wanderingwolf

Firefly - Second 'Verse

Alright crew, we're enroute to our pitstop location where the crew will truss-up the China Doll, then we're on to our destination!

Firefly - Second 'Verse

Bring me that Sky

As Cal entered the bridge, the pilot turned in his chair to look over his shoulder. With a nod, Cal crossed and situated himself in the Captain's chair. Setting a brand new brimmed hat on the console before him, Cal announced to the bridge, "Elias gave us the green light. You good?"

The massive pilot gave his customary high-octane cheer, belayed by the man's sinister tattoos.

"What about you, SAM? Everything buttoned up?"

A cool lilting accent filled the bridge, "Abby just closed up the cargo bay, Cal. We're ready for the next stop before our dog-leg." The speakers crackled slightly, distorting the electronic tones of SAM's last syllables.

The pilot looked up at Cal, his brow furrowed, mouth forming a question.

He raised a hand to interject, "We're gonna set up the trussin', get our ducks in a row before we haul out," with the other hand the Captain punched in the clearance code for undocking, raising the traffic controller to seal the deal. "Little Moriah, this is China Doll; we're loaded up and shippin' out. Thanks for the warm welcome."

The view cam on Cal's console sprung to life as a uniformed figure with short-kempt, brown hair issued a few short phrases, "China Doll, you are cleared to disembark. Come back soo--" The last was cut off as Cal flipped a switch and palmed the comm to his crew. "This is your Captain speaking. We got a couple new faces aboard; Abigail, why don't make your way over and strap them in. We're on our way to a pit stop where I'll need all hands to suit up; fresh-faces included. Hope everyone got their fill of society; won't see such for a while, and Tiānxiǎodé we're plum out." (God knows)

The comm barked as Cal let off the thumb hold, hanging it back on the bulkhead. "Take us out," the Captain bade his pilot. Boone went to work at his console and the China Doll sprung free from the Skyplex, drifting for a moment. The large man's hands edged the equipment and the Firefly's engines warmed, the thrum permeating the ship as the main engine came to pace. Leaning forward, the pilot took them out and away from their berth slowly, until they passed the floating satellites which denoted the safe distance to burn.

After a moment, the Captain strapped himself into the chair, the viewport filling with the emptiness of space.

"Do we have everything?" came SAM's query in her Earth-That-Was Bostonian accent.

"Dāngrán, fǒuzé wǒmen jiù xiànrù kùnjìngle," came Cal's reply. (Of course, or we're up a creek.)

"Xiàng qián!" SAM replied, the smile almost visible in her voice. (Onward!)

Cal turned to Boone, "You heard the lady" His view swept back to the viewport, "bring me that sky."

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Hey all! I'm back in the saddle and will be reading through the game to see what's happened while I was away. I'm planning on getting replies up today, but I'll say today or tomorrow to pad myself.

Also, Patientbean has recovered and may bring Fleur back to the adventuring group!

Thanks for everyone's patience. I know this was a long break.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Digizel Sure. At this point, the three of you (Saur, Stargazer, and Jenk) have spent most of the morning catching your respective fish for Alandri. Tanraeth still needs to reply and roll for his manipulation to have someone fish for him. To allow him more time to RP and roll, I'm giving the three of you one last shot to either RP with Alandri or keep fishing or call it a morning and sip some coffee before Alandri officially packs it up.

Alandri is very happy with all three of you for catching 2 fish each. Ecstatic. There's no need to keep pushing yourself, but depending on what you want to do now, I could set a higher DC and perhaps you could learn something or do something to award yourself some little extra something.

Go wild, or sit back, as we await Tanraeth's move.

Essentially I want to keep you engaged as we wait.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Sounds good! Just an FYI, I'm headed out on a work trip to Montreal this weekend and all of next week. I may have time to write some posts while I'm there, but since it's a work thing it's a little uncertain. I'll check back here as I am able. I return week after next.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

Scene:

Tanraeth did, in fact, see other fishermen and women on the river bank. There were three setting up, but an older fisherman with a corn-cob pipe and a green, triangular hat sat on a metal bucket and already had a fishing rod in the water. Tanraeth noticed, as he approached the man, that he was humming some kind of tune as he puffed acrid smoke from his pipe with one hand, the other resting on a well-worn wooden rod in the crisp morning air. The man looked up as Tanraeth approached, "G'day." He tips his wide, triangular hat warily at the elf who looks sharply out of place on the river bank among the fishing folk. 

A quick glance up and down the river tells Tanraeth that others will be similarly situated in about ten to fifteen minutes, but this fellow had apparently come out earlier than the rest.

Saur, having received as much information from Alandri as possible, took some time for him to situate himself in an advantageous position to capture fish. As he waded into the shallows, he noticed a group of particularly large macaren, Alandri's highest priced catch at her stall, swiming in his direction. After a few more minutes, the small group of fish approached the kobold, two swimming lazily within five feet of him. Even as the minutes stretch out, his training has taught him an iron calm in the anticipation of the catch, and as these two fish wander closer, they don't seem to register the kobold's legs as they swim directly beneath Saur. With a deft, practiced movement, his hands dart into the water and back out again. In the morning light, two iridescent orange fish the size of Saur's torso gape and thrash suspended from their tails above the river!

As Jenk dives into the river, it takes only a moment for him to get his underwater bearings, so familiar is he to hunting like this. It takes him a few minutes to find the spot pointed out by Alandri as the closest choke point of where these fish swim through this part of the river. Thusly situated, Jenk goes to work, his bright blue scales allowing him much longer time beneath the surface than he was accustomed to.

Swimming to the spot takes Jenk some time, and he sees Alandri also approaching, her feet garbed in some sort of flipper which propels her faster toward the spot. She darts toward a fish, manipulating something that looks like a whip, and after a quick twirl, the whip snaps out, catching a fish in the mouth. Alandri pulls the fish toward herself to hold in both hands before swimming back to the river bank, kicking by her flippers.

Pitchfork in hand, Jenk spots his quarry, a group of slow-moving fish swimming in his direction, and sends out a phase bolt at his prey. The flurry of bolts stutter out of his holy trident, energy blinking in and out of existence as they make their way toward the group, bubbles flying in the wake of this attack. One fish is caught, and then another in the volley, and float to the surface. 

Starfinger took some time to carefully plan his approach to the group's task. Hiking up the river a bit, the tripkee found the spot Alandri had pointed out as a good choke point for the fish swimming up river in the morning. From his vantage, he could see Alandri working swiftly under the surface of the water, the gnome darting gracefully. He could also see Jenk swimming, pitchfork in hand toward the same spot he was situated above. Employing a technique passed down from his ancestor and using nothing but the natural world around him, Starfinger fashioned a fine trap with which to catch his quarry. As he squatted above his trap, he noticed quite a commotion as light flickered beneath the water's surface, sending two large, bleeding fish to the surface. In the ensuing chaos, several fish darted in all directions and a veritable trove of fish flooded into Starfinger's trap as the surface roiled above what appeared to be Jenk's doing beneath the water.

A large fish sputtered first into his trap, which Starfinger, once it was calm, returned to the water with care. After some time went by, his trap filled again with the current and two medium-sized fish swam into the trap, unable to get out again.   

End Scene

Storyteller's Aside

@vertigo Go ahead and roll something to engage the fisherman to fish for you, or approach another fisher person to do so, if you would like someone else to get their hands dirty.

@Digizel Saur succeeded! Thanks to his Forager feat, he gets two fish instead of one!

@rush99999 Jenk critically succeeded! He gets two fish, albeit a little holey. Good idea to burn a hero point.

@clanjos Starfinger critically succeeded! His patience paid off, with two fish caught in his trap.

If you like, I'll give you a chance for extra credit or engagement with Alandri. There might even be a hero point or XP in it for you depending on your character's performance.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

I'll get an update out soon!

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@clanjos Sorry for the late reply. Do you want to Recall Knowledge? I can roll your Tripkee lore to see if Starfinger remembers anything about fishing that might help here.

Or you can roll a Crafting check, or both!

Let me know. If you do want that Recall Knowledge I'll give you the info here.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Vertigo Sure, Tanraeth can see that there are some other people around the river. If he wants to approach them and engage with them, feel free!

Also, it's no trouble to rename your character. Just let me know what you'd like to change it to!

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Digizel I love where your head is with this.

1. Yes, Saur can Hunt Prey (he's a hunter after all!). That will give Saur a +2 to his Survival check.
2. For Saur's Foraging feat, sure you're not Subsisting, but story-wise there is not a difference in my mind between Saur fishing for himself/the group and Saur fishing to fulfill a task. You can use Forager for this. (This will be in effect off his Stealth roll below)

"While using Survival to Subsist, if you roll any result worse than a success, you get a success. On a success, you can provide subsistence living for yourself and four additional creatures, and on a critical success, you can take care of twice as many additional creatures. You can choose to support half the number of creatures with a comfortable living."

2. Is Saur Trained or an Expert in Survival? Forager lists a larger haul for Expert.
3. Roll Survival to find the fish that are particularly valuable to Alandri. (You get a +2 circumstance bonus to this roll for Hunt Prey), a success can give you a +1 (success) or +2 (crit) bonus to your Stealth check to capture the fish.
4. Roll Stealth to see if Saur can stand perfectly still to let the fish swim toward him, in the perfect location. (Success will catch 1 fish normally, 2 for a Forager. Crit would catch 2 fish, 4 for a Forager.) <- If Saur is an expert, double the Forager success amount.

UPDATE:
Here's the DC for your Survival roll so you can write a post around it's success (for your Stealth).
DC: 8