Option paralysis yeah
(Gun)Swords and Sorcery III
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
I think you posted this vote in the wrong thread...
[X] Outside
[X] There's probably a caravan heading that way, take it.
[X] Get a feel for the way of the land on the way here.
There. Not the most considered - I've still got brain fry - but at least it's a vote.
[X] There's probably a caravan heading that way, take it.
[X] Get a feel for the way of the land on the way here.
There. Not the most considered - I've still got brain fry - but at least it's a vote.
- Location
- My house
Sorry for not voting this time. For some reasons alerts for this quest aren't showing up for me.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Yeah, I've been noticing the alerts are being funky lately. No hard feelings here.
Part Six: Pisar and Haunus
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
[X] Outside
[X] There's probably a caravan heading that way, take it.
[X] Get a feel for the way of the land on the way here.
Looking into the sky, you frowned. The sun was setting, and that meant you needed a place to sleep for the night. Looking for a nice corner in the walls you could huddle down in, you got to work fluffing up a pile of pine needles and slowly tried to make yourself comfortable. It wouldn't be much, but you weren't accepting the offer of Castile's apartments. It just seemed… fishy. Those predatory looks she'd been shooting you earlier hadn't been all to confidence-boosting either, come to think of it.
Curling up in your pile, you yawned and got ready to go to sleep when you heard footsteps approaching. The pace was steady, and in a few moments you were looking at a pair of heavy boots.
"Yo, buddy! You can't sleep there!"
Whelp, looks like Mr. Boots wants to talk. Sticking a head out of the pile, you looked out at a guy barely older than you in a heavy coat with a shield slung over one shoulder, along with a heavy bandolier and sword.
"C'mon, get out of there. If the Streltzi see you down there, they're going to throw you in uniform and then we're really not going to be in a good way."
"Wait, what?" you emoted clearly, rubbing one eye to clear the fog.
"The Streltzi have been helping 'clean up' the city to keep the local recruiting on track."
Oh. Yeah, that was a bit of a problem…
"I'm also going to add in that they're coming. Now. Right now. I can smell the pretension from here."
Scrabbling out of your nest-ish pile, you grabbed your kit and glared at him. You certainly didn't see any police-
"Excuse me, Major Moreau?"
Turning veeeeeeeeeeery slowly to your right, you looked at what had to be the most annoying police uniform known to man. A green jacket with screaming yellow lapels confronted you, along with a heavy belt with a nightstick and pistol in it.
"Yes?" your newest, bestest friend in the whole world said with a look of innocent concern writ large on his face.
"Was that man sleeping in a hay pile?"
"No, no he was not. This man is a local specialist for the Black Battalion in regards to our deployment to Thorn."
The Streltzi looked at you carefully, before shrugging. "You're supposed to ship out tomorrow, yes?"
Moreau nodded, smiling like a poor put-upon soldier. "Just the baggage train and officer corps, I'm afraid. Only so many iron horses to go around these days, and the First Regiment's been hoovering them up on the border. Damn Gandeans."
The Streltzi nodded, and just tipped his… you wanted to say that was supposed to be a hat, but you couldn't tell. Either way, he left you and the major alone.
"As I was saying, you can stay by the barracks tonight, and catch the caravan we're taking out tomorrow. Are you for the Duchess or the Countess?"
Screwing up your face, you replied with the classical, flat response. "What?"
Moreau put his head in his hands and sighed. "There's a couple of major groups around the Princedom these days. Most of them happen to work towards any one of The Prince's daughters' goals. The two major groups here are the Duchess Castile's men dedicated to getting the Grand Duchy integrated with the Princedom, and the Baroness Jenne's Iron Shamans working on the new gunnery school here. It's not much of a secret who goes for which school of thought, but I'm going to feel really stupid if I had to save an apprentice Iron Shaman."
"Oh- yeah, I'm for the Duchess."
Conversation over for the moment, you followed him back to a dull barracks. Siezing a march on the Major, you slipped into a cart and nodded off with the speed of the exhausted.
----
Waking up to the sound of a clanking and rattling, you stuck your head out of the wagon and winced as your head nearly hit the side of the wheel. Looking out across the wagon train, you had an odd deja-vu moment as you heard the sound of clattering track and snoring soldiers. At the head of what you soon realized was three covered wagons hitched to each other was this odd little contraption.
For all your current pretensions at masculinity, you had no idea how machines worked. As such, the soot-covered cross between a bobcat and a train locomotive had you confused for a few minutes. High-stepped front wheels combined with an absolute horde of roadwheels held the tracks, while the chassis had a small railing and basket on the back where a pair of sweating engineers kept the vehicle on the straight and narrow. Around you, a sparse plain rolled on into the sky, no trees breaking up the scenery of not-hills and wilderness.
Slumping back into the cart, you frowned to yourself quietly, and thought hard about your man problem. Main problem. Whatever. No matter what you called it, you needed to get a handle on the whole shapeshifting thing. Problem was, you had no idea where to start. That said, you did know that shapeshifting was obviously magical. Therefore, a good idea would be practicing your magic.
"And if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and floats, it's probably a duck. Or very small rocks." You muttered to yourself, ruffling through your pack. No time to practice like the present-
"FUCK!" you heard a voice yell outside, followed shortly by a loud rattle and a shriek of metal. Hopping out of your now-stopped wagon, you looked at the mess made when one of those Iron Horses threw a track. Grabbing your staff, you got a good distance away from the convoy and started thinking. You might have been a novice at this, but you knew where magic came from. You knew you could pull it out from yourself and the world.
So you stopped knowing and started doing. Pull the spark up, put it in your staff. Pull the spark up, put it in your staff. Draw the raw power of the world into yourself, channel it to the tool, and…
Feeling the fire you pulled in, you looked into the sky and smiled. Release.
Flying into the sky, the bolt of fire roared as it lofted itself on the wind. As it petered out, you spun, dragging your staff's tip through the earth to leave a scorched circle. Dancing out, you carved slices across the inside of the circle and charged it. The power rushed in, and you laughed as the bolt of flame you threw earlier was replaced by a beam reaching up. Grabbing your staff, you used it to break the circle and gasped as your strength flew out of you. You were exhausted, but you had learned some. Time to learn more. Setting aside your staff, you breathed in and out. It was time to pull forth something unaffected by a weapon.
Now, berfit of enchanting tool, you hauled forth into the Aether and ripped. Out in your hands came a sphere of light, flickering with a ghost flame and sparks. Tossing it up, you decided your purpose carefully, and slammed the sphere of magic into the ground.
Absolutely nothing came of your attempt to raise water except an angry Major Moreau practically dragging you back to the caravan. The Iron Horse had been fixed, apparently, and the group needed to get going.
----
It was about two days later that you arrived in Thorn, and another day with Captain Moreau in company as you went to Haunus to get set up while he had to talk shop with some Important People he wasn't allowed to talk about. As important as his stuff was to him, though, you needed to get to the Blackwatch so you could start getting ready to ooze your way through this city and planning the removal of the first in line and extradition of the second.
Once you got to Haunus, you had to marvel at the place. So used to impassive displays of concrete and glass, the whitewashed plaster walls and earthy brick stuctures quickly helped set the city apart to you. Between the wide streets and peaked roofs, you almost thought this is what a city painted by Bob Ross would look like. Often you'd see murals or mosaics, the decorations paired well with the flower beds and older trees you saw. In whole, the city seemed alive, but not lively. It had a calm pulse, not a frantic beating and thrumming like the cities of home.
The Blackwatch Tavern wasn't too terribly hard to find, being in what you would learn was called the Wascgi neighborhood. Full of craftsmen and skilled workers, it was a pleasant place. The tavern itself was located off a park, and as you got yourself checked in, you started thinking about what you would be getting to work on. You had a couple of options for the first problem person, but the girl…
Yeah, that was going to be fun. Not the fun kind of fun, either, but the surprise math exam kind of fun. First off, options. You needed to get information on the girl to advance, but the guy was simple- and more importantly, by seeing what happened when you handled him could probably give you a lot of useful information on the girl. Now, time to plan.
Handling Heir #1 (The rakehell)
[] Nonlethal Options (Monastery or other means of disqualification) (Warning- if this route fails, all other vote items in Haunus get significantly harder.)
[] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
Getting Information on Heir #2 (The girl)
[] Use contacts at the tavern. There have to be some.
[] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
[] There's probably a College of Magic somewhere in this city. You're a mage too- combine information gathering with progress on your magical studies!
[X] There's probably a caravan heading that way, take it.
[X] Get a feel for the way of the land on the way here.
Looking into the sky, you frowned. The sun was setting, and that meant you needed a place to sleep for the night. Looking for a nice corner in the walls you could huddle down in, you got to work fluffing up a pile of pine needles and slowly tried to make yourself comfortable. It wouldn't be much, but you weren't accepting the offer of Castile's apartments. It just seemed… fishy. Those predatory looks she'd been shooting you earlier hadn't been all to confidence-boosting either, come to think of it.
Curling up in your pile, you yawned and got ready to go to sleep when you heard footsteps approaching. The pace was steady, and in a few moments you were looking at a pair of heavy boots.
"Yo, buddy! You can't sleep there!"
Whelp, looks like Mr. Boots wants to talk. Sticking a head out of the pile, you looked out at a guy barely older than you in a heavy coat with a shield slung over one shoulder, along with a heavy bandolier and sword.
"C'mon, get out of there. If the Streltzi see you down there, they're going to throw you in uniform and then we're really not going to be in a good way."
"Wait, what?" you emoted clearly, rubbing one eye to clear the fog.
"The Streltzi have been helping 'clean up' the city to keep the local recruiting on track."
Oh. Yeah, that was a bit of a problem…
"I'm also going to add in that they're coming. Now. Right now. I can smell the pretension from here."
Scrabbling out of your nest-ish pile, you grabbed your kit and glared at him. You certainly didn't see any police-
"Excuse me, Major Moreau?"
Turning veeeeeeeeeeery slowly to your right, you looked at what had to be the most annoying police uniform known to man. A green jacket with screaming yellow lapels confronted you, along with a heavy belt with a nightstick and pistol in it.
"Yes?" your newest, bestest friend in the whole world said with a look of innocent concern writ large on his face.
"Was that man sleeping in a hay pile?"
"No, no he was not. This man is a local specialist for the Black Battalion in regards to our deployment to Thorn."
The Streltzi looked at you carefully, before shrugging. "You're supposed to ship out tomorrow, yes?"
Moreau nodded, smiling like a poor put-upon soldier. "Just the baggage train and officer corps, I'm afraid. Only so many iron horses to go around these days, and the First Regiment's been hoovering them up on the border. Damn Gandeans."
The Streltzi nodded, and just tipped his… you wanted to say that was supposed to be a hat, but you couldn't tell. Either way, he left you and the major alone.
"As I was saying, you can stay by the barracks tonight, and catch the caravan we're taking out tomorrow. Are you for the Duchess or the Countess?"
Screwing up your face, you replied with the classical, flat response. "What?"
Moreau put his head in his hands and sighed. "There's a couple of major groups around the Princedom these days. Most of them happen to work towards any one of The Prince's daughters' goals. The two major groups here are the Duchess Castile's men dedicated to getting the Grand Duchy integrated with the Princedom, and the Baroness Jenne's Iron Shamans working on the new gunnery school here. It's not much of a secret who goes for which school of thought, but I'm going to feel really stupid if I had to save an apprentice Iron Shaman."
"Oh- yeah, I'm for the Duchess."
Conversation over for the moment, you followed him back to a dull barracks. Siezing a march on the Major, you slipped into a cart and nodded off with the speed of the exhausted.
----
Waking up to the sound of a clanking and rattling, you stuck your head out of the wagon and winced as your head nearly hit the side of the wheel. Looking out across the wagon train, you had an odd deja-vu moment as you heard the sound of clattering track and snoring soldiers. At the head of what you soon realized was three covered wagons hitched to each other was this odd little contraption.
For all your current pretensions at masculinity, you had no idea how machines worked. As such, the soot-covered cross between a bobcat and a train locomotive had you confused for a few minutes. High-stepped front wheels combined with an absolute horde of roadwheels held the tracks, while the chassis had a small railing and basket on the back where a pair of sweating engineers kept the vehicle on the straight and narrow. Around you, a sparse plain rolled on into the sky, no trees breaking up the scenery of not-hills and wilderness.
Slumping back into the cart, you frowned to yourself quietly, and thought hard about your man problem. Main problem. Whatever. No matter what you called it, you needed to get a handle on the whole shapeshifting thing. Problem was, you had no idea where to start. That said, you did know that shapeshifting was obviously magical. Therefore, a good idea would be practicing your magic.
"And if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and floats, it's probably a duck. Or very small rocks." You muttered to yourself, ruffling through your pack. No time to practice like the present-
"FUCK!" you heard a voice yell outside, followed shortly by a loud rattle and a shriek of metal. Hopping out of your now-stopped wagon, you looked at the mess made when one of those Iron Horses threw a track. Grabbing your staff, you got a good distance away from the convoy and started thinking. You might have been a novice at this, but you knew where magic came from. You knew you could pull it out from yourself and the world.
So you stopped knowing and started doing. Pull the spark up, put it in your staff. Pull the spark up, put it in your staff. Draw the raw power of the world into yourself, channel it to the tool, and…
Feeling the fire you pulled in, you looked into the sky and smiled. Release.
Flying into the sky, the bolt of fire roared as it lofted itself on the wind. As it petered out, you spun, dragging your staff's tip through the earth to leave a scorched circle. Dancing out, you carved slices across the inside of the circle and charged it. The power rushed in, and you laughed as the bolt of flame you threw earlier was replaced by a beam reaching up. Grabbing your staff, you used it to break the circle and gasped as your strength flew out of you. You were exhausted, but you had learned some. Time to learn more. Setting aside your staff, you breathed in and out. It was time to pull forth something unaffected by a weapon.
Now, berfit of enchanting tool, you hauled forth into the Aether and ripped. Out in your hands came a sphere of light, flickering with a ghost flame and sparks. Tossing it up, you decided your purpose carefully, and slammed the sphere of magic into the ground.
Absolutely nothing came of your attempt to raise water except an angry Major Moreau practically dragging you back to the caravan. The Iron Horse had been fixed, apparently, and the group needed to get going.
----
It was about two days later that you arrived in Thorn, and another day with Captain Moreau in company as you went to Haunus to get set up while he had to talk shop with some Important People he wasn't allowed to talk about. As important as his stuff was to him, though, you needed to get to the Blackwatch so you could start getting ready to ooze your way through this city and planning the removal of the first in line and extradition of the second.
Once you got to Haunus, you had to marvel at the place. So used to impassive displays of concrete and glass, the whitewashed plaster walls and earthy brick stuctures quickly helped set the city apart to you. Between the wide streets and peaked roofs, you almost thought this is what a city painted by Bob Ross would look like. Often you'd see murals or mosaics, the decorations paired well with the flower beds and older trees you saw. In whole, the city seemed alive, but not lively. It had a calm pulse, not a frantic beating and thrumming like the cities of home.
The Blackwatch Tavern wasn't too terribly hard to find, being in what you would learn was called the Wascgi neighborhood. Full of craftsmen and skilled workers, it was a pleasant place. The tavern itself was located off a park, and as you got yourself checked in, you started thinking about what you would be getting to work on. You had a couple of options for the first problem person, but the girl…
Yeah, that was going to be fun. Not the fun kind of fun, either, but the surprise math exam kind of fun. First off, options. You needed to get information on the girl to advance, but the guy was simple- and more importantly, by seeing what happened when you handled him could probably give you a lot of useful information on the girl. Now, time to plan.
Handling Heir #1 (The rakehell)
[] Nonlethal Options (Monastery or other means of disqualification) (Warning- if this route fails, all other vote items in Haunus get significantly harder.)
[] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
Getting Information on Heir #2 (The girl)
[] Use contacts at the tavern. There have to be some.
[] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
[] There's probably a College of Magic somewhere in this city. You're a mage too- combine information gathering with progress on your magical studies!
[X] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
For pressuring him into joining a monastary, we're fairly unlikely to manage it given the lack of cultural knowledge.
As for the girl, soldiers love to gossip
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
For pressuring him into joining a monastary, we're fairly unlikely to manage it given the lack of cultural knowledge.
As for the girl, soldiers love to gossip
- Location
- his hidden lair
[X] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
Wait, so we're in what looks like Not!Medieval Russia/Muscovy, nearly got shipped off to Siberia (Ghand?), and instead got deployed south towards the Caucasus? It explains why they want to secure it if only to secure the border with the Not!Ottoman Empire, or at the very least the Turkish tribal emirate equivalents in Not!Anatolia.
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
Wait, so we're in what looks like Not!Medieval Russia/Muscovy, nearly got shipped off to Siberia (Ghand?), and instead got deployed south towards the Caucasus? It explains why they want to secure it if only to secure the border with the Not!Ottoman Empire, or at the very least the Turkish tribal emirate equivalents in Not!Anatolia.
- Location
- My house
[X] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Ghand is more not!Albania then anything else, and you're currently way east of the current area of operations.
That said, nice guess on figuring out that the Not!Ottomans and Not!Rhum are involved.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
- Location
- My house
Only three votes. Damn we need more people.
We need active discussion to keep this on the front page.
For the first option:who are we gonna hurt? That's what I'm confused about I saw no mention of needing to hurt somebody in the excerpt.
We need active discussion to keep this on the front page.
For the first option:who are we gonna hurt? That's what I'm confused about I saw no mention of needing to hurt somebody in the excerpt.
Last edited:
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Agreed about the more voters. More voters means more drive for me to update.
Anyway, vote 1 is for the Unnamed Male Heir, the guy who sticks to the city. Vote 2 is for the girl, who is going to be the trickier one
Blagchk. Stop updating while I'm at work so that I forget by the time I get home and can actually reply. 
[X] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
Non-lethal would have been a viable option if we'd focused on learning People first. Alas, we did not. Ah, well, we knew we were going to be a Troubleshooter of some kind. Also, if we were already more skilled at magic we could...I dunno, turn him into a squirrel or something. Again, not viable at the moment.
Now. If you want information, you go to where the information is, not where you want it to be. Thus, we talk to the soldiery. The downside, of course, is that if we have to abscond and they go a-searching, they're more likely to recognize us unless we can pull some shapeshifting shenanigans.
[X] Lethal Options (Hunting accident, bandits, or other means of murder)
[X] Find the professional soldiers around these parts, and get 'em talking. This kid's in their good graces, so see what they can spill.
Non-lethal would have been a viable option if we'd focused on learning People first. Alas, we did not. Ah, well, we knew we were going to be a Troubleshooter of some kind. Also, if we were already more skilled at magic we could...I dunno, turn him into a squirrel or something. Again, not viable at the moment.
Now. If you want information, you go to where the information is, not where you want it to be. Thus, we talk to the soldiery. The downside, of course, is that if we have to abscond and they go a-searching, they're more likely to recognize us unless we can pull some shapeshifting shenanigans.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Blagchk. Stop updating while I'm at work so that I forget by the time I get home and can actually reply.
I try and update in prime time for EST, nobody actually votes. I post whenever, everyone checks in and forgets to vote.
You do realize that grabbing the girl and running isn't a sure thing, right? I mean, you guys could use that initial high-diplo build for something instead of wanted posters.
Of course, that also means you should pick less grumpy options too. Sleeping in Castile's quarters wouldn't have had any horribly bad side effects, after all.
(Quest Playlist- otherwise known as bump fuel)
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
The Sabaton stuff is generally a very good starting place, considering they get a lot of the airs right for telling a violent history. Considering the backstory on the Princedom of Tamer, this is really important.
Ancient Bards is a good band to elicit the sheer majesty of this world, where swords and sorcery is still alive and well and heroes fight it out in epic quests.
Turisas us another one of those bands I really consider to be emotive of the setting, but insofar as to be much leaned towards the Princedom of Tamer. There's a power there, and a strong one, but it also reeks of a grim majesty. In the selected songs written about Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, the air of despair comes from the fact the empire is slowly rotting away. With tamer, however, everything that was known is getting overturned in the quest for power as the Princedom brings about revolution after revolution, upsetting any pretense of order and tradition.
- Location
- CT
This, this is fucking awesome. I only had a chance to participate in the first incarnation of this quest over on SB. With any luck, this one will go off without the problems of its previous versions.
Of course I realize it's not a sure thing. I'm just noting that in the event of one particular undesireable outcome, this choice will cause a bit of a disadvantage.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Thank you! I thought I was getting stray likes from old threads over there, so its good someone found the other part of this quest.
Anyway, votes are open just about all the time, and I like discussion to keep the thread bumped.