"Simple, it works like a constant Alert spell. Basically, I am aware of exactly how many entities are in the 'building' at all times. A little bit after 2, five entities entered the place, and they were not you guys. All part of the wards. And for your piece of mind, I don't see anything that goes on inside, it is just a count in my head."
Hort comes back to his senses "Alright, so we may have been visited by the avatars of some gods or something like that, but really it's still not anything we can do much about at the moment." Hort turns to Brax "Apparently we were all visited by some sort of 'god avatars' and all of them offered to help us each become gods."
" Hort, you should'nt spill everything. Whoever they were, either they were powerful as you say, either your spells aren't that powerful Brax. I thought you said we were safe in here !"
"I trust Brax enough to tell him what's going on. Obviously whatever those beings were they were QUITE powerful."
"Maybe. The fact that they were really here and that were powerful still doesnt mean they were not lying. If they contact some of us again I suggest we always share it, I trust you more than them. Brax, do you know ANYTHING about beings, godly or not, that could have passed through your ward ?"
"Well, gods are rated on a scale that starts at 0 and runs to 20+, with higher numbers indicating stronger gods. I would think that it would take a god or avatar of at least 5th rank first find my building, and then get past the wards without blasting them to nothing. Now, i know that does not sound very strong based on the scale, but keep in mind, it only takes a god of 1st rank to give clerics all over the world their spells everyday. Even rank 0 is far more powerful then any mortal is likely to be. The big three here are only rank 7 or so. There are probably another ten lower ranking 'personifications' that could make it in, but so far this is the first time anyone has ever cared to try."
Hort turns to Torma "I agree. We should always share this kind of thing. Probably best to only talk about it in the shop or in though."
"Off claw, I would say a combo of suitability and proximity. Lets say that there are twenty thousand people in the world that have the temperament to become the God of Death. Of those twenty thousand, assume there are five thousand total who wouldn't be total jerks about it and use the power for personal gain or something. So the ratio is one out of four. Assuming there are four of those people in close proximity to whatever it is that can turn a mortal into a god, only one is likely to be the right kind of god in the end. That one would be the person chosen by whatever power does that. The real question I think you should ask, is why you are all together. The statistical relationship falls apart when you take the individual improbabilities of each of you being chosen, and cram them together by putting you guys in the same group.My brain just cant handle that kind of math, and I suspect it was not random chance. Random chance can explain how a rain drop falls, but it cant handle 5 potential gods meeting and adventuring together."
Berz stares for a long time at Brax. mumblemumblestatisticsmumblemumble ... mumblemumblefivenewbiegodsallinoneplacemumblemumble ... After several moments, a sudden look of clarity strikes. "AH! Fuck it! Badgers." Berz turns to leave.
The now blue again Rantic hears all this and is kind of perplexed. Not by what Brax said about statistics, this is precisely the reason he was pissed earlier: because the chances of getting fooled soared in comparison to the chances that it was for real and a coïncidence that 5 'could-be-gods' just happen to go down to Dredmor together. But perplexed by the fact that there were apparently 5 sufficiently powerful beings indeed there, thereby reducing the chance of this being a hoax again. And he still doesn't see any God-potential in Berz... he's actually a little worried about Nature if... But yeah... too early to worry about that. So, it is indeed interesting to look for other factors like fate or ... something else that brought us together thereby confirming the truth of the 'dream'. If they were really there it wasn't a real dream. "Oooh!", he wishes Swig was still here, he might have had one of those fate-detection spells. So Rantic thinks all this, but doesn't share it since he's still not in the mood to talk.
" Hmmm. Okay. Surprised to see you're not going for another wizard speech with all this theorizing about Gods and probabilities, Rantic. You should be in bad mood everyday, suits you quite well Heheh... " " Alright Brax, did you find a decent thing for me to throw at people ? Otherwise I think we're gonna take leave."
"Well, I did find this one thing." He very gingerly pics up a small glowing throwing axe. "I call it the Axe of DOOM!. It has Throwing and Returning, and deals double damage, but also the same kind of enchantment that the Rod of Wonder has. It is pretty random. I will let you have it for 5000."
Torma's eyes open wide " What a BEAUTY !" He weighs the weapon and look at it under every angle " Look at this craft, this is fine work ! " He faces the others and scratches his feathery beard " Guys, mind if I get that ?"
Rantic gives Torma a cold glare in response to his remark on his bad mood being good. And then shrugs and pets his Raven a little. "Take it, sure... we should take stock of our gold sometime though, probably."
"I still have some of my own, so I don't have any problems. If we're done here, we should get moving."
Torma searches in the common bag to see how much gold is left. (( I have no idea, who carries the money and how much is in the common pot ))
" By the way Brax, why do you sell us things instead of giving them out since killing Dredmor would free you ? We are your best hope of getting out of here."
(If my math is right, there is about 25,000 gold left in the group pot, not counting personal amounts. Someone should go back and put together a list of items in the group pool, and post the list in the OOC thread.) "It is part of my contract. I can't just give anything away. I have to take money, though I don't need it."
Torma gives 5000 gold to Brax. " There you go." He puts on a large, innocent smile. "Is it part of your contract to keep that money you don't need ?"
