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

[noblegarnet]

[Exasperated:] It only counts as borrowing if you ask.

[He watches Kokichi as he approaches, raising his eyebrows just barely at the immediate turnaround. If that's what the guy wants to do, it's not like it's the worst thing the Reclaimers have done to the locals.

Going back to the asking thing, he is willing to answer the question; there's no point in hiding what he was doing. Part of the truth is a little irrelevant, so he sticks with the more mission-important part.]

Yeah. I was wondering what the differences might be between the image and the real thing, and what that might say about the mirror. Like... if it's drawn directly from our memories, or something else.

[slieght]

Non non, it also counts as borrowing if you return it later in the exact condition that you took it in!

[So at least he wasn't going to like. Burn it or something. But he hums and nods. If there's more to what Ferran was doing, Kokichi either doesn't suspect anything or is choosing not to ask. The mirror shows some pretty personal stuff, so it's not unbelievable that people would be less than willing to be totally honest about it.]

Well in the interest of sharing info, the mirror's shown me both things that have been totally, 100% accurate to my memory, but also things that def aren't.

[noblegarnet]

[As nice as it is to hear that destruction wasn't in mind, Ferran isn't the type to trust quite that easily.]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

[He drags his thumb across the edge of the pages in a practiced way, picking a certain page and pulling out a photograph from between them. He doesn't attempt to hide it, so if Kokichi looks, he can see the same couple from the drawing and a younger Ferran in front of a coastal scene. Kokichi's admission catches his interest before he can do anything with the photo, though. (So he's the kind of person who says "def" out loud, huh...)]

How were they different from your memory, if you don't mind me asking?

[slieght]

[That's fair. And he sure is, along with "whatevs"and "totes". Jury's out still on acronyms.

He does glance at the photo, head tilted a little with curiosity before he looks up at Ferran again.]

The mirror shows me a few people, and while most of them are exactly as I remember, one seems to...act different, almost. It's a really subtle difference, but especially since it's not like the mirror's a movie or anything, but...it's still definitely different.

[The boy pauses, turning to look back at the mirror now instead for a few moments, hoping maybe it's showing him instead of the others.]

It's like...the kind of expression you give someone you love deeply. But we're just friends.

[And then he turns to Ferran again.]

Does that help any?

[noblegarnet]

[Ferran listens intently, watching as the other guy looks into the mirror. He's not going to take the offer of that kind of personal information for granted, even if no names are named.]

... I think it does, yeah. Thanks.

[It doesn't take a genius to figure out those implications, and he gives Kokichi a brief sympathetic smile. ... Anyway, that kind of ruins a pointlessly optimistic theory of his, but he didn't have much hope in it. It's not like the Compact was drawing purely from memory or real life, either, so it's not a surprise that a mirror could conjure an illusion purely from their desires.

He holds the photo in front of him, a distant look in his eye as he compares it to the people he can see in the reflection. There's not much reason to anymore, but it's something to do. Why not?]

Magic can be pretty powerful, huh.

[slieght]

You're welcome!

[He doesn't make any comment on that smile, even if under normal circumstances he might. Because it looks like this guy could probably use one in return, just with how he looks at the photo and the mirror again. He doesn't offer him one, but he respectfully leaves it be.

Instead, he just nods, turning around fully to face the mirror.]

Of course it can! That's why it's called magic. Magic is all making the impossible possible and creating stuff from nothing and letting you do things you never could normally. Though I'm probably biased, we didn't have magic where I'm from.

[He pauses, then hums.]

Well, probably. Someone I knew said she could do magic but it wasn't anything like this, if she could.

[noblegarnet]

[Ferran tucks the photo away again, sticking it back between the same set of pages. That's enough moping for this loop.]

Yeah... I only learned about magic back home pretty recently, but it definitely wasn't as varied as this.

[Maybe that's part of why he keeps being a little surprised by it all. Even after being exposed to the supernatural, there was a limit. Their powers may have been taken away when they came here, but it seems like there's probably an equivalent spell for it all.]

You're right, though. Faerun does have everything there is when you think of the word "magic." I still wonder how everything doesn't fall apart when that kind of power is so freely available... [and not always reliable.]

1/2

[slieght]

[Dropping his hands, he laces them behind his back instead, rocking from the heel of his feet to the toe, and he hums in thought.]

Even with limited magic, or without magic, things still get out of hand. And people just create a way to reign it back in, right? Police to combat crime, fire fighters to combat burning forests, medicine to combat deadly illnesses...they probably do the same thing here. At the very least, that's probably why the Bureau exists, I bet. I can't say for sure, I haven't been here suuuuuuper long, but it seems like there's way too much going on for us to just be focusing on the Relics.

[As important as the Relics are.]

Ah, but I could be wrong too. I've never visited a different universe before, so who knows if stuff from home applies here at all.

[slieght]

[Suddenly, he turns to Ferran with a heavy pout, arms crossing over his chest.]

You're wrong though. Faerun doesn't have everything. I haven't seen a single unicorn or pegasus yet!! No qilins, no kelpies...no magical horses at all! Faerun's the worst!

[noblegarnet]

Yeah... I guess it makes sense that there'd be groups like ours taking care of different problems of their own. And rulers that aren't mages themselves probably have people equipped to deal with at least some magic...

[How well equipped is a matter of debate, and Ferran imagines there's been a lot of chaos involved. As for the Bureau, he doesn't think they care much about regular magical problems, if just because of the focus on the Relics. Maybe that'll change in the future, but he couldn't say for sure. They can only wait and see.

Kokichi's change in mood catches his attention, though, and takes him away from that train of thought. When the surprise fades and the words register, he laughs, putting a hand on his hip.]

Unicorns supposedly only show themselves to the pure of heart, you know. Maybe you should reconsider your rulebreaking ways if you want to see one.

[slieght]

Who said breaking rules takes away how pure of heart you are? I'll have you know that my heart is as pure as pure can be! That's why I'm the SHSL Supreme Leader of Good, after all!

[That is the weirdest thing he has ever said and he almost doesn't like it.]

School is just really boring, especially when you study the exact same lesson in the exact same class over and over and over and over again. You can't tell me that you haven't considered at least once trying to shake things up a little by now.

[The time loops aren't bad on their own, but he's extremely glad he doesn't have to go to class every time, even if he chooses to sometimes just to cause trouble. There's no way he'd stay sane otherwise.]

But yeah! They've gotta have magical precautions in place to keep everyone somewhat in line. Now whether or not there are people to keep those precautions in line might be another story. Power is a pretty scary thing.

[noblegarnet]

[More super high school levels, huh? What a weird designation. Ferran doesn't look all that convinced, though.]

Uh huh.

[He does ponder the precautions, though, especially in relation to the relics. What was capable of creating things so powerful, and why aren't there more? He hums thoughtfully.]

The way magic itself works in this world was changed to keep people from abusing its power, so I guess it's mostly a matter of what's possible up to that point. Otherwise, you've just got the gods over you... and who knows how they work.

[A divine path, he is not. Back to the other thing, though, he doesn't quite get Kokichi's motives on school.]

Why go to class, if you think it's boring? I've been skipping entirely for the most part. No point in disrupting if it's not going to get me anything.