>>3845017
Well, crap. Two Cup Bearers have landed and are now blocking your way. Looks like the secret of your identity is about to be exposed. You need to come up with something quickly but what can you even realistically do? They, most likely, can see that the way you draw your power is unlike what any mortal mage could reach so explaining that you are just a normal person minding your business is most likely out. They also probably noticed how you lowered your energy collection rate as well. If they decide that you are one of the Outsiders, they would immediately report you to their patrons and thus you’d be on the radar of Ceno pantheon and most likely it would be the end of peaceful days for you. In fact, that could happen if the cracks in whatever lie that you make would get discovered and you don’t have any bulletproof options for this one.

You can just admit that you are an Outsider, which would mean that you’d get the attention of the pantheon and potentially others too. You’d also probably get escorted to some representative so you could immediately attempt to reach some kind of agreement with them. However, it is unlikely that you could continue to freely do whatever you want on the frontier. There are binding international agreements that you might be forced to follow such as limiting the spread of technology. If you get discovered at a later date you probably could use the same argument as with Holies who gave out more technology before the treaties were signed. In addition, an extra deity is a big deal for any pantheon so you expect that there would be attempts to persuade you to join up and maybe even some pressuring which would only worsen once other pantheons discover your existence.

Running or attempting to fight your way out are very risky even if possible. You are comparable to a strong Cup Bearer, but your energy reserves are at the third of their capacity. Then again, your opponents are not combat oriented Cups so there is a chance that you could potentially overpower them. If you do that, however, it is unlikely that you’d be able to keep your goods. Plus, a redhead warrior in golden armor is not a very broad description and you assume that you’d get discovered in a short order after the fact. Also, you doubt that their patrons would take kindly if you manage to wound or kill them.

>>3845019
You could attempt to bullshit you being a goddess in disguise, but all Ceno gods likely use similar trinkets produced by Valentina so the cups might require you to remove the masking item, which you don’t have. You are also not sure if you’d want to introduce yourself as a deity from another pantheon or some independent party since you have no idea how Ceno looks at them in their territories.

You have Nike’s ring, which is used in training of her Muses. In addition, she has the largest number of cups in the pantheon and thus it is possible for others to not know every single one of her cups personally or even by name. You could introduce yourself as one of her new Cups, as a Cup-In-Training or as a candidate for a cup. You were already introduced to the pantheon as a candidate after all. However, you don’t know how exactly Nike’s training is conducted. Would the ring be too much for a candidate? Are there any credentials required for full fledged muses? Would the ring even work as a credential?

In any case, you need to make a decision now since the Cups introduce themselves to you and politely inquire about who you are. Ninmah cup’s name is Deia and she is doing all the talking while Belkh’s cup is called Haris and they mostly just hover behind her without a word. Well, “good cop-bad cop” is an approach as old as time after all. Well, it is time for an answer.

>Introduce yourself as an Outsider. They caught you red handed
>Introduce yourself as a goddess in disguise and ask them not to mind you. Maybe a display of potent psychic power would work as a credential?
>Introduce yourself as one of the new Nike’s Muses and provide the ring as a credential. It fits the most with the expression of your powers
>Introduce yourself as Nike’s Muse- In- Training and provide the ring as a credential. It most likely fits with the ring evidence
>Introduce yourself as Nike’s Muse candidate and provide the ring. It fits the most with the story behind your last visit
>You don’t want to introduce yourself. Bust out your powers and attempt to leave at high speed. You will lose your cows and bought goods
>You demand to remain anonymous and communicate your readiness to resist with force if they push further
>You have another idea: (Write-in)

This is, as you’ve probably guessed a high-risk situation. Each “lie” option has a hidden value that determines the probability of the lie being discovered. The lie that least contradicts with evidence and other lies has the smallest chance of being discovered

>>3845021

>Introduce yourself as Nike’s Muse candidate and provide the ring. It fits the most with the story behind your last visit

This is hard, we should try to reach Nike and tell her what happened as soon as we can

The other monster hunters can also corroborate thid story since we were with Nike when we slayed the beast

>>3845025
>>3845021
i support this, it is the closest with the evidence and has the highest chance of keep our secret

but after this we need to figure out what we are going to do, this won't work for long

we probably should at least check out the other 2 countries pantheons, so that we can make an informed decision

>>3845021
>You have another idea: (Write-in)
>Introduce yourself as Nike’s friend and candidate for Muse training, as to show connection to higher hierarchial powers and also an implied intent to be on same side as the quering cups.

>>3845027
>>3845025
Support both.

>>3845026
I'm kinda sold on Ceno already, we know that uncle was mad at Elspeth but theybwprked together and he trusted her, besides, our village is in Ceno territory, even if at the border, I don't really like the religious nuts or the high school clicks on the other 2
Plus, Nike is a good friend

Where is the closest oracle we can use to contact Nike? Is there one back in Farsalos already?

>>3845030
i agree with your assessment mostly, Dan trusting her helps a big deal and we don't want Farsalos to have to choose between us and their country and quite frankly neither want Ag

i would support joining the ceno pantheon without meeting the other 2, as long as we could at least meet representatives of them after joining, we don't want to be part of any 3 way match in any shape or form

the last point is, since we have the pod of another SG, us joining would be incredible valuable, even more so than a usual SG

>>3845037
Regarding the salvaged pod, I don't remember if we told Nike' about it. If not, then we could hide that fact.

>>3845049
We haven't yet, but I was planning on telling later when we needed help bringing it back up since she would have access to materials.

Depending on how things go we can decide if we hide or not.
But most importantly, if we manage to dodge these guys we have to talk to her fast, she took a risk by hiding us so we have to let her know and see what to do.

>>3845055
Since we are not too far away from the polis, I will add an option to return and immediately head to Nike's oracle after this.

>>3845049
I think we did, since I remember a comment about elspethes lightning power being able to open pods

>>3845059
Power them rather

>>3845059
I remember that I mentioned about Elspeth and about Yaw's hydroelectric dam, I just didn't remember if it was IC from Nike' or in an OOC question. I think that one anon asked in IC but I was not sure.

>>3845025
>>3845026
>>3845027
>>3845030
Alright, I'll try to get this all in one. Writing.

>>3845063
I assume it would be a short question asked and answered in between larger posts, so it is debatable

>>3845065
Sorry guys, had an IRL thing taking up some time. Still writing.

>>3845065
You introduce yourself as one of Nike’s muse candidates and to prove your point you demonstrate the ring. You end up making the story about encountering Nike’ in her human form, which is to be fair relatively common in local mythology, and explain that you’ve managed to befriend her after impressing her with your achievements. In fact, Nike’ is the one who took down that tar creature and there were witnesses among the hunters that participated in the subjugation. Deia thinks for a few moments and then asks you: “The artifacts of this type need a talented mage to use with any hope for success. Since all Muses used to be mortals, few of them had access to such powers before their ascension. An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. Please demonstrate the power of your Mind.”

To this you reply by lifting the ring from your palm into the air and spinning it with your telekinesis, since you don't know how to use the ring itself yet. From what you know about psychic powers, they are extremely difficult for a human to master. They require complicated mental patterns for accurate and efficient use so most of the mortal mages utilize various methods to force their minds into repeating the working patterns exactly while SGs and presumably Cups can easily do that subconsciously and thus only need to imagine the effect they desire. Various “magical circles” assist with targeting the “spells” while the act of inscribing the symbols allows the user to more accurately imagine the required pattern in their head for example. Other “mages” use chanting, gestures or even prayers in certain cases to achieve similar advantage in focus for other types of psi applications. Thus, your modest display of psi power would still be impressive since you used it without any of that “support”. It is said to be an exceedingly rare ability for a mortal to have and it signifies of great talent in the use of “magic as a whole”, whatever that means.

>>3845172
Deia nods and compliments your talent saying that Nike’ most likely gave the ring to you ahead of time because of it, but for the second question she asks you to name another of Nike’s Muses that you served with. The assumption is that Nike’ doesn’t have enough time to train everyone herself, especially not the mortals so veteran Muses most likely train newer Muses and maybe even candidates. You reply with the name of Matilda, the Muse of Victory that fought Mad Goddess alongside you. Of course, you don’t mention the fight itself. Deia recognizes the name and seemingly then remembers something: “Oh, I recognize you now, she recently told me about a talented huntress that helped her in the recent battle against the horrors of the Wilderness. It seems that her recommendation was followed by her patron. It is a great honor to be Nike’s Chosen, my dear huntress. I expect great deeds from you! We won’t delay you any longer, farewell.” she says with a smile. Her companion lifts her into their arms and flies high into the sky back towards the tar creature.

Holy shit, that was close. You were lucky that she personally knows Matilda. You are pretty sure there are some cracks in this lie such as how you have overwhelming psi power for a mortal, but it seems like this slipped past her attention due to being distracted by remembering Matilda’s tale about your exploit. You should probably inform Nike’ as soon as possible so that it doesn’t get awkward.

>Return to the Oracle at once!
>Head back home, you’ve had enough adventures for now
>Other?

>>3845176
>Return to the Oracle at once!
"Bother!" Said Pooh.

>>3845176
>>Return to the Oracle at once!

"DUDE! I FUCKED UP!"

>>3845176
Oracle now!

Apologize to nike/the Oracle for this, we fucked up

>>3845176


>Return to the Oracle at once!

"Hey Nike, how is it going....why I came back so soon? Eeehhh, wow you look cute today you know? Yeah.....you see, something might have happened"

Time to be very charming and try not to get the war goddess angry kek

>>3845199
>>3845193
>>3845185
>>3845180
Writing

>>3845219
The first thing you do is heading all the way back to the Polis. You leave your stuff at another farmstead and quickly move through the city towards the Pantheon District. This time you don’t have the luxury of taking the scenic route and you take the fastest route to Nike’s temple that you can. When you get there, it is still a bit too early and the temple is not open yet but you manage to run into the oracle right outside of the gates chilling in the park area. She is surprised to see you since you’ve left with Nike’ less than a day ago, but you manage to convince her to call the goddess again. After the short explanation, Nike says the following:

“Tell me if I understood this correctly, you’ve recovered the heating elements and hauled them off to some place in the wilderness, but you then returned back and tried to walk out of the area with the rest of your stuff while sucking up psi from the entire neighborhood. And you were then detected by two Cups but you’ve managed to bullshit your way out, or at least you think that you succeeded. Sigh… No, no, it’s my fault here. I assumed you knew how the basic part of psi works. This psi collection volume is the thing that most common psi detection uses. On synthetic gods level it also is a thing to keep in mind since your opponent competes with you for the volume that they can drain to recover lost energy.

In any case, I don’t think that it would be an issue in the short term. I wouldn’t keep you a secret if I couldn’t take the backlash in case you were found. You aren’t the first SG that didn’t want to jump on all the “pantheons” bandwagon from the get go. To be honest, I don’t really like posing as fake gods but it seems to work for now and almost every nation in these times has “gods” in it anyway.

Regarding the lie, my ring is not really a way to identify my cups. Since I only charge them, they are produced by servant jewelers and come in all different shapes and sizes. The correct identification is a medal with my crest, but those aren’t given out to candidates. The fact that I gave out one of these rings is not unheard of, I’ve done that a couple times to promising hunters and warriors that had high talent for psi while Mort gives out focusing tools like candy to his graduates. However, since it is exceedingly rare, you’ve placed yourself on the radar as the most promising of my candidates. So, you might end up pretty famous if this gets around with everything that it implies and someone might want to take a closer look at you. I will try to catch those two cups and ask them not to spread the “news” too much, but there is no way to tell when and how big it could blow up for you. There is also a chance that someone might figure out that you are an SG, but I think you already knew of that possibility."

>>3845371
I think there are several ways to soften up the problem somewhat. Option number one is to just straight up introduce you to the pantheon. The longer we keep it up the worse would be the consequences and I honestly doubt that it would be possible to prolong it for more than a year at this rate, maybe even less. This way everything would happen now which I think is the least painful option. In this case the excuse would be that you asked me to see the pantheon first before you could make a decision. It actually worked with Sam. Marco found her and did a half a year-long song and dance out of the situation which kept Sam hidden in plain sight in the Pantheon facilities for what we thought at the time was an elaborate prank of some sort.

Option number two is that I could make you into my Cup. You would have to go through a month-long testing and training boot camp that you would easily ace considering that it was made for mortals. After that there would be a pretty long ass sermon after which you’d be officially a Muse of Courage, which is basically the cup-in-training title. You’d get that medal ID, some psi plastic gear and you’d get assigned a more experienced muse who would have instructions to basically just hang out within a day’s travel from Farsalos and not interfere with you. I think it would probably be Matilda or maybe some other Muse that I can trust, I’ll need to check.

Then there is an option where I just instruct Matilda in a way to minimize the amount of holes in the lie and we wait on the problem until you decide to introduce yourself or the situation blows up in our faces, but in this case mainly yours since I would not be shooing away other cups that would be sent to persuade you to join up or poke around your place. Trust me, getting attention of Marco would be the most annoying of all. Getting famous among the mortals would also not be the most fun experience since people would want to do stuff from just seeing you to trying to beg or pressure you to do something or even court you. Last one is actually from personal experience from a few years before the pantheon and this is why we have a phrase “to get Atalanta’d”. Some mortals just don’t get the word “no” and other clear warning signals. However, it should maximize the time you can have by yourself.”

>Sigh, fine, let’s get introduced to the cast
>You don’t want to be introduced now, but Nike’ is free to report you if she thinks the consequences would get worse
>You’d prefer to be a Muse, please
>You want some more time to make a decision
>Other ideas?

>>3845378
how about this, we ask her to have a meeting with Nike and elspeth to talk this over, since i think havving a talk with her regarding what happend with Dan 2 millenia ago would help in general

>>3845378

>Sigh, fine, let’s get introduced to the cast

"But can it wait for after my birthday.....I really was looking forward to it and I was hoping to enjoy it with the people closest to me"

Let's take out the band-aid I think, the cup option would take us away from our village for some time, maybe it would give us more time to be anonymous but I'm not sure.

The last option is plain bad since she warned us that the secret will be out very soon and then we would have hell on our hands, I prefer to stay close to Nike since we know we can trust her.

>>3845378
>>3845390

I know this sounds like an ambitious idea, but this might a better way to get introduced to the rest of the panteon and we might be able to create a sort of "masked godess" as our official persona

>>3845390
I'm not opposed to that, bit we should ask Nike if Elpeth would keep this a secret or not, or else its the same as option 1, but even if we take option one, I think we should meet both of them alone before talking with the others.

Whatever it is I want to wait for after our birthday at Farsalos, thibgs could change radically after that.

>>3845395
>>3845393
i wouldn't be opposed to the wait, since i think it could take some time ot organize a private meeting with elspeth anyway

>>3845378
I'll be doing a run to the nearest store. Voting and discussion timer prolonged until I'm back

>>3845393
I support this

And this>>3845390
>>3845394

We ask Nike for a meeting with Elspeth after our birthday if she can hold this for a month.

We would like to have her there at the party to enjoy what could be the last normal interaction with our village we will have.

>>3845404
if my plan works with a masked public goddess persona, we might be able to act restrained but freely and would only have to use a mask for official settings

it might be a pipedream, but its worth a shot
the panteon would get to know us normally of course

>>3845404
>>3845406
hell, we could act as our own top muse/cup bearer

>>3845406
>>3845407
Could work, it will all depend on what we can talk with her.

>>3845390
>>3845393
>>3845394
>>3845395
>>3845400
>>3845404
>>3845406
>>3845407
>>3845439
Alright, I'm back. So the plan is the following: we delay until after the birthday, then we privately meet with Elspeth and after that we get introduced to the Ceno pantheon as a whole.

And if we are in private with Elspeth it will be easier to deliver uncle's message

>>3845491
Yup, meet with Elspeth first and then we see where to go from there, Nike could come along for moral support

>>3845491
Alright then, writing

>>3845491
Yes, and it give us time to get emotional about our birthday

>>3845495
>>3845491
i would suggest that she is the "neutral" party, she can vouch for us and can be protection for elspeth if she feels she needs it, the only thing i would say is that we would meet somewhere outside of cities or anything big, a more private meeting not to be interupted or spied on

>>3845499
You tell Nike’ that you think it is time to finally show yourself to the rest of the pantheon, but you’d prefer for that to happen after your birthday. You bet that there won’t be much normalcy left in your life for a while after your existence gets known so you’d like to enjoy this day with the people close to you. In addition, you would prefer to meet up with Elspeth in private before getting introduced to the rest of the gang. You have some catching up to do and a two millennia old message to deliver. Nike’ thinks that it should be manageable and she would gladly arrange everything. In the meantime, she needs to get back to micromanaging the recovery of the shot down Ceiling since there are apparently some minor claim disputes with Holies over who gets to recover what’s left of it.

With the problem off your shoulders, you thank Nika and her Oracle before leaving to collect your stuff and move on your way. While travelling, you had a lot of time to think. Your birthday is in around two weeks now on the second of March and you’d be very busy afterwards. You should probably prepare for it. You think that you have or can easily get some good food in quick order and since it is not a village festival you can house all of your guests in your home easily. What else should you do? A cake? Some decorations maybe? You haven’t had a real birthday party for literally millennia, so you feel like it should be something special but then again what more should there be beyond some good guests and good food?

While you are thinking about it, you decided to check up on your to-do list.
-Field shelters and defenses? Check, you’ve constructed towers that can protect villagers while the militia scrambles to come to the rescue
-Check up on people? Check, even if that cult would probably become a problem eventually.
-Oracle shrine? Check, the building is complete, all it lacks now is Nike’ and her oracle.
-Birthday preparations? You’ve told everyone you’d want to see there and simple preparations shouldn’t take more than a day or two.
-Metallurgy… here is one that you haven’t touched. However, you only have a couple weeks, not months so you can’t run off with a grand project again just yet...

>Let’s prepare for a birthday and rest for now
>You’d like to plan your industrial endeavors now please
>Hmm, if you are going to be a goddess, maybe it is time to come up with your symbol?
>You would like to do something else (Write-in)

>>3845625
>You’d like to plan your industrial endeavors now please

>>3845625
>You’d like to plan your industrial endeavors now please

>>3845625
>You’d like to plan your industrial endeavors now please

>>3845625

>You’d like to plan your industrial endeavors now please

Take from these two weeks to set up our metal processing, colored and iron, do the hard and more consuming parts now so even if we don't have tine later, with a little guidance, the villagers can finish it.

Delegate to Rheia to talk with some merchants and procure fireworks, scented oils for our private baths and to get whatever passes for sweets or exotic and interesting food.

We also absolutely need a cake, a very big and beautyful one.

>>3845625
Industry please, we can still take a dayys off before to prepare a gathering with food cake and deco

I think we can come up with a design for the banner until next thread

>>3845625
>>3845633
>>3845640
>>3845645
yes
>>3845647
also yes

>>3845633
>>3845640
>>3845645
>>3845647
>>3845648
>>3845650
Writing

>>3845691
Your village is currently experiencing the best living conditions that they ever had, but their exports are still pretty minor. They would easily be able to export food in about half a year, but beyond that all we have is some good ceramics, processed copper and random locally sourced goods like game or handmade fabrics. In addition, you have essentially reached the limit of your current industrial base. Even with dwarven tools, the blacksmith can only process iron through blooming method since the forge can’t melt the metal completely. This results in generally poor and unreliable quality of iron which is completely unsuitable for any kind of even modestly complicated machinery.

For purposes of simplifying the production chain planning, you separate your approaches into three separate steps: mining, refining and processing. First one is essentially how you extract and treat the raw material. Refining is the initial processing of the material in preparation for last stage processing. The last stage is shaping of the refined material into finished or semi-finished goods that would go into specialized processes outside of this chain. As an example, iron ore is mined, then it is refined into iron and steel ingots which then gets cast into cannons.

In addition, you have three types of separate metallurgic chains based on their use: black metals, colored metals and precious metals. Essentially, black metals are mostly iron and its alloys plus vanadium, chromium and manganese. Colored metals are everything that is not iron and is not precious or hard to extract such as copper or lead.

You are essentially only mining copper, so to allow the processing to continue without your direct oversight you need to create mines. In your head they would be essentially mini fortresses surrounded with high palisade and containing the necessities to keep the miners happy such as beds and cooking implements. Without these things villagers can’t exploit the resources.

>>3845702
Regarding the processing, you can build a colored metals plant which would allow you to process larger quantities of copper and at the same time you’d have sufficient gear to process any other heavy colored metals. In total, it would be able to refine large quantities of copper, lead, zinc, tin, nickel and all of their alloys. Unfortunately, the remaining three “light” colored metals which are aluminum, titanium and magnesium require more high-tech systems that we can’t create yet.

You could also attempt to go for iron and steel. The process would go in two steps. First you have a blast furnace that accepts iron ore, coal coke and fluxes to make pig iron and graphite. In of itself pig iron is amazing since while heavy it is relatively cheap and almost three times cheaper then copper to make. Cannons made out of lead is the reason why Britannia rules the waves, their ships literally had thrice the cannons for the same price. The next step is turning pig iron into steel, which is a lot more complicated and requires large convertors or Marten furnaces to mass produce. But it is worth it because of steel. In current reality, steel tools are almost unheard of and steel swords are treated almost like if they were magical even though the metal is of varying and terrible quality by even industrial revolution standards.

The latest step of the process doesn’t interest you at the moment. It would be stuff like casting plants to make large metal parts, metal stamping, steel lathes and so on. You would run out of stored metals very quickly if you try to go for them at the moment so they would not be worth in the near term.

In two weeks of time you could establish the mines, but the rest would have to stay in your plans until after the birthday. However, there is nothing wrong with some long term goals, especially when you live forever.
_________________________________________
And now we have to wrap up today’s session. It ended up pretty short so we will be compressing the next week into one thread like last time. Feel free to ask questions, give suggestions and discuss. During the week I would like you guys to list what you want Ag to prepare for her birthday and vote on what industries you’d like to look into.

>>3845710
thanks for running

>>3845710
Thanks for running

>>3845647
Had a good idea, I don't know how much free time we are gonna have, but I would suggest helping her with it and at other days explaining partso of what we are building and it's pros and cons

I am a bit at a loss at the industry building part hinestly

>>3846894
Essentially it is more of a choice between wether you want to go towards steel or colored metals first. It is not really pros and cons since you’d be needing both for more advanced manufacturing. You can have a “universal” plant that makes all types of colored metals and their alloys or you can get two stage system for iron and steel which would be more time consuming but you can decide to build only half of it if you only need the pig iron. Then there is a part about building mines to extract more minerals without your direct involvement. The tradeoff choices would go after we decide what we want to build when we get to the project itself and the options would be something like volume of production vs size and costs for small, medium or large plants or where you want them to go.

For easier understanding, here are the current options connected with metallurgy:

>make mines so that mortals can slowly get you more materials without your involvement. There would be options of where and what to mine since we have 2 locations with several different types of materials in each. This would take time based on how many you want
>make colored metals plant along with supporting industry which would take moderate time
>make only a blast furnace to get your hands on pig iron with supporting industry(mines, coke plant, flux) which would take moderate time
>make steel converter to make steel from pig iron with supporting industry which would take the most time

>>3847713
>>make mines so that mortals can slowly get you more materials without your involvement. There would be options of where and what to mine since we have 2 locations with several different types of materials in each. This would take time based on how many you want
with an option to go for
>make only a blast furnace to get your hands on pig iron with supporting industry(mines, coke plant, flux) which would take moderate time
if we have the time, or at least the basics so that they could finish it with some work should it turn out we would have to leave them alone

>>3847713

>make mines so that mortals can slowly get you more materials without your involvement. There would be options of where and what to mine since we have 2 locations with several different types of materials in each. This would take time based on how many you want

And I would favor going for Iron first

>>3845710
For the birthday, as it w was s mentioned before somethings we can get.
>a cake, I would prefer do do ot or have one of our friends do it.
>fireworks because they are pretty.
>some quality alcoholic beverages, nothing that can knock them out, but sufficiently tasty that we can enjoy it even if we can't get drunk on it.
>scented oils and candles for the bath/sauna portion of the house, turn it into a spa, get enough so we have some for after the party too.
>get some tasty food for us too, maybe pay the local cooks to prepare a feast for us, a nice selection of fruits too for our meat intolerant elf.
>games! Let's see what they consider party games around here, darts, cards, balls and whatever else we can find, wrestling and other feats don't need equipment so it's ok.

I'm curious to see what the birthday song is nowadays, if it even exists.

Ag must be looking forward to this, nicest birthday in millenia and being able to be healthy and up for it. Shame it can be the last if we are not carefull.

Procure most of it in merchants I imagine.

>>3847713
>make mines so that mortals can slowly get you more materials without your involvement. There would be options of where and what to mine since we have 2 locations with several different types of materials in each. This would take time based on how many you want
This option makes the most sense logically since it means that we don't need to be involved for the mining to occur as well as the fact that it secures the mining sites as part of our land. Plus the benefit of creating jobs for our people to do.

>make colored metals plant along with supporting industry which would take moderate time
This would also be good, lord knows we could make a decent profit from producing ingots of high quality or refined goods. Especially if we can get some rarer metals to work with.


Honestly just building up the basics of our economy before making iron working stuff makes sense since copper and other such metals have uses where iron doesn't. Especially for trade goods like jewellery.

>>3847899
>>3847841
>>3847809
does one of you have an idea for our flag/symbol
or are we gonna go with what we discussed last time?

File: Book and gear.png (50 KB, 713x481)

50 KB PNG

>>3853231
I assumed that I would make the final choice option list in- game sometime after the birthday so that we'd get more votes, but I'm not against further discussion here. Furthermore, I would like to present my own opinion based on the last discussion.

I suggest that we could go for a large gear on a circular shield with a book in the middle of it. Something like picrelated. The circular shield would mean that we would be able to draw just the book and cog on Ag's current shield without having to paint a redundant picture of the shield on the shield. Also the shield itself would turn into a circular color pattern around the image for the use in banners and flags if/when we need that. Using only two items also decreases complexity of the picture which is important for easier replication and identification.

Regarding colors, it is purely up to you guys, but I'd like to remind that "copper" color that is not used much is actually brown on banners while aluminum bronze is closer to golden color. It would work for something like cog coloring, but I don't recommend having two of the "metal" types of colors touching so that they don't "fuse" decreasing the image's distinctiveness.

>>3853680
Gold shield, dull grey/black cog, white/lighter beige book, bigger banners and the like can be the same as the book. Maybe have something actually written in the book and matching fields on the banners,maybe an oath.
"Knowledge is power, guard it well." makes a good motto to go with it. Did I just make a 40k reference? Here come the Librarians and Tech-priests I guess.

>>3853774
>>3853680
The Omnissiah agrees with you
but seriously i agree
with everything really, i can't really add to that, i like it
as powerful as we might become, the biggest difference we will make is likely to come from using the implanted knowledge to improve the lifes of others like in farsalos

>>3853915
My thoughts exactly.
*Binary Screech*
01010000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00100001

Maybe a small image on one of the pages could be used to distinguish different things if we used it as a banner on the outside of buildings something to let you know what each building was for

>>3856440
i like that idea, it could also be used by putting a sword on the pages of the shield
in general its something to be done later, once we have a bigger following
i honestly don't feel good saying that ...

>>3845710
With all the precautions the trip back takes you the rest of that day which gives you plenty of time to think. You have about two weeks until your birthday so you won’t be able to complete any of the metal processing projects in this timeframe. However, you might be able to squeeze in a mine or two in your busy schedule. Also, you’d like to get some things prepared for the birthday itself. A birthday cake would be nice as well as some sweets and generally tasty food for the guests. Regarding alcohol, you’ve purchased quite a few different barrels from the dwarves exactly for such events. You might also want to get some scented oils and take a bath since you bet that you don’t smell great after the latest adventure. Maybe you could make some fireworks? Ceno people have probably never seen those in action yet. You could ask Rheia to arrange the purchases since by local standards she is already an adult, but then again, if you want something done right you might want to do it yourself…

You return to Farsalos with the new cows, salt and spices. The spices get unloaded straight to the cookhouse which should keep it stocked for a long time while the cows go straight to the farmers. Some of the salt is given to the villagers but most of it goes into your lab, which works as a bulk storage for your property these days. After you are done with these things, you decide to check up on the situation in case there might be something more important than mines or birthdays. And looks like there have been some events while you were gone.

First of all, a group of monster hunters actually decided to pay a visit and stay for some time in Farsalos. In the border regions hunters are usually not that well equipped, but these people seem to be rather well off. The group consists out of six hunters, five men and one woman. One guy is wearing some pieces of armor on top of a robe made out of dense dark red fabric and he has a long staff with him so you bet that he is probably some kind of psi user. The other guy catches your attention for having a raven on his shoulder as well as a green spotted cloak probably designed for camouflage in the forest. He is armed by a composite longbow. The woman and two other guys are most likely “tanks” since they have some decent iron armor with one of them even sporting a demi-plate plus there are three different shields leaning on one of the walls of the inn. The last member is wearing darkened leather armor and way too many different pouches so you suspect that he is some kind of rogue or a skill monkey of the group. You haven’t talked to them yet and villagers claim that they arrived less than a week ago due to the rumors of a Labyrinth entrance nearby and the growing prosperity of the village.

>>3858508
Among the good news, Rheia has managed to wrap up a book on linear algebra and linear programming that you’ve left in your small library in addition to the planned assignments. You are honestly surprised. She has a huge talent for math and natural sciences to the point you are not sure if it is natural. Maybe she has some sort of bloodline gift? In any case, it is very impressive and she has earned some extra allowance from you.

There is also some bad news, local militia clashed with some tribe from the depth of the forest and while there were no dead, some of them were wounded and the copper mining operations have completely ceased due to that threat. There is a plan to erect palisade and some watchtowers in the area to make mining safer but no one has touched on that project yet. Signy says that she should be able to completely heal the wounded militia within the next week or so and she has made a bit of progress on treating the cut tendons, mostly hers to be fair. Considering her low estimate of “several years” to heal everybody, getting a healer cup bearer would be much faster.

In any case, here we are. Only 14 days until birthday. Let’s look at what we should do…

Birthday stuff:
>Buy some food and sweets (1 day): with your powers you should be capable of easily hopping to the nearby towns and buying what you need. Maybe even going all the way to the coast and getting some seafood since locals have no refrigeration and thus salt water fish rarely ends up this deep into the continent
>Fireworks (1 day): while you are very familiar with making fireworks, you’d have to use a much less stable and more powerful propellant so you’d have to do some experiments to make sure that it is safe
>Oils (1/2 day): Scented oils are relatively common in towns since the cults of Mortati use them in public baths. You can easily buy some from Mirangi and then make some nice smelling soap and candles. After all, what is a birthday cake without candles, right?
>Cake (1/2 day): In your time, the birthday without a birthday cake was not a true birthday. The village has wheat flour and eggs on hand, but you’d have to make a detour to get some sugar, honey, fruits or whatever you’d be able to find to make it.

>>3858510
Industry stuff:
>Copper defenses (3 days): you need to clear the area and erect the towers and walls to protect your copper mining operations
>Local iron mines (4 days): local village area has a deposit of relatively poor-quality magnetite. You need to secure the area and construct the defenses and facilities for village miners
>Local flux quarries (5 days): we have access to some minerals useful as fluxes in metallurgy beyond numerous other applications. These sources have to be extracted through a quarry and thus require a large excavation effort
>Quartz mines (4 days): there is a large quartz geode buried below the local area. We could attempt to mine it. While locals only use it for decorative items, it has some industrial uses.

>North eastern outpost (6 days): A well defended zone designed as a transportation junction between Farsalos and North Eastern limestone basin. Villagers won’t be able to operate facilities in that area without this.
>Limestone quarry (5 days): a quarry that extracts limestone, which is used in construction as a metallurgic flux and in various other applications such as whitewash
>Galena mine outpost (4 days): there is a rich deposit of galena in the north- eastern basin which can be refined into lead, zinc and silver
>Iron mine outpost (4 days): a sizeable deposit of hematite can be found in the area
>Cinnabar mine outpost (6 days): mercury in its bound form which is useful for many devices like high vacuum pumps. Additional time would be required to make it safe for the workers
>Coal quarry (5 days): this area contains coal with high sulur content. It is required for making coke, the main fuel and carbon source for metallurgy
>Sulfur quarry (5 days): sulfur is an important chemical reagent that is required for chemical industry and gunpowder
>Gold washer (3 days): a facility downstream from the geyser spring, it is designed to filter out golden sand out of the small river

Other stuff:
>Start the industry (the rest of the time, minimum of 9 days): a foundation for a metallurgic facility. You won’t be able to finish it, but you should manage to complete the foundations
>Spend time with Rheia (as long as you want): she is a smart girl, but she can’t study completely on her own. In addition, you’ve been away for quite a while lately
>Other: you think that something else should take priority. Maybe some gear for local militia or checking up on a cult or something

>>3858513
industry
>>Copper defenses (3 days): you need to clear the area and erect the towers and walls to protect your copper mining operations
>North eastern outpost (6 days): A well defended zone designed as a transportation junction between Farsalos and North Eastern limestone basin. Villagers won’t be able to operate facilities in that area without this.
even if we want to build up industry for them, its better to secure the basis of said industry, in the worst case they could still sell the mined or processed ores

birthday stuff:
>Buy some food and sweets (1 day): with your powers you should be capable of easily hopping to the nearby towns and buying what you need. Maybe even going all the way to the coast and getting some seafood since locals have no refrigeration and thus salt water fish rarely ends up this deep into the continent
>Fireworks (1 day): while you are very familiar with making fireworks, you’d have to use a much less stable and more powerful propellant so you’d have to do some experiments to make sure that it is safe
>Oils (1/2 day): Scented oils are relatively common in towns since the cults of Mortati use them in public baths. You can easily buy some from Mirangi and then make some nice smelling soap and candles. After all, what is a birthday cake without candles, right?
>Cake (1/2 day): In your time, the birthday without a birthday cake was not a true birthday. The village has wheat flour and eggs on hand, but you’d have to make a detour to get some sugar, honey, fruits or whatever you’d be able to find to make it.
All of it, if this is the first birthday Ag is acutally excited about, we can go ham a bit
since it won't cover all the given time, spend the rest with Rheia and also with teaching her.

>>3858521
actually, if its about buying stuff, we could take her with us, so she gets to see other cities as well

>>3858521
I support
I'd like to add to also check on the cult along with Haven, she is more inconspicuous then us in this regard

Take Sig and Haven to secure the mine too, we will be kind of busy and they can help keeping an eye while we build

>>3858521
I was going to suggest we built bith the copper and iron mine but now that I think about it, it would be more useful to clear and secure the area so they can expand on their own if they need and we can't help in the future
>>3858525
Support as well

>>3858521
>>3858523
>>3858525
>>3858532
Alright, writing

File: Ceno house.jpg (429 KB, 1024x932)

429 KB JPG

>>3858545
Well, the first order of business is to restore the copper mining operations. To do so you’ve cleared out the nearby forest area and assembled a palisade wall similar to the outer perimeter wall of Farsalos. In addition, you created several wooden watchtowers and an additional building where miners would be able to rest in and prepare food. Then you cleared out an area around the walls so that the people in watchtowers would have unobstructed view of the area. This should prevent any future raids by the local savages. In addition, it opened up the cave- in that we used to access the Labyrinth. You should probably think of securing that place in the future to allow for easier trade and defense. Cenophilans build specialized forts on these things for a reason after all. For now, the Labyrinth access is blocked with large boulders to prevent anything from climbing out.

The second project is an outpost in the north- eastern limestone basin. Its purpose is to collect and transport extracted materials from that area to Farsalos as well as providing shelter in case of an attack by monsters or wild animals. In addition, it would have the housing and all the necessary facilities for long term habitation. It would take almost a day for humans to cover this distance on foot so they would have to stay there for prolonged periods of time. Thus, you planned out a well with wind powered pump and a water tower similar to the one used in Farsalos as well as the beginnings of a sewer system. For housing you decided to build a single housing block inspired some buildings in Platania as well as some designs from your past. It is a large four stories tall square building made mostly out of fired clay bricks that contains multiple separate flats that have their own kitchens and bathrooms. The middle of the building is an open small garden made for recreation. In the cellar you’ve made a small wind powered “fridge” room for food and supplies along with the shelter where people could seal themselves just in case they encounter a monster that they can’t deal with. The outpost is surrounded by a proper tall wooden wall with four towers on each corner of its perimeter to defend against possible attacks by the giant wolves. For now, the place would have to be mothballed since there are no mines there yet, but eventually it might even grow into a small village of its own.

File: Firework colors.jpg (58 KB, 350x648)

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>>3858605
These projects in total took you nine days to complete and now it is time to prepare for the birthday itself. First of all, the fireworks. The fireworks consist out of four main components: fuel, oxidizer, metal salts and binder. The salts are what gives fireworks their color. Unfortunately, you don’t have access to stuff like rubidium which gives pretty violet color. However, you can easily get some other salts. For example, copper salt produces nice blue colored sparks. Sodium salts make yellow flame and calcium burns with an orange color. For golden color you can use charcoal and iron. Unfortunately, while you can make bright white color, it requires aluminum which you have but can’t produce more of.

For the motors, you initially wanted to have wooden tubes that would act like miniature rockets, but chlorate gunpowder is too powerful and unpredictable to be safely used for this purpose. In the end, you created a type of firework mortar out of thick bronze sheets. After moving away from the village into the remote area where no one would see it, you’ve decided to test your creation. It was raining at the time so you thought that it would help with any unwanted fires. It had some hickups, but after some tuning it reliably shot out barrages of paper balls filled with pyrotechnics into the air where they blew up and produced various patterns of colored sparks.

The most ambitious firework that you’ve created is a monster whose payload weights almost half a kilogram. It is filled with small iron shavings that after detonation would shoot out everywhere and then ignite into a large golden sphere almost like a tiny sun. The extra-large mortar tube makes it thundering roar as a paper sphere accelerates from it into the sky where the first charge goes off and spreads a large cloud of tiny iron shavings. But then the second charge fails to ignite it as the cloud slowly settles on top of you and your stuff. It is not as fun to sprint through knee deep foliage and then attempt to wash off sticky iron flakes from the skin in cold river water. After some tinkering, however, you finally manage to pull off a correct ignition of the cloud, but you end up spending the whole day on the fireworks.

>>3858607
Now on your list of things is shopping. Luckily, the issue with alcohol was solved way back when you traveled to the dwarven territories. On the shopping list you have delicacies, sweets and scented oils. You’ve also decided to take Rheia along with you. She has been stuck in the village reading your books alone for a long while so it might be a nice change of scenery to go for a small adventure, or just a shopping trip, depends on how it goes.

Roll 1d20 and pick destination

>Go to Mirangi, the closest town to Farsalos. They would have some stuff but probably not that much of rare or exotic things
>Go to Platania again: The large polis would have a wide selection and the local farms produce honey
>Go to the western coast: Mesino is one of the trading centers in its area so you have a higher chance to get exotic goods for cheap such as coffee or processed sugar. Also, seafood

>>3858611
Also I'm making a shopping trip myself. Voting extended until I'm back.

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>3858611

>Go to the western coast: Mesino is one of the trading centers in its area so you have a higher chance to get exotic goods for cheap such as coffee or processed sugar. Also, seafood
If we can be back on time

Platania otherwise.

Rheia will be surprised by the ocean and flying around with us

Rolled 20 (1d20)

>>3858611
I first thought about platania, but what the hell, let's show Rheia the ocean
>Mesino

I sincerely hope this doesn't end like my last roll

Rolled 20 (1d20)

>>3858611
>>Go to the western coast: Mesino is one of the trading centers in its area so you have a higher chance to get exotic goods for cheap such as coffee or processed sugar. Also, seafood

bring some extra money to come back with some suveniers, they had some interesting stuff last time

>>3858611
>Go to the western coast: Mesino is one of the trading centers in its area so you have a higher chance to get exotic goods for cheap such as coffee or processed sugar. Also, seafood

The house design for the mining outpost sounds like it'd be pretty easy to fortify: could even make a expanded design where a number of them are connected together forming a series of courtyards and streets leadings to gateways; in combination with thick outerwalls, you'd have a decent defensive structure against anything that doesn't bring explosives or siege the place.

Admittedly it's doubtful that such a thing would be useful there, seeing as we made a wall, but in places where creating a palisade would consume too much wood, it might be easier to do that.

>>3858624
>>3858623
holy shit, I hope we find some very valuable thing or something cool for cheap with those rolls

>>3858623
Holy shit, it really didnt

Nice, it's the mad goddess dice all over again

Its the place we first foun Nike so I'm on board to going there, nice memories.
Maybe we will find our snek friend again

>>3858631
oh, that would be awesome
get some news how they have been doing and how the dwarf fortress is in general

Alright, I'm here and...
>>3858623
>>3858624
Ah shit, here we go again. Let me catch up and see if I need to reply after which I'll start writing

>>3858625
The issue with your proposal is that it ignores fire safety. You need to have buildings spaced out sufficiently to prevent fire from hopping from one building to another. I intended for this design to be a prototype for higher density housing since we would have to replace inner ring of houses as population increases because sprawls would be very difficult to defend while high rise buildings utilize transportation, power and water much more efficiently. Regarding fortification, the saying "my home is my fortress" is very literal in this case. First castles, after all, were literally fortified homes. While actual fortifications can have several meters thick walls, this building's walls are still plenty strong. They are essentially two bricks thick outer shell, insulation material layer and a single brick thick inner shell for all external walls.

>>3858619
>>3858623
>>3858624
Double crit success for western coast it is. Writing and also checking notes on what the hell could such a high roll mean

>>3858761
That sounds like something those wolf's would loose teeth over, trying to get in
Literally
Nice

>>3858761
>The issue with your proposal is that it ignores fire safety.
Only if the streets are too narrow / we build over the gap between structures. The connecting walls wouldn't have any wood over the connections: not enough to stop a proper fire but assuming they have brick walls and tile roofs then the only things left to be wood are floors and structural pieces; insufficient to generate the heat needed to ignite another piece at a distance of four or five meters.

>I intended for this design to be a prototype for higher density housing since we would have to replace inner ring of houses as population increases because sprawls would be very difficult to defend while high rise buildings utilize transportation, power and water much more efficiently.
That too.

>While actual fortifications can have several meters thick walls, this building's walls are still plenty strong. They are essentially two bricks thick outer shell, insulation material layer and a single brick thick inner shell for all external walls.
Decent against the small monsters that they should have to deal with but I'd probably still double the outer brick layer if we were placing them in a more consistently dangerous area.

>>3858765
>also checking notes on what the hell could such a high roll mean
Could just take it to mean that we some how get greatly reduced prices, seeing as that means we'd be able to buy more even if you can't find stuff to expand the range.

>>3858765
The post is ging to be relatively big. Almost done with it

>>3858946
You decide to go to Mesino. It is probably the best place to get the more exotic goods and in addition you’d like to take Rheia along with you so that she could see the ocean. After Rheia gathers her stuff and changes into something more fit for travelling, you can show her what flying feels like for the first time. At first, she is a little scared, but soon she gets used to it and starts to enjoy the experience while curiously looking around as you fly over the forests and grasslands. The trip in total takes you around three hours thanks to your flight. It would be faster to go to Platania, but not by much and it is not like every hour counts. You could probably fly faster, but Rheia has no real protection from the cold and flying debris so you take it relatively slow and low to the ground. You also give her your gasmask so that she doesn’t run into flying bugs or some other things.

While flying past the Milisi fort you are almost glad to see that it is completely rebuilt and again teeming with life. It is the closest military installation to your village and it is the place that would be sending troops to beat up monsters or invasions from the Holy Nation so it is good to see that it is now fully operational after the Mad Goddesses attack. It also looks like there was some renovation in terms of counter siege weapons on the inside of the fort as you can see six large ballista- like rock throwers in the courtyard as well as almost twenty-five thousand Ceno infantrymen practicing outside in some kind of mass military exercise. Unlike village militia, town guards, monster hunters or adventurers, these soldiers are professional military with standardized weapons, armor and gear. Most of them wear a type of iron laminar armor with underlaying blue gambeson and they are mostly armed with kite shields and spears.

>>3858997
There is a separate small and mobile unit with longbows, small “batteries” of field siege engines and three types of mainline infantry with somewhat different uniforms. There are heavy infantrymen with additional armor and iron coated shields, mobile light infantry skirmishers with only gambesons and frontline infantry with a more balanced setup. They are currently practicing formation movements where light infantry performs a planned retreat while medium infantry formations move into position and then switch over with heavy infantry in cyclic and well-disciplined manner. Your guess is that light infantry is used for flanking and for showering enemy with javelins after which they retreat behind the heavier formations who switch over when frontline gets fatigued. You also notice three small groups of people that consist of a single person dressed in blue robes and their armed escort. They don’t seem to be commanders since those are in a nearby group of tents so your guess is that these are some kinds of battle mages. They are supposed to be pretty rare, but it is a frontline fortress that deals with monsters so maybe they send a bigger share of casters here. Also, you can’t see dedicated cavalry with only some scouts on horsebacks for relaying orders and… well… scouting.

Curiously, you notice that for every 500 people there is a single mobile kitchen. This is unprecedented for armies of that period. All armies until 1892 had to rely on the soldiers cooking their own food on campfires or relying on the locals to prepare the meals. However, the concept is not that difficult to make with local level of technology. Essentially it is a furnace built on top of a cart along with stores for certain things like kitchenware, salt or spices along with a professional cook. This basically eliminates the risks of soldiers poisoning themselves, prevents simple identification of the army numbers by campfire lights and most importantly it makes food rations standard across the entire military. If you plan to make your own army, you might want to make these things.

>>3858999
In any case, you give a wide berth to the training soldiers not to be detected and proceed on your way until you reach the port town Mesino itself. And there were a lot of changes since you were last here. It appears like there is a large festival going on in the area which is caused by the arrival of one of the famous Ethean Merchant Fleets. You can see six large vessels of a design more akin to Age of Exploration vessels than the iron age stuff that Ceno people use. They have advanced sail designs with three masts that allow them to sail under any direction of the wind and they are all deep-sea capable juggernauts with two or three floors of internal space compared to local merchant vessels. Some of them are dedicated cargo haulers while others are armed to the teeth.

There is one designed to carry two trebuchets on each end that are made to launch barrels that you guess either have incendiary material or some kind of explosives in them. All ships also have metal reinforced rams and some are even armed with primitive cannons, which are pretty small and rare. Dedicated artillery ship only has five of them on each port and they fire shells comparable to your fist and not those bowling balls that you saw in movies about the golden age of piracy. The cannon armed vessel is actually performing a salute with special shells that produce clouds of multicolored sparks, which is very impressive for the locals. The cargo ships have just recently docked to the piers and Ethean traders, which are much more tanned compared to Cenophilans, are currently unloading their goods. You can probably manage to buy a lot of their products for relatively cheap prices since you are buying from the first source and not the resellers.

>>3859000
In addition, it looks like there is another fortunate event going on at the same time! You can see several dwarven caravans already unloaded in the town. They are pulled by some kind of donkey sized bald and hooved creatures that you have never seen before and the dwarves themselves are employing several lamia guards. Locals are not too fond of them, but the fact that dwarfs are trusting them with guard duties is relieving the strained opinions somewhat. These snake-men warriors are armed with large bows and powerful spears some of which are dwarf made but others were created from the remains of the creatures that are local to their underground biome.

Lamia tail is an incredible weapon for these people. From what you’ve learned, it is capable of maintaining a tensed-up state for as long as they want while also being massively stronger than human arms or legs. They seem to be based on large constrictor snakes and they are strong enough to break every bone in human body along with iron armor if they wrap around and squeeze a human soldier. In addition, it allows them to use bows and arrows that humans can only imagine on field ballista while maintaining high accuracy. Also, they can perform a massively effective strike by coiling up their tail and then launching their bodies forward before retracting it back into the initial state. It allows them to perform lightning fast spear lunges from four to five times the range possible for human spearmen while also putting all the mass of their upper body into the strike and then being capable of doing that again and again! Incredible!

And also, dorfs are selling their stuff along with unique produce from lamia’s underground biome like that “magical” honey that is used for healing potions. So yeah, good thing that you took a lot of money, huh? Time for some shopping. You have a list though so it is better not to get too distracted…

>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets
>You’d like to take a look at dwarven goods! What can be more exotic as literally magical plants
>Writein: other ideas?

>>3859002
>>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets

tough choice, let's make sure we have some genereal sweets and then we can spend the rest on the dwarven stuff

>>3859002
>>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets
lets go with sugar and sweets first if the dwarfs are still setting up, we can also show Rheia the ocean
after that we go look at what the dwarfs have and with the ring we should be able to ask them how they and the Lamia have been doing

also we should not forget to ask them to pass on our best wishes to our snek friend

>>3859002
>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets

>>3859016
agreed, the dwarven ring should get us some good prices with them

>>3859002

>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets

>>3859002
>Let’s see Ethean goods first! Time to get some sugar and foreign sweets

The caravans will be less chased by locals if we're lucky, since they have more consistent contact with the Dwarves.

Plus I'd be interested to see if we can't get some books from the Ethean nation, get an idea of their tech level and maybe some reading material.

>>3859021
I doubt they'd have anything we don't already know with our mental mod but it could be good to pick up some books for Rhea

>>3859022
>>3859021
agreed, even if its just a book to learn a different language it would be worth it

>>3859022
It's more so knowing if they can be used to short-cut on some stuff, if they've already developed something then we can just buy it from them to accelerate our progress elsewhere until we're in a better place to set it up. Also Rhea yes. Though I'd worry that their theories could be wrong and confuse her so we might need to add footnotes / corrections.

There is also the fact that they are familiar with magic / new world techniques which we'd have to develop ourselves. No reason to have to discover anything we can rely on others for.

>>3859012
>>3859016
>>3859017
>>3859019
>>3859020
>>3859021
>>3859022
>>3859025
>>3859027
Alright, writing

you know guys....I just realized something, we should ask Rheia how Cenophilans celebrate birthdays, I don't remember if we did

>>3859192
>ask Rheia how Cenophilans celebrate birthdays, I don't remember if we did

We didn't ask that yet. Also, next post will be the last as well as huge.

>>3859204
hey hive, could we see the dwarven shopping list during the week to make our purchauses like we did in Platania?

>>3859210
Sure, I'll post it tomorrow. Right now is not really a choice shopping since we had the idea of what we wanted to take and some anons here wanted a book, but dorf shopping will be point buy as usual

>>3859063
Welp, three word pages of text. That's a big one. Starting to post

>>3859281
You decide to check out Ethean goods first, and you start going through your shopping list. In addition, they are much more willing to buy all of that gold and silver that you took with you in the backpack with little in terms of questions asked. Thus, you’ve managed to get away with what you’d consider enormous amounts of stuff that you won’t possibly manage to eat during the birthday, but it would still be nice to have in your cellars.

First of all, you’ve managed to get a large sackcloth bag full of delicious white processed sugar. After asking the trader, you’ve finally found out where and how it is produced. There is a faraway land far to the north from Ethea that the trading nation has sporadic contact with. It is inaccessible by land due to a huge monster infested desert, but at the far northern edge of that sandy wasteland lays a fertile river delta that supports a culture of humans and elves with darker skins that worship their strange gods and live in sandstone cities. Their river floods predictably during the seasons which provides them with incredibly rich soils and they produce abundance of exotic foods and spices one of which is sugarcane. They collect this cane and process it with some unknown method that produces white sugar and viscous brown fluid that is used to sweeten the food of the lower classes and to feed some of their farm animals during the harvest seasons. For you it sounds exactly like molasses, a byproduct of sugar industry. While beet sugar molasses is foul smelling and thus not used for food, Americans and Canadians used it to sweeten some dishes and it was also sometimes turned into alcohol.

The traveler also says that this land is ruled by a strict caste system but even the lowest parts of their society have access to plenty of food for most of the time. However, every other decade or so a large drought strikes the region and their gods and kings march their armies further to the north into a massive monster infested wetland which is then farmed to provide for the drought year. When the drought ends, the armies retreat back and settle in their permanent cities while the tide of monsters retakes the conquered territories which humans have failed to tame for many generations. The man can’t answer how a swamp can exist in close proximity to a desert or how a desert can exist next to an ocean, but you live in a world with literal magic so who knows, maybe there is some ancient terraforming device buried somewhere deep in that swamp or in the sands.

>>3859308
Along with the sugar, you manage to acquire a relatively small bag of coffee beans. Unfortunately, neither Ethea nor the sand people have a plant that follows the description of cocoa, so it seems that you won’t be having any chocolate for your birthday, but hey, you can’t be lucky with everything. Plus, coffee is the engine of civilization.

You’ve also managed to grab just massive amounts of dried fruits. You’ve got whole bags of bananas, pineapples, papaya dried in sugar, passion fruit, dates, figs, peaches, pears, prunes, raisins as well as various bags full of nuts from almonds to chestnuts. Some are obviously bred for many generations for their size and taste like fruit of your time while others are still halfway through that process. In any case, you won’t be lacking in snacks and sweets department.

In addition to sweets, you’ve also purchased some of the Ethean foodstuffs that are not that common in Cenophila. Beyond a small assortment of rarer spices, you have some other examples, Ethean cuisine contains a type of paste made from a species of peas which results in something similar to humus but with its own distinct taste. Also, their ships carried large quantities of hard cheeses and you’ve picked a couple rolls for yourself. They also produce a type of dry cured ham sold as a whole thigh on a bone similar to Spanish jamon, which unlike local beef jerky actually has a pleasant taste and it is not a piece of meat so dense that you might figuratively break a neck trying to bite into the “Slim Jim”.

The last of your food purchases is something you’ve never seen since your childhood. Candy drops. It is a type of hard candy that is made from molten sugar by pushing it through a special machine that consists out of two brass rolls with embedded pattern. This causes a piece of solidifying sugar to form into numerous shapes connected with a thin layer of caramelized sugar. They are called drops because after that you need to lift this thing into the air and drop it against the table which shatters the thin connection and separates the individual candies. It is actually not a thing from your library of all the human knowledge, it is a process that you’ve seen with your own eyes. A piece from your childhood when you went to visit your dad’s grandparents somewhere in Florida. You ran into a small confectionary where the owner used rare antique tools from before the WW2 to make his candy by hand. It was fascinating to watch through the glass how the candies were made on the water-cooled table and how the candy hook was used to make transparent candy into opaque candy by trapping numerous tiny air bubbles into it. This is a good memory.

>>3859310
Regardless, you made a quick detour to see if they have something else that might interest you, but alas, most of the things were either too expensive or useless for you. They had lots of very pricy weapons and tools made out of their Ethean steel that looks like it is damascened, a bunch of various trinkets from both Ethea and that unknown exotic land that likes golden statues of their gods several of which seem to be way too furry. They also have some stuff from Holies such as steel cuirasses that has signs of early mass production similar to munitions armor of the late middle ages. It seems that their metallurgy is better than their firearms technology at the moment. There is also stuff you don’t really need now like spider silk or other high-quality fabrics, but something did pique your curiosity.

It was a book. The merchant fleet doesn’t carry many books because paper is expensive and they are going into naval expeditions, but they do carry some books. The particular book is 800 pages long and it is finely crafted and made on a white paper with Ethean crest watermark on each page. It is also obviously printed which is different from other books in their holds. It is obvious that Ethean pantheon makes these. The title of the book says “Rupert Emerens, lufra nassheld- enyaldisas ull Adoria hasafirr fsaraldr hair Ilwiaisaiar” Which translates as “Rupert Emerens, noble merchant- adventurer of Adoria hereby presents his Inquiries”.

One of the merchants explains that it is one of the most famous books in Ethea which was noticed by their gods who helped it spread even further. It is a collection of stories and inquiries of some man named Rupert Emerens. He used to be a noble in the merchant marine guild and he is the poster boy for every adventuring merchant in the country. He has managed to perform numerous expeditions to every civilization known to Etheans during which he created a series of texts describing their cultures, beliefs, landmarks and other things he found curious and collected it into five massive tomes, eventually refining it into a single book which was much easier to bring along.

>>3859312
It is a peculiar type of travel guide that contains lots of different things from common phrases and expressions in different languages to seemingly random points of fascinating trivia and advises on how to behave and what to see. It is the Ethean “Hitchhikers guide to the Known World” and many of the Merchant Marines keep at least one copy in their possessions to help them in their endeavors. Essentially, Rupert was this world’s Marco Polo, a great explorer who actually took notes. The book is over 50 years old though and the man himself has died before he saw the success of his creation. Some things in this book are difficult to believe in, but it is still a unique window into the wider world and the mind of its explorer. Obviously, the book is in Ethean, but it is not like a language barrier would ever stop you. Thus, you purchase this book from somewhat surprised merchant who is still very much thankful for a profitable trade.

Well, you can officially call this shopping trip a success. You literally have several times of your weight in goods now and so that you don’t look too silly you book a room for a single night and drop all of your stuff there before dropping on a bed to take a few moments to think and let your companion to get some rest. She is overwhelmed by emotions, but eventually even somewhat hyperactive kids end up a bit tired. Rheia has bought herself some things that she wanted for her allowance which included some sweets, some new clothes and a knife made from Ethean steel. You could make her a steel knife in half a year, but this one still looks pretty and she likes it very much as she curiously examines the wavy patterns on the metal and sometimes asks you questions…

___________________________________
And on that note, we are done with today’s thread. Make sure to take a look during the week since I will post some point buy shopping from the dwarves. In addition, feel free to ask questions, make suggestions and discuss. After all, you wanted to make a cake but what type would work the best?

>>3859315
Thanks for running

I was thinking on a fresh fruit naked cake with some type of cream, refreshing and everyone will like it.
Some red fruits like strawberries, berries or whatever equivalent we can find

>>3859315
thanks for running
we will try to keep a good discussion going the next days and see you next saturday

>>3859308
Messed up a sentence. Molasses made out of sugarcane is the one used for food in US and Canada since it has a decent taste. Beetroot molasses is not eaten by humans at all and used only for animal feedstocks.

>>3859315
Alright, time to check out what dwarves have for sell. The dwarven caravan is one of the first traders that attempted to exploit the newly discovered path to the surface so their assortment of goods is relatively small and value dense. Due to that, their prices are pretty steep and you’ve spent most of the money that you’ve brought which means you’ll have to prioritize what to buy again.

Here is a list of goods produced by the lamia village:

Healing honey: a large jar of blueish green substance produced by a type of insect that lives in the particular underground biome. The insects are not domesticated and thus supply of this material is somewhat limited. It is the main component of most concoctions produced in the lamia village as well as one of the famously potent dwarven alcohols to offset the massive impact on the liver. While not as potent or quick acting as actual specialized “potions”, it still has a variety of anomalously potent properties from promoting healing and enhancing immune response to assisting with removal of poisons. All concoctions created from it have effectively endless shelf life.

Recovery potions: six small glass bottles filled with greenish substance similar to syrup in consistency. Lamia village produces it from the healing honey and several different ferns native to their biome. It has incredibly potent effect upon ingestion which stimulates all aspects of regeneration from the immune response and blood production to dermal, muscle and even bone tissue regeneration. This allows a human or human subspecies (like elves, dwarves or lamias) to recover from grievous wounds or broken bones within days after only one dose assuming that the wounds are treated and the bones are set correctly. When applied directly into the wound it can produce an effect visible with a naked eye as deep wounds knit themselves back together in hours. It can’t heal existing scars or regenerate lost limbs, but it can be used to attach severed limbs back on if used before the limb dies.

Antitoxin cream: four jars of a bright blue cream- like substance. Created from healing honey and a blend of several mushrooms. Produces a powerful antibiotic and toxin negating effect upon digestion or application to the skin within several minutes. Works on any types of venoms and poisons that dwarves and lamias have encountered as well as on many types of illnesses including sepsis.

>>3861883
Dash salt: a pot filled with yellowish powder. Produced out of various mushrooms, powdered exoskeletons of a certain insect and healing honey which negates some of the side effects. When mixed into water and drank it suppresses the sensation of hunger, fatigue and pain while massively boosting alertness for around 40 hours. Side effects include irritability, being twitchy and the fact that while you can’t feel fatigue it didn’t go anywhere so there is a risk of a massive unexpected crash where you lose the ability to move. It is known to be addictive and the merchant warns you not to attempt to snort it since that makes it very easy to lethally overdose. It is used by lamia hunters as a combat drug.

Bandage leather: several small rolls of foodstuff similar to fruit leather. It is produced from a combination of multiple fruits and healing honey mixed into a single mass and then dried on a heated surface. When consumed they somehow enhance the clotting ability of the body. Once you get wounded, small and medium wounds would get rapidly sealed with a weird reddish clot that prevents you from bleeding out or getting sepsis. However, the effect is applied after about an hour and lasts for several days so it won’t do much good eating it once you are already hurt. While safe for most people, it is ill advised for obese, elderly and sickly since they risk suddenly dying from what you assume most likely to be a stroke.

And here are dwarven export goods:

Quarry nuts: a large bag of tennis ball sized “nuts” with a seam going through the middle like on a walnut. One of the plants cultivated by the dwarves in their underground farms. While outer shell is hard and not edible, the insides are filled with light brown paste- like substance that reminds you of sweetened smooth peanut butter judging by taste and consistency. It is used mostly for desserts and snacks by the dwarves.

Silverweave: a roll of dwarven fabric made out of white strands with metallic tint. Gathered from a type of partially domesticated large bug- like creatures naturally found in the lower first labyrinth layer. The fabric is a little rough but incredibly resilient. A shirt made out of silverweave is comparable to high quality chainmail in its protective functions but is a fraction of its weight and thickness. However, impacts can still easily break bones and cause internal bleeding even if they don’t pierce the fabric so underlaying padding is required for the optimal use. Melts at slightly lower temperature than iron, but if something throws that much heat in your direction most people would be dead pretty quickly anyway. Popular among Holy Nation’s nobility which use it in their armors and sometimes decorations for clothing as they consider its white metallic color as a symbol of purity.

>>3861890
Infernostrand: a roll of dark red to almost black rough thick textile made and used by the dwarves. It has excellent insulation properties and doesn’t burn which makes it perfect for heat resistant equipment like mittens and aprons for blacksmiths or full body suits worn by dwarves which operate mythic metal forges. Unlike asbestos, the strands are a little softer and they are not dangerous to humans. Dwarves apparently know about the infamous cancer inducing properties of the thin stranded mineral and rarely use it themselves preferring somewhat more expensive infernostrand.

In addition to these goods, dwarves also sell high quality tools, weapons and random merchandise like figurines or jewelry. You have 6 points of funds, you know the drill

Sneks:
>Healing Honey (2 funds)
>Recovery pots (3 funds)
>Antitoxin cream (3 funds)
>Dash salt (4 funds)
>Bandage leather (2 funds)

Dorfs:
>Quarry nuts (1 fund)
>Silverweave (3 funds)
>Infernostrand (2 funds)
>A choice of dwarven steel tools or weapons (1 fund per item)

>>3861893
>>Healing Honey (2 funds)
>Infernostrand (2 funds)
>Quarry nuts (1 fund)

and maybe 1 fund worth of the antitoxin if we can get a single jar?
or maybe some other dwarven stuff that I'll think about later kek

>>3861896
Sure, 4 jars cost 3 points so I can sell you one jar for one point. You might be able to get something small for the change as well like a figurine or a knife or something

>>3861896
>>3861897
Supporting this

>>3861896
>>3861893
Supporting

>>3861896
>>3861897
>>3861993
>>3862209
so, what are you guys looking forward to in the quest?
And what is something you think needs to be done?
Make a bit of an overview of what we can discuss and maybe plan for the future.

>>3863091
Exploring and discovering weird things on the Labyrith, discovering why the elven gods took off, getting stronk, kicking other SGs asses, developing cannons and other stuff

>>3863106
I can get behind that
Personally i would like to build up Farsalos a bit more, since it is something of our home and maybe get the local pantheons to work together a bit more, might just get their countries to stop going to war as much

>>3863132
Becoming Poland 2.0, and also instigating peace talks. Maybe work on stuff like >>3863106 said. I think our long term goal should be to eventually colonize the rest of the solar system, then FTL.

>>3863091
Working with the Ceno pantheon to estabilize the region

doing this >>3863091

exploring some more of the country and seeing what we can improve somewhere else besides Farsalos

>>3861893
New thread: >>3868095

>>3868105
Thread archived