Good. Then I spend two days mostly on deck. If there's fighting, I fight. If there's guarding, I guard. If there's stuff being moved I get out of the way. If there's nothing to do, I'll go fishing. Whenever I have a duty shift, well, then I'm the guy in the map room figuring out where we're going. It's not like a Pilot has anything else to do between now and shoving off. So unless a fight breaks out or something interesting happens, it's business-as-usual from now till we weigh anchor.
At the end of those three days, Engineering is satisfied with the condition of the ship and announces she'll hold together until they can do it properly in Sardic. You're back on rotation at the helm as you pull out, heading for Haven.
--M. J. Young
I'll handle her a bit more gingerly, considering she just got repaired. Nothing fancy, just... 'fly casual' as it were. And I'll make liberal use of my Telescopic Vision to make sure there's nothing bizarre ahead of me. Ice floes, whirlpools, pirate ships, that sort of thing.
You have three quiet weeks and a couple more days to get to port in Haven. The question is who wants to go ashore, and of course quite a few do. Once the cargo has been managed for the day, most of the deck crew goes out. Chief Engineer stays aboard because he wants to check the repairs to be certain they're holding, and of course a couple security people and one officer stay aboard at all times, but you're welcome to go with whomever you like or stay aboard if you prefer.
--M. J. Young
What is there to do in Haven? Is there anything worth going ashore for? I suppose I could spend an evening drinking. Do they have theater in Haven? Heck, have I seen any indication that they have theater in this world at all? People here seem kindof... bleak? Not pessimistic, exactly, but not very imaginative or fanciful, either.
Haven is an agricultural port--a place to get fresh food, like its namesake New Haven. The crew, of course, plans to do some drinking--after the discomforts of Tempest and Tristar, they see the port as a place to relax.
There are theatre districts in Sardic and Durnmist; the smaller ports also have theatre, but much more limited, one or two professional troops and some amateur groups putting on entertainment as much for their own enjoyment as for the public. Once in a while you might encounter street theatre, but to this point you haven't.
So, are you going to ask directions to a theatrical performance, join some of the crew in a bar, or stay aboard the Piper?
--M. J. Young
Yeah, I'm feeling a bit erudite this evening, so I will ask for directions to a theatre.
You spend five diktar on an excellent bit of local theatre, a comedy of errors revolving around an inept tax collector and his assistant whose mission in life seems to be to make sure that no one ever actually winds up having to pay anything. The admission covers ale in clay mugs and bowls of toasted bread cubes for snacking.
You return to the ship fairly late, and the watch greets you.
In the morning, there are questions--Roman, Chief of Deck, did not return.
--M. J. Young
Chief Roman didn't return?
Well, where did he go last night? Who was he with?
He isn't the sort who would do something stupid like get drunk and get himself arrested, is he? You'd think the city watch would send word to the ship to come bail him out if he had...
Security officer Brown asks you those very questions, and asks all the deck hands and everyone else who left the ship. It seems that he was seen headed inland, said he knew a decent tavern where he could get good meade and a decent steak with fresh mushrooms and onions, fresh spinach, and potatoes cooked seven ways. No one went with him, saying it sounded more expensive than anything they wanted.
Security is going to contact the local authorities and make the rounds of medical facilities as well as they can. It's possible that whatever happened left him without any identification, and he didn't or couldn't tell anyone he was with the Piper.
It has happened that people have jumped ship, but not usually an officer, particularly so close to getting paid.
--M. J. Young
This seems like a good excuse to try out my new psionic power, too.
Do I have access to anything of his? Something he handled often? Do I know where the door to his quarters is? Once I find something I could use to get a scent, I'll put some effort into getting my Bloodhound Olfaction going. The odds that I'll be able to track his scent through a city a whole night later are pretty minimal, but from here to the dock isn't that heavily trafficked, so I might be able to pick out which direction he went, and go from there.
Although you go to his cabin, you cannot sort out his scent from any of the others. The skill does not engage at this time.
You do know which direction he was said to have been heading when he left--inland, of course, away from the docks rather than near them. Of course, no one is certain whether he went roughly perpendicular to the waterfront or whether having gone up that first street he turned somewhere.
In any case, security is working on it.
--M. J. Young
Still, if I'm going to be applying for a position in the City Watch when I get home to Durnmist, I shouldn't pass on a chance to investigate a mystery now, unless Security specifically does not want my help.
Who was on duty last night on the ship? If someone was there greeting us when we came back, there must have been someone seeing us off. I want to know who that man (those men) are (were), as he (one of them) might remember which way he saw the Chief go.
Sorry--the security officer on duty didn't really watch where people went. His job was to make sure no one boarded who didn't belong aboard, and once the men reach the dock they get lost rather quickly. Inland, he thinks, which fits what everyone else said.
The local authorities have been contacted and started working on it. They know several places that fit the description given, and will send men around to ask questions, to see if your man was seen at any of them. They're also going to check medical facilities for any unidentified patients who might be him.
--M. J. Young
Everything seems well in hand, then. Seeing as I'm getting nowhere for all my good intentions, I'll go below decks. Maybe I'll even sleep. It's been a year, hasn't it? Plenty to catch up on.
You sleep a few hours.
When you awaken, it is dinner time for most of the crew. The ship is still in port, but your lost officer has been found--unconscious at a local doctor's clinic. He appears to have been mugged. Police are investigating. Older members of the crew are really surprised--you expect something like this at places like Tristar, Tempest, Moon of Korg, but not at Haven. Sure, Haven is a city, but it's usually a quiet place.
--M. J. Young
I'll dose myself with a Remove Fatigue, then go visit him.
Is he awake by the time I get there? Does he appear badly hurt, or just a bit roughed up?
Mostly I'm looking for, does it look like I should bother coming up with another Cure Light Wounds variant in order to heal him, or will he recover in a reasonable amount of time on his own?
He is still unconscious; the medical staff keeps you in the waiting area, but informs you. "As I told your security people, he was found unconscious in an alley, apparently beaten and robbed. Police are questioning the usual suspects, but thus far have nothing to connect this to anyone. We don't know if he will recover. Some people in this condition suddenly wake up and want to eat, some come too but are never really the same again, and some fade away and die. In any case, we're watching him, and doing everything we can for him."
--M. J. Young
I nod.
"I would like to sit with him for a while, if I may. Where I come from... we believe it helps."
This definitely calls for a healing spell, if I can just diplomacize my way to his bedside.
There is always someone here from the Piper--usually someone from security or deck--apparently awaiting word, working in shifts for an hour or two each. Since they recognize you, they'll sit with you and talk to you (unless you shoo them away). Mostly they start by saying what a rum business it is, or how they can't believe it happened to Roman, or that it's bad luck and could have hit any of us. Security Officer Abbas has a slightly different take--that if the mugger had assaulted him, it would have been a rather different outcome. Of course, you've seen Roman fight (deck always fights alongside security when pirates attack), and you know he's good enough to be security if he wished, so either he was surprised or he was outnumbered.
Sometime in the early hours before dawn, a doctor comes out and finds you with Navarre, one of the deck hands. "We've done all we can," he says. "Now it's just a matter of waiting to see what happens. Ask your doctor if your captain wants his man in his own sickbay or if he's going to leave him here."
Navarre looks at you as if to ask whether you're going to take the message back or have him do it. It is why he's here, of course, but the fact that you are also here makes him uncertain on that point.
--M. J. Young
I'll ask Navarre to do it, thank the Doctor, and send both on their way.
This is probably the best chance I'll get, so I'll do my Cure Wounds spell now. This is Alliance Holy Magic that will restore him to health. I have no control over the actual variables of the spell. The range of the spell is limited to my physical reach. The damage category to be healed will be lethal. The ritual will take twenty minutes to perform, and an amateur obviously may not cast it more than once in a minute. The magic itself is instantaneous, the effect is permanent. As I cast it, I will invoke Freya, goddess of life, and include the sacrifice of a flower from Roman's bedside table in honor of her. I will invoke Hel and Baldur who watch over the lands of the dead, and include a mirror (in this case the shiny flat of my cutlass blade) as a non-sacrificed component in honor of them. Finally I will invoke Odin, patron of sorcerers, and in honor of him I will do this entire ritual with my left eye closed. The words of the spell must be spoken aloud so that sound matters, forcefully but not loudly, and they are in English. I will speak them while kneeling at the patient's bedside with my hands laid on his chest. No body parts can be substituted - I'm using them all already. The ritual would normally be physically exhausting if I didn't have one of my Remove/Prevent Fatigue spells on. The materials required are as appropriate for the gods, above. Only the flower is destroyed.
I am confused. Did you think you had been admitted to the treatment area, or that Roman had been brought out? Or were you doing this after he was moved to the ship? Or were you thinking that because the doctor came out to speak with you, the patient area was unattended?
The spell looks good, but let's take a step back. The doctor came out and spoke with you in the waiting area; you sent Navarre to the ship to speak with Doc Evan. The doctor who spoke with you here went back into the patient treatment area, where there are other patients and other medical professionals working. What are you doing, where?
--M. J. Young
I was under the impression that Navarre and I were in a room with only Roman, and that when both the Doctor and Navarre left that I was in a room, with Roman, alone until someone came back.
I will do this after he is brought back to the ship. Seeing I only 'sleep' for one hour every three days, Doc Evans can't be in my business the entire time...
Understood. You have not actually seen Roman, as the medical staff has kept you in a waiting room away from patients. Nor have you ever been alone, as there have been other visitors awaiting word on other patients--and through the doors the patients are never alone, being on cots in an open ward with movable curtain racks affording privacy when absolutely necessary for treatment.
About an hour later Navarre returns with Doc Evan and several other crewmen. They have brought a simple stretcher. The doctors discuss the matter privately, and then Navare is carried back to the ship and placed in a bed in sick bay.
Two hours later the Piper is underway.
--M. J. Young
You mean Roman is carried away. If they're carrying Navarre away on a stretcher, I feel I've missed something critical.
I'll follow along. As I said, if I get 20 minutes alone with Roman, ever before he wakes up on his own, I'll try to heal him. Otherwise, business as usual.
Right. Mea culpa. Je regrette. I apologize.
It takes a while to get Roman settled in sick bay, but by the time the ship is underway Doc Evan has retired to an adjacent office to make log entries. Pieter is watching sick bay, but he's also making dinner so he's really in the galley more than he is here.
The curative I see on the sheet reads
1@1 "Lay on Hands" - Limited Damage Repair M 2@1 TF 10 minutes, laying hands on a person injured without malice, kneeling, counts as whole-body involvement, appropriate words spoken including invoking Freya to heal him. Requires sacrifice of an appropriate amount of local currency to pay a medic for similar treatment. +57SMI am concerned that "injured without malice" would exclude our mugging victim, but it's such an odd turn of a phrase for me that I'm wondering whether it means something different. Is this what you intended, or were you creating another skill?
--M. J. Young
*sigh* I hate it when my entire night's update consists of the word "no."
This is Alliance Holy Magic that will restore him to health. I have no control over the actual variables of the spell. The range of the spell is limited to my physical reach. The damage category to be healed will be lethal. The ritual will take twenty minutes to perform, and an amateur obviously may not cast it more than once in a minute. The magic itself is instantaneous, the effect is permanent. As I cast it, I will invoke Freya, goddess of life, and include the sacrifice of a flower in honor of her. I will invoke Hel and Baldur who watch over the lands of the dead, and include a mirror (in this case the shiny flat of my cutlass blade) as a non-sacrificed component in honor of them. Finally I will invoke Odin, patron of sorcerers, and in honor of him I will do this entire ritual with my left eye closed. The words of the spell must be spoken aloud so that sound matters, forcefully but not loudly, and they are in English. I will speak them while kneeling at the patient's bedside with my hands laid on his chest. No body parts can be substituted - I'm using them all already. The ritual would normally be physically exhausting if I didn't have one of my Remove/Prevent Fatigue spells on. The materials required are as appropriate for the gods, above. Only the flower is destroyed.
Sorry--somehow I didn't recognize that you were describing a new skill in that post, or it didn't stick in my head.
I do have a couple of questions.
- You say that it includes a "mirror", but you specify that in this case that function will be fulfilled by "the shiny flat of my cutlass blade". I want to understand exactly what is required for this to be considered a "mirror". Is it
- Any flat reflective surface in which a person can view his own image reflected, including for example a bowl of water?
- Any shiny metal surface in which an image reflects, even if distorted, such as a steel blade or silver bowl?
- Some other defining factor that you have not expressed and I have not guessed which limits what a "mirror" is such that a lake is not included but the blade of a sword is?
- When you say that the words must be said "forcefully but not loudly", what are you distinguishing? To clarify the question, the point of the bonus is that someone who must say the words "loudly or forcefully" is pronouncing the spell in a fashion that would call attention to the fact that he is doing something even in the midst of battle--it can be heard above what others are doing. (It is for this reason that the bonus is given when something is sung, because the music calls attention to the vocalizing, and thus to the caster.) If what you're imagining is a whispered incantation that is done dramatically, that's not qualifying for the bonus. If you are distinguishing between forcefully, as a stage actor projecting his voice, and loudly, as in a commander shouting orders in battle, then the projected voice qualifies.
- Your spells are listed as "remove fatigue", and thus work much as if you had a good long night's sleep. Spells that are listed as "exhausting" mean either that they use up your body energy in a manor equivalent to burning up a day's worth of wakefulness (and thus use up the rest of such a spell's benefit) or that they use your muscular energy in such a way that you are winded and weakened and must at least sit for an extended period to recover your ability to stand and walk (in which case it's an entirely different category of fatigue not touched by spells that alleviate the need for sleep). Thus your statement that this spell "would normally be physically exhausting if I didn't have one of my Remove/Prevent Fatique spells on" is meaningless to me, because a) there is no preventative in the remove fatigue spells as I understand them and b) if there were then an exhausting spell would either exhaust you in a manner that was not related to the need for sleep or would exhaust the effects of such a spell such that you needed sleep. As far as that goes, though, it's your call as to whether this is a spell that is in some sense exhausting requiring immediate rest, or is not. (That is not to say that there could not be a spell which if cast in advance of an exhausting spell provided sufficient energy to overcome the exhaustion--only that such a spell is not what you have.)
--M. J. Young
As for what constitutes a mirror - it must be shiny, reflective, and portable. The image need not be clear, but a puddle, a lake, or a bowl of water will not do.
As for Forcefully - yes, much like a stage actor. I know how to project like that.
As for Exhaustion - Fine, let it exhaust me. I'll go dose another Remove Fatigue afterwards, and set about designing a Prevent Fatigue spell next.
You visit Roman that night and kneel beside him, praying, using your sword blade and the flower you brought from shore. After twenty minutes you rise.
Roman awakens. He looks at you, then glances around.
"Med bay?" he asks. "Where's the doctor? What time is it?"
--M. J. Young
I nod. "Yes, you're in the medical bay. You were mugged and beaten and brought to a hospital in town, and brought back here before we shipped out. The doctor is asleep, and I should go get some rest, too."
I rub at my eyes. Draining spells are very draining. Bed sounds like a good idea. "Oh yeah... I used my magic to heal you. Hope you don't mind but you were really out of it and they weren't sure you were going to wake up at all. I figured if you had the choice between me healing you, versus taking your chances with not being beaten to death, you would mind being alive less. Doing that here really took it out of me, though. I gotta get to bed. You rest some more. Let the Doc get a good look at you when he comes back."
If he doesn't try to stop me, time to wander back to my rack and try to get in a Remove Fatigue spell before I just fall the heck asleep.
He's not fully healed, so he's not likely to stop you from leaving.
You steel yourself for the trek back to your bunk, take a deep breath, and head out. It seems an incredibly long journey on such a small ship, but you roll into your hammock. Ignoring your sleeping roommate, you pray for your fatigue to be taken.
In a moment you are rested. Your muscles are still weak, the sort of weakness that suggests all of your neurotransmitters have been spent in some heavy labor and you cannot easily lift or carry or otherwise do hard work. But you would be able to climb a ladder, with some difficulty.
--M. J. Young
Bugger. At least it removed my mental fatigue. I sit up in bed and focus. Next time I'll have to be more proactive. For now... Bleh. Sleep... sleep is good. First time in a year, but with my body hanging like a weight, I can't very well do my spell idea now. How will I know if it worked? Ah, well. At least I don't have a shift for a while...
You haven't slept in a long time. However, sleep eludes you--your mind is rested, but your body fatigued. You toss and turn a bit in the hammock, and lie, fully awake, with your tired muscles.
--M. J. Young
After perhaps a half-hour of that, I'll try a regular Remove Fatigue spell again.
If this one produces less suck than the first one, I'll begin work on a Prevent/Delay Fatigue spell next. If it continues to fail, I'll work on an Induce Sleep spell next.
After about half an hour of resting your body you are well rested, your muscles restored to reasonable readiness, and with no need for a magical way of dealing with the fatigue at present.
--M. J. Young
Then it's back to business as usual - shifts, or just pacing the deck, until Roman calls for me or something else interesting happens.
Three days later you're at the helm under clear skies when word comes from navigation: there is an iceberg adrift in the lane ahead. It is near the center of the current, so on your present course (given the assist of sails) you will catch it--which obviously is something you do not wish to do.
Current is always strongest in the middle of the stream, so if you veer away from that you'll lose velocity; veer out far enough and unless you have some very strong winds you won't have the speed to pass it. Get too close, of course, and you'll never see Moon of Korg.
--M. J. Young
If I think this is within my own skill - something Verser-me would be able to tell much more easily than player-me - then I'll attempt it. If I think it's likely to get us all killed, I'll call for help.
Either way, I intend to take this narrowly, angling so that we'll pass the iceberg on the up-wind side. It will mean having to work not to be blown into it, but at least we won't be caught on the leeward side of something gods-know-how-big. If I can spare the concentration, I intend to start TK Pulsing the iceberg out of the way as soon as I'm within sight of it.
You are really completely uncertain as to whether you can do this or not. Your inclination is that you've got even odds, but also that as the pilot with least experience probably any other pilot would be able to do it better.
As you approach the iceberg you attempt to focus on it and tap it out of the way, but on your first attempt you get nothing at all, as if you don't have the concentration necessary for the task.
--M. J. Young