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Witch Life

Discussion in 'Questing' started by Songwind, Jun 6, 2020.

  1. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You are Delilah Lezdgy, your mother died in childbirth and your father was a drunk farmer who molested you often. You discovered an old book which belonged to one of your ancestors hidden in a box under the barn floor.

    You didn't know how to read at first, but you managed to convince your father to let you take lessons with the local priest, who also started molesting you. After a few years, you learned to read enough to understand that the book was some sort of grimoire and detailed a whole bunch of dark arts spells. But it presupposed some arcane knowledge you didn't have, so you started trying to find someone who would teach you the basics of magic.

    Eventually you found an old hag which lived in the forest who had some knowledge of magic, but your father would never allow you to go meet her regularly so instead you got a job as lumberjack apprentice. But you weren't strong enough to be a proper lumberjack, and you really wanted time to be with the hag not cutting trees, so you ended up making a deal with the lumberjack to fuck him for money so you would have time to learn with the hag, you gave most of the money you made to your father.

    The hag demanded payment you couldn't possibly afford to teach you arcane arts so you started stealing; things worked for a few years, but one day you were caught! The guards raped you and beat you then tossed you in the dungeons.
    By then you had learned only the bare basics of arcane theory, and you didn't had a spellbook with you, so you had to invent your own spell. The guards kept regularly raping you.

    You invented a spell that dealed cold damage and one day when the guards came to rape you you killed them with your magic, stole the keys of the dungeon and fled. You killed several more guards on your way out and managed to escape into the woods.

    You ran away and kept running away from the village for days. You almost died of dehydration and exposure. You found a cave with a water source and hid in it, gathering food in the forest.

    Delilah Lezdgy
    Infamy: 15/100
    Stress level: High
    Insanity: Under control
    Hideout: Small cave in the forest
    Age: 15
    Master: none!
    Currently learning: nothing!
    You have food for just today.
    You have a limited water supply.
    Your dwelling place lacks any sort of comforts.
    You have primitive arcane knowledge.
    You know the following spells - Cantrips: Ray of Frost

    (You need food and water otherwise you die, lack of comfort makes you stressed which may make your insanity get out of control after some time leading you to do stupid shit, high infamy makes more people come after you and decreases very slowly by hiding, you learn magic much faster if you have a master. You can invent any existing spells from dnd or custom spells that do not exceed the power of a similar existing dnd spell, spells of high level will take ridiculous amounts of time to invent though. Once invented or learned, cantrips can be cast at will, other spells can be cast only a few times a day. You can only know four spells maximum unless you have a grimoire.)
     
  2. Hyp3rB14d3

    Hyp3rB14d3 Violence!

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    We should go back to the village and swipe the spell book.
     
  3. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You get upset for not having been able to get the spellbook on your way out of the village; but then again, managing to escape at all was almost a miracle, the element of surprise was what got you through the guards and allowed you to cast enough spells on them from behind bars to get them out of combat before they could put you down. You consider going back to the village to swipe the spellbook, but you almost died of dehydration coming this way, you will need at the very least a waterskin and preferably some food too before you can get back there.

    You decide that your more pressing concerns right now are to get some more food and to explore the area to make sure this place is actually safe.

    You walk around the forest for several hours looking for food until you finally manage to find a rabbit. You promptly kill it with a cold spell.

    You search for a sharp stone to skin the animal to get its meat and make a small fire then and there to roast it - you haven't eaten a decent piece of meat in a long time.

    You think you can probably keep hunting rabbit like this without much problem, and perhaps even hunt something bigger - your spell should be powerful enough to kill a fox most of the time, although something bigger like a boar or a deer would take several castings of the spell to bring down, enough time for them to flee or gore you if they fight back.

    You end up catching one extra rabbit and carrying it back with you to the cave to eat the next day when you wake up.

    You go to sleep in the cold cave floor.

    It rain that night and it is very cold, the humid cave walls leak water, the ceiling drips, and the water level inside of it rises a bit.

    The next day your roast and eat some rabbit meat and set out to explore your surroundings.

    After walking until past noon, you find another cave. Approaching it carefully, you can hear some noises coming from inside of it.

    There is nobody at the cave entrance so you decide to approach it crawling to see who is inside.
    You see a small fire lit inside the cave. Around the cave you see a bunch of fishes in a stick and five small green creatures wearing just loincloths jacking off and talking to each other. Goblins!

    "...and then that fukken human showed up and I had to hide, lucky he didn't saw me fishes otherwise we would be hungry today.", says one of the goblins.

    "That fishing spot is too good, we can catch a lot of fish, we can't let the humans have it for themselves!", says another goblin.

    "Whatahell can we do? Humans be too strong and there are just the five of us here, we don't even have women to make more babies.", says yet another goblin.

    "We gotta get ourselves some human women to make us some goblin babies to start new tribe.", says the fourth goblin.

    "They sometimes go to the river to wash clothes, but they're always in groups and the men aren't too far away, it would be hard to kidnap some.", says the last goblin.

    "Well, we gotta think bout something real quick cus time is passing lads, we ain't gonna live forever, without a new tribe there won't be no more goblins around, those fucking adventurers really fucked everything up.", says the first goblin.

    "Yeah, we're lucky to be alive. Where are other tribes, any of you know?", says another goblin.

    "Old goblins said our tribe came from the mountains long ago, I guess there are more goblins there. But I don't wanna go to the mountains, too hard to find food and there are many dangerous things there.", says the third goblin.

    "Nay, we gonna stick around. We just gotta figure out how we gonna get ourselves some human women.", says the fourth goblin.

    "You smelling something different? I think I'm smelling humans around.", says the fifth goblin, smelling the air.

    "You think? I don't smell anything. You must be confused.", says the first goblin also smelling the air.

    "No, I'm pretty sure there's a human nearby.", says the fifth goblin, stopping jacking off, grabbing a pointy sick and getting up.


    [ ] Attack the goblins
    [ ] Intimidate the goblins with magic
    [ ] Flee back to your cave
    [ ] Flee and continue exploring
    [ ] Write in

    (I thought I could just keep making new polls with every new update, but apparently the only way to get rid of a poll is reporting it so the mods can nuke it, therefore it isn't practical, so I guess I'll have to present the options for you to make your posts choosing from them. Since we are doing it this way from now on, feel free to be descriptive in how you wish to perform your suggested actions.)
     
    Drakonpie250, Klaus and Marlin like this.
  4. Marlin

    Marlin wishing to read another story deleted for profit

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    [X] Attack the goblins

    Wow, okay. Literally nobody voted.
     
  5. Raku

    Raku Well worn.

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    [X] Attack the goblins
     
  6. Klaus

    Klaus Not too sore, are you?

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    [X] Attack the goblins

    Just saw this.
     
  7. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You decide to attack the goblins. You stand up and mutter the incantation to cast your ice spell and toss it at the first goblin once it gets close; it falls to the ground, froze to death.

    "A human witch! Get her boys!"

    The other goblins promptly stop jacking off grab their point sticks and rush towards you.

    You cast another ice spell at another goblin, downing it.

    The other three goblins attack you with their pointy sticks. Two of them land their hits, sinking their sticks deep into your flesh, making you bleed profusely.

    You muster the strength to cast a third time downing another goblin.

    By now the two remaining goblins panic and dash away.

    "Run! Run for your life!"

    You try to hit them with your spell as they flee but miss.

    You lean on the cave wall trying to stop the bleeding from the couple deep wounds you suffered, your clothes now soaked in your own blood.

    It might be risky to stay in the goblin's cave, they could come back when you're resting or sleeping.

    You could go back to your own cave, try to let these wounds heal on their own.

    You could try to find the nearby village the goblins talked about, maybe they will treat you first and ask questions later.

    [] Stay in the goblin's cave
    [] Return to your cave
    [] Try to find the village the goblins mentioned
    [] Write in
     
    Drakonpie250 likes this.
  8. Philospher

    Philospher Collector of stories, souls, and misc

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    [X] Try to find the village the goblins mentioned

    Obviously, we're trying to become an adventurer and fought off some evil goblins.
     
  9. Klaus

    Klaus Not too sore, are you?

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    [X] Try to find the village the goblins mentioned
     
  10. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You decide to try to find the nearby village the goblins have mentioned, you figure that if someone asks how you got wounded you could say you're trying to become an adventurer and fought off some evil goblins. You grab one of the goblin's pointy sticks to strengthen you claim.

    You pick a direction at random and start walking hoping to find the village.

    After a few hours of walking, you find a river and decide to follow it upstream. Eventually you find some women washing clothes by the river and see some men not too far away carrying spears watching over them.

    When they see you the men come to you.

    "What happened to you lady? Where do you come from?"

    "I'm a beginning traveling adventurer, I've been ambushed by a group of goblins nearby, I killed three of them but they wounded me really bad and I almost died."

    "It is dangerous to travel alone young lady, you should have found at least one companion who could keep watch while you sleep, you're lucky they didn't slit your throat in your sleep. But considering they were goblins they were probably trying to capture you to become a breeding slave. We've had a little trouble with a tiny band of goblins lately, if what you say is true you probably killed most of them. But come, you need to disinfect and dress these wounds or they will get much worse in a few days."

    The peasants take you to the local shrine where the local priest treats your wounds. Seems like they do not have access to any magical healing, but some soap, bandages, food and plenty of rest should do the trick.

    "Child, your story is not really believable, you might have fooled the young peasants who know no better but you cannot fool an old priest like me. It is okay, you can confess all your sins to me, I an bound by a sacred oath not to tell anyone things people tell me in confession. You will feel better if you confess your sins, trust me."

    [] Tell your story to the old priest
    [] Do not tell your story to the old priest

    Then there is the issue of whether it is safe or not to stay and rest in this village. This village is probably the neighboring village to the one you fled from, they will probably look for you first in here, and if they find you just laying in bed in a temple you might go back to the dungeons, or more probably worse, right to the burning stake. There's an inherent risk in just waiting here for your wounds to heal.

    But you're really quite undersupplied right now and what the peasant said is sorta true - traveling alone is rather dangerous. You have no money, but you are an outlaw anyway, you could liberate some supplies before running away from the village. Or you could try maintaining the facade of being an adventurer and trying to see if you can find some brave young kid who wants to become an adventurer to travel around with you for as long as you can.

    [] You can't travel wounded, stay and heal
    [] You need supplies, steal stuff and flee (specify what to steal)
    [] You need a companion, find someone then leave town
    [] Write in
     
    Drakonpie250 likes this.
  11. Philospher

    Philospher Collector of stories, souls, and misc

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    [X] Tell your story to the old priest
    [X] You need a companion, find someone then leave town
     
  12. Klaus

    Klaus Not too sore, are you?

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    [X] Do not tell your story to the old priest
    [X] You need a companion, find someone then leave town
     
  13. Amnistar

    Amnistar Your first time is always over so quickly, isn't it?

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    [X] Tell your story to the old priest
    [X]attempt to make it a sob story to get supplies for yourself, leave out the part about wanting to learn dark magic and claim you started stealing to get enough money to leave your abusive home.

    [X] You need a companion, find someone then leave town

     
  14. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You decide to tell your story to the old priest. You make it as sob a story as possible in an attempt to get some supplies for yourself, leaving out the part about wanting to learn dark magic, claiming you started stealing to get enough money to leave your abusive home.

    Upon hearing your story the priest take pity on you and arrange for you some supplies, he gives you a large waterskin, a backpack, two weeks worth of preserved food and some new clothes to substitute the ones you have which are stained and damaged. He says a week away by foot to the west there is the town of Teladrim, which has over ten thousand habitants, it should be possible for you to find an occupation in there and start a new life. A merchant caravan leaves to there every month; they left a few days ago however. The priest suggests you rest to heal your wounds and wait for the next one, as they have a few armed man escorting them and it will be much safer than going on your own.

    You wear your new clothes, thank the priest and leave the temple to go try to find yourself a companion for the travel.

    You would head to the local tavern, but you do not have any money so instead you just ask some passerbies at the town square if they know of anyone who would be inclined towards adventure.

    Most people answer evasively or are not interested in talking with you at all, but a few of the younger lads humor you for they find you pretty and they say that there are a few crazy bastards in town who fancy themselves heroes.

    There is a certain Hamil Bala who is a local hunter, he is the one the townsfolk go to when the wolves come to menace their livestock, he's very good with the bow and arrow. He lives alone in a hut his late father built on the outskirts of the village. Ever since his father died he sometimes says he doesn't have much reason to stay in this village anymore and been thinking of leaving.

    There is the son of the militia captain Grigor Kishev, he's a hot tempered young man who always got himself into brawls ever since he was a kid. Undeniably strong, he's always talking how he's gonna be a hero someday, he even had the smith craft him a short sword.

    There is Karl Heber, he's a lumberjack by profession and has a big woodaxe, on many occasions he has manifested the desire to leave it all behind and become an adventurer while he was drinking in the tavern, he often says he just never found anyone who had the guts to brave the world with him.

    Who will you contact?
    [] Hamil Bala
    [] Grigor Kishev
    [] Karl Heber

    Besides deciding who will you contact there is also the need to decide whether you will tell about your spellcasting ability.
    [] Tell about your magic
    [] Do not tell about your magic
     
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  15. Klaus

    Klaus Not too sore, are you?

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    [X] Karl Heber

    Meatshield get.

    Not really sure about the magic but to take advantage of a meatshield prob need to tell.
    [X] Tell about your magic
     
  16. Philospher

    Philospher Collector of stories, souls, and misc

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    [X] Karl Heber
    [X] Tell about your magic

    Valid point
     
  17. Songwind

    Songwind Getting out there.

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    You decide to contact Karl Heber the lumberjack. You ask around and discover where is his house and decide to wait for him there.

    It may not have been the best decision because you wait for him until after nightfall.

    But then he finally shows up, a tall and strong bald bearded man with an enormous axe, drunk as a skunk.

    "Karl Heber?"

    "Hey, whats up little girl? Are you lost?", he says, booze in his breath.

    "I have heard from the townsfolk that you were willing to leave your life as a lumberjack behind to become an adventurer, is that true?"

    "Yeah, I've been wanting to see other places and smash things in half other than logs with this beast of an axe here", says Karl, swinging his axe, "but I've never found people brave enough to go out into the world with me. 'Cept for Grigor, but fuck that guy, I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire, don't trust him to watch my back while I'm sleeping on the middle of nowhere. Guess that's the trouble with small villages. But why do ya wanna know these things little girl?"

    "I'm in need of a companion for my travels."

    Karl gives out a hearty laugh.

    "You sure are little girl, you look like you can barely handle a dagger, the first monster you found in the road would eat you for dinner if you traveled alone. You may be better off waiting to tag along with a merchant caravan if you wanna go somewhere, they have escorts you know."

    "I have a special ability which makes me more deadly than what I look like."

    "Oh? And what is it?"

    "Look!"

    You cast your ray of frost spell at a nearby plant, freezing it.

    "Holy gods! You're a witch! Where did you learn that?"

    "Does it matter? The point is that I can cast these cold spells as often as I please. If you can keep the enemies away from me I can surely destroy them with my magic."

    Karl rubs his hand against his face, trying to sober up a little, while supporting himself with the other hand on his axe.

    "This is a whole another level, magic users aren't all that common, I really had no hope of finding one in such a backwards place. But when one comes out of nowhere and gives me a call to adventure I really can't refuse, can I? But I'm a bit too drunk right now, let me sleep it off, tomorrow we can go out."

    "I don't really have a place to sleep tonight."

    You could have gone bother the old priest for lodgings but you preferred to ask your new companion instead.

    "Eh... you can crash at my place for tonight then I guess. We'll be camping together in the road a lot so I guess it isn't too weird."

    Once you enter his house your stomach grumbles loudly.

    "You didn't eat anything? Damn, I don't really have any food in here, I rarely cook, I usually eat at the tavern."

    "It's alright, I have some preserved food, I'll eat that."

    You eat some of your preserved food and then you go to sleep.

    Karl change the blankets on his bed and have you sleep there. He grabs a bunch of blankets and go sleep on the floor.

    "We gonna be sleeping on the floor a lot, I guess I need to get used to it. But you look like you are wounded, so you should at least rest for today. Are you sure it is alright for us to leave tomorrow?"

    "No, I'm sure. We should leave tomorrow, there is nothing else for us to do in this village. Unless you have any unresolved issues you wanna take care of."

    "Nah. Tomorrow morning I'll just tell my friendly neighbor to take care of my house for me, rent it to someone else while I'm traveling. Oe, by the way, what's your name young witch?"

    [] Tell him your real name
    [] Tell him a different name (specify)


    The next day when you wake up very early, before Karl. When you get up he wakes up and gets up to then walks to you and pinches you cheek.

    "Auch! What was that?"

    "So you're real after all! I thought I had too much to drink last night and was dreaming! There is a witch in my house! You will not transform me into a frog or something will you?"

    "I don't know how to transform people into frogs."

    "Ha! Typical witch response. If we are going to be adventuring we can't just be wandering around you know. We need a goal, a quest so to speak. Do you have something in mind?"

    "Nothing specific."

    "Hear me out then. In this small village nothing particularly interesting ever happens, so we gotta travel somewhere else. There are basically four places we can go from here."



    "To the west there is the town of Teladrim. It isn't a very big town but it is certainly bigger than this village here. We should be able to find something interesting to do there. If we walk there we should be able to reach it in one week. The pro is that it is the closest large settlement."

    "To the east there is the city of Ermuz a couple weeks away. We don't need to travel all the way there nonstop though, about three days away there's a small village called Selnak and I think there is a couple other villages along the path there. Ermuz is a large mining city in the mountains so there might be something interesting to do there too."

    "To the south there is the port city of Kalaz maybe three weeks away. There are several villages along the path, the closest is Zuther, some three days away. From Kalaz we could take ships to anywhere in the continent or beyond, if we had enough money."

    "To the north there are Kulamar, Therok and Fort Gakor in different directions some two to three weeks away. There are a bunch of villages along the path there, the closest is Norak. The north makes frontier with the untamed tundra where many monstrous creatures come from, so it gets more dangerous the further north you go. I've heard that there's always stuff to do for adventurers in any of these three cities so I'm partial about going north if you don't have a better idea."

    "I'll let you think it over as I deal with my neighbor and head to the market to buy some food for the travel, tell me what you think is best when I'm back."

    You take time to weigh your options.

    You know that this region is technically a kingdom, but the central authority and power projection of the king is very limited, the major cities largely rule themselves as city states and the local lords and mayors at the villages fend for themselves. The kingdom capital is further to the west.

    Selnak to the east is the name of the village you grew up in and fled from. On the one hand going back there would get people hot on your tail again; on the other, you could try to snag that spellbook. You're neutral about Ermuz as a final destination as you know nothing about the place.

    You can certainly see the appeal of taking a ship somewhere and starting new life where nobody knows anything about you, so port Kalaz seems enticing. You also remember hearing from your former magical instructor that she learned magic from people from the south, so it is likely you could find magical teachers there.

    The north seems like the go to option if you're truly interested in a life as an adventurer - plenty of opportunities for practicing your magic and there may be villages offering you rewards for getting rid of monsters. Perhaps you may even find someone to teach you magic there.

    [] Travel west towards Teladrim
    [] Travel east towards Ermuz
    [] Travel south towards Kalaz
    [] Travel north towards Kulamar, Therok or Fort Gakor (pick one)
     
    NightmareWarden likes this.
  18. Klaus

    Klaus Not too sore, are you?

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    [X] Travel east towards Ermuz

    I want to take a crack at getting that spellbook. After that I'm all for running away.
     
  19. NightmareWarden

    NightmareWarden Versed in the lewd.

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    [X] Travel east towards Ermuz

    Either Karl is useful and protects us from the dangers of Selnak, or he demonstrates his incompetence as an adventurer. I really hope he is competent and he ends up recognizing Selnak for the hellhole it is.