Consumption

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

No, this (probably) won't be a magic school quest. Yes, this is the dimensional traveler (Drifter) quest I mentioned earlier. It also won't interfere with updates for my other quests; if anything, it might help.

Don't worry about trying to make the quest go or stay travelling in a specific direction—at least, not on my account. I'll probably be fine with whatever direction it ends up going. After all, that's arguably the point of open-world questing. Even if it turns into SoL, it'd still be a different kind of SoL than Ignition's.

I think the capitalization of Scout, Healer, etc. looks a little weird. Think I should give them lowercase letters or is this fine?

"You know, you're going to fall off if you keep this up. Or, worse still, you might have your nose eaten by a flying shark."

You step away from the ship's railing and halfheartedly glare at the Scout responsible for the unnecessary comment. Like all Scouts, he's wearing a dark green cloak and grey mask, both of which offer concealment and anonymity. According to every Scout you've asked about it—which is to say, only the one right in front of you—it's so the organization can be judged as a whole rather than by individual. You're not sure it actually works; they do nothing to conceal their voice, behavior, or mannerisms.

You also feel it's a bit ridiculous to be wearing a heavy cloak in the middle of high summer. The poor Scout is probably melting in there.

...Wait, he's probably expecting a response, isn't he? What were we talking—right, flying sharks.

"Can they do that? Fly, that is. I thought creatures exposed to mana change to better survive in their environment. Why would an underwater predator get the ability to fly?"

The Scout shrugs.

"There's always a bigger fish out there. You're basically asking 'How can pegasi possibly exist?' And yet, that adaptation is common enough for them to earn their own name and even pass it on to their descendents. Don't underestimate the ability to go somewhere your enemies can't follow."

You'd honestly expected a much shorter response than that. It seems like practically everyone in your home village was fond of giving nonsensical answers to you in the hopes you'd stop asking questions. It seldom worked.

"Were you a teacher before you became a Scout?"

The cloaked figure snorts.

"Good grief, no. I was enough of an obnoxious little git when I was going through classes. If I'd been in the shoes of my teachers, I would've strangled myself long before graduation."

"Will you strangle me for asking questions?"

Because if so, I'm going to be dead long before we reach the academy.

The Scout crosses his arms and stands up a bit straighter. You get the feeling he's regarding you with some measure of disbelief.

"You're asking me if I'll strangle you for asking questions," the Scout says slowly. "Do you not see something wrong here?"

"If one more question was enough to drive you to murder, I'm not going to survive the trip anyway. If I ask, I might not have to worry and it'll save us both time either way."

You think your explanation was perfectly reasonable. Judging by his quiet snort, the Scout doesn't agree.

"Shouldn't you be off practicing for your entrance exams?"

That's not a no.

"You're the one who told me my Talent alone is enough to guarantee automatic entry and free tuition. Until I get a magic teacher, speaking with you is still plenty educational. You looked bored anyway."

"I'm wearing a mask, how would you even…?"

What is your Talent, anyway? (Use preference/number voting; 1 means it's your favorite, 2 would be your second choice, etc. up to 6)

[] Conjurer

You've always been loved by the small, lowest-class elementals living in your home village. You don't know why, especially since they tend to be as smart as the average dog.

Other mages apparently need complex rituals to summon any kind of elemental, including the weakest. You? If you're holding enough of their element, you can skip all that and summon them almost instantly. The Scout who "discovered" your Talent claimed you'll be able to do the same for any other elemental you've established a rapport with.

...If all elementals are like the ones in your village, you think it might be a good idea for you to learn how to make sweets.

[] Healer

You can bring someone you're touching to perfect health (for their age) in rather short order. The process consumes a significant chunk of your mana reserves and you can seldom do more than a half-dozen people each day. That number can dip up or down a little depending on what you're working on; you've found diseases to be significantly easier than wounds, but there seems to be a minimum cost per-heal.

When you tested the "minimum" by healing the same person repeatedly with no extra wounds in between, you could only do it twelve times before running out. You've also been told your Talent, like all others, will become stronger with use and appropriate training.

You can heal yourself. It's a little easier than healing other people, but not by much. Since you still feel pain and don't want to be magically exhausted in an emergency, you try to avoid making it so you'd need to.

It is possible for ordinary mages to partially imitate the effects of your Talent, but it's more expensive in terms of mana expenditure, takes longer, can actually harm the subject if the mage messes up, and is quite hard for said mages. Self-healing is apparently significantly easier for them, but not so much for most non-specialists to bother. Despite all that, you've been told "Theres no such thing as too many Healers."

[] Shaper

If you establish physical contact with any part of a stone, dirt, or metal object, you can make it move in accordance with your will. You're terrible at details right now—you've usually just used your Talent to make small stone huts—but you should be more precise as you practice and/or receive training. With enough of it, you should even be able to make tools, jewelry, or other delicate objects.

When you tested, your Talent was able to move affected objects slightly faster than you could walk. Shaving off sections of a larger object is relatively easy; making straight cuts is harder. You're not sure if you'll get faster as you get better, but you're learning toward "Won't."

If you're moving an object with your Talent, your Talent's influence on it will vanish should you break physical contact. This usually means it'll stop moving and fall to the ground, or simply slow down if there were other things helping it along.

[] Scout

While you aren't a member of the official organization, you can naturally sense the presence of magic in others near you. If someone is a mage or has recently had their bodies be directly enhanced by magic, they qualify and you'll be able to sense where they are in relation to yourself as long as they're within range.

Your Talent is active at all times and works independently of your normal senses. Meanwhile, normal Scouts need to use a 10+ second spell and spend a little mana just to scan a single target. You think their version doesn't even let them look for more than a few seconds, making theirs utterly useless for mass scanning or combat.

Your Talent also lets you sense the presence of some magical monsters. You're haven't been exposed to enough for you to figure out what the criteria is.

[] Haunted

The ghost of your long-dead cat, Wisp, continues to follow you around. He can't interact with anything and nobody else can see him, but he's still willing to help guide you to food, water, the occasional dropped coin, and similarly scouted secrets... when he feels like it. He can be a tad unreliable. Either way, Wisp's haunting is enough to earn you a spot at Alistore's state academy. Apparently, Wisp couldn't manage it unless you already had large enough magical reserves for you to become a full-fledged magician.

Although you're pretty sure you weren't supposed to overhear Scout saying this part, you might also be one of the rare individuals capable of becoming a natural Medium. Or, put less politely, a Necromancer. After all, you don't remember binding Wisp to you, yet here he is.

[] Imperfect

Most magicians slowly expand their own mana supplies from exposure to, or consumption of, safe amounts of mana. Your own do expand, but not as much as normal; the "lost" mana instead changes your body in a manner near-identical to the adaptations of non-human creatures. For a long time, you dreamed you might be a dragon in human form. That got shot down when this Scout scanned you; apparently, you're just weird. Unique, in fact—at least, in his experience.

Sadly, the village you grew up in was rather lacking when it comes to ambient mana. So far, you only have heightened senses, narrow cat-eyes, and a few black-striped white feathers growing out around your elbows. You're really not sure what the last is all about.

You don't know what would happen if you're exposed to dangerous amounts of mana. You can't convince anyone to tell you what happens to normal mages in those cases, only that you could probably feel it happening and that it isn't worth gambling on your Talent to protect you.

...And are you a boy or a girl? (Use standard X voting. Part of the next vote will be for your age: 14, 16, 18, or 21.)

[] Male.

[] Female.

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

Artist: Sakimichan

You grew up in a fairly isolated farming village. Your never knew either of your parents; nobody seems to have any idea who your mother was and your father, a weak mage, never returned from a hunting trip into the woods. Everyone, including you, believes he's dead.

In your father's absence, you turned into a bit of a community project; almost everyone in the village contributed to raising you in some way or another. You usually wouldn't even spend more than a few months living in a single household before you were shuffled off to the next. Of course, as everyone in the village knew everyone else, this wasn't much of a hardship for any of you.

That being said, some of them liked to give you nonsensical answers when you asked them what they believed to be too many questions. This usually failed utterly when you followed up with your usual "Why?" and refused to take "Because it is!" as a valid answer.

Contrary to what some passerby seem to believe, nobody in the village was a cannibal. None of you have any idea why some of them seem to think that and it even became a bit of a community joke after a while.

For whatever reason, the numerous elementals lurking around your village have always seemed to adore you. Even the fire elementals have been careful to keep their distance even as they dart around and play with you, something which is apparently quite unusual; they're famous for carelessly igniting flammable (yet shiny) objects.

While you weren't anywhere close to the most sought-after girl in the village, you did have a few boys who seemed to fancy you. Letting them down felt awful, especially when you didn't realize they felt that way until the gifts actually started arriving. You thought they just liked spending time with you.

You don't think anyone in the village was surprised when a Scout came along and claimed you had the potential needed to become an excellent magician. No, really? What gave it away? Was it the half-dozen air elementals darting around you?

Regardless, you left the very next morning and haven't looked back.

Used with permission from Sakimichan.

You have a metal penny knife, a wooden cup, and four small leather pouches on your belt. One pouch contains coal, the next dirt, another a handful of rocks, and the last contains fourteen small silver coins. It's not a huge amount of money, but you think it might be enough to last you half that many days on your own. Or at least, it would've been if you hadn't ended up someplace strange...

You also have a waterskin, which is arguably the heaviest object you're carrying.

Inventory and personal skills are outdated and will be fixed next. Elementals have been updated.

You've been very careful not to give people-names to the elementals you've met. Unlike the names of people, the names given to elementals can actively affect their personalities if they're weak enough. If they don't eventually get smart enough to name themselves, you might give them names when they're significantly more powerful and won't be defined by them.

Class 0

Fire: 0/3.
Air: 0/5.
Dirt: 0/4.
Stone: 0/3.

Class 0 elementals fit in the palm of your hand, are human-shaped, technically genderless, and made out of their component element. Water elementals ripple as they move around. Stone and dirt are often still enough they're mistaken for dolls. The "bodies" of air elementals are more like vague guidelines; at pretty much all times, at least part of them is in the process of ignoring their outline and and flowing freely. Fire elementals look more like little balls of flame if you don't look closely enough. If you do, you might notice the permanent human-shaped patch of yellow at the center of the flames.

Although you haven't gained the ability to summon wood elementals, you have seen a few. They appear to change color and pattern depending on the type of wood they last touched; if they didn't like you, you'd pretty much just have to look out for little green orbs (their eyes) breaking up the pattern of a tree's bark.

Class 1

Class 1 elementals seem to be four or five centimeters larger than their weaker relatives.

Thus far, you've only seen C1 water elementals; their forms are more reliably detailed and they're capable of producing short, high-pitched noises to express their emotions. 'Squeaks' and 'chirps' seem to be appropriate descriptors for most of them.

Class 2

You don't know very much about class II elementals; your own didn't spend enough time at that rank for you to get a good look at them.

Class 3

Your Class 3 elementals stand at about eighteen centimeters in height.

Your Stone and Dirt elementals have large, blocky limbs about half the length and width of their own torso. At least their skulls seem to fit the altered proportions.

Your fire elemental's core is slightly smaller than the bodies of your other elementals, but seems to be otherwise normal. It used to be colored yellow; now, the rest of its flames are yellow while its core is a red-tinged orange. Instead of being a floating fireball, even the surrounding flames seem to be taking a roughly human-shaped form.

Your water elementals seem to have settled on solid forms, ones which are starting to form faces eerily similar to your own face. The resemblance is, thankfully, difficult to notice; whenever they move even the slightest amount, the water composing their body ripples as though something were dropped inside them. You're still not sure if the resemblance to you is normal.

Your air elementals seem to have decided that legs are overrated. Apart from the wispy tail replacing said legs, their form seems to have solidifed into a transparent, vaguely feminine outline. You can't tell if they're going down the same path as your water elementals and imitating your face.

Your stone and dirt elementals are now capable of communicating with an odd, purr-like rumbling. Your air and water elementals can use chirps, squeaks, sighs, and... giggles? Finally, your fire elemental can chirp, change the brightness of ~~his~~ its flames, and change their sound so they produce violent crackling.

Fire, Summoned: 1/1
Air, Brought: 2/2
Dirt, Summoned: 2/2
Stone, Summoned: 1/1
Water, Summoned: 3/3

Class 4

Your only Class 4 at the current moment is also your newest elemental overall, a light elemental. You're guessing he's about twenty centimeters tall, giving him a good two or three centimeters over your Class 3 elementals. You haven't been able to get a good look at him yet; he's much, much brighter than he was as a Class 0, to the point where looking at him hurts your eyes.

You're not sure if he doesn't know he should reduce his own brightness or if he simply can't yet. You have yet to hear him make a sound.

Light, Brought: 1/1

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

FAQ will go here.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where are we?

On a ship traveling along the coast of Alistore, the nation you were born and grew up in. You think it's supposed to take you a few more days to reach the capital and thus the magic academy you're traveling toward.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where's home?

You're not entirely sure at this point. For as long as you can remember, you've lived in a relatively isolated farming village located right next to a large forest. You traveled for two days on the back of a pony to reach a small fishing outpost, spent the night there, and have spent another three days on the ship.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Do we know anyone here?

Just the Scout. Nobody else is on the ship aside from you two; you vaguely suspect the self-driving ship is meant to impress you. Since you'd never seen a ship before anyway, you don't think it was necessary.

EDIT:

fictionfan said:
The big question is we are going to be moving around alot or staying in one place and building up. If we are staying in any civilization then healer wins hands down. That ability generates money and reputation like crazy. However, if we are moving around all the time then both of those are less useful being hard to carry around in large amounts.

You don't know. What is this "Dimensional Travel" that you're indirectly referencing? You don't know if it's even possible.

fictionfan said:
I vote male so that if this quest really kicks off we can have shipping with Jade.

(Yes I know gender is no barrier to shipping.)

...

Yog said:
What are the limitations of a human body in the setting,

You don't think even famous heroes can be a match for the more dangerous magical creatures out there without access to magical enhancements of their own. You believe said enhancements are usually temporary, although some of them—usually improvements to the durability of the human body— can be permanent.

Yog said:
and can self-healing be used to improve physical training by shortening muscle recovery time?

Yes, although you don't think the capstone on merely-human traits is nearly as high if you don't help the process along via exposure to mana and/or proper magic.

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

Reserved.

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

You may now post. Feel free to ask questions; you'll either get a proper answer or the infamous "You don't know," depending on what you know IC.

EDIT: Special thanks to a certain individual in PMs who recommended using one of these for stealth rolls. You know who you are.

(Will do a proper "Special Thanks" if I get permission to do so.)

Swarm 1: 7/10/2017

Set 2: 9/2/2017, Deterioration onward.

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Jun 18, 2017

Alivaril said:
You may now post. Feel free to ask questions; you'll either get a proper answer or the infamous "You don't know," depending on what you know IC.

Where are we?
Where's home?
Do we know anyone here?

Vebyast · Jun 18, 2017

Alivaril said:
I think the capitalization of Scout, Healer, etc. looks a little weird. Think I should give them lowercase letters or is this fine?

Dunno. See how people treat it in thread?

Could also use it ICly? Some people will treat it with more weight and emphasis, sometimes even people that don't care about it (and say "scouts" usually) will occasionally have to differentiate between scouts and Scouts, etc.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where's home?

Part of upcoming chargen?

SynchronizedWritersBlock · Jun 18, 2017

[1] Haunted
[2] Scout

Most interesting / seems rather useful. Plenty of other ways to go but there seems to be regular magic too.

[3] Conjurer
[4] Healer

fictionfan · Jun 18, 2017

The big question is we are going to be moving around alot or staying in one place and building up. If we are staying in any civilization then healer wins hands down. That ability generates money and reputation like crazy. However, if we are moving around all the time then both of those are less useful being hard to carry around in large amounts.

Spectral Waltz · Jun 18, 2017

Hmmm... I like Scout, Shaper, and Healer.

The last Mostly because combat healers can be hilarious and terrifying with the right training...

Hmm...

[1] Shaper
[2] Healer

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where are we?

On a ship traveling along the coast of Alistore, the nation you were born and grew up in. You think it's supposed to take you a few more days to reach the capital and thus the magic academy you're traveling toward.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where's home?

You're not entirely sure at this point. For as long as you can remember, you've lived in a relatively isolated farming village located right next to a large forest. You traveled for two days on the back of a pony to reach a small fishing outpost, spent the night there, and have spent another three days on the ship.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Do we know anyone here?

Just the Scout. Nobody else is on the ship aside from you two; you vaguely suspect the self-driving ship is meant to impress you. Since you'd never seen a ship before anyway, you don't think it was necessary.

EDIT:

fictionfan said:
The big question is we are going to be moving around alot or staying in one place and building up. If we are staying in any civilization then healer wins hands down. That ability generates money and reputation like crazy. However, if we are moving around all the time then both of those are less useful being hard to carry around in large amounts.

You don't know. What is this "Dimensional Travel" that you're indirectly referencing? You don't know if it's even possible.

sainen · Jun 18, 2017

[2] Conjurer
[6] Healer
[3] Shaper
[5] Scout
[1] Haunted
[4] Imperfect

[x] Female.

Past Dreams · Jun 18, 2017

[1] Haunted
[2] Conjurer
[3] Imperfect

[x] Female

fictionfan · Jun 18, 2017

[1] Conjurer
[2] Imperfect

[X]male

Nixeu · Jun 18, 2017

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Where are we?
Where's home?
Do we know anyone here?

Well, apparently we're heading to

Alivaril said:
Alistore's state academy.

Wherever the hell that is. It's hidden in the power descriptions, though. Which I think is a bad formatting descision on Alivaril's part.

fictionfan said:
The big question is we are going to be moving around alot or staying in one place and building up. If we are staying in any civilization then healer wins hands down. That ability generates money and reputation like crazy. However, if we are moving around all the time then both of those are less useful being hard to carry around in large amounts.

I think the big question is 'what would be enjoyable?' Honestly, I don't personally find being Panacea that enjoyable, if I'm being bluntly honest.

Scout's natural magic sense is pretty sweet. Being able to detect mages is always fun. Haunted is also pretty neat looking. Always fun to be practicing a potential taboo form of magic, especially when it involves raising the dead. Conjurer is fun for the minions.

Spectral Waltz said:
Hmmm... I like Scout, Shaper, and Healer.

The last Mostly because combat healers can be hilarious and terrifying with the right training...

You're not wrong, but Healers of our level of strength are probably considered not worth risking on the front lines. Agreed on Shaper being potentially interesting, though our speed seems a little slow?

[1] Haunted
[2] Conjurer
[3] Scout
[4] Imperfect
[5] Shaper
[6] Healer

[x] Male

Even if I lose on the last one, I still get to joke about Alivaril's lack of male leads. If it wins, Alivaril is pulled out of his comfort zone. So I win either way. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Alivaril · Jun 18, 2017

Nixeu said:
Even if I lose on the last one, I still get to joke about Alivaril's lack of male leads. If it wins, Alivaril is pulled out of his comfort zone. So I win either way. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Haven't we had this discussion before? I don't care either way. :I

fictionfan · Jun 18, 2017

Not sure what haunted can do that Conjurer can't do with less sigma.

Nixeu · Jun 18, 2017

Alivaril said:
Haven't we had this discussion before? I don't care either way. :I

Yes, you've said as much. But the thing is, I don't think I believe you.

Even if you're not lying to yourself, though, it pulls the player-base out of it's comfort zone. So mine is still an evil laugh. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

fictionfan said:
Not sure what haunted can do that Conjurer can't do with less sigma.

See and talk to dead people. That has it's perks, you know. Especially if there's been a murder.

Umi-san · Jun 18, 2017

[3] Conjurer
[4] Healer
[2] Shaper
[5] Scout
[6] Haunted
[1] Imperfect

[x] Female.

JackOfAll · Jun 18, 2017

[4] Conjurer
[1] Healer
[3] Shaper
[6] Scout
[5] Haunted
[2] Imperfect

[x] Female.

Archeo Lumiere · Jun 18, 2017

[1] Imperfect
[2] Conjurer
[3] Haunted
[4] Shaper
[5] Healer
[6] Scout
[X] Male

fictionfan · Jun 18, 2017

I vote male so that if this quest really kicks off we can have shipping with Jade.

(Yes I know gender is no barrier to shipping.)

sainen · Jun 18, 2017

fictionfan said:
The big question is we are going to be moving around alot or staying in one place and building up. If we are staying in any civilization then healer wins hands down. That ability generates money and reputation like crazy. However, if we are moving around all the time then both of those are less useful being hard to carry around in large amounts.

Healers are boring, especially compared to the other choices.

Nixeu said:
See and talk to dead people. That has it's perks, you know. Especially if there's been a murder.

depends on where we land, because Necromancy is frowned upon in lots of places.

fictionfan said:
Not sure what haunted can do that Conjurer can't do with less sigma.

others can't see the ghosts, thus a Haunted could theoretically be better at spying.

Motile Mollusc · Jun 18, 2017

[1] Conjurer
[2] Shaper
[3] Haunted
[4] Imperfect
[5] Scout
[6] Healer

[x] Female.

Vebyast · Jun 18, 2017

[2] Conjurer

This seems like the generalist option. If we get the right spirits we can probably duplicate anything the others can do, but at lower efficiency. A mana elemental, for example, might resemble a budget Scout power, we might get a healing ability.

[] Healer

Super-useful, especially if we're going to be spending a lot of time on extended vacations on deathworlds. Note that the fact that this is considered to be on par with things like necromancy and conjuration means that healing is going to be important.

[] Shaper

Become Toph.

[4] Scout

Detect magic is nifty overall. Likely has some conceptual overlap with Jade's mana sense and enhanced learning; being able to see better usually means being able to learn better.

[3] Haunted

Zombies.

In fact, judging by the way our cat up and ghosted itself, maybe accidentally zombies. That'd be fun. That'd be really fun.

[1] Imperfect

Based on the description of this ability and by the title, apparently the standard way to power up in this universe is by om nom nom. And this is the OM NOM NOM power. Do want.

Consumption

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

Nascent Transhuman

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Scatterbrained Writer

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

Elder Lich

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas

Procrastinating.

The Prince's Archivist

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Elder Lich

Bitten by a radioactive were-tilde

Nascent Transhuman