Field Mission 6: A Day in Thay, Part 1

[balancemod]

oh man best of luck out there dudes NAVIGATION Click here for the RNG thread! Ready or not, rested or not, it's time to get moving, Reclaimers. You've got a very, very long day ahead of you. And another one. And another one. And, you get the joke. Early Friday morning, with the Director there to see them off, the Reclaimers load up into the Bureau's transportation orbs for the sixth time since this whole ordeal began, and make their way to about a mile or two outside of Thay. It's important to try to stick to the story, at least — that you're all visitors from a faraway school, here to spend some time with the students and faculty of Boarbumps. As much as Lucretia would have liked to join you, she can't. None of the other leading members of the Bureau of Balance can. Whoever enters Thay, after all, is entering a bubble, after all. A time trap. Nobody will be able to leave until the Relic, the Lamp of Undoing, is either retrieved or destroyed. Someone needs to be able to continue if you all can't. 1. SEVEN O'CLOCK ALREADY As we noted in the OOC post, prompts on this log will be a quick few sentences of specific things happening during each hour. It's expected that Reclaimers will be seeing all of these events multiple times! So feel free to play with them as you see fit. If you're not sure if something you want to do would warrant a roll, please ask us in the RNG thread. ○ The Reclaimers have arrived in Thay, much to the curiosity of the highly intelligent, occasionally highly ... suspicious ... residents. Nevertheless, they recognize you as visiting, esteemed students, and, though perhaps still suspicious, welcome you into their fold. Also, as a note: Every time the relic is used, time is reset to this moment. ○ Boarbumps Academy for the Magically Inclined opens its doors to the Reclaimers. This is your first opening to explore the school — afternoon classes begin in an hour. ○ Rainer Arunsun, The Regent of Thay and Highest of the Hermetic Order of Red Wizards, can be seen watching the new arrivals by the entrance to the Red Keep. It's difficult to discern any emotion on her face. Shortly before 1 p.m., she retreats back inside. ○ Afternoon classes at Boarbumps begin, starting with a lecture on the magical circuits of the common toad. If you happen to sit in on this one, as a visitor from another school, you may be asked to assist in the dissection. You will be heckled by the rest of the class as deemed fit. ○ Erinne and Adriel can be seen within the hallways of Boarbumps arguing in a very heated manner. Some... less than choice words are exchanged between the two before one, or both of them take their wands out and begin throwing magic missiles at each other. No one knows why the fight starts, but the two have had bad blood before, and this isn't the first quarrel to happen at Boarbumps between them. A staff member arrives on the scene and is accidentally paralyzed by a misfire. ○ The town proper, surrounding the Red Keep, is open for a farmer's market. A bountiful harvest of goods are on display, but in particular, Thay is known for its amazing quality of medicinal herbs and magical reagants, many of which are rare without travel to the area. The merchants typically shoo students off, unless they have a hall pass provided to them by the faculty to retrieve something of import for class. ○ The second afternoon class at Boarbumps begins. Are you three or four time loops in and in desperate need of a nap? This class, The History of Boarbumps, is for you. You will be treated to a long and droning lecture about how the students attending during Boarbumps' very first semester banded together to stop a particularly plucky troll. Which you'd think would be an interesting tale. It is not. ○ Someone's enchanted several books at the library to begin rattling and shaking from the shelves themselves. All over the racks, spines pop out from their homes and fall to the ground, magically lift up and return to some other, non-Dewey decimal approved locale. Other books begin dancing — yes, you've read this correctly — dancing on the tables. Leon would be going into cardiac arrest at the moment, but it looks like someone's playing a prank in here. Again. This librarian looks far less tilted by this. It must be a somewhat normal afternoon for her. ○ Over in the center of town, music, a single violin playing a mournful tune, begins to play. It's unclear where exactly it's coming from. ○ The third and final afternoon class at Boarbumps — Fighting with Fire — begins. The professor, known to be slightly more unorthodox in her teaching methods, will recruit any Reclaimer who happens to be there to defend themselves from the students' incoming fireball spells. The potency of the fireballs themselves range from the tickle of a candle, to that one time you ate a ghost pepper, to one particularly fiery spell that might actually hurt you. ○ There's a scream in the girls' bathroom on the 3rd floor of Boarbumps. Anyone who enters realizes, very quickly, that no one is actually in there. Apparently, this particular lavatory is haunted. ○ Szass Astrosz dips class to go visit the local shrines within the town of Thay. He's been known to skip class before, so his departure from the halls of Boarbumps is rather nondescript. He spends time there praying quietly to his god. ○ There's a slight catastrophe over in the Town Square. That is to say, a giant spider seems to have escaped from Boarbumps and is terrorizing the vendors, to everyone's surprise. Subdue or dispatch it, it's up to you. ○ There's a scheduled council meeting to take place within the Red Keep, a usual weekly affair where Rainer, Casariel, Onerion, Gromph, and the rest meet to discuss matters of the town. Today's is canceled, as Gromph is called out to take care of the arachnid chaos currently convening around the Town Square. ○ Someone places a standing mirror around the corner of Boarbumps. If you happen to stand in front of it, it doesn't show your reflection — rather, it shows the person that you desire most. The mirror is gone by 5 p.m. ○ Cleanup of whatever damage the spider did is underway. In the meantime, the faculty of Boarbumps and the Hermetic Order of Red Wizards invite the Reclaimers to a small dinner in one of the public meeting rooms at the Red Keep. Every member of the Red Wizards are present, aside from Onerion Wyvernspur and Brian Darling. ○ The shops around the town of Thay begin to close for the evening. People are somewhere between annoyed and blase — the spider escaping was new enough, but weird Magic Things are, as you can imagine, pretty commonplace. ○ Over at The Sleepy Willow, cozy, fluffy pillows are arranged on the floor around a large fireplace. The owners will also serve you dinner, if you decide to skip the meal at The Red Keep. This may be one of the only peaceful moments you have to study everything that you've learned thus far. ○ No matter where you are in Thay, you'll feel the ground rumble underneath your feet. The residents largely pass it off as an earthquake, but will note that they have become much more frequent lately. ○ Towards the latter half of the hour, the rumbling within the school grounds causes several of the animal cages used in Onerion's Wondrous Beasts class to come unfastened as they begin to escape. Shortly thereafter, various beasts of all shapes and sizes are set free and begin running for freedom. None of them seem intent on hurting students, but they look to make an exit out of town in the quickest way possible. ○ Droves of the skeletal undead that are used around town seem to freeze in place, no longer retaining their animation. Whatever they're holding currently falls to the floor. Whatever task they're working on comes to a halt. No one understands why that is, but even the best necromancers around town can't seem to wake them back up. ○ With a sudden loud roar, the ground of the town square suddenly begins to split. People, shops, and everything else begin to drop into the chasm, despite the Red Wizards, and everyone else's, attempts to save them. ○ In the last split second you remember, if you happen to look down in the chasm, you'll notice a pair of bright, glowing eyes. Whatever exactly is down there begins to claw its way to the surface. ○ And then, just as suddenly, your vision turns white, and you're briefly overtaken by dizziness. When the haze clears, you are standing at the entrance to Thay. The sun hangs directly overhead in the sky. You have returned to 12 p.m. 2. OOC: A SPECIAL SHOUTOUT You are welcome to keep track of how your character experiences these time loops as much or as little as you're comfortable with — we'll also be tracking what you all are doing! Our Minato player Kel came up with some extremely snazzy coding if you would like to track how each loop plays out for your character more closely. Thank you, Kel! Of course, this is completely optional. Keep up with as much as you'd like, have fun as you see fit, and we hope you enjoy this mission! blurb code by photosynthesis

Comments

[protegge]

hmmm yeah all of these dcs are fine and i think i will go ahead and use that investigation roll for perception. gotta eyeball the eyeballs. if it fails and it's possible to use divine sense afterwards/on the next loop i'd like to do that, but if not that's also fine.

[balancemod]

1. You came up a little short of the requirement, rolling a total of 10! Your plans to nab a janitor and convince him to kill the lights don't go over very effectively, but he doesn't immediately alert anyone. Kids, these days. Seriously! But with some sleuthing, you generally figure out where the crystal room is (hey, every major keep powered by arcane energies has to have a crystal room to keep the hot water running), and you all stumble a bit in trying to take it offline.

In short, you're caught in the middle of your attempts.

The stern figure of Gromph Baenre is brought to the scene of the crime, and he puts two and two together. You're all spies. He knew something was wrong with this Bureau Academy. Off to the dungeons with you all!

And you'll spend the majority of your loop down there. A skeleton rests on a wall in a nearby chamber, animated, of course, and looks over your party. He looks like he's about to say something, but settles down instead. If provoked, you'll get a "I could've sworn I've seen you guys from somewhere before."

He's been down here for a long, long time.

Whether or not he was still alive when he was thrown in the cell or not, he's certainly a skeleton now.

2. What we'll give you with the Divine Sense is that there's nothing undead, fey, or celestial when you peek down into the chasm. This means that there's either nothing there or it's out of range for you to find out.

On your perception, you scored a solid 13. It'll give you a little bit more, but in the sense of a seriously dreadful feeling. Almost like fear. The frightful presence of something down there is physically causing Mista to shiver a little bit, no matter how courageous he normally might be otherwise.

3. This one also didn't come out too great for everyone involved. With a 4, Mista tries to command them, coupling it with Maya's force distrust and... for a moment, it looks like he can get them to stop, or maybe jerk in one direction, but it goes about as well as you imagine when someone tries to go up against a veritable army of undead that's been brought back to life by a very strong necromancer.

And that is!






They form hugging circles.

It might look like they're ready to attack, but they're not. They're good guys, or at least, they're programmed to be. You swear you can hear one of them say "Hey, don't mess with us, that hurts our master's feelings!"

Does someone need cheering up? One of them will start tapdancing for you.

And this is just basically awful. You'll be chased, of course, there's no doubt about it.

But by a horde of skeletons who just want to make your day a little better.

God, Rainer, what the hell.

[protegge]

1. Well. This is unfortunate, but definitely deserved.

Is there any possibility of asking skeleman some questions? It seems like he's pretty reticent to speak from what's been provided, but they would at least ask. Mostly Sayori, because she's got CHA, again, and experience befriending skeletons. Surely he wants to talk to Sayori.

If it is possible, they'd be asking things like: How long have you been down here? What's your name? Why are you animated if you're locked up down here? What do you mean, "I've seen you somewhere before"? Do you want to, like, escape, or do you like it being in the dungeon forever? Mista has Insight in case of a big lie, but mostly he's just gonna be chilling and listening.

Additionally, Sayori would send Peanut to go exploring! What might she see through squirrel-familiar-sight?

2. This is kind of a silly question, but is it fair to say that this feeling is distinct from a really bad phobia being triggered, or nah? Just so I know whether Mista is going to go around saying yeah there are 4 monsters down there he can super tell, or if he will have actual helpful-ish information to provide.

3. I love them.

[balancemod]

1. Sure! The Skeleton will answer the questions as follows. For all intents and purposes he sounds like he belongs from the Wild Wild West, but forgive me for the accent here as I try to type it out appropriately.

How long have you been down here? What's your name?

Feels like decades, it does, at this point. Frighten to think what'd happen to ya if they forgot about ya too, gents and gentladies. Name's Luca, by the way.

What do you mean, "I've seen you somewhere before"?

Just a gut feelin' if ya catch. Maybe it was another lifetime. You do believe in reincarnation, right?

Do you want to, like, escape, or do you like it being in the dungeon forever?

Been so long I'm pretty comfortable down here. You've seen what that necromancer does with skeletons around these parts, right pardner? Makin' em all do the dirty work. I'm fine down here. Gives me time to think and some peace and quiet. Speaking of which, if you two don't mind, I'd like to get back to summat right now.

Anything there ping Mista as untruthful? Let us know and we'll roll an insight for you.

2. Oh, yeah- it's not a bad phobia. It's bad news bears and Mista would know the difference instinctively between a cursed number and that mood that he's feeling at the moment. Might be worth asking someone about in another loop!

[protegge]

thank you! before we respond to the insight question, i wanted to make sure i'm using it correctly. my understanding of insight was that it applied throughout a conversation and the character in question would get a sense if someone was being untruthful in a particular statement. if that's the case, would it be fair to give some indication of whether insight is pinged in this context? i as a player don't really know how to determine independently whether mista's insight has worked or not without such an indication.

i hope that makes sense! thanks again.

[balancemod]

That's fair! Insight is usually called upon, at least in tabletop terms, when the player feels like their character would be untrusting of the situation at hand and want to determine if something is being obscured, intentions are hidden, or the target is lying.

We'd probably lean to think Mista doesn't trust any of this at all, but we didn't want to suggest how your character is thinking or reacting. BTW - you're welcome to say "I'd like to insight all of these statements!" and we'll roll with it.

[protegge]

okay, that makes sense, thank you! i would like to do the All Of It insight rolls because mista def does not trust this skeleton man's skeleton nonsense. any dc is fine obviously — not sure if you would want to roll separately for each statement but if so that's fine too!

[balancemod]

1. 13: "Feels like decades, it does, at this point. Frighten to think what'd happen to ya if they forgot about ya too, gents and gentladies. Name's Luca, by the way."

You can sense that he feels like it's been forever, but you get the sense that it's a bit of an exaggeration he's using to garner some sympathy points. His name is definitely Luca, by the way. He's incredibly confident in saying it out loud.

2. 15: "Just a gut feelin' if ya catch. Maybe it was another lifetime. You do believe in reincarnation, right?"

Maybe Luca doesn't outright say it, but his gut is telling him something is going on here. He's being capricious, for sure. Not exactly a lie, but not the whole truth.

3. 2: "Been so long I'm pretty comfortable down here. You've seen what that necromancer does with skeletons around these parts, right pardner? Makin' em all do the dirty work. I'm fine down here. Gives me time to think and some peace and quiet. Speaking of which, if you two don't mind, I'd like to get back to summat right now."

You have no idea if he's telling the truth at all about this statement.

[protegge]

Re #2: Mista, Sayori, and Shinjiro just kind of look at each other for a second.

Mista says, "That's kind of a wishy-washy answer, guy."

Sayori says, "Yeah, reincarnation kind of makes sense, but I sure don't remember anything about you, haha!"

Shinjiro says, "What is it you remember about us, exactly?"

[balancemod]

1. Luca laughs in a sort of manic way: "Okay, yeah, fine. It's been a few years. Can't really tell how long it's been on account of there bein' no light down here, but I used to keep track of every time I fell asleep on that there wall over there." He'll point his head over to the side of the jail cell and you'll see a literal ton of | tick marks. "Problem is, eventually I just stopped needin' sleep, so here we are. A magicked skeleton just chilling out down in prison."

2. "You sure you've never been down here before?"

The implication, of course, is that you might've? Or might be down here in the future. Who knows, Luca isn't being exactly forthright with his hunches. This will start to bleed into #3, which we'll combine into this answer as well.

"You're all a bunch of kids, right? From that other school? I reckon you're tryin' to..."

Okay, whatever, he knows this isn't going anywhere productive at the moment-

"Fix what's goin' on with this little village, if you catch my temporal drift."

[petsthedog]

Mista and Sayori are a bit Surprised Pikachu when they realize Luca is aware of the loops and even of future loops, and will pretty much be asking him how he knows that!

Meanwhile, Shinji's going to get his frysquint on and ask Luca for more details on what he knows about the resets and what he thinks is causing them. If he gets some traction, he's going to test out namedropping the Relic and seeing if Luca can hear him or if he gets static. ALSO he's going to inquire what Luca got arrested for in the first place.

Sayori's going to follow up by asking for a general ballpark of how many years Luca thinks his imprisonment's been. Five? Ten? Twenty?

[balancemod]

He assumes he's not going to get by here on just playing hard to get- and he also has this weird thing going on where he knows, instinctively, for some reason that you all won't let him leave it at that, so he'll concede a little bit.

"I'm a cleric of Istus.

Istus? You know. The goddess of fate."

He won't hear relic; it's all static to him. He will let you know that it's been the same 7 hours now for a long time. A very long time, actually.

As for his arrest? He'll frankly say that it's not his or their concern. He knows what he did.

"Huh. Well, it's hard to really get an idea of how long it's been. At least 15 years at this point, but time hasn't always been this messed up for all of it."