Week 2: I'm Helping!*claps slowly*
My prediction is that the Princess dies by the 10th week. Probably sooner.
Your optimism disturbs me.
I give it turn 3, tops.
"Now you have a goal. Sadly, nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished without Sacrifice. And so, Sacrifice is a crucial branch of magic, able to do great things. It has great costs, but it need not be you, or I, who pays them. It is easy enough to find a peasant willing to sacrifice themselves to let their family live better, so sad as their lives are."
Rouse some peasants with the need to fix its problems with .. aristocrats probably take their houses or something.
Get the princess to sacrifice the best of these peasants, as a first foray into sacrificial magic.
[3] You manage to convince a gaggle of peasants that some noble family or another is ruining everything and that they need to come with you to stop it. Then you ritually sacrifice them with a speech about necessary sacrifices and the greater good. And a knife. Or rather, you try to have the princess sacrifice them, but this only goes middlingly. The princess seems to handle carving open peasants with a knife pretty well, and even gets the insincere apology bit down pretty nicely, but seems to struggle with the actual energy-directing part that makes this High Magic and not Serial Murder.
Overall, an okay week.
Both: +1 Sacrifice"Someone forgot to put a warning about the nightmarish abomination locked in the basement and now the poor thing is alone and lost in the tower. Be careful with it."
Continue with the lessons of Dagon magic, but try to teach the princess that she doesn't have to be afaird off the basement. The difference between the darkness and light is that you can't see the horrors that lurk in the shadows while at broad daylight your mind would break completely upon sighting them. If they hide in the dark, it's because they fear of what is outside. I will continue the lessons on the basement II. The fact that she has an affinity to sea cucumbers just helps me because they also live in sea water and can be affected by Dagon magic.
If I have enough time, move all sea cucumber tanks to the basement II and empty them there. If there is not enough sea water down there, fill the basement II with more sea water, enough to be able to float, but not much so people can also walk on it. Once that is done, teach her in Dagon magic by using it to mutate the sea cucumbers and try to make her stop fearing the basement. If Nji is going to be helping me, then Maxime can't stop both of us, right?
"Talking about sacrifice, I believe doing a pact with an infernal being would be better and more straightforward than sacrifice magic. Better boons and the payment is almost always you already have."
[1] The lessons go pretty well this week, until the princess does something slightly off (or slightly brilliant!) and begins uncontrollably vomiting tentacles. This, uh... slows down, somewhat, and eventually tapers off, but she still retches up twitching sea life (parts of sea life?) now and then.
She's not happy about this.
Princess: Tentacle (W)RetchEr, I didn't get the bonus points to magical theory.
"Sigh...Miss Marcy, if you don't come out of that tank, you won't Forget that eldritch magic. Bathing in that water won't be that good for your skin. Marcy, I can promise you that I will avoid teaching you magics without your consent. As for the others, I am sure we mages can reach an agreement about what not to involve you with.
Archeux looked through his belongings for a gavel, and, failing that, decided that knocking on a table would do well enough. He called out, on each of the floors, that he would be holding an impromptu guild meeting on the fourth flood to address some rules for preserving the princess's mind, body, soul, sanity, existence, and, most of all, interest in learning magic.
Continue her education on general magic, from within the tank if necessary. She won't be able to do basic, general spells from in the tank, so the next classes will have more of a focus on the two of them figuring out what branches of magic she is innately interested and attuned to.
Archeux knocks on the table in a firm, yet awkward manner. "I have called here a meeting amongst ourselves to impose some rules upon ourselves for the preservation of the princess. I have only _ rules in mind, but these are but an outline on what we could agree upon, if anything. Firstly, whatever we try to teach or do with her, we should have consent in the first place. If she changes her mind afterward, though, we can still proceed with our lesson. Second, we are able to deny the princess a lesson if more people oppose the lesson than support it, but she can veto this if the opposition is less than double the support. We may not have any Oathmaking mages here to enforce this, but there should be enough trust among us for the time being. Now, who is in favor of these rules, who would like to suggest alterations, and who has not attended the meeting? "
[5] She enjoys the magical theory lessons enough to actually come out of her tank and stop insisting to be a form of sea life! Until one of your colleagues come near, of course.
Princess: Enthusiastic Magical Theory
Both: +2 Magical TheoryNallihen was satisfied with the princess' adequate learning pace. He'd expected some more difficulty in learning, or even complete failure since she was one hundred percent human and had previously been kept sheltered and away from the wonders of magic. There was still some hope his new pupil could actually maybe almost touch the very base of his marvelous talents.
What the dragon hybrid didn't like was having to deal with a princess who now insisted she was a sea cucumber. That was ridiculous! Just how weak did her mind have to be for it to break so easily? That was absurd! Nevertheless, he'd persevere. Teaching the royal hatchling did help him train his own skills, and maybe she'd stop being a cucumber if she gained more confidence and her frail mind recovered.
Keep teaching the princess Vitamancy since she still has interest in that. If she refuses, then instead try to use Charisma to convince her to accept the teachings.
[2] The spark seems to diminish somewhat, possibly because halfway through the week she asks how to use Vitamancy to stop vomiting tentacles everywhere. Normally Vitamancy would be very good at this sort of thing, but it really only covers physical
injuries. Vomiting tentacles is very clearly some kind of horrifying curse or mutation, which Vitamancy is... less well suited for.
Princess: Failed By Vitamancy"Um, sure Enoch. I'll help you with the lessons. I thought they were made out of stronger stuff. Like an adamantine skeleton. It's what makes them royal, right? Maybe they ran out when they were growing her."
Help Enoch with the lessons. Then, when he uses Dagon magic on the sea cucumber, grow fungi in the water and use Dagon magic on it.
[5] Your assistance on the lessons is invaluable, providing living tissues to demonstrate Dagon's power on. Unfortunately this at some point results in her vomiting tentacles repeatedly, which slightly mars the lesson into 'Dagon is a terrible weapon to be unleashed upon my worst enemies.'
Princess: Dagon Cruelty
Both: +2 Dagon Magic"I do not agree with creating rules. Our duty is to teach her and these rules go against this purpose by making our job harder. I also want to propose to flood the basement with sea water for her. It would be better than a small tank and would give us more space to be able to teach her. We could have her swim instead of staying on a small sea cucumber tank. Repurposing the basement and flooding it with sea water will greatly help the princess. She has a great affinity to sea magic."
"We have to remember that she is still young,
and can be easily manipulated and tricked. She doesn't know what is best for herself and our duty is to have her mature and learn about how does the world works. My proposition is to have the basement flooded with sea water and used as her new room because she has shown to enjoy the water. From there, I will continue tutoring her in the priestly magics with help of Nji, if he wishes to help with that instead of having her fight against the vermin of the tower with mushrooms. That was very dissapointing of you, my friend Nji. She could have gotten hurt. The least you could do now is to help me with the lessons of priestly magic."
"Enoch is observant," Cio said. "And since it is merely the first week, I'm seeing a lot in the Princess' character. No single person ever developed a sense of cruelty in just one week. The mind is not like that, as I've personally seen (do not tell the clergy this). We should start building her up there--not by guiding and holding her hand along the way, but by giving her the tools and letting her learn for herself, of course under guidance and encouraging support. The former ensures she will learn quicker; the latter ensures she will learn better. After all, meanspiritedness is...ah, say, a token of the spirit, from somewhat...negative influences early on in life, or at least by witness of cruel actions.
"I will attempt to help her with this, by showing the building blocks of insight. We will be training in the guild garden, which I could spruce up if anyone would help me with this."
Cio bit her lip as she wondered if her own eloquency was a guise enough for her understanding: There were little studies and scholars to back up her knowledge, but she felt in her head-spirits that this was right. She then adapted her own schedule to account for these times for the Princess--in her own opinion, at least backed by several other children, she noticed this was an important block for character building.
Use Prophetic properties to aid in the Princess' character building. Let her learn about cruelty, by countering it with understanding. (Or in anyway better for your writing--DO prophecying, but make it like telling parables about people's fates and otherwise. It's like storytelling, except I'm reading people's lives as storybooks, without the storybooks with me!)
If others help me with this task, adjust my action to Life Magic gardening for our garden! Some healthy herbal plants, some...err, possibly a geothermal aquifer link, and 'warding' plants that scare off insects while being beautiful and fragrant would be good.
((HAH, my '1' is exhausted! I shall not fail in this! she says, as she fails in this))
[1] You try to show her a better path, but every time you attempt a prophecy it ends up rather... counter to the point you were trying to make. Showing her things will get better yields visions of suffering and doom, insisting on the kindness of others reveals cruel mocking jeers in the tea leaves, and bringing her outside to see clouds shows her a cackling demon lord. Wow, it's got lightning inside the mouth and everything, that is impressive.
Anyway, the princess' cruelty is amplified.
Princess: Cruel -> Fated Cruelty"So, you're a sea cucumber. There's a few things you should know 'bout the life, if that's your choice."
Teach the Princess Sea Cucumber Care.
Dennis also nods agreement to the new rules.
[2] You attempt to teach the princess about sea cucumbers, but she seems pretty flat, constantly asking in deadpan how the sea cucumbers escape the tower and nodding in a disturbingly fatalistic manner when you admit they really don't. Overall you don't think she learned very much about caring for sea cucumbers.
Princess: Apathy For Life"So she wishes to believe she is a sea-cucumber, cares not about others, and is interested in politics. The future of our country is in safe hands, I am sure. Now let me see, do I still have my primers on childhood psychopathy and amniotic regression?"
So she's traumatised before being injured? Looks like Maxime's speciality will come in handy after all. She persuades the moths and spiders of the tower spin a cocoon of sorts, imbued through Maxime's art with the comfort and security of the womb, garaunteeing pleasant dreams. This should allow Marcille to indulge her need for protection and withdrawal, a natural consequence of the deaths of her parents and traumatic lessons, while giving her sufficient confidence to face the outside world during the daytime. Or at least somewhere to run to and recover when someone gets 'orribly murdered.
Maxime creates the cocoon in an out of the way corner, perhaps created by moving bookshelves around on the fourth floor, arranging them around a bed in one corner of the room. Important to have one's own room, and if people want to get books out, tough. Maxime carefully transfers her charge into it once the young woman is asleep, though only if the magical construct actually works.
Also attempt to prevent anyone trying to force Marcille into doing something she's horrified of, like going into the basement or tearing a man's throat open with a sacrificial blade.
"That might be the horror that was locked in the basement. Someone forgot to inform me about it and when I opened the basement, the thing fled into the rest of the tower. The nightmarish being has been haunting the tower since then. This is why I proposed flooding the basement with sea water and have her swim there instead of staying inside a small sea cuccumber tank. The monster probably is afaird of the basement after being locked there for so long and eon't return there if it's full of water. A safe place where the princess could peacefuly swim without being haunted by the abomination."
"Perhaps then your main priority would be to contain the nightmare, rather than inflict further trauma on a young woman already spending too much time as an echinoderm? Marcille seems to think that the horror still resides in the basement, and a princess who is a sea cucumber is little better than no princess at all."
[5] The good news is that everything is great!
The bad news is that a silk cocoon turned out to be insufficiently psychoarthropodic to generate from scratch, and beyond the capabilities of any bug you were able to convince. This left a more... ambitious approach with more... intriguing qualities and...
gooier, no,
more soothing complications.
Anyway, The Chrysalis is a work of art, but the princess keeps waking up, screaming, and leaping out of your arms every time you try to 'feed' her to it. This complicates your attempts to soothe her psyche, as rejection of modern brilliance and foresight typically does.
Self: +2 PsychoarthropodyEveryone:A represenative from the council comes by at the end of the week, nervously hoping to check on the young Marcille's progress. He passes out when she starts vomiting tentacles everywhere, though, so you don't think he got very good data.
Princess Marcille
Hates Tentacles And Hates Dagon And Hates THIS TOWER
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+0 Dabbling Sea Cucumber Mage (0/2)
+0 Dabbling Vitamancer (0/2)
+1 Novice Magical Theorist (0/4)
+0 Dabbling Dagon Priest (1/2)
-1 Incompetent Sacrificer (1/2)
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Failed By Vitamancy: It was supposed to help her. WHY CAN'T IT HELP HER?!
Enthusiastic Magical Theory: You don't have to be a sea cucumber when you love your classes!
Noodle Armed: Poor Marcy is not very martially inclined, tending to quake and quail at calls to valorous combat.
Fated Cruelty: The princess is fatalistic and bitter, believing in the cruelty and capriciousness of life and the malice of those around her.
Basement Phobia: The princess doesn't like going down there.
Dagon Phobia: For some strange reason the princess is afraid of an eldritch power beyond reckoning by mortal minds.
Dagon Cruelty: Revels in inflicting others with the ultimate in suffering- the touch of great Dagon.
Noble Cause: The princess believes that something must be done about the plight of the common man.
Cucumber Princess: Little Marcy insists she's a sea cucumber whenever somebody tries to drag her out of the sea cucumber tank to force her to learn eldritch magic.
Tentacle (W)Retch: Vomits tentacles from time to time. Understandably distraught at this.
Apathy For Life: The princess is a little callous about life, her own or otherwise.
Nallihen Talandr (Caellath)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Polymorpher (0/16)
+2 Apprentice Vitamancer (28)
+1 Novice Resilient (0/4)
+1 Novice Charismatic (0/4)
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The Great Crab: Worshiped by a nearby cult of terrified peasants who occasionally leave offerings to The Briny One. Attempts to explain that he is an evil and fearsome dragon rather than an arctic crab have failed.
Maxime Pfeiffer (NJW)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Psychoarthropodist (2/16)
+2 Apprentice Subterfugist (0/8)
+2 Apprentice Gemcrafter (0/8)
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Overlouse: Seems to have some kind of cultural or spiritual significance to the dream lice now infesting the tower, and who will occasionally leave her strange offerings or... maybe just garbage for her to take out? She's not really sure.
Nji (Secheral)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Mycomancer (0/16)
+2 Apprentice Life Mage (0/8)
+2 Apprentice Dagon Priest (2/8)
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Above the Law: Your reckless disregard for civility and law has earned you a fearsome reputation as a ruthless outlaw, not to be lightly crossed.
Enoch (randomgenericusername)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Dagon Priest (1/16)
+2 Apprentice Archarus Priest (0/8)
+2 Apprentice Hag Magic (0/8)
-
Starsucker: Has a knack for sucking nightmarish abominations into the world. Does not have a knack for controlling nightmarish abominations.
Dennis the Mage (enemy post)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Sea Cucumber Mage (2/16)
+2 Apprentice Sea Cucumber Caretaker (0/8)
+2 Apprentice Chef (0/8)
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Cucumber Lord: Has a deep affinity with sea cucumbers. This might not sounds useful or remarkable to the untrained ear, but lots of things sound different to mages than to normal people.
Archeux "Archie" Venison (OceanSoul)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Academic (0/16)
+2 Apprentice History Mage (0/8)
+1 Novice Enchanter (0/4)
+1 Novice Polymorpher (0/4)
+1 Novice Magical Theorist (0/4)
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Arkanikon: Has glimpsed the terrible truths of basic magic and recorded these unspeakable secrets into a blasphemous tome, available at most book shops and read widely by children. Has more familiarity with basic and intermagic principles, and haunted by swarms of living and ghostly children wanting autographs and deeper fell knowledge.
Cio Cioae (Tiruin)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Air Mage (0/16)
+2 Apprentice Prophet (0/8)
+1 Novice Life Mage (0/4)
+1 Novice Illusionist (0/4)
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Philosopher: Renowned as a guru and philosopher, granting improved understanding of foreign, sometimes downright alien and inexplicable, psychology and conditions.
Mordred (Nirur)
Healthy
-
+3 Adept Public Speaker (1/16)
+2 Apprentice Poll Mage (0/8)
+1 Novice Tactician (0/4)
+1 Novice Sacrificer (1/4)
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Noble Hero: Celebrated as a noble hero, especially by the vile aristrocracy and hungry wraiths of the Untouchable Wastes.