LFG (early Week 4)

[faerielights]

So, who's up for a treasure hunt? A stealthy treasure hunt. I'm thinking we want what the crows have, and an extra set of hands or two might come in handy. I can keep a small group from getting spotted as long as no one decides to start blasting death metal or charge at any of the creeps that might be haunting the forest.

Strictly an Investigators-only party - no matter how useful you think your Infiltrator buddy might be, leave them at home.

Comments

[otomechapilot]

Be very careful. The crows here are smart enough to be offended and have real long memories.

Source is that I'm... sharing space in my head with a local. Who's studied this.

[faerielights]

Thus stealth, not charging. I've seen worse, but that doesn't mean I'm excited by the prospect of something trying to peck my eyes out.

[helborn]

I can try to distract the crows. I mostly can speak to ravens, but I can pull out wings and claws...

[otomechapilot]

With that in mind, good luck.

Trail mix is an acceptable peace offering if you get caught.

[faerielights]

If you can lure some of them away, that'd help. Fewer eyes to fool. And less chance they'll manage enough high level reasoning to associate "weird unfamiliar winged thing" with "we just got robbed".

[faerielights]

And here I was going to go with sequins.

[acapriciousthing]

Mortals don't notice me if I don't want them to.

[faerielights]

I think I've seen that horror movie.

But that could be handy. How about the not-quite-mortal locals?

[helborn]

I'll do what I can. Hell, I can even show up as a raven... sort of. Not for all that long.

[razorblade_empress]

We know why they have what we want from them?

[acapriciousthing]

Probably not quite what you're thinking.

They're still more mortal than I am. Even Travelling.

[faerielights]

How long is not that long? Are you at risk of falling out of the sky mid-flight?

[helborn]

Ten or fifteen minutes, maybe? It's just a strain on my soul, and I'm possessing Bob, and he doesn't like it.

No shit I don't like it, how would you like someone showing up in your head and making you do things?

[faerielights]

Let's call that Plan C, then. The whole shapeshifting thing is probably more viable.

[faerielights]

My bet would be a general animosity towards murderous ghosts, but I don't speak crow, so asking isn't exactly an option.

[faerielights]

Yeah, the locals do all seem to be baby fae.

Does that mean you're in?

[helborn]

Always good to have options. Let me know when you're ready to go.

[razorblade_empress]

[There's a short pause.]

They're regular crows, right? Or regular for this place, anyway.

[faerielights]

Will do. I just need to pick up a few supplies, and we should be good.

[faerielights]

For this campus, at least. I wouldn't be willing to swear to their intelligence the world over.

[razorblade_empress]

Just so long as they're not Fae crows or something - if they're not, then I can read a few of their perspectives without being detected, maybe get some answers that way.

[faerielights]

Huh. You have some sort of animal empathy thing going on?

[razorblade_empress]

Nah, it's Questing Country bullshit. They made me the Oracle of Perspective for some damned reason, and Oracles have, I think the way they phrased it was 'supernatural visionary knowledge' of whatever archetype they ended up with. It's come in handy on a few Jaunts.

[faerielights]

I'll bet. Hopefully it has an off switch.

[Things that, in Molly's experience, are never truly comfortable: having supernatural insight into the minds of everyone around you, all the time.]

[razorblade_empress]

Yeah, it does.

[Thankfully.]

[acapriciousthing]

Yeah, I'm in. There's bound to be something.

[faerielights]

There usually is.

[faerielights]

Good to know.

Hopefully the crows have enough of a common mental vocabulary to reveal something.

[razorblade_empress]

Hopefully. I was able to use it on a Glatisant in Questing Country, but since it was made up of a bunch of temporarily merged Spirit Companions, that's probably not the best example.

[faerielights]

I missed that one, but a Questing Beast sounds about right for a place called Questing Country.

[razorblade_empress]

I'm by no means an expert, but from what I saw, Questing Country isn't all that big on subtle.

[Maybe that's why they have such a hard time with Adversaries as a concept.]

[faerielights]

Sounds like most of us would fit right in.

[razorblade_empress]

Oh, yeah.

[faerielights]

...So, how many people blew their cover wide open in the first ten minutes?

[razorblade_empress]

That is probably a question better aimed at the first Questing Country Jaunt, which I missed. The locals actually gave us a welcome party at the start of the second one.

[faerielights]

Well, that's...friendlier than we'd probably get on the worlds I'm familiar with. Or on this one, if anyone starts blabbing.

[razorblade_empress]

It got a little less friendly when the Arcana started fucking around with the place directly, but eventually people settled down and opted to blame the Arcana for that instead.

[faerielights]

They...? Damn, that's bad. What were they doing?

[razorblade_empress]

Started drilling for something - we didn't know what at the time, but they later used it to send us back to a very early Jaunt so we could redo it directly, which is why Fortune's alive now.

We're not sure if they've got enough left to do it again, but they ended up having to stop for a week or so because their drill was doing more damage than they realized, so they definitely got less than they wanted.

[faerielights]

Well, that's just horrifying. Nothing should be dabbling in time travel, especially nothing that powerful.

[She doesn't always respect the Laws of Magic. But the Sixth Law? The thought of breaking that one scares the shit out of her.]

[razorblade_empress]

My worry is that they'll try to have us bring back Star. I can think of a few Jaunts that might have been enough to do that one in and they are not Jaunts anyone wants to repeat.

[faerielights]

Yeah. Death of hope and faith? Whatever that was, it would've been ugly.

[razorblade_empress]

Very.