Grobbik steps back again and replies "You attacked me. This is business. I am here to make money. "

About the time Brand stands up Grobbik will step back again and say "Behind you". If time allows he will continue "I have skills."

Circling slowly south to get between Brand and his weapon as the resolute smith rises to a stand, Grobbik offers a modicum of peace, mentioning he is only there to make money.

As am I!" Prova nearly spits as he slashes out at Grobbik again, cutting low and then redirecting high in a thrust that nearly makes Grobbik lose his footing in a frenzy to get his weapon up in time!  Only by a miracle does he hear the clash of steel an inch from his face as he escapes the vicious blade and the crowd cheers and groans with anticipation!  Tired of giving the man continual chances to accept his offer, Grobbik slashes back with his blade, although Prova manages to jump back in anticipation and Grobbik's knife catches only air.

"Agh!"  Prova lashes out in a semicircle, trying to catch Brand, who is now standing, gripping Grobbik's dropped knife, though the blow goes wide.  Brand tries to retaliate in kind, although Prova again dodges nimbly backwards.

"Grobbik!"  Yells a member of the crowd over the goblin's shoulder.  "Grobbik!" answers another man in the crowd.  Grobbik sidesteps neatly eastward, intent on cutting the smith off from his mace, with which he has proven himself lethal.

OOC:  So the dice roller giveth, so it taketh away...  On that one you rolled a crit failure on your defense, and I opted to spend your hero point rather than have you miss your roll and fall over in the attempt.  Prova is now turned north with Brand facing southwest.  I added the mace on the map which is the letter M.  Brand is now holding the knife that you dropped.  Note that Prova's back is turned toward you though he is 2 hexes away.  Give me two more rounds of action.

Battle Map

Prova was playing as cutthroat as Grobbik was in a sense.  Because the goblin wanted something from him, he thought he was safe turning his back to attack Brand.  He should have known better than that.  Stepping forward, Grobbik attacks Prova in the back, knowing he can't defend it if he can't see it...

With a roar, Grobbik rushes in stabbing ferociously!  However, by some divine luck Prova steps forward, just as Grobbik stabs and in the motion he misjudges himself, only tearing a hole in Prova's tunic and causing a scratch that dribbles rather than weeps.

Prova spins around with effort, thrusting his dagger wildly at Brand, though somehow the man bleeding freely from two gory wounds manages to stumble backwards, escaping the blow.

He thrusts back at Prova, his aim true although the knife fighter manages to swat the blade away with a cut of his own weapon.

The voice of the crowd surges!  All three names are being chanted in simultaneous garbled gibberish, although Grobbik thinks he can hear his own moniker as clearly as any!

Encouraged on, this time Grobbik lashes out at Brand, who is now just as close with each of the three fighters within only a foot or so of each other.  The man already twice stabbed by Grobbik's blade receives yet a third cut, as he stumbles back sluggishly, though Grobbik misjudges the blow and only just pierces the skin.

Prova slashes at Grobbik, which the goblin neatly parries aside, Brand takes advantage to cut under Prova's defenses, though the blow get's caught in the fur of the man's tunic and misses his skin entirely.

OOC:  Too bad about the all out atack, you hit, but scored min damage and it was entirely stopped by the man's miniscule armor.  Since both of the fighters were in your attack range on the second turn I rolled randomly for which to hit and went for Brand.  You hit, though did little damage to speak of.  Roll vs. HT-4, if you fail you suffer 1 fatigue due to the extended combat.

Battle Map

Grobbik is getting frustrated with this battle.  It had carried on for a while now, and he was starting to get tired.  It was time to change things to go in his favor.  hat he didn't want was to be in the middle of the other two in the combat.  That was suicide.

Stepping back from the fray, Grobbik weaves his fingers, conjuring the powers of the water spirits once again.  Ahead, the two other fighters seem to pay no attention to him, Prova lashing out with two wild slashes that Brand somehow bats away with his knife and then slinks away from with uncharacteristic grace.  Brand lashes out back but misses wide in his fervor.

His spell complete, Grobbik thrusts his open arm towards Prova, sending a forearm sized jet of water blasting out of his hand!  Somehow, impossibly, Prova dances wildly away from the spell and it careens on for yards beyond.

It is the next moment however, that seems to play out in infinitesimally slow action.  The spell dodged, Prova locks eyes with the goblin, his teeth gritted in insane fury as he brings his forearm back for a devastating thrust.  Grobbik sees Brand moving too, his knife already pitched to strike again towards Prova, his feet moving in a forward jog.

Grobbik brings his left hand down hastily, brandishing his remaining dagger and cutting across the path of Prova's strike.  But somehow, his movements are too slow, sluggish even...  It must be the fatigue of the fight and his concentration on the spell that still fountains a stream of water from his palm, landing flaccidly on the sands, dozens of yards away.  It is with an innate realization of his failure that Grobbik watches Prova's dagger pass by his defenses and sink, only a few inches deep, into his side just below the rib cage.

Grobbik's body convulses violently, sending him into an inadvertent spin, his eyes straining to keep on Prova, to keep on the fight as he struggles to keep his feet.  Out of the corner of his eye he can see Brand, nearly unobserved slinking his own dagger underneath Prova's defenses - this blow much more horrible than the one that Grobbik had been struck.  A fountain of blood explodes from Prova's ribcagek, splattering Grobbik across the face as his legs give way underneath him and he sinks to the sands below.

It is only with a partial awareness that Grobbik's face slams down into the sands, his face rebounding with a slight jump as the world fades into blackness...

---

"Come on son."  The words register to Grobbik before anything else, for the world is still inky blackness as his mind kicks back into operation.

"Come on."  Grobbik's eyes flutter open, his mind trying to take in the sounds, feelings, and shapes around him.

Below him is a soft surface, though tiny pinpricks of pressure dot his upper back.  Beneath his head is a plush pillow of down.  The ceiling slowly comes into focus, a thick reddish brown slab that extends on to the edges of his vision.  Grobbik feels a knitting pain in his side that nettles him throbbingly even as he tries to put his world into context.

The dagger!

The act of Grobbik attempting to sit up while moving his left arm in a spasmodic attempt to parry the blow sends explosions of pain through his body as he crumples back onto the bed, both his side and his arm now throbbing painfully.

"Whoa there, take her easy!  I think you'll be fine, doing better off that either of the other two anyway, one with a ruptured spleen and the other with a shattered leg...  Just take her easy and you'll be alright...  No worries lad, it was a rough fight but you are doing fine, stitched you up right as rain and put a few bandages on we did.  Didn't seem you had the money to pay for it but it wasn't much so we just helped ourselves to one of your knives to pay the difference.  Fair and square."

His eyes batting open, Grobbik sees a face bubbling into his vision.  A thin but jovial man of middle age, his has a mustache and beard of flaming orange-red.

"You should be alright to get up now if you can."  The man says.  "You'll heal well enough on your own."

OOC:  Wow, what terrible luck.  Your water jet was successful in hitting, but dodged by Prova just barely, after the two others traded blows on the first turn, Prova attacked you after the spell miss and you badly failed your parry, causing just enough damage to have to check for knockback and stun.  You failed that one critically.  The good news is that you were avenged, and as soon as Prova hit you Brand swooped in causing massive damage to the vitals which put out Prova for days...  Still, you did not win the match, and had to forfeit you dagger and $3 to pay for medical expenses.  The last resort I see for the powerstone is begging from Judoc, and if you want to, we can set that up in this thread if that is where you want to move from here.  Otherwise, there could be many ways to acquire the money though you are hardly in the state now to overpower anyone.  You are currently half move and dodge, and still thoroughly exhausted from the fight, though you think you can walk back to the college if you had to.  You can check your character sheet for specifics.

About all Grobbik can do is moan.  His side hurts, his arm hurts, and overall he's just a mess.  For a moment he takes stock of the bandage on his arm, and the bandage across his chest.  Breathing was going to be a struggle for a while until that chest wound healed.  Shaking his head, he sighs at the current state of affairs.  To top everything off, he had ruined a perfectly good set of clothes too.  Blood was notoriously hard to clean without magic.  He was probably going to have the knife cuts mended too.  At least he would stay busy for a while.  As he struggles to sit up, Grobbik thinks back over his decision making process for the afternoon, to figure out what he did well, and what needed work.

That would be the last time he assumed real combat wasn't any harder than what he saw while training at the university.  He had done very well in classes with his knives, so he felt very confident going to the arena to make money. It was way different when you had to face multiple adversaries.  They hadn't done that very much with Brother Loke, and so he wasn't as prepared for the fight in the arena as he thought.  The next time he would plan ahead better.

Perhaps he would have been successful in the arena if he hadn't impulsively decided that the guy on the other side of that knife was a potential employer.  Yes, he needed money and they didn't really offer that at the university.  And yes, he had the opportunity to show off some of his unique skills, which could make him an attractive employee.  Unfortunately, while he was trying to negotiate a job, he wasn't taking Prova out while he had the chance.  That probably cost him a couple gold crowns, which was terribly frustrating.  And even if he did make a good impression with Prova, he couldn't apply for a job for days.  If the medics were accurate (and they did a VERY good job stitching him up), Prova would not be available for days.

The last thing Grobbik wanted to do was to ask Judoc for his power stone.  He was a friend, and they had a number of experiences together.  At the same time, they were also competing against each other, and he didn't want to show that sign of weakness.  Still, in his current state, he didn't have much choice.  All of Brother Loke's work would go for naught if he didn't find a magic item soon.  Perhaps Judoc would pity him in his current state, and let him borrow it to finish out the potion.

OOC Let's go with the Judoc angle.  I don't see where Grobbik has much option, and in his current state maybe he can work the pity angle.

Bemoaning his poor luck, Grobbik lifts himself from the medic's table and makes the slow, painful walk back to the castle.  Though his wounds hurt, and he is sure that the bleeding has not been entirely staunched, he manages his way back to the castle with little more ado.

By the time he makes it back to the Hall of Soldiers the rest of his room mates have made it back before hand.  Indrid sits at his desk, his small, smoky, oil lantern giving a warming glow to the room while Judoc reads in his bed by the soft bright floating orb of his light spell.

Recognizing his last avenue available, Grobbik grits his teeth and prepares himself deciding whether to reject or exploit his current weakness.  His face pale, his wounds wrapped and bleeding through, Grobbik approaches Judoc with an unavoidable lethargy to his steps...

OOC:  Ok, so Judoc joins the thread here for your guys discussion.  Please remember Judoc that the date here is Oct 3rd, so you would not have had your 5 point powerstone yet.  When you guys hash it out, I'll move on to the next part of Grobbik's thread.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:31, Mon 12 June 2017.

As he walks up to Judoc, slowly, Grobbik sighs under his breath.  Walking wasn't too painful as long as he went slowly and didn't breathe too hard.  He didn't want to move his arm too much either.  Grobbik wasn't making an effort to broadcast his wounded state as he approached his school mate, but he was far too injured to hide it too.

Grobbik was concerned with how this meeting would go.  School could be pretty cutthroat, since they would probably be competing for the same jobs in town sooner or later.  While he and Judoc were friends, they were also competitors on some level.  Asking for a favor like this would be complicated at best.  With luck Judoc would have sympathy for him instead of laughing at his predicament.  Either outcome was possible, especially because he was asking to use something Judoc would consider valuable.

After he arrives before Judoc, Grobbik takes s decent pause to gather himself.  Just basic communication took effort in his current state.  After formulating the words, he speaks to his friend softly.  It hurt to breath in, so he wanted to make the most of a few words.

"Hello Judoc.  Apologize for the question, but could I borrow your power stone?  I seek to overcome my Water College limitation.  A magic item is required for the ritual."


OOC If you read the other thread you know Grobbik got beat up pretty badly in the arena.  What Judoc will see is a large bandage across Grobbik's chest, probably with some hints of blood over the cut, and a similar bandage on his arm.  He's currently at half move because of the heavy wounds (for his size).  His tunic will have the appropriate rents and blood stains to reflect his injuries.

Engrossed in his reading, Judoc at first doesn't notice when Grobbik comes limping in.  He looks up at the question, and then he gapes when he sees the bandages and blood.

"Good God, man!   What the hell happened to you?"  He jumps to his feet and strides over to help Grobbik, offering to take his arm and help him walk.  "You look terrible!  Here, let me cast some Healing on you, ok?"  Judoc guides Grobbik over to the goblin's bed and begins waving his fingers.

"Now, what's all this about my powerstone?  How are you going to use it?"  Judoc looks at his roommate curiously, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

OOC:  Judoc will offer to cast a Major Healing  (4 FP) on Grobbik.

No need to RP this out.  Judoc will lend Grobbik his powerstone, but he will want assurances that it is returned in the same condition it was lent, or else Grobbik is willing to replace it.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 04:54, Fri 16 June 2017.

OOC  Grobbik will explain the ritual very generally, and then give a general explanation of his path to Judoc. When he gets to the arena fight he'll go into the gruesome details. I also don't feel like I really need to role play this out. Grobbik will promise to return the powerstone in the condition he found it or replace it.

As Judoc weaves the healing magic, the hurts in Grobbik's arm and side dissipate.  He can feel his skin crawling underneath his wrappings, wrapping, knitting, fusing back together, all in all it is not an unpleasant experience.

Grabbing the entire hemp necklace with the small powerstone with a word of thanks, Grobbik vaults off, heading straight for Loke's chambers, hoping against hope that the potion has not spoiled.  With a rapid knock on the door, Grobbik cracks the door, putting his face in the entryway as he tries his best to keep himself from shouting in anticipation.  "Professor?"

The room beyond is dark, leaving little open to Grobbik's vision past the narrow beam of light that filters past him through the doorway and Grobbik's other abilities seem to kick in to compensate.  Even as his face breaks the plane of the entryway, Grobbik senses are assaulted with powerful waves of magic.  Almost like a toxic odor the sensation wafts at him, warming his nose and cheeks like a fever that affects him from without.  But even as the sense dawns on him, it is gone within a moment.

"Professor?"  Grobbik asks again, and within the back of the room, Grobbik can hear the man before he sees him, slowly making his way towards the doorway.

"Come in then."  The professor calls as a handful of candles are lit by magic without much more than thought by the master mage.  "Ah, Grobbik."  The old man smiles as he immediately turns about, going to his desk where he picks up a large glass phial and walks back towards the doorway.  "Please, sit.  I'm glad you've made it.  I was thinking before I laid down to rest that the potion would not make it through the night.  Did you bring the item?"  Grobbik holds up the small powerstone and though Loke's stony expression seems guarded at best, he nevertheless hands over the potion to Grobbik.

"I suppose it will have to do."  Loke sighs.  "Though I told you I am not sure this will work, we will give it a shot.  Drop the stone entirely in the liquid, it will need to be submerged.  Then simply drink."  Loke pauses a moment before he adds.  "I would probably sit down before that however."

His expectation rising, Grobbik stares at the phial and the thin, coppery mixture that resides within.  With one hand, he pops the powerstone from its chords and carefully places the stone above the phial, dropping the stone in when it is close enough not to splash.  The liquid releases a puff of steam and immediately turns from a bright orange red to a thick, dark green, like the fluid that might come from liquefying pine needles.  The mixture is rolling with a churning motion that Grobbik only realizes after a moment is boiling.

"Quickly."  Loke says the word with anticipation, his eyes glued upon the substance in Grobbik's hand.  "It will not keep long."

OOC:  Ok, we are back into Grobbik only at this point.  You are fully healed by Judoc's spell and it has been noted in your character sheet.  You are still exhausted as you haven't really had the opportunity to rest between the walk back and coming straight over to Loke's rooms.  The potion is complete, all that is left to do is drink it.  I figured I would leave that action to you though rather than fast forwarding through it.

Grobbik is nervous about the potion as he looks at it in his hand. After all this work to get a magic item, he hadn't really thought about what the potion would be like. While his brain wants to spend more time considering all the angles, like what it will taste like, his body has other ideas. With little more than a second or two to look at the potion, he's quaffed the potion and it's down his gullet.

Grobbik does not take the time to sit as he is offered, in fact he barely looks at the potion before drinking the whole phial, drowning out his second thoughts.  Though the liquid boils in the cup, it is cool to the touch and it continues its churning in his mouth but slides easily down his throat with no inconvenience.

The potion works its magic quickly.  Grobbik barely has time to consider, as he dropped the phial from his lips, he never had felt the powerstone at the bottom of the cup.  All around him, the world begins to darken, like thick black molasses dripping down from the top of his vision.  Loke still watches, though the man's figure blurs into a dark black halo, only his eyes holding their color like shining blue sapphires.  It is only moments before Grobbik feels himself falling...

---

It is by feeling that Grobbik comes to wakefulness.  The cold hard ground beneath him presses uncomfortably into his cheekbone and hip, though his muscles do not bear the soreness of a long sleep in an awkward position.  Fluttering his eyelids, Grobbik pushes himself upward to a kneel, and as he does his breath catches in his chest.

For it is at this moment that Grobbik realizes that there is no floor.  Not that it is too dark to see anything, for his hands and wrist stand out clearly in their normal color, his leather jacket contrasting easily in its hard brown.  Rather, the ground (for surely there was something there or else what was supporting his weight?) seemed to simply continue on in an infinite, inky blackness of nothing.  Grobbik moves to a stand and finds all his other surroundings nearly the same, there is simply nothing to see nor any any light seemingly to see it by.  Grobbik simply was in a place that decidedly was not.

Turning about on the spot, Grobbik puts his hands out in front of him, walking as if blind in the first direction that comes to him.

Grobbik does not have long to wait, for it only takes but a few steps before his hands hit some other invisible something in the blackness.  Grobbik moves his hands in ever widening circles, trying to determine exactly what he has come across but it seems, just as the floor, it is just a flat surface that goes on beyond his reach in all directions...  Pressing his face closer, Grobbik stares into the emptiness, trying to grasp for more information.  But in truth, Grobbik feels the answer long before he sees it.

Slowly, the wall comes into focus.  Diagonal streaks of the clearest blue ripple across the solid surface, stretching upward and to each side as far as he can see.  Though the wall is translucent, it seems so thick that he can see nothing behind it or even within.  Though his fingers have been on the surface, prodding it scientifically for the past several moments, only now does he feel the cold.  Grobbik is certain beyond a doubt that this wall is entirely made of ice.

Grobbik opened his eyes to a dream.  It was a place of nothingness, of blackness.  As if the cares and stress of the world around him were gone.  He didn't have to worry about classes, or magic, or anything.  He didn't have to eat here, or drink here.  He didn't want for anything.  Somehow, after all the stresses, and after everything he had pushed himself through the last few days...  Surely the nothingness should feel comforting.

And yet, it didn't.  Grobbik still had the memories of approaching the provost of the college, and he still remembered the fear he felt trying to navigate that conversation.  The interaction was stressful as a beginning point, and terrifying at it's worst.  Fighting for his life in the arena didn't elicit any better reaction either.  The memory of that event was electric in a sense, as his heart started pumping, and his hands got clammy.  Or, they should be at least, because the action was fast and furious.

As the memories of his last few days floated through him, Grobbik wondered what this nothingness was really about.  Why would the magical phial bring him here?  Did he need an escape from all of his fears?  What was he supposed to learn from being in this state?  Brother Loke said it would help him, but as he felt around, somehow he just felt confined.  And that it seemed was the point.  In a moment of introspective insight, that's where it came to him.

Ice...  It was protection.  Grobbik was safe here.  Nothing could get to him through this wall.  After all the risks he had taken, and after all his fears were revealed to be true, he wanted a safe place to exist.  It made perfect sense that he would be brought to a place like this.  Just like he controlled the magic of water, the ice would solidify itself at his bidding to protect him.

Except, that coin had two sides.  While the ice protected him, it also enclosed him.  Grobbik was in a sense trapped by the very magic that protected him.  He felt the subtle ripples of the smooth ice around him, and wondered how far it went on for.  How long it would be until the cold started to gnaw at his exposed hands and ears?

As much as the water magic was comforting to him, it was also a trap.  Grobbik would always be in second place until he could find a way past this ice.  As a mage he could do enough magic to be useful, but not enough to really be valuable.  Others could make food and cook it, all he could do was wash the dishes or maybe put out the camp fire.  In a sense, he was living a half life as a mage, and in a way he knew it.  Maybe that was why he had pushed himself so hard to seek out this moment.

As his moment of introspection led to motivation, Grobbik wasn't sure how he should proceed.  The most obvious choice, given that he was surrounded in ice, was to try and melt it.  However, he wasn't at all comfortable trying to generate heat.  That sort of reckless effort could end up in the kind of fiery inferno he still dreamed about from time to time when he was sleeping.  That memory made him shudder for a moment, as he pictured the explosion in his mind.  No, that wasn't the way to go.

Instead, Grobbik closes his eyes and tries to envision the magic around him like water.  How many times had he closed his eyes in the ocean and felt the current carry him along for a few seconds?  Maybe he could feel something like that here, in this place.  Maybe the mana around him could carry him away like the current had in days gone past.  In this place, maybe that was possible, when he hadn't been able to do it before.

Quietly, silently, Grobbik tries to reach out with his feelings, with the hope that he will feel something...  Anything...


OOC Tried to fill in what I think he would do here, it's a bit of a vacuum so I envisioned him reliving the recent high points and then the horrible explosion he experienced as a kid.  Seemed appropriate to be introspective when all he had to do was think.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:21, Tue 20 June 2017.

To Grobbik, this dream, for he did not have a better word for it, was a perfect symbol of the duality of his condition: a competent mage, yet utterly crippled - standing in an impenetrable fortress that was to be his prison.  Grobbik knew that if he was to be free, if he was to become unconstrained by the shackles of his magic he would have to make his way through this wall...  His thoughts immediately go to melting the thing away, though his heart shudders with fear at the possibilities of what would happen if the act went well, let alone awry.  Shaking himself, Grobbik instead reaches out for the mana, attempting to feel the answer from the air around him.

At first when Grobbik reaches out with his mind he is shocked to find that he can feel nothing!  There is not even a trace of the magical fibers he has taken for granted since he began at the college over a year ago.  Refusing to give up, Grobbik closes his eyes, willing himself to feel it, like the flow of the ocean, like a great current which carried even the monstrous hulls of the three masted Men of War across the seas in leaps and bounds.

Yes.  Grobbik thinks to himself.  Now he can feel it.  The gentle ebb across his body that pushes him slightly to the side.  The subtle pull of pressure in his opposite shoulder as the water swirled into eddies created by the flow.  Grobbik breathes in slowly and deeply, opening his eyes to scry at the problem again.

Then he panics.

Water.  Not magic.  It was all around him.  The wall of ice stands as immutable as ever just in front of him.  However, everywhere else, where the nothing had been, is now engulfed by the clearest crystal blue water.  His breath catching in a cough, Grobbik sends a spurt of bubbles rippling upward, he feels the pressure forming about his ears and face.  Though he seems to be still standing on some sort of bottom, there is still no visual evidence of it, rather the water seems to go downward forever.  Likewise, above him Grobbik cannot see any light refracting off the ripples of the surface, just the translucent blue carrying on as his bubbles rise up in a seeming infinity.

OOC:  Thanks for the awesome post, you are spot on where I was hoping you would go with it.  Sorry for the perhaps overdramatic flair here but I've always been one to get to the point and I saw an avenue in your post and exploited the hell out of it.  Here's what I need from you.  First roll vs. Will labeled Hold breath.  If you pass this roll you can assume that you managed to keep from breathing in water.  If you fail, please make another roll against HT.  After that point, you are free to act as you see appropriate, you may attempt to swim to the surface (make a roll vs. swimming or HT-4), cast spells (Normal spell roll, if you must talk for your ritual then it will have a -2 for being underwater), or anything else you can think of.  Anything in this last category will likely have a skill or will roll associated with it as well, so if you are coming up with your own solution roll vs. the appropriate skill or if nothing seems to apply, label it ???.

As his eyes open and Grobbik finds that he is surrounded by water, he gasps in surprise.  Unfortunately, he gets water into his mouth instead of air, so his gasp unceremoniously turns into a sputter instead.  Instantly Grobbik's reaction is to panic, and his eyes get large for a split second.  Then he regains his composure and clamps his mouth closed.

As the bubbles float above him, Grobbik takes note that they never seem to reach the surface.  That was telling to him.  The place where he existed in the moment seemed to be a construct of his mind.  He thought of the mana as water, and suddenly he was surrounded by the fluid.  It was as if his containment was entirely submerged.  In a sense Grobbik had more mana than he could use, and he was drowning in it.

Perhaps that was his problem.  Grobbik had always thought of mana in terms of waves, like the water of the ocean.  It made sense when you considered his experience as a sailor.  Plus, Grobbik had a natural affinity to water in general.  It protected him from the fire that frightened him so.  That inherent comfort level was the very trap he had created for himself.  Unless he ventured beyond those shores, Grobbik knew he would never advance beyond his current limitations.  On an instinctive level he knew that he couldn't use water magic to try and save himself.

Impulsively, Grobbik considers fire as a possible solution to his problem.  The explosion he saw as a child would certainly break him out of this prison.  JEss, it terrified him to do it, but how much damage could a fireball really do submerged in water?  Latching on to the idea, without much thought for his safety, Grobbik starts to envision the fire coming from his hands.

That's as far as he gets.  In a sense Grobbik has grown, because he can even consider the possibility of someday wielding fire.  However, the picture in his mind's eye shows him just how far he has to go.  The poor goblin blanches at the imagined picture in his mind.  The bile raises in his throat, and his fists clench as the panic starts to overtake him.

It's only because of his training at school that he is able to regain control of himself again.  Slowly Grobbic concentrates on relaxing each muscle, one by one.  He had been taught the drill many years ago when he started training with his knives.  The goblin finds the relief almost palpable as he slowly regains control of himself.  Thankfully, he had some experience holding his breath as a sailor, and he was quite fit when compared to the average person.  Grobbik was at least somewhat prepared for this challenge.

That still left the question of how he would deal with drowning.  Grobbik already knew that he couldn't use the Water college to attempt his escape.  That was in a sense his whole problem.  Swimming seemed useless too, if there was no surface to the water.  What Grobbik needed was a different solution.  Something that he could concentrate on to extract himself from this predicament.

Suddenly, in a moment of insight, an answer comes to him.  His last class had been in the WEATHER college.  He just recently learned the Current spell.  The treatment of Weather spells was slightly different than Water spells.  Maybe he could reproduce something similar and use that to find a way out of his prison.

Grobbik closes his eyes, and tries to envision himself in the middle of a storm.  He would be standing on the ice, breathing in air, with a heavy rain falling.  It had to be that way because of his affinity to water.  But then, maybe he could picture a lightning bold streaking down from the sky to strike his prison.  He had seen plenty of terrible storms while sailing at sea.  It shouldn't be that hard to picture in his mind...

Finding himself submersed in water, Grobbik is so surprised that he coughs and splutters sending his last breath in a flurry of bubbles upward.  Luckily, he is able to keep himself from breathing in again, but his lungs yearn to expand to regain the air that they have so quickly lost.

Grobbik thinks first of fire, the surest thing to get him out of this predicament, but even the thought is enough to make Grobbik's body reel in terror, unintentionally sucking in a mouthful of water and quickly coughing it back out in a spasm.  Grobbik's lungs are already beginning to burn, his diaphragm flexing in and out in short bursts in preparation of taking his next breath, although Grobbik manages to keep himself from inhaling from sheer will.

Instead, the goblin closes his eyes, attempting to change his environs yet again.  He envisions a hundred different storms that he had seen out on the waters, willing himself to be there...  A flash of light hits the back of Grobbik's eyes, and he opens them to see the water above him soaked in dazzling white light.  But a few moments later, he can hear the crack of thunder, dulled in volume but intensified in effect by the water.  He feels the noise with his whole body hitting him like a percussion wave at his shoulders and chest...

Though it seems that Grobbik's storm has come, it has done nothing to save him from his current danger, and Grobbik's lungs begin to burn like they are on fire.

OOC:  You are down 4 fatigue (from full) due to the exertion and extended time holding your breath.  You will continue to lose fatigue at 1 per second until you pass out.  The same options are available to you as above, or anything else that you can think of that you might help.

Grobbik can't think of another way out of his icy box.  Any thought of fire was likely to cause him more panic, so he couldn't melt his way out.  His affinity with water made rock more difficult, so that option was out.  It had to be the air and the water, since he knew the sea and the storms.  It was his best option.  Grobbik was sure he somehow needed to use magic to escape this prison, and that was all he could think of.  His school did specialize in the elemental after all, and it's what he had learned in his studies.

Closing his eyes, Grobbik again focuses on the storm.  It was already here.  He just needs to change how it works.  Instead of the magic waves of water surrounding him, Grobbik envisions the mana around him as the wind of the storm.  Instead of the water creating the storm, he wanted the wind to carry the rain drops.  The wind had to be his vision of the mana now.

That was the secret.  Grobbik couldn't be limited by thinking of magic as the ripples on the water.  Mana was not limited to one elemental form.  It was all of them.  And many more things too.  That flow he felt when casting a spell wasn't water, it was mana.  It could be air just as easily, which was the point of his exercise.  He needed to separate the vision of water in his mind from the flow of magic.  Hell, it could be the flow of electricity just as easily as water or air.  It wasn't the form of the mana that was important.  It didn't matter how you felt it.  What mattered was the flow, and it could be from any source.

As he fights within his own mind for control of his magical affinity, Grobbik is struck for a moment by the absurdity of it all.  Here he was drowning in a creation of his own mind, as he finds him trapped by a subconscious creation of his own mind.  He was probably a fool to think he could control his thoughts.  His impulsive behavior over the course of this long process proved he needed more mental discipline.  His mind was often times elusive and difficult to corral.  Horses could be trained, however.  This process made him think guiding his own mind was more like herding cats.

The levity of the thought pattern causes Grobbik to smile inwardly.  In fact, the silliness of the situation brings him to the point of opening his mouth to express a laugh, imaginary water be damned.

Sure that the way to beating this mental prison was to master his own thoughts, Grobbik wrestles his mind towards submission, forcing forcing himself to dwell on the mana, now as the wind whipping him in the face with stinging rain.  The mana, he thought over and over again, though the next several times his thoughts changed persistently, imagining the mana as the rush of air, the crackle of lightening...  Soon his thoughts descend into the wrangling of horses and the absurdity of herding cats.  He laughs, having never really concentrated on anything, and swallows a lungful of water through his nose and mouth.

His diaphragm convulses with spasms like hiccups... His eyes and ears pop with pressure as grey spots appear all over his vision.  Though the moment would be horrifying, Grobbik can only help but think, I wonder why this water isn't salty?  What kind of sea is this anyway?  Or perhaps Grobbik simply hadn't imagined it right...

For the briefest of moments, Grobbik becomes aware of a duality of time and space.  His body floating, drowning in the rippling current and waves in a sea of his own creation and his body aching from a full day's walking, beaten and exhausted from a failed fight in the arena - only whole due to Judoc's ministrations.

But that moment is fleeting, and at first Grobbik is confused when a hand grasps around his wrist and pulls his arm, paining his shoulder as the rotator is leveraged out of place for the briefest of moments.  And then, Grobbik is all in once place again, vomiting the whole contents of his stomach onto the wooden floorboards below.  His whole body sways with sideways forces as he rocks back and forth on his hands and knees like a drunkard.

Grobbik's vision slowly spreads back out from the small pinprick at the center of his gaze until he can make out the shallow walls around him, and the whitecaps of brine that splatter over the sides.

Overhead, lightening rips through the sky and thunder roars down immediately after.  As if in collusion, an enormous wave hits them broadside at near the same moment, knocking Grobbik off his base as his body is wracked with several gallons of the imaginary sea.  The blackness of the clouds overhead is overwhelming like the worst storms Grobbik has seen in his sailing days.  But still, to his side several feet from the boat, Grobbik sees the wall of ice climbing to the skies and into the clouds above.

"You disgust me."  The voice comes from behind Grobbik, and though he is enormously thankful to whatever saved him from the seas, he is struck by how empty and resentful the voice sounds.  Lifting his head, he is even more surprised to find that the voice speaking to him is his own exact replica.  A Grobbik in perhaps everything but name.  Still, Grobbik himself, as he clamors back to his knees looks at the sneer on the features of this other goblin, the hate and revulsion in his eyes, and cannot help but wonder how he had created this moment in his mind, and what this goblin told him about himself.

"You are presented with an obstacle in one direction, and you make it your prison.  Not content with being confined, you create your own hell, and pretend it is in the name of freeing yourself of a burden...  One that you have created of your own will!"  The goblin spits.

Grobbik thinks to rise to his feet, although the swaying of their small craft and the continual purge of his stomach and lungs keeps him deckbound for the moment.

"You are presented with a wall of ice, and only feed it with more water, and then with storms that each weaken you all the more!  You do not even wish to begone of your weakness!  It comforts you, your skill only with the water college.  It assures you that you will never be asked to conjure such magic as you fear!  You wish to be ignorant!"  The goblin turns about in rage putting his back towards Grobbik and his face towards the storm.

"This is what you choose instead of knowledge!  You choose fear and desolation rather than power because you do not wish to wield it!"  The goblin turns back around on Grobbik, his eyes boring into him with hatred and disgust.  "You are weak!"

OOC:  You can imagine yourself on a 40' sailing vessel with the mainsail and jib pulled down.  You are essentially just bobbing freely in the current, and the waves are hitting you breech which makes for an extremely wild ride.  If you wish to stand up, you must roll against DX per turn to keep your feet.  If you fail that roll, you must roll against DX (at +2 if you grab onto something before you stand) one more time to keep hold onto something as you lose your footing or fall back into the seas.  Bizzaro Grobbik is standing at the bow of the ship about 4 yards away from you and seemingly unphased by the storm and the waves.  You are now at a total of 3 FP left, which puts you at half move, dodge, and ST.

Grobbik wipes his sleeve across his mouth to clear the rest of the puke and spittle away.  Maybe this was all an image in his head, but it still felt real.  He acted just like he would in real life, because this was as real as anything for the moment.  It felt real, and his had really almost drowned, so for the moment he saw no reason to act as if it was some sort of fantastic realm.

As he gathers himself, the pseudo Grobbik tells him how wretched and stupid he is.  The words don't carry the intended weight, because Grobbik knows they are false.  Yes, he had a weak spot in his heart because something horrible happened to him as a child.  It was frustrating to work around, and there was a time he had hated himself.  However, he had long ago forgiven himself for those thoughts.  A bad experience didn't make him weak.  Grobbik was a survivor.  He had come a long way carrying such a mental wound, when many would have long ago given up on it.

As the boat crashes in the sea, Grobbik crawls to the side of the boat where the waves are hitting it, and grabs onto the side.  As he stands up, Grobbik responds to his doppelganger, as he makes his way towards the tiller.

"Am I inside the prison trying to escape, or am I outside the prison, locked away from the rest of my magical ability?  It matters not how you think about it.  The ice wall matters.  I built it, and I need to conquer it.  It doesn't matter how.  I just know that to be the challenge.

Maybe imagining mana like it was water didn't help, but it was all I could think of at the time.  When all you can do is Water spells they don't ask you to sit in on the fire seminars.  I'm working on something different now, and as you can see I have conjured up a beautiful storm.  Maybe it isn't perfect, but it's a start.  It's better than where I was a few minutes ago, because I can feel the wind, and the electricity in the air has my arm hairs on end.

You can sail around here listlessly all you want.  I can see your boat is going nowhere because you're stuck in your resentment and hatred.  I personally have somewhere else to be.  You can help me, you can stand against me, or you can stand up there all haughty and do nothing.  You're part of me, and the fact is I will struggle to do this on my own.  But that's your choice.  I'm not willing to sit out here and drown when this boat finally turns over.

Are you going to help me or what?"

OOC Grobbik could probably calm the storm, but leaving it seems appropriate to the war within him.  And, it's a nice back drop.  Plus I have plans for it.

Grobbik will stand up, holding on to the wall of the boat as tightly as he can.  He's going to make his way to the tiller and turn this boat into the ice wall.  Sailing he can do, at least decently.

Grobbik raises from his sickened position, wiping his mouth off with a sleeve as he grasps the toprail and works himself back to the tiller, all the while roundly arguing off his simacrulum's ire and ill wishes.

All the while the goblin listens intently, his smile tweaking upwards just perceptibly at the corners of his mouth.  It is only as Grobbik turns the ship to put the bow into the waves that the goblin responds to his words.

"My boat?  My resentment and hatred?"  Though the goblin laughs, the sound is hollow and mirthless.  "What do you think that I am?  In this prison of your mind where you control everything you think I am your adversary, plotted by some villain unknown to you?  Think of this wall of ice as inhibiting your escape or guarding some treasure, it makes no difference to me.  It simply matters that you have made it stand and that you have chosen it to be your obstacle.  Do not be confused and think that your way is blocked at all turns, for you could just as easily sail off into the unknown darkness.  It is the same with me.  You call this my boat, but it is here because you saw in your mind's eye a vessel being tossed about the storm.  You think I am unfair to you, but I am only the thoughts that you fear to listen to in your own voice.  Everything is here because you will it; you have set your stage, and so far have only succeeded in attempting to drown yourself on it.  So you ask if I will help you?  I will help you only as you help yourself, only as you forgive yourself.  If you seek information from me, know that you will only be searching your own mind.  If you seek to defeat this wall, then it comes only by mastering yourself...  It does not require fire, or lightening, storms or acts of the gods, only a moment of honesty."

The ship finally sailing into the waves, Grobbik slowly edges his way towards the wall of ice, until the brow thunks against the monstrosity just aft on the starboard side...

OOC:  Roll vs. Will.

Grobbik has had some time to gather himself and think about his approach after almost drowning.  As his boat nudges up against the wall of ice, Grobbik moves to put his hand on it, feeling it's coldness on his hand.  Closing his eyes, he tries to envision sunny skies in all directions...as in the boat sailing along with no ice wall in it's way.

His twin was speaking the truth.  The wall was here because some part of his brain wanted it to be there.  The trick to removing the blockade was within his mind.  Down deep inside of him was the cynical, angry, wounded image that stood in front of him.  That mass of ugliness was a part of him, and perhaps it unconsciously spawned that angry storm that almost drowned him.

Accepting that bitter pill was the first step towards reconciling the hurt within him.  Perhaps that should start with the peace and calm of a sedate ocean.  Without the storm and the wall to worry about, perhaps Grobbik could start to address the other half of his persona, the one he had so comfortably compartmentalized away from his daily life.

As the bow of his little sailing vessel rubs against the ice wall in the heavy seas that he has created, Grobbik pulls himself against the top rail, placing a single hand against the obstruction, feeling the very chill that he knows that he himself has created.   Closing his eyes, he concentrates on that feeling, slowly forcing into his consciousness sunshine all about him.

There is no cold.  He thinks, and the icy chill on his hand fades into a hard and slick wetness as his fingers relinquish their discomfort.

There is no storm.  The ship slows it's movement, the pitching of the deck decreasing in interval and intensity until he barely feels the deck below him moving at all.

There is no wall.  Grobbik's hand falls from it's resting place as he tips over precariously, his eyes fluttering open to catch his balance.

But it is not on a ship that Grobbik wakes.

Flat on his back, his whole being exhausted from an impossible day, Grobbik looks up only to see the face of Brother Loke looking down at him.  In his half dreaming state, Grobbik can barely put the pieces together of where he is and what he is doing there but slowly his memory returns to him.  Unsmiling, Loke looks down at Grobbik with mild interest before simply stating, "Your aura has changed."

OOC:  Thanks for humoring me in a foray into Grobbik's mind.  For all intents and purposes, this thread is over but if you have conversation or questions for Loke feel free to continue as you see fit.  If you do want to continue it, I'll take you walking out the door as the last post in the thread.  Please do note that the powerstone you borrowed from Judoc was destroyed in the elixir and he expects you to pay him back.

Grobbik doesn't answer Brother Loke as he lays on the floor in a puddle.  Instead he just moans a bit.  His eyes hurt at the bright light in the room, and he blinks a couple times as tears run down his cheeks.  Most of his body seemed to hurt, and it took him what seemed like a long time to adjust to reality again.

After his eyes adjust, Grobbik sits up, and then clambers unsteadily to his feet.  He had been through so much over the last couple days.  All he wanted to do was sleep for as long as his body would let him.  Sluggishly he looks over at Brother Loke, and says "Thank you" before he shuffles out of the room towards his quarters.


OOC That was a really challenging thread, although not in a bad way.  It just took a lot of thought and a lot of deeper role play to understand the most appropriate choice in a few of those situations. 
This message was last edited by the player at 22:40, Wed 05 July 2017.