Quick to Err(OOC, Closed)

[Ari]

OOC for this. Martin Brandtford and Jubatus accidentally end up in Terra Roma, and must return to both their own time and universe, a double barrier!

[Cubist]

Jube is checking out a cave to determine if it's suitable for his & Marty's purposes. Is the cave already inhabited, are there signs of prior use by pirates or cultists or whatever, etc etc etc. I'm thinking Take 20 on a Notice check, which (thanks to Jube's Quickness) will not take the kitty long to complete, and which works out to a 'roll' of 29.

[Ari]

Well, no way I'm arguing with a roll like that! The cave is obviously used intermittently to keep herd animals like sheep and goats sheltered, but doesn't look like it's been used for months. No pirates, djinn, or Carthaginians to be found, however, or anyone else.It's large, aired well, and has several smallish crannies whose ability to stymie the wind make them auitable for sleeping in. Won't exactly be comfortable, but there's way worse around.

[Ari]

On this next step on my quest to do stupid and terrible things, Martin will attempt to lever a 200lb. chunk of concrete with wires attached over the sand so that it can be got at without needing to be submerged. So this will be a DC 20 STR check to move it about ten feet: 18, barely misses it. So failed.

[Cubist]

Just did a bit of research on Sicily. It wouldn't surprise me if Arichamus has already dug up all the information I'm going to present here, but I'm posting it anyway, for my own reference...

M&J are on the "north-western edge of the fair island of Sicillia". Wikipedia's Atlas of Sicily has a number of helpful maps -- including one of Sicily's rivers -- which suggests we're on the shore of what would now be the province of Trapani, and we're not horribly far away from the river Belice destro. Kaurus mentioned taking a cart to "the port of Drepanon", which is an old name for the city of Trapani. The city of Syracuse is about as far from M&J as you can get and still be on the island; Mount Etna is pretty damn close to the opposite coast. Etna is, of course, a highly active volcano. If M&J end up visiting the eastern edge of Sicily, it wouldn't be horribly unlikely for them to have to deal with an eruption at the time.

[Cubist]

Well, my thinking is as follows:

1) Desalination is the principle method I assumed(yeah, the frequency with which I use that word bothers me too) M&J used to get drinkable water. After a struggle, they managed to get the chunk of concrete out of the water and into the cave in a process that took at least half a day to manage, previous to which they experimented with carving out small wooden containers to store the boiled water, which lack of suitable tools(Jay's speed notwithstanding, neither is suited for the science of woodcarving without tools)forced them to abandon. Now the corner of the pool serves as a distilled water holder for the water they take from ocean and boil in a pot made from one of Martin's SCUBA air-tanks laboriously cut in half.

Having actually given the question some nontrivial thought, I'm of the opinion that "collect rainwater" works better. Desalinization via boiling consumes wood that could be put to other uses, it takes extra time for the water to heat up to a boil, it requires somebody to watch over the fire to make sure it doesn't go out or catch onto something it shouldn't. Collecting rainwater basically runs itself; all you need is to check the catchbasin(s) every so often to see if they're full. And since we're in Ye Ancient Tymes, we don't need to worry about acid rain & such.

To collect rainwater, I'm thinking we need a relatively shallow, relatively wide, open framework which has a bunch of strategically-placed animal hides to catchraindrops and channel said drops towards our various catchbasins.

The framework we can build out of long, straight branches (from the neighboring trees) that we lash together with strips of uncured animal hide (from the game animals Jube catches for our dinners). Wet rawhide shrinks when it dries, so we soak the hide-strips in water (fresh or salt doesn't matter) before we use 'em to fasten the branches together.

The catchbasins, we could try pottery vessels. Carved wood vessels, hmm, I can see that not working, so fair enough. The only other alternative I can see (in the category of "stuff we make ourselves") would be waterskins, but since I don't see how we'd make the seams watertight, I won't recommend it.

1a) The uprooted paving stones thing was meant more to accent how the place had terrible roads if all it took to shake them up was a small storm.

Fair enough. I was misled by your use of the phrase "torrential storm"; storms are an extreme form of weather just because, and "torrential" suggests a particularly strong storm. Anywho, the fact that this storm could uproot any paving stones at all suggests that we're in the wetter part of the year, hence collecting rainwater should be a viable option.

...the plan is to get to a coastal city that hasn't heard of them, build up a reputation as a remakably good entertainment duo, get money to supply their needs of nutrition, hydration, shelter and transport to Syracusae, use one of those new steam engines to deliver power to the Channeler, and re-enact the event in the tank section to bring them back home.

Could be. I see you as the GM for this story, so I'll run with whatever you throw at me. That won't stop me from making suggestions, of course, as I think it's every player's inalienable right to feed suggestions to their GM. But if you blow off any/all of my suggestions, well, c'est la vie.

So... what happened in the two weeks we just skipped over?

Jube wants to get back home ASAP. In large part, his insistence on the 'ASAP' part is due to his belief that he's going to drop dead of old age in 2-3 years (he's wrong about that, but he won't know he's wrong for a while yet), so why should he spend any more of his limited time than necessary trapped in the dead past?

No, Jube isn't going to talk about his impending death. "Waste of time." He'd rather spend his remaining calendar-days making a difference for the better than agonizing over (what he believes to be) his inevitable fate.

Anyway: Since he thinks he's working against a real deadline, Jube will, by default, consistently favor plans which don't involve M&J tryna earn money, on the grounds that it's probably quicker for the Timeshifting cheetah to make whatever-it-is from scratch than for M&J to try extracting cash from local audiences. Jube won't be dogmatically committed to "let's do everything ourselves", however. He recognizes that there may well be things that would be so difficult and/or time-consuming for M&J to do, such that it really would be quicker or otherwise better to make money and buy whatever-it-is; he just won't start out with the presumption that buying whatever-it-is would be the best choice.

So I'm thinking that a reliable water-source would be the first thing Jube goes for. As described above, a hide-supporting framework made from wooden branches (thin, straight, strong) and fastened together with rawhide strips, all the requisite animal skins being sliced off of the carcasses of animals Jube catches for food (he'll use his claws for the slicing). We can use heavy rocks to make sure the thing doesn't blow away in a strong wind. Apart from anything else, this framework will be an excellent opportunity for Jube to practice his 'carpentry' skill, as it's a pretty good bet that he'll need to build some stuff later on (the generator, for instance), so best to get the dumbass 'newbie' errors out of the way on a project where such errors won't have any serious consequences. Hope hope hope.

In addition to the rain-gathering framework, Jube will also work on the water-containing vessels. Carved wooden vessels, pottery fired outside of a kiln, dig a holding pool for the water (underneath the framework, of course) & line it with loose stones, even try to make a decently leak-free waterskin, yada yada yada. For Jube, wrecking Marty's SCUBA tank is a last resort, to be contemplated only after all the alternatives prove themselves unworkable for whatever reason.

I dunno how long it'll take to get the water supply squared away, but it's vanishingly unlikely that working on this would take up all (or even a decently large chunk) of Jube's free time. So I'm thinking Jube would also spend some time working up a small-scale model of a generator, a 'proof of concept' that lets him practice and hone the relevant skills. Marty could use this for low-level tests of the Channeler; stuff like, say, opening up a small portal that lets him look at widely-separated locations on the island (i.e., using the Channeler as what amounts to a funky telescope). Plot-wise, such low-level tests would bolster Marty's confidence in the Channeler, and justify his using the thing in a way which causes Bad Problems later on...

Since M&J are 'on the road' with their act, it follows that they must have run into some sort of problem or setback or something that means they gotta buy stuff from the natives. Suggestions: The small-scale generator worked just fine; from the test-runs, M&J learned some stuff they'd need to do for the full-scale model, and that stuff requires parts & components they just can't make themselves. As for the water supply, the hide-plus-framework-plus-catchbasins thingie works, but it's not very good (too much maintenance needed, too much water lost from leaking catchbasins, etc etc etc), so M&J need the necessary parts (water vessels at minimum, possibly construction materials?) to make their water source reliable... or maybe they just buy barrels of water? That might be better; barrels are made of wood, which can be reused after M&J empty the barrels.

Thoughts?

[Cubist]

Afterthought: Even though M&J aren't likely to get access to Archimedes on their own account, it's still possible that M&J could chat with the guy. It depends on whether or not Archie's heard of M&J, and whether, based on what he's heard, he thinks M&J are interesting enough for him to look into. And it's a pretty good bet that Archie's student, Kauros, has mentioned M&J... including the fact that Jube is a talking cheetah... to the big guy. So story-wise, if we want to have Archimedes show up 'on camera', we've got a decent excuse to have Archie summon M&J to his presence at pretty much any time the plot might call for it.

[Cubist]

Before chatting with Brandtford, and every so often during the conversation, Jube will upshift to the max and zip outside to see if anybody is within eavesdropping distance of the conversation. Since this involves Jube's Quickness, the 'roll' is Take 20 on a Notice check, or 29. If Jube does detect any unwanted ears, well, we shall burn that bridge after we get to it...

---

Jube is inclined to agree with Brandtford that they're probably not going to collect money for their performances. Assuming Sicily is basically a barter economy, the obvious next move is for M&J to ask audiences to provide the stuff they need for their machinery -- copper wire and strong lodestones, primarily, but also oil/lubricants and some other stuff. Not sure how much wire, or how many lodestones, M&J are likely to get... but it can't hurt to ask, yes?

Archimedes is the 'wildcard' in this 'deck'. If all else fails, there's a darn good chance that Archie can supply everything we need. The question is, how do we persuade him to help us? I'll bet direct communication won't work, because M&J won't be able to make contact with the man (see also: Imperial resource, Governmental protection). However, if Archie hears about Jube and is curious to know more of this exotic beast with impossible speed, he might well get in touch with us! Should this occur, it's likely that 'get in touch' would take the form of Greek soldiers descending upon M&J and kinda insisting that the beast & barbarian come along peacefully...

If M&J ask their audiences for wire & lodestones as payment, that should have the secondary effect of making it more likely that Archimedes will hear about us and want to talk to us. It's a puzzle, and anybody with Archie's level of intelligence wants to solve puzzles, right?

Something else to consider: Mount Etna, a very active volcano with a nontrivial number of inhabitants in close proximity. If M&J choose to visit the Mount Etna region, it's not at all unlikely that they'll be present for a life-threatening eruption; in such a situation, Jube can do the hero thing (saving lives, moving rubble, yada yada yada), and perhaps Brandtford & the Channeler can do some good as well (your call, Arichamus; your NPC is the one with the Plot Deviceâ„¢, eh wot?). This would further shine the light of publicity on M&J, which, in turn, could give Archimedes more reason to want to talk to M&J.

[Ari]

I am gratified to say that the exact same thoughts about Archimedes crossed my mind. Yes, odds are he will want to..inspect M&J rather than assist them, seeing as in this point in time being able to move through what is seen as immutable as time was(is?)thought to be is considered "Totes impossible, yo!" by the learned of the period. Agreed as well about it being a good idea to ask for payment in materials needed.

Mt. Etna being on M&J's tour map is pretty much an inevtability. ;)

[Cubist]

As stated in the IC thread, the justification for playing tourist is to attract attention, hence boost the number of people in the audience for M&J's act, hence command a higher 'price'. Of course, there's a pretty good chance that M&J will cross paths with some of the criminals of the day -- cutpurses, pickpockets, etc -- and after Jube deals with whoever-it-is, that could throw more of a spotlight on M&J.

For large crowds, showing off Jube's speed is about as good as we can hope for, methinks. The "talking cat" and "dancing cat" options would work better when you can see it happen up close, hence those options call for a smaller audience, IMAO.

[Cubist]

"...won't be much to see them, depend on it!" is an odd turn of phrase; just hearing it in isolation, it's not clear what it could be referring to. Jube is going to zip outside and onto a roof (to eavesdrop on whoever said it, without their being at all likely to notice where he is). By the by, has Jube heard that person's voice before?

[Ari]

...Yeah, that's just plain awkward. I meant it to be an ironic thing where the jaded people of the city had no idea what Jay could do and don't expect much. I'll fix that, make it closer to something a human would say.

The speaker is just some guy from the crowd earlier, no-one Jay's heard clearly before.