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

[eudaimonikos]

i. early loop; boarbumps; it's him, he's here

[Michael is still getting used to this place: figuring out what's going on, what events are important to the loop and which are just background events. Right now, he's peeking in on some potions work.

More specifically, he's peeking in on Blaze Dudelioni's potions work. 

This, to any observer, would appear to be wild improvisation on Blaze's part. It doesn't help that Michael is clearly egging him on, from a safe distance.]

Go ahead and try it! I've got your back.

Counts as professor approval to me!

[And he dumps in a bunch of weird glowing mushrooms. Michael grins - yes! He is an authority figure who can approve things! The cauldron starts to bubble violently. Blaze doesn't seem too alarmed; he backs away to keep the overflow from getting on his uniform, but leans over to keep on stirring it anyway.

Then it explodes.

It's not a big explosion, thankfully, and Michael's true to his word. A wall of flickering blue flame blossoms out of nowhere to shield Blaze, and they're both totally fine when the pale green smoke clears.]

Ha! [Michael laughs, looks to Blaze for approval, and finds him equally blase about the whole thing.] Oh, they should get you a lab!

ii. later loops; the inn

[In this loop, Michael has finally been forced to take a break. He usually tries to sleep more when he's out on missions than he prefers to on the moon - even if he thinks he can operate fine on just a few hours of sleep, he knows that it's probably better to be at his best when shit's going down.

The accommodations in the inn aren't quite what he's used to. How do people manage to sleep all out in the open together like this? But he's too exhausted to fuss about it, so he tucks himself up in a corner of the open space, back to the wall, and tries to get a few winks. 

Unfortunately, he's a light sleeper. He's quick to jerk awake when people walk in.]

What?

iii. later loops; the shrines

[This loop finds Michael out at the shrines. More specifically, he's crouching down in front of the little altar to the Raven Queen, peering at it down his nose. This lonely stretch of road on the outskirts of town feels far better than a grand temple, but they're still shrines, aren't they? As if immortals are better, somehow, worthy of adulation from mortals just for what they are. He reaches out to pluck up some of the Raven Queen's offerings, inspecting them.]

If you aren't going to do anything with these, there's no point. The humans should just keep them. 

[Mmm. But that's not what he came here to say.]

Look, I don't know how this whole thing works. I'm not going to pray to you, if that's what you're looking for. But I...appreciate that you've been nicer to Alex lately. He seems to think better of you now.

[For his own part, Michael isn't sure. She was right about Neil being better off dead, sure; that part isn't what bothers him. It's that Alex got his mind hijacked, and he's clearly shaken about that even now. The Raven Queen did not have to do that.

Michael doesn't know her, though. If Alex has forgiven it, it's probably not for him to hold grudges. That's never been a strength of his anyway. He sets the offering back down - even if he disagrees, it wasn't left here for him.]

Be nice to him. He's a good human.

[eudaimonikos]

[ for later prompts! ]

ii

[whippings]

( Franziska is not light-footed by any means. Although she's not wearing her usual kitten-heel boots that had become one of her wardrobe staples back home, her steps are heavy enough to wake most, light sleeper or not. As the man drags his head up from the depths of slumber, she raises an eyebrow at him. Is she doomed to be haunted by annoying old men? )

I didn't say anything to you.

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael grumbles to himself, sitting properly upright. Yeah, he knows, that was on him. He knew this whole sleeping setup was dumb.]

Ugh, sorry. [He takes his glasses off to rub at his eyes with the other hand.] Sleeping is a weird and terrible practice. Humanity should have evolved out of it ages ago.

[whippings]

( Franziska hums in agreement. )

I cannot say I disagree with you. We certainly would get more done without the requirement for rest, wouldn't we?

[eudaimonikos]

I used to get all my paperwork done when the humans were sleeping. Still had tons of time left over for planning, too.

[It was all time ill-spent, but at least he was productive?]

[whippings]

( She ... leers at him. )

What do you mean, when the humans were sleeping? You're human, aren't you?

( You'd think she'd be more used to the mystical given the amount of time she's spent here, but she isn't. Whoops. )

[eudaimonikos]

Obviously not.

[What human talks about other humans that way?]

I'm a demon. We use human shapes for human things, but it didn't need sleep before I got here.

shrines

[shootstyles]

[Izuku should be sleeping but he can't. The loops are starting to get to him and sleep is harder and harder to come by. At least for long periods of time. So instead he ventures out to the outskirts of the town, desperate to find something, anything, that can offer them a clue to the relic.

He's gone to the shrines before but had spent most of his time at Boarbumps, but now he's trying to expand his horizons. Or maybe he's just got a touch of insomnia and the shrines had seemed quiet and peaceful the last time he was there.

When he approaches the shrines he sees a familiar figure. He's a little surprised to see anyone here. It's not early morning but it sort of feels like it.]

Michael-san?

Are you... [Praying? Is that a demon thing?] Sorry if I'm interrupting.

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael sort of chose this time to avoid any observers, for several reasons. He jerks upright in surprise at the voice, though he relaxes when he sees Deku.]

Oh, no, it's not important. 

[Which would be rude to say in front of the person he was just talking to! But Michael is still unclear if this counts as "talking to the Raven Queen", or if he's just talking to a hunk of rock on the side of the road. Still, he's trying to be nice here...]

Sorry. [He says to the shrine, sounding vaguely irritated, and then turns back to Deku.] Really, I think I'm done. Are you...are you here to pray or something?

[shootstyles]

[Izuku frowns a little because it did seem like he surprised him but he takes Michael at his word.

He sighs a little and walks closer to the shrines, eyeing them with tired eyes. His hair is messier than usual and his clothes are rumpled, like he just rolled out of bed.]

I dunno. If thought it would help give us some answers, then maybe.

[He's not particularly religious, really.]

[eudaimonikos]

I wouldn't get my hopes up about that.

["Helping" doesn't seem to be in the gods' job description, unless you specifically contract yourself out to them.]

I'm not sure if praying is actually how you talk to them, if you're not a warlock or something. But I'm not doing that, anyway. Might as well go pray to Glenn...

[shootstyles]

Maybe not. But still...

[He glances down at the shrines a little curiously. There are gods in this world, obviously. But much like the real one, it's not like he's ever spoken with one or even has any idea how.]

It seems like maybe they'd actually be outside of the loop. Because the gods aren't just in this land but... they'd actually have to want to help us. And it seems like it's not always safe to trust them.

[eudaimonikos]

There's no way they're seriously sharing any kind of timeline with Faerun.

[Like, really? That would be total amateur hour.]

If this were Earth, and us immortals from there were watching this, I think we'd be able to see into each of the loops just fine. But we're a lot more separated from Earth than these gods are - no interfering at all, for the most part. [...] You ask me, there's not that many immortals you can trust.

ii.

[janthony]

You're alright, back to sleep.

[It's his Nanny voice, purely on instinct at this point. Like Michael, he's pushed himself about as far as he can go in one sitting and he's trying to grab an afternoon nap before the reset.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael doesn't have any childhood memories for that to ping, so while he does relax back against the wall, he doesn't settle back into sleep. It's not an easy thing for him to do anyway - and also:]

Are you Scottish now?

[janthony]

[He turns and notices who actually spoke up, as he's folding his woolen suit jacket.]

Still hellish. 'S just- [He clears his throat, and the pitch goes back to his normal voice.] -easy one to get stuck in. Thought it added to the authenticity.

[As he carefully unpins his hat from his tight bun. It's not the same look he wore as Warlock's nanny, but his hair is longer now than it was then and he needed something that could spring into action at a moment's notice.]

[eudaimonikos]

You are very British. But I guess you come by that honestly.

[Of course that language wasn't even around 6000 years ago, but Michael assumes Crowley must have been in England for a few centuries at least.]

Some of us affect human accents, if we think it sounds cool, but mostly we just use the language of the humans we're working with. [However that afterlife magic works? The majority of his humans were American, so maybe that's why he talks the way he does. Michael sighs and takes off his glasses. They've left a red mark on the side of his face.] I always forget you're supposed to take these off to sleep.

[janthony]

[Crowley gives a sympathetic hiss at the red line on Michael's temples.]

More comfortable to sleep, too.

[He unties his bow and starts to remove his shirtsleeves, unwilling to wrinkle any of the even remotely exterior-facing parts of his suit. Practically Perfect in Every Way, and all.]

Mmn, yea, I remember the Tower of Babel. Can't imagine why they never got the same treatment for skyscrapers. Thousand times taller than Babel, those.

Do you know other languages, or does your hell have some kind of... way around that?

[eudaimonikos]

We have automatic translation functions in the Neighborhoods, to make things easier. But I do genuinely speak a lot of their languages. I always thought it helped make things more genuine.

[Even magic can't make a 100% perfect translation, after all. Michael's always fussed over details like that. Anyway, imagine if he'd still only spoken the unhearable demon language when he traveled to Earth!

He sits up, glasses still danging from one hand.]

The Tower of Babel was real? [...] How tall was it?

blaze dudelioni...i hate you so much

[eastofeden]

[ The explosion is at least loud enough to attract some attention. Aziraphale's walking past the classroom when he hears the noise, and goes to investigate.

He stands in the doorway, waiting for the smoke to clear, a tight, strained smile on his face. ]

Professor...ah... [ Oh shoot, he doesn't know Michael's last name. Or even if he has one. ] Professor Demonson, may I speak with you for a moment?

[ Flawless. ]

he is the greatest creation

[eudaimonikos]

I thought your name was Brainman?

Ah, yes, Demonson is my...maiden name.

[Michael takes a moment to digest what he's just said, and then turns to step away with Aziraphale.]

What is it?

[eastofeden]

Oh, yes, of course. Belated...congratulations on your marriage, Professor. Er.

[ He glances askance at the students, staring curiously at them, then quickly turns back to Michael and lowers his voice. ]

Is everything...all right? Only I did hear something that sounded quite like an explosion just now.

[eudaimonikos]

Oh! Yeah, it's fine. This kid just has a real knack for potions!

[Said kid is. 100% still here.]

[eastofeden]

[ He does glance back quickly at the students one more time, just to reassure himself that yes, they're still all there and in one piece. ]

Oh? I'm so glad to hear it.

No one hurt, then?