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Tribulations of an Apprentice Witch

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chocolote12 said:
Litch, probably. What else comes to mind at the words "Ludicrously powerful Necromancer" and "Soul bound to a seemingly cursed amulet"?
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I don't think it's the Necromancer's (grandmother's) soul. Her family knows well what happened to her. I think it's one of her enemies she locked up there for lack of a better way to get rid of them, or as punishment.

Normally, being a lich is associated with things people willingly do to themselves for power, though if we strip it down to the basic meaning I suppose that whatever's inside may technically be one.
 
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    • [x] a. Tell the truth and say you think this all seems a bit dangerously reckless: 9 votes.

    [x] a. Tell the truth and say you think this is fascinating: 4 votes.

    [x] a. Lie and say you think this is fascinating: 1 Vote.

    [x] a. Stay as noncommittal as possible; it won't be your fault if this goes disastrously wrong: 0 Votes.

    "Ivy, slow down!" you say, a little sharply -- enough so that she pauses what she's doing, somewhat comically freezing in place up on her toes, hands still stretching up to adjust the lamp.

    "Why?" she asks, frowning at you. Seeing her looking at you like that -- annoyed, impatient, unhappy -- makes your heart sink a little, despite the overwhelming exasperation and worry you're otherwise feeling. You didn't come all this way just to make her frown at you, after all.

    "Because you're experimenting on a strange artifact you know nothing about, using a complicated Soul magic ritual that 'just came to you!'" You fling your arms up as you say this, as if to emphasise how bad an idea this all is. Ivy's normally pretty driven. Distracted. Obsessed, even, when a notion or a topic of study gets stuck in her head, but this feels... different. She's not normally careless about safety. Or, not this careless, at least. "Don't you think that maybe having a strange ritual just come to you when you're handling an amulet that has someone's soul in it might be worrisome?" you demand.

    She stares at you, frowning, still frozen absurdly in place. "... maybe," she murmurs. And you can tell your words are sinking in. She's going to listen, take a step back, maybe get away from the amulet for a while. And then she'll give you a decent meal, and belatedly be so grateful that--

    Later, you can never quite decide whether Ivy did it on her own, or if she simply jarred the lamp into place while trying to move her arms back down. Either way, one moment everything is going fine, and the next… the beam of light is passing through one lens after another, adopting a pure, white colour distinct from the ruddy light of the oil lamp.

    "Well, I have to finish it now!" Ivy says, caught between alarm and renewed excitement, eyes locked on the beam. "It's going to be worse if I don't!"

    "Is it really?" you ask, doubtful. But you know that this kind of complicated ritual can be catastrophic if interrupted part way, and by the time the beam has passed through your special custom lens, Ivy's already shouting out a quick string of incantations. The beam of light struck the amulet, and the air is suddenly filled with an eerie, horrifyingly human howling. The sounds are distant, as if someone is shouting at the other end of a long, echoey tunnel you're standing at the mouth of.

    "You were worrying over nothing!" Ivy says over the noise, incantations finished as the light seems almost to… gather around the amulet, going from white to silvery grey. "See? It's working! … Why are you backing away?" The very moment she finishes speaking, the silvery grey light gathering around the amulet fires out, striking the mirror directly.

    Then it reflects off the glass, arcing straight for where Ivy is standing. You hear her yelp, see her tense to leap out of the way… and the whole apparatus explodes in a dazzling flash of silver light, as something fast-moving and heavy slams you to the floor.

    It's a dazed, alarmed moment before your senses return to you enough to realise that the thing laying on top of you is Ivy herself -- her leap carried her into you, and your small frame, unprepared, could hardly stand up against the weight of a person. Under other circumstances, Ivy having landed on top of you would not have been particularly unwelcome. Right now, though, you are for once too alarmed to be distracted by a pretty person in close proximity to you.

    "Ivy?" You cry, struggling to push her away far enough that you can see whether she's been hurt. "Did it hit you? Did anything hit you?"

    Ivy seems dazed and confused moreso than in pain, and as her eyes focus enough to make out your face, she merely rolls off to bring herself into a sort of awkward sitting position, examining her hands and arms almost quizzically. The room is now something of a disaster. The lens apparatus seems to have been flung directly into the table, scattering its contents onto the floor. Somehow the cauldron has tipped over, and something thick and runny is slowly spreading its way over the floor. Brute has shifted forward slightly, apparently having attempted to protect Ivy from whatever it was that had happened, but seeing her now relatively unharmed, it has come to a stop a few steps from where it began.

    "Ivy?" you ask again, pushing yourself up to a sitting position as well, with a bit more effort than Ivy took to do the task. Which was understandable, given that you were the one who'd been tackled to the floor. "Are you alright?"

    She looks at you then, a little startled. As if she might have forgotten you were here since last seeing you. "Ivy," she says, thoughtfully. Making it a statement, rather than a question. "Yes, I'm not hurt." She glances around, a look of intense dismay coming over her face at the mess around her. She starts in surprise upon seeing Brute. This is starting to get a bit suspect.

    Nearby, you catch sight of something white among the shards of shattered glass from the mirror -- the amulet, apparently unharmed on the floor nearby. You glance back at Ivy, a core of suspicion growing in the pit of your stomach. Something is wrong here.

    "Well, that wasn't supposed to happen," you say, getting stiffly the rest of the way to your feet. The wreckage actually looks worse from this vantage point. So does Ivy -- she's staring as if she has no idea where she is or how she got there.

    [x] Obviously and aggressively try to find out if something is wrong with Ivy.

    [x] Subtly try to find out if something is wrong with Ivy by.

    [x] Play things by ear and don't jump to any conclusions. You don't have enough information yet.

    [x] Attempt to cast a basic Soul spell to see how things look magically. As an Alterationist this falls outside your wheelhouse, but you can theoretically still do it.
     
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    • [x] Attempt to cast a basic Soul spell to see how things look magically. As an Alterstionist this falls outside your wheelhouse, but you can theoretically still do it.

    She got possessed. Of course.
     
    Hey, question: are there rolls in this game? Like, is 'outside our wheelhouse' code for 'we roll for it, and if we fail it says 'all clear' when it's not?'
     
    [x] Attempt to cast a basic Soul spell to see how things look magically. As an Alterstionist this falls outside your wheelhouse, but you can theoretically still do it.

    Well wasn't that predictable.
     
    My or my, whatever has happened? A concussion? A memory loss? We can't tell! Ivy, pull yourself together!
    Gazetteer said:
    Nearby, you catch sight of something white among the shards of shattered glass from the mirror -- the amulet, apparently unharmed on the floor nearby.
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    We might want to pick up that amulet and put it somewhere safe. Though she's not cute anymore when she is all bony, so maybe we shouldn't bother?

    [x] Play things by ear and don't jump to any conclusions. You don't have enough information yet.

    Technically, whoever is in her body is now the cutie, and we have not shown we care about much else, so perhaps if they're more receptive to our need to eat and sleep, we could keep the arrangement? Ah, if only we didn't spoil the budding relationship with our new overlords by telling out loud it was a terrible idea to let them out!

    (Still pick up the amulet. Even if it's a mere possession and not a full-on swap, it's might be useful)
     
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    [x] Obviously and aggressively try to find out if something is wrong with Ivy.

    Knock her out and bind her so she can't do anything if she wakes up before you figure out if anything is wrong or not and do something about it.

    She's a witch specialized in Soul magic. Ivy will understand our concern over her confusion about familiar things.

    It-It's not at all about living out your boundage fantasies or anything! You're just a concerned friend!
     
    [x] Play things by ear and don't jump to any conclusions. You don't have enough information yet.

    I'm not quite prepared to bust out torches and pitchforks, yet.
     
    [x] Attempt to cast a basic Soul spell to see how things look magically. As an Alterstionist this falls outside your wheelhouse, but you can theoretically still do it.
     
    [X] Yeah, she's obviously possessed. If we can come to an arrangement about making them a suitable replacement body, then it might not turn out badly, but otherwise we're going full Exorcism.

    Edit: In fact, I'll make that my vote.
     
    [x] Attempt to cast a basic Soul spell to see how things look magically. As an Alterstionist this falls outside your wheelhouse, but you can theoretically still do it.
     
    chocolote12 said:
    but otherwise we're going full Exorcism.
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    With the being whose strength we have no idea about*, in the home that is now under its full control, including the golem which is dumb enough to not understand the intricacies of what happened, but obeys his 'mistress' every command nonetheless.

    Sure, it's a wonderful proposition.

    * except that a legendary necromancer put them in a jar in what appears to be an epic feat instead of killing it, which suggests that it was worth an archmage's attention somehow.
     
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    The Laurent said:
    Hey, question: are there rolls in this game? Like, is 'outside our wheelhouse' code for 'we roll for it, and if we fail it says 'all clear' when it's not?'
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    I'm not planning on using dice for this. Basically, expect options like that to work out less effectively than magic within your speciality, decided by me based on the situation. I'm really unlikely to give you an option that just results in "but the spell fails and nothing happens" though because that's boring as shit for all involved.
     
    Yes, but is there a chance for magic to go hilariously wrong if it's outside our area of expertise? I am not talking about Ivy's level of wrong - it appears that it worked right - I am talking about the spell doing something completely different from what the mage intended?

    By the way, can spellcasting be detected by other mages? What's involved in it?
     
    Nevill said:
    Yes, but is there a chance for magic to go hilariously wrong if it's outside our area of expertise? I am not talking about Ivy's level of wrong - it appears that it worked right - I am talking about the spell doing something completely different from what the mage intended?

    By the way, can spellcasting be detected by other mages? What's involved in it?
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    Oh yeah, sure. Not likely to happen if it's something basic, though. And I'd say yes, a trained witch can tell if you're doing witchcraft right next to them. That kind of low level detection is Soul magic, so Ivy should be good at it under normal circumstances.

    Edit: just noticed that I spelled "alterationist" wrong in that post and now everyone has to copy/paste the typo. Go me x_x
     
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    [x] Subtly try to find out if something is wrong with Ivy by.

    The aggressive approach might trigger Brute into attacking us.
     
    [x] Order Brute to subdue Ivy.

    We can't attack her without provoking Brute, but he should have at least enough intelligence to understand "Ivy has been compromised. She needs your help- grab her!"
     
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