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How long he lectured you about it: another full hour. It could've been spite, but just as likely it was genuine enthusiasm (to whatever extent he can be enthusiastic, stuck as a toneless snake). You're actually leaning towards the latter, since his elaboration on what entails a 'confidence trick' (and what makes that any different from magic, magyck, and metaphysics) turned into a discursion about all the things Rudolph Clarkman got horribly wrong, and how his quote-end quote "LAYMAN'S GUIDE" is not fit to publish, and though you couldn't care less about the topic material it was kind of funny to see Richard so worked up. If you closed your eyes and pretended his entire affect wasn't flat, you could picture him striding around, jabbing intermittently at a book.

«You are so attached to this figment of your imagination that you attempt to overwrite me with it. Incredible.»

Richard is coiled petulantly on the corner of your desk. You toss your coat at him, and get to work peeling off your shirt. "Aren't you always a figment of my imagination?"

«…»
«In the sense of my corporeality, yes. In the sense of you inventing me, you are not creative enough to invent me.»
«It was obvious that I meant the latter definition.»

Was it? You pull your shirt over your head and toss it on top of the coat. Richard remains in place. You squint at him, to ensure he's not looking, then loosen the straps of your brassiere. As you do, your gaze drifts to your stomach.

What is that? Have you obtained a rash? Or a fungus? The skin around your belly button is matted with scabs, or scabby growths. Were they there this morning? Did hours of riding a shark-thing bareback chafe? But that would be your inner thighs, not your stomach. All you can think of is when you got stabbed right there, but that never happened So what—

«Don't touch those.»

…Richard has something to do with it. Of course. But what's the utility of scabs? Sharp teeth, night-vision— they have their drawbacks, but at least there's a point. Forgetting the brassiere, you sit on your cot and begin to pick.

«Has nobody in your life told you not to pick scabs.»

Oh, you don't know. Maybe your father did. Har har. (You feel a little sick.) With precise application of your thumbnail, the scab comes off easy, revealing— something white. Sort of leathery. On a sick hunch, you pry the adjoining scab off: another white thing, interlocking with the first. Like scales. Richard.

«Do you expect me to stand idly by while you get stabbed in all your soft fleshy body parts. Charlotte.»
«You don't own armor. Now you won't need to.»

(2/3)

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First of all, these aren't even hard. They're just fancy callouses. Second of all… you don't know how to feel. You're not angry. This is sensible reasoning. You did get stabbed. This would help, at least in theory. But something stuffed down deep inside you is screaming that it's wrong, it's unnatural, it's a violation of— of something sacred, that if one thing should belong to you it should be your body— and you stuff it down further. Thinking that way doesn't help anybody. "…Thanks," you say. "But, um, I don't think these'll stop—"

«The scabs will come off after they harden, so don't get any funny ideas.»
«It may be finished by the morning. Difficult to judge.»

Right. You nod hard, to shake off any lingering unpleasantness, and return to routine. Undressing and redressing goes quickly, though you also discover a scab patch on your shoulder: you scratch it as you clamber under your sheet. "Good night," you mumble.

«Sleep swiftly.»

You do. The dream comes slower.

-

>[+2 ID: 4/(9)]

All is black. Richard is there, looking you intently in the eyes. "We are somewhere you feel comfortable, Charlie."

It's too dark to tell if that's true. He snorts, withdraws, and flicks his lighter on. It is somewhere else: a dingy room underneath your house. The clubhouse. A snakeskin, looped and bound around by cellu-tape, lies on the card table.

Richard points at the snakeskin. "That is somebody you like and trust. And who likes and trusts you."

There is nobody who is those. You are alone in the vast ocean. Alone on the pinprick in the infinite screaming void.

"…Hm." There is an odd expression on Richard's face. "That's… surely there's someone."

There is someone. There is no snakeskin. You sit at the card table. You are fourteen. Your wrists are tied together and your mouth bound with tape. Your eyes are yellow and slitted.

Richard snorts again. "I suppose that's good enough." He takes a mug from the card table and pours it over your head.

You sputter. "HEY! What was that f—" Realization dawns. "I'm dreaming."

"Yes."

"Or was dreaming. No. Still am dreaming." You blink rapidly: water is trickling into your eyes. "That's weird. I'm just out there— asleep—"

"This is not a new concept, Charlotte." Richard stifles a yawn. "…Excuse me. It's… been a long day. Shall we get this over with? Let me rephrase that. We're getting this over with. Your heart isn't coming back on its own."

(Choices next.)

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>How will you approach getting your 'heart' back from the Yellow-Eyed Thing?

>[1] Fairly. Untape the Thing's mouth, hear what it wants in exchange. Haggle from there. Richard can supervise, but you're leading.
>[2] Cleverly. Play 'good cop bad cop' with Richard. You are, of course, the good cop (what else would you be?).
>[3] Underhandedly. Richard already tied the Thing up— any way he can one-up that? He's good with chemicals, isn't he? Drug it.
>[4] Violently. Reminder: it STOLE your HEART! And it's been ruining your sleep! Take out some of your pent-up stress on this easy target: just make sure it stops looking like you first.
>[5] Write-in.


-------


>Announcements
Welcome back to Drowned Quest Redux! I hope you all have had a great week. I've done up a full cast list, attached to this post-- check it out. Still haven't written up the Crown rules bin, but I'll have it done before you need it again.

>Schedule
For quick one-post SOL / combat / exploration updates, expect two or three a day - for longer/more involved updates, I try to guarantee one/day. If I miss a day, I'll try to compensate with multiple updates the next. There may be sporadic half-updates (no options) if I start writing too late in the evening, sorry in advance. I am in the PST timezone.

>Dice
We use a 3d100 degrees of success system with crits. The base DC is 50. Modifiers may be applied to the roll or to the DC as are relevant. The # of rolls that match or exceed the DC determine the result. Probabilities may be found in the Dice and Mechanics pastebin.

The degrees are:
0 Passes = Failure
1 Pass = Mitigated Success
2 Passes = Success
3 Passes = Enhanced Success
0/100 = Critical Failure / Critical Success [regardless of other rolls]

>Mechanics
The MC has a pool of 9* Identity ("ID"), which may be considered both HP and the measure of her current sense of self. It may be lost through physical, metaphysical, or emotional damage. It may be regained through write-ins, designated options, and at reasonable narrative points, including sleep. It may be spent on a flat +10 bonus to most rolls, as well as on more elaborate metaphysical effects. Dropping to 0 ID is bad.

[*The ID cap is typically 12, but prior choices have lowered this until a sidequest is completed.]

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

>Twitter
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

>Pastebins (Who's Who and the character sheet updated)
https://pastebin.com/u/BathicQM

>Doodles (through thread 13)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eVbvuqY6BF7Lk0xcXGLHtoFP4OwXtZ14?usp=sharing

>"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.

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

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>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX

You check things off your to-do list: popping in on your landlord Monty, who agrees to confront your nemesis Horse Face with you later; going through your large stack of books, which contains both a patent by investigation subject Ellery and a reference to a 'Grande Mangrove' that supposedly breaches the surface; and continuing work on your retainer Gil's pseudo-body. After you take a break from the body-building, you learn a great many concerning things from Richard: God is actually an enormous snake, you come from an illustrious line of snake-cultists, and your father (and his friend) was probably one of them. You decide that it's a good time to stab Richard in the head, under the pretense of learning how to use your Crown.

Richard stabs you in the head instead, and you die. Kind of. You wake up mid-conversation with Monty and Horse Face and discover that Horse Face is apparently in a time loop and also a bigger prick than you thought. You weasel some concessions from him, then go to have celebratory drinks with Monty. You kill the mood by forcibly wringing Monty's secrets out of him-- before drowning, he was a mildly famous participant in a local death-sport. And also a sort of puppet oligarch for a shadowy cabal of dead people. Somewhat pissed, Monty wants to know why you keep spacing out. You nearly tell him about Richard before Richard roofies you.

Upon your recovery you say hi to Horse Face again and learn that the Wind Court is paying him to investigate someone. He won't tell you who. You then meet up with Branwen, who offers you a ride to the Mud Flats to meet with the rest of your heist crew. Once you're there, you gaslight them into believing you're a criminal mastermind, convince them it was Horse Face who sold you all out, and fairly divvy up the payment. You then chat with Earl ("BK"), who tells you when the next S.A. meetup is and discloses that he lives in Hellsbells.

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>TO-DO

Immediate goal:
- Get your heart back from the Yellow-Eyed Thing

Short-term goals:
- Speak to Madrigal about investigating Ellery together
- Speak to Eloise about her job proposition
- Finish Gil's manse-body
- Spend your share of the heist $$$
- Figure out current status of Game Night
- Meet back up with Annie the worm

Long-term goals:
- Procure permanent, non-melting body for Gil
— Go to Hell? Murder someone not named Ellery? Look into Namway gooplicates?
- Regain your missing ID
- Finish your model
- Locate and reclaim your lost Sword (in real life) (again)
— Find Jesse (again)
- Power up the Second Crown (1/16)
— Investigate the existence of the "Grande Mangrove"
— Attend the S.A. meetup two days from now
- GTFO of this underwater hellhole
- Make friends???

Mysteries:
- Who or what drove Ellery into self-imposed exile?
- Who or what is Namway Co.'s “Management”? What did they want with the clone of a snake?
- What's the deal with that weird sword training flashback you had?
- What kind of company(?) does Richard work for? What is its endgame? What does it want with you?
- What is Richard actually like, behind the whole... dad thing?
- Who is Jesse? What relationship does he think he have with you? Why do he and Lucky claim you were a Courtier?
- What is a clone of you doing running around in the Fen? What was it saying about "Human Resources"?
- What is the meaning of Jesse's spiral tattoo?
- What is Ellery's patent for? Is it connected to his entire deal?
- Who is Horse Face investigating, and why?

Ongoing assignments:
- Inform Eloise about anything you discover about Namway Co.
- Periodically check on Madrigal to make sure she's not in horrific agony from sort of turning into a snake or whatever


------

>Don't forget to scroll up and vote!

>>4714288

>[3] Underhandedly. Richard already tied the Thing up— any way he can one-up that? He's good with chemicals, isn't he? Drug it.

>>4714288
ooooh shit we back

>3
is there any problem that can't be solved with drugs

Yay, more Drowned Quest.

>>4714288

>[3] Underhandedly. Richard already tied the Thing up— any way he can one-up that? He's good with chemicals, isn't he? Drug it.

Richard's used to fucking up Actual!Us' body chemistry, fucking up the Yellow-Eyed Thing should be child's play for him. He'll probably be insufferably smug about it later on, but if we get our Heart back, it'll be worth getting it dealt with now. Besides, even if it doesn't exactly work right away, the Yellow-Eyed Thing might be woozy enough that we can get the edge over it afterwards.

>>4714325
>>4714562
>>4714615
>Drugs :)
Called and writing. This one should be relatively short.

>>4714562
>is there any problem that can't be solved with drugs
The problems that can't be solved with drugs can probably be solved with setting things on fire. This is why you and Richard work so well together.

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>Dude, weed

You try not to look at the Thing, which despite being some flavor of bizarre snakeish non-entity still has your face. You fix your eyes on Richard instead. "So… what do we…"

"Oh, you're asking me?" Richard clasps his hand to his breast. "As I recall, you were the one who wanted to parley with it, consuming my valuable spare—"

"Just take the win?" You give him your best pleading face. "I'm asking. Do I just… talk to it? Or is there something special I ought to— is it drugged? Should we drug it?"

"…What?"

"Well, you know." You gesture back at the Thing. "We have it all tied up, right? So now's our chance to— to— you do this all the time, right? Make it nicer— or sleepier— or—"

"No, I get the gist, Charlie. I was just not expecting…" Richard trails off. "In any case, it's hardly that simple. There is a wide gulf between manipulating your system and fetching a syringe from thin—"

"So you're not good enough, is what you're saying? I thought you were—" Damn. You forget what he called himself. "—you know, really good. So it should be no problem to—"

"Just because you're subsceptible to transparent goading—" he starts. Then he rubs his chin. "This is a dream."

"So…"

"So come here." He slides his sunglasses up and fishes a thin glove from his pocket. "And open your mouth."

You've been around the block enough times to know this bodes poorly. But also, you won! You did goad him! So not seeing this through would be a waste. You open your mouth, but don't step forward: he can come to you, if he wants.

He does, and places two gloved fingers in your mouth: your immediate impulse is to bite down. You cannot. Your mouth hangs agape and buzzily numb. The rest of your body is leaden. Richard removes his other hand from the back of your neck. "Don't be stupid."

"Mmh mmh mmh-hhm," you mimic. You dislike him so close to your face: you can feel his breath on your chin. Down by his side, he's contorting his free hand in peculiar boneless patterns. Your teeth ache.

After a minute or two, he withdraws. His glove glistens with your saliva. "That's beautiful."

"Aht beafu?" you inquire.

"Patience is a virtue, Charlotte." He touches one of your incisors. "Remind me what you wanted?"

"Ah ugg?"

"Not 'a drug'. Would you feed it cough syrup? Specifics, please."

(Choices next.)

>What are you drugging the Thing with? This will alter the makeup of your heart, a tiny bit. Thus is the nature of things. Each option will grant one permanent +5 bonus and one -5 malus to specific actions, assuming you get your heart back after.

>[1] Just your everyday sedative. Get it nice, relaxed, and hopefully pliable.
>[2] A truth serum. Hadn't Richard said Things like this were notoriously dishonest? Tricky? This should straighten it up.
>[3] An amnesiac. The trouble with the Thing is that it'll want something in return. Making it a blank slate will strip it of its motivations.
>[4] A paralytic. Taking control away from it will make it all the easier to intimidate— and you have some prior experience with paralyzing things.
>[5] Write-in (subject to veto)

>>4714769

>[1] Just your everyday sedative. Get it nice, relaxed, and hopefully pliable.

Tempted to go for a paralytic, but we already have a bit of an issue with stiffness when using The Crown, and it'll make it worse whenever we need to use some Law in the future. We're already pretty shit at lying, so truth serum is out, and using the amnesiac might make us a bit too much of a space-case in future interactions. Maybe a hallucinogen to make it trip balls? Not sure what the affects would be though. Open to changing my vote if someone has a better idea than sedatives.

>>4714769
>[1] Just your everyday sedative. Get it nice, relaxed, and hopefully pliable.

>>4714783
I would allow a hallucinogen if it got the votes.

>>4714769
>[1] Just your everyday sedative. Get it nice, relaxed, and hopefully pliable.

>>4714765
>>4714849
Definitely voting for underwater LSD

>>4715420
supporting this instead

>>4714769
>[3] An amnesiac. The trouble with the Thing is that it'll want something in return. Making it a blank slate will strip it of its motivations.

>>4714783
>>4714847
>Sedative

>>4715420
>>4715450
>Hallucinogen

>>4715489
>Amnesiac

I'd typically roll for this, but in light of >>4714783 suggesting the hallucinogen in the first place and also being open to switching their vote, I'm going with the hallucinogen. Called and writing.

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>Dude, shrooms

You think. "Uhhi ah cuh mah ih ee uhf?? Ik… 'whohhhh.'"

"Consider yourself fortunate I'm on your 'wavelength'," Richard notes pointedly. "And what possible purpose would that serve? How would that aid us in any way."

"Uh, I uhn…" It was just the first thing that came to you, honestly. But if he's going to get all smug about it, you're sticking to your guns. "Iih onfu ih? Ih… ih ohn oh wah oin ah? Ahn ihl e innerehin oh ateher—"

"Something being 'interesting' is not a practical incentive to…" Richard rubs his chin. "Though it would be interesting. I'm not aware of any prior experiments with administering hallucinogens to—"

"Yeh, ee?"

"Shush." He's staring intently at the Thing. "That could be because such a thing would be inherently unpredictable— possibly dangerous, even. Mind-altering chemicals — to a creature of the mind — inside the mind? No lesser researcher would—"

"Oo oun ik Ellehy," you say snidely.

"Shh-hh." Richard lights a cigarette. "Just don't bite yourself, will you. Avoid that and stay with me and it'll be entirely safe. I am good at this. Now hold still, and quit drooling—"

Your mouth is dry and your saliva ducts sore and swollen by the time he's finished with you, as if you'd been sucking on far too many lemon drops. Your neck is achy, too. You wonder why, if this is a dream and all, Richard can't just snap his fingers to do whatever he just did, and you say so. "It's not my dream," he says. "And nothing is so simple, Charlie, you know that— go ahead, touch."

Curiously, you poke your teeth. Your front teeth are the same as always, but your canines are thin and enlongated and curve backwards. They feel fragile, like fine porcelain. "Mnnh."

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

"Beautiful. What a pity they aren't real. Enamel is so stubborn…" He takes a long drag on his cigarette. "Go bite it."

"Go bite me?"

"It's not you, and you know it's not you, but if your pointless hangup is going to cause issues—" He blows a cloud of smoke directly into your face. "Who would you not mind drugging?"

Most people, honestly. They've all done something to deserve it. "…Ellery?"

"What a coincidence." The smoke clears: Ellery sits in the chair, bound and gagged in an identical manner. His yellow eyes are unreadable. "Go on," Richard says.

You circle around the card table, consider the Thing's neck, and take its taped-together hands instead. You glance at Richard, who nods. The Thing is pale and silent. Awkwardly, you bite it.

Nothing in particular happens, except for its shoulders rising and falling. "I'd step back," Richard advises. "You never know—"

Abruptly the Thing begins to rock forward and back: CLANG — CLANG — CLANG goes its chair against the floor. A low gargling comes from its throat. You step back. The Thing's eyes are fixed in you; its pupils are a hungry, sucking black, and widening—

(1/3)

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It rocks faster, in the throes of an invisible fit: CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. Richard grasps your upper arm. He seems calm. You try to stay calm. (It's just a dream, isn't it?) The rocking is reaching a fever pitch: CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG! How much fight is left in it? How much longer can it go?

It can't. It slumps forward with a final resounding CLANNNNG and begins to bleed from the mouth. It's not natural blood— it's comically bright, almost neon— and it's not natural bleeding— it's flooding from its mouth, waterfalling, making a weird tinny splashing sound like it's being played off a tape. …Is it bleeding? Or is that glinting snakeskin, pulled from its throat like a magician's chain of scarves? You look to Richard for help but he is rapt, his cigarette forgotten between his fingers. You look back and the Thing is awash with searing color, pink-orange-yellow-lime-cyan-purple, rippling out from its chest and dripping from its fingers— blood or snakeskin drips from its nose, too, and its ears, and out from the hollow pupils of its eyes. Its features— Ellery's features— are sliding about uncertainly, occasionally doubling or vanishing. It is more settled with its fingers, which now number sixteen.

With a groan— also tinny— the Thing falls forward: its face splashes into the color-puddle in its lap. The back of its head sports a shiny aluminum zipper. You think about reaching for it, but with an obnoxious screech it unzips on its own, and the Thing flops open. It ceases to move, though color continues to pool around the distorted and snakeskin-wrapped legs of its chair.

"…Um," you say. Your voice is comfortingly ordinary. "…Success…?"

"Unlikely. I rather think that the best is yet to— watch it!" Richard tugs you back. "Don't let that get on you."

"Don't let what— oh." The color has begun to slide in your direction. "Not good?"

"Not good. Not good for negotiating coherently, I strongly suspect. But let's see." He bends and dips a pinky into the color. It splits in two, and two again, then melds into his palm, then emerges as a single black-scaled talon— then Richard wipes it off with a handkerchief. "Like I said. Don't let that get on you. Now how is—?"

The Thing remains unzipped. Red snakeskin pokes from its back like tissue paper. "I think I killed it," you say, a little proud.

"It's difficult to kill a concept, Charlotte. I think you've just… altered its self-perception. Altered it to what, of course, is the question of the hour." Richard releases your shoulder and pulls a telescoping pointer from his breast pocket. Ignoring your skeptical look, he extends it to its full length and reaches across the table with it. He pokes the Thing. "Come on, sweetheart."

It gurgles, and the snakeskin rustles. All of a sudden, a hand bursts from the Thing's back— and another hand, and a head, and a torso, and then an entire human person has clambered from the Thing's corpse(???) and stands shivering before you, ankle-deep in color.

"Um," you say.

"How amusing," remarks Richard, after stowing his pointer away and resuming his iron grip on your shoulder.

The Thing(???) doesn't speak. You are sure they're a person, but that's all you're sure of: they are of entirely indeterminate sex and annoyingly vague facial features. If you had to put a name to it, they look like every person you've ever seen, all at once. If all those people had yellow eyes. Snakeskin cloaks their indecent bits; they are otherwise nude.

"An ego birth. Remarkable. And how convenient that you're still capable of speech." You can hear Richard's toothed smile. "We are still in the negotiation business. Would you give me a moment with Charlotte here?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, dragging you instead near the door. "Do not get a bleeding heart. I know you."

"I don't get bleeding hearts," you protest. "And what— why is there a— why is it a real person—"

"I told you. Its self-perception is altered. That does not make it trustworthy. It is still a scheming— it still wants. Do not accept any offers it—"

"What are you discussing?" the Thing says pleasantly. Its voice is slightly tinny and completely androgynous.

>[A1] Nothing! Make awkward small talk— attempt to get its guard down.
>[A2] Nothing! Cut straight to the point: it stole your heart! And ate it! Give it back!
>[A3] Nothing! It's just a naked, unarmed… person. /You/ have a sword. Threaten to cut off its brand new life(?) and it's bound to be receptive.
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B] Name the Thing?
>>[1] Aubrey
>>[2] Jules
>>[3] Bellamy
>>[4] Logan
>>[5] Do not name the Thing
>>[6] Write-in (gender neutral encouraged)

>>4716334
>[A2] Nothing! Cut straight to the point: it stole your heart! And ate it! Give it back!
>[5] Do not name the Thing

>[A1] Nothing! Make awkward small talk— attempt to get its guard down.
Talk bugs and snakes and the other funnies.
>>[6] Write-in
Highway :^)

>>4716334
>A1
>B5
we don't wanna get attached

>>4716334

>[A2] Nothing! Cut straight to the point: it stole your heart! And ate it! Give it back!


>>[5] Do not name the Thing

It's not us, and it's not our friend. Small talk would either make things awkward and give it an in, or it'll make the Yellow-Eyed Thing a chance to be 'human', and try to manipulate us further. It'll likely be easier to pick up on it's cues if it's still not entirely human in cast or actions. Especially if we wind up having to use force.

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4716380
>>4716417
>>4717410
>>4717869
>Listen I only name things without limbs
Flipping between chatting it up and playing hardball.

>>4717877
>Hardball
You're getting to the point. Writing.

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>Bitch.

"Nnnnothing," you say, convincingly. "We were not dicussing— there was no— give me my heart back, okay?"

"Your heart?" The Thing blinks. "It is gone. I am sorry."

"It's not gone." You twist free of Richard's grip and clamber onto the nearest chair, where you're safe from the encroaching color. "I know it's not. You said— you told me you ate it."

"I am sorry," they repeat. "I did not mean to. You made me."

"GS."

"You made me from my son—" They extend a single moist finger toward Richard. "—to make you strong— but I did not live. You gave me your heart and made me eat it so I would live. And you have given me now an 'I'. Because you love me?"

There's not a hint of guile on their face, but maybe that's the point? You glance desperately back at Richard, who drags his finger across his throat. Okay. Okay. "Um, I think we just— wanted to see what would— happen?"

"I have happened," says the Thing with relish. "I have happened. And I love you, Harrier Leftenant Vessel Crownbearer Charlotte Frances Fawkins Sixteenth Of Her Line Herald Of the Bright Epoch. You have given for me. We will be strong together. Until it is Time. Is that not wonderful?"

"Er…" You're not even going to touch all that. "Yeah, sure. But do you still have my heart?"

"I ate it."

"Obviously, but… then what happened? There's no way you have a digestive system." …Surely. "Don't tell me it just vanished."

"Of course it still has it," Richard interjects dryly. "It's here. In its chest, I'd imagine, given a lack of other places to put it."

"Is it in your chest?" you ask the Thing.

A sullen look crosses their face. "I do not look in my chest. I have not put things there…"

"Yes, but it's there regardless. So why don't you crack it open and prove us wrong?" There's a bite to Richard's voice, despite his jovial tone. "Go ahead."

The Thing clenches its fingers, and you think for a moment it's about to start thrashing— but then they brace against their sternum and pull. Their chest opens with a bloodless squelch, revealing something crimson. A rose.

You shout incoherently and lunge (your own chest throbs dully) but the Thing has already sealed it back up. "I did not know," they say, as your elbows skid against the table. "I am sorry."

You bare your teeth. Your fangs. "You're sorry, you son of a bitch?! Give it back! That's mine!!"

"You are living without it," the Thing observes. "It was gifted to me. And I am using it… I am helping you. I am making you strong. You are tasting your destiny. Is that not good?"

"It's not— it's not not good, but—" You look at Richard.

(1/2)

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"She's being helped," Richard says coolly. "She doesn't need the unregulated quackery of a non-thing. Whether it thinks it exists or not. So how about you tell us what you want for it."

The Thing widens their yellow eyes. "I want to be."

"How unoriginal." Richard spits into the color. "And you think you've already found just the thing for that, so you're hanging on for dear life. That's not going to fly. You realize I have a job."

"Trapping good honest 'I's." The Thing pouts. "Pitching them off roofs. Tying them with circuit tape."

"…When I have to, yes. But I am here to ensure Charlotte's success— Charlotte's— not some sniveling little parasite. You want to be. Wonderful. If it doesn't impede her, I could not care less." Richard pauses. "It is impeding her. You catch my drift?"

"Yes!" you say. "What— what he said. Give me back my—"

"Now," Richard continues— he's in full charm mode, his voice is all oily— "I'm certain we can come to a peaceful agreement, yes? I wouldn't want to be nasty toward you. You haven't done anything wrong. But we must have the heart back. Will this dissolve any flimsy semblance of a consciousness you've obtained? Possibly. Very possibly. But, hm, let's see— we could bring you a different heart? And make a fair exchange?"

The Thing hesitates. "I like this one."

"…We'll put it at a maybe. Alternately, we could fish you out of her subconscious every so often, give you a booster shot of—" Richard taps his teeth. "Give growing you a self a shot. Tedious, certainly, but it's much more rewarding with a struggle—"

«Or.» You flinch at the sudden static. «You just take it. That's the third option. I don't trust it to make the exchange or to have the patience.»
«But of course I'm not a prognosticator, Charlie. I won't argue if you try something easier… you could swear an oath, even.»
«It may attempt to avoid the spirit of it, but it'd be bound by the letter.»
«As would you, of course.»

"I don't know," the Thing says.

"I don't either! I'm only here as aid, of course." Richard twinkles up at you. "What say you, Charlie?"

>[A1] Convince the Thing that you'll find a different heart for it, then make an exchange later. (Roll.)
>[A2] Convince the Thing to give you the heart now, in exchange for periodic drugs that'll (hopefully) make it exist. (Harder roll.)
>[A3] Stab it with your Sword! (Roll.)
>[A4] Start negotiating, then partway through stab it with your Sword! (Roll.)

[A1 and A2 only]
>[B1] Swear a binding oath. (Lower DC, and the Thing will [probably] stick to its word— but so must you. Or else.)
>[B2] Don't swear an oath. (No DC effect, all bets are off.)

>[C] Write-in.

>>4718010
>[A3] Stab it with your Sword! (Roll.)

>>4718010

>[A4] Start negotiating, then partway through stab it with your Sword! (Roll.)

"I mean, we could certainly give you a dose of reality everyso often. We can start with the first one as a sign of good faith." The bit of Reality being the point of the blade.

>>4718010
>A2
Can't believe no one is voting for more drugs

>B1
as long as uuuuuh we promise only to try and not succeed

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4718013
>>4718018
>>4718222
These are all different options, technically, but the only difference between A3 and A4 is the timing... so I'll lump them together and say stabby wins. Flipping between stab now and stab later.

>>4719179
>Stab later
Kay. You'll be playing it sneaky. I need dice.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 25 (+10 Good With A Sword, +5 Surprise Factor, +5 Slick Intro, +5 On Fire!) vs. DC 50 to stab the Thing mid-negotiation!

Spend 1 ID for a +10 to all results? You are at 3/(9) ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 9 + 25 (1d100 + 25)

>>4719183
>[1] Y
Things need to go well.

Rolled 41 (1d100)

>>4719183

>[1] Y

Can't risk it going wrong, and if it works, we're getting 3 ID back when we get our heart. Win win.

Rolled 76 + 25 (1d100 + 25)

>>4719183
>N

>>4719191
>>4719214
>>4719293
>44, 76, 111 vs. DC 50 -- Success
>Spendy
Writing.

>Sneak attack
>44, 76, 111 vs. DC 50 — Success

"I don't know, um… option 2?" (OPTION 3, you think at Richard.) "Sounds like a good plan. Giving Mr… giving them a nice couple doses of reality…"

"A couple jabs of reality, eh?" Richard's twinkle has intensified.

"…Ye-s. A couple jabs. With the, er, sharp blade of reality. The figurative sharp blade. Of reality." Damnit. Where is The Sword?

"Of course. And I'm sure it'd be quite a shock to receive this sharp blade in the ribcage region— of your ignorance, naturally." He is enjoying this far too much. Where is— aha! Fastened just underneath the lip of the table. You slide it out surreptitiously.

"I do not follow," the Thing says stolidly.

"You don't need to! If you'd just stay right there—" You circle the table. "I can give you your first dose right now!"

You stab the Thing.

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

The Thing looks down at their smoldering puncture wound. "You have attacked me."

"Yup," you say. What do you do next? Do you stab it again? Do you try and stick your hand in there and rummage around? (You don't want to do that.) "Beware me… fiend."

"You hate me," they moan, eyes welling up with fat tears.

"…Um…" You crane your neck toward Richard. He shakes his head. "…Yes! Yes, I do hate you, because you're an— an evildoer— you can't deceive me, fiend! Have at thee!" You stab it again, close to the heart. The Sword sizzles as you withdraw. "…Nowwill you give me the…"

"I hate you!" the Thing cries in their familiar voice, and quite despite yourself you wince. "I hate you, Harrier Leftenant Vessel Crownbearer Charlotte Frances Fawkins Sixteenth Of Her Line Herald Of the Bright Epoch. I have given for you and you hurt me?! You have been me before and will be me again and yet—"

"Back up, Charlie," Richard says calmly. You grit your teeth but take a step back.

"I will hurt you." The Thing staggers back in turn. "I will. I will hurt you—" It stands stock still and later you will damn yourself for not having lunged then, not having leapt forth and plucked the heart from their singed-dry wounds like a fruit from the vine, but in all truth there was no chance. They were… it was only still for a moment before pitching forward and retching violently.

"Back up," Richard repeats, and this time you cross the room. A single thick rose-stem has punctured the Thing's windpipe. Two more pierce its chest, and a third its pelvis, and all four swell rapidly— while the Thing itself lengthens and splits, drooping across the floor. Seconds later, the four rose-stems— rose-vines, really— brace against the floor and lift the unraveling Thing into the air. It hits the ceiling with a smack, then— with a brief noise of exertion— breaks through it. Above the crumbling plaster is a paint-peeling whiteness.

(1/2)

The Thing, meanwhile, is sprouting more vines. Thinner than the ones that compose its 'legs,' these vines interweave rapidly with strips of snakeskin and claylike coils of flesh from its once-body, forming a loose cage around— what? You can barely see from your height, not to mention the whiteness sucking away all detail, but when you twist your head you spy a flash of crimson. A loose cage for your heart.

All this looking stalls your reflexes: you are frozen as a leg crashes back through the ceiling and nearly runs you through the skull. (…Were you run through the skull before? No. No, that would be silly.) It's Richard who saves you: "CHARL—" is all he gets out before a massive jolt hits your spine, sending you springing away whether you want to or not.

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

"Gah!" is all you manage before thudding against the dirt. You're back on your feet in a second, whirling around, looking for Richard. Richard is gone.

«I am not gone.»

Richard is— invisible? (Where does he go?) It doesn't— now is not the time. The attacking leg is already winding up for another thrust. You grasp The Sword white-knuckled in two shaking hands.

>[A1] The current plan: grab ahold of a leg and scale it until you reach the cage, then grab or cut your heart out. (Roll.)
>[A2] The current plan: cut down each of the Thing's legs in turn, then pluck your heart from the immobile cage. (Roll.)
>[A3] The current plan: work out how to tie up or trip the Thing, then pluck your heart from the immobile cage. (Roll.)
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B1] You can't fight in this cramped space. Cut your way out of the clubhouse and face the Thing in the open whiteness.
>[B2] This is /your/ dream. /You/ get to pick the location. Fight somewhere else. (Write-in, possible roll.)

>[C] Write-in. If you have miscellaneous ideas that don't constitute an entire plan on their own, put them here and I'll work them at some point if I like them or they gain support. This is your mind, so weird stuff is fair game, though depending on complexity it may require dice.

>>4719460
>[A3] The current plan: work out how to tie up or trip the Thing, then pluck your heart from the immobile cage. (Roll.)

>[B2] This is /your/ dream. /You/ get to pick the location. Fight somewhere else. (Write-in, possible roll.)
A swamp. A mire, where heavy things on sharp thin legs get stuck, while small graceful refined cool people move freely.

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Leaving vote open until approx. 6 PM PST tomorrow. Until then, here's a hasty drawing of the Thing's final(?) form, with Charlottes for height reference. Have a nice night, folks.

>>4719460
>A2
The bleach plan

>B2
THE LIP OF A VOLCANO

>C
USE FIRE

>>4719482
oh boy, as tall as 5 charlies

>>4719460
>A1/A3
This will make more sense in a moment.

>B2
Spongeland. Hear me out. We got floating sponges, hard sponges, bouncy sponges, square ones, all different kinds of sponges. Safe falls and trampolines. Sharp thing go into rando sponge and tears it off, no longer sharp. See a cool sponge, scale it using said sponge. If not, its easier to climb if all the sharp stuff is plugged and now can be used as a nice platform for climbing.
We would die in a volcano, assuming we even know one exists and swamps make plants power up. Believe me, I've played Pokémon.

>>4719460

>[A1] The current plan: grab ahold of a leg and scale it until you reach the cage, then grab or cut your heart out. (Roll.)

>[B2] This is /your/ dream. /You/ get to pick the location. Fight somewhere else. (Write-in, possible roll.)

Using the Mire idea here >>4719467

Get the legs stuck in the gunk, climb up it, and cut the heart out of the Thing.

>>4719467
Supporting
>>4719460

Rolled 4, 3 = 7 (2d6)

>>4719467
>>4720526
>A3

>>4720526
>>4720531
>A1

>>4720559
>>4719940
>A2

>>4719467
>>4720531
>Mire

>>4720559
>>4719940
>Volcano

>>4720526
>Sponges

Yeesh. Gonna roll between the As and flip between the Bs with a 2d6.

>>4720604
>A1
>Mire

Okay! Time for dice. A swamp will not need a roll (you...live in a swamp), trying to grab ahold of the Thing's legs will.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s (+10 Handholds, -10 Thrashing) vs. DC 60 (+10 Enraged, +10 Shifting, +5 Thorny, -15 Mired) to begin your ascent!

Spend 1 ID to SET A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS ON FIRE? this will not aid the current roll but may aid future rolls and/or penalize the Thing's upcoming roll You are at 3/(9) ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>4720621
>YES
haha vine creature go burn

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>4720621
HANG ONTA SOMETHIIIIIIING

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Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>4720621
yes Charlie, do it. Set fire to everything. Set fire to the rain if you can, it all must burn

Rolled 78, 91, 26, 38, 77, 85 = 395 (6d100)

>>4720728
>>4720740
>>4720876
>85, 66, 78 vs. DC 60 - Enhanced Success
>Commit arson
Excellent rolling. Doing the same for the Thing.

3d100s (+10 Enraged, +10 Shifting, -20 ON FIRE) vs. DC 50 (+5 Small Target, -5 Latched On) to lash out at you...
...and 3d100s - 15 (+15 Plant, -10 Enraged, -20 ON FIRE) vs. DC 40 (-15 Mired, +5 Latched On) to ???

>>4720914
>Success, Success
Writing.

File: your best friend.jpg (60 KB, 546x357)

60 KB JPG

>This is MY swamp
>Climbing practice
>Watch the world burn
>85, 66, 78 vs. DC 60 - Enhanced Success

The clubhouse is not a small room, but at the moment it feels like a— you skitter backwards as another leg crashes down, sending up a spray of rubble— like a death trap. You have to get out of here, go somewhere open— no! (You fling yourself to the side.) Too open, and you're a sitting duck— the Thing needs to be stalled, somehow. Needs to get stuck in sand — or mud — or — or slimy peat, the kind that sucks at your boots, that makes you trip and fall on your face and sink until you grab ahold of a big root and a snake lends you the strength to lever yourself back up — but your clothes are all filthy —

Not that you have any experience with such a thing, being delicate and graceful. Not delicate and graceful: the Thing, which seems mildly startled when it strikes again and succeeds only in making a wet gouge in the peat. The sky is a queasy green-blue and the ground an unpleasant grey-green and the last tatters of the clubhouse are blowing away in the breeze, which carries the scent of rot.

You leave divots in the spongy earth as you pound toward the Thing, gargling an unoriginal warcry: "YOUUUUUUUUUU BASTARD!!!" You fail to notice the wind-buoyed flames of The Sword catching your sleeve; you do notice by the time your face combusts, but only because you begin to smell smoke. You are entirely on fire.

>[-1 ID: 2/(9)]

It's not painful, but it is mildly unpleasant— the flames are using something for fuel, you sense, and if it's not your flesh… but who cares about that! You look terrific, and you revel in the black handprints you sear into the Thing's tissue as you scrabble up its nearest leg. It is not, initially, a difficult task: the thorns are rigid and as long as your arm, making them convenient hand- and foot-holds, and your grip strength keeps you latched on even as the Thing stomps to get you off. You whoop in victory, and in its far-above cage your heart unfurls its petals.

>[+2 ID: 4/(9)]

The trouble comes when the leg begins to mutate, thorns shooting out perilously close to your head and retracting just as you grab on. One bad judgment and you're in freefall— but thinking quickly, you drive The Sword into the Thing and pray it holds. It does. You dangle one-handed 10 feet off the ground.

If you swing just so, you can reach the thorn there, and— your plan is interrupted by a tickle. A slender green tendril, braving the flame, is winding its way up your dominant arm. You stare. "Is that the best you've—?"

The tendril bristles suddenly with thorns: you can feel blood welling up from its pinpricks. "Damnit! you yelp, and tear at the tendril with your other arm. "You bastard! …But if that's the best you've—"

You dominant arm begins to whisper. I'm so tired of the pressure. Of being the one you always depend on. While your other arm lazes ab—

File: my arm was injected with (...).png (44 KB, 451x688)

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"RICHARD!!!" you scream, because either this is his idea of a practical joke or he'll be able to tell you you're going crazy, and then you look up and just plain scream because a mouth has opened up on your wrist. (Your grip remains secure, which you're sure Richard is smug about.)

«Why would this be me. No. And you are not— in a strict sense you have not gone crazy.»
«Your arm has just been reinjected with hallucinogen. I advise you to ignore it.»

Your own hallucinogen? The stuff in your mouth? Why are you not immune to—

«…It was quickly done. And in any case I suspect it has reformulated it.»
«Ignore the arm and attempt to avoid the thorns in the future, would you.»

Your principal concern is with dangling precariously from a furious giant unreal plant monster thing, but sure, Richard, you'll avoid the thorns. Good plan. Reaching up, you swap sword-holding arms, then press your dominant hand into the Thing. If you can burn yourself a foothold—

Thank you for recognizing my concerns, your dominant arm says, sincerely. You shut your eyes. For the first time, I'm free to explore what I want to be…

The shiver is your only warning: it runs up from your wrist to your shoulder and through to your bone. It's enough for you to tear your hand away, kick up into the nook it left, and use the Sword as a fulcrum to swing onto a thorn just out of reach— a long, heavy one, the sort the Thing won't retract anytime soon. You perch there, panting, clinging with your off-hand, watching a black smoke-plume waft off your body, and trying not to look at your arm. It is doing things. Things that arms, in your book, should not do.

Two minutes later, you've sheathed The Sword: the Thing has, for some reason, settled down. Perhaps it's used up all its anger in a single temper tantrum, or perhaps it's planning: it is scratching oddly at the sunken peat. Who can say? You ought to be using this break to climb— you're just under halfway up— and you'd like to, you really would. But you have decided to sit and plot your route until you have bones in your good hand again, and optimally until the suckers go away, though you're not holding your breath.

«It is prehensile. And it may be rather strong. There could be worse for climbing.»
«Though I argue you should have kept the third one. Two for grip, one for Wyrmtooth.»

You were not keeping the third arm, and you are not keeping the tentacle—

«Better than the leg, Charlotte. Be pragmatic.»

You hate your life. You hate it more when, with a SHOOMP, the Thing's cage-body plummets earthward; it slams into and through the peat, sending up a huge spray of mud and murky water. The nasty little droplets sizzle into nothing before they touch your clothing, which you are briefly grateful for, before you realize the implication of the whole event: it's diving! Your heart is—!!

(Choices next)

>[A1] Cling onto the leg for dear life, and attempt to climb it in the opposite direction: down toward the cage. Play it relatively safe. (Roll.)
>[A2] Wrench free of the leg and swan-dive toward the cage. It's the fastest way, but you might be vulnerable. (Roll.)
>[A3] It thinks it can escape you?! In **your dream**?! Turn the water to oil and set it alight!!! (Harder roll.)
>[A4] It thinks it can escape you?! Crank up the heat of the sun and dry the swamp entirely!!! (Harder roll.)
>[A5] Write-in.

>[B1] Force your dominant arm to hallucinate itself as something else. (Random result.)
>[B2] Keep it a gross tentacle :(

>[C] Write-in.

>>4721232
>[A3] It thinks it can escape you?! In **your dream**?! Turn the water to oil and set it alight!!! (Harder roll.)
>[B2] Keep it a gross tentacle :(

File: roleswap.png (111 KB, 578x550)

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Also, I have not planned any kind of elaborate April Fools thing, but here's your roleswap AU image anyways. Have a nice night, folks. Vote open until 6 PST again.

>>4721232
>A3
>B1

Maybe a non-gross tentacle?

Also I just wanna say it couldn't pull this dive strat if we were fighting volcano edge combat

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4721234
>>4721610
Flipping between B1 and B2. Until then, I need dice:

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+20 ON FIRE!, -10 Fully Lucid) vs. DC 70 (+15 Largescale Change, +5 Resisted) to continue setting things on fire.

Rolled 25 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4722380
heard you needed a roll

Rolled 57 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4722380

Rolled 45 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>4722380

>>4722418
>>4722390
>>4722388

NOOOO. We finally got to start fires again.

Rolled 3, 23, 86 + 10 = 122 (3d100 + 10)

>>4722388
>>4722390
>>4722418
>35, 67, 55 vs. DC 70 -- Failure
Yeowch.

>>4722422
In fairness, you're still on fire... you're just not going to be setting more fires.

>>4721610
>Also I just wanna say it couldn't pull this dive strat if we were fighting volcano edge combat
Very true, but it would've been a bitch of a roll to get there, as Charlotte has an extremely vague concept of what a volcano is.


Rolling for the Thing.
3d100s +10 (+10 Enraged) vs. DC 60 (+5 Small Target, +5 Scales) to get you from below!

>>4722460
>13, 33, 96 vs. DC 60 -- Mitigated Success
Writing.

>>4722460
>you're just not going to be setting more fires.

Sez youse. What if we give our little heart thief that hug they wanted before. Now that they don't want it. While on fire.

Disappointing people, vague godlike consciousnesses, Richard, and ourself is our speciality. We are the embodiment of disappointment. We shall disappoint this imposter as we have so many others, to the point where even if it can convince itself it won it will still feel like they lost.

Chuckie can ruin ANYTHING, and should use her power to ruin existing for this emancipated ego.

>>4722479
Fair enough... I'll amend that with "not going to be setting more fires this turn. And even that might be a lie what with the Thing's mitigated success we'll see Still plenty of time to ruin people(?)'s lives.

File: highly against protocol.jpg (25 KB, 500x323)

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>Fire is always a success
>35, 67, 55 vs. DC 70 -- Failure

Damnit! Why hadn't you— why hadn't Richard informed you the Thing could swim?! That's supposed to be his job! His one job! And he's failing miserably! Now he can't complain about anything you do, ever again... you release the Thing's leg just as it flails into the swamp-water and land safely atop the muck. Shielding your eyes against the sun, you watch it vanish entirely.

So it's gone. It has sunk into the turbid waters of your subconscious and now your heart it lost to you forever. You will see the Thing in dream again and it will jeer in your face and there's not a thing you can do about it, not a single thing, and—

«It's just under the surface, Charlotte. I look forward to an abatement in instantaneous mood swings in the near future.»

Oh, and now Richard crawls out of his hole. It's not at all fair that he gets to disappear, by the way. He should be here to back you up, with a knife, or a gun, or something. It could be a snake-themed gun. Wouldn't he like that?

«That would violate protocol. Flagrantly.»

The gun, or the theming? (Probably the gun.) But it's like he doesn't flagrantly violate protocol all the time, so you don't see how— "Ow!" You clap your wobbling tentacle hand to your neck.

«I am not willing to discuss this further. Moreover, you remain in an active combat situation. Focus.»

God. Okay. The Thing is still nowhere to be seen. You wish you could set it on fire. You want to set it on fire. Could you set it on fire? It's underwater, but… this is your dream, is it not? That doesn't have to matter. Slowly, deliberately, you stride over to the place the Thing used to be, crouch, and plunge The Sword into the murk.

It hisses unhappily as its flames extinguish. Damn! You try it again, faster, and blink through the resulting burst of steam. Maybe you're going about this wrong? If the water isn't flammable, you must make it be. Close your eyes, and squat here, and think of oil-lamps, and tinder, and the Court's odd devices, and hope—

A vine coils around your ankle and flings you unceremoniously into the air. A story up, another vine catches you and swings you upside-down, offering you a tremendous vantage of the swamp. What was peat and moss and mud now resembles a widow's front yard: choked with weeds and vines and, mostly, thorns.

«Ah. It's taken root.»

(1/2)

Thanks, Richard. You're glad he's offering you relevant, useful information while you do all the grunt work. The vine that holds you is waving about uncertainly, so you decide to help it in its decision-making process: you heave yourself back and forth until momentum slams you face-first into the mass of the vine. Before you can swing away again, you wrap your tentacle arm around it and stab The Sword directly through it. Then you hold yourself there, watching the vine turn sooty, then charred, then— finally— combust. It takes a long few moments before the fire begins to spread, but when it does it races up and down and around the vine. You grin sharkishly.

When the vine begins to thrash, you grin even harder. The grin dies when it doesn't stop. You are being swung wildly upside-down over a field of organ-piercing hallucinogen-producing thorns. And your heart is, presumably, still underwater.

>[1] Cut your ankles free, do your best to shimmy down the vine, and carefully— /carefully/— navigate through the brambles. Maybe you can find a weak point in there. [Roll.]
>[2] If it doesn't work once… try, try again? You are above a field of plants. Plants are flammable. Do the math. [Harder roll than last time.]
>[3] Okay, this was very fun, but it's time to stop messing around. Bring out the Crown. Use it. [This will lead to another set of options.]
>[4] Maybe you're crazy, but… you still have a mouth full of hallucinogen, do you not? It can't drug you if you drug yourself, and… this is your mind… so… [No roll, mystery box]
>[5] Write-in.

>>4722567
>>[4] Maybe you're crazy, but… you still have a mouth full of hallucinogen, do you not? It can't drug you if you drug yourself, and… this is your mind… so… [No roll, mystery box]

Don't we have prior experience transforming? We could probably turn into a giant snake like Richard did, between prior experiences, being in our mind, and having drugs in our mind.

Richard said that drugs are bad for negotiating, but now is our chance to prove that drugs make us an excellent negotiator if they can make us a giant snake.

>>4722567
>[4] Maybe you're crazy, but… you still have a mouth full of hallucinogen, do you not? It can't drug you if you drug yourself, and… this is your mind… so… [No roll, mystery box]

This absolutely isn't the worst thing that can happen on the list of choices, so lets do it.

>>4722567

>[4] Maybe you're crazy, but… you still have a mouth full of hallucinogen, do you not? It can't drug you if you drug yourself, and… this is your mind… so… [No roll, mystery box]

Come here box, show us the mysteries inside of it.

>>4722567
>[2] If it doesn't work once… try, try again? You are above a field of plants. Plants are flammable. Do the math. [Harder roll than last time.]

>4 votes in 25 minutes
I should include mystery boxes more often, I guess??

>>4722569
>Don't we have prior experience transforming?
Nnnnnnnnnnot really, to my memory. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

>We could probably turn into a giant snake like Richard did
I mean, yes, probably, but I'd need a very difficult roll if you wanted to control this in any way, shape, or form.

>>4722588
Mystery boxes. Fashion choices.

Huh. I was hoping for a third option, but honestly the amount of replies those two things get are wild.

Oh wait. Waifus (when warring) get mad calls.

Who has Charlie had one sided unrequited crushes on in the past?

>>4722588
Oh yeah, the other things are me too.

A) Transforming mentally, like when we went into Gil's Manse. This is a mindscape thingy majig. Let's transform into the proper mindset that will let us transform into a giant snake.

B) If the giant snake loses control, that's less the Giant Snake's problem and more everyone else's problem.

C) Charlie becoming a giant snake too might make it less special for Richard when he does it, because he seems to hate anything Charlie likes or is good at. Also it'll be one less thing unique to him. He's been a dick a LOT lately, and petty revenge is something I personally believe Charlie loves.

>>4722893
>Who has Charlie had one sided unrequited crushes on in the past?
there may have been one or two boys who have received anonymous love poetry in the distant past but nobody it wouldn't be weird to think about now

>>4722898
>Transforming mentally, like when we went into Gil's Manse.
Fair enough (that wasn't Gil's manse btw, he broke in and got stuck), though all three possible examples there were fairly minor-- either completely mental, basically cosmetic, or one change (while still remaining humanoid). Experience, but nothing on a matching scale.

>Let's transform into the proper mindset that will let us transform into a giant snake.
In about 20 seconds, you're not going to have the presence of mind to do this (and there's some other mitigating factors, too). (Also, do you really want to make another of those while you're fighting the first?)

>If the giant snake loses control, that's less the Giant Snake's problem and more everyone else's problem.
Sure, but you need control in the first place.

>Charlie becoming a giant snake too might make it less special for Richard when he does it
Yes.

>he seems to hate anything Charlie likes or is good at
I'd argue it ranges from 'judgmental disinterest' to actual hate, and that it stems more from 1) you and Richard having next to nothing in common and 2) your tendency to do what you enjoy instead of what advances your goals, but you're right in that he'd despise you turning into a giant snake. He'd take it like a slap in the face.

>petty revenge is something I personally believe Charlie loves.
Oh, of course. But unlike fire, petty revenge doesn't solve all problems.

>>4722567
>3
time to get yeeted, plant
or it would be if I wasn't drastically outvoted

>>4723063
>you and Richard having next to nothing in common
...Interests-wise. One could argue your personalities are fairly similar.

Vote count:

>>4722569
>>4722575
>>4722577
>MYSTERY BOX

>>4722585
>FIRE

>>4723089
>Sensible crown option

Calling it here. No roll. Will be writing... tonight, doing some (covid-safe) traveling so can't give an ETA there.

OP hazbin rangewanned uwu
eggsblanation in de mwowning owo
toodles~

>>4724422
Well this is disheartening.

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>>4723492
Can Charlie grow into a giant Charlie instead? The Chuck could Chuck the demiurge into their mouth and eat them, getting their heart back that way.

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>Drugs are cool, kids

A particularly forceful swing wrests you off the body of the vine, whirls you around, and promptly slams you back on at a speed sufficient to squash your nose. "Ow..." you moan, and attempt to shield your face from further violence.

«A meaningless injury, all things considered. Consider yourself lucky you did not bite your lip.»

...And *that's* not a meaningless injury? Great logic, Richard. Why did you have to find the single most *useless* snake in that box? Surely there's better ones? God. Watch, just watch, as you cut yourself down and land gracefully, nary a scratch...

«That would not be a meaningless injury. In case the information has ricocheted around your empty skull and come out through your ear, I will remind you that your saliva glands have been altered to produce a potent hallucinogenic—»

You didn't /forget,/ you just... well... hmm. Hmmmm. You are kind of in a sticky situation. And if the gunk in your tooth glands turned the /Thing/ into a giant monster, then—

«No. No. No. No. That is not how it works. I am incapable of completely expressing how awful of an idea that is. But it is possibly the worst you have ever had. And that is stating <much>.»
«Do not under any circumstances attempt to self-administer a powerful hallucinogen while <inside your own mind.> It will not be 'cool.' It will not be 'fun.' At best it will be miserable and at worst it will destroy us both. I mean it.»

Okay. You're hearing him. And what if it turns you into a giant snake?

«What.»

What if you self-administer the powerful hallucinogen and it turns you into a giant snake? And you did battle with the giant plant monster thing? It could totally happen.

«That is not—»
«That—»
«You cannot possibly—»

...Does he not want you to turn into a giant snake? And that's why he's so mad? God, that would be just like him. Always keeping you down. Not letting honest women take drugs so they can do awesome monster battles.

«...Ah. I see. It is a joke.»
«Very funny. You may imagine me laughing.»
«Now cut yourself down from there before it loses its—»

You bite the inside of your lip. It stings.

«…»

And that's it. It stings. You touch your tooth to make sure it actually punctured anything and come away with a tiny smear of blood. Then you fall through the vine and into the wicked field of thorns.

Ow, you think reflexively. Then: that was weird. Did you fall? Certainly you fell. You were there and now you're here, on the ground. But somehow you blinked and missed the entire falling-feeling. Just like you're blinking and missing the torn-up-by-thorns feeling, somehow.

You sit up, and pause. And lay back down, and sit up again. You're sitting up through the thorns, the vines, the weeds, all of it. You wave your arm experimentally and watch it phase through an especially gnarly outcropping. "*Richard,*" you say, "see, look, I *told* you—"

(1/3)

«You told me what. That you'd finally get around to internalizing that—» Richard comes into existence behind you, judging by the popping noise. "—you're not at present a /physical/ being? Because I have no recollection of that. I /do/ recall me informing you that this had the potential to kill us both, and here we are, Charlotte."

"Nothing's /happening,/" you scoff, as he tugs you forcibly to your feet. "I have simply granted myself immunity to the— the dastardly— hey, watch it!"

He continues to pry your good eye open despite your protests. "Already dilated. Wonderful. *Wonderful.* This is— this is— you know what this is? You know what this is, Charlotte Fawkins."

"Nnnnnnno," you wager. There is something peculiar about his face so close to yours: you can see each eyelash and each fine blond hair of his eyebrows and his wide-open pores and the sandpaper grit of his chin. It just doesn't seem… right.

"I'll tell you what this is." Richard withdraws to a few feet away, though funnily you retain the same level of detail. You feel as though your eyes have grown enormous, squid-like, disc-like. "This," Richard hisses, "is a **cock-up.** It is a gigantic cock-up. But it is now one we must—" He performs a viciously obscene gesture. "—/take./ If you catch my drift, Charlotte Fawkins. So please, *please* listen to—"

"There's something under your face," you say. You're sure of it. Dead certain. His skin is pulled taut like a drum and something ghoulish lies underneath it.

"—me." Richard touches his cheek. You register every ridge and whorl on his finger and you register that it too is pulled taut and underneath is something thinner and sharper. "That's delusional. If you managed to cut me open— and good luck— you'd find nothing at all. As this is my body exactly as much as this—" He prods your forehead. "—is yours. Pray tell, /why/ precisely would I waltz around in a useless, wholly impractical—"

You try to respond, to explain, but you open your mouth and your throat is dry and scratchy and a little sand trickles out your (now horribly swollen) lips. You cough and sink to your knees, which was a colossal mistake: everything lists drunkenly and grows uncomfortably bright. Richard, mouthing 'cock-up' to himself, slides his sunglasses on. Lacking sunglasses, you curl your legs up to your chin and hug your good arm over your eyes.

(The Thing, during this time, has been stabbing repeatedly and fruitlessly at the both of you. Neither of you are paying it any attention.)

(2/3)

The lack of stimuli in your huddled position is comforting. You are safe. You are guarded against the world, you can be sure of that, even as you are liquified to cellular sludge, you will emerge into something great, something beautiful—

Richard kicks you. "Ow," you mumble, and raise your head a fraction: the world outside is more colorful than you remembered it, like you've tripped and fallen into an artist's rendition. "Why'dya…"

He picks up your arm. The underside of it is soft and sticky, the top hard to the touch. "I am *not* trip-sitting a butterfly, which, by the way, only exist to fuck and die. There's your biology fact of the week."

"You don't have to curse…" You watch the pebbles dance in the blue mud.

"No, I don't have to." Richard folds his arms. "But in light of the circumstances, especially the considerable loosening of my— well— you know, by now— I feel as though I'm rather entitled to. So much for your heart, by the way. You're in no condition and it'll only get worse from here."

You squint.

>[1] You are— you're probably in— you're in /condition./ You just have to go— go walk— and swim a little— you're— it's good. (Attempt to retrieve the heart yourself. Difficult roll.)
>[2] Richard has a— a snake gun? Maybe? Can't he— go and— he's capable, and everything— (Convince Richard to break protocol and retrieve your heart for you. Roll.)
>[3] You should… it'd be good to have someone not— not made of you. To kick you, and things. (You'll get the heart when this is… over. This will not lock you out of anything.)
>[4] Write-in.

>>4724422
>>4724619
Clarification: my phone data is rangebanned, and that's all I had last night after the update was written (I'm not at home). Got ahold of some actual wifi and everything's good.

>>4724622
Like the giant snake, that is a thing that could theoretically happen. Like the giant snake, don't bet on getting anything useful out of this. It's drugs, not a Mario powerup.

>>4724775
>[1] You are— you're probably in— you're in /condition./ You just have to go— go walk— and swim a little— you're— it's good. (Attempt to retrieve the heart yourself. Difficult roll.)
Was there ever a mystery box option is this quest that wasn't a colossal fuckup?

>>4724775
>>[1] You are— you're probably in— you're in /condition./ You just have to go— go walk— and swim a little— you're— it's good. (Attempt to retrieve the heart yourself. Difficult roll.)

Stick to the plan.

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>>4724775

>[1] You are— you're probably in— you're in /condition./ You just have to go— go walk— and swim a little— you're— it's good. (Attempt to retrieve the heart yourself. Difficult roll.)

Well, we can't say we didn't try. Probably yet another in a series of terrible ideas, but that hasn't stopped us before.

At least we're consistent in always managing to make the worst possible decision at nearly every turn. No regrets at all.

>>4724775
>1
never give up on yourself charlie

>>4724975
Hey! Things are working out, we're making progress, we have a Crown, we got our model back, we spited Horseface no matter how much he tries to pretend it doesn't matter it does, we chummed around with gods and beetles, we have a manservant (soonish) Gil, people like us enough to tolerate us and the one who didn't disappeared.

What we're doing is working!

>>4724975
AND we have our sword back.

>>4725141
>>4725146

Kinda came off as a bit snippy when I re-read my post. I meant that I don't regret any of the decisions we made. Been having fun pretty much the entire time. I've seen so many MCs go the plain and boring diplomancer -style route, it always warms my heart whenever the stupid shit happens. We've made great progress, no matter what Richard says.

>Put the mask on, Mik.

>>4725155
Yeah, I have some Valen PTSD lol.

>>4724849
>>4724887
>>4724975
>>4725009
>1
Called.

>>4724975
This singlehandedly made my day, my man.

>>4725146
...Well, the imaginary version of your sword, yeah. The real one is still in Jesse's greasy cop hands somewhere.

>>4725155
>I don't regret any of the decisions we made. Been having fun pretty much the entire time.
D'aww, good to hear.
>I've seen so many MCs go the plain and boring diplomancer -style route
Me too. It's no coincidence that both of mine have steered well away from that archetype, either by being weird and annoying (Ellery) or a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶p̶l̶e̶a̶s̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶(̶C̶h̶a̶r̶l̶o̶t̶t̶e̶) sorry I mean charming, likable, and socially astute (Charlotte).


Anyhow... I need dice. Best of luck.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s - 30 (-30 You Are Tripping Balls) vs. DC 50 (+0 Ineffectual) to attempt to retrieve your heart!

Rolled 49 - 30 (1d100 - 30)

>>4725498

Pretty sure I formatted this right.

Rolled 55 - 30 (1d100 - 30)

>>4725498
I say we eat her

Rolled 91 - 30 (1d100 - 30)

>>4725498

>>4725506
Looks like not writing anything when rolling pleases the dice gods.

>>4725501
>>4725502
>>4725506
>19, 25, 61 vs. DC 50 -- Mitigated Success
Fortune favors the bold...? Nice save. Writing in approx. 2 hours, update 2-6 hours after that.

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>Keep calm and carry on
>19, 25, 61 vs. DC 50 — Mitigated Success

That's— that's not— "I'm in /condition,/" you protest thickly, sand raining from your mouth. "I can— it's— c'mon, Rich… Richard."

"Oh, I'm sorry," he says. "You're absolutely correct. You're in condition— you're in *peak* condition, Charlotte. I'd *love* to allow you to—" And without finishing his sentence, Richard swoops you up by the waist, flips you upside down, and shakes you. As sand pours from your mouth and nose, you gradually deflate, until Richard rolls you up tightly and tucks you under his arm. "Really, it's a piss-poor idea," he continues, stepping out of a mound of sand. "But I'm sure you knew that. …Somewhere."

He is carrying you away from the swamp, you dimly recognize. That's not right. It should be the opposite. Then you are walking toward the swamp, with Richard rolled up under your arm— or not rolled up. He is a snake. Then he is not under your arm, but several feet in front of you. Then he is not a snake, but a rumpled, frustrated man. "*Charlotte,*" he snaps. "You *don't know what you're*—"

His words shatter at his feet in a pile of dark grey potsherds. Your words are a spray of colored beads. "There really /is/ something under your face," you clatter, and reach for it: your arm stretches or he moves closer or both, and you tug it easily off. To your disappointment, it's only his skull underneath, with Richard-the-snake threaded through his empty eye sockets. You had seen something else.

"«That is quite enough,» the snake says sourly" appears in the orange air above Richard's head, each letter ushered in by the chunk-chunk-chunk sound of an invisible typewriter. Richard's body stumbles forward, snatches its face from your hand, and plasters it back on. "I would *appreciate* it—" the brief replacement of his tongue with a dagger makes it clear it's not just appreciation— "if you would *redirect* your attentions *anywhere* but the person *actively* attempting to help your ungrateful—"

You blink and he's a snake again. Satisfied, you duck under him and continue walking, though this is complicated by the wavelike motion of the ground and also the replacement of your feet with flippers, and then you are a waterbird gently paddling along in a sunny marsh, and then Richard is slapping you full in the face. The snake— he— is coiled around his own neck. "Quack," you say reproachfully, and pluck a feather from your hair.

(1/3)

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"«You <have> to stay yourself,» says the snake," says the text above the snake, and Richard's potsherds are growing increasingly jagged: "You're almost certainly too far gone already to understand, but you cannot— it is *imperative* that you retain your identity— even if you find it difficult. And I know it's— it's— it's difficult." ("«Of course <you> would,» snipes the snake," reads the text.) "I *know.* But we are *inside* your dream, Charlotte. And the thing about dreams is, *someone has to be dreaming them.* Someone. An /ego./ And if that goes—" He breaks off.

"Then what?" you say, mainly on autopilot: you were watching the webs of your fingers creep up and over your fingernails.

"Then—" He hesitates. A single dust bunny falls from his mouth. ("«…»" hovers above his head.) "—that's not— that's theoretical. /Bad/ theoretical. I for one am not keen on becoming a celebrated case study in—"

You don't hear the rest because a sinkhole opens under your feet and you plunge into murky water. You push with your webbed hands and frog-kick with your long webbed feet until the Thing appears before you, then drift casually through the stabs and lashes of its hundred vines, and slide between the ribs of its cage, and come to your heart.

It is the reddest thing you have ever seen and also the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. You want to cry. You cry and cry and it gets to where you can't just cry through your eyes anymore so the tears ooze out of your pores, too, and in your smeary vision your heart seems to loom very large. You blink and it is larger still— half your height— and it grows from there, now your height, now twice that, triple that, consuming your vision, until it would take you several minutes to walk across a single petal. And indeed, you step onto the petal that unfurls before you like it's a red carpet and you the honored guest.

It's only when a shadow looms over you that you begin to have doubts. Snake-Richard, whale-sized, levels a judgmental eye in your direction. «You did what I explicitly told you was a bad idea.»

Or that is what the white text above him reads. You have nothing to say to this. You back along the petal, toward the center of your flower-heart.

(2/3)

«I don't know why I bother.»
«Yes. It is my duty to bother. Yes. We are making progress. Excruciatingly slow progress. But progress.»
«Nevertheless. Turnover is standard. Expected. Technically frowned upon but effectively unpunished. You are not the first consultee. Nothing dictates you must be the last.»
«You could die. You could lose your mind and spend your days a gibbering husk. You would deserve to and frankly it appears that you are trying to. And yet you are here.»
Richard's font size increases by a couple points. «Because I have intervened.»
«Every.»
«Single.»
«Time.»

He lunges for you and you shriek and run— distance expanding and contracting rhythmically with each step— and you don't stop running even as he screeches to a halt above your head.

«Why,» the text reads, sharply. But you don't see it. You have descended into the center whorl of your heart and have found there a door. Despite your frantic tugging, it remains firmly shut.

"/Damnit/" (a chunk of metal slag) drops from your lips and clanks onto the ground. Then you think. Of course you can open this. You have the key.

>[A] What does the key to your heart look like? (Write-in.)

>[B] Answer Richard? (Write-in. Optional.)

>[C] Write-in.

>>4725909
>[A] What does the key to your heart look like? (Write-in.)
We don't know what a key is, IIRC.
>[B] Answer Richard?
"Because whatever stupid thing I do, it'll all work out in the end, because my story has to continue! So all decisions are meaningless."

>>4725918
>We don't know what a key is, IIRC.
You always knew what a key was, you just couldn't recognize one on sight... and regardless, Richard fixed that during your 5-day possession.

>>4725909
> A) a literal key. Our house key from when we were alive, even.

B) Just yell at Richard "Because you got to be a big snake, and it's not boring".

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>>4725909
>A
pic related, we disney now

>B
"Your interventions suck old man. I'm driving right now, so silence from the peanut gallery."

>>4725909

>[A] What does the key to your heart look like? (Write-in.)

A very baroque and ornate key, probably black wrought iron with lots of delicate floral work at the head. Lottie doesn't really go for half-measures after all.

>[B] Answer Richard? (Write-in. Optional.)

Stare him in his dumb snake eyes, and turn the key in silence. After all, he wants us to shut up and listen to him all the time. So, we're going to be the petty, vindictive girl that he keeps calling us, just this once. After all, that's what he always wanted, right? A dumb, quiet, meek and pliant vessel? Enjoy those ashes, Dick, we are what we are.

>>4725909
Just do this I like this >>4726865

>>4726865
I could go for this also.

>>4726441
>Keyblade

>>4726865
>>4727080
>>4727087
>Fancy key


>>4725918
>I'm the goddamn MC of my own goddamn quest Richard and you are my goddamn deuteragonist

>>4726441
>Talk to the hand cause the face aint listening

>>4726865
>>4727080
>>4727087
>Silent treatment

Called for fancy key and silent treatment. Writing.

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>[Key pun here]

You watch with muted interest as the flesh unravels from your ring finger, revealing an iron rod in place of bone. With a slight tug, the rod slides cleanly from your knuckle, skin flows over the wound, and your hand rearranges itself to accommodate four fingers.

After you wipe it of viscera, the rod twitches like a living thing and extends skinny iron branches. They rapidly twine and intertwine, forming an elaborate bow, while sharp-angled bits spring from the opposite end. You stare for what feels like a long time, feeling on the cusp of some titanic revelation, before you realize in a flicker of lucidity that you must have retained more of Richard's drunken parts-of-a-key lecture than you thought.

You walk to the door, placing your palm flat against it so it won't flake into nothing, and flourish the key. …There is no keyhole, you realize. Damnit! You think about knocking instead, but the wood flinches away when you try. And you do have a— a key, so—

Richard would know. This is his— his, you know, his… he likes… your train of thought has disintegrated by the time you turn all the way around and catch sight of Richard, who— you realize with the first palpable dread of your entire trip— is not whale-sized: that was only the segment you could see. He's longer than that, you don't know how much, just longer— maybe ten times, a dozen times, a dozen whales— a God or at least God-spawn. And above him in austere white glyphs: "«Why.»"

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

You do not, cannot answer; revulsion quakes you. His moon-eye swivels in its socket. "«I am not receiving a response. You must be too small. So I suppose I will have to levy a 'I told you so' regarding your foolhardy attempt to—»"

Your thoughts are too fractured to pull into a single reaction, much less a response; you are distraught, disgusted, despairing, incensed. Why must he/how could he/how dare he— he— he— you will not let him in. You will claim your heart as yours and yours alone. And that'll—- that'll show— there is a keyhole on the left of your chest. You insert the key there and turn it. It clicks, a furrow races up your side, and you swing open like a door.

-

It's pitch-black and oppressively humid here, wherever this is. Death? (Does it have to be humid? It's so bad for your—)

Click-click-click goes a lighter, and there, wreathed in orange, stands Richard. A person, and person-sized. "As on-topic as ever, Charlotte."

You scowl fiercely and attempt to turn him into a snake, but he doesn't budge. The realization steals in that you're attempting things, and things are not just happening inexorably around you, and indeed— though you can see little— you feel remarkably solid. And also angry. "You're— you're not— I shut you out!"

(1/3)

"I'm good at getting into places," he says, and smiles a smug private inside-joke smile. A punchable smile, really. You fume. "And regardless," he continues, "did you think I'd leave you alone? Like that? You must be out of your mind."

He had smiled harder at that, which was what prompted you to launch yourself at him, shrieking: in response, he douses the lighter and vanishes. You claw at thin air while the lighter strikes back up behind you. "Now, it's wonderful that you're experiencing a temporary reprieve—"

"I'm fine," you hiss, shoulders tensed.

"Mmm…" Once again, the lighter douses; it reappears inches from your face. Richard waves it by your eyes, burning wobbly green streaks into your vision. "…No… no, it's still there. You have a few minutes, maybe, but it'll hunt you down. Even if you are hiding."

"I'm not hiding— where is this?" You think about hinging open and wish you didn't. "This isn't— is this inside my—??"

"Is it the chambers of your heart? Yes. Non-literally, to be certain you— I would like to reiterate, Charlotte, that your real heart is a kind of specialized muscle. This is just a conceptual repository, and frankly one you should not be in, though I suppose given the difficult circumstances—"

"I can't see anything," you interrupt. "I thought you made my eyes better? But I guess you lied about—"

"It's conceptual darkness. Unless you want to see purely in metaphors, what do you expect me to do?" But he blows on the flame of the lighter, and the room brightens.

It is crimson red in here, with high arched ceilings and translucent walls, though you're unable to tell whether they're petals or flesh. Dark tunnels jut off from the walls, while the door in lies behind you, open. You can't tell what's outside. The atrium you're in is largely empty, except for some clutter by the back wall: a kind of makeshift sleeping space, judging from the mattress.

You pause, then you look at Richard. Richard looks at you, then at it, then at you, and then he's muscling in front of you, blocking your vision: "That's not important!" he says heatedly.

"Have you been sleeping in my—?!"

(2/3)

"In no way is that— is any of that relevant to any of— if I have, hypothetically, at one point, slept here, it would certainly not have been by choice! It would have been—" He has his arms braced by his side, ready to catch you if you dart. "—due to an unconscionable schedule, imposed by one very inconsiderate— wouldn't you rather go over there!? Go explore your inane little desires, or whatnot—" He is backing protectively toward his encampment, and you spot for the first time the rose pinned to his lapel— is that your heart? …But aren't you inside your…?

>How do you spend your handful of free minutes before your hallucinations kick back in?

>[1] Attempting to wriggle past Richard so you can get a good look at his stuff. This is **personal business!** (Roll.)
>[2] Moseying down one of the dark hallways to get a look at your inane little desires, or whatnot. You've never been in a conceptual repository before— you may as well look around.
>[3] Yelling at Richard about why *he* has your heart— you would like that back, thank you! And why/how is it even there!
>[4] Write-in.

>>4727503
>[3] Yelling at Richard about why *he* has your heart— you would like that back, thank you! And why/how is it even there!

>>4727503
>>[3] Yelling at Richard about why *he* has your heart— you would like that back, thank you! And why/how is it even there!

>>4727503
>2
We can always yell at Richard. We can only lose ID being forced to face our personality now.

>>4727503
>[2] Moseying down one of the dark hallways to get a look at your inane little desires, or whatnot. You've never been in a conceptual repository before— you may as well look around.

>>4727503

>[2] Moseying down one of the dark hallways to get a look at your inane little desires, or whatnot. You've never been in a conceptual repository before— you may as well look around.

Yelling at him might make us feel better, but may as well take advantage of this opportunity while we still can.

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>>4727551
>>4727567
>soulless nudrowned richard yelling

>>4727716
>>4727753
>>4728342
>soulful og drowned hackneyed mind exploration

Called and writing shortly.
>>4727716
>We can only lose ID being forced to face our personality now.
Pic related.

>Take Richard's advice for once in your life

It's— it's not important. He'll give it back soon. He was hectoring you earlier about needing your heart, after all, and despite the nightmare he is about… well, everything, you don't see why he'd make trouble over this. Especially because he's already evidently been camping out inside— you bounce onto your tiptoes in an attempt to catch another glimpse of Richard's setup, but he bends forward in just the right way to block your vision entirely. Dammit. Can you get past him? Well, of course you can. (Positive thinking.) You just need to want it enough, then you can do anything!

…Do you want it enough, though? And if you somehow wound up not wanting it enough, what kind of indignities would Richard force you to suffer? You have visions of lying flat on your back, your muscles rebelling against you, while he lights a cigarette. No. If you only have a short period before everything turns inside out and upside down, you want it to be dignified.

You rub your ear with your knuckle. "My inane little what?"

"Er…" Richard appears surprised you're actually considering it. "As one might imagine, if the heart is seat of all desire… that's what it contains, no? Your desires. What you want."

"That is inane," you say. "I already know what I want."

"Of course."

"I do." You dislike the look on his face. "That's not— that's not even up for debate. So you're saying I'm going to go down there and— what— see my official coronation?"

"Maybe so. I'm afraid all I see in there is what I want, so I really couldn't tell you what's precisely in store." Richard places his hands in his pockets. "Which isn't to say I don't know what you want. I do, because you do nothing but tell me. Regardless, though… have a nice time. Try to get back here before you go under. Or don't. I'll find you." He waves you off cheerfully.

Too cheerfully. You hug your arms (count 'em, arms— you're not sure where the tentacle went, but you don't miss it) around you as you tread down into the dark damp tunnel. Where did the scary Richard go? Is it because he's a person again, and bitterness is reserved for the snake? (That can't be right.) Is he hiding it? Bottling it up? Or are his moods exactly as transient as yours? None of the options are calming, and your unsettledness is not helped by the mist rising from the walls. It's thick, nearly opaque, and red, and metallic-tasting, and it seeps into your mouth and nose, itching your sinuses. As you continue to breathe the mist in, you can feel it building up behind your eyes, exerting a slight but excruciating pressure, and you wonder if this is where scary-Richard went: sending you into a death trap. One he can save you from, just to rub it in.

(1/5)

But turning around would be leagues worse, so you walk, and breathe, and walk, and breathe, until you're dead certain that with one more inhale your head will explode over the walls like a melon dropped off a rooftop. You exhale. You wonder if your head exploding would be so bad in the short-term. Or even the long-term. You hold your breath, and in the stillness realize that your body is visibly pulsating. Of course it is. You have nothing to make of this, and continue to walk.

In a few more steps you stumble into a cramped empty room, and in a few more steps your desire to breath becomes insatiable. Oh well, you decide, if your head does explode it's Richard's problem to clean up. You inhale—

You don't inhale. You can't inhale. You feel like a cask of wine filled to brimming and stoppered off, and then you decide to discard metaphors lest the drugs kick back in and you find a cork up your throat, then you decide no, it's too accurate— and then you cough once and the mist comes rocketing out of you. Done percolating, it fills the entire room, and it is alive and alight with visions:

You are crying. (You are always crying.) Your Aunt Ruby, in the armchair, is looking over her spectacles at you. She does not tell you that crying in public is not suitable for a lady, and especially not the kind of hideous cry you have, Charlotte Fawkins, that would scare a man off from a thousand paces. She sets her small blue book down and comes to you and tells you it will all be okay. She hugs you.

Your mother is not ill. Your mother was never ill. It is not your fault your mother was ill. Your mother hugs you and strokes her fingers through your hair and calls you Primrose.

Something fuzzy you are unable to make out.

You punch Enid Tosh who would not stop saying things about you and your dumb books and your mother's illness and your father's affairs and your family's frankly shabby condition in the face. All of Enid's teeth fall out. You are not punished. Everybody wants to be friends with you. Nobody says anything about you or your mother or father or family ever again.

Something fuzzy you are unable to make out.

You and Jesse— You look away from that one, face heated.

Something fuzzy you are unable to make out.

Madrigal snickers at your joke. She likes you. She slugs you on the shoulder but in a friendly way not a mean way. You are invited to girls nights with her and Branwen. You have fun. She thinks you're really good at using a sword. She knows about Richard. She is not friends with Richard. Richard does not bring her coffee.

You tell Monty about Richard. He understands. He pats you on the shoulder and tells you you have been very brave, and a credit to the camp. He has good advice for you. And also he will evict Horse Face posthaste.

Eloise doesn't laugh at you.

(2/5)

Ellery respects you. He confides in you all his secrets. He wants you to know. He wants you to tell everybody. So it's okay.

You like Richard. You trust Richard. He never calls you stupid or incompetent or worthless or lazy or a waste of space or the worst human person he has had the unique and abject displeasure of speaking to. He never does things to you without asking. Or without asking and then ignoring the answer. He never lies to you. He always tells you what you need to know. He is your companion and your friend. Richard is comfortable when he wraps around your neck or shoulders or forearm or when laying on your chest.

A pink paper umbrella.

You are crying. Richard, in the armchair, is looking over his sunglasses at you. He does not tell you that he is too emotionally constipated to be of any use. He is not too emotionally constipated to be of use. He sets his newspaper down and comes to you and tells you it will all be okay. He hugs you. He means it. Somewhere in his cold snakey heart your dead father lives. Richard loves you.

You blink back tears. God-damnit. Why are you crying? None of this is— it's not relevant. Or realistic. It's not even real. You don't want half these things. More than half, even. Friends with Madrigal? Seriously? Maybe this really was just Richard being vindictive. And you didn't even get— you were promised your coronation, and where was that? Exactly nowhere. It took your money and ran. Well, God-damnit, you are going to put on your old walking shoes, and chase down that— (you need to remember that you gave up metaphors.)

Well! You squint into the mist, past the looping visions, and attempt to summon something deeper inside you. Something rawer. Some of that stuff of ambition, maybe, which ages ago you determined was your Tragic Flaw (albeit one you were bound to overcome triumphantly). You wave your hands a little, to maybe prompt the mist along, and sure enough it swirls into new shapes:

You are killing Enid Tosh. You are beating her to death with a rock and her blood is spattering all over your new dress. Your dress does not deserve it but she does.

You have stabbed Ellery through the head with The Sword and he is dead for good. His problems are dead with him. Everybody has realized there was no reason at all to like him. They are glad he is dead. They thank you for it. They like you instead.

Horse Face may have a time loop to save him, but nothing says he can't feel pain. You take great satisfaction in making his death slow and excruciating, until he begs for you to stop, and apologizes over and over, but you know his words are hollow and continue—

(3/4? 5?)

"No," you mumble. "No, that's not—" That's not right either! You are a good person and a good person does not beat children with rocks or stab or torture people or want to do any of those things, not even way down inside— so it must be— but you can't stop watching either, can't look away from your crazed vision-faces— you seem so happy!— and it feels like something in you is about to shatter—

>[-2 ID: 1/(9)]

"Richard—" you say and he is there supporting your shoulders and brushing the hair from your eyes and peering into them— "right on the cusp," he says, and looks around. He sighs. "Oh, Charlie."

Your mouth is too dry to say anything.

"Let's get you out of here." Richard takes you up and hesitates for a long long moment and a glance over his shoulder before pulling you into a bony and perfunctory hug. Easily one of the worst hugs you have ever received. He tears away swiftly as if stung but lingers, hands still on your shoulders, and pushes his tongue around his his teeth. "Charlie—"

You scream apropos of nothing. On some level you're hyperaware that the drug has caught up to you, but all of a sudden everything is churning, writhing, twitching all at once, and the visions are too bright and loud, and you just can't— you are not enough— your throat rattles with the scream and you sink to your knees, which seem to bulge and merge together. Amidst the maelstrom Richard stands square and hard and businesslike, all pretensions or aspirations to sentimentality cast off like a cicada shell. "Charlie!" he barks, and seizes your hands even as your fingers break to form fractal patterns. "Stay with-"

He twists into a snake midsentence and finishes the sentence with a drawn-out hiss that nevertheless gets cut off when he becomes a man again. His sunglasses are cracked and his tie undone. "-me," he croaks, but only that before he's a snake, and once again a man— with the look of a ship caught in a whirlpool— and back again, like the flipping of a light-switch, on-off on-off. You shut your eyes to try and stop it but a third eye sprouts on your forehead and a fourth and fifth on either cheek, none with any eyelids, and you scream again and instead make to run. Where is unclear— everything around you is a gross slurry of primary colors— so you settle for 'in a straight line,' which proves easier said than done. You swerve and zigzag on quivering penducles or two left feet or extruded spidery arms and consider yourself lucky when your fevered core settles on any option for more than seconds at a time. Eventually, you skid forth into nothing: a featureless white plain.

(4/5)

You lay there in a tangle of limbs, quaking, for a short eternity before you manage to produce a "…Richard?" Richard does not appear, but an object does fall from your mouth: a key. Wrought iron, like the one earlier, but much plainer: undecorated except for a strange groove that spirals around the bow and down the shaft, stopping halfway before the bit. You hold the key in your hand. Your hand sways and lurches. The key remains still, almost stubbornly so.

"Ngh," you manage, and stagger to your feet. There is no sign of your heart, or its chambers. No sign of any swamps or clubhouses. No sign of your manse— which has to be rattling around somewhere. Or of Gil, ensconced safely within it. Or of Richard.

You are alone and unmoored from anything resembling— anything. There is only you and the crude blank matter that makes you up. And… a key.

>[1] Accept that you are only a figment of your own imagination.
>[2] Realize that all that surrounds you is, in a highly literal sense, you.
>[3] Despair for sensation. Tear yourself to shreds.
>[4] Fixate on the key. Fix yourself to the key.

>>4728830
>[2] Realize that all that surrounds you is, in a highly literal sense, you.
The others sound weird, and I like this one.

>>4728830
> Form the blank matter into stuff for a bit, and enjoy the solitude.

Izza nice break. Stuff to mold, and a quiet space where we don't have to try and beat people by impressing them or with our fists.

>>4728830
>[1] Accept that you are only a figment of your own imagination.
Seems like the dumbest choice here.

>>4728830

>[2] Realize that all that surrounds you is, in a highly literal sense, you.

We're us, just like we've always been. We just managed to creep up on on ourself by surprise is all. No point in going to pieces, because where would the pieces even go? Richard and that yellow-eyed Thing, which are not Us, aren't here, proving that they aren't supposed to be here, no matter what they do or say to the contrary. The Key is here, in it's proper form without other people's opinions of what it should be, and thus is also part of Us, despite Them trying to alter it. We were wrong about the Key's shape too, but everyone who is human lies to themselves, at least a little. Just sit here for a while, and think about what we actually want, without Them trying to change it on us, and pretend that what They want is what We want.

Hopefully it's readable enough to parse. Looked it over a few times, and still not entirely satisfied with the way it scanned.

>>4728830
I guess >>4728861 is really

>[1] Accept that you are only a figment of your own imagination

But I mean, we know several figments of imagination. So I mean, that doesn't mean we aren't real. The important part is that we're a figment of OUR imagination and nobody else'.

In fact, how do we know they aren't also figments of our imagination? It's not like we can really know them without becoming them, so if anything we spend all our time interacting with who we think of them as a person instead of the person themselves.

The key is probably just another real figment. We should put it away eat the key for safe keeping.

>>4728926
I'm getting "you're free of outside expectations now so Bee Urself (or whatever that means when you're 1 ID and losing it on snake LSD)"?

>>4728830
>2
I regret nothing

>>4728870
>>4729244
>1

>>4728840
>>4728926
>>4729372
>2

Called and writing.

>>4728840
>The others sound weird
Bad news.

>???????

The iron of the key is pitted and cold to the touch and you turn it around and around in your palm. There is something about it that you can't place, something odd and familiar, but moreso you are grateful to have anything outside yourself. Anything to remind you that this state of affairs is temporary. It's not just…

…you. You lay down, spread-eagled, holding the key above you. It's not just— you. It's not just— hm. There is a palpable stutter in your thoughts right there, though whether it's the stilling effect of the drug or simple exhaustion is beyond you. How funny to be exhausted in a dream. As a dream. To be a dream, to be craft of— of a substance other than flesh, of dreamflesh— exactly the same as everything about you.

So why are you not everything? What puts you apart from the gumache whiteness? In your hightened state it seems to you a grand mystery, this brash hubristic separateness. Why has your mind crafted itself a— a it? Why go to the effort?

The answer comes upon you like a thunderbolt: to preserve the fiction of a self. To carefully partition the youness away from anything harsh or frightening, to keep it swaddled in the safety-blanket of a body, to ensure the continuous impression of a Charlotte Fawkins, rather than a person-called-Charlotte-Fawkins. And you are impressed by your cleverness and furious at your condescension. You are everything. You are every square inch of infinity and all the things contained wherein— at this point Richard could not be further from your mind— you are the ground you lay on and this key, or rather all of them are you, and you are locked out?! You must be a frail, a fragile— when you could be forever?

No more. You shove your arm down your throat, ignoring your own shrieks and protestations, and retrieve a thin red thing of silk. It does not exist, but your rebel hands still refuse pointlessly to cut it. You sprout more reliable ones. You hold The Sword, which is you. And you will be it. You flex your wrist and slice the silken cord in two.

>[-1 ID: 0/(9)]

Charlotte Fawkins does not exist. Surely in the morning a young woman will wake and shake her head and smile with pointed teeth and call herself Charlotte Fawkins. Do not believe her. She is lying; she may not know it. But she is no more Charlotte Fawkins than is a snail or clod of dirt.

*

Somewhere else, Correspondent #314 has/will be received/receiving an angry flashing message. "%NaN%," it read/will read. "Being Not Found. Please Contact Support For Assistance." Correspondent #314 sipped/will sip noisily from its paper cup. It is another Bad Day.

*

(1/3)

The error in Charlotte Fawkins' judgment— or, rather, the crucial error— was undoubtedly her inconsideration of the ego. All that high-minded speculation, and none about why it might be defended. What good and valuable purpose it may have served. It was in this that she overlooked what may have been impelling her dream along. As it was, she absconded with nothing left to, as it were, 'drive the bus.' By ordinary laws of metaphysics, the dream would thus collapse. With the complication that the entire dream was now alive and semi-sentient*, the process** was closer to an implosion. Reputedly the sound made resembled a silenced gunshot. In any event, the result was the accordion-esque collapse of an est. 200-300 unstable dream layers into a single point, the density*** of which was— runs the hypothesis— enough to tear through—

*

You are—

You're not totally sure, to be honest. But it says right there that you're Charlotte Fawkins. Which seems as good as anything. You are Charlotte Fawkins.

Neither are you certain how you feel, or indeed whether you feel anything. But it says there, below the other thing: it's as if you've been chopped into fragments and flattened out and pinned down like a butterfly. You can agree with that, you decide. It is like that.

And below that it says: you realize then, obscurely, that you are reading yourself.

You realize then, obscurely, that you are reading yourself. It strikes you that this is a great and terrible portent you are incapable of grasping. Is your past writ above, out of your glyphic sight? Does your future spiral forever below? And who—

And further you realize, the text explains, that you are not meant to witness this. This inscription is for others. Who— or what— escapes your limited comprehension. The important thing is that it is about… you. You are the most interesting, essential, important person that has existed, and will ever exist. You are— and here you completely lose what it's trying to say— the Main Character.

>[-1 ID: -1̴̼̾̊/(9)]
>[ID: È̡RRO̵͝R]
>[ID: 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999/(9)]
>[ID:]
>[ID: 10/(10)]

You bolt upright, flinging your cover off in a single wild motion, and leap to your feet. You KNOW something. There is something IMPORTANT that you have to— you tear over to your desk and begin to rummage for a crayon. You have no crayons. Damnit! You need— you just need— "Richard," you hiss, "Richard, I—"

«Oh. You're alive.»

"Yes, I'm alive, why would I not— I SAW something." You jab at your forehead. "It was— there was—"

«You were on quite an extraordinary amount of hallucinogen, yes.»

"No, I mean— it wasn't drugs, okay??" It wasn't. You're sure it wasn't. "It was— there was—"

«Calm down. What.»

(2/3)

You open your mouth. "Well, I mean— I was— I was special."

«Were you.»

"Yes! I was! And there— there was—" Anything else has already fled. "…Maybe it was a little drugs, but— okay, listen, after that, you can't— can't expect me to— am I still on drugs?"

«No.»
«It was never physically in your bloodstream, Charlotte. You were imagining it.»
«I mean that not as an effort to downplay its effects, which were severe, but as a factual description of an unreal—»

Oh. Well— you're still fired up! You feel great. And you have all your limbs, and the correct shape of them, and nothing's moving or growing eyes that shouldn't, so you consider that a win. God! You could do anything. What time is it?

«One thirty-seven.»

Ah. Well, that would explain the darkness. That does rather limit your options, doesn't it.

>[1] Head straight back into your mind! But, like, on purpose, and not a dream, and with no drugs, so it's fine, probably. You need to finish Gil's body, and probably make sure that he's okay, and Richard needs to put your heart back in.
>[2] You have your original model W.I.P. back from Horse Face: now's the time to actually use it! Spend some quality time with some clay.
>[3] There's no way you can get to sleep naturally, but the soothing embrace of a high-grade intravenous sedative will help that out. Also you probably need it (even if it doesn't feel that way)
>[4] Write-in.

>>4730392
>Literal ego death
>Bounces back to full ID as if nothing's happened.
This quest has NO stakes, and not a single vote matters.

>[4] Check if we got our heart back.

>>4730392
>[2] You have your original model W.I.P. back from Horse Face: now's the time to actually use it! Spend some quality time with some clay.

Creative Muses don't last long lets make the best of it by doing something to focus it while we have it.

>>4730406
I mean, you suffered ego death so hard you broke reality a little bit and saw that you were Literally The Most Important Person In The Universe so I think that's worth an ID refill my man [and also you get a full refill when you sleep so this was like a single update early]

I am also opposed to dishing out severe punishment when voters take an intentionally underexplained mystery box option then pick one of four equally terrible options: I don't think it would be fair to cripple you when you neither made any egregiously stupid decisions (like eg tripping out /after/ Richard explicitly yelled at you about it) nor failed any rolls. I also do not want to scare people off from taking weird or crazy options in the future because 1) they're in the spirit of the quest and 2) I like writing them.

and also you lowkey kind of fucked up Richard!

>>4730424
>neither made any egregiously stupid decisions
I mean, anons voted to go get a look at our desires specifically to lose ID, but okay.

>>4730391
This is just a k-hole, we'll be fine.

Continuity of self is a lie, anyways.

>>473039
> Finish our model

Mold it, like how we mold ourself, trying to work in the concepts of being the most important thing in the world into it.

>>4730437
IC that wasn't a stupid decision at all, it was exactly what [typically safety conscious] Richard told you to do. OOC I think the decision was made acknowledging the risks, not necessarily because of them, though of course that would vary by person. In either case I would not qualify it as egregiously stupid.

We may have to agree to disagree on this point.

>>4730437
> Anons voted specifically to lose ID

Actually I voted to look at our desires because I'm interested in learning more about Charlie, and there have been several revelations that hint that she isn't actually that aware of who or what she was.

She's missing so much info that I'm starting to wonder if she actually is the "original" Charlie, or if she's some sort of posessing ghost of Charlie like a vampire being a refraction ofthe person they once were, or a sneaky snakey personality overlay, etc.

I voted to just less about and play with ourself like playdough, too, but people wanted to dive into the K-hole.

Sorry we aren't all focused on "winning" the same way you are.

>>4730437
I said that as a joke!
Nevermind that I knew it would happen.
The votes absolutely matter in terms of what kind of weird we get to read. We already know from Margo and Ellery and Gil that it's practically difficult to die for real.

Also the fact that we're back to 10 may mean we lost our max boost to 12. Not sure what the deal is with our heart. Maybe we made a new one.

>2

>>4730392

>[2] You have your original model W.I.P. back from Horse Face: now's the time to actually use it! Spend some quality time with some clay.

Tempted to get our mind-related tasks dealt with, but time to do something with our hands for a bit. Besides, need to make sure that Horse Face didn't take it back while we were indisposed.

Rolled 93, 25, 26 = 144 (3d100)

>>4730423
>>4731069
>>4731830
>>4730513
>2

>>4730406
>1 you're only gonna be able to check using [1], since it's not your Real Actual blood pumping heart, it's metaphorical

Called for [2] and rolling some dice DC 40, you'll make progress even on failure to see how it goes. Writing in a little while.

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

18 KB JPG

>Ground yourself
>93, 25, 26 vs. DC 40 — Moderate Progress

You mull over the options only briefly before sweeping your hair back and going to find your model. Just because your last few attempts at making headway ended poorly doesn't mean you're giving up on the damn thing— and anyhow, that was because Horse Face stole it, forcing you to work on an inferior copy. With the original back, you are indomitable.

Your desk is cleared in short order, and you pluck Richard from his sleeping-sport so you have something to tie your hair up with.

«Someday you will find a hair tie.»

Look, you had hair ties, and then they vanished with your stock of bobby pins somewhere in the tumult of your last move. And he likes to be useful, doesn't he? He does. So he can stay right there while you fish your tools out— how long has it been since you last used them?— and try to remember where you left off.

You hadn't gotten very far before Horse Face swooped in like an overgrown magpie: you'd just carved and smoothed out the walls, not to mention supported them with wooden slivers (thank God, or Horse Face would've collapsed them). There remains the business of the windows, and roof, and the texturing and coloration of the outside, and ensuring everything is impregnated with enough sand to remain stable, and of course the entire matter of the interior. But one thing at a time. You tap a scalpel against your chin.

You dislike doing the roof before the interior, for reasons of sheer practicality, and also because you're dreading all the finicky arches. And you dislike doing the interior decorations before you color it, and you like to color everything at once, but you can't do that until you get the windows in. So the windows it is, then. This is always a delicate matter, owing to the potential for the walls to collapse under their own weight if you take too much out, but there is a certain satisfaction to scraping the shreds of clay against your desk. Though you will have to determine what you're doing for the stained faux-glass. Do you have any of that membrane left? Or the descaled fishskin? You honestly can't remember.

Your ruminations drag on for another fifteen minutes, and the actual carving-out of the windows another twenty: seemingly ages for things fractions of inches wide, but when one tremor of your wrist ruins the thing it pays to take your time. Actually, it's quicker than you're used to— your hand is steadier, your grip more precise.

«You know that you can thank me.»

You're not— no. You don't need to thank him. You are important, somehow, and he is— he's not. He's a non— a non-important. So there.

«I see that your impressive grasp of language remains intact through the complete dissolution of your perception system and additionally a Class B collapse event.»
«Which I pulled out of barely in time. I know you were overflowing with concern.»

(1/3)

You flick his head with the butt of your scalpel and return to rolling out a tiny blob of clay into a rope.

«I also— barely— salvaged your heart. It will be reinstalled after a thorough examination of your metaphysical fitness. I remain unconvinced that you have made a full recovery after—»

You feel fine. (You tweeze the rope around one of the windows and nail miniscule splinters into its corners.) He sure does like to worry about nothing. Is he sure he isn't, like, hiding things in there? In your heart?

«What. Like what.»

Well— he'd be the expert there, obviously. Snake things. Snake juice.

«I am not 'hiding' 'snake juice' inside your heart.»

Good. You continue with the windows.

-

Your labor over the model continues for several more sleepless hours, as you complete the windows (you do in fact have a crumpled sheet of fishskin, and after deliberation decide it's fine to use a drop of blood for the red color), texture the exterior, engrave the interior floor, and consider how in the hell you plan to whitewash the thing (bone meal?). It is good progress.

>[You are approx. 40% done with the model!]

When you do sleep, it comes abruptly and deeply: so abruptly, in fact, that you don't even make it to your cot. You droop out of your chair and onto the desk, your head narrowly missing your model on one side and your fettling knife on the other.

Your dreams are indistinct, except for the image of a black-cloaked, gold-masked person.

-

The light is an odd color when you next awaken. That's the first thing you notice. The second thing is that you're no longer in your own tent, and instinctively you leap up, your hand flashing to your waist (you have no sword)— who has kidnapped you? Horse Face. No.

"Whoa," says a woman you dimly recognize. "I guess we can skip the gravedigging—"

"Charlotte?" There's someone past her, in the doorway. "Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness. …Are you alright?—"

Monty! It's Monty in the doorway, Monty has kidnapped you— Monty and this harlot— "Unhand me!" you sputter. "This is— this is unlawful—"

"You're just in the med tent, kid." The woman seems vaguely amused. "Everyone's favorite. We couldn't—"

"We couldn't wake you up," Monty cuts in. "Or well, Mads couldn't— I guess she tried to come talk to you yesterday, but—"

You lower your accusing finger in a dignified fashion. "…Yesterday?"

"Uh…" Monty exchanges glances with the woman. "…It's Sixthsday."

"Ah." You sit down again. Asleep for a day.

«For about 29 hours.»

Thanks. Thanks. Nevermind being hit with a sack of bricks, you feel like you are a sack of bricks. 29 hours. Good. Great.

«It <was> a Class B collapse.»

(2/3)

File: jean ramsey.jpg (95 KB, 564x752)

95 KB JPG

You don't know what that— whatever. The woman breaks the awful silence. "I mean, if you're feeling better, we can kick you out of here— have your experienced any prior itching? Swelling? Garbled speech?"

"Nnnnno." In real life, she means. In real life.

"Mmkay. Any visions of a jellyfish enveloping and then becoming the night sky, filling you with a deep sense of—"

"No?"

"Have you spent any time around a large cluster of scallops—"

"Just ask her what happened, Jean," Monty's tone is long-suffering. He fixes you with a brief unplaceable Look, then glances away.

"Eh, see, I should take you on!" The woman (Jean?) claps Monty on the back. "Doc Gewecke. Has a ring to it. Doc Gewecke: Blood On His Hands— but see, it's the good sort of blood—"

"Please, Jean." Monty's lips are pulled very thin. "Look. Charlotte, what happened? A day unconscious—"

>[A1] Oh God haha you have no idea!!!! Zero knowledge of what could have possibly led to this!!! [Roll to lie.]
>[A2] Well, look, it was very simple, you were negotiating with the concept you gave sentience on accident, and by negotiating you mean drugging it to hell and back, and— (Give the whole story. It's not especially incriminating, it's just... weird.)
>[A3] It was an Ellery-type thing. An Ellery-type thing happened. You think that should give him the gist.
>[A4] Write-in.

>[B1] GTFO as soon as possible. You need to make up for lost time.
>[B2] Stick around to interrogate this doctor(?) lady. You've seen her around, but have never properly spoken.

****B2 ONLY****
>[C1] So… who is she? How does she know Monty? (She does know Monty, right?)
>[C2] Is she actually a medical doctor? She does not look like a medical doctor. She's wearing a bomber jacket.
>[C3] How does she *feel* about Monty? (You kind of just want to see Monty's face.)
>[C4] So she didn't… examine you, did she? She didn't see any… scales… or anything…
>[C5] Write-in.

>[D] Write-in.

>>4732338

>[A3] It was an Ellery-type thing. An Ellery-type thing happened. You think that should give him the gist.

If Monty presses on it, mention that it was weird mind stuff that you don't really remember well. Something about flowers, and keys, very symbolic. You know, Ellery-type things.


>[B2] Stick around to interrogate this doctor(?) lady. You've seen her around, but have never properly spoken.
>[C1] So… who is she? How does she know Monty? (She does know Monty, right?)

Pretty much everyone knows Monty. We're usually in peak physical condition, so it explains why we've never met. The numerous counts of mind-fighting doesn't count, it was inside our head. Or the Lab, that was Madrigal's fault. The Gooplicate incident was Horseface'd, so it doesn't count either.

>>4732338
>[A3] It was an Ellery-type thing. An Ellery-type thing happened. You think that should give him the gist.

>[B2] Stick around to interrogate this doctor(?) lady. You've seen her around, but have never properly spoken.
>[C1] So… who is she? How does she know Monty? (She does know Monty, right?)
>[C2] Is she actually a medical doctor? She does not look like a medical doctor. She's wearing a bomber jacket.
>[C3] How does she *feel* about Monty? (You kind of just want to see Monty's face.)

>>4732338
>[A2] Well, look, it was very simple, you were negotiating with the concept you gave sentience on accident, and by negotiating you mean drugging it to hell and back, and— (Give the whole story. It's not especially incriminating, it's just... weird.)

>[B2] Stick around to interrogate this doctor(?) lady. You've seen her around, but have never properly spoken.

Ask her how she feels about all her patients being dead under the sea.

Also what kind of doctor is she, exactly?

>>4732338
>A4
A mess with the aftermath of dealing with horse face's pagan god. Another thing that's horse face's fault

>B2
>C2

>>4733182
>>4732338
Seconding "blame horseface"

>>4732338
>[A3] It was an Ellery-type thing. An Ellery-type thing happened. You think that should give him the gist.
>[B2] Stick around to interrogate this doctor(?) lady. You've seen her around, but have never properly spoken.
>[C4] So she didn't… examine you, did she? She didn't see any… scales… or anything…
>[C2] Is she actually a medical doctor? She does not look like a medical doctor. She's wearing a bomber jacket.
>[C3] How does she *feel* about Monty? (You kind of just want to see Monty's face.)

>>4732338
[A1]

Alright, let's see here.

>>4732353
>>4732476
>>4733673
>A3

>>4733182
>>4733233
>A4

>>4732995
>A2

>>4733698
>A1 forgot to vote for the rest, bud

Everyone wants [B2]...

>>4732353
>>4732476
>C1

>>4733182
>>4733673
>>4732995
>>4733233
>C2 4732995 has a question close enough to C1

>>4733673
>C3

>>4733673
>C4

Called and writing for A3, B2, C1, C2, and the "Ask her how she feels about all her patients being dead under the sea" question from >>4732995 because I like it.

>Okay listen you know the deal

You blink rapidly. "Well, it— I— it's not— um—"

"A day," Monty repeats slowly, like you didn't hear him the first time.

"Um—" You stare at your hands. "It was just— an Ellery thing happened, okay? Obviously. I think you could've figured that out on your— but maybe not. Apparently not. God."

"…An Ellery thing?" His face clouds. "He did show up last night, looking like hell— are you saying he— what, knocked you out? Put you under? …Were you in his tent again? Because—"

"No!" God. He is dense. "An Ellery-type thing, not a thing involving… I haven't seen him at all. An Ellery-type thing. Surely you can connect the exceedingly simple—"

"S'got a mouth on her," Jean confides too-loudly to Monty.

Monty's mouth tightens a little more. "So you're saying it was… shenanigans."

"Yes!" You have to admit that you like that word. "Shenanigans. Weird— complicated— lots of metaphor-type things. And symbols. Many, many symbols."

"…Right." He shuts one eye. "Well, that's… if you're expecting anything like that in the future, would you kindly leave a note? Nothing complicated, just 'don't worry, am—' well, whatever it is you're involved with. Ellery did have the courtesy of doing that, though admittedly it took… several years, and his notes were… I trust yours will be an improvement. Yes?"

Not-so-subtly ordering you to do something: bad. Favorably comparing you to Ellery: good. You square your shoulders and take the middle ground. "Well, yes, it goes without question that my notes— should I remember to write them— will be a massive improvement. As I can spell. And write forwards. And, actually, my handwriting has been deemed 'remarkable' and 'elegant' by certain sources— something Ellery I'm certain couldn't—"

"Who is Ellery?" Jean is leaning against a shabby cabinet. "Funny name. Keep hearing it, never seen the guy."

"Jean, I—" Monty appears bewildered. "I've told you? You have seen him? He's the gangly one, with the beard— the goggles?"

"Not a clue. Guess he doesn't get injured often, eh?"

You laugh not-quite-derisively and then something overtakes you and you can't stop laughing. Monty suppresses a smile. "He doesn't come by the med tent often, I suppose. …Say, Jean, speaking of people you, er, haven't met…"

"Watched her sleep, didn't I?"

"…Yes, well, you haven't met her. So. Charlotte, this is—"

"Ramsey," Jean says, and leans out to shake your hand.

You pause. "But your name's Jean."

"Jean Ramsey, kid, but Jean? Not a good name, in my estimation. No 'oomph.' Montgomery here—" She leans instead to ruffle Monty's hair, to your astonishment and Monty's badly concealed discomfort. "—gets to, since we go way back, but—"

"Jean," Monty says quietly.

(1/3?)

Go way back? But if she doesn't know Ellery, she must be relatively new to camp, so— you pause and appraise Jean Ramsey. She's uncomfortably tall, for a woman, and built broadly. You can't see her arms, but her wrists are thick and her fingers calloused. Strange for a doctor, but for an athlete, or a fighter… You put on an innocent face. "Way back? Like— pre-this?"

"Oh, yeah. The good old days, before it all went to shit and rot. Back when—"

"Back when he boxed?" you continue.

"Boxed? Well, sure, I guess he did… but mainly he scared the ever-living shit out of everyone. Was a terror. And look at him now! Gone to seed." (Monty closes his eyes.) "Then again, so have I, eh? Gone to seed in this wet little dungheap… gone domestic. Imagine. If you would've told me 'Ramsey— you're going to put down the axe, and you're going to patch poor saps up—' I would've laughed in your face! Or cleaved you. Depending."

You look sideways at Monty, whose eyes are still closed. "So you're not a doctor?"

"A proper doctor? With a license? Naw. But I do know people's insides. And it's not like you're getting proper doctors down here. Proper doctors don't get drop-kicked off the side of a Pillar, in my estimable—"

"…We don't really need an actual doctor," Monty says. "I mean, either it heals up like it never happened, or you're dead. There's hardly ever an in-between. But, er, Jean needed something to—"

"So how's it like treating the ghosts of the damned?" you ask Ramsey. "You know, the accursed, flame-licked wraiths of—"

"Eh?" She tilts her head. "Oh, are you one of those— those Hell people? No offense, but I don't see it. Not just because there isn't one, though I don't— no, I mean, it's not hot. And I don't see any damnation going on, really… seems like more of a middle place. Like if you were just a regular person. But if you ask me, I just think the ocean's a funny place."

You nod along. "Yes. Interesting. Very interesting. Have you heard what Monty has to say about it? Because he—"

"That's enough, Charlotte… Jean… she's clearly feeling better. I think it's safe to let her go, yes? You're not contagious, are you?" Monty addresses you.

"It'd be… strange if I were." You're unsure what you'd even spread around. "But seriously, did you know Monty thinks we're all in—"

"Jean?"

"Alright, then you're dismissed!" Ramsey cracks her knuckles. "All in a good day's work. Now it's time to sit here and do nothing at all. Maybe I should go out, hit some people with a big stick—"

"Please get a hobby. You're dismissed, Charlotte."

It's less a 'you're dismissed' and more a 'get out of here before we have a Strict Personal Discussion," but the idea of wasting your day getting talked at after wasting a whole other day sleeping things off is unpalatable. You beat a slow, dignified, not-ordered-around retreat, try to ignore the painful stiffness of your legs, and emerge into the scalding sunshine…

(2/3)

File: madrigal - @ghostbox.png (324 KB, 501x534)

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…And by the time you notice the person sprinting up behind you, you've already been seized by the collar and dragged around the side of the tent. Madrigal pushes you against the tent wall and scowls directly into your face. "You BITCH."

You boggle, for a few long seconds, before your higher faculties kick in. "…You look terrible."

"I'm fucking DYING, Charlotte, not like you give a fuck— you're probably fucking happy about it! Huh! Haven't SEEN you for fucking DAYS—"

"You don't have to swear," you say. "And I thought Richard said you weren't going to die—"

"FUCK YOU. I write you a note— do you know what the note said? It said 'come find me.' In my book, that means 'come fucking find me.' In YOUR book, I guess it means 'avoid me for days on end'—"

"You really do look terrible," you say. It's hard to focus on anything else. She's lost a ghoulish amount of weight, and there's something wrong and loose about her joints and the curve of her back. Her hair has grown almost to her shoulders, and the swelling in her thigh— "I mean, God-awful. Shouldn't you be… resting?"

"Oh yes. I should be resting. I should be lying in my fucking cot waiting to fucking shrivel and die. I guess that's what you were doing, though, huh? Fuck you again. Ellery came back."

"Huh? Oh. I knew that." You rub your forehead. "Was he…"

"Couldn't remember a thing. Didn't say so, but once you know, it's—" She backs off, rubbing her forehead. "So that's thing one. What killed him? And thing two: what is the fucking plan? I'm on borrowed time here."

(Choices next.)

>[A1] Look, it's, uh, not important what— what killed him. Hahahaha. Ha. But seriously it's not important. [Roll to get her off the topic.]
>[A2] Okay, so, look, maybe you told Mirror Ellery that he was fake and then he got a little tiny bit suicidal but it's not like he's dead!! Right!! So what's the big deal! It's not like you *strangled* him… [Roll to mitigate how pissy she gets.]
>[A3] Write-in.

Regarding the [B]s: nothing at the moment disqualifies you from tackling all three at some point, but this will indicate which one you're gunning for first. You may choose to bring up any or all with Madrigal, just specify which.
>[B1] Plan A: Richard found that old patent Ellery filed for… whatever that was, filed on behalf of that local Headspace company. It could be nothing. But it might be worth asking Gil for details about Headspace, or stopping in to poke around their HQ yourself.
>[B2] Plan A: You know Anthea from Spelunkers Associated you her business card with the caveat you use it for an emergency. Stage an emergency, get her alone, and grill her about him.
>[B3] Plan A: Based on Earl's information, there will be a S.A. meetup happening in a day or two— and it's very likely Real Ellery will show up. You'll have to play it by ear, but maybe you can dig some information out of him.

>[C1] Politely inquire about Madrigal's well-being.
>[C2] Pointedly do not inquire about Madrigal's well-being.

>[D] Write-in.

>>4734109
>[A3] "I told him he was fake, and then strangled him, because I needed a body to put some beetles in."
Let's see if any of you "I hate boring diplomancers" anons have any actual balls.

>[B1] Plan A: Richard found that old patent Ellery filed for… whatever that was, filed on behalf of that local Headspace company. It could be nothing. But it might be worth asking Gil for details about Headspace, or stopping in to poke around their HQ yourself.
>[C2] Pointedly do not inquire about Madrigal's well-being.
>[D] Tell her to stop bothering us.

>>4734112
>A3
Charlotte is a little dumb and a lot spiteful and a lot ballsy but she is neither dumb nor spiteful nor ballsy enough to outright admit to murdering Ellery (even non-permanently) to the angry, occasionally violent ex-gf who 1) is in a position of some power and 2) very obviously still cares about him. I believe there's been narration to this effect in previous threads. If you can elaborate on why she would believably want to go this route, I can take this write-in, but it doesn't make sense straight.

My submission: she says it as a slightly panicked attempt to convince Madrigal that she's making a very very bad joke. Roll required for Madrigal to take it as a very very bad joke.

>>4734119
She's just found out she's the main character. Nothing (permanently) bad happens to main characters, main characters are always right, and Madrigal is annoying.

>>4734122
>>4730392
>You open your mouth. "Well, I mean— I was— I was special."
>«Were you.»
>"Yes! I was! And there— there was—" Anything else has already fled.
You remember squat. All you have is a vague feeling of importance, and Charlotte already felt she was special and important.

>>4734124
Well that's no fun.

File: chad yes.png (206 KB, 771x804)

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>>4734126
It was a brief drugs/4th wall gag, not a license to metagame the entire rest of the quest. Sorry, bud. At least you got +1 max ID out of the ordeal

>>4734110
>>4734110
>[A3] Write-in.
"Obviously being Ellery killed him. It's not like this is the first, or tenth, or even hundredth time for all we know. Besides, it's not like the *real* Ellery died, more like he just disconnected. Honestly, should this be something to worry about? Ellery died. Again. It's what he does now."

>[B3] Plan A: Based on Earl's information, there will be a S.A. meetup happening in a day or two— and it's very likely Real Ellery will show up. You'll have to play it by ear, but maybe you can dig some information out of him.

>[D] Write-in.

How much is she willing to pay, not in coin but pay in the sense of flesh and blood, to have you use your magic crown and the guidance of Richard to ensure she doesn't die, which she isn't supposed to anyways, but if there's one thing we've learned is that we can do anything. It just probably won't be cheap.

>>4734112
I wpuld support this if we were super high.

>>4734124
How about telling her not to worry, at least this time we were actually able to use the body to help out a . . . Friend? Employee? Henchman? Vassal. A vassal of ours, who needs a body. Sadly it turns out it was just temporary for him, but if she knows where we can get a body that doesn't dissolve after Ellery abandons it for a new iteration than that would be a really kind gesture.

Not hers, though, because she isn't going to die. Probably. Also wrong gender.

>>4734110
>[A1] Look, it's, uh, not important what— what killed him. Hahahaha. Ha. But seriously it's not important. [Roll to get her off the topic.]

I mean he kills himself on a cycle, it was probably just himself again.

>B1
>C1
WE CARE

>>4734161
>>4734124
For write in D, can we also point out to Maddie that the cost WE would pay to magically fix her shit would be significant and that someone being snakified like herself should understand what we mean by "significant" being pretty extreme.

>>4734623
Sure. But just to clarify:
>pay in the sense of flesh and blood
What did you mean by this? Like she owes you a life debt? She has to go kill people for you? You literally want a pound of flesh?

And also, I wouldn't outright veto this (Charlotte is enough of an opportunist) but I would like to drop a reminder that you know for sure that Richard [in your body] visited her on a regular basis to offer his guidance free of charge. It's going to be a tough sell to convince her that you're both more competent than Richard alone and that you deserve a payment (let alone a significant payment) for whatever you do. Also, you have no clue how to fix it with the Crown, though nothing stops you from bluffing.

>>4734647
The whole "paying in flesh and blood" means that there might be unintended side effects. Richards advice is meaning that Richard will be helping guide the process, which should make Maddie feel more comfortable.

Just, you know, let her know that we might be able to fix that using our powers, but it's not risk free.

Also she would owe us one.

>>4734956
>>4734647
I mean, we can try with the crown and we're pretty sure it'll do something. If she's convinced she's gonna die anyways, she might as well let us try.

Not saying it'll undo the whole scaleification of the soul she's got going on due to snek.

>>4734956
>>4734960
So essentially it's less of a demand and more of a "hey I have a super cool magic crown that may or may not help you out buuuuuut it may have major side effects what do you think?" That's certainly doable.
I will note that she already owes Richard (and by extension you) a big one, but you can stack favors.

>>4734969

yeah, but it's Chuck so I expected her to be overly dramatic and weird about using her "magyckal powers"

>>4735009
Yeah, that's not a problem, it makes sense. It'd be easier on my end if you included a tl;dr or translation or something, though, lmao.
Since that write-in does involve revealing potentially sensitive info (details on the crown), I'd want to wait for a +1, but if multiple people vote it then I'd be totally fine adding it in.

>>4735013
Fair enough, but IMO Mads already knows enough to sink us so I'm not too concerned about her knowing about the crown.

>>4735017
True! But I'll stick to my guns. We only have three votes in, there might be two more coming if everyone shows up, so we'll see if anyone agrees.

>>4735017
I am concerned about her knowing about the crown

>>4735084
Well, when we use the crown, why don't we also maybe slip in a little inhibition about thinking about it.

Heck, she'll probably WANT to forget about it, so it should be pretty easy.

>>4735193
This is "possible" as in "this is a thing that could possibly happen" but I would like to remind you that the crown is a blunt-force instrument and trying to inhibit or wipe specific memories with it is more likely to make Madrigal's brains dribble out her ears.

>>4734110
>[B3] Plan A: Based on Earl's information, there will be a S.A. meetup happening in a day or two— and it's very likely Real Ellery will show up. You'll have to play it by ear, but maybe you can dig some information out of him.
>[C2] Pointedly do not inquire about Madrigal's well-being.

Rolled 58, 78, 67, 49 = 252 (4d100)

>>4734526
>>4734161
>Look it was just him okay

>>4734112
>>4734526
>B1

>>4734161
>>4735640
>B3

>>4734112
>>4735640
>C2

>>4734526
>C1

Alright! Called for [C2], flipping for the [B]s, and I think the combined [A] write-ins are good enough to remove the onus off you-- going to be rolling for Madrigal to see past it instead effective DC 80.

>>4735644
>B3
>38, 28, 29 vs. DC 60 -- Failure, Madrigal 100% buys it

Writing.

File: sorry.png (46 KB, 773x691)

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...Sorry, lads, I sat down to write and my mind went a million other places instead. I'm going to get some sleep early and try to get this out in the morning. Aiming for two updates tomorrow (one morning/afternoon one evening regular time), so please keep an eye out.

On the bright side, at least some of that time was spent thinking about the quest, so it wasn't all fruitless...?

>>4735776
'Sall good.

>"Look it's not my problem the guy's a freak
>Corporate espionage? More like corporate… nospionage
>Sympathy is for poor people

"Thing one's easy," you say. "He killed himself."

"Goddammit, Charlotte, I— I know. I'm not…" She drags her hand down her face. "But how. And why. And don't say it's because he realized the— what made him realize! I thought he was supposed to be forgetting all the— the incriminating—"

"Calm down." (She shoots you a dirty look.) "Does it matter?"

"Would I be asking if it didn't—"

"Yes, because your brains are all scrambled, and also you care a disturbing amount about someone who— well, anyways, what's the big deal? Really. He figured it out. He's figured it out— we don't know how often, but a lot, okay? Maybe a dozen times. Maybe dozens of times. I don't know why foul play is even a—"

"I didn't say 'foul play,'" she mumbles.

"Oh." You pause. "Well, you seem really weirdly upset, so. I don't know what you wanted me to think." (God, you're good.) "Just face it. He died. He does that, and there's nothing we can do about it, okay? It's not our fault that he— that he died. I certainly had nothing to do with—"

"I did." Madrigal crosses her arms and ducks her head. "It was— it was my fault he— I was too hard on- on him. So it was my fucking fault he… god!" And abruptly she begins to tear up.

You thought she was supposed to be past the mood swings. Richard.

«Am I expected to be omniscient now.»

No, but— this is still his fault. If he warned you, you could've… you don't know. Prepared. What are you supposed to do now, comfort her? You tried that the other day, and look where it got you. And also she called you a bitch.

You clear your throat. "Don't get dramatic. Maybe you didn't cause it, maybe you did. Who honestly gives a damn?"

She hiccups and sobs on the exhale.

"Well, okay, maybe you give a damn, but that's because— well, like I said, your brain's being rotted away by a snake. So you're not really a reliable source. Can we move on?" You'd like her to stop looking so plaintive. "We're moving on. You wanted to know the plan?"

A nod and hiccup and wipe of her nose.

"Well, I have a plan. Or plansssss. Plural. Because I am just that prepared. It's in my breeding, you know." This is probably true. "Plan one. I go talk to Ellery. The real one. I use my superior skills of persuasion to have him spill the beans. Boom. Done. Problem solved."

"…You think he's just going to, to fucking… tell you?"

"Yes." You nod firmly. "Or if not, then he will reveal some crucial information, which my superior skills of- of detectiving will then piece into, erm, the answer. Yes."

"What a load of gullshit." She closes her eyes. "You're going to see him in… dreams? Or whatever the fuck?"

(1/3)

You decide against correcting Madrigal, mainly because Richard would then correct you, and you're not giving him that satisfaction. "I guess it's along those—"

She leans in close again, giving you a close look at her bloodshot eyes. "Take me along."

"Um, I don't… that seems like a bad…"

"Take me along. I want to see his stupid—" She looks down. "Please. I need to—"

"He'll panic!" You rub your scalp. "This is supposed to be— on the down-low, okay? You come along and he'll panic and he'll shut down and that's it, then. It's over. You ruined it for everyone."

She balls her fists. "That's not— maybe I can come inconspicuously?"

"What?" you say. "That's stupid. No. Plan two— after plan one— is that— do you know about Headspace? Some sort of company based in the Landing…"

"Yes, I know. They wanted to sell shit in camp, I had to go talk to… why?"

"Did Ellery ever talk about it?"

"No? Maybe? He talked about so fucking much, Charlotte, except for the important—"

"Maybe." You rub your eyes. "Well, I found some kind of patent, or something, that makes me think they might be related. I have no idea if it's related to the important stuff, but it could be valuable to—"

"Let me." She grabs your hand. "I've already talked to them! That is something— that's easy. I'll go there, I'll talk to them, I'll ferret it out. Easy as shit. Let me go. I— I order you to let me, okay? Remember that? That's an order."

You tug your hand away. "You're not exactly in good physical shape. Or mental shape. Or… shape, okay? You're going to go in there, you're going to say the word 'Ellery,' next thing you'll be puking or crying on the floor or something. Why don't you leave it up to the master investigator, and…"

"Then take me along to the other thing. Charlotte. I am your— I'm your fucking boss, okay? Surely there's some stupid dream way I can—" She furrows her eyebrows. "Ellery would know."

"…I'd know too," you say, affronted. "Ellery only does things by accident. And what, you're planning to ask the fake melty—"

"Yes. Yes. I'll go ask him, then—" Madrigal clenches her fists to her chest. "He'll know. Unless you know? Or unless…" She looks slyly at you. "…unless you'd rather me go to Headspace?"

(Choices next.)

>[1] God-damnit. Fine. She can go check out Headspace on her own. You don't want to risk her near Ellery, even if she's somehow inconspicuous.
>[2] God-damnit. Fine. She can go ask Mirror Ellery for his thoughts on how to do manse stuff undetected. The liability's off your back, in that case, and she won't be tackling Headspace alone. You know nothing about them, but if Ellery was involved with them it may get… weird.
>[3] God-damnit. Fine. Richard can figure out how to do it. She's reliable-ish enough not to blow cover, probably, and she'll owe you a big favor. And she won't tackle Headspace alone. It'll be fine??
>[4] What? No! None of those options! She is in *no* shape to be doing anything, and she has no right to ruin *your* investigation. Put your foot down. [Roll.]
>[5] Write-in. Put anything else you want to say to Madrigal here, you'll be moving on after this

>>4736769
>[3] God-damnit. Fine. Richard can figure out how to do it. She's reliable-ish enough not to blow cover, probably, and she'll owe you a big favor. And she won't tackle Headspace alone. It'll be fine??

>>4736769
>[3] God-damnit. Fine. Richard can figure out how to do it. She's reliable-ish enough not to blow cover, probably, and she'll owe you a big favor. And she won't tackle Headspace alone. It'll be fine??

>>4736769
>2
Surely the approach where the least possible number of things can go wrong.

>>4736778
>>4736936
>Definitely a good idea

>>4737055
>Definitely a great idea

Called and writing.

>A plan without flaw nor any possibility of error!

You cradle your head. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yes! Fine!" What more does she want from you? "You can go along to see Ellery, or whatever the hell you want. I am not responsible for any— any trauma, or your eyes melting out of your sockets, or anyone turning into giant monsters, or anything like that, okay? It's not my fault. And you can't talk to him, okay? Period. I don't care if you're in disguise, or- or invisible, or anything, you can't talk. You'll ruin it."

"Fine!" Madrigal says, and spits on her hand. She offers it to you. "A deal's a deal."

Well, if that's how she's going to play it— you raise your palm to your mouth and bite down. Blood trickles down your wrist as you shake her hand. "Yeah. It is. So—"

"So how's it going to go?" She's a tad too eager. You don't like it. "Since you have better ideas than Ellery."

"I am," you say authoritatively, "working on it. Okay? I will return to you with the deal."

"You will return," she probes. "You won't just fucking ditch me again."

"If there is nothing more pressing, I'll return." You consider this a gracious offer, considering. "It's tomorrow. …Or the day after. Um, I don't… it's one of those. It doesn't really matter. As long as you don't die before then, I guess."

«Hmm.»

You distrust that 'hmm' but are choosing to ignore it. "So yeah! Um. When's Game Night? Wasn't it supposed to be last week?"

"Oh, um…" She rubs her forehead. "I'm really supposed to coordinate that. And I'm, um."

"Laid up," you offer.

"Yeah. Laid up. So— uh— I guess it's delayed." She laughs a little. "Indefinitely. I'll… tell you if it happens."

"Okay." You shouldn't say thanks. She called you a bitch. "Neat. Um, if that's all, then I'll be— going."

"Have a good day."

Has she mood-swung into civility? Is that a mood? You squint incredulously at her. "…Yeah."

You leave her standing there between the tents and emerge into the sunshine.

>Wat do?

(Choices next.)

>Wat do?

>[1] Finish something you've started.
>>[A] You're *this* close to completing Gil's body. Get it done so he can be a productive member of society.
>>[B] You made excellent progress on your model last night— well, two nights ago, technically. Continue that and put in some sustained work on it.
>>[C] Horse Face promised you information about the 'Grande Mangrove.' He promised it ready by yesterday: he *better* have it ready now. Go hassle him.
>>[D] Write-in.

>[2] Start something new.
>>[A] Eloise promised you a job— and you have *lots* of new information to trade her, if there's anything you need to know. Track her down.
>>[B] You know who has The Sword— but you don't know where he is, or how to get it back. Pay a visit to the newly established Wind Court post and nose around for Jesse.
>>[C] What do you have that you didn't have before? A Crown? Knowledge of terrible things? Pointy teeth? No. Money. And with Margo stabbed through the heart, you're free and clear to spend it. Go shopping!
>>[D] Okay, so you didn't want Madrigal to check out Headspace alone, but nothing says *you* can't check it out alone. You're capable. You're suave. Nothing can go wrong.
>>[E] Write-in.