A Second Chance (Reincarnation/Crossover)

It could be that the inkeep is a vagrant mage or is supporting one- He did comment on how much better things are for him since the attacks started.

 

[X] Poke around the mansion, memorize the layout, and check out the library.

 

Arise.



BGM Set

[X] Poke around the mansion, memorize the layout, and check out the library.

You aren't ready to go to sleep just yet, so you wander around the mansion to familiarize yourself with where you'll be staying. It's a very large house, constructed and decorated in the high-class Gallian style you're intimately familiar with. The entrance hall is a wide open space overlooked by an ornate chandelier, with a grand staircase leading immediately to the second floor. The dining hall borders the kitchen on the ground floor, with the servant's quarters also being in that general area. There's a sizable ballroom that you can't imagine sees much use, and a few bathrooms spaced evenly throughout the building.

You wander the hallways without any particular purpose, noting the hushed quiet that's descended upon the house in this late hour. You pass a maid attending to her cleaning duties occasionally, but the house feels deserted otherwise. It's rather creepy and unsettling.

You find your way to the library, also on the first floor. The towering bookcases cast lengthy shadows from the moonlight streaming in through the stained glass window. You can hear your footsteps echoing on the wooden tile floor. You distract yourself from your nervousness by appraising the baron's collection of literature.

It's not as all-encompassing as the library back home, but it boasts quite a large selection for someone who lives alone. Books on magic, religion, history, myths and legends, a modest fiction section- it has a full range of books on common topics. You might decide to come back at a later date and see if there's anything in particular you'd like to read, but you don't have time for that now. You move on.

You see a door at the end of a hallway and make your way to open it, but before you can reach it, it opens without your intervention, and you jump in surprise. You calm yourself when you see the baron step out from the other side. He looks equally surprised to see you here, and he glares at you with a suspicious look on his face.

"What are you doing? I thought I told you not to get in my way!" he says irritably.

You force a placid expression on your face. "I was just familiarizing myself with the house." you reply calmly.

His irritation spikes and he waves his hands in a shooing gesture. "Yes, yes- and you're done familiarizing, so bugger off."

He stands resolutely in front of the door, giving you the stink-eye. Underneath his annoyed exterior, you can sense that he's wary- nervous, even. It makes you even more curious as to what's behind him.

Skill increased: Perceptive E-

"Well?" he prompts you out of your thoughts.

"I apologize. I'll just head up to my room for the night." you say, curtsying politely. You turn on your heel and leave, but spare one last glance as you reach the end of the hallway, finding him still standing in front of that same door, staring at you pointedly and waiting for you to leave.

You return your gaze forward and head upstairs, pondering thoughtfully about the baron's behavior. Your room is in the guest wing on the second floor, and the baron's quarters are on the opposite side of the house. There are a great deal of empty bedrooms of varying size and elegance. You take the largest and nicest one, quite comparable to your bedroom at the palace- it might even be a little nicer.

You stash your clothes in the dresser and curl up into bed to sleep. The pillows are exquisitely soft, and you can feel yourself drifting already. You surrender peacefully to night's embrace and catch up on some much needed sleep.

--

You wake up as the sun rises. You forgot to close the curtains in your sleepiness, so the bright light ended up waking you up early. You can't really get yourself to fall back asleep, but you decide that it's fine. You're a little short on rest, but now you have the whole day before you to start your investigation, or whatever it is you feel like doing.

What now?

[ ] Investigate the attacks.
- [ ] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.
- [ ] Try to find a witness. The knight said no one has come forward, but surely someone has seen something? Ask around at the tavern.
- [ ] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.
- [ ] Something else. (Write-in.)
[ ] Put the case on hold.
- [ ] There's something unrelated you want to look into.
- - [ ] Check out the unexplored regions of the estate behind the baron's back.
- - [ ] There was something suspicious going on in that tavern yesterday- try to relocate the young boy and girl you overheard.
- - [ ] Something else. (Write-in.)
- [ ] Spend a couple weeks improving your skills.
- - [ ] ... (Write-in.)

You can mark more than one box as long as it makes sense. The next update will span today only, so you only have that much time to do stuff, unless you select 'Put the case on hold: improve skills'.

 

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- [X] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.

 

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- [X] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.

 

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- - [X] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.
- - - - [X] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.

 

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- - [X] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.
- - - - [X] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.

 

Acceptable enough.

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- - [X] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.
- - - - [X] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.

 

BGM Set

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- - [X] Visit the sites of the attacks- you haven't yet seen all of them.
- - - - [X] Examine the pattern of attacks so far, try to predict where the next will occur.

You decide to visit the rest of the sites. It will take you the whole day, but you don't want to leave a clue uncovered by not investigating as soon as you can. You fill up on water and exit the mansion, making your way on foot under the rising sun. The effort combined with the heat saps your strength and causes you to sweat heavily, but at least you're getting some exercise.

The scenes of destruction are mirrored at every single site. On one of the farms, there's a deep gouge in the earth over the farmland. It's several feet deep and spans almost a hundred feet long, the entire length of the field. On another the place was burned so thoroughly you can barely tell a building existed there at all. It's intimidating how much destruction the creature has wreaked. You feel demoralized; how can you possibly stop this?

You pick out the same claw imprints in the ground, and the take-off and landing points. You make sure to mark where they lead off to on your map, and it pays off when you have six sets of arrows all pointing in roughly the same direction toward the mountains. Even if its flight trajectory didn't take it straight back to its lair, the six arrows all point to roughly the same area- if you search there you're sure to come across where it's staying eventually.

You take a much-needed rest back at the mansion. The baron isn't present, so you're left to eat dinner in the spacious dining hall alone. With the atmosphere so informal and nobody but the help around, you bring out your marked map again and look it over more thoroughly, trying to pick out a pattern as you eat.

It's difficult. The distances between attacks are all random- again, you can only pick out that they're getting closer and closer to the town with each new attack. You can't even rule out the possibility that there is no pattern, and the sites are just being chosen randomly. When you think about it, doesn't that make the most sense, anyway? If it's some wild beast, wouldn't it just attack whatever it feels like? But.. would a wild beast do hit and run attacks like its been doing? You don't think so. You're about to give up and focus on your food when an idea strikes you.

Acting on intuition, you draw a large circle centered around the town, with the line going straight through the initial attack site. Drawing a smaller circle inside that one, the next line goes through the second attack site. You continue on downward through the order, and smile at your success as the pattern falls into place. The distance between each circle is uniform. It means the next attack.. hm. There are two possible locations that the circle passes through. A granary on the south side toward the mountains, and a farm on the east side.

You draw another smaller circle in your predictive circle and notice that the mansion falls right on it. If the pattern holds up, the estate will be the target after the next attack. It creates a kind of soft time limit. You don't have to stay here and the mission wouldn't be failed if it happened, but it wouldn't be good at all if this place got leveled. So far, there's been no more than 20 days and no less than 10 days between attacks- with the last one having taken place a week ago, that doesn't leave a lot of time for you to solve this. You go to bed thinking disquieting thoughts.

Your sleep that night is troubled- when you wake, you feel like you only slept half as long as you did. Were there noises last night? You must have been tossing and turning, unable to get proper sleep. You try your best to shrug it off and make yourself alert. You've really underestimated how hard it is living and doing everything by yourself. You wish your mother was here..

What's your next move?

[ ] Investigate the attacks.
- [ ] Try to find a witness; ask around at the tavern.
- [ ] Lie in wait at your predicted location.
- - [ ] The granary.
- - [ ] The farm.
- [ ] Travel to the creature's lair.
- [ ] Something else. (Write-in.)
[ ] Put the case on hold.
- [ ] There's something unrelated you want to look into.
- - [ ] Check out the unexplored regions of the estate behind the baron's back.
- - [ ] Try to relocate the young boy and girl you overheard at the tavern.
- - [ ] Something else. (Write-in.)
- [ ] Spend a couple weeks improving your skills.
- - [ ] ... (Write-in.)

 

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- [X] Try to find a witness; ask around at the tavern.
- - [X] Try to relocate the young boy and girl you overheard at the tavern.
- - - [X] It's clear that those two know something or someone who might have been at one of the attacks.

 

BGM Set

[X] Investigate the attacks.
- [X] Try to find a witness; ask around at the tavern.
- - [X] Try to relocate the young boy and girl you overheard at the tavern.
- - - [X] It's clear that those two know something or someone who might have been at one of the attacks.

You make your way back to the tavern you visited before. You look around, trying to spot the young boy and girl from earlier, but they're not here. You settle for plan B and start up a conversation with the proprietor. You manage to wrangle a couple of locations out him by playing the 'royal investigator' card. The boy apparently lives alone at a shack in the run-down part of town. The girl lives with her parents somewhere else. You decide to check the shack first.

You instinctively start stepping more carefully when you get close to where the boy lives. The homes here are much smaller and closer together than others you've seen. This must be where the poorer residents live. You stay on alert for any unsavory types that might decide to accost you, but your walk remains uninterrupted.

You reach the shack in question after a few more minutes of walking. It can't have more than a couple rooms in it- it's really quite small. You knock on the run-down door, and grimace when a small splinter breaks off on your knuckles. You remove it from your hand with a flinch as you wait for an answer.

You recognize the boy from before as he opens the door. He blinks once when he catches sight of you. The color drains from his face and he panics when the light of recognition dawns in his eyes.

"Shit, she's found us!" he says, scrabbling backward.

He hastily extracts a worn-looking wand from his pocket and brandishes it in your direction. He takes a defensive posture in the doorway, blocking your view into the rest of the shack. He glares at you with his arm raised.

"Get away! I won't let you have him!" he yells at you defiantly.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. What do you do?

[ ] Try to talk him down.
- [ ] What do you say? (Write-in.)
[ ] Beat some sense into him.
- [ ] Plan of attack? (Write-in.)
[ ] Lay down your wand and surrender.
[ ] Just leave.
[ ] Pretend to leave, but come back and spy on the shack in secret.
[ ] Something else. (Write-in.)

 

[X] Try to talk him down.
- - [X] "I just want to ask you some questions. We can do this outside."

 

[blockquote]Rolled 1d100 : 94, total 94[/blockquote]

 

Awesome. Cue his realization that we are a cute little girl and obviously completely innocent of any bad intention. >

 

[X] Try to talk him down.
- - [X] "I just want to ask you some questions. We can do this outside."

You take an inoffensive posture and try to look as nonthreatening and friendly as possible. You're a nice girl who's only curious. "I'm not here to cause trouble. Can I just ask you some questions?" you ask inquisitively.

He remains on guard, looking at you suspiciously, but you can see his conviction is starting to waver. "Really? That's it?"

"I promise." you say, nodding solemnly.

You see him relax. "Well.. alright. Heh, you're actually kinda cute." He smiles slyly at you and steps out of the doorway, gesturing you inside. "I shouldn't have assumed, I'm sorry." he says as he leads you in.

Trait increased: Innocence (False) B-

You look around the shabby dwelling and consider what to say. The boy looks at you expectantly. "What did you think I was here for?" you settle on.

He seems to be considering something. "I.." He glances nervously toward the other room, then sighs. "I'll show you."

As you enter the bedroom, you spot a young man lying down on the bed, his eyes shut peacefully. There's a bowl of water resting on the nightstand and a wet towel draped over his forehead. You turn to the boy. "Who is he?" you ask.

He pauses in thought, choosing his words carefully. "He's my friend." he says finally. "I met him almost a year ago hanging around town. We got along. When I found out he didn't have anywhere to stay, I offered to let him shack up at my place. He refused at first, but I managed to talk him into it."

He stares intently at the unconscious form of his friend. "I'm not even sure why he agreed, looking back. It was only a matter of time before I saw him use magic. He was real careful, but you can't hide it forever, especially if you're living with someone."

You raise your eyebrow at the wand still clutched in his hand. "You're not a mage?"

He laughs sheepishly and lays the wand on the nightstand. "Haha! Me, a mage? No way." He shakes his head, then continues telling his story.

"Anyway, after a bunch of yelling and apologizing, I told him I'd keep his secret. I never asked any prying questions. I figured he'd tell me if it was important." He has a far-off look on his face. "Maybe I should've asked more.." He remains silent for a few moments, still lost in contemplation.

You keep the conversation going with a pointed cough. "So, what happened? How did he get like this?" you prompt.

He focuses his gaze back onto you and sighs helplessly, shrugging. "I don't know what happened. He left without saying anything one day, and came back looking half-dead, mumbling like a madman. I couldn't get anything out of him, he was delirious. Then he just passed out."

"He's been like this ever since. I can't wake him, and it's been almost a week since it happened. I'm not sure what to do anymore.."

You recall his conversation partner at the tavern and ask, "What about the girl I heard you talking to? How does she tie into this?"

"She's my friend too.. she found out about him being a mage by accident, but I talked her into not saying anything."

A slight smile crosses his features. "She's been helpful, though.. she can take care of him better than I can. Her mom's an herbalist, so she knows a lot more about healing people than I do."

You look down at the comatose rogue mage. The boy has proven largely useless in terms of information, but the young man on the bed should have a much more interesting tale to tell. If only he wasn't unconscious at the moment. You turn to the boy to ask him something. "Do you mind if I look at him?"

He shakes his head negatively. "Go ahead."

You pull back the covers slightly and examine his body. He's in decent physical shape for someone who's been on bed-rest for almost a week. You can't pinpoint the cause of his comatose state just by looking. You could try a general reversal with your healing powers, but you have no idea what the effects would be. You might kill him, you might heal him, or you might do nothing. Your experience with your healing powers is not that extensive. Without knowing what put him into this state, you can't guess at what is causing his condition.

What do you do?

[ ] Offer to try healing him.
- [ ] But first, there are questions you'd still like to ask. (Write-in.)
- [ ] You've already asked what you wanted to.
[ ] Don't offer to try healing him.
- [ ] There are questions you'd still like to ask. (Write-in.)
- [ ] You're done here.
[ ] Something else. (Write-in.)

1-25: He remains unconvinced, and attacks you.
26-50: He remains unconvinced, but decides to hear you out if you disarm yourself.
51-75: He reluctantly stands down, and hears you out.
76-100: He is persuaded by your words, invites you in, and apologizes for his assumption.

 

Hmmmm I'm tied between just leaving or asking him some questions then making an attempt at healing the guy myself.

Problem is I can decide which the guy probably has something to do with the recent attacks after all. Maybe he set something loose and its been causing havoc?

 

[X] Offer to try healing him.

I would like to try and heal him, but perhaps we should wan the kid that there is a chance that he won't be able to recover in case we mess up. Perhaps we should also ask him what kind of mage his friend was and all that stuff.

 

[X] Offer to try healing him.
- - [X] "I should note that I haven't tried anything this... extensive."

 

I don't think it's been spelled out anywhere, but here is what I've been doing for skill modifiers to rolls, when applicable:

The rolls will always be out of 100, although if something is suitably hard it could have a difficulty check of over 100.

+5 F-
+10 F
+15 F+
+20 E-
+25 E
+30 E+
+35 D-
+40 D
+45 D+
+50 C-
+55 C
+60 C+
+65 B-
+70 B
+75 B+
+80 A-
+85 A
+90 A+
+100 S

[blockquote]Rolled 1d100+30 : 46 + 30, total 76[/blockquote]

 

Now, this is all pretty much guesswork, but it seems that whatever is wrecking the countryside seems to be searching for something in a slow pattern centered on the town, which is probably the only concentration of people around. My guess is that the baron, who is suspicious as hell, has whatever is being looked for. Maybe a baby rhyme dragon or something similarly valuable. The rogue mage may be a hunter the baron hired to get it in the first place or maybe his attempt to solve the issue without involving the crown for fear of losing his prize.

[X] Offer to try healing him.
- - [X] "I should note that I haven't tried anything this... extensive."

 

Since it's closing in on a certain point, instead of slowly expanding a 'searching area', I'd say that, whatever it is, it is being drawn in by something instead of searching for something.

My best guess is that it's closing in on a ritual site of sorts.
The uniform nature of its closing in on the town center implies that it has to follow some sort of somewhat arbitrary rule like those often found in rituals and other magic stuff.

 

Well, it might be tightening the noose, as it were, in its search for something. If it knows for certain that it will be where people live and the town is the only real population center here, slowly narrowing down the area where to look does sort of make sense.

 

The thing is that it's not really searching the area, though.

It's messing up a single place in one circle before moving on to the next.
Unless whatever it's lookinf for is in the exact center of these circles, it's going to miss it and, if it already knows what it's looking for is in the center, it could just go there.

Were it scouting the town and its defences out, it's movements would fit less nicely into such a simple model.
As far as I see it, this kind of behaviour just doesn't make any sense unless there is some arbitrary rule that forces it to act that way.
And that sort of rule is most common in magic and rituals.

My guess is that it's one of those impending doom scenarios.
'Every [timespan] your doom will come closer to you! *evil laughter*'

 

[X] Offer to try healing him.
- - [X] "I should note that I haven't tried anything this... extensive."

You don't understand clearly what's wrong with him, but if you're methodical and careful with your healing, you think you can cure whatever is ailing the comatose mage. You address the boy. "I can try healing him myself. I haven't healed anything this extensive before, but I think I can make it work."

He looks hesitant, but he nods his assent and you peel back the blankets covering the mage's body. You place your hands above his chest first, and prepare to start channeling prana through your hands. You're interrupted as you're closing your eyes, and you turn an annoyed glance at the speaker.

"Um.. your wand?" he asks confusedly.

"Who's the mage here?" you reply flatly, glowering at him.

He gives a sheepish laugh and raises his hands in defense. "Right, it's you. I'll just be.. over here." He moves out of your line of vision and you return to concentrating on healing.

You close your eyes again. You can focus easier on the feeling of your prana outside your body when you don't have any visual information competing for your concentration. Your push your prana into his body slowly and steadily, letting it spread to his arms, legs, and finally his head. It's only the barest amounts, and it's hard to get it to slip through his natural resistance. You're waiting for some kind of reaction to tell you what to do next.

You feel a tug on the prana saturating his heart, demanding more to properly normalize whatever is ailing him. You start focusing your healing energy into that area, even if you're not sure what exactly it's doing. It's helpful that your powers have something of a mind of their own when it comes to reversing injuries.

You continue on like this for a time, not sure if minutes have passed or if whole hours have gone by. You open your eyes slowly when you finish, feeling immensely tired. You have a wealth of prana at your disposal; you didn't even think it was possible to run out. But, no.. that's not it. You blink in realization. It wasn't that you ran out of prana, you ran out of willpower. Your healing and decay must utilize both.

Skill improved: Healing and Decay D

You shake yourself free from your discovery and examine your patient. He stirs groggily, his eyes fluttering open. Glancing to the side, you see the boy has pitched a blanket on the ground and is.. sleeping. Glancing through the window, you can see the sun is starting to set. You must have been at this for a long time. You walk over and kick him awake before returning to the bed. The young mage is leaning back on the headboard, supported by a pillow. He smiles at you as you approach, his eyes twinkling with mirth at the boy groaning in the background.

"It appears I'm in your debt, Miss..?" His voice is still raspy, but you can make out his words clearly.

"Tabitha." you say, watching him carefully. You still don't really know much about this person, and you keep on your guard.

"Well met, Miss Tabitha. My name is Jacques." He bows clumsily from his sitting position.

You cut straight to the chase. "What happened to you?"

"..." A frown crosses his face for the first time. He seems to be considering whether or not to say anything.

"I suppose I owe you some answers, at the very least." he says finally.

"I'll start my story at the beginning. I can't imagine he was able to tell you all that much." he says, nodding toward the boy, who's eagerly listening now.

"I heard rumors that a Rhyme Dragon had been sighted in the area, and I wanted to ascertain the truth. My friend here was kind enough to offer me a place to stay."

"When I heard about the attacks taking place, I thought there might be something to those rumors after all. I just couldn't figure out why it would be attacking in the first place." He strokes his chin in thought.

"I didn't dare try confronting one directly. I thought that if I could appease it some other way, I could gain its favor."

"I learned through a bit of careful surveillance that the baron was being awfully secretive about something. My intuition told me that the two things were not unrelated."

You raise an eyebrow at him. "That must be some surveillance."

He taps his wand, smirking. "Quite. Anyway, I snuck into his estate in the dead of night and searched the place. I wasn't as stealthy as I'd hoped, however. I was discovered, and there was a confrontation with the man himself. He's no slouch as a mage, but I still managed to overpower him."

His eyes focus on a point on the floor as he struggles to remember something. "My memories become fuzzy around this point. He must've had some hidden ace up his sleeve. I tried to enter a certain room. There was.. something there. Something important?" He holds his head in his hands, grimacing in pain. He shakes his head vigorously, trying to dispel whatever came over him.

"It hurts thinking about it. I'm not even sure how you managed to wake me. You must be a powerful healer." He looks at you speculatively.

"It was nothing." you murmur, looking at the ground demurely.

You raise your head back up and stare at Jacques. "What are you going to do now?" you ask.

He sighs heavily. "I need to leave. It's too dangerous to stay."

The boy speaks up for the first time, exclaiming, "You're leaving?"

Jacques smiles sadly. "It was fun, my friend- but I was never going to stay here forever. I'll keep in touch, though; don't worry."

He turns to address you. "Miss Tabitha. Is there anything else you'd like to know before I go?"

[ ] Yes.
- [ ] What? (Write-in.)
[ ] No.

1-25: You done fucked up. He becomes a vegetable.
26-50: Nothing happens. It appears you've wasted your time.
51-75: He falls into a more natural slumber. You think you helped?
76-100: You're successful in healing him.
101+: As you're healing him, you manage to figure out just what's wrong with him and how it likely happened. You heal him successfully.

 

[X] Yes.
- - [X] Where are you from?
- - [X] What element was the baron... and could you make a map of the areas you explored?