Cooperative Storytelling Experiment

>Pretend to be sick. If they want you alive, they're not going to want you to die on them.

>Find a loose brick that marks a secret passage

> Inspect Bones.
These things are ancient. Whoever this guy/gal was, they were here a long time ago - a century, at least. Maybe longer. Olorunium is pretty old, especially speaking in human terms: the Vanguard houses were formed a little over two thousand years ago and the barony unified a few centuries later. You're not sure which territory you're in (and that's presuming you're still in Olorunium at all! If you're in Divus things could be even older. You're fairly sure you're not in Anhur - it's far too humid.), but this prison's probably been here a while from the looks of things.

Anyway, bones. You pick through the pile of detritus and most of the bones disintegrate. You end up with a still-fairly-solid half of a humerus and a jawbone missing one jaw hinge. You remember a story about some barbarian killing an army with a jawbone. You're not much for impromptu weapons, but it's better than going unarmed. You could probably chip or scrape off some of the edges of the humerus to make a sharp weapon out of it.

Rinne receives Bone Club x2.

> Check for secret passages.
You set your two "weapon" bones aside and pick up another bone shard that's still mercifully fairly solid but is too small for you to wield as a weapon and not aerodynamic enough to consider pocketing for throwing at people, and start tapping along the wall, listening for a potential hollow, hidden doorway, or switch.

You, predictably, find nothing. There's a slight, very dim echo to your tapping, but since it's consistent along the entire wall, you guess it just means that there's another cell on either side of yours. The rear wall sounds more solid - probably a thicker stone that way.

> Check the door.
Locked. Your captors aren't complete idiots, apparently. Let's hope they're just regular idiots.

> Call out to see if anyone's nearby.
> Play sick. Your captor probably wants you alive.
You toss the bone shard back in the pile - kicking up bone dust in the process - then dust your hands off and shove a finger as deep in your throat as you can reach. Immediately as intended, you start retching loudly. It's pretty convincing, and you let yourself drop to the ground and crawl across the room, putting yourself between the door and your two newfound "weapons" so that anyone coming won't see you're potentially armed.

You keep this up for a while, repeating the unpleasant process when your gag reflex stops reacting. After a third try, while you're still dry-heaving into the corner, you hear the sound of approaching armor. A few moments later you hear a voice.

"Damn, how much did he give them? One's losing a lung down here."

You learn quickly a few things from that single sentence. One, you apparently were poisoned, or otherwise forced to ingest (or perhaps injected?) some kind of disabling substance, even if you don't remember it. Two, your captor at least employs keepers who have Olori accents, so you can't be too far from home. Three, you are not alone - you are just "one" of the prison's occupants. Whether your fellows are members of your unit or strangers is unimportant right now, at the moment you choose to only classify them as "possible allies".

And four, you're fairly certain you're only going to get one shot at this.

>Attempt to telepathically call out to any nearby vermin for aid. Perhaps whatever they gave you awakened some dormant bloodline power.

> Activate vermin empathy.
You concentrate as much of your active thought as you can spare - the part not trying to come up with a more reasonable plan, or encouraging your noisy heaving in your cell - on imagining swarms of insects and other miniscule critters swarming in to aid you.

Predictably, nothing happens but a small headache. If whatever-it-was gave you some kind of magical power, that wasn't it. More than likely though, it just made you sleep and perhaps caused your amnesia.

Maybe you should focus on finding a better plan.

> Wait to see the guards. Maybe the uniforms are livery you can identify.

> Wait for now. No sense in rushing an escape plan, when you know so little. At some point, they have to feed you, right?

> Bide your time.
You elect to wait and gather information before making your (likely only) attempt at escape. Meaning you're not getting out of here right this minute, but then again, it's not the first time you've had to choose between immediate opportunity and waiting for the perfect moment.

Which is good, because when the guards arrive, they immediately prove they aren't idiots.

There's two of them, a man and a woman judging from their voices, both human. Their accents are Olori, but you can't see any skin - chainmail covers what plate doesn't, and they wear face-concealing helms. Their armor is devoid of livery or tabard. They might be mercenaries, but just as likely they took off all recognizable insignia to keep you disoriented.

They also don't open the cell. The woman retrieves a waterskin from her belt - she has several - and tosses it through the bars. "Drink. It's clean."

The question is whether or not you believe her. You've got a split-second to decide before they get suspicious.

> Toss the waterskin back to her. "You first."

>Eat the waterskin but leave the water

> Eat the waterskin but leave the water.
If you were an entomorph you're pretty sure you could. Those buggers can eat anything. Sure they look like moths but they're closer to locusts.

> Toss the waterskin back to her.
Still coughing slightly, you pick at the ground until you find the skin and toss it back through the bars; it hits a bar on the way out and causes a dull rattle. "You first," you reply, voice ragged.

She picks it up with a chuckle. "Your loss." The other guard grunts, and she stops in her half-turn to go back the way she'd come, then with a slight grumble raises the visor on her helm and takes a drink.

You can't get a really good look at her from your position, but you can see enough. She's got the olive Olori skin, dark hair, and dark eyes.

She stoppers the skin and tosses it back through the bars to you. "Hope that satisfies you, officer." And without another word she claps her helm shut again and strides back the way she'd come, her partner at her heels.

Rinne receives Waterskin (95%).

>wait until they're well out of earshot, and whisper "Anyone else here?"

Figure out where the waste is gonna have to go, take a swallow of water, then

>Sit down, meditate, and try to remember anything that might be helpful.

Oh, I forgot, Uncle Iroh it up - calisthenics!

> Wait until they leave then whisper/call and see who answers.
You take a few sips from the waterskin, careful to conserve, and keep an ear out until you hear the crash of a shutting iron door. You wait a few seconds longer, seeing if anyone else within earshot takes the initiative - if there's anyone else here who wanted to make contact with you first, there's no way they hadn't heard that display. No one speaks, however.

"Hello?" you call, deciding to skip on whispering as you're fairly certain there's no one within whispering range. "Anyone else down here awake? C...." You stop yourself from speaking a name. Something tells you it might not be the best idea.

No one answers, anyway.

New plan.

> Figure out where the waste is gonna have to go.
You poke around in your cell and find a refuse pit in the southeast corner, behind the piles of bones. It's dry now, about a foot wide and deep enough you can't see a bottom, thank the Aspects. On a whim, you tentatively reach down in, patting the walls feeling for irregularities.

Perhaps surprisingly, you find something - a loose brick. You pry it out, not without some scraped fingers, and quickly retrieve the treasure hidden within.

Rinne receives Anhuri Curved Knife!

Now THAT is a nice knife. You're not particularly specialized in small blades fighting, you've always been one for bigger, longer-reach weapons, but a blade is a blade. You have no idea how someone managed to smuggle this in, but you aren't going to question your good fortune.

Unfortunately that seems to be the only thing hidden in that particular little treasure hole, and you don't find any more loose blocks in the pit. You drop the dagger next to your bones of choice, spare a few drops of water to get the grime off your hands, and sit back down.

> Sit down, meditate, and try to remember anything that might be helpful.
Well, you're not leaving your cell right now, might as well try to figure out how you got here and see if you can recall what happened. Keeping your pile of weapons as out-of-sight from the cell door as you can, you settle against the west wall, close your eyes, and think back.

The past couple of days are fuzzy, up to the point where you apparently blacked out and woke up here. Perhaps if you started closer to the beginning....



PART ONE: SOLDIERS AT WORK

SIX MONTHS AGO.
You are Sergeant Rinne Laurel of Vaduval's 28th Battalion. You are currently on mission along your territory's southern border at the command of your senior officer, Captain Estele Jaeger. You are here to see to a routine border issue and to lead a small squad of fresh recruits on their first set of field exercises. You are accompanied by a handful of experienced subordinates as well as the new blood.

It is morning, shortly before dawn, about time for you and your troops to rouse. You go through your morning routines, settling your tent and packing your equipment for the day. You then turn and observe your men and women as they do the same.

Where do you begin?

>Remind yourself of your companions' names and specialties.

Well, from what I know about the military based on internet posts - whoever isn't ready by the time you're ready needs their lazy ass punished. 20 standup-pushups fully equipped? Whatever those are called...

(oh man, I jumped in my seat a little at the knife part. This is gettin' mysterious!)

>Check the surroundings. If a map is available, plot what the current course and destination is, and get a good grasp of the terrain. Ambushes, ambushes.

Pie has the right of it; if your grunts aren't ready by the time you are... let the shouting and impromptu morning calisthenics begin.

Let the team leaders (experienced subordinates) get personnel accountability and "properly motivate" the recruits to move faster. While they do that, get a report from the night shift Sergeant of the Guard (guy in charge of the sentries and scouts). Once the rest of the formation is ready, conduct inspection (uniforms, equipment, maybe check for ongoing magic/charm/dominate effects if the appropriate resources are available).

>Take everyone out for ice cream

Journeyman wrote:Pie has the right of it...

Yay!

Adding to Face's - also, take them out to the ball game and root for the home team.
(It'll be a shame if they don't win)