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Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest

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No, no, this could work. We just have to keep asking for harder shit than is available until we give up on finding proper drugs and resign ourselves to sobriety.
 
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For A Better World 40
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    • JustGazzer said:
    [X] I don't know, have you got anything stronger?
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    "I don't know, have you got anything stronger?"

    JADE: "Stronger than opium, but less debilitating than opium?"

    "Yeah."

    The doctor looks to Usamir for intervention, but he has moved away, shouting orders to the fire crews.

    JADE: "Are you pregnant?"

    "Not that I know of."

    JADE: "Heart condition?"

    "My heart is stitched together with moonsilver wire."

    JADE: "Right. Good enough."

    He rummages deep into his carry bag and produces a small bamboo box. From within, he retrieves an off-white sphere the size of a grape. He splits it in his fingers, stripping away a waxy shell to reveal a smaller, dark red sphere within.

    JADE: "Bite down and swallow it immediately. You'll feel the effects within a few minutes."

    "What is it?"

    JADE: "Stronger than opium. Now if you'll excuse me, there are people who are actually in need of medical help."

    "I have a broken arm!"

    JADE: "What do you want, a prize? There's no medicine I have that can match the dragons' blood. That arm will mend in a week or less no matter what I give you. But if you want a buzz while it happens, who am I to say no?"

    EMBASSY: He thinks we're just trying to score!

    INTEGRITY: Aren't we?

    EMBASSY: Well yeah, but he doesn't have to know that. Quick, tell a lie!

    "I don't know what you mean. I have legitimate medical requirements."

    JADE: "Right. Well, you enjoy those. Now, if you please, we both have actual work to do. The front is that way."

    He waves a hand to the forest beyond the pallisade and marches away after Usamir.

    EMBASSY: I don't think he believed us.

    You look at the pill the doctor gave you. The texture is waxy and smooth. It has a faint scent to it, but you can't place it. You turn it over in your fingers. Stamped into the surface in small, neat lettering, are the characters Clear Sky.

    CRAFT: It's a herbal preparation, but without breaking it down and isolating the components there's no way of knowing what is mixed in there.

    Well, you didn't get this thing to just not use it. You pop it in your mouth and, as instructed, bite down.

    The sphere quickly breaks down into a powdery, resinous paste, entirely without flavor. It takes you a couple of attempts to swallow the thing; your dry throat resists, and even as you feel it settle in your stomach like a rock it still feels like the thing is lodged in your throat.

    INTEGRITY: He said it would take a few minutes to notice the effects.

    Your organs gurgle in protest. Maybe you shouldn't have done this on an empty stomach.

    You turn towards the front. For the first time, your eyes adjust properly to your surroundings. The pallisade wall is a fortifcation twice your height, formed of still-damp logs felled from the grey forests beyond. In the sky to the west, you see a dark plume of smoke, a smear of charcoal against the slate grey sky.

    "I'm going out." you say, facing the gate.

    USAMIR: "The trench is five hundred paces out straight west, magistrate. Legion are out there already, we'll be following you out as soon as we're provisioned. We're on firefighting duty, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to see some action when there's glory to be had."

    "There is none." you reply.

    Usamir says something else, but you aren't listening.

    The navy teams open the door for you. The first raindrops begin to fall. You can smell the fire, the acrid smoke of damp wood burning.

    Five hundred paces. Your opponent is approaching.

    Even in your fragmented memories, you remember parts of your abilities. You will need to focus on them now, if you are to survive.

    [ ] Focus on the tree that broke your arm.
    [ ] Focus on the memory of Izumherat.
    [ ] Focus on the Opening Gate.
    [ ] Focus on the charge at the beach.
    [ ] Focus on the movement of the water barrel.
     
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    • Welp.

    Guess the plan "order stronger stuff until you realize that you need to stay sober" died in it's crib.
    We've got drugs. Strong drugs. Exalted drugs, maybe.
     
    I am sometimes tempted to give "are you sure you want to do this?" options and I generally try to resist the urge unless I feel like circumstances have sufficiently changed to change the context of the original choice.

    In this case, you asked for stronger drugs, and I felt like it would invalidate that choice to then ask if you want to take or not take the stronger drugs.
     
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    Crumplepunch said:
    I am sometimes tempted to give "are you sure you want to do this?" options and I generally try to resist the urge unless I feel like circumstances have sufficiently changed to change the context of the original choice.

    In this case, you asked for stronger drugs, and I felt like it would invalidate that choice to then ask if you want to take or not take the stronger drugs.
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    Please feel free to give us such awful, awful options so long as they're not immediate 'you dead' ones. I mean, it's Disco Elysium mechanics, it's totally in-theme.
     
    Crumplepunch said:
    I am sometimes tempted to give "are you sure you want to do this?" options and I generally try to resist the urge unless I feel like circumstances have sufficiently changed to change the context of the original choice.

    In this case, you asked for stronger drugs, and I felt like it would invalidate that choice to then ask if you want to take or not take the stronger drugs.
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    In this case, I'm not sure the question of "Do you really want to completely blow your sobriety?" should have been left entirely in the hands of the two people who were fastest on the draw. That's a really consequential decision that we're now locked into because a couple people thought it'd be funny or something, and there was no way to avert it short of camping the thread obsessively. It's really frustrating for someone like me, who was invested in not derailing the recovery process.

    I'm sure there are ways to justify it and nothing's unsalvageable, and of course this is just how the quest is set up, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
     
    Well, I do hope that we'll eventually have a thought about remaining sober. If there's one piece of personal development I am all in for, then it's not trashing our brain any harder. She's already essentially constantly drunk, considering how a single neuron firing (read: a single vote) is what decides her next move. Literally 0 self-control (ok there are big choices, but they are occasional).

    Actually, I doubt this drug changes anything. In Disco Elysium, you didn't need to stay sober through the entire game to get a thought you need to stop drinking.

    Edit: Wrong pronoun.
     
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    PurposefulZephyr said:
    Well, I do hope that we'll eventually have a thought about remaining sober. If there's one piece of personal development I am all in for, then it's not trashing our brain any harder. He's already essentially constantly drunk, considering how a single neuron firing (read: a single vote) is what decides his next move. Literally 0 self-control (ok there are big choices, but they are occasional).
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    Vesper is a she! Her picture is the index image.
     
    For A Better World 41
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    • glyph said:
    [X] Focus on the Opening Gate.
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    The rain patters on the leather of your coat, you feel its coolness trickle through your hair. As you walk through the grey forest towards the fire, you contemplate the Opening Gate.

    You were never inducted into a secret technique taught by an old master. You never uncovered a secret scroll that detailed a forbidden form or uncovered a hidden magic woven into the style's movements. As far as you know, the myth of the Opening Gate's hidden technique is just that.

    Your secret technique came first, before you ever lifted a sword.

    NAVIGATE: Four hundred paces.

    You remember countless hours spent in the central training yard in the arid mountain summers. Here, you and your young Exalted peers would work to master the expressions of their Essence. Some conjured the most intense flames, some taught themselves to move as lightning or to lift massive stone blocks. A new generation of the mighty, preparing for a war they could not yet understand.

    You played with a ball. You remember the ball very clearly. Slightly oblate, the size of an orange, made of undyed grey-brown rubber, pockmarked with age and exposure. You threw the ball. You caught the ball.

    NAVIGATE: Three hundred paces.

    Instructors assumed you were training your coordination or precision, or attempting some kind of elemental projection to guide the ball in flight. You were not. You were trying to throw and catch the ball.

    Not throw then catch the ball. Throw and catch the ball, at the same time, with the same ball, in the same hand. It was not a matter of simply making the throwing motion without releasing the ball, though you did that often, by accident. Nor was it a matter of releasing the ball then catching it again before it can fly away. Each action was to be seperate and simultaneous.

    NAVIGATE: Two hundred paces.

    AWARENESS: Hard to see in all this smoke.

    It took you over a year of training to perfect the secret; that your Essence could hold the memories of your movements. Any action sufficiently practiced to be performed by rote could be repliated by your Essence and your body simultaneously. In that year, the fires of your peers grow fierce and their lightning swift. Some could leap across the sky or split steel with their hands. You could throw a ball and catch it.

    Maybe that will be enough, today.

    NAVIGATE: Once hundred paces. The trench should be visible soon.

    Your head is clearer now. Your stomach knots. Your muscles tense. You feel your temperature rising. Is this the effect of the medicine, or of the anticipation of violence?

    AWARENSS: There they are.

    You see a splash of red in the smoky gloom, near the ground. You make out the parameters of the trench. The diffuse red resolves into shapes, on which your eyes find pale, nervous faces, streaked with ash.

    "Where is Colter?"

    COLTER: "Here, magistrate."

    The older man looks dignified in his crested helmet and crimson-dyed coat. He looks behind you expectantly.

    COLTER: "Is the dragonlord not with you? The source of the fire is growing close."

    "Change of plans. She's defending the north pass. Mercer and the rest of the talon are coming, Usamir is the second line of defense."

    Colter nods, but there are worried glances and murmurs among the others.

    COLTER: "If you're up to it, lady. We're equipped for skirmishing, light armament with slings and javelins for all the good they'll do in this murk. I hold rank here, but our approach will depend on your tactics. How do you want to proceed?"

    WAR: We don't know the strength of enemy forces. Play it cautious.

    PRESENCE: These people are in need of inspiration!

    [ ] We should fall back to the pallisade to maximize our range advantage.
    [ ] Wait for the enemy, then I'll attack to disrupt them as much as possible with your support.
    [ ] Give an inspiring speech and lead everyone in a charge.
     
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    • [ ] Wait for the enemy, then I'll attack to disrupt them as much as possible with your support.
     
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