You are a young human male. Well, you were one a few days ago. After your family discovered that you possess the wizard's gift, you are considered a human being no longer. As one of the few individuals with the potential to single-handedly raze cities and obliterate armies, you are considered to be something far greater.Unfortunately, that kind of power comes at a price. Even though you are considered but a boy at the age of 16, you are no longer welcome in your former home and must settle somewhere else on your own. The idea of finding another town to live in is unappealing to you. For now, you would much rather do as most wizards do: Find a suitable place to construct your own tower and pursue the mysteries of the arcane world.You have only a backpack full of basic supplies, the simple clothes on your back, and your considerable talents to achieve this task with. Perhaps that last part will help you with your task.But before that, what exactly is it you are most gifted with?>You can control the earth itself, molding soil and stone on a mass scale with relative ease.>The minds of others are like an open book to you, and you can read and influence them with some effort.>Nature itself bows to your will, trees and vines reshaping themselves to suit your whims.>You are attuned with the dark energies of death itself and can snuff the lifeforce of lesser men and animate their empty husks to do your bidding.>Your talents lie in animating constructs built in various shapes and sizes to fulfill almost any given task.>Write-in (I will accept most things that are specific enough, with some exceptions like time.)
>>834492>Your talents lie in animating constructs built in various shapes and sizes to fulfill almost any given task
>>834492>Your talents lie in animating constructs built in various shapes and sizes to fulfill almost any given task.
>>834499>>834500Third. This talent is also unconventional. While most wizards gather vast, natural arcane magic, our interest lies in elaborate, small magical systems. Tiny, designed currents, as you will, which sets material mechanically in motion.
>>834503Mechanical magic? So we're going steampunk with this? Nice.
Forgot to say. I'm writing.
>>834512We are a revolutionary. Let's hope others will also see it that way...
As you stop walking at the crossroads outside your hometown, you hear the skittering of the small, wooden limbs of your only remaining construct come to a halt beside you. You assembled and animated several golems out of household objects like pots and brooms, but the people who owned those pots and brooms failed to appreciate your talents, and you had to return them to their previous state. But this one pet of yours, the first one you assembled, you were allowed to keep. It is essentially a broken down rake, a pitchfork and some of the fencing around the farmhouse you grew up in around a crude stone core. Perhaps your parents didn't have the heart to take him away. He is a cute little wooden spider thing, and you're glad to have him, but you doubt he will be very helpful to you.You have a look around. The continent is an extremely varied place, but it is not vast. By hitching rides on various wagons, you should be get to your chosen destination within a week or two. There are several locations you could go to that aren't too close or too far from civilization, and have a sufficient ley lines that converge around it. You are a wizard after all, and you would greatly benefit from living above a such arcane nexus, providing you with the energy to use as you wish.You decide to journey to...>A mountaintop, isolated, harsh and cold, with several mines nearby, abandoned for some unknown reason.>A forest, littered with overgrown ruins, with plenty of wood, animals and forgotten knowledge to at your disposal.>A volcano, one in a row of several formed by some arcane aberrance, as evident from the strange fauna lurking in the ash.>A desert, with lots of sand and... more sand.>Write-in (I'll probably alter it a bit, though.)
jesus god damn fuck those errors
>>834521Combine the mountain and forest ideas. As in the foot of the mountain near a forest. Or if their isn't a forest nearby, just the foot of the mountain. A bit more practical than the top of one.
>>834521Desert
>>834521>A forest, littered with overgrown ruins, with plenty of wood, animals and forgotten knowledge to at your disposal.Seems like a comfy and easy place to live.Can even use various object in ruin to assemble a new construct or two.
>>834525I like this best of 2 worlds aproach. A mountaintop would be a bit harsh, but we do need it's metal if are gonna go steampunk.
Got some lunch. Writing for foot of a mountain.Oh, and sorry about the slow pace, but I figured to go it anyways since this board is slow as fuck too.
>>834547Genius takes time.
>>834547chill quests are best quests
>>834547>So what magic do we know anyway?Basically animating constructs is the only thing we know of right now.
You spend the next nine days traveling with various caravans on your way to Mount Mardale, posing as a lesser mage and using your modest geokinetic abilities to guard them against potential attackers. Truthfully, there are no bandits or marauders on this route; it is more a matter of impressing the caravaneers sufficiently by making some stones and your unnamed pet dance around, convincing them that your company is worth the food and coin they hand you, for seeing a strange wooden spider jump through hoops of levitating stone. You hope never to see these people again, or be seen by anyone else as a cheap parlor trickster.Early in the morning, you part ways with the last group of wagons a day's travel away from Mardale. You note that a ways towards the opposite direction, there are the woods you considered settling in. It shouldn't be too difficult for you to travel there, should you require some wood or wish to visit some old ruins in your spare time. You also note that the caravan you just left is headed towards a riverside town, the closest one to your destination as far as you know.Chewing on a piece of jerky, you make your way across the plains and a short way up the mountain, before the terrain becomes actually treacherous, and find a small clearing near a ledge. You are low enough that there are still a few trees and bushes around, and the ground is still covered in grass. Since it's already late enough that you can't see the sun setting on this side of the mountain, you decide to erect your tent here and rest. Tomorrow, you'll start building your tower.During your time on the caravan, you had enough spare time to prepare some very basic cores for the golems you're going to assemble and build your tower. Lumpy stones, about as large as your fist, covered in runes you carved on their surface that will act as a primitive brain for your creations, until you acquire some more suitable materials and hone your craft. What kind of golems did you prepare, exactly?>Three rough humanoid figures made out of boulders, held together by arcane tethers.>Seven short clay figurines, with proper fingers to manipulate things with, but little strength or resilience.>A wooden colossus that can really heft, which will take you a lot of time to put together.>Write-in (Keep in mind that you have little in the way of tools and materials right now.)>>834582Eh, you can do some other stuff. You're just not great at it.
>>834547>>834582Is there an energy requirement to keep our constructs alive? That can have a pretty big impact on the effectiveness of the magic.
>>834592>A wooden colossusIt gives us some defenses as well as far more effective worker force.So we can utilise some earth magic as well?If so we should make it our secondary focus of study since it's fairly versatile and usefull for gathering resources.
>>834595Yes, but it's lower than you'd think. Especially since you specialize in golemetry.This may also change once you start building some decent stuff that doesn't rely on your magic to keep itself together and/or stuff that has ways to recharge itself without your intervention.
>>834592>>Seven short clay figurines, with proper fingers to manipulate things with, but little strength or resilience.Crafters, crafters are good.
>>834592>Three rough humanoid figures made out of boulders, held together by arcane tethers.Would've gone with the colossus, but I wouldn't want to put in so much time using a primitive core
>>834606The stone ones def. The colosus will take to long, and the crafters are gonna only be useful later on when we have a basic base already set up. Right now we need an actual work force to start on gathering stone and lumber for our tower.
>>834592>>Write-in (Keep in mind that you have little in the way of tools and materials right now.)A dwarf sized worker drone with 4 apendages, 2 stronger limbs with less ability to manipulate objects , 2 with dexterous hands that can do finer labour and moves on top of a set of 3 orbs for stability.
>>834592>>834606>Sorry about all of the questionsDo the materials used for the core effect how many orders a construct can follow at once?
>>834592>>Seven short clay figurines reinforced with wooden 'bones', with proper fingers to manipulate things with.
>>834603Changing to this >>834612Sorry for the messy writing.
>>834607This
>>834615You can telepathically control golems to do basic stuff while you attend them. Automated work is a different matter. It does require making better cores. Better materials does help. Especially gemstones, crystals and certain magical metals, though you can't really smelt ore right now. Stone is pretty shit at containing energy, but with golems, you only really need the core to contain the energy and it can animate the rest of its body. And if you manage to construct a body that's mechanically made to move, it'll be even stronger than it should be. (Basically magepunk instead of steampunk.)>clay>>834605>>834617>stone>>834606>>834607>>834625>jazz hands>>834612>>834619Writing for stone unless I fucked up. Tallying votes is apparently hard when you're excited.
>>834632>Writing for stone unless I fucked up. Tallying votes is apparently hard when you're excited.You can finish, we'll wait.
Was bored, bad at drawing too, but enjoy. 3 posts in and you already have fanart
The next day, after waking up and munching on the bland, preserved food you have on you, you set about finding rocks and boulders suitable for the golems you have in mind. The task turns out to be a lot harder than you anticipated. You end up locating three large boulders that will serve as suitable torsos, and haul the stones that will become the limbs to them, and while stones aren't exactly difficult to find, they are very hard to carry. It takes you an hour to fill your backpack with smaller rocks that will serve as the joints, and carrying them up the mountain turns out to be as hard as, well, carrying a backpack full of stones. You take a few minutes to catch your breath after depositing them by the main body and start to think about how the hell you're going to get a bunch of even bigger rocks up here. After several minutes of pondering, you conclude that it would be easiest to make use of your magic to have them float behind you.Wait, you could have done that with the smaller stones too.After you're done cursing, you gather the rest of the stones. Drawing the power from your reserves, you focus your will upon the points at which the stones will join together, and command the stone to melt. Tiny matching runes carve themselves into their surfaces, and when you pour a fraction of your reserves into these runes, they become active. The stones begin to rumble and pull themselves together, joining each other like an ugly skeleton. You pull the core out of a separate pocket on your pack, and you place it where the head should be. It is, of course, far too small for a head, and the overall figure ends up looking like an elephant man with the head of a toddler, lying prone on the ground. As you pour your magic into the core, you find yourself wishing for better materials to work with, and soon.A short moment later, you feel the core carving the arcane channels as you programmed it to, going from one rune, through the stone, into the next, until it settles down. And then, the stones rise up, clumsily, and still somehow intimidating. The whole thing is a head taller than yourself. Its legs are mismatched pegs. Two stones, each bigger than your head, form its shoulders, from which its ape-like arms descend. It doesn't have any hands, only three elongated rocks to let it grip and carry objects, presumably stones. It stands tall and resolute, with no expression or feeling. It may be humanoid, but this great beast is but an extension of your will made manifest.
You and your new servant spend the next hour hauling rocks, and soon, you have two more brutes of stone standing at attention; the thing is really good at hauling heavy things, especially with you there to help coordinate its clumsy movement. You are already tired, but it is only the afternoon, and you still have much work to do.>Order your golems to gather stones that will serve as suitable bricks.>Have the golems fell trees. You need lumber.>Take your golems into one of those mineshafts you saw earlier (you totally saw a mineshaft earlier, I just didn't tell you.)>Write-inIf you have your golems work on their own, you can also do something yourself. You can lie back and read the one book you have with you, or you can hunt or forage if you're tired of eating jerky. Or you can sleep, practice with some magic, or something else.
>>834685My god.It's beautiful.Thank you for this, anon.
>>834692Gather bricks while we practice our magic.
>>834692>>Order your golems to gather stones that will serve as suitable bricks.>practice magic
>>834703Seconding
>>834692>>Order your golems to gather stones that will serve as suitable bricks.Tommorow we build a small house while having two of the golems fell wood.Also how much food rations do we have?
>>834692Order golems to gather stones while we experiment on our rock-rake-pitchfork spider thingy.
>>834706If you're willing to sustain yourself with jerky, nuts and dried fruit, you'll have three more days after today until you run out.>>834708>>834706>>834703>>834700Calling it for brick gathering. If we're practicing magic, what would you like to focus on? You're half-decent at geomancy and you obviously know plenty of golemetry, so you can try to practice those.You're also proficient in runic, the language of enchanting. Normal people need to study it, but you're a wizard, so most of the words you know just sort of... manifested themselves in your mind as you focused. Golemetry is derived from this, so your advancement in it will plateau if you don't expand your library.Finally, you know the bare minimum of telepathy, with which you direct your golems, though that might be hard to practice without people around. And since you're a wizard, you can just pick whatever basic aspect of magic and try to get better at that.I will be asking for rolls for this.
>>834720Practice geomancy. Can't hurt. Work on flattening a foundation out for our tower maybe.
Rolled 95 (1d100)>>834724Derp
>>834720Geomancy does sound good>>834727Especially with that roll.
>>834730Okay, but I'm not pairing rolls with votes. We're doing 1d100, best of three.
Rolled 39 (1d100)>>834733Well, I'll put in a roll then, hoping for that 100.
Rolled 81 (1d100)>>834720Geamancy is fine for now, we can start learning plant magic later. Do we know that you can trade meat products with beans to keep healthy?
Rolled 69 (1d100)>>834733
>>834739*Geomancy
Rolled 27 (1d100)>>834720I kinda want to practice golemetry.But I guess geomancy works too.
Rolled 31 (1d100)>>834720Geomancy.Use it for construction and to make a small herb garden for botanical materials and vegetables.Helps with farmwork as well.
>>834685CUTE>>834720>Calling it for brick gathering. If we're practicing magic, what would you like to focus on? You're half-decent at geomancy and you obviously know plenty of golemetry, so you can try to practice those.>Jewel magic!
Writing for geomancy.
>>834744Forgot to add.We use it to reshape the rocks the golems brougt into propper bricks or even giant legos so we are safe from gians and need no binding matter.
You vaguely think at your golems, and sure enough, the three of them carry off to gather some stones. All three of them stop after a few steps, homing in on the same flat piece of rock right by your campsite, and try to lift it together, provoking a sigh and a facepalm from you. This would be a problem for a lesser golemeter, but you've constructed the arrays on their cores with greater flexibility than that. You focus your thoughts in their direction, giving them a series of instructions that should prevent them from interfering with each other. Satisfied after seeing them head off towards three separate objectives, you focus your attention to honing your newfound talents.At the middle of the clearing where your tower will eventually stand, you sit down, cross-legged, and put your fingertips to the ground. The trick to controlling the earth seems to be to assume the same attitude as stone. You must be steady, stubborn, unmoving. You have to center your soul, and the energy in your body with it, to be one uniform mass. So you close your eyes, form the image in your mind into a perfect circle, and focus.Then you remember, you actually need the earth to do something if you want to practice with it.You will the ground to move upwards, and slowly, with a rumble, you begin to rise up with the earth. Looking around, it seems like you've managed to raise a considerable area of terrain beneath you. In fact, it seems to be perfectly circular. But it isn't much more than you can usually do. Somewhat disappointed, you lower the ground back down. At least it seems to have marked the foundation area for the tower.You think about what you did wrong. Was your entire approach a faulty one? You don't think so; you're as good at shaping the earth as most people are after years of study, so you must have the basics down correctly. Not to mention that earth mages and stubbornness almost always come hand-in-hand. So it must be something you did just now. What was it? You sat down, assumed the right attitude, and you... You focused on a perfectly circular shape. Of course.You stand up, and choose a much smaller piece of ground to test your theory on. You repeat most of the process, but instead of a circle, you focus your mind into a square. And sure enough, a perfectly rectangular column rises. This explains why you've been having so much trouble shaping the earth, as opposed to merely flinging chunks of it around. Earthshaping, or perhaps shaping things in general, seems to be less about throwing magic at the object to alter it, and more about attuning yourself to it and making it mirror the image within you.
Excited about this new discovery, you head over to where your golems are piling the stones. In your absence, they seem to have gathered far more than you'd expected; at this rate, you'll have enough for one floor by tomorrow morning. Although, if you make the best of this lesson, that might not even matter. You pick out a few of the larger bricks and have them float in front of you. Focusing, you bring them together, and make the image of to in one. Sure enough, the stones join together seamlessly. Deciding to go a step further, you try to think of something more complex this time. You look down at your leg, and back at the stone, and you- you twist. Sure enough, slowly but surely, it warps itself into the general shape of a foot and lower leg. This will be useful.You go back to where you decided the base of the tower will be, and this time, you focus on all of the earth below you. You need this ground to be one solid whole, and you will it to be so. This time, the results are less than satisfactory. Some parts of it try their best to obey, while others remain inert or simply tremble in place without doing much else. You cease your efforts before you accidentally bring down the ledge. It seems earth, unlike stone, contains too many things to be shaped en masse. Worms, mulch, roots, and whatever else. Only the tiny bits of stone in it seems to have fused together, tiny masses of stone that flowed together and froze in the middle of an unnaturally fluid-like motion. It seems you'll need more practice.Still, what you learned here today will be invaluable in shaping stone for your tower, your golems, and anything else. And you're sure you'll be doing a lot of it soon. For now, though, it is time to rest as the sun has already gone down. You munch on some of the food left in your bag and prepare to go to sleep. Tomorrow, you'll be...>Having your golems gather clay for your tower.>Rebuilding the bodies of your golems into a more efficient shape.>Re-tasking your golems to gather wood.>Taking a golem with you to explore the area, or a mineshaft.>Creating more cores so you have more golems.>Laying back and reading a book.>Exploring your surroundings on your own.>Hunting and gathering food.>Write-in
>>834837Rebuild one, have one gather clay and one gather wood. If we have time practice shaping wood.
>>834850This + if the rebuilding is fast, we can send that one to gather food, while we practice.
>>834837>>Laying back and reading a book.Come oooon, this is our first vacation in like, ever. It's okay to kick back a bit!
>>834854True
About reshaping: The first one will take the longest as you figure things out, replicating the task will then be easier.I don't even know why I didn't write in an option to split up your manpower though, that seems like a reasonable thing to do.
>>834837>>Rebuilding the bodies of your golems into a more efficient shape.Full on copy our own body with shaped stone.But only make one for now.This is an exercise for our earth magic and golem construction.Have the other two gather wood.We need it for construction, firewood and simple enchanted tools we can sell to nearby vilages.Look for a water source after finishing the golem and redirect a small part of the stream to be near your tower for water supply.
>>834854>>834879Wait a second.... Golems don't need to sleep... HAVE THEM COLECT FOOD WHILE WE SLEEP!
>>834869I think we want a some walls, a roof and a fireplace before relaxing
>>834899They were collecting rocks while you were sleeping.Writing for gathering clay and wood while you reshape a third golem, unless there are any objections.
>>834899We need to order them telepatically.
>>834900We have a nice clearing, we have sun, we have fresh air... We're good!Plus, building the tower is going to take a while.
The next day, after you have your little breakfast, you command your golems to halt as they arrive by the pile of stones one by one. The first one you send off into a wooded area to knock down some trees and bring them to the campsite. You make a mental note to reorder it later during the day to debranch the logs and cut them into a generally useful shape. It shouldn't take much of your time to give it some sort of bladed appendage to help it achieve this task. For now, it will do to simply bash the trees down near the roots with its giant trunks of stone.The second golem you want to task to gather some clay, though you aren't entirely sure where you would find a deposit. You do recall passing by a stream further down the mountain where you last refilled your waterskin, and decide to try your luck there. You locate a shorter path down there and notice that it doesn't take you very long to reach it, which you note is quite convenient for you. Certainly, this was a much better location to pick then the dry, volcanic wastes you considered to go to. You and your golem then follow it upstream in the hopes of locating a clay deposit, and sure enough, you come across a point where it flows right past a muddy slope beneath a fallen tree. You have your golem dig through the mud while you help with your magic. You notice that manipulating mud is quite different than working with earth or stone, as it quivers strangely in your arcane grasp when you try to hold it afloat... Perhaps because of the water? Regardless, you soon hit paydirt. You have your golem remove mud for another minute to reveal the slimy brown substance, and then order it to pile on as much of it as possible by cupping it between its arms and its torso. Chunks of it slide off onto the ground on your way back, and you think about ways to equip it with some sort of tool to carry the clay properly, but decide it isn't worth your time. Your golems are big enough that you should have more than enough clay gathered by the end of the day. You only hope the clay is workable enough for your purposes.
As the golem leaves to gather more, you are left alone with your third golem, lying prone on the ground. You look at its body; it is crooked, lopsided, clumsy in its movements, and generally aesthetically displeasing. Really unrepresentative of your talents, to the point of being a minor point of embarrassment. You decide to fix this problem. Fetching the stone leg you shaped yesterday, you model your own golem's lower leg into a larger copy of it. Minus the foot. You wave your hand, and a stone brick lifts itself up from the pile and floats towards you. You shape it into a suitable, balanced sole for your servant to stand on, somewhat larger than a real foot would be, as you think it would help its balance. You carve the appropriate runes where the two pieces would meet, and pour your energy into them. Sure enough, they pull each other like magnets, the foot socketing right into the leg, and when you have it rotate around, you confirm that they fit each other quite perfectly.You move on to its other leg, replicating much of the process with ease, but the rest of its body proves to take a bit longer. It's not very difficult to shape the stone itself, but you keep altering its design as one thing or another displeases you about it. First you make the upper legs longer because they look too short to you compared to their lower halves, then you keep altering the position of the core within the torso, not sure if it should be at the center, more towards the back which would make it protected from frontal harm but vulnerable from behind, or lodged at the front of its chest, where it just looks better. You end up leaving it at the center, giving the golem a false core on its chest and a pronounced, rectangular spinal column, both of which make the body thicker just around the core, and give it an artistic flair.You move on to the shoulders and the arms, leaving them disproportionately long and thick, but giving it actual hands with actual fingers, crafting each individual section of its fingers and attaching them with the runes of arcane tethering. Now it can hold objects and make gestures. And finally, you fetch another two bricks to give it a head, for no reason other than to make it look more human. It takes you some time to mold it into a proper human shape; you find it hard to visualize the entirety of a face in your mind, down to its every detail. Every little thing you get wrong ends up making the entire face look... wrong, in a creepy way. At the end, you give up on molding it as a whole and simply carve away at the stone magically until it looks like a proper face. You note with some concern that it looks a bit like your own, perhaps a bit more cylindrical and elongated.
You activate the golem. It begins to stand up, in a much more human fashion than it did before, which pleases you, but then begins to wobble and adjust its stance to remain balanced. You mutter a curse under your breath. It seems that while you got carried away making its body so prim and proper, you caused its balance to be a bit off. You suddenly feel very tired, almost dejected. With a downwards wave of your hand, you twist the shape of its body and shift its center of mass somewhat inelegantly, and it loses plenty of the detailing you did on it in the process. Unfortunately, you are past caring about that. You are too exhausted, both mentally and magically. This will do the work it needs to do.
It is late afternoon. You have a bunch of rocks, some clay and some wood. What do you do?>Write in (Too sleepy for listing options right now. Look above for ideas.)
>>8350051 golem goes for food, 1 goes looking for ore in the mines, while we start on the tower and have the last one asist. Retrieving some materials that we realize we lack, or just doing some heavy lifting.
>>834999>Add a tail for balance reasons to the modified golem..>Start with an outer wall, have the golems place the stone and you merge it with magic.>Shape the clay into utensils like knives, forks, platters and pots and bake it in fire.
>>835015Your golems don't really have the intelligence to identify things and report to you about it. You'll have to do scouting yourself.You could send it to hunt, but, uh, well, I guess that's a thing that's doable.
Two golems to help build tower before nightfall, fashion a stone blade or something for the other golem to help taking the branches and twigs off trees
>>835005>start by having the new golem help us build a wooden fram to the house, and magically fill it with rocks.
>>835005>RELAX
I seem to be running out of juice. I'm sorry to say that I'll be taking a break now. Please feel free to keep voting, ask questions, throw out ideas, accuse me of faggotry, or provide suggestions and criticism.Thanks for participating! I'll be back before this time tomorrow.
>>835060Think through your magic system and have us manage our resources.This isn't a civ so we shouldn't get skills beyond the beginner ones as easily.
>>835022Seconding this
>>835074Thirding
Have the golems work the wood as support pillars (at least the biggest of the logs so you aren't using all of it), then proceed to have then construct the walls with stones, and connecting the pillars. The clay could be used as the glue of the tower, used to keep everything together. Whatever left over materials that were too small for the tower construct is up for debate
>>835005>Instead of giving the golems well sculpted faces, draw really silly ones on them using charcoal>Test a theory in the back of our head; that maybe having our first creation (familiar, hint hint) will increase our power somehow.
>>835022Don't need a tail, we already rebalanced it. Utensils and plates aren't really required right now either. Most of our food is eaten out of a pouch.I think most a unanimous on starting the tower up. A roof over our heads for the night would be nice. The stars are nice to look at, but the bugs are hell
>>835119Although instead of a tail we could make the clay hauler a quadruped and give is a trough to fill with clay to keep it from spilling so much each time.
>>835119We're almost out of food so reshaping at least 1 golem into something that could hunt would be pretty good. Lighter with longer legs. At least enough to chase down a dear. If nothing else it wont get tired so the golem can start chasing, the dear runs away. The golem catches up when the dear rests, the dear runs away again, but a shorter distance, since its still tired. Rince, repeat until we have food. That or make a hand cannon for one of them that pistons out a bolt at a target.
>>835217Or we could use hunting as an opportunity to practice our telepathy on the wild animals. Magic progression, and that could potentially make getting food a lot easier if we succeed
>>835222Also, progressing in telepathy may allow us to give our golems a more complicated string of commands since we already use basic telepathy to control them
I like this quest.
>>835271I like this quest too
I just thought something... Why not build a giant golem that act as mobile tower?
>>835318I'd imagine we aren't nearly proficient enough at magic to do that, but I do like the idea
>>835318Magnum Opus project, we need to work out shaping and design on something that large while also figuring out how to suspend the internal rooms in a gyroscope so that the movements of the golem don't fuck up our work and research materials.Calling it now, entry and exit is done through a slowly extending ramp placed suspiciously close to the groin area, no one has the heart to bring it up to the obviously crazy wizard and the wizard only wants one person to bring it up so he can finally make the perfect pun
>>835329Oh my God! Our end goal is to live inside pic related.
>>835414Perfect, now how to fit everything around the nuclear superweapon
>>835421The core inside the head, and a hollow torso for us to live in. We don't really NEED nuclear superweapons... for now.
>>835318>>835325>>835329>>835414>>835421>>835455We need the dick ramp
>>835553This will be our Manum Opus. Our Eiffel tower. Our Pieta. Our ninth symphony.Our Legacy.
>>835553Almost absolute perfection, needs a hover platform
Honestly we could probably recreate a crude computer, if we somehow managed to make hundreds of thousands of tiny constructs.
>>835553
what if we modify each golem for their tasks? Ideas for specialized designs for each role?Lumberjack>Humanoid design>Long arms with massive stone ax head for one hand>Large claw for the other>Two rings on back in a line>Plate at base of torsoMain idea is to have the golem chop down trees and place them in the "quiver", then move like a gorilla for balance to walk back with the load.Pack Mule/Clay digger>Quadruped base body>Two scoop shaped hands on arms extending from front shoulders>Hollow body to store stuff in>Legs based on (heavily reinforced) deerPersonal Assistant>Human body>Four arms>Custom made hands for different applications>Better core for better AII'd like to make a Defender too, once we get the right materials. Little crossbow golems would be nice, to act like autoturrets for our tower, or ones made to function like staff slings. If we can get the weapon golems to have a good AI, we can have them shoot any wildlife they see to provide us with a steady supply of fresh meat
>>836557That's a nice idea.I think it would be a good use of our time.
Morning, guys. I'm not writing quite yet. Just here to say I'm not bailing on you. The quest will continue later today, when I'm awake and myself again.So if I'm getting this right, the consensus is somewhere around having one guy start laying bricks, and one guy to rework the wood you have, while you remain here to help with building the tower. I guess the third golem will help too.There is some push towards specializing the golems, but I do need some consensus. You'll also need to lay a foundation first, which you'll get started on now. It shouldn't take too long; brute force is something you can do well due to being a true wizard and not just a regular old mage.
>>835708I think we can wait on the personal assistant until we have better materials to work with. No use making him outta stone or wood when we'll have access to metals and more soon enough.The clay one is a good idea, but I don't know is he's necessary. If we need a bunch more clay, I'm down for it.Supporting the lumberjack golem.
>>837451>Supporting lumberjack golem
>>837450This quest looks cool. I'll back the lumberjack golem.
I uh. I've already began writing slowly. I'm already done with the part where you modify a golem to cut wood and it's not quite to the specs as described in >>836557 but it's halfway there. What I can do is lock-in one action for the next day to properly upgrade it into a quivered, clawed form. I hope that's okay.I'm really glad at least some people like this quest! I hope I won't disappoint you all. The post count is already way higher than I'd anticipated based on how quests generally start out around here.One thing I didn't mention before is that you also have the absolute basics of telekinesis down, telekinesis being generating pure kinetic force to do whatever. You're pretty clumsy, but you pack a lot of power, so you could probably cave in a ribcage or two if a bunch of goblins decided you're easy prey, should you feel merciful enough to not make them sink into the ground and suffocate.Anyway, that's enough rambling. I'll get back to writing now.
>>837501When somebody comes up with a semi-original idea and has decent writing skills to back it up, people will flock to you. /qst/ is absolutely starved for good quests. I'm just thankful it isn't another fanfiction anime one
>>837510It's not that original. I just wanted to run a quest about an individual person who can, if the players ever feel like, work on the scale of a civ, while still technically remaining a quest.the "decent writing" part of that sentence totally made me blush though
You remember the note you made to yourself earlier, to modify your woodcutting golem to work the trees it felled into workable lumber. As it arrives to the construction site to deposit another tree, you think vaguely in its direction, and it stops, standing at attention to receive your next orders. It leans a bit to the left in this state, as this is one of the cruder servants you made earlier, lacking in any grace or human semblance. You correct this just a bit by having its left leg grow taller and thinner to match its right counterpart in length, while its arm-chunks do the same. You also have the core sink into the boulder that serves as its torso- no point in leaving it out and exposed. It's still ugly, but not to the point of embarrassing you. This is the best you can accomplish within a single minute. It'll have to do.You wave two stone bricks over to your position, and as they float your way, they slowly melt together, growing thinner on one side until most of its weight is deposited along its spine. The edge you decided as the blade keeps thinning and elongating, until finally it resembles an oversized axe head, much longer and straighter in shape than the hatchets you used to fell trees with your uncle a few times. After all, this tool also needs to serve as a blade or a saw of sorts, to strip bark and free workable planks from the raw logs. You deactivate your golem at this point, and to your delight, it remains standing even without the power of the core to actively keep it balanced. Now you're getting somewhere with these.Without even actively thinking about it, you've carved the appropriate runes onto the axe and the golem's "palm." At this point, it hits you just how absurdly routine this feels to you already. A mere few weeks ago, you didn't know anything about runes or golems. And one day, for no apparent reason, the runes corresponding to the shapes and substances of objects you looked at simply pushed themselves forward into your consciousness, as though you had always known about them, somewhere in the back of your mind. By now, these runes are as natural to you as it is to know how to eat and breathe. Perhaps... Perhaps you shouldn't really blame people for being afraid of you.
You push these idle musings aside for now; you have work to do. A transfer of power from some runes to another, and the three lumps of stone that served as its fingers fall to the ground, the magic keeping them together gone. In their place, the axe-blade is lifted afloat as if held by an invisible hand, dragged by the point you carved the tether rune. It fastens itself to the golem's arm, and you finally activate your new lumberjack. It nearly falls to one side immediately, the commands you stored in its core still unadjusted to its new form, but you correct this in a short moment, and it stops itself from falling. It was a more literal kind of "fast thinking" you did there just now, mostly instinctual, piecemeal thoughts far more vague and alien than, say, a coherent internal monologue would be. Like the runes, they come to you naturally.With the appropriate commands in place, the headless lumberjack heads over to the the trees it piled a few steps from your position and begins to cut off the bottom part of a trunk, where it bashed the free from its roots, rendering a small portion splintered apart and unusable. Afterwards, it'll remove the branches, cut it on the other side neatly, remove the bark and so on. You make a small adjustment to its parameters to keep the branches in a pile since you'll need some sticks later, for the campfire if nothing else. The discarded wood bits also have some promising clusters of tinder and kindling among them. You note this, but the subject already bores you and makes you wish you could just conjure any damn flame you need already, instead of wasting precious minutes building a bonfire like a... Well, like a little farmer boy on a camping trip.You move on to the next task at hand: clearing the ground from dirt and weeds and turning the bedrock into a proper flat foundation for your tower. You're sure there's a proper way to lay a foundation, but frankly you don't know anything about construction or architecture at all. Well, if the townsfolk are to be believed, you aren't a human, but a wizard. So you opt to do things the wizard way, and not the human way.You order your two idle golems to start digging into the ground with their sizable hands. The crude one is understandably terrible at this job, but the proper stone golem you spent the time to improve proves far more adept at it than you expected, with its oversized palms and the proportionally absurd strength it moves them with. Soon enough, you have a pretty deep trench in the dirt, marking a small part of the circular border where the walls of your tower will stand. But despite taking over a quarter-hour to dig out this much, you've only achieved to reveal the tiniest fraction of the bedrock; you need to expose the entire surface of the circle and you don't even have its borders yet. This is just as well. You were only beginning, after all.
You descend into the meager trench and face the ledge, where the other side of your tower will stand, the space your tower would occupy between you and it. A bit precarious, perhaps, but the idea of your tower being mostly unapproachable from one side appeals to you, and you think it will look rather striking. You also think you can fortify the ground below you with your magic to prevent any rock slides. Then, before you descend into even more musings about the future, you assume a wide, rigid stance, your feet in line with your shoulders, and you pull your arms back, palms facing forward. And then, slowly, you push.There is a mild rumble as the ground before you shifts and begins to move. No, the rumble isn't mild, but it is deep. You'd describe it as moderate. Actually, now, it is somewhat loud, and it is joined by the sound of birds flying away and critters hopping out and away from nearby underbrush. But you aren't worried. This is your power. You keep pushing, this time making sure to really flex all of those metaphorical muscles you haven't been using much lately. You muster all the power you can, and take a step forward while slowly moving your palms forward. The sound of earth rolling off the edge of the cliff, a sound you hadn't noticed before, rises steadily until it is louder than the rumbling of the stones grinding against each other. As the earth retreats from you, you take one more step forward, and then another. The sound is nearly deafening now, but you ignore it and extend your hands, both physically and metaphysically, fully forward. The earth in front of you responds by nearly exploding in a wave away from you, rolling off the cliff in a fearsome sight, the sound of trees being crushed below echoing throughout the mountain with the rest. And now that you think about it, probably killing a large number of animals somewhere down there. But as the ledge itself is fully revealed to you, now nearly free of loose soil down to the solid mass of rough stone, you can't even feel the slightest bit of remorse about a bunch of rabbits and squirrels who never would have done a single important thing in their entire lifetimes. All you can feel now is the great rush of satisfaction from a job well done, and from finally having had the chance to exert some real power over your surroundings.
You walk down towards the ledge. Somewhat to your disappointment, nearly half of it was made of soil, the solid ground too low compared to the rest of the revealed stone to be a proper foundation. You suppose not everything in life will fall perfectly into your lap. Looking back at your golems to make sure they were unharmed by your recent feat, you confirm that both your raw materials and your golems are fine and still carrying on with the task of reworking trees and shoveling away what little soil you left behind. The crude, unmodified golem you retask to gather stone as it wasn't helping much with what it was doing and you can always use more stone. You then sit down near the edge, and as you did yesterday while practicing geomancy, you will the ground to rise up, with the proper mental images this time. The rumbling resumes, much to your chagrin, and your ears start hurting again. You hadn't even noticed they were doing that before. Just how loud were you?It takes you more than a few hours, but soon, you have a perfectly flat, roughly circular piece of ground, with only a minor amount of dirt on it, reinforced with even more stone you pulled from below to pack tighter into the foundation. You also have quite the ache in your legs from sitting cross-legged and unmoving for such a long time, so you stand up somewhat wobblingly and try to shake off the pins and needles with a few squats and thrusts. It occurs to you that you don't much mind working your body physically. Perhaps you're used to it from working on the farm. It clashes somewhat with the image every young adult has in their mind, of that stereotypically old and hunched over wizard, but you suppose you never received a manual of wizardry that said you had to grow old and decrepit. Hell, you wonder if you even have to grow old at all.The sun has already set. You aren't really sure how late exactly it is in the night, but you're feeling a bit pumped up from what you just did. Dirty, too, as almost everything near you is covered in an earthy coating from what you kicked up earlier. Your woodcutter is already done with its task, standing idly near a neat stack of readied lumber, a triangular pile of branches and a complete mess of discarded plant matter off to the side. A bird stands atop its torso, where its head would be if it had one, and shits a white liquid on your handiwork. Meanwhile, our last remaining unmodified stone golem is still busy gathering rocks from the surroundings, by now taking much longer as it has to travel further and further to find anything that meets your specifications. And finally, your more refined servant has been re-tasked after it finished hauling away the dirt it dug up, now stacking the brick-like rocks neatly on top of each other in a perimeter around the solid ground you shaped, as a basis for a wall.
You suppose you could try to turn in for now and continue tomorrow.>You may not feel tired, but you've been at it a while. Go to bed anyway.>Sleep is for the weak. You are the opposite of that. You'll keep working. >>That lumber golem could use improvements.>>Stay awake and do something else. (Write-in)>While you do that, your golems can keep doing what they're doing.>Or you can retask them. (Write-in)Phew.
>>837564>That lumber golem could use improvements.>While you do that, your golems can keep doing what they're doing.General improvements, I'd say. Power, balance, and capacity.
>>837564>>Do some exercise, get some endurance>>While you do that, your golems can keep doing what they're doing.lets start our musclewizardom early
>>837564Well that was something else. How are we on food? Also I'd say it's the golem hauling stone that could use some work.
>>837564How long would it take to make more cores?
>>837585It'll be midnight soon. You're set for the day after that, and one more day.>>837587They take several hours each, on average. It depends on the complexity and scale of the core, and the body that will be controlled by it. For example, your three stone golems are simple enough that they can't grow much bigger, have more arms, or be non-humanoid, and they each took around three hours of concentrated, mentally intense work.
>>837592Then maybe we should>>835217>>835222Also I think we should set the golems to work, go to sleep and explore the mine tomorw. We probably should start gathering metal.
>>837600Maybe we'll find gems for cores... or goblins we could practice telepathy on.
>>837570>lumber golem upgrade>>837583>work it baby>>837585>stone golem upgrade>>837600>sleepWe're tied for what you'll do, though most seem to want the remaining golems to continue as they were.
>>837620TIE BREAKER. Stone golem upgrade then sleep while the golems work.
Like it was said, our golem cores are kinda simple right now. I'd prefer to not get to carried away. I'm down for exploring the mine tomorrow, but not too deep right yet.Also:>Name thyself (and spidergolem)
>>837688 a proper, wizard name, not our old farm boy name.
>>837688You can name your golems if you wish. I had a bit planned for your own name that'll come up a bit later, if that's okay.>>837633Forgot to say that I was away eating for a while and now I'm writing for upgrading the crude stone golem. You'll have to be quick if anyone wants to suggest anything more specific.
>>837700I'm fine with waiting to learn our own name.Voting on our spidergolem to be named:>Virgil>Reginald >Some kind of cringeworthy rock/spider pun
>>837707Give him claws and name him Ricky Wilson.
You decide you can work some more. The state of that last golem is still a sorry sight. Before you begin, you order your lumberjack golem to resume woodcutting, making the proper alterations to the flexible portion of its core to make use of its axe to do the felling, and the one with the face you have gather rocks in place of the one you're about to do modifications to. You also change its commands a bit, allowing it to haul larger and less strictly-shaped stone. It was getting a bit inefficient to haul only small chunks when it can carry bigger things easily, especially since a lot of those bigger boulders are much closer to your present location.Getting back to the task at hand, you deactivate the golem after having it sit down so it doesn't tumble over as you work on it. You have to, as this one is exceptionally misshapen, even in comparison to how the other two were before. As usual, you begin to alter the form of each section of stone individually, the solid chunks seemingly melting into their new forms under your power, flowing as readily as the wax atop a lit candle. As you've already done this exact type of work before, you find yourself slipping into that familiar feeling of performing a mindless, routine task, freeing the majority of your consciousness to work on something else. As the left shoulder shifts its shape and sheds off some of the unnecessary mass on it, you focus your attention to the right shoulder, and begin to work on that one simultaneously. The image on your mind you had for the one shoulder remains intact, preserved somewhere out of your immediate attention as the stone changes its form to imitate it, and you form a separate, mirror image of it and concentrate on the right shoulder. Sure enough, it works, and you watch yourself do two separate tasks with no real loss in efficiency.
This isn't a real surprise to you. During your previous life as the son of a farmer, you and the other lowborn children would trade stories, especially scary ones during nighttime. One such story you've been told was about an infamous wizard by the name of Lywyn, sometimes called the patron saint of murder. It was a long time ago, and you don't remember the entire story, but the part that really suck with you was the act of him walking in a crowded square in civilian clothing, where he used his dark, necromantic powers to instantly slay half the people in his immediate surroundings, and then, without anyone noticing, reanimating their empty husks as his undead servants in the blink of an eye. They then proceeded to attack and murder most of the people in the other half of that crowd, but that part isn't really relevant. The relevant part is, if your instincts about it are correct, that reanimating a corpse is something you'd have to really focus on to achieve, and yet, Lywyn did it to dozens of people before their corpses even began to fall to the ground. Thus, as a fellow wizard, you should easily be able to multitask the way you're doing right now, and to a much greater degree. You decide to test this theory, while noting that you've indeed moved on from the golem's shoulders to its upper arms with little conscious effort.As a pair of proper biceps begin to emerge from the rough stone, you focus on some of the stone slabs on the pile a few steps away from where you are, and they begin to float your way. Four of them, you count. You'll need this many for what you're planning. You take care not to interrupt your ongoing work on the golem, and have the slabs pull themselves together into one continuous shape, and they start turning into one long, thin stick. You need the lower half to have more mass for this, so the stone obeys your will, and begins to thin at one end as its mass shifts away. Now, you thin that end as well, into a cylindrical form, depositing the excess mass more towards the middle, until it becomes a proper grip the size of your golem's big, good, strong hands. Moving further up, you fashion a short crossguard, mostly for show as your golems are far from being able to engage in any real swordplay, and you keep moving upwards from there, strengthening the spine of the blade as the edges sharpen, and finally, the top of it forms a point. You're left with unused stone which flows from the point into a separate, round mass, and you're left with a mostly classical sword, just short of being a zweihander. You golem is easily strong enough to wield it, of course, and you think this gives it a good advantage in reach and heft.
That makes you suddenly remember the golem you're simultaneously working on, and you look at the arms you'd been shaping. Well, you messed up. The mental image for the sword you were making seems to have melded somewhat with the image of the arms you were keeping in a corner of your mind, and they ended up having two bumps sticking out of them, and being flatter and thinner towards the lower end. You quickly work on fixing that, turning them back into proper upper arms while you ponder what went wrong. It doesn't take you too long to realize that you concentrated too much on the sword. It seems you can do several tasks at once as long as it is something you've done before, simple enough that it won't occupy your full attention. Though you're sure you can do better than this if you tried harder, you can't really tell how much you'll eventually be able to accomplish at once. After all, that tale about Lywyn surely must be a gross exaggeration. Such a thing wouldn't really be possible... Would it?After a while, you've finished modifiying your golem. Like the first one you modified, it has a pointless head, an overall human shape, and stands nearly two meters tall. Its torso had a lot of extra mass, so you combined that with what was left over from "forging" the sword to grow a stone sheath attached to its back. You reactivate its tethers, and then its core, and as it stands, you command it to pick up the sword and sheathe it on its back. And as it does so, you once again take a minute to marvel at the imposing figure of your creation. If you were to guess, the sight of this hulk pulling out its humongous blade and approaching its quarry menacingly would cause any man but the most foolish ones to back right off.You shiver. It is definitely past midnight by now, the crescent moon is out and in clear view, and the air is quite cold. You are a bit sleepy, but you're also somewhat giddy. You imagine you could lie in your bedroll and rest quite contently, or continue the work that gives you so much fulfillment, like nothing before ever did. Both of those things would be fine with you.>It's late, go to sleep already.>You're not my mom! I'm staying up and...>>Exploring the mountain or the mine.>>Crafting more cores.>>Working on the tower.>>Upgrading the lumberjack golem.>>Practicing with magic.>>Something else. (Write-in)
>>837779Craft a core and go to sleep. In the morning use the core to make a fourth golem and go to the mine with all 4. If all goes well we can leave our new golem there to gather ore and other goodies.
>>837779>>It's late, go to sleep already.
>>837779>It's late, go to sleep already.
>>837779>It's late, go to sleep already.What are your guys' thoughts on redirecting the stream to closer to our tower?
>>837835Wait on second thought, I'm starting to get the impresion that we might no longer need sleep. We only need it when we actually work ourselves out. Or am misreading this.
>>837844You're definitely somewhat sleepy. You're mostly kept awake by excitement. That is not to say you can't do away with the need to sleep eventually, but you aren't even close to it yet.
>>837779>Practicing with magic.
>>837851Well then we should turn in for the night. I just got the impresion that us not really needing to sleep yet was you hinting at us no longer needing sleep at all. Completely misread that one.
>>837779>Sleep.>Tommorrow use the golems to herd some rabits into a stone pen and keep them as livestock.
>>837870Herding rabbits sounds like a bitch of a task for three huge stone golems.
>>837871You can say with 100% confidence that your golems don't even have half the speed and dexterity they'd need to herd rabbits. You'd probably have a much easier time having the ground do it for you.
>>837871Just use them to make noise in the direction zou dont want the rabbits to run to.Actually scratch that.Try to find mountain goats or wild boars.
>>837877Do you think the river side town would be willing to buy excess lumber in exchange for food?
>>837888That's something you should ask them. It's possible. You don't know how they'd react to hearing a wizard's moved in a few days' walk away, but you suppose you can make up a different story if you want to hide it from them.
As you fail to stifle a yawn, you decide to go to sleep already. It is sure to be past midnight by now, and you can tell that your sleeplessness is having an effect on your mind and your body, so it'll definitely impact your performance if you did any more wizarding. You check to see if your golems are doing as ordered, and after assigning the one you just worked to gather more stone, you walk back over to your tent and backpack and grab a handful from one of your remaining pouches of food. You don't much pay attention to what exactly it is you're stuffing in your face, because you've stopped trying to taste anything that comes out of your bag some time ago. It sustains you, and you suppose that's all you need them to do, even if you severely doubt its nutritional value.As you lie down to sleep, you give off a satisfied sigh. It is quite peaceful up here. The air is crisp, but not unbearably so, and you're surrounded by nature around you in all directions. The view from the cliff isn't half bad either, and you think it'll look even better from further up, when your tower actually starts being a tower. You do miss human interaction somewhat, but what you got in exchange for it seems to more than fill its absence. Even the during the most routine tasks you carry out, you've found a way to make it more fun. Lighting a campfire now pulls your mind towards the workings of the fire within, and lets you concentrate on wondering about how you would go about generating it with your own magical power. The moon makes you wonder if it really is a living thing to be worshipped like the Gamberrans believe, or an orb of silvery liquid as claimed by the academy of Tinkerton. It makes you ponder the metaphysical implications of these things, and theorize about its origins endlessly. Even the clouds make you wonder how you would go about controlling them, and through them, the weather itself, and what it would be like to control water in all three of its forms. All these things, and more, are possibilities for you now, and the focus of your potential, the ability to enchant a mass of material in a three dimensional, impossibly complex fashion to form the core of an automaton, a self-operating being that looks and operates as you wish it to be, perhaps eventually performing some of those wondrous magical tasks you were thinking about before, in your name and design.
Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. We should finish a tower and explore the land before we alert the nearby village. We don't need to redirect the stream and doing so might be hard on the ecosystem.I'm in favor of sleeping and exploring the mines tomorrow
You don't notice that you've fallen asleep, as is usually the case, and your train of thought turns into a series of non-visual images. This time, your dreams resemble a memory. You are sitting in the spacious living room of your house, on the floor. The rug beneath you is blue and round, and a fireplace crackles before you. A sword, old and chipped, hangs above it, and you note that it looks a bit like the one you made for your golem earlier today. There are some books before you, and you pick them up and look at their covers one by one, trying to decide what to read. Suddenly, you are gripped with horror as you realize that all of the words on them are gibberish, and you can't read anything inside them either. You throw them away, and now, the only thing before you is the fireplace. Through your teary eyes, you look at the dancing flames. And the flames, they look right back at you, through your eyes, and right into your mind. And they pull out a word that burns its way out of your skull and rests in front of you. It is fire. Not written in letters, but in one symbol, flowing gracefully, and yet somehow with sharpness and violence, and what it represents is clearer to you than anything you've ever seen before.Distraught, you stand up decide to look at something else. The walls, made from treated wood, are similarly talking to you, a single letter with a clear meaning telling you what they are made of, how many individual trees went into their making, their size and shape. Strange, curved lines surround the letters, touching none of them, but still connecting them together, every little nuance in their curves spelling out the relationships between them, to make up for the lack of a syntax in this language of devils. You look away. The letters don't go away, only multiplying in number the more things you look at; the sword, the rug, the chair your father is sitting on all silently shouting the nature of their existence to you. You make a sound. Your father turns to look at you.Countless lines and letters explode out from every inch of his exposed skin, too numerous to even fit within your field of vision, and yet they do. You can see each individual character, telling you how many hairs there are on any given area of his skin, the number of layers his flesh is composed of, the structure of his eyes and how it is made to capture the light, and what that light is. Symbols within symbols within symbols to tell you what it sees, and the runes that make up you and the things around you, overwhelming and being overwhelmed by thousands upon thousands of... Runes. They are runes.You failed to comprehend much of anything you saw, then. Your father asked you what was wrong, and you blinked. The world returned to normal. And as scared as you were but a moment ago, the absence of the runes left you feeling worse than that, somehow. You wake up.
Sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you peer outside and see that the shadows are much shorter than usual. You seem to have overslept a bit, likely because you slept quite late yesterday. You crawl out of your tent and stretch your limbs free of that strange, relaxed feeling that leaves you sluggish and numb. Over to the side, you see one of your golems leaving to gather some stones, walking away from a pile of stones much taller than you by now. You probably have more of it than you can work with in a day. The same could be said about your piles of sticks and lumber, and the clay from earlier is also sitting, now dried out by the sun. Thinking about what to do next, you look at your surroundings a bit.Somewhere up the mountain, a large shadow moves. You hearts skips a beat as you freeze where you are, panicking for a brief moment. You turn and look up. There is a giant lizard there, with great wings on its back, and a frill on its head like a mohawk, standing on four legs, its head raised high, and definitely looking down at you. The silver gleam of its scales get in your eyes as its tail sways lazily from one side to the other. Its stance is rather feline, like a massive mountain lion ready to pounce at an elephant and break its spine with a single swipe of its claw. And its magical presence is... significant. You're not very good at sensing things yet, but you're still surprised that you didn't notice it just from the weight of its reserves alone. Sloppy, you think to yourself.This could be a very old drake, a magical beast possessing formidable power and even more formidable greed. Or it could be a fairly young dragon, something much, much worse than that. You haven't really seen either of those things before, so you can't be sure.There is a voice... No, a thought, that radiates from the creature in your direction."So, you are awake.">PANIC PANIC RUN AWAY>This is your goddamn territory, crush its face with a rock.>"Um... Hello, Mr. Lizard, Sir. How are you doing today?">Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner.>Write-in
>>838005>>Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner."So I am. Good morning."
>>838005>Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner.
>>838005>The only sensible option on the list.
>>838026It's also one that requires a roll, if (or when) it ends up what most anons vote for.
>>838005>Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner.A very good morning to you too
>>838005> Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner.OP wouldn't just kill us off after all this... would he?
>>838054... would he?The dragon is actually the real protagonist of the quest, the wizard was a decoy
>>838005>>838032>Try to keep your wits and parlay in an intelligent manner.>requires a rollWell we're screwed
I guess I'll call it here. Roll me 1d100, best of 3.DC 65 to remain fully dignified. I think I'll have varying degrees of success, in increments of 15.>>838061Good luck :^)
>>838061One hell of a prologue
Rolled 8 (1d100)>>838067I'm scared of everyone being mad at me if I fail.. Bur I'm doing it anyway.
Rolled 28 (1d100)>>838067>Inb4 8 is our highest roll
>>838070SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!
Rolled 69 (1d100)>>838067
Rolled 85 (1d100)>>838067Roll to seduce silver dragon
>>838075Oh mercy. Saved by the bell.
>>838076Shame you were just a tad late. Our dragon waifu was not meant to be
>>838075Average success. Writing.
>>838084I feel like average is our best bet actually, shows that we're more composed than the average human he runs into but he probably knows we're a young wizard and would expect us to be made of sterner stuff.Let me guess we woke him up with our earth moving projects
You remind yourself to remain calm, now. The dragon, and you believe it is indeed a young dragon, spoke to you in a fairly cordial manner. That probably means it doesn't want to eat you, because you don't usually talk to the things you eat before you do so... Right? Sure, you can't really say you're familiar with the workings of the draconic mind, but it doesn't make sense for it to have stood there, waiting who know how long for you to awaken, to greet you from afar. So you decide to respond in kind."Yes, I am awake. Good morning."That probably would have been a lot more impressive if you responded telepathically like the dragon did, but you've never really done that before and you've kind of been put on the spot here. You just wish your voice came out somewhat less... High-pitched, to put it one way. You really hope dragons aren't like dogs and can't smell fear. And you really hope its ability to speak in thoughts doesn't also mean it can read your mind, because you just compared it to a dog and have been referring to it as an "it" due to not being able to tell its gender."Oh, so you are one of the few of your kind capable of holding polite conversation. I am glad you did not flee from me like so many others, young one."With that statement, the dragon takes flight. After pushing itself in the air, it pulls its muscular legs back towards its underside, and spreads its considerable wings. If you thought they were large before, you think you should really run now. Its wingspan is easily as wide as it is long, from the tip of its snout to its tail, and connected to truly massive chest muscles that ripple beneath its scales as it keeps them spread to glide down towards your location. At this point, it casts a shadow over you, and you fail to stop yourself from taking a few steps back. Rapidly growing larger in your vision, the dragon reaches you within seconds and lands in front of you with a great thump. You shield your eyes from the dust it whips up as it folds its wings behind it and assumes a much less predatory stance than it did before. It lowers its head towards you."I am Eomatra the Silver. I come because I felt your magic yesterday. You are one the humans call a 'wizard,' if I am correct?"You affirm, and you hope you aren't doing so in a meek manner. You're doing your best to appear unshaken, but Eomatra's presence, not just physically, but also the oppressive aura that surrounds its (His? Her?) bulk is truly immense, perhaps even overwhelmingly so to the average man.
"Good. I am here to inform you that the opposite side of this mountain your kind calls 'Mardale' is my chosen territory. I ask that you keep the majority of your activities confined to your side, or somewhere else. There is little of interest for you there. Nothing that would be of value to a magic user, and none of those tunnels your kind sometimes digs into the mountainside. There are only trees, and animals, which you may not poach. And there is also my home, and my hoard within.""If you approach my home without permission, I will kill you."That's probably not a problem for you if the creature is indeed telling you the truth. You agree that you won't go hunting there, and neither will your servants. Eomatra responds to you with a slow nod and a slower blink of its blue eye, the one you can see as it has turned its face to the side, presumably to take a good look at you. It may be an intelligent being, but these gestures, the way its body moves, and the occasional sound of its loud breathing and nearly imperceptible growls that accompany its telepathic speech definitely mark it as a bestial creature. You've no doubt it isn't nearly as gentle with its prey as it is with you. A flattering thought, perhaps, but one immediately followed by the image of you trapped in its maw as it shakes its head from one side to another, making its row of giant, pointed teeth tear your flesh apart.You should probably choose your responses carefully.>Wish it a good day and end the conversation immediately so there are less chances for things to go very, very wrong.>Ask why it came to you, even though you didn't set foot in its territory so far.>Ask if it's a boy or a girl.>Propose an exchange of goods and/or services. (Write-in)>Aha! It fell into your trap! Have the ground swallow its feet so you can have a stone spike impale it by the throat.>Ask for the location of its lair, in case you need to contact each other.>Soil your pants.>Ask about something else (Write-in)
>>838185.ask why it came to you>propose to exchange goods and or servicesasking where its lairs is is a bad ideas as is asking its gender because it might become suspicious and or angered at us
>>838185>How will I recognize the borders of their territory and how would I go about contacting them should there be a need?
>>838196+1
>>838196Seconding this, also >Propose an exchange of goods and/or services. (Write-in)But more of a casual: "If you ever need some remodeling done at very competitive rates you know where to find me, we could turn your lair into a palace fit for your magnificence."
>>838196BackingAre we sure >>838209 won't insult it? As in insinuating that the dragon is living in someplace less than worthy?
>>838209agreed but let ask why it came to us as well
On another note we should make a farming golem, something smaller with more articulate hands to care for plants, maybe give it a "quiver" built into its back with various tools and seeds Maybe even a water jug its chest that has a hose appendage on its arm
>>838209I mean we are curently living in a tent. I don't think it would take kindly to us offering ourselves to remodel it's home when we ourselves have nothing to show as of yet. Thats ignoring the fact that we would have to enter it's lair to do the remodeling, wich it just said it will kill us for.
>>838185>May I know how to contact you when necessary um miss or mister?I am sory to be so ignorant of your magnificent species biology so please do not take offense.I am a wizard who focuses on the art of artifice so if you wish to trade with me in the future I'd be delighted.
>>838185>Secretly have your golems prepare to deliver a fruit basket and/or freshly baked pie to the dragon's lair.We're new neighbors, it's only polite.
>>838238>>838223Hence why I would keep it casual, we're not solidifying an agreement just saying there are services over here that they might be interested in. I'm sure she will keep an eye on what we're doing anyways and our progress with our living situation
>>838185>Ask for the location of its lair, in case you need to contact each other.
>>838196Backing this. Agreeing that asking or talking about it's lair at all is a bad idea though. Don't offer anything as of now, but ask about the borders
10/10 Quest.
Is it ded?
>>838794He went to sleep about that time yesterday. He probably fell asleep
>>839439I did.It wasn't even that late.I'm so sorry, guys.
>>840090Nah man is cool. Here is a question for you m8. What days do you have "off" or free where you can run for a period of like 5-8 hours at a time? Cuz i fully believe that you can do it mang, this one has actualy potential, at least IMHO.
>>840102My schedule is a primordial mass of exotic matter that never remains in the same state for more than a minute. My relationship with sleep is best described as oedipal. I'm afraid this is going to be one of those quests that blink in an out of existence on the whims of a cruel god.That said, I'll run as often and for as long as possible. It's oodles and kaboodles of fun.It's 5:51 in the morning where I am, and I have no work to do today. Give me a [insert period of time] to wake up, I'll start writing.
>>840152Yay!
>>840152ohhhhh snap! exciting news.
>>840152Yeah, I can live by the whims of a capricious God for this
You find yourself calming down in spite of the dozens of giant teeth so close to your face. It may be beastly in appearance, but it seems like Eomatra here is little more than a neighbor paying a courtesy visit after seeing a new face around. And the fact that this powerful being (a true, real life dragon!) decided that you're worth its time to acknowledge does stroke your ego in a good way. You compose yourself a bit, straightening up, and respond."I'm glad we've come to an agreement, Eomatra the Silver. But I must ask, how exactly will I know where the borders of your territory are?"Eomatra's head rises up in that slow, deliberate manner you're quickly coming to associate with it. The larger movements, like pouncing up to glide to your location are swift and powerful, but the way this dragon emotes is very, very slow. It's almost as though Eomatra likes keeping you in suspense as it looks to one side, as though mulling your question in its head. Or maybe a dragon operates on a much slower scale than a human. You think it's relatively young, but you've no doubt that it's been around since your grandparents were born, perhaps even their parents."When the sun sets this evening, the western slope of this mountain will be bathed in shadow, while the eastern side remains in the sun. That side, I will consider to be my own," the telepathic voice in your head declares. "We will split the mountain half-by-half. That is my claim. That, and a small portion of the flatlands below to my side." The dragon doesn't ask you. It merely assumes you will agree with its statement. It grates a little, if you're honest, but you don't voice any misgivings as none of it really impacts your plans. Mardale's west slope is much gentler, suitable for travel by someone who hasn't acquired the power of flight. Yet. You assent by nodding slowly with your whole upper body, sn an attempt to mimic Eomatra's own manner of gesturing."And should I wish to contact you, how would I do so, without knowing the location of your lair?"This prompts another slow gesture from the dragon, similar to the ponderous one that came after your previous question. As it moves even slightly, its silvery hide reflects the morning sun, occasionally getting in your eye. That, and the way it takes its time before it answers you, is really beginning to grate on your nerves now. It's almost as though Eomatra is making a show of considering your words, making you wait for an answer even if the answer is already in its head.
"From this location, head directly to the north and east, circling the mountain. You will go through a denser patch of trees, and emerge onto a patch of uneven ground. Continuing from there, the path should form a narrow, cliffside trail, which you will be able to navigate with your size." The tone of that last part gives it away. Eomatra is definitely talking down on you. You take care not to show your annoyance, since you suspect that the dragon is currently more powerful than you. "It will lead you to a cliff much narrower than this one, with a tall stone standing near its point. I believe it will be hard for you to miss, as it stands taller than any nearby trees. When you're at that stone, you may summon me by announcing my name, and your intent."With that statement, Eomatra turns around. "I believe our exchange here is concluded, young one. I wish you success in your endeavors." You respond in kind, wishing it a pleasant day or something along those lines, but by the time you come to the end of your statement, Eomatra is already flapping its wings to take off. You take a step back to avoid its tail as it turns away from you and launches itself in the air.As the shadow of the dragon leaves you and your surroundings, you begin to come to your senses. You let out a breath, and your stance resumes a natural form as your limbs relax reflexively. It frustrates you that a being can make you this afraid by merely existing in your proximity... But then again, that being was a godsdamned dragon, and you kept your wits about you, at least relatively speaking.Your most recently remodeled golem, the one with a sword, arrives now to deposit another rock by your location. That snaps you back to reality somewhat. You have things to get done, and again, none of Eomatra's demands impact any of them. You ready yourself mentally, and decide on a course of action for the day.>Your three golems can continue to gather wood and stone while stacking rocks for the walls of your tower.>Or you can reassign them. (Write-in)>You'll practice on your magic.>You'll start erecting your tower.>You'll begin working on a new golem core, or one of your existing golems.>You'll explore the wilderness or the mineshaft, with one or more golems or on your own.>You'll search for some real food.>You'll do something else. (Write-in)
>>840933>You'll start erecting your towerWant to get some walls up for us
>>840933Gather the golems, make a few quick changes that makes the more battle worthy and go to the mines.
>>840933>You'll start erecting your tower.>You'll begin working on a new golem core, or one of your existing golems.Throw like fifty arms on our house and make me all move.
>>840933>You'll explore the wilderness or the mineshaft, with one or more golems or on your own.>You'll search for some real food.No srsly gais we need to examine our materials and our surroundings.
>>841114we need food. >get food>make better golem cores?
Since you can't really be in two places at once, please pick only one option for what you're going to do. It (probably) won't take entirety of your day or anything, so we'll have another vote for what you'll do afterwards.
>>841000Trips mean mines
>>841136Mean as a series of actions but sure.>You'll explore the wilderness or the mineshaft, with one or more golems or on your own.
It's long past time for me to start writing, so unless there's any objections, you're going into the mines.
>>841281sounds G.
You decide to explore the mines next. Wood and stone is are necessary materials, but you've already amassed a sizable amount of both, thanks to your golems not needing to sleep. The pile of rocks and boulders is already large enough that it would take you a moment to walk around it, and the planks of wood are stacked high enough that your golem has begun a new stack, being too short to raise it any higher without risking toppling it over. You didn't want to have it risk breaking any planks by climbing on top of them. Your servants are heavy enough that the ground around your tower is pockmarked with their deep footprints. Come to think of it, the entire are must be full tracks leading to your location. They are immensely useful, but versed in the ways of a ranger they are not.The axed golem arrives first, and the swordsgolem follows soon after, and you command each of them to cease their actions, finally calling over your last, unarmed minion. Actually, calling it unarmed may be a misnomer, as its hands are big enough to grasp your head in its entirety and strong enough to pop it as easily as you would a grape. Satisfied that they're all sufficiently prepared for a hostile encounter, you march around the mountain to where you spotted an empty mineshaft. You believe there are others, but you haven't really surveyed your surroundings... at all, actually, so you can't be sure.It takes you nearly half an hour of walking in the opposite direction of the standing stone Eomatra described to you earlier this morning. The encounter still feels somewhat unreal to you. Even after you became a wizard, you never really saw yourself holding polite conversations about the neighborhood with a fucking dragon, of all things. You distract yourself from the thought by altering the form of your lumberjack golem ever so slightly, smoothing its limbs and shifting some of the mass from its oversized sections to its undersized ones. You don't get much done, as you're distracted by walking, and taking care not to disrupt its balance as it proceeds in front of you, but you'll have to change its appearance to something more proper like the two golems walking with you to your either side, and any work you get done now means work you won't have to do later.
When you arrive at the entrance of the tunnel, you take a moment to examine it. Here, at the point it begins, it is wide enough that two of your golems could comfortably walk shoulder to shoulder; you hope that it doesn't narrow much further in. The ceiling is secured by old wooden supports. The arches they form are crooked, but you note with some relief that they're thick and fastened with rather large nails, and even though you can't see that far into the mine, seem to occur periodically. You dismiss these thoughts as you remember that you could probably hold up and fortify any portion of this tunnel if you think it might cave in. There's a lantern hanging by a hook hammered into one of the beams inside the mine, by a ring to let anyone remove it and hold it by. You do so, but note that the oil within has run out. With a "bah," you throw it aside, and startle yourself as the glassy bulb in its center shatters against the ground. Dammit.Hoping to find a working source of light soon, you have your golems get in formation and take point. Your sword-wielding minion is already brandishing its blade, as it could be hard for it pull it out of its sheath if the tunnel gets much smaller. Even with you commanding them directly, their movements are rough, and their coordination is limited to what you can spare each of them, and they are tall enough that they have to duck when passing under a wooden beam. You suppose those purely decorative heads of theirs do come at a minor price, and start considering ways to make them look good even without a head. Maybe a face on their torso?You shake free of these thoughts and concentrate on your surroundings. You've already passed by a few discarded pickaxes, which you could use, but your golems could not, as their hands and arms are too big for them. It'd be easier if they just punched any ore free with their bare hands. There are a few small forks as well, but so far, they all end very shortly after deviating from the main tunnel or lead back to the main shaft somewhere further in. They might have been where the miners hit veins of ore. You haven't found any so far. A few broken crates are scattered here and there, but are all filled with a few discarded rocks or broken bits of wood that made up the rest of the crate. After several minutes of increasing worry that you might be wasting your time here, you finally come across something worth your attention.
There is a corpse here. It seems to have been human, though you can't tell for sure. Most of its skin has rotted away entirely, what little of it remaining having dried and desiccated a long time ago. The man lies against the wall, wearing a crude iron hardhat. It seems to have sunk as the flesh on his head decayed away, and now obscures the top half of its empty eye sockets. Its clothes are reduced to a useless state, and a pickaxe lies discarded by its boots. You notice now that you had been smelling a sweet, sickly smell for a moment, and now you can tell with certainty that it is the stench of decay. You examine the corpse a for another moment, but find no obvious clues that tell you how it might have died. There are no claw marks, no trace of dark magic, and no arrows sticking out of its chest. Hopefully, this is a good thing.You find another lantern near the dead man, and it takes you a bit, but you get it working. There isn't much fuel left in it, but it should be sufficient for now. You lift it up to shed some light on the path ahead of you, and find no further signs of foul play. So you decide to continue walking further in. This time, though, you have the golem with the sword walk in front of you. Just in case. You're not worried. You're a mighty wizard.Another minute of walking, and you find something at least resembling good news. A number of crates, mostly intact this time, lie open with their lids stacked against the wall. You see that there are a few handfuls of nails and a hammer, probably to nail those lids shut, and when you excitedly walk forward to shine your light into the open boxes, you are delighted to see that two of the crates are half-full of ore. Looking closer, you determine the gray-brown lumps of stone to be iron ore, waiting to be purified into steel and shaped to your specifications! Well, at least when you figure out how you'd go about processing the ore.With an extra spring in your step, you continue to descend further into the mine, taking care to adjust your golems' steps to account for the steepening ground. There wasn't that much ore back there, certainly not nearly enough to forge an entire golem out of, but that doesn't mean there won't be more of it in there for you to claim for yourself. After all, whoever owned these mines decided to abandon it to the wilds, along with some tools and unused material. If you think about it, by claiming the ore and using it, you're actually causing the hard work these people did mining it to not go entirely to waste. Why, it's almost heroic, the way you're honoring that dead guy.
Your mood is once again dampened when you realize that the smell of death doesn't fade. In fact, it's gotten slightly stronger now. You arrive at another fork, and this time, the two paths go in entirely separate directions, and seem to continue on for a while. You decide to cast some light down each of them to see where they lead. First, the right path is very low and narrow. If you wanted to walk further in, you'd have to leave your golems behind, as their shoulders are somewhat wider than the opening allows. You see that there are three more crates down there, in worse shape than the ones you came across earlier. One of them seems to have been dropped abruptly, causing its to shatter by the corner. You think there's more ore in it, and maybe inside the other crates as well, but you'd have to go in there alone to check if the lumps that have rolled out of the crate contain iron. The other two crates are sealed, so there's no telling what's inside them.You move on to the left branch, which continues in a straight path deeper underground, until it's too dark for you to see. The rotten smell seems to waft off of this tunnel in waves, by now strong enough to draw a complaint from your stomach, and you see why. There are three corpses down there. They appear to be much fresher than the one you found earlier. Flies buzz about, numerous enough for you to see from here, and the walls have been discolored by dried blood. These people, dressed differently than the dead miner, have been slaughtered in a decidedly violent manner, probably with the primitive spears made out of scrap metal fastened to long sticks you see from there. There is one sticking out of a man's back, and another that lies on the ground.A faint echo reaches your ears, but you can't make out anything other than that whatever made it was clearly not human.>Fuck. This. Turn back, grab the meager scraps of ore further up and go home.>Go down the right path, which has no corpses but also no space for your golems.>Go down the left path, which widens enough for your golems to fight properly, which they probably will have to.>Do something else. (Write-in)
Sorry about the pace. I had to do a little helping out, and then wrote a pretty long post describing less than an hour in-story.
>>841476I love your quest and your writing, but it's 3:20am here soooo I'll catch up tomorrow. I'm voting left path, tho. Thanks :)>Left path, let the golems tank and frontline, while you fling rocks and repair any damage they take. Prepare for combat.
>>841467Leave one golem at the fork to make sure we arent flanked and continue down the wider path with the other 2
>>841467>>Fuck. This. Turn back, grab the meager scraps of ore further up and go home.We should make human sized multi-task golems, do iron cores make better golems?
>>841563I still vote for continuing on, but if this gets voted in take the picaxes left around as well. Its already refinned metal, so it might be even more important to take them then the ore.
>>841563You can't tell with certainty, but your gut tells you it'd be at least somewhat better than rock. Unlike with silver or mythril, there's no guarantee the difference would be significant.If you decide to do the cores out of iron, you should think about how you'd go about engraving runes not just on its surface, but through its body as well. Unlike stone, you can't directly manipulate iron, you can't perceive its innards through touch, and you can't really carve it up accurately or efficiently using pure telekinetic force.
>>841580The body must mach the core?>>841569>take the picaxes left around as well. Its already refinned metal, so it might be even more important to take them then the ore.is smart
>>841596No. You're prodigal enough at golemetry that every core you've created after the first one was enchanted to be flexible with their "loadout." The cores you create right now are relatively stuck in their overall form: humanoid, with a head, torso, pelvis, two upper and lower legs and arms, feet, and hands with up to five fingers, which they can have as moving parts. What these parts are made of are irrelevant for any golem except your farmspider.To clarify, if you took one of your stone golems and attached a crossbow in place of a hand, it wouldn't be able to animate that crossbow like the rest of its body. It would need to crank it with its other hand unless you took out the core and modified it manually. But it would be able to swivel the crossbow to aim, much like it would move an actual hand.The internal logic of your golems will be revealed as you ask questions like this, or as you have the protagonist do something with cores and he goes off on a metaphysical tangent like he tends to do. The same is true for any magic you learn or advance. I like to make shit up on the fly and awkwardly insert it into the story because muh lore.
>>841467Send Virgil the Farmspider (whom totally came with us) down the right path. If nothing happens, go check it out.We aren't really battle ready yet. Left path sounds dangerous. but then again, so does the right path
>>841619I was thinking about using iron/steel cores for non-metal golems
>>841561voteAlso question. I understand that we have some basic earthbender capabilities. What about other elements? Are we curently able to, say, heat up a metal rod to red hot? Or produce a strong, steady stream of air?
>>841669Nope. But maybe you could. You'd have to sit down and really try. Probably also roll high enough to avoid !!fun!!
>>841672I don't think we have te same definition of "fun".
>>841485>>841561>>841669>actively chase after threats you don't know about>>841625>solo the dungeon with the squishy spellcaster>>841563>turn tail and flee at the first sight of dangerI guess you're going down the trail of miasma.
First thing first: Very nice and interesting quest thanks AI! Now then down to business:Golem AI... how advanced can we make it? Can we make golems that create other lesser golems? Not yet probably but the self-replication would be pretty sick.Geomancy: I am assuming we can sense different ores? and as such we should definitely "scan" the mines for more ore after clearing it out.Telekinesis: how far does it go? can we rip things apart at the molecular or atomic level? can we control a persons blood/flesh/armour etc... Also given our skill set we should probably try to set up a factory to produce items we can barter with to get food and other, more exotic, items
>>841690oh and an we upgrade our golems and make them magical? i was thinking giving them the ability to see different ores and the like, as well as the ability to spew fire from their fingertips
>>841690>can we rip things apart at the molecular or atomic level?it might be possible after some heavy training
>>841690It's Al. Not AI. And the pleasure's all mine.Golems that make other golems are definitely something you'd be able to do down the line. By the time you have a system in place for getting raw materials, processing, assembling, shaping, carving runes, etc. without your direct intervention, you'd probably have had enough practice to come up with a design. Hopefully, you won't fuck up and create gray goo or Skynet.You can sense something you're holding in your hands, or what's inside the ground you're stepping on if you really concentrate, but large-scale earthsense is beyond you. You'd have to practice to get the hang of it. Also, metals aren't earth, so if you want to know what the ores actually are, you'll have to get into a whole new school of magic.Like your geomancy, your telekinesis has a lot of raw power behind it, and not much fine control. There's a ton of cool shit you could do with practice, but right now, you can just pull or push things really hard.>>841693That's enchantment. Golemetry is a subset of enchantment. You know many runes, but you have very little practice enchanting inanimate objects to produce magical effects, and you don't even know where to begin with golems that know how to produce magical effects.
>Have a golem guard our retreat route on the crossroads.>Send spider golem in front of us and go check out the corpses and stuff>Order the axe golem to pick up and store any metal tools/weapons in his ''quiver'' along with any ore we find>Use our earth magic to prepare traps we may spring on our enemiesAlso can we shape our selves some armour or an exoskeleton golem?
>>841708Just to ask you a question.Are you basing your magic system on the daoist magic as its done in many xianxia novels i.e. gain ''enlightenement'' by concentratin and meditating on it?
>>841706Agreed stuff like that should be grand master tier so to speak... >>841708Good to know! A very nice system you have here by the look of it and would creating skynet really be so bad if we can then take over the role of skynet? The risks involved are substantial though so it should be something we only screw around with much later.
>>841714Nope.
We're so fucked. Ready to die to goblins
>>841732If they're weak willed maybe we could mind control one or two and have them turn on themselves. Maybe even be left over with a couple goblin slaves
>>841752Let's not forget that the extent of our telepathy is pushing and pulling. We're a Golemancer with alot of raw power, not a ESPer god
>>841757We have some minimal telepathy so maybe it would be enough. I mean goblis are pretty weak willed, right?
>>841764Even so, it's a magical? creature with a mind foreign to us. I don't think we'd get very far without a nat100
>>841732Wait a second. There's a dragon nearby, so maybe it's not goblins. Maybe it's kobolds?
>>841757>>841764>>841752>>841766Telepathy and telekinesis are different things. I hope I didn't confuse the terms somewhere and the readers with it. I do that sometimes. They sound similar, but aren't really related much.That said, you're equally shitty at both of them. You couldn't even respond to Eomatra by broadcasting your thoughts like it did and had to use your mouth hole instead. So it's safe to say that mind control is far, far beyond your grasp for now.
"You are a young human male. Well, you were one a few days ago" you start the Quest with that and is not a transformation? Shame on you!
>>841844What?
>>841844Sorry, but if you want to become something... less biologically human in this quest, you're going to have to put in the damn work.
>>841873are you writing or waiting for more input?
>>841887Oh, I'm nearly done. I decided to take my time and rework the post after finishing this time around. Takes a bit longer, but the last few updates had a few portions that made me cringe, and you seem to be very (very) patient people anyways.
>>841892/qst/ is a slow board. I check in while at work.
The narrow path to the right seems peaceful enough to you. No stench of death wafts off of it, and as far as you can tell, there isn't anything in there making suspicious sounds. It has a bend not too far from where you are, so you don't know how far it goes, but it appears to be a regular old section inside a regular old abandoned mine. So naturally, you opt to go down the other path instead, where there are clear signs of murderous beings waiting to present you with a special housewarming gift.You're not acting out of some kind of foolish, adventurous whim, truth be told, and you don't think you're being overly brave either. You're flanked on three sides by untiring, unfeeling warriors of stone, ready to kill for you and die for you. Your back is exposed, but every step you take on the gravelled ground makes an audible sound, so you keep an ear out for anything that isn't you or one of your golems, especially behind you, and hope that will be enough. The real danger will be ahead of you, and you need to address it as soon as you can. After all, what is to say that whatever that killed these people won't come out of the mines tonight, sneak into your tent and slit your throat while you're too busy dreaming to tear them to bits? No, you're being entirely pragmatic when you decide that this issue needs to be decided right here and now.It sure would've been nice of that dragon to mention that there were murderous, spear-chucking varmints in these mountains though. You bet it knew about this all along, and just didn't care to mention any of it. Well, maybe whatever these things are don't really enjoy getting sunlight and Eomatra genuinely didn't know about them, but for some reason, your mind seems insistent upon presenting any reasons to begrudge the dragon. It's mystifying, really.Irrelevant, too. You can't afford to be distracted by idle thoughts like you usually do, not while you're this close to danger. You make sure, once again, that your golems assume a battle-ready stance, your own body ready to dodge a spear flying your way at a moment's notice. You move forward, this time quietly, so you'll hopefully hear them before they hear you. You reach the three corpses soon and take a moment to examine them.
You'd already known at least two of them had been killed with spears, and turning over the third corpse facing away from you, you see that it has been stabbed through the eye by something that could be a spearhead. At least you think the wounds indicate that. You aren't exactly an experienced warrior or a surgeon, so you can't be sure. Still, as crude as these spears are, witnessing their capability to poke holes through people really has a way to make you appreciate their value, especially since you're feeling decidedly unarmed about now, so you opt to pick up the one spear that isn't sticking out of a former person and grip it tightly with both of your hands. You may be a wizard, with dozens of deadlier forms of attack built right into your being, but having a weapon in your hands makes you feel safer. So you grip the crude thing tightly, your left hand gripping the spear and the lantern simultaneously, and head into the darkness.There are voices that sound like they're gibbering angrily at each other. A rough, perhaps reptilian voice, spits out sharp sounds disdainfully, and you think they're words from some kind of primitive language. A similar voice responds, muttering a much longer sentence in response. You turn down your light. Fortunately, the path ahead of you has a sharp turn in it, and the voices that are coming from somewhere past it don't seem to be talking about you. You think you're still unseen. The exchange continues, and you try to listen in, trying to determine what kind of creatures they are. Their tone is difficult to discern. You thought they were arguing, but at one point they descend into what are unmistakably cackles. Perhaps they only sound like they're angry to you? It's definitely hard to tell without seeing their expressions. You decide to take a few steps forward, slowly and carefully, until you can maybe hear them more clearly. As you step forward, so do your golems.Shit. You completely forgot to account for the golems you'd commanded to remain in formation with you. The two voices cut out instantly, and you freeze in place, your golems doing so with you. After a moment of deafening silence that seems to last forever, one of the voices quietly hiss-whispers some words at the other, to the other one if you're guessing. It is shushed rather promptly (and in your opinion, rather rudely). You think the one that whispered thought you wouldn't hear it. Which was stupid of it, so you suppose you don't necessarily disagree with its buddy. It's fairly clear to you now that they know you're there. There is another uncomfortable moment of silence, while both you and they remain in what you can only hope is mutual fear. Soon, the voice says something to the other, any you hear footsteps, probably carrying the same weight as yours, approaching your location in a hurry.
The turn is right in front of you. If you wait for the creature to emerge, you will be immediately within the range of its spear, if it wields one like the spear you're holding yourself. So instead of freezing up like... like prey, you and the adrenaline roaring through your veins decide to take the initiative, and you emerge around the corner.The creature in front of you is half a head taller than you are. Its legs are digitigrade, and its body is tall and lean, a trait that extends to its neck. Its elongated head sits almost comically high, but there is nothing funny about its dozens of crooked fangs, its lack of lips completely failing to cover them. The darkness fails to conceal the yellow, serpentine eyes that bulge out at you balefully. A tail trails behind the rest of its body, and for a moment, you can't tell the tail apart from the crooked, overly long limbs you suppose would be its arms. Sure enough, it grasps a spear much like your own in its clawed hands, which is already pointed towards you.It lets out a loud, hissing word, announcing you to its friend... No, friends, as you see there are not two, but three of them here. The harsh sound helps you solidify your grasp on the realness of the situation. As the lizard-thing lunges forward at you, ready to impale you on its spear, you react by throwing your own spear at it... Sideways, and it clatters to the ground uselessly, as you can't help but flinch, letting out a pathetic yelp and closing your eyes shut.The real way in which you reacted, however, is somewhat less of an embarrassing display. Without entirely realizing it, you've unleashed an invisible punch at the creature, the pure kinetic force having launched it all the way back to its friends. When you open your eyes to see what you just did, the creature already lies on the ground, its body bent unnaturally, the blood pooling around the feet of its former comrades as its leg twitches pathetically. You make a note to focus more on this last part when you're telling the story of your first real fight.
The shorter one of the remaining reptiles turns right around at that display and begins to flee, saying some words you don't understand, but you do recognize it as one of the voices from earlier. The taller one adjusts its stance, assuming a position you think is a proper one for fighting, but you can't tell for sure, as you're neither a warrior nor able to see very well in the dark. You don't pay it that much attention just yet, however, because you've just now realized that behind them, there is a light source coming from around yet another corner. You feel free to assume that the shadows dancing in that light probably belong to more of these creatures, and that the cowardly one is probably going to get more of its friends, and they're probably not going to be giving you mere handshakes. Fortunately, it makes the mistake of walking under a visibly loose piece of the ceiling, which you command to come down. As the heavy stone obliges, the lizard-thing produces a wet sound that upsets your stomach even more that it already is, and it doubles over, leaving only one of them remaining to challenge you.The tall, silent one turns back to you after witnessing the death of the coward. Its skull-like, reptilian face, as alien as it is to you, clearly belongs to someone who realizes that he is cornered. Between two individuals who have no choice but to fight or flee, that much at least remains crystal clear. And as you see its eyes narrow and its jaws tighten, you see that it has made its choice. Without saying a word or releasing a screech, the last survivor of the merry trio charges at you, occasionally zigging or zagging when it thinks you might throw something its way. You don't cast any spells as it closes in on you, and you make no efforts to back off or dodge the incoming spear. You remain standing impassively as it moves into range to poke a hole through your neck.Instead of that, however, what happens next is an oversized length of stone coming down on its head, splashing you with foul liquids you don't care to identify. You faithful servant, now standing to your right, didn't so much cut the thing with its sword as it smashed it. The corpse that falls onto the ground before you can't be called a lizard-thing any longer, as it looks more like four limbs and a tail coming out of a gooey mass of scales and gore. A vile smell wafts out of the meat pile and hits you, and you retch.
You double over and begin to vomit violently. Do dead things really smell this badly? No, you've hunted and killed before, you've cleaned and skinned animals, you've been to the butcher plenty times, and you just walked past a bunch of rotting human carcasses. It takes you a minute or two of intense vomiting to stop as two more waves of putrid stench hit your location, until you aren't even throwing anything up anymore, merely attempting to purge a stomach that has been empty for a while now. The muscles in your belly finally stop torturing you, and you wipe the tears from the corners of your eyes and the bile from the corners of your mouth.Nobody ever told you adventuring was going to involve kneeling beside a puddle of vomit, guts, bone shards and more things you don't want to think about, before you start going at it again.You're finally on your feet, and you panic for a short moment, thinking more of these things might be upon you to turn you into a pin cushion just as you were ready to defend yourself. But nobody comes, and now that you're a bit calmer, you can see that the shadows in the flames are from what you guess to be a pair of totems of sorts. You leave the immediate vicinity of the mess you've made to look a bit more closely at one of the more intact corpses you've just created. Your golems, of course, come with you.There isn't much more to the thing than you already saw. It has a grayish coloration as far as you can tell in the dark, and a scaled hide that is relatively thick and marked by darker spots. Its nose seems to be naturally absent, being the same kind of triangular hole you'd see on a naked skull, and there is a bony crest atop its head that rises and falls, going down its spine down to its waist. And sure enough, its hands and feet are tipped with claws sharp enough that the spears they wield are almost definitely optional, even if all of them so far did. They aren't clothed, though they have some ropes with teeth, claws and other bony bits attached to them, the largest of the trio having fastened a skull to its shoulder. Not a human one, but one belonging to its own kind. And their skin is slick with some kind of oil, beads of it forming and flowing out of several points on... Oh.
You just realized what happened there. These lizard-things, which secrete an oil when frightened, angered or killed, are actually known to most people, even if nobody really ever sees them roaming the surface. They are troglodytes, creatures that live in caves and tunnels, who only sometimes come out to raid small settlements during the night, are practically notorious for being barely sapient, reptilian skunks on two legs. In fact, during your childhood, a mischievous acquaintance of yours claimed to have stolen a jar of trog-oil from a passing snake oil salesman, and invited you to join him as he pranked a bunch of kids who bullied him. You refused, and now that you've experienced first-hand what you might have involved yourself in, you're glad you did. That kid probably earned himself a good spanking.You let out a breath you hadn't realized you were holding, probably for multiple reasons, and calm down. You need to decide what to do next.>Move further in, slowly, sneakily, carefully.>Charge right in there like a boss, these scrubs don't stand a chance.>Get the fuck out, and take those dead trogs with you.>Get the fuck out, and leave the trogs and their vile stench behind. You've got ore and pickaxes to haul.>Write-in
>>841932>Get the fuck out, and leave the trogs and their vile stench behind. You've got ore and pickaxes to haul.We need to prepare for this... I wonder if we could enslave them to do labour for us..?
>>841936Supporting minus the enslavement. We create golems with no minds, no fear, and no will to rebel against us. Why would we take stinky, murderous, possibly cowardly and traitorous slaves?. We should either eliminate all of them or (somehow) make peace.
The problem is that they might want to take revenge. We don't really want a surprise raid while we sleep.I think we must finish it now.>charge right in there like a bossBut with the golems upfront, so we have the element of surprise and less chance to be instakilled by a lucky spear trow.
>>841949I'll say this much: I won't instakill you unless you do something really stupid, like punch an angry dracolich or something. Sure, you may get into a deadly encounter with a required roll, and a nat1 there would result in a severe catastrophe, but unless it's the kind of situation that makes half of the participants go "Well of course we died, duh!" I won't be ending the quest like some sort of autistic pedophile.
>>841932>Move further in, slowly, sneakily, carefully.No self respecting wizard would flee from a bunch of weaklings like these. Clear out the cave. Leave no stone unturned. Kill them all. This is our mine now. Have a golem take pont. These barbaric creatures wont be able to even put a scratch on its stone form. And while wer're at it, check the other tunel on the way out. modify a golem to fit in there along with us for safety.
>>841963>>841949Couldn't really call ourselves a powerfull wizard if we run now, could we?
>>841960A nat 1 on a d100 with a best of 3 roll? We would deserve death if we got that unlucky.
>>841949 changing my vote to thisI guess we should move the quest along. It probably won't be too hard to rout these rats. And it would be nice to have our own mine. And we ain't a pussy. Times up, let's do this
>Move further in, slowly, sneakily, carefully.take it easy, we just puked our guts out
>>841968Crits take priority. I'm not that merciful. If you're in a situation where luck is a factor, there's always a chance for luck to kick you in the nuts and piss in your face while you're down. In this quest, that chance is about 3%.The severity of the failure depends on the situation, so a nat1 shouldn't result in a quest-derailing shitstorm every time it happens. And I don't ask for rolls too frequently either. But when I do, be prepared.
>>841980 how long would it take us to build another golem or two?
>>841932>Charge right in there like a boss, these scrubs don't stand a chance.or optionally, and if it doesnt take too long: make another golem then attack
>>841936>GTFO>>841949>>841970>>841985>be a hero>>841963>>841976>be sneaky hobbitses>>841967>generally don't run awayThe tie is broken! I'll get started now.>>841983New cores take you over an hour at the barest minimum. Three hours for something like the ones you have with you now. The body depends on scale, substance and complexity.
>>841993ahhh ok... i was thinking of making a very clunky one barely able to move to be used as an expendable shock troop... value of shock troop is less than that of seizing the advantage now and crushing them before they can dig in
>>841980>ConsequencesI actually like this better then the alternative. Makes it a bit more exiting. Also since the choise is locked in, mind if I post the monster manual page on troglodytes? To give a bit of a kick to the imagination of everyone in regards to what we are facing off against (with diviation of course since your version might be diferent)
>>841998Not at all. Feel free to dump your sticky art all over my thread. I'd enjoy seeing that.Oh, and I forgot to add my favorite part!Three rolls of 1d100, please.
Rolled 75 (1d100)>>842004My body is ready. Super critical if I call the right number.>Rolled an 84
Rolled 56 (1d100)>>842004Not my art really. Page from the 5e monster manual book.Also roll against this stinky mother......
Rolled 25 (1d100)>>842004Rolling for glory.
You didn't super crit (which is not a thing), but you did pass with that roll.I'll go back to writing now.
>>842010>Smells like an orc's loincloth in here!
>>842031RIP Arlax Hammermantle
These feral beasts... No, these disgusting vermin are right on your doorstep. It'd definitely be wiser of you to get rid of them now, while you have the advantage. You could leave now to come back with more manpower (golempower?) behind you, but they'd discover the corpses, or at least some stray corpse-pieces, and prepare themselves for another attack. Worse, they could come out at night, when you're at your most vulnerable, and follow the rather conspicuous trail left by your servants to your new home. Clearly, attacking them now is the right thing to do for the kind person who likes being alive.Feeling empowered, you march forward, tall and proud, without bothering to pick up the spear you dropped on the ground. With each passing day, it becomes clearer to you why you aren't considered human anymore, and you're all too glad to embrace your new role, discarding that decidedly human comfort. It does nothing to enhance your capabilities, as evidenced by that first troglodyte you flattened. Your golems, too, stand taller than they normally do now, your state of mind influencing their movements. Perhaps this is a result of the intimate connection you have as their creator, or perhaps you merely have poor control over your telepathic ability, unconsciously broadcasting an emotion that elicits makes their cores react to it. It matters little to you, as your golems' proud strides only serves to bolster your confidence. You believe you are at your best when you're confident in yourself, magically speaking.A turn later, and the source of the light is revealed to you. There is a crude brazier standing there, built out of bones tied together, bearing hot coals. You make sure to remeber that the troglodytes have obtained some coal somehow. Or perhaps it is merely charcoal, something you may be able to create on your own. Near the brazier stand two pairs of wooden stakes, each adorned with hoops of bronze, various trophies, with a piece of leather streched between each pair. It is painted with a white substance, forming a crude emblem you don't care to examine any closer. You suppose these would be the totems you saw casting shadows in the light earlier, mistaking them for more trogs in the heat of battle. And finally, there is a solitary stake, bearing several skulls. Human skulls, this time. It only serves to deepen your resolve to remove the scaly vermin from your mine.
Oh, you've decided that these mines are yours now, by the way. Nobody else is using them, and they clearly bear iron at the very least. The service you'll do the world by ridding it of this tribe will have to do as payment for it. If you're lucky, the trogs are the reason these mines were abandoned, and they did not merely move in after the diggers picked it clean and left it somewhat messily. Even if that's the case, you're sure you can use your capabilities as an earth mage to somehow uncover more veins. You have a few ideas emerging in your head already, which you ignore for now as you move further inward to make war.The wooden support beams have stopped occurring regularly now, and the tunnel widens drastically after this point. There are multiple branches in the path, some so short that they only serve to create squat, rough pillars of untouched terrain, others leading further away from the main path, which remains the widest, most straightforward tunnel. Echoing sounds of troglodyte chatter come from multiple directions, the echoing making it impossible to pinpoint their source. There are torches or braziers down most paths, as you can see their light even if you can't see their source, and as you move forward, you hear a drum and several of the tribals singing very unpleasantly.From the corner of your eye, you see a shadow move on your left. A troglodyte emerges from one of the side passages, facing back where it came from to say something to someone back there. It is garbed in ropes and skulls like the ones you saw guarding the entrance to their lair, and clutches a spear in its claws. So when it turns its head and sees you, you don't wait for it to attack you. You don't wait for it to react to your presence in any way. The stones in front of its feet move, and it trips, falling face-first onto the ground, which you also command to greet it with a spike. The lizard is impaled through the eye, like one of the dead miners you saw a ways back. You suppose that makes this an eye for an eye.
It does make a macabre sound as it dies a fairly quick death, and you see the shadows of its tribesfellows moving to get up where they were sitting, grabbing their spears as they come your way to see if anything went wrong. You're ready for them, however, as two of your golems move in to intercept them. Unfortunately, they are too loud to keep the element of surprise. Well, you shouldn't quite say that. They're too loud to keep the initiative, and the first lizard strikes your empty-handed golem with its spear, and does impressively well, leaving a very shallow scratch on its lower torso. In response, your golem grabs it by the throat and squeezes mildly, eliciting a crunch before allowing the trog to fall onto the ground lifelessly. Your axed golem strikes at another one, which manages to dodge its slow movement, while you move forward to get into a better angle for directing the fight. Your sword-wielder follows you, guarding your back diligently. It would be stupid to die here now, to these ridiculous things.The short passage leads to a circular room, a strange mix between primitive housing and a poorly-designed mine, with seats of leather and decorations of bone laid around a brazier. The walls and ceilings on the other hand bear the remnants of wooden beams, and a crate lies in the corner, filled with some strange white powder. Pipes, crude figurines and other knick-knacks are strewn about the ground by the fight, a few already pulverized by a giant stone boot. Your golem keeps swinging at a trog with its axe, which keeps dodging and trying to find a spot to stab at effectively and failing miserably. Another trog is being cornered by your other golem, jabbing halfheartedly in its general direction while moving backwards towards a wall. Eventually its tail brushes the wall, and having no more options, it lets go of its spear, drops on all fours and tries to charge past the golem, towards your direction. Almost makes it past, too, but without the need to turn around, your golem grabs its tail, swinging it over its head. You'd intended to bash it against the wall, but the force of the swing ends up splattering its face against the ceiling, and your golem's swing falls short as the trog's lack of a face fails to connect with the wall. Now, you're not one to take pleasure in dishing out death, but that, to you, was pretty damn funny.
The axeman has still failed to land a blow on the remaining troglodyte as it successfully maneuvers around your clumsiest creation, which had quite a few scratches on it now. With a somewhat frustrated gesture, you command the ground to keep its feet in place. And then, before your golem kills it, you make a point to smoothen the body of your golem, rendering the trog's efforts futile. Its eyes somehow bulge out even further at that, and it yells out some words. You decide to kill it, now. And before the stench can hit you, you've already tied a piece of cloth over your mouth and nose, taking care to breathe as little as possible. You're still fairly sickened, probably enough that it impacts your concentration, but not enough that it will save any of your foes.You turn around to leave the room, the sword golem in front of you now, and see that the cries of that last trog, or maybe the sounds of battle in general, have been heard. The drums continue to beat, but no shrill voices accompany it now, and it assumes a more intense tempo now. Several more troglodytes, perhaps a full dozen, have emerged from the surrounding tunnels to meet you, and most of them are naked and wield crudely scavenged spears, but you see one or two clad in partial armor, what few bits that fit their inhuman form fastened with makeshift straps, and hold proper weapons in their hands. One has a cleaver, too big to have belonged to a butcher, and the other has a flail, even holding a buckler in its other hand. Like it will make a difference.Your golems charge them as you will it, the one in front of you soon followed by the more bloodied pair emerging from behind you. The resulting clash is not a true battle. You golems swing wide and don't let up for even a moment, the unarmed one punching and kicking mercilessly. You get the few who manage to slip past, as well as a couple who abandon the fight to run towards the sound of the drum. The cleaver becomes lodged in the forearm of your bare-handed golem at one point, which doesn't impact its performance even slightly while unarming what you think is a ring-leader of sorts. Troglodytes are broken and battered all over the place by stone and force, and the tunnels are so covered with their vile fluids that you quickly flee further into the hive before you begin to retch again.
You are greeted by the sight of a large chamber, the ceiling too hight and the walls too wide to be an artificial passage. You had wondered if some of the paths back there were dug or uncovered, and you suppose this answers it. It looks much like the other rooms you've seen a glimpse of as you passed them, but on a grander scale. Four troglodytes continue to work a pair of leather drums each, flanking a throne of wood, bone and hide behind a fire much larger than any of the others you've seen so far. Between the fire and your golems are even more of the lizard-skunks, nearing two dozen armed individuals this time. You this there are all that remain, as the rooms you glanced in were empty, though you didn't take the time to really search for any hidden passages or hiding individuals. There are two more side rooms to this chamber, as well as another, more noteworthy tunnel to your opposite, tall and wide and shaped like a fairly uniform arch. It is clearly neither artificial nor made by human miners, and leads even deeper underground.The troglodyte chieftain, or at least you assume that's who the individual sitting on the throne is, stand up to greet you. He wields no weapons and wears no armor, but plenty of skins and skulls from various animals, with fur draped over its back and a thick leather skirt that bears parallel, horizontal femurs sewn onto it. It holds a staff, with more of the stereotypical tribesman stuff you've grown used to by now, made out of skulls and bones and teeth bount together. It's quite kitschy, if you're being honest. You hope you'll decorate your tower more creatively than this.The trog chief speaks, making you realize you were distracted by an idle thought again. You suppose troglodytes are nonthreatening enough for you to do so while facing them in battle."You. Human. No kill. We all tribe. Make... Peace? Go away."Oh, this is just marvelous.>Kill them all like you killed all the others. It's all they deserve.>Get creative with your murdering! Have rocks fall and everyone die, or something. (Write-in)>Try to parlay with the thing for a bit. You'll make some demands in exchange for their lives. (Write-in)>You think they learned their lesson now. Leave.>Do something entirely different. (Write-in)
>>842220>Wizard has a tank>Wizard uses shield to buttfuck reality behind.3.x everybody.>Kill them all like you killed all the others. It's all they deserve.As tempted as i am to just use them for fleshcrafting experiments,we dont seem like that kind of Mage...yet.
>>842227flesh golems are a thingnot saying they're necessarily a good or bad ideajust confirming that they exist
>>842220I no kill.You bring hard rock (iron) to sunlight.Bring every (day? Week?) or rock men come back.
>>842231Ive used flesh golems before in DnD, and i personally dont like their propensity to go fucking full retard in combat and just kill the party.
>>842233>>842220>Try to parlay with the thing for a bit. You'll make some demands in exchange for their lives. (Write-in)I meant to add this part.
>>842227Kill them all. Make sure not a single one lives. Painstakingly search every pasage and even use your geomancy to search for secret ones. We cant risk leaving even a singe one alive. For our own sake we have to eradicate them to the last.
>>842220>Get creative with your murdering! Have rocks fall and everyone die, or something. (Write-in)Start it off with dropping a big rock on the chieftain's head before sending in the stone men to eliminate the rest
>>842242Man you arent thinking like a Wizard, we need to make them worship us as a God.
>>842220Ya, no. I vote we leave none alive to kill us later. Paranoia, bitch. >>842244>use geomancy to search for secret pasages.Can we do that?
>>842251that is probably possible, you can do that to trogs in DnD with sufficient show of force
>>842251>>842261There are plenty of other abandoned mines in this mountain. This is just our practice run. Streching our legs, so to speak.
Fuck, my mouse is malfunctioning. I'll be away for a while to try to fix it, and then for a while longer as I mastur- err, work on some papers related to my double major in astrophysics and economics.After that, I'll probably get in another update or two before calling it for the day.
>>842274Agreed. Kill all now and subjugate when we have the numerical advantage... I still think we should mix our golem quality because against such low tier enemies, i think having disposable shock troops would be extremely useful
Kill them all!
I think we should have parlayed with him before we kill everything, but everyone is jumping on the murdertrain. At least to have seen what he had to offer. Oh wellBLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
>>842353They murdered the miners of this place and stole it from them, and are not using it for anything useful. We have far more powerful concerns than what as bunch of filthy trogs think.Cmon man. WIZARD!
>>842220GE NOCIDE
>>842356I think you misunderstood.I think we should have parlayed with himThen I think we should have killed them allSee what they have laying around down here. Interrogate and then obliterate.Trogs are all CE anyways, if we strike any bargains to get them to talk nothing's gonna stop us from dropping the ceiling on them afterwards.
>>842372>Wizard needing filthy trog to tell him things.
GAS THE TROGS
>>842372Oh make no mistake. We are cleaning out the tunels after this. Not leaving so much as a rusty nail behind (apart from the suport beams of course). Every scrap of metal, piece of bone, cloth or leather, evey box and trinket and every loose peble we find we bring back. And if there are any secret tunels, we'll find them too. Earthbender wizard, remember? So really no reason to give these fugly mofos even the slightest chance to shank us.
>>842220>Try to parlay with the thing for a bit. You'll make some demands in exchange for their lives. (Write-in)
>>842220Let's parlayAt the very least we could just ask them all to leave and save us the trouble of combing the mines trying to exterminate them
>>842424Yeah, at the very least give them a motivation to centralize. It's something'th'll be in our favor.
>>842466Perfect.Kill them all anyway. We don't need them. We'll make our own trogs, with black iron and boulders.
>>842500>with black iron and boulders.Fucking lost it.
You survey the room one more time, this time taking care to properly account for their numbers. The six trogs closes to you, perhaps uninentionally, have formed a front line of sorts, and they are the unarmored, spear-wielding grunts that form the majority of their tribe. You can already see the beads of putrid oil coalescing on the skins of the ones closest to you. You're guessing they're afraid, which would be the first sign of intelligence you've seen in these things. Behind them are... Thirteen more, you think, similarly ready to jump at you at a moment's notice. Five of them are armed and armored properly, at the front of this unorganized group, and it's almost like they've each picked one of the trogs in front of them to hide behind. They form a crowd around the giant bonfire, behind which are the four drummers, wearing smaller bits of fur and sporting an unnecessary amount of bone piercings through their uncanny nose holes, the crests on their heads and the brow-like ridges above their eyes. They've dropped the fur-lined sticks they used to drum, and their hands are also holding spears, somewhat better-made than the rest, ready to jump up and a moment's notice. And finally, the chieftain, already on his feet, is holding his staff to one side. He isn't an old, wizened spiritual leader, but clearly bigger and stronger than all the others around him. His skin bears many scars, and you've no doubt he obtained some of those while beating some of his unruly underlings into submission. You can tell by the way his drummers glance at him every now and then that he's feared by the rest of his kin. It could be that many of the reptiles before you would rather be fleeing rather than standing here, in defiance. You'll never know for sure.The chieftain's expression darkens with each passing moment, the prospect of receiving a positive answer from you getting further and further away in his eyes. You stand there impassively, hoping you appear to be considering his words as you try to channel the energies within you without using gestures as you usually do. Your magic responds to your will, and it is only your willpower that decides how your power will assert itself on the reality around you. The motions you do with your arms and your body are entirely unnecessary. But they help you immensely with shaping your psyche the way you need it to be. This time, you decide to try and do away with that crutch as you focus on an outcropping in the ceiling. Quite foolish of that chieftain to be sitting under such a precarious piece of environment every day.
A you work your magic, and the troglodytes around you get increasingly antsy, the rock begins to gradually loosen away from the ceiling, and soon, the slight movements you caused cause a tiny bit of rubble to fall down. To your dismay, the chieftain notices this and looks up. His eyes widen, as he clearly must have caught you moving it. You abandon your attempts at stealth and use your full range of motion before he can react, and the rock rapidly descends, much faster than it should. The chief attempts to dodge it by jumping to one side... And he succeeds. The rest of the tribe, already on edge, immediately bursts into action.Struggling to get up from the ground with the support of his staff, he angrily shouts some commands at his tribe, and they adjust. One of them is already dead, its chest bearing a deep gash from an unreasonably-sized axe, but those who remain immediately change their tactics. They're actively backtracking whenever a golem gets too close, and trying to get to either side of the room, away from the wall of animate rock you had your golems form in front of you. You think you know what it said: Get rid of you. Ignore the stone giants. If you die, they stop moving. Well, you aren't having any of that. Rocks lying around your feet launh themselves directly towards any troglodyte that gets around your golems, as soon as your own golems cease blocking the line of sight between you and them. One of the armored ones manages to dodge your golems and two of the stones you hurl its way, almost getting close enough to swing its bent sword at you. So you punch in its general direction, and it flies back and upwards, becoming pancaked against the wall as if struck by the fist of an invisible, wrathful colossus.The chieftain has gotten up now. In the short moment he took doing so, you've already killed a huge portion of his remaining tribesman. It moves back where it was before, to the spot you dropped a boulder on. He is now entirely obscured by the giant flames of the brazier, which he wasn't the last time he was standing there. Wait, those flames have definitely grown hotter. And come to think of it, shouldn't a fire that large produce enough smoke to poison all these lizards for you?As though responding to your thoughts, the chieftain motions with his staff and his other hand, now holding a bone dagger, and the flames descend, swelling in the middle like a pulsating pumpkin. And with one final push of its long arms, which reminds you of yourself pushing several tons of dirt down a cliff, the flames erupt and coalesce into a wave, which rushes in your direction.
Time for some rolls! Also, you're always free to write-in anything you want done a specific way.
Rolled 77 (1d100)>>842546I want to say chanel our magic into the flames and send it back at him, but thats prob gonna need a pretty high roll.
Rolled 87 (1d100)>>842546i suck at plans but i'll try to make up for it with a good roll
Rolled 65 (1d100)>>842546Not even our third day of WIZARD! and we are already obliterating the small people like the ants they are. Im so proud!
>>842566That'll do, pig. That'll do.Writing.
>>842466Also, this is great.
As the fire rushes your way, burning three of the chieftain's own men to a crisp as it mows its way towards you, you grasp in an instant that there is nothing you can really do to stop them. The chief controls them with his own magic, and they are bound to its will. You've no way wrest control of them while they're infused with his own reserves, just as no mage could wrest control of your golems from under your control. At least, not as you are right now. So you don't even try, and have two of your golems throw themselves in front of you.Their leaps are poorly coordinated at best, and they crash into each other rather violently, bits of rock chipping away from their bulk, but they remain there without budging from their position as the flames wash over them. The wave of heat forces you to wince, and you're cowering somewhat to make your body as small as possible behind your golems, and even though the tendrils of blaze that make it through the gaps between their arms and legs lick at you, they fail to reach you. As the fire fades away, you stand up quickly, remembering that there are still multiple combatants trying to make their way towards you. Three troglodytes are freed up now that your golems aren't actively fighting them, and while two of them are too busy reeling from what their chieftain just unleashed upon everyone else, the third one remains composed enough to throw its spear your way. Thankfully, you're ready for it, and a wave of your hand throws it off-course, and it cltters against the wall somewhere behind you. You respond in kind, launching a sharp, fang, ripple its way, nailing it right between the eyes. You don't wait to see the trog fall to the ground, the brain matter you saw freed from its skull sufficing to confirm its death. You redirect your golems. While one remains swinging its sword at stray lizards, the two you inadvertantly damaged yourself now begin charging forward, trampling one trog severely and causing several others to jump out of their way. They bash their way through the bonfire, trapping the chieftain between their immense bodies and the arched passage behind him. He takes a few steps backwards, and to your surprise, instead of turning around and running into the dark hallway behing him, he allows himself to be squashed like a little bug. The display leaves you somewhat bemused, but you decide to leave the issue for now, while you go about massacring his remaining kin.
It takes you another minute, and you're done. No more annoying hisses and screeches occupy the tunnels, the only sound remaining being the stomps of your golems as they return to your side, and the steady dripping of blood from something you killed somewhere. The room is dominated by the smell of trog-oil, and while it is kept in check by the comparatively pleasant stench of charred lizard flesh, it really begins to hit you wave after wave. You evacuate the room quickly, opting instead to take a second look at the passages you passed on your way to the chief, in case there are any potentially vengeful stragglers left. You move from one room to the next, and find each of them to be blissfully lacking in any living troglodytes, even checking behind the leathers displayed on some racks they hung on the wall. There is no real furniture that could hide any secret passages, you note, most of it crudely assembled bits of bone and leather, with some wood broken off a few support beams and straps of leather to fasten them together. There seats low on the ground, some braziers, a few torches, some racks for spears and raw material, a few crates they looted from the mine full of raw materials, extremely uncomfortable-looking beds similarly made from bone and leather, ugly totems and figurines, small leather bongos, a bone flute, some bone knives, discarded chunks of meat, and bonemeal. And of course, the dead trogs have their useless spears and the occasional man-made weapon, and partial armor taken apart and crudely modified to suit their frame. They lack bookshelves and wardrobes, as they don't really clothe or read much.Satisfied that you got all of them that remain in these tunnels, you return to the throne room. Much of the furniture here is similar, the only noteworthy things being the giant brazier now only bearing logs and coal burned thoroughly, and the chieftain, with his furs and the staff he held. As the smell here hasn't subsided entirely, you quickly move on to one of the side rooms, and find it to be the only single bedroom in the entire cave, clearly belonging to the chieftain. His things appear to have been assembled with slightly more care, and his room bears several furs from various animals. You see a stag and a boar, and three others you can't readily identify. There is a weapons rack here, bearing a longsword, a shorter, stouter blade, and a hand axe, each remaining in an unbattered, albeit filthy state. It appears to have chosen to keep these as trophies instead of having his warriors use them properly. Finally, you walk the perimeter of the room, running your hand over the walls, making sure there are no hidden passages using your meager earth-sensing capabilities. After confirming that it is, indeed, just a room, you return to the throne room, and head through the passageway opposing the chief's bedchambers.
This one is a bit different. There isn't a lot to it. It is bare and undecorated. The only thing here is another leathery bed, circular this time. And it is full of eggs. Yellowed egs, pockmarked with chaotic gray patterns. You've no doubt who those eggs belong to. While you referred to any given troglodyte you encountered with a male pronoun, you only did so because their bodies resemble those of human males, and there are no obvious indications of the troglodytes' sex, as far as you can tell. You thought it strange that the entire tribe was composed of warriors, with no noncombatant, and no women and children to speak of. Well, it seems there were some women, and they laid some eggs here before you came along and murdered them to death.It seems you have a few choices to make here. There is a lot of stuff here you could take with you, though most of it isn't anything you want or need. You also need to decide what you're going to do with these eggs. The only thing you know for sure is that you're not eating them, in case trog egg tastes anything like trog-oil smells. After you decide on that, you need to determine whether you're continuing deeper underground through that arched path, returning to the fork right before the three dead miners, or returning home for the day. You're somewhat tired, but you're almost entirely unhurt, and you think your golems could keep going for a good while. You don't really know how what time it is, down here, but you don't much care.>Trog eggs, wat do?>Also, what will you take from here?>Where will you go from there?
>>842807Trog Eggs? More like tasty omelettes!
>>842807>Trog eggs, wat do?Load sword golems sheath with trog eggs and fur>Also, what will you take from here?Just magically stick all the metal to hands golem>Where will you go from there?Delve deeper in past the arch to searching for any trogs out hunting
...bah. I'm really unhappy with that last post. It's getting late, and the Muse is running out of breast milk. I think I'll turn in for the night.As always, thanks for participating! Feel free to vote and post any questions, insults, and criticisms you might have. See you tomorrow, probably.
>>842807>Trog eggs, wat do?Just crush them, we've already killed the rest of the tribe>take furs and best looking weaponsTo see if we can clean them up with magic and then make some more human sized guards and arm themThen head back to the surface but makeep a mental mark to come back down and explore that archway
>>842838Honestly man, it's totally great.The only person that's going to see flaws is you, because we have nothing to compare it to. From our side of the curtain this is a well thought-out, coherent, awesome quest. Sleep tight homeslice.
Let's ponder the logistics of starting up our own Stone Golem Legion, and equipping them with Iron Weapons. If only three Golems were able to exterminate dozens of troglodytes, imagine what three thousand could do!
>>843334Paved parking lots, paved parking lots everywhere.
>>843334>Stone Golems>Not Steel Golems or Adamantine Golems or Mithril Golems.Think man. Remember WIZARD!
>>844380thats a lot of steel anon
>>844390For you.
>>844440Stone is good since we can manipulate it. We can repare golem even during fight... that's quite a fearsome sight for the enemy !
>>844380We're only a fledgling Wizard, and have to start somewhere Anon.
>>844458If we are a fledgling Wizard then i dont even WANT to see what a real wizard looks like.Seriously we took on like 18 or so trogs at like level 1 and killed all of them. AS A SQUISHY AT LEVEL ONE.
>>844478Theres a reason people don't want wizards anywhere near them anon, I mean a fucking dragon treated us cordially, dragons are pompous shits who eat people for amusement
>>844493Man this is going to end with us utterly buttfucking reality isn't it?
>>844502Or the other way around... Pray for the dice gods !
>>844513Nah if we get any higher than level 5 we are going to just run a train on everything around us.
>>844545Other wizards... dragons...Maybe not everything !
>>844557Well other Wizards aside.
I'm sure there are out here some badass with big swords that trains like mad men, eats like black holes and can cut a steel golem in half with little to no sweat.
>>844586A resilient test subject.
>>844593>This DESU fampai
>>8433343 thousand golems could attract alot of attention is what it could do.As for what do>Smash the eggs>Grab a nicer weapon for yourself. Leave everything else, our golems can come back for it later>Deeper into the mines
>>844608>Grab a weapon.>a Wizard needing a fucking sword. lol nah
>>844629>Not wanting something to experiment on as we walk deeper into the mines or walk homeLol yah
>>842804Put the crates and weapons aside to take with you on your way back, pile all the corpses for burning later as well. Also put aside any furs or leathers that are clean enough to be re-used as furnishing for our tower or to sell.
>>844801>>842807Oh and smash the eggs
>>844812Why don't we turn them into omelettes? We're anything but wasteful, after all!
>>845276>eating partly developed trogsDo you want to become a skunk?
>>842807Smash the eggs and loot the long sword. have the golems bring the brazier and as much ore as possible. also take the chiefs staff because it might be a magic staff or something useful
The general consensus seems to be around gathering up leather and weapons, then continuing on into the mine. You'll smash the eggs.This is me just waking up, and today is a bit busier for me, so we'll have to wait to see how many updates I manage to get in.A clarification: This isn't D&D. You aren't a level one wizard. I'll plagiarize the Monster Manual quite a bit as we go on, but the lore is different. For instance, dragons aren't as predictable in appearance- not every silver dragon has a mohawk, not every black dragon's head is skull-like in appearance, and Eomatra doesn't necessarily breathe cold, or even just one element.The word "wizard" refers to people like you who are, for whatever reason, impossibly in sync with the arcane aspect of the world, so magic comes to them as easily as breathing. Normal humans can become mages, but they need to work at it like anything else to do stuff. They need to study for years and years to generate a decent fireball. You need to study for years and years if you want to lift up this mountain, turn it upside down, and place it back where it was without killing anything on its surface.The number of your kind is probably in the single digits globally. And yes, even for non-wizards, magic is OP.
>>845464So we are a Sorcerer then? At least by the DnD definition anyways. Huh neat.
>>845485No bloodline shenanigans though. Your potential just manifested in your soul out of nowhere, as far as you can tell.And all mages are sorcerous to a degree, since spellcasting is a lot more intuitive. Unless you're enchanting or preparing a ritual, there are no material components, and both verbal and somatic components are always optional all the time.
>>845464I guessed that that was the case, seeing as silver dragons are suposed to be lawful good and the most chumy with the humanoid races out of all the dragons, and in no way threatening or agresive to someone they just met. Acording to the MM they would pretty much just chat you up, ask how you're doing, offer you some help no strings atached and wish you a good day.That being said its still nice to look at the monster manual entry on something we are fighting. Helps drive the imagination. The fact that it's butchered only means there will be less metagaming.
>>845514I wouldn't say it's butchered. I didn't look too closely at the stat blocks and such, and the lore that came with the monsters I mostly just immediately discarded in my head. But a lot of the art was good, building on what was there without spitting in the face of the classic image we have of them by now.There are things like gnolls all being evil demon-blooded cannon fodder in there, to which I say: Fuck that shit. I can do better things than that with nomadic hyena people. Always chaotic evil shouldn't be a thing when working with a sapient, independent species of the material plane. At least that's what I think.You got lucky with the trogs, as they all seemed to attack you with little hesitation and none of them were unarmed, so there were little moral concerns, but if you encounter some not!goblins and not!kobolds later on, that may not be the case.Oh, and troglodytes look more like pic related.
K>>845464Take the chiefs staff. It might be enchanted or something. Also check out that white powder box from the earlier. Might be something usefull.>>845514>subliminal messages to convince OP that drago is bro.Good thinking.Also if we strip all the flesh of a trog, could we use a core on the skeleton and make a skeleton golem. It be pretty agile and fast compared to the stone ones. Perfect for fine crafts.
>>845464Out of curiosity, can we NOT smash the eggs? I mean, realistically... We could raise them to think we are their god. Is there a reason we shouldn't do this?We could have troglodyte slaves mining for us. Sure, golems are great, but there surely must be some advantage to having religious zealot Trogs that look up to you as a deity father figure.
>>845582We can build better slaves that dont think and work harder and dont require any other resources that "magic" that we jizz out every day.
>>845586I suppose... I just don't like letting potential resources go to waste.
>>845582I suppose the only perk would be that they will be self thinking and relatively intelligent compared to a log or a lizard, but we can probably make better more intelligent golems later on. failing that we can probably treat with the not!goblins or whatever we can find that can act as officers for our golem legions
>>845598Fair point. Anyone want to see if the dragon has an interest in trog eggs? Might be gross to us but maybe caviar to it.
>>845607Dragons have Kobolds man, they dont need skunk lizards too.
>>845550>white powder boxThat's the bonemeal. Sorry for not clarifying that. There's a full crate of it, so it's probably enough for... Whatever it is you would do with bonemeal.As for bone golems... The tendons won't be enough to hold it together, so if you want it to look like a real skeleton, you'd have to spend hours of monotone work tethering all 200+ bones together one by one. . Or you could do away with some of the extraneous bits to create something less actually trogg-like in appearance. There's pretty good stuff online of you look for bone golems, just like if you look for steampunk golems or whatever.Stripping away the flesh fill make you, the bones, and the air in the room smell not just for days (that's already the case) but for weeks either way. Your camping supplies don't include soap.If it isn't obvious, I'm not writing yet. I have to work around the house, and I'm checking back in now and then. So technically this vote's still open, but the overwhelming consensus is still on smashing the eggs.
>>845619Pretty damn good quest so far, man. Keep it up.>Smash the eggs. Also take the weapons from the weapon rack, the chieftain's staff, any useful leather, and whatever other metal tools we can find (pickaxes, etc). Take the ore and bonemeal. Maybe we can try to use the bonemeal for farming at some point. If we do decide to visit the nearby town, we can probably bring up the extermination of the trogs and get a reward out of it.Voting for exploring the side tunnel near the three dead miners. I'm against spelunking any further past the trog camp until we are a bit more prepared. Let's try to avoid awaking some horror of the deep. Take the longsword with us while we explore. Leave Swordgolem to guard the tunnel we go down (we can run back to it if we aggro anything). Have the other two haul the loot from the trog camp up to where the crated ore is or back to the camp. Also create a torch if we're lacking a light source.
>>845712Supporting this course of action
>>845712*Have the other two golems haul the loot from the trog camp, the ore and the bonemeal back to our camp.Just clarify that a bit.
After finding a scrap of cloth to tie over your nose and mouth, as you should've done a long time ago, you return to the eggs with a golem and have it step on each and every one of them, releasing their gooey contents over the floor. Meanwhile, your other golems are already working on picking the more intact lengths of skin and fur free from the walls, stakes and bone furniture. After confirming that the eggs don't smell quite as bad as you'd feared, you and your remaining golems join the rest in gathering up anything useful after scraping the trog off of them. For your part, you follow your golems as they leave discarded bits of material behind, gathering up straps of leather and tendon the primitive lizards made use of, and you soon have several handfuls of them, having to dump what you have to free your hands after a few minutes. The crates, large enough to come up to your waist and half again as wide as you are, fill up rapidy. You have to close the lid on a few of them after you scavenge some iron nails out of your surroundings, hammering them in place with a heavy drum stick, so your golems can begin stacking them on top of each other as they are filled. Soon enough, you have three full crates of workable leather, a crate of bonemeal, and one you have your golems throw the bent and dented weaponry wielded by what the tribe considered to be its well-armed individuals. You leave the piecemeal lengths of chain and plate some trogs fastened on their bodies in a pile, not sure if you'll take them with you, as you can't really use any of it and their quality is all over the place. You don't think they'll sprout feet and run away.Moving on to the only three weapons of any quality you've found in this place, you decide to handle them personally and with more care than the other things you've found to be usable in here. The shortsword and the axe you put in a crate you line with some straw extracted from the now-destroyed bedding, and you also place the chieftain's staff in there, fortunately undamaged by the quarrel. You can't feel any magic from it, but that can sometimes be the case with lesser, manually-activated enchantments. You'll inspect it for runes later, maybe prod and probe it a little with your magic to see if anything happens. And if not, it can at the very least serve as a trophy, to remind you of the first major conquest in your wizarding career, surely to be followed by many others. Most mortal creatures seem to be no less vulnerable than ants, where you're concerned, and you don't think the troglodytes wouldn't have fared any better if they were humans or gnomes or whatever else, considering what little they had to work with here.
After nailing the wooden boxes shut and neatly stacking them on top of each other, you count them again. Three crates of leather, two crates of poor weapons of many kinds, a crate of bonemeal, and some more weapons that wouldn't fit into boxes, like spears and the staff propped against them, next to the pile of crude trinkets and charms you had your golems dump onto the ground as you needed the containers they were in. You didn't find a sheath, but you did find a belt somewhere, suitable for strapping your newest weapon to your body. You don't know how to use it, but it might make you look less of an easy prey, and you like the weight it puts around your waist. Your work here done, you decide to continue further downwards, to see where this strange path leads you.You proceed forwards uninterrupted for several minutes, and the smooth walls of the hallway stretch forward without showing any signs of ending. You didn't bother walking back all the way to the entrance of the troglodyte lair to get the lantern you left there, instead grabbed a still-lit torch from a nearby chamber, which now doesn't really iluminate your way too far. You scratch your ear. The light from the throne room behind you is yet visible, but in front of you is nothing but ominous darkness. The effect of the smooth walls works with that, unnerving you even further. If this was dug by hand, it was done so very carefully, and by something more advanced than tribal skunk-lizards, and yet, it bears absolutely no decorations. The only variation is the texture of the stone that changes as you walk, and patches of marble glimpse between gness and granite, creating a noteworthy display nevertheless. You don't stop walking to gawk around, however, and delve deeper.
An extreme annoyance grips you as you hear the sound of yet another troglodyte from somewhere ahead of you, and you immediately hasten your pace to catch up to it, one of your golems advancing in front of you. Their motions may be on the slower side, but their wide steps and their lack of fatigue makes them fast at marching nevertheless. By the time you reach the source of the sound, you find that you don't have to do anything. There was a barricade here, constructed out of wooden beams carried from the mineshafts and stacked on top of each other, but it is broken now, the nail that held it together splintering deep gashes as the bodies of wood were forcefully freed from each other. A few of the rectangular logs are broken in two entirely, and they're thick enough that whatever did it must have been exceptionally strong. The trog you just head lies in the middle of the ruined pile, releasing fresh blood and decidedly not fresh trog stink into the air, prompting you to put the cloth back over your lower face. It was killed just now. You can't tell whether the barricade was broken just now or earlier, as you couldn't really estimate if the sound of wood you heard moment ago came from the troglodyte's corpse falling on the remaining of the blockade, or if it came from the blockade breaking apart. As you scratch at an itch in your other ear this time, you take note to pay more attention to your surroundings moving forward, even as you concede that you'll probably discard that note sooner or later to introspect some more.A bit further into the hall, you can see some steps leading down, carved with immaculate symmetry like the rest of the tunnel. But before that, you note that there are two piles, on either side of the stairway, of skulls. These are not only skulls from humans and troglodytes, but you also see what clearly must have been an orc, a big, brutish one from some giantfolk, and some human-like ones that clearly aren't quite as pure-blooded as you are. This is clearly a warning, if the dead trog beside you didn't serve as one. You walk a bit closer, taking care not to cross the imaginary threshhold crated by the fleshless heads, and look down.There is nothing there. The darkness stretches forward, and like the rest of the tunnel, the steps proceed in a straight, orderly fashion, for quite a bit longer than you can see forward. It's almost like the light from your torch is being reduced in effectiveness by some sort of presence that remains unfelt by you. More notably, you didn't hear anyone walking away from the dead troglodyte and away from you, despite the echoing of your own footsteps and those of your golems. That elicits a momentary feeling of paranoia from you, but you're sure that there is nothing hiding behind you to kill you like it did the lizard (though you do look back and check, just in case.)
The itch on your ears intensifies and spreads to your scalp, fading into pins and needles, and though it is new to you, you immediately recognize the feeling for what it is as it spreads to your body and assumes a more faint intensity. This is the feeling of intense magic. Not as you felt from Eomatra, who radiated an oppressive aura its kind naturally generates, but merely the feeling you receive from being near a concentration of arcane energy so great, it rivals or surpasses your own. Concentrating on the feeling, you determine its source to be below and in front of you, levitating away from you, perhaps inside the body of another wizard, or perhaps actually hovering above the ground on its own. You'd stopped being afraid after your body realized that the troglodytes were no real threat to you, but this time, you're petrified in place again, and it is your brain telling you to get out of there.The powerful presence stops moving away. It remains in place, as if turning around to you, a thought that makes you panic for a split second. And then, it starts to move, towards you now, and the spike of agitation returns right where it was and stays this time. You do your best to decloud your judgment.>Call your golems into formation and be ready to fight. You have the high ground.>Collapse the ceiling, blocking its way. Hopefully it can't do geomancy.>GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE IMMEDIATELY WHAT THE FUCK IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT FUCK>Maybe it only collects the skulls that are naturally found here and there. Greet it politely and without prejudice.>Do something entirely different. (Write-in)
>>845859Acknowlage whatever that is, turn around and calmly leave. Gather up all the crates and go back to camp. Pee your pants just a little bit after leaving the cave and TAKE THE FUCK OFF RUNING BACK TO CAMP, HOLLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE!?
>>845859>Collapse the ceiling, blocking its way. Hopefully it can't do geomancy.
>>845859>Acknowlage whatever that is and ask how mutch of the mine above is free to use.
>>845881This. Worst case we run and grab our crates on the way out. Should be enough metal there to get started. Best case we have a new friend.
>>845859>Acknowledge whatever that is and ask how much of the mine above is free to use.Pretty much this.
Also we have a high chance that its a beholder of some type
>>845888Huh. What made you guess that?
>>845881Supporting this. But let's do that politely.
>>845892A higly magical monster that lives underground and floats, it could be something else of course.
>>845881Supporting.
So um... update?
>>846092QM had to retool their encounter from the ground up because SOMEBODY guessed the monster he was gonna used.
>>846092I have a busier day today. You won't get too many updates. Hopefully I'll be freed up by tomorrow.>>846120I wouldn't do that.
You decide to stand your ground and wait. Some command you've unconsciously sent goads your golems to your side, the swordsgolem looking over your shoulder with its inanimate, unseeing eyes. The tunnel is wide enough to accomodate four people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, which you note in case there is a fight ahead of you. You do, however, prefer this doesn't end in conflict. Not only are you worried about your own safety, but you've had more than enough of sorting through dead bodies, and you suspect whatever's as powerful as the thing coming your way would be civilized enough not to merit immediate extermination. You suspect it, and you hope it very strongly, now that it's coming up the stairs. When you think it close enough, you narrow your eyes to take a good look at it.At first, you don't see anything. Then, you make out a dim red glint, a pinpoint of light in the darkness ahead of you. You hand your torch to one of your golems, who holds the comparatively small thing awkwardly with its giant hands. It may not be taller than a very large man, but you decided to boost the proportions of its hands and feet, to allow them to hold proportionally larger things, and to make up for their lack of balance. It drags the torch away from your face, allowing your eyes to slowly adjust to the dark.You see now that the red orb is purely made out of light, hanging mid-air and being emitted by nothing in particular, and ten smaller wisps, similar in color, following it closely above. As its magical presence becomes close enough to raise the prickling on your skin to uncomfortable levels, you begin to make out its true form. The largest of the orbs sits inside a singular eye socket, the brow of bone above it locked in a perpetual scowl. Directly below the eye is a mouth, lined with feral teeth, misshapen and lipless like those of the troglodytes you just killed. But rather than a snout, the levitating skull is round in shape. It's like a human in that aspect, but overall, you would call it anything but that.As the monocular skull comes closer to you, you begin to make out more details. It doesn't have a nose, or a nostril where they would have been one while it was alive, and now that you can compare it to yourself, it is easily as large as your entire body, perhaps even bigger. You consider that this is some sort of undead construct made from a cyclops, the one-eyed titans familiar even to the lowest of folk, but then you notice the numerous holes it has around its temples, five on either side. One to match each light, you note. Perhaps the lights come out of those holes, where they normally rest within the skull, along with the main eye? No, that's a stupid thought. You doubt disembodied wisps require holes to pass through skulls. Your anxiety must be really affecting your mental faculties.
Finally, it comes to a halt in front of you, and you see that it is, indeed, quite immense. Somehow, you know that the spectral glow that serves as its main eye bears great intelligence within, and you think it bears great malice as well. You'd expected as much, and remained calm in spite of that, hoping that none of its grudge would be directed at you."You are the one I felt yesterday," it states. You knew manipulating that much earth was a great feat, but you hadn't considered even for a second that it would draw the attention of all these other magical beings around you. It isn't anything like Eomatra, whose voice was neutral in tone, almost detached from any emotion the dragon might have been feeling. No, this time, the words explode from right inside your head, and bear great revulsion, at you, and at whatever gods allowed you to exist in the first place."You are afraid. This is smart. You could die right now, if I willed it."As the words shake your mind from within, you clench a metaphysical muscle, and try to steady yourself mentally. You succeed, partially. Your thoughts become stable enough to realize that not only its voice is in your head, but some of its presence is as well. The reason it knows you're afraid is not an assumption, or an analysis of your expression, but a direct perception of your inner world. It senses emotions, perhaps even minds. That idea is understandably upsetting to you, and you continue to do things with your mind as you did to reduce its fearful presence, in the hopes of purging your brain from this intruder. You fail."Yes, your thoughts are as clear to me as a book." There is a contemplating pause. "You are offended by this. That is of no consequence to me. It is within my power to read your thoughts. Therefore, it is my right to do so." Blood shoots through your head now, making you dizzy with sheer outrage at the creature's sheer audacity, the terror that gripped you forgotten for a moment. You continue your mental struggle with renewed fervor, but it is seemingly in vain."It is within my power to take your life as I see fit. Therefore, your life belongs to me, to do with as I will.""You have more power than most. This affords you some lenience. I will leave, now. Later, there will be summons. You will obey them, or you will die." Multiple images of yourself perishing shoot through your head simultaneously. You are paralyzed and torn apart by animate corpses. You are slowly turned to stone, and shattered to pieces by the mace of an armored giant. Invisible rays ravage your body, disintegrating it where they come in contact. These and many more occupy the entirety of your consciousness as they play out in repetition. After a brief moment of eternity, the overwhelming sensation fades, you realize that you've been screaming your throat dry, and you're on your knees now, your golems imitating you to your either side, cowering with paradoxical stoicism.
The oversized skull has already turned around, as though refusing to acknowledge you or your golems. It is already halfway down the steps, but its presence remains in your mind. "Thank you for disposing of the vermin. Now, I will tell you what I made clear to them." The intensity of its aberrant thought-voice has lowered itself, probably due to the distance between the two of you."You may only go past this point under two circumstances. One, you wish to assume your rightful place as my servant eternal. Or two, you wish to cross through my lair and into the Underdark, and bring a suitable offering as payment." Then, without clarifying what it considers to be suitable at all, the thing's presence forcefully (and painfully) removes itself from the midst your thought patterns. Relief washes over you, now that you're alone in your head once more, and it's unmatched by any shred of relief you've felt up to this point in your life.You and your golems stand up. The disgusting undead thing is still near enough that you could attack it right now. You're afraid still, but you're also angry, and the two emotions fight for dominance within you.>Attack it with magic.>Attack it with golems.>Turn around and leave.>Turn around and explore the other tunnel.>Ask the thing a question, you're sure it can hear even without ears.>Wait for its presence to fade away, then sneak into its lair.>Write-in
>>845897So yeah, you were technically correct.
>>846338>>Turn around and leave.Time to get magically swole! Fuck the beholder litch!
>>846360What a bitch is all I'm saying for now.
>>846338>>Turn around and explore the other tunnel.Might as well look around and see if there is anything of value left down here.Once the day that we are strong enough to deal with the beholder we will.
>>846338>Fuck that noise.Back to camp we go. Gather up everything we collected and get the fuck out of dodge. Maybe a quick stop to check the side tunel near the dead miners.
>>846338>Leave this area as calmly as our legs can carry us then retrieve our loot from the trogs before exploring the other tunnel..
we have to git gud now, like real good. After getting gooder we should probably say hi to our draconic neighbour and ask it about the beholder, any info would be useful
>>846338First a dragon and now a beholder. Our guy apparently has very bad luck in choosing a location. Lets just gather up what we have and leave before we run into a pit fiend or something. But sure lets push our luck and try a few other passages real quick.
>>846429if we encounter anything i say we run this time... no more blood debts or anything. Well.... if it like the togs then i say rip and tear but anything scary we run
>>846429Well we ARE stupidly OP as all fuck, So that really isn't a surprise.
>>846338>Turn around and explore the other tunnel.
The creature who just left you was a being of immense power, probably closer in power to the legendary wizards of yore like Lywyn or Serallion; that is to say, far greater than a fledgling wizard such as yourself. So rather than going up against it in a futile attempt to satiate your pride, you decide to turn back now and amass your power. With time and patience, you're certain you will reach the height of your potential, and whether you become known to the world or not, you will become as fearsome as anything children trade stories about when they sit around a bonfire at night. And then, this creature will have to think twice about treating you the way it did. Though you feel terrible about turning tail after what it put you through, you console yourself by choosing to take pride in your wise restraint.Still in somewhat of a daze you hadn't quite acknowledged you were in, you and your golems haul your boxes of loot back up the tunnel, all the way to the major fork. It takes your servants some time, as you have to make sure they don't drop the crates stacked on top of each other with their movements. You consider crafting your next cores tailored to smaller bodies, so they are lithe and graceful in their movements. Despite your misgivings, you're getting better at controlling your golems without a doubt, even as you make only minor alterations to their movements. You learned more about swordplay having your golems fight troglodytes than you ever did practicing with your cousin from the militia. The dexterity of your servants seem to improve over time, and as you gain more experience in actually crafting new and better cores. Right now, the only alterations you can make are to a small portion of the runic arrays they bear, rigged to store your mental commands, overwriting old, inferior ones as you run out of storage or render preexisting routines obsolete.You arrive at the fork which revealed to you that this mine had more than just scraps for you to take. You reaffirm that your golems won't fit through the narrower path, even if they proceed sideways, and opt to have them deposit their cargo here, so they may guard this location from anything that would ambush you from behind. Like the lamp it replaced, your torch doesn't reveal anything much further than the tree crates you can see from here, as the passage turns. Having done all you can to prepare, you hold your torch aloft, your hand near your yet-unbloodied longsword, and head forth.
You examine the crates first, using your sword to pry the boxes open, and confirm that they are indeed full of ore. Well, they aren't filled to the brim, the ore merely filling two thirds of the waist-high containers. Somewhat disappointing, perhaps, but you understand why the people who have to carry them wouldn't want them to get too heavy, as there are no carts or anything else with wheels around here to help with that sort of task. You're all to glad for not having to lug these any further than where your tireless constructs can grab them for you.You turn around the bend. The sight that greets you is much like the lest of the mine leading to this point, with its support beams, emptied lanterns, and the occasional discarded pickaxes. There are no corpses, no monstrosities that lunge at you, and no effigies made out of the remains of things that could speak. What few forks there are reveal themselves to interconnect as they did before, and they're a bit more complex than the previous portion of the mine, but you manage not to get lost anyway.A few minutes of walking down the corridors, now growing even narrower and shorter, begins to grow more scarce in signs of former civilization, but you only note this absentmindedly, as your mind is mainly focused on your other discovery. You have finally found what you came down here for. Veins of ore have been revealed and left mostly untouched here, some broken-off lumps deposited on the ground beside them, with nothing to deposit them in nearby, and little space to accomodate big crates. There are even more pickaxes here, and you think these look better than the ones you've seen so far, though most of those were perfectly fine as well. There are perhaps enough tools for a dozen people to work in here, even if they may get a little crammed. You don't have any people with you, but you do have golems, though they're all too big to fit in these tunnels, which are squat enough in places that you have to lower your head a bit. Determined to note down the location of every patch of exposed vein, you continue down the increasingly convoluted tunnels.You eventually reach a dead end. At least, it's a dead end for you. A final pick lies embedded in the wall here, along with a displaced miner's helm much like the one you saw on the solitary body you saw on your way in. There is an opening, but it's on the upper left corner, and too small for you to fit in. Sure, you could bring something to step on and really squeeze your shoulders together, but even if you can have the earth obey your will, the idea of getting stuck with your upper body in a clammy little hole is extremely unappealing to a guy like you. Especially because of the disused but worryingly thick spiderweb you see hanging by its corner.>Do some stuff. (Write-in)
>>846944Pass.... leave the cave and make smaller golems to mine.
>>846944Seal the small hole off for now, get back home and rest / research / have golems build stuff.
>>846944Seal over the hole, with a few bars of stone. Then grab the picks and other stuff. We should really get back to the surface...
>>846944Plug the hole, mark it for latter, go back to camp and go hunting or foraging or fishing or something. It's been a stresful day and some fresh food would do us wonders.
>>847003changing to>>847015
>>846944Plug the hole and Mark it for later. Leave the mine and go hunting and fishing for food. After securing food supply make small miner golems that are about Dwarf size and have them go mine ores and bring it to you tower.
>>847015>>847049Supporting. Is there a river nearby? If there is, have a golem dig a pool by our camp then dig a trench so that it connects to the river. An easily accessible source of water would be nice. If possible, try to dig the pool and trench so that if any fish happen to swim into it they become trapped inside the pool and can't swim out.
>>847126Something like this.
>>847160Because fish are actually too dumb to find the path back. The funnel is foolproof in that way.
>>847160Thing is, the source of the river is further down the mountain than your home (it emerges from somewhere between the rocks). You'd have to get into some pretty crazy shenanigans if you wanted to save yourself the fifteen minutes a water trip takes. Hell, I haven't even been writing it into the story, but you probably returned there to refill your skin at least once by now.Oh, I've been writing for a while now, by the way.
>>847316No rush, good things come to those who wait plus we know you normally take about 2 hours to make those gloriously massive updates of yours so we're in no hurry cheif
It is at this point you realize just how hungry you are. With no real way to tell how long you've been roaming the tunnels underground, you realize that this session of mine-delving involved more than a few hours of rather stressful work. Your muscles ache from being tensed up this entire time, and you decide you could really do with some sunlight on your skin right about now and something edible in your belly. So you decide to turn around and leave for now.Before you do so, however, you note with some curiosity that the mass of web hanging from the small opening sways in the air, as though blown by wind. You investigate this a bit closer, and after holding your hand against it (but not close enough for any potential spider bites) you confirm that there is a very small draft coming out of it. Too exhausted to do much with that information, you have the soil and the stone around the hole reach out to one another, blocking passage for anything much bigger than a fingernail. You make sure to mark the spot with a giant 'X' as well, lest you forget about your discovery.On your way back to the surface, you pick up any pickaxes you came across earlier, until you're heaving five of them in your arms, varied in size and weight. Some of them are the equivalent of hatchets, while the biggest one could be used as a makeshift warhammer. After you make the trek back to your golems, you go back to haul the ones you couldn't carry. You need to take a minute after that while the aching in your arms subsides. Then you try to lift up and carry one of the crates of ore, failing completely. Its shape and width make it an awkward fit for your frame in the first place, and as soon as you lift them on one side, the ores inside roll to one side, shifting the center of mass to exactly where you don't want it to be. It takes you another minute of pondering how to go about it, after which you finally remember you're a proficient geomancer. So you make the ground do the work for you from there on, the wooden boxes rolled by the wave-like motions of the earth beneath them.After meeting up with your golems, you have them haul as many of the boxes as you can at once, and as before, you have the ground carry the rest for you. You feel your reserves being spent bit by bit as the terrain is roused by your will, making the boxes of ore in front of you seemingly move on their own from a distance. They look like some sort of box golem, or that mimic the town magician kept in his home. You're relatively certain those two things differ from another on a very basic level, somehow. The mimic had both organic and inorganic traits for one. You'd never forget your visit there, and how gross the mimic's saliva felt on your face as it licked you like an excited little puppy, the town mage clearly too concerned with his amusement and not enough about your consent to intervene.
You think about taking two trips instead of one to preserve energy, and to cease having to hear the rattling of the ore inside the crates as they're roughly dragged onward. Then you think back to those grand earth-moving spells you were casting as you lay the foundations of your tower, in a manner of speaking. Back there, you were channeling forth as much as your body and will would allow you, and you did so for an extended period of time. It was even enough to trick your body into working up a sweat, like you'd been engaged in intense manual labor. After that, you'd estimate that around a fourth of your reserves were emptied, or maybe slightly more than that.You instinctively realize how absurd this is. Your immense potential has caused you to generate and store ungodly amounts of magical energy within your body, but your lack of experience prevents you from accessing truly meaningful amounts of it at any given moment. Although, that could be a blessing in disguise. What you did attracted the attentions of a dragon and an undead alien creature from beneath, so that already might be more than enough power to entrust to a mere 16-year-old. One thing is for certain: You leak tons of magic into your surroundings while resting, like everybody else does on a minuscule scale as their reserves are topped off and their soul continues to produce more of it regardless. But on a much larger scale, with far greater implications. Implications which are unknown to you.You and your golems are soon close to the entrance of the mine, and you enthusiastically rush ahead, leaving the crates behind momentarily. As the warm sun greets your skin, your mind is flooded with relaxing, positive emotions, the chirping of the mountain birds seemingly celebrating your return to the surface world. A warm wind draws a mild clatter from your longsword, reminding you of the satisfying victory you scored, and your encounter with the lich-like fiend almost seems like a bad dream now, ready to be forgotten. You close your eyes to take it in and have a pleasant little moment to yourself.Reality finds a way to sour that moment, of course. You nearly jump your of your skin when you open your eyes and notice that there is a woman standing in front of a tree ahead, wearing an amused, wry smile. She wears a heavy leather duster, dyed a similar tone as the trees, and a wide-brimmed hat covers most of her ear-length, dusty hair. A sash across her chest bears four rods of arcane power, each of a different make, and her belt bears another four, ready to for her to whip them out and lauch the magic stored within at a moment's notice. You suppose that makes her one of those wand-slingers you'd been hearing about, a certain kind of combatant growing increasingly common these days, especially among adventurers.
You'd really hoped not to have any more encounters today. One would think you've had enough of those for a while, but apparently, these things come in waves. At least she doesn't draw her weapons or anything. Encounters between two people in secluded areas aren't always as peaceful as this, and though she caught you off-guard for a bit, her amusement to your distracted attitude is mischievous in an inoffensive manner. You similarly walk forward to greet her. At this point, your first golem emerges from the tunnel behind you, having been left behind by your enthusiastic pace a minute ago, and that sight wipes the grin right off the wand-slinger's face. This time, you're the one who's amused at that, though you abstain from grinning at her shit-eatingly, as is your very first impulse."Er... Hello, there, feller! I take it you're one a them golemeters?" She continues before you can answer. "No need for worry, I'm just another adventurer like yourself." Before you jump to correct her mistake, you reconsider, remaining silent for now as she continues."Well, looks like you beat me to this dive right here. Few merchants I passed by real close to here told me about these mines, when I asked 'em about some places a gal like me could poke around in. Think I'll try my luck with another mineshaft, if you haven't cleared 'em all already.""Oh, the name's Sandra, by the by. What's yours?"That last part catches you off guard a little bit. On your journey here, you'd thought about what you'd call yourself, now that you're a real life wizard. They generally have these grandiose names. Some have titles people attach their names, announcing their deeds. Like Illuminator Serallion, Valcryst the Eternal, or Lywyn, the Saint of Murder.Thing is, you're a commoner who had no family name. Your father goes by Sven, you suppose. And your given name is, well... Bob. You suppose makes you Bob Svenson.>Introduce yourself with a brand new wizard name. You're glorious. You should go by something glorious. (Write-in)>Do the above, and make up some title for yourself as well. You'll be big before they know it anyway.>Don't tell her you're a wizard. People don't need to know about you quite yet. Go along with the adventurer story and keep your shitty old name for now.>Pass off as something other than an adventurer or a wizard.>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the Wizard. >Something else. (Write-in)
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the WizardI love the 'not givinga shit' options.
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the Wizard.
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the WizardI chuckled.
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the Wizard. People spending their time trying to sound scary or impressive, probably are quite full of themselves.
>>847567>Don't tell her you're a wizard. People don't need to know about you quite yet. Go along with the adventurer story and keep your shitty old name for now.
>>847648Three giant golems already gave that away... But maybe leave it at that, not stating your grandeur.
>I was formally known as Bob, but now I go by Alexander Dreadstone. You can call me Alex
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the WizardTop lelthese options are always the best
>>847793With study and practice, people can absolutely build golems without being wizards. Just not, you know, the same day they learn their first rune.There are people less talented than you with far greater constructs serving under them, thanks to advances in enchanting, golemetry and artifice. And some of them are adventurers.I mean, Tinkerton is a place that exists.
Oh yeah, fair warning. I'm tired, so you might not get an update until tomorrow.
>>847793Given than she called us an adventure she might not realize we are a wizard
>Don't tell her you're a wizard. People don't need to know about you quite yet. Go along with the adventurer story and keep your shitty old name for now.
>>847567>Don't tell her you're a wizard. People don't need to know about you quite yet. Go along with the adventurer story and keep your shitty old name for now.This, we do NOT need curious assholes to deal with as well as dragons and Beholders.
hey is the thread kill
>>847965For now
>>847567NO we must be Bob the Builder as we are a golemancer. Tis name is too great to pass up. I tink tis adventurer seems nice lets warn her of the dragon and bid her a farewell.
>>848310And those were the first days of the legendary golemancer Bob The Builder...
>>848336CAN WE ENCHANT ITYES WE CAN
>>847567>You know what? Fuck it. You're Bob. Bob the Wizard.All shall fear Bob the Wizard!
>>849832Bob the Buiding Wizard
>>849873Bob the Wizarding Builder
>>849887Bob the Wizbobing Buildbober
>>850549Bob the bibidy bobidyBut seriously. We are Bob the Wizard, but she don't need to know about the wizard part.
Don't tell her were a wizard. Keep the shit name for now.
>>847581>>847598>>847610>>847615>>847881>>848310>>849832bib bob baboop wizard>>847648>>847939>>847943>>849028>>851032>>851073>totally not a wizard7 vs 6 makes this a narrow win for making your wizardom publicly official.Slooooowly writing/waking up.
There's a pastebin now.http://pastebin.com/iWY2NchKI didn't include your surroundings yet. Not sure if they should be stats or make an actual map.
>>851206This is awesome. Also map could be an actual map WITH stats. You know. Just so that you don't need to choose.
"I'm Bob. Bob the wizard."A short moment of stunned silence at these words from you is immediately followed by an outburst of laughter from Sandra, occasionally even devolving into crude snorts. You wait for her to finish while you confirm that she is indeed a rougher individual. As she makes an exaggerated show out of clutching her apparently aching belly, her sleeves shift enough for you to make out a few scars on her lower arms. They're deep enough that you wouldn't be surprised if she had many more of them, and now that you're thinking about it, her figure seems to be lean and trimmed, though much of it is covered up by her garb. You don't much doubt she's the seasoned adventurer she made herself out to be."Well okay then, oh almighty... Bob," Sandra continues with another snort. "Don't let me interrupt your great wizarding, or whatever." That, and the following lopsided grin really gets under your skin. Without straining yourself or your environment too much, you have the earth rumble beneath the two of you, small sticks and pebbles jumping about a few inches. That gets her attention, as her expression changes into something more in keeping with the situation, and while she takes you more seriously now, her amusement yet to fade away entirely."Alright, alright, calm down there, big guy! Obviously you've got a lot of power to throw around, wizard or not." She gets ready to leave, not having anything more to do here. "I'll go explore one of those other mines now, if your little, er, demonstration there didn't cave any of them in." You assure that the tremors were confined to your present location, which you're pretty sure they are, though she did make you doubt yourself for a second there.She turns back to you as if remembering something. "Oh, right! After I'm done with this rock, I'll be moving on to the next town over. Er, Rampares, I think it was called. You familiar?" she asks, to which you respond with a nod. "Good, good. I'll probably be stayin' there as I pick the region clean of undelved dungeons. Look me up if a fellow of your... standing has any use for an adventurer. And the money to pay for it, of course," Sandra adds.>Tell her to stay out of the other mines. They're yours.>Let her have her fun. It's not like she's going to do any real mining there.[continued; next vote below]
You part ways with the wandslinger after that, and you and your golems make the trek back home as you think back on the encounter you just had. You don't think she's going to make it her mission to announce your presence wherever she goes, but she probably won't hide it, either. It's not like you told her about the tower you're building here, although that does generally come as a given with wizards. There's some kind of advantage that comes with being further above the surrounding terrain when conducting magical experiments, if the vague notion you've had in your head for a while is to be trusted. It's part of what made you decide to build one for yourself. That, and the idea of living in a great cliffside spire that grows as you expand its scope with your capabilities just sits right with you, somehow.You arrive at the construction site of your tower, and your tent beside it. The wind has picked up on your way back here, strewing about natural debris over the flat stretch of stone you'd largely cleared and causing your tent to finally topple over. Worse than that, a section of the wall around that foundation has toppled over, the uneven stones stacked on top or another in a circular perimeter having given way to the winds, with little but their own weight to hold them together in an orderly fashion. You sigh as a wave of exhaustion passes over you. For now, you elect to have the floor grab your tent by the supports and reerect it as it was before, using your hands to pull some of the tarp back into a proper shape, and enter. Your backpack awaits you inside, and you grab some food and stuff it in your mouth, chewing for the bare minimum amount of time before you swallow the remaining mixture of nuts and raisins. Your ears, cold from the winds, thank you, glad to be out of the winds that blow against your tent. That, and the noise from your golems are the only things you can hear as you prepare yourself for the work ahead of you. There are still a few hours left before sundown, and you woke up pretty late anyway.>Bob the builder gonna build some stuff.>Time to do some wizarding practice. You've got some gud to git.>There may be more players around. Better explore now to find out.>Gotta have more golems. Craft some cores.>Gotta have better golems. Make some upgrades.>Goddamn you're tired. Relight the campfire, curl up in your tent and read a book.>Goddamn you're tired. Go to bed early.>Your unoccupied golems will do some stuff in the meantime.>Do something with the spider golem thing. Reactivate it and have it do something. Or just give it a name.>Write-in
Oh hey, we're in autosage. I guess it'll still take another few days for it this to fall off the board. I'll make a new thread then.I will be reposting the pastebin at the start of every thread, but I don't intend to make it required reading. It's more of a tool to help me and the players keep track of things and junk. We'll see if I split it into multiple pastes later on, but it's adequate for now.
>Let her have her fun. It's not like she's going to do any real mining there.>>851264>>Gotta have more golems. Craft some cores.But Experiment while doing so, which should count as wizarding practice
>>851263>let her have her funFuck fighting right now, the beholder was quite enough today>>851264>craft some coresI propose we call our little spider golem Jeffrey>upgrade Jeffrey with actual rock-spider limbs
>>851274I previously stated that it's your only golem too primitive to assume different body parts, but I don't want to be needlessly finicky either. I'd make it so that it takes you a very short amount of time to modify its core as needed since it's so far below your level by now. If this even gets voted for, that is.
>>851274I'll +1 it
>>851264>Gather food for the future, eat, sleep.Did we get everything from the mine? If not>Send golems to the mine for the last stuffs.
>>851293I'll vote for that. We're almost out of food. If there's time left over we could put some work into the tower. Build the wall from bricks and fuse the bricks into a solid wall with our magic so it doesn't tople over again.
>>851293Would be embarrassing if a great wizard died from malnourishment.
>>851293Changing to this
>>851293And a dis.
Aside from a bit of indigestion due to your haste, the preserved foodstuffs you scarfed down have largely calmed down your rebelling stomach. However, it's also made you aware of an empty feeling you've had for a while now, perhaps since yesterday. Though what little physical exhaustion you built up nearly fades away in the half hour or so you've been resting for, your grip still remains weak, almost shaky, even. It's no real surprise to you. You haven't eaten any real food for almost an entire week now, the heartiest recent meal you've had being some leftovers spared by the caravaneers that lead you here. The mere memory of it causes your mouth to salivate profusely, so with a gulp, you get up to find yourself some real food. There is more than enough life here to sustain your body for as long as you need.You do remember to put your golems to use before you leave, however. They get started on building your tower, and you decide to make the walls a little thicker for now, to support the yet-unstable walls against the winds. The faintest mental pulse from you sends them scurrying off to clear debris and restack stone bricks along the partially collapsed perimeter. You also take a short moment here, just to appreciate the tireless diligence of your constructs, none of them showing any signs that the three of them, with your modest aid, fought off a small horde of ravenous beast-men. Well, in their movements, at least. Their bodies are absolutely covered in gooey chunks, dried blood, scratches and chips as well as a darkened, scorched patch on two of them, from the chieftain's magic.When you're satisfied that they'll continue their task free of any blunders on your part, you leave them, again gulping down some of the excess saliva in your mouth. You make sure to take your backpack with you this time, to have some storage space available for whatever you manage to collect. It doesn't take you too long to find a few juniper trees bearing edible berries, seemingly the same species that grows around your birthplace, so you know they're safely edible. You ravenously jump up at a particularly fruitful branch and nearly pull half the thing off the tree, scarfing down some of them while depositing others, thanking the spirits as they their somewhat bitter juices are released in your mouth. They're still somewhat immature, as you remember they bear fruit during winter, a rare trait. Truth be told, that is one of the few factoids you know about fruits and herbs. It never really peaked your interest much. You regret that now.
After you're satisfied with the amount you've collected, you move on a bit further down the mountain, where you hope you will fine more signs of life. You'd like to have some actual meat between your teeth during your next meal, and unlike plants, you're at least somewhat familiar with game. You discover a few tracks here or there, but this is the first time you're out hunting all by yourself, and you're out of practice, so they end up leading you nowhere for more than an hour or two. You're also pretty bad at estimating stretches of time, truth be told.It's not all bad. Being away from people, surrounded by nothing but nature, suits your current mood fairly well. You've never been an outgoing sort in the first place, and you've had more than enough social interaction for the day, to put it mildly. You slip into a comfortable mindset, balanced between tracking and daydreaming, and soon enough, your efforts yield fruit. Well, meat, actually. Bear meat, specifically.You've approached the brown hulk with relative stealth, or at least what you thought to be such, but perhaps due to your clumsiness, or perhaps because you failed to take into account that it's downwind from your current location, it tenses up as you draw closes, and lifts its head from the innards of the stag it seems to have killed some time ago. Then, while keeping an eye pointed in your general direction, it returns to its meal.The beast may be far greater than you in both size and weight, but you fail to be intimidated by its display, and abandoning your meager attempts at stealth, you approach it in a relatively relaxed stride. This provokes a more involved reaction from the bloodied brown bear, and stands on its feet, its claws high in the air, and roars in your general direction. You continue, knowing full well what will happen next.You've seen an angered bear before. A hunting trip you took with your father a few months ago resulted in a similar encounter, though my mistake that time. Despite the old man's best efforts, the two of you ended up offending the bear one way or another, and it charged you with speed you thought impossible for something as bulk as it was. That was the only time you saw your father abandon his bow in favor of the spear he always carries with him, and the image of the gentle, aloof giant you largely had of him so far was shattered forever as the encounter ended with the bear impaled all the way through its mouth to its gut. Your father was hurt terribly that day... After you two made it back home and you made the mistake of telling your mother what had happened. You've never seen a rolling pin used to such devastating effect, and you doubt you will do so ever again.
Back in the present moment, the bear in front of you now does the same exact thing as the one from that day, as though it was an exact duplicate. It closes in on you like a bolt of lightning made out of several hundred pounds of muscle. It's too bad for the bear, then, that you expected that very thing, because what follows is that you lift your arms up with your feet in a wide stance, your center of mass rising slowly with the motion. A rough stretch of the ground between you and your attacker does the same, much faster than you ever managed, and the bear fails to stop its charge. The impact actually manages to shatter the relatively thick slab you just raised, as the bear crashes into the ground and tumbles before you, scattering fragments of rock all over the place.The bear is close enough to your location that you panic just the slightest bit when it starts moving to get back up, despite its face being clearly shattered severely, and you quickly summon the largest intact piece of the slab above its head and have it smash down repeatedly, until it eventually stops twitching.While the next step would usually be you opening up its jugular to let out most of its blood, you're satisfied that the creature before you is letting out enough of its fluids to avoid souring its meat. So you skip that, setting your pack on the ground, and pull out your knife. The damn thing has an extremely thick hide, its bones are thick as the dickens, and its overall body nothing short of ludicrous in its bulk. By the time you've discarded the organs you don't need, you've worked up a good sweat. After all the intense sweating and bloodletting you've done throughout the day, not to mention the troglodyte stink, you're pretty sure you really need a good bath and a change of clothes. It's unfortunate, then, that these are the only set of clothing you own.The trek back to your camp is relaxed and uneventful, other than a few more stops to gather some edible foliage. Your magic makes it a trifle to carry something even as heavy as the carcass of a brown bear, and you aren't approached by any dragons, humanoid monstrosities, or giant floating skulls while you do so. Just as you're considering the idea of magically dragging a dead bear behind you at all times, you arrive at your campsite.
You take in the work your three golems have been doing during your absence while you deposit the corpse a comfortable distance from the tent you will be sleeping in and the dust-strewn construction site. The three of your golems have circled the entirety of the perimeter you mentally marked for them with flat stones. The wall isn't nearly high enough yet, but it's there, and that's enough to impress you. It appears that your servants are good enough at this now that they've completed their task in the time you've left them, having ran out of suitably shaped stones for them to stack on top of. The thickness you've had them add to it has prevented it from collapsing anywhere, though the portion right by the edge of the cliff does make you a bit nervous, since that's where the winds are strongest and you'd lose whatever fell down there. Also, people evidently visit these parts at least sometimes, and you might hurt or kill them. Uh. If you didn't do so earlier, what with the artificial landslide and all.You get back down to get your bear ready to eat, the only remaining steps now being the skinning and the cutting apart now. You'll do that last part when you actually want to cook it, but you get out your knife and get started with the skinning now. It's the part you've been dreading the most, as its pelt is immense and none of your magic is really accurate enough to do the cutting for you, at least right now. You'll soon have worked up yet another sweat.While you work, you consider what you will do next. You could really use a bath, but the sun has nearly set and the mountain's shadow lies over you now, and even though the winds have died down somewhat, the air is growing colder by the minute. Besides, you're not expecting any visits, and there are plenty of other things you could be doing instead.>Bob eat bear! Bob eat bear now!>Better solidify those walls before they fall over in case of a storm or something.>Wait a minute, there's no gap for a door! Fix that, and start putting together the actual door out of wood.>Do something with your more recent acquisitions.>Modify your golems in some way, or make new ones.>It's late. Go to sleep. Work can wait until tomorrow.>Write-in
>>851430>>Bob eat bear! Bob eat bear now!Let's eat!
>>851430Looks like meats back on the menu!
>>851430Make a big bear golem to hold the smaller bears meat in its chest whle we eat bear.
>>851430Lets feast!Then, we solidify the walls. We don't need a door, we can make one each time we come and go anyway.
>>851430Solidify the walls slightly then eat bear
>>851430Btw, shouldn't we be able to steer a stone or metal blade with our powers, thus making the skinning easier?
>>851523We can't do it precisely enough yet to do so, not to mention bears are kinda... tough; we'd need a large amount of power which we can't sustain with great accuracy.
>>851499>>851500Supporting.
>>851523Stone only, but you opted for hygiene instead. Also, rocks usually aren't that great at cutting.Metal-related magic is related to, but separate from earth-related magic. Your telekinesis is too clumsy.
>>851440His. This world shall shake in fear at the approach of Bob the Bearslayer!
>>851500Supporting this
You decide to indulge in some fine eating. After the day you've made i through just now, it's the least you deserve. Looking up and down the cleaned carcass, you pick out a good chunk of meat. You're familiar in general with primal cuts. Three years before your exodus, the family farm had grown fruitful enough, and with the money your father had been saving throughout his lifetime, he hired a few farmhands, maintaining and expanding the farmed portion of the lands he owned. This freed you and your older brother to pursue other sources of work, with him leaving for the capital to enlist, and you working small jobs here and there until you were older and ready to leave your household. The butcher was the one you remained the longest at, and other than allowing you to grow used to foul smells, it resulted in you becoming quite proficient in slaughtering, skinning and butchering various animals, mostly domesticated ones.You free a sizable and juicy slab, and after assembling a makeshift spit over the campfire and lighting it, you hang the meat over it. You give it a spin every once in a while, but as the smell begins to grow really tantalizing, your thoughts drift over to the still unstable walls a short distance from where you are.Deciding it's fine to have a charred layer over your meat, you walk over to the construction site, over the stone fence waiting for your attentions, to the center of where your tower will be. The distance between you and the walls is a suitable stretch, as you decided it's better to have a tower slightly too wide rather than risking it feeling too small after a while. As you go over each stone very quickly, a small part of their surfaces melding together with those of their neighbours, you notice that this is already far enough to affect the speed of the work you're doing. Crude and forceful movements seem to be easier than fine, controlled ones, maybe more for you than for mages in general, and the difficulty seems to rise with distance. By the time you're satisfied the walls are solid enough, the smell of bear has washed over the entire construction site and likely the rest of your surroundings, so you make haste to return. It is nighttime by now, and you're wary of attracting predators. You do hear some small animal scurry away into some nearby underbrush, and even though it's obscured by the dark, you glimpse enough that it isn't anything you should be concerned with. You retrieve the oversized drumstick and sit down on the dirt. You bite in. Fat flows freely with every chomp, its texture coarser than anything you've tasted before and carrying a measure of sweetness with it. You think it tastes pretty good overall, but it is much fattier you'd expected or liked. Next time, you think you'll make sure to defat it rather thoroughly, and wonder if you can use bear fat for anything.
By the time you're done, you can't even stand up anymore. You lean back almost to a flat position in your effort to reach your water skin without having to move from where you're stilling. After washing down some of the fat still stuck in your throat, you notice some kind of raccoon-like animal, probably the same one as before, making a move on the pelt you've laid out to dry, and you elect to have some pebble sling itself to scare it away, your body being unable make any meaningful motions that would chase it off. It takes you a pretty sizable chunk of time after that for your belly to settle somewhat, and you decide to crawl into your tent to retire for the night.You're absolutely exhausted in multiple ways. Sleep comes quick, deep and dreamless.You wake up with a few of your muscles aching the next day, so you stretch them out, which doesn't relieve them much, but feels good nevertheless. You proceed with your usual morning... Well, it's a routine by now, you suppose, and following breakfast, you survey your surroundings a bit.Your golems are still motionless and covered in blood, filth and scars, and your the beginnings of your tower are up and intact as they should be. The sun indicates that you didn't oversleep much today, a little bit to your surprise, and is mostly covered by dark clouds, larger bodies of it headed your way. Since the wind has picked back up a bit with in the morning, you think there may be some rainfall later today.You consider your options for the day.>You know the drill by now. Vote on some shit for yourself and your golems.
>>851664If we can get the first floor waterproofed and otherwise prep for a storm.
>>851664Begin by raising stone to form a kiln large enough to fit two grown men in it, hand have the golems shuffle off to gather clay and wood while bob form a series of soft clay lifeless golems act as household servants.
>>851664make another golem and set to work on making the first floor waterproof and prep for a storm
>>851680Supporting. Yeah, we should get a solid roof over our heads. Once that's done, store whatever we can (ore, bonemeal, leathers and pelts, etc.) inside. Once the rain starts, have our golems stand out in it to hopefully wash some of the filth off.
>>851680This is good
>>851680Seconding this, on the plus side we can leave our golems outside and get them washed in the storn
Those clouds might end up releasing an actual storm, come to think of it. So without wasting any time, you go to work on your tower, hoping to have a roof over your head by the time they arrive. As your golems idly stand by, lacking any semblance of will without no orders to rouse them, you have a large boulder roll. It is easier when you're standing behind it, you notice, as though you were pushing it instead of pulling. You aren't using telekinesis to do so, your magic making the rocks move themselves instead of creating an external force, but this doesn't seem to matter too much. Magic just seems to me more efficient when imitating mundane methods.Just as you predicted, fusing the stone bricks into a proper wall causes their stature to diminish quite a bit, becoming thinner and shorter as its substance shifts to fill the gaps. You don't bother smoothing its surface just yet, as the perimeter isn't nearly as high as you need it to be, and adjustments are always a possibility with non-enchanted, mundane materials like this. You're done altering the existing stone after a few hours, having taken longer than intended despite trading elegance for speed.You don't cease your hurried attitude during the next step. The boulder you dragged near your tower base now levitates in the air. You slowly alter its composition inside and out, its form beginning to ripple and produce subtle downwards waves as it melts under your arcane touch. Over the course of the next several minute, the once uneven innards of the stone is now mostly uniform, the various impurities and variations in its substance having spread through it evenly. You keep its shape loose, and as it becomes a near-perfect sphere hanging in the air, you realize that for all intents and purposes, it is. You turn it back into a more solid whole and back into that unnatural liquid state, back and forth a few times, to get a better grasp on the feeling of doing so, the orb pulsating in volume as it rotates in the air like a miniature planet. You don't try it now, but you think that with just a little bit of practice, you could do this rapidly, potentially sinking a large group of people into the ground simultaneously, or sending forth a wave with relatively little effort. This is much easier to manipulate than the way you'd been doing before, by projecting mental imagery to a mass you sort of synchronized with.
While your new discovery distracted you from your ongoing project for a good while, it immediately proves to have been worth your time, as you have a constant stream of earth flow out of the orb and onto the wall, building up mass as you walk its perimeter along the inner side. The added height is somewhat uneven, both in height and width, but not to a significant degree. It's not like what you already made was perfectly smooth, anyway, so you continue walking in a circle as your roofless tower spirals upwards. You run out of boulder after a while, so you wave over a second one, and after that, a third one.That third boulder is then used to create a roof over your head, as the cylindrical hollow is now high enough for your liking, at least for a first floor. But instead of a flat slab over your head, the idea of which you don't like, you cause the spiraling to now bend inwards, approaching the center to form a dome as the circular melding you're doing above your head grows narrower and narrower. The light inside the room diminishes rapidly a while afterwards, and then the circle is closed, and you're in utter and complete darkness.Shit, you forgot the door again. Maybe some windows, too. And some furniture. And should you lay hardwood on the floor or leave it bare stone? Maybe it would save you space if you changed the roof to be flat. It would be less stable than a dome, but maybe you could put a pillar in the middle? Gosh, you didn't even think about whether the stairway would circle the inner wall or be placed around a central support. Or what you would use each floor for.In this pitch-black, air-tight space, you are overwhelmed by your own imagination.>You need furniture. Try to think of a way to carpenter some stuff.>Time for some advanced architecture. You need doors and windows, man.>Now that you have some shelter, move onto some other shit.>Write-in
>>851960Furniture.(I really enjoy this quest, but you post so frequently with lots of writing so ironically I cannot keep up and will read when I have the chance)
>>851960>>Time for some advanced architecture. You need doors, windows and a fireplace/chimney, man.
>>851960Doors and windows are a priority, then I think we should tinker with golems or explore our surroundings.
>>851960Move the shit that could be damaged by the storm indoors. The leathers, bonemeal and other shit. Then we can spruce the place up a bit. while the storm passes. You know practical stuff first, tacky stuff second.
>>851990This.
>>851990We need a door for this, also we should create grooves around our tower off the cliff to keep flow water out
>>851990Yup yup.
>>851960>>Add a door then do this>>851990
>>851960Build door.Magic a few windows.Magic some quick furniture. Stone and furs.How is our forest magic?
>>852082currently non existent
I think we should focus on making cores today. Work on creating eight mining based golems. Small in stature. Made out of stone, clay, possibly iron. Half can be armed with pickaxes we collected. The rest can be armed with weapons. Pickaxe golems programmed to mine, while the rest are programmed to guard them, using basic aggro and such.Thoughts?
>>852151We could do this once we have shelter done, its a good idea but storm shelter takes precedence
>>851960Just order the golems to go back to gathering wood, stone, and clay.
Well, whatever you wanted to do next, you would first have to be able to see things. Also, not be trapped inside a doorless cylinder. So you move forward, slowly and step by step. At first you stretch your hands in front of you to avoid bumping into the wall, but then you realize how human this is. You need to be thinking of the world around you more like a wizard, now that you are one. So you utilize your currently meager earth-sensing capabilities.Though you're wearing boots, the connection between the smooth stone floor and your feet seems to be more than enough for what you have in mind. You close your eyes, which makes absolutely no difference to you right now, and concentrate on what's beneath your feet. Surely enough, you feel the earth beneath you. Well, it's actually more or less only stone. Unlike most of the walls you've erected around yourself, it isn't uniform beneath the surface, the meager distance already revealing cracks, variations and pockets within. But it's mostly been smushed together as dense as you could get it, so your tower is stable.You focus forwards now, and your range diminishes downwards and to the sides, revealing to you the shape of the floor in front of you. You stand more comfortably now that you know you won't bump into anything, and move forwards until the wall is within your range. Then, you choose out a rectangular portion of it, which proceeds to separate itself from the rest of the wall. Light blinds your vision for a moment, but you got out of the room before your eyes adjusted to the darkness to well, so you continue immediately.The large, doorway-shaped slab of rock now loses the slight curve it has, from having been part of a giant cylinder, and falls over to the ground. You have it lose some of its mass, and then, working in tandem with the earth beneath it, the slab slides closer to you. You step on it. Then, it slides forward, carrying you with it like some sort of... Earth sled? You don't really have anything to compare it to.
It takes you a minute to find your balance on the slab as it moves, but soon, your body movements have synced up with however you make the slab move, and in a much less awkward stance than before, you slide forth, knees bent and leaning forward. You get off the stone platform, pick out the crates you need to move right now, and magically deposit them onto the slab. Deciding that you've had enough fun for now, and also because there is no space on it, you now walk behind the slab as it is propelled forward under your power, back to the doorless threshold. You deposit the crates of leather into the room and out of the way of its entrance, and repeat the process two more times until you're finished transplanting all the crates you wanted to move under a roof.You stifle a yawn. Thanks again to your ingenuity in earth magic, you've completed another task ahead of schedule. Come to think of it, geomancy appears to be a rather diverse school of magic, and you've gotten more practice in it lately than you did in anything else. There are many things it can't accomplish, of course, and you wonder if it would be better to be really good at one school of magic, or merely proficient in multiple ones.Since it's already time for lunch, you take a short break, cooking yourself another bit of meat, which you consume with the last of your rock-hard, preserved meat and some still-fresh berries from your pack. You keep the meal light this time. There is much work to be done still, and you'd rather not be immobilized for it.>Do things!
>>851990Supporting
>>852215Order the golems the harvest clay and wood, and make some small stone miner golems with hands to hold picks.
>>852215A chimney would be an exelent luxury to have on a stormy night. So lets make one. We can start working on >>852226 afterwards.
>>852215Practice magic. Try to learn fire magic or failing that extend your geomancy into metals. We have a few crates of ore. Time to find a way to turn it into metal.
>>852237Supporting. Everyone wants to make mining golems, but forget that we already have some ore. More of it is useles if we can't use it.
>>852237Let's try to refine the ore to metal with magic
>>852237>>852243>>852255Without a chimney our tower will either be cold and wet or a smokehouse, do we need to experience that?
Build some cores.The more golems we have the more we can do everyday. I like the idea of building upon fire and metal magic, but I'm unsure of how to go about it. Maybe we can practice by trying our hand at developing iron cores.Mining golems are just a goal. I don't expect to complete them in a day.>852215
>>852301We have a nice bearskin, it is not winter yet.
>>852237+1 This
>>852237Thinking more on it maybe I should have writen it the other way around.
>>852210build a forge next to your tower, make a golem that can forge good.
>>852215>>852321+1More golems = more resources and more options. Also, lets design a golem to be used for scouting/guarding us at all times; need to make sure we don't get caught unawares again.Do we know if making a golem core out of iron makes a significant difference in quality and is it still compatible with a stone body? Though I think quantity is more important than quality right now considering we only have the three - and we need different types as well.
>>852215We need to build an outhouse so we do not taint our sacred lawn
>>852226>>852321>>854483golems>>852237>>852243>>852255>>852350magic>>854915>>852528>>852235buildingsLooks like you're trying your hand at ferrokinesis.And that means rolls! 1d100 as always.
Rolled 44 (1d100)>>854918
>>854918
Rolled 63 (1d100)
Rolled 82 (1d100)>>854918
Rolled 53 (1d100)>>854918
>>854968Ayyyy, great success lets go.
>>854970No worries, I've already been writing.
>>854974>tfw no blind earthbender waifu
Stone is very nice and all, but but as before, you're eager to cease being limited to the materials humanity moved beyond millennia ago. Iron, you think, is more suited for what you have planned for the days ahead of you, and you have all the time and raw matter you need to begin, now. At first, you think about building a large furnace to process the ore into a more usable form. But then, it occurs to you that you don't need one to smelt ore. You think about how you would go about generating heat and flame with your magic, to reduce the ore into a liquid. It would have to be thousands of degrees, and then you'd need to separate the impurities from the actual iron contained within the slag, even though you know nothing about smelting whatsoever.But this is still too close to how a mundane being thinks to accomplish things. You can skip the melting part entirely, and separate the metal from the rock directly, as you could probably do with two different kinds of stone if you wanted to. The difference here being that you now need iron to obey your will as stone does. This is a hurdle, but not an impossible one, if your instincts are to be trusted. Earth and metal are two intrinsically linked aspects of the world, and your preexisting knowledge should be enough to propel you over that hurdle.Picking out a suitable lump, you sit down on the cold, bare floor of your dimly-lit chambers. As bare-bones as the room is, it serves well to isolate you from the rest of the world, the mild drizzle outside barely even registering as you close your eyes to concentrate sensing the internal structure of the ore you're cupping. Your geokinetic talents kick in at this point, revealing the impurities within the ore. Tiny chunks or curved stretches disconnected from each other, seemingly floating in a detached manner with great impassion. This is no good to you. You actually need to perceive the metal that occupies the gaps in your arcane perception. You know it's there.Metal is not stone. This rather obvious observation, for some reason, pushes itself to the forefront of your thoughts. What that means, you think, is that you need to go about influencing metal in a different manner than you go about influencing earth. But what might the main differences be? They're both impassive, stubborn elements, so you think you should be assuming the same attitude as before, or something similar. But obviously, this doesn't work. You try to bend it without sensing it, and your hopeful yet frustrated approach is rewarded with the ore in your hands cracking in two. You discard the one half with a displeased grunt, and focus once again on the remaining chunk.
Metal is not stone. If you'd decided to figure out fire magic as you thought about before, you would go about shaping your energy in an entirely different manner. Aggressive and capricious, perhaps. You decide to revert back to how you go about shaping earth, and from there, you change your attitude in tiny increments, thinking of the color of your magic, so to speak, as a wavelength of sorts. The right 'color' is right next to the 'color' of earth magic. You prod and poke without changing it too much, starting again before you get too far from where you were. It takes you a while, but before your patience runs out again, you make headway.A faint image paints itself in your head, right where you think- you know, the iron is. Your excitement prompts you to channel forth your energy, now composed correctly, to shape what you can perceive. Once again, the ore cracks apart. However, you're smiling this time. Instead of a fizzle, what broke the rock this time was an inner movement, where the iron within began to coalesce, now visible to your eyes as a tongue-like extension that juts out of the broken side. You shoot to your feet giddily and giggle a bit, in what would be an embarrassingly childlike display of emotion if anyone walked in on you.When you confirm that the gods haven't decided to try that trick again, you grab yourself another chunk of ore, and sit back down. Once again, you close your eyes and focus your senses inwards, and try to adjust your magical attitude, which is as best as you can put it, and after some time, you manage to duplicate your previous feat. The iron within the ore reveals itself to you, this time less faintly as you make the proper adjustments before jumping to action. You switch your perception back to the impurities around it, and back again to the metal, and from there you try to somehow perceive both of the elements. It is frustrating to be back not shaping anything once again, but you want to do this right. You're not sure how long you mentally squirm until your patience is finally rewarded, and you get a complete image of the solid lump within your hands, fully aware of the stone and the iron it's made out of, the gaps in your perception only the tiniest of pinpricks where you assume other impurities are. You ignore these for your next step, and have the two different substances you do sense collect into two separate masses.The earth obeys you easily enough. As the metal you bend out of the way, ceasing to trap it within, you easily pull it out of the rest of the ore into a looser whole, as you recently learned to do, and discard it. Iron, however, is a different story, and as you're rid of the earth and focus on it entirely, you have the opportunity to properly analyze the way your magic is right now.
Like earth, iron is impassive. But unlike earth, it is detached and empty. There is no stubbornness there, and it makes no effort to resist you. It merely... is, and remains immovable simply by existing. Back when you first started to manipulate earth, you learned that you had to overwhelm its will with your own, as it almost seemed resist your attempts almost actively, as though you were unworthy until you proved otherwise. Iron is simply completely detached from the world around it, and simply by virtue of its existence, outside attempts to change it simply roll off its surface. You have to trick it, so to speak, by similarly discarding your own emotions, storing your ambitions off to a side of your mind, and proceeding as if they didn't exist. Only by imitating the metaphysical qualities of metal can you manipulate it, and you suspect this applies to all elements.When you're done, the orb of iron levitating before you is small, much smaller than the ore it emerged from, and any impurities within are scattered about its mass evenly. It expands and contracts much more readily than earth, but is harder to direct in shape. As you move one part of it, the mass of metal around it doesn't work together with the part you're moving about. You have to push it out of the way, which disrupts its form. You'd say this feels a lot less organic and alive than earth, which is already a very lifeless element. Shaping it is slow work, and even the tiny amount of iron you're working with right now demands your full attention.At least, for now. You're sure to get better at it with practice, as with anything else. As you acknowledge the increased intensity of the rainfall outside your door, you wonder if your should be doing that, or refining more metal to work with, or something else.>You need to shape iron if you're to use it. Practice that.>You actually need iron if you're to use it. Refine more ore.>Wait, pure iron isn't very useful, it'll rust and break easily. Think of a way to turn it into steel. (Write-in)>That's enough ironing for today. Do something else with your magic. (Write-in)>You have a tower to build. Work on proper windows. Plus, you haven't even decided what you'll build the door out of.>Get back exploring, clearly there are being all around you that may intervene sooner or later, and more resources to exploit.>Those golems haven't been doing much more than get wet. Order them around, or modify them.>Build some cores, and some bodies for the cores to operate.>Visit a town or an acquaintance.>Relax and read a book.>Build some furniture. Your new home is empty and uninviting.>Enchant some objects.>Something else. Sky's the limit. (Write-in)
>>855021>You need to shape iron if you're to use it. Practice that.Refining will be far easier once we're better at moving it about
>>855021What kind of enchanting is available to us?Or do we have no practice in it yet and need to experiment first?
>>855021>You need to shape iron if you're to use it. Practice that.the next batch of golems should be iron or some composite of iron and stone so lets git gud with iron
>>855055Potentially, you could install many different commands in objects you enchant. You know many, many runes. Nearly every basic concept is available to you.However, the only enchanting you ever did was the crafting of golem cores, so you don't have any experience with simpler forms of enchanting. You'll probably catch up to the limits set by your runic knowledge pretty fast with practice.When thinking in terms of golems, your mind just works faster and more efficient, so this is like taking a step back. But on the other hand you could probably rig something to shoot flames, or a weapon to accelerate mid-swing if you channel energy into it, or a cup to slowly extract water from the air around it.Needless to say, enchanting has made life a whole lot easier for people. Despite being in a medieval society, people have access to clean water, basic healing, perpetual light sources and so forth. Even more in larger cities.So you have a fuckton to gain from practicing with enchantments.
>>855063"Extract water from the air around it"Is it bad that my mind immediately turned to how we can weaponize that? I'm sure there's a WMD lurking somewhere in there.>Enchant some objects.Can we try enchanting some stones/iron to ward people away from our tower?Don't want a mob of people worried about having the new world power as their neighbour to come attack during the night when we're not paying attention.>Build some cores, and some bodies for the cores to operate.Otherwise this.
>>855021>>Wait, pure iron isn't very useful, it'll rust and break easily. Think of a way to turn it into steel. (Write-in)Iron is just a step-stone, we need to be able to refine it to steel in order to put it to any use.
>>855067You could have the tower emit an aura that repels humans other than yourself. But it would be low-powered. Curious minds may be attracted to the mystery of what makes it so hard to move in a certain, circular area around your tower. Those with a modicum of strength, in in body and/or willpower, could probably get close enough to see or enter your tower, despite the effect increasing with proximity, but at least they'd also be aware they aren't exactly welcome.There's probably other means to ward off people if that isn't satisfactory, but I probably shouldn't spoonfeed you too much.
>>855074You'll need to write-in something for this. I don't know shit about turning iron into steel, other than it involving carbon. I need a first step to base the rest of the post on.I guess I need to go do some research on it now. Fuck.
A lot of metal working is being clever with the amount of and distribution of the impurities. Try sensing and moving them as you work on shaping it. Maybe grab some ash or coal if you have any to get a feel for what that is like.PS: Just binged this quest today. Loving it so far!
>>855088Most things are discovered by accident and much simpler than one assumes.Medieval / renaissance metallurgy is pretty simple. Modern day material sciences is quite complex thou.First we need charcoal, so we would need to burn wood so that we get rid of most of the stuff that aint carbon. Then we need a primitive blast furnace made out of clay to help us retain high enough temperature.Perhaps with magic, it would look more organic? Damascus steel has a pretty cool organic look too it. Magically crafted steel could perhaps look like that? As for the other metals in steel, we could perhaps magically by sense figure out where the steel is strong and where it is brittle and try to remove what makes it brittle and spread what makes it strong all over it?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
>>855107pretty much this, but firstly we should become more capable with iron and chromium that's the other metal in steel right?) I say this because we are currently very bad at iron and i would wager the forging would take a great deal more finesse than we currently posses... Also being at least marginally proficient at at fire magic would also help
>>855089Thanks, anon. I always enjoy hearing compliments. Sure hope it doesn't go to my head or anything.>>855089>>855107These two posts are enough for me enough come up with a vague description for the post. I think I also remember something about ductility and rigidity ideally varying around the tool, for example between the spine, edges and point of a sword. I guess you'll find shit out according to how much you practice and how well you roll.Let me take count for a sec.>>855024>>855060>>855067enchant/make cores>>855074>>855089try getting steelNot entirely sure if a few of these posts are votes. I'll watch a little Westworld (not entirely irrelevant to this quest!), and if nothing changes after a short while I'll roll for it.
>>855124Oh sorry, I meant practice shaping iron with some lead in to learning how to make steel by playing around with the impurities.
>>855088Ye! This is my specialist. First things cracking. With most metals the cracking is caused by the grains in witch it has formed. After a metal is heated the atoms separate and after cooling they form grains. If you cool it in water it will cool rapidly and the grains are goanna be large and the metal will be hard and durable, but more brittle, whereas letting it cool slowly will produce small grains, making the metal less brittle, but not as hard. With steel vs iron its a matter or carbon. Historically it was introduced into the alloy by cooking the iron atop of coals, charcoals and in some cases even over simple wood. The coal burns and some of it enters the iron turning it to steel. Historically the amount was roughly 3-4%, while modern day we go for about 1-2%, because that, again, makes it less brittle. Most of the difference between wood and charcoal is the amount of water. Burning wood makes it evaporate, making it burn hotter, which in turn heats the metal more and makes it easier to work with. Now with that out of the way what we could do is either make some charcoal and learn to control it with magic, which we should be able to with our earthbending already, and just mix a small amount of it throughout the iron, or we could learn waterbending and do the same thing, except we magic the wood into charcoal by sucking out the water out of it. As for the brittleness we could just experiment with the composition of the metals we make until we have something we like.
>>855132That's the tl;dr of a several year course. There are a lot more intricacies in it, but that's the gist of it.
>>855135Fascinating, what did you study if i may ask?
>>855137Marine engineering. Since ships are made of steel nearly half of our lectures were about metals.
>>855135Thank you, anon.
>>855140Very interesting field! i grew up on a steel boat myself... Currently studying industrial engineering
>>855164It's quite interesting how it's the people studying engineering that are usually most into roleplaying. Math, physics, logical sciences and then DnD. You would think that it would be the artsy people who are more into it, but no. It's us.
>>855171Dunno about that, man. I never got a chance to actually play a live session of D&D until befriending a bunch fellow dorks during a short attempt to study visual design. Players seem to emerge pretty much everywhere these days, now that nerd culture is more acceptable to the general public. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw a bunch of future lawyers or economists indulging in some roleplaying over some brews or whatever.
>>855171Doing Software Engineering - it's got engineering in the name at least.
>>855176When I went to my first DnD session we got to talk about what we are/were studying. Turns out all 6 of us there either are or were at one point studying in the engineering faculty of the local university. Since then like 6-7 out of 10 people I meet through DnD are engineers or studying to become engineers. I dunno. Maybe it's just a coincidence on my part and other people have different experience in that regard.
>>855124Let's roll for steel.
>>855191I decided you don't need to for your first points in ferrokinesis and metallurgy, due to the write-ins. Next time, perhaps.
>>855193Just 1 step closer to building that Iron Giant.
>>855196Dick ramp when?
>>855210The Dream. The Dream...
You're not quite finished with your experimenting quite yet, you decide. For you to get something properly usable out of your efforts, you need to advance to what you consider to be the next step; namely, turning the iron into proper steel. Before that, however, you'll need a little bit more iron to work with. You retrieve two more chunks of ore and magically refine them. It takes you a little while, but much less so, now that you've figured out the trick. Eventually, you end up with a combined mass adding up to a rod the length of your ulna, which you confirm you can control and reshape much easier as a whole rather than bit by bit.Next up, you need some coal. You don't have any, but as far as you know, charcoal serves the same exact purpose as mined coal, so you and your iron rod walk outside and into the rain. The fire you'd left burning is extinguished by now, though it still smoulders a little bit, and while most of the material is too wet for your liking, you've left a considerable amount of burned-out firewood in and around firewood. Retrieving one of the sticks you hadn't yet thrown into the flames, you poke around in the faggot until you reveal some still-dry material, and you quickly carry it back into the room, unconcerned with dirtying your garb any further at this point.A lot of the black stuff is composed of ashes and other bits you have use for, but on a hunch, you extend your earthsense onto the pile, and with some minor adjustments to your energies, you determine that you can affect the coal as readily as you can affect the earth, perhaps with even greater ease. The difference, in your opinion, is small enough for this to fall under the general umbrella of geokinesis rather than anything else, and without much adjustment necessary, you proceed extracting the usable coal out of the used-up remains of the wood. It is a much, much smaller amount than you'd expected. In fact, you're unsatisfied enough with what you have to return to your bonfire and retrieve another few handfuls to repeat the process. In the future, you'll have to build a proper pyre to turn the wood into charcoal the way you've seen folks do, or think of some other, more magical way to do so.
Satisfied that you have at least as much coal as you need, which you've condensed into a rock in your left hand, you begin to loosen the coherence of the iron rod you hold in your right. When it flops enough towards the floor like a lazy phallus, you have some dust-sized particles free itself from the coal-stone and float over to the iron, coating its surface and sinking inside as you manipulate both substances separately. As you continue with this process, you notice that your consciousness has by now separated itself into two more loosely connected halves, each focused on one part of the task. As one part focuses on transporting a truly minuscule amount of coal, the other concentrates on making the iron knead itself to distribute the coal evenly. You stop before too long, deciding that too little coal is better than too much, since getting the coal back out of there would be much harder than it was to put it in.The rod, when you re-solidify its form, is both thinner and flatter, with a circular part at the bottom that allows you to grip it comfortably. The 'blade' is leaf-shaped for now, by accident rather than your active interference, and doesn't have a very sharp edge. That would take you a lot longer, but for now, you just want to test its strength.You do so by lowering it to the ground point-first, and push, to see how readily it bends. As it turns out, it does so quite readily. You furrow your brow, straighten your proto-dagger, and try again after adding more coal this time around. You go on like this for a while, but every time you try it, you fail, the length either bending too readily, and at one point outright breaking. You think about what you're missing. What does every smithing process have in common, which you're lacking here now? Well, the answer is pretty obvious, coming to you before long: Heat. Metal is always softened with heat rather than magic. Your guess, now, is that it is necessary to heat up metal to transform it into steel. With an annoyed groan, you head back into the rain and start relighting your campfire. The rain makes it difficult, but you eventually get a nice flame going inside your tent, which you add to the logs, now sheltered from the rain by half a dome of solid ground. You then place the coal-iron into the flames, and wait.You're very bored for some time, as it takes the flames a while to turn the flattened rod a reddish hue, as cold as they are in the rain, regardless of how big you've tried to light it. It doesn't take nearly as long to cool down as it's hit by droplets from above, eliciting hiss after hiss. You and your rod move out of the rain after that, retreating back into your empty, featureless chamber, and now, you try once again.
Success! The blade gives way a little bit, but even though you push it quite hard into the floor, you don't manage to give it a permanent bend, its shape correcting itself after you cease its efforts, the way you've heard good steel described before. Well, you don't know if it's that great, since what you have in your hands isn't exactly a proper sword. But its sheen is similar to the longsword you carry with you nowadays, even though it isn't exactly the same, and you don't think what you have here is noticeably worse than that.Come to think of it, you never compared the two steels. You do so now using your arcane senses, and determine that, like their outside texture, their internal composition is also different. You'd say the longsword has just the tiniest bit less iron in it, and the arrangement of the two materials are different as well, though to be honest, you can't say what makes the two different with absolute certainty, only that the mix is much more even throughout your flattened rod.As you take note that the sun is on its way down already, you try to decide on your next course of action.>Herp>Derp>A doi>Write-in
>>855241>fireplace+chimney!
>>855241Examine the staff from the trog chief.
>>855241>HerpAnd then>Derp
>>855257I disagree, Derp and then Herp.>>855241>>Write-inA quick visit to the village that our wand-slinger friend described could be interesting.The humble people should certainly know what there is around here to be afraid of and who happens to be in charge.
>>855259No no. Double up on the derp and next time we can herp twice as fast.>>855241Get some lumber and try to magic it into charcoal. That would probably be water magic. Maybe fire if we fail the water.
>>855241Make more charcoal/steal, considering we've already started on it.Can we setup a chimney system or something that'll hide all the smoke if we focus on making a lot of charocal as well?>>855259We should consolidate our power first before we start introducing ourselves to others; in general, people are either going to fear us or try to use us.So far we have a way higher reservoir of power than any individual mage, but there's a city who's named after people who make golems - we're not at the stage where we could fight against organized resistance if someone in power decides that they always wanted a pet wizard, or that we're too dangerous to leave alone.I think we need to at least have our tower up and some more golems before we decide to play into politics, and introducing ourselves to the wider world will do that (though we've already revealed ourselves, it'll just do it faster).Off to bed for now, loving the story so far Al.Will you get a twitter setup or something so we know when you'll be running?
>>855290We will not walk around and announce ourselves as Bob the wizard.We are just a guy, a homesteading pioneer carving out a place for himself in the wilderness or whatever.I doubt there will be Dragons, Beholders or demi-gods waiting to enslave us is a humble gathering of hamlets.Let's just meet with the meek.
>>855290I mean, I guess you could attempt to lay out some pipe-like structure that lets out smoke through very small holes at dispersed locations, instead of releasing it as one prominent column, but that'd take a lot of time and space. I'm not sure what exactly you had in mind, to be honest.
>>855290I thought we were using magic, not just replicating human stuff.
>>855241Stone +cores
Start refining the rest of your ore.Send your golems for stone, lumber, and clay. The storm shouldn't bother them.
>>855332>The storm shouldn't bother them.What if they get stuck in the mud?
>>855336Panic...
>>855336They stop walking until it drys, then try to pull themselves out. Would that work?
>>855343What if it's the rainy season?
>>855405Be come our first mud shark golem prototype.
Still convinced that the manufacture of steel is the next step in establishing your presence here, you decide to continue with the same task as before. You will need more iron for this, as well as more coal, though perhaps less of the latter. You think about how to proceed in the most efficient way possible at time. Well, the wood will take some time to burn, and while it does that, you could extract the iron you need. So you head out into the rain once again.You pick a pile mostly composed of hickory from further down the mountain, because you vaguely remember something about it burning well. That's the closest thing to an educated decision you can make when it comes to wood. You honestly don't care that much. With the considerable help of your three golems, you manage to get a pretty decent 'chimney' of sorts, several layers of planks leaning against a standing central pillar, arranged in a circle. You grab the hottest stick you can find from your campsite, slowly but surely going out under the constant rain, and throw it down the hollow middle of your charcoal pyre, covering the top with a flat rock.You know the generation of charcoal depends on a lack of air to truly burn the wood, instead reducing it to charcoal, and you know this is generally achieved by the wood itself, or better yet, by mud covering up the pyre. Well, you've got something better than that. Slowly but surely, a hollow cone responds to your will by emerging from around your pyre, to come together at a point above. You leave it open for a while, to ensure the flames reach a suitable size before you suffocate it under rock, and after throwing in a few more sticks just in case your wood got wetter than you anticipated, you close it off and return to your crates of iron.You take a lot of time refining iron out of ore. At first you proceed as before, one lump of ore at a time. Eventually, the repetition allows you to process two smaller lumps at once as you retrieve them from the crate, and then two lumps as large as the one you began with. This time, the iron you extract is properly shaped into ingots, more or less uniform in shape and weight. By the time you're done with the first crate, you wake up from a near-trance like one enters when overwhelmed by boredom. Daydreams and idle musings fade away, and you realize that the sun is already setting outside. Also, your pyre is probably done.
You open it up, and indeed find it to be now full of ashes and black bars of former wood, some pieces already falling over without the support of the stone around the pile. Once again, you resort to earth magic to pull out the coal from beneath the dregs, forming them into unnaturally smooth spheres which then roll themselves into your dwelling as you follow behind. You do grab one as it floats to you, so you can assess its quality, and indeed find it to be purer than what you extracted from the modest campsite. You could probably refine it even more, as there are impurities within it you can sense, likely ashes or something else that has a... sour, you would say, feel to it. The same, you suspect, applies to your iron, though you can't confirm it with your meager capabilities.Then you begin, once again, to knead the coal into the steel, after reducing it do as fine a powder as your magic will allow. This, too, becomes routine, and you wonder if you should really be wasting your time on a task as laborious and monotone as this. There's probably a way to rig a construct to do all this for you... You suppose you're just getting started, and that you'll have creations accomplishing more wondrous tasks than just smelting steel. Eventually. After many years. You sigh.You're eventually finished with the task at hand, with quite a bit of coal remaining; you suppose your method is more efficient than setting it on fire next to some iron in the hopes that a little bit of coal will mix with it. And for a single man, you accomplished a lot of... whatever this process would be called, especially considering you didn't have to stand in sweltering heat for any of it.Speaking of heat, you haven't forgotten the final step. But when you approach the idea of going through the entire pile of proto-steel you've assembled in your head, you're suddenly hit by a wave of exhaustion. Frankly, you're tired of working. And it is very late, and sleep seems very inviting to you right now. You have your golems drag the material behind you, to relight the fire so you can start, but then you remember. You have golems who can do this for you. You know how long to heat the ingots, and how hot you should keep the flames, and all the rest. Thus, your golems too can be made to know. You have one of them stoke the flames, after it retrieves all the wood it would need to keep the pyre going. Another one is tasked with holding the ingots over the fire for a set period of time- not too short and not too long. You set this amount of time, and it obeys, down to the fraction of a second, to your delight. You adjust a little bit to keep its hands more out of the flame as it bathes the ingot, afraid that it might crack. And then you have your third golem keep the pre- and post-processed metal in separate piles and shelter it from the rain with its body. You didn't really have anything better for it to do, if you're being honest.
Since you have a roof over your head now, you take your tent down and gather your bedroll, carrying them inside. The tent you discard into a pile next to your crates, and the bedroll you lay out some distance away from the entryway, where it is just the slightest bit warmer. It is pretty cold outside by now, and even though you're used to rain and cold weather, you find yourself curling up a little bit. Thoughts of warm toes and clean clothes carry you into sleep, as your stone-faced servants carry out their task with no such human comforts necessary.You wake up the next day, the filth suffusing your tunic hardened enough by now to interfere with your morning stretches. You look around for dragons, you have your breakfast, and you confirm that your golems didn't sink into any patches of mud or otherwise mess up their task. Glad that the weather seems to be better today, you think about what to do next.>_
Blah. Dry spell today.
>>855619In our dream we learned the rune for fire, see if we can recreate it inscribed on the rocks we got the iron ore from to make a smokeless fire for the tower.
>>855619Go to the river and clean ourselves, our clothes and while those dry try to discover water magic.
>>855619lol seconding>>855632failing that make some steel golem cores and golems!
>>855643Go for it.
>>855645It would probably consume all the steel you have to build one thin, almost skeletal golem standing your height, if you wanted the whole thing to be steel.
>>855655How about just steel cores? How many could we make?
>>855662And how superior they would be to stone ones?
>>855662It would take a lot of really intense work due to your shit-tier fine iron manipulation and it would require a roll for success. You'd gain experience with metals either way.It'd be around 20% better at storing magic than a stone core, if that. Steel might also be worse than pure iron in terms of magic capacity, but more durable and less prone to rust.It's not what people generally make cores out of.
>>855689Oh, and to actually answer the post, you could make a lot, especially if you roll well since that would have them be smaller.
>>855694Well then I remain with my choise to go splash around in the river.
>>855619Let's get something to eat and wash up in the streamThen >>855632, set up a hearthstone for our hut so that we have consistent heat
>>855619Let's visit the village!
Probably gonna have to start a new thread soon. This one is getting steadily pushed down the bump order.
Honestly I think we need to work on the tower. We don't need to do anything to big and flashy, just make a door and some windows. After that we could head into town with some of our hard fough Weaponry and sell it to the local smithy, and use the money to get a bed. Actually having a secure and comfortable living space would really help take some stress off of bob and maybe help him improve his focus on magic.
>>857589Plus maybe a new change of clothes
>>855643Yes, cleaning Bob, Bob's clothes and washing away his ignorance of water magic sounds like a good combination. It is imperative he learns cleaning skills so he can embed them into some sort of golem maid.How's the food situation? Down to bear meat and berries, right?
>>857705Yes.Roll me some dice for water magic.
Rolled 73 (1d100)>>857743
Rolled 100 (1d100)>>857743
>>857753we am water good
>>857753
>>857753>our foes
>>857753Oh.I guess you figured the shit out of that element.
>>857753We are proficient as fuck.
>>857705>Golem Maid.Thinking too small anon. Bob is a teenager after all, and we are going to learn stone-to-flesh at some point.
>>857758Question. Among all the trinkets we brought back from the trog caves, were there any that had precious stones? Ones we could use in making cores. Or at least as a part of a cores. You know. After we realize that we are a water God.
>>857778None whatsoever. I'll let you know when you find something suitably shiny.
It's far past time for you to get yourself cleaned up properly. Stowing away the meat and fruit from your breakfast, you start making your way down the mountain. After all, even if you aren't considered to be human by most people, that doesn't mean you have to stop being civilized. That way lies the abhorrent state you've found those troglodytes in, an encounter still remaining with you in the form of a tenacious cloud of stink.Finally, you're at the stream of water, a ways further down the source where it's deep enough for you to bathe in it, you look around to see if there is anyone nearby, and begin shedding your clothes. It's somewhat of a struggle as parts of it, especially your trousers, have stuck themselves right onto your skin, but you're completely naked soon enough, and carefully walk into flowing waters. It is cold. Very much so. But you focus instead of the feeling of the grime washing away in the tiny river, and on your balance since it would be exceedingly embarrassing for a mighty wizard such as yourself to trip on an underwater stone and die from an opened skull or drowning in waters that barely come up to your waist. With that in mind, you decide to sit down as you scrub your body clean with your hands, and after a while, just as you're used to the temperature, you're done, and it's time for you to get back out into the air where you're sure you will begin shivering uncomfortably.Thinking of a better way, you remain seated, the water coming up to your shoulders, and beckon your clothes over to you without moving from where you are. Your telekinesis carries them over to you gently, and you begin cleaning them. It's pretty hard work. Especially without any soap or other cleaning agents, you have to scrub each article of clothing real hard, the toll on your body making you start thinking of commands to send your golems so they may do this for you next time, without damaging any of the cloth with their sausage fingers. You wonder if you should eventually build a golem to serve as a house servant of sorts, diminutive enough in its frame to excel at the finer tasks with less regard to its combat capabilities. You're done eventually, the water thankfully washing of the sweat off of you as soon as your body releases it.Your water skins are also here with you, since you figured out you'd refill them while you're here. You don't feel like getting up right now, however, so you elect to have the water flow through the air and into the skins. You wave your hand, and it complies.
You don't notice what you just managed to do for nearly a minute there as a thin tendril of water extends from the river and makes its way into the mouth of your larger water skin. When you do, your heart skips in excitement, and as a result, you lose your concentration and the water splashes onto the ground. By the gods, you began using aquamancy without even trying! And pretty decently too, actually. You wonder what you can do if you really try. So you do.Water is very different from earth or metal. It is always ready for change, whether in shape or state, and right now, all around you, it is constantly doing so, flowing around the rocks, around you, and around itself, parts of it elegantly moving in a way that doesn't affect the rest of it, adapting to the shape of the riverbed, and the shape of your body, to continue down its journey unabated. It touches these things and affects them, carrying small stones and silt with it, and if the river were bigger, with more force behind it, it would be hauling much bigger things with it, ripping chunks out of the surrounding ground as it carves out a trench for itself, without even trying or interrupting its own path. You know that directed under your will into a single task, water, more than its two other states, can be a truly fearsome force.This, and more, occurs to you in the short amount of time it takes you leave the stream and stand beside it, to really give this water magic thing a try. Your instincts take over soon as your stance changes to something looser and more ready to shift into a different form, and focusing your magic into a similar state, you have it flow upwards through the stream.The water does obey you, but it is awkward in its appearance, the column that rises out of the rest of the water quivering as though it threatens to collapse at any moment. You let it. There is something wrong the way you did that, something amateurish, a mistake a beginner would make. You don't content yourself with that this time around. You refocus, your thoughts looser this time, to invoke that absentminded attitude you had when you first moved the water, and have your energies flow in a much less directly controlled manner, and the results are much better this time. Instead of a column rising straight up out of the water, you've created an arch this time. Under your power, the water splits into a separate flow through the air, its route having changed in a more, well, flowing manner. More elegantly, or naturally, you could also say. It rejoins the stream further down the river.
