Far away from anywhere important...Jordan's reflection on his past glories is interrupted by a stark realization! He isn't supposed to be here at all! He was going to the inn! He immediately turns around and goes on his merry way, enjoying a leisurely, uneventful hour-long journey.
At the inn...Bruce, seeing no way to learn more about the situation at his present location, decides to leave for the necromancer's lair!
"I will head back now, hopefully we can find a way out of this.""Good luck!"He leaves, slowly but surely making his way to the mausoleum. Before the hour is out, he has reached his destination.
At the lair of the superlatively terrifying Bernard, Binder of Souls...Samuel has a wonderful idea! If Bernie can cast magic, Skip can cast magic and Skip's friends can cast magic, why not Samuel himself? He resolves to ask Bernie for help!
But first, he needs something to write on! Fortunately, finding a writing implement and paper is simple, the mausoleum being absolutely infested with stationery!
[Literary eloquence roll: 3]
Samuel decides that keeping it simple would be best and writes
"Teach me magic." on a sheet of paper. He shows it to Bernie!
[Bernie's benevolence roll: 1-1]
"Teach you magic? You want ME to teach YOU magic? I spent years, YEARS studying magic at the university to gain even the tiniest spark of actual power, and I had talent, mind you, and YOU, some anonymous asshole that rose from the grave not three hours ago, you want ME to just impart real, actual magic to you as a matter of course? Get out of my sight, damn you, or, I swear to Velusius, I will PERSONALLY give you a fatal object lesson in the practical nature of magic, got it?"Samuel slowly backs away from Bernie. He seems to be getting very red.
"Go faster, asshole. Your wretched unlife depends on it."Samuel runs as fast as possible from Bernie, not stopping for anything. As he runs, he hears an extremely loud yell echo through the halls!
"YOU COME BACK WITHOUT HIS HEAD, YOU ARE GOING TO BECOME A PILE OF FINE DUST, YOU HEAR ME? DUST!"[Samuel attention roll: 1]
Samuel slams into Bruce as he bolts out of the mausoleum, the impact sending both of them flying into different directions!
[Samuel agility: 3+1]
[Bruce agility: 1+1]
Samuel rolls and lands safely! Bruce flops and lands on his face! This obviously hurts quite a bit for Bruce, whose face has sustained some bruising, but both are unharmed in any permanent way.
Meanwhile in the woods of madness...James, feeling somewhat silly at having come all this way in unfamiliar territory that hates his guts (possibly literally) without any clothing or weapons of even the most basic sort, decides to scout out the area, always keeping an eye out for a weapon.
[James' scouting roll: 5-1]
James treks around the cabin and finds out that it has a back and front entrance. The cabin itself has only one story and appears ordinary aside from all the human scalps. Oh gods, the human scalps. There is a small stream gently flowing behind the cabin. Probably where the resident gets his water. Otherwise, the area is a homogenous, featureless wilderness, tall trees and thick bushes as far as the eye can see. If a hypothetical somebody hypothetically caught you and hypothetically brutally murdered you,
nobody would hypothetically ever find your body.
[James' searching roll: 6-1]
While performing his scouting, James finds himself the lucky recipient of astonishing providence! He finds a weapon - a halberd! It is clutched in the hands of what appears to be a guard, fully bedecked in fine chainmail aside from a missing helmet. His remains are mostly decomposed and picked apart by animals, but you can tell why his helmet is missing - his throat has been stabbed multiple times and he has obviously been scalped. Uh oh.
Speedy traveling happens when you travel a long distance during a turn and try to perform some other significant action (at least, that's what I decided just now). Unlike regular travel, it is subject to rolls that decide how fast you get there (if you roll a 1, you don't get there at all).
And, as we can learn from James this turn and Vincent before, faffing about can bring many benefits.
Author
Topic: Life Begins At Death - Epilogue: We Live And Live Again (Read 542921 times)