Private Eastern Brisshal Baseic Mechanics

[Corsair]

"If we're going to be operating out of this town for a while, then we need a 'baseybase'," Corsair said, smiling a little at her hilarious joke. "When I went to the woodcutters guild and told them about what we'd found at the mill they said that they would let us use the hut and clearing." Corsair smiled as if this were a major accomplishment.

Maybe others would find issue with setting up camp in the site of a brutal NPC murder and former goblin nest, what with the blood and smells, but as far as she was concerned it was perfect. She also couldn't smell anything, on account of her basic robotic form not including smell or taste. "Ten minutes walk from town, which isn't wonderful, but it is completely free and we can keep all of the furnishings that weren't destroyed by the goblins."

"The cutters there said that the goblin attacks were a 'bad omen', which I take as local superstition, and that they thought the place itself was 'haunted'. Hardly logical considering the single instance of goblin murder," she said, her voice was full of synthetic cynicism. "Besides, even if it is haunted, then that's just a chance for me to communicate with further spirits. As long as I can create a new magitech before the spirit visits us and I can house its soul in one of my inventions."

She stopped. It was important for teams to have the open communication and the chance to give honest feedback. "Unless you have a better idea, @Brutus Dahlgren?"

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus was silently- er, quietly-

Well, as quietly as he could, Brutus was munching on an apple whilst listening to her as she explained the situation, when prompted, he swallowed a mouthful of fruit, wiped the juice from his mouth and shrugged. "It's a Roofyroof over our heads, but it might be in Gob turf. That comes with its pros and its cons. The ten minute walk is nothing, I can probably shave that down to seven if I walk briskly. As for hauntings and omens...you're the one who knows about all of that with your magic, so I trust you to make the call there."

He fished through his bag and drew out two more apples, offering one to her before taking a bite into his. "Buht" he added, mouth full of fruit. "Itssss uh graut" he paused, realizing talking with his mouth full of food was rude and swallowing. "It's a great first step. Did you want to go scope out the damage of our new home first or grab some supplies to patch it up in town? Maybe some nicely scented candles to ward off the stench of brutal murder and butchery?"

He was only slightly worried that if they went back there now he would end up emptying his stomach of all the virtual apples he'd been going to town on.

 

[Corsair]

"Every decision has pros and cons," Corsair said, "but I think most of the negative aspects of our new home can be glossed over, or even turned to our favor." She tapped her chin with one finger, flipping the cons in her mind. "The fact it is on goblin turf will be good practice for us, and will allow me to test out a new sentry magitech I've been working on."

She took out a construct. It was metallic, like the frog, with a crystalline, spherical abdomen conjoined to a smaller head piece and eight (currently coiled) legs. "There's no spirit in it, at least not yet, but it should be able to create some webs around the base."

"And yet, of course I'll handle the haunting. Superstition in this realm is still a bit odd to me, but if there really is a spirit of some sort then it may be the perfect fit for her." She tapped the spider construct.

"As for the smell, that is more your area of expertise," she said, smiling. "I am unable to detect scent in this form, so there is no noticeable difference between butchery and scented candles. If it bothers you than by all means we should remove the source of irritation."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"So your lil buddies." He motions to the Frog on its traditional place on his shoulder and to the spider in her hands. "They've got- er, need ghosts in em to animate them? That's kinda neat. Why didn't you rip any out of all the goblins we killed earlier?"

He furrowed his brow and stroked his beard thoughtfully, leaning forward in his seat and leaned over the table a bit, brushing aside a small tower of plates that had been his lunch to make a workable space for the two to draw their plan out with a pen and paper he'd commandeered from her.

"That aside, it sounds like we have one hell of a fixer upper on our hands, lingering threat of gobbos or not. They trashed the place, so I have no clue what's actually useable or not. I'd say lets go up there with the intent that just about anything left is a total loss. So we'll need to refurnish the place. A table, some chairs, maybe a couple of couches or somethin? Is it gonna be out home? Cause if so we're gonna need to work out the sleeping situation too, my personal vote based on the size of the lil thing is bunkbeds probably." He shrugged, pausing to take a swig of ale from his flagon and grinned, pretending he'd enjoyed the taste of it because Olivier hated drinking, but Brutus was the type of man who probably drank like a fish.

"Living arrangements aside," he said, sliding her a rather detailed list of furniture and cleaning supplies "If we want to use it as a jumping off point for forest explorin we're gonna wanna stock up on supplies. Healing potions, food, securing a source of water? Basics. Some of that we could be offset with a garden, but we'd probably need to lug up some supplies for that...that's another trip..." Scribble scrabble went the pen as he wrote down another list of supplies and slid it her way.

"With all that being said, we do also run into another completely unrelated problem that underpins all of this." He set his flagon down and looked into his partners eyes. "Unless you've secretly got some of the best crafting stats in existence, we're going to have to buy A LOT of this stuff. How do you suggest we get the money?"

 

[Corsair]

Corsair frowned. "It's a lot more difficult to pull a spirit from a living creature." She nodded towards the frog construct on Brutus' shoulder. It's nameplate read <Puddle Spirit Frog>. "The spirit for him was taken from a fading puddle spirit I found in the woods."

"Perhaps if one of the goblin spirits is lingering around I can contain it, but as it wasn't amenable to us in life it may not take too kindly to us in death, either. Best case I've just put an angry spirit in one of my precious magitechs, and I'll have to waste time getting it out. Worst case we'll have to fight and possibly destroy it! I suppose I could make a passive containment magitech. Something that can't easily fight us..." She tapped her chin, thinking, and took back her pen to make her own list. "Lots to think about, but it's easier to live in the here and now."

She nodded along as Brutus rattled off the necessities, only interjecting as he talked about bedding. "I need a charging station," she said. "A location with high magical energy that will passively restore my meter. Sleeping is less than effective for me." She waved her hand, as if knocking her words out of the air. "But leave that to me. I've been using some of the standing stones nearby for the last few nights, and I can likely create something similar with the right materials."

And then they reached the inevitable conclusion: money. "Unless you want a tiny, magitech chair then I'm afraid I can't help much. I suggest we order the list by necessity and work down from there. First, of course, is food, water, and rest. That's three of our bars covered right away. Health and energy go hand in hand, obviously, and temperature shouldn't be a problem. The nights are temperate, and you have Pyromancy."

"Which brings us back to money. If we can't make it, then we should hire or buy it. Getting a nature mage to grow us a garden would be expensive, but worth start paying off instantly." She made a quick note on Brutus' paper. "If we want to be smart about it, and of course we do, we could collect some rare seeds or something beforehand and then sell the resulting bounty to pay for more goods and services."

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

"So seeds and seed capital it sounds like." Brutus replied chuckling to himself slightly as he took another swig of his drink. "There's also some crafting skills it looks like we can invest some time into as well, something that could perhaps be used to lighten the load on our pockets." He opened his palm menu and idly fiddled with some settings, peering at it while he thought.

"Using the garden to make money could help us take the burden off the rest of the purchasing, but it will also mean that for a while the garden isn't actually doing what we got it for...As for a charging station...couldn't you just get something similar to one of those standing stones but small? Put it by your bed?" Idly he sloshed his drink around a bit. "But that's a bridge we should burn in the future, like you said. Here and now." He rose to his feet. "I'm willin to bet good coin that there's probably a fuckload of jobyjobs to be done around town. We could probably commit a day or so to actually grinding that out, see where it gets us coin and supplywise and then see what we can do from there eh?"

He shot her a grin and put a couple of coins down as a tip for the wench whom he'd worked ragged with all the plates and drinks she'd brought to him. "Whattaya say?"

 

[Corsair]

"The standing stones are ancient magic, and as far as I'm aware there are almost no other Magia in the town. We're a new race in these parts, and not well catered to." She shrugged. Like Brutus had said, they'd burn that bridge when they got to it.

"Quests will certainly be the fastest way," Corsair agreed, "assuming they aren't lengthy escort missions." She stood up and dropped a few coins of her own on the table. "Shall we?"

The Honeyhome market square was bisected by a vast billboard wall, covered on both sides by flyers. Some of the papers were advertisements for local businesses, but by and large this was the place to pick up Quests. Some of the papers were ancient, tattered and ratty, with quests forgotten by time and person. Some were quite new, and even sponsored by the local guilds. This is where Corsair had picked up the goblin quest a few days earlier.

"Look for new ones, preferably with guild bordering. Those usually pay the most, and if they were posted today then we can all but bet they haven't been handed in yet."

She made her way down the wall, picking out a few flyers as she went. When they met up on the other side she held out the promising leads, reading them out to Brutus.

"This one is for the artisan's guild. Some dispute over patented tech being stolen by someone from the magitech guild. Sounds a bit he-said-she-said, but if we get in with the artisan's guild we might be able to negotiate discounted work for furniture." Corsair put the paper to back of her stack.

"If that's too dry there is this one for the city watch hunting down a Haemomancer who's been attacking travelers on the roads at night," she put that one to the back too, and held out a pair of very similar quests, each with an important-looking seal in the lower right. "Or either of these. Both guard duty for low-level politicians who are afraid that the other is sending thugs to attack them."

The final paper had a nice green border. "And last there was some herbalist work collecting Serpentvine. That one pays the least but it's also likely the safest. What did you find?"

 

[Brutus Dahlgren]

Brutus arrived to the other side and listened to her rattle off her jobs with rapt attention, but perhaps a bit of sheepishness. She'd picked some real bangers it would seem, incredibly detailed and quite interesting. He was quite noticably empty handed as well, after she finished, he cleared his throat.

"I mean, those all sound pretty good. Hunting down the Haemomancer sounds like it would do the most good for the village as a whole though, regardless of pay. As for me..." he scratched the back of his head taking a deep breath.

"Well, I started looking at jobs and then I saw a little boy who was crying, so I stopped and asked him why and he told me his cats been missing for a while, so I told him I'd keep an eye out for the cat. Then Granny Gertrude asked me if I was going out in the forest anytime soon and I told her there was a good chance I might be, so she asked if I could potentially hunt down a list of herbs that HER grandma used to use to make healing medicine because apparently a lot of hunters have been getting attacked by wolves recently. I thought that was kinda curious, so I looked into it and found out that Old man Stankins, who used to be the head of the local hunting guild, has put out a bounty on wolf pelts and a bonus reward if we can figure out why they're being so aggressive in the first place. Then I got hungry and stopped by a fruit vendor and they told me that one of the local fruit groves outside the city has a big spider problem, so that might be worth looking into as well..." He took another deep breath, seemingly red in the face from saying so much so quickly before adding.

"Any of those leads tickle your fancy?"

 

[Corsair]

Corsair had taken the direct, analytical approach, going straight to the papers, and Brutus had followed up with the people. It was a perfect melding of styles.

"Sounds like the herbs and wolves might be part of a quest chain," Corsair said, pinning the two politician quests back on the board. "I say we follow that. We can keep an eye out for the Serpentvine while we search for herbs, and once night hits we keen keep an eye out for the Haemomancer." She folded up the three remaining quest papers and tucked them in her bag.

"So let's get that list from Granny Gertrude, and find that bounty that Old man Stankins put up, then we can really get to work." Corsair completed her circuit of the boards and found the wolf bounty, she tucked it into her bag with the others. "The only worry is whether we can take on a pack of wolves, if it comes down to it. It may be best to just investigate and take them out here and there, with the intent of drawing them into a trap."

"But that's a worry for later. For now, let's get those plants gathered."