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crystalwizard
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Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5196
| Posted 4/26/2008 8:17 PM (GMT -5) |   | T A Markitan said...
Actually I was thinking of the ale for a distraction, like spilling it on the floor of an already burning building to add to the confusion.
Working on an incredibly risky and reckless rescue.
if the building is burning, no one's going to notice the ale on the floor. Or the oil, either.
T A Markitan said...
My original problem was that fire burns up, not down, unless it has an accelerant to follow, and my character starts the fire on an upper floor. The tip off that he was up there was going to be the oil dripping down the wall, right before it burst into flame, but that is not going to work, so I have to rethink it.
I suggest you have him go upstairs, light the curtains on fire (to draw attention to the upper floor), sneak downstairs (climb out the window or whatever) and set a second fire. In the back of the inn. Where he can't be seen. So everyone'll run upstairs to put the fire out and be trapped when the bottom floor catches on fire.
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
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| Posted 4/27/2008 12:03 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Firlefanz
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2007
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| Posted 4/27/2008 2:31 AM (GMT -5) | | Pitch and tar were available, yes, and used to insulate and waterproof wooden buildings. It also might have been possible to stuff rags into seams where the pitch would catch fire and light those from a torch. Slow method, but it would work. I've seen people make pitch out of birch bark, and there's always the danger it'll burn rather than end up as usable pitch.
Ale, beer and even plain wine definitely don't burn, you'd need something distilled for that, with an alcohol content of at least 50%. (Ever tried to get rum burning for Feuerzangenbowle... well, you don't have that, I suppose.) Basically, even 50% rum only catches fire because the suger serves as catalyst before it melts.
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T A Markitan
aka Wicked
Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 325
| Posted 4/27/2008 4:32 PM (GMT -5) | | I am kind of trouble shooting out loud here, so if you want to punch holes in my logic, go for it. 
I am scraping the wall bursting into flames idea. It didn't work for what I was thinking of. New plan.
Problem- There are twelve antagonists on first floor and two hostages. The hostages are capable of taking care of themselves once they get the cue for escape, but my guy still has to pull off a little divide and conquer.
He guts and puts a mattress up against the wall, and dips some of the stuffing in tallow (like a wick), to be sure it doesn't go out. Discards container of lard nearby after lighting the wicks, and has a small window of time before things fully go up.
Heat from the burning mattress melts remaining fat. Flames go up, grease goes down.
Some poor sap, or two, goes up to investigate the unidentifiable dripping substance.
Now we are down to ten antagonists, but it is much too hot to stay upstairs.
Complication- Innocent bystander on upper floor he doesn't know about. (Yeah, I know it's cliche, but it really ticks of his newly liberated, and still outnumbered, buddies engaged in a running battle out the door)
Sound plausible so far?
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crystalwizard
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Date Joined Nov 2006
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| Posted 4/28/2008 12:47 AM (GMT -5) | | T A Markitan said...crystalwizard said...
Why must you have a dripping substance running down the wall? Because the idea for this scene was so clear in my head I had to figure out a way to realize it.  (Sorry, rough draft.) “Is it raining?” The soldier’s casual question seemed out of place in the tension of the room. “No it’s not raining!” Cullin glared at the man, and nodded toward the window. Shadowy clouds drifted in the sky, partially covering the half moon. “Then what’s leaking?” The soldier walked closer to the outer wall, looking up at the ceiling. Something dripped through the cracks, and ran down the wall. “Leaking?” Cullin turned his attention to the wall. He approached the soldier and followed his upward gaze with a puzzled expression. “Maybe the wench spilled a chamber pot.” “Well I ain’t touchin it to find out.” There is also already a fire in the main floor hearth, and I figured the smell of smoke in a smoky old inn wouldn't be immediately out of place. As for magic, this particular character doesn't use it.
The only way you're going to get stuff to run down that wall from the room upstairs is if that inn is built very poorly and the floor has large cracks where it meets the wall.
Otherwise, whatever the character pours on the wall/floor of the upstairs room is going to puddle up there. Even if it was sheetrock and you flooded the floor it would puddle, but inns aren't sheetrock, they're wood.
If that's the case, then make sure you describe the inn in that sort of condition in other places besides just that one room, or your editor is going to be saying 'that's too much of a coincidence that the only crack is right where he needs it to pour stuff down the wall'
Since all you want is a distraction, you don't need the stuff running down the wall to have anything to do with the fire.
Have him actually knock the chamber pot over as he goes about setting the fire, and have it spill into a crack in the floor, seep out and run down the wall.
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Hermit
Diavhrati Luminary
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1785
| Posted 4/28/2008 10:45 AM (GMT -5) | | |
I'm inclined to disagree with CW here. Even well-sealed walls can tend to drip; only magic needed is gravity. Old inns weren't built for seals within, so I wouldn't expect them to be leakproof at all. Dust and liquids always find a way downhill. Perhaps a good compromise here would be to state clearly that the walls are rough plank walls - perhaps even hewn logs.
I agree that the smell would not necessarily register in an inn heated by log fires. Or even prairie-chip heating. However, I would be dubious about straw because it holds moisture all too well and smokes something fierce unless it is bonedry. Could use flax fiber and hemp for the stuffing. Even cotton might do. Also, if there is a lamp that uses tallow, the smell of burning tallow would be too common to register. Visible smoke would register before the smoke from an accelerated fire - as long as the accelerant gets hot enough first. One way to manage that would be to slather the wall in tallow from one lamp while using another, or a candle, to heat either more tallow or oil or grease and leave the room. The heated tallow would melt until it hit flashpoint and then burst into flame. If you have enough space in the container without a vent, the flashpoint would blow up the container (clay) and spray burning oil onto the walls, which would catch the tallow - which would also be warmed from the ambient heat building in the room from the fire source. If you don't cork the clay pot to build pressure (you want some pressure, but don't want to seal it completely), its explosion would be rather minor; it would be a big whoosh of flame and the tinkle of broken clay - little more than the sound of a dropped clay lamp.
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T A Markitan
aka Wicked
Date Joined Dec 2007
Total Posts : 325
| Posted 4/28/2008 12:34 PM (GMT -5) | | Oops, I meant to ditch the running down the wall with the first idea. That and I was thinking of runny like an egg, rather than runny like water.
I am picturing an old poor country inn similar in construction to our old horse barn. Rough lumber on the outside, heavy plank floor/ceiling.
Kind of like this, only minus the tin roof and concrete foundation. (pay no mind to the idiot in the rain gear, it's the only picture I had)
img228.imageshack.us/img228/1998/barnnk2.jpg
img76.imageshack.us/img76/5105/barndooryw0.jpg
A lot of my summer afternoons were spent up in the loft, and I remember how solid the building was. There were no gaps in the outer walls because the wood overlaid, but anything spilled on the floor of the loft would leak between the planks. When a thunderstorm rolled in, the walls would shiver and dust would fall down through the cracks, and seem to come out of the walls.
I was sticking with the oil/accelerant because I wanted to further show that he was trying to control the fire to some extent, and also it gives him away a bit sooner than he had hoped. Of course like most well laid plans, they rarely go the way you want them to. So something else is going to have to go wrong, and create an additional complication for him to deal with. Either the fire is going to spread faster than he expected, or take longer.
Right now I am still running through the various scenarios trying to figure out which one I like best so I can write the ending.
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"careful what you wish
you may regret it
careful what you wish
you just might get it"
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Hermit
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Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1785
| Posted 4/28/2008 1:38 PM (GMT -5) | | | Unless, of course, they cure the wood or treat it with something like tallow to keep it from dryrot, etc.
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