Accidentally passed out, oops. Well, I'm sure it'll work out, it seems like things are going to get Exciting given how you're asking who's going to witness what's going on, and it's not like I've spent the reward die yet (Though if it needs another push, it's available if it means resolving things this turn)
Progress Update: Almost done with Research, I've decided to henceforth forgo (most) training flavor writing as if there's anything that will kill this quest, it's that. I expect an hour or two until completion.
Progress Update: Almost done with Research, I've decided to henceforth forgo (most) training flavor writing as if there's anything that will kill this quest, it's that. I expect an hour or two until completion.
Progress Update: Almost done with Research, I've decided to henceforth forgo (most) training flavor writing as if there's anything that will kill this quest, it's that. I expect an hour or two until completion.
[X] Plan Dealing With The Curse
-[X] (Personal) Spend time with...
--[X] Gabriel
--[X] Offer him his armor back, it's his after all
--[X] Talk to him about the Meteor and ask for his help
-[X] (Personal) Spend time with...(again)
--[X] Jerasmus
--[X] Consult with him, see if he has any insights as to what caused the Curse and what measures you might have to break it
--[X] Ask him about the bible and what's in it, see about learning to read it
-[X] (Visit) Go visit...
--[X] Steinby, your Father's Farm
--[X] (Optional) Go here with the intent to investigate the Curse.
--[X] After talking with Jerasmus
-[X] (Surplus)
--[X] Make a sacrifice to the Gods (+1 Hamingja per 20 Food/Fodder sacrificed to a limit of 3) (60 Food)
-[X] (Research)
--[X] Experiment with Frami, Virthing, and Saemd and weaving them together further, including doing all three and experimenting with the Gate. If it looks like it's putting up resistance, don't force it, try pivoting instead to doing something inside the Empty Space. Also make sure there are people with us to guard against ambush if using all three of the options 1d6
--[X] Research the bible (ideally with Jerasmus if he's available) 1d6
-[X] (Blackhand's Training) Try to develop old/train new hugareida tricks (Write in)
--[X] Train Kindle-Spinner 2d6 (1d6)
--[X] Train Firebomb-Strike 2d6 (1d6)
--[X] Train Ember-Winged Cloak 2d6 (1d6)
--[X] Train Campfire 2d6 (1d6)
-[X] (Steinarr's Training) Ask Steinarr to teach you a trick/some tricks (Write in)
--[X] Train Sidestep 1d6
--[X] Train Magnify-Sight Trick 1d6
--[X] Train 'Household' Housecraft Skill-Trick 1d6
--[X] Train 'Teaching' Wordplay Skill-Trick 1d6
-[X] (Training) Hamr (21 successes to rank up)
--[X] Train Hamr itself 11d6
-[X] (Training) Hugr (31 successes to rank up)
--[X] Train Hugr itself 1d6
--[X] Train Weaponcraft 1d6
--[X] Train Wildcraft 1d6
-[X] (Training) Fylgja (16 success to rank up)
--[X] Train Fylgja Itself 1d6
-[X] Management
--[X] (Construction) Improve House #1 1d6
--[X] (Construction) Improve House #2 6d6
--[X] (Construction) Improve Workshop 1d6
--[X] (Construction) Improve Barn 1d6
--[X] (Construction) Improve Storehouse 6d6
--[X] (Fields) Clear Fields 16d6 (6d6 from Scythe and Plow, +2 successes from Ox)
--[X] (Resources) Cloth 8d6 (3d6 from Wood Axe)
-[X] (Fylgja Capacity)
--[X] Put the largest boulder we can find in the unused slot
-[X] (Equipment)
--[X] Add our new sax as another backup weapon
-[X] (Orthstirr Usage)
--[X] 5 Hamr
---[X] 4 Chop, 4 Defend, 4 Dodge, 4 Glima, 3 Bash, 3 Pierce, 3 Throw, 2 Labor, 3 Overland (30 total)
--[X] 6 Hugr
---[X] 3 Composure, 4 Housecraft, 2 Management, 3 Scouting, 3 Silver-Tongue, 3 Strategy, 3 Tactics, 4 Wordplay, 3 Wildcraft (28 total)
--[X] 4 Fylgja
--[X] 1 First Impression
--[X] 155 free for tricks
(Improve Your House: 3)1+4=5 Successes. (Improve Basic House #1: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 6)2+4=2 Successes (Workshop: 5)2+4=6 Successes (Barn: 3)5 Successes (Storehouse: 3, 3, 2, 2, 4, 5)7 Successes
(+5 to Upgrading Your House to Good)
(+2 to Upgrading Basic House #1 to Decent)
(Decent Workshop Built!)
(Decent Barn Built!)
(Decent Storehouse Built!)
0~0~0 (Cloth: 6, 6, 6, 4, 2, 2, 6, 2)24 Cloth
(+24 Cloth)
0~0~0 (Clearing Fields: 4+2=6 Successes)
(Field #2 Cleared!)
(Field #3 Cleared!)
(+1 to Clearing Field #4)
0~0~0 (Rooster: 1st Hen: Fine Rooster. 2nd Hen: Good Hen. 3rd Hen: Superior Hen. 4th Hen: Fine Hen) (Bull: 1st: Superior Cow. 2nd: Decent Bull. 3rd: Good Bull) (Ram: 1st: Fine Ram. 2nd: Fine Ewe. 3rd: Decent Ewe. 4th: Good Ewe)
(1 Fine Rooster, 1 Superior Hen, 1 Fine Hen, 1 Good Hen will be added at the start of next year.)
(1 Good Bull, 1 Decent Bull, 1 Superior Cow will be added at the start of next year)
(1 Fine Ram, 1 Fine Ewe, 1 Good Ewe, 1 Decent Ewe will be added at the start of next year)
0~0~0 Aspects shenanigans
The spot under the ash is coated in layers of crisp leaves that crunch under your, Abjorn, and Stigmar's shoes as you march up to your research spot.
"What do you need us to do?" Stigmar asks as you come to a stop in the middle of the stone. Abjorn glances around, taking in the place that you've been spending a lot of your time as of late.
"Just stand there, keep guard." Your anxiety is climbing sky-high, a mix of pregnancy-sourced hormones and also just general nerves. "I'm gonna try something that might be... Well, it'll leave me vulnerable to attack and, well..." you shrug as Abjorn and Stigmar nod, understanding clear in their eyes.
A light flush passes over your cheeks as you sit down on the crunchy leaves. "Just, uh," you chuckle, embarrassment heating your chest, "don't look at me while I do this."
Your guards politely avert their gaze to their weapons in hand.
After waiting a moment to make sure they keep their damned eyes away, you nod, slowly, and stoke your Aspects.
Virthing and saemd quickly return to their woven glory as they wrap around body and soul in turn. They sit there, waiting patiently for what you suspect to be frami.
Slowly, ever so slowly, you stoke your frami and erupt into crimson flames as you carefully guide it down into your barren, empty soul.
Swallowing a gulp, you allow its fire to touch the woven length o-
You blink as you're shaken awake. Stars swirl in your vision as you turn to lock eyes with your husband.
"Halla! Are yo-" A shallow frown passes over his face as his brows furrow into a deep valley on his head, "...your eyes... they're red."
Staggering on rubbery limbs over to where the small stream trickles from the ash, you peer down into the clear, reflective waters. Sure enough, in twin seas of steel floats a pair of infinitely thin rings of softly glowing red.
The same red that colors runes.
"How long was I out?" Your words are barely a whisper, yet Abjorn at your side is more than close enough to hear. Stigmar stands a few feet away, hand on sword and shield at the ready as he scans the trees for any hint of an enemy.
"Out?" Abjorn tilts his head to the side, clear confusion in his gaze. "You were sitting still for no longer than an hour until... well, until you started spasming and frothing at the mouth," he shudders, shoulders quaking as he breathes shakily, "I... I was so scared."
You press your nose to his chest as you embrace him as tight as you can. Bones creak painlessly as he returns the favor.
'Halla, take a look at this,' Blackhand's words are faint, strained even, as he 'motions' for you. Turning your gaze inwards, you find yourself looking upon a low, sloping hill that dominates the center of your newly alive soul. It seems to almost invite you to to climb to its peak, so you do.
The entire field hums with waking power as you find yourself standing before an empty crater at the peak of the hill — dozens of times deeper than you are tall. At the very bottom of the crater is a small pool of red power that slowly, gracefully flows in tiny waves.
"What... what is this?" Your words are a murmur against your lover's chest.
'I don't know, or maybe I did, once,' Blackhand admits almost reluctantly, 'all I know now is a name, the name of that liquid;'
Odr
Even the name of it almost thrums with power. Merely speaking it brings visions of might and power, of conquest and bloodshed, of manic insanity deciding the next course of action.
"Where did it come from?"
'The Gate. It opened when your frami touched the woven strand and through it flowed odr. After some time, the thread began to unravel and... well,'
You know what happened after that. It's the reason why you're in your husband's arms.
'I managed to close the Gate before anything truly bad happened, but it was a near thing.*'
If Blackhand hadn't been able to close the Gate...
You would have died, this you know.
How? Why? This you don't.
(Congratulations, you are now a true and proper Cultivator)
(You have 8 motes of odr)
0~0~0 Bible Study Time
Sitting down with Jerasmus before you, he begins to read the Bible to you.
...So, the Christians' God created their world in six days? Out of nothing?
That's kinda lame. At the very least he could've used the corpse of something he killed!
The more you learn of their God — who lacks a name! — the happier you are to have been born Norse.
(+1 progress made to understanding the Bible. ??? left)
0~0~0 Gabriel and his armor
Gabriel's eyes shine with happiness as he stretches and limbers up, his armor sitting in the chest before him.
"So... are you going to need any help putting it on, or?" Head tilting to the side, you watch as Gabriel waves off your question.
"If this were normal armor, absolutely," he picks the helmet — a blank, unadorned piece of curving iron, "but this is Knightly Armor."
"And that means what, exactly?" With a chance to learn about the armor of a Knight, how could you let it slip through your fingers?
"A lot," he dodges the question, but not on purpose, "but, most relevant to the situation at hand, is that it can do this!"
Blinding power flares and forces you to look away lest you be blinking spots for the rest of the day. When it clears, the chest is empty and Gabriel is encased in gleaming, white iron.
The armor is completely different. Where once it was bland and blank, it now bears starbursts and crosses. A long length of red feathers flows from his visor-up helmet — long enough to touch against the ground. A cape hangs from his off-hand shoulder and looks to be easily detached in a fight.
The only thing missing from the ensemble is a sword. Unfortunately, you've no swords on hand to give him. After all, the only swords not in use are the ones that will be going to your sons — the one that Abjorn retrieved for the wedding and, of course, Wanderlust.
"So, do you think that you'll be able to help me with the meteor?" You ask as Gabriel barely pays attention to your words, enamored as he is with the ease of movement. (Hugr (Silver-Tongue): 3, 3, 5, 5, 1, 1, 5, 2, 2, 3) 5+5(Armor)=10 Successes
He pauses as you finish speaking, clearly not enamored enough to miss all your words.
"From what you've told me of the meteor," he sighs, "I can open it, but I'm going to have a heavy price to pay."
"And what is that price?"
The wind stops as his words start.
"Zeal."
(Gabriel has agreed to open the meteor)
0~0~0 Consulting Jerasmus
"I will not be able to teach you Latin, my dear Halla," Jerasmus says the moment you entered the clearing he'd set up shop in. You hadn't even opened your mouth! "But I will be able to read to you that Bible you possess."
"H-ho-" You take a step back as he chuckles and opens a single, blazing white eye.
"I am a man of God, my dear Halla. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to feel the teachings of my faith on your person?"
You shuffle, a little bashfully. "Well... I didn't want you to think I did anything... to a church."
Technically, that's the truth!
"We both know that that's not the whole truth," he shakes his head slowly as you flush with red hot embarrassment. He cuts off your stammering excuses with a single, raised palm facing your way. "I know full well the things you have done and I find them... morally questionable, but you do show promise."
For some reason, you feel as if you avoided something rather bad by your choices on the raid.
(Jerasmus is now reading the Bible to you)
0~0~0 Investigating Steinby
Your father's farm comes into view as you round the corner.
The moment it does, you're struck by a sense of melancholy.
Sten stands in the door to his forge, letting his skin drink in the cool air after a day in the forge. His hair is full of metal flakes and skin is covered in soot and ash. He nods your way, obviously requesting your presence.
Asva is coming from the barn, buckets of milk in her hands as she makes her way to the farmhouse — where your father resides. Her face is a mask of steely determination, cold and unrelenting and unstoppable in purpose. She's not letting your father die of something as pitiful of starvation of all things!
Drifa sits alone in an unharvested field, picking at something sprouting from the ground. It looks to have a strange sparkle to it, like something truly magical.
Who do you wish to speak to first?
[ ] Sten, at the forge
[ ] Asva, with the milk
[ ] Drifa, in the field
[ ] Forgo speaking with them and go straight to the farmhouse, where everyone else sits.
0~0~0
AN: It'll be nice to have a small break from number plotting.
Anyways, once I got past the dice part it came quickly. Which is nice.
No moratorium and a short voting period. I expect one more update today.
I think I'm going to stop the progress updates, they're causing me undue stress.
Apparently making it left a crater in our soul, which is... worrying. We'll want to make sure we know more about what the heck is going on before we open the Gate again, presumably.
Things to test include cycling odr throughout our body and using it to power tricks and see if it does either better. I'm also curious if we can do the whole 'trace runes in air' thing that wizards do in some media since it's made of the same power as rune-magic.
Nice. We're starting to figure things out! That's great...maybe no more trying to make odr until we give birth, though, given the spasming and frothing at the mouth. After that, absolutely. We can try and figure out what to do with it in the meantime.
In terms of livestock...we can't support that many new livestock with our current fields. Certainly not with our existing Management pool. We can buy some feed and get them full grown, but we need to sell or slaughter some. Maybe see if dad is willing to swap livestock for fields? He has a bit of an excess of fields and may have worse livestock? Delicate balance there, mind you, as we're discovering, but not impossible.
For the vote...I dunno, I'm unclear which of the options would be best other than not going to the house immediately...
I think Odr is a 'higher' level of Qi compared to Orthsirr, the Shen equivalent so to say. I think you can use Odr to.. convert? Shape? Orthsirr into some aspected form of sorts.
I'm not sure it was an attack, per se. It got us exactly what we wanted, even though we didn't know what we were doing. The main problem seems to be we were tapping into a source without any way of mediating the flow - a floodgate with no built-in off-switch.
So the gate does exist as a safety measure. Without the gate Odr would just pour into you until you died from Odr overdose. I suspect it would be a True Death if it happened that way too. Because your tapestry would be torn apart. But Odr might also be usable to.. do who knows what.
