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

ii

[bu773rfly]

[Huh. Here again? Glutton for punishment.

Not that Erika can judge him, because she, too, decided to come back to this class of her own volition on a later loop, despite attending the first time and seeming satisfied with it at that point. Despite, in her case, that on any of the loops she's spent playing at being a student, she hasn't seemed to mesh well with her peers to begin with. Even right now, with the room blocked off into groups of spectators - a Boarbumps student nudges Erika's arm, says something to her. She takes a step away. He frowns, looking bewildered. She replies without looking at him, and his bewilderment doesn't fade, until he steps away and the conversation is clearly over and he mutters something to another Boarbumps student and they both cast odd glances at Erika.

Things like that just happen sometimes.

If Erika catches Phoenix's eye before she's called on for the same exercise, she nods knowingly at him. She's pretty certain that she understands what he's up to, and it's a good idea. Once she is called on, there's no time for that. Her familiar wings towards the ceiling, and Erika makes herself into a target, hooded and solemn. She dodges some physically. Most pass through her; she turns hazy before they strike, silhouette swimming like static or the flashing patterns of hundreds of butterflies, and they leave soot marks on the ground behind her. All rather unexceptional stuff.

Until at some point the student trying to hit her throws his fireball wide - not wide enough to be dangerous, but a few people step back quickly anyways - and swivels in place, suddenly alarmed. What was that? he demands, and looks to other faces and finds confusion. Erika's brows are furrowed. Were you doing that?

It's kicking up a bit of a commotion. He accuses her of cheating. It's not serious in and of itself, but it sets off one of those subtle shifts in the atmosphere, heads turning and wordless sentiment bouncing from pair of eyes to pair of eyes. The professor steps in. Defense is defense, she explains, whether it's a physical shield or telepathic distractions, let this be a perfect example to learn from -

Not that this does anything to sway the invisible tide of opinion.

Erika seems unconcerned, or some other flavor of silent and unreactive. She stares thoughtfully at the ground somewhere near the feet of her exercise partner, brows slightly crinkled, avoiding all eye contact.]

[wrightingwrongs]

[By the time Erika has managed to catch Phoenix's attention, he's already blocked a fair few fireballs with his shield. He's dodged a few as he's ducked and weaved his way through practice. His reflexes still aren't perfect, but spending as much time here as he can has allowed him some measure of basic combat training versus the most ubiquitous of magic spells.

His shield lowers as Erika's telepathic distraction causes a commotion, students looking back and forth between them as they contemplate Erika's actions, As the teacher speaks up, Phoenix goes to back them up - masquerading as an instructor, he's of course free to give his opinion.]

That's right. A lot of the people you'll encounter outside of these walls might have different talents than you. [It's pretty blatantly a defense of Erika, and it causes the students no small amount of eye-rolling.] You won't always know how they'll attempt to counteract you, and being identified as someone with magical talents means you're a higher priority to distract - or disrupt - than someone charging directly into the fray.

If you're going to be throwing magical spells like this, you need to be able to focus on your target and be able to deal with any sort of defenses - passive or active, magical or material - that you may come across.

[His rhetoric is pretty simple, and it probably does little to convince the student who Erika provoked, but it does seem a fair number of the students are mollified by this approach to the lesson. A few are talking among themselves, saying that the Bureau's instructor is right - a few of them relating dirty tricks they'd use in their own duels.

Eventually, the instructor does manage to get things back on track, and the next suite of students line up for their turn against the volunteer firing line, with Phoenix standing with his shield next to Erika, a half-whisper crossing the divide between them.]

Sorry, figured I would jump in. Force of habit.

[bu773rfly]

[The attention on her doesn't fade, but it keeps shifting. First, curiosity orbiting discontent. Then a shared joke; now a mix of intrigue and dismissal. There's a few faces that want to have a go at her, for one reason or another. It's a very weird experience. If her hood weren't already up, she'd want to tug it over her head, but it is, so she doesn't.

Mm, she says, continuing to look preoccupied. But only look, apparently, because she does answer, in a matching half-whisper:]

You were right. [ie no need to apologize for saying something true. She shakes her head minutely and glances down the line.] But I'm about to make a break for it, so things might get difficult for you.


[he deserved a warning probably.]

[wrightingwrongs]

You're about to - what?

[It's clear that he may have understood exactly what Erika said, but exactly how she's going to do what she's about to do is made even more confusing by their 'volunteer' position. The students haven't quite gotten ready yet, so they have a few spare moments, but.]

Should I, uh, be worried? [This sounds like it's about to cause trouble.]