Full Immersion [for what it's worth]

How about everyone's favorite assassin Blue Mage and our resident Elven alien. They kill things.

This makes sense to me, too, actually. So..

We rejoin Auleoris and Anansi, approaching what looks to be a large opening in a hillside. "So..does the game have quests?" asks the winged girl.
"I..am not sure what you mean by the word."
"Like, you know, in a lot of Earth games at least, you'll walk up to some NPC and they'll tell you to go do something and when you go and do it and come back, they give you stuff."
"Oh. This has that sort of task. But..they are not predetermined by the game, but created by the player."

"How's that work?"
"Well, aahh.." The space alien pauses to think a few seconds. "The world of game has pre-determined things in it, any of which could be turned into such a task. For example: Perhaps a despot's grand building has a pest problem, of which all complain. A player can easily learn of this problem in the nearby civilization, and come to the castle prepared to eliminate the pests. And the player might come to the despot, or a secretary, and offer to exterminate the pests. But the kind of reward obtained may depend on the way the offer is given."
"You mean..like, someone with enough charisma might be able to convince the king that the pests are magic spies from an enemy kingdom or something, right?"
He nods. "Yes. Convincing this may cause political complicated with the other country, but the reward obtained at the end would be very better than the reward normally offered. But in fact, it is possible for a player to create such a pest problem, or even fabricate it entirely with words and trickery, and still create the quest to delete it."

They arrive at the mouth of the cave. There are a couple of guards in light armor, holding spears, standing on either side of the entrance. They, and the less-armored man between them, all have the ears and tail of a wolf.

The man in the middle gives a friendly wave and says, "Hello, visitors, and welcome to Laerta. Names and purpose, please?"

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SpoilerUpdate #50! Woo!
(there used to be a picture of fireworks here but the link died)

> "Our names are Magetha and Kristophen. We come as representatives of the nation of -" *looks around* "- Shrub Brickwall"

"We are Magetha and Kristophen. We come in search of a criminal. Real doushemonkey. We're gonna kill 'im."

>Your purposes are to 1) Not die in the wilderness, and 2) Hug as many people as it is socially acceptable to. Hugs are nice, as is not dying in the wilderness.

› Just give your real names for goodness's sake.

"Aah, I am Anansi, and my companion--"
"Mageth--err, Aureolis."
"Anansi and Magether Aureolis?" repeats the guard.
"No no, just..just Aureolis. We're..trying not to die in the wilderness."
"What?" he says, confused.
"My friend means we are looking for a place to stay for a night or two. The area is not familiar to us."
"Certainly," responds the man, nodding and writing some notes down on a scroll. "Please, enjoy your stay."

They walk inside. The caves inside are far from dark, lit by a silvery light from spherical lanterns somehow stuck to the ceiling. Some of it seems like a natural cave, but much is regularly cut to make more room, vertically or horizontally, for them to pass.

After a bit, the elf says, "Why did you speak so strangely?"
"The input or whatever was saying a bunch of weird stuff and I got confused. Sorry."
"Oh, that is fine. The influence they have is stronger than mere words, even to knowing of them. I am glad you have not lost mental stability."
"I can't say for sure that I haven't, really." The elf pauses in walking, looking at her with what might be concern, or possibly curiousity. "It's just..this whole..intergalactic-society-testing-us thing, it's still kind of a huge shock. I feel like I've been way too calm about it so far..so, maybe I'm just saving it up for a gigantic nervous breakdown later, when I don't have something more important to do."
"Well. Beings react in a large variety of ways to shock. Perhaps a sufficiently large shock forces calm as no normal response appears valid?"
"Mmh. Maybe."

Before long they find themselves in a larger cavern, more brightly lit, with buildings that seem to have sprouted out from the rock strewn about the street. It seems like just one of many parts of a busy, bustling city; this area, as it's near one of the entrances, has quite a few shops and what appears to be an information center near the middle. Everyone who acts like a local also seems to be a wolf-person, like the guards and the man outside.

"What would you to do first?" asks Anansi, interrupting the winged girl's looking around at the rather unusual sight.

>

Ask if he knows what the asshole we're trying to kill looks like.

> Seek out a shop, in order to buy supplies which may aid you in your task. A magic shop would be particularly advantageous.

Go and ask the info center person if there's anything to do here for young, budding, adventurers like yourself and your friend.

"Ahm..I guess a supply shop, or a magic shop or something..but I don't know where those are, so, probably the information center there?" she says, pointing
"Certainly."

The green-skinned elf leads the way through the crowds, the winged girl following carefully. Well..I know what she looks like, mostly, if you want to know. I mean, it was in another of those pod things, but I could tell she had a gray skin somehow..and really long, pitch black hair, and I think there was something..orange near her forehead, but I'm not really sure what it was. Too much hair in the way. But I'd recognize the face if I saw it, for sure. She pauses a moment, brushing a bit of hair out of her face. Then again, I have white hair here, so..she might look different in the game? I dunno.

They get inside, and find a room with several counters and several brochures and maps, a couple of which are posted up on the walls. They seem to be maps of the cave city, rather than of the whole world. Most of the counters have someone in front of them, asking this question or not, so the pair go to the one that isn't busy. The woman at the counter--another wolf-person, naturally--has a rather weary look about her, leaning her head on a hand attached to an elbow that's on the desk.

"Welcome to Laerta information center, blah blah, what can I do for ya?" she says in near-monotone, sounding about as bored as she looks.
"Ahm, we're trying to find where some kinds of shops might be around town, or anything to do..?" Aulerois trails off as the woman starts pulling papers out from under her side of the counter and pushing them at the pair.
"Here's a map, an event calendar, a coupon book and a.." She pauses, holding up a piece of white paper folded up into a tiny square. "..Uh, whatever this is. I don't know how it got here but I don't wanna deal with it." Then she hands it over without another thought. "Have a good day and please don't hold up the line so everyone else's day can be good too."

Anansi starts unfolding the square of paper on their way out; the winged girl takes a look at the map, having stuffed everything else in the nebulous inventory system. I don't see a magic shop..they have an enchanted items shop and a "magesmith", whatever that means. Besides that, there's a blacksmith, five or six what look like clothes places, a trader whatever that is, and like thirty different restaurants and a couple of places specialized as food supply for travelers, not all in this part of the cave though, and my sense of direction isn't so great...

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SpoilerTo be perfectly clear, I don't require or forbid the text color/font thing, but remember only a few characters are even aware the input exists, and even awareness of it (by being told by someone else) doesn't let them 'hear' it to the extent Auleoris can when she focuses. I don't really have any plans to have characters react differently to fonts, colors, images or weird text, because I've been down that road before with another adventure and it kinda crashed and burned partially because I focused too much on that and too little on the actual story, and as a result so did the readers, and..ugh.

Side note/reminder I forgot earlier: Auleoris and Anansi are technically their character names, real names unknown/perhaps unpronouncable in Anansi's case. "Auleoris" itself is a composite of various names suggested for her early on.

I'll be taking over this investigation thank you. Fine. It was getting boring any way. Draw her face. If her facial structure hasn't changed that much you might be able to make wanted posters or at least ask if anyone recognizes her. Also check out the enchanted items shop and a magesmith for trinkets and gear.

> Visit the Magesmith.

>Magesmith sounds like a place you make spells at. Unfortunately such a place would not be very handy for either of you two. Still, I could be wrong, so you should check it out if you want. I'd suggest the enchanted item shop, that seems like a place the two of you you would get a lot out of.

The enchanted items shop sounds good.

> White Paper: Be a potential quest! That is.. well... leery and seems to have an innuendo or two in it.

She looks at the map, picking out the location of the enchanted items shop. I could try drawing her face, but, well..I'm more of a talker and writer than I am an artist. What I'm trying to say is...I once had trouble drawing a stick figure running, and I haven't gotten much better since then.
Anansi looks at the paper, finally unfolded, for a good several seconds. Then he says, "I think I know what is, but perhaps you would understand more naturally."
It is a handwritten note in ink pen, and says:

Elona-
I'm sorry for this rather cowardly manner of saying this, but as I'm sure you know I'm not very good at talking to people. I'm really sorry I couldn't make an exception in this case. I just wanted to know if you'd like to go out for dinner sometime next week?
-Jacob

"Well, you're not wrong," she mutters. "No direct innuendo, but maybe a bit leery..I'd need to know more of the context to know for sure."

"What do you mean?" says Anansi.
"Oh, sorry. I was..well anyway, what do you think it is?"
"It appears to be a proposal for a staging of the beginning of the..ahm..relationship, of the kind that..my people do not have words for this concept, I apologize."
"Yeah, that's what I think too. Someone's trying to ask that clerk out on a date."
He looks rather confused. "A..fruit?"
She shakes her head a bit, suppressing a giggle. "No, what translated was a homonym for a word that your people don't have. Sort of a..meeting to..what you said, I guess. It implies she's acquainted with him, at least."
"What would be socially acceptable in situation? Should we return the note, or..?"
"I dunno. She said she didn't want to deal with it." By now they are in front of the enchanted item shop, and so stuffs the paper in her inventory. "I'll think on what to do..let's go on in for now."

The shop is full of shelf after shelf, as well as a few locked display cases and a couple of racks on the walls for bigger items. There are countless seemingly miscellaneous objects all over the place, many of which have no immediately clear purpose, but just as many of which look like useful things that have perhaps been made better at their original purpose..or perhaps given a very different one.

The shop's owner, a blond-haired man, doesn't appear to be a wolf-person at first, but he has sharp teeth and on closer inspection (i.e., when it swishes up above the counter for a second) a tail. Turns out he's just missing the ears. He begins moving his hands rapidly as the two enter. And a male voice, seemingly from the air near him, says, "Welcome, visitors! Impressive to see one of your kind down here, miss."
"Uh..what do you mean?"
He looks down at a piece of paper on the counter for a couple of seconds, and looks up, signing again. "Oh! Nothing bad. It's just a lot of winged folks seem real anxious anywhere they can't literally fly out of."
"Well, that's silly. I don't expect to run into any trouble, and I'd just run away like everyone else if I needed to get away."
He looks down, reading again, and then looks back up again, nodding.

"Right. Anyway," he signs/apparently says in the air, "the shop's divided roughly into three sections: Practical easy enchantments, which are quite affordable, more difficult enchantments, which will run you a bit of cash, and the third section has enchantments that are really complicated and hard to pull off, or just plain too esoteric to get most people to do. Those are for..extremely discerning customers, I would say."

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SpoilerOkay, if you ever read Eclipse City by Zerogamer (which is highly recommended though not updated recently) I want to try roughly the same thing with looking for enchanted items here. Suggest they "look for" an item with an enchantment you'd like to see, and I'll decide whether/where they find it.

I'm not sure at this point whether I should say something coy or just keep totally quiet about the other player. I must tell myself "shh, they'll see a bit later!"

>Look for something that will either help you survive a bigger hit or boost your spell casting abilities. If you can survive stronger hits you can copy them and have access to stronger spells as well as more survivability, and a boost to your casting abilities just straight up powers up your spells.

>Try talking with the man about the current state of affairs for both the local area and the shop. Also ask him if you can have a hug. Hugs are still nice.

Honestly, I think having a higher defense would be more beneficial for a mimic mage than anything else, assuming there's a sort of balance between stats. More defense means she can survive bigger hits and copy them, whereas a power boost just gives her stronger copied abilities. Best case would be to have both if they don't conflict, or to swap them out between defense when training and power when attacking.

Look for a Badger Launcher.
AKA a bag that shoots badgers when you open it.

> Look for an item with an enchantment designed for drilling through any material as quickly as possible.

We must continue the investigation! Ask if the green fellow is a better artist and knows what she looks like.

A Ring or Amulet of Prestidigitation.

You can use it to clean things! Very very important for the adventurer on the go. (Not to mention you won't need toilet paper.)

Also, flavor things.

All in all, a very handy minor magical item.

I don't think it's smart to ask him about out-of-setting things in front of a shopkeeper..I'll see if our alien friend can draw what she looks like once we leave, okay?

Auleoris begins by looking around the shelves of objects, and quickly realizes none of them are labeled. "Um..why aren't these labeled with their effects or something?"
After reading whatever's on the counter, the man responds, "Well..it just turned out to be too much of a logistical issue. We buy from lots of different people and couldn't get them to label their things, we don't have enough workers to label our current inventory in any reasonable amount of time..." He pauses, placing his hands down on the table for a second or two, and then picks them up and starts again. "Sorry, hands getting tired."
"Well, that's fine I guess, as long as you can tell us what something is..or where to find something if it's here."
"Oh, certainly! Instead of labeling there's an enchantment on the building that I can use to store and retrieve the information on the enchanted items."

"Okay, cool. Do you..have anything that resists magic slightly?"
"How do you mean? You want something to deflect projectile magic or such?"
"Not quite..See, I can learn spells by being hit with them, but it'd be nice if they didn't always have to hit quite so hard..and I'd still learn the full-power version."
"Ah, that is impressive! But let me see..third shelf that way," he says, pointing, "there is a bead necklace with a black magatama charm. It actually stores about a fifteenth of the energy from spells that hit you, and the energy lost doesn't make it to you. It turns more white the more energy it has, and the best part is that you can release the stored energy into yourself by...putting the charm into your mouth for a couple of seconds."

She goes and finds the necklace in question, then picks it up and takes it to the counter, putting it down. "This is priced at..a hundred coins. Pretty good, really, a lot of magic dampening things are either much more expensive or quite fragile because they try to resist incoming magic using outgoing magic, but this isn't either of those because it uses a more clever method."
The winged woman nods. "I'm gonna look around some more, but I want to keep this in mind, all right?"
"Certainly."

Next, she looks around for anything drill-like. "So..we're not really from around here. What's the news lately?"
"...There isn't much news. Things have been pretty peaceful around here for a while. It was a good twenty generations back our people decided to stop being recluses and open up peacefully to the outside world. And when a king over in that city-state to the east declared us to be in his dominion, our leader went and arranged a nice deal with him. Their army protects us and they generally advertise our town to travelers coming into the kingdom as a good place to see..and in return we just pay a few taxes. Some folks complain about the taxes, but for what they pay for..they're not too bad."

He takes a break for a few seconds, probably resting his hands again. Auleoris picks up a couple of knives and, at last, a hand-cranked drill. "I guess we ought to consider ourselves lucky, that city-state had a usurping lately. Kind of an odd peaceful one...but anyway, the new management approves of the old agreement and only contacted our leaders to make sure they were still fine with it as it is, since it hadn't been altered for a while. And they were, far as I know."
"Can you tell me what these are?"
"Hm.." He points to a big, sharp-looking knife, which looks like a cooking sort of knife. "This knife only cuts food and not flesh...or rather, it's a sharp knife that behaves like a very dull knife if it is applied to a living creature. Great for cooking purposes. Just twenty two coins."
Next he points to the other knife, a nasty-looking stabbing dagger. "That's a trick dagger. It acts normally unless it was just thrown into the air, in which case it behaves like it's made of cloth for the purposes of hitting things..I mean, it still has the normal weight while moving through the air, but on landing it is like cloth. Good for practicing juggling and other such circus tricks. Fifteen coin. And this.."
He picks up the drill. "This drill has a couple of enchantments. First, it's made of steel, but it's enchanted to behave like a much harder material toward things you drill with it; second, if you crank it backwards like so.." He turns the crank the opposite direction, and the drill's bit doesn't seem to move. Then he taps three times rapidly on the back end, and drill moves rapidly as many revolutions as the backwards cranking. "It stores up drilling, in a way. I think the idea was to have a lightweight, easy-to-make enchantment for escape artists. The hardness enchantment still took a bit of work, so this thing is thirty five."

"Thanks." Aureolis nods and pushes the three items off to the same side of the counter as the necklace. "It's a bit strange, but you wouldn't happen to have a badger launcher, would you?"
"A..what?"
"I mean like a bag that..shoots..you know what, this is stupid, never mind. Do you have any..rings of prestidigitation?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Like..a thing that can clean things, and flavor things..uhm..and make it slightly cooler or hotter in a small area."
He looks thoughtful for a few seconds. "We don't have anything like that. Sounds too complex to have all those functions, and none of them seem particularly useful. I imagine something like that would only come from an apprentice just learning to stack enchantments on a single item."

"Yeah..that makes sense." She looks around. "Hey, Anansi, you still here?"
"Yes." The green-skinned elf comes around from behind one of the shelves, carrying what looks like a clear marble. "Does this produce a light?"
The man behind the counter nods. "Good eye, sir. You shake it around and let go, and it'll float around your head glowing for up to three hours, bright enough to see a couple feet ahead. You just grab it again to shut it off, and it regains power from sunlight. It's only twelve coins, too!"
He nods, placing on the counter on the opposite side from Auleoris' pile. "I believe we have between us one hundred forty seven coin. I would very like to have this light producer."

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SpoilerOverall, my general idea for how enchantments and magic ought to work tends to insist that the more badly the normal scientifically-known laws of nature (at least as much as I know of them) are bent/broken, both in terms of magnitude and number of ways, the higher the cost. Lots of magic systems don't work that way, of course, D&D and Harry Potter included.

>The magatama necklece sounds like a good find. Ask if they have anything that's handy for either utility or combat for 35 coins or less. Or you could ask for what's handy for utility or combat in general. There might be something good besides the magatama necklece.

> Take the drill, the Magatama and the Light. It adds up to exactly the 147 coins you have. The drill is the most important though. That drill is awesome.

Keep in mind you can come back once you have more cash. Also, you probably want to save at least some for other things.

I must agree. Finish your purchases and then begin production of wanted posters.

Aureolis pulls Anansi away from the counter and around behind one of the shelves to talk. "So..most of that is money you made, isn't it? From before the rest of us were in the game?"
"Yes," he says, "Though an amount was earned by the unliving ones we defeated escaping the deadland."
"And..you wouldn't mind if I went and spent all of it to get the best items we've found here? Including the light?"
"I do not at all. We do not have much, so it will only a little to regain as much and use it for other things."
"You think we can make up enough from inside this city in time to get an inn or supper or whatever?"
He thinks for a second or two. "Most likely, yes."

Then they return the counter. The winged woman takes the drill, the light and the necklace and brings them to the middle of the counter. "Okay, so we want these..um..I'm not exactly sure where the knives go.."
The man takes the knives and puts them under the counter. "Do not worry," he sigspeaks, "I can take care of that."
The green elf takes a bag of coins from..well, somewhere anyway, and places it on the counter, opening it up. "I think should be sufficient."
The man takes the bag, puts it somewhere under the counter and pauses a moment before pulling out one of the coins and examining it closely. After a few more seconds, he says, "All good. Thanks!"

Anansi takes the light-marble; Auleoris puts on the necklace and puts the drill away in her inventory. Then they walk outside.

"Okay, so the..input people keep talking about ways to find the person we're supposed to be getting out of the game. Like..drawing a picture of her and showing it to people to see if they recognize her."
"This seems a sensible way to locate a person," says Anansi, nodding.
"Maybe, but would she even look the same in the game?"
"Close enough, I suspect. The reason I look nothing like I normally would is exceptional case."
"Okay, but I can't draw."
"I may be able to help, but I have no materials to do so at the moment."
"Cool. We can figure it out later. Now..what should we do about Elora's note?" Her tone of voice sounds rhetorical, more a cue to herself to start thinking about it than much else.

>

Go back and ask her what her intention was with handing you the note because unless she wants you to talk to the guy for her, the polite thing to do would probably be just to throw the note away.

After a bit of a pause, the winged girl says, "Yeah...I think we should just go tell her about it. I know she said she didn't care, but it's what I'd want in this situation, at least."
"But..could you see yourself in this situation so easily?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, would you give an unknown note to unknown people you see while working?"
"Probably not, but I can imagine someone else getting a note for me by accident. I also can't tell for sure whether she's really tired or always like that.."

They start on their way back to the information center. At the lip of a particular hallway out of the cavern they have to stop. A rather large crowd of wolf-people and a few others (so, mostly locals) are flooding out of the relatively small opening, all looking rather panicked. A man in armor with a spear, like the entrance guards, is yelling at them to stay calm to little avail, a shorter woman standing next to him and just waving and gesturing.

Of course Aureolis is curious. "Um...what's going on?"
"A giant snake just showed up outta nowhere over there," she says. "Cap says it knocked over most a' our guards in that area with th'element of surprise, but some crazy orc grabbed one a' their spears and's tryin' ta distract it!"
"How is that functioning?" asks Anansi.
"Hard ta say. Not much communication from 'round there, last I heard she took one a' our helmets, which's where the comm enchantment is, and listens but refuses ta talk. But it ain't come up this tunnel, so she's probably still alive yet."

>

> Accept the quest.

>See if you can get the Alien dude to give you another spell before you charge in, like maybe a heal spell actually.

>Also see if you can get a helmet before you dive in, communication is good. (Miscommunication kills)

Lets see if the Alien!Elf would be willing to just cast scaled down spells that we haven't learned yet whenever he can at us.

He's the Niche, from what I gather, his skills change randomly. I bet if we asked him now, he would be unable to use electrical magic for example.

Auleoris takes a moment to look Anansi in the eyes. After a few seconds, he nods.

Turning back to the guard-woman, she says, "Ahm..there's not some other way to get to where the snake is, is there?"
"There's some old maintenance tunnels. Real thin-like, no good for proper mobilization."
"But two people would fit, right?"
"Probably..what, are you thinkin' of goin' in by yourselves? I'll remind ya that thing knocked out some highly-trained guardsmen, miss."
"Well, they weren't expecting it. Anyway, I'm feeling a little crazy right now. But maybe I could borrow one of your helmets and then not refuse to tell you what's going on over there."

She thinks for a moment, and then says, "..Okay, if ya really know what you're doin'. I'll tell Cap about it on the way. You got this?" The last question is addressed to her taller colleague, who nods with a rather strained smile. "Okay, you two. Follow me." With that, the three of them head off along the chamber's wall.

On the way to this town--I guess when you weren't watching?--he hit me with a wind, fire and then a healing spell. I only had enough skill points to actually learn the wind and healing ones, though.

---

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[<|<|]

We rejoin the samurai and the mathematician. Jeannette, in front, holds up the necklace, watching for it to glow. Louis holds up the rear, watching for threats and being generally quite bored.

Eventually, of course, he starts trying to make conversation. "Hey, you got any tattoos?"
"Non. I am still too young for such, at least as my parents are concerned."
"Me neither. I just don't feel no need to be in that much pain just to have some image stuck on my skin forever 'till I die."
"True enough, I suppose. But to some the pain is trivial, having endured worse..and some are wise enough to know when a particular symbol will continue to be meaningful, or at least have reason to hope that it will. What brought this on?"
"I dunno. I'm just tryin' to think of somethin' to say. I get bored real easy, and anyway I'm used to runnin' my mouth a lot. It's what makes my show entertainin'; see, it's kinda boring just watchin' someone else play a game, but if you feel like you're in the room with 'em, especially if they seem like they're fun to be around, well, that's different."
"I suppose."
"I don't work alone all that often, either. You know, it's always nice to have a conversation partner. Makes it a lot less awkward. Sometimes when I'm playin' a game by myself I feel like I'm just talkin' into the air. Wonder if it's what some folks feel like when they pray."

"Hm..we have something." Archimedia points to the necklace, which now has a faint glow to it.
"So it glows for somethin'."

She walks in a careful circle, watching the glow increase and then grow fainter, and eventually picks out where it's the brightest and starts in that direction.
"Careful."
"I do not need you to tell me that, Louis."

The glow increases slowly as they walk for a minute or so, before the cat-man suddenly jumps.
Jeannette turns around. "What?"
"Just heard someone yell. Straight that way." He points about where the necklace has been leading them.
"Did they say something?"
"Sounded like pain to me." Without any further prompting, Louis books it in the direction of the scream, requiring Jeannette to start running behind him. She puts on the necklace to free up her arms; it continues to glow brighter.

Another scream is audible to both of them as they get closer. It sounds like a younger male voice. It sounds weak. Then they reach the edge of a small clearing.
Louis stops in his tracks, Jeannette nearly running into him. "Holy s***," he whispers.

A gigantic, pitch-black bear stands over a male human, roughly a third of its height, in badly torn-up light armor, holding the shreds of leather shield in front of him. There is a short sword buried in a tree on the side of the clearing opposite the pair looking in. Another man, with perhaps the ears of a cat, wearing some kind of robes and a stole whose symbol is not quite readable through all the blood, appears to be missing his right arm. He holds his left arm over the stump and is muttering something; his hand is glowing slightly with a white light.

>

Ooh. This is getting good. Telebackstab!

> Aggro the bear while your mage and the other party's magic user cast their spells. Stay moving, and when the opportunity presents itself put a portal in the bear's path. If you can hit it while it's distracted try and get a hit to the heart in. I don't know how that meshes with game mechanics, but hopefully it will be a death blow. A bear's heart is located at about an eighth of the body length behind or below the front legs and slightly lower than the center of it's body mass when viewed from the side. If you hit it just right you might also take out a lung.

Sec0nded.

Someone: Receive cool hat of +1 bear phisiology!

The big bear growls. Jeannette says, "That looks..very bad, Louis. We should probably come up with some sort of plan before we--"
"Goin' in." He cuts a hole in the ground underneath him, falling through and out behind the bear, stabbing straight into the bear's back. The blade goes about halfway in; the creature roars in pain and rage, turning halfway around to try and see what just hit it, but the sword and its wielder move with it.

"Whooaa!" He keeps a hold on the hilt, swinging like a pendulum.
Jeannette shakes her head, frowning. "S***." Then she runs around the last couple of trees in the way and stabs the nearest of the bear's legs with the compass, keeping the stab relatively shallow and pulling it out immediately. She ducks back as the bear swipes at her.

Louis' feet scrabble against the bear's back for a bit before getting a firm hold and pushing against it to get his sword out, backflipping onto the ground and popping back to a stand.

The light-armored warrior staggers over to his sword and starts trying to pull it out of the trunk. The man in the robe takes his good hand off of the stump, which has stopped bleeding, and slowly, shaking, picks himself up..still muttering something. "Light of the dawn...morning sun.."

The bear turns fully around and swipes at Louis, who quickly hops back, just out of reach of the swipe. So it kicks him while he's in the process of stopping his hop, and catches him, the impact throwing him into a tree. He lands fairly hard on his back, but manages to get back up fairly quickly. "Oww, f***."
Archimedia comes around next to him. "Idiot, idiot."

>

> Be the portal cut master.

Unit Circle I guess.

> Calculator chick, use Unit Circle. Samurai Chell, create a very light slash on a weak point of the bear - too light to hurt - but open a small portal with it. Then back off and shove your blade through that portal deep into the bear.

The bear is still moving toward them. Louis cuts a hole above him and moves to one side, placing the other side of the rip under where the bear's foot is about to be. The foot sinks partially through and the bear staggers briefly before regaining its balance and pulling the leg back out.

Jeannette moves close to the bear while it stumbles, and attempts to use the skill she learned earlier. This seems to involve holding the protractor edge out and moving in a rapid counterclockwise circle. A small circle of light appears along the path of the farthest edge of the weapon, followed by a spike pushing out from the circle at the beginning and end of it, and each fourth of the way--0, 90, 180, 270 degrees. Where she uses this has a small part of the circle cut through and the spike at 90 degrees from the start point stab into the bear's side. The giant animal roars and swipes at Jeannette, who steps backwards and keeps doing so, dodging a follow-up kick but nearly falling backwards into a tree.

Louis moves close behind the bear and tries to cut a hole in space right at its back, only large enough for the blade of his sword, about where he thinks its heart might be, its mate up a nearby tree, and backflips and quickly climbs said tree before stabbing as hard as he can into the portal there. The bear starts trying to pull away from the sword. Louis loses his grip on it against the larger strength, but the portal isn't large enough for the hilt, so there it stops. He quickly recovers his grip while the bear pulls itself off of the blade on the other end, producing another bloody hole in its back.

Meanwhile, the warrior finally gets his own sword out of the trunk, and staggers over to the priest, helping him to stand without leaning against the tree. "Oh Solaris," says the robed man weakly, "mother and provider of all..let not these strangers..fall in my place.."

>

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SpoilerIt would be so much easier to draw what Unit Circle looks like than it is to describe. If I could draw, I mean. This is the best I can do for a diagram:

> Louis has learned how to Portal Stab! Portal Stab ruthlessly.
> Try not to Portal Cut your sword in the process.

Now you're thinking with Portals Louis. Keep stabbing.

YES! STABDEATHMURDERKILL!
Math girl: Math traps go!

The bear charges a few steps toward where the sword had been in its back before pausing, confused; no one is there. Jeannette makes a mental note of how long the circle of light and spikes lasts. It's long enough to..
"Louis!" she yells, "you can do that from up that tree, non? Lead it into my circles."
"Okay!" The long-haired cat-man slashes a small hole in the air in front of him, linking it to a spot between the bear and Archimedia, quickly stabs and pulls back, not burying the blade as deep as last time. The bear turns in the direction of the stab while Jeannette spins, producing a circle of light, and then quickly ducks aside. The bear runs toward the circle, and slams straight into a spike at the 0-degree mark, its own momentum stabbing it deep.

The giant bear steps back, breathing heavily and exhaling in enraged growls. Meanwhile, the priest uses his good hand and some more prayer to tend to the warrior's more serious and debilitating wounds as best he can.

>

See if we can open a portal inside the bear. Stab it's heart and lungs.

Better idea: Stab it in the brain. Preferably with a portal right in the frontal lobe. Because there is no way no how that the brain has any defense at all. Worst case we can stab it in it's weak sensory organs: the eyes, ears and nose. Or maybe even just stab it's throat's insides to fill it with blood until it can no longer breath. So many options that result in instant death or debilitation, so little time.

Surely a Dimensional Samurai could cut off limbs using portals themselves? Open two portals, lead the bear into stepping through one, then close them both.

And could Unit Circle be made to have its spikes suddenly and violently turn inward when a hostile enters it? Would be more effective that way.

If these are possible, perhaps have the severing of the limb cause the bear to stumble into a Circle, and then finish it if necessary. Either way, it shouldn't be moving afterwards.

Louis has an idea, and quickly tries it. He swipes his sword at the air, trying to place the other portal in--and his sword strikes something with a dull sound, bouncing back, as if it were a normal sword hitting something solid, and way too hard for it to cut.

"The h***?" He tries again, with the same result.
"What are you doing?!"

The bear gathers its energy and turns, slowly toward the priest and the warrior.

"I'm trying to make a portal inside the bear. It's not working!"
"Of course it isn't working idiot, if you could do that you could just simply--S***! MOVE!"

The bear charges toward the pair, and the warrior pushes the priest aside and holds out his sword. Jeannette moves to get in the way, but can't run as fast as the bear. Louis cuts a portal below him and drops through, landing next to the warrior and holding his own sword out, all before realizing he could have just sent his sword without himself.

The bear stops rather suddenly with a very concerning snap from both of its legs as inertia pushes its body into leaning forward partway, and then it slowly leans back to an upright position. On closer inspection, as Jeannette makes it to the other two, the bear's legs have some impossibly strong vines with a slight greenish glow wrapped around them, completely covering halfway up and a bit of the vines going a bit farther.

Louis pauses to look at the warrior. "Uh, hey, did you do that?"
He shakes his head no.
"Well I didn't do that and she didn't do that--"
"S***, never mind who did it, just take advantage of it already."
"Oh, right!" Louis opens up a portal underneath the bear's left foot, and moves away as it slips through. The bear tries to pull its leg back out of the portal, and Louis tries to 'will' the portal close; both are unsuccessful (the former due to the magical vines still holding the leg down), at least until the usual time is up and the portal shuts and drops a very bloody chunk of bear leg on the ground; the cat-man naturally backs away from that.

The vines seem to turn into bits of grass and blow away, and the bear leans down on the stump of its leg, roaring and drawing its left arm back for a big swipe. Then an arrow stabs it in the eye, and it has to use the arm to reflexively grab at that instead. The bear gives a somewhat weaker roar of pain and starts sweeping its other arm around randomly, not really hitting much of anything since the three people who were in range before have now moved over next to the priest lying on the ground, well out of it.

The warrior helps the priest up, and he mutters something like "Praise Solaris." Louis cuts a portal underneath him and above the bear and falls down through, landing sword-first in the bear's skull, feet on the arm holding its eye in pain, and then pushes himself and the sword back out again before backflipping away. The bear slumps to the ground and stops moving with anything resembling intention, instead just twitching a little bit.

>

EAT THE MEAT!

Seconded.

Cut off it's head and skin it's hide. It'll be proof that you did your quest, a bitchin trophy, and a warning to further bears when mounted on a pike. If it worked for Vlad the Impaler it'll work for us. Also you might be able to sell it for money, or possibly even make cool things out of it. Oh yeah, you should probably also talk to the people that almost died, possibly ask why they were almost dying and see if they need an escort somewhere.

Looking at the dead bear makes Louis feel rather abruptly sick for no reason he can immediately think of, so he turns toward the pair of strangers that he jumped at the bear to help out in the first place. "Uh, hey, are you guys okay? The h*** happened, anyway?"
The priest, who on closer inspection looks to be about middle-aged or so, says, "My escort is all right, should heal up in a day or so. I'm.." He takes a look at his right stump. "Well, I'll survive, at any rate."

Jeannette is busy looking around, and pointedly not at any of the dead animal parts. "Where did the vines and arrow come from?"
"That'd be me." The elf woman who "greeted" Louis and Archimedia earlier drops out of the trees, landing neatly next to the priest. To the pair of travelers she gives a small grin and says, "Sorry..I think you had it handled, but I couldn't risk a priest of Solaris getting hurt...well, getting hurt worse."
"Ah.." The priest gets a relieved smile, "you'll be from Haestros, then?"
The elf nods. "I must echo his..somewhat crude sentiment. How did you end up beset by a giant bear, good sir?" She addresses the question to the warrior, who turns to the priest.

"Ah, you'll have to forgive him, he's taken a vow of silence until we reach Laerta...as for the bear, it came out of nowhere and bit my arm off. We were supposed to stop by your town for tonight."
"Well, that can still be arranged." She starts in what is probably the direction of the town; the priest and warrior follow. Jeannette nods at Louis and they follow as well.
Jeannette takes off the necklace, and notices that it has only a very faint glow now. So...it only detects live bears.. She puts it back on. Just in case.

"Why are you headed to Laerta, anyway?"
"I must meet with a priest of La Lune."
"But..They have a major temple down there, it's hardly neutral ground."
"Yes, but it's a major commercial center. It'd look awful bad for them to attack a poor old man around there. Anyway, I've got to meet with them. Something very major has happened in the cosmos, and we must discuss what to do about it."

>

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SpoilerExpecting conversation suggestions. If that's okay?

Ask if it is possibly the death of the chaos god.

"Did the god of chaos die?" asks Louis.
The priest pauses, glancing back at him briefly. "..Yes, actually. How did you hear of it?"
"I have no idea. It just..came out."
"Well, that is the nature of it, I suppose.

"At any rate, Liremskra indeed imploded recently. At least two priests of chaos have agreed on it, which confirms it as certain."
"If I may..why is this important, if you do not worship them?" asks Jeannette.
"Ah, well..if our texts are to be believed, the universe abhors a vacuum of power. Nobody goes around trying to kill deities lightly, because the end result is not pleasant. Whenever a god dies..even a god supposedly promoting chaos..they say things tend to go bad. Monsters getting more frequent and worse, people going mad for no apparent reason. And it's even worse that it is Liremskra this time, for..well. A replacement must be found, of course."
"And in order to replace a god, one must have much of the nature of that god," says the elf. "Which means.."
The priest nods, sadly. "It means we must strive to leave priests of chaos free to act, or risk making this disaster last longer than it already shall. And it's already begun, if my right arm's any indication."

>

Would someone who destabilizes the universe make a good chaos god? Or perhaps someone who has completely random magicks?

The worldbrink mage shall be our disciple of chaos. All bow before Him, avatar of a broken reality.

"Soo, like, does a person have to be a priest of a dead god to replace 'em?" asks Louis.
The priest says, "No, one needs only have the same nature as the dead god--more specifically, one's nature must align very closely with the aspect the god represents. But..our more ancient records indicate the last few replacements were all priests of the god they replaced, so it is most likely."

"How do you mean, 'have the same nature'?" says Jeannette. "Would a person with..very chaotic powers, but not necessarily a priest, be sufficient?"
"Hmm..perhaps. But one's nature is much more than the power one wields; the way one uses their power is more important. Say..a mage with magic somehow faulty, it often has random, unexpected effects. If that mage is a very logical, orderly person, they could never become a scion of chaos. But if someone with the same kind of powers were..more than a little bit unhinged, prone to contradictory actions and the like, that would be a much more likely candidate. I suppose that..say..a person with 'orderly' powers and that personality would be a much more likely scion than a person with chaotic powers and a normal personality."

He stops talking, apparently to catch his breath. The elf leading the group says, "You know, I'm surprised you two didn't ask how I showed up so fast."
"Well, duh, it's 'cause you followed us," says Louis.
"..You're smarter than you look."
"Nah, I ain't that smart. It's just f***in' obvious. You couldn't say 'I don't trust you' any louder with a megaphone."
"With a what?"
"Aah, it's this..cone thing," he says, drawing the shape of a cone with his hands, "you yell in one end and it comes out louder at the other."

"Suppose someone had powers the use of which made one less sane?" says Jeannette, as the priest seems to have regained his breath.
"In that case..I suppose it would depend on how careful one is with using those powers."

As the town comes into view, it becomes clear that the sun is setting. The denser forest only showed a few bits of sunlight, but here the orange in the sky is much more clearly visible.
The elf says, "There is room in the chief's house for two guests, not four. But in view of your help with this, I can put you two up in the boarding house."
The warrior points to a couple of his worse wounds.
"Ah, don't worry. Chief's our best healer here. Knows his way around herbs and salves. He taught me what I know, but I'd rather you get help from the master."
The priest nods. "I am honored. Thank you."

---

"I am Magether, an incredibly humble clergy-man, and this is my friend Neyla. We're tired of sleeping out in the wild with the increasingly crazy animals." A satyr and an orc stand before an entrance to Laerta. The welcoming woman writes down their stated names and then moves out of the way. Jacob leads.

A short while into the cave, Neyla says, "Is changing your name another act as a chaotic priest?"
"Hee hee, yes. You keep picking this up, girl, you're going to have a hard time dropping things soon. Oh, speaking of things!" He reaches into his shirt and hands her a pebble. "This is my favorite pebble. Well, at the moment at any rate. Later I'm going to absolutely hate it. But I want you to have it now, while it's still my favorite."
Neyla nods and pockets the pebble.

>

Look around. Whats going on.

The orc woman looks around as they continue to walk, the tunnel growing wider and making its way into a larger sort of chamber. She observes that roughly half of the people walking through this tunnel seem to be wolf-people like the guards outside, and the occasional guard inside; the rest are a seemingly random assortment of other races. She observes that there are pointed-ear humans, cat-people, another orc or satyr now and then, and some of what look to be normal humans.

The larger chamber seems to have a proper road going through it, and buildings apparently carved out of the cave itself all around. A very large, temple-looking building is on the far end of this particular road, its highest spire apparently joined the cave's ceiling at the top.

"Ahh, that. Hoo hoo, that is the great temple of La Lune. Or 't least, the greatest one around here. Their traditions dictate that anyone standing in their temple must be able to see the moon at night, so they put a good couple of years into drilling a hole in the mountain just for that. And they call my religion crazy, hee!"

>

n*= + >, n ϵ ℕ
The satyr abruptly stops about halfway to the temple. "So, anything you want to do in this town? I have a lot of money, and I might not feel like spending it on you later.."

>

Oh, sorry, forgot to post here.

>Try to hug as many people as socially acceptable. Also get some equipment, that'll probably be important.

> Buy the best magical sword you can, and some mustard to smear it in.

Neyla pauses to think a few seconds, and then signs, "I would like a magic sword, and some mustard."
"Mustard?" repeats Magether, smiling.
"At least enough to coat the blade. Maybe some other equipment as well."
"You're just trying to make something you really want strange enough for me to help you, aren't you?"
She shakes her head. "No. I have a very important plan that requires a magic sword coated in mustard." Neyla is a fairly good actress, and manages to appear completely serious about this. Being an orc helps.
"Heheheh, if you say so. Well, they have a magesmith in town." He starts walking. " Why buy someone else's idea of magic sword when you can have one custom made, eh?"
Neyla follows, and they walk in silence along the chamber's roads for a bit.

Then Jacob says, "You know, some people think disciples of chaos can't have plans. They're stupid. The idea is to create as much chaos as possible, and acting at random typically keeps things as orderly as ever. If you say you just mess up everyone else's plans, that's stupid too. You can't break a big machine effectively without either a whole lot of luck, or a very good idea of how it works and what parts will make other parts break, and ultimately a plan of how to do all that breaking. And if it's luck that'll break up a good idea, it's just as likely someone orderly will get unlucky as it is someone chaotic gets lucky."

After that, he takes out a piece of paper and starts writing on it. "Say, what kind of sword you want anyway? Long, short, broad, broken, bent, impractically large?"

>

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SpoilerJacob wouldn't like The Dark Knight.

> A set of two rapiers bolted together with a single hilt.

The six part sword from Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.

It's epic and ridiculous.

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Spoiler

>YYou are an Orc! Get some heavy weapons in this show!

>Check your proficiency with weapons first.

Neyla pauses to think before answering, and then brings up the screen and, in it, the skill tree. There are a few more skill points available, enough to gain one of the two actually buyable skills, but for the moment she re-rolls the third skill (the electric-leaves symbol). The die settles on 3 and the skill's picture is replaced with that of a spear.

She dismisses the screen with a shrug and then responds, "The last one, I think. And something that can be broken into two swords sometimes, if possible."
"How do you mean?"
"Say..a two-edged blade, which is also two separate one-edged blades held together by some slots and pegs, maybe magnets to help. Can magic make something magnetic?"
"Probably, couldn't hurt to ask." He resumes writing, and after a little more walking they enter what looks like an ordinary blacksmith's shop.

"Hello there, I'd like to order a sword made," says the priest, placing the piece of paper on a nearby counter. The man working the forge looks over. "All this, and whatever other enchantments she wants. Money's no problem."
A woman comes out from behind the forge to the counter and picks up the paper, looking at it for a few seconds, then looking up and regarding the two of them. "Int'resting gift," she says, "what else you want, eh?"

>

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SpoilerI combined suggestions into a "two-swords-held-together"/"heavy blade"/"separate-swords-that-can-join-together".

>End result: Two medium-large blades that can join together to make a huge blade.

Dual wielding switch to two handing!

Also make it shoot lasers and cheese.

> Graviton thrusters.

Also lets make it cut holes into and out of hammerspace.

I like it! Full of surprises.

Also it should create exactly three point seven five potatoes at some point each hour and randomly plop them somewhere in the surrounding area.

I had an idea about passing her off as the envoy of an isolated tribe of orcs who bake very large loafs of bread, and that her sword was a very large utensil for cutting the bread and slathering condiments on said very large bread, and was to give it to the ruler of the area for some reason or another. Then I forgot half the things that made it funny, plausible, chaotic, and interesting. But if I were to give this sword an enchantment I would suggest the ability to perfectly toast bread.

Yes, throw in the bread toasting.

Aaand also lets throw in "Occasionally causes wounds to sprout flailing tentacles."

I like the bread toasting. Just don't forget graviton thrusters.

Lets combine everything and throw in more random nonsense. It looked like we were given pretty much free reign with enchantments.

Nother random thing:

Cats nearby will flock to the wielder when the sword is drawn and stand at a distance of twelve feet from the wielder until the sword is put away.

Neyla pauses for a moment to think, then signs, "I am not very familiar with what is a practical enchantment. Could you make a sword periodically spawn potatoes?"
"Uh.." the woman looks briefly confused, then thoughtful, then says, "magic can make things like potatoes..very bland and tough ones, mind..but it's impossible to fit that much magic into an object; that kind of energy would need to come out of the person wielding it."
"I will think about that, then. Could it fire a.." remembering the setting, Neyla tries to translate the idea of 'laser' to something that will make sense, "say, a very concentrated, small beam of light now and then?"
The woman nods, having apparently steeled herself against confusion. "That shouldn't be too hard, I could easily make it do that with the energy of a few strikes."

"I would like to also toast bread."
"Oh..kaay..."
"I mean, when the sword's blade comes into contact with bread, it should heat up enough to make good toast, but not so much as to burn it."
"Oh! That's easy enough, I suppose."

"Good..is there any way that you can make the swords attract cats while being wielded?"
"Um..I suppose it could produce a catnip scent or something."
"Could you make it so only cats can smell it?"
"Hm...maybe, but I think it likely cat-folk would smell it as well."

Neyla nods. "All right, I think I know what enchantments I actually want, then.."

>

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SpoilerI know I know, E=MC^2 suggests it should be significantly easier to create mass than energy, but in a matter like that magic has a tendency to follow with what you intuitively "think" makes sense rather than what's scientifically true.

>Make a bread toasting sword that also shoots lasers. It is the perfect sword.

Catnip also.

> Don't forget the graviton thrusters!

So that in two hand mode the down swings will be ludicrous!

"..Definitely shoot light, toast bread, and attract cats, and..maybe something that makes it heavier when it's being swung downward."
"Hmm.." The magesmith takes another look at the paper Jacob handed her and then at him. When he gives a small nod she says, "I think I know how I can do that."

She writes her own notes at the bottom of the paper, then puts it face-down on the counter and says, "I think I can put this together in about an hour. For something as major as this, we'll want at least half of the price up front."
"Sure, sure." He takes out a couple of medium-large coins marked with a circle-with-a-line-through-it symbol and places them on the counter. They have some kind of lettering scribbled around the rim but no numbers visible on this side, but are apparently of a rather high denomination since woman looks rather surprised to see them. "That should do it, hmm?" he says with a wide grin.
"Ah..y-yes. Certainly." She nods.
"Now we just need to get the mustard." With that, he walks out of the shop, the orc following him.

A short ways down the street, Magether says, "Now, I just have to think of what sort of place would have as much mustard as we'll need..they don't exactly make it around here, so maybe one of the more major restaurants..? Or..hmm..."

>

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SpoilerJust to be clear: I know it should actually take much longer, but this is in-setting nonrealism. For the sake of player convenience, they programmed in that crafting items takes far less time than it would in the real world. An hour is really a very long time for crafting an item in this game's terms.

> What about a bakery? I think they carry mustard on-hand, right?

> Go to the Bakery.

> Buy all the sweet things.

"Do you know any bakeries in town?"
"I believe I do know a few..."
"They should have mustard. And, we could buy sweet things."
The satyr nods. "Certainly, certainly..there are more boring ways to spend an hour..come on, then."

---

"Right. Well."

Jarod has found himself in the last couple of minutes or so very much rushed into a rather fancy-looking carriage. Another of the noblewoman's bodyguards is manning the horses out front, while he and Miss Rigsby herself sit next to each other in the seats.
"Now that we're on our way, we have some time to properly introduce. My name is Jennifer Rigsby." She offers her hand, which is somewhat hard to catch for a shake in the close, moving quarters.
"Uh..J-jarod. Just..Jarod."
"Pleasure to really meet you, then." She somehow manages a very firm, proper single-shake, and then regards him with a very interested smile, an odd mixture of the pleasant side of curiosity, pleasant politeness and what might be actual friendliness.

"Do you have any questions?"
"Well, uh..first of all, where you found me, what was it..was there, some kind of, crater there?"
"What, you mean a big hole in the ground like when the gods drop things to earth from above? I should say not. It was perfectly ordinary save for a man lying on the ground unconscious."

This gives him a small amount of concern. That doesn't make any sense. Last time there was.. But he shakes his head slightly, deciding to move on to other, more immediately relevant queries.

>

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SpoilerI had it in my head that we'd stick with those two until Giant Snake Attack Time, but I tripped myself up trying to be the least bit realistic about enchanting the sword because there are Reasons I want that sword done before it happens, and now there's not much for those two to do. Thankfully, I have somewhere else to cut to for now.

Ask what all this business with the skin color is about. Also ask about this queen and what relation she is to her. (No necessarily familial.)

After some thought, the wolf-man says, "Ah, well..why do you think I'll be so interesting to the queen? I mean.."
"I cannot say for sure what she wants with gray-skinned people, but the sort of questions I've heard her asking imply she is looking for people from wherever it is she originally came from. And that is, of course, the rumor that has circulated. But it is certain that she will be at least interested, and that is quite enough for me."

She pauses a moment, before saying, "You don't have to worry too much, I think. Even when she doesn't find whatever she's looking for, which is usually, she still tends to treat the person in question rather well. This could be quite beneficial to you, I mean."

"I see..um, wh-what is your relationship to the queen? I mean, that you're.."
"I am the leading member of one of the long-standing noble houses of the kingdom. Since for whatever reason the prior king whom I served handed the crown to her, I am bound to serve her the same I would an actual member of an old house.

"But that's just..stately jargon, to be honest. More plainly, as a member of a long-standing noble house, I have a mutually beneficial political relationship with the queen. My support helps keep the crown on her head legitimate in the eyes of the law and people, and her patronage, as usual, keeps my house and its friends more prosperous than we would do otherwise."

"But you don't..know her very well or anything?"
"We have met a few times, but she isn't much for social calls, I would say. Always busy running or improving the kingdom, which I think has been a pretty good job so far. Really, I think she's better friends with that necromancer out west than any member of the noble houses, and it's probably better that way. Royals have got in trouble from being too good of friends with one house or another in the past, you see."

>

"Necromancer?"

Is the necromancer evil or anything?

> What about the dead god?

"Uh..who's this n-necromancer?"
"A woman who took up residence in the cursed lands to the west a couple of decades ago. Nobody really knows what she looks like, or even what race she is..save, perhaps, the queen herself. The old king had promised to drive her out, but never found enough troops to do it; the queen decided on a more diplomatic approach. It actually seems as if they've struck a true alliance. The lands are considered hers now, and it is illegal to trespass upon them."

"So..is this necromancer evil? Or just..um, just a necromancer?"
"As far as I know, she's never done anything specifically evil, if one does not count simply being a necromancer. To many, especially certain groups of priests, a necromancer's art defiles the sacred corpse, and some even think that moving the body around by magic means binding the soul to one's service as well. The queen, along with most more scientific minds, argues that if any of the owners of those corpses cannot have their presence in whatever afterlife protected by their chosen god from the powers of a simple necromancer, then there are much worse things to worry about."

"Speaking of gods..uh..did one..die recently?"
She gives him a long, searching look. "How do you know that?"
"W-well, I d-don't, it's just...f-from somewhere I don't know where I had some kind of feeling, like, I should ask something about a dead god..uh.."
"Oh, it probably doesn't matter too much if you know. Just don't spread it around too much, we don't need panic on top of the disaster already coming. For whatever reason, some priests of chaos were attracted to the queen shortly after she began her reign, and she maintains contact with a few of them. Evidently more than one has told her that Liremskra imploded recently, and that it will probably cause a lot of problems until a replacement can be found. She is looking for ways to alleviate the chaos, but has not done anything yet, and doesn't want anyone announcing what is happening."

>

Uh... imploded? Is that a problem for most gods?

> Talk about Malrificus the Ablefeasanted, lord of Jelliado. Tell her about your adventures with him on the Mustard Plains.

"Why did, uh, Lir-uhm,"
"Liremskra?"
"Yes. Is there s-some reason he specifically imploded? I mean, is that usually how gods, um..?"
"Well, it is simply the word that priests of chaos used, so everyone else uses it, too. The important part is still that the god died, but that is apparently meant as some form of insight into precisely how. Something about noticing a logical contradiction of her own existence, I think. Some legends suggest that gods have been killed by other gods, or even mortals, in the distant past..perhaps before they knew they could actually die, or what the consequences would be."

After a fairly long pause, Jarod says, "Have you ever heard of a Malrificus the Ablefeasanted?"
"I.." Jennifer seems to geniunely think about it for a bit before shaking her head. "No, I can certainly say I have not."
"I thought I remembered something about him, and some mustard plains. M-maybe, some kind of coma dream when I was out or something."

>

(Please enter ==> or somesuch if you just want them to get there already)