File: Trust me. Wink.png (300 KB, 1494x976)

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" Oh yeah. This is totally fool-proof. Trust me. We're going to be rich - honestly, you should be paying me for a chance to get in on this "

" Mh-hm. I find I prefer my contracts specified in advance and money flowing only one way "

" Where's your sense of adventure, commander? "

" Dead in a ditch with the 68th Light. You want adventurers, you hire Reikans. You wanted professionals, so, here we are. Are these things safe to handle "

" Well I have been very impressed by your people so far, so I think my clients money was very well spent "

" I can't help but notice you very much did not answer my question "

" Which one? "

" Don't try my patience. I could leave you here with an arrow through your chest and I would not sleep poorer for it "

" Eh, it only really hurts the first time. Just don't make skin-contact and your men should be fine. You brought gloves and shovels, as specified? "

" See my prior regarding professionalism. "

" Pleasure to be working with you. It really has been. "

" Mhm-hm. Well, be aware our agreement only covers acquisition and transportation. Once we get to the port, it's all yours and out of my hands "

" . . . yesssss. About that. "

" Do I sense the words 'contract extension' marching with unwarranted confidence towards this conversation? "

" Hey, can't we negotiate about, uh, service extensions? "

" Don't alter the deal on me. I pray you won't try to alter it further "

" I was just thinking: we get along so very well and you haven't shot me in the lung yet. Come on, Commander, you like working with me. It's this, or back to guarding noble estate and fighting flowers for princes with too much money. How many clients offer a chance to alter the world? "

" I'll take it under consideration. Now clear off. We'll be digging for hours and I need to supervise. "

" Excellent. I knew you'd come around! I'll be in my tent, writing a report. "

" I wasn't-- Mhm. She already left. Void take that woman. "

--

File: Company Muster - 1 - Atla(...).png (3.29 MB, 1860x2631)

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Is it always this warm out here? The sun bakes the sand and you with it, until somewhere along the wandering paths you end up more sun-scarred sand than human being.

---

But it was not always like that. They tell tales this place used to be comforting, even, all shade and shadows and running rivers. Check nooks and crannies of old places, you'll forgotten buildings stick out of the sand. The bones of old peering out from the veil of time, and we the little scavengers among them. Wonder what one might find, if one goes a seeking in a place like this.

Maybe that's why you signed up for a Scavenger Company? They pay is good. The work is ... interesting. The people are rough sort, but neither the worst nor the best. And yes, a fair few of them spend more time fighting than they do guarding scholars or trading old detritus in trade-camps, but the difference between a scavenger and a mercenary is . . . slim at the best of times.

--

>Sign up, sign the contract, sign on.

Check the Company muster, then fill out your relevant papers here, below. We'll need a name to call you, and you'll have to tell us a little about what it is that you do.

#Name
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#--?
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!--?

--

Don't worry if you've never done something like this before - you'll learn quick. It's a kind of play by post multiplier narrative chess game, where the world tries to kill you.

There's a loosely coherent story, too, but you don't need to be too deep in the details to tag along.

>https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=art%3F

Oh, and dice a dice+xd6 in the options field - you'll want to know that to do the job you pick. There'll be some details later, but for now, just get settled in.

Rolled 2, 3, 4 = 9 (3d6)

>>6108841
#Phridon
-
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
-
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
-
Uniform, DR2
Shortblade, Sharp
Spear, Reach 2, Impales, Throwable
Shield [18HP, 3DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets (actually, there's like 1 coinbit in there)
Whitebone Needles (Wards-12)
-
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Iconotheurgy 12
#Spears 13
-
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!Well Read

>Raise 6 Troopers equipped with spears (spearchads ww@?)
>Hire a Specialist who assists in Binding, Warding, and Abjuring.
>Keep the bad luck at bay (+3 coinbits). [Iconotheurgy 12]
>Buy some cool books (-2 coinbits).

>>6108841

> Kit Selection: Thaumatheurgy Kit
> Weapons Training; Rope
> Whispered Secrets: Of Edges and insights
> Raise a banner: Spears
> Hire a specialist: Binding, Warding, Adjuring (x2)
> Receive your dues: Keep bad luck at bay (Iconotheurgy-12)
> Spend your bits: Hire a second specialist

#Icarus
=Metrics=
Vitality 12 // Stamina 12 // Focus 12
Action 9 // Speed 2
=Stats=
Will 10 // Health 10 // Grit 10
Sense 10 // React 9
Lethality 1d6 // Threshold 1d6
=Kit=
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Weaver's Whip
Whitebone needle
1 Bit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
=Secrets=
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Iconotheurgy12
#Wards12
#Rope13
#Analysis12
=Traits=
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Edges and Insights 1
=Bannermen and Support=
(x6) Spears-11 troopers
(x2) Binding, Warding, Adjuring specialists

Rolled 6, 6, 3 = 15 (3d6)

>Raise Blades
>Hire Logistics
>Enforce Discipline, Influence 11
Roight, you lot. Oi's Jove. Y'won't never be me, but it's a fun toim trying.
>Feed my squad a little better. -2 coinbits

#Jove
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9+1
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Wispcloak, Major to hide, halved move-do penalty
Halberd
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
A coinbit
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Polearm 13
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears

You're a madman and I love it, CC

Rolled 3, 3, 1 = 7 (3d6)

>>6108841
>Alchemineering Kit
>Powder Training
>Of Masks and Mettle
>6 Troopers, equipped with Muskets 11
>1 Specialist, who assists in Logistics and Procurement
>Honouring the timetable, harsh though it be (Tactics 11)
>Fall in love

Hurry up. I have to see her again.

#Edward
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
Morale +1
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Harquebus [4d6 Impact, Terror, Malfunction 16+, 3AP Reload, -1Acc per step, +1 Club in melee]
One Memento [Locket with her picture]
1 bit
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Alchemineering 12 [First Aid, Salt, Gas, Smoke, Fire, Oil, Salt, Acid, Stimulant, 1AP=1 point or huck 1d3 with major action]
#Muskets 13
#Small Unit Tactics 11
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Masks and Mettle: If you start adjacent to an ally, they add +1 to all skill tests and speed. Spend 1 AP on behalf of ally

Rolled 5, 6, 6 = 17 (3d6)

>>6108841
>>6108841
Zivka

Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2

Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6

Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield & Axe
Ranging Kit
Tattercloak Quiver
Weather Cloak (Morale 1, Weather Resist 2)
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
1 Coinbit
More Pockets

#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Animalfriend 12
#Bows 12
#Axes 13

-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1

> Rally six scarred Spearkin (and our dog)
> Beseech one Elder, of Refit, Repairs and Refinement
> Mind the beasts and men and unruly tribes folk. (Animals 12, Influence 11) The march is long, but the rewards will be worth it.

I had this terrible dream, of being cornered by an overwhelming foe….

>>6108891
It's a sickness of the mind, softsoul. But that's okay. If you're along for the ride, perhaps we're both mad - and if so, what worth is it to be sane?

Rolled 1, 3, 1 = 5 (3d6)

>>6108841
>Gain Trapping Kit
>Gain Powder Training
>Gain Of Hopes and Fears 1
>Raise a Banner of 6 Troopers equipped with Muskets
>Hire a Specialist who assists in Refit, Repairs and Refinement
>Run long duration perimeter patrols (vs Influence 11)
>Splurge on one of those fascinating books


#Scarlett
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Harquebus (4d6 Impact, Likely to Terrorize; Malfunctions 16+; Reload 3 AP; steps give -1 Accuracy; +1 Club in melee)
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
1 Coinbit
A Fascinating Book
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Gearwright 12
#Muskets 13
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1: Add Rank to resist terror; Major action to reroll Will for nearby ally; +1 to Influence and Thoughts
!Well Read

File: Atlas Improp 3.png (266 KB, 1418x946)

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" Sir, we've got the last one stowed for now. My hands still itch "

" son did you touch the eerie singing crystal I done specifically told you not touch? "

" Uhhhh "

" Void take it, go find a water barrel - now - and you might'n not lose the hand. "

" Uhhhh ! "

" Don't just stand there, get moving. And get me Banner-Sergeant Wreckli while you're sprinting towards the camp, I need him to check something for me . . . "

File: Atlas Improp 4.png (208 KB, 1468x950)

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" Like we thought? "

" Like we thought, Sir. No one's even heard of her down whisperway, and I don't see how some no name no bit swings around coins like she does. And, well . . ." the banner-sergeant gestures to the wagon, and the faintly humming depths of otherwise unremarkable sand, out here past the dunes

" Mh-hm. Odds this is all a setup? "

" Doesn't seem likely, Sir. Why bother, I means. If they wanted to bust us for smuggling or some Clause violation, it's a void-touched lotta work for a government spook to pay us for all our shovels first, get us out here, dig a bunch up and then throw us all in jail for doing what they done paid us to do "

" S'is a bit curious. My palms are itching. "

" Did you touch the-- "

" Not like that. Other itch. Something here just doesn't sit right with me. "

" You know, Sir, now it's all nicely in the wagon there are some people out there who wouldn't be too shy about paying good coin for something like this "

" Oh is that so, Banner-Sergeant? Please, keep talking. I do so like it when the insinuation of my officers is we should go back on our pledged word, backstab the client and violate our own creed "

" Sir, not like that. What I means is: If there's a bunch of outfits who pay good coin for this'n sorta thing, they'd also know-how know-why how to handle it, yeah? Be experts, that like. Alchemist, what have you "

" Not seeing your point so far "

" Well, Sir . . . We ain't "

" We ain't, at that "

" Right, sir. So how come we got hired, and not one of the outfits that knows their way about this kind of thing? "

" Ah, I see I once again underestimate your bear-trap like mind, Banner-Sergeant. Why don't we go ahead and double tonights sentry rota? And. . . tell the fourth and ninth to sleep in their armor. "

" Now you mention it, Sir, my palms are starting to itch too . . . "

Rolled 4, 5, 4 = 13 (3d6)

#Luz
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Gauntlets
Thaumatergy Kit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Books
1 Coinbit
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Iconotheurgy 12
#Close Quarters 13
#Analysis 12

-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Edges and Insight 1
!Well Read

>Keep bad luck at bay (Iconotheurgy 12)
>Raise a banner of 6 muskets
>Hire a 2nd Theurgic specialist to assist

Rolled 6, 3, 4 = 13 (3d6)

>>6108860
A few warding gestures and some salt in the right place and all the worlds ills stay away a little longer. You feel cold at night, out here. Colder than you should. Those dreams keep coming back, the ones you can't remember, except for the taste of fear at the back of your throat and the snap-to-waking with a hammering heart in the morning.

Yesterday, someone almost died when they slipped and tripped over their own spear. Close call. The edge puncture through the collar of their uniform instead of their neck.
Some would call that bad luck.

You know better. It could have been so much worse.

>Accidented avoided
>+1 Reputation, note it as a Stat

>>6108864
Sure, if you shant test 3d6 as instructed, recruit, then Command will gladly roll those bones - but now we test against half skill [6]

>>6108887
They're a sour, sullen lot - the ones that aren't eager to please and new. It's an electic mix, all old eyes and new hands. You do your best and some of them show promise. Though "You", "do your best" and "Show promise" are terms that work hard in the stretching. It's really more a case of you desperately trying to keep up with the master-at-arms daily instructions and everyone else giving you the side-eye glance.

Run a few more laps, why don't you, Jove? All those extra rations you're feeding people are cutting into your stamina.

Look on the bright side: your example makes everyon else look like enduring heroes out of myth.

>-2 Stamina
>+2 Reputation, note it as a Stat

>>6108899
Getting there on time is half the challenge in modern management theory, and getting everyone else to roll out of bed, pack up and get moving is harder still. You win absolutely no favours with ANYONE for constantly reminding them all that they have a place to be. On the other hand, you shave three days off of the journey out which is food not eaten and water not wasted.

>-2 Reputation, note it as a stat
>Company stores are better off
>No one is out of water or food. Yet.

>>6108900
AH VOID--SHIT--HORSE--DUNG--SONOFAGOATHERDER--- WHY DO THE HORSES OF SUCH SHARP TEETH

>-3 Vitality, -3 Stamina, -3 Focus
>-1 Speed
>+2 Bandage alotment
>-2 Reputation, note it as a stat
>Gain: !I'll Walk, Thanks, as a trait.

Given the fact that all of horse-kind appears to have declared war on you for all eternity, you're going to have to get used to taking the slow route on your own feet.

You ignore any fatigue and stamina from having to foot it somewhere. Fancy.

>>6108927
Someone . . . is out there. You don't catch them - quite - but you catch sight of them, sharp spears sun-touched in the shimmering distance, small formations of fast moving troops. When you get there, they're gone. Camps tossed over by careful hands, no trash left to identify, and yet their presence unmistakable.

Someone is out there.

Crawling closer bit by bit

>Company alertness raised a little
>Recon-in-Force scouts briefed on imminent danger; all patrol dangers lessened.

Rolled 4, 6, 3 = 13 (3d6)

>>6108950
>Duty List: Protocol Observance - Sprinkle salt around the camp's perimeter and over resting places - make sure every man's pillow is adorned with a light dusting of protective sodium. (Iconotheurgy 12)
> Personal: Buy a Wrackstone. (-1 Cointbit)

Rolled 9, 8 = 17 (2d10)

>>6108962
About what I expected.
Now for the stone.

Rolled 5, 6, 4, 6, 3, 2 = 26 (6d6)

>>6108965
Zivka

Vitality 9 Stamina 9 Focus 9
Action 9 Speed 1+1

Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9, Reputation -2
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6

Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield & Axe
Ranging Kit
Tattercloak Quiver
Weather Cloak (Morale 1, Weather Resist 2)
Good Boots
4 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
More Pockets

#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Animalfriend 12
#Bows 12
#Axes 13
#Filching 10

-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!I’ll Walk, Thanks

AAAAAHH

> Write a letter to my Uthani kin. The search for a home continues, but at least we are paid.
Gain one Coinbit, spend my two on Boots. I’ll clearly need it.

> Take a tracking hound, and search for our missing supplies.
Animals 12
Logistics 10

Rolled 1, 3, 6 = 10 (3d6)

>>6108841
> Kit Selection: Thaumatheurgy Kit
> Weapons Training; Rope
> Whispered Secrets: Of Masks and Mettle
> Raise a banner: Blades
> Hire a specialist: Triage, Surgery and medical matters
> Receive your dues: Enforcing discipline among the ranks (Small unit tactics-11)
> Spend your bits: Splurge on one of those fascinating books

#Icarus
=Metrics=
Vitality 12 // Stamina 12 // Focus 12
Action 9 // Speed 2
=Stats=
Will 10 // Health 10 // Grit 10
Sense 10 // React 9
Lethality 1d6 // Threshold 1d6
=Kit=
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Weaver's Whip
Whitebone needle
1 Bit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
=Secrets=
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Iconotheurgy12
#Wards12
#Rope13
#Small Unit Tactics 11
=Traits=
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Masks and Mettle 1
!Well Read
=Bannermen and Support=
(x6) Blade-11 troopers
(x1) Young but well adjusted expert in Triage, Surgery and medical matters

Rolled 1, 2, 4, 3, 2, 1 = 13 (6d6)

>>6108965
>Thaumaturgy 12, Warding 10?, Engage in Protocol Observance
>Insist that your papers are in error. I met a wave haired desert wanderer named Joe who taught me Mistbreathing. Keeps you from dying of dehydration in the desert.

>>6108951
A single lonely cloud squirms across the vast skies, and just for a moment, it blots out the distant black spot that hovers there in front of the sun itself. Everyone breathes a little . . . easier.

Then Asog tangles in his own rope and almost breaks his own neck, and it only stops being a cavalcade of sprains and broken fingers because by the time he trips all over the Ashfingers and their tent repair work he doesn't have that many more fingers left to break. Straight to the medical tents with him and the four others.

Some might call that awful luck.
You . . . Oh, you know better.

>Accident avoided
>Specialist *not* dead, what a boon

>>6108864
Insisting it's good fortune to inscribe the right prayers in the sand outside the tents every morning and every night, you've instructed the troopers in the right careful moments and the symbols they draw have surely warded away the ill sting of bad fortune. Surely. Surely.

The recent spate of insomnia that the doctors are unable to do anything about is . . . unrelated mass psychological hysteria, from sun exposure. Surely. Surely

>Everyone is *tired*

>>6108979
Now there's a term you don't hear every day. Still wet behind the ears, huh? And that ain't even an insult - I wouldn't go insulting people like you. It's apt to be frightening. Might be something was off about your paperwork . . .

>>6108963
Oh no, softsoul. Why'd you have to go and find some of the pristine ones? Who even sold you this? Did you see his face? Did he even have one? Oh no

--

While the remaining Company musters and everyone else finds their bearings, we'll leave things off here for you to chatter amongst yourselves, carry out some duties and get your bearings. There'll be some more information later.

File: Lanternflickers - Atlas I(...).png (2.25 MB, 1736x2456)

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>Eight Banners Raised, proceeding to Encampment.
--

It's been a while since you had any action. But, well, the thing about a Scavenger outfit is the days pass in a haze of work, duties, incidents and things-to-get-done.

Command has a plan - you mustered out weeks ago and have followed the maps inland and then further still until the maps started running out of border and you started running out of rations. There are villages here, insular, clannish folk, some more tribal nomads on perpetual move than metropol, some sun-baked clay-and-wood huts that might very well have been here since the world was formed.

Commands got a client, but they don't talk. You've seen her around - she keeps to herself, though at times she shows up from an unexpected angle and asks a few questions. Lately, she's had a nervous twitch to her eyes. Scouts the horizon more and more. Mutters to herself.

Word came down from the officers a few hours ago - extra sentries and more patrols. Someone to check over the water wagons. Someone to check over the spears. Someone to check over the . . . and on and on and on it goes. No one has exactly said anything that should lead you to believe you're apt to be murdered in cold blood. This isn't hostile country, after, just lonely. Those few scattered villages aren't going to rouse up into a mob and come a-calling with torches and spears.

But there are always rumours. This place is lonely. The sun is high during the daylight hours. The haze on the horizon intent. People disappear in this place. You've found their bones, sometimes. Gnawed on by . . . best not thought about.

--

While encamped, you can take one personal action and perform one Company-duty related activity.

Occassional follow-up prompts will be required - and you might get in over your head if you're not careful.

Expect Camp-Phase to last for roughly 48 hours or until everything is squared away.

>>6108860
>>6108927
>>6108951
>>6108977
Right, you bookworms, perhaps you can riddle us this while we're whiling away the idle hours waiting for the Coldeyes to find out where in forsaken creation half our supply train went off to.

What manner of ill beast is described as a spiteful amalgamation of insectiod horror and imperial ambition?

What government rules that distant realm Vanadia, back over the other side of the Leviathan Sea?

What do you call the true name of the Sun?

If there are three powers in a room - an Emperor, a Magnate and a Priest - what do these grand Powers offer one soldier with a sword to defend from their peers?

What weighs more, memory or gold coin?

Hmhm?

Well you're such smart recruits, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Ah, of course:

What's more important - knowing how to build a bridge or knowing how to bandage a wound?

>What a frightfully well-read Company
>Logistics difficulties reduced one step, because 'surely' the paperwork is all in order.

Rolled 2, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3 = 23 (6d6)

>>6108989
>Write a letter home (to Kalcmiri)
>Gain Poetry 12, Well Mannered, and Weaving 12
>Perimeter Patrols (vs Influence 11, Well Mannered)
Perhaps the locals might have seen something.

#Scarlett
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Harquebus (4d6 Impact, Likely to Terrorize; Malfunctions 16+; Reload 3 AP; steps give -1 Accuracy; +1 Club in melee)
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Muskets 13
#Poetry 12
#Weaving 12
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1: Add Rank to resist terror; Major action to reroll Will for nearby ally; +1 to Influence and Thoughts
!Well Read
!Well Mannered

>>6108999
also vs Logistics 10

The Malichnid Princesses terrorize the Inky depths.

The Republic of Vandia still stands.

We deny the authority of the heretical Empyreal cultists, for I name the sun Friend who always returns.

The Government offers its Blades the armor of Authority (or Legitimacy if you prefer).

Gold weighs heavier in the hand, memories heavier on the soul. Memories are of greater value than the coldest coins.

Which is more important? Bandaging a wound. Bridges take time, and you can rely on the specialist to figure it out for you. Wounds are immediate. However, I'm more of a bridge builder myself.

Rolled 1, 6, 1, 5, 4, 5, 2, 1, 3 = 28 (9d6)

>>6108841
>>6108998
>Alchemineering Kit
>Blades Training
>Of Malice and Mirth
>Blades Banner
>Specialist in Training and Discipline
>Enforce Discipline (rolling vs Blades 14)
>Spend Coinbits: Combat Lessons
>Personal Action: Write a letter home to Rikovol
>Duty: Disciplinary Action Review. Extra drill for the Ironwroughts! (rolling vs Blades 14 and Discipline ???)

#Wicklighter
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Alchemineering Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Longblade - +1 damage, Sharp
1 Coinbit
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 9
#Filching 10
#Alchemineering 12
#CQC 12
#Blades 14
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Malice and Mirth 1: If unengaged, add rank to first skill test. If engaged, add rank to all Reaction tests
!Rikovan: Can spend Focus as I would Stamina, and always regain at least 1 Focus when I Recover

Wicklighter holds those around him to the same rigorous standards of discipline that he holds himself to. Unfortunately, instead of coming off as a reasonable leader who wouldn't do anything he wouldn't ask of his subordinates, he usually just comes off as a bit of a freakazoid.

Seriously, what kind of psychopath's morning routine puts jogging five laps around the camp and twenty minutes of sword practice /before/ eating breakfast? There's something wrong with that man.

Rolled 2, 1, 3 = 6 (3d6)

>>6108841
Smiling. He always smiles you know. That shit-eating grin strune across his face, whenever he's not wearing full armour that is.

Breacher Kit
>Powder Training
>!Of Steel Hearts
>Raise a Banner of Blades-11!
>Hire a Specialist in Refit, Repairs & Refinement!
>Keeping the gear stowed and the blades sharp (Armsmaking-10)
>Hire a professional (Logistics & Procurement)

#Ser Stalwart (Self-Proclaimed)
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 1
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 8
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
+Breacher Kit, 4DR
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [30 HP, 5 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets (1 Coinbits)
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Harquebus, 4d6 Impact, Malfunctions on 16+, 3AP to reload, Doubles as a +1 Club in melee
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Muskets-13
#Armsmaking-10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Armoured Advance 1: Intentionally body-slam targets upon entering their tile, deal 1d6+1 per straight-line movement prior
!Of Steel Hearts 1: If end unengaged, regain Vitality equal to rank. If end engaged, gain bonus damage reduction equal to rank
!Extra Rota

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Rolled 2, 6, 5, 6, 1, 5 = 25 (6d6)

>>6108989
>Write home to mum in Reikan, and no peeking if you like your eyes (pick Carousing)
>Join the Scarred Spears looking for our supplies. (vs Influence 11 and Logistics 10)
>Must 'ave amnesia, they forgot that Oi's 'im.

Guards told me gate's closed. Greased the 'inges wivvem. Sold a man an 'eadache once. 'eisted a university by 'iding me rustic charm. Don't remember it all. Gets a bit fuzzy 'round the Crow... the...

... any'ow! 'sno one loik Jove but Jove!

>In another time, I did some high-stakes tinkering. You don't get away with stunts like mine without spare materials and an (occasionally blind) eye for workplace safety.
Jove, Striker 2 Sapper 2
RES 10
STA 6 SPD 3
React 2 Resist 1 Rebuff 1
Sense 1 Authority 2 Cunning 1
Brawn 3 Manipulate 1 Edge 2
Blades 2 Gearwright 1 Unarmed 1 Streetsmarts 2
!Deep Reserves
!Flourish
!Consummate Professional
!Patch Job
[R] Woodbreaker: 2H 1W 1Reach, Crits Cleave
[H] Rikovol Pressed Helmet, 2 Barrier, Fragile
[Tools] 3 bits, Boostgear 3/5 Fuel, 2+2+3 Boost
QuickreteTank Mod
Messer
Nugget of Palatine Armour, 3Mag Metallic-Terrene, 1Limit, 2Strain


#Jove
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 10 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10 Strength 11 Reputation 2
React 9+1
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Wispcloak, Major to hide, halved move-do penalty
Halberd
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
A coinbit
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Polearm 13
#Carousing 14
-Traits
!Armored 1
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears

Rolled 6, 6, 3, 3, 1, 5 = 24 (6d6)

>>6109041
More smiling.

>Write a letter home (Reikan)!
>While I'm doing my own personal paperwork lets get to work fixing some other things such say... Arms Procurement! (Armsmaking-10, Refit&Repairs-10, Fresheyed Archers)

#Ser Stalwart (Self-Proclaimed)
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 1
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 8
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
+Breacher Kit, 4DR
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [30 HP, 5 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets (1 Coinbits)
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Harquebus, 4d6 Impact, Malfunctions on 16+, 3AP to reload, Doubles as a +1 Club in melee
-Secrets
#Strength 11
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Muskets-13
#Armsmaking-10
#Carousing-14
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Armoured Advance 1: Intentionally body-slam targets upon entering their tile, deal 1d6+1 per straight-line movement prior
!Of Steel Hearts 1: If end unengaged, regain Vitality equal to rank. If end engaged, gain bonus damage reduction equal to rank
!Extra Rota
!Armoured 1

>>6108977
Finally, someone who knows the right end of a sharp word and can get some of these mudfeet to fall in. Good work, Caedo - you might even an officer's stripes if you keep this up.

>Some of the slackers work a little harder
>Gain +1 Reputation, note it as a stat
>Lose 2 Vitality, from temporary bruises acquired busting up a gambling round gone bad
>Gain 1 Stamina
>Gain 1 Focus

>>6109021
By all the stars in the endless skies someone on this field of must and dust seems to know the bleeding end of a sharp and the blunt end of a hammer. Are you sure you're in the right outfit, here, Wicklighter? Might'n be your menace-making murderhands could command a sizable premium in more lethal operations. Well, I won't commit on Rikovian traditions. You people travel a lot, yeah? I can respect it. No, I won't be joining you for morning laps, but maybe there's something in this Path some of these people can learn from.

>Some of the troopers learn a thing or two
>The Master-At-Arms, a quiet, taciturn and slim looking Vanadian with a hat askew on her head invites you around for a few extra practices matches some of the odder evenings. You almost don't get hit.
>Gain +1 Speed OR +1 Reaction
>Unfortunately, you don't get much sleep because the tryhards keep coming at you to prove they are, in fact, that hard. -2 Stamina.

>>6109041
Stalwart Bulwark, is it? Your parents must just about have loved you something fierce. Good eye for packing the right crates. Who'd have thunk we still had so many spare uniforms stuffed in the water barrels? Who'd have thunk we were so low on water?

>Gain an additional water skin
>Find a very nice uniform, +5 Temp Vitality
>Some of the troopers patch their gear

File: Lanternflickers - Atlas I(...).png (2.6 MB, 1860x2631)

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>Ten Banners Raised
--

Look at this sweat-drenched, bone-tired, dust-coasted formation and tell me it don't just fill your heart with pride. Don't have a lot of things you can count on out here in the Aikan Wastes, but an ally or eight never makes anyone look askance.

Good work getting everyone marched out here on time, Edwards.

Our supply situation is growing a little problematic. Commander usually handles it. Spent nine months in a Vanadian border-fort once, down to rats and boot leather hear him talk about it, and swore that would not ever happen again. Thing is, our people are strung across hundreds of miles of mildly twisted sand, steppe and curling dust-eaten road-way aways. Even if this isn't unfriendly country and the locals are almost polite to your face it's hard to imagine that half our missing wagons haven't encountered people with loose ideals about the sancticity of private property.

Let's see what those perimeter patrols are reporting . . .

File: Out and About 1.png (348 KB, 1442x988)

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Feels like you've been walking for days which is always the trick around here. The landscape changes by subtle degrees. It's all sand and endless shimmering horizons and you don't notice the hypnotic lull. Then you cross a dune and bypass a rocky cliff that sticks out like a broken tooth and then - well - then you suddenly enter a place of almost shade and green things. Mushy sand from some wetness in the deep earth. Bricks, long stained by the wind, but orange clay still almost faintly homely. This place is impossible to see at distance, hidden by some quirk of sand dunes and the undulations of the landscape. You practically fell right into it.

It's not an oasis, not by a long shot, so the few of you that hoped for more water can groan and complain and pretend it helps.

Still - the sand somewhat sticks to your boots here. It's possible someone dug a well, because there must be some underground flow or such-like. And where there were once wells there were once people. Might still be some.

No tracks from wagons here, and you're sort of off the beaten path. Ideally the supply train would be staggered out behind you with villages you'd had already passed and haggled with. Once the quartermaster assistants arrive, the villagers would have had time to prepare the supplies that the Commander and his outriders had already haggled for. It's a system that has worked on countless other operations, it keeps you lean and moving and precludes endless slow-downs from overload on the road.

But it does have this one peculiar problem that precludes its usage by most standardized military formations. It's the thought that lurks now in the back of your minds.

If the Commander and his outriders have passed through a village ahead of the supply train, and you, on foot and marching along to some distant goal, pass by later once again and then eventually some underworked supply clerk finally rolls up with four mules and an empty wagon . . .

. . . well.

From a certain point of perspective, that would mean someone got a good headcount of your entire outfit, knew the proper fighters were on ahead a-ways and could keep a watch for any returning. It's a system that lends itself far too readily to ambushes.

Which is why one only ever does it in places were that sort of thing doesn't happen.

And --

You can't muse much more because the hounds go ballistic at some distant scent. But they don't bound to the chase. They bare their hackles and teeth and the growls are low and rumbling.

It's not people - that's a different signal (two short barks means intruders). But they're unhappy.

And that distant sun-baked bit of random clay architecture in the middle of absolute nowhere is to blame.

Might be you should take a look? It'd be a good place to leave a message, if some of the supply people have passed by this way or gotten in trouble.

Might be you should turn right around and get out of here. Just something in the air.

File: Jewels of the Sky.png (247 KB, 1376x982)

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>>6108963
Where did you find such a thing, friend? Why would you hold on to it? Do you not know the difference a slim bit of jewellery will eventually make to your life, your fate, your very sense of self?

I would fear what you become, eight score years hence, but never to worry: Most never live so long.

These are the kinds of things you find the Wastes, and put back down, and forget you ever found. They pay good, grand sums for these in distant ports and distant shores. They raise men above men, they say. The great equalisers of station and stature.

Out here, cracked and broken wrackstones are ten to the hand, each one as useless as an empty water-skin and as enticing as a gut wound.

But sometimes . . . Oh, sometimes you find the ones are broken yet, by the wind and the world. Hold it in your hands. Feel your bones bend different.

File: Disciplinary Measures 1.png (124 KB, 944x914)

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>>6109021
They don't like it. But they do like that the payment for profit is sweat and toil - it has a certain fanciful karmatic weight about it. And we can't exactly be punishing people for showing inititiave, anyway - half the Company would be punished all the time.

An outfit like ours don't hold much with the whip or the lash. Too easy to slip away in the night, and too easy to stab your tormentor. No one signs up for this kind of work with the expectation that they'll be beat about by their peers - but two more hours a day of grueling extra work still brings the message home that some things are not entirely acceptable.

Everyone watching takes note. Weigh the odds and ends. Some turn it into a sport - tagging along. Not much else to do here, on these endless lingering evenings, than beat about with swords and footwork.

>Well, they're been disciplined - but they're a hardscrabble lot with excellent stamina, so the one that ends up worse for wear leading the exercise is Wicklighter ! Impressive, the way some people just put on armour and keep going.

Rolled 3, 6, 2, 2, 5, 4, 2, 6, 2, 6, 4, 1, 5, 1, 5, 5, 2, 3 = 64 (18d6)

>>6109212
>"Hi...Dad...doing great...hmm, no...doing good...making lots of...friends...and some...money...Love...Phridon. Ok, that should do." Write letter to senpai in Pyther.
>Duty List: Protocol Observance. [Iconotheurgy 12, Warding 10]

Can we tag along with one of the formations in addition to the above actions? If so,

>Join the Windswept Blades on their diplomatic forays. [Stamina 12, Blades 14 (me), Blades 12 (troops), and Influence 11]

#Phridon
-
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
-
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
Reputation 1
-
Uniform, DR2
Shortblade, Sharp
Longblade, +1dmg, Sharp
Shield [18HP, 3DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets (actually, there's like 1 coinbit in there)
Whitebone Needles (Wards-12)
-
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Iconotheurgy 12
#Blades 14
#Religious Ritual 11
-
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!Well Read

>>6109214
If Scarlett agrees, I’m happy to investigate.

Rolled 5, 2, 2 = 9 (3d6)

>>6109045
While your past record is impressive and all, simply telling everyone what a charmed and concussed life you used to lead was doesn't much tell us what you're trying to draw from the experience.

What you should consider is the skillset you're insisting you have or whatever equipment you might have brought with you - we can make some allowances.

>>6108979
Unfortunately, you don't seem to have any papers that prove anyone wrong, so surely, you cannot have what you claim to have.

>>6109008
Well, three out of six ain't bad for the average academic.
--

>>6108998
>What manner of ill beast is described as a spiteful amalgamation of insectiod horror and imperial ambition?
Malichnid? But it could also be a colorful way of describing the Wasponi.
>What government rules that distant realm Vanadia, back over the other side of the Leviathan Sea?
The Vanadian Republic. They're a union of city-states or somesuch and all like...democracy?
>What do you call the true name of the Sun?
The Empyreal.
>If there are three powers in a room - an Emperor, a Magnate and a Priest - what do these grand Powers offer one soldier with a sword to defend from their peers?
Glory, coin, and divine favor, respectively.
>What weighs more, memory or gold coin?
Memories command greater weight, being fragments of ones soul.
>What's more important - knowing how to build a bridge or knowing how to bandage a wound?
Bridge-building is a grander undertaking. I would assign it greater import.

I swear, I actually read all those books and don't just have them sitting in an untouched stack so I can affect the appearance of a true intellectual. Honest.

>>6109220
#Icarus
=Metrics=
Vitality 12 // Stamina 12 // Focus 12
Action 9 // Speed 2
=Stats=
Will 10 // Health 10 // Grit 10
Sense 10 // React 9
Lethality 1d6 // Threshold 1d6
=Kit=
-Equipment-
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Weaver's Whip
-Gear-
(x1) Bit
(x1) Fully Inert Blackstone // (x1) Whitebone needle
(x2) Bandages // (x2) Torches // (x2) Bags of Salt
=Secrets=
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Iconotheurgy12
#Wards12
#Rope13
#Analysis12
=Traits=
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Edges and Insights 1
=Bannermen and Support=
(x6) Spears-11 troopers
(x2) Binding, Warding, Adjuring specialists

> Take the Fully Inert Blackstone.
Oh Command.
I have such sights to show you.

(Don't fret. I'll have this truly daunting mountain of recordkeeping streamlined down into something sleek and unobtrusive before the violence begins in earnest.)

File: SecretSauce.jpg (11 KB, 350x98)

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>>6109252
'at's easy. Can't be a bombshell w'out Oi's put together roight, see? Same w'an actual bomb, an' stunts, an' me gear. Oi's the very image o' a Consummate Perfessional. Almost wot the 'ighbrows call Workplace Safety, only it's in the name o' may'em, mischief an' menace.

Rolled 5, 2, 3, 3, 5, 4 = 22 (6d6)

>>6109212
You may call me Edward, sir. There is no S in the name.
>Write a letter home, to distant, rainy, Illios
My dearest Anne,
I miss the sea. It is so weird to...
>Arms Procurement. There are villages nearby. Surely I can convince these good, kind, backwards people to part with some supplies in a mutually beneficial application of the principles upon the wealth of nations is built. The invisible hand always finds a way. Attempt to bolster my Muskets skill while I'm at it.(Influence 10+2 Fast Talk)

#Edward
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
Morale +1
–Stat
Reputation -2
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Harquebus [4d6 Impact, Terror, Malfunction 16+, 3AP Reload, -1Acc per step, +1 Club in melee]
One Memento [Locket with her picture]
1 bit
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
+2 Fast Talk
#Alchemineering 12 [First Aid, Salt, Gas, Smoke, Fire, Oil, Salt, Acid, Stimulant, 1AP=1 point or huck 1d3 with major action]
#Muskets 13
#Small Unit Tactics 11
#Boating 12
#Sea Navigation 12
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Masks and Mettle: If you start adjacent to an ally, they add +1 to all skill tests and speed. Spend 1 AP on behalf of ally

>>6109214
>>6109245
I do agree, please investigate

Rolled 5, 3, 4 = 12 (3d6)

>>6108841
Command, could I spend my spare bit on that Gleamsprite's Flutter that Icarus found? If not, roll me up a new set please!

>Mobility Kit
>Gauntlets
>Of Malice and Mirth 1
>Raise 6x Bows
>Hire a logistics specialist
>Keep gear stowed, blades sharp, Gearwright 12
>Gamble gamble gamble, -2bits +lucky token, +debt
>Buy that Gleamsprite?

#Facsimile
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Boostkit, Fuel 4/4, Speed 4
Wispcloak, +1 reaction, major to hide in terrain/cover, move and do at half
Lucky Token
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Empty Pockets
-Secrets
#Gearwright 12
#Filching 10
#Close Quarters 13
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Malice and Mirth 1: Add rank to first skill test if starting unengaged, add rank to reaction if ending engaged
!Sizable Gambling Debt

>>6109275
Surely, wound care is more important. Only one trade saves lives!

>>6109327
A single treated wound may save a life, but a built bridge leads to the flourishing of hundreds, perhaps thousands.

>>6109327
You don't think bridges save lives? Have you ever lived on the other side of a river from the only clinic or garrison in a hundred miles?

>>6109329
I don't understand what the problem is. Do you not have boats in your home?

File: Out and About 2.png (378 KB, 1436x978)

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Rolled 3, 6, 3 = 12 (3d6)

>>6109214
>>6109245
>>6109304
The hounds growl and paw the sand, but the troopers spread out under the shade of the trees and check the perimeter. The wind has died down. The air is . . . Thick is the wrong word, but somehow weighted. Six more steps towards the old crumbing walls and it feels like sixty. Scarlett crest a slight rise first and ducks under a old leaning tree. Catches their breath.

Spots a boot, half buried in the sand. Mass produced leather hardheel, type seven, surplus supply from some Reikan force on the Continent. Same boots issued to new recruits.

Catches Zhivka's eye. Points. No one wants to be first but someone eventually has to be. It's not the only pair of boots half buried in the sand, nor, alas, is it only boots out here . . .

>Sense 10, Hounds +2

File: Out and About 3.png (304 KB, 1472x980)

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Recent. Looks like they died tired - water skins are empty and they're short a lot of equipment. Might have tossed it running.

The sands eventually reveal four missing supply clerks. But no supplies.

One of the troopers - a forensic type - offers some choice commentary on the nature of the recent demise. Everyone's a little shaken. Might just be their way of compartmentalising. You don't get a lot of out and out murder out this way, usually. Yeah, battles, sometimes. Company on Company type thing, or bandits, or roamers, or marauders or . . . other things. But this poor probably died begging not to. Two of them weren't even facing outwards.

But the area's been cleaned, proper. Would have missed all this if not for the wind and sheer luck. For people dead by arrow wounds, there's no arrows here - nor on them. Means who-ever did this came in close to check their work and scavenge the bits. Curious note they didn't touch the water skins, then. Or the boots. Why pluck out your own arrows but leave all the other gear? Or did these people sprout needle holes and then the arrows just faded away after like a mirage? Sun-mad talk, that.

Well, that's put a chill down everyones spine.

If this lot of supply clerks died here they'd have spent some time running - which means, mh, yeah, eyeball the sunward position and then there's a village down a ways. An hour, maybe, on foot. They'd know what happened here, maybe? We passed through a week ago, going out. Seemed quiet types.

That, or its back to the Company to report - but if we've got people holed up in a village, waiting rescue, they'd probably appreciate the speed of delivery on their safekeeping.

>..?
>Better check the village
>Better report to the Company
>Better search this area proper, we might be missing something

Sands in the hour glass, falling, falling, falling away. . .

>>6109323
It's not yours to buy and it wasn't offered to you, recruit - don't go desiring the acroutements of your fellows, that's avarice. These things have a way of finding who they're meant to find, more's the pity.

>>6109303
That's what the Commander swears by too, though he's not Illosi. Grease the wheels, he calls it.

This village back a ways - what four hours or so? - was pretty quiet coming out and might be more quiet now you're coming back from long patrol. But the people there usually keep a thing or two hidden away for a rainy day. They had a large, half abandoned the Commander's been renting as a supply depot.

The trick of it is that sort of thing's bound to draw in hagglers from other villages - if you beat it back there aways it'll be a few hours on foot, but you can call it a patrol and maybe you'll find a market in the making?

>>6109297
A demolitionist is it, by Jove? Figures that skull of yours is thick enough to use a a battering ram. The trick of such consumate professionalism would be something rather akin to this:

!Consumate Professional 1: Sense against an environmental danger and you get additional Def and DR, shareable with 1 AP as you point it out to others.

>>6109294
Thanks. We hate it.

>>6109275
Now five out of six is real academic work and no mistake there, book mind. You've got the making of a Free College mail-in diploma and no mistake!

Alas, there isn't any Wasponi around here - and Malichnids, blessedly are more the types to be in aggregate further inland.

But imagine that. We've got ourselves a thinker.

>+1 Thoughts to you
>+1 Paperwork Admin to the Company.

>>6109224
"Diplomatic Foray", frankly, is Company-Speak for wandering to small outlying homesteads six hours by foot or more, politely knocking on the door of clannish smallholders and nomad tent camps who do not like outsiders, and then offering to mend fences and round up sheep. Commander Isenfrii swears by it, calls it a hearths and minding campaign, but it's the worst sort of warfare: the kind that risks splinters, angry parents thinking you're here to seduce away their children and having to field a barrage of curiousity from people who do so very rarely get visitors.

It's a long treck. But after spending two days chasing down lost ungulates the tent-leader of one of these mirage like camps only glares at you when you show up. Which must be somehow better than the spitting. Asks if you can bless the tents. The winds been howling hot lately.

You do so.

He ain't convinced that's a proper rite.

You part amicable ways.

>+1 Coinbit
>+1 Reputation
>+1 Stamina
>-1 Grit - what a long haul.

>>6109336
>Better check the village

Rolled 7, 4 = 11 (2d10)

>>6109340
Who, me? Coveting my neighbor's possessions? I wouldn't dream of it - to filch such a precious, pretty, nightmare rock... inconceivable!

Those grapes were probably sour anyways.

>Buy a different wrackstone

>>6109336
> Back Scarlett. Investigate the village.

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>>6108962
>>6108979
Luz, Icarus and Phridon sketch out a sigil on the sand with sticks and lines of salt and good natured haggling. Professionals don't catch religion. You shouldn't really believe that invoking these different signs grant amensty from transgressions celestial and pardons for crimes profane.

But . . . you shouldn't really assume it doesn't. It's the Wastes. Ill fortune and worse luck stick to your like bad breath and morning hair, the gaps between intent and action grow vaster, the shadows are too cold, the sun is too warm and sometimes, when you blink, the brief flashes of light behind your eyelids show distant galaxies.

There are . . . signs to be made. Assurances to offer. Little rituals, practiced and rote, that we perform to buy a measure of consideration from things that have no compasion. To the smallholders and villages of this place, these sort of things are so mundane part of life that they do not even enter theology. You wipe your shoes before going inside, you sleep at night, you eat your porridge with salt and you bleed four drops - and never more - on the north facing wall of your hut every six days and then the Wind doesn't steal your fondest memories.

Surviving out here long enough is part practice and part forensic theology, figuring out what parts of old scattered miracles still hold sway and what part you can ignore.

For now, a small dispute must be settled. There are wards and signs to make.

But do we perform the usual checks, unsure they work? Or do we step up our efforts? Ill luck has been prowling lately. The wind is hungry. And recent reports put riders on the horizon, hostile or not so.

Of course the eternal issue is that one cannot barter for free. View it from the other end: Is this what we are going to waste water and salt and time on? Old superstition and half remembered prayers from a language no one even speaks any more?

>...?

>Better try the Sunward Prayer - this is a wasteland desert steppe, and the sun does rule supreme here. Nothing to advanced, but mind your vowels. Simple, easy, we know this by rote.

>We might want to dig into the water rations and offer some to the hungry ground and the restless Animant King, and all the hierarchies that they command. It'll cost water - and rations - and inevitable someone is going to break a leg, but on the other hand, it might be safer at the moment to pay the trespas toll for setting foot on the earth

>Maybe the wind - what's the one, Ashon? Ashi? Ashir? Ashoniti? - should scatter some ash and smoke across the wide horizon. We'll have to light a few pyres and burn something precious, and that might not be the best of ideas. Still, no one's ever gotten in trouble for minding the wind.

>Maybe we simply dip the good luck charms in the water barrels and distribute them around, tell everyone to whisper a prayer to whatever they find appropriate? We don't have time for rites and rituals right now - it's time to *move*

File: Wrackstone 7 4.png (289 KB, 1502x978)

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>>6109345
You're treating things that should make you consider caution with a lackadaiscal attitude that is going to get you smeared over multiple walls or cause you to experience a sharp, sudden stop to your vital processes.

If you let the Wastes and the Wrack too deep into your soul, recruit, you are never going home again.

>>6109349
> Hm, well. Of course, there are *other*, less popular Icons waiting out there in the long quiet.
> Appealing to Probos to rig the scales of fortune in out favor may allow us to sidestep many minor hardships.
> Begging for the willful guidance of the King of Kings Shaunt may reinforce the troop's discipline or imbue the officers with heightened authority.
> By presenting a gracious invitation to Tr'drak, perhaps we may be blessed to march in the shade - briefly shrouded from the Eye and the notice of others.

>>6108998

At first glance, perhaps a spitescorp but at the point where we are you could be describing any kind of insectoid and be right

They call themselves Republicains yet we know that Prime Minister Ghellis probably named himself despot for life. Whatever all this nonsense means it hardly makes it democratic. Should've just stayed a monarchy

The Empyreal

Worldly power, material wealth and spiritual fulfillment.

Whichever is in more quanttity at the moment. Both come and go anyway.

These answers are mostly wrong anyway

>>6109210
We'll see

>>6109212
>Personal activity: write a letter home to Pyther (Pytherii yes sir) "Dear Professor Magister..." +1 Rope Skill, Religious Ritual 11


#Caedo
=Metrics=
Vitality 10/12 // Stamina 13 // Focus 13
Action 9 // Speed 2
=Stats=
Will 10 // Health 10 // Grit 10
Sense 10 // React 9
Reputation 1
Lethality 1d6 // Threshold 1d6
=Kit=
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Weaver's Whip
Whitebone needle
1 Bit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
=Secrets=
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Iconotheurgy12
#Wards12
#Rope14
#Small Unit Tactics 11
#Religious Ritual 11
=Traits=
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Masks and Mettle 1
!Well Read
=Bannermen and Support=
(x6) Blade-11 troopers
(x1) Young but well adjusted expert in Triage, Surgery and medical matters

File: Rings and Posts.png (134 KB, 1500x978)

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>>6109347
>>6109341
Better check the village - no good leaving someone in trouble.

It's a quant place, sticking to the windsafe side of a large rock eruption like a barnacle on a ship. Though tell the truth, it's probably only Edward around here who even knows what a proper barnacle is meant to be.

Few kids running around when you went trough here last but an hour later and road-sore, you find nothing. Scarlett and the spearmen are flagging, though Zivka manages recently well, all things considered.

>Scarlett Fatigued!
>Spearmen Fatigued!
>Zivka's Fine Walking, Thanks.

Usually, places like this, they have a . . . eh let's not use the word watch or guard, no, that's too formal, too structured, but they have youths with clubs hanging about coincidentally at the roads leading in a ways, the places where strangers meet family, that little subtle perimeter between "out there" and "in here with us". They're not meant to frighten anyone off, just keep an eye on things. Long way to the nearest legion post out here, and all praise be to the Pytherii polity, they probably have enough troubles lately of their own that their overwarked Dispatched Legion troopers don't need to come a-checking for local trouble all that often.

Point being someone should have been here to wave a sullen looking hand at you and beg a few scraps of water and share some news.

There's no one.

Ringposts for animals are empty, though the through is gone, curiously enough. That same tension in the air back a ways. The scraghounds have their heckles raised.

The village proper is still down a fair bit, but there's a building owed by some well-to-do who-even-knows out here, set aside for itself. Quick peek through the windows and a rap on the doors gets nothing, place is deserted.

The wind howls.

This . . . this might not be as normal as it should be. Still, these people keep a bevy of holidays and holy days and other things. Pass-me-down things to do and not do when the mood strikes. Two months ago half the towns we passed through were deserted, it was all kinds of eerie, and then as it happens it turns out that was because everyone had trekked to one of the larger villages for a come-every-century feast and weren't we the fools for coming into the market square guns out swords up armour on and frightening the children half way through their snacks. Egg on our face, tell you what.

Maybe we don't go repeating accidents of improper decorum - Scarlett's WELL MANNERED enough that if we send her in first, she'll charm anyone we come across and we can avoid an incident.

'Course wise then we'll have to send her in first. Maybe tag along a few troopers, for company.

Otherwise maybe there's some other way to figure out what in the Void is going on around here?

Frankly, recruits, I'm out of ideas. This was always going to be a four Banner-leader job, but you're half of the hoped for strength and way out on your lonesomes . . .

>... ???

>>6109373
Those answers are mostly right - and Spitescorps to the score is what you find prowling for your meat.

And stands to reason, eh? Coinclink and memory are both money, but they only weigh you down when you have 'em in excess

See, Caedo? Make an officer of you yet. You're the thinking sort.

>+1 Authority. That's a stat.

>>6109340
Market in the making, perfect. It'll be full of opportunities for someone with entrepreneurial spirit. Do we have anything surplus to trade? No big deal if not, I am confident in my ability to haggle my way up a series of trades, the process is just easier and faster with some seed money.

>>6109363
Strange patterns to think - strange friends to know by name. We might, at that - but if we go paying homage to Distant Icons we might draw in more than we expect.

Still. Could be done. Modify a larger seance, brush up on your barely remembered Aikani pronoucations, crack a spear and break a shield and bow to the Monarch Who Wills or the Endless Friend.

You're presumably . . . the specialist

>>6109394
The troopers' potfill a larger round of seeding if you hadn't been so damn sure insistent on time to march - it's done you no few favours in the friends department.

Though for all that they grouch at least a few of them can figure out the ideal, and aren't we all looking for that one lucky chance to score it big? Beats rinsing Fasci for more coin. Swear they're good for it but we know that's a lie.

>You don't have the rep to really round out a collective or get the quartermasters on your side, but enough pass around gets you one-half Grand Coin, which rates about one-fifty coinbits the standard issue so don't you go be spending that on yourself now, those blade-bound are real into this "receipt" thing.

>>6109387
With no signs of conflict or death around, I'm of the mind that those who lived here left voluntarily. How late in the day are we at now? If we've got time, I say we take a break in the shade by the trees or against the building to catch our breath. Afterwards (or if we don't have that much time, skip to) I can go on ahead with a few handpicked tag-alongs who are by my estimation more socially conscious. On the way, I'll give them some pointers for how not to offend these villagers should we happen upon an innocent festival or what have you.

>>6109401
Sensible and mannered. Sun's dipping, so you'll have to overnight village wise or somewhere rough, it's hours ways back to Base Camp. This is the Descending Glory hours, the long slow orange flicker in the skies, the gradual lengthening of shadows.

Been out here all day. Maybe the villagers - once you find them - won't mind sharing some of their water or supplies? Could be we could use some, starting to build up a sun-headache.

Still no problem calling a rest for a few hours. Good place for it, really. Someone's bound to show eventually.

>>6109406
Can we expect to reach the village proper after an hour's rest before it gets dark? If not, I say we head straight there, otherwise we can rest here before going on with my initial plan.

>>6109396
> Icarus puts his support behind contacting Probos. The theurge is a little foggy on the details of the procedures for invoking this icon, but he's pretty sure he can play things by ear based off half-remembered rumors and a few wild guess-timations..
"Why yes, the shattering of dice with hammers and painting of playing cards is an absolutely integral part of the appeasement ritual.
What's that?
No-no, of course you wouldn't of heard of it before, its a foreign method with a markedly higher success rate.
Where does it originate... uh, its an old Kalcmiri tradition.
Yes, you know how they are with their symbolism and purple prose and such.
You say you grew up in Kalcmiri, never heard of such a thing?
Oh, well, no see that makes sense because of... its, ah the thing, you know...
Look, just trust me, I'm a professional. Now put on this crow mask."

>>6109358
Command, I WILL experience that sharp, sudden stop to my vital processes that you so elegantly describe IF those debt collectors catch me unprepared. Don't judge me, for my bones are brittle and my pockets empty.

Anyways, I have a feeling this Legion Grain will be cheaper than settling my sizable gambling debt - or maybe I'm just paying a different sort of cost.

>Take Legion Grain, gain Wrackstone 11

#Facsimile
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Boostkit, Fuel 4/4, Speed 4
Wispcloak, +1 reaction, major to hide in terrain/cover, move and do at half
Lucky Token
Legion Grain, 1AP to deform or major to shape something
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Empty Pockets
-Secrets
#Gearwright 12
#Filching 10
#Close Quarters 13
#Wrackstone 11
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Malice and Mirth 1: Add rank to first skill test if starting unengaged, add rank to reaction if ending engaged
!Sizable Gambling Debt

>>6109409
An hour? Recruit - it's .... ten minutes down the road, and that's if you're slow.

>>6109444
Good to know, guess we'll take an hour's rest before investigating the village. If it's that close, can we see any movement over there, or is it obstructed by terrain?

>>6109349
>Better try the Sunward Prayer - this is a wasteland desert steppe, and the sun does rule supreme here. Nothing to advanced, but mind your vowels. Simple, easy, we know this by rote.
Can't go wrong with the good ol Empyreal, if you ask me.

THESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUN

Rolled 3, 3, 3 = 9 (3d6)

>>6108841
>>6109387
#Labrys
-Metrics-
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat-
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit-
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Bow, Impales
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets-
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Bows 13
#--?
-Traits-
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
-Bannermen and Specialists-
(6) Pikemen (Pikes 11)
(2) A Duo charged with Triage, Surgery, and Medical

>Duty: Keeping Gear stowed and Blades sharp (Gearwright 12)
>Spending: Hire a professional (-2 Coinbits)

"With friendly hands and faces, backed with steel and threats, even a dungeon can be a safe haven."

>>6109399
One half grand coin will be more than enough. I was half of a mind to start trading upwards from my 1 bit anyway. Let us demonstrate the art of the deal, shall we?

File: Lanternflickers - Atlas I(...).png (3.35 MB, 2480x3508)

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Finally, a proper lot of modern marching troopers around here. Say what you will about the indefeatigable pike, you get enough of your friends pointing that lot in the right direction and you might straight take on the world itself.

>>6109452
Unfortunately we're direly running out of equipment and supplies, and you'll have noticed we're short on arrows. Sorry, shooter, you'll have to make do with a shortbow and a few crooked arrows.

No thanks to having lost the supply train somewhere back down the road, we're starting to run out of feathers for caps and caps and left handed wrenches. And biscuits, which might actually matter !

--

>Duty listings, final call, finall, anyone not currently attending a Duty Listing can do so now, final call. . .

Rolled 5, 6, 3, 5, 5, 3 = 27 (6d6)

>>6109473
#Labrys
-Metrics-
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat-
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit-
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Shortbow
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets-
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Bows 13
#Poetry 12
#Glass-Blowing 12
-Traits-
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!Extra Rota
!Well-Mannered
-Bannermen and Specialists-
(6) Pikemen (Pikes 11)
(2) A Duo charged with Triage, Surgery, and Medical

>Personal Action: Write a letter home to Kalcmiri (Gain Glass-Blowing 12)
>Duty Listing: Arms Procurement (Gearwright 12, Refit 8+2, Bows 13)

"Oh dear. We can't deal with some of our most important troops, and me, not having biscuits, can we?"

Rolled 3, 4, 4, 2, 5, 6 = 24 (6d6)

>>6109473
Yes, I know I'm not a company certified smith - no, honestly, I'll just sort of bend it back together! Look, I'll grab just some stout wood from that tree and - what? Of course it's safe.

>Duty Listing: Arms Procurement, target Stern Ravens, smooth some kinks out of their gear with Legion Grain (Wrackstone 11, Refit 10?)

>>6109388
Right
>+1 Authority added to sheet

>>6109473
>Join Perimeter Patrols

>>6109520
You might want to roll, otherwise you risk getting tested against [6]

File: Marching Orders.png (457 KB, 1492x982)

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Rolled 4, 6, 5 = 15 (3d6)

>>6109520
Fair enough, Jove, so that'll be a how-the-wind-goes sort of patrol, eh?

--

Muster Order

. . .

File: Marching Orders 2.png (443 KB, 1414x982)

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While Jove wanders off to get hopelessly lost and Fascimile breaks some more expensive military equipment and puts our pike formation out of order pending a dire lack of pikes and functional armor, we have some business to attend to. And let's not disturb the Iconotheurgic Specialists. They're doing something with dice and hammers. They must probably know what that's about.

The long recon patrols should have been back by now, and we know from Scarlett's report from earlier that there are . . . people out here, with weapons and no easy desire to meet us. We're not aware of any other outfits out this way. Our client guaranteed - promised, even - that she'd be the only one with an atlas showing the way to where we found what we found and what the Commander is currently keeping under tight wraps. If you've been peeking under the tarps, you best keep it quiet.

So, other than waste our time and destroy our gear, we do need to do something about this situation before we find ourselves on the bad of a surprise.

Commander Isenfri is putting the camp on medium alarm, and we're sending out a small contigent - in force - to do a long sweep in a wide area around the camp. If anything is out there, there'll be enough of you to frighten them off and if not, you won't be so sorely needed we'll be run over without you. The rest of the Outfit will hold down the fort and get us packed up for moving, secured away, such-like.

There is also the matter of our missing supply train and lack of reporting from our perimeter patrols. Odds are they're either stuck in a bad rut on the road or something else is going on.

Here's what we need from you, since that is - apparently - your job around here. . .

Rolled 4, 1, 1, 2, 6, 6 = 20 (6d6)

vs Logi 12 and Influence 11

Rolled 2, 1, 3 = 6 (3d6)

```>>6108841
>Mobility Kit, blades, Of Cold Winds, Raise Blades, Hire a refit, repairs, refinement specialist
>From Rikovol +1 CQC
"To his lordship Sword Saint Sato..."
>Keeping the gear stowed and blades sharp (gearwright-12)
>Get a better pair of boots

#Crushfists
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 3
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Boostkit, Fuel 4/4, Speed 4
Wispcloak, +1 reaction, major to hide in terrain/cover, move and do at half
Better Pair of Boots
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Gearwright 12
#Closequarters 14 (Rikovol)
#Pathfinding 10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina and 1 focus (Rikovol)
!Of Cold Winds 1: Unengaged +speed. Engaged +dmg```

File: Marching Orders 3.png (389 KB, 1446x970)

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>>6109527
14 minutes too late, demolitionist. You're off on your own, wandering in the desert, no backup, no map, no canteen, no nothin'

Them's the breaks.
--
Marching Orders

So, here's the map - no big wrackstorm lately, so ain't nothing shifted too much and the readings look somewhat stable so everything should be mostly where you hope it is.
What you are going to do is this:

You are going to pick a destination and make your way there. That's a test of your most applicable skill and our company Logitics.

You are going to nominate someone to take point, either yourself, brave and bold, or any of the troopers who - well - fair bit less likely to fall into an ambush. You might want someone with good SPEED? Keen SENSES?

You are going to suggest a rough marching order for the banners. Maybe you want all the guns up front, or you want all the blades close to hand.

It looks like this:

>Navigate to Rallypoint Midnight Blue (Navigate 12, Logistics 12, I roll 6d6)
>I think the Reckless Ashfingers can take point, they're twitchy
>I'd like us to be defensive - can we get the spears on the perimeters and the archers bundled near the middle of the column?

--

Once you all organise your maps, hash it and the wind as its say, we'll see where we end up. Yeah, this means you might all submit plans and who knows which one takes precedence. It might also mean you hear some good words from some clever soul and decide to go with that, which ought to be a treat.

--

Recruits Edward, Scarlett, Zhivka and Jove needn't worry about THIS part, because Scarlett and Zhivka are off on their lonesome who even knows where, Edward took off with half our pay-chest towards that village an hour and Jove is completely bloody lost.

Scarlett and Zhivka can finish up their plans for the village.
Edward might want to make a Navigation test.
Jove . . . You should pray.
Why in name of all the high heavens didn't you at least pick a map before you done a-wandering straight off in a random direction?

Maybe if you have enough FOCUS you'll find your way back around - you should probably test that, and anything else that comes to mind.

File: Lanternflickers - Atlas I(...).png (1.29 MB, 2480x2416)

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>>6109536
You hear that "WAIT FOR ME" on the winds? Yeah, me too - run fast.

>>6109537
Does Sea navigation apply? A desert is a sea of sand, if one looks at it a certain way.

>>6109543
Thats because there was an error sorry about that.

>Mobility Kit, GAUNTLETS, Of Cold Winds, Raise Blades, Hire a refit, repairs, refinement specialist
>From Rikovol +1 CQC
"To his lordship Sword Saint Sato..."
>Keeping the gear stowed and blades sharp (gearwright-12)
>Get a better pair of boots

#Crushfists
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 3
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Boostkit, Fuel 4/4, Speed 4
Wispcloak, +1 reaction, major to hide in terrain/cover, move and do at half
Better Pair of Boots
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Gearwright 12
#Closequarters 14 (Rikovol)
#Pathfinding 10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina and 1 focus (Rikovol)
!Of Cold Winds 1: Unengaged +speed. Engaged +dmg```

>>6109544
If one looks at it a certain way, you riding off with two mules and eight months pay in a saddle bag is the score a life-time, so maybe we should be careful about what sort of perspectives we're using.

Sea Navigation works at sea, Queensman. Get yourself an admiral's hat or stand on a boat and it'll tell you exactly what you ought to know. Unfortunately semi-solid sandy ground ain't the sea, so you're down to luck, hope and your Senses if you ain't got else.

Maybe pick a destination, likewise, though it's apt to be the village.

>>6109547
Good man. We can find it in our magnimonious heart to forgive such a thing and I'll even deign to remember your Rikovian cognonem and treat it with the respect it no doubt implies I should, given your chosen style of combat.

>>6109543
Command, I believe my Reputation should be +2, given >>6108961 and >>6109340

>>6109551
Seeing as you're so very on the ball, the first mark of a studious well read type, consider it done and corrected. All the troopers appreciate a pedant.

Well, no. But they do appreciate someone who pays attention.

Rolled 3, 3, 6 = 12 (3d6)

>>6109548
Score of a lifetime? That's outright thievery, sir, a grave accusation and I shall not have it! There are far better ways to make money without resorting to banditry.

Besides, how could I carry it back to Illios by myself?

I am heading to the village, yes. The explorer's blood that runs in my veins and my Senses 10 will see me safely there and back in time for tea.

File: Mistbreath.png (538 KB, 738x762)

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>>6109252
>Joe gave me this chit. Said it went with a blade, but that the blade got sold to Red Market types in exchange for spider food. Lent me a little spider too. Some sort of webspinner. She gets all over the place though, hard to know where she's at. Free spirited that one. And takes to the desert like she was born to it.

>>6109576
Ah, one of those people, eh. This is why sensible outfits have background checks, but of course if we were sensible we wouldn't be marching with the Ice Smile himself.

Well, Luz, congratulations - you can count yourself cursed; add Mistbreath 12 as a Secret.

What does it do? How do you use it? That's a secret too - but we'll let you in on it a little later; there's a whole manual of arms that might show up.

You might want to grab along that ritual knife as well, it'll . . . come in handy.

>Glistening Knife, +1, Sharp, Storage (=Secret)

File: I can see taste and touch(...).png (1.02 MB, 597x619)

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Rolled 5, 3, 2 = 10 (3d6)

>>6108841

#Rion
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
BoostKit: Fuel 4/4 Speed 4
WispCloak: +1 Reaction
Bits of kibble: Animals like more
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Coinbits: 1
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 10
#Gearwright 12
#Close Quarters 13
#Pathfinding 10
#--?
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Cold Winds 1
!--?

>Mobility Kit
>Gauntlets
>Raise: Troops with Bows
>Hire: Training and Discipline
>Buy: Kibble feed
>Dues: Perform perimeter patrol (Pathfinding 10)
>Duty list: Perimeter patrol (Pathfinding 10) Let's go and find those supplies
>Insist on error: For i clearly an moth school Martial artist Whom has seen the raw potential of the world.

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Sea Sultans are also little imperial creatures of the deep. The principalities of Spiderdom are numerous.

Rolled 2, 4, 6 = 12 (3d6)

>>6109583
Duty list: Perimeter patrol (Pathfinding 10) Let's go and find those supplies

Now with actual dice

>>6109583
This is why sensible outfits have background checks. When the Client said she'd bring along some associates, we should have asked more questions.

Be nice to the Rikovians. I don't want none of your intercine show-boating under my watch.

>+1 Sense, +1 React
>-1 Grit
>!The Flow: When you Defend, you perform multiple Step-Dodges. When you attack, targets get -1 skill.

Rolled 6, 1, 6 = 13 (3d6)

>>6109583
>>6109590
One more time.

Rolled 4, 6, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 1, 5 = 34 (9d6)

>>6109537
Tell no one your next move, not even y'self.

>Focus 12, orient self
>Thoughts 10, find way to friends
>Sense 10, notice odd things off the beaten path

Rolled 2, 6, 1, 4, 5, 5 = 23 (6d6)

>>6109537
Seeing as we are undergoing a water shortage, propose going to the Oasis first to refill our water. I'm sure it will take something to purify out the Wrack so discuss bringing such things along. Then march west behind the wall to protect us from wrackstorms coming off the fields and make our way to the digsite. Have scouts check out Shadetree along the way. Let the pathfinders take point.
>Navigate to the Oasis (Mistbreath 12, Logistics 12)
>Nomiate that person calling themselves Crunchfist to take point
>Blades at the outside, less mobile troops such as the muskets and 'pikes' in the middle. Screen with any pathfinders or adventurous mobile types.

>>6109349
>Assist in asking Propos for assistance. We've been having a spat of bad luck, so why rely on luck. Sing a cheerful gambler's ditty about how you win some and you lose some and really it's all about knowing when to stand, fold, and run while helping the others rig cards and dice and chanting a silent canticle in my heart about eliminating doubt and finding comfort in certainty. While I'm at it, use my ritual knife to shave my 1 coin so it always lands on heads. Collect the scraps for melting into a new coin. Ask the others if they want me to help them with their loose change.

>>Probos

>>6109537
I support Scarlett’s heroic sacrifice, command, and while she handles that I’ll see if the dogs can scent anything useful amongst the derelict- being the only entity not fatigued.

Rolled 4, 4, 2, 1, 2, 6 = 19 (6d6)

>>6109543
>>6109628
Suppose I should also roll for what I just said

3d6 vs 12 (Animals)
3d6 vs 10 (Filching)

>>6109628
I would recommend against scrounging through someone's property. It puts a damper on relations, which are rather important when we have low supplies and may be facing a guerilla style opponent.

>>6109637
In fact, I will do everything in my power to stop this short of fighting him. This kind of banditry is the opposite of what we need right now.

Rolled 1, 2, 2, 6, 1, 5 = 17 (6d6)

>>6109210
>-2 Stamina. Oh well, I've gone with less.
>+1 React

#Wicklighter
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 10 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Alchemineering Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Longblade - +1 damage, Sharp
1 Coinbit
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 9
#Filching 10
#Alchemineering 12
#CQC 12
#Blades 14
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Malice and Mirth 1: If unengaged, add rank to first skill test. If engaged, add rank to all Reaction tests
!Rikovan: Can spend Focus as I would Stamina, and always regain at least 1 Focus when I Recover

>>6109537
>Navigate to Rally Point Shadetree (Thoughts 9, Logistics 12, 6d6, I don't think I should really be the one navigating). If these are prearranged rally points, there's a decent chance of finding our people at one of them.
>Say, Command, !Of Malice and Mirth 1 gives me a +1 to my first skill test when unengaged, yes? And I'm technically unengaged right now, right? I don't suppose Thoughts 10 is on the cards, is it?
>Let's have the Sharp Sharps take point. Seems like a good idea to have somebody careful but not overly twitchy going into danger first.
>Spears on the perimeter, swords and muskets near them, and bows nested in the middle.

>>6109592
I'd never act on grudges too good for that besides i punch they punch. If they start something it's on them

Rolled 2, 4, 5 = 11 (3d6)

>>6108841
Name
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 8
#Influence 10
#CQC 15
#Alchemineering 12
#Pathfinding 10
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Cold Winds 1
!Hot-blooded


>Take the Alchemineering Kit, Gauntlets, Of Cold Winds 1, take remedial combat lessons and end up a little concussed (-1 Thoughts), hire a medical specialist (for my concussion)
>Write home to Rikovia, tell the SCHOOL OF THE UNDEFEATED OF RIKOVIA that I am doing fine and honing my fists.
>Do a job: Go patrol! That too can count as training! (CQC 15)

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You hear that on the winds? It's the sound of a sprinting last-gasp recruit running to catch up with the sweep patrol.

Fall, in Palm. Maybe you'll get along with Crushfists, you both being so handsy.

--

Luz briefly considers using a Secret he was specifically instructed to wait to be told how he gets use out off to lead a gaggle of people straight off into nowhere and consequently contrive to get everyone lost.

Wicklighter whispers a blade-prayer and takes over the management of this march order because completely disregarding Command instruction is no way to lead an outfit. Do that again, Recruit, and it's going to get worse for you than mere sass. The Commander runs a tight ship, despite the evident lack of ships.

The Sharps are pretty glad about being up front - less dust that way - and we string out the troopers in the rough resemblance of a spikey hedgehog, all bristling bows and spears and blades along the line of march.

The Stainfingers draw the short straws and form up the rear. They're going to be choking on everyones footfalls for the next long hours. We might want to consider cycling them out and around, or they'll be so sand-sore they'll be good for very little if we ever need them.

--

Rally Point Shadetree is the first point of navigation strung out behind us. Should anyone get lost, that would be the first place to try to navigate to - a few secured tents and buried barrels of medical kit might save a life.

The issueas it happens is twofold:

First, the rally point is empty so no missing supply clerks or lost wanderers here.

Two, eight sealed barrels have been pulled out of the ground beat to bits with breaker tools. A few smashed bits of equipment and some shattered gear is all that remains of this fallback, which tells us all

Three: Rally Points like this are small, marked out places near land marks. But they aren't exactly easy to find unless you know they're there. If someone's been smashing up our kit, cutting into our navigation, they must have found out or been watching us while some troopers set it all up. Chilling thought.

Everyone calls a break and catches a rest. Stretching a little. Raging Palm sourced a few last-minute pikes earlier, so the Stern Ravens catch up with us ten minutes later. Looks like we have a pike formation again.

Phridon briefly considers whether his reputation is as good as thought, and realises that it is, there's simply some small notational difficulty on this interface. What a strange thing for someone to think. Have some more water. That's probably sunstroke, seeping in.

March-Break.

You can suggest a rough marching order, as per >>6109537. You can also get up to no good thing otherwise, using one applicable skill and the Company ratings. Might be there's some clues or left over equipment here, or someone you want to give a talking to.

The troops are resting in the shade of the cliffs and enjoying being out of the sun.

>1/x??

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Rolled 1, 2, 2, 4, 1, 2 = 12 (6d6)

>>6109603
>>6109449
>>6109429
Oh, you gotta know when to fold them, and when to be bold'en, and when to run . . . AWAAAAYYYY

>Before the march...

They say it's an ancient prayer 'round the tables in Kalcmir, but though Luz insists Icarus is less certain. But then Icarus is insistent that the Crowmasks are paramount for the ritual, because Probos - like all gamblers - desire shiny things. Should it be magpies, then, Phridon chimes in, shaving coins to help Luz, and well, maybe, but do you ever see magpies out here?

Anyway, lets crush these dice with hammers and sprinkle some water on the sand and be on our way . . .

>Collective Thaumatheurgy 12+1
>Company Warding 10
>This is a standard ritual, no modifier good or ill

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Luz strikes a match and the masks burn. Little coils of smoke shear off and away into the high skies. The sun stares down, kindly.

To be on the safer side, Phridon whispers a few Empyreal prayers over the fire - trying to settle scores with Probos is usually a subtle affair so there's no harm done in intermingling a little Empyreal insurance. Probos, unlike so many other Icons, is not the envious sort. Or at least usually they aren't.

>That . . . seems to have worked . . . alright?
>Is anyone feeling worse?
>No?
>We might be fine.

>Probonic Invocation added to Thaumatheurgy Manual - you'll notice this later.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere

After an hour of resting in the shade of the sunbaked house and the wind-break cliffs, Scarlett kicks off of the ground and adjusts her hair. Finds her best smile.

Nothing's moved down the village-way, and the heat shimmer is getting intense. Doesn't stand to reason: You'd think it got colder in the evenings out here in the sandlands, but for obtuse reasons that meteorologists fail to convey, the last hours before the sun finally dips beneath the horizon always feel the most warm.

Two of the spearmen snap in and tag along, and the more well behaved hounds.

The people here were friendly enough last time we went around and they have no reason to dislike us. This isn't even the deep wastes. Technically - though it's a very large technical and seldom enforced - this whole place falls under the august authority of the Kalcmiri Greenglass Throne, from the distant capital on the coast a few hundred miles down that direction. They should be taxpaying, constitution protected citizens of a functional state.

The fact that there's a dead dog lying in the streets in a buzz of flies when the little troupe rounds the corner puts an odd spin on that - four arrows in the dirt and one in the throat. The fletchings look . . . off. Not feathers. Some other material, stark and colourful in the gradually setting sun.

The road stretches on ahead of Scarlett. This place isn't big, just twenty-thirty houses of brick and clay and sunbaked other materials forming a rough X around a cross-roads between Here and There. The old building the Commander rented out for storage is up ahead. Behind the dead dog.

But the whole village and it's, what, hundred-some souls? Not a. . . peep.

Without being told to do so, one of the spearmen gently adjusts his longknife in the belt. Just make it easier to draw.

Okay lets not panick yet, this could be a feral scraghound roaming in off of the wastes in search of food and flesh. They do that a LOT and it stands to reason any village wouldn't want it to paw back to its pack and bring half a thousand of its hungry four footed friends around. And this could still all be some ritual holy day or village thing. What a professional would do is continue on ahead and check the centre of the X the village forms, because at the crossroads is where people would be if there's any people to be found. Largest, oldest buildings there. Good chance to spot any activity.

Conversely, what a cautious woman of cunning might do is to turn RIGHT back around and hoof it back to Zivka and hunker down in that abandoned hut at the edge of town. Worst comes to worse, it's a smile and a coin to convince any family who comes back home that there's been some kind of mistake and you just needed to rest there for a spell.

Though maybe it's worth investigating that dead creature and the village...

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>>6109628
>>6109637
After being admonished not to steal anything - NO, NOT EVEN THAT - Zivka slinks inside the larger village and checks it. Two of the troopers form a backstop and her hound paws in, scenting the air, glad to be out of the sun.

No one's shown up for the last hour, so this might be the only way to get some information.

The building is one of those common types around here, wind-worne bricks and homely corners. Brushed by a hundred hands through the years. A large centrals square room with a few alcove splitting off and a stairway that leads to the roof. Looks well to do, internal furnishings decided. Not. . . disturbed.

The opposite, really. There's a central table of smooth wood with ceramic plates set out for a family of eight, six central pots with a few berries and roots in (local delicacy) and one singular loaf of black bread based on some crushed agricultural product.

Nothing has been touched. But they've put out the good cutlery, it's silver all the way around and sixteen pieces no less. That's impressive, for a place like this. Tempting to filch a few, they'd go for near a coinbit each.

So, what's this then? They prepare what looks like a light meal, pour some water in jugs and pots, lay out the bread, break out the biteroot and the salt, set the plates, decorate the table with a few figures of saints far and fancy, and then . . . collectively get up, walk out and walk away?

The bread is clearly still good. It looks soft, even. Freshly baked. The hound picks up the scent first but as it whines near the alcove in the back there's a small fireplace built right into the wall, which has the low trace of recent fire and bread. Clever artifice really, vents the smoke right out.

Alright, scratch the prior: They spend hours making bread from good stock, laying out plates, finding the nice knives, gathering roots and stingberry, set the chairs, dust the place out and over with the broom in the corner and THEN leave. . . ?

... ???

That frankly does not make it one bit less confusing. It's might be ritualistic but it's also economics. Let's not disdain the hard working frontier settlers, they're literally the salt of the earth, but socioeconomically they can't exactly go around throwin away perfectly good meals on a whim rather often. There's enough food here to feed eight people and be a feast. So where's the feasters?

One of the troopers eyes the bread. He does not lick his lips. But, well, I mean, the implication is there that that's what he'd like to do.

You've got hours till the dark comes in, a ready set table, free roam of a fairly well to do house which clearly has bits worth taking and no trouble. Not the worst thing to have found.

Any other genius plans?

( One of the troopers checks the roof: That's empty too )

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From outside the building, a few soft footfalls - one of the troopers stick a head out the door and waves down Edward, rolling up leading a mule loaded down with far too much money.

Market's meant to be further on ahead, though Scarlett went down that way. Hey you see anyone on the way over here?

No?
No one?

. . . Strange.

Wait a second here.

>>6109214
7 men

>>6109336
6 men

>>6109387
7 men

>>6109884
>>6109889
6 men

Did we lose somebody in our initial clearing search and then pick someone back up? And then he disappeared again? Something's not right here. Head back to Zivka and do a headcount.

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>>6109897
Sun-induced paranoia is getting to you, recruit. Everyone is right where you left them - look, count it - we've brought six troopers along and two dogs in excess to Zivka's trained scraghound, and now here's you and Ziv and Martik and . . .

. . .
... Okay but if you find Edward that almost makes up for the fact that you seem to have shed two men and a hound over the last hours. Come on now, what?? That dog was right behind you! But as you peer over and around it certainly isn't now

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>>6109599
Friends, friends, just find your friends, easy, simple, they're marching in column, so watch for the dust cloud and . . .

You get turned around - somehow you get turned around - and the sun beats down and the lengths grow longer and you backtrack your own steps and find that they lead you in a circle and the Wastes have you in their grasp and you do not have Compass to guide you out and you try to nav by the sun but doesn't help this time and then, oh no, you are off the beaten path, you traverse a dune and step past a rock and quite without meaning to you step into somewhere Else.

The ground beneath your feet shifts. Crunching. Tiny crystals broken by your boot. Sharp, if you're not careful. The sand here drinks blood on slips and tumbles. Bad place to be.

You glance over your shoulder -- no -- it's behind you too. This is how it always happens. Okay, no panic, there's training for this. Orient yourself, breathe out, breathe in, mask on (you did bring a mask, right?) and then simply retrace your steps and be very certain about doing so.

Jagged pillars of warped crystalised stuff cast twin shadows from distant stars across the ground.

The light shimmers different.

A backpack lies in a small undisturbed space, cast off by -- ufh. Poor fellow. Must have been out here during a storm.

You can hear the sharp barks of distant hounds, low, in the back of your mind. A soft laugh. The rattling of a gamblers dice cup.

Mask on.
Don't panic.
Step carefully.
Retrace steps with intent.
And then .... six times out of ten you make it out okay.

Unless of course you do something else ?

Rolled 3, 4, 4 = 11 (3d6)

>>6109901
Bloody hell.

Set the dogs to the scent of the missing men. Let’s track down our friends- and give these wizard kidnappers a right talking to!

Animals 12

>>6109901
Why does everyone keep assuming I am deserting? I am here to trade! You have to have something to give if you want to take, civilization cannot advance if everyone wants only to take - no offense to the Uthani, their quaint culture is so fascinating!

Now, you say there's no one in the market? How dreadful, we should investigate forthwith!

>>6109945
I support this plan. Let's make doubly sure that we aren't bleeding off stragglers on the way.

>>6109948
Please don't walk into the market by yourself with all our wages. At least wait until we do some tracking first.

>>6109950
Actually I think this is another case I feel obligated to put my foot down. Do Not Allow Edward to wander into the village alone with the mule load of valuables. I'm sure the troopers would also take issue with this.

>>6109950
It's only half our wages, not all of them. And it is nothing but a stroke of luck that I ran into you. We should, naturally, all stick together in the face of unknown shenanigans until they become known shenanigans.

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Foot comes down. A few specks of sand puffs up. It's probably hard to shout down a fellow who has about as much authority as yourself, but Scarlett makes a try of it.

The remaining two scraghounds licks Zivkas hand and sniffs the air and paws the dirt, clever sorts. Taking taste-samples. And then with a flick of a bushy tail, one of them begins pawing down towards the village . . .

( Which looms, heatshimmered, silent, quaint, in the distance... )

>>6109960
To the village, old chaps!

Rolled 1, 5, 3, 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4 = 27 (9d6)

>>6109905
Lookit this numpty touching wot 'e oughtn't. Oi don't truck wif Uvva business, but Oi should see if 'e's wunna ours.

>Thoughts firmly on mundane matters. Focus 12
>Stay put, look at the guy and his bag. Senses 10
>Understand what this indicates about his business and origins. Thoughts 10

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Rolled 4, 4, 3, 5, 3, 1 = 20 (6d6)

The same path walked before follows the same route. The same dead dog lies in the shimmering heat. One of the scraghounds sniff it, disinterested. The flies buzz away in a cloud.

This whole place is silent. Should be a hundred people here, yeah, and any else come in for market making and trade-hawking. A bannerline of fluttering clothscraps get flicked about by the wind. Cute. Some local weave-craft of cloth and leaf and whatnot. Looks faintly like a line in the sand, that shadow it throws down from above. Edwards seen this sort of thing before. Ships have the too - good luck charms, fortune winds, little offerings to anyone watching to speed you on your way. Scarlett missed it earlier - mind more on mundane ground based matters.

Another dead dog lies with an arrow through it near the corner of the larger central building.

That makes two. Unusual, actually. Scraghound packs send out little scouts, more cunning than you'd give them credit for, but seldom more than one at once. Zivka gives it a once over. Definitively feral. Come in off of the deep wastes. They roam it by the thousands. Wouldn't normally risk a village centre, actually, but here it is, dead by arrows. Wounds look congealed. Call it two hours? Three? Might even have happened while you were all gathering your wits and resting in the shade, earlier. Odd that you didn't hear anything, if so.

There's a trace of smoke on the wind now, some distant burning thing. Smells like . . . a cook fire. Bread? More feasts, prepared in houses uneaten? A quick look through an opening into one of the nearby buildings show a table, set for three. Black bread, nice plates, a few gathered roots and berries.

Scarlett racks her mind for any scraps of recent book knowledge. The hounds paw and trace and try to chase down a scent.

>Senses 10, +2 Hounds
>Thoughts 9, Well Read

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Like most problems, it starts with a corpse.

A few more steps into the village and a few more eyes around, and a weird squiggle in the distance in the middle of the road resolves itself into a chair. A table. What looks like a plate, loaf of bread on it, and one un-tapped mug of something frothy.

And a woman, fallen sideways, slipped off of the chair and laying face down on the dusty ground. She does not move. Edward eyes Zivka who eyes Scarlett who checks on Martik and everyone feels like they don't want to be the first one to walk any closer.

The scent is heady here, in the village cross-roads. Bread. Cookfire. Smoke. This whole town has the subtle scent of a bakery in the morning. Did they all spend all their time making those loaves? Why not eat them?

Zivka knows it. It clicks, like the flint of a musket striking home. The hounds - it's been downwind. They've been lured here by the scent and trace of food in the air. And then someone(s) treated them to a meal of arrows.

One of the scraghounds whine loudly and paw at the door of the larger building to the groups right. The old one, the one the Commander rented - village wasn't using it for anything but tool storage, so we bought a few meters of ground and some out of the wind shelter for supplies. There should be six clerks here and six more guards. There isn't. And Edwards hoped for market day hasn't rolled around either.

There's a tension in the air. Something fragile, beneath the wind and the silence, the bubbling of potential.

Wait, hear that? The woman - she just moaned. She's still alive!!

Somehow the distance from here to her seem vaster than it should be. Dangerous. Which is a mite peculiar; this is only a small town in the middle of nowhere far and there shouldn't be danger here. But you're sweating profusely, the lot of you, despite the easy road down the way.

One of the troopers glance at the rooftops and glance down at the dead dogs, arrows punctured through their fur. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't need to. What are the odds those hounds sprouted arrows as a peculiar odd costume for a festival? Low. No. Someone's been hunting them as they come in, lured by the trace of feast in the wind.

No one is here now, of course. So it should be safe to step out into the middle of the crossroad...

>>6109981
‘Cover me.’

Taking one of her many (four) medical Bandages, I try to steal her life away from death. The other two with ranged weapons can stand watch!

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>>6109968
Something seems faintly familiar about the mae of that man's boots and the lines of his uniform. Poor fellow. Some other fortunefinding luck seeker. Must have tried stringing out his wind-shelter or tent beneath the crystal pillar. Rookie mistake. You can still see the metal bit meant for security a flap punctured into the crystal facade, but the wind must have roared out quicker than he thought. He's gone to Wrack now.

The stories always draw them in. The daring and the soon to be dead. They say there's a star out there in the sands, for the plucking of the first finder. They say there's a merchant in a scarf that trades sand for souls. They say there are leviathans, roaming the deeper wastes, vaster than forests. They say there's a lost city, the only city, the one city.

They say a lot of things. You ain't seen none of that lot in all the time you've been here, and most of the scavenge is just archeological artefacts, weird bits of rock and natural ressource deposits mapped and sold to the highest bidder for later exploitation.

That backpack looks vanadian make. Army isse. Probably full of expensive kit worth bringing back to camp. Or coin. Coin is nice. Any lonely soul with boots that good out here could afford the fine stuff, though apparently not caution. Judging by that, that man was light infantry, of some description. Which is curious because your thoughts turn back to the fact his uniform otherwise seems so faintly familiar. It looks . . . No. It is, you can tell form the cloak and the colours. That's a Pytherii style longranging uniform. That dead poor ill fortunate is a well equipped and well stocked long-ranging scout. By your guess from some Nobled House of the Pytherii realm. That would explain the expensive looking boots too. What the void is a Luperni or Cesteriphon or Cerco doing out here?

The wind is picking up. The dice rattling a little harder. Your long lost brother looks out at you from the sands to your right and then ceases to be and wait do you even have a brother?

Could chance it. Get that backpack. Guy might have more stuff on him.
Could try not risking things more than you've already risked today.

>>6109973
I actually have Thoughts 10, gained the +1 from Of Hopes and Fears

#Scarlett
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Harquebus (4d6 Impact, Likely to Terrorize; Malfunctions 16+; Reload 3 AP; steps give -1 Accuracy; +1 Club in melee)
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Muskets 13
#Poetry 12
#Weaving 12
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1: Add Rank to resist terror; Major action to reroll Will for nearby ally; +1 to Influence and Thoughts
!Well Read
!Well Mannered

Rolled 2, 3, 5, 2, 5, 2 = 19 (6d6)

>>6110000
Ah ye. Mum an' Pa Jove got very busy, let me tell you. Fing is, -Oi's- the long-lost, so this 'ere can sling 'is 'ook.

>Jove knows 'oo Jove is. Focus 12
>Get the pack an' leave. 'Oo wants to look loik a 'Ouser? Don't 'ate em, just don't loik em. Focus 12

>>6109981
Ready my weapon to fire on any that would attack us. (React 9 + Muskets 13)

>>6110023
I am not rolling because I presume such a roll would only be necessary were I to shoot, correct?

>>6110015
You’d assume so, but if you remember the fatigue you’ll find it all shapes out rather like it’s meant to.

>>6110024
Correct !

>>6109872
>NEW MARCHING ORDERS AFTER WE'VE RESTED
>>Navigate to Rallypoint Midnight Blue give Rion the Pathfinding/navigating stick
>>I think the Blue Rats can take point, they're Lucky 1 time out of 10
>>I'd like us to be marching in the same way except the Rearguard should be cycled

>>6110064
>>6109872
and most importantly
>GO SLOW

Rolled 4, 6, 3, 2, 1, 6 = 22 (6d6)

>>6109872
I wish I had stats for you Command alas I can't find them. Rion has Pathfinding-10 and Wicklighter has Logistics 12, that's what we'll use and were going slow for this

>>6110065
>>6110064
No bones thrown makes it against for 4, unless you rectify this within the next six sandblown minutes.

>>6110066
Ah, good. Thank you kindly. As for statistics, we can find those - worry not. Rion’s fine with taking the lead? How noble.

>>6109981
I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with Scarlett and ready my gun while Zivka investigates. We don't have nearly enough people for a proper line, but by golly we can try! (React 9 + Muskets 13, !Of Masks and Mettle bonus to Scarlett)

Rolled 1, 6, 4, 1, 2, 1 = 15 (6d6)

#Wicklighter
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 10 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 10
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Alchemineering Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Longblade - +1 damage, Sharp
1 Coinbit
-Secrets
#Thoughts 9
#Influence 9
#Filching 10
#Alchemineering 12
#CQC 12
#Blades 14
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Malice and Mirth 1: If unengaged, add rank to first skill test. If engaged, add rank to all Reaction tests
!Rikovan: Can spend Focus as I would Stamina, and always regain at least 1 Focus when I Recover

>>6109872
While we rest, let's see if we can salvage anything of the broken gear, or anything hidden or missed. We're low, and every bit matters. No point letting it just lie out here, anyway.
>Filching 10 (11?) and RRR 13

I'd like to check the grottoes next, but splitting up and venturing into deep, dark caves seems like a bad idea when there's /clearly/ something malevolent acting against us. Not to mention how long that could take. Instead, it's possible that the old fort would serve as a landmark that the lost might hoof it towards.

>>6110066
Me? That's the company's logistics.

>>6110242
We could task a few formations or squads to do it carefully, or send a runner to the main camp and request that Commander Isenfrii send some people to do it. It makes sense to do so - we haven't explored the cave systems, but if someone was hiding out here, this would certainly be a good place for it.

The issue is there's rather a lot of them. Some small, some barely more than a dent in the rock. Odds are we won't find anything, but it pays to bare careful.

Detach some units, if you'd like, or send a runner. Worst comes to worst, it's something else to consider.

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Rolled 1, 5, 4 = 10 (3d6)

Zivka unrolls a roll of spare bandage from their belt, ducks low and sprints out into the cross-roads, sliding down next to the woman. Up close, she seems . . . younger than expected; not a child, but not a matronly elder either. She offers a weak smile and her eyes a dilated wide, a yellow cast to her skin. Some poison of some kind working her way through her system. The bandage won't help, but she does have fairly significant bump on her head and a matted bit of blood in her dark hair that Zivka wraps it around. That's not from her fall here. That's . . . well, it's always hard to tell but it seems like a club wound. As if someone battered her over the head. She's been out in the sun here for hours, hasn't touched the food on the table. She's trying to say something but she's parched and dehydrated and sun-scorched besides, so it all comes out in a croaking moan.

Twelve eyes scan the rooftops nearby for any sign of archers. Listen for the soft scrape of footfall on rock, a string being draw, the creak of wood. Was that something? No. Just a banner fluttering . . . Steady. Steady.

No. It's silent. Just the scent of bread, the soft rustle of the fortune-flitters strung out on their string high above and the gently pained moan of a woman that Zivka's bandaging up. Going for the water skin, gives it a shake. The slosh of it makes her focus her green eyes and Zivka can see her marshalling her focus to say . . . something . . .

>???

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Zivka leans in. Offers some water. The woman lunges suddenly, clasps a warm hand around Zivka's wrist and rallies whatever mental fortitude she has to deliver a fairly important warning because whatever else she tries to say it ends in the word TRAP and that's as much warning as Scarlett gets before a shape rises on the roof across the road and the whistle of an arrow thrums the air -- two load shots return fire as Edward backs her up but this is a killing ground; one attacker ducks back out of reach and another drops - was that a hit?? how do you tell?? - the Scraghounds bark and roar and snap. Martik, quick on the uptake, hurls his spear and it slam into the facade on the other side of the road and then he goes for his belt long-knife - - -

>!!!!!

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The troopers yelp and unsling their shields, try to get something solid between themselves and the incoming rain of sharp, lethal things - Ekin shoves Edward out the path of a projectile and flinches aside but another slaps into his shoulder and he yells in pain as Scarlett ducks low.

This all went to absolutely shit in five seconds and a little less. The woman has her hands clasped around Zivka's wrist and a manic grin on across her features.

"sh-sh-sh-shitty rescue plan, idiot"

Yeah lets pretend we know that's about. This is a bad situation. They have far superior position, cover and we're taking arrows in a cross-fire. Ten more heartbeats and you're all dead so if you have a plan, now might be the time to execute it.

Dive into a building? Rush one of the doors? Get out, back and away?

>OH VOID
>AMBUSH
>AMBUSH!!!
>FOCUSED TIME

Focused Time. You're AP limited. You have 9 AP.

Or, rather, Zivka has 9 AP. Edward and Scarlett are both Fatigued and have 7.

You have your Speed - you can spend it, as you are not engaged in melee.

You do not need a grid at the moment - distances are such that you can manage more-or-less as is.

Major actions are 3 AP
Minor actions are 1 AP - most quick, brief interactions.

Take some general actions, recruits, or you're apt to die here.

>>6110272
Are we being shot at from behind as well? That trooper has an arrow sticking out the back of him, and those white lines seem to be coming from the north.

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Rolled 6, 5, 6 = 17 (3d6)

>>6110020
You can crunch your way across the sands. Sometimes, your boot goes right through a surface that's more crystal than it is anything else. You have to pry your feet out with care. Your leathers are torn to shreds. It's starting to dip into your socks, which, heavy though they are, won't stand to this abuse for long.

It takes an hour to walk fifteen or so meters. You pass yourself. You think. Or maybe not. Could all be a mirage. You can taste almonds at the back of your throat. You didn't put on a mask. You didn't ward yourself. You didn't whisper any prayers of protection. You just walked right in.

You've given yourself a lethal dose of Shimmering and about six days to live. It's unfortunate. But that's how it goes sometimes.

When you get your hands around the straps of the backpack, your little finger on your left hand breaks off in a rain of crystalized rainbow shards. The backpack itself fits well on your shoulder. Like it was meant to be there. Like it was always going to be there. As if it had no choice. Unlike you rapidly disintegrating integrity the backpack is not Wracked, not so changed, no shimmering. It's not animate, no mind there for things to cling too. It takes longer for the Else to seep in.

Vanadian style, but the man - up close - yes, he's a Luperni, one of those Pytherii Nobled House, all trade estates and families and deals and money and plans. What's he doing out here? This isn't their territory, not by a long shot, and though they pay their operatives and agents well they don't pay them suicide-by-shimmer money. What's left of his clothes are fine. He hasn't been here long. Let's call it two days? Though measuring time this way is hard. What's a Pytherii doing with a Vanadian military backpack? Why is he dead? Questions - questions - the other Jove here with you shrugs. He doesn't know either. Sometimes, you just find mysteries in the sands for no good reason. A bead of sweat rolls down your forehead and turns to rock by the time it clings to the end of your nose. You shake your head and a spray of tiny pebbles land in the sand around you.

Maybe six days is optimistic.

>. . . is it?

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>>6110280
You push out the way you came in - straight ahead. It's the most reasonable cause of action in situations like this. It's not like it can get any worse. Your sword breaks away into a flutter of ants. You aren't surprised. You don't even own a sword. It might not even be yours. It's probably the blade of some other Jove, one of the ones wandering besides you, pointing the way out. Somewhere beyond the quick four kilometer march you came in by.

Yeah.

. . . Six days was optimistic. Something catches in your throat as you breathe in, a rigidity that wasn't there before.
Well.
Hm.

Hope mum's alright. Commander's a good sport. He'll make sure she gets any overdue wage and pension and whatnot. You got a feeling you're not going to get to collect on that stuff.

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Just gotta . . . find a doctor . . . medical . . . specialist . . . company . . . emergency warding by professionals . . . abjurat. . . mhm. . . well . . . maybe past the . . . next . . . dune . . .

huh was your hand always see through it's getting a little complicated to remember

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OI. What's that?

One of the lead Blue Rats, marching along at a fairly brisk pace, spot a weatherworne backpack sticking out of the sands and then a few seconds of curiousity later spots the man the backpack is attached to, though he is, admittedly, harder to see, half his body crystal flecks and the light bending strangely near him.

March Interruption
>We'll continue on our way to Rally Point Midnight Blue, unless adjusted.

Blue Rats report they've found a desert straggler in dire need of emergency medical assistance. Not one of the supply clerks, though. Looks like one of ours.

--

Wicklighter and some of the keener hands scrounge what can be used from Rally Point Shade Tree. Though most of it has been busted up by maul and wrath, some splinters can be repurposed. In a small cave, a few chests remain, untouched. Emergeny water skins, three spare swords and some tents and . . . Oh, lucky. A few gambesons. Must have been dumped here as part of a supply cache that was meant to make movement faster. The Stern Ravens certainly appreciate the extra equipment. That was a good find, lucky. They're slowly winding their way back to regulation strength.

--

We've got a dying man here with a lethal overdose of Wrack exposure. He's flaking away into non-existence before your eyes. Bad way to go. Anyone want to do anything, now would be time.

From some Void-damned reason, he's got a vanadian style backpack over his shoulder. Doesn't match his gear, it's not one of ours. It's got a . . . scroll-case in it, in a cipher, a multi-tool set, two carefully wrapped flashfire grenadoes and eight (EIGHT!!) sealed up survival rations stamped with a Luperni seal. That's a Pytherii Nobled House, merchant cartel group. They sell a lot of expensive equipment. Backpack must have come from one of their people...

Rolled 2, 5, 5 = 12 (3d6)

>6110295

>Twist the man's luck so that he becomes fated to survives this wrack and emerge as one of the wrack-wrought.

<Mistbreath 12

Voice of Self-Preservation: "No, not that one. That doesn't even make sense".

<Probonic Invocation

Voice of Self-Preservation: "No, not that one either. You don't have a skill value for it or understand how it works. Try again".

>Iconotheurgy 12

Voice of Self-Preservation: "Fine. Go ahead. Remember to wash your hands afterwards".

Hey look, it's another 12. I've been told that's good. Living on the edge like.

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... huh. Strange lucky find, Rats. Anyone speak ... code? This doesn't look that complicated, it has a repeating pattern. Must have been done in a hurry.

>>6110295
> Icarus absolutely insists on not allowing Jove past the camp's outer perimeter. The wrack-cursed fool is emitting absurd levels of background Potentiality. To the point that the phenomena is literally visible to the naked eye, you can see the rainbows refracting off the geometry of his soul. He needs to be quarantined away from people, and object with overly colorful histories, and errant NOTIONS. Icarus might be able to siphon away the Potentiality diluting and decohering Jove's very existence using his Fully Inert Blackstone, perhaps saving his life. He'll also need to go through decontamination to ensure that nothing exotic or *transcendent* gets tracked back into camp. Icarus will also need wards, and salt, and water, and perhaps assistance for the other Iconotheurges.

Rolled 5, 4, 5 = 14 (3d6)

>>6110306
Probos, Join me in admiring the bones roll.

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>>6110274
You spin around (1 Speed) and check behind you (1 AP, Sense) and get a good, solid read of the situation (1 AP, Thoughts)

Looks like they're behind you too - except that lot of them forming up near the entrance to the village itself appears to have short, wicked looking blades.

1 Speed
5 AP left, Scarlett.

>>6110305
It's a shame I'm not with the camp right now, otherwise I might decode this as:

CadreCommand expect she's embedded with the Isenfrii Fr
Company and have hired them to extract a fireglass node.
Houondmaster wants her alive but the Company is expend
the Windsworn by edge of the low gradient shimmerfiektby the
village of Clayin, brief them on the acquisition protocol and
double their usual fee. They can have anything that's not the
Atlas. Lunar will be with them. She'll have more information.
CadreCommand suggests getting the team to sabotage the caches the
Company has been baying out. If can avoid a diplomatic
incident that would be preferable, so let them eat dust and
choke out. That way we don't have to explain half a theusand
corpses - onc they tire out, possibly extract the Atlas without
the Windsw Your prerogative. If that doesn't work, Lunar
takes local orders. If at any point it appears they're attempting

The Luperni must be getting lazy, only using a two-separated substitution cipher.

>>6110306
>>6110301

You're right - better safe than sorry. This looks like a truly staggering amount of Threshold contamination - he's bleeding fractal lives and shimmering into pregrets.

We'll need to call a HALT if we're to set up a proper ward circle. Anything less and there's feedback risk. Or we might draw the wrong kind of attention.

It'd be kinder just to slit his throat and be done with it, but we might have the specialists to affectuate a emergency grounding of all this errant intention toxicity.

>>6110315
Ultimately up to the boss.
Our Itinerary will get pushed back if you try to save Jove, but on the other hand - assuming he survives - you may end up with a freak of nature that's much more (or less) than human on the company's payroll. Having a wildcard is always useful.

>>6110322
Sacrificing lives for the sake of a timetable isn't Commander Isenfrii's preference. Rumour has it that's why he mustered out of the army.

Our current tasking is a long range patrol. We're not on a schedule, as such. Though . . . If we linger here, and we know there's oddities around, it's likely this will come at cost of other things. If anyone is out at Rally Point Midnight maybe they need our help? Seems unlikely yet stranger things have happened.

It's all theoretical anyway. We'd need some way to ground the bleed, something to siphon the Potential to and something to fight the Wrack. It's complicated work with a slim chance of success.

>>6110314
While Scarlett would've beaten him to it, Wicklighter's been scratching the cipher into the sand (with the help of some shields as a windbreaker).

"This letter confirms it!" Wicklighter shouts gruffly to the other officers, interrupting the proceedings over the Wracked man, "Someone's on our trail, and they want us to starve out instead of having the will to strike us down themselves! The Windsworn! They must be who wrecked that last rallypoint cache! Chances are the other caches are gone too, and our stragglers we're out looking for are already dead or-"

Wicklighter pauses, then swears up a storm. "Someone left just before us, headed to the nearby village with half a chest of coin! Edwins or something! It might not be too late for him and however much of our pay he has with him! If you thaumatheurges really want to make a go of saving that poor bleeder, we'll split, but either way we've gotta doubletime it to that village!"

>>6110335
!!!

Curses and stinking corpses, swordthoughts, you're right. If we gather around for a proper ward and getting Jove square away, we're leaving anyone in that village to fend for themselves and that includes eight months pay on a mule for trading purposes. That's going to be a right nightmare. How will we settle Fascimile's gambling debts without that?

The troopers won't like it one bit. Good work on that cipher. Must have been written quick, it was relatively simple to crack. Mind like a blade, yeah?

Listen, recruits this might get dicey - the longer we wait here, the better we can set up a ritual. But we're not making it to that village OR the rally point if we're sitting here doing medical work.

We might need to make a few decisions or, or, worse come to it . . . split up. We could send some of the fleeter people on ahead; archers, blades, spears, they're fast enough on their footwork. Anyone tag along as a leader. Then the thaumatheurges can ward things proper and try to stabilize Jove.

Or, then again, what are the odds the village is in trouble? Bet you Edward and Scarlett and Ziv's slumming it with the locals, charming sons and daughters, drinking ale in the shade right now.

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meanwhile, elsewhere

MY ARM
they're behind us too! the road back out - three spears! Dammit! East looks clear but for the roof archers - and the building behind us is silent
THERE'S FOUR PEOPLE IN THE GARDENS AT THE END OF THE LEFT ROAD
Voided flame where are they all comin from--- GET DOWN

your. . . rescue attempt . . n-n-needs . . . work (the woman still clinging to Zivka groans, through clenched teeth)

>>6110355
right now..

Look, just because we've found one weird cipher in a backpack luckily is no reason to go panicking. Support team? Code names? CadreCommand? This is all starting to sound a little abstractly political. I'm sure it won't be so problematic.

Maybe we can simply take it easy, crack a water barrel, sketch a eight layer ward and try to fix whatever happened to Jove. Camp out here for the night. There's not much shade but there's not much anything, really. Good wind cover through the nearby dunes. Should be fine.

>>6110328
Bah. No need to overcomplicate things.

If my Fully Inert Blackstone can't serve as adequate containment for the ambient Potential in and of itself, why not just channel it into a random boulder or shrub.
Choose a suitable (non-human) corporeal vessel, ward that thing to the Voidstar and back, carefully pour the nightmare reality acid into it, and then run like hell.
> Something to fight the Wrack
Eh, lets just force-feed Jove a couple fistfuls of salt, dust any crystal grains off his clothes, dump a bucket of water over his head, and assign him a month of latrine duty after the procedure is through.

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>>6110370
Yeah that sounds like that'd do it. What's the worst that can happen?

If we have a Blackstone that actually functions with a high enough absorption level that might ... might! ... work.

Luz and Phridon gets ready, you find a barrel of water we get some salt on the man and we get him a new uniform and burn the last one, we link and force a transference . . .

Are you . . . sure about this? Hmh... Well. You are the Specialist. And that Probos Invocation worked . . . fine. I think?

>Here's half the manual for field Iconotheurgy
>What's the process and the rolls for the procedure you describe?
>Don't worry about AP cost - you can concievably work over a long enough time line.
>Any other Thaumatheurges with good ideas can chime in too.

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>>6110308
>1 AP: "Everyone follow me! Inside and bar the doors!"
>1 Speed, 1 AP: get inside the building to my 23 ish (East, right from the player perspective, also to the right of my character facing in the pic I am replying to, pic related)
>3 AP: Close and lock/bar the door once everyone that is coming inside is inside


#Scarlett
-Metrics
Vitality 12 Stamina 12 Focus 12
Action 9(7) Speed 2
–Stat
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
–Kit
Uniform, DR 2
Harquebus (4d6 Impact, Likely to Terrorize; Malfunctions 16+; Reload 3 AP; steps give -1 Accuracy; +1 Club in melee)
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield [18 HP, 3 DR, +2Def]
Trapping Kit
Empty Pockets
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
-Secrets
#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Gearwright 12
#Muskets 13
#Poetry 12
#Weaving 12
-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1: When you Recover, always regain at least 1 Stamina
!Of Hopes and Fears 1: Add Rank to resist terror; Major action to reroll Will for nearby ally; +1 to Influence and Thoughts
!Well Read
!Well Mannered

>>6110425
Once everyone *that is not an enemy*

>>6110308
Zivka

Vitality 9 Stamina 9 Focus 9
Action 9 Speed 1+1

Will 10 Health 10 Grit 10 Sense 10
React 9, Reputation -2
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6

Uniform, DR 2
Shortblade, Sharp
Shield & Axe
Ranging Kit
Tattercloak Quiver
Weather Cloak (Morale 1, Weather Resist 2)
Good Boots
4 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
More Pockets

#Thoughts 10
#Influence 11
#Animalfriend 12
#Bows 12
#Axes 13
#Filching 10

-Traits
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!I’ll Walk, Thanks

Haha!

> 1AP: Tell the scraghounds to sprint off and find help.
> 3AP: Cut the woman loose, and pick her up.
> 5 AP, 2 Speed: Hustle into the building.

Spend Stamina if absolutely necessary to make the distance- I shouldn’t think it’s that far, however.

‘No one touch the furniture! And *don’t* eat the food!’

Rolled 5, 6, 5, 3, 6, 5 = 30 (6d6)

>>6110361
Maybe so, Command, but I'd still rather not risk it. If they're fine in the village, we can warn them about the danger and either bring them back to the contingent or stick around for strength in numbers if they've got urgent business.

I'd like to propose a marching order.

>Leave behind the Stern Ravens, Quiet Stainfingers, Reckless Ashfingers, Solemn Powderhands, Haunted Sharpshooters, Fresheyed Archers, Sunstained Spears, Bound Blades, Slick Slicers, officers with Thaumatheurge kits, and any officer who doesn't witsh to join me
>Bring along the Sharp Sharps, Ironwrought Banners, Coldeyed Archers, Windsore Archers, Windswept Blades, Slick Slicers, Eager Edges, Blue Rats, myself, Crushfists and any officer who wishes to join me
>Navigate to Unremarkable Village (Crushfists Pathfinding 10, Logistics 12, a Pathfinding 10 is probably better than Thoughts 10 or even Thoughts 11 for navigation)
>Crushfists can take point. He's fast, and it makes sense for the pathfinder to be in front anyway. Right behind him should be the Coldeyed Archers, whose initiative may be needed
>Swords up front, they'll be handy if worst comes to worst and we run face-first into an enemy in the village

>>6110436
Ha, there go my dice

>>6110433
Spend three stamina to make cutting her loose and picking up separate actions, as I’ve been told that otherwise, it will go rather awry.

Rolled 1, 2, 3 = 6 (3d6)

Jove is Jove, an' there ain't no Jove but Jove.

>Rally all tautological stubbornness. Jove knows 'oo 'e is, an' 'e don't will his redefinition. 'oo is the Wrack to compel 'im? Didn't even punch 'im! Focus 12
>But the wiggly-finger funny-talkers can 'elp too Oi guess.

I don't suppose anyone wants to propose a similar marching order to mine on the off chance that the second go around doesn't have diabolically bad rolls?

It feels kind of cheaty to even ask that question. Rolling the results of something before committing to it seems weird. Am I missing something?

>>6110441
Have you? Strange voices you’ve been listening to, softsoul. We certainly have said not a thing.

>>6110536
It’s a larger operation where the outcome is the average of all the effort invested. Done this way, you can compensate if you see others make a mistake or try to account for difficulties if you spot someone has a good idea but bungle the execution.

>>6110451
"Great job Jove but do try being bit more specific. Generally holding on to what and who you are is good. But more detailed you can be could help you to keep the smaller bits you of you unchanged."

Rolled 5, 2, 2 = 9 (3d6)

>>6110436
Hop on with the boys.
Using (Pathfinding 10)
Time to help where i can.

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Rolled 4, 4, 1 = 9 (3d6)

>>6110377
> With salt and water, Icarus carves the configuration displayed in the image into the earth, fills each line with salt, and then soddens the salt to water. Essentially, the hope is that this ward construct will help the Casters (Iconotheurges) to Shunt the excess Potentiality from the Source (Jove) into the Vessel (Blackstone) in a relatively safe and coordinated manner.
Any other theurges who wish to enhance or build upon this outline are welcomed to. Any assistance will be appreciated, but gawkers should stand well clear... in fact, you may want to avert your eyes and find something extremely sturdy to stand behind - just in case.

>>6110585
Understood, Command. Hopefully the others can help me (and poor Crushfists. On whose behalf I rolled so terribly) out here.

>>6110593
Oh yes, /that/ way is south. Right you are, coppersoul, right you are.

Rolled 3, 2, 3 = 8 (3d6)

>>6110590
Ye, doc? Awroight.

Jove's a thug. Jove always pays 'is debts, except to society. Jove don't care to list 'is vices, but a good scrap's among 'em an' the stimmies ain't. Jove learned prim an' propah speech from a boss o' 'is once, but 'e didn't loik it. Made 'im fink different. Jove don't much loik finkin' inna first place. A future legend just does it all roight, see?

>Wrack may not loik it, but this is peak performance. If it really finks it can improve on perfection, why don't it make anuvva Jove an' we settle this propah? Focus 12 (Incidentally, manifesting such an incredible if slightly lesser specimen should soak up a good deal of Potentiality.)

>>6110603
Well well well. If that ain’t a classic Hoodin Transference Circuit with double-layered external wards unless I miss my read. Didn’t know we were dealing with a [i]scholar[/i]. I tip my head to you in respect as I run for cover.

You’ve got an awry tangle of luck in the north-northeast barrier line. Though I see you’ve improvised a direct Source-Vessel link and shaved time off by foregoing the usual Absorbs. Clever, if a little reckless… If we get overflow or Threads they’ll have nowhere to go. Does maintain the process purity and is easier to sustain so I see the trick of it. Still, there’s a quick fix, we’ll get another two water barrels over here and…

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The troopers bust out the shovels and throw up an impromptu blast barrier to dive behind, a few others bring up water barrels and spare bags of salt. Icarus sketches his lines. The wind howls . . .

>You are trying an impromptu field ritual to stabilise a dying man. Any Thaumatheurge that wishes to assist can do so - you might wish to point out how, and read up on the proposed path of solution: >>6110603

Wicklighter and Crushfists are leading the rest of the Company off to the Village to secure the mule with money that Edward brought there - if you'd rather be with them, that's acceptable too and you can note this as a free action.

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Rolled 6, 4, 2 = 12 (3d6)

>>6110593
Crushfists takes point and the blades fall in behind him, Rion checking a map and reminding Wicklighter to turn theirs around. Ah - right. That's . . . what's down that a way.

The village is not remarkable, nor is it really far. An hour of good march. It's pleasant enough terrain. The Iconotheurges and other half of the Company will catch up and you can all meet in the village. Which is a good plan anyway, thinks Wicklighter, because they're local, friendly and have both shade, shadows, succour and supplies. No bad place to rest. And if we do one of those Hearths and Minding things Commander Isenfrii so likes, it's possible any locals we come across can tell us more about this cipher we found and any movements of large groups they've seen around. Maybe find out who the Windsworn are, if they're dangerous enough to be mentioned by name in encrypted communications.

>Wastewrack Modifier, stable conditions, -6

Rolled 6, 2, 5, 3, 5, 1 = 22 (6d6)

>>6110633
Have I ever read about anything of the sort? That man looks wrack'd out, alright. Is there any way in which Icarus' ritual can be modified to be more effective?

>Testing Thoughts 11.
>Contingent on the above, I will help out. [Iconotheurgy 12]

Sheet's fixed, btw. Idk where the idea that I had picked Blades instead of Spears came from, Command.

#Phridon
-
Vitality 12 Stamina 13 Focus 12
Action 9 Speed 2
-
Will 10 Health 10 Grit 9 Sense 10
React 9
Lethality 1d6 Threshold 1d6
Reputation 2
-
Uniform, DR2
Shortblade, Sharp
Spear, Reach 2, Impales, Throwable
Shield [18HP, 3DR, +2Def]
Pockets with 2 entire coinbits!!!
2 Bandages, 2 Torches, 2 Bags of Salt
Whitebone Needles (Wards-12)
-
#Thoughts 11
#Influence 11
#Iconotheurgy 12
#Spears 14
#Religious Ritual 11
-
!Through Clenched Teeth 1
!Of Hopes and Fears 1
!Well Read