: 3
Dexterity: 1
Speed: 1
Willpower: 3
Fred and Arthur walk straight to the living quarters, which are in surprisingly good condition. Some of the wooden furniture has actually survived, albeit in a rather fragile state. Although stone furnishings aren't nearly as common, there are enough to fill six private rooms, assuming the occupants are content with a bit of empty space. Particularly noteworthy are the bookshelves, which seem to be carved directly from the local bedrock. It's quite possible that they were made with geomancy, given that this compound was built by and for prospective mages.
For a place constructed by an ancient order of wizards, the layout of the living quarters is relatively simple. There's a central common area, which contains desks and a sizeable number of bookshelves. This branches into three smaller hallways, each of which are lined with the doors to private suites. In their time, the quarters could probably house about a hundred occultists. Nowadays there's a shortage of both furniture and food, making the upper limit something like nine or ten.
Arthur hangs around in the common area, looking for items of interest. Most of the furniture is broken, useless, or only mildly intriguing, which turns his attention to the contents of the bookshelves. As it turns out, a few texts have survived the centuries, although they certainly haven't escaped unscathed. Most pages are crumpled, stained, or ruined by mildew. Those which remain seem useful, but are difficult to understand without any context.
The first book Arthur picks up seems to be an illustrated manual, presumably a beginner's guide to simpler rituals. Half the pages have crumbled away, but those which remain depict an interesting ritual. At its most basic, it is a runic circle which can block the flow of magic, serving equally well as a binding or a protective barrier. The manual's instructions are rather piecemeal, likely as a result of the missing pages, but his grimoire might be able to fill in the gaps.
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Fred, on the other hand, goes directly to the private suites, hoping to secure the best rooms and the best arcane secrets. After a good five minutes of searching, he finally settles on a suite at the end of the second hallway, which seems to satisfy both of his desires. As of right now, the place is completely bare of furniture, barring shards of wood which might once have been a chair. On the other hand, his new rooms are quite spacious, and the magicians will be hauling around some furniture anyway. With a desk from the common room and a few good chairs, the suite will be good as gold.
More importantly, the walls are practically covered in arcane glyphs. None hold any enchantment, and Fred is entirely unsure of what they mean. Of course, that's far less of challenge when one has an ancient grimoire to back them up. If he can begin to decode the runic script, chances are that the glyphs would be well worth studying.
Author
Topic: Pentagram: The Secrets of Magic (6/6, waitlist open) (Read 4103 times)