Update 2: Cunning PlansYou first settle down to write your good friend Auria a letter. It takes you a few moments to get into the spirit of things, but once you do it flows easily.
Woe and tragedy! Anguish and despair! A most terrible deed has been committed, a fair damsel carried off into the night!
It is said she is now held within a diabolical tower far to the west, beyond the Great Wood. The woods surrounding this fiendish prison are patrolled by gargantuan maneating hogs, ensorcelled by the tower's vile master. It is said none who have entered have ever returned!
Oh, but the horrors do not end there! The tower itself is said to be impregnable, built twisted but strong atop a sheer cliff! It is said the ramparts slough away when gripped by those not deemed worthy, so great is the master's hold over his own domain! Truly scaling it would be impossible.
Yet, no better to attempt to force the gate! It is said the master keeps a truly horrifying beast within, a creature so unspeakably vile that not even the sun can stand to gaze upon its countenance! Even were the gates pierced, surely such a terror would spell the doom of any who dared trespass.
Alas, for there seems no hope for the gentle maiden trapped within. Take heed! Avoid the tower and its environs at all costs, for to trod upon them would mean certain death!
-Dearly, Flop
You can't help but giggle to yourself as you write and check back over your handywork. While it would be slightly embarrassing if anyone else read the letter, playing pretend with Auria is great fun. You sign yourself as "Flop," her rather irreverent nickname for you on account of your
not liking trees. Or undergrowth, or low walls, or uneven terrain, or...
Your good mood is slightly sidetracked by trying to get the damned bird to carry the thing. It just keeps staring at you as you try to shoo it off, and even has the audacity to put its talons on you when you try to pick it up! You eventually fall back on your tried-and-true method of buttering it up, which seems to work. You watch it flying off in the direction of the kingdom, more than a little saddened that you don't get to come along.
+2 FlatteryYou then get to work trying to catalogue this place's junk piles, which thoroughly demolishes any good cheer you had left. You don't even know how to classify most of this stuff! These are bits of metal, but what kind? Scrap or ingots or parts or tools? This is a jar. You can't get it open, so you can't figure out what's inside, so you can't classify it any better than "a jar." This is a bone? Is it a trophy, a tool? Soup stock? Weapon? Literal garbage nobody's bothered to throw out yet?
[Bookkeeping: 29/0, fail]
To your credit, your desperate scribbles do reveal a few interesting things, mostly broad categories you wouldn't have expected:
-Rocks. You keep finding a lot of rocks, many of them sort of shiny. You'd guess at least some of them are ores, but you're not a filthy animal so you wouldn't know.
-"Jewelry." There is a lot of crudely made jewelry made out of what seem like scrap materials. Even for filthy animals, there seems like too many to actually wear.
-Weapons? There are a lot of weapons, most of them crude scrapwork like the jewelry. Also like the jewely, they're far too numerous for anyone to use them all, and far too varied to be standard issue for some kind of armed force.
Beyond that, you quickly find yourself overwhelmed by an infinite tide of bizarre garbage.
+1 BookkeepingOn the bright side, this gives you a first good pass for your next order of business:
Snooping.
[Snooping: 79/20, fail]
Unfortunately, this suffers from exactly the same problem as recording the stuff:
You don't know what any of this is. It's hard to find dirt on somebody when you're not sure if you're looking at dirt or sawdust.
You do get a few leads, however.
First and foremost, you uncover a bottle of Viridian Milieu, an extremely rare and expensive wine. It's not even legal for lowborns to own, so technically you've just caught someone in a vile act of treason! Not that there's anyone to tell that to within three days' travel, and if they did send a constabulary force it'd probably be eaten by hogs. Still, it's technically wrong. You're a little more confused by how they came across it in the first place; as mentioned, this stuff is expensive and rare even for the nobility. For a landless commoner to have a bottle is mind-boggling.
Two, you find a grimoire of evil magic. You don't have nearly the training to figure out what it is exactly, but it's an evil-looking black tome made of ragged leather with what looks like a face on the front. It's creepy and evil and badly incriminating to whoever owns it. Both politically and, really, what kind of person owns this? What possible use could somebody have for it beyond eating children while cackling over it?
Three,
oh gods they're in my hair get them out get them out get them out.Once you're done screaming and have been bundled up by Ogdin into a filthy, scratchy rag with a steaming cup of dirty water to sip on, you take a moment to consider what kind of imbecile keeps hundreds of bats in an ornate chest. You devise no answers.
You try to relax after that, but that's impossible in a
leaky barn. So you begin on your next course of action: Figuring out what that weird cleaver-thing is.
You spend the next few days alternating between checking the books lying around, staring at the weapon, trying to sense vile magic, and asking Ogdin if he knows anything. And, of course, sleeping on rag piles and eating hog feed.
First, the material: It seems slightly wrong for bone, and the size, flat shape, and lack of porous sections makes it difficult to imagine a natural source bone. It feels about right for chitin from a truly monstrous bug of some kind, however.
Second, the craftwork: Close inspection reveals scrape marks, confirming that it was carved rather than cast or grew like this. The marks themselves are uneven and inconsistent, suggesting a low level of skill.
Third, the design: According to a gruesome book you found, this is consistent with
goblin work.
Goblins, of course, are eyeless horrors lurking beneath the earth. They're a plague upon miners, who often tunnel into their warrens or vice versa. It's said that they're pure evil, and enjoy torturing their victims to death in ways that defy imagination.
A chunk of a gargantuan bone-colored bug, crudely carved into goblin style seems to fit with all of this. There are three points of conflict, however. One, you've never heard anything about goblin art (beyond mutilated corpses and mutilated parts of corpses), but the handle has several dangly bones hanging from it and there's what seems to be paint in circles around some of the spikes. Two, you were under the impression that goblins were vicious and small, favoring daggers and shivs to get in close and stab foes repeatedly. This thing is too heavy for you to comfortably carry it, so apparently its bearer was larger and more direct than your average goblin of legend. Three, you'd heard goblins used weapons carved from the bones of their innocent victims. Either this one is special or you've heard wrong.
Trying to follow up on these anomalies is cut short by your stepfather and his band of mongrels returning from their errand. Their first order of business is hurling a giant toad corpse onto a nearby table, followed closely by seducing nearby noblewomen of ill repute and bickering with each other over an animal carcass. You remain at a comfortable sneering distance until they start mentioning the phrase "back to the kingdom," which brings you over like an arrow.
"Nobody's going to take us seriously if we're living in a shack!" the armored woman exclaims while punching the table. The
dwarf they keep around nods sagely at this outburst.
"Which is why we need to build bigger," your stepfather says placatingly, taking his hands off your mother long enough to hold them up in a calming gesture.
"We can't do that if we're hauling stone all the way up here." This time it's the wiry, nervous-looking woman's turn to nod sagely at obvious chicanery.
"Quality's worth waiting for," the dwarf declares simply.
"I like to burn things," the elderly woman rambles out of nowhere, and a little too enthusiastically.
"You know, depending on what deals they have..." the wiry woman says while gesturing suggestively.
"No deal. Castles are made of stone.""Yes but grand compounds-""Also stone.""Well-""Stone.""I like to burn things."It slowly dawns on you that they're talking about construction work- presumably, whether to renovate this dump with or construct a new abode out of wood or stone. Presumably your stepfather has ambitions above his station, and thus dreams of a grand manor- something far easier and more comfortable to craft out of wood. The armored woman probably has similar issues, but dreams of commanding a vast castle rather than an opulent manor. The dwarf no doubt wishes to dwell amidst stone to better replicate living in a hole as is kind are intended. You can't guess as to the wiry or elderly women's motives or wishes, beyond being upjumped commoners.
More to the point, construction work means construction materials. It means laborers. It means a trip to civilization.
Flight Plan (Pick any number):A. Like Butter: All you have to do is pick someone and butter them up. Then they'll take you to civilization and you can figure out how to stay there.
B. Take The Essentials: All you have to do is make yourself useful to their little project. Since you can read, that should be easy. Then they'll have to take you to deal with the things you have to deal with.
C. Rats On A Ship: All you have to do is smuggle yourself along with them. Surely they'll take a cart or something, so it should be easy to hide in.
D. Me Too!: All you have to do is pretend to want to journey with them and do whatever it is they do. Then they'll accept you as one of their herd and mindlessly lead you to safety.
Noblesse Oblige (Pick any number):A. Like A Boss: Being the only one here who isn't an animal or laying with animals, you're far more qualified to handle their project than they are. A bit of careful massaging should get them to hand over the reigns to someone competent.
B. What A Good Idea You Just Had!: If you can butter one of them up, you can probably manipulate their "opinion" to what you think a proper dwelling would be. If your plan to flee forever fails, living in something that isn't a leaky barn would be a faint consolation prize.
C. My Cut: Since they've abducted you, you should probably demand your own proper rooms, fit for human habitation. Otherwise they might get confused and think noblewomen are stored in the upper cupboards.
D. Step 3: Cry A Lot: Maybe if you bawl your eyes out one of them will take pity on you? You'd like to guess your mother for this one, but she's been impressively cavalier about her daughter's foolish desire to live like a person.
My Bestest Friend (Pick any number, if selecting a plan involving buttering up a target; more targets reduces success chance for the same plan):A. Like A Fairy Tale: Just kidding! Turns out you like your stepfather after all! He makes mother so happy and isn't a charlatan in the slightest!
B. Good Knight: Wow, that woman wears armor! She's basically a noble knight then! It sure takes a heroic spirit to club things to death for money!
C. Rock Solid: Amazing, a real dwarf! Since he's not a subterranean animal who should stay out of your lands, he must be very dwarven and... you don't actually know what dwarves like, personality or trait wise. Huh. Beards maybe?
D. You'll Get The Money Tomorrow!: Wow, it's... a common thief, you suspect! Innocent people are not usually that twitchy, but then neither are heroes! She must be incredibly brave to risk hanging every single day just for a loaf of bread or somebody's prized locket!
E. Senility And Fire: Hello old lady! You like burning things? I like burning things too! Let's find you some things to burn, but first how about you repeat the following words to your friends there?
Here's A Thought, You'll Need It (Pick any number, if selecting a plan involving manipulating construction plans)A. Not A Box: Encourage a spacious wood structure of some kind. It'll give you a place to live, which you presently lack entirely.
B. Not Built Out Of Sticks: Encourage a sturdy stone structure of some kind. It'll keep you safe from boars and it's harder to build poor-quality structures out of stone.
C. Fit For Human Habitation: Encourage a lavish mansion of some kind. Your idea of "lavish" will have to be downscaled to whatever these ratcatchers have on hand, but if you don't talk big they'll point to a tree hollow and call it a day.
D. Don't Get Many Travelers Out Here: Encourage a sturdy fort focused on defense. There are maneating hogs out there and these "people" will no doubt bring
E. Abandon Ship: Try to convince them that this is stupid. This is so stupid. Building a shack in the middle of nowhere will not make them any less terrible and poor, it will just make them more eaten by pigs.
Exile Alicia Denrose Nithrilium Addoir-Tarkon
"Good" Health
Terrible Morale
-
10+1 Diplomacy
10 Conversation
40+5 Seduction
10+5 Court Manners
32 Flattery
0 Administration
0 Organization
1 Bookkeeping
10 Intrigue
10 Sneaking
10 Eavesdropping
10 Coercion
10 Torture
10 Knowledge
10 Sorcery
10 Vile Sorcery
-
Excellent Cornflower Blue Tight Silk Dress [+5 Court Manners, +5 Seduction]
Fine Copper Turquoise Necklace [+1 Diplomacy]
Large Knife [?]
Author
Topic: [SG] Stepdaughter to Adventure [Update 5: Dealing With Devils] (Read 2617 times)