Flashback jogern radkleefe the first.

[Eridanus]

Day 89, Fall of 416 AV
Morning
Aylasa Caves

"We have a new mission, gentlemen," Middleman announced, gathering the members of the squad in the caves. "Medal, Yeller, Coinsmith, Redeemer," He acknowledged, nodding his head to the several members in terms of seniority before he gave Eridanus the last nod.

"Meet Voodoo," He gestured as a tall man entered the room. He looked to gangly for his own good, and had a high, shriveled up nose that crooked a little at the end. That attribute along with his height unfortunately gave people the impression that he was always looking down as he spoke. It was not that far from the truth. He was wearing thick winter clothing like the rest of the people gathered there, but with the addition of a fancy hat that looked like a raven, with its bright green feather pointing out of the rim.

"Greetings Seventh Order," Voodoo inclined his head, referring to the code name of their squad. The Seventh Order was one of the squad cells planted by The Organization, with their primary mission handler being Middleman, with the four of them as agents on call. "I will be aiding the esteemed Middleman," He tipped his head to the nuit as he spoke, "for the duration of this mission."

Taking out several poster-sized parchments, he began pinning them onto the walls of the cavern. As he did so, Eridanus realized that they were actually realistic sketches of different people, seven in total.

"These people are the designated Lucky Seven, whom The Organization have been watching for quite a while. Now that they have reached the peak of their abilities and have continued their legacy, it is time to... 'harvest' them. One might even say that their luck has run out," Voodoo snickered with a nasty laugh.

"We just kill em, eh?" Yeller interjected, his voice bored as he wanted to get straight to the point.

"Ah, crass as always, Yeller," The assistant mission handler drawled. "In any case, you are to retrieve their corpses. More specifically, I want their index finger knuckle bone. One from each."

"Killing them would be preferred," Middleman raised his voice. "However, it is fine if you can only escape with their knuckle bones with them alive, if you must maintain the secrecy of our operations."

"You make it sound like we're just stealing coins," Medal commented. "It's much easier to just off them and dissect their-"

"Enough rambling," Eridanus remarked drily. "Let's just get on to it."

"Thank you Redeemer," Voodoo inclined his head towards the vantha gratefully. "As I was saying, I have devised a plan - in conjunction with the wise Middleman - for you. Our first target," He pointed to one of the pictures. "is Jogern Radkleefe. From our sources he is known for being a frequent visitor to a certain bar in Stormhold Castle. Now, we cannot raise any suspicion from the knights, so sadly, Yeller, your expertise is useless here. This is our plan."

As Voodoo laid out the plan, Eridanus could not help but whistle in appreciation. It was complex in its multi-layered considerations, and possibly prone to many failures should any step in the way be off due to miscalculation or incompetency in its execution. Yet, it covered as many risks as possible and made everything as innocent as could be.

"I will gather the ingredients," Medal announced, nudging Coinsmith and causing him to pipe up in agreement as well.

"You have three days," Middleman reminded them before they left.

"I will aid you in the creation," Eridanus stated.

Yeller merely stood there looking confused.

"You'll begin the side operation B," Middleman pointed to Yeller, and the man grinned, glad that he could be of help after all. "You are to report with satisfactory results one day from now. This should be an easy task for you."

"As you wish," The hulking man chuckled, grabbing his spear laying beside the cavern wall and heading off.

"Excellent, excellent," Voodoo murmured. "There is nothing much we can do for now until we wait for either Medal and Coinsmith to return or for Yeller to return. Either way, the earliest we can do anything would start tomorrow. For now, I will brief you further."

[Eridanus]

That Very Night

"Daddy's home!" A loud voice that was perhaps too boisterous for the silent night shook the caves, causing the sleeping forms of Eridanus and the snobby looking man that was Voodoo to stir and groan. Several loud steps thundered from the entrance, and Yeller entered with a slumped figure over his shoulders. With his beloved spear still thrust into his torso.

"You didn't really waste any time did you," Voodoo yawned, prodding Eridanus awake as well. "Get up Redeemer, let's not waste time. Tanroa waits for no man."

Yeller grinned, his face red with alcohol and he dumped the body on the floor of the cavern where he often saw Eridanus worked with his crafting, before heading off to his favorite rock to lean on and sleep off his drunkenness.

"Damn pig probably couldn't resist knocking one or two down," Eridanus commented, muttering to himself unpleasant words as he got up from the warmth of his bedroll.

"Probably a barrel, from what I've heard over at HQ about him," Voodoo remarked, and the two of them high-fived.

The first step of the plan to harvest Jogern Radkleefe. That was the retrieval of the corpse of a hopeless drunkard, one that was always in the bowels of despair, and one that flitted from drink to drink, never understanding reality from hallucination. To create a beer mug from his remains, cursed with his personality and the shadow that haunted his history, that was the first seemingly unrelated step in the whole grand scheme.

"I have heard from Middleman that you have been quite the diligent student," Voodoo commented as they pulled out their knives, approaching the corpse of the drunkard that Yeller brought. "I hope that you live up to my calculations. I am not the expert in the specifics, which part should we use?"

Eridanus grinned, aware that now Voodoo was his assistant in this part of the operation. "The part that is most involved with this entire mess. His skull. It may need a little shaping, but it would be the most fitting part."

"Ah, the part that holds the lack of sanity, yet also receives the drink, and is now destined to hold the drink, and to transfer this despair accordingly. Brilliant, Redeemer," Voodoo smiled, his quick mind making the connections as he worked on severing the head from the corpse with his own kukri.

Together, the two of them began to gruesome job of retrieving the skull from the fresh corpse's head. That meant removing the skin, flesh, various organs. In order to do so but to maintain the hygiene of the cave, they had to move outside instead. There, next to the running stream they continued with their task, finally relieving the skull of its unwanted fleshy bits and washing off the blood and gore in the stream. They then returned to the warmth of the cave.

"The cold's freezing the blood," Voodoo observed when they noticed that the now headless corpse had only spurted blood from the neck for a while after he was decapitated.

"Nah, the blood's just congealed. Happens to dead people," Eridanus waved his hand dismissively.

He glanced at the shape of the skull intensely, overlaying that image over that of a mug and began to isolate similarities and differences, creating the design mentally before he instructed Voodoo.

"Alright, this is how we'll do this. You notice the jaw? We push back the jaw back to create an open mouth, like a man screaming but with an unhinged jaw. This will be the mouth of our mug. The eye sockets, partitioned by the bone at the nose area will be the handle. Your fingers go into one socket, while your thumb goes in other. You hold it up like this, then you can drink the mug from here. Can you visualize?" Eridanus gestured.

"Yes yes, that seems like excellent design," Voodoo replied, "However, I see the biggest flaw to this design."

"There are still holes throughout the skull and liquid will seep out. Is that your concern?"

"Exactly."

"We will fix that by shaping the sides of the skull appropriately first, to make it more into a mug shaped object. Then, we will use other bones to serve as walls and pins - the kneecaps should be great for the former while the rib bones should be marvelous for the latter. First, you should probably bring this corpse out and do the appropriate skinning and preparations to get me the rib bones and kneecaps, while I begin work on this skull."

"Alright. Do you need additional assistance, Redeemer? Perhaps we should-"

"Nah, let Yeller sleep, he has done his part. Medal and Coinsmith hasn't returned anyway, so we're more or less on our own. Apologies for troubling you, Voodoo."

"No issues, comrade. This was my plan after all, I only have myself to blame," Voodoo chuckled, traipsing out of the cave while dragging along the headless corpse of the nameless drunkard.

Eridanus brandished his trusty dagger, tutting to himself as he planned on what to do next with the skull he held in his hands.

[Eridanus]

Before any malediction could be done, he would first have to shape and make the mug properly. First, he had to create some sort of plating to place underneath the gaping holes that were the eye sockets. That would allow him to continue using that feature as a sort of handle, but prevent liquid stored within from leaking out through that part. Accepting one of the kneecaps from Voodoo, he began carving it by whittling the excess parts until he was left with a flatter sheet of bone, then cut it down to size to fit the insides of the skull.

"Wait, Voodoo, get me a hip bone as well. Those slightly curved but flat-"

"I know what a hip bone is, Redeemer."

Opening up the jaw of the skull to simulate the mouth of a mug, he noticed another gaping hole at the region below the jaw, and so he carved the other kneecap until he got a slightly curved bone plating that he could use to cover up that part.

Voodoo returned with a hip bone.

"Voodoo, now from the tips of the rib bones, carve me small pin shapes. Be sure to keep the sharpness at the tip of the bone pin by starting from the tip of the rib bones."

"Understood."

With that, the two morbid craftsmen resumed their work. Eridanus took the hip bone, measuring it against the insides of the skull. It would serve as the inner layer of the skull that would serve as yet another method to prevent liquid from leaking out. There was nothing more fail than a container that could not, well, contain. With that in mind, he then carved the hip bone into a concave shape mirroring the insides of the skull.

Taking the small pin shaped rib bones from Voodoo, the vantha used his dagger to drill a tiny hole at the regions where the bone plate and skull overlapped, then hammered in the pin from the outside, attaching the bone plates and the skull together. Next, he placed the concave hip bone into the improvised cup, using more bone pins from Voodoo to hammer outwards to connect the inner layer cup to the outer layer skull. The outer bone pins had their sharp ends burrowed midway into the concave hip bone, while the inner bone pins had their sharp ends burrowed midway into the outer skull bones. Thus, both sharp ends were concealed while still being able to attach the parts of the bone generally in place.

"Excellent," He murmured, taking out his quill and ink set to prepare a draft.

The obvious space to use was the blank canvass of the skull around the forehead and upper head region. First, he drew a large malediction circle. That would serve as the boundary of the arcane work that he intended to do. Designing the product in his mind, the craftsman then decided on the system that would best serve the purposes Voodoo required.

First he drew a five smaller circles close to the circumference of the larger circle. They were arranged such that they represented the silhouette of the human body, with the upper middle one for the head, two middle wider ones for the hands, and the two lower nearer ones for the legs. In each of them, he would specify the desired effect he wished to inflict.

At the circle that represented the head he drew a five point star. The five points of the star recursively refers to the five circles he drew by having its points follow the number of circles, as well as the angles of the points coinciding with the angles of the five circles, cementing its legitimacy. More importantly, the star represented the spark of human thought, and thus be negating it he was cancelling the spontaneity of the mind, dulling it as if one were dead drunk.

In the left circle that represented one of the hands, he drew the glyph that was the written representation of the ancient language that meant 'strength'. It was unambiguous and clear, that by placing it at the hands - the traditional agent for the exertion of force - that negating the strategically placed symbol would mean a negation of physical strength, thus crippling and weakening the target. By drawing from the drunkard's characteristic, this sought to imitate the weakness in limbs when in a drunken state.

In the left circle that represented one of the legs, he drew the universal symbol for balance. It was that of a triangle between a straight line, that was also one of the basic machines of gadgeteering. The balancing act of the lever atop the axis was meant to symbolize balance and equality. However, instead of negating a balanced symbol, he simply drew it to be imbalanced, making the line slanting off on one side. Its placement at the area of the legs was clear that doing so crippled the physical balance of the target, and from drawing of the prime attribute of drunkenness of the bone's source, it sought to follow the lack of mobile balance when affected by drink.

In the right circle that represented one of the hands, he drew a swirly symbol. It went in a pointless detour, thus representing confusion and chaos. Placing it in the hands symbolized placing the confusion of one's fate in one's hands, thus causing the target to not know what to do. It also symbolized the meaningless flailing of hands that spoke of disorientation and further confusion, and served as a drunken mist of haziness.

In the right circle that represented one of the legs, he simply drew a mess of lines, though making sure to make the entire tangle of messiness actually just one line by not lifting up his quill until the end. It symbolized further chaos, and by placing it in the legs the picture represented navigational failure and getting lost. It also represented confusion of direction, and combined with the other circle of imbalance it quite possibly determined stumbling and uneven movement.

At the center of the circle, he drew a five-pointed pentagram to further emphasize the five points of power upon which this malediction circle drew from. Between this pentagram and the five smaller malediction circles he drew path sigils that connected the flow of djed between all five to the central pentagram. Within the pentragram he then wrote the written ancient language of 'djed' in glyphed form. It was an unambiguous and clearest method of invoking latent djed from the source.

Finally, he drew five lines between the circles connecting the pentagram to the external circle. With this, the path sigils between the inner pentagram invoking the latent djed of the source would share and specify the characteristics of the latent djed that he was calling forth, and it all mixed within the pentagram. Then the lines connecting it to the external circle would call forth this sleeping power, expressing it in the form of the crafted mug.

Malediction Circles :

Before he activated the hidden strength of his enchanted object, the vantha meticulously carved a thin engraving of his drawn symbols to ensure longevity of the malediction. Since mugs meant to handle liquid would undoubtedly have numerous forms of liquid sloshing about, it was quite likely that the ink would be washed off, invalidating the malediction circle and thus the plan. Carving the malediction circles into the mug would prevent such an occurrence. Shedding a drop of blood to activate the power of the mug, Eridanus grabbed it, waving it about triumphantly as he announced dramatically to the silently watching Voodoo.

"Behold, this cursed mug. By drinking from the alcohol within this object, one would suffer the debilitating effects of drink in all aspects of the body, crippling both mind and body. Judgement, clarity of thought, understanding, strength, agility and mobility will all be severely weakened upon imbibing only one sip of any alcohol drunk from this very mug. Would that be sufficient for you, Voodoo?"

The man smiled, taking the cursed skull and packing it very carefully into his satchel as if he were handling a very fragile jewel.

"Let us hope that it works the way you intend for it to, Redeemer," Voodoo remarked. "And now, we wait for Medal and Coinsmith. Let us hope they return within the days stipulated, so that we can put my plans forth to maximum effect."

[Eridanus]

Skill Requests

• Malediction
• Carving
• Drawing
• Glyphing
• Leadership
• Teaching
• Wilderness Survival/Butchering

Lore Requests

• NPC: Voodoo
• The Organization: Mission of the Lucky Seven
• Lucky Seven Milestone: Jogern Radkleefe (first)
• Malediction: The Drunkard's Drunkenness
• Crafting: The Cursed Beer Mug of Debilitating Inebriation

[Cloud]

XP Reward!

From the sky falls your reward!

PC Name: Eridanus

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Carving	+2
Drawing	+2
Malediction	+2
Glyphing	+1
Socialization	+1
Observation	+1
Leadership	+1
Teaching	+1
Wilderness Survival	+1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	NPC: Voodoo
•	The Organization: Mission of The Lucky Seven
•	Lucky Seven Milestone: Jogern Radkleefe (First)
•	Malediction: The Drunkard's Drunkenness
•	Crafting: The Cursed Beer Mug of Debilitating Inebriation

Fun times with wicked Eri! Enjoyed reading this. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to pm me!