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D Siphon Vitae probably makes more sense but this is funnier soooo
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Nov 8, 2021 21:02
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D
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Nov 9, 2021 05:14
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D
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Nov 9, 2021 22:03
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE Leaving your treasure behind for now, you exit the golden chamber to find a nice, tasty ceiling to chew through, but more than that, to figure out where exactly to chew to create the shortest path possible to your goal, the supposed mess-hall somewhere above the hold, without alerting any guards to your scheme. Fortunately for you, you are a rat, so this task is dead easy.  One little climb and a lot of splinters later, you poke your adorable button nose out of a newly formed cavity in the floorboards next to a large bag of flour that you sensed from below, letting it act as cover for entrance and egress should you need it. The room is lit by moonlight and a smouldering candelabra bolted to the table that makes up around sixty percent of the room. Two long wooden benches, also bolted down, are situated next to it and the rest of the room is filled with crates, bags, piles of cloth and random tools. You climb up the side of the table to get a better look and see now a little area to the side where a counter, shelf, cauldron and chest unit indicate that food can be prepared. Further evidenced by the large pirate that is stirring the cauldron with a long iron spoon, though he takes no notice of you. You climb back down to floorlevel as carefully as possible, wondering how you could have missed the chef like that to begin with, when you spot incoming torchlight from further inside the room. Quickly ducking back into your hole, you strain to perceive the following encounter. A heavy set of footsteps approaches the area the chef is located in. Someone turns. Voices, most words muffled or unfamiliar. You think they are arguing. You can hear and smell iron being swung through the air. There is a grunt and more yelling. The floor creaks as something heavy is turned. Grumbling, the heavy presence leaves the way it came. You wait a few minutes, for the chef to turn back to his cooking, before peeking out again. There are traces of soup on the floor now, when before there were none. Actual soup. How long has it been since you ate a real meal? You close your eyes…  And feel your lips break. The last bit of moisture finally driven from you by the unrelenting sun. Stretched out over a wheel, overlooking the remains of a battlefield, you can't help but laugh a bitter wheeze with the final reserve of raspy breath even as scavengers descend for another go at you. Your limbs already broken and stripped, your torso covered in scartissue and wounds both natural and magic, your warglyphs sundered by scourge and failure. There was no fight left and no one left to fight. They had won and you had lost so badly they simply left you behind. Had you the strength they would rue the day… but you don't, and the last thing you see before a sharp black beak pierces your one remaining good eye for the tasty juices inside is a robed figure slowly making his way towards your place of illrest, across the sky, as if pushrowing a gondola across a river of stars.  You open your eyes and fight the urge to cough. You cannot afford to be captured again. Never again. Never again. You shake out of it and creep across the floor to where you guess the heavy figure originated. It is a doorway, thankfully open, and a stairway leading downward. Putting your ears and sense of smell to work here, you sense several presences below. Must be where they sleep, or man the ballistia or whatever it is that pirates do when not on deck. Going down there would be risky, but you were out of options and so, you went. The first flight down is an empty room with a door, locked and barred. You hear loud noises from inside. Creaking, somewhat mechanical. Smells like wood. You go down further. The next floor down, the furthest down this flight goes, leads to a long corridor, neatly bisecting the ship, with four doors on either side leading to quarters unknown. The first on the left was closed. It smells like storage. Old and musty, organic but non living. Not rotten either, so, food? No gap, you had to eat your way through. The second door on the left was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. You could hear muttering behind it, and the clatter of small objects hitting wooden surfaces. Smells like bone? Bone, wood, metal, human smells. So many human smells. How many were in there, one or two? The third door on the left was was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. Human smells, snoring. Sounds like one human? The fourth door on the left was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. Humans smells, but no sounds. Empty? First door on the right, the room smells of death. Of metal and clay. Smells familiar. The door is closed and there is no gap. You had to eat your way through. Second door on the right was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. Humans smells, but no sounds. Empty? Third door on the right was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. Humans smells, but no sounds. Empty? Fourth door on the right was closed, but there was a gap you could squeeze through, if you wanted, and the wall was thin enough to eat through. Different smells. Human, but something else, or not as much, or more strewn around.  You had a very good idea of the layout of the ship now, and you were almost certain you knew where everyone was. What now?
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Nov 17, 2021 18:04
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Door #3: see if it's safe and then Siphon Vitae from the sleeper if it is.
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Nov 17, 2021 18:16
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super sweet best pal posted:Door #3: see if it's safe and then Siphon Vitae from the sleeper if it is. As you strategise, for a moment an image blurs in front of your third eye...  you recall the last time you Siphoned Vitae with other magic users about. It... it didn't go as you had hoped. Would the pirate wizard upstairs be able to tell? Could you even do it now, as a rat, without your usual... faculties? With the mana around you dampened and cold? Maybe. It would be easier if you had something magical to drain, or if there was less interference... but then again Siphon Vitae was special. It would restore your mana and your health and other things besides, if done right...
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Nov 17, 2021 18:21
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Squeeze through 3rd left door and chew out sleepers throat Get rid of a threat while it's vulnerable and unlikely to be disturbed anytime soon
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Nov 17, 2021 18:41
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Chew into right room #1 There’s resources from the tomb in there. We might find other tomb guardians or canopic jars our summoner needs to power up. If we want to siphon the sleeper I think our best play is using the snoring as cover to chew a hole big enough to get the bracer in so we can drain it to fuel the spell.
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Nov 17, 2021 21:09
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Chew into room of first door on the right. Sounds exactly like all the smells of ancient guardian friends/reliquaries of power that might prove useful.
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Nov 17, 2021 21:11
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First door on the right.
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Nov 18, 2021 00:41
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE That smell. You recognize it. A dry clay, the tang of metal and just a trace of death. Could it be what you are looking for? You let instinct take over and dig your fangs into ship hull, chewing a hole small enough for you to squeeze through, but no more, as to hide your presence for but a bit longer. Though the only light comes from a few measly portholes, your night-vision is decent enough that you can tell this room new room is used for storage. There is furniture of an oddly familiar style everywhere, one that clashes immensly with the simple, easy to maintain and water-stained style of the pirate ship. As well as furnuiture, there are a number of other oddities, such as gilded wheels not fit for any chariot make you are aware of (not that you know any, as a rat), unusual tools, painted, wooden statues of strange animals, several bags and crates and a number of objects that defy rat-based classification.  You sniff around some more and soon enough, you find the source of the clay scent you had been following, a table tucked away amongst the other debris.  Canoptic jars! They have to be, right? They are the source of the most interesting smells. They have familiar scribbles on them, human scribbles. Reminding you of the runes in the book that you are still metaphysically digesting, but with a different... visual taste. Eyefeel. There are... a number of them. You try to concentrate but you have been up a number of hours without really eating anything but wood, and tho blessed and semi-alive, your rat-body is still, when you get right down to it, a rat body. Honestly, it's a minor miracle that you havn't fried your little rat brain yet. Good thing you have your own, personal, and admitedly minor deity on retainer, you wouldn't want that sort of attention from the real Gods of this world. They might take offense, and you are quiet certain you could not afford the type of notice they would be prone to visit upon your rodent personage. But you digress. There are jars, and AK-UT-EN wanted jars, right? Problem is, you can't exactly carry them all with you at once... and even one is pushing it with any sort of stealth in mind. So which one is it?   Uh.. Canoptic Jars: 1d20 = 18  That one! Yeah! You push the jar over as quietly as you can and start rolling it towords the door, realizing pretty quickly it wont fit through the tiny hole you squeezed through. Lacking hands or any way to reach the doorhandle even if you did have the limbs for it, you are instead forced to embiggen your egress. It is some two hours later that you, with jaws-dead tired and gnawers freshly sharpened, once more squeeze through the hole. By this point the dead of night has truly passed and the moon almost dipped below the horizon; these are the twilight hours before the Dawn – things are about to get very precarious indeed if you do not get a move on. You push the jar out of the room, roll the jar to the stairs and...   "Oh." ... ... ... Carry the jar nimbly up them without too much effort, and the stairs above those as well. You are a rat, after all. You might not have human hands, but your claws are sharp and your bite is strong and you have a superatural endurance; you roll your way past the mess and the kitchen, back to the door leading to the deck and wait for your oppourtunity to pounce across it to go back down into the hold. Luckily for you, the Jars are warded and protected against such things as accidental spillage and short falls. They probably wouldn't have been very useful for Eternal Storage, otherwise, you muse. It is a while later that you arive back in the Golden Chamber with no one yet the wiser. The tomb is still and silent, even as the First Light of Day breaks beyond the clouded seas outside. You collapse in front of the main sarchophagus, triumphant, exhausted, but alive. "Hey! Boss! I mean, God?! Lord AK-UT-EN?"  "WHO DARES AWAKEN ME FROM MY SLUM  "Oh hay. You're back! You did it! You got the thing! I mean, Of Course, as was my Decree, that my you as my trusted servant I knew would do without error! Well come on then, let's see it!" You push the jar forward with a tired paw. "Yes, good, and the rest?" "..." "You did bring more, yes? There are usually four of them?" "..." "I see. Well, let's have a closer look at it... maybe..." "Ah. Yes, you found us a set of lungs. Can't go wrong with Lungs. Gets you going in the morning, does your Lungs. Belonging to... ah yes..." "KES-KES-TEE Mistress of the Hunt, Royal Falconeer, Slayer of the Egret of Roh Hal Dahl, High Bowyer, Fletcher and Instructress of the Royal Symposium of the (old) Eternal Empire."  "Can't really do much with only her lungs though. I don't suppose you could go find the rest of her? No? We are a bit pressed for time. Let me think, let me think..." Time passes. The chamber is still. "Squeak?" "WHAT?! WHO DARES DISTU, oh wait, yes. Sorry. Old habit. When you sleep for so long, it's hard to remember you are awake, you know? You know." "Anyway. I had a little think, and I've come up with a solution. A few solutions. Each as wonderous and magnificent and sure to succeed at the rest, ahaha! Quail, for such is the power of my intellect! Only, err. Well, I haven't been outside in a while. I haven't seen what you have, and I still can't leave my Sarchophagus." 1: " So, in a display of my sincere generocity and as a sign of gratitude for your service, I'll let you decide which one we go with..." A: KES KES TEE is great and all, but we can't get her up and running with only a pair of lungs. Well, we can, but it won't be pretty. Well, debatable. I'm a scarab. You are a rat. What is beauty? Anyway, we'll pop them in and i'll give her a once over and... we'll have something. With lungs, we'll have something animate. A mummy. A very, very dumb mummy. It'll manage a short bout of hard labour, it could pack as punch, it could take a hit. But without a stomach it wouldn't last very long, it couldn't heal, even over time. Without a liver it would have no means to cultivate mana. Without intestines it would have no real drive of its own. It would do what I say, as long as I see it, and it might do what you say, or it might just wander. Or idle. The Curse means it would probably strangle a robber if it saw one, though. But we wouldn't have KES KES TEE, not really."  +1 Brute (Special Traits: Dumb As a Rock. Insubordinate.) B: So you go back out there, find the rest of her, and bring her here. Or someone else. Something else. Sure, the thieves will have stirred by now, and the Wizard could come back at any moment... but we need more, if we want to be sure to succeed. C: Okay so, we might not have KES KES TEE, but we do have you. I will admit a rat wasn't my first choice of bodyguard should I find myself awokened millenia past my, ah, prime, but it wasn't my last pick either. Still... a rat is a rather limited form. We could improve you. Kind of. I'd have to kill you first though. I'm sure you understand? But it'l be fine. Trust me. I'm God." -1 Rat. +1 Brute. Maybe. Probably. 
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Dec 23, 2021 00:21
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B. Let's grab some more!
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Dec 23, 2021 01:16
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C We are already dead, what could go wrong? If we get a bigger body we can at least go grab the rest of the jars.
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Dec 23, 2021 01:17
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B. The hole is big enough, which means the rest of the jars are just time and effort. Describe them if we can to get guidance on which ones.
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Dec 23, 2021 03:00
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I want my mummy! A
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Dec 23, 2021 03:42
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chin up everything sucks posted:C Can't argue with this, C maybe also find some scraps to nibble on, otherwise.
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Dec 23, 2021 04:43
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C
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Dec 23, 2021 06:25
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B. Hard work is done, can probably get one more jar safely; a third if we want to risk getting caught.
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Dec 23, 2021 07:26
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B Get a description of, specifically, the jar of intestines for KES KES TEE. With an amble and self-motivated mummy, you will have a useful ally and a higher chance of getting more jars to power her up/awaken more guardians.
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Dec 23, 2021 18:28
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C It’s rat time
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Dec 27, 2021 23:56
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B We must power up more!!
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Dec 28, 2021 01:54
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Arcanuse posted:Hard work is done, can probably get one more jar safely; a third if we want to risk getting caught. Agreed, at least for trying another jar as well. B.
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Jan 2, 2022 00:21
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE After some agonizing introspection, you decide to leave the Canopic Jar with Lord AK-UT-EN, hoping to score at least one more haul before revealing your presence to the wizard and his goons. Using your freshly gnawed shortcut, keen sense of smell and somewhat limited memory, you make your way back to the hold without much issue. By this time however, you sense an increase in floor vibrations which would seem to indicate that the rest of the crew are starting to rise, something you swiftly confirm when you notice new light in the corridor and one of the previously closed doors now both unlocked and open. Curiosity getting the better of you, you sneak up to the very edge of it to get a better view, expecting nothing more than a simple bunk, perhaps some tasteful cutlasses, cobwebs and an old skull for decoration. You know, pirate things.  But you do not see pirate things. The room is clean, for starters. There is a bookcase with actual books in it, newly printed ones at that. There is a neat, simple desk with a small set of well organized calligraphy tools, including the most utilitarian quill you have ever seen, as if plucked from a porcupine rather than some majestic fowl. There is also a well made, if cramped bed and a small night stand containing nothing but an emptied metal lantern. Sniffing, you open your rodent senses and explore the past few days of occupancy as best as you are able. You feel this bunk belongs to a woman, in her late twenties perhaps, clean, who spent her time here sleeping and writing. No more. There doesn't seem to be any crumbs or leftovers present, indicating food must have been consumed elsewhere, or else the occupant has been truly meticulous in her cleaning. Climbing up the leg of the desk to get a better view, you find a parchment covered in the neat, clear writing, albeit in a language you cannot actually comprehend. One glyph does catch your attention however, as it is both larger than the others and placed in isolation in the right, topmost corner.  Something to keep in mind for later? With not much else of interest in the room, the book covers either being blank or in the same unreadable script, you return to the hallway. Where you are promptly captured by the scruff of your neck. Raised from the ground to about eye level, though held at length so as not to present themselves a target for your bites or scratches, the pirate whose patrolling steps you missed considers you curiously as you flail in her glove protected hands.  She says something in a language you do not understand. Judging by body language, and inflection, you think it is a question. She says something else in a more forceful tone. What could it mean? She turns you away from her face. She begins walking towards the stairs. You are grappled. You are caught. Adrenaline courses through your little rat body. The Curse screams through your teeth and claws. You are held by a target for your vengeance. Your muscles tense and you feel your mind go red... A: But you keep your calm. Maybe he will take you somewhere interesting? but the magic doesn't come to you. It is restricted, cut off, dulled. C: But, in your rage, you fight through that blockage and attempt to Siphon Vitae. D: and give in to wrath, embracing the ferocity of an animal, cornered. E: But you do something else entirely... What? Write-in.
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Apr 17, 2022 11:41
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E: Bite them and run away! They might catch an... Admittedly mundane disease, if anything, by doing doing this. The curse might give it a little oomph. ...But more helpfully they might flinch, dropping us so we can scurry away behind something inconvenient to move.
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Apr 17, 2022 11:50
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E: Repeat their language sounds back at them.
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Apr 17, 2022 15:42
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c
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Apr 17, 2022 18:39
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Arcanuse posted:E: Bite them and run away! This
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Apr 23, 2022 18:21
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A
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Apr 23, 2022 18:26
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE [unintelligible mouthsounds] You flail and rage and swipe with your claws, but, held as you are at arms length and faced away from your opponent, you can't actually hit them. Neither does their grip lessen, and so you spend the next, possibly last, two minutes of your life exhausted, ashamed and defeated.  The stars are still out, but you can tell by dim light on the horizon that dawn is fast approaching. The strangely dressed "Pirate" has taken you to the top of the deck. Though as soon as she stepped out of the hold another pirate, this one in the standard getup stops her with an angry sounding bark. There is a brief, heated discussion. There is pointing and gesticulating, though the gloved hand still grips you. You are brought over to the railings and held aloft over the sea. You are hoisted higher and backwards in an arc and you feel muscles tense and smell your captors adrenaline build for a throw. You sense your eye burning. Time seems to slows to a crawl. Is this it? Wait... you think you spy another ship down in the water... some hooded, rowing figure...  "GOING FOR A SWIM ARE WE? YOU'LL CATCH A DREADFUL COLD. I'D ADVICE AGAINST IT."  "What are you doing here? I'm not even dead yet!" "I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. I'M VERY PATIENT." --- There is a blazing inferno in your minds eye, of wrath and of disaster. You remember the black depths, the pressure, the anguish. You had been a terror in those days, inflicting pain and suffering across the wide shores of the world, growing ever more in stature, wealth and glory. But they had gathered against you in force, blocked your points of egress, warded their ships against your Woe. It was not enough for them to merely kill you, as you had them and scores of others. No. They bound you. Wrapped you in chains of darkest iron, in and cast you into the sea. A void from which there was no escape. Never again. Never again. You feel time racing to catch up with you, the beginnings of an inexhaustible momentum. The end of your race. The sands filling the bottom of your hourglass. Your head aches. Time. If only you had more time... You see before you a scroll of runes. They are simple, basic things. Too simple. Like building blocks of reality. Older than draconic or fae, more efficient than the bleeding edge in theoretically arcana. They burn. They are the source of your fire. It flickers like a mirage in your last moment. Your Soul Possession...   What would you do if you had all the time in the world? How much time would you really need, to get things done? Time is money, they say. And everything has a price. What do you do?
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Apr 23, 2022 19:59
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All the time in the world, eh? Probably slink back on the boat, haul all the canopic jars to our (current) boss, and hope they don't screw up the whole taking revenge business. A small step in the grand scheme of things to be sure, but at least it ought to set up something better than our current vessel, for a future incarnation anyways. ...I mean, dying yet again isn't exactly a part of this plan, and if our unlife pulls through on top of that it would be grand, but we don't have the best living track record.
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Apr 23, 2022 20:07
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With all the time in the world I would set up an empire of rats so industrialized that they would literally boil off the oceans in the planet from their combined heat waste and goal warming gently caress the oceans
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Apr 23, 2022 20:23
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With all the time in the world we can start by murdering every living creature on the ship. Then we can take our time reading the book and learning more magic. Then we can read all of the mages books. Then we can learn alchemy. And we decide that it's worth it, we can return all the treasure and organs to our boss so he can boost our stats before he goes back to sleep.
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Apr 24, 2022 03:51
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Siphon Vitae
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Apr 24, 2022 03:58
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With all the time in the world, I would learn all knowledge, then apply it to reshape existence to my benefit, and probably the benefit of others.
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Apr 24, 2022 12:21
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Third Life, Oceans Eleventhousand BCE Enchanted by the offer, you speak the Words of Power - the normally shrill call of rattus rattus replaced by a guttural moan as you reach beyond this moment and into another, far away instant. Pulling from that unknowable void two distinctly separate, yet similar vessels. Each as two glass bottles with their throats to one another, connected by wooden rods and plates. For the first device, a fine particulate reminiscent of sand almost fills the bottom half, whilst the top half is obscured by blackened smoke. Holding it in your hand you feel the weight is considerably off balance, favouring the bottom half. There is a trickle of 'sand' from the top to the bottom half, and turning the device around does nothing to halt or reverse the flow. Having met the ferryman on numerous occasions, you know this to be a metaphysical representation of your life. The other device is a reverse of your own. The bottom, opaque with smoke, the top half full of sand. But when you touch it, the smoke burns, the sand stirs and gradually dissipates. Alarmed, you remove your spiritual equivalent of a hand from it, only to find that that self-same smoke now covers your spirit-form in coils not wholly unlike Eduardo's Favourite Tentacles (a long story, a memory from another time) - which, upon touching your own hourglass, neatly flows into it through unseen cracks, slowly pushing sand from the bottom once more into the top.  What do you do?
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Apr 24, 2022 13:37
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Shatter the hourglass to repudiate our mortality altogether, in concept and in truth.
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Apr 24, 2022 13:44
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Refill our hourglass. This is proooobably going to cause issues down the line if we live long enough, but, well our luck it's going to amount to death shortly being annoyed/bemused at how this pans out.
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Apr 24, 2022 14:03
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If this be the metaphysical representation of siphoning vitae, then Siphon Vitae
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Apr 24, 2022 20:44
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super sweet best pal posted:If this be the metaphysical representation of siphoning vitae, then Siphon Vitae To be clear: It is not. Siphon Vitae drains physical and spiritual/arcane essence and transfers it to you. This is using your Soul Possession: A Share Of Time.
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Apr 25, 2022 08:41
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 23:02 |
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Reverse time to right before we were caught The smoke of potential future shall be used to undo the mistake of our past and present, granting us more time before this moment comes around again. And who knows if it will? Well, Death knows, but a future moment might not be the exact same as the current moment.
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Apr 25, 2022 19:55
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