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In Scrimshaw Mount, all graves are shallow. Even on the Promontory, where Nature, through the permutations of the Pattern had placed soil on the otherwise nude basalt of the Mount, the bone white stone was never more than a few feet down, commonly less than one. As such, getting graves to the standard depth of eight feet was simply not practical for those interned in the Mount's public burying grounds. But those that lived their lives and died their deaths on the Mount didn't take overmuch umbrage at their shallow graves. For both the practical and pious among them understood full well that under the panopticonical Gaze of the Patternmaker Above … all things are shallow.

Your name is Chlotsuintha, and at the moment you are still footpadding your way through the late Aldoin's house. Your pace through his basement was rather slow, and what progress you made can best be characterized as 'one step forward, three steps back' – but now, you are out of the basement, and moving with much fleeter feet than before. This quickening has been brought on in no small part by your near-certainty that this house is empty, save for yourself and your father's Constructs … as well as a steadily growing fear that you are not going to be able to keep your schedule for tonight at the rate you were going. Even moving as you are now, you still have doubts … but at the moment, your attention is divided between finding the right second-story fireplace, so you can hopefully see the emitter-Organ – and mulling over the Mystery that had been deployed behind you, in the servant's stair.

Idly, you step out into the hall that the servant's stair has opened up into, and look up and down its length. Unlike the stairwell you just left, here there is no trace of the Strangeness whatsoever – though there is much of this handsomely appointed hall that it outside of the envelope of the Strange-Staining Scarification Glyph, etched subcutaneously on your upper back. There are a number of doors up and down its length; two of which look as if they could lead to a room that shares the chimney than ran through the kitchen - the very same chimney that holds the Construct you are currently pursuing. You contemplate the pair of portals for a moment, then it dawns on you that you are just standing in the middle of the hall, and you impulsively start to move towards one of them. Being exposed like this doesn't sit well with you - after all, you are only nearly-certain that you are alone in here - but then again, you are still in the envelope of the ranged-remediation cast from the Constructs. Right now, nothing is sitting well with you ... though you are feeling long leagues better than you did down in the basement. How much of that is a matter your current distance to the emitter-Organ active on you and how much of that is more and more of the Strangeness that you have been carrying has been Cleansed away, you cannot say with any surety.

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For the first time, you consider what exactly you are to do if it turn out that the Construct you are after is not accessible or even visible from any of the fireplaces in this house. Thinking about it, father would want the Construct to be as hard to reach as – no, wait, that isn't true! That isn't true at all! The other Construct, the one that nearly took you off of your feet when you barely got within arms length of it – that Threadbare thing was just sitting in the ashbox of the other chimney. Well, you assume it was in the ashbox. You were getting it in such spades and 'barrows that you never actually managed to clap eyes on the thing, but surely that had to be the emitter-Organ. What else could have been thumping like that, or throwing up those clouds of greasy, sooty ash? And you certainly were feeling more and more of the ranged-remediation cast as you drew yourself closer and closer to it.

So of course, if you cannot reach this Construct for whatever reason, then you will go straight back down to the basement – which you were intending to do at some point regardless – and bear the brunt of the ranged-remediation cast once more … which you most assuredly were not intending to do again. But for the nonce, you will dwell on this no more; at this moment, you are faced with one of the doors most likely to lead to the chimney that you are seeking – as well as a decision on how to approach the rooms on this floor.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs. Moreover, you have burnt too much time here already. So long as you have no reason to believe that you are outside of a bedroom, and there is no fresh evidence to undermine your near-surety, then you will not bother trying to listen at doors, nor try your hand at peering under them. Pattern's Perdition, you have already been over this!
> You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs … but if there are silently ailing residents still in this abode, then you must be closer to them then you have ever been. Though you have fallen behind on your schedule, this is the time and place to be more cautious, not less. Moreover, while the complications that would arise from you unmaking your own schedule in your trepidation would not be inconsequential, the complications that would arise from being seen here would be much worse. Perhaps even worse than being seen by the captain of the Euthyphro.

>> Previous thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2023/5737272/
>> Archive: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Eternal%20Rome

Terribly sorry about the delay on the new thread; I got sick for the first time in years – feeling much better now, though. This vote is a bit of a re-tread of a previous decision, but I figured it would make sense to get everyone on the same page on the new thread.

>>5793948
> You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs. Moreover, you have burnt too much time here already. So long as you have no reason to believe that you are outside of a bedroom, and there is no fresh evidence to undermine your near-surety, then you will not bother trying to listen at doors, nor try your hand at peering under them. Pattern's Perdition, you have already been over this!

>>5793948
>You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs. Moreover, you have burnt too much time here already. So long as you have no reason to believe that you are outside of a bedroom, and there is no fresh evidence to undermine your near-surety, then you will not bother trying to listen at doors, nor try your hand at peering under them. Pattern's Perdition, you have already been over this!
Thought you're dead for a while

>>5793948
> You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs. Moreover, you have burnt too much time here already. So long as you have no reason to believe that you are outside of a bedroom, and there is no fresh evidence to undermine your near-surety, then you will not bother trying to listen at doors, nor try your hand at peering under them. Pattern's Perdition, you have already been over this!

Welcome back!

>>5793948
>You are nearly-certain that this entire house is empty, save for you and the Constructs. Moreover, you have burnt too much time here already. So long as you have no reason to believe that you are outside of a bedroom, and there is no fresh evidence to undermine your near-surety, then you will not bother trying to listen at doors, nor try your hand at peering under them. Pattern's Perdition, you have already been over this!
I do not wish to dilly around much longer

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... no, no. No. You aren't doing this again, damn it all. From your very first footfall inside this house, all the way to this very door, you have encountered nothing - nothing at all - that would suggest that there is anyone on the other side of this door, or in the entire fraying house. So unless something happens to suggest otherwise, you are not going to let yourself get in your own way any more. Feeling flustered and frustrated on top of the lingering miserable effects of the ranged-remediation cast, you free up your right hand, heft the 'stick in your left high - then immediately regret hefting it so high when the flame damn near gutters out on you. Before you can fall into a fit of self-recriminating silent conniptions, you take a deep breath - vainly hoping that it will fortify you - then you slowly push open the door, all the while watching what remains of the light atop your 'stick to make sure that it is not snuffed out by an errant puff. Once the door has opened to its fullest extent, and you can see that the puddling remains of your candle is still gleaming atop your 'stick, you lower your gaze, and peer out into the room. For a split second, your mind runs away with itself, and you think on how someone might have been in the this room after all, how they might have seen you at the door, how they might now, at this very moment, be watching you, concealed somewhere within the room ... but you regain yourself before these idle fears become any more of an impediment than they already are. Surely, if there was anyone else in this house, by now they would have made their presence known somehow.

Still ... there are no windows in this room, none of the sconces on the walls bear a lick of light, nor does the chandelier on the ceiling. There are 'sticks in the room, though none save for your own bear candles - which is such a pitiful specimen that it barely can be taken into account for such considerations. Suffice to say then, that this room - a sitting room of some stripe, if you were to judge - is rather dark. While the room is rather open, the shadows at its fringes are deep, and as you step into the room and debate on closing the door behind you, you notice that the room is carpeted, wall to wall or near enough, so you couldn't necessarily count on hearing - Maker's Mercy, you cannot be doing this right now! This is the absolute worst possible time to lose your head, your nerve, your stomach. Could this be a more subtle effect of the ranged-remediation cast? Induced paranoia? That wouldn't be a typical effect from a remediation cast, but by all standards and measures, this is not a typical remediation cast. Yet ... this could also just be the wages of taking a long day on little to even less sleep. You rub your right temple with your right hand - making a point of keeping it clear of where the envelope of the Hide-Eyes Glyph would be were it active.

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As you rub, your eyes finally begin to adjust. And it so happens that the more of the room that you can see, the less of a grip that idle and ... utterly baseless fears have on you. It also so happens that you are finally able to make out the fireplace on the far side of the room ... and the intermittently flinching and wiggling mass that hangs half in and half out of it. It twitchily sits on the cast iron fire-dog, the Living Mystery as tall and thrice as thick as any stack of logs the andiron could every have been intended to bear. The two-thirds or so of the mass that has spilt over the struts of the fire-dog does not rest on the floor of the hearth - rather, it seems to hold itself in some tension, or at the very least, it is pinned somehow to the wrist-thick Conduits that run up and down the height of the firebox. Between the darkness and the obstruction of the Construct, it is hard to make out much inside the chimney from where you stand.

All other thoughts having slid off of your brain as the morning dew slides of blades of grass, you find yourself approaching the Construct to get yourself a better look. But as you start to pass around the couches and baby trestles on your way to the fireplace, you stop yourself. If this is in fact the emitter-Organ that you are looking for, then what is going to happen when you touch it? Or even draw near it? You don't know how its Logic works, but isn't it possible that it would prioritize targeting the Strangeness on articles and individuals closer to the emitter-Organ, as Cleansing them would be easier than targets further away? Clearly, something happened down in the basement that made the other Construct start to target you. Mercy, just thinking about that ranged-remediation cast you got a taste of standing in front of the ashbox to the other chimney ... damn it all, the whole rationale for looking for this Construct in the first place was that you couldn't bear to be the presence of the other one while it was active and targeting you. So if you were to set this one off on you, then ... all of this time and effort would have been for naught, right? Well, what else is there? Reaching for it through the Firmament, and trying to disable it that way, before physically inspecting it? Conceivably that could work - assuming there were no security-sureties Woven into the Emitter - but you would almost certainly end up doing some damage to the Construct in the process.

Trying to ignore the feeling of a victory slipping out of your hands, you turn to the walls. At the very least, you could get some of the sconces in here lit, so you can actually see what you are trying to look at. Beyond that ...

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> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will attempt to disable the Construct, accepting the near-certainty of damaging it.
> You will not attempt to disable the Construct, accepting the risk of it targeting you during the inspection.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will inspect the Construct without touching it, limiting the extent of your inspection.
> You will touch the Construct, potentially complicating your inspection.

> Write-Ins are allowed, subject to QM approval.

>>5794217
> You will not attempt to disable the Construct, accepting the risk of it targeting you during the inspection.
> You will touch the Construct, potentially complicating your inspection.

>>5794217
Glad that you're back QM, you had me worried there for a moment!

>>5794233
Support, just to speed this process up- though it makes sense to look at the Construct before touching it.

>>5794233
>Solid call. Supporting.

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Well, either way, you are going to get more light in here. With your free right hand, you fish out the snap-sparker you pilfered earlier from the basement, then after taking a lingering look at the squirming, fleshy mass of the Construct, you turn on your heel and carefully make your way over to the nearest of the sconces on the wall, hoping to find candles that have been left behind in their perches. So you could get some light in here ... and also so you could pinch a few, and be able to put the waxy revenant you have atop your 'stick to rest. Actually, considering what candles are going for now-a-days, you would do well to load yourself - no, you can't be thinking like that. Right now, you need to concern yourself with the Strangeness, the Constructs and the Mysteries of Aldoin's house first and foremost before you can bog yourself down with swag-seeking. To tell it true, at the rate you are going, you might have to forego swag-seeking entirely. Obviously, that is a distressing prospect, considering just how much wealth is just lying about you in this house ... but you also have to consider that you already have a handsome little hoard of your own, waiting for you back in the Belfry. And of course, the longer your head start on the Inquisition is, the more likely you are to make a - oh, damn your black luck! Oil sconces! Well, so much for stockpiling candles ...

You spend more than a few moments single-handedly fumbling with the sconce - which even at your height is still over your head - before you finally figure out how to get at the wick. You bring the snap-sparker to bear on it, and soon you get the wick silently sizzling away. For a brief second, you consider trying to take the entire sconce off of the wall, to carry it with you instead of the 'stick ... but as the sconce doesn't have anything on it that looks like a reservoir, you think it might get its oil from a line in the walls. Resigned to sticking with the 'stick for the immediate future, you walk over to a few of the other sconces and light them up. As you return to the fireplace, it occurs to you in passing just how ... odd it is, to have a sitting room like this. On the second floor. With absolutely no windows. And now that you notice it, with only one door. To be sure, you can understand why Aldoin would want to muster up as much privacy as possible, but ... well, it is just unsettling, that's all. And it certainly doesn't help that whenever you are looking at the Construct - as you are now - your back is to the room's only door. Damn it, is this more induced paranoia, or is this genuine instinct?

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You stifle a sigh, and turn your attention fully to the Construct in front of you. Immediately you notice that this portion of the Construct appears to be ... you'd describe it as 'wrapped' in an pallid and fleshy Membrane with a really noticeable oily sheen. Of more interest than the texture is the Glyphs that have been etched onto the Membrane- and the occasional protrusions you can see here and there underneath the 'wrap', some significantly larger than others. A number of the wrist-thick Conduits lead into the mass, but the juncture - or possibly, the socket - is covered up by the Membrane. Beyond that ... even though the Construct is squirming in place atop the andirons, it is making no noise that you can hear, nor it is releasing any redolence of any kind - in fact, the only thing you can smell at the moment is the fraying sausage link you still have around your neck. Beyond whatever is giving the Membrane its sheen, you can see no evidence that there is any physical discharge from the Construct - and when you timidly stick out your hand to check, you can feel no heat or nor cold nor anything else emanating from it.

Having exhausted every other avenue for inspection, you shakily swallow in your suddenly dry throat before closing the distance to the hearth and the mass that bulges out of it. You are a full-stride and a half away from the Construct - and nothing happens. At a full stride away, nothing happens. Same at a half-stride, an arm's length, a hand's breadth and even a finger's breadth. And when you hastily and softly poke what you judge to be the center of the mass, still nothing happens - though you do notice that the Construct is warm to the touch; though considering the scale and type of cast that is in play here, it is surprising that it is merely warm. In fact, just considering the amount of Fuel that a cast like this would need, you are surprised that touching this Organ isn't like touching the door of a working furnace.

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> Please choose ONE of the following:

> You may have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, but for now, you are going to hold off on any further contact with the Construct - you will inspect only what you can see now.
> You may have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, but for now, you are going to reach out and into it through the Firmament and see what you can learn that way instead.
> As you have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, you are going to try to pull it out of the fireplace, so you can get a better look at the Glyphs on the Membrane.
> As you have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, you are going to try to unwrap the Membrane, so you can get a better look at the Glyphs - as well as the protrusions underneath.
> As you have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, you are going to disconnect the Wrapped Mass from the wrist-thick Conduit so you can get the best possible look at the whole thing.

Okay, that is the 'run' for today. I'll be back tomorrow, probably sometime in the early afternoon (Eastern Standard Time). It is good to be back!

>>5794674
>You may have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, but for now, you are going to reach out and into it through the Firmament and see what you can learn that way instead.

>>5794674
>> As you have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, you are going to try to pull it out of the fireplace, so you can get a better look at the Glyphs on the Membrane.
If there's a tie later I'm fine with the firmament option too.

>>5794674

>You may have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, but for now, you are going to reach out and into it through the Firmament and see what you can learn that way instead.

Hell's Heights.

>>5794674
> You may have determined - provisionally - that it is safe to touch the Construct, but for now, you are going to reach out and into it through the Firmament and see what you can learn that way instead.

We haven't really done a lot of astral plane stuff, I'm curious!

Alright, closed and writing!

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Without taking your eyes off of the Construct, you get down on your knees in front of it, then you stoop your head under the mantle and lintel of the fireplace, staying clear of the wrist-thick Conduit as much as you can. You rake your eyes back and forth over the Construct, greedily taking in every detail that you can. After a couple of passes, it occurs to you that the Glyphs that have been Scrivened onto the Membrane that the Organ is wrapped in might be the same - or at least functionally similar to the Glyphs on the wooden blocks, embedded into the Conduit ... but when you compare the two, you find that beyond being Scrivened in the same Language, there is no obvious similarity between the two of them. From your Interpretation of the Glyphs that you can see, their function seems to be split between compression, thermal regulation, and ... anti-coagulation?

Obviously, an Organ of this size - let alone complexity - is not going to be able to get away with running 'dry' or even with hydrostatic internals. No, an Organ like this would need organs of its own; a fully functional pulmonary and circulatory system - and the blood to pump through it. Or at least, something that could fill the role of blood. And you can also understand that an emitter-Organ would presumably be very delicate, and that it could conceivably end up damaging itself somehow. So the presence of the membrane makes sense as a way to protect the Construct from tearing itself up or splitting apart under its own weight, as does the compression aspect of the Glyphs. But anti-coagulation? You'd want to bleeding, not clotting. You check to make sure that you Interpreted the Glyph correctly - and your second reading comes out the same as the first; compression, thermal regulation, and anti-coagulation. Still confused, you treble check, making sure that there isn't an Inverter Modifier on the Clause of the Glyph that covers the anti-coagulation aspect. There isn't; moreover, there aren't any Inverter Modifiers in any of the Glyphs that you can see. You sigh exasperatedly - which turns into an exasperated sounding cough. As you clear your throat, you rack your brain, trying to puzzle your way out of this ... but unless this Glyph has been Scrivened in a Language that is almost identical to the one you believe it to be in, save for 'anti-coagulation', then you aren't able to unravel this.

Perhaps ... perhaps you should try reaching into the Glyph. Assuming it was active, and there weren't security-sureties Woven into the Membrane that the Glyphs were Scrivened on to stop or counter your incursion, you could get a clearer picture. Honestly though, if you were willing to risk reaching, then you might just be better served reaching into the body of the Construct instead - all things considered, you are almost certain that the emitter-Organ is active at the moment ... not on you, blessedly, but elsewhere in the house.

Presumably, there would be a lot more you could glean from the Organ than just its outermost layer. Of course, considering the Draw that the cast from the emitter-Organ must have, if anything were to go wrong, odds are it would end up much worse for you ...

Oh, damn it all to the Heights of Hell, you need something to show for all of this!

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Reach into the Glyph on the Membrane
> Reach into the emitter-Organ

>>5795236
>Reach into the Glyph on the Membrane

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>>5795236
> Reach into the emitter-Organ

>>5795236
> Reach into the Glyph on the Membrane

>>5795236
>> Reach into the Glyph on the Membrane

>>5795236
>Don't reach in after all. Move on.

>>5795574
>>5795375
>>5795307
>>5795297
>>5795246

Alright, consider this closed. Writing.

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You shift your weight on your knees as you consider your options. Occasionally, you will shoot glances over your shoulder, though the half-lit room at the door facing directly at your back. After the third time you catch yourself fitfully peering, you start to give some serious credence to the idea that your current unsettled state is somehow being induced by the ranged-remediation cast; perhaps caused by your proximity to the emitter-Organ. Admittedly, you aren't sure how exactly this would work - and you didn't experience similar effects when you were within an arm's length of the other emitter-Organ down in the basement ... but there is much about this Construct and its cast that you don't understand, and for all you know, you could have been on edge or paranoid back there. The subtly of this particular effect would have been lost on you, as you were nearly ready to pass out on your feet. You find yourself sighing again, and increasingly frustrated that for all the time you have spent looking at - and for - this Construct, you still have yet to answer even the most basic questions about this thing. In fact, considering that there are wrist-thick Conduits running up the flue, just like there was in the kitchen fireplace, there might be more of this Construct on the third floor, or in the attic.

With the thought of so much more to investigate looming over you, you make a split second decision to reach into the Glyph. Of the two options before you, it is obviously the safer one ... though it remains to be seen if the Glyph is even active. Pushing that concern to the side for now, you take one last long look at the Glyph, carefully lay your right hand on it, and before you can make this any more difficult for yourself than it needs to be, you squeeze your eyes shut hard, to commit yourself. Then you take a series of these sequentially deeper and deeper breaths, then once you are as ready as you can be, you reach - into the Firmament. The pitch-blackness behind your eyelids suddenly becomes more luminous, as if a great light was drawn close to your eyes. A bout of trembling threatens to pull you back, so you stiffen your back to ramrod-straightness - and after a moment, the shivers pass, and once your body flushes with warmth and your breathing becomes noticeably more labored, you know you have managed to reach the Realm of Forms. Staring intently at the luminous darkness, which now resembles a shiny, shifting and rolling oil, you try to reach for the Form of the Glyph. Physically, you are not only right in front of the Glyph, you are actually touching the fraying thing. It should simply be enough to reach into it as if you were reaching into one of your own Glyphs.

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But ... you don't feel a Glyph. There is certainly something there to sense, to feel - presumably the Membrane, or even the emitter-Organ underneath it ... but the Form of the Glyph is not Manifesting as you had hoped. It is either inactive, or it is secured against incursions such as this. Now, this isn't the end of the road, but if you wish to pursue this further, things get a bit more complicated - and dangerous. As you know where the Glyph is physically in the Realm of Shadows, then it should be ... safe enough for you to attempt to temporarily Manifest what you believe the Form of the Glyph should look like, based off of your Interpretation of the Glyph, into the 'space' in the Realm of Forms that the Form of the Glyph would be were it active. If your copy of the Form is close enough - and the physical Glyph is not secured against incursions like this - then reaching into the copy in the Realm of Forms will cause the physical Glyph in the Realm of Shadows to activate, which then in turn you should be able to reach into and get a proper feel for. However, if you don't manage it properly, or there is some security-surety that you have overlooked ... then things could go very poorly for you. Setting aside all of the nastiness that a security-surety could do to you while you are vulnerable from Projecting into the Firmament, the worse-case scenario for a failure would be a 'temporary' Manifested Form of the Glyph that becomes permanent, altering or even superseding the True Form of the Glyph. If that was to happen, then the physical Glyph in the Realm of Shadows would end up being subject to those alterations, and would physically change - not only would the Glyph probably break in the process, either you or the Construct would end up getting used for Fuel to make those changes.

Suffice to say, that is not a pleasant prospect ... though you really don't have any other options to deal directly with the Glyph. But indirectly ... you know that this Construct is active on some level, as it is alive. So unless there are security-sureties Woven in, then you should be able to reach for it. And if the Construct as a whole is designed in some way to interface or Fuel the Glyphs on the Membrane ... well, then if you were willing to accept the risks of reaching into the Construct instead, you might be able to isolate the portion of the Form that interacts with the Glyph, and from there make deductions about it. You'd also have the opportunity sense and feel the rest of the Construct's Form - but even though you wouldn't be delving as deep into the Firmament as you would if you continued with the Glyph directly, you are still taking risks. This is the emitter-Organ, and you still don't understand its targeting Logic. Who knows what could happen if you were to reach into it while you are vulnerable from Projecting?

You suppose you get to pick your poison here ... or you could forgo them entirely, and limit your investigation to the Realm of Shadows.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Investigate the Glyph directly by Manifesting your Interpretation of it [Requires Rolling]
> Investigate the Glyph indirectly by reaching for the Construct instead
> Withdraw from the Realm of Forms, and physically investigate the Construct for more clues

>>5796018
>> Withdraw from the Realm of Forms, and physically investigate the Construct for more clues

>>5796018
> Investigate the Glyph directly by Manifesting your Interpretation of it [Requires Rolling]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

>>5796018
> Withdraw from the Realm of Forms, and physically investigate the Construct for more clues

>>5796018
>Investigate the Glyph directly by Manifesting your Interpretation of it [Requires Rolling]

>>5796018
> Investigate the Glyph indirectly by reaching for the Construct instead

Okay, I'm back ... and I see we have a 2-2-1 tie.

As I don't feel comfortable rolling for this, I suppose we will have to wait for a tiebreaker.

> Withdraw from the Realm of Forms, and physically investigate the Construct for more clues
We can save the riskier stuff for last.

Closed and writing.

>>5796018
I would prefer to keep investigating the glyph, but I ain’t willing to tie the vote up again. Consider this a tiebreaker in favor of investigating, if the vote becomes tied up again.

>>5796443
No offense friend- but in my experience in this quest, it’s always better to bite the bullet and reap the rewards immediately rather than trying to wait and play it safe, for the safe option always complicates our efforts in the future.

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Maybe ... maybe you have put the cart before the horse here. With the risks involved in investigating the Glyph or the Construct in the Realm of Forms, wouldn't it make more sense to exhaust all of your options in the Realm of Shadows first? Suddenly, sensation begins to return to your knees - which is the actually the first time that you noticed that you had lost feeling, though from your very limited experience with Projection, that is typical. However, thinking about physical sensations like this restores feeling piecemeal to the rest of your body, and before you know it, your Projection is faltering. Disappointed with the yourself, you ease yourself back into the Realm of Shadows, letting the luminous of the darkness falter and fade to the typical view of the back of your eyelids - though you know enough to wait to open your eyes only once the tightness in your chest and the full-body flush of warmth has faded away. Once your eyes are open, you blink freely as you try to get them adjusted back to the Flesh as quick as you can.

Through the 'veil' of these blinks, you stare down at the Construct - right where and as you left it. And as you do, you start to seriously second guess your decision to continue your investigation in the Flesh. This isn't like it was down in the kitchen, or in the stairwell of the servant's stair, where there was poor lighting and circumstances that could cause you to miss something. As it sit and strains before you, the emitter-Organ is an open book; one that you have already read. If you wanted to limit your investigation to the Realm of Shadows for the nonce, then to learn more about the Glyphs or the Construct as a whole, you are going to have to move it, one way or another.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You are going to try to turn it over, to see if there are any other Glyphs on the other side of the Construct.
> You are going to try to pull the Construct out of the chimney, in part to make it easier to look at, in part to see if anything happens, and in part to make it easier if you do decide to try to detach it later.
> You are going to try to unwrap or pull away a portion of the Membrane over the emitter-Organ, so you can see what the Organ underneath really looks like - and possibly understand the relationship between Glyph, Membrane and Organ better.

>>5796630
> You are going to try to turn it over, to see if there are any other Glyphs on the other side of the Construct.

>>5796630
>> You are going to try to turn it over, to see if there are any other Glyphs on the other side of the Construct.

>>5796630
> You are going to try to unwrap or pull away a portion of the Membrane over the emitter-Organ, so you can see what the Organ underneath really looks like - and possibly understand the relationship between Glyph, Membrane and Organ better.

>>5796630
>> You are going to try to turn it over, to see if there are any other Glyphs on the other side of the Construct.

>>5796630
>You are going to try to turn it over, to see if there are any other Glyphs on the other side of the Construct.

>>5796630
>You are going to try to unwrap or pull away a portion of the Membrane over the emitter-Organ, so you can see what the Organ underneath really looks like - and possibly understand the relationship between Glyph, Membrane and Organ better.

Closed and writing.

Well ... you suppose it is as they say - if there is nothing ventured, then how can there be anything to gain? And really, after all of this, you need something a bit more than a confused Interpretation of a Glyph to show for it. For a start, you are going to try to turn the Construct over, to see if there are other Glyphs - different Glyphs - on the other side of the Membrane. If you are right about the 'style' of the Glyphs that you have seen and Interpreted already, then this isn't shooting in the dark by any stretch of the imagination. There are two primary 'styles' of Glyphs - Linothorax, the composite 'style' and Cuirass, the singular 'style'. Linothorax Glyphs - like the ones on the Membrane before you - are low-Draw, and the Bearer or the Bearing Article will have a number of these Glyphs all over. All of these Glyphs are intended to activate simultaneously, and work in tandem to induce the intended cast onto the Bearer or the Bearing Article. As is the case with the Membrane, it is typical for Linothorax Glyphs to be identical ... but it is also typical for Glyphs in this 'style' to be spaced out regularly over the Bearer, commonly in a particular pattern - which is not the case on the Membrane. There is no rhyme or reason that you can see.

And you can only think of two explanations for that. You could be dead wrong about the Glyphs. They could be in the Cuirass 'style' instead, like your Hide-Eyes, Strange-Staining and Cold-Touch Glyphs - high-Draw, with only one needed per cast. Beyond redundancy or sequencing, you aren't sure why so many Cuirass Glyphs would be needed, but because only one is needed for each Bearer, the placement of these Glyphs is inconsequential ... unless there are other Glyphs or Mysteries that could interfere with its intended function. That also happens to be the case for Linothorax Glyphs too. It is possible that there is another set of Glyphs or something else on the other side of the Membrane, and the irregular spacing of the Linothorax Glyphs is a necessary precaution to ensure that the neither side of the Membrane breaks or otherwise impedes the cast or the function of the opposite side.

Invigorated at the prospect of finally getting some answers for one of your questions, you start towards the Construct to flip it over - then you catch yourself. Not only are you dealing with a Mystery that you know next to nothing about, you have no idea how strong that Membrane is, what would happen if you were to injure or tear it ... and perhaps most importantly, if that beady oily sheen is something that you should be exposing yourself to so carelessly. Determined now to do this properly, you decide that you need a bit more elbow room on hand - so with great care and deliberation, you work your way out from underneath the mantle and lintel of the fireplace, still on your knees.

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You are looking after your head, so you don't rap it on the stonework, you are looking at the Construct so you don't somehow manage to jostle it and risk hurting the Membrane ... and you are even being careful of your apron, to make sure that you don't catch it on anything and accidentally dump out one of the pockets or tear it on the cut and polished stone of the hearth. It takes frustratingly long, but you do manage to get free and clear of the fireplace without incident. You straighten yourself up, while remaining on your knees, then as a final precaution, you get the 'stick well clear of the Construct - that oily sheen on the Membrane looks flammable, and you could just see yourself being the brute by accidentally lighting the Construct on fire as you are trying to study it.

But while you aren't likely to turn the Construct into Strange kindling anymore, there is another risk that you simply cannot put aside. The mass of the emitter-Organ is perched on a cast iron-fire-dog, and you are concerned that simply trying to turn it over in place will rent the Membrane right apart. So it seems that even though you don't intend to take the Organ out of the chimney, you are still going to have to lift it to clear the prongs of the andiron before the turning. As certain as the Stars, that is going to make things difficult, especially when you consider that only the back third of the thing is actually resting on the fire-dog, the rest of the mass is simply held in tension. Somehow. Possibly by the 'compression' Clause of the Glyphs, possibly by the Conduit, possibly by the Organ itself - which you haven't seen much off, wrapped and concealed as it is by the Membrane. Perhaps even it is a bit of all three ... but you are getting lost in the weeds here. What you need to focus on now is how to lift and then turn the Threadbare thing, not how it is holding itself up. So you take the better part of a minute, looking the entire thing over again. Eventually, you settle on the best spot to lift the thing - but immediately you realize that you are not going to be able to get a good grip or leverage without putting your head right into the middle of the wrist-thick Conduit running up and down the firebox.

Impatient with yourself, you resolve that if it is safe enough to lift the Construct, then it should be safe enough to touch the Conduit too. With that, you duck your head down even lower, and move further into the fireplace. As you move in, brushing up against the Conduit, they start to sway back and forth a bit - seemingly trying to get back into the position they were in before you dislodged them. Of course, these Conduit have quite a bit of weight to them - and if their speed they demonstrated earlier wasn't an indication of their strength, then how much the hurt when they smack into you certainly is.

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As you move in, you get your ears boxed, and your neck and shoulders - still sore and sliced up from last night - slapped and thumped for your troubles. Blessedly, once you get to where you intended to go and stop moving, the Conduit starts to settle down, though you are still getting a little roughed up. Keen to be done with this, you get both of your arms around the Construct, you hold it tight - and then you start to lift, getting both of your feet underneath you in the process. Maker's Mercy, why does your left arm hurt so bad? Still, you put all you can into this, and you are rewarded with the sensation of the Organ moving freely in your arms, no long resting on the andiron. You think you might be clear of the tops of the fire-dogs, but as you are moving again, the Conduit has resumed slapping you about the head, which makes seeing what you are doing in the cramped quarters of the firebox even harder than they would have been otherwise. Wanting to be absolutely sure, you jerk the mass even higher - and then the Socketing Needle in the crook of your left arm jolts itself in deeper somehow.

You fraying moron - your left arm wasn't just hurting because of the ranged-remediation cast!

But as mad as you are - and in as much pain as you are - you are not giving up on this. You grind your teeth, and you do your best to blink away the tears accumulating in the corners of your eyes as you slowly and steady shift and twist the mass in your hands. You know that you aren't going to be able to flip the thing over ... but if you were just able to manage a quarter turn, that would be enough. The Organ is squirming in your arms, and you can see that the oily sheen on the Membrane is getting all over your apron, but you are almost certain that you have made more than enough of a turn by the time you feel your arms start to fail on you. Moving quickly, you line the Organ back up with the fire-dogs as best you can while being belted in the head by the Conduit, then you set it down as carefully as you can. Somehow you manage to get the thing back on the andiron before your grip completely gives way.

You pull your smarting head out from amongst the Conduit, and take your first good look at your handiwork here. Immediately, you can see that there aren't other Glyphs on this other side of the Membrane - because there barely is an other side to the Membrane. Instead, the edges of it are pinned into the fringes of a massive protrusion, leaving it uncovered. You see the prehensile orifices, the regular contractions, the look of mass - immediately, you can tell what it is. A Fuel Governor, sometimes called a Fuel Pump. So it seems that you haven't found the emitter-Organ after all, you found the Construct's Fuel Nodule instead. An absolutely gargantuan Nodule!

Pattern's Perdition! How close were you a few minutes ago to reaching into this? Too damned close!

It would have been as if you threw yourself onto a fire, to try to determine just how hot it was. Or ... alright, perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration. Reaching into a Nodule of this size wouldn't guarantee you getting hurt, like you would if were to touch an open flame - but with so much of That-Which-Is-Drawn on hand in the Nodule, even the smallest of missteps could have had serious consequences. But you refuse to cry over milk that wasn't spilt, because this ... this right here is an incredible find. You don't know how much Fuel remains in it, and without a Dowser that has been paired with this particular Governor, the only way you could find out is by getting this thing on the Life-Loom and trying to Draw into it. Odds are you'd foul that up somehow, but forget that for now. Don't worry about how much is left. Just ... the capacity on this thing. Judging from how heavy it is, it has to be more than a Hundred-Weight. A Six-Score, perhaps? No, that seems a bit high, once you factor out the weight of the Membrane and the Governor - oh, and the protrusions, assuming that they are Moderators or Optimizers or whatever the fraying things are called, and not just irregular growths of the Nodule. So, what, a Nine-Dozen then?

You look down at your apron pocket, where you have crammed your bundled spare dress into one of your pockets. Inside that mess, Shielded by the False Silverware, is your remaining supply of Fuel Nodules that still carry 'charge'. One of them at maximum capacity could Fuel eight individual casts with your Wand of Head-Knocking. Now, with eight casts in an Ounce Nodules, and sixteen ounces in a pound, that is ... one hundred and thirty-six casts for - no, damn it, one hundred and twenty-eight casts, for one pound of Fuel Nodule. And if you are right, and this is a Nine-Dozen - one hundred and eight pounds of Fuel Nodule - right here in front of you, then the maximum capacity of this Nodule expressed in the lowest intensity cast possible with your wand would be ... uh ... well, it would be quite a bit over ... ten thousand casts. And that is just at the baseline of efficiency - if those protrusions are ... whatever they are, the things that make Nodules 'carry' more Fuel per pound then they typically do; but if they were, then the capacity could be higher still. Of course, you'd have serious reservations about actually Socketing this monstrosity to your Wand of Head-Knocking and casting with it. With so much Fuel on hand, if anything were to go wrong, it would really go wrong ... not to mention, with so much available, the wand might end up Overdrawing, without some dedicated ... you think they are called Regulators. Father never really taught you about high-end Nodule design or much about Fuel at all - probably because he was concerned that you'd be messing around with them behind his back if he did.

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Not to mention, you doubt that you will ever find yourself in a situation where you are within six yards of ten thousand or so men who you need to knock out for a few seconds. And to be sure, the Nodule is presumably quite far from its capacity at this point. Still ... even if it only had a tenth of its total 'charges' remaining. That is more than a thousand casts!

Pattern's Peace, this puts you in a predicament, doesn't it? Everything that you have seen of the Construct so far indicates that once it is done Cleansing the house, it is going to Cleanse itself away as well. All of it, including this incredible Fuel Nodule, as well as the emitter-Organ, wherever exactly it is. Are you going to be able to accept that?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> These Constructs were put here for a reason. You will take every opportunity you can to study them, but you will not risk bungling things up by trying to make off with this Fuel Nodule, or any other part of the Construct.
> You will take the time to study this Construct, without doing anything that could break it, or impede its intended function; Cleansing this house. Once you are done poking around with the Nodule and the emitter-Organ, you will continue to investigate and pilfer your way through the rest of the house, while these Constructs continue to Cleanse the place. If you finish going through the house before the Constructs finish Cleansing it, then you will make a decision then on taking pieces of them with you - this ensures that as much of the house as possible gets Cleansed as intended.
> Who knows how long it would take you to figure out how to make a Nine-Dozen Fuel Nodule on your own? Pattern's Perdition, who knows if you will ever able to figure it out? And you still have no idea about how this Construct prioritizes what to target for Cleansing, or how it coordinates with the other Construct. For all you know, this Construct could be just minutes away from running out of targets and initializing its self-Cleanse. You are not walking away from this. After all, the whole reason you are still in the Mount is to protect your father's work - this right here is your father's work, so hurry up and protect it! Attempt to disconnect it immediately.

>>5797545
> These Constructs were put here for a reason. You will take every opportunity you can to study them, but you will not risk bungling things up by trying to make off with this Fuel Nodule, or any other part of the Construct.

Don't want to bungle Father's plans.

>>5797545
>These Constructs were put here for a reason. You will take every opportunity you can to study them, but you will not risk bungling things up by trying to make off with this Fuel Nodule, or any other part of the Construct.

>>5797545
>> Who knows how long it would take you to figure out how to make a Nine-Dozen Fuel Nodule on your own? Pattern's Perdition, who knows if you will ever able to figure it out? And you still have no idea about how this Construct prioritizes what to target for Cleansing, or how it coordinates with the other Construct. For all you know, this Construct could be just minutes away from running out of targets and initializing its self-Cleanse. You are not walking away from this. After all, the whole reason you are still in the Mount is to protect your father's work - this right here is your father's work, so hurry up and protect it! Attempt to disconnect it immediately.

>>5797545
> These Constructs were put here for a reason. You will take every opportunity you can to study them, but you will not risk bungling things up by trying to make off with this Fuel Nodule, or any other part of the Construct.

There is this much fuel here for a reason. And if Father could acquire such a nodule so readily as to be willing to 'casually' dispose of it then I'm sure that one day we can as well.

>>5797545
> These Constructs were put here for a reason. You will take every opportunity you can to study them, but you will not risk bungling things up by trying to make off with this Fuel Nodule, or any other part of the Construct.

Is there a way to charge our existing nodules with this?

>>5797852
The Nodules that Chlotsuintha has on hand are all 'charged' to capacity.

Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing right away.

>>5797886
I actually want to debate this when I get back home- this Large Fuel Nodule is revolutionary, and will undoubtedly be useful when we finally leave the mount. We simply shouldn’t let this get burnt to cinders when it’s finished.

>>5797685
>>5797782
Father may have built this, but whether this was part of the plan is a different question entirely- and there are serious concerns that Aldion’s family is already incriminated beyond salvage.

>>5798067
I'm willing to come back to this if we discover enough about this thing to come to the conclusion that there will be leftover fuel after its job is complete and if we can determine when that actually is so that we know when to disconnect the fuel nodule.

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You ... you are going to have to accept it. As hard as it may be, you are going to let this one go. By designing, Weaving and deploying these Constructs here, your father is being responsible, like a Witch should. Like ... you weren't. After you ... damn it all. It wasn't bad enough that you just walked away from the ... unfolding calamity in the Midden and Morgue, that you turned your back on the Coroners or that idiot Animal Control Leper that effectively reported himself to the Inquisition, no, you were going to go out of your way to undermine your own father's deliberate, time-intensive and expensive effort to do the right thing. How ... just how selfish are you? You choke down a shaky breath and wipe angrily at your eyes when you feel tears forming. But there will be a horn-full of opportunities later to beat yourself up over this - right now, you need to be wise with your time. Wiser than you have been, certainly.

The issue at hand; you have no idea how much time you are going to have with these Constructs before they Cleanse themselves. So it behooves you to study them as hard as you have ever studied anything immediately. Except ... you aren't thinking very clearly at the moment - case in point, you managed to overlook the needle in your arm before you tried to lift more than one hundred pounds of Fuel Nodule. If you rely on memory alone to keep your findings with the Constructs, then details might get flipped - or dropped entirely. You would like to think that you could teach yourself to make a Nodule like this on your own, eventually - but you aren't sure. Father had mother. Right now, it looks like you are going to be on your own. Setting that aside, notes would be an unparalleled boon for your studies. You have the journal with the 'map' of the basement in it to write in, but nothing to write with. And while you are sure that you could remedy that by getting yourself to a study or some-such room for a spot of quick pilfering, you are concerned with how long it might take you to find such a room - and more acutely, with how long the Constructs have left. It wouldn't serve for you to waste the remaining time you had with the Construct off somewhere, looking for a quill and pot, would it. Perhaps ... perhaps if you look at it straight-away, then look for something to write with immediately after, while it is still fresh in your head?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will focus on the Construct now, and finding something to write with later. It is even possible that the Construct will still be in one piece at the point, so you could end up having your sweetroll and eating it too.
> You will find a quill and pot immediately. The Construct should be good for at least the next ten minutes or so - but an hour later? The odds certainly aren't as good. Just a moment now, and you can be practically assured that the Construct will be on hand as you make your notes.

>>5798155
> You will find a quill and pot immediately. The Construct should be good for at least the next ten minutes or so - but an hour later? The odds certainly aren't as good. Just a moment now, and you can be practically assured that the Construct will be on hand as you make your notes.

Just sprint, it won't take more than a minute or two.

> You will find a quill and pot immediately. The Construct should be good for at least the next ten minutes or so - but an hour later? The odds certainly aren't as good. Just a moment now, and you can be practically assured that the Construct will be on hand as you make your notes.

>>5798080
Clearly there is going to be leftover fuel- father is meticulous, and he certainly wouldn’t underfuel a mitigation Construct if given the choice. Besides- there may be other nodules connected to this Construct, like that living thing in the box in the basement.

>>5798155
Consider me supporting the current majority for expediency sake- but my guess is that it’s logic would dictate that all Strangeness be remediated until a predetermined draw level, and if it’s father we’re talking about, he’d probably set it up so that the Construct remains active at the predetermined unStrange draw level for a longer length of time, to ensure all Strageness has been remediated in totality. And with Chlot not just Strange, but generating Strangeness, it might take even longer- potentially another reason why there are no witchlets in the house, beyond the mitigation pain.

>>5798155
>> You will find a quill and pot immediately. The Construct should be good for at least the next ten minutes or so - but an hour later? The odds certainly aren't as good. Just a moment now, and you can be practically assured that the Construct will be on hand as you make your notes.

So long as we don't get distracted by literally everything that we see is every single one of the rooms we search, this should go fine

>>5798283
Also, another point- there are certainly other witches here that have a vested interest in cleaning up the Strangeness, and will conduct an inspection to make sure that all the Strageness is mitigated. Taking the fuel nodule later wouldn’t majority impair their ability to cleanse the rest of the Strangeness.

>>5798155
You know. Now that I stop and think about the number of casts this battery is capable of... are we sure these constructs are meant to burn down the house and not blow it to smithereens?

>>5798319
I’d consider it contrary to their interests, but I love the idea of Chlot getting that idea in her head and doing a mad dash to grab all the swag possible before the house implodes.

>>5798155
>> You will find a quill and pot immediately. The Construct should be good for at least the next ten minutes or so - but an hour later? The odds certainly aren't as good. Just a moment now, and you can be practically assured that the Construct will be on hand as you make your notes.

Alright, closed and writing.

Sorry about the delay - I had a hard time deciding how to take the update, when back and forth a few times on the draft. Satisfied now, will get it out soon.

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As you mull - or more truthfully, desperately churn - this latest decision over, your eyes are locked on the still trembling mass of the Nine-Dozen. And the longer you look at it, the more and more ... complex the Construct looks, the more deliberate the placement of everything seems. How can you possibly expect yourself to remember every one of these details well enough to render this in script and sketch? You ... you just can't. As much as you hate bailing on something you have underway, only to start on something else ... you just don't see relying on your memory for this working out well for you. Say you were to try to Weave a Nine-Dozen, or any larger, more complex Fuel Nodule. As it was, with the kind of Draw that something like that would involve, you would be taking your Thread into your hands. Now just think of how much more dangerous it would be if you were trying to recreate that following unclear or unsound notes and descriptions. That prospect is enough to get you back on your feet, though you are far from pleased about it. Scowling - and grimacing a bit too, on account of your left arm - you snatch up the 'stick, turn on your heel and head straight for the door. As you quit the room, it occurs to you once more how ... unusual this room is. There are couches and tables to attend them, a few chairs in one of the corners, attended by a single, round table. Besides these, there sconces on the walls, the chandelier on the ceiling and the carpet on the floor ... oh, and the fireplace, too - but beyond that, there is nothing else in the room. A lot of seating, and a lot of light in a relatively unadorned room right next to the servant's stairs on the second floor. From your ... admittedly limited experience with such room, this is an unusual one. Then again, there was that odd ... burst of paranoia that hit you as soon as you entered this room. Perhaps this is just an outgrowth of that? After all, how much do you really know about sitting rooms, or ... interior design? Your only exposure to these kind of places is entirely from either staking them out or passing through them during knock-downs.

Damn it, you belabored this point enough. As you pass through the door back out into the hallway, you take a deep breath - hoping that it will help clear your head. You ... don't feel much more focused, but it at least helps you break yourself away from that meandering, lingering train of thought. Now, on to the matter at hand. A pen, and a pot to go with it. Really, if you think about it, this place is probably lousy with writing implements. Not only was Aldoin keeping records of his experimental plantings down in the basement, but the man was a Governor-Docent of the University to boot. Surely, there is a study, or a library, or a nook. A more typical sitting room, perhaps, complete with a desk for correspondence. The question now, however, is how best to find these rooms ...

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Look specifically for rooms likely to have pens and pots - to isolate your search.
> Just start opening every door you come across - to expand your search.

I am really sorry about the double delay everyone. All of a sudden a bunch of stuff just got piled up on me. I've worked through it though, and I intend to get back to running this quest with multiple updates a day - which includes tonight, if I can get enough votes in before I need to hit the hay. Regardless, thanks for sticking with me - again.

>>5801777
> Just start opening every door you come across - to expand your search.

With a few quick glances we can probably get a sense of what each room is and the relation of each room to another. Again, we aren't concerned about noise anymore. We can just sprint through the house and throw open every door and look inside. It probably won't even take a minute.

>>5801778
Support for expediency sake- maybe we can even grab a satchel or two as well for the books below

>>5801777
> Just start opening every door you come across - to expand your search.

Let the good times roll :)

>>5801777
> Just start opening every door you come across - to expand your search.

Alright, closed and writing.

Okay, well, I am not quite done with the update yet, and I keep catching myself writing sentences that don't make any sense, so I am going throw up some suitable overnight vote instead, and finish this properly tomorrow.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a brace of mundane, concealable weapons that are in proper working order. Moreover, they are better than the pin-stilettoes.
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a very handsomely-made pocket timekeeper in proper working order and an equally handsomely made naturalist's rucksack.
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find an out of place book of considerable interest - and worth. Father would have wanted to get his hands on this, certainly.
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a clue for one of the other mysteries of this house. Moreover, the clue itself has intrinsic monetary value.

>>5801944
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a very handsomely-made pocket timekeeper in proper working order and an equally handsomely made naturalist's rucksack.

Books are nice and all but we have enough materiel to read and not enough time to read all of it.

I forget if we have a timekeeper already, but I seriously doubt it, and this isn't an item we are likely to come by legitimately given our schedule. Both of these items are just plain useful.

I think in any serious outbreak of violence it'll come down to our wand or running, unless our opponent is taken by surprise or is of poor constitution/poorly equipped.

Mysteries, meh, we'll find the rest eventually.

>>5801944
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a very handsomely-made pocket timekeeper in proper working order and an equally handsomely made naturalist's rucksack.

Just like the op pic :)

>>5801944
>> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a clue for one of the other mysteries of this house. Moreover, the clue itself has intrinsic monetary value.

>>5801944
I do quite like the idea of having a pocket watch, but these MYSTERIES intrigue me.

and of course I forget to actually paste the choice I have chosen because morning brain
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a clue for one of the other mysteries of this house. Moreover, the clue itself has intrinsic monetary value.

>>5801944
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a very handsomely-made pocket timekeeper in proper working order and an equally handsomely made naturalist's rucksack.

>>5801944
>>5801944
> Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a clue for one of the other mysteries of this house. Moreover, the clue itself has intrinsic monetary value.

Mystery box mystery box!!

>>5801944
>Chlotsuintha doesn't find a pen or a pot in the first room she searches, but she does find a very handsomely-made pocket timekeeper in proper working order and an equally handsomely made naturalist's rucksack.

Alright, that is 4-3 for the rucksack and pocket timekeeper against the clue. Consider this closed. I'll re-work what I have of the update to include this, then I will finish it as soon as I can.

>>5801944
I would just like to say- if our Father would’ve wanted this book from a fellow witchlet, it’s usefulness and worth is probably absurd.

So too is actual brace of mundane, concealable weapons that are in proper working order- that are better than the pin-stilettoes. I repeat- they are better than our current loadout. Invaluable in our line of life.

>>5802484
Eh, there will be other rooms.

>>5802705
God I hope so

>>5802805
I mean...the prompts literally say 'in the first room she searches'.

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Well ... no matter how it is dressed and cut, needing to get your hands on a pen and ink to properly record your findings with the Construct is a complication. But perhaps it does not need to be a huge, time-chewing complication. If you were to just open every single door that you came across, then from a quick look inside, you would be able to determine if it was a room likely to have writing implements or not. Feeling fortified by this latest little scheme of yours, you start towards the nearest door - only to realize that it is the door that leads to the servant's stair you took up to the second floor. You feel foolish, charging out like you were some brute bull ... but you continue forward, because in between the door that leads to the stairs and the end of the hallway there is another door. You cannot remember if you saw it or not the first time you were in the hall - though you wouldn't be too surprised if you didn't, considering that nearly all of the time that you spend in the corridor, your back would have been to it. It looks to be narrower than the other doors, suggesting that it might be a closet - though whether it is a 'wet' closet or it simply is for storage, you couldn't say.

Equal parts curious and ready to get started with your search, you close the distance and push open the door. The only light in the room comes from the continually stuttering remains of your candle, as well with whatever light filters in from the hallway - which is to say little and less. There is no window in there ... which now that you think about, you should have realized that before you opened the door; the far wall of this room would have to be the inside wall of the servant's stair. Still, you there is enough light on hand for you to definitively make out that this closet is certainly not 'wet'. It is for storage, clearly - and if there is a pen in here somewhere, then you would have to dig for it. There are stacks of folded sheets on both waist-high and neck-high racks along the walls, joined by wooden boxes and decorative odds and ends. There are also larger and cruder crates on the floor by these racks as well, and propped up against the wall are a number of these long and thing metal rods, the purpose of which alludes you at the moment. And there is more - a lot more, obscured by half-shadows, and their own sheer numbers. The room is so full that the space left to move into and through it looks as thin and as irregular as a game-trail. Had you not been through the burning hulk of Gothorum-One last night, this well and truly would have been the biggest mess you had seen in quite some time.

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But out of this mess, there is one article that has caught your eye - not a pen, nor an inkwell, unfortunately ... but certainly something useful. Sitting askew on top of one of the waist-high racks is a rucksack. And it is a far cry from the typical specimen, some gaping bundle of salvaged sail-cloth, stitched and strapped up - no, like nearly everything else you have come across in this house, it looks to be thoughtfully made - and without overmuch concern for the cost. Besides the main 'body' of the sack, there looks to be at least a dozen smaller pockets on the outside of it, each with its own flap and toggle to secure it shut. Oddly enough, the thing even has a wooden frame that would rest against the wearer's back and the carry straps all connect into. You have never seen its like before ... but if you had to guess, you'd say that it made it easier to carry heavier loads - you certainly doubt it is to make it any more comfortable.

It might not have been what you were looking for ... but honestly, how could you walk away from this? As it is, your apron pockets are at risk of bursting and your arms - especially your left - are aching. So you snatch the sack right off of the stack, and after one last quick look around the room, you quit the closet. Once you are in the marginally better light of the hallway, you set the sack down - and are surprised when you hear something thump against the wood floor. Your first thought is that it was the wooden frame making contact, but now that you look, you can see that with the cut of the straps you don't think the frame made contact with the floor; moreover, the noise sounded metallic. Curiosity getting the better of you, you open up the main body of the rucksack and start to rifle through it. It takes a bit more doing than you would have expected, as the main body of the sack is sub-divided - and there are even pockets on the inside, too! You clear all of them, turning up nothing more than a hint of dirt - no doubt left over from specimens once carried in here. Confused, you turn your attention to the pockets on the outside - which is where you eventually find what you are looking for. Slipped into one of the lower front pockets, is a time-keeper of all things! Maker's Mercy, what a find! It is missing its chain, but as you turn it over it, then open it is up and look at the dial, everything else seems to be there and unbroken. The chain breaking might explain why it was stowed away like this, but it beggars your probity, your credulity that someone could just ... seemingly forget that they had a time-keeper. Admittedly, these mechanized pieces have apparently been getting cheaper and cheaper over the years, but they are still well beyond the means of most of the Empire.

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As a gravedigger, you know that it is in vogue for the very wealthy to be buried with a time-keeper, set to the time that their Thread met the Shears. Though ... as a graverobber you know that nearly all of these buried pieces are just as dead as their wearers. Your father tried to teach himself time-keeper keeping, so he could repair these broken ones for sale - he even knocked down a Master Keeper's place of business, for the tools - but in the end, getting or making replacement parts proved too high of a wall to mount. If this one no longer worked, it would do much to explain how someone would be able to forget it in a rucksack in a closet. Truth be told though, it looks to be in a lot better condition then the dozen or so grave-swag keepers that father accumulated before he gave up on his little scheme.

Holding your breath without even intending to, you delicately pinch the winding-stem, softly turning it in both directions. When you twist to the right, there is absolutely no give - but when you twist to the left, the stem turns. Not freely or even loosely, either - it is tight and regimented. You bring the keeper closer to your ear, wind it several more times and let go. When the dial-plates start to spin, you damn near drop the thing in surprise. Against all odds, this piece appears to still be in working order - though you are not entirely out of the woods with it yet - it is possible that the damage was subtler in some way, and it loses more time than it should, or it might stop before it works all the way through the winding. But right now, you are absolutely beaming at your freshest bit of swag. Setting it aside for now, you unload your apron pockets into the rucksack, only leaving in the wand, a few pieces of the False Silverware and the pin-stilettoes. After half a second of thought, you decide to keep the time-keeper in your pockets as well; as it was allowed to wind down completely, the device is not telling the correct time. It is possible however, that Aldoin kept another time-keeper somewhere in his house, one that has been wound recently enough to still be telling the true time - if you found it, you could use it to set your little one here ... and if you wound up staying in the house long enough, to check to make sure that your piece wasn't losing too much time.

Finished up with your repacking, you loft the 'stick up, and look up and down the hallway. As all light save for the little from the remains of your candle - or more truthfully, the remains of the remains of your candle - is from the window at the far end, you can plainly see that it has gotten darker. Not too dramatically, but ... some time has passed since you came up onto the second floor. With that observation spurring you into action, you start towards the nearest bank of unopened doors.

> Please may I have three rolls of 1d4? And if any anon rolls a four, could they please roll a 1d20 as well?

Rolled 3 (1d4)

>>5803120
like this?

Rolled 3 (1d4)

>>5803120

>>5803131
Yes, just like that.

Rolled 2 (1d4)

>>5803120

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Alright, can I get another set of 3 1d4 rolls? Again, if one of them comes up as a 4, could that anon roll a 1d20 please? To clarify how things work - because I ran out of character on the post and didn't write it up in another one - the 1d4 determines if Chlotsuintha finds a room that is likely to have writing implements. If she gets the roll, then the 1d20 determines the odds of the room actually having the implements - after that, it leads into a sight test. It is important to note that it is possible for these odds to be zero, and I have scrambled the outcomes of a 1d20, so the higher the roll does not necessarily correspond to better odds for the test.

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>5803185

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>5803185
Room full of pee jugs?

Rolled 3 (1d4)

>>5803185

Alright, well, that does it for this stretch of the hallway. I'm going to get lunch, then I will write up a quick update. Once it is up, we will need some more fresh rolls.

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>>5803196
Or perhaps the professor's research is even worse.

>>5803244
There's a reason Father is burning this place to the ground. Heh.

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To your surprise, the first door that you try opens up to a room that is completely empty, save for the motes of dust flitting through the air - which you can see clearly, as this room has its own window. You back out of the room and step out into the hallway again. You consider leaving the door open, so you can quickly keep track of which rooms you have been in or not, but after allowing yourself a moment to mull it over, you decide against it. It shouldn't be that difficult to keep track of the rooms - and even if you do get turned upside-down, well, then you will just open the door or doors again and check. It will only take a second; and announcing your presence by keeping the house in disarray ... it is true that you are comfortable enough that no one is in the house beside you for you to walk around the place freely. But what if someone comes through the front door and heads straight up to the second floor, to find all these previously shut up doors swinging wide? And what if - no, damn it all, you are not wrong about being alone. You are alone. It is you, the Constructs in the chimneys, whatever in the Heights of Hell was in that random dug-up chest, and the fraying grass. That is it. If you catch yourself bellyaching one more time about 'what if' you are liable to do something drastic! You have to stop yourself from slamming the door shut, but you see to it that it is properly closed before you move along.

Frustrated with yourself and the general lack of progress here, you practically throw yourself at the second door. And to your surprise, you find another empty room lit by the fading light filtering through a window. As you close the door, you mull this over. Perhaps Aldoin didn't have this house built for him as you had assumed. Perhaps he bought it, had it outfitted to fit his particular needs - and ultimately found that he had more house on his hands than he could possibly use. That makes enough sense ... but it doesn't account for the generally aberrant layout of the house, or at least, what looks that way in your eyes. This room and the one that you were just in would have made perfect smaller bedrooms, for his grand-children or even guests -if they had a fireplace. Without one, a nights rest in one of these rooms during Sleep Season would be so could you might as well just sleep outside. There is absolutely no way that an architect could have just overlooked something like that, so they must have had some other intended use ... but whatever it is, it is beyond you.

However! The intent behind each room of this house is the absolute least of your concerns. In fact, you should be taking heart right now. An empty room is a room that you don't have to spend anymore precious time on! That's right! Alright, okay - forward! Onward!

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You come to the next door and open it up - to find a third empty room. Trying to not falter, you close the door and immediately move to the next one - the last one in this bank of doors, and one of the few remaining in this hallway that you have not opened. This too is an empty room - and in spite of your best efforts, you can no longer shake the feeling that you are overlooking something about these rooms. That said, you are able to keep yourself on target; after shutting up this door as well, you move to the other side of the hall, and try the nearest door. Without any windows, the only light in this room is from your long-suffering candle - but you can make out that this room is in fact furnished. You take a few steps inside and look around a little longer; eventually you determine that this must be ... another sitting room. There are paintings alongside the sconces in this one - and no fireplace, but besides that, it seems to be identical. Now the hair on the back of your neck is rising. What possible purpose could there be of having two nearly identical sitting rooms right next to one another?

You get out of that room as quick as you can, and you make absolutely certain that you shut the door. Okay, things have just gone from inexplicable to ... sort of sinister. No, that - no. Surely, there is some patently reasonable explanation for this. It just must be over your head because you haven't spent much time in places like this; or really, because you don't belong in places like this. Not feeling the least bit better, you make haste to the next door - occasionally shooting glances back at the door to that unsettling Doppelganger room - and open it.

Another surprise; this door leads into a hallway that looks very similar to the one you are in - except that it has no window to light it. This just gets better and better, doesn't it?

> Please may I have three rolls of 1d4? And if any anon rolls a four, could they please roll a 1d20 as well?

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>5803416

That feeling when you are in a dream but don't quite realize it yet. Could it be...?

Rolled 8 (1d20)

>>5803430

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>5803416

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>5803434
Praise the Patternmaker!

>>5803430
>>5803432
>>5803434
>>5803436
The amount of 4 synergy here is insane!

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>5803416
Chlot is going to go insane if she sees a mansion

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> Sight Test; Series I, Run I

> DC 30: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Rudimentary Sight Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 14 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has next to no knowledge of Aldoin's Second Floor.
> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting to search a next-to-unlit area with a nude light
> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing speed at the moment, but still attempting to seriously search Room VIII-II
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is well versed in casing rooms for valuables and hiding spots.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha was looking around the room as her eyes adjusted, improving the efficacy of her efforts.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a narrow scope of her search, looking for specific spots in Room VIII-II where writing implements might be

> DC 42: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Chlotsuintha has Extreme Confidence that she has properly searched this room for writing implements. She is wrong, but baring something changing her mind, she will not search here again.
> One Pass: Chlotsuintha has High Confidence that she has properly searched this room for writing implements. She is wrong, though she will allow herself at least one more search through Room VIII-II before moving on.
> Two Passes: Chlotsuintha has High Confidence that she has properly searched this room for writing implements. She is more like to be right than wrong, though she will allow herself to search again through Room VIII-II before moving on.
> Three Passes: Chlotsuintha has Extreme Confidence that she has properly searched this room for writing implements. She is correct in this assessment She gains Knowledge of the Second Floor.

> Unique Rule: Critical and Near Critical Failures are nulled for this series of tests.
> Unique Rule: For every passed test with digits that sum to 15 or greater, Chlotsuintha finds an article or articles of interest [something in the vein of the rucksack and time-keeper] while searching.
> Unique Rule: With the roll on this post, using the scrambled odds from >>5803432, it will be determined if there is or is not a writing implement in Room VIII-II to be found. The three rolls of 1d100 will determine how well the results of Chlotsuintha's search reflects the actual condition of the room.

> Sight Test; Series I, Run I cont'd

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha immediately finds a writing implement with ink, as well as the clue with intrinsic value from >>5801944

> May our luck run white, and may I please have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>5803838
Omniscience?

Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5803838
Wah!

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>5803838
Oh joy, may our luck be white

Rolled 5 (1d20)

Damn it all, the roll fell off the post. My apologies. This is the roll ...

... now, this is the verdict; Chlotsuintha correctly concludes that she has properly searched Room VIII-II when she finds the writing implement that she was looking for!

I didn't expect that it would be over so quickly; I figured that it would take two or three runs through the test. A welcome surprise, to be sure. I really don't have anything to put up for an overnight vote, but I figured I'd throw this out there, as a write-in: Assuming that Chlotsuintha is able to make a clean break from Scrimshaw Mount, and arrives in another city or large town without reason to believe that she is being followed or watched, what would she want to do? Not something critical, like stocking up for the frontier, but something entirely for herself. This won't bind us to anything, but suggestions here might crop up as options later.

>>5803884
Cook with spices.

Feel what it feels like to live as wealthy (sort of), free-ish woman without a mask or people dumping waste on our head for kicks. Just walk the streets, socialize, go to a nice restaurant or something.

Have a moment to come to terms with the fact that we may very well never see our father again.

Sleep for a whole day, be lazy for a spell.

Shopping for nice things.

Learn a new skill. A normal one, albeit one that an eccentric rich person might have if it ends up being an odd one.

I forget, do animals hate us? Buy a cat or something. Maybe that is too much, just a burden. Pet a cat or dog or something at least.

Go horse riding, or learn how to do so.

Get around to reading our books.

I really have to get around to rereading the quest.

>>5803884
Socialize and get some real friends, maybe even boy ones

>>5803884
Get Etiquette Lessons- maybe even a tutor- so we can participate in high society without being more of an awkward duckling.

Making some of the food Chlot wanted- I do hope none of it goes bad beforehand. Drink some coffee and/or hot coco.

Stocking up on alcohol and other alchemical agents and just mess around, experimenting.

Staying all day in a bookstore and buying a bunch of useful book- smithing and engineering, totally.

Organize and clean up our stuff- it’ll feel nice l bet.

I would love to read through those receipts- just for future reference on potential future contacts. I have no doubt that our mysterious Strange foreigners are smugglers/merchants of some sort.

I wouldn’t mind knocking down a couple of places either- I’m quite enjoying myself thieving.

Talk with strangers, excessively- maybe start bartering on the side, getting skilled as a merchant may prove to be of some value.

Praying in the nearest church, and checking the bounty boards- I haven’t forgotten the sins we must atone for.

Magical Cocaine and Crab People, if we really want to go crazy here.

>>5803884
Get a job

>>5803884
Visit a bath house. Properly soak all the grime and stress off.

>>5803884
Cooking. Dancing. Horse riding.
Getting some men's clothes for solving those murders or just classifying the murder of witches as murders and going after murderous inquisitioners.
Eventually set up a new lair.

>>5803884
Being treated as a person
Getting dressed in fine clothing
Enjoying the magic of puberty
Experiencing a relaxing massage
Making friends and lovers
Learning a new language

It would be cool if she found an older female role model.

An update on the update - I am back to square one on it, after somehow neglecting to save my work. It should be finished sometime tonight, hopefully with enough time for there to be a smaller second update with an overnight vote.

I'd also like to thank everyone for all of the great ideas; I'm not sure if I will be able to use all of them, but I will certainly try to work in as many as I can - not all at once, though.

Continuing to have problems; internet just went out. I'll get the post up as soon as I can, but under the circumstances, I'll bring the vote forward.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation, you will attempt to reach into one of the Glyphs on the Membrane again while using a trick to soft-activate it, accepting the minor risk of cascading complications.

>>5804803
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.

>>5804803
>>After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.

Caution seems wise.

>>5804803
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.

>>5804803
>> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.

>>5804803
>> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.

>>5804803
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.

>>5804803
>> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.

>>5804803
>> After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will continue upstairs to look for the rest of it, particularly the emitter-Organ.

>>5804803
>After concluding the cursory inspection and documentation of the Fuel Nodule, you will attempt to unwrap a portion of the Membrane to look the 'body' of the Nodule, accepting the minor risk of damaging it in the process.

Stop tieing things up arghhhhh. Since when did we get so many players?

Internet should be restored around 2pm Eastern Standard Time. If it isn't for whatever reason, then so help me I will rewrite the update on my phone and post it that way.

>>5805960
Or just use hotspot?

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You don't consider yourself yellow-stomached, or skittish or ... unduly fearful in any particular way. But the prospect of wandering through completely dark, inexplicably designed corridors ... that, that wouldn't appeal to anyone! Blessedly, there are still three doors that remain untried in this hall. The first of them sits at what is now the far end of the hallway, right by the closet and the sitting room with the fireplace; you have reason to believe that the space has been set aside for the servants of the house - and therefore it is not likely to yield any writing implements, considering the rarity of literacy amongst skill-less Subjects. The other doors are a little further along, closer to the only active source of light in the corridor, a window. Even with the light coming through it diffused somewhat by the torn linen sheet hung over on the outside, to mark the house as being in mourning, it is still much brighter than anything your 'stick can muster. Figuring - or perhaps just hoping - that the door nearest to the window will lead to a room that has windows of its own, you skip over the nearest door, making short work of the distance with long strides.

Cautiously - and now with noticeable timidity - you push open the door. The room before you has a number of windows, and even though they are all covered over, the collective light that wins through the linen is more than enough to illuminate the space. And what a space it is! Its like … an exhibition gallery, writ small. You've never been in one, admittedly, but father had knocked down a couple over the years, and he'd told you enough about them for you to recognize one of them. All along the walls, there are these true-to-life paintings of plants; you recognize some as natives to Outremer and the Empire, others you'd judge to be from more exotic climes. There are even a few aquatic plants mixed in with them. Clustered together in the corner, there are a number of these foot-thick tomes, propped up on some substantial looking wood stands. There are rolling stands as well, with blown glass covers over them as well. Most of these are as large as the book stands are, but there are a few that are a bit bigger – and one that it is the size of child's bed. All of these are crowded around the nearest of the windows in the room. Out of the nearest of rollers, you can just make out a hint, right where the lip of the glass mates with the uppermost wood of the frame. Obviously, these are living specimens – but you cannot immediately understand why they would be down here, instead of in the roof-top conservatory? If it was too cold out, then perhaps … but, no, there is no chimney in this room either.

Setting aside those … seemingly unanswerable and unsettl - bothersome, those annoying, meaningless questions, you shift your rucksack on your back a bit, then you move further into the room. The center of this space is given over to three trestles, arranged length-to-length-to-length, and damn near carpeted in dried plants, propped up underneath glass domes. On the other side of them, there – oh, Maker's Mercy! A desk! You tear right over there, and nearly rip the bureau apart opening up all of the drawers. In a matter of seconds, you are able to put your hands on a pot of ink, and you start to offer up a silent prayer to the Patternmaker in thanks. When you find the quills before you are finished you actually have to choke down a sob of relief. You conclude your prayer, then start stuffing the writing implements into you now empty apron pocket. The quills are cut long enough that a few inches of them stick out of the pocket's brim - heh! It looks like you are smuggling a cottage-pheasant down there!

Your chuckling withers and dies once you recall that the Construct in the chimney could start Cleansing itself at any moment, and immediately you bolt out of the room with the ink-pot grasped awkwardly, so you can hold it and squeeze the stopper tight all in one hand. It is only once you stop in front of the door to the sitting room with the chimney to hook the handle with the feet of your 'stick that you realize that in your haste, you finally managed to accidentally extinguish what remained of the candle. You cannot even spare it a glance at this point though, instead, you just set the 'stick down just clear of the door, and haul the thing open with you now free left hand. Your range of movement is a bit constrained by the wooden frame on the naturalist's rucksack, and Perdition, does your arm hurt - but all the same, the door flies wide, and that is all you can really care about at the moment. For even at this distance, with the sconces on the far side of the room lit, you can see into the fireplace - and see that the Construct is still there, right where you left it.

A wave of relief washes over you - but you will save your silent prayers until you are done with your documentation and inspection. Everything that you can see, you need to describe or depict in sketches as best you can. This limited, shrinking window of time might be the only opportunity you ever get in your life to examine a working, safe and sound Nine-Dozen Fuel Nodule. And once you are done with what you can see of the Nodule as it sits right now, there are other things you need to do as well!

> If you haven't voted in >>5804803, please do so to break the tie!

>>5806252
I was content to leave this decision with the other anons, but if you truly need a tiebreaker, and the risk truly is minor, then I see no harm in going with the fuel nodule- lord knows that this house is still Strange, so with any luck we may actually get to recover the fuel nodule intact and with a bit of juice in it.

To be clear, you are talking about unwrapping the Membrane of the Nodule, correct?

>>5806583
Correct- sorry it took so long to get back to ya, a nap overwhelmed me.

Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing.

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As determined as you are to describe and depict everything you can see of the Nine-Dozen, it still takes some time before the proverbial well starts to run dry, and you find that you are repeating yourself, describing the same things over again, just in different ways and word. Still, for the sake of any future attempts at recreating such a gargantuan Nodule, you make a split-second decision to jot everything down regardless of how redundant it might seem at the time. After all, you are battered and tired - not to mention under the effect of a ranged-remediation cast - effects that you might not completely understand, or even be aware of. There are those ... disquieting, roiling surges of paranoia, quick to come, quick to leave, though notably, you haven't had any since you began your documentation work here, so you fail to see at the moment how you could tell if they were an effect of the cast, an effect of being in the presence of the Construct - or just your nerves unraveling from everything you have been buried under. But while that is all questions still, the your physical reaction to the cast - which you would judge to still be slowly slakening away - has been incontrovertible. And how long did it take for the realization to roost that the chills, the aches, the assorted pains - that it was the work of a slow-burning, distant Mystery? Perhaps you have grown overly ... concerned ... but, truly, what if it becomes apparent that there was another effect at some later point, an effect that ... clouded your judgement, or otherwise enfeebled your powers of observation, more-so than just the stresses and sleeplessness?

So it is with this in mind that you write down everything that comes to you, recording every thought that you have, even the ones that seem to cover already covered ground - hedging your bets, that the second or even third description of the Nodule might carry some seemingly inconsequential detail omitted in the first. A mistake, an oversight here would be unforgivable - regardless if it was caused by an unknown effect of the Mystery, a known effect, or something entirely more mundane. So you sketch and scribe until you are as satisfied as you can be under the circumstances. You blow on the last bits of ink to dry them down, then you take a moment to look at the Construct. While you have gone over every square inch of it now, depicted every Glyph, accounted for every protuberance - all you have really seen is the Membrane and the Governor. If you want to see the body of the Nodule itself - and you desperately do - then you are going to have to try to peel back some of the Membrane, to properly see what lies underneath.

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> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will prioritize the integrity of the Membrane. Once you start pulling, if there is any resistance whatsoever - even if you don't think that the Membrane will tear - you will stop regardless.
> You will prioritize uncovering the Construct. Once you start pulling, you are not going to stop if you encounter resistance. Only if you get to a point where you believe the Membrane will tear will you stop.
> You are determined to uncover the Construct. Once you start pulling, you are not going to stop, even if there is some tearing or damage. Only if you get to a point where you believe that you will kill or disconnect the Membrane will you stop.
> You are determined to uncover the Construct completely, by pulling the Membrane off of it entirely. Only if you get to a point where you believe that you will kill or entirely disconnect the Membrane will you stop.
> You are absolutely determined to uncover the Construct completely, by pulling or cutting the Membrane off of it entirely. If the Membrane is disconnected or is killed, then that will be the wages of the work - the Construct is more important.

>>5808111
> You will prioritize uncovering the Construct. Once you start pulling, you are not going to stop if you encounter resistance. Only if you get to a point where you believe the Membrane will tear will you stop.

It's fleshy and oily, I doubt it'll tear. Probably not dry and cracked.

>>5808111
> You are determined to uncover the Construct. Once you start pulling, you are not going to stop, even if there is some tearing or damage. Only if you get to a point where you believe that you will kill or disconnect the Membrane will you stop.

>>5808111
> You will prioritize the integrity of the Membrane. Once you start pulling, if there is any resistance whatsoever - even if you don't think that the Membrane will tear - you will stop regardless.

I think we should be very careful handling the protective membrane covering what is basically a miniature nuclear reactor

>another Trash MC dies via explosion
But I don't think the risk is that high in this case, given that nothing seems unstable about it. More worried about breaking it completely, but a tear or two on the outside shouldn't do that.

>>5808111
>You will prioritize the integrity of the Membrane. Once you start pulling, if there is any resistance whatsoever - even if you don't think that the Membrane will tear - you will stop regardless.

>>5808111
> You will prioritize the integrity of the Membrane. Once you start pulling, if there is any resistance whatsoever - even if you don't think that the Membrane will tear - you will stop regardless.

Even this is risky. Let's not get greedy.

>>5808111
> You are determined to uncover the Construct. Once you start pulling, you are not going to stop, even if there is some tearing or damage. Only if you get to a point where you believe that you will kill or disconnect the Membrane will you stop.
It’s gonna burn anyway, right? Be mindful of the mess though.

>>5808111
Can we take a moment to appreciate Trash's dedication to detail with this vote? What other qm would ever tolerate or antecipate this level of granularity? I want to frame this update and put it on the wall.

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> Handling Test, Series I, Run I

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 25 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, slowing and in places precluding Handling, but otherwise making it more likely to succeed.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.

> DC 14. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Something had to Give. As she was pulling, Chlotsuintha felt ... something give. She is uncertain if it was a tear or just the Membrane coming loose. [Progress 1/?] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Stressing the Undressing. The going is slow and slick, but Chlotsuintha makes appreciable process with the Membrane without any issue. [Progress 2/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II]
> Three Passes: Tugging at the Membrane-strings. In short order, Chlotsuintha makes serious headway with unwrapping the Membrane. [Progress 3/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II] [- 1 DC Boon Bestowed]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then Chlotsuintha both sees and hears the Membrane tear, as the damage is rather serious. [Prompts Vote]
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

> Additionally, there is an article that Chlotsuintha has on her that might help with Handling the Membrane. Take a shot at naming it; but only one guess per ID. If you get it right, then Chlotsuintha will use it to get a Boon to Handling for this test. Explain your choice too; even if you don't come up with what I was thinking, if you can sufficiently explain how your choice could be helpful getting the Membrane off, then I'd give a Boon for that as well.

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>5808660
Do we have an inventory anywhere, or is it our in-character responsibility to remember what we have on us.
Been so long I haven't kept good track of it.

Rolled 79 (1d100)

>>5808660
It’s our Socking Needle, ain’t it? Not just a tool used my witches and witchlets to insert and connect to a Construct- it can also aid in poking around and gently disassembling the Membrane as a pin-needle of the Firmament.

>>5808660
Want me to wait for a third comrade, or just get on with it?

>>5808661
Whatever we pocketed in our apron and took with us into the house I’m afraid- surely you can come up with a reasonable alternative article, and explain why it would help? It could be our bandoleer for all we know!

Rolled 63 (1d100)

>>>5808660


But seriously, the socketting needle. Maybe we still should use the Strange incindiary here vefore we leave?

Rolled 4 (1d10)

Good rolls, good progress. As for the inventory, I have one save somewhere on this computer, but I can't seem to find it ... and I haven't updated it in a while anyway. Probably should have done that before presenting this challenge. I'll pull something together tomorrow. As I don't have it for you now, I don't see how it would be fair to keep you all limited to one guess per ID anymore, so feel free to keep the guesses coming.

Socket Needle isn't what I was looking for though. While it is thin and can provide Chlotsuintha leverage on the Membrane as she pulls and tugs at it, the sharp point could pierce the body of the Membrane - or the Nine-Dozen, for that matter.

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> Handling Test, Series I, Run II

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 25 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, slowing and in places precluding Handling, but otherwise making it more likely to succeed.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has made good progress with her Handling efforts here.

> DC 13. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Something had to Give. As she was pulling, Chlotsuintha felt ... something give. She is uncertain if it was a tear or just the Membrane coming loose. [Progress 4/11] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Stressing the Undressing. The going is slow and slick, but Chlotsuintha makes appreciable process with the Membrane without any issue. [Progress 5/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II]
> Three Passes: Tugging at the Membrane-strings. In short order, Chlotsuintha makes serious headway with unwrapping the Membrane. [Progress 6/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II] [- 2 DC Boon Bestowed]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

> Feel free to keep guessing, too. Restrictions waived, as per >>5808687

Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5808690

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5808690
That Mysterious False-Silverware then? To help pull away some of the membrane with the spoon (or tongs, if we got some).

Quite frankly, I was thinking in terms of Construct creation and usage in witchcraft equipment, and not that the membrane is wrapped more like a tightly woven enchilada. It ain’t gonna be our stilettos, wand, or fuel nodules, I can tell ya that much.

Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5808690

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> Handling Test, Series I, Run III

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 25 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, slowing and in places precluding Handling, but otherwise making it more likely to succeed.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has made good progress with her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 8. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Something had to Give. As she was pulling, Chlotsuintha felt ... something give. She is uncertain if it was a tear or just the Membrane coming loose. [Progress 7/11] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Stressing the Undressing. The going is slow and slick, but Chlotsuintha makes appreciable process with the Membrane without any issue. [Progress 8/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II]
> Three Passes: Tugging at the Membrane-strings. In short order, Chlotsuintha makes serious headway with unwrapping the Membrane. [Progress 9/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run II] [- 3 DC Boon Bestowed]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>5808896

>>5808753
You got it! Good job, anon!

I'm going to be chipping away at the inventory, but I will be prioritizing the updates today.

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5808896

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>5808896

Anon really came in clutch with that guess, the two nines would've failed without the bonus.

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> Handling Test, Series I, Run IV

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 25 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, slowing and in places precluding Handling, but otherwise making it more likely to succeed.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has made good progress with her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 7. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Something had to Give. As she was pulling, Chlotsuintha felt ... something give. She is uncertain if it was a tear or just the Membrane coming loose. [Progress 10/11] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Best Undressed. The going was slow and slick, but Chlotsuintha has managed to unwrap all of the loose Membrane. [Progress 11/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run V] [Prompts Vote] [- 3 DC Boon Bestowed]
> Three Passes: The Tugs of the Membrane-strings. In short order, Chlotsuintha managed to get all of the loose Membrane off of the Nine-Dozen. [Progress 11/11] [NCF and CF nulled for Run V] [Prompts Vote] [- 3 DC Boon Bestowed, Aptitude Progress 1/?]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 82 (1d100)

>>5809101

Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5809101

Rolled 46 (1d100)

>>5809101

Closed and writing!

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Undecided for the nonce, you tap the tip of the pen over the pot to dry it, then you set both to your side at your left. You set Aldoin's journal of the basement plantings - now your journal of observations of the Nine-Dozen, its Membrane and the wrist-thick Conduit leading into and out of it - right next to the inkpot ... before thinking better of it, taking it up again to set it down to your side at your right. As you do, you finally notice just how much of the ... oily discharge from the Membrane has made its way onto your hands, just from the few times that you had to adjust the Nodule. The first thought that blunders its way through your increasingly tired mind is that it could have stained your documentation, and so your immediate reaction is annoyance - until the eighth-talent finally drops, and it occurs to you that you have had unknown, potentially Mysterious grease drippings on your hands for ... you don't even know how long! Pattern's Perdition, how long has it been since you pulled this thing off of the fire-dogs? Fighting down panic, you start to take up your apron, so you may wipe your hands clean on it as you occasionally do when given cause while wearing one of your cobbled-together dresses. Blessedly, you recognize your folly before it is made; with Mitigators on - and above - the Mount, one of the worst things that you could do would be traipsing through the city wearing clothes stained by discharge from a Sub-Assembly. It might not be Mysterious, and Strange-Staining has not activated on it either ... but if there ever was a night not to take needless and heedless risks, then it would be tonight, certainly.

You then go to wipe your hands on the carpet, but then you realize that might not be a good idea either - considering that you don't know what this does, you should look for something more disposable. Before you completely lose yourself to panic though, you finally remember that there were linens and such in the closet off of the hallway. You bolt over there, only remembering once you open the closet door that there was no window nor any lights inside, and your 'stick is unlit in the sitting room. Swearing under your breath at your self and your stupidity, you grope around in the darkness, in the general area where you remember the linens being before you finally get your hands on one. Without even bothering to unfold it, you wipe your hands on it vigorously, then once you have felt that they are clean enough, you pick up the sheet - trying your best to avoid the areas that you have already wiped the discharge onto - and run right back to the sitting room. Once you are by the sconces, you open up the sheet and make sure that your hands are completely clean before looking them over for any signs of an adverse reaction. Your hands do seem a bit red ... but odds are that is just from your frantic scrubbing.

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Beyond that, you can see nor feel anything that you were warned about in your alchemical training; no unexpected tenderness or numbness, no signs of rash or wrinkling - nothing. Well ... good, that is good. Because if you are going to try to see whatever is underneath that Membrane, you are going to be getting more of this stuff on your hands. Presumably a lot more.

Standing underneath the sconce, still contemplating your hands, it belatedly occurs to you that this might have been another one of those paranoia-surges. Of course, concern was warranted - you had an unknown, potentially Mysterious discharge on your hands for ... the better part of ten minutes, thereabouts? But the level of concern, that feels suspect now. There is nothing to do about it now though, and cognizant that you are being kept by the keeper here, you turn back to the fireplace and the Construct sitting half out of it. The absolute last thing you want to do is damage the Membrane in any way ... but you have seen precious little of the Nine-Dozen; just the lumps and the Governor. To tell it true, your notes on the Nodule are really notes on the Membrane - and that simply must change, if you want to have any real hope of safely recreating something like this on your own. And for that to change, you are going to have to accept the risks and unwrap it. Well aware that you are plowing a planted field, you quickly kneel down on the polished stone of the hearth floor, setting the linen between you and the Construct. Back in the figurative saddle, you resolve yourself to pushing neither your luck nor the integrity of the Membrane. If you are to come across any resistance while you are pulling the Membrane, you will stop and find a new 'hem' to pull on instead. To be sure, you might end up barely uncovering anything - but right now, you just want to make some appreciable progress. There is one last point though - the discharge. While you are no longer in a state of panic over it, you aren't keen on exposing yourself to any more of it than you already have ... just on the off-chance, of course. You consider wrapping your hands -

Damn it all! Your footwraps! You could have wiped your hands on your footwraps. How ... no, don't beat yourself up. Just, keep in mind that you clearly aren't thinking very well at the moment. Now, your hands. You could wrap your hands in the linen - or in the footwraps, for that matter - but you worry that the deftness of your fingers and the sureness of your grip will be undermined by the fabric. Under the circumstances, you will presumably be better off using your bare hands for the work, and wiping them periodical on the linen. So as you contemplate the Construct - and if you have anything else in your possession that might assist in this work - you unfold the sheet to get to a clean portion. You still haven't come up with anything when the Construct has an unusually violent series of undulations.

The spasms pass as quick as they came, but the fear that the Construct might be reaching its end-of-life remain with you - more than that, they spur you into immediate action. You take up the closest 'hem' of the Membrane between the forefinger and thumb of your right hand, then you gently tug at it. You make cautious but appreciable progress for about ten seconds before encounter resistance - which seems to be centered on one of the protuberances on the Nine-Dozen that you can see the outline of pushing into the Membrane. It hadn't occurred to you before, but now it seems possible that at least some of the lumps and bumps might be 'anchor' points for the Membrane - if this bares out elsewhere on the Construct, then you cannot give yourself good odds for seeing much more of the Nodule than you already have. Hoping that you are wrong, you take a moment to wipe your hands off on the linen and unfold over a clean portion - then you try another 'hem'. You go even slower this time, and are pleased to find that you are unable to unwrap a little bit more than you were with the first one ... but eventually your tugging is met with resistance once more, and you stop yourself before the Membrane could come to harm.

So begins a process of feather-light and glacially slow pulling. You always stop at the first hint of resistance, and you always wipe your hands in between pulls. After a few more 'hems', it occurs to you that you might have something to help with this after all - the False Silverware. You take a moment and fish out one of the knives. It has a completely rounded tip, and besides a handful of minute serrations, it is completely blunt. For something that was not purpose made for a probe, you seriously doubt you will be able to find much better - though those little teeth give you some pause. In the end though, you figure if you angle the thing properly it shouldn't ever be in a position where those teeth could catch on anything. When you use it on the next 'hem' you find that while it does not let you uncover any more of the Construct then you were when you were just using your hands, it does speed things up considerably - and as an additional boon, it keeps your hands much cleaner. You haven't given the freshly uncovered portions of the Construct much more than a cursory glance, but you can feel that there is much more of the discharge on the inside of the Membrane than on the outside. Considering this, perhaps it is intended as a lubricant of some sort? To allow the Nodule some freedom of movement underneath the Membrane? Certainly it would make sense - but even as you find yourself falling in behind this idea, it occurs to you that this could be just wishful thinking; after all, if it was just lubricant, then it would presumably be safe to the touch for you, and you wouldn't have to worry about anyth - oh, well, you would have one less thing to worry about, at least.

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You set that line of thought aside, and focus on the work at hand - and before long, you have tried every 'hem' of the Membrane. There were a few that offered resistance immediately, though most had enough play to them that you were able to get an appreciable patch of the Nine-Dozen uncovered. In the end, you were able to uncover a few of the smaller protuberances as well. There are a few of the Glyph-bearing wooden blocks like you saw on the Conduit up and down the chimney - though these are smothered the discharge to the point where you aren't entirely sure if they are same Glyph or not. There are also what appears to be Sub-Assembly Constructs that have been Woven onto the body of the Nodule - though the function of these Sub-Assemblies is not immediately apparent. The largest of the protuberances that you saw just seems to be a turgid portion of the Nodule, though now that you think about it, it could be that there was something inside of the Nine-Dozen. There are however larger and more distinctly shaped lumps, bumps and points of interest under the Membrane that you haven't even gotten close to unwrapping - and you weren't able to see anything of how the Conduit connects to the Nodule.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and that is what you did. You are not going to take it any further. Instead, you will use this opportunity to document what you can see.
> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and you are glad you did ... but you are going to want a little bit more before you go back to documenting everything. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear tearing.
> You did prioritize the integrity of the Membrane ... but your interest is the Nine-Dozen, and you are not going to see it if you don't get a bit more forceful. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear killing or disconnecting the Membrane.
> You did prioritize the integrity of the Membrane ... but your interest is the Nine-Dozen, and you are not going to see it if you don't get a bit more forceful. Resume pulling until you have the entire Membrane off, or you fear killing it or total disconnection.
> You did prioritize the integrity of the Membrane - and that was a mistake. The real score here is the Nine-Dozen. Pull the damned thing off - failing that, cut it off. If the Membrane is killed or totally disconnected, then that is wages of the work.

The DC for each of these options will be higher than the DC for the option that you have already went with. Furthermore, the DC may incrementally (+1 or +2) increase from run to run, and some choices may have higher 'base' DC than others.

>>5809613
> You did prioritize the integrity of the Membrane ... but your interest is the Nine-Dozen, and you are not going to see it if you don't get a bit more forceful. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear killing or disconnecting the Membrane.

>>5809613
>> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and you are glad you did ... but you are going to want a little bit more before you go back to documenting everything. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear tearing.

>>5809613
>You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and you are glad you did ... but you are going to want a little bit more before you go back to documenting everything. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear tearing.

>>5809613

> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and that is what you did. You are not going to take it any further. Instead, you will use this opportunity to document what you can see.

Chlotsuintha has a history of being reckless about learning magic, let's show her growing some restraint.

>>5809613
>> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and that is what you did. You are not going to take it any further. Instead, you will use this opportunity to document what you can see.

>>5809613
>> You did prioritize the integrity of the Membrane ... but your interest is the Nine-Dozen, and you are not going to see it if you don't get a bit more forceful. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear killing or disconnecting the Membrane.

I'm also fine with
> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and you are glad you did ... but you are going to want a little bit more before you go back to documenting everything. Resume pulling, now only stopping when you fear tearing.
if it's needed to tiebreak

File: Casting V.jpg (43 KB, 371x371)

43 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run IV

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has made good progress with her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 17. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Something had to Give. As she was pulling, suddenly and entire portion of the Membrane went slack. There is no visible damage, but the Membrane has begun to perspire more lubricant ... if that is in fact what it is. [Progress 4/?] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Undressing Room. Trying to work through resistance makes the going slower - and all the more harrowing - but progress is being made, without injury. So far, at least. [Progress 2/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VI] [+ 1 Malus Bestowed, Boon Revoked]
> Three Passes: Slipping out of Something Uncomfortable. It is touch-and-go - not to mention more harrowing - but good progress is being made. Push on ... just, not too hard. [Progress 3/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VI] [+3 Boon Reduced to +2]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100

Rolled 80 (1d100)

>>5810038

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5810038

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5810038
Oh no.

>>5809613
> You were going to prioritize the integrity of the Membrane, and that is what you did. You are not going to take it any further. Instead, you will use this opportunity to document what you can see.

>>5810063
A little too late

The Membrane now starts to demonstrate a limited self-reassembly ability, where it can attempt to re-wrap portions of itself. As it is a passive stationary article, instead of rolling against your rolls, this ability will instead be mechanically reflected by giving the Membrane one offensive re-roll for each run of Handling where Chlotsuintha attempts to force through resistance in the wrapping. Offensive re-rolls target the dice of opponents, while defensive re-rolls target the character's or article's own dice. It feels odd to be introducing mechanics like this on the eleventh thread of a Quest, but there has only been two instances of combat so far, and none of the opponents had re-rolls of their own - or lived long enough to roll against her at all, for that matter.

I will be re-rolling >>5810052, the highest of the three rolls. Though before I do, we should hold a quick vote on the rules. As established, re-rolls and auto-passes cannot be used to revert critical or near critical rolls; that applies to offensive and defensive re-rolls, the valuable auto-pass and the rare and terrible auto-fail (don't worry - it would be for only one test out of three, unless Chlotsuintha picked a fight against against a Herald of the Patternmaker, or an equivalently powerful entity or being, in which case it might be two or three of the tests). What remains to be seen is what happens when an foe's offensive re-roll comes up as a critical or a near critical. Note: These rules will apply to ALL offensive re-rolls, including Chlotsuintha's.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> The roll should be taken as is. If the roll comes up as a success, either critically or near-critically, then that it what it should be. Likewise for failures.
> The roll should be considered as a simple pass or fail, depending on what it is. If a roll comes up as a critical success, then it is treated as a passed test. Likewise for failures.
> The roll should be taken as the OPPOSITE of what it is, as it is the opponent's critical or near-critical. If the roll comes up as a critical success, then that should be treated as a critical failure. Likewise for failures.
> The roll should be considered as a standard pass or fail, depending on the OPPOSITE of what it is, as it is the opponent's critical or near critical. If the roll comes up as a critical success, then it is treated as a failed test. Likewise for failures.
> The roll should be considered reflective of the OPPONENT. If it comes up as a critical or near-critical success, then it is treated as failed test for the TARGET and the OPPONENT gets another offensive re-roll, that they may use as they like. If it comes up as a critical or near-critical failure, then the OPPONENT wastes the re-roll; the original roll of the TARGET stands, who also gains an offensive re-roll of their own that they may use as they like.
> The roll should redone, regardless if it is a success or failure.
> Write-ins allowed with QM approval.

>>5810102
> The roll should be considered as a simple pass or fail, depending on what it is. If a roll comes up as a critical success, then it is treated as a passed test. Likewise for failures.
I'm voting for this because it's generally simple and reduces the likelihood of crits.

>>5810102
>The roll should be considered as a simple pass or fail, depending on what it is. If a roll comes up as a critical success, then it is treated as a passed test. Likewise for failures.
Keep it simple

>>5810102
> The roll should be taken as is. If the roll comes up as a success, either critically or near-critically, then that it what it should be. Likewise for failures.
De-critting the mechanics take a lot of fun outta rolling, in a system where critting was already a rarity. Besides, I get a giggle outta an enemy rerolling Chlot’s success into a crit-success and brains himself through his own fault.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cgLMSMIU124

>>5810102
Granted, I like
> The roll should be considered reflective of the OPPONENT. If it comes up as a critical or near-critical success, then it is treated as failed test for the TARGET and the OPPONENT gets another offensive re-roll, that they may use as they like. If it comes up as a critical or near-critical failure, then the OPPONENT wastes the re-roll; the original roll of the TARGET stands, who also gains an offensive re-roll of their own that they may use as they like.
simply for the struggle mechanics and the reaction reroll afterwards as a follow up- make it a bit more of battle between opponents desu.

Now, for the OPPOSITE mechanics, it depends a lot on how we view an opponent rerolling our roll and claiming it as theirs- like, does the DC change and invert as well, or is it a different DC for the opponent? At least with the reflection of the OPPONENT, it changes it into an interesting back-and-forth dynamic that would be narratively entertaining.

Now, the Redone mechanics are interesting- and they become beneficial if the DC is below 50, as it means the odds are in our favor in such a critical reroll.

>>5810337
I'm not sure what you mean by
>Now, the Redone mechanics are interesting- and they become beneficial if the DC is below 50, as it means the odds are in our favor in such a critical reroll.
It's essentially always in the favor of the one forcing an offensive reroll because they're rerolling the enemy's highest die. In this case our 80 is being rerolled, not a random roll that we might've failed. The only situation in which someone is at risk of not benefiting from forcing an offensive reroll is if they roll a crit success for the enemy when it was just a normal success before. [if that ends up becoming a thing]

Rolled 79 (1d100)

Re-rolling >>5810052

Alright, going forward, the roll will be considered a simple pass or fail depending on what it is. If there are issues with this in practice, we can revisit it later - I don't consider mechanics something that needs to be 'set in stone'.

File: Casting VII.jpg (29 KB, 571x408)

29 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run VI

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has 'momentum' with her Handling here, but things are starting to get harder to manage – especially with the reassembling slowly and steadily undoing her work.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 18. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Under Wraps! Chlotsuintha was so focused on the portion of the Membrane that she was working on, she didn't notice that other bits of it started wrap themselves up again on her. [Progress -2/?]
> Two Passes: Distressing Undressing. Chlotsuintha is still making forward progress without injuring the Membrane, but it is getting harder and harder. [Progress 5/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VII] [-2 Malus Bestowed, Boon Revoked]
> Three Passes: Still Slipping. It is still touch-and-go, and part of you is just waiting for the other solea to drop, but progress is still being made and the rebinding is still manageable. [Progress 6/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VII] [+2 Boon Reduced to +1]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5810510
Stop fighting, dumb membrane.

Rolled 6 (1d100)

>>5810368
I was referring to the statistical odds- if hostile crit reroll ends in just another reroll, that means there is a small difference in the odds that favor us. It isn’t the best thing, or even a relevant thing, but it’s certainly more exciting than a stale pass/fail system.

>>5810484
>spoiler
Hopefully we’ll be able to spice things up later then

>>5810484
Welp, here goes nothing

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>5810510
I’m rolling to expedite the situation- I assume this isn’t the end of the current series of rolls, correct?

>>5810527
>>5810533
…point taken Patternmaker.

Rolled 83 (1d100)

Well ... hmm. Re-rolling >>5810521

Alright, so we are looking at Under Wraps! - unless anons decide to use a re-roll or an auto-pass to try to get to Distressing Undressing.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!
> Use defensive re-rolls and attempt to get the two pass outcome: Distressing Undressing.

>>5810556
> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!
Much better to save them for important things rather than fighting this

To clarify the point, in case it was not clear. In Under Wraps!, you don't lose two points of progress, you lose 5, setting your total to -2. If you stick with this option, or attempt a re-roll and fail, then Chlotsuintha will have lost ground from the point where she started attempting to force her way through resistance in the Membrane.

>>5810560
Yeaaaa- just gonna bow out of the vote then, maybe come back later after this vote is resolved

>>5810556
> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!

These wraps are clearly childproofed.

>>5810556
>> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!

>>5810556
>> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!
More like chlot proof haha

>>5810556
> Use defensive re-rolls and attempt to get the two pass outcome: Distressing Undressing.

>>5810556
> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!

No wasting rerolls on that

>>5810102
Late on this, but may as well vote.

> The roll should be taken as is. If the roll comes up as a success, either critically or near-critically, then that it what it should be. Likewise for failures.

>>5810556
> Accept the standing rolls and the one pass outcome; Under Wraps!

File: Casting VIII.jpg (30 KB, 341x551)

30 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run VII

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has 'momentum' with her Handling here, but things are starting to get harder to manage – especially with the reassembling slowly and steadily undoing her work.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 18. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Battening Down. All of a sudden, the entirety of the Membrane slightly constricts against the body of the Nine-Dozen. Progress will be harder, from here on out. [Progress -1/?] [-2 Malus Bestowed, Boon Revoked, False Silverware Halved]
> Two Passes: Reversing the Reversal. Chlotsuintha is able to get back to where she started when she started working through resisting portions of the Membrane. The going is noticeably harder this time though. [Progress 0/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VIII] [-2 Malus Bestowed, Boon Revoked]
> Three Passes: Unwinding-Down. Chlotsuintha is able to regain a goodly bit of the progress she made on the Membrane, though she notices that things are marginally harder this time through. [Progress 2/?] [NCF and CF nulled for Run VIII] [+2 Boon Reduced to +1]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then Chlotsuintha seriously injures the Membrane in her unwrapping. She heard the tear, and she can most certainly see it as well – and how the Construct is reeling. [Prompts Vote]
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5811020

Rolled 31 (1d100)

>>5811020

Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5811020

Rolled 2 (1d100)

Re-rolling >>5811047

Sorry about the delay, I got away from my computer. Rer

Rolled 1 (1d10)

>>5811091
That certainly could have gone better. Rolling to determine progress remaining.

>>5811091
Is that a crit?

>>5811093
Is that good or bad

>>5811147
It should just be a normal 2 success >>5810484

File: Casting IX.jpg (25 KB, 339x466)

25 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run VIII

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> + DC 2 Membrane's self reassembly ability it proving to be more and more of a complication
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 22. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: What a Jerk! Without warning, the Nine-Dozen goes from regularly and gently shifting and undulating to irregular and forceful. It is no longer safe to use the False Silverware, and with the Nine-Dozen tugging, it will be more difficult to make any progress. [Progress 1/8] [+ 4 Malus Bestowed, + 12 Unsteady Specimen Condition Applied, - 4 False Silverware Condition Annulled] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Sticking it Out. Chlotsuintha continues to make forward progress, but she finds that the consistency of the discharge from the Membrane is starting to change – becoming stickier and stickier, as if it was trying to glue itself together. [Progress 2/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run IX] [+3 Malus Bestowed, +1 Slightly Sticky Condition Applied]
> Three Passes: Unwound and Unbound. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides in unwrapping the Membrane – and for once, progress is steady, not slowing. [Progress 4/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run IX] [+2 Malus Remains]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

>>5811147
> Is that a crit?
No, as per the rules we just established, the passed test from >>5811047 has now turned to a failed test.

> Is that good or bad?
It is one of the few times in this quest that a roll of 1 would be good. I'm calculating progress remaining until Chlotsuintha manages to get as much of the Membrane off of the Nine-Dozen without risking injury to either. The smaller the number here, the less progress that needs to be made until this point - and the fewer tests that need to be run too.

Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>5811197

Rolled 11 (1d100)

>>5811197

Rolled 83 (1d100)

>>5811197

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5811216
Re-Rolling

File: Casting X.jpg (29 KB, 514x432)

29 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run IX

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> + DC 3 Membrane's self reassembly ability it proving to be more and more of a complication
> + DC 1 Discharge from the Membrane, especially from the side facing the Nine-Dozen has become slightly sticky, complicating Handling.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 24. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Stolen Swag. Chlotsuintha was making appreciable progress, in large part due to the False Silverware – but suddenly the Membrane began wrapping itself on the flat of the blade, and now you cannot get it out. [Progress 3/8] [+3 Malus Increases to +5] [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Still Sticking it Out. Chlotsuintha manages to unwrap more and more of the Membrane, but the discharge on the inside of the Membrane seems warmer now, and it is getting noticeably stickier. [Progress 4/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run X] [+3 Malus Remains, +1 Slightly Sticky Condition Becomes +3 Somewhat Sticky Condition]
> Three Passes: The Slip and Slide. Chlotsuintha manages to make solid progress, and with the end in sight, she finds that working through the resistance is now becoming marginally easier. [Progress 6/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run X] [+3 Malus Reduces to +2]
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds the unwrapping and unraveling to be going much better than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5811250

Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>5811250

>>5811250
Oh joy

Rolled 25 (1d100)

>>5811250
>>5811325
Hopefully the Patternmaker doesn’t smite me for my mistake

Rolled 4 (1d100)

Re-Rolling >>5811323

File: Casting XI.jpg (34 KB, 300x510)

34 KB JPG

> Handling Test, Series I, Run X

> DC 45: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Out of Her Element, making a Handling Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 10 Membrane was not Woven or intended to be unwrapped in these circumstances.
> + DC 5 Nine-Dozen is heavy enough to prove a complication for Handling the Membrane.
> + DC 3 Membrane's self reassembly ability it proving to be more and more of a complication.
> + DC 3 Discharge from the Membrane, especially from the side facing the Nine-Dozen has become somewhat sticky, complicating Handling.
> - DC 15 Membrane is Well-Woven, and as such is somewhat resistant to tearing or other forms of damage.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is deliberately taking her time with the Handling of the Membrane.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is still prioritizing the integrity of the Membrane, but will now attempt to force through resistance - increasing the risk of injuring the Membrane.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows enough about Constructs to assist in her Handling efforts here.
> - DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is using an appropriately blunt piece of False Silverware to assist in her Handling.

> DC 26. Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. One hostile re-roll]

> No Passes: Pain in the Membrane! Chlotsuintha didn't see the tear - but she certainly heard it. Now she has to make a new decision ... [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Battening Down. All of a sudden, the entirety of the Membrane slightly constricts against the body of the Nine-Dozen. Progress will be harder, from here on out. [Progress 5/8] [-3 Malus Increases to -5, False Silverware Quartered]
> Two Passes: Getting Stuck in. Chlotsuintha is able to unwrap more of the Nine-Dozen, but the discharge on both sides of the Membrane – as well as the Membrane itself – is warming up an getting Sticker Still. If this gets much worse, further progress will become a real uphill battle. [Progress 6/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run XI] [+3 Malus Remains, +3 Somewhat Sticky Becomes + 6 Stickier Still Condition]
> Three Passes: The Slip and Slide. Chlotsuintha manages to make serious progress, and with the end in sight, she finds that working through the resistance is now becoming notably easier. [Progress 7/8] [NCF and CF nulled for Run XI] [+3 Malus Reduces to +1]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this run.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll 99 or 100) then Chlotsuintha finds her work to be going much smoother than expected. [Prompts Vote]

> May I please have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>5811344
What is this, the boss battle in Aldion’s house?

Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5811344
The self-reassembly on this membrane is something special.

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5811344

>>5811358
It is - or rather, it was, so long as the last roll isn't a Critical Failure to override your Near Critical Success.

>>5811375
> The self-reassembly on this membrane is something special.
Yes, it certainly is.

I'm heading out for a walk, so it might be an hour or so before I get the vote up.

Re-rolling >>5811389 (not that it can do anything, but simply to get into the habit).

As she is working through some of the toughest resistance she has encountered, suddenly and unexpectedly the entire Membrane goes limp - and while she is scared for a moment or two that she has killed it, what has actually happened is that the self-reassembly ability has reversed itself, and the remaining wrapped portions start to unravel. The Membrane falls away from the Nine-Dozen, connected only by two umbilical connections - an Outbound, leading from the Membrane to the Nine-Dozen and a Bothbound, with Needles in both the Membrane and the Nine-Dozen.

Chlotsuintha can now document the Nodule without the obstruction of the Membrane, as well as getting a good look at the Membrane itself. She does however need to make a decision; what to do once she is done with the documentation? Does she try to re-wrap the Membrane around the Nodule, which is now constantly trying to unwrap itself? Does she leave it as it is? Does she try to Socket the Outbound Needle into herself and attempt to Reach into it again, or even try to Master it? If she does Socket it into herself, does she leave it Socketed to the Nine-Dozen, accepting the risks of having all of that Draw on hand - or does she use one of her Ounce Fuel Nodules to provide the Fuel, which would total drain and seriously damaging it?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Chlotsuintha will attempt to re-wrap the Membrane to the best of her ability
> Chlotsuintha will leave the Membrane where it lies on the hearth, off of the Nodule, but still connected to it
> Chlotsuintha will Socket the Outbound Needle of the Membrane into herself while the Bothbound Needle is in the Membrane and the Nine-Dozen
> Chlotsuintha will Socket the Outbound Needle of the Membrane into herself while the Bothbound Needle is in the Membrane and in the Ounce Nodule that was overheating earlier.
> Chlotsuintha will Socket the Outbound Needle of the Membrane into herself while the Bothbound Needle is in the Membrane and an the Ounce Nodule that was not overheating earlier.

>>5811450
> Chlotsuintha will leave the Membrane where it lies on the hearth, off of the Nodule, but still connected to it

>>5811450
>Chlotsuintha will leave the Membrane where it lies on the hearth, off of the Nodule, but still connected to it

>>5811450
>> Chlotsuintha will attempt to re-wrap the Membrane to the best of her ability
Did you forget to roll?

>>5811450
> Chlotsuintha will Socket the Outbound Needle of the Membrane into herself while the Bothbound Needle is in the Membrane and the Nine-Dozen
We need more intel.

Otherwise, I support rewrapping it- it was wrapped for a reason lads.

Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>5811516
You are right, I did. Not that it would be able to undo the Near-Critical, but for completion's sake here it is.

>>5811450
I think this decision would probably be better left to after we have finished our documentation so that we can understand what is going on.

> Chlotsuintha will Socket the Outbound Needle of the Membrane into herself while the Bothbound Needle is in the Membrane and the Nine-Dozen

But if we don't do that then I do think we should learn more while it is unwrapped, followed by re-wrapping it. It was meant to be unwrapped. I'm guessing the sticky stuff really was a lubricant, growing more tacky as it became less covered owing to the heat being dealt with less well.

>>5811450
> Chlotsuintha will leave the Membrane where it lies on the hearth, off of the Nodule, but still connected to it