Print

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

[King Zultan]

Is it night?  If so, check the sky for constellations.  In addition, scan the horizons for mountains, buildings or signs of habitation, or other landmarks.  This might help us determine the location?

+1

[Devastator]

It's daytime, with the sun at midmorning on a mostly bare rocky hillside, with woods visible in the distance and a small creek running below.

..but not a bad idea, should it be night.

[ZBridges]

Well, wherever it is, it's day there and here it's night.  In that case, check the main building.

[King Zultan]

Well, wherever it is, it's day there and here it's night.  In that case, check the main building.

+1

[Naturegirl1999]

What will planting the seeds accomplish?

If the seeds, pots and building are filled with magic symbols, maybe something will happen when seeds are planted in magic pots, so we can see what happens if anything, learning what magic does by trial and error

[Devastator]

You go to the main building next, flying towards it.  As you enter it, it seems to be mostly empty, although not quite as new as the other buildings.. you can see some faint dirt signs on the floor showing that somone has moved through the hallways, although not many people judging from the cleanliness.  You mean to run through the rest of the building, to quickly get an overview of what is going on, but you're stopped dead by the first room.

It's a classroom.  There is a large slate at the front of the room, and a number of adult-sized desks in it.  There is quite a lot of open space, too, which is a bit confusing until you look closer, seeing that the floor is made of gray stone, and there is plenty of chalk and drawing tools about, such as large compasses, straightedges and protractors.

This is a room for the teaching of magic, obviously.

And with that, you wake up, morning sunshine streaming into your room.  You quickly go to your desk to sketch out the diagrams you've tried your best to memorize and do a pretty good job.  You're not sure if they're right, but you do remember some parts of them properly, and even if you didn't get them all correct, you should have enough to work with.

Spoiler: status (click to show/hide)

Week 4

Assets and Abilities:
Prestige = 0
14 silver.
Concealable fighting dagger
Adventurer's diary (partially studied)
->Information on southern jungle nations
->Secret locations in southern jungle.
->Information on spiritual beings, spiritual being society, spiritual being outlook.
->Information on animal life of the southern jungle
->Information on magical beings of the southern jungle
->Instruction on spirit-related magical rituals.
->Instruction on an unknown magical field.
->Instruction on wilderness survival methods
->Instruction on what seems to be the language of the southern jungle nations.
->Instruction on an unknown language.
Plan for trading in cloves.  Buy at a very cheap price, wait an uncertain amount of time for the price to rise, sell at a profit.  Costs 4 silver a bag, can yield 2-3 silver a bag, barring additional events.
Miscellaneous magical diagrams, captured from one of your dreams.  Uncertain accuracy.

Skills:
Charming, +1

Allies:
Employed by Li Yue, merchant, 1 prestige, 0 favors.  Paid 2 silver/week, acting as a servant and guard, takes four actions.
Huan Zhang, diplomat, 2 prestige, 0 favors.  Owe 11 silver, 1/week interest.
Li Song, martial arts student, 0 prestige, 0 favors.
Upscale Weapon Shop.

[ZBridges]

Pay off our loan.  That is an action that does not require any time.  Once that is done, ask Zhang if he knows anyone familiar with magic that may be able to decipher the symbols for pay.

[Devastator]

The weather clears up this week, and things are bright and sunny, calm and cheerful.  It's so good, that you feel energized and you have the time for an extra action this week.

There is some minor intrigue this week in the Foreign quarter, as a renown internation figure in glassworking has arrived, apparently to hand-deliver a number of pieces made on commission to the city governor.  This is a somewhat large deal, as apparently payment is to consist of a few important treasures as well as a supply of the finest silk and porcelain, stuff that's normally reserved for the domestic market only.  There are also a few hundred foreign soldiers in the city for bodyguarding and securing the goods, which is quite unusual.. there are only a couple of cities in the empire where such foreigners are even allowed.

Your work goes mostly uneventfully.  You earn your pay, but there are no attacks or rumors of attacks, and ordinary servant work for you is nothing special.  You do come to the conclusion that it isn't an inside job, though, as the other people don't seem to have particularly strong opinions about Li Yue.  They are more than a little spooked about the attack, but they mostly think it was a failed attempt at robbery.  You do feel that any further incidents would cause them to flee the premises.

Three actions remain to you this week.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Week 4

Assets and Abilities:
Prestige = 0
16 silver.
Concealable fighting dagger
Adventurer's diary (partially studied)
->Information on southern jungle nations
->Secret locations in southern jungle.
->Information on spiritual beings, spiritual being society, spiritual being outlook.
->Information on animal life of the southern jungle
->Information on magical beings of the southern jungle
->Instruction on spirit-related magical rituals.
->Instruction on an unknown magical field.
->Instruction on wilderness survival methods
->Instruction on what seems to be the language of the southern jungle nations.
->Instruction on an unknown language.
Plan for trading in cloves.  Buy at a very cheap price, wait an uncertain amount of time for the price to rise, sell at a profit.  Costs 4 silver a bag, can yield 2-3 silver a bag, barring additional events.
Miscellaneous magical diagrams, captured from one of your dreams.  Uncertain accuracy.

Skills:
Charming, +1

Allies:
Employed by Li Yue, merchant, 1 prestige, 0 favors.  Paid 2 silver/week, acting as a servant and guard, takes four actions.
Huan Zhang, diplomat, 2 prestige, 0 favors.  Owe 11 silver, 1/week interest.
Li Song, martial arts student, 0 prestige, 0 favors.
Upscale Weapon Shop.

[ZBridges]

My thought is that it might be useful to get a referral at the Wind dojo for a more suitable dojo (one that practices a blade martial art), then begin training at the new dojo, and then ask Zhang for advice on finding someone that can help us with these symbols.

I actually don't think we should immediately pay off the loan, as it might be useful (if riskier) to float some cash.

[syvarris]

...Hrm.  I was going to agree not to pay off the loan, but then I noticed that we have 16 silver.  Holding the money is halving our (admittedly crappy) pay, and if we aren't using it for anything, then holding it is dangerous in itself.  We could be robbed or spend it on a trinket, again.

I dislike the current job, which uses 80% of our actions and pays minimum on half of them, but there's an argument for keeping it if it's largely mundane and doesn't drain update time; our in-game time is of little value, beyond possibly outracing the nebulous evil that we're supposed to stop (and which the game likely won't survive long enough to see).  In other words, it uses 80% of our in-universe time to generate a pittance, but if its mundanity functionally accelerates the passage of time by 500%, then it's arguably free money.

Considering Dev ended the last update with "Three actions remain to you this week", this probably isn't how the job works, but I still don't want to leave it immediately because that's creating bad blood.

The alternative to paying off the loan would be to buy the dumb cloves, unless we're gonna leave the job.  It's very unlikely we'll be able to make a profit by using the money with one action a week, and at one action a week the price stabilization might arrive in a reasonable period of time.


As for the combat dojo stuff, I talked to Dev about it in IRC.  Surprisingly, it'll (probably) only take four weeks (at one session a week, which is most efficient) to get a +1 to general combat.  That is, with or without a weapon, both defensively and offensively, from the wind studio.  That's rapid enough to consider, though I don't think combat is actually all that valuable a skill.  It's nice to have, but a +1 in a d12 system isn't enough to rely on, especially if failing a roll might lead to death.

Really, we should be focused on building contacts (we already have a bonus to charm, and contacts seem powerful in Sh), and on magic (which is often brokenly powerful and outright unfair, plus prolly especially easy for us).  Physical combat is an inevitability, so it has value, but it's also not strong as a focus, so we shouldn't over-invest in it.

...Aside from going to work, go to the dojo once this week.  The extra action should be spent on studying the magic book and magic symbols, trying to figure out... anything, really.

[ZBridges]

Any reason not to consult an expert regarding the magic symbols?  We know nothing of magic, so our attempts to study the symbols alone will probably not yield much useful information.

Thus, two words: hot drinks.

Also, the GM stated previously that we can select a topic from the book to study.  We should identify the most useful looking topic (available in our status) and study that.

-1 to studying the book without selecting a specific topic.

[Devastator]

If you say no topic I'll just pick one randomly, by the way.

[Egan_BW]

Obtain HOT DRINKS

[syvarris]

I don't want to search out a magic expert, for two reasons.  One, it's an action to go find a magic expert.  That action can fail, and on a success it just gives us the option to spend another action that might be more efficient.  Two, we don't have any reason to get a good deal.  We have no magical skill or knowledge to make ourselves look like someone who isn't some hick who by chance found a magic book.  Magic potential, yes, probably, but I expect we'd at best get a deal of "okay, give me half your money and I'll do work that you could do yourself at half the speed."

I'm fine with selecting a specific topic, I just don't know of any topics that have been mentioned.  I'm just as happy to work towards a general +1 in magic, but if there's an actual list of topics that has been mentioned, I'll happily choose a priority.  ER had to point out there's a list in status.  Study spirit-related magic rituals.  After going to the dojo.

Not having a specific type of magic in mind is not a reason to not study magic.

Obtain HOT DRINKS

-1

[ZBridges]

To your first point, it cannot fail to ask Zhang for a reference to a professional (someone legitimate that probably wouldn't rip us off), and there may be some danger in experimenting with magic without proper safeguards.  There's no reason not to at least get a quote from a professional.

As for the topics, you can find those in the status.  It's available in the last update.