>>5862796

Archive: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=StudentOfMagic

Please don't hate me for taking over a year to do this?

>>5862796
>Empower the door with mana, perhaps it has an unseen rune that needs to be activated.
>>5862798
at least you returned unlike other qms, althought I haven't read neither threads fully

>>5862812

No worries there, the plan is to avoid too much reliance on information from the first two threads anyway.

>>5862796
>You've got a hammer and chisel, start chipping!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxWTDcP9Y5E&pp=ygURSWYgSSBoYWQgYSBoYW1tZXI%3D

>>5862796
>Empower the door with mana, perhaps it has an unseen rune that needs to be activated.

>>5862796
> You've got a hammer and chisel, start chipping!

>>5862798
You ran several good quests in the mean time so no.

>>5862796
Inspect the nearest stone doors shattered to rubble.
Are they similar to the one that's stopping us?
Do they feature runes?

Are they shattered inwards or outwards? Does that differ between them?
How were they broken. Are they scorched?
Is there any obvious damage to the floor? If something shattered the doors through simple strength, and the floor is made of the same material, that creature's movements would probably damage the floor as well.

The chains and pedestal also sound worth looking at.

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>>5863022

Before you do anything too drastic you decide to swing back and take a closer look at the broken doors, there might be something useful to learn from them. You spend the better part of an hour exploring the nearest two chambers in some detail.

The six chain chamber is pristine and spartan, indeed the door leading it has been neatly cut into quarters and stacked just inside the door. A particularly tidy intruder then. You tap one of the cut edges lightly and earn yourself a small fine cut. Spitting a curse you watch the drop of blood vanish directly into the stone. You panic as the blocks start to move, but after a moment of grinding apart from each other they halt.

Ah! The pieces must be trying to repair themselves back into a door again. You know blood can be substituted for magic, so there must be a rune embedded somewhere within the blocks. A repair rune, not unlike what keeps your clothing and backpack in one piece, though other effects are likely present. Maybe you could use blood to activate the doors to escape this place?

You turn your attention to the chains on the wall, dangling limply in defeat. Each is a smooth unblemished steel, the repair rune etched visibly on each link. You touch one, opening up your magical sight, only to be immediately blinded by radiance, every individual link has a frightening amount of magic in it, dwarfing anything you've ever seen. A prison meant to last forever.

The last links in the chain, the manacle meant to clamp to a prisoner are missing, except one. With a little wiggling you could remove it. You don't have a key for it, so it's not exactly useful but...

> Take the manacle
> Leave the manacle

Previous vote still open

>>5863085
Cutting it into cubes sounds like exactly the thing Babs did to get into the tombs. Could be her, could be just a common technique.
And if they're stacked inside, that sounds like they were moved away from the doorway from the Inside. If the stacking was done by hand, anyways.
(babs doing this exact thing using wands. Stacking the rubble on side she's on.)
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5347014/#p5352979

Odd that it's six chains. arms, legs, neck, waist or tail???
Legs and four arms?
Odd that one stayed actually. I assume this one is normal arm size? How long is that chain? Maybe the manacles impair magic, so they did some self-mutilation to get out of one manacle, maybe get bones for wands.
But there's no sign of fire, so they couldn't have created wands for this here.
But also, there's no mention of waste, so whatever was imprisoned here probably wasn't a human. Unless someone cleaned up the room after it.
I (idly) wonder how this place circulates air.

The manacle might be worth bringing if there's ways to use the magic for something else. But it also sounds very magically detectable.

Manacle: no strong opinion, tiebreak towards leaving it.
Door onwards: the fact that those doors were broken kinda indicates that they won't let just anyone through. But the fact that this door Isn't broken kinda indicates that it did (or one of the other doors) did in fact let the intruder or escapee through.
Maybe. A little bit of blood on the door to see if it starts trying to open, feed it magic if that's what it does.

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>>5862812
>>5862915
>>5862943
>>5862977
>>5863111

You leave the manacle for now, it shines like a beacon to magic sight, and it's difficult to change by design. Taking a step back from the chains you shiver a little, the height and spacing implies a hulking four or six limbed creature, twice your height. And somehow it escaped this prison.

You turn your attention back to what you hope is the door out of this place, A few taps with hammer and chisel rewards you with a thin line, though to your disgruntlement the dust starts to swirl back into place. Not insurmountably fast, but you'll need to work fast to break through.

You try a different approach, setting your hand on the door. “Vitae.” Mechanisms click, and the door raises a few inches. Briefly sunlight shines through, then the door drops back down. You're going to need to burn most of your mana to get the door up enough to get through.

> Chisel hard and fast, exhausting your body
> Channel mana into the door, exhausting your magic
> Write in

>>5863473
Sounds like outside the door is Outside. We know the words for Merco (super speed) and Aers Merco (wallrunning), so giving away our location with explosion wand isn't That bad if we know we'll be outside.

But I'm not sure how well an explosion will work against a stone wall.
Fuck. Can we chisel a small hole and snipe the explosion into that from a distance? Is it accurate enough for that?

Also. You said we explored two chambers, but only described one. Author error or memory fuckery?

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>>5863512
My brain is mush apparently. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid in room number two.

---

The second chamber is much less tidy than the first, with a layer of rubble on the floor in a clear spray from where the door once was. A brief examination of the stone reveals each piece is flattened and smeared, as though the door was briefly liquid before being sprayed across the room. Center to the room is an empty pedestal, too heavy to move, but brilliant with magical power. You pace around it cautiously, but there doesn’t seem to be much to see. Someone come in here, reduced the door to liquid somehow, by transformation or extreme heat, and left with something. Unless the pedestal itself is the item to be sealed in the room?

You cautiously set a blank wand on the pedestal, using a pair of tongs, and observe it, squinting with your magic sight. Nothing seems to happen. Unfortunately your attempt to remove the blank wand is also completely fruitless, the wooden stick remains firmly stuck to the pedestal. Seeing nothing else of interest you leave the room.

>>5863587
Feel like I've caused others to post less by being an overthinky person who was very into this quest when it last ran.

Can't really think of anything to get around expending a lot of resources on the door other than.
Explosions inside get redirected by the walls, so you need to keep some extra distance. And people break rock with dynamite by drilling and putting it into the rock?
And the hallway leading up to this exit is slightly curved.
And as far as I remember, an explosion wand doesn't launch a bolt or something, the explosion just Appears?
So if we can place that precisely, maybe
> chip a hole on the side of the door that's easiest for us to take cover from, and put 1-3 successive explosions in the (gradually widening) hole. Finish with a chisel if it's needed.
Be ready to cast Merco and get out quickly in case we cause a cave-in, but. This place looks like it's supposed to be tough, weird if it catastrophically fails from a tier 1 wand.
(for new people. Tier 1 wands are really cheap to make and charge, and we have some decent ways to use mana for to kill things, they just probably aren't much good against rock.)

I wonder what happens if you break a magic item. Like. Can we feed the door magic by crushing the shackle or a link of chain under it? Will breaking or burning an explosion wand make it explode?

I'm a bit weirded out by the doors that just require a ton of mana to open. Maybe people just aren't supposed to come here often. It's a place where things are put Away.

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>>5864158

The shape and purpose of this place is starting to become clear to you. It’s both a prison and a toll road. The door out, and presumably the door in, both require a gift of magic to be given. You’re fairly sure you could brute force past it with your chisel, or give it enough magic to slip under the door, but you never did like to play by other people’s rules. Instead you start to work with your chisel, not with the intent to force an opening, but to make a point of weakness.

Then, as far back as the tendrils of smoke from your wand will allow (five arm lengths) you utter the Merco spell for a burst of speed, will the wands power to explode, and run! First the sound hits, then goes silent. Next the heat catches you on the third step and on the fourth sound returns, along with a splitting headache, and throbbing ringing ears. A cloud of dust rushes down the tunnel and engulfs you, before the magic of the door starts working to pull it back in little streams and eddies. It’d be beautiful if you weren’t clutching your head and coughing.

You stumble back to the door, squinting through your throbbing headache and spot a ray of sunlight spilling into the tunnel. Too small to get through, so you send another wisp of smoke from your wand through the opening, duck and detonate. Shrapnel and debris go flying, some bouncing off your back, and you utter a brief prayer of thanks to the dead explorer you plundered these sturdy clothes from. You stand and find a sizable hole in the top part of the door, and crawl through, landing with a stumble on a grassy hillside.

You stare blinking in the sunlight and get your first look of...well wherever this is. Serene open water stretches out for vast distances, marred only by a few stretches of land. Ruins dot many of them, but most notably is an actual town ringed by a high wall. A few small boats paddle about in the distance. Civilization. Safety, food, a place to rest. Two weeks of sleeping on the ground and eating whatever you can forage or kill suddenly assert themselves on your body. You’d kill for a soft bed right about now.

>>5864277

There’s a sudden flash of insight and two pieces of the puzzle link together in your mind. You’ve seen this place on a map. Spellbreak, the one and only city of the Spellwild. You just passed through the tunnel between the Ironwood region where you started your journey and into the Spellbreak region. Did Babs, your friend and mentor, set you there? And why? You shake off the mystery for now, with Spellbreak in sight you have a more immediate goal.

Your question of how to get to the city across the lake is interrupted by the sounds of raised voices.

“Shut up Jim! It might not work if we kill him!”
“I’ll just fuck him up a little then! A couple stabs in the gut! I know where it won’t kill him!”
“Umm, did anyone else hear those explosions?”
“Stay out of it nob!”
“I said shut up Jim!”

Around a contour of the land a young man shows up. Scruffy is the best word for him, his clothes are dirty and worn workshop overalls, complete with heavy leather gloves. In contrast his belt clatters with gleaming tools, each looking brand new. He looks from you to the broken door, even now slowly mending your damage, and chuckles.

The man starts talking quickly, eyes darting from you to the door, then unfocusing on distant things. “Well, that’s certainly one approach to the problem. I wonder what the most efficient strategy for breaking through would be...I believe I heard the sound of an explosion wand, first rank I think? Perhaps a cutting wand would work well, though it’s possible that not outright removing the stone from the door would expedite the repair process. Oh! Did you prep the door ahead of time with a chamber to place the spell into? Oh, I’m half tempted to lock myself in and try a few things, though that might cause trouble of course. Hmm. I wonder about the walls around the ” There’s a brief pause in his rambling.

“I...”

“Oh! Oh dear, I’m sorry. Bit of a talker. Pair of gentlemen over there are debating on killing me so perhaps we should move along. Could I offer you a boat ride to the town? Joe! My name is Joe. Missus always was getting on me about that, not introducing myself.”

> Ride into town with Joe
> Find your own way
> Write in

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>>5864279

Whoops, forgot the picture

Ah. Joe, of Joe's Cave fame. From his notes. He's here to cure his cursed sweetheart Marla, who is loose in a monstrous form. And to take revenge on the one who cursed her. He serves a god?? Like Babs does. His is The Locksmith.
A lot of our spells and tools come from the laboratory he left behind. He's a scatter-brain? Messy cave. Forgot an imp. Or the imp forgot its orders.

> Ride into town with Joe
Not sure how much to mention immediately.
> Joe is a common name, but did you by any chance forget an Imp?

>>5864279
>Ride into town with Joe

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>>5864293
>>5864301

“Mel. Did you have a camp on the other side of that tunnel? I might have come across a camp of yours.”

Joe coughs nervously. “Ah, that uh, oh dear. They do go to a lot of places. It’s certainly possible. Oh, let’s see, Ironwood, Whisper Plains and the Valley of Angels...you’re not insane so that eliminates one, and I can’t imagine you lasting long in the Valley, oh sorry, it’s just quite dangerous you know, only third rank myself you know...oh dear. It was quite the mess wasn’t it?”

You muffle your laugh behind a hand. The camp had more resembled a trash heap than anything else. “A little, did the imp ever find you?”

The color drained from Joe’s face. “Oh. Oh dear, it’s still searching for me? And I thought I’d given it the slip too. Best hurry along then.”

“Oy! Where do you think you’re going!?”

Both of you turn and find a pair of fast approaching men, brandishing knives.

“Friends of yours?”

Joe sighs, his expression darkening. “I’d rather not leave a trail of corpses, though they are testing my patience. To the boat! Though where did I leave it...”

“Oh! Who’s the lady friend?” Months of groping hands, ‘flirting’ and other harassment from your time working taverns in the capital come out of your memory. Your fingers curl into a fist.

“She’s a cutie isn’t she? Looks fresh out of the fog too. How about you let us show you around, Joe’s a bit slow in the head anyway.”

Joe taps you lightly on the shoulder “Ah, there’s the boat. Time to go.” You glance back and find an entire two person boat sitting on grass, complete with a set of rollers to send it sliding down the hill. That...definitely wasn’t there a moment ago. Your attention turns back toward the two goons slowly approaching.

> Hurt them. Just a little.
> Scare them. Just a little more.
> Just get in the boat.
> Write in

>>5864586
>Just get in the boat.
No clobering on an empty stomach

Your name was looking familiar and then I remembered, you were also the qm for Mystic Harvest https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=SysQm
Man, I missed you. Hope you can continue it someday.

>>5864629
Definitely too many open projects on my end, largely as a result of being Curse afflicted.

>>5864586
>Scare them. Just a little more.

>>5864586
>> Just get in the boat.

>>5864586
>> Just get in the boat.
Scaring them sounds like. Either showing our hand or wasting mana. And we're going to a region where we can't use mana? If they're angry at us, they'll strike when we're weak. Best to leave as little impression as possible, either this way or by leaving no survivors or bodies.

Wonder if summons will work in the Spellbreak region. Babs mentioned the example of sending an explosion spirit into someone's home. As something that Doesn't work there.
Maybe
>> ask Joe if it's possible to maintain summons there, and. What's the problem with the imp.
Would be nice to have a lookout if we're going to be around people like that.

Wonder what drives banal people like that to end up Here.

>>5864586
>Just get in the boat.

>>5864586
>> Just get in the boat.

Oh, almost missed this in the catalog. I'll have to reread the first two threads, as far as I can remember we were doing something with a necromancer? I miss the bird-buddy

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>>5865473
>>5865257
>>5864978
>>5864861
>>5864682
>>5864629

Exhale. Uncurl the fingers. Remember that two idiots mean nothing compared to your long term plans of putting an entire country under your heel. And that even two idiots could be dangerous in a city without magic. Or could have friends. You step into the boat to jeers.

“You'll be back for us! Joe's a taken man you know!”

“We're big men in the city! You'll see!”

The boat lurches forward and shoots down the hillside, splashing into the water. Joe hands you an oar (where is he getting these from?) and produces one himself. A few strokes later and you’ve left the shoreline.

“Well, I’m afraid we have a rather lengthy trip ahead of us...although a few designs do come to mind that expedite the trip.”

“Aers.” You issue the command of wind, twisting the flowing air around until it pushes the vessel along. “Are we headed for that shore over there?” You point at the nearest distant shore, where ragged trees line the shore.

“Oh, well...” Joe turns and studies you for a moment. “Trust. It is a bit of a problem in our profession, isn’t it? You seem decent, at the very least you haven’t killed anyone. You’ve also stepped onto a small boat, in the middle of a large lake with a complete stranger. Trust? Faith? Malice waiting for the right moment?”

“I did read your journal. I know why you’re here...and I don’t think you’re the type to lure young women onto lakes and...I’m not sure what you could even do to me out here. It’s a pretty small boat.”

Joe’s face cycled rapidly through several shades of red. “Ah, uhm, well then. Yes. None of that. Goodness.” He frowns for a moment, then lifts an eyebrow. “How is miss Babs?”

“Good! I think so anyway. We restored some sort healing fountain and there was...” Your head throbs in pain. “Something...”

“Ahh. Healing shock.” Joe sipped a cup of tea absently, swaying carefully as the boat cut through the water. “Babs did have a theory there would be some sort of menace behind the ailing Iron Wood. No doubt you sustained some sort of injury, or curse perhaps. Memory loss is a common effect of healing shock.”

You laugh. “Ok, where did the teacup come from?”

Joe pauses, his eyes drifting to the teacup, then flings it into the lake with cough. “Ah! We uh...we all have our secrets you know. Nature of the profession, I’m afraid.” He tightens his gloves nervously with a smile.

> Let him have his secrets
> Reveal your living magic tattoos, a secret for a secret
> Write in

>>5865609
>Reveal your living magic tattoos, a secret for a secret

>>5865609
>Let him have his secrets

>>5865609
>Reveal your living magic tattoos, a secret for a secret

>>5865609
>> Reveal your living magic tattoos, a secret for a secret

>>5865609
> Let him have his secrets

It's probably related to the Locksmith? Hammerspace or the ability to instantly generate simple tools? Both sound very on-theme.
Not something we can learn.

>>5865609
>Reveal your living magic tattoos, a secret for a secret

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>>5865750
>>5865769
>>5865778
>>5865780
>>5865901
>>5866357

You push up your sleeve, revealing the tattoo resting there. A spear in blue, a red ribbon tied just below the blade, largely ordinary looking if not for the constant restless rustling of the ribbon. A stylized bird perches on the shaft, occasionally pecking at the shaft. The spear shaft arches at Joe, and for a moment you get the impression of a bristling cat. The bird bristles as well, spreading its wings.

“Relax you two.” You give the living spells a flick with your finger, wincing as the bird pecks you back.

Joe leans forward briefly, eyes wide, then snaps back upright sharply. “Fascinating! They even seem to have a level of sapience! They’re quite rare you know. Of course some say cursed even, word magic always had strong associations with a god I’d prefer not to invoke.” He waits for a moment, glancing around nervously, but the god in question refrains from commentary. “Anyway...I suppose one rare sight deserves another...” He tugs his glove off and holds up the palm, revealing a painful web of vibrant red scar lines. In some ways they resemble a typical rune circle, but whoever designed it certainly hadn’t heard of circles. Something about it makes your head hurt, like the design goes deeper than the scarred skin.

“That looks...”

“Painful? Oh yes. The gods are...not known for their kindness. Still, it has proven useful.” He winces as the skin of his hand twists, the scars forming into a new shape. A shimmer of light later and a new teacup manifests into his hand. “I must admit, I tend to use it for the trivial, perhaps more than required.” He tugs the glove back on. “Tea?”

You accept the cup and sip the bitter liquid. “Do you make your tools with it?”

Your face must have betrayed you. “Sorry, I haven’t gotten the hang of sugar yet. Ah, tools! Yes, quite useful for that. Fascinating stuff runes, but so many tools to do it properly. Always needing more materials, nothing ever stays sharp.” He sighs. “Ah, but enough about me, we’ll be in town soon enough.”

Soon you come up on what Joe calls Shoretown soon enough, a small settlement on the long strip of land before the larger town of Spellbreak itself. He peers out at it with a frown. “Best to get the paddles ready. Shoretown has a little ambient mana, but I’m afraid your spellwork will be quite anemic in it. And frankly it’s a bit...”

>>5866577

You nod grimly. There’s definitely an air of grimness and desperation in the air. Shabby clothing, drawn faces and dirty looks. Canals of water run through the village, crisscrossed by bridges and populated by other small boats. You and Joe paddle though with some haste, mindful of watchful eyes. A fisherman holds a rock in his hand as you pass by, his eyes locking with yours, the stone rolling from finger to finger. His partner next to him nudges him and gives a terse shake of his head.

“We’re not welcome here.” You mutter quietly.

“Mages aren’t. But we shan’t be here long. Paddle, and watch for thrown rocks.”

“What happened to them?” You ask quietly. You recognize those eyes, that barely restrained rage, it was what sustained you in the capital, barely sleeping between reading every book on magic you could find. Rage, shoved down into resentment by being trapped in their lives.

“Hmm...the empire is not known for their thoroughness with those who seek out magic. Sometimes entire families vanish into the spellwild. Sometimes a mage will have accomplices, underlings, or servants even. These people most die of course...but some make their way here, or are rescued and brought here. Those who can leave Spellbreak tend to thrive, trade flows on reagents and supplies after all, but those who can’t...well they tend to stay in Shoretown.”

“The world runs on magic, and they have none.”

“Precisely. And yet, they are often dependent on the mercy of those in the main town. If a larger beast wanders too near they have little choice but to bargain for the assistance of a mage.”

“That’s...” Your thought is interrupted by a rock thudding into the boat. You dip your paddle deep and push the boat along. “The kind of bullshit that made me become a mage.” You look back and see a girl staring angrily at you, even as her mother tugs on her arm. You meet her gaze, seeing that familiar look you had often held. Contempt, fury, resentment. A kindred soul.

“It is an unfortunate situation, but one with considerable inertia.”

You finally pass through the dismal swamps of Shoretown and after a shore passage over open water come to the walls of Spellbreak itself. Joe directs you to an open patch of beach where the two of you manage to ground the boat and return to dry land.

You look up at the high walls. Now that you’re here, what to do first?

> Time to look for leads on your central mission, escaping the Spellwild
> Gear, equipment, supplies. For once you’d like to not be wearing what’s been scavenged off the dead
> Find a place to stay, settle in to study your spellbooks, meditate, and expand your mana pool
> Look for work, leads on interesting ruins, and other ways to expand your collection of magical spells.
> Write in

>>5866578
>Gear, equipment, supplies. For once you’d like to not be wearing what’s been scavenged off the dead

>>5866578
>> Gear, equipment, supplies. For once you’d like to not be wearing what’s been scavenged off the dead

>>5866578
Whatever else we do
> Inventory check
People want to head to Buy things. We should see what we have that we're willing to trade.

>>5866578
> Find a place to stay, settle in to study your spellbooks, meditate, and expand your mana pool

>>5866578
>Time to look for leads on your central mission, escaping the Spellwild

>>5866578
>Look for work, leads on interesting ruins, and other ways to expand your collection of magical spells.

>>5866578
>Find a place to stay, settle in to study your spellbooks, meditate, and expand your mana pool

The tally so far...

Gear
>>5866666
>>5866713
Study
>>5866788
>>5867854
Escape
>>5867074
Work
>>5867799

>>5866578
> Gear, equipment, supplies. For once you’d like to not be wearing what’s been scavenged off the dead

Writing, not sure if I'll finish today though.

>>5868679
waiting warmly

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>>5868484
>>5867854
>>5867799
>>5867074
>>5866788
>>5866738
>>5866713
>>5866666

You confer briefly with Joe on useful locations and useful tidbits of town information before parting ways after passing under the town wall. Spellbreak stretches out in front of you, two smaller streets following the walls while a larger main road runs straight through the town. The sheer ordinariness of it is off putting. People walk along the roads, talking and chatting. Vendors hawk and yell out goods from street stalls. There are little signs of magic everywhere, jars of organs whose magic is only visible as a pinprick of light because of the magical suppression. A tiny golem holding a sign for a shop, its movements lethargic. The empire had tried to wipe out magic, but instead they had made a town of it.

Your feet carry you down the road past two men in pointy hats squabbling over the power of a collection of eggs, next to a woman bragging about the runework on her robes, even a pair of children with empty bottles playing as transforming into monsters and fighting each other. Like Shoretown, channels of water flowed through the town with small boats passing from shore to shore or padding up and down under bridges. You turn down a road, across a bridge, and through an alleyway (a rather large lizard stuck to the wall blinks lazily at you) and find yourself at a moneychanger that Joe had recommended.

Mandibles, egg, and heart earned you twenty one coins stamped with a starburst emblem, each one containing a tiny pinprick of suppressed magic. Joe had assured you that this exchange was quite standard, and that you could even revert the coins back to your, or another’s, reagents (at a fee) at a later time, but handing over the hard won reagents was still a little unsettling.

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>>5869505

“Explain the exchange rate again?” You ask the moneychanger, a grinning white haired man with more mustache than seemed wise.

“Of course! It’s simply the rule of ten you see, first rank reagents are quite common of course, and are worth a single coin. Then each rank increases the price by a factor of ten, to correspond with the difficulty in procurement, rather than the amount of raw magical power. You’ll pardon me the prying soul sight, but the third rank and fourth rank items you have there would fetch a hundred or a thousand coins each, though frankly you might be better off putting them up for auction if you needed the funds. Such things are quite rare, it’s difficult to keep stock of them for exchange, and some spellwork works best with well aligned materials to the task. A feather is not a suitable shield after all, even if it was plucked from an angel.”

“Third rank?” You dig into your pack, shoving aside potion bottles and wands. The dragon scale was fourth rank, too precious and rare to sell unless you were desperate. It isn’t until you look with magic sight that you see the third rank item, it’s pinprick of light twinkingly with ferocity, something you had dismissed as debris you needed to clean out. A long strand of twine, unremarkable looking. You pull it out with a frown. How had it gotten there?

“Oh, yes, there it is.” His massive mustache bobbed wildly. “Ah, treant heart string. Hard to find these days, though I won’t pry on where you might have found such a thing. They’re quite reclusive I hear, though given some mage’s practice of butchering any magical creature they found...well I can understand. Many uses, though opening the Way doors though the mountains is of course one of the more common. A hundred coins if you’d care to exchange it”

> Exchange the third rank Heart String for a hundred coins
> Keep it to open a Way Door, or perform some useful act of magic later
> Write in

>>5869508
Probably from the sick treant we helped Babs put down. I figured she might have given us something for the road.
And ah, of the things we already traded in. I don't think the mandible and heart are perishables (we preserved the heart). But maybe the egg? In which case, it probably hasn't been many days since then.

The heartstring is. Sentimental. Would be neat to have something made of that.
But I feel like we need to prioritize immediate usefulness for now.

Tiebreak towards
> Exchange the third rank Heart String for a hundred coins

>>5869508
> Exchange the third rank Heart String for a hundred coins

>>5869508
>Exchange the third rank Heart String for a hundred coins

>>5869508
>> Keep it to open a Way Door, or perform some useful act of magic later
I'll go against the grain here

>>5869508
>Exchange the third rank Heart String for a hundred coins

>>5869508
>> Keep it to open a Way Door, or perform some useful act of magic later

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>>5869539
>>5869649
>>5869813
>>5869985
>>5870035
>>5870118

You consider the short length of twine for a moment. This was apparently supposed to be what got you out of that Tunnel, though at the time you hadn’t really noticed it, buried under a dozen other things. Still, you can probably find other ways through those doors eventually, and you’re in a town without much money right this second. You take the money, receiving it in larger coins than before.

You move on from the moneychanger with a pocketful of coins clinking pleasantly in your pouch and start scouring shops for supplies. A bag of finger and toe bones for smoke spells costs you a couple of coins and a pouch of dried herbs for potions one more coin. You purchase a few weeks of travel provisions for three coins then set aside five for a week's room and board at an inn that Joe recommended. You pass over the shops touting the ‘finest’ wand bases and ‘reliable’ rune slabs (precarved!) in favor of a musty bookshop filled with hundreds of tomes, grimoires, journals and loosely bound sheaves of papers. The stink of mildew fills your nose, and everything seems inexplicably damp, which strikes you as a bad strategy for a bookshop, but the grizzled old hunchback sitting by the door, a heavy walking stick in her hand, doesn’t seem to care. Her eyes fix at you feverishly.

“A coin, a book. No peeking! No refunds! Try to sneak anything and I’ll give you the stick!”

Your fingers dart back to your side and you nod. “Yes ma’am.”

You pace around the room, staring at the bewildering collection of battered books. There could be any manner of spell, potion recipe or other useful information in there...or just mad rambling, a cookbook or love letters bound together. Or both. Most of the titles were worn away, loose papers were tucked between other titles. You figure you’ve got about a 1 in 10 chance of anything interesting. Still, your fingers itch to pull a few off the shelf, and it’s not like you don’t have the money right now...

> No, just save the money
> Yes...that one! (Mark the image with which book you’d like)
> Yes...that one! (Roll a 1d100 with this choice)
> Clear the shelf! (Spend a 100 coins, get everything)

>>5870189
Tempted to roll the dice with a few thought-through choices.
Note that many books are similar - buying one is likely to give information about the rest with the same cover.
Even if that information is just. This is the cover of a brand of journal.
Ah, in which case. If two books have the same cover And the same thickness, they're more likely to be journals than like. A series.
Note that we do see the pages of a few books from the side, could be a way to avoid the most damaged books.
And we can read a few titles, which look uninteresting. And a few author names.

I'll choose some later. Busy.

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>>5870189
Anyone disagree with the five marked in blue?
From the top:
- Very large book marked "Century" and Vol. something.
- One that looks kinda. Abused? Like it's been in a backpack with something hard pressing up under it.
- A thin pocket-sized book which looks like it's been opened Hard in a few places. Like you do when you put a book on a table to look at a diagram or recipe while working.
- One in a large set. Look at the stack to the right of it.
- One that's. The same set Or identical to a few others, except the others look really. Well-used.

Rolled 27 (1d100)

>>5870189
>Yes...that one! (Roll a 1d100 with this choice)

>>5870291
going with your idea

>>5870189
> No, just save the money

Ah. Housekeeping.
Is the repair rune on our clothes still active? Looks like it was at 3/5. I'm not sure how much charge it had left and how long ago that was.

>>5870189
>No, just save the money

>>5870569
Some kind soul completed your enchantments for you during your black out, so they're all sitting at a semi-permanent state.

---

Writing...

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>>5870291
>>5870406
>>5870437
>>5870448
>>5870993

You end up pulling six books from the shelf, putting some care and thought into five, and then grabbing a sixth on a whim, leafing briefly through each one as you went. Nothing particularly interesting jumps out unfortunately. There’s a book of architecture focused on some far off country that worships elephants, a molding crumbling mess that could have been anything, a particularly vitriolic series of complaints about a bakery, and three volumes on the mating habits of badgers, all from different authors, all with wildly different ideas on what a badger even is. You sigh and hand over the six coins to the shopkeeper. Maybe next time.

At a hundred and four coins you’re still sitting quite comfortably in terms of finances. You spend a few hours checking shops and talking to craftsmen when you come across a small tailor shop with an outfit that catches your eye. A black coat with long sleeves and golden ornamentation of vines moving along it. Opening your mage sight you’re surprised to find hundreds of tiny pinpricks of suppressed magic in the coat, each golden leaf and thread of fabric seemed to have a little mana within it.

“I’m pretty proud of that one.” The shop owner steps up next to you with a grin. “Always gets people staring, even if no one can afford it. A hundred coins if you’re curious, and that’s cutting it cheap. I could cut it down to fifty if you can find replacement materials for me. Don’t let the soft fabric fool you, this can turn a blade or cushion a hit from a club, it self repairs, and it’ll keep you cool, or warm. It’s the finest gear I’ve ever made.”

“You mentioned materials. What’s it made from?”

The shopkeeper winked. “Don’t get squeamish on me, but mostly intestines. Island to the north of here has these cat lizard things, nasty creatures. Got conned into buying a barrel of them once and well, once you have a barrel of intestine you might as well try and make something of them. You get me another barrel of guts and I’ll cut the price in half.”

> Take the deal, a barrel of cat lizard intestines for a fifty coin discount
> Just buy the enchanted coat for a hundred coins
> Pass on the enchanted coat entirely
> Write in

>>5871243
>Take the deal, a barrel of cat lizard intestines for a fifty coin discount
seems nice

>>5871243
>> Take the deal, a barrel of cat lizard intestines for a fifty coin discount

>>5871243
>> Take the deal, a barrel of cat lizard intestines for a fifty coin discount

>>5871243
> Take the deal, a barrel of cat lizard intestines for a fifty coin discount

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>>5871256
>>5871260
>>5871414
>>5871863

“That sounds like a good deal...how big are these cats? And how do I get to them?”

The tailor grins, twirling a lock of hair in one finger. “The guts were a pretty good size, never really got a description beyond tall tales about lizard scales and tentacles, hunters tell pretty stupid stories when they’re drunk though. I can get you a ride to the island with a researcher looking into the ruins there, if you don’t mind listening to some idiot babbling on about the ‘true purpose of the spellwild’. He’s leaving in a few days, but I’m sure someone would row you out for a few coins if you’re in a hurry.”

“The true purpose of the spellwild?”

The tailor groans. “Don’t encourage him, please. Just let me know what you end up doing and I’ll make sure you’ve got a preserving barrel on that boat. Oh, and let me know if you want the coat to look any different, I can make some pretty dramatic changes to the appearance if you want.”

> Spend 5 of your 104 coins and leave immediately for the Northern Island
> Spend a few days studying magic and meditating
> Spend a few days creating potions and preparing wands
> Write in

>>5871874
>Spend a few days studying magic and meditating
>Make the robes expose more cleavage
>Change the color to red

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>>5871874
>Spend a few days studying magic and meditating
>Make the robes expose more cleavage
>Change the color to white
If we want to be an evil witch queen we gotta look the part

>>5871874
Prioritize studying.
But we should probably restock on wands. We're going to kill things, and we want their guts?
I guess there's repair magic, so piercing some guts might not be that big a deal. But explosives is probably preferable to spikes. Or like, explosive near the head to stun it and then kill with ice spikes to the head.
Can you charge wands in the city, or do we need to leave for that? Preparing explosive wands was narrated as kinda risky, would be bad if someone startled us. Unless, of course, it's done in the city.


Robe stuff:
>Don't count our chickens before they hatch? Leave changes until we have the guts so we don't end up owing them much.

That said. Who actually wants to wear something with that shape for adventuring?
And. We shouldn't go fully regal, we want the magicless people to hate us less, not more??

Spirit sight is probably pretty common. The dragon scale and the outfit. And probably ourself. Means we can't really hide from things like that.
Like. We automatically, unhideably, look pretty rich to mages.

So.
> No additional cleavage.
> I hate to make someone disassemble their painstaking decor, but. Less of that?
Maybe leave it on the shoulder pads and a few patches in other spots so that doesn't look out of place. Fewer big leaves.

> More serious and practical in the sleeves and figure? Possible to wear closed without stretching/hugging our figure a lot.
(How tall+ wide are we anyways? I mean, we've grown up poor. Maybe it'll work fine if it's just not adjusted.)

>I feel like the long sleeves can be cool to hide what we're holding, but might get in the way of working and climbing and like. Reaching into a bag.
Shorten sleeves to be just long enough to hide a wand, make them convenient to fold up so they're elbow length. Maybe you can attach the tip to the forearm with a button.


I wonder where we can fit hidden holsters for wands.
How large are wands anyways. Are there benefits for larger wands?
You can have 2-5 forearm-sized wands across the stomach or at the base of the front ribcage?
Depending on what happens when a wand breaks, it's probably not smart to have explosive wands like that, though.

Closes at the front. pockets on the front. And one of the pockets has a hole in it. Wear wand holsters under it which can be reached through there.

>>5871874
>Spend a few days creating potions and preparing wands

>Make the coat sexier
>Large cleavages
>Add mantle
>Cut the sleeves to normal proportions
>Add pockets

>>5871981
>>5872071
+1

>>5871874
>Spend a few days creating potions and preparing wands

Tied up with holiday stuff, might be a day or two.

>>5872658
no worries OP, thanks for the warning

>>5872658
Merry Christmas

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Tally thus far...

Studying
>>5871885
>>5871981
>>5872005

Crafting
>>5872071
>>5872211

Unclear
>>5872166

>>5872958
> Spend a few days studying magic and meditating

>>5873477
>>5872211
>>5872166
>>5872071
>>5872005
>>5871981
>>5871885

You make a few suggestions on the dress, set the date for your departure and return to your inn room for the day. The room is fairly spartan, but was definitely made with mages in mind, with fold out tables and desks ringing the room. You take full advantage, spreading books, notes, and sketches across every surface, then hanging more still on the walls. You spend a full day sorting and organizing moldy journals and class notes from the Bird and Worm cults, only stopping to eat a frankly delicious baked fish delivered to your room.

With the journals organized you turn to sketches of runic magic, then notes on words of power, and finally potions and gemstones. A shelf creaks dangerously as you set the last vial on it and take a step back to look at all of it. That’s...a lot to work with. You’ve been busy with survival for so long that actually having a chance to breathe and study is strange.

> Roll 2d100. Best of 3.

First roll is for Studies, Second roll is for Meditation. Extra rolls for having time and space to work with. Study DC is 50/75/90. Mediation DC is 50. Lowered by meditating under unique conditions.


> Write in any focus for your studies, such as offence, defense, wands, potions, etc

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>>5875922

Rolled 72, 15 = 87 (2d100)

>>5875922
let's go

Rolled 97, 72 = 169 (2d100)

>>5875922
Offense

Rolled 87, 7 = 94 (2d100)

>>5875922

There's not a hundred lurking in the dice..right?

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>>5876067
>>5875977
>>5875959

As the sun drops you take some time to meditate, clearing space on the floor to sit and clear your mind. Breath in, breath out. Light a candle in front of you, fill a bowl of water, sprinkle a circle of dirt around the room. Here though in Spellbreak was far different from your hilltop home in the Iron Wood. No mana rests in the air, circulating through your lungs. The fire is merely heat, the water only wet. You reach out for the mana around you, but the world around you is empty, terribly empty. Just dust, heat, wet, and movement.

And you keep searching, keep pushing, feeling the blood in your veins and the breath in your lungs. Is the magic really gone? Can it be truly driven out? Or is it like the coins, and the magical items you collected, where the magic is just trapped, locked into a tiny spark of power? And if that’s the case, where is the ambient magic being trapped? Mana and life are intrinsically linked, and your beating heart screams life. So you breathe and open your magic sight as far as it reaches, looking for the absent flows of mana, not around you, but within you.

They seem like the twinkle of faint and distant stars at first, resting in heart, stomach and hands. Then they seem to come into focus, each a brilliant singularity of light, wind and water in your hands, adept and malleable, fire in your beating heart, earth in your gut, building your body. And ribbons of light, impossibly thin, impossibly bright, running from brilliance to brilliance. And those lines run upward into a crown of light, of spheres spinning around your head, a circlet of light, at once invisible and brilliant beyond compare.

Then you look out, seeking the mana of the world, looking for lines of light around you. Without finding your own, these would have been nearly impossible, but using your own pathways of magic as an example you catch glimpses of the suppressed magic around you, infinitely thin lines of light that dance in and out of sight, running through wind, water, flame and earth. You reach out a finger touching the line of mana, feeling the tingle of power for a moment before the trance fades.

Your mana pool expands further, you can now cast four spells of the second tier before running out of mana.

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>>5876068

You meditate by night and study by day, reading through journals and checking your notes, and thumbing through the heap of books you purchased from the bookstore, just in case they’re thinly veiled metaphors for the mysteries of magic. By the end of the third day even your dreams are haunted by diagrams of runes and pronunciation guides of divine words, but your efforts have been extremely effective, you’ve learned several new things from the tomes and notes you have at hand.

Pick Three

Smoke Wands
> Levitation: This smoke weaver spell renders objects weightless, to a point depending on the strength of the spell.
> Tunnel: This smoke weaver spell can rapidly dig through dirt and earth, piercing through it rapidly. By reducing the power of the spell, you can enable it dig through anything, like people.

Divine Words
> Call Lightning: This divine word manifests lightning, and can tap into existing storm systems.
> Jump: This divine word grants a single powerful leap, though it does nothing to protect the body on landing
> Fire Arrow: This divine word manifests arrows of flame that launch into targets

Ley Flow Potions
> Mole Transformation: This ley flow potion transforms you into a mole. More importantly, it’s trivial to reverse engineer the spell to trigger transformations into other creatures as well.
> Fascination: This potion renders the drinker, or an object soaked in it, incredibly distracting.
> Suppression: This potion temporarily prevents the drinker from wielding magic, or disables enchanted objects that the potion is poured over

Runic Circles
> Darkness: This runic symbol creates a field of magical darkness around it.
> Finding: This runic symbol causes an object to act as a compass, pointing at an object encoded into the rune circle.
> Toughen: This runic symbol literally toughens the object it’s marked on, making it more durable and difficult to damage.
> Wall: This runic symbol forces the object it’s inscribed upon to form a wall, though sufficient magical power will be required for heavier, stronger, and tougher objects.

Techniques
> Silent Casting: The act of speaking divine words is merely a crutch to help the mortal mind grasp the divine power of the words of creation. A crutch you no longer need.
> Chant: A particular set of cadences and stresses applied to divine words, required to cast divine words at the third tier of power. Taking this option grants you 25% progress toward mastery. Current mastery is 10/100. A teacher is recommended.
> Invoke: A particular set of mental exercises and processes required to cast divine words at the fourth tier of power. Taking this option grants you 10% progress toward master. Current mastery is 50/100. A teacher is recommended.

>>5876069
>Levitation: This smoke weaver spell renders objects weightless, to a point depending on the strength of the spell.
>>5876069
>Suppression: This potion temporarily prevents the drinker from wielding magic, or disables enchanted objects that the potion is poured over
>>5876069
>Chant: A particular set of cadences and stresses applied to divine words, required to cast divine words at the third tier of power. Taking this option grants you 25% progress toward mastery. Current mastery is 10/100. A teacher is recommended.

>>5876069
> Levitation: This smoke weaver spell renders objects weightless, to a point depending on the strength of the spell.
> Call Lightning: This divine word manifests lightning, and can tap into existing storm systems.
> Fascination: This potion renders the drinker, or an object soaked in it, incredibly distracting.
> Silent Casting: The act of speaking divine words is merely a crutch to help the mortal mind grasp the divine power of the words of creation. A crutch you no longer need.

>>5876069
I guess
> Finding
> Levitation
> Silent Casting

Of others, leaning towards
> Tunnel
> Toughen

>>5876069
>> Darkness: This runic symbol creates a field of magical darkness around it.
> Invoke: A particular set of mental exercises and processes required to cast divine words at the fourth tier of power. Taking this option grants you 10% progress toward master. Current mastery is 50/100. A teacher is recommended.
> Levitation: This smoke weaver spell renders objects weightless, to a point depending on the strength of the spell.

>>5876104
>+1

>>5876069
> Levitation: This smoke weaver spell renders objects weightless, to a point depending on the strength of the spell.
> Tunnel: This smoke weaver spell can rapidly dig through dirt and earth, piercing through it rapidly. By reducing the power of the spell, you can enable it dig through anything, like people
> Fascination: This potion renders the drinker, or an object soaked in it, incredibly distracting.

Tallying...


Levitation
>>5876104
>>5876169
>>5876348
>>5876869
>>5876894
>>5876969

Suppression
>>5876104
>>5876894

Chant
>>5876104
>>5876894

Tunnel
>>5876348
>>5876969

Silent Casting
>>5876169
>>5876348

---

Lightning
>>5876169

Fascination
>>5876169

Finding
>>5876348

Toughen
>>5876348

Darkness
>>5876869

Invoke
>>5876869

Fascination
>>5876969

---

Levitation is a clear winner here, with runner ups of Suppression, Chant, Tunnel, and Silent Casting. I'll starting writing, and if I don't get a tie breaker I'll start tossing dice at the problem.

Rolled 3 (1d4)

>>5877240
Rolling...


>Suppression
>Chant
>Tunnel
>Silent Casting

Rolled 1 (1d3)

>>5877406

Tunnel Wand is the winner!

Rolling again for the next option

> Suppression
> Chant
> Silent Casting

>>5877409

And Suppression potion is the next winner.

Writing!

Surprised to see Chant and Invoke get the votes they did

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The first is the levitation smoke spell. You gather the associated materials and quickly review them one last time. A tattered fragment of a student’s journal, a more formal and illustrated diagram of a ritual, an ingredient list, with scrawled annotations that they’re all shit but the feathers. You scowl for a moment, this sky cult was obsessed with status and posturing, using its magic for politics and grandstanding more than anything. They deserved their ruin in the dirt.

...that fucker is lording his position sweeping up owl shit over me now! I’ve either got to brave the falcon aviary and risk losing a finger or beg him for shit stained feathers from the guardian! I’m the acolyte of the rising sun! I can’t believe my dad bribed the master for this job! It’s just another cleaning position, but I get to waste half my mana every day making wands and gathering feathers for them! When my father gets...

You shake your head and pick up the second tier wand you prepared, making the trip to the far fringes of Shoretown, where the magic grew thick enough, to light the fire, enchant the bundle of feathers, and wind up the smoke onto the wand. Watching a chipped brick float above the fire lazily, and even retain that weightlessness for several minutes out of the smoke had been oddly mesmerizing. Of course that had led to a moment of panic when the wind had sent the smoke back at you, briefly sending you drifting through the air...just long enough to dump you in the shallows.

The next day was spent almost entirely on enchanting bundles of herbs and stirring them together with your zircon gemstone, then drinking the potions and hoping they didn’t trigger anything too hostile. It’s not until you attempt to enchant another bundle of herbs and fail entirely that you realize that you’ve found a magical suppression potion. Then you promptly scurry back to your inn room, suddenly conscious of hateful stares in Shoretown.

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>>5877434

The last of your discoveries takes place on your last day, piecing together bits of worm cult lore until you find the last needed piece of the puzzle, the key ingredient.

...spleased to inform you that your sniveling child is being expelled from the dark glory of our master. The great worm, keeper of darkness, Promos all mighty, has no mercy for the weak! In our very first initiation rite he has failed to show the required resolve, falling to rip the fingernails from his rite partner, and disrupting the ceremony with much unneeded wailing and weeping. Had he persevered he would have been enlightened that the spell only requires a small clipping of each nail, but now he is a lost child, cast from our darkness! Woe to you that you have raised weak offspring! Such sh...

You swallow uncomfortably as you trim your fingernails. The idea of ripping someone’s fingernails off, just as an initiation rite...the worm cult had apparently been a ruthless place. The tunnel spell proper called for a handful of dirt to be added to the final product, but with your impending monster hunt you suspect a more generalized spell will be more useful. Still, being able to specialize the spell could be useful, maybe a rock variant could break down the Way Doors? You build another small fire on the outskirts of Shoretown and test it with a fallen branch. The branch rapidly dissolves, bark shaving off rapidly revealing the pale wood beneath, then even that disintegrates until nothing is left. You wrap the smoke around the prepared wand very carefully at that point.

With your preparations made, you do a quick count of your magical equipment. Thirteen charges of first tier explosion wand, a single charge of telekinesis wand, a tier two levitation wand, a tier two tunneling wand, twenty thaums of mana within yourself, two transformation potions (water form and dragon form), an entangling plant growth potion, two healing potions (of the first and second tier), four weak mana potions, and three unknowns. A frankly ridiculous pile of equipment to track.

You peer at the three unknowns for a moment. A first tier orb wand, fully charged, found in the den of a monstrous centipede. A standard first tier wand, also fully charged, found near the bird and worm temples. And a murky brown potion you also scrounged from the ruins of the bird and worm temples. You could guess that the orb wand was some sort of offensive spell, though exactly what was hard to say. The other two...well the potion might be something to do with the worm cult, judging by the color at least. The wand likely had something to do with one of the cults as well, though which was harder to say.

>>5877437

You meet up with your ride on the northern side of Spellbreak, an old man with wild white hair and a smile missing a few teeth. He stands in a wooden boat bobbing off a dock. An odd looking metal box has been strapped to the back of the boat and the barrel is already loaded onto the boat.

“Melody?” He calls out between tuneless hums.

You nod and accept his help getting into the boat. The old man unties the boat and within a seconds you’ve paddled away from the shore. The metal box on the back of the boat creaks and groans and you give it a concerned look. The old man just guffaws.

“Damn thing is always noisy when it gets started. Just need to get far enough from the city for the magic to get it moving, then we’ll be off in no time. Douglas, by the way, if you’re the type to appreciate a name. You’re going monster hunting, right?”

You nod again. “Lizard cats apparently. Know anything about them?”

Douglas chews on his lip for a moment. “Seen the wounds of the survivors. Not pretty. Watch out for the tentacles, got a lot more muscle than you’d expected in them. Stories I’ve heard, they’re pretty smart. A lad, a bit older than you, once told me that he was on a rescue run for a friend on that island, idiot got himself stranded in some ancient tomb or some such, and he came up on an old camp. He’s pacing around it when he sees someone’s arm poking out of a tent, with just a little bit of blood trailing out. He nearly rushes out right then and there, but something seemed just a little bit off, so he tosses a rock at the tent instead. One of those lizard cats explodes out of the tent! It shreds the tent like paper, and turns out that arm was just a bloody stump on the other end. Damn thing set a trap and sat there waiting! So my advice is to be careful, and don’t rush into anything.”

“That's...good advice. Thanks. What are you doing on the island anyway?”

You watch with some amusement as the grin in Douglas’s face grows. “Oh, just overthrowing centuries of thinking on the nature of the Spellwild.”

You start to laugh, then a memory cuts into your mind. You, coughing up blood after another beating from the guards, waiting for the ‘trial’ that would banish you to the spellwild. The foul breath and stubble of a guard, his eyes staring into yours.

A bar wench one bad day from being a whore thinks she can tear down the empire?

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>>5877439

“Miss?”

You start a little from the depths of memory. “Sorry you just...reminded me of something.”

“Happens a lot in the Spellwild, in my experience. Which is actually part three of my grand theorem of the true purpose of the Spellwild. I’m just finishing up my research this week actually, and then I shall personally deliver a copy of all three hundred pages to you, just as soon as I cajole the scribe runes out of a friend of mine.”

“And...? What’s the true purpose of the Spellwild?”

Douglas winks and looks around for eavesdroppers, a largely pointless endeavor in the middle of a lake. “It’s a prison...for a marmot of unimaginable power!”

“A...marmot?”

Douglas nods sagely. “Furry burrowing rodent, not unlike a squirrel. Marmot. Many nations like to claim they created the Spellwild, as a vault, a prison, a test or other reasons, but I alone know the secret of the gods, that they created it, as a prison for an ancient sorcerer marmot! I have seen the ancient runes, and I am quite sure of this...assuming I have all my translations correct. Janson did have his concerns about my understanding of the vocabulary. Either way I’m quite sure it’s some sort of rodent. Probably a marmot.”

You largely nod and smile from that point on, and the conversation meanders until the two of you ground the ship against the northern shore. To the west is a looming forest of pines, the bright sunlight dimming to shadows quickly under its boughs. To the east is an old ruin, a towering stone structure.

“The locals will tell you it’s an old theater, but I know better. It’s nothing less than the ancient meeting place of the gods, where the six once met!”

You briefly consider pointing out that there are four gods, not six, but think better of it.

“I’ll be doing research there for the next three days, you’re welcome to settle there for the night, the wildlife quite keeps their distance, respect for the fallen gods I suppose. If I don’t see you on the morning of the fourth day I’ll assume you’ve become cat food, and you seem nicer than most, so try to show up.”

You laugh a little. “I’ll try. It’s not my first monster hunt at least.” You adjust your pack and turn toward the dark forest. Three days to get in, kill enough cat lizards to fill a barrel with their guts, and make it back.

How deep will you travel?
> Delve deep into the forest and set up camp within it for the night.
> Look to return by sundown to the ruins.
> Write in

How will you hunt?
> Set a trap with some spare rations and lay in wait in a tree
> Look for dens and caves where the beasts might sleep and rest
> Be noisy and loud, look for trouble
> Write in

>>5877441
>Delve deep into the forest and set up camp within it for the night.
> Look for dens and caves where the beasts might sleep and rest

>>5877441
> Delve deep into the forest and set up camp within it for the night.
> Set a trap with some spare rations and lay in wait in a tree

>>5877441
>Look to return by sundown to the ruins.
> Look for dens and caves where the beasts might sleep and rest

>>5877497
+1

>>5877441
>> Delve deep into the forest and set up camp within it for the night.
>> Set a trap with some spare rations and lay in wait in a tree

Bleurgh, creatively dead, apologies for delays,

>>5879542
it happens, take your time OP

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>>5877497
>>5877575
>>5877746
>>5878500
>>5878618

You push forward into the forest, intent on making your way deep into it. Soon the yellow sunlight is reduced to emerald, then even further to an oppressive layering of shadows. Likewise the racket of birdsong and insects fades to rustling leaves, then gives way to smothering silence. The ground slopes up gently, occasionally broken up by short pine needle covered ledges. You pass by the occasional creek trickling from a spring and pooling into a muddy pool, keeping your eyes open for tracks along the muddy shores. Oddly the mud seems smooth and undisturbed...unnaturally so. Something has been covering its tracks.

Your skin prickles at the discovery. Are these creatures covering their tracks? That’s an uneasy discovery. If they’re laying traps and hiding signs of their existence you could be in for a dangerous encounter. You nervously glance back at the trail you’ve left behind coming this far, it certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the creatures could be trailing you as well. Of course, that was the idea in coming this far. And if they were following your trail...well, best to keep moving.

You press on deeper into the forest and the gentle slope reverses after a time, pointing back downhill at a steeper incline. The undergrowth dissipates as the ground grows rockier and you find yourself sliding downhill as often as walking. Rocky outcroppings dot the terrain, and you can see deeper pockets of darkness beneath some of them. If these things have dens, you're at the right place. You stop on top of one of the rocky outcroppings for a moment.

A twig snaps. A guttural snarl. Suddenly the trees are alive with movement, mottled green scales leaping from branch to branch. Growling, snarling, hissing. Your hand slowly moves toward your satchel, pushing the flap open, potions and wands waiting. Your eyes twitch back and forth, trying to count the quick moving bodies as they pass in and out of sight, a dozen, maybe more? It’s impossible to tell between the gloom and their natural camouflage.

No matter what, a fight is coming. The only question is what are you going to commit to it?

Strategy (Pick One)
> Conserve your resources and trust your natural ability (Roll Best of 1)
> Use your mana freely, but conserve your wands (Roll Best of 2)
> Use your mana and wands freely (Roll Best of 3)
> Write in

Optionals (Pick None or More)
> Drink the Water Form potion (Reduces Damage)
> Drink the Dragon Form potion (Extra dice)
> Use the Entangling potion (Extra dice)
> Write in

Combat Meta: Combat is based on d100 rolls. By default you roll a single D100. If you want more, you’ll need to commit resources to the fight. More resources, more dice. The more big numbers, the better.
> If any dice rolls over a 50 you make it through the combat round without damage, and the enemy takes a hit.
> Each dice that rolls 75 and higher the enemy takes another hit.
> Each dice that rolls 100 the enemy yet another hit.
> If no dice rolls over 50 you take a hit
> If no dice rolls over a 25 you take another hit
> If no dice rolls over a 1 you take yet another hit

>>5880342
If these things have no ranged options, we can probably do well with. T2 Levitation wand on ourselves (I assume 1 of 5 charges?) + T1 (T2?) Aers to control our flight.

How tall are the trees, and how long would that last?

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>>5880346

You'd need three charges of levitation to render yourself weightless, but yeah, you could give yourself about ten minutes of flight that way. The trees go pretty high up, with a lot of thick branches running between them. Your main issue isn't gaining height, it's visibility once you gain range.

>>5880342
>Use your mana freely, but conserve your wands (Roll Best of 2)

>Drink the Water Form potion (Reduces Damage)

>>5880342
This seems like a perfect situation for
>water potion
yeah. Precarious, but looks like physical damage only.

Speak Merco (1 mana) and try to break through so we aren't surrounded. Run uphill and use one levitation charge or speak merco aers (1 mana) to make that easier. Maybe use both.

As we approach them, use T1 explosive wand to daze and then speak Arx Merco (free) to wound. Does silent casting make it easier to cast when out of breath?

If we get grabbed. honestly, If there's twelve of them we can afford a shouted Arx Merco for every single one if we have to.

Ah. Does the levitation wand reduce Mass or just the effect of gravity? If it's mass, it might actually slow us down under some circumstances. But would kinda. Turn blunt damage we take into knockback.

>>5880342
>Use your mana freely, but conserve your wands (Roll Best of 2)
> Drink the Water Form potion (Reduces Damage)

>>5880342
> Use your mana and wands freely (Roll Best of 3)
> Drink the Water Form potion (Reduces Damage)

>>5880559
> Ah. Does the levitation wand reduce Mass or just the effect of gravity?

Gravity. It wouldn't reduce the impact of a punch, for instance.

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>>5881073
>>5880783
>>5880559
>>5880485

“Merco!” You shout the divine word, pouring your power into it, and feel your body respond, every movement becoming sudden and quick, limbs snapping into place. You fetch the water form potion and drink it in one quick gulp, ignoring the bitter lingering taste of herbs. Your skin tingles and you stare for a moment as your skin becomes partially clear, veins drifting underneath like seaweed. Your fist clenches and your fingers bend and deform easily around each other, snapping back easily when removed. That...was weird.

Somewhere in the trees is a hellish screech, and the first of the wildcats come charging down the hill at you.

> Roll 1d100 Best of Two

Rolled 5 (1d100)

>>5881189

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5881189

>>5881226
>>5881190

A minor failure. Writing...

>>5881190
>>5881226
off to a good start

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>>5881190
>>5881226
>>5881336

“Arx!” A line of frost spears spring out of the ground and the front runner of the pack jerks sideways, claws scraping on the ground to avoid impaling itself. Two more join it, then they start to pace and circle, not that you intend to give them time. “Arx Merco!” A cluster of five ice spears spin into existence in the air, then launch out, one skewering a beast, the others flying wild, but at least driving the other two back.

Then something tightens around your ankle and jerks, whipping you backward over the outcropping, into the ground where your face deforms under the influence of the water potion. You roll in time to see the pouncing form of another wildcat and scream out another round of ice spears. The cat twists and crashes into the spears, shattering them like glass, then into you. There's a frantic moment where claws are sliding through your body without actually harming it, then you manage to push free and stumble to your feet.

Dazed and dirty, a little less mana, but alive and unharmed. And a dozen yowling lizard cats prowling toward you. Your eyes flick around, a small cave that could be a good defense or a good grave. Trees you could go up with wand help. A slope you could run down to get some distance while your speed spell is still active.


Reposition?
> Duck into the cave and stand your ground
> Run downhill, get some distance and launch attacks from afar
> Use your levitate spell, get into the air
> Write in

Strategy?
> Get serious, unleash wand and word on these beasts (Best of Three)
> Stick to your ice spears (Best of Two)
> Write in

>>5881376
>Run downhill, get some distance and launch attacks from afar

>Stick to your ice spears (Best of Two)

>>5881376
> Use your levitate spell, get into the air
> Get serious, unleash wand and word on these beasts (Best of Three)

>>5881384
+1

>>5881376
> Run downhill, get some distance and launch attacks from afar
> Get serious, unleash wand and word on these beasts (Best of Three)

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>5881384
>>5881413
>>5881878
>>5882101

> words 1
> words and wands 2

Tie breakin... probably no update till tomorrow, freakin tired

>>5882360
take care, qm

Should also toss this out so I've got the dice when my brain actually has sleep in it.

> Roll 1d100 Best of Three

Rolled 62 (1d100)

>>5882585

Rolled 73 (1d100)

>>5882585

Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5882585

>>5882690
Ok looks like the dice just have it out for me. At least it didn't matter this time.

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>>5882683
>>5882596
>>5882690

There's a being. The being exists in a place. The being likes to think of itself as an investor. Currently the being is watching the activity of an investment, feet running downhill, hurling frozen spears behind it at snarling pursuers. The being sees an opportunity. A place where it can reach out and nudge things. There's always a cost to such things of course.

The investor won't be paying it though.

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Your feet burst into motion, half leaping, half running downhill, gaining distance on your pursuers. A few spells uttered between breaths leave a trail of frozen spears embedded into the ground, slowing and disrupting your attackers further. Your retreat is cut short when you slide to a halt at the edge of a rocky ridge. A drop three times your height cuts off further easy retreat, but at least it makes your next choice easy.

“Arx Merco!” Glittering spears manifest around you and launch at your oncoming attackers. Ice plunges into your scaled attackers, scales and blood flying, wildcats tumbling and crashing into each other. You launch two more salvos, staining the ground red, then the front runners are upon you, pouncing high into the air.

You grab your tunneling wand and launch a spiral of smoke out, sidestepping the attack. The creature screeches wildly clawing desperating as the smoke rips into its body, leaving a bloody mess. Another lizard flanks to your side and you lash out with one of your explosion wands, launching two quick bursts of flame and force to stagger it, then following up with an ice spear to the chest. You turn away, leaving it thrash and die on the frozen shaft, just in time to catch a full body tackle from another of the beasts.

You slam to the ground, water form body flattening slightly. Claws rear back to rip your chest open but you're faster. “Arx.” The living blue tattoo on your arm stabs in sync with your hand and your water form hand suddenly shifts, forming into a wicked blade of ice that rips into the lizard cat above you. You gawk at your arm, a wicked ice blade buried to the elbow in a monster's belly. Some interaction between the potion and Arx? Another beast rushes in and you lash out, ripping your arm out and across the snarling face of the next, sending it howling backwards.

Introspection later. You shove out from the bleeding out body and hurry to your feet, finding the pack of cats has withdrawn two dozen steps from your bloody form, snarling and hissing but hesitant after watching several of their number take lethal injuries. You heave down a few precious breaths of air, glancing back at the ridge behind you, then at your arm still frozen in the form of a large icy blade. Descend the cliff with levitation? Press the attack?

“Static!” Something barks a divine word, and you feel the ripple of mana, then hear a hard snapping and cracking. The wildcats scurry back, then you see the long whips of lightning thrashing in the air, attached to a hulking wildcat, twice the size of the others. You bite back swears as the brute paces forward and the other cats scatter away. A spellcasting monster. Gods damn it.

> Rush it and rip it to pieces. (Best of Three)
> Jump down the cliff and slow your fall, reposition, find somewhere better and safer to fight at advantage.
> Levitate yourself off the cliff and fight from afar. (Best of Two)
> Write in

>>5882919
>Rush it and rip it to pieces. (Best of Three)
let's go

>>5882919
I mean. It's huge, that means it has huge guts.
Tiebreak towards: Rush it and rip it to pieces. (Best of Three)

How much range and like. Accuracy. Does the tunneling wand have? So far it looks just exceptionally painful, which sounds like a good opener if we're going to get into melee with something.

Wonder how those lightning whips work.
Like. Whether they need to ground to something. In which case they're weaker if we're flying and. If we're on top of the cat it can't attack us with them without shocking itself too. But the whips are like. Attached to the cat, so it'd be weird if it can shock itself.

Whether shouted Aers would deflect the whips is a crapshoot. Maybe it would take the edge off if there was something in the air like leaves.

We should get a mask and like. Awful-to-breathe powders. To use with Aers.

Maybe we could use the corpses somehow to defeat the whips. Like. Shout Aers, then explosion wand into the tunnel we dug in a normal-sized lizard-cat. Gather the pieces with the Aers. Use flying pieces of cat to defend against the shock whips.

>>5883093

Smoke from a wand moves at the same speed as the smoke it was wound from rises. Yes this is a highly variable value based on a wide variety of factors. No I'm not keeping track, unless anons make a concerted effort to engineer high speed smoke, in which case some sort of bonus might be in order.

Range is simpler, five stride, per tier of the wand.

>>5882919
>> Levitate yourself off the cliff and fight from afar. (Best of Two)

>>5882919
> Rush it and rip it to pieces. (Best of Three)

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>>5883401
>>5883294
>>5882966

No running, no hiding, no letting this thing vanish and stalk you from the shadows until you get tired and make a mistake. You send two explosive bursts into the ground, kicking up dirt and old pine needles, catch them with wind from Aers and rush in. There’s a moment of hesitation from the predator, a panicked shifting of paws, and you send the burst of wind and dirt into its face. It roars and flails with its lightning whips, then you dive in close.

> Roll 1d100. Best of Three

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5883758

Rolled 81 (1d100)

>>5883758

Rolled 36 (1d100)

>>5883758

>>5883765
>>5883794
>>5883892

A major success! Writing....

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>>5883765
>>5883794
>>5883892
>>5884141

The lightning lash bursts through the dust and you twist at an impossible angle, a few stray bits of it snapping across your skin with little stabs of pain. Another whip comes down from above and you swerve around it, spine bending unnaturally. “Arx!” Five crystal blades shoot up from the ground and skewer the great cat. It jerks and flails, ripping the weapons free from the ground, but you’re in close now, your arm elongating into a frozen spear, stabbing into the bulk of the creature over and over before it slams its body into you and sends you rolling.

You raise in a crouch and lock eyes with your opponent. Malicious intelligence stares back and it works its mouth, drool and blood spilling from it. The electric whips fade from existence. It takes a few staggering steps, spears still lingering in it, then crashes to the ground, blood pooling under it. One trembling paw reaches out and starts scratching in the blood soaked dirt, a circle, a star, lines...

It’s carving a rune circle into the ground, powered by its lifeblood.

> Ohshitrun
> See what it’s marking out, it’s always a good day to learn something
> Write in

>>5884154
Do we have ranged spells to target it's paw and stop him from completing it ?

>>5884281
Sure do. Disrupting the spell is very viable. Left unspecified I'd probably use a charge of explosion wand to scatter the terrain, but you're welcome to write in other options, like launching an ice spear, hitting it with a blast of wind, grabbing the paw with your telekinetic wand...

>>5884326
ice spear it is then
>>5884154
>Attack it's paw with an ice spear

>>5884329
+1

>>5884154
>use a charge of explosion wand

>>5884329
Supporting

>>5884154
>See what it's marking out, it's aalways a good day to learn something
We have healing potions, right?

>>5884329
>>5884468
>>5884549
>>5884920
>>5885011

Locking in an impaling strike with the old reliable ice spear.

> Roll 1d100 Best of Two.

Rolled 34 (1d100)

>>5885029
Locked on

anons, we need your rolls

Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>5885029

>>5885319
>>5885048

Oh, this will be fun.

Sorry for delays, working on it but not done yet.

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“Arx Mer-”
“Vat!”

Force hits your back and you feel your body being drug forward toward the beast, the magic that was forming within you snapping back. You meet the malicious gaze of the alpha creature and call up a round of spears, launching them out, advancing on your enemy. All you need is one good hit to pin that paw to the ground. Your spears fly. One is shattered by a swipe of a paw, two plunge into the beast’s already ruined body, the other two miss, crashing into distant trees. You’ve missed, or landed your killing strikes too slow. The rune circle scratched in the dirt glows with a sharp brilliant white light.

The ground shakes. The creature slumps forward and dies. The ground twists, jerks and starts suddenly dropping, rocky ground shattering into loose gravel, then the terrain starts dropping into a funnel, dragging you downward toward a sudden dark hole that opened up. You scramble wildly against the sudden drop, grasping for an advantage as your feet slide out from under you and send you tumbling downward.

You lash out with your arm, still in the form of a blade of ice, and jam it into the ground hard, catching your body against the downpour of tiny stones pelting against your face. Then you feel the earth grind and shift again, and your arm shatters like the ice it's currently made of. Your breath catches for a moment, then you scream as your arm is replaced by raw throbbing agony.

The stones sweep you down, rolling and bouncing along, until you fall into the hole, crashing and bouncing down a heap of deposited rock. The agony in your arm propels you forward, getting clear of the falling stones, finding shelter behind a stone pillar as more stones crash and bounce down into some dark room buried beneath the earth.

Your arm is a throbbing aching mess, and despite your best efforts a whimper escapes your lips. Don’t cry, don’t scream, you don’t know what’s down here, just get out a roll of bandages, tie together a sling, accidently bump your arm against the pillar and scream anyway, stomping your foot on the floor with your mouth clenched together as the burning aching throbbing agony shoots up your arm and across your chest.

You finally get the arm in a sling and take a moment to look at it, then immediately regret your decision. Purple, red, and yellow, in various swelling and twisted varieties. Fingers bent entirely the wrong way. At least it’s still there? When it shattered during the fall you thought...Well, nevermind. You shift your pack around awkwardly and look at the potions you have available. The healing potions are the obvious picks here...do healing potions set bones properly? You shudder a bit at the thought of healing wrong and needing to rebreak all these bones.

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>>5886329

You tear your gaze away from your mangled arm for the moment and look around this chamber you’ve found yourself in. Stone pillars, tiled floor, a thick layer of dust. As your eyes adjust to the dark you see wooden shelves, some collapsed, others quite bare. A store room? A stone archway leads out of the room on one side, though it’s quite hard to see anything from here. Thankfully you could levitate yourself out of this room the opposite way you came in, then come back with the storage barrel, tie a rope and sort out this mess.

Your thoughts are interrupted by more gravel falling through the hole, followed by lizard cat corpses? One by one they flop down the hole, bouncing and rolling down the heap of debris. Then the preservation barrel follows and you have to dive behind a pillar as it careens wildly down the heap, bouncing into the pillar and rolling across the room until it hits and collapses a shelf. You’ve barely closed your hanging mouth before a small boulder falls into the room as well, sending a spray of pebbles across the room, and rolls down the heap as well.

The boulder stands up and waves a stubby stone hand at you.

You wave back. “You’ve come a long way, haven’t you?” Over a mountain, and through a lake apparently. Or through the tunnels somehow? The little golem that you had summoned not long after coming to the Spellwild gives a nod, then turns and starts digging at the heap of stones around the alpha lizard cat, stubby little limbs undeterred by the occasional avalanche of stones that tried to bury it. All business apparently.

“You know I was going to fly out here, and now I can’t? Since I can’t levitate all these corpses, and the barrel, and you. And myself.”

The golem pauses, foot scraping the floor awkwardly for a moment. There's a shrugging motion.

You smile, it's good to have someone here to help. “It's good to have you back. Go ahead and get that big lizard cat free and I'll figure out our next move.”

Your mangled arm.
> Drink your first tier healing potion
> Drink your second tier healing potion
> Tough it out, you want a professional to look at it

Next steps.
> Rest. You need it.
> You've got a boat to catch, better start exploring
> Write in

>>5886332
> Drink your first tier healing potion
> You've got a boat to catch, better start exploring

>>5886332
> Drink your second tier healing potion
> Rest. You need it.

>>5886332
>Drink your first tier healing potion

>You've got a boat to catch, better start exploring
man, what an event

>>5886332
>> Drink your first tier healing potion
>> You've got a boat to catch, better start exploring

Writing. Might take a tick, trying to decide the optimal way to present the complex and it's challenges contained therein.

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>>5886339
>>5886426
>>5886479
>>5886879

Well, you aren't getting out of here with a mangled arm. But the amount of damage you've done to it...well healing it all the way just seems like asking for badly set bones and semi-permanent injuries. Of course getting things to heal properly meant moving your fingers back to where they should be.

The next fifteen minutes are spent screaming, then gasping for air on the floor. But at least none of your fingers are bent the wrong way now. You uncork the lower grade healing potion with trembling fingers and down it. A wave of relief spreads through you, minor aches and bruises vanishing instantly. Your injured arm itches wildly as raw flesh is covered in a fresh layer of skin. Swollen flesh deflates. Heat fills your arm to the point where sweat starts pouring down your face, then it fades.

You give a few gentle movements and take a sharp gasp of air. The arm is still broken, though your fingers can move properly, if stiffly. Still, other than a bit of swelling and a few blotchy bruises it looks and feels a lot better. No more agony every time the sling slides on your skin anyway.

There's a brief moment of guilty panic where you can't find your living magic tattoos, then Arx’s spear and Aer’s bird slide down from your shoulder to their usual place. There's a light pressure as Aers pats your skin with a wing before preening a few errand feathers back into place. Arx looks a bit worn, the red pennant is definitely ragged and the spear has less spring than usual, but it seems well.

“Ready to poke around an old ruin again?” The Bird cocks its head at you as if the answer is obvious, while Arx gives a little spin. You smile and start your exploration, magic lantern in hand as you cross the threshold of the room.

>>5888208

You step into a dim corridor and sweep the beam of your lantern around. Nothing of particular interest shows up. There's two more archways like the one you just passed through, each of which leads to a room similar to the empty storeroom you started at. Silvered mirrors are set into the ceiling at regular intervals, each emitting a cool moonlight. You pick a direction at random and head down the hall.

You turn the corner and nearly run head first into seven feet of gray stone polished and formed into an imposing blocky stone figure.

“Halt. Identification not found. Please identify yourself.” A voice, like two slabs of rock grinding on each other, speaks from a hole where its face should be.

You take a sharp breath and a step back. Shit! Way too thick and sturdy looking to think about attacking, at least conventionally...maybe if you could jam an explosive wand down its throat? Would Arx even slow it down? Way too heavy for levitation. A suppression potion?

“Please identify as a Student or Visitor. Staff without identification tokens should identify as Visitor until a new token can be acquired. Please identify or be apprehended.”

> “Student?”
> “Visitor?”
> Write in

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>>5888209

>>5888209
>“Visitor?”
I don't think we have anything that counts as a token

>>5888209
>“Visitor?”

>>5888209
>> “Visitor?”

>>5888209
> “Visitor?”

>>5888209
>> “Visitor?”

Writing, just haven't had time to dot all the Is.

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>>5888258
>>5888685
>>5888835
>>5889178
>>5889860

“Visitor?” You offer.

There's a sound like a grumbling mountain. “Visitors must report to the staff area where visitation tokens are dispensed. Follow.” The golem turns and starts plodding down the hall. You follow it, passing by other golems identical in form. At each passing the golems speak in unison.

“The Current Time is Midnight.”

Midnight? It's getting late, but it's not that late. You follow your stone guide, past hallways and other rooms, snatching glances of what might be classrooms, workshops, a mess hall, and other facilities. Everywhere you look are layers of dust, ancient dry rotted wood and threadbare cloth. The only things that seemed properly preserved are stone chairs and metal tables in the classrooms, and even the metal is tarnished. You never see any people.

At one point you see what might have been a theater, or audience chamber. A truly massive clock is set against the far wall, the hour hand set firmly in the midnight position. The minute hand shudders, and slowly eases forward for a moment, then jerks back with an audible thudding sound from behind the clock face. Was something jammed back there? You linger, staring for a moment until grumbling noises from the golem prompt you to continue following.

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The golem halts at a doorway and starts rumbling. “Enter. A Staff Member Will Assist You. Please request a Visitor Token in the Future. The Timekeeper Preserves.” You pass into the room and the golem stomps off. Timekeeper? You've heard many names for the gods, but never that one.

The Staff Area is as empty of people as the rest of the facility, and as dusty too. Ancient papers written with faded ink crumble at your touch. Inkwells whose ink has dried to a hard lump. A slate board with a few pieces of chalk. Written in a shaky hand is the text “Hope you Silent fuckers enjoy the place.” In one corner, next to what looks like a stone wardrobe, is the first sign people had ever been here, a heap of human bones, several shattered and cracked. Glancing with your mana sight reveals a scrap under the bones that turns out to be a letter, preserved by the mana infused into it.

Laura...I'm sorry. Someone had to stay behind. They came too soon, there wasn't enough fuel to run the travel gate for everyone. It's just the headmaster and I now, and he needs to save his power...so I'm stuck. Tell the kids-

The letter cuts off abruptly in a scrawl of ink and you set it back on the skeleton with a sigh. A teleporter? Some sort of escape device? You examine the stone wardrobe and find a rune circle inscribed on a box attached to the side, blank other than four starbursts along the outer circles. Fourth tier magic then, not exactly an easy option. You do have the dragon scale...but there has to be a better way.

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You comb the rest of the room, sifting through rotted and destroyed papers, desiccated quill pens, a stack of threadbare robes, falling to pieces as you lifted them. Under the ancient fabric are yet more papers, mostly rotted, then dried with time. You skim through, picking out bits and pieces.

fessor, I want your babies!
students still abusing patro- switch time --- contraband
are we --- the silen --- scared professor
Daniel Fullbeat --- medical aid --- lost ID --- bypass for him?
fifteen compla--- messha--- too good for conjured--- brats
baths graffiti --- deta--- punishme---
fessor --- lost --- pass down the --- gross!

The next find was more useful, a granite slab inscribed with a rune circle marked with just one star, with instructions carved in the margin below it. Magi-Pass Token Enchantment System: To create Pass Tokens with our revolutionary uncrackable Magic-Pass Signature System simply apply a signal charge of mana to the Magi-Slab and say the appropriate passcode for the level desired! For visitor level no passcode is required! Simple enough, and it would get you moving around this facility. A cast of Vitae later and a smooth oval stone marked with an hourglass is manifested on the slab. Hopefully that would be enough to let you roam, though where too was the next question to answer. A faded map on the wall gave a few clues on places you could go.

> Infirmary
> Dormitories
> Main Entrance
> The Grand Clock Audience Hall
> Contraband Storage
> Classrooms
> Mess Hall
> Baths
> Write in

>>5891200
>Baths

>>5891273
>+1
Let’s get clean

>>5891200
> Mess Hall

>>5891200
>> Baths

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>>5891479
>>5891344
>>5891309
>>5891273

You take the visitor’s token in hand and head back out into the hallways. You stumble and have to stifle a yawn, you’ve pushed yourself hard, but you’re starting to hit your limits. You pass a golem without incident and before long find yourself at the area marked baths on the map. Maybe there would be a little water leftover in a reservoir? A sealed barrel? You’ll need water soon if you’re going to be here much long. Or even a bath. You nearly crash into a wall, lost in sudden daydreams of warm water and soap. Definitely time to get some rest.

The interior of the bathroom is not unlike the rest of the facility, favoring stone tiles on the floor, and dull gray walls. Hadn’t these people ever heard of color? Thin channels on the floor once might have gathered water and you follow them to a large central grate set into the floor made of metal tarnished with age. You stare down at the dark below, wondering. Big enough to fit the barrel and yourself, if you removed the grate, and it had to go somewhere for the water to drain.

Chamber pots of a strange design line one wall, the inside of each featuring a small open hole leading to the darkness below. Bits of faded graffiti surrounds each, with one featuring a highly prominent pair of hearts and arrows and the faded words: T & J’s Spot Some effort has gone into obscuring it with angry scribbles and lines. An ancient humiliation, lost to some forgotten war.

The last notable feature of the room is several deep basins that at some point would have been filled with water, a few ancient water lines still hinting at the original purpose. You wipe off some dust and reveal a rune circle etched into the side of the basin, and send a pulse of mana into it. Almost immediately trickles of water, warm water, start to form and slide down the sides of the basin, gathering in the bottom. You raise your voice, and power, to a shout and fill the rune with even more power and watch with delight as steady sheets of steaming water fall down the side of the basin, rapidly filling the tub with clean pure water. Halfway through a warm comforting bath you fall asleep in the water itself.

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>>5891676

You awake to still warm running water, a throbbing arm, and the gnawing sensation of your stomach. You groan and rise dripping from the water. Assuming you didn’t sleep too long, and the throbbing in your arm probably wouldn’t allow you, you had two days left to get out of here, preferably with a barrel of dead lizard monsters and a tiny golem in tow. While you wait for your body to dry you make a few sketches of the bath rune, you’ll need to puzzle out exactly what each rune means, but it should be trivial to enchant your canteen to refill itself once you have some time. Satisfied with being merely damp you get dressed, take advantage of the chamber pots, choke down a field ration, and consider your next move.

> Pop open that grate with an explosion wand and make your escape!
or leave and go to...
> Infirmary
> Dormitories
> Main Entrance
> The Grand Clock Audience Hall
> Contraband Storage
> Classrooms
> Mess Hall
> Write in

>>5891681
>Infirmary

>>5891681
>Contraband Storage

>>5891681
>Infirmary

>>5891681
>> Infirmary
Fix the arm

>>5891681
>Infirmary

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>>5891761
>>5891865
>>5891912
>>5891934
>>5892122

You weave your way through the ancient halls toward the academy with a few goals in mind. First is a stop by the storeroom where you give your tiny golem a few new orders to get the various lizard corpses jammed into the preservation barrel, cutting and gutting can wait until later. From there the ache in your arm leads you to the Infirmary where a hollow faced golem blocks your path as you approach.

“Visitor. Only Students and their Caretakers may enter the Infirmary. Public Hours are At Fourth Bell. Please Provide Identification Token or Bypass Name at this Time.”

Bypass? That sounds familiar. You let it go for the moment and make a quick trek to another destination of interest, the Contraband storage. Like before, one of the facility's hollow faced golems stands guard and blocks your progress.

“This Storage Area is Restricted to Visitors and Students. See a Staff Member if Access is Required.”

Right. That's not unexpected. At least it didn't take long to check the two locations.

> Try Something to get past the Infirmary Guard...(write in)
> Try Something to get past the Contraband Guard...(write in)
Or go somewhere else
> Dormitories
> Main Entrance
> The Grand Clock Audience Hall
> Classrooms
> Mess Hall
> Write in

>>5892289
>Mess Hall

>>5892289
>Mess Hall

>>5892289
> The Grand Clock Audience Hall

>>5892289
>> Mess Hall

>>5892289
>Mess Hall

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>>5892297
>>5892703
>>5892968
>>5893994
>>5894233

You decide to swing by the Mess Hall next. Like the rest of the facility the dimly lit cafeteria is both empty and gray. A few tattered remains of banners hang on the walls, more dangling string than anything else. Long stone slab tables sit in the middle of the room, dusty and empty. Crumbled and ancient heaps of wood mark where rows of chairs once would have stood. You pass by it all carefully and approach a low counter where a faceless golem waits.

“Visitor. This is not Currently a Standard Mealtime. However a Light Meal may be Provided.”

You pause for a moment. How, in this dead, dry, place of gray lifeless stone was someone going to make a meal? “Sure, if you can.”

“Please Wait. Standard Light Meal will be Produced.” The golem turns and passes through an archway. You follow with interest, lingering in the doorway as the golem moves around a large kitchen. Dusty cookware is assembled from stone shelves overhead. A panel is shoved aside and you jump as a ball of feathers and anger squawks and bursts out. The golem ignores it and reaches in to remove two eggs. The angry squawking ball resolves into a heap of wild eyed chickens, equal parts ragged and enraged, that start running in all directions.

You scramble backwards as one chases you, leaping onto a table to get distance. It hisses and squawks at you, then bolts off with the rest of its kin, leaving a trail of dirty feathers. Well then. You turn back toward the kitchen and find the golem plucking a tomatoe from a potted plant. Had it just grown that? You watch as the golem puts a glittering gemstone back into a drawer, that must be a gem with the power to grow plants! Did it just make a potion? Could a magical construct work magic itself? You watch with fascination as cookware is set on rune circles that glow with heat, eggs crackling as they cook. In just a few minutes a plate of eggs and tomato slices is set in front of you, lightly seasoned with ancient dust.

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>>5894387

Still, you aren't about to turn your nose up at a hot meal, even if it's dusty. You eat slowly examining the golem and kitchen setup between bites of egg and tomato. Could the golems be distracted? Reasoned with? They seemed fairly rigid, but there might be responses written into their stone minds you could take advantage of.

You finish your meal, leaving the plate to gather dust. “Uh, excuse me.”

The faceless golem turns toward you with a low rumble.

“You seem to have lost a few of your chickens. Do you need help with that?”

“Chicken Retrieval is a Standard Student Duty. This unit is authorized to accept Chickens for Storage. Students are reminded that Animals are Academy Property, and not to be used in Blood Rituals without Proper Authorization.”

“Uhh. Right. I definitely won't use the chickens for a blood ritual.”

> Round up the chickens and try to use them to steal the plant growth gem from the golem.
> Hatch some other plan to get the gem (write in)
Or decide this isn't worth the time and go somewhere else
> Dormitories
> Main Entrance
> The Grand Clock Audience Hall
> Classrooms
> Write in

>>5894390
>Round up the chickens and try to use them to steal the plant growth gem from the golem.

>>5894390
>> Round up the chickens and try to use them to steal the plant growth gem from the golem.

>>5894390
>The Grand Clock Audience Hall

>>5894949
>>5894893
>>5894407

It's hard to deny the advantages that plant growth potions could give you, especially given some of the wilder plant species in the Spellwild. If you could gather up the chickens, maybe while golem was putting them back in their pen you could grab the gemstone with a wand? Only one way to find out.

> Roll 1d100. Best of Three.

Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>5895275

>>5895285
Life and death battles: Mediocre
Chicken Chasing: Master

>>5895292
Those chicken aren't gonna catch themselves

Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>5895275

>>5895331
Hahahaha we love chicken so much.

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>5895275
Let's see if I can get a hat trick

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>>5895285
>>5895331
>>5895349

Following the trail is simple enough, the feral birds have left a trail of feathers and droppings in their wake that stand out against the stark halls and tunnels of this place. An idle thought starts in your head as you pass by the classrooms, empty except for the faceless golems standing motionless by ancient chalkboards. Could someone restore this place? It's hard to say where the entrance is, probably hidden, but it has to be somewhere nearby. And if you could get control of the golems...well this could make for an interesting base of operations.

You shake off the daydreams as you find the first two of the birds have wandered into the storeroom and are having a staredown with your little golem. You creep up on the birds and lunge, getting a hand on one's talon before they can run for it. Feathers and wild squawking fill the air and you bash one bird into the other, stunning them before they can either run or peck wildly. A quick coil of rope later and you've got the two birds tied to each other and your golem.

Your golem stares at you as the birds rouse and assault him uselessly, beak and talon scraping on stone.

“Don't look at me like that, I wasn't going to carry them. And they can't hurt you.” Your golem still looks annoyed, but you head back out looking for the last bird. You track it down near the great clock you spotted earlier, still stuck and shuddering at the stroke of midnight. The trail leads to a small door that leads to a dark space behind the clock, you sweep your lantern through the gloom, halting when a glittering feral eye stares at you.

“Ba-craw!”

The bird lunges for your injured side, but you sidestep and deliver a vicious punt. Feathers go flying and the bird scrambles away, clambering up a swaying metallic staircase. You follow, lantern illuminating a narrow slice of the staircase and a complex set of gears and axles set into the wall. You catch glimpses of soot and gouges in the wall and gears both and briefly glimpse the empty eye sockets of a skeleton slumped down against the wall. Your examination of the room is cut off though as the chicken lets out a screech and lands on your head!

>>5895415
You stagger and flail one armed at the beast, lantern going flying. Your feet stumble from the metal staircase onto one of the larger gears jutting from the wall before your hand grabs the violent bird and slams it into the gears. Between bird squawks you hear metal grind on metal, then the the gears shift suddenly, tossing you and the bird back into the staircase with a heave.

A bell gongs, surrounding you in its massive solemn noise. You hurry out of the space behind the great clock and look behind you. The hands of the great clock have moved, locking to the fourth hour. Golems stomp through the room, the overhead lights grow in intensity. The golems speak as one as the bell gongs again.

“Welcome to another day at the Clockwork Academy. Morning Classes will begin in one hour.” You hear the message echoing through the academy, and suddenly remember a scrap of data from the staff office. students still abusing patro- switch time --- contraband[i/] Was this the switch time?

> Stay focused, get those chickens and snag the gemstone for plant growth
> The birds can wait, maybe now's a good time to check the Contraband room.
> Write in

>>5895418
>> The birds can wait, maybe now's a good time to check the Contraband room.

>>5895418
>The birds can wait, maybe now's a good time to check the Contraband room.

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>>5895852
>>5895426

You quickly tie a length of rope around the chicken’s legs, working with your teeth and one hand, then drop it on the stage and run for the Contraband room. Sure enough you can spot one guard leaving and another coming, but if you can move in and out quickly you can probably grab something useful...assuming anything useful exists to grab.

You dart inside the room and are met with a sudden wall of the strange and bizarre. Definitely no lack of choices at least. Now the big question is how badly do you want to push your luck?

> If you take one item, you roll best of three.
> If you take two items, you roll best of two.
> If you take one item, you roll best of one.

Now, which things to grab?

> A Jar of Surprisingly Lively Squids
> A Comic Book labeled “Rise of the Frost Lord!”
> A potion marked “Invisible Fun!”
> A bundle of twitching moving eyes
> Tom’s T-T-Tango Twitch Switch
> An animated cat skeleton
> A smoke spell sachet labeled: Claw Demon, Do Not Use
> A glass bell jar containing a frog frozen in midleap, suspended in the air.
> A moldy book labeled: Comedy Magic
> A heap of what looks like leather, but whose colors is slowly rotating through different vibrant colors
> A jar of black vibrating spikes that move along the edge of their jar to follow you.
> Write in

>>5896221
Two items maximize amount roll. I think it's the best choice

> A Jar of Surprisingly Lively Squids
> A jar of black vibrating spikes that move along the edge of their jar to follow you.

Jar-jar time.

>>5896221
Oh bugger, I typoed. Correction below.

> If you take one item, you roll best of three.
> If you take two items, you roll best of two.
> If you take three items, you roll best of one.

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>5896221
>> If you take one item, you roll best of three.
> An animated cat skeleton

>>5896221
> An animated cat skeleton
> A jar of black vibrating spikes that move along the edge of their jar to follow you.

>>5896221
> A Jar of Surprisingly Lively Squids
> An animated cat skeleton

Rolled 36, 12 = 48 (2d100)

>>5896221
> A Jar of Surprisingly Lively Squids
> A potion marked “Invisible Fun!”
do we roll now or only when the vote is locked ?

>>5896228
>>5896278
>>5896301
>>5897231
>>5897547

Locking in Two Items, seeking an Animated Cat Skeleton and a Jar of Lively Squids, with a Jar of Moving Black Spikes as a runner up.

> Roll 1d100. Best of 2.

Rolled 84 (1d100)

>>5897555

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5897555

>>5897687
>>5897837

A major success! Writing!

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>>5898210
The choice is nearly impossible to make, between the weird, the strange and the odd, but fortunately the choice makes itself for you. As you reach up toward a spell sachet to take a closer look the jar of tentacle lunges off the shelf and wraps around your arm firmly. Moments later the cat skeleton pounces off as well, landing on your head and hisses into your ear.

“Running out of time ma’am, move along! Quickly, before the squid gets frisky.” A surprisingly cultured voice, like a well meaning diplomat or scholar.

You glance suspiciously at the tentacle. “Wait, frisky?” The suckered tentacle gives your arm a gentle squeeze, and a large eye blinks at you briefly from the confines of the jar. The cat jerks your hair, spinning you around.

“Yes, frisky! Move lass! That damnable stone oaf will be back any moment!”

You cast one last glance back at the shelf, wondering what you might be leaving behind, and hustle out of the room. A golem watches you run past, slowly turning to track your movement with its hollow face. “Visitor. Running in the Halls is Discouraged. Please fully restrain all Magical Creations.”

The cat perks up from your head, claws digging firmly into your hair. “Very good, yes, we’ll be very respectful, moving along though! Tah tah!” You make your way a bit farther down the hall and eventually swing your way back into your little base camp in the storeroom. The cat finally hops down and you start slowly peeling the squid off your arm, glaring at your unexpected guest.

“I had other things I wanted in there. Those moving jacks for instance.”

“And the time stopped frog I’m sure. Pity the golems will notice the room was pilfered and start a lockdown. Claw demon would have been handy as well I’m sure, or will be sure?” The cat rubs its face with a bony paw, little squeaks coming off each movement. “Apologies madam, but I’ve been sitting on that shelf for...a long time. I had to take the chance. How goes the war against the Silence?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Oh. Oh dear.” The bone cat shivers and pulls its body tightly together. “How long, oh say that's a rather large hole in the ceiling.” The cat paws over to the heap of debris, bone claws click-clacking with each step. It ascends quickly to the top of the heap and stairs up through the hole. “Oh my.”

“What do you see?”

“This used to be a mountain, you know. A snow covered mountain...” The cat paces at the top of the heap. “How long has it been? If you don't know the Silence, do you know the Tocks? The Brothers of Sand? The Old Torches? Any of them?” The cat stares at you with empty eyes, shivering.

You shake your head and manage to prod the last of the squid into the jar. “I'm sorry. I think this place has been buried for a long time.”

The cat throws its head back and howls.

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>>5899305
The trip back to the cafeteria is almost entirely uneventful. Your new cat companion, largely in a daze, snags the plant growth gemstone for you while you deliver the chickens back to where apparently they’ve been born, lived, and died for hundreds of years on entirely automated systems, which went a long way to explain their feral nature. The cat even manages to snag one of the frying pans, which contains a clever mechanism where a heat producing rune circle can be assembled or disassembled with a sliding piece in the handle.

The sunlight from the hole in the ceiling is growing dimmer as you lay a slab of lizard cat steak on the frying pan and give it a little shake. Starting to run out of time on the second day unfortunately. You give the steak a little shake, wondering idly if it’s edible, and turn toward the cat who is staring up at the ceiling hole.

“So...I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Mittens.”

You snort and fail to smother your laugh. “What? Really?”

The cat bristles at you. “I am a cat. Mittens is a perfectly respectable name for a cat.”

You stare at the animated talking skeleton and decide to let it go. “Yeah...I guess so? So you’ve been stuck in that closet for...a few hundred years?”

“Thousand. I think it’s thousands. Five gods help me, thousands of years.” Mittens the Skeletal Cat paces. “What happened? The Silent War was bad...but for this place to be abandoned? Forgotten until it sunk into the mountain and the mountain drowns below the sea? This was the center of the world!”

“Wait...five gods? There are only four gods.”

---

The two of you talk for a while while the lizard steak sizzles, comparing notes. Four of the gods that Mittens spoke of made sense, felt familiar. The Earthwarden seemed like a gentler Locksmith. Stories of the Quill seemed like odd echoes of the Wanderer. The Mother was just a variant on the Painter, and of course The Actor could only be Rand the Story Teller. Those four made sense, the four gods that had been seen over and over across every land and every people, different names and stories, but undeniably the same four gods.

“How have you never heard of Pulse? Perhaps Rhyme? The Clockmaker?” Mittens sits back on its back paws, gesturing wildly. “Impossible! His is the magic that keeps this place moving! He is the cornerstone of magic!”

“Never heard of him.”

>>5899307

You pull out a squid. It blinks at you as you toss it aside and watch as it scurries out of sight. You look back at the jar and frown. Completely, concerningly full of squid again.

“That makes no sense.”

“I’m afraid I’m more of a product of magic than a teacher of it. It seems normal from what I recall though.”

“I guess I don’t have to worry about food at least.” You seal the jar and tuck it into your backpack, approaching the main entrance. You’re running slim on time to catch a boat back to the mainland, better check on the obvious exit. Naturally a pair of golems are waiting to block your path.

“Visitor. Due to Current Events a Curfew is in Effect. Exit is not Permitted until the Sixth Hour.”

“Yeah, I figured it’d be something like that.”

> Swing by the Great Clock and adjust the time (write in please so we can avoid a follow up vote)
> Hit up the Dorms, maybe there’s something useful there?
> Take an early night and prepare some spellcraft.
> Go somewhere you’ve already been... (Write in)

>>5899310
>Hit up the Dorms, maybe there’s something useful there?

>>5899310
>Hit up the Dorms, maybe there’s something useful there?
man, I kinda few bad for the cat