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[EveryZig]

Alternately, the sickness might be an effect of the vitality loss rather than an effect of the mana potion.

[Elvisdogs]

Alternately, the sickness might be an effect of the vitality loss rather than an effect of the mana potion.

Or it could be that the mana potion has an adverse effect on Necromancers. Maybe since it was originally made for a life mage (ergo our polar opposite) it was like drinking poison.

[GlyphGryph]

I support Cellmonks shopping list.

As far as the potion goes... we were pretty irresponsible with our magic, but the potion did make us "giddy" (almost drunk!)

Maybe it was a side effect of draining our mana reserves completely twice in a row, though. Anyways, since we'll be seeing our mage friend on the way out, I imagine, we can ask her when we get there. Also, we should send her a letter letting her know we'll try to visit on our way to the outside, and we should try to visit.

[monk12]

Hmmm. That's strange. The mana potion seemed to have the same effect on you an alcoholic beverage might have on a human.

Are the elves familiar with alcoholic beverages? Are there any drinks less-than-graceful elves quaff away at in the night? It might help us understand the nature of this potion we have yet to find out how to make.

You roll over and stuff your head beneath a pillow, away from the stabbing light of day. You haven't felt this hungover since the morning after your coming of age party. Your thoughts keep churning, despite the headache- is this a result of casting from Vitality? Maybe the workout you gave your Mana pool? Some other Necromancy related shenanigans? Actually, you first remember feeling off right after that Mana potion...

Wait a minute- that fruity taste... Sunberry! You hadn't recognized it at the time, what with the spiciness and strange texture, but you're reasonably sure the base of that potion was Sunberry Wine- a rather potent potable, as such things go. Elves- like most races- freely partake of alcoholic beverages, though they favor wines. Sunberry Wine, in particular, is a traditional Elven beverage, and the berries grow only in the Vale. It is famed for its strength and unique flavor, and is Yicelafo's prime export.

But that still doesn't explain the spicy taste, or the texture, and it only raises more questions. Do Mana potions need to be made of booze? Does the process of making a Mana potion make booze stronger? Is that why Humans buy the potions- for the side effects?

Maybe it was a side effect of draining our mana reserves completely twice in a row, though. Anyways, since we'll be seeing our mage friend on the way out, I imagine, we can ask her when we get there. Also, we should send her a letter letting her know we'll try to visit on our way to the outside, and we should try to visit.

You think it would be a good idea to visit Elana Foundwasps, and resolve to write her another letter. You remember, however, that you haven't heard a response from your last letter- maybe your messenger delivered the other letters first, or perhaps she's already at the Fair. You haven't heard back from your parents, either, although it is a good bet that your Father is leading the Caravan's escort through the Vale.

I guess we need to meet Omo.. tomorrow was it? We should get all our supplies ready. Fishing equipment, A hatchet, I'm not sure how skilled we are at archery, but a bow and some arrows might come in handy. We also should bring a tinderbox, unless we can start fires with magic, or elves have knowledge in white phosphorous. We want plenty of flatbread, some lemons to avoid scurvy, and some salt just in case we find ourselves far from the coast. We need a flask for water (other than our potion vial, which we may find another use for). We also need plenty of rope, some leather to wrap our feet in if it gets cold (and to experiment with), and some herbs in case of injury. We want a frame to pack this all onto, and a leather bag to mount on the frame and sleep in. A shortsword might come in handy, but it might be a bit expensive, and isn't a necessity. If we have or can get our hands on a larger knife or sword, we should find a light one. We don't want to weigh ourselves down too much.

Eventually, you muster the effort needed to get out of bed. After addressing some basic hygiene needs (you've got a nasty bruise on your shin, by the by,) you decide to do some preparation for your eventual departure from Yicelafo. You don't have a specific meeting planned with Omo, just the intention to join him at the Fair before asking the Elders permission to leave. Still, you'd like to be ready to go when you do get permission.

You start with the items you already own- starting with a large leather backpack, you start filling it with your fishing equipment, flint and steel, a waterskin, and a change of clothes. Alright, two changes. You should be able to buy traveling food for about 5 copper/day, lemons and salt for a few more. A good hatchet can run as high as 6 silver, but maybe you can haggle for a used one. You don't have a clue how much various herbal remedies cost- you'd have to consult a healer. A bedroll will probably run you a silver piece. Silk ropes would be ideal since they are both lighter and stronger, but are too expensive- Rope Reed fiber ropes cost 2cp/5ft, and you could pack a coil of 50 feet without too much trouble.

A shortbow and arrows would be nice, but is out of your price range- they normally sell for something like 30 silver. A shortsword, though requiring considerably less craftsmanship than a bow, is similarly expensive due to the general lack of metal in Yicelafo. A good, reliable metal dagger will probably run you 4 silver in the Vale. Both the shortsword and dagger will probably be cheaper if you buy from the Caravan at the Fair, though the sword likely won't drop into your price range.

Spoiler: Current Shopping List (click to show/hide)

In order of priority,
Trail Rations (3 days) (1.5 sp)
Bedroll (1 sp)
Rope Reed rope (20ft) (0.8 sp)
Hatchet (lower price the better) (<6 sp)
Healing Herbs (?)
Dagger (4 sp)

Does that list look right to you? And how would you like to spend the afternoon, once the shopping is done?

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)

Vitality- 9/10
Mana- 12/12
XP- 15/20
Inventory- 6.6 Silver Pieces, Elven Tunic, Elven Cloak, Belt Knife, Small Empty Potion Bottle
Abilities- Sense Necromancy(Passive)
Skills- Competent Fisher
Status- Bleh
Seven days since Manifestation

Spoiler: Spells (click to show/hide)

General
Detect Magic- 1 MP - detects spells and magical items near you
Calm Animal- 1 MP - causes wild animals to become peaceful
Sense Vitality- 1 MP - you can detect the Vitality of living things, with a bit of effort

Necromancy
Raise Zombie- ? MP - You can take the formerly living body and turn it into a zombie, but you lack understanding or even much knowledge of the particulars. You need practice.
Command Undead- 2 MP - You can merge your awareness with an undead creature, gauging its general condition and issuing explicit orders it will obey to the best of its ability. You can also give orders that will persist beyond the end of the spell.
Steal Vitality- 3 MP - You can suck the Vitality out of living things. This spell removes up to 6 Vitality from the target and gives 1/3 of it to you.
Animate Object- 4 MP - You can force Vitality into inanimate objects, things that were never alive to begin with. It seems to be more complicated than Zombification though- your Rock doesn't do anything, which is hardly useful. you'll need to experiment with this more.
Alter Golem- 2 MP- You can make basic alterations to an existing construct or animated object.

Spoiler: Omo Thunderjaw (click to show/hide)

Vitality- 13/13
Mana- 3/3
XP- 20/30
Inventory- Elven Tunic, Elven Cloak, Belt Knife
Abilities- Track, Survivalist
Skills- Novice Observer, Competent Ambusher, Competent Staff User, Poor Liar
Status- Eager to leave

Spoiler: Notable Figures (click to show/hide)

Your Parents- Your mother is a prominent Mage serving in Yicelafo itself, and your father is a Ranger Lieutenant, currently patrolling the borders.

Omo Thunderjaw- Your best friend, brave and true. He is currently an aspiring Ranger, and is currently home on leave.

Elana Foundwasps- An old flame of yours, she is currently studying with the Mage the next town over.

Pevo Zephyrtempest- The village Sage- you can ask him for knowledge of what history the elves possess. He is somewhat absent minded and easily distracted.

Ari Wetdawn- The village Mage, here to cure ills and bless crops. He knows much of Life magic as well as magic in general, but is also most likely to discern your true nature.

Spoiler: Planned Experiments (click to show/hide)

-This one's a bit morbid, but bear with me. Take two crayfish. Shell one, leaving the meat inside as intact as possible. Remove the flesh from the second while leaving the shell as intact as possible. Attempt to revive both and compare the results. Is vitality in flesh or in bone? In both? Neither? Regardless of what we find, it should prove instructive.
-If you ever have enough spare mana, see if you can control multiple dead crayfish at once, and if there's an upper limit on how many perspectives you can hold at once. Stop if you get a headache, feel dizzy or anything else seems strange.
-See what the maximum range is for controling one of your zombies, and if it expands with practice. May take more than a day of effort, but it'll be good exercise.
-Try to find out if zombies have a memory, if they can be made to recognize specific objects. I recomend starting with a ball or something, and instructing a zombie to follow that specific ball wherever it goes. After testing it to make sure it works how we expect, substitute in another ball that has a different colour or a different size, and see if the zombie knows it isn't the right ball to follow. We can move to more abstract things from there, like having if understand things like "any ball" "any non-red ball" "the biggest ball" and stuff like that, or even to sort a pile of pebbles into stacks by colour.
-Attempt to raise a pile of ashes from a cremated corpse.
-Raise an earthworm and then, once it is raised, cut it in half at the border between two segments. Which ends, if any, are still animate? Continue cutting into halves at segment lines until all parts are dead or it has been divided into a prostomium, peristomium, pygidium and a pile of ordinary segments.
-Make a zombie insect that will stand still, then see if we can take its vitality when it is behind a rock (out of our line of sight).
-See how much damage a dead body can sustain before it is unraisable
-Also, it seemed interesting that the loop was recognized as the center of life. We should test raising different rope Golems, some who are linear, some who are looped or knotted in different ways. How does the golem react to music, and what if we made one out of clay, with more distinguished features?
-Finally,  We have silver on us. we should test how it reacts with our magic. Can we put vitality in silver? what happens if we drop a silver piece through a Golem's head?

Spoiler: Maps (click to show/hide)

World Map


Yicelafo

[GlyphGryph]

How long a walk is it to the fair? I think, experimentation wise, we could do with laying low for a little while. And everyone we need to talk to and everything we need to do is there. Since we know we can use our magic on things we can't see (remember raising the crayfish), we can do some simple magic on the walk so as not to worry about it expressing itself during the night. Concentrate on trying to understand it, focus it, notice the details. Nothing particularly new or experimental, just going over what we know and see if we notice anything new.

Some simple spells we can cast on the walk:
Get some more dead crayfish or something else fairly whole in a bag.
Insure we can raise them through the bag like we did that night, but keep them in the bag. See if we can raise two at once.
How do they interact?
Command them both to remain still and calm. We haven't done much commanding, so pay careful attention to the experience.
Drop some silver in the bag and see if they react.
Finally, attempt to "Alter Golem" on one of the zombies. Is there anything we can change? Can we mash them together and make them one zombie?

That should easily drain most of our mana for the day, and it's all stuff we can do on the walk without being obvious about it.

[EveryZig]

I kind of think that on the way to the fair we should just keep our mana below max with non-necromancy spells. There is probably a decent chance that we will encounter somebody one the road there.

[monk12]

Yicelafo (and its associated Caravan Fair) is about half a days walk upriver from your village. It is nearly midday now, so it would be approaching sunset when you arrive. The Caravan Fair is basically Elf Woodstock, and a shantytown of tents and campsites will steadily grow around the city throughout the week. Omo probably has a tent set up somewhere if you feel like meeting up with him, or if you don't feel like "roughing it" in the mild Yicelafo night you can probably crash at your Mother's house in the city.

The river closer to Yicelafo will be more densely populated than your home village, but the paths will be unusually full of other Elves going to the Fair. The traffic will only get worse as the week goes on.

[GlyphGryph]

I stand by my plan. Figuring out how to surreptitiously use our magic will be incredibly useful, and that requires practicing. If people are REALLY worried, stop off the road aways on our journey (to answer the call of nature, if anyone is suspicious) and run our experiments there, but the key is to run them all while keeping our zombies IN THE BAG and the bag CLOSED.

[Cellmonk]

I stand by my plan. Figuring out how to surreptitiously use our magic will be incredibly useful, and that requires practicing. If people are REALLY worried, stop off the road aways on our journey (to answer the call of nature, if anyone is suspicious) and run our experiments there, but the key is to run them all while keeping our zombies IN THE BAG and the bag CLOSED.

Agreed. This doesn't seem all too dangerous. Its not like elves will be traveling secretly along the road without light. And the purple light probably wont shine out of a leather bag or a many-layered cloth bundle. Though you might end up altering golem on the bag itself accidentally. And you can always crush the contents with your unbooted foot. Or do elves wear boots?

[GlyphGryph]

Though you might end up altering golem on the bag itself accidentally.

We won't be stealing any vitality and infusing it into the bag, so the bag will not be a golem and thus (most likely) not a valid target for the spell.

[Grek]

Shopingwise, we're in a bit of bad shape:
Our total shopping list adds up to somewhere on the order of 1.4 gold. We have 6.6 silver. We're going to have to forgo buying some of the things that we'd like to have.

Step one is to ask Omo what he's bringing and strike any duplicates. If Omo is planning to bring a hatchet, 50' of rope, 3 spare ranger knives and a fully stocked medical pouch, we don't really need to be bringing the same. If it's still not enough, there' some other things to get rid of.

The dagger is an obvious answer, it would be redundant to have both a dagger and a knife. The hatchet is another obvious thing to drop, due to the 6 silver pricetag that would eat up 90% of our money all by itself. Even if we get it for cheaper, there's basically no reason for us to be chopping wood when we can collect deadfall in the traditional elfy manner. The rope is less obvious, since it's the cheapest item on the list, but we honestly don't have much use for rope outside of making another rope golem. It's not like we're planning to climb a mountain or something.

One thing that is notably missing from our shopping list is Writing Materials. Our ostensible purpose for going on this trip is to study the history of our people and, as such, we need to be prepared to actually take some notes so we have something to show for our efforts when/if we come back. Preference goes to charcoal and rope reed paper (cheap, non-spilling and lets us make rubbings of gravestones and markers!), but ink and/or vellum parchment is also acceptable.

I recomend the following:

Spoiler: Shopping List: (click to show/hide)

In order of priority,
Trail Rations (3 days) (1.5 sp)
Bedroll (1 sp)
Writing Materials (up to 1 sp)
Hatchet (up to 2sp, if Omo doesn't have one)
Healing Supplies (ask Omo what he recomends to bring)

[monk12]

I will note that your belt knife is basically a small, dull dagger- a new, larger dagger would be a much more effective weapon, if it comes to that.

As far as writing materials goes, your best bet is either Parchment(2 cp/sheet) + Charcoal/Chalk (1 cp/10pc), a Wax tablet (1sp), or a combination of the two. If you indulge in a Scroll Case (1 sp) you will negate the slight chance that your charcoal/chalk writings will be smudged beyond legibility, besides being generally more organized.

Spoiler: Longwinded Explanation (click to show/hide)

Ink is the most permanent solution for writing needs, but is a bit out of your price range at 8 sp for a vial. Charcoal is definitely the most economic solution, as a copper will get you ten sticks- chalk is a similarly priced alternative that is more difficult to read on paper/parchment, but easier to read on, say, a cave floor. Both have a tendency to get smudged, though this risk is readily negated with a Scroll Case (1 sp).

Paper is unknown to the elves (as the process requires a lot of wood,) but Rope Reed Papyrus serves the same niche. Elven Papyrus is extremely high quality, but it is still less flexible than paper, and can only be inscribed upon with ink. But isn't the added expense and hassle worth saving poor innocent trees? A single sheet of Papyrus will cost 4 cp.

Parchment is the commonly accepted alternative to Papyrus among the Elves. On the one hand, it has a noticeable odor, is more affected by humidity and extreme heat or cold, and needs good maintenance to keep ink from fading over the years- on the other hand, it is cheaper and widely available. Parchment costs 2 cp per sheet.

A Wax Tablet is a wooden tablet covered with wax, and comes with a cover and stylus. It is reusable, making it ideal for notes, quick arithmetic, or (small) maps, and whatever is written on it is well protected- however, you basically only have 2 pages worth of space to write things before you have to start erasing old stuff. Pretty much all scribes and secretaries will carry these.

[Grek]

We have the dashing and handsome Omo Thunderjaw to protect us. Or, failing that, our magic. If we really need a weapon, a wooden quarterstaff would be far more practical and would undoubtably cost much less.

As for writing suplies, I think 1 set of charcoal sticks and 4 vellum scrolls would be our best bet. 8 pages of writing available.

We can always get more/better supplies as needed once we have more money.

[GlyphGryph]

We have 6.6 silver, so my proposed shopping list is...

Trail Rations(1.5)(5.1 remain)
Bedroll (1)(4.1 remain)
Rope (.(3.3 remain)
5 parchment + Scroll Case (How many pachments does a scroll case protect?) (2) (1.3 remain)
10xCharcoal (.1)(1.2 remain)
Wax Tablet (1)(.2 remain)

Also, another idea for stepping off the path to experiment on the way - we thought we saw some useful herbs.

Will our parents be likely to show up at the fair? If so... MOOOOOOOCH

[Dasmatarix]

Posting to watch, loving this thread so far, keep it up.