balance_logs | Field Mission 6: A Day in Thay, Part 1

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Field Mission 6: A Day in Thay, Part 1

	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.

12 p.m.

○ 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.

[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?

[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.]

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...

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.

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.

Maybe it's better for them to be detached.

[Izuku's expression darkens.]

I've only met- well, I didn't even meet one. But I'd never trust someone like the Raven Queen. And if the rest are like her, then we can't trust any of them at all.

Probably.

[He can't disagree. Immortals have completely screwed up the afterlife; what on earth would they have done to humanity if they'd been able to interfere with...well, with Earth that whole time?]

Because of that thing with Alex?

Yeah.

She did that stuff to him. Made him say horrible things about Niel.

[Made Izuku say horrible things to Alex without even thinking about what had happened to the older boy.]

Yeah. Can't say she's my favorite person, either.

[This conversation aside.]

Alex seems fine with her now...? [do you know why]

She's terrible.

[He says, having never met her but committed to his judgement. That whole experience was so awful. What happened to Niel was so awful. He can't just let it go.]

...And I didn't know. I can't understand it at all. [He huffs.] But I'm not going to forget what she did. I'll watch out for him.

Always good to keep an eye out.

[Michael falls quiet for a moment, looking over the shrines.]

Chidi told me once that he didn't think immortals had the same understanding of morality as humans, because our lives are infinite. Any consequences wouldn't last forever. I don't know if it's that, exactly, but...I haven't run into many immortals who treat humans well. Not without having spent a lot of time around them.

[Izuku trembles a little. It's hard to imagine the idea of immortals. Especially when sometimes, it's hard enough to just deal with the people in the world he lives in.]

I bet to them... we seem... I don't know. Just like ants or something. Small and unimportant. Okay to be stepped on.

[Sort of like a villain but out of callousness rather than spite.]

[Michael shrugs with a bit of a wince. He's still fond of the Team Cockroach moniker, but less fond of the things he said to prompt it.]

I used to say cockroaches, but yeah.

[They seem to be talking right past each other in terms of Michael actually being an immortal, and no he has not picked up on this.]

[He makes a face. That really is a mean thing to say.]

It's not really fair. And I know life isn't fair and not everyone is made equal but-!

It's not like people can help being mortal anymore than gods can help being immortal! But we still have to deal with the stuff that they throw at us even though we're... just ants or cockroaches or tools or whatever to them. The Raven Queen can use her power over us but to fight back, we have so much less and can only just... try to play the game.

[He glances over at the shrine and makes a funny movement as though he almost moved to knock something down from the shrine but thought better of it.]

[He knows.....]

At least we always kept everything to the afterlife.

[That wasn't better, really. But at least humans were free until they died?]

I think they probably don't really consider you people. Not the same way they're people. But we're all basically the same, when you get right down to it.

Of course they don't. How could someone do something like that to another person? I mean people are capable of bad stuff but we can't... change someone like that.

[He scowls and crosses his arms. Yes, he's very hung up on this Alex thing.]

I guess they got to be free for a bit. But here we're just... [Stuck with them? At their mercy? Both?] We just have to deal with them and accept them.

[And clearly he doesn't like it.]

Hmmm...

[Michael doesn't have much to say to that. He can change people - not their thinking, the way the Raven Queen did, but what else do you call it when you erase important memories?]

I wish I were still... [One of them? He still is; maybe his physical nature has changed, but Michael doesn't consider his identity altered. But.] The only reason my human friends got as far as they did was because I was on their side. You need an immortal to help deal with other ones, I think. But I don't know this system. Maybe I couldn't help at all.

You probably could.

[Izuku runs a hand down his opposite arm, pausing to examine the massive scar on his right arm. Michael has always been helpful as far as he's known him and, regardless of what Michael has said about his past, been nothing but kind to Izuku and everyone he knows. He's nice and funny and reminds him a little bit of All Might. Even though he knows Michael is a demon with a dark past, he just can't see him as like the Raven Queen. He gently touches Michael's sleeve in a comforting, yet somewhat childish, manner.]

But... that's a lot to take on by yourself. Especially if we don't even know enough about these gods to figure out what we could do to convince them. What if she did something to you too?

Oh, I doubt it would be permanent.

[Most things aren't, from Michael's point of view!]

If she could do things like that to other immortals, I'm sure she would have by now. There's a whole bunch of them, I'm sure they don't all get along.

[Izuku's mouth twists. He knows that's an attempt at being reassuring but it can only make him think-what if? What if it wasn't? What if something happened and you weren't yourself anymore?

Instead he just glances down at his bracer.]

Maybe it's because you're not from here. And they know it. You're an immortal but different from them.

Could be. I've read about the local demons, on the moon and in Lyrabar. They sound pretty different from what I'm used to. I might be more like the devils - though I'm not sure exactly why those are different things.

[The demons seem like a hot mess, anyway.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Field Mission 6: A Day in Thay, Part 1

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