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>>5805551
You regretted that this was the case, because you hadn’t exactly had the BEST of first impressions with the goblins in question. You’d found them with a fairy ‘cousin’ of yours—a species of genasi called a ‘Neme’ or “Ashurati’—in chains. Unable to countenance this, you and your traveling companions—Rudolfo Van Houtzmann (your human father), Logan Pearce (your best friend), and Muffins (your surprisingly-savage pet chimera) had battled and even slain some of the goblins, and failed to convince the one you’d healed and kept briefly captive to forgive the trespass. At least you’d earned the favour of the Ashurati and their True Fey patrons, however, who had taught you something of their mystical arts, as well as fed and sheltered you.

The Ashurati were gone, however. You were once more alone with your friends—and Terzo, your carriage driver—in the aptly-named Goblin Wastes… And you were determined to make a better impression the second time. Ill-suited for the rage of war, you’d decided to extend the olive branch of peace…

But then, goblins weren’t exactly known to trade in goodwill and friendly feelings. They traded in food, and coin, and weapons, and slaves. You’d need some way to get their attention and to hold their interest, if you wanted information—and you DID want information, damnit!

What did you plan to trade?
>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?
>You know your fair share of magic, as does Pearce… Perhaps, being an inherently-unmagical race, the goblins would like the benefit of your spellcraft?
>You ARE sort of an adventurer now, and your father a rather seasoned one—maybe you could do a task of some sort, to earn their trust?
>You had earlier healed and mended one of their number, ‘Yok-Brot’… Maybe you could find him and appeal to his better nature?
>You know more now about the Ashurati, and their sacred places… It would be a betrayal of their hospitality, but maybe you could trade information on them, or PRETEND to do so?
>Write-in

>>5805552
>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?
We brought the shirin explicitly for this purpose, we should use it.

>>5805552
>>You know your fair share of magic, as does Pearce… Perhaps, being an inherently-unmagical race, the goblins would like the benefit of your spellcraft?
this is renewable. But spending the mana would leave us open for an attack... and it seems they don't really like magic, at all.

>>5805552
>You ARE sort of an adventurer now, and your father a rather seasoned one—maybe you could do a task of some sort, to earn their trust?
>You had earlier healed and mended one of their number, ‘Yok-Brot’… Maybe you could find him and appeal to his better nature?
The shirin is our Visionquest food- ain’t giving it away to the gobs.

>>5805552
>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?

>>5805552
>>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?

Why buy the shirin if not to drug deal?

>>5805552
>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?
>You know your fair share of magic, as does Pearce… Perhaps, being an inherently-unmagical race, the goblins would like the benefit of your spellcraft?

>>5805552
>>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?

>>5805552
>You have four packets of mind-expanding stimulants called ‘shirin’… Perhaps they would be interested in some of that?

>>5805789
>>5805721
>>5805644
>>5805642
>>5805621
>>5805615
>>5805596
>>5805581
You reached into your pack, fishing about for a moment before you brought out a single packet of the greenish-white powder called ‘shirin’ by the Initiate who had sold it to you—currently hidden in grey-brown paper, folded carefully into a spill-prof envelope-shape, to preserve its precious cargo. It was that same minty-coloured substance which had set you on this path… A journey in a singe lick, first mental and then physical.

Maybe it could see you through it safely, now?

You had ample time to think on the matter, for finding a goblin in a vast and semi-arid wasteland of rocks, sand, and scrub-brush was no easy feat. You’d managed it before by serendipitous chance and the application of fairy-finding magic It had brought you to Nemenmo of the Neme, and only COINCIDENTALLY to your true quarry… But even if you COULD replicate that feat, meeting both at once meant plunging yourself into the rivalry between those peoples once more. You didn’t want that, and so you had to go about things the old-fashioned way.

“Come now, Mister Terzo, surely you know something of pathfinding and tracking?” Rudolfo had asked.

Terzo regarded your father languidly, as he snapped the reins and encouraged his horses to keep moving.

“Rudolfo,” he said, “I’m not a ranger. I move things, and people from here… To there. From there… To here. My experience with goblins is trying to NOT find any goblins.”

“Well, just take the principles you use to do THAT and reverse them, ey wot?” your father suggested, grinning brightly.

Terzo stared at him for another moment, and his eyes flitted to you and to Pearce, as if to say ‘do you hear this shit?’ You shrugged. He turned back to his task, without another word.

“We’re going to be SO behind on our studies,” Pearce groaned, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“We’ll catch up,” you comforted him.

Logan Pearce glowered at you, albeit half-heartedly, and said: “No, YOU’LL catch up.”

You grinned, unable to hide a bit of pride in your academic excellence, and shrugged. Pearce sighed, equally unable to avoid mirroring your smile.

“It’s not too late to abandon me in this godforsaken wilderness,” you joked, mirroring Pearce’s own words, days before.

He rolled his eyes, but his smile grew into a wide grin, even as he looked away.

>>5806412
As it turned out, you needn’t have worried about finding goblins—in the end, THEY found YOU. It was two mostly-aimless days of eastward wandering later, and the sun was beginning to set; this was no doubt key, for goblins in the absence of human taskmasters quickly reverted to their dark-adapted instincts. You and your companions had settled in to rest the horses and to take your repast—rather meagre rations, akin to the hardtack you always heard visiting seamen near Hawksong’s dock-district complaining of. The dried fat-meat-berry admixture which your father wolfed down with typical gusto sat heavy and unfulfilling in your own gut. You found yourself missing the well-spiced (if similarly minimalist) cuisine of the Ashurati, and idly wishing you’d taken the time to learn the spell <Goodberry>, when a nervous bleat of Muffins’ goat head had alerted you that you had bigger problems.

“Goblins?” Pearce asked.

Your own half-elven eyes and pointed ears were better adapted to the dusk than those of your human friends or father, if not so well as the keen and predatory senses of a goblin of Muffins’ lion-head. Still, it took you several tense moments to detect the subtle movements and hooded silhouettes of your ‘visitors’, cresting one of the rolling, pebble-and-tumbleweed hillocks around your open-air campsite.

“Yeah,” you replied.

Terzo immediately began to rise towards his horses with anxiety, but your father Ruldofo gave him a quick gesture and a comforting smile. More tersely, your father turned and whispered to you:

“How many?”

“That I can see?” you bit your lip, trying to maintain some degree of subtlety as you scanned the rise. “Five.”

“There’ll be more,” Pearce muttered, and Terzo nodded sagely.

“Well,” Rudolfo said with a smile, “it’s a good thing we’re here to make friends, then, ey wot?”

You nodded this time, and stood, slowly, turning to face the goblins and raising both hands above your head. Almost immediately, a crossbow bolt buried itself in the dirt beside your boot.

“Keep them hands down, kho-blis!” a shrill voice shrieked.

You lowered your hands slowly, recognizing the derogatory goblin term for ‘spellcaster’. You supposed even in your ragged robes, you were obviously a mage, and the green-skinned race were none too fond of the wizardry of which they were inherently incapable.

“We come in peace!” you shouted back.

“You killed our gobs!” came a shout back. “The fuck kind of PEACE do you mean, kho-blis?!”

You cringed a little at the unpleasant memory of the first meeting—of dead bodies in the sand, of Pearce and Muffins struck with poison arrows in retaliation.

“That was a misunderstanding!” you tried to explain.

“Well we’ll say this once, then, and don’t MISUNDERSTAND it: fuck off!”

“...We have shirin, to trade?”

>>5806413
There was silence from atop the hill for moment, unless you strained to hear. You did, and picked up the muffled, rapid-fire whispers of goblin-speak, guttural clucks and clicks, harsh yelps and yips. You spoke a little of their tongue, but couldn’t quite make out the particulars. Luckily, before long, their appointed pokes-goblin raised his (or her?) voice once more in the Northern Common-tongue:

“Throw all your weapons inna’ pile, where we can see ‘em. Keep the big humies and the monster back, and step our way. Hands DOWN. Mouth SHUT. Crystal?”

You gulped, considering your options.

>Deal
>No deal
>You want to bring a friend... [who?]

You also needed to decide exactly what to do with the shirin—did you mean to trade ALL of it? You only had one source, and the powder didn’t come cheap. It had values outside of trading with short, green bandits, as well... For instance, in helping to keep your sun-attuned elven biology from plunging you into drowsiness within the hour... Though your adrenaline was doing its duty in that regard just now, at least!

>Take some shirin now, before ethe meeting, and trade the rest
>Retain a packet of shirin in reserve, but trade the rest away
>Trade it all—you can probably get more, if you’re ever so inclined
>Write-in

>>5806417
>No deal
Disarming ourselves in front of armed slavers is the height of stupidity.
>Trade it all—you can probably get more, if you’re ever so inclined

>>5806417
>Deal
Just the price of being aggressive earlier. They seem willing to trade.

>Trade it all—you can probably get more, if you’re ever so inclined
More likely to get a better result, and we should be rid of this filth as soon as possible anyways. We’re lucky enough to not already be addicted to it.

>>5805581
Me

>>5806417
>Deal
As long is the pile is close to our fighters

>Retain a packet of shirin in reserve, but trade the rest away

All we want is a bit of info, shouldn't be too pricy

>>5806417
>no deal
>take some now and trade the rest

The goblins are willing to talk only because they fear reprisal. By losing our weapons the now level playing field will shift so hard we will get buried. Threats is a fundemental part of diplomacy, and you fags say "deal"
>>>Just the price of being aggressive earlier. They seem willing to trade.
Holy shit "w-we were mean before so we deserve the hate"
>>As long is the pile is close to our fighters
"I want to vote for this option but I also want to vote for this other option" Typical hormonal tinybrained quest voting anon

>>5806518
that's the thing, if it were the first encounter I'd hard refuse it but since the attack happened it'd be hard to keep them invested in a possible trade. maybe we can try bringing someone with us ? the chimera perhaps.

>>5806518
strong words from someone voting to take drugs immediately before entering into negotiations

>>5806417
>Deal

>Take some shirin now, before ethe meeting, and trade the rest
>Retain a packet of shirin in reserve, but trade the rest away
The vision quest offered us a breakthrough insight before, may gaps it will do so again.

>>5806518
>>5806547
guys, I dunno if a vision is worthing getting hammered while doing negotiations

>>5806417
>No deal
>Trade it all

>>5806417
>No deal

>Retain a packet of shirin in reserve, but trade the rest away

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Rolled 9, 19, 5 = 33 (3d20)

>>5806600
>>5806598
>>5806547
>>5806518
>>5806473
>>5806457
>>5806436
[Alright, writing!]

>>5806763
>19
Oh, that would’ve been such a nice visionquest ;_;

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>>5806767
Well, you still have a pouch

>>5806763
“We’re not going to do that!” you shouted back.

There was a dread silence from the half-hidden goblins, their silhouettes shifting slightly. They didn’t immediately reply, though, so you filled the silence.

“We acted only to free your prisoner, my… KIN,” you said. “The goblin Yok-Brot, when I healed and freed him, made it clear that you goblins value family. Do you mean to tell me that if you saw one of your brothers or sisters in chains, you wouldn’t have done the same to free them?”

It was a careful manipulation of the facts at hand—not quite the whole truth, but not a lie. You barely knew Nemenmo, and could barely now recall the name of the male Ashurati who you had helped her liberate from goblin slavery… But you WERE all children of the Bonum Chaoticum, the fairy-gods of sun and moon and sea and woodlands. And Yok-Brot… Well, you had mended that goblin, returning his arm to its rightful place and saving him from bloodoss, but primarily to help cure the poisoning which his fellows had wrought upon Pearce, and it had been Rudolfo—your human parent—who had delimbed the little green man. Stil, it didn’t hurt to remind them of the good you and your magic had done for one of theirs, right?

>19

“…Alright!”

You resisted the urge to pump your fist in victory.

“Well come down to you,” the talkative goblin shouted down. “SOME of us. ARMED, like you lot are armed. And some of us will be staying up here with our SEVERAL crossbows.”

You frowned. That… Was fair enough, perhaps. The fairest deal you were likely to get. Still, something about the way the goblin specified ‘several crossbows’ told you more than he or she’d intended. Crossbows were expensive. They’d either know how many they had or not, you suspected… And if they had many crossbows trained on you, you strongly suspected they would be ROBBING you, not negotiating. Rather than call them out on this lie, though, you allowed it to pass ‘unnoticed’.

Four goblins descended the hill—one for each of you (not counting Muffins or the horses). There was Yok-Brot among them—short, stocky, freckled face cleared of the scabs and scarification of his hard living thanks to your <Monstrous Regeneration>, supremest of your healing arts. He regarded you suspiciously in spite of this benevolence, as well you might have expected considering he’d last ‘thanked’ you for your mending magic and your offer of rapprochement with a knife pressed to your flesh and a demand to be freed and left alone. With him was a familiar female goblin with an eyepatch and her hair pulled back in a too-tight ponytail, seemingly little older than him. Two other, older-looking goblins attended this meeting with them, both male: a balding one with thick mutton-chops and an upturned snout, and a notably tall individual (about four feet) with a ruddy, splotchy complexion and fierce eyes.

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>>5806826
“So, for my price—” you began.

The goblins shouted a flurry of Goblin-tongue and Common invective your way, before Yok-Brot was pushed forwards by the others and addressed you more directly and (almost) civilly.

“Show us the merch first,” he said. “Then, we talk about your… Price.”

You warily produced three of the pouches of shirin—retaining one, shoved to the corner of your bag, for your own future use. You presented them to Yok-Brot, you squeezed the envelope open and shook it slightly, peering inside. The two older goblins flocked to him to peer inside sniffing cautiously at the packages while the female drew a sword too large for her and glowered at you hatefully. You remembered that, before Muffins had tackled him and knocked her unconscious in your last battle, she had promised to gut you. You took a step back, but found your father and Pearce stepping froward to either side of you. You found comfort in their size and martial dash—certainly more than any goblin could muster.

“How do we know this is good?” one of the older males asked.

“Or that it’s not poison?” the other added.

“You seemed familiar with the product,” you said, a touch haughtily. “If you can’t tell if something is shirin, how do you expect to trade in it.”

“…It’s not usually green,” Yok-Brot noted, eyes flickering to yorus.

You hesitated. You… Didn’t actually know that.

“Well,” you said, “I’ve tried it. It’s the, uh… it’s good. It makes you feel invigorated and… See visions.”

Pearce regarded you with raised eyebrows. You smiled embarrassedly, and shrugged. You supposed he knew what you’d been doing lying on your back in his field last summer, now.

“Well,” one of the older goblins said with a canniness in his voice. “We’ll just have to try some, then, huh?”

You narrowed your eyes. Sampling the merchandise before paying their fair share? You weren’t sure you liked the sound of that.

“One,” you said, holding up a finger. “One of you can try SOME of one of the packages. If you try to make off with them, we’ll see whether you have enough crossbows to hold off my entire party of skilled adventurers.”

“Adventurers!” the female goblin spat the word like a curse, and the other three spat…

But they didn’t disagree. Rather, they each held out a hand in a little circle, stepping away from you, and made a display of slapping at one another’s hands in some rapid-fire game of skill, as if drawing lots. You couldn’t really follow the action but, eventually, one of the older males lost… OR won? Regardless, it was he they looked to expectantly as he held the tiny envelope of shirin to his nose, plugged one nostril, and took a sharp inhale.

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>>5806830
A few moments passed while goblins—and men—watched expectantly. Eventually, the goblin-man’s fingers started to tremble, and his toe to tap. His yellow, wofish eyes dilated, his already large pupils widening to near saucers. He began to hunch slightly, and took long, steadying breaths, in and out.

“New colours,” he muttered. “Different than the other colours. Shirin’s never… I’ve not seen these ones before, boys.”

“Oi,” the female scoffed.

“Boys and Shu-Sia,” he corrected, and then looked to you. “This is real. It’s shirin, but… New shit. Different shit.”

The goblins seemed to regard you with rather more respect now. You puffed out your chest a little and squared your shoulders, endeavoring to appear imperious. You weren’t sure it worked.

“So, about my price?”

“You want to know about what happened twenty years ago in Goblintown, HAwksong way, right?”

That was Yok-Brot. You looked to him, and he crossed his arms and glared at you. He’d been less than forthcoming about that when you’d asked him before, as you recalled.

“Whow ants to know?” he demanded.

“Me,” you said pointedly. “The man with the shirin.”

“Half-a-man,” he said, making you twitch a little bit. “Really a bit girly, even for a knife-ears.”

“More of a man than you,” Pearce interjected protectively. “Lay off him.”

The goblins glowered at him—well, except the one presently staring into the middle distance, seeing new and unusual hues.

“You know what I mean,” Yok-Brot eventually said, moderating his tone as he shifted his deadly glare from Pearce to you, and his expression softened JUST a little. “You’re asking for us to rat, essentially, right? Tell you about… Something bad, that we were MAYBE, ALLEGEDLY caught up in… Family of ours, you figure. Well say we were there, or know ones who were… What happens to us?”

“Nothing,” you said appeasingly.

“Bullshit,” he resorted. “What, you just… Want to know, for your own selves? Who sent you lot? What do THEY want? What is this, Paladin shit? Or… Mages’ Tower, Inquisition-type shit? The bloody Prince of Purges, not happy enough to see us dead or gone, now he wants to punish us more who lived and left? Come off it. Who fucking SENT you?”

You told him…
>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]
>You were actually acting AGAINST those in power, attempting to uncover a conspiracy [+suspicion, +Izirina rivalry]
>You were here on behalf of powerful people, but if the goblins cooperated you would see they suffered no consequences [lie]
>It was none of his or any goblin’s bloody business, and if he kept asking questions the deal was off [intimidate]
>Write-in

>>5806834
>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]

>>5806834
>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]

>>5806834
>You were actually acting AGAINST those in power, attempting to uncover a conspiracy [+suspicion, +Izirina rivalry]

>>5806834
>>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]
Am >>5805721

>>5806834
>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]

>>5806834
>You were here on behalf of powerful people, but if the goblins cooperated you would see they suffered no consequences [lie]
I’m honestly just curious of the [lie] attribute desu

>>5806834
>>5807072
Also feel free to nock one more vote to the rivalry- it ain’t gonna win, but it’s a shame that the childhood rivalry was underbaked- it would’ve made Izzy trying to be friends with Tips so much more compelling.

>>5807075
> it’s a shame that the childhood rivalry was underbaked
Agreed. I think it would've also made whatever their future relationship is more dynamic and interesting. At this point I just want to get the flashback stuff over with, or have this be the entire rest of the quest so I can quit while I'm still ahead.

>>5806834
>You were out here alone, to help a friend who was in a bad spot [+altruism, +Izirina relations]

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>>5807093
[I'm sorry you're not having fun. If the current adventure is fundamentally un-fun to you, I strongly suspect you won't enjoy the rest of the quest, since this is my general writing style and approach to quest-writing. You should probably quit if it's really that big an issue.]

>>5806857
>>5806866
>>5806997
>>5807007
>>5807057
>>5807072
>>5807093
>>5807145
[I'll try and get an update out before work. Writing!]

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>>5807224
You looked to Pearce (who shrugged) and your father (who stroked his beard and mouthed the words ‘secret agent’ with a not-so-subtle wink. You glanced even at Terzo, who’s face was the same placid, vaguely-annoyed mask as ever. You sighed, and turned back to the goblins.

“We’re here alone,” you told Yok-Brot and his allies. “We weren’t SENT by anyone. We’re… Here for a friend. A friend who was maybe, well… CAUGHT UP in all that business twenty years ago. A friend we want to help.”

It was the truth of it. Even if Izirina Henzler didn’t consider you a friend any longer, even if her malevolent mother-figure was scheming against the Paladin King and all of the Kingdom of Hawksong and its domains, you still saw Izirina as fundamentally your friend. You’d upset her when you asked after her origins, when you’d first began to suspect she was not wholly human, but it remained your hope that she would forgive you… That embarking upon this quest would result in some salvation for the long-suffering girl.

You remembered your vision of her: chimeric, bones and organs revealed as if flayed, wreathed and wrapped in coiling serpents, punctured and poisoned by their venomous teeth… You wouldn’t wish that upon any RIVAL, let alone a friend.

“I’m a healer,” you said, and it was the truth. “I’m looking for… A cure. Or at least a clue. Can you help me?”

Yok-Brot snorted, as if to scoff, but his expression wasn’t one of mockery but of contemplation. The other two goblins who remained sober muttered amongst themselves in a rapid-fire exchange of their native tongue, into which Yok-Brot interjected a few times. When he did so again, most insistently and at greater volume, you recognized the words: ‘Truth. I believe this is the truth. We could do it.’

“Ikhe,” you said, startling them all with their own tongue—if not very well-pronounced. “Thank you.”

Yok-Brot’s face twisted up in a grimace at your half-understanding of the goblin language, but he nodded and looked to the others. After some deliberation, the other senior male beckoned you to follow. The eyepatched goblin-girl growled in agitation and roughly seized the shirin-odsed member of their party (by now beginning to wander away into the wastes, examining carefully every plant and handful of sand, muttering to himself). Yok-Brot stayed near to you, and drew his familiar blade; you flinched and fell back a little, and he laughed—a single bark.

“I’m in charge of guarding the scary ‘kho-blis’,” he explained.

“Is that really necessary?” Pearce demanded.

Yok-Brot felt his features, uniquely unmarred among his ilk thanks to your good works.

“You know, I’m not sure it is,” he murmured.

He didn’t put the knife away, though, you noted internally and with some sourness.

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>>5807238
Your party followed the goblins, for what else could you do? You all stayed on guard, though you were somewhat smug to discover one (1) goblin upon the hill with a crossbow. ‘Several’ indeed! She joined with the rest of you, though she fell in behind and kept her weapon ready to shoot you in the back.

“I ought to cast <Mage Armour>,” Pearce mumbled, glancing back.

You shook your head. Not yet. Your instincts told you that—for now, at least—these goblins could be trusted.

Your intuition was vindicated a second time as you fund yourself brought to something akin to the goblins’ temporary camp which you had raided before to free their captive, but… Well, larger. It had the look of something semi-permanent, as well: ratty rugs were splayed out between the lumpy ungulates which the goblins of the wastes seemed to use in lieu of horses or donkeys. Crates and satchels heavy with food, and practical supplies, and trade goods pinned it down at the corners, as served as makeshift seating for goblins to sit upon or lean against. Your eyes widened a little to see some truly old-looking goblins, old enough to make even the intoxicated fellow with you look young. So too did you see, running about on all fours and snarling like feral dogs, what could only be described as goblin PUPS, naked and green-skinned runts that tackled and wrestled one another for thrown scraps of food while their parents passed a smoking pipe and laughed at the display. Goblin family-life, then.

“You gonna’ be any trouble here?” Yok-Brot asked, narrowing his eyes.

You frowned, saying only: “We don’t want any trouble, no.”

He grunted, and shrugged, and gestured for you all to follow towards the sole actual TENT among this open-air lounge-space. As the goblins of the camp noticed you, their expressions shifted from relaxation to a motley mix of suspicion and irritation. Many a conversation fell silent, or its already-unpleasant goblinoid syllables turned harsher and more guttural. The children growled at you, though their intermittent giggling indicated that at least THEIR spite might be more for show.

“Zith-Zi!” shouted the sober elder male among your guides (or guards). “We’ve brought some here who want to trade! Get your fat ass out here!”

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>>5807239
There was a clattering from within the tent, and the unmistakable sound of profanity—made all the more profane by the local language of yowls and guttural hacking sounds. From the flaps of the tent emerged a goblin of, you estimated, about twenty years of age—no longer a young woman by the standards of her short-lived race, but not yet old… Not old enough to have been an adult in HAwksong’s Goblintown before it was dismantled, if she’d ever been there at all. She was slightly taller than average, with brownish hair and especially predatory eyes of a greenish yellow. You wouldn’t describe her as fat—no goblin in this camp was very well-fed, being elan and hungry wastrels—but she had some, ahem, heft to her hips.

Upon this Zith-Zi’s shoulder was perched a small creature, wide and froglike of mouth but covered in a coat of golden plumage, with the appearance of tucked-in wings upon its back, regarding you with curious eyes. You felt your own eyebrows lift as, with a quick glance beyond the mere material, you recognized magic—chimeric magic!—in its makings.

“Shut your stupid fucking face, Athluk-Yan,” the goblin woman fired back in Common with a fluency and accent that belied a history with Hawksong.

She turned and regarded you, and your human companions, and stared wide-eyed at Muffins for a moment.

“Well,” she said after a moment, attempting gamely to appear indifferent. “What do you want?”

>You want to know about the fall of Gobintown, and HAwksong of that era, and why they were purged
>You want to know about the goblins’ knowledge of any ‘shapeshifting lizardpeople’ or ‘rat monsters’
>You want to know about any involvement they had with mages or demonists
>You want to know where she got that feather chimera-drake
>Write-in
[Please pick no more than two]

>>5807240
>You want to know about the fall of Gobintown, and HAwksong of that era, and why they were purged
>You want to know about the goblins’ knowledge of any ‘shapeshifting lizardpeople’ or ‘rat monsters’

>>5807240
>You want to know about the fall of Gobintown, and HAwksong of that era, and why they were purged
>You want to know about the goblins’ knowledge of any ‘shapeshifting lizardpeople’ or ‘rat monsters’

>>5807240
>You want to know about any involvement they had with mages or demonists
>You want to know where she got that feather chimera-drake
I’m happy to see old friends back. Wonder what adventures our little buddy and Zi got up to

>>5807240
>goblin knowledge
>chimera origins

>>5807240
>You want to know about the fall of Gobintown, and Hawksong of that era, and why they were purged
>You want to know about the goblins’ knowledge of any ‘shapeshifting lizardpeople’ or ‘rat monsters’

>>5807240
>>You want to know about the goblins’ knowledge of any ‘shapeshifting lizardpeople’ or ‘rat monsters’
them rats. It's the lead that led us here

>>5807240
>You want to know about any involvement they had with mages or demonists
>You want to know where she got that feather chimera-drake

>>5807240
>You want to know about any involvement they had with mages or demonists
>You want to know where she got that feather chimera-drake

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>>5807573
>>5807507
>>5807466
>>5807378
>>5807359
>>5807283
>>5807275
>>5807267
[Update coming!]

>>5807604
Yok-Brot and Athluk-Yan, and the eyepatched female called Shu-Sia, all filled this apparent leader ‘Zith-Zi’. You followed along as best you can, befuddled by their habit of rapidly switching between their mother-tongue and Common, with occasional loan-words form the more Easterly trade-tongues as well, and no shortage of slang. The end result was amenable to you, though: you were invited inside the tent.

“Just you, though,” Zith-Zi said. “Your friends and mine can get acquainted proper-like out there. My tents not big enough for the lot of us, especially your oversized lot.”

You glance back at the others, and Pearce looked about ready to fight for the right to join you. Your father give you a wink and a thumbs up; he was ever the adventurous optimist, you’d assessed, and you’d appreciated his vote of confidence.

(Then he eyed the goblinness, looked back to you, and waggled his eyebrows. You appreciated him a little less again, then.)

Biting back your misgivings, you followed her inside. Zith-Zi held out her arm, and her curious chimeric creature hopped and half-fluttered to what looked to be a heavily-worn hat-stand, repurposed as a perch. She, in turn, sat upon a small, cushioned stool. It was the only one in the room, and managed to make her just a LITTLE taller than you when you instead sat upon the somewhat-sandy area rug which was laid out before it.

“So, it’s dirt you want for your drugs,” she said bluntly.

It was a bit of a crude way to put it, but she wasn’t WRONG.

“I just want to know what happened twenty years ago,” you say, “when… Goblintown was dismantled. Were you there?”

Zith-Zi snorted, and rolled her eyes, before realizing you were serious.

“What?!” she balekd. “How fucking OLD do you think I am?!”

“I… Can never tell, with your people,” you admitted.

She narrowed her eyes, and before she could take offence, you pre-empted her: “How old do you think -I- am?”

She faltered, and then laughed a little, shrugging and leaning back.

“Point taken, half-elf,” she said. “Lucky for you, my MOM was there, and SHE told ME what’s what… How we got kicked off the fucking curb of human ‘civilization’.”

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>>5807638
In her expletive-laced, circuitous narrative, Zith-Zi told you the tale of the rise and especially the FALL of Goblintown. She told you of how her race, and the related goblinoid and orcish peoples of the Goblin Wastes had followed the trade-roads back to their source, and sought a better life than that of an itinerant trader or part-time highwayman—the lifestyle they currently ‘enjoyed’. Over time, more and more had gathered there, building a shanty-town that grew out from the rpsitine, white walls of Hawksong like a bubbling tumour, or a festering wound—

“Or at least you’d think that’s how it was from how the humies bitched about it,” she said with a sneer of derision. “Squeamish fucking prisses. It was built near THEIR fucking waste overflow. If we goblins aren’t afraid to get a little grubby, well, it’s THEIR grubs! Or, you know… Whatever.”

You sat in rapt attention, with a student’s focus. It seemed to throw Zith-Zi off—rather unlike the response of a young goblin, you’d wager—and so she coughed and averted her gaze.

“Anyway,” she continued, “even if the humies never liked us much, we were useful. Cheap labour, gophers and couriers, a good place to buy and sell shit that was ‘outside the realms of good taste’, or usually had tariffs on it, or which… You know, maybe fell off a wagon, got a little dinged up.”

You resisted the urge to wrinkle your nose at the imagined goblin-market, and nodded.

“Then it all came tumbling down,” Zith-Zi sighed. “You know how it goes: a few humans go missing, rumours start spreading. ‘Must be the goblins that took em!’ ‘Have you checked Goblintown?’ Didn’t help that we were near the sewers, either.”

“Because of the rat-monsters,” you interjected, before you could stop yourself.

Zith-Zi stared at you with wide yellow eyes, which narrowed to points.

“What do you know about rat-monsters?” she demanded.

“I know the rumours,” you said. “I’m here for the truth. About them, and about the… Lizardfolk?”

Zith-Zi didn’t speak for a time, sizing you up in silence, and then she sighed, rolling her shoulders and looking away again.

“Well, don’t know about the rat monsters, but the lizardmen are real. Lizard-ladies, too. Skink-skanks, whatever you wanna’ call ‘em.”

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>>5807642
You nearly stood up in your excitement. This was the lead you needed! Izirina… The vision had shown her body crawling with serpents. You swore you’d seen her eyes’ pupils narrow to slits!

“What are they?” you demanded. “An evil experiment by the Archmage? Some kind of… Of chimera, like yours?”

“Hey, don’t talk shit about Hershy!” Zith-Zi snapped, and the golden-feathered drake glanced towards the two of you, recognizing his name.

“…No offence,” you added, glancing at ‘Hershy’. “Some of my best friends are chimeras.”

Zith-Zi sniffed, glaring, but eventually shook her head.

“That’s not it, anyway. They’re not that kind of thing… Not made my your mages. They didn’t come from Hawksong at all. And… Truth is, there WERE people disappearing, some and going through Hawksong’s sewers. The rat-monsters were a scapegoat… Scape-RAT, I guess. They’d been down there a while—they didn’t fuck with us, we didn’t fuck with them. They got cleared out when the lizards showed up… or when they made their move, anyway.”

Zith-Zi continued her story, and a creeping dread filled you as the tale was told: of shapeshifting agents of some underground empire, foreign to Hawksong, who could appear as humans, and dealt with demons… Who were sneaking people into and out of the city, though rarely did the same people both come and go.

“What do you mean?” you asked, fearing the answer.

“People—usually poor people, by human standards you know, drunks or druggies hopped up on too much shirin, or up to their eyes in debt… They came out. They went off to the hills and farms down in the southern plains there… But they didn’t come back. Those who came back… They weren’t people.”

She leaned forwards, lowering her voice.

“Lizards, wearing people’s skin.”

You shuddered, and she smirked a little bit, clearly enjoying your reaction.

“How do you know all this?” you’d asked.

“Well,” she said, with a shrug and a grimace. “When you’re coming and going through the sewers… Well, Goblintown is right near the drains, right? Or was. And goblins, we don’t ask questions if there’s coin involved.”

“So you WERE to blame!”

>>5807644
She glowered.

“Lizards and people were fucking about with each other,” she corrected you. “We didn’t do nothing. We were just couriers, and lookouts, and going about our lives in our homes, same as we ever did. Making ends meet, same as we ever had to. We didn’t want no part of whatever the fuck was happening, but if it WAS happening either way… Well, okay, maybe we got our cut for being there and not being loud about what we saw.”

“Your mother?” you inferred.

She said nothing, merely sniffing again.

You mulled over this information, but a few things still bothered you.

“How does the Archmage factor in?” you asked.

“Mom never mentioned any Archmage, I don’t think… Though she DID always clam up when the subject of that whole demonist attack came up. Figured she knew something ESPECIALLY incriminating about that.”

You felt another shiver coming on, as your suspicions seemed to be vindicated, even as still worse and more terrible truths were being revealed.

“What about.. Children?” you asked, thinking again of Izirina—and what she might really be. “Did the lizards ever bring children with them?”

“What?” she laughed. “like a big old basket of eggs or something like that?”

You waited. Zith-Zi scratched her armpit, idly and shamelessly, and considered this. Eventually, she shook her head.

“Not usually,” she said. “But… Well, there was one time, heard some of the oldies talking about it once… A baby LEAVING the city.”

You gulped, and asked: “A human baby?”

Zith-Zi looked at you sidelong,a nd nodded slightly.

“Not sure for what,” she said. “Goblins don’t ask, remember? But the kid was… Alive, still, anyway. Got handed off to some cloak-and-dagger, hooded assholes, also looked like humans but you never know… And they left.”

“Can you describe the baby?” you asked, your voice barely a whisper.

>>5807646
Zith-Zi scoffed at that

“A human baby I heard about? No, I can’t fucking describe the baby!”

Your hopes, hinged on this, fell. Seeing your expression, though, Zith-Zi seemed to take pity on you.

“Rumour is THAT one came back, though,” she said. “Or, at least, a year or two later, a kid that was about the right age did. Litle girl, I heard. The oldies always wondered what that was all about…”

You stared for a moment… And then you asked the obvious question.

“Huh? Yeah, I guess seventeen or eighteen years is about right,” Zith-Zi answered you. “Why?”

Your blood ran cold. You didn’t answer. You knew it somehow—KNEW that child was your friend, Izirina. What WAS she, after all?

“So,” Zith-Zi eventually broke your contemplative silence, clearly uncomfortable with the grim seriousness which had settled in at the end of her tale. “We done here? You got your money’s worth?”

Is there anything else you want to know?
>Yes, you still have questions [what?]
>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?
>Does she know where you can find these 'lizards'?
>Where is her mother, anyway? Can you meet with her?
>Izirina needs to hear this... Can Zith-Zi come back with you?
>No, you've got what you need and are ready to go

>>5807649
>Where is her mother, anyway? Can you meet with her?
>Izirina needs to hear this... Can Zith-Zi come back with you?
I want Hershy back, and Izzy should hear this from the horses mouth.

Would be really kino to see Zi again- assuming she’s still kicking.

I missed the tail end of last thread but damn you anons tips x pearce was cute
>>5807649
>>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?
hearsay of hearsay is all well and good but it's pretty hard to act on

>>5807649
>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?
>>5807662
>damn you anons tips x pearce was cute
as friends :)

>>5807649
>>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?
no chance, but still tryin'

>>5807649
>Where is her mother, anyway? Can you meet with her?
>Izirina needs to hear this... Can Zith-Zi come back with you?

>>5807649
>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?

>>5807649
>where’s her mum
>she wanna join your party?

>>5807662
>tips x pearce was cute
No, that's bromance.
We got our hearsay and that's it. We got more clues but nothing... that wasn't obvious, you know? well at least it was my theory. We have accertained that it happened, and that there are second hand witnesses.

The implication is, the archmage knows about it and has a plot, either an accomplice/lackey or the mastermind.

>Yes, you still have questions [what?] >>5807649
>>Do you know magic?

>>5808241
>Yes, you still have questions [what?] >>5807649
>>Do you know magic?

It's been stated that goblins biologically cannot use magic bro.

>>5808257
I got the wrong idea, the quest had the goblin option at the beginning

>>5807649
>Does she have any... Material evidence, maybe?
>Does she know where you can find these 'lizards'?

>>5807649
>Yes, you still have questions [Do you want to share a shirin vision with me?]
>Where is her mother, anyway? Can you meet with her?
>Izirina needs to hear this... Can Zith-Zi come back with you?

>>5808370
>>5808395
>>5808241
>>5808125
>>5807847
>>5807818
>>5807805
>>5807706
>>5807662
>>5807654
You began to nod, but stopped yourself. Zith-Zi frowned, but before she could take umbrage with you, you explained yourself:

“You’ve given me a lot to thin about,” you said. “Thank you, Zith-Zi. Really.”

“But,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“But,” you agreed, “I still just have hearsay, you understand? I already suspected all of this—well, most of it, anyway. I need PROOF, and something to connect the Archmage to all of it... To prove she’s the mastermind, or that she’s NOT.”

(And you still needed to know what, exactly, all this meant for the true nature of Izirina Henzler, and the curious affliction which prevented HER—but not her adoptive mother—from wielding Life Magic.)

Zith-Zi rolled her eyes and scowled, demanding “Well, what do you want ME to do about it? I wasn’t even THERE.”

“Well... What about yoru mother?”

“Mom?” the goblin-girl balked.

“Yeah, what about her?” you pressed. “She was a direct witness... She could even identify Iz—uh, my friend, maybe, right?”

“Your friend?” Zith-Zi asked, then seemed to realize the implication. “The damn baby! You know the kid!”

You said nothing, suddenly worried that you’d revealed to much to this unscrupulous goblin... But her too-wide grin told you that ship had already sailed... Or perhaps more contextually, that the caravan was already departed.

“So?” yous aid instead. “Can your mother help?”

“Depends,” she said, “you know any necromancy?”

You felt the blood leave your face, and stammered an awkward apology... Only for the goblin to start cackling, wrapping her hands around her midsection with the sheer mirth of it. You glowered at her until she stopped.

“She’s not dead?”

“No,” Zith-Zi confirmed. “But she’s old as fuckin’ rocks, doesn’t travel a ton. She’s a bitter old bitch, besides. No way you’ll get her to come back to Hawksong for love or money!”

You were a little thrown by how she spoke of her mother—even a goblin though she was—and it must have shown on your face.

“What, I offending yoru sensibilities? You a mama’s boy or something, elfie?”

“No,” you said, “I get it.”

That seemed to throw HER for a moment, but not as much as what you said next:

“Then what about you?”

“What?!”

>>5808403
You nodded to her small, feathered drake-chimera, and elucidated further as her worried gaze followed your own: “That drake of yours is a chimera—a magical one. I can tell. And goblins can’t cast magic, let alone magic THAT complicated. Your mother’s, originally?”

“Well... Yeah. Close enough.”

“Then it’s from Hawksong. Maybe from the Tower.”

The goblinness’ nostrils flared with burgeoning outrage, and she wheeled on you, hopping to her feet as she snarled: “if you think I’m gonna’ trade Hershy, you’ve got another thing coming, you scrawny twink!”

You stood up as well, holding up your hands placatingly.

“I wouldn’t ask you to give up a... Friend,” you said, thinking of Muffins. “That’s why I was hoping maybe BOTH of you would come with us... And maybe tell my friend what you know, directly, so she’ll believe it and understand it better?”

Zith-Zi regarded you with renewed interest and, you sensed, a little fear. However, she was a goblin, and so one emotion ruled over all others...

“What’s in it for me, huh?”

You sighed, managing not to roll your eyes, and offered...

>Money—though you aren’t yet sure where you’ll get it, you can pay her in coin when you get there
>Magic—you can cast spells, or acquire magical items or potions for her, that she can use or trade in her work
>Stability—you can help her find gainful employment and a fixed abode, and a means to acquire legitimacy
>Knowledge—doesn't she want to know about her people’s history, and why they were cast out?
>Write-in

>>5808404
>Money—though you aren’t yet sure where you’ll get it, you can pay her in coin when you get there
>Magic—you can cast spells, or acquire magical items or potions for her, that she can use or trade in her work

She seems pretty materialistic, being an outlaw. these are the things that would appeal to her the most presumably.

>>5808404
>Magic—you can cast spells, or acquire magical items or potions for her, that she can use or trade in her work
>Stability—you can help her find gainful employment and a fixed abode, and a means to acquire legitimacy
I imagine Stability would be quite attractive- plus, think of the potential profit that comes with becoming a contact in Hawksong, especially their markets and wizard circles.

>>5808404
>Magic—you can cast spells, or acquire magical items or potions for her, that she can use or trade in her work

>>5808404
>>Magic—you can cast spells, or acquire magical items or potions for her, that she can use or trade in her work
Money's mostly useful in the context of "human 'civilization'", and she spoke pretty disdainfully of all that context, so something she can actually use.

>>5808541
I’d argue money and stability is more useful than playing magic trick in the wastes for scraps of food and shelter desu- like, just going to sleep on a full belly with the knowledge that you’ll wake up not in combat for your life is rather luxurious.

>>5808558
I agree, and so that makes me think that you >>5808431 probably meant to vote money instead of magic?

>>5808404
>Stability—you can help her find gainful employment and a fixed abode, and a means to acquire legitimacy
>Money—though you aren’t yet sure where you’ll get it, you can pay her in coin when you get there
These goblins seem to hate magic, I don't think they'll take well to us offering it to them, and they already seem to know much of their own history.

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Rolled 8, 18, 6 = 32 (3d20)

>>5808408
>>5808431
>>5808435
>>5808541
>>5808558
>>5808561
You cursed yourself for not expecting that a goblin, of all beings, would haggle for more rather than granting a favour. In truth, you couldn’t necessarily blame Zith-Zi. She lived resplendently among this camp, by some right or another… But resplendence was relative. She dwelt in a tent, her throne a human’s footstool, her hall carpeted with sandy rug. She was… Well, fetching in a fierce sort of way, but you reminded herself than she was ten years younger than you—closer in age to Pearce or Izirina Henzler—and yet the lines upon her face and the hardness in her eyes made her look far older, even without wrinkles. You could not help but perceive her as your elder.

Maybe riches, then? Goblins were a greedy folk, ‘green with envy’ as the saying went. They always hungered for more! Or maybe simply STABILITY, a promise of a life far from this harsh world which she was born and bred in, and access to the wonders of that ‘shining city of the hill’ which you called home?

But Zith-Zi rejected the notion of selling her chimera-drake. She spat words like ‘society’ and ‘civilization’ like curses. By her implication, her mother lived elsewhere, and did not travel far—a sedentary and stable life was not beyond her means.

In your cunning, you deduced that she CHOSE this life, though you could not say why she would do so. But then, why were YOU out there, in ‘her’ Goblin Wastes? Maybe there was commonality there, you reasoned, buried deep in the dunes of your differences. And if there was commonality, then you had to think of what YOU valued, not of what some theoretical ur-goblin might value.

“Magic,” you said.

[Rolling Sociability/Sense Motive]

>>5808561
Actually, the vote was intentional- it was my deepest desire to teach Edwin magic back in ol’ Infiltrator Quest. Figured it’s only fitting that this MC teach someone in the same vein, even if my heart aches and weeps over the choices I’ve reaped.

>>5808632
We’ve successfully seduced her to the Dark Side, gentlelves

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>>5808632
Zith-Zi sneered, and crossed her arms.

“Magic? Really? You think a goblin’s gonna’ give two shit-covered coins for your wand-flicks and fairy tricks, wiz-kid?”

Your hands balled to fists at the jabs, but you refused t let her jabs get under your skin. You needed her, at least for now.

“I’m not talking about parlour tricks or a bit of spellcraft to impress you,” you said. “You’re a trader, right? You sell things? Well, magic goods—especially from foreign places, sell well. Potions of healing, invigoration… Wel, those are pretty useful to people who travel up and down the wastes all day and risk fights, right?”

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, fixing you with an eye that was as much that of a jackal as a merchant.

“If you’re so damn valuable, maybe we ought to just keep you, then?” she said, her voice low.

You flinched slightly, taking a step back, and she took one forward.

“Yeah, why not, right?” she said, grinning wider, and reaching behind her as if to produce a weapon. “You’re so keen to tell us all how IMPORTANT and DESIRABLE your fucking magic is… Why buy it by the bottle when we can own the source, right?”

You raised your hands, though whether to <Summon Elemental> or to shield yourself against her gaze you couldn’t be sure. But then, you calmed yourself. You glanced over your shoulder, and realized what she was doing: pushing you towards her tent-flaps.

If she’d meant to simply kidnap and enslave you—if she thought she could geta way with it, and was willing to risk your friends’ resistance—she never would have bothered telling you her story, or negotiating. This was a tactic—to extract more concessions, or to humiliate you and drive you away. Either way, it wouldn’t work.

You stopped, and stood your ground. Gritting in frustration, smile fadinga round her eyes even as her mouth mimed mirth still, Zith-Zi stopped as well. You searched the tent with your eyes even as you searched your mind for an answer… And again, your gaze fell on ‘Hershy’, her drake.

>18

Her feathers… They were dull at the edges. There were small patches where they seemed preened or plucked away, and yet nothing new had begin to grow to replace them. His flight-feathers were ragged. His eyes, half-closed, were dull with age. He was a chimera, but drakes… How long did drakes live? Not long. And this one came from Hawksong, you were sure—a family heirloom, a cherished pet.

“I’m a chimericist,” you said quickly. “I can help Hershy.”

Zith-Zi stared blankly, processing your words. Slowly, her expression shifted from sinister smile to irritation, to something… tender. Her eyes shifted to her pet’s makeshift perch.

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>>5808650
“He’s… He’s fine. He’s just a little old. Likes to sleep in a bit.”

Her tone was defensive, but her voice was quieter, softer than you’d heard it before.

“That’s not true,” you said, gently as you could. “He’s at his limit… Sick, dying.”

“N-not fast, though,” Zith-Zi countered.

“A few more months, or years, maybe,” you said, not truly having any inkling of the creature’s biology.

This goblin… She valued freedom, right? Independence? It seemed a likely guess as any.

“…But not good years. How long until he can’t fly? Can’t even walk or crawl? Would YOU want to live like that, trapped in a tent al day?”

Zith-Zi looked back at you and… Gods, were those TEARS? They didn’t last long, and her tone was certainly not so gentle any more when she spoke, but…

“You’ll fix him up, then?” she demanded. “I help you with your stupid little whatever-this-is, and you’ll give me something for Hershy? To make him… Healthy again?”

Sensing weakness, you pounced—prey become predator.

“It’s a deal.”

Of course, that meant you’d have to figure out how to accomplish such a feat… But one thing at a time. For now, you had to swallow back your pride, and a bit of bile, as the goblin-girl spat in her hand and proffered it in, unmistakably and unfortunately, a gesture she expected you to mirror. You did likewise, drooling into your palm and grasping her small hand in yours, and she pumped your arm so hard she nearly pulled you down to her level.

“Don’t screw me over,” she growled. “Got it?”

“Y-yeah,” you mumbled. “Understood.”

You exited the tent together, rejoining your friends and hers. The negotiations had taken a lot out of you, and the sun was long set. Out amidst the goblins, who held a raucous party to see off their bandit-queen, you found yourself listing , tipping sideways in your seat until finally you were caught by Logan Pearce, who you had slumped into.

“About bedtime, isn’t it?” he asked you.

What did you do?
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last
>Stayed up a little later, using <Daylight> to force your metabolism to allow this—you wanted to learn a bit more about these goblins, and your new traveling companion
>Took the last dose of shirin to keep yourself awake and alert, and perhaps to spur on a vision…
>Write-in

>>5808650
*His feathers

>>5808651
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last
ni ni

>>5808651
>Stayed up a little later, using <Daylight> to force your metabolism to allow this—you wanted to learn a bit more about these goblins, and your new traveling companion
Might as well share some drinks, learn something, and enjoy the party.
>Took the last dose of shirin to keep yourself awake and alert, and perhaps to spur on a vision…
Just think of this as a study aid shared with our new companion

>>5808651
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last

We have spent enough time here, faster we get back to hawksong the faster pearce and us can go back to studying.

>>5808651
>>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last

>>5808651
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last

>>5808651
>Stayed up a little later, using <Daylight> to force your metabolism to allow this—you wanted to learn a bit more about these goblins, and your new traveling companion
Come on, we can at least get to know our new ‘bandit-queen’- like, how did she even come to lead this ragtag group of gypsys?

>>5808650
>>pushing you towards her tent-flaps.
My dick
>>5808651
>>Took the last dose of shirin to keep yourself awake and alert, and perhaps to spur on a vision…
we are on the freaking goblin wastes! spirits of dust wind and hills!

>>5808651
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last

>>5808825
>>5808561
Me

>>5808651
>Went to sleep, and left early the next morning for Hawksong, with Zith-Zi in tow and your time in the Goblin Wastes over at last

Do not want to do the shirin in the middle of a tenuously peaceful goblin camp

>>5809085
>>5808825
>>5808822
>>5808754
>>5808726
>>5808682
>>5808671
>>5808658
>>5808655

[Looks like early to bed and early to rise will make a half-elf healthy, wealthy, and wise... Maybe. I'll post soon!]

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>>5809380
You nodded weakly to Pearce, and yawned. Pearce laughed, giving you a pat on the shoulder.

“Well, get up and get to it,” he said, helping you to rise. “Don’t make me carry you back to the wagon.”

“It’d be easy for you, though,” you mumbled sleepily. “You damned giant.”

“You’re just scrawny,” he retorted, though you heard the smile in his voice.

You couldn’t be sure if Pearce supported you all the way there, or maybe DID carry you, in fact. By the time you reached the wagon and laid down across the seat, you were groggy enough to slip immediately out of consciousness and into dreaming.

When you awoke, the sun was rising. A blanket was draped across you, and a bundle of fabric was under your head as a makeshift pillow. You looked across the carriage and found Pearce, sleeping sitting upright, slumped against the wall next to the window, face mashed comically against the closed slats. You smirked for a moment, and then noticed he had stripped down to his undershirt. Reaching under your head, you found his mages’ robes—your ‘pillow’. You rolled it back up and set it gently in his lap, careful not to wake the big fellow, and let yourself out of the carriage on gentle and quiet elven feet. Hearing you wake, Muffins squeezed out from where he had been sleeping—or serving as sentry—beneath your own place of rest, and joined you as you made your rounds.

Outside, you found the smouldering remnants of last night’s goblin bonfire and, sprawled around it in varying states of annihilation, the goblins. Some were half-clad, some naked, and for a moment you feared a fabled goblin orgy had occurred. However, there were no pooling… Fluids… Nor any other such indications of debauchery of that sort. Rather, it was the usual antics of the drunk and disorderly which you found proof of: scattered bottles and goblets, cards and game-board left half-played or hurled about in frustration, and signs of at least a few scuffles in swollen-shut eyes or bruised knuckles. Terzo was among them, and showed some of the same signs of wear-and-tear as the green-skinned locals.

It took you longer to find Ruldfo Van Houtzmann. You paused with a shudder when you found your father’s unmistakable attire forming a comically-pointed trail to Zith-Zi’s tent, with his unmentionables lying just before the flaps.

“No,” you gasped.

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>>5809423
“Damned right ‘no’.”

Jump jumped and—you’re ashamed to admit—squeaked at the voice behind you, and whirled around floundering to cast a protective spell. You stopped when you saw Zith-Zi, snickering quietly at you. She wore an oversized leather pauldron upon one shoulder, a mismatch to her rather loose and light traveling attire otherwise, upon which Hershy the feather drake sprawled.

“But… Then, uh…” you began, not sure how to formulate the question.

“Oh, your dad still fucked a goblin,” she said casually. “Two, actually.”

You felt your stomach turn again.

“I don’t like it much, either,” Zith-Zi noted sourly. “Barely got a wink last night.”

“You mean you…?”

“Slept in the tent,” the goblin confirmed, then grimaced. “Tried to, anyway.”

She caught your look, and your meaning, and snapped: “Well it IS my fucking TENT, you know.”

You didn’t know what to say, so you said nothing. Understanding that you didn’t mean to do anything about the situation, Zith-Zi did instead, taking a deep breath and then striding into her residence with an incredibly loud:

“WAKEY WAKEY, HIDE THE SNAKEY! TIME TO GET UP AND FUCK OFF!”

This even served to wake up several of her band outside the tent, whoa rose with groans like they were the living. You watched with secondhand embarrassment as two goblin-girls scampered out of the tent clutching bare breasts and adjusting their skirts. Your father followed shortly after chased by Zith-Zi and her slashing scimitar, with a thin blanket wrapped about him like a kilt to toga, wearing otherwise only his feather-plumed hat.

“MADAM,” he cried in outrage, “if I knew where I’d left my won sword, I would show you what for and make NO mistake, wot!”

He took notice of you, face burning, and gave you an unabashed wink, telling you: “You missed quite the party, my boy. QUITE the party!”

Once everyone had reassembled their outfits and taken what rest they had failed to recoup the previous evening, you were ready to depart.

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>>5809427
Zith-Zi brought with her only her tiny, elderly chimera-pet and a single pack, and the scimitar with which she had threatened your father. She threw the pack into your lap—an unexpected act that caused you to grunt in surprised exertion, and hip-checked out hard enough to send you skittering along the bench-seating where you now rode, and where the previous evening you had slept.

“Scoot your ass, wiz-kid!” she barked commandingly, a pint-sized, lime-hued drill-sergeant.

“What, you’re not bringing your own beast to ride?” Pearce asked, clearly unhappy to have one more body crowding into the cramped quarters.

She gave him a pointed look and said: “What, I’m not good enough to ride with you lot, even as I’m doing you this favour? You want me to not only leave my gobs and take some of their supplies, but also leave them down a camel?”

She looked at you, and gestured to Pearce, asking: “This one the dumb muscle or something? I thought even fat wizards were supposed to be smart or something?”

Pearce glared daggers at the goblin, who stuck her pinkie finger in her oversized, wide-pointed ear and dug around in a conspicuous display of ‘not noticing’. You sighed. It looked as if it would be a LONG trip back.

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>>5809435
Along the way, you reflected on your experiences in the wastes, finding that you certainly felt more worldly—well-traveled as you hadn’t been in years, or maybe ever. Some of the experiences you’d had out here in the Goblin Wastes weren’t ones you wished to repeat, but you had been exposed to people and situations you never would have if you’d stayed close to home. You’d gotten hat you came for, and more.

Choose one stat to increase:
>Athleticism
>Sociability
>Courage

It did indeed prove a long trip, though once she’d gone about her strange dominance display, the little green woman beside you seemed mostly to stare out the window in silence, stroking her feathered friend and saying nothing. Pearce, for his part, was similarly silent—though long stretches of comfortable quietude were not uncommon to your friend. Your father gabbed rather incessantly, noting various landmarks outside the rolling carriage and how they reminded him of his youthful adventures, but found Terzo the driver most responsive to his rambling—which was to say, he got the occasional grunt or polite question from the man.

Did you break the silence?
>You asked Zith-Zi how she'd come to lead the goblins of her band
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health
>You discussed the Ashurati at large, and the unique fey spirits of this region
>You chatted with Pearce about the coming school-year... Which, you supposed, you were already late in attending
>Skip the chat, it's time to go home

You also found yourself uniquely reflecting upon your father, Rudolfo. He had been unexpectedly adept in battle, a real boon... But also, hadn't he sworn to you to clean up his act? Yet here he was, carousing and caroling into the wee hours with goblins and even taking them to BED! And that's not to speak of his striking out in the same endevaour with the Ashurati maidens.

How did you feel about him, after this trip?

>Grateful, even if he's still rather... Unconventional. You'd have to thank him properly for this when you had the chance.
>You were embarrassed by his antics, and intended to have a talk about this behaviour with him when you had a moment alone.
>You were, you had to admit, impressed... Even proud. perhaps you could stand to spend more time with him, and to meet your other human relatives, when you had the time?

[Write-ins are permitted, except for the stat increase]

>>5809437
>>Courage
to overcome our weaknesses!!
>>You chatted with Pearce about the coming school-year... Which, you supposed, you were already late in attending
I don't care for the goblin. I care for Pearce. And I'd rather not talk abot them fey with the goblin.
>>You were impresed with Rudolfo
Look, I bet he has been trying to get it fixed and I trust he is. During adventures he deserves to get loose damn it! A sword in his hand and his cock in the other!

>>5809437
>Sociability
Literally our best stat, and being a socialite is working out better than than becoming a failed murder-hobo like dad.
>You asked Zith-Zi how she'd come to lead the goblins of her band
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health Smart to get an appraisal of her skills, and to start making good on our promise.
>You were, you had to admit, impressed... Even proud. perhaps you could stand to spend more time with him, and to meet your other human relatives, when you had the time?
…wait, we have other human relatives?

>>5809454
>You asked Zith-Zi how she'd come to lead the goblins of her band
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health
Smart to get an appraisal of her skills, and to start making good on our promise.

*Just wanted to clarify my thoughts, not jumble it up into the actual vote lol

>>5809437
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health

>Grateful, even if he's still rather... Unconventional. You'd have to thank him properly for this when you had the chance.

>>5809454
>…wait, we have other human relatives?
[Rudolfo came back to Hawksong to bum off of other relatives before he heard rumours you were in human lands, and is staying with a cousin of yours, which he mentioned a couple times last thread. There's a whole posse of Van Houtzmanns.]

>>5809437
>Sociability
We'll be able to communicate with even a recluse like Henzler effectively

>You asked Zith-Zi how she'd come to lead the goblins of her band
>You chatted with Pearce about the coming school-year... Which, you supposed, you were already late in attending

>Grateful, even if he's still rather... Unconventional. You'd have to thank him properly for this when you had the chance.
Dad's pretty based, and I don't see anything wrong with partying in moderation, like after a successful adventure.

>>5809437
>Sociability.

We aren't a fighter, so at least being the face would be useful.


>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health.

We did promises to improve the drakes health, so we should probably get a head start on that.


>You were, you had to admit, impressed... Even proud. perhaps you could stand to spend more time with him, and to meet your other human relatives, when you had the time?

>>5809437
>Sociability
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health
>Grateful, even if he's still rather... Unconventional. You'd have to thank him properly for this when you had the chance.

>>5809437
>Sociability
>You attempted to befriend Hershy, and to assess his health
>You were, you had to admit, impressed... Even proud. perhaps you could stand to spend more time with him, and to meet your other human relatives, when you had the time?

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>>5809672
>>5809648
>>5809526
>>5809483
>>5809465
>>5809454
>>5809445
[Writing!]

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Rolled 2, 16, 14, 2, 6 = 40 (5d20)

>>5809846
Your reflections were troubled by the presence of the goblin. Not in anything she did, exactly but in her being there. Zith-Zi was an abrasive and uncultured sort of person, and smelled rather foul the longer you shared company with her… But but she was VERY much a person. She had a pet chimera she loved very much. She had friends who liked to drink and to carouse, and who saw her off much as your friends might have done if you’d told them your plans. She had family, including a strained relationship with a distant mother. And right now, well, YOU didn’t spell like roses, yourself.

You saw her face, and remembered the ragged, half-eaten face of the goblin whom Muffins had killed to protect you. You shuddered to recall it, and Zith-Zi felt the tremor and glance your way.

“You’re cold?” she asked with a laugh. “In this heat? Serious?”

“It’s because your bloody goblin ripped his robes trying to kill us,” Pearce grumbled, then looked to you with concern. “Need the blanket back?”

You shook your head.

“Well you better not think we’re cuddling for warmth,” Zith-Zi said with an arched eyebrow. “This is a business-type transaction.”

You glared, and sighed, but held your tongue. Restrain, and diplomacy… You’d learned on this expedition that such principles could very literally save your life, or someone else’s.

>+Sociability

Instead, you reached out your hand towards Hershy. Zith-Zi flinched away, staring at your hand with squinted, suspicious eyes… But Hershy looked at it with tilted head and then, gingerly, stepped over onto your hand. You winced and yelped as he climbed up your arm to the crook of your elbow; his little claws, old as they were, had not lost their edge.

“It’s not just for show,” Zith-Zi said of her pauldron, tapping it and smirking. “But… What are you up to with him?”

“Nothing major right now,” you reassured the drake’s little green mistress. “I’m just checking him over… Assessing his health, you could say. I have a promise to keep after all, do I not?”

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>>5809855
>2, 6 for Natural Philosophy

Unfortunately, Hershy didn’t make this easy for you. Even with you projecting <Calm>, he squirmed and made croaking, hissing noises like a poorly-oiled door-hinge with each poke and prod, let alone any efforts to pull open his wing and examine the roots of the weathered feathers, or the smooth and amphibious skin underneath. Eventually, he snapped at you with such determined ferocity that you were forced to release him and let the little creature flutter back to his owner. Muffins watched him go with his two carnivorous head, and you instead turned your attentions to distracting his predatory instincts…

>16 for Sociability

…But when you turned back to Zith-Zi, she was still looking at you, while soothingly stroking Hershy.

“What?” you asked warily.

“You really mean it, huh?” she asked. “You’re going to help me?”

“…yes?” you replied uncertainly., and then raised an eyebrow. “You mean to help ME, don’t you? It’s a business relationship, like you said.”

“But Hershy jumped right over to ya’,” she noted. “He doesn’t just do that for anyone, you know. Means you’re good people.”

“Well he IS that,” Pearce noted, breaking his silence since the blanket incident.

You felt yourself blushing a little under their attentions and praise. It wasn’t overlooked, either: both Pearce and Zith-ZI laughed at your reaction.

“Here,” Zith-Zi said. “Hershy’ll let me fuck around with his feathers more than you. I’ll hold his wing open, you check his…”

“Skin and joints?”

“Whatever,” she said.

“And around the gums,” Pearce chimed in, helpfully taking point on watching, diverting, and restraining Muffins. “I think I saw some spotting.”

“He hasn’t been gnawing bones the way he used to like doing…” Zith-Zi added in response.

Something of the atmosphere in the cabin warmed after that, as the three of you tended to the old animal and your shared concern for him. When you were done your cursory inspection, Hershy didn’t seem to much like you, but you knew a bit more about his condition and what required most immediate attention and amelioration… And the goblin-girl was a little less prickly, with Pearce and especially with you.

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>>5809877

“Oh? You kids are all getting along then, ey?”

You father swung around and into the cab once more from where he had been riding along with Terzo up front. You regarded him, considering again your adventure in the Goblin Wastes, and more specifically Rudolfo Van Houtzmann’s role in affairs. Whatever his… Quirks… You had to admit to being somewhat impressed by the old man. If his long hair and beard gave him the look of a mangy dog, and his choices in clothing were questionable, and even if he seemed determined to bed anything with a bosom and… Well…

What was it you’d said of Hershy’s claws? ‘Old as they were, they hadn’t lost their edge’? You supposed you were beginning to see what mother had seen in this old human—not so old, back then. And he HAD risked life and limb, setting aside weeks of his time to organize and attend to this expedition, all for you.

“Rudolfo,” you said.

“Hm? What’s the matter, my child?”

You considered your words carefully, and said: “Thank your doing all this.”

“Oh, think nothing of it!” he said. “Rudolfo Van Voutzmann LIVES for advent—ah, that is… Once upon a time, I mean, this was… Hm…”

You smiled a little at his fumble, and shook your head.

“It’s fine, Dad,” you said. “Really.”

“…Dad…” he mumbled, barely above a whisper. He looked out the window then, and smiled softly.

Maybe, when you had the time, it wouldn’t be so bad to spend some time with the man and with your extended human family? Something to consider, certainly.

Upon your arrival back in Hawksong, though, you had other priorities. You bid farewell to Rudolfo and to Terzo—who, alas, you knew would be taking your next two months of petty-cash to pay for this extended travel, even with the deal your father had haggled for you. Pearce, too, had to return to his own residence in the Initiates’ Village.

“And then I better talk to the enrollment clerks,” he added. “Let them know I’m not dead. See about some makeup classes to catch up…”

“Right,” you agreed. “I should do that, too.”

But first and foremost: a bath, and a change of clothing were in order.

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>>5809881
You began your trek back home, but after a couple blocks you couldn’t take it anymore: you turned around to stare down the goblin-woman who was following you, Hershy upon her ridiculous, armorued shoulder-pad.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you asked.

“What do you MEAN what do I think I’m doing?” she demanded. “I’m following you home.”

“Okay,” you allowed. “But WHY?”

“Well where ELSE am I gonna’ stay?” she countered. “GOBLINTOWN? Oh, wait, you fuckin’ people tore it down twenty years ago, REMEMBER?”

You paled a little. Your apartment was… Not exactly LARGE. And you only had the one bed.

What were you going to do about this?
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
>Ask someone else to take her in [who?]
>Tell her to go find her own place—this wasn’t part of the deal, and she’s a grown goblin with resources of her own
>Write-in

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
Goblin pet

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
But the bed is ours, and she has to bathe.

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you

It would be pain to have to go track her down if we set her loose on the city. But she better not mess with or take any of our stuff.

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
Great- means we don’t have to spend hours finding ya for Hershy’s medical treatments

>>5809883
>>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
>>5809909
Supporting the Bed, Bath (and nothing Beyond housing) policy

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you
Surely we can find a closet to stuff her in

>>5809883
>Agree to let Zith-Zi stay with you

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>>5809899
>>5809909
>>5809988
>>5809994
>>5810041
>>5810070
>>5810103
You regarded the goblin critically but, in truth, you could see the good sense behind this. After all, Hawksong is a big city, with ample opportunity for a rural bandit to get into all kinds of trouble. At the very least, it would be a pain to have to trek back and forth across town looking for her every time you needed to arrange an appointment with her pet drake. It was a very practical arrangement.

Still, that didn’t mean you had to tell HER that.

“I don’t know,” you said, making a show of tapping your toe and resting your cheek on your hand. “Muffins here is already stretching the limits of my building’s pet policy. I’m not sure how they’d feel about a GOBLIN.”

Zith-Zi grinned at you, a fearsome expression on a sharp-toothed little goblin like her. “Har de har har, wise guy.”

“Well, maybe if you’re quiet, and well-behaved,” you mused. “I’m technically not supposed to sublet or house lodgers, either.”

“What, you aren’t allowed to have girls over?” she laughed, looking you up and down. “Explains a lot.”

You felt your ears heat up as she seized the initiative, and quickly stammered a rejoinder of your own, telling her: “Fine, but there are a few ground rules.”

You looked at you expectantly, and so you cleared your throat and held up one finger at a time: “One, the bed is mine. You get… I don’t know, the floor, or closet.”

“Be still my beating fuckin’ heart, we got ourselves a ladies’ man here,” Zith-Zi said, deadpan. “What’s two?”

“You have to bathe,” you said.

Zith-Zi tutted and looked to the side, fidgeting uncomfortably, and eventually asked: “Like, how often we talking here?”

You scrunched your nose. Eventually, after some haggling, you negotiated her to once every three days. She’d tried to parley, making a production of ‘saving water’, but when you in turn <summoned> a Water Elemental, she really had no argument to fall back on.

“Deal?” you asked, spitting in your hand and holding it out.

Zith-Zi looked down at your hand, eyes wide, and then cracked up into open laughter.

“Kid, I was TROLLING you!” she said between guffaws. “You don’t gotta’ do that every time. Damn, they really don’t teach you Tower brats shit, do they?”

You watched her saunter ahead of you, until she looked over her shoulder at you.

“You coming?” she shouted. “I have no fucking clue where you live, you know.”

You sighed, wiped your hand off, and hurried to catch up. You found yourself immediately regretting your decision.

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>>5810138
After taking advantage of your building’s bathroom—an exercise in sneaking Zith-Zi past your landlady Ms. Bewley there and back—she at least smelled notably better. Rather, failed to produce the musky odour she had been radiating earlier. To your surprise, the goblin-girl also did not make a battle of the bedding arrangements, either, but simply produced a thin and well-worn bedroll from her pack and laid it out upon the floor without complaint.

“What?” she demanded, catching you staring.

“I just figured you were going to make me fight you for every little thing,” you admitted frankly.

She laughed, and give you a more genuine smile, nodding to your raised bed.

“Too ritzy for my blood, rich boy,” she said. “I normally sleep in a tent, remember?”

“The only tent in your camp,” you retorted. “I figured you enjoyed fancier things?”

She shrugged noncommittally, starting to say something before thinking better of it.

“Look, it’s been a long day. And the sun’s setting—isn’t it beddy-bye time for elfy-welfies?”

You glared at her, but she was already facing the other way, sleeping back pulled up to her chin. She slept with one arm free from the bag, though, and with her hand lying upon the hilt of her scimitar—still within reach, even in the heart of the world’s safest metropolis. You frowned, but said nothing of it, and went to sleep as well.

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>>5810142
When you woke at dawn, the goblin and rolled onto her back. Lacking a perch, Hershy the drake-chimera instead crawled inside her bag, situating himself between her breasts with his tiny head nuzzled into her neck. Both their expressions were strangely peaceful. You regarded the incongruously-adorable sight for a moment, so at-odds with her waking self—bizarre! Were all goblins like this?

You turned your mind from the goblin and went to your window, looking out at the unmistakable spear of the Hawksong mages’ Tower, rising high above the surrounding Initiates’ Village to stab at the sky. You thought of what waited for you there—classes, and Izirina Henzler… And her adoptive mother, the Archmage Therea Henzler, the beating heart of a sinister Reptilian conspiracy.

The moment of truth was here. You had your witness—or the next best thing—and maybe your evidence. Of course, there was the matter of how to reach your estranged friend to consider. Before you’d left, she had rejected any notion of speaking face-to-face after you’d confronted her with suspicions as to her true nature. She hadn’t taken it well, and hadn’t spoken to you for over a year now. In response, you had engaged in a letter-writing campaign, leaving notes upon Izirina’s desk each day—sometimes delivered personally, sometimes by means of a <summoned> elemental… But though the letters were clearly being picked up, and maybe even read, the girl had given you no written or spoken reply, one way or the other. On the bright side, it also didn’t seem like she’d alerted the Archmage to your suspicions or your investigations—at least, you had to assume as much, since you’d suffered no repercussions.

Still, it made the whole matter of arranging a meeting between Zith-Zi and Izirina Henzler rather a difficult one.

How did you plan to approach this?
>Go to the school alone, and try to speak to Izirina during classes, as quietly and subtly as possible
>Bring Zith-Zi with you—though you’d need to concoct a pretense to bring a goblin to the Tower—and take a direct approach
>Send another letter, and ask Izirina to meet with you somewhere else… Perhaps the Mirror Maze where she’d first arranged to meet with you, years prior?
>Send a letter instead to the Archmage—anonymous of course—stating that you know her secret and demanding a meeting with both she and her daughter in the former Goblintown area
>Write-in

>>5810147
>>Send another letter, and ask Izirina to meet with you somewhere else… Perhaps the Mirror Maze where she’d first arranged to meet with you, years prior?

>>5810147
>Send another letter, and ask Izirina to meet with you somewhere else… Perhaps the Mirror Maze where she’d first arranged to meet with you, years prior?

>>5810147
>Send another letter, and ask Izirina to meet with you somewhere else… Perhaps the Mirror Maze where she’d first arranged to meet with you, years prior?

>>5810147
>Send another letter, and ask Izirina to meet with you somewhere else… Perhaps the Mirror Maze where she’d first arranged to meet with you, years prior?

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>>5810164
>>5810169
>>5810211
>>5810257
“There’s nothing else for it: you needed to get this out in the open, to explain to Izirina what you had discovered. She deserved to know. You explained this to the goblin at the centre of it all, who simply… Shrugged.

“What?” Zith-Zi asks, still groggy from waking up when she found you leaned over your desk with quill and parchment before you. “I don’t know this human girl, or lizard girl, or whatever she is. You want ME to tell You what to say to her?”

It DID seem faintly absurd, and yet… What else were you to do? Izirina had rejected your every overture, some informed by Logan Pearce, and you had nothing else to go on.

“Why not just write, uh… What I told you?” Zith-Zi asked, scratching her head in contemplation and perched upon the side of the desk. “Skip the whole roundabout secret letter nonsense, or at least make it productive, ya’ know?”

“She deserves to hear this in-person,” you said. “Wouldn’t YOU want to hear something this… SERIOUS face-to-face?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, as if speaking to a child, “but that’s ‘cause I can’t READ, wiz-kid.”

You stopped what you were doing to stare for a moment, feeling a mix of pity and disdain, which in turn inspired guilt. Zith-Zi, for her part, seemed to feel no shame at all.

“What’s with the look?” she asked.

“Nevermind,” you mumbled.

The goblinness sighed, and picked up the quill from the ink-pot, shaking it off with a messy spatter and handing it to you.

“Just tell her you have dirt on her,” she said. “That you discovered something that could incriminate her whole family as, like… Conspirators to a crime or whatever. That you’ll tell the Paladins. Spooky her. That’ll get her attention!”

“I don’t want her to HATE me!” you protested. “I want her to be my… My friend.”

Zith-Zi reaised her eyebrows.

“What?” you demanded.

“Your FRIEND, huh?” she said, smirking. “You travelled through the Goblin Wastes, fought tooth and nail, skipped school, and bargained with me for your… FRIEND?”

You blushed at the implication.

“You just don’t get it,” you muttered.

“Oh, I think I do,” she laughed.

This badgering proved the motivation you needed to get on with writing, at least. You allowed your uncouth (temporary!) roommate to inspire you with he rsuggestion. You had no intent to phrase the letter like BLACKMAIL, obviously, or like an accusation. Rather, you wrote that you had discovered dire and dark secrets about the Archmage, and about Izirina’s genesis, and that you desired to share them with her—to let her know what she reallyw as and where she came from.

‘I am still, as ever, your friend,’ you wrote, ‘and I wish not to disturb you, but rather to bring you closure, and to help you, if you so desire.’

You paused, and signed it: ‘Come to the Mirror Maze, where we first spoke at length.’

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>>5810412
“You write like a ponce,” the goblin-girl on your desk said.

“I thought you couldn’t read.”

“You move your lips when you write,” she pointed out. “I can read LIPS, kid.”

You glowered, but made a note of this; something to work on, perhaps. You folded the letter, and tucked in in an envelope, which you sealed. With a casting of your <Summon Elemental I> spell, you materialized a tiny earthen creature from soil and stone, to which you handed the missive and instructed to deliver it.

“What now?” Zith-Zi asked, as soona s it had departed.

“Now,” you said, “we wait.”

The goblin groaned, and slump off of the desk.

Time passed, but eventually—and almost to your surprise—you heard a rapping at the window. There, you found an elemental of air, whispy and scarcely material… Yet strong enough and stable enough to carry in its bosom a rolled-up note, tied with fine string. You opened the window and allowed it in, whereupon it exploded outward not the immaterial shapelessness from which it had been derived, a gale that swirled upon the room and briefly startled Hershy. The letter fell to the floor, and you scooped it up.

‘Come alone,’ it said, and was signed ‘Izirina Henzler.’

“Come on!” you said to Zith-Zi for, despite what the note said, you knew you NEEDED the goblin there for this to go as intended.

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, and followed you with a casual indifference as you hurried to don your day-off attire and to hurry out the door.

The Mirror Maze was where you and Izirina Henzler had first had a heart-to-heart, perhaps first moved towards friendship. You’d hoped the choice of venue would help to remind her of that, and to ameliorate any wounded feelings. However, as you approached her, you saw her expression was anything but warm—rather, it was almost as frigid and unmoving as her adoptive mother’s own eerie visage, cold with an unreadable emotion that you worried was anger.

“You didn’t come alone,” she said, though you saw her blank expression turn briefly to curiosity to see that your companion was a rough-looking goblin-girl.

“I know, I know,” you quasi-apologized. “but you’ll understand when you hear what the goblin—ah, what Zith-Zi—has to say.”

“‘The goblin’,” Zith-Zi scoffed. “Honestly.”

>>5810414
You bought three tickets from the tried and carefully-incurious halfling who manned the desk before the popular tourist attraction, and then the three of you stepped into the Mirror Maze. Here, surrounded by dozens of warped and enchanted mirrors which turned man, woman, and goblin into perversely-distorted and discoloured mockeries of their natural state, you hid from those who might overhear your scandalous revelations. Only when you were far from the entrance did you finally turn to Izirina—who stared straight ahead, avoiding your gaze in solemn silence—and address her. It was, you realized, a rather ironic and unpleasant reversal of roles from your first visit to this place.

“Zith-Zi!” you snapped.

“What?!” she barked back.

“Stop making faces at the damned mirrors!”

“Well I’ve never BEEN here before,” she protested. “What do you WANT from my, you stick-arsed fucking—”

“Are you going to tell me,” Izirina Henzler interrupted, voice quiet but stern, “what all this is about?”

Here, at the moment of truth, you found yourself stalling. You looked to Zith-Zi, who looked expectantly back at you.

“Well?” you squeaked.

“What, all of it?” Zith-Zi asked, incredulous. “Just like that? I assumed you lovebirds would want to have it out before I filled her in on the evidential aspects, you know what I mean?”

“L-lovebirds?!” Izirina gawped.

“Nevermind that!” you hissed. “Listen…”

>Just launch into it—the whole of the conspiracy, laid out, and ask Izirina how much of it she knew, and if she is a lizard-creature or not
>Break it to her gently, revealing what you have discovered and operating on the assumption that her true nature has been kept a secret from her, and that she is a victim in this
>Keep it vague, and indirect, and attempt to goad particulars and details out of Izirina to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge
>Write-in
[feel free to get as granular, down to specific phrasing, as you’d like]

>>5810415
>Break it to her gently, revealing what you have discovered and operating on the assumption that her true nature has been kept a secret from her, and that she is a victim in this

>>5810415
>Write-in: Discuss how you believe the archmage was involved in the demonist incident. And that eye witness goblin accounts confirm, the wizard's tower was facilitating human tracking and experimentation to lizard people through the sewer system.

We should put what we have learned down on the table. But i don't believe we should directly mention that Izirina was likely part of human experimentation. Since that seemed like a touchy subject for her last time.

>>5810415
>Keep it vague, and indirect, and attempt to goad particulars and details out of Izirina to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge
I’m starting to regret confronting her- my sole solace is the fact that Hershy may brighten her mood

>>5810415
>Break it to her gently, revealing what you have discovered and operating on the assumption that her true nature has been kept a secret from her, and that she is a victim in this

With a side of >>5810503
to try and avoid suggesting anything about her

>>5810415
>>Break it to her gently, revealing what you have discovered and operating on the assumption that her true nature has been kept a secret from her, and that she is a victim in this

>>5810415
>>Just launch into it
>>You are a fucking lizard baby, but you already know that don't you

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>>5810959
>>5810684
>>5810568
>>5810546
>>5810503
>>5810502
[Writing!]

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>>5811066
You found suddenly that you regretted this whole endeavor. Izirina’s gaze fixed you, confusion hidden behind the affected stoicism, and you were at a loss. This girl—your friend-has been living a lie under an evil mother for as long as she has been alive, or nearly. How does one explain all that without breaking someone’s heart… Or worse, making ti feel like an attack, an accusation of complicity?

“Hear me out,” you pleaded, with a dry tongue. “I have been to the Goblin Wastes—”

“Hence me,” Zith-Zi interjected, earning a glare.

“—and I have learned… Much.”

Izirina Henzler slowly nodded, a silent signal to continue… And so you did. You reiterated all that you had uncovered in the libraries of the Twoer and the city. You told Izirina of your journey to the barren realms to the southeast of Hawksong. With Zith-Zi supplying confirmation and affirmation, and in fact butting in to seize the narrative herself a few times when she evidently thought you were ‘telling it wrong’ in some unspecified way, you told her of what had transpired in Goblintown.

“And anyway, that’s when your twink here started asking me if Mom’d ever seen any CHIDLREN,a nd I—”

“Zith-Zi!”

Both the goblin and the human girl looked to you in surprise at your outburst. You froze, just shaking your head. Perhaps it was too late, but you remembered well the hysteria which had gripped Izirina when last you’d expressed your… Suspicions… About her true nature, as an only partially-human subject of the Archmage’s experiments.

“I’m not saying that you were directly involved,” you say carefully. “This all happened when you were… Before you were born, maybe, even. But…”

“You still think I’m a chimera,” Izirina Henzler said quietly.

You stared, unsure how to reply. Luckily, Zith-Zi was happy enough to do so in your stead.

“Or a lizardman wearing a skinsuit, maybe,” she said.

You gave her a dirty look, but the goblin just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

“I don’t think that,” you told Izirina, looking back to her with pleading eyes. “As I said in the letter—”

“Letters,” Izirina corrected you.

“Right, in ALL the letters,” you continued, at least happy to know she’d received and read them, “you’re my friend. I only want to—”

“To what?”

That question from your estranged friend stopped you.

“What?”

“So what?” she asked you, bluntly, face showing signs of frustration for the first time. “I was… Uspet… When you first brought this to my attention, so caught up in what it might mean for me, and then I did not WISH to face it. But now… It’s been a year. A year of my thinking about what you said, and what it meant or might mean for me or the city, and I realized that it didn’t MATTER.”

You stared blankly, and repeated dumbly: “What?”

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>>5811107
“I don’t CARE!” Izirina said, stomping her foot, hands balling to fists at her side. “I don’t! Why do YOU? What are you going to DO with all this information?!”

“Well, uh…”

“Are you going to REVEAL it?” she pressed. “What do you think will happen if you’re right? That this… CONSPIRACY of shapeshifting Reptilian humanoids connected to my… To the ARCHMAGE… Is just going to let it HAPPEN?”

Izirina lowered her voice, looking over at the mirror beside her—a mirror which wrapped and twisted her visage, elongated her, and seemed to make her very serpentine in its contours.

“And if you’re wrong?” she asked, quietly. “If you don’t have the full picture Then the Archmage and… And I… We suffer scrutiny for nothing? Get… Cast down, pushed out, pariahs like your goblins?”

Both you and Zith-Zi opened your mouth as one to protest that they were not YOUR goblins, but Izirina interrupted you again.

“This is all… History. It’s all in the past. I’ve spent a YEAR thinking about this, and I just DO NOT CARE.”

The Archmage’s daughter looked at you with watery hazel eyes—eyes with normal human pupils, the eyes of a friend—not of a beast or demon or secret lizardwoman. She forced her face to maintain its serious, stiff-lipped stoniness. Eventually, she broke the held eye-contact to stare down at the floor, and the animating energy seemed to leave her body; she slumped, deflating,a nd her voice quivered.

“None of it changes anything. I… My plans are still the same either way.”

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>>5811117
You felt… A lot of things. This had been your QUEST now, for almost a year—to unearth these long-buried secrets, and to bring them into the light. And you’d done it for HER! And here she was, just… REJECTING this knowledge, this terrible truth for which you’d risked so much, and for which Pearce had nearly DIED?

And yet, well… She had a point. What WAS your purpose in uncovering these truths and bringing them back with you? You’d undertaken a quest to help a friend, but what did this ‘help’ entail?

What did you say?
>This was all to help heal her
[You had no plans to expose the Henzlers or this plot… But armed with this knowledge, you hoped to bring closure to your friend, and to help heal whatever affliction Izirina Henzler was suffering.]

>Izirina is your friend… But the truth comes first
[You planned to bring Izirina in on this and to help shield her from scrutiny, because you believe her to be a victim… But the Archmage, and the Twoer, must be brought to justice by one means or another.]

>You have your truth, and that’s enough
[You just wanted to know, and for Izirina to know. You don’t mean to DO anything, or need to. You just could not bear to live in ignorance… And you didn’t think she would want to, either.]

>What DID matter to her, then?
[Izirina’s taken all this quite well, but you get the sense from what she said that some OTHER purpose has consumed her in this year apart. So… What is it?]

>Write-in

>>5811121
>What DID matter to her, then?

>>5811121
>You have your truth, and that’s enough

With a side of
>What DID matter to her, then?

>>5811121
>What DID matter to her, then?

I’m >>5810502, phoneposting

>>5811121
>This was all to help heal her
I just wanted her to experience the joys of life magic.
>What DID matter to her, then?

>>5811121
>You have your truth, and that’s enough
>What DID matter to her, then?

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>>5811336
>>5811322
>>5811281
>>5811214
>>5811175
[Alright, update coming up!]
We're also almost at the end of the 'prequel' section, and introducing something of the plot I originally planned to start with if you chose Izirina as the MC, or a character who wouldn't have met her until she was older.

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Rolled 7, 17, 10 = 34 (3d20)

>>5811418
“The truth,” you said.

Izirina looked up at you.

“The truth… The hidden truths, behind all the things we THINK are true… I needed to know it.”

“Uh?” Zith-Zi vocalized, but you ignored her for the moment. This was between you and Izirina.

“I don’t plan to… Expose you, or the Archmage, or to do anything else,” you said. “If you don’t need my help, or want it… if you don’t even want to be friends anymore, I get it.”

“I…” Izirina began, expression conflicted.

You weren’t done, though.

“I remember all the days we spent studying together,” you said. “You feel the same way—I KNOW you do. I know you don’t want to be… DIFFERENT. But would you have really been happier never knowing the truth? Being IGNORANT?”

Izirina’s conflicted expression turned hostile for a moment, then wavered, and melted into uncertainty.

“I didn’t think so,” you said simply. “Even if it doesn’t CHANGE anything, I needed to know… And so did you.”

She said nothing. Neither did the goblin, for which you were grateful. You and your one-time (and future?) friend simply held each other’s eyes, in a long and pregnant pause.

“You said it didn’t matter anymore, that I didn’t change your plans,” you said, breaking the silence, though your voice was lower and gentler now. “Thent what DOES matter to you, Izirina? What are you planning, exactly?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her forehead knotted and she squinted, thinking hard. You could practically hear her mind working overtime, and her heart hammering, as she decided whether or not to trust you and to tell you this secret… A secret that, in your heart of hearts, you NEEDED to know.

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>>5811434
“Look, you two are obviously having a… Thing…” Zith-Zi began, with obvious awkwardness. “I’m just going to—HEY!”

No sooner had the goblin turned to leave than Hershy leapt from her shoulder. The golden-feathered little drake sailed on his old and ratty wings, with furious flaps to remain aloft, and alighted upon Izirina.

“H-hey,” Zith-Zi stammered. “What’s the deal? Hershy, come back…”

Hershy didn’t respond, though. He had landed upon your classmate’s outstretched arm, which the human (?) girl had extended automatically. As Zith-Zi protested weakly, her pet stared at Izirina with some animalistic recognition dawning in his milky eyes and simple mind. Izirina seemed more startled than anything, but gradually you saw it—her pupils turn from circles t slits as she met the drake’s eyes, a recognition dawning there as well.

“Wait…” she murmured, “I know you... Hirschel.”

Slowly, the golden drake scooted forwards and with a ratting croak butted his head against your friend’s chin and lips.

>17 for Sociability; DC +2 for your falling out, -1 for your persistent attempts to reconnect, and -1 for bringing Hershy
>SUCCESS

Something changed in Izirina after that. When she looked back to you, her eyes were ‘human’ again. That wasn’t all, though: they were no longer the hard eyes of the girl who had refused to speak with you this last year, no longer like those of her adopted mother. They were those of the girl who had tried to befriend you in your early years at the Tower, who you had stood up for and studied with. Reflected in the mirrors all around you, you saw the face of the girl who had first called you here all those years ago, and who you had taken out to the fir and spent afternoons cuddling your chimera with, hidden away from the rest of the world. You saw the girl who buried her face in escapist literature, whose waning confidence and intellectual excellence had conspired to remove her from the school’s body politic and to elevate her to such alien heights that you had once chased her, envied and despised her, and had eventually fixated yourself upon a vision of her—of her mystery, of her hidden truth.

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>>5811471
“It doesn’t matter who… or what… I am,” she told you, “because whatever the answer is, I don’t belong in this world.”

For a moment, you feared the worst. The declaration almost sounded… Well, suicidal. But you knew this Izirina, recognized her. This was the Izirina of your vision: alien face clouded in a darkness beyond darkness, alien of form, her bones bare and wounded, poisoned heart and womb exposed. Somehow, though, you felt more akin to THIS Izirina than to any other aspect of her, because this was her soul… And you understood then what her soul yearned for, what HER truth was.

“Dimension Door,” you murmured.

“What?” Zith-Zi barked.

You waved the goblin off, as the pieces fell together. Izirina studied so many spells related to travel, transportation… To summoning and the other planes. She read books about hypothetical worlds, and nonfiction works about far-flung, foreign lands. She was never so excited as when you told her about your visit to the fairy court on Old Maple Hill—a realm beyond the material, just beyond reach.

“I don’t care about my body,” Izirina told you quietly but quickly, the words pouring out as if she could not control their flow, “because I’m going to leave it… Leave all of this… Behind. Hawksong, and my mother… And these lizard-people, and the Tower, and ALL of it.”

She stretched out her arm then, like a falconer, and Hershy jumped from her outstretched hand. He flew an orbit around your head, and then once again returned to land upon Zith-Zi’s leather pauldron. The goblin-girl breathed a sigh of relief, scratching under his chin, but then she turned back to Izirina as well.

“Where are you going to go?” you asked.

Izirina shook her head. She had no answer, or none with a name.

“I’ve seen it in my dreams,” she said quietly. “It’s hazy, but I’ve… I’ve seen it! There’s a world beyond this… Somewhere where I belong. I know it!”

And then, she asked you the question that would forever change your life:

“Do you want to come with me?”

>Yes
[You will follow Izirina Henzler's Path of Transcendence, forsaking material reality and mundane society, and even most other mages; you and Izirina will grow closer once more]
>No
[You will reject her path, embracing the mortal and material world even as you pursued hidden truths; you and Izirina will remain at odds, becoming rivals in your approach to the Esoteric]
>You don’t know
[You will chart your own path into the Esoteric, though you found that it intersected and converged upon hers at times; you and Izirina will have a complicated relationship]

[No write-ins this time, except to add dialogue or fine details to one of these above options. Choose only one, please, and backlink 1post votes.]

>>5811477
>You don’t know
mmmm yes complicated relationships

>>5811477
>Yes

Too much hidden lore at stake to say no. The origin of gods light, the source of the demi-planes the gods dwell in. Why the gensai say summoned elementals are "soulless". The "old order" the demons rebelled against the the rdk mentioned. And the REDACTED difference between demons and deity's.

Compared to that the material conflicts of hawksong are less exciting since we have already been though it. But we have only seen glimpses of the outer planes.

>>5811525
[Not to sway any votes, but I would like to clarify that if you go the materialist route, you'll still learn some answers to at lest a few of those questions (at lest potentially), and you likely won't be staying in Hawksong long-term.]

>>5811477
>You don’t know
dunno man, I wanna get close to her but I don't wanna leave everything behind specially since we started to reconnect with our semi-deadbeat dad

>>5811477
>No
I am not allowing this quest to become yet another inmortal cultivator!

[Given the importance of this vote and relatively low and close vote so far I'll leave this open until later tonight or tomorrow.]

>You don’t know
We still have our great goal of fairy naturalist, which is pretty on the edge of both worlds.

>>5811477
>Yes

>>5811618
All chances are our dad will die of old age before we achieve anything.

>>5811477
Have we really failed you as a friend, to want to run away so badly?

>>5811530
Tbh I was hoping this quest was going to lead to a more functional understanding of the Tower in the beginning bits before delving off into the unknown, and at least some sorta social anchor here to come back to periodically, if infrequently.

>>5812157
>the Tower as an anchor
[Also quite likely no matter which you choose, though notably moreso if you don't attempt to transcend matrial reality.]

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>>5811495
>>5811525
>>5811618
>>5811668
>>5811892
>>5812044
[Alright, since it seems our other regulars (including >>5812157?) won't be voting... Let's do this! Writing.]

>>5812725
I mean, I would vote Yes if it made a difference- I just don’t know if it would, and besides, my goal was to get her some friends, not to alienate her.

>>5812725
Frankly I think it would’ve been better had we started small and worked our way into this decision naturally.

>>5812728
>>5812732
It would have tied the vote, and I would have held it for an eighth. But the update's written, and it can't wait forever.

>>5812725
“Do you want to come with me?”

The question echoed in your head as you left the Mirror Maze and walked home to your apartment. All the other sounds of the city reverberated soundlessly about you, it seemed. You could feel their vibrations against your ears, but they could not penetrate the wall of that question—a question you still couldn’t answer. It had seemed… Profound, in a way it really shouldn’t have. Life-changing. Even now, the haunted, almost religious look in Izirina Henzler’s eyes had spoken of the sheer magnitude of what she intended: the journey which she planned to undertake. You had no idea where it would lead—no idea even HOW she meant to undertake it, but you knew there was no coming back from it. And that and EXCITED it you! How could it not? A part of your CARVED for the secret knowledge, the experiences which no one else alive had ever experienced…

But there would be no returning from a journey like that. No more would the scholasticism of the Tower hold meaning to one who had gone where Izirina intended to go. It would mean forsaking the fellowship of your friends. You’d thought of your father Rudolfo, and of Pearce, and you had hesitated… And that hesitation had stretched int a longer and longer silence.

And Izirina Henzler had smiled sadly, and had left.

"Thank you," she'd whispered, but you couldn't say for sure what she'd been thanking you FOR.

“—ey… HEY! Earth to fuckin’ half-elf!”

You’d wheeled on the goblin obnoxiously shrieking her way through your thoughts, vibrating with irritation at the interruption, and shouted “WHAT?!”

Zith-Zi, to her credit, didn’t shrink away in the slightest. She’d no doubt dealt with worse than whatever you could dish out, though at that moment you felt ready to try your hand at mastering <Fireball>. However, the look she gave you wasn’t a combative one. To your surprise, she actually looked… Concerned.

“You okay?” she asked. “You haven’t said anything since your girl dumped your ass.”

“She wasn’t ‘my girl’,” you murmured, and it was true in ways you suspected the goblin couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “She never was. I don’t think I ever knew her. I… I think I failed her as a friend. For her to want to just… Run away from everything…”

Zith-Zi snorted, and earned another glare as a result, but she shrugged it off.

>>5812744
“Hey… Listen,” she began. “When you’re young, everything seems like it’s on you. I get it. Every relationship—or friendship, what-fucking-ever—that falls apart is this big, like… Judgement on you as a person. Like you weren’t enough for him, or whatever, and when he leaves or dies or does whatever he’s gonna’ fucking do, it was because you weren’t there, or weren’t there in the way he NEEDED, or whatever… But people just change, and grow, and sometimes go crazy and become mad-fucking-wizard-bitches who, and I’ll be honest here, sound like they might try to become a lich or something.”

“…A lich?”

“It happens more often than you’d think,” Zith-Zi said grimly. “Point is, it’s not on you, okay? It’s just part of growing up.”

“I’m older than you,” you reminded her.

“Not more mature, though,” she said with a smirk, pushing her well-developed chest out for emphasis and flexing a bicep.

You rolled your eyes.

“Why do YOU care?” you asked.

“‘Cause if you off yourself, who’s gonna’ help me take care of Hershy?” she asked, smirk spreading into a grin.

“Izirina might,” you noted, frowning slightly. “They… KNEW each other.”

“Yeah, not sure what that was all about,” Zith-Zi muttered, also lost in thought for a moment. “But whatever: point is, I need you. Like… Alive and with-it and shit. Think you can manage?”

You regarded the goblin-girl and considered her question. It was hard not to regard the entire expedition to the Goblin WASTES as a total WASTE, in light of what had just transpired. What was even the point in keeping your promise, really? Still, your eyes lingered on Zith-Zi’s genuine expression of ccnern, and drifted next to little Hershy—the bizarre chimera-drake, elderly and feeble, who stretched and yawns upon her clownish pauldron.

>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
>You renounced your promise to Zith-Zi, and sent her packing

You also had to decide what to do about… Well, the Tower, and your schooling there. You KNEW things now—things you were not meant to know. You knew about the Archmage’s dark dealings and clandestine connections. You knew that her daughter—your friend—meant to enact some mysterious and potentially dangerous plan to… ESCAPE this world, to which the Tower’s teachings and her access to restricted reading were no doubt vital. Could you really just… Go back to classes, knowing all this? Pretend that nothing had happened?

>You returned to the Tower, and played the role of a regular (albeit gifted) student
>You arranged a meeting with the Archmage, to settle this directly before you decided what to do
>You forsook the Tower and its academia to pursue your own esoteric studies, delving into hedge-magic and the fey arts

>>5812745
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
I’m just depressed now

>>5812745
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
>You forsook the Tower and it's academia
Yeah uh no let's go and do fairy drugs.
>Izzy relationship drama
>I sleep
>Helping a mentally stable goblin
>Real shit
Backlinking
>>5809899

>>5812745
>You returned to the Tower, and played the role of a regular (albeit gifted) student
>You arranged a meeting with the Archmage, to settle this directly before you decided what to do
Frankly I don’t care about much now, but at least we should talk with the Head Cherimerist about taking some advanced classes to help Hershy regain his luster.

>>5812745
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi

>You returned to the Tower, and played the role of a regular (albeit gifted) student
for now at least

>>5812745
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
One of our goals is to help out and retose magic beasts no?

>You arranged a meeting with the Archmage, to settle this directly before you decided what to do
we should at least try to gain the whole story if Irzina doesn't care about her origin

>>5812745
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
Good learning opportunity too

>You forsook the Tower and its academia to pursue your own esoteric studies, delving into hedge-magic and the fey arts
mostly fey arts please

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>>5812747
>>5812764
[Women come and go, but ESOTERIC MAGIC is forever!] And anyway, she doesn't begrudge you anymore, and the option selected didn't make her a rival or enemy. [Izirina playing a major role in the story is the only fixed point, so expect more of her no matter what.]

>>5812747
>>5812750
>>5812764
>>5812769
>>5812786
>>5812792
[If the tie breaks in the next hour or two before bed, I may do one more post; otherwise tomorrow!]

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>>5812818
It still saddens me- and the only reason I was hesitant was because it would’ve estranged us from our worldly connections, otherwise I probably would’ve voted to become closer to her and follow her weird, unique path.

Anyway, maybe just arrange the meeting with Henzler on the pretense of carving out some time or timeturner for study our heritage magic along with our other classes (and maybe some advanced life classes)? I ain’t opposed to fey magic, I’d just rather focus on life magic to help Hershy as our priority here.

>>5812827
>It still saddens me- and the only reason I was hesitant was because it would’ve estranged us from our worldly connections, otherwise I probably would’ve voted to become closer to her and follow her weird, unique path.
Fucking RQM, writing characters too endearing to abandon. How could he do this to us?

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>>5812831

[I'm quite il and sleeping, but if the tie doesn't break by the time I can get out of bed, I'll break it.]

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>>5812818
>>5813285
>>5812747
>>5812750
>>5812764
>>5812769
>>5812786
>>5812792
[Alright! I'm up and about, so it's time to settle this. Since we have a tie and >>5812764 is a dual option, bu the Archmage convo is compatible with the others, I'm breaking it this way. Writing!]

I'm too late. Sorry for failing you RQM
>You kept your promise to Zith-Zi
>You forsook the Tower and its academia to pursue your own esoteric studies, delving into hedge-magic and the fey arts

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>>5813499
Don't worry about it, you mostly as going to get the result you voted for anyway

>>5813426
>>5813426
Obviously, you were always going to keep your promise to Zith-Zi and to Hershy. Whatever the goblin’s motivations might have been, whatever the results of her pilgrimage here, she HAD lived up to her end of the bargain. Could you do any less, then? Besides, there were FAR worse motivations in your eyes than wanting to help a family pet to live a longer, healthier life.

But mending and healing this chimera… Well, that WOULD be a challenge. <Monstrous Regeneration> could help regrow or reattach limbs, mend damage to flesh and bones and even skin, but this was another matter. Even if you fully UNDERSTOOD the material composition of the old chimera-drake—you didn’t—you weren’t exactly capable of just turning back a biological clock. Most of what afflicted the old animal was simply AGE.

“Drakes are commonly thought of as reptilian, but that isn’t true,” you explained to Zith-Zi.

The goblin-girl sat once more upon your desk, so as to be at eye-level, and kicked her feet with absurd childishness.

“Well, duh, he’s a bird,” she said, tugging Hershy’s wing open as he hissed his displeasure and snatched it back “Look, feathers!”

“Birds are actually not so distant from the reptilian organisms,” you replied. “It’s why they have scaled talons.”

“Oh,” she said, with a tone that implied she didn’t understand at all. “So drakes… ARE reptiles?”

“No,” you sighed. “Drakes are AMPHIBIANS, like newts and salamanders. Their wing structures are similar to those of the ancient dragons and their few living relatives, so ASSUMPTIONS were made, but their internal biology bears this out. The feathers he has are from his alchemical admixture with some OTHER organism… Likely a bird. What KIND of bird is key, though. It must be a longer-lived species, as most drakes only live three to five years...”

“And Hershy here’s older than me,” Zith-Zi nodded. “But why’s it matter?”

“Treating an organism with magic to extend its natural lifespan is very species-dependent. It’s not an easy thing to do, and the risks of complications—cancers, organ failure, dementia—are HUGE. If it were… Well, I’m sure you can imagine how the world would look pretty different if every Tower student could access immortality.”

“Liches,” Zith-Zi said darkly. “Liches everywhere.”

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>>5813526
“…No,” you sighed. “What is it with you and… You know, never mind. Maybe you can go for a walk or something? Go menace some tourists, give me time to think?”

“Don’t threaten a girl with a good time if you ain’t gonna’ deliver, kid,” Zith-Zi joked, grinning and nudging your ribs with a bony elbow—though less bony since she’d arrived and began eating into your already meagre post-Muffins budget.

“Quit it!” you snapped. “I’m trying to focus. The first step is comparing the feather samples I took to this catalogue of known birds of the world, to determine his composite parts… And I can’t do that with you poking and prodding at me!”

Zith-Zi rolled her eyes and flopped backwards onto the desk with a weary groan. Zith-Zi hopped upon her chest to nestle there, as he seemed to enjoy doing, and she idly strokes his nose, between his eyes.

“Well,” she mused after a time, “he can breathe fire. Does that help?”

You stopped your reading mid-sentence and, after a moment, slammed your tome shut with a slam that startled the little drake into croaking and hopping down. His goblin mistress sat up, overlarge ears curling in displeasure as she glared at you.

“WHAT?!” you demanded.

“What?” she replied.

“You didn’t think that was IMPORTANT?”

“Well, he doesn’t do it much anyMORE,” Zith-Zi replied defensively. “But he used to when I was a kid.”

You looked to Hershy, still fluffed-up with irritation, and your mind churned in your skull. Drakes superficially RESEMBLED dragons—some even said they were a creation of the dragons of ancient days, who were suggested by a small body of literature to have been capable of working some magic of their own. NO drake, though, could breathe fire, or produce any other sort of spell. Such working required a connection to a source of sufficient mana. Humans achieved this by accessing the Elemental Planes—as did you—while more orthodox adherents of the Feycraft like the Ashurati drew upon natural forces with the aid of sacred words and rituals passed down by the unseen spirits of the True Fey. This little feathered newt-creature had no extraplanar connection that you could sense—not at all like your summoned elementals—and OBVIOUSLY was not Fey or capable of working fairy ritual magics.

So… What was he?

“I think it’s time for me to go back to school,” you murmured.

You got up and grabbing your cloak as you did so. You stretched out a hand and whistled and, with a huff of put-upon exertion, your research subject and primary patient leapt to your outstretched arm. You winced a little at his sharp claws, briefly considering the leather pauldron before dismissing the idea as simply too silly.

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>>5813530
“Hey!’ Zith-Zi protested. “What am I supposed to do?!”

“Stay here and watch Muffins,” you said, without turning back.

“WHAT?” she balked, “but Muffins hates me!”

Your three-headed chimera lifted two of his three heads, one regarding you and one regarding Zith-Zi.

“Just don’t let him bite off anything I can’t heal back,” you told her, and closed to door to muffle the cursing and carrying-on which thus resulted.

It had been weeks now since your return to the Tower—in truth, well over a month since even your meeting in the Mirror Maze with Izirina Henzler. You had at first told yourself (and Pearce, who stopped by to check up on you) that you would return shortly. You had said that you were just taking a few days to reacclimate. Then, you’d told yourself that you were too busy with the matter of Hershy’s well-being, and of keeping your promise to Zith-Zi… But in truth, that might have been an easier matter WITH the Tower’s resources and additional lessons than without. No, there was an underlying truth which you feared to speak aloud in private, let alone to the likes of Logan Pearce, who obviously missed you and was worried for you.

The truth was that you weren’t coming back. You couldn’t.

Part of it was the pain and anxiety which seized you when you thought of returning to classes with Izirina Henzler again. You couldn’t bare the thought of seeing her face and knowing that beneath her outward calm she was working towards those hidden and mysterious goals, walking that strange and eerie path which you could not follow. A part of you feared that, against your better judgement, you would be tempted to follow her.

The other part of it was to do with the Tower itself, with its history and (of course) its Archmage. You’d told Izirina that you had no intention to expose her family’s dark secrets, and that was true… But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Even I you didn’t yet know the whole story, you knew enough: the Archmage was a wicked woman who had conspired with a race of sinister entities to her own enrichment, and in the process had indulged in forbidden living alchemy of human beings. That much seemed obvious. As someone who couldn’t even stomach the animal-mangling state of current Chimeric doctrines, how could you bring yourself to work and study under such a mage as she?

How ironic, then, that you now approach the Tower with the express purpose of meeting the Archmage herself.

“Tips?”

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>>5813533
You were startled to find Logan Pearce among the Tower Guardians at the gate, with their tall, proud, blue hats adorned with shield medallions upon their buckles. Granted, your friend wore no such adornment—not even a crimson band such as your own.

“Extra credits,” he explained sheepishly. “I’m doing this between classes as part of a fast-track program. Combat magic, defensive spells, scrying… That sort of thing. There’s high turnover among the Guardians, and I had to make up for the missed lessons and lower marks somehow.”

You smiled, and congratulated him. You tried not to make the words sound hollow or false, in light of your own continued absence. YOU might not have been able to bring yourself to return, but being a Tower Guardian had been Pearce’s career goal for years, and you were happy he’d found a path there.

“But hey,” he interrupted your thoughts. “You’re back! That mean me and the lads—and Testa—are going to be seeing you this weekend?”

“Maybe,” you said. “I’m actually not here for re-enrollment, though”

“…Then why are you?” he asked, not angry but worriedly, lowering his voice and casting a quick glance to the Guardians.

The Tower Guardians had fallen back to give the two of you the privacy to chat and catch up, quickly recognizing you as a legitimate attendee of the mages’ academy here—you WERE the only half-elf of your age thus enrolled, after all.

“I’m here to speak to Theresa Henzler,” you said.

Pearce’s body language went rigid, and he attempted a stern tone—though he could never maintain such with you for any length of time.

“Tips,” he said, “don’t do anything stupid. “She doesn’t know what WE know yet… And she doesn’t have to. We’d agreed not to, you know… Take this to the Paladins or anything, right?”

“I know,” you said, “but -I- still know.”

“well if we’re not going to DO anything about it, then what does it MATTER?” he asked. “Come on, just drop it. Please. You’re going to get yourself hurt.”

There was a pleading look in you friend’s eyes, and without thinking you rested a hand on his shoulder, which made him flinch and flush slightly.

“It’s not about that,” you promised him. “She has answers I need… Answers about Hershy.”

You nodded to the little old chimera perched upon your shoulder, who Pearce regarded for a moment and then sighed.

“Is that goblin putting you up to this, then?” he asked, protectively. “I can give her a talking to, if you want.”

You shook your head and laughed, and thanked him.

“It’s not that,” you said. “I just need to know.”

“You always ‘need to know’,” he grumbled.

Still, to your gratitude, your friend went and spoke with the Guardians on your behalf. They, in turn, sent a chimera of their own—a little crow-shaped thing with the eyes and wings of a dragonfly, which hovered and darted about—up to deliver the message.

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>>5813535
The messenger swiftly returned, croaking in an uncomfortably-human voice:

“Proceed. The Archmage will see you.”

You exchanged a last look with Logan Pearce, and began to ascend the lengthy, LENGTHY staircase up to top of the Tower.

“Should have studied… <Levitation>… Or <Dimension Door>…” you wheezed. “Or taken Rudolfo up… On his training…”

Eventually, with GREAT effort, you made it to the Archmage’s public office—at least not QUITE so high up the ivory spire of Hawksong’s Amges’ Tower as her private quarters were. You found the door slightly ajar and, after a moment’s fearful hesitation, you approached the door and said:

“Hello?”

“Enter,” she said. “Do not waste my time.”

You gulped, and did as instructed. With one hand you slowly pushed open the door. The opposite wall was a pure, almost blindingly-blank white. It was broken up by an intricate pattern of small windows, supplemented by a <Wind Wall> to keep out the high-altitude drafts which would otherwise whistle through the space and disrupt every robe and paper…. Though the place looked hardly used at all, and the Archmage’s imposing, massive, black wooden desk sat plain and bare, perversely evocative of a coffin. She stood on the other side of it, facing away from you. Archmage Theresa Henzler was still unmistakable by her truly massive hat, out from which fell a few strands of platinum-blonde hair that verged on silver. When she turned to face you, it was a movement without any rise and fall—a fluid motion that seemed almost mechanical, and certainly uncanny and inhuman. She met your gaze with those same icy blue eyes you remembered looking at you like you were a specimen atop her experimental slab all those years ago; those eyes looked out from that uncanny, scarcely-moving face—a face that looked hardly older than that of her adoptive daughter, though you knew this woman to likely be over a century old.

What had been the cost—the social cost, the spiritual cost, the cost in human life—to keep that face so young?

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>>5813538
“Speak,” she commanded, as you might command a dog.

“I am—”

“I know who you are,” she said. “Obviously. I have been watching you for some time.”

She had?

“You have?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” she said. “I’m a busy woman, and I do not like to repeat myself. Why are you here? I gather it’s not to return to your classes?”

“N-no,” you agreed.

Instead…
>You demanded the whole, unvarnished truth about what happened twenty years ago, under threat of exposure
>You sought a stipend for independent research in exchange for your silence
>You requested an exemption from traditional classes, and access to the laboratory facilities beneath the Tower, to pursue the independent study of Life Magic
>You spoke of your concern for Izirina—and told her ‘mother’ what she had told you, and about your fears for her plans
>You asked about Hershy, where he came from and what he was made from, and for help in preserving him in restoring his youthful vigor
>Write-in
[making any explicit demands for resources runs risks and requires a roll; the more extreme the ask, the higher the DC and the bigger the consequences for failure]

>>5813530
*Hershy hopped upon her chest to nestle there
[Gah.]

>>5813540
>You requested an exemption from traditional classes, and access to the laboratory facilities beneath the Tower, to pursue the independent study of Life Magic

least likely to get us disappeared

>>5813540
>>You asked about Hershy, where he came from and what he was made from, and for help in preserving him in restoring his youthful vigor Speaking to the arch mage was a little too easy... I always thought hershey was a female. But, asking about this drake is going to... send out a ton of subtext. ¿Why is this bastard of an elf asking me speciifcaly about this...? So we will approach the confrontation anyway, which is going to be great

>>5813540
I’m still distraught
>You spoke of your concern for Izirina—and told her ‘mother’ what she had told you, and about your fears for her plans
>You asked about Hershy, where he came from and what he was made from, and for help in preserving him in restoring his youthful vigor
These are the most pressing things on my mind, though I definitely want to ask for a stipend, exemption, and laboratory facilities- I just don’t know if you would approve of such a bulky vote RQM

>>5813640
[Sure, you can ask for all those tings as well. You'll just have a higher DC.]

>>5813646
Alrighty then, I can accept that

>>5813540
>You sought a stipend for independent research in exchange for your silence
>You requested an exemption from traditional classes, and access to the laboratory facilities beneath the Tower, to pursue the independent study of Life Magic
I’m not curious about the truth personally, but I do think Tips would try to pursue it on character grounds- the reason why I don’t as a IC reaction is because I already feel uncomfortable with my piling so much on your plate.

>>5813540
>You asked about Hershy, where he came from and what he was made from, and for help in preserving him in restoring his youthful vigor

>>5813540
>You sought a stipend for independent research in exchange for your silence
>You requested an exemption from traditional classes, and access to the laboratory facilities beneath the Tower, to pursue the independent study of Life Magic

These are the two options that directly help us in the long term.

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>>5813753
>>5813674
>>5813650
>>5813640
>>5813608
>>5813546
[Writing!]

Rolled 14, 7, 7, 18 = 46 (4d20)

>>5813769
Oh, derp, rolls

Rolled 13, 2 = 15 (2d20)

>>5813769
>>5813773
You chewed your lip a little, considering how to approach this matter. You needed answers, both historical and mystical ones. You also needed to not ‘vanish without a trace’ after this meeting—snatched up by some lizard-person or chimeric mutant on your way home. Who knew what the Archmage was capable of, after all?

“What can you tell me about this little guy?” you asked.

The Archmage narrowed her eyes slightly, shifting her piercing, transfixing gaze from you to your current chimeric companion. You saw no sign of recognition on her face but, then again, her face hid much.

“Where did you get that?” she asked after a moment.

>18 for Sense Motive

“With all due respect, Archmage, I asked you first,” you began.

You’d never admit this to Pearce, of course, but when someone was lying or hiding something, sometimes you felt your ears twitch, as you subconsciously picked up on inflections beyond what you normally, consciously registered. All your recent negotiation and skulking about uncovering secrets had given you ample opportunity to refine the skill, and right then and there… Well, those tips were twitching in that office.

“You knew I didn’t make it myself,” you hazarded a guess, “because you knew I didn’t have access to the materials.”

The Archmage said nothing.

“How does it breathe fire?” you asked. “What did you make it from?”

The Archmage moved, and you resisted the urge to flinch. She stepped—or gliding—around the desk and crossed her office to approach you and Hershy, who regarded her while licking one eyeball—something you noticed he mainly did when agitate and readying to nip or flee.

“You believe I made this creature?” she asked you, regarding Hershy with cool indifference.

“I think you know how it was made, and from what,” you replied, then took a deep breath and added: “I think you have made many things, with many materials people don’t know about, below the Tower. I don’t think it ends at gryphons and owlbears, or utility familiars for the Tower Guardians… And I don’t think they’re all authorized under the Tower’s magical laws, or the sort of creations the Paladin King would approve of.”

“Are you THREATENING me, then?” she asked, still calm, eyes still on Hershy.

You could EASILY believe that the Archmage was some sort of reptilian being wearing a skinsuit, then. Soemhwo the alternative—that this unflinching, unblinking mage was simply LIKE this, was more upsetting.

“I… I’m not.”

The Archamge’s eyes shifted to your face once more. You knew how the laboratory rabbits must have felt.

“I want you to…”

You swallowed, and started again.

>>5813784
“I’m asking for an exemption from traditional classes, and access to the laboratory, and the materials, you used to make this chimera,” you said, as assertive as you could manage. “I mean to make him youth again, and healthy, and I can’t do that until I know where he came from and how he was… Crafted.”

“Woven,” she whispered. “You mean woven.”

“W-what?”

>14 for Sociability

Your answer was not more words, but the lifting of a sleeve, and the sudden emergence of… God, tentacles! Two long tendrils, whipping out from beneath her over-baggy sleeve, lashing out like whips to slam into you! You were caught off-guard, pinned to the wall with an embarrassingly-girlish cry before you could respond with magic of your own. Hershy leapt from your shoulder with a rattling croak, fluttering about haphazardly. The Archmage watched him for a moment, and you recognized the stance of a mage ready to cast <Counetrspell>. There was no need, though: if the little drake tried to spit fire, he produced only smoke, and then fluttered toward the window. A simple up-casting—

“<Wind Ward>.”

—was all it took to force him back inside. Then, her attention returned to you. She approached you, tentacles drawing back up into her sleeve as she drew nearer and nearer. What WAS she?!

“Who put you up to this, boy?”

“Wh-what?” you gasped. “Nobody!”

“I told you I did not like repeating myself, recall? But I will, ONE more time: where did you get that chimera?!”

It was the first time you’d heard the Archmage outwardly angry, though disturbingly her face still barely shifted with the rage—mask-like. You couldn’t bare to look at her, a doll-like beauty of false flesh, yet couldn’t bare either to look away.

>13 for Courage

“Th-the Goblin Wastes,” you squeaked, hating the weakness in your voice. “He belongs to a goblin.”

“A goblin?” she snapped. “What goblin? Describe her!”

And you did. Gods forgive you, you told the Archmage all about Zith-Zi and the goblin. When pressed, you even told her about the Goblin Wastes, and your journey there.

“And why did you go to the Goblin Wastes?” she asked.

By now, the Archmage had released her grip upon you, and yet—without your noticing—she had also closed the door. Hershy cowered in a corner, near to a window and yet damnably unable to escape out of it thanks to the oppressive wall of swirling air which entrapped him as surely as a net… And you, too, were trapped. What else could you do?

“I was… Looking for evidence of… I wanted to understand what happened twenty years ago. Where… Where Izirina came from.”

The Archmage looked at you, wordless. You knew—felt it, in the tips of your ears—that she was contemplating your demise. You knew, too, that you were no match for her—not even close. You were no fighter. You wished that your father was here, or Pearce, or even Zith-Zi.

>>5813794
The last time I saw that chimera, it was upon the shoulder of a… Of an enemy,” the Archmage said. “That same enemy was the one who… Delivered me the girl.”

“Girl? You mean Izirina?”

“What other girl could I mean?” the Archmage asked. “Refrain from stupid interjections.”

You closed your mouth.

“If the chimera's former owner is gone… Dead, maybe, in the Goblin Wastes…”

The Archmage was pensive for a moment, then looked up sharply.

“As I said, I have been watching you for a while,” the Archmage continued. “I heard of your little ‘performance’ in the Advanced Chimericism class two years ago, of course, and I inferred from the girl’s prattling that you had been indulging in the secret magical arts of your people.”

“Feycraft?”

She stared.

“R-right, no stupid questions,” you murmured, casting your gaze down as if scolded, unable to help yourself from quivering.

“I will admit that I am not UNimpressed, child,” she said. “You have great gifts in the arts of Living Alchemy, and obviously a keen mind for research of other sorts. And I… LOST… A great deal of talent in that department, when I acquired the girl.”

You looked up then, slowly and uncertainly. What was she saying…?

“I will permit you your dalliances with my daughter,” she said, “and give you the resources you seek. You can have your ‘exemption’, and access to my labs.”

You blinked. You wondered if you’d misheard her, or had perhaps gone MAD with fear and were now delusional. Maybe she had killed you, and you were now being teased with false hope in one of the Seven Hells?

“In exchange, you will maintain your silence, and your compliance,” she said. “You will not leave this Tower without my permission. Your research and results will all be submitted to me… Be PROPERTY of me. You and all that you learn and produce are MINE, from this day forward.”

You rankled, and yet could not bring yourself to speak up in objection.

“You will go to your residence—and I KNOW where you live, young man—and you will gather up your things. You will return before nightfall. You will report to me. You will not leave again for some time, so end your lease if you wish to save money.”

“But… My friends, family… I can’t just…”

>>5813796
The Archmage didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. It was self-evident: she didn’t care about any other that in the least, and had no intention to take any of it into consideration.

You nodded.

“This is a rare opportunity,” she told you as she gestured towards the door, and it opened. “You are quite welcome.”

Feeling numb, you lifted your arm and whistled. Hesitating only momentarily, the old chimera-drake fluttered to your arm. You both left…

"And bring the goblin."

...And the door closed behind you.

What did you do next?
>You turned to Izirina for help—this terrifying woman was her mother, sort of, right?
>You went to the Paladins—they could protect you, surely? This was ILLEGAL! It had to be!
>You fled Hawksong—you couldn’t stay here, a prisoner and a slave, no matter what facilities and resources you were allowed to access!
>You gathered your things, and returned with Zith-Zi that night—you had no other choice, or none that you were confident wouldn’t get you killed and ‘disappeared’
>Write-in

>>5813797
>You turned to Izirina for help—this terrifying woman was her mother, sort of, right?
I am not amused

>>5813797
>You turned to Izirina for help—this terrifying woman was her mother, sort of, right?
mostly because Zith-Zi got caught in the crossfire

>>5813797
>You fled Hawksong—you couldn’t stay here, a prisoner and a slave, no matter what facilities and resources you were allowed to access!
and that's why I didn't want to talk to Henzler Sr!

>>5813822
If needed to be done- Hershey is too important

>>5813828
1. there were other ways
2. no, he really isn't

>>5813797
>You gathered your things, and returned with Zith-Zi that night—you had no other choice, or none that you were confident wouldn’t get you killed and ‘disappeared’

The Archmage is giving us what we want.

As the leader of the mage tower she presumably could just steal anything out of our research or results. (thats why we had to hide the jackalope among the fey.) So that's not really any change to the status.

And she is likely relying on fear to force our compliance, but if we train up we can become stronger than her and betray her later.

It's a win win really.

>>5813797
>You fled Hawksong—you couldn’t stay here, a prisoner and a slave, no matter what facilities and resources you were allowed to access!
If we wanted to never see friends and family again, we should've just gone with Izzy.

>>5814050
I’m sure we’d see our friends again- and Pierce would totally break us out if needed

>>5813797
>>You fled Hawksong—you couldn’t stay here, a prisoner and a slave, no matter what facilities and resources you were allowed to access!
we run really fast, even if we know we are being watched. Where to? Fucking elf land that's where. This development leads to slavery

>>5814050
If we run away lads, we’ll never see our friends and family anyway, being effectively exiled from Hawksong- we should at least talk with the Izzy, the Paladins, or something to at least attempt to stay.

>>5814254
Tips ain’t running back to Mom and her friends- we left because we weren’t wanted, I ain’t going back just to be neglected again.

>>5814050
>>5814056
[Several of your friends aspire to work for the Tower in some capacity, as Pearce sort of already does, and Zith-Zi and Muffins would both potentially be coming with you.

>>5813808
>>5813812
>>5813822
>>5813838
>>5814254
[Still, the vote seems clear! Unless it changes while I'm brewing coffee, it looks as if you're fleeing the city!]

>>5813797
>You turned to Izirina for help—this terrifying woman was her mother, sort of, right?
There must surely be a third way

>>5814278
[Care to backlink that tie-brwaking, direction-changing vote, 1post anon?]

>>5814281
Im swapping my vote from, >>5813838

To this
>You turned to Izirina for help—this terrifying woman was her mother, sort of, right?

>>5814286
[Alright, so if you're >>5814278, then it's a draw. We'll wait a while longer, then, and I'll roll to resolve if I must.]

>>5814281
Last time I cared to vote was in >>5808395- currently doing an inventory audit rn, and it’s turned into a long, exhausting shitshow

>>5814278
>>5814295
[Well a backlink to another non-backlinked 1post ID isn't very useful, but it's a tie otherwise with >>5814286, and I have time to write, so...]

>>5813808
>>5813812
>>5813822
>>5814050
>>5814254
>>5814286
[Locked! Update incoming.]

>>5814315
Your automatic instinct was to flee, maybe to the Sylvan Realm or maybe elsewhere. Anywhere but Hawksong, under the terrible gaze of Archmage Theresa Henzler, seemed good right about then. But… What about your father? Your friends? That was why you’d restrained yourself from following Izirina’s path, after all—could you bring yourself to forsake them now? When the fear faded, you found that the answer remained an emphatic ‘no’. And what if she FOUND you? What would the damned Archmage do THEN? You shuddered to imagine.

So it was that, instead of leaving the Tower for your home or for the great unknown, you detoured from your departure to find the classrooms of your fellow (?) Senior Initiates. You found them in the midst of a lesson on advanced elemental neutralization—the use of one elemental spell to neutralize another in lieu of a <Counterspell>, often the harder tactic to overpower, especially if one could become a true master more than a single element. You watched from the doorway for a time as, with frightening efficacy, thin and frail Izirina annihilated one sparring partner after another. Her expression as neutral, like her mother’s had been—not the blankness of a false face, but the indifference of the distracted. Her mind was, as it so often seemed to be, elsewhere.

Truly, this family was terrifying.

Eventually, she noticed you. The indifference slipped for a moment into naked excitement. You waved weakly, and with a few words to her Mage Proctor, the Archmage’s daughter was excused. She stepped gingerly over her groaning, felled foes, who the instructor set to healing from their shocks, scorches, and frostbite.

“Sorry for interrupting,” you said.

“I was pretty much done anyway,” Izirina said.

“I can see that,” you replied.

“You brought Hirschel!” she noted with delight. “Does this mean you’ve reconsidered my offer?”

You winced a little at the hope in her voice, and shook your head, dashing it.

“Can we speak in one of our usual spots?” you asked. “Alone?”

Once you were alone, standing amidst the old and disused equipment of the Tower which for one reason or another had not yet been thrown out, you told Izirina of what had transpired. As you spoke, she scratched Hershy—or Hirschel?—under the chin and cooed softly to him—she had always liked animals more than people, you reflected, but you WERE a little miffed at being so ignored.

“Are you listening?” you demanded, eventually.

“I am,” Izirina said. “You should take the offer.”

You stared in disbelief.

“What, and become a slave? A prisoner?!”

“The Archmage is probably the most skilled Life Mage in the world,” Izirina noted. “With her training and resources, you could be as well. You’ve always been so much better at those magics than anyone else our age… Well, my age. Um, of your level of…”

>>5814359
“I get it,” you cut in curtly, arms crossed. “Seriously? You want to escape the entire WORLD, and you don’t understand why I wouldn’t want to be imprisoned in the Tower’s creepy basement for the rest of my life?”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be for your ENTIRE life,” she said placatingly, and then looked back to Hirschel. “I’d free you, eventually. You know… When I’m ready to go.”

“Izirina…” you hissed.

She looked to you with such sadness then that you couldn’t finish your thought. Eventually, she sighed, nodded, and passed Hershy back to you.

“I understand,” she said. “I think so, anyway. I just… Thought it might be nice to have you here, with me. Friends, like we sued to be.”

Your heart hurt to hear that, and you stepped a little closer, reaching out to gently touch her hand.

“We’re still fiends,” you assured her. “Right now, though, I need your help… The help of my friend.”

She nodded again, and a small smile crossed her face.

“I’m quite skilled at transporting myself, you know,” she said. “I can do the same for you. I know everywhere that the school’s wards are weakest, and how to negate the standard scrying spells—including all those that Mother knows. I could help you to come and go as you’d like, without Mo—the Archmage ever realizing, and keep you hidden. I could even teach you how… Probably, with enough time.”

She frowned a little.

“Though the goblin-girl… Her race doesn’t always react well to magic. I don’t know if I could do the same for her.”

“I’ve healed goblins with magic before,” you noted. “Why should this be different?”

“Well, if their magic resistance kicks in while you’re healing one, it just makes it harder to complete the healing,” she notes. “But if it interferes with a transposition spell such as <Dimension Door>… What would happen to her? Where would she be?”

You choked a little at the thought. That sounded… Dangerous. But so did trying o convince Zith-Zi to stay in the Tower indefinitely, or to relinquish her beloved pet and to leave Hawksong without him.

“Now that you’ve spoken to mother and she knows what you know… I don’t know what other options you have,” Izirina said apologetically.

What did you do?
>Agree to be a captive of the Tower, with the option to come and go, and to escape, using Izirina’s magic [With Zith-Zi, or without?]
>Ask for Izirina’s help to escape Hawksong without the risk of being detected and detained [Do you invite Izirina to come with you, or not?]
>Write-in

>>5814361
>Agree to be a captive of the Tower, with the option to come and go, and to escape, using Izirina’s magic [With Zith-Zi]
Just imagine being able to heal Izirina and Hirschel to health- I think that alone would be worth a couple years before we skidaddle outta here. Hell, we can probably visit our friends and family as well.