Bad Day with Durand

[89157Z]

Bad Day with Durand

 

You're having a bad day. You slept poorly. Then when you gathered your stuff for your first class, you discovered several glaring errors in your homework and had to scramble to fix them. The teachers were unusually snappish, Prudence Cossins nearly slugged you just for trying to say "Hi Prudence!", and then your friends had no time to sit and eat lunch with you. You even spotted Lambert Colo watching you for some reason. He went away after you noticed him but left you with the disconcerting feeling that he'd been watching for a while. What was he up to?

 

Then a few hours later you're just minding your own business and going between classes when suddenly out of nowhere comes some spell that hits you and sends you sprawling to the ground. Then you get up and crash to the ground again. It's some kind of stumbling curse! Vincent Warrender rushes over apologetically, words tumbling out as he tries to explain that he was just telling his friends about a duelling spell and he never meant to hit you with it and he'll take it right off of you and...

 

And he does. The spell is gone. You get up, but you've completely forgotten about getting to class on time and are furious. It doesn't even matter that you're right out in public. You could slug him right now. Err, you wouldn't actually punch him, would you?

 

Exit 1:- Yes, you would.

Success:- He doesn't even notice you balling up your fists, so he's taken completely by surprise when you haul off and hit him. And that's as far as it goes, because his friends catch up right then and separate you two. They start by pulling you off, then one of them grabs Vincent when he shouts something at you ('knave'?) and starts to pull out a glove to make a duel challenge. He ends up shouting at them instead and you dash off towards class during the confusion.

 

That was actually satisfying!

(Reduce Vincent Warrender's vitality by 1, reduce relationship with Vincent Warrender by 1, reduce Vincent Warrender's relationship with a random student he likes by 1, increase Brute Strength one skill step.)

 

Failure:- No failure.

 

 

Exit 2:- Duel. Challenge him right here.

Success:- No, you wouldn't just punch him. That would be crude. What you would do is tell him you want a duel. Right here, right now. And you make several suggestions. You make them very angrily yet oh so very formally. When you use the phrases 'quietus' and 'au mouchoir', Vincent blanches, which is a pretty reasonable reaction given that you just proposed to tie him to you with a very short rope and then beat him until he stops moving.

 

He makes up some feeble excuse and flees the scene. You are gracious enough to not laugh at him until he's long gone. The best part is that most of the students wouldn't even have known what you were talking about (and indeed his friends are confused at why Vincent left). That threat would only ever have worked on Vincent.

(1 skill step each in character study and innuendo. Reduce relationship with Vincent Warrender by 1.)

 

Failure:- No, you wouldn't just punch him. That would be crude. What you would do is tell him you want a duel. Right here, right now. Vincent's mood whiplashes. A normal person would still be apologetic, but Vincent's all about duelling, so you can tell he's having trouble figuring out how to respond to this. Finally he stammers something about that being indeed a very appropriate response to such an insult. He asks you what terms the duel should be fought under.

 

Since you don't know, he makes several suggestions. And then several more, and he ends up explaining many of the terms, and finally you snap at him and tell him to come back to the present. Whereupon he points out that there can't be a duel right here, you haven't even got a second. Which just gets your blood up. That wasn't the point!

 

You end up yelling at each other for a while about duelling, and finally you stalk off with the disconcerting sensation that you actually learned something.

(1 skill step in duel conduct, 1 skill step in random duel subskill, +1 stress)

 

 

Exit 3:- Ambush. Sucker punch him.

Success:- "It's okay," you say, "I get it. It was an honest mistake." You touch his shoulder lightly and he flinches, looking at your hand. Then you hit him hard in the gut with the other while he's distracted. By the time his friends have rushed over, you've already started walking away. His friends shout a few insults after you as they help him up.

 

That was actually satisfying!

(Not sure what effects this should have, but probably pretty similar to the 'just punch him' results.)

 

Failure:- "It's okay," you say, "I get it. It was an honest mistake." You touch his shoulder lightly and he flinches, looking at your hand. Then you hit him hard in the gut with the other while he's distracted. Only you don't catch him quite as off-guard as you wanted to, and although you get an 'oof' out of him, you don't drive the breath from him.

 

Instead he tackles you. Then his friends join in. The fight only breaks up when someone else fetches a professor, who doesn't care who started it or what happened, and gives out detentions all around.

(Detentions and hurt feelings all around, vitality loss, etc.)

 

Exit 4:- Temperance. Just let it go.

Success:- You take a deep breath, and then another, letting the anger drain out of you. "It's okay," you say to Vincent, touching him on the shoulder. He flinches as if he'd been expecting you to hit him instead of just touch him. You say, "I get it. It was an honest mistake. Just be more careful." You smile at him and even ask him to show you the spell.

 

He laughs uncomfortably and says he's worried that if he hit anyone else they wouldn't be as forgiving! You don't learn the spell, but at least your even temper made an impression.

(1 skill step in Temperance. Relationship with Vincent Warrender increased by 1.)

 

Failure:- You take a deep breath and try to let go of the anger. It doesn't work, but you're not willing to actually hit him, so you just storm away without a word.

(Nothing happens?)

 

Investigation 1:- Awareness. Are there any teachers nearby?

Success:- There are other students here, but no teachers in sight, and none of the students you see are known for being gossips or tattletales. Lambert Colo seems to have stayed away too. You're not likely to get in trouble for what you do, as long as it doesn't turn into some big brawl.

(Temporarily increases Ambush and Duel)

 

Failure:- There are other students here, but no teachers in sight. You wish you could remember more about these students. Are any of them likely to tell the teachers about what happens here? You wonder if Lambert Colo is hiding nearby. You don't see him, but it took you a while to notice earlier, too...

(Temporarily reduces Ambush)

 

Investigation 2:- Ethics. What is the virtuous thing to do?

Success:- It's pretty obvious what the virtuous action is. Forgive Vincent and let it go. Knowing what the right thing to do is and actually doing it are still different things of course, but knowing that forgiveness is right will make it that much easier.

(Temporarily increases Temperance)

 

Failure:- You are too steamed to think about virtue. For better or for worse, you're at the whims of your own personality here.

(No effect)

 

 

 

 

This event shouldn't happen for Durand students (I'm trying to stir a sense of a little intercollege rivalry). It shouldn't happen for students who have zero stress, and it shouldn't happen during weekends or holidays. Suggested stat-skill combos are Charm+Duel, Finesse+Ambush, Charm+Temperance, Insight+Awareness, and Insight+Ethics. I've no clue what the difficulties should be on any of these and leave that up to more insightful minds than mine. Part of my motivation was that I wanted to write a more 'bully' event that would let rough students get a chance to express that aspect of their character's personality. Self-righteous Durand seemed a good target for that too. (Don't get me wrong, I approve of Durand's sense of ethics, I just mean that a rough character is less likely to like them.)

[Legate of Mineta]

89157Z;

 

Awesome! I think we may just be able to squeeze this one in for DLC 4!

[89157Z]

Thanks! It's actually kind of hard to think of events that let players act out. I'm a relatively nice, pacifistic person myself.

[Adrian]

It is a quite a nice event! Well, nice may be the wrong word for it, but I quite like the idea that for once that you just get to deck someone.

 

Ps. I'd sucker punch him!