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In Scrimshaw Mount, all graves are shallow. Even on the Promontory, where Nature, through the permutations of the Pattern had placed soil on the otherwise nude basalt of the Mount, the bone white stone was never more than a few feet down, commonly less than one. As such, getting graves to the standard depth of eight feet was simply not practical for those interned in the Mount's public burying grounds. But those that lived their lives and died their deaths on the Mount didn't take overmuch umbrage at their shallow graves. For both the practical and pious among them understood full well that under the panopticonical Gaze of the Patternmaker Above … all things are shallow.

Your name is Chlotsuintha, and at this very moment you have been transfixed in place by indecision - not the most uncommon happenstance, to be sure. This latest 'attack' occurred as you were in the process of finally extricating yourself from the late Aldoin's house - you decided to cut through the first floor as opposed to the basement to get to the broken casement window that you used to slip into the place several hours ago. You hadn't gotten a chance to case, clear or Hell, even see any of the first floor of the house, besides the kitchen, the servant's quarters and the servant's stairs; and as you have already lingered overlong here, this was going to be your first and your last opportunity to do so. It so happens however, that you have been unwittingly outmaneuvered by the architect of this house - who you suspect may have been Aldoin himself, considering how inscrutable much of the layout here has been - for on your swag-encumbered jaunt to the room that should have the stairs down to the basement that you are looking for, the only new room you have been in is a hallway and the only thing of interest that you have seen is naturalist's paintings all along the walls. However, you have heard something - and are continuing to hear something. Ticking. Most assuredly coming from the room that you are not headed into. That is the heart of this 'attack'; you are quite disinclined to spend anymore time here, as already you have serious doubts that you are going to be able to get yourself off of the Mount tonight - let alone in a way that won't see you beset on all sides by pursuers - but at the same time, at the same damned time, your mind is all a-lather about what could be making that ticking noise! You just ... you cannot figure it out, and having questions like that hang over your head, it is galling! Just ... if you could just figure it out, right now, without seeing it, it would be really be a weight off of your shoulders. Someone might find it silly to be worked up by something like this, but ... ah, damn it. You don't know what the right call here may be - but you certainly know the wrong call; standing around and fretting. You need to make a decision right now, and act on it.

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> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You are going to stay the course. Get into the room, find the stairs, and make a call on casing and clearing that room before moving on.
> You have made such good time, surely it wouldn't unmake you if you were to take a brief detour here to find whatever is ticking.

> Previous thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2024/5850982/
> Archive: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Eternal%20Rome

> When the thread closed, this vote was tied, so we are going to have to have to re-run it. Sorry about that ...

>>5895819
Re-reading this, and I see now how I might not have been clear; votes from the previous thread are washed, regardless of it you have voted in Thread XII or not, please vote here. I'll close this when I wake up in the morning.

>>5895819
> You have made such good time, surely it wouldn't unmake you if you were to take a brief detour here to find whatever is ticking.
It’s just a clock guys, we can finally set our pocket watch and move on.

>>5895819
>You are going to stay the course. Get into the room, find the stairs, and make a call on casing and clearing that room before moving on.

>>5895819
>You have made such good time, surely it wouldn't unmake you if you were to take a brief detour here to find whatever is ticking.

Okay, good. Consider this closed. I'll get to writing as soon as I can.

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You spin on your heel, wincing as one of the pinning needles in the remains of the strickening striker jabs you in the leg. What pain remains from the prick, however, washes itself away quickly once you start moving towards the door nearest to your estimation of the ticking. You lengthen your already considerably long stride, and make short work of the distance, telling yourself all the while that you are most assuredly not about to spend time that you have already spent - or that if you were, then you will have something to show for it, surely. Impatient, you wrench the door open at the soonest possible opportunity, and stride right inside, your 'stick aloft. Dead center in the middle of the room, sits the only piece of furniture present; a circular table, with a sizable globe and pedestal sculpture placed on top of it, from which you judge the ticking to be emanating. Not too surprising, as there seems to be some instrumental aspect to the sculpture as well; you can see gears and bobs and what-nots ... though you cannot see any movement. Even with your admitted ignorance of the instrumental sciences, you get the sense that it is well made - which makes the absence of movement, paired with the ticking seem ... odd. Is it broken, or is something near or inside of it doing the ticking? And why did it only start ticking recently?

Before you decide to even bother approaching it, you take a look around this room you have found yourself - and the ticking - in. It must be the entry-way of the house; though it would be well-described as a foyer - had it any stairs to speak of! The ceiling of the room is high, very high - and when you look, you see that there is a wrapped balcony that runs along three of the four sides of the room, with the fourth side endowed with only a cat's walk and a bank of windows; all of which are dark. Below the walk, there are other windows; as well as the front door. Opposite the front door is another set of double doors, presumably which will lead into the room with the other chimney; besides these, there are other single doors along the wall, similar to one that you passed into this room through. This space is so suited to be foyer that you simply have to wonder if it was one at one time, and Aldoin just ... decided to remove the stairs. You can even see the overhang on the balcony, where the stairs could have started from and then lead down to the first floor ... honestly, it is rather unnerving, how little sense some parts of this place makes. Though you are in some ways glad that you are going to be quitting this place momentarily, you cannot consider yourself 'pleased'. Beyond your questions about the architects sanity, and a sense that you are stepping out on a deal of swag, you still have basically no idea of what really transpired here during and after Aldoin's death - and before it for that matter; what he was doing, and for whom. Was he your father's friend, or his mark? And most of all; who killed him - and why?

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You had hoped that you would find answers to these questions here, but ...

It is not enough to make a rod out of though; your father has clearly been here to stage and prune the place - in fact, you would say that it is more than white luck you found as much as you did, it is a blessing, it is a genuine blessing. Which makes the fact that this all tastes like it is kin to defeat feel even worse to be quite honest. If you only had more time - and more leads to work and follow. All you have right now is the Strange Incendiary, boots with a maker's mark from a far-flung Principality port called 'Blue Barrens', and a trail of the Strangeness that leads into several public houses and no time to follow it. And yet ... father has gone to some effort to keep you apart and in the dark on all of this - presumably, whoever the other party here was, they don't know about you. If you consider just how many different sorts are going to be coming after you; the Middenguard for dropping your spots and fleeing, the Thief-Takers for knocking down the Euthyphro, and the Inquisition for ... existing. You are even going to have to concern yourself with Highwaymen on the Thoroughfares and Cimaroons on the frontier. Perhaps the real blessing here is this ... mutual ignorance.

Enough of that though; the globe. What to do about the globe?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You don't see how a time-keeper that was small enough to fit inside the globe would be large enough that you could hear its ticking on the other side of the house. And if it isn't a time-keeper, than finding it isn't going to be useful. Move on.
> You don't understand why the gears under the globe aren't moving if you can hear the ticking. Is it broken? Is there something inside of it? If there is, then could your father have put it there? Or did Aldoin? Keep it quick, but take a look at least.

>>5896693
> You don't understand why the gears under the globe aren't moving if you can hear the ticking. Is it broken? Is there something inside of it? If there is, then could your father have put it there? Or did Aldoin? Keep it quick, but take a look at least.
A curiosity- and maybe there’s a couple mechanical books here, which I’d love to get our hands on.

>>5896693
>> You don't understand why the gears under the globe aren't moving if you can hear the ticking. Is it broken? Is there something inside of it? If there is, then could your father have put it there? Or did Aldoin? Keep it quick, but take a look at least

>>5896693
>> You don't see how a time-keeper that was small enough to fit inside the globe would be large enough that you could hear its ticking on the other side of the house. And if it isn't a time-keeper, than finding it isn't going to be useful. Move on.

Alright, consider this closed - Chlotsuintha will take a quick peek.

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Well ... as you have already come this far, then doesn't it stand to reason that it would be rather silly to not close the distance and find what you have been fretting and fussing over since you set foot back in the kitchen? Buoyed by your conclusion and spurned on by the prospect of how many other things you have to do tonight, your long legs start to make short work of the remaining distance - until, at about a distance of a yard away from the table and the mechanized sculpture that sits on top of it, the ticking stops - seemingly halfway through a 'tick'. A bit startled, you stop in your tracks and stare. You can see no movement anywhere on the sculpture - or anywhere else in the room, for that matter - but you suppose you shouldn't expect to, considering that you couldn't see anything moving when there was ticking, either. Confused, you bend down to peer under the table, as it has just occurred to you that whatever was responsible for the noise might have been underneath the table. You cannot see anything - but the table does have a bit of a lip, just thick enough to hide ... something just large enough to make noise that could be heard on the far side of the house.

Looking to get to the bottom - or rather, the underside - of this, you straighten up abruptly. Too abruptly; as you end up getting jabbed in the leg again with the Pinning Needles on the remains of the strickening striker as it swings freely. You jolt back a bit, and off balanced and encumbered as you are, you have to backpedal a few steps to steady yourself. Just as you get your feet solidly underneath you once more, the ticking resumes, as abruptly as it stopped. Now as concerned as you are confused, you approach once more, only for the ticking to stop again. A step back, and it resumes. Suspicion forming in your head, you walk around the table with it to your left, keeping a constant distance between you while the ticking continues as if it had never been interrupted. Choosing a point at random, you side-step to your left, and as you had thought it might, the ticking stops again.

That settles it, then - whatever is going on here is beyond the ability of any ... instrumental device that you know of. This has to be a Construct of some sort - one with either a secreted away set of eyes, or it is Form-facing. But if it is effecting you in some way, then it is subtle enough that you cannot distinguish it from the background effect of the ranged-remediation cast and your mundane aches, pains, tiredness and malaise. Surely, it has to do more than tick - but what, and why only start now? Is it even going to be safe to approach it any further - moreover, should you even bother approaching it even further?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You might not have the time to do a full examination and documentation as you did with the Construct in the chimney, but you should at least try to find it.
> You might kick yourself for this later, but you simply don't have the time right now to plug up any more worm-holes. Beat a retreat out of this room, promptly.

> Additionally, if you can correctly guess as to why Chlotsuintha's father might have put it here, then you will earn a Lucky Tenth-Talent, redeemable for one re-roll.

>>5897276
> You might kick yourself for this later, but you simply don't have the time right now to plug up any more worm-holes. Beat a retreat out of this room, promptly.

>>5897276
> You might kick yourself for this later, but you simply don't have the time right now to plug up any more worm-holes. Beat a retreat out of this room, promptly.

Guess
>Its a form facing bomb detonator. Tick, tick, tick, KABOOM!

I'm going to get lunch, and if there aren't any other votes up by the time I finish, I'll close this and get to writing.

>>5897326
Your guess has been noted.

>>5897326
Though it is wrong, in case you were wondering.

Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing.

>>5897276
> You might not have the time to do a full examination and documentation as you did with the Construct in the chimney, but you should at least try to find it.
I would actually like more than two anons to decide this please.

I’ll come up with my guess when I get home.

>>5897276
Also, are we given enough clues, or is this more similar to the Blue Boy tests, where we’re meant to extrapolate from a single mention?

Okay, maybe I was being a little hasty. The thread had been moving so slowly, even though it was on the front page, I figured I wasn't going to get more people unless I waited overnight or something ... Anyway, I'll leave this up for say, another two hours - then I will close it. So if you haven't voted on >>5897276 you can.

>>5897570
This isn't anything like the Blue Boy tests as Chlotsuintha is not in immediate danger. It is not really that sort of challenge either; it is just if you can make a correct educated guess as to what purpose this Construct serves, you could win a free re-roll. I put it in, not as a narrative component, but more to get players thinking - even if the guesses are wrong, an idea that one of you comes up with now might make for an interesting Construct to Weave later.

>>5897276
>You might kick yourself for this later, but you simply don't have the time right now to plug up any more worm-holes. Beat a retreat out of this room, promptly

Cooking timer?

>>5897689
Your guess has been noted. It is a very funny way of describing the intent, but you are close enough that I feel that you earned it.

Gained x1 Lucky Tenth-Talent

>>5897276
>> You might not have the time to do a full examination and documentation as you did with the Construct in the chimney, but you should at least try to find it.
> Additionally, if you can correctly guess as to why Chlotsuintha's father might have put it here, then you will earn a Lucky Tenth-Talent, redeemable for one re-roll.
It's the fuse for the remediation construct?
Or maybe some sort of detection mechanism for people coming in through the front door, so that changes can be done on constructs elsewhere?
Or maybe, less likely, it's here in the entryway so that it does something to any normal person who comes near it, so as to avoid visitors interrupting what's going.

I know a 'correct' guess has been logged already, but a construct that ticks when someone/Strangeness is a certain distance away but stops when it's close by feels like something you'd put next to yourself while you're working to let you know when someone is threatening to impinge on your suspicious activities. the exclusion radius would allow you to do your dastardly deeds without ticking as long as you kept it near, and alert you to anyone possibly interrupting. except it's too loud for that purpose, and assumes that the ticking itself is the purpose.

Alright, that's five hours more and five votes total, I'm going to close it and get to writing now.

As for the remaining guesses in the thread, some of them are in the right vein. Beyond that, I don't think I should provide anymore OOC knowledge on this.

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It is the absolute height of frustration; you don't know purpose the Construct serves and you don't know whether or not it is both safe and worth it to find the damned thing. The quickest way to ascertain would be to find the damned thing - but that has all of the safety of checking if a cauldron is hot by touch. You'll get your answer straight-away, but your liable to get burned - so the only time it is safe to pull a stunt like that is when you are so sure you are effectively holding it as a surety that the cauldron is going to be cool to the touch. Which runs into the real flaw of this sort of test - if you take the cauldron to be cool, why bother touching it to check in the first place? Or more generally, if you have to have taken something as your answer before you can ask a question, then what sense is there in asking the question in the first place? There isn't any that you can see - unless, you were going to have to ask the question, if you were going to have to touch the cauldron at some point. Right here and right now, as much as you'd like to answer these questions, as much as you would like to learn ... you just don't have to. It kills you, but - well, actually, no, it doesn't kill you. That is the point. Letting this Mystery remain mysterious is not going to unmake you - but wasting time, or potentially activating some sort of ... Living Fuse, or something like that, that could end up killing you - or at the very least, making a mess. You don't necessarily think that it is something dangerous like that - if you had to make a stake, you would say that it is some sort ... something ... that communicates with the two larger Constructs in the chimneys. After all, you saw the entirety of one of the Constructs in one of the chimneys, and you saw no evidence of Conduit connecting it to the other Construct in the other chimney - but you did see fairly conclusive evidence of the Constructs coordinating when they took turns remediating you. So there has to be something going on, something with emitter-Organs and Components - or some other means, you are not sure ... moreover, you are not sure what it is supposed to be casing for. Targets for ranged-remediation casts? Is this some sort of blind spot in the envelope? But you aren't being targeted by any casts at the moment. Perhaps you are off the mark on this after all.

Perhaps you are off your head. Just ... move on. You don't have the time to do anything here, and you certainly don't have the time to do nothing here. Move!

So you do, turning away - and somehow managing to startle yourself when the ticking resumes as soon as you start to move again. The noise follows behind as you pass out of the stairless foyer and into the hallway, just as it follows you into the room which you judge to be the one that holds the set of stairs you intend to take down to the basement. This room is dark, as dark as any you have been in the house. You lift up your 'stick and peer into the shifty shadows.

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The room is as handsomely and richly furnished as any other that you have seen in the house - but you have no eyes for the furnishing and the decor, beyond noting in passing that the seal of the University prominently embossed onto the twin tables that take up the center of the room. No, your eyes are on the fixtures instead; specifically the shelves. It is almost enough to make you cry. You commit to quitting the place, only to finally stumble into Aldoin's library. Save for the windows and two doors - the one you just passed through, and one in an alcove that presumably leads to the basement - all of the walls are built-in bookshelves high enough to necessitate their own tracked ladders. All well laden with books, oddities and curios - save for one, which seems to only have books. And something that you have never seen on a bookcase before - a locking steel cage.

You could spend hours here. Hell, you could spend days in here. Oh, damn it all, you need to get going, and father - surely he was here. Surely he must have pruned this room.

But slung across your back is five feet of proof that your father didn't find everything. What ... Pattern's Peace, what are you supposed to do?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> The hour is late. Before long, the hour will be early. As for your father; he overlooked a hiding space. It doesn't follow that he would overlook an entire room, especially one as important as Aldoin's library. No, desperate as you are to learn, right now, these books are millstone - don't be grist!
> Turning your back on the Construct was hard. Turning your back on this is just impossible. Even if your father managed to prune away everything suspicious, it doesn't follow that whatever remains isn't potentially useful. You have so much to learn about the world, and no one to teach you. These books are a lifeline!

>>5898241
> Turning your back on the Construct was hard. Turning your back on this is just impossible. Even if your father managed to prune away everything suspicious, it doesn't follow that whatever remains isn't potentially useful. You have so much to learn about the world, and no one to teach you. These books are a lifeline!

We could use maps. Books that would help us assume our highborn disguise better.... like ettiquite. A cookbook or three. Some on identifying edible plants. Leave behind the books on liver disease because they are not terribly useful. A couple that would suggest we are pious. A couple books on camping, survival, or military movements.

What do you guys think about going back for the rest of that silverware to shield the life loom from detection after we load it?

>>5898288
> What do you guys think about going back for the rest of that silverware to shield the life loom from detection after we load it?
This is probably as good of a time as any to make this clarification; the Life-Loom is an Implement - which means that it doesn't have any Living Mysteries integrated into it. As such, it will only be vulnerable to Shadow-facing detection when it is in active use - but you are right on the money, False Silverware will confound detecting casts... though considering the directional nature of such casts, as well as the Shielding provided by the False Silverware, this might prove to be easier said than done.

As for Form-facing detection, putting a pile of the False Silverware between the Loom and the whoever or whatever is searching for it is not going to be enough to shield it. It will, in the right circumstances, and with enough of it - make it substantially harder to find at range, but to render the Loom invisible or at least indistinguishable from the rest of the Realm of Forms while it is in operation is going to be a much taller order. Chlotsuintha will have to learn a lot more about Projection and the Realm of Forms to achieve such an end.

>>5898241
>> Turning your back on the Construct was hard. Turning your back on this is just impossible. Even if your father managed to prune away everything suspicious, it doesn't follow that whatever remains isn't potentially useful. You have so much to learn about the world, and no one to teach you. These books are a lifeline!

>>5898241
>Turning your back on the Construct was hard. Turning your back on this is just impossible. Even if your father managed to prune away everything suspicious, it doesn't follow that whatever remains isn't potentially useful. You have so much to learn about the world, and no one to teach you. These books are a lifeline!

Alright then, seems like there is a pretty solid consensus about this. For the overnight vote; how should Chlotsuintha approach casing and clearing this room?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> It seems backwards to say the least, but you are going to ignore the locked bookcase. For a surety, your father pruned that first and most carefully. It could be that you are more likely to find something Mystery-Adjacent or useful on the unbarred shelves - that paired with the time that it would take to unlock the shelf means that you are going to be best served focusing on what you can grab quickly.
> While it certainly may stand to reason that your father pruned the barred shelf first, the fact of the matter remains that just because father didn't prune something, it doesn't follow that it is worthless to you. If you are right, you are standing over the room with the broken casement window - and those barrels of ... whatever exactly it was. Head down there, fill something up and prepare to perform Ice-Lockpick on the door.
> Write-ins allowed with QM approval

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You have a decent bit of space left in your back, not to mention the strength to carry more - however, books are large, relative to the size of the rest of your swag, and heavy too. And you are already carrying five of them with a lot of other weight and bulk besides. You think you could squeeze ... three books, of a typical size and weight into your haversack, and then carry another three in your arms; that with one in each of your aprons three primary pockets, and with ... another three tied down to your haversack or in improvised slings and purses comes two twelve books. And still leave you some room for odds and ends - so long as they were small and light enough. You would be a slow as a slug - and fairly conspicuous - but you could do it, at least all the way to the Closet where you stashed your cart. Twelve books - without making a second trip, or having to dump anything to make more room - that is good. That'll do.
> By your best estimation, you can fit another three books into your haversack. Any more than that, you will have to stuff elsewhere - which would really slow you down, not to mention make you look even more conspicuous. With Mitigators out over the harbor and a description of the pirate that knocked-down the Euthyphro being disseminated, you are going to have to limit yourself here, especially if you are planning on taking anything else of considerable size or bulk out of the house as well. As hard as it may be, you will limit yourself to three books.
> By your best estimation, you can fit another three books into your haversack. If you stuff yourself like a Spookcrow, you might just manage twelve. That isn't going to be enough. However, if you were to head out right now, go to the cart and unencumber yourself, you could make a few quick trips. Turn it into a real knock-down.
> Write-ins allowed with QM approval

I didn't include it as a vote, but dumping stuff to make room for more books is an option. That sort of inventory shuffling will take considerable time, however ...

>>5898336
Thanks for the info, QM.

>>5898550
>> By your best estimation, you can fit another three books into your haversack. Any more than that, you will have to stuff elsewhere - which would really slow you down, not to mention make you look even more conspicuous. With Mitigators out over the harbor and a description of the pirate that knocked-down the Euthyphro being disseminated, you are going to have to limit yourself here, especially if you are planning on taking anything else of considerable size or bulk out of the house as well. As hard as it may be, you will limit yourself to three books.

>>5898550
>You have a decent bit of space left in your back, not to mention the strength to carry more - however, books are large, relative to the size of the rest of your swag, and heavy too. And you are already carrying five of them with a lot of other weight and bulk besides. You think you could squeeze ... three books, of a typical size and weight into your haversack, and then carry another three in your arms; that with one in each of your aprons three primary pockets, and with ... another three tied down to your haversack or in improvised slings and purses comes two twelve books. And still leave you some room for odds and ends - so long as they were small and light enough. You would be a slow as a slug - and fairly conspicuous

>>5898550
> By your best estimation, you can fit another three books into your haversack. If you stuff yourself like a Spookcrow, you might just manage twelve. That isn't going to be enough. However, if you were to head out right now, go to the cart and unencumber yourself, you could make a few quick trips. Turn it into a real knock-down.

>>5898550
> It seems backwards to say the least, but you are going to ignore the locked bookcase. For a surety, your father pruned that first and most carefully. It could be that you are more likely to find something Mystery-Adjacent or useful on the unbarred shelves - that paired with the time that it would take to unlock the shelf means that you are going to be best served focusing on what you can grab quickly.

> By your best estimation, you can fit another three books into your haversack. Any more than that, you will have to stuff elsewhere - which would really slow you down, not to mention make you look even more conspicuous. With Mitigators out over the harbor and a description of the pirate that knocked-down the Euthyphro being disseminated, you are going to have to limit yourself here, especially if you are planning on taking anything else of considerable size or bulk out of the house as well. As hard as it may be, you will limit yourself to three books.

>>5898550
>While it certainly may stand to reason that your father pruned the barred shelf first, the fact of the matter remains that just because father didn't prune something, it doesn't follow that it is worthless to you. If you are right, you are standing over the room with the broken casement window - and those barrels of ... whatever exactly it was. Head down there, fill something up and prepare to perform Ice-Lockpick on the door
>You have a decent bit of space left in your back, not to mention the strength to carry more - however, books are large, relative to the size of the rest of your swag, and heavy too. And you are already carrying five of them with a lot of other weight and bulk besides. You think you could squeeze ... three books, of a typical size and weight into your haversack, and then carry another three in your arms; that with one in each of your aprons three primary pockets, and with ... another three tied down to your haversack or in improvised slings and purses comes two twelve books. And still leave you some room for odds and ends - so long as they were small and light enough. You would be a slow as a slug - and fairly conspicuous - but you could do it, at least all the way to the Closet where you stashed your cart. Twelve books - without making a second trip, or having to dump anything to make more room - that is good. That'll do.

>>5898550 #

> It seems backwards to say the least, but you are going to ignore the locked bookcase. For a surety, your father pruned that first and most carefully. It could be that you are more likely to find something Mystery-Adjacent or useful on the unbarred shelves - that paired with the time that it would take to unlock the shelf means that you are going to be best served focusing on what you can grab quickly.

>Write-In: I'll grab 3 books, offload at the cart, and then come back for ONE MORE load of books, that's all the time I'll allow myself.

>>5898550
Wait I forgot to vote for the first one
> It seems backwards to say the least, but you are going to ignore the locked bookcase. For a surety, your father pruned that first and most carefully. It could be that you are more likely to find something Mystery-Adjacent or useful on the unbarred shelves - that paired with the time that it would take to unlock the shelf means that you are going to be best served focusing on what you can grab quickly.

By my count, we have a three-way tie on how many books to take (counting the write-in). And while the vote for ignoring/breaking into the barred bookcase is three-to-one, two voters neglected to vote for either option. Under these circumstances, I am going to keep the vote for both open, until I see that the tie on the number of books has been resolved.

Just so we aren't waiting around with nothing to do, I'm going to move forward a vote on what Chlotsuintha is going to do with the remains of the strickening striker. If you recall, her current plan is to access the sewer through the Closet that she parked her cart at, and dump the head down there - as she was concerned that carrying the former boar's head around would be too hard to overlook and impossible to explain away ... though this was before she found the five-foot Wall-Wand. Though now she has a five-foot Wall-Wand and Nut-Nodules besides - so the ship may have sailed on inconspicuousness. Still, the Wall-Wand, wrapped as it is could pass for a musket - and the Nut-Nodules just look like exotic nuts. There is also the question of the Pinning Needles that have been jabbing her - if she does go through with dumping the head, should she leave these behind? From what she saw of the Needles used on the strickening striker, none of them were Engraved or anything, so it is not as if they would be immediately recognized as Mysterious, and removing them is liable to make a mess - a mundane mess, but a mess nonetheless. On the other hand, they are purpose-made to be anchored to and wrapped with Conduit. You can use conventional needles, and even nails in place of Pinning Needles, but you might not get as good of a connection.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You decide to stick with your plan, and dump the entire head as it is in the sewers once you get back to the Closet.
> You decide to alter your plan, only dumping the head in the sewers after you remove the Pinning Needles once you are in the Closet.
> You decide to abandon your plan - you will not dump the head in the sewers once you get back to the Closet; rather you will stow it on the cart.

If you haven't voted for >>5898550 or are one of the two anons who only half-voted, please feel free to cast your votes as it is still open.

>>5899045
> You decide to alter your plan, only dumping the head in the sewers after you remove the Pinning Needles once you are in the Closet.

>>5899045
> You decide to stick with your plan, and dump the entire head as it is in the sewers once you get back to the Closet.

>>5899045
> You decide to abandon your plan - you will not dump the head in the sewers once you get back to the Closet; rather you will stow it on the cart.

Boy, with all of the ties that we get in this Quest, I must do a pretty good job of balancing votes, huh? Votes >>5899045 and >>5898550 are still open. With any luck, I'll be able to close them and get writing after dinner.

>>5899259
We might have to flip coins for it.

>>5899300
I really, really don't feel comfortable rolling for this - but I will go into the general and advertise. Can't believe I didn't think to do that until now ...

Just so you know lads, the locked bookcase is still probably the most valuable books here lads.

The throw the head into the sewers works because its organic and will get chewed up by rats. The pinning needles are not organic and could prove useful later on. I would support a write in to remove them inside the house if it made feel better about removing them.

> You decide to alter your plan, only dumping the head in the sewers after you remove the Pinning Needles once you are in the Closet.
> It seems backwards to say the least, but you are going to ignore the locked bookcase. For a surety, your father pruned that first and most carefully. It could be that you are more likely to find something Mystery-Adjacent or useful on the unbarred shelves - that paired with the time that it would take to unlock the shelf means that you are going to be best served focusing on what you can grab quickly.
> You have a decent bit of space left in your back, not to mention the strength to carry more - however, books are large, relative to the size of the rest of your swag, and heavy too. And you are already carrying five of them with a lot of other weight and bulk besides. You think you could squeeze ... three books, of a typical size and weight into your haversack, and then carry another three in your arms; that with one in each of your aprons three primary pockets, and with ... another three tied down to your haversack or in improvised slings and purses comes two twelve books. And still leave you some room for odds and ends - so long as they were small and light enough. You would be a slow as a slug - and fairly conspicuous - but you could do it, at least all the way to the Closet where you stashed your cart. Twelve books - without making a second trip, or having to dump anything to make more room - that is good. That'll do.

Alright! Consider all votes closed. I'm going to start writing, but no promises that I get the update finished before I fall asleep.

I am not done with the update, and I am about to fall asleep - so for the overnight vote; one last question on how Chlotsuintha is going to conduct her search - will she only look for books to take - and if she happens to find some curio that would be worth the effort of carrying off, she will consider it - or will she take additional time to search through the curios as well?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> She intends to turn up books - if anything else comes up in her search, then it is a bonus. [Single Sight Test]
> She will make the passes through the room necessary to find books of interest, then she will make additional passes to look over the curios. [Two Sight Tests]

Additionally - as players - how would you prefer the mechanics of finding books to work? I am hemming and hawing on this point, and I think I'll just go with whatever everyone likes better.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which twelve books Chlotsuintha takes with her
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from

>>5899677
> She intends to turn up books - if anything else comes up in her search, then it is a bonus. [Single Sight Test]
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which twelve books Chlotsuintha takes with her

>>5899677
>> She intends to turn up books - if anything else comes up in her search, then it is a bonus. [Single Sight Test]
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from

>>5899677
>She will make the passes through the room necessary to find books of interest, then she will make additional passes to look over the curios. [Two Sight Tests]

> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from.

>>5899677
> She will make the passes through the room necessary to find books of interest, then she will make additional passes to look over the curios. [Two Sight Tests]
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from
Maybe we don't have to grab everything if there's nothing interesting or relevant

>>5899677
> She intends to turn up books - if anything else comes up in her search, then it is a bonus. [Single Sight Test]

> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from

>>5899677
> She will make the passes through the room necessary to find books of interest, then she will make additional passes to look over the curios. [Two Sight Tests]
Two Sight Test means an increased chance for a critical success- I’m just curious if we get a bonus from our previous Floor Knowledge crit.

> The outcomes of the three tests determine which twelve books Chlotsuintha takes with her
I trust Trash.

Okay, I've got most of the update finished, but then I will need to 'calibrate' the test(s), and come up with book titles and values for four possible lists as well as incidentals and outcomes of critical successes. That should take another few hours or so if I take a break for dinner - which I will. With any luck, this tie we are in will have been broken by then. When I get a chance, I'll advertise in the general for a tie-breaker as well.

>>5900076
> I’m just curious if we get a bonus from our previous Floor Knowledge crit.

I was wondering if someone was going to pick up on that ... yes, yes you do.

>>5899677
>She will make the passes through the room necessary to find books of interest, then she will make additional passes to look over the curios. [Two Sight Tests]
> The outcomes of the three tests determine which list of books you - as players - get to choose twelve from

>>5900737
Alright, consider this closed.

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> Sight Test I

> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 6: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired II and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate Aldoin's Library
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is trying to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.
> + DC 6 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of books to look through and around, which presents a genuine complication.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has absolute knowledge of Aldoin's First Floor.
> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha can get as close as she likes to the books, making it harder for her to overlook things
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha knows for an absolutely surety what sort of book she is looking for, making it harder for her to overlook things.
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is allowing herself to overlook curios, making it harder for her to overlook books.

> DC 30: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: What's Unfit to Print. After spending much more time than she would have liked, Chlotsuintha manages to find a total of twenty-eight books of interest ... but none of them can be considered Mystery-Adjacent [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Type Facing Facts. After spending a deal of time here, Chlotsuintha manages to find forty-five books of interest ... only a few of which can be considered Mystery-Adjacent [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Black and White. After spending a deal of time here, Chlotsuintha manages to find seventy-one books of interest ... a number of which could be considered Mystery-Adjacent [Prompts Vote]
> Three Passes: Printing Impressed. After spending some time here, Chlotsuintha manages to find seventy-one books of interest ... and there are a surprising amount which are Mystery-Adjacent [Prompts Vote]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up a very special curio - something hiding in plain sight.

Oh, the last and most important part got dropped.

> Please may I have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5900788
As long as it isn't ALL Danielle Steele novels.

Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5900788

Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5900788

File: Stack of Books.jpg (156 KB, 800x800)

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> Please choose A NUMBER of these Religious Texts, Commentaries on and Histories thereof, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> The Compendium of the Piece-Touched Worshipers of the Pattern
> The Compendium of the Piece-Touched Priests of the Pattern
> The Compendium of the Right-Thinking Priests of the Pattern
> The Compendium of the Reformed Priests of the Pattern
> The Compendium of the Brotherly Congregation of the Pattern
> Rebuttals to Right-Thinking Commentaries on Pre-Covenant Faiths
> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> To Make a Not-Temple; the Works of the Iconoclasts
> A Year with the Shooting Stars; the Disorderly Order of Idoloclasts
> An Accounting of the Posthumous Bulls of Catania III and the First Cadaver Synod
> The Deaths of the Saints, Volume XXIV
> Dragged Into the Light; On the Threading of Brutes
> The Lives and Works of the Arachne, the Second Sorority
> Above the Blessed is the Sacred; The Eternal Starlight as a Forge

> Please choose A NUMBER of these Military Histories, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> The Siege and Suspicious Destruction of Zamarramala Fort; a Complete Accounting
> The Waylaid Star-Seed; The Dissembling of the Macrobian Marches
> An Imperial Egg; The Doomed Campaigns of Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the Dragon-Mad
> A Rain of Ogres; The Perpetual Collapse of the Pillar of the Moon and the Campaigns of Containment
> A Conquest Deferred; Explanations for the Abrupt Departure and Continued Absence of the Devouring Lotus
> To the East, an Enemy; A Practical and Useful History of War in the East
> To the South, a Deceiver; A Practical and Useful History of War in the Far South
> To the West, a Nuisance; A Practical and Useful History of War in Outremer
> From the West, a Destroyer; A Practical and Useful History of the Depredations of the Devouring Lotus
> The Peace of the Graveyard; The Unmaking of the Old-World Cimaroons
> War of an Most Mundane Nature; The High Calling of Man in an Instrumental Age
> Northern Dispatches of Nemours II, Volume II
> The Worm-Who-Warred; On the Continued Independence of Logres and Aremorica

> Please choose A NUMBER of these Miscellaneous Texts, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> A Leather Binder of University Documents
> A Leather Binder of Correspondence
> Another Leather Binder of Correspondence
> The Book of Wonders [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Book of Felicity [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]

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> Please choose A NUMBER of these Goodman Farmer, Naturalist and Botanist's Texts, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> Waxstool, Lardstool and Corkstool; Mysterious No More
> The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspicious, and Suspect
> Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
> The Many Colored Thumb; The Venerable Dye-Plants of Woad, Weld and Madder
> What Lurks Above; a Naturalist's Reference to Terrors and their Progeny
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume II
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume II
> Fodder for Fodder; The Best Techniques for Fertilizing Pasture and Hay-field
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
> The Glass Garden; its Construction, Planting and Management

> Please choose A NUMBER of these Instrumental Texts, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
> The Cleanly Art of Plumbing; An Introduction
> A Complete History of Pipes
> The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
> Instrumental Labors; Conceiving and Constructing a Manufactory
> The Potential Industrious Applications of Slaved Lightning
> Mysterious Tools for Mundane Arts, Volume I: The Controlled Furnaces of Imperial Foundries
> Mysterious Tools for Mundane Arts, Volume II; The Road-Breathers and the Imperial Thoroughfares

> Please choose A NUMBER of these Histories of Outremer, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> The Failed Foothold; The Bitter Beginning and Bitterer End of the First Scrimshaw Mount
> Those Who Saw the Cimaroons Land; The Revenant Race and Their History
> The Fleeing Conquerors; The Cimaroon Conquest and Cultivation of Outremer
> The First Princes in Outremer and Their Accounts of the Land
> An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch
> A Terrible Red Tide, To Wash Us Out to Sea; The Conception and Near Success of the Cimaroon's Campaign of Expulsion, Culminating with Their Defeat at Deadlight Port
> A Morning Most Vainglorious; the False Victory and Last Day of the Thinlance Coven
> The Little Soft-Bellies of the Principalities; Avicenna and Serapion

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> Please choose A NUMBER of these Philosophy and Law Texts, Commentaries on and Histories thereof, so long as the CUMULATIVE NUMBER doesn't exceed TWELVE:
> Teleomechanism, a Primer and a Defense
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject
> The Case of the Animals versus Man [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Great Canon; The King-Archon, The Ways of the Thirteen, The Demarchy and other Dialogues
> The Question of the Soft-Belly; The Free-States and Their Trade in Brutes
> The Question of Common Land in Outremer; Cases For and Against
> The Wealth of Princes

For obvious that should be obvious, I shouldn't answer many questions - if you have one, ask, and I'll answer it, or I'll tell you I can't. Happy Hunting!

>>5901109
> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> The Peace of the Graveyard; The Unmaking of the Old-World Cimaroons
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
> On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject

Since these types of choices are always difficult to run, I would like to state to please consider my vote as a vote for each of the named books and against none

>>5901248
By my count, you have another three votes to cast. Unless you intend for Chlotsuintha to make off with something particularly heavy in the basement - like parts of the tripod lamps - there is no benefit of leaving space here.

For anyone else in the thread, I should specify that I will allow write-ins on this; if the number of books has changed your mind about not taking multiple trips - or if now seeing all of them listed out has convinced you that this is just going to be a massive time-sink, feel free to make a write-in as your vote to reflect this.

I got instantly overwhelmed by the big list of books (figured it'd happen so I voted for autoloot), I'll read through it in a little bit

>The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
For protecting ourselves and understanding the enemy.
>The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
To improve our chance of survival when injured and to reduce our dependence on others. May benefit from knowledge of growing medicinal plants.
>The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspicious, and Suspect
>Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
>The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
>The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
For growing plants that may help us in studying the many mysteries or in everyday life.
>What Lurks Above; a Naturalist's Reference to Terrors and their Progeny
For understanding strange beasts in nature and their behavior.
>On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
>The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
>Mysterious Tools for Mundane Arts, Volume I: The Controlled Furnaces of Imperial Foundries
>Mysterious Tools for Mundane Arts, Volume II; The Road-Breathers and the Imperial Thoroughfares
Design of machines, mysterious and not.
>Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject
For basic knowledge if we plan on pretending to be a named subject for any period of time, or even just a member of remotely polite society. Big priority.

> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume II
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume II
> Fodder for Fodder; The Best Techniques for Fertilizing Pasture and Hay-field
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
> The Glass Garden; its Construction, Planting and Management
> An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject


All these seem useful.

>>5901588
That was the point; there are hundreds of books in this room, Chlotsuintha has to winnow them down to twelve as quickly as she can.

> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
mandatory
> Above the Blessed is the Sacred; The Eternal Starlight as a Forge
Either a religious text, which Chlot will enjoy as a pious woman, or possibly something metaphysically enlightening that she may possibly be able to extrapolate principles of mysteries from.
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
to make a convincing mundane herbalist
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspicious, and Suspect
> An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch
Possibly useful mysterious knowledge and knowledge of where I...think we're headed? I don't remember the plan after we escape the Mount
> On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
>The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
Chlot's not an engineer or anything but she will need to be practical in order to more or less reinvent the wheel for as many things as she does
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject
> The Great Canon; The King-Archon, The Ways of the Thirteen, The Demarchy and other Dialogues
to make a convincing well-educated Named Subject

Terrors are dragons, possibly, or some other flying creature, given the 'above' part of the title of that, so that was tempting, the tool primer was tempting. glass garden is entirely too expensive, we'll never manage one

My initial list was 20 some, and cutting it down to 12 is rather difficult. Poor Chlot, she's starting from hundreds and doesn't have a sorted and textual list, must have taken her ages. Poor schedule!

>>5901109
> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> The Deaths of the Saints, Volume XXIV
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II
> The Glass Garden; its Construction, Planting and Management
> The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
> The Wealth of Princes

I'm thinking... we have to come back for a second load of books, yeah? Even if we could buy these somewhere else, we'd have to explain ourselves. This might be the best treasure in the house.

Just to check, we're planning on going to the outer provinces and not The Great Gloom, right?

>>5901551
I’ll try to vote soon, am a bit busy

>>5901109
> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspicious, and Suspect
> Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume II
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
> The Potential Industrious Applications of Slaved Lightning

>>5901109
>Make a second book run
I think knowledge is important, and all these books are useful. Plus, I’m definitely curious what sort of useful witch-adjacent books are in that locked box- something from the Pre-Estrangement era?

> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> Above the Blessed is the Sacred; The Eternal Starlight as a Forge
> War of an Most Mundane Nature; The High Calling of Man in an Instrumental Age
> The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspicious, and Suspect
> What Lurks Above; a Naturalist's Reference to Terrors and their Progeny
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems
> Instrumental Labors; Conceiving and Constructing a Manufactory
> An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject
> The Wealth of Princes

This was definitely hard, and I’m wondering if I should’ve leaned harder on the technical aspects. Then again, we need to be well rounded in philosophy and history if we’re going to be running around as a Named Subject.

>>5901109
> The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
> The Many Colored Thumb; The Venerable Dye-Plants of Woad, Weld and Madder
> Fodder for Fodder; The Best Techniques for Fertilizing Pasture and Hay-field
> Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
>The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
> The First Princes in Outremer and Their Accounts of the Land
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject
> The Question of Common Land in Outremer; Cases For and Against
> The Wealth of Princes

We don't plan on settling in the Gloom I think

>>5902368
>We don't plan on settling in the Gloom I think

These are our neighbor, raiders, and (potential) partners in the Mysteries.

Besides, I think we’ll need to steal four false idols to right the scales with the Patternmaker.

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>>5902058
> Either a religious text, which Chlot will enjoy as a pious woman, or possibly something metaphysically enlightening that she may possibly be able to extrapolate principles of mysteries from.
While Chlotsuintha - and by extension, the rest of you - cannot be sure, she believes that this text must be about Vulcanalia and Velchanos; the husband-and-wife teams that tend the Eternal Starlights which are large enough to operate a forge off of, for the purpose of creating Sacred Objects

> Possibly useful mysterious knowledge and knowledge of where I...think we're headed? I don't remember the plan after we escape the Mount
Chlotsuintha is of a mind that all knowledge of the Many Mysteries is useful, simply on account of how much has been lost or deliberately destroyed. As for the plan, I believe it was to head to the frontier provinces of the Principalities, keeping the option of fleeing into the Great Gloom as a last resort

> Terrors are dragons, possibly, or some other flying creature, given the 'above' part of the title of that, so that was tempting, the tool primer was tempting. glass garden is entirely too expensive, we'll never manage one
Sky-Terrors, Terrors-from-the-Sky or just Terrors are cloud-creatures, measured in acre-feet as they don't have any fixed bodies - though observed specimens will typically favor particular configurations and shapes, allowing for some regular identification. When atmospheric conditions allow, they will descend to the ground as an impossibly thick fog to take in liquid water and feed on whatever they can subsume into their mass, which includes anything with blood. They and Man are the only two beings who have been known to make Constructs; Terrors form theirs from their leavings and the remains of their meals, called Awful-Offal, the Terror will employ these as 'hounds' to drive prey into areas that it can feed from. It is unclear just how much control a Terror has over its Awful, but these Constructs can endure, sustain and feed themselves even once changes in wind and weather have forced the Terror to move on. The only other thing that Chlotsuintha knows about Terrors is that some Witches - including her father - believe that the Steaming Citadels of the Devouring Lotus might have been domesticated Terrors who had the ability to form solid objects either bred or endowed onto them somehow.

I'm seeing some tentative support for both checking the barred bookshelf and also making a second trip; the vote for what books to take is still open, but I figure that I should check now if we are going to be sticking with our plan - such as it is.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> After seeing some valuable books just out on the shelves, you have to wonder what must be locked away on the barred shelf. Unfortunately, with so many bars between you and the books, you cannot make heads or tails out of the titles - so if you are going to find out, you are going to have to pick that lock.
> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> It was agony getting the selection down to just seventy-one. You just don't see how you could possibly take it all the way to twelve. There is no way around, you are going to have to go get your cart.
> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

>>5902442
> After seeing some valuable books just out on the shelves, you have to wonder what must be locked away on the barred shelf. Unfortunately, with so many bars between you and the books, you cannot make heads or tails out of the titles - so if you are going to find out, you are going to have to pick that lock.
> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

>>5902442
> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.

> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

>>5902472
Supporting

>>5902442
>> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.
> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.
I just don't think we have the time, it's like two hours out from our appointed time to pick up the coach and we still have another break-in to commit to set that up and get our documents

>>5902442
> After seeing some valuable books just out on the shelves, you have to wonder what must be locked away on the barred shelf. Unfortunately, with so many bars between you and the books, you cannot make heads or tails out of the titles - so if you are going to find out, you are going to have to pick that lock.
> It was agony getting the selection down to just seventy-one. You just don't see how you could possibly take it all the way to twelve. There is no way around, you are going to have to go get your cart.
It’ll be well worth our time- we won’t have the chance at these sorts of book out in the boonies lads.

What is the Devouring Lotus anyway Trash?

>>5902671
I don’t think it’s 10, the last reference of time was around the 20th hour, or 8 o’clock.

>>5902442

> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.

> It was agony getting the selection down to just seventy-one. You just don't see how you could possibly take it all the way to twelve. There is no way around, you are going to have to go get your cart.

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>>5902738
> What is the Devouring Lotus anyway Trash?
The Devouring Lotus were - or are? - Mysteriously Armed armies that invaded the Old World in antiquity, well before the Estrangement. They were led by cohorts and bands of War-Witches and with abilities well beyond the local practitioners of the period. No one had ever seen or heard of them before, but they managed to nearly conquer all of the territory that would eventually become the Empire in a matter of weeks before abruptly and inexplicably abandoning their conquests, leaving behind all manner of Armament and Constructs in their rush back over the horizon. While they have never returned, it is believed that they are responsible for the Confoundment - an almost certainly Mysterious phenomenon that prevents attempts at navigating the open western waters of the Ultimate Ocean by addling, confusing, maddening, enraging and even physically attacking would-be navigators. As the Confoundment remains as strong as ever, some hold that the Devouring Lotus are still out there - while others contend that as they have probably been killed off by the Strangeness, the Confoundment is just another one of their leavings that those in the Old World must deal with.

>>5902738
> I don’t think it’s 10, the last reference of time was around the 20th hour, or 8 o’clock.
As per 5891971 in the previous thread, Chlotsuintha believes that it could potentially be after the twenty-first hour

Considering how important this vote is, I am going to leave it up overnight. Also, I still haven't closed the votes on the books, so if you haven't voted for those, please do that as well.

>>5902965
Put me in for
> A Conquest Deferred; Explanations for the Abrupt Departure and Continued Absence of the Devouring Lotus
> From the West, a Destroyer; A Practical and Useful History of the Depredations of the Devouring Lotus
Because that sounds useful as all hell- and maybe a Practical and Useful History of the Outremer. Hell, I bet even the Practical and Useful History of the Deceiver would help us as well- ripping off historical examples would probably save us a ton.

>>5902442
>> After seeing some valuable books just out on the shelves, you have to wonder what must be locked away on the barred shelf. Unfortunately, with so many bars between you and the books, you cannot make heads or tails out of the titles - so if you are going to find out, you are going to have to pick that lock.
>> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

>>5901109
My book vote
> The Canon of Medicine [Eastern, translated in margins]
> A Conquest Deferred; Explanations for the Abrupt Departure and Continued Absence of the Devouring Lotus
> The Fleeing Conquerors; The Cimaroon Conquest and Cultivation of Outremer
> The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer
> The Cleanly Art of Plumbing; An Introduction
> The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource
> Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject

>>5902442
>> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.
> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

>>5902442
> You are going to stay the course; nothing has changed - the books on the barred shelves have to have been pruned first and harder than the rest of the collection, so it cannot possibly be worth your time.
> It has been excruciating getting the selection down to seventy-one, and it is proving even harder to get it to twelve - but for the sake of whatever is left of your plan and schedule, you simply must.

Sorry about the disappearing act today, I just couldn't find the time to sit down with the thread.

Anyway, lets see if we are going to be knocking down that barred shelf, or coming back with the cart.

>>5902472
Pick I Leave I

>>5902549
Pick I Ignore I Leave II

>>5902637
Pick II Ignore I Leave III

>>5902671
Pick II Ignore II Leave IV

>>5902738
Pick III Ignore II Leave IV Return I

>>5902911
Pick III Ignore III Leave IV Return II

>>5903263
Pick IV Ignore III Leave V Return II

>>5903269
Pick IV Ignore IV Leave VI Return II

>>5903584
Pick IV Ignore V Leave VII Return II

Alright, so Chlotsuintha is not going to be picking that lock, and she will not be coming back with the cart either. I'll get writing a quick update for an overnight vote.

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The hour is late. And before overlong, the hour will be early. But ... as it was, turning your back on the Construct inside the instrumental sculpture was hard. Turning your back on Aldoin's personal library is ... you just cannot do it. There is so much for you to learn - and unless you manage to reunite with your father, the best education you are ever like to get is going to come from reading books, journals, logs, writings and notes. To be sure, you doubt that any text remaining in this room after father's pruning - and judging from the spaces and gaps that you can see here in there in the shelves, you are beyond certain that he did 'attend' to this collection - will be as valuable to your studies of the Many Mysteries as anything in the Belfry ... but then again, there are a lot of books here, and he did manage to overlook the Wall-Wand you have strapped to your rucksack's frame, didn't he? Moreover, even if he didn't overlook anything ... Mystery-adjacent or Controlled or Suspect or just kind of questionable, it doesn't follow that what remains in here isn't going to be useful to you. Of course, pressed for time as you are, you will not even have the questionable luxury of judging these books by their covers - as that would necessitate taking them out of the shelves. No, you will have to make in the moment judgments based off of the titles, read off of the spines of the books. And even so, just the sheer number of texts here will weight against you like a great millstone; you are liable to be taken down into grist if your focus dulls and slips, if you hem and haw as you are so often want to do.

To that end ... you think that you are going to have ignore the barred bookshelf. It seems backwards at first pass, but if you were in your father's boots, and you set out to prune this place, you would attend to that shelf first, and with the utmost care. You might even be inclined to hold books on that shelf to a higher standard than the others; removing texts that on other shelves might get left behind either because you were rushing to finish the room, or because you thought that in the absence of egregious, eye-drawing protection they might pass unremarked and unseen, obfuscated by the bulk of books around them. Beyond that, there is also the time that it would take to pick the shelf - and the mess of both water and the Strangeness that it would make - to dissuade you from from the barred shelves. Were you the one to get the first knock in here, then your arithmetic would be different .. but as it stands, you must wince and turn your back on it. Focus your attention and spend your time on what you can grab quickly instead.

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But as soon as this question is resolved, another one rears up. Just how many books are you going to be grabbing? Shifting gears abruptly, you walk over to the nearest of the table, and set down 'stick and 'sack, so you may appraise what capacity inside the pack remains to you. There is certainly still space left … though much of it is in the smaller auxiliary pockets or the carry netting – on the inside, where you would haul books, things have been getting rather snug. The box with the duelist's pistols and the five books you pinched from the master's bedchamber is a considerable bulk – and not an inconsiderable weight, either. If you filled the compartments large enough to accommodate books to the brim, you would say that you would fit two in the larger one in the rear, and one more to the smaller one to the fore. But three books – to be sure, three books is three more than no books - yet to winnow all of the books in this room, save for those on the barred shelf, to just three … that strikes you as sour. You aren't keen on over-encumbering yourself, but you are near-enough to being within spitting distance of the Closet and your cart, and as for bundles and armfuls of books looking inconspicuous … well, you have what appears to be a musket strapped to your pack – the ship hasn't just sailed on being inconspicuous, it fraying sunk!

Beyond what you can fit in your pack then … looking at the linen sheets you have on hand to improvise purses and slings with, and considering how much you can carry in your arms, tired – and in the case of the left, battered – as they are, you get as sense that you can squeeze … say, nine more books of a typical size and weight for a text. That is three in your arms, one in each of the three of your primary apron pockets, two in an improvised sling across your chest and one with the remains of the strickening striker. All told, that will be twelve books, and that is without making a second trip, or having to dump anything. To tell it true, you don't expect winnowing all of these to twelve quickly and without overlooking anything worthwhile … you just think that it is going to be easier than winnowing to three.

You start to the nearest shelf to start scanning – then you realize that it might smooth the sailing if you were to take three of the five books from Aldoin's bedchamber, and make the slings and the room in the purse for them now. Not wanting to wash back and forth on something, you resolve that at this point, any progress is good progress, and set about making a sling out of one of the linen sheets that you pilfered from the second floor. While you are thinking about it, you take off the linen towels you used to augment your footwraps – not wanting them to come to the harm that they surely would if you were to wear them outside.

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Of course, no sooner do you have them off your feet do you realize that you will now need to account for the space to stow the damned things .. so thinking quickly, you decide to stow them in the purse, on the chance that if something messy was to happen to the former boar's head, the book inside of the purse might not necessarily come to harm. While you are swaddling the remains, you find that your eyes are draw to the Pinning Needles, especially the big ones that anchor what were once eyes in place on the Construct, and your thoughts meander about how in short succession you managed to jab yourself twice, no doubt with one of these long ones.

They are quite well made, with curiously configured heads that allow Conduit to be wrapped and anchored optimally. They are not Socketing Needles, so you don't expect them to be Engraved – and from what you can and have seen of them, they aren't – but that doesn't mean that they are just … incidental. Mundane needles or nails … to be sure, you could make them work if you had to – but if you were to pluck the Pins out of these remains, then … well, you wouldn't have to, at least as long as your supply lasted. For a second, you consider doing it right now, as this sort of work will be a lot more comfortable sitting in a chair at a table than it would be squatting in a Closet on a street, right above the sewers … but you ween yourself off of that notion as quick as it came. Promptly concluding your business in this house is more important that your comfort – so to close the book on this idea, you place the book atop the head, then you put the other two you took out of the 'sack in the sling you just prepared.

Your preparations complete and your attention undivided, you turn to face the room, holding your 'stick aloft. Case by case, and shelf by shelf you read every title that you can lay light on – and straight-away, you are pleasantly surprised at just how far the breadth of the collection strays away from botany. For a start, there are a lot of practical texts about cultivating and using plants, alongside more academic works focusing on studying them. But there is more than that! There are histories; of law and philosophers, of wars, of Outremer and Principalities, of saints and the Priests, even one on pipes. You are not sure how one could muster enough words to write an entire book about the history of pipes, yet someone must have – for there it sits on the shelf. You find yourself smiling at the thought of it, even once you pass it by. You have resolved that you need to see all of the books in the room before you can even start to consider pulling anything from the shelves; and you are not even going to look at the curios and nick-knacks that fill some of the spaces in the shelves until you have packed away your twelve.

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Eventually, your circuit of the room brings you before the barred shelf – and you cannot help but take a moment to try to peer at the titles. Not that it does you a lick of good, the damned bars are too thick and too numerous for you to make out much of anything on the other side of them, at least on a quick pass. You turn your back on the barred shelf and head over to its nearest unbarred neighbor, but the more distance you put between those 'stitched-up' texts and yourself, the less certain you are that you are making the right call about them. But a surprise is waiting for you on the next built-in bookcase; among some histories of Pre-Estrangement Monastic Orders are five copies of the Compendium, the Sacred Works of the Priests. Your first thought is that five copies of the Compendium is excessive – there are probably more copies of the Compendium on this shelf than there are in all the Temples in Stickport – but your mind doesn't immediately go straight to larceny, as it might with more secular sundries. Considering the near-total absence of religious instruction in your life, you cannot say with any surety just how much of a sin it would be for you to steal one of these; if it would be on the level of … say, desecrating a grave for personal gain, or what … but with -

Wait! These aren't – no, one is the Reformed Priests … but the rest are apostatical! There are the 'Right-Thinkers', the idolaters who built the building that became the Not-Temple, and the rest … you haven't even heard of, so you can only imagine how heretical these text must be. You say a litany of warding prayer, making the accompanying gestures – and for good measure, you resolve to take nothing from that case. You continue on, trying not even to look in the direction of that shelf, lest a pall fall upon you and your Thread become even more frayed and your Will become more unsound – but blessedly, the rest of the room passes without similar unpleasantness. Returning to the table where you unslung your 'sack, you find that by deliberately avoiding looking at the shelf with the Compendium and those ... corruptions, you are once again looking at the barred shelf. You couldn't say how much time has passed since you started your circuit of the room, but you feel that you have made decent time, considering what you set out to do. So it is you find yourself tempted once more by the barred shelf. It looks ... pretty full, all things considered, but your father simply could have moved books into it from the other shelves, to replace what had been removed. In passing, you find yourself wondering what must have become of the books that he pulled out - but you stop yourself.

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Ultimately, it doesn't matter. If he kept them, they are with him - and as you have no idea where he is, then thinking about them is going to be fruitless. If he didn't keep them, then they presumably have been disposed of somewhere - and even if you knew where, they almost certainly wouldn't be in a state that you could get anything out of them. Alright, alright. Just .. focus. No more distractions. The barred shelf has to remain barred. You just don't have the time. Not when you need to winnow an entire room of books down to just the twelve that you are going to take. It occurs to you that you might make things easier on yourself if you were to get the hand-cart over here - as you would be able to take maybe two or three times as many books ... but it would still take time to work the hundreds and hundreds of books in this room down to three-dozen, and whatever time you saved by not having to work down to just a dozen, you would surely lose it and more besides if you were to have to haul the cart over here and break in to the house a second time. If you could, you'd take everything. Actually, if you truly had your druthers, you'd just move into the house. With father. And mother, too.

With that wistful thought, you set yourself about the hard work of winnowing. Right off of the top of your head, you know the first two of the twelve that you are going to take. The first one is The Endowed Farm; a Practical Hand-Guide for the Newly-Made Farmer - this has to be a manual written for honorably discharged and Endowed Legionnaires - well, actually, if they have been discharged, then they can't be called Legionaries any more, but - ah, the point is, this has to be about how to make an Endowment into a productive goodman's farm. And as you might very well have to carve a homestead out of raw land in the Frontier Provinces - or if the worst comes to pass, in the Great Gloom - then it seems that a text like this would be indispensable. The other one you simply must have is some translated text from the East, which from the sub-script is apparently called the Canon of Medicine. You have heard that out in the East, they are a lot more ... accommodating of their Witches. Perhaps not to the extent that the Cimaroons are, but you would imagine that there is some discussion of Mysterious medical interventions in this text. It appears to be old - you are not sure if it is old enough to be Pre-Estrangement - but it is old, definitely. And if it was Pre-Estrangement, why, then it might just prove to be worth its - no, magnitudes of its weight in gold.

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That is, of course, assuming that the text does delve into the Many Mysteries at all - which is a bit a leap, admittedly. And if it did, and it was Pre-Estrangement, then there would be the question of how any of the Mysteries covered in the text were with the Strangeness. As Witches from antiquity didn't have any conception of the Strangeness, they took no consideration of it in their casting and Witchwork, This dream of yours might come true - as an Estranging waking nightmare! But of course, that is no reason to not take the book. So it is that twelve become ten - which quickly becomes nine when you resolve to take The Ways and Means, a Most Complete and Comprehensive Treatise on the Identification, Capture and Disposal of Witches with you. You cannot imagine how Aldoin got himself a copy, but you can certainly imagine why sought one out. Moreover, it self-fraying-evident why you would want the book ... though it is not something to take idly. Were this book found in your possession, then depending on who found it, it could be just dangerous to downright fatal. Though, it is certainly true that is applying to more and more of your belongings these days, isn't it?

Pointedly glancing at your Wall-Wand, you consider the remaining books. Simply put, the rest of the winnowing is not any where near as obvious as the proceeding - so as to allow yourself a little time to think, you collect those three books off of their collective shelves, then walk them over to where you have left your haversack on the table closest to the door. As individual titles are still not coming to you, you instead work to cull the seventy or so book titles that caught your eye for various reasons down to a more manageable number. By the time that you have your short list - or at least, your shorter list - of twenty or so titles, you have also settled on one more to take with you; Imperatives and Rights, a Treatise for the Named Subject. You are not entirely clear on the responsibilities required and protections afforded to Subjects who have a Billeted a Nomen, but if you are going to pass yourself off as one, then you feel that you should learn quickly. After due consideration, the next two books you bring over to the table are The Feats of Tools; A Primer and Resource and Waste Not, Want Not; Effectively Cultivating Marginal or Waste Land, your reasoning being that the The Feats of Tools should start off your study of the Instrumental Sciences - which you are admittedly dull in - and that Waste Not, Want Not is a strong surety, in case that The Endowed Farm doesn't go into enough - or any - detail on how to make raw land productive. You also grab On Design; Creating Instrumental Solutions to Practical Problems as it sounds like it would be a good continuation to The Feats of Tools.

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Similarly, The Grown Pharmacopœia, Edition II and The Garden of the Suppressed, Controlled, Suspect and Suspicious seem like they would be good continuations of The Endowed Farm; you'd go from just feeding yourself to growing things that could be genuinely useful ... not that feeding yourself isn't useful, but ... oh, you know what you mean. Damn it all to the Heights of Hell; you are getting to the point where it feels like you need to keep yourself moving just to keep awake - which isn't good, considering all the work you have left to do tonight. You really, really need to wrap things up here ... and yet, there are three spots remaining, but try as you might, you cannot only manage to winnow the shorter list down to four; Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To, The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I, The Wealth of Princes and An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch. The curiosities mentioned in the title of Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics might be in a similar vein as the topics of The Garden of the Suppressed even if curiosities doesn't have the specific legal definitions that Suppressed, Controlled and Suspect have. Of course, you have to weigh what portions of the text might be redundant with what value it could prove to be if you are able to grow your own exotic ingredients. The Wealth of Princes is well-referenced, enough to the point where even you have heard it mentioned before. You don't remember what it is about - in fact, you are not certain that you ever actually knew what it was about - but you feel that you should know, not just for the sake of learning, but so you can at least have a chance of presenting yourself as well-read in the circles of the Billeted. The remaining two texts; the one about the flora of the Great Gloom and the one about the Estrangement of it ... even if you never leave the Frontier Provinces, never set foot in the Great Gloom, you could stand to learn a great deal. And if you ever did end up there, then what you read in either of these books might just save your life.

There is no way around it, you are going to need to cut one of them. Maybe ... ah, damn it all, maybe two of them. That Compendium. You don't know if - it feels wrong, leaving it here, right next to those ... pretenders. As if they were all equal! Surely, the Patternmaker cannot be pleased about something like this - but the only solution that you can come up with right now would be to take the Compendium with you. And even if you were doing it for the right reasons, you aren't sure that doing so would be pleasing to Him. Maybe if you were to drop it off at a Temple somewhere, rather than just keep it for yourself - that might tip the scales definitively in your favor. Doing so would mean that you would be out a second book, however.

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> Please choose UP TO TWO of the following:
> Leave the Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
> Leave The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> Leave An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch
> Leave The Wealth of Princes

> If you choose TWO in the above vote, please choose ONE of the following:
> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.
> Anonymously donate the Compendium at the soonest possible opportunity to a Temple, preferably one that doesn't already have one.

>>5903976
> Leave The Wealth of Princes

I'm assuming that this is based on Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", which great book but not very useful in our present situation. Whereas all the other books do seem like they could aid in our survival

>>5903976
Can we… use a couple of Aldoin's belts to secure the books onto our body, or backpack? Figured I might as well spitball ideas here- I also should’ve asked to grab Aldoin's great coat, if only for the bloody multitude of pockets.

> Leave The Wealth of Princes
>Feel free to roll between the Great Gloom books
Not excited to leave books behind, but if Chlot feels the need to grab a bible of a god we know for a fact exists, then I think it’s a good idea to listen.

> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.
Being pious in a reality where god has shown you he exists just for shits and giggle, and exercised his power to create living problems into existence and a propensity to give Chernobyl as a gift- we’d be insane not to, just to avoid suicide via God.

>>5903991
Actually, I assume it was the Prince- a sensible read, but hardly indispensable advice, considering most of its just bloody common sense.

>>5903976
>> Leave The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
>> Leave An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch

> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.

>>5903991
> I'm assuming that this is based on Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", which great book but not very useful in our present situation. Whereas all the other books do seem like they could aid in our survival
>>5903996
> Actually, I assume it was the Prince- a sensible read, but hardly indispensable advice, considering most of its just bloody common sense.

These are excellent guesses; moreover, one of them is correct - though I cannot say which. Anyway, I am going to keep this vote open until say ... after lunch, that way I should be leaving myself enough time to squeeze in multiple updates today.

>>5903976
>Leave the Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To
> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.

>>5903976
> Leave The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.
I'm sure there is a god in his universe given how he fucked with us, but I heavily doubt that the churches are actually favored by him and that he cares about which denomination is 'right' on any major level, more than that they obey his preferred moral code or pattern or whatever. Reading the religious texts is doubtful to provide in anything of value in actually pleasing him, but it may help us blend in.

>>5904231
Oh, I forgot to include a second book when I edited
> Leave The Wealth of Princes

>>5903976
>Leave The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I
> Keep the Compendium for yourself - going to Temples is simply is too dangerous for you, so this has to be the best and safest way for you to get something approaching religious instruction.

>>5904320
>>5904182
If you are going to take the Compendium, you are going to need to leave two books, anons. I'll leave this vote up for a little long, so you can weigh in.

Incidentally, once Chlotsuintha does eventually manage to get herself off of the Mount, would any of you be interested in taking a bit of a break for a one-shot, where they player character is an Inquisitor conducting an impromptu investigation in the style of a traditional who-dunnit? It'd be set twenty years back, further down the coast of the Principalities in Deadlight Port.

>>5904375
Sounds fun

Also, you never responded to the belt securing idea, so do I assume that it’s a bad idea or just not possible?

>we barely fit through the window of the basement, covered in random lumps of stuff stuffed into pockets
>three belts strapping books to us across our upper body scrape against the soil as we flop out
>a passerby spots what looks like a misshapen lump with a musket on its back stumbling away, covered in dirt

>>5904375
Sure, that sounds fun.

Also, Trash, I wanted to ask: do you have like record of that chicken bone quest you ran a few years ago? It was wonderful and it never got archived so I just have this incomplete version: https://archive.is/VxnBL

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>>5904435
No, actually I just missed it. The idea is sound enough - the picture attached being very much related to the topic at hand - and I'd be willing to say that by using a number of belts, Chlotsuintha could lash books together and herself in a manner that allows her to carry at most .... five more books. But as >>5904443 surmises, doing so is going to absolutely tank her mobility and flexibility. Additionally, unlike the slings which would only be held taut by slipknots and their own weight, belts lashed tight and buckled would be considerably trickier to get off, especially under duress. To wit, Chlotsuintha would not be capable of much more than shuffling - though the time investment to lay hands on these belts wouldn't be too harsh, considering that she already managed to find the Master's Bedroom. Considering the existing votes on what books to take, I'd say that the >>5903976 would be resolved, and Chlotsuintha would have to choose three more texts to take with her, from the selection that got two votes only.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> To expand your carrying capacity, you will fetch some belts.
> You will make due with what you have on hand at the moment.

> If you voted for the belts, please choose THREE of the following:
> What Lurks Above; a Naturalist's Reference to Terrors and their Progeny
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume II
> The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Fauna of the Great Gloom Volume I
> Fodder for Fodder; The Best Techniques for Fertilizing Pasture and Hay-field
> The Glass Garden; its Construction, Planting and Management
> Above the Blessed is the Sacred; The Eternal Starlight as a Forge
> A Conquest Deferred; Explanations for the Abrupt Departure and Continued Absence of the Devouring Lotus

>>5904463
Bone-in-Autism, my second quest. I'll have to check my older laptop for that - which means I'll have to find my old laptop ...

>>5904465
> You will make due with what you have on hand at the moment.

>>5904463
>>5904466
It's here guys
https://archived.moe/qst/thread/4215711/
https://archived.moe/qst/thread/4258082/

>>5904465
>You will make due with what you have on hand at the moment.

>>5904598
God bless you, Anon

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>>5904465
Would belting them to the pack do any good? Or maybe just a makeshift sling (two to bind the book into a bundle and one to bind or hold the bundle in a sling?)? My intention wasn’t to completely hamper Chlot’s mobility, just to offer up the option of at least carrying another book or two, as the current selection would be nice to keep.

> To expand your carrying capacity, you will fetch some belts.

You can put me in the Lurks Above, Star Forge, and Devouring Lotus camp if anon wish to max out- but I would also be fine with losing Wealth of Prince and gain nothing else from the two vote section. My intention was always trying to take the Compendium and to keep the Great Gloom books, even if I’m curious as to what the Wealth of Princes actually is.

>>5904465
>> You will make due with what you have on hand at the moment.

>>5904465
>To expand your carrying capacity, you will fetch some belts.

> What Lurks Above; a Naturalist's Reference to Terrors and their Progeny
> Fodder for Fodder; The Best Techniques for Fertilizing Pasture and Hay-field
> A Conquest Deferred; Explanations for the Abrupt Departure and Continued Absence of the Devouring Lotus

>>5904465
>You will make due with what you have on hand at the moment.

>>5904785
That is more or less how I envisioned Chlotsuintha using them; the belts would first and foremost allow the slings she has fashioned more books, then they would have cinched the slings closed around her. I don't imagine that she could strap books to her like they were plates of armor effectively.

Lets look at the tally here; with four votes for making due against two votes for the belts and more books, Chlotsuintha will be sticking with her original limit of twelve. Meaning that the original vote remains in force; in it there is a preponderance of support for taking the Compendium - and leaving behind The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I and The Wealth of Princes. I'm going to take care of a couple of things then I will get a quick update out as soon as I can.

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> Sight Test II

> DC 40: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Eye, making a Involved Sight Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 9: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 4 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently Drained II, and may not be thinking as quick as she normally does.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is under the effect of slow-burn ranged remediation cast.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha does not have enough light to adequately illuminate Aldoin's Library
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is trying to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has a great deal of books to look around, which presents a genuine complication when looking at the curios.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has absolute knowledge of Aldoin's First Floor.
> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha can move around the books and curios freely, making it harder for her to overlook things
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is allowing herself to overlook books, making it harder for her to overlook curios
> - DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has already thoroughly searched the room for books, making it easier to search it for curios

> DC 31: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: Clutter on the Mind. After spending more time that she would have liked to, Chlotsuintha turns up very few pieces of potential swag, all of uncertain value - though she at least she has Absolute Confidence that nothing was overlooked. [Prompts Vote]
> One Pass: Incurious Curios. After spending a deal of time here, Chlotsuintha turns up a few pieces of potential swag - and has Absolute Confidence that nothing in the room was overlooked. [Prompts Vote]
> Two Passes: Cleaning Service. After spending some time here, Chlotsuintha turns up quite a few pieces of potential swag - and has Absolute Confidence that nothing in the room was overlooked. [Prompts Vote]
> Three Passes: Nicking the Knacks. After spending some time here, Chlotsuintha manages to turn up quite a few pieces of potential swag - and she has more than Absolute Confidence that nothing was overlooked, she has found something ... expediting. [Prompts Vote]

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) nothing happens, as NCF and CF have been nulled for this test.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha turns up an exceptionally special curio - something hiding in plain sight.

> Please may I have three rolls of 1d100?

Rolled 5 (1d100)

>>5905364

Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>5905364

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Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>5905364
>>5905364
May our pattern be-

>>5905380

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>>5905380
>>5905399
God I hope it’s a scrambled test

>>5905400
It wasn't, as I figured the outcomes would make it rather trivial to determine how many tests were passed. I'm going to finish my lunch, then I will get back to work on the update.

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>>5905404

If you are all that worked up over it, you have more than two re-rolls banked.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Let the vote stand as it is.
> Use one of the re-rolls
> Use two of the re-rolls
> Write-ins allowed with QM approval (using auto-passes, using combination of auto-passes and re-rolls)

>>5905485
>> Let the vote stand as it is.

We're already slow walking to Whiterun guys, we need no more items. :D

> Let the vote stand as it is.
This is the least pressing time to reroll that I can possibly think of.

>>5905485
> Let the vote stand as it is.

>>5905485
> Use two of the re-rolls
I’m a crack fiend on a mission

>>5905485
>Let the vote stand as it is.

>>5905485
>> Let the vote stand as it is

Alright, consider this vote closed. I'm still working on the update, it should be done in another hour or so.

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But what is one book against the surety and breadth of your Thread? As it stands, how many opportunities have you forgone to do right by others? While you may have kept rest of the Midden at an arm's length, and while it may beat out stiff competition to be the worst place on the Mount, it cannot and should not be denied that you have never been closer to belonging anywhere else, amongst anyone else. Having been born into the Many Mysteries, the Strangeness is your malignity and Uncleanliness, your true blank eyes are your Spotted Cloak. And you turned it; turned your cloak, turned away your eyes.

And then you killed four men. You are not sure if they were good men or not, and you are like to never know, but you can take it for a surety that they were better than you. And if that wasn't enough, hours later you undermined - if not precluded outright - a man's Hereafter by consigning his body to fire and flame.

Your stomach churns again, and a dull ache in your heart besets you – for a surety, not the work of the ranged-remediation cast. Seeking surcease or at least respite from your guilt, you march yourself right over to the bookshelf with the Compendium nestled amongst the pretenders and you pry it out. As you might have expected, you don't feel any better – no doubt as you are far from certain that the Patternmaker would approve of this. You try your best, with the prayers that you know – but in the absence of proper religious instruction, you are adrift at sea. Are you heading back to shore, or are you being pushed further out? The only thing that you are certain of is that you have seen the Lodestar, waking in the Realm of Shadows. Not only is the Patternmaker watching, it is His Design that you know that He is watching. The nature, the extent of that Design, you cannot hope to elucidate - but under the circumstances, you feel that your … admittedly shallow understanding of your faith could prove dangerous.

Before returning to your 'sack, you fetch An Account of the Estrangement of the Great Gloom in the Words of a Cimaroony War-Witch and Cultivated Curiosities and Exotics; Growing What You Aren't Intended To. The Wealth of Princes and The Estranged and the Strangeness-Addled Flora of the Great Gloom Volume I remain on the shelves. You hope and assume that any ground that those two cover will have already been trod by the twelve books that you have assembled here. Feeling marginally better for having some progress 'in-hand', you turn your attention now to casing and clearing the room of curios – and of course, you are going to be keeping an eye out for any false-backs to the built in bookshelves, or any other hidden compartments … though before you do, you are going to take a look over the reading tables; as there are these little wooden trays atop some of them.

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Most of them prove to be empty, and with two exceptions the trays that aren't empty might as well be, containing trash; a battered quill broken in half, a number of quill-tips, clay and glass stoppers with no ink-pots to stop, and a short length of vibrantly red string – presumably conscripted for book-marking duties. As for the exceptional trays, the first has a finely woven book-mark, with the seal of the University on one side, and what is labeled as the seal of the College of Botanists – wait, what? Confused, as you had thought it was the College of Botany, not of Botanists, you turn the book-mark over in your hands, and compare the seal to the ones embossed onto the tables before you. For once, you were right on the mark; the differences are thin enough that they can be overlooked at a glance – but they are most assuredly distinct. Quite obviously, this has to be the seal of another University, but unfortunately for you, it gives no indication as to which. Alongside it, there is a simply, if not cheaply made looking pen-knife sitting in the tray, with a second knife alone in the second tray.

With nothing else turning up, you take a moment to check the reading tables over for hiding spots. When none turn up, you walk over to the first bookshelf that you cased for books, so you may now look it over for curios or useful articles. You can turn up nothing curious, but amongst the leather binders of correspondence and such, you do find a plainly-made letter-opener, sharp enough to necessitate a little leather sheathe. Expanding the search, you turn up a quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper underneath a flat-bottomed spherical paper-weight. A shelf higher, you find a particularly large steel ink-pot, with what looks to be a screw-in stopper – from its weight, it definitely is carrying ink. And two shelves higher, you find a small wooden box, which when opened contains a number of seals and stamps – a few of them are virgin, but all of them appear to have replaceable heads. There are brushes inside the box as well, presumably to ink the stamps.

After you have satisfied yourself that you haven't overlooked anything on the shelves – and that there isn't a false-back like the dresser and wardrobes in Aldoin's bedchamber had – you move on. The next set of shelves has quite a few empty spots where curios – or a number of books – might have once stood; but now there is nothing there to for you to see, so once you have checked this one over for compartments, you continue on around the room. It not the next set of book-shelves, but the one after that finally nets you something; a pair of wrought silver candlesticks; much smaller than the one you have been hauling around though. There is also a porcelain bowl that inexplicably has been filled with life-sized, sculpted brass lemons.

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And if that wasn't bizarre enough, they are all unique on top of it all. Your immediate thought is that there is something more to these brass lemons than meets the eye, but none of them are hollow – at least, as best as you can figure – and there is nothing suspect about or around the shelf you found them on. You are so thrown by the lemons that you end up double checking for compartments or gimmicks – but when none crop up, you continue on. The next set of book-shelves has a lot of empty spots; you are absolutely certain that your father pruned things off of this one. One curio remains, however – an antler, that has been carved with geometric designs and has had its based capped in brass or bronze. Moving on, you find that there are a set of four scrimshaw on the next set of shelves, each one depicting a part of Scrimshaw Mount – the Promontory, the Chip and Cleanport. Tellingly, there is no tooth for Stickport … or perhaps your father made off with it. After making sure that you haven't overlooked anything, you move on to the next set of book-shelves, where almost immediately you turn up a battered wooden box of carving and whittling implements – and six immaculate Spermaceti teeth! As you continue casing and clearing shelves, your thoughts keep drifting back to the box. It is such a small, silly thing … but wouldn't it be nice to make something to remember the Mount by? Of course, even if everything goes perfectly with your escape, it will probably be a fortnight before you have any time to yourself that you don't spend asleep. Maybe even longer. Still … the thought is a pleasant little fantasy, and it buoys your mood as you work your way around the room – at least until you get to the bookcase with the Not-Compendiums.

But your good mood is revived when at the next set of book-shelves, you find a lacquered wooden box. You aren't entirely sure what to expect, but you are more than just pleased when you find inside is a pair of inquiring-eyes! Their frame proves to be more than a little tight once you put them on, and it takes you a good minute to figure out how to operate the rings and selectors without being able to look at them while you fumble over them, but before overlong you are able to get the eyes working, and are rewarded with incredible close-in views! You never thought that the cuticle of your right thumb's nail could ever be so fascinating, but you have to force yourself to stop looking at it. Continuing through the remaining book-shelves and then the rest of the room, you turn up two more wrought silver candlesticks, three dozen lovingly painted cameos of native and exotic plants, as well as a dozen flowers that have been pressed and framed – and no secret hiding spots.

> Please choose ANY of the following:
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Woven book-mark from another University
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper
> Spherical marble paper-weight
> Unusually large steel ink-pot with screw-in stopper
> Box of assorted seals and stamps with brushes
> Set of wrought silver candlestick
> Porcelain bowl of sculpted brass lemons
> Antler with capped base and carved with geometric designs
> Brace of scrimshaw depicting Scrimshaw Mount
> Battered wooden box with assorted carving and whittling implements
> Half-dozen Spermaceti teeth
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case
> Three-dozen cameos of native and exotic plants
> Dozen framed and pressed flowers
> Write-ins allowed with QM approval (Splitting doesn't need approval; taking one pen-knife instead of both pen-knives, for example. Rejection doesn't need approval either, simply state you are voting against taking anything)

>>5906408
>> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper

>Dump the Pipe-driller out somewhere suitable to make room for this, unless we have an actual use in mind for it.

>>5906408
> Woven book-mark from another University
Useful- not just in case of finding more knowledge, but also as an excuse that our fiancé/husband is a student completing his studies.
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
Easily concealed weapon
> Unusually large steel ink-pot with screw-in stopper
> Box of assorted seals and stamps with brushes
> Set of wrought silver candlestick
Useful and expensive swag
> Brace of scrimshaw depicting Scrimshaw Mount
A literal map may save us time navigating
> Battered wooden box with assorted carving and whittling implements
> Half-dozen Spermaceti teeth
If Chlot has a feeling on it, I’ll trust her instincts- especially when it maybe be the Patternmaker nudging us as intuition.
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case
Undoubtedly useful when we’re going to study the many mysteries.

The brass lemons and the antlers feel like a mysterious experiment that father felt looked mundane enough- but I’ll trust the anons here to decide for themselves.

The Red thread is a curious though.

>>5905364
Rereading it, I see we spent a deal of a time instead of some- I was just wondering if anons were aware of the potential time-sink before they voted not to reroll?

>>5906408

>>5906491
Actually, going to change my vote to
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper
> Antler with capped base and carved with geometric designs
> Brace of scrimshaw depicting Scrimshaw Mount
> Battered wooden box with assorted carving and whittling implements
> Half-dozen Spermaceti teeth
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case

Mybe I'm way off but what if Aldoin could see through the eyes of those altered birds and used them to carve the mini Scrimshaw Mount we see here? Could some of this also be some kind of implements?

>>5906408
>Plainly-made letter opener with leather sheath
>Pair of plainly-made pen-knives

I don't think anything else is worth taking.

>>5906408
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Woven book-mark from another University
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
> Box of assorted seals and stamps with brushes
> Set of wrought silver candlestick

>>5906408
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Woven book-mark from another University
> Plainly-made letter-opener with leather sheathe
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper
> Box of assorted seals and stamps with brushes

Enough paper and seals to forge falsified documents if we need to

>>5906408
> Battered wooden box with assorted carving and whittling implements
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case
> Brace of scrimshaw depicting Scrimshaw Mount

>>5906408
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case

>>5906408
> Pair of plainly-made pen-knives
> Woven book-mark from another University
> Goodly quantity of goodly-sized loose-leaf paper
> Battered wooden box with assorted carving and whittling implements
> Half-dozen Spermaceti teeth
> Set of Inquiring Eyes with wooden case

Alright, consider this closed. I'm hoping that I can get the update out for an overnight vote - but I know better to promise things like that. Regardless, fingers crossed.

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You continue to scan the room, to intently peer into the shadows – but there are no new sights to meet your eyes. Feeling more wore down than properly finished, you return to your burgeoning pile of swag, and acting on impulse, you sit yourself atop the table, continuing to compulsively and fruitlessly survey the room. As you do, you are also considering what you have found in the room, by way of curios and useful articles – and more importantly, which of these would like to be missed, which of these could be of immediate or near-immediate use to you; with the consideration weighted heavily towards things that you couldn't readily expect to find or buy elsewhere. And as nothing in the room that achieves serious consideration is particularly heavy or bulky, you don't account any consideration on that front.

The sundries and practicalities are the first up on the block. Pen-knives and letter-openers are undeniably useful; and even though they are not typically subject to laws restricting and regulating weapons, they are … well, they are objectively better than nothing – but you haven't been in nearly enough bladed scraps to judge if they are going to be paying their freight as weapons or not. As for the paper-weight, it is figuratively a paper-weight … though the sheets and sheets of paper underneath it might be another story. Before you can start hemming and hawing about it though, you remind yourself that your very next stop is going to be the Clerking House, which simply has to be filled to the gills with paper. You will leave it where it lies, along with the unusually large steel ink-pot with the fancy screw-in stopper. As it stands, you already have … what, two or three ink-pots with you?

The box of assorted seals and stamps with the brushes gives you serious pause, but how much use could a dead man's set of seals and stamps actually be? You might not have any experience with making forgeries, but it is merely a matter of common sense to not forge documents that the presumed originator couldn't possibly author. The virgin seals are another matter – and there was that box of carving and whittling equipment that could be used to face them – but like the paper, the Clerking House has to be swimming in seals; you will have the pick of the litter once you get there. You will take the carving tools though; you might be able to use some of them to Engrave and Scriven with at your fathers Glyphery.

With the meaner stuff out of the way, it is now the time to consider the finer offerings in the room; starting with the finest – the Inquiring-Eyes, in the beautiful lacquered wooden case. While you are sure that something so expensive will eventually be missed, you just cannot turn your back on something like that. The Spermaceti teeth and the scrimshaw of Scrimshaw Mount on the other hand; these are nothing but luxuries – in spite of what sentimental response they may evoke, they can serve you no practical purpose.

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The carved antler and the brass lemons in the porcelain bowl have even less to recommend themselves, as they evoke no sentimentality. As for the wrought silver 'sticks, while the intrinsic value is certainly attractive, you have to remind yourself that after your dockside escapade, you are rich – relative to most, of course, but still, you don't need to hoard every valuable thing that you lay eyes on. Not to mention, you'd have a damned hard time selling something like that anyway – let alone for a decent price. At no point do you ever seriously entertain the idea of taking the dried flowers or the cameos of plants with you. They are quite nice to look at – but of course, that cannot be reason enough. The book-mark, on the other hand … absconding with that would be a trifle, and if Aldoin, a Governor-Docent at Scrimshaw Mount's University was delving into the Many Mysteries, than it follows that someone at this other University might be as well. You cannot imagine how you would ever be able to track down which University this was – let alone actually go to it – but you don't see any reason to close the door on this when keeping it open is so easily done. With that, you have accounted for everything, so all that remains for you is to take what you have decided to take, bundle it up and then quit …

Actually, now that you think about it, have you really concluded your business in the basement? There was that presumed Construct you came across, locked in a half-buried chest, not to mention that 'desalinator' thing that was on all of the maps. To be sure, you are burning time that you have already burnt two, maybe even three times over at this point … but you are not like to come back here, and you are loathe to turn your back on opportunities to learn like this.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Head down into the basement to find the 'desalinator'
> Head down into the basement to recover the buried presumed Construct
> Head down into the basement to find the 'desalinator' and recover the buried presumed Construct
> Head down into the basement to [write-ins allowed with QM approval]
> Head down into the basement to quit Aldoin's house

>>5907399
> Head down into the basement to find the 'desalinator' and recover the buried presumed Construct
I’m just curious if my hypothesis was correct and the chest had a false-bottom, leading to the hidden secret room with Aldoin’s Life Loom.

>>5907399
>> Head down into the basement to recover the buried presumed Construct

Saddam? Saddam?

>>5907399
>Head down into the basement to quit Aldoin's house

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>>5907412
We might as well make use of our complete knowledge of the basement crit, eh?

>>5907399
> Head down into the basement to quit Aldoin's house

>>5907399
>> Head down into the basement to quit Aldoin's house

>>5907399
>Head down into the basement to recover the buried presumed Construct

>>5907419
Seeing something I made in Paint reposted months later gives me immense pride.

>>5907399
>Head down into the basement to quit Aldoin's house

>>5907399
>Head down into the basement to recover the buried presumed Construct

I think I kind of bungled the framing of this vote by splitting the 'stay' options up. The vote stands at four-three-one, but if you pool the 'stay' options together, it is a tie - and I am sure >>5907409 would rather just investigated the presumed Construct than quit the basement entirely. On one hand, three is not four ... but on the other hand, the only reason three is three and not four is because I didn't think through the options that I was giving. I don't know which read would be the fairer way of parsing this, so I think that it would be best if we just re-run the vote - unless anyone has strong opinions (and a convincing argument) against that. My sincerest apologies.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will head down to the basement, then you haul yourself and your swag through the broken-in casement, quitting this place.
> You will head down to the basement, then you will appraise yourself of what remains down their for you to investigate [Prompts Vote]

>>5908225
> You will head down to the basement, then you will appraise yourself of what remains down their for you to investigate [Prompts Vote]
Or if it’s quicker, put me in the Construct vote.

> You will head down to the basement, then you will appraise yourself of what remains down their for you to investigate [Prompts Vote]
> Head down into the basement to recover the buried presumed Construct

>>5908225
> You will head down to the basement, then you haul yourself and your swag through the broken-in casement, quitting this place.

>>5908225
With >>5908232 finally weighing in on >>5907399, is it alright to close the vote and then move on?

> You will head down to the basement, then you haul yourself and your swag through the broken-in casement, quitting this place.

>>5908225
>You will head down to the basement, then you haul yourself and your swag through the broken-in casement, quitting this place.

>>5908225
>You will head down to the basement, then you will appraise yourself of what remains down their for you to investigate [Prompts Vote]
Trash next time just roll a d2 man

>>5908773
But I hate rolling on things like that - the entire point of the Quest is that players have agency, not the dice.

Anyway, we will have to wait for another tiebreaker - I'm sorry everyone.

>>5908225
> You will head down to the basement, then you will appraise yourself of what remains down their for you to investigate [Prompts Vote]

Alright then, we have our tie-breaker.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Investigate presumed Construct
> Investigate 'desalinator' device

>>5908946
>>Investigate presumed Construct
Actually touch grass. Heheheheh.

>>5908946
> Investigate 'desalinator' device
Now that I think about it, it must be what’s generating the salt for the remediation cast. Assuming we can confirm my hypothesis, this is a very clever of Father to incorporate in into h to e remediation constructions.

>>5908946
>> Investigate presumed Construct

>>5908946
>Investigate presumed Construct

>>5908946
> Investigate presumed Construct

>>5908946
>> Investigate presumed Construct

Alright, a solid five to one. This vote is now closed, and I will get the update out as soon as I can.

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When you catch yourself at idle, hemming and hawing away moments, you are spurred into action - and by the time that you have loaded the last of the curios and made sure that all thirteen of your new-to-you books are battened down, you have decided that you should investigate the shaking chest. While it could be something as innocuous as a mouse or rodent, it strikes you as incredible that anything but a Construct could end up inside a buried and locked chest, then remain so demonstrably alive for so long. To be sure, you are making more assumption than you would like to. You saw a lock-plate, so you are assuming the chest is locked - reasonable, but not absolute. Likewise, you found the chest half-way out of a fresh hole, so you are assuming it was buried and dug up - but it could just as easily be the reverse. Alright, 'just as easily' might be a stretch, but the point to make is that you cannot be certain, and you don't have anything to definitively suggest one possibility over the other. Same for the chest being locked or not. There is, however, an assumption that is much closer to a surety for you - that your father must have been responsible for the condition and location of the chest. You have seen nothing to suggest that he wasn't the last person in the house before yourself, and besides the half-finished burial or excavation of the chest, you have seen nothing to suggest that he was interrupted in his pruning and staging. To wit; however and whatever the chest is, your father presumably wanted it that way.

Though whatever that chest is, it is not clear to you. Your best guess that it is kith to the noise-maker secreted inside the instrumental sculpture in the entryway - but you cannot dismiss the chance that it might be some man-snare that father set. However, you have reason to doubt that. Any man-snare is almost certainly going to be tripped by some random member of the household when they return; what purpose would that serve? It might be that father is counting that the nature of their condition becomes known at the house of healing they took refuge from the ranged-remediation cast at, and a Hunt is dispatch here - so the man-snare is for them. But supposing that was his intent, and moreover, that was what happened - why only set one? Or two, if that was the true nature of the noise-maker? If you were setting man-snares, you'd put more than two here - and for that matter, you wouldn't make them so painfully obvious. Aye, what good is a man-snare that announces its presence like that? Especially when it is being set for Inquisitors. The moment anything even potentially Mysterious presents itself, the whole of the Hunt is going to be all-alarum. If either of these are man-snares, then they are man-snares that would never be able to take anyone that father would want to take with a man-snare. As you see it, that leaves two explanations; that these are not actually man-snares, or that they are - but they are not father's man-snares.

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You look around the table to make sure that you have not overlooked anything, then you take a moment to fish out the journal of the plantings - you will use the map of those plantings to take you straight to the room. After another check to make sure that nothing has been left behind, you cram the journal down the middle big pocket of your apron, squeezing it behind the book you have stuffed down there, then after a moment to stretch, you take up your 'sack, following it one by one with your improvised slings and bundles. You then heft your 'stick up off of the table so that the nude light is of a level with your eyes, then seeing that you truly have taken up everything you have intended to, you turn to the library's alcove and shuffle your way over. As you had both hoped and expected, the door does in fact lead down to the basement, and in the flickering light of the 'stick, you can see much of the room you entered the house through. You descend the stairs, pass the curiously affixed chest at the foot of them, and then walk out into the floor - remaining still just long enough for you to contort yourself to the point where you can fetch one of those leaded-glass decanters that you found earlier. Not easily done with one hand - but you before overlong, you have won it free, and head over to the tap that you previously drew the working material for your Cold-Touch cast. You are not sure if you will perform an Ice-Lockpick, just as you are not sure if you will need to - but no sense in making a second trip if one is not needed.

Once you have set the filled decanter down and stoppered it, you pry out the planting journal and consult it for your heading. When you go to take up the decanter and quit the room - hopefully for the penultimate time - you find yourself a hand short, and you end up having to carry the journal in your mouth, the decanter with your battered left and the 'stick in your increasingly strained right. Hopefully, you aren't going to have to do any climbing or serious physical activity to forge your Master and Personal Family Patent, because if you are, then you just don't see how you could possibly manage to 'move house' in what will remain of the night. Looking to distract yourself from such baleful musings, you consider the two explanations for the man-snares, and you work it backward and forward in your head as you move through these now familiar rooms, your eyes on the floor, so not to get your footwraps caught up on the edges of the stones. You just have to believe that whatever is in the chest isn't a man-snare - and is your father's Witchwork - but as for what it is, you find your imagination fails you. Further consideration is precluded when with a start, you realize how close you are to the ashbox of the chimney with the Construct that damn near knocked you on your ass when you first stumbled upon it.

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You didn't even notice! For a surety, you have aches and pains and a bit of warmth - but how much of that can be explained away by the load you are hauling and how much of that is the gentled cast, you cannot possibly say. For all you know, the cast might not even be effecting you at this point. By the time that you come into the archway of the room with the torn up floor, you are no closer to having any answers; either about the condition of the cast or the contents of the chest - which appears to be more or less where you last saw it. You cannot hear anything, though you expect that to change as you close the remaining distance. The question is, how exactly do you want to approach this final distance.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> There is a shovel and a Scrimshander's Tooth-Pick in the room. Look at the chest from the archway, then pick up one of them, then toss it at the chest to observe any responses.
> There is a shovel and a Scrimshander's Tooth-Pick in the room. Look at the chest from all angles, then pick up one of them to prod the wood and then the lock-plate of the chest with to observe any responses.
> You will look at the chest from all angles, then you will approach it as you are, prodding the wood and then the lock-plate with your own hands to observe any responses.

>>5909850
> There is a shovel and a Scrimshander's Tooth-Pick in the room. Look at the chest from all angles, then pick up one of them to prod the wood and then the lock-plate of the chest with to observe any responses.
Or touch it with our hands if we think it’s faster and safe.

Also, check our sweating nodule- if it’s still sweating, it means the remediation is still ongoing and that we’re effectively remediated, which is a blessing.

>>5909850
>> There is a shovel and a Scrimshander's Tooth-Pick in the room. Look at the chest from the archway, then pick up one of them, then toss it at the chest to observe any responses.

>>5909850
>There is a shovel and a Scrimshander's Tooth-Pick in the room. Look at the chest from all angles, then pick up one of them to prod the wood and then the lock-plate of the chest with to observe any responses.

Alright, closed and writing.

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As you are churning your way through your options here, it occurs to you that you should check that ailing Ounce Nodule of yours. You are long leagues away from any sort of conclusion about what happened and why – but you surmise that if the Witchwork continues to ail and you do not, then it might be that your time inside the cast has left you free and clear of the Strangeness. So it is you cautiously move into the room, and after finding somewhere to set down your 'stick, you commit yourself to the awkward work of digging through your 'sack while it is still on your back, behind you. You almost knock your wall-wand loose in the process, but before overlong you have managed to find the Nodule where you have it bundled up, away from the others. As you lay hands on it long before you lay eyes, you gather rather quickly that it is still hot and 'sweating' – but after you nearly dislocate your shoulder in the process of getting it out into the light of your 'stick, you see that things are not so constant after all. The fretful trembling has stopped entirely and the Nodule appears to be several shades darker … and oddly enough, larger. The immediate concern is that it has died or discharged, but for a Nodule like this, death would have a lot more … fanfare, so to speak. And neither the Nodules that you have discharged, nor the Nodules that you found discharged got darker or larger. Just what you needed, more fraying questions with no ready means to answer them – if any means at all! Though if you had to make a stake, you'd say that you had been Cleansed or were close enough to it.

Turning your attention back to the chest, you walk around your 'stick and heft one of the digging implements – a shovel – that has been left in the room, intending on using it as a prod to safety-check the chest. Before you use it though, you would like to walk around the chest, to see it from all angles – which you start to do, before you realize that you are going to need to take your 'stick with you, otherwise you aren't going to see much of anything on the far side of the room. Feeling dense as lead, you equip yourself accordingly and make your circuit of the room. The chest remains still, but more to the point, it is not making any noise – or at least, any that you can hear. That is a marked change, considering that when you first came through here, you were hearing rustling and movement as you walked through the arch. Could you be too late? You are fretting over this, all the while you circle the chest, each pass tighter than the last, hoping to hear or see some evidence of life. If there are any, they are not made apparent to you. Abruptly, you stop your circling and cut over to where the digging tools rest on top of the flagstones and take up the shovel once more. You approach the chest with the tool as a Guard might approach a presumably but not certainly downed highwayman with his pike – and you poke and prod as a Guard might as well.

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But there are still no signs of life – or just movement – from within the chest.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Try prodding the chest harder with the shovel
> Try listening at the lock and the lip for movement inside [Requires Rolling]
> Try lifting – not prying – the lid of the chest with the shovel.

>>5910260
>> Try listening at the lock and the lip for movement inside [Requires Rolling]

>>5910260
> Try listening at the lock and the lip for movement inside [Requires Rolling]

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> Hearing Test I

> DC 40 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is not Keen of Ear, making a moderate Hearing Test like this [Moderate]
> + DC 9 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired III and is not as perceptive as she might be otherwise
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is trying to take her time, but as she has fallen so far behind at this point, she cannot help but rush
> - DC 15 Aldoin's Basement seems to be quiet and still all around her, which simplifies her efforts
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has absolute knowledge of Aldoin's Basement, simplifying her efforts
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is able to get within a hairsbreadth of the lock-plate and lip of the chest, which in turn cannot be further than two feet from any point inside the chest
> - DC 5 Half-Buried Chest is not well-suited to counter Hearing Tests

> DC 2: Anything lower is a failure. [Re-rolls and auto-passes are available. No hostile re-roll(s)]

> No Passes: False start. Chlotsuintha is not able to make anything out - moreover, a complication prevents her from immediately trying again.
> One Pass: Low Confidence (Flip a Coin) Chlotsuintha is unsure, but she thinks she has heard what there is to hear inside of the chest correctly.
> Two Passes: High Confidence (1d20, fail on 1, 2 and 3). Chlotsuintha is almost certain she heard everything there is to hear inside of the chest correctly. CF and NCF nulled for next Hearing Test.
> Three Passes: Absolute Confidence . What is there to be heard inside the chest, Chlotsuintha knows she heard. Perfectly. CF and NCF nulled for next Hearing Test, - 3 DC Boon applied.

> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2) then the complication becomes markedly more aggravating.
> If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99) then Chlotsuintha notices something significant about the chest.

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5910549

Rolled 52 (1d100)

>>5910549

Rolled 27 (1d100)

>>5910549

Alright, writing.

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You stoop down and shuffle in, awkwardly - and in consideration of how much weight and bulk you have on your back, painfully - closing the distance, all the while with the shovel between you and the chest. To tell it true, you are not sure why you are bothering - you have already concluded that it would make no sense for this to be a man-snare, and even if you were dead wrong, then how much protection would a shovel's distance afford you? Not 'none' certainly, but your mind churns with all sorts of nasty Weavings that might be able to hurt you with the distance remaining. Undaunted - or at least, trying to tell yourself that you are undaunted - you get in close, and tap the lock-plate again, listening carefully for anything happening inside. The sound of metal on metal contact is somewhere between a thud and a clink ... but beyond that, there is nothing to hear. You try the top of the chest this time, patting it with the flat of the shovel's head, each impact with a little more force than the last - but all still very restrained, very cautious. Just as the chest is still very quiet. Taking a deep breath, you bring the left side of your ear to bear on the lock-plate, doing your best to line up your ear with the keyhole. And you strain to listen; but all you can hear is your breathing, quick and silently raspy. There aren't even any incidental noises that you can pick up elsewhere in the house, none of that gurgling just at the edge of audibility - though at this point, you cannot recall if you could hear that in this room.

With your head close in, you move the shovel back above the top of the chest, and you resume your tapping. If such a thing is possible, you are straining harder than you were before - but the only noises that you can hear now are the noises that you are making. Thinking that perhaps you are drowning out what you are trying to hear, you quickly move the shovel clear, then you stay stock still. Yet there is still nothing to hear. You try the same stratagem on the lock-plate, only to reap the same harvest. If there is something inside of the chest, then it is not making noise, and does not respond to outside agitation. You would make a stake with your life on that ... you just hope you aren't.

Ah, damn it all. There is no indication that this is a man-snare, so why are you on tender-hooks?

Well ... the strickening striker for a start, and while there isn't any solid, tangible and reliable indication that this is a man-snare, there is no indication that it is anything else - or for that matter, there is nothing definitive against it being a man-snare either, except your read on the situation. Do you trust that? Moreover, where do you go from here?

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> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will try to lift the lid of the chest with your bare hands, but you will not attempt to force it or the lock.
> You will try to lift open the lid of the chest with the shovel, but you will not allow yourself to do any damage to the chest.
> You will pry open the lid of the chest with the shovel, doing only as much damage as necessary to crack it open.
> You will perform an Ice-Lockpick on the lock of the chest, then you will open it up. [Requires Rolling]
> You will try probing and prodding the chest much more forcefully, to see if you can engender a response that way.

>>5910858
>Trust your gut, walk away. Time to go.

>>5911147
Support
Didn't know avoiding fucking up the way our father prepared the house was still an option

>>5910860
> You will try to lift open the lid of the chest with the shovel, but you will not allow yourself to do any damage to the chest.
Just a peak

>>5910860
>> You will try to lift open the lid of the chest with the shovel, but you will not allow yourself to do any damage to the chest.

>>5911147
+1
Too many red flags

>>5910860
>Trust your gut, walk away. Time to go.

>>5910860
>You will try to lift open the lid of the chest with the shovel, but you will not allow yourself to do any damage to the chest.

I'll accept the write-in. Consider this closed.

Did we seriously pussy out at the last minute? Ffs guys

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Your mind churns, desperately seeking something solid. Yet instead you find yourself more and more mired. If this was not a man-snare, then what purpose did father have leaving the chest like this? Could it be that father found the chest like this? But even if he did. he would have at least opened it when he was pruning and staging for a surety, so you have to assume that whatever is inside has to be something that father put in, or father found and left behind. Which ... isn't helpful at all. Damn it all, nothing is holding the weight - even the man-snare explanation. By the time that anyone that father would want to take in a man-snare would arrive at the house - a Guard, a Thief-Taker, a Bailiff, a Cleanser or an Inquisitor - the chest will surely have been opened and investigated by someone in the household, returned from their foray to a house of healing. Or perhaps ... perhaps it is you who has missed your mark. Clearly, whatever Aldoin was doing, he was not doing it alone; doesn't it stand to reason that he had at least someone in his household helping him, who knew at least something of his private affairs? And if Aldoin wasn't a professional friend, but a mark, then that would make this person a mark as well - and now a target besides. Say this person knows about this chest - and more to the point, that your father knows that they know about this chest.

Conceive the scene; they return to the house to find all sorts of things missing and moved - sooner or later, they surely would have come down to the basement, to check on the ... chest. Damn it all, it is a wrought notion if there ever was one. First off, if your father knew that someone specific was going to be trouble, then he wouldn't rely on a man-snare. He took every weapon out of the Belfry save for the pair of pin-stilettoes - and the Wand of Head-Knocking, though he probably was leaving that for you. Or he forgot about it entirely, one or the other. Point is, he would have ... resolved things on his own, unless he didn't know where this other party was - or didn't have the time to see to it. And if that was how it was, then a man-snare would make sense - but you cannot square that with how the chest was left. If you are father, and you are targeting a specific individual or individuals in Aldoin's household who have knowledge of the chest, then why would you leave the chest half out of the hole? For a start, the moment the intended laid eyes on this, they would know that someone else had been there, on account of it being dug up. Not to discount the fact that anyone in the household could find it, as opposed to the one or the few who knew about the chest. If you were going to try to target someone with this, you'd be sure to bury it again. This couldn't be a matter of him getting interrupted and needing to bail, because the only people who could interrupt him are Aldoin's household - and they aren't back yet, that you are certain of.

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It is possible that he found the chest like this ... but that is ground you have already tread. In circles, you might add. And it is still a very sloppy, imprecise way of targeting. Honestly, if your father was that intent on ... concluding someone that he didn't know where they were, he'd just wait for them here. That thought certainly gets the entirety of your attention - but as reason rushes in, elation is pushed out. If father was here, then once he saw you he would have made himself know to you, for a surety - if only to yell at you for not having left the Mount yet and getting yourself bogged down in such a 'hot' spot as this house. Perhaps time could have forced his hand into accepting a man-snare as a compromise - but you don't see him letting something like that hang over his head, and with a man-snare, he'd have no way of knowing if he had made his mark or not. And that is not even considering that his deadline was for you - you can only guess as to what schedule he is keeping, or if he even has one. No, a man-snare doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense - as in, the chest having nothing inside of it would make sense. But you know that is wrong. You heard noises coming from the chest, you saw the damned thing move.

Perhaps he ... oh, Maker's Mercy, you are going to drive yourself mad. If you aren't there already, spending time that you have already spent twice if not thrice over. Either lift the fraying lid or leave it the Hell alone.

Intently, you stare at the chest, trying to see something - anything at all through the keyhole in the lock-plate. Carefully, you deposit the journal in the crook of your right arm so you can get your eyes as close as they can be to the hole. But it is fruitless, so very much like the time you have spent in this room. You shift uncomfortably under the burden on your back as you tentatively reach for the lid seeking to put an end to this - then you stop yourself, as your mind finally manages to seize upon something solid. You know that you have a bad feeling about this chest - and in these circumstances, where there is an absence of facts, feelings should never be discounted. You also know that your father never intended for you to be here, in this house. Therefore, whatever may be inside this chest, it is not intended for you. That is not a thought that comes readily to a sneak-thief - but it is true, undeniably. You straighten up and aching all the while, you return the shovel to where you found it - something else that doesn't come readily to a sneak-thief. Staring somewhat wistfully at the chest, you take up the journal in your newly freed up hand and then move into the light of your 'stick.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.
> You will consult the map to start searching for the 'desalinator'.

>>5912082
> You will consult the map to start searching for the 'desalinator'.

>>5912082
> You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.

>>5912082
> You will consult the map to start searching for the 'desalinator'.

If this is a construct it would be great to learn.

>>5912082
> You will consult the map to start searching for the 'desalinator'.

>>5912082
>> You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.

>>5912082
>> You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.

>>5912082
>You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.

>>5912082
> You will consult the map to start searching for the 'desalinator'.

Well, a four-four split. I'll post this in the general, and hopefully before too long, we will get our tie-breaker.

>>5912082
>You will consult the map to finally quit the basement.

Alright, consider this closed. I'll get to writing as soon as I can.

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In the flickering wain light of your 'stick, you consult one of the several planting maps in the journal, still not entirely certain what heading you wish to take. Are you going to make another play here, and head towards the 'desalinator', or at you going walk? To tell it true, part of you feels like you just swiped defeat from the jaws of victory by balking on the chest at the last moment – and that part wants to wash that all away with another big find. To leave on a strong note. Another part of you is worried that you have already run out of time, that as things stand, you are not leaving yourself enough time to 'move house' into, through – and most tricky of all – out of the sewers. After all, in a few hours, it will be Titheday, and in a few more, it will be sunrise and morning muster in the Midden. Admittedly, you had not given it much thought, but you had expected to be long gone before that. Come to think of it, didn't you originally intend to be off of the Mount at midnight?

Your stomach sinks and churns, and you feel a tension in your legs, your back – a desire for movement, for action. Honestly, were the stakes not so high, you might seriously entertain the notion of flipping a coin to escape this agonizing, worrying, guessing, double and treble guessing. But you cannot in good conscience entrust a decision like this to idle chance. While the continued dissolution of your schedule is tearing you up inside, you cannot easily let go of the 'desalinator' – not after passing on the chest and whatever in the Heights of Hell was in the instrumental sculpture. How many more opportunities such as this are you like to get, to have free reign in a house stocked and stuffed with Mysteries and Mystery-Adjacents? The pill of an answer strikes you like a bolt; you are like to get none, if you get yourself killed by lingering on the Mount overlong. And with the caul lifted from your eyes, you realize that if Aldoin listed this 'desalinator' on the planting maps of his basement – and your father didn't remove or destroy those maps – then it seems very likely that this 'desalinator' is an entirely mundane instrument, a machine. To be sure, he had enough texts on the instrumental sciences, his house is full of the fruits of that art. It follows, most definitely, it follows!

With the 'desalinator' markedly less Mysterious in your estimation, your willingness to linger on its account withers on the vine. You have a number of Aldoin's books on the instrumental sciences – perhaps you will glean the secrets of this 'against salt' machine from them instead. But regardless, it is time that you were off. With no more immediate need for the journal, you jam it in your apron pocket, take up the 'stick and hustle your way back to the room with the casement window as fast as the rather irregular floor and your nude flame will allow.

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Upon arriving in the room, you immediately turn to face the window - and for the first time, you must consider just how you are going to haul yourself and the entirety of your haul through that ... rather small opening. Simply put, you don't see how you could manage it all at once - and considering how valuable some of the swag you have hanging off of yourself is, you are not particularly inclined to try, either. Piecemeal is going to be the watchword here - though the less time you leave anything unattended outside of the basement, the better. To that end, your best bet is to get yourself and everything else on top of the tun in arm's reach from the window, then after passing through yourself, taking everything through one at a time. Of course, you are not keen on the prospect of spending a great deal of time relatively out in the open, being bent over, near-immobilized and in a maid's dress, no less - but the alternative is to put the swag out first with you remaining behind until everything else is through. The prospect of having the Wall-Wand with nothing more than a linen sheet for concealment, just ... lying on the ground, potentially out of your reach - that isn't fraying happening.

Resolving yourself to 'shoot the breeze' as it were, you cautiously approach the tun-barrel underneath the casement before deciding against it. You can see no sense in risking everything at the last moment, just by rushing - so instead you turn your attention to the smaller barrels in the room, figuring them to be a safer route. After carefully setting your 'stick down on top of a head-out hogshead, you start to lift yourself onto a particularly stout looking butt, conveniently placed head down. However, you have barely gotten a few inches off of the ground before you are once again jabbed in the thigh by those fraying Pinning Needles on that fraying former boar's head. Swearing under your breath, you readjust yourself so that what is left of the strickening-striker should not be able to continue to strike you ... but as you try to push this latest frustration from your mind, you begin to wonder if your plan for it is still sensible, considering how much - or rather, how little - time you have left yourself.

Right now, your plan - though that might be too strong of a word - is to pull the Pinning Needles once you get to the Cleaner's Closet, and dump what remains into the sewer, accessible through a hatch. But should you delay the Clerking House like that? After all, you are going to be spending hours upon hours in the sewers while you are 'moving house'. Perhaps you could plan on taking a break at some point in the process to pull the needles and dump the remains over there instead?

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> Surely, the time it would take to pull the needles is not going to break your schedule - assuming that it is not already broken. Besides, you don't want to take a break in a fraying sewer! You have made a decision, damn it, stick with it!
> If you were to hold off on 'plucking' for a bit, then you might have a a few more minutes to work with on the other end - in case something unexpected came up. And you wouldn't have to worry about making a mess of your clothes either ...

>>5913313
> Surely, the time it would take to pull the needles is not going to break your schedule - assuming that it is not already broken. Besides, you don't want to take a break in a fraying sewer! You have made a decision, damn it, stick with it!

Also, gross as it may sound, can't we strip in the cleaners closet so our clothes don't get soiled pulling the needles?

>>5913595
Yes, Chlotsuintha could do that. She might actually want it, if she wished to switch into one of her old, cobbled-together hooded dresses. I'll consider that a write-in.

As for this vote, I will leave it up until morning.

>>5913595
To clarify, I'll accept that as a write-in if you want to vote for it.

>>5913624
I would like to vote to do that, but... we have to actually get to the cleaners closet first

>>5913313
>Surely, the time it would take to pull the needles is not going to break your schedule - assuming that it is not already broken. Besides, you don't want to take a break in a fraying sewer! You have made a decision, damn it, stick with it!

>>5913313
> If you were to hold off on 'plucking' for a bit, then you might have a a few more minutes to work with on the other end - in case something unexpected came up. And you wouldn't have to worry about making a mess of your clothes either ...
Save it for later, when we actually have time. Then we can throw it into the sea instead of a sewer.

>>5913313
> Surely, the time it would take to pull the needles is not going to break your schedule - assuming that it is not already broken. Besides, you don't want to take a break in a fraying sewer! You have made a decision, damn it, stick with it!

>>5913313
>If you were to hold off on 'plucking' for a bit, then you might have a a few more minutes to work with on the other end - in case something unexpected came up. And you wouldn't have to worry about making a mess of your clothes either ..

>>5913595
>+1 Supporting

Alright, consider this vote closed. I'm writing right now.

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Oh, just come off it. Half of the reason you are so damned behind on your schedule is because you keep changing it at the drop of a hat. Admittedly, most of the changes are adding things, instead of shuffling them further back - but really, how much could you actually squeeze out of a few extra minutes at this point? Things cannot be that tight underneath the boom ... Maker's Mercy, they better not be. You - no, you need to clear your plate before the next course. Without further delay or disassembly, you turn yourself to the awkward and uncomfortably slow business of pulling yourself and your swag out of the little casement window - offering up a prayer of thanksgiving for the screen that the plants and fences of the little front lawn provides. But as thankful as you are, you are far from at ease - for the screen is not total, and not too long ago you saw Mitigators about, over the harbor. To be sure, you doubt that they would give chase to someone laden down with suspicious burdens - but they might say something to someone, and surely they would remember. Beyond that, you can hear noises from the quays and jetties of Cleanport, not that far off ... as well as harder to place noises, potentially nearer, potentially men or horses about their nighttime business.

By the time you do finally manage to get everything pulled through the window and arranged once more for hauling you are a bundle of frayed nerves - which only get worse once you realize that you have wandered outside without reactivating Hide-Eyes. You are flustered enough that it takes you a moment to get the cast going, but once you feel the tell-tale warmth on your upper back of the Glyph activating, bit by bit you calm yourself down, doing what you can to steady your breathing and focus your mind on the task at hand. The Cleaner's Closet is just up the street - but do you dare go as the crow flies? If there is anyone out there to see you, you are going to have a damned hard time hiding from them. It would be easier to sneak your way through the alleys, though it might take a little more time - and if you were to come upon someone, and they were to see you ... well, they'd be more likely to try to take something off of you or otherwise do you harm than someone on the street - who'd mostly likely just content themselves with gawking, or at most trying to stop you or call for a Guard. You have very good luck these past few days in alleys and in the streets- but for a surety, there are limits to how far you can push that luck. For all the world, you look exactly like a maid who just robbed her master's house and is making a break for it. At least on the night you knocked-down the Euthyphro, all you were carrying were bulging pillowcases and a sword - that with your hood must have meant you didn't look anything like a mark.

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Now? Well ... you don't imagine that things will be much different for you if you were wearing that hooded dress of yours that you cobbled together. And your Spotted Cloak with the drab reverse lining is on the cart, so that isn't an option either. The one thing that you can seize upon is that you should be less likely to come across anyone in the alleys, and there should be more places to hide there as well - though that comes at the cost of taking more time, and with the danger of having more disagreeable sorts present than just taking the street.

> Please choose ONE of the following:
> You will take the streets, going as the crow flies.
> You will take the alleys, stealing through the dark.

>>5913953
> You will take the streets, going as the crow flies.

>>5913953
>You will take the streets, going as the crow flies.
Finally out! How many threads and rl months did Aldo