BJ's adventure on 7/20/30

["B.J. Austin" <jedi@ecn.purdue.edu>]

**This is long.  Get a nice warm drink before you sit down and read
this.**


Hook: A wealthy, out-of-town merchant is looking to acclimate his business
to Rougtero.  Duties will include investigation and protection of business
interests.  Please meet at 7pm at the Spectural Meteor.

*Oddly enough, the merchant made it to the meeting without being mugged.*


In the meeting, the merchant explained that he was wanting to open an
office in Rougtero for his imports/exports business.  After some
questioning by the party, the business man, who identified himself as
Haton, asked for some detailed knowledge about the town.  The party then
spent the next hour and a half (in real- and game-time) describing various
aspects of the town.  Included were: estimated population; regional
landscape and features; items/businesses of note; a lenghty discussion on
the bars; size, location and estimated populations of temples; and a map
showing general districts and features.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a completely unrelated matter, I will submit a Rougtero write-up to the
GMs in a couple of weeks. :)
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The party met with Haton for dinner the following night.  Each party
member was introduced to and fell victim to a powerful binary
toxin/sedative.  I made two checks to determine each party members
reaction to it. The first was 2D6 vs. HEA to make sure that the person had
no dire physical effects from the sedative and the second was 5D6 vs. HEA
to see if the person was able to fight off the effects and stay awake.
Everyone made the first check but failed the second.

Once asleep, the party was quietly moved, stripped, placed in robes, and
drained of all spell units.  The tables that the party memebers were
strapped to were technology "acquired" from the Priests of Tarus and have
significant telepathic enhancement.  

Each person was then struck with a stick of effect Flame Dreams (finesses
twice for range to the fire) with the circumstances dictated to be nearly
similiar to how the adventurers described the area the night before - the
only change was how the party's spells affected each other and the
employers. I figured, with the time compression in dreams, that one real
world minute is worth 10 dream world minutes.  Each person was re-touched
with the stick every real world minute to make sure they stayed in the
dream (keep the duration from expiring) and to adjust the circumstances of
the dream as necessary.  Each person had a Share Vision cast upon them so
the observers could observe.

With the amnesic(sp) effects of the sedative, the party didn't recall even
falling asleep during the dinner.  The first part of the dream/simulation
was to test their abilities and resourcefulness by giving them the simple
task of talking out some thugs. The party accomplished this rather easily.  

The next step was to test their resolve and devotion by increasing the
stakes.  Haton offered each party member a significant amount of
wealth/power/magic to place a small (yet very destructive) device within
the walls of the Solarium.  Some got up and left immediately while others
stayed and listened.  About ten minutes after the others left, a white
pill was given to the people still talking to Haton and were told to
swallow it as they began to feel their airways constricting.  The others
weren't quiet as fortunate but it was a lot of fun to watch.  Eventually,
everyone except for S'Lar (who had an Isis spell thrown upon him) was
taken back and given the white pill.  The party went through quiet a bit
of trying to figure out what to do - I would have liked to have given them
more time with this.  As it turns out, enough of the party was conspiring
against the employers to make the bribery-type of approach to be
practical. It showed the observers that the party was willing to lay there
lives on the line even through many of them had limited ties to the Temple
of Ra.  The simulation seemed to be completed when Father Warrick tried
Divine Wording the employers.

The party "awoke" (really still in the simulation to test their reaction
to the simulation - eh, who am I kidding? I just wanted to screw with them
some more) to find themselves in the middle of cold room (with
the faint smell of smoke - forgot to mention that, opps).  They were then
released from the tables and told that they had to submit to a memory
wipe before they would be let go.  Some resisted, others egarly insisted.
Eventually, everyone was hit with the Forget spell finessed to make it a
day lost.  

The party then found themselves _actually_ waking up from the sedative
induced sleep.  Before they were released from the tables, they were each
hit with two Forget spells, given some lame excuse as to why they were
there and let go with their stuff.

**The post got to be real lenghty so I nix most of it.  If you feel the
need to have more specifics, let me know and we can discuss specifics.**

BJ