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

[mccreehaw]

[ Ugh, just don't drop that on him like that, Mia. Do you want to give him gray hairs? He takes a moment to absorb that, before trying for a relaxed tone. ]

See? [ He points at her. ] Trouble.

[ But he sighs and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. ]

What happened? With the dragon?

[doubledsofjustice]

[And now McCree has a glimpse into what it's like to be Phoenix Wright. That's just what happens when Feys, man.]

Nothing terrible. It's asleep, for now.

[She flips those notes back down, though, sobering up and sighing.]

I just get the impression that's going to change in, oh, an hour and a half, maybe?

[mccreehaw]

Yeah. The question is, what wakes it up?

[ A barmaid sets his drink in front of him and he fishes the coin out of his pocket for it. ]

You want anything?

[doubledsofjustice]

Mm, I'll just take water this time.

[As much as having a Drink would be nice, there's.... already a time loop distorting their perception of reality, may as well not add to it.

When McCree's finished talking to the barmaid and no sooner, as not to distress her with talks of dragons, Mia continues.]

I'm not sure yet, but the dragon's-- obviously-- underground. Something is happening in its keep, potentially just before the dragon wakes, but...

[But the answer can't be as simple as 'stop who or whatever from waking the dragon up', can it?]

[mccreehaw]

[ And opposing that, McCree thinks a drink is just what's needed when you're stuck in a time loop. Of course this is the man who mixes bourbon with black tea so he can drink in the mornings, so perhaps he isn't the best judge. ]

But nobody's been able to figure out what that thing or person is yet. Yeah, I'm thinking that's the big factor we gotta deal with so whoever has the lamp will stop using it.

[doubledsofjustice]

Looks like we're going to need to investigate more into our new wizard friends.

[Mia shakes her head as if a little annoyed, but-]

Well. All in all, at least it's not what we were dealing with last mission.

[mccreehaw]

Right. But I'll admit it gets me a mite nervous, being around a bunch of kids who can all do magic.

[ He counts the young folk in the Bureau differently. They're all trying to retrieve relics, after all. The kids here could be involved with the relic and not realize how dangerous it is. ]

Anything's better than last mission.

[ Even if he wasn't hit hard by traumatic events. Just the maze with Maya. ]

By the way, what role are you playing this mission? Teacher?

[doubledsofjustice]

That's right. Teaching what I know best. Law.

[Mia gives a gentle chuckle. She's perfectly fine not dwelling on Wonderland.]

Different law than they practice here, I'm sure, but it'll work out.

What about you?

[mccreehaw]

Bodyguard.

[ He lifts an arm and makes a bicep, but seeing how he doesn't bother to pull his shirt sleeve up, it's clear he's doing it just to be funny. ]

Hired muscle, y'know?

[doubledsofjustice]

[Ah, lucky for McCree Mia does even laugh a little, covering her mouth halfway with her hand.]

Appropriate! A cowboy bodyguard really is believable.

No wonder you've stayed out of trouble.

[mccreehaw]

It's easy if you apply yourself.

[ He winks. And contemplates saying how the Feys should take lessons from him, but he decides to refrain from dragging her like this. ]

So if you ever need someone at your back while you investigate, I'm at your service.

[doubledsofjustice]

[Mia grins at that wink. She knows. He doesn't have to say it.]

Well, you know, you don't have to make excuses to spend time with me.

Even if I appreciate the backup.

[mccreehaw]

Now, I'd hardly call it an excuse. More like an option I'm putting out there.