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Author Topic: Extinction  (Read 215286 times)

King Zultan

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #435 on: September 16, 2020, 04:05:06 am »

Is there some way we could give them a cursed artefact? Or just a radioactive one?
+1 Yes bestow upon them the gift of RADIATION!
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

IronyOwl

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #436 on: September 17, 2020, 12:08:24 am »

Ask Sessha what nobles like and dislike. The best revenge isn't some generic frog in their soup, it's custom tailored to be exactly what they don't like.
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

Devastator

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #437 on: September 17, 2020, 12:33:12 am »

Law enforcement is unlikely but possible.  Law around here is basically just whatever the local leader says, so you'd be rolling the dice with the Duke of the North.. which heavily depends on how friendly the duke is with the family.  Plus it isn't like you're going to catch the guys torturing civilians to bathe in their blood.  Probably.  Uncle sounds relatively uninjured.  It'd be a roll of the dice.

A cursed artifact is hampered by the fact that you don't have one.  But can you make one, that's another question.

Back in Tressington you collect the small amount of money for those fights in the Massif.  Asking about it, you find out that fights very far away from where people live aren't worth much money, although there are occasional exceptions.  For instance, if you killed monsters in the Pink Land, (Which you find out from here, is simply called Area F) there'd be some good money coming your way.

Anyway, the three of you scrape up some more money selling basic loot, Sessha buys another feather to make a bundle of Ice arrows for Willis, and you get to work on making a cursed item.

Do you want it to be annoying, or
Do you want it to be harmful?


Do you want it to work on its own?
Do you want it to be activated, say by someone touching it or wearing it?


Do you want to try and raise more money by selling it to them?
Do you want to try and hide it?
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IronyOwl

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #438 on: September 17, 2020, 01:14:54 am »

Annoying, activated, hidden. Like a jack-in-the-box that's supposed to hold noble schemes, but when they figure out the puzzle it's just a clown puppet calling them doodoo heads. Possibly involving getting things dirty, since if Sessha isn't happy with our cleanliness a bunch of nobles probably definitely won't be.

EDIT: Would it be possible to make a crown with a setting for a gemstone, and the fancier the gemstone the fancier the rest of the crown becomes, only above a certain value it generates a torrent of mud over its wearer? So they get it, see that it comes with a Crappy Gem, Shoddy Gem, and Poor Gem, and is correspondingly fancy when each is tried, so they immediately slot in their Absurdly Expensive Emerald and get a collar full of mud for their trouble?
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 01:24:47 am by IronyOwl »
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

King Zultan

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #439 on: September 17, 2020, 03:00:59 am »

Annoying, work on its own, hidden. I'm thinking something that makes an annoying noise every now and then, but a short noise so they can't find the item. Like a fire alarm that needs new batteries.
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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

NJW2000

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #440 on: September 17, 2020, 04:11:49 am »

Annoying, work on its own, hidden. I'm thinking something that makes an annoying noise every now and then, but a short noise so they can't find the item. Like a fire alarm that needs new batteries.
+1. Maybe something that affects the objects around it, subtly changing their locations so nobody can ever find anything?
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ZBridges

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #441 on: September 17, 2020, 04:15:59 am »

Annoying, work on its own, hidden. I'm thinking something that makes an annoying noise every now and then, but a short noise so they can't find the item. Like a fire alarm that needs new batteries.
+1. Maybe something that affects the objects around it, subtly changing their locations so nobody can ever find anything?
+1.  I'd prefer something intended to remain hidden indefinitely, so that the nobles won't have the opportunity to put two and two together and decide that Uncle, the magical researcher, might have created this random magical artifact.
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Devastator

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #442 on: September 20, 2020, 03:13:35 pm »

You think about some ideas, like maybe something that loses small items near it.. or something that is both annoying and will remain hidden indefinately, but neither of those would work so well.  Moving random stuff around at random sounds difficult to predict what you want it to do, as you'll be making it outside the mansion.  Something that opens or closes doors or windows should work, but it'd be pretty easy to find it after someone notices it happening once.

What you end up making is a sound stone, which the two of you scream repeatedly into it.  Eventually Sessha is happy with one of the screams, and you'll end up hiding it somewhere in the mansion, to scream at random intervals, for perhaps the next couple months.  Should be fine.  As an afterthought, it's adjusted to only scream when nobody is nearby, making it much harder to find.

How you end up hiding it.. well, the three of you are going to head back there to pick up Uncle.  And Sessha tells you to break loose and run around all over 'looking' for Uncle.  While that's going on, she'll go find somewhere to hide it.

And so you do!  You duck past the guards, and go down a hallway.  And up a staircase.  And into and out of bedrooms, Sessha did tell you to not deliberately break things, but she did not make you wash your hands before coming over, too, so there's some of that as well.

After a few minutes of this, you run into a long hallway on the ground floor.  Its sides are lined with a bunch of alcoves with cool paintings in them, not normal portraits of people, but cool pictures of monsters and a woman on a horse stabbing them with her spear.  There's some blobby things with thousands of eyes, a giant armoured dinosaur-thing with big nasty spikes, and a huge spider that is dripping venom from its fangs.

That one has a stand below it too, with an awesome looking fang that must be from that spider under a glass cover.  You lift up the cover for a better look, and the fang is actually sitting on an odd white disk.. similar to the cold emblem, but different.  The edge is clear but faceted, like a gemstone, and sparkly and glittering.  You try to touch the fang, and the fang just sort of vanishes, leaving only the disk, with a bright green engraved spider on it.

So you touch that instead, just to see what happens.  Unfortunately, nothing happens.

While you consider taking it along for a minute, you think this might be a little bit too important for them to ignore, so you grab the somewhat awkward glass stand and put it back over the diamond emblem, whereupon the fang just sort of reappears.  Must be some kind of odd magical effect.

Anyway, back to running around randomly until someone finds you.  And as you get moving again, you hear a scream.  Sessha must have hidden your object.

In fact, you hear a lot of screams, particularly when running through what must be the kitchens.  Although maybe that was from you jumping up onto the counter so you could grab a quick snack off this tray full of cheeses.  Tasty cheeses.  You might have had a few more than was healthy, but why not.  You might also have eaten the entire tray in the space of a minute.

Anyway, the screams continue, (maaybe it's being activated a little more often than you wanted), so it is probably time to head back to the main hall again and meet up with Sessha.

..Who isn't there.  Nor are the guards.  Nor are the nobles.  They must be around somewhere else.  Hiding?  Looking to cuff you guys around the neck?

Well, you can trust Sessha to make sure Uncle gets out of the chaos, and you know Willis is going to be fine, too.  If he does get trapped he can climb out a window or something.  So you'll just stay here near the door and make sure you can get out fine, and wait until Sessha comes back or it it's starting to get a little too hot or something, as you can just head back to the inn if you get seperated.

While waiting, you examine this room some more.  It's not bad, there's a corner fireplace and some very well-stuffed chairs there.  There's a bookkcase, but it's mostly empty, having only a few books and a few plaques indicating awards given for various things.

There are some wall hangings.  These aren't that interesting, they're depicting simple scenes like a mural of the area this mansion was built on, and a big picture of that hero again.  You do idly play around with the thread a little, and the thread kinda crumbles at your touch.. they must be very old.

A few people come in, mostly servants, but they stop and run away the moment they see you.  Word must have gotten around, as they stop coming after a minute or two, and you move onto amusing yourself looking at the big mechanical clock in one corner.

Standing tall, you take a closer look at this obviously valuable antique.  There's some fine engraving on the clockface indicating it was made from someone in the old empire of Losoa, which you know is on a whole different continent on the other side of the world.  And that it barely still exists today, being basically a one-city remnant.

Next up you start looking through the cabinets.  A couple are locked, but with sufficient force you manage to pry them open.  Inside are just boring stuff like cups, plates, doilies, coasters.. and a nice hidden wine rack with a few bottles in it.  These you think you might take, and very carefully you pull a couple out, grabbing the bottlenecks in your mouth, before adding them to your inventory.

Eventually, a couple of guards burst in together, and they still look nasty.  And frightened.  Time to leave.  You scootch out the door, across the grounds, and clamber up and over the fairly short outer wall.  You rest for a moment in an alley to see if they're chasing (they're not), and walk back to your inn, hoping Sessha and Willis made it there.

Both of them did, and, well, so did Uncle.  Sessha says that it'd be a very good idea to leave now, so the three of you do, heading off to the nearby port town and further adventures.

Sessha does have a few words for you as you're collecting your stuff and hitting the road.

"I'm starting to see what that whole Anathema to the Concordat thing might be about, Trence.  I mean, nothing caught fire..."  She then stops and looks at you for a moment, before continuing. "...but we did just about everything else.

"Still, we all made it out of there okay."

Chapter 5 Complete!
« Last Edit: October 28, 2020, 03:38:31 am by Devastator »
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Devastator

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #443 on: September 20, 2020, 10:54:04 pm »

You're not sure what to make of the ocean.  Sometimes it's blue, sometimes it's green, sometimes it's gray.  And always it's windy.

Which is good, because you don't want to be stuck at sea for forever.  It would be bad.  The ship is interesting enough, but you're sure it'd be boring.

The food is also not great?  There's a bunch of chickens and such going around, so there's some fresh meat, but it's heavy on salted meat and biscuits, which are these really hard things that are edible enough when you soak them for a while.  There are rats around, but you are worried about what the sailors might think of you if you ask for one cooked.

Ship beer tastes different than land beer, but doesn't seem that much different than what you're used to.

One thing you notice is that everyone is tense, very tense, when another ship passes.  Sometimes the crew recognize it as an obviously friendly vessel, some kind of trader or a fisher or a whaler, in which case they greet each other with cheers, and proceed on.  Sometimes they are more apprehensive, as the two boats slide along carefully.  This happens when they meet another of the high-hulled oceangoing ships, because, as the crew says, they might be pirates.

They then go on to tell you how pirates are either on small boats or the big ocean-going ones, and although they're mostly just carrying food and supplies for the island, on the way back they'll be carrying rare goods and maybe artifacts.  And that some of the ships we passed might be robbing them in a month or so, for the return voyage.

Still, there's not that much to do, and you find yourself looking for something more to do.

How does Trence help contribute (or entertain himself) on the sea voyage?
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Egan_BW

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #444 on: September 20, 2020, 11:31:18 pm »

Maybe we can fish?
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Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.

IronyOwl

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #445 on: September 21, 2020, 12:22:41 am »

Climbing into the rigging and spotting approaching ships sounds like a safe thing for someone reliable like us to do
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Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

ZBridges

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #446 on: September 21, 2020, 12:27:43 am »

See whether the navigator would be willing to teach us celestial navigation.
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NJW2000

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #447 on: September 21, 2020, 03:20:25 am »

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King Zultan

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #448 on: September 21, 2020, 09:27:13 am »

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The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

Devastator

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Re: Extinction
« Reply #449 on: September 22, 2020, 02:42:03 am »

You're good at fishing, everyone says so.

..There's just one problem.  The water is waay down there.  Before this, the only way you've fished is by pulling fish out of the water with your hands.

And you don't quite think that's the right way to go about it.  Getting back up seems to be the challenge.  Still, there must be some way..



You are Willis Naver.  Today is a good day, you got to tie up your buddy Trence in some kind of rope harness.  And now you're going to dangle him off the side of the boat while it's moving, with him upside down, so he can scoop out fish.

And all the bored sailors were so happy to help out.  You know well what that mean.. this is totally going to go wrong, but in an awesome way.

Anyway, Down he goes!

Ooh.  Well, good thing we have potions.  That's gonna be rough on the face.  You wonder for a moment if he's going to turn into a creature again where you can see, but no, not lucky enough yet.  Some day you'll see Trence as a doggy or whatever.  Maybe he's an armadillo.  Or a snake.  Or a goblin.  Goblin-Trence would be cool.

Back to the action, it looks like he's ready for another try.

..Ooh, that's the pointy one.  What are those called again, swordfish?  Well, we do have potions, and here he comes back up.  Shouldn't be too bad, and it should be tasty enough once it turns into fish steaks.



Right, you're Trence Colunstin again, and maybe fishing wasn't the best idea.. apparently you're supposed to do it with nets when you aren't moving, and with lines when you are.  Well, that and ocean fish are a lot bigger than stream fish, which makes sense.  And apparently there are ones big enough to swallow you whole, which would have been nasty..

Well, time to go on to your next idea, making sense of the rigging.  You've always loved to climb, and this rigging looks so complicated.

..and not a lot of fun.  It's not too bad at deck level, but you have a bit of an odd feeling when you're in the air, with just so much wind and nothing else around.  For some reason you felt differently when you were in trees, but up here on the creaky masts, surrounded by so much empty air..  it just doesn't feel right.  You can make your way okay on the rigging, you can tie some knots and hold things, but this just doesn't seem like the place for you, up in the dead air like this.



Celestial navigation is a relatively simple thing, with everyone innately knowing what direction they are facing when outdoors.  The job done is to determine where you are on the world, which can be done with complicated tools that look at the sky.

The navigator goes through a bunch of steps, writes some things down, opens up some tables and charts.. you can sort of follow the process okay, but you want to try it out for yourself, and the navigator is really really careful with his stuff.  Since you started following him around he has been keeping them locked up, to the point of putting them in his hammock while he sleeps.

Fine!  You'll get a chance, sooner or later.  He'll mess up.  And you'll be right there to take advantage.



It's been a few weeks, and that chance has yet to come.  Uncle eventually noticed you all-but-salivating and reined you in a little, but you haven't forgotten.  The rest of the trip was pretty okay, passing lots of small pretty islands, some of which had small villages of people on them.  Uncle tells you that these people are pretty much independant fishers, but there are some very interesting old artifacts on some of these islands, remnants of Trisamor.  And some are even older!  But it's mostly just small fragments, as the wind and rain wears these islands down pretty well.

The port is.. amazing.  The island has a largely complete, mostly intact wall.  Around the whole thing.  And it's made of that funny white stuff..  the new wooden port and buildings clustered around the edge seem tiny and boring next to that massive wall, which you can now see, has a big chunk broken off it right where the port is, allowing access to the interior.  Uncle looks and you and nods.

"Yes.  This is where your statue was found, around two hundred years ago..  But.. I can't help but think you would have remembered this place if you've ever seen it before."

You'd have to agree with that.

To be continued.
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