Pessimistically, the Thing could bear down upon you with a few beats of its enormous wings and devour you whole. Realistically, though you don't have the luxury of looking over your shoulder, you think the beetles must've distracted it. You need the lucky break. The vegetation is thickening, and at the speed you're going it takes all your focus not to catch your feet on the roots that lace the floor.

Compounding your trouble is the light from above, which has taken on a soupy consistency and burnt color. It beads your forehead, beats against your lidded eyes, and reminds you with every step that you are, factually, dog-tired. It's the middle of the night. You haven't slept for days. The earth between the roots and vines is crumbly and giving. How terrible would it be to stop? (You have been running for a long time.) To lean against a tree? (There are trees now, and bushes, and the calling of jungle-gulls.) To bury yourself to the waist in soil? (It would soothe your tired legs.) Not terrible at all. You sag against a mossy trunk, inspect your ankle— functional, but bleeding— and contemplate your options for digging a hole.

A shovel? Yes, but where's the panache? Your hands could be spades. You could speak to the soil with imperious conviction and it would move. Or— the only true option— you could burrow, as is your birth na- you could pluck with gloved fingers at the fibrers of re- you could use a dr-

No! What the hell! You are hunched over, hands balled, running dirt through your dirty fingers. You throw it down. What the hell! You don't say this often because it's usually not true but there is something wrong with you, badly, and— okay, you could use a drink, that's fair, except do you want to be less inhibited? More suggestible? Here? And all the rest of it— you'd call it an evil spirit, or a demon on your shoulder, but these thoughts come in too warm and familiar a packaging— they are from your head, and so the only conclusion is that you are wrong. Or different, the same thing.

You are discomfited by this realization and you are revulsed and horrified that it has taken you so long to come to it. You are different and it's more than skin deep it's you except somewhere along the line without your knowledge or consent the definition of "you" changed. "I'll be fine!" you told BK an hour-something ago— "I'm good! I'm competent! I have a- a frigging monster in my back pocket!" And here you are hunted and haunted and lost and alone on a crushing level. (The snake doesn't count.) Is that irony or tempting fate? Where is Richard? Alone on a mountaintop, sipping nasty sparkling wine? There when you don't need him, gone when you do— much like your father, now that you think about it. Funny. Funny how things stay the same.

(2/???)

If you were asked you would deny that you were crying, but nobody is here to ask.

You poke miserably at the dirt with a stick for a long time, scrubbing at regular intervals at your eyes with your sleeve. You feel bad everywhere but especially your ankle. Ellery's blasé disconnection from reality (figurative and otherwise) bothers you on a visceral level but you have to admit it must have its perks. You think maybe it's possible he can't feel bad anymore without a real kick in the pants and in that sense you did him a favor since now he'll have all this to dwell on. This makes you feel better. You stand and stare into the faces of maybe thirty large beetles and one thousand small ones, clustered on bushes and trees and clinging to vines. You are surrounded. This makes you feel worse. The Thing is hiding or not here.

"Hello," you say. You've been perspiring for a while but you only notice it now because it's gone all cold. "Um. Salutations."

The jungle-gull's call sounds, in this moment, like taking a hacksaw to a tin can.

"I don't suppose I can… reason with…" You can't and you're close to certain they can't understand you. You clutch The Sword like a warding totem. "You know Ellery? You know, I was the one who made him all... beetle-y? So you're- you're welcome…"

The largest beetle steps forward and it's holding something along the lines of a dagger.

"I can set you on fire. I can set you on fire like I- like I set your babies on fire. Watch out."

It advances and so do all the rest until they stand shoulder t- shoulder to shoulder (beetles having shoulders or not is not reasonable to care about) in a tight ring around you. You feel like you'll die if you don't stab one and you'll die if you do stab one and laying it out makes the choice pretty obvious, so you lunge forward and plunge The Sword with a hiss into the largest beetle's exposed underbelly and tear it out and it topples and you make to run. You can't: they close ranks in an instant and pick the thing-like-a-dagger off the ground. You realize that you might have to set them on fire, actually. You realize you don't know how.

Not once in your life has this stopped you, and so in the moments before your ritual jungle sacrifice you attempt to free associate. Fire, uh, swords— your sword?— uh—

It doesn't get beyond that: adrenaline and stress swamp your waking mind.

>[-1 ID: 3/12]

You don't remember shouting, but your mouth hangs half open and your voice rings in your ears. You don't remember your sword combusting, either, but when you're standing in a six-foot circle of smoldering ash ringed by 20 feet of everything being on fire, you can draw conclusions. The beetles are injured if not evaporated, but there will be more. Of course there'll be more. You're not stupid. You dry your eye one more time and set off at a brisk walk.

(3/???)

The flames on The Sword have quelled, but you wipe the blade down a weeping tree trunk and run it over a patch of embers and it ignites again good as new. You find its scorching heat reassuring: it makes it feel real. Like it matters. It's partially for this reason that you trail it around you as you walk, catching sticks and leaves on fire— it's partially also to deter followers, and to keep your hands busy. You try to focus your mind on the exit. Or on Gil. You try to remember how he looked. Small, square jaw, awful skin—

You encounter beetles three more times. The first time you run and lose them in a copse they can't fit into. The second time you dare them to follow you back into the fire-torn wasteland you've created, and they cannot. The third time it's a swarm, small enough to fit into any gap, tenacious enough to follow you anywhere, carnivorous enough to be a threat. Your face is pockmarked a dozen times with bits of missing flesh before you hit upon a idea: you unfurl the portrait of yourself, newly life-size, and drape it over your shoulderblades. The skin it covers itches badly, but that's a small price to pay for being left alone, especially as shortly thereafter you stumble upon a corridor covered with ice plant.

Of course, you'd cut down that ice plant an hour ago, and that corridor was attached to a bare ledge, not lush jungle— but you sense that matters little. You venture down it until the plant turns to wires, and you emerge once again into a dark and high-ceilinged room.

"Gil?" you say.

You don't see him among the wires, but they're so dense and tangled that means little. His voice comes again from your mouth. "I thought you wouldn't come back."

"Well, here I am!" You raise your hands. "Amazing. You're so smart. Can we get this over with?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you wouldn't come back."

You rub your bleeding face. "No need to apologize, just— look, I'm on a little bit of a time crunch, so—"

"I'm sorry."

"Ooo-kay. Neat. If you're not going to show up, I'll just be heading…"

As you begin to back away, your gaze drifts upwards, and there you make out something you didn't spot before: a dangling bundle of wire, roughly human-shaped. You'd chalk that up as ordinary (you know nothing about wires, to be honest), but as it gently turns it reveals spikes: long, shiny, metal, in a vertical pattern. They stop halfway down. You squint. You tilt your head. It hits you. "Oh, God. BK?"

"He didn't like me," Gil says matter-of-factly.

You fumble for The Sword. "Is he- is he dead?! Oh, God!"

"I don't know."

"How do you not know? You did— where are you?! Could you please— BK? If you're alive, could you please— I don't know, swing around? Gil, I- I'm serious, I need to— or else I'm—"

The bundle swings slightly. It could be coincidence. You choose to believe otherwise. "Great! Great. Good- excellent start. Fantastic. Um, now, I—"

(4/5)

"I'm here." You whip around. Gil dangles upside-down from a single wire. He shows no signs of exertion. "So are they."

"They?" Your question is answered by the phalanx of beetles that filters into the room. They are larger and better-armored than the ones you've seen before. Some block the doorway. "Come on."

"Sorry," Gil says. "I made a mistake."

"Then help!"

His eyes roll in his skull like marbles. "Yes. Swear."

"I did! I swore on- on my family n-"

"Something else."

>[A1] Swear on something else. (Write-in what. This will matter.)
>[A2] Oh, come on, you're not doing that again! Persuade him to help you regardless. [Difficult roll.] (Write-ins optional.)
>[A3] Not doing that again. Threaten him to help you regardless. [Roll.] (Write-ins optional.)
>[A4] You don't need him. Attempt to climb to safety yourself. [Difficult roll.]
>[A5] You don't need him. Attempt to fight your way out. [Difficult roll.]
>[A6] Write-in.

>[B1] Oh, God, you should do something about BK. (Write-in.)
>[B2] Plan to help BK, but try to resolve this first. (If things go wrong, you may lose your chance— but this also might not be a good time for a rescue attempt.)
>[B3] He's fine! He can get himself out, surely.

>[C] Write-in.

File: IF YOU'RE NEW READ THIS 12.png (1.28 MB, 960x1631)

1.28 MB PNG

>Last time on Drowned Quest Redux
While on an unplanned excursion in somebody's abandoned mind-palace, you and Richard encountered Gil, a moderately shady and very desperate man who had managed to turn himself into a hivemind of 300-400 beetles. You were forced to concoct a half-truth about Richard to BK, Gil, and later Ellery, who revealed that he was also busy turning into beetles. You let him do that, and examined the exit to the first layer, through which now-beetled Ellery escaped with the only key out. You eventually was able to follow with Gil's help-- though you promised to come back for him in exchange.

On the second layer, you did a bunch of weird things, evaded the attention of various beetles, met an offputting human Gil, encountered a different version of Ellery, accidentally gave different Ellery brain damage, encountered the original, beetled Ellery, nabbed the key back, and in the process pissed off all the beetles you'd been doing a good job of evading. In the middle of your escape, you encouraged the Ellerys to recombine out of convenience. They did. It didn't go well.

>Schedule
Once a day. If the update is short and/or I feel inspired, two or three. If I miss a day, I'll try to compensate with two the next. There may be sporadic half-updates (no choices) if I start writing too late in the evening, sorry in advance.

>Dice
We run on a 3d100 degrees of success system. A DC is set, and the number of rolls that pass the DC determine the result. Modifiers may be added as appropriate. Probabilities may be found in the Dice and Mechanics pastebin.

>Mechanics
The MC has a pool of 12 Identity ("ID"), which can be considered both HP and the measure of her current ego and can be lost appropriately. ID may be spent on a +10 blanket bonus to most rolls, as well as more elaborate metaphysical effects. It may be regained through marked options, write-ins, and at appropriate narrative points, as well as through sleep. Dropping to 0 ID is bad.

>Archive
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=drowned%20quest%20redux

>Twitter (I update this when I remember it exists, ie rarely)
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

>Pastebins
https://pastebin.com/u/BathicQM

>"Redux"?
This quest is a sort of sequel/reboot of the original Drowned Quest, which ran for eight threads in 2019. Reading the original isn't required. Check out the attached image instead.

>I have a question/comment/concern?
Tell me!

>>4417989
>A3
>B2

>>4417989
>A3
>"I'm not going down alone Gil! If these beetles are gonna eat me then I'll just burn this whole place down first!"

haha fire yes
big fan of the intro image

>B2

>>4418096
>>4418617
In the info post? Thanks, I just updated it. Figured 5 months was long enough. New or just happened to notice it?

>A3
>B2
Called.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+5 Fire Danger, +5 ???) vs. DC 60 (+10 Unreal, +5 Vindictive, -5 Guilty) to threaten Gil into rescuing you.

>Spend 1 ID for a +10 to all resulting rolls? (You are at 3/12 ID.)
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 27 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4418725
Info post yes. Just happened to notice it.

no spendy

reposting without the messed up rolls

Rolled 20 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4418725

Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>4418725
N

>>4418737
>>4419120
>>4419144
>37, 30, 106 vs. DC 60 -- Mitigated Success
Nice save. Writing.

>Hey no F you

You wrinkle your nose. "No. No, I won't— do you think I'm stupid? If you're so damn sorry, just—"

"Sorry," he says, and flips the right way around with boneless grace. He begins to climb. You look dubiously up at him, and nervously at the beetles, which have finished assembling in two straight rows and are now screwing tubes to their mouthparts. You don't understand until one test-fires and a projectile (a dart? a spike? some kind of coagulated beetle secretion?) whizzes past you at a speed sufficient to puncture your skull.

"Gil! I, uh- I- come back? Please?" You shift your weight from one foot to the next. Gil descends obligingly. "Look, I swear—"

It shouldn't be binding, with no blood involved— that's just the fact of the matter. It should be perfectly fine. But you don't like this Gil, who stole your mouth only to spout lilting non-answers. You don't like the range of motion in his joints. If this is the man, life down here has clearly changed him: if this isn't, well, that's worse. Either way, you can't trust him with anything valuable.

You're also angry and tired and you've found room for fear in your heart, after all. You point your sword into his face. "—that I'll burn this place down if you don't help. Gil."

He doesn't react. You waggle The Sword. "I will! I— don't you smell the smoke? I've already burnt— look!" Miraculously, the wire nearest to The Sword has begun to drip and smolder. "See! And I can do a- a lot more fire than— do you want to catch on fire? I- I mean— please." Your voice cracks. "Please."

Every tube is now trained on you. The largest beetle, eight foot nothing and armored like a knight, raises a forelimb. Gil is blank-faced. You try to convince yourself that you're not about to die. That there's nothing of you to die. You work your way inwards— hollow hands, hollow feet, hollow wrists, hollow ankles— and it comes all too close to working. You are stymied at your chest. How could it be hollow? Your heart hammers in your ears.

The largest beetle brings its forelimb down, and Gil cocks his head like an inquisitive bird, swings down, and snatches you up by the sleeve of your jacket. You don't yelp, but you clutch white-knuckled to his wrist: he climbs at a blistering pace, apparently unburdened by your weight or awkward positioning. There is a series of thunks as 30 projectiles hit a wall. There is a barked order. You can barely see them any longer, but the beetles must be rearming. You'd like to see them try to hit you, honestly, between the distance and your speed and the hundreds of wires in the way—

To be fair, most of them don't hit you. Most of the shots go wide or long or bounce miserably off a hanging coil. And to be fair, the one that hit you doesn't puncture anything important: it thuds into the back of your shin. You were basically correct.

(1/2)

It does, however, hurt like a bitch.

>[-1 ID: 2/12]

It's not so much the projectile (a spike) as what it was coated in: some kind of runny purple liquid that burns as it touches your skin. Gil's climbing is so fluid that midair you're able to raise your leg and pry out the spike, but a furious purple-tinged rash has already sprung up around it. It doesn't bode well, but neither does anything else, does it? You sigh.

Finally, Gil reaches his destination: a suspended metal catwalk, shrouded in wires. He hauls you up onto it first, then swings after you. You roll onto your back. "Great. We're here. Remind me what the point was?"

For the first time, you're able to see the ceiling of the room— it's the great face of a machine, overburdened with levers and hatches and starry lights. The wires run into ports across its surface. Gil turns his head toward it, for a long time, then towards you. "I don't know."

"You don't… you took me up here for no reason."

"Maybe."

"Maybe." You sit up and kick your feet over the edge. It's a long way down. "God, is BK down there still? Can you go get him?"

"If you swear."

"If I… God. I guess I can drag up wires until I find him…" You brush hair off your forehead. "Plenty of time. I mean, beetles aren't going to find me here, BK's already come to, uh, 'rescue' me… you aren't going to do anything, right?"

There's a significant pause. "No."

"Well, then. I guess I can just… take a breather." You idly pick the crust of dried blood off the top of your ankle. "So, uh, are you also immortal? Because—"

A violent, far-off scream shatters your small talk. The catwalk jitters under the weight of something— somewhere— landing bodily on it. Well. Of the Ellery-thing, somewhere, landing bodily on it.

You groan.

>Select what you want to do before your inevitable (and final??) confrontation! You may select TWO. [1] does not count against that, so if you pick [1] you may select two others.
>[1] Swear on something in exchange for Gil retrieving BK— or negotiate a different price. (Write-in. Negotiation may require a roll.)
>[2] You think you remember what color of wire BK was bound up in. Spend the time to fish him up yourself.
>[3] Spend some time getting some rest and patching up your wounds. (This will remove certain maluses.)
>[4] Spend some time checking on The Sword and readying yourself for glorious battle, etc. (This will provide a temporary flat bonus.)
>[5] Spend some time calming and centering yourself. (This will regain ID. A write-in about how you'd like to do this may increase the amount given, but is optional.)
>[6] Spend some time exploring that… different definition of "you." (This will have a mix of positive and negative effects.)
>[7] Write-in.

>>4419583
>[2] You think you remember what color of wire BK was bound up in. Spend the time to fish him up yourself.

>>4420005
You may pick one more option on top of that (excluding [1] since it overlaps with [2]).

>>4419583
>[3] Spend some time getting some rest and patching up your wounds. (This will remove certain maluses.)

Adding this then >>4420054

>>4419583
>4
>5

GLORIOUS BATTLE
also our ID is super low

>>4417979
"Why," you demand of the nothing inside it, "are you like this?!"

> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GeNey4E7wBU

>>4419583

Swear to god we'll start more fires. We'll become fire, and leave this place burned down to nothing and he'll still be alone. But notnlike an actual swear, more like a sarcastic angry mutter.

2, 5, 6. See if we are maybe blended with Richard. Ask ourselves, what would dick do? Then see if we can do it. Replicate one of his earlier tricks like locking Gils mouth shut, except it won't be us doing itt but us as Richard.

Then maybe we can use that to heal ourself.

Maybe put our self in the sword for safekeeping and let the snake take over the body.

>>4420585
Sorry, man, gotta narrow that down to 2 options. You only get 3 if [1] is one of the three.

>>4420604
3, 6

>>4420604
Sorry. Exhausted after work.

>>4419583
>3
>6

>>4420005
>>4420131
>>4420399
>>4420585
>>4420668
>>4420864
>Patch yourself up
>Mystery box
Hoo boy. Was expecting you guys to gun for the +ID option, since you're at 2/12, but I see we're going for broke.

>>4420585
Yeah, that clip sums it up. It's also everyone else @ Charlotte :^)
Gil doesn't have a mouth to lock shut.
You can't be possessed at the moment. There is nothing around to possess you.

>>4420670
You're all good.

Writing in a little while.

>First aid
>Wow it's kind of weird how my letters have been turning red sometimes

You know what? Whatever. You will cross that bridge when you come to it, or, more realistically, when you burn it down. You are resting, God-damnit. You are taking a break. You are sitting here and not moving an inch unless you have to. That is that.

So you do. You sit there, and then you lay down, your sword sheathed, staring up at the twinkling ceiling. Gil 'offers' one more time to retrieve BK, but you mumble something about him going to hell, and something else about burning this place down, and leaving him alone in the ashes, and he quiets. After a solid minute of doing nothing, you sit up again and examine your ankle. The inside of your boot is soaked in blood, as is your sock— you pull both off and wince. It's gouged worse than you thought. How were you able to run long distances? Because you didn't know? Too late for that: you wince again as your fingers glance off it. No choice but to deal with it now.

Your experience in wound treatment is limited, but you figure you can bind it up, at least. The Sword is still on fire, you discover upon unsheathing, so you turn to an ordinary knife to cut a strip from your dress. The crimson looks dashing, you think, as you begin to tie it up— it's a shame it'll be covered by your boot. It's a shame that you can't do more, either, with no water to clean with or choking ointments to daub on. Is this what you did to your arm, after it got nearly chopped off? Your memories of that fight are muddy. No, didn't you just- shove it back on? …Eugh.

That wouldn't work here, right?

Right? It wouldn't? Gingerly, you loose the scrap of fabric, place it on the floor, and pinch the sides of the wound together. It hurts like a hot poker, but you grit your teeth, and when the torn edges of your skin meet they stick together like putty. An inflamed stripe across your ankle is all that remains.

You stand, and it still hurts, but considerably less. When you tie the scrap back around it, it doesn't hurt at all. (How could it? It looks so dashing.) You slide your boot back on with relief.

While you're sitting here, though, you may as well examine your other acquisition. Though it's only been a couple minutes since it appeared, the purple rash has already spread to cover a chunk of your thigh. You consider spitting on it (…spittle was key to the survival of the hero in the trashiest serial you'd ever read behind the wall of your bedroom), but get a better idea: you reach under your tongue and press firmly on your gland. After washing your fingertips in the diluted venom, you draw them across the rash. It clears up instantly.

(1/3? 4?)

File: richard - @signwriting.png (931 KB, 665x973)

931 KB PNG

It- what? What? What gland? You don't have glands. Well, you might have glands, but you don't have venom g- you don't have venom! You're not a- even supposing you had abilities outside the norm, which in all truth and honesty you'd always suspected, they'd represent the radiant light of your soul, or the fire of your passion, or things like that. They wouldn't include venom, even if it heals things. It's not part of the aesthetic. And more to the point, you've never had venom.

Which means it's different, ie wrong. Your casual transition to that line of thinking bothers you less than the fact it was correct. You did have a gland, and it did fix the rash, and the whole of you knew it would. So who are you?

This is not a question you're accustomed to asking of yourself, and so you go about it in a straitlaced manner. You are Charlotte Frances Fawkins, sixteenth of her line, rightful heir to the throne. (No resistance to that idea.) You are twenty-three. (Or to that.) Your mother is Clara Fawkins and your aunt Ruby Bowers and your father is d- a reptile. Martin Fawkins. (A great deal of resistance, but that's normal.) And he's in your head being stupid and useless except for he's needing for explaining, in which case he's being stupid and useless somewhere else. You pick the snake up off the guardrail of the catwalk and lift it above your head. You stare into its eyes. "Where are you?"

Then you lean over the side and heave up clear bile: your stomach has realized before you have. Only after the last of it drips from your lips do you come to the conclusion that he's dead—

—Or not dead, but you've gutted of him his walk and his lighter and his (what did he call it) legerdemain and his easy menace, his teeth and his body (once) and now his venom glands. You've plucked the steel wire from his gaping skull and frayed it and woven it with your sun-faded silk and children's craft felt. Who are you? You are a mockery and a falsehood. You are a mask and a cage. You are sickening and you are pleased that all of you agrees. Richard won't laugh about this later.

There'll be a later, at least. He was expecting this. (You think that with an echo of certainty and only after remember why— the warning, right before the stairs.) He was counting the stairsteps before he ceased to exist as a whole and autonomous being. You pity him and it is self-pity. You wipe your nose.

What are you going to do with yourself?

(2/?)

File: clay.jpg (18 KB, 300x300)

18 KB JPG

There's not much time to do anything with the way the catwalk is shaking, but time is immaterial if you make it be and you retreat within your mind to think. Doing this confirms what you already knew: there's no one crevice or snakehole where Richard is 'hiding.' You don't think his consciousness properly exists in this moment, or if it does, it's disseminated so evenly through yours that it's— no, it's not indistinguishable. Scratch that. Your mind is riddled with tiny bumps where Richard is protruding from it: the process is incomplete. (Of course it's incomplete. You'd never notice it otherwise.) You could reach and pry them out. You c-

Time might be immaterial to you, but the Thing never got the memo. It comes slowly but steadily along the catwalk, its legs clicking on the metal panels, its too many arms scraping on the guardrails. It has changed since you last saw it: become resplendent, ornate, nearly garish, like the wallpaper of Ellery's sitting room. The comparison would elicit at least a snide titter, but you're too deep inside yourself for it to register. Yes, you could pry the Richard out of you. Yes, you could reconstitute it into— well, it wouldn't be him, you don't work miracles. It'd be enough of him to serve your needs, which include 'not dying horribly' and 'getting the hell out of here.' And it's simple enough. You just…

The Thing's gilded wings protrude from under its shell and its gilded mandibles clack against themselves. If you were wondering what had come upon it, a look at its armored stomach would've answered: the outline of a doorway is printed upon it in chalk. It usurped the beetle on the throne and now it's coming after you to— crown you in turn? Or just kill you? Its motives are inscrutable, and that's if you were focusing. In fact, you're focusing so little on the outside world that Gil had to stop you from toppling over the edge of the catwalk. You didn't notice. You are dredging yourself up, scraping yourself together, and molding it all at will. You are modeling clay in your own hands and though you've never done it life-size before you find it's very easy when it's strictly metaphorical. In the end you stare into a cruel, thin face, into yellow eyes, into black scales. It's not Richard. Probably it was never him. But it's close enough.

You step into it, as well as into the guardrail. Gil watches with bemusement: you have been muttering and gesturing for the last two minutes. He is a little surprised when you turn to face him. Outwardly, you're exactly as you were, but the look in your eyes is wrong.

>[ID: 2/(9)]
>[SV: (6/6)]

(3/4)

As a matter of fact, you're screwed so tight into this— this metaphor-body, this thoughtform— that you can barely breathe, much less move, much less think. The look in your eyes might be fear. What have you done? Seriously, what have you— you have to stop doing this, all of this, getting swept up in— you don't know what it is! It's like a bad dream, it's like your reasoning all shuts down, and— is it a medical condition? Are you turning out like your mother? You'd loathe telling anybody about it, but you might need to tell somebody about it, this i-

The thoughtform constricts around your mind. You are fierce and cold and iron and brass, just in time for the Thing to rear, and scream, and swipe at your neck.

>Your ID is temporarily capped at 9. This cap will remain in place until you complete a (currently undetermined) sidequest to lift it. You'll otherwise return to normal after this fight, unless you really want to keep walking around like this.
>You have a temporary pool of SV [Severalty]. SV may be substituted for any active use of ID, including doing weird stuff, adding to rolls, etc., but damage is still taken to ID. Losing all SV kicks you back to normal early, but has no other effect. It's there to be spent!
>It's still possible to regain some ID through appropriate write-ins.

>[1] DODGE! Try to take out a leg, while you're at it. [Roll.]
>[2] PARRY! Maybe you can cut this arm off. [Roll.]
>[3] JUMP! And catch yourself in the wires. You can fight it there— you're more dextrous, and you'll be forcing it to fly. [Roll.]
>[4] Do something cooler and/or weirder. (Spend a variable amount of SV. Write-in.)
>[5] Write-in.

>>4421358
>3

>>4421358
>4

Disjoint your neck like it's a snake body and curve it backwards so the claw swipe falls short. Then stab him right in the doorway. Sord > armored tummy.

>>4421606
>>4421358
This. But also spit in his face and hope it's poisonous. Venomous? Spitting Cobra is a thing.

Wait. Can Charlie spit? Have her consider it then decide it's too rude, if so.

>>4421548
>>4421606
Cool.
>>4422168
You can try to spit, but note that the Thing's head is approx. 7 feet above yours-- it'd be additional SV. Charlotte isn't too concerned with rudeness at the moment.

Not calling nor writing: I have some RL things I need to get done before midnight tonight, and starting to write at midnight is a recipe for disaster. Update is postponed until tomorrow, and depending on how short it is I may be able to get out two. Vote remains open.

Hope you guys have a nice day.

>>4422213
Bugs breathe through spiracles on their limbs anyways, so we don't need to get in its face.

>>4422213
>>4422253
Thorax & Abdomen, not legs. IDK why I said legs.

>>4422253
>>4422254
Ah, I assumed you were intending to go for its eyes. You could spit elsewhere, sure, but you'd still have to spend for it to have any velocity. (The venom is more for biting.)

>>4422256
Then let's spit at it! We can spit our spite towards it, this fucking bugman has the audacity to chase us and keep chasing us and to do so while being Ellery. Ellery! Who does he think he is, we are so going to make his next incarnation pay for this.

Channel the knowledge of heroic heroines slaying beastly men. Or heroes if no heroines are available but damn it we have an heirloom sword that is on fire and we are CLEARLY the good girl snaketagonist.

So I guess spend a SV if people are willing.

>>4422256
I wonder if our spit would cure it like it did us, kill it, or open the door?

>>4421358
>>[3] JUMP! And catch yourself in the wires. You can fight it there— you're more dextrous, and you'll be forcing it to fly. [Roll.]
And spit too

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4421548
>>4421606
>>4422168
>>4422322
>>4422848

Alright, let's count this up.

We're tied between jump and "do things with your neck," and we're tied between spit and no spit-- though the no-spit votes were placed before the write-in was submitted, so I'm going to weight that 2:1 in favor of spit. Rolling first for jump/no jump.

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>4423351
No jump wins [1 SV]. Rolling for spit (1-2) /no spit (3).

Rolled 95, 62, 34 = 191 (3d100)

>>4423354
And spit wins. You're spending 2/6 of your SV, no roll.

Rolling for the Thing.

3 1d100s + 15 (+30 GOD KING, -10 Paralyzed, -5 Oh Gods Oh Fuck Oh Gods Oh Fuck) vs. DC 60 (+10 Slippery Target)

Not writing yet but I'll do so this afternoon. I'm hoping to publish one earlier than 2 AM, so if you toss me votes I might get 2-3 out. We'll see!

Rolled 5 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>4423410
Mess with the snek, get bit.

>>4423617
Well, it's not a critfail.

>>4423617
>>4423618
You're in luck, because you didn't need to roll! Those were the modifiers for your opponent's rolls (95, 62, 34).

Writing shortly.

>>4423619
> You're in luck

> Beetledoor has 2 passes.

>>4423673
Well, you know, "luck."

>Go full snaketagonist — Autosuccess

It could be said that you have the hands of a locksmith, delicate and steady, and his love for the infinitesemal, and his rigorous sense of the order of things. These things would not be false and you'd be hard-pressed to deny them. But if you were called a locksmith, you'd bristle, and would not wholly know why. You'd explain in a circuitous manner how it's not your fault you know about keys, and it's Richard's fault, actually, and in your waking life you wouldn't know the difference between a bolt and a bitting, and you're rather sorry that you do. You would evade questions about your deftness and patience and precision. You would never mention that you've sculpted with knife and scalpel and wire for 15 years.

It could be pointed out that you have no knife or scalpel or wire, but you would scoff and gesture to your rolled-up sleeves and gesture to the table and that would be enough. Tools are necessary for the detail, but there's an ancient satisfaction in plunging your arms into a basin of clay, feeling it yield, feeling it gritty and slick in the webs of your fingers— in scooping it in clotted handfuls from the basin, and shaping it, and making something brand new. Something nobody had ever made before, not in the history of the world.

Sculpting is not on your mind when you thrust your hand into your neck and wrap your fingers around your false-spine and yank it away from the sickle that passes a hairsbreadth from your collarbone, but your false-flesh is slick and gritty in the webs of your fingers, and the spine unspooling like rope from your sacrum hits on the same satisfaction. Isn't this the good and the natural way of things? Isn't it right for your body to bow to your sacred dominion? To your rule of Law? You are half your height again in neck.

>[-1 SV: 5/6]

The Thing has taken this new footage as a gaping vulnerability and slashes at it from three different directions. It's so laughably easy to evade this that you don't bother moving your feet, and you don't look down as you unsheath the sword: you can do it by touch. You do retract the false-spine somewhat as you dart under the Thing's abdomen, if only for convenience, but you retain a solid foot of it. (You appreciate the vantage.) It is cool under here, and smells of ozone. The doorway marked out in chalk is a vivid white against the blue stomach, and you stab at it with leisure.

(1/2)

The sword bounces off the armored plate with a dink. You try again, with actual vigor, and it bounces off again. And again. The plate is seamless: there are no chinks to pierce through, no weak spots to puncture. You are flooded with negative emotion you don't have the capacity to name, and you strike fruitlessly over and over until the Thing, tiring of this charade, drags you out from under it with a pincher and hoists you into the air.

In another life you may have struggled or beaten away at it with the hilt of the sword. You may have taken heart in cheap stories of sea monsters and damsels and men with swords and capes and flowing golden locks (though you didn't see why it had to be a man)— but you are too close to all three, now, and stories mean nothing to you. Nor do they have meaning to the Ellery-thing and as it draws you up to its head the two of you share a predator's mutual respect.

This lasts for half a second before its mandibles snap open like a steel trap and before you suck your reserves into the hollows of your fangs, poke two holes in their enamel with your fingernail, and spit pressurized venom into its eyes then— on a second try— into open pores on its side. It rears back, screaming, and drops you.

>[-1 SV: 4/6]

Were you an ordinary snake it might take three hours for the effects to take hold— longer, with the size of it. You are neither, and within seconds the movement of the Thing begins to stutter and slow. It doesn't freeze up entirely, as you might've hoped (the venom works better on fish), but it's lethargic enough to let you show off: you hold your neck still, wait for the swing, and curve away at the last second. This happens four times before it catches on and begins to back— slowly— away.

You are profoundly ambivalent about this, caught between a sense of victory and the desire to finish it off, and this inner conflict is the first crack in the iron shell. You holler at yourself through it: THE EXIT! DON'T YOU REMEMBER?! THAT'S THE POINT! This, of course, means very little to you, but some of the idea carries, and you set off down the catwalk towards the Thing.

To your minor disappointment, it has already stopped. It looks at you, beats its wings, and looses a tooth-aching scream— and what you'd mistaken for plating on its abdomen slides open. The beetles that fly out could block out the sun, and they're all headed directly for you.

(Choices next)

>[1] Hold fast. Focus on wading through the swarm. If you can get to the hatches, focus on using them as weak places to stab. [Roll.]
>[2] As above, but focus on getting inside the hatches. Higher risk, higher reward. [Roll.]
>[3] Nevermind the hatches— your priority is survival. Burn them all. [Roll.]
>[4] Do something weirder, or cooler. [Spend SV. A roll may still be required, depending on what you do about the beetles, but SV may make it easier.]
>[5] Write-in.

Two things: took barely any of the thought process write-in, sorry! It was good and very IC, but Charlotte is very much not IC right now. And sorry about the wait, I'm slower than I thought-- still might be able to get another out if this all goes very fast, but otherwise it'll be tomorrow again.

>>4424244
>[2] As above, but focus on getting inside the hatches. Higher risk, higher reward. [Roll.]

Can't the key we got from Ellery help us get through the hatch?

>>4424244
>[3] Nevermind the hatches— your priority is survival. Burn them all. [Roll.]

I don't think it's possible to not choose a prompt that includes the words burn them all

>>4424503
>>4424528
>>4424503
You can try, but the hatches =/= the door (and they're already wide open, the challenge is getting there before they close).

>>4424528
This information can and will be used against you :^)

>>4424244
Are there wires nearby we can climb up to the hatches?

>>4424665
There's wires surrounding the entire catwalk, so yes. You could also attempt to climb its legs, or just stick your neck up there and leverage your way up.

>>4424244
>[3] Nevermind the hatches— your priority is survival. Burn them all. [Roll.]

Rolled 70, 52, 69 = 191 (3d100)

>>4424528
>>4424696
>3

>>4424503
>2

Called.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+5 On Fire!, +5 Partial Integration) vs. DC 65 (+15 Still A Lot Of Beetles) to burn the hell out of this assault.

>Spend 1 SV for a +10 to each result? [4/6 SV]
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Opponent's rolls: 3 1d100s + 28 (+30 GOD KING; +15 THE SUN, THE SUN; -10 Paralyzed; -7 Oh Gods Oh Fuck Oh Gods Oh Fuck) vs. DC 70 (+10 Highly Flammable, +10 That's A Lot Of Fire)

Rolled 100 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4424931
N.

>>4424952
Well, it's not a critfail.

Rolled 13 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4424931
Yes spend, they exist to be spent

also wtf is Ellery doing with the sun buff, he lost that. God King was bad enough, those bonuses are ridiculous

>>4424952
Sickass.

>>4425001
exposure to fire

I'll note that you just critsucceeded, so spending is moot (can't do better than this)-- I mean, you can, but there's no reason to except flavor text.

Just need one more roll on the off chance it's a 1.

Rolled 61 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4425017

>>4425017
> I mean, you can, but there's no reason to except flavor text

You say that like it isn't a good reason.

Can we unhinge our jaw and "eat" Beetlellery to save for later if we spend?

>>4425017
Wasn't sure how nat 100's worked, if they were 2 successes or all three.

>>4424952
>>4425001
>>4425020
>Natural 100 - Critsuccess
Very nice.

>>4425001
>>4425017
To elaborate on the sun buff, his side of the roll was/is for absorbing the fire.

>>4425025
If you were literally a giant snake at the moment, I'd say sure. Since you're not (and no, you're not turning into one), since Beetlellery is 12 feet tall and bulky, and since that's veering a little too magical realm for my liking (whether intentional or not), I'm going to say no.

>>4425032
No problem. At the moment (I've been considering changing this, but I'm not settled on anything), we do traditional "you automatically win/lose super hard" crits.


This all being said, I have a handful of options for the outcome of this crit, and I'd like to put it to a vote. You'll obliterate the beetles regardless.
>[A1] The On Fire! buff becomes permanent: The Sword is always on fire, can set small / flammable things on fire with no additional roll, and gains a flat +5 to actions involving it, stackable with your current +10.
>[A2] You regain your maximum ID (9 -> 12) without the need for a sidequest.
>[A3] Beetlellery/the Thing's +30 GOD KING modifier is obviated for the remainder of the fight.
>[A4] Write-in. (Subject to veto. You can't kill Beetlellery with this-- he got an Enhanced Success.)

And additionally: spending SV here won't change the outcome of the update, but it'll change how it's written (no spend = normal-ish POV, spend = full snake POV.) You're at 4/6.
>[1] Spend
>[2] Do not

>>4425047
That should be [B1] and [B2] for the second set of options.

>>4425047
>A1
>B2

everything could always use more fire

>>4425047
>[A1] The On Fire! buff becomes permanent: The Sword is always on fire, can set small / flammable things on fire with no additional roll, and gains a flat +5 to actions involving it, stackable with your current +10.
9ID is still pretty good and knocking off Beetlerrey's modifier only effects this fight.

>>4425062
Need a [B] option.

>>4425025
>You say that like it isn't a good reason.
When I write options and set modifiers/DCs, I go at it assuming voters want to optimize the result (narratively, mechanically). It's hard to internalize that people might be just wanting to see what I write, or the character/story implications... it's very flattering, though.

>>4425081
If this was an easier fight I might have gone B1 for flavor text but it looks like the big leagues.

>>4425047
>>[2] Do not

>>4425047
> that's veering a little too magical realm for my liking (whether intentional or not)

Bruh. Just, no. I was just thinking what things snakes do and that we could use a beetle minion made from Ellery.

>>4425047
>[A3] Beetlellery/the Thing's +30 GOD KING modifier is obviated for the remainder of the fight.

No gods, no masters above us. If only we could keep the sword when we leave it would be an easy pick, but I think this is best.

Y

>>4425047
>[A1] The On Fire! buff becomes permanent: The Sword is always on fire, can set small / flammable things on fire with no additional roll, and gains a flat +5 to actions involving it, stackable with your current +10.

I'm SURE this won't affect us in ways unintended since the sword is made from like, our ID.

B2

>>4425061
>>4425062
>>4425102
>>4425121
>>4425120
[A1] / [B2] takes it. Appreciate the prompt votes.

>>4425092
No worries!

>>4425119
I expected the reasoning to be along those lines, yeah, but on the face of it "vore your opponent to turn them into your personal minion" is some crazy Akun stuff, lmao. No harm in the suggestion, and absolutely no bad feelings, but even minus that aspect it's still above your power scale at the moment. (Maybe someday?)

>>4425121
:^)

>>4425120
If it helps, you'll have The Sword every time you return to unreality-- and if you ever find the physical version, the buff will apply to it as well.

I've got some RL stuff to take care of, but update will be out tonight (sometime).

>>4425184
I just wanted to see if the Ellery Beetle would chang if we brought him to another level.

>>4425268
This would be complicated, since opening the door requires cutting into the Thing's abdomen and, theoretically, killing it-- but if you have spare SV/ID after you accomplish that, and you still want to, I'll let you drag it inside itself. How about that?

>>4425389
I feel . . . YES about it.

I mean I was gonna just suggest decapitation and hoping the head could talk.

File: THE SUN! THE SUN!.jpg (330 KB, 1024x1024)

330 KB JPG

>Fire solves everything redux
>NAT 100
>Fire also solves everything: 98, 80, 97 vs. DC 65 — Enhanced Success

The ideas in your head are rigid and colorless and all seem to involve throwing off this useless human skin or at least performing extensive alterations to make it usable, but your clarity of purpose is tainted by the whining. "PLEASE STOP!" and "NO!" and "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" and "OH MY GOD!", all dribbling forth from that single crack, all sapping at your patience— though the last of those does make you laugh. The children-gods have eight fangs in their weeping hearts and there is nothing in the sky but air. The thing you're facing now is only a man and a sad and shattered man at that. Charlotte, you are the only God there is. Shouldn't that make you feel better?

>[+1 ID: 3/(9)]

But the shrill petulance worms into you more than you'd like to admit, so you settle for one of its many proposals: "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SET IT ON FIRE!!" Fire does not come naturally to you— you are damp and cold and a little slimy and more importantly entirely passionless— but you know who could help, and so as the first beetles begin to knock against your body you punch your metaphor-hand through your ribcage and rip out your metaphor-heart and swallow it whole. It makes your throat bulge comically which you'd never normally mind but you've now granted yourself 'horror' and 'shame' and so you gulp it down as fast as possible and let it split open in your stomach acid like a ripened fruit. You know then the proper way to feel, so as the first beetles begin to knock against your body (it has been no time) you explode.

Here it is again, slowed down: the flames on the sword flared, first at the tip of the blade then in a sinuous wave all the way to your hand, and up it. They wreathed your arm and your shoulder and engulfed your chest and legs and limned your face in orange gold. You opened your mouth and they took it as an invitation and lept down it, filling your lungs and throat, filling all the hollow spaces in your bones— and there was no more room, and they filled anyway, sucking greedily at the false-life within you. And you could take no more, and you exploded.

It came as a great corona of flame, a lashing, hissing sun-flare, and it turned the beetles to vapor and ash. Practically thinking, you should've been heaped among them on the grates, or in plasticized stripes against the melted guardrail, but you stand here fresh-faced, bright-eyed, and good as new. (Well… just new. But don't tell yourself that.) You're still on fire, which is fine: it's warm and not at all painful. The Sword is raging, it's like you lit a bonfire on it— you sense this is the sort of flame that won't come out. Best of all, you feel yourself again.

>[GAINED: Permanent 'On Fire!'!]

(1/2)

File: sun beetle.jpg (49 KB, 400x618)

49 KB JPG

Well, that's an exaggeration: the metaphor-body still clamps onto you unshakably. But you have a little more room to breathe within it, or enough of you has leaked out of it, or something along those lines. A clenching sensation in your head warns you this may not last, but you are determined to make the most of it, and so you march over to the Thing's scorched corpse with a spring in your step.

It is a scorched corpse, right? It has to be. You evaporated the beetles, you left every wire within a good thirty feet oozing and sparking, you melted the catwalk— there's no way this thing is structurally sound, but you'll let that go. It certainly looks like a scorched corpse, and that impression doesn't change as you draw close: it is blackened and unmoving, wedged between warped guardrails. A bundle of wire has fused to its shell. Its wings are gone. Its eyes are dark. You grin, and then frown at the logistics— will you have to get under it? If you cut through the top and sliced out the chalk doorway backwards, would that work? Is the chalk still there? If it's not still there, does that mean the—

You have already grown used to the flickering heat of The Sword and the flames on your body, so it takes you a full moment to notice that the air is independently heating up. The transition from "sunny day" to "face-first in a hydrothermal vent" is just gradual enough to let you retreat to a safe distance: as you watch, the corpse slides open like a coffin, and there is light inside. Nothing but light, you think at first: white, stabbing, brilliant. (The thoughtform shields you from the pain.) He's ascending to the beetle afterlife, you think, and then you think that must be something nobody's ever thought before.

There's no time to explore this notion further, because as your eyes start to adapt you realize you were wrong. There is a definite form to the light, and a motion— it is crawling out unsteadily. It is obviously young, and you feel sorry that you'll have to kill it. (It might be the most sorry you've ever felt towards Ellery.) The more you look at it, the more detail you make out: the new Thing is something like a beetle, and something like a centipede, and something like how you imagine a horse to look. It is gold and blue and red and green and white, and the light comes not from its entire being, as you thought, but from its throat: there is a sphere there the width of an arm, and you think it must've concentrated your fire within it, but first you think it must be a sun. This Thing is smaller than its progenitor: nine feet, maybe, not twelve.

You think it might be innocent. You think it might be trusting. You think you might be able to negotiate a truce, then slice it open when it gets too close. You think incorrectly. You take one step towards it and it screams: just as inhuman, but higher, smoother. The scream wants you to come closer. You take another step. The scream wants you to kneel. You kn-

No!

(Choices next.)

>[1] If it wants you to get closer, you're not taking another step. Stay as far as you can and attack it from range. (How? Write-in.) [Roll.]
>[2] You are not taking commands from ELLERY. Or a BEETLE-THING. Imagine! Attempt to turn its audacity back on itself— force *it* to kneel. Then… (If it works, what will you do? Write-in.) [Roll.]
>[3] Well… perhaps this can be a form of truce. Play along with its commands, lull it into security, wait for a window of opportunity, then… (If this works, what will you do? Write-in.) [Roll.]
>[4] Do something cooler. Or weirder. (Spend SV. Write-in.)
>[5] Write-in.

>>4425566
>[2] You are not taking commands from ELLERY. Or a BEETLE-THING. Imagine! Attempt to turn its audacity back on itself— force *it* to kneel. Then… (If it works, what will you do? Write-in.) [Roll.]

It's a sun-Beetle? We are a Sun-Snake with a sword of flame and wings of plasma. This beetle is a hollow thing of echoes, not just from Ellery even its flame was clearly inspired by us.

We aren't just a real person projecting into this place, we're REAL wherever we are. We're real nobility, minor as it may be, we're a real Queen (crown is lost but out there somewhere and definitely ours), and also importantly we still have a real sword. You can't swear in loyal retainers without a sword.

Most importantly, and everyone will tell the beetle this, and if there's any bit of Ellery left in there, we are a *real stubborn bitch*.

So it might as well givw up now because otherwise it WILL go down.

Because we are gracious, we will promise to not use it as a mount if it surrenders but instead let it come along with us on adventure and glory and fuck, maybe even bring it outside.

Fucking people being shit and trying to kick us out of our home, we'll sic our burning beetle baby on them.

>>4425995
>>4425566
Spend SV to overwhelm beetle with our snake predator stare, as well. It knows deep down who is the predator.

>>4425566
>2

snek > beetle
we are god queen cobra

IF IT WORKS UUUUUUH
demand it lead us to level 3 I guess?

still can't believe we just gave Ellery back his sun
we need to up our fire game to kugelblitz tier so he can't absorb it

>>4425995
> and if there's any bit of Ellery left in there it already knows

Fuck. Typing it up on break at work.

Come on beetle Ellery. You know this fight ain't worth the grief we'll give you.

Let's see...

>>4425995
>We are a Sun-Snake with a sword of flame and wings of plasma.
If you want this to be remotely literal (minus the sword) it'll take spending-- probably 3 SV. It doesn't have to be, just letting you know.

>>4425997
>Spend SV to overwhelm beetle with our snake predator stare, as well.
I won't let you autosucceed here, since it's a direct contest, but I'll let you spend up to 3 SV for a +10 to the roll per SV. If you spend 3 I'll give you a BOGO sale and lump in the above (if you want it).

>>4426097
>demand it lead us to level 3 I guess?
If the hatchening didn't change anything, level 3 is still entered via cutting open a door shape in its abdomen. You could ask it to do that for you, but it'd be a tough sell (for obvious reasons, hopefully).

>>4426547
He kept the door on him through the molting? Did he at least lose the armor?

>>4426564
It's hard for you to tell either of these things without getting closer: it's genuinely too bright to look at for too long. That being said, you strongly expect the door to still be there (and you know how strong expectations work...), and it does seem to be less armored. More of a glass cannon now.

>>4426547
>>4425566
2, use the key on its tummy. Or transfer the door to something else. Maybe a reflection, like water?

Rolled 94, 26, 85 = 205 (3d100)

>>4425995
>>4425997
>>4426097
>>4426751
>2
Alright. Let's look at this.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 20 (+10 ROYALTY, +5 Seething Contempt, +5 Partial Integration) vs. DC 70 (+20 Opponent's Bonus)

>Spend SV to boost your roll? You are at 4/6 SV.
>[1] Spend 1 SV -- +10
>[2] Spend 2 SV -- +20
>[3] Spend 3 SV -- +30 expenditure of this magnitude may have other impacts
>[4] Do not

Opponent's roll: 3 1d100s + 20 (+45 SUN KING, -15 Oh Gods! Oh Fuck! Oh Gods! Oh Fuck!, -10 Paralyzed) vs. DC 70 (+20 Opponent's Bonus)

If both sides succeed, the highest raw roll will be used to determine who wins out.

>>4426796
Sorry, typo'd-- meant modified roll, not raw roll. SV modifiers will count towards the tiebreak.

Rolled 11 + 20 (1d100 + 20)

>>4426796

>[1]

Rolled 58 + 30 (1d100 + 30)

>>4426796
>[1] Spend 1 SV -- +10

Rolled 95 + 30 (1d100 + 30)

>>4426796

>[1]

>>4426812
>>4426881
>>4426899
>41, 88, 125 vs. DC 70 -- Success
>You win the tiebreak [114 vs 125]
Nice. Writing.

>>4426930
Bullying Ellery is our calling in life, no matter what his shape or form.

>>4427135
Sorry guys the OP of this thread isn't me, it's an impersonator, and I'm actually rangeb--

Just kidding. Stared at the screen a lot last night, didn't get enough done to post. I'll have it out today and another tonight if all goes well. Keep an eye out.

>>4427135
Yes.

>>4427458
Fucking Wuxian.

>Turnabout is fair play
>41, 88, 125 vs. DC 70 -- Success
>Spend

You are locked away inside a simulacrum of something older and more dangerous and even less human than you expected. This is not why you resist the Thing's command. You would resist it at any place in your life, at any level of strength, because the idea is anathema. You'd sooner die than kneel, to anybody— but you'd sooner smash your skull in with a claw hammer and dribble brains from your ears than kneel to Ellery, whom you— well, it's not that you hate him, exactly. (Though he is deeply irritating.) It's that he's less than you, blatantly, stupendously less— and he won't apologize for it. He won't even admit it. The nerve! To swan around like he's worth a thing in the world, to laugh the meaning out of matters, to not die when he's killed, to not change when he's changed! The nerve! To not be what he is! To delude the masses into tolerating him— liking him— loving him! It's incomprehensible to you, it's awful, and now he has the gall to- to stand in front of you, sheathed in delusion, guised as something deeply heathen, and ask you to kneel? To ask you? To kneel?

You could smash his skull in with a claw hammer, honestly. If only you had one. You'll have to settle for-or-r-r-r

The gall. To ask you to kneel. You, who carries the world on your back. You, who brings form and structure to the wild blackness. If not for you, this spiteful little creature would be nothing. Pulp. You should kneel? It should make obeisance before you, it should surrender its ill-gotten—

-I-i-ii-i it needs to open that stupid door so you can get out of this stupid place and get out of your own head and get some stupid sleep and face the next stupid day and pick up the pieces of your real life. Of your life. This is your real life no matter how many times you're told otherwise and you are real. You are Real. You have value. You are a real heiress and you will be a real queen and you have a sword which- it is not Real but it is real to you and that's what-t

And that's what matters to you and what matters to you is all that matters. What matters to you is all that's REAL and what doesn't matter will peel away. Like this thing. This glow-worm. You fix your eyes on it and you take a step backwards.

It screams, more infectiously than the first: it tries to slip under your will, rather than bash through it. There's no words in it but it carries a clear message. "Don't you miss the sun?" And again. "Don't you miss true heat, and true light?" "Wouldn't you like to bask?" "Aren't we on the same footing, pretty snake?" "Oh gods! Oh gods! Oh gods! Oh gods I'm—"

(1/2)

File: snake yellow.jpg (11 KB, 400x300)

11 KB JPG

And perhaps any of those would've held meaning to you, but you are not of light or of the sun or even of fire, despite the circumstances. You are of the damp and the cool quiet underground places, and of the treasures there, shining and unfathomably real, and you only see for convenience. You brush the scream off smugly, tilt your neck, and open your eyes wide, wide, wider, until they are black pits, and there's not a sliver of yellow—

>[-1 SV: 3/6]

"COME," you say, but in nothing so petty as words: you reach and weave it into the fabric of the smoking air around you. The glow-worm flares so furiously that all is white, but your eyes eat the light, and you are implacable. "COME. You little bitch."

You've been alternating between grabbing for control and getting your hand slapped away, but you have it back and you're clinging on until you can get this out. Your pupils feel weird. "I heard you, dumbass. Wow! Welcome back! Do you still want to kill me?"

The Thing is straining and snapping its mouths.

"I guess you're still mostly beetle, so I— whatever. Wish you'd put some effort in. God. You know I won't stop, right? I'm just going to keep on going, and at the end of this you're going to die. Or whatever happens to you. So why don't we speed this up?"

It takes a single stumbling step towards you. The air heats a fraction of a degree.

"Good! Good job! Keep at it."

Another.

"That's right."

Another.

"Alright!" You're feeling rather cheerful, though you're beginning to swelter. "This was easy, wasn't it? Just a little more…"

In the end it stands 10 feet before you. The smile slides then from your face. "KNEEL."

It can't really kneel. It doesn't really have knees. But it stoops.

"Well, then." You sheathe your sword. "Let's look at you."

To your delight, the chalk markings are still on its abdomen. Better, the armor is lessened— it'll be an ordeal, but you should be able to cut through. You just have to make sure it holds still instead of spewing molten beetle blood all over you, or whatever. Easy. Probably.

[Pick an [A] OR a [B]]
>[A] Cut into it to open the door.
>>[1] Keep it still and alive as you do. [1 SV]
>>[2] Kill it first to make it easier. Sword to the head. [Roll.]
>>[3] Cut it all the way open, not just the door. Who knows what's inside? [Roll.]

>[B] Attempt to open the door some other way. [Write-in.]

[Pick any C]
>[C1] If you get the door open, attempt to drag it/its head/its corpse in with you. Somehow. [1 SV]
>[C2] Fish up BK, finally, and take him with you. [Roll to get this done before anything explodes.]
>[C3] Claim some part of the Thing as a trophy. (Write-in. Roll if it's alive or the trophy is volatile.)

[Pick one]
>[D1] Free yourself once and for all. (Lose all remaining SV.)
>[D2] Don't. (Keep any remaining SV. You run the risk of freaking out anybody in the 3rd layer.)

>[E] Write-in.

>>4428274
>B2

Ledgermain up some chalk and redraw the door so it's open. Worth a shot right?

>C2

>D1

We probably look like a snake version of beetle Ellery right now and that will get us ganked on sight.

>"Wouldn't you like to bask?" "Aren't we on the same footing, pretty snake?"
wow beetle ellery called us pretty, how flattering

>>4428311
Supporting.

>>4428311
>>4428323
Called.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 5 (+5 Partially Integrated) vs. DC 65 (+25 Left Alone, -10 Paralyzed) to fish out BK and have nothing go wrong.

Rolled 51 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4428455
If possible, since we're dropping the form after this, can we boost with our remaining 3 SV? Assuming emptying the pool has no ill effects.

>>4428458
Oh, shoot, my mistake-- I thought that post looked kind of short. Yeah, you can boost up to 3, though note how much you want to freak out BK.

Rolled 41 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4428455

Rolled 24 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4428455

>>4428480
Also, 1 SV.

>>4428458
>>4428480
>>4428484
>66, 56, 39 vs. DC 65 -- Mitigated Success
I'm assuming you spend at least 1 SV here, per >>4428485.

I won't be writing for another little bit, so
>If you'd like to spend more than 1 SV [up to 3], you may vote to do so now. (I screwed it up.)

The more you spend, the weirder you'll seem to BK. If nobody votes, we'll roll with the Mitigated Success.

>>4428503
Writing.

File: olive green settee.jpg (23 KB, 474x391)

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>Chalk art
>Okay, maybe you should get BK
>66, 56, 39 vs. DC 65 -- Mitigated Success you'll get the mitigated later

You draw your sword once more and picture cutting through the chitin. Sawing through it, really— it's not that thin. You picture the smell of burning beetle flesh and the horrible screaming. Involuntarily, you picture sawing through Ellery's breastbone, and his accusing eyes, and the blood, red like water.

It's true that you consigned him to death about a week ago. It's true that you hate the idea of him. It's true that he's some kind of immortal mutant freak and he'll probably be just fine. It's true that he's not even the real immortal mutant freak. He may not even feel it. He may not even bleed. He may not even be conscious, or he may be buried so deep under mounds of beetle it won't register. He probably won't remember a thing. He certainly can't blame you. He stabbed you! In the heart!

But that image won't dislodge itself no matter how hard you try to curl up away from it, and in the end you have to admit defeat. You scratch the head of the snake, who has coiled around your neck, and sniff. "Guess what. I'm not killing you."

The Thing clicks balefully.

"I expect thanks for this when you're back to normal. Got it? I want thanks, I want— I want a card. And I want it spelled correctly. That's the criteria here. Okay? That's the-" You're becoming acutely aware that it'll never speak back. "Uh, yeah. So I'll just… I'll just figure something else out."

You sit down onto an olive-green settee (wedged sideways into the melted ruins of the catwalk) and rest your chin on your hands. "If you have any ideas, I'll take them."

It doesn't seem to have any ideas. Neither do you, but when you adjust your chin a stick of white chalk rolls from your hands, through the catwalk, and into the wires below. "Oh," you say. You open your hand. More sticks of chalk are inside. "Okay."

You seem to think you should draw a door, so that's what you attempt. The catwalk is too uneven, the settee too soft. The curvature of the Thing's underbelly muddles your attempts to match the dimensions. Your arm keeps shaking from adrenaline you didn't know you had. The thoughtform keeps trying to encroach back over you, and you're forced to devote your attention to fighting it off, not to mention shooting the Thing the evil eye whenever it twitches. It's a disaster.

Finally, you give up: you just let it envelop you, and then you laugh grimly at your thickheadedness and in three straight strokes draw a door in midair. It fills itself in like pooling oil, and then it is wooden and ordinary, like it thinks it's in a wall. You open it and inside are stairs. You pull Ellery's key from your ear and consider it and put it back. You are going down.

(1/2?)

File: BK.jpg (58 KB, 444x600)

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But- BK. God-damnit. You have to get BK or he'll complain that you left him to die, ruining the reputation you've cultivated. God-damnit. Well, there's nothing for it. You shut the door again, turn away, and pick your way over the settee and over the massive missing patch of catwalk and over to the still-intact wires well behind you.

Where's Gil? He's vanished. Maybe you burnt him to death. Well, whatever— you'll just have to do it yourself. You'll just have to fish up a couple hundred wires yourself before you find the right one. Wonderful.

Well, okay, you won't have to. You could just taste iron on your tongue and feel your lungs contract and then it's obvious, it's so obvious, how they hang with tension, bearing a hundred sixty pounds between them, and it's even more obvious how to haul them up, you just grab and you pull, and—

>[-1 SV: 2/6]

The bundle comes now, and you don't want to melt the wires to his skin, so you draw a tortoiseshell knife and slice through them. BK is inside, though he's as changed as you were: bulkier, with metal studs rifting through his arms and legs as well as his back, and the ones on his back longer and sharper than they were. His lips are drawn back from his gums, and he has real teeth, not dentures: they are slightly jagged, like they belonged to a well-mannered shark. His eyes are closed but snap open when you push the last of the wires off his face. They are brown. They were probably always brown, but you'd never paid attention.

He stares at you soundlessly for long enough to make it clear something's wrong. What could be wrong? Is it your teeth? That's not your fault, that's Richard's, for letting himself be absorbed—

BK moves his hand to his neck and gestures. You don't understand, but you feel your own neck out of courtesy, and then you realize you have four times as much neck as you should, and that you could have more, that it would take no effort to stretch your neck out forever, because time and distance and plausibility to you are moderate inconveniences, and then stomach acid rises in your throat and you double over and retch. When you straighten you're the right height and you can breathe freely and deeply.

>[SV: 0/0]
>[ID: 3/(9)]

"Um," BK says. His voice is still softer than his face and you're again surprised. "Shit, you didn't have to- I mean, that was- oof." He's propping himself up on one elbow. "That was wicked."

That was evil and sinful? God, maybe it- it was? Just what did you lose yourself to? Are you permanently tainted with-

"Cool," he clarifies, upon seeing your face. "Uh, that- shit, was that your Beast?"

"My what?" you say.

He blinks. "Your, uh, Dread and Terrible—"

"Oh! Oh, uh— uh, yes. That was its, uh— malign and, yes, wicked influence, weaving dark magickal spells over mine, uh-"

He's not listening. He's shielding his eyes and squinting past you. "What the fuck is that?"

(2/3)

"Uh, well, of course, that's—"

"And shit, where's Ellery? Is the guy just beetles? If he's lost the fucking key, I'm going to—"

"Um, well…" You see the immediate future: you tell him about Ellery and/or the key, he insists on rescuing Ellery, he insists on using the key, going back to the meeting, ruining your plans… "Hey, you know what? This is not structurally sound. How about we duck through that door right there and talk things out, 'kay? Just to make it easy, just so we don't fall a hundred feet…"

You grab his arm, hoist him up (he is, like you and Ellery, strangely light), and frogmarch him over to the door. Though his faculties seem intact and he's in good spirits, he's still very much dazed, and you have little trouble pushing him through ahead of you and slamming the door shut behind. It is richly dark inside, so you pull out your lighter.

BK's eyebrows are furrowed. "Thirdsday, this is— this is the interim, this is—"

"Yeah? Where'd you expect the floating door to go?" You raise your hands. "It's safer than out there, isn't it? Especially with—"

"It's not fucking safer, and you wouldn't believe the amount of doors I've— do you know what's down there?"

Some of you does. "Uh, it's weird, but—"

"Weird how a politician is dishonest, sure. A fucking understatement. You know how many times I've been down there? Once. You know how long I've been doing this? Too fucking long. That's me. You're a fucking greenhorn. There's nothing down there that's worthwhile, and you can take that on—"

"I never said I was going down there," you say pompously. "Stress is bad for the heart, isn't it? Why don't we just sit down, uh, calm down, talk this over, and see what to do about the key, alright? That's all."

>Tell BK about (pick multiple if desired):
>[A1] Finding the key
>[A2] Ellery going… a little crazy (not your fault at all)
>[A3] Ellery turning into that thing outside (also not your fault at all)
>[A4] Just recount the whole thing.
>[A5] Nothing.

>Ask BK about:
>[B] Write-in (optional)

>Get downstairs…
>[C1] Tell BK that you are going down there, period, and he can't stop you, and he can come if he wants or rot outside.
>[C2] Explain to BK that you just obliterated the catwalk, etc., so you will be just fine.
>[C3] Just start walking.

>[D] Write-in.

>>4428851
>[A1] Finding the key

Yeah uuh Ellery might have lost it, down there. Things were getting crazy but I think he said something like that?

>B

How Gil nabbed him and why he has shark teeth now. Also what the minimum level of experience one should have to go down to level 3, so we can safely conclude it would take too long to get that experience and just go down now.

>C4

Yeah man we gotta go down to get the key. I don't want to, but we gotta. Yeah.

If my ten billion IQ plan with A1 and C4 doesn't work I'd like to fall back upon C2.

>>4429038
Supporting. High IQ plays will always work.

>>4429038
>>4429260
Called. I'd ask for a roll here, but you're a better liar than normal, so you get it for free. Nice write-in.

I am going to be occupied with a TTRPG all afternoon and potentially into the evening, so it's strongly possible I won't have enough time to complete this update. If I have enough to post, I'll post what I have done-- otherwise I'll try to get it out tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow's my birthday, so it's possible I won't have time then, either. Absolute worst case I post on September 1st, which coincidentally is Drowned Quest Redux's one-year anniversary! I have a couple things prepared for it, so keep an eye out.

If I don't update today, hope you guys all have a great rest of your day.

>ahahaha yeah about the key…
>weird teeth, man

BK rubs his eye. "I… whatever. 5 minutes won't kill us, I guess."

Triumphantly, you sit down. He follows, curling one leg against his chest, the other flat on the ground. You tilt your head. "So…"

"Yeah?"

"What's the deal with your teeth?"

He taps along them thoughtfully. "Hey, I could ask the same of you. Nice fangs. They come natural, or they Dread and Terrible? If it's the second, then damn, I need to get myself a—"

You snap your mouth shut. "Fangs? I don't… you must be… don't dodge my question, okay? What's the deal?"

"I'm not dodging it, I'm just not totally sure." He shrugs. "Theory's not my thing, you'd have to ask Mav or Ellery for the specifics… I think they call it downshifting? Something about how, uh, the deeper you get, the more your COS bleeds into your active… uh…" He rubs his chin. "Fuck, okay. Deeper you get, weirder everything gets, including teeth. Yours, mine… the important part is that they're fucking badass, right? Go ahead, tell me they're not badass."

You're not about to use that word, but they are striking, you have to admit. "I suppose I can't."

"Hey!" He slaps the ground good-naturedly. "How about that! Yeah, I hate the shit out of everything else down here, but the modding potential is through the roof. Something about the atmosphere you just can't replicate at home. How did you do the neck? Talk about showing off—"

"What happened with you and Gil?"

He pauses. "Now who's dodging the question?"

You stare at your hands.

"…Alright, hon. What do you mean, me and Gil? Yelled at him for a little bit, Ellery exploded, I think you saw the rest? Is there something I—"

You stare up at him. "He cocooned you?"

"He— oh, shit! That's him? Shit, I didn't—" BK buries his face in his hands. "Figures he's an ugly fucker. Ugly inside, ugly outside, that's a good rule of— yeah, no, he got me. I follow your footprints, get to this room, look up, and next thing I know there's this runty little shit spewing wires outta his mouth— didn't even have time to react."

"He doesn't have a mouth."

"Well, he did. Don't know what to tell you." BK sighs. "Then— I don't know. It wasn't that bad, all things considered. I just dozed off. Don't know what the point was, if he was wrapping me up to suck my juices out, or…"

Eugh. You grimace. "Good thing I came along, right?"

"Oh, yeah, no shit. You're a star. You got the key, didn't you?"

Okay, Charlotte, deep breath. You can't tell him. You have to lie. Just be... smooth. Convincing. "What's that maxim? Nothing can be easy?"

"You didn't?"

"Oh, believe me, I tried." You gesture to your soot-covered face. "He made a beeline for the third level. You thought I wanted to go down there for fun?"

BK glances over his shoulder, down the stairs. "You didn't inspire a lot of—"

(1/4?)

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"Well, I just cut you out of some gross cocoon— how was I supposed to know how you'd react? You could've been delirious, you could've been turning into beetles… I couldn't risk it. I mean, even if you were normal, I don't know, what if you were pissed? I had to ease you into it."

"…" He rubs his mouth. "Fuck."

"I know it's bad, but I figured that if we went together, it wouldn't be so…"

"I'm not mad at you. It's my fucking fault for letting you go alone." He hits the floor, once, and stands. "Do you know anything about the third level?"

It was that easy? All along, you could just lie like that? No wonder Richard gets mad. You run your tongue along your gums. You know next to nothing about the third level, but your gut tells you that'll change very soon, and you don't want to make him wonder. "Uh, yeah, I've done some… independent reading."

"Reading won't sum it up, but— I guess there's plenty of time down there. It's another magnitude slower. I guess we…" BK stands, slowly, and shakes his head. "Hon, I'm too old for this."

You wrinkle your forehead. "Are you not—?"

"Oh, no, I'm going. But I'm too old for this. Mind taking my hand?"

It's quite one thing to take Richard's hand— he's unfortunately your father, and looks the right age for it, besides. And you've known him. It's quite another to take BK's— he's neither young enough nor old enough, a confirmed criminal— and, almost certainly, a bachelor. What happened to standards? To decorum? To class?

BK coughs. "Please. So we don't get separated."

You side-eye him, side-eye the stairs, and slip a pair of white gloves out of your pockets. You slide them on. "Since I must."

BK's hand, to your great relief, doesn't prompt the confusing upswell of emotion that Richard's did. It is only a hand— large, warm. And you're not technically touching it, so no codes of honor are being violated. "Okay," he says. "Close your eyes. When we start, I'm going to count to 88. When I'm done, you can open your eyes, and we'll be at the bottom. Deal?"

This is deeply suspicious to you. "What? Why 88?"

"That's the number of steps we're going to take."

You break from his hand, walk over to the staircase, and peer down it. "There's got to be thousands of—"

"There's 88. Work with me."

His eyes are pleading. You fold your arms. "I'm right, you know."

"Please."

"Fine, 88. Whatever." You're not invested enough to argue, and truthfully you'd like him to be correct. Your legs are tired enough.

(2/4)

File: down and in.jpg (116 KB, 450x608)

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You allow BK to take your hand again, reluctantly close your eyes, and set off down the stairs. You take 88 steps, and you know this becaue BK counted each out loud. Never mind the jerking feeling you got each time, as if— say— the ground were contracting suddenly under your feet. Never mind the odd pulsing in your ankles. On the 44th step, the long-neglected snake vanishes from its hiding spot around your waist. You do not mourn it. It was vestigial. You take 88 steps in all, and it takes you two minutes.

"-88," BK says. "Okay, here we are. You can open your eyes."

You do. You are before another door. BK has released your hand (thank God!) and is reaching to his back. He grasps one of the metal spikes lodged there and pulls it out, as well as a considerable amount of rope— it coils out of him and twice around his feet, and you still can't see the end. Stooping, BK places the spike perpendicular to the ground and hammers it in with the heel of his shoe.

"Uh," you say.

"There'll be a drop, and we'll want to get back up here, I'd hope." Maybe he senses this doesn't answer the real question: he grins. "You're not so special."

"Uh-huh."

BK leans his ear against the door, sighs, and stretches his shoulders. "Well, there's nothing for it. Head in as soon as I land, gotcha? Use the rope if it makes you comfortable, but you won't hurt yourself."

"Sure." You're still staring at the rope.

"Wish me luck." He doesn't wait— he opens the door, backs up, and hurtles through at a run.

When the rope goes taut, you follow. Any uncertainty that existed in you before you crossed the threshold vanishes the moment you do. Well. That statement is true, but not correct. What happened was this: at the moment you cross the threshold, any part of you that could've been uncertain died.

You land on your feet. You are different than three seconds ago, as you knew you would be. The magnitude of the change doesn't bother you. You're aware it's temporary. You're aware that, away from the crushing pressure of the layers of the mind, you will separate into two embarrassed, coughing halves and mutually agree to never speak of this again. That will be then. This is now, and you will go by Charlotte Fawkins out of convenience and habit, but by freak ill fortune you're only half her. The rest doesn't have a name.

(3/4)

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You stand on the red grass and examine your second downshift, also out of habit. You're still broadly human (it takes the waters of the subconscious to erase that), but no human in that tyrant reality has ever had roses grow from cracks in their skin. None have skin like this, smooth and hairless and polished, a hairsbreadth from marble were it not for the give. Your ordinary teeth have shrunken to nubs, leaving only the fangs. This might make speaking difficult, but—

"Thirdsday."

—BK didn't quite use his mouth, either. It takes almost an active effort to do so this deep: words just prefer to flow unheeded. "Thirdsday. Focus. Look at me."

You look up at him, and he is different. He is taller and broader again, as he was when drugged, but he's hunched semi-bestially under the weight of the quivering two-foot spikes that crest his shoulders and back. His face is sharper, or maybe it's just the teeth, but his eyes are the same and so is his voice. "It's okay, hon. Everything's the same. We'll be out soon. Just—"

It seems indelicate to tell him you're less frightened than he is. You feign reassurance. "T-thanks."

"Oh, gods, of course, I'd hate to— I've been told it helps if you shut your eyes and just go about things by feel, it's the visual noise that's the worst of the mindfuck— everything's fundamentally the same— though, fucking hell, this is a lot of beetles."

And a politician is dishonest. Except for the tiny grassy islet you stand upon, plus everything on it (some grass, you, BK, a shockingly pink tent, a partially-carved man-sized block of wood), everything is beetles. You are in the midst of a teeming, rolling, featureless sea of them, and above you arches a thick net of them, squirming and blinking, the sky and the stars within. The air is surely infinitesimal beetles knocking into one another, but you don't care to look that close. "Yes," you say dryly.

"I'm going to be honest, I don't know where to start." BK holds his forehead. "I guess we better exhaust our possibilities. There's a tent right here…"

You offer to open the tent flap, as you're less outwardly intimidating. BK doesn't complain: he seems bashful about his present state. You suppose he has limits.

The tent is tied shut but that's swiftly remedied by the application of a knife. You poke your head in. It is larger than without, containing what looks to be the interior of a small, ratty house. It smells suffocatingly of incense. There are a concerning number of pillows. A radio gabbles nonsense on a bureau.

Ellery rises indignantly from the kitchen table. It doesn't much resemble Ellery, being a shifting collage of shapes and limbs and veins, only vaguely humanoid— but it carries such an unmistakable sense of him (and smell of ozone) that you'd be prepared to swear it on oath. Your instincts are confirmed when his voice comes from the radio. "What the fuck? What are you guys doing here?"

>[1] Write-in.

>>4430250
>"Looking for you. What are you doing here?"

Also we're looking for that 1/16th of Law which should be pretty close since there's nothing else but beetles.

>>4430250
>>4430389
Also I almost forgot but happy birthday

Yes happy birthday QM.

>>4430447
>>4430508
Thank you!

>>4430389
Called and writing.

File: anniversary.png (1.17 MB, 1274x441)

1.17 MB PNG

Update tomorrow (later today, technically). You know, "writing." It was my birthday. You know how it goes.

But now it's past midnight, which makes it officially September 1st-- ie, Drowned Quest Redux's first anniversary! Thread 1 was posted September 1st, 2019. I'm thrilled beyond measure to have made it this far, and to tell the truth there were shitty times over the last year where I thought I wouldn't-- but here we are, and I hope to carry on for as long as it takes.

I know I say this a lot, but I love you guys and I couldn't do it without you. Not only do your votes literally keep the quest running, but it's your comments, theories, discussions, and write-ins that keep me so attached to this medium. It surprises me and flatters me every day that people have latched onto this weird, niche quest, and I'm happy to host such a nice community.

Whether you've been reading since the original or you popped in at random yesterday, thank you.
I do have a couple things in celebration of the occasion:

1) Art of the current major* cast** of Redux.
*"But Bathic! Half these people showed up once but never again!" If they're in this image, they'll probably come back at some point.
**People in order: "Lucky" Duncan, Eloise, Monty, Richard, Charlotte, Madrigal, C.M.S. Garvin, Ellery, Ellery, BK, Anthea, Gil [beetled], Charlotte, Richard [snake], Lester, Pat, Branwen

2) ...More art. To be specific, 200-300 pencil sketches I've done over approximately the last 5 months. To temper expectations, they're deeply unpolished and consist largely of identical-looking 3/4ths busts, but there's some other stuff in there too. They are grouped by character and sorted by their approximate time of creation (I stacked the papers in chronological order, but didn't date them, so these are my best guesses). https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eVbvuqY6BF7Lk0xcXGLHtoFP4OwXtZ14?usp=sharing

"Why do these exist?" I do it for fun, as well as to generate quest ideas. Doodling usually breaks writer's block for me.


And that's all! As always, if you have questions, comments, or concerns, let me know. I'll be back tomorrow.

>>4431651
This should have been the new banner. Except for Ellery getting to show up twice, that privilege should be reserved for current main characters only.

File: C66C9323-5BA1-4F6C-8132-B(...).jpg (188 KB, 931x948)

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Not a player but have to say your art’s pretty good!

Love the memes too!

>>4431854
>This should have been the new banner.
kek
>Ellery getting to show up twice
There's a method to my madness, anon!

>>4431919
Thanks, bud! Love it if you'd stick around, the more the merrier ;^)

>>4432039

Gonna read in my spare time. Which I have none. Lol.
Looks like a fun adventure, so definitely adding it to my to-read list.

>>4432039

Also want to extend my thanks for being one of the only brave anons to go into the mod-chat. Thanks to you, the mods were able to wake up to the shitstorm that was slowly killing the board.

>>4432184
Ha, fair enough. If you don't have time right now to backread, I do have an image that covers the need-to-know basics of the quest (>>4417993)-- and I'm certainly here to answer questions. If you'd prefer to get the whole story, though, I'll be happy to have you whenever you're able to catch up :)

>>4432186
Ah, you're welcome! I got unceremoniously kicked, so I can't take much credit there-- Rafael over at Girls un Panzer Quest was the one to talk directly to the mod. I'm happy to have contributed whatever I did, though.

>>4432285
Happy anniversary!

>>4431651
Happy anniversary! Glad to see you going strong. Haven't caught up in awhile but definitely will now that I've got some downtime. You've got a great artstyle, thanks for sharing all the cool work!

File: solidified ellery.jpg (128 KB, 1122x1496)

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>Didn't we have this exact conversation before

"Looking for you," you say patiently.

"No shit." He kicks his chair back, and as he does he solidifies into a shape much closer to what you're used to. If you try, you can make out a face. "Let me rephrase that. Why? Could you not just—"

"You're the third one." You nod to his eyes: bright white. "Is it hard being fractured like this?"

You think you see in him surprise, and then he sags and sits back down. "You already—"

"Yes."

"I already—"

"Yes."

"Shit."

BK pokes his head in behind you. "What the fuck are you on about? Hey, man, nice place."

"Thanks!" Ellery says too eagerly. "Used to just be a tent, but I've made some upgrades over the years. Cool spikes."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I—"

"What I'm on about," you smoothly interject, "is that, since he's so special, Mr. VP here gets mirrored down between layers— infinitely, one would imagine. This isn't the one you were talking to upstairs. He's been here for how long… ten, ten again… two days?"

"Just go and lay it all out," Ellery mutters.

"Were you going to?" You try to smile, but your mouth hinges open too wide, and you quickly shut it. "I hardly see the issue— it's not major, not like the immortality. Really, though, is it hard?"

"…No." If he had a lip he'd curl it. "I don't feel it."

"Immortality?" BK pushes past you— you don't think he intends to shove you aside, but that's the end result. "Shit, man, do you have an entry for that? 'Immortality: fatty, aromatic, like herbed—'"

"Oh, gods, are you the man behind the food metaphors? Seriously, BK? They're fucking trite—"

"They're effective! Isn't the goal comprehension?"

"I've never had anything fatty and aromatic in my- how many people have eaten recently? I sure as hell haven't. Would it kill you to just describe it, not water the whole thing down with weak compar-"

"Shut up." You are glad to see them shut up: some of you worked centuries for this kind of charisma. "Discuss your trivial GS somewhere else. Thanks. We're looking for you because you turned into beetles and ran off with the key."

"…Sounds like me," Ellery says. "But it wasn't me, so. Don't know what to tell you."

BK props an arm against the kitchen table. "Okay, gotta be honest, man, I don't totally get it. Have you seen any beetles coming by? With—"

"Have I seen any beetles coming by." Ellery gestures fuzzily to the door. "Gods, I don't know, have I—"

"Wearing your corpse," you clarify.

"Uh… no."

BK raps his knuckles anxiously. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I've, uh… I've been asleep, mostly. To kill time. Haven't been outside much, either, it's fucking awful. So if something passed by… I don't know. Sorry."

(1/2)

He hasn't seen anything because there was nothing to see, but you're not blowing your lie now. "Unfortunate. We'll just have to go after it ourselves. BK, how long is your rope?"

"How long… you want to go in?"

"Into the sea? Of course. Where else would it have gone?"

He grimaces toothily. "Thirdsday, that's— at this point, I think it's time to pull the ripcord. I'll apologize to the Stranger and everybody next time, clear everything up… it's not your fault. It's a little your fault, man…"

"Hey, look, I don't remember what I did yet. I'll take care of it, though, that's not a—"

You fold your arms. "What, are you scared?"

"Do I sound scared?" Ellery says.

"Thirdsday, my brain my be mush at this point, but that doesn't mean I want it worse. You want to go down there? You want to breathe beetles? You want—"

"That's fine." You turn. "I'll go alone."

"Did I say I wouldn't go?" Ellery is growing more impressionistic, maybe out of irritation. "If I caused a clusterfuck, I might as well solve it. And it's hard to make me worse, I'm—"

"Oooh." You suck in air. "I wouldn't risk it. Not in your condition."

"What? The downshift? That's cosmetic."

"Oh, no, no. I'm just saying, uh, probably good to preserve your sanity. It's not unlimited."

"Is that a threat—?" But you are already outside, staring into the vast expanse of beetles. It is enough like a sea to confirm to you that your destination is beneath it: water lies always at the heart of the mind. BK emerges after you and tries again to dissuade you but your will is unshakable and he agrees to let you try, on the condition that he's not responsible for your well-being, and that you tie a rope around your waist. Tug twice, and he'll haul you up.

When you look at the sea at a certain angle and in a certain state of mind, you can make yourself believe you can see past the surface and into the depths. You can make yourself believe you see structures there, impossibly tall, jutting out at odd angles. Made of beetles, of course. Surrounded by beetles, of course. But structures nonetheless.

You contemplate your plan of attack.

>[1] Dive down, and down, and down. (This is the faster route. It will inflict direct ID damage, which may be optionally mitigated through a series of write-in prompts.)
>[2] Meander through the structures. (This is the slower route, which may pose its own risk. It offers more standard [if abstract] decision-making and may feature dice.)


>>4432310
>>4432471
Thanks, guys!

>>4433169
>[1] Dive down, and down, and down. (This is the faster route. It will inflict direct ID damage, which may be optionally mitigated through a series of write-in prompts.)

The sea is still not enough to put out our flame. We can still remember it. Besides, we don't have to burn the whole sea just the part that wants to touch us.

Also we should wear appropriate clothing. Whatever Charlie thinks a Sea Divers aesthetic would be plus whatever equipment Richard knows would be useful added on.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=labytsb3gfI

Let us hunt the sea.

>>4433169
>[2] Meander through the structures. (This is the slower route, which may pose its own risk. It offers more standard [if abstract] decision-making and may feature dice.)

yeah we got like 2 ID, can't afford the damage

>>4433435
> which may be optionally mitigated through a series of write-in prompts.

We just have to be clever about it. Or, optionally, keep setting things on fire. It's been working so far.

>>4433435
(You're at [3/(9)], just to be clear.)

>>4433475
>>4433523
Still seems too risky for me, but I can back the quick dive to avoid a roll off if no one else wants option 2

Oh yeah late happy anniversary too.

>>4433537
Vote, bruh, we need a tie breaker.

>>4433169
>[2] Meander through the structures. (This is the slower route, which may pose its own risk. It offers more standard [if abstract] decision-making and may feature dice.)

>[1] Dive down, and down, and down. (This is the faster route. It will inflict direct ID damage, which may be optionally mitigated through a series of write-in prompts.)

Happy anniversary

>Oh, cool, a tiebreaker!
>Refresh page
>It's tied again
Ah, the life of a QM.

>>4433537
>>4433680
Thanks! (And thanks for stopping by, new guy? Did my shill work?)

I'd roll for this, but since >>4433534 wants to avoid that I'll award this one to [1]. Writing shortly. I expect this to be a series of short updates, so while I don't want to commit to calling this a session I think multiple are likely.

>>4433695
Multiple?

>>4433874
Updates today, if I get the votes.

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>Down, down, down

It doesn't matter where you start: you will go down until you reach the bottom and the bottom will funnel into a single point. It only matters that you get there without drowning. You slide your hair tie off and shake your hair out and it falls about your shoulders. You brush against the idea of a diving suit and you are in one, white and gold and looking like no diving suit that has ever been. But you are going deep and the waters are not benevolent as they are in life.

BK says something but you can no longer really hear him. You need a mechanism of sinking, so you brush now against the memory of fire and it flickers around you. Ellery has come to watch and says something, but you can't hear him either. You can only hear the rushing of blood. The rope is tied around your waist. You are prepared and feel it.

>[+1 ID: 4/(9)]

Now they are both saying something, but you are stepping down and off the cliffside. You fall and as you would land on the solid seething mass they part before you, and over you, and you are underneath.

It is dark and hot here and even through the suit you hear them scrabbling and chewing each other to pieces. It is an evil sound and you are glad for the helmet. They flee before you still but at a creeping incremental pace, so you are more falling through mud than through water. You are patient. This is fine. But the longer you are here the more the sound eats through your brain. The beetles don't have to touch you for that.

You should concentrate on something else.

Instructions: These are not "trawl the archives" prompts, though if you dig up an example from the quest proper I'll accept it. You are encouraged to invent them wholesale, borrowing from the setting. Only one is needed to dodge the ID penalty— if more are submitted I'll pick majority vote or my favorite.If you don't want to do this, pick [4].
>[1] Something trivial. A song or a rhyme or a story from your childhood. (Write-in.)
>[2] Something dry. Historical trivia or a list of noted artists (and their styles) or the synopsis of a book you've read. (Write-in.)
>[3] Something old. The contents of your bedroom, or of a secret room in your house. (Write-in.)
>[4] You are good. You are fine. (-1 ID.)

>>4434100
>[2] Something dry. Historical trivia or a list of noted artists (and their styles) or the synopsis of a book you've read. (Write-in.)

History of the family sword. It's in our hand and everything.

>>4434107
>>4434100
Also I want to know more about it.

Otherwise, if people want to save SWORD for later, we can reminisce about the grounds of our house and our times in the secret passages. The pretend adventures we used to have while running along them, how they made us feel safe from the adults and their constant worries and the burdens of name, the madness of our mother, etc all being something that belonged to the world outside.

>>4434107
Gotta write it out for it to count. (I'll take bullet points.)

More to the point, you don't know the history of the family sword. If anybody would've told you it, it would've been your dad, and... well.

>>4434100
>1

That time we skipped lessons or whatever noble kids do all day to read Josey Hatchcock novels. Maybe even mix in a little bit of >3
and have us hide in a secret room while we read them.

>>4434152
>>4434108
I'll take it. Writing.

>>4434170
This is why I made a back-up proposal.

>Remininsce

You were never an easy child to teach. You were prone to petulance and daydreaming and asking impertinent questions, and that was when you could be found at all. The walls were your sanctuary and your refuge. The tutors never knew. Your aunt only had a dim awareness. Your mother may have known, but she was in bed or out of the house. Your father—

Well. He probably knew. But that is lost forever.

You never questioned why your house contained hidden compartments and spinning doors and a labyrinth of abandoned corridors— you assumed it was created inherently for your pleasure, and treated it accordingly. When you were meant to be taught Geography of the Ancient World you were plotting the distance between the dumbwaiter and the sitting room with twine and footsteps. The handwriting tutor showed up three times without catching a glimpse of your face, which was generally scratched and dirt-streaked until you figured out a route to the water-tap that wouldn't cross paths with your aunt. You were not supposed to have most of your dime-novels, which were deemed bad for the developing young woman, so you kept the ones you begged, borrowed, and stole in three stacks in the wall of your bedroom, and wrote reviews of them you intended to submit to a magazine when you were of age. When you were 17 you burned the notebook you wrote them in.

These memories seem remote and foggy to you now, and the more you reach for them they faster they fade. You cannot remember the titles of the novels or the name of the tutors or if you washed your face hot or cold. You cannot remember how old you were when you did this. You find it difficult to picture the face of your aunt. You hear the beetles again. How deep are you? A hundred feet? Hundreds? Hundreds more to go. The spaces between the beetles are filled with soupy yellow blood which slicks against the windows of your helmet and dims your flame. Some bolder beetles are nearing the chinks in your suit.

You need something stronger.

>[1] Something raw. Something that hit you in the gut and will again. (Write-in.)
>[2] Something bright. What hopes you hold in your heart. (Write-in.)
>[3] Something cold. The steps in your future. A plan. (Write-in.)
>[4] You can depend on yourself. (-2 ID)

Sorry for the wait, ate dinner

>>4434312
>[2] Something bright. What hopes you hold in your heart. (Write-in.)

Sword time. I don't mean to be one note, but it's literally bright. We've managed to muddle our way through some serious bullshit, and we're actually starting to win. We already made some beetle wannabe King kneel before us, and we've always known quality comes before quantity.

These little beetles ain't shit. We don't need to let their whining buzzing even reach our ears, they don't qualify to be heard.

We're starting to feel like a proper Queen. Sure, there will be trials, but even if we can't complete them we can still just cut right through them.

>>4434320
Sword song

> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvAmRp0tujI

>>4434312
>2

We're gonna fill up our crown then rule forever as a literal god queen. We shall bring civilization to these watery deeps. We will construct a queendom and fill our court with people we like, and have a shark pit to throw those we dislike into. We will outlaw dressing like Madrigal, and talking like Madrigal. We will outlaw Ellery as a person. We will have Horse Face's tent searched, and our model found and returned. All wrongs will be righted.

>>4434320
>>4434334
Called and writing.

>Dream

The Sword is already in your hand— is your hand? The more beetles crush down upon you the harder it becomes to tell inside from out. There is an itching notion in the back of your mind that you are the wrong way around, that you need to contain the ocean and let your organs without, and you have no doubt that this could be so. It is possible that inside your brilliant implausible suit you are distorting from the pressure. It is possible that were it stripped away you'd be unrecognizable except for your eyes. You cannot know. Your gaze is fixed inexorably downward.

The beetles flee in droves from The Sword's light, which hastens your descent— though but less than you would've hoped. This deep it is half swimming beetles and half blood, odious squidgy bits, legs, and shards of carapace, all of which conspire to lodge themselves in the soft parts of your suit. You marshal your forces against them:

Positive thinking! You are- you are (or will be) Queen and you will rule truly and justly in the cool salty air and cast judgement upon those who have wronged you, every one of them, slowly, painfully, and individually. You shall have a pit of sharks— or alligators. Or snakes! Snakes. You'll only sentence those who deserve it to the snake pit but everyone deserves it so you'll start with the obvious offenders: Ellery first, and as he writhes in agony you'll outlaw him coming back— no, you'll just outlaw him, and he'll cease to exist. You'll outlaw Madrigal's stupid whoreish dress and snide vulgarities and pity. You don't know what to do about Horse Face— perhaps you'll just put him on trial and have his tent thoroughly searched. It is your right and your perogative. You are queen

and you are (or will be) God or at least the one that dreams half-awake under the earth and you will put the world to rights, you will put it neat and straight again, you will be the herald of a new era, an era of civilization, of order, you will drain the seas if you have to, this is your birthright and your job description and you will not let it slip through your fingers, you will not be defeated by beetles—

but the world is dark and unbearably warm and you can taste blood in your mouth, it has crept through your helmet and you are breathing it, it trickles into your lungs, you are coughing (or something like it), you are so close but your bones might be cracking from the strain of a hundred million beetles above you.

>[1] Words are beginning to lose meaning. You need something else. (Link an appropriate image and an appropriate song.)
>[2] You are so close. So close. (-3 ID)

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>>4434435
https://youtu.be/OD3F7J2PeYU

it's late, and my phone has a very limited supply of pictures

>>4434504
kek

Writing.

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>Everything's Gonna Be Alright!

But it's okay. It's okay. You are not your bones. You are not your body or this imitation of a body you cling to. You could be paste and gristle inside this suit and as long as you believed in your existence you would exist. It's alright. It's okay. Breathe.

You are so close. You can tell by the utter disintegration of your surroundings and of your sense of space and time. You could've been sinking for any amount of time and you could be at the surface. You could be flying. You are falling very fast now. Bubbles fill your vision and only a third of them are round. Do you have a face? It's not clear to you. If you do you can't feel it. You might be beetles. You might be turning into beetles. A hundred million. It's not clear to you. There is something around your waist. You don't know what it is. You don't remember. It might be a snake. You might be around your waist. You don't know. You might be a snake. You seem to remember that. It's not clear to you. It's not—

It's alright. It's okay. You are here. You are Charlotte Fawkins. You have been sinking for about ten minutes. You are surrounded by water, murky and freezing cold. Were there beetles? You seem to remember beetles, but that would be absurd. An ocean is made of water. You are in an ocean. A normal ocean. You can swim. (Of course you can.) Your diving suit lets you breathe. (It make sense.) There is a silver of something extremely white below you. It disquiets you in an unplaceable way, but that's rarely stopped you: you swim down and touch it.

You are…

Where are you? Not where you were, wherever that was— you are somewhere white. Acrid white. A room. A... place. (Are there walls?) And who are you? Charlotte Fawkins. That seems to be all. You are not in a diving suit, but in your ordinary clothes. The Sword is at your waist. Something heavy is on your head.

You are not alone. Somebody crouches some distance away— a woman, possibly, but she's so pallid and insubstantial it's difficult to tell. She makes no notice of your sudden appearance.

You think you'll have to kill her.

>[1] Kill her.
>[2] Talk to her first. Then kill her. (Write-in.)

Alright, lads, I'm off to bed. Hope you enjoyed this session. We'll pick up as usual tomorrow.

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Well, you know, "go to bed," "draw," similar things. It's a lot easier to post digital sketch pages on a regular basis than it is to scan in traditional, so if I'm happy enough with the outcome and you guys want to see them I might do more.

>>4434588
>[2] Talk to her first. Then kill her. (Write-in.)

We at least have to ask for her name, and preferably what she is doing here and if she would like to serve us. We can take her away from here if so.

>>4434588
>2

I mean, she's not our mother this time, how bad could this possibly go?

Ask if there's any way we can get what we need without killing her.

>>4434768
>>4434781
Writing.

File: the crown..jpg (3.52 MB, 1500x1111)

3.52 MB JPG

>Try your best

You approach with a sinking feeling in your chest and are much relieved when you see the woman's face and it's not your mother. (You could've known. Your mother is not dark-haired. But it pays to make sure.)

"Um, hello," you say.

The woman makes a sound like "mmh."

"What's your name?"

This produces a long silence and you think maybe she fell asleep or died or something. "What's your n-"

"…Cora."

"Our names start with the same letter. That's funny." It's not funny. You pause. "Um, what are you doing here?"

"…n't know."

"You don't know? How do you not…" God, you hate people. "Can I get you out of here? Do you want out? I'm sure I can extract your soul juice... on the go, or whatever."

"Mmnh."

That's probably a yes, you feel. You bend and take her limp wrist and pull and to your horror her arm comes partially off at the socket. You drop it with a squeal and back away. A beetle crawls out. The woman makes no sound and doesn't appear to notice.

You think it's possible she might be better off disemboweled. Or at least it wouldn't be much of a change. This lifts your spirits greatly and you draw The Sword with a minor flourish. "Er… I think I'll have to kill you, actually."

Not even a groan.

"It's not personal. It's really not. When I'm queen I'll- I'll bring you back. So don't be mad."

Her eyes are dull and vacant.

"Um, I'll have to…" You think you may need the blood. Cauterizing the wound would be bad, then, so you stow the sword and bring out the tortoiseshell knife in your back pocket. "I'll try and make it quick. Please don't move."

She's not even a real person, you reassure yourself, as the ruby blood comes out in spurts. You're not hurting anybody. You're not hurting her— she sort of sighed when the knife went in at first and hasn't made a sound since. You want to puke a little bit but you close your eyes and keep at it until you reach down and all you can feel is goo and shreds of fabric. You crack an eye open then and tug the heavy thing off your head. It is the crown. You are unsure where to start with it so you pick a tine at random and plunge it into the red mess. There is a noise and a sensation like being sucked down a drainpipe and then there is nothing before you but bones and dry, crumbling skin, like parchment. And one tine of the crown is glowing.

>[LAWS: 1/16]

You'd feel quite bad now, actually, but the Second Crown is upon your head, not too large, not too heavy, and you are instead suffused with a powerful feeling of wholeness and goodness. You have felt this sort of thing before, when handling chit, but that was impure. Cheap. This… well.

>[+3 ID: 7/(9)]

(1/2)

The only thing about it is that apparently the wholeness and goodness doesn't extend to your joints, which lock and stiffen the moment the crown is upon you. You nearly fall, but manage to find an unsteady, rigid balance. You will have difficulty moving further.

>[You are HALF PARALYZED]

But that is a problem for later, as is cutting out of this white void. You have no worries about that. You have to plan your entrance.

>[1] Ride out of there on a crest of beetles in glorious fashion.
>[2] Hide the crown. Feign a struggle out.
>[3] Write-in.

>>4435137
>[2] Hide the crown. Feign a struggle out.

Ellery is probably gonna hassle us about it.

Wonder what Cora was though.

>>4435156
Writing.

>>4435398
Whoooooooo we gotta crown bitches

>>4435398
Can our struggle involve us surfing a sea of flame from our sword as a bigger wave of beetles pushes us along?

>>4435137
>[2] Hide the crown. Feign a struggle out.

>>4435440
Sorry, man, that's about as flashy and non-struggle as it gets. The goal of [2] is to make it look like you barely escaped alive (as would be realistic for a normal person).

>>4435444
Already called, but nice trips!

>>4435453
Awwwwwwwwwww.

>Stealth mode

You would like to come out of here blazing and glorious and blow BK and Ellery's tiny little minds. You would like this very much. But you are conscious that that may, ah, scuttle your long-term plans. Raise unfortunate questions. That sort of thing.

So it's not without reluctance that you cut your way out of the white space, (find yourself again not yourself), and rise through the through mostly normal, non-glorious means: kicking, pushing, spitting, slowly and stiffly. Though the beetles are deferential and do their best to help you up with no special effort on your part, it kills you to know that it could be more, you could do more, you could command them to buoy you up like a wave or geyser and they would— you don't know how you know this except you think you may have stolen it from the woman. Whoever she was. But you kick and generally thrash your way to the surface unimpeded, except for the final ten feet, when you reach, snatch, and throw the crown off your brow. (It will come back.) The beetles no longer recognize you, then, and your struggle turns genuine— you surface yelling your head off. The cliff is far taller than you remember, or the sea level has dropped.

"Holy shit!" comes the distant reply, and a second later a rope is flung off the side of the cliff. You grab for it twice before you find purchase, and even then it takes all your strength to haul yourself out: the beetles drag desperately at your ankles. Shaking them off is difficult, but climbing is easy— you stroll up the side of the cliff, only keeping hold of the rope to retain some pretense.

BK's face is white and shocked when you flop stomach-first onto the grass, breathing heavily (or pretending to). Ellery doesn't have much of a face, but you sense he feels the same way. They're both sitting at a table containing an elaborate house of cards. BK's chair is toppled behind him. "YOUR ROPE SNAPPED!"

You roll onto your back. "Yeah, uh…"

"WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

"It's been 50 minutes." Ellery props a Two of Shells against a Queen of Knives. "It was a fair assumption."

"Oh. I'm not. 50 minutes?"

"YEAH!" BK jostles the table in his rush to help you up. The house collapses. Ellery sighs. "50 minutes! You're not— you're okay? Did you get the—"

You pull the key from your pocket.

"Holy shit!" Before you can resist, BK wraps you in a crushing hug. Several "You're a fucking legend! Fucking— wonder child!"

"Uh… thanks," you mutter into his shirt.

"Gods, BK, you're seven foot. You're going to kill her." Ellery rises from his seat. "It is fucking impressive, though. Are you okay? You look— get off her." You are released. "You look a little… I don't know. Little different. I don't mean the flowers."

"No, I'm… I'm fine." You rub under your nose. "I guess we better go, then."

(1/2)

"Yeah, that seems…" He peers over the edge. You follow his gaze— the sea level is dropping at a rapid pace. "…Probably smart. Good thing you guys have a rope. Get up, stick the key in—"

"Gil."

"Huh? The key ingil?"

You close your eyes. "We have to get Gil."

"You have to get him."

"Thanks, BK. I have to get him. I… promised."

"Oookay," Ellery says. "Not usually a good idea, but—"

"Already told her."

"—you were already told that. Great. Well, I was going to say it might be for the best, because you have to go pick me up. I can't go through. I belong down here."

You would argue this but you know what he means. You know what he's trying and failing to say. You have to get the first him out. The beetle one. The giant monster beetle one.

...Well, you don't have to, but it would be ""the right thing to do."" Not leaving him trapped forever and so on. As appealing as that sounds.

"Well," you say. "Great."

>[1] Any last things to say/ask? (Write-in.)
>[2] Just go. (Game plan: escape with BK to the 2nd level, lure the Thing to the 1st level, bring it and Gil out through the door using the key.)
>[3] Write-in.

>>4435568
>1

>"Other you is awful. Can we leave it here and take this you instead?"

He stole our fire to make his own sun. The impertinence.

>>4435568
>[1] Any last things to say/ask? (Write-in.)

> Let's *beet-le* it out of here

I imagine those adventure books to be full of phrases like this. Also we shpuld be in an insufferably good mood, chatting about how this went well, don't you think this went well? We could maybe go deeper next time.

Also we should try to smuggle our beetle vassal out. Maybe have it pretend to be a piece of jewellery

>>4435577
I think Ellery just directly told us we needed to bring beetle him out, so no need for smuggling.

>>4435577
What >>4435585 said, unless you mean something else by "beetle vassal." Just telling you up front so you don't have your dreams dashed later: don't expect the Thing to stick around. Bodily inertia is real. But I won't rule out building your own version, if that's something you want. btw Gil's possibly desperate enough to let you call him your vassal and is objectively beetles... just saying

>>4435576
>>4435577
>Be an obnoxious little shit
Awesome. Writing. (may eat food too)

>>4435635
> btw Gil's possibly desperate enough to let you call him your vassal and is objectively beetles... just saying

Are you implying he isn't our vassal? His loyalty will be rewarded in due time, honestly since nobody else wants to save him from the existential hell of being alone I think we've earned his vassilitude. Unlike certain others whose names start with E or M at least Gil recognizes the nice things we do for him.

>>4435576
Ellery is for bullying.

>>4435642
Well... he's not your vassal yet. Gotta rescue him from existential hell first. How about that?

>>4435652
So it's settled. We refuse to let him out until he swears eternal allegiance.

>>4435659
You... may have to revise that plan, but not in a bad way, necessarily? You'll get more info when the time comes.

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>*Him*?

"Great," Ellery says. "So you guys should just—"

"Does it have to be him?" Maybe you're missing something. "He's… difficult."

"Difficult?"

"Awful. He's…" You search for something that means 'a giant monster beetle' without saying it. "…he attacked me."

BK looks towards Ellery. Ellery flickers. "Oh. Oh, that's fucked. I'm sorry. The- the- maybe it mirrored me wrong, or I— but I wouldn't- if I were normal, I'd— are you hurt?"

"Got my ankle bad. Tendons hanging out. I patched it up, of course, but..." You mock-shudder. "The memory remains."

"That's— shit. I don't really…" If he had distinguishable hands he might be clasping and unclasping them. "…I don't think… I'm sorry. About that. I- I wish I could go, but… it, uh- he's the default. If that makes any sense. It all sticks back… onto… uh—"

"'No' and 'I'm sorry' would've been fine." You smile close-mouthed. "Brevity is the soul of wit. BK, shall we beet-le it?"

"What?" He's checking the rope.

"Shall we beet-le it?"

"I don't…"

The smile has slipped right off your face. "Beet-le it. Like beat it, but with— let's just go."

"Oh, okay." He tugs on the rope. "Don't think too hard about the physics, okay? Or your upper body strength. Just climb right—"

"I know how to use a rope."

"Oh." He scratches the back of his neck. "I'll let you go first, I guess, so I can catch you. If you need it. You know. Hey, man, I'll see you on the flip side—" He's turned to Ellery.

Your mind is clear and free of pesky questions as you scale the dangling rope single-handedly. You swing into the open doorway easily and lean your head out to watch BK follow. He has to stoop to fit in past you but straightens easily in the darkness: there is no real ceiling. He plucks the spike out of the ground and screws it into his back.

"No shortcuts going up," he says with regret. "Hope you like stairs."

You do not like stairs, but your spirits are lifted enough by the thought of your victory that you're able to spend the time laughing and chatting and fraying BK's nerves with questions you know the answer to. Well, that wasn't so bad, was it? What was all the fuss? Who says you can't go deeper? What's wrong with going deeper? Does he know anything about white spaces? No? Just asking. Why stairs, anyway…

At some point you perceive that color has come back to your skin and teeth back to your mouth. BK seems relieved to walk unburdened and complains about his knees. You ask why he can't just imagine his knees don't hurt. He says it doesn't work like that, hon. You'll understand when you're older.

Eventually you make it to the door at the top. The doorknob is hot to the touch, and you hesitate to open it, but BK says there's no other way out so you have to, or he will. He's not sure the nerves in his hands work right anymore so you tell him to have at it, then. He opens the door.

(1/2)

"Fuck!" He has stepped through into thin air. You wince in expectation of a splat somewhere below, but a couple seconds later hear a yodeled "I'm fine!" This is good enough for you. You follow.

The door opens out into a smoking hole in the catwalk, which you drop neatly through, landing on your feet on the floor of the wire room. You suppose 'wire room' is somewhat of a misnomer, though, because every wire has melted into waxen stains on the floor. The large beetles are gone. Every beetle is gone. Or going. They stream in swarms into sun-bright portals far above you.

The Deliverer has been busy in the last 5 minutes.

>Mitigated Success

"Deeps take me," BK mutters, shading his eyes. You begin to say something about pagan oaths but he's not listening. "What the fuck is this? Thirdsday, do you—"

You shake your head. "No idea."

"Fuck. What'd you do to get the key back? You sure you didn't fuck anything?"

"I don't think so… probably natural processes. Uh. The circle of life, you know. Death by fire. Let's go find the…"

The ice plant hallway is empty and you half-walk half-run through it, dragging BK by the wrist behind you. A portal opens up beneath your feet and you swerve past it and keep going, all the way to the throne room, where your general hunch is confirmed: there is the Thing, incandescent, hovering above the throne with a buzzsaw noise. It must be channeling a way out.

You need to get its attention and lure it out of the hive. Somehow.

>[1] Just, like, yell at it really loud. Then make a break for it. [Roll.]
>[2] Yell at it really loud and chuck something at it. Maybe BK has a weapon handy. Then make a break for it. [Roll.]
>[3] Seek to disrupt its concentration in a more abstract way. (Write-in. Likely roll.)
>[4] Use the crown. You don't know the specifics, exactly, but… you'll work it out. And it'll work. (What do you want to do with it? This'll expose its existence to BK. You will be half-paralyzed using it.)
>[5] Write-in.


last one today, see you guys tomorrow!

>>4436069
>3

Whatever we did before to make it kneel, I want to replicate that. It's clearly gotten too arrogant in our absence. Which couldn't have even been that long due to time dilation. Add poor memory to Ellery's bad traits. If we can't kneel him option 2 is also pretty appealing.

>>4436168
>Whatever we did before to make it kneel
That involved the [SV], which you no longer have. You could attempt a weaker version of that, but it'd require spending ID.

It's been 5 minutes:
>The Deliverer has been busy in the last 5 minutes.
You spent ~50 minutes the next level down and a negligible amount of real time (though quite a bit of subjective time) on the stairs. Dilation is 1:10 between levels, so 5 minutes. It worked fast.

>>4436069
>Engage in messy, deep french kissing

File: mwah.png (67 KB, 308x350)

67 KB PNG

>>4436213
The QM's tablet pen died so you engage in messy, deep, mouse-drawn french kissing with the massive beetle sun god made from a guy you deeply dislike.

This doesn't seem to accomplish anything. Refer to options here: >>4436069

>>4436069
Imagine Madrigal, an angry Madrigal who has caught Beetle Ellery being bad and mimic her voice to ask "And just *WHAT* do you think you're doing?"

>>4436209
I wake. And I'd be down to spend ID, we regained a lot with the crown. As long as it doesn't take like 4+

>>4436353
>>4436378
I'd ask for 3 ID to do either of these with no roll, or you could roll for it and spend ID boosting it. Up to you guys which you want to go for and how much you want to spend.

>>4436553
I want my one, and I'd also like to roll for it. Since even if we fail we'll get his attention.

Rolled 15, 11 = 26 (2d100)

>>4436553
Roll!

>>4436928
Thanks, but I gotta actually call for the dice first. (Those are godawful rolls. You're welcome.)

We'll go with this: >>4436168 >>4436562

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 5 (+5 Partial Integration) vs. DC 65 (+30 SUN KING, -10 Draining Power, -5 Cowed Once) to attempt to bend the Thing to your will.

>Spend 1 ID to add a +10 to the results? (You're at 7/[9].)
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 37 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4437057

>[1] Y

>>4437057
Forgot to add the -15 OH GODS OH FUCK OH GODS OH FUCK modifier from earlier to the DC-- that should be DC 50, not 65. Keep rolling as normal.

Rolled 61 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4437057
big spendy

Rolled 5 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>4437057
Y

>>4437137
I'm a lucky boy.

>>4437060
>>4437121
>>4437137
>51, 76, 20 vs. DC 50 -- Success
>Spendy
Nice. Writing.

>>4437142
Trying to revive those ol' Drowned rolls, huh?

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>4437210
> trying

You mean succeeding

Sorry, guys, the amount of writing I got done is nothing and I'm feeling kind of burnt out tonight. Update tomorrow, ideally two to compensate... won't make strict promises, though.

>>4437334
based

>Cow it into submission (again)

You need to do… what you did. Whatever you did. You need to look the Thing in its eyes and emanate authority, which is… easy. Easy. You have authority. You have gobs of authority. You have authority coming out your-

(Focus.)

You are! It's just that you can't seem to get that mindset back, and you can't seem to remember how you accomplished it the first time. (God bless metaphors.) You think the crown might help, but BK is right there, and you don't know what to do with it, and- this isn't working. The authority.

(Of course it's not working. You don't have any.)

Thanks, pseudo-Richard.

[red(You're talking to yourself.)

Thanks, pseudo-

BK nudges you roughly. "Seriously, what the fuck is this thing? Are you doing something about it? You're just standing-""

"I'm communing," you snap. Then you think. "Oh."

"Huh?"

"Shut up, I'm communing." You sink to your knees and shade your eyes from the glare. The Thing is radiating so much energy it's impossible not to feel it and trivial to tap into it: you just feel the heat and bring it inside. Ah. There.

"You're fucking glowing," BK mutters.

"Shut up," you mutter back. Your mind is being flooded with sunlight and devotion and frantic chittering- but you weren't swayed once and you won't be again. You are glowing, and your knees are leaving burnt patches in the dirt, but the heat doesn't hurt. It knows it belongs to you by rights. You sink further, and buried deep in the undifferentiated mass of beetle is a marble.

Okay, not a- it feels that way to your mind. Or whatever. You're not Richard enough to know how it actually works. There is a marble, or a marble-shaped irritant or inclusion, and it's the only thing in the whole of the Thing that isn't radiating insect joy. The marble is icy cold. The marble is terrified. The marble is obviously Ellery, or whatever of him hasn't succumbed, and you-

"Hell do you mean, 'Ellery?'"

You glare at BK. "What part of 'shut up' do you not-"

"Don't blame me! You're the one saying it over and over. Trying to summon him, or- no." BK looks between you and the Thing. "Really?"

"Well, I, uh…"

"Holy shit. That is the coolest fucking thing— shit! Ell!" He is calling out. "Ell! What the fuck, man? How'd you—"

"He can't hear you," you mumble. BK isn't listening. "He can't— okay. Ellery, you son of a bitch, you can hear me. Listen up. You and I— neither of us want you to be a big stupid beetle, right?"

Outwardly, the Thing shows no sign of recognition— but the waves of panic from the marble slow. "Right. So you're going to do what I say, since clearly you don't have it handled. You're going to follow me."

The marble indicates some resistance.

(1/2)

"God, it's not like it's hard. Just take control. I could do it, and my thing was way cooler than yours."

Doubt.

"Oh, well, go to hell, then. I don't have to help you." You stand. "BK, let's just— BK?"

BK, muttering nonsense, teeters toward the Thing. You sigh deeply, plunge your hand in your pocket, and wave a sachet of smelling salts under his nose. He jerks back. "Shit!"

"Don't talk to it! I've got it under control!" Sweat is sticking your hair to your forehead— you scrape it back. "It's fine! Ellery! I'm trying to help, and— listen to me. Listen."

>[-1 ID: 6/(9)]

You are doing something complicated with your fingers. Like tying an invisible knot. You don't know why— (but you do know why. You're linking him to you.) "This is non-negotiable. I am going to pull. You are going to push. Whatever that means to you, do it. We are getting out of here."

You grab BK's wrist ("Wha—?") and tug him with you to the right. It takes no physical effort to do so— you're just walking— but an enormous mental one: you have bound the Thing to you, and the Thing wants to stay exactly where it is. You were depending on Ellery to pitch in. "Come on!"

Two more steps— BK is baffled at your sluggishness— and he relents. Your burden eases. The Thing follows behind you, scorching the earth in its wake and setting small plants on fire, all the way through an abandoned exit tunnel and to the outside. You worry at the door, suspended eight feet in the air— but BK pitches you up, you lift him with one hand, and the Thing burns its way through the doorframe.

The first half of the stairs pass in a haze, and then you run smack into Richard.

«Thank you for the warm welcome, Charlotte.»

"I—" you say.

«Congratulations on getting something done. And you did it all by yourself, too.»
«Wait, you didn't.»

And you were just about to miss having him around.

«How charming. We'll talk later.»

He vanishes. You rub the corner of your eye. "Wait."

"Huh?" BK says, joining you on your now-empty step.

"No, it's…" Is Richard maintaining the connection? With Ellery? Because you just lost it.

«Should I be.»

Yes! He needs to be, that's what's keeping the Thing doci—

It screams in the near distance— you can't see it, but you can see its sun. The stairs behind you are on fire.

>[1] RUN! You need it to follow, anyhow! [Roll.]
>[2] You're halfway there… that's practically there, isn't it? Can't you... fold the stairs over on themselves… or something? And get out that way? [Roll.]
>[3] Commune! Again! It worked the first time! [Roll.]
>[4] Write-in.

>>4438498
>[2] You're halfway there… that's practically there, isn't it? Can't you... fold the stairs over on themselves… or something? And get out that way? [Roll.]

Break everything on the way out.

>>4438608
Called.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 5 (+5 Stubbornness) vs. DC 50 to get where you need to go (without the space in between).

>Spend 1 ID for a +10 to each resulting roll?
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 89, 96, 94 + 5 = 284 (3d100 + 5)

>>4438987
Am back home to roll

>>4439000
> I looked Ellery right in the beetle and I said . . . *Bitch*!

>>4439000
>Trips
>89, 94, 96
>Enhanced Success
You bend the shit out of those stairs.

Writing.

>>4439015
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5LGEiIL1__s

>>4439000
Holy fuck
Suddenly I'm glad I missed this update.

>Skip ahead
>94, 100, 102 — Enhanced Success

"Are you sure there's no shortcuts going up?" you hiss to BK.

"Uh, I mean, none that I kn-"

"We're halfway there, aren't we? Right here. Exactly halfway. Could that mean anything?"

"You're not asking the right—"

«Stop asking questions.»

Wow. Wow. You're trying to single-handedly save everyone's collective ass, and you shouldn't ask questions. Great input, Richard, it's really nice you exist again—

«Thank you, Charlotte. Glad to be hectored by a know-nothing little twit again.»
«Questions are worse than useless. They induce doubt. Be certain.»

You're not certain. The screaming is disrupting your certainty.

«I don't care.»

"It does mean something," you say aloud. "If I step forward right now this whole staircase will— it'll fold in on itself, kind of, and we'll be there."

«That's actually true, by the way. Known trick.»

Oh. Well, he's the expert, you guess. You screw up your face and step forward. An unspeakable screeching noise accompanies the sodomization of three-dimensional space that ends with you landing on your face in front of an ordinary wooden door.

«Just kidding. Nobody does this.»

"Oough," BK says, and retches into infinite blackness. The Thing lurks in the distance behind him, to your relief. You don't want to imagine going back to get it.

The first floor is exactly as you left it, except there's no beetles, and it's on fire.

«Not exactly how we left it, as I recall.»

Shut up. "Gil!" you scream. "Gil! We're leaving! Gil!" The exit beetle is gone, leaving just an empty doorway— leaving you a clear view of the Thing rushing toward you. "Gil!" You hop over a fallen timber and into the room where you originally found him. Empty. Paintings are curling out of their frames. "Gil!!" BK waits by the door with a pipe wrench in his hands. You duck into the room to the south and find him there— it must be him, it's the only beetles in sight, and they're all clustered on his pathetic open husk. "Hey! We have to go! We have to…" You scoop up the husk, and the beetles that fall off it fly onto your chest and shoulders. "Hey. Hey, that's right. We're leaving. I came back. Come on."

"HE'S COMING!" BK yells over the crackle of the fire. "LOOK SHARP!"

You sprint back with the husk just as the Thing bursts through the door, setting anything that wasn't on fire on fire— even the collar of BK's jacket (he yelps and beats it out). "I HAVE THE KEY!" you yell back. "WHAT DO I—"

"USE IT!"

The Thing is blocking the way but it's smaller and dimmer than it used to be, this close to reality, and you grit your teeth and slide under it, the key in your hand, and plunge it into the open doorway: this is good enough. It flickers and brightens into a candle-lit forest, and you tumble through, and BK next, and the Thing's carapace comes off in chunks as it squeezes through after— and Ellery falls through and onto the grass, smoking.

(1/2)