Episode 33: More factions get involved
ask the survivors how many attacked the town.
Reports vary. Two of the survivors claims to have seen only seen one or two few ash ghouls, and the third claims to have seen seen three, plus a creature he didn't recognize floating over the town.
:
"What did it look like?"
:
"It was a bloated humanoid monster wearing robes. Tentacles instead of a face and a single massive proboscis.":
"And it was floating over the town?":
"Yes. Never saw it hurt anyone. It was like it was just watching the attack."That concerns you. Levitate is not a difficult spell, but if monsters are using it...
:
"Thank you, citizen."Get/help squad to investigate scene for signs of battle. Spell residue, loose arrows, impact marks, etc.
There are four teams of three troopers. You're with Strillian and a male orc whose name you have a difficult time remembering. Gro-dush or Gru-dorsh or something. Orc vowels are a bit different and it's not always easy for you to distinguish the o/a/u sounds.
The orc wants to scout out the woods on the edge of town, but Strillian outranks him and it doesn't take much to convince him that you should be gathering as much information as you can. The orc is little help there, but between you and Strillian over the course of two hours you come to the following conclusions:
1) There appear to be no stray arrows anywhere.
2) There are a few fresh scorch marks on the wooden buildings, but it appears largely incidental. No infrastructure has been destroyed.
3) The dead have a mix of heavy blunt trauma wounds and burns.
4) You find no corpses of any ash creatures
:
"The wounds are consistent with Ash ghouls. They bludgeon with their fists and cast shock spells. I don't know about the slug creature, but these people look very much like they were killed by ash ghouls.":
"How do you distinguish between flame and electrical burns?":
"It's difficult sometimes, but generally flame spells bathe an area in flames, so the coverage is wider than a shock attack that generally strike intensely at a single point and penetrate it deeply. Also..."He pulls the boots off the corpse, and shows you that one foot has a burn mark similar to the mark on its chest.
:
"...electrical attacks have both entrance and exit wounds. The lightning hit him in the chest, traveled through his body and into ground through his foot. Nobody casting a fire spell would deliberately attack the bottom of his feet like that."ask some of the survivors if they happened to have been having any strange dreams prior to the attack, possibly involving a tall dunmer in a golden mask.
None of the survivors claim to remember having any dreams at all, but one does object a bit too strongly.
:
"Excuse me, citizen. Have you had any strange dreams recently?":
"No, sera! I have had no disturbing dreams at all. Not one.":
"No dreams at all? Possibly about a tall dunmer in a golden mask?":
"Of course not, sera! I never dream.":
"Never? You've never had a dream?":
"No, sera. Never...truly. Not even as a child. Praise ALMSIVI."...oh, wait. Doesn't the tribunal temple occasionally persecute people based on their dreams? Maybe you can draw something out of him.
:
"I ask because one of the survivors might have claimed to have had a dream about the return of the sixth house, sleepers awakening, and Dagoth Ur."He goes pale. Well, pale for a dunmer, anyway. You look him in the eye. He's scared.
:
"But I guess you don't know anything about that. Thank you for your time, citizen."He rushes off. Strillian looks puzzled.
:
"He was lying. But why? And what was he hiding?"Speechcraft is now 18
tell the General
getting the general to grant us leave
The following morning Entius sends most of the troopers back to Gnisis. Only you, him, Strillian and two orcs remain. You approach Entius.
:
"Excuse me, sir. Any chance I could return as well? I'd like to talk to the General about what's happened here."
:
"Sorry, son. I'm under direct orders from General Darius to keep you here until he gives the ok for you to return."don't go AWOL!
Frustrated, but unable to come up with a good argument to the contrary, you return to your patrol. Within a few hours, a small contingent of Redoran guards arrive from Ald Velothi. Entius greets them.
:
"Welcome, friends. You certainly took your time showing up. Isn't this village supposed to be under your protection?"
:
"Don't tell us our business, guardsman. What happened here?":
"So far as we can tell a bunch of ash ghouls and...something new...all showed up and killed everyone who wasn't dunmer. Half the survivors fled, the remaining three are still here. This is the third attack that I'm aware of in the past week. We lost a guard on patrol several days go, and an ash ghoul brazenly marched into Pelagiad shortly after. My guess is that Khuul was selected because it was the easiest target.":
"What were they after? Why attack at all?":
"We don't know. But some of the survivors claim that the creatures ignored them during the attack, and no dunmer were killed. It's possible this is some sort of racial cleansing."The Redoran guard ponders that briefly.
:
"If so, there will be more attacks.":
"Very likely.":
"Alright. I'm in charge here now. You can go home."Entius smiles amicably.
:
"Sorry, I have my orders.":
"Very well. Just stay out of my way then."You're a bit surprised at the animosity. You can't quite tell if it's simply friendly rivalry between between different services, or something deeper. Ald Velothi is closer to Khuul than Gnisis, and Khuul is a Redoran town. That the silt strider chose to flee to the imperial fort at Gnisis rather than the Redoran fort is probably a bit insulting to them.
Your thoughts are interrupted by a female scream.
Redoran and Imperial forces rush together towards the sound, only to find a dunmer woman, one of the survivors, standing in the town center clutching her arm. Lowering his weapon, one of the soldiers approaches the woman. They lock gazes, but still the woman says nothing.
:
"What's the matter, miss?"She looks up. Then she releases the grip on her arm and holds it up for all to see.
She has a corprus blister.
The next hour is a muddle of worried mumbling and growing fear as the survivors are confined inside one of the buildings while the soldiers debate what to do. Strillian marks the town center, the recalls to Gnisis to report the news to the General. Morbid curiosity strikes you as you wonder what would happen if you were to move a rock or something in the place where he'll reappear, but you decide not to test it. Within minutes he reappears.
:
"Michael, I have orders for you. You're to return to Gnisis with me immediately.":
"What's up?"He shakes his head.
:
"Darius wouldn't tell me."The two of you check in with Entius to inform him of your reassignment, then Strillian teleports you both back to Gnisis. You notice a distinct lack of any vacuum-sucking noises or rush of air before or after transport. You ask Strillian questions about the process while the two of you head from the barracks to the General's quarters.
:
"What happens to the air in the spot we arrive?":
"It swaps places with the empty space we leave when we teleport out.":
"What about the ground? Can you swap that too? Or if you hold onto a boulder or something can you teleport out a chunk of it?":
"It can be done. But it's not easy. Moving air or water isn't difficult, or loose sand even. But ripping apart objects takes a lot of energy, and even more if the objects have a magical aura. Enchanted items, living creatures and spellcasters especially. Every now and then you hear stories about a mage using recall to teleport limbs off an opponent, but I've never seen it done and I've never spoken to anyone who claims to have seen it done. It's so energy-intensive to do that it's simply easier to smother them with fire and lightning instead. As for the ground, sure you could deliberately stand in water or sand and take a chunk of that with you, but remember you have to move material on the destination side too. Trading sand for water, or similar is easy enough. In fact, construction materials are often transported that way. But generally nobody replaces chunks of floor at the mage guild with ground from outside, for example.":
"What about teleporting entire creatures away? Could you dig a pit, mark it, then fill it with lava and teleport someone into it?":
"That's...clever, but impractical. Recall centers around the caster. Even if you could do it, you'd be in the lava too.":
"Fire resistance?"He nods.
:
"Ok. I see how that would work. But any competent caster would feel the mystical field forming and resist it. You probably didn't notice it since you're not a trained caster. And having just teleported you, I can tell you that your aura is weak. I could probably teleport you against your will, but anyone with even an inkling of Mysticism knowledge would be able to push back.":
"Wait, you're saying you could teleport me even if I didn't want to go?":
"You tell me. I just teleported you. Could you have resisted it?":
"...ummm...no? How?"He shrugs
:
"Simply reject my field when I extend it. The difficulty of extending your field increases exponentially with distance. But that works both ways. The strength of your own field is exponentially stronger closer to you...and you can't get much closer to you than you. For me to overpower your field, even if I touch you...it's just impractical. Once you get around to getting some proper training you'll see what I mean. You have no control....not even awareness of your own field. You don't know how to reject influence, so anyone could teleport you. But I'd be hard pressed to forcefully teleport even your average 10 year old with only a couple weeks Mysticism practice. To overcome a reasonably trained caster like myself...and Mysticism is by no means my specialty, I doubt anyone short of a Telvanni mage-lord could do it.":
"What about-":
"We're here, Recruit."Having arrived at General Darius' office, you see a familiar face.
:
"Recruit, this is...a high ranking officer working for the Empire. Caius, this is the Recruit we spoke about."
:
"Michael, it's a pleasure to meet you. General, would you leave us alone please."You notice that it's not a question. The General notices too, and is visibly annoyed, but simply nods and leaves with Strillian.
:
"Now then, I understand that you are knowledgeable about certain things. I wonder if you'd be willing to tell me what you know about the Sixth House."
Level 5
Health 50/50
Armor rating: 1
25.7 Strength (20)
33.1 Speed (30)
35.7 Agility (30)
34.1 Endurance (30)
42.0 Intelligence (40)
42.8 Personality (40)
54.0 Luck (50)
Numbers in parenthesis are starting values
27 Acrobatics (0)
21 Athletics (5)
5 Armorer (0)
5 Block (0)
5 Heavy Armor (0)
5 Medium Armor (0)
5 Unarmored (0)
5 Blunt Weapon
5 Hand to Hand
5 Longblade
5 Shortblade
5 Spear
5 Alchemy (0)
5 Enchanting (0)
18 Speechcraft (10)
6 Mercantile (0)
* Cursed ring of athletics and drain health
* Chitin spear
* Imperial steel Cuirass
* Imperial steel helm
* Imperial steel shield
* Combat belt
* Commoner's shirt
* Commoner's pants
* Tennis shoes
* Interior coinpurse, containing:
* 44 gold
* 1 Standard Restore Health potions
* 1 empty bottle
* 2 soulgems of uncertain size
Stashed under your bed in the imperial barracks at Fort Darius
* Steel tanto, with scabbard and carrying straps
* Chitin club
* Steel longsword
* Imperial chain cuirass
Backpack (also under your bed in the barracks at Fort Darius)
Main compartment:
* A strange note that you don't know where it came from
* Letter of introduction from Ranis Athrys
* Colovian fur "helm"
* Commoner's belt
* Yellow notepad with 55 pages left
* 1 divine intervention scroll, trigger words 'take me home'
* 1 pen
* Apprentice mortar and pestle
* "20% cooler" Rainbow Dash t-shirt,
* Denim pants
* a cellphone and wallet with picture ID and $30 in cash
Small compartment
* 122 gold
* 1 ampoule Pod
* 1 bread
* 7 bungler's bane
* 3 hypha facia
* 1 kwama cuttle
* 11 luminous russula
* 1 rat meat
* 3 saltrice
* 5 spore pod
* 6 violet coprinus
ampoule Pod - [1]Restore speed
Bread - [1]Restore Fatigue
bungler's bane - [1]Drain agility
coda flower - [1]Restore luck
hypha facia - [1]Drain
kwama cuttle [1]Restore health
luminous russula [1]Paralysis
rat meat - [1]Poison
saltrice [1]Restore endurance
spore pod - [1]Paralysis
Small Kwama Egg - [1]Restore Fatigue
violet coprinus - [1]Water Walking
What do you do?
Author
Topic: Marooned in Morrowind (FINISHED) (Read 408214 times)