carissa meets a tyrant
+ Show First Post
Total: 872
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

Mindreading.

Huh.

Well.

This is going to be a much shorter run of Milesing than he had planned; he bets daeva invulnerability doesn't stop that.

"Interesting," he says calmly. "And if I asked you to teleport me?" His voice is slightly playful, as if he already knows the answer to that question, and is just curious how he'll respond to it.

Permalink

If he were a man she would actually interpret that tone as slightly flirtatious but he is, well, very observably not, so it probably isn't.

 

"I must be fifth circle now, my lord, as I summoned you, but I wasn't this morning, so I don't know the pattern yet. I could beg your patience, and cast it for you in the morning."

 

 

Does he..... just want a wizard to spellcast for him while he wanders around having Stone Shape adventures. Does he somehow not have Teleport in his own right. That seems wildly more lucky than a person could reasonably expect to get when giving themselves up to a ludicrously powerful outsider they summoned.  

 

Permalink

"Mmm. Perhaps." He pauses. "And the largest city in this world?"

Permalink

"...I don't know, my lord. Maybe Absalom? Maybe Goka? - Absalom's where the Starstone is, and some of the world's best wizards outside Cheliax. Goka I don't know much about because it's on another continent but their adventurers come here to help with the demons sometimes."

Permalink

He'll respond with a measured nod.

"And how many people in Cheliax are wizards? Per hundred?" He'll steal her exact word choice for the second sentence, there.

Permalink

"Five, my lord. Ten have cantrips."

Permalink

So, somewhere between postgrad and doctorate. Not bad for a medieval setting.

"I could make use of a guide to this world," he says calmly. "I have not set foot here in the generations since humanity's birth."

(Nor before that, since he didn't exist, but, y'know, style.)

"For your life I claim three favors, and the first shall be to act as my guide in this world until I dismiss you of my own will, or until your final death, or until one hundred years have passed."

Permalink

She's not, actually, sure why he's limiting himself to three, and it's probably some horrible game where the third is - whatever the worst possible thing is -

- but so long as that day isn't today, she can figure out how to make sure it doesn't come, and an outsider thinking about a guide on the scale of a hundred years probably isn't going to get bored tomorrow.

Probably. 

"Yes, my lord. I will need to inform my Chelish superiors. I don't expect them to object under the circumstances."

Permalink

"And how long do you intend to spend informing your Chelish superiors, Carissa Sevar?"

Permalink

Still not on fire! Somehow! Even though not only is it richly deserved, it'd in fact probably be helpful with making her superiors feel like the consequences of her actions are going to be horrible enough they don't need to bestir themselves to make them worse!

 

"It'll be - a minute, my lord, if I go quickly."

Permalink

He really doesn't know he's supposed to set her on fire!!!

"Understood. Go quickly, then."

And while she does that he'll continue building a fort. If he runs out of fort to build, he can add ravelins, he likes ravelins, architecturally speaking, and it's not like he has anything more useful to build while he hangs out.

Permalink

Carissa runs back. She is no longer going to hide that she is incredibly terrified, since now her play is convincing her superiors that they should consider her missing but not, actually, deserted. 

They've mopped the blood and grime off the floor, but not very well; you can see the traces where the spells didn't quite reach. She drops to her knees. "I offered any payment he could name, for his aid. He's taking me with him."

         The priest looks relieved to learn the extremely powerful outsider is leaving. "Well, that was a stupid offer," he says coolly.

Carissa nods at the ground, which she's staring at. "I want to be more interesting before I go to Hell, High Priest."

         "Did you find out what he is?"

"I haven't been asking questions, High Priest. He's - he's been fixing up the fortress -"

         "We noticed. Your plans are acknowledged." He says it in the flat tone that means he hopes she dies right away, as it'll be less paperwork.

"But I'm not deserting?" She didn't mean for that to come out a question. 

          He snorts. "We'll say we threw you in as thanks for the fortress."

 



 

 

....back to her Duke of ?????, then. She really would have expected that leaving would have hurt more. Or less. One of those. Probably it will when they actually Teleport out and it's real. 

Permalink

That is when a strike team arrives to the rescue of Seer's Rest, appearing in the air a hundred feet above the fortress, Hasted, flying, many of them invisible, magical weapons drawn to rain destruction down on demons. 

They are immediately very confused. 

Permalink

Duke Sikandros will continue making fort appear out of thin air and not visibly pay much attention! He's sure the locals can explain the situation without much difficulty.

(He is, in fact, somewhat worried about having his thoughts read, but nothing to do but brazen it out, it's not like he's not thoroughly immortal.)

Permalink

"Sevar summoned it."

    "What is it."

"I don't know but I think we really ought to let it go on its merry way - it tore the demons apart like tissue paper -"

     "Maybe because it sent them."

"....oh. Maybe."

      "You fucking moron. How sure are you that one of ours summoned it -"

"...not at all, actually, it rose out of the pit alone - a minute later Sevar appeared to join - we can't check anything, we're all out of spells -"

                  "Chaotic Good."

"Sorry, fucking say that again?"

                   "Uh, it's, Chaotic Good, going by, uh, its aura. Chaotic Good and quite valuable."

"You're going to wish you'd died to the demons, priest. Can someone get Detect Thoughts up -"

 

Permalink

"They've acknowledged my departure, my lord."

Permalink

He nods in response. "We'll leave in the morning, once you have the Teleport spell prepared."

Hopefully before anyone tries anything; he'll feel a lot more comfortable interacting with Cheliax once he's read sixteen different histories of the nation and has some idea how exactly this world works.

Permalink

 

      "Why the fort? is it a trap, is it going to collapse on us?"

                "That doesn't - seem like Chaotic Good to me, really."

                           "Oh, and I'm sure you're the expert."

                "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What about the girl, what's that about -" 

              "she's not actually that pretty -"

        "It's pretty slim pickings this far north. I haven't seen nicer."

"I don't mean 'would you fuck her', you paving stones, I mean, is she complicit -"

         "Did anyone see how he drove the demons off? Definitely wasn't an illusion?"

                "The fort's not an illusion -"

         "That's not what I asked."

 

Detect Thoughts. 

Permalink

(Int: 18. Will save: +3!)

The terrifying outsider presently enjoying finishing up the star fort and adding ravelins! There's a lot of complex engineering in his head that is probably not all that relevant; he's also enjoying trolling Carissa, though he's also feeling slightly guilty about it; probably he should let her go when he makes it to Absalom, but then she might get horribly murdered and then where would he be; probably once he's inhaled (a metaphor in his thoughts) the contents of a library he should go drop off summoning diagrams with one of the sides that are Good, always assuming that Good is in fact good this might be some kind of meta twist where Good and Evil are both names for equally bad sides.

Either way, "learning wizardry" seems really cool, especially if it works back home! He doesn't actually have much use for the ability to read minds (HEY IF YOU'RE READING MY THOUGHTS STOP) or throw fireballs but he'd kind of like to travel instantaneously without faeries, and even magic just for cleaning clothes is inherently very cool, due to being MAGIC.

Permalink

          "Chaotic Good," is reported disappointedly. "And hoping to get to Absalom and - orient - I think he actually was summoned here -"

"Should we kill him?"

         "Can we kill him? The demons -"

"Did any of them try a good old-fashioned Disintegrate from behind?"

                  "They were largely low on spells."

"Mmhmmm, thought so."

                                  "The fort's fine, the fort is - just for fun -"

                         "I fucking hate Chaotic Good."

         " - backup plan, though -"

" - yes, obviously -"

    

Permalink

"Get some sleep," he says, "we'll leave in the morning." 

Permalink

And once the fort is done, which shouldn't really take him long, he'll head back inside to see if anyone has books to read he can steal while he quietly sits in the same room as his summoner, though he may want to check if they have a library he can steal from while Carissa sleeps; it's very annoying how Carissa needs to sleep, what with not being a daeva.

Permalink

They, uh, had a library. It was not an impressive one to begin with and someone lit it on fire yesterday. 

Permalink

Permalink

 

 

Disintegrate. 

Total: 872
Posts Per Page: