Usurper: Claim to Power (The God in the Well)

Okay, then.  Time to take this system for a spin.  I've got a little hamlet with a problem, and Sukeribi right there in the middle of it.  Let's find out what happens.

While travelling about, searching for resources, Sukeribi stayed a few nights in a tiny hamlet near the woods, named "Ranu".  The people were weird, but that's small towns for you.  Then, just as he was getting ready to leave, Sukeribi thought he heard a cry for help coming from the old well at the center of town.  Suddenly, a couple of the nearby villagers got really loud, and another came to talk to Sukeribi, drawing him away from the well.

"I thought that I heard a cry for help", Sukeribi explained.

"What?  From the well?  I'm sure that you're mistaken.  Sometimes the wind will whistle like that.  No worries.  I hope that you enjoyed your stay, sir?" the villager ranted suspiciously.

"I.. but... ", Sukeribi stammered.  Perhaps it was the wind.  Others nearby didn't seem to hear anything troubling, and even now several villagers stood looking into the well without signs of being worried.

Sukeribi shouldered his pack and followed the path out of town, but as he glanced behind him, he saw a crying woman being led into a building as she reached out a hand toward the well.  Something wasn't right.

***

Later that night, under the cover of darkness, Sukeribi returned to Ranu.  The hamlet's gate was closed for the night, and the only way in would be over the rough palisade walls.  Sneaking up to the side opposite the gate, Sukeribi wiped his hands on his robe, took a few paces back, and ran at the wall before leaping upon it!

This seems like the kind of thing that would require a test.  Grabbing d100, I just roll it.  There's no need for modifiers or anything.  The dice come up "84".  Checking the Action/Event table, that's "Action succeeds as expected".  Not super dramatic for you, Dear Reader, but it's what I, as a player, would hope for.  So, you know, he makes it over the wall unseen.

Sukeribi's fingers found purchase in the rough wood of the wall, and after waiting a moment to be sure that he wasn't heard, he continued up and over, dropping with reasonable grace to the ground on the other side.

"Wait, how dark is it?" I ask.  Maybe the moon's out.  Maybe it's not.  This isn't a matter of skill, so I roll on the Chance table, and get "47".  Unlucky!  I don't get what I was hoping for.

Just then, clouds moved overhead, and the moon's light, already dim in this phase, faded away into near total darkness.  The hamlet wasn't large, but Sukeribi wasn't very familiar with it, and finding his way to the well would be tricky.  He reached for the torches in his pack, but then thought better of it.  "Carrying around a flaming beacon is not the best way to remain hidden, Sukeribi," he thought to himself.

Another roll on the A/E table gives me "25: Failure to make progress.  Change approach, or improve odds to retry".  Well, turds.  I think for a minute, and then I have an idea.

After quite some time, Sukeribi realized that he had no idea where he was.  He was turned around and just couldn't see anything.  Sitting in the dark against the side of a hut, Sukeribi cursed his lack of planning.

"I just need to get my bearings," he thought.  "If I only had a candle, rather than a torch..."

Suddenly struck by an idea, he scrambled to his feet, feeling his way around the hut until he found the door.  Taking a deep breath, he pounded at it, and then quickly moved away.  A short time later, an elderly man opened the door holding a candle.  The flame wiggled only slightly in the still air, revealing the man, and some of the hut and a bit of the path.

"Hello?" the man called out.  "Sir," said he, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; but the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, that I scarce was sure I heard you."

Seeing nothing, the old man shuddered and said a small prayer as he closed and barred the door, sending the world once more into darkness.

Now, having some idea of where he was, Sukeribi closed his eyes on the night and called upon his keen memory to guide him to the well.

Ok, that earned me another try.  Also, I'm going to burn Sukeribi's "Keen Memory" Trait to roll twice and choose the better result.  I get "46" and "29".  The "29" is the same result I got last time.  The "46" is "Action barely succeeds".  So, I get what I want, but not all of it.  Man, I suck at this.

After far too long wandering the darkness, Sukeribi eventually found the well, although that's hardly an achievement considering the man standing beside it with a torch.  The man is robed, and kneeling at the well, head bowed, as if in prayer.

Sukeribi decided to wait the man out, but just then another cry was heard, definitely coming from the well!  The robed figure looked up briefly before returning, perhaps even more fervently, to his prayer.

"I don't have time for this!" the novice swordsman whispered before grabbing his training sword and dashing across the square toward the kneeling man.

Okay, so there's a "combat" table that can be rolled on for fights, but this is more of a sneak attack, and the guy isn't much of a threat, so I'm just rolling on the A/E table again. I'd hate to burn all of my Traits in the first scene, but I feel like this is something I want to get right the first time, so I burn "Novice Swordsman".  Rolls: "58" and "88".  The "58" isn't too bad, but the "88" is better.  "Succeeded as expected."

Before the man could look up, Sukeribi clubbed him in the head with the wooden training sword.  The man slumped to the ground, unconscious.  Sukeribi dragged him away behind a cart, and then returned to the well.  He picked up the man's torch and peered into the depths.  It seemed that there was a faint glow from the bottom.

"Hello?" he called quietly into the well.  Receiving no response, he secured the well's bucket rope, doused the torch, and descended.  "What are you doing, Sukeribi?" chided himself under his breath.

Reaching the bottom, he found that he could indeed see in the dim green glow that seemed to emanate from the water itself.  He made his way to the nearby "shore", his boots crunching as he went.  It was only on the shore that he could see that the crunching was from old bones, too small bones, that littered the ground.

"Not cool", Sukeribi muttered anachronistically.

He gathered his nerve and moved farther into the tunnel that snaked away from the pool of glowing water.  After a few turns, he saw what looked like a young boy, though thin and awkward.  "Wait!" he called out after the boy, but the boy ran away, disappearing  down a side passage.  Sukeribi gave chase, dashing through twisting caverns, not noticing the pit the boy had leaped until it was too late.

You see how this works.  Result: "34: No progress. If no time limit, can attempt again."  Hmm.

Sukeribi grunted as he fell short, hitting the edge of the pit hard and knocking the wind out of him.

Dude!  Climb!  Result: "73: Action succeeds as expected".

Sukeribi dragged himself over the edge of the pit and onto the wet floor of the tunnel.  Wiping himself off and retrieving his sword from where he had dropped it, Sukeribi continued down the tunnel toward the sound of quiet croaking.  He entered a cave, where there were six creatures.  Not children at all, these were weird frog-things.  They had large, bulging eyes, loose necks, wide mouths and webbed fingers.  Yet they had traces of hair on their heads, and their skin, though pale, seemed human.  Sukeribi gripped his training sword, and the monsters cowered.

"Where is the boy?!" Sukeribi demanded in his best Batman growl as he threatened with his wooden sword.  He didn't know that they would understand him, but it didn't hurt to try.

A/E result: "40: Barely succeeds"

"Tell me!" he yelled, and the things cowered even further, huddling together and croaking in quick, short gasps.  Were some of them crying?  One of the creatures began pointing and croaking unintelligibly.  Eventually frustrated, it drew a cross on the floor and circled one arm of it.

"So, near an intersection?" Sukeribi asked, and the thing clapped its webbed hands in confirmation.

Sukeribi considered what to do with these horrors, but he didn't have a proper weapon, and there were a lot of them, and they seemed to be pretty timid.  He carefully backed away, keeping his training sword pointed at them.  "You stay away, you hear?"

Sukeribi wanders a bit, finding several other "rooms" with hints that reveal the history of the well.  In exchange for sacrifices that get turned into frog-men, and then later eaten, the well's "god" enchants the water, granting heath and fertility to the people and the crops.  He also finds a rusty sword.  Eventually, he finds the intersection and approaches the connected chamber.

Sukeribi stepped through the opening to find a horrific sight!  A huge, bloated, frog-thing, larger than a wagon, dripped slime at the rear of the chamber.  Nearby, a larger frog-man stood over a pool of thick, glowing-green goo in which a young boy was completely submerged.

Before Sukeribi could say something to perhaps convince the frog-man to stand down, the frog-god belched an enormous croak, and Sukeribi could feel... "something" trying to crawl into his mind.  He shook it off, but by then the frog-man was already upon him, claws swinging.  Sukeribi desperately tried to fend the creature off.

Combat table!  This is messier.  Here goes.  My goal is simple to disable this frog-man so that I can rescue the boy.  I've used my "Desperate" Trait.  Results: "35" and "39".  Bah!  Same result!  "Unexpected events interrupt the battle."  Hmm.

Sukeribi threw the frog-man off of him, but before he could take more than a few swings, the sound of wet, slapping feet echoed through the entrance to the cave.  The smaller (younger?) frog-boys charged en masse  and threw themselves at the frog-god, clawing and croaking their fury.  The frog-god croaked its mind-bending croak, and the frog-boys fell off of it, stunned!

In the chaos, Sukeribi reached into the green goo and pulled the boy from the pool.  Throwing the child over his shoulders, he desperately ran as quickly as he could for the entrance, hoping that none would stop him.

Let's see, does he?  I consider burning a Conviction.  It's like a trait, but more powerful, and harder to recover.  Instead, I'm going to use my once-per-session "Inspired Moment" to recover "Desperate" and use that instead.  Let's hope it's worth it.  Result: "18" and "68".  Good enough!

Sukeribi ran up to the rope, expecting to feel claws on his back, but looked behind him to find nothing, though he could hear angry croaking and more slapping feet.  How was he going to get back up that rope carrying a child?

Then a voice called down to him from above.  The woman from before held a torch over the well, and was peering down.

"Quickly, tie the rope to him!  I can pull him up!"

Sukeribi did so, and waited far too long for her to slowly crank the boy to the top.  Once the boy was out, the bucket didn't come back down, and he feared that she had betrayed him, but she was just distracted by the boy.  She sent the bucket back down, and he climbed the rope out of the well, narrowly avoiding the claws of the frog-man, now covered in blood and gore, who had finally reached him.

Sukeribi and the woman and the boy escaped the town into the forest.  Now what?

***

Ok, so that's basically how this works.  My story was weird and poorly written, and I jumped to the end to keep you from getting (more) bored, but in play things would be much more fluid.  Still, you can basically see how this works.

Ĝis la revido!

C;E Jason "Ludanto" Smith