[x] Invoke Crescent Moonbow (Call to your hand a bow of pure moonlight, strung with a thread of silver, and send a shooting star streaking across the battlefield.)
[x] Adjust your footing and prepare to dodge aside.
[x] Invoke Crescent Moonbow (Call to your hand a bow of pure moonlight, strung with a thread of silver, and send a shooting star streaking across the battlefield.)
[x] Adjust your footing and prepare to dodge aside.
[x] Invoke Crescent Moonbow (Call to your hand a bow of pure moonlight, strung with a thread of silver, and send a shooting star streaking across the battlefield.)
[x] Adjust your footing and prepare to dodge aside.
You call forth the moonbow, pale and translucent in the bright daylight, and begin to draw back the glimmering arrow.
The crocodile moves faster than you'd expected, and you barely complete the Invocation, loosing the shot early; a bolt of silver draws a bleeding gash down its flank as you try desperately to pull back. One jaw strikes you in the stomach and the other slams into your side, tearing gouges into your linen armour but failing to get solid grip. You keep drawing back, wincing a little as you will away the bruises and scratches.
The crocodile starts to back off, still hissing and holding its jaws open, retreating towards the water. As you watch, a shred of linen snagged on its tooth crumbles to dust as your clothes also reweave themselves. You hadn't realised you were doing that.
What now? It looks like it might be taking the hint at last, but you wouldn't want to turn your back on it.
[ ] Write in.
Your Athletics bonus for a Light Load saved you a full hit there, barely. Fortunately the crocodile's bite attack is very all-in on getting a full hit and the death roll animation, so you only took light damage that was mitigated by your armour.
Crescent Moonbow is a longer-ranged, heavier-hitting spell, and can do enormous damage if you bring it to full draw. However, given that narrow escape it may be as well that you didn't take the defence penalty for full draw! You lost more focus for the flawed casting, but you also learned not to cut it so fine in future and gained some XP. Once again, the spell's stats have been added to your Character Sheet.
[x] Wait until it backs up more, giving you more space and time, then draw Crescent Moonbow to full power.
You plant your feet and call upon the moonbow again, bending it back for a killing shot. The crocodile seems to have worked out that this is a threat display now, and in the face of this full moon glow, it abruptly shuts its mouth and turns, plunging into the water. You loose just a second too late, the arrow casting a track of moonlight across the river as your target vanishes. Focus ╞══════════════════╡10/20
You wait, watching the surface, but that's the last you see of it. It's doubtless gone in search of easier prey.
What should you do now? You've proven sufficiently inedible, but you're drained after pushing on through injury and from the mental effort of drawing the moonbow. You seem to have found fresh water at least, and you're quite sure this stretch of river has been de-crocodiled for now.
[ ] Write in.
Thats right, we showed that crocodile whos boss. Now surely we are ready to take on the gods...just as soon as we get a little rest. A little nappy time.
[X] Lament the loss of crocodile skin boots. You will never impress the ferrymaiden at this rate.
[X] Drink from ye flask, restoring 6/6 Resolve/Focus.
(Getting both above 50% is good, but we probably don't need to keep them topped for now.)
[X] Proceed farther along the coast. The river is life, or was, at least. Everything immediately important will be there.
[X] Lament the loss of crocodile skin boots. You will never impress the ferrymaiden at this rate.
[X] Drink from ye flask, restoring 6/6 Resolve/Focus.
[X] Proceed farther along the coast. The river is life, or was, at least. Everything immediately important will be there.
[X] Lament the loss of crocodile skin boots. You will never impress the ferrymaiden at this rate.
[X] Drink from ye flask, restoring 6/6 Resolve/Focus.
[X] Proceed farther along the coast. The river is life, or was, at least. Everything immediately important will be there.
[X] Lament the loss of crocodile skin boots. You will never impress the ferrymaiden at this rate.
[X] Drink from ye flask, restoring 6/6 Resolve/Focus.
[X] Also refill the flask. The Maiden said that it could be refilled at any body of fresh water, right?
[X] Proceed farther along the coast. The river is life, or was, at least. Everything immediately important will be there.
[X] Lament the loss of crocodile skin boots. You will never impress the ferrymaiden at this rate.
[X] Drink from ye flask, restoring 6/6 Resolve/Focus.
[X] Also refill the flask. The Maiden said that it could be refilled at any body of fresh water, right?
[X] Get up the banks of the river and start following it inland.
[X] Fill in some of that map during breaks. See if there are any landmarks of note
Not really a strong preference here but it seems more likely to come across like, farms and stuff following the river rather than the sea, and eventually it might lead us to higher ground.
[x] Drink from thy flask, restoring Resolve & Focus.
[x] Also refill the flask. The Maiden said that it could be refilled at any body of fresh water, right?
[x] Proceed farther upstream. The river is life, or was, at least. Everything immediately important will be there.
You unstopper the flask and raise it to your lips. Instantly you feel a cloud lift from your mind; the fatigue is still there, but the burden is lightened. You can do this. Resolve ╞══════════════════╡20/20 Focus ╞══════════════════╡13/20
Hesitantly, you lower the flask to the river's surface. When you dip the neck in, the icons on the side begin to glow green, like sunlight through leaves. It seems to take far longer to fill than its size would suggest, much less the mouthful you just drank. Eventually the glow subsides and it begins to overflow. You take another sip and once again there is a sensation of clarity as your confidence returns. You might say you feel more alive, but you're not sure you ever felt this clear-headed when you were alive. Focus ╞══════════════════╡20/20
Pausing to top up the flask a final time, you set off again, this time keeping a safe distance from the water. After an hour or so, keeping half an eye open for crocodiles has become second nature, or rather it's become second nature again; you grew up by the river, you know this. What were you thinking, blundering around like some… outlander?
You resume your reflections. You're not an outlander, but this land is still not quite as you left it.
[x] Introspection: Muse upon the wrath of Satat-Mehet. What crime could bring down such a punishment as this? You'd know something about what kind of things might offend her most, right?
What could drive Satat-Mehet to close the gates of life and death? Classically, the surest way would be hubris; a pretender to, or an attempt to usurp, her domain. Someone powerful who set themselves above the gods? It seems unthinkable that the people as a whole might have ceased to honour her, especially in so little time.
The Delta
Off stalked Telipinu; grain and abundance he took away from field and meadow. Off to the copses stalked Telipinu, and in a copse he buried himself. Forthwith, the seed ceased to yield produce. Oxen, sheep and men ceased to breed, while even those that had conceived, did not bear. Hillsides were bare, trees were bare, and put forth no new branches. Pastures were bare, springs ran dry. A famine arose in the land; men and gods alike were about to perish of hunger.
- Translation from a Hittite myth of the vanishing of the agriculture god Telipinu, circa 3,300 years old.
You realise that you've been unconsciously walking over little ridges that once marked the edge of fields, now dry and being taken over by the sands. The river bends away to your right, and in that direction you can see some fields that must still be worked, and the suggestion of distant buildings.
Ahead, across the dead fields, there is a hill, and atop it a shrine flanked by a pair of modest obelisks. It looks like a shrine to Suteshet, where the farmers would make offerings at the desert's edge in hopes she would keep her desert from their fields. Suteshet's domain has now entirely encompassed it, and the shrine now overlooks the conquering sands as they march across the desolation.
Where will you go?
[ ] Along the river toward the village, where the Living presumably cling on.
[ ] Up the hill toward the shrine, where the icons of Satat-Mehet's ancient rival stand triumphant.
You may choose a new introspection!
[ ] Introspection: Write in.
Sorry this took a while, I've been stuck on another bossfight with Chronic Pain.
I'll occasionally drop these ancient quotations in where they fit the theme; think of them like a loading screen bonus, or the text that comes up on your screen when you enter a new area.
By the way, there's a reason the life flask is filling your Resolve first, all will become clear eventually.
Oh, and I updated the Character Sheet with all your spell details for the future!
