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>>1251758
Chapter Nine: First Sin

You wake to a fearsome din, a clamouring of voices and footsteps that turns out to be nothing more than the various inhabitants of the work-home getting up early and filing into the wash pits. You do the same, your still-healing muscles aching from sleeping upon the bare brick. You let Beatrice have the bed and she barely seems to feel it, the witch still rubbing her nose and complaining about how she feels sick.

Fortunately this place is not depraved enough to insist you all bathe together or else you would have likely abstained. You finish and get dressed long before most do, leaving you to wander about the filthy hall for a time. You’re not wearing your armour, that would be a little too noticeable. But you feel strangely naked without it, even in your under-tunic and trousers.
You know how this day is likely to play out. Beatrice has roped you into paying for your room with a day’s work, covering her expenses as well. You’ve mostly agreed to this but you still don’t like that she first arranged this without your knowledge. You definitely don’t want her to start thinking she can make decisions in your place. And on her part, she’ll be trying to gather information on the nature of Dis and your targets. You already have one target in mind after all, you think as you stare at the burning green brazier with distrust.

But it looks like you have a little time to yourself first.

Wick: 8/10
Spark: 8/8

Your Flame Internal is mostly refreshed as well though it couldn’t hurt to top it up.


>Recharge your Wick.

>Tell Beatrice to hurry it up. You need to talk strategy.

>You might have the time to run back up to the Workshop. Abe’s still in there.

>Find a local to speak with.

>Other

>>1251762
>Find a local to speak with.
Try to get a feel for the worth of work so you don't get ripped off.

>>1251762
>You might have the time to run back up to the Workshop. Abe’s still in there.
I'm worried that they're gonna do some experiments on him

>>1251762
>>You might have the time to run back up to the Workshop. Abe’s still in there.

>>1251758

>>You might have the time to run back up to the Workshop. Abe’s still in there.

Interlude

The Inspector stood patiently within the steel cage as the doors closed shut apparently of their own volition and then entire contraption dropped into the shaft below. Cables whirred in the darkness, powered by a boiling steam engine. He wondered idly whether it was supplied by the rare green flame hot enough to actually produce steam or whether it contained a genuine flame. Suspicion of the latter would, in ordinary cases, often prompt him to perform an investigation and possibly confiscate the offending machine under the Safe Flame Act.
But there was no point in even trying to touch the owner of this facility for something so trivial. Firstly, the man waiting for him below was far too powerful for even his Mistress’ authority to touch and had been the driving political force behind the Safe Flame Act in the first place. And secondly, this would be one of the few places where the Inspector General would expect to find such a spark.

The elevator rattled its way down through floor after floor, heading all the way down to the tower’s base. The Inspector supposed he should consider himself lucky. While that fool in the Thorn had been willing to waste his time with nonsense about appointments and procedure, the one who dwelt down here had been direct enough to answer his inquiry with a personal summons.

The Inspector stepped out the moment the doors opened, finding himself in a dark metal corridor. The only light is from the river of glowing green that slowly oozes down the hall beneath the floor’s grille. It flows out endlessly from the sealed chambers up ahead, flowing down beneath the corridor towards some unseen distribution chamber to be diluted, checked, diluted again and then sealed into vats.
The room ahead is a large chamber with thick walls of stone and metal designed to contain even the strongest of blasts. It’s also underground, the bottom of the tower having plunged through its own foundations and into the earth long ago. There’s no visible sign of this but the Inspector could feel it. The earth was close and so it should be for work like this.

The chamber itself is completely spherical, the corridor continuing as a small bridge suspended halfway up. The room is mostly empty, dedicated entirely to the ball of concrete and steel in it’s exact center, a sealed containment room supported by metal beams that branch out into the outer room like the hub of a wheel.
Containment within containment. Let it never be said that this one wasn’t practical.

The thick metal door to the inner chamber unsealed itself as the Inspector approached, the current target of his investigation alone inside. No guards, no spies, just the two of them within the machine. Either a sign of unspeakable trust, incredible arrogance or simply well-placed confidence. It was, the Inspector thought as he bowed his head towards the rustling metal limbs, likely the latter.
“Good evening, your Grace.”

1/3

>>1251944
“Is it?”
The voice was wretched, its rusted squeal simply adding to the smell of burning metal and the oppressive heat to complete the atmosphere. The Inspector was already sweating and he doubted he could stand this place for too much longer.

“It may not be evening,” the Inspector admitted. “It means little.”

“Not that. Is it good?”

“I-”

“Does your Mistress think it is good? If so, then why does she send her dogs to yap at me?”
A small silence.
“Or her snakes?”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice,” the Inspector said, trying a different tack. “Not all of the others were so understanding.”

“A bunch of pompous fools, the lot of them. That includes your Mistress. I’m the only one who knows the real value of a hard day’s work.”

“I’m sure a few would dispute that.”

“Let them.”
The gangly figure turns back to his task for a moment, tending to a vast metal tube spinning within several large concrete clasps. With the push of a lever the cylinder is briefly slowed, the Inspector forced to look away as the cylinder briefly breaks open, revealing itself to be several thick layers of cement wrapped around something unbelievably bright. Heat distorts the air but the one handling the machine doesn’t even feel it. Only something like him could stand at these controls for any length of time.
And then with another lever and the twist of a crank, the tube is pulled back shut and rods are sent back into the tiny holes drilled in its side, impaling it from every angle as it began its spin. The Inspector fancied that he could almost hear a scream, a sound of anguish and then a silence interrupted only by the hiss of steam and the trickle of green flame that flows from the bottom of the cylinder out into the rest of the facility to be diluted.
“What have you come here for?”

“The last enemy of Dis has come. My Mistress knows that they bear the final shard and that they seek the end of the mutual deal you and her and all the others have signed.”

“And what of it? One human against a city. They will fall. I’m sure the rest will squabble and fight like the children they are over his treasure once he does so. I have all I need right here.”

“There’s more to it. They arrived via train, someone had rebuilt the bridge and warped the rails back into place. They have inside help.”

“And your Mistress suspects one of us? Why?”

“A power play of some kind perhaps? Few have the resources to raise the bridge.”

“Such tricks are not in my domain.”

“I know. But I also know you are rich enough to employ as many witches that you might have needed-”

“So can your Mistress, for one. I am speaking to one of them right now. How is your earthcrafting, Inspector?”

“Please do not evade the question.”

“Or what? I have no time for this.”
2/3

>>1251948
“The safety of Dis is on the l-”

“I am Dis! Who here is unsupported by my work? By my commerce? Who does not depend upon my flame? I have no need for petty politics nor would I want them even if I did. Tell your Mistress that she is but a serpent nipping at my heels and that the others are no better. Let them talk or fight or scheme. It has nothing to do with me.”

The Inspector General didn’t bother to say goodbye or bow as he exited the chamber. He knew it would have been entirely unappreciated and unasked for. One down, he thought and not a single step closer.
He could only hope the others would be more polite.

Sorry about that, I meant to do that interlude in the last thread.

>You might have the time to run back up to the Workshop. Abe’s still in there.

You decide that you’d rather not leave Abraham untended for so long. You’ve already left him there for the night after all! You’d like to at least visit him and to make sure that he is doing fine within the Workshop. So with that in mind you gather up your usual belongings and start the long climb up.
A pox on these damned stairs!

It doesn’t hurt like it did yesterday at the very least. Your healing factor, a divine gift attributed to every Third Man, is stronger than most and your injuries have already mostly closed. But that doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it.

But when you finally reach the spot where the first wall of wood intersects with the stairs, the marker of the Tangle Workshop’s domain, you find the entrance blocked by two men covered head to toe in strange wooden armour. Workshop guards, no doubt.
“Can I help you?” one of them asks, his hand never straying too far from the sword at this side.

“I’d like to see a friend, he was admitted yesterday for t-”

“I’m afraid not,” the other one cuts you off. “We are off Workshop hours for now, no longer open for the public. Come back in...about eight hours or so.”

“Excuse me? It’s morning.”

“Maybe for you. But the doctors have to sleep sometime, don’t they? You’ll disturb the patients.”

“The patients are who I am here to see.”

“Then you should have asked for a night pass last time you were here. It’s a simple application.”

A night pass?
“I didn’t know I needed one. Or that they existed. Can I apply for one now?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because this branch isn’t open.”

“So to get a night pass I need to have come in during a time that I wouldn’t have needed the night pass in the first place?”

“Yes.”

Your thoughts drift back to the white-and-black suited stranger you met in the Workshop yesterday with the unnerving dice and his frustrations trying to make an appointment of some kind. You’re starting to understand the feeling.


>Agree and go back down.

>Find a way to sneak in.

>Push past the guards.

>Attack the guards.

>Other

>>1251954
Going to go out on a limb, that Mistress is going to reminiscent of Hiss, and the Alchemist will be Cennen, how good or bad he may be is variable.

>When will "night" be over and the branch opens back up? Can you pass a message to a patient when he wakes?

>>1251982
>Agree and go back down.
Well shit

>>1251982
>Agree and go back down.

>>1251983
This was already answered. About eight hours.

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>Agree and go back down.

“Eight hours. Understood.”
You force yourself to be graceful as you back down and walk down the stairs. You suppose you can grant them that, the Workshop is one of the few things you have seen in this wretched city thus far that has not drawn your ire. You’d rather not leave Abe with them any longer than necessary however.

Work has already begun by the time you get back to the hall, a fully dressed Beatrice tapping her foot waiting by your quarters. She’s actually clean for once but it makes little difference.
“Took your time.”

“I was checking up on Abraham.”

“Oh. How is he?”

“I don’t know, the Workshop wouldn’t let me in. Said I needed to come back later out of ‘night hours’.”

“Night? But it’s morning! We just woke up.”

“I don’t know if that matters anymore.”

She doesn’t look happy.
“Do you want me to go up later and see if I can swing something?”

“No, you already know what your job is. Keep to the plan.”

“Aye aye captain,” she says and salutes mockingly. “Gathering information, right?”

“Yes. You may proceed.”
You nearly walk past her before something stops you, the conversation you had yesterday resurfacing in your head.
“And how are you today?”

Beatrice looks a little uncomfortable.
“Uh..alright? I mean I feel like fucking shit but what else is new? I...I kind of miss my hat. Everyone’s looking at me.”


>”You can buy one if you want. And if you can.”

>Lend her your helmet.

>”You’ll have to tough it out.”

>”And so they should. You look terrible.”

>Just get to work.

>Other

>>1252056
>”And so they should. You look terrible.”
>”You can buy one if you want. And if you can.”

>>1252056
>Well yeah, you look funny with that broken nose.
>sadly I lack any convenient and inconspicuous headwear, so unless you manage to "swing one" in your information gathering, you will have to do without. You will not be the worst looking person out there however, apparently the dead and rotting still walk amongst the living here and there.

>>1252056
>You can buy one if you want. But I don't think I can help with money anytime soon.
>I saw another witch earlier. Enthusiastically purchasing shadows from passerbys. Try to avoid her prying.

>>1252056
>”You can buy one if you want. And if you can.”
She'd stick out even more with a helmet on. I don't even think we have money to lend her.

>”You can buy one if you want.”

“If you want one you’ll have to buy one.”

She raises an eyebrow.
“With what? I don’t even know what these people use for money.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way. That said, I don’t know if you’ll even stand out that much. I’ve seen much worse here already.”

“Thanks,” she grumbles, slipping gloves on over her blackened hands. “Now get to work.”

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>>1252190

You feel like shit.

Hardly news, isn’t it? Your head aches, your eyes burn, your stomach turns and all through your body you can feel your blood swilling around like a fat old wine-sack filled to bursting. Spots of dull pain crawl across your skin, mostly your face to mark the places where your blood has risen to the surface in the form of ever-present bruises. Even your vision itself is tinged with a very faint shade of watery red.
So yes, you’re doing pretty good.

Your name is Beatrice Montgomery and you have been left alone to gather information while the Lamplighter puts his thews to good use. You kind of hate him right now but only because otherwise you’d have to admit to being somewhat confused.

You’ve just finished cleaning your clothes and your belongings and most importantly, your gun, all of which had been covered in your own blood when you broke your nose yesterday. You touch it gingerly and sigh in pain. Still sore.
Cleaning them was imperative because your blood is explosive. That’s not a metaphor. That’s just part of being you.

You’re grumpy and tired and there are way too many people around here. You just want to curl up alone and forget about all this. You also, somewhat paradoxically, want to do the right thing so that option is just clear off the table. You’re not going to back down.
You will, however, whine about it. A lot if you have to.

You are currently feeling...a normal level of shittiness mostly.

>Beatrice works along a dice modifier scale that is constantly being applied to all her physical actions save those related to shooting. This scale runs from -6 to +6 and has been seen in previous Collective Effort rolls. Taking gunpowder normally alters her modifier by +2, a bonus that will eventually flip and reverse to a -2 penalty. Snorting gunpowder does the same but by a +4. If left alone Beatrice tends to stabilize at a -2, her default state of feeling like absolute shit. The lower the modifier the worse she feels and if she ever hits -6 she falls unconscious and possibly dies in her sleep. The modifier going into the positive is also unpleasant, prompting brief fits of hyperactivity and strained heart activity. The higher the modifier goes into the positive, the quicker it will decay and flip into a penalty. Beatrice gains 2 charges every time her modifier changes by 1 in either direction. These charges can be used for a number of shitty techniques that make her feel bad and also shooting her gun which makes her feel good.

>Current modifier is -2.

Guess you better get to work, huh? And buy a new hat. You want to do that.


>Ask around the work-home. See if you can uncover anything from these losers.

>See how Orion is taking to the job.

>Find a means to visit Abe.

>Head down to the market Orion told you about. You might be able to get a new hat there too.

>Explore the tower some more first.

>Other

>>1252192
>Explore the tower some more first.

>>1252192
>make some monay. People are more willing to share info after you work for them.
>maybe the market?

>>1252192
>Head down to the market Orion told you about. You might be able to get a new hat there too.

>Explore the tower some more first.

>>1252192

>Find a means to visit Abe.
>Head down to the market Orion told you about. You might be able to get a new hat there too.

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>Head down to the market Orion told you about. You might be able to get a new hat there too.

You walk out of the work-home without much in the way of incidents, making sure to walk down the rows with the least people in them. You don’t want anyone looking at you, not now. You don’t need a mirror to know that you must look a disgrace.
You can tell that the bruises are still there upon your face, you can feel them swelling. Thick blood. Fortunately your internal bleeding is mostly under control, you’re only leaking where you’re supposed to be. Your hair is limp and frazzled and disgusting too. That normally wouldn’t bother you except you only recently had a reminder of how good it used to look. How you used to look.

The wages of sin, you suppose. That’s what Orion would say in that big stern tone he adopts when he’s trying to tell you how he knows better than you about what’s good for you. Except it’s not the wages of sin. The wages of sin were power and beauty and feeling good whenever you damned well wanted to. These are the wages of redemption, the fire you took upon yourself to replace the earth that had been stolen from you.
If you said that he’d probably hit you. Or at least say something about how you fucking deserve it. The worst part is that you know he’d be right.

You walk down the stairs to the 73rd floor and then cringe back once you open the doors. There are so many people here! Your head hurts. You feel tired. You don’t really want to do this.


>Get into the market you big baby.

>Investigate the rooms around the edges of the stairwell first. Didn’t Orion mention a brothel here?

>Take some powder. It’ll make you feel better.

>Other

>>1252310
>>Investigate the rooms around the edges of the stairwell first. Didn’t Orion mention a brothel here?
ease into it, presumably bea is less bothered by indecency than orion

>>1252310
>Get into the market you big baby.

>>1252310
>>Investigate the rooms around the edges of the stairwell first. Didn’t Orion mention a brothel here?

>>1252310
>Investigate the rooms around the edges of the stairwell first. Didn’t Orion mention a brothel here?
presumably people ask less about looks in dim places. Although I can't imagine much good advice about earning money there, not for bea

>Investigate the rooms around the edges of the stairwell first. Didn’t Orion mention a brothel here?

Maybe you can visit the market later, maybe there’ll be less people later. You already know that’s a lie but you don’t care. If you just had your hat you’d be fine.
But the central hall isn’t the only thing on this floor. Every floor of this tower, the ‘Folly’ Orion called it, contains a ring of other large complexes around the stairwell. In fact he sort of fell into one, didn’t he? He didn’t mention it much but he said he dropped through the ceiling of a brothel that served imps.

The very notion of such a place existing doesn’t really horrify you like it did Orion but the notion of him falling into it is certainly amusing. You’re kind of surprised that the whole place isn’t burned to the ground.
This’ll serve as a good place to start. Might as well, right? As good as any other.

You locate the door, read its plaque and then knock on it several times. You’re careful not to knock too hard however, the last thing you need right now is to bruise your hands.
An older woman answers it, opening the door just a little. The clink of a little chain across the gap lets you know that the door is quite well secured even now. You wonder if that’s new.

“Hello!”

“Can I help you? I’m sorry but we don’t employ men.”

“Oh, I’m not here as a customer.”

She looks you up and down, distaste plain upon her face.
“We’re not looking for fresh hands either. Particularly not yours, take no offense.”


>”I was told that a miscreant invaded your property yesterday? I’ve been assigned from tower management to investigate.”

>Ask for a hat.

>”I’m here on behalf of a wealthy client. He wishes me to inspect the premises and the merchandise first.”

>”Sorry, I’m new here. Could you give me some directions?”

>Point your pistol through the gap, right at her face. “I won’t take offense but I am here to take your money.”

>Other

>>1252401
>”I was told that a miscreant invaded your property yesterday? I’ve been assigned from tower management to investigate.”
>The face is an occupational hazard
>Ask for a hat.

>>1252401
>>”I’m here on behalf of a wealthy client. He wishes me to inspect the premises and the merchandise first.”
might be hard to sell the tower thing, without pulling out some kind of witchy business

>>1252401
>Ask for a hat.

>>1252401
>”Sorry, I’m new here. Could you give me some directions?”

>>1252453
Also this

Sorry guys, remember that thing I cancelled yesterday about and nearly today? Turns out that my hopes of it not being a big deal today was wrong. I'll have to pop out for a while, an hour or so.
I'll continue when I get back.

It's a shitty start to the new thread, I know. Vote will remain open until then.

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>>1252532
Actually...no, it looks like this is going to be a day thing. She doesn't really have anyone else to talk to so I can't really blame her. I shouldn't have made this thread today.
I'll see about doing some updates after work. Sorry again.

Bea's blood is explosive

Holy shit we should be hoarding it to make explosives

>>1252532
Dang it all Ouro

>>1252678
Shit happens man, thanks for trying.

>>1252724
Where did you think all of that gunpowder went? It's also why she bruises so easily, her witch body hates her blood and is trying to force it out of her at all times.

Okay so this task isn't super time-consuming. It's rattled me from being able to update properly but I think I'll be able to work on that post about dice mechanics I've been promising since forever. I'll also take any questions if you have them! Might as well do something useful if I'm going to leave you all hanging.

>>1252532
Thanks for posting anyways

>>1252756
I honestly just thought it was a byproduct of ingesting gunpowder and flame fuckery

>>1252826
It is. Beatrice is using her witch transubstantiation to turn the flesh of a god into power only she's doing it with pieces of the Primordial Flame rather than any of the power of the Earth. That is, she can eat anything with the potential to burn, the more the better. The stronger it is and the quicker she takes it the heavier the boost is.
But she's still a witch. After all, if she wasn't a witch she wouldn't be able to do this in the first place. But she is converting into power the flesh of a god that witches are antithetical to so doing it is constantly ruining her body and the moment the power fades, it swings back around and she takes an equal amount of weakness in return. This is mechanically represented by her swinging dice penalty modifier. And of course the only way to dig her way out of that hole is to take more.

She's mentioned this before but it's been months OOC so I can't blame you. It's also why her blood is so weird. It's been mentioned that it seems like sulphur and tends to come out in gooey thick strands. It's innately flammable and Beatrice tries to avoid open flames for this very reason.

>>1252860
Did Serafina's Earth 'healing" taint Orion or buff his vitality to what it is today (which is great even for a man half his age) or is that just due to be a lamplighter so close to the source of all fire?

>>1252920
Orion's always been a big, tough dude. Even for Third Men, who are inherently so. Her healing didn't leave any lingering marks nor does the lamp-post bless him beyond the burns that scorch his arms. He's just like that from long practice and faith.

>>1252958
Will we have a chance to learn more neat tricks about witchcraft?

>>1252993
Considering where you are, yes.

How viable would it be for Bea to bottle up some of her blood formlater offensive use?

>>1253233
Completely viable.

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Alright, here are the dice notes. I figure most of you already figured out how this stuff works but since there was confusion in the last thread and since my time isn’t currently being monopolized beyond chatting to Grandma every minute or so, I figure I can run this up while I do that.

Dice in Lamplighter

There are a few dice systems (all of which are d6 based) that get used in the Quest but by far and away the most common is the triple d6. I call on players to each roll one and I use the first three. The way this typically works is that the upcoming process that is being rolled for is then split into three stages, each of which doesn’t necessarily depend on the successes of the other stages. The dice are used for them.
For example, say Orion is in combat with a cultist. A dice roll is asked for and three d6 results are provided. I might be thinking of the stages as ‘Orion defends against cultists attack, Orion counter-attacks, Orion and the cultist trade blows’. Or if Beatrice or Abe is also there one of the 3 stages might be to defend them. Or if there are multiple cultists two of the stages might be defending with the last being an attack etc. All of these stages can succeed or fail independently of each other but a success or failure in one stage may add a +1 or -1 to a following one in the same roll.

Now, how high these rolls need to be depend on the difficulty scale, which I adjust up or down depending on the situation. But I will tell you this, provided that there has been no adjustments on my part the roll scale is as follows;
6: Strong Success. This stage of the action is carried out perfectly and this can either result in either succeeding past your IC expectations or adding a +1 to other actions in the same roll that relate to this.
4-5: Success. This stage of the action is carried out at no cost to yourself
3: Half Success/Half Failure. You ultimately succeed at what you intended to do at this stage but not completely. It may be that you just take damage in doing so or that something else is lost in the process. The Half-Failure is the other option of this roll where you ultimately fail at what you were trying to do with this stage but at least make progress or perform some other act of good. It is up to the QM to decide whether the circumstances merit what half this roll should be.
2: Failure: This stage doesn’t work out the way you want and indeed, if this is a contest against some other creature, it should probably be treated as if they had scored a Success. A -1 penalty to other actions in the same roll that relate to this may be applied as per QM discretion.
(to be continued in reply)

>>1253289
1: Dark. More or less the same as a Failure result. The only difference is that this dice scale may be adjusted up and down according to difficulty and may then have modifiers applied to it from outside sources (a buff, gunpowder, a Strong Success on another dice in the same roll etc) that can turn failures into successes. But not these rolls. These rolls are always bad.

And that’s the general gist of it. It can change and adapt depending on the situation quite easily and can be modified by a bunch of different rules. Take the various forms of combats and their ranks, as can be seen in the Character Sheet pastebin. Characters Unskilled at a certain form of combat reduce all rolls for this by 1, turning a 2, 5, and 6 into a 1, 4 and 5 for example. An Adequate rank applies a -1 to the highest roll of the 3. Being Experienced negates all penalties entirely. And having a Veteran rank in something, like how Orion is with staff combat, the three dice rolled in this system are placed in the order I feel would be most beneficial rather than the order they were rolled in.
The system also contains Power Numbers, which give a boost whenever rolling a certain number for a certain action. Currently Orion only has one Power Number, a ‘4’ attached to his Immolate. Power Numbers don’t have to be Successes.

These outside modifiers aren’t always to our advantage however! Beatrice’s persistent dice penalty system can be absolute murder on these kinds of rolls. And some numbers can be Cursed Numbers for specific actions, typically used to mechanically represent a witch’s curse fouling your actions. Currently the only such Cursed Number are the double 1s, something that has lingered upon Orion since Thread 2 and have never yet been rolled in a 3d6 combination.

Additionally, the 3d6 can be totalled into a single result out of 18. This only happens very occasionally and generally only for rolls I feel like shouldn't/couldn't be divided into three. At that point the result is matched against an invisible DC I set. Not particularly complicated.

>>1253304
Oh and of course I neglect to mention the rule that has the biggest impact on these damn rolls.
Whenever Orion is using the Lamp Post he selects the highest roll and triples it. So a roll of 1, 6 and 3 would instead be treated as a roll of 6, 6, 6.

Collective Effort

Collective Effort is a special dice system that occasionally gets used for when multiple characters are working together on a single task, often under some form of outside pressure or time constraint. It can be done with two characters but it’s preferable to have at least three. The way Collective Effort works makes it so that beating it is rarely an issue, in fact they are almost impossible to unwillingly fail. Instead they measure the taxes and tolls of such an endeavour and what people are willing to give up for success.

It starts when I declare it time for a Collective Effort (or a communal challenge or whatever, I’m not that strict with the naming). All of the characters involved are declared to the players ahead of time as is the total DC they have to meet.
Once the DC is public knowledge, we move down the order of characters involved, rolling 3d6 for the first one and totalling it. That total is the amount of effort supplied. When the total effort matches the DC, the challenge is won.

After that characters roll but before moving down to the next character, I will lay out several choices that can modify that character’s result as well as the choice to just abstain and move to the next character. These choices are customized to the character in question and all generally demand a cost of some sort that lasts beyond the immediate challenge such as a possible injury, exhaustion or a lingering penalty.
The players must choose any of these options before moving onto the roll of the next character, effectively deciding the costs of such an endeavour before they even know how much danger they are in of failing.

This is why I mentioned above that it is theoretically impossible to fail, provided that people are willing to pay the costs required.

Note: All dice penalties apply to this system as much as they apply to anything else, applying across all three dice. This is why Beatrice traditionally contributes little without gunpowder.

And those are all the current dice systems, not counting incidental little rolls like the Wick recharge gimmick which has its own rules.

>>1253398
Neat. Definitely more interesting than best of 3 d100

File: lamplighter2.png (311 KB, 343x484)

311 KB PNG

New session in an hour or so! Issues have been resolved and I don't have work so we should be good to run all day.

>>1255377
Just popping in to say I love the concept of your quest and it's definitely on my to-read list.

Keep it up!

:waiting:

>”Sorry, I’m new here. Could you give me some directions?”
>Ask for a hat.

While it would be entertaining to lie about your purpose, to pretend that you’re some sort of fucking inspector or something...you don’t know if you’d be able to pull it off. You don’t exactly look the part and you don’t know nearly enough about Dis. Maybe it’d be best to just go with the truth.

Some of the truth.

“Sorry to disturb you but I’m really not a customer or an applicant. I’m just new here to the Folly and well, Dis in general! Could you give me some directions?”

She nearly shuts the door on you but something stops her at the last moment. She keeps it open as barely a crack.
“What happened to you?”


>”This is just how I look.”

>”I fell down the stairs. There’s a lot of fucking stairs.”

>Come up with a story about being assaulted.

>”None of your business.”

>Other

>>1256177
>Come up with a story about being assaulted.

None of your biz

>>1255780
Yeah I know, this is really late. I don't really have an excuse for it either.

>>1256177
>Come up with a story about being assaulted.
Gotta take advantage of that slight sympathy

>>1256177
Too pretty for a witch's liking, cursed me to be not be any more. Got a few chuckles out of it before another one offed her. Don't have enough to pay someone to break the curse, so stuck looking like a beaten up piece of crap.

>>1256177

>”I fell down the stairs. There’s a lot of fucking stairs.”

>>1256177
>Come up with a story about being assaulted.

>>1256177
>>”None of your business.”

>Come up with a story about being assaulted.

Are you really fucking doing this? You’re no good at playing the victim even when you really are one. If you had been your life might have turned out very different. But you don’t miss the hint of sympathy she has in her voice when she looks at you and neither can you truly ignore that you are a small woman alone in a big city with a bruised face and a permanently unhappy expression.
You might as well play to your strengths.

You look down, clearly unwilling to meet her eye at first.
“I don’t know what I did wrong…”

“Pardon?”

“I must have said something or did something that you’re not supposed to, he wasn’t happy with me at all.”

The door opens wider.
“A man did this to you?”

You nod slowly, doing your best to look ashamed.
“It must have been my fault. So if you could just...just give me some directions please?”
It’s not difficult to make your voice falter when it’s as unsteady as yours and your perpetually hoarse tone can easily be mistaken for someone hoarse from crying by someone who doesn’t know you.

You hear a chain being unlocked and the door swings open to reveal small but luxurious foyer and a somewhat prim older woman standing in the doorway. She frowns when she looks at you.
“It’s alright. Come on in, take a seat. I’ll get you some tea and you can tell me all about it.”

“Y-you will?”

“Of course. You think I haven’t seen this before? In this line of work? Some men are just animals. Come in.”

You let her pull her into the room and gently push you into a seat. Nobody else is here. Is it too early? Do they even have hours? What if someone goes to sleep here? You’ve never really been ....involved in any of these establishments before.
You can see doors leading off into corridors, no doubt the dens of the women who work here. The windows are shut and the room is lit by a green blaze trapped within lantern, emerald-burning candles sitting to each side.

“Just sit down and I’ll get you something to drink. What kind of brute would do this to such a poor little girl?”

You are almost certainly older than her by at least a decade. You don’t mention this of course, you just sit back and watch as she bustles into another room, shutting the door behind her. Didn’t Orion mention she had guards? Where are they?


>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.

>Investigate the green flame. Orion thinks it’s related to one of the Sinners.

>Wander off into the prostitute’s quarters.

>Locate her office and look through it.

>Other

>>1256177
> I fell down. A lot.

> It was a rough journey here.

>>1256353
>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.

>>1256353
>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.

We can probably just ask about a bunch of stuff since we're new here.

Also

> Take some gunpowder

Just in case she's planning of kidnapping us.

>>1256353
>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.
it's not like Bea wanted to be pampered just once and is giving in to temptation, noooooo sir.

>>1256353
>>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.

>>1256353
>Investigate the green flame. Orion thinks it’s related to one of the Sinners.

>>1256353
>>Wander off into the prostitute’s quarters.

>>1256362
Switching to this

Oh sorry, I kind of fell out of it for a long moment there. I'm alive.

>>1256597
Then I shall hold of the ritual sacrifice to resurrect your bones from the earth to qm anew for another time.


Could Orion use immolate to make a snake of fire?

>>1256353

>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.
Shit we gotta leave as fast as possible. If an Imp comes trough he will recognize Bea is a witch and that would lead to a bunch or more questions

>Just wait patiently. Don’t try anything yet.

It would be unwise to do anything just yet, you can probably get plenty of information just by keeping up the act and asking. Doing any snooping right now would just give the whole shitty game away for no reason. You need to keep it together and keep playing the victim here.

And besides, doesn’t it feel nice to actually be cared for for once? It’s a little tempting. You let yourself sink back into the seat cushions and sigh quietly. It’s been too long. When was even the last time? It certainly wasn’t any point during your journey with Orion and Abe. Fuck, if Orion was to see you now he’d probably drag you out of the chair and say something about how you don’t deserve to be comfortable.

You could get used to Dis if it was all just this. A place full of people who don’t care about your history. But you know it’s not.

The madam returns, a cup of tea in her hands.
“Here, drink up.”

You do. It’s lukewarm. You do your best to smile regardless.
“Thank you.”
You suppose green flame isn’t the best at heating up tea. It leaves a foul taste in your mouth but then again, so do most things.

“We have a customer coming in a few minutes but that doesn’t matter for you. What happened? Who did this?”


>Change the subject. You don’t want to talk about it.

>”He’s….he’s very special to me. It’s not his fault.”

>”I didn’t know him. He had a red cloak.”

>"Because of who I used to be." Show her the mark beneath your throat.

>Other

>>1256690
>>”I didn’t know him. He had a red cloak.”

>>1256690
>>Change the subject. You don’t want to talk about it.

To make up for that missed hour I'm going to try to kick up my pace a little more. This is definitely something I will not mess up within the next hour.

>>1256690
>”He’s….he’s very special to me. It’s not his fault.”

>>1256690
>Change the subject. You don’t want to talk about it.
>He broke up with me anyway, I couldn't help him if I tried.
>I just need....to get back on my feet. And a hat, a hat would be nice. Maybe then he'll take me back again...

>>1256690
Yeah, changing to >>1256725

>>1256690
>”I didn’t know him. He had a red cloak.”

Rolled 5 (1d6)

Looks like a tie. Evens is red cloak, odds is playing him off as a lover and then trying to change the subject.

>Change the subject. You don’t want to talk about it.
>He broke up with me anyway, I couldn't help him if I tried.
>I just need....to get back on my feet. And a hat, a hat would be nice. Maybe then he'll take me back again…
>He had a red cloak.

How are you best going to play this off? It should probably be your lover or your husband, shouldn’t it? That’s probably what would get her the most. It’s certainly the most pitiable. It’s a little demeaning but you should have resigned yourself to it the moment you started this charade.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine. Is there anyth-”

“He broke up with me anyway, said he didn’t even want to see me again. I couldn’t help him if I tried.”

She sets her own teacup down upon the table.
“A lover?”

“Maybe.”
You look away from her again.
“I really shouldn’t talk about it. I just need...to get back on my feet. And a hat or something, I need to cover my face up.”

“Oh I’ll find you a hat after we’re finished talking. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about him?”

“No, no, it’s not his fault. I deserved it.”
Ugh, you hate playing this role. Imagine actually being someone this pathetic! Just a little slip of a girl who lets some fucking ogre manhandle her and insult her and yet actually still believes him when he tells her that she deserves it. Still too fearful to ever even rat him out directly, even though she so plainly wants help. You’ve seen that type too many times. Oh she might complain and try to fight but by the end of the day she’s crawling back, chaining herself to her own personal monster.
So why does it feel so real all of a sudden? The emotions you’re pretending to have and channel, they spring up from somewhere raw within you and it feels awful. But you’ve never been in a situation like that.

You nearly drop the teacup.

You really are that pathetic, aren’t you? Of course it feels real, the story you’re giving her is barely even false. Shit.

“Are you alright? Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

You realise that you’ve just been staring off into space for the last few seconds.
“Oh.”


>Ask about the hat.

>Ask about the green fire. You’ve never seen its like before!

>Ask about her business. Is everything doing well?

>Ask her about red cloaks.

>Ask her about witches.

>Ask her something else (Specify)

>Other

>>1256857
>Ask about the hat.
>Ask about the green fire. You’ve never seen its like before!
Lol Ouro really likes writing abusive relationships

>>1256857
>>Ask her about red cloaks.
Apparently they really upset him somehow, and he got angry.

>>1256857
>>Ask about her business. Is everything doing well?

>>1256857
>Ask about the hat.
>Ask about the green fire. You’ve never seen its like before!
>>Ask her about red cloaks.
>Apparently they really upset him somehow, and he got angry.

>>1256857
> All the things

I mean, really . . .

Also ask about what there is for work here.

>>1256863
I like this one

>>1256914
>>1256857
probably ought to link the first post though dummy

>>1256857
>Ask about the green fire. You’ve never seen its like before!
>Ask her about red cloaks.
>Ask her about witches.
>Ask about the tower management and economy. But subtly.

>>1256857
>Ask about the hat.

>Ask about the green fire. You’ve never seen its like before!

>>1256857
>Ask about green fire
>Ask about red cloaks

Lets not screw over Orion, I know Bea struggles and stuff, and I know Orion could be a LOT more kind to her. Recently he has been softening up to her, I think she can see that and knows enough that he is just coming out of his shell to her, what with being a witch and a woman aka a living reminder of his own greatest failures and weakness. Betraying him now would fuck it up forever, and I think Bea knows enough about Orion that his mission, their mission, is more important than revenge for mistreatment, also she would know enough about Orion that she would probably be slow to act on the betrayal knowing that it might take the whole damn city guard to take him down.

I also don't want to see them split up ;_; Redeemed BeaxOrion is best ship, it can still sail! We can MAKE it sea worthy! Just.. we..we just need to patch some holes and....ohh... its been underwater for 3 chapters now hasn't it...

>>1257131
I wasn't throwing Orion under the bus, more using the red cloaks as a ploy to find out about possible allies hiding in the dark. Not selling him out. Also the whole back story bit where he said honestly while she may be a shitty person he has never met a better witch was genuine and heartfelt by both of them.

>>1257131
No one said anything about dicking Orion over

>>1257148
as any long time reader of snekquest will know, oro likes or seems to like playing with characters who have genuine affection for each other but also totally fucked up attitudes.

I think its fair to acknowledge that Orion's attitude is kind of fucked up, given that Abe reacted pretty severely to his treatment of Bea. Obviously betrayal isn't a good idea but its an interesting question because although Orion is nominally a "good" guy this means there's no real means to address his bad behaviour since he views it as simply just.

>>1256857
>Ask about the hat.

Some delay on this on account of food.

>Ask about a bunch of stuff.

“You said there was going to be a hat.”

“Fine, fine. Is that really what had you staring like that?”
She passes you a gray bucket hat with a wide floppy brim. It’s old and worn but it’ll do for now. You happily jam it on top of your head, pulling it over and shading your eyes. Better if she doesn’t get too close a look after all, she might notice that you don’t particularly match up to a girl who’s been hit a few times. The eyes and the veins, for one.

“No sorry, I was just staring at that.”
You point at the green fire, the light of which is soft and comforting. You haven’t seen light that doesn’t hurt your eyes for...well, since you first became a witch but there’s something off about this radiance even to you. It puts a dark tinge on everything and casts more shadow than it does true light.
“We don’t have that outside.”

“Really? I suppose you wouldn’t but I never put that much thought into it. What do you use outside?”

“Regular fire. Or nothing. Mostly nothing.”
It probably can’t hurt to remind these people how much comfort they enjoy that the rest of the world must go without.

“Regular fire? That must be so dangerous. However do you get by with something so crude?”

“Pardon?”
Her dismissal jars you a little bit, so different from any attitude you’ve seen before. You spent your childhood growing up in reverence of the flame and even after becoming a witch, your life was defined by its absence and its pain. A witch might spit on the flame but she would never dismiss it.

“Well, it just isn’t safe is it? That sort of fire could hurt someone or burn something down! No dear, we’ve been using a much safer alternative for...well, it’d have to be around thirty years now. Right after the sun fell. The need was seen and immediately filled, I suppose.”

“By who?’ you ask and then immediately regret it. Too direct!

But she doesn’t seem to notice it.
“The Viridescent Consortium of course, you can see their mark on all the barrels though that doesn’t stop some people from watering it down even further and selling it themselves. But it really is so much safer. Only the hottest kinds burn anyone at all and the light they shed illuminates everyone equally. Old fire and sunlight was much more judgemental. Like the slogan goes, it’s a spark for everyone!”

No wonder this tea isn’t hot.
“Good to hear. And is everyone happy with it?”

She sniffs.
“Right-thinking folks are. Of course you’ll never please the red cloaks o-”

“Red cloaks!”
You raise your voice, acting as if you’d just remember something important.
“Oh...sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. What about them?”

“I don’t know what they are. But they upset...him and made him really angry. Th-that was just before he-...”
You trail off.

1/2

>>1257462
“I understand. And you shouldn’t have to worry about those brutes. They’re just an old cult, the kind I hear you have all over the place outside. Flame-worshippers the lot of them and illegally so too. Just lighting fires wherever they please with no regard for anyone. And they’re so hateful too. I had one smash in here just yesterday, threatening me just because of my clientele!”

You do your best to stifle a smirk. You can just imagine Orion doing that. He must have felt so awkward!
“Do you get that often? I imagine business must be hard.”


“It’s nothing really. Nobody pays any attention to the redcloaks and as far as I can tell, they only really congregate around the low levels of the Folly anyway. Probably too afraid to venture anywhere else.”

“So your business goes well?”
You adjust your new hat.

“Well enough. I mean, it’s no Paper Bridesmaid but who is? We get a very special deal regarding a certain cus-oh! Speak and they shall come!”
Her exclamation comes as a response to a sudden knock on the door, three quick strikes and a fourth following several seconds behind.
“That’ll be the special customer I told you about earlier. Just stay here, this won’t take long.”

Knowing what you do of her ‘special’ clientele you’re not sure if you want to risk being seen.

>Just stay where you are and keep your head down.

>Take some gunpowder when she’s not looking, just to be sure.

>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?

>Crouch and hide behind the chair.

>Other

>>1257469
>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?

>>1257469
>>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?
but if not her office that's fine too

>>1257469
>>Crouch and hide behind the chair.

>>1257469
>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?
they're male, after all. take advantage of that excuse

Sorry, just give me a moment. This vote will stay open for about another hour or so before the update comes.

>>1257469
>>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?

>>1257627
No worries, this gives me a chance to watch the new samurai jack episode

>>1257469
>>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?

>Act nervous and ask if you can sit somewhere else. Her office, perhaps?

What if they can tell that you’re a witch? An imp can know on sight you know they can and even other witches can probably smell you out. Maybe they wouldn’t you see as a witch anymore but they’d know there was something wrong with you.

“Uh, excuse me?”
You keep your voice wavering, an effect you’re not sure she can appreciate given the usual tone of your voice.

“Yes?”

You hold your hands out in front of your face and try to appear as pathetic as possible.
“I’d rather...I’d rather not be here when they...uh…”

“Ah, fine fine. Just come in through here. You can sit down in my office dear, it’s not an issue.”
She walks through a white door in the side of the foyer. Her office is smaller than you thought it’d be, barely a closet with a desk in it and loaded high with papers and folders and little envelopes. There’s a window in the far back behind the desk that you can see one of Dis’ bridge-streets below, a central lamp-post just beyond. It’s pale green light falls through the window and illuminates the room quite well and leaves long long shadows on the door.
It’s unnerving to see a lamp post like this up close. What the fuck is wrong with it? It almost looks sick.

“Just stay in here,” she tells you and shuts the door, leaving you alone


>Eavesdrop through the keyhole.

>Start looking through her desk.

>Look out the window to inspect the lamp post closer.

>Get some gunpowder into you while you have the privacy.

>Other

>>1258097
>>Look out the window to inspect the lamp post closer.

>>1258097
>Get some gunpowder into you while you have the privacy.

Do Imps have different factions, or are they united in Dis like a Union. We don't know so we should probably assume they're hostile until proven otherwise.

Also it'll make us feel good.

>>1258097
>Look out the window to inspect the lamp post closer.

>>1258097
>>Eavesdrop through the keyhole.

>>1258097
>>Look out the window to inspect the lamp post closer.
>>Get some gunpowder into you while you have the privacy.

>Look out the window to inspect the lamp post closer.
>Get some gunpowder into you while you have the privacy.

There’s something about that lamp-post outside the window that just fascinates you for some reason. On one hand it’s not hard to see why. These fucking things were the cornerstone of your early life, everyone’s life. And after...after you left the school they became your greatest enemy. Scorching light, the reflected flame of a god that hated you. Hindrances and threats to be avoided as you lived in the wasteland like an animal. And after your capture and your branding and your time in prison and all your futile efforts to recover your lost Wick, it became a symbol of hope once again and far more potent for once having lost it.
And that’s why you stay, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what Orion does, his cause is just and you cannot turn your back on it.

And this lamp looks sick. You’ve seen ones with the green false-flame in them at first, your swift and disastrous train ride over Dis confirmed that the city was filled with central lamp-posts. But you’ve never seen one this close and you can understand the Lamplighter’s complaints a little more now. It just feels wrong to see this.

You hear a muffled voice from beyond the door and that snaps you out of it. Before you do anything else you need to get a little more in the zone. Right now you’re slow and tired and weak. You need to spark up. You dig out the little barrel of gunpowder from your pack. Still plenty of it left, you don’t go through it that fast.


>Just ingest a pinch of gunpowder as per usual. It’ll shift your modifier up from -2 to +0 and you’ll get to feel almost like a normal person for a little while.

>Snort the gunpowder. It’ll shift your modifier to +2 and you’ll be raring to go. Strong and powerful and not at all healthy.

>>1258203
>Just ingest a pinch of gunpowder as per usual. It’ll shift your modifier up from -2 to +0 and you’ll get to feel almost like a normal person for a little while.
it would be suspicious if we got TOO perky

>>1258203
> pinch

>>1258203
>Don't take it after all

Anons, the constant prompts to take gunpowder is Bea's addiction showing itself.

>>1258203
>>Just ingest a pinch of gunpowder as per usual. It’ll shift your modifier up from -2 to +0 and you’ll get to feel almost like a normal person for a little while.


>>1258253
Bea hasnt developed a reason to NOT take the powder yet

>Just a pinch.

Though you are tempted to just take as much as you can, you control yourself as well as you always do and settle for just a pinch of the black powder. You stuff it into your mouth as you close the keg with your other hand, forcing the powder down beneath your tongue as you swallow the now soggy clump. Still tastes terrible, you’ll never get used to it.

The other thing you never get used to happens just a moment later as the powder passes down the base of your throat and, through the process of transubstantiation, becomes pure power. Heat prickles across your ruined skin as you feel a new rush of energy fill and overflow through you. Your heart beats quicker, your eyes clear up and your blood attempts to escape your body.
With the rush comes the sickness as the heaviness grows, the bruises on your face solidifying and growing deeper. You do your best to hold the rest in, you don’t need anymore bruises. You especially don’t need a nose bleed now of all times, that bitch is still setting properly.

Filthy blood fills your mouth and you let it swish around before swallowing it, the reddish tint before your eyes thickening for just a moment before you feel something wet trickle down your cheeks. A single red tear. But no nose bleed.

>Beatrice’s modifier is now 0. It will slowly degrade towards -4 depending on circumstance.

>Beatrice has 4 charges.

You’re back on the fucking seesaw, aren’t you? You never learn. But that thought is one you only entertain for a moment as you bask back in the madam’s chair and let the warmth suffuse your entire body. You don’t feel jumpy or jittery, you haven’t taken enough for that. You still feel like shit but that’s normal, that’s background noise. But you aren’t weak either. You’ve reached the dizzying heights of having all the proportionate strength and power of an ordinary girl.
An ordinary girl with a belly full of blackpowder and a gun. Why were you even concerned about people seeing you? You can see now that those fears were just illusions, phantoms of your weakness.

You kick the desk, pushing the chair you’re sitting in all the way back until it hits the wall. God you feel like shit, you can feel your veins wriggling and squirming and there’s blood at the back of your throat just waiting to well up and spill out but you also don’t care about that. You’ve got a bad taste in your mouth and a good taste in your brain. Look at that! You wouldn’t have been able to kick the chair back like that a moment ago.
With your chair now firmly beside the glass, you open the window and stare out at the central lamp.

The bridge below is as busy as ever but nobody seems to be paying attention to you. Which is fine, because you’re not paying attention to them either. You only have eyes for the lamp-post built into the side of the bridge-road’s ramparts.
1/2

>>1258338
It’s not unlike the model Orion carries really, a memory that makes your hands burn beneath your gloves. Ornate black metal and spikes.

But the fire within...that’s wrong. There’s no radiant flame here. Instead the little glass cage of the lamp-post is filled with something you could almost call a liquid, wispy green fire swirling around inside it and being amplified by the lamp’s natural arcane mechanisms.
It moves like a corpse, a fat green bloated thing ripe with decay that sways to and fro within the lamp. And as you lean out of the window to stare at it closer, you feel an itching all over as well as another flush of heat.

Your blood is calling for it.

You can almost reach out and touch it. You only need to lean out of the window a little more, to balance your abdomen on the sill…


>Touch the lamp. You need to investigate what kind of flame it bears within it. Can you use it? What does it tell you about it if you can?

>Pull yourself back in. Not now.

>Shoot the lamp. Break it open!

>Flick a droplet of blood at the lamp.

>Other

>>1258279
Wow. Did is actually kind of awesome. Yeah, they did some shit that caused a lot of damage but hey! Safe fire! Imps don't mess about seducing peeps because they can just pay to have a baby. Women can wear trousers and own businesses!

I'm sure Orion sees it as the wages of sin, but maybe if the rest of the world wasn't ruled by a repressive theocracy they could have bent to the changes of the future instead of breaking.

Just to be clear, it's the repression that's stupid not the religion. Most religious institutions were actually the vanguards and custodian's of science. Especially the Catholic Church.

Religion equalling Retardation is mainly an American thing.

And the third men were made specifically to be retarded and resistant to change since the second men strayed from worship and obeisance to the Wheel God.

Who honestly comes off as kind of a prick. Like, you don't handicap people to help them. The whole origin story seems to me like humanity is just a tool or at best a garden.

Witches are worse. Trading one master for another and honestly acting kind of stupid as well after turning. Guess that's what happens when you polish mud.

Well. Let's get on with destroying these people for daring.

>>1258340
>Other

Is there a stick or something we can poke it with? Any dirt around?

>>1258340
>Pull yourself back in. Not now.
>Flick a droplet of blood at the lamp.

>>1258342
Im not entertaining your bullshit anon

>>1258340
>Flick a droplet of blood at the lamp.
If ok then
>Flick a droplet of blood at the lamp.

>>1258340
>Touch the lamp. You need to investigate what kind of flame it bears within it. Can you use it? What does it tell you about it if you can?
doitdoitdoitdoit

Work needs me for a delivery it turns out. I'll be gone another hour or so.

>>1258361
>>1258362

Could we use a stick to put just a very little amount of blood on it?

>>1258358
Hey. I'm down with playing a BadGuy quest. Orion a good man who does bad things for bad reasons. Doesn't mean he doesn't do good things as well.

But I sympathize more with the people of Dis. Not Witches, not the people who tore down the sun - although I can think of lots of good arguments for doing it, the price us outright damning beyond redemption for those who did it. Like I can't believe there weren't other ways to move forward.

>>1258418
I'm also not entertaining your bullshit anon. It didn't make sense last time and it still doesn't make sense now.

>>1258340
>>Touch the lamp. You need to investigate what kind of flame it bears within it. Can you use it? What does it tell you about it if you can?

>>1258426
No God's, No Masters.

>>1258462
we dont care

>>1258474
I don't see why you have to hate on Dis OOC just because Orion hates them.

>>1258340
>Pull yourself back in. Not now.
itsatrap.jpg

>>1258342
You don't have to kill the sun and plunge the world under the heel of a bunch of monstrous sociopaths to let women own businesses. These two things are kinda not related at all.

File: comfymonk.jpg (58 KB, 685x900)

58 KB JPG

Alright, one delivery turned into four deliveries but I'm back. Writan'

Actually it looks like a draw between blood and touching the lamp. Evens the former, odds the latter.
Sorry stick-voting anon, you can't find such an implement in the office.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>1258631
Motherfuck.

>>1258635
herewego.jpg

Uh... why exactly are we touching it? We could explode from contact with flame.

>>1258661
/qst/ decision skills

>Touch the lamp. You need to investigate what kind of flame it bears within it. Can you use it? What does it tell you about it if you can?

The pseudoflame within the lamp is too interesting an opportunity to pass up. You might be able to verify just what origin this strange substance has. Orion has already told you his suspicions but it couldn’t hurt to confirm them, could it?
And something about it calls to the blood within you, a shared common attribute of some kind. You need to know!

You can’t quite reach the lamp-post from here so you start to lean further and further out the window, pushing your belly past the sill and barely keeping your balance as you dangle out the window. Closer...closer...just a little more…

Your fingers brush up against the lamp and you latch on with both hands.

It’s warm, a pleasant warmth not unlike the suffusion of gunpowder through your aching body. The last time you grasped a lamp like this...well, there was nothing pleasant involved. But this is just nice, a heat that doesn’t burn and a light that doesn’t hurt.
And what’s more, the liquid fire within seems to react to your touch as little clumps adhere to the inside of the glass where your fingers are, tracking your grasp as if it was trying to reach out for you.

And then it does. Somehow the green flame passes through the glass of the lamp and alights upon your gloves. Your gloves are burning! But you don’t do anything for a long moment because the heat doesn’t change and your gloves aren’t damaged. Small clumps of emerald fire simply sit harmlessly upon your gloves like wisps. Like true flame did long ago.
And in that moment it feels like your insides are scoured out. It’s been a long time since you ever felt so homesick, so lost for a moment you’ll never get back.
A moment that you ruined.

Someone on the bridge-street below spots you and shouts something. You blink, twist around to withdraw back into the window...and lose your grip.


>Just fall onto the street below. You’ll be fine. (Easiest roll to make)

>Grab hold of the lamp post! (Average difficulty roll)

>Pull yourself back through the window just before you fall! (Harder roll)

>>1258681
>>Pull yourself back through the window just before you fall! (Harder roll)

>>1258681
>Pull yourself back through the window just before you fall! (Harder roll)

I believe in you Bea

>>1258681
>Grab hold of the lamp post! (Average difficulty roll)
we're still playing up the dumb girl, so

I suspect that throwing fireblood directly at it would have been more dangerous.

>>1258681
>Grab hold of the lamp post! (Average difficulty roll)

>>1258707
Poking stuff with a stick is a tried and true method.

Or just waiting for a discrete moment like goddammit get some impulse control haha. Apparently you can just buy the stuff.

>>1258681
Hey, earlier the woman said that some people "dilute the flame even more and resell it".

Quick question - With WHAT? And how? And can it be re-titrated into higher concentrations?

>>1258750
>With WHAT? And how?

Fire magic dingus

>>1258767
Do people in Dis still have their spark?

We have to be real careful as Beatrice guys, all the gunpowder we're carrying is likely extremely illegal in Dis.

>>1258681
>Pull yourself back through the window just before you fall! (Harder roll)

I'm alive!

>Pull yourself back through the window just before you fall! (Harder roll)

You flail desperately, letting go of the lamp-post and trying to use your lower body to swing you back into the window that you are now beginning the process of falling out of.

This isn't going to be easy!

>Roll 1d6, the first 3 of which will be used. Beatrice's current modifier is at +0 so no change.

>>1258750
The green flame has a semi-liquid form so it is typically diluted with water. And yes, there's no reason it shouldn't be.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>1258820
the dice gods giveth....

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>1258823
Dice taketh away

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>1258820
Oh great now we get to go back to that sketchy hospital

I'd say what the three stages were but it doesn't matter because, thanks to the +1 difficulty scale shift for a harder roll, all three of those are Darks.
Also the first activation of the Snake Eyes curse in the whole quest!

>>1258830
Doesn't that apply to Orion only?

>>1258835
Beatrice was there it happened, even if she was hanging back.

>>1258830
>inb4 the stages were:
>Not fall down
>Not break the lamppost
>Not explode

File: Low rolls have arrived.gif (489 KB, 497x373)

489 KB GIF

>>1258823
>>1258825
>>1258829
Rip Beatrice

>1, 1, 1

You slide out of the window sill as if it was greased, arms and legs waving helplessly as you fall. You desperately try to grab hold of something, anything as you fall in a panicked blur but all you grasp is empty air.

The fall is short but it is hard.

You hit the street legs-first, jolts of pain running up both of them and straight into your soul as you hear a visceral snap and suddenly you’re unable to keep footing on solid stone, the momentum sending you flopping like a rag doll. At least one of your legs just plain doesn’t work anymore.

You open your eyes as you topple backwards only to see the entire city of Dis waiting beneath you. What? The realisation is split-second, an instant of frozen time and mountain fear. You didn’t hit the bridge-street. You landed on the wide stone wall on the far right side of the street, the walls that act as railings for the populace.
So if you’re toppling to the side because of your leg…

You try to throw yourself back but it’s too little, too late. You slip off the side of the wall and into the abyss below, your head clipping against the wall as you fall just in time to break your nose again. You barely notice it.
You fall and fall and don’t stop, the street with the lamp vanishing into the sky as you spin helplessly through the air. Dis becomes a whirling kaleidoscope around you as you give up all hope of-

Crunch

A sky-rail breaks your fall, your body striking wooden sleepers and nearly bouncing off the track as you scream in agony. Your little keg of gunpowder splits open beneath you as you roll down the rail, powder scattering to the wind and disappearing forever.

You miraculously manage to stay on the rail however, you do not fall again. Instead you eventually tumble to a stop at the bottom of the rail’s lowest dip, a bundle of torn flesh and blood and broken bones and pain.

For a time, everything goes black.

>>1258851

>>1258362

>>1258853
>touch the lamp

anon.......

>>1258851
Okay if a trains coming I say we form the strongest witch sign we can remembe

>>1258853
I didn't vote to do the hardest roll, don't look at me.

>>1258851
You wake not long after and immediately lapse back into unconsciousness, retreating from the pain.
Your left leg is definitely broken, your nose is broken, your arms and your ribs are probably broken. No. No, you can move your arms. It just hurts a lot.

Hurrah.

You are lying on the rail face-up, a view of the ever-ascending towers of Dis swimming into blurry focus every time you can stomach to open your eyes. Which isn't very often because even beyond the pain, there's something else assailing you.

Every possible inch of your body, inside and out, feels like garbage. You're covered in a thin stain of blood and bruises have sprung up all over your body. Some are from the fall but most simply seems to be your body desperately seizing its chance to finally kill you.

You can't move. All you can do is flop a few inches in either direction like a broken ghoul.

>Beatrice's current dice modifier is at -4. Blood loss and trauma has caused her bonus to flip to a penalty quicker than usual.

>Beatrice currently has 16 charges.

Your gun is still safe, thank God. You can feel it in your pocket. But it's coated in blood so you can't fire it without risking a nasty conflagration. Not to mention that you seem to be covered in a faint dusting of gunpowder, the scant remains of the broken keg that haven't blown away coating your body and the rails around it.

You manage to lift a hand up into your field of view and in doing so, find that little scattered patches of green flame still cling to your torn-up gloves. Your blood can't set them off it seems and neither can gunpowder.

Witches aren't very good at crying so you settle for dry sobs that wrack your entire body and somehow make you feel even worse.

Fuck.


>Start crawling as best you can. You don't know where.

>Call for help.

>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you and the tracks.

>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.

>Eat the green flame.

>Other

>>1258863
>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.
>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you and the tracks.

If that doesn't give us our fix

>Eat the green flame.

>>1258863
>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you
>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.
with great deliberation, I choose NOT to Do The Thing, mainly because of:

>Your blood can't set them off it seems and neither can gunpowder.

I'm actually more worried about that than less.

>>1258863
>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you and the tracks.

>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.

File: sleep.jpg (110 KB, 577x515)

110 KB JPG

Well, I'm going to sleep. Session will resume in 8-9 hours or so. I hope you all had fun!

>>1258887
oh come on not even tiny update?

>>1258863
> Eat the green flame

We're kind of fucked regardless.

>>1258863
>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.

>Eat the green flame.

>Start crawling as best you can. You don't know where.

>>1258863
>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you and the tracks.
>Eat the green flame.

>>1258932
>>1259036
>>1259323
>Beatrice going full witch voters

Welp guess we're going back to Orion being alone.

>>1259630
It could actually be good for her, seeing as it's made from the Wheel god.
Then again it could kill her.

>>1259630
She's incapable of becoming a witch again due to the brand. And it's only from eating dirt anyway.

>>1259630
I suspect that eating the green flame would actually give more power to the witch brand

>>1259696
>She's incapable of becoming a witch again due to the brand.
Nope, with the Wheel God dead breaking the brand is piss easy. Rememebr our first witch fight in quest was against a formerly branded witch.


>>1259648
>>1259696
>>1259709
>Eating Earth tainted flame
>doing anything good for her
........ no words

>>1259718
The flame god essence in the gunpowder in our veins was attracted to the green flame. I think it's just diluted flame, not earth

>>1258863
> Eat the green flame

File: tmp_19974-Eatdapoopoo1-20(...).jpg (27 KB, 500x271)

27 KB JPG

>>1259718
> Orion's world doesn't want this sickness!

Hey man, I'm just playing what her character would do.

>>1259960
>durr i'll eat something I can tell is something WRONG, because it's IC.

Beatrice never struck me as suicidal.

>>1260006
We're gonna die unless we do something drastic, she can hardly move and it's only a matter of time before she's run over by a train

>>1258863
>Eat the green flame.

Alright, I'm awake. Session resumes in an hour.

>>1260006
> Beatrice never struck me as suicidal.

The gunpowder is literally killing her. She takes it for pretty much no reason except power.

> we have 16 charges

We can burn those to handle eating the green flame.

>Put your nose back in place. Fuck.
>Start licking up the gunpowder still clinging to you and the tracks.
>Eat the green flame.

You writhe from side to side for a moment, trying to rise, trying to stand or crouch or at least do something. You roll over onto your side, getting a sharp spike of pain from your poor ribs in the process. Oh God.
You stare back up at the starless sky, crowded over by twisting sky-rails and impossibly tall towers. You can’t just lie here forever. You need to get up and find help. And to do that you need gunpowder. You need it.

But before you can do that, you can’t ignore the constant hot spot of agony boring a hole straight through your face. You broke your fucking nose again! Blood is still leaking, hot droplets striking sleepers or falling through them into the cityscape below.
You tear your eyes away, you can’t afford to lose your nerve now. So stop looking down! You need to stop worrying and stop screaming and start focussing on what things you can change.

Step One: Your nose.

You drag your arms up and cradle your nose from either side, poking it gently and whimpering from the pain that blossoms forth as a response. You need to do this quick. You make sure your hands are firmly secured from either side and do your best to ignore the rising agony. It’ll be worse soon enough.

And then with a sharp sudden motion you twist your nose back into place and everything sharpens into perfect clarity for a single shining moment. Then you start screaming again as the pain catches up to you a moment later, far more of it than there had been just a few moments ago.
Nobody said Step One would be easy.

Step Two: The powder.

You need gunpowder. It’s not just a matter of feeling good, it’s a matter of survival. You’re so far on the downswing from your last batch that if you tried to crawl anywhere you’d probably just fall off and die. You’re already doing a great job of getting hurt just fine without needing your own body to join in.
And since there’s still some powder clinging to your clothes and body and on the rails themselves…

You have moved far beyond shame. You prop yourself up on protesting elbows and begin to lick the track. It tastes like cold steel and gunpowder and defeat.


>Just a taste, enough to get you back to your normal pathetic state. (+2, returning your modifier to -2).

>No, right now you need strength! Or at the very least the ability to function like a normal person. (+4, moving your modifier to +0.)

>All or nothing. You’re happy to risk death later if it means saving yourself now. (+6, moving your modifier to +2)

>Just take it all. You can’t stop yourself. You need it.

>>1260592
>>No, right now you need strength! Or at the very least the ability to function like a normal person. (+4, moving your modifier to +0.)

>>1260592
>No, right now you need strength! Or at the very least the ability to function like a normal person. (+4, moving your modifier to +0.)

>>1260592
>No, right now you need strength! Or at the very least the ability to function like a normal person. (+4, moving your modifier to +0.)

>>1260592
>Just a taste, enough to get you back to your normal pathetic state. (+2, returning your modifier to -2).
Pretty sure any more than that would just kill her after a while.

>>1260592
>>Just a taste, enough to get you back to your normal pathetic state. (+2, returning your modifier to -2).

>No, right now you need strength! Or at the very least the ability to function like a normal person.

You lick up the gunpowder as best you can, shaking grains loose from your clothes and hair as you do so and eating them too. And you don’t stop after hitting your usual limit of just a pinch either, you keep going until your mouth fills with blood. Your nose is leaking again and you breathe out as you feel a warm stickiness in your ears and your eyes overflow with bloody tears.

You feel great! You also feel like a broken piece of shit but now a frenetic energy underlines the experience, setting you to twitching and shaking with barely contained energy as the fire in your blood burns bright. It’s not actually that much but compared to what you used to be just a moment ago?

>Beatrice’s current modifier: +0
>Charges: 24

You reach out and grab hold of the sleeper ahead of you, pulling yourself forward with ease and barely heeding the protestations of your bruised and broken body. You have to keep going, you have to keep moving. You can’t stand up because your leg is broken but you’ll damn well crawl!

You need more!

Your eyes, darting to and fro with blurry vision, settle on the small patches of green flame still sticking to your ripped gloves. They haven’t reacted to either your blood or gunpowder...it should be safe to eat, right?

You stick your finger in your mouth and let out a little sigh as the fire bathe your tongue in warmth. It’s a weird feeling, all prickly and tingling.
You swallow it and prepare for the rush.

Nothing. You feel a small jolt but that’s it.

>Charges: 25

And from that, you suddenly know all you need to. You can digest it, it transforms into power. This is flesh of the Primordial Flame. But it gives you next to nothing. It is tainted and weak. Orion was right, this was genuine flame once but something dark has been done to it. No wonder your blood called to it, it’s the same as you. Light held in thrall by something pathetic and dark. You’ve know what you are for some time but this might be the first time it’s ever been so objectively confirmed.
You are the pale flame.

You snap yourself out of it just a moment later however. You’re not nearly low energy enough to fall into depression right now, you can save that for later. Right now what you need to focus on is how much of this shit there is. It’s fucking everywhere in Dis! So either this Consortium has a lot of Flame Artists or...they’re drawing from an extremely powerful source.
1/2

>>1260843
You don’t have much time for this particular discovery however. The rail beneath you begins to vibrate and shake, the drone of something large and loud in the distance. Train. Fuck fuck fuck godamnit come on!
Can’t anything be easy?

>Start crawling away in the opposite direction. Maybe that’ll give them time to slow to a stop before they hit you.

>Curl up into a ball and cry.

>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!

>Try to crawl as far away as possible and then detonate the part of the track with all your blood and gunpowder on it.

>Try to roll off the track and cling to the side or the bottom of it. It’ll pass right over you, you just need to keep your grip…

>Other

>>1260855
>Try to roll off the track and cling to the side or the bottom of it. It’ll pass right over you, you just need to keep your grip…
>Look where we can drop down to a normal section of road.

>>1260855
>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!
>Conjure up a large flame to try and warn the train.

>>1260855
>>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!

>>1260855
>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!
Try to make it to a rail switch at least

>>1260855
>>Start crawling away in the opposite direction. Maybe that’ll give them time to slow to a stop before they hit you.

yeesh, the bad shit always happens when i'm away

>>1260855
>Try to crawl as far away as possible and then detonate the part of the track with all your blood and gunpowder on it.
We're so fucked

>>1260855
>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!

is this magic thing going to propel us into the soil for a nice chat with the man downstairs? Or is this fire magic?

>Use your magic! Propel yourself forward or...something!

You flip yourself over again so that you’re lying on your back, an elbow jammed against the track to prop you up. It fucking stings but what else is new? The rails are shaking more and more now and though you cannot see your approaching death you can hear it loud and clear.

You can’t use your gun, it’s covered in blood. So is most of your body but...your left hand. It’s somehow made it through all this unstained. You can use it. You hold your left hand up to the sky as best as you are able.

>Charges: 24

A tiny flame flickers to life on the tip of your finger, a small but constant burn. A pilot flame. Your only problem is that unlike Orion, you are not fireproof. Quite the opposite really. So while the small candle-flame sprouting from the tip of your index finger might be a good source of ignition, it’s burning your already blackened fingers as it does so. But it’s not a strong pain and you do your best to ignore it.

You hold the flame in front of your face as long as you are able, breathing in and out and with every breath getting deeper and longer until your chest feels like billows contorting. You’re only going to get once chance at this so you need to build up as much as you can and so with every breath the air circulating through your lungs becomes more and more flammable, more and more laden with power.

And just when it becomes unbearable to hold the flame upon your finger any longer and the screeching of the tracks is the only sound you can hear...you push your hand away and exhale as hard as you can.

The pilot flame erupts into a jetstream of explosive flame and force and you yank your finger away from it just in time as it drives you backwards along the rail, setting the sleepers aflame behind you.

Charges: 14

You go tumbling head over heels along the sky-rail, earning yourself a good deal more bruises and burning your hand. The rail behind you burns, pops and cracks issuing forth as your spilled blood and powder ignites.
You’ve done the best you can. Now all you can focus on is making sure the force of your propulsion doesn’t take you off the rail entirely.

>Roll 1d6. The first 3 shall be used.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>1261119
>inb4 3 1s

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>1261119
pls have mercy dice gods

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>1261119

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>1261119

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>1261119

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>1261119

>>1261134
>>1261136
>>1261140
damn that's fuckin clutch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kcOpyM9cBg

>>1261134
>>1261136
>>1261140
Pale flame a shit
Real flame a best

>6, 5, 5

You hit the rail pretty hard but you somehow manage to keep yourself from slipping off as you roll down it, fire erupting behind you. You bounce a few times but you don’t let them carry you off the track. You come to a stop in an unceremonious fashion as you ding your head against a sleeper. Your new hat is gone already. When did that happen?

Stars blur through your vision as you lie dazed upon the sky-rail for a while, the only thoughts running through your head being lamentations over your hat and an understated relief that you didn’t leave a continuous blood trail behind you as you rolled, preventing the fire from chasing it back to you.

It’s almost a minute before you think about the train. What the fuck happened with that? You try to get up but just flop around instead. Underneath all the other injuries and all the pain, there’s now a stitch in your gut that spasms every time you try to roll back onto your side.

Well fuck your gut. Fuck your ribs. They aren’t the boss here!
You close a bruised hand into a fist and slam it down onto the sleepers beneath you and then, with a short cry of pain, straighten your arm while keeping the fist pressed up hard against the wood. It hurts like fucking crazy but it lets you rise onto your side, sitting up to see what has become of the rails behind you.

It’s on fire, as you more or less expected. The rails and even the sleepers don’t burn well at all but the blood splattered all along it keeps the flame alive for now. The first true flame you’ve seen in Dis.

And then a shadow falls across the rail, a creeping dark thing and the fire begins to dim. You recognize the witchcraft for what it is immediately, the arm you’re using as a support beginning to shake as your hear and feel the train once more.

Only...it’s not much of a train really. The thing pushing through the weakened flame is just a single tiny carriage, a gleaming silver machine that is low-slung and curved. Second Age design for sure, marred by the huge black green-flame boiler bolted onto it’s front. But other than that, you can’t tell where the engine ends and the carriage begins, the sleek little machine trundling slowly down the rails towards you.

You drag yourself a few more inches, broken leg splayed out behind you. And then the machine slows to a halt just a few feet behind you. The front of it opens up entirely, bulky maladapted engine and all lifting up to reveal a small dark room within, barely enough space for just four seats behind the control banks.
And from it steps…

Actually you’ve never seen this asshole before in your life.

He’s tall and slender but not in a way that even remotely strikes you as frail, a man in a black and white double-breasted coat. His hair is black and pulled up behind him in a short ponytail. His features are sharp but not uninviting and oh fuck Beatrice, what the hell are you thinking?
1/2

>>1261429
He’s kind of sexy but fuck, this is not what you should be prioritising!

What you should be noticing first is that he absolutely just reeks of earth, damp and cloying. He’s a witch and a well-practiced one at that.

You drag yourself back a little more as he steps onto the rail.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.”

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“Don’t be like that. I’m here to rescue you.”
He speaks quickly, clipped and short.
“You’re not going to get far like that.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do, in fact. Let’s just say a little bird told me of your fall. You really got her attention.”

“What?”

He stops but only for a moment.
“Look, I’ve got a busy schedule today and I had it even before I was sent to pick you up. You’re not going to survive on your own, you need care and you need help. So get in and we can talk.”


>”How about you go fuck yourself instead?”

>”What do you get out of this?”

>Pull out your gun. You can’t fire it because it’s covered in your blood but he doesn’t know that.

>Agree. Like it or not, you’re sort of dying out here and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

>Fall off the rail onto the closest street below.

>Other

>>1261443
>Agree. Like it or not, you’re sort of dying out here and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
Ouro how are you so good at turning our random mishaps into your own story it's seriously impressive

>>1261443
>”What do you get out of this?”

>>1261443
>Agree. Like it or not, you’re sort of dying out here and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

>>1261443
>”How about you go fuck yourself instead?”

>>1261443
>Pull out your gun. You can’t fire it because it’s covered in your blood but he doesn’t know that.
stall to negotiate some terms, stuff like "i will not be harmed', "I can leave whenever I want", etc
>Agree. Like it or not, you’re sort of dying out here and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
not once has bea really figured out a recovery mode. But we can stall for a bit and make his job slightly harder.

>>1261457
What, you didn't think that rolling the snake eyes was going without something happening because of it, did you?

>>1261457
>>1261469
>not asking what he gets out of this
>a witch being altruistic
Not even Bea is that nice.

>>1261543
We're dead otherwise dude, we've gotta take what we can get

>>1261550
>agree to something that may be worse than death itself
>blindly
Go in with your eyes open, not your head in the sand praying it'll be ok.

What is Snake-Eyes?

>>1261561
Rolling multiple ones causes a certain witch to take notice of us

>>1261561
at least 2 nat 1s. Makes the undergods notice us. Very. Closely.

>>1261561
An event that occurred in Thread Two here:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/563034/
Post number 576917 specifically.

>Agree. Like it or not, you’re sort of dying out here and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

“Wh-what do you get out of this? Don’t tell me that you’re doing this out of the goodness in your heart.”
He’s a witch after all. But what does that actually mean to you? Human lives mean little to a witch but you’re...you’re not human, are you? You’re a witch too. The emotional barrier between witches and humanity doesn’t apply here.

“Me? Nothing save the time I lose here. I am simply doing as I am told.”

“Like a dog.”

He sighs, just a little.
“If that is how you choose to see it. I am not here for my own personal gain. I am here because my Mistress has expressed great interest in you.”

“And what does she want with me?”

“It shall be explained inside. I promise that no harm will befall you.”

You stare up at him, wide-eyed and full aware of how disgusting you must appear.
“Surely you’re not planning to ravage me?”

“Only if you want to.”
If he realises that you were trying to mock him he shows no sign of it.

“Fine. Beats lying around on a fucking railroad waiting to die.”

“Indeed. Lucky that you could perform such an explosive trick. I may not have been able to stop in time otherwise.”

“I thought you knew where I was!”

“Not to such a precise degree. After you?”

He beckons towards the open carriage and you just stare at him for a while, obviously crippled from your fall. He means it. He’s really expecting you to just get up and walk in. Or is he challenging you?


>You’re not one to back down from a challenge. Stand up and walk.

>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.

>”My leg’s broken. I don’t suppose you could carry me?”

>Other

>>1261664
>>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.
>"My leg's broken, so you're going to be waiting a while."

>>1261664

>You’re not one to back down from a challenge. Stand up and walk.

>>1261664
>>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.

>>1261664
>>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.
>"My leg's broken, so you're going to be waiting a while."

>>1261664
>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.

>Slowly crawl over to the carriage. He’ll just have to deal.

You roll your eyes as best you can as you stare him down and then start to slowly crawl forward, dragging yourself up with your hands inch by inch.
“Look buddy, my leg’s broken so you’re going to be waiting a while.”
You’ve decided you don’t give a fuck about his challenges. What was he expecting you to do? Try to stand up and feebly collapse into his carriage? Fuck it. You’re just going to drag yourself in. You’re not even going to get off the damn ground!

Several minutes pass as you agonizingly pull yourself closer and closer. The witch begins to tap his foot.
“What are you trying to prove?”

“I’m…”
You stop to catch your breath.
“I’m getting in. Like you said. Is something wrong?”

He just sighs and climbs back into the carriage.
“Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Give me a moment to rest.”
You rest for another minute or so before beginning the crawl once again. Oh god, this is fucking murder on your arms. But let it never be said that your capacity for petty acts of spite isn’t endless.
You eventually reach the carriage and there you rest again, laying your head against the sleepers while you wheeze, one of your hands resting limply against the edge of the carriage’s floor.

A dark gray hand reaches down to take your hand in his and to help you up but you feebly slap him away.
“Excuse me,” you pant. “I don’t recall asking for help.”

You get both your hands gripping the carriage’s edge and with a single mighty effort you pull yourself up enough so that your head and torso are lying on the ground between the four seats while your legs dangle out and rest upon the sky-rail.
“Ow.”

“Are you done?”

“Not...yet!”
You heave yourself up into the carriage entirely, grabbing hold of the chair in the front, the one right beside the witch and hauling yourself up into you’re lying across of it. From there it’s a simple matter of pulling yourself upright and dragging your legs across and voila! You’re seated!
And exhausted.

“Impressive,” the man says dryly.

“Fuck yes it is, bitch.”
You try to control your breathing, struggling for the air you need to speak.
“What do you want?”

“Hold on.”
He presses a button on the control panel in front of the two of you and the carriage closes up once more, leaving the two of you shrouded in blessed darkness interrupted only by the hazy pseudo-light leaking in through the small windows on the side.
He pulls a lever and the engine growls, the little machine slowly picking up speed. You do your best to stay in your seat, limply sliding around within it like a sack of potatoes.

The rails flow seamlessly into and out of view in a single monotonous line as your cruise along smoothly. The witch lets out a breath you didn’t even know he was holding.
“Your name is Beatrice, correct?”

“Maybe. And yours?”
1/2

>>1261914
“Unimportant. You may refer to me as the Inspector if you wish.”

“How do you know so much about me?”

The Inspector reaches in behind the seats and swings something out, a small wooden table hinged onto the back of his seat. It slots in between the two of you. Atop it are two shrouded shapes that look like bowls of some sort, each one covered by a white cloth. But they aren’t the focus here or at least, not right now. You watch as the man shakes his sleeves and procures two ten-sided dice, glossy and black. He drops them on the table and they both land with their 1 facing up.

A pair of eyes.
Memories of the shack in the crater come rushing back, the old woman and witch-lore and her spying dice.

“Now there are three of us. Do you have any questions?”

“Sure. What the fuck is going on?”

He doesn’t answer you at first.
“I could ask you the same thing. Just what are you? You smell terrible. Like you are sick.”


>”I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m fucking crippled. No shit.”

>”I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

>”It’s none of your business.”

>Tell him what you are.

>Other

>>1261920
>>”I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m fucking crippled. No shit.”
>You try getting your leg and nose broken and body bruised to fuck and back and tell me how you feel inspector.

>>1261920
>”It’s none of your business.”

>>1261920
>”I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m fucking crippled. No shit.”

>>1261920
>>”I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m fucking crippled. No shit.”
>You try getting your leg and nose broken and body bruised to fuck and back and tell me how you feel inspector.

>>1261920
>Tell him what you are.

Sorry guys, I feel pretty sick. I'll be off for a few hours at the very least. I'll do a few updates tonight and I'll be back tomorrow at the usual time to finish this thread off.
Thank you all for coming! The vote will remain open until then.