Post by: johiah on July 11, 2022, 04:25:46 pm
For best results, read in Cave Johnson's voice.
All of you wake up in a grassy field, with missing memories. (At least, you assume they're missing.) You have some vague idea of who you were before, but everything seems blurry, practically illegible in your mind. Just feelings and flashes. The sky above you seems to be a deep blue, with only the wispiest of clouds. Despite the fact that there is clearly no sun visible in said sky, the area seems to be lit like its high noon.
Before anyone can react, a disembodied, booming voice rings out across the field. "Ah, yes." There's a sound of shuffling paperwork. "Now that you've all signed the consent forms, we can begin. I'll refresh your memory for you." You note the voice sounds rather average, volume aside. "You're all here, in this pocket dimension, because you've agreed to help me delve the depths of magic. You were all, in your past lives, the best and brightest mages in the world." He coughed, and then muttered to himself. "Well, not the best, after all none of the other archmages were willing to let me strip them of their defenses and memories and lock them in a pocket dimension for some reason. Paranoid bastards. But like, second best. Maybe third. Yeah, let's go with third." He cleared his throat again. "Anyways. Having delved the depths of magic as far as I can go, it is my hope that taking talented individuals and forcing them to work from the ground up will lead to new, even unprecedented magical discoveries. Just imagine! You all could rewrite the very laws of magic that we base our spellcasting on. No preconceived notion of how things should work, no stereotypes, and hardly any ability to even sense mana yet. Just raw talent."
"So that was our deal. You're here until you relearn magic well enough to force your way out of this pocket dimension. It won't be easy, mind you, but don't worry if it takes you awhile. The pocket's self sustaining, so there's no time limit. The whole things quite ingenious, really. All natural systems are either located inside, or duplicated well enough with dimensional trickery. There's plenty of raw resources to refine for enchanting or magical equipment, and that shed on the edge of the forest has a decent chunk of starting gear, nonmagically speaking. You won't have to worry about having a single change of clothes. No worries about starving either, there's plenty of fruiting trees, bugs, plants, animals. Oh! To keep things authentic, I did include a number of wild magical beasts. Look out for those, engage with caution, yadda yadda yadda. Don't piss off the blink deer, avoid the siren spiders, et cetera. If one of you do die, however, don't worry! We've got replacements."
"While I did strip your memories, intuition remains. Not going to make you all rediscover the concept of agriculture or metal tools, just the details." Another cough. "Well that's all for now. Time to get cracking! I'll check back in with you all at the end of the week. Well, end of the week for me, not for you. The whole damn thing's under time dilation, because I've not figured out immortality yet. Actually, scratch that, I'd time dilate it anyways. I'm impatient, and there's Science! to do. See you all in a month. Your time, that is."
Hmm. Just what have you signed yourself up for?
Spoiler: What is this? (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Rolls (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: But how do I learn magic (and other things)? (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Character creation (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Bookkeeping (click to show/hide)
Depending on how many and how quickly people sign on, first turn might be as early as tonight, though tomorrow is far more likely. If signons are slow, first turn will be Wednesday assuming I have four by then. If I don't have four by then, I suppose the game could be considered closed. I've almost certainly forgot some critical detail or rule, but hopefully not! Been awhile since I've done one of these, but the idea of fleshing out my magical system from being more than just a framework as players try to uncover and break it sounded like a fun idea.
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 11, 2022, 06:56:59 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"This will be grand old time! Nobody here is keeping me weak until I can.. Until I can.. Urgh, what was it again?
They were probably jealous over my phenomenal archmage potential. Yeah, that's it!
I'll start by trying to feel the elemental mana of earth and air. That seems like a promising start."
Sit down and meditate nearby.
Experiment 1,
Hypothesis: Earth and air mana are different, and this difference will help with learning to feel mana.
He will bury one hand in the topsoil, and hold the other in the air. While meditating, he will try to focus on all of the differences he can feel between the two.
Experiement 2,
Hypothesis: He has internal mana, which can be manipulated with mental imagry.
While meditating, he will focus on feeling each body part in turn. He will then try focusing on various mental images of moving mana, such as a bolt of lightning moving through his body and into a hand, a wave of water-like energy moving out from the center of his torso and into an arm, or earthy mana flowing into him from the ground like a tree, and will try to hold the images in his mind while feeling for differences.
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 11, 2022, 08:59:23 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
“Apologies, I promise not to hurt you, but this will provide valuable data for me. Please do not be alarmed if something feels off.”
Also sit down and meditate.
Experiment 1: Realize that if I need mana, why can’t I just absorb it from other mages? Try to make it as painless as possible.
Experiment 2: Inject some mana into the surroundings, in a attempt to gain some sort of control over it. Like a domain, or something.
Post by: Glass on July 11, 2022, 10:44:05 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"...salutations."
Aaron looks at the two meditating supposedly-mages.
"Right, we're going to need to not starve while we're stuck in here, so excuse me while I go rifle through the shed for anything useful, and see if there's any river or body of water nearby."
Aaron does as stated: they go to look through the shed's contents, as well as try to locate a decent fishing spot.
Post by: Devastator on July 11, 2022, 11:06:12 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Bah. I'm going out exploring!"
Experiment 1. The first distinction in all living things is between the self and not-self. Identifying these boundaries sounds like a good beginning. Find some other living object, and try to examine it magically. Feel it, touch it, try to reach out with all my physical senses. Try to remove these inputs and see what remains when the physical senses are discounted... can I sense where I end and where a piece of fruit begins?
Experiment 2. Compare different locations. It's possible for magic to be linked to places or environments rather than individual creatures or beings. Nonphysical things, such as time or degree of sunlight or wetness may also matter. Find two such different locations and see if they feel any different than they should when compared to each other. Can I identify if such anomalous differences exist? Try to find two similar places which differ only by one thing, such as a clearing with a rock in it and a clearing without a rock. Does the rock make any inherant difference?
Post by: Egan_BW on July 12, 2022, 02:17:03 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Sprint to the shed! Hypothesis is that motion is a kind of energy, so as I run I talk to the motion of my running and ask permission to use it! It should agree so long as I let it do the kinds of things motion likes to do.
When I'm at the shed I look for things I could use for killing things.
Post by: johiah on July 12, 2022, 07:44:17 am
An extra note on detail: I know there was an enchanter suggestion game awhile back, where people were actually drawing rune sigils to test out; we won't be doing that. I do have very clear mechanical ideas for how the base of the system interacts with everything, but trying to come up with a physical representation that fits all the edge cases and makes sense would be... no.
In any case, expect an update somewhere around nine hours from now. Got work, and all that jazz.
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 12, 2022, 12:40:39 pm
Welcome! These all look fine, though for the earlier joiners do note that I've updated the character sheet base with a couple more things like location and skills. I'll be tracking this myself of course but extra redundancy is extra redundancy.
An extra note on detail: I know there was an enchanter suggestion game awhile back, where people were actually drawing rune sigils to test out; we won't be doing that. I do have very clear mechanical ideas for how the base of the system interacts with everything, but trying to come up with a physical representation that fits all the edge cases and makes sense would be... no.
In any case, expect an update somewhere around nine hours from now. Got work, and all that jazz.
Gotcha. I’ll include that
Post by: johiah on July 12, 2022, 05:07:25 pm
A new magical experimentation game? I'm in.6Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"This will be grand old time! Nobody here is keeping me weak until I can.. Until I can.. Urgh, what was it again?
They were probably jealous over my phenomenal archmage potential. Yeah, that's it!
I'll start by trying to feel the elemental mana of earth and air. That seems like a promising start."
Sit down and meditate nearby.
Experiment 1,
Hypothesis: Earth and air mana are different, and this difference will help with learning to feel mana.
He will bury one hand in the topsoil, and hold the other in the air. While meditating, he will try to focus on all of the differences he can feel between the two.
Experiement 2,
Hypothesis: He has internal mana, which can be manipulated with mental imagry.
While meditating, he will focus on feeling each body part in turn. He will then try focusing on various mental images of moving mana, such as a bolt of lightning moving through his body and into a hand, a wave of water-like energy moving out from the center of his torso and into an arm, or earthy mana flowing into him from the ground like a tree, and will try to hold the images in his mind while feeling for differences.
...maybe? You're not sure if the difference you're feeling is just in your head or if there is some actual difference there. Might just be this is a valid technique, but something too advanced for now. Also, you chip a nail on a buried rock. Ouch!
5
It takes two hours of practice, but you're stone certain that whatever tingle of energy you're feeling inside isn't just imagined. It's difficult to grasp, though. Moves extremely slowly, and snaps easily if you pull too hard, retreating back into the central blob (or however you want to visualize it). A decent analogy might be how oobleck and other non newtonians have give, but yank on it too quickly and it tears.
Also, the purple robed lad seems to be tugging on your arm. Aside from the awkwardness of an unknown man touching you for an extended period of time in near silence, nothing seems to happen.
All this meditating has you worn out! Lose 2 hunger.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
“Apologies, I promise not to hurt you, but this will provide valuable data for me. Please do not be alarmed if something feels off.”
Also sit down and meditate.
Experiment 1: Realize that if I need mana, why can’t I just absorb it from other mages? Try to make it as painless as possible.
Experiment 2: Inject some mana into the surroundings, in a attempt to gain some sort of control over it. Like a domain, or something.
Nothing really seems to happen. No idea if that's because it's impossible, or if you failed simply because of a current lack of skill.
4
While you don't accomplish your goals, after two hours of intense meditation you are fairly certain you feel a tingling energy deep in the core of your being. Moving it more than a metaphorical smidge is far beyond your current skill, unfortunately.
Whew, thinking is hard work! Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"...salutations."
Aaron looks at the two meditating supposedly-mages.
"Right, we're going to need to not starve while we're stuck in here, so excuse me while I go rifle through the shed for anything useful, and see if there's any river or body of water nearby."
Aaron does as stated: they go to look through the shed's contents, as well as try to locate a decent fishing spot.
Right. Down to business. You're passed by a... sprinting catgirl? She beats you to the shed, though you arrive not long after. A fairly standard, if poorly provisioned affair. Basic tents, blankets, padding. Simple tools such as swords, knives, axes, shovels, pickaxes, all in limited qualities. Torches, linen, etc. etc. Nothing obviously magical, though. There also seems to be a day or two worth of smoked or salted meats. The shed looks extremely rickety. If it rains, leaks seem pretty likely.
3
You're not really sure if any particular part of the river is better than any other part, but there is indeed a river running from North to South, on the West side of the field. Seems to be coming from the forest. Presumably, there's fish in here? You're not really sure how a river works with a pocket dimension and time dilation, but presumably (and hopefully) won't be a problem.
There's still a good chunk of time left, but you just spend it reflecting on your current situation.
Lose 1 hunger.
5Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Sprint to the shed! Hypothesis is that motion is a kind of energy, so as I run I talk to the motion of my running and ask permission to use it! It should agree so long as I let it do the kinds of things motion likes to do.
When I'm at the shed I look for things I could use for killing things.
You sprint past the red haired lad. First to the shed! Unfortunately, sprinting and baby level magic seem to not combine well. You get nothing.
There are indeed swords, knives, and axes in the shed. Buncha other useless crap, too.
Presumably you keep thinking about motion, afterwards. You might feel something inside? You're not sure if you're imagining it or not, and if it is real, it certainly doesn't taste, smell, feel, (or any other metaphorical language for discussing a sixth sense), like motion.
Your tummy rumbles. Lose 2 hunger.
5Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Bah. I'm going out exploring!"
Experiment 1. The first distinction in all living things is between the self and not-self. Identifying these boundaries sounds like a good beginning. Find some other living object, and try to examine it magically. Feel it, touch it, try to reach out with all my physical senses. Try to remove these inputs and see what remains when the physical senses are discounted... can I sense where I end and where a piece of fruit begins?
Experiment 2. Compare different locations. It's possible for magic to be linked to places or environments rather than individual creatures or beings. Nonphysical things, such as time or degree of sunlight or wetness may also matter. Find two such different locations and see if they feel any different than they should when compared to each other. Can I identify if such anomalous differences exist? Try to find two similar places which differ only by one thing, such as a clearing with a rock in it and a clearing without a rock. Does the rock make any inherant difference?
You get nothing, aside from a piece of fruit. Add a pear to your inventory.
If there is magic inside, you can't sense it yet. You... might be sensing something inside yourself, however, in the process of meditation? Hard to tell for sure.
4
Same with the previous experiment, if there's magic in the air you're not sure you're sensing anything just yet. This grove of pear trees feels the same as out in the grassy area, aside from sunlight and such. That internal tingling sense does grow in strength, however. You're almost certain it's not imaginary.
Despite a number of hours passing, it still seems to be high noon, at least regarding the light in the sky. Your hunger grows. Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
So, this did indeed take a bit to put together. Maybe an hour, or so? Some of that was thinking of formatting things, but definitely a good idea to limit this to eight. Hopefully this feels like the right level of progress ambiguity for everyone, certainly feel free to give any feedback you have as you think of it! Oh also just to reconfirm for everyone. I'm gonna be a lot more forgiving with ones and sixes than some people might otherwise be. Going for a fairly... realistic feel to things, so you're unlikely to randomly trip while sprinting if you roll a one, unless the terrain is really bumpy (as an example.)
Assuming your action and environment are fairly harmless, ones and sixes are unlikely to be very painful.
Post by: Glass on July 12, 2022, 05:23:13 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Serrated knife, straight knife, hatchet, flint and steel... all good stuff to grab. Good for butchering catches and making a fire. Actually, add a basket to that, best to carry stuff around like that.
Once those all were gathered, Aaron settled down and set about fishing. Having a solid food source was important.
As he waited at the riverside, he pondered the minds of the fish he sought to catch. They were attracted to the prospect of food, but ran from the sudden moves that indicated the possibility of predation. Balancing rewards with risks. Would that not imply that their manipulation would be predicated on the manipulation of their perception of each? Indeed, would that not be the method to control any mind, however primitive or advanced?
Post by: Egan_BW on July 12, 2022, 05:33:25 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Hey, read haired kid! Do you like meat? I betcha do!"
Eat dried meat. Then take up arms to go make some more meat!
I like pointy things, let's grab a pickaxe and a small sword as backup.
Run off in a direction which seems like it'd have creatures made outta food in 'em. Big or small, so long as I can catch them!
If I can, try to think about what kind of energy is inside me. Or what it wants to be? If I let it go, what would it become?
I think it might want to be heat, if it weren't magic-stuff. Heat is... simple, primal. If you just put a lot of energy somewhere, you're sure to see some heat.
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 12, 2022, 06:28:55 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"Mana seems to gather in one central point inside me. I can sense it, but can barely move it. Maybe I can push it into something, to help with sensing practice."
Go to the northwest forest and pick a pear.
Experimental hypothesis: Mana can be moved from myself and into an object. At my current skill, Mana needs to remain connected to the core to be controlled.
Meditate with a pear in my hand (or a rock if I can't pick one), held up against my chest next to the mana blob. Try to slowly move a small piece of mana directly into the pear, with a stretchy string blob connecting them. If I can get it into the pear, try to hold it there. Verbally tell it to stay in the pear, then break the tether and see whether the blob remains, returns to me, or dissipates into the air.
Post by: Devastator on July 12, 2022, 08:04:57 pm
"Okay. So I have magic, and it's inside me. And it's coming from me, not something else.
Well, it might be coming from something else like the sky or the ground or something, but I'll decide how to test that later."
...
"I know something bad happened with magic before. Maybe it's like air in a balloon. Maybe I'll keep filling up with magic until I'll pop!"
"That feeling might have been a bit stronger than it was when I started.. maybe?"
Close my eyes for a moment and estimate how long it takes for me to feel the thingy. Write that time down in the notebook.
For now, collect more pears.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 12, 2022, 08:22:20 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to use some mana and force it into various crude constructs, like swords or arrows.
After this, try to find some food and maybe set up a basic shelter.
Post by: johiah on July 13, 2022, 11:15:35 pm
You grab all of those things, tossing them into a basket.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Serrated knife, straight knife, hatchet, flint and steel... all good stuff to grab. Good for butchering catches and making a fire. Actually, add a basket to that, best to carry stuff around like that.
Once those all were gathered, Aaron settled down and set about fishing. Having a solid food source was important.
As he waited at the riverside, he pondered the minds of the fish he sought to catch. They were attracted to the prospect of food, but ran from the sudden moves that indicated the possibility of predation. Balancing rewards with risks. Would that not imply that their manipulation would be predicated on the manipulation of their perception of each? Indeed, would that not be the method to control any mind, however primitive or advanced?
6
Ignoring the catperson, you wander towards the river. A number of fish are caught despite being baitless, though you also manage to snag your thumb on the hook. Ouch! Lose 1 health, gain 3 bluegills (fresh). Add basic fishing to your skills.
3
Might be too early in your magical journey to jump into mind manipulation. Hard to tell, though, as you have quite literally zero data points currently. If nothing else, at least the contemplation and fishing are somewhat relaxing.
Fishing would normally be low energy, but getting so many bites is quite draining! Lose 3 hunger.
((Remember to add Location to your player sheet))Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Hey, read haired kid! Do you like meat? I betcha do!"
Eat dried meat. Then take up arms to go make some more meat!
I like pointy things, let's grab a pickaxe and a small sword as backup.
Run off in a direction which seems like it'd have creatures made outta food in 'em. Big or small, so long as I can catch them!
If I can, try to think about what kind of energy is inside me. Or what it wants to be? If I let it go, what would it become?
I think it might want to be heat, if it weren't magic-stuff. Heat is... simple, primal. If you just put a lot of energy somewhere, you're sure to see some heat.
Red hair seems to be ignoring you. Rude! Shrugging, you eat some of the dried meat. Hunger refreshed.
A pickaxe and shortsword are grabbed, alongside a belt to hold them. Hmm. The dress might get inconvenient. Grumble grumble, incompetent planners grumble grumble. Then you realize that it's very well possible that you're the one that chose to wear this. Well, once you get out and get your memories back, you'll deal with them then. Add the above to your inventory.
5
Hmm. Creatures made of food? Forests probably have that! Small woodland creatures flee before your pickaxe, but eventually you stumble upon a lamed deer. Easy prey. Three swings, and the deer is dead. You scratch your chin. Butchering a deer with nothing but a shortsword and a pickaxe might be hard. Oh, you've also got quite a lot of blood on you, now. Pickaxes aren't the cleanest tool. 1 deer corpse added to forest details. Add basic combat to your skills
2
Hmm. You do a lot of thinking. The heat thing seems promising, but you don't get very far. The forest sounds are distracting, and you can't help but feel like there are eyes on you...
All this fighting, thinking, and paranoia has you worn out! Lose 2 hunger.
Pear acquired! Gain 1 pear.Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"Mana seems to gather in one central point inside me. I can sense it, but can barely move it. Maybe I can push it into something, to help with sensing practice."
Go to the northwest forest and pick a pear.
Experimental hypothesis: Mana can be moved from myself and into an object. At my current skill, Mana needs to remain connected to the core to be controlled.
Meditate with a pear in my hand (or a rock if I can't pick one), held up against my chest next to the mana blob. Try to slowly move a small piece of mana directly into the pear, with a stretchy string blob connecting them. If I can get it into the pear, try to hold it there. Verbally tell it to stay in the pear, then break the tether and see whether the blob remains, returns to me, or dissipates into the air.
1
With great difficulty, you slowly and painstakingly stretch out a blob of that energy inside you towards the pear. When it snaps, the effect is instantaneous, and painful. You lose hold of the remaining part, and it dissipates to nothing. The string rebounds rapidly into your core, sending the whole thing shaking and spinning. Pain lances through your body, waves of shakes and sudden sweat roll across your skin, as you feel like you are burning up and freezing simultaneously. The experience is... enlightening, in some sense. You definitely grabbed too much when you were trying to stretch it, and certainly know not to do that again. Lose 2 health, 2 mana.
You spend the next two hours trying to manage your breathing and recover some semblance of normalcy. The pain and experiences fade, slowly. By the end you feel mostly back to normal. Was that... mana sickness? Something else? Lose 1 hunger.
Eat a pear.4
"Okay. So I have magic, and it's inside me. And it's coming from me, not something else.
Well, it might be coming from something else like the sky or the ground or something, but I'll decide how to test that later."
...
"I know something bad happened with magic before. Maybe it's like air in a balloon. Maybe I'll keep filling up with magic until I'll pop!"
"That feeling might have been a bit stronger than it was when I started.. maybe?"
Close my eyes for a moment and estimate how long it takes for me to feel the thingy. Write that time down in the notebook.
For now, collect more pears.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Reestablishing your connection to that tingling sensation, with your current skill level, takes maybe fifteen minutes. Presumably, this practice will make it faster for next time. Your concentration is broken when the white robed man strides over, and snatches a pear.
5
You grab more than half of the pears in the grove, (how are you gonna carry all these with just your hands!) stopping only when the white robed man gasps aloud and topples over from his seated position in the grass. The hairs on his skin seems to be doing the wave, and sweat and tensed muscles are rippling across his body. It looks intensely unpleasant. Gain 9 pears. Add basic foraging to your skills.
Lose 2 hunger.
4Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to use some mana and force it into various crude constructs, like swords or arrows.
After this, try to find some food and maybe set up a basic shelter.
Another task that seems to be far beyond your current skill. You do, however, get faster at connecting to the tingle, as well as moving it around, and even stretching it slightly. Pulling a strand off, and out past your skin feels extremely odd. Your face beads with sweat holding the strand out, and it soon recedes back into your core, sending the whole thing wobbling slightly.
1
Hmm. Basic shelter. There's a shed over there, and some trees off in the distance. Do those count?
You spend the rest of your time pondering how to build a shelter, but don't actually accomplish any of it.
That was some hungry thinking! Lose 3 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Hmm, an hour while engaged in a fairly involved conversation at the same time. Not too shabby!
Oh, and regarding magic skills. I'll tell you when to add a skill to your notes, but bookkeeping your magical abilities is entirely up to you. I don't want to affect your observations by labeling anything. (Though I will, of course, be keeping track on my personal doc)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 13, 2022, 11:51:36 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Guys! I caught something! Help me move it to the shack! And make a fire!"
Move deer to shack! The best discoveries are made on a full belly, with fresh good food!
If there's more time, gather stuff to make a fire and roast deer with.
Post by: Glass on July 14, 2022, 12:19:02 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ugh. Well, shit happens, and three fish were caught. Now they just need to be butchered and cooked. Which requires a fire.
Aaron walked off to the woods to gather sticks and kindling, before returning to the riverside to start a small campfire upon which he would cook his catch. The hatchet could be used to hack sticks off trees, the serrated knife could be used to saw stuff off if necessary or to make wood shavings to help the fire catch, the straight knife would help with the fish... hopefully, this would go well, and he could have a nice meal.
Post by: Devastator on July 14, 2022, 01:43:20 am
Stand well away from the old guy. He might explode!
Leave four pears for him in case he doesn't.
Eat pears until I feel full again, and head back to the starting area. Go look around for stuff in the shed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 14, 2022, 03:16:37 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Collect the pears Alice left, eat until full, carry the rest, follow the catgirl's shout, and help bring the deer back to the shed.
Find a shovel or something shovel-like, and begin cutting the grass into squares of sod, with the intent to put them on the roof of the shed so it doesn't leak.
"I learned something useful, only try to control a tiny piece of mana at once. The magical backlash if you lose control and it snaps back into you is explosively painful."
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 14, 2022, 06:47:31 pm
Experiment with the tingling sensation, trying to see what it does.
“Hey, has anyone learned anything about magic? I’m still kinda at a blank here, other then magical tingling sensation.”
Find a animal to tame for a companion while on my way to the shed, these other “mages” aren’t a very talkative bunch.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on July 15, 2022, 09:29:34 pm
4Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Guys! I caught something! Help me move it to the shack! And make a fire!"
Move deer to shack! The best discoveries are made on a full belly, with fresh good food!
If there's more time, gather stuff to make a fire and roast deer with.
A friend shows up to help, and with great effort you manage to move the deer to the shed. Maybe the skinny older man and the young lady weren't the best choice for manual labor.
1
The butchering... does not go well. The butchering tools get covered in blood and all slippery, you manage to cut yourself a number of times, and the deer resists your best efforts. Meowch! -2 health, -2 hunger.
5Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ugh. Well, shit happens, and three fish were caught. Now they just need to be butchered and cooked. Which requires a fire.
Aaron walked off to the woods to gather sticks and kindling, before returning to the riverside to start a small campfire upon which he would cook his catch. The hatchet could be used to hack sticks off trees, the serrated knife could be used to saw stuff off if necessary or to make wood shavings to help the fire catch, the straight knife would help with the fish... hopefully, this would go well, and he could have a nice meal.
Twigs, sticks, and smaller branches are readily available on the forest floor. You even find a younger tree which had fallen over and broken to pieces. Before long you have quite the nice pile of various sizes of wood, out by the river. River details updated. Basic foraging learned.
3
It takes some effort, but you do manage to get the fire to catch. You feed slowly larger twigs and sticks in, growing the fire high enough that it can be used for cooking. Soon, you have a nice bed of coals, and some decent flames. River details updated.
2
Ouch! Knives are sharp. Numerous small nicks on fingers, and a decent amount of blood everywhere later, you manage to gut the fish and prepare it for cooking. A flat rock is lugged over and tilted towards the heat, and you do a... well, calling it passable might be too generous, but at least the slabs of fish are cooked. You eat one, and save the other for later. -1 health. 1 'cooked' fish filet gained. 2 hunger gained. -1 bluegill.
Unflavored fish isn't really the best flavor. Oh well. You fail to cook the other two fish, wasting time staring off into the sky at a rather pretty cloud.
(I figure the uniform has a belt of sorts on it to carry the notebook and water.)
Stand well away from the old guy. He might explode!
Leave four pears for him in case he doesn't.
Eat pears until I feel full again, and head back to the starting area. Go look around for stuff in the shed.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The old guy does not explode, thankfully. You leave him four pears, before nomming on three yourself. -7 pears. +4 hunger.
You see all the things in the shed. (Listed in locations.) Less, now, that the others have gone rummaging through it. Still plenty to equip yourself, however.
5
There's still quite a lot of time left, so you presumably just spend it practicing. Twelve minutes, now, and the sense of the energy becomes more defined.
You collect the pears Alice left for you. Yum, they're quite tasty! 2 pears gained. +3 hunger.Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Collect the pears Alice left, eat until full, carry the rest, follow the catgirl's shout, and help bring the deer back to the shed.
Find a shovel or something shovel-like, and begin cutting the grass into squares of sod, with the intent to put them on the roof of the shed so it doesn't leak.
"I learned something useful, only try to control a tiny piece of mana at once. The magical backlash if you lose control and it snaps back into you is explosively painful."
2
Dragging a deer through the woods is bloody work, and your back isn't what it used to be. You get it there eventually, though.
2
You spend the rest of the time trying to cut sod blocks out of the topsoil, but your back problems rear their head once more, and you don't make much progress. -3 hunger.
Hurry and eat some pears, take the ones left over, if none are left over, sneakily rob someone of a few pears.1
Experiment with the tingling sensation, trying to see what it does.
“Hey, has anyone learned anything about magic? I’m still kinda at a blank here, other then magical tingling sensation.”
Find a animal to tame for a companion while on my way to the shed, these other “mages” aren’t a very talkative bunch.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
All of the low hanging pears are gone! Your attempts to gather them result in falling out of a tree. Ouch! Lose 1 health.
4
The tinglexperiments go slightly better. You're distracted by a pair of people huffily dragging a dead deer past you, but you do make tingleprogress. The sense grows more defined, you're definitely feeling something. It feels more like a fuzzy blob, now.
1
Man, the world just hates you today. Your attempts at finding an animal companion result in you stumbling across a wolf. It looks angry, and you have no tools! Lose 1 health. Fighting wolf, 6/6 health.
Furthermore, your hunger grows from all these exertions. Lose 1 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
One more turn, and then the nighttime turn. If everyone votes on this coming turn, we'll just skip the night as everyone sleeps. If anyone wants to stay awake (beyond basic guard duty, if you want to do that,) they'll get a -1 to all rolls tomorrow but will get the extra turn.
Post by: Egan_BW on July 15, 2022, 09:50:22 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 15, 2022, 10:18:49 pm
"Would you like any help with that deer?"
Post by: johiah on July 15, 2022, 10:27:53 pm
(Move deer corpse from forest location to shack, please.)(There's always something I miss. Fixed!)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 15, 2022, 10:44:47 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Yes! Need it have it cooked before nightfall ideally, so it doesn't go bad."
Butcher, fire, cook, eat, sleep.
Post by: Devastator on July 15, 2022, 11:06:48 pm
Set up a shelter using one of the tents and bedding.
"Did you explode? You're all messy."
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 15, 2022, 11:11:44 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 15, 2022, 11:14:08 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on July 15, 2022, 11:35:03 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 15, 2022, 11:56:02 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on July 16, 2022, 12:08:43 am
Post by: Glass on July 16, 2022, 12:53:24 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Better than nothing, though these bites and cuts are getting annoying.
Whatever, let's just try to find a reasonably-comfortable patch of grass to meditate on magic within and, later, doze off for sleep.
We obviously have magic - wouldn't be a mage, otherwise - but let's try to see if it's easier to feel and draw upon it from within ourselves or from our environment. Is the nature of a mage one with the ability to wield their own mana, or that which exists in the world around them?
Post by: Egan_BW on July 16, 2022, 01:30:29 am
Post by: Glass on July 16, 2022, 08:21:19 am
Post by: johiah on July 16, 2022, 11:23:26 am
Edit: In this case, I do believe Glass' numbers line up as intended.
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 16, 2022, 12:33:11 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"All in all, a good day's work, I say. We'll have shelter within the month.
I'll help with mana sensing in the morning."
Claim a blanket and sit on it out under the stars. Meditate until dinner. Help eat the deer, then go to sleep and skip the night turn.
Meditate by trying to stretch a string of mana down my right arm, and hold it for as long as I can. I might need to build and maintain mana circuits through my body to cast spells, and this could be a first step for it.
Try to push a small blob of mana down it and into Aaron's back.
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 16, 2022, 02:34:16 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to use the tingle to tame the wolf, maybe puts some tingle inside of it? If this doesn’t work, just hit it. Find out the secrets of magic
(It is now turn 3 and I know how to tingle, 0.0)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 16, 2022, 02:56:08 pm
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 16, 2022, 03:41:37 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on July 16, 2022, 03:50:37 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 16, 2022, 04:34:23 pm
(Assuming no explosions. ;-p)
Post by: johiah on July 17, 2022, 10:30:05 pm
6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Yes! Need it have it cooked before nightfall ideally, so it doesn't go bad."
Butcher, fire, cook, eat, sleep.
With Alice's help, you do indeed do those things. One of the knives breaks, unfortunately, but grabbing a new one from the shed isn't a problem. The broken knife just gets put back in the shed; the metal might come in handy later. That's a lot of meat, by the way. Genesis field information updated.
After the butchering and cooking you eat your fill, do your best to scrub the blood off in the river, and curl up in some of the blankets after drying by the fire. Gain 4 hunger. Basic cooking learned.
Help Butcher.5
Set up a shelter using one of the tents and bedding.
"Did you explode? You're all messy."Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The butchering goes quickly between the two of you, and you leave Eli to do the cooking.
2
A good thing too, that it goes so fast. Setting up a shelter near the shack takes you the rest of the evening. Damn these tiny arms! Soon you're bundled up in one of the tents, drifting off to sleep.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Better than nothing, though these bites and cuts are getting annoying.
Whatever, let's just try to find a reasonably-comfortable patch of grass to meditate on magic within and, later, doze off for sleep.
We obviously have magic - wouldn't be a mage, otherwise - but let's try to see if it's easier to feel and draw upon it from within ourselves or from our environment. Is the nature of a mage one with the ability to wield their own mana, or that which exists in the world around them?
Based off of snatches of conversation from the others, over a decent length of time you do manage to connect with/perceive/feel some kind of energy blob within yourself. Nothing from the environment around you, however.
Soon, you curl up to sleep. It would be chilly, were you not wearing fairly heavy clothing. The grass makes a surprisingly good bed.
((You're not actually manaburnt, by the way. Any mechanically concrete effects wore off within the same turn))Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"All in all, a good day's work, I say. We'll have shelter within the month.
I'll help with mana sensing in the morning."
Claim a blanket and sit on it out under the stars. Meditate until dinner. Help eat the deer, then go to sleep and skip the night turn.
Meditate by trying to stretch a string of mana down my right arm, and hold it for as long as I can. I might need to build and maintain mana circuits through my body to cast spells, and this could be a first step for it.
Try to push a small blob of mana down it and into Aaron's back.
Meditation occurs, deer gets eaten, then you sleep. Gain 3 hunger.
3
At first blush, magic manipulation does seem to be akin to muscle building. All your practice across the day has really paid off, and you manage to hold a tendril in place for quite some time. You almost lose control of it, but manage to gracefully retract the tendril back into your core.
The feeling of mana slithering up and down your arm is like phantom chills, a ghost's touch.
Still meditating, you eventually drift off to sleep.
(Can someone give me a hint? I’m confused and feel like I’m being surpassed :'( )6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to use the tingle to tame the wolf, maybe puts some tingle inside of it? If this doesn’t work, just hit it. Find out the secrets of magic
(It is now turn 3 and I know how to tingle, 0.0)
Trying to meditate while also avoiding snarling jaws is difficult, especially with so little practice. You do, however, manage to whack the wolf so hard with a branch you rip off a nearby tree that it is sent flying off into the distance, and decides you're not worth the trouble. Those splinters are unfortunately quite painful, though. Basic combat learned. Lose 2 health.
Before going to bed, you snack on the rations that you woke up with. 'Some food rations' removed, +4 Hunger.
Having had a rather fruitless day, you presumably return to the shack and snuggle up in some blankets in the corner, to sleep till the morrow.
The night passes peacefully, wildlife sounds abound and wind brushes softly across the grass. Though there is no moon, the nighttime sky is still lit by some diffuse source. All those who sleep gain 3 health, and 3 mana. (Up to cap)
Day 2 begins.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
And that's day one! Hope people are enjoying themselves, and that my slightly less abstracted survival aspects aren't too annoying. I'm trying to nod at realism without actually bogging the turns down with fluff details.
Combat's something I'm still not decided on. Putting the game on pause so two people can fight in more appropriate turn times than 4 hours doesn't seem good, but neither does taking away player agency. I suppose, at least for simpler scenarios, I'd greatly appreciate if you give a bit of conditional detail to your fighting actions against monsters, so I can write the whole thing in one turn (assuming you don't genuinely need more than four hours for a fight, somehow)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 17, 2022, 10:47:14 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Good morning everyone! Do any of you recall how to save meat? It seems we'll have extra. I think... you can use salt? Which comes from the ground?"
Have a little adventure, secure in the knowledge that if any beastie messes with me I can just pick it.
Bring enough deer bits to last me the day and auto eat 'em to stay at 10 hunger please! I'll carry it in a bag from the shack, or a makeshift linen sack if there's none.
Look for any unexploited natural resources! Especially ones I can get at with a pick!
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 17, 2022, 10:56:28 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"Good morning, everyone! I've made a good start on moving my own mana around. I still don't know how to do anything useful with it, but I can move it around my body. I have a big blob of mana in my core that feels tingly. Mana that I'm moving around seems to need to be kept attached by a string of mana, and if I lose concentration it snaps back and hurts in weird ways. Don't do that.
Give me a few minutes and then gather around, if you want to try to sense my mana. I'll be moving it around my hand."
Meditate and repeat last night's exercise of stretching a string of mana into my hand. I'd like to try to make the string into a track, and push a blob of mana up and down each finger following the track, both to refine my control and let the observers try to figure out where the mana is going. Try to help anyone who's having trouble.
Post by: Egan_BW on July 17, 2022, 11:08:00 pm
Post by: Glass on July 17, 2022, 11:31:35 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Mmm? Oh, I'm still here."
"Good morning everyone! Do any of you recall how to save meat? It seems we'll have extra. I think... you can use salt? Which comes from the ground?""Smoking them works. Let me get my fire set back up and I can make that happen."
If provided with the meat (as I suspect I will be), set up the fire and start smoking it for later consumption. Also debone and smoke my remaining fish; they won't stay fresh forever.
Post by: Devastator on July 17, 2022, 11:32:29 pm
Take a knife and a basket or something from the shack before leaving. Take three meals of Deer Bits too.
"Hmm, that odd catperson, Eli.. she said she could punch through armour? And the mage guy said we could do anything with magic. Maybe I should try to do without tools today, using magic instead. Should be enough food here for another day or two."
"No.. that might not be the right way to think about it."
Take an axe too.
Head back out to the forest. Try to maintain contact with my magic for the entire trip. Look for a small tree, as large as I can reasonably drag back.
When I find said tree, use an axe to try and chop it down. See if I can feel how my magic reacts to that action, if it does at all. Maybe it responds to physical activity. Or the lack of physical activity.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 18, 2022, 07:33:10 am
Snag some deer bits, as I am now freshly out of food.
Try to find something anything that can teach me about how to use this strange magic. If I sadly cannot find anyone, try to connect to nature, maybe that’s a way?
Inspect my robe and carving for any clues on magic and/or my past self.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on July 18, 2022, 11:43:14 pm
6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Good morning everyone! Do any of you recall how to save meat? It seems we'll have extra. I think... you can use salt? Which comes from the ground?"
Have a little adventure, secure in the knowledge that if any beastie messes with me I can just pick it.
Bring enough deer bits to last me the day and auto eat 'em to stay at 10 hunger please! I'll carry it in a bag from the shack, or a makeshift linen sack if there's none.
Look for any unexploited natural resources! Especially ones I can get at with a pick!
Oh a hunch, you follow the river. After much tripping into mud, walking into thorny brambles, and stubbing your toes on rocks, you eventually emerge out the other side of the forest, and find what seems to be... foothills? No mountain, though, the terrain just cuts off in front of you, a slight curve to the edge of the world. It's as if someone just scooped out a spherical chunk of the world, and sealed it off. Only blue void ahead, same as the sky but considerably more disorienting to see in front of and below your feet.
Regardless, this area seems to have a number of shimmery metals embedded in boulders and sitting free on the ground. Looks kinda like a riverbed, actually. Some funky stuff is clearly going on. Seeing as all this walking and falling, mostly the falling, took your whole morning, you stock to have a snack. Locations updated. Gain shoulder bag, gain 4 deer bits, stockpile loses 5. Hunger remains at 10. Lose 1 health.
4Spoiler (click to show/hide)
"Mmm? Oh, I'm still here.""Good morning everyone! Do any of you recall how to save meat? It seems we'll have extra. I think... you can use salt? Which comes from the ground?""Smoking them works. Let me get my fire set back up and I can make that happen."
If provided with the meat (as I suspect I will be), set up the fire and start smoking it for later consumption. Also debone and smoke my remaining fish; they won't stay fresh forever.
Something something... smoke? You start on the process of building an enclosure out of sticks, rope, and some of the spare blankets from the shack. Measure twice, cut once, etc. Certainly don't want to make it wrong and potentially burn the blankets. Current plan: Hole in the ground for the fire, place enclosure on top with loose side for entry and exit, a number of sticks running across near the top of the structure that skewered meat will get placed on. Assuming nothing collapses, you could probably have this done by early afternoon. The smoking itself will probably take much longer, though. probably going to need to collect more wood for that, too. You cook your two remaining fish, and munch on a bit while thinking about the project. Basic construction learned. Gain 2 hunger, 2 cooked fillet. Genesis field location updated.
1Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"Good morning, everyone! I've made a good start on moving my own mana around. I still don't know how to do anything useful with it, but I can move it around my body. I have a big blob of mana in my core that feels tingly. Mana that I'm moving around seems to need to be kept attached by a string of mana, and if I lose concentration it snaps back and hurts in weird ways. Don't do that.
Give me a few minutes and then gather around, if you want to try to sense my mana. I'll be moving it around my hand."
Meditate and repeat last night's exercise of stretching a string of mana into my hand. I'd like to try to make the string into a track, and push a blob of mana up and down each finger following the track, both to refine my control and let the observers try to figure out where the mana is going. Try to help anyone who's having trouble.
It's a good thing no one sticks around to try to sense your mana. You just can't get into the right mindset for some reason this morning, and your mana hardly moves at all.
4
Giving Amon advice on accessing his own internal store goes much better, however. The descriptions and visualizations seem to be quite helpful. Basic teaching learned. Lose 1 hunger.
"Yeah, I'd like to make a better shelter too. And you can use a drying rack to preserve meat, so I'd like to make one first. Maybe this.. afternoon?"Knife, basket, Deer Bits, and axe are all claimed.
Take a knife and a basket or something from the shack before leaving. Take three meals of Deer Bits too.
"Hmm, that odd catperson, Eli.. she said she could punch through armour? And the mage guy said we could do anything with magic. Maybe I should try to do without tools today, using magic instead. Should be enough food here for another day or two."
"No.. that might not be the right way to think about it."
Take an axe too.
Head back out to the forest. Try to maintain contact with my magic for the entire trip. Look for a small tree, as large as I can reasonably drag back.
When I find said tree, use an axe to try and chop it down. See if I can feel how my magic reacts to that action, if it does at all. Maybe it responds to physical activity. Or the lack of physical activity.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
1
All trying to sense your magic while moving really does is disrupt your concentration on both. Tripping and falling while carrying an axe is a harrowing experience, by the way. You avoided it, but not the rock at face distance. Lose 2 health.
5
It is a herculean effort for one as small as you, and takes the rest of the morning, but you manage to fell a tree! Sweat beads your brow and your muscles are trembling with exhaustion, but the task is done. Basic chopping learned. Lose 3 hunger. Forest location updated.
“Strange… I can also do that, but I am having trouble doing anything but manifesting said tendril. At this rate, I’m starting to think being a mage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I should’ve left a journal for myself on how to use magic.”You snag some Deer Bits from the pile, and a basket for them from the shed. Gain 4 deer bits, basket.
Snag some deer bits, as I am now freshly out of food.
Try to find something anything that can teach me about how to use this strange magic. If I sadly cannot find anyone, try to connect to nature, maybe that’s a way?
Inspect my robe and carving for any clues on magic and/or my past self.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
3
With Nathan's advice, the feeling of that internal mana pool solidifies, become less of a tingle and more of a... fuzzy blob. You even figure out how to move it around a bit, though Nathan warns against letting any extended mana tendril snap. It's apparently quite painful.
6
Hmm.... nope. No clues. Unless- oh, that's just a jam stain. There does seem to be a small note tucked into your robes, but all it says is "Remember to avoid any invisible bears!"
Dang, is that your handwriting? It's... kinda bad. Wait. Invisible bears? You continue practicing sensing your mana and shifting it around, though with considerably more paranoia than before.
The voice from yesterday crackles to life once more. "Just finished a lengthy argument with my head researcher. He wants me to warn you about the perils of integrating external mana carelessly, something about how we don't have enough replacements to throw away talented mages to mana madness." The voice sounds muffled, as if he's speaking to someone else. "There, I said it. Not word for word, but close enough. No, I won't let you speak to them. That's not part of the experiment!" Some distorted sounds of objects falling. "Right, that's all for now. Good luck!"
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Post by: Glass on July 18, 2022, 11:57:13 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Let's just go back to fishing for a while, and multitask with trying to get a sense for my internal mana. Because apparently messing with external mana can be a bad idea.
Post by: Egan_BW on July 19, 2022, 12:09:08 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Toss a rock into the abyss. Does it disappear, bounce, or fall?
Start gathering metals, the ones which are loose or can be easily harvested.
Don't forget to eat.
If I can't carry enough minerals to fill my turn, continue exploring.
Post by: Devastator on July 19, 2022, 01:12:52 am
"..And Ouch."
Drink one of my water packages.
Now that I'm tired and my muscles hurt, I should be intensely aware of every movement I make. Try to feel the magic inside me and begin making gestures along with hand and arm movements. Does the magic respond to what I'm doing physically? Point my finger at things, wave my arms around, place them on parts of my body, bend over, lift a leg or two. Do stretches. Dance, if I can. I'm not expecting to accomplish anything this way, but it might react to it. And that'll tell me if I can do magic with gestures.
After that, try to add in some nonsense words and rhymes. Does it listen to what I say?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 19, 2022, 05:48:11 am
Set out to make a little hut for myself, being too proud to go into somebody else’s house without being invited.
Be wary of invisible bears and steal some freaking deer bits already
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on July 19, 2022, 08:07:52 am
Generally, just try to copy whatever Alice, Nathan or Aaron is doing, in terms of experimenting. Being fresh out of ideas myself. Although, maybe try including words in the gestures, to correspond to what I want it to do?
Set out to make a little hut for myself, being too proud to go into somebody else’s house without being invited.
Be wary of invisible bears and steal some freaking deer bits alreadySpoiler (click to show/hide)
(That was totally my bad, I missed that in your previous action. Updated the previous turn with more Deer Bits™)
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 19, 2022, 08:10:31 am
Generally, just try to copy whatever Alice, Nathan or Aaron is doing, in terms of experimenting. Being fresh out of ideas myself. Although, maybe try including words in the gestures, to correspond to what I want it to do?
Set out to make a little hut for myself, being too proud to go into somebody else’s house without being invited.
Be wary of invisible bears and steal some freaking deer bits alreadySpoiler (click to show/hide)
(That was totally my bad, I missed that in your previous action. Updated the previous turn with more Deer Bits™)
Thanks.
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 19, 2022, 06:34:26 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Work on finishing the meat smoking structure.
Work on improving my mana sensing by trying to maintain a feel for it while I'm distracted by construction tasks.
Post by: johiah on July 20, 2022, 11:45:41 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Let's just go back to fishing for a while, and multitask with trying to get a sense for my internal mana. Because apparently messing with external mana can be a bad idea.
1
No fish get caught, and the one bite that you do get results in your line snapping. You have a couple replacement hooks, but still. Annoying, and a finite resource. At least for now, you suppose.
4
The meditation goes considerably better. Based on snatches of discussion from the others, and the peaceful gurgling of the river helping your focus, you're soon able to sense a vague fuzzy blob of energy floating somewhere central inside you. Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Toss a rock into the abyss. Does it disappear, bounce, or fall?
Start gathering metals, the ones which are loose or can be easily harvested.
Don't forget to eat.
If I can't carry enough minerals to fill my turn, continue exploring.
The rock just hits an invisible something and falls back down to the ground. Hmm.
5
You don't even need the pickaxe, really. There's a ton of loosely lying rocks of various levels of glimmery. No real idea what exactly the shiny is, but you're pretty sure it's not just rocks or salt or something. You munch on a deer bit while contemplating the subject. Gain bag full of ?? rocks. Lose 1 deer bit. Basic foraging learned.
"Yay."
"..And Ouch."
Drink one of my water packages.
Now that I'm tired and my muscles hurt, I should be intensely aware of every movement I make. Try to feel the magic inside me and begin making gestures along with hand and arm movements. Does the magic respond to what I'm doing physically? Point my finger at things, wave my arms around, place them on parts of my body, bend over, lift a leg or two. Do stretches. Dance, if I can. I'm not expecting to accomplish anything this way, but it might react to it. And that'll tell me if I can do magic with gestures.
After that, try to add in some nonsense words and rhymes. Does it listen to what I say?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Water pouch has been slurped. Lose 1 water pouch
3
Hrm. Nothing just yet, doesn't feel like that ball is really doing much of anything, regardless of your physical motions. Maybe a little bit of wiggling.
3
As you keep trying though, you notice something very interesting. There's a second, fainter sense of energy inside your body. This one does move with your physical motions, and it seems to be naturally flowing around in loops through you, at least from the glimmers you see from it. It feels more... real, than the blob at your center. Like it's already in use, and harder to sense because its more integrated into your body. The dancing is a little bit beyond your current muscles, by the way. Wet noodles don't dance terribly well. Lose 2 hunger.
Generally, just try to copy whatever Alice, Nathan or Aaron is doing, in terms of experimenting. Being fresh out of ideas myself. Although, maybe try including words in the gestures, to correspond to what I want it to do?4
Set out to make a little hut for myself, being too proud to go into somebody else’s house without being invited.
Be wary of invisible bears and steal some freaking deer bits alreadySpoiler (click to show/hide)
You practice more with sensing your core faster, and practice with pulling a tendril out faster. You seem to be getting a better handle on how fast you can tease the energy out without snapping it.
1
You're so distracted by all the tingly sensations and cool !magic! that is happening, that you completely forget to work on the hut, and instead spend your time fantasizing about the epic wizard powers you're going to get. Lose 3 hunger.
3Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Work on finishing the meat smoking structure.
Work on improving my mana sensing by trying to maintain a feel for it while I'm distracted by construction tasks.
Intuiting what Aaron intended takes some time, as does remeasuring things. The pit is dug, and the tent itself is mostly done. Genesis field location updated. Basic construction learned.
3
Sensing your core while working on the building and measuring goes fairly well. By the end of four hours, you're able to make and maintain a small loop just outside the surface of your core, all while making measurements and tying knots. Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 20, 2022, 11:54:12 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hmm. This place seems nice and quiet, without distractions. Find a high spot to sit and meditate while watching the world.
...Can I see any higher places from here?
See if I can induce that tingling people talked about. If I can, slowly let some of my energy into a shiny rock.
Post by: Devastator on July 21, 2022, 01:42:50 am
Eat up and rest for a while to try and recover wounds. alternate between deer meat and pears.
While resting, write some stuff down about what's going on, like a diary. Maybe the magic can read. I read with my eyes after all, and my eyes are part of me, so why not? Does it respond to stuff being written down?
Just jot down general notes on the first few days, what I've been doing with magic, how I want to build a cabin eventually.
Then, drag the tree down near my tent. Chop off its branches, and try to complete the drying rack with more sticks. I'll probably need more.. and larger.. trees for a cabin, but I'll worry about that later.
Or maybe magic can help. Hmm.
"Who wanted some help with an experiment?"
Hypothesis: Magic can work over time, if I provide it with clear directions or an onrunning spell for it to work. I don't really know how to cast spells, but..
as the last thing before I go to bed, limber up some with stretches and such. After doing this, make a loop with my body, hands to my toes, either standing up or lying down. Try to go to sleep when curled up into a ball.. it'll allow for more loop. Stick to just movements.. I'll test spoken and written spells next, regardless of if this works.
So limber up, make loops, limber up, make loops.. and then sleep in a ball to hopefully get my magic to do something.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Glass on July 21, 2022, 08:10:50 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hmn... to try to prepare better for later, how about we go out to get some wood and plant fibers to see about trying our hand at carving replacement hooks and making new fishing line? It can't be that hard, right? I know what they both look like...
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 21, 2022, 04:22:02 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Hypothesis: Internal magic can be controlled by will and intent.
Expectation: Poorly controlled magic modified inside the body is dangerous. Do not test.
Experiment 1: Try to build a tiny wizard's tower of rocks, by pushing tiny bits of magic into them, and visualize modifying them to make them stick together.
Experiment 2: Try to build another tiny wizard's tower of rocks. This one will have the blob of magic treated like it is a physical substance, like a glue goo. Imagine it as blue, too.
Experiment 3: Knock them over to see which method worked better.
Eat my pears.
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 22, 2022, 05:22:24 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to control and move some dirt around using the same method as Nathan, who Amon is watching very intently, eager for his magic to return so he can stop struggling to survive in what seems like a doomed attempt to improve in a world of stagnation and suffering.
Try to get some more food and get to working on da hut
Post by: johiah on July 24, 2022, 08:37:33 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hmm. This place seems nice and quiet, without distractions. Find a high spot to sit and meditate while watching the world.
...Can I see any higher places from here?
See if I can induce that tingling people talked about. If I can, slowly let some of my energy into a shiny rock.
You find a decent hill to sit on, near the edge of the world. The forest between you and the Genesis field blocks much of the view, but these foothills look like the highest point.
...the endless blue void on all side is really quite disorienting.
3
You spend your entire afternoon, deep in meditation. The overhear comments of others end up being quite useful, as by the end of four hours you are able to detect an inner blob of energy, nestled deep in your being. You can even pull strands out of it, though not reliably enough or quickly enough to try pulling the energy all the way out of your body. -1 deer bit.
"Okay. So it does have to move around. But maybe not quite like I'm doing it, hmm.."
Eat up and rest for a while to try and recover wounds. alternate between deer meat and pears.
While resting, write some stuff down about what's going on, like a diary. Maybe the magic can read. I read with my eyes after all, and my eyes are part of me, so why not? Does it respond to stuff being written down?
Just jot down general notes on the first few days, what I've been doing with magic, how I want to build a cabin eventually.
Then, drag the tree down near my tent. Chop off its branches, and try to complete the drying rack with more sticks. I'll probably need more.. and larger.. trees for a cabin, but I'll worry about that later.
Or maybe magic can help. Hmm.
"Who wanted some help with an experiment?"
Hypothesis: Magic can work over time, if I provide it with clear directions or an onrunning spell for it to work. I don't really know how to cast spells, but..
as the last thing before I go to bed, limber up some with stretches and such. After doing this, make a loop with my body, hands to my toes, either standing up or lying down. Try to go to sleep when curled up into a ball.. it'll allow for more loop. Stick to just movements.. I'll test spoken and written spells next, regardless of if this works.
So limber up, make loops, limber up, make loops.. and then sleep in a ball to hopefully get my magic to do something.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You eat a couple deer bits and a pear. Pretty decent meal, honestly.
3
This second magic, energy, mana, whatever, you've discovered doesn't seem to react differently to writing things down versus simply wiggling your fingers. Just general motion.
1
Arms too noodle to move the logs. Not only that, but you manage to drop one on your toe. Ow! You do manage to bring some branches back to the shack with you, at least.
6
The second energy you've discovered reacts to your exercising, in the sense that it follows paths through your limbs, to your lungs and heart, and then back out again. Loops don't seem to make it do much of anything. The ball of energy at your core has even less of a reaction, physical movements seeming to not disturb it at all. On the bright side, you do get better at sensing both. You pass out quite quickly from exhaustion.
((Are you just skipping turn 8? Also do note that the 'active' loops are completely separate from the inert ball in your core, they don't interact at all.))
Gain 1 health, 5 hunger. Lose 2 deer bits and 1 pear.
1Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Hmn... to try to prepare better for later, how about we go out to get some wood and plant fibers to see about trying our hand at carving replacement hooks and making new fishing line? It can't be that hard, right? I know what they both look like...
You do manage to find some of both, narrowly avoid getting bit by a snake, and give crafting a hook your all. Twenty seven failed hook attempts later, yeah... this isn't as easy as you assumed it would be. Lose 2 hunger.
4Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Hypothesis: Internal magic can be controlled by will and intent.
Expectation: Poorly controlled magic modified inside the body is dangerous. Do not test.
Experiment 1: Try to build a tiny wizard's tower of rocks, by pushing tiny bits of magic into them, and visualize modifying them to make them stick together.
Experiment 2: Try to build another tiny wizard's tower of rocks. This one will have the blob of magic treated like it is a physical substance, like a glue goo. Imagine it as blue, too.
Experiment 3: Knock them over to see which method worked better.
Eat my pears.
When you reach out with a tendril of mana and push it into your little pile of rocks, something curious indeed happens. As your thoughts swirl around the concept of merging things together, the mana seems to respond. The rocks seem... fuzzy, for lack of a better word. You poke and prod your own thoughts, looking to find which things caused the greatest reaction from the rocks. Eventually, you narrow down on it. Focusing on the concept of breaking things down, and specifically thinking about what there is inside a rock to separate in the first place, causes your mana to slowly fizzle away at the rocks. The pile of pebbles gradually, and with great mental effort, breaks down into a pile extremely coarse gravel. Trying to further reduce the size doesn't seem to produce results. A focus problem? A control problem? Simple basic limit on magic? Who can tell. Not you certainly, at least not yet.
So excited by this are you, that considerably less attention is paid to the glue project. It doesn't seem to work anyways, treating the mana as a physical bonding agent, or thoughts along that route, don't seem to spark a reaction.
Pears get pared down to size by your molars.
Lose 2 mana, lose 2 pears, gain 3 hunger.
1Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Try to control and move some dirt around using the same method as Nathan, who Amon is watching very intently, eager for his magic to return so he can stop struggling to survive in what seems like a doomed attempt to improve in a world of stagnation and suffering.
Try to get some more food and get to working on da hut
Much like Nathan, you too have the misfortunate of snapping a tendril and experiencing the wonderfully pleasant backlash. Muscle spasms, cold and heat waves rippling across your body, sweat and shakes. It wears off fairly quickly, at least. Lose 2 mana.
Presumably by food, you mean deer bits? With a shrug you grab a couple more. Gain 2 deer bits, Locations updated.
4
Are you building like a full blown log cabin, or just a hide and stick frame kinda deal? Hmm, it's hard to decide. And if the latter, might as well just use one of the available tents. Either way, you start on gathering straight pieces of wood of various sizes. Locations updated. Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
One more turn, and then the nighttime turn. If everyone votes on this coming turn, we'll just skip the night as everyone sleeps. If anyone wants to stay awake (beyond basic guard duty, if you want to do that,) they'll get a -1 to all rolls tomorrow but will get the extra turn.
Post by: Egan_BW on July 24, 2022, 09:06:25 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Head back home at a lazy pace, trying to maintain my focus on the internal energy.
Marking this discovery as "Self Energy Pool Awareness" so that you know wth I'm talking about if I reference that.
Once home, eat some and sleep.
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 24, 2022, 09:26:15 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"I've done it! I've cast a spell! I have figured out the ultimate destructive technique of slowly breaking down pebbles into gravel, without having to use a hammer! It seems to work with the mental imagery of breaking them down, and on the individual components."
I did this by imagining the pebbles' components. Briefly check the gravel to see if I actually separated them out, or if they're all the same material.
Experiment 1: Try to loop my mana through two pieces of gravel, and merge them back together by doing the opposite of what I did to break them down.
Experiment 2: FIRE! Find a stick to meditate on. Focus on the concept of
Eat some deer and sleep through the night.
Quote
The second energy you've discovered reacts to your exercising, in the sense that it follows paths through your limbs, to your lungs and heart, and then back out again. Loops don't seem to make it do much of anything. The ball of energy at your core has even less of a reaction, physical movements seeming to not disturb it at all. On the bright side, you do get better at sensing both. You pass out quite quickly from exhaustion.We appear to have an 11 year old Xianxia punch mage.
Qi typically advances by consuming sources of external qi, like pills made from magic flowers and plants, or at least by meditating to consume external qi, which both contrast pretty strongly with the suggestion not to integrate external mana.
Yours seems to like movement, try inventing karate.
Post by: Devastator on July 24, 2022, 09:47:30 pm
(I'm thinking more gesturing or posing and such rather than Xianxia. I mean, sure, punches might work, but that seems hard. It might also respond to talking or speech. Chants or formulae or something might work too.)
(Also note I haven't actually used any mana.)
Yeah, just rest up. Passing out is bad.
..Actually, there's one thing. If there's magic running riot inside my body, it might also be detectable to non-magic senses. As I go off to sleep, try to concentrate on my eyes and ears. Can I see anything in the blackness behind my eyelids? Can I hear anything that might relate to it?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Glass on July 24, 2022, 11:35:41 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pain in the ass.
We can try that again tomorrow or something.
Try catching some more fish, and maybe start working on preserving them if they actually get acquired. Then, have some of my already-prepared fish before going to sleep.
(Thank you to Egan for helping me not do a dumb)
Post by: Egan_BW on July 25, 2022, 12:17:37 am
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 26, 2022, 03:42:11 pm
(Fill in later when not busy)
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 27, 2022, 08:50:02 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Instead of trying to push the mana out, see what happens when you try to swirl the mana around in your own body, seeping mana into every pore.
After that, eat some deer bits, make a functional bed from some sticks and logs, with some leafs on top for comfort. Then rest my weary body
Post by: johiah on July 28, 2022, 11:35:45 pm
1Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Head back home at a lazy pace, trying to maintain my focus on the internal energy.
Marking this discovery as "Self Energy Pool Awareness" so that you know wth I'm talking about if I reference that.
Once home, eat some and sleep.
Yeah, splitting your attention like this leads to tripping and falling on your face. Ow. Lose 2 health.
You nibble on a deer bit and drift off to sleep inside the shack. Lose 1 deer bit.
Looks like the material remains roughly as homogenous as before, just in smaller pieces.Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"I've done it! I've cast a spell! I have figured out the ultimate destructive technique of slowly breaking down pebbles into gravel, without having to use a hammer! It seems to work with the mental imagery of breaking them down, and on the individual components."
I did this by imagining the pebbles' components. Briefly check the gravel to see if I actually separated them out, or if they're all the same material.
Experiment 1: Try to loop my mana through two pieces of gravel, and merge them back together by doing the opposite of what I did to break them down.
Experiment 2: FIRE! Find a stick to meditate on. Focus on the concept ofvibrating its atoms, heating it up like a bonfire, and on it filling its potential as fuel, until it bursts into flames.
Eat some deer and sleep through the night.
4
This... actually works! By focusing on the effect, that being of combining two similar yet diffuse materials, as well as holding in your mind what the materials are, your mana once again springs to action with all the agility of an elderly tortoise. Slowly, you merge a couple of the small rubble bits back into a single whole. Presumably, a better mental image as well as practice will make this go faster. Lose 1 mana.
6
Another success, you're on a roll! By moving mana into a stick, and drawing parallels between this stick and the fire, you eventually stumble onto a mental concept that seems to inspire your mana to motion. It begins heating up as you pour more mana into it, until eventually it begins to smolder. This does, unfortunately, burn your fingers, and you drop the stick. You also note that drawing so much mana out of you to fuel the spell seems to leave the portions of your body that the mana routed through feeling akin to that mana reaction you had yesterday, though much more mild. Lose 3 mana, 1 health.
You eat a couple deer bits from the pile, and drift off in a bundle of blankets. Genesis field location updated.
(I thought that was the last turn of the day. In all honesty, I think literally passing out means 'enough tests for the day'. I'll do more tomorrow.)5
(I'm thinking more gesturing or posing and such rather than Xianxia. I mean, sure, punches might work, but that seems hard. It might also respond to talking or speech. Chants or formulae or something might work too.)
(Also note I haven't actually used any mana.)
Yeah, just rest up. Passing out is bad.
..Actually, there's one thing. If there's magic running riot inside my body, it might also be detectable to non-magic senses. As I go off to sleep, try to concentrate on my eyes and ears. Can I see anything in the blackness behind my eyelids? Can I hear anything that might relate to it?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If there's any physical sign of this active mana running through your body, it must be something so integrated with your existence that you can't pick it out as a specific thing. Like trying to sense the presence of a bone in your body without using external senses. Thoughts running in circles regarding this odd concept, you quickly drift back to sleep.
5Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pain in the ass.
We can try that again tomorrow or something.
Try catching some more fish, and maybe start working on preserving them if they actually get acquired. Then, have some of my already-prepared fish before going to sleep.
(Thank you to Egan for helping me not do a dumb)
You catch another four fish. Unfortunately, the preserving methods haven't been finished yet, so you just prepare them and leave them on a spit high enough above the fire that they shouldn't actually cook, just dry out. Who knows if this will work? You eat the last of your already prepped fish, and then doze off in the grass again. The breeze is a little chilly, but it's still quite comfortable. Lose 3 bluegill fillet, gain 4 hunger. Genesis field location updated.
6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Instead of trying to push the mana out, see what happens when you try to swirl the mana around in your own body, seeping mana into every pore.
After that, eat some deer bits, make a functional bed from some sticks and logs, with some leafs on top for comfort. Then rest my weary body
Pulling mana out of your core and swirling it around your body mostly just feels very uncomfortable, like a ghost running a hand down your spine. It does help a good deal with your control, though.
6
Deer bits are eaten, and a semidecent bed is crafted. Not without a number of slivers and small cuts, though. Ow! Lose 3 deer bits, lose 1 health, gain 5 hunger. Basic crafting learned. Genesis field location updated.
You hit the hay, er, leaves, ready for sleep to visit.
The night passes peacefully once more, though the wind blows somewhat more insistently tonight. There remains no moon, yet as before the nighttime sky is still lit by some diffuse source. All those who sleep gain 3 health, and 3 mana. (Up to cap)
Day 3 begins.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Things begin to happen. Soon the ultimate power of magical pebble breakage shall be yours!
Post by: Devastator on July 29, 2022, 05:46:56 am
But that sounds like it's the wrong approach. Magic must use magic. If I could use this, even a little, I could use it to tell me about itself.
I must be using it a bit when I sense it, then. Hmm.
I don't know if that makes any sense. I just don't want to kaboom.
Hypothesis: I can use the loops if I create an interface. A way to control them. This way must use the loops themselves, because it must be magic.
Hypothesis 2. They respond to my movement, and they respond to things that happen to me. When I was completely exhausted, they went to my heart, lungs, and noodle muscles. So.. if I make them concentrate to my sensory organs, say my eyes or my ears, they might start reacting to things I can see or hear.
First, use some grass and a small stick to make a simple whistle.
Then, lets get my magic's attention by warming up. Similar to before, do stretches and bend over. Simple exercises, just to get my limbs moving.
When I feel my magic moving with my magical senses, take the next step.
Try to strain my eyes. Shift focus rapidly. Put a hand over one eye and roll my other eye, straining to look up, down, left, and right. Stare hard into the fire, then move into the tent and let them adjust to the darkness.
Try to see if I can get the magic flowing through my eyes.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on July 29, 2022, 03:19:41 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"The process of breaking rocks down can be reversed easily enough with a similar enough mindset to breaking them down. If I can improve that into a proper spell, we won't need nails or mortar for houses. I can also light a stick on fire while I'm holding it, by moving my mana fast enough inside of it, but it takes a lot of mana."
Practice magically partially merging sticks together, trying to create an airtight seal between two straight sticks.
Post by: Knightwing64 on July 30, 2022, 06:59:09 am
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 03:00:14 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Magic sucks, never doing that again.
Dump the shiny rocks in the shack and build the smoker. And eat deer.
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 06:33:15 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 09:09:09 pm
"Magic is just annoying. I can't focus on it while moving around, so what's even the point? I'm not gonna be standing still on a monster hunt."
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 09:12:44 pm
"I think that if you're moving around, but not concentrating on it, it'll be a lot easier. Could try swinging each other, so one of us concentrates on moving and the other one concentrates on magic."
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 09:14:56 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 09:16:17 pm
"Yeah.. you're probably right. Maybe someone else then?"
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 09:17:19 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 09:22:22 pm
You know, my magic was burning all through my muscles yesterday.
"Mmm, meant for you. Maybe you can swing someone else?"
"Although, I got really tired and I kinda felt my magic burning through me after doing that, so maybe you just didn't get tired enough? Maybe that might do something for you."
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 09:23:41 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 09:25:38 pm
"I don't know.. I could swear.."
"Maybe once I get it pumping again you could take a look?"
Post by: Egan_BW on July 30, 2022, 09:27:31 pm
Post by: Devastator on July 30, 2022, 09:27:53 pm
"Yeah. Feel free to use the wood I cut down, if you need it."
Post by: Glass on July 31, 2022, 10:09:57 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Alright, morning has come once more. At least the guys outside haven't skimped on the day-night cycle.
Aaron gets up, does a few stretches, checks the fish he was trying to dry, and decides that there's more to life than fishing.
"Hey, I'm going to go look around this place. Anyone got specific requests?"
Before setting off, he'll visit the equipment shack to grab a sword and shield, as well as some paper and charcoal for a map if they're present. Once that's all done, though, he'll walk off to explore the area, focusing on any requested locations, and recording the spaces he comes across.
(Sorry for the delay, been moving.)
Post by: Devastator on July 31, 2022, 10:49:22 pm
Post by: johiah on August 01, 2022, 09:56:23 am
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 01, 2022, 12:18:18 pm
Give me a couple mins 😓
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 01, 2022, 01:04:59 pm
Visualize it turning into a bark covered sword by putting a sword over the image of the stick in my hand.
Continue working on my mana
(I want spellssss)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on August 02, 2022, 10:59:28 pm
Well, despite that, there are probably ways to notice integral stuff with you main senses. Can tell density with tanks of water. Can tell weight with a scale. Might be able to discover or invent something.6
But that sounds like it's the wrong approach. Magic must use magic. If I could use this, even a little, I could use it to tell me about itself.
I must be using it a bit when I sense it, then. Hmm.
I don't know if that makes any sense. I just don't want to kaboom.
Hypothesis: I can use the loops if I create an interface. A way to control them. This way must use the loops themselves, because it must be magic.
Hypothesis 2. They respond to my movement, and they respond to things that happen to me. When I was completely exhausted, they went to my heart, lungs, and noodle muscles. So.. if I make them concentrate to my sensory organs, say my eyes or my ears, they might start reacting to things I can see or hear.
First, use some grass and a small stick to make a simple whistle.
Then, lets get my magic's attention by warming up. Similar to before, do stretches and bend over. Simple exercises, just to get my limbs moving.
When I feel my magic moving with my magical senses, take the next step.
Try to strain my eyes. Shift focus rapidly. Put a hand over one eye and roll my other eye, straining to look up, down, left, and right. Stare hard into the fire, then move into the tent and let them adjust to the darkness.
Try to see if I can get the magic flowing through my eyes.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You... make a whistle, I guess? Not sure how the wood plays in, it's pretty easy to just whistle with a blade of grass. You... pocket the wood for now, to think on the matter. Grass and stick whistle (?) acquired.
3
Exercise speeds up the usual languid pace of the loops running through your body. Putting strain on your eyes does indeed cause the loops running through them to begin moving faster, though you can't sense any difference in magical vision or anything like that. Just usual eyestrain. Lose 2 hunger.
2Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"The process of breaking rocks down can be reversed easily enough with a similar enough mindset to breaking them down. If I can improve that into a proper spell, we won't need nails or mortar for houses. I can also light a stick on fire while I'm holding it, by moving my mana fast enough inside of it, but it takes a lot of mana."
Practice magically partially merging sticks together, trying to create an airtight seal between two straight sticks.
Hmm. No dice. Not sure if it's because rocks are just less complex than wood, or if you're off your game, or if you've overdrawn on mana, or something else entirely. You didn't fail with the act of pulling the mana out in the first place, at least. Lose 2 mana.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Magic sucks, never doing that again.
Dump the shiny rocks in the shack and build the smoker. And eat deer.
The rocks get dumped in the shack.
3
Many hands make like work, or so you've been told. How many budding mages does it take to build a smoking hut? Three, apparently. Basic construction learned, Genesis Field location updated. Lose 1 deer bit.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Alright, morning has come once more. At least the guys outside haven't skimped on the day-night cycle.
Aaron gets up, does a few stretches, checks the fish he was trying to dry, and decides that there's more to life than fishing.
"Hey, I'm going to go look around this place. Anyone got specific requests?"
Before setting off, he'll visit the equipment shack to grab a sword and shield, as well as some paper and charcoal for a map if they're present. Once that's all done, though, he'll walk off to explore the area, focusing on any requested locations, and recording the spaces he comes across.
(Sorry for the delay, been moving.)
The fish look... dry? They haven't burned, at least. Gain 3 dried(?) bluegill fillet.
The firewood stockpile seems to be running extremely low, by the way. Little was gathered yesterday that wasn't used in construction.
2
Sword and shield acquired, you wander on down South. The first area seems to be some kinda badlands. The grass thins out, there's some stunty looking tees. Grasshoppers flee before your steps, and various rodents and small animals run from your presence. Nothing terribly interesting in all honesty, though you do note that some of the bank near the river seems kinda soft.
The farther you walk, the more the grass thins out, until you stand on the edge of what seems to be a miniature desert. The air seems charged, and the hairs on your body stand up as you step across the rough boundary between borders. There's normal sand, and even cacti, but the ground crunches beneath your feet in a way sand shouldn't. Portions of the desert seem to be... shifting slowly. A sound like cracking glass fills the air as a dull rumble, and the longer you stay within the boundary, the more you find yourself short of breath. Your head pulses and thunders, each thought a sledgehammer cracking against the inside of your skull. Your vision narrows, voices babble at you in the distance. Limbs twitch intermittently, fingers run up your spine.
Yeah, nope nope nope, so much nope! You leave quickly, before the... whatever it is, knocks you out entirely. Crossing the border makes you feel better,
but the voices remain, and your thoughts seem... tilted. The sky is a bit too bright, color is too dull or far more vibrant than it should be. Alternately you feel famished and completely stuffed. Gain 3 mana. Locations updated
I see, so it requires visualization: Pick up a stick and imagine it and it’s chemical properties and what’s its made of, learned from vague memories of scholars and dusty old rooms with books.((Typically, when people try to learn a skill, they usually stick with learning the basics first. You'll get spells, eventually. Presumably. Or you might liquidate your brain in a failed experiment, who knows.))
Visualize it turning into a bark covered sword by putting a sword over the image of the stick in my hand.
Continue working on my mana
(I want spellssss)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
4
Regardless of if you put mana into the stick by drawing it from your core or not, it stubbornly refuses to change. At least you manage to recover the unused mana, rather than letting it dissipate.
3
Seeing as the stick is utterly unresponsive, you continue practicing pulling a tendril from your core and similar. It seems to be going considerably better! Lose 1 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
rocksPost by: Devastator on August 02, 2022, 11:57:26 pm
Since the focus is on my eyes, lets get to work. Run down to the river and use my reflection, and my notepad, to communicate with my magic.
Theory: If my magic is in my eyes, it can get input from them. If my magic can see, I can work on communicating with it.
Draw a caricature of myself. Keep talking about everything I'm doing, maintain a steady commentary. Point out parts of my body on my reflection, on my body, and on the drawing, nursery rhyme style. Write down the words, say them out lound, point them out and put my hand on the relevant body part.. everything I can think of to link all this together.
At the end, try to see if I can get the loops of magic focusing on a part of my body by naming it or by otherwise indicating it. By words, by touch, by thinking it, by writing it down.. Try each of these methods and see if any of them can let me direct the magic in my body directly.
Use the whistle, and blinking, to indicate correctness. If it works, I want to provide feedback.
After that is done and the loops have settled down again, head back to the main area. Take a piece of wood and some rope, and use it to make a rope swing, hung from one of the trees.
Lastly, go meet up with Eli for one last experiment. Can we sense each other's magic?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 03, 2022, 03:37:56 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Find an axe, either from the supply shed or from someone who has one, and go into the forest to harvest firewood by felling trees. I intend to spend this turn and the next doing so and hauling it back.
Practice my mana control by holding a loop of mana outside my core while I work.
If there's a wheelbarrow, sled, or anything to help haul the wood back in the shed, take that with me.
Post by: Glass on August 03, 2022, 08:29:04 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Aaron stumbles into camp, looking dazed.
“South desert sucks. Everything is wonked. Don’t go there.”
Just... lay down. Feel the world. Try to deal with the... whatever it is. Become one with the universe or something.
Post by: Devastator on August 03, 2022, 10:19:17 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on August 03, 2022, 10:22:40 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Set some meat smoking. Also try to sense Alice's energy, perhaps through physical contact.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 05, 2022, 08:00:23 pm
LEARN BASICS OF MAGIC
BE BADASS
ACQUIRE REALITY BREAKING POWERS
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on August 08, 2022, 06:32:09 pm
(The wood is so I have a whistle made from wood which doesn't break in five seconds. I'll just make that change.)6
Since the focus is on my eyes, lets get to work. Run down to the river and use my reflection, and my notepad, to communicate with my magic.
Theory: If my magic is in my eyes, it can get input from them. If my magic can see, I can work on communicating with it.
Draw a caricature of myself. Keep talking about everything I'm doing, maintain a steady commentary. Point out parts of my body on my reflection, on my body, and on the drawing, nursery rhyme style. Write down the words, say them out lound, point them out and put my hand on the relevant body part.. everything I can think of to link all this together.
At the end, try to see if I can get the loops of magic focusing on a part of my body by naming it or by otherwise indicating it. By words, by touch, by thinking it, by writing it down.. Try each of these methods and see if any of them can let me direct the magic in my body directly.
Use the whistle, and blinking, to indicate correctness. If it works, I want to provide feedback.
After that is done and the loops have settled down again, head back to the main area. Take a piece of wood and some rope, and use it to make a rope swing, hung from one of the trees.
Lastly, go meet up with Eli for one last experiment. Can we sense each other's magic?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
All of these communication attempts don't really yield results, though that in itself is informative. Physically moving a limb, doing exercise, getting injured, all these things do cause this second magic in your body to flow faster around the relevant parts. It seems utterly unresponsive to thoughts or speech, however. Naming limbs, drawing, talking, none of these things cause the mana to react.
While concentrating on your internal energies you discover a... third? energy floating around in there. This one feels like countless little stars of inert energy dispersed across your entire body. Similar in feel to the first energy, and yet distinctly not. Definitely similar in that it feels... unrealized, more like a potential than something active. It seems to drift along with the currents of your blood, and the flow of the second energy. Things can't ever be simple, apparently. Your head hurts from all this thinking! Lose 3 hunger.
5
Building the swing is pretty easy, just some simple knots and a bit of wood cut down the middle lengthwise to make a decent seat. You have it up from a younger tree on the edge of the forest. Locations updated.
4
It seems yes, but also no? Regardless of concentration or physical contact, you both find yourselves incapable of sensing the other's energy. Except for in one particular, very notable instance. If Eli pushes her mana into your arm, you can definitely feel it. A ghostly feeling running down your arm, and you note that the second energy in your body reacts quite aggressively to the intrusion, flowing faster around the area and tearing apart, for lack of a better word, the white shapeless mass of Eli's magic. She lets out a gasp of surprise as she loses control of the tendril.
1Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Find an axe, either from the supply shed or from someone who has one, and go into the forest to harvest firewood by felling trees. I intend to spend this turn and the next doing so and hauling it back.
Practice my mana control by holding a loop of mana outside my core while I work.
If there's a wheelbarrow, sled, or anything to help haul the wood back in the shed, take that with me.
You grab an axe, and head off to chop wood.Add axe to inventory.
Unfortunately, it would seem that lumberjack was not part of your past life's skills. The concentration needed to keep a loop running to the edge of your skin, outside your core, is enough that you fail to actually chop any trees down. Every time you went for a swing, the loop would destabilize and you'd have to focus on holding it steady again.
4
At least that part progressed well. While no actual wood was chopped, by noon you feel like your mana control is much more stable. You can consistently sense your core without having to drop into a meditative position, and pulling a tendril out grows ever easier and faster. Beginning the process of breaking down a pebble takes only seconds now, rather than minutes, for example. Lose 2 hunger.
4Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Aaron stumbles into camp, looking dazed.
“South desert sucks. Everything is wonked. Don’t go there.”
Just... lay down. Feel the world. Try to deal with the... whatever it is. Become one with the universe or something.
You wonder if this is the mana poisoning that Mr. Voice In The Sky mentioned. It's all you can do to lie there and resist the call of the voices whispering sweet nothings from the void. You are you, you are Aaron, you are not Jon or Charlie, nope nope nope, Eli does not look tasty, you don't eat people. Gradually, the voices fade, and your thoughts begin to untwist themselves. Hopefully there are no... long term consequences. Lose 3 mana.
You get a fire started in the smoking hut, and hang up all 16 remaining deer bits. Presumably they'll be done later today. Locations updated.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Set some meat smoking. Also try to sense Alice's energy, perhaps through physical contact.
4
It seems yes, but also no? Regardless of concentration or physical contact, you both find yourselves incapable of sensing the other's energy. Except for in one particular, very notable instance. If you push your mana into Alice's arm, you can definitely feel it. You get a vague sense of some energy running parallel to her blood. It feels quite different to that of the shapeless unformed mass in your core, like it's already in motion and active, rather than waiting for something to give it form. It reacts quite aggressively to the intrusion, flowing faster around the area and tearing apart, for lack of a better word, the white shapeless mass of your mana tendril. You can't help but let out a gasp of surprise as you lose control of the tendril, and what remains of it snaps back to your core.
You realize something, as you're sitting there and meditating in the aftermath. That looping, active energy you felt in Alice is something that you also have. Separate from your core, and running through your body. Lose 1 mana, lose 1 hunger.
(wot, the basics? I’ve been spamming mana actions every turn, booooo, magic is hard, who would’ve thonk it?)
LEARN BASICS OF MAGIC
BE BADASS
ACQUIRE REALITY BREAKING POWERSSpoiler (click to show/hide)
((To clarify. This game is supposed to be about you discovering how the magic system works. There's a drastic difference between telling the GM "become god" and telling the dm "using the godhead I managed to bind from the god I killed last turn, ascend to godhood by becoming one with the nascent energy of it." One is you telling me to do a thing and figure out how you do it, and the other is you telling me how *you* are going to do a thing. It's the difference between "make a log cabin" and "use the logs, nails, and other tools I have to begin constructing a cabin" The magic in this is intended to be a slow, deliberate progression, as your characters peel back the veil of ignorance hiding the magic system that I already have figured out. This involves experimentation, and guesses on your part. Don't just tell me the end result, tell me your proposed steps to get to that end result. Apologies if I didn't make that clear enough in the original post, I would have linked the enchanter RTD I had in mind as an example if I'd been able to find it. I suppose it doesn't help that the dice are currently indifferent to your existence, as well.))
2
Reality breaking powers gotta start somewhere, and so you spend your time practicing more on sensing your core and drawing a tendril from it. Before too long you're distracted from your practice, however, by watching a pair of singing birds on the edge of the forest. Lose 1 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Apologies for the delay on this turn. There was some deliberation on how exactly I wanted to do... more than half of you, really. Certainly an interesting turn as far as helping me nail down exactly how some of these things work, feel, etc. The new Crypt of the Necrodancer multiplayer dlc certainly didn't help, either. But it's out now, so all well that ends well?
Post by: Glass on August 08, 2022, 06:39:29 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right. Fuck the south. But there's something like... 5 more directions to be explored, right? Right. And staying here is boring.
Let's try... west, yeah. But let's not keep going west if things start feeling like they did back south.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 08, 2022, 08:10:36 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Realize that this is a magical pocket dimension and try to find a magical creature who can just give me magic, there has to be a way, it’s m a g i c.
If I can’t find one, realize that mana is inside my body, try to swirl it around and cut myself to let some blood out, to try to forcefully release mana into the environment to manipulate.
(Hopefully there’s more then one way to do magic? If I try enough, something has to work)
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 08, 2022, 09:06:44 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Chop firewood, take two. No playing with magic this time, only backbreaking, non-wizardly work that should really have been left up to the younger people, in retrospect.
Post by: Devastator on August 09, 2022, 04:33:58 am
"And it does react to something. The other kind of magic. That's something, at least. Maybe it eats magic and can do stuff with it.
It's probably not harmful to me. At least that didn't hurt."
"Gah, this is too complicated. Lets try one thing at a time."
Going to rename the three kinds of energy to make more sense.
There's The Blob, for the nonmoving static less real mana inside me.
There's The Flow, for the moving internal energy that reacts to my physical behavior.
There's The Sparkles, which are the newly detected pinpricks of starlight.
Hypothesis. The flow can be fed mana to make it do things. It needs the blob-type mana to do this.
While on the swing, to keep the flow moving calmly, try to seperate out a small piece of the blob. Don't try to make a tendril or a rope or a complicated shape, just try to cut off a small piece of it and feed it to the flow
Try to watch if the flow does something with the magic.
After that, go chop some wood myself.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on August 12, 2022, 01:57:33 pm
Edit: For anyone checking back in on this, I'll update Monday or Tuesday. Schedule's a little unsure right now with housemates moving back in before the fall semester starts.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 12, 2022, 02:18:39 pm
Post by: johiah on August 18, 2022, 10:35:12 am
1Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right. Fuck the south. But there's something like... 5 more directions to be explored, right? Right. And staying here is boring.
Let's try... west, yeah. But let's not keep going west if things start feeling like they did back south.
In the process of crossing the river, your foot catches on something and you manage to sprain your ankle. Add sprained ankle to your status.
6
Undeterred, you fashion a basic crutch to keep your weight off that foot. Adventure awaits! Looks like the grassland on this side of the river quickly recedes into swampland, and you're pretty sure that off in the forest is what looks like an extremely lush yet quite small jungle. You decide against trying to cross the swamp, partially influenced by the cloud of mosquitoes that have decided you look like lunch. -1 health, -2 hunger, gain improvised crutch. Locations updated.
Odd ripples seem to be gathering in the tepid swamp water nearby. Things congregate in the depths...
1Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Realize that this is a magical pocket dimension and try to find a magical creature who can just give me magic, there has to be a way, it’s m a g i c.
If I can’t find one, realize that mana is inside my body, try to swirl it around and cut myself to let some blood out, to try to forcefully release mana into the environment to manipulate.
(Hopefully there’s more then one way to do magic? If I try enough, something has to work)
You wander off into the East, grasslands quickly morphing into very hilly terrain, and from there into chasm riddled cliffs. Eventually you stumble onto what appears to be a dimly lit cave. You wander inside, eventually ending up in a fairly spacious room at the end of the seemingly natural tunnel. This room is clearly anything but natural. 8 sides, seemingly identical, with matching gaps for a doorway on each face. Pulsing, glowing inscriptions run all over the walls and floor, lighting up as you step inside. Lose 1 hunger.
The pulses, previously aimless and running all over the room, seem to still in surprise for a moment before rushing towards the central altar, the focus point of the room. Something like blood but more... real, begins to seep out, congealing into a hovering ball above the altar. After a further pause, that formless mass twists into human shape. First a horned, red, tailed creature, then a green fanged one, then an androgynous human. The energy shifts and morphs through more than twenty forms before settling on a beautiful, green tinted lady with flowing hair that seems to defy gravity.
She stares at you intently before her face shifts into a smile. She gives a grand wave, and the room lights up with activity. Soft green, invigorating light seeps from nowhere, several small waterfalls begin pouring from the rock face. Grass and small jungle trees sprout from the ground, dirt pouring seemingly appearing from thing air. After only moments, the room now gives off a very cozy, jungle haven feel.
She lounges back on a vine that grows down from a tree to support her. "Welcome, traveler. What brings you to my abode? You seek power, I see? While I am admittedly quite limited due to restrictions placed on me by the creator of this... pocket dimension, I might be willing and capable to grant you some, depending on what you have on offer."
5Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Chop firewood, take two. No playing with magic this time, only backbreaking, non-wizardly work that should really have been left up to the younger people, in retrospect.
Searching deep within yourself, you discover a rage for trees, their arrogant aloofness, that you never knew you had. More than five trees get chopped down, their leaves and branches stripped. While the trunks themselves are still whole, you now have quite the pile of arm width and smaller branches. Locations updated. Lose 3 hunger. Basic chopping learned.
"Okay, three energies, not two. Maybe four. Maybe eleventeen."4
"And it does react to something. The other kind of magic. That's something, at least. Maybe it eats magic and can do stuff with it.
It's probably not harmful to me. At least that didn't hurt."
"Gah, this is too complicated. Lets try one thing at a time."
Going to rename the three kinds of energy to make more sense.
There's The Blob, for the nonmoving static less real mana inside me.
There's The Flow, for the moving internal energy that reacts to my physical behavior.
There's The Sparkles, which are the newly detected pinpricks of starlight.
Hypothesis. The flow can be fed mana to make it do things. It needs the blob-type mana to do this.
While on the swing, to keep the flow moving calmly, try to seperate out a small piece of the blob. Don't try to make a tendril or a rope or a complicated shape, just try to cut off a small piece of it and feed it to the flow
Try to watch if the flow does something with the magic.
After that, go chop some wood myself.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Worth noting that the flor never really stops moving, just that physical exertion seems to make it move faster. While swinging, you successfully pull a small ball of energy from the blob, cutting it off and then loosening your control on it. It diffuses quickly, spreading out to imperceptibility in moments. While you could still perceive, you're almost certain the flow did not react in any overt or obvious way to it.
Some seems to have filtered back into the blob, while the nearby sparkles seem to be glowing brighter. -1 mana.
4
The old man and the child, chopping wood team! After significant exertion, you manage to have partitioned one of the trees into (adult) body lengths. Too long to just toss onto a fire, obviously, but you could probably just set one end in the fire and slowly push it in as it burns. Locations updated. -2 hunger.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
One more turn, and then the nighttime turn. If everyone votes on this coming turn, we'll just skip the night as everyone sleeps. If anyone wants to stay awake (beyond basic guard duty, if you want to do that,) they'll get a -1 to all rolls tomorrow but will get the extra turn.
I'm sure this won't end poorly.
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 18, 2022, 08:46:29 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Bring back as many armloads of branches as I have time for, eat a meal of meat and my last pear, and go to sleep for the night.
While hauling, try my mana control exercise of holding a loop of mana again.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 19, 2022, 09:52:09 pm
Post by: Devastator on August 20, 2022, 12:48:35 am
Does eating cause any reaction from the three kinds of magic?
"Okay.. so the sparkles eat the blob. The flow eats.. other people's blob? Maybe the flow is defensive, or passive, while the sparkles are for active magic that does stuff?
Try to cut off a few more pieces of the blob, giving the chunks to the sparkles.
Oh, and sleep.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on August 20, 2022, 08:36:42 am
“What are you?”"Just a nature spirit, an elemental, a dryad, if you will. The organizer of this project you all find yourselves in, (though truly it's a prison,) put me here as a potential 'thing,'" her face twists with disgust at the thought, "for you all to find."
"And what kind of person are you, to end up in an experiment such as this? I wonder..." she bites her lip, seeming almost giddy at the thought.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 20, 2022, 09:12:48 am
Post by: johiah on August 20, 2022, 09:48:18 am
“What… are you trying to say? I don’t remember what I was like outside of this pocket dimension, but I can’t quite get the hang of magic, so I’m in search of some easier alternative or at least some instructions. Power, to be exact. The fools with me are growing at a rate I am uncomfortable with.”Some ineffable emotion glints in her eyes, and her smile grows. "We'll see, in time."
The entire room shimmers as if seen through an extreme heat mirage. When the effect ends, she is lounging in a different position. Moments later, the insects stop their noises and all the sound in the room becomes muffled, as if the world is holding its breath. After a second that stretches into eternity, she nods. Sound returns like a diver coming back up from underwater. "I've decided. Here is my offer. I will embed a shard of my essence into your soul. It will grant you great power, an energy adjacent to the mana that mages typically use in this world. You will sidestep the issue of control, bypassing shaping finesse with raw willpower. This energy is far more capable of altering the physical world than typical mage techniques, but is completely unusable on its own for a number of advanced fields of magic." She reaches out a hand. A spire of rock shoots up through the floor, forming the shape of a sword in her palm before cutting off its connection to the ground. Another shimmer, and the stone seems to now be metal. "A gift, and an example of what is possible." The sword slides across the ground, coming to a stop at your feet.
"This comes with a cost, of course. The energy is not infinite, and must be regenerated. I give you this power, and in return you feed the shard energies and experiences. They don't have to be from you, animals and even some plants are viable. In time, when you've broken out of this prison we're all inside, I only ask that you return this shard of me to myself."
After her speech finishes the smile returns, and she gazes at you intently. "Do you accept?"
She holds out a large, vivid green and red apple. It seems to be more real than normal reality, like you're only now seeing the color red in its truest form.
Post by: Knightwing64 on August 21, 2022, 06:30:03 am
Post by: johiah on August 21, 2022, 07:45:05 am
“Yes, I do.”You step forward, grabbing the proffered apple and taking a bite.
4
As soon as you take the first bite, your senses are assaulted by a cacophonous riot of signals. The last concrete observation you are able to make before falling over as your inner ear goes wild, is the rest of the apple dissolving into a stream of red energy and flowing into your chest. Everything else is chaos. Your sense of balance and your hearing have switched places, your sight and taste are doing a dance inside your skull. Alien memories mix with your sense of touch, the feeling of plants made of bone and canyon walls too real for you to comprehend rubbing along your skin.
You quickly slip off to unconsciousness, though that is no escape from the mental medley of chaos that is ripping your psyche apart. Perhaps you'll wake in the morning.
Post by: Glass on August 21, 2022, 10:24:10 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is no way in hell that you’re dealing with that swamp like this.
Let’s just get back to base and get some sleep for the night. Nothing else is getting accomplished with a sprained ankle.
Post by: johiah on August 24, 2022, 10:10:28 pm
Good to see this again.3Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Bring back as many armloads of branches as I have time for, eat a meal of meat and my last pear, and go to sleep for the night.
While hauling, try my mana control exercise of holding a loop of mana again.
The branches are already close enough to the fire, so you drag a couple of the logs over. Locations updated.
4
Things go much better this time, and you now seem to be able to hold a loop out of your core in most scenarios. Presumably falling, or being hit by someone or something, would still be enough to distract you.
Two deer bits and a pear, down the hatch. The smoking deer bits thing seems to have worked out! Gain 3 hunger. 2 deer bits taken from smoker.
Satisfied, you doze off to sleep.
Eat my pears, the deer bits, and however many more deer bits from the supply of drying ones, which I feel hungry for.6
Does eating cause any reaction from the three kinds of magic?
"Okay.. so the sparkles eat the blob. The flow eats.. other people's blob? Maybe the flow is defensive, or passive, while the sparkles are for active magic that does stuff?
Try to cut off a few more pieces of the blob, giving the chunks to the sparkles.
Oh, and sleep.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You gobble on a frightening quantity of food for a small child. Hunger restored to full. Lose 2 pears, 1 deer bit. 3 deer bits taken from smoker.
The flow does speed up around your stomach, after eating. It really does seem like the flow is just a part of your bodily processes, or something along those lines. Something possibly also noteworthy is that the sparkles seem to float along in similar loops, though they are largely unaffected by eating food.
5
Similar events occur as last time. Some filters back into the blob, some filters into nearby sparkles, making them glow brighter, and the rest just diffuses into uselessness. This really just feels like pouring water from a bucket you own into another bucket you also own. Lose 2 mana.
Snoozing time, you bundle up in the blankets.
2Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is no way in hell that you’re dealing with that swamp like this.
Let’s just get back to base and get some sleep for the night. Nothing else is getting accomplished with a sprained ankle.
Crossing back does not go well, but eventually you manage it without drowning. Sleep time. Lose 1 health, 2 hunger.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Your dreams are fitful, your nightmares interweaved with memories that are not your own, fragments so vivid that you feel as if you could reach out and touch them before they drift away and out of perception. -2 hunger.
The night passes peacefully for some and fitfully for others. A soft drizzle begins some time past midnight, lasting for less than an hour. The midnight sky is still moonless. All those who sleep gain 3 health, and 3 mana. (Up to cap)
Day 4 begins.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Two banked turns for Egan. Presumably, sleeping occurred.
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 25, 2022, 03:49:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Return my axe to the tool-shed.
Hypothesis: Mana can affect mana. If ambient mana affects my mana strings, I should be able to form a mana sense.
Experiment: Try to form and hold two mana strings, one per hand. If I can't, then just make one. It's not the core of the experiment, but the differences from two different inputs should make it easier, like pinpointing a sound's source with both ears.
Meditate and try to sense changes in the strings to sense mana in the environment, or in my peers.
Practice Entropy magic on a large branch. Try to cut it into sections with clean cuts, as though I was cutting firewood from a log. Try a plane or crossed # shape in my mana string, to direct the effect to a cross-section.
Wherein I try to create a new way to sense mana, without ever having tried normally, and without knowing that I have two other states of mana that are probably more useful for a passive sense. This is a good idea, trust me.
Post by: Devastator on August 25, 2022, 04:59:07 pm
Anyway.. it seems like I can move magic to the sparkles, but I need some way to tell the sparkles what to do with it. Mmm! Back to the beginning again.
What I really want is stuff like throwing fireballs by saying "Fireball" and waving my hands around. With the flow responding to what I do, even if entirely automatically, and the sparkles reacting to getting fed bits of the blob, even if they don't do anything.. there should be some way of translating things I do with my body into magic, I'm just missing a key element.
Maybe it's not possible? Maybe you can only think it into happening? Visualize stuff?
"..I should try to think it into working the way I want."
Hypothesis: I can think it into doing the stuff I want by visualizing it. Instead of casting a spell that does something, lets try to cast a spell that makes it work the way I want Or changes me so that I work the way I want to.
Try to reshape a big blob chunk into a caricature of myself. Sit down somewhere, and shape the blob into a little me, in the same position I am.
Try to visualize the various aspects of the body as well, and add them into the little blob. Body heat. The various magic aspects. Hair. Blood vessels. Nerves. Try to make it into a little simulacrum, as complete and accurate as I can.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 25, 2022, 07:25:38 pm
Bah, I'll eat as much as I want.I think you're trying to do too much at once, and that there are too many failure points for it to be a good way to support or disprove your hypothesis.
Anyway.. it seems like I can move magic to the sparkles, but I need some way to tell the sparkles what to do with it. Mmm! Back to the beginning again.
What I really want is stuff like throwing fireballs by saying "Fireball" and waving my hands around. With the flow responding to what I do, even if entirely automatically, and the sparkles reacting to getting fed bits of the blob, even if they don't do anything.. there should be some way of translating things I do with my body into magic, I'm just missing a key element.
Maybe it's not possible? Maybe you can only think it into happening? Visualize stuff?
"..I should try to think it into working the way I want."
Hypothesis: I can think it into doing the stuff I want by visualizing it. Instead of casting a spell that does something, lets try to cast a spell that makes it work the way I want Or changes me so that I work the way I want to.
Try to reshape a big blob chunk into a caricature of myself. Sit down somewhere, and shape the blob into a little me, in the same position I am.
Try to visualize the various aspects of the body as well, and add them into the little blob. Body heat. The various magic aspects. Hair. Blood vessels. Nerves. Try to make it into a little simulacrum, as complete and accurate as I can.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You have something you want to do. Try to break it down into the simplest blocks of effects you can, figure them out one at a time, then combine them.
For example, I want telekinesis. I'll want some sort of mana sense to make it easier, which I'm working on now. I'll probably need to figure out how to move an object with my mana strings at all, how to make it a steady effect over time instead of a quick burst, and then I'll need some way to either make my strings move faster, anchor them to the object, or hold control over all of the mana in an enclosed box mana string net.
My first effects are on the level of slowly breaking apart a pebble. You might consider starting by altering light slightly, either recoloring a patch of dirt from a certain angle, or trying to make the air look wavy like heat does. Or you could try making the mana visible directly, or able to act as a solid object.
Post by: Devastator on August 25, 2022, 10:49:56 pm
It may not be possible to do things this waya.
I don't know how to change my body, but I think it'll require a good model of my body, at the very least. Maybe this is too ambitious for that, but if it fails I can break it down into smaller bits.
I could try to do it by designing the spell first, but I think I'm gonna try it from the back end.. figure out how to make mana affect ones own body first. And vice-versa. Maybe it'll hurt or make me sick for a bit, but it's worth a shot while I'm well-fed and healthy.
tl;dr, I don't care about affecting things outside my body at this time. Changing the air or altering light or changing dirt aren't things I really care about changing.
PPS, it might be a totally dry well and completely wrong, but I might as well try.
Post by: Glass on August 28, 2022, 09:48:37 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right, fuck exploring.
Let's have some fishy breakfast of dried bluegill, and go fishing. No strenuous activity, and as little weight on my foot as possible.
Post by: Knightwing64 on September 02, 2022, 08:31:50 pm
Post by: johiah on September 04, 2022, 08:49:36 pm
It seems to be drizzling right now, and everything is getting a little wet.
The axe goes back in the shed. Lose axe.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Return my axe to the tool-shed.
Hypothesis: Mana can affect mana. If ambient mana affects my mana strings, I should be able to form a mana sense.
Experiment: Try to form and hold two mana strings, one per hand. If I can't, then just make one. It's not the core of the experiment, but the differences from two different inputs should make it easier, like pinpointing a sound's source with both ears.
Meditate and try to sense changes in the strings to sense mana in the environment, or in my peers.
Practice Entropy magic on a large branch. Try to cut it into sections with clean cuts, as though I was cutting firewood from a log. Try a plane or crossed # shape in my mana string, to direct the effect to a cross-section.
Wherein I try to create a new way to sense mana, without ever having tried normally, and without knowing that I have two other states of mana that are probably more useful for a passive sense. This is a good idea, trust me.
5
Forming two strings, one in each hand, goes quite well. After not long at all they've settled into position and are being sustained by your will, lying mostly motionless.
4
Your attempt to look, to sense external mana, does yield results. Just not in the way you expected. The strings keep trembling, and as you narrow your focus on them in an attempt to discern the cause, you notice a second energy flowing through your body. It flows into your arms, up to the fingertips, and back out. As you expand your point of focus from your arms to your entire body, you come to the realization that this energy, though faintly visible to your sight as of yet, is flowing in massive loops throughout your entire body. Through your stomach, your lungs, your head, your fingers. All is connected. This second energy seems more real, less imaginary, and thus harder to sense. It gives off much more of a sense of presence and purpose than your core does.
While your personal mana doesn't seem to interact much with this other energy, it does nonetheless seem likely that this second energy introduces too much agitation to any mana inside your body for you to use it as an external dowsing odd. You retract the spools carefully, shaking chills out of your arms as you prepare for the next experiment.
5
Same as when you tried to join two sticks together, the reverse seems to also not work. As you stubbornly focus your energies on splitting the branch, you accidentally stumble onto a new spell! Instead of rotting or breaking down the wood into crumbly component parts, you've learned how to apply crude force with mana! By focusing your mana into a blade shape and moving it towards the branch while focusing on the idea of pushing, moving, and splitting, (in all the forms that entails,) you manage to cut into the branch roughly a fingers width deep. As you push the blade in further it seems to lose cohesion and turn back into a diffuse mass of energy. Bad image, lack of practice, or some other problem? Lose 1 hunger, 1 mana.
Bah, I'll eat as much as I want.1
Anyway.. it seems like I can move magic to the sparkles, but I need some way to tell the sparkles what to do with it. Mmm! Back to the beginning again.
What I really want is stuff like throwing fireballs by saying "Fireball" and waving my hands around. With the flow responding to what I do, even if entirely automatically, and the sparkles reacting to getting fed bits of the blob, even if they don't do anything.. there should be some way of translating things I do with my body into magic, I'm just missing a key element.
Maybe it's not possible? Maybe you can only think it into happening? Visualize stuff?
"..I should try to think it into working the way I want."
Hypothesis: I can think it into doing the stuff I want by visualizing it. Instead of casting a spell that does something, lets try to cast a spell that makes it work the way I want Or changes me so that I work the way I want to.
Try to reshape a big blob chunk into a caricature of myself. Sit down somewhere, and shape the blob into a little me, in the same position I am.
Try to visualize the various aspects of the body as well, and add them into the little blob. Body heat. The various magic aspects. Hair. Blood vessels. Nerves. Try to make it into a little simulacrum, as complete and accurate as I can.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Trying to mess with this much mana was, apparently, a horrendous idea. You lose control of most of the Blob while it's still inside your body, and even as it disperses it runs rampant, disrupting the flow through sheer mass, sending waves of shock running through your whole body. You topple to the ground, groaning in pain and taking shuddering gasps.
Eventually the numerous pain signals and other senses running rampant through your body settle enough for you to sit up and take a shaky drink of water. This really sucks. Lose 1 hunger, 5 mana.
((Did you drop the sword and shield you had?))Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right, fuck exploring.
Let's have some fishy breakfast of dried bluegill, and go fishing. No strenuous activity, and as little weight on my foot as possible.
Some bluegill gets eaten, and you feel a bit better. Lose 3 bluegill fillet. Gain 4 hunger.
3
You manage to catch another 3 decently sized fish, and no fishing related incidents happen this time. You feel like you might be getting a better understanding of where the fish like to hide in this river, and such. Gain 3 medium fish.
Attempt to use magic now that I have? ItGain permanent status: ___touched. Add ___ energy: ___/___ and ___ satisfaction: ___/___ to your character sheet.
Late in the morning, you wake with a blinder of a headache and furiously thirsty. You find yourself once more in the bare empty chamber, the only sign that something happened being the leaf you're resting on. Even the runic circuit seems to be dormant and dark. Deep inside you, perhaps attached to or even suckling on your core, is a massive, writhing, pulsing sphere of angry red energy. Tendrils extend out from it to every part of your body, like a second set of blood vessels.
4
With a shrug, you get to work testing out your new power. At first nothing happens, but once your step outside of the room at the end of the cave, you see that all is well. You can't help but let out a laugh of delight at how easy it is to use! With hardly any focus and no meditation at all, you seize control of the sword that was laying at your feet and telekinetically lift it to your hand. With a second gesture from your other hand, the raw stone of the cave wall quickly shapes itself into a chair, molded perfectly to your form and surprisingly comfortable. Gain mysterious sword. Lose 2 hunger, 4 mana. Lose _ ___ energy.
((Shuffled the smoked meat that started in the shed to be on its own line for clarity))
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Every 3 days is most certainly not happening, both to make room for college homework, housemates/social thing, and to allow time for player responses. Not that this takes long to write, maybe 45 minutes, but it is fairly low on the priority list. Apologies for the delay!
Post by: Devastator on September 04, 2022, 10:34:52 pm
"Ouch."
"Does this mean I'm totally wrong, or does it mean I'm onto something? That's the first time I've tried a spell and it's actually done anything."
You know what? Lets just try it.
Hold my hand around, finger out, behind my head. Say 'Fireball', while visualizing a fireball forming at my fingertip. Then swing my hand forward and imagine a fireball streaking away in front of me.
After that doesn't work..
Lets focus it down. The only actual magical thing I have is my hair, which isn't supposed to be blue. I know that much. So instead of doing a massive simulacrum, do a simulacrum of just my head. If that works, move the blob-created image to my head, having it engulf it. Once the image matches up with my head, change the simulacrum's hair colour to green, while letting all the other parts dissipate.
Then, with the focus down to just the virtual green hair, envision the sparkles making my actual hair green, instead of blue.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: johiah on September 05, 2022, 10:03:32 am
(No health damage?)(Not yet, no)
-snip-
Post by: Nirur Torir on September 05, 2022, 03:38:36 pm
Quote
The issue here that you're running into is that the heat needs to happen all at once rather than slowly, or it just leaks into the environmentI was hoping to do the same thing I did to break pebbles. It would seem, then, that exact wording, and how we label things, are important.
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Set my tent up.
Practice with my new motion/splitting spell. Borrow a tool with a blade from the supply shed, and use it as a focus for the spell. I want to shape my mana into a blade where the blade is, or just in front of it, and try to cut something to see if it will maintain cohesion better.
Try the idea of a sword in motion.
Put the tool back when I'm done.
Spell names simplified to Separate and Combine.
Post by: johiah on September 05, 2022, 03:58:03 pm
Ah, apologies. You did have it consistently labeled in your character sheet, I just can't read. I could rewrite that portion of your turn, if you'd likeQuoteThe issue here that you're running into is that the heat needs to happen all at once rather than slowly, or it just leaks into the environmentI was hoping to do the same thing I did to break pebbles. It would seem, then, that exact wording, and how we label things, are important.
Post by: Nirur Torir on September 05, 2022, 05:04:39 pm
Ah, apologies. You did have it consistently labeled in your character sheet, I just can't read. I could rewrite that portion of your turn, if you'd likePlease do, I'll have to test it again once I have mana, otherwise.
I'll try to be more clear in the future.
Post by: johiah on September 05, 2022, 05:37:38 pm
Updated. But really, it was entirely my fault hereAh, apologies. You did have it consistently labeled in your character sheet, I just can't read. I could rewrite that portion of your turn, if you'd likePlease do, I'll have to test it again once I have mana, otherwise.
I'll try to be more clear in the future.
Post by: Nirur Torir on September 05, 2022, 07:28:36 pm
I'd been thinking the spell types parallel thermodynamics and molecular mechanics, but motion and splitting being together axes that idea.
Having separate spells for motion/splitting and destruction/entropy/separation implies a sizable number of spells, instead of my idea of fewer small basic spells.
In light of the above, and my names confusing johiah, I need to figure new names out. I'd assumed they were very broad effects when naming them.
Post by: Glass on September 08, 2022, 06:07:49 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Let’s... just keep fishing, I guess.
My ankle is fucked up, I don’t want to go move around and stuff!
Post by: johiah on September 10, 2022, 11:57:31 am
Post by: Knightwing64 on September 10, 2022, 01:54:21 pm
Use my newfound magic to get even more magic, with a magically simple process of MAGIK
Will post updated character sheet after next turn
Post by: johiah on September 17, 2022, 02:30:16 pm
The rain continues.
(No health damage?)4
"Ouch."
"Does this mean I'm totally wrong, or does it mean I'm onto something? That's the first time I've tried a spell and it's actually done anything."
You know what? Lets just try it.
Hold my hand around, finger out, behind my head. Say 'Fireball', while visualizing a fireball forming at my fingertip. Then swing my hand forward and imagine a fireball streaking away in front of me.
After that doesn't work..
Lets focus it down. The only actual magical thing I have is my hair, which isn't supposed to be blue. I know that much. So instead of doing a massive simulacrum, do a simulacrum of just my head. If that works, move the blob-created image to my head, having it engulf it. Once the image matches up with my head, change the simulacrum's hair colour to green, while letting all the other parts dissipate.
Then, with the focus down to just the virtual green hair, envision the sparkles making my actual hair green, instead of blue.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is, perhaps, the slightest stirring of the blob when you concentration reaches its peak during the motion. Other than that, nothing really happens. A fireball may be too complex an idea, for now?
2
It would see that shaping the blob that intricately is yet beyond you.
5
While going through this whole process, you do stumble onto something that might be useful. It would seem that chanting your intention helps to stabilize your will and reduce distractions. Saying out loud details of the shape you were trying to sculpt did help with sculpting, though your control seems to still be far below what is needed for something head shaped. Having so much of the blod outside of your body seems to have resulted in some lost energy, especially during lapses of concentration. Lose 1 mana, 2 food.
QuoteThe issue here that you're running into is that the heat needs to happen all at once rather than slowly, or it just leaks into the environmentI was hoping to do the same thing I did to break pebbles. It would seem, then, that exact wording, and how we label things, are important.Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Set my tent up.
Practice with my new motion/splitting spell. Borrow a tool with a blade from the supply shed, and use it as a focus for the spell. I want to shape my mana into a blade where the blade is, or just in front of it, and try to cut something to see if it will maintain cohesion better.
Try the idea of a sword in motion.
Put the tool back when I'm done.
Spell names simplified to Separate and Combine.I just spent two day's worth of mana, so I'll have to both practice casting my old spells with this new mana to see what happens, and try to push it into my core to recharge.
Tent has been set up, and bedding taken from the shed. Luckily while it is still raining, the shed does seem to be mostly leak proof, meaning the precious blankets are dry. Small mercies. Genesis field updated.
4
You retrieve a longknife from the shed. With a slight effort of will, strands run from your core through your arm, and up to the blade. The unformed strands don't seem to interact with the knife at all. You cut the connection to your core, spooling the energy up to form a second, invisible blade in front of the knife. When your arm swings, the mana follows. You're pretty sure this has nothing to do with the knife and everything to do with you mentally tying the mana to that position relative to your fist. When you focus on the concept of cutting, splitting and sundry, and apply it to the mana, something peculiar happens. It begins to glow, visibly! Eyeing the blade closer with your mental sense of it, you can feel mana slowly leaking out of the blade structure, apparently transforming into waste heat and light in the process.
Setting that aside for later, swinging your knife into various bits of wood shows that attaching the process of cutting to a physical motion seems to go a great deal in helping it maintain coherency and cutting power. It doesn't quite cut like a hot knife in butter, but your shimmery, sparkly, warm to the touch knife is cutting through wood far better than a knife has any right to. Using the same amount of mana as before, you get quite a few more cuts in this time. In the end, the mana blade fades in intensity considerably, like sand slipping through the fingers of your mental sense, before a swing shatters its coherency into a rapidly dispersing blob. Lose 1 mana. Lose 1 hunger.
6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Let’s... just keep fishing, I guess.
My ankle is fucked up, I don’t want to go move around and stuff!
Apparently, some of the fish can fight back. One of them bit your arm in the process of reeling it in! Oh well, live and learn. Lose 1 health, 2 hunger. Gain 3 medium fish, 1 large fish. Intermediate fishing learned.
Oop, my bad I totally forgot about this, I blame the numbing effects of ice cream.1
Use my newfound magic to get even more magic, with a magically simple process of MAGIK
Will post updated character sheet after next turn
Hmm. She mentioned something about... feeding the shard? Probably worth learning how to do. You try to siphon some of that white, formless energy floating in the core of your being. It latches on greedily and... keeps pulling? Your limbs suddenly feel weak and cold, your breath comes in short gasps. After and eternity and a heartbeat, you manage to yank back control. It takes some time for the empty feeling in your body and mind to fade. Being extremely ravenous, you eat all the deer bits you had on you. Gain 8 energy and 1 satisfaction. Lose 4 health, 5 mana.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on September 17, 2022, 07:01:12 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
I have apparently reached a new mana control milestone, I can now form and control a spell after cutting the mana strings.
If I can figure out how to anchor Magic Edge to a different mana type, I might be able to give enchanted blades out. I'd be willing to teach it, but I don't think anybody else has enough Blob Mana Control.
Eat my fill of the smoked meat that's going bad.
Try to figure out what control I have over the second mana type I found, the more physical one that circulates naturally. I don't expect to get this far this turn, and don't want to rush "CUT IT OFF AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!" experiments, but I want to work towards the idea of trying to affix a bit of it to an object, and anchoring Magic Edge to that.
Test my abilities to control Blob Mana without strings. How far can it go before I lose control? Can I extend that range by holding mana strings near it? How far can I extend a mana string?
Post by: Devastator on September 18, 2022, 05:39:13 am
"Okay, that's.. something."
"And screw it, it's not too complex. It's fire. Fire is hot. And it's my head. I'm not simulating something I don't have, it's just my head."
"I still don't want to do it by shortcuts, though. It might be easier if I had like something green.. but I don't want to learn to move greenness around, I want to see if I can make it from scratch. Just do things. This is maaagic.
Still, that might help me learn to do it from scratch."
Hypothesis: It's easier to change something if I have an example of something posessing what I'd like to change it to.
Two more tests. Get some green grass. Use the water to act as a mirror. Lets try just the hair, alone, to make it green. Then, try to simulate the grass, move the blob to touch the grass in my hand, and simulate it taking up the greenness and moving it to my hair.
If this does work, repeat it with some other colour, but try to watch the process. There's no reason I should need greenness to do that, so I should be able to generate whatever it is I need, not just take it from something else.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Glass on September 21, 2022, 10:58:44 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Alright, it's been half a day. I'm not sure how long sprained ankles take to fix, but let's at least briefly check it, right? Just, trying to stand briefly can't do that much harm.
Anyway, uh... well, keep fishing. Why not?
Post by: Knightwing64 on September 24, 2022, 08:55:02 am
Post by: johiah on October 03, 2022, 10:28:53 pm
(Turn 15, 3rd of day)
The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse, a properly unpleasant downpour now. At least the dense foliage thoroughly blocks it, and the tents are well crafted.
You nom on some meat. Gain 4 hunger, 4 meat bits removed from shed.Spell Concept: Motion/Splitting renamed to Proto Spell: Magic Edge.Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
I have apparently reached a new mana control milestone, I can now form and control a spell after cutting the mana strings.
If I can figure out how to anchor Magic Edge to a different mana type, I might be able to give enchanted blades out. I'd be willing to teach it, but I don't think anybody else has enough Blob Mana Control.
Eat my fill of the smoked meat that's going bad.
Try to figure out what control I have over the second mana type I found, the more physical one that circulates naturally. I don't expect to get this far this turn, and don't want to rush "CUT IT OFF AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!" experiments, but I want to work towards the idea of trying to affix a bit of it to an object, and anchoring Magic Edge to that.
Test my abilities to control Blob Mana without strings. How far can it go before I lose control? Can I extend that range by holding mana strings near it? How far can I extend a mana string?
3
No matter how your bluster huff and heave, the more physical energy seems to stubbornly resist your will. The same observations as Alice are made, with regards to it being stimulated by physical things such as eating food, or motion.
2
You're able to determine that the range is indeed reduced by being cut off, and that proximity to a strand doesn't affect your control, only whether it is or is not connected. This is all you uncover, before the thundering rain and pounding headache from all your intense concentration distracts you. As a side note, it would seem that losing control over a disconnected blob doesn't result in the intensely uncomfortable ripples you felt across your body and core earlier, how fortunate!
(Going to assume 'outside my body' means 'cut off from the rest of the blob, since I'm not projecting anything with these simulacrums.)(Clearly I misinterpreted what you meant, but either way it doesn't affect things.)
"Okay, that's.. something."
"And screw it, it's not too complex. It's fire. Fire is hot. And it's my head. I'm not simulating something I don't have, it's just my head."
"I still don't want to do it by shortcuts, though. It might be easier if I had like something green.. but I don't want to learn to move greenness around, I want to see if I can make it from scratch. Just do things. This is maaagic.
Still, that might help me learn to do it from scratch."
Hypothesis: It's easier to change something if I have an example of something posessing what I'd like to change it to.
Two more tests. Get some green grass. Use the water to act as a mirror. Lets try just the hair, alone, to make it green. Then, try to simulate the grass, move the blob to touch the grass in my hand, and simulate it taking up the greenness and moving it to my hair.
If this does work, repeat it with some other colour, but try to watch the process. There's no reason I should need greenness to do that, so I should be able to generate whatever it is I need, not just take it from something else.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
6
Focusing intensely on the idea of taking the green from the grass, your palm blurs somewhat. After several moments, it seems like the grass has wilted, gone cold and brittle. Also, the hand holding the grass feels dull as well. Your skin looks vaguely grayish blue, like frostbite, or something. You note the flow is now moving sluggishly through the hand, and suddenly an intense searing pain comes from the area surrounding the gray part. Ow ow ow, yep! Definitely colder than a hand is supposed to be. -3 health, -1 mana, -1 hunger.
2
Yeah, you're not fiddling around more with this concept until you know what the hell you just did to your hand.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Alright, it's been half a day. I'm not sure how long sprained ankles take to fix, but let's at least briefly check it, right? Just, trying to stand briefly can't do that much harm.
Anyway, uh... well, keep fishing. Why not?
Your ankle seems to be mostly recovered, though long jumping would be ill advised.
4
Why not? Well presumably eventually the river will run out of fish, or your equipment will all break. Not much reason to not fish, otherwise. You catch a couple more medium fish. You're starting to get quite the collection! Gain 2 medium fish, lose 1 hunger.
Sorry, but I think I’m gonna pull out. I have a lot of another things I’m participating in, and school is taking a lot of free time away. Sorry :(No worries! I certainly feel that with school, right now.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
I love everything being due on Tuesdays, and I love having multiple major group projects in the same semester. Very fun. Looks like Egan is back on bay12, now? I've still got those missed turns banked, though not for much longer. Also trying a new format for the day at the top that might make a bit more sense at a glance.
Post by: Devastator on October 04, 2022, 12:29:01 am
If it gets worse try to move whatever it is into my hair instead.. hair is dead, it shouldn't hurt like my hand does. If I lose it maybe I can grow it back later.
Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on October 04, 2022, 05:32:46 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Meditate. We seem to naturally recover mana only while sleeping. Try to get close to a nap without losing consciousness, and try to observe the process of my own mana recovery.
I sure hope I don't fail and fall asleep. Asking if I can watch my colleagues sleep would be an awkward and creepy conversation.
Post by: Egan_BW on October 05, 2022, 10:28:26 pm
Post by: Glass on October 11, 2022, 09:12:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right, rain sucks. Let's bring my fish to the smoking tent and get them preserved for later.
Post by: johiah on October 17, 2022, 10:17:07 pm
(Turn 16, 4th of day)
As the light bleeds from the sky and seeps below the horizon, the downpour slowly comes to a halt. The evening hair tastes strongly of damp, and even the insects are quiet.
Eat some of the meat and monitor the situation. It's not the same as making something, but I'm pretty sure the flow will fix whatever's wrong with my hand eventually. Rest in the tent, lie down, with my hand touching my hair, monitoring the situation, trying to figure out what exactly is inside my hand.You nibble on a couple more of the dried bits of meat in the shack. This really is awfully flavorless. Shack updated. Gain 4 hunger, 1 health.
If it gets worse try to move whatever it is into my hair instead.. hair is dead, it shouldn't hurt like my hand does. If I lose it maybe I can grow it back later.Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Over time, within the decent warmth of the tent, you do slowly get feeling back in your hand.
Based on how the grass withered and cracked in your hand, it seems rather possible that you didn't learn color transference, but rather some method of cooling things down, and your hand is just frostbitten. Luckily it doesn't seem to have gone too deep, so you should be relatively fine in the morning.
Curled up in your blankets, you drift off to sleep.
2Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Meditate. We seem to naturally recover mana only while sleeping. Try to get close to a nap without losing consciousness, and try to observe the process of my own mana recovery.
I sure hope I don't fail and fall asleep. Asking if I can watch my colleagues sleep would be an awkward and creepy conversation.
Yeah, you're tired. Sleep time! All you get before drifting off is that your core seems to be... spinning, slowly, as your consciousness fades. Lose 1 hunger.
I was asked to post in this thread but it's bed time so this is that post good night.You shuffle your feet and head off to bed. (In case it's not clear, this doesn't count as one of your turns. Six backlogged turns, now.)
2Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Right, rain sucks. Let's bring my fish to the smoking tent and get them preserved for later.
You cut your hand while prepping the fish. Ouch! They get hung up to dry and you toss more wood on the fire within the construction; the outside wood is unfortunately rather wet; some kind of basic storage thing for wood might be in order, you hope the wood isn't too wet to burn. You also move the fish that were hanging above the campfire into the drying shelter. Lose 1 health. Locations updated, lose all fish in inventory.
Thoroughly fished out for the day, you lay down to sleep inside the shed. Luckily, it's still relatively dry in here. Can probably drop off the crutch for now, too.
Howls are heard in the night, the damp of the day fades away. Though there is still no moon, the sky seems brighter than previous nights. All those who sleep gain 3 health, and 3 mana. (Up to cap)[/b]
Day 5 begins.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Midterms are fun.
Post by: Devastator on October 18, 2022, 05:44:19 am
Try the freeze thing again, but this time with something a bit hotter. Take a smouldering stick from the fire and try to absorb the heat from it the same way, by moving some blob bit to my hand and absorbing the heat from it.
If that works fairly well, try to see if I can do the opposite, move a blob bit to my finger and put enough heat into a tiny bit of grass to start it on fire.
Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on October 20, 2022, 06:23:31 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Cast Magic Edge. It seems that its position is anchored in place relative to a metaphysical attachment point after I release the spell. It is also much weaker if I try to use it without releasing it.
Try to release it, then regain control of it, move it, and release it again. If it works, try to figure out how much this weakens the spell or drains extra mana.
Post by: Egan_BW on October 20, 2022, 10:04:47 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Attempt to understand, by way of feeling, my body and the energy stuff in it. Build a training dummy. Practice killing it with a pickaxe. Pay attention to my mana while I do so.
Post by: Glass on October 22, 2022, 11:34:14 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If there's stuff out here that might attack us, it'd be best to be prepared. That said, while it feels like the immediate thing to do would be to train physical combat skills, we are supposed to be learning magic, and I think the other people here have actually been doing that. Let's chat with them and see if there's anything we can help with.
Post by: Nirur Torir on October 23, 2022, 03:09:51 pm
If there's stuff out here that might attack us, it'd be best to be prepared. That said, while it feels like the immediate thing to do would be to train physical combat skills, we are supposed to be learning magic, and I think the other people here have actually been doing that. Let's chat with them and see if there's anything we can help with."I'm working on a spell that cuts easier than an axe, but it doesn't last for long. It's usable, and I'll gladly teach it to anyone who wants to learn. Let me know if you figure out how to improve it.
I call it Magic Edge. You shape your mana into a blade shape, while thinking about concepts like pushing, moving, and splitting. Then you have try to fix it into place above something, like your hand or a knife you're holding. I haven't figured out how to stick it to a knife, exactly, but if you're holding the knife steady, it'll work out the same.
No? Okay, let's take it from the top. First you have to feel your mana. Get comfortable, close your eyes, and breathe as I count.."
Post by: Glass on October 26, 2022, 09:48:36 pm
Aaron attempts to follow the instructions. Although he probably first needs to figure out how to shape his mana at all.If there's stuff out here that might attack us, it'd be best to be prepared. That said, while it feels like the immediate thing to do would be to train physical combat skills, we are supposed to be learning magic, and I think the other people here have actually been doing that. Let's chat with them and see if there's anything we can help with."I'm working on a spell that cuts easier than an axe, but it doesn't last for long. It's usable, and I'll gladly teach it to anyone who wants to learn. Let me know if you figure out how to improve it.
I call it Magic Edge. You shape your mana into a blade shape, while thinking about concepts like pushing, moving, and splitting. Then you have try to fix it into place above something, like your hand or a knife you're holding. I haven't figured out how to stick it to a knife, exactly, but if you're holding the knife steady, it'll work out the same."
Post by: Dwayna DragonFire on October 29, 2022, 06:50:37 pm
Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
"Oh dear... I suppose I should start testing things out..." says Brooke, looking around at her unfamiliar surroundings.
She looks for some food. Afterwards, she takes a deep breath and tried to focus on the arcane energies around her, and inside of her.
Post by: Nirur Torir on October 29, 2022, 07:24:17 pm
Good to see a new face. I'm already trying to walk someone else through the initial basics, you're welcome to join in on that.Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
"Oh dear... I suppose I should start testing things out..." says Brooke, looking around at her unfamiliar surroundings.
She looks for some food. Afterwards, she takes a deep breath and tried to focus on the arcane energies around her, and inside of her.
Post by: Dwayna DragonFire on October 29, 2022, 09:42:18 pm
Brooke will join in on learning after the kind invitation.Good to see a new face. I'm already trying to walk someone else through the initial basics, you're welcome to join in on that.Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
"Oh dear... I suppose I should start testing things out..." says Brooke, looking around at her unfamiliar surroundings.
She looks for some food. Afterwards, she takes a deep breath and tried to focus on the arcane energies around her, and inside of her.
Post by: johiah on November 04, 2022, 10:20:04 pm
(Turn 17, 1st of day)
The sunrise this morning is brilliant, and things seem to have dried up overnight.
Hypothesis: I didn't steal greenness, but I did take something from the grass, and it ended up being heat. It just wasn't enough heat to do anything with, but it was enough to freeze the grass. And my hand.4
Try the freeze thing again, but this time with something a bit hotter. Take a smouldering stick from the fire and try to absorb the heat from it the same way, by moving some blob bit to my hand and absorbing the heat from it.
If that works fairly well, try to see if I can do the opposite, move a blob bit to my finger and put enough heat into a tiny bit of grass to start it on fire.Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Yep! After some experimentation, it looks like you've learned to shift heat from one thing to another. It doesn't seem like you can store it, or if you are you're not sure where, but siphoning heat from a flaming branch directly to an unlit one was enough to immediately ignite it. This did also put the stick out, when you metaphorically pulled hard enough on it. The same didn't really work with a finger; presumably you can't pull enough heat from a hand without harming yourself, when trying to ignite something. Lose 1 mana, 1 hunger.
6Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Cast Magic Edge. It seems that its position is anchored in place relative to a metaphysical attachment point after I release the spell. It is also much weaker if I try to use it without releasing it.
Try to release it, then regain control of it, move it, and release it again. If it works, try to figure out how much this weakens the spell or drains extra mana.Try to teach the Magic Edge spell, but my students are confused so instead I'll have towalk Aaron and Brooke through trying to find and control their mana.
You've learned a number of important things, here. Firstly, regaining control of a spell construct that you've cut loose seems not possible, at your current level if nothing else. At least not without drawing another tendril out towards it, which seemingly collapses it down into formless, rapidly dissipating mana anyways.
Secondly, it seems like the strength of the blade while you're still tied to it is directly affected by your current focus. Separated blades retain whatever strength they had at the time they were cut off.
Thirdly, it seems like the reason the blade was stronger when linked to your hand or the edge of a knife was purely due to the aforementioned muscle memory and focus, or at least that is strongly indicated by the observed behavior.
Unfortunately all this casting, dismissing, recasting, and general mana shenanigans seems to have brought the unnerving, cold, shivering, hot and sweaty sensation back to the portions of your body that you were moving mana through. At least you managed to recover most of the spent mana, with your experiments. Lose 2 mana, lose 1 hunger.
2
It would seem you need to organize your thoughts before speaking. Nonetheless, you do manage to get the idea across, at least in part, and they seem able to bridge the gap.
6Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Attempt to understand, by way of feeling, my body and the energy stuff in it. Build a training dummy. Practice killing it with a pickaxe. Pay attention to my mana while I do so.
It's a surprisingly sturdy little training dummy. Should be able to take quite a beating!Locations updated.
2
Trying to focus on your mana is pretty distracting, so you don't get much training done.
3
You don't make too much progress on trying to understand it better, either, though the speed with which you can access it seems to have increased substantially. Lose 3 hunger.
((Extra attempt using bonus turn))
2
Agh, still so little progress! Lose 1 hunger.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If there's stuff out here that might attack us, it'd be best to be prepared. That said, while it feels like the immediate thing to do would be to train physical combat skills, we are supposed to be learning magic, and I think the other people here have actually been doing that. Let's chat with them and see if there's anything we can help with.
Aaron attempts to follow the instructions. Although he probably first needs to figure out how to shape his mana at all.5
With limited help from Nathan, you manage to get a decent grasp on sensing the ball of energy inside you, and even with drawing a tendril out of it. He warns you against the dangers of losing control, and having a tendril snap back into your core. Lose 2 hunger.
Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
"Oh dear... I suppose I should start testing things out..." says Brooke, looking around at her unfamiliar surroundings.
She looks for some food. Afterwards, she takes a deep breath and tried to focus on the arcane energies around her, and inside of her.
Brooke will join in on learning after the kind invitation.4
With limited help from Nathan, you manage to begin sensing the ball of energy inside you, pushing it around, kneading it, and shaping it somewhat. If the man is telling the truth, more will come with practice.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Post by: Devastator on November 06, 2022, 06:11:21 am
Lets try a bit more heat. Take a bigger stick and try to change which end is on fire, aiming to delay the transfer until I can store the fire or I hurt myself.
..After that, lets see if I can absorb a little from my skin instead. Walk towards the forest, seeing if I can absorb extra heat from the brilliant light.
..And then see if I can throw a fireball with just hand and arm movements.
Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on November 06, 2022, 09:35:04 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Rawrh! Annihilate the training dummy with my pick!
Post by: Nirur Torir on November 10, 2022, 07:01:33 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Attempt to learn telekinesis with a pebble. Try concepts like grab/hold and MINE/extension of body. I expect it will be like the magic edge spell, and either need me to keep focus, or to lock it into place.
Meditate and try to work towards conscious mana recovery. Try to spin my mana like I noticed before falling asleep last night. Carefully remember the warning not to integrate external mana carelessly, but a little bit (1 unit) is probably fine.
Post by: Dwayna DragonFire on November 10, 2022, 11:58:36 pm
Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
Use my awareness of the magic to try to conjure up something. An animal of some kind should be nice.
Post by: Glass on November 12, 2022, 04:58:26 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First off, let's have some food, because I am hungry.
Second... okay, I have these magic tendrils. What can I do with them...
Can I pick something up with the tendrils? That feels kind of like something that could be done.
And what if I touch somebody else's tendrils or core with mine? Let's see if anybody would be willing to help test that.
Post by: Nirur Torir on November 12, 2022, 06:39:50 pm
And what if I touch somebody else's tendrils or core with mine? Let's see if anybody would be willing to help test that.[/b]I'll volunteer for both.
Post by: johiah on November 22, 2022, 01:17:41 pm
(Turn 18, 2nd of day)
A few wisps of cloud scud across the sky, warm sun beaming down. A soft breeze blows across the grass.
Brilliant 'sunlight' eh? I wonder if I can use that..4
Lets try a bit more heat. Take a bigger stick and try to change which end is on fire, aiming to delay the transfer until I can store the fire or I hurt myself.
..After that, lets see if I can absorb a little from my skin instead. Walk towards the forest, seeing if I can absorb extra heat from the brilliant light.
..And then see if I can throw a fireball with just hand and arm movements.Spoiler: Alice (click to show/hide)
Hmm. It looks like the heat is routing itself through your mana. Attaching a string to both ends of a stick allows you to siphon the heat from one to another just fine, and the speed of that transference is based on how quickly you allow the mana to flow between. It seems there's not even really a chance of hurting yourself, since the mana doesn't have to physically pass through you!
2
It's... doable, there's just not that much heat that you can safely take before chills break out over your body. Brr! You note that the Flow seems agitated by your new state of unhealth. Trying to take heat from the 'sunlight' doesn't seem to work, at least for now. Lose 1 health, 1 mana.
5
Taking all the heat you've gathered and storing it in a single ball of mana, you metaphorically pitch this mana construct up into the air, arm motion and mind in sync. When you release the orb from your will it continues flying forward, glimmering brilliantly as it travels. The orb moves too quickly to observe with your inner sight, but after travelling a couple paces the construct pops like a soap bubble, a wave of warmer than usual air blowing over you.
...success? Lose 2 mana, 2 hunger.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Rawrh! Annihilate the training dummy with my pick!
4 ((Extra attempt using bonus turn))
You attack the training dummy with all the ferocity of a swarm of cats. Grass flies, wood chips, training, training, training! When you're done with it and the dust settles, the poor thing is basically a pile of scrap. Your stomach grumbles. Intermediate combat learned, lose 3 hunger, locations updated.
2Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Attempt to learn telekinesis with a pebble. Try concepts like grab/hold and MINE/extension of body. I expect it will be like the magic edge spell, and either need me to keep focus, or to lock it into place.
Meditate and try to work towards conscious mana recovery. Try to spin my mana like I noticed before falling asleep last night. Carefully remember the warning not to integrate external mana carelessly, but a little bit (1 unit) is probably fine.
Hmm. If telekinesis is achievable, those concepts seem to be the wrong ones.
6
Well. It would indeed seem like rotating your core does pull external energy in. You can even see wisps of it in your mind's eye, at the border between the energy not being yours and becoming yours. Pursuing this perception might lead to being able to see external mana.
However, while fiddling with this technique, you may have drawn in more than you really wanted to. Your vision pulses, colors dancing. Invisible spiders crawl upon your back, and you think that eating a handful of grass would be a great way to advance your studies of magic! The sensations fade fairly quickly, though your own warped memories are a disturbing thing to think back on. Gain 2 mana. Lose 2 hunger.
4Spoiler: Brooke (click to show/hide)
Use my awareness of the magic to try to conjure up something. An animal of some kind should be nice.
With all the confidence of a master sculptor, you draw energy from within and, painstakingly over multiple hours, shape the blob of floating energy into a shape that vaguely resembles a frog. Eventually you lose focus, and it returns to being a spherical blob in your mind's eye.
Definitely a drastic improvement in your ability to manipulate the energy! Lose 1 hunger, 1 mana.
You eat quite a few of the shed bits of meat, before moving on to magic practice. Gain 5 hunger, locations updated.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First off, let's have some food, because I am hungry.
Second... okay, I have these magic tendrils. What can I do with them...
Can I pick something up with the tendrils? That feels kind of like something that could be done.
And what if I touch somebody else's tendrils or core with mine? Let's see if anybody would be willing to help test that.
Nathan seems available, and the muttering about 'birds flying in spirals' and 'grass on the skin of the mind' isn't enough to dissuade you from such an enthusiastic test subject!
3
When you reach a tendril inside Nathan's body, it very quickly gets ripped apart by some unseen force, which Nathan reports seemed like his body mana took offense to the intrusion. You weren't really able to pick up or sense anything yourself, so you're just gonna have to take his word for it. Sigh.
3
Making tendrils intersect within the mind's eye is difficult when distance is vague and there's no landmarks, but you manage it. They seem to mostly not interact with each other, though Nathan did find he was able to force a small portion of his mana into yours. This made your tendril vastly harder to control, however, and you barely manage to cut it off before losing control entirely; thankfully, it doesn't whiplash back into your core! Lose 1 mana.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
Thinking of giving some more Fate style concepts a try. Specifically for combat, it might be nice to have combat be single or two turn resolvable things with a decent system, rather than taking multiple days or needing to spin down the time periods for a number of combat only turns. In general I find combat tends to be the least interesting part of TTRPGs and such, so thoughts and opinions are welcome.
Post by: Devastator on November 22, 2022, 09:04:28 pm
Celebrate with some jumping around and cartwheels.
Collect and eat some more pears. Look around for more kinds of food to gather. Collect some short straight wooden rods, like a foot in length, and a longer straight branch similar to a quarterstaff, a bit longer than Alice is tall.
While doing this, try to store more heat energy from the sun on my skin, like before. Can I keep it around in my mana indefinately?
After all this, drag back some more wood for the fire. Tomorrow will be a busy day.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on November 30, 2022, 04:04:45 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Slowly spin my core again, only aiming to gather 1 mana total this time. Try to notice and catch the wisps instead of absorbing them. I'd like to pool the collected external mana together in a string and practice my Magic Edge spell with it, or uselessly release it if that's too much.
Try not to get carried away and go over 10 mana. I'd rather release it uselessly than go above 10.
Post by: Glass on December 02, 2022, 02:25:50 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Well, I have these mana tendril things, I guess. And I think I saw somebody cutting stuff without directly cutting it. Or, well. You get the point.
Let’s see if I can figure out how to stab stuff with my mana tendrils? I mean, if it can interact with stuff, then it seems like the key would just be to make the tip pointy...
Also, the magic is in my body. Can I... I dunno, use it to reinforce my body? I think I have a rough idea of how muscles work, they’re kind of like tendrils, could I use the magic tendrils as extra muscles?
Post by: techno65535 on December 15, 2022, 04:31:01 am
Spoiler: Danni (click to show/hide)
Is it too late to join in? And how are we doing new adds, make actions for previous days or just drop-in at this moment?
Post by: johiah on December 16, 2022, 02:26:51 pm
(Turn 19, 3rd of day)
A breeze seems to be blowing clouds of dust in from the south.
That was an actual fireball! Yay!6
Celebrate with some jumping around and cartwheels.
Collect and eat some more pears. Look around for more kinds of food to gather. Collect some short straight wooden rods, like a foot in length, and a longer straight branch similar to a quarterstaff, a bit longer than Alice is tall.
While doing this, try to store more heat energy from the sun on my skin, like before. Can I keep it around in my mana indefinately?
After all this, drag back some more wood for the fire. Tomorrow will be a busy day.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Those are some really impressive cartwheels!
6
There's not too many pears left, now. Things get gathered, and left by your tent. You also stub your toe on a root. Ouch! Lose 1 health. Hunger is full. Locations updated.
2
While wandering, you don't spot any new forageables.
3
Same as before, taking heat from sunlight seems to be beyond you, but taking that heat as it impacts your skin is certainly doable. More importantly, you figure out how to make a kind of loop with your magic, keeping the heat moving in a circle indefinitely. At least until your control slips, and the construct falls apart. At least you manage to recover most of the energy? Lose 1 mana.
4
Dry wood gets gathered, stacked in with the existing piles near the smoking hut and the campfire.
All this physical activity has sure made you hot and sweaty. Your hand doesn't feel nearly as bad as before!
4Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
Slowly spin my core again, only aiming to gather 1 mana total this time. Try to notice and catch the wisps instead of absorbing them. I'd like to pool the collected external mana together in a string and practice my Magic Edge spell with it, or uselessly release it if that's too much.
Try not to get carried away and go over 10 mana. I'd rather release it uselessly than go above 10.
The only conclusive findings you've come to are that pulling external mana into one's core for later use is entirely possible, and that this exterior mana should definitely not be controlled directly. Not only does trying to directly manipulate it give you piercing headaches and the feeling that snakes are writhing under your skin, but the stuff is also basically impossible to finely shape. Orders of magnitude harder than your personal mana, and the few wisps you manage to grab with your will rapidly dissipate beyond your grasp. Learning to perceive the external mana without directly manipulating it does seem entirely possible, as you draw a few wisps into your core you find yourself beginning to see them just before they enter rather than right at the barrier. Gain 1 mana. Lose 1 hunger.
Eli's cat ears seem to be trying to whisper secrets to you.
3Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Well, I have these mana tendril things, I guess. And I think I saw somebody cutting stuff without directly cutting it. Or, well. You get the point.
Let’s see if I can figure out how to stab stuff with my mana tendrils? I mean, if it can interact with stuff, then it seems like the key would just be to make the tip pointy...
Also, the magic is in my body. Can I... I dunno, use it to reinforce my body? I think I have a rough idea of how muscles work, they’re kind of like tendrils, could I use the magic tendrils as extra muscles?
With a good bit of fiddling, you do manage to manipulate a tendril into having a point. It still doesn't seem to interact with the physical world, but you do manage to make it do something, at least. The tip of the tendril shimmers to your eyes when you focus on trying to make it split and apply force.
6
Still too new to things to even be able to confirm if it's possible, you at least grow massively more skilled in manipulating the energy. You also become able to see that body mana that Nathan was talking about, which kinda seems like on some level it already does what you were thinking of? You can't really control it, though. Also, running mana through your body for extended periods of time leaves part of it feeling numb and tingly. Lose 2 mana, 1 hunger.
(You're welcome to join. There's no bonus turns for late comers at the moment, just drop-in. Knowledge is relatively easily transferable, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Like Aaron, here, you'll be able to catch up to what Nathan is able to do fairly quickly.)Spoiler: Danni (click to show/hide)
Is it too late to join in? And how are we doing new adds, make actions for previous days or just drop-in at this moment?
You wake up in a dust cloud, which is rather unpleasant as far as waking sensations go. Spitting dust from your mouth, you find yourself in a grassy field near a campfire and a rickety wooden shack of some kind. There are people nearby, fiddling with their hands and muttering under their breath.
Spoiler: Locations (click to show/hide)
One more turn, and then the nighttime turn. Unless told otherwise, I'll just skip past nights as I have been doing. If anyone wants to stay awake (beyond basic guard duty, if you want to do that,) they'll get a -1 to all rolls tomorrow but will get the extra turn. Just specify in your next action post.
Sorry for the delay in updating, 'twas finals. They have now been finished. Something I'm curious about, do y'all reach each others' turns or should I be including details like Danni appearing in the turn posts for people who are in the area to notice?
Post by: Devastator on December 17, 2022, 10:23:52 pm
Go head south to the twisty zone full of mana. Keep a look around for any more gatherables.. there any weird materials around this way?
Try another bit of casting. Can I seal off a wand from transferring heat magically? Store heat in a wand by making it so heat can only enter or leave it magically? If it can move around heat, can it block it? Or only allow it to pass one way?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nirur Torir on December 19, 2022, 09:29:40 pm
Spoiler: Nathan (click to show/hide)
"Fascinating. It seems that our inner blobs of mana spin when we sleep, drawing in external mana. I can almost see it as it comes in, but the process leaves me feeling crazy, and like I could learn the deepest mysteries of magic if only Eli's ears could talk."
Eat the smoked meat before it goes bad.
Practice casting Magic Edge. I'd like to be able to cast it quickly, and reliably get the same sized blades over both hands.
Try to create a basic martial arts style with dual Magic Edge hand blades. The style should be focused on speed and agility. For now, I should mostly practice without live blades cast so I don't stab myself, but I should also figure out a comfortable blade size, trying sizes from knives, daggers, and short swords.
Before sleep, tell everyone the basics I've figured out. IE, give everyone an in-character reason to know to try to learn something on my character sheet.
Quote
Something I'm curious about, do y'all reach each others' turns or should I be including details like Danni appearing in the turn posts for people who are in the area to notice?I read them, but it would be fun to see major events explicitly called out like that.
Post by: techno65535 on December 20, 2022, 05:45:40 am
Spoiler: Danni (click to show/hide)
Danni coughs up the dust that got into her lungs before looking around. "Where...am I? This doesn't look like home..." At that comment though she goes cross-eyed for a moment, "Home? What was that again?"
She seems deep in thought trying to remember what and where home is.
Post by: Glass on January 03, 2023, 04:28:28 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Aaron is tired of this mess. He’s not sure what the deal with this experiment is, but he’s certain that it’s only going to be continued suffering for him.
As a result, he goes off to the side of the camp with his fishing rod, and carved some words into the ground:
LET
ME
OUT
Post by: johiah on January 13, 2023, 12:03:56 pm