Good grief, sorry, yes. Four.

There are some interesting shouting matches going on, and actually Rohal may be the only one able to take much to do with them; remaining in the background may be best, as much of what happens is distinctly ugly.

There is much stiff upper lipping and some bravado, most of the men and women of rank being aware that they have an example to set, and their collective moment of panic earlier weighing heavily on them.

Still, not everyone got the idea.

Much of it is relatively trivial, but he intercepts two fragments of conversation that may matter, may be of critical importance- deVerett's half sister saying to one of the knights who seems to be wearing her favour, he doesn't get all of it through the background noise but "While everyone else is busy, the treasury...a devastated land, we will still need to buy support...it's not theft, it is simply expediency, I don't trust the bailiff to secure it..."

and the high sherriff, saying to one of his men "A stray arrow at the right time, a slip in the panic, and we are rid og that insufferable ass- I'd rather shoot the old man but at least this may break his heart."

There is some clanging outside as two armoured men settle their differencs with an impromptu duel on the spot, and a woman weeping and wailing afterward.

Under stress, the ugliness comes out.


Larric can find something- largely serve yourself, the kitchens are in chaos, the less brave and bold have no example to set and are in gibbering terror, and there are some aggressively drunk soldiers who have taken advantage of the situation, breaching a keg, and who briefly appear likely to cause a problem- but one of them managed to get into the hall in time to see the last of Larric's holding back the coils and they give him a wide berth.

Verone was stupid. Realizing this brings him no comfort, not now that he's already pissed people off, and not now that some semblance of proper speed of thought has returned to the skull beneath the Hat. "...Bugger." He could try to explain, but it'd sound like an excuse, which, fair, would be because it would be one. A valid excuse is still an excuse, and Detrick doesn't look like the type to buy one. Still...eh, why not.

"My apologies. I don't believe any of us were at our best, coming out from under the influence of a spell quite like that. Potentially-unwise heroics are still heroics, and should be remembered as such. That said, water, bridge, etcetera...preparations for...her? Hmm. I suppose I could attempt to displace the keep in a new direction, but no, that would leave too much of a trace behind, and probably wouldn't manage more than a few inches in any case. Could try to displace the rest of the world, which would move the traces with it, but no, no, that's just silly. Hmm...if we can come up with a sufficiently-precise description of her likely aura, you know, persona-traits, influences, and the like, I could attempt to come up with some seeking arrows. Could try the same thing on catapult stones, more work to alter course, but easier to inscribe the proper runes into... Oooh, maybe animate the walls as stone golems..."

OOC: Just to clarify, and not that it makes any differences to the consequences, Verone was indeed quite stupid. This may have something to do with being in the direct middle of a devolution field. He's normally the type who has to consciously override his mouth, and in the immediate aftermath, he wasn't anywhere close to fast enough. He's even more rambly than normal right now for much the same reason, lingering effects.

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

OOC:

The idea of training a catapult stone to home in on the biggest source of fire magic in the vicinity sounds like an... interesting way to make Johanna Calvern's day a little more exciting, I have to say.

IC:

Larric serves himself- no problem with that, he's not fussy. He nods politely to the drunken soldiers, giving them as wide a berth as they give him, and takes his tankard elsewhere, since he doubts they'd make good drinking companions, especially for someone who's naturally a fairly sober individual. Like, say, Larric.



If he were more of a general-ist, as opposed to being barely even specific, he might, hypothetically, stop and pause to consider trying to convince them to get back up to the front lines. Then he'd think for a moment about the chances that normal men-at-arms could do anything on a battlefield against her except get in the way of the people who stand a remote chance of accomplishing anything. And the chances that these men-at-arms in particular could earn anything other than her contempt, in light of what Sir Detrick's saying... and take his tankard elsewhere just the same.

Life's too short for some things.

And he isn't the man who'd seriously think about doing that, even on a good day.



So he sits, and he drinks slowly, and he tries to think. Hm. Well, it'd be an incredibly bad idea to fight it out, but in the spirit of being ready to... you know, he really doesn't want to die trying. He wants to get his shop going again, start fiddling around with experiments, isolate and identify another new element or two with that electrolysis rig he'd designed, maybe finally figure out whether the idea in his head for the make-things-turn-with-electrical-fluid gadget would actually work or not, maybe play around with interesting glasses and see what can be done with them... even if he's turning out to be better at this sort of thing than he'd ever have expected, damn it all!

Sigh. Oh well. Interesting times.

Hm.

His personal effects- not experimental apparatus, which he had piled on the mule and dropped off at the boatyard, but actual clothes, survival gear such as it was, and his crossbow- that he'd have kept up at the castle. He's going to go fetch his crossbow, then go looking for Sir Alfred again. Maybe there's time to do that trick with the hammer again, assuming it's got a decent chance of surviving the experience of being re-enchanted...

Detrick looks at Verone, says 'There's only one thing you need to say; I'll do better next time. One thing you need to do; follow through on that.

Dealing with Colonel Calvern, I'm not even sure where to start worrying. Seekers are probably the best idea you have there, as to the question of what she's really like- to face, anyway- speed. She's unbelievably fast to the extent that I'm not sure she's still human; bone and muscle just doesn't move like that. As a sorceress and a general the same, lightning incarnate. The only way to out react her would be to lay some kind of extended feint, a misdirection that gets her moving in the wrong direction, and building up enough momentum in it that she has to overcome that before she can get at you- but it's much easier said than done.

Lurentius, you have anything?'

The guildsman thinks hard for a moment, and finally says 'Before all this, there were hints of some fascinating work being done from Syarin Peak, which as you may not know is one of the largest thaumaturgical colleges in the oldlands.' That being the inner ring of member states of the Authrani empire, Tol Authran's immediate neighbours. 'Syarin is also the prime facility for war- wizards, and now I wonder how much of it was from her- there was much about the fundamentals, the nature of will and willpower, about collaborative and collective magic. How such a wit can be put to such destruction...she's too fast for me, I'm afraid.'


Larric has two visitors, the first-dame Tamarin- while he's still in the cellar, asks 'It's true, you're going to try to find and stall the countess to buy the town time? I'll go with you.' Reactions to that?

OOC
anybody else wish they had beaten william to the parchment now.......

(OOC: Nope. I like Alfred and I like keeping him alive, even if he's in a crappy situation right now.)

---

"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer

The alchemist thinks about what Dame Tamarin's said over the past day or so.

"Er... milady, I'm hoping, really hoping we can convince her to talk. Not fight, talk. Sir Detrick- from the sound of it, she doesn't really see anyone who doesn't have swords or sorcery to hand as... as real, I'm not sure I understand but I can brace for it and I think that's what the others have in mind. If you can't stomach talking to her, if you're thinking revenge, I think maybe you'd better stay back a good long ways. Even if it starts to go right... any of our party going for her under flag of truce might be the last mistake all of us ever make.

"I don't want to fight her, and I don't think Sir Detrick wants to either. All she ever did to me was burn my house down and break my things, and that at two or three removes- her troops, not her own self. I'm not going to take it personally. If you want to take the war- or your husband- as a personal insult, something to fight over, then I'm not at all sure you should be there.

"So are you sure you should go with us, milady?"

OOC 2

Magic - do you get a default level in the same way as standard attributes along with the scaling cost, or is it a straight 1 point attribute proveds --> 2 skill points (flat) during creation?

First, Kaelan- yes, straight during creation, and then the power you end up with sets the default for purposes of buying up with XP in play afterwards.


Tamarin says to Larric 'Yes, but Detrick's a man and he thinks of her as a monster, and I think he's being a fool.' She has some difficulty saying this, to the extent that Larric should doubt whther she's entirely clear in her own head, but goes on 'This, this violence doesn't come from the head, it isn't borne of sense, it comes from the blood, from the heart, from pain- she can't be as cold as, can't kill and take away and rip people apart without passion driving her, and appealing to sense isn't-

I don't believe she can look me in the eye and be proud of what she's done, the widows and orphans and lost souls she's made- yes, I want revenge; but I don't think it can be made by the sword, demanding her to face our loss,our grief, if we can only break her heart-'

IC:

Larric's brain switches gears.

"I'm sorry, milady, I didn't understand. I meant no offense.

"I... I just don't know. I can't guess whether what you're planning is wiser than what he's planning. All I really know about Calvern is... is echoes, sort of like seeing fires on the horizon- I think everyone with a drop of magic in the county knows that much about her by now. But by that- I don't know if she can be shamed, or convinced to parley with a man ready to fight, or both, or neither, any more than I could work it out from knowing whether her voice pitched high or low.

"I don't expect she's fond of weakness, but I doubt she cares for swagger either, so maybe you and Sir Detrick both have some of the right of it. Honestly... she might have a heart to break in there somewhere, but if it hasn't broken already, I doubt we'll be the ones to make it happen, any more than we'd be the ones to put her in a grave if we made a fight of it. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between... the tone we take starting the parley might decide everything, and Sir Detrick ought to hear what you have to say about it beforehand, I think."

OOC:

If I didn't know in advance that you had that second visitor in mind for me, I'd say 'go with Dame Tamarin to talk to Sir Detrick about negotiation tactics.' But you have something else in mind, and I'm not sure how to reconcile what I think Larric would think about this situation with this... other encounter thing. I just want to mention that I'm aware of this, not to be prejudicial either for or against what might happen in the second encounter.

She can find her way to him, and will unless Larric goes with her; the other encounter thing, I've got an early start tomorrow so not enough time to do it properly now, but the wierd thing is it's a cat. Silver furred, large, sleek, very human eyes; walks up to Larric, jumps onto his knee, looks him in the eye, nods towards the door, leaps down and slinks off- pausing at the door to look back at him, make sure he's following. All done in a very cat- like manner, but it was tingly to the touch, looked slightly added on to the surface of the world- not natural. A messenger spirit in the guise of a feline. Someone wants to talk to him.

More tomorrow, then.

---

"I beseech thee, In the bowels of God, think it possible that you might be wrong."
-Oliver Cromwell to Parliament, 1647
"It is good to keep an open mind; but not so open that your brains fall out." Attributed to James Oberg

Larric likes cats well enough, and at the moment he's kind of at loose ends since he's not really convinced anything he can do, personally, with his own abilities, will make a difference. Curiosity is probably the single strongest driver in his makeup, too.

He follows the magic cat, but his magic-radar is fully up, probing ahead with a touch of Insight.

Sorry, until last night I didn't realize that I hadn't responded to the last thing IC.

"I see that you have ideas on how to deal with most of the people, but then who are you trying to empower? And is it a reciprocal deal with whatever party it is, even if you don't want to tell me who? And finally what would you like me to do?"

Caralus says to Eliska, 'Essentially- we stand for those most like the old order at its' best, not the shambles it became under deVerett. Who apparently still lives, in some strange way- the thread of his fate is tangled and stained, but not yet cut.

Nobility of spirit, courage and determination. For instance Detrick, the strongest at the moment although that will change as he spends blood and substance, would be good to have but not to have in charge; the bailiff has a squalid soul- if one offered him the favour of the gods, he would try to pay cash and then haggle on terms.

One should live, the other best not, but neither would do.

No, it is not reciprocal. Our- friend- will find one day that they owe us a great deal, that is all. Your part- why, you and your friends are the wild card, the random element which can upset so many calculations. What I want you to do is to let them- the high sheriff and the treasurer's sons- attempt to play you. Let them try to manipulate you. Watch- and report.'


Larric, following the cat, is led out of the castle and to one of the houses that is still being built; the frame is up, the first floor is up, but all is roughly sawn timber- there is enough of it to hide and be unseen in. several of the rooms are finished- the cat enters one. The sun is down, it's getting dark- even so, the shutters must be closed, hardly any light.

Until a twist of air in the centre of the unfurnished room starts glowing. Something damned odd- Larric sensed no-one, might perhaps have smelt a presence, felt from body heat there was someone in the room, but normal alertness failed him, his sense of the magic absent entirely, and in so subtle a way he didn't notice a blind spot.

The person there probably falls normally on entirely the opposite end of the scale, a woman- it's very easy to tell, almost all of her is showing. A few fragments of silver inlaid steel is all she's wearing, that and a sword belt- and a holy symbol of the goddess.

OOC:

And, yes, clearly that goddess.

Unfortunately, I have a major standardized test to take at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. It's fundamentally an easy thing- high school mathematics, things I learned ten years ago and have internalized- but I do need to put a bit of time and effort this evening into preparing. I'll give Larric's reactions some thought, it's possible I'll post once tonight, but that's not the way to bet.

Sorry.

Belated heads-up, I'm in Maryland for a funeral, online time very spotty. In the absence of input, assume Verone preparing sorcerously-assisted artillery and other such sundries.

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

OOC:

Turns out if I don't find something else to do for a bit, I'm going to go mad. Who'da thunk it? Also, geez there's a lot of plotting curdling around us...



IC:
Larric's been depressed given what he expects to see happen, and perhaps even something as close to a "fey mood" as his personality gets. But not that depressed, and not that kind of fey; she's got his undivided attention. But also his caution, since anyone who can do invisibility and familiars that well is not to be taken lightly, even if she dresses in a chainmail (platemail?) bikini.

Since the last several things he's needed to take seriously, including one (presumably) reasonably attractive lady, have all either tried to kill him or narrowly been talked out of trying to kill him, he's a bit more on guard than he might be if the same thing had happened to him six months ago.

Asked afterward, Larric might describe her as "that kind of Krylanyan." Come to think of it, all the Krylanyans and near-Krylanyans we've seen in this campaign would be one of various "that kinds;" he recognizes the differences, but speaks of them all in much the same tone- slightly dubious and more than a little wary.

So he reverts to defaults- when in doubt, be polite, no disrespect, it takes all sorts and most of the sorts in circulation seem insanely dangerous to cross these days, so act as if nothing about the situation is amiss until proven otherwise.

"Hello, milady. I'm Larric Smith, though I expect you already know that; I... think you have the advantage of me?"

The plot thickening is why I don't really do Chekhov's guns, not here- there's just too much stuff happening, too many threads to follow. Not everything will come back to haunt you, some of it will of sheer time and necessity being someone else's problem. This particular problem on legs did.

The point of the plate bikini is not to protect, she's not stupid enough to believe that, it's to attract, to catch the attention- which for someone whose ego works like that, whose power and ability to project is at least amplified by look-at-me, by show-womanship, by flash and glitter, actually does make some sense of it.

Frizzy fair hair and pale blue eyes, but close to they are very hard and more than a touch of crazy in there, and there are odd fracture lines on her soul- it's easy to get a worrying sense from her that this is all just show, everything including the metal fragments- and her own flesh and blood- is a mask, a pose.

The cat perches on her shoulder, and there is actully a strong similarity between the two. 'Actually,' she says and sounds like an actress doing it, 'I know you only by your works- nullifying that madman's trap, not without help but- you were the prime mover.
I was expecting a bold, brash, swaggering hero type; a man with the arrogance and ego to blast that back on itself. Instead- you're a bit of a mouse, aren't you? do't you think you have a right to a higher opinion of yourself than that?'

"That I can do, now if you and your watcher will excuse me I did have a reason to be out here this morn."

What then would my Runes and Life magic result in the experiment in creating a life sensing compass?

They excuse you, and- the idea itself can be made to work, but lots of things are alive, discrimination is the problem. Lots of experimentation happens, much of the day goes by, and in the end something workable emerges, with quirks.

Essentially you have to think, relatively clearly, of the thing it is that you want to find, concentrate on the arrow and it will point, but you have to give it the specific shape to point to- have to keep the creature, or kind of creature, in mind. Actually it would be great for foraging.

It's when you're thinking about how well it's likely to work in dim light that you realise that, yes, there is a lot of dim light to try it out in- that took most of the day. Where'd it go? At least nothing much tried to eat you- although after sundown might be a different matter.

Oh, there was a massive green flash from the direction of the town. Where is everybody?

I think then it is time to head back to town. 'Hmm green and glowing and visible for miles. And it is late and I don't know where those fools and vagabonds are. Well I can solve one of those questions here and now."

Going to focus on the compass, visualizing each party member in turn. Lets see if it has that sort of fine control. That should mean that I know that William is dead to us now.

OOC:

...If you mean who I think you mean, I fail to see how she came back to haunt us. I suppose we might have overlooked her at some point, but it seems a mite unlikely.

IC:

Larric's brain shifts gears again, at this rate I might as well install a continuously variable transmission and have done with it. Come to think of it, he might already have one, it just works funny.

Yep, that kind of Krylanyan. And that kind of conversation.

The alchemist chuckles. "Of myself? That's an interesting question. If you ask me, you skipped a step in there, between 'he doesn't posture' and 'he's got no self-respect.' Did you expect that what I think of myself, of all the million things under heaven, has to be there for you, a perfect stranger, to size up at first glance? That I should need everyone else to see what I see in the mirror, and puff myself up like a bullfrog until they do see it, or see more?" He shrugs. "There are trades like that. But I never did want to be a carnival barker.

"Now, I'm sure you went to some trouble to bring me here, madam- what did you have in mind?"

Ah, these days I have a brain like a sieve- that was an unintentional spoiler. This woman- (actually you could almost use the plural, Larric doesn't have the specific talents to look closely enough at the fault lines in her psyche and spirit to see what distance from the truth that is)- is a very frequent haunter, a permanent and apparently indelible source of trouble- it is her job, hobby, vocation and reason for being. I was just getting a little ahead of myself.

I noticed you fixed my typos in the quote box, by the way. Thank you- the fact that I spawn so many is another source of worry.


She says to Larric, 'So you don't? First glances are for perfect strangers, after all, and the constellation of your faces-there's hardly one that you want the world to take you for, is there? More like a dozen, for moods, for times, for places- for meeting a particular eye of the beholder; and how many versions of yourself, what you want to be and by holding the image before you draw yourself to being, and what you know you ought not, what you're a little afraid to dream of...you cannot trade in nature and demeanour; you can dance, or you cannot- and you, sir, galumph.

What I had in mind was exactly that; and I am disappointed that the image before you, that you seek to be, is so far beneath your actions- you will be in danger of being crushed by the image others hold of you, if you do not rise to it. I could make a hero out of even you, I think.'

OOC:

Oh, lord, this is tough for me to figure out an intelligible and yet Larric-ish response to. She might as well be talking in Martian to him, and while theoretically she may be reading his mind (my working hypothesis), I will be perfectly honest in that she hasn't read it correctly, or perhaps is just constitutionally unable to understand. I'm still working on it, but it's going to take time because the difference in frames of reference is so large, and they're not talking about anything specific and concrete which Larric's mind could latch on.

Larric is the last person in the world who'd ever think of hiring an image consultant, which is what the Krylanyan seems to be half-volunteering to be.

(I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but the statement is still true, and relevant)



This part I have to explain OOC, because I can't think of a way for Larric to communicate it to the unknown Krylanyan (who, in light of the implications about her powerset, behavior, and interests, I'm uncharitably tempted to label "Attention Whore," but that's very much OOC).

The "image he draws himself into being," the one that's been motivating him since adolescence, is that of the scientist and inventor- which is why he can't explain it, because he hasn't got the vocabulary and I'm not sure anyone in this era does. He perceives a great importance to what he does, to coming to understand these mysterious forces whose manipulation is supposedly the realm of magic but, in reality, can be at least partly controlled without any magic whatsoever.

From my take on her, the Krylanyan is about as likely to understand this as she is to flap her arms and fly. To her, he wants to be a filthy manual laborer. There's no nobility in that, that's ignobility. Meanwhile, Larric takes the implicit slight as a personal insult, and as typical of the larger "that sort of Krylanyan's" tendency to disdain the necessary and vital products and processes of civilization, because they're too busy trying to manipulate and control it to worry about keeping it running. In short, there's an obvious theological dispute between the... Ikhrani-Cheletian and Krylanyan images of what civilization is supposed to be about, and for, and Larric and this woman are on opposite sides of that dispute.

From Larric's point of view, Athena would be a goddess with a recognizable, resonant message via the Ergane aspect, and this setting's Krylanya has cast that side of herself away if she ever had a chance at it. She's not the goddess of wisdom, she's the goddess of politics, occasionally in the Clausewitzian sense.



And here and now- Larric doesn't want to be called to heroism qua heroism, he wants to pitch in and try to sort out the damned mess his own homeland is in. Arguably that is heroism, the very definition of it, but he doesn't think of it that way (how many Medal of Honor and VC recipients thought of themselves as heroes?). Larric is playing a political game now, largely by accident, but to the significant limits of his knowledge and ability, he's playing the game to win, not for the sport of it. And if he can win, there's the eventual hope of getting back to his "job, hobby, vocation and reason for being," which he is not now accomplishing effectively, any more than the Krylanyan would be if she found herself forced to spend a year as a washerwoman.



So if this woman is trying to echo her goddess's role and calling to the faithful to be 'patrons of heroes,' her attempt to do this with Larric specifically has been badly botched. She utterly failed on her own first impression, by being a woman in a bathing suit standing there calling him a mouse for (in his view) not being a posturing arrogant git- and for being a poor dancer when he's trying to sculpt.

Larric doesn't want to antagonize her, not as such, but his mind is full of distaste and annoyance at her attitude, at what she seems to have decided he wants and is... largely without reference to what he really wants, or who he really is. He's beginning to wonder if she, being what she is, can even grasp the idea of a self-assured person who doesn't like to play games of one-upsmanship and office politics and "look at me! look at me!"

At the same time, he's not stupid and he knows a warning when he sees one- especially a warning about a political problem, coming from a politically-attuned person, to a person like himself who is not politically attuned. He grasps that for whatever reasons of her own she's got, she's actually trying to help him... and yet, the offer is being delivered in an insulting way, and presumably comes with highly dubious strings attached.

If she wanted to convince him that he needs her as an ally, she did it very badly. Some champion of the goddess of manipulating heroes into serving your purposes ...



So that's what's in his head. What he actually, physically, does and says, I'm still trying to figure out. It's a situation that's so outside-context for the man that I as author of his personality am having trouble coming up with a reaction, aside from "lash out" which is itself out of character or "stand there and think," which he would do, but wouldn't take very long at it because he's intelligent and not particularly socially awkward.

FURTHER OOC, OUTRIGHT METAGAMEY:

Actually, that seems to be a pattern, and an interesting one, from both homebrew campaigns. Arguably, Krylanya is (among other things) "the goddess of manipulating heroic warriors into serving your purposes." No wonder Her church keeps turning up wherever there are PCs around...

Arguably, she is one of the characters responsible- her personally, chiefly responsible in fact- for setting the pattern.

Constitutionally unable to understand? Ish. There's some of that in there- and a world view very different from Larric's, that much is obvious in her reading his body language; (raw perceptive ability, superb- although not to that degree, the heightened awareness of feedback is absent. Mental filters through which it all pases, bit on the quirky side.)

Calling her an attention whore out loud would be interesting; depending on her mood, she might not even disagree- well, she obviously chose to look like that. As for the rest of the analysis, have an extra character point next time I hand them out.

Although that bit about an equal insult to spending a year as a washerwoman- definitely not out loud. Larric is not without perceptions of his own, and what he can see of the bit behind the mask indicates her personality has worry lines, probably scars on it, that suggest the truth is at least as bad or worse.

As for trying to manipulate people into serving her purposes, in line with her faith...ask the Countess about that one.