Talking

Alice chuckles as we sit down in my ship: “So… a question I've asked about a thousand times at the table: ‘What do you do?’ ‘We’ now, though.”

“I'm feeling powerful, we could go and kick the King off his throne,” Brian suggests.

“He was backed by a wizard who makes simulacrums that can cast teleport,” Charles cringes, “which means the original can most likely cast ninth level spells. I'm less confident. Sure, our saves are good, but….”

“But there's lethal enough spells that don't have those, and even if he doesn't use those, rolling a natural one is a bit more meaningful when we can actually die,” I'm pretty safe from die rolls as long as I stay Mythic… but not everyone is, and I'm tied into the loop.

“We're going to have to deal with him eventually…” Brian purses his lips, “...but I would like to have overwhelming **** when it's time.”

“So sign up as adventurers?” Charles considers, “find a guild or whatever and take missions until we collect enough experience to kick the King and his backer to the curb?”

“I can use the money,” I smile, I have a project t

that needs it, which also works well for the overwhelming **** thing, so… “that works for me.”

Brian nods, “Sounds like a plan; any objections?”

Alice looks away a little, “So am I the only one who wants to just keep running away?”

Brian pauses, “We pretty much can't.” He takes a breath, “Okay, sure, technically, we can. But… the simulacrum had scrying; the real deal probably has the Greater version of that spell. Same goes for Teleport. Probably Gate, Plane Shift, and Planar Binding, too… and three of us count as Outsiders most of the time.”

“Which means if he knows his cheddar he could capture three of us at his leisure from inside a Magnificent Mansion spell,” Alice takes a slow breath, “Okay, yeah, we need to deal with that.”

Hmm… I have a Shaman Hex natively, that gives me the list and qualifies me for Extra Hex… I cast a spell quietly, “I can help with that a little; here…” I apply the Fortune hex to each of them. “A bit of luck for the rest of your lives; once a round, roll twice and take the better.” Just waiting on the Opportunity spell to make that better… “Just make a note to use it on saves only, and you're golden.”

“So that means orders of business would be… what,” Brian considers, “find a suitable guild of ‘do **** for a living’ by whatever name: Adventurers’ Guild, Fighter's Guild, Guardian's Guild, or whatever… and join them?”

“We should verify their legitimacy,” Charles considers, “their reputation, if they have conflicts with the rulers, if their rules are overly onerous, that kind of thing.”

“Frequency of work, too…” Alice chuckles, “...this doesn't play if we don't get blood on our hands on the regular.”

Brian and Charles frowns.

“Umm…” I begin.

The seemingly elvish woman laughs, “Okay, so… low level adventure: The local merchants have been having trouble with goblin raids, so the merchants’ guild posts a reward for whoever goes and cleans out the local goblin nest. Party takes it, heads over, kills all the goblins they find. No twists, no hidden secret info, everything is as stated. Anything off about it?”

“No…” I frown.

“Well,” Alice shakes her head, “...that's an ethics nightmare. The party is going through a village of intelligent beings, killing everyone, with no specific knowledge that the goblin in front of them is guilty of more than ‘defending their home’.”

“Goblins are evil…” Brian is frowning.

“Usually evil, yes,” the kitsune shrugs, "which means around a third of them are neutral or better, but ignoring that, about a third of humans are evil, too. Evil just requires being insensitive to others’ pain. The bartender that waters down drinks and still charges full price can be evil, it doesn't mean he's killed anybody.”

“So what… we just… shouldn't do it?” Charles seems confused.

Alice pauses, “This is basically a bronze or iron age society, modern morals just don't apply. As far as society's concerned…”

“As far as society's concerned in our starting city, anyone who's not human is a non-person,” Brian points out. He leaves unsaid ‘including us’.

That gives our old DM pause, “Fair. Okay, so… keep it to reasonably clear-cut things, then.”

Assuming we have decent pickings… “Cool,” I take a breath, “So let's all do our own research and check back in a couple hours?”

Everyone agrees, and we get to work….