Up in the North, the ponies have successfully found who, or rather, what was damaging the mine. But their quest is not over, as they go to look for the source of the trouble. In Baltimare, Iron, Silver, and Dark Star enjoy the fruits of defeating the cultists, while Midnight herds the remaining rescues.
We welcome any new players to join
1803 replies and 52 files omitted.
>>127878Seeing a likely successful outcome soon-ish, Iron nods. "Then let us make haste," he proclaims eagerly before looking from side to side. "...where is the jeweler again?" he asks
>>127879"Over in Cowtown, near the water. We can make it"
>>127880Iron nods understandingly, trotting in place and ready to follow at the pace she deems necessary.
>>127882They leave her apartment, down a straight road in the direction of the harbor, and up another road.
"Here it is" She says, as they approach a single story shop
>>127910"Should we mention anything about the origin of these gemstones?" Iron asks Cauldron in a whisper, leaning his head over to her ear.
>>127911"No. And he will not ask. That is why I go to him."
Entering in the shop, they see counters, display cases, and in the center at the end of the room, a lone griffin. He has a double chin, white feathers and the standard amber fur underneath, with hazel eyes that meet the entering native and Zebra
"Shalom" he says to the new customers
>>127913Iron's snout scrunches at the new word, eyes widening as he looked at the griffon. "What?" he asks, flabbergasted.
>>127914He pulls his lips back and up, in what is presumably a smile on a mouth that doesn't allow for much expression
"I take it you came here to sell" He says
>>127915Recovering from the shock, Iron nods before pulling up his bit pouch, where he comfortably stored the gemstones, taking them out to show the griffin.
>>127916His smile grows, vindicated in his assumption. Quietly, he reaches a claw down, beneath a counter, and pulls out a looking glass. With a lone talon, he moves around the gems, inspecting each beneath the glass, which he sometimes twists whichever way, which moves the device in and out.
"Ah. Diamonds, yes? A ruby. An emerald. All, carefully cut."
He holds up a single, green jewel
"This emerald here, it's damaged. It looks as if it were ripped out of it setting in a necklace or ring."
He looks back up to Iron and Cauldron
"I see why you came to me"
Smiling widely,
"Sixteen hundred for the lot"
>>127918Iron looks at the griffon for a few seconds, before slowly leaning back into Cauldron's ear. "...is that a good deal?" he asks in a whisper
>>127919Whispering back,
"I don't even know. But he could tell it was stolen"
>>127920Figuring it would not hurt much by trying to rise the reward, Iron leans away before smiling softly. "I would say the cutwork deserves a little more than that, even if one of them is damaged" he starts "1700."
>>127922He smiles back
"You must not know much about diamonds," he says, pulling up a particular gem
"It isn't about the damage, or the cut, but what the cuts and the damage implies." Then diverting attention to the diamond
"This is an 'asscher' cut diamond." Then he pulls up another. "Pear shape." Then another gem "An here... A ruby."
Then he looks to Iron
"A diamond is only cut before it is set in jewelry. Here, we have not only a cut diamond, but many diamonds, and many gems. Cut not just for a necklace, but for many necklaces. Do you care to explain to a different jeweler where exactly you got so many
different cut gems?"
>>127923Charisma >>127925Iron nods. (Well that did not work out,) he thinks to himself (at least he knows what he is saying)
"...I understand," he relents, not overly hurt by his small prodding attempt, but his ears fold slightly and his small pout at the loss of potential extra dosh "I accept your price."
>>127926He continues his smile
"Mazel Tov! Let me get the money"
He goes back for a minute, and comes back with a number of paper covered rolls. He sits before Iron, opening the coins and counting out coins, until there is a definite large stack of coins before Iron, which he pushes over with his foreleg. Then, he offers a claw to shake
>>127927Iron aligns his bit pouch, pushing the coins inside with a foreleg as he stares at the extended claw for a few seconds, cocking his head slightly.
Coins nicely snug inside his trusty pouch, Iron decides to bump his claw with his hoof, thinking that may be the thing he's looking for.
>>127928He smirks his mouth, and looks at Iron strangely
"Very well"
It is a
very large number of bits, more than can fit in his bit patch
>>127151Don't think I added anything to be honest. Just put a bunch of pressure on the dm and then didn't commit to be part of the campaign.
>>127152Sorry, about that btw.
Yeah, that was me. No, that wasn't the reason. I just had troubles making a character. Those troubles being laziness. Also, at the time. I had other things on my mind.
>>127929Iron stares at the admittedly larger bit amount than he can comfortably carry, looking back at Cauldron, hopeful that she'd aid him with an extra container.
>>127938You can definitely still join. We'd love to have you
>>127939It takes her a moment, but she turns around, takes off her saddle bag, unlatches it and places it next to Iron
The quoting system is one thing I can honestly say I love about the update. I hated how quoting a post in a long thread before would lead to long loading times>>127938Please do join! I'm joining the game next in-game day
probably gonna be a month or two of irl time from now at this rate and although I was planning to join Dark Star on a quest, it might be more practical to team up with you activity depending.
>>127940Nodding, Iron proceeds to place all of the extra bits into Cauldron's saddlebag. "Thanks," he lets out.
Alright, I am going to start a series of commentary. Mostly on the Hoebuck questline, but the first instance will be a solo encounter for, and a character only ever interacted with by a character and player who is no longer here. Still, it has left an impression on me.
It starts when Ash and Iron are rescuing the orphans from the gangsters in the Northside cannery, who were seized when the orphanage could not repay a loan. A cream colored Pegasus filly who is on the older end of the lot, seeing the druid Kirin Ash – a type of creature she has never seen before, and who practices magic and belongs to some unknown religion – promptly starts screaming, accusing Ash of buying the orphans for “virgin sacrifice” to pagan gods. The panic is infectious, and soon, several younger orphans are running about along with her inside the abandoned cannery. Iron picks them up, and they are on their way. As Ash leads the herd back to the orphanage, she loses sight of the cream-colored filly on a street corner, and they chase her again. Foals making assumptions about strange magic users that seem rational in the mind of child.
That was the end of that, until Ash’s player wanted more play time while advancement to the next day was pending. So I improvised a “bonus round.” Ash wakes up in the middle of the night to see a shadow running by. Exiting the room, she follows the figure to a downstairs door, through the orchard, through a slim patch of woods, and to a clearing where ponies gather – orphan ponies, including a rust colored earth pony colt recognizable from among those rescued – sitting around a fire under the light of a gibbous moon. The cream-colored filly stands in a prominent position, I believe wearing a hoodie, and holding a rabbit in her hooves. A pony recognizable from among those rescued the day before, and who seems to be the one who Ash followed to the clearing, hooves a kitchen knife to the filly. Ash watches as the filly holds up the rabbit, says something in a black tongue, and slices the rabbit’s throat with a knife.
Now Ash intervenes, revealing herself from the bushes and telling the foals to stop. But the cream-colored filly speaks more in black tongue, and a cold wind picks up, lowing beneath the canopy. In the tree line, a giant black dog with glowing red eyes appears, and sets his eyes on Ash. Ash summons magical powers of her own, and sends down a bolt of lightning on the dog. But the dog survives, rushing Ash, and biting into her. After a struggle, the hell hound is dispatched, and the orphans are rounded up. The nuns are awoken and informed of what has happened, and Ash goes to search the room of the cream-colored filly. She finds a book with an innocuous dust jacket taken from a travel guide. But inside, the book is written in three different languages, Ponish, a griffin language, and black tongue. She can determine readily that this book describes part of the history and some spells for the worship of the Griffinion god Maar.
The nuns are very much disappointed and stunned to hear what the foals have been up to, and while talking to them, Ash learns that the filly is named “Abby Willows,” and has only recently come to the orphanage. The next day, when Abby Willows is confined by the nuns alone in the dorm upstairs to write lessons in an endless series as a part of her punishment, Ash comes to visit her, delivering her food. Ash takes note of the fact that Abby’s mane and tail are cut short in a rather masculine fashion, and she clearly resents Ash after the episode the previous night, crossing her forelegs in a guarded pose. Ash tries to break the tension by starting to braid Abby’s mane. Ash tells Abby that she really shouldn’t be tangling with dark magic and unknown spirits, as it can be quite dangerous. Abby asks Ash if she knows why her mane is so short, and of course Ash responds in the negative. Abby then informs Ash that her mane was cut short by the gangsters during her captivity as a measure to prevent or reduce lice infection. She then explains to Ash that she consulted with spirits of a questionable nature because others failed to protect her, adding “my father thought he could protect all of us fighting in the Army, but he died in the process.” Ash tells Abby that she needs to have faith in the ability of the nuns to protect her from dangers. Abby responds by pointing over to the empty dorm room across the hall – empty because the nuns were forced to give over half the orphans to systems overseas after pressure from the fascists – and says “how can I trust them to do that?!” This leaves Ash speechless. Ash asks her if there were any other books, conspirators, or any other parts of her plan, and Abby vehemently denies. Ash does, however, calm Abby down enough to make her pay attention to the food Ash brought, which she gobbles up quickly.
Though that was the end of Abby’s direct appearances, and shortly thereafter, the end of Ash, it wasn’t the last part of the story. The next day, Iron returned to the orphanage, and helped the nuns by clearing dead trees in the orchard. Bucking a tree, a large, leather bound plain covered book falls to the ground, with pages opening to a strange and alien language Iron takes the book to Sister Marery, who confirms that the book is a religious and spell text belonging to a religion based around an evil griffin spirit, and connects it with Abby Willows and her misadventures.
>>127947Even though the story never goes anywhere after that, and the character hasn’t been seen in well over a year now (and probably never will be again), I am kind of proud of having come up with and executing the ritual in the woods almost immediately after the player indicated they wanted to play. I was pleased by my own blending of EAW lore and the circumstances into making a character who has compelling reasons for doing evil things, and a series of events that recontextualizes earlier happenings
I was very much impressed and pleased for Ash and the player to reason that a rabbit for a hellhound was an unfair trade tilted in favor of the foals, and surely any spirit making such a trade must have more sinister plans. I was disappointed that the character would not call out the teenage girl for being a liar and I did not entirely understand why she didn’t promise to help protect the filly herself. I was most disappointed that neither Ash nor Iron made any sort of inquiry as to where Abby got the books from.
“Abby Willows” is named for Abigail Williams, the accuser at the Salem Witch Trials. I gave her the name while phone posting at a Mexican restaurant, and so was going by memory rather than looking it up, so mistakenly thought that Abigail Williams was the
accused. I blame that “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” movie with Nicholas Cage for confusing me. Considering that Abby Willows makes her first appearance by accusing Ash of being a witch who is buying foals for the purpose of Equine sacrifice, it still fits her.
>>127938Yay! More players!
>>127943I'm sure they can wrap up the day to let you join.
>>127940Can we continue in the north today?
One thing that was not mentioned in the commentary:
when Ash opens the book and reads an incantation, the incantation is taken from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," but with the names of various human gods replaced with villains from the My Little Pony generations, especially generation 1, and several from EAW, including the Smooze and Grogar before he was mentioned in season 9 of the show. The line from Lovecraft translates into English from Latin as:
"By Adonaï Eloïm, Adonaï Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Adonaï Mathon, the pythonic word, the mystery of the salamander, the assembly of sylphs, the grotto of gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evam, Zariatnatmik, Come, Come, Come!"
Unfortunately I do not have my ponified version as the new code has completely removed the ability to search the website, but it was as stated above, with the reference to "slyphs" certainly remaining in a nod to the brony artist "SlyphStorm."
>>127950Sure. The last post made to Spark is
>>127800>>127944She nods to him, and places the saddlebag back on her bag
>>127952But no signs of what could have made it?
>>127953Some disruption in the surrounding branches and bushes, the dirt seems to have been moved aside or even pressed in, and the oval clearly has more pine needles in it then normal. Otherwise, no.
>>127954Spark investigates the bushes.
>>127955There are a couple limbs that are torn and pressed down, most in a particular path of approach, while others are undisturbed. There does not seem to be anything placed in them, nor do they look like they've been eaten
>>127956Spark shrugs and tries to find the tracks again, perhaps this was not the destination, but simply a stop along the way.
>>127959There are some slim hints of tracks, and a number of silhouettes in the treeline around Spark
>>127961Hmm... Spark follows more tracks. Where do they lead this time?
>>127962Another dice roll, also wisdom modifier
[1d20 = 9]>>127963More dice, no wisdom mod. The only mods I have are -1 strength and +3 charisma.
>>127964A few disrupted patches of needles going off at an angle, and the definite sound of feet, paws, or hooves crunching needles
>>127965Do they sound like charging speed steps?
>>127966Slower. Walking speed and picking up, losing caution
>>127967Spark turns to observe if the shadows are coming closer for him.
>>127968They stop, but they've come closer to Spark since he saw them and ignored them