You don’t have a clock. It’s hard to get mechanical things working properly this far north of The Wall and getting a Charter run one would be ridiculously expensive. You estimate it to be about 10-11pm. You give serious thought to just going back to sleep before realising this isn’t your room.
Leto Skua stares up at the unfamiliar ceiling and mutters “Where…? Oh, right, Babysitting.”
The boss and his wife were out at the town meeting, something about trade and building a new hall and what not. It was to be “a long meeting” meaning they were all going to the pub afterwards, not a good night to sneak out then. There’s no where else to go anyway.
So here lies Leto, the poor worker-kind-of-apprentice, babysitting six year old Charlotte and contemplating all the possible, horrible ways someone could have just died.
He always did have a morbid imagination and right now he’s cursing it.
“This isn’t helping Lee… also you’re talking to yourself. Crap.”
He feels in the pockets of the work pants he’s still wearing and finds nothing.
Don’t know what I was expecting. He thinks, a small portion of his brain congratulating himself for having a thought and not voicing it.
Leto scans the familiar workroom in the dim glow of the small forge and the light from a full moon coming through a crack in the curtains. A workbench takes up one wall, a thick window above it with Charter marks embedded to let through more light. On the bench and the walls above it lay a variety of tools; pliers, small hammers, wire cutters, tweezers, nails, wire. The room is used for tinkering, decorative metal work, jewellery making and general fiddly stuff you can do with metal without needing the room to swing a massive hammer. Leto’s pallet is pushed up to one end of the work bench.
Directly across from Leto’s head is the door leading to the main work room and forge. In there he knows there to be some larger hammers, hoes and other farm equipment. No swords but maybe some knives, he’s not quite sure, spending more time in the smaller work room. The door tends to stick and opening it might be noisy.
At the foot of Leto’s pallet is the door to the main house. Charlotte is in the first room off that hall.
In the final corner of the work room sits the small forge, the coals still smouldering. There are two pokers sitting by it, both about two feet long. One pointed the other with a point and a hook. They’re not particularly sharp though.
You also have Charter Magic (see below).
Sense/Listen roll 1d10=5
You notice you can still sense death a little. That’s odd…
Encounter roll=4 Fail, +1 strength.
Well the general consensus is “Go back to sleep” so Leto decides not to worry about it and lays back down.
No, it’s not the first time you’ve sensed something dead or someone die. But people don’t generally die around you so it doesn’t exactly come up much.
There are no panpipes or bells around. Besides, the Royals and Abhorsen do horrible things to necromancers (well not really, generally they just kill them for good). You’d rather not be caught with a set. You can whistle though.
Now you have enough info to actually do something, what’ll it be? Sleep?
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Some quest mechanics for you:
About The Charter:
Most, though not all, people in The Old Kingdom (where you are) have a Charter Mark placed on their forehead as a child which allows them to sense and use Charter Magic.
Think of the Charter as a big sea of symbols from which you pick out the ones you wish to use. The symbols are called “Marks” and each Mark has a different effect. They can be written or embedded into objects, however most of the time they’re focused in the mind then placed with hands, left to float or woven into something. It will depend on the mark. More powerful Marks may also require a spoken word to call upon.
Charter Stones are scattered across the land. It’s easier too use Charter Magic near these points and your spell power will be stronger near them.
Charter Magic is ordered, there also exists Free Magic which is chaotic, physically hurts to use and will eventually drive the user mad. It eventually corrupts a user’s (forehead) Charter Mark and so testing someone’s is a good way to tell if they’re dabbling in it. However there are benefits to Free Magic, if you want to break physics and cheat death this is where you look.
Free Magic creatures wander the land and can generally kill you in creative, horrifying ways.
Leto may call upon three Marks at once, then another 3 in 5 or so minutes. You can use about 12 in an hour and still be able to move. It’s physically draining, the more power you put in the longer they’ll last, the less you’ll be able to do.
Carving/writing a mark will make it last longer without extra effort.
You know the following Marks: Light, heat, cool, dark, lighten (weight), heavier, sharpen, blunt, activate (generally for embedded Marks), accuracy, move, quieten, louden, colour change, focus, mend (also works as fix, heal), split.
Master Mark lv 1 (1 link)
You can use these two ways.
Take light; casting the Marks:
light, light, light
will produce three lights.
Using the Master Mark you can link two Marks to change their effect.
Eg. Light-link-Light will produce a single brighter light
Light-link-focus will focus the light into a beam
Light-link-heat produces fire etc.
Not all links will produce a result.
I don’t have a big list of this + this = that. If you can justify it, you can do it.
If anyone has an idea for a low level Mark really want included right now, speak, or hold your peace til Lee gets the chance to do some learning.
Woo typing.