The Way Forward v2: Guiding your descendant to glory.
- Thread starter KNakamura
- Start date
- Original
Eternal_0bserver
(Unverified Bookworm)
- Location
- Earth, Northern Europe
[X] Plan: all-in.
Little late to edit my plan at this point, but I'll keep that in mind for the future.
Vote closed
The plan actually does list luck twice, it seems like the vote system cuts duplicates so I'll have to write x2 in the future instead of putting something twice.
Well you can just ignore most of the matches we're not involved in, and make up charts to determine what the characters we do see are like.
1.6 The Tournament
[X] Plan: all-in
- [Tournament Plan] Demonstrate everything, to maximize chances at the group portions, but it means everyone in your team will know your solo capabilities.
- [Conduit] Death Magic Purification - April, unknowingly, is cursed with Death Mana (and is the only reason she can use it). You could work on purifying it from her before she gains Infernal traits. However, it must be a slow and spread out process. (Ongoing: Has 30% Curse Progress. Each turn stops progress and decreases it by 5%.)(Possible side effects and complications if you take this every turn. Current Progress per turn: 3%)
- [Conduit] Luck of the Goddess - You cannot teach her the grand secrets, but you can ensure that she finds the right books, of course. (Increase April's luck for a turn. More likely to learn a power from observation, increase a skill, of course.)
-[Conduit x2] Mana Boost - Boost her mana power in general by 25%.
-[Self x2] Send Dreams of the Compact - April should have been taught this, but wasn't. (200 pts)
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - The Path of the Sage: You did pick a specialty. All of them have some classes, although some are tricker than others.
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - Knowledge: Take a class on some bit of knowledge. Write in the type of knowledge. (History of Sorcery)
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - The Wilderness: Take a class on survival, recognizing where you are, moving stealthly, etc.
-[Class, Week 4 Bonus] Attend a Seminar - The Path of a Sorceress: Learn basics about your class and being a good seeker of knowledge. Contains random skills, but includes, more effective study and training.
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Combat: With a firm foundation, you could learn more options for combat.
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Utility: Any sorceress needs to have a good understanding of the utilitiarian powers they can turn their magic to. (Taken twice.)
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Defense: The Abbot has recommended you attend this class as a bare minimum, as the power you were taught is flawed, and only good against low magic projectiles. (Taken twice.)
-[Evening, Week 4] Common Power Structure Knowledge - With the knowledge of the most common and adept powers, the threshold to improve any of these decreases by 8. (30/105)
-[Evening, Week 4] Deeper Mana Understanding - It is possible to learn to absorb and release mana unconsciously, replacing the need to sleep with half the time in meditation. (Gain 1 Evening Action) [10/90]
-[Evening, Week 5] Learn Divine Magic - It might be helpful to learn to channel this when you aren't in risk of immediate death, but it will take time. [105/210]
-[Evening, Week 5] Perform A Quest - The Alley of Star Seekers has quests and tasks for both the alley and nearby villages. This is good practice, maybe some money, and in any case, is required to do to do the promotion trial to Acolyte.
- [Tournament Plan] Demonstrate everything, to maximize chances at the group portions, but it means everyone in your team will know your solo capabilities.
- [Conduit] Death Magic Purification - April, unknowingly, is cursed with Death Mana (and is the only reason she can use it). You could work on purifying it from her before she gains Infernal traits. However, it must be a slow and spread out process. (Ongoing: Has 30% Curse Progress. Each turn stops progress and decreases it by 5%.)(Possible side effects and complications if you take this every turn. Current Progress per turn: 3%)
- [Conduit] Luck of the Goddess - You cannot teach her the grand secrets, but you can ensure that she finds the right books, of course. (Increase April's luck for a turn. More likely to learn a power from observation, increase a skill, of course.)
-[Conduit x2] Mana Boost - Boost her mana power in general by 25%.
-[Self x2] Send Dreams of the Compact - April should have been taught this, but wasn't. (200 pts)
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - The Path of the Sage: You did pick a specialty. All of them have some classes, although some are tricker than others.
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - Knowledge: Take a class on some bit of knowledge. Write in the type of knowledge. (History of Sorcery)
-[Class, Week 4] Attend a Class - The Wilderness: Take a class on survival, recognizing where you are, moving stealthly, etc.
-[Class, Week 4 Bonus] Attend a Seminar - The Path of a Sorceress: Learn basics about your class and being a good seeker of knowledge. Contains random skills, but includes, more effective study and training.
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Combat: With a firm foundation, you could learn more options for combat.
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Utility: Any sorceress needs to have a good understanding of the utilitiarian powers they can turn their magic to. (Taken twice.)
-[Class, Week 5] Attend a Class - Defense: The Abbot has recommended you attend this class as a bare minimum, as the power you were taught is flawed, and only good against low magic projectiles. (Taken twice.)
-[Evening, Week 4] Common Power Structure Knowledge - With the knowledge of the most common and adept powers, the threshold to improve any of these decreases by 8. (30/105)
-[Evening, Week 4] Deeper Mana Understanding - It is possible to learn to absorb and release mana unconsciously, replacing the need to sleep with half the time in meditation. (Gain 1 Evening Action) [10/90]
-[Evening, Week 5] Learn Divine Magic - It might be helpful to learn to channel this when you aren't in risk of immediate death, but it will take time. [105/210]
-[Evening, Week 5] Perform A Quest - The Alley of Star Seekers has quests and tasks for both the alley and nearby villages. This is good practice, maybe some money, and in any case, is required to do to do the promotion trial to Acolyte.
Progress:
Death Magic Corruption 30% -> 25% (progress now 2%/turn) -> 27%
Dreams of the Conduit: 35+33 (+10% luck) => 68/200
Training:
Due to the tournament, as well as practice sessions, you get 60 points of progress this turn + 2 randomly rolled powers.
Agility -> Adept 0; Perception -> Adept 0; Mana Sense -> Adept 6; Mana Control -> Adept 2; Flaming Arrows -> Adept 11, Magic Missile -> Adept 13
As the next two weeks flew by, April found herself busy between classes, the additional training and her studying at night. Strangely, though, she was happy - clearly, what she needed was more friends. Or at least acquaintances. After some thought, she opted not to hold anything back to give them the best chance at advancement in the tournament.
As if sensing the excitement, the classes were even more involved. Except one. The Path of the Sage class, one April had personally been excited for was too confusing. She didn't get it. Was the professor showing up and staring at them meant to be some kind of Zen thing? Or was it meant to question themselves?
April would have to think on this. (Roll insufficient for a power.)
The other classes were more direct, and April realized it really was "the teacher showed up to teach a random topic they chose they wanted."
The Knowledge class was a series of lectures on the origin of magic, but the first one stuck with her the most:
It was a more reflective April that left the session that day.
(Gain 3 subranks in Knowledge(Arcana))
Of course, the rest of her classes were more focused on practical things. She had a suspicion that something was coming up on the next week of classes. For example, in the Wilderness class, it was basic survival. [Insight: Successful] April did note that there were several considerations about winter survival that were left out. If she went on this, she'd probably want to bring some gear. If they let her.
This was reinforced by the next class teaching how to use mana to purify water. She knew a little about it already, but this unified it into something she could actually shape in her mind. She didn't think it was quite enough to purify snowmelt, but she could see where that was going to go.
[ ] Prepare for a likely wilderness seminar by studying specific tactics and power enhancements for Winter after the Tournament (locks choices for training.)
[ ] Do not prepare for the wilderness seminar.
The other classes were not coordinated. The Combat class had in two teachers - and they were taught how to create a mana handgun. A few managed a good quality handgun, but she didn't. Something about how it worked was hard for her to truly understand, and she rather suspected it was a more intimate understanding of what they could do. Or, as she was beginning to suspect strongly, the Tokiyan nation didn't even want this basic weapon in the hands of its troops. She spent some of her time that night thinking about it. The more she learnt, the more she wondered just what she knew was true. Was any of it true?
[ Create Mana Handgun [46+32+27; 115/100; Successful; Skill: Common 8; Quality: Common.]
The last class was straight forward, using Mana to form an armor around her. The difficulty was in preventing things from disrupting the armor formation or preventing her from forming the armor shell. She got somewhere on it, but it was clear she was well behind a lot of her peers, and even practicing it with the team, she was finding it hard to really master.
'I wonder if it's because I want to send my Qi into it and I have to consciously restrain the urge.' April did a lot of meditation on this but she couldn't break herself of the habit.
[ ] Repetition will solve the problem. (Spend time maintaining Mana Armor when possible. Will create a -10 penalty to all over evening actions.)
[ ] Normal Training will solve the problem. (Gain a temporary drawback on this power.)
This left a quest over the weekend. There had been some odd disturbances in the mountain range near a village, ghostly figures and weird lights. The villagers hadn't worried, but it was near the edge of the Forbidden Range, and animals were beginning to get spooked. And one was missing.
So, there was a posted quest to investigate. At her level, she suspected the most she could do was investigate and report back.
But she took off early in the morning wearing a thick winter cloak to the remote village. In winter, this village often shut down and relied on caught and cured meat and supplies. Honestly, April suspected that there would need to be a sorcerer or some kind of magical protection laid there for when a particularly bad winter blew through. That was what she gathered from looking into what the Alley had on the village.
The trip to the village was a few hours, and she could feel a peculiar feeling the closer she got to the village. It was very familiar to her – death mana. The animals in the pens were huddled in groups for the herds, and the dogs were visibly upset, the predators angry. The trees were beginning to get a bluish tinge to them, and April felt something in her faintly resonate. She pushed forward to investigate, but she knew then and there she'd likely be retreating.
The villagers were peering at her from the safety of their houses, but April saw the nervousness, the furtive looks, and (Perception Check: Passed), clear signs of poltergeist activity. Someone had done something ill-advised recently, and she kept up her feet to the village inn, which doubled as the chief's house. It was a mixture of steel and wood, with several strong reinforcements used here and there. And she found, to her surprise, she could read some of the runics appearing there.
April's mien got more severe as she could read it. It was an imprecation against those who would defile a grave. She still entered, but she realized her job was much harder.
How will she approach the chief?
[ ] Resolve this with Diplomacy and get the villagers to return the items to the graves. (Difficulty: Hard. (40% chance))
[] Resolve this by attempting to put up protections against the ghosts. (Difficulty: Hard. (35% chance). You get the feeling this is not something your Order would like but won't necessarily oppose you on.)
[] Force return the items to the grave and perform a ceremony to soothe the spirits. (Difficulty: Medium. (55% chance.) The villagers will not like this, nor your Order. You suspect the Order will simply withdraw its protection, as well as its sorcerous ones, from the village in this situation.)
[] Write in a solution. If this uses skills on the sheet, note them down.
(Reward dependent on votes.)
The next week, the Winter Tournament began.
They had been practicing for several weeks, and in the initial testing, tested into the first branch so they didn't need to fight for the last seeds.
They were cautiously optimistic, but April had noticed something that worried her. She wasn't sure if it was nerves, or the results of some blowups in the lead up to the group tournaments, but they were getting in each other's way today.
Their match, which was the last of the first day, demonstrated that. Each member individually was better than the other team, but the other team's cohesion was a lot higher. April had tried to give some tips to the acting leader about general ideas, but after the second one, she stopped. The other woman wasn't interested and was likely getting irritated. This was demonstrated when several people were acting in ways that simply didn't mesh up and allowed for the other team to focus down members. April was one of the last to fall, out of sheer endurance and awareness, but the team still lost.
As this was a good segment of their points, that would bode ill in the singles tournament. And given the recriminations immediately after the fight, April rather thought there'd be some sore feelings for a few months. And she was giving some thought into not doing the Spring Tournament unless something changed.
This meant that for the next two days she just watched and tried to learn some tips and leadership tricks from the other contestants. She also worked a bit on where she had failed, but ultimately, while she had failings in that she could have tried harder to work with the others, it wasn't something she could improve on markedly unless she just got better at everything.
Which at this point sounded good to her.
The next period started the singles tournament. She was "lucky" and participated in the first match. It did show that everyone had been watching the tournament, and she had to rely more on movement rather than magical strength, but she did win. She reminded herself to work more on studying a variety of powers, but she needed to also work on her agility, or truly double down to be an inevitable force of nature.
The second match would end the day, largely because the one before her was a true match of attrition, driven by weak attack magic and strong defense magic. It was the only match that ran the risk of running out of time for an hour-long slot, with most fights ending within 10 minutes. Hers was a much more rapid victory, as the person she was facing was a bit magically exhausted, and she blew through their shield with an overpowered fire arrow.
The next day, she faced someone who was more aware to her tricks of using random angles to try and trick out their defense and had to resort to the prosaic method of using magic missile, dodging, shielding when necessary, and outlasted the other person.
In the quarterfinals, she faced one of her teammates, and almost immediately, she could a) tell they were a little upset in general and b) had been paying attention to her tells in specific. Having to invert tells was difficult, and she didn't think she did a good job, but after a bit of time, it became clear that she would be able to just overpower their defenses after a bit of work.
The final match was anticlimactic. April won by realizing that at their level limitations of movement were killer, and used Entangle to hold them still, to force their defenses to break.
But since she had done so poorly in the Group Tournament, she was somewhere in the tens. This felt peculiar to her, as most that had done well there didn't do well in the Singles Tournament, and she began to suspect the real points were up to the people watching, not how well you had done. This was borne out when the rewards were essentially random – a few getting personalized tutoring, some getting scrolls with rare understanding of powers, and she got… a book on defensive magic. From her mentor.
The scrolls were more of a shortcut for studying, she was told, but her mentor seemed a little perturbed at the rewards. Regardless, the book was useful. She promised to start studying and adapting it so she could use it herself.
(The character sheet is updated.)
From the tournament, you have 10 subranks to apply to Attributes.
[] Write in how to spend it.
And 10 subranks to apply to Skills
[] Write in how to spend it.
And, finally, 7 subranks to apply to Powers.
[] Write in how to spend it.
Evening Actions:
Common Power Structure: 134/105 (crit)
Deeper Mana Understanding: 10/90 + (77/2=39) => 49/90; (roll halved due to reroll)
Learn Divine Magic: 105/210 + (22/2) => 116/210; (roll halved due to reroll)
Talonis Actions
Conduit Actions (pick two.)- [] Mana Boost - Boost her mana power in general by 25%.
- [] Spark of Inspiration – Give her an insight into an ongoing issue that will lead to a spell. (Random choice)
- [] Death Magic Purification - April, unknowingly, is cursed with Death Mana (and is the only reason she can use it). You could work on purifying it from her before she gains Infernal traits. However, it must be a slow and spread out process. (Ongoing: Has 27% Curse Progress. Each turn stops progress and decreases it by 5%.)(Possible side effects and complications if you take this every turn. Current Progress per turn: 2%) [counts as not taken last turn this turn]
- [] Luck of the Goddess - You cannot teach her the grand secrets, but you can ensure that she finds the right books, of course. (Increase April's luck for a turn. More likely to learn a power from observation, increase a skill, of course.)
Self Actions (pick one)
- [] Mana I - You've just ascended, and feel sluggish. You cannot remanifest or even communicate. Your spells fizzle from lack of mana and you feel you will need to unlock them all over again. You will need to increase your mana to do so. (3/?)
- [] Work on Manifesting - You can send an short image of either yourself or the Goddess to send an important message to April, or simply to teach her a lesson of your past. (100) (Write-In: what to send.)
- [] Send Dreams of the Compact - April should have been taught this, but wasn't. (200 pts)
April Actions
Training Focus- [] Training Focus - Change Focus from Normal to..
[] ... Light. (Slower gain, gain one additional action to spend) - Your mentor does not recommend this at this time.
[] .... Heavy. (Faster gain, lose one action to your training.) - Your mentor extremely does not recommend this at this time.
- [] Attend a Class - Defense: The Abbot has recommended you attend this class as a bare minimum, as the power you were taught is flawed, and only good against low magic projectiles.
- [] Attend a Class - Combat: With a firm foundation, you could learn more options for combat.
- [] Attend a Class - Utility: Any sorceress needs to have a good understanding of the utilitiarian powers they can turn their magic to.
- [] Attend a Class - Knowledge: Take a class on some bit of knowledge. Write in the type of knowledge.
- [] Attend a Class - The Wilderness: Take a class on survival, recognizing where you are, moving stealthly, etc.
- [] Go on Wilderness Expedition: Put your wilderness training to the test. May have random encounters. Focus on cold weather survival, seeing as how you're in a mountain range in winter
- [] Attend a Class - Society and Religion: You may have to move in society. Being able to do so without gaining (more) enemies might go well. This also covers dealing with other religions. (Taken once.)
- [] Attend a Class - Demons: Demons are an omnipresent enemy. Most only come from the Ocean Ruins, but the wasteland of a battlefield can spawn them. While there are demons who just want to live peacefully, you know you won't be called on them.
- [] Attend a Class - The Path of the Sage: You did pick a specialty. All of them have some classes, although some are tricker than others.
[] Attend a Seminar - Star Seeker Unique Power: The Alley has a Master Inquisitor who leads seminars to teach the inquiring unique and specialist powers and spells to the Order of the Star Seekers. He has found you worthy.(Req: 2 critical successes in classes, ???)- [] Attend a Seminar - The Path of a Sorceress: Learn basics about your class and being a good seeker of knowledge. Contains random skills, but includes, more effective study and training.
- []Attend a Class - Divination: To see at a distance is very useful.
[] Regular Mock Combat Trials: The best way to prepare one for potential combat against threats is mock combat. It's not entirely a good subsitute. (Gain insight into possible changes to existing powers.)- "More combat, want you? Rest, you should." (Unavailable week after the Tournament.)[] Attend Visiting Dignitary's Seminar - Occasionally, a visiting dignitary has a speech about an ongoing issue, or tips. (Gain knowledge to an ongoing issue)- No seminar planned until after the turn of the year.[] Spend a Class Period in Self-Study - This week has an optional rest day. You can pick an action requiring dice to advance as well as a skill and advance them both by 1d100 instead of attending a class- No rest day for several weeks.
[] Tinker with the Handgun - You could improve your gun. You know you could. It'd just take a night or.. two..(Available when Craft Mana Handgun reaches Adept.)- []Extra Training - Extra training never hurt anyone, right? Pick three things to dedicate extra practice to. (See the System post for details)
- []Device Research - You could research those devices to understand them better. It might be a very long term thing, but you can't help but feel it's peculiar a magic hating country such as the Kingdom of Tokiya has them. (????)
- []Hang Out With Other Initiates and Acolytes - Learn a bit of social chatter, as the Alley sorcerers seem to be very well connected to the gossip of this continent. Maybe gain a friend or contact.
- []Talk to your Master - Your assigned master has a standing office timeslot for you, you could go take advantage of it. (Random benefit.)
- []Learn Divine Magic - It might be helpful to learn to channel this when you aren't in risk of immediate death, but it will take time. [105/210]
- []Perform A Quest - The Alley of Star Seekers has quests and tasks for both the alley and nearby villages. This is good practice, maybe some money, and in any case, is required to do to do the promotion trial to Acolyte.
[]Learn the Hail of Divine Darts - Practice might make that instinctive usage something April could do.(Unavailable)- []Common Power Structure Knowledge = With the knowledge of the most common and adept powers, the threshold to improve any of these decreases by 8. (30/105)
- []Deeper Mana Understanding - It is possible to learn to absorb and release mana unconsciously, replacing the need to sleep with half the time in meditation. (Gain 1 Evening Action) [10/90]
- [] Improve Mana (I) - Increase mana availablity one step [20/160]
- [] Improve Mana Efficiency (I) - Increase mana efficiency (powers cost less to use) one step [10/120]
- Location
- parker colorado
To clarify: This would lock you into skills and powers: Survival, Purify Water, Endure Elements (which you do not yet know), and Extradimensional Space, and Magic Missile. (as you've passed the first major plot point, you are getting slots automatically), and the attribute being worked on is Vitality and Strength for the automatic training. At this point you are no longer degrading or upgrading due to class change.
It should be noted that Winter Survival is difficult, and it's entirely possible they won't let you carry supplies *on you* and force you to either rely on what you know or what they provide.
You can opt to change focus, at any time, but as QM I'd only warn you you're currently at a point you have a lot of things you might want to check into first. The choice is always yours, though.
I didn't add it, but I'm contemplating accelerating the time-frame of posts to a bit longer, because as it stands, there's going to be a few weeks of downtime, and I'm contemplating just bundling it into a post and stretching out the intrigue plot.
If people have any opinions, let me know.
Vote closed
Right. I'm going to auto-select a plan and set out an update.
The auto-selected plan:
The auto-selected plan:
Oh, this quest is back, cool! I would have voted but all my favorite quests on here went on hiatus at the exact same time so I sort of stopped checking very often.
1.7 The Wilderness Trip
[X] Plan: Wilderness? Oddities?
- [X] Wilderness Class: Prepare for a likely wilderness seminar by studying specific tactics and power enhancements for Winter after the Tournament (locks choices for training.)
- [X] Mana Armor: Normal Training will solve the problem. (Gain a temporary drawback on this power.)
- [X] Quest: Resolve this with Diplomacy and get the villagers to return the items to the graves. (Difficulty: Hard. (40% chance))
- [X] Attributes: +5 subranks Intelligence -> Adept 2, +2 subranks Prescence -> Adept 0, +3 subranks Vitality -> Common 8.
- [X] Skills: +4 subranks Diplomacy, +2 subranks Manasight, +4 subranks Mana Sense (Diplo -> Common 4, Manasight -> Common 3, Mana Sense -> Expert 0
- [X] Powers: +4 subranks Extradimensional Space, +3 subranks Analyze Dwemore (ES -> Adept 0, Analyze Dweomer -> Common 3)
- Talonis: Conduit Actions
-- [X] Death Magic Purification
-- [X] Luck of the Goddess
- Talonis: Self Actions
--[X] Mana I
- April: Training Focus
- [X] No Changes
- April: Class Actions
- [X] Divination [55]
- [X] Path of a Sorceress [98] [13]
- [X] Utility [25]
- [X] Wilderness Seminar [24]
- April: Evening Actions
- [X] Deeper Mana Understanding
- [X] Improve Mana (I)
- [X] Wilderness Class: Prepare for a likely wilderness seminar by studying specific tactics and power enhancements for Winter after the Tournament (locks choices for training.)
- [X] Mana Armor: Normal Training will solve the problem. (Gain a temporary drawback on this power.)
- [X] Quest: Resolve this with Diplomacy and get the villagers to return the items to the graves. (Difficulty: Hard. (40% chance))
- [X] Attributes: +5 subranks Intelligence -> Adept 2, +2 subranks Prescence -> Adept 0, +3 subranks Vitality -> Common 8.
- [X] Skills: +4 subranks Diplomacy, +2 subranks Manasight, +4 subranks Mana Sense (Diplo -> Common 4, Manasight -> Common 3, Mana Sense -> Expert 0
- [X] Powers: +4 subranks Extradimensional Space, +3 subranks Analyze Dwemore (ES -> Adept 0, Analyze Dweomer -> Common 3)
- Talonis: Conduit Actions
-- [X] Death Magic Purification
-- [X] Luck of the Goddess
- Talonis: Self Actions
--[X] Mana I
- April: Training Focus
- [X] No Changes
- April: Class Actions
- [X] Divination [55]
- [X] Path of a Sorceress [98] [13]
- [X] Utility [25]
- [X] Wilderness Seminar [24]
- April: Evening Actions
- [X] Deeper Mana Understanding
- [X] Improve Mana (I)
Action Progress:
Death Mana 27%-5%->22%
Luck of the Goddess: 100 crit success (all skill evolves auto succeed, best result)
Mana I: 420 (+luck bonus)/450
Deeper Mana Understanding: 139/90
Improve Mana (I): 57/160
Training
Training is now +27 per turn. With a skill reaching Expert, leftover training now carries over per turn.
Survival -> Common (4), Purify Water -> Adept 1, Endure Elements -> Common (3), Magic Missile -> Adept 4;
Mage Armor -> Common (6), gains temporary weakness to Physical Bladed Weaponry for 3 phases.
Training Locked To: Survival, Purify Water, Endure Elements, Extradimensional Space, and Magic Missile.
Extradimensional Space has hit Adept, auto evolve -> **SPECIAL**
Magic Missile rerolls for evolution: 68 (OK) and becomes Talonis's Missile Swarm (adept). (Common 4)
Mana Sight, Mana Sense auto evolve and become True Sight (Expert). Qi Sense is merged in.
(True Sight (Expert) -> Common 2)
Purify Water (common) evolves into Purify Food and Water (adept). (See further down for notes.)
Note: True Sight boosts Perception scores synergistically.
Survival -> Common (4), Purify Water -> Adept 1, Endure Elements -> Common (3), Magic Missile -> Adept 4;
Mage Armor -> Common (6), gains temporary weakness to Physical Bladed Weaponry for 3 phases.
Training Locked To: Survival, Purify Water, Endure Elements, Extradimensional Space, and Magic Missile.
Extradimensional Space has hit Adept, auto evolve -> **SPECIAL**
Magic Missile rerolls for evolution: 68 (OK) and becomes Talonis's Missile Swarm (adept). (Common 4)
Mana Sight, Mana Sense auto evolve and become True Sight (Expert). Qi Sense is merged in.
(True Sight (Expert) -> Common 2)
Purify Water (common) evolves into Purify Food and Water (adept). (See further down for notes.)
Note: True Sight boosts Perception scores synergistically.
Quest (roll 23; Failure)
April tried, but found herself unable to make much headway. Some of it was just her, she recognized, being a Daughter of the Moon, and having some .. Opinions.. about the honored dead. Also, it became obvious that unless she pushed directly, they wouldn't admit to anything.
On reflection, April opted not to push. She thanked them, and .. decided to at least make an effort to see if there was something she could do. A lot of it was just observation, and.. well, she knew full well she couldn't exorcise anything, so she soon headed back to the alley. On the way, she mentally went over her report, although a lot of her attention was focused on fighting through the snow and wind. On arriving back, she made a full report, and the Adept manning the counter narrowed their eyes.
"You're sure about the runes?"
April nodded. "There were some other signs, too. The haunting was focused on a few people, the town's wealth, and.." She went on.
The Adept sighed. "I'll escalate it. You likely couldn't have solved it unless you were particularly silver-tounged. I would look into that, though."
The Adept closed it out. After some consideration, he handed her a scroll. "This is a one-use scroll on how to create food and water. I recommend studying how to be better at convincing, but if they did what you say, it was always going to be hard."
(Does not count as completion. No punishment.)
April trains heavily for the upcoming expedition, but one interesting thing kept coming up as she overheard that various people were told separate things. She did a lot of research on what she overheard from the conversations, although, truly none of it was anything she didn't expect. It was the standards: hunting, keeping warm, finding water, defending herself.
She strongly suspected it was meant to be a team exercise, but something kept nagging at her. Winter survival was better in groups, but hunting around here was... interesting. She had done some research (read: wandered around outside working on her observation and survival skills), and there wasn't a lot of wild game here. They would need to go lower down or hunt larger animals that she wouldn't recommend for anyone but really skilled at magic or arms. But she also didn't think they'd be allowed to carry rations in. In addition, why were only so many people told certain things? Even as a way to promote team building, everyone would need to be told something, surely?
So, she spent the next day in the library. The Alley had several libraries, with a few restricted to Masters, and one that she knew existed but had never found. It was a peculiar mystery, and she kept wanting to spend some time investigating, but especially now, she just didn't have the time to do so. April held a private theory that the library hid itself and distracted anyone looking to find it by having them do something else. It wasn't too outrageous a concept, as such devices were in children's stories even where she grew up. The main library was vast – almost vaster than it should be from the outside, she thought, and used faerie lights to give it a mystical atmosphere. The librarians, April noted sourly, are universally unhelpful. Some mostly out of a desire to point new initiates to resources that may teach them additional context, others out of some near religious opinions about who should be allowed to learn.
She did find a section on creation, and an empty shelf that normally held writings and a book or two on how to create food using mana, and very conveniently, they were all checked out when she asked. The way they were noting her details down was enough to tell her that they were also tracking who asked, which spoke to some worries she was forming about the Alley.
There was a lot of tracking, especially on who learned what. Many teachers insisted on near-cacheisms. Masters all tended to be unavailable at certain hours and there didn't appear to be any meetings. It was.. odd.
Still, April reflected that the fact that food could be created was something she had been suspecting of for a while, given how the alley had three meals, and yet, didn't take food tribute much. Simple observation led to discovering the imbalance. But if they were going to block her researching that – time for her to switch priorities to learning about how to improve her use mana in purification of water and discovered that it could be stretched to the purification of food and water. April didn't have the control, or, if she was honest, the knowledge, to move it to creating objects, let alone things that had to be safe to eat. She'd have to rely on her one-use in emergencies. The lesson today, if she was honest, was actually very useful – the repair power, an extremely common power that she was almost certain was almost directly copied from a wizard's spell. But she promptly used it to repair a bunch of clothing as practice. You could also use it to jury rig things, but it took more time, attention and creativity, and had risks of failing.
April also found a few journals. One of the journals was very useful for revising her extradimensional power by proxy, although it was also looking up runes, encrypting, and ways to accumulate power passively, and she spent ..two days between classes on this. It probably wasn't wise, but she had the distinct feeling she might need it.
For example, she'd want an emergency supply of rations and water. This journal detailed how this adventurer had made their space into a flying boat, complete with standing divinations and weaponry for their party. April wasn't sure she bought into that, but that kind of enchantment sounded like a path to pursue. But even though this unnamed sorceress had prudently not detailed many of the steps to this goal, a lot of the basics had been detailed and April noted with some pleasure that the journal had clearly become a discussion of optimizing the magic and runes to allow for greater magics, so she could avoid a lot of headaches.
She did note some notes on the back that seemed to explain how to duplicate the journals magically, but some of the runics didn't make sense. Runes from what she had seen were useful and could give her more understanding of a lot of things. Hell, she had sketched out some runic inlays on her gun, but it was also a long term investment. It'd pay off later.. but maybe not now.
April would look into..
[] enchanting more via engraved runics. (Takes over a training slot until discontinued. Will provide reduced thresholds for other actions. Will also have effects in Act 2. It will also mean that other crafting or creation skills can never exceed this in skill ranks. (Such as Alchemy.)) [note: gun creating is an exception.]
[] … her normal studying. No point in focusing on this right now. Keeps open the chance to go for another crafting type.
Part of these days of work required several hours in her room to properly anchor it in her spiritual sea to constantly recharge, but a lot was properly creating, securing, and hiding the bubble that contained the hut - which April decided to make into a two-room hut. She could expand it or make it into a boat later. April doublechecked a few other journals, but none really seemed to have a lot of relevant information.
'Hopefully this is it.' April said to herself as she sat in her room examining the runic structures with the aid of a common reference she had checked out.
The first hurdle, being able to appear in it from inside the grounds, was passed. The next, painstakingly copying runes, creating the power stones to passively recharge and accumulate power took the rest of the day. It would require successive re-visits to the runic structure in the hunt, and the power structure in her mind, as well as, probably re-anchoring and changing the anchor in her spiritual sea as she learned more and gained more resources, but when she was done, the hut was secure, reinforced, had the ability to look out without anyone ever being aware, looked like a cozy hut, and vitally important, temperature control.
The temperature control was very crude – pump energy into two tiny chips of a crystal to get it *roughly* comfortable, as any finer is beyond her resources and control, and she made sure to stock firewood as well – she then created a 'hidden storeroom'. She didn't know who she might invite in the future, after all.
April then stocked the storeroom for emergencies and what she had that she didn't need from week to week. The Alley might be safe, but she could be forced out after all, and to be honest, she liked having a place that was always hers.
'If the little the journal went into about how to make it move wasn't so beyond me in resources and knowledge, I might have started that too.' April mused. She did work on adding a way for a door to appear and disappear as well as manifest the hut bubble such that it appeared to be in the real world in case, she ever needed to lead people in.
She'd like to keep the emergency use a secret, after all.
(Extradimensional Space has evolved to Magic's Hidden Hut (expert), and has the customizations: Strong Walls, Weak Temperature Control, Primitive Divination Windows, Stasis Cupboards, Reality Overlay Illusion. She has 1 customization left.)
April will seek to develop this hut further into.
[] .. an on demand house, focusing on more fortress like uses. (Prioritize Defense. This will mean she will bias towards defenses for herself as well, slightly, but she will need to gain very specialized resources. This is more biased towards a more subtle approach to problems, later. )
[] .. a flying boat, more like a mobile base (Balanced. Will take longer, but it will also double as a good means of transportation and potentially a base to attack from.)
Either way, she made sure it had some rations spent by making and selling some tools for a request from the Alley. It was good practice, and she got to overhear some interesting gossip, including one conversation that raised her mental alarm levels quite a bit.
"I hear Master Takelis is playing favorites again." April was busy making the tool and kept her focus on inscribing from the paper onto the various farming tools. This had explained to her a bit about how the Alley got food – some it made in specialized greenhouses that she had seen, but not entered, and some it bargained with. But now she focused her attention on the conversation as she kept her eyes on the tool, appearing with all her might to not be interested in the conversation.
"I think he's nervous the Abbot has been showing attention to some of the new Initiates." Another – this one male, probably from the desert – "Personally, I understand why. They're showing great promise."
"They are. But going out to give several initiates that signed up some prepared items and locations of caches? It makes me nervous."
".. I remember the last time." The other voice picked up. "I'll see if we can't get some discreet patrols of the region. Maybe advise the other teachers. Takelis is prickly, but .." The voices drifted off, and April forced herself to focus on the remaining tasks.
The Adept in charge pursued her lips and looked at what she turned in, then with a bit of a secretive air, handed April a note, with something in it. "Look at it when you're alone. And not in your quarters."
April nodded, accepting the note and found a quiet training ground. It wasn't too hard, as the snow was coming down, and it was very cold. The note was very simple.
"All initiates, especially you, are constantly watched. Use the scroll to recover a treatise on runics and how to hide them, as well as several powers you may find useful. I've given this to the Adept in charge of tools, on hearing you've been working on it. There are some games going on, and while that is always the case in the Alley, they should remain the games of Adepts and Masters. Stay safe. – Joaniha"
April's eyebrows were slightly raised, but she went out to go on a patrol she had assigned herself. There were some hostile ice spirits out, but largely it was her training to familiarize herself with the nearby environs. There she read the scroll, and her eyes narrowed as she saw some of the tracking runes on the books she had checked out. It was clearer to her that the librarian or library tracked – which was both reasonable, and well, worrying.
She absorbed the powers from the scroll, gaining two fairly basic powers she hadn't yet studied – a basic magical ward, and lights. Most of the scroll was on runes, and she felt if she kept studying with it, she could improve many of her powers to the adept level, gaining new understanding. But it'd have to be in conjunction with her defense book. What she needed, if she was honest, were divination and utility powers allowing her to generate maps, or live maps, of areas. But she hadn't studied it – and she realized with a start, the way their training went was to either prevent this or force them to focus on their own initiative. April really didn't know how that felt, and had to admit some of her unease might have just having been used for regimented training back in the Tokiyan Royal Forces.
Out on the mountain slopes a distance from the Alley, April summoned her new house, and using the new knowledge, replaced some of the suspect runics with ones from the scroll, and carefully hid it with face plates and wooden covers. She still had room to improve, but it would no longer be a beacon for others to find her. She also created light runics to create magical light – an ambient gentle purple to orange rainbow color, feeling a sorceresses house should be mystical. She also added mundane adventuring tools that she had just purchased as well.
That had depleted April's funds, but she had prudently bought stuff that was damaged and just repaired it. She had gotten a nod of approval – apparently it was something that Initiates were taught to do to make more out of less. This had given her some winter clothing as well, but importantly, until she was stronger magically or richer, she did need such mundane objects as barrels and buckets.
[ ] Use the scroll to improve two powers (lock random choices) until they're Adept 4. This will mean that she's fairly locked in on choices for learning her abilities, unless you improve her training regime.
[ ] Do not. This means the scroll will kick in when they're randomly selected, but they will not be searched out. This will allow for any new skills or powers to be trained randomly, as well.
[April has gained Runic Knowledge Common 5, Runic Inscription Common 5, the warding power 'Alarm' and utility power 'Lights' at Common 2. ]
The next classes pretty much told her that the other teachers were focusing on skills useful for the trip, which well, was something interesting.. They were learning about purifying snow, which was fascinating how it was different from the power she knew – she rather got the feeling this was used to remove curses and such from an area.
April couldn't help but reflect it might have been useful on her last attempt at a task, even though she knew she'd have to take more. Maybe once she got some more social skills under her belt. She spent that night in her now warded room practicing altering her alter self-appearance. Rather than a human with fox ears, she went for a bunny look. It might be useful.
And while she got the alterations of her form to work, it takes a lot more mana to maintain, and she didn't think it'd be something she could hold for long. It was still too draining with her available mana pool.
Wilderness Trip, Day 1 Morning
Then the day of the wilderness trip – now three days, April noted sourly, after they had been checked to ensure they didn't bring too much to the trial and after a long few hours of lecture and some training on how to resist the cold, some poisons– things that she now realized that were more inherent use of mana in the body , and April was very glad she had stashed backups and, in some cases, her entire supply, in her hut – and she could see how they were being randomly dropped in the swirling snowstorm. With the foreknowledge she had, she could see how you could give people beneficial locations.
It was her first time seeing the 'shadow-walk' power being used, and she noted with interest it could be used to move people without the caster themselves coming with them. They were among the last to be moved, and when the world resolved again, they were in the forested slopes – the trees were the purple-green of mountains in this range, at least. The weather here was worse – nearing that of a blizzard, and April realized this looked completely unfamiliar to her. The limited range of the forest didn't help, but she had purposely gotten to know the nearby region of the mountain to a certain point. She did know they were now below where the Alley was, as they were in the tree-line.
"I have no idea where we are." April admits to the other mage – a younger than her but more curvaceous – April was not jealous, honest – woman. "You?"
"No clue. My name is Khaliah."
"April. And I was afraid of that. We should make an impromptu shelter in case this snowstorm intensifies."
The other woman nods, and the two start assembling an impromptu shelter out of a good supply of leafy branches and found a river in an hour or so. While the other mage – Khaliah – assembled an impromptu shelter, April was using a rather improvised use of Mending to mold the branches into a framework to hold up the branches and give them some crawl space. Tilting the branches helped stop snowfall from getting too tall, but even so, the two women obligingly added more structural reinforcement.
The snowfall began to pick up, and the two bundled up in the one good sleeping bag that Khaliah had. Thankfully, both had winter coats they had made to keep themselves warm.
"The weather today wasn't supposed to get this bad." Khaliah murmured. "Not near the Alley."
April nodded, having checked this morning as well. "The range on that shadow walk could be a bit. I think we should prioritize getting closer to the Alley"
Khaliah shakes her head. "I'm pretty sure we should make it hard for them to find us short of magical means. We weren't trained for blizzards, and it's just getting worse out there."
April nods somberly. "We may be forced to move. I'm not sure this lean to would stand up to a lot of snow."
"Not really, no." Khaliah looked at the framework. "The framework is resilient but not for that. I wonder do you carry an amulet of blanking?"
".. Blanking?" April clearly did not.
"It makes it harder to use divination. It may not be relevant, but this drop makes no sense. If they are trying to test us, we should be in areas that they told us we'd be in." April pursed her lips at this, then nodded.
"We'll have to deal with it. Let's keep an eye out as we move upriver."
"Why upriver?"
"The Alley is above the tree-line. We need to get to the edge of it so we can gather where we are." April responded. "We might recognize more of the sky-line."
Khaliah nodded, and they headed upriver. The blizzard obligatorily got worse, and it slowed them down. So much that they made the tree-line just before sunset, but both could faintly make out the Alley in the distance. Across a valley, a wide river, and up a slope. Far enough they'd need to ask themselves how close they were to the Forbidden Range, after all.
April looked as unamused as Khaliah did. "Well, good thing I brought my gun." April murmured. "We should move back into the forest, and I will …" April trailed off. "I will ask for your silence about something. But we need to be safe here. I suspect hostile spirits and monsters here."
Khaliah nodded. The two moved into the forest, where April cautiously manifested her hut. Khaliah blinked in surprise. She was sure she'd have seen that, but April hurried her in and then dismissed the illusion behind them, causing it to disappear from the outside.
"This is a hut I can manifest in an extradimensional space." April said. "I wasn't planning on using it, but between the blizzard and location …" she trailed off.
Khaliah twitched her bunny ears in mild irritation from being out in the cold so long. "This isn't exactly cheating, but I wish you had just done this." She was cold and nodded at April, who had opted to just light a fire in the fireplace over using the temperature controls. The smoke filter had been tested already, so she wasn't too worried.
"It wouldn't have taught me anything." April responded, reminding her of the point. "The hut has anti-scrying and various hardening protections-built in. And I made sure to get rations and water for a few days already. This was meant for emergencies."
".. Well, I'd argue being where we are is an emergency." Khaliah winced a bit as she considered. "Wait, what's that?" She pointed at the "window", and April turned to look. Her face turned grim as a black ghost drifted by.
"Death-corrupted spirit." April said. "The window is a divination-based effect – it's not an actual window. But that's still a reason to not stay here."
Khaliah nodded grimly. "First thing in the morning?"
April nodded. "We can't go in the dark, in a blizzard."
Wilderness Trip, Day 2 Morning
The next morning the blizzard had dispersed into an overcast sky with faint flurries that were even now disappearing into the sunrise, but there were quite a few spirits out there. Khaliah AND April exchanged grim looks.
"Clearly, there's something there." April mused, displeased. "Mana leakage from the hut, maybe? I'll need to do some research."
Khaliah pursed her lips. "Let me try something on you first." She invoked something and April saw a small mana effect on her coat dissipate and the spirits began to drift away.
".. You may need to add specific protection against mana effects brought in. If you can take divination classes, I would." The bunny woman mage says then frowns. "We should wait for them to fully drift away. Let me make an amulet to give you some precautions and disguise you. Probably as my sister, if I'm honest. You can dispel it when we get close, but between this and the amulets, we should look like traveling mages."
April thought it through for a moment, then nodded. "I can do that. I'll check over our stuff to see if there's anything else." The two are divided into their respective tasks. April did find a few more effects, and after careful analysis, removed two that shouldn't be there. On the other end, Khaliah was busily channeling energy into an amulet, with some runics being added.
And shortly before midday, they finished. After April put her on amulet, the two did look like close sisters, two dark-haired tanned bunnywomen, and it should be enough to get them somewhere.
That said, while the spirits had not dispersed, more had not joined them, which meant it was a fight they probably could take. Probably. Both activated an armor spell and readied an attack, then Khaliah nodded at April to dismiss the hut, and the two immediately attacked in the moment of surprise. The difference in their styles became obvious almost immediately – April relied on her mana gun and missile, dodging as she advanced towards a concentration, blasting away. Khaliah was a more graceful dancer, launching mana arrows that were clearly Light aligned.
There were a few close calls – Khaliah had to be more careful than April as she absolutely couldn't let one get near here, and April took enough hits that her armor spell was falling apart by the time they finished, both panting heavily from both moving, dodging, and in Khaliah's case, near mana exhaustion. But they cleared the field of all of the corrupted spirits, and began to head towards the valley, with April carefully supporting Khaliah.
It took them the entire afternoon, but they reached the otherside of the valley, taking advantage of their mana to keep them moving fast, only to find another dilemma. There was a wide river, clogged with ice, flowing blocking them from reaching the foot of the mountain that the Alley rested on.
"We could build a bridge, but it won't last for long." April mused.
Khaliah could only nod. "Too bad your house couldn't move. Or something."
April snorted to hide a laugh. "Ask me in a few years. Maybe I'll have an idea by then."
Khaliah paused. "Shouldn't there be a bridge here?"
April shook her head. "I think there are no villages in this direction. Naturally."
The two managed to build a temporary bridge – mostly with Khaliah helping hold things as she was conserving what mana she had managed to recover, but even with the abuse of Mending and other powers, it didn't last more than the time it took for the two to cross, the ice crashing into it and splintering the fallen logs.
The two conjured a little light to see by and advanced up the mountainside enough to craft a hidden shelter from leaves and anchored it. This time, they took some extra time to secure it and hide it, with April remembering to use that new Alarm power – setting it to a silent alarm for the two of them and carefully tunning it to lessen the chances of detection (and, unfournately, it's range in detecting threats). They then crawled into it, hiding in Khaliah's sleeping bag. By now, the two were perfectly fine holding each other close for warmth. The fact April enjoyed just being near someone again and they could quietly whisper to keep noises down was a bonus. It wasn't snowing yet – which would muffle sound – but it was almost certain to start within an hour.
Khaliah moved a few branches in front of them and used a power she knew to make them one-way transparent (and pick up noises louder and further away) to hide them further as she whispered to April.
"I have a proposition to discuss with you when we get back, but for now – they're sure to look for us. And I want them to see two initiate magi." April nodded, looking for all the world like another Khemian mage with her tall ears visible as she leaned against Khaliah
"We have to make it to the mountain by what – midday? Doable, but as I recall, this slope is steeper."
Khaliah was about to respond when the alarm triggering caused both to shut up, and April to turn her face against Khaliah, the two going to a preagreed stance of appearing to be asleep.
Two Alley magi – Adepts, from the blue orb insignia on their robes – were moving nearby, and very quietly. Khaliah watched enviously as the snow beginning to fall just seemed to miss them. They looked briefly at the shelter, but dismissed it, and kept talking quietly amongst themselves.
"I don't like this. If they were out in this direction, they need help, not to be spooked." A soft female voice
The other – a more vicious female voice - grinned lazily. "Those aren't our orders. Besides, it'll be good to remind them of their place."
".. They were sent in the direction of the Forbidden Range, I think they might have gotten the hint." A note of upset.
"Bah. Well, they did go missing, so with any luck, we won't have to deal with it." Khaliah and April exchanged looks, with the confirmation they were being tracked.
"… True, but we can't just turn aside skilled mages."
"We can always get more. We don't need Master Salchinas gaining ascendance." The two are now out of range.
April murmurs extremely quietly. "Salchinas?"
"Master in charge of teaching Divination. Why does this matter?" Khaliah is upset, and April softly puts a finger on her lips to remind her to lower her voice, waiting for several beats to make sure that they didn't hear anything and double back.
"My mentor warned me there was some internal games. I think… if you aren't tired…" April says "… we should get to the rendezvous point early. Maybe use the hut closer. I don't like this at all."
Khaliah grimly nods. The two spend a few more hours in the dark taking a bit more of a circuitous route. It's daybreak, but they make the rendezvous point, and by then both are very tired and drained. The daybreak had been just on time, as April didn't think she could maintain a Light spell if you asked her to.
And April is very surprised to meet her mentor there, who looks just as surprised to see them, especially after April deactivates her disguise.
"You two were supposed to been lost!"
"Well." April says blandly. "They did teleport us to the border of the Forbidden Range.." April points in the direction. "And after we removed the tracking magic so the spirits couldn't use it to find us, I imagine we would be considered lost."
Her mentor comes to a rapid conclusion and her eyes narrow. "You were supposed to have a token for that. What games were they playing with you?"
Khaliah repeats the conversation they overheard and they both feel a sudden sharp pressure. "… Are you two women good with sharing a room?"
Confused, April nods yes, and Khaliah does a second later after they both recover from the sudden pressure.
"Good. You two are going to come with me, as we check your rooms out, move you to ones in my building, and then I'm going over defenses, securing against attack and divinations, and how to secure your personal appearance. I'm afraid from now on, you two will need to do training and studying directly under me, or my disciple, because the last time this game happened, we lost an entire class of initiates bit by bit. Then we're coming back for the rendezvous, because I want to try something."
Their rooms, thankfully, weren't bugged yet, although removing the basic protections they put up took time. April had been proud a little of it, until her mentor tore it down and explained where she went wrong. When April asked about mana leakage, she was given a stone or two to place to prevent that from happening – it was part of a full ward system to use the mana that would naturally leak to add a kick of power to the system, in any situation.
But now the two were roommates in one of the monasteries on the edge, and they were given instructions on how to put up a very robust protection scheme, although…
[Perception: 61; Passed]
April could think of a few issues with this. Also, a standard protection scheme has more obvious ways to counter it. She noted this to Khaliah, and the two decided to spend some time researching to make a new one, with the holes she spotted erased. She wanted to see if it was toggable. But that would be a long-term goal.
When they returned, their mentor was using mana to hide herself magically, and the looks on the Adepts were well, upset and shocked.
"You two had to have cheated to come back." One asserted. "I'm going to take you to the Master of Discipline." Both April and Khaliah were unsurprised to see the teacher looking smugly before their mentor, who had clearly gotten reinforcements of other Masters in the Alley, appeared and all of them looked upset, unimpressed and were radiating anger.
"Master Takelis, Adept Talonflame, Adept Salinias, with us. To the rest of you, well done on passing the seminar. We will sort out your rewards later." One of them, an elderly elf said clearly fighting to keep his tone even. "I hope you will take on the charge of finding ways with mana and your inborn powers to make what you encountered less of a problem or have more tools. Remember that we assist those in distress." He smiles briefly. "This is the easiest seminar for this we will assign. Study well."
He dismisses them, and April and Khaliah look at each other, and promptly decide to go to sleep in their new room. They can fix the protection scheme tomorrow.
End of Arc
Trait Lost: Skilled in Deception (reason: folded into the skill.)
At this point, you can choose to change one aspect
[ ] Write in the aspect, and what the change should be.
Write-In: Customization Type For Hut
[ ] Write-In (none is also valid)
You have gained one enemy faction. Current Rating: Will Seek To Undermine
Talonis Actions
Conduit Actions (pick two.)- [] Mana Boost - Boost her mana power in general by 25%.
- [] Spark of Inspiration – Give her an insight into an ongoing issue that will lead to a spell. (Random choice)
- [] Death Magic Purification - April, unknowingly, is cursed with Death Mana (and is the only reason she can use it). You could work on purifying it from her before she gains Infernal traits. However, it must be a slow and spread out process. (Ongoing: Has 22% Curse Progress. Each turn stops progress and decreases it by 5%.)(Possible side effects and complications if you take this every turn. Current Progress per turn: 2%)(taken last turn)
- [] Luck of the Goddess - You cannot teach her the grand secrets, but you can ensure that she finds the right books, of course. (Increase April's luck for a turn. More likely to learn a power from observation, increase a skill, of course.)
Self Actions (pick one)
- [] Mana I - You've just ascended, and feel sluggish. You cannot remanifest or even communicate. Your spells fizzle from lack of mana and you feel you will need to unlock them all over again. You will need to increase your mana to do so. (420/450)
- [] Work on Manifesting - You can send an short image of either yourself or the Goddess to send an important message to April, or simply to teach her a lesson of your past. (100) (Write-In: what to send.)
- [] Send Dreams of the Compact - April should have been taught this, but wasn't. (200 pts)
April Actions
Training Focus- [] Training Focus - Change Focus from Normal to..
[] ... Light. (Slower gain, gain one additional action to spend) - Your mentor does not recommend this at this time.
[] .... Heavy. (Faster gain, lose one action to your training.) - Your mentor extremely does not recommend this at this time.
- [] Attend a Class - Defense
- [] Attend a Class - Combat
- [] Attend a Class - Utility
- [] Attend a Class - Knowledge: Take a class on some bit of knowledge. Write in the type of knowledge.
- [] Self Directed Research: Survival (Mundane) and Survival (Magical)
- [] Self Directed Research: Runics
- [] Attend a Class - Society and Religion: You may have to move in society. Being able to do so without gaining (more) enemies might go well. This also covers dealing with other religions. (Taken once.)
- [] Attend a Class - Demons: Demons are an omnipresent enemy. Most only come from the Ocean Ruins, but the wasteland of a battlefield can spawn them. While there are demons who just want to live peacefully, you know you won't be called on them.
- [] Attend a Class - The Path of the Sage: You did pick a specialty. All of them have some classes, although some are tricker than others.
[] Attend a Seminar - Star Seeker Unique Power: The Alley has a Master Inquisitor who leads seminars to teach the inquiring unique and specialist powers and spells to the Order of the Star Seekers. He has found you worthy.(Req: 2 critical successes in classes, ???) (1/2 crit successes)- [] Attend a Seminar - The Path of a Sorceress: Learn basics about your class and being a good seeker of knowledge. Contains random skills, but includes, more effective study and training.
- []Attend a Class - Divination: To see at a distance is very useful.
[] Regular Mock Combat Trials: The best way to prepare one for potential combat against threats is mock combat. It's not entirely a good subsitute. (Gain insight into possible changes to existing powers.)(You probably should not do this at this time.)- []Mock Combat with Khaliah - Shes' as interested as you as improving her combat skills, especially after that trip.
[] Attend Visiting Dignitary's Seminar - Occasionally, a visiting dignitary has a speech about an ongoing issue, or tips. (Gain knowledge to an ongoing issue)- No seminar planned until after the turn of the year.[] Spend a Class Period in Self-Study - This week has an optional rest day. You can pick an action requiring dice to advance as well as a skill and advance them both by 1d100 instead of attending a class- No rest day for several weeks.
[] Tinker with the Handgun - You could improve your gun. You know you could. It'd just take a night or.. two..(Available when Craft Mana Handgun reaches Adept.)- []Extra Training - Extra training never hurt anyone, right? Pick three things to dedicate extra practice to. (See the System post for details)
- []Device Research - You could research those devices to understand them better. It might be a very long term thing, but you can't help but feel it's peculiar a magic hating country such as the Kingdom of Tokiya has them. (????)
- []Hang Out With Other Initiates and Acolytes - Learn a bit of social chatter, as the Alley sorcerers seem to be very well connected to the gossip of this continent. Maybe gain a friend or contact.
- []Talk to your Master - Your assigned master has a standing office timeslot for you, you could go take advantage of it. (Random benefit.)
- []Learn Divine Magic - It might be helpful to learn to channel this when you aren't in risk of immediate death, but it will take time. [116/210]
- []Perform A Quest - The Alley of Star Seekers has quests and tasks for both the alley and nearby villages. This is good practice, maybe some money, and in any case, is required to do to do the promotion trial to Acolyte.
- []Learn the Duplication Power - Not something you think the Alley would want you knowing without observation, but by the same token you might want to use things without people spying on you. [0/80]
[]Learn the Hail of Divine Darts - Practice might make that instinctive usage something April could do.(Unavailable)- [] Improve Mana (I) - Increase mana availablity one step [57/160]
- [] Improve Mana Efficiency (I) - Increase mana efficiency (powers cost less to use) one step [10/120]