For this example, we will watch Carol Channing, the Rainbow Wizard (see character sheet) take on a couple of wimpy bad guys. Carol is a Level 10 General Classical Wizard, with a 12 Agility, a 17 Learning and 31 EP. For purposes of simplicity in this example, we will assume Carol’s weakness has not shown up today.
Segment 1: As soon as she gets the alarm that something is happening at warehouse #3, she initiates a Fly spell, at Level 10 for speed and level 8 for Number of Targets. Base Concentration is 40 and Casting Time is 50. Her Magic Roll is 20 (28 minus 8), and her bonus pool is (3-18-3: see her character sheet) -18, giving a penalty of 11 to her Roll. She must roll 9 or less. She rolls 9. She is using 1 EP per minute (4, on the EP Use Chart), so she loses 1 EP. She’ll be finished on segment 51.
Segment 6: On her next action, she initiates the spell Night Vision at level 6 for distance. Her Magic Roll is 26 and her bonus pool is (3-6, -5 for her current Concentration level)) -8, giving a penalty of 8. She must roll 18 or less. She rolls 6, giving a Quality of 12. Base Concentration is 60, Casting Time 50. She uses 3 Q to reduce Casting Time to 25, and the other 9 to reduce Concentration to 13. Her current Concentration is 53. She’ll be finished on segment 26. This pushes the Fly spell back one segment. It’ll be completed on segment 52.
Segment 26: The Night Vision spell is completed. She can now see 30 meters in the dark. She goes to open the window. This takes 30 segments (Editor’s ruling). She’ll be done on segment 56. This pushes the Fly spell back to segment 53.
Segment 50: It’s payment time. She’s using a Concentration of 53. This is 5 on the EP Use Chart, or 1 EP/Round. She uses 1 EP. She’s used a total of 2 EP so far, bringing her down to 29 EP.
Segment 53: Her Fly spell is done. She can now fly at 100 kmph.
Segment 56: The window is open. She flies into the night. At 100 kmph, she arrives at the warehouse 50 segments later. It’s only a block away.
Segment 100: Payment Segment. She’s using a Concentration of 53 still, so loses 1 more EP. She has 28 EP left.
Segment 106: She sees the criminals still trying to get into the warehouse. She lands softly about 6 meters from them, and drops the Fly spell (no action required for this--dropping a spell). She is now using Concentration 13. She initiates a Stun spell, with Maximum Range at level 7, and Damage at level 8. The base Magic Roll is 23. The bonus pool is (3-7-8, -1 for Concentration) -13, for a penalty of 9. She must roll 13 or less. Base Casting Time is 40 segments. Base Concentration is 40. She rolls 17. This will be a failure. She missed by 4. She must roll vs. 4, with a bonus pool of 17 (learning) plus 10 (level) plus 3 (wizardry), or 30, for a bonus of 12 and a total of 16. She rolls 17, and will not realize that something’s gone wrong until the spell is cast, 40 segments later, on segment 146. She is using a Concentration of 53.
Segment 116: On this segment, the criminals succeed in opening the door. Six segments later, they start moving inside. Carol starts moving towards the door, following them. She makes her Move Roll (17, but at a penalty of 5, for 12) and rolls 14. She’s a bit disoriented because most of her Concentration is wrapped up in spellcasting. She does not move, but she does use 5 more EP. Her Stun is moved back to segment 147 (Pushback 1).
Segment 122: The criminals go inside the warehouse. Carol makes another Move Roll in order to speed up. This time her roll is still vs. 12. She rolls 12. On segment 128 she will start moving at .1 meter/segment (0 Q in Movement). This pushes her Stun back to segment 148 (Pushback 2). She uses 5 EP, and is now using 5 EP per round for movement.
Segment 128: Carol is now moving .1 meters/segment. She rolls vs. 12 again, this time getting a 9. This will increase her movement to .3 meters/segment (3 Q). Her Stun is moved back to segment 149 (Pushback 3). She uses up 5 more EP.
Segment 134: Carol has moved .6 meters. She is now moving .3 meters/segment. She rolls again (this time vs. 17-5-3, or 9) and gets 4, for a Quality of 5. She increases her movement to .6 meters/segment (6 Q), and reduces the EP use to 3 EP/round. The Stun is moved back to segment 150 (Pushback 4). She uses 3 more EP.
Segment 140: Carol has moved .6 plus 1.8 meters, or 2.4 meters. She’s now moving at .6 meters/segment. She doesn’t accelerate this time: in 4 segments, she’ll need to start sighting for her Stun spell.
Segment 141: Carol has moved 2.4, plus .6 meters, or 3 meters. At this point, she needs to start sighting for her Stun spell. Fortunately, she can see them, about 6 meters away (remember, she has her Night Vision going) inside, through the open loading door. ‘Sighting’ has a Performance Time of 10, and she needs to go on segment 151. (Because initiating the ‘sighting’ will move the stun back one again.)
She must roll vs. her Combat Roll. Her combat roll is 12. Her combat pool is 1 minus 5 (because of her Concentration), or -4. She must roll 8 or less.
She rolls -2 on her Combat Roll. This gives a Quality of 10. The Stun does 16 points damage (Effect Level of 8, times 2). She decides to divide the damage up between the targets--8 for each. She uses 1 Q for the extra target. She uses 2 Q each for increasing damage by 2. She uses 2 Q each to increase the Attack by 2. She uses 1 EP.
Segment 150: This is a Payment Segment. She’s using a Concentration of 53, so she uses 1 EP again, plus 3 for her Movement.
Segment 151: Carol has moved another 5 meters, for 8 meters total--she’s just inside the door. They’re well in range of her Stun--it has a range of 14 meters. They’re 8 meters away. Her Short Range is 4 meters, and her Range Set is 2 meters, so there’s a penalty of 2 to her Attack for each. Her Attack for each is reduced from 2 to 0, and their defenses are 0, so she hits.
She also must pay 4 extra EP in order to use the spell--remember, she missed the Magic Roll by 4. She decides to cast the spell, rather than risk a magical screw-up. She has only 1 EP left!
She does 8+2 to the first criminal, for 10 points. She does 8 plus 2 to the second criminal, for 10. The villains each have 28 VP and 5 DP. They’re normals, so they lose 2 VP. Their DP gives them an Ignore Damage of 1 for Stun Damage. The first takes 16 points of Stun (the remaining 8 points of damage, times 2 segments), and the second takes the same amount. They’ll recover on segment 166.
She is no longer Concentrating on Stun, so her Concentration is back down to 13.
Segment 152: She initiates casting Telekinesis, with the effects Range(at level 1), and Mass (at level 2). Her Magic Roll is 28 minus 3 (the spell’s level), or 25. Her bonus pool is 3, minus 1 (Concentration), minus 3 (the effect levels), or -1. She must roll 24 or less. Base Concentration is 80, and Base Casting Time is 160 segments. She rolls 6. This gives a Quality of 18. She uses 15 of those points to reduce the Casting Time to 5 segments. She uses the other 6 to reduce Concentration to 40. Her Concentration total is now 53. The spell will be completed on Segment 157.
Segment 153: One-tenth of 5 segments is 1, so she can start aiming the spell now (1 segment after initiating it). Carol starts grabbing the first villain’s gun with telekinesis. She makes a Combat Roll, with a bonus pool of 1 minus 5 (Concentration), or -4. She needs to roll 8 or less to succeed. She rolls 12. Fortunately, the villain will hopefully still be stunned; if so, he has a defense of -6. Her attack will be -2 (because she missed by 4). She doesn’t need to worry about paying for a Called Shot, since she’s got him covered. The spell is moved back to segment 158. The grab will be completed on segment 163.
Segment 154:Carol starts stopping. She’s moved 1.8 meters since segment 151, placing her about 2 meters from the stunned criminals, and she needs to be 1 meter away. She makes a movement roll. Her penalty is 5 (for Concentration) and 6 (for Movement), for a total penalty of 9 (11 on the Sphere Chart). Her Move Roll is 17; she rolls vs. 8. She rolls a -6. This gives her a Q of 14. She uses 6 Q to reduce the Performance Time to 2 segments. She uses 4 Q to reduce the EP cost to 1. She can automatically reduce her movement by 6 (the amount of Q already applied to Movement, on the Sphere Chart), so 2 more Q are all she needs to reduce her movement to 0. She uses 1 more EP, going to zero EP.
Her spell is pushed back to segment 159. The Grab is pushed back to segment 160.
Segment 157: Carol stops in her tracks. She’s moved another 1.2 meters, so she’s right on top of the criminals (a bit less than a meter away).
Segment 159: Carol’s telekinesis goes off. She won’t be ready to use it, though, until segment 160, when her grab attempt is completed. Fortunately, telekinesis has a duration of concentration, so she can hold it until then.
Segment 160: Finally. She grabs the gun telekinetically.
Segment 161: She starts aiming the gun at the villains, hoping to have them covered when they recover. She drops the Telekinesis, bringing her Concentration total down to 13. Her Combat Roll is 12, and her bonus pool is 1, minus 1 for her Concentration, or 11. She rolls 8. She uses all 3 Q points to reduce the Performance Time by half, to 3 segments. This action will be completed on segment 164. (Remember, she’s not planning on firing, just getting them covered. That automatically halves the Performance Time twice.) She uses 1 EP.
Segment 166: The burglars recover. Seeing the wrong end of a gun, and seeing each other slightly disoriented, they surrender.
She’s got ‘em covered now. She initiates the spell Fly, at 10th level for speed (100 kmph) and 10th level for number of targets (3). This has a base Concentration of 40, and a base Casting Time of 50. She has a penalty of 1 due to her current Concentration (Night Vision, at 13) and another penalty of 1 for her low EP. Her Magic Roll is 20 (28 minus spell level), with a bonus pool of 3, minus 1 for Concentration, minus 10 for each effect, minus 3 (because she has to gesture), minus 1 for low EP, for -22. This becomes a penalty of 11. She needs to roll 9 or lower to succeed. She decides to double the Performance Time twice, increasing the time to 200 (4 rounds), and increasing the roll by 4 to 13. She rolls 10. This gives her a Q of 3. She uses these 3 Q to reduce the Concentration to 20 segments (for a total of 33). Her spell will be completed on segment 366, a minute later.
She’s just jumped her Concentration to 33. This is 1 EP per ten minutes, but she’s already used this much, so she doesn’t have to pay it again.
Segment 200: Payment Segment. She’s using 1 EP per ten minutes for a 33 Concentration. She uses no EP. She also starts interrogating the criminals.
Segment 250: Payment Segment. She uses no EP, although she does start discussing Sartre with the criminals.
Segment 300: It’s been half a minute since she got the villains covered. She shifts to Camus.
Segment 350: One of the villains brings up Desmond.
Segment 366: She flies herself and the burglars out of the warehouse, and to the police station. It takes her 15 minutes to do this, so she uses 2 more EP, bringing her to -3.