Assistant Spirit-keeper, Session 1

The Bang

6 months ago, your mentor Rezon sent you away.

4 months ago, a messenger from Vishsaa Moz came to tell you Rezon had died—and that there would be no funeral.

3.5 months ago, you returned to your mentor’s home, now in ruins, to a chilly reception from the townsfolk.

Last week, you first heard stories of locked room thefts happening in Irmail.

2 nights ago, poking through the ruins of your mentor’s library, you found a slate they used to use to discuss particularly difficult theorems with you. There was a short message scrawled on it: “Azbug, I live yet!”.

Last night, your cousin Teflen showed up at your doorstep, exhausted, sick and roadworn, with little but the clothes on her back and reeking to high heaven.

What do you do?

Session One

Faced with the ruin of her manor and a needy, ill cousin who has come to her begging for help after weeks of living rough, Azbug Mellisen scrawled a request for help on the magic slate that allows her to communicate with her…disappeared…mentor and began to refresh her memory on the characteristics of air elementals. (BL Spirit-wise, B5 Perception +2D help +Carefully: 7D v. Ob. 4 success). She hopes to summon an air elemental to provide her intelligence on the whereabouts of the herd of pigs that used to live on the estate. Knowing the average strength of personality of such creatures will help her prepare the summoning circles appropriately.

(Here we took a break–our young son demands a more flexible schedule, and we broke this “Session” into two parts of roughly three hours total)

Distracted from her goal of summoning an air spirit by her cousin’s readily apparent decline in health, Azbug journeyed into town, to the seller of herbs and poultices, to ask if they would carry a message to the barber for her (B2 Circles +1D rep Impressive Hat: 3D v. Ob. 3, fail). Luckily, the barber is already there, asking the apothecary about poisons. The apothecary introduces him as Kristof, and mentions that Azbug is a bit of an expert in pests—perhaps she can help Kristof with his problem?

Kristof brings Azbug to his home and shows her the problem. Every night for the last several nights, his home has been broken into and things in his workspace—his folding razors, contraptions for measuring the speed of blood coagulation, his workbench, the lock on the door—have been dismantled and set into neat piles. He is near distraction, and desperate to solve the problem.

Azbug takes a closer look and asks him to do so with her. She inspects each of the piles of pieces (B5 Perception +carefully +help from the barber: 7D v. Ob. 3, success with no margin) and notices a few things. First, only bolts, rivets, and other removable fasteners have been taken apart—not anything nailed together. Second, there are several six-fingered handprints in the dust surrounding each pile. Azbug considers what to tell the barber, and decides she’d rather be vague than be wrong (the player was considering linking to a Pest-wise test, but decided against it when we discussed the Ob.). She offered platitudes about pests, and suggested that the barber simply nail the door to his workspace shut every night, pulling the nails in the morning—since the pest does not remove nails, this should be an adequate deterrence.

The barber is a bit put out, as this is a hassle, but realizes that Azbug had mentioned she was looking for him when they met at the apothecary. He apologizes and asks her what she needs. She tells him of her sick cousin, and he agrees to inspect her as an exchange for professional services—provided Azbug guarantees her anti-pest results with further action if the pest continues. They return to Azbug’s ruined manor and examine Teflen, the cousin. The barber prepares his poultices and knives (B5 Blood-letting +FoRK Apothecary +Carefully: 7D v. Ob. 3 success +3) and goes to work. Teflen looks significantly better (B5 Health +3 treatment: 8D v. Ob. 3) and sleeps easier than she has in days.

Worry for her cousin assuaged, Azbug returns to the problem of the missing pork. She consults her mentor on the proper preparations via the magic slate and draws a Summoners’ Gate (B3 Circination +2D help +Carefully: 6D v. Ob. 3 success) and a Prison Circle (B3 Circination +2D help +Carefully: 6D v. Ob. 2 success), and channels her will toward Summoning an air spirit (B5 Summoning +3 gate +Carefully: 9D v. Ob. 5 fail) and…something doesn’t feel right.

Artha: Got the cousin treated, 1 Persona. Pursued returning the pigs and exercised “The pest is not the problem”, 2 Fate. No MVP, etc.

Edits later for more context later, probably…

2 Likes

All that careful planning and something went wrong! What was the failure result?!

Well, before she included the Carefully die, it was going to be that the circle instead became a kind of faerie magnet, and she was going to have to deal with repeated Mischief problems as she tried to rebuild the manor. She’s been using the Carefully die often enough, though, that I want to adhere to the rule about it somehow being time pressured.

Ironically enough, despite my question earlier about how other people handled the failure discussion, this roll happened at the end of the session and we were rushing to prepare for some guests–so I completely forgot to talk about it. It does give me some time to plan something appropriate, though.

3 Likes

This is fun. More updates would be lovely.

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