V. Taking Action at Last
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Winning vote:
- Weird Sorcerer
You consider the question, then respond with one of your own. "Have you checked under the table carefully?"
Viktorija's brow creases and she shakes her head. "Why?"
It takes a moment of concentration, and a certain degree of effort as you dig around underneath the table, informing the world as firmly as you can of what you're expecting to locate. It thus takes only a few seconds before you pull out another earthenware cup with some beer in it. You set it on the table, near where Viktorija and Roselle already had a few of their own, and then Viktorija took yours to join their number. The ghostblood considers it for a moment. She picks it up and downs it in one gulp, so at the very least she doesn't think anything is greatly amiss with it. Or she really needs another drink.
When she sets down the empty cup, she looks at you. "How'd you do that?"
You shrug. "Well, it could have been there, so I made sure it was. Fairly straightforward, really." You pause. "For a sorcerer."
Viktorija grunts, and looks under the table. "Got any more hidden under there?"
You fight the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. "No, if you check first, then we know it can't be there, so it doesn't work. And I can't reorder the very fundamental fabric of Creation itself just to keep you boozed up. It doesn't work like that." There's complicated reasons why it doesn't work like that, but no one ever wants to hear the full explanation for why a sorcerer can't do something.
"Can I have an advance on tomorrow, then?" Your nascent headache doesn't improve any, but you hand over a few coins. Whenever you fish in your pockets, you can always find a few, it seems. Some of them go to Viktorija's companion. "Roselle, go ahead and get another round for you and me. If Mockin'bird wants one, she'll give you one more." You do not give her one more.
"Sorcerer," Viktorija says, almost musingly, once you're alone in the crowd again. "That's a weird trick. Not many sorcerers in town. I imagine I could count all of 'em on one hand, with at least one finger left over, and that's includin' you."
You nod, leaning forward. "It is. But it's a skill that means I have a unique perspective. The White Elixir is obviously magic of some description. Understanding it, that's worth more than just drinking a dose. That's power and wealth." You're shading the truth slightly, but that's all technically correct, and Victorija leans forward a bit to meet you, too, in a spirit of intrigued conspiracy. "There's four pieces of the puzzle, and we'll dig at all of them."
You whisk a writing quill, some ink, and some low-quality paper out of the pack at your side, all gifts from Ice-Rimed Orchid. "First," you say, sketching a few brief symbols that indicate the docks, "There's the matter of the ingredients. The royal family aren't fools; it's not going to be as simple as looking for every odd thing that comes into the city. They're going to be disguising some shipments, probably buying some false leads that they can make other use of, things like that. But we can find the real ones.
"Second," you draw a simple cauldron, "There's the mundane portions of its creation. It's going to be something involving distilling the ingredients down together. There's many potential ways to prepare such things, but this is the simplest portion of the whole effort. It's likely got a variety of steps, and the requirements could be fairly exacting, but even a quick glance at the set-up should get us most of the way there, especially if we can narrow down the ingredients either ahead of time or afterwards.
"Third, the complicating factor," you draw a couple of constellations above the cauldron, as the heavens are often used to symbolize the supernatural, "There will be some magical portion of its creation. No telling what, yet: it could be brewing it only at astrologically meaningful occasions, or need ingredients from the Wyld or Underworld, or need a sorcerer itself, or any of a dozen other details. This is where I uniquely come in." That gets you an accepting grunt from Viktorija, so you know she's following along.
"Last, the distribution." You draw a crude person; you're in a hurry and this is hardly being made for its artistic value, so your person barely has fingernails marked out and only the barest hint of true depth and correct clothing folds. You draw arrows from the docks to the cauldron and stars, then from both to your figure. "Easily forgotten, but important. It's always possible that there's some set of rules that cover who it can affect. Arranging for only a limited supply and tightly-controlled auctions could be a way of disguising its limitations. We need to know that, too."
As you finish, Roselle returns, and Viktorija absently has another drink while she looks at your outline. "You're weirdly good at drawin'," is her first conclusion.
You aren't quite sure how to react to that. "I... I like to create nice things when I can."
"Right. So, when you go pokin' around, there's going to be people who take offense, and that's why you need me." You nod. "You came to the right girl. No one is going to beat me at swordplay unless they're an Exalt." She considers. "So don't do anythin' stupid when we find stuff. I get double-crossed, I'm going to come down all murderous."
"Viktorija, I can honestly promise that I have no intention of doing anything untoward to you at all, regardless of what we discover."
She thinks about that. "You almost sound like you believe that." That's when Roselle climbs into Viktorija's lap again, with a certain playful intentionality on her face. "But that sounds like a tomorrow thing. I'll see you then for my first day of work, boss."
You sense that that's about as much as you're going to get out of Viktorija tonight, and leave before anything gets too awkward in front of you.
"We take more than we give," the Shadow whispers to the one known as the Pale Rider. The Shadow is only in his mind, and he knows that, but it doesn't make it any easier to ignore. "It's a wonder anyone tolerates us at all. They'd realize they hate us if we ever imposed any more than we do."
The Pale Rider doesn't respond to the mental voice. He usually tries not to. It only gets worse if he gets in an argument with the thing that lives in his head, which knows his every thought and never makes a slip when it contradicts him to point out what it's seen.
He talks, instead, to the horse he is riding. "You're still doing good there, girl, right? I'm not too heavy? You're not tired yet?"
The horse, being a horse, doesn't talk back to him. It occasionally makes complicated horse noises, but not in response to his questions. "I'm sure the mare would tell you it would dislike you, too, if it could," the Shadow continues. "You take her into so many dangerous situations, and you hardly ever have any sugar cubes for her. Even if you did, it would be bad for her teeth, wouldn't it? We can't even care for a horse without causing problems." The Pale Rider doesn't respond, but he does consider. Tomorrow, perhaps, he should walk alongside the mare, instead of riding her. But that would force her to walk terribly slowly, wouldn't it? Would that actually be better?
Either way, he's definitely about to dismount and go about his evening routine when the tone of the Shadow's voice changes. "Danger," it says, and this time the Pale Rider listens.
He's in one of the high, thin forests that are in the hills around Grieve, many miles to its south-east. There's always a few hamlets and thorps in such places, earning a marginal living, but he is nowhere near any of them at the present. There's just somewhat broadly-spaced trees, a fair amount of scraggly ground cover that will impede a lot of motion and... something else.
It looks like a giant wheel, taller than a man, as it rolls through the forest, weaving between trees to come closer to him. As it gets closer, it falls on its 'side', and its 'rim' flexes away, each of eight spokes and the appropriate part of the rim proving to be a tentacle covered in a stony hide, surrounding a bulbous central body that, itself, looks much like a boulder. The Pale Rider doesn't know for sure that this is an elemental, but the idea of some strange thing out to kill him, well, that he has grown used to from hard experience. It makes sense, with what a burden he can be... but he can't just give up.
As the rolling rocktopus fixes a stony gaze on him, the Pale Rider takes a deep breath, settles a little further into the saddle... and the shadows flex. The shadows are already long, as the sun is low on the horizon, but suddenly every shadow within a stone's throw of the Pale Rider twists, writhes, and stretches out new long fingers towards him, regardless of any sane rules of optics. A second later, and it goes further: shadows peel themselves off of the ground, off clothes, off treetrunks, off leaves, and fly towards the Pale Rider, congealing into a quarrel of shadow, resting there for only an instant before he hurls it like a javelin.
Two tentacles of stone are held up to block the magical bolt. The impact knocks it back, but its rocky hide holds up to the force. It takes only a moment for the rocktopus to regain its balance. It tilts back up on its side, trying to roll after the horse and rider.
"Keep going, girl," the Rider says, leaning over the horse's neck. As if she understands what he means, the horse darts forward, twisting deeper into the woods, to where the thicker undergrowth and numerous thick tree limbs would harm the rolling rocktopus's ability to keep up with them.
As the Rider glances back over his shoulder, he finds that he's gained a little distance on his pursuer, and with another sweep of his hand, shadows again leap to his palm. This time, a tree trunk gets in the way of his shot, and while his attack thus doesn't touch the elemental, as the wood detonates, it still drops a thick mass of foliage in the path it tries to roll through.
Tripped, the rocktopus practically falls over, and shifts from its wheel form to a nest of tentacles. With startling agility, it crawls over the twigs and wood, crunching some of them down as it climbs over them, still forcing its way forward. When it gets clear, it hurls itself straight at the Pale Rider.
He leans back as three of the stone-covered limbs reach for him. Two he avoids cleanly. The third catches him across the cheek, but he's close enough to avoiding it that it only scrapes his cheekbone. He straightens back up as his horse backs away, trying to keep away from the elemental creature.
A symbol is on his forehead, now, a symbol of a dead god picked out in subtle shadow. "Cease," he says. This time, the shadows do not come to his hand, they simply cluster under the rocktopus. Now, he's centered and focused, and when they surge upwards from the ground, there is no defense. The torrent of black bursts up and into and through and out of the rolling rocktopus. A moment later, the tips of some of its tentacles fall to the ground, twitching slightly, before hardening further into true stone, as dead as any normal rock.
Breathing heavily, the Pale Rider considers his pack, the small cut on his head, the state of his horse, and the mess this brief scuffle has made of the forest.
"Good girl," he tells the mare, which doesn't respond beyond taking a few aimless steps to check out a bush. "Now let's make camp. There might be an apple I can give you, if it's not so withered as to be worse than nothing." He slides down, dismounting and grabbing for the reins again. "We might be able to get something nice for you, once we reach Grieve. I'll do what I can, I promise."
It's early the next morning that you meet back up with Viktorija. The large woman looks at least a little more together, after what you have to hope was a good night and the possibility of steady work now. Her outfit's still stained and more than a little ratty, which makes your fingers itch with the want to touch up her appearance a bit, but that would be a little too much to impose right now.
She gets a breakfast at the same place you met her, which means it's a little crumbly bread thing from whatever grains were cheapest, some pickled... something vaguely vegetable or fruit, and a beer. And a second beer, of course.
Once she is sufficiently boozed up, and once you've pecked a bit at a similar breakfast, you set out again, with Viktorija at your back. It's comforting to have her there again. You can hear the clank of her chainmail, which from what you've seen is a lot better cared for than her poncho, and you can still tell exactly where her sword is at all times. Everyone else tells you that. Anyone else on the street tends to have their eyes fixed on it, so that's very easy to tell.
Viktorija and Mockingbird art courtesy of Moiderah, full size available on Twitter
"So what's the plan, then, boss?" Viktorija makes a horrible sucking sound, you think trying to clear some food out of her teeth.
"Investigation."
"Sure, sounds good. I can play 'bad guard' real good if you need it."
"Maybe I will," you allow. It still feels a little bad for her not to follow that suggestion with a laugh.
"Where're we starting, then?"
You allow yourself a small smile.
[] "We're going to be the middlemen on a shipment of ingredients."
Most of the ingredients for the White Elixir come through the port, on the many ships that come through Grieve. That isn't a secret. The contents of each cargo are a secret, of course, but many potentially-corrupt hands have to touch them. If you can find the right spot, you can hopefully learn not only something of the ingredients, but also the brewing of the White Elixir. This is exactly what the whole secretive process is set up to prevent, however, meaning this is a high-risk/high-reward approach.
[] "We're going to just go and bid on the next auction for the Elixir."
You don't expect you can shake out enough loose coins to legitimately win the Elixir auction, but if you come in and announce a large bid, you can at least pose as a mysterious high-roller and learn something. As long as you don't actually win, you shouldn't have to prove anything you don't have, and in the meantime you'll learn something about how the final product is distributed, and maybe who's who in this current Grieve.
[] "We're going to rob someone who's taken the Elixir already."
Only the wealthy can afford it. Robbing some foreigner can look like a random street crime, and it will give you a chance to investigate its effects up close while you make off with some paltry amount of funds so it looks legitimate. You have no idea what you'll find, but it's going to be relatively low-key unless you get someone with a surprising amount of tricks up their sleeve.
- Weird Sorcerer
You consider the question, then respond with one of your own. "Have you checked under the table carefully?"
Viktorija's brow creases and she shakes her head. "Why?"
It takes a moment of concentration, and a certain degree of effort as you dig around underneath the table, informing the world as firmly as you can of what you're expecting to locate. It thus takes only a few seconds before you pull out another earthenware cup with some beer in it. You set it on the table, near where Viktorija and Roselle already had a few of their own, and then Viktorija took yours to join their number. The ghostblood considers it for a moment. She picks it up and downs it in one gulp, so at the very least she doesn't think anything is greatly amiss with it. Or she really needs another drink.
When she sets down the empty cup, she looks at you. "How'd you do that?"
You shrug. "Well, it could have been there, so I made sure it was. Fairly straightforward, really." You pause. "For a sorcerer."
This sort of dramatic edit is allowed with using stunt dice to modify a scene slightly. Narratively, it could be the fact that your character knows the type of rare plant to weaken a mountain god's curse, or it could be that there's something there that you need to be there: a convenient awning, a back door to the restaurant, or just the right fruit to impress the shah. In most cases, it's probably best used as noticing something or making use of the environment, but given Mockingbird's sorcerous bent, here I'm using it to more directly magically edit the scene; this is specifically the sorcerous initiation of Truth through Lies in use.
This also means that our protagonist banks 2 Will.
This also means that our protagonist banks 2 Will.
Viktorija grunts, and looks under the table. "Got any more hidden under there?"
You fight the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. "No, if you check first, then we know it can't be there, so it doesn't work. And I can't reorder the very fundamental fabric of Creation itself just to keep you boozed up. It doesn't work like that." There's complicated reasons why it doesn't work like that, but no one ever wants to hear the full explanation for why a sorcerer can't do something.
"Can I have an advance on tomorrow, then?" Your nascent headache doesn't improve any, but you hand over a few coins. Whenever you fish in your pockets, you can always find a few, it seems. Some of them go to Viktorija's companion. "Roselle, go ahead and get another round for you and me. If Mockin'bird wants one, she'll give you one more." You do not give her one more.
"Sorcerer," Viktorija says, almost musingly, once you're alone in the crowd again. "That's a weird trick. Not many sorcerers in town. I imagine I could count all of 'em on one hand, with at least one finger left over, and that's includin' you."
You nod, leaning forward. "It is. But it's a skill that means I have a unique perspective. The White Elixir is obviously magic of some description. Understanding it, that's worth more than just drinking a dose. That's power and wealth." You're shading the truth slightly, but that's all technically correct, and Victorija leans forward a bit to meet you, too, in a spirit of intrigued conspiracy. "There's four pieces of the puzzle, and we'll dig at all of them."
You whisk a writing quill, some ink, and some low-quality paper out of the pack at your side, all gifts from Ice-Rimed Orchid. "First," you say, sketching a few brief symbols that indicate the docks, "There's the matter of the ingredients. The royal family aren't fools; it's not going to be as simple as looking for every odd thing that comes into the city. They're going to be disguising some shipments, probably buying some false leads that they can make other use of, things like that. But we can find the real ones.
"Second," you draw a simple cauldron, "There's the mundane portions of its creation. It's going to be something involving distilling the ingredients down together. There's many potential ways to prepare such things, but this is the simplest portion of the whole effort. It's likely got a variety of steps, and the requirements could be fairly exacting, but even a quick glance at the set-up should get us most of the way there, especially if we can narrow down the ingredients either ahead of time or afterwards.
"Third, the complicating factor," you draw a couple of constellations above the cauldron, as the heavens are often used to symbolize the supernatural, "There will be some magical portion of its creation. No telling what, yet: it could be brewing it only at astrologically meaningful occasions, or need ingredients from the Wyld or Underworld, or need a sorcerer itself, or any of a dozen other details. This is where I uniquely come in." That gets you an accepting grunt from Viktorija, so you know she's following along.
"Last, the distribution." You draw a crude person; you're in a hurry and this is hardly being made for its artistic value, so your person barely has fingernails marked out and only the barest hint of true depth and correct clothing folds. You draw arrows from the docks to the cauldron and stars, then from both to your figure. "Easily forgotten, but important. It's always possible that there's some set of rules that cover who it can affect. Arranging for only a limited supply and tightly-controlled auctions could be a way of disguising its limitations. We need to know that, too."
As you finish, Roselle returns, and Viktorija absently has another drink while she looks at your outline. "You're weirdly good at drawin'," is her first conclusion.
You aren't quite sure how to react to that. "I... I like to create nice things when I can."
"Right. So, when you go pokin' around, there's going to be people who take offense, and that's why you need me." You nod. "You came to the right girl. No one is going to beat me at swordplay unless they're an Exalt." She considers. "So don't do anythin' stupid when we find stuff. I get double-crossed, I'm going to come down all murderous."
"Viktorija, I can honestly promise that I have no intention of doing anything untoward to you at all, regardless of what we discover."
She thinks about that. "You almost sound like you believe that." That's when Roselle climbs into Viktorija's lap again, with a certain playful intentionality on her face. "But that sounds like a tomorrow thing. I'll see you then for my first day of work, boss."
You sense that that's about as much as you're going to get out of Viktorija tonight, and leave before anything gets too awkward in front of you.
That same evening, some ways away
"We take more than we give," the Shadow whispers to the one known as the Pale Rider. The Shadow is only in his mind, and he knows that, but it doesn't make it any easier to ignore. "It's a wonder anyone tolerates us at all. They'd realize they hate us if we ever imposed any more than we do."
The Pale Rider doesn't respond to the mental voice. He usually tries not to. It only gets worse if he gets in an argument with the thing that lives in his head, which knows his every thought and never makes a slip when it contradicts him to point out what it's seen.
He talks, instead, to the horse he is riding. "You're still doing good there, girl, right? I'm not too heavy? You're not tired yet?"
The horse, being a horse, doesn't talk back to him. It occasionally makes complicated horse noises, but not in response to his questions. "I'm sure the mare would tell you it would dislike you, too, if it could," the Shadow continues. "You take her into so many dangerous situations, and you hardly ever have any sugar cubes for her. Even if you did, it would be bad for her teeth, wouldn't it? We can't even care for a horse without causing problems." The Pale Rider doesn't respond, but he does consider. Tomorrow, perhaps, he should walk alongside the mare, instead of riding her. But that would force her to walk terribly slowly, wouldn't it? Would that actually be better?
Either way, he's definitely about to dismount and go about his evening routine when the tone of the Shadow's voice changes. "Danger," it says, and this time the Pale Rider listens.
He's in one of the high, thin forests that are in the hills around Grieve, many miles to its south-east. There's always a few hamlets and thorps in such places, earning a marginal living, but he is nowhere near any of them at the present. There's just somewhat broadly-spaced trees, a fair amount of scraggly ground cover that will impede a lot of motion and... something else.
It looks like a giant wheel, taller than a man, as it rolls through the forest, weaving between trees to come closer to him. As it gets closer, it falls on its 'side', and its 'rim' flexes away, each of eight spokes and the appropriate part of the rim proving to be a tentacle covered in a stony hide, surrounding a bulbous central body that, itself, looks much like a boulder. The Pale Rider doesn't know for sure that this is an elemental, but the idea of some strange thing out to kill him, well, that he has grown used to from hard experience. It makes sense, with what a burden he can be... but he can't just give up.
As the rolling rocktopus fixes a stony gaze on him, the Pale Rider takes a deep breath, settles a little further into the saddle... and the shadows flex. The shadows are already long, as the sun is low on the horizon, but suddenly every shadow within a stone's throw of the Pale Rider twists, writhes, and stretches out new long fingers towards him, regardless of any sane rules of optics. A second later, and it goes further: shadows peel themselves off of the ground, off clothes, off treetrunks, off leaves, and fly towards the Pale Rider, congealing into a quarrel of shadow, resting there for only an instant before he hurls it like a javelin.
Two tentacles of stone are held up to block the magical bolt. The impact knocks it back, but its rocky hide holds up to the force. It takes only a moment for the rocktopus to regain its balance. It tilts back up on its side, trying to roll after the horse and rider.
"Keep going, girl," the Rider says, leaning over the horse's neck. As if she understands what he means, the horse darts forward, twisting deeper into the woods, to where the thicker undergrowth and numerous thick tree limbs would harm the rolling rocktopus's ability to keep up with them.
As the Rider glances back over his shoulder, he finds that he's gained a little distance on his pursuer, and with another sweep of his hand, shadows again leap to his palm. This time, a tree trunk gets in the way of his shot, and while his attack thus doesn't touch the elemental, as the wood detonates, it still drops a thick mass of foliage in the path it tries to roll through.
Tripped, the rocktopus practically falls over, and shifts from its wheel form to a nest of tentacles. With startling agility, it crawls over the twigs and wood, crunching some of them down as it climbs over them, still forcing its way forward. When it gets clear, it hurls itself straight at the Pale Rider.
He leans back as three of the stone-covered limbs reach for him. Two he avoids cleanly. The third catches him across the cheek, but he's close enough to avoiding it that it only scrapes his cheekbone. He straightens back up as his horse backs away, trying to keep away from the elemental creature.
A symbol is on his forehead, now, a symbol of a dead god picked out in subtle shadow. "Cease," he says. This time, the shadows do not come to his hand, they simply cluster under the rocktopus. Now, he's centered and focused, and when they surge upwards from the ground, there is no defense. The torrent of black bursts up and into and through and out of the rolling rocktopus. A moment later, the tips of some of its tentacles fall to the ground, twitching slightly, before hardening further into true stone, as dead as any normal rock.
Breathing heavily, the Pale Rider considers his pack, the small cut on his head, the state of his horse, and the mess this brief scuffle has made of the forest.
"Good girl," he tells the mare, which doesn't respond beyond taking a few aimless steps to check out a bush. "Now let's make camp. There might be an apple I can give you, if it's not so withered as to be worse than nothing." He slides down, dismounting and grabbing for the reins again. "We might be able to get something nice for you, once we reach Grieve. I'll do what I can, I promise."
There are two types of attacks in Exalted Essence: withering and decisive. Both are, in fiction, serious efforts trying to win the fight, but withering attacks are exchanges of techniques, glancing blows, feeling each other out, and similar. Decisive are the big attacks that could turn the tide of the fight either way. Action movies and shonen anime map quite well to this split: there's the flashy stuff we enjoy the chance to watch, and the moves that the story tells us are serious and could shift the course of the fight.
Withering attacks build up Power, an abstract representation of your advantage in the fight (and will always grant at least a minimum amount of "Overwhelming" power, even on a miss). Decisive attacks, if they hit, deal significant health damage, but they require a certain minimum Power total to use: the attacker must wager at least as much Power as the target's Hardness, which is a representation of how hard they are to damage, and a successful decisive attack's damage is still reduced by the target's Soak.
There's many elaborations beyond this: you can build power by maneuvering for advantage, spend it to knock enemies down, different Charms can modify every step of the process, environmental factors and range bands matter, there's a tactical game to play with how initiative works, and more. It's got a lot of interesting moving parts, and I'm not going to be giving a full explanation because that's most of a chapter of the book, not counting the Charms chapter at all.
The other important element that comes up with this fight is the Build Power action. Swinging a weapon isn't the only way to gain Power. When it makes sense in the fiction, it's possible to generate Power for yourself or your allies by outmaneuvering around foes, rallying or inspiring your side, taking a moment to focus, etc.
Pale Rider's withering attack:
5, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 1, 10, 6 = 7 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain 3 Power
Rocktopus uses Outmaneuver to Build Power:
4, 1, 2, 6, 8, 3: failure.
Pale Rider's withering attack:
4, 7, 8, 1, 8, 5, 1, 2, 6 = 3 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain only Overwhelming (3) Power
Rocktopus's withering attack:
10, 6, 5, 1, 10, 4, 10, 9, 4 = 7 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain 3 Power
Pale Rider's decisive attack (wagering 6 Power):
10, 10, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 3, 7 = 6 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, hit and 2 bonus successes are added to damage
Pale Rider's damage roll (6 Power + 2 bonus successes)
7, 10, 7, 4 9, 8, 4 9 = 7 successes + 2 damage = 9 damage. Reduced by Soak of 3, for six damage. The Rolling Rocktopus had only six health levels.
Rolling Rocktopus is defeated!
Sometimes, the combat log may be a little further afield from the text of the story; I reserve the right to refluff it if it makes for a better read. This time, it happened to line up pretty well!
Withering attacks build up Power, an abstract representation of your advantage in the fight (and will always grant at least a minimum amount of "Overwhelming" power, even on a miss). Decisive attacks, if they hit, deal significant health damage, but they require a certain minimum Power total to use: the attacker must wager at least as much Power as the target's Hardness, which is a representation of how hard they are to damage, and a successful decisive attack's damage is still reduced by the target's Soak.
There's many elaborations beyond this: you can build power by maneuvering for advantage, spend it to knock enemies down, different Charms can modify every step of the process, environmental factors and range bands matter, there's a tactical game to play with how initiative works, and more. It's got a lot of interesting moving parts, and I'm not going to be giving a full explanation because that's most of a chapter of the book, not counting the Charms chapter at all.
The other important element that comes up with this fight is the Build Power action. Swinging a weapon isn't the only way to gain Power. When it makes sense in the fiction, it's possible to generate Power for yourself or your allies by outmaneuvering around foes, rallying or inspiring your side, taking a moment to focus, etc.
Pale Rider's withering attack:
5, 3, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 1, 10, 6 = 7 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain 3 Power
Rocktopus uses Outmaneuver to Build Power:
4, 1, 2, 6, 8, 3: failure.
Pale Rider's withering attack:
4, 7, 8, 1, 8, 5, 1, 2, 6 = 3 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain only Overwhelming (3) Power
Rocktopus's withering attack:
10, 6, 5, 1, 10, 4, 10, 9, 4 = 7 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, gain 3 Power
Pale Rider's decisive attack (wagering 6 Power):
10, 10, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 3, 7 = 6 successes + 1 accuracy vs 5 defense, hit and 2 bonus successes are added to damage
Pale Rider's damage roll (6 Power + 2 bonus successes)
7, 10, 7, 4 9, 8, 4 9 = 7 successes + 2 damage = 9 damage. Reduced by Soak of 3, for six damage. The Rolling Rocktopus had only six health levels.
Rolling Rocktopus is defeated!
Sometimes, the combat log may be a little further afield from the text of the story; I reserve the right to refluff it if it makes for a better read. This time, it happened to line up pretty well!
It's early the next morning that you meet back up with Viktorija. The large woman looks at least a little more together, after what you have to hope was a good night and the possibility of steady work now. Her outfit's still stained and more than a little ratty, which makes your fingers itch with the want to touch up her appearance a bit, but that would be a little too much to impose right now.
She gets a breakfast at the same place you met her, which means it's a little crumbly bread thing from whatever grains were cheapest, some pickled... something vaguely vegetable or fruit, and a beer. And a second beer, of course.
Once she is sufficiently boozed up, and once you've pecked a bit at a similar breakfast, you set out again, with Viktorija at your back. It's comforting to have her there again. You can hear the clank of her chainmail, which from what you've seen is a lot better cared for than her poncho, and you can still tell exactly where her sword is at all times. Everyone else tells you that. Anyone else on the street tends to have their eyes fixed on it, so that's very easy to tell.
Viktorija and Mockingbird art courtesy of Moiderah, full size available on Twitter
"So what's the plan, then, boss?" Viktorija makes a horrible sucking sound, you think trying to clear some food out of her teeth.
"Investigation."
"Sure, sounds good. I can play 'bad guard' real good if you need it."
"Maybe I will," you allow. It still feels a little bad for her not to follow that suggestion with a laugh.
Ventures are one of the more interesting elements of Exalted Essence's system. It's a sort of flexible, one-sizes-fits-most method for extended efforts, from a hurried once-per-turn effort to open a mechanism before a mighty foe catches up to whispering effectively among a queen's court to find people's true allegiances to spending months of downtime crafting a magical weapon to running a long overland journey.
Mockingbird's first venture here is investigating some of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the White Elixir. There will be a series of scenes finding things out. What approach is taken is going to change what could be found out... and may change what sort of fallout could come from a poor roll or series of rolls, as well.
Mockingbird's first venture here is investigating some of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the White Elixir. There will be a series of scenes finding things out. What approach is taken is going to change what could be found out... and may change what sort of fallout could come from a poor roll or series of rolls, as well.
"Where're we starting, then?"
You allow yourself a small smile.
[] "We're going to be the middlemen on a shipment of ingredients."
Most of the ingredients for the White Elixir come through the port, on the many ships that come through Grieve. That isn't a secret. The contents of each cargo are a secret, of course, but many potentially-corrupt hands have to touch them. If you can find the right spot, you can hopefully learn not only something of the ingredients, but also the brewing of the White Elixir. This is exactly what the whole secretive process is set up to prevent, however, meaning this is a high-risk/high-reward approach.
[] "We're going to just go and bid on the next auction for the Elixir."
You don't expect you can shake out enough loose coins to legitimately win the Elixir auction, but if you come in and announce a large bid, you can at least pose as a mysterious high-roller and learn something. As long as you don't actually win, you shouldn't have to prove anything you don't have, and in the meantime you'll learn something about how the final product is distributed, and maybe who's who in this current Grieve.
[] "We're going to rob someone who's taken the Elixir already."
Only the wealthy can afford it. Robbing some foreigner can look like a random street crime, and it will give you a chance to investigate its effects up close while you make off with some paltry amount of funds so it looks legitimate. You have no idea what you'll find, but it's going to be relatively low-key unless you get someone with a surprising amount of tricks up their sleeve.
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