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

[snyaiper]

...Not especially. I don’t really care what happens to this world or about getting back to mine.
[At first he could justify following orders as returning a favor, but... In some ways he just likes the familiarity of having someone giving out orders. He wouldn’t admit it but he doesn’t have another solid excuse.]

Is that a problem for you?

[mylawn]

[It's all a little nihilistic, 76 supposes, though he can't say he doesn't feel the same at times. The difference is that he does want to get back home, even if that seems increasingly likely to be a possibility.]

As long as you don't sabotage the rest of us, it's not.

[Even if it's simply through apathy. He knows everyone's got their own reasons and demons. 76 is not, however, afraid to sideline a liability.]

[snyaiper]

I won't. I don't gain anything from doing that.
[He sighs, almost sounding... relieved? Not that he cares what 76 thinks or anything??? After that, he falls quiet for a moment, gaze drifting back to the goods for sale in the market before them. Not really looking at them as much as his eyes just happening to move in that direction as he thinks.]

I never bought into the grand purpose of fighting for the glory of the Emperor back home, I don't see why I should have one for fighting now. It's just what I'm good at.
[It was all just a pointless exercise. Yuusaku carting that huge flag around. All it did was make him a huge target. It's honestly amazing he wasn't killed sooner.]

[mylawn]

Good.

[Though he supposes that if Ogata really wanted to defect or otherwise sabotage the missions, he would have done so already. That said, killing a fellow Reclaimer for tenuous reasons is a little bit up there.

He pauses for a moment, as if thinking about what he's going to say next. It's uncomfortably close to home--too often, 76 feels like all he's really good for is fighting. As soon as there's no fight, he won't know what to do with himself. Hearing the sentiment from someone so young is a little sobering.]

Don't believe in anything, huh?

[snyaiper]

[Listen he waited until they were back on base to do it!! He wouldn't intentionally do something like that during a mission, like when he accidentally exploded Will's leg!!! And that was ages ago at this point.]

I believe in what's in front of me. That's about it. If you're going to give me some grand speech about how I should think of things on a larger scale, I'm leaving.

[mylawn]

No, I'm not here to lecture you.

[Everyone's got their motives and reasons, and 76 isn't about to berate Ogata for something like this. He's fairly certain it's not worth the energy, for one thing. 76 finds that these kinds of things eventually iron themselves out anyway.]

We've all gotta sleep at night.

[snyaiper]

[Ogata laughs, though it's unclear what exactly he found funny.]

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with being able to sleep. Do you have trouble sleeping, old man? Haunted by all the things you've had to do?

[He's just digging for stories, honestly.]

[mylawn]

It's just an expression.

[But yes, he has trouble sleeping. It's something he's come to terms with over the years, but he doesn't attribute it to one thing. It was the war, it was leading Overwatch, it was the decline of the organization he gave his life to. All of that is too complicated for an easy answer.]

What kinds of things do you think I had to do?

[War crimes? Well,]

[snyaiper]

Extrajudicial killings.
[JUST, FLAT OUTRIGHT.]

I don't know what other reason there would be to build some sort of super-soldier. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[mylawn]

What? No.

[He outsourced those, thanks. It's clear the very thought of extrajudicial killings are not what 76 is about, despite his rough demeanor. He looks almost insulted that this would be the first thing Ogata thinks of, though perhaps he shouldn't be surprised.]

Those are war crimes.

[76 would NEVER do a war crime!!]

[snyaiper]

[Ogata laughs at this.]

So? You expect me to believe whatever made you was officially sanctioned and known to the public? You should know better than to believe any military body isn't breaking all sorts of laws behind the public's back.

[Ogata this feels like more your own personal issues.]

[mylawn]

Nobody knows that better than me.

[He sounds a little angry at that, because he’s old enough to have encountered almost an entire planet’s worth of military bodies, and he knows what goes on behind the scenes. Still, he likes to think that there was some measure of integrity involved, at least on his own part. He’d done what needed to be done to save humanity.]

But I don’t have the stories you’re looking for.

[snyaiper]

[Ogata looks vaguely put out at this. And a bit skeptical. He sure is determined, this cat.]

How do you know what sort of stories I'm looking for, old man. Maybe I just want a better answer than you "fought robots."
[Y'know, from last time.]

[mylawn]

Well, that’s what I did.

[Ogata is right that it’s not the whole story, but 76 doesn’t feel the need to be forthcoming about the twenty years he spent running Overwatch. Even this is more than he tells most people here about himself.]

Sometimes it really is that simple.