Low Estate/Turns/Turn 7

← Turn 6 • Turn 8 →

• Aernoud van Nevel (josh_g): forest wanderer — FATE ▣▣▣▣▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
• Antheunis Opgieten (lpsmith): slippery urchin — FATE ▣▣▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
• Boudin Verdonk (maga): bravo and expeditor — FATE ▣▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
• Mattius Rothmann (Fang): brutish warmage — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
• Willem de Vos (Jota): student magician — FATE ▣▣▣▢▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
• Lazer Dennis (Rob): manic-depressive man out of time — FATE ▣▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)

Djinn Kata

Water pours down from the ceiling, dripping through the remnants of Willem's illusion, but all eyes are on the growing cloud of steam that surrounds Antheunis and the figure. A whistling trill comes from the djinn and it is met by a splashing roar inexplicably coming from Antheunis. Somehow, comprehension comes to Antheunis: eons of time in the open desert, and, with age, the geas and the shift to the brass lamp. The sensation of the bargain: the lamp is opened, the djinn freed, and then dismissed again to the safety of the lamp. Time passes, and the lamp changes hands -- riders carry it across the desert to the great open-air market, it goes on a ship to a foreign land, sits on a shelf, is bought and sold and bought again, and finally ends up here. A woman calls it forth, quizzes it, is unable to understand, dismisses it again. The lamp returns to the shelf, and sits there until a chance tremor sends it crashing to the ground. The djinn emerges -- but with no one there to dismiss it, it cannot go back. Time ticks by agonizingly slowly, and finally one day the door opens ...

Antheunis crumples to the ground, exhausted, but manages to gasp out a few words explaining the situation. "Go, you are dismissed!" Willem calls, and the sandy figure immediately begins to lose its shape. With a last blast of desert wind, the sand spirals backwards into a plain brass lamp sitting on the ground, and the djinn is gone.

[GM: The wand is, I think Not Useful in this situation at this point, and it's not obvious what Reflexy thing Aernoud could do with it, so here is an alternate Reflexy action for him to have taken instead]

[Even though the wand wasn't relevant to dismissing the djinn, can Willem's roll last turn still be applied to figuring out how it works or what it does?]

Meanwhile, water continues to pour down from the ceiling. It is only Aernoud's quick work at snatching things out of the way that keeps the majority of papers here from being ruined before Lazer can get the water turned off again.

Lazer hears the cries for shut-off and cranks the valve closed as best he can, though his anti-rust solution makes the valve fail to shut off, overcranking and opening again. It takes several tries over a couple of anxious minutes for the sweet spot of shutting it all off again to be found, during which he hears things like "The papers! Save the papers!" shouted repeatedly. Finally, the water shuts off tight, and he lets his hands off the valve.

"Good work!" says Willem. "Those documents could be the most important thing in here."

[GM: I think this concludes this action sequence and the lab is now free for searching. What do people want to look for/at?]

Willem sorts through what remains of the lab, trying to separate out anything that looks relevant to Lady Bellaire's main research project.

Aernoud looks through the papers for any maps of the area that Lady Bellaire may have marked down sites of magical importance on.

With help, Antheunis managed to stumble back to his bed at the orphanage, and immediately falls asleep. 18 hours later, he wakes up, feeling surprisingly refreshed. He opens his hand, still clenched around the gem he caught, and examines it closely, wondering how much it's worth. Then he goes to find the others, and asks about the lamp.

[Also, he thinks back over the 'conversation' he had: was there any sense of *why* the djinn agreed to the bargain? Was there any sense of regret now? Can we even communicate about emotions?]

Lazer wanders slowly back into the waterlogged room, and spends a few minutes watching everyone poke through sogged articles. Pretending not to notice his responsibility for this, he does idle things like looking behind the painting to look for something hidden back there, and looking under soaked bookshelves for -- who knows what. When others have left, he makes a desultory collection of ink-bled papers, with a grim look on his face as he shakes them off and puts them in his coat pockets, knowing there's little left to read there.

Recuperating

Things settled, the next week or so is fairly uneventful, and people take time to rest and relax.

[Is there any good reason not to spend the rest of our Fate Points unlocking techniques before the refresh?]

[[LowEstate] inky says, "yeah, I don't see why not"]

[Given that, Willem unlocks Quick Learner and Simulacrum.]

[Well, hey. Antheunis will unlock advanced successes for Athletics and Stealth (to add to Nature; already unlocked), and also unlock Knows the Shadows, to add to Elemental Rapport]

[GM: Now seems like a good time to refresh fate points! Tell us how you relax -- sleeping, reading, playing chess, drinking, bar brawling, what?]

Willem spends the next week actually attending lectures, to the slight surprise of some of his instructors. Since he theoretically only needs 6-8 hours per day to recover his energy, he spends his evenings reading the paperwork from the laboratory and storeroom more closely.

Aernoud spends most of the week going on walks outdoors, getting outside the city walls and returning to familiar paths out in the fields and forests. If he does discover any relevant maps in the old lab, he may try to see if any of these magical ley line things extend out of the city to any areas he's familiar with ... but he stays well away from anything resembling trouble for now.

Antheunis takes off and swims around in the harbor, looking for a secluded beach with nice, dry sand. And, it must be admitted, recovering from his experience in the lab. He's kind of shaken by the whole thing--he's joked around that 'he must have naiad blood' with others in the past, but now it seems like he actually does. Or at least something similar. Could he talk to the djinn again? Should he talk to the djinn again? Finally, at the end of the week, he finds as good a spot as he's likely to find--a little inlet on a small island away from most boat traffic that doesn't seem to get many visitors. He heads back to the orphanage, a plan forming in his head.

Lazer spends a few days holed up in his room with the door locked and the blinds drawn, barely venturing out to eat. He spends one day at the university library looking up information on ley lines, finding little of interest, because nothing seems of interest, and then holes up for another few days. Finally, at 3am in some dark night of the soul, in his deepest pessimistic depression, he unlocks something, without realizing it: From Out of the Darkest Night, Comes... and has a sudden realization about what the bad guys might actually be up to, that no one had thought of yet. He dismisses it as he does every thought he has had the past week, but it's there in the back of his mind, now....

← Turn 6 • Turn 8 →