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

[aceso]

Well, I don't have an answer to that first part.

[ Which is... irksome. It seems like something they should have questioned before they left the base. ]

But for the second: it'll have to be both a rescue mission and a relic recovery mission. We can rescue them first, but we'll all still be stuck here unless we get the relic.

[motherfucking_ghost]

...Right. Right. I mean, magical shit, probably, uh. Hm.

But. But a rescue op should be first-first, because we get them, then we have more people who've been here longer to help us find this relic lamp thing and get the fuck outta dodge.

[aceso]

[ Christine nods slowly as he speaks. He's got a point. ]

Plus I'd like to make sure they aren't injured. If time's resetting, they could be getting hurt everyday if they're trapped somewhere.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Yeah, but they won't reme--

...

They're like us and they'd remember. Oh jesus. Fuck. What the fuck, and if someone around here cottoned onto the fact that some weirdo strangers came in being weird and nosy and caught them and looped shit, then, then obviously they'll wanna do that to us, too.

But, no, wait. Wouldn't--wouldn't time just reset the Seekers back to when things started? In this bubble. So. So this looping seven god damn hours of time started after the Seekers got here snooping around, or we'd be able to find them somewhere getting into town like us. Like yeah they'd still be missing insofar as moon base can't get in touch with them or whatever, but we'd have seen them already.

[aceso]

That's why I'm worried. If they're aware of the loop, they should be able to do things differently so they aren't in trouble. They'd be out in the open and we'd see them.

[ She sighs, turning to stare into the fireplace. ]

It's so confusing. Were they captured by someone and they're being held in secret already by noon? Is that why we never see them?

[ She glances back at him, shaking her head. ]

I don't expect you to have the answer, but it's frustrating not to know.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Rescue, top priority. Maybe in finding them, they'll have a better idea where the fucklamp is! Cuz god knows I'm stumped as hell. I'm pretty sure it's probably just hanging out somewhere in the wizard Keep because that's where you'd store all your valuables, right? But I have no earthly or moonly clue.

[aceso]

It's possible. Especially if the keep has a dungeon. Maybe the Seekers and the lamp are there.

[ There's a touch of amusement at him saying "earthly and moonly clue." ]

It's something to consider once this all resets. [ Her expression falls. ] But God, isn't it morbid? Just waiting for all of us to... reset.

[ It sounds better than saying "die." ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Hey, but it also means you could have some fun doing things you'd never otherwise do because of fear of consequences. If none of it matters, then...what's there to stop you, right?

[aceso]

[ She lifts her eyebrows in surprise. ]

Um, my morals?

[ What are you, a heathen? ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Well it depends on what it is you wanna do! The consequences don't have to be moral ones. Like, okay, not here, modern world example. If this were happening on a normal planet with a normal level of technology--normal being variable to everyone but stay with me here. Maybe you've always wanted to ride a motorcycle. Take some loops, learn to do that.

But maybe you've always wanted to do a sick flaming backflip jump over a dozen buses on a motorcycle. I mean obviously normally you're not gonna do that, but if everything resets, if everything's made up and the deaths don't matter, you might as well try it, right?

[aceso]

[ She purses her lips, but is thinking it over. And when she speaks, it's slowly as ideas form in her mind. ]

One of my path actions is Acrobatics... I wouldn't want to cause a scene or anything, but I can do high jumps and backflips. Hm.

[ She should not be taking advice from a robot in space armor. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Especially not from one who has decided one of this things is trying to be stealing or conning gold away from people, but hey.]

Why not cause a scene? Make a huge scene! Make a spectacle!

[aceso]

We're still here until 7 o'clock every day. I'm not going to cause trouble and then have to hide out until it all resets. Besides, the people here are going through enough with the giant spider getting loose.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Man, just take a loop and go nuts, do something crazy, and if you gotta hide, then hide, or whatever. Like you might as well let it all out and do what you want. It won't matter soon enough.

What is it you wanna do, do some sweet flips and be a one-man show?

[aceso]

[ She shrugs. ]

I honestly don't know. I've never been one to act wild and crazy.

[ She is the responsible mom friend of this party, after all. ]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Then...you can take the chance. Let loose, get down, let the wild side out.

[aceso]

[ In some alternate universe somewhere, an ape man is convincing an uptight woman to join a snow ball fight. Weird. ]

Well... I suppose nothing can be that embarrassing if no one will remember after a few hours.

[ But what should she try? ]

It would just be me practicing my parkour maybe. In public. And some flips.

[motherfucking_ghost]

See? That's some cool shit right there. What's there to even be embarrassed about unless you mess up, and even then, the people that will remember will get it, cuz you're just practicing to get better.

[aceso]

So you're saying you won't call me out when I screw up, then?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Pff, what, no! I've already done plenty of screwups in these loops, who gives a shit, we're all throwing darts at a board that's continuously resetting.

[aceso]

Oh yeah? What sort of trouble have you gotten up to so far?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Oh...you know... Just, like, trying to get a handle on my magic in a practical way, like getting fireballs shot at me and seeing what works. And what doesn't. Trying to block a fireball with my burning hands didn't seem to work as well as I expected it to. [Hooray poor rolls!]

Or like. Snooping around for valuable-looking stuff? Cuz that'd be the kind of place you hide a magical all-powerful lamp thing, right? With your other super valuable stuff. Hasn't, uh, been working out so well. [Maybe because he's been more interested in making a quick buck and that hasn't gone well.]

Stuff like that.

[aceso]

Yeeeah. Maybe blocking fire with ice would go better?

[ Just a thought. She's no magic expert herself. ]

Makes sense, but sometimes the most valuable things are hidden in plain sight, or even with a bunch of junk. Still, I haven't noticed anyone messing with the lamps around here.

[motherfucking_ghost]

...Huh, see, I did water, before, but maybe I can turn the water into ice first? Huh.

Anyway, I mean, there are so many of us, someone's gonna find something lamp-y one of these times through. It's just a matter of--

Ugh. No. I'm not finishing that sentence.

[aceso]

[ Her lips twitch. ]

Oh? Why not?