nysalogs | ❪ mini-event ❫ OLYMPIA QUESTS: 1

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❪ mini-event ❫ OLYMPIA QUESTS: 1

It isn’t easy starting life in a new place. It quickly becomes apparent that you are in dire need of two very important things: money and a good name. In addition to full-time jobs, certain people in Olympia will reward handsomely for helping them with tasks. Submit any AC eligible thread of participating in this log's prompts for One (1) Olympia REP point HERE. Threads involving your flora/fauna submission may also be submitted, even if your submission is not made official game canon.

FOR THE RECORD

It’s time to put on your hiking shoes. Characters will be approached by both Evras and Lysa at separate times. Both individuals are interested in recording species of plants and animals-- El Nysa is bursting with all sorts of life, after all! It is impossible to chronicle all of it without help. You will be provided with a journal to chronicle your findings. Each submission pays 100 silver.

OOC: We need YOUR help in worldbuilding the area in and around Olympia and The Outlook! Create a creature or plant and submit it HERE by August 31st at 11:59 PM EST. ONE entry per character only. NOTE: If you have accepted a job at The Sanctuary or Simwe Institute, you MUST submit your entry to your boss to maintain your position. You may assume a character got the job if they established contact, even if an official offer hasn't been extended yet. Although an entry will net you TWO (2) Olympia REP points no matter what, we will be choosing a maximum of 20 entries to include in the official bestiary for future encounters.

THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

Along with the request to record traits of a certain specimen, Evras and Lysa independently ask for more quick favors. Certain species, due to their unique natures, aren’t as prone to procreating as one would hope. They need your help. The directions for these requests, provided by Evras or Lysa, are simple. You will be provided a small amount of heavy aphrodisiacs (and a mask) to spray in a particular region. Because the natural aphrodisiacs of the island run a bit thin there, the wildlife has been less... willing to comply. Each species you help will net you 50 silver. Three species in particular are in need of a little help.

Note: There will be a mask provided. Forgetting it may mean you start to feel some of the effects yourself. You may also be immune. Please put appropriate warnings in threads if applicable.

Xlarix, also commonly referred to as the love bug. Found in MURKWELL HOLLOW.

They have an ability to release literal positive energy, making those exposed to it more willing to be friendly and jovial with another. Even the most heated rivals can easily become the closest companions. You may even be tempted to temporarily abandon the request and do something fun with your new best friend. Unfortunately, while many have desired to use its effects in diplomacy, its effects only last a few minutes at best.

Despite their powers to assist others in bridging emotional gaps, they are vicious insects. During mating, they engage in battle, normally losing the lives of both parties before their spawn is even properly produced. This is why they need a little help. Try to break up the fights as much as you can. For the Xlarix, being in each other's presence for long enough will eventually get them to calm down and continue the process. You may get unlucky in the process and end up with an extremely painful sting that requires healing, however. The pain increases with time, and if you allow it to go untreated for more than a day, it will be excruciating, enough that it may be debilitating, for 12 hours before eventually healing on its own.

Sepht, found in EDRATHE RUINS: Both shy and antisocial, it’s no wonder these little marsupials don’t have much luck in the mating department. They prefer to live in isolation, and are much more concerned with hoarding everything they can get their hands on. This includes stealing anything you may have brought with you. As a warning, they are incredibly strong. They can also fly, so good luck catching them after they’ve made off with your stuff. Let’s hope you can get back that magical sword or enchanted necklace of yours.

Once you have sprayed the chemical in their habitat, do not stick around the area. Despite being more suggestible to mate now, they are shy to the core, and will not come out of hiding until they are sure the coast is clear.

Cinjaw, found JUST OUTSIDE OLYMPIA. Domestic animals kept by local farmers in the outskirts of Olympia. These guys are just really, really lazy. Too lazy to care about things like passing on their genes. Honestly, if it weren’t for the efforts of humans and the fact that their meat is too delicious for the Olympians to allow these creatures to go extinct, they would have been wiped out years ago.

Stay too long near the herd, and you will begin to feel extremely lethargic yourself. Nothing sounds better than using the person next to you as a pillow for your nap, or dropping everything you’re doing to go sleep in that hay. Hopefully someone finds you and is kind enough to wake you up. After spraying the aphrodisiac, you won’t want to stick around. They are loud: loud enough to damage hearing without proper ear protection (Now you know why those farmers walk around with ear plugs).

HELP A NEIGHBOR

Being new is tough in any given neighborhood. This is especially the case when you’re a newly arrived refugee. Though you’ve been welcomed here, you haven’t established a lot of trust in the community. Your neighbors don’t know a single thing about you, and that name tag fiasco doesn’t count.

Fortunately for all of you, the rule of this game is simple. There is no monetary payment, but isn't it priceless to feel good about being a good samaritan?

Make yourself helpful. Did you neighbor mention wanting to take their pet chicken out on a walk? Offer to do it for them and they may pay you back in a meal or a small gift. Did one of them mention needing help with rearranging their collection of thousands of cat figurines? Well, who better than to ask but you! You over there, why not help your fellow refugee by doing this task together? It never hurt to do some teamwork. Or maybe your roommate is the one taking that chicken out on a walk, and you’re just ready to judge. Complete judgment. But hey, that’s fair.

BLOOD BANK

CW: Needles, Blood

One of the things that quickly becomes apparent about life in Olympia is that all citizens are welcome, including those who may possess unique dietary requirements. The Blood Bank is an institution that has stood proudly for many years, and in addition to providing meals for some of its citizens, the supply is invaluable for care in The Sanctuary, research in Simwe Institute, and for use in certain types of magic.

They're offering you a special today, for your blood in particular! You just look so... healthy and able-bodied. Donate a few pints, and you'll earn an easy 200 silver. Unfortunately, the center is so busy today that they've had to call on volunteers, and depending on who you've met so far, your particular volunteer may look familiar. It's... another refugee. Wait, are they even qualified?! How did they even get roped into this?!

Qualified or not, the job pays well for both the refugees donating, and the ones drawing the blood (much more for whoever's donating, though. Fair is fair.). A blood drawing set inclusive of clean needles, antiseptic swabs and a blood storage kit, will be provided. Sticking a needle into a vein isn't as easy as those people in the Sanctuary make it seem, though. You may not always get it the first time, so try, try again!

And if you still can't hit the bulls-eye? A rogue-looking Olympian "volunteer" approaches and hands you a knife. Apparently, cutting right into the vein and collecting the blood in a saucer also works; the staff would only need to sterilize the blood with a spell afterward. And about the gaping wound you'd cause? They always have healing potions on hand for when things go wrong (but just like the potions from before, they have been known to cause some nausea).

You'll do anything to help your fellow Olympian, right?

OOC

There are a total of 3 OLYMPIA REP POINTS possible to earn in this log. 2 from OOCly submitting a flora/fauna above in For the Record, and 1 for submitting any AC-length thread for any of these prompts. You may do one or the other, or both. Submit a flora/fauna HERE and submit an AC-eligible thread HERE by AUGUST 31st 11:59 PM EST.

The results of The Birds and the Bees will be submitted to whoever you submit a flora/fauna entry to. If you do not submit a flora/fauna entry, submission to either one may be handwaved.

In the event of CAPTCHA, we will be providing an overflow. In the event of a second CAPTCHA, players are advised to move threads to an overflow post on their character journals. These threads remain eligible for AC, AC Rewards, and REP.

1 SILVER = 1 US DOLLAR.

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Wine bathing? Bit of a waste of grapes. [He chuckles, because he is just so funny, and shakes the last few drops out of the cup. Now he has an empty cup... maybe water will work better...?

But, ah-] It was magic. Technically, I only wanted it to look different.

We are in agreement at that. Still, money tends to make fools of the best people. There was a certain Countess in [Oops, nevermind, have to keep the Masquerade in public] --well, back home-- who would bathe in milk with rose petals added. She claimed it preserved her beauty.

[But look at you, already starting to open up about this! It's adorable. Not that he knows about the secret-keeping. But he does nod in that way that people do when the point suddenly becomes clear.]

Ah, an illusion, then. That makes more sense.

[Milk with rose petals... Merlin gives him a look, like that's not quite the strangest thing he's ever heard, but it's up there. Sure, he genuinely lives with an old fashioned apothecary, but they're still calling it a physician's practice but even so, milk? Drink it, make some cheese. Anything.

Merlin realizes he is thinking too much about milk and shrugs, apparently unbothered about talking about magic today. It's been a long month.]

Just has to hold for long enough for me to get my hands on 200 silver. Perhaps they'll learn something from it when they try using it in a tincture for who knows what.

[That's totally okay, they can share a mutual Look at the strange ways of rich people. What a waste of milk.

The last earns a genuine laugh and shakes his head. Oh man, that's actually a little evil. He might just approve.]

Something tells me that might get you in trouble, my friend. Surely there's a butcher somewhere around here, yes?

[There's nothing evil about a perfectly reasonable little scam. No one's getting hurt!]

Only if they can prove it was me. [A butcher... he frowns.] I think I like my idea more.

[Look, butcheries are gross. He's a baby.]

[He shrugs. They'd probably know it was pigs blood anyway, and that would end up worse. Watch them label all of these donations, too, just to spite all us con artists.]

As you like. Perhaps there's some alchemical way to do so? I honestly wouldn't know.

If I had a spellbook, I could... [He shakes his head; even if he found a viable book in that library of theirs, they'd probably be done down here by the time he found the correct spell.]

Well, guessing hasn't worked yet, but it has to pay off eventually. How else does anything get learned?

[Merlin, really? The look he gives is just a tad incredulous, but mostly just amused. "Honey, no" indeed.] Through study? Apprenticeship?

No—in the first place. You don't think someone woke up one day and suddenly knew the properties of every herb in the world, do you?

[Merlin is that guy at parties who gets drunk and starts asking people what the first cow who ever got milked must have thought. He thinks this is practical, but then, he did have to teach himself how to use magic properly by guessing... so.]

Are you implying you're the first? [There's that amusement again.

Actually no, that's a...legitmiate thought. The laughter fades from his face and now he's just looking up at Merlin, studying him.]

Wait, are you?

[He's the first doofus trying to turn orange juice into fake blood, that's for sure... He can only look down at Zevran with a mildly puzzled look on his face, uh-]

First what, exactly? I'm the last of a few things, but first...

[Congrats, you managed to throw him. But it doesn't seem like he's judging, at least?]

How does one learn to be a mage where you're from? I'd assumed- [Breaking off for a moment, he had a "duh" for a second there.] -Well, Circles probably aren't a thing outside of my home, but I'd thought perhaps a family member or... [He trails off.]

You have me feeling rather curious, now.

[Oh, this. First of all, that terminology is silly—] A sorcerer, you mean? Carefully, and in secret.

[That said, absolutely nothing he just heard made sense to him, so he'd rather hear about that than explain his own, uh, backstory, which is quite simple:] I've always had magic. I was born with it. Gaius—he's something like a guardian—gave me a book to study, but I could do magic before I could walk.

[But hey, that's boring? Magic is the only thing in the world he couldn't bear to live without and it probably shows, buuuut,] How does it work where you're from?

[A shrug.] Semantics, my friend.

And that doesn't sound too different from the way apostates learn. Still, [And he glances around here since they're still standing off to the side of a street, where anyone could be listening in on this.] perhaps we should retire elsewhere? Perhaps where one might get a pitcher of water with which to experiment.

[He's never heard "apostate" before but it sounds dumb, sorcerer is the best possible word. But, ah, yes-] A tavern, perhaps?

[This is sort of a joke... Who goes to a tavern and orders a pitcher of water? But still, he's obligingly turning to move off in some direction. Something else occurs to him as he does, and he gives Zevran a sideways look, curious—]

You don't have magic. [He remembers this!!] And yet you're talking about it so... [here, he wiggles his fingers, which definitely means something] freely.

[No one here has tried to condemn him yet for sorcery, but that in and of itself is something of a constant wonder.]

[Yeah, that's a direction, but not the right one, so Zevran reaches out and pinches Merlin's sleeve and directs him a different way. Over here, Slim.]

Why should I not? It's a common enough thing where I'm from, and you've not been accosted for it here, I assume.

[Oh, alright, he'll turn around and go that way instead. Don't ask him how many times he's gotten lost in this city, it's a lot bigger than Camelot.]

Old habits, you know. Camelot does not boast an open mind. [He shrugs, trying to keep the odd touch of melancholy out of his expression. It's so nice not to live in constant mortal fear, but at the same time, why couldn't he have had that at home, too?] Tell me more about those Circles.

[Honey, how have you survived. They're not more than a minute or two from a tavern which shouldn't be too crowded this time of day. And if it is crowded, they're not more than a block away from another one. That's the funny thing about taverns: you're always within walking distance of one. That probably says something about the state of man.]

Circles are something akin to schools of magic. They're centers of training and study. There are several Circles in every country--or, at least the countries that recognise the Chantry.

[Something in his tone might giveaway that he doesn't entirely approve?]

Most mages spend nearly their entire lives in their Circle, surrounded by like individuals.

[Listen, he's clever when he wants to be. He's just more than a little clumsy and easily turned around, uh, directionally speaking. To wit, he all but trips over himself in excitement at the thought of magic schools.]

Schools, really? That's incredible—I've got a book I have to keep under the floorboards, I can't imagine a whole school. [But wait, hold on, that list part sounded incredibly stupid? His excitement falters.] What's the point of not going out into the world?

[It's starting to sound like at least one side of this Circle thing is engaging in some good old magical discrimination...]

[His lips thin, and while he's not entirely without his characteristic humor, it's more a wry sort.]

That's where it gets complicated, as it usually does when there's religion involved.

[The breeze changes direction then, and a familiar scent wafts past. Zevran glances toward a different building, this one much closer than the tavern, and he glances up at Merlin as the thought strikes. He also points to the building, for emphasis.]

Merlin, do they have coffee in Camelot?

Ah. [That's all he can say with limited details, but he thinks of those who take magic and the Old Religion and warp it into darker purposes and he thinks he can piece together where things might get complicated if everyone with magic is holed up in the same place.]

Coffee...? Not unless they've been calling it something else. [But he's never seen a cafe before this city and he doesn't seem to recognize the scent of coffee, so - please, introduce Merlin to caffeine. Please.]

[This is going to be so entertaining. Apparently, Zev thinks so too because he grins again and strides off with determination, waving Merlin to follow him.]

Come then! This is something you really must try.

[There's also a selection of delightful pastries if Merlin should desire. Inside, it's a good deal dimmer than on the street, but if Merlin follows that patch of blond, he should be good. Just in case, Zevran keeps one hand near his sleeve. Mind the tables, Merlin, till your eyes adjust.

Zevran slides into a booth on one side of an empty corner table, and directs Merlin to the other. While they wait for the waitstaff, he'll start to explain, tone conversational but voice lowered. They are indoors after all.]

Where to start...You'll forgive me, I hope, 'tis a bit of a long story. Circle mages are kept in one place so that the Templars can keep an eye on them. It's not as bad as it sounds! It's just that mages have a habit of getting possessed by demons every now and again.

[Except that is every bit as bad as it sounds and worse. Then the waiter walks up, and his attention is on the other man.]

Yes, two black coffees, please, and some cream. Oh, and a pitcher of water if you will? No ice. Thank you.

[Getting him coffee is a much better idea than getting him drunk, so this plan - besides the caffeine - is a great one. He follows Zevran the rest of the way there and only bumps his hip against, like, two tables on the way to the empty table in the corner. It's a nice little cafe, so he can't help but looking around with curious interest while he listens to this long story. It's not very long, right now? Hmm.]

That's—oh- [He doesn't have to order? Okay? So he'll just nod and look friendly at the waiter until the man leaves. There he goes.] I think that's exactly as bad as it sounds in more or less every way. Just having magic doesn't make someone dangerous.

[Well yeah, I mean, Zevran figures he wouldn't know what to order anyway, and it's best to start off slowly. Once the waiter leaves, he leans in on the table a little bit; all the better to have a quiet conversation about the whole magic mess.]

Actually, it does. At least, in Thedas. [Sorry to be the one to tell you that, Merls.] Not only do mages have the power to rain destruction on their enemies with the elements, they are the only people who can consciously cross into the Fade. And since the Fade is where all magic and all demons come from, and demons desire to possess mortals...[He spreads his hands at that, trailing off in a sort of 'ipso facto' argument. Merlin can see where that leads.]

Especially considering that they are ever at the mercy of their own sleeping minds, and demons are very, very adept in tempting mortals. Even mages.

So, theoretically, even the most pacifist healer is an inherently dangerous individual--ah, thank you. [This is said with a smile to the waiter, who returns with two cups, the cream, and a pitcher of water. The man smiles back, nods and walks back off. Zevran turns back to Merlin.] At least, so the Chantry says. And that's not even getting into the Malificarum, the blood mages.

The honey is here, and this is the sugar.

[The last is said as he turns the glass sugar dispenser so that Merlin will look at it. Then he picks up the honey.]

[Here's the thing: it's like Merlin has already forgotten the whole cozy cafe, waiting for refreshments thing, because the moment Zevran says that yes, magic makes you dangerous, he starts shaking his head and looking disapproving. It's as if he doesn't actually care what the rest of this explanation is, and he's only letting Zevran finish out of politeness before he launches into his crusade for magic—it's like that because it's exactly what he's doing.

It's fine that he isn't familiar with the magic of this other world, necessary - Fade, Chantry, blood mages - all those terms he doesn't understand don't actually matter to him once keeping everyone magically inclined holed up in a schoolhouse somewhere is pretty firmly established. He blinks in surprise at the return of the waiter, as if perhaps he already forgot about this coffee thing.]

The—ah. [Yeah, okay, he can hardily dump too much sugar into his coffee as he speaks. He didn't even taste it but it smells like he won't like it without some liberal sweetening, so here he goes.]

No. No, that's ridiculous. That's like saying that a child who talks to a stranger is dangerous so we ought to lock up all the children until they're of age—that isn't— [He stops with a frustrated noise, now furiously stirring the coffee. Ugh.] Any man can be dangerous, frankly, so unless your Chantry is locking up the whole world based on something that might happen, I think they're all a bunch of cabbageheads.

[Which he could be more venomous about, but they are in public. He looks down at his coffee, still frowning.] It isn't the magic that has done anything wrong.

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