A halfling female with bright red hair is trotting along the streets of Sharn. She enters a shop and quickly begins picking erbs, buys them, and with purpose, heads off to a magic store, where she begins buying some arcane dust and a few other arcane things. It's obvious to the person who's been trailing her that this halfling is clearly getting what she needs for a ritual. But what ritual?

  Kyle is not a halfling.  He just uses the Mugshot of one for his Character Sheet and Avatar on a different board.  He has not been trailing the girl, however being in the same shop she just entered looking into ritual details himself, it's not to hard for him to peg 'shopping for components' as reasoning.

  While some deductive reasoning could narrow down at least general category of ritual, Kyle also knows how futile guessing what ritual from components alone can be unless it is one of those very specific rituals that requires a focus.  Considering you can use Residuum instead of any component (his preferred method.  Even if it does have it's own problems).

  "I'd ask if you needed help considering the apparent hurry, but you seem like you know exactly what you're doing."

The halfling ohs? and looks at Kyle. A smile forms on her face as she says, "The sentiment is appreciated. Thanks!" if Kyle were to guess general category based off the components, the ritual is part arcane, part nature and might have to do with traveling. Possibly planar. "How about you? Need any help?"

  Kyle Shrugs,  "Already bought what I came for, mostly just browsing for what I may consider future purchases.  Though if you had any particularly favored rituals with cheap needs and don't take an hour to case, the insight would be appreciated."

The halfling giggles from Kyle's suggestion and says, "Sure. But I'm guessing you know of at least most if not all of them. Animal Messenger is a popular one that's cheap and only takes 10 minutes."

  Kyle says, "Would you believe I don't have that one?  A lot of cheap rituals add up in the end, and I'm somewhat lacking in the desired skills for it.  Though I think I can probably spare a bit to go back for that one nowadays."  We can see it now, Epic level 30 Archmage!...  Still gets minimum results for 'nature check' Animal messenger.

The halfling says, "But that's what allies are for... Don'tchya have friends who are skilled with nature?" she gives him a curious look. "Or is this about stuff just for you not necessarily for adventuring parties? If so, I'd be more helpful if I knew what you *are* skilled in, heheh.."

 Kyle sighs, "One of the problems with rituals, is that only the one who has mastered and actually casts it has any real relevance to the results.  Someone wise and knowledgeable in Nature would at best, only slightly sway the effects."  Though while +2 is meh, +8 if the max allowed of four freaking nature specialists succeed in an aid-other at once wouldn't be too bad.

  "Arcane lore, as for most practitioners of magic, would be my specialty.  I am at least above average in healers arts though.  What of yourself?... Ah, yes.  I am Kyle, nice to meet you."  Intro get!

The halfling says, "Oh! Name's Emerald." she offers hand shaking. "As for my skills? Well, like you, I'm good with the arcane. Decent with history. I can be insightful at times too." she's a lot of other things, but saying you're skilled in acrobatics sounds like bragging and what thief admits they are good at stealing? And what ANYONE admits to being good at lying?

  Would admitting you are good at lying mean you are actually bad at it because you didn't lie, or mean you are really good at it because your saying so to make them think you are bad at it?

  Kyle makes with the pleasant handshakage.  On the off chance Emerald is a short fox in illusionary disguise, Kyle's wearing gloves and has generic perception, so he'd notice basically nothing ;D  "I think my insight is limited to stating the obvious, but that sort of thing has it's uses with a surprising frequency... Hmm."  He pretends to consult notes,  "was 'And it is obvious you are good looking' outdated, or is that still a valid compliment despite how generic it is?."

Emerald blushes. Her cheeks actually turn red. The point is, it isn't an illusion. ;) She actually is a shape-shifter, hence using changeling as the base (though her "original" form is fox look instead of Martian Manhunter look). "Heh... thanks. Is THAT why you initiated conversation with me? I'm a bit surprised... not to sound racist, but we just met and most races go straight for one of their own kind."

She taps her fingers together then says, "But to answer your questions, the compliment isn't outdated. And rituals that are cheap and take less than an hour to cast AND are arcane only include: Arcane Lock, Comprehend Language, Detect Secret Doors, Hallucinatory Item, Knock, Magic Mouth, Make Whole, Secret Page, Sending, Silence and Tenser’s Floating Disk are all arcane rituals that can be done in about 10 minutes. Eye of Alarm takes half an hour, so still less than an hour like you asked, but it's very cheap component cost for the level of Arcane know how it requires. I *highly* recommend Leomund’s Secret Chest, though, despite its relatively expensive cost because of it's utility. There are others, but... wanna make sure you're with me so far..."

She looks nervous, and fidgety, but somehow maintains a smooth, if somewhat speedy speech.

Somewhere near by, a convienant firey portal opens in the ground.  All sorts of nasty screamy noises can be heard, and if one were to look inside..  Well you don't want to know.  However a young girl is ejected from the portal, for lack of better verb, and lands nearby on her hands and knees.


"Ow...."  The girl stands up, as she brushes hair from her curved horns.  She adjusts her heavy, black scarf, one of the few things she wears aside from her pants, belt, boots, and gloves, unless you count the red markings on her.  She looks to the portal as it begins to shrink and shakes her fist at it.

"FINE!!  See if I send you any postcards ya big jerk!"

  "I'd like to think that I'm at least acceptably well traveled, if not really an example of worldly wisdom.  No slight to you that it was your shopping interests that got my attention more than the looks though." He replies.

  "Knock has saved crowbar time, and you can't call yourself a proper artificer without knowing Make whole.  Though I haven't gotten around to Secret chest yet though."  The fact it's a level six ritual may or may not have had something to do with it.

  Then a rather unfortunate hole opens up and another short girl is booted into the shopping experience (unless she is only here to loiter).  "uh, this may be a stupid question.  But are you okay?"

Speaking of artificers...  A young human teenager approaches.  "Need a shirt, miss?" he asks, offering his own while looking away with a blush.  Depending on how just how young she looks, of course.

(( Go team brown text artificers! ))

While the two humans and the halfling don't seem phased by Dessy's appearance, or the screams, or anything else about this turn of events, a shopper or two decide to discretely slip out of the shop. The shop keeper waves a hand and his shop door closes. "Ahem!" he clears his throat. "Is this some kind of prank, scaring off my customers like that?"

Emerald says, "Doubt she's pranking, sir." as she considers a number of ways to deal with this. She hasn't exactly made it a habit to visit the Abyss, and she hasn't fought many demons, but they are not to be underestimated. Emerald knows this well. "Try not to overwhelm her with questions..." Emerald warns. "At least until she gets reoriented."
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:43, Thu 21 July 2011.

"No worries," Jake says, "I'm an experienced artificer.  And from the looks of things, these others look like they can handle themselves too.  We'll take it from here."

Desdania blinks a moment as she looks around her.  So this is the humans' world?  Well Humans, elves, changlings, ect ect... "What manner of temple is this?"  She blinks at Jake and Kyle and hmms?  "I'm.. okay, I think.."  She looks more to Jake and the offered shirt, "Um, thanks, but.. my mother and father don't like me waering shirts.."  Well she isn't home any more.  Not that she understands this world's culture, yet.  She does accept the shirt and looks at it curiously.  As for how young, she appears to be in her young teens, roughly.

  Kyle discreetly starts closing his pack, once Jake makes his own clothing offer <.<  >.>  "Always nice to run into a fellow Artificier, though I have to say.  My studies have not exactly elaborated on if certain realms have things comparable to exposure to the sun."   does Fire resistance protect from Sunburn?  Not in Dark sun, but then, that's a special super Angry sun like in Mario.

Emerald says, "Your call, miss. This place you are in is not a temple. This is a place people go to get some magic things, such as components for rituals or enchanted wands. My name is Emerald. What's your name?"

(For reference, was of the mindset this is level 20 for Emerald. Not just yet epic level, but working on her epic destiny. Sunburn isn't caused by fire so much as the type of energy given off by the sun. Namely ultraviolet. So the only way to resist it is with that special Genasi race "Sun Soul" that gives the Dark Sun sun the middle finger.)

So yeah.  Blushing a lot.

"Ahem.  I'm sorry to hear that.  Around here it's universally accepted that a guy looking at a woman's naked chest is a very big no-no.  I would greatly appreciate it if you were to wear something over your chest while in the city at least.  If not for your own sake, then for the sake of the people of the city.

"Not sure what sun exposure has to do with the topic of Artificer."

(( As a reminder, nudity is not just a big deal for the character.  Also a HUGE deal for the player.

I'll make Jake about lvl 20 too, then.  And yay for rude gestures at angry fictional suns of much arg. ))

Desdania looks from the shirt to Jake and hmms?  "Is that so?  How strange.  Back home it's typically encouraged for girls to go like this at the very least.."  She hmms and tries to get the shirt on.  Depending on the style it may get caught on her horns in a comical manner.  If it's a button up shirt then it should be fine.

"I.. feel so naughty for doing this..  if my parents ever found out.."

  Kyle is glad he's already got his purchases out of the way, because this is definitly going to be taking up his attention now.  Unless 'ditch kicked to the material plane curb girl' suddenly becomes a tempting option.  "Speaking of which, where are your patents.  Do they know where you are, or would this be a bad thing for you if they did?"