Pneumatic post skill

Skill 'pneumatic post', a clan skill of the Artificers.

• This is a passive skill, it works automatically.

Usage: craft capsule, use capsule, use multitool post number [direction|back]

The Guild runs its own mail: brass pipes under the whole world, and a receiving box at the end of each. The courier brings the capsule blueprint, and it says what it takes. Capsules belong to whoever they were made for.

use capsule buries one where you stand, with only its periscope poking out. It needs solid ground (no water, no open air) and a place where the gods allow travel: never where fighting is forbidden, never where recall, summoning or gates are banned, never in a stranger's clan hall and never under the Lions' prevent. One box per room. A box stays open for about two hours. You notice its periscope, and so do those who see hidden things or traps.

The Guild hands out post numbers by rank: one box for an apprentice, stoker or journeyman, two for a riveter, machinist or mechanic, three from clockmaker on. Bury one more and the office writes off your oldest.

use multitool post lists your boxes. With a number you look through that box's periscope and see the room around it. Add a direction to turn the periscope and see the next room that way, unless a closed door or a blank wall is in the way. Looking is free, but the eyepiece fogs up after every look: a minute at tier 1 of the mechanism, twelve seconds less with each tier after that. By day, under a clear or cloudy sky and out of doors, the glass flashes in the sun: anyone by the box may catch the glint and know they are watched, and one with perception always does.

With a number and back you climb into the capsule and the pipe shoots you to that box, which then folds up for good. The box room must still pass every rule above at that moment, or the pipe just hums. Alone: pets and mounts stay behind. Not in a fight, and the rules of transport magic apply -- no adrenaline in your blood, no curse on you, not in the saddle, not as an outlaw, not out of a place the gods closed to recall or summoning. The landing leaves you dazed for a moment. The better you know the skill, the less often the pipe coughs you back out, box still in place.