Therefore, it cannot be impressed enough upon the reader that given the width and breadth of the Imperial Whole, there is vanishingly little which may be considered 'typical' about Privileged Titles. Depending on where exactly in the Whole – and the authority bestowing it – the Title may be temporal, for life, or for line. Furthermore, the Title may Elevate an individual, or a family – and of course, who is considered family of the 'primary', and to what extent these 'secondaries' are Elevated is also variable. The final – and most important variability – is if the Title is Vested or Unvested. When an authority Elevates, any Privileges that are associated with the Elevation are limited to the extent of the Elevating authorities authority. To wit; a hypothetical Prince-Elector Elevates a Citizen, any and all Privileges that are afforded by this Elevation are in-force inside of the Demesne of this Prince-Elector and the Demesne or Holdings of any authorities that have been placed or kept underneath this Prince, expeditiously referred to from here on out as the lessers of an authority. If the Title is Unvested – or unrecognized by the Organs of State – then once the hypothetical Elevated Citizen is outside of the Demesne of the Elevating authority and his lessers , the Privileges of the Title cannot be considered in-force, and the Elevated Citizen is to be held as an equal to the basal Citizen in all matters and accounts of the Laws. Contrarily, if the Title is Vested – or recognized by the Organs of State – then Privileges are afforded to the Elevated Citizen throughout the Whole.But attend well this distinction! The Privileges from a Vested Title that are in-force outside of the Demesne of the Elevating authority and his lessers may not be the self-same Privileges that are in-force inside. Quite commonly, the Privileges afforded by Vesting are fewer and meaner than those that were afforded by the Elevation. As a further font of confoundment, there are cases where the Privileges afforded by Vesting are greater than those that were afforded by the Elevation or of a different sort all-together, which raises into question which set of Privileges are in-force when the Elevated Citizen is in the Demesne of the Elevating authority and the authorities lessers. As of writing, jurisprudence and precedent hold that the Privileges afforded by Elevation are in-force, however, there have been a number of reversals and reverse-reversals on this point in living memory. For this, amongst other reasons, it behooves the newly Elevated to take a Solicitor on retainer, especially if the Elevated are desirous of affecting their Indemnity, the most fundamental of all Vested Privileges.- A passage from Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject on how Titles work. Note that there are few Titles that Subjects can hold, but it is not unheard of for a particularly worthy Subject to receive Citizenship and a Title simultaneously.
In Scrimshaw Mount, all graves are shallow. Even on the Promontory, where Nature, through the permutations of the Pattern had placed soil on the otherwise nude basalt of the Mount, the bone white stone was never more than a few feet down, commonly less than one. As such, getting graves to the standard depth of eight feet was simply not practical for those interned in the Mount's public burying grounds. But those that lived their lives and died their deaths on the Mount didn't take overmuch umbrage at their shallow graves. For both the practical and pious among them understood full well that under the panopticonical Gaze of the Patternmaker Above … all things are shallow.Your name is Chlotsuintha, and you are afeared that once again you have fallen short of the mark. You are inside - and by two separate immaculately white turnings of luck alone in - a municipal Clerking house, looking for copies of Personal and Master Family Patents, so you may forge one for yourself. A simple enough task, and simpler still without any potential witnesses remaining on the premises ... but your schedule is so tight that it might as well be throttling you. You told the proprietor of the Coaching house that you would be back at the Hour of Change to take possession of the coach and team that you bought from him; the Hour of Change inexorably draws near, but you feel far from done here. At this moment, there is a barred door, locked, between you and an archive, or repository, or reference library - and though you can shine your light and peer through the bars of the door, all you can see are shelves in profile. There is definitely something on them, but from your ill-favored vantage, right now all you can do is hope that Family Patents are amongst the throngs of paper. You are quite keen on getting in there quickly ... but not keen on getting in there as quick as you can, even under your potentially impossible schedule. Casting Cold-Touch to perform an Ice-Lockpick could defeat the lock in short order - that much is true - but it would leave communicably Estranged water behind, while draining more of you away and winnowing the span of your days in the process. Not to mention, it would consume at least a third of the water that you have on hand, limiting what else you may pick. And while it is true that there is a wash-basin just down the hall and a rain-barrel just across the street, you can consider neither of these panacea.
Namely; the washing-water might be missed, and on account of the quarantining lock on the front door, you would have break out of the Clerking house to actually leave ... unless you wanted to try heading out a window, which might be difficult in its own right as all the ones you have seen on the first floor have been nailed shut. One of several recent cautions and security-sureties implemented at the house. If you could just find another way in, if there was just one more door that had a gimmicked lock like the dormitory, it would just be so much better. You know that there is still much of the first floor that you have yet to lay eyes on, and you cannot shake the hope that a better way through might exist. Moreover, you know that doing nothing - which is what you are effectively doing right now - is the worst possibly thing that you could be doing under the circumstances - so you take a leap of faith, and act on your hope, by turning on your heel and heading for the landing and the stairs. There was a door off of the first floor hallway that you haven't been through yet - and it was the one that all of the Guards and the bondsman went through. Before you commit yourself to making a mess up here, you should do your due diligence. But as the trembling light off of your 'stick-decanter illuminates the far side of the second story hall, then the landing, then the stairs themselves, your doubts begin to insist anew upon you. Can you really expect there to be just another way in that isn't locked? Someone went to a considerable amount of trouble and cost to batten down and tighten up this place. Of course, they aren't infallible - as evidenced by the gimmicked lock on the dormitory which allowed the bondsman to sneak himself out after the Guards thought they locked him in for the night ... and for that matter, their fallibility is also evidenced by your presence here. Still ... overlooking one lock and a lunatic willing to break into a building with armed and armored Guards, that is a far stretch from proof that a second way, a lock-less way, exists. And then there is the time. If this doesn't pan out ... there is just so much that you need to do tonight; forging the Family Patent, planting the False Graven Ball inside of Aldoin's remains, taking possession of the coach and then finding a safe spot to park it near the section of Landward Wall with the drainage grates, getting your stuffed-well-past-the-gills handcart back into the Midden somehow - or maybe to the coach. Either way, once all of the busywork is done, then you just need to move everything you intend to keep from the Belfry, your home for these last eight years, down to the ground, then into the ruins of the old sewer, then into the new sewer - which will be complete with sewage to work around - then into or at least onto your coach.
You are trying your best, for a surety, but you just don't see how you can get everything done tonight - not at the rate you are going, possibly not at any rate you could realistically manage. With a bit of a start, you realize that you have already arrived at your destination without even noticing. Silently reproaching and reprimanding yourself for being so colossally sloppy, while in the same figurative breath wishing that you had more sleep or even just more rest, you raise up your 'stick-decanter so you make take stock and account of the room. The footprint - as you might have guessed - is the same as the landing right above you. Outside of the one you just passed through, there are two doors in this room, one of which you assume leads to the outside, given the substantiality of the door, and the presence of a fireplace more or less square with the door you just entered the room through – recalling how the vestibule in front of the Clerking house has a fireplace as well. The second door, which sits flush with the one you just passed through leads further into the house, possibly to that pitch dark room you smelt paint in. Opposite the side of the room with the doors, there is a simple wooden table with the remains of a repast on top and benches just like the ones in the landing upstairs underneath. The presence of shuttered windows and an unlit floor lamp recall the landing as well, though there is also an unlit peep-lantern resting atop the table, perhaps the one that Guard could get lit when you 'called upon the house'. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will check the substantial door, to see if it is unlocked or not> You will check the typical door, to see if it leads to the room with the paint smell> You will check the windows to see if they can be opened or not> You will sneak some food off of the Guard's table in the corner> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5946043> You will check the typical door, to see if it leads to the room with the paint smell
>>5946043>You will check the substantial door, to see if it is unlocked or not
Oh, I knew I forgot something! > https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Eternal%20RomeAnyway, this is definitely something I wouldn't roll for. I've already posted in the general, so I guess we don't have any recourse but to wait for the tiebreaker.
>>5946543You know what, I actually change my mind. Let's check the substantial doorIt's right here, we're right here, it will only take a second. Then we can look into the paint room with our light
Alright, closed and writing.
You turn to the left, and walk over to the corner of the room with the two doors, stopping where you can see both of them, before turning to face the larger of the doors squarely. While you cannot help but silently groan as you split and muddle your focus once again, you have to acknowledge that you are rather penned in here. As things stand, you only have one soft egress - the front door - which will have to be picked open. Every other way out of the Clerking house will necessitate you to break something - not something that you can do lightly. After all, if the management of this house concludes - or just suspects - that the premises have been broken into and knocked down, then an accounting of the place would likely be in the offing. You wouldn't consider it a surety that an accounting would turn up an extra Family Patent - but neither can you take it as a surety that an accounting wouldn't. So hoping to ease your hopefully imminent egress, you try the door - only to find that it is locked shut. There is a ephemeral flicker of hope that this lock is gimmicked as the dormitory one was, but if it is, you cannot suss it out after prodding and poking and considering the lock for the better part of a minute. Moreover, given the over-under arrangement of the keyholes, you have to wonder if this is some manner of quarantining lock, like the one in the vestibule out front. You try to test the depth of the keyway with your little finger, recalling the quarantining locks typically have shallow keyways, but it seems that your littlest is just too large. Oh, Pattern's Perdition. Frustrated as you may be, this does pose an important question; assuming that the bondsman has left the house - which unless he broke out of his dormitory to go sleep somewhere else in the house, he must have - how exactly did he do it? Does he have a doppeltkey or a set of picks? Did you end up overlooking some gimmick here after all? Or perhaps his egress is elsewhere ... elsewhere, in this case, being somewhere on the other side of the other door, the more typical of the pair. But as pressing as this question may be, there is a more pressing one. Is this going to be the best use of your time here? > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will check the typical door, to see if it leads to the room with the paint smell> You will check the windows to see if they can be opened or not> You will sneak some food off of the Guard's table in the corner> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5946643> You will check the typical door, to see if it leads to the room with the paint smellWe didn't have light last time, now we do. Maybe it actual has files or another door?
>>5946643> You will check the typical door, to see if it leads to the room with the paint smell
Consider this closed. I'll get to writing after dinner.
Well ... you suppose you won't be able to tell until you are on the other side of the door. And even if you don't turn up a better soft egress, so long as you don't waste too much time you don't see how you could end up any worse off than you already are. You try the handle, and permit yourself a rather heavy sigh of relief as the door silently swings open, and you step into this room for the second time time tonight, though now with the benefit of the light coming off of your 'stick-decanter, you can actually see ... though you would not so far as to say that you understand. It is inexplicable, but it seems you have wandered into a carpenter's shop. There is narrow but long workbench that runs along the nearest wall, the one shared with the hallway and the staircase, with woodworking implements hanging above it - saws and hammers and mallets and the like. The wall opposite of the bench is nearly concealed completely by stacks. Planks comprise the bulk of the stacks, a few of them are freshly cut and the rest are rather worn, though curiously most of them are not loose, but rather done up and nailed together in these tight squares ... you blearily look at them with dulled, drained and tired eyes, until it finally wins through that these must be either half-assembled or half-disassembled crates. There are a number of barrel-hoops here as well, concentrically stacked on top of these large ceramic pots which for a surety are holding the paint which for a surety you are smelling right now. The bulk of the stacks press out from the wall into the room to the point that it is very difficult to see around them, especially given their irregularity - if they intruded any more, there wouldn't be any floor free and clear to navigate through the room. As it stands, outside of the spaces cleared for the doors, there is a narrow band, a strip just wide enough for someone to make it through the space in single file, and even then they would be risking brushing up against the bench - which you can see now has portions of its overhang cut away, so that anyone working at is afford a bit more space. Overhead, there are two light fixtures hanging from the ceiling - and besides the two doors that you have entered this room through, there are two more - both along the wall opposite of the bench, one so close it is nearly in arm's reach and the other right across from the door you first entered this room from. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will check the room over again, to better make sense of this odd space.> You will check the nearer of the two doors on the wall opposite of the bench.> You will check the further of the two doors on the wall opposite of the bench. > You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)
>>5946857> You will check the nearer of the two doors on the wall opposite of the bench.
> You will check the nearer of the two doors on the wall opposite of the bench.
>>5946857>You will check the nearer of the two doors on the wall opposite of the bench.
Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing.
Not wanting to keep your feet idle any longer, you decide to see what lies beyond the nearer of the two unopened doors. With a single stride you are at its handle - blessedly bereft of any lock - and with another stride you are in another room - and all the more confused because of it. The room - or rather, the space - is empty and unadorned, save for a smattering of sconces on the walls. The walls on either side of you are not actually walls, rather, they are doors - barn-size, double doors. Three of them, end to end on each side - possibly more, as this space is large enough that the meek light off of your 'stick-decanter simply isn't enough for you to see to the end of this space. The breadth of the space, however, is rather shallow; in fact, you would say that it is shallow enough that there is just enough room to open the doors - as both the sets to your right and left open into this space, each pair of doors that face each other being slightly offset to accomplish this. Beyond the set of doors to your right being held fast by a substantial wooden bar, and the floor being battered flagstones with crumbling edges as opposed to wood as it has been the case with the rest of the Clerking house, you can see nothing else of note in this room. Or space, whatever it may be. You turn to your right, regarding the set of doors with the dropping-bars, then you turn to your left to regard the set of doors without. Your mind mills thoughts. Chief among them is that if the set of doors to your right have dropping-bars, then it stands to reason that they open up to the outside. That is all well and good ... but once you are without, and the door closed, you cannot replace the bar - and its absence from its hangers would raise alarums, or at least, suspicions. You dutifully and blearily think about ways you might get the bar back on from outside, but few of them seem realistic, and none seem possible with what you have on hand. With more than a touch of defeat, your mind moves on, circling back to the oddity of this space. Clearly, this house has to have a rather substantial stockroom to necessitate these sort of accommodations - that much is plain. What is not is why. This is a municipal building ... could this be some emergency larder? No ... no, as large as the space to your left may be, you would imagine that a larder would be bigger, at least for a city the size of the Mount. Besides, what cause could their be for a Clerking house to give ... a third of itself over to the storage of food? It has to be something else, though you couldn't imagine - oh, Maker's Mercy, what are you doing? It might yet be worth your time to figure out how the bondsman managed to get out of the house - but how does standing around playing many guesses help you in the slightest? At - no, don't dwell on it. Just move. Do something, anything but nothing!
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will head into the room, and look for the end of it. > You will unbar the nearest door to your right, to see if it does lead outside > You will head through the nearest door to your left, to see where it leads> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)
>>5947261>You will head into the room, and look for the end of it.
>>5947261>Take some time to ponder whther this is a secret Inquisition base.
>>5947262> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)Go back into the long room with the barrels and go into the other unopened door.This place is probably just a stable
If any of you are still in the thread, perhaps if you explained why you voted for what you did, someone else might cast a vote for it - or change their vote.
> You will head through the nearest door to your left, to see where it leadsGlance through the door and then head out if we don't see anything of note.> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)Other door off of the wordworking workshop.
As you squint into the shadows that your light cannot displace, you consider heading into the room - the space, the space - so you may see the whole of it, to make sure that you aren't missing anything. Though ... you can more or less imagine what would wait for you. More doors, to your left and right for the entire span of the space. A much more interesting thing to imagine would be if one of the doors to your right is gimmicked or unlocked, but that is most assuredly not something that you could take for a surety, not with so much of this place, this house unseen and unknown to you. Still ... with how much time you have spent in this house for as of yet no gain at all, the prospect of meticulously checking and clearing every nook and cranny is just not tenable. You have seen enough of this space, and you can guess as to what lies beyond the doors to your right. The doors to your left though ... again, you are more or less clear on it being some manner of stockroom, but as to its size - and to its stock - you are utterly adrift. So you take it upon yourself to check. The door has swollen in the heat of the season, so it catches here and there on the flagstones. In spite of this turgidity, the door remains silent - up until it doesn't, and a shrill squeak shatters the silence. You freeze, your mind is unable to muster any thought approaching coherence as your entire body submits to a rolling, churning panic. But before the expiry of too many moments, you manage to master yourself once more. You are alone. You know you are alone. You absolutely have to be alone. Your knuckles bounce against your folded knife as you reach for your Wand of Head-Knocking, scavenging what salt you can from the pocket and getting it between your palm and the grip. Time drags like a blade over a whetstone. Eventually, you let salt and wand drop back into your apron pocket undrawn - not because you are no longer nervous - or panicking, whatever you want to call it - but because your situation here isn't going to get any better if you root yourself to the ground. Looking to be done with this space, you bring your 'stick decanter to bear on the open door and peer inside. It is as you expected, a crowded stockroom, full of crates with the occasional barrel or sack. Between the bulk of the stock and stuff, and the middling quality of your light, you are barely able to see any of it though. Much less of the space than the corridor of doors that you are in right now. For a hair of a moment, you consider slipping inside and looking around - but you decide against it, at least for now. Obviously, this is not some place where Family Patents would be kept ... though it might be there could a second stair or a ladder or something to the second floor somewhere inside.
Hmm ... If someone were to say that the larger the room was, the more likely it would be to have a second stair or a ladder, you'd consider that sensible enough. And you might just have a quick way of getting a sense of the size of this stockroom too. First though, you are going to have to get this door closed. Tremulously, you work the door towards the jam, agonizingly bereft of any urgency or speed. There is no second outburst, but all the same, your nerves are drawn thin by the time you shut it up, and you quit the room with all the haste that you didn't have for the door, returning to the workshop. Careful not to shoulder any of the questionably-stable stacks, you make your way to the last remaining unopened door in the room, and open it to find more of the stockroom, boxes and bundles looming out of the darkness in all directions. > Please choose ONE of the following: > Head into the stockroom, looking for a second way to the second floor. > You will check this workroom over again, to better make sense of this odd space.> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)
>>5948013>Head into the stockroom, looking for a second way to the second floor.
>>5948013> You will quit the room, and head to (write-in)Other door off of the wordworking workshop.
>>5948013>You will quit the room, and head toGet some food
>>5948071Which other door anon? There is the door that leads to the first floor hallway. Immediately across from that is the door that Chlotsuintha just stuck her head through, it leads into the stockroom. Further along the same wall, there is a door leads into the vestibule with the barn/bay doors. Within a stone's throw on the wall adjacent there is fourth door, one that leads into the vestibule with the Guard's table and presumably a door to the outside with a quarantining lock. I'll get the map updated as soon as I can to reflect what we have learned here.
>>5948097Oh, so the storeroom is the door I'm thinking of? I thought the paint smelling room had two doors on the far end, one which led to a hallway with barn doors on the right which we never checked, and storerooms on the left which we did, with the other door off of the paint-smelling room still unexplored.If we've already looked at that room then I'll revoke my vote for now, a little lost on the diagram.
>>5948071I think I support this... I'm also a little lost right now
>>5948083>I'll support this. Food.Chlot seems to need a little pick-me-up.
>>5948013Think like a clerk and imagine where they would store the family papers
I still don't have the time to sit down and update the map, but I will as soon as I can. The current spread of votes has finding food with a plurality. By my count, all other options just have one vote as I read >>5948099 as a withdrawal of >>5948071. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You are liable to start cracking up if you don't eat something sooner or later. There was a table with some leftover food left over - sneak a few things off of it. > You are bound to start fading fast if you don't get something in you sooner or later. While it might not be a larder as you first thought, there is no reason to assume that there isn't anything edible in the stockroom - take a peek, look for something to pilfer.> You are vincible to victual-withdrawals - you will be beset sooner or later. If there is a dormitory and food on the premises, then could it be that there is a kitchen somewhere in this house? If there was, there are only so many places it could be ... [Prompts Vote]
>>5948293> You are liable to start cracking up if you don't eat something sooner or later. There was a table with some leftover food left over - sneak a few things off of it.
>>5948293>> You are bound to start fading fast if you don't get something in you sooner or later. While it might not be a larder as you first thought, there is no reason to assume that there isn't anything edible in the stockroom - take a peek, look for something to pilfer.
>>5948293>> You are liable to start cracking up if you don't eat something sooner or later. There was a table with some leftover food left over - sneak a few things off of it.If anything, they'll suspect each other.
>>5948293Didn’t we already eat our bandolier of sausages?
>>5948487No, there was one anon who mentioned eating some sausage back in Thread IX, but it was decided to keep some as a 'bandolier' instead. In retrospect, I suppose those are not mutually exclusive, but in the narrative, Chlotsuintha didn't eat any of the sausage she found in Aldoin's house - and she doesn't have them with her now either. >https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=eternal+rome
>>5948293>You are liable to start cracking up if you don't eat something sooner or later. There was a table with some leftover food left over - sneak a few things off of it.
Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing as soon as I can.
Just a heads up, I'm not going to be able to finish the update tonight for the overnight vote. My apologies. I'll get it posted as soon as I can. > Gained one lucky tenth talent!
You can feel the glum look on your face, brought on by the prospect of navigating this rat's nest. There is no surety whatsoever that there is as much as a stepping-stool in this mess, let alone a ladder or a stair - and if there is a second way onto the second floor, then there is no surety that way is not barred and locked as the first is. Shifting your weight on your feet, you find that you feel a little dizzy. Bracing yourself against the wall, you take a moment to take stock of yourself. Obviously, you are not in the envelope of a cast, and while you are increasingly nervous that you are spendthrifting your time here, you are well away from anything that you would call 'panic' ... so this must be borne out of exhaustion or hunger. As if to answer your question, your stomach takes this opportunity to grumble and growse, and suddenly, you find yourself aware of just how hungry you are. You recall that in the room behind the staircase on the first floor - the rear vestibule - there was a table with the remains of a light meal left behind. There might be other bits and bobs of food in the house, but those table-scraps are the only that you know of for a surety. It has been long years since you picked over a cold table, though before you came to the Mount, you and father would with some regularity. Maybe if you get some food in you, you can finally focus and actually get something done. You quit the stockroom, and shut up the door as you pass into the woodworking shop. As you are about to quit this room as well, you notice that there is a handsome looking vellum-skin writ nailed to the door. Aware that you must have missed it the first time you were in the room on account of the darkness, and on account of the piles and stacks obscuring it from view the second time, you pause to read the surprisingly short proclamation. It is with Utter and Total Accordance to the Law of the Whole, and to Advance the Wishes and Interests of the Imperial Person that the Property seized on Lunellum Street is to be completed and Commissioned with a Impoundment Station of its own; separate and distinct to the extant Station at the Great Dock Custom House. Furthermore, the Clerk-Commandant of this Lunellum Street House and Station is sanctioned to keep and utilize Controlled equipment with all reasonable precautions taken against Malfeasance, as well as an Artificer able to employ them, for the sole and Lawful Purpose ascertaining that all Impounded Goods and Articles taken into this Station that are locked, sealed, obfuscated or otherwise made Unknowable to Appropriate and Lawful Inspection may yet be ascertained as Safe to be kept in the Station for as long as the Due Process of Law requires them to be kept.Curiously, there are no signatures, nor any dates on the writ, just a number of seals ... though perhaps they are not needed for this sort of thing? You really don't know.
You do recognize most of the seals at least; the Eagle, the Whole, the Principalities, the Mount and the Port Authority. For the ones that you don't recognize, you would like to explain away your ignorance as these seals belonging to persons instead of institutions But again, you really are out of your depth on this. The content of the writ however ... when you laid eyes upon the word 'Controlled' your first thought was of Mysteries and goods and tools useful in the delving of them, but much much more than just Mysteries and the Mystery-Adjacent is considered Controlled. Quite honestly, it sounds like there is picking and cracking equipment kept on the premises - under lock and key, though, judging by the bit about 'reasonable precautions against malfeasance'. Well ... it will certainly be something to think about as you eat, won't it? With nothing else holding you in the room at the moment - and hunger urging you on - you briskly quit the room, pass through the first floor hallway and make your way to the table in the corner of the rear vestibule that is away from the doors. Perched on top of the table is an opened bottle of red wine, and two sets of cups - though only one cast iron dish, and a steel fork very presumptuously done up to look like it was wrought silver. Even so, the leavings on the dish - you had no idea Guards ate so well! Drowned grain, cooked carrots and three other vegetables besides, and meat! Beef! Nearly as much as there is greens, all done up in some sauce that manages to still smell savory even having long gone cold. You ease yourself down onto the bench in front of the dish, your mouth watering and your brain churning. How much of this can you get away with eating? Hmm. Well, that depends on if the Guards who left were going to come back, or they are going to be replaced by others. Mustering what you can of your focus and faculties, you think back to what you overheard the Guards say - or at least, what you understood them to say. They were going to go to the Belly, then someplace called the Leeward. The last thing you heard was one of them ask the other if then they were going to go to their barracks, but there was no reply - presumably, the answer was in the form of a nod yes or no. So you don't know ... but can you guess? You look down at the meal-carrion before you. If you knew or had a very good reason to guess that new Guards were coming in, you'd eat and drink everything that remains on this table. If you knew that the same Guards were going to return, or weren't certain one way or another, you would dull your stake and satisfy yourself with a few sips of wine and fewer nibbles of beef. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will eat and drink everything that remains on this table.> You will satisfy yourself with a few sips and fewer nibbles.> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5949196> You will eat and drink everything that remains on this table.I think that it is very unlikely that the same Guarda are going to return, so we should be fine.
>>5949196>> Write-ins allowed with QM approvalEat half, in case they were told that there's some food leftover.
>>5949196>You will satisfy yourself with a few sips and fewer nibbles.
>>5949196>> You will eat and drink everything that remains on this table.A small crime in our long list of crimes
>>5949196> You will eat and drink everything that remains on this table.Om nom nom nom.
Squirming back and forth on the bench, you loom over the cast-iron dish. Tentatively, you take up the fork, but you put it right back down. As this stands, you just cannot let yourself eat. It could very well be what winches - uh, figuratively winches you. Pattern's Perdition ... you make a warding sign, directed at yourself. It is serious though, very serious. If this plant gets bungled - for any reason - then you are going to be trailing ink for as long as you keep the personal copy of the Family Patent on you. And of course, you'd never know if it had been bungled, if it had been made - exposed-made, not written-made - until you got caught out on it. Obviously, there is a fair bit of distance between someone realizing something has been moved or taken from the house and someone realizing that there was one more Master Family Patent on the premises then there should be - but that distance cannot be taken as infinite. Things can just go wrong. More than a few things have for you lately, though you aren't going to dwell on them. No, not at all. No dwelling. It is not lost on you that eating any of this food is a risk. Moreover, it is not lost on you that you are seriously considering taking that risk. You aren't going to have the option to eat anything until you get back to your cart - and with how much time you might have left on the other end of this job, you could end up having to go straight to the Coaching house from here - passing off your clothes as a disguise that you wear at night. Damn it all, you really should have taken up that goodman's offer of dinner. It was a meal at a fraying Coaching house, it couldn't have been too long! Shit. Alright, think. Think. If you knew that this wasn't going to be an issue, you'd eat. And if all you had was just a strong guess that it wouldn't be an issue, that it wouldn't raise the hue and cry? You'd eat. You would. Is it the smartest thing to do? No. But you need some serious perspective here. You don't know when the Guards - the same pair or a fresh one - will be back, or the bondsman for that matter. There are Mitigators about. You could be killed tonight. Or worse. Or much, much worse - and this very well may be your last meal, sitting in front of you. Placed here, by the Permutations of the Pattern. You ... what are you to do? Deny this?But what if this is what tips them off? Growing up, most of the stories that you could win away from father were about unfortunates and idiots that he had come to know - and a goodly number of them were criminals, hoisted on account of stupid unnecessary mistakes. But is a risk a mistake?
You sit and stare down, still squirming on the bench, still looming over the plate, still being growsed and growled at by your stomach, running the exchange between the Guards through your head over and over again. It is a surety that the Belly was mentioned. It is a surety that something referred to as the leeward was spoken of. And it is a surety that one of the Guards ask about going to their barracks. Beyond that, the only surety is that there was no - Maker's Mercy, that's it! That was the end of the conversation! If the Guard had nodded 'no' to his fellow, then he would have had to say where they were actually going! He would have, or the other Guard would have asked him. But that was the end of it. He must have nodded 'yes'. They were talking openly and causally, there would be no reason for them to make like clams for long enough to get out of earshot. So they aren't coming back! Or ... well, perhaps they are eventually - but no, this isn't just a Clerking house, this is an Impound Station. There are salable good here - the Port Authority isn't going to leave this place unguarded any longer than it absolutely has to. New Guards, fresh Guards must be coming! For a surety! With that, you descend on the plate. The food - cold as it may be - is exceptional! The sauce is ... you don't even know how to describe it, you have never had anything quite like it. The beef - Mercy, when was the last time you had beef - is tender. The greens are cooked perfectly, and if drowned grain tastes this good cold, you can only imagine how tasty it must be when served hot - as you believe it is supposed to be. There has to be a kitchen in this house, somewhere. That ... hmm. That is not a happy thought. After all of the time you have spent in this house, there is still much of it you haven't seen; why, there is an entire wing of the first floor that you haven't even found a way into yet. You haven't found a second 'soft' egress out of the house, one that doesn't require performing an Ice-Lockpick - though to be fair, you can make an educated guess as to where one might be. But most damning is that you have yet to find a second way into the cordoned off archive or repository - and you have yet to find a Family Patent. Thinking of your continued lack of progress - and worse, your lack of focus - layered on top of the small but serious risk that you are taking by eating ... it isn't enough to turn the food to ash in your mouth, but it certainly does dull the taste. Impulsively, you reach for the nearest of the two cups - then you stop yourself. All things considered, you are not particularly thirsty at the moment, and it might be that this wine is worth more to you as working material for a cast of Cold-Touch than as a beverage. This line of thought is like a cherry; one draws another. If new Guards are to come here, would it be for the best if there were no signs of a meal remaining on this table?
If you cleaned up, managed to get everything back to where it belonged, then the pair that left would have to assume that the pair that replaced them cleaned up - and the pair that replaced them would be none the wiser. No one would say anything, no attention would be raised - unless one of the first pair thanked one of the second, or you put something away wrong, and one of the first pair asked after it. And all of this hinges on you finding the kitchen, or at least, where this stuff would be cleared off to. If you left the dish and cup though, would the second set complain to the first? Would they leave them there, to be found by the Doormen and municipal Pages and Clerks come the morning, for any or all of them to complain about it? Well ... so long as the first pair of Guards doesn't see the plate scraped clean, then you feel that you are better off leaving the dish - and everything else - where it lies. But can you make that assumption? Having long since eaten the last morsel off of the plate, you find yourself scraping it clean with the fork as you eye up the bottle and contents of the cups. You figure that all told, you have enough working material for an additional cast of Cold-Touch, though with the alcohol content it won't be as easy to work as straight water would be. But who is to say that you don't use water? Aye, drink down the wine, then fill the bottle with with water from the washbasin in the dormitory or wherever. You do need to square this with whatever you are intending to do with everything else on the table though ...
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will pour all the wine remaining in the two cups back into the bottle and take it with you. All told, this will give you enough working material for an additional cast of Cold-Touch.> You will drink down all of the wine remaining in the two cups and in the bottle, then take the bottle with you. All told, this will give you enough capacity for two more casts of Cold-Touch once filled. > You will satisfy yourself with just drinking the wine, and leaving the bottle behind. Your decanter has carried you this far, with this and the washbasin in the dormitory you should be able to manage.> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you decided to take the bottle, you will attempt to return it to the table before anyone else arrives at the house. > You will clear the table immediately, taking everything with you, then look for somewhere where you believe the dish and cups should be taken. If you decided to take the bottle and you find somewhere you believe it belongs, you will return (or put) it there before anyone else arrives at the house.> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you happen to find somewhere where you believe the dish and cups should be taken, then you will attempt to bring them - and the bottle, if you decided to take it - to this place before anyone else arrives at the house.> Please choose ONE of the following:> You are going to focus on finding a Family Patent as soon as you can - and to do that, you are going to perform an Ice-Lockpick on the barred door. > You are going to focus on finding a second way into the cordoned off archive - and to do that, you are going to work your way through the stockroom and search for one. > You are going to focus on finding a second way into the cordoned off archive - and to do that, you are going to try to get into the unseen, inaccessible wing ... somehow.> You are going to focus on finding a second 'soft' egress - and to do that, you are going to follow the 'hallway' of doors to its end, to hopefully find how the bondsman left.> You are going to focus on finding a second 'soft' egress - and to do that, you are going to investigate all of the windows you have seen on all of the floors.> Write-ins are allowed with QM approval
>>5949687>> You will satisfy yourself with just drinking the wine, and leaving the bottle behind. Your decanter has carried you this far, with this and the washbasin in the dormitory you should be able to manage.> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you happen to find somewhere where you believe the dish and cups should be taken, then you will attempt to bring them - and the bottle, if you decided to take it - to this place before anyone else arrives at the house.> You are going to focus on finding a Family Patent as soon as you can - and to do that, you are going to perform an Ice-Lockpick on the barred door. Should we really be drinking wine though?Well, I guess the alcohol content isn't much.
>>5949687>You will satisfy yourself with just drinking the wine, and leaving the bottle behind. Your decanter has carried you this far, with this and the washbasin in the dormitory you should be able to manage.> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you decided to take the bottle, you will attempt to return it to the table before anyone else arrives at the house.> You are going to focus on finding a Family Patent as soon as you can - and to do that, you are going to perform an Ice-Lockpick on the barred door.
I haven't had a chance to catch up in a while... Are we really stopping for munchies in the middle of a burglary? WTF anons?!
>>5949687>> You will pour all the wine remaining in the two cups back into the bottle and take it with you. All told, this will give you enough working material for an additional cast of Cold-Touch.>>5949687>> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you decided to take the bottle, you will attempt to return it to the table before anyone else arrives at the house.>>5949687>> You are going to focus on finding a Family Patent as soon as you can - and to do that, you are going to perform an Ice-Lockpick on the barred door.Slob it up. Time is short.
>>5949758We're so fucking hungry that it starts affecting the rolls
>>5949687> You will satisfy yourself with just drinking the wine, and leaving the bottle behind. Your decanter has carried you this far, with this and the washbasin in the dormitory you should be able to manage.> You will leave the table with the plate scraped clean and the cups drained. If you happen to find somewhere where you believe the dish and cups should be taken, then you will attempt to bring them - and the bottle, if you decided to take it - to this place before anyone else arrives at the house.> Write-ins are allowed with QM approval>WRITE-IN: You are going to focus on finding a Family Patent as soon as you can - and you don't think you've even found the right room so far! Explore the previously unexplored room off of the room that smells like paint.
I misplaced my previous drawing of the Clerking house, so I remade it on graph paper - quite honestly, I think it looks worse somehow, but regardless, this is the extent of Chlotsuintha's knowledge of the house. The blue triangles represent windows, the red lines represent locked doors and the green line represent unlocked doors. Room I: The Front Vestibule. This is a small, windowless space, dominated by a double-headed hearth. There are alcoves where Guards may sit, but blessedly, no Guards were present. There were writs and notices and posters nailed to the outside of the door leading into the house - conceivably a bounty on yourself or your father could be among them. Room II: The Gallery. This is a large, windowless space, whose main feature is a horseshoe pattern of fourteen or sixteen tilt-top desks, where the clerks of the house ply their trade. You found a note here, suggesting that documents and such are upstairs and that seals are kept in a vault that you have yet to find. All of the desks have all of their drawers locked, though they all have a key left in the lock of their lap-drawer that unlocks all but one of their drawers. Room III: The First Floor Hall. This is a narrow, windowless space, whose most significant features are the ways out of it - a stair to the second floor, and no less than five doors, all unlocked. Tellingly, both the Guards and the bondsman quit the second floor by taking the stairs and passing through this room.Room IV: The Office. This is a handsomely appointed room, with a chimney, a dumbwaiter, a desk and a locked bookshelf. There are windows in this room as well, though they have been nailed shut and gimmicked so that the outside shutters may be closed from inside the room. You believe the dumbwaiter shaft is large enough to climb, and you have seen that it leads both up and down - your first clue that this house had a basement. All of the drawers on the desk in this room are locked, and there is no key present. Room V: The Workshop. This is a crowded interior room, with much of its space taken up with half-assembled and half-disassembled crates and the articles and equipment useful for woodworking. A sharp smell of paint is the most notable feature of this room. You overlooked it both the first and the second time you set foot in the room, but there is a writ nailed on the door that leads into the first floor hall, authorizing the keeping of Controlled equipment for picking and cracking - as well as an artificer skilled in their employment. Room VI: The Stair to the Basement. You have not had been in this space with a lit 'stick-decanter, but you were able to make out that there was a set of stairs leading down in this room, which you believe to the only point of interest in this space.
Room VII: The Landing. This simply furnished space is where the stairs from the first floor hall lead. Beyond two doors, light fixtures, and low-slung benches underneath windows, there is nothing of note in this space that you are aware of.Room VIII: Receiving. This is a small room, filled with empty shelves and carts. The closest thing to furnishing in this space is a lamp, and the only point of interest is that the dumbwaiter has its access hatch in this room, the side opposite to where it is on the first floor.Room IX: The Second Floor Hall. This is a narrow, windowless space, whose footprint is very similar to the hallway immediately underneath it. A number of doors that were off of this space have been sealed, leaving only two - one of them leading to a barred door with a quarantining lock. You believe that at least some of the movement you heard earlier took place here. Room X: The Dormitory. This is a tightly packed space, with a number of beds arranged around a fireplace flanked by windows - though only one of these bed is actually made up. There is a lock on the door, but it has been gimmicked, and currently the door can be opened and closed even though it is locked. Of what remains in the room, the washing-basin with the water in it is of the most interest to you - though you have no end of questions about the bondsman who was locked up here. Room XI: The Locked Archive. Seen only though the bars of a locked door, this room is dominated by large, well-packed shelves. Of what you have seen of the house so far, you believe this space to be the most likely to hold Family Patents. Room XII: The Rear Vestibule. This is a simply furnished space, with the same footprint and similar furnishing to the landing immediately above it. There is a table in one corner, with the remains of a meal which you ate, scraping the plates clean in your hunger. You believe that one of the doors in this space leads outside, though it is locked with what you believe - but don't know for certain - to be another model of quarantining lock in an under-over configuration. Room XIII: The Hall of Doors. This space is a working vestibule; you have not seen the end of it, but of what you have seen, its only feature is bay doors, shoulder to shoulder, for the length of both long sides of the space. One set of these opens and closes freely, the other is shut up with dropping-bars and might be locked from the other side as well. You think that the side with dropping-bars leads to the outside, but you don't know for sure. You also think that the bondsman passed through here as he quit the house, though you don't know if he used on these doors or not.
Room XIV: The Impoundment Station. This room is a miniature warehouse, piled high and haphazardously with impounded goods and crates. From what you have seen of this space, the paths through it are few and tight, though you believe that somewhere in this mess there might be a second stair or a ladder that leads up to the second floor.Rooms Unseen: You know that there is a basement to the house, and you know that there is an entire wing of the first floor that you haven't found a way into yet which corresponds with the unnumbered portion of the drawing of the first floor.
Thank you for the rundown Trash, that clears up a lot.I guess the documents are likely to be in the archive and the vault in the basement then?Although it's not out of the question for one of them to be in the other wing of the 1st floor either.
>>5949872> I guess the documents are likely to be in the archive and the vault in the basement then?With the information available, that is the most reasonable conclusion, yes. I'll leave the vote in >>5949687 up until I finish lunch, in case this ends up changing anyone's vote.
I see that we actually have a tie, but I'll hand wave it by rerunning that vote if we do find somewhere to return the dish and cups to. Writing.
>>5949687>>5949796Thank you, that did change my vote! Everything else the same, except we go upstairs to break into the archive
You stare at the cup, thinking of your 'stick-decanter. Then you stare at your 'stick-decanter, thinking of your cup - squinting on account of the light. If you tighten your belt to the last punch, you can get three casts of Cold-Touch with the water in the decanter alone. And there might be enough for two more casts in the wash-basin you found in the dormitory, or at least, one. Of course, the tighter you are with the working material, the harder the Ice-Lockpicks will be to pull off. But to tell it true, wine instead of water as your working material might make things harder than simple scarcity - and there is the smell and staining to consider, two things that you wouldn't have to fret about with straight water. Seizing upon this, you seize the cup and quaff it, dregs and all. You don't have any experience with wines, save for Retsina - which as far as you are concerned is just a slurry of pine pitch and vinegar that you can make a very maudlin sort of merry with. It is the only wine that can last long enough to cross the Ultimate, everything else would have long since turned to swill by the time it made landfall in the Principalities. There are a few vineyards that have established themselves in the stonier and cooler climes of Outremer, but these keep a richer custom than Lepers. If you were to drink anything more than just water, it would have to be Retsina - or some ale or beer, which is much more to your taste - as well as anyone endowed with a tongue. This though ... if this is what wine is supposed to taste like, then you can certainly better understand the appeal of it. You take up the second cup and bolt it down as well, feeling a little trickle worm its way out of the corner of your mouth. As you dab at it with the ball of your thumb, you smack your lips heartily. It is funny, you can actually taste something approaching grapes in the wine. You never got that with Retsina - in fact, even though you have been drinking the swill when clean water and more palatable libations weren't available, you were embarrassingly old when you learned that Retsina and all other wines are made from grapes. If you recall, you thought the stuff was made out of fermented Watercress.
As you take up the bottle itself, you wonder if you can even ferment Watercress. There is not as much wine in the bottle as there was in the cups - though there was a fair bit more dregs. Still, that is not enough to impugn your enjoyment, and you rise from the table with a pleasant warmth in your chest and a bracingly sharp taste lingering on your tongue. Now, as there is no wine to work, you can see no sense in taking the bottle with you - but that doesn't resolve if you should try to clear the table. You hem and haw for a moment or two, before you catch yourself; so long as you don't know where you would clear the dish and the cups to, it is an executioner's blade. All right then! You look around, and on top and underneath the table, making sure that nothing has been put out of place - save for the food and wine, heh heh heh. But as the rest of the table and surroundings pass muster, you take up your 'stick-decanter, and in a moment of clarity, you decide that it is time to hasten things here. You won't beat the bush anymore, no, you will burn it. Which is to say, that you are going to freeze it. With Cold-Touch. Aye, you are going to perform an Ice-Lockpick on the barred door between the second floor hall and the archive or whatever exactly it is. Still trying to keep relatively quiet, you hustle yourself over to the stairs then take the steps three or four at a time. In a matter of moment, you are standing without the archive - which is what you will call it from now on - evaluating the lock. It doesn't appear to be a quarantining lock ... which actually might prove to be a problem, if you want to have this door locked once you are done here. Damn it, how many locks are you going to need to pick to get out of here? Well ... you are going to need to pick yourself into this one. If you decide to lock this door behind you - assuming this lock isn't quarantining - then that makes two. And if you aren't able to find an unlocked 'soft' egress, and don't settle on a 'hard' egress, then that makes three. There is more water to be had at the wash-basin and the rain-barrel, but you need to remember, if you cannot find an unlocked egress - 'soft' or 'hard' - you are going to have to Ice-Lockpick your way out, so you will need to leave at least a third of the decanter. But of course, any rationing must be tempered with the knowledge that the more working material used, the easier the cast of Cold-Touch is to perform. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will use one-third of the decanter> You will use one-half of the decanter> You will use two-thirds of the decanter> You will use three-fourths of the decanter> You will use the entire decanter> Please choose ONE of the following:> After the cast, regardless of outcome, you will fill your decanter from the wash-basin> After the cast, regardless of outcome, you will not fill your decanter from the wash-basin
>>5950440> You will use one-half of the decanter>> After the cast, regardless of outcome, you will fill your decanter from the wash-basin
>>5950443SupportingAlso, using water from the decanter, we should wash our lips and teeth. Don't want them to be stained by wine!
>>5950448That decanter was holding sewer water which is now diluted.
>>5950440>>5950443>+1 Supporting
>>5950443+1
>>5950443Supporting
>>5950526>That decanter was holding sewer water which is now diluted.It was filled with the murky contents of a Spotted Bucket that Chlotsuintha found in the Cleaner's Closet that she parked her cart in, not from the sewer. Still, Chlotsuintha wouldn't drink from this decanter without good cause ... and she also sort of contaminated the rain-barrel when she topped the decanter off after defeating the lock on the front vestibule. Consider this closed. I'll work out the roll for the cast in a moment.
> Cold-Touch I> Critical Success: DC 99 and higher. Not only does the cast go flawlessly, you feel more confident in your ability to cast Cold-Touch and perform Ice-Lockpick> Complete Success: DC 28 and higher. The cast goes flawlessly and you pick the lock without any delay or emergent issue. More than that, you managed to use less of the water than you originally intended to.> Partial Success: DC 8 and higher. The cast goes as well as you could hope - but your performance of the Ice-Lockpick doesn't. You are able to get the lock open, but you Estrange your clothes and use more of the water than you intended to.> Partial Failure: DC 7 and lower. Neither the cast nor the picking work go as they should - but you manage to conclude the reaction before you end up Estranging yourself or wasting too much of your working material. The lock remains locked. > Complete Failure: DC 4 and lower. This cast is all wet. You don't manage to freeze any of the water you poured, just waste and Estrange it. Now the Strangeness is threatening to spread to your Nodules - and of course, the door is still locked. > Catastrophic Failure: DC 3 and lower. This cast is all wet, as are your Nodules. You basically just dumped the entire decanter all over you after Estranging it. The door is locked, and now none of your Nodules are safe to use. > Critical-Catastrophic Failure: DC 2. You are not entirely sure what has happened ... but you managed to pry the fingernail off of your right pointer finger by freezing the nail-bed underneath it. It is excruciatingly painful, you are bleeding - and worse, you are liable to drop the decanter if you aren't careful! > May I please have one roll of 1d100?
Rolled 25 (1d100)>>5950769
Does anyone want to use one the re-rolls? > Please choose ONE of the following:> Use a re-roll> Do not use a re-roll
>>5950785Wearing estranged clothes isn’t good. Even so, I’m hesitant to use a reroll on something that may not spiral out of our control.> Use a re-roll
>>5950785>Use a re-rollWe have plenty now
Alright then, seems like there is enough support. > May I please have another roll of 1d100?
Rolled 74 (1d100)>>5950848
Still working on the update, look for it a little later.
You bend down, so that you may level your eyes with the keyway. Probing it with your right little finger, you find that you can just squeeze the digit through the keyhole, winning as deep as the first minor knuckle. To be sure, that is welcome news for your prospects ... but beyond that, nothing is straight or solid. How many locks are you going to need to pick through? How many of them are quarantining? Should you pick those that aren't quarantining back to being locked? Is there more water in the house beyond the bit you found in the dormitory wash-basin? Beset by questions and assailed by doubts, the most apparent play would be to stretch the water as thin as possible, and trust that you would be able to make it work. But ... that water is very dear. If an entire cast's worth of a water is just ... a wash, then things could get really tight on you. But it isn't a question of wasting a third of your water or using half or more of it, rather, it is a question of being more likely to waste a third of it than to you are to waste half. So then, to wit; how confident are you in your ability, your craft? You will use half. The other questions - what to do about the communicably Strange puddle, whether or not to pick the lock closed, what to do if you bungle and fray this - those can wait. No, they are going to have to wait. You are going to bull your way through this, focusing only on what is immediately in front of you. No distractions, no focus-eaters. Now, the salt. You set the 'stick-decanter down nearby, and then straighten up, so you may withdraw the purse of sea-salt from your pocket. You pack in at least twice of what you need, allowing yourself to swallow some of the excess. Once you are ready, you place the 'stick-decanter between your knees, and your right little finger in the keyway. You take a moment, trying to figure out some way that you can keep the candle safely burning while having it out of the mouth of the decanter ... but when no cunning ploy comes to you, you begrudgingly accept that the cast will just have to be initialized in darkness. There are no two ways about it, this is going to be a hindrance - but it shouldn't be crippling or even particularly undermining, really. You can get everything lined up by touch - and once the reaction reaches completion and the cast is churning along, you will have the light coming off of your eyes to work with. Still, you hadn't thought of this when you 'made' the 'stick-decanter - though it should have been obvious. You'll just chalk that up to being tired. And impulsive. And a straw-head. Honestly, it is enough to make you wish for that bludgeon of a 'stick that you were dragging around Aldoin's house.
Squeezing the 'stick-decanter between your knees, you check to make sure that your finger is firmly seated in the keyway, then you bend down and tenderly blow out the flame, hoping to avoiding any spattering. Everything descends into a stark blackness, rolling and shifting around you as your eyes try to adjust. You wait. Not on account of your eyes, as there is - to your knowledge, at least - no light here from them to adjust to, but for the candle. You want the wax to cool and solidify before you move it. So you spend the next thirty seconds or so praying. Praying for Wisdom, for strength, for the Boon of the tablescraps you helped yourself to, and for your father's - and your mother's - safety. You finish with a prayer for the Lepers of the Midden, that they may yet be given a chance to Prove themselves worthy of respite, either in this Realm or the next. Hesitatingly, you grope your way to the tip of the candle, and poke at it, relieved to find that it is merely warm and quite solid. Pleased with yourself, you win the candle free from the mouth of the decanter with your free hand, then after checking it once more you slip it into one of the pockets of your riding cloak. You pause a moment to collect yourself, then you carefully take up the decanter. Carefully, you position the decanter in the darkness, so that its mouth is flush and abutting your right little finger. It occurs to you that without light at the start of the process, you very well might end up pouring more - or less- of the water than you intend to. That is ... well, bad. That is bad. But as you cannot do anything about it, you just raise the decanter a little higher, then after a particularly deep breath, you tip it. For a hair of a moment, you start to panic that you have moved the decanter too far away, and the water is just going go to waste - but then the water begins to wash over your finger and into the lock, as relief washes over you. Not wanting to waste a drop, you initialize your cast and immediately, you can feel the raspy warmth in your mouth, under your tongue - and behind your eyes, which are throwing off just enough light for you to see that a fair bit of the poured water is missing its mark. You bite down a squeal and work to reposition the decanter better, as the tip of your finger goes numb. You are seriously considering throttling the cast close when all of a sudden the water flowing over your finger grows cold, your eyes start putting off much more light, and you can just barely the ice starting to form and push deeper into the keyway. You give it a count of five, then you start working your finger out of the lock, drawing out the 'shank' of the 'key'. By the count of twelve, there is a solid-looking Mystery sticking out of the lock. With your left hand, you stop your pouring, and with your right hand, you take up the Mystery and turn it, just as you would turn any key. The lock springs open, and you shiver with relief at the sight.
You immediately self-sequestering your little finger. As you try not to gag on the overpowering taste of salt, before your beaming eyes the Mystery melts and Estranged water, with Strange-Stains just visible, gushes out of the lock. Careful to keep clear of the puddle forming at your feet, you push the door open. The way into the archive of the Clerking house is now clear! You rise to you feet - and immediately your head begins to spin. You have the presence of mind to back-peddle, to make sure you don't step on the puddle trying to find your balance - but that is a very thin white belly of a very fat black cloud. You are not sure if this lightheadedness is from too much casting over the course of the day, or the drink ... actually, it probably is the cast. All told, there was a tall mug of worth of wine on that table. And you are a big gi - a big woman, damn it! But either the casting or the wine, it ... it doesn't matter. You have already drunk the wine, and if you need to cast, you need to cast. Just something else you are going to need to deal with. If only father had left some of his picks behind ... Before you move on, you should probably top off your decanter with the wash-basin. You ended up using less than half, so you won't need everything out of the basin – with a touch of white luck, so long as there is something left in the basin whatever you take can and will be overlooked. But even before that, you should decide if you are going to wipe up the remains of the working material, before it starts leaking through the floor or whatever. The linen sheet from Aldoin's house that you have fashioned into a sling over your shoulder is not doing anything for you at the moment, you could use that to sop it up … or you could fetch something from the dormitory, from amongst the bondsman's possessions. Or you could just leave it – that is an choice, one you took with the remains of the working material left on the front door. Though if you were anyone to judge, you would say water inside of a house is much harder to handwave away. Would the water be dried by the time that the bondsman or the fresh Guards arrive? It must be close to the Hour of Change by now … how long would they leave a house like this unwatched? Maker's Mercy, what would happen if the Guards came back while you were in archive, and it turns out there isn't a second stair? You might as well be a beast or a brute in a paddock. In that case, you would want the door closed and locked - just like they left it, right? Or at least closed, but still unlocked, so you can move through it. There would be no reason to leave it open though ... unless it was gimmicked to lock itself again once closed! It - oh, come off it. If that was the case, there would be a lot more to the lock then there is - and it would be a huge pain for anyone working in this house.
> Please choose ONE of the following:> Leave the working material where it lies after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Sop up the working material with your new-to-you linen after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Sop up the working material with something from the dormitory after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Please choose ONE of the following:> Enter the archive and close the door, locking it with an Ice-Lockpick. You will then immediately start searching for Family Patents.> Enter the archive and close the door - but do not lock it with an Ice-Lockpick. You will then immediately start searching for Family Patents.> Enter the archive and close the door - but defer the decision on locking it. You will look for an alternative to the stairs instead of a Family Patent, then you will make your decision on locking the door based on what you find.
>>5951208> Leave the working material where it lies after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Enter the archive and close the door - but do not lock it with an Ice-Lockpick. You will then immediately start searching for Family Patents.I think the risk of contaminating fabrics (and the possibility of forgetting we have estranged articles of clothing!) outweighs the weirdness of water left inside of a house. Like, who is going to even know what that water signifies
>>5951208>Sop up the working material with your new-to-you linen after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Enter the archive and close the door - but do not lock it with an Ice-Lockpick. You will then immediately start searching for Family Patents.
>>5951208> Leave the working material where it lies after refilling your decanter from the wash-basin.> Enter the archive and close the door - but do not lock it with an Ice-Lockpick. You will then immediately start searching for Family Patents.Perhaps we'll come upon a solution to covering our steps, but if not then its anacceptable risk.
Alright, consider this closed.
Your eyes ache fiercely, as does the brain behind them. Yet as you stare at the Estranged water thinking about what to do next, a one salient point insists upon itself; that a moment that you spend here is a moment that you aren't planting the False Graven Ball, that you aren't collecting your coach, and that you aren't moving house. You just don't know how you are going to do all of it... but you can readily acknowledge that the sooner you are done here the better chance you have of pulling off such a miracle. So to that end, you cannot afford detours or delays. In the gleam off of your eyes, you find the decanter, grab it up and beat a quick retreat into the dormitory. Passing through the gimmicked door, you make straight for the wash-basin. Getting the remains of the washing water into the decanter without making a mess is a bit more involved than you would have thought, as unlike the rain-barrel, there is not enough depth or breadth for a submersion. Considering your options quickly, you elect to pluck the basin out of the stand, and pour the wash-water in. Even with a little spill, there looks to be more than enough for an additional cast left over in the bowl. As you reseat the basin, looking to keep yourself busy - keep yourself moving - you shift your foot, intending to start to wipe up the dribbles with your footwrap - but you stop yourself. The absorbancy of these battered, sweat-stained linen wraps is ... questionable. And what dire straights you would be in if you end up tracking the water around. Unexplained puddles are bad enough ... but footprints are something entire else. And that isn't even mentioning that you could very well end up unmaking your tenuous wrapping.Moreover, you resolve yourself against faffing about with the door any more than you need to. Just close the damned thing. If it so happens that some diligent Guard comes along, and sees the water, and somehow gets it into his head that he should check the lock ... well, you have already pinned your hopes - and your safety - on a fresh pair of Guards being the ones sent in, as opposed to the original two returning. Just as it would be with the table, any unlocked door - and inexplicably spilt water - will be thrown at their feet.Hopefully.You choke down what salt remains in your mouth, mournfully wishing you had some water to drink as well as to work. As you can already notice the light off of your eyes dimming a little, you take this opportunity to reassemble your 'stick-decanter, and get the candle relit with your snap-sparker. In the warm glow of the flame and the stark white shine of your eyes, you search around the door to make sure that you haven't left anything behind here. No bits of cooled wax, no spilt salt - nothing but communicably Estranged water. You are still having a hard time seeing the Stains on the water - but you can quite clearly see the Stains on the wooden floors underneath. Ill-at-ease, you look away and proceed into the archive.
> Sight Test I - I > DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > + DC 18 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has no sense of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she isn't looking for. > DC 82: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, without any benefit. [Progress 0/?] [Progress 0/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks. She has a better idea of what she isn't looking for now. Two minutes pass [Progress 0/?] [Progress 0/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks. She has a better idea of what she isn't looking for now, as well as the organization of the room. One minute passes [Progress 1/?] [Progress 0/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks. She has a markedly better idea of what she isn't looking for now, as well as the organization of the room. One minute passes [Progress 2/?] [Progress 1/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100? I'm trying something new here for sequential tests.
Rolled 74, 92, 97 = 263 (3d100)>>5951734What is that DC aaaaaahhhhhh
> Sight Test I – II One minute has passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > + DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has no sense of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she isn't looking for. > DC 77: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is a little better sense of the organization of the room. [Progress 1/?] [Progress 0/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks. She has a better idea of what she isn't looking for now. Two minutes pass [Progress 1/?] [Progress 0/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks. She has a better idea of what she isn't looking for now, as well as the organization of the room. One minute passes [Progress 2/?] [Progress 0/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks. She has a markedly better idea of what she isn't looking for now, as well as the organization of the room. One minute passes [Progress 2/?] [Progress 1/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 72, 54, 24 = 150 (3d100)>>5951734>>5951754Is there a hidden modifier that's not mentioned here or are the DCs supposed to be 78/73?Added them up and they don't match up with what's written (or I'm very bad at math which is entirely possible).
>>5951756No, there is no hidden modifier, I just bungled the math. Good catch! I'll 3x auto-pass this test to make up for it.
> Sight Test I – IIITwo minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > + DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has no sense of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 12 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a solid idea of what she isn't looking for. > DC 63: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 2/?] [Progress 1/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has a better idea of where things are located in the archive. Two minutes pass [Progress 2/?] [Progress 1/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks. She has a better idea of what she isn't looking for now, as well as the organization of the room. One minute passes [Progress 3/?] [Progress 1/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks. She has a much stronger grasp on the organization of the room, and definitively knows what she isn't looking for; which helps her move quicker. One minute passes [Progress 3/?] [Progress 2/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 95, 84, 35 = 214 (3d100)>>5951766
> Sight Test I – IVThree minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has no sense of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a solid idea of what she isn't looking for. > DC 57: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 3/?] [Progress 1/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has a better idea of where things are located in the archive. Two minutes pass [Progress 3/?] [Progress 1/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks. She has a definitive idea of what she isn't looking for, as well as a better conception of the organization of the room, both of which speed up her search. One minute passes [Progress 4/?] [Progress 1/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks. She has a definitive idea of what she isn't looking for, as well as a near-complete understanding of the organization of a swath of the archive, both of which speed up her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/?] [Progress 2/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 75, 28, 34 = 137 (3d100)>>5951796
This is your first single pass; do you want to use a re-roll, try to make it a double?
I'd be fine with it given how big the difference is here.
I'll wait for at least one more opinion - to that end, I might as well prompt it like a vote. > Please choose ONE of the following:> Use a re-roll for Sight Test I-IV> Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I-IV
>>5951824> Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I-IVI also want to say that if we actually do encounter guards here, we should flee out the window
Okay, well I fell asleep - and it seems that we still need a tie-breaker ...
>>5951824>Use a re-roll for Sight Test I-IV
Okay, I'll take one roll of 1d100 then.
Rolled 89 (1d100)>>5952189Diamond Eyes
> Sight Test I – VFour minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has no sense of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 20 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows definitively what she isn't looking for, allowing her expedite and narrow her search > DC 49: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 4/5] [Progress 1/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has a better idea of where things are located in the archive. Two minutes pass [Progress 4/5] [Progress 1/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks, and now knows how the archive is laid out, allowing her to significantly narrow her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 1/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks, and now has a sense of the flow of the archive, allowing to significantly narrow and expedite her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 2/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 73, 77, 31 = 181 (3d100)>>5952278FOUR MINUTES HAVE PASSED
> Sight Test I – VIFive minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 20 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows definitively what she isn't looking for, allowing her expedite and narrow her search > DC 44: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 5/5] [Progress 1/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has an even better idea of where things are located in the archive. Two minutes pass [Progress 5/5] [Progress 1/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks, inching towards the ultimate object of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 2/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks, and pushes through towards the conclusion of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 3/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 57, 7, 40 = 104 (3d100)>>5952298
I might regret this, considering that last time killed all the momentum the thread had, but is anyone interested in using another re-roll for this one? > Please choose ONE of the following:> Use a re-roll for Sight Test I - VI> Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I - VI
Rolled 9, 27, 33 = 69 (3d100)>>5952298> Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I - VIGonna sound kind of weird since I voted yes before, but given how well it's been going so far I think we can afford to lose one minute now. For this kind of test where the difficulty keeps decreasing it's most important to do well at the start after all.
>>5952314>> Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I - VI>>5952315I agree.
>>5952314>Do not use a re-roll for Sight Test I - VI
> Sight Test I – VIISeven minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive.> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 20 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows definitively what she isn't looking for, allowing her expedite and narrow her search > DC 43: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Three minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 5/5] [Progress 1/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has an even better idea of where things are located in the archive. Two minutes pass [Progress 5/5] [Progress 1/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks, inching towards the ultimate object of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 2/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks, and pushes through towards the conclusion of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 3/?]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 12, 92, 95 = 199 (3d100)>>5952371All the bad rolls are out of the system from the accidental roll earlier.Come on pattern maker.
> Sight Test I – VIIIEight minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive.Giotto and his brothers are now ringing in the Hour of Changing> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 20 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows definitively what she isn't looking for, allowing her expedite and narrow her search > DC 43: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Two minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 5/5] [Progress 2/?]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has an even better idea of where things are located in the archive. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 2/?]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks, inching towards the ultimate object of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 3/?]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks, and pushes through towards the conclusion of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 4/4]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 96, 88, 8 = 192 (3d100)>>5952400
> Sight Test I – IXNine minutes have passed since Chlotsuintha entered the Clerking house archive.Giotto and his brothers were ringing in the Hour of Changing a minute ago.> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate the Clerking house archive.> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha wants to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of poorly organized material to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha must navigate through tightly packed shelves during the course of her search. > - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a vague idea of the organization of the Clerking house archive. > - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a workable idea of what she is looking for.> - DC 20 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows definitively what she isn't looking for, allowing her expedite and narrow her search > DC 39: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. Chlotsuintha is figuratively buried in writ and binders and rolls and even scrolls! Two minutes pass, and all she gleans is how one particular row of shelves is organized. [Progress 5/5] [Progress 3/4]> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. Chlotsuintha makes some tentative progress working through the stacks, and now has an even better idea of where things are located in the archive. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 3/4]> Two Passes: Black and White. Chlotsuintha makes forward progress working through the stacks, inching towards the ultimate object of her search. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 4/4]> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. Chlotsuintha makes significant strides working through the stacks, and pushes through towards the conclusion of her search, additionally resulting in her well-equipped for what comes next. One minute passes [Progress 5/5] [Progress 4/4]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a pair of Family Patents - a Master and a Personal.> May I please have ONE roll of 3d100?
Rolled 43, 54, 47 = 144 (3d100)>>5952473Summoning a master patent
>>5952483It has been summoned! I'll get the update out as soon as I can.
Still chipping away at the update. Should be out for an overnight vote.
>>5953201>Should be out for an overnight vote.
>>5953659Didn't specify which night tbf
>>5953659Gloomy weather, soft bed, good food, snuggly cat, just gonna lay down for a few minutes aaand... it could happen to you :)
If we're late to picking up our carriage (a guarantee at this point)...Father somehow misplaced the Personal copy we were to be given. Or something.
And maybe we got a bit lostIt is a new place after all.
>>5953201Are you alright Trash?
With a nervous burst of speed, you make your way to the nearest of the shelves to get your nose to the grinding-stone ... but as you scan and prod at tightly packed binders, and books and bundled writs, you can perceive no rhyme or reason to the archive - or perhaps better called the accumulation. Obviously, going through everything on this single shelf is going to take serious time, and the set of the shelves, the stack, it rises straight to the ceiling. If your eyes don't deceive you, it looks to actually be anchored there. Whether it is or it isn't, the top-most shelves are going to be out of even your considerable reach. Picking your way through one stack would probably take the better part of an hour - and the bondsman and the Guards could return any minute. Any moment, to tell it true. If you are going to make this work, you are going to need to suss out how these stacks are organized, how they flow. Otherwise, this ... pecking and scratching like a huffy hen, it will get you nowhere fast - or morelike, it will get you nowhere slowly.But the jumble defies any obvious scheme. The moment you were able to see into the shelves, you could see that nothing was organized by type, as everything is just such a mix. After setting down the 'stick-decanter and prying a clump of the binders off of the shelf, you try to see if they have been placed in alphabetical order - only to find that though binders might be bound as books are, they are not titled - or at least, not on the cover. With a fain thread of hope, you unwind the hold-fast, then sweep your illuminated gaze over the pages within the binding. You don't exactly know what a Family Patent looks like, but this doesn't appear to be one - though considering that you cannot definitively say what is is, perhaps you shouldn't be so keen on deciding what it isn't. It appears to be an accounting of some incomes for someone - though your quick and furtive glances cannot suss out whose incomes, or what the incomes are from, or when the incomes were taken, or for what specific purpose they are accounted for here. You have all of these questions, any you know if you just keep reading, you can answer them - but you can't just keep reading. The title. What constitutes the title of this binder? There are a couple of headings that are more prominent then the text and figures below, so ... does that make the first of these headings the title? Perhaps you are thinking about this in the wrong way. Assuming that all of this clerkwork hasn't just been thrown onto the shelves, that there is some sort of scheme in play, then it would be a rather poor scheme if whatever the papers and such were organized weren't visible from just scanning the shelves. Alright then, what does that leave you to work with? Focusing in on the thin, hollow and rounded spine of the binder - the only portion of it that was visible while it was still on the shelf - you look for any marks there ... but cannot find any.
Looking at the others in your hands though, you find dates on one, and what might be a maker's mark on another. The binding of the fourth one is as virginal as the first. You feel lost - and more than a little off-kilter from the heady brew of wine on an empty stomach and repeated self-drawing casting. Looking to shake yourself loose from this, you turn back to the space where you plucked the binders from, intending to return them there so you can walk up and down the stacks a bit, in a bid that with a wider view, the scheme of the shelves will make itself known to you. But when you try to put the clump of binders back, you find the space that you took them from to be crowded in on, and that you must fight the mass and the bulk of the clerkwork to get the handful of the thin, leather folders stowed away more or less where you found them. Eventually achieving this, you make your way down the stack scanning up and down the shelves - to find a Family Patent first and foremost, but if your luck isn't as white as that, then just to get a sense of the organization. If you had just that, you might be able to make this work ... but for the life of you - and if might damn well really be for the life of you - you cannot figure out the scheme, the order, the sense. You round the end of one stack, and start heading down another, seeing much the same - just an accumulation on the shelves. And most importantly, nothing that they all have in common, nothing that they could be sorted by. Not by type, or alphabetical order of their title - or any other way, like who the article was written up for, or written by, or when it was written. Where even. Perhaps even with what, or on what ... nothing can account for this. Could it be ... could it be that there isn't any order? That is just as it appears? An accumulation? It ... it certainly wouldn't be good for you if it was. Desperately trying to avoid feeling stuck, you stop dead in your tracks, set down your 'stick-decanter and turn to the nearest shelf to start tugging at its most loosely packed contents. You turn up quite a lot that isn't a Family Patent, but for every bit and bob you take out and off, you can at least say you have a better sense of what isn't a Family Patent. Once you have felt that you have seen enough, you take up your 'stick-decanter, and resume your brisk browsing - only to immediately stop once you muster up a compelling thought. Nearly all Master Family Patents are going to be considerably old - and paper, as well as leather and vellum and papyrus - they all show their age pretty readily. And now that you are thinking about it, all of the paper that you can see - whether it is loose, wrapped, binded, whatever - none of it is yellowed, or crumbling, or anything of the sort. Even with everything all jumbled, you cannot see anything that looks older or newer than anything else. Not on any of the shelves that you can see in the ill-matched light off of your eyes and the 'stick-decanter.
If someone was to say to you that all of these were made more or less at the same time, you'd find that ... credible enough. More than credible actually. And following along with that vein of credibility, you would think that the oldest documents in the archive here would be a Master Family Patent - as they become more important with the passage of time, not less. A hundred year old bill of goods from the Old World isn't going to do anyone any good - but a family Master Family Patent? That would be worth keeping around. In fact, if you are right about being organized by time, then if you were to go far enough back, you might reach a point where the archive is almost entirely Master Family Patents. And that would have to be on one of the ends of the room then, right? Spurred as if you had been jabbed with a white-hot nail, you bolt towards one end of the stacks - moving as fast as you can with a nude flame. Finding yourself at the shelf before the wall, you look in and find rows upon rows of ornate, venerable, leather-binders. Giddy, pleasantly giddy for once, you open up the nearest of the binders - and find that you were right on target! If the family trees and the Accounting of Lives weren't enough to tip you off, the plainly printed Family Patent should have tipped you in. More than just the title - which don't seem to be printed onto the spine, just the cover - there is a distinctive cut to the binders that have been used for the Master Family Patents. Perhaps the Personal Family Patent has this distinctive cut as well ... or perhaps they don't. Or did, back when the Master was made. Which ... well, if you think about it, you have no way of knowing if a Master Family Patent this old can still be used as a reference for a modern, just issued Master Family Patent. Really, who knows how many changes there have been in the ensuing ... century? If you were to really think about it, the most sensible thing to do would be to borrow the newest one that you could find on the shelves. And as this place is ordered by date after all, then you need to be on the opposite side of the room, don't you? Keeping things brisk, you make your way over to the far-side of the room, only to be interrupted by the thoroughly unwanted tolling of Giotto and his brothers, as they beckon in the Hour of Changing. You can feel bile rising as you start to get shaky. No! No ... how has it already been an hour? Blinking back tears of frustration, you basically run - having to remind yourself twice to slow down on account of your flame. Once you are there, with your eyes fading away, and the room silent, with these stacks of shelves looming over you, the first thing you look for is the distinctive cut of the binder, hoping that it hasn't changed in all of this time. On a whim, you decide to also look for smaller, similar versions of this distinctive cut - and in about half a minute, you find what you have spent more than an hour trying to get your hands on.
You cannot feel too good about this - quite honestly, you cannot feel good about any of this. Right now you are overdue at the Coach house - and beyond that, you have almost more things to do tonight than you can keep track of. Swallowing compulsively in a dry throat, you find yourself asking that over over. How in the Heights of Hell are you going to swing this? > Please choose ONE of the following:> Compromises are going to need to be made. If you were to write yourself into an existing Master, then you would only need to forge the Personal. > Compromises are going to need to be made. Take the Family Patent Pair with you. Do your forgeries later, when you have more time - could be they end up better for it. Plant the Master in another Clerking house, along with the pair.> Compromises are going to need to be made. Take the Family Patent Pair with you. Do your forgeries later, when you have more time - could be they end up better for it. Plant the Master in another Clerking house. Destroy the pair.> Compromises are going to need to be made ... just not here, and not with this. Find a writing surface and get to work immediately on your forgery.
>>5953661It must be night somewhere right? >>5954420I'm fine, thanks for asking. I just got kind of buried all of a sudden - and when I did have the time to write, I was just too tired. >Gain two very lucky tenth-talents (auto-passes)
>>5954466>> Compromises are going to need to be made ... just not here, and not with this. Find a writing surface and get to work immediately on your forgery.
>>5954466> Compromises are going to need to be made ... just not here, and not with this. Find a writing surface and get to work immediately on your forgery.
>>5954466>> Compromises are going to need to be made. Take the Family Patent Pair with you. Do your forgeries later, when you have more time - could be they end up better for it. Plant the Master in another Clerking house. Destroy the pair.
>>5954466>Compromises are going to need to be made ... just not here, and not with this. Find a writing surface and get to work immediately on your forgery.
Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to working this out straight-away.
It ... oh, damn it all. You are well aware that at some point, some compromises are going to have to be made - if you don't, you will end up either having to load your coach in broad daylight, or having to stay through Titheday until nightfall to load it then. Neither of these are options, especially not under the circumstances with the Inquisition being on the Mount in such strength. But this ... this is just something that you must have done before you leave the Mount. An unchaperoned woman, driving a coach by herself is going to be an exceptional sight - and you don't doubt that everyone who lays eyes on you will at least momentarily entertain the thought that you are running away from your family, or a marriage or something ... you need to be unimpeachable. A Guard or a Toll-man - perhaps believ ing himself to be looking out for you, or at least seeking to court favor with your family - may wish to detain you, if given the opportunity. You will need to explain away why you are alone, as well as what you are carrying and why they should just take your word on it. Now those ... those are problems that will need to be worked out later, but at the very least, if you have a Personal Family Patent in your possession, then you can at least establish your 'right' to travel on the Thoroughfares; closing off an angle of attack. With the pair of Patents in your hand, you are ready to see that angle closed ... but as you start to wonder if there is a writing surface on the second floor as well, it occurs to you that while you may have your references for the forgery on hand, there are still other materials you are going to need to source. To get a better idea of what you are going to need - and ultimately, to forge - you open up the Personal Family Patent. This particular document is written on long-form paper, bound only at the top to the binder, so it may jacket it once the paper is rolled or folded back up. Moreover, it is labeled in Reichtongue as 'Personal Family Patent' and in the Eternal Tongue as 'Curriculum Vitae' belongs to Intaglio Polyergus, son of Paglio and Tetti. In many different hands, it accounts for his birth in the Imperial Heart, his youth in the Eternal City, his marriage, his brief stints at military and municipal service, a number of legal suits against him, some of which resulted in administrative judgements - nothing particularly serious though, just some fines, his request for Approved Transport and its denial, his divorce, his second and approved request for Approved Transport, then a mercantile concern that he established in Multia. The very last entry is markedly more crude than the others in both hand and words; it seems that he joined up with the Shooting Stars. Considering that his Personal Family Patent is in an archive, as opposed to in his possession ... well, let it suffice that you should not think ill of him.
For each different hand and misadventure, there is a ribbon and seal at the bottom of the paper - with the ribbon, seal and wax color corresponding to the authority that updated the document. You set it aside temporarily, and in the faltering light of your eyes, you open up the Master Family Patent, so you may compare. Interestingly, the Master is written entirely in one hand - but while the record doesn't go past the Approved Transport to Outremer, it does go further back, briefly accounting for his parents, their parents and their parents parents. As it is all in the same hand, you have to think that a new Master Family Patent was made for Polyergus when he was approved for Approved Transport. It would make sense, keeping a Master Family Patent up to date on the other side of the Ultimate would be a difficult and expensive proposition, so perhaps when Billeted Subjects are Transported, they can be issued new Masters, to make a separate branch of their family. Certainly something to consider. Actually, if you were to portray a Family Patent that had just been issued, then all of it would be in one hand, right? Yeah, that ... that holds water. Alright, then ... so what do you need to forge this? Sheets of long-form paper, some black ink, ribbons and ... shit. Seals. How are you going to fake seals? Well ... maybe you don't fake them. As it seems that Polyergus isn't going to be needing his Master Family Patent, couldn't you just ... pull the ribbon with the seal off, then attach it to your forged copy? Come to think of it, you could really part out Polyergus's Family Patents. You would keep the binders, the ribbons and the seals that were on them - all you would need to do is clean off the old paper, attach the new sheet, then attach the ribbons to that. Presumably, it would be a lot easier than recreating everything - well, actually, just the seals themselves would be trouble, everything else you need is in the tilt-top desks in the gallery downstairs. From your understanding of the note, the signets are kept in a vault ... which depending on how tight and strong it was, it might not even be on the table. There was a box of signets in Aldoin's library that has some blanks and there tools to carve them too ... but you didn't bring the carving tools, and you didn't even take the blank signets. That ... aye, that was a failure of imagination. You knew you were going to be forging documents tonight - Hell, immediately afterwards - was it really too much of a leap to recognize how useful blank signets could be in forging if the document to be forged had seals, as the Family Patents turned out to have? It must be that you are too tired; come to think of it, if you had more in you right now, you'd probably be really beating yourself up over this - right now, all this is making you feel is hollow and stupid. And tired. And aching, and worn down, and a little off-kilter. Damn ...
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will 'consume' the pair of Family Patents for material - the binders, the ribbons and the seals if you can manage it.> You will only use the pair of Family Patents as a reference - requiring you to source the binders, ribbons, wax and signets from elsewhere.
>>5955389>You will 'consume' the pair of Family Patents for material - the binders, the ribbons and the seals if you can manage it.
>>5955389> You will 'consume' the pair of Family Patents for material - the binders, the ribbons and the seals if you can manage it.
>>5955389>> You will 'consume' the pair of Family Patents for material - the binders, the ribbons and the seals if you can manage it.
You roll your shoulders and flex your back a bit, hoping that you can at least assuage some of your aches ... but you find that doing so just aggravates your injuries from the Refinery, so you stop as abruptly as you started, wincing and stifling shallow-breathed grunts. Looking to drag focus away from your pains, you decide immediately that you will part out the pair of Family Patents. Otherwise, it is just going to be too hard to make anything. The seals are already on the ribbons, so you just need to figure out how they are attached to the paper, and how the paper is attached to the binder. There must be some glue at the desks ... oh, perhaps you mistook a pot of glue as a well of ink? If that isn't the case, then ... well, you will ford that river once you come upon it. If you come upon it. On that point ... perhaps it would make sense to take another few modern Family Patents, now that you know where and what to look for. The more you have to reference, the less likely you omit something in the forgery - and the more things you have to part out as well. Of course, the more you take, the more likely it is that what you take is missed ...Looking up and down the shelves, you consider your options for where you may look for more Patents, and the odds of their absence being noted. Is this a stake that is worth making? By this point, your eyes have stopped throwing off any appreciable light, though you don't doubt that they are still gleaming, and will continue to do so for a few more minutes at least. Staring down the stacks, the shelves eventually fade into the darkness, where the tremulous light off of your 'stick-decanter cannot push into. Squinting into the dark morass doesn't avail you either, and you cannot help but think of how much of the second floor - and the house as a whole - remains unknown to you. And ... well, you had been thinking that you would make your forgery in the gallery, sitting at one of the tilt-top desks, where you would have all of the supplies on hand. But what do you do if you aren't finished with the forgery by the time the bondsman and the Guards return? What if for some reason they come into the gallery? What if they let themselves into the Clerking house through the gallery? Wouldn't it be safer to hide yourself away in some room, or some quiet corner of the house to do your work? It might be that there is such as space up here on the second floor - or elsewhere in the house that you haven't seen. > Please choose ONE of the following:> Look for a few more Family Patents to reference and part out [Sight Test II]> The pair that you have now should be sufficient, the time is best spent elsewhere> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will continue working your way through the Clerking house> You will head to the gallery to begin your forgery> You will head to [write-in] to begin your forgery> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5956281>> Look for a few more Family Patents to reference and part out [Sight Test II]>You will head to the gallery to begin your forgeryI think we should only take parts from one though, and then just dispose of it.I think one patent going missing is a big pain in the ass but can happen and would be ascribed to carelessness/bad sorting whereas random patents missing pieces would raise more alarm bells.
>>5956281>The pair that you have now should be sufficient, the time is best spent elsewhere> You will head to the gallery to begin your forgery
>>5956281>The pair that you have now should be sufficient, the time is best spent elsewhere> You will head to the gallery to begin your forgeryIf we are doing the forgery out in the open, it would be best to move quickly
>>5956281>>The pair that you have now should be sufficient, the time is best spent elsewhere>> You will head to the gallery to begin your forgeryWe don't have time to waste
>>5956281> The pair that you have now should be sufficient, the time is best spent elsewhere> You will head to the gallery to begin your forgery
While it may be that you will have an easier go of the forging the more Family Patents that you have on hand to reference and part out, it cannot be gainsaid that the more you take from the archive, the more likely something is missed later. Though to be sure, what with the shelves packed so recklessly and in such disorder, you find yourself wondering if anyone does - or even can - know what is supposed to be in the archive here. But you cannot know that; and not knowing that means you should not count on it being so. In that case, moderate yourself and take what you need, no more. And as for the rest of the second floor; the object of your search is in your hands, what purpose is there in scouring through the rest of the house? You have committed yourself to parting out the Patents, so you have no need for the signets supposedly locked away in the vault that you have yet to find, and by your accounting, it is a surety that everything you are going to need for the forgery is in the tilt-top desks of the gallery - save for the glue, Maker's Mercy, you hope you just overlooked the glue as an inkwell. With your latest pieces of swag bundled in your linen sling, you retrace your steps out of the archive, and before long, you find yourself closing the remaining distance to the barred door. Abruptly with six feet between you, Strange-Staining activates, elucidating the inexorably spreading white-then-gray-then-black-then-gray-then-white Stain that have covered swathes of the bars and the entirety of the lock besides. Diligently avoiding these Stains, you ease the door open by pulling on a portion of the bar well above the lock, then you exercise similar diligence in strafing and side-stepping the Stains on the finished wood floor, while keeping one hand on the bar of the door so you may close it as you pass through. The bulk and weight of your purloined Patents press against you as you make one great stride over the last swath of the Strangeness. Free and clear - or perhaps, free and Clean - you spare a glance back at the door, closed but unlocked. Given that the door remained closed even when unlocked in the jam, you don't think you need to worry about it creeping open under its own weight - something that can happen with shoddy construction - but you still have some lingering concerns about leaving the door unlocked, even if it would mean having to unlock it and lock it again when you came back to -
Wait ... no, you cannot plant your forged Master Family Patent in this archive! Well, you could, but ... Master Family Patents belong in the Forum. Your plan was to put your forged Master somewhere where it would be found and properly filed for you. Given the state of this house's archive, you doubt that anyone would notice that your forgery was out of place if you left it here. Shit! Alright, well ... shit! The Forum - no, no, there just isn't any way that you are going to be able to sneak into the Forum at this point. Not with everything else on your plate. Probably not even if that was the only thing you had to do for the rest of the night. But then what? Oh! Yes, what if you were to forge the Family Patents, but then kept the Master with you? Heads of families are supposed to have the Master Family Patent accessible to their primary residence, so they can readily have the Master kept up to date. Doing so would mean that you were the head of your family ... which would mean that you would have to be the sole surviving member of your family - making you all the more remarkable and outstanding. Wouldn't that just raise more questions than it would answer? Possibly ... but what other options do you have, besides this ... or staying on the Mount another day? What if you just make a Personal tonight, then as soon as the opportunity arises, in another city on your way to the Frontier Provinces, you make a Master - and a new, second Personal, both associated with that city, and you plant these forgeries in that cities equivalent of the Forum? That ... that could work, but actually, wouldn't it be better to have the Master on you? From what Nasturtium told you, the Personal Family Patent should be enough to establish your 'right' to travel on the Thoroughfare. But with a Master in your possession, you affirm that you are the head of your family, which means that you can 'prove' that you aren't a runaway, or anything of the sort. Of course, having that much documentation is sort of suspect in its own right, so if you were to go this route, then the pair of Family Patents would have to be top-notch fakes, as it is a surety that together, they would come under much heavier suspicion than just a lone Personal might. With the Master being filed away in some Forum somewhere, then its authenticity cannot be called into question, at least, not immediately. You would be giving up your 'proof' that you weren't a runaway, but as in your estimation, less attention would be paid to either of the Family Patents, a lower quality forgery could pass muster under these circumstances. Which is an attractive proposition, considering this is the first time you have ever tried something like this.
Or ... actually, you might be getting ahead of yourself here. Aye, you just may be. Your original plan - skin and bones as it might have been - was to plant the Master somewhere in this house were it would be found, no more than glanced at - so that the forgery wasn't discovered - then properly filed away. Just because the mess of an archive here might not be such a place, it doesn't follow that there isn't anywhere in the Clerking house that doesn't fill that bill. You just need to suss it out, and if necessary, break into it.> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will forge a Personal and a Master, leaving the Master in the archive so that it may end up in the Forum.> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will look for and consider places to plant the Master so that it may end up in the Forum.> You will forge a Personal tonight, then later, in another city, a Master and a second Personal associated with that city, and attempt to plant them so that they end up in that cities equivalent of the Forum.> You will forge a Personal and a Master, and you will keep both of them on you while you are traveling the Thoroughfares.> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will attempt to plant the Master in the Forum tonight.> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will attempt to plant the Master in the Forum tomorrow night.
>>5957360>> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will look for and consider places to plant the Master so that it may end up in the Forum.
>>5957360>> Grab enough supplies for two Masters and 5 Personals or whatever is at hand and quit this place. This stuff is just too handy to pass up and you may need more. You'll forge yourself a Personal at home and can fool around with more Personals and Masters whilst on the road when you aren't half dead.
>>5957360WRITE IN: (if allowed) Only forge a Personal Family Patent. You can't believe you missed it, you told the Goodman at the coach house that "father" Dremen had just arrived from across the Ultimate -- a new arrival wouldn't have a Master patent at Scrimshaw Mount, if anything its presence would be suspicious! Your personal patent should reference a master back in the old worldIn case that write in is not allowed, I support: > You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will look for and consider places to plant the Master so that it may end up in the Forum.
>>5957737I also combed the past threads and have this useful collection of info about patents:Family patent needed to ride on thoroughfaresUnpatented subjects need transit papersTollman do not typically check coach patent (title) or bill of saleNeed family patent to pick up the coachFamily patent corresponds to bill of sale and title to coachFamily patents mention family membersFamily patents are kept by holderFamily patents are recorded but only on file in port of residenceNew Master and family patents can be made by clerksThe Dremen family are allegedly new arrivals to Outremer"Father Dremen" has a late uncle in Outremer who *must appear on the family patent*
>>5957360> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will attempt to plant the Master in the Forum tomorrow night.We need to insure that the Master gets into to the Forum, to avoid future risk. Hell, I’m even willing to do it today if we ever find the time.>>5957520Not a bad idea though… I like insurance.>>5957737The Master is necessary if we’re going to be larping as an heiress- besides, it’ll be invaluable whenever the Inquisition comes a knocking.
>>5957785I don't think the master has much value because it has to be updated. Right now, assuming the Goodman at the coachhouse checks, both patents need to say that we are traveling with the non-existent Leopold Dremen.But if we did try to impersonate an heiress, we would need to update the master to say Leopood died and we inherited from him. That either means breaking in and changing the master patent back here or forging whatever paperwork is needed to prove the death of a non-existent man.And we have a perfectly good reason not to have a master patent on file -- we (leopoldina Dremen) just arrived in Outremer
>>5957520I will allow this write in.>>5957737I will allow this write in, but I will point out that as far as Chlotsuintha knows, she will be able to take delivery of her coach with nothing more than its Patent (title) and a bill of sale. Furthermore, if a Family Patent was required to take possession of the coach, Chlotsuintha has no reason to believe that she would need to show him the Master Family Patent, as one would - as you pointed out - expect it to be elsewhere. In Chlotsuintha's estimation, a Personal Family Patent should be sufficient. >>5957740> Family patent needed to ride on thoroughfares Named and Billeted Subjects can invoke the privilege of Travel, yes. There are other permissions for the Thoroughfares, but the most appropriate and easiest to falsify would be the Personal Family Patent.> Unpatented subjects need transit papersSubjects without family names - and therefore Family Patents cannot invoke the privilege of Travel, as they are bound to Land and Liege (or Authority). Transit Papers can be drawn up to allow Basal Subjects to Travel. The Liege (or Authority) can also allow for Movement, or order Transposition for populations. > Tollman do not typically check coach patent (title) or bill of saleYes. Once the right or privilege to Travel has been established, typically the only thing that a Toll-Man is interested in is collecting the Toll (and duties, etc. when called for). > Need family patent to pick up the coachNot necessarily. Chlotsuintha already has the Patent for the coach (the title) and a bill of sale. That, paired with her remarkable appearance and the exceptional circumstances of the transaction might be enough. Or it might not. Depends on who is running the Coaching house when she gets there.> Family patent corresponds to bill of sale and title to coachWell, neither of the Family Patents have been forged yet, but yes, the names should match up. > Family patents mention family membersYes; parents and grandparents> Family patents are kept by holderPersonal Family Patents are kept by the person that they were writ for. Master Family Patents of Named but Untitled Subjects are maintained by the head of the family, but kept by his Liege. Changes with the family are reported by the head, and the Master Family Patent is updated by the keeper. > Family patents are recorded but only on file in port of residencePersonal Family Patents are kept on the person, much like an identification card would be today. The individual they were written for reports necessary changes to their Liege (or rather, his clerks) and the head of their family. The clerks update the Personal Family Patent, while the head of the family is responsible for having the Master Family Patent updated. > The Dremen family are allegedly new arrivals to OutremerYes, this is true. The Personal Family Patent could reflect this by having an entry for Transport.
> "Father Dremen" has a late uncle in Outremer who *must appear on the family patent*Father Dremen would have to be on the Personal Family Patent, but the late uncle wouldn't. >>5957785> The Master is necessary if we’re going to be larping as an heiress- besides, it’ll be invaluable whenever the Inquisition comes a knocking.It could certainly be useful - but it also might raise eyebrows. The typical profile of a Witch is an unusually independent woman, after all ... >>5957840> I don't think the master has much value because it has to be updated. Right now, assuming the Goodman at the coachhouse checks, both patents need to say that we are traveling with the non-existent Leopold Dremen.If Nasturtium checked Chlotsuintha's Master Family Patent, it would have to show that both her and her father Leopold had been Transported to Outremer. But based off of what Chlotsuintha has seen of Polyergus's Personal Family Patent, the Personal Family Patent wouldn't need to account for anyone else that she was Transported with. And again, from what the Goodman (and by extension, anyone else in the Coaching house) knows of Chlotsuintha and Leopold, there is very little reason to believe that Leopold would even have a Master Family Patent with him. Those are only ever in the possession of the head of the family when the head of the family is moving from one Fief to another (External Transposition) and consequentially must present it to a new Liege for keeping. Outside of that, they are not kept in the possession of Named but Untitled Subjects. Beyond the fact that Leopold has been presented as the executor of his brother's will, there is nothing to suggest that he is the head of his family - and even if he was, I don't see why Nasturtium or one his lackeys would assume that Chlotsuintha had it in her possession, or even ask for it. > But if we did try to impersonate an heiress, we would need to update the master to say Leopood died and we inherited from him. That either means breaking in and changing the master patent back here or forging whatever paperwork is needed to prove the death of a non-existent man.Considering that Nasturtium or his lackeys have no reasonable cause to ask for the Master Family Patent - let alone assume that Chlotsuintha can produce one - Chlotsuintha might be comfortable just declaring Leopold as dead on the forged Master Family Patent the first time around. > And we have a perfectly good reason not to have a master patent on file -- we (leopoldina Dremen) just arrived in OutremerYes, this is true. Nasturtium and his lackeys have every reason to believe that the Master Family Patent is back across the Ultimate Ocean. Also, Chlotsuintha decided against Leopoldine, as that was the name of the Starlight Shrike - she went with Wilhelmina instead.
Anyway, we have a four-way tie by my count - and I definitely am not rolling for this. Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion. If any of you are still in the thread, please consider elaborating on your position a little bit more. Hopefully, with some discussion, someone convinces someone else.
>>5957360>> You will forge a Personal tonight, then later, in another city, a Master and a second Personal associated with that city, and attempt to plant them so that they end up in that cities equivalent of the Forum.WRITE IN: (if allowed) Only forge a Personal Family Patent. You can't believe you missed it, you told the Goodman at the coach house that "father" Dremen had just arrived from across the Ultimate -- a new arrival wouldn't have a Master patent at Scrimshaw Mount, if anything its presence would be suspicious! Your personal patent should reference a master back in the old worldmy brain is leaking out of my ears everytime I try to make decisions in this quest
>>5958043My position for >>5957785 is that we need a Master patient, for it will become relevant when the Inquisition inevitably lockdown the Mount and start a Hunt- we need it to be on file before they notice the discrepancy. Half adding it with only a Personal patient will only get us killed.You can consider me supporting >>5957520 or > You will forge a Personal tonight, then later, in another city, a Master and a second Personal associated with that city, and attempt to plant them so that they end up in that cities equivalent of the Forumas I don’t support the Personal only write in, and will subsequently vote for any potentially winning vote that isn’t said Personal only write in.>>5957737>>5958045Please reconsider the write in friends.
>>5958231>Half adding Half-assing*
>>5958231I hear that, but I would say two things:1) There is no discrepancy in not having a master patent here so long as we are still claiming to be from the old continent, as we currently are. Our master patent is supposedly back in the records of our liege lord across the Ultimate (where it cannot be easily checked) and there is no legal reason for us to be here2) If the Inquisition is questioning us, we have bigger problems than our patent. Firstly, our fictional patented father doesn't exist. The Inquisition would figure that out way before they check our personal family patent against a masterSo I really don't see the benefit of a master patent: we don't need it to collect the cart, we don't need it on the thoroughfares, and I don't think it will do us any good if we get caught by the Inquisition
I agree, with our backstory it wouldn't make sense to have a master over here. If we need a master in the future we'll need to switch identities. I'll vote for just making a personal for now.
>>5958346>>5958348Firstly, the Inquisition will check for a Master patient long before they figure out we don’t have a father, and having our father’s death on the Master does more to solidify our background as a grieving heiress.Secondly, the fiction of us being on the old continent will unravel when we spend years in Outremer, especially when we start buying land and working the land instead of ‘assessing our family’s inheritance’.Third, we’re right fucking here- it’ll only take a couple minutes just to forge and plant the Master in case we need it for later, as opposed to the days/weeks/months we’ll spend agonizing over it trying it again if we need it.Our backstory isn’t set in stone- it can change, and I’d rather not spend another thread doing what should’ve been done this thread- half-assing shit because we don’t need it in the moment is gonna get us found out and killed.
Trash, does a personal contain any information which would show our location of origin? (ie, if we switched our story to 'I was born after we moved to Outremer' or "We've been here for years" would it be easy for someone to figure this out from our family patent)
>>5958619Yes, as established in >>5955385, birthplace is included on the Personal Family Patent. Alright, let's see if we have broken the tie or not: >>5957507> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will look for and consider places to plant the Master so that it may end up in the Forum.>>5957520> Grab enough supplies for two Masters and 5 Personals or whatever is at hand and quit this place. This stuff is just too handy to pass up and you may need more. You'll forge yourself a Personal at home and can fool around with more Personals and Masters whilst on the road when you aren't half dead.>>5957737> WRITE IN: (if allowed) Only forge a Personal Family Patent. You can't believe you missed it, you told the Goodman at the coach house that "father" Dremen had just arrived from across the Ultimate -- a new arrival wouldn't have a Master patent at Scrimshaw Mount, if anything its presence would be suspicious! Your personal patent should reference a master back in the old world>>5957740> Not a vote>>5957785> You will forge a Personal and a Master, then you will attempt to plant the Master in the Forum tomorrow night.>>5957840> Not a vote>>5958041> Correction and explanation>>5958042> Correction and explanation>>5958043> Acknowledgement of the four-way tie>>5958045> WRITE IN: Only forge a Personal Family Patent. You can't believe you missed it, you told the Goodman at the coach house that "father" Dremen had just arrived from across the Ultimate -- a new arrival wouldn't have a Master patent at Scrimshaw Mount, if anything its presence would be suspicious! Your personal patent should reference a master back in the old world I'm taking this as the write-in being the preferred vote, and the part above it being an alternate if it wasn't accepted.>>5958231> Grab enough supplies for two Masters and 5 Personals or whatever is at hand and quit this place. This stuff is just too handy to pass up and you may need more. You'll forge yourself a Personal at home and can fool around with more Personals and Masters whilst on the road when you aren't half dead.I'm taking this as the vote - as opposed to the other in the post- as dJs4PQfr has indicated quite a bit of flexibility, and by doing so, I can resolve this tie. >>5958232> Not a vote>>5958346> Not a vote>>5958348> Not a vote>>5958611> Not a vote>>5958619> Not a voteAlright, by my count, we have a plurality. I will get to writing as soon as I can.
Just an update; my power is out and service might not be restored until morning. I have the update more or less finished, but I cannot work on it at the moment.
Power just came back, but the internet is still out. I will post the update as soon as I am able.
You absentmindedly lick your lips, and are surprised at how dry you find them. What ... what are you supposed to do now? At the moment, you are so worn down and worked up you cannot even figure what the right play would be were you not being so tightly kept by the 'keeper. You just – damn it, the plan. Stick with the plan. Right, then .. well, you are going to need to find somewhere suitable to plant the Master, somewhere where it would be found this side of Wisdom, as opposed to this veritable morass of an archive. So in this house, that would … that would be the office off of the hallway in the first floor, with that great big desk. But leaving the Master on the desk wouldn't dispose of your problem, it would invert it. You would be certain that the Master would be found immediately tomorrow, but as it would have just appeared into the Shadows, even if they didn't immediately suspect anything, they would certainly give the Master a good looking over. Presumably a better looking over than it would get if it was instead filed away properly in the Forum ... and perhaps a better looking than any forgery by your hand could withstand. As it stands, the only forgery you have to your name is the Graven Ball, and as all the Inquisition know about the genuine article is that it was an Engraved or Scriven Ball that released the Strangeness something fierce - so then, there is a lot of what you might call 'play' when it comes to a forgery that will make muster. Contrarily, the Clerks of this house to a man must know exactly how Masters are supposed to look. It very well might be that your best isn't going to be good enough - so you are well and truly behooved to do everything to reduce the scrutiny that your work will be put through. In your best estimation, that means putting your forged Master along with other Masters to be sent to the Forum - and at the moment, the drawers of the desk in the first floor office seem to be your strongest stake for finding such a repository. But this best estimation begs an thoroughly unpleasant question; which drawer? When you checked, everything that moved on that desk was buttoned up and battened down. Checking all of the drawers would entail defeating locks - dozens of them, if your memory serves, in several sorts of configurations. You drag your eyes off of the Strange-Stains below and glance at the water you have inside the 'stick-decanter, giving it a soft sloshing as you do. Were you to run things as tight as tight could be, you would have enough working material for just three casts of Cold-Touch. Possibly - possibly - four, but only if your reactions ran flawlessly, you made things quite a bit more difficult for yourself by trying to use the Ice-Lockpick at the first possible moment .. and you were to top your decanter off with the water in the dormitory wash-basin.
Beyond that, you would need to trot yourself over to the proverbial well, that dilapidated rain-barrel across the street. For every three attempts. That'd be a lot of water. And the Strangeness too - in the Second Degree, all over that desk. Not for the first time tonight – nor the last, for a surety – you fervently wish you had some mundane 'picks. But as you don't, you will have to find some other way. But one road rides just like the other; the same ruts, the same pits, and the same end. Ultimately, you don't know if what you are looking for even exists - and if you had surety that it did, then you would have no idea where exactly to start looking for it. In the remainder of the second floor? The basement? The entire wing of the first floor that you haven't even figured out how the Hell to get into? And what really twists the knife is that you are liable to end up playing the same game of locked and barred sea-shells that you would have with the desk in the office. Really, with so much of this house under lock and key, you cannot just expect the object of search to be out in the open. As it stands - as you stand, right in the barred doorway - you are spending time that you have spent thrice over. And even if you were to bolt straight to the office, what you are proposing is not quick work, especially when one is as battered and worn and tired as you are. Not to mention that the time you take to creep and peep is time that you aren't making forgeries. Honestly, when will that bondsman return? Or the Guards? For that matter, how long is it even going to take you to make your forgery? You ... Shit. You aren't going to be able to plant a forged Master tonight. You don't see how it can be done, not at this point. If anything, you feel a bit relieved; planting the forged Master in a Clerking house as opposed to the Forum was always going to be a risky specie of compromise. You also feel more than hair unsteady - it comes and goes in such a manner that you have to think that it is mostly Mysterious in cause ... but the Patternmaker knows that you have enough mundane causes to be unsteady as well. Damn it, enough of that - focus, before you waste any more time. Right, focus. The Master - if you aren't going to be planting the Master here, tonight, then there is no conceivable reason for you to actually make the Master here, tonight. Truly, the only reason to make one is so that your Personal is unimpeachable if someone takes it upon themselves to dig into you. The only way you would have cause to carry a Master - the only way you could legally carry a Master, as far as you know - is if you were the oldest surviving female member of your family and there were no surviving males and you were traveling to take up with a new Liege. You might not be entirely clear on all of the details; you are more able to break the law than you are to quote it.
Still, this all raises a point most salient; if you are not going to plant the Master tonight, if you aren't even going to forge the Master tonight, then why should you plan to remain here, in the Clerking house, in relative danger of discovery and capture, when you could do it in the equally relative safety of the Belfry? Aye, why not? Make something slap-dash, something that will not wilt on you if a Guard or a Toll-Man were to glance at it, then make something more solid once you are underway. Buoyed by the notion of forward progress, you start down the hall to quit the house when you are struck by a second point of even more salience; if you are not planting the Master in this house, if you don't have to worry about any disturbances in the archive casting further suspicion on your forgery, then why don't you help yourself to a few more of those modern Masters and Personals? You reverse yourself, heading again for the barred door – grateful that you didn't lock it – when reason finally manages to overtake ambition. There actually is a fairly compelling reason to remain in the house to forge the Personal – the material that you would use to do it isn't at the Belfry, it is down in the desks in the gallery. You could steal a supply of it, of course, but considering how regimented everything downstairs was, you imagine that if you take too much, things might be missed. Beleaguered as it may be, your mind somehow manages to churn along as you scramble for a solution – and turn up three of them. First and foremost, you could just stick with the original … revised plan. Make a Personal here, in the gallery. You would end up consuming only the material you absolutely need to, and leaving the rest. A touch of glue, some drops of ink and a sheet of paper cannot possibly be enough to raise the hue and cry – but if it was noted, and later you were found with a questionably forged Personal from Scrimshaw Mount, could some clever cog make four from two and two? If you were to just accept that no one would notice – or at least care – about the quantity of paper and ink remaining at their desks, then you could stock yourself up properly; after all, it might be that you end up needing more than one Personal and one Master. Of course, the more you take, the more like someone is to shit up a stink – but the only way to completely avoid that would be if you took nothing. Which would mean that you would be out on the road without a Personal – and the means to make one or a Master – for however long it would take to source the material elsewhere. To be sure, colored inks, and long-form paper and glue are not hard to come by … and perhaps, with all of the goings-on on the Mount, you might not want a paper trail leading back here at all. Then again, there is nothing stopping you from writing a Personal issued from another city … isn't there? Damn it all! You just want to be done with this ... you just want to be safe.
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will take nothing from the gallery, satisfying yourself with the Personals and Masters you will pinch from the archives, and ultimately not forging anything before you begin to 'move house'.> You will make your forged Personal here after all, in the gallery using nothing more than you absolutely need. > You will take the absolute minimum of material from the gallery to forge your Personal in the Belfry> You will take some material from the gallery to forge your Personal (and a few spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own spare/do-over)> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and some spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own few spares/do-overs)> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and many spares/do-overs, and a Master with its some spares/do-overs of its own)
>>5960914> You will make your forged Personal here after all, in the gallery using nothing more than you absolutely need. I also agree to grab some spare materials, however, after we are done with forging the personal patent
>>5960914> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and some spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own few spares/do-overs)
>>5960914>> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and many spares/do-overs, and a Master with its some spares/do-overs of its own)
Wait, hold up, fellow anons! I thought of something. We need this document to pick up the horse and coach, right? How are we supposed to get home and then get the coachhouse? I thought the reason we were forging documents here is that the cleaning house is close to the coachhousr
>>5960914> You will make your forged Personal here after all, in the gallery using nothing more than you absolutely need. We can grab some extra materials after we're done.
>>5961276Chlotsuintha believes that the bill of sale and Patent (title) for the coach will be sufficient.
>>5961375But didn't Goodman Nestorium ask to see our family patent to claim possession of the coach?
>>5960914>You will take some material from the gallery to forge your Personal (and a few spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own spare/do-over)
>>5961377> But didn't Goodman Nestorium ask to see our family patent to claim possession of the coach?Back in Thread VIII, he simply says that he can leave word for the night shift.
I'm going to leave this one up over night, then I will close it first thing in the morning; currently, Chlotsuintha will be sticking around after all to the make the Personal Family Patent.
I also was under the impression that we needed to present the personal when picking up the carriage. If that's not the case then:> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and some spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own few spares/do-overs)We're already running late so we should get the carriage as soon as possible to get that loose end tied up.
>>5961644Oh, okay. In that case, I'd like to switch to:> You will take a goodly supply of materials from the gallery to forge your Personal (and some spares/do-overs, and a Master with its own few spares/do-overs)
Awash in anxiety, feeling dull and half-asleep on your feet, you worry yourself sick for a solid half-minute on what to do and when to do it before you finally manage to seize upon something solid; you are in no fit state to take up and try your hand at something so important, something that you have never done before. And the False Ball cannot count; a decoy is too distant from a forgery, too crude. You may have told yourself otherwise, but that was just ginning yourself up. You - no, enough of this. You close the distance to the barred door, carefully picking your way around the Strangeness and into the archive. Returning to the corner you were in earlier, you pick through the shelves, taking the first four Personals that you find, then a Master, then two more, then another three Personals, slipping them all into your sheet-of-linen sling. You are reaching for a third when you stop yourself; there is only so much room in the sling, and the more that are missing, the more likely they are to be missed. Perhaps you should put one or two of them back ... it - no, no. That won't do. You don't know how quick or how well you will take to this new art; and after all, more Family Patents means more to reference and more material to work with - which in turn means more chances to get it right. And more than anything, you need to remember just how lucky you got with this house emptying out - odds are this is the easiest it will ever be for you to get your hands on Family Patents. Eight Personals, four Masters. You should be able to work with that. And may the Maker find Mercy for you if you cannot ... Alright, alright, enough of that. You take a moment and reshuffle the shelves a bit so that there are no empty spaces - though the bulk on the shelves has done much to squeeze out these gaps already. Once you are as satisfied as you can be, you retrace your steps out of the archive - hopefully for the last time - then you pick your way around the Strangeness on the floor by the barred door, which has now spread to cover at least twice the surface as the puddled water. You close the barred door behind you, then close the wooden one as well - after checking to make sure that it was Clean, of course - then you walk as quick as you can towards the door at the far side of the hallway, and the stairs just beyond it. Along with your feet, your beleaguered and perhaps befuddled mind is racing along with you, on how to best lift what you need from the gallery below. > Please choose ONE of the following:> Take what you need entirely from the desk of Delmatae, the slothful and forgetful Clerk identified in the note. Any shortfalls could readily be explained away as his fault.> Spread out your sneak-thievery equally across all of the desks in the gallery, in a way that it can be overlooked. A few sheets of paper here, a pen-tip there - you will see to it that it adds up to be enough.> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5962136>> Spread out your sneak-thievery equally across all of the desks in the gallery, in a way that it can be overlooked. A few sheets of paper here, a pen-tip there - you will see to it that it adds up to be enough.No cause to ruin the lives of him and his voucher. The clerks are probably more likely to blame each other for missing paper and ink than a suspicious ghost with no other evidence, even if one of them Counts Every Piece, and most of them are probably not quite THAT diligent. and it would be suspicious if one desk were emptied out beyond the point of reason, and he himself would know for certain he wasn't running low on that many things at once
>>5962136>Spread out your sneak-thievery equally across all of the desks in the gallery, in a way that it can be overlooked. A few sheets of paper here, a pen-tip there - you will see to it that it adds up to be enough.
>>5962184Support
>>5962136>Do BOTH. Get a real haul. They clearly don't like this guy and no sneak thief would be so clumsy. Refuge in audacity.
>>5962136> Spread out your sneak-thievery equally across all of the desks in the gallery, in a way that it can be overlooked. A few sheets of paper here, a pen-tip there - you will see to it that it adds up to be enough.I just caught up. Is there any reason we only made one personal? Would it not be more prudent to make two at least, one in the Dremen name to pick up our carriage and one in a different name to muddy our tracks on the road. Can we still take some material with us for later forgeries, should the need arise?
Alright, consider this closed. I'll get this up after dinner.> Is there any reason we only made one personal?The consensus - or at least, my understanding of it - is that there is going to be more than one Personal Family Patent made. One or two as soon as possible, then more when the need arises.> Can we still take some material with us for later forgeries, should the need arise?That is what this vote - and the previous one - have been about. Moreover, those options won.
>>5962239Amazing, apologies if I've been skimming a bit, might've missed a few details
Hey TQM, anons, do you folks use the QTG?
>>5962341Trash regularly advertises on /qtg/
>>5962378Awesome! Well, if you folks are interested, you already know we're doing a community event. Just wanted to formally invite you (and Chlotsuintha), as a longstanding fixture of our lovely little board. Having received some feedback, just didn't want to be too intrusive with the offer.
As you slip into the landing and head straight for the stairs, you give serious consideration to lifting everything you are going to need from the desk belonging to that indolent clerk ... Delmatae, you believe the note named him. From what you gather of the man, a shortfall in his desk would be presumed to be on him. But the notion doesn't sit gentle with you, not with everything that you have done - and not done - these past few days. By the time that you have reached the bottom of the stairs, you have set yourself against it - and set yourself to finding an alternative. The smart choice would be to not steal from any of the desks, instead, you would steal from the supply that stocks them ... but you don't know where this supply might be. If you were to hazard a guess, you would say that there was some corner in the warehouse set aside for the use of the house - but unless it was in a physical corner, the prospect of finding it with any semblance of haste is vanishingly slim. Being smart - or at least, playing it smart - takes time. Right now, you don't have any, so you must content yourself with the least idiotic choice available to you here. In your estimation, that would be pinching a little of what you need from each of the desks so that in total you have everything you need to do to try your hand at this new art. Your hope is that by bleeding many, as opposed to gutting one, nothing is missed. But just as you step into the gallery, and close the doors behind you, you realize that there is a fairly significant hole in your plan. While you will be able to nick some sheets of paper and pen tips from each and every desk - and even if you pace yourself, if you refuse to indulge avarice, you can reasonably get away with lifting larger things like ribbons and heels of wax billets too, from every desk. But Pattern's Perdition, how are you supposed to steal a little ink and a little glue from each desk? All you have on hand as a vessel is the decanter, and besides not being suited in the slightest for holding small quantities of ink or glue that you intend to use as ink and glue are intended to be used, you are going to need that miserable water to unlock the quarantining lock on the front door to leave ... unless you wanted to resume your search for another way out of the house, that is.
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You had hoped it wouldn't be so, but you must now impose upon Delmatae and take his inks and glue. He may lose his job - but if you are long on the Thoroughfare without a Personal, you might lose your freedom, dignity and your life! You will make a point of trying to gentle things for him by stealing everything else you are going to need piecemeal from the other desks - as you had planned. > You had hoped it wouldn't be so, but you must now impose upon Delmatae and take his inks and glue. He may lose his job - but if you are long on the Thoroughfare without a Personal, you might lose your freedom, dignity and your life! And with the inks and glue bound to be missed, there is now no sense in ministering your larceny piecemeal over the other desks - in fact, it would be less of a risk - to you - if everything came out of his desk after all. > You have a lot to answer for - best not add to it, not when you are already facing long and lengthening odds to make a clean break away from the Mount. There has to be some store of supplies somewhere in the house. And considering how many Personals and Masters you pinched, you would probably be better off stealing in bulk. And you might have an idea of where to look ... [Prompts Vote]> You have a lot to answer for - best not add to it, not when you are already facing long and lengthening odds to make a clean break away from the Mount. And if you think about it, it is probably going to be some time before you are able to commit to making a forged Personal. By that time, you might be in or near another city or town - and ink and pens and paper aren't Controlled. Perhaps this is something that is best bought, instead of burgled. > Write-ins allowed with QM approval> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will attempt to quit the house through the front door, using [Write-in] of the water in the 'stick-decanter> You will attempt to quit the house through some other egress. You will start your search for it in [Write-in]>>5962382 By my understanding of the rules, Chlotsuintha doesn't qualify. Her physical appearance is too vague; beyond her height, her just-shy of unsettlingly long fingers, and her thin lips, very little of her appearance has been flushed out beyond looking to be 'gently bred' and attractive.
>>5962582>You had hoped it wouldn't be so, but you must now impose upon Delmatae and take his inks and glue. He may lose his job - but if you are long on the Thoroughfare without a Personal, you might lose your freedom, dignity and your life! And with the inks and glue bound to be missed, there is now no sense in ministering your larceny piecemeal over the other desks - in fact, it would be less of a risk - to you - if everything came out of his desk after all.> You will attempt to quit the house through the front door, using half of the water in the 'stick-decanterChlot is a qt 3.14
>>5962582>>You had hoped it wouldn't be so, but you must now impose upon Delmatae and take his inks and glue. He may lose his job - but if you are long on the Thoroughfare without a Personal, you might lose your freedom, dignity and your life! And with the inks and glue bound to be missed, there is now no sense in ministering your larceny piecemeal over the other desks - in fact, it would be less of a risk - to you - if everything came out of his desk after all.>> You will attempt to quit the house through the front door, using half of the water in the 'stick-decanterThis will be time efficient, too.
Upset at the prospect, but unable to see another way forward, you concede that you will have to impose on Delmatae by taking the inks and glue from his desk. And because the wells and pot cannot help but be missed, there is now no sense in taking anything else from anyone else's desk. If you just had more time - damn it, if you are long on the Thoroughfare without a Personal, you stand to lose your freedom, your dignity and even your life! Still, this doesn't sit gently upon your shoulders. Typically, you steal what you cannot buy or won't be missed; but this ink and glue and the rest ... just another trespass, you suppose ...However little your prayers may be worth, you will pray for the man, though - in the admittedly thin hope that this doesn't impede or unmake him, or his cousin for that matter. You push all other thoughts out of your mind, and head over to the desk that you believe is his. Once you get your hand on the key left in the lock of the lap-drawer, you look for the plate and the note underneath it, and once you find it, you make short work of the desk, taking everything you will need - and then some. Now hollowed out, you shut the desk up and make your way to the quarantining locked front door, trying and failing at not dwelling on what you have just done. > Cold-Touch II> Critical Success: DC 99 and higher. Not only does the cast go flawlessly, you feel more confident in your ability to cast Cold-Touch and perform Ice-Lockpick> Complete Success: DC 28 and higher. The cast goes flawlessly and you pick the lock without any delay or emergent issue. More than that, you managed to use less of the water than you originally intended to.> Partial Success: DC 8 and higher. The cast goes as well as you could hope - but your performance of the Ice-Lockpick doesn't. You are able to get the lock open, but you Estrange your clothes and use more of the water than you intended to.> Partial Failure: DC 7 and lower. Neither the cast nor the picking work go as they should - but you manage to conclude the reaction before you end up Estranging yourself or wasting too much of your working material. The lock remains locked. > Complete Failure: DC 4 and lower. This cast is all wet. You don't manage to freeze any of the water you poured, just waste and Estrange it. Now the Strangeness is threatening to spread to your Nodules - and of course, the door is still locked. > Catastrophic Failure: DC 3 and lower. This cast is all wet, as are your Nodules. You basically just dumped the entire decanter all over you after Estranging it. The door is locked, and now none of your Nodules are safe to use. > Critical-Catastrophic Failure: DC 2. You are not entirely sure what has happened ... but you managed to pry the fingernail off of your right pointer finger by freezing the nail-bed underneath it. It is excruciatingly painful, you are bleeding - and worse, you are liable to drop the decanter if you aren't careful! > May I please have one roll of 1d100?
Rolled 93 (1d100)>>5963077
Alright then, Chlotsuintha is free and clear of the Clerking house - but now she needs to decide if she can put off picking up the Coach any longer. If she can, then following her itinerary for the night, her next stop would be the South Burying Grounds to plant the False Ball in Aldoin's grave. If she feels as if she should delay no longer, then she should head over to the Coaching house. Getting to the top of the Promontory is going to take time, but at this moment, she is as close to the Burying Ground as she plans to be for the rest of the night.> Please choose ONE of the following:> Head on to the South Burying Ground to plant the False Ball> Head on to the Coaching house to take delivery of the stage
>>5963133>Head on to the Coaching house to take delivery of the stage
>>5963133> Head on to the Coaching house to take delivery of the stageBut we need to stop by the sewer closet first to change into our fancy riding dress
>>5963133> Head on to the Coaching house to take delivery of the stageHow do people feel about not planting the graven ball at all. Its not totally damnning due to the strangeness and the undertakers confusing things and our leper identity is never going to be used again so... maybe we just let it go?
>>5963340Let's see how much time we end up having.I think it is actually fairly important because the Inquisition could conceivably realize that someone (the tall girl leper who used to work for the sexton than finished mysteriously) stole the estranged ball that the coroners confessed to finding. If a ball is in the grave, we are hunted as 'possibly contaminated' (hopefully a low priority??), whereas being the presumed possessor of the estranged ball could make us a high priority target of the Inquisition.That's how I see it anyway
>>5963346If I remember correctly the reason for forging and planting the decoy ball was that an investigation would not only point to us taking the ball but also to us casting remediation, thus triggering a witch hunt.
> Stealth Test I: > DC 35: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Sneakthief, making an Involved Stealth Test like this [Rather Easy]> + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Hard to Miss, given her size> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is carrying a deal of bulk in an unusual fashion at an unusual time, making her hard to overlook if seen and markedly more suspicious> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is dressed as a maid at a time and place where maids would not be, carrying much more than a maid would ever be expected to, making her hard to overlook if seen and markedly more suspicious> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is on an effectively empty street, making her hard to overlook for any incidental witnesses> + DC 9 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired III, and is not moving as quickly or as surely as she might otherwise> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Drained III, and is not moving as quickly or surely as she might otherwise> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is sneaking down effectively empty streets, severely limiting the prospect of witnesses> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting stealth in an area with barely any traffic> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting stealth in an area where most traffic would be seen or heard before they could see her> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha starts sneaking from concealment, allowing her to choose the optimal start> - DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is prioritizing speed over concealment, which is well suited to the situation> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is taking advantage of the relative darkness outside of the streetlamps > - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has aptly avoided attention on these streets before > - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has specifically traveled from the Cleaner's Closet to the Clerking house before, by retracing her steps, she can take an advantage> - DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting stealth at at time when potential witnesses would be distracted> - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is wearing footwraps, which are well-suited to stealth> DC 26: Anything lower is a failure. [Auto-pass(es) available. Re-roll(s) available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: A Smash-Up! Even with the benefit of the street-lamps, Chlotsuintha's footing - and her foot-wraps - fail her. She cannot help making noise, but she is more concerned about damaging her stock of swag! [Prompts Deftness Test]> One Pass: Light-footed. Chlotsuintha manages to stub her foot-wrapped toes on a discarded lamp-oil tub. Although she was able to keep from crying out, she made a little bit of noise. > Two Passes: Slipping By. Chlotsuintha manages to slip on a spill of lamp-oil, now she must recover quickly, otherwise she will make noise or lose swag! [Prompts Deftness Test] NCF/CF nulled for next Stealth Test.> Three Passes: Stealth by Starlight. Chlotsuintha manages to get into the Cleaners Closet without any issues what-so-ever. NCF/CF nulled for next Stealth Test, and the Stealth Test concludes quickly
> Stealth Test I continued: > If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) the Chlotsuintha finds herself on the business end of some unwanted attention. Really unwanted attention! > If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha manages to make an important deduction about something that has been confusing her. > Please, may I have three rolls of 1d100?
Rolled 65 (1d100)>>5964267
Rolled 38 (1d100)>>5964267
Rolled 73 (1d100)>>5964267
You stand without - or rather, within - the front door of the Clerking house, looking at the Strange-Stains that have managed to spread themselves through the quarantining lock and onto the door. There are no two ways about it, if your hand isn't Estranged yet, it will be once you have Ice-Lockpicked this lock. Frustrated at the thought on account of all of the unpleasantness you went through this morning - damn it, last morning - being undone already, you keep yourself from swearing under your breath by stuffing sea-salt into your mouth. Wincing and flinching at the taste and texture, you make sure you are positioned in front of the lock with the 'stick-decanter between your feet, then you snuff out your candle and pluck it out of the mouth of the decanter. Working around the salt packed underneath your tongue, you gently blow on the tip of the candle, watching the ember fade into light-blinded blackness. You wait - not for your eyes to adjust, as they will be glowing in a minute - but for the wax on the candle to cool and harden, so you may put it away without risk. Once this has been achieved, you take up the decanter, position your right pointer finger dead center in the wide, shallow lock, and pour at what you figure to be the best angle. As soon as you feel the water, you initialize the cast of Cold-Touch - and within a dozen seconds, the lock is illuminated by the light pouring out of your eyes and you have a workable 'key' made out of 'ice'. With a single deft turn, the Mystery unlocks the door, and after sparing one last look around, you slip through, closing the door behind you. Once you have heard the instrument lock itself, you lower your head and start making your way back to the Cleaner's Closet. In spite of their relative proximity to the quays of Cleanport, these streets give every impression of being quiet, an uncommonly frequented by those who don't live on them - that, paired with the lateness of the hour means that you don't see anyone else on the streets; moreover, you can count the lights in windows you see on one hand - though you might be missing some, as you are keeping your head down. So long as no one sees your eyes, any illumination pooling at your feet is just spilt light from a poorly placed lantern, nothing more. With your eyes so indisposed, you find yourself relying on your ears - which happily report no noises even remotely close to you; save for the ones that you are making. Distant thumps and bumps, something that might be a cart moving, the muted cry of sea-bird, roused from slumber on some far-off perch ... to tell it true, it is as quiet as the Mount gets, and in only a handful of blessedly uneventful minutes, you are closing the remainder of the distance to the Cleaner's Closet.
Suffering through the urge to look up and down the street to make sure no one is watching you, as your eyes are still warm, still gleaming, you slip right into the Closet without delay. Only once the door of the Closet is firmly - but quietly - closed behind you, do you allow yourself a full-bodied sigh of relief. At least at this moment, you are wound up enough that you don't feel tired - to be sure, you are miserable in about a dozen other ways - but even if it is going to be fleeting, not feeling as if you are slipping into a bleak, incomprehensible fog is a most welcome development. So then; you will be going to the Coaching house next - you were expected at the last hour, now it is past the hour of changing, putting it off to plant the False Ball isn't exactly an option at the moment. But just how are you going to go to the Coaching house? It is outside of the Landward Walls, which complicates things, as any gate that is open is going to be manned. Sneaking through might be possible - but it would take time, and getting made by a Guard... well, it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to you tonight, though it would be close. But on account of the hour - and of yourself - you will be remembered. A Guard might even be inclined to try to stop you, or at least question you. Even if you are able to win your way through, there will be a witness unless you were willing to take the time and risk of sneaking your way over the walls - or you were willing to turn your Wand of Head-Knocking on him. But with only five Ounce Nodules in good health with Charge, should you even consider that an option? On the topic of options, you should also consider what to wear. From an appreciable distance, the domestic dress concealed by your hooded riding cloak might pass as a man's great cloak - but your 'worn piece', what with its contours and ostentatious flair is obviously, distressingly feminine. Come to think of it, it is also unique isn't it? On account of the size, at least. Shit, that ... that might be a problem. Not just now, but - no, focus! Obviously, if you are going to change, it would be easiest to do it here, rather than take the riding dress - or habit, or whatever exactly the damned thing is - with you and find some alleyway. You have done that before, certainly, but ... you have done lots of things that you would rather not have, haven't you? Still, if you weren't going to sneak or Head-Knock your way through the Walls, wearing the riding dress through a gate would ensure that you would be remembered and gossiped about - probably for the rest of that Guards life. Perhaps you don't change into the 'worn piece' at all? Try to explain it away as a safety precaution for being out so late at night unattended. Whatever you decide, you should decide quickly - as it stands, the time commitment for moving unseen through the Mount is going to be ruinous. Perhaps you should prioritize speed instead of stealth at this point?
> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will change into your 'worn piece' immediately.> You will change into your 'worn piece' outside of the Walls.> You will not change into your 'worn piece'.> Please choose ONE of the following:> You will sneak your way through - or over, or under - the Walls.> You will pass through the Walls as anyone else might.> You will bring the Wand of Head-Knocking to bear against any Guards in your way. > Please choose ONE of the following:> You will sneak over to the Coaching house.> You will dash over to the Coaching house.
>>5964659>You will change into your 'worn piece' immediately.> You will pass through the Walls as anyone else might.> You will dash over to the Coaching house.
>>5964771Supporting
>>5964771+1
Sorry about being missing in action today, something came up, that was really out of left field. But at least assuming there are no late-breaking distractions, I should be ready for an all-day run tomorrow. > Gain one lucky tenth-talent (re-roll) Anyway, as far as incidental votes go, this one is kind of a small and silly one, but I noticed that I used 'Hour of Change' and 'Hour of Changing' both in this thread to describe the hour of 12:00am to 1:00am. Does any one have a preference? Also, if anyone has any questions about rules or mechanics or Chlotsuintha long term plans or about the setting in general, you can ask them now, and I will have them answered when I pick up the thread for the run tomorrow. > Please choose ONE of the following:> the Hour of Change > the Hour of Changing> Write-ins will also be considered
>>5965535> the Hour of Change
>>5965535>How about both being used but it being regional, the kind of thing that can give away that you aren't a local?
>>5965535>the Hour of Change
>>5965551I like this one, gives the setting even more character
> Athletic Test I: > DC 30: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Fleet of Foot, making a Simple Athletics Test [Running] such as this [Easy]> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Halved]> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Drained III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Halved]> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Worn I, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Doubled]> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Battered III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Doubled]> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is wearing clothes that are not entirely suitable for an Athletics Test [Running]> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is wearing footwear that when paired with the terrain is not entirely conducive for an Athletics Test [Running]> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is commencing the Athletics Test at her initiative > - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha may set her own pace without issue, speeding up, slowing down and even stopping at her initiative > DC 29: Anything lower is a failure. [Auto-pass(es) available. Re-roll(s) available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: Slap Dash: Chlotsuintha goes flying as she runs, and gets her 'worn piece' serious dirty - and herself hurt in the process! [Prompts Vote]> One Pass: Sloppy Form: Chlotsuintha gets rather dirty in the process, but she manages to get to the nearest open gate in a suitable amount of time. > Two Passes: Fleet on the Street: Chlotsuintha manages to get to the gate without delay or damage to her dress. > Three Passes: A Right Dashing Rake: Chlotsuintha makes excellent time with issue - and for her trouble, finds a gate that is open and seemingly unguarded [Prompts Vote]> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then in addition to getting hurt and dirty, Chlotsuintha also manages damage the hem of her 'worn piece'> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha has a moment of clarity while running, and manages to solve as question that had been bugging her> Please, may I have three rolls of 1d100?
Rolled 39 (1d100)>>5965840A nice moonlight stroll.
Rolled 34 (1d100)>>5965840Run Chlot, run.
Rolled 28 (1d100)>>5965840It's been a while so I guess I'll close out the rolling
The dice have mocked me for my hubris.
Rolled 44 (1d100)>>5965840
Alright, is anyone interested in using a re-roll or an auto-pass here? > Please choose ONE of the following:> Use auto-pass> Use re-roll> Use nothing
>>5965978Unfortunately, I cannot count this roll.
>>5965980>Re-roll please. A gaurd will slow us and create additional checks to either evade or convince. We're already late.
>>5965980>Use re-roll
>>5965980> Use nothing
Alright, I think three vote cast with no new ones coming within an hour is enough to call it. > May I please have one roll of 1d100?
Rolled 89 (1d100)>>5966148
>>5966182Nice. Excited to get the carriage.
Okay, that makes three passes. That means that when Chlotsuintha is making her final approach to the gate, she finds it open and seemingly unattended - at least from the angle she is at. What does she do next? > Please choose ONE of the following:> Just keep running straight through, you don't have the time for anything else [Requires Rolling]> Slow down and approach the gate typically - or as typically as an unchaperoned woman could past the Hour of Changing> Slow down and attempt to sneak through the gate [Requires Rolling]> Stop and look for a way to sneak past the walls without going through the gate [Requires Rolling]> Write-ins allowed with QM approval
>>5966201>> Slow down and attempt to sneak through the gate [Requires Rolling]Might just have to wait for someone's back to be turned.
>>5966201> Slow down and approach the gate typically - or as typically as an unchaperoned woman could past the Hour of ChangingThis seems like what we'd do if we didn't know we passed that test
>>5966201>> Slow down and approach the gate typically - or as typically as an unchaperoned woman could past the Hour of Changing
>>5966201>Just keep running straight through, you don't have the time for anything else [Requires Rolling]
>>5966201>Slow down and approach the gate typically - or as typically as an unchaperoned woman could past the Hour of Changing
Still working on the update - look for it sometime tomorrow. Apologies about the delay. > Gain one lucky tenth-talent (re-roll)
If you have to choose – and by all accounts, you must – then it must be speed. After all, attempting to make it to the Coaching house without a single set of eyes laying themselves upon you will grind grist and make meal of many minutes, and if – if! – you can manage it, you still will need to make yourself known once you arrive at the house to conclude your business there … unless you are intending on stealing stage, and team, and bill and Patent – which you for a surety, you are not. So what sense is there in any skulking and slinking, if there are going to be witnesses no matter how diligently you avoid – no, wait, there already are witnesses! You have already been seen at the Landward Walls today, and in the Coaching house and dressmaker's besides. It … perhaps it might be far afield from a comfort to think on how many must have seen you in this … remarkable garment already, but on the opposite face of the talent, a question that has an obvious and easy answer is a blessed thing, especially when one is otherwise in a dearth of them, as you have found yourself. Mustering as much haste as you can, you pull at the ties of your black riding cloak, not bothering to untie it – just getting it loose enough that you can draw it over your head and toss it onto your burgeoning cart. With the hood off, you then unsling your linen sheet sling – and with a hint more care, you place the swag from the Clerking house on top of the creased and battered black hood. The apron, also burdened, comes off next, followed in short order by your domestic dress and the gifted chemise. Now without a pocket to stow it in, you now have to hold your Wand of Head-Knocking in your hand. You seriously consider lighting a candle – as you doubt the little light filtering into the Closet is going to be enough for you to quickly pull the riding habit on – but you ultimately decide against it. If light can filter in from the streetlamps, then it stands to reason that it may filter out from a candle. You are just going to have to work this out with what light remains to you in here. Besides, they were all rather plainly dressed at the Coach house, so who are they to say that you put the dress on wrong – even if you were to? As you dig through your swag, you are reminded that with tight sleeves and without any pockets, your riding habit is singularly ill-suited for the Wand of Head-Knocking. You stifle the urge to swear under your breath at the thought, and you stifle the urge again as you pluck the Socketing Needle out of the crook of your left arm – though you manage to not swear, you do let slip a slight squeaky gasp of pain. Belatedly feeling just how naked you are, you hustle to find something suitable to cover up the distressingly large and now bleeding hole in your arm. You seize upon one of the small bundles of rags and win one free.
You try to tie it down, but you find that it is too short to make it all the way, so you tug out another. By tying the two of them together, you are able to band your arm. Studiously ignoring the questionable cleanliness of the rags, you turn your attention back to gently extracting your riding habit from the mess of your hand-cart. Once you have finally won the blasted thing free, and you have made sure that all the underwear that goes with it is also on hand, slowly - and in no small discomfort, on the account of the condition of your left arm - you dress yourself. The corset of the dress is the real culprit; for as difficult as it may have been to unlace it by yourself, lacing the damned thing proves to be magnitudes harder. Before overlong, you have managed it - you would not go so far as to say that you have done it right, but it is at least holding itself well, and it will be covered by the rest of the dress regardless. As you pull the rest of the dress on, you idly muse how nice it would be to have a Construct or Instrument grafted into this dress - a Living Corset if you will, capable of doing itself up as well as undoing itself at your command. Unfortunately, you cannot think of any way that you could make such a thing with your seriously limited knowledge of Weaving - and that is setting aside how integrating a Mystery into the 'worn piece' like that would make something as simple as getting dressed and undressed into a matter of life and death. Or even just wearing it. Or owning it. As you finish squirming into the dress, you catch yourself daydreaming of life before the Strangeness. You put it out of your mind, as much as you are able. Methodically, you make sure that the dress is siting as intended, patting yourself down and tugging at the fabric, part by part - wincing as your tender left arm gets this treatment. In the limited light available to you, the crook of your left arm looks much the same as your right ... with the left having perhaps a bit more bulk to it, and the fabric not sitting quite as smartly. Beyond just holding your left arm against your side though, you cannot think of any way that you might conceal this ... but with just a touch of white luck, if it is noticed, it will not be inquired after. So then - it seems you have managed as well as you might under the circumstances. There is little fortification in that thought though, considering just how shit your circumstances are, yet you try to force yourself into good spirits all the same as you consider the small mountain of accessories for the dress. As you intend to make your way to the Coaching house at a two-leg canter - just shy of a proper, full-bodied run - you shan't be taking most of these. Liabilities, plain and simple. You do entertain the thought of taking the veil, but when you realize that the veil will be pushing into your face, invading the envelope of Hide-Eyes once you take to any speed, you surmise that you cannot wear that either.
After emptying out its pockets, you bundle up your apron with your dress and your chemise. In a lull, it finally occurs to you that you have yet to change out of your foot-wraps. However, when you so much as look down at your feet, your head starts to spin and your dress squeezes tight against the bruises and scrapes on your back and shoulders. Concerned, you straighten right up, recalling the stories you have heard about how well-bred women faint - you had chalked it up to them being brought up delicately, but you are beginning to think that their clothes have a lot to do with it. Regardless, you cannot faint right now, under any circumstance. The foot-wraps will just have to do; the hem should be long enough anyway, and even if it wasn't, who will be looking at your feet? Before setting out, you run everything through your head one last time. You are going to the Coaching house, to collect your stage. Once you have it in hand, you are ... well, you are going to have to go to another Coaching house ... or Maker's Mercy, another Public house - somewhere, anywhere, it just has to have a public stable and grooms, so you may board your stage. To do that, you will have to pass yourself off as just having arrived on the Mount - and in doing so, you will have to answer, wave away or otherwise preclude a heap of questions. But if you manage it, you will be one step closer to leaving the Mount. In spite of everything, you have to smile at that thought; you weren't ever entirely sure that you would get this far - after all, your father just intended for you to drop everything and leave the Mount, he never suggested that you 'move house' by taking his equipment and his notes with him. Alright then; you have the money for the boarding the stage, for paying the toll to get back through the walls and for tips - or bribes, if things sour up. You turn back to your cart, and dig out another fistful of coins. Now then, for a surety, you must be ready. You have enough money, and Pattern's Perdition, things better not sour up enough that you need the knife, but you have it if they do. You have the domestic dress to change into if you need to, but right now, the plan is as soon as you have boarded your stage and team, you are coming right back to the Closet. You aren't going to be able to get into your sleeves without either ripping the dress open or taking it off, so the Wand of Head-Knocking isn't viable so long as you are wearing your 'worn piece' ... though you suppose you might as well take it and the nodules besides, in case you do end up changing into your domestic dress, or ... well, best not dwell on any more unpleasantness than you absolutely have to. So, with your Wand now bundled up with your knife and your lucre, you quit the Closet, closing the door tightly behind you. Of the few houses that showed light earlier, none of them show any now. As the Great Firmament stretches overhead, you begin your two-leg canter through the streets.
And the streets cannot be all as empty as the ones with the Closet or the Clerking house, unfortunately. Several times you pass drawn carts and wagons, several more times you pass small parties of the comfortably situated denizens of Cleanport, well attended by their lantern bearing servants. All of them stare. Someone from one of the parties even calls out to you - the distance made it hard to make out, but the tone suggested that they were asking if you were alright. You pointedly avoid eye contact, and wave as politely and dismissively as you can - before it occurs to you that a woman of your status might not be supposed to be waving. Shit. Beyond the most basic of table manners, your grasp on etiquette is ... spotty, and almost entirely hypothetical. And of course, the level of manners and the like that is expected of someone who should be wearing a dress like this is well above and beyond anything you have any experience or knowledge of. It - it isn't the time. You pass a few more wagons and another two parties out on the street. None of them call to you, none of them approach you - but all the same, you find that your just-shy-of-running pace has become a full tilt run by the time you lay eyes on the Landward Walls. Your breathing is rasps and wheezes; you must have done up the corset wrong - it is sitting lower and tighter than it should be on your chest. Still, you keep putting one foot in front of the other as fast as you can - pointedly trying to think of nothing but running, but it seems that your aches and your fears cannot be so easily set aside. Though at least the exertion of the run prevents you from really plunging into the usual self-recriminations - the act of the run, the attention that it draws to you as a lodestone draws the filings of metal, you swear you didn't feel so naked when you were undressing in the Closet!Blessedly, the gatehouse appears before you - anymore abruptly, you'd say that it was unexpected. What is unexpected is that while it is open, you cannot see anyone standing inside, nor can you make out any lights. For a moment, you consider pushing through, or trying to sneak past - but you decide to slow yourself down. If you are seen running or sneaking - especially sneaking - then ... well, best make sure that this post isn't manned before you seriously consider anything like that. And it is a damned good thing that you didn't! As you slow down and try with only some success to catch your breath, you see slight movement and even slighter light. There must be some sort of alcove for the Guard - or would this be a Tollman? You can just make out his helmet and part of his boot, jutting out beyond the stonework. So then, unless the man is blind, then there is no possible way that you could sneak through the gate. You could allow yourself to be seen and walk on through - that is all that is required of you to leave the Mount ... unless the Guard issued you a lawful order to stop, or explain your business.
If you didn't, then you would be breaking the law in plain sight - something you have been cautioned against in the strongest possible terms by father. But if you did stop, would you be able to explain yourself satisfactorily? And what would happen if you didn't? And all of this is setting aside how a Guard - or Toll-man - is a witness magnitudes more dangerous than some chance-met merry-maker on the street. As it stands, your other option is to look for another way around - one that doesn't involve gatehouses, or at least, calling upon them in the manner that they were intended to be called upon - or ... you could use the Wand of Head-Knocking after - oh, shit! You don't have any fraying salt with you ... you blithering idiot! Yet, you have taken three mouthfuls of salt in short succession back in the Clerking house, and there must be some salt remaining on the haft of the Wand, so it is not as if you cannot cast, it just might be a bit harder - harder to do, harder on you. > Please choose ONE of the following:> Offer up a quick prayer that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot and proceed on through> Stop and look for a way to sneak past the walls without going through the gate [Requires Rolling]> Stop and use the Wand of Head-Knocking on the Guard at overcast range [Requires Rolling]> Sneak closer and use the Wand of Head-Knocking on the Guard at casting range [Requires Rolling Twice]> If you voted for employing the Wand of Head-Knocking at overcast range, please choose ONE of the following:> Perform Hammer Overcast (Base DC 10)> Perform Chained Overcasts, limit four (Base DC 4+2pC)> If you voted for employing the Wand of Head-Knocking at casting range, please choose ONE of the following:> Perform Hammer Cast (Base DC 5)> Perform Chained Casts, limit seven (Base DC 2+1pC)> Note, DC values for Head-Knocking reflect BASE values, under the circumstances (Worn down and dearth of catalyst in convenient form) DC will be higher, and higher still for Overcasting and Chained Casts (and Chained Overcasts)
For reference:> Wand of Head Knocking, 2nd Degree. Unstable. School of Kinesiology. Targets known living organisms with brains, causing the brain of the target to vibrate violently, causing concussions, disorientation, nausea, and potentially unconsciousness or even death. Can be blocked by lead. LIMITATION: The tip of the wand must be in an unobstructed line to head of the target. Range is up to six yards with casting, up to twelve with overcasting. Catalyzed with eighth-charge of salt with casting, or a fourth-charge with overcasting. Fueled with eighth-charge of an ounce-nodule with casting, or a forth of an ounce-nodule with overcasting. Some Strangeness produced on caster and on fuel source with casting, Strangeness in the Second Degree produced on both with overcasting. One-in-one-hundred chance for some Strangeness produced on target with casting, one-in-five chance for some Strangeness with overcasting. Base DC 5 for hammer cast. Base DC 10 for hammer overcast. Base DC (2+1pC) for each standard cast of a chained casting. Base DC (4+2pC) for each overcast of a chained casting. LIMITATION: Chained casts of Head Knocking, Second Degree do not have cheaper casting costs. LIMITATION: Chained casts of Head-Knocking can target up to three separate targets with seven total separate casts – any more than this requires a second action. Hammer casts and overcasts of Head Knocking has a nineteen-in-twenty chance to completely knock the target out cold for thirty seconds or so, and each chained cast or overcast of Head knocking has a thirteen-in-twenty chance to completely knock the target out cold for twenty seconds. The duration of unconsciousness stacks with subsequent successful casts of Head Knocking that also manage to fully knock out the target. Each successful cast of Head Knocking has a one-in-two-hundred-and-fifty-six chance to kill the target, determined independently from the target getting completely knocked out. For every subsequent successful cast of Head Knocking on a target that is currently concussed, the odds of outright killing the target are doubled, and then run again. Example: Chlotsuintha performs seven standard casts of Head Knocking, in a chained cast, all at one target, with no bonuses or maluses effecting her cast. She rolls seven d100 dice each with a DC of 9. She succeeds at six of them, meaning that the spell reached completion six times, and that the target has become concussed. She rolls six d100 dice with a DC of 2 to determine if any Strangeness is produced on the target. She succeeds at all of them, meaning that no Strangeness is produced on the target, though Strangeness is produced on herself and on the wand’s fuel nodule. She rolls six d20 dice with a DC of 8. She succeeds four times, meaning that the target is out cold for eighty seconds. Then the QM rolls one d256 die, one d128 die, one d64 die, one d32 die, one d16 die, one d8 die and one d4 die, all with DCs of 2. Two of the tests fail, target dies.
So sorry that this took so long everyone! > Gain one very lucky tenth-talent (auto-pass)I should also say that there is a storm warning issued again, and there have already been a few scattered outages tonight. If I do end up losing power again, I'll try to keep things running for as long as I can using my phone.
>>5969221>> Offer up a quick prayer that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot and proceed on through.Stroll on through all "verification not required."
>>5969225Stay safe, QM.
>>5968920>and even if it wasn't, who will be looking at your feet?
>>5969221> Stop and look for a way to sneak past the walls without going through the gate [Requires Rolling]
A heads up, I've just lost power. Still, so long as I have my phone we can plod along for a bit longer.
>>5969221> Offer up a quick prayer that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot and proceed on through
>>5969221>Offer up a quick prayer that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot and proceed on through
>>5969221>Offer up a quick prayer that you aren't shooting yourself in the foot and proceed on through>>5969225Trash ded?
Alive, but very much still without power. Just got my phone charged at a friend's house.Consider this vote closed, regardless.
Power is back, just waiting on internet.
Chlotsuintha will attempt to pass through the gate; she is certain the Guard will have questions for her though. How should - or should she even - deal with those?> Please choose ONE of the following:> Chlotosuintha will attempt to satifactorily answer all questions put to her [Requires Rolling]> Chlotsuintha will attempt to bribe the Guard [Requires Rolling]> Chlotsuintha will try to brush off questions and hope that the Guard doesn't issue any lawful orders.
>>5970987> Chlotosuintha will attempt to satifactorily answer all questions put to her [Requires Rolling]Acting normal gets us easy mode question, I'll bet.
>>5970987> Chlotosuintha will attempt to satifactorily answer all questions put to her [Requires Rolling]
>>5970987>Chlotsuintha will attempt to bribe the Guard [Requires Rolling]
>>5970987>> Chlotosuintha will attempt to satisfactorily answer all questions put to her [Requires Rolling]
Internet is back! I'll consider this closed. I don't think I will get the update out before I go to bed tonight, but I will try.
Your eyes are drawn upward, and you crane your neck as you scan the top of the Landward Walls. From where you stand - and you are standing stock still, completely at a loss as to when you stopped - you can see no ready way up. You wouldn't expect to though; from your vague understanding of walls and fortifications and the like, you would presume that any stair must be kept inside gatehouses or strong rooms. And of course, a wall is worthless if it can be readily scaled - were you in better shape, you might be able - but it would be far from a sure thing. As you are 'on the foot' though ... you cannot even consider an option, not unless your life depended on it. The basalt simply isn't suited for it; it is hewn in large blocks, and not particularly roughly. There aren't the holds for hand and foot that there are on the Not-Temple. The wand - no, that isn't going to work well either. You can see one Guard now - but the gatehouse looms large. Who is to say that there aren't others? Or anyone else out and about by this gate? You are in the open, the last thing you should be doing is waving wands around. So then. You will just have to walk through. As if it was the most normal thing in the world for an unchaperoned and unescorted woman to be out on the streets, wearing a dress that might cost more than that Guard takes home in a year. Against what might just be your better judgement, you resume your approach through the island of golden light splashed onto the pavers by the stocky gatehouse's similarly stocky lamps. Desperate to slake the feeling that you are in the process of tying off your own winch-halter, you start to offer up a quick prayer - but your footfalls finally reach the ear of the Guard, who stirs from his post, then peers around the buttress of the innermost gate straight at you. Your breath catches, and you start to stumble to a stop - realizing a half-heartbeat later that the last thing you should be doing at the moment is acting as if you had been caught. You force a smile onto your face and do what you can to make it look like you just missed a step. Looking to take your mark before he takes his, you are the first to speak, in the best approximation of a well-bred woman you can muster. "... Hail and well-met this evening ... Goodman Guard."
The man looks as if he has be struck with a Slaughter's sledge. You continue to approach, squeezing your bundled dress. The Guard steps out and faces you fully; as you might have expected, he is armed with an awl-pike. He has not yet barred your way, but in a few steps he could do much to keep you from passing through the gate. One step in front of the other, you approach, doing everything to make clear your intention of passing through the gate without saying that you will. For his part, the man is shooting these quick - almost furtive - glances up and down the streets, then over his shoulder. Before you can get too close though, he takes a step towards you, putting a second hand on his pike in the process before speaking. "What ... are you alright?" > Persuasion Test I - I> DC 30: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Liar, making a Simple Persuasion Test like this [Easy], so long as she is lying throughout it> + DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is doing something - which while legal - is remarkable enough to be suspicious, especially as a woman> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha matches the appearance of a wanted pirate, the description of which has been disseminated > + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha appearance can be unsettling in circumstances, given her height and size> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained III, and is not thinking as quickly as she normally does> + DC 9 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III, and is prone to making mistakes that she otherwise would not> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is holding a curious looking bundle in such a way that it might become a point of interest to the Guard> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha looks to be Gently Bred, most are more inclined to listen to her. [Doubled]> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is dressed richly enough that the Guard is treating her with deference according to the station he assumes to which she belongs> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha goes into the deception playing on the Guard's assumption of her station > DC 40. Anything lower is a failure. [Auto-pass(es) available. Re-roll(s) available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No passes: Queer Eyes. Not only do Chlotsuintha's efforts undermine her position, the Hide-Eyes Glyph begins to act up once again. [To Test I - II]> One Pass: And Scene! All Chlotsuintha manages to do is to make a scene here at the gate and undercut her own efforts. [To Test I - II]> Two Passes: An Opening Most Welcome. Chlotsuintha manages well enough - her credibility is strong and her mark is receptive. [To Test I - II]> Three Passes: Agape Gate. Chlotsuintha works her mark for all she is worth - and it pays off! The way is clear, enough so that she might wish to return through this gate. [Concludes Test I]
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then the situation at the gatehouse dangerously devolves. > If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then you learn something of great interest.> May I please have 3 rolls of 1d100? Terribly sorry this took so long to get out! Things have calmed and slowed down on my end now, so hopefully we can get back to more regular updates for the remainder of the thread. > Gained one lucky tenth talent!
Rolled 80 (1d100)>>5972487
Rolled 43 (1d100)>>5972487
Rolled 60 (1d100)>>5972483"Yes."
So boys, I'd say this is a good moment to cash in one of those auto passes.
>>5972922But anon... we already passed
>>5972925Oh sorry I got my shit mixed up, thought it was roll under lol. So as we were.
Drafting the update now. I'll aim to get it posted before dinner.
Unsure if it will be better or not for you to stop, your pace and stride falters. Still, you force your best approximation of a serene look onto your face as you now mince your way through the approach to the gate. Acting as if this is just the most natural thing imaginable, you answer firmly."Oh, for a surety. It just so happened that I was calling at the house of a friend, and I managed to lose track time."The Guard looks as if he doesn't know how to take that - and now has taken to looking you up and down, clearly in disbelief over your size. For your part, you aren't sure if you should follow up with some excuse as to why you cannot just stay the night at the friend's house that you lingered overlong at - or why you aren't being chaperoned and escorted - until it occurs to you that someone as serene and necessarily oblivious as you are presenting yourself to be wouldn't explain herself, as it wouldn't occur to the coquette-brain that she needed to explain herself in depth. As the Guard has not challenged you further - in fact, he is still diligently sizing you up - you feel confident that you have made the right decision. Only once you pass underneath the gate and get within the reach of that awl-pike does the Guard manage to find his tongue again."It ... it is awfully late for a litt - er, a young lady like yourself to be out." "Yes, of course. That's why I had to leave straight-away, before it got any later." Judging from the expressions passing over the Guards face, like a series of clouds blown over a field by a stiff gust, he clearly cannot muster an answer to that which doesn't offer insult to your intelligence. You force yourself to look away from him, through the gate and beyond it, onto the portions of Cleanport that have overtaken the Landward Walls. Plain as can be, you are done with him. But when you hear him stutter and scramble for words, you turn back to him and see that he isn't quite done with you. Finally, he manages to blurt out what is on the tip of his tongue."You could come to some harm, being out so late."Struck by an impulse, you stop and draw yourself up facing the man."I don't see how. I'm just going up the street a little ways. If it isn't safe there, then it isn't safe here either."With your vantage - and with as little distance as there now remains between you - it is plain to see that the Guard is tired. Standing around, armed and in harness has to grind one down over time. Lucky for you, this Guard seems too ground down to deal with your deliberate obtuseness. When there is no response forthcoming, you start walking again and don't look back. You can hear him shifting his stance, rusting fabric and clinking metal - and your heart starts to rise into your throat - but then there is just this defeated sounding sigh, then silence. You find yourself trembling in relief, and you do what you can to steady yourself, all the while trying to figure when you will be out of the Guard's sight.
> Athletic Test II: > DC 30: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Fleet of Foot, making a Simple Athletics Test [Running] such as this [Easy]> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Halved]> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Drained III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Halved]> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Worn I, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Doubled]> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Battered III, and is not moving as quickly as she might otherwise [Doubled]> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is wearing clothes that are not entirely suitable for an Athletics Test [Running]> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is wearing footwear that when paired with the terrain is not entirely conducive for an Athletics Test [Running]> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is commencing the Athletics Test at her initiative > - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha may set her own pace without issue, speeding up, slowing down and even stopping at her initiative > DC 29: Anything lower is a failure. [Auto-pass(es) available. Re-roll(s) available. No hostile re-roll(s)]> No Passes: Slap Dash: Chlotsuintha goes flying as she runs, and gets her 'worn piece' serious dirty - and herself hurt in the process! [Prompts Vote]> One Pass: Sloppy Form: Chlotsuintha gets rather dirty in the process, but she manages to get to the Coaching house in a suitable amount of time. > Two Passes: Fleet on the Street: Chlotsuintha manages to get to the Coaching house without delay or damage to her dress. > Three Passes: A Right Dashing Rake: Chlotsuintha makes excellent time to the Coaching house - and for her trouble, incidentally overhears something important about the condition of the Thoroughfares. > If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then in addition to getting hurt and dirty, Chlotsuintha also manages damage the hem of her 'worn piece'> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha has a moment of clarity while running, and manages to solve as question that had been bugging her> Please, may I have three rolls of 1d100?
Rolled 56 (1d100)>>5973516
Rolled 52 (1d100)>>5973516
Rolled 100 (1d100)>>5973516
>>5973544Jinkies
>>5973544
An excellent roll! I just wish the question that had been bugging her had a happier answer ... Don't worry, Chlotsuintha will also be getting a lot more information about the condition of the roads than she would have with just three standard passes. I'll get to writing!
As you pass from underneath the imposing mass of the gatehouse, still fighting that full-body urge to tremble, you become aware that you are perspiring. You are not surprised on this point; ignoring the stress of your exchange - which you feel you must, if you are to keep composure - in consideration of the mild warmth of the late Growing Season nights typical of this stretch of Outremer, taken with the heft and the breadth of all of the fabrics that you are wearing, not to mention the exertion of your two-leg canter ... if you think about it, you would be more surprised if you weren't perspiring. But therein lies the issue; you weren't thinking about it. You have absolutely no conception as to how one would go about cleaning something half as fine and an eighth as complex as your 'worn piece', and you intend to exert yourself once again, as soon as you are out of sight from the gatehouse. Really, it is an idle concern, and given the life-and-death scenario that you have locked yourself into, it cannot be gainsaid that you should have more productive employment for your head than fretting over the prospect of fraying laundry ... but it often seems that the less appropriate the time to worry about trifles like these, the more that present and the harder they insist, rushing and pressing in from the haze in the back of your mind, in the manner of an aggrieved hound, taken to nipping at a particularly juicy heel presented in a particularly hasty retreat. Were you facing it squarely, the hound would not - could not - bite the heel, and perhaps, you would be much better suited to deal with the animal ... or at least, to properly worry about them, as opposed to giving your mind over in idle fear of indelible stains and insalubrious scents. However, at this moment, you may not physically nor figuratively face your real problems, and if the cost of that is being needled by trifles that linger in their place, then it is a cost that you must pay. That doesn't mean that you cannot or do not spare a thought to the Guard behind you though. The man was so intent in his inspection of you, you find yourself wondering if he was trying to commit you to memory. That ... that is quite distant from a trifle - but it seems that you can do even less about that than you can about the condition of your dress. Or at least, insofar as making it any better for yourself. There is a very easy way of keeping things from getting worse; make sure that you don't become even more suspicious, even more remarkable by resuming your two-leg canter inside of his sight. Unfortunately, with the manner that the gatehouse is situated relative to the road that means you are going to have to maintain your airs for a fair bit longer, until you can turn down a side-street. Squeezing your bundle tight - but not too tight - you allow your eyes to wander while you keep your strides and speed well in check, approximating unimposed-upon carelessness to the best of your ability.
Deliberately, you avoid looking at your surroundings, instead settling for staring at the Great Work as it winds overhead. As miserable as this night has been - and even as miserable as this night is going to be once you get into the sewers - it certainly is beautiful. The lights wax and wane, twinkle and shimmer. The moon is full, and is throwing off a considerable amount of light as well, seemingly doing as much to illuminate the streets as the streetlamps are, now fewer and further apart outside of the wall. The buildings that frame the scene from the bottom are made of wood, as is nearly all construction in Stickport - but there are scant similarities beyond that. They are handsome, built with deliberation, diligence and purpose entirely absent in the Mount's original harbor. Not to mention craft and skill. Or materials for that matter. Even in the nicer areas, by the Upper Boardwalk, you are hard pressed to find a building without glass windows - here you are hard pressed to find one without ... though perhaps the comparison is not fair, as closed shutters may hide open frames. But there is no succor for ambiguity past the roof-line. The roofs are all held at the second story, all within a few feet of one another and all square from what you can see. The ones that don't look to be freshly shingled aren't shingled at all - they are slate instead. Likewise, the chimneys are straight and true, and dull as they may be in the heady mix of moon and lamp light, you cannot see one that doesn't have some aesthetic consideration - patterns, colors, curves and the like. The way they all starkly jut right up into the sky, an irregular fringe to the markedly less irregular frame of the roof-line ... perhaps it is silly, but it feels somehow profound, seeing the Work - from which Man ultimately sprung - so distant, being mirrored and continued through Man in such an incrementally small way, so close. Had you the time to do so, you might kneel down and pray properly - instead you must satisfy yourself with yet another quick and silent prayer. But even as you look for the words, you find yourself beset by cynicism. Is it any wonder that you are waxing so spiritually? What with your admittedly poor and presumably dwindling odds of making a clean break from the Mount? What with what will almost inevitably happen if you aren't able to make a clean break? And what with everything that you have done these past few days? You ... don't dwell - no, no damn it! For the sake of your Thread, you must dwell! You killed four men! Four men that were three. Any thought, any hope that you aren't being Tried, that you haven't been Judged in this Realm - that line of retreat, of comfort is cut. And never the twain shall meet. You ... you saw the Lodestar. In life, you saw the Lodestar. And then you immediately proceeded to desecrate the revenants of the men you just killed - and that smuggler besides!
You would like to think that you didn't do enough to impede or handicap them for their Trials in Hell, as the condition of one's remains affects the quality of one's afterlife ... but that is something you cannot know for a surety. Unfortunately enough however, there is no such ambiguity, no comforting ignorance in regards to the condition you left the Comptroller of the Refinery. You consigned his remains to flames, for no more reason that to conceal your crimes - you, damn it, you are getting sick all over again just thinking about it! Because even with your spotty and altogether limited knowledge of the Compendium, you know full well that it is written that ashes are ashes, and dust is dust - by which it is meant that neither ash, nor dust may make a revenant. And without a revenant ... when a Thread unwinds, or even is Shorn, then your Form is delivered to Hell. But if you are Unmade, you ... dissipate into the Realm of Forms as if you were a Brute, bereft of Thread or Fear. There is no afterlife, no Trials, no redemptions, no reconciliations, no reunions, no Repose - and certainly no Wisdom. You cannot imagine - at least, you cannot dare imagine - that the remains of the Comptroller were taken down to naught but ash and dust. But there is simply no way that grievous damage wasn't done, no way that his Form wasn't frayed and ruined - by your hand. To be sure, you have ... robbed graves. But you have never taken more than you needed, and father always made a point of returning whatever ... remained of the remains. And more often than not, he got them back into the grave that they were taken from, so it couldn't have been too much of an imposition. It ... damn it, you cannot do this now! However, it seems that you cannot do anything else either. As far as you can tell, you are still rather visible from the gate. You grit your teeth, set your jaw and allow yourself a little more speed - all the while diligently studying the pavers at your feet. Just keep moving; that is all you can do. All you must do. Looking to keep yourself keen, you turn yourself over to working through what you will do once you call upon the Coaching house - assuming you ever manage to get out of the sight of the fraying gate! Honestly, you are seriously considering making a break for one of the alleys between the buildings here, and just hope that the Guard at the gate isn't looking. At this point though, you will rein yourself in - as you go through the gate without seam or pull, it feels as if you would be tempting your already spotty luck were you to just make a mad dash right at the end - especially with how intently the Guard was looking at you. And to tell it true, it blessedly doesn't look as if it will be much further before the gate completely passes from sight ... though what if, once you start up your two-leg canter once more, you pass someone else - and they remark about you to the Guard? Or perhaps the Guard will inquire about you instead?
Honestly, were you not so worn, so tired, you might actually start laughing. Right towards the bitter end of an agonizing crawl towards a point where it might be safe to make some haste, you belatedly start to question if doing so is sensible or not. But just as you start to tie yourself into knots, reason finally manages to overtake you. The gate which the Guard is standing at takes traffic coming and going - and it is possible that someone you passed on the streets in the first leg of you little forced march will head to the gate you went through. So then, what does it matter if you are seen again? Doing your best to judge what can be seen from the gate based off of the bearing of the street in front of you, you figure that you have finally put it behind you - just to be sure though, you look over your shoulder to double-check. Or rather, you try to look over your shoulder. Between the injuries that you sustained in the Refinery fire and the stiffness of the corset you basically have to turn around, but regardless, you can now see that the gate and the pain in the ass Guard who watches it - and you - is now comfortably out of sight.Having done enough thinking for the rest of the night - if not the span of your days - you resume your two-leg canter. You just want to be done with this, to be away from here ... well, no, that isn't entirely true, is it? You are leaving because you were told to - not to mention with the way things worked out, if you were to remain here, you would come under suspicion for a surety. There is naught a grain of choice to be had in the matter ... but if there was, if the ground wasn't in the process of falling away underneath your feet, if there wasn't a trail that would lead the Inquisition straight to Aldoin's grave, or a likeness of a certain pirate responsible for single-handedly knocking-down a foreign ship at anchor ... if you hadn't been explicitly told to leave ... you'd stay. In a hair of moment. The Belfry - and by extension - the Midden is the best home that you have ever known, and if you are telling it true, you often feel more comfortable as Sty the Gravedigger than as Chlotsuintha the Witchlet. Aye, if you had your druthers, you'd be staying. With father, of course ... and for all it is worth, with your mother too.In spite of how poorly it went for you last time, you find yourself looking skyward once more - wondering where your parents are, what they are doing. All of a sudden you feel tears in your eyes, and remembering the tight spot you put yourself in at Hortingea's shop, you pointedly keep your arms tight against you, the left snug against your side and the right snug against your bundle. You keep your head up, hoping the wind passing you by will dry them for you, though the folly in this makes itself known quite quickly. Looking for something to take solace in, you idly reassure yourself that you must now be more than half way to the Coaching house, and you have yet to chance upon anyone else.
No sooner than you think that, there is a quick and thin shriek that shatters the rhythmic beat of your feet on the pavers, along with a flurry of activity on the roof-line of a nearby building. As you are wound tight to damned near breaking, your first thought is Mitigator and you drown in a searing, full-body panic - but once you see that it is just a sea-bird, roused from a fitful slumber you actually sob for the relief of it. Your second thought is that it must be one of the Glyphed Gulls, and much of the panic that was wiped away suffuses you once more ... until you manage to get a good look at it, and you can see that it's span is nowhere near that of a Hooked Gull - and it is behaving normally, unlike the bird you came across earlier, whose body you still have stuffed into the recesses of your poor hand-cart. The picture of health, you watch the bird take flight, then flap and wheel amongst the chimneys for a few moments, until you realize that you are standing stock still. Just as you turn your head to resume your two-legged canter, the bird comes down and lands on the open throat of another chimney. And you are transfixed to the spot as all of your hair stands on end.You couldn't figure out how your father would have gotten those Constructs into the chimneys and set them up without being made; after all, judging by the turn out at his funeral, Aldoin's house must have been filled to bursting with the bereaved. The proof was there that he had though; from what you saw, no one in the house had received enough exposure at a high enough degree to cause pain or induce illness - everyone was more or less functional at the funeral, there was nothing worse than some signs of cognitive decay in Aldoin's namesake, his grandson. It would be the Remediation-at-range that did it, that drove them out to call upon some house of healing. But beyond just being large and presumably heavy, these Constructs also moved - and weren't particularly quiet about it either. They simply couldn't be overlooked, you would have to be blind and deaf to miss them - yet somehow they were. The flower or the seed, which came first? The Constructs were what ran everyone off - and kept them away - but everyone needed to be out of the house for the Constructs to be deployed in the first place. Clearly, there was a fault in your reasoning somewhere, and you had assumed that you just underestimated your father, that he has some craft or subterfuge, some Mystery that was unknown to you that allowed him to secret two massive Constructs past at least a dozen and a half witnesses, and keep them secret long enough for them to affect them.
But there is another solution - one that is much more tidy. Father just killed everyone. He just ... he ... Maker's Mercy. And the proof - you saw the proof. You stared right at the proof, completely uncomprehending. Why didn't you see it for what it was? Why didn't you ask, why didn't you think why a house which in all other ways was kept so meticulously clean had two ashboxes filled to bursting the middle of the fraying Growing Season? That horrible, sooty ... greasy ash.Tears streaming down your face, and feeling as if you are about to start dry-heaving, you impuslively break out into a run, a full-tilt run - then you catch yourself, returning to the two-leg canter, but with a much more aggressive gait than before. All the while, your head is spinning. You must be wrong; you must. The ... ash had to have come off of the Construct. But try as you might, you cannot recall any ash anywhere but in the ashbox. There was nothing in the hearths, nothing on the body of the Construct as well - and not to mention, nothing that showed any signs of flaking off. Couldn't it just be something else? There were books missing, as well as all those empty planters in the conservatory - it could be those. Aye, for a surety - but if the ash was just books and Mysteries, that means you are back to having no explanation for the absence of the mourners. Father ... would father really do something so extreme? Would he Unmake someone, deny them an afterlife, for no more reason than to cover his tracks?No!No?The man is diligently irreligious, robs graves nearly as regularly as he digs them, and his most prized possession is a Life-Loom made from the spine of a girl who was a few years younger than you were when he and mother killed her. Yes, the girl was a Mitigator, and yes, she was trying to kill them too, but ... can you honestly say that he couldn't do something like this? You might not know the Mystery or the means that he used to do it, but he has been quite open about keeping such things from you. So then, a better question than 'could he' is 'would he'? Would he kill an entire household, then conceal all of the bodies on site - that is a brutal solution, and it becomes monstrous when the concealment is achieved through ... cremation, but if father could manage it, then it would make the near impossible task of installing the Constructs without being made into what would merely be a rather involved chore. And ... the fact that he house is in mourning, that makes this ghastly stratagem all the more effective; for if no one is out front to take visitors, then no one will call at a house that is in mourning. Nor would anyone be immediately suspicious if the house was silent, with no one coming and going either. Eventually someone would have to check - probably sooner than later, what with the mess that was made of the Morgue and the Coroners - but still, he would have the house empty for days to finish something that would take mere hours from what you saw.
As you catch yourself slipping back into a run, you are still wrestling with this when it occurs to you of all of the time that you and father have spent together burgling the burying grounds of the Mount, there are actually very few times that come to mind where you were on hand when anything was reinterned; and the reinternment was just him telling you what grave the remains of the remains came from, while he went elsewhere to work on fresher graves. The rest of the time, he would do the reinternments himself. Or at least, he said that is what he was doing. You hadn't really had much time or even the wherewithal to think about it, but if you take it as truth that the Constructs that the Inquisition recovered from that unlicensed cockpit were your father's Witchwork, and they were made from 'swag' taken off of the Mount's burying grounds, then it forces you to ask the question where exactly he got the material to make them from, if everything he brings back to the Belfry is ultimately reinterned, unless it is not in a state safe to bury. You ... you know that you are not a moral or Clean sort. But your whole life, you have been telling yourself that had things only been different, had you not been born into the Mysteries - or if you had been born comfortably before the Strangeness, you would have been. Somewhere along the way, you just ... assumed that your father was the same. But after this ... you don't see how you can do that anymore. For father - or you. Because it isn't just father who has been doing these things; you have killed people, you have cremated remains. Perhaps you have not killed as many, but you have most assuredly not killed none. And perhaps you didn't manage to Unmake that unfortunate Comptroller, but you consigned him to the flames knowing full well that could happen. His sins mirror your own.> Please choose ONE of the following:> And what are the wages of these sins? After everything you have done, you are still on the precipice. These half-measures, these fantasies of decency - they are going to get you killed, or worse, captured. Perhaps being a Witch isn't a sin, but living as one here and now is necessarily sinful. If you cannot accept that, if you cannot ... accept what you are and what you have to do to survive, then you are just wasting your time. [Survival]> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]
Well, as always, this took me longer than I thought it would. Anyway, this horrible realization is a fulcrum point for Chlotsuintha's story, and your first real opportunity to influence her fundamental character. Does she repudiate her father's - presumed - misdeeds, and try to hold herself to higher standards? Or does she start to 'grow up' and hold that the safest and easiest way forward is to be held above or at least equal with what is moral? Choosing [Survival] won't change much beyond narrative color as her outlook gets a bit bleaker, but choosing [Praxis] in addition to narrative color will confer boons (renewable, additive bonuses) when doing good and banes (renewable, additive maluses) when doing ill. I will make this clear; choosing [Praxis] will make the Quest harder - not because the boons and banes aren't balanced with one another, but because given her situation, Chlotsuintha will have a much harder time being good than being bad. I will also make this clear, choosing [Survival] or [Praxis] will not preclude any options - a [Survival] Chlotsuintha will still be able to do good, and a [Praxis] Chlotsuintha will still be able to do bad. > Gained one lucky tenth-talent
>>5975379> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]That's a shame our father is a murderer, but it doesn't mean we have to be
Errata in >>5975378: Should read " ... the spine of a girl who was a few years younger than you are now when he and mother killed her." The Mitigator was killed before Chlotsuintha was born.
>>5975379>And what are the wages of these sins? After everything you have done, you are still on the precipice. These half-measures, these fantasies of decency - they are going to get you killed, or worse, captured. Perhaps being a Witch isn't a sin, but living as one here and now is necessarily sinful. If you cannot accept that, if you cannot ... accept what you are and what you have to do to survive, then you are just wasting your time. [Survival]Kill or be killed. If we have children though, we'll do everything in our power to prevent them from having to live like us.
>>5975379>> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]This is important.
>>5975379>> And what are the wages of these sins? After everything you have done, you are still on the precipice. These half-measures, these fantasies of decency - they are going to get you killed, or worse, captured. Perhaps being a Witch isn't a sin, but living as one here and now is necessarily sinful. If you cannot accept that, if you cannot ... accept what you are and what you have to do to survive, then you are just wasting your time. [Survival]We will do good where we can, but we don't have the leisure to try and be good right now.Maybe someday.
>>5975383Will the desires and goals of Chlot differ as the result of this choice?
>>5975379> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]Well, since you posted in the /qtg/ here’s my vote.Being good isn’t always supposed to be easier and more rewarding like the stories make it out to be. Chlotsuintha is acutely aware of that after everything she’s been through recently. She might damn herself to an early death, but at least she’ll have tried to be better now rather than learn to make excuses when “necessity” for these acts eventually turns into “convenience”.
>>5975639Currently Chlotsuintha wants to get to a place of safety, to learn as much as she can from her father's notes, and continue his work Weaving high-functioning Constructs. [Praxis] doesn't preclude any of these, but as noted, it might make it harder to accomplish. As far as goals beyond that, those will be in the player's purview, assuming she manages to overcome everything on her proverbial trencher at the moment.
>>5975383>achieve nat 100>quest gets harderkekWhat constitutes a good and an ill, mechanically? If we’re going to depression spiral every time we steal an apple, we’re going to be dead before the sun rises.Also, I’m trying to wrap my mind around the logistics of this recent revelation. Like, Father had to kill the household to start his Construct, ja? Was this after the packed family funeral we participated in, or before? Is there a plan beyond Father’s ‘Slaughter Before Remediation’ strategy, or was the suspicious absence of Aldion’s household just a tradeoff, and why? What’s Father’s plan for Aldion’s estranged (unknowingly remediated) corpse? Why hasn’t he come home, to seek our help with any of this? Is… is this really him, or are we deliberately deluding ourselves on the actions of a stranger? Some clarification would be appreciated, whether it be from your perspective or Chlot’s.
>>5975768>>achieve nat 100>>quest gets harder>kekI know - but as soon as I had settled on what happened at Aldoin's house, I knew that I was going to gate a decision like this behind this realization. The real reward is the intelligence that Chlotsuintha is going to overhear as she arrives at the Coaching house in the next update.>What constitutes a good and an ill, mechanically? If we’re going to depression spiral every time we steal an apple, we’re going to be dead before the sun rises.The ill acts are lying (especially failing or breaking oaths), stealing, acts of violence upon the undeserving, and violating religious restrictions - desecrating the dead of the Faith Ascendant being chief among them, but the other big ones are misusing or possessing without cause sacred or blessed articles, venerating fonts (icons), not keeping Titheday, and apostasy and heresy - both spoken and printed. The good acts are telling the truth, charity, acts of violence upon the deserving, and doing good works - which is a bunch of different things; following religious restrictions , remaining spiritually Clean, giving succor to the deserving of the Faith Ascendant, and following righteous laws and orders. 'Boons' and 'banes' are incremental - and relative. So doing something like stealing a single apple from a wealthy landholder's orchard when hungry and without any other recourse should not be a problem, but by the same token, telling someone that it is raining when it is raining isn't going to be much help to you either. The determination is adversity - for the ill, how much adversity is Chlotsuintha causing others, and for the good, how much adversity is Chlotsuintha causing herself? Going back to the examples; if Chlotsuintha were to steal apples from someone who wasn't a wealthy landholder who had an apple orchard, then the needle would move - a very small fraction of a point. If Chlotsuintha were to steal apples from someone who for whatever reason only owned those few apples, then the needle would move - quite a bit. To clarify, most of these actions are going to nudge the 'needle' fractions of a single point of DC one way or another. At most, you would be looking at +/- 8 DC, and Chlotsuintha would need to steal a veritable mountain of apples from starving beggars to get -8 DC. Shooting someone born into the Covenant without good cause would take it straight there. Do note that tests that are primarily physical would have the DC from the 'boon' and the 'bane' halved.
To lose progress to a 'boon' or a 'bane', you would have to either wait for it to expire or engage in diametrically opposed behavior. If Chlotsuintha were to spread a lot of calumny about someone, then she couldn't undo the progress by making a donation, she would have to share an appropriately adverse truth. There is flexibility on this point; for example if she shared or called upon knowledge that it would be suspicious to have, then that could qualify as an adverse truth. Making Oaths can also help deal with progress towards 'banes' if they are suitably diametric, but each subsequent Oath is half as effective as the last, while the penalties for failure remain the same. Going back to the apples; if Chlotsuintha took progress towards a 'bane' for stealing apples, she would be able to undo it by making an Oath to plant quartets of apple seeds in areas suitable for their growth and open to all in the next few years. >Also, I’m trying to wrap my mind around the logistics of this recent revelation. As is Chlotsuintha! >Like, Father had to kill the household to start his Construct, ja? It is possible that they were utilized somehow, but you must remember that the Constructs both had massive Nine-Dozen Fuel Nodules. >Was this after the packed family funeral we participated in, or before? Considering that the house is in done up in mourning, but the household and visiting mourners are missing, Chlotsuintha can presume that whatever happened occurred after the funeral.>Is there a plan beyond Father’s ‘Slaughter Before Remediation’ strategy, or was the suspicious absence of Aldion’s household just a tradeoff, and why? If I understand what you are asking (and I am not sure I do) then the absence of Aldoin's household could just be conveniently written off as the household shut up inside the house, mourning together and not taking visitors. >What’s Father’s plan for Aldion’s estranged (unknowingly remediated) corpse? Chlotsuintha has no way of knowing.>Why hasn’t he come home, to seek our help with any of this? In the best possible interpretation, he is being cautious. Clearly there was some violence, and he is concerned that returning to the Belfry will lead hostile parties back to Chlotsuintha. In the most negative interpretation, it is because he doesn't think that Chlotsuintha is capable of helping him. Likely the answer lies in between the two.
>Is… is this really him, or are we deliberately deluding ourselves on the actions of a stranger? Chlotsuintha doesn't know if he was responsible for the deaths of Aldoin's household or not. Moreover, without the means to check or search for the household elsewhere, she can likewise only suspect that Aldoin's household was cremated. But with theabsence of the entire household, with everything shut up in the middle or mourning, paired with the suspicious sooty ash in the ashboxes of the chimneys she is ready to believe the worst. Furthermore, the Constructs in the chimneys have Glyphed scrap-wood blocks embedded into it; Chlotsuintha recognizes these blocks as her father's Witchwork, so she assumes that he was responsible for the rest of the Construct as well - including its placement in the house. That is opportunity. As noted, getting the Construct in place without getting made would be impossible with a bunch of potential witnesses running around - but it would only be a tedious chore (with the assistance of the Many Mysteries) if the house was empty. Additionally, there is the lingering question about how much the members of Aldoin's household knew about his activities. That is motive. The means are shaky; Chlotsuintha is aware that her father knows a lot more than she does - whether that includes something that can take out an entire house, she can only guess.Could it be a who-body? Someone from the hostile party? Yes. That certainly is possible. More than a full day passed between the conclusion of the funeral procession and Chlotsuintha slipping through the broken casement window. A lot could have happened in that ensuing time - father might not have been the only one to call upon the house. And someone out there is willing to play fast and loose with Mysterious incendiaries. It is just the time and the effort that it must have taken to get the Constructs into the chimneys - which almost certainly was done by her father - makes her very suspicious of her father under the circumstances. Confusing the issue further is her own feelings of guilt, which she may be projecting ...
>>5975379> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]Damn son, are we the baddies? We know for a fact that we are being personally observed by the Almighty, so might as well start behaving accordingly.
>>5975379>> Just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. And you now see how it is a Trial that you have been failing. But failing is not failed. So long as you are alive, turnabout and reversal are only impossible if you refuse to try for them. So then, believe that you can be better than your father, then set out and actually be better than him. [Praxis]chlot is, well, somewhat of a fool, or at least an inexperienced child in over her head...but she tries, at least, that's always been her main character trait.
>>5975379>And what are the wages of these sins? After everything you have done, you are still on the precipice. These half-measures, these fantasies of decency - they are going to get you killed, or worse, captured. Perhaps being a Witch isn't a sin, but living as one here and now is necessarily sinful. If you cannot accept that, if you cannot ... accept what you are and what you have to do to survive, then you are just wasting your time. [Survival]I don't want Chlot to get tortured to death because she tried to be nice to people who wants to hurt her.
>violating religious restrictions - desecrating the dead of the Faith Ascendant being chief among them, but the other big ones are misusing or possessing without cause sacred or blessed articles, venerating fonts (icons), not keeping Titheday, and apostasy and heresy - both spoken and printedOh boy, we get mechanically tied into their religion too
Alright, that is a solid 5-3 split for [Praxis]. I'll get to writing as soon as I can.
>>5975865Many thoughts there- you clearly put some thought in the morality system, and I’m curious enough to indulge in it, but I’m hesitant to heap more problems on Chlot’s shoulders. I’m struggling with rationalizing us adding to our problems, to little benefit mechanically or narratively.Like, religious restrictions- our existence as a witchlet is a affront to our Faith right? Isn’t that just a natural malus as our baseline? Are ill acts naturally ill upon the act, or only when directed against the faithful? Isn’t our research materials/notes considered apostasy/heretical by their nature? Oaths are permanently diminished returns, regardless of if the Oath is completed, right?It feels like we’re going to be operating at cross purposes with our faith, like the incentive is to ignore uncovering the Many Mysteries and just turn ourselves in to a nunnery. Maybe I’m just overthinking it.>If I understand what you are asking (and I am not sure I do) then the absence of Aldoin's household could just be conveniently written off as the household shut up inside the house, mourning together and not taking visitors. I was referring to after that cat is outta the bag- an entire household disappearing into thin air will cause a stir, rendering all of Father’s efforts moot anyway. So, what’s the play from Chlot’s perspective? Ngl, the urge to go back to Aldion’s house is strong, since it’ll take another day or two for someone to check on the house, and we can comb over it more thoroughly since there are clearly more suspicious articles there that need to be dealt with.>Chlotsuintha has no way of knowing.Chlot knows Father- I’m asking for an inkling, since Chlot knows her father better than I do. Like, if he’s actively hiding evidence, he must have a plan for Aldion himself, right?>The means are shaky; Chlotsuintha is aware that her father knows a lot more than she does - whether that includes something that can take out an entire house, she can only guess.The Siege-Wand only proves that we’re only scratching the surface here- I’m more focused on the logistics of making 2(+?) multi-story remediation abominations and keeping them alive long enough to not die without Chlot knowing about it, given that he would need a Life-Loom for such complex Constructs. Gotta be another Life-Loom involved. Also, why invite these foreign witchlets into his house? Gotta be something juice involved there.>Could it be a who-body? Someone from the hostile party?I’m thinking more about the mysterious university student that caused the Inquisition to leadfire a city block. Granted, it could be Father’s alter-ego at play here.>Confusing the issue further is her own feelings of guilt, which she may be projecting ...I like that last bit you added there :^)>>5976230And spent too much time writing my post :P
>>5975379>And what are the wages of these sins? After everything you have done, you are still on the precipice. These half-measures, these fantasies of decency - they are going to get you killed, or worse, captured. Perhaps being a Witch isn't a sin, but living as one here and now is necessarily sinful. If you cannot accept that, if you cannot ... accept what you are and what you have to do to survive, then you are just wasting your time. [Survival]
>>5976268>Like, religious restrictions- our existence as a witchlet is a affront to our Faith right? Isn’t that just a natural malus as our baseline? I assume that our moral code is following Chlotsuintha's interpretation of the faith. Which if I recall rejects the idea that being a witch is fundamentally immoral.
>>5976320That’s literally heresy lad
We'll never make it out alive because anons are choose to be moralfags
>>5976386At least the extra anxiety will motivate Chlotsuintha to try even harder!Maybe.If it doesn’t cripple her even further thanks to random panic attacks or something. Those don’t help much.
You alright Trash? You’ve been quiet for a while.
If I am being honest, I am a little under the weather - I've been chipping away at the update, but it seems whenever I start to make progress something else comes up. I'd imagine that I would have the post up sometime tomorrow. Sorry for the lapse and thanks for sticking around. > Gained one very lucky tenth talent
>>5977962At this rate we might Talent our way through everything
Well, if shit REALLY goes to hell in a hand basket, we do have a Harry Potter-esque luck potion we can break out.
It doesn't look like I am going to get the update out before I go to bed tonight either - I'm really sorry about that. I will get it up as soon as I can manage, I promise.
>>5978854Sleep is good for you. No worries.
Your mind races far afield of your feet, but both are stopped dead in their tracks once you catch sight of the Coaching house you bought the stage from. Well aware that your must be conspicuously wet - and without any way of drying them yourself without breaking the Glamour of the Hide-Eyes Glyph, you find yourself with no other recourse but to linger a moment on the street, for the sake of your countenance - and your composure. All the same, you take a few furtive glances around - a proposition made more difficult than it should by the constraint of your possibly-improperly tied corset - just to make sure that no one is to see the spectacle you have made of yourself; flushed, breathing heavy and damp in the eyes. You are anxious - about discovery, yes, but more so about setting yourself square and plumb on this ... most horrible business. Part of you - the greater, larger part - wants this put from your mind; on this night, which is to be the fulcrum for the remaining span of your days, dwelling on what may have happened at Aldoin's house - and what did happen in the Midden and the Refinery - seems to be nothing more than making a rod for your back at the most inopportune of times. But the other part of you - the lesser but better part - needs to about face and deal with this presently, knowing that if you can find it in yourself to put off this reckoning now you will be able to put it off always. It is assuredly making a rod for your back; a rod you are most deserving of. Ignorant as you may be, you know full well that as you cannot set yourself apart from the Pattern, you cannot outrun Trials - you can only fail them. Or succeed them, you suppose ... though at the moment, that notion seems as distant as Wisdom. First, and surmounting all, is that nothing that happened at Aldoin's house before you arrived can - or should, for that matter - be taken as a surety. It could be that your ... own misdeeds are coloring your estimation of what may of happened there - and there are other possible explanations for the absence of the household and the presence of the ash. To be sure, the terrible neatness of just ... Mitigating all witnesses into ash certainly suggests itself, at least when held against the notion that the entire household took itself off of the premises without anyone raising the hue and cry about how suspicious the whole thing is. Yet ultimately, you don't know definitively what happened - and are not in any position to find out. You are not even sure how you would go about doing that ... perhaps trying to ... sift through the ash, looking for anything ... left behind? Gristly and disgusting work - if those ashes were remains. And if this is in fact your father's doing, then you doubt that there would be anything in the ashbox in any state to suggest that it was once a Mortal Coil. These are fig leaves though; while you don't know what father may or may not have done, you are well aware of what you have.
That is the issue at hand. You. His sins may mirror yours, but you will only bear your own in Hell. Now it may be that just as the Mysteries have been made a Trial by the Strangeness, living as a Witch has been made a Trial by the world at large. A Trial that you have been failing by all indications. But still, can it be gainsaid that failing is not failed? That is all the solid ground you have to seize upon, but for a surety, it must be enough; after all, turnabout and reversal can only ever be impossible if you don't try for them. By deducing what you father ... may have done, you have been given a gift, a great boon. This ... shock to the senses is a chance to right yourself before you stray so far from the straight and narrow that you don't care to return to it. You have to hope that if you believe you can be better than father, then actually be better than him, you cannot yet be considered lost. Still ... even if you pointedly overlook the question if the Mysteries are inherently sinful and Unclean or not, it is a patent and plain fact that being born into the Mysteries makes one choose between what is proper and what is expedient for survival. And once you are out on the open road - assuming you manage to win your way off of the Mount - you are really going to be tested, as you aren't going to have crowds or alleys to hide in, nor a Midden or a Belfry to retreat to. You can only hope that you don't forget yourself, or otherwise forget what is at stake. Inevitability there will be ... trespasses. You don't see how it could be otherwise. But so long as you recognize them as such, and amend them as best and as soon as you are able ... you have to hope that will be enough, for it seems that will be the best you can do. With your heart feeling suitably set and your eyes feeling suitably dry, you resume your approach to the Coaching house in a gait much more measured and appropriate than your flight from the gatehouse - only to stop once more as soon as you come upon the Coaching house's yard. Parked out front of the establishment, right by the door - and unmistakably distant and different from the carriages and conveyances belonging to the house - is a homely looking buggy, drawn by an equally homely looking horse. Awash in the warm glow of lights from the entrance of the yard and by the door, you can see that there is a crudely sketched catch-pole on the door of the buggy in red paint; the sigil of the regional branch of the Thief-Taker's Guild. There is a driver perched on the bench, slouching. He gives no indication that he saw you; without even thinking, you find yourself back-peddling until you are out of sight of the yard once more. Nasturtium, the master of the house mentioned something about calling the Takers ... but it never occurred to you that you might run into them here, damn it all. It might be that your newfound resolution against sinful and otherwise contrary conduct is going to be tested straight away ...
> Please choose ONE of the following:> Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the front door of the establishment.> Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the door that Nasturtium took you out of to show you his stock. You will not try to hide yourself from the buggy.> Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the door that Nasturtium took you out of to show you his stock. You will try to hide from the buggy.> Write-ins are allowed with QM approval.
>>5980264I have a question for other anons, because I'm not sure how to vote here. I can see the obvious downsides of being seen by a thief-taker while matching the description of an unusual female pirate, but I don't see the downside of approaching a different door to the building. What could go wrong if we do that Chlotsuitha-bros?
>>5980264> Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the front door of the establishment.Best not to act suspicious.
>>5980264>Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the door that Nasturtium took you out of to show you his stock. You will try to hide from the buggy.
>>5980393She might find the door to be locked, or she might make a scene presenting herself at the house, at this hour, at a private door ...
>>5980264>> Enter the yard proper, and attempt to present yourself at the front door of the establishment.I think there's sufficient distance between the kinds of people Thieves are imagined to be and the kind of person Chlot is presenting herself as, for at least some safety.
Alright, consider this closed. I'll get one update out, then I will archive the thread.
Actually, I'm going to play it safe. I've already updated the archive.>> https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=eternal+rome
>>5980569Ohhh, that makes sense. I know the vote is closed, I support >>5980426
Certainly, there is a lot to recommend not being seen by someone sworn to the Thief-Taker's Guild, even if that man just happens to be a manservant or knave. Though you may find yourself harvesting naught but chaff here; for if there is a buggy parked immediately without the Coaching house, then it is well within reason that a Taker has called upon this establishment - to that point, you vaguely remember that right as you were quitting this place, the master of the house sent a boy off to inquire about hiring some members of the Guild to protect his coaches. It could be that no matter what you do, your presence here will be made know to the Taker ... and if that is the case, then you can see little sense in making any more of a scene here than necessary by calling at a private door at this hour. Someone might get the wrong idea - or worse, someone might get the right idea! And of course, foot-padding your way over there wouldn't be worth the risk of being discovered and made more suspect than you already are, as all things considered, the bench of the buggy is a rather commanding vantage point, even if the driver is distracted and facing away. No, if you are going to get through this, you will have to play it as you did at the gatehouse - utterly unabashed at your presence. Mustering up that serene look for your face that served you so well with the Guard at the gate, you blink your eyes a few times, making sure they feel dry. To tell it true though, you feel a mess. You are flushed and warm from the exertion of coming here, and you wonder if your stomach and nerves are ever going to settle - with the aches and pains besides, not to mention the perspiration ... no, it cannot be helped. You set your back as straight as you can, wincing as you squeeze and pry open some of your cuts and gouges you took in the Refinery. Once you are certain that it has not affected your face, you break cover, forcing yourself to make slow, deliberate strides towards the front door of the Coaching house. Your riding habit rustles like a stiff breeze through a pile of leaves, and before long the driver hears your approach. As he lays eyes on you, your step hitches and your heart skips a beat - or three - but you draw your face up tight as serene as you can make it and press on. The driver shifts on the bench to get a better look at you, and as you draw closer still, you call out to him on an impulse, with the words that worked so well with the Guard."Hail and well-met this evening."
There is no response forthcoming, though you weren't exactly expecting one. This man is much more composed than the Guard was - it is plain to see that he was not expecting a late night arrival such as yourself, but he has not gone agape at the sight of you, nor is he raking you up and down with his eyes as the Guard did. His attention seems to be singularly directed on your bundle; it make sense, as it is incongruous with the rest of your appearance ... though considering what you have secreted inside of it, you are all the more concerned - if such a thing was even possible. Even so, you manage to make it across the yard, around the team and buggy and to the stairs without being asked to stop and explain yourself - or having your heart give out - and there is a tenuous burst of relief in your breast as you take all of the steps at once, seize upon the handle of the front door - only to find it locked. Belatedly, you now notice just how few of the windows of the house show any light at all. > Please choose ONE of the following:> There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.> There may be a knocker on the door, but for a surety, using it would make too much noise for the hour. Under the circumstances, you should try the private door.
>>5981055>> There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.
>>5981055>There may be a knocker on the door, but for a surety, using it would make too much noise for the hour. Under the circumstances, you should try the private door.
>>5981055>> There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.Also if possible let’s rub our belly
>>5981055> There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.
>>5981055>There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.
>>5981055> There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.Gotta play the part.
Oh, if anyone is still in the thread, I forgot - as I did last time - to ask about what book the passage should be taken from.> Please choose ONE of the following:> The Endowed Farm> The Canon of Medicine> The Ways and Means> Imperatives and Rights> The Feats of Tools> Waste Not, Want Not> On Design> The Grown Pharmacopœia> The Garden of the Suppressed> The Estrangement of the Great Gloom> Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics> Compendium [Reformed Priests]
>>5981337>> The Endowed Farm
>>5981337> Imperatives and Rights
>>5981337>> Imperatives and RightsSeems aesthetically fitting to lead in to Chlot's continued adventures in impersonation
>>5981055>There is a knocker on the door - and more than that, you are expected. It shouldn't make too much of a scene if you were to use it ... gently, on account of the hour.>>5981337>The Feats of Tools
>>5981337> The Garden of the Suppressed
>>5981337> The Ways and Means
Alright, consider this closed for Imperatives and Rights. I'll be looking for all of you in Thread XV tomorrow!
