Experiments - Campfire

General Summary

The following night, all is quiet in the tavern. The patrons have gone, the lights are out and Raijun, is out and about. Careful not to squeak any floor boards, he sneaks his way over to the table that Myra has seemingly fallen asleep at holding her whiskey. Raijun slowly inches closer, trying to figure out which pocket the magic beans are in. He doesn't get within 5 feet before he hears,  "Don't even think about it." without even looking up. Her clockwork dragon unwinds from her arm and just clicks and hisses at Riajun until he backs up. Myra looks up, her eyes look far sharper than you expected given her inebriated state, and gives you an eyebrow, "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to try to steal from a dragon?"
"I will have justice!" He says as he realizes defeat, and poofs away, but unfortunately he tried to keep eye contact as he faded to the shadows and walked into a wall.
Myra sighs, pours something into her tankard and takes a sip. Scritches the dragon under the chin surveying the scene, "Come on Spryg we have work to do." She pulls out her journal and begins writing, seemingly no longer intoxicated
Raijun gets himself up, dusts off and pulls put a notebook and cross out, "sneaky snake method" on his "magic beans quest" checklist.
Adama, coming downstairs, "Ya know Raijin, if we could learn to harness the power of the beans, we might be able to go to other places, magical places we can only dream of. Think of all the loot”
Raijun turns to Adama, "Exactly! That's why I wanted to be their caretaker"
“Doesn’t Myra hold all the important stuff? I mean if you really want them we could put you in the bag of holding with all the important stuff. Would that make you feel better?”
"...ok you're right, I just got excited because of the mystery factor" he looks at both of them "sorry if I got a lil out of control."
“Hmm... I once heard that someone could survive 10 mins in a bag of holding. I bet you couldn’t do 15 mins Raijin.”
"I can easily hold my breath for 15 minutes." He says overconfidently
“What happens if you’re inside the bag of holding and plant one of the seeds, like take some dirt in your pocket and then when you’re in the bag put the seed in the dirt”
"No absolutely not," Myra cuts in. "You'd most likely puncture the bag and, as I have only one, I will not be doing that"
“Ohhh then where would Raijin go?” “Think of the adventure, the possibility”
"I do however have another theory about the bag that I would like to test." Myra's eyes glint mischievously, "If you're up for a little scientific experimentation"
“What’s the experiment? “ Adama inquires.
"You mean....I can...do science too?" Raijun asks struck by the idea.
She smiles widely, "You're critical for it Raijun"
"Oh my god yes! They never let me near the ninja lab we had" Raijun puts on the awareness frames, with one finger to lift the glasses "What do you need me to do?"
Myra, getting excited begins to talk faster, "Ok when I first got the bag I wasn't sure exactly how the enchantment on it worked. It could have been that there was something to increase the size of the inside and another to retain the outer size or alternatively it could be one enchantment opening a space between dimensions and another to stabilize it's form. But what I learned as I studied it more was that 1) it can be punctured and rupture and 2) that if combined with a series of other enchantments it could result in a small tear in reality resulting in the holder being shunted into another plane of existence. Now at first these two things are contrary you'd think that if it can rupture then it would be a size distortion and if can tear reality then that would instead point to some kind of portal. But then I realized that there was a third option! A pocket dimension. If the bag is sustaining a small pocket dimension then if the spell maintaining the pocket dimension was ruptured all the material would be forcefully remove and that same pocket dimension may not play well with other pocket dimensions thus creating the small temporary tear!" You realize you've never asked Myra a science question and now you might  know why...
Raijun, looking lost, "Soo um....how do I fit into this tridimensional theory?"
Realizing she has gotten caught up, Myra blushes embarrassed, "Right. So Raijun your shadow dancing you can't bring others with you right?"
"No, only myself and my possessions as far as I can tell"
"Right possessions!" she exclaims excitedly, thinking they are following "So my theory is that if someone was to, say, be in a pocket dimension housed in an inanimate object you would still be able to transport said object and then retrieve said person."
"...right so I need to...?"
“If he knows where a shadow is that’s in a pocket dimension could he jump to it, ” Adama inquires.
"No I'm pretty sure his ability would be restricted to this plane"
"Otherwise he could just chill in the shadowfell." Looks at Raijun nervously, "You haven't been chilling in the shadowfell right?"
“You can place someone in a pocket dimension, and you can retrieve them if you know they are there?"
Myra smiles, "It would depend on how the pocket dimension is constructed but I'm certain it would work for my bag"
“Couldn’t you try it with any living thing, say a plant and then move up to evil squirrels then to Raijin”
Myra sheepishly, "I already did... And I don't want Raijun to go in!"
“You want him to....?”
Looks Raijun dead in the eye, "I want to get in the bag of holding and then I want you to take the bag of holding and shadowstep as far as you can in a minute and then get me out "
"...this is like bag of holding inception, lets push it to the limit" Raijun comments as he starts stretching and moving around a bit to warm up.
Myra mutters some things to Spryg, "Spryg will tail you if anything goes wrong I've given her some ideas to help." smiles widely, "but I trust you"
"I am ready, so all I have to do is run as far as I can with shadowstep?
"A couple quick notes, I've only done a series of similar tests for a relatively short period of time and with Spryg she doesn't really need air the same way I do, so please don't go longer than a minute. Also please don't picture the bag because the location things are forcefully thrust into is the astral plane and I don't have a way back. Other then that Yup" As she starts climbing into the bag.
Raijun watches her get in as he does his final stretches, "Alrighty Adama, see you in a few!" He grabs the bag, turns his body, you see the force of his foot crack the floorboard slightly as he takes off in a shadowy sprint, and bounces from wall to wall in a series of acrobatic sprints, bolting away from Adama. As the seconds tick on, Raijun swears he can feel the string of Myra, beating strongly as he sprints it down the hallways. Myra stands inside a very dark fairly small room that an outside looker would see much like a storage closet though much less closet and much more void. She wonders absently if Raijun has moved or if she is still sitting on the floor of the room. Meanwhile, Raijun is running almost as hard as when he escaped the tomb with Gwen in hand shadow stepping in intervals as the minute closes down. Myra, not being able to see anything thinks absently to herself. Then, chuckling, she pulls out a small vial and downs it.
Right as a minute passes, Raijun puts on the brakes, turns to an open room an opens the bag, trying to reach for Myra. Raijun grasps a hand an pulls out Myra. Or... Someone wearing Myra's armor. Her hair is silvered and she stands with a bit of a hunch looking significantly older. But there's no mistaking her eyes. The woman looks around, "That went great! How far do you think we got? I didn't feel anything! Amazing"
Raijuns mouth drops open, "hey umm...Myra?"
Inspecting the room where you went, pulling out her journal and adding notes, "Yes? Did you feel any difference out here or was it the normal way you move" even her voice sounds older.
"Umm, Im fine, but you...um you look kinda old. What happened?!"
Her head whips toward him, "What? What do you mean?"
"Like your like 140. Go look in the mirror!" Raijun is worried he mistimed the bag opening or something and his first experiment had unfortunate side effects.
Stumbles looking wildly until she finds a mirror. At first she looks concerned but then her composure breaks and she starts laughing.
"Whats so funny?! This is serious, I'm so sorry I must not have pulled you out in time!" he says rather exasperated.
Myra, laughing harder, locks eyes with him in the mirror. She grips her nose like she's popping her ears and in the time it take you to blink she's returned to normal. Still laughing, "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist, especially after you woke me so rudely earlier." Still smiling, "You truly did do great"
Adama and Spryg saunter in having caught up to Raijun, “Ya know that could be useful, if we need to sneak into a place, Raijin will do a better job at moving around and then when close to place, pop people out. Hey, is there a bag of holding that carries more weight?”
Raijun is mystified for a second...and then realizes he's been duped. He looks at her and says with a smile, "All right, you got me, I was worried for you for a second!"
Myra blushes, "Sorry couldn't help myself. Just, next time you think about stealing from me remember," Turn her face to look like Claudia's "I could be anyone." Turns her face back and giggles. Turning to Adama, hair slowly changing back " That was one of the reasons I wanted to do the experiment! Unfortunately I think the space and oxygen limit may also affect us." She pulls out a small vial and looks at it, "I wasn't able to get precise readings but it seemed like the oxgen was pretty limited and the space even more so. I would say even some of our burlier group member may not be able to fit inside"
Adama considering, “Which is kind of where it’s most useful, I am not the quietest of people. moves his hip and the crunch of metal sound echoes through the chamber”
"On alternative options, I haven't heard of any off hand and certainly nothing that would fit several of us comfortably... I wish I had gotten a better look at Thompson's wagon"
“Ya, what did he use to move all that stuff?”
Myra's eyes go dreamy, "I have no idea" As she puts on her thinking cap, "The level of spatial distortion must be pretty large though. Truthfully I wanted to investigate the bag more so I could better understand the material it's made from."
“How long would it take me to fully put my armor on?" Adama wonders, "If I took my armor off I would quieter but I wouldn’t want to be stuck somewhere without it on”
"I've seen trained knights doff in 5 and don in 10 for jousts, slightly less if they have a squire." Myra comments absently mind elsewhere, "Do you think we could have Jimmy convince him to let us ride back in the wagon? It would be interesting to know if that too is a pocket dimension or something else"
“Are the wagons going back? I thought they were the black soldiers wagons.”
"Oh I'm fairly certain the brightly colored rainbow one was owned by Thompson, I don't know if it was scheduled to return to the Capital though"
“I don't know, we could try to get Thompson to loan us his wagon for the trip back to the capital as a gesture of goodwill based upon our new burgeoning business relationship.”
"Maybe we should inquire with Jimmy on what the return plans were before immediately asking for more favors, I was hoping to use Thompson's offer to find lodgings in the capital for a few days before we disembark. And I'd rather not spoil that relationship before we've even left"
“Rich people are always helpful to be helpful as long as you follow through on what you agreed to. I wonder what’s attacking the ships”
"We've known some different rich people"
“I’ve known the kind that when you solve big problems for them, they want to do something simple to make It seem like it’s a fair deal when it’s not. They will give small things with ease, it’s anything of substance that becomes nearly impossible to get them to move on, unless we have proper leverage. I wonder what would be the kind of leverage that would get Thompson to not only “loan” us the cart as well as most of whatever else we want. I wonder what’s the deal he’s setting up here. Such a big wig person to come to a place like this, must be a highly profitable reason.”
"Of course, wealthy people like him don't personally oversee anything that isn't the absolute priority financially, I wonder what he sees in this run down town from that standpoint." Raijun says with a hmpfh "And why is he traveling with Claudia personally? She said shes here on her own but seems to follow his orders in between personalities."
Walking back toward the tavern where we started, "I mean for both of them it's and incredibly strong tactical decision. Nightwell is a gate to the capital from the rest of the continent and especially if Timeston is the only easily passable section over the Dragonspine. Additionally if ships are being lost to the Western continents it would make sense that shipping to Arias has also been ground to a halt. If Arias is nearly cut off, depending on the level of desperation, they may be willing to pay a premium for supplies."
The gears start turning in Raijuns hamster wheel, "use the army to raise tensions as a distraction while you profiteer off the chaos in the surrounding areas to price gouge...man what a racket."
"The Manten'litche army may have other interests in the area as well."
"Do tell, they seem a little...odd.. They aren't a mercenary army right? They serve that immortal king?"
"Very much not mercenaries from my understanding." Looking at Adama to see if he will provide any insight. "And I'm just saying, don't you think the timing is a bit strange given the recent events in the area"
“Not mercenaries, they are the loyal Army of the King in Martenliche, they will fearlessly fight until death for the “honor” of slaying the King’s foes. They are extremely zealous and it would be best if we stayed clear of them.” Adama adds.
"....but she was totally into me..."
“Which personality, 1 or 4,” Adama quips.
"1, but open to 4 too"
“Didn’t she threaten to eat my tongue”
"You did start that one." Raijun says coyly.
“Yes, but do you really want to date the female Hannibal Lecter”
"If it gets me on a throne in the future, king Raijun has a nice ring to it, no?" says with a daydreaming gaze.
“She could get you closer to a throne only in kneeling to the King in Skel, but there are better and easier ways to become a King on that continent. How’s your one on one combat?”
"I'm more the smash and dash type, but we can hang!" Raijun says as he flexes.
Myra looks absently at the stars as they walk not really listening to the guys, her hair changes to dark blues and blacks with tiny speckles of light to match the sky, "What kind of king would you be Raijun? I assume you would have people for all the paperwork"
"I'm a big picture guy, I would build the vision, and assign the best minds to the tasks."
"And what would your vision be?"
"Pursuits of perfection, physical marvels and mental savants, working in unity to build up the populace." She sees him stand a little taller and puff out his chest as he says it, lookin philosophically off and to the right
"And how would you entice the populace to these noble pursuits when they have other things on their mind?"
"Leading by example of course, my court would be hand selected from the finest men and women across the realms. Offers on the table if you'd like to be my Hand"
The blush extends up into her hair, turning the ends peach. "Oh, uh ... that's very flattering ... but I .... Aaaadama are you from Slekul?"
“Yes, but I have few fond memories and even fewer reasons to go back”
"Oh I'm sorry, well we'll try to make our journey to the content brief then. Deliver the goods and get out. I wonder what it is that's attacking the ships?" Rounding into the tavern the lights are dimmed and most of the other patrons have vacated for the night.
"They mentioned strange creatures, attacking at random. It honestly sounds similar to how Nightwell was described to us. And Timeston now that I think about it!"
“Raijin what do you mean by 'And Timeston now that I think about it?' Do you think there may be a connection between the ships and Timeston?" 
"It seems like both attacks reporting supernatural occurrences, related to monsters doing unnatural things. Could it be more magic scrolls?" he says with a whisper.
"I'm curious to see if the monsters are related to the one that we fought in the Greenport museum. The panther like one with the two odd guards. Raijun you mentioned that the Iron Cast brothers recognized the metal from the guard reports and that was certainly the first time I had seen a metal like this. It does make you wonder though how is it that metal beasts are appearing at sea. Seems a bit out of their element"
"Hmmm one thing actually now that you mention it. They said it was very old metal, rare as anything else, with magical properties, maybe the scrolls makes things with magical affinity come alive, or augment them for organics?" Myra can tell her one science experiment has Raijun thinking harder than he has in a while.
"Maybe we should use another word for the uh ... items ... what if we call them stones or shards? The last time we saw the metal the shard wasn't nearby. The changing weather is also interesting I would have expected that more from the shard we already encountered, weather magic is usually about modifying the energy in the air. For instance to cause a storm to come quickly you would only need to saturate the air and then cause a quick temperature drop, because the cooler air cannot hold as much moisture as the warm air it would result in precipitation. Strong winds could similarly be caused by temperature and pressure differentials in the system."
Raijun tries to postulate intelligently and goes, "yeah of course the pressure differentials, I concur."
Myra sees Raijun glaze over and is a little embarrassed about going off on a tangent. "Sorry, let's just say the shard we already encountered would allow one to manipulate weather much easier than any of the others. I'm interested in how the beasts are appearing, I wonder if any of Thompson's crews have survived such an attack? It would be interesting to talk to them."
"Lets go talk to my new best friend Yamil then, he could probably shed some light on this. Seems easier to talk to than Thompson, albeit a lil low key scary with that whole "I go purple when I get ready to fight" thing"
"Do you think Yamil will have more information? And yes I'm not sure you can trust his wariness of magic after what we saw. I've never seen magic exuded from a person like that before... I absolutely don't want to give any further information on the shards. At least we haven't talked about them in front of their retinue so I'm optimistic that they wont connect them to us. I wouldn't expect either Thompson or Yamil to have witnessed the attacks personally. I was thinking Thompson may be able to point us to one of his crews in Lion's Crest."
Raijun, with a coy smile "Great minds think alike, that's what I meant, have one of them identify any survivors for us to question."
"For things to appear there seems to be 3 distinct options in my mind 1) They are being summoned into existence, essentially created or pulled into our plane at the time of the attacks, 2) They are traveling from another location nearby and no one has observed their raid but it is from a nearby location or using short length teleportation magic 3) They are transitioning from some other plane to here. If anyone has survived the attacks maybe they could shed more light on how the things arrived giving us further clues about their origin."
"Do you think the scroll users could be trying to perform summoning rituals like the one from the first shard? Maybe we stopped Viridius before he could do the same. I'm inclined to agree with you that they are being teleported somehow in somehow from another plane"
Myra, winces as you say scroll again, looking about nerviously "An interesting theory but we know that the shards are distinct from the magics of the gods, I would guess Vausk was an outlier in that the shard had a direct connection to that kind of god. Gods I wish we had somewhere more private to talk about this. I feel like I'm constantly looking over my shoulder."
"Thompson gave us enough money to start a village, maybe we could set up a small base in one of the nearby houses? I'm sure there are locals eager to move at the moment, maybe we can sponsor them in exchange for renting a place or something"
"Having a space would be nice. Not having to worry about leaving caustic chemicals or half baked brews would be a relief. I don't know that it makes sense to set up here as we are about to leave. And if Thompson's paying for boarding on our journey we may not need it."
"We need a lab too!" he says with evidence based glee. "Well that's why I suggested renting for now, but the location I'm flexible on"
"I have a crazy idea of a space I could take with me. That's why I wanted to do the testing on the bag of holding." Looks wistfully into space "I thought maybe if I could stabilize a pocket dimension, like the one inside the bag, to have more amenable atmosphere and light maybe I could shape it. The one inside the bag is small so I'd have to find a way to either enhance the material holding the gateway or find a way to alter the enchantment to extend the pocket dimension without causing additional strain"
Raijun only picks up about half of that, but enough to understand - "pocket base", but that is enough for him "How could we do that? also, how do we provide airflow?"
Myra's brow furrows in concentration as she continues to stare at a random point on the wall, "The atmosphere is definitely the biggest challenge. If I could even stabilize a slightly larger space with an atmosphere it would be well worthwhile. I could always provide the furnishings and light source though ensuring that the space is stable enough not to jettison the contents when poked, or potentially exploded, would also be a serious concern. Okay three major concerns then. Oh also portability, ok four major concerns."
Raijun pulls out his "asssistant researcher notepad"...you can see he didn't spell assistant correctly
"There may be hints at atmosphere, size, and stability from Thompson's carriage."
"What about his carriage? seemed like a regular rich guy perfume pot"
"Well if I remember correctly they started unloading the carriage right as I was leading him off from the church and they were still unloading it when I returned with him after him visiting his son. In addition to the luggage I saw being hauled out of it they also had to fit Yamil, Thompson, and James. And knowing people like Thompson he's not one to be crammed. Based on that information I would posit, similar to my theories on the bag of holding, that there is either something extending the space or it too is utilizing a pocket dimension. The forces on a carriage are much stronger than that of the bag regularly. So if I could look at it maybe I could get a better idea of how it works. Unfortunately I would probably need a not insignificant amount of time to look it over...."
"Totally get it, we have to steal his carriage, I'm with it!" Raijun pulls out minor illusion map to diagram his idea
"What?!?!? No!" Myra exclaims looking very concerned as she looks at Raijun's map.
"But you said you wanted to look at it and needed time for that. I thought that was code for jack the carriage." he says, now confused.
"He just hired us to work for him! It's not inconspicuous either it would be nigh impossible to get out without being noticed and that's ignoring the obvious it's wrong. I don't need to steal something just to look at it. We could just ask."
"Gotcha captain, never thought of it like that." You can see Raijun crosses out steal carriage and writes "Ask...about carriage?" instead on his notes.
"If we could go back to the capital in it I could probably investigate it on the way/ more thoroughly at night but I don't have any sense on if he would let us examine it much less actually use it. Otherwise if I could spend a day looking at it maybe that would be enough? Barring all of those" voice drops to a whisper "If we could break in to just see it at night, if I pulled an all nighter maybe that would suffice. It's so hard to know without knowing what the enchantment is based on!"
".....wait so we can break into it..just not steal it?"
Myra makes a lot of hemming and hawing noises and rings her hands a little, "No! I mean obviously I'd rather not! I mean it would only be as a last resort. And it's not like we'd actually be taking anything ...."
"Right....just a quick look, in and out" He says with an increasingly wide grin of malice "...but maybe we ask first. Then break in, I like this plan."
"O-only if we can't any other way. And obviously no one could be hurt! But if it could help us later on...." Eyes look to the side and become a little haunted remembering the night Law attacked "If I could figure out how to provide use with a safe space, even if temporary" her eyes harden "then it would be worthwhile."
"Agreed, I will look up some places to rent when we get to Lions crest in the meantime, maybe there's an alchemy lab we can borrow, or a guild we can fix up"
"I think Thompson agreed to pay for lodgings while we are under his employ. It may be worthwhile to inquire as he probably has arrangements in the city and I wouldn't mind if he was footing the expenses as he indicated"
"Ah, even better than, I can spend all this gold on myself! Now what magical tools should I be looking for?"
"Magic tools?"
"yeah like this thing" pulls out the sword "or these" bracers swag. "I was thinking, and a masked avenger like me definitely needs a cape."
"Oh well you certainly need a cape." Looks embarrassed, "I don't actually know too much about magical items outside of my own. I've been studying the shard and there are some that I've managed to stumble upon through lucky chance" Pats the alchemy jug at her side "but in terms of generally available or commissionable goods I'm afraid I'm woefully ignorant. Once I have an understanding of a spell or potion I'm pretty good at recreating things, thankfully things click together quickly, but most of the items I've seen are more mundane. I've heard Adama talk about some artifacts before, he keeps mentioning a headband of some kind, but I probably won't be the best of help if you want to know what you could buy in a store unless we've already seen it."
"Sounds like you prefer the alchemical arts to the arcane blacksmithery? You do seem to have a knack for it. I think he mentioned a few shops out there with a variety of rare goods."
Pulls out her sword which you can see glimmer in what light there is left, "I mean I'm good with a hammer. Not a master craftsman by any means and absolutely abysmal at armor. A minor enchantment on a sword wasn't too hard after studying the shard given the raw materials." As she saying it she seems proud but frustrated by something."Something like your blade would be more complicated and definitely take me longer."
He flourishes it casually, the resonance humming, " I believe it, took those dwarf brothers a week or so to forge it. You should stop by with me in the capital if furthering your skills interests you, I can always make an introduction, we're bros now."
"I'd rather puzzle through some other problems first, and I already have a master smith I could return to if I needed to. I just meant that you're better off asking the others if you are wondering what might be available in our new elevated price range"
"You have your own master smith, a family friend? Ok no problem, I will do so, I don't even know what to do with myself, I've never had more then 500 gold before, and that was with you guys!"
"A personal friend, and I will warn you from what I have heard about rarer enchantments they can be incredibly expensive and time consuming to make. If the materials and labor were easy it wouldn't be just the richest families who have stashes and inherited items. It is sometimes easy to forget how uncommon complicated magic is."
"Ahh you're right Myra, I am just beginning my life as a noble. I should be building my empire instead of spending it on magic items at this stage - you are quite wise!" She can tell he seriously thinks he's a noble now.
Smiling, "I look forward to seeing what you acquire." Brain clearly still somewhere else, "Do you think we could get James to ask about the carriage? That way it doesn't tie directly to us?"
"Oh no papertrail, good idea."

Report Date

26 Dec 2020