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achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Sneaking around.

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Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.

someone awful. posted:

We were definitely a party girl.

We were young rich and full of sugar.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


The gym.

Galick
Nov 26, 2011

Why does Khajiit have to go to prison this time?
Studied hard!

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable

quote:

So many exams. Demonic voices in dark rooms. Pentagram after pentagram, drawn by acid on stone, inscribed with forgotten runes.

You summoned demons. You banished them again. You raised men from the dead and made them walk, made them fight, made them sing.

You walked a lonely road, and gained strange powers there.

The Hidden Schools were a realm of darkness and study, but no one ever accused the students there of monastic discipline. What pleasures did you indulge in? What loves? What faces, what bodies, reflect in the falling shards of what used to be yourself?

We're into girls and we're getting girls.

quote:

They were strong, they were brittle, they were brilliant, they were shortsighted, they were beautiful, they were unformed. In short, they were young, and so were you.

But the process was fun for all involved.

And then you graduated, and went to work.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
So we're past the tutorial hump and in the game proper, where we can put the stat spread we chose to good use...

...what did we get anyway?

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 10%
Your personal style, savoir faire, empathy, and social acumen.

Craft: 52%
Your facility with the sorcerous Craft, used for magical battles and a range of professional tasks.

Cunning: 28%
Your native cunning, wit, and raw intellectual ability.

Determination: 20%
Your bullheaded determination, will to power, and stick-to-it-iveness. Everything your hypothetical football coach wanted you to "bring onto the field."

Sleep: 99%
The less you sleep, the harder everything is.

Gunner/Socialite: 60%/40%
Are you clawing for advantage, desperate for work experience, eager to gain partners' approval? Or are you more of a people person?

Soul: 2500
The Craft can accomplish miracles--or great blasphemies--so long as you have the soulstuff with which to fuel it.

Debt: 100000
Your student loans are a daily drain on your life and sanity.

I guess we're more of a Hermione Granger. How's our work situation right now?

quote:

Krieg Tower rises like a black needle over the sprawling Shikaw skyline. To the east stretches the Greatwater, slate gray broken by white chalk-line waves. Below, and off to the west, broad gridded streets map the earth between buildings the size of city blocks, and beyond these lie older, red brick neighborhoods that never quite recovered from the God Wars.

Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone occupies the top twenty floors of Krieg Tower; your new office, your first office ever, is a cubby on floor thirty-five, toward the lower bound of VNS territory. It's empty but for you and the few personal possessions you're moving in--a single box, piled high with Craftwork books, and on top of them a few teetering personal effects, including a daguerrotype of your graduation. You look so proud.

You set the box down, and sag into your chair. You hear the subtle shift in the box and turn in time to see the picture fall.


1. I catch it with the Craft.
2. I catch it with my hands.
3. Why catch it? More interesting to fix it with the Craft once it's broken.

Pooncha fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Aug 1, 2018

Anticheese
Feb 13, 2008

$60,000,000 sexbot
:rodimus:

Fix the broken thing with Craft like the nerd we are!

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
#3

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Fix it later.

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.

ultrafilter posted:

Fix it later.

No brainer.

Sticky Fingers
Jul 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
Catch it with the craft

someone awful.
Sep 7, 2007


Catch it with the craft. Don't be lazy!

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead
Catch with Craft, we have better things to do with our spare time than fix up a picture.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
Catching it with forbidden soulmagic had a good show but we'll just let it drop.

quote:

The falling picture strikes the side of the desk, and then the carpet. You kneel beside it. Cracks spiderweb your beaming face.

You set your hand on the glass, exhale, and set about convincing the glass that it should be one piece. Not much time has passed since the break, and all these pieces of glass do in fact come from the same source, so the convincing isn't hard. The cracks squeak as they seal shut. Light flickers and fades around you as you work.

Fixed, the glass is weaker than it once was. But if you don't break it again, you should be fine. As you set the picture on the desk, though, you notice that you're bleeding. Must have cut your thumb while fixing the glass.


1. "poo poo."
2. "Hells."
3. "Godsdammit."
4. No big deal. I bandage my thumb and get on with my life.

For this time only I'm going to make an executive decision to proceed regardless of choice, but for future reference do you want to vote on flavour choices like any other choice, vote on a certain personality to pick these flavour choices with, or leave it entirely up to me?

Anyway, after we cut ourselves...

quote:

You wrap your thumb in tissue paper to stem the bleeding, which should help.

You hear a knock on the door, and a second later it opens to admit Cassowary Chen, another first-year associate at Varkath Nebuchadnezzar Stone. She started a week ago, same as you, and for both of you the last seven days have been a solid wall of training.

She's borne it well, better than you feel you have. Like you, Cass wears a dark gray skirt suit; she's intense, five-foot-five or so, dark hair, expressive features, given to sharp broad gestures with her hands while talking.

She glances down at your thumb with concern. "Are you okay, Liang?"


1. "Oh, it's nothing."
2. "I thought this place could use a little more colour."
3. "HR sent a few more forms up for me to sign."
4. "No, actually, this hurts a lot."
5. "What are you doing here?"


Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 10%
Craft: 52%
Cunning: 35%
Determination: 20%

Sleep: 99%
Gunner/Socialite: 60%/40%

Soul: 2490
Debt: 100000

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 30%

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Up to you and "It's nothing."

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.
2. Colour!

someone awful.
Sep 7, 2007


The HR forms one amuses me.

Imo, if it doesn't affect stats or the direction things go, no need to vote on it really.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


No effect, no vote. HR forms.

Sticky Fingers
Jul 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
Just a scratch, it's nothing. And flavor choices are up to you.

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
No effect, no vote need

HR Yarr

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
HR won't cut us a break, man.

quote:

She looks sympathetic. "After all the forms they've had us sign in the last few days, you think they'd give it a rest. The body only holds so much blood, after all."

"Anyway," she says, "Pat and I thought we might meet for dinner before this casino night orientation thing. Pre-game a little. You want to come?"


1. "I'd love to!"
2. "You're going to that? I thought I might skip. It's just more social, play-nice stuff, right?"
3. "Pat? Why not just the two of us?"
3. "Eh. I'll eat by myself. Have fun."

someone awful.
Sep 7, 2007


"I'd love to!" It's probably a lie, but let's not be a shut-in, regardless.

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Love to!

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


#1

Sticky Fingers
Jul 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
We would love to!

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.
3. Pat? gently caress that guy.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
Sure, let's go.

quote:

"Great!" She shoots you a thumbs-up, and scribbles down the address of a bar not far from casino night. "We'll meet there at seven, okay?" Then she's gone, in a flare of jacket and skirt and clicking heels.

If you want to meet her by seven, you'd best get home. You have some work to do.

You're still living out of boxes, and it would be nice to stop that one of these days. You have barely enough time to get home, unpack a little, and return—lucky for you that it's still the first week of training. In a month, once the Work picks up, you doubt you'll ever again see a sunset that's not filtered through glass. Too many dead men to be raised, gods to be wrestled, laws of reality to be violated. You know. The usual life of a Craftswoman.

Home waits, though, for now.

And where is "home," anyway? Rent's higher close to the office, but the closer you are, the shorter the commute—and short commutes mean more sleep, which makes everything in life easier.


1. As close as I can get to the office. drat the expense.
2. I tried to compromise between price and convenience.
3. The cheapest digs I can find. I won't spend much time there anyway.


Speaking of rent, and commutes, and similar topics, what kind of life are you living exactly? By which I mean: when you left the Hidden Schools to embark on this path of high thaumaturgy, you were carrying about 100000 thaums in debt. Currently, your soul's only worth about 2490.

Your salary's 160,000 thaums—let's say 100,000 after all your various fees and obligations to the city of Shikaw are handled. Debt, obviously, is debt: the Hidden Schools lay claim to your soul and all its future products. As long as you carry this debt, you'll never be free. Mad necromancers can and will hunt you to the ends of the earth.

So, that said, how much of your salary—after you take care of rent and living expenses—goes toward debt? And how much of it is yours to spend?


A. I want that debt gone. I'll eat instant noodles for five years if I must.
B. There's no sense making myself miserable. I'll balance debt-repayment with my own wants and needs.
C. School was hard. I want to live a little. I'll have plenty of time to pay down debt.

How's our commute, and how well did we live?

Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 10%
Craft: 52%
Cunning: 35%
Determination: 20%

Sleep: 99%
Gunner/Socialite: 60%/40%

Soul: 2490
Debt: 100000

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 46%

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
2,B.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


someone awful.
Sep 7, 2007


Counterpoint: 3, C.

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.
1. C

Pay debt when we're a director, until then, don't worry about it. We're rich anyway!

Sticky Fingers
Jul 18, 2011

by Nyc_Tattoo
1, B. I'm an associate at a large law firm so I can empathize with the necromancer life. I make an effort to waste as little of my precious free time as possible on commuting.

RefinedUndefined
Jan 1, 2013

Just burn everything, that'll solve your problems.
2 and B.

Beefeater1980
Sep 12, 2008

My God, it's full of Horatios!






Sticky Fingers posted:

1, B. I'm an associate at a large law firm so I can empathize with the necromancer life. I make an effort to waste as little of my precious free time as possible on commuting.

This. Also, I had a colleague called Liang Wen when I was a trainee lawyer and this was 110% what she would have done.

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable
We chose to be moderate with our budget, a balance between frugality and indulgence. Renting close by and renting not-so-close by were tied, but a coin flip broke the tie in the latter's favour.

quote:

A trolley takes twenty minutes to escape the steel and glass titans of downtown and reach the brownstones and bricks of the Garment District. Which, so far as you've been able to determine, has nothing whatsoever to do with garments or the textile industry these days.

Not for the first time you wonder if you shouldn't have tried to find a job nearer to the place you grew up—where you knew the history, and the territory. But in this business, you go where the work is. You were lucky to get a chance at Varkath Nebuchadnezzar; the market's as harsh as it has been in years.

Your apartment is a mess of boxes. Piles by the door, in the hall, in the center of the room. You have a bed, and pillows, but that's the limit. Everything else is cardboard and packing tape.

You glance ruefully at your watch, set down your briefcase, and start unpacking. At this rate, you might have time to do something other than unpack and go to firm functions sometime around two months from now. Though that's an optimistic estimate.

You manifest a knife out of your own soulstuff and start tearing open boxes. You'd have used something more prosaic, but your knives and scissors are, of course, packed. Dammit.

You haven't looked at your watch in a while when you hear a knock on the door.

Answering it--chain in place, of course--you discover, to your surprise, Ashleigh Wakefield.

You haven't seen Wakefield since graduation. You sort of hoped never to see her again. Ash Wakefield of the Southern Wakefields, the scion of a high family, and everyone in the Hidden Schools knew it. Affluent, blonde, brilliant, and sculpted out of marble. Metaphorically. Though you never got close enough to check.

Kelethres Albrecht & Ao--one of the world's most prestigious Craft firms--hired Wakefield straight out of the Hidden Schools as an associate in their Shikaw office, and she made certain everyone knew. Perhaps she was just excited. That'd be a charitable way to look at it.

"Wen," she says. "It's been quite a while. Since we're both going to this party, I decided I might as well visit another lonely and bereft graduate in this dismal city."

It doesn't seem right to keep Wakefield waiting outside, so you undo the lock on the door, step aside, and let her in. She glances around the piles of boxes without betraying the slightest hint of disdain. Wakefield conveys disdain quite well enough without having to betray it.


1. "How did you get this address?"
2. "See anything you like?"
3. "I'm a bit busy, if you don't mind."
4. "I knew I should have shut the door in your face."


Liang Wen's Stats posted:

Charm: 10%
Craft: 52%
Cunning: 35%
Determination: 20%

Sleep: 99%
Gunner/Socialite: 60%/40%

Soul: 2490
Debt: 100000

Relationships posted:

Cassowary Chen: 46%
Ashleigh Wakefield: 30%

achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
See anything you like?

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


achtungnight posted:

See anything you like?

wedgekree
Feb 20, 2013
See anything you like

Pooncha
Feb 15, 2014

Making the impossible possumable

quote:

"Unlikely. Though there's always a chance for surprise." Wakefield shrugs.

Wakefield turns on her heel to face you, and spreads her arms wide. "I came to invite you to dinner. I have been forced to attend this particular brand of inter-firm madness, and drinks and a vague excuse for intelligent conversation might provide an appropriate stimulant for the early evening."


1. "I have plans."
2. "I'm meeting some friends for dinner. You're welcome to come."
3. "Against my better judgment, let's."
4. "So I can be a warmup bout over drinks? No thanks."

Problem is, we already promised Cass we'd meet with her and Pat. Doubt we can make the time for cheerleader Wakefield, but we could do it anyway if we don't mind Cass and Pat being stood up.

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achtungnight
Oct 5, 2014
I get my fun here. Enjoy!
Nah, we have plans.

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