![[BtS-2-1.png]] With over half the day left I figured I'd get started on predicting the map. I headed out to find some shops with some pencils and larger sheets of parchment. I came back to work on it at our table in the common area of the lonely bullet before heading up to bed fairly late. Wanting to make myself feel more "at home" I took one of the lower bunks and moved the mattress to an open area of the floor. [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] actually came down from the bunk above me for some reason, I think he was a little amused with it, though I think he might have just wanted to help annoy the other people in the [[Ex Nihilo|group]]. --- Erastus 5th 2430AS This morning was a decent breakfast, mainly breads, cheeses, some juices, and a much better tea that yesterday. Honestly I think they just reheated tea from the breakfast yesterday instead of brewing some new tea. Come on, it doesn't take that much time to make tea, I just wish it was easier to find better leaves around here. Also, no eggs? At breakfast? I really don't know how this kind of establishment continues to function. While we were eating I felt a vibration from my bag. I dug into my bag, pulling out the magically sealed map which had now started to vibrate. There were two other groups, one I hadn't seen before and they people magically listening in yesterday who also had some vibrating maps. I put it on the table to let everyone else see that it seemed as if the seal was going to break fairly soon. Thankfully I had done all my preparations last night so I was ready to show off my work. To start I also placed down my "prediction" in an envelope on the table. ![[BtS-2-4.png]] As the seal broke I was prompted to show my map first. I opened both, first showing off my map to get some reactions from people... Absolutely nothing. Honestly, that is probably a good thing, but it does mean that there are no more fun lines of questioning to be had for right now. ![[BtS-2-2.png]] The map appeared to be of some sort of puzzle pointing to a location. At the location there is clearly some kind of underground complex which leads to a "Grave Crystal". It felt really good to see this and know that my divining was right. The text on the right reads as follows: ``` Properties of Grave Crystals: "Grave Crystal" is the colloquial name referring to the natrually forming crystalized form of interterplana energy condensation from the plane of Negative Energy onto the Material Plane. Grave crystals have a faint blue glow, are gnerally opaque, and naturally draw creatures fueld by or drwan to negative energy to themselves or to areas that they naturally occur. ``` I hadn't heard of a grave crystal before, but it seemed as the some members of the party ([[Badda]] and [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]]) had. They didn't seem to know much about them, just that they exist and that they are mined for some purpose. I had some sort of idea of what we will have to do, but we decided to wait until our briefing tomorrow. While we were discussing our map some members of [[Ex Nihilo|our group]] were trying to get a look at the map of our divining friends at a nearby table. [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] got a basic glance at it, saying that it was clearly different from ours. [[Sidi]] then tried to walk past all stealthily, however they had already rolled up their map at that point. I really didn't understand the need to be so sly about it so I woke up my numb leg, stood up, put my hand around the diviner, and asked about their map. The diviner didn't recognize me as he clearly couldn't see us yesterday, however the other members of their group vouched for me as they began to unroll their map. Theirs was indeed significantly different from ours, showing a massive mess of lines in three groups of thicknesses. Their leader explained that they think the different lines indicate the layers of a three layered city, but they don't know where that would be. ![[BtS-2-5.png]] As I was going to sit back down, I told [[Ex Nihilo|the group]] to look under the table at my real prediction. [[Badda]] went under, pulling back up the wonderfully drawn map shown above. The group was fairly surprised about it, but of course I refused to let them in on my secrets. As a part of this discussion both [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] and [[Kitsuki Nagahashi|I]] ended up casting detect magic, noticing some interesting new things. My sword had suddenly begun glowing with magic! I wonder if the magic in it was suppressed at home, and now that it's been somewhere that magic is plentiful it's started to show it's true power! [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]]'s guns are also now showing as magical, so I may not be entirely correct. [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] is able to see the types of magical auras, claiming that my sword gives of evocation, while [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]]'s guns give off Divination and Evocation (one each). I also noticed that [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]]'s gun isn't magical, despite him using it to cast magic. Apparently it's just a focus for him which makes some sense. I spent the next ten minutes attuning to mine while [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] tried the same. Once I finished the sword "spoke" to me, not in a literal sense though. I was suddenly aware that it could channel my lightning energy and is capable of throwing it at my enemies in a slightly more powerful fashion than I can alone! [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] failed to attune to his, stating that he likely needs to repair them. [[Badda]] estimated that they would cost around ten gold each to fix, and as such they promptly went out looking for some part time work. With much of the group deciding to do the same, I headed out with some cards to do my standard routine. I noticed that [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] seemed to follow and watch me, paying close attention to what I was doing. He seemed impressed and a bit confused, likely because people here don't seem to do slight of hand magic. He didn't seem to notice that I was also palming a bit of coin while doing it. As we turned in for another night I passed by [[Badda]] staying up fairly late in the common room of the tavern. Apparently they were able to get enough change together to start repairing one of [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]]'s guns, I can't wait to see what their magic will be like. --- Erastus 6th 2430AS As we were eating breakfast for the second time together the half elven woman who had healed us returned to the tavern. I started by introducing myself and asking for her name, apologizing for the lack of such after the task. She understood the situation that I was in and gave us the name "[[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]]". She explained that by finishing the second phase of the task we will be invited to an exclusive program put together by the [[Siromar Kingdom]]. In this second phase there is no protections like with the first, so death is definitely on the table this time. She did claim that [[Siromar Kingdom|the kingdom]] will handle a will however, making me wonder exactly how many people have in fact died during this portion. [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]] then began to talk about some important "conditions" of the job. We are to collect grave crystals and a document indicating the operations of the mine the crystals are to be found in. These items are to be brought back to [[Khanwhur - Capital|Khanwur]]'s garrison within roughly three weeks, though the time limit isn't super hard apparently. Once we bring back the items we will receive them as payment along with some further work. Apparently we will make roughly 150-300gp from the job, definitely nothing to scoff at. Aside from the success conditions, there were also things we must not do during the job. First, we are not allowed to take any food supplies from the city (we must live off the land). Thankfully [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] has claimed that this should not be an issue for them. We also can't use any magical items to make fire, not really an issue considering we have [[Badda|someone capable of breathing fire]]. We are not allowed to attack other members of the contest, be it our own team or other groups. Finally, we are not allowed to dupe the contest organizers, something I would have likely considered otherwise. [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]] then surprised us, telling us that we would need to undergo a test under zone of truth in the storage room which had been prepared for the occasion! I wasn't all that worried as given the questions I expected her to ask there was nothing that could really go wrong. [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] volunteered to go first while the rest of us sat around talking. He wasn't in there long, however in that time [[Badda]] spoke about what they think [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] looks like under all of his wrappings. They think that he is a "leper", though I don't quite know what that is. At some point during the will discussion [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] did mention that he doesn't have any bones, which just adds to the confusion. I've decided that I won't dig into it as I don't really want anyone digging into me in response. Before I went in, [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] showed me that she had made some fairly impressive art out of the femur that she stole from the skeletons. There was an impressively made sculpting of each member of [[Ex Nihilo|the group]] along the length, something I would definitely not be able to do myself. Apparently her family are all artists which is pretty neat. As [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] left I entered, somewhat surprised by the very heavily armoured skeletons standing to both sides of the entrance. There was definitely no running out of that room. [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]] asked all the questions expected, adding an additional question on location of origin. I tried to dodge it at first, but she insisted I'd be fine essentially no matter what the answer was. I gave her the short explanation and surprisingly I'm not the first person going through this program who escaped, quite peculiar. She also made sure I wasn't hostile to the [[Siromar Kingdom]], which I guess is the case considering I could say I wasn't. When I came out [[Sidi]] was looking very scared as if he really didn't want to go in. He was eventually pushed into the room, upon which his situation was explained to me. There was also some explanation from him after he came out, so I'll just bundle that up here. Apparently he was formerly a member of the army, and he is wanted by the government for desertion. During the middle of an operation he was left alone on an island with no way out. This was apparently all due to his paler complexion, resulting in people treating him as if he were undead. Poor guy, when he came out he was really shaking but he made it out alive. According to him those guards are definitely not to be messed with, so this project must be of some really high importance. While we were waiting for the all members of the group to go through, both [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] and I showed off our "new" magical weapons. I shot off a few electric zaps with mine while [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] showed off a beam of light coming from the barrel of his gun. The beam of light seems to bounce off different materials the same way as the bullet would making it much easier to aim with. Nothing else surprising happened during the interrogations and as [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]] came back out she re-iterated our goal to us. She also let us know that we could get a single check on the location we are planning to go to so that we don't get sent too far off course. Grateful for this we got to working on the map as she left the tavern to return to the arena. ![[BtS-2-3.png]] After overlaying the quest map onto my map of the [[Siromar Kingdom]] it was clear where we had to go. The black dots lined up with the major cities, the lines indicated the coastlines, and the dragons head was meant to be the dragon mountains to the north. The centre of the skull placed us just to the west of [[Durst]]. Concerned with their lack of will to not eat their rations on the road, most of the group began just giving their rations away to the homeless along our walk back to the stadium. I'm not worried considering that I didn't fail the zone of truth test, so I believe in myself unlike these shmucks. When we arrived back at the arena things had clearly changed up. There was a group currently fighting a bunch of skeleton dogs with a pile of humanoid bones and a bow off in the corner. The topography also looked much different, definitely something I wasn't expecting. We went up to [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Irorika]] and I pulled out the map to point at the location. I was slightly off from the centre and she told us that "[[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] could point it out better". Confused at how she knew this, [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] pointed to the exact spot on the map and she sent us on our way. On our way out, she recommended against us buying potions from town (which was part of our conversation), as "Who knows what may await you when you leave the town". As [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] went to go buy bones for some more crafting, [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] explained that he used to work in the mine we are going to. I'm not sure why he didn't tell us that earlier, although I guess I haven't told them where I'm from so I see some of his reasoning. It's not like we're going to end up going to where I'm from at least. As we left the town we were approached by a person with a crate. He confirmed that we are [[Ex Nihilo|Group 13]], handed us the crate, then ran off back into the city. Inside the crate was three healing potions, a necklace of knives which grow when detached, and a magical mummified elf hand which allows the holder to cast mage hand. [[Sidi]], [[Badda]], and I got the healing potions, [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] got the hand, and [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] got the necklace as we began our walk to the mine. >[! Recap Note] >The title of this session is a reference to the T.V. game show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego".