Llyarden

For some reason, a hiccup with my internet just as I was trying to save one of my sheets gave me the good ol' 'Error logging into sheets system' message, and now I can't save the changes I was making to the sheet because it doesn't know it's me trying to do them (aka I get a 401 error.)

In practice I was only changing like two boxes so it's not like it's a big deal to just do them again, but it would be nice to be able to authenticate with the sheet system without having to leave an open sheet.

EDIT: Remembered the JSON downloader exists and that downloads the current state of the sheet and not its saved state, so that's an easy solution. Still would be nice to have a login button on the sheets.

Josef

Levont...kinda raises an eyebrow slightly at your comment. "I see. And these effects are...unwanted?"  He frowns for a few moments. "You are quite correct that there is nothing a conventional doctor will be able to do to assist you. When you arrive in Lomorre following your First Trial, go to Fort Naoth. The physicians there are trained and equipped to handle Knights with...unusual...physiologies, and will be able to give you more complete advice - and, by then, your soul will have adapted sufficiently to your Blessing that it would be safe for you to undergo a re-Blessing ritual should you decide to attempt to change your Blessing. In the interim...

"Not all injuries will break the skin and thus make themselves noticeable via your thorns, and while as a Blessed Knight you are more resistant to disease than most people, that does not necessarily mean completely immune, and if nothing else unnoticed injuries may hamper your capacity in combat. I suggest you make it a routine to check your body over for injuries you might have suffered without noticing, preferably with the aid of a mirror or your phone to examine areas you cannot normally see. Or, if your embarrassment does not preclude it, asking one of your companions to examine you for wounds."

Tourna let out an apologetic-sounding warble as the Ramenooze suffered the full effect of its wasabi paste. (I mean, one could argue that it was its fault for eating it, but to be fair Tourna had misplaced the stuff in the first place - and as far as it was concerned, the Ramenooze was suffering for its theft just plenty as it was).

After a few moments, it started mixing up another stew - this one milk, fruit, and other generally nice-tasting things, to hopefully take the edge off the poor ooze's...uh, heartburn? Did oozes have hearts? In any case, as it turned out, Tourna would not be needing to worry about such considerations, because the swinging kobolds thwacked it on the back with their harisen and the anti-heartburn stew went splat onto the floor of the boat.

Tourna whistled angrily and hopped up onto the edge of the boat. How impolite of the kobolds when it was trying to help! It washed its spoon off in the boiling water surrounding them - it wasn't going to waste so much as a drop of its milk 'stew' on the rude kobolds - and went to town, swinging at the kobolds like they were so many pinatas!

Spoon Bonk on the Kobold Krew, but angrier this time (WLP + WLP) (HR+6 physical damage)

Lily giggles a bit at the reaction to her Blessing when she meets back up with you. "It wasn't s'posed to just be bubblegum." She kinda leaves it at that for a moment or two before explaining. Back when I was preparing, I was thinking...what kinda knight did I want to be? And...you know, fightin' Demons and all that is great, it protects people, but sometimes it feels like folks just do it for the sake of it, for trophies on their wall and stuff. And I really don't care about all the hoity-toity nobility stuff - uh, no offence, Remy, it just isn't really somethin' I like having to do. So I was settlin' on protecting cities, towns, villages, whatever, but...then I started thinkin', it's not the places we want to protect, it's the people.

"So, that's what I was kinda aiming for. A 'knight of the people.' Even got a crystal tattoo sayin' that in runescript on my back. And for a tithe I took in...all kinds of stuff, everyday stuff. A phone, one of them official photos of the old King Arator, a takeout mug from Jack's Beans -" (the biggest coffee chain in Terat) "- a few newspaper clippings about knights...and yeah, some bubblegum. I figured everyone has habits, this just happens to be mine. Plus a moonstone, since if any Blessing was gonna cobble all that mess together into what I wanted it'd be a Blessing of the Stars.

"But I guess I ain't powerful enough to get the whole whack yet, so instead I just got bubblegum." She gives an idle shrug, apparently none too concerned about this turn of events. "I guess it might be a good thing, in a weird way. Page of the People sounds like a newspaper and Squire of the People makes it seem like I'd be at the beck an' call of the whole dang kingdom."

The groups' respective Blessings all get treated pretty equally by the villagers - which is to say, a lot of excited celebration (and also a lot of hypothesising about what you all used as Tithes). Heather's Blessing probably gets the most confused response, especially when the illusory Laurel pops up in the crowd, and honestly Gen's super-strength gets a slightly more muted reaction because, you know, he already had super-strength and super-speed and in comparison to the ordinary villagers it's a bit hard to tell the difference.

Nonetheless, the conclusion of the Blessing ceremonies is the signal for the celebration to seriously get started. Inevitably you will end up getting dragged into little contests, dances, and all manner of other festivities, but at least for now you're being left alone, giving Archivist Levont the chance to talk to you.

"Greetings, Novices." He gives you another bow, ever-so-subtly deeper than the one he'd done to greet you when you were merely recruits. "On behalf of the Grand Archives, I offer my congratulations to the six of you on your successful Blessing Ceremonies. Now, before you enjoy the celebrations, I will remind you that your First Trial will begin in one week's time. I suggest you use the time to master your Blessings." His eyes might...slightly...flick towards Gen at that. "I will remain in the village for the duration to observe your progress, and will do my best to answer any questions you may have.

"Lastly, I am obliged to reiterate that as Novices, you now represent the kingdom of Terat and its Knights. Your actions will often become a topic of conversation, to be dissected and oft criticised by those who know nothing of which they speak. In large part it is for that reason, to prepare you for when it begins for real, that you will be observed using camera drones for the duration of your First Trial. If you wish, you may borrow the camera drones to record your progress training with your Blessing. Some Novices believe that doing so shows willing to be open and demonstrate their increasing understanding of their powers. Others view it as arrogance or that it risks embarrassing the Knights by showing the fumblings of a new Novice trying to come to terms with their Blessing. Whether you elect to do so is up to you, but bear in mind that once recorded, anything you film cannot be rescinded, and will be released alongside the footage of your First Trial - with the usual caveats of removing irrelevant information and censoring the identities of unrelated civilians.

"With that all said...enjoy the celebrations."

By the power of retcons, another Alchemy pair!

Alchemy d20s

Tourna let out a whistling scream that, kinda sounded a lot like a kettle boiling, accompanied by a few loud honks, as it came tumbling back down and landed in the boat, waving its limbs around dazedly for a few moments before it finally righted itself.

There was a faint plop sound near the boat and it looked around with a quizzical beeping - and then its quizzical beeping suddenly got a lot more alarmed as it realised that as it had been snaffling snacks and storing them in its body, it hadn't had its lid locked when it had gone sailing through the air, leaving all manner of ingredients now raining down into the hot water.

Tourna was now busily rummaging through its body, pulling out a wild variety of ingredients before stuffing them back in with steadily-more-frustrated warblings. The subject of its frustration was its triple-reduced wasabi paste, which - unbeknownst to Tourna - had long since departed its storage and was now floating towards the Ramenooze.

"Thanks, DELORES," Sorin said, as the scene outside the frosted windows changed.

If he was honest, he'd kinda expected Fen to break out her Scroll and start texting like she had before she'd taught them all sign language. But since she was kinda floundering, he came back over to her, unslinging his shield and taking out one of the 'paint' canisters. Remember how I introduced myself when we first met? he signed (also in the new, discreet method). I didn't want to get your hopes up in advance because this'll take a chunk out of my Aura and I didn't know if I'd have enough left after we dealt with the Nevermores, but between Hard Light Dust that's ground this fine and my Semblance I can let you write in the air like that. Kinda like how you taught me to shape Aura feathers, just minus kicking people off of buildings. I figure if anyone's going to be able to convince them what's happened it's probably gonna be you.

Of course, this probably would seem a rather difficult to believe claim that Sorin could do that if you believed that Sorin's Semblance was just illusions and a very good control over his Aura. But Chapi wasn't the only person who hadn't been wholly forthcoming about their Semblance - and after he'd quashed Sorena's emotions during the battle with Apex, he was pretty sure most of the others had realised that there was more to Sorin's Semblance than he let on.

He set his shield down, resting against his leg, and held out both hands - one holding the canister of Hard Light Dust and the other for Fen herself to take, his Aura glinting gold.

Despite the pronouncement of fortune from Heather, Lily's speech doesn't exactly get off to a flying start, as Mayor Malencon peers at her name when it comes out of the tombola machine. "Lil...whoza-whatnow? Whosis?" After a few more random, rambling exclamations, he is eventually reminded that Lily Stria was using the Crystal Pool alongside Greenbrook's recruits and he had agreed to it at the time, which makes him all flustered. "Yes, well, yes, as I was saying, Lily Strael- uh, Strigel, uh..."

(Many of the villagers, who had not known that Lily was coming but who were very aware that the Mayor didn't do well at speeches when something unexpected happened in them like a whole person he'd not practiced for, were doing the polite social equivalent of facepalming, which mostly amounted to awkwardly looking around as though something else might capture attention.)

Nonetheless, Lily eventually does get a chance to give a speech, although she doesn't give much of one. "So, uh, I know you guys aren't here to see me or anything, so I'mma just get this over and done with as quick as Archivist Levont'll let me. (Her accent has gotten noticeably less upper-class since you first met her, presumably as she grew more comfortable with you.) "But what I do want to say is...I've only been here a few minutes and I can see how much you care for each other. Even if I din't have my own reasons for coming here...I'd want to get my Blessing in a place like this over all the fancy-pants picture-perfect ceremony in Strael. This is a good place, with good people, and I'll do you proud carryin' Greenbrook's name. And I'm sorry for buttin' in somewhere I ain't wan- uh, expected."

And whether because the crowd feel sorry for her after Mayor Malencon...kinda ruining her moment or whether something about Heather's Blessing is already working its magic (so to speak), she gets a much bigger round of applause than one might have expected for a total stranger, almost (but not quite) rivalling some of yours'.

When she emerges from the glade, some fifteen minutes later, she draws her dragonblade and ignites it, a beautiful rapier of pale blue, and brings it up in a salute to the crowd before tracing an elegant pattern in the air - and where the tip of her dragonblade passes, a bubbling liquid is left behind, starting to droop before she touches her rapier to the stage and it solidifies into some...slightly wonky writing reading 'Thank You GreenBrook.' It's a nice gesture, but honestly the first thing that any of you notice is the faint minty smell coming from it.

And, I mean, you'd noticed her chewing gum on the VTOL - you weren't allowed to chew gum or anything like that while 'on duty' training at Fort Naoth, but once you formally graduated and were being transported to receive your Blessing, most of the rules and regulations no longer applied - and in fact she'd been doing so more and more as you got closer, like it was a bit of a nervous tic. But there's no way she would've done something so wacky as using chewing gum as a Tithe...right?

Tourna raised its spoon again as it saw Akimbold closing in, with an alarmed warble - only for Santokumaru to leap in the way and block the attacks! The little stewbot capered and whistled for a few moments, before turning its attention to the other kobolds. Maybe it had decided that it shouldn't be interfering in a duel between two masters of culinary martial arts...or maybe it had just decided that Akimbold was too scary for it.

Either way, it scrabbled its way up to the platform where the kobolds were amassed, paused for a moment to grab a handful of the roasted nuts and marshmallows that were going around, chirruping happily - and then went whirling around just like some of the kobolds had been doing before, spoon at the ready - although it had the advantage that its shoulders could rotate the whole way around its body, so it didn't have to get dizzy. Somehow it seemed to end up mostly hitting the kobolds that hadn't given it food.

(Somewhere in the back of its mind, Tourna considered the fact that the kobolds didn't really seem to be on the dragon's side either. Unfortunately that fact immediately got buried under six new ideas for stew.)

Spoon Bonk on the Kobold Krew (WLP + WLP)

I definitely didn't think I'd already made one of these. Not at all.

As you emerge from the VTOL, you are...well, not exactly led through the town per se, there's no-one actually going ahead of you, but there's a pretty obvious path winding its way through the town, taking you past the town square - where you have all manner of foodstuffs and other assorted gifts thrust upon you with only a token consideration to whether or not said foodstuffs are actually portable - past Bill's - where you do not get foodstuffs thrust upon you, because Bill always says he has to make a living, but you do get some waves and a few raised flagons from the people who've started drinking already - past the town school - where you get probably the loudest and most excited cheers from the younger kids and somewhat quieter but probably more genuine cheers from those of your friends who aren't elsewhere along the route - and eventually through to the Crystal Pool.

In bigger settlements, the Crystal Pool is housed in an extravagant building that would rival any noble's estate (and indeed many nobles use the Crystal Pool as a way to flaunt their wealth and status without risking accusations of being tasteless and excessive by decorating their own buildings, because who would ever question paying homage to such a symbol of Terat?), with 24/7 guards preventing anyone from sneaking in. Of course, the Crystal Pool in Demaya is practically a settlement all its own (not that anyone's ever seen it other than the royal family), probably bigger than the entirety of Greenbrook and with a literal army guarding it.

Here, it is still sealed off from the outside, but only by a wooden fence, and it's only guarded when the town watch's patrol happens to take them past. The top of a gazebo that does its best to stave off rain, wind and the like can just about be seen from the outside.

Normally not many people go near the Crystal Pool; even - or perhaps especially - in a village like this, such is the reverence the people of Terat hold for the Pools. Today, though, a large stage is set up pretty much directly on the path, with the great and the good of Greenbrook assembled on seats and Mayor Malencon standing by a lectern with a battered old wooden tombola machine. Normally the families of the new recruits get to sit on the stage as well, but Karl's parents evidently haven't taken up that opportunity, leaving two seats awkwardly and obviously empty - Dimitri isn't there either, but that's because he evidently only got here just before you guys did. Even over the general noise you hear a loud "JOSEF! DRAGONS GUIDE YOU!" and see a waving hand pop up from somewhere in the middle of the crowd...is he wearing clothes styled a little bit to look like a burning club?

...yeah, he totally is.

It's a tradition in Greenbrook for soon-to-be novices to give little speeches before heading back to the Crystal Pool to receive their Blessing, and then show off their newfound power when they return. Originally the speeches were usually just used for people to thank their parents, guardians, teachers and anyone else, but in practice these days the speeches can basically be whatever because the real reason for the speech is for the Pool to be cleansed between recruits. Some particularly confident recruits even use them to announce what they're using as Tithes and what they want their Blessing to be, although for obvious reasons that's best done when you're using a reliable ritual.

Judging from the slightly bewildered, deer-in-headlights look Lily gives as the six of you are shepherded up onto the stage to each wait your turn, the Baron had not actually told her about this particular tradition.

Mayor Malencon rolls the tombola machine around a couple times, rummages in it, and produces a scrap of paper, holding it very close to his face so as to be able to read it (he refuses to wear his spectacles for public ceremonies because he thinks it makes him look old.) "Ahem-hem-hem! Josef Rossi."

***

Once you each give your respective speeches, you are led by Archivist Levont through to the Crystal Pool. It's the first time any of you have ever been there, or even seen a Crystal Pool in person - it's illegal to take photographs or film a Crystal Pool (other than to report a new-sprung one to the authorities), and even during your training you were never shown the one in Fort Naoth. The closest you got was a few sketches that had been done over the years by various Knights, and a dummy Crystal Pool to teach you the ritual of the ceremony.

Neither the sketches nor the stand-in 'pool' can really prepare you for it, though.

The Crystal Pool is often described as being like liquid - that is, after all, where the name comes from - but it's clear even from a momentary glimpse that it's like no mundane liquid. Glittering in a hundred different colours it doesn't just flow or ripple, but dances, intricate, infinite fractal patterns forming across the surface, sometimes raising up a good foot in height or dropping just as far in depth - somehow never spilling a drop over the crude stones that were laid centuries ago to hold the Pool in place. Tiny motes of glimmering light flit around and above the pool like hundreds of insects, and they react to your arrival, spinning and whirling in apparent excitement.

Weaving their way around the gazebo, and growing hither and yon across the unkempt grass around the Crystal Pool, are ley-crystals, pure and unadulterated. Gathering such is one of the privileges of becoming a Novice, though while you're allowed to use them to forge dragonsteel equipment to replace the generic stuff you were given by the Archives, you aren't allowed to sell them until you are officially Knighted.

By the time each of you enters, Archivist Levont has left a ritually purified robe neatly folded on a tree stump (which is almost completely coated in a crystal sheen). Some Novices change back into their normal clothes before leaving the Crystal Pool's glade, others stay in their robes (especially if they're concerned about damaging their clothes with their new powers); there's no real requirement either way other than not leaving anything behind in the glade.

The procedure is for you to change into the robe (okay technically you can also just wear nothing at all, but while it's not much different to a ritual robe from a mystical perspective, that option is even less common than people choosing to stay in their non-purified, mundane clothes), and then either cast your Tithes into the Crystal Pool or - more uncommonly - place them on a ley-crystal plant and allow them to be absorbed before entering yourself. The Blessing itself begins as soon as you fully submerge yourself. There are dozens of rumours about specific permutations resulting in better Blessings - should you throw the Tithes in as hard as you can, or just gently place them? Should you walk gently into the pool or dive in? And so on - but the official position of the Archives is that there's no difference.

Once each of you touches the Crystal Pool, it takes hold of you. Not with any serious force - you could easily get free if you wanted to - but there's a definite physical pull trying to gently tow you into the centre of the Pool, and the more you submerge yourself, the stronger the pull gets. The Pool is much, much steeper than you might have thought from its appearance, and by the time you're barely halfway to the centre you could easily be fully submerged, though the Pool doesn't actually try to pull you under. If anything it keeps you afloat, and you have to actively submerge yourself to have anything above your neck go below the surface of the Pool.

Once you do, though, you sink - incredibly fast, and somehow it feels like the Pool is a dozen, maybe a hundred times bigger than it was a moment earlier. You can still breathe just fine...although if you think about it carefully, you might come to realise that you simply aren't needing to breathe, oxygen being supplied to your body through some means far more ethereal than mere lungs.

And then your consciousnesses drift away as the Blessing begins. The entire ceremony is swathed to some extent in secrecy, but the Blessing itself even more so. Nobody ever speaks about what they experience during the Blessing, so as little prepared as you were to see a Crystal Pool in person...the Blessing is a more unearthly experience still.

It's impossible to tell how long the Blessing ceremony takes - at least, to its participants. Those of you on the outside can tell that each of you spends about twenty minutes in the glade, which would translate roughly to about ten minutes in the Pool proper plus time to change, harvest the ley-crystals with the new strength your Blessing gives you (if Gen tries beforehand he discovers that as powerful as his Oleimian blood makes him, the ley-crystals don't yield to it any more than they would mundane human strength), and generally spend at least a minute or so figuring out the general basics of your powers - which are, fortunately, for the most part quite instinctual - before you return.

Sorin let out a sigh of relief as the Nevermores faded. "Well, that went pretty -" *fwip* "...and I'm in here now. Okay then."

He paused for a moment in confusion as he saw Fen aiming above her brothers' heads with her rifle. Leaving aside the fact that your brothers have probably had plenty of weapons pointed at them for one day - he still needed to apologise for that, but that could come later - maybe we should check with Dr Brown and that weird egg thing before we leave that this has actually worked and we haven't destabilised time by leaving Dust-weapon damage all over the forest?

He wasn't sure there was a...massive amount of point in actually trying to trick the Fables, especially since one of them had already recognised the present-day (or was it future?) Fen. But he wasn't going to start disagreeing about it right now.

Sorin hopped off Delores and flitted over to Nicoale with a beat of his golden wings, raising his shield in time to repel the feathers that were coming her way with a pulse of Wind Dust before landing on whatever the toughest-looking branches were. "Right, then. Let's...try...this."

His golden Aura feathers vanished, the golden light flowing into his weapon like it was running down a plughole as, with his free hand, he activated one after another of his Dust reservoirs. Fire, Water, Electric, Hard Light...it all fused into a single ball of energy that seemed barely contained by Sorin's aura, not entirely unlike a form he'd used a long time ago - and then he unleashed it, firing a single beam of brilliant light at the worse-damaged Nevermore before letting the recoil spin him into place to fire at the second.

"You are quite welcome," Archivist Levont says to Heather, once he's stopped the drone recording. Other than that, though, he doesn't respond to any of your other comments (he does take note of Remy's surname, but he knew who was coming so it's not like it's a surprise.)

"Yep, that's me," Lily nods, with an embarrassed little chuckle. "Recruit Lily Stria, at least for one more day. And, uh, you know...sorry for intruding on your village and all. I got, uh...let's say family problems."

"And no, I've never been. Baron Gerente told me a little bit, but that's it." After a moment, she looks over to Karl. "Is, um...is he okay?" she asks, quietly.

***

Something as minor as a recruit's wooziness, however, isn't enough to stop the regimented logistics of the Knights, and so once you've each received and confirmed your Tithes, you climb back aboard the VTOL and soar into the sky, landing at the Baron's estate late at night - nonetheless, and probably much to the anemic Karl's relief, you get a sizeable meal courtesy of the Baron, and spaces in the barracks to rest (which are, I mean, still just barracks, but are nonetheless a little better quality than what you'd been dealing with for the past year or thereabouts at Fort Naoth.) You only briefly see the Baron himself, when he arrives to see you off in the morning - and do a few last formalities around Lily undergoing the Blessing ritual at Greenbrook.

You guys can't actually see out of the VTOL (it does have big doors that can slide open for combat landings and such, but they aren't open for journeys like this), so the only way you have of tracking your progress is a small map on a screen at one end of the VTOL's interior - and the occasional announcements from the pilot. "We'll be coming into land at Greenbrook shortly," crackles over the intercom.

Of course, the VTOLs are combat vehicles. They can practically fall out of the sky to land if needed. In this case, though, the pilot banks the VTOL around in what is clearly a dramatic circle around the village before touching down so smoothly it's almost impossible to notice the landing.

And then, after a dozen seconds or so (perhaps to allow you to make sure you're presentable for your arrival) the doors slide open, revealing a riot of colour and noise from the Blessing-day celebrations - and the cheers of the villagers greeting the five successful Recruits, an unprecedented number from such a small village.

Thus, just before midday on Darkday of Star's Opal, almost a year since the five of you had left Greenbrook, you return home.

Unsurprisingly Interposing for Nicoale.

Resistance (DC27, +5 for Blasting Gauntlet, -1 for Bruise) Resist. Sorin finally remembered how to Interpose right.

Tourna let out a startled honk as it was bopped by the whirling spoon, although since it wouldn't have known what a spell was if one hit it in the face and its culinary techniques were ingrained in its very being, it didn't really suffer any additional effects beyond a dent to its metal body.

And then a spell really did hit it in the face.

Tourna chirruped in a mixture of excitement and nervousness it danced back and forth and tried to work out if the battered, illusory fake of itself was an ally or an enemy - and then warbled in alarm as the illusory Tourna swooped in at it, erupting in healing energies that fixed the battered dent on the little robot leaving it as good as new, all shiny and polished (but still graffiti'd in eldritch runes).

Feeling refreshed and invigorated, it poked its head out above the bowl/boat once again and let out an angry whistle at Captain Akimbold. How rude of him to bonk it on the head with a spoon! So of course it immediately tried to bonk him on the head right back.

Spoon Bop on Cap'n Akimbold (WLP + WLP; HR+6 physical)

Darkday of Star's Opal, 564 F.B.

An otherwise unassuming day in mid-spring, it wouldn't be too inaccurate to describe Darkday of Star's Opal as one of the most hotly anticipated days in the year for the village of Greenbrook. Of course, Knight's Day is a national holiday and everyone watches the leynet broadcast from the royal palace, and certainly there's no day in the year where more respect is given. But Darkday of Star's Opal is the day each year when the teens of Greenbrook receive their Blessing.

And it is a festival.

The local school spends most of the week making decorations to put up around the town (although after an awkward incident a few years ago where they spelt someone's name wrong on the big banner and nobody noticed until it was too late, the decorations are no longer personalised to the prospective novices), and a lot of families have their own decorations to put up on their own houses and grounds, often passed down for multiple generations; it's often believed that such decorations will bring good luck to the Knights they celebrate, with the old inhabitants of the village looking down from the heavens.

The town square is turned into a giant buffet of...varying quality, because almost everyone brings something, though pride of place is always given to the half-dozen households whose meals were voted the best last year. For those interested in more consistently good food, Bill's has a Blessing-day discount which rather counterintuitively runs the whole week of Star's Opal.

Greenbrook is small enough that it actually doesn't have a formal landing pad for the VTOL that brings the soon-to-be-novices from Fort Naoth. Instead, you land in the Mayor's garden, which always undergoes frenetic maintenance over the preceding couple of days to make it look perfect (even if much of that perfection is then kinda ruined by the VTOL landing), and pass through the big gates that are constructed for precisely this purpose but kept shut and locked for the rest of the year, travelling the full length of the village in a meandering, hour-long parade to Greenbrook's Crystal Pool (by tradition, civilian centres of power are usually built on the other side of Teratian settlements to their Crystal Pools).

You all know all of this, of course. You've all grown up in Greenbrook and seen the Blessing-day celebrations every year.

But experiencing it from the other side is a little different.

In the early hours of the morning of the Peaceday of Star's Amethyst, alongside the thousands of other recruits who had successfully passed the gruelling exams at Fort Naoth, you march from Fort Naoth through Lomorre to the airfield. The so-called March of the Novices (even though you aren't officially novices yet, merely recruits) is televised and broadcast, although not with sufficient fidelity that anyone could actually pick you out of the crowd, especially since you have to wear your dress uniforms - which, for recruits, are rather less extravagant than those you will wear later in your career, being simple, drab uniforms that could be mistaken for the combat uniforms of the kingdom's military forces but for the grey colour.

Of course, even the extensive airfields at Lomorre and the high-speed ley-trains can't cater for recruits travelling to the myriad of Crystal Pools across the country all at once - and even if they could, the Grand Archives certainly couldn't produce thousands of carefully-selected, double- and triple-checked tithes in the space of a few hours. So, instead, the graduate recruits are given a timeslot to return to Lomorre's airfields (or train station for those whose destinations are in one of the other duchies, although you guys are leaving from Lomorre itself), where you will meet the Archivist who will be overseeing your Blessing ceremony, be given whatever tithes you requested from the Archives (of course, those of you with crystal tattoo templates have already applied those), and be flown to your destination.

These timeslots were randomly chosen, but they don't change every year. Instead, with the passing of each ruler, the timeslots are re-randomised...except King Erasmus announced when he was crowned that since his father had not been declared dead, the slots would not be changed. So, for the past thirty-odd years, Greenbrook's novices have assembled to receive their tithes late on Waterday of Star's Opal. (You stop off at the barony of Colamar overnight, because the Knights are smart enough to know that everyone's going to be celebrating the Blessing and there's no sense doing that in the middle of the night even if the VTOLs could get from Lomorre to Greenbrook in one day.)

When you each arrive at the VTOL (you were told which 'runway,' for lack of a better word, to go to) you are met by a middle-aged man dressed in the robes of a Royal Archivist, who gives you a short bow; even as recruits you guys are due a certain degree of respect, but obviously not nearly as much as a full Knight would warrant. "Greetings, recruit. I am Levont of the Archives." Without any further ado, he activates a camera drone - they're little spherical things that float on an internal crystek levitator - which bobs besides him as he climbs inside the VTOL and beckons you after him, closing the door so as to give you guys privacy from your fellows. (You can choose to stay outside the VTOL in public, but it's pretty common to keep the exact contents of your Tithe a secret from everyone except the archivists). "For the record -" he nods to the camera drone "- please state your name, then check and confirm aloud the contents of your Tithe." Your respective Tithes are held in small, ornate wooden chests, bound in iron - the same chests (ritually purified, of course) have been in use for centuries, albeit repaired and replaced as needed. Some rumours claim that if you get the chest that once held the Tithe of a successful Knight, the Crystal Pool will recognise it and grant you more power than normal (although since the chests are randomly picked, there's no way of actually making this happen short of illegal means like bribing the Archivists.)

Levont isn't the only one by your VTOL, though. Aside from the other PCs if you arrive later, there's also one other recruit, who evidently got there before you guys. You've probably seen Lily around once or twice at Fort Naoth - you were all introduced to her when she was given permission by Baron Gerente to use the Greenbrook Crystal Pool, if nothing else - but you were never in the same training cadres or anything like that. She doesn't interrupt Levont's rote procedures, but she does give you a little wave or a mouthed 'hey' as you arrive.

Tourna warbled nervously as it saw the oncoming flood, scampering as fast as its numerous legs would carry it (which was quite fast) into the bowl. It was supposed to be making stew, not being stew! (Or ramen, as the case may be.)

Nonetheless, after a few moments clattering nervously at the bottom of the bowl/boat, the scent of food caught its attention and it poked its 'eyes' up on a periscope to examine the surroundings. After a moment, this was followed by its stew spoon on a telescoping tendril, and it started ladling the newly-arrived boiling water into its pot-body (which fortunately didn't actually affect the buoyancy of the boat all that much thanks to whatever inexplicable magic had gone into its construction), adding a random mix of ingredients...and also a few of the random things that were being thrown at them, edible or not...and mixing them up before scooping out a big scoop with a triumphant whistling that sounded very much like a 'ta-da!' and offering it to its fellow heroes.

Time for another random potion! IP 9 -> 6

Alchemy d20s

Sorin's weapon turned into a giant, three-pronged talon and he basically caught the Nevermore's claw in his own makeshift one to stop it from closing around him, and used the momentum of the impact itself to launch himself towards Fen as the Nevermores came for her...only for suddenly the Nevermores to have already done their attacks a few seconds too early and nowhere near Fen.

Dr Brown's Semblance was annoying to think about too much.

Since there was no sense wasting the momentum, though, he pushed more Aura into his wings and sped up even further, flowing around the entire battlefield in a blaze of golden light - and trailing Fire and Plant Dust onto the Nevermores, which rapidly erupted into yet more vines as Sorin circled around and swooped to a halt to land atop Delores, hopefully this time close enough to Dr Brown that he could benefit from the weird deja-vu effect as well...or at least hopefully it would stop giving him a headache every time he saw it. It was bad enough in class!

He would've said something encouraging, but since probably the one who needed the most encouragement was Fen and she wouldn't have heard him (and his Aura was recovering from pushing his Semblance that hard so he couldn't just write in the air either), he didn't bother.

Sorin Resistance vs Damage (DC27) Bruised.
Sorin Resistance vs Weaken (DC22) Resist.
Sorin Resistance vs Strength (DC22) Resist.

Interposing for Fen.

Sorin Resistance vs Damage (DC27, +5 for Partial Physical Immunity) Sorin stop rolling natural 1s on these Interposes. Bruised + Dazed after Bruise from above.
Can't fail against the Weaken.

Not sure if these should be feature requests or bug reports.

1) Creating an inline dice through the WYSIWYG editor deletes everything between it and the last line break or inline roll. (For instance, if I put an inline die roll at the end of this line, everything going back to the 1) would be deleted)

2) When adding new dice, the source-editor-to-WYSIWYG parser strips out the mwinlinedice-showresults and mwinlinedice-showdetails part of the class, meaning that if you're doing stuff in the source editor, you have to manually reset every single die to show its details/results through the editor UI popup. This can be...tedious, if you have a lot of rolls. Not sure if this also happens if you edit a post that already has dice in it. I guess I can try that now.

...or not, I guess you can't do dice in this forum. Will try it in one of my games. EDIT: No, it's only new dice, extant ones seem to tolerate the parser fine (presumably because they instead have data-showdetails="true" and data-showresults="true" instead of additions to the class.

Ohh, I misread that big time then lol.

Since my IRL has vaguely stabilised, I figure I might start looking for a solo game trade. At this point I've got a wide variety of characters/settings to potentially use (or I can always make up something new) but my main request would be for my character(s) to be fairly powerful in mechanics terms, be that high level for PF, a high point value for GURPS, etc (and, by extension, for the game to have enough mechanics that it is actually possible to have a character who is more powerful.)

In terms of systems I'm most familiar with with PF1e and M&M3e, but I'm vaguely familiar with GURPS, PTU, Shadowrun 5e, WoD, and a handful of others. Potentially open to learning a new system either to play or GM, but those are my preference.

So...yeah. Anyone interested in a solo game trade?

You need a Descriptor Focus, but otherwise looks good.