"I find myself wondering why the person the parcel was delivered to didn't simply walk down the street and bring it to the correct home. There might, and there might not be, more to this than meets the eye." Iovia says before a thought hits her. "Also, while I hope this is not true, if the parcel contained food, given the amount of time that has passed, there may be no way at all to fix the mistake. The error was made weeks ago, after all."
She turns to Tzeniwe. "Perhaps the students who made the error should correct it. I am not saying this because of any lack of faith that we can do our best to correct this error. I am saying it because if we make a mistake like that today, I would want to apologize to the person that we accidentally wronged and make up for it. I would not want someone else to take on the responsibility to correct my error, I would want to correct it myself."
|
M'baba stays concentrated for most of the discussion. He's trying to put together the badly written addresses.
He is relieved that the letter addressed to them wasn't dangerous in any way, at least not directly. After listening to Iovia, he says "I think we shouldn't assume what the feelings of the previous students would be. As representatives from Magaambya Academy, we are as good as anyone here to correct this mistake. The most efficient path to success here is to correct the mistake and afterwards figure out who it was and inform them of what we did. If, for some reason, they do get angry over it, which would be an overreaction, then an appropriate response would be to say that if they cared this much, then they should have done correctly the first time. I, for one, would be happy to know that a mistake I did was corrected, especially if it's one I didn't know about."
M'Baba spends several minutes with each illegible letter, trying his best to sort out the terrible handwriting and unfortunate spelling. Iovia looks over his shoulder giving her best guess at some of the scribbles. Even when the pair figures one out, they have to start the ciphering all over again, as there is no consistency other than bad penmanship.
At the end of 30 minutes, M'Baba comes up with only one success. The rest of the letters are just too illegible to be deliverable.
"Try not to get too frustrated. Some people have poor penmanship. The task is to deliver what we can." Iovia tries to help with M'baba's frustration, though she may not succeed.
"That is what the elephant birds are for, no?" Za Minyahil says to Ikto.
When Ntuni reveals the last part of their task, their petals rustle. "Fixing the actual mistake should be pretty easy...soothing the anger resulting from that mistake is the hard part," they note.
He pats the elephant bird "Of course. How foolish of me."
"Try not to get too frustrated. Some people have poor penmanship. The task is to deliver what we can." Iovia tries to help with M'baba's frustration, though she may not succeed.
"And just because we've failed to decipher them, it doesn't mean others will as well. While we are delivering the ones we know where to, and look for the unusual addresses, we can also look for a librarian or scholar and ask him to try it as well."
Za Minyahil watches as M'Baba attempts to sus out the addresses that aren't legible but says nothing about the struggle, just nodding at Iovia's kind words. Now was not the time for harsh criticism...or more accurately, as they're discovering, the Magaambya wasn't the kind of school where harsh criticism "worked."
They gather the letters and parcels that at least are easily identifiable.
"Shall we split up to try and cover more deliveries? The more we get delivered quickly, the more time we have to figure out where the hard-to-deliver ones go."
Nyandra takes the letters that have descriptive address and begins wandering around Nantambu looking for anyone who knows these people or places. It takes a goodly amount of time, but you are not particularly time-limited on this task.
Despite spending nearly 30 minutes gathering information for each letter, Nyandra can only find the solution for one address, hearing from an old man at the market that it sounds like his cousin's place and the name appears similar. The rest she has no luck trying.
success
Za Minyahil watches as M'Baba attempts to sus out the addresses that aren't legible but says nothing about the struggle, just nodding at Iovia's kind words. Now was not the time for harsh criticism...or more accurately, as they're discovering, the Magaambya wasn't the kind of school where harsh criticism "worked."
They gather the letters and parcels that at least are easily identifiable.
"Shall we split up to try and cover more deliveries? The more we get delivered quickly, the more time we have to figure out where the hard-to-deliver ones go."
"I would suggest that we do not split up when we make deliveries. None of us are used to flying, and there may well be dangerous predators in the air. There is also the potential for danger on the ground when we make the deliveries. I think it would be wiser to stay together once we start the deliveries."
Writing is hard enough for Ikto, it is ..different styles for his people ,not that he can explain that.
"Let me know what the rest of you decide the plan is and I'll try to help. I'm feeling foolishly indecisive now." He says sheepishly.
While Nyandra is out trying to pin down the locations of the letters with "descriptive" addresses, M'Baba and Ikto go to the library and check in with the reference librarians to see if they have any insight into what these illegible letters actually say.
The researchers pretty easily confirm one of the addresses, but they cannot make any headway with another. The last one seems to be right on the edge of being solved, but the library staff cannot quite solve the puzzle.
success
Ntuni takes the fifteen letters with known addresses and splits them among the group. "Right, lets deal with these."
When Ntuni passes out letters, Iovia shakes her head. "I strongly urge us to not split up. We can do two of the god deliveries right here, and then deliver the rest as a group. None of these challenges have been as simple as they first seemed, and I don't want us to be isolated in small groups if there should be trouble."
"I'm willing to take the risk. I've never heard of mail delivering to be a dangerous profession and if we can't do even that, what does it tell about ourselves?" She questions.
"You've never seen mail delivery in Quantium," Za Minyahil comments with a shrug. "Messengers for the various wizards and councils and cults have to dodge explosions, summonings gone awry and assassins from their masters' rivals."
They look at the packages with unintelligible addresses.
"Shall I take these to the library and see if there's a linguist who can read these better than we can?"
"Normally, clearing out a store room is not dangerous. Just yesterday, three of us nearly died when we went to gather plants. Some of these addresses seem to be a decent distance from town and there is always danger in the wild." Iovia points out.
"If you want to go on your own to deliver some, then you should do that. I do not think it is prudent, but in the end, your choices are yours to make." Iovia clearly does not want to go flying off alone.
"When we have to deliver the distant ones, sure, we stick together, but the ones here in the city should be trivial." Ntuni says, looking for a bunch of letters that are within the city and turning towards her flying bird. "Let's meet back here in about an hour, then we go together to the more distant ones."
Za Minyahil looks at Iovia and shrugs.
"Be careful Ntuni.". Iovia calls out, then she gathers the rest.
"All right, let's do these two quickly, and then we can get to delivering the close-by easy ones.
Ntuni flies off to begin delivering the easily addressed letters. Controlling the elephant bird is easy enough, and it responds quickly to commands, having been very used to flying the post delivery teams around. Delivering each letter takes 30 mins, so it may be a total of 6hrs for Ntuni to be away, but there are no complications and all are easy enough to deliver.
Back at the school, the casters all fire spells at the letter dedicated to Nethys. The letter is eventually consumed in this manner, but the task is complete.
M'baba remembers there was one more illegible letter, and asks the reference librarian for assistance. With one more aid from Ikto, this final letter is also deciphered correctly, and added to the pile of soon-to-be delivered mail.
Kites are easy enough to purchase in Nantambu as they are a favorite pastime for children and adults, or the team may build their own kite from materials easily at hand.
Nyandra does pipe in with her knowledge of Nantambu with something that might be helpful. "There is a shrine to the empyreal lord Mazludeh in town. They have a reputation for friendly priests. Maybe they have some thoughts on feeding the egg-message to a snake? Want to go see? It's not particularly close by, but we could walk there."
After dealing with the first two diety letters, Iovia nods eagerly to Nyandra's suggestion. "That is an excellent idea. We should do that!"
Iovia goes and gets a simple kite from a nearby vendor. Attaching the letter to it is fairly easy. But by now the ubiquitous rain has returned, and kite flying will be a bit of a challenge.
The walk to the shrine of Mazludeh will take about 30 minutes, and may take some understanding of the natural world to coax the snake to swallow an egg.
In the air, Ntuni is now getting rather soaked delivering the post but remains hard at it, getting the pieces slowly where they belong.
Ikto loves flying , the storm druid is tied to the sky in ways he's still not fully understanding. But despite temptation, for now, he heads towards Mazludeh's shrine. "I might be able to coax the snakes anyway if they are hungry enough."
Nyandra goes with Ikto since she knows the way, not because she has any special skill with snakes or eggs.
Iovia will wait and make sure the kite gets flown before she heads to the shrine with Ikto and Nydandra.
Za Minyahil, meanwhile, attempts to gather materials and assemble a kite to fly.
It takes less than half-an-hour, woven from all-natural materials!
Za Minyahil, meanwhile, attempts to gather materials and assemble a kite to fly.
[dice=Crafting]1d20+4
It takes less than half-an-hour, woven from all-natural materials!
When Ikto gets to the shrine, he bobs politely to any priests "May your goddess be pleased by the messages she receives" before turning to the snakes. he attempts to find the ones that are hungrier, and coaxes them to partake.
M'Baba tries his hand at flying the kite in the rainy wet weather. And while it looks for a moment like it won't make it into the sky, he has just enough agility to get the thing flying in the wind, making this delivery a success as well.
With that task done, Nyandra leads the others to the shrine of Mazludeh. She gets turned around once on the way and group has to backtrack just a bit before finding the shrine in question.
Mazludeh is the empyreal lord of community, stewardship and snakes. The words "Seek to improve yourself and your community," and "Trust those you work with" and "Encourage cooperation" are inscribed on the walls of the small temple. Inside, groups of non-venomous snakes lie in all parts, intertwined with each other, and wrapped around the furnishings. A small container of small quail eggs stands near the front of the shrine, almost like a font.
One of the green-robed priests nods at you and smiles. "Unfortunately, their was a large community project today that resulted in a lot of prayers here. The snakes are not very hungry but you are welcome to try. Blessings on you and your endeavors."
Per the instructions, you should transcribe the message from the letter onto an egg, and then feed the egg to a snake to complete the task. (The letter prays that a new canal wall be strong and reliable.) Copying the prayer is a relatively easy feat.
Hunting among the snakes, Ikto tries to suss out which one seems most likely to try another egg.
Much like M'baba, Iovia smiles at the teachings of Mazludeh. Her bracelet, which shows her own faith, is noticed, and she is soon in a conversation with one of the junior priests here, comparing elements of their faiths in a friendly way, with laughs and nods, the way academics might compare differences and similarities in their fields.
It would not be surprising at all if one of the others had to remind her that they were here for a task!
Once she is back on task, after a blushing apology to her classmates, she does her best to Aid Ikto in the task at hand.
Ikto hunts among the snakes who fill the shrine, with some of the others pointing out their favorites. While Nyandra and M'baba have their favorites, it is Iovia who points out the one that Ikto agrees with the most. He takes the prayer-inscribed egg and kneels to offer it to the large anaconda-like serpent. Ikto is surprised when the snake rises almost immediately, and in a loose, graceful motion, swallows the egg whole, slithering off to digest its divine meal in a quieter corner.
The priests of Mazludeh pat you on the back and celebrate your success and the likely answered prayer that it contemplates with a rousing song and dance that the initiates can't help but enter into themselves.
fail
fail
SUCCESS!!!
Ikto is grateful for the priest's help, and nods in agreement with Iovia's suggestion. This snake must have either gotten a very small egg earlier or missed the meal entirely for it takes the offered message and downs it gracefully before slithering off.
"Thank you for helping us deliver it." He calls out to the snake.
The priests of Mazludeh pat you on the back and celebrate your success and the likely answered prayer that it contemplates with a rousing song and dance that the initiates can't help but enter into themselves.
Ikto can't help but join in on that, learning eagerly the new steps of the priests of Mazludeh, while mixing in some of his own old village which may seem very different.
And he gives an impressive performance knowing enough that this is community dancing and he should work WITH the other dancers even as he shows his skills.
It may take one of his peers to remind him they can only dance so long.
Za Minyahil stands apart from the others, watching. It's not enough to avoid getting pulled into the dance, however. They're agile enough that they manage to avoid stepping on toes, but it's clear that they're more going with the flow of the group than actively attempting to dance.
With Ntuni in the air delivering the easy to find addresses, the illegibly addressed letters resolved as much as possible, and the divinely addressed letters successfully dealt with, all that remains are the 3 letters with descriptive address that you could not determine asking around. It seems the only way to resolve those is to fly around Nantambu and the surrounding area to see if you can spy the details mentioned.
Oh, and you also have the unhappy postal customer to work out.