Day 17: Study, Training, and Breeding Programs

[Iron Dragoon]

Session Start: Thu Nov 06 12:02:03 2014
Session Ident: #dunes
* Now talking in #dunes
* Topic is 'Lief(33)>Muirfinn(25)>Ellese(22)Balyss(16)>Canoloth Pack(11) '
* Set by Kotono on Wed Nov 05 21:40:48
<Kotono> ----
<Kotono> Soon the party is below decks, resting. With a light mage to steer the ship, it allows everyone to get a good 'night's rest. OOC: Restore HP and such for one night's rest. More coming.
<Moore> OOC: I'll use my healing hymn for 24 hours of sleep for everyone and top them off with heals
<Kotono> OOC: Okay.
<Kotono> Breakfast the next morning is served on the main deck. Bolethon silently guides the ship as Kamhoff passes out salted meats, dried fruits, watered down ale, preserved biscuits and fresh lemons. "Well, that was an adventure," Old Kamhoff remarks, "Even if we shouldn't go to Freeport Rock for the next decade," he adds, "What a fucking mess, but at least it was profitable."
<Veren > "That was not exactly the result anyone was expecting, no."
<Lucy> "It was the best result, if I dare say so myself."
<Veren > "No, the best result would have been all the treasure that rained down, being ours alone."
<Pepo> Pepo takes one smell of the salted meat before turning his nose up at it. The rest isn't so good either... well he'll just have a nap and conserve energy. Maybe think about setting up a rat breeding program...
* Lucy nibbles on a lemon. "Now, now," she tells Veren, shaking her finger at him. "There is no need to be greedy."
<Kotono> "Oi, cat," Kamhoff rustles in his robes, "I'd gotten something for you before things went pear-shaped."
<Veren > "It was our work. I am satisfied with the reward we have, but rewarding people for doing nothing is disagreeable."
<Kotono> "A shower of treasure rained down on all," Bolethon remarks, "But it reminds us that treasure is as much a bane as a boon."
<Moore> Moore enjoys the fried fruit and meanwhile casts Prestidigitation on a piece of salted meat to make it smell and taste like some delicious fish! Then he puts it in front of Pepo. "Well, maybe next time we'll just be more meticulous about the entire situation."
<Veren > "Indeed, Bolethon. One must watch out for the falling pots in such a case."
<Pepo> Pepo perks up and looks over at Kamhoff, ears pointed towards him. He pointedly ignores Moore's deception. 'It's not the taste, it's unhealthy,' he mentally informs the pixie.
<Kotono> Kamhoff takes out a small folded bit of parchment, undoing it. Within are perhaps a dozen small fish. They look like sardines but not quite, having bands of rainbow color down the belly. "Got these for a song while in town. They're for my cat, but I can share some."
<Pepo> 'I will have one then, thank you,' Pepo says to Kamhoff, getting up and walking towards him.
<Moore> 'Ohh... I have some trail rations that aren't too bad in terms of that! Maybe next time.' He responds with a smile. "So we're off to that arcane locale, correct?"
<Lucy> "That is correct!"
<Kotono> A fish is given. "That's the plan. It'll be about a month's trip, so get comfortable," Old Kamhoff remarks.
<Pepo> Pepo devours it without ceremony, and then wanders off into the ship's interior to see if he can find enough rats to get a viable breeding population going.
<Moore> "Anything interesting on the way?" Moore inquires.
<Lucy> "I presume that would mean a detour?"
<Kotono> "Not terribly. There's a few small islands, mostly just uninhabited places to pick up water," Kamhoff says, "First one's a week and a half away." OOC: Okay, at this point I'm going to ask what plans y'all have to pass the time on ship.
<Lucy> OOC: I have my research! Let's continue it with Kamhoff's help.
<Veren > OOC: Well unless there's something that Perform or Survival will let me do.. I dunno. Just train and assist people as I can.
<Pepo> OOC: I'm going to use attraction/psionic dominate to make the rats eat shitty bad-for-cats food and breed a lot to form a population of tasty super-rats. Which will then be eaten.
<Moore> OOC: I suppose I'll help out with research and read any books that are on the ship. Maybe chat up Bolethon.
<Kotono> OOC: Okay. Pepo in here, Lucy and Moore in #evil and Veren in #terrorofdunes.


<Kotono> ----


<Kotono> OOC: Okay Pepo, just going to dominate rats, have them eat'n'breed?
<Pepo> OOC: yeah, I'll corral them too so they don't get in the way of anyone else. Any that are old or infirm will just get eaten while the core population is allowed to grow.
<Kotono> OOC: Okay.
<Kotono> Gathering rats takes a few days. It's a fun few days, but it's still some effort. On chasing down one of the last ones, Pepo finds himself in Kamhoff's lab. The old mage is fiddling with something or another and not paying attention. The rat Pepo's at dashes across the floor - and right to Kamhoff's old dog. It scurries behind it, using him for cover.
<Pepo> Pepo just takes his time, circling the dog to get an eye on the rat... then he manifests Aversion on it. The lab is no place for rats after all! OOC: DC 19 will
<Kotono> roll 1d20
* Hatbot (~Hatbot@cpe-68-203-15-105.austin.res.rr.com) has joined #dunes
<Kotono> roll 1d20
* Hatbot --> "Kotono rolls 1d20 and gets 12." 12 [1d20=12]
<Kotono> OOC: What's the aversion on it?
<Pepo> OOC: this room
<Kotono> The rat turns, squeaks and bolts for the door. At the same time, the old dog looks up at Pepo.
<Pepo> Pepo runs right after the rat so he can corral it towards the others and match it up with a nice other rat!
<Kotono> This goes without incident, only a canine gaze on Pepo's back as he goes back to rat breeding. OOC: Where are you keeping them corralled?
<Pepo> OOC: Whichever currently unused part of the ship I can find. An empty store-room or guest-room? I'll hit them all with attraction and drop off food a few times a day to make sure they stay there.
<Kotono> OOC: Doable enough.
<Kotono> A few more days pass as the grand rat experiment continues. It seems to be going well enough, until Pepo's catnap on the ship's deck is disturbed. "Oi, cat," Old Kamhoff calls, "Wake up!"
<Pepo> Pepo's ears twitch and he opens one eye without otherwise moving.
<Kotono> "Now why the hell are you breeding rats?" he asks, "Aren't you supposed to catch rats instead of that?"
<Pepo> 'I was concerned there weren't enough rats to survive on for the month,' Pepo explains telepathically while yawning and uncurling his body. 'So I am rationing myself while building up a reserve.'
<Kotono> "Why? Just eat the salted meat," Old Kamhoff huffs, "It'll put muscle in your body and fur on your chest, cat!"
<Pepo> 'It's poison,' Pepo retorts, stretching out his forelegs. 'I don't understand how you can eat it... though, the rats can at least. They're like a filter, turning bad meat into good.'
<Kotono> "It is not poison!" Old Kamhoff retorts, throwing his hands into the air, "It's good, manly food! It's food that feeds brave men sailing across the sea of light!"
<Pepo> 'I am a cat, not a man.'
<Kotono> "So what?" Old Kamhoff says, "The point's the same!
<Kotono> "
<Pepo> 'I might have amnesia but I still know what I can and can't eat," Pepo says with an air of finality, curling back up again.
<Kotono> This gets Kamhoff to stomp off, muttering about intractable felines and similar things. At least it doesn't further disturb Pepo's nap. OOC: Just out of curiosity, how fast do rats breed, anyway?
<Pepo> OOC: 21 days gestation. Really it's not very effective for just 1 month. But if we fail to get resupplied next time it could be pivotal!
<Kotono> OOC: Okay.


<Kotono> ----


<Kotono> OOC: Working on anything in particular with those notes, Lucy?
<Lucy> OOC: Before that, Kamhoff asked to take a look at the miscellanea to see if there was anything of 
interest. Did he find anything? Might as well start with that.
<Kotono> OOC: Okay.
<Kotono> Lucy's room is a small little cabin in the shop. Comfortable in a crammed sort of way, really. 
Moore can perch on the bed while Kamhoff drags an old chair in. "There was one thing you  might like," he 
remarks to Lucy.
<Lucy> "Please do share, Mister Kamhoff," she says pleasantly, an excited look in her eyes.
<Moore> Moore indeed finds a comfortable place to sit to listen in.
<Kotono> "It's about runic magic. He stumbled onto something," Kamhoff says. "You know how I mentioned it's 
too fiddly to use in the heat of combat?"
<Lucy> "I do recall something like that," Lucy muses. "It is similar to how much work is involved in 
preparing a proper scroll, I believe?"
<Kotono> "Yeah, that." Kamhoff settles back in before replying. "He found a short cut to use it quicker, not 
that he realized it at the time."
<Lucy> "How much of a shortcut are we talking about, here? A minute? A few seconds?"
<Kotono> "Seconds. Viable in combat," Kamhoff sits back, "But it would take a lot of training to do so."
<Moore> "Ooh, that sounds neat." Moore says.
<Lucy> Lucy leans on a cabin wall, deep in thought. "Perhaps," she voices, "the analogy has outlived its 
usefulness. Scribing a scroll, from my understanding of the act, allows you to create a resource for the 
future by expending magical energies in the now. But put in other words, you may well just cast the very 
same spell you are inscribing, and it would be cheaper and faster to do so. More
<Lucy> efficient, we may say. So if preparing a rune is viable in combat, it must work differently from how 
I originally imagined?"
<Kotono> Kamhoff nods, "The thing is, that when you cast a rune normally, you're doing it slowly enough to 
imbue the spell in the runes. Same idea as a scroll. But when you cast it that fast, there's no way for the 
magic to be stored, so it manifests immediately."
<Lucy> "I'm still not sure I see the benefits," Lucy says apologetically. "Unless you mean-- wait, might you 
be talking about the activation time? And not the creation time?"
<Kotono> "Yes," Old Kamhoff says, "That's what I'm getting it at. Since you do it so fast, it activates just 
as fast."
<Lucy> "Oh. Umm." For a change, Lucy is caught speechless. "Runes take longer than a few seconds to 
activate, then? How horrifying!"
<Moore> "I might've missed the conversation on this topic, so I apologize if you have to repeat yourself, 
but is runic magic significantly different than other forms of magic? I mean... can anyone use it, or is it 
limited...?" Moore asks and looks between Lucy and Kamhoff.
<Lucy> "I first understood it to mean using a stone instead of a scroll to seal a given spell," Lucy 
elaborates. "After all, everyone knows that any such trinket holding a spell within it is swiftly 
activated. But if runes normally take a while...."
<Kotono> "Something like that," Kamhoff waves a hand, "But never mind this. The point is that there's a 
breakthrough here."
<Lucy> "Yes. Of course." Lucy purses her lips, and then stretches her hand over to the wall opposite her. 
"How much time does it normally take to activate runes? Does the process differ with the rune, as it 
sometimes does with the more difficult spells? The swifter variation, is it more like this?" She fires off a 
Magic Missile, which impacts harmlessly against the wall. "Or more like this?" This
<Lucy> time, Lucy's Magic Missile had been quickened.
<Kotono> "The second, I think," Kamhoff says, "Definitely the quickened spell."
<Lucy> "Now this is interesting!" Lucy says happily. "How much training are we talking about, here?"
<Kotono> "A fair deal," Kamhoff says, "Knowing about it and training to properly use it is another thing 
altogether."
<Lucy> "More than, say, this month of travel? At a rough estimate?"
<Kotono> "Probably," Old Kamhoff says, "It's not a light investment. More like the studies of 'arcane 
divining', as he put it, or a light mage. Useful, but it's a serious pursuit."
<Lucy> "Ah. Speaking of them -- the arcane diviners, not the people who claw their eyes out and then scoop 
out their brains -- how difficult is the training? Must you truly seek out someone to teach you, or is it 
possible to do it via self-study?"


<Kotono> ---


<Kotono> Training. The days pass in a blur of efforts at self-improvement. Today's efforts are on the deck near where Bolethon guides the ship. He looks over as Veren finishes a particular flurry of stabs, "This path?" he asks aloud.
<Veren > "Path? Do you mean to ask about how I fight?"
<Kotono> Bolethon nods, "This path."
<Veren > "What do you wish to know about it?"
<Kotono> "Why?" Bolethon asks, reaching out to poke Veren in the chest.
<Veren > "It suits my abilities. I am good at it."
<Kotono> "Really?" Bolethon again asks, before shaking his head, "There are many shining, drooling, glowing paths ahead."
<Veren > "Such as?"
<Kotono> This causes Bolethon to turn away from the ship's wheel and towards the railing of the ship. "Another path," he says, "Have you seen them?"
<Veren > "No... How would I find it?"
<Kotono> Slowly Bolethon spreads his arms all about, "All around you."
<Veren > "I can begin learning a new path at any time then?"
<Kotono> "When you are ready, Bolethon replies, "Follow the shining, drooling, gleaming path you wish."
* Veren gives the man an odd look.
<Veren > "Alright."