‘Cause I’ve got a golden ticket; I’ve got a golden twinkle in my eye.
Session 10 – A Golden Ticket
Advice to the reader
In order to interpret the structure of my gaming session posts effectively, it is strongly suggested that you peruse A Readers Guide to Play Sessions on The Old Bard, if you haven’t already.
To better grasp what I mean when I bring up Fate questions, you might find it useful to keep the Mythic Fate Chart accessible, potentially in a new window or tab in your browser.
The Story So Far
The party has come to learn from the carnival’s soothsayer, Moody Cleves, that they can acquire a lifelong pass for the carnival that will allow them to return back to their homeland. They just need to find Blyris Bledstone once again.
Day 15 Continued – Scene 52
The party returns to Blyris’ office once again, but not too hopeful they will find him there. The man is certainly an enigmatic figure that can’t seem to stay put, but I guess being the leader of a carnival has its duties that pulls him in many directions.
ATPC: The Characters will once again try to determine if Blyris is in fact in his office by asking a Mythic Fate Question to determine that for us. Considering the last time we attempted, and he was not there, and seems to have moved off quickly once again to make preparations for moving the carnival, I'll say it's an Unlikely fact for the Fate Chart. Also, our Chaos Factor is at 7 now so our numbers are 13/65/94. 1d100 results in 37, so that's a yes!
The party enters his office and sees Blyris busy at his desk. Blyris looks up and spouts “Ah! The suckers have returned! I hope you’re enjoying the entertainment!”
Morn steps up and poses to Blyris “We’ve come to understand that you have Lifelong Passes that will allow us to return to our homeland.”
“Ah yes!” Blyris thunderously replies, “I have plenty I tell you! 30 platinum each!”
The party looks at one another in shock at hearing the high price.
“30 platinum!” Ulmog shouts, “that’s robbery I tell you!”
Blyris now stands, stares Ulmog in the eyes and replies “You accuse me of a thief?”
Morn motions Ulmog to keep at bay. “We have enough. Besides, we would be able to return should we like. I also feel there is opportunity here and I should like to return if everyone is agreeable.”
Thenelis shakes his head in agreement.
“Ah quite true my wise young friend. Opportunity abounds here.” Blyris replies to Morn.
Morn and Thenelis each give Blyris 90 platinum each. “This should cover 6 tickets.”
Cheng says to the party “This gift would be too much for us, I could never repay you.”
Morn replies, “No need for repayment. However, in time we might call upon you for help.”
Blyris reaches into his desk drawer and retrieves several gold laced tickets and hands them out to the party. They examine the tickets. Written on one side is “Blyris Bledstone’s Menagerie of Curiosities” with a single eye in the middle. On the other is side is simply one eye.
Blyris explains, “To use the tickets, if you wish to come back to the carnival, simply look at the front with the name. Stare into the eye and say the words, and you’ll be here in no time. When you’re ready to leave, flip the ticket over, stare into the eye and state where you wish to be. Keep in mind however, it only works to bring you here, and any other destination requires you to be here already.”
Ulmog looks at Morn and the rest of the party. “What are we waiting for then?” he states.
Blyris interrupts, “If I may be so bold, see our soothsayer Moody Cleves before you go. It wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of insight on what the future holds for you before you leave.”
Ulmog gasps and pronounces “Your kidding right? We just left him and I don’t quite believe in his abilities to tell us anything we don’t already know.”
Once again Morn tempers Ulmog.
Blyris responds “You get what you pay for. Besides, you might be surprised what an extra 5 silver will gain you.” And with that, Blyris quickly moves towards the tent opening and states “Well! I must be off, much to do! much to do!” and disappears once more into the crowds outside.
As the party begins to exit to head to return to the soothsayer, Thenelis notices that Cheng and Cisha are not following but holding hands and talking. “Coming?” Thenelis asks.
“No, I’m afraid not” Cheng replies. “My wife and I have had enough adventure for now. We would like to return home. Please forgive us for not coming along.”
Morn replies, “We understand. This isn’t the life for everyone. We bid you farewell and safe travels.”
With that, Chenga and Cisha stood together holding their golden lifelong tickets, with beaming smiles on their faces. They gazed at the tickets and as if in unison, they both said, “Home”. Suddenly, a magical golden light enveloped them and they vanished from sight. The others around them were left in awe and wonder as Chenga and Cisha had seemingly disappeared.
“I hope they made it” Mara says.
ATGM: I took a moment to remove a couple of items from the Adventure Lists. First, I removed "Rescue Chengs Wife" from the Threads List. I've also rmoved "Cheng Koos" from the Characters list, and in its place put "Soothsayer Moody". In reviewing, I notice I still have Crystal Ball there. I leave the entry but change it to Umbral Sphere since we now know what it is. Sort of. You've probably also noticed there is a quite a bit of narrative happening without any dice rolling. That, of course, is a personal choice. You should keep that in mind if you're doing any solo game playing yourself or even acting as a GM for a group. If you already have a good idea for where you want your story to head, you should just do it. It's your game. And then use something like Mythic when you want to circumvent your expectations. As we move along, you'll see plenty of "crunchy" dice rolling from me. However, I already had in mind many things that I wanted to happen to get my characters where I wanted them. I guess that's some of the benefit of playing with no one else. The players don't throw you off too much from where you're wanting the story to lead, but that's also how we're going to use Mythic to throw me off too! In this case however, I felt that the story of Cheng and his Wife was now over. It was time for them to leave, since they could, and return our focus purely back to the party at hand for the time being.
The party makes its way back to Moody Cleves tent and enters finding Moody at his table.
“Ah returned for your fortunes I see.”, Moody states.
“Yes”, Morn replies, “Blyris suggested we see you once more before we depart for home”.
“Certainly. 5 silver please.” Moody requests.
Morn hands Moody 40 silver, “This should be plenty for a thorough reading for all of us.”
“Ah I see,” replies Moody, “Then I shall do a reading for your party.” And with that, Moody pulls out an old, tattered tarot deck and begins drawing from it.
He draws the first card, the Six of Intelligence and says “You need to free your minds and lose your old ways of thinking.
Moody then draws the second card, The Magician and says, “And seek out a powerful sorcerer who will be a key to aiding you.”
On his next draw, he reveals the temperance card upside down. “Your journey will be met with hardship I see”.
Moody then lays down the Two of Strength, “Do not let these burdens and hardships remove you from seeking out the resolution to your quest.”
And finally, he draws the The Moon. “You must return to me after you have met with the sorcerer.”
The party looks at the cards shown before them.
“Where do we find this sorcerer?” Thenelis asks.
ATGM: I decide to roll on a couple of the Meaning Tables from Mythic to determine how Moody might explain where the sorcerer is. I flip to the Locations table on page 210 of Mythic (MGME2E). 1d100 results in 40. "Frantic", I roll another 1d100 and get 73 "Protection", nothing really comes to mind yet so one more 1d100 31 "Exclusive", Nothing yet, I flip to page 215 and roll on the Terrain Descriptors table. 1d100 give me 40 "Helpful", another 1d100 48 "Lovely". Something if vaguely forming in my mind. I turn to page 212 and roll on the Noble House table. 1d100 gives me 40 "Intrigue". Hmm, one more time on the same table gives me 26 "Enemies." I think I've got something.
Moody responds, “I do not know exactly where this sorcerer resides, but there is quite a lovely city I see north of Dreadmere. There you will find a lovely soul who would be helpful in aiding you to find the sorcerer should you provide protection against a common enemy.”
Ulmog states “I know of this city. I bet it’s those damned goblins from the west again!”
Morn speaks to the party “Let us head back to Dreadmere then and rest. We’ll head to this city early morning.”
The party all reflexively draw their lifelong passes, flip to the side of the single eye and then peer into each other’s eyes.
“Who first?” Mara asks.
Morn states, “I’ll go first. Remain here. If it works, I’ll should be able to return to you here”. He then says aloud “The Leering Eagle” and disappears.
The rest of the party patiently wait, turning to Moody as if asking him if he knows. Moody simply shrugs his shoulders.
After a few short minutes that seemed like ages, Morn runs into the soothsayers tent out of breath and grinning. “It worked! I was in the inn back in Dreadmere! I turned the ticket over and said the name of the carnival and was back at the ticket booth just outside and ran back here!”
Turning to Moody once more, he simply looks back and shrugs his shoulders once again.
“What are we waiting for then?” Ulmog says.
The party each stare on the opposite side of the ticket and state, “The Leering Eagle”, that is except for Ulmog who shouts “Home!” and the party vanishes.
Bookkeeping
We have to assume that the party is back in Dreadmere. Morn, Thenelis and Mara are surely at the Leering Eagle, but Ulmog. Oh Ulmog, where might he be!
Time to update our Adventure Lists. We did this a bit earlier, but There are a couple of things I know we need to add and remove. First, we’re going to fill in where we erased “Rescue Chengs Wife” and put “Seek out help from city north of Dreadmere” and I also erase “Acquire Lifelong Passes”. I don’t currently have the city north of Dreadmere setup yet, but I do have it on my area map. Time to utilize Spectacular Settlements once again!
I also update the “Sorcerer” entry I have on the Characters list as “Sorcerer (Carnival Massacre) as that was the spot for the Sorcerer who massacred everyone at the carnival long ago. I also add a new entry for this “new” sorcerer. For now, we just put Sorcerer providing aide. I’m not sure how yet, but when the party reaches the city north of Dreadmere, and whatever comes from that to help the party find this new sorcerer, I’d REALLY like to try to utilize Dangerous Destinations for that.
In my opinion this also ends Scene 52, Lifelong Pass. I add 53 to the scene number for the next scene, but not quite sure yet what to call the scene. I also feel the party was pretty much in control of this scene, so I’m going to bump down the Chaos Factor back to 6.
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my time tracker as well. So, I’m going to say it’s been about 4 hours from all the activity of arriving at the carnival, meeting with Blyris and the Soothsayer, etc. so I update it to 4PM on day 15. There also some other resource management things I need to do that I haven’t talked about yet, so I’ll be sure to do that in the next post.
Till next time!
Resources Used
- Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition (MGME2E)
- The Game Master’s Book of Non-Player Characters (GMBNPC).
- ChatGPT for generating a description of, and death of, the Wight, and Moody’s descriptions to the characters.
- Dungeons and Dragons Tarot Deck
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