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You light a torch that you coated with a special resin to make it very smoky, which you procured from the market for this purpose. (Lost 10 Gold.)

When you hold this very smoky torch in front of the fans, nearly instantly the flame goes out and the smoke dissipates. Seems like success! And you still have some of the torch's resin to study at home, so that you can learn more about its fascinating relationship to negative energy. (Gained Negation.)

You walk back into town with a spring in your step, confident that your repair was a success.

That worked out fairly well.

Later in the day, after you've already returned to reading one of your tomes of magic, you get a knock on your door. It's Mayor Cos. Cos's spectacles give him a scholarly air, but he has a ready, friendly smile. His belt is overburdened with various pouches and tools hanging from it, including a book pouch, a sheath for a pen, lockpicks, and a bag of dice.

How do you know Cos, besides as mayor?

1.We once worked together replanting after a death cloud came through.
2.We sometimes fly kites together on the commons.
3.We were in a band together before he was mayor.

Wait, really? How on earth are you expected not to think it's about asking him to dance when it says it's about asking him to dance?

You think that a working mine of the ancients would be impossible for the creature to live in, so you decide to try to revive the old machinery. When you get to the old mine entrance, you touch one of the iron rails leading inside and raise your other hand to the sky. Willing yourself to be a conduit between sky and metal, you intone, "Fodina aureus, reviviscat!"

Lightning strikes your raised hand and flows down the tracks into the mine. You can feel it dissipating into the huge underground structure, but at this point your skill with automation is great enough that you can increase the power you channel in response, until you begin to feel the distant thrum of machinery through the iron tracks. Loud clanks begin to sound from within the mine.

You can hear the stomping footfalls of the dodecapede headed for the mine entrance, and you and Tal take cover to watch the beast emerge. It looks positively annoyed.

But it doesn't see you and Tal, and it stomps off to look for a less noisy place to live.

You now seem to be the proud owner of an operational gold mine. Exploring it, you discover four hundred gold's worth of nuggets that you split with Tal, and you can see that more automated golem claws are chiseling away at veins throughout the mine. (Gained 200 Gold.) The mine looks as though its deposits are nearly used up, but if you're patient, there should still be plenty of gold left for one person.

Before you leave, you also cobble together some automatic doors for the entrance to keep out looters, now that the dodecapede is no longer there to scare them away. You think such occasional projects for the mine's upkeep will end up being quite instructive. (Gained Automation.) You resolve to check back on the mine later and collect whatever additional gold has been procured.

You meet up with Tal's clients, all grizzled farmers, at a tavern back in town. Unfortunately, they seem completely unwilling to pay Tal because she is unable to produce the head of the monster for them.

"But we dealt with your problem!" Tal complains. "What does it matter whether we have a head?"

"Sorry, we're traditionalists," a grizzled old man with a long beard says. "But thanks for trying."

Tal shoots you an accusing look. You think she might go on hunts alone in the future. Money aside, this was probably a little bad for her reputation. (Decreased Tal Relationship.)

Since you and Tal are both tired from your travels and the hunt, you part ways with few words and go to bed a little early.

Between your excitement at your discoveries from the sunken academy, the unexpected arrival of the negative-energy cloud, as well as Tal's invitation to the hunt, you have been delaying your decision about your relationship with the town. When you were younger, you imagined becoming an official town wizard. You still have some hope that if the town saw everything you could do for them, people might set aside their superstitions about magic. But perhaps that is naive.

What will your relationship to the town be?

1.Ask Mayor Cos if I can be an official town wizard.
2.I'd prefer to be a quiet benefactor of the town, subtly helpful.
3.I owe the town nothing and will do what I want.

"You know," you say slowly, "I've been starting to think I've been overlooking the obvious myself."

Tal catches your meaning: her eyes widen. "Us? But…won't that maybe ruin our friendship?"

"Maybe it'll take it to places it couldn't otherwise go," you say.

Tal seems to be genuinely considering your offer.

How far do you want to try to take this tonight?

1.Just a kiss, and I'll be happy.
2.I'll see if she wants to stay the night to cuddle.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Noodles came to life?" you ask Tal.

She looks shocked. "You can do that?" she murmurs in a low voice.

"Well, I can't do it here, but since the whole town's here, we can do it pretty much anywhere else."

Tal takes a cautious look at the reveling townsfolk, and then the two of you quietly sneak off to a nearby alley, where the sound of the fiddle can still be heard. Tal unties Noodles from her waist and presents the stuffed monkey above her head.

"Elekron potens, simia vita simulacra!"

Lightning flashes from the sky to your raised hand to the monkey, and just like that, Tal has a dancing monkey in her hands. She sets down Noodles, who flops from one pose to the next with a surprising sense of rhythm. The monkey's enthusiasm is contagious, and before you know it, the three of you are dancing together, stuffed-monkey style, and Tal and you are laughing like mad. (Increased Tal Relationship.)

"How is this possible?" Tal says, giggling.

"Well, it's really just an illusion," you say. "It's your expectations that are driving Noodles' behavior. It's just a kind of automated make-believe."

"Weird," Tal says, shaking her head. But then she goes back to dancing.

"I think I saw the lightning strike over here," you hear someone say around the corner. Tal quickly grabs Noodles, and you hurry in the opposite direction out of the alley.

"We can go to my place," you offer. That sounded innocuous enough. You think.

"Sure," Tal says. "Party at Foo's place. I never really feel like I fit in at these things anyway."

You head homeward, each holding a hand of the stuffed monkey between you who continues to shimmy to the distant beat. (Increased Humor.)

Back at your place, you and Tal chat about everything on Tal's mind, while Noodles rearranges your food-shaped furniture into a food fort.

"Oh, and my mother has a new boy toy," Tal says. She takes a seat on your meat-wrap-shaped bench. "Get this—he's almost as young as us."

"Ew," you say.

"I know! They met in the mountains. She was just going climbing alone on a lark—"

"Alone?"

"Right? So there's an avalanche, and this guy sees this pile of snow carry Mother into a ravine, and he says to himself he'd better go rescue her. And when he does, and hears about how she's just living alone in a shack, he gives her a huge bag of gold!"

"Does that mean your mother's rich now?" you ask.

"All the money's gone, story of Mother's life. But that happened a little while ago." Tal sighs. "Still. Why can't that happen to me? Where's my lover and pile of gold?"

Did you want to act on that opening?

1.Yes. I'd like to be the lover; still working on the gold.
2.No. I'm not interested in Tal that way.

Tal offers you some of her pork, and you share.

"So, what have you been up to since we got back?" you ask Tal.

"Got a hunt that's been giving me trouble," Tal says. "Dodecapede descending from the mountains to eat crops. I've tried twice now to follow it to its lair, but having twelve legs apparently makes you a crazy fast climber. Followed the tracks into some mines, then I lost the trail." She glances at you, then nudges you repeatedly. "Eh? Eh? Wanna come? Wanna come?"

1.Offer to assist in the hunt, free of charge.
2.Offer to help in exchange for half Tal's fee: 200 gold.
3.I pass. I'd rather spend time studying magic.

You cozy up with your tome of automation and rapidly forget about the howling winds outside. (Gained Automation.)

The next day is spent rebuilding and replanting, an effort that the whole town takes part in. The whole town except you, anyway—you get distracted wondering about the origins of the Negative Sea and spend the whole day with your nose in books. (Gained Negation.) (Gained Ancient History.)

Townsfolk fix wooden gates that have been eaten through, dig up withered grass and plant new seed, and slaughter livestock that won't have enough to eat in the coming months.

And then, as is traditional, there is a party the next day to celebrate everything the town still has.

The market square is festooned with colored paper streamers and lit with red, orange, and yellow glowbugs swarming around, illuminating the gathered townsfolk. A greathog carcass turns on a spit in the center of the square. You wonder whether it belonged to the swineherd who reportedly died in the cloud. The smell of cooking meat hangs thick in the air.

The fiddler, a young person with spiky hair and ample piercings, plays a merry tune to entertain the people in the long line for food. An area to the side is cleared for dancing, and many Akritonians are already reeling through tunnels of hands and do-si-doing around their partners.

The fiddler finishes their song, and everyone claps. Before they can start another, one woman sings loudly: "Who's got a lotta luck?"

And the crowd around her sings back, "We do!"

The fiddler gamely accompanies Akriton's favorite song.

Who's got a lotta luck? We do!
We got our loves, our friends, and you!
The world is broken, but we've awoken
To all our treasures true.

We thought the world would end. Look now!
We got a lovely world, and how!
Smiling faces and warm embraces
Will happen anyhow!

Who's got a lotta luck? We do!
Loved ones and good companions true!
If once again the world should end,
We'd start this song anew!

What do you think of the crowd's song?

1.I like the theme of trying to stay cheerful amid sadness.
2.It's oversimplified. People aren't never-ending fonts of cheer.
3.Needs more cowbell.