You don't need lessons to know a modern pot is higher quality.
Consumption
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Original
FullNothingness
Mostly DHMO.
Maybe, but the quality of the pots is hardly the main concern...
Alivaril
On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Rolling, both for now and a few future events. Voting isn't locked.
EDIT: Ooooooh, dear. EDIT 2: Well, could've been worse.
EDIT 3: I might have to toss out those first 9 and reroll depending on how this pans out. That's probably a good thing for y'all, FYI; they were meh.
EDIT: Ooooooh, dear. EDIT 2: Well, could've been worse.
EDIT 3: I might have to toss out those first 9 and reroll depending on how this pans out. That's probably a good thing for y'all, FYI; they were meh.
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I don't think it'll be that bad. I think they'll suspect Melia was sent by their thousand-year old enemies or something like that, and quite reasonably refuse her entry to their house.
And if they do for whatever reason decide to attack us, I think we'll have Vanessa on our side. We'll just run to the anti-magic guys who will have suddenly become a far more attractive option. Maybe they'll accidentally help snap our Anchor faster and we'll escape that way.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
I really, really don't like the conclusion that the Inquisitors are goody-two-shoes people who will instantly be on our side. That seems like a damn good way to get Melia horribly dead.
Remember, "is enemies with evil people" just means that someone is an enemy of an evil person. Doesn't mean that they're good. Just means they might be extra evil to you too.
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I don't think that. I do think that if the one group we have contact with is not on our side, because they ATTACKED US, the Inquisitors are the only place we could possibly run to. Melia already suspects that their anti-magic will snap her Anchor which would get her away from them (and everyone else) if they are bad people.
That's not a theory I'd want to test when the failure mode is torture and enslavement.
DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
Is there a reason why we couldn't just hole up somewhere and wait our anchor out instead? We have no reason to think the broad details about the inquisitors are untrue, even if the details are probably very biased, and I'd really rather not just assume that, in the event of hostility, the inquisitors will immediately use their anti-magic on us and subsequently send us on our way. While I'm inclined to think the latter is correct, I don't want to test that out. More importantly, however, the Anchor itself might be unusual or unique, but that doesn't mean the inquisitors have never encountered other effects that can activate when broken by anti-magic. Thus, anti-magic might not be their first resort.
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I'm assuming that Vanessa's family has not only attacked us but will continue to attack us unless given a reason not to. That means being in public. Being in public means Inquisitors showing up because our clothing is strange. Using our Sanctuary also means Inquisitors showing up.
Let's just stop talking about this hypothetical situation until it actually happens. Hopefully things won't get this bad.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
They can't let us get captured by either the Inquisition or their rival houses; at that point they'd have to assume we'd talk. If they decide that we're not staying with them, they're not going to kick us out, they're going to kill us on the spot.
So yes, I hope that we can resolve the bad first impression. There is no "being in public" or "leaving with Vanessa". They're either on our side or we're dead.
So yes, I hope that we can resolve the bad first impression. There is no "being in public" or "leaving with Vanessa". They're either on our side or we're dead.
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There's also little guarantee that our escape mechanism will work inside an antimagic aura. Our anchor may fail, but what then? Leaving requires the expenditure of mana to create a magical portal.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
I believe the phrase you're looking for is "my enemy's enemy is my enemy's enemy, no more, no less."
2.2: Beholder's Luck
Alivaril
On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Your Talent tore a hole in the universe and you stepped through.
-[x] Don't bother concealing that you're probably from an unconnected dimension.
"My Talent tore a hole in the universe and I stepped through the resulting rift."
Vanessa stumbles and lapses into dull silence. The intermittent brick buildings slowly become more and more frequent until there's a solid wall of buildings on either side of the road. They're still conspicuously empty. At the same time, you feel like the mana levels of the surrounding area are climbing higher and higher. However, when you check the amount of environmental mana entering your system, it still seems to be minimal.
Odd.
Eventually, Vanessa manages a single disbelieving word: "Seriously?"
"Yes."
"...Do you have any idea how insanely difficult it is to open even a temporary portal between realms?"
I'm amazing, I know.
[X] Ask more questions of your own.
-[X] What's a Realm?
--[X] Ask her more about traveling dimensions since it seems to be common knowledge.
-[x] Ask more about Houses and differences between them.
"Nope! What's a Realm?"
Vanessa slows until you're walking alongside her. Whether conveying her disbelief is the primary purpose of doing so or a side benefit is unclear. Eventually, her disbelief cracks in the face of your own honest curiosity. At least, you think that's why her mask of doubt fades.
"I'm still not sure I believe you," Vanessa grumbles. "Realms are artificially created, er, spaces linked to Earth in one or more places. The more links and the more stable each link is, the greater the maximum size of the Realm and the less mana it takes to maintain-slash-expand it. Realms can also link to each other, but the boost from those isn't nearly as good as one to Earth itself. You probably come from one of the more isolated ones. Earth doesn't have an edge like you might be used to; it's ball-shaped and just keeps on going until you end up where you started."
You dimly note that the fireworks display seems to have ended. The flickering orange glow of fire seems to be illuminating the inside of a few nearby buildings, but you still don't see or hear anyone on the streets itself. You're stuck wondering if there's some sort of a curfew or if everyone just loves fireworks that much.
...Right. Vanessa said something wrong. You fix your gaze on her face and prepare to drop another bombshell.
"Actually, I think I'm from a different planet entirely. Ours was endless and round, too. I think it was supposed to take, like, years of travel to get back to your starting point if you walked in a straight line?"
Vanessa narrows her eyes and glares at you.
"Still don't believe you."
You smile brightly. "That's fine! Not my problem. So, how does travel between Realms usually work? And I take it you've never heard of dimensional travel yet?"
Vanessa growls under her breath and hurries ahead of you. It takes you a little while to realize she isn't planning on answering.
"So...?" you prompt.
"Nope. Don't believe you."
"Just the travel between realms, then? Please?"
Vanessa glowers back at you and increases her pace even further. You're forced to jog to keep up, something you doubt you can keep up for very long.
After barely ten seconds, she slows down again, but is still careful to stay a few meters ahead of you.
"Portals establish a temporary sympathetic link between a Realm and a specific part of another Realm or Earth itself. The ritual is long and hard. There. Happy?"
'Long and hard?' Seriously? You're not even trying.
"Not really. Can't you tell me more?"
"I'm not a textbook," Vanessa growls.
...Oooookay, moving on then. Hello, mood flips.
-[x] Ask more about Houses and differences between them.
"In that case, could you please tell me more about Houses and their differences? All I know is that they sound an awful lot like noble houses from my own home."
Vanessa produces a disgusted noise from the back of her throat.
"Oh, eww. No. Nope, nope, nope, I'm definitely not answering that. You want to know, you can read a history book or something. We have a mini-library at home you can cycle through if you're that curious."
You wrinkle your nose. Books don't stop to answer extra questions raised by their content. You still like them, but you don't feel like they're a good enough substitute for questioning someone.
"What about your House? Hext?"
Vanessa swerves left onto another street and takes two long, deep breaths. You can't tell if your questions are genuinely irritating her or if she's just trying to get you to 'stop lying.'
"Fine. We're one of the ones who didn't hide off in our own little Realm. Mostly. I'm not going to go into specifics in public, but there are only about two dozen of us left. Happy? Now please stop asking questions, we're almost home."
You slow your own pace while Vanessa rushes ahead. Instead of the firelight you've come to expect from nearby houses, one of the ones you're passing is lit with an unfamiliar white glow.
You take a few steps forward to glance inside one of the curtainless windows. A small, winged light elemental sits on the floor just inside, happily munching on a flat pastry almost as large as it is.
Welcome: 1d100+15=1 (Anticrit), 1d100=87+15, (Least Anticrit)
You jump and narrowly avoid yelling as a deep, male voice mutters from right next to your ear.
"Pardon me, miss, but could you stay here for a minute?"
You spin around and look directly at a rather familiar uniform: the enveloping cloak and white mask of a Scout. It takes you a moment to realize the colors are slightly wrong—dark blue instead of green—but as far as you can tell, that's the only difference. The cloaked individual nods once, turns toward Vanessa, and takes a single step away. He stops and jerks his head back to you when a quietscream whistle pierces the air.
You force your attention away from the stranger and down to your anchor. Minuscule motes of mana are rapidly flaking off each and every one of your anchor's threads. Concentrating on a franticnoIdon'twantthistobreak! is enough to completely stop the disintegration; unfortunately, the mana which already faded doesn't look like it'll be coming back. You think you might've lost a few hours, at the very least, and it's still trying to leave.
...On the other hand, disintegrating your anchor early was supposed to give you better options in some way, and that was with a broken-down version. Your new anchor is, well, new. What would happen if you let it all of its mana go toward opening a new rift? Would the rift stay open for longer, would each potential destination be better, would your next anchor last longer, how would it work?
But still, I just got here!
At least your elementals appear unaffected by the Inquisitor's(?) aura. When the stranger tries to reach toward you, your fire elemental darts down and interposes himself in the path of the intruding hand. The Inquisitor yelps and staggers away from you, barely avoiding tripping on the oversized cloak as he goes.
Elementals: One. Inquisitors: Zero.
[] Focus on keeping your anchor intact. You JUST got here! And anyway, it looks like you'll be able to leave later if it proves to be necessary.
-[] If he takes his attention off of you again, run while he's focused on Vanessa.
-[] Yell out a warning to Vanessa.
-[] Ask (at normal volume) why the not-a-Scout is sneaking around. Vanessa seems like a nice person, so would that make him the bad guy?
-[] Encourage your elementals to attack the Inquisitor.
[] Let your anchor break. From everything you've heard, those with antimagic auras are not people you want to spend time near.
-[] Yell out a warning to Vanessa.
[] Write-in
-[x] Don't bother concealing that you're probably from an unconnected dimension.
"My Talent tore a hole in the universe and I stepped through the resulting rift."
Vanessa stumbles and lapses into dull silence. The intermittent brick buildings slowly become more and more frequent until there's a solid wall of buildings on either side of the road. They're still conspicuously empty. At the same time, you feel like the mana levels of the surrounding area are climbing higher and higher. However, when you check the amount of environmental mana entering your system, it still seems to be minimal.
Odd.
Eventually, Vanessa manages a single disbelieving word: "Seriously?"
"Yes."
"...Do you have any idea how insanely difficult it is to open even a temporary portal between realms?"
I'm amazing, I know.
[X] Ask more questions of your own.
-[X] What's a Realm?
--[X] Ask her more about traveling dimensions since it seems to be common knowledge.
-[x] Ask more about Houses and differences between them.
"Nope! What's a Realm?"
Vanessa slows until you're walking alongside her. Whether conveying her disbelief is the primary purpose of doing so or a side benefit is unclear. Eventually, her disbelief cracks in the face of your own honest curiosity. At least, you think that's why her mask of doubt fades.
"I'm still not sure I believe you," Vanessa grumbles. "Realms are artificially created, er, spaces linked to Earth in one or more places. The more links and the more stable each link is, the greater the maximum size of the Realm and the less mana it takes to maintain-slash-expand it. Realms can also link to each other, but the boost from those isn't nearly as good as one to Earth itself. You probably come from one of the more isolated ones. Earth doesn't have an edge like you might be used to; it's ball-shaped and just keeps on going until you end up where you started."
You dimly note that the fireworks display seems to have ended. The flickering orange glow of fire seems to be illuminating the inside of a few nearby buildings, but you still don't see or hear anyone on the streets itself. You're stuck wondering if there's some sort of a curfew or if everyone just loves fireworks that much.
...Right. Vanessa said something wrong. You fix your gaze on her face and prepare to drop another bombshell.
"Actually, I think I'm from a different planet entirely. Ours was endless and round, too. I think it was supposed to take, like, years of travel to get back to your starting point if you walked in a straight line?"
Vanessa narrows her eyes and glares at you.
"Still don't believe you."
You smile brightly. "That's fine! Not my problem. So, how does travel between Realms usually work? And I take it you've never heard of dimensional travel yet?"
Vanessa growls under her breath and hurries ahead of you. It takes you a little while to realize she isn't planning on answering.
"So...?" you prompt.
"Nope. Don't believe you."
"Just the travel between realms, then? Please?"
Vanessa glowers back at you and increases her pace even further. You're forced to jog to keep up, something you doubt you can keep up for very long.
After barely ten seconds, she slows down again, but is still careful to stay a few meters ahead of you.
"Portals establish a temporary sympathetic link between a Realm and a specific part of another Realm or Earth itself. The ritual is long and hard. There. Happy?"
'Long and hard?' Seriously? You're not even trying.
"Not really. Can't you tell me more?"
"I'm not a textbook," Vanessa growls.
...Oooookay, moving on then. Hello, mood flips.
-[x] Ask more about Houses and differences between them.
"In that case, could you please tell me more about Houses and their differences? All I know is that they sound an awful lot like noble houses from my own home."
Vanessa produces a disgusted noise from the back of her throat.
"Oh, eww. No. Nope, nope, nope, I'm definitely not answering that. You want to know, you can read a history book or something. We have a mini-library at home you can cycle through if you're that curious."
You wrinkle your nose. Books don't stop to answer extra questions raised by their content. You still like them, but you don't feel like they're a good enough substitute for questioning someone.
"What about your House? Hext?"
Vanessa swerves left onto another street and takes two long, deep breaths. You can't tell if your questions are genuinely irritating her or if she's just trying to get you to 'stop lying.'
"Fine. We're one of the ones who didn't hide off in our own little Realm. Mostly. I'm not going to go into specifics in public, but there are only about two dozen of us left. Happy? Now please stop asking questions, we're almost home."
You slow your own pace while Vanessa rushes ahead. Instead of the firelight you've come to expect from nearby houses, one of the ones you're passing is lit with an unfamiliar white glow.
You take a few steps forward to glance inside one of the curtainless windows. A small, winged light elemental sits on the floor just inside, happily munching on a flat pastry almost as large as it is.
Welcome: 1d100+15=1 (Anticrit), 1d100=87+15, (Least Anticrit)
You jump and narrowly avoid yelling as a deep, male voice mutters from right next to your ear.
"Pardon me, miss, but could you stay here for a minute?"
You spin around and look directly at a rather familiar uniform: the enveloping cloak and white mask of a Scout. It takes you a moment to realize the colors are slightly wrong—dark blue instead of green—but as far as you can tell, that's the only difference. The cloaked individual nods once, turns toward Vanessa, and takes a single step away. He stops and jerks his head back to you when a quiet
You force your attention away from the stranger and down to your anchor. Minuscule motes of mana are rapidly flaking off each and every one of your anchor's threads. Concentrating on a franticnoIdon'twantthistobreak! is enough to completely stop the disintegration; unfortunately, the mana which already faded doesn't look like it'll be coming back. You think you might've lost a few hours, at the very least, and it's still trying to leave.
...On the other hand, disintegrating your anchor early was supposed to give you better options in some way, and that was with a broken-down version. Your new anchor is, well, new. What would happen if you let it all of its mana go toward opening a new rift? Would the rift stay open for longer, would each potential destination be better, would your next anchor last longer, how would it work?
But still, I just got here!
At least your elementals appear unaffected by the Inquisitor's(?) aura. When the stranger tries to reach toward you, your fire elemental darts down and interposes himself in the path of the intruding hand. The Inquisitor yelps and staggers away from you, barely avoiding tripping on the oversized cloak as he goes.
Elementals: One. Inquisitors: Zero.
[] Focus on keeping your anchor intact. You JUST got here! And anyway, it looks like you'll be able to leave later if it proves to be necessary.
-[] If he takes his attention off of you again, run while he's focused on Vanessa.
-[] Yell out a warning to Vanessa.
-[] Ask (at normal volume) why the not-a-Scout is sneaking around. Vanessa seems like a nice person, so would that make him the bad guy?
-[] Encourage your elementals to attack the Inquisitor.
[] Let your anchor break. From everything you've heard, those with antimagic auras are not people you want to spend time near.
-[] Yell out a warning to Vanessa.
[] Write-in
I admit I'm really nervous about the OOC results of this anticrit; I don't want to make it seem like the rolls for destination are unimportant and/or not worth discussing. So, I will confirm that letting your anchor disintegrate this early would, in fact, give you a higher bonus to destination rolls than a damaged anchor would. If you stay, you still get to explore this world; if you leave early, you still benefit. This is the only world with Inquisitors, so such a short stay wouldn't happen on any of the others.
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- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Kind of tempted to just pull out now? I want to get to know Vanessa better, but it doesn't sound like she's going to be that happy if we aren't really helping her out or anything.
Alivaril
On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Fixed a few errors in the text and added the following QM's note.
I admit I'm really nervous about the OOC results of this anticrit; I don't want to make it seem like the rolls for destination are unimportant and/or not worth discussing. So, I will confirm that letting your anchor disintegrate this early would, in fact, give you a higher bonus to destination rolls than a damaged anchor would. If you stay, you still get to explore this world; if you leave early, you still benefit. This is the only world with Inquisitors, so such a short stay wouldn't happen on any of the others.
I admit I'm really nervous about the OOC results of this anticrit; I don't want to make it seem like the rolls for destination are unimportant and/or not worth discussing. So, I will confirm that letting your anchor disintegrate this early would, in fact, give you a higher bonus to destination rolls than a damaged anchor would. If you stay, you still get to explore this world; if you leave early, you still benefit. This is the only world with Inquisitors, so such a short stay wouldn't happen on any of the others.
Honestly a bit more worried about our new friend than ourselves, since we can leave, but I don't really see much we can actually do.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Elementals are not affected by antimagic effects. That alone makes us probably the best-placed person on this entire planet to fight Inquisitors.
I'm vaguely tempted to let the portal open then drag Vanessa through with us. If anything she's been saying has been true, she's kind of fucked if we don't do something.
Do we think that we can overpower this inquisitor? If so, do we think that taking him captive and interrogating him is safe?
Also, they now know our appearance; if they're even sorta organized and they're as evil as it sounds, we're, uh, kind of fucked long-term. If we're being super paranoid we might have to do something to ensure that this one doesn't get away with a description.
This dude can't fight to save his life. Either he's a complete noob or the people he's fighting are trash when they don't have magic.
I'm vaguely tempted to let the portal open then drag Vanessa through with us. If anything she's been saying has been true, she's kind of fucked if we don't do something.
Do we think that we can overpower this inquisitor? If so, do we think that taking him captive and interrogating him is safe?
Also, they now know our appearance; if they're even sorta organized and they're as evil as it sounds, we're, uh, kind of fucked long-term. If we're being super paranoid we might have to do something to ensure that this one doesn't get away with a description.
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