Remove ads

The Restless Dead Want YOU To Fight Necromancy

Reader mode
Wysteria said:
Right now a ward would be a flat ward against the undead. Undead that came within the boundaries would burst into fire or something. Cursed living people would not trigger it.

It would mean Morgan couldn't visit the hospital anymore (at least while this version of the ward was active). An infected person turning within the ward would not be a big deal.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How much harder would it be to do a zombies-but-not-vampires ward? We might want to visit the hospital again, after all, and trying to set up a dominion by laying out places that we're not allowed to go seems... off.
 
Sirrocco said:
How much harder would it be to do a zombies-but-not-vampires ward? We might want to visit the hospital again, after all, and trying to set up a dominion by laying out places that we're not allowed to go seems... off.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If you switched the order around and did the hospital ward after your zombie research, not hard. That depends on your zombie research being successful, though, which is not as straightforward as the spells you've done so far.

Since you've come up with the idea, you'll chat with a few people and then consider the question of doing a ward before or after relevant zombie spell research.
Adhoc vote count started by Wysteria on Jun 19, 2019 at 9:15 AM, finished with 1052 posts and 10 votes.
  • [x]You should put up a week-long ward against zombies around the hospital. You've had some ideas about stable secondary locations.
    [X]You should talk to your four current minions. Four out of five, you note, you seem to have misplaced one.
    [X]You should take a few minutes to introduce yourselves to everyone and learn their stories.
    [x]You should talk to Nina from the CDC.
    -[X]give information about zombies, ostensibly sharing what we know, asking about what they know
    -[X] See if the CDC has any thoughts on what the best place to ward would be
    [x]You should talk to Ken.
    [x]You should talk to Nina from the CDC.
    -[X] See if the CDC has any thoughts on what the best place to ward would be
    -[X]give information about zombies, sharing what we know, asking about what they know
    [x]You should talk to Nina from the CDC.
Click to expand...
 
Remove ads
50. You're a Very Safe Person
  • Threadmarks
    • [x]You should talk to Nina from the CDC.
    -[X]give information about zombies, ostensibly sharing what we know, asking about what they know
    -[X] See if the CDC has any thoughts on what the best place to ward would be

    Sunday 13 May 2001
    12:30 AM

    Willpower: 2/4 (fine)
    Hunger: -11/-30 (very hungry)
    Spirit: 3.9

    "Alright, everyone, you all have your own beds to go to. Dr. Finn, I need you first," directs Elena, your nurse minion, shooing people away from you.

    Wonderful woman.

    "Elena, could you gather everyone from this morning?" you ask her. "I'd like to speak to them."

    "I will, but one of the patients checked himself out."

    "Ah. Thank you."

    Is one proto-vampire wandering around town more dangerous than all the zombies wandering around town? Probably not, but it's not a clear-cut thing.

    "And could I get a bucket of water and a brush from somewhere? I need to clean this floor," you add.

    "I'll tell someone," Elena agrees.

    "Morgan?" Deedee asks, and you turn to her.
    ​
    You haven't paid that much attention to Deedee Henderson before, except to gather that she's Kathy and Wyatt's mother and Bob's ex-wife. She's a pretty middle-aged woman with brown skin and a bright red necklace and earrings that match her lipstick, currently sitting in a wheelchair with her ankle bandaged.

    She holds out a hand and you shake it. She about takes your hand off, her grip is that fierce.

    "I do appreciate your help tonight, very much, Morgan. It's nice to finally meet you."

    "The pleasure is all mine," you assure her. "I could hardly do otherwise."

    "I'm going to go see an actual doctor about all this. What are you doing here?"

    "I believe I'm about to have a conversation with the Center of Disease Control, as soon as things quiet down a little. And I need to clean up."

    You gesture roundly at the ritual circle burnt into the concrete floor, the scattering of charred ingredients and puddled candlewax. The ash should come off, and the magical residue certainly will.

    "We'll be in the ER, then, when you're done."

    "That may be some time," you admit. "I have another ritual project to look at here, first."

    "It's an emergency room in the middle of the zombie apocalypse," Deedee says dryly. "It's not going to be fast."

    "Good point."

    With a twist of will, you set a tiny part of yourself to monitoring her state of mind. When she's ready to leave, you'll know.

    Nina from the CDC takes her time approaching you, so you have time to get that bucket and brush from Elena and begin cleaning up after yourself, humming and settling the energies as you go. The rest of the room empties out, as patients are ushered off to beds and other exams. Getting bitten by a zombie is still not a hygienic experience.

    "Is this part of the ritual?" she asks, when you're about halfway around the ritual circle and have refilled your bucket twice.

    "Hm… yes and no? Technically, I could skip it and the magic would still hold, but it would be littering."

    You haven't been this open about magic in – ever, actually. You are not going to admit this to anyone, but you're enjoying yourself. You like being thanked. You like doing magic. You like helping people. You like not thinking about hiding all the time. All in all, it's been a very nice few hours.

    "Oh," she says, and yawns.

    "You don't mind if I talk to the camera a little, do you?"

    "Go ahead."

    You briefly outline the symbolism you used – the power of three, fire, yew, sage, and salt for purification, the zombie head and human blood.

    "What I didn't get was the Cabbage Patch doll," Nina comments. "It really added a certain je ne sais quoi."

    You smile.

    "It comes back to the difference between zombies and other sorts of undead. Zombies are not independent, or they aren't meant to be. They're puppets on strings. They have no spirit of their own, just the will of their master. Except this idiot, he performed a mass rising with only one command, rise, and then left them alone. So they stand or move, animated only by his impression of zombies from the movies, and the natural antipathy of death magic towards life."

    "Mm. And vampires?"

    She gave you blood from her own veins, you can probably spare a direct answer.

    "They are creatures of spirit, yes. Not living spirit, you cannot bind a vampire with life magic, but mind and heart, yes."

    You make no comparison to gods, whether of hunger or vengeance or minor place gods like dryads or naiads. Gods, if they are not believed in, fade. You have no wish to introduce that idea into anyone's mind.

    "Huh."

    "You should sleep."

    "Not until we're done here."

    "I have more cleaning up to do, some people to talk to, and I need to look around this place for confluences I can use for warding. Take your camera and go to bed, Nina."

    "…did I tell you my name?"

    []Explain about your mind reading.
    []Lie. Yes, she must have.
    []Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
    [][Telepathy]Wipe the last few seconds from her memory.
    [][Mesmerism]She doesn't need to worry about it. You're a very safe person.
    []Write-in
    Adhoc vote count started by Wysteria on Jun 22, 2019 at 6:23 AM, finished with 1087 posts and 15 votes.
    • [X]Explain about your mind reading.
      -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
      [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
      [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
      -[X] That someone was a mental construct of a modern human subconscious and it will feed you random bits of information even without your intent or effort.
    Click to expand...
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.

    This seems like an obvious solution to me (though probably telling of my character).
    Unless she instructed everyone who knows her not to use her name, this could have easily happened.

    Not really feeling telling the truth on this one, definitely not feeling using telepathy or mermerism either, the cameras are still there.
    The cameras might catch us in the act of lying though so that's unfortunate. Is this last thing likely @Wysteria?
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.

    For the love of all that is good in the world, do not mess with her mind. The camera is running, and the amount of leeway we've gotten by acting in good faith is valuable!
     
    Hm. Would any truth magic ping if we said that we had mind-reading magic, but imply that it's only useful for surface-level thoughts?

    EDIT:
    Thinker said:
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.

    For the love of all that is good in the world, do not mess with her mind. The camera is running, and the amount of leeway we've gotten by acting in good faith is valuable!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ninja'd, haha. Still, the question is relevant, at least if we know the answer to it.
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.

    I hate lying to people --keeping multiple stories straight so rarely ends well. But I'm not super keen on telling her Morgan went rummaging through her mind to find out if they could trust her. Thinker's solution strikes me as a good evasion: Morgan's not lying and while it's disconcerting, it's not as creepy as ransacking through people's memories. Like Morgan does. Casually. <_<

    ... were the cameras running when Morgan rummaged through Nina's mind earlier? Is there anything visible to record when Morgan does that?
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
     
    LadyRowyn said:
    Thinker's solution strikes me as a good evasion: Morgan's not lying and while it's disconcerting, it's not as creepy as ransacking through people's memories. Like Morgan does. Casually. <_<

    ... were the cameras running when Morgan rummaged through Nina's mind earlier? Is there anything visible to record when Morgan does that?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Ah, the eternal problems of being friendly, open, honest, and still a little naturally creepy.

    Mesmerism causes Morgan's eyes to glow a bit but telepathy has no visible component.
     
    Wysteria said:
    Ah, the eternal problems of being friendly, open, honest, and still a little naturally creepy.

    Mesmerism causes Morgan's eyes to glow a bit but telepathy has no visible component.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    That's good for our info-gathering, though it bears emphasizing that using Telepathy to fix our problem here is a bad idea. Someone visibly forgetting a question they just asked, or at least not reacting to the fact that they never got an answer, is pretty obvious. :V

    EDIT: Though note that it's likely anyone with the proper knowledge can recognize our partial truth for what it is, and furthermore the partial truth might be a bit suspect in that names aren't usually in someone's surface level thoughts? Still better than outright lying, though, and it completes a picture we already started by trying to frame our need for blood in a slightly better light than the complete truth would have allowed.
     
    Last edited:
    Wysteria said:
    Morgan can spin a technical truth well enough to get past truth magic, you're good there.

    Also, truth magic works terribly on recordings/writing.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    While we're at it, what about "from a certain point of view/metaphorically true cases (the famous example being Darth Vader killing Luke's father?)

    What happens if an honest but inaccurate answer (eg asking someone who hasn't looked outside for a few hours what color the sky is and being told blue when it's gray) is given? Or with a case of faulty memory as opposed to dishonesty?
     
    Thinker said:
    While we're at it, what about "from a certain point of view/metaphorically true cases (the famous example being Darth Vader killing Luke's father?)

    What happens if an honest but inaccurate answer (eg asking someone who hasn't looked outside for a few hours what color the sky is and being told blue when it's gray) is given? Or with a case of faulty memory as opposed to dishonesty?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Depends on the skill of the wizard/witch in question. At high skill they can tell all your shades of truth apart. At low levels of skill or with a truthtelling item, it's rather like a polygraph test, most useful for intimidating people into telling the truth.

    Magic, in general, has a range of success. Technical success, good success, great success, mild failure, great failure. Being a skilled mage is about getting great successes and avoiding great failures, even on your worst days.
    Adhoc vote count started by Wysteria on Jun 20, 2019 at 5:27 PM, finished with 1067 posts and 7 votes.
    • [X]Explain about your mind reading.
      -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
      [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
    Click to expand...
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
     
    DeepWaters said:
    That's good for our info-gathering, though it bears emphasizing that using Telepathy to fix our problem here is a bad idea. Someone visibly forgetting a question they just asked, or at least not reacting to the fact that they never got an answer, is pretty obvious. :V

    EDIT: Though note that it's likely anyone with the proper knowledge can recognize our partial truth for what it is, and furthermore the partial truth might be a bit suspect in that names aren't usually in someone's surface level thoughts? Still better than outright lying, though, and it completes a picture we already started by trying to frame our need for blood in a slightly better light than the complete truth would have allowed.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Hey, no reason Morgan needs to say they got Nina's name from HER thoughts. Could've been anyone! And the less specific they get, the better.
     
    Could we just say we got it from some basic detection magic we have running around us, and not do specifics?

    Would that even be a lie? Is telepathy considered magic?
     
    We already have a great half-truth for how Morgan gets unspoken information without spilling the beans on mind reading: the gestalt modern subconscious they awoke with the modern subconscious they "acquired" shortly after waking up. That's a much less threatening explanation for how private facts just end up in our head than telepathic invasion of any severity. Let's just imply that's how Morgan knows Nina's name and not bring up mind reading at all.

    [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
    -[X] That someone was a mental construct of a modern human subconscious and it will feed you random bits of information even without your intent or effort.
     
    Last edited:
    GAZman said:
    We already have a great half-truth for how Morgan gets unspoken information without spilling the beans on mind reading: the gestalt modern subconscious they awoke with. That's a much less threatening explanation for how private facts just end up in our head than telepathic invasion of any severity. Let's just imply that's how Morgan knows Nina's name and not bring up mind reading at all.

    [X]Lie. Someone else mentioned it.
    -[X] That someone was a mental construct of the modern human subconscious and it will feed you random bits of information even without your intent or effort.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    ... We didn't wake up with that, though? And it's not gestalt, or at least the vast majority of it comes from one person? We tore our new subconscious out of someone's head (rather violently at that, given the backlash Lisa suffered), the same way we got Nina's name.
     
    DeepWaters said:
    ... We didn't wake up with that, though? And it's not gestalt, or at least the vast majority of it comes from one person? We tore our new subconscious out of someone's head (rather violently at that, given the backlash Lisa suffered), the same way we got Nina's name.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Shit. Right. Lisa on the bridge. I forgot the details. The thoughts keep coming into their mind with Morgan unfamiliar with the context. So I somehow got in my head that they were knowing everything instead of just the things they took from Lisa.
     
    [X]Explain about your mind reading.
    -[X]Partial truth. State that you can pick up on strong surface thoughts - then immediately discombobulate her by explaining that the most useful application is the creation of an artificial subconscious which understands pop culture.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top