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"Emboldened to go in and make a fool of yourself, certainly. I can't say I'm surprised."

You fold your arms. "I'm not making a fool— I'm warning these, um, these peasants about a deadly— I'm doing a good thing. Will do. And then if they, you know, by coincidence, offer low-price or perhaps free drinks, that's not—"

"I'm not stopping you," he says.

"I know." You fold your arms harder. "Not that you could. Obviously. Since I am emboldened with the power of— of, um— of heroism, and nobility, and..."

You trail off. Richard waves his cigarette around. "But you're not going in."

"I am— I am going in." You take a step forward. "Right now. I'm going. I'm going in, to warn, and announce, and—"

"Etcetera. So go on."

He points. You look at the door, all dark peeling wood, probably cursed to the brim with cult-sign and so forth. But of course your magyck can defeat any petty...

...

...Oh God. You should just go in. You squeeze your eyes shut and push the door you've pushed a hundred times previous and nothing special happens and it swings open and you go in.

It is louder inside. It is too loud inside. The entire town might actually be inside: there's dozens of people all crammed together, too many for the already cramped floorplan, so that some are sitting against the walls and others on the listing tables. The lighting is both too bright and too dark, with the bar area glowing sickly green and the far walls, outside of glorb-range, shrouded in shadow. Everything smells like sweat. You could slip along the side and never be noticed. You could sneak into the back room, even, you could get Richard to pick the lock and camp out back there and steal you mean borrow a cask of something, even if it didn't taste like fruit you'd take it— it is so loud. Sound carries. The mood of the crowd seems mostly celebratory, from what you can tell, which is a good thing— is it a good thing? If you're going to announce the cult signs? Are you going to announce the cult signs? You could sidle in, past the ragged hunched backs of people it's too dark to recognize, and find Jacques (surely he's somewhere in the thicket), and tell him privately, and he'd offer you a free—

"HEY! AIN'T THAT THE— THE BITCH ON THE POSTER?"

A man you don't recognize sloshes his glass in your direction. He looks three or four in already, and has either a ludicrously projective voice or perfect acoustics, because he echoes. The din doesn't stop, but it lessens. There's a pronounced 'clink' as half the people in the room set their glasses down and turn their gazes directly upon you.

(2/4)

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Which is what you've been waiting for. Of course. It's just that the evil aura is extremely powerful right now, and perhaps some of the people in this very room are cultists, or perhaps themselves murderers, or both, and you— you— you are remembering various parties you have been forced to attend throughout your life, and— it's a good thing Gil isn't here, isn't it? To see you... he already hates you, apparently, and with you not being positive right now, not positive thinking... God! Why aren't you positive thinking! It must be the runes or other evil sort of symbols, exuding their evil and negative magycks into your pure heart. But you are too powerful. Of course. You are scrabbling now onto the nearest table, stepping on somebody's fingers, knocking over a glass— this of course positions you as the dominant party— you are standing to your full height, and fumbling with your— sliding The Sword in a single graceful motion from its sheath, and waving it above your head.

This causes a burst of various expletives from the less-sober occupants of the room, and captures the attention of the rest of them. "I'M NOT THE—" you start, before being drowned out by a chorus: "WHAT POSTER?" "I THINK SO!" "SHUT THE FUCK UP, THE BITCH GOT GANKED BY—" "THEY'RE DIFFERENT ONES, RIGHT?" "IS THAT GODSDAMN FIRE?!" "HELL DO YOU MEAN, DIFFERENT ONES?" "DOES IT MATTER WHICH—" "WHAT MATTERS IS, DO ALL OF EM HAVE THOSE CANS?" and so on and so forth.

You strongly consider getting off the table until you catch the glint of Richard's sunglasses in the crowd. He's smoking in your general direction. Smugly. "SHUT UP!" you scream, at everybody but mostly him. "SHUT UP! I'm NOT THE— the murderer just LOOKED like me! And then I murdered her BACK! And I saved all of your LIVES! SO— SO—"

>Crowd reaction d100: 38

The crowd quiets. A little. For a moment. Until someone yells "I THOUGHT THE COURT BASTARDS KILLED THAT THING?"

"NO, THE COURT FUCKER GOT HIMSELF GANKED! I THOUGHT—"

"THOUGHT SHE KILLED BOTH OF THEM? THE MURDERER AND THE CITY BOY?"

"HOW IN THE HELL WOULD THAT—"

And on and on again. Hardly anybody's even looking at you anymore. You wave The Sword a little bit, in hopes it might attract some attention back, but all it does is make your wrist hurt. Worse, while switching sword hands, you catch the gaze of— of Horse Face. Perched on a stool in the far back. At a table with— it's nearly impossible to make out faces from this distance, but that shiny head has to be Lucky. And that must be the rest of the Courtiers. And they're all looking at you, too.

God. How do you skip to the part where the drinks happen?

(Choices next.)

>[1] Call out the Courtiers to stand up, get the crowd's attention, and clarify the whole matter. You killed the murderer, not them. The murderer killed Jesse, not you. Etcetera. It's embarrassing to rely on them of all people, but needs must. [Roll.]
>[2] Call out to Richard (silently) to do his one and only job of making you look cool and awesome and important. You don't even care how. Please. Please. [Spend variable amount of ID.]
>[3] JUST YELL REALLY LOUD. IN A COOL AND ATTENTION GRABBING WAY. [Difficult roll.]
>[4] This isn't worth it. You didn't even want free drinks from everybody anyhow. How would you drink all of them? You'd die. Just go over to the Courtiers and force *them* to buy you drinks.
>[5] Write-in.


-----

>Announcements
Welcome back to Drowned Quest Redux! I'm going to be working full-time for the first two weeks of this thread, so pardon my slowness in advance. Expect more new art throughout also. The AMA link is here, submit questions to the characters, responses posted end of this thread or start of next: https://curiouscat.live/BathicQM

>Schedule
One a day, occasionally more if the first one was short. 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 roll over degrees of success system with crits. The base DC is 50. Modifiers may be applied to the roll or to the DC as 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 13 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 rolls, as well as on more elaborate metaphysical effects. Dropping to 0 ID is bad.

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

>Twitter
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

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

>"Redux"?
This quest is a loose sequel to the original Drowned Quest, which ran for eight short threads in 2019. Reading the original is nice but not required.

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

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>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
Post-Headspace escapade, Gil has a panic attack. You awkwardly attempt to help him through it, culminating in a semi-offer of a hug... which he refuses, claiming that he doesn't know you well enough. To fix this obvious problem, you declare that you'll sit him down and tell him everything about your life later in the evening, after you've gotten drunk enough to talk about yourself.

You then ditch Gil in the archives and go to deliver Possibly Madrigal a newspaper. You run into Horse Face and subsequently use your LATENT MAGYCKAL ABILITIES to commune with his very heart, which manages to surprise him enough to help you get an audience with Possibly Madrigal. Lucky takes the newspaper and lets you talk to Possibly Madrigal, to little effect... until you commune with her, too, and conclude that she's actually Guppy the Namway security guard. Guppy gives you a possible lead to Pat's whereabouts, but refuses to help further until you break her out of detention-- which, one conversation with Lucky later, you do. She'll be out tomorrow.

You head back to Gil, who seems mopey, and let him out of Madrigal's body. You then talk to Fake Ellery about Headspace: he is not particularly forthcoming, so you turn Richard into a person so he'll help you out. Richard knocks Ellery out and attempts to break into his mind with little success. You resolve to talk to Gil about it.

In the few hours left before drinks, you complete your model.

--

>TO-DO (Completed goals and solved mysteries: https://pastebin.com/3Q3nPDis)

Immediate goal:
- Get drinks by any means possible

Short-term goals:
- Meet back up with Annie the worm
- Drunkenly ramble to Gil about your tragic backstory
- Work with Gil to break into Ellery's manse
- Recruit an adventuring party for rescuing Madrigal

Long-term goals:
- Rescue Madrigal
- Procure permanent, non-melting body for Gil
- Regain your missing memories (...some of them)
- Finish your model
- Find the Gold-Masked Person and their snake, reclaim the Crown
- In the meantime, continue collecting and storing Law (4/16)
- "Convince" Richard to be nice to you
- Make friends???

Mysteries:
- Who or what drove Ellery into self-imposed exile?
- Who or what is Namway Co. and Headspace Corp.'s “Management”? What did they want with the clone of a snake?
- 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?
- What is the meaning of Jesse's spiral tattoo?
- Who is Horse Face investigating, and why?
- Who is the Gold-Masked Person? Why did they want your Crown? Where are they now?
- Why is Ellery going around assassinating people?

Ongoing assignments:
- Inform Eloise (and the Wind Court?) about anything you discover about Namway Co
- Meet up with Horse Face's mystery contact
- Escort Eloise to Hell (...maybe)

--

Don't forget to scroll up and vote!

>>5353525
>[2] Call out to Richard (silently) to do his one and only job of making you look cool and awesome and important. You don't even care how. Please. Please. [Spend variable amount of ID.]

>>5353525
>[3] JUST YELL REALLY LOUD. IN A COOL AND ATTENTION GRABBING WAY. [Difficult roll.]
We've already jumped in this hole... might as well try to dig ourselves out. Also, welcome back!

>>5353527
>>[2] Call out to Richard (silently) to do his one and only job of making you look cool and awesome and important. You don't even care how. Please. Please. [Spend variable amount of ID.]

When in doubt, summon our inner-Richard to save our asses.

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>>5353528
>>5353808
>[2]

>>5353803
>[1]

Called for [2]. This is gonna require a sub-vote.

>Current ID: 8/13 not accounting for any ID you may lose from embarrassment

>[1] Spend 1 ID for your typical Richard effect.
>[2] Spend 2 ID for something bigger than that.
>[3] Spend 3 ID for something really really big.
>[4] Write-in?

>>5353803
Thanks!

>>5353808
Well, your outer Richard. He's standing right there.

>>5354286
>[2] Spend 2 ID for something bigger than that.

>your outer Richard
This might be my last vote, I really don't like futa.

>>5354286
[3]

>>5354286
>[2] Spend 2 ID for something bigger than that.

>>5354286
>[2] Spend 2 ID for something bigger than that.

>>5354286
>[3] Spend 3 ID for something really really big.

>>5354288
>futas
You forget where you are, anon.

>>5354288
>>5354290
>>5354292
>[2]

>>5354289
>>5354302
>[3]

The medium route. Writing.

>>5354288
:^)

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>Wave your outer snake at them

Whatever is happening right now, it's certainly not your fault. How could it be? You've done nothing at all wrong— quite the opposite! You've slayed the monster, and— well, okay, so it wasn't actually a monster, it was just a regular person, but the regular person did still kill a lot of other people. You've slayed the metaphorical monster, yes, and also uncovered something concerning about potential cult activity. And then you went into the tavern like you were supposed to even though the evil presence was trying to sabotage you. And it's still not working. Meaning the evil presence is still sabotaging you, meaning that Richard...

Well, Richard is either the presence or he really ought to be helping you out here, instead of (you squint) standing right in the middle of the crowd doing bugger all. You don't know what he'd do, exactly, but figuring out the details is his job. Maybe even literally. Does he get paid? Nevermind. You glare at the top of Richard's head in the hopes that'll—

«I was under the impression you no longer 'needed' my 'help' with 'anything.'»

>[-1 ID: 7/13]

You crouch down (spilling another drink), balance The Sword on your knees, and lock your hands behind your head. It's not as though you need his help, okay? You don't need any help. You just think he should do his job, which...

«Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do not appear to be in imminent mortal peril.»

Some ugly lady is yelling at you about spilling her drink now. You ignore her. Maybe you are in imminent mortal peril? Given the evil presence? Or maybe you're in imminent— imminent reputational peril, and if something is not immediately done then everybody will laugh and you (like Eloise) and hate you (like Gil) and not invite you to anything (like Game Night), and you have to— Richard, this is your one shot, really. You did the thing and it isn't working. Your palms are sweating again. Because of the presence. Can he at least come up here so you're not all alone on this table?

«...»
«There's no reason not to let you flounder. Not a single one. I want you to know this.»

The ugly lady is tugging at your boot, so you kick her off. You don't know what he means. Is that a 'not coming up'? Actually, where'd he go? Is he a snake again? That'd be just like him, abandoning you the minute you actually ask for—

"That's just like you, Charlotte, jumping to conclusions." Richard shakes his cigarette ash out onto the ugly lady's beer puddle.

He's standing on the table, too, but nobody's said anything like 'oh my God, a weird old man in a hideous sweater just appeared out of nowhere on that table!', so you guess he's not... really there? You don't know how it works. But at least he's not really on the table instead of not really in the crowd, though you don't really know why, either. Since he just said he wouldn't help.

(1/2)

"I said there was no reason for it." He paces around you and surveys the crowd. "Which remains accurate. It is entirely optimal to 'abandon you,' as you so colorfully put it, and I—"

But he isn't?

"I would prefer not to subject this to unnecessary scrutiny, Charlotte Fawkins: I haven't helped you yet. Stand up."

He tugs at your arm, and you stand slowly, attracting the attention of the crowd's fringe— everybody else has lost interest. You sheathe The Sword.

"Stand still." Richard brushes your hair out of your collar, then places his hands on your temples. "This shouldn't hurt."

You hate it when he says stuff like—

-

>[-2 ID: 6/13]

Where are you? You're standing up on a— a table, for some reason, and someone's touching you— Richard's touching you, that's never a good sign, and you look back and there's something like 40 people in this room, a quarter of them staring at you, and you'd recognize this smell anywhere. You're in the Better Than Nothing. So that's cleared up. What isn't is what's happening inside, and how you got up on a table. Or why, you suppose. Were you drunk? Did you already get drinks, and Richard just vanished all the alcohol out of your blood (you don't know how it works) and that's why you're confused? What are you doing right now?

"You were giving a speech, Charlie." Richard pats you on the shoulder. "About your heroism and so forth. Single-handedly rescuing the townsfolk, and—"

Oh. Well, that makes sense. That explains the table. Most people don't seem to be paying attention, though?

"I believe they will when you start." You can't see his face, but Richard sounds smiley. Unnerving. "Just do your usual silly thing."

Oh. Okay, you can do that. You're good at important speeches and such things: it runs in your blood, probably. Um. But why is Richard also on the table? You didn't think he usually stood on—

"I'm supervising."

Oh. Okay. You clear your throat.

>[1] What do you say in your speech? (Write-in.)

I have about a week and a half left of full-time work: please forgive an increased amount of weak option slates during this time period.

>>5354453
>"Good people of the Better Than Nothing! I, Charlotte Fawkins, of noble heritage and esteemed pedigree, have rescued you all from a foe most dire! The abhorrent gooplicates, unleashed upon us by a dastardly group of sorcerers with magycks most foul, sought to murder everyone here so they could replace them. Especially those people!"

*here we point to the table we climbed on and spilled drinks*

>"But never fear! I, famous heroine, bold adventurer, and stalwart righter of wrongs, took it upon myself to nip this gruesome plot in the bud. Though I admit it was a harrowing ordeal, being framed for crimes I would not and could not commit, being forced to raise arms against my own beautiful face, I was able to prevail due to my queenly spirit and inexhaustible commitment to righteousness. Once again you are safe and can sleep soundly in your beds, thanks to my tireless efforts. Now rejoice!"

>>5355278
>>5354453

Oh my shit this is perfect, and I am supporting.

That, and I don't have the skills to come up with a super amazing speech.

>>5355280
if nothing else hopefully the wind court will appreciate us blaming it on dastardly sorcerers wielding unnatural magic

>>5355278
>>5355280
And here I was about to accept defeat and go on with 0 votes. Good stuff. Writing.

>>5355280
>spoilers
To clarify my expectations for dialogue write-ins like this: all I'm actually looking for is some general points to hit. I don't need you to write a full in-character paragraph (though I'm not complaining either kek), that's my job! I'm the QM! You can literally just put vague ideas in bullet points and that'd be a 100% valid submission, zero skills required.

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>FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO

"Good people of the Better Than Nothing!" you say. (Though 'good' is rather an overstatement.) "Pay heed! I have arriveth to— to deliver— AHEM. I HAVE ARRIVETH TO DELIVER EXCELLENT NEWS."

Even your raised voice barely carries over the din: the people watching you are still watching half-interestedly, but you're being roundly ignored by everybody else. Almost everybody else. "Shut up!" a far-gone man slurs back at you, and slings his bottle in your general direction.

It'll hit you in the face. You've calculated the trajectory. It'll hit you in the face, and you'll get little ceramic shards embedded into your skin, and you'll be bleeding everywhere, and probably crying, and there doesn't seem to be anything at all you can do about this immediate future except to watch it sail toward you, or toward your face, rather. You attempt to focus on the man so you can at least have someone to blame (maybe Horse Face threw the bottle at you?), but it's to little avail, your body doesn't seem to be listening in the second-fractions left until your inevitable and humiliating—

You prickle: all the hair on your right arm stands on end, all at once, before it jerks upward and catches the bottle an inch from your face like it's nothing. You watch dumbly as you proceed to flourish it, grip it, and shatter it between the fingers of your right hand, driving a thousand little ceramic shards into your skin exactly as predicted. You might've screamed a tiny bit had you not immediately been flooded with sunshiny glittery buoyant stuff, so that all you really feel is your heart throbbing through your hand and the grin stretched wide across your gums and— and something else, something kind of slithery, and you look back to see Richard pulling his arm delicately out of your back and wiping it on his sweater. "Go on," he says.

If you weren't practically levitating, you might've hesitated: instead, you turn to your audience and let the bottle bits shower out of your hand. The crowd quiets. "Ahem! I said, I have EXCELLENT NEWS. Fantastic— amazing— fantastic news. Do you want to hear it, or do I have to go and—" You lean down, pick up one of the ugly lady's stray bottles, and wave it about.

"CRUSH IT WIT' YER— YER OTHER ONE!" hollers somebody, possibly your original assailant, to a chorus of 'yea!'s.

"I—" You look at the bottle. You look at your mutilated right hand. "Okay!" And you curl your left hand around the bottle and squeeze a little bit and it comes apart. You hold the shards up to scattered cheers, but mostly murmurs and exchanged glances.

But they're quiet, is the important thing, and looking at you, so you drop the shards and wipe your hands on your chest. "Ahem! Indeed! Hello. I am Charlotte Fawkins, and—"

(1/2)

"WE KNOW!" This time the heckler comes from the far back: it's a Courtier, one of the useless unimportant ones (...Molina?), and it looks like he has more to say before Lucky grabs his arm and Jacques— Jacques! There he is!— whaps his towel on the bartop. "Let the girl speak, folks."

"It's okay!" You wave a bloody hand at him graciously. "Of course they know! I mean, they should, since I— ahem. I, Charlotte Fawkins, of noble heritage and esteemed pedigree, have single-handedly rescued you all from a foe most dire! Yesterday! The foe known as..."

"The murderer!" "THE EVIL CUNT WHO'S BEEN GOING AND—" "The Stalker of the Landing?" "The one-eyed bitch." "The—"

Oh. (You wish you'd thought of 'The Stalker of the Landing.') "Um, we are using civilized language to describe— yes! The gooplicate. The abhorrent gooplicate, unleashed upon us by a foul and shadowy cabal of sorcerers! Who plotted— this is factual— who plotted to murder and replace each and every one of you good God-fearing men and women—" (Considerable overstatement.) "—with exact copies. Yes, even you, ma'am!"

You point wildly to the ugly lady, who looks unconvinced. You frown down at her. "Especially you. Maybe you got replaced and we didn't notice. The point is— the point is, that were this hideous creature left unchecked, you would assuredly all be dead where you stood."

"YEAH!" says somebody enthusiastically, but most seem more like the ugly lady: still in need of persuasion. Which is fine. You can persuade them. Especially when the glitter-stuff Richard's pumping you with is coating your insides like horse-glue. "You would. But never fear, good denizens— I, Charlotte Fawkins, famous heroine, bold adventurer, and stalwart righter of wrongs, took it upon myself to nip this gruesome plot in the proverbial bud. Despite the hideous and harrowing plot to besmirch my good name— being framed for crimes I did not and would never commit— I maintained a resolve and a, if I say so myself, a considerable amount of pluck, all of which allowed me to slay the beast bearing my own youthful and attractive face! Um, my queenly spirit also helped. And my inexhaustible commitment to righteousness. And my—"

"They get it," Richard says.

"Yes! So once again I— I, not anybody else— I have single-handedly ensured your safety and peace of mind. You may now sleep soundly in your bedrolls and cots and piles of dirt and whatnot."

They're staring at you. Everybody's staring at you. In a good way? There's a weird sort of tension in the air, anticipation, or something, and you— was it you who did it? Did Richard do something to you? Should you break another bottle in your hand? Maybe later. "Um... now rejoice!"

(2/3)

And there is rejoicement, instantly. Like a wave breaking. There is shouting, and laughter, and conversation, and in almost all respects it is exactly like you never came in at all. Except that there's now a cluster of 5 or 6 people around you shoving bottles of larger and sturdier make into your hands, and Richard is patting your shouder.

>[1] You guess you— you succeeded? Is this success? There's no hand in marriage, but the night is still young, so... offer to bust bottles at a 1:1 ratio to bought drinks and also maybe bandages. Or gloves. Lucky and co. can come to you if they want to hang out so bad.
>[2] Well, you did it(?). Done! Success! Now hasten over to Lucky and co. before you attract a bigger crowd and start to feel a little weird about the whole thing.
>[3] Okay, you should probably retreat to the back room and make Richard fix your hands before you continue with anything.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5353527
Haven't we finished the model already?
>[3] Okay, you should probably retreat to the back room and make Richard fix your hands before you continue with anything.

>>5355629
Aw, fug, missed it. Your model is indeed 100% complete and will be taken off your to-do list whenever I next post it.

>>5355420
>3
come out and celebrate with mummy hands

>>5355420
>[3] Okay, you should probably retreat to the back room and make Richard fix your hands before you continue with anything.
That's the ticket right there!

>>5355420
>[3] Okay, you should probably retreat to the back room and make Richard fix your hands before you continue with anything.

>>5355420
>>[3] Okay, you should probably retreat to the back room and make Richard fix your hands before you continue with anything.

I forgot if I voted. Ignore if this is vote #2.

>>5355629
>>5355756
>>5355901
>>5356363
>>5356637
>3
Unanimous. Writing.

>>5356637
I kind of feel like you should check this yourself, buddy... we have two 1-post-by-this-ID votes on this option slate, so I have zero way of knowing if you already voted.

>>5356670

Nah I'm a solid ID... I just tend to forget when the gap between votes stretches out. But checked anyhow!

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>>5356677
>>5356680
Saw that :^)

>>5356689
And you'd think with the speed of the board, no one would be around to notice something so simple as a deletion...
check your dms, senpai

>Well this was cool but I gotta bounce

There's too many bottles for you to hold, and they're all shoving them at you at once, and your hands are full of bottle bits anyhow so even if you could hold them your grip would be poor, and you'd smear blood all over them— you're dripping blood on them already, though nobody seems to care. (Possibly it adds to the appeal.) But wouldn't it be a waste of perfectly good bottles? Two is one thing, but start smashing them by the dozen and Jacques would get mad at you again— maybe not mad-mad, but disappointed-mad, which is worse. He'd probably make you pick all the pieces off the floor. And it's so loud in here, and so weirdly bright-dark, and it smells, and you don't like the way the Courtiers were looking at you during that whole thing, and you don't feel— you don't know. You don't feel bad. But you don't feel how you were expecting to feel, either.

It's probable that the problem is that you're stone-cold sober. You'll feel much better when you aren't thinking so long and hard about everything. Except the only (free) way to fix this is to engage with the people in front of you, who are too tall and also kind of smell— and also your hands are injured, and though they don't hurt exactly you feel a little unsettled looking at them. But that's something you can fix, right? And you don't have to talk to anybody, or do anything. You can just sit somewhere quiet and make Richard pick all the bits out. It's his job.

After you come to this conclusion, you say something to your gaggle of admirers— you forget what it is the instant it slips out of your mouth, something about making your leave, possibly. Then you make your leave, sliding off the table (you'd have knocked even more stuff off had the table's occupants not shoved anything unscathed to the side) and slipping as inconspicuously as possible toward the door to the back room. Which is locked. The door to the back room is locked, and asking Jacques loudly in public to unlock it would be miserable, and you briefly contemplate utilizing The Sword to burn a hole through the wall before Richard steps in front of you, says something harsh and unintelligible to the door, and pushes it open and you through.

It is cool and entirely dark inside the back room, once Richard shuts the door behind him again: Jacques must've moved all the glorbs out to the bar for the occasion. For your eyes, though, it's merely dim, and you can see the barrels and stacks of crusty crates plainly. It's been some time since you were in here last— Jacques used to offer the back room as a place to 'dry out,' as he called it, rather stumbling back to camp in the dark and potentially getting stabbed or mauled en route. You flinch at a sudden jangling. Richard is rooting around in one of the crates.

"Can't you just summon something?" you say.

(1/2?)

"It's not 'summoning,' Charlie. That would imply the object existed previously in a different loc— a-ha." He retrieves a bottle. "I believe this should be tolerable. Would you like a—?"

You fold your arms. "Um, you didn't earn that? You can't just go and steal—"

"I didn't earn this?"

Richard's tone is suddenly approaching dangerous, but it hasn't even been 12 hours since he last overplayed his hand. "Well, did you slay the murderer? No. You didn't do anything. You just sat there and told me I was being stupid while I did all the hard work. If you actually accomplished something, then maybe—"

"You might be right," he says, except that when he goes to sit on an empty crate he takes the bottle with him. "You might be entirely correct. Yes."

If you'd been expecting any kind of response, this wasn't it. "What?"

"The most accurate assessment of our collective situation—" He unscrews the bottle. "—is that, despite several consecutive years of concentrated effort, unswerving attention, and pioneering techniques, I have accomplished nothing. I have in fact accomplished less than nothing. Moreover, this extraordinary failure resulted not from accumulated mistakes along the way, but from a singular colossal misjudgment at the very beginning, meaning that the exercise was doomed from the start. Entirely so."

He's attempting to disguise his obvious bitterness, though you're not sure why, because you have no idea what on earth he's talking about. "Um, I don't—"

"Consequently, I am struggling to find—" He has produced a cup, placed it between his knees, and is pouring the bottle into it. "—a purpose in this."

"In what?"

"In this." He downs the cup. "This arrangement."

He's making less sense as he goes, if it's possible. "So you're... leaving?"

"What? Don't be stupid. There's no such thing."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"Why am I—" He touches his forehead. "Must there be a particular reason?"

"You don't tell me anything," you say. "Except for things I don't want to hear about. And you never say you fail at anything, either."

"Aren't you clever," he says, and nothing more. And then "It is possible I am being adversely affected by your misidentification of me. It is in fact extremely likely this is the case."

You fold your arms. "You've been a person for weeks and weeks and that didn't make you tell me anything. Are you dying?"

"Don't be ridiculous." He looks down at his cup. "Are you going to bleed all over the floor, Charlotte Fawkins? Or do you intend to have that cleaned up."

"Uh," you say, and look down at your hands. "I thought you were going to..."

"Come over here."

You come, and present your hands to him. He brandishes a pair of tweezers. "Uh," you say. "I thought you'd just— you know, you'd vanish the bits."

"I would toy with the structure of the universe in order to remove some splinters from your hand."

When he puts it like that that... "Um, okay. Just do it."

He gets to work.

>[1] You're not letting that weird little interlude go, though. Interrogate him while he tweezes.
>>[A] Attempt to pressure him into talking more about his new nihilistic streak. [Roll.]
>>[B] So when's your new tooth coming in? The old one's dangling by a thread, practically. He's not going to replace all your teeth, is he?
>>[C] Why hasn't he gone back to being a snake yet? He said he would, like, hours ago.
>>[D] So what did he do to strike some (deserved) respect into Monty earlier? You know, he went all goggle-eyed, and then he agreed to be your wise and aged mentor even though he hated you right before that... can he do that to some other people?
>>[E] Hey, while you're here, does he want you to try communing or whatnot?
>>[F] Other questions? (Write-in.)
>[2] Just get it over with quick, then head back out to your gaggle of admirers.
>[3] Just get it over with quick, then head over to the Courtiers.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5356805
Wait, we forgot the "open" trick?
>>5356807
>[1D]

>>5356812
[OPEN] is 1/day and is pretty overkill to use on a normal door. Not to say it wouldn't be in-character to blow it on this, but I didn't want to take the option away in case of further hijinks where you might actually want it.

>>5356807
1, what was this big mistake that ruined everything? Not like ruined things can't be fixed, either, but whatever he's been doing clearly hasn't been working so it's nice to see him finally being willing to branch out as it were.

>>5356807
>>5357147
+1 to this.

>>5357147
It was choosing Charlie, lol.

>>5356807
>>[A] Attempt to pressure him into talking more about his new nihilistic streak. [Roll.]
is he feeling inferior to 301
I bet gold mask has that crown chock full of law RIGHT NOW

>>5357147 he's not going to talk about this further without a roll so it falls under 1A
>>5357151
>>5357366
>[1A]

>>5356812
>[1D]

Called for [1A]. I need rolls.

>Please roll me 3 1d100s + 10 (+10 Sore Spot) vs. DC 62 (+25 Well Trained, -10 ???, -3 Slightly Tipsy) to get Richard to say anything more!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls? You are at 6/13 ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 3 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5357595
>[2] N

Rolled 35 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5357595
Here goes something...
>[2] N

Rolled 27 + 10 (1d100 + 10)

>>5357595
>N

oof
richard too sore

>>5357605
>>5357608
>>5357618
>13, 45, 37 -- Failure
>No spendy
Looks like you pushed your luck a little too far. Gotta love Drowned dice. Writing shortly.

>>5357595
Aaah I missed the roll and well luckily failure is interesting too.

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I'm sorry, guys, I've been getting crappy sleep this last few days and I'm literally falling asleep at my laptop rn. Update tomorrow and then I might take a few days off/do every other day updates for a bit to try and finish my last work week without killing myself

>>5357766
why not just refill that bottle at the juice store?

also remember, last work weeks are for saying all the things you always wanted to say

>>5357766
Hey man, always finish strong. Your real life is more important than this quest, you gotta prioritize that.

>>5357874
> That min wage worker feel

Terrible choice if you're contracting or a professional.

>>5357874
>>5358304
I'm afraid that I like my boss and coworkers, so I have nothing real vindictive to say... it's a seasonal job that's ending, I'm not quitting. But thanks anyhow!

Back to writing.

>>5357874
>why not just refill that bottle at the juice store?
The juice store is where all the flaky QMs promise to run to and then never came back from.

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>TELL ME MORE
>13, 45, 37 vs. DC 63 — Failure

Richard is deft and steady with the tweezers and swiftly builds up a small pile of shards next to himself. He stops only to wipe the tweezers free of blood, which he does on a monogrammed ('MRF') handkerchief. You are slightly jealous, having had to wipe blood, sweat, tears, mucous, and spittle off on parts of your clothing for the past at-least-6-months, but don't say anything about it.

Instead, you interject when he next stops to wipe the tweezers. "You're sure you're not dying? Or— maybe you've been replaced with an identical copy? Maybe you should cut yourself open to make sure you're not full of mirror—"

"That man's duplicate is nigh-identical in respects of temperament. Even if I were a copy, your argument is nonsensical." Richard frowns slightly. "I was under the impression we'd dropped this topic."

"Maybe you shouldn't've acted so weird if you wanted me to pretend I never— ow!" He's pricked your hand by accident. "Come on. What were you saying? Nothing matters, and nothing's ever mattered, so that means there's no reason not to—"

"No reason? It's inappropriate. You—" He points a bottle-shard at you. "—are not my confidante, Charlotte Fawkins. You are not my equal. There are matters you are not privy to, period, regardless of their ultimate effect on the fate of the world or lack thereof."

"So who is your confidante?"

His lips pinch. "I do not require—"

"You don't have anybody to talk to?" you say. "Besides me?"

"This is a principal difference between you and I, Charlotte. You are desperate and needy and require someone around to hear your blathering at all times. I am above this base desire."

"Which is why you're telling me this stuff for no reason?"

"That's the left done," he says brusquely, and sets down the tweezers. Your left hand is clear of debris, now, but still bloodied— at least before he rubs his thumb downward across your cuts and they seal themselves into faint red lines before your eyes.

"Um," you say. "Don't— don't change the subject, okay? Who's your equal?"

A sardonic note creeps into his voice. "I'm unparalleled, Charlotte. I have no direct equal, and even then—"

"You just said you failed and nothing you did ever— unless you mean you have no equal in being useless, but—"

"Nothing could be farther from that," he says.

"So..." You shift your seated position. "Is that other snake your equal? The one you called a curse word? He was all brown, and—"

You stop. Richard has withdrawn his tweezers and assumed a stormy kind of look. "Correspondent #301 is not my equal."

"Is he better? He stole the Crown, and— do you know if he's been filling it with Law? Him and the person with the gold—"

"You have made it exceedingly obvious you no longer care about this matter," he snaps. "And neither do I."

(1/3)

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"I never said I didn't care, I just— I have more important things to do right now, and I don't want to be forced to do stupid boring— obviously I'm going to get it back at some point, I don't want the mask person to be a god or anything—"

"It would make no difference if they did." He cups his head in his hands and glowers through lidded eyes. "It may as well be them as you, Charlotte Fawkins. And more than likely it will be neither. More than likely it'll never be any."

"What are you talking about?" you say.

"I am getting a drink. Do this yourself." He stands from the crate, tosses the tweezers at you, and turns his back. Some clinking ensues. You sigh, bend to pick up the tweezers, and are about to flex your ambidexterity when a hearty knock sounds at the door. Richard doesn't turn his head. You sigh once more, get up, and unlock the door.

"Miss Fawkins! There you are." It's one of the disposable Courtiers, what's-his-face, Molina? Him and the dark-haired one who gave you lip earlier. K-something. Karima? Kich— Kichima. Both of them are standing outside the door, smiling in a vaguely condescending fashion. "You had us worried."

"Burying any bodies in there?" Kichima says dryly.

"No, I just—" You glance at Richard. "It's none of your business? Maybe I'm doing important hero work in here, not that you'd understand anything about that—"

"Hey." The smile drops off Molina. "We're over here putting in actual time and legwork and losing men left and right, and just because you're some priggy bitch who swoops in at the last—"

Kichima steps on her colleague's boot. "He's a little too imbibed, Miss Fawkins. The rest of us would be thrilled to have you celebrate your great deed at our private table."

She says it without any requisite emotion. You look between the two of them. "Um, what if I'm not—"

"You're invited," she says.

It's not a question, or even really an offer. You will be at their table, is the subtext, and they're not going to stop standing here until you go. They might even go in and watch you slowly pick bits out of your hand. You glance back again. Richard has located something wine-like and is swigging directly from the bottle. "Uh," you say— positive thinking— "well, of course. I'll enliven your table with my presence, and—"

"I'm certain you will." She smiles a little more. "We're back here."

You're led to the table you spotted earlier with Kichima taking point in the front and Molina in the rear fending off curious onlookers. When you arrive, Kichima slides into an empty seat next to Horse Face, who sits next to Lucky, who is across from the woman Hatch— Molina plops down next to her. There is no seat for you. Curiously, there's no glasses anywhere on the table, but canteens hang from some of the chairs.

"Ms. Fawkins," Lucky says by way of greeting. "Welcome! That was quite a inspirational speech you gave back there."

(2/3)

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"Er," you say. "Well, yes. Of course it was. I'm a font— I'm practically a font of—"

"Wonderful. Fortunately we've only just begun... most of us." He looks pointedly at Molina. "Have you had the opportunity to imbibe, Ms. Fawkins? Or may I call you Charlotte? We are among friends."

Well, Horse Face is here. But he already calls you Charlotte, so... "Um, I don't see why not, and... no. Have you? I don't see any—"

"We don't consume imaginary liquids," Hatch says matter-of-factly.

"We've brought our own beverage, Charlotte." Lucky raises a canteen. "Firewater. Brewed from some of the plants down here. I assure you, it's just as intoxicating as any of the bilge you'd willingly consume here, and has the added benefit of being as real as the ground we stand on. You're welcome to a share of it, if you—"

"She can't handle firewater," Molina scoffs. "She's three feet—"

"That remains to be seen, Marshal." Lucky raises his eyebrows. "Charlotte?"

>[1] Accept a taste of firewater.
>[2] Molina can go to hell. Chug some firewater in front of him.
>[3] You are a CELEBRATED HEROINE and you can drink anybody at this table *under* the table. You don't care if it's some stupid fancy Wind Court moonshine, you can do it. Challenge somebody to a drinking contest. (Who? You'll default to Molina if not specified.) [This will require a series of rolls.]
>[4] While you could drink this stuff, you don't actually want to? You want to drink your normal thing? Get somebody to get you your normal pink drink or three.
>[5] Write-in.

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Also, I'm going to switch to a rough every-other-day scheme for the rest of this week (until work is wrapped up), so this vote will remain open until Tuesday evening. Pls understand. If you guys pick [3] I may run rolls tomorrow, though.

>>5358978
>[1] Accept a taste of firewater.

>>5358978
>2
leave ourselves a bit of room to back out

>>5358978
>>[3]
I feel bold.

>>5358978
>[2] Molina can go to hell. Chug some firewater in front of him.
Did this dick not read the first post? We're CHARLOTTE-FRIGGIN'-FAWKINS

>>5358978
>[4] While you could drink this stuff, you don't actually want to? You want to drink your normal thing? Get somebody to get you your normal pink drink or three.

>>5358978
>[2] Molina can go to hell. Chug some firewater in front of him.

They have NO idea what we get up to when we're high. Heck, we aren't even sure about what's going on then.

>>5359742
>>5358978
Also order a round of pink drinks for the table before chugging strange plant juice drugs, as well as ask if they're aware that this is how adventures start.

Or end, if they've poisoned the Firejuice. Or if it's secretely some truth potion and Molina is being an ass to goad us into driniking it, or is simply an ass and Lucky is using this as an excuse to get us boozed up and see what slips in which case I suggest we regale him with interpretive versions of our adventures starting with that one time we met time personified but then we didn't and we missed out on a bunch of credit for saving the world from an apocalypse that didn't happen. They may note their continued existence and thank us. But probably won't because everyone just goes about being all "what apocalypse" like yeah exactly.

I think Lucky and the wind court in general might actually sympathize with that story. Pretty sure they do shit that saves the day before it's ruined and then get no cred for it. Because people kinda suck.

So thanks for the drinks because it's about damn time this happened for all our heroing.

As usual please paraphrase, trim or discard this into the post as appropriate.

Not gonna start writing for a couple more hours, but I see no reason not to call it now.

>>5359181
>>5359213
>>5359742
>[2]

>>5359036
>[1]

>>5359199
>[3]

>>5359351
>[4]

[2] takes it. You're an experienced drinker with a high tolerance, so I don't need a roll for this.

>>5359794
>saving the world from an apocalypse that didn't happen
This is overblowing it by quite a bit: it was more of a natural disaster like a hurricane or a big tornado than an 'apocalypse'. It could've torn up half the Fen, wrecked town/camp, and killed some unlucky people, but outside your region of the seafloor things would've been fine. (This all being said, it's totally in character for Charlotte to convince herself the stakes were world-ending, so no need to change it.)

>spoilers
No need to be so bashful: you should know I always greatly appreciate your write-ins. This one is also particularly astute and I plan to use all or most of it.

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>CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG

If you had half a glass in you, you'd be ripping the nearest canteen off its chair and slugging it down to stick it to all of them. Unfortunately, you're stone-cold sober, and Richard's strange behavior has put you in an analytic frame of mind. They frogmarched you over here, and Lucky literally tortured you a couple days ago, and you haven't seen any of them drink from those canteens yet... "Is it poison?" you say.

"What?" says Hatch, and "Sure tastes like it," mumbles Kichima. "Pardon me?" Lucky says, and is doing a very good job of looking like he means it.

You straighten up. "Well, as you know, I am a- a famed detectivess, among other things. So it is very difficult to lie to me or fool me in any way. Are you trying to make me drink poison? Or— or that truth stuff? Did you put truth stuff in there? Because you already did that, and you found out I wasn't lying, so I think it's kind of stupid that you went and—"

Horse Face is smiling. Lucky isn't. "We haven't doctored the firewater, Ms. Fawkins. It's the genuine—"

"That's some very specific wording!" You place your hands on your hips. "Does firewater naturally have poison and/or truth powers? Huh? Are you really drinking it, or do you just have one canteen of it and the rest is normal alcohol?"

"Wow. Beginning to think she doesn't trust—"

Lucky cuts Kichima off. "All the canteens contain the same thing, which is firewater. It's no more of a poison or an inducer of truthfulness than traditional alcohol is. None of the contents of any canteen have been altered in any way. Would you like to me to show you this, Ms. Fawkins."

He sounds palpably irritated, which you think is a victory? "Yup!"

"Okay." He grabs the canteen off his chair, slides out the cork, and pauses. "I need a cup."

You flash him a thumbs up and wade off into the thick of the crowd again. It's a few moments before you're noticed, and then you're clustered round with shoulder-to-shoulder people— most of them thrusting beverage containers at you. (Richard isn't among them. Where has he gone?) You scan through a sea of bottles before landing on a single mug, grabbing it, and attempting to peel away— before getting a better idea. "HEY!" you scream above the din. "JACQUES— COULD SOMEBODY TELL JACQUES I WANT A ROUND OF DRINKS OVER HERE? HE KNOWS WHAT KIND!"

"GONNA CRUSH THAT CUP OR WHAT??" somebody yells back, and you wave and dart back to the Wind Court table with your prize. "One cup," you say grandly.

Lucky's been spinning the cork around on the table. "Is it a real cup?"

"Well, you know, Jacques insists on almost everything being—"

He looks around the faces at the table, grabs the mug, and pours into it the canteen's contents. The liquid sliding out is thin and grey-brown and grainy-looking, and is overall neither fireish nor waterish. (You can see why they kept it in canteens in the first place.) "That's what it is."

"Ew," you say.

"It isn't drunk for the look of it. Would you like me to test it for you, Ms. Fawkins?"

"Was that not the whole point of—"

He makes an exasperated face, picks up the cup, and drinks. His fingers curl. You'd kept an eye on the initial level of liquid in case he intended to fake it, but there was no need: when he sets it down the whole thing's drained. He wipes his lips on his sleeve. "Is that good enough?"

There could of course be elaborate methods of faking this. (You have read books covering the topic.) But Lucky's eyes are boring into yours, and so're everybody else's at the table (except for Horse Face, who's got his default 'smugly amused' horse face on). And you really do want to get drunk. And also to sit down. And also to— lest you forget— defend your honor from Molina. Has Molina forgotten all about the gauntlet he threw down? Possibly. But you sure haven't, and it's for this reason you snatch the canteen from Lucky, slosh it over your hand, rattle Horse Face's chair until he gets out of it, clamber upon it, and flourish the canteen to the entire table.

"I'm taking that to mean 'yes,'" Lucky says, and props his chin on his hand. You flourish the canteen at him extra hard to get him to shut up, then raise it above your head. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! I have accepted your GRACIOUS OFFER of this... traditional beverage. And to show my appreciation, I will be drinking this entire..."

The remaining contents of Lucky's canteen only fill a third of the mug. You frown deeply and make grabby hands at a different canteen until Hatch passes you it. "...this entire mug of..." Is this the one Molina's been drinking from? It only fills it half-full. You point viciously at a third canteen. "...this ENTIRE, COMPLETELY FULL mug of firewater. IN ONE GO."

"It's more of a sipping—" Hatch says. "Okay, she's going to die," Molina interjects, clearly not all that sad about it. You make eye contact with Horse Face, then regret it— his gaze is weirdly intense— and look away. "That remains to be seen," Lucky says again. "And I would like to see this. Pay attention."

You finish topping off the mug with the third canteen and try not to look at the stuff inside, which is foamy in a pond-scum sort of way. (Did they just fill these with dirty water? But Lucky drank the whole thing and nobody snickered or anything.) "IN ONE GO," you repeat. "WITHOUT HESITATION." Positive thinking. Positive thinking. "Beginning in THREE, in TWO, in—"

(2/3?)

It's slimy. This is your first impression. It's slimy, and a little gritty, and though you can't precisely taste it when it's going straight down your throat you can tell it's leaving a bitter residue. You promptly divert 100% of your mental energy into attempting not to gag, leaving you naked and unprepared for the donkey kick it delivers after reaching critical mass: it burns. Not like spirits or hot peppers or roots, though. In retrospect, it was right there in the name: it burns like fire. Like real fire.

>[-1 ID: 5/13]

You don't gag: most of it's gone down already. You don't scream: it doesn't hurt, exactly, your flesh is fine. You think it's fine. Are you fine? You're clutching hold of the chair to keep steady— you are aware, now, distinctly and precisely aware of your physical body and the fact that it is underwater, you are underwater, you are breathing water— you are not choking on this water. Not like that. But you are feeling your lungs bloated and heavy with it, and you are rubbing your wrinkled water-soaked fingers against the rim of the mug. You are very hot, which is good, because the water is frigid and your clothing is rough and sopping. Someone says something distorted and you don't react until a hand is put in front of your face (you can see every whorl and ridge) and you look up and see— see Hatch. Hatch gurgles something. You can hear your blood rushing through your ears. Hatch looks at something behind you and gurgles and all of a sudden you're wet, you're wet, you were already incomprehensibly wet but now you're wet and sticky and vaguely fruity and "HEY!" you say, before thinking. "What the HELL! Wh— wh— oh."

For an instant you'd forgotten that you were very much underwater. "Charlotte?" Horse Faces says, and sets down a glass mostly empty of pink cocktail. "Are you comprehending—"

You nod slowly.

"Well, that wasn't fucking anything," Molina says to somebody not you. "She barely—"

Lucky gestures. "She stayed standing. It's been years of—"

"Are you quite alright?" Horse Face says.

"Um." You don't know how you're speaking. You don't know how they're speaking. Is that alright? Everything is bright. Bright and colorful. And loud. And your skin feels sensitive. And there's something in the corner of your eye you can't make out. This isn't being drunk. It's completely different. But is that a bad thing?

>[ID loss and gain is doubled under the influence of firewater.]

(Choices next.)

>[1] Well, you have cocktails now, even if Horse Face just ruined your vest with one. Maybe a drink (or several) will take the sharp edges off this... whatever this is. Mix your substances.
>[2] Well, that wasn't... so bad? You did stay standing and didn't gag or vomit or anything. And you can't help but feel that this isn't what you wanted, really. You wanted to be falling-down drunk, and this is the equivalent to being... mildly inebriated? Own Molina harder and ask for more firewater.
>[3] Just ride things out with this.
>[4] Write-in.

>>5360910
>Just ride things out with this.

>>5360910
>2
doubled is too low, I wanna see quadrupled

>>5360909
>>[2] Well, that wasn't... so bad? You did stay standing and didn't gag or vomit or anything. And you can't help but feel that this isn't what you wanted, really. You wanted to be falling-down drunk, and this is the equivalent to being... mildly inebriated? Own Molina harder and ask for more firewater.

>>5360910
>[2] Well, that wasn't... so bad? You did stay standing and didn't gag or vomit or anything. And you can't help but feel that this isn't what you wanted, really. You wanted to be falling-down drunk, and this is the equivalent to being... mildly inebriated? Own Molina harder and ask for more firewater.

>>5360910
> Ask Molina if he could do what you just did

> GLOAT

> Grab a pink drink and toast to unsung heroism with the Wind Court members. If Horseface complains that he doesn't have one, well, whose fault is that.

Also ask them

> They do this for fun? That's concerning. Are they doing okay?

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Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>5361107
>>5361133
>>5361178
>[2]

>>5360969
>[3]

>>5361854
>{1]

Called for [2] + >>5359794 >>5361854 and writing.

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Nevermind, I'm going to have to blueball you guys again. Been sitting here trying to write for an hour and I have a solid... paragraph, which sometimes happens and would be okay if I didn't have to wake up at a stupid hour of the morning. I'm going to do my absolute damndest to update tomorrow instead, but I have ANOTHER EARLY MORNING FLIGHT!!!! on Saturday so if I have to work overtime we're packing everything up so it could be up to several hours extra or just have unexpected distractions it might not happen. I wish all this RL stuff didn't coincide with an already slow part of the quest and I'm really hoping I'll be able to get things moving soon, you have my sincere apologies ;___;

In the meantime... a little more specificity about your angle here might make the writing process a little smoother on my end. Consider this a part 2 to the last vote:

>Okay, you're here. And you're inebriated-ish. What's the point of all this?
>[1] They supposedly invited you here to celebrate your accomplishments, right? You want that to happen. Spend the evening showing off and attempting to milk as many compliments and back-slaps and oohs and ahhs out of these people as possible. [Roll for outcome.]
>[2] You wanted free drinks. You got free... you guess this stuff qualifies as drinks? Take advantage of this as much as possible and spend the evening getting *shitfaced.* Absolutely wrecked. You deserve it. [Roll for ???.]
>[3] You don't exactly like any of these people, to be sure. But you don't really know them, either. Make a somewhat good-faith effort to talk to them like a normal person in a social setting and see how it goes. [Difficult roll.]
>[4] Lucky knew your gooplicate three years ago-- which is to say you. He knew *you.* During a period of time you can't recollect at all. Attempt to subtly fish for information about what you were up to throughout the evening. [Roll.]
>[5] Write-in.

>>5362780
>>[4] Lucky knew your gooplicate three years ago-- which is to say you. He knew *you.* During a period of time you can't recollect at all. Attempt to subtly fish for information about what you were up to throughout the evening. [Roll.]

>>5362780
>[1] They supposedly invited you here to celebrate your accomplishments, right? You want that to happen. Spend the evening showing off and attempting to milk as many compliments and back-slaps and oohs and ahhs out of these people as possible. [Roll for outcome.]

>>5362780
>[4] Lucky knew your gooplicate three years ago-- which is to say you. He knew *you.* During a period of time you can't recollect at all. Attempt to subtly fish for information about what you were up to throughout the evening. [Roll.]

>>5362780
gg lmao rekt by life

>3
time to learn to socialize

>>5362780
>[4] Lucky knew your gooplicate three years ago-- which is to say you. He knew *you.* During a period of time you can't recollect at all. Attempt to subtly fish for information about what you were up to throughout the evening. [Roll.]

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>2.5 hours of overtime
>Have to pack bags
>Have to get up at 5 AM

Pic related. Will return to regular 1-a-day schedule HOPEFULLY ASSUMING I HAVE RECEPTION tomorrow. At least I can call for rolls rn.

>>5363027
>>5362896
>>5362784
>[4]

>>5362790
>[1]

>>5363002
>[3]

Called for prying into your own business. (You may still gloat and/or socialize on the side, but this will be your main focus.)

>Please roll me 3 1d100s - 15 (-15 Firewater) vs. DC 25 (-25 ???) to extract some good info without looking too obvious about it!

Spend 1 ID for +10 to all rolls? You are currently at 5/13 ID.
>[1] Y
>[2] N

Rolled 62 - 15 (1d100 - 15)

>>5363547

Spendy

Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5363547
No spendo

Rolled 86 (1d100)

>>5363547
>No spendy, ID losses are doubled right now and we don't have a lot.

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>>5363561
>>5363608
>>5363678
>47, 83, 71 vs. DC 25 -- Enhanced Success
Good stuff. Writing for real this time.

>(chug chug chug chug)
>47, 83, 71, vs. DC 25 — Enhanced Success

"I'm—" You attempt to concentrate. "Yes. I'm fine. I am fine. I am very much— more than fine. I am fine-tastic. Fine-tastic, Horse Face. I have never felt... better, and I- I- you said I couldn't do this! You there! You said I couldn't— you said I was too short. When I'm not short at all. I'm normal size. And also I did do it. So—"

"Yup," Molina says.

"So you— what?"

"You did do it."

His tone is not conciliatory, or sheepish or shameful or any other word that definitely ought to describe it. Considering that you just made a public fool out of him, and all. No. He's looking up at you through half-lidded eyes, and his voice is mocking.

>[-2 ID: 3/13]

If you were in a better mood, you might brush this audacity off as ugly jealousy; in a worse one, you might germinate a little seed of hatred for the man and resolve forthrightly to ruin his evening. But you are off the scale of 'moods' entirely— you are feeling sensitive and brittle, and Molina's minor slight refracts strangely in you, and this is roughly why your face purples and you half-draw The Sword from your sheath. You would draw it all the way, except that chairs scrape and the table rattles and there are now weapons halfway in the hands of Molina and Kichima and Hatch.

But not Horse Face, who has remained seated, and not Lucky, who presses his lips together. "Settle down."

"But—" attempts Molina, but he can go no farther: Lucky has silenced him with a prolonged hard stare, which he extends to Kichima and Hatch after Molina sits down sheepishly(!). Only when everybody has sat does he gaze up at you. "Ms. Fawkins, we're all somewhat on edge. If you could kindly refrain from—"

His voice is too loud and the top of his head is shiny in the glorb-light. You hesitate. "I— he said I couldn't—"

"But clearly you can. Your fortitude is remarkable, Ms. Fawkins, especially considering you can't possibly have built a tolerance." His teeth are too shiny. "As a matter of fact, may I propose a toast? To Charlotte Fawkins and her... unexpected depths! Friends?"

Horse Face is the first to raise his glass, Lucky next, and everybody else trailing after. You try not to think about how the liquid is staying inside until it occurs to you that possibly you should get off your chair, and you pick your way down and raise your empty mug.

(1/2)

"To Charlotte Fawkins' unexpected depths!" everybody choruses. You have never been toasted before. Nobody's ever noticed your good traits enough to toast them. This would be enough to buoy your spirits slightly no matter how bad you felt, but you feel odd, not bad, and this mild gesture balloons inside you until you forget wholly any murderousness or generalized ill will.

>[+4 ID: 7/13]

You are so cheered that you mostly don't react to the sight of Lucky dumping his serving of pink drink onto the floorboards, or to him refilling his glass from his canteen. (The others are following his lead.) You do frown at the sight of the murk inside, though. "Is this really what you guys drink... for fun? Just this?"

"We're not prohibited from standard alcohol, if that's what you're asking. The genuine article is difficult to source, but firewater if applied properly can function in a similar enhancing—"

"How similar?" Because it doesn't feel very similar at all.

Horse Face taps his empty glass against his chin. "As I'm led to understand it, the mechanisms are entirely different. Alcohol dulls and impairs, whereas firewater enhances most—"

"It opens your eyes." Kichima pokes at yours. "Wipes the scales right off. Most suckers can't handle that. That and the—"

"It's an acquired taste, Charlotte," Lucky finishes. "Which the bulk of us have acquired, to greater or lesser extents. You seem to have acquired it yourself, if you don't mind me saying."

Have you? Have you acquired it? Have you actually built a tolerance, somewhere in the dark recesses of the past? Have you at one point sat at a table somewhere West with these exact people drinking this exact stuff? A line of thought like this threatens to burst your good mood before it even really gets going, but it's impossible to shake. You need to pry deeper.

>ENHANCED SUCCESS: Pick up to three specific topics to work into the rest of your conversation this night. You'll get decent answers (to the best of the group's knowledge) for all of them.
>Drinking part 2 + any currently outstanding write-ins will be worked in next update

>[1] What kind of person were you? Just as a general assessment.
>[2] Why do you have a wanted poster? What did you *do*?
>[3] Did you evince any sort of magyckal abilities? Or snakeish abilities? (What was Richard doing back then?)
>[4] What was your relationship to Jesse? Beyond the obvious.
>[5] Did you ever talk about your father?
>[6] Write-in.

>>5365098
>[2] Why do you have a wanted poster? What did you *do*?
>[3] Did you evince any sort of magyckal abilities? Or snakeish abilities? (What was Richard doing back then?)
>[6] Why did we even go to work for the Court?

>>5365098
>[4] What was your relationship to Jesse? Beyond the obvious.

Order another round of pink drinks and propose a toast to fallen heroes as well at this point. Gotta see if they dump that drink, too.

>[5] Did you ever talk about your father?

> Write in

> When do they think you were replaced by the gooplicate?

>>5365279
We were never replaced. They think it was the gooplicate from the very start.

>>5365098
>1
>4
>5

Rolled 1 (1d4)

>>5365149
>>5365279
>>5365718
[4] and [5] have majorities. Rolling between [1], [2], [3], and >>5365149's [6] for your third option, then writing.

>>5365281
This is (to the best of your knowledge) correct.

>>5365883
My fren, please impart your knowledge of italicization without being OP

>>5365098
>1
>4
>5

>>5365889
It's probably some combination of my tripcode and the 4chan Pass I was forced to purchase to circumvent my dorm's rangeban.

>>5365890
Thanks! Don't have a pass, but I'll try that!

>Past life regression?

Or, no. You need to pry deeper. Ahem. You art (or hadst been?) sacredly entrustedst by your very own self (now entrappeth in the tenebrous past) to uncover your own— her own— the point is that this ought to be very meaningful and motivating and should only enhance your good humor, not dampen it. Yeah! Not to mention it turns this whole encounter, which to a negative-thinking individual might come across as awkward and stilted, into a sort of fun and devious activity. You'll utilize your keen detective skills (potentially enhanced by this firewater stuff?) and/or feminine wiles to trick the Courtiers into letting slip important information— and it doesn't even matter if they like you or not, because that's not at all the point!

Thus settled, you grin widely. "Well, I clearly can't have acquired the taste, since I've never heard of this stuff. Unless you think I've been— what— stealing barrels of firewater out of your HQ? Smuggling it from out West? I haven't—"

"Of course not, Charlotte." Lucky taps his glass against his temple. "I don't mean to imply you've encountered firewater before. Only that your resilience really is quite unusual— which is fortunate, given that that was quite a heroic dose."

A heroic dose! You straighten. "How could I settle for anything less? I understand some out there— some at this very table— might be cowards, unwilling to brave so much as a puny swallow of a mere—"

"It's a sipping drink," Hatch says tetchily. "It's not meant to whack you over the head, it's meant to be a gradual awakening to—"

"If she wants to be whacked over the head, I don't see why not," Kichima says.

"I could chug the stuff, I just don't fucking want—"

"That's enough, Molina. Friends." How old is Lucky? He looks to be in his thirties, but his demeanor is longer-suffering than that. "Nobody at this table is a coward, Ms. Fawkins. Every one of us has faced extraordinary dangers in the course of duty. Cowards are not sent on express missions to the uncivilized Southeast, and cowards do not sacrifice themselves in the name of peace and justice. Consequently, there's no need to chug—"

"I wasn't going to!" Molina protests. "I'm not a complete—"

He is a complete whatever-he-was-going-to-say, but you let this slide. You have thought of an excellent idea. "Then we must do a toast! To— to unappreciated heroes, such as myself, and also you. And to fallen heroes, like Jesse, and— and—"

"Darwin," says Lucky.

(1/4)

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"Yeah. Him. CAN WE—" Your shout is excruciatingly loud to your ears and you cut it off as fast as possible, opting to tug instead at the sleeve of the nearest unlucky individual and ask/demand them to order the table another round of drinks on your behalf. It's possible they acquiesce out of courtesy, or of admiration for your monster-slaying, or because they look into your eyes and find one missing and one moderately dilated, but in any case you have drinks several minutes later.

Their delivery interrupts a spirited conversation about what a terrible area the Corcass was, full of unpleasant rough-edged people and untamed wildlife and crime and humidity, and you're grateful for it: you were torn between agreeing and feeling peculiarly defensive. "There we go!" you say, and avert your eyes from the glasses lest you make the drinks float right out of them. "To the unappreciated and the— the fallen."

The chorus is less begrudging this time, and when Lucky bends down to dump his drink the rest of the table is less eager to follow. Hatch and Kichima exchange glances and mutually sip from theirs before dumping the rest. Horse Face is already slurping from his glass. Molina downs the whole thing. You're a smidge put out by all of this: you'd been hoping for a chaser, but with everybody else doing it it no longer seems cool.

You opt instead to make direct eye contact with Molina as you request another mug of firewater. This is met with mixed reactions. Horse Face chuckles. Kichima rolls her eyes. "I'm not sure you know what you're asking," Lucky says levelly.

"Of course I know. I want another mug. My tolerance was simply too high— heroic, even— for the first one, so I have no choice but to—"

"One mug is typically the upper bound of a recommended dose."

"Maybe for most people," you say. "But like I said, my tolerance—"

"Yes." He surveys your face. "I wouldn't drink this fast if I were you."

-

The problem with sipping at firewater, as it turns out, is that it allows you to taste it. And it is not just bitter (though, to be clear, it is bitter) but sort of dusty and vegetal, and you are also re-remembering the gritty texture, and it isn't even cold— not to say it'd be any better cold, but it is presently lukewarm. You are half-hoping that Lucky warned you out of spite, and that while a first mug of firewater is underwhelming a second is unbelievable, In any case you do plug your nose and— not quite chug it, but dump it into your mouth so it touches your tongue the least possible.

>[GAINED: Firewater II — All ID gains and losses are tripled while under the influence.]

(2/4)

Meanwhile, all traces of standoffishness have vanished from the Courtiers. You have suspicions about the way firewater and alcohol interact with each other, but choose to ignore them in favor of listening to the various conversations— which consist primarily of gossip about people you've never heard of, rumors about the sort of things that live in the Fen, and further complaining about their job. Horse Face doesn't speak much but provides useful factoids at appropriate moments. At one point you attempt to commiserate by relating the story of the night-that-didn't-happen, except that you get to the part about communing with Annie and realize this might not be the most appreciative audience.

They don't notice that you've stopped dead, as your mention of Jesse and the 'gooplicate' has sparked a whole side conversation about wholly unrepeatable matters. (Concerning what Jesse and the gooplicate might have been doing to each other.) You'd be flustered at the best of times, but right now you feel turned inside out, and it's all you can do not to scream or possibly flee the scene. Positive thinking. (They are discussing body parts made of goo.) You clear your throat. "So I'm hearing that Jesse and, um— and fake me were, um, entangled. Amorously? Is that correct?"

Eyes swivel onto you. "No shit," Kichima drawls.

You can't scream. You can't. "What precisely was the manner of this... entanglement? Was it a mere, um, dalliance, or something more—"

"Nope. Dating. Or whatever fancypants gullshit he—" Hatch snaps her fingers. "Courting. Courship. Whatever."

"Ah," you say.

>[-3 ID: 4/13]

You have never been courted before, you thought. You thought you were saving that for after everything, after you were Queen or famous or whatever. Even after meeting Jesse you half-thought it was something else he meant or represented. Or you wanted to think that.

You'd say your mouth were dry but you know for crystal fact it is extremely wet just like the rest of you. This isn't really helping. "Ah," you say again. "Was he a suitable match?"

"Define suitable? It was cute. He really liked you. Sort of a puppydog..." Hatch affects a pleading expression. "Then you ditched him and killed his spirit forever. Never was the same. Allegedly. I wasn't in his—"

"And by 'you' you mean the imposter," Lucky says.

She slow-blinks. "Yeah. Sorry."

"You did kill him," Molina says. "Crushed him. Between your fat tits. The man used to be fun."

Lucky frowns. "Samuel."

"Sorry." He waves a hand. "Between her fat tits."

You don't say anything. "He was teaching you fencing," Kichima says finally. "Swordplay. That was his rich boy hobby, I guess, and you came in with this massive sword—"

"The Sword."

"What? A sword. And you didn't have a clue how to use it, because why would you, that'd be too useful, so he went and—"

"What was I like?" you say suddenly. "Her. The fake me. Was she like me?"

"Kind of?"

>[-3 ID: 1/13]

(3/4)

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You squeeze your palms together until you can feel the blood pounding through them. "What do you mean, kind of?"

"She was less..." Hatch searches.

"She was less," Kichima says. "Less you. She was actually kind of shy? Shy, didn't know how to talk to anybody... I mean, she wasn't a pushover, exactly, I think there was an edge in there. I guess there must've been, considering the whole debacle. But she wasn't blasting herself all over the place like you do. Sam, didn't you—"

"Yeah, sure. If we're talking early days," Molina says, "she was homesick as shit. Crying all the time. I actually felt kinda bad. I think it was her dad especially who she missed, big daddy's girl, if you catch my drift..."

"Of course," Lucky says firmly, "we can infer that this was all lies. Of course an imposter and a false person does not have a father or a home to be sick for."

"Geez, Dunc, don't think anyone was implying—"

Did you drink that entire second mug? You can't remember anymore. You can't tell, either, because the colors of everything are so bright now that they're bleeding into one another. And your sense of touch has kind of shorted out, because all you're feeling beneath and around you is static.

Also, the thing just outside the corner of your vision is still there. It seems larger, or maybe closer. It is very possible that it is red.

You are on precarious ground.

>[1] Fall. On your own terms, before you're pushed. Maybe it'll be better that way. (-1 ID)
>[2] Fight. Attempt to do something. (Write-in.) [Probable roll.]
>[3] Write-in?

>>5366135
I just thought yesterday that ID as HP mechanic doesn't work well because ID losses and gains in practice happen entirely arbitrarily.
>Gaslight ourselves into thinking the past us is sufficiently removed from the current us to not reflect on us.
Even though under the influence of firewater, we're trying to affect our own mind which should not require unrealness to do so.

>>5366135
>>5366212
+1 Supporting this

>>5366212
>I just thought yesterday that ID as HP mechanic doesn't work well because ID losses and gains in practice happen entirely arbitrarily.
I agree in some respects but not others. The first and most important point is that ID isn't really an HP bar at all: it encompasses physical damage, but it's primarily a tracker of Charlotte's mental and emotional condition. This means that arbitrariness is somewhat baked in to the whole thing, since Charlotte's mental and emotional condition is both subjective and not fully in the control of the players, and I'm okay with that-- this is a narrative quest with very light mechanics, not the other way around. That being said, I don't believe ID is *entirely* arbitrary in concept or in practice: Charlotte consistently loses ID to physical injury, mindfuck, (perceived) slights against her person, and having her grasp on reality shaken, and gains it to peacocking, feeling "dominant," winning, and generally Charlotting all over the place. Also sleep and particularly good write-ins if appropriate. In this instance, you guys opted for a second shot of firewater over alcohol or nothing, which is naturally going to mess you up further (>>5361107 outright predicted the increased multiplier), and then opted for the uncomfortable depressing focus over the ones where you gloat/forget your problems/have fun like a normal person, all of which would've gained you (tripled!) ID-- so in this update it's tied directly to player choices and isn't arbitrary at all.

>But sometimes these things you listed up there happen and you don't add or remove ID!
This is where I'll readily admit a big weakness in the system, because sometimes I flat-out forget to do so even when it's appropriate. In these cases feel free to bring it up and I'll retroactively add or subtract some if I agree with you. We are 27 threads in, so I don't plan on radically overhauling anything, but if you have other suggestions for how to make ID feel better on the player end please let me know.

>>5366497
It's pretty clear to what Charlotte is losing ID, what's arbitrary is when it happens. I agree that his time it was because of the votes, but I've seen it many times go down while talking to someone not even especially unpleasant, or to Charlotte's own thoughts. To continue the HP analogy, it's like Charlotte regularly has bricks randomly falling on her head.

>>5366135
>1
haha yes
drunken bar breakdowns

Rolled 76, 82, 73 = 231 (3d100)

>>5366212
>>5366457
>Regular, non-advanced gaslighting

>>5366778
>YOLO

Called for making a fighting attempt and rolling myself since it's way too late to wait around for dice (phone died so I couldn't call for rolls earlier) and I spent a billion years writing the stuff in spoilers! Then writing.

I am rolling 3 1d100s + 10 (+10 Positive Thinking) vs. DC 70 (+20 Firewater II). Crits do not apply to QM rolls.

>>5366601
Thanks for the clarification, I appreciate it. I think this is definitely an area where QM and player perspectives diverge, because (to me) there's non-arbitrary OOC and IC reasons for doing that kind of stuff. To lay out how I see it:

>I've seen it many times go down while talking to someone not even especially unpleasant
Arguably most of the cast isn't especially unpleasant... at least to a neutral observer, which Charlotte isn't. She's sensitive and insecure and sees most regular conversations as a life-or-death battle for social standing, so yeah, she's going to take offhand comments or mild ribbing that hits her weak points extremely personally.

>or to Charlotte's own thoughts.
I don't know about you, but my own thoughts have made me feel shitty plenty of times!

>To continue the HP analogy, it's like Charlotte regularly has bricks randomly falling on her head.
Right! And this is where I'm guessing the difference lies. I think you're perceiving ID loss as a punishment ("falling brick") every time it happens, so if I take away ID when you (the players) have done nothing wrong it feels random. The problem is that I don't always use it as a punishment, and this is where the whole "narrative quest" stuff comes in-- I view ID as a neutral tracker of Charlotte's current state, so I often add and remove it for flavor or to punctuate an occurrence or remark. (I also like it just to keep ID shifting a little bit, so Charlotte doesn't ride along at 13 ID for three months if we're in a slow period and you happen to avoid most rolls. This would feel weird, imo.)

Writing this all out now, I can understand how mixing "flavor" loss of ID with "punishment" loss (eg. for Failures/Mitigated Successes or poorly thought-out choices) might be confusing if you're not the QM and you don't know which is which. So my apologies, and thanks for making me examine this a little closer! I don't know how to fix this, precisely-- I like using ID for flavor and I don't want to stop doing that. While I think about this (please let me know if you have suggestions), I will explicitly state that I keep "flavor" loss minimal (-1 ID) and I only tend to inflict it when you're nowhere near in danger of dropping to 0. You won't go catatonic for minor insults unless there's extenuating circumstances. So if you see further "arbitrary" losses, please keep that in mind-- I'm here to tell a cool story with you guys, I'm not out to get you.

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>P O S I T I V E
>T H I N K I N G
>86, 92, 83 vs. DC 70 — Enhanced Success

You could sit here (if indeed you are sitting) and let it happen. Could transcend this whole plane of reality, if that's what you're doing, could dissolve right into the static. Not forever, you think. You hope. You don't want to die. But you did want to escape, that was the whole point, and isn't this similar? It's more embarrassing, but you are embarrassing. Even in the unknowable past you're embarrassing. (Crying all the time?) Maybe you'll wake up from this and you won't remember anything at all— let some other you be Charlotte Fawkins, let her embarrass herself, let her drink stupid digusting Wind Court poison and pass out on the table (if indeed there's still a table), let Richard—

Where's Richard? He should be here. He should be telling you you're embarrassing yourself, which you are, but he needs to be telling you that. That's his one job. And then he needs to walk you out of here and put you to bed, because if all you do is pass out on the table(?) the Courtiers are going to draw things on your face in permanent ink, and you couldn't— that'd be a bridge too far. So where's Richard? Is he having fun without you? Why does he get to have fun while you succumb to despair? You think he should have to succumb to despair a couple times just to keep it even. (Unless he already did? And that's why he's acting so weird?)

But seriously, where is he? You lift your head and attempt to resolve the acid soup around you into something resembling the interior of a bar. This fails. You attempt then to summon him into existence near you, next to you, but you can't recall how you'd went about the summoning, or if it ever worked to begin with. You don't know. You don't know. You can't dissolve into static without Richard and Richard isn't coming back. You don't know if you want to dissolve or anything at all right now. This whole tangent knocked you off track. You maybe want to cry, but you can't cry, because then you'd be asked why you're crying, and you don't know. Maybe in mourning for things you never had. Maybe you're just embarrassing.

So you can't cry and can't pass out any longer, and your whole mouth tastes like dirt, and there is water up your nose. There's been water up your nose for three years. The conversation has moved on without you. What do you even do? Sit here until somebody notices something's wrong? It'd probably be Horse Face. Horse Face would notice, and point it out, and everybody would tut and coo over you and your stupid decision to drink the stupid mystery drink, twice, and that'd be the good scenario. The bad one is them asking what the matter was, and then what? You tell them you were hoping your past self was exactly like you? Making you the authentic Charlotte Fawkins, the genuine and original article, not some warped cast-off or...

(1/2)

You swallow. At least— at least the other one was lame. Right? She was lame. Sad all the time, quiet, couldn't even swing a sword— just totally incompetent. You bet *she* couldn't slay a gooplicate. Or solve even a basic mystery. And she most definitely had no magyckal powers— the Wind Court? Really? Maybe the authentic Charlotte Fawkins sucked, is what you're saying. Maybe she invented you, a stronger, tougher, smarter, braver version, to replace her. Maybe you're a sort of role she's playing. But, like, a cool and awesome role. The main character. The protagonist. The heroine.

Yeah. Yeah!

>[+9 ID: 10/13]

You feel good about this. How did you ever feel bad? Why did you even care? Whatever Charlotte Fawkins existed back then, you're patently the new-and-improved version— so forget about her! You're here, and you have vague feeling in your hands and feet again, and even though your vision remains scaldingly bright it seems to you nearly cheery. You have a whole rest-of-your-evening ahead of you. You still have, in theory, unlimited free drinks.

Wat do?

>[A1] Get actually drunk like you wanted to all along. The Courtiers don't appear to be choking on their own vomit, so mixing drinks seems safe...ish. (But maybe start with one glass and go from there.)
>[A2] That was too close of a call. You're done with drinking anything for the night.

>[B1] Once things start wrapping up, go find Richard. It really is strange that he hasn't shown up— you would've thought he'd be providing color commentary.
>[B2] Once things start wrapping up, stagger back to your tent and locate Gil. You did promise him an infodump.
>[B3] Once things start wrapping up, stagger back and go the hell to sleep.
>[B4] Write-in.

>>5367152
Richard probably is out because he isn't real.
>[A2] That was too close of a call. You're done with drinking anything for the night.
>[B2] Once things start wrapping up, stagger back to your tent and locate Gil. You did promise him an infodump.

>>5367152
> A2

But ask where we can get some of that firewater. That could be useful for us, sometimes it's good to know what's real instead of what exists.

> B2

Oh Gil, you wanted to be closer to us and having a drunk Charlotte ramble at you is a BONDING MOMENT and we will give you that. Whether or not you want it.

>>5367152
>[A2] That was too close of a call. You're done with drinking anything for the night.
>[B2] Once things start wrapping up, stagger back to your tent and locate Gil. You did promise him an infodump.
Better run, Gil

>>5367152
>A1
>B2

wow we lived
also richard isn't real enough to show up around the wind court, that's why he's missing

>>5367152
>>[A2] That was too close of a call. You're done with drinking anything for the night.
>>[B2] Once things start wrapping up, stagger back to your tent and locate Gil. You did promise him an infodump.

>GIL GIL HEY GIL DO YOU WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MY BACKSTORY?!?!?!

The next couple of hours pass pleasantly and, for the most part, uneventfully. You dump the remaining pink drink onto the floorboards in an effort to practice self-control, figuring that if you wanted to mix-and-match Richard really ought to be around to supervise. (Dying in front of the Courtiers would be worse than passing out in front of them.) Any lingering doubts you had about not getting properly drunk vanish swiftly, as you discover firewater's recreational effects: with two drinks in and your funk cleared up, Kichima's obnoxious deadpan drawling and Molina's is-he-even-trying 'jokes' are hilarious, Horse Face's increasingly tangential interjections are fascinating, and Hatch's shoddy impressions (including of you!) are not only accurate but razor-witted. Your dramatic reenactment of the battle with the gooplicate is deemed gripping not only by the Courtiers but by the dozen other people who crowd around to watch it.

In almost any other case, you'd be jumping to declare firewater-drunk a thorough improvement over regular-drunk: the whole feeling-wet thing is an irritation but no real obstacle, and none of the other ugly parts are present. Your memory is good. Your diction is perfect. You're not stumbling or slurring or slow-in-the-mind— you're the same as ordinary, only sensitized. Which is brilliant! As long as the good atmosphere keeps up. If it turned, if the Courtiers turned on you for even an instant, the ground would crumble out from your feet and you'd wake up with ink on your face. (Which is one point in favor of regular-drunk. Regular-drunk despair is gradual.)

Which is not to say you're thinking very hard about the precarity of the present situation while you're waving The Sword around like a madwoman. You're not. The concept just squats in the back of your mind, causing your grin to fade a little every time you catch Lucky looking at you oddly or Horse Face scribbling something in his notepad. Something in you is waiting for the other shoe to drop— for Lucky to slap handcuffs on you, to force a drugged rag over your nose, for everyone to reveal they were never really drunk and this was all an elaborate prank. But nothing happens. It has been hours, and nothing has happened, excepting Lucky dragging Kichima over to help him break up somebody else's bar fight. Hatch is half-asleep on Molina's shoulder. Horse Face has been drawing idly on a napkin.

And then it ends. Lucky comes back with a fresh split lip and rounds up the Courtiers and thanks you for coming. They leave. You venture back, somewhat dazed, with Horse Face in tow— he keeps trying to start small talk, which you ignore. Eventually you deposit him back in his lair, and enter your tent, and flop down on your cot. You stare up at the dark ceiling. You feel less wet now, but still wet. You could sleep, but you're not tired. Maybe a little tired. You could probably brute-force it if you—

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Gil! Damnit! You promised him your entire life story— are you drunk enough for that? Do you even qualify as drunk at this point? Maybe you can brute-force that too, just convince yourself hard enough that you're drunk that you— whatever! That's a problem for later. You need to go see him, at least, or he'll think you forgot about him, nevermind that you did— and Richard still isn't back, of course, so it's down to you to wrangle into your manse. Which is a simple feat for someone of your—

It had been ten minutes of counting, rolling around, getting up to face the other end of the cot, crossing your eyes, pretending to fall asleep, and various other measures before you got the bright idea to use a visual aid. The completed model, shiny and unstolen, rests in your outstretched palm: you are attempting to imagine being inside it. You'd have to be tiny, you suppose. Or it'd have to be much bigger, would have to quiver and unfurl its walls like a great flower. Or the tiny doors would have to slam open and suck you inside and slam shut behind you like nothing ever occurred. Or the world would turn itself inside out and you'd find yourself in your manse with a tiny model of your tent in your hand, with a tiny prone figure of you inside. Or you can just fall asleep on accident, you guess— your eyelids are drooping— maybe you've graduated from a little tired to regular tired? Sorry, Gil. You—

-

You are in a white space. There is a white floor but no apparent walls. It is bright, but there's no apparent light source, either. Are you asleep? Dead? Did Lucky poison you after all? Damnit! What's Gil going to think? If you die while he's in your manse, does he die? Does it vanish? Is he trapped there? Sorry, Gil. You know, you bet Horse Face poisoned you— you suspected that all along, honestly, you just—

"...Charlotte?"

Gil! So maybe he did die with you? You look in all directions and find nothing but white. Alternately you're hallucinating him, which—

"...Um, I-I-I'm— I'm not— I'm on the ceiling, like usual, but don't lo-"

You look above you and see white. No ceiling, much less Gil. Definite hallucination. This is Horse Face's and also Richard's fault, because if Richard was around he could've prevented you from getting—

"-o-ok! Aw, shit. Shit. I-I-I— god, I-I don't even— don't turn around!" There's a whirring noise. "Don't turn— I-I-I'm behind you. I-I'm gonna be behind you until you stop vanishing everything. Yeah? Charlotte? Are you—"

"...You're the real Gil?"

"Are there other Gils I-I-I-I need to be aware of? Unless you mean some kind of semantics gullshit, which—"

"You're the real Gil." It certainly sounds like he's directly behind you. "Um. And where are we?"

"Where do you think we— your manse?" He also sounds faintly hysterical.

(2/3)

You press your hands together. "But there's, um, nothing. It's just—"

"No! You're just vanishing every single fucking thing you look at, i-i-i-including me, I just— I just— then it comes back when you stop looking. I-I think it comes back when you— could you blink right now?" (You acquiesce.) "Yeah! I-I-It was all there for a— for a fraction of a— has this happened before? Please say it's on purpose, I-I-I don't even know how you'd—"

"Nope," you say. "I didn't— I just wanted to tell you about my whole life, so we could get that all cleared up, and—"

"Are you drunk?"

You're moving your head slowly to see if you can catch anything in your peripheral vision. "Sort of? I'll work on it. I guess I can just get started while we're like—"

"I-I-I'd, um— no? No. Um." Gil hesitates. "Please fix this."

>[1] Propose that you blindfold yourself and then proceed with the life story stuff. Refuse to take no for an answer.
>[2] Aw, damn. Do you have to purge the firewater from your system? Without Richard? Can you just... have Gil lead you to the font and drink some weird manse water to balance things out? That's probably how things work.
>[3] You can put two and two together: you drank weird reality gunk and the manse doesn't like it. Done. So what if— hear you out— what if Gil utilized his LATENT MAGYCKAL POWERS to cure you of reality gunk? Convince/trick him into doing so. (Write-ins for strategy will aid the roll.) [Roll.]
>[4] Pretend really hard until the problem goes away. Works every time. (Advanced Gaslighting.) [Difficult roll.]
>[4] Write-in.

>>5367157
>>5367188
>>5367420
>>5367451
>>5367457
Just pinging you guys so you get notified about the update (didn't have the chance to call the vote today). Also the write-in option should be [5], obviously.

>>5368401
>5 See what we can create with a blank canvas.

I mean, we don't have preconcieved clutter in our manse right now. Let's poke it and see what happens! Maybe we can, instead of describing our life to Gil, show him instead! Like a picture book but one that is alive!

>>5368401
>[1] Propose that you blindfold yourself and then proceed with the life story stuff. Refuse to take no for an answer.
>>5368430
It likely won't work. MAnses are unreal and we're antithetical to unreality now.

>>5368401
>1

>>5368401
>>[1] Propose that you blindfold yourself and then proceed with the life story stuff. Refuse to take no for an answer.

Go drunk, you're home, Charlie.

>>5368455
Pfft since when have we ever listened to reality. Reality is just an expression of what is in a certain way, as is unreality.

So really I see it as more that we're looking at the code itself instead of the GUI. So let's take this chance to explore that.

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>>5368455
>>5368686
>>5368689
>[1]

>>5368430
>[5]

Called for [1] and writing. Maybe I can get an early update out today? Earlyish? We'll see.

>>5368689
kek

>>5367188
Just realized that I forgot to include asking Lucky about the firewater-- my apologies. You asked him offscreen and he told you they have limited quantities, but if you continue to be useful to the Court maybe something could be worked out.

>>5368430
>>5368455
>>5368772
I like the write-in, but >>5368455 is correct-- doing anything metaphysically weird is going to be difficult-to-impossible right now. It's less that you're looking at code (that would be the blackness+blue strings you've seen a couple times) and more that you're looking at a big 404 error screen, if you catch my drift.

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>Problem solved!

"What if," you say, "I just closed my eyes? And we did it like that? It's not like I need my eyes open to tell you about—"

"But you could open your eyes on accident..." Gil rustles. "I-I-I just don't want to be vanished, um, again. We could always postpone this, or cancel it, i-if you don't want to— you really don't have to, um— you know—"

"Of course I do! Or you'll just act weird all the time, and that'd— that'd hurt my feelings, so this is a way better option. What if I put a blindfold on?"

"...A blindfold?"

"So I can't open my eyes? Um, here." You untie the bow at your neck and wrap its ribbon around your eyes, shaking your head to make sure it won't slip. The world is dark. "Is anything vanished?"

"...No..."

You crane your neck in the direction of Gil's voice. "Are you vanished?"

"...No, I-I-I'm, um..."

"Okay then!" You plop down onto the floor and cross your legs. "You can sit down if you— can you sit down? You sound like beetles. Maybe you should go get your body, then you can—"

"Um, i-i-it's not here right now... it's not broken, or anything, I-I just, um— I-I-I-I-I'll explain later..." The hum of wings abruptly halts, and you scootch back as beetle bodies pitter-patter onto the ground. "I-I can just, um, do this."

"Oh! That works." You assume it works, at least. "So I'd ask you what you wanted to know, but it doesn't actually matter, since I'm just going to tell you everything. That way we're all even and fair and whatever. So—"

>How do you spin your life story? (You're at 10/13 ID.)

>[1] Make it sound very boring. You dislike thinking about this, much less talking about it— speed through so maybe Gil won't ask questions.
>[2] Make it sound very tragic. Everybody important has a tragic backstory, and maybe Gil will be sympathetic. Or at least less uppity.
>[3] Make it sound very dramatic, like in a book. *Destiny has stalked your footsteps from the day you were born.* Stuff like that. Maybe Gil will find you cool and awesome.
>[4] Control your natural instincts and try very, very hard to provide just the facts. Let Gil form his own conclusions. It'll be painful, but maybe he'll respect you for it. [-1 ID.]
>[5] Write-in.

>>5368840
>>[3] Make it sound very dramatic, like in a book. *Destiny has stalked your footsteps from the day you were born.* Stuff like that. Maybe Gil will find you cool and awesome.

>>5368840
Try for 4, but get embarassed and fall back on 3 as a defense.

>>5368840
>[3] Make it sound very dramatic, like in a book. *Destiny has stalked your footsteps from the day you were born.* Stuff like that. Maybe Gil will find you cool and awesome.
I hate that this is the most in character, Charlotte sucks.

>>5368840
>[5] Make it sound very depressing. Doomer memes in every field.

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>>5368842
>>5368852
>>5368910
>[3]

>>5368990
>[2]

Writing.

>>5368910
She sucks so incredibly bad, yes, and I admire your guys' commitment to that. The "behave like a normal person" option is there for a reason tho if you ever feel like making her suck a little bit less

>>5368990
If Charlotte were still at 1 ID you'd have a compelling case, but we are firmly POSITIVE THINKING right now. I'll take this as a vote for [2].

>>5368852
I like this but [3] won soundly so there'll only be a smidge of this.

>Suck so incredibly bad

"—get yourself comfortable, Gilb— do you have a middle name, Gil? I forget."

"...Um, does i-i-it matter?"

"It's like the name between your other names— mine is Frances, that's your first fact about me tonight, my full name's— um, I guess it doesn't matter." (You finally clocked his response.) "Ahem. Get yourself comfortable, Gil W. Wallace— I just gave you one, or it sounds weird— get yourself comfortable, and I shall proceed to enlighten you with my tale of times bygone. A-hem. 25 years ago..."

25 years ago, Clara Nell Fawkins née Bowers, your mother, was disowned from her blood family for the crime of eloping with your rakish father. She was at this point already pregnant with you. Your mother told this to you and Aunt Ruby begrudgingly confirmed it, so this is fact. You should say it to Gil. The entire thing. Clara Fawkins, your mother—

"...my mother, um..." But it makes you a bastard-upon-conception, and it makes your mother look rash at best and a complete fool at worse. It's not noble in the slightest, and Gil's already evincing disloyalty, so you can't— you can't— you can't. You'd look a complete fool. Don't be stupid, Charlotte, don't be drunk and stupid. "...was ensnared in the twines of forbidden love. She— a charming and attractive young noblewoman, scarcely older than I am now. He— a man of daring, bearing an ancient name in ill repute. Kept apart by society, the two defied convention, meeting in the thick of night, where only the stars themselves could cast a watchful eye upon their—"

"And then they fucked," Gil says.

"—tryst— they what? They—" You flush. "That's my mother! You can't say my mother—"

"You exist, so..." A pause. "Sorry."

"Yeah! Sorry! They entwined themselves in sacred union, Gil, and thus the first ember of my vital spirit was lit, and— and yeah. Alas, this love was scorned by my mother's despicable relatives, who tossed her out with nary more than the slippers on her feet! My dashing father gave her shelter within his fine inherited manor, and very shortly thereafter they were wed."

And then your father caught ill and died, and you were born, and the grief and/or your Fawkins blood caused your mother to go mad. This being according to Aunt Ruby, whom in foul moods liked to explain how you were at fault for the situation at hand. The only trouble is that your father, even if he did catch ill, never died. He only died some years later on account of a snake, and "died" is— is in contention. You're uncertain how to integrate this nicely into the plot thus far. "Uh... alas, their pure conjugal bliss was doomed by fate! Upon the instant of my emergence into this world, my poor mother was stricken by an all-consuming madness. Now unfit to raise a child, even an unusually precocious and capable child like myself, my mother's elder sister interjected herself into the life of this young family in order to—"

(1/4? 5?)

"Your mom went i-i-insane?"

"Um, not—" You fidget with your blindfold. "—not insane, she wasn't— she wasn't well, that's all. She wasn't insane, that just— that sounds bad. She wasn't insane."

"You said she was stricken with—"

"Because it sounded better! She just had episodes, sometimes, she wasn't— she was okay a lot of times, she just didn't leave the bedroom, which was— you didn't leave your room, did you? In that stupid bug house? So do you have any room to talk? I didn't think so? My mother is completely fine, completely fine, and she doesn't hurt anybody, and it's not contagious, and it's not my father's fault, it's mine. So you can just go ahead and— and— and shut up."

The silence that follows is unbearable. You seriously ponder ripping off the blindfold so Gil and his contemptuous(?) gaze will be erased from all existence, at least until you stop breathing so heavily. Why did you do that? He didn't even say anything about it being contagious. He was probably thinking it, but he didn't say it, so you can't just go and— "Sorry," Gil says, all pinched. "I didn't mean to i-i-imply anything, but, um— I-I just—"

"It's fine," you mutter. "Whatever. I don't want to talk about my mother anymore. I was trying to talk about my Aunt Ruby, who— yeah, she kind of came and took over things— the household, and stuff. So I could be raised as a proper lady and not a hideous wild animal. But the seed of adventure was already—"

"What about your pops?"

"What?" you say.

"Uh, I-I— I was just, um—" Gil is buzzing again. "Sorry, I-I was just wondering, um, why your pops couldn't just run the—"

Because he was dead. Because— because— you don't know the answer. Was he involved in something? Did your aunt insist? (You can envision that.) "He was busy with— with work."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, um, I— as befit a child befilled with what-would-later-be-recognized-as god blood, I myself was an energetic—"

"'God blood.'"

You dislike Gil's tone. "Oh, I, um— did I tell you about that? It's not literal. It just means that I'm descended from many generations of kings and queens and heroes and noblemen and women and also powerful sorcerers, which is where my magyckal ability emanates from. So it's not like yours, where you just got it direct. Mine's ancestral. And it's from my father's side, because my mother's side—" (You attempt to imagine Aunt Ruby wielding magyck.) "—was not such blessed. But that's okay. Anyways, my importance to destiny was obvious from my very first years of life. I was, after all, born with a prominent birthmark—"

You point it out, and Gil presumably conducts an examination. "...I-I-I thought that was, um, a mole."

(2/4?)

"Same thing." You wave a hand. "I also allegedly had purple eyes, but that— that went away, so you can't see that anymore. What was clearly visible throughout my life was my unusual commitment to justice and valor, and also my prowess and gumption and great vitality, all of which predicted from the beginning my present status as an acclaimed heroine and suchforth. My Aunt Ruby did not take kindly to this, and attempted to squander my potential all throughout my lifespan, by forcing me to sew and eat oysters and go to stupid tutors and dust and wash the dishes, and by—"

"Didn't you have... servants?"

"What?" You process. "Don't be stupid. Servants are expensive. Anyways, I—"

"I-I-I-I thought you were... fuck-off rich, though."

"Um," you say, and cross your hands. "Well... of course I wasn't impoverished, being noble, and— and whatnot, but my mother was, um, disinherited, and my father spent most of his already, and we had the medicine and the tutors and we had to maintain the house, and—" You'd thought you were living off the insurance, but that can't be right. "—you know, only my father was working, and there were four of us, so—"

Gil doesn't say anything.

"—so yeah. No servants. Except I was practically a servant for my aunt— but that could not quash my spirit! Neither could the cruel treatment of my peers, who— out of jealousy of me and my bloodline, could not stand one instant in my presence, lest they explode out of— out of jealousy. And envy. So I stood, as ever, ahead of the crowd, a born leader, a lone bright star in the seething mass of— of stupid people and complete bitches like Enid Tosh. While their cretinous lives were consumed by petty games of status, I was reading literature— literature thought too advanced for someone of my age and sex, to be clear— reading literature, and mapping heretofore unexplored wall passages, and plotting how I, with my prowess and suchforth, might singlehandedly restore the good name of my once-applauded family. This plotting took the totality of my teen-aged years, but could not come to fruition before I discovered the key to my future— the embodiment of my once-dormant destiny— a magyckal creature, which many cretinous types have doubted could possibly exist, but which I never once ceased to—"

"Richard."

"—and I dubbed him— you can't just say it! Gil!" You throw your hands up. "You made me skip some sentences! I had a whole thing— yes, Richard, okay? I found Richard in a box and he told me I could restore the Fawkins name by going underwater and finding some stupid crown and I went underwater and found the crown and lost the crown and I'm stuck here now. Probably forever. That's it. Happy? I could've said that all awesome and fancy, but you made me— you interrupted me, and now look! Good job. I hope you're happy."

"You found him i-i-in a box?"

"He's not very big," you say defensively. "I think he was asleep. I can't really remember."

"I-I guess..." Gil trails off.

There's a period of silence. "So did you like that?" you say.

"Did I like...?"

"My backst— my life story. Did you think it was cool? Are we all cleared up now? I told you everything, so now you know-know me, or whatever stupid thing you were—"

"Um..."

Your heart sinks.

"...I-I thought it was... you were, um, trying really hard, so thanks for that, but I-I— I didn't—"

"Was it at least cool?" you say. "Like you heard it, and you thought I sounded really awesome and cool, and maybe this has improved your opinion of—"

"I-I-I-I don't need to think you're awesome and cool! Lottie! I don't need—" Gil stops to collect himself. "I don't need convinced."

"Wait, you—"

"I-I-I-I-I think you're cool, okay? Let's just get that out of the way. I think that. I think you do things I-I'd never think about in a million years and every time I think you're gonna die and you never die. The first time I-I-I ever saw you, you set my goddamn prison on fire. Okay? That's not a— that's not the issue! The issue is that when I-I-I say I want to get to know you like a normal person, you think that means— you think that means I-I need some kind of monologue about your parents fucking?"

"I never used that word," you say stiffly. (He thinks you're cool?)

"I-it doesn't... it doesn't matter. Please, I-I just..." Gil whirs gently. "...I-I-I just don't understand how you work. And I-I guess I don't have to, exactly, you don't owe me that. But I-I-I don't think I can be anything more than just an— an assistant, I guess, if I never... if you never let me see anything that isn't cool and awesome. Or try to pretend it's like that."

You scratch roughly at the blindfold.

"I-I guess I'm trying to say that I trusted you to see my whole... my stupid goddamn life, and most of it was pathetic, Lottie. I-I-I was there. Most of it was pathetic. And you want to be my friend or something and I-I don't think you trust me back even a little bit and I-I-I don't have a ton of experience but I don't think those are compatible. ...That's all."

(Choices next.)

>>5369428
What . . . He wants to see us break?

Not gonna happen. We didn't break when our mom had her MOMENTS. We didn't break when our Aunt tried to make us something we weren't, something lesser. We didn't break when Enid Tosh was an uremitting bitch. We didn't break when Richard was a Dick. We didn't break when we lost the CROWN THAT RULES THE FREAKING WORLD.

We've spent our whole life not breaking, thank you but no if we start breaking now then what if we can't stop.

He's going to have to settle for watching us be awesome until we either rule the world or, well, they say you haven't failed until you've given up so there's only one option here.

It's not like we wanted to see Gil vulnerable and weak. We don't think of him that way anyways, mostly, so it's not really fair to want us to be the same way when even he isn't that way any more.

He took a frigging bullet for us, that's certified badass. He infiltrated Headspace and started some shit. Certified. Badass. Shows the good influence we've been on him. We are sorry anout getting him shot though. That sucked.

Bathic is having internet trouble and asked me to post the options:
>[1] Okay, well, he's right. You don't owe him this, and as a matter of fact you're kind of angry he doesn't think your life story was good enough. Pointedly change the subject to the Ellery breaking-and-entering.
>[2] He wants to hear about things that aren't cool and awesome? Well, sorry, the vast majority of you is cool and awesome. You *guess* there's a *handful* of exceptions, which he can— well, if he wants them so bad, *maybe* you can mention some. (You may pick multiple if desired.)
>>[A] Attempt to explain the whole mess with your father and Richard and forgetting everything.
>>[B] Attempt to explain the way Richard treats you sometimes. Well, most of the time.
>>[C] Admit that you're somewhat unsure how one is meant to "make friends" with another person.
>>[D] Admit that you don't really know what you're doing most of the time.
>>[E] Write-in. [Possible roll if it's heavy enough.]
>[3] Write-in.

>>5369680
>[2AB]

I am Bathic and can confirm >>5369680 are the intended options. Thanks anon.

>>5369541
Thanks for taking the no-options plunge, lol. I'll accept this as a [3].

>>5369680
>2ACD
baby steps

>>5369680
>>2ACD

>>5369689
Lol I was going for "deny it in a way that actually tells a lot about a person". No, I'm fine, I wasn't bothered at all about our Aunt always making us feel like we were bad, the kids at school making us feel bad, our mother being unavailable, or our father being gone. We definitely didn't cling to our Noble status as a justification they were wrong and don't have a burning drive to prove they were wrong, or any trust issues at all leading to insecure overcompensation because no matter how well we do there's the fear that they were right!

Why would Gil ever think that. We certainly don't.

Man. I can't wait for Charlotte to one day meet her Aunt and hurt her in ways only parents can comprehend when we show her just how well we are doing having an adventure, meeting gods, having a retainer and magyckal powers and THE SWORD. Telling her that even though we know it's all our fault our mom is ill and left, we're going to be the one to fix it and she can just leave because we never needed her so why did she even bother staying just to try and hurt us all the time.

We even got our Dad back, kind of. More or less. Hey, Richard set the standards for changing who people are by messing around with our memory and who we were, so he can just stop whining about us making him a better Richard, the Richard we actually need him to be.

>>5369688
>2AB

>>5369734
>>5369780
>2ACD

>>5369541
>Write-in

Called for 2ACD and writing.

>>5369824
Yeah, no problem! [3] is just the "write-in" option, since the tone you took was pretty markedly different from [1]. And hey, wait, you can't just psychoanalyze Charlotte out in the open like that, next thing you know she's gonna start becoming "self aware" or something :^)

Blagh, I think I started too late tonight. Gonna head to bed early and see if I can crank this out during the day instead, though my track record for day writing is admittedly not spectacular.

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>*slaps head of Charlotte* this YOUNG WOMAN can fit so many MENTAL PROBLEMS in here

"So— so you want me to be negative?" you say. "You want me to be a— a negative thinker? Like you? You want me to have a breakdown, Gil? Because that's what negative thinking leads to— mental weakness, and patheticism, and- and a complete dulling of the noble spirit, because, you know, if you start negative thinking you can't ever stop, it's pathological, is what it is— it rots your faculties. So you are no longer able to control yourself, and where previously you would stand strong and unbowed like a- a positive-thinking mighty tree— now you collapse from any minor inconvenience. Which is not an appropriate trait for a heroine. Of course—"

Gil's silence makes you feel a little weird. (Not negative-weird, of course, just regular-weird.) "Of course, um, I'm not saying that you're weak, and pathetic, and have, um— I was just speaking generally. In a general sense. I think you're... you have a lot of good qualities... it was cool how you, um, fought the Headspace people."

"That wasn't me," he says shortly.

"Well, it was basically— and also you took that bullet for me? And almost died, Gil, I think that's—"

"I didn't take a bullet for you. I was a fucking hostage."

You lift your blindfold a tiny bit over your good eye and are pleased to discover you can see something. You are less pleased to recollect that Gil, being a mound of beetles, has no facial expression to decipher. "See," you say reproachfully. "You're negative thinking right now."

"Yeah." Is he annoyed at being called out? He sounds bitter. "Alright, I-I-I think we're about done, then. Come get me i-i-i-i-if you think I'll actually be any help with anything. Or just leave me here. I-It doesn't really matter."

"Yes it—" He's rising into the air. "Hey! Of course it matters! Gil! Sit down! We were in the middle of— I think you help with things, you just— please come down? You know I can't fly, so it's not fair that— it's not fair. The only reason I can't tell you about any of my stupid problems is because I don't have any, okay? It's like you said. I'm— I'm just that magnificently cool. I've never had problems in my whole life. I don't ever know what a problem is, really. I— I just— GIL!"

He's out of arm's reach, even if you jumped. He's taken up residence near the top of one of the gleaming white columns. You push the blindfold all the way off your good eye and scrabble to your feet. "Come DOWN! You're not allowed to be up— put your BODY on! Where even is it?! I spent a DAY working on it, and you just—"

"I-I-It's not here. I-I-I-I-I took it to my locus."

"And left it there?!"

"No. I-I'm in it. I-I-I just left myself here so you wouldn't get nervous."

What? He— actually, now that you're looking at him, he does seem smaller than usual. You don't know how to feel about this. "Oh. Um. Will you come down now? Please?"

(1/3?)

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The longer Gil doesn't respond, the worse you start to feel. Which is obviously nonsensical, seeing how you've done nothing wrong (in your whole life!) and therefore he's the one asking ridiculous things from you. You don't have any problems, at least any of any consequence or relevance to your day-to-day life. And if you did have problems you've solved them already. Like Richard. You solved Richard. (Where is Richard?) And you already decided the memory thing wasn't an issue. And you have a retainer and are on very good track to resolving the Ellery thing and kidnapping thing and everything. So there's just nothing to talk about, really. That's not your fault. There's just nothing. So if your chest could stop tightening, that would be—

"I, uh," you say, "well, I mean, I do have— most people look at me and assume that I have everything all planned out. Like, I bet you think I've predicted out how all of this would go from the start, since I'm always so good at everything, you know. But the truth is that I— I really didn't have a plan. And I usually don't. Richard's the one who makes all the plans. I just do things."

"...I-I really don't think I could've guessed that..."

"Yes! See!" You place your hands on your hips. "Nobody can! It's just my secret. I didn't even have a plan when I came down here. When you said I do stuff and you always think I'm gonna die— sometimes I think I might die too! And then I don't! My positive thinking and noble spirit always pull through, and that's what being a heroine is about, Gil. Though I do get— sometimes I get injured. Occasionally. But Richard fixes it, so it's all okay."

"He... fixes it."

"Or he makes my body fix it... I don't know how it works. He lives in my head, so he can do that kind of stuff. I guess you also live in my head, but..." You shrug. "Maybe you can do that too. Who knows?"

"...Maybe. Um..." Gil creeps a little ways down the column. "What i-is Richard exactly? I-I-I've never been entirely clear on..."

"He's a snake," you say, and frown. "I thought I said that."

"...You did, but, um, I-I-I feel like i-it's a little more complicated than..."

Oh, God. You already told him one thing— shouldn't that be enough? Does he need to know about the whole Richard debacle? It's weird. But on the other hand it isn't your fault at all, so far as you know, so if you already told Gil about the aunt and mother situation than it can't be too much worse. Surely? "...Er, it's really not— there's not very much to it. He's just my father who got a snake in his brain and died so the snake bit is kind of him but without any nice parts and he can't actually remember being my father either. And also I can't remember him being my father. But my mind still thinks he is, even though he isn't, which is why he's a man instead of a snake inside here and he acts nice very occasionally. But he's still a snake most of the time."

"..." (Oh, God, he thinks it's weird.) "...No shit?"

(2/3?)

You try to remember what that means. "No? Or— or yes? That is the complete and honest truth, um, I think. It's just what Richard thinks happened. He doesn't really know either."

"Well, I-I-I, uh... aw, geez." He quivers in place. "You're sure?"

"Um... no. That's what I said. Nobody really—"

"That thing is your dead dad. You've been riding along with your dead dad—"

"I don't know if he really qualifies as my father anymore," you say uncomfortably. "Or as dead. I think he's just an alive... snake."

"—with your creepy dead snake dad for— for how long?"

"Three years... um, I think. I can't really—"

"—for three years— holy shit. I-I-I mean, my pops was a dickhead too, but at least he didn't tag along to literally haunt me... no wonder you're so fucked up! I-I-I think anybody'd be—"

"I'm not... effed up," you say.

"I-I-I-I-I mean— you know what I mean. Still. God-damn. And you- you can't remember him at all from when he was alive? Are you sure he didn't just go erase—"

You fold your arms tighter. "Pretty sure."

"Really? Because he— he does that. I-I-I hope you know that. He goes and erases your memory, and you act like things never happened, and—"

"When it's for a good reason. He wouldn't just get rid of my whole— it's just because the whole snake thing happened, and snakes do that, I guess. So it's fine."

"I-I mean... if you're sure... okay." Gil is circling around the edge of the column. (Pacing?) "And what does he want? I-I-I hope you're not being haunted for no good—"

"He's not haunting me," you say. "And he— he used to want me to find the crown, um, the Second Crown, it's a fancy... relic sort of thing. And then when I found it he wanted me to fill it up. But then I lost it— were you there for that? I think you were there— I lost it, and, um, I don't really know what he wants anymore. I don't know if he knows what he wants. He's been acting weird."

"I-I guess weird is better than... creepy and mean?"

"He's not creepy," you say. "But yeah. Um. I might try and find the Crown again... I'm not really sure anymore. Am I doing this right?"

"What?"

"I've never had a f— a retainer before, so I don't know how one is really intended to... forge the iron bond of companionship. And whatnot. All the books start after that's already happened."

"Aw. Um..." Gil freezes in place. "I-I-I guess you're— you're doing, uh, better? You're doing better than— um— I-I-I-I appreciate all the, um, explanations? I-I don't know how to judge the—"

He sounds embarrassed. (You're not wholly sure why.) "Okay, good. I was just checking."

"I-I know." He's marching all in the opposite direction now. "Um... sorry. I-I-I've been kind of a— I've been a dick, to you, and I-I just— I-I-I don't know if that was fair, and—"

You hesitate.

(Choices next.)

>[A1] Tell him it's okay.
>[A2] Tell him he should never do it again.
>[A3] Tell him it's okay but he should never do it again.
>[A4] Extend your GRACIOUS MAGNANIMINTY (which you are known for throughout the land) towards your BELOVED RETAINER.
>[A5] Write-in.

>[B1] Tell him about the whole 'breaking into Ellery's head' situation.
>[B2] Recruit him for the rescuing-Madrigal mission.
>[B3] Wait, so he's got his own manse, and he can just go there now? There's another Gil in there at this very moment? Is there a door or something? Can you go see it?
>[B4] The whole Possibly Madrigal situation has made you start thinking about the viability of a goo body. It could look like him and everything! Bring it up and see how Gil reacts.
>[B5] Write-in?

>>5370749
>[A4] Extend your GRACIOUS MAGNANIMINTY (which you are known for throughout the land) towards your BELOVED RETAINER.
>[B4] The whole Possibly Madrigal situation has made you start thinking about the viability of a goo body. It could look like him and everything! Bring it up and see how Gil reacts.

>>5370749
>>[A4] Extend your GRACIOUS MAGNANIMINTY (which you are known for throughout the land) towards your BELOVED RETAINER.
>>[B4] The whole Possibly Madrigal situation has made you start thinking about the viability of a goo body. It could look like him and everything! Bring it up and see how Gil reacts.

>>5370748
>A5
Tell him that you now have an IRON BOND of f- retainership. Or soon will, anyways, so it's okay. It's okay. This was okay. He's okay, you're okay, and IRON BOND so we can stop talking about your deadish dadsnake and memories.

Wait. Can he use his godstuff to see our erased memories?

> B3 and B4, mentioning that when we go to rescue Maddie maybe we can snag him a goo body

>>5370749
>A3
>B3

No further update tonight. Will do my best to write on the airplane tomorrow.

>>5370858
>Wait. Can he use his godstuff to see our erased memories?
You have no idea and he definitely has no idea. While you can't rule that out at the moment (it's a little bit of a stretch but not 100% outside what the blessing told you), you're going to have to convince him it even exists before figuring out the details.

>>5371069
Doesn't sound like anything a few rounds of peek-a-boo won't convince anyone of.

Just gotta give him enough incentive to activate his God power.

We should make the offer. After all, he comes back. What's more ridiculus, a sometimes there beetleman or special god magyck?

I dunno if he is willing to unlock his potential that way, but I have >85% confidence Charlotte absolutely would.

>>5370749
Or maybe we could persuade him to try to use his god powers by talking to him about how growing up we wanted magyckal powers so damn bad, after all we had suffered more than enough to deserve them because no normal person had to deal with all the stuff we did so it was either we were a heroine with a tragic backstory or the world was just too damn terrible.

And here he is with the same powers we wanted so badly and he won't even *try* to use them despite us telling him he has them. Because we have magyckal powers too now, and it's great and justifies our belief that we were a heroine. He could totally be more than just a retainer, he could be our *sidekick* who ALSO has magyckal powers from a capital G God. But he's just throwing that away, and refusing to even believe in your magyckal powers too.

Without.

Even.

Trying.

Leaving for the airport in a little bit. Vote is called for [A3] and [A4].

>>5371140
>Doesn't sound like anything a few rounds of peek-a-boo won't convince anyone of.
Sheesh, major early-threads Charlotte vibes.

>We should make the offer. After all, he comes back.
You could make the offer, but Gil point-blank isn't going to accept it. Being vanished is psychologically distressing, if nothing else, and there's no incentive for him to go along with it because he doesn't (want to) believe the incentive exists.

>I dunno if he is willing to unlock his potential that way, but I have >85% confidence Charlotte absolutely would.
I think Charlotte would try it... once, see Gil get panicky about it, feel weird-bad and play it off as an accident. Repeatedly erasing him from existence despite his protests would be cruel, even if it's for a "good reason," and while Charlotte is highly capable of cruelty she tends to reserve it towards perceived "enemies" (e.g. she'd be perfectly comfortable repeatedly vanishing Horse Face). Gil is her f- retainer and she doesn't want to hurt him. Speaking more OOC, this is also a relatively cute moment that I'd be uncomfortable injecting dark comedy (at best) into, so I'm going to blanket veto even an initial attempt.

>>5371534
This is less morally objectionable, but it seems excessive when he hasn't formally disagreed to trying or testing anything. You guys just haven't taken any of the opportunities provided to bring it up, or force the matter, or even just ask for ideas for how to help. To the point where I wasn't (and still am not) entirely sure if this was something you guys wanted to pursue at all.

>House tour

"I- I- do not trouble your mind with such stu— such trifling matters, good sir! I knoweth not of what 'dickishness' you might possibly— I mean, I do, but it's not— we got it all sorted, didn't we? We're okay."

"...Really?" Gil says.

"Y-es. Yes! For I am a profoundly mag— magni— magm— gracious individual, who fails to take slight at, um— at people being jerks at me for no reason, when I'm just trying to- to be nice— but this is not even a problem! Because we have, Gil, on this very day, forgeth the iron bond of retainership, which— which ensures—" You are running out of steam. "—yes, we're okay, and, and don't have to talk about this anymore. Especially the father stuff. Totally over and done with and good. So, um, you're not all here? This is only half of you, or—?"

"I-I-I think I'm about a third... um, sorry." He alights from the column and hovers tentatively just above eye level. "I-I-I wasn't trying to avoid you or anything, I just thought I could, um, multitask..."

"I didn't think you—" (Was he trying to avoid you?) "I was just wondering how you got to your manse? Is it— is it in your head? Why couldn't you just go there instead of being trapped in that stupid beetle place?"

"I-I, um, I don't know. I thought it got all fucked up when I— you know, but I-I-I think I was just the fucked-up one, um— because I did try to access it, I-I-I just... it didn't work. But then we found it after the... stuff happened, and I- I—"

"And it works now?"

"Um, I-I had to jack— rig up one of those doors down there, but— why do you have all those doors down there?"

You shove up the blindfold a little more (it's more of an eyepatch now) and glance behind you. "No idea," you say honestly. "Richard probably had some kind of plan for them. So I can just walk in one of those and go in your manse?"

"...Yeah, but—"

"Can I?"

"I-I-It's really nothing to look at, but, um, if you want to, then—"

"I want to," you declare. "Why not?"

Faced with this irrefutable logic, Gil leads you in stops and starts down the length of your manse. "Doesn't it feel weird to split yourself off?" you say conversationally.

"Not really...? I-I feel basically the same as always... it's not like I-I-I can see from two places at once or anything. Remembering two different things later is worse, but— i-i-it's this one." He thunks against a sheeny black door. "You should just be able to go i-in, so far as I—"

The bronze doorhandle is warm and greasy-feeling and you grimace as you push it down. The space behind it is pure white, for several moments, before flickering and becoming dizzying blackness, at which point Gil bangs himself against the side of the door and it resolves into a blue sky and scrubby hill and a house. Is house a good word for it? A structure which used to be a house, but which is now evidently mid-demolition. Half a house, a lot of rubble, and a dust cloud.

(1/4?)

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"Goodness gracious," you say.

"Yeah, I-I-I kind of figured," Gil says. "I-I-It's just me. You can go in."

So you go in. The sun in Gil's manse is high and the grass crunches noisily under your feet, which compliments the incessant banging inside the house-ruins. "GIL!" you howl over the din. "GIL! Not you. OTHER GIL! 2/3RDS GIL! ARE YOU—"

The banging halts. "...LOTTIE?"

"Aw shit," your Gil mumbles. "YEAH!" you yell back.

"UM... GIVE ME A SECOND..." He doesn't sound particularly enthused. (You guess you are interrupting his banging.) "I-I'LL BE RIGHT THERE..."

You march the rest of the way up the hill, reaching the top just as Other Gil opens the (still-standing) front door. You notice several things all at once: he's only in his sweat-stained undershirt, he's wearing funny-looking goggles, and he's clutching a sledgehammer half his height in his left hand. "Geez," you say.

"Hi, Lottie," he says distractedly, and cranes his neck to see past you. "Where is he?"

"Who?" You look back too. "Him? You?"

"Yeah. Hey, asshole!" He steps out past you, onto the porch steps. "Did you get hit on the head? Because I seem to remember something we were in agreement on, last I checked, and now I'm seeing—" He's jabbing the sledgehammer's handle toward you.

"I changed my mind," your Gil says. "Is there something wrong with that? Your hair looks like shit, by the way."

Other Gil's hair has fallen down over his forehead. "Is there something wrong with that? I don't know, is there something— oh, hell."

He hits his head with the flat of his palm several times; his grip on the sledgehammer has slackened. You follow him out onto the porch to discover the beetles streaming steadily toward him. "Are you trying to stop it, moron?" he says without moving his mouth. His voice is smeary. "Shouldn't have gotten so close. This is for the best anyway, we—"

He lurches forward, reaching simultaneously down to his chest: there he pops open a small hatch. A mushroom-cloud of beetles ejects from him (he wobbles there rigid and dead) and rockets forth to meet the other set, whereupon they bunch outward to form a familiar blobbish swarm-shape. "Aw, man," Gil says. "Aw, geez. You- you- Lottie?"

"Yeah?"

"Richard's your dead dad?"

You scowl. "You already learned that once. You don't have to rub it in."

"I-I-I-I'm not trying to— sorry. I-I just—" He's retreating back to his body, and shuts and slams the hatch when the last beetle is inside. "Um, and sorry for— for having to see that, I-I-I wasn't in a very good... mood."

"You have a sledgehammer," you observe.

"Um... yeah. I-I-I-I was knocking the walls down. Or still am, maybe, I-I wasn't really finished..." He wipes sweat from his eyes. "I-I-I guess you can come see?"

You would've burnt it down, personally, but you can admire wanton destruction in any of its forms. "Okay!"

(2/4)

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Gil seems faintly embarrassed at the state of the house: the 'intact' walls are riddled with sledgehammer-sized holes, and everything else is in varying states of torn-down. You can't see any real pattern to the damage, except that he seems to have picked a few areas to really focus on: the wall he leads you to is surrounded by plaster chunks and open sky.

You nod approvingly. "Pretty good. Can I knock anything down? Or do you have it all—"

"Um... I-I wanted to finish this one, first, but... maybe? Can you lift this?"

"Gil, it's not a real sledgehammer."

"Oh yeah." He lifts it a little. "Feels pretty heavy to me, but— I-I don't know. I-I-I can give you a go in a little bit, I guess, if you want to... sit down, or stand over there, or..."

You sit down on a big slab of wall and prop your chin on your hands. "Gil," you say at an elevated volume (he's begun whacking the wall.) "I've been thinking about something. About getting you a real body."

He pauses midswing. "A girl one?"

"Not a— not a girl one. Unless you wanted that?" (He screws up his face.) "Okay, not a girl one. Actually, I was thinking it could look exactly like you. Pre-beetles."

The swing resumes. "How the hell do you plan that? I-I-I don't have any twins, Lottie. Unless you plan to magic me up a—"

"Okay, that was uncalled for," you say. "And no. I mean, I met maybe-Madrigal— did I tell you the end to that? She's not really Madrigal, and she used to work for Namway, so I'm gonna use her help to go find the real Madrigal, you might come along— anyhow, her face was made of goo. And she looked exactly like Madrigal, only a little drippy because the Court took a torch to her. Exactly like her. And Pat looked totally different when she was disguised. I think it could look like you, easy."

"...You want to make me a goo body?"

"Uh... yes. It'd look like you," you say hastily. "It'd be basically like having your real body all over again, only... squishier. And I think your clothes might be a part of you. But the alternative is us scooping up some fresh corpse from the Pillar, and that'd be some dead guy who wouldn't look like you at all, so—"

"Yeah, I-I-I-I... i-it's goddamn goo, though. I-I don't know if I can..." He pounds the butt of the sledgehammer against the floor. "I-I-I'll think about it. Maybe I-I can get used to the idea ahead of time..."

"Great!" (To tell the truth, you weren't super enthused about the prospect of corpse-hunting.) "You can keep sledgehammering. That's all."

(3/4)

Gil does keep sledgehammering, falling into a steady rhythm— you tap your foot every time the hammerhead comes down. It looks heavy, admittedly, but Gil is handling it like it's nothing special. (Maybe he's stronger than you thought? But he is pouring sweat, so maybe not.) Each blow widens the craggy hole in the wall, and it's only when it's big enough to step through that Gil sidesteps and begins work on a second hole. He's racked up three-and-a-bit when the wall begins to shake visibly: you get off your slab and step back, just in case. Gil ducks through one of the holes instead as the entire thing crashes down around him, sending up a shower of paint chips and a cloud of dust.

As you cough and squint, you belatedly realize the purpose of the goggles. It's some time before the air clears (or really, before your dust cloud wafts up to join the greater dust cloud hovering over the house), and you busy yourself with brushing yourself down and adjusting your eyepatch. Only when Gil says "What the hell?" do you look up directly into the rheumy yellow eyes of Richard.

You'd expected the wall to open up into the outdoors, and you suspect Gil did too, but instead you stare at a little cobwebby broom closet. It's hardly big enough to house Richard standing, much less splayed out how he is. But he has managed. You would politely term how he appears as 'out of sorts.' Less politely—

"Is he drunk?" Gil says.

You're uncertain. You've seen Richard drunk before, of course, but even piss-drunk he's retained a bulletproof layer of poise. "Poise" is a foreign word to the whoever-this-is in front of you, who leans up a little and half-growls half-gargles something impenetrable: "?????????????????????"

"What?"

"??????????????????????????????????," says Richard(?), and then you realize it's not that he's slurring his words— he just isn't saying words. Or words you know of, anyhow. Richard? you think. Hello? Richard. Richard. Richard! Say words!

"??????," he says curtly, then blinks. "Char...lie."

"That's me!" He's not saying it right, though. It's all halting and off, like this is the first time he's said 'Charlie' and not the thirty thousandth. Did he drink so much he rotted his brain clean through? "...Are you okay?"

His laugh is broken. "Def— def-ine that."

You glance at Gil, whose eyes are wide. "Are you dying or anything?"

"No." Richard leans up a little. His lips are drawn back over his gums. "Very a-live. Disappoint?"

>[1] Okay, you're not qualified for this. Richard is a grown snake/man who can handle his alcohol poisoning(??) himself. Shut the (now metaphorical) door on him and smash walls with Gil until you get bored.
>[2] Fine! This is at least vaguely intriguing, and you have stuff to hash out with Richard. Attempt to engage.
>>[A] Say stuff. Questions? Comments? (Write-in. Optional.)
>>[B] COMMUNE with Richard to ascertain the true nature of this predicament! [Spend 1 ID.] (Optional)
>>[C] Write-in.

Update theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnMmRVfybN4

Also, I am back home from my trip, so please expect updates back at their usual 3-hours-earlier time. (Still the middle of the night, so it doesn't make much difference, but whatever.)

>>5372536
Haha, the firewater done fucked him up. And he didn't know it would, or he'd never let us drink it. He didn't know he didn't know, neener neener! Who's a stupid snake? You are!
Don't say it to him though. it's enough to know it in our heart of hearts.

>[B] COMMUNE with Richard to ascertain the true nature of this predicament! [Spend 1 ID.] (Optional)

>>5372536
Oh. Ohohohohohoho.

Get him a glass of water. Drunk people need water. Be kind, and considerate, of the *lightweight* here who can't handle his booze. Let him know you had a GREAT time with your new frie. . . nds. Yeah. Sure. They bought, well, gave you drinks and you had toasts and regaled them with your tales of heroism. It was great.

How has he been?

>>5372536
>B
I mean it's definitely the firewater, but I wanna try communing

>>5372536
>[2B]

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>>5372608
>>5372669
>>5372671
>>5372672
>2B
Writing.

>Richard cringe compilation

There's points in time where you'd be glad to see Richard dead, but this whole display is either some sort of trap or a sign of something very wrong. You shift your weight. "Um, I'm not disappointed, I just— were you in there the whole time?"

He waves a hand stiffly. "Ease."

"Um... okay." You look at Gil for help: he's clutching the sledgehammer in both hands and seems about as nonplussed as you are. "Do you need some... water?"

"??????," he snarls, and coughs moistly into his fist. "Kaff... cof-fee. Char-lie. Get cof-fee to me."

"Coffee"? The nasty-smelling stuff he was feeding to Madrigal? Water was plausible, but you have no clue where you'd obtain (or how to conjure up) "coffee." "Gil!" you hiss. "Do you know what coffee is? I think the Headspace people were drinking it, but I don't know if you—"

"...I-I-I think I might...?" He grimaces. "Maybe? But, um, I-I'd rather not get it wrong, all things considered, so—"

"He's not going to know the difference! He's piss-drunk, Gil—"

"Or drugged?"

"Or— or drugged—" You snatch another glance of Richard, who's lolled back onto his side. "I don't know how he'd be drugged, he's— oh, damn. Damn."

"...What?"

"Firewater. Go get him coffee!" You shoo Gil away before pivoting back. "He's getting it," you say loudly. "So don't worry. Are you... okay? I know you're not dying, but you seem pretty, um..."

"Drunk," Richard says deliberately.

"Oh." You weren't expecting him to admit it. "Well, yes. I might be too, a little— the Court thing went pretty well, so you know. They bought me— got me drinks, and we— I told them about killing the gooplicate, and they told me about, um, me, and— you didn't have to help at all, not that you could, probably. Seeing how you're, um, drunk. Yes. But, I mean, very— very much so. Extraordinarily... so. More than I'd expect from a regular evening of..."

"Flask." He mimes something in his hand. "Bour- bour-bon. All of it. Stick shift now."

"I... see." You don't see. You immediately miss having Gil around, if only to have confirmation this is complete gibberish. "Do you need a, um, a stick? I'm sure Gil could get you a—"

"Stu-pid." He bares his teeth. (There's more of them than you remembered.) "Stick shift. No de-lay. No grease. No lex-is. All me."

"You," you say. "...Drunk."

"Yes."

"O...kay." You step gingerly over the rubble and crouch in front of him. His eyes are yellow— smooth and featureless and glassy yellow— and you'd be lying if you said it wasn't unnerving. "Gil will be back with the coffee soon... I hope. In the meantime, I, um— you wanted to observe this, didn't you? And I'd like to, er, observe you. So it's a win-win. So you won't get mad at me if I, um—"

(1/3)

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You reach out a hand toward his forehead before he can respond, grimace a little when you make contact— it's damp— and try to remember how it works. You touch (done), you focus your intent (attempting), you see—

Oh. You slide the blindfold down your face. The world fades to white— halfway, until you blink rapidly and it brightens and clears again.

>[LOST: Firewater II (as it's been a few hours since you partook)]

You touch, you focus, and as Richard twitches underneath you you see through.

>[-1 ID: 9/13]

There could've been any number of things inside the depths of Richard's Very Being. Ichor. Tar. Snakes. You would've put money on snakes. Even one snake would've been plausible— boring, maybe, obvious, but plausible. You are therefore put out when you plunge into the depths of Richard's very being (no mean feat! it's Richard! even if he is sloshed) and discover there absolutely God-damn nothing.

Not like Horse Face. Not an arid wasteland or graveyard. Not a desolate ice-plain or a starry vacuum or even a space of pure white or black or anything. Nothing. N/A. Richard's very being is... depthsless.

You withdraw as if stung and stare down at Richard. That can't be right. Can't it? You might've believed it from snake-him, who's mechanical enough already, but not— he's smiling faintly. "Bastard," you snarl, and try again.

>[-1 ID: 8/13]

Nothing. Still nothing. Dead air. It has to be a trick, or a test, or— it's Richard, for God's sake, drunk-Richard is still Richard, he won't just let you. Something's amiss. You breathe deep and attempt a systematic probe of the nothing. There's nothing there. Hollow there. Empty there. (You feel a bit foolish.) Nothing there, though there it has a little give— give? And you push and the false bottom falls through and you with it and you- [bright light / beige-offgrey / cleaning fluid / buzzing / sc??]??????¿???]?]¿¿]

-r hand is being clenched, hard, Richard's taken hold of it and yanks it down and pincers it under his shoulder— "Ow!" you say, and he reaches back up and grabs your scalp ("Ow!") and— you can't say he punches through it. Because you can't see that, and you would rather not conject. But his elbow is in your face, and there is a sound like paper crunching, and instantly you see spots—

>[-2 ID: 6/13]

—and when he withdraws his hand your head swims. "What the hell!" you say, or try to: you hear 'what the hell,' but your mouth doesn't make the right shapes for it. "What the hell," you try again. (Wrong shapes.) "What the..."

"Shut up," Richard says irritably. "Dumb bitch."

You're startled enough to shut up.

"Finally. Wish you'd do that every time." He sits up fully, releasing your hand. "What the fuck do I have to do to make it happen every..."

(2/3)

He sounds drunk. (And looks it. He's bracing his hands against the ground just to stay upright.) But he's also... "Um," you say. "You're speaking."

"You're real clever, Charlie. Real clever. Genius-level. You should be dissected by sharp instruments. I was always speaking."

"Yeah..." you say, "...'speaking.' You were like a mountain-person, or some sort of—"

"Excuse me," Richard says, "if I don't have your- your shitty language committed to memory. It is additionally overly difficult to pronounce."

You open your mouth, attempt to articulate something like four questions at once, and close your mouth.

"Good choice. You should know what things you're equipped for, which is... not most things. You're pretty shit at most things, Charlie... mnh." He presses a hand to his forehead. "Most things. Except the things you should be shit at. I guess that's some kind of talent... should take you apart by sharp instruments, figure that out. Heh."

"Um," you say.

"Relax." The teeth again. "By law I can't. If I were up to code I wouldn't be able to conceive of it."

"But you're... not."

"So, so clever. So fucking intelligent, Charlotte Fawkins. At the present moment I am violating code so badly I'm shocked the monitors haven't gone and dissected themselves with sharp instruments."

"You're not supposed to be drunk," you attempt.

"And on the clock, Charlie! On the clock!" He raises his eyebrows in mock-horror. "On the precious fucking... but it doesn't matter. That's the secret. That's what they don't want you to figure out. That none of it matters, has never mattered, and all of our efforts have been pathetic wastes of time from the beginning."

"You said this before."

"It remains true," Richard says archly.

>[A1] Protest. What? No it doesn't! Obviously the things you do matter, or it'd just be weird and depressing. (You don't like Richard all weird and drunk and depressing.)
>[A2] Accuse Richard of attempting reverse psychology to get you to go look for the Crown(?) again. He'd do that.
>[A3] Equivocate. You can't really say what does or doesn't matter if you don't know what he's talking about and how he suddenly came to this conclusion. What does this actually mean for you?
>[A4] Stay quiet. You might or might not agree, but provoking drunk Richard into a screed and/or tirade seems like a bad idea.
>[A5] Write-in.

>[B] ...Other questions? Comments? (Write-in. Optional.)

>>5373620
>[A3] Equivocate. You can't really say what does or doesn't matter if you don't know what he's talking about and how he suddenly came to this conclusion. What does this actually mean for you?

>>5373620
>A3

is he just going to keep whining about this forever
without ever explaining properly
low EQ move right there

>>5373620
>[A3] Equivocate. You can't really say what does or doesn't matter if you don't know what he's talking about and how he suddenly came to this conclusion. What does this actually mean for you?

>>5373620
>>[A3] Equivocate. You can't really say what does or doesn't matter if you don't know what he's talking about and how he suddenly came to this conclusion. What does this actually mean for you?

File: low eq.png (32 KB, 1500x1000)

32 KB PNG

>>5373690
>>5373851
>>5374356
>>5374418
>A3
Democracy at work. Writing.

>>5373851
>low EQ move right there
>implying Richard hasn't always been stupidly low EQ

>>5373851
>low EQ
>>5374610
>implying Richard hasn't always been stupidly low EQ

Well yeah, snakes have pretty small brains compared to their overall size.

>stop being LAME richard

"Okay," you say, "but it's— it's— it's boring. It was sort of interesting the first time, but you're just repeating yourself, now, and— I don't know what you want me to do about it. I don't even know what it means. You're the worst at explaining things, by the way, you're the only person I know who goes and drops stupid cryptic GS on me and just expects me to—"

"If you were smarter you'd understand it. It's very simple. Very very simple." Richard blinks hard. "The world is gonna end."

On second thought, maybe it's a good thing Gil left. "...What? Like right now?"

"Now... tomorrow... in a thousand fucking years... who knows?"

"But you just said—" You take a deep breath. "You just said it was going to, and usually that means you do know, so—"

"It's supposed to, Charlie. It's supposed to. But it's been supposed to for..." He shrugs.

"...It's late," you say.

"It's taking unexpectedly long— there's no deadline per se. But it will happen. And I have therefore concluded that it matters little when it happens, or who brings it about, given that the result is always the same. And consequently it doesn't matter at all the degree to which I have..." He rolls the words around in his mouth. "...fucked myself."

"Oh, come on." You might not understand most of what he's talking about, but at least you can grasp onto this. There's no need to be vulgar, Richard, I don't—"

"But I can be. And isn't that beautiful?"

"No," you say.

"Of course you'd say that, Charlie, it's your fault. Sometimes expletives are- good. They're healthy. I suspect you'd be significantly more- more psychologically sound if you could bring yourself to once in a while say 'fuck.'"

You, you have decided, dislike drunk Richard. "We're not talking about this. Are you going to explain how you effed up, or are you just gonna—"

He leans forward unsteadily. "Can't."

Yeah. See. "You just said nothing matters, like, multiple times. Many times. You were very insistent about this."

"Broadly, Charlie, broadly, not..." He scrunches his face up. "I'd like to enter this coming epoch as myself, not some slavish addlepated... son-of-a-bitch impostor. I would not like to jeopardize this by sharing with some idiot human girl sensitive information."

"Is the apocalypse sensitive information?"

"No," he says dismissively. "No. Common knowledge, apparent to anybody with two eyes and a working brain. So not—"

"Not me," you mutter. "Got it. And this was happening the whole time? The whole time I've been doing everything, the world's been about to—"

"Yes, yes, the whole time. Boo hoo." Richard yawns abruptly. "And- and for 200 r-years prior, also, Charlie, so—"

(1/3)

200 years? So the odds of it ending in your lifetime are comparatively slim, you guess. (Assuming Richard isn't lying just for fun, which... you'd give it 50-50.) This is good. You suppose this is good. You haven't wrapped your head around most of it yet. "Okay, so— what about the Crown? Is that related to the apocalypse, or— is it not related— I don't really know why you're telling me about this. You've never said anything about it before or anything. So I don't—"

"You asked... I provide. And the Crown?" He crosses one leg over the other stiffly— all his movements are stiff, like he's been afflicted with some horrid bone disease. "Doesn't matter."

"Um," you say. "I'm sure it matters a little—"

"And you'd be wrong. Doesn't matter. Us having it? Doesn't matter. The only trouble is—"

"...I can't get home without it?"

"No. Wrong. Wasn't going to say that. The only trouble is, I won't agree at all. See? I might see rationally that it's all a colossal waste of effort, but I—" He gestures a little to the left of himself. "I am hard-committed to one... task."

"The snake is," you mumble.

"Don't be a bitch. The snake, who is me. I am a— a snake. And when I resume that status and you say the Crown doesn't matter I will be incandescent, Charlie, I will be truly fucking pissed. So you must appease me. You will offer an alternate path forward."

You're not sure you're liking the direction this is going in.

"You will open yourself to more extensive alterations. And this will— will keep me occupied between stints of rationality, and it will provide you with many physical improv-v-v-v—"

He flickers badly and vanishes, just like that. The broom closet is empty. You blink. Is that it? Is that all? Imagine if he were gone forever. He won't be, but imag—

You blink again and he is returned. (Damn.) He is almost entirely changed: he is standing, and sunglassed, and stiff-backed. His suit is pressed. His shoes and wristwatch gleam. He's dis-disheveled... sheveled? Richard is sheveled. "???????," he says, and his teeth are white and completely human.

You frown. "What?"

"?????—" He gains a look of realization. "Charlie?"

"...Yeah?"

"A-ha. Charlie. Charlotte Fawkins. Would you like to sit down? Your legs must be getting tired."

They weren't, really, you'd been sitting for several hours prior (in between the reenacting), but his tone indicates it's more of a 'will' than a 'would.' And he's backing you out of the closet, besides. "...Sure," you say, "if you..."

"Fan-tastic!" He reaches behind you and yanks a chair into the back of your knees, forcing you to topple onto it. "Now, Charlie... we need to discuss the Crown."

"We just were?" you say. "Thirty seconds ago, we were—"

(2/3)

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

3.52 MB JPG

"Yes, yes. Whereupon you expressed your resistance to your heart's desire, your destiny— you expressed, let it be said, an inordinate amount of apathy and cynicism. I was shocked, Charlie. It wasn't anything like you. You used to have so much spirit about finding the Crown, so much verve, and yet—"

"That was— that was you. Um. You were the one just expressing apathy, and—"

Richard ignores you. "—it's been discarded, just like that. Your heroic spirit... extinguished. Your beloved family... abandoned. And I can't help but feel responsible, Charlie. I feel like I have not done enough to keep the fire going. To keep you motivated. And I realize too that I have left out some important details about the Crown—"

"Is it related to the apocalypse?" you say. "The apocalypse that's coming up? Any century now, I guess, but—"

Richard adjusts his sunglasses. "What apocalypse, Charlotte?"

Sometimes, you think, sometimes all you can do is sit back in your uncomfortable chair and let things happen to you. You can unpack them later. Right now they just have to happen. "Never... never mind. Important details?"

"Indeed." He laces his fingers, and unlaces them. "Indeed, it's more than that. I have not been entirely truthful. I have made finding the Crown out to be an entirely selfish endeavor. Queenhood for you. Godhood for you. It is possible I failed to realize your capacity for... altruism."

You nod. (You don't really know how he missed that. You've done nothing but good for as long as you can remember. But it's Richard, you guess.)

"If I hadn't, I may have revealed to you that my purpose was, and is, not entirely altruistic. I am of course in full support of your endeavors, and your noble aims and suchforth—" He's rushing through this. "—as I always have been, Charlie. But I too have, er, endeavors, and noble aims, the details of which I am forbidden to reveal, but I will tell as candidly as possible that the Crown is fated to play a critical role in the very fate of this world—"

"The apocalypse?" you say suspiciously.

"No! No. I don't know where you got that nonsense from." He clears his throat. "—the very fate of this world, and if utilized in the intended manner it will, and I do not exaggerate, usher us into a golden era the likes of which haven't been replicated for millennia. I am as stated previously unable to elaborate, but all of this is factual, Charlotte. So you must understand that, when I urge you to focus on re-finding this artifact, it is not out of frivolity or hatred, but out of deep and unswerving duty to an outcome of profound goodness. I sincerely hope this will cause you to reconsider your cynicism an-n-n-n—"

(3/4 jk)

"-v-vments. Physical improvements. Shit! What kind of idiot's interfering with my—" He's back. On the floor, that is, and dis-dis-disheveled. "Sorry, Charlie. Where the hell did you get that chair?"

That is a fantastic question. "I don't know."

"Of course you don't. Like I was saying, we forget the Crown. Dickface can take it and choke on it if he likes it so much. We forget it, and we pivot— we pivot to alterations. Bigger ones. Better ones. You'll be a monster. In- in a good way. Positive way. Positive thinking way, heh heh." He props up his head on his fist. "Agreed?"

>[1] ...Agreed? Commit to ignoring the Crown until you deal with all your other priorities. It's what you planned from the start— and this way you don't undercut your grand telling-off/niceification of Richard. (Also, maybe the alterations could be... cool?)
>[2] ...Disagreed? If he's not lying out his ass (50/50), the Crown being intended for a noble purpose— and the Gold-Masked Person surely out to pervert that— bumps it back up the priority list. You're still rescuing Madrigal and all that, but you can work on this on the side.
>[3] Write-in?

>>5374758
>3

> We worry about the crown at a later date, after we have our affairs here in order. As for the modifications, we'll see as needed. If they're just to keep Snake Richard busy, well, we can do that fine already. He bitches about it A LOT.

> Also we kinda still want the crown. Long term. We just need to gather allies and comrades for the perilous journey of retrieving it. With Richards wisdom, our pluck and courage, and Gil's coffee!

> Seriously where is that Coffee? Gil! GIIIILLLLLL! WHERE'S THE COFFEE?

>>5374758
>[3] Both Richards don't deserve any trust. Both can eff off with both the "greater good" and the alterations. We'll look for the Crown, but solely to use it at our own discretion and judgement for purposes we (will) have conceived.

>>5374758
>1

how committed are we to ignoring the crown? enough to pass up a law siphoning opportunity that literally falls into our lap? because I don't want to be that committed

also we have final say on alterations
no snakeface
we'll take being taller though

>>5374757
>>5374758
Support!

>>5374761
>>5374777
>>5374894
All of this is compatible with each other. Writing.

>>5374894
>how committed are we to ignoring the crown? enough to pass up a law siphoning opportunity that literally falls into our lap? because I don't want to be that committed
You don't have to be that committed, no. This vote is about deliberately setting aside time to pursue the Crown before your other goals are completed. (It's also about reevaluating a decision I felt was uncomfortably railroady from a few threads ago, but that's not really relevant.) If you stumble upon a free opportunity to grab some Law, or happen to learn something about the Gold Masked Person, etc., Charlotte isn't *so* stubborn that she'd skip out on that.

>>5375239
You just linked to two of my posts, kek, but I'm merging all the votes anyhow so it doesn't matter.

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>Take the third option

Something is— is patently wrong. You're not so stupid you can't notice that. One Richard louche and sloppy and vulgar, one Richard groomed and unctuous, both of them trying to sell you something? At least you can believe the floor-Richard actually believes the vile nihilism he's spewing— you can't say the same for chair-Richard, who couldn't or didn't bother to hide his air of twitchy desperation. Noble aims? An outcome of profound goodness? You have been exposed to Richard for every waking hour for three years and he expects you to believe he gives one singular damn about anybody except himself and (on extraordinarily rare occasions) you? God!

But it's not like the Richard right here is any better. Honest, maybe (...maybe), but you have to remember that he is Richard and this morning he was glad to see you writhing in the dirt. This morning! And for all you know tomorrow he'll have sobered up and changed his mind again. You can't make deals with somebody whose perspective changes in the space of an eyeblink— that's just common sense.

And all that is of course assuming his deal were any good. Which it isn't. "How dumb do you think I am?" you say.

His face falls into an instant scowl. "You little bitch. I'm trying to help you. Apparently you're so dumb you don't realize you're being—"

"Maybe you're so dumb you don't realize I don't need it? Huh?" You thrust your hands out. "Apparently! Because you haven't noticed that I've been doing fine dealing with you when you're pissed, which is most of the time, and I haven't needed to subject myself to weird, creepy body things—"

"Last I checked," Richard says. "Your alterations have been nothing but beneficial, and have contributed many times to saving your ass—"

"Okay, but— but how many more nothing-but-beneficial ones are there? And if I let you have full rein, how long until you blow through those and move on to the scary ones? Richard?"

He glowers up at you.

"Yeah! I thought so! If you have more good ones, great, but I'm not— I'm not letting you do whatever you want. I want to be asked first. And as for the Crown— didn't I explain this to you earlier? We're doing what I want to do. We're not giving up on it, that's— that's idiotic, we're just putting it off. See? I want to rescue Madrigal first, and figure out the Management stuff, and then maybe I'll do it— but I want to gather, you know, allies. Sworn companions. So I'll do that first too. And then, when I get it, I'm not doing whatever stupid thing you want me to do with it, I'm doing whatever I want. Because I'm the one who wasted my whole life on it." You take a deep breath. "Got it?"

More glowering.

"Got it?"

(1/3)

"I am a slave to your will, O Lady-Herald-Leftenant Charlotte Fawkins, so if I failed to get it I'm sure you'd see fit to make me." He purses his lips. "Now where the fuck is my coffee?"

This is a fantastic question. "GIII— oh." You have whipped around to discover Gil a few paces behind you. He's carrying a cup how one might carry a baby bird. "Geez. What took you so long?"

He blanches somewhat and says nothing.

"...Gil? Did you have to shoot someone for that? Just kidding." He's still blanched. "Um, right? You didn't actually shoot..."

"Charlie," Richard says, at the same time Gil manages an "??????"

You smile weakly and say "What?". Because he could've been mumbling. That would make sense, him mumbling, it would make more sense than him saying words you're unable to comprehend, which would also be patently wrong, and therefore—

"??????" Gil tries again, at the same time Richard says more urgently "Charlie. Come here."

You come, seeing little other option. "Come kneel."

"You could stand up," you say, and kneel.

"The center of gravity's all wrong. I don't- I don't know how you balance without a proper neck, Charlie, it's abysmal... here." He reaches up to grasp you by the neck ("Hey!") and with his spare hand— you, again, can't say for sure he punches through your forehead. And you, being pure and honest, refuse to engage in conjecture. Richard does something, and you see spots in all the places you didn't last time, and gasp, and—

>[+1 ID: 7/13]

"Lottie?" says Gil. "Lottie? Lottie? Are you— are you okay?"

You look down at Richard, who is picking at his teeth with his fingernail. It feels as though your ears have popped. "Uh... yes? I think?"

"Oh. Okay. Because, um, you weren't— you weren't really saying words? You were, um— I-I-I don't really know how to describe it—"

"Don't," you say. (Sometimes you just need to let things happen. And then never speak of them again.) "Is that coffee?"

"Um, I-I-I... I-I hope so?"

"Cof-fee," Richard intones. You stare at him for a long time before swiveling back to Gil. "Good. Close enough. Do you want to give it to him, or should I go ahead and—"

"I-I-I don't want to die," Gil says.

"Oh. Um, I'll give it to him." You pluck the cup from his hands and carry it to Richard. "Here," you say loudly. "Cof-fee."

"Fuck off. I am unner-stand fine." He takes the cup mechanically and smells it. His face is inscrutable.

"Okay, great! You got it." There is no door to slam shut. Why isn't there a door? Was there a door before and Gil destroyed it with his sledgehammer? Ridiculous. The only thing that makes sense is that there is a door here, hiding somewhere, because the alternative is that you continue to engage with monosyllabic Richard (no) or you turn around and walk away in a total anticlimax. And in fact if you reach out your hand to this area you'd reasonably find a door in, without looking, you—

(2/3)

You slam the door on Richard and his coffee, and turn and gaze at Gil. "Okay," you say. "Where'd you put the sledgehammer?"

-

You spend the next hour and a half (or so) smashing down a great deal more of the walls, and end up stopping not because you run out of enthusiasm but because you run out of energy. Not even physical energy— though that too, you have to hand the sledgehammer back to Gil and sit down— just whatever was keeping the lights on, your third or fourth or fifth wind, peters out, and you lean against a big slab in broad daylight and struggle valiantly to keep your eyes open.

For all his sweat Gil is eerily tireless, continuing to bang away long after you've slumped down. You're not sure he's realized he should be tired by now, and you won't be the one to inform him, so you just watch. Or do your best to watch. The sledgehammer noise is rhythmic and to a certain point soothing, so it really isn't your fault that your periods of eye-resting grow longer over time, and eventually—

"Lottie!" You start, knocking your head on the slab. Gil's guilty expression intensifies. "Oh... sorry... I-I-I wasn't sure if you were asleep, or—"

"I wasn't asleep," you say. "I was conserving my strength for, um, for future—"

"Okay, I-I-I wasn't sure if you were conserving your strength, or..." He crumples. "Oh, god, I-I-I-I've been keeping you up, haven't I? You've been wasting your time doing this stupid stuff, when all you really need is rest... you should go back."

"I don't need rest," you say. "And bashing walls for no reason isn't stupid, it's— it excites the blood. And, um, fortifies the spirit. So there. So I'm not really tired at all, since my blood's all excited, and—"

"You were asleep," Gil says, and his look softens a little. "Look, I-I just— I mean— I think you should sleep somewhere better than this, Lottie. Can you get out alone, or do you need—?"

"You sleep here," you say.

"I-I-I know." He reaches out a hand and places his thumb over your left eyelid. "Okay, close the other one, then try to open both of them."

"I'll come back," you say. "I'll come back, and I'm gonna get you a real body—"

"I-I-I know."

You sigh and close your eyes and try to open both. One eyelid rises as if through glue. The other snaps open—

—into a dark, dark tent. Your hair is all over your face. You resist the smothering weight on you for long enough to uncurl your fingers around the model and set it gently just underneath your bed, and to roll back over. And then you are out.

You sleep.

You dream?

>Please roll me 3 1d100s - 10 (-10 Out Like A Light) vs. DC 60 (+10 ???). No spendy option available for reasons of context.

AND/OR

>[1] Submit up to three individual words that describe what you dream about. Subject to freehand QM interpretation. If multiple sets are submitted I may pick and choose from among them. (Write-in. Optional.)

Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5375702
>Recognition, blamelessness, validation.

Rolled 42 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>5375702
>Embarrassment, public speaking, falling

Rolled 44 - 10 (1d100 - 10)

>>5375702
>>Recognition, blamelessness, validation.

>>5375702
Vote for the three is

> Mathematical equations

> body dysmorphia

> cameraderie

>>5375736
>>5375886
>>5375897
>41, 32, 34 vs. DC 60 -- Failure
This has been noted.

>>5375736
>>5375886
>>5375897
>>5376469
>The good, the bad, the ugly
I'll pick from among these options for the final product. Writing.

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>Dream.

You are sitting at a table in the Better Than Nothing. You are in the seat you were in before, surrounded by the people you were surrounded with, but the atmosphere is different: you are not an interloper to be humored and patronized, but a trusted friend being lauded— deservedly— for her bravery and boldness and skill. You are a Courtier as you always have been and your hair is braided down your back.

At present Lucky is mid-toast of you, though several other toasts have preceded this, and the firewater-feedback loop is already in full swing. As such Lucky's words about your bravery and boldness and skill seem to you and the rest of the table to be the most profound and moving ever spoken, and you and Hatch are near tears by the time all the canteens are raised and tapped together and sipped from. You are thus caught unprepared when the cry for 'SPEECH!' arises, which quickly becomes a table-banging chant, until you sniffle and step unsteadily onto your chair and look down onto the expectant faces of your comrades.

You do not know what to say. You have been waiting for this moment for years— years of clawing up the hierarchy, of scrabbling for recognition when you're tiny and girlish or not girlish enough— and now it has arrived, and you do not know what to say. You are rapidly turning crimson.

Your eyes scan the table and land on Jesse's. He nods and smiles and says Go on, Charlie, give a speech— or can't you? You couldn't turn crimson any harder so you fume and make a rude gesture at him, and he smiles harder, and you turn in a huff and deliver an off-the-cuff ramble about heroism and stomping out evil where you find it and true companionship. It is not very good, but nobody cares, and you sit down again to light applause.

>[ID: 13/13]

So you *can* speak, Charlie, Jesse says, and when you look back up at him there's something knowing in his eyes. You realize then that the two of you share a secret. Can I get you a drink?

He takes a tiny vial out of his pocket and shakes a few droplets from it into his canteen, then into yours. The firewater inside begins to smell of damp earth. You down it as soon as he pulls away, and he does the same, and the floor cracks under your chair. You fall...

[And are jostled and banged about and, finally, lifted. You do not wake.]

...and the motion is such that the world blurs before you, and you find yourself elsewhere. You are supine on a stone altar. Jesse stands above you, his body painted in spirals; he is wielding a tortoiseshell-handled knife. Your shirt is pulled up over your abdomen.

Relax, Charlie, he says. It will all be over soon.

What? you say. The world?

(1/2)

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Well, that too. He traces a square on your abdomen. I meant the alteration. It's nothing special, it just looks scary. You've had worse.

You realize that the body you are inside is unfamiliar to you. It is taller than yours, by proportion slender and sinuous, and dappled with fine white scales. It contains too many teeth for the size of your mouth. It is cold and terrifying and flexes in unnatural ways as you begin to thrash against the altar and Jesse's steadying hand. Charlie— he says.

In return you scream at him to help you, to hurry and cut you open, if he doesn't cut you open you're going to die inside of here. He finds your too-thin hand and squeezes it and shuts his eyes and stabs you in the abdomen. You scream. He withdraws and stabs you again there, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, jerkily, his face warped in pain, even as you scream your throat out of you, until you can't scream any longer and can only hiss and gargle and growl the worst things you can think of. Finally Jesse lifts the red knife and apologetically takes it to your neck, allowing you a handful of seconds to watch him get to work on the rest of you before everything gives way.

When you return to awareness, you are standing over a stone altar. The Sword is in your hand. Jesse lies supine and shirtless before you.

You are interrupted before you can even formulate a line of thought. Herald, says the man kneeling before the altar. He is clad in red and unfamiliar to you. Herald, says the woman kneeling next to him. We have brung offerings.

Brought. Brought offerings.

Shut up. We have brought offerings. Also they have too. The woman nods to the other person next to her, who is clad in a spiraling mask and full-body red robes.

You look down at them and see the offerings: a chunk of crystal, a knife (not tortoiseshell), a clod of earth. You know only one is suitable.

Which?

>[1] The crystal. The WYRM knows that humanity is inherently flawed; consequently it asks for us to build ourselves up, piece by piece, into superior beings. Only by the doctrine of ADDITION may we approach perfection.
>[2] The knife. The WYRM knows that humanity is inherently flawed; consequently it asks us to find the flaws within ourselves and excise them, by force if necessary. Only by the doctrine of SUBTRACTION may we approach perfection.
>[3] The earth. The WYRM knows that humanity is inherently and *irrevocably* flawed. Nothing we do to ourselves will save us. It is best to remain calm, steady, and work to get things over with as fast as possible, so our suffering is not prolonged. This is the doctrine of EQUATION.
>[4] Write-in? (Subject to heavy-handed veto, but on the off-chance somebody has a fitting and lore-friendly idea I'm not going to completely lock out write-ins.)

>>5376715
>[1] The crystal. The WYRM knows that humanity is inherently flawed; consequently it asks for us to build ourselves up, piece by piece, into superior beings. Only by the doctrine of ADDITION may we approach perfection.
FROM THE MOMENT I UNDERSTOOD THE WEAKNESS OF MY HUMANITY, IT DISGUSTED ME.

>>5376715
> The supplicants. The WYRM knows that only true offerings are real, and true offerings are always ultimately paid with blood. Eschew the symbolism constructed to hide the truth, humanity matters not compared to the existence of the WYRM - build it, carve it, kill it the end is always, eventually, the same. The WYRM devours all and when nought is left, devours itself.