Lime Improved – Part 1.1

Skip the story, I want to play cards. -4 minutes

Jack looks back fondly on the last time he was on LM13, it had been almost 15 years. That was the day he learned about his magical ability, that night while in engineering alone. He became frustrated, upset, maybe? Panicked? And found his magical voice through sheer will he cast a spell onto the complex computer systems, which caused them to shutdown and ultimately saved the space station, LM13… His old home. Sure the higher ups knew what really happened but most of the staff didn’t. The real magic was Voxel had somehow kept his job, although Jack didn’t get to interact with his halfdog father figure for a while. They did visit off and on during holidays, Voxel especially liked to surprise visit Serveus IV and the magical grounds where Jack now spent his time learning what life of a wizard could be.

Having heard the exploits of the young boy on the Lime, within a day there was a representative in robes, who’d come to see him. A macesterial, with a slender elf like frame, large ears and a bit of a pointed nose. She was rather kind and after only a few minutes of questioning, asked Jack if he wanted to explore that untapped potential of his life. Still afraid of what happened and of the station’s integrity, since at the time full power hadn’t been restored. He’d agreed and maybe regretted that slightly. On Serveus IV he was still a bit of an outcast, a human who was older than most of the children and behind in studies. One display of magical prowess hardly gave him the knowledge or understanding of planes, power, incantations and more than other stuff enough to make his head spin. Slowly Jack found himself turning more and more to the simple abilities he’d had before, mechanical objects were so? So-. Easy. So simple, one motion creates another motion, leavers, gears and switches. Even electronics made more sense to him. That isn’t to say he hated wizards or their willingness to try and teach him or that his efforts were in vane, he had improved and could on command create some magic. Ultimately he was released with poor marks on many of his magical reports. Now an adult in human standards, he needed to decide what to do. That’s how he found himself here, on LM13 once more.

Most of the staff who was still around was excited to see him again, word had slowly traveled of what really happened that day. Although he was a hushed up hero and only to about a half dozen or so people, this was a stark contrast to what he’d dealt with for nearly half of his life trying to beat his head around the understanding of Macesterial’s Elysium or what everyone else would call, magic. He’d spent a few nights with Voxel until they were able to hire him on as a full time engineer under the half dog. More because Jack felt the need to stop using Voxel as a crutch than his friend kicking him out he got an apartment with his first payout and began a new life in an old home.

Jack started to notice that Lime, his old home was very different than it use to be. No longer were they a humble textile manufacturer. Heck he couldn’t figure out what they were doing at all, but whatever it was, it brought in the money. There was new equipment, refurbishments, renovations and he even helped install a CDF replacement after 65 years of service. To be honest, it was refreshing to see his old home getting the love and attention it needed so badly.

One late night with Voxel in his apartment they were both relaxing with a drink and a holovid. The whole station jolts and a red light starts spinning, even in Voxel’s apartment. The two share a quick look of near terror, Voxel breaks out of the brief stun first. “You have your wand?” Jack was a bit perplexed but put it together rather quickly, he might need to disrupt something again. Jack shakes his head. “Go get it and meet me in engineering.” Jack rushes from Voxel’s apartment while the half dog heads over to his bed and starts pulling out his own tools.

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Wand Retrieval

(Playing Movement)

Movement in Abide Asteria is fairly simple. Per turn you may up to 10 meters for free under a normal gravity environment and in fair conditions. You can also spend your action for the turn to add more distance to your movement. To do this you’ll play the skill acrobatics. The total distance to Voxel’s apartment is 40 meters, we could take 4 turns to get there without using acrobatics, however Jack is under duress and there could be consequences for not acting as quickly as possible.

Ensure you have five cards in your hand and take a look at them. This is also the first time we’re going to have the option for a technique chain. Take a look at your character sheet. Jack is “trained” in Acrobatics, meaning we can use a technique chain but only the smallest kind.

Try your best to follow along even if you don’t have the cards to utilize this technique chain. It might even be worth your while to search through your deck and get the ones you need just to practice. If so, simply set your real hand aside for now.

Here’s our instruction guide for review. Try this out with your hand or get some cards to just play around with it. Trained is one of the harder technique chains to understand, it’ll get easier from here. It is however the weakest of the technique chains making it perfect for understanding how power scaling works.

Play with that as long as you need to, feel free to also reference the full guide here and of course, as always you’re welcome to join our discord and ask any questions you may have! Once you’ve had a chance to look this over, we’ll walk through the play of reaching Jack’s apartment together step by step.

Now that you have a small understanding of techniques lets continue. Remember that movement allows you to get 10 points for free and playing an action is either move action or action move. In this case our action is to move again so order doesn’t effect this play.

Play one card from your hand, if the card is spades in suit and you have any other card that is a four or lower play that as well. Use the references above as needed. After completing this add your cards together and add another 10 to that. As it is currently impossible to reach 40 on your first turn discard the cards you’ve played and make note of your current turn’s value. Refresh your hand up to 5 and repeat this paragraph until your plays combined are 40 or greater.

Here’s how that would break down. On the first turn you would need a total of 30 points plus the 10 for free. This is impossible at your current level and skill. On the second turn you’d only need 20 points total worth of cards played because another 10 points are added for free movement. Once you have a total that equals 40 or more you’ve “beaten” the check on that turn, but the turn still must end. Thus the best possible result is 2 turns but it still fairly likely, especially if you weren’t able to use technique chain to be on turn 3. Its extremely unlikely but if your hand was poor or your purposely played low it may have taken all 4 turns.

Results