[X] Split up slightly, make sure that your sister and you stay in sight of each other but keep enough distance that you won't hurt her if something goes wrong.
-[X] Get moving, use reinforcement to keep the pain down and work on multitasking by practicing regeneration at the same time, try to get your injuries healed.
--[X] Keep on the move until dark but if you do get found by the military just surrender at this point. This whole thing has been way too much of a misunderstanding and getting shot at some more is a bad plan. Maybe have Una fashion a white flag for just in case they shoot before asking questions.
The only thing that does irk me is the exponential costs on raising levels. I get that we are supposed to actually work for it, but the original concept was to start small and grow a lot, which happens through linear costs on exponential growth.
Here, we have exponential cost (Start Cost * 2^(Levels bought)) for linear growth (e.g. 5% growth for each level in Regeneration). This is actually the opposite of fast growth.
I feel like I should point out that besides what Rukia had said:
I think that most players, including myself in the beginning are really missing what the shop is actually supposed to be in this game:
It isn't for leveling up your skills during normal play (which quite frankly, I think we paid for in misunderstanding, or else the looter wouldn't have died), but is meant for use in emergency. A quick pick-me-up in the worst case scenario, but limited specifically so that it cannot get you out of the same type of situation over and over again. A quick level or two in the middle of a major confrontation when it really counts, not to get skills up when we first get them.
In fact, since it is probably easier to level skills in their early levels via training, it is probably actually detrimental in the long run to buy levels in skills early unless a specific plot point requires us to get better right now.
The shop is meant as a tool to get us out of the fire if we over reach.
The shop in this quest seems to be of a different purpose than the shops in other quests, and we need to keep that in mind going forward (this isn't just directed at you Naron, but that part of the post was a good springboard for my thoughts )
Fresh meat might be the fast growth option but it isn't because of the store and while the growth isn't as fast as Crystal Walker's quest, being able to eventually hit level 70 in a few years or decades in multiple skills is still at the level of outpacing a person with millennia of experience in those skills. Fast just not to the point of utter insanity that most quests go up to .
Also, unless I am very mistaken. Most abilities aren't actually at the point of Linear growth, but is rather exponential.
Reinforcement (which I assume is what you meant instead of Regeneration) does, but, importantly it should be noted that we the players don't have any way of knowing how high the "base physical stats" could be increased. In fact, I would not be surprised if with a lot of practicing it would be possible to actually attain herculean levels of strength at a base. Keeping in mind that our basic physical stats aren't necessarily static is key to understand why Reinforcement wouldn't be allowed to exponentially increase, or else melee/unarmed combat becomes way too strong compared to every other ability in this system.
That said there is certainly the illusion that things are being increased linearly but I am pretty sure that is only because of how early level they are.
For instant take Regeneration:
Right now it might look like a linear growth of 1 per level (20% of the base of 5) but on the other side, however that is not true it is simply that the multiplicative growth seems like linear growth because it is being rounded down.
5 (level 1) *1.2*1.2*1.2= 8.64 (level 4 via multiplicative measures)
Since it doesn't quite hit 9 so it is rounded down to 8
However on the next level
8.64*1.2= 10.368
which means that level 5 (for both regeneration and ignition aura) should be the first instances where the exponential nature of those skills show)
At least that is what I assume by both wording of what taking a level up in those skills imply in shop and from the logic that the concept of [Regenaration] being only able to heal at a rate of 104% per hour. Also
Quick note, with the regen, once it reaches 10% per hour, I'll change the wording to 5% per 30 minutes. It will continue going down as such until it's % per second or % per turn (10 seconds) most likely
Doesn't make any sense from the understanding of a linear increase because it would have only hit 1.73% a minute, aka never reaching the point of being able to be described in % per second or per turn that Rukia has mentioned.
[X] Split up slightly, make sure that your sister and you stay in sight of each other but keep enough distance that you won't hurt her if something goes wrong.
-[X] Get moving, use reinforcement to keep the pain down and work on multitasking by practicing regeneration at the same time, try to get your injuries healed.
--[X] Keep on the move until dark but if you do get found by the military just surrender at this point. This whole thing has been way too much of a misunderstanding and getting shot at some more is a bad plan. Maybe have Una fashion a white flag for just in case they shoot before asking questions.
[] Try to heal yourself while you wait for the military to capture you
-[] Start a small (but still visible) campfire, make small-talk with Una, generally try not to seem too good at hiding
-[] If the military hasn't shown up after a week, start heading towards the U.S. - Canada border
The way I see it, we need to heal ourselves because we are at 12hp1 and also in the process of bleeding out. Healing takes time and is described as being meditative, so we aren't exactly going to get far while doing it.
The military also knows that we entered the forest, and if they have trained dogs can easily find us given that they have easy access to our blood, which our clothes are likely soaked in at this point.
I have zero faith in our ability to outrun or hide from the military at this point in time. They know our general location and what we and Una look like. And while we can outrun trained soldiers, there is a world of difference between the speed of a human on foot and a car. There also hasn't been any indication that we've been covering or tracks on the way into the forest.
Running got us shot, and while we survived that, I don't think Una could have done so.
1. Remember that hitting a man down to 7hp killed him and being at 10hp would have knocked him out. Being knocked out means we can't focus on healing, and therefor can't close the gaping wounds which are causing us to bleed out.
One: Don't panic because we have a good chance of survivial
Two: Do not make votes that include turning ourselves in to the military unless we actually have a good plan on how to proceed with that.
We literally just fleed from them to the point they shot to kill, the shoot to kill order isn't rescinded, Cerys is responsible for at least 1 murder here, possibly others in the ensuing fires, Una attacked one of the military men trying to grab her and stole from them (the word "attacked" was used in the in the chapter from Joseph's point of view).
We are largely guilty of the crimes that they decided to shoot at us for.
Please don't blindly surrender to them unless you have a very solid plan on how to deal with them going forward, and get ourselves out of the mess we are in.
Frankly imo, without a large discussion on how to deal with the fall out there should voting to turn ourselves in to the military isn't ok and probably qualifies for the "doing something stupid" disqualifier for the 90% chance of living, when the QM says it is a not a good idea to turn ourselves in without a plan and there is no plan on how to deal with things besides "surrender to them without fighting back and make it clear we surrender"
Edit:
I really wish someone had posted since the post above so that posting my plan would send a "someone had posted in thread" notification, but as it is I am unwilling to double post
Ok now time to actually vote:
[X] You packed bandages- have Una staunch the bleeding while you begin using Regeneration.
-[X] When she is done, get her to back away from you, ideally far enough that if you accidentally lose your cage she will be able to get away but still in your sight.
-[X] If you stop bleeding before the bandages are fully administered, don't fully bandage yourself.
-[X] Try to move while using regeneration. If it fails and things aren't on fire because of the failure call Una back to you and heal up until your wounds close and you aren't in danger to yourself just walking around doing normal activity.
-[X] If you can use regeneration while moving do so, and call Una back to you.
I honestly highly doubt that failure in being able to move with regeneration would result in the cage being released but better really safe than sorry.
[X] Once you get moving put your ability to sneak to good use, try to avoid making any obvious trail.
-[X] Try using your abilities to sense things with Thermokinesis to keep an eye out for anyone following you or any dangerous animals.
-[X] If you pass by a river, if you haven't yet recovered to the point where you stopped bleeding wait to do so than have both you and Una bath in it to help get rid of your scent. The clothes you are wearing have your scent and you are unlikely to be able to wash it out- luckily most of your other clothes are new, wear them and if it isn't too time consuming use your old clothes to set up a false trail. If you feel like it would take too much time, abandon the clothes instead, making them wash down the river.
-[X] Remember to eat some of your food that doesn't need to be cooked, to keep up your strength.
-[X] When it starts coming close to night time try to search for a discreet place for your tent.
-[X] Don't put out a fire this first night, sleep together for warmth.
-[X] Try to heal a bit before going to sleep
-[X]Make a mental note to look through the woodland survival book tomorrow, you're going to need it
Trying to avoid detection. The "if you haven't yet recovered to the point where you stopped bleeding" part is for if Cerys managed to move while using regeneration- otherwise she should have dealt with that before she started moving.
[X] If you are caught by the military, then you are currently to injured to fight back, and fleeing will probably just get you shot in the back again, and this time you won't survive. Worse — Una could die in the crossfire. If you are given the chance, surrender and at the very least try to convince them that the only wrong Una committed was believing in you.
-[X] If you are not given a chance to surrender and they fire anything other than a warning shot at you, flee with Una.
Here is so that we don't bad end the quest by trying to blindly fight back against them, and we'd probably still be at low enough health that escaping is completely not viable, since people would probably shoot if we try to run again. Una would probably be used as a bit of a method to control Cerys, but at the very least if they are using Una that way they probably aren't going to be hurting her.
For all we know, they won't actually wait for the "terrorist" (since that is what they think we are, the first event from a few days ago is labelled as a terrorist attack and they have strong reason to believe we are involved) to surrender, and might just take us out, since they have already gone to the point of lethal force, and we already shown an unwillingness to cooperate when we fleed out of town.
That said make no mistake we —Cerys— is a murderer here. Even if people could somehow forgive us for the original fire at the beginning because we had literally just got our powers and had no idea how to control them, attacking the looter was a conscious choice even if she used more power than she intended to, and the fire she caused after that was also a concious choice, arson, and possibly got even more people dead.
Getting caught by the military is very much a bad idea without a very good plan, on the other hand the only worse idea is getting Una and ourself killed if we are given another chance to surrender. If we were stronger and could reliably use any of our offensive magic without setting the forest on fire, or had defensive magic, or even just had much higher levels in thermokinesis (bake the ammunition in all their guns before they can fire at us, or make it so that the gun powder doesn't ignite and so they can't fire at us, wreck the internal wiring of any offroad vechiles they may have from afar, or the wiring of any communicative device so they can't send our location, etc, etc), it might be different, but as it is now we need to git gud first
At least the thread fit the Quest for once - it was on fire.
Either way, I would actually suggest to roll back to the previous update; it seems like the easiest option for everyone involved.
Aside from that, I am abstaining from this vote. My head spins too much from going over the different arguments to make a reasonable decision right now.
[X] Null
Adhoc vote count started by Naron on Jul 29, 2017 at 7:29 AM, finished with 69 posts and 10 votes.
[X] Split up slightly, make sure that your sister and you stay in sight of each other but keep enough distance that you won't hurt her if something goes wrong.
-[X] Get moving, use reinforcement to keep the pain down and work on multitasking by practicing regeneration at the same time, try to get your injuries healed.
--[X] Keep on the move until dark but if you do get found by the military just surrender at this point. This whole thing has been way too much of a misunderstanding and getting shot at some more is a bad plan. Maybe have Una fashion a white flag for just in case they shoot before asking questions.
[X] You packed bandages- have Una staunch the bleeding while you begin using Regeneration.
-[X] When she is done, get her to back away from you, ideally far enough that if you accidentally lose your cage she will be able to get away but still in your sight.
--[X] Try to move while using regeneration. If it fails and things aren't on fire because of the failure call Una back to you and heal up until your wounds close and you aren't in danger to yourself just walking around doing normal activity.
---[X] If you can use regeneration while moving do so, and call Una back to you.
[X]Once you get moving put your ability to sneak to good use, covering up your tracks.
-[X] Try using your abilities to sense things with Thermokinesis to keep an eye out for anyone following you or any dangerous animals.
-[X] If you pass by a river, if you haven't yet recovered to the point where you stopped bleeding wait to do so than have both you and Una bath in it to help get rid of your scent. The clothes you are wearing have your scent and you are unlikely to be able to wash it out- luckily most of your other clothes are new, wear them and if it isn't too time consuming use your old clothes to set up a false trail. If you feel like it would take too much time, abandon the clothes instead, making them wash down the river.
-[X] Remember to eat some of your food that doesn't need to be cooked, to keep up your strength.
-[X] When it starts coming close to night time try to search for a discreet place for your tent.
-[X] Don't put out a fire this first night, sleep together for warmth.
-[X]Make a mental note to look through the woodland survival book tomorrow, you're going to need it
[X] If you are caught by the military, then you are currently to injured to fight back, and fleeing will probably just get you shot in the back again, and this time you won't survive. Worse — Una could die in the crossfire. If you are given the chance, surrender and at the very least try to convince them that the only wrong Una committed was believing in you.
-[X] If you are not given a chance to surrender and they fire anything other than a warning shot at you, flee with Una.
Regeneration
Level 1
-Passively heals Cerys for 1% total health every 10 minutes.
5*1.2^Level = 6
(Round the result to the nearest whole number.)
Level 1 = 10 Minutes per %
Level 5 = 5 Minutes per %
Level 10 = 2 Minutes per %
Level 15 = 1 minute per %
Level 20 = 20 seconds per % (Two turns)
Level 25 = 7 seconds per % (One turn)
Level 30 = 3 seconds per % (3% health per turn)
Level 35 = 1% per second (10% health per turn)
Level 40 = 2% per second (20% health per turn)
Level 45 = 5% per second (50% health per turn)
Level 50 = 10% per second (100% health per turn)
(How I did the Math here. 3600 seconds (1 hour) / 6 = 720 seconds per %. 720 seconds / into 60 chunks = 10 Minutes per %) This requires some bending of the mind to take into account time being 60 seconds and 0.3 (1/3) of 60 seconds being 20 seconds as a third. It's complicated.
Looking at that vote...we're taking even more time than the default?
Bandaging injuries, especially body injuries that require you to take off clothing to give access, is not fast. We'd have fixed enough of it to run with magic by then.
Secondly, as far as I can tell, the military are NOT prepped for a manhunt in the forest. This is not their SOP here, they'd be sending out soldiers with some basic woodcraft to search slowly, so barring leaving heaps of bloodstained stuff or scorched earth, we can expect to be able to lose them if we don't spend more than an hour standing there healing, giving them enough time to cover up the lack with manpower.
Thirdly, nothing in the regeneration magic actually stops you from moving while it works.
So, simple AND effective?
[X] Try and heal yourself before moving on
-[X] In fact, just keep going once you started the regeneration and reapply it as needed. You can move and every mile you can put behind you adds a square mile to their search space.
As for the debacle, no comment beyond that I actually expected it to fail in the other direction: i.e. if she was trying to stage a looter starting a fire, it's actually more likely for the fire to burn out after making a lot of smoke as it burns exposed wood surfaces. Fires actually tend to spread pretty slowly unless they are extensive enough to start putting materials at the flash point, which takes a lot of doing without magic.
So it'd have gone:
-Start a fire in the kitchen.
-10 minutes later, some smoke can be discerned if it caught on, or it might have snuffed out on it's own.
-In the former case, it'd ignite the gas briefly, causing the fire to spread out of the kitchen in a flash and igniting fabrics, before the supply from the valves shuts off from heat damage deforming the material and sealing the pipe. This then leads to a slowly spreading fire as wood ignites(or it becomes a dud if the flash fire just extinguishes the fire by burning through all easily burned fuel) and it moves to uncontrollable if nobody intrudes while it spreads over an hour. Once it reaches sufficient intensity, the gas pipe or tank will breach and THAT really would start the music.
-In the latter case, gas will start filling the house, so while it won't catch fire immediately, the next spark from ANYTHING would blow the place.
A little bit of column A a little bit of column B.
Your Aura, which I noted specifically in chapter 2, sets everything inside it's radius on fire. If you can conceive it being on fire, then it will be on fire. That is partly why the air isn't on fire right now.
Bandaging injuries, especially body injuries that require you to take off clothing to give access, is not fast. We'd have fixed enough of it to run with magic by then.
Secondly, as far as I can tell, the military are NOT prepped for a manhunt in the forest. This is not their SOP here, they'd be sending out soldiers with some basic woodcraft to search slowly, so barring leaving heaps of bloodstained stuff or scorched earth, we can expect to be able to lose them if we don't spend more than an hour standing there healing, giving them enough time to cover up the lack with manpower.
Honestly, we are so close to 10 hp (where the looter would have fainted from) that I put the vote of bandages to staunch the bleeding in case we started to take damage from bleeding before we manage to heal all the way. We heal at a rate of about 1% per 8 minutes and I have no idea how much time it will take (how much % have to be healed) before bleeding stops, hence, bandaging at the same time. We have no use if pass out.
That said, should probably add a note to just leave as soon as the wounds stop bleeding.
Your point on the fact a manhunt in the forest is probably not the SOP of the military here is a good one, and it makes sense because there would be little chance of us escaping at all if that was the case.
Mainly I am worried about the military or the police having trained dogs that could follow us, but honestly that might not be the case.
Will change my vote slightly:
add a
-[] If you stop bleeding before the bandages are fully administered, don't fully bandage yourself.
and change
[]Once you get moving put your ability to sneak to good use, covering up your tracks.
to
[]Once you get moving put your ability to sneak to good use, try to avoid making any obvious trail.
because covering the tracks is really time consuming when we should be trying to avoid wasting time.
also going to add
-[] Try to heal a bit before going to sleep
Just because it is useful
Much more than that strays to far from the concept for me to really change the vote when people had already voted for me, and I do think trying to at least do something to hide our path and to throw tracking dogs off the trail is prudent, and even if there isn't a guarantee that they have one.
I've not been an active voter in this quest, but keep it on watch, since I long wanted to know what the rave about crystalwatcher's quest was about but can't actually afford to read 600 pages.
I have two things to say that I have not seen mentioned already. First off, I respect the decision to not redo and just roll with it. Hopefully, we'll get through the fallout with better understanding of what to expect and what is expected both from the author and the readers.
Second, the most unfortunate result of this incident is, to me, the level of micromanagement that the players suspect is now required of them. One of the leading votes, though by no means bad, has the suboption to remember to eat. The amount of conditionals is making my eyes bleed, and yet I assume they are born out of fear that the characters may forget to do just that. I don't want to believe that, and I hope we won't make it into a habit.
It would be nice if basic options provided could serve as a solid baseline of a working vote.
Second, the most unfortunate result of this debacle is, to me, the level of micromanagement that the players suspect is now required of them. One of the leading votes, though by no means bad, has the suboption to remember to eat.
Tbf if we were in anything resembling a stable mental condition right now I would not have included a remember to eat thing, but as it is, with what has happened, a rush to escape without stopping for anything is quite possible, because we are a 13 year old who has just been shot, probably have the people who just shot her following her in, is suffering trauma from just killing a person to the point that our panic'd version of trying to make it look like the looter set fire to the house was to use our aura.
It isn't so much that I think that Cerys normally needs a vote like this, so much as she is really not in a good mental state right now, and once she has calmed down a bit, I'll make my vote more lack on the conditionals again .
You don't need to justify your vote to me, it's a decent one.
However, I would not want for any quest to start featuring such votes (and I don't believe this one has to, so in case Rukia is wondering, it's not a complaint about their quest). What I would like is to have 90% of this vote to fall under:
[ ] Staunch the bleeding and regenerate the most grievous wounds, then heal the rest on the move. Try to avoid making any obvious trail.
...and have the characters take care of this. Ideally, even the latter part could be fit under their personal purview, as the situation calls for it. But this might be a necessary clarification since the vote is about how fast we want to be moving. Most of the rest... really should not be.
The part about the military contact should be unnecessary too, as any potentially lethal conflict that we don't think we can reasonably outrun should be featured as a vote.
P.S. though I considered this conflict as the one we can reasonably outrun and would have voted for it given the choice.
So, the general overview I'm getting here is Banadage -> Heal (while moving?) and move on while being all sneaky-like. Then try and set up a hidden camp before eating?
[X] If you are caught by the military, then you are currently to injured to fight back, and fleeing will probably just get you shot in the back again, and this time you won't survive. Worse — Una could die in the crossfire. If you are given the chance, surrender and at the very least try to convince them that the only wrong Una committed was believing in you.
So unless they come in guns blazing (which makes no sense because Cerys' clothes are probably full of blood by now), we will surrender upon being found. It would take five hours to even get back to half of our Health, which might be enough to run away again.
As soon as you are resting against the tree, she almost throws her bag off and starts digging through it before she remembers that you were carrying the bandages. While she is scrambling through your bag, you are desperately trying to grasp your magic again to deal with the pain. It takes until your sister is halfway through wrapping the injury on your arm for you to draw a thin strip of magic along your limb, breathing out slowly as the pain suddenly disappears. With the ability to focus returned, you draw your magic into your torso in its entirety, not really aiming for a specific place.
You let out a blissful sigh as you feel the crippling pain that had been engulfing you fade away as if it had never been there to begin with, with a much calmer hand you help your sister finish bandaging your wounds. When the two of you are done, you both wipe the blood from your hands on an the old pair of clothes you had looted from the house and stuff them into the bottom of your bag.
When you try to stand, you realise that despite the lack of pain, you are still horribly injured. You can walk, but you feel light-headed and everything is slightly fuzzy. You tell Una to move away for a moment, enough that she is out of range of your Aura.
Once she is far enough away, your turn your attention inwards. With a thought and a nudge you direct the magic already in place to start healing yourself. Slow as it is, you imagine that if you are careful, and with Una's guidance, you should be able to walk and heal at the same time with some difficulty. Smiling at your little success, you wave your sister back over as you reach for your bag.
When she reaches you, Una gently lifts your arm over her shoulder, the scene reminding you of just a couple of days ago when you came back form the mall, and the two of you start trudging in what your compass assures you is north. Right now, you have to trust Una to guide you, since you aren't really capable of walking, controlling your magic and healing yourself at the same time. You manage to barely mumble out some words to Una.
"Move... like I told you right? Quietlike and alllll"
Your speech is slurring a little as you speak and your footsteps are unsteady, the world seems to wobble around you, only Una's firm grip keeping you going straight.
It is during this strange hazy phase where time seems to slip between your fingers that you notice it again, focused as you were on your magic that when that niggling feeling returns, this time you can feel it properly. You try to make sense of it, but when you focus on it all you end up doing is staring at the trees around you in vague bemusement, feeling like you are missing something. Despite that, you get the impression that you should take a right around this tree instead of a left and keep walking that way, still mostly north but a little bit off to the side.
You're not sure how much time passes like this, focused inwardly as you are but when Una sets you down again, the sun is much lower in the sky and you feel much less likely to keel over with a stiff breeze. The two of you rest against another tree, almost identical to the last one, though this one's bark seem a little darker?
(Cerys Health: 12 + 24 Regeneration = 36)
You shake your head a little to clear your thoughts, clearly the blood loss was getting to you, comparing random trees in a forest. With a sigh you take your weight off of your aching feet and smile as you see Una flop to the ground at your feet, gently shifting her head into your lap, where you start running your hands through her hair and picking out little bits of leaf and twigs that got tangled. You see her close her eyes and let out a quiet noise as she breathes out, the sight makes you smile as you start gently humming the first thing to come to mind, a gentle tune that you had heard somewhere that you use to lull Una to sleep when she has nightmares.
Looking at her dozing form, half on your lap and halfway sprawled across the ground makes you grin at her strange sleeping habits. She can sleep anywhere, partly a necessity, but it always was amusing to see where she manages to fall asleep.
(Cerys Health: 36 + 8 Regeneration = 44)
Forty minutes later you suddenly realise that you've just been sitting there, gently humming a tune to your resting sister and whatareyoudoing. You hastily scramble to your feet, knocking Una off of you, eyes rushing around for anything when an idea comes to mind. You let go of the gentle grip you had on your healing and desperately focus on the sense you have for temperature.
You stand perfectly still for several minutes, Una lying where she fell as she stares up at you, lines of tension running down her back. Despite stretching your range to it's fullest, you don't notice anything out of the ordinary beyond the warm spots where you were lying before. With a huff of relief, you slump back down against the tree and look apologetically at your sister.
"Sorry, I thought that someone had found us..."
You don't know why, but just saying that makes you feel slightly silly. For some reason you have no doubt that no-one knows where you are and are almost... offended? that the fact was in doubt. You spent several seconds blinking at that thought. What? Why would you ever think that, but... You didn't think that. The thought makes you stiffen as you look around, once again seeing nothing but that bloody feeling your magic has, like it's being poked and gently prodded.
You close your eyes and focus on that sensation as best you can, trying to follow it to find what is fucking poking me. You shift a little but it's not something you are sitting on and best you can tell it the tree? No, not the tree. The trees? The forest? Despite how strange that thought it, that seems to be in the right direction and that bloody prodding feeling fades a little as you focus more of your magic along that line of thought. You let slip a tiny tendril of magic through where you are sitting and are suddenly aware.
It feels like every tree in the forest is looking at you and you are unbelievably tiny before such a thing. But it's not threatening at all, despite that. It feels like you are watching a cow meandering around, alive but not particularly smart or dangerous. You spend several more minutes silently poking the tree? forest? back before you get impressions. You see men, soldiers and dogs and helicopters roaming all over, but before you can freak out you get the impression of safety and see that indeed, there is nobody anywhere near you.
When Una settles down into your lap again, you decide to take out a small packet of sweets each for you to munch on while you try to work this out.
The trees, no, forest? Maybe I'll just say land? The land is alive kinda but not really? I can poke the land and make it tell me things-ish and it kinda listens to me? It sort of feels like you are directing this thing, but you know you aren't, not even slightly. Gah, just thinking about it makes your head hurt. Fucking weird magic shit
Looking to the sky as you wrack your brains, you realise that you can't see the sun over the trees any more, in fact the sky is that shade of orange going purple that means you have an hour or two before the sun sets properly. You should probably think about setting up camp soon, since you really doubt your ability to keep going overnight in your state, you feel like death warmed over. All in all, an improvement over earlier.
From poking the land?, if you are to trust it then nobody is nearby and you really aren't in any state to be going anywhere right now. Una completely exhausted herself carrying you for several hours as you stumbled around in a daze. Your feet are protesting at the idea of moving and you imagine that if you let up on your reinforcement then your arm and back would still be screaming in agony. Best not to do that, if you can help it.
You spend the next two minutes urging yourself to get up and set up the tent, and after a while you manage to muster up the energy to get up, gently setting Una against the tree, where she adorably worms into the warm spot you had left. You kind of want to just grab her and hug her right now but you need to setup the tent, so you can sleep out of the elements, though it doesn't look like it's going to rain. Despite your reluctance, you spend the next five minutes trying to work out how the fucking hell tents work.
In the end it takes Una waking up and finding the instruction manual in the bag that the tent came with for the two of you to prop it up underneath the leaves of the big tree that fuckingwhatthefuck. You decide to put that line of thought off for tomorrow, it is there but it's not doing anything, you are as safe as you can be if the thing is right. Hoping desperately that what you saw wasn't some sort of magic hallucination. You think about making a quick fire to cook something, but you're not sure if whatever is causing the strange lack of people near you can deal with a fire, or if you even believe that its actually a thing.
You pull out all of the spare clothes in your bags and throw them into a rough pile in the tent. Putting your bags on the inside of the entrance you zip it up on the inside and flop back onto your bedding, barely avoiding squishing your sister with a squawk. She pokes you in the ribs, right where you are ticklish in revenge, which promptly reminds you of your ongoing reinforcement. You should let it off to sleep, you don't know if you even can sleep with it up.
With a reluctant frown you slowly let go of your reinforcement, keeping your healing running for the mean time as you feel the pain slowly fade into focus, instead of all at once. The pain is bad, but it's not unmanageable now and it feels significantly better than it did when you had gotten shot earlier. The two of you lie there in silence, twitching whenever you hear the rustle of leaves outside of the tent, but you don't hear even the slightest whisper of a creature, not even the birds.
Eventually you get tired of the silence, too on edge to fall asleep.
"Una." A moment "I love you so much."
You want to say a lot of things in that moment. How thankful you are that she is with you, how sorry you are that this happened, how you wish that everything was better and how glad you are that she's safe and sound even with what happened. But you can't make out the words, so you just whisper to her and pull her to you tenderly, letting your body heat and a near silent humming lull her to sleep.
It is a lot longer before you go to sleep yourself, keeping your ears and thermal sense primed for anything that passes even remotely nearby, your range having stretched to a good twenty metres or so though effort. But you fall to your tiredness, the warmth of your sister and a quiet feeling of safety from that bloodytreething
(Cerys Health: 44 + 15, +8 Regeneration = 67)
When you wake in the morning, the clearing is still dead silent, not even the chirping of birds. You sleepily look around your tent, but everything is as you left it, with the expected change of Una having wormed her way into your arms as you curled around her. A quick stretch of your thermal senses let you know that you are, as you had hoped, completely alone under the tree and nothing is within your range. What are you going to do next?
Location...
[] Stay in the clearing
[] Leave the clearing
[] Write In...
About The Tree...
[] Investigate
[] Don't investigate
[] Write in... [] Set it on fire
Regeneration
Level 4 -> 5
-Passively heals Cerys for 1% total health every 5 minutes.
Reinforcement
Level 4 -> 5
-Strengthen your body with magic. Increases base damage by 5% per Level.
Magic Control
Progress...
Thermal Control
Level 1 -> 2
-Control thermal energy, also allows you to sense temperature in a radius of 100 metres.
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