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>>5906767
Your name is Ezreal Mious Van Houtzmann, one-time apprentice to the Archmage of Hawksong, Disciple of the True Fey, and defender of Dappulyet. You are elven, and human, and touched by ancient magic. You are a scholar of the arcane, a healer of the sick, a protector of the forests, and a friend to animals. You are an adventurer, if not always entirely of your own volition, and you have traveled long and far as few have done, in pursuit of hidden truths.

You are a SEEKER OF THE ESOTERIC...

And right now, you think you are about to be sick.

"Easy, eeeaasy does it," Costella Fanucci soothes you, rubbing your back as you clutch the sides of the wooden bucket and dry-heave.

"Strange. The <Greater Teleportation> spell woven into that letter shouldn't have been so... Disruptive."

You glare halfheartedly up at Izirina—'Izzy'—who is watching you with the detached fascination of a researcher observing a subject... Or perhaps like an angel passing judgment from on-high, with how her contained elemental energies set his bronzed complexion aglow and radiate with crackling brilliants from her eyes. The environs do little to soften the impression, as you seem to have been translocated to the human girls' current location, which appears to be some sort of magically-lit and rather sterile facility, presumably below the Mages' Tower. You spent no shortage of time in such rooms, playing the role of a researcher yourself.

"Well, it was," you groan, and heave again.

"I'll have to fix that," she says with a frown. "Though... There was some sort of interference, I think. A snag in space-time that led to delayed transit and temporary body-spirit disjunction. Does the moon have some sort of spell-of-protection in place around it? That might do it if it's like a stronger version of whatever stopped you at the border of the Silver Realms..."

You look back up at her, surprised at how well-informed she is about what you've been up to.

"Your father told us where you went," Izzy offers by way of explanation.

"When you didn't come back," Costella adds, sounding more than a little hurt.

"Ah," you say, "right."

(You did ask him to do that, didn't you? It's... Been a while. In some ways, it doesn't FEEL like it's been a year. In others, it feels like it's been a lifetime.)

"We were worried," Costella says, pouting rather fetchingly.

"I wasn't," Izzy corrects her, and she smiles knowingly at you, as if sharing in some secret. "I had every confidence in you. I knew you'd be alright. After all... You're you."

You open your mouth to say something, and then close it. There's a lot you'd like to say, to both of them... But right now, you think you need a moment to catch your breath, get your bearings, and regain your strength.

"Water..." you moan.

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>>5906774
"Oh! Silly me, of course!" Costella says, bouncing to her feet and bustling off to grab you something to slake your thirst and clear the taste of bile from your palate.

"Costella."

She stops and turns to Izzy questioningly. The mage prodigy clears her throat and casts:

"<Teleport Object>. <Create Water>."

A cup appears in Izzy's hand and fills almost instantaneously with clear, cool refreshment. You accept it gratefully. It is a casual and almost mundane display of what is, in truth, shocking levels of magical precision and mastery of the School of Conjuration.

"I've been practicing," Izzy says with a brief, secretive smile when she sees your expression.

Costella fidgets, fussing a little with the cloth belt cinching in the waist of her peasant-dress, and looking at a loss for what to do, however. After a moment, she seems to snap back to eager attention, though.

"Oh, and food! You'll be wanting to, like, refill that stomach now that it's all... You know, empty and stuff. How about a shepherd's pie, Ez?"

Before you can answer, a flutter of rapid wingbeats buffets your hat as Veloz—your shimmering celestial hummingbird companion—settles upon your hat. You're gratified that he made the trip with you—you weren't sure the spell would bring him as well! However, he is also a reminder of the Moonwoods, those scenic and sanctified forests of Holy Luna... A place without predator or prey, where animals and plants live in blessed harmony in a veritable paradise. You haven't eaten meat in a year, for to do so would have been sacrilege of the highest order. Even before then, in the land of elves, your mother's people are mostly vegetarian outside of small amounts of fish and game, reserved for special occasions and consumed with ritual significance.

Of course, you're back on Earth now, and in Hawksong, among your father's people, and Costella is awaiting a reply.

"Actually," you say...
> "That sounds great."
> "I'm vegetarian now."

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>>5906777
[For those of you just joining us, the archive of Seeker(s) of the Esoteric, AKA A Mage Apprentice's Quest, can be found at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm, as well as Reptilian Infiltrator Quest and Dragonborn Antipaladin Quest. The earlier quests will play a role here but, as ever, they are not required reading. Anything important from them will be addressed and explained as the main characters become ware of it.]

>>5906777
>"I'm vegetarian now."
Wow quick, I didn't even have time to respond to the end of thread questions from the previous one. Might as well do it here.

>How did you enjoy the lore revealed in this chapter? What are your feelings about the gods and eladrin introduced and explored in this part of the story?
Fantastic, though it makes me wonder if the light side are really ayy lmaos what are the true forms of the dark gods

Also some anons seem to want to team up with Theral against the gods but despite the little dispute we just had on the moon our goals seem to align pretty closely with the goals of the light.

>Was the balance of exposition to action to your liking?
ye
>Earlier in the quest some said Tips felt a bit like a blank slate of a character; does he feel more distinctive and consistent in how he is being written now?
I'm not sure how early that was - understandable in like the first thread but he's felt pretty distinct for a while now.
>Were there any stand-out characters (good more bad) for you in the Dappulyet and moon arcs?
I saw an anon badmouthing the Unseelie champion last thread and wanted to say they seemed like a very decent sort to me especially considering their background. I'm not sure where other anon got those negative impressions, she seemed to be fighting for the good of her people and offered mercy multiple times when she had the upper hand, it's a shame we let the werewolf devour her .

>>5906777
>"That sounds great."
dunno about vegan, but we can reduce the amount of meat we regularly eat

>>5906777
> "That sounds great."

Anti meat eaters are cringe, living creatures by design aren't immortal and the eco system wouldn't be able to handle it if they were.

Animal's break down and die of illness and old age and are then consumed by bacteria regardless.

And in fact not eating prey animal's causes damage to the local ecosystem, as their out of control numbers devastate local foliage.

>>5906777
> "That sounds great."
Such luxuries are not possible here - we don’t have berries which could make us full for an entire day or so. We take what we can get.

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>>5907017
[Quick point of order: you do have some magically-nourishing moon-berries.]

>>5907018
Neat. Can we grow them here?

>>5907023
[Yes*]
*It would probably take some doing, and it isn't guaranteed, but theoretically you have much of the magical toolkit you would need to attempt it between Cone and the Rite of Attunement. Your experiences and abilities are more focused on animals and fair-spirits, but it IS an avenue of magical research which you could pursue.

>>5906777
>> "I'm vegetarian now."
I find it more interesting when quest protags are weirdos with hangups

>>5907025
Kino. Sounds like a decent objective.

>>5907049
I’m pretty sure we already are that.

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>>5906849
>>5907001
>>5907017
>>5907049
>>5906811
“Actually…” You pause to think on it, but eventually concede. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

Costella beams at that, evidently happy to have made herself useful. She practically skips out of the room for the spring which enters her step. You smile a little bit to see it, happy that the bubbly vivaciousness which returned to her after you cured her condition has stuck, even in your absence. Though… Well, it’s not as if Costella has ever had trouble making friends, as far as you can tell. Even without the friendship which she and Izirina seem to have kicked off, in your absence, you can’t imagine her ever being left lonely for long.

Without Costella present, you are left with alone with Izzy. There is a dearth of comforting back-rubs or cooing concern, which is a curious contrast since Izzy is the one who you are ostensibly dating… If that’s even how she perceived your relationship, or still perceives it. This woman remains a mystery to you in man ways. Every time you think you ‘get’ her, she surprises you, sometimes with dangerous results. And yet…

“it’s good to be back,” you say.

Izzy smiles, and nods, gingerly taking your bucket and helping you to your feet. With another casting of her <Teleport Object> spell, she summons a chair for you to sit on. It’s a welcome gesture, but as she begins to pace excitably before you, it begins to feel uncomfortably like an interrogation.

“Tell me everything,” she demands. “What was it like? Did you… Oh, you must have met GODS, actual GODS. And… The MOON! It must have been amazing!”

“It was different,” you say carefully. “Strange. In some ways a paradise. But… Strange. Unnatural.”

You reflect on your experiences on the moon: the pristine curated woods with their perfectly-symbiotic ecosystems, maintained by powerful fairy ‘groundskeepers’… The sprawling city-sized laboratories, and observatories, and campus, and magical megastructures, all staffed by chalk-white, opal-eyed hermaphroditic ‘high elves’ or ‘eladrin’, long-lived and created wholecloth as adults. A world without natural birth or death. The things that work there are not, you realized before you left, things that necessarily fit in with the way of YORU world… THIS world. Here on Earth, living creatures aren't nigh-immortal, and the ecosystem wouldn't be able to handle it if they were. Aging, death, and decay are natural elements of the grand design… Perhaps a dark design, a relic of the Dark Gods, but you aren’t entirely comfortable with simply discarding all the world’s biological processes in pursuit of such a sterile paradise, even a beautiful one.

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>>5907103
It isn’t just obligate and universal herbivory that was novel to Holy Luna, though. There was also the way their Sacrae Scholae Lunae functioned—their ‘Mages Tower’ equivalent. There, every student as also a proctor, and information flowed freely and openly between the eladrin. Now, here on Earth, and especially alone with Izirina Henzler, you wonder if that might not ALSO be something best left on the moon. For all her infectious enthusiasm, you cannot help but remember the little girl who you grew up with: a girl who sought to escape her body, her society, her whole world… Who risked your life, and hers, and Costella’s, in pursuit of that escapism. You have learned a great deal since you last saw her, about the nature of the gods, the universe, about bodies and souls and the fate of all the cosmos. You have mastered the <Rite of Attunement> and the <Improved Aetherial Form>, and between this and your gift for the living alchemy of Chimericism, you suspect you are on the precipice of a power which could very literally change the world… And here is Izzy, that brilliant, talented, inscrutable mage, wearing the black robes and hat of the Archmage's own elite arcane agents.

But how much do you trust her? How much should you share with her?
>Tell Izzy everything about your adventures in the Sylvan Realms and on Holy Luna
>Tell her only the basics, and guard the rest as holy secrets of the fair-folk
>Hide or exclude something specific [what?]
>Write-in

There is also just the matter of… Well, of other, more personal disclosures. Seeing Izzy again, one thing that strikes you is how good confidence and excitement looks on her. You saw a glimpse of this Izirina Henzler once, long ago, but you were both so young. Now she is in her full womanhood, as you are now a man. She is your first lover—your only one, aside from a brief and unsatisfying tryst—and she is, undeniably, lovely… A beautiful woman, literally glowing with life, escapes strands of hair blowing in an unseen breeze. You may never know how much of the gravity she exerts on you is spiritual entanglement from that first sue of the <Rite of Attunement>, amateur and unconventional, but she DOES call to you… But, by the same token, so does Costella, and while that girl is a genuine paragon of physical magnificence, and a wonderful and supportive friend, you know for a FACT that at least the initial impetus for THAT attraction is the result of magic.

Should you broach the subject with Izzy? You missed her, you care for her… But do you love her?
>Yes—confess your feelings, and kiss the girl
>No—hold your tongue, you’re still not sure of yourself, and this isn’t the time
>Actually… This is probably a better discussion to have when Costella returns as well
>Write-in

>>5907105
>Tell her only the basics, and guard the rest as holy secrets of the fair-folk

>Actually… This is probably a better discussion to have when Costella returns as well
Am >>5906849

>>5907105
>Tell Izzy everything about your adventures in the Sylvan Realms and on Holy Luna
The happenings of the moon, the goddess’ response to us, those are not dying with us. We need to get this out, as much as possible.

>Yes — but don’t confess. State that you miss her and see how she respond.
It’s been a long time. A lot of things can - and have - changed. Let’s not come off too strongly. If she’s open to it, great. If not, it is what it is.

>>5907105
>Tell Izzy everything about your adventures in the Sylvan Realms and on Holy Luna.

Misinformation can't help anyone, and if this is going to be an age of rising high magic. Izzy is going to be swept up in it just like we are. And she did help us escape from luna, so the we least we can do is be honest and forthcoming.

>Actually… This is probably a better discussion to have when Costella returns as well

>>5907105
>Tell her only the basics, and guard the rest as holy secrets of the fair-folk
We haven't seen her in a while, but best not to forget Izzy is dangerous and forced us into the attunement ritual.

>Actually… This is probably a better discussion to have when Costella returns as well

[As we're tied, we'll hold off until tomorrow for the next post.]

>>5907023
Thanks for asking that exact question for me
Let's plant them at Sprigganbro forest resort

>>5907105
>Tell her only the basics, and guard the rest as holy secrets of the fair-folk
>Write-in : add details on how the whole godhood plan is a shitty idea and your experience comforted you in fixing the local plane first

>Actually… This is probably a better discussion to have when Costella returns as well

>>5907105
>>Tell her only the basics, and guard the rest as holy secrets of the fair-folk
>No—hold your tongue, you’re still not sure of yourself, and this isn’t the time
She's a stinker

>>5907515
>>5907460
>>5907235
>>5907140
>>5907133
>>5907130
You meet Izzy’s expectant enthusiasm with trepidation. It's not that you don’t care for her, but... Well, you’ve been burned before, almost literally by the Elemental plane of Fire. It doesn’t matter how you feel about Izirina Henzler. Being friends with her (or more than friends, for that matter) is like being friends with Muffins: she may be cute, and she may mean well, but you must never forget that she is DANGEROUS. If this is going to be an age of rising magical potential and potency, Izzy of ALL people is going to be swept up in it, just as you have been... And that means managing some expectations, and keeping some secrets, for everyone’s well-being.

“The Moon,” you begin. “The Moon... Was interesting. Very low gravity, and the people there are sort of peculiar. ‘High elves’, they call themselves.”

“Peculiar how?” she presses, summoning a chair for herself and scooting forwards with wide eyes.

It's almost absurd to see such a grown woman, but... Well, it’s also very much like your old study sessions. In fact... These are the same chairs, aren’t they? From the storage room where you used to spend so much time together when you were just kids? You feel a pang of bittersweet nostalgia.

“They're very pale,” you say, “and it turns out they’re, uh, androgynous.”

“Well you all sort of are,” Izzy notes. “Elves, I mean.”

“I mean more than...” you trail off, registering what she just said. “Hey!”

“It’s not a complaint, Ezreal,” Izzy says softly, with a subtle smile that reminds you of old times.

“R-right,” you say. “Anyway, the gravity's low, and the animals are weird, and their whole school system is frankly bizarre... But kind of nice. It's whole... Communal sort of system, rather than the mage proctor and apprenticeship system of the Tower, or the seer-sermon approach that the elves take where I’m from.”

“So you studied there?” Izzy seizes upon your words, and you must hide a wince at your slip-up. “Spells? What sort of magic did you learn?”

“I mean... Just the regular sort,” you mutter vaguely. “You know... Life magic and Feycraft. Pretty much what you’d expect.”

Izzy narrows her eyes a little, and purses her lips. You’d sweat a little, but your body no longer really does that.

“It’s... Just sort of a secret,” you say lamely. “Fairy secrets, you know? I’m kind of not supposed to say.”

“Tips,” she says with a terse sigh, “I thought we were past all this. I’ve been to the fairy court with your friends on that hill... Costella and I have even been helping to maintain and expand it while you’ve been away, you know?”

“You have?”

Izzy nods.

“ Well… I mean, this is… It’s different!” you protest. “This isn’t just local True Fey. This is... this is DIVINE stuff, you know?”

“So was the ritual,” she says.

“And how did THAT turn out?!"

>>5908228
The anger escapes before you can swallow it back. Izzy looks a look shocked, and then hurt. You immediately find yourself regretting it but, well… It’s the truth. Last time you trusted her with magic of this magnitude, she violated that trust.

“Is that why you used the letter?” Izirina whispers. “Because you stole secrets from the gods?”

You freeze, caught in her gaze as surely as if you were once more in the telepathic clutches of moon-goddess mentalism.

“Well there had to be SOME reason they didn’t send you back themselves,” she reasons, “and you still haven't said what that reason is, so it must be something you don't really want to talk about.”

You say nothing, squirming in your seat. With dawning clarity, you wonder if this is how Princess Yllarquin felt, when she tried to detain you as you left Holy Luna, to keep those same secrets from you which you now hesitate to share with Izirina, for much the same reason.

“I understand,” Izzy says quietly.

“You do?” you ask, a little skeptical that she really does.

She looks up at you, her smile still bright, but brittle.

“We all have our secrets to keep,” she says. “Especially in unprecedented times like these.”

(Wait, what does she…?)

Your thoughts are interrupted by warmth. You look down, and find Izzy’s hand, tingling and hot with her internal elemental energies, resting on your own. You look up, and find her gaze.

“I’m glad you’re back, Ezreal,” she says.

“Yeah,” you say, “me too.”

A part of you wants to say more, but… Maybe not just now. After all, Costella will be back any—

“Lunchtime!~”

Izzy’s hand leaves yours as you both look over to the source of the sing-song voice of the third member of your strange trio. Like an angel bearing sacred alms, she bequeaths the both of you a fresh, hot shepherd’s pie, carrying the distinct aroma of the expedient elemental cookery of the Tower’s cafeteria.

“Here,” says Izirina, standing up. “Take my chair.”

“You’re not going to eat with us?” Costella asks.

Izzy’s eyes flit to you briefly, expression shifting subtly before her smile returns.

“I’ve already taken too much time from my—our—work,” she says. “Anyway, I only enchanted two chairs with the summoning-sigil.”

What do you do?
>Let Izzy go—you can catch up with her later, and you actually kind of want to talk to Costella alone…
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them

>>5908233
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them

Dang we suck at hiding things

>>5908233
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them
alright, time to spill it out
>>5907130

>>5908233
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them
I still dont see any advantage of keeping secrets from her. We’re running out of allies and the first thing we do is push izzy further away.

am >>5907133

>>5908281
>We’re running out of allies
We are?

>>5908392
You think our friends and family back at dappulyet won’t be fed lies about our current whereabouts and behavior?

>>5908457
What kind of lies do you think they'll tell?

>>5908233
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them.

Our decision to keep information about the moon from izzy is defiantly cringe. Since the moon demi god princess might send agents to come abduct us and theral is hunting us. And we will presumable need izzy's help to stay a step ahead of them.

But we fumbled worse socially before.

>>5908550
tell others we are a dangerous individual that must not be aided, for example. All sorts of slanders and excuses to make them lose sympathy for us.

>>5908580
yeah im not sure what the thought process behind that was either.

>4/6 anons chose to hide news
>currently we have 4 votes to talk with both of them
what the fuck is this

>>5908585
I don't think they'd say that, and I don't think our family/friends would believe it if they did

>>5908233
>>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them

>>5908588
Easy; I've been pushing toward this relationship since the ritual + I don't trust Izzy because of her past shenanigans

>>5908588
>what the fuck is this
talk about our relationship, anon

>>5908233
>Summon an Earth Elemental to serve as a seat—you need to speak with both of them

>>5908588
[Sorry, >>5908643 is right. I probably could have stood to be more clear.]

>>5908246
>>5908279
>>5908281
>>5908580
>>5908604
>>5908786
[We seem to be unanimous, though! I'll write up a post if I get time between work-related matetrs today in the office; otherwise, when i get home.]

>>5908604
>>5908585
>>5908580
>>5908550
>>5908457
>>5908392
>>5908281
[I also just wanted to say I appreciate all this discussion! it's this sort of stuff that makes quests worth running. thanks, anons!]

>>5908246
>Dang we suck at hiding things
[In fairness, you've known each other for almost twenty years at this point, you are sort of dating, she is an actual genius descended from the Yosefs, no less, who are an especially shrewd family, and your spirits are entangled.]

>>5909016
Ok everything else you have a point but she’s a magic genius, not a social one. We had to drag her into our friend group kicking and screaming

>>5909022
[Ah, true of most people, but she mostly deduced the situation through logical reasoning as to info you were hiding, and she's used to Tip's mannerisms from spending so much time with him specifically... And she even knows what you're liking when you're keeping secrets from her because you've done it a few times and then revealed what you were up to later (checking into her origins and the Archmage's history, investigating a cure for her, etc.). That was my rationale, anyway. Tip has tells, and Izzy knows them. Her social issues are more because of being burned a few times and being raised by a VERY peculiar mother figure rather than actual inability to read cues.]

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>>5909016
"Stay."

Izzy's head whips back to you, her expression suddenly quite concerned. In truth, you've never seen this expression on her face, but you think it might be... Guilt? She has never apologized to you for springing upon you the scheme which robbed you of your physical consistency and made you into a pseudo-eladrin—never even evinced any understanding that she had anything to apologize for, as a matter of fact—but it seems that your refusal to trust her with your secrets has shaken her. Perhaps, finally, understanding is dawning?

(Perhaps, if you're being totally honest with yourself, part of the blame lies with you for never actually talking to her about it, and letting her continue thinking everything was fine between the two of you for over a year...)

“Please,” you add, and then: “<Summon Elemental>.”

Both the girls look over with some startlement as a denizen of the Elemental Plane of Earth materializes from thin air with a pop. It is a vague facsimile of a man—by its proportions, maybe more an ape, or an orc, actually—but without finer features such as eyes or mouth. It grinds and groans as earth and stone scrape against one another, and assumes a position as if of absolute submission, on clumpy, lumpy hands and rocky knees. Costelal claps her hands togetehr giddily.

“Like, perfect! A seat! See, Izzy? Now we can all eat lunch together!”

“Y-yeah,” Izirina mumbles, her partly-false confidence flagging slightly.

She flips other cloak behind her and daintily takes her seat across from you and from Costella. Her sparkling eyes flit to you periodically, though she avoids directly meeting your eyes as she unwraps and nibbles upon her shepherd's pie, grazing at the crust first as if afraid to really dig into the meat and vegetables of the thing. Costella, oblivious to the tension, noshes down on her own savory pastry almost immediately, and with gusto.

“Ever since we got transformed, I just get so HUNGRY, you know what I mean?” Costella says, after swallowing and brushing away the crumbs from her lips. “It’s like I have all this extra energy all the time, but it’s still got to, like come from somewhere. Must be a change to, like, my metabolism or whatever!”

You nod along with her, and, unwrapping yours, take a testing bite. You feel the juices fill your mouth, the medley of spices and the texture and taste of the meat—lamb, you think—mingle with the grain and greens. You practically swoon. Gods, you missed meat...

But like Izzy, you can’t put this off forever. Doubly so because it was your idea.

>>5909085
“So,” you say after a while, “I think we need to talk.”

Izzy nods, a perfunctory gesture of having heard you. Costella looks at you with wide, curious eyes, and then smiles.

"Well, duh!" she laughs. "You've been gone FOREVER! We have so much stuff to catch up on! Like, Izzy said you were living on the MOON for a while? Like, actually THE MOON Moon, right? The one in, like, the LITERAL sky! That's crazy! What was it like?"

Izirina sighs, drawing Costella’s confused eyes. When you don’t answer right away, she looks between the two of you and, belatedly, seems to recognize that this is not the best topic to talk about at this exact moment, even if she doesn’t know precisely why.

“So,” Costella says, and sets her remaining pie gingerly between her knees, balanced precariously, as she wipes off her hands, “what did you want to talk about, Ez?”

“It’s about...”

>The Old Maple Hill land reserve and what you’ve been doing there...
>The Rite of Attunement, and how you’ve been using it...
>These secrets Izzy is apparently keeping, and what you two have been up to...
>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings...

[You can choose as many as you’d like, or write in your own, but PLEASE also include and vote on how you’d like to address it, especially the relationship thing. This is the vote where you decide on whether you wish to officially date either of them. For clarity’s sake, if you choose the relationship dialogue, also specify...]

>>You love Izirina Henzler, and wish to formalize continue your romantic relationship with her
>>You love Costella, and wish to pursue a romantic relationship with her
>>You love them both, and cannot choose between them, and wish to... Explore options and gauge their feelings about something less conventional
>>You love them both, you think... But you have misgivings about dating either of them right now, and you want to be up-front with them both about not being ready

>>5909088
>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings...
>>You love them both, and cannot choose between them, and wish to... Explore options and gauge their feelings about something less conventional

First and forthemost. Most important vote of the quest so far (with the one of the consequences of our planar incursion)

Then, after everything is... sorted...

>>The Old Maple Hill land reserve and what you’ve been doing there...

>>5909088
>The Rite of Attunement, and how you’ve been using it...
We found out overuse of it is perilous
>These secrets Izzy is apparently keeping, and what you two have been up to...
>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings...
How do they feel about us? About each other? Izzy I think would appreciate a frank discussion, Costella maybe too. This is a situation unaccounted for by the usual social rules, after all.
Don't put them on the spot with a sudden confession. But for the record, I'm all for a polyromantic relationship.

>>5909088
>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings...

>You love them both, you think... But you have misgivings about dating either of them right now, and you want to be up-front with them both about not being ready

>>5909106
Yeah that sounds good +1

>>5909088
>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings...
>>You love them both, you think... But you have misgivings about dating either of them right now, and you want to be up-front with them both about not being ready

>These secrets Izzy is apparently keeping, and what you two have been up to...
If she gets to ask probing questions so do we

>>5909637
>>5909516
>>5909158
>>5909131
>>5909106
[Close vote! I was going to see about another post tonight, but i think we'll hold off until tomorrow if our sixth regular doesn't vote by the time I'm ready for bed.]

>>5909106
Support, but with
>These secrets Izzy is apparently keeping, and what you two have been up to...
thrown in as well

>>5909106
>>5909516
>>5909673
>>5910044

>More (You) in answer to a prompt than I had in my first quest when I reached page 3

Made it as a player?

>>5909088
>The Rite of Attunement, and how you’ve been using it...

>Us... The three of us, and our... Feelings


>>You love them both, you think... But you have misgivings about dating either of them right now, and you want to be up-front with them both about not being ready

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>>5910413
>>5910044
>>5909637
>>5909516
>>5909158
>>5909131
>>5909106
[Alright, locked! I'll write it up if I get a chance in the office, or otherwise when I get home.]

>>5910583

"It’s about... Our future. All three of ours."

This seems to take both Costella and Izirina off guard. They exchange a quizzical look, though in Izirina's posture at least, you see evidence of relief. A tension seems to leave her body, visibly. You only wish you could say you felt the same.

"Ever since we performed the <Rite of Attunement> together... We've been connected. I think we all know that much, right?"

The women across from you both nod.

"And not just physically, or magically," you clarify, stealing a glance at Costella's eyes—and those full, soft lips which kissed yours, not long before you left Hawksong last. "Emotionally."

Whatever anxiety abandoned Izzy seems to have found Costella now. She fidgets in her seat, cheeks rosy.

"I, ah... I didn't mean to..."

"I've given it a lot of thought since then," you interrupt. "About what that... means, exactly. About the way I feel about each of you... Both of you. Whether it's just a side effect of the magic, of our spirits and bodies being... Well, entangled or whatever. And as I've learned more about the ritual, and the very real DANGERS associated with it..."

(Here, you fix your gaze meaningfully upon Izirina, whose back straightens and whose lips quirk briefly into a frown, as her forehead creases subtly.)

"...I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter."

You pause here. Your feelings well up in your chest like air in a balloon, threatening to explode forth violently—to burst your ribs open and spill forth your every unspoken thought and urge if you don't say SOMETHING to ease the pressure.

"I had the chance to do away with them, to free myself from these feelings, if they ARE false. But, well... They're not."

You look to Izzy and say, "I have feelings for you."

You slowly turn to Costella and admit, almost apologetically, "For... Both of you."

The two young women are silent—not looking at you, not looking at each other either. Silence reigns for a moment, and then Costella starts to stand.

“I’m... I’m so sorry,” she whispers, sniffling slightly. “I ruined everything. I... Oh God Above, I mucked it all up, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t be here! I--”

“Costella,” Izzy interrupts the outburst, her voice authoritative, “sit down.”

Rolled 2, 15, 19, 18, 12 = 66 (5d20)

>>5910630
Costella hesitates but does so, hands balled up in her lap, staring down at them and shaking slightly. It’s... Not the most promising start. She still seems to be listening, though, or you HOPE she is. Izzy certainly is, her eyes fixed upon you such that you’re certain that, behind the lightning, her pupils must be focused to those reptilian slits as they tend to assume when she is concentrating intently. It's a little disconcerting, but you can’t stop now.

“Now, I’m not really sure what that MEANS for... Us.” You exhale. “I still have misgivings about how everything happened. About the secrets and surprises.”

Izzy says nothing, still as prey in hiding... or perhaps a predator in wait. You see her muscles tense up a little bit more, though, with fight or flight or both. Your own instincts are torn: whether to offer comfort or press your advantage. But in the end... You need to know.

“What have you two been doing?” you ask. “With the <Rite of Attunement>. Out on the land reservation, by Old Maple Hill. And DON’T lie to me, please. If this is going to work... Whatever ‘this’ is going to be... We need to rebuild the trust between us.”

>>5910636
Izzy is the first to reply, not angry or accusatory, but speaking: "That's not fair, Tips. You're still keeping secrets of your own. You always have."

"I have," you admit, "and I want to be able to trust you enough to share them with you... Like I always did in the past, when the time was right. I want this time to be RIGHT Izzy... Don't you?"

>19 for Sociability

"We're making an army."

Your eyes and Izzy's alike snap to Costella, who's still staring down at her lap, and speaking softly. It's the first thing she's said in a while but... What a thing to SAY. You stare at her for a while, then glare at Izzy, who sighs.

"It's not an army," she clarifies. "It's more of a... Community. Like a fairy court of our own... An inner court. Costella and I have been using your <Rite> to cure and heal the sick, and wounded... Elderly, infirm, deformed, and crippled. The sort of thing that I think someone like you would approve of, Ezreal."

"Someone like me?" you reel.

"Yes," Izzy says, and smiles a bittersweet smile. "A good person, with a soft heart."

The manliest part of your heart wants to feel offended at that assessment but, well, it's not inaccurate. Moreover, the way she says it, it's clear that it isn't meant as an insult. Not at all: she speaks the judgment with tender admiration.

“Well, where does an ‘army’ fit into all this then?” you demand, and when she doesn’t answer immediately, you turn to the other girl. “Costella?”

“We’ve been using <Plane Shift> as well,” Izirina answers quickly, before Costella can do more than open her mouth. “I mean... I have been. I’ve been working on ‘attuning’ people to the Elemental Planes, as we are.”

“WHAT?” you balk. “Gods, WHY? Don’t you understand how dangerous that is yet?!”

“I do,” Izzy asserts, “and I’m equal to it. You’re not the only one who has grown stronger, wiser.”

This is the Izirina Henzler who pulled you free from the grip of the gods, you suppose. There's obviously some truth to this assertion. And yet, the question remains: Why?

"The Prince Consort has returned," Izzy explains.

"The secret lizardman," Costella whispers conspiratorially, looking at you with fearful eyes. "The one the fairies say is, like... An evil paladin, pretty much!"

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>>5910829
You have never encountered the Prince Consort of Hawksong, the so-called 'Eastern Exorcist' and former adventurer called Prince Long Wang. You know all the common rumors, of course: that he is a hunter of demons and of dragons, a masterful swordsman, and a skilled magician of the Oriental tradition; that he is a close ally of the so-called Green Knight, Lord Heinrich Yosef, and an enemy of the sinister reptilian race which infected the city with 'dragon-pox' two years prior; that, in true adventurer fashion, he left his pregnant wife (Hawksong's young, recently-orphaned queen) to face her coronation and turbulent rule alone while he journeyed far and wide waging war on all manner of monsters.

You also know something of the TRUE 'Long Wang', though: that he is, in fact, a 'Dragonborn' (whatever that means, exactly), a reptilian monster in his own right who merely wears a human skin, and whose machinations have long been at odds with the goodly humans and demihumans of this metropolitan city-state, and all the children of the Gods of Light.

"He's planning something," Izirina elaborates. "He's been all over town, meeting with all sorts of people... Giving speeches, courting influence, stoking paranoia. Tips, he's talking about war. War with the ELVES."

"Wh-what?" you say quietly. "You mean... Between Hawksong and the Sylvan Realms? Gods, WHY?!"

Neither of your companions can answer that, only offer up the talking points which have been bandied about town: that he has rooted out a hidden corruption among the elven elite, possibly demonic in nature; that the calling-back of diplomats and abrupt end to free travel and trade are themselves preludes to an attack by the elves upon Hawksong’s lands and subjects; that he has this on good authority from mysterious, black-skinned elven allies who approached him fleeing persecution by their brethren, representatives of whom he has brought with him to lend credence to his words.

“Bullshit,” you huff. “I was just there. It’s nonsense.”

“Obviously,” Izzy agrees. “He has another objective.”

>18 for Sense Motive

There’s something about the way she says that, a tone. She knows more about this ‘other objective’ than she is letting on, you sense. It’s why she’s building this not-an-army.

“Izzy,” you say, “come on. What’s really going on?”

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>>5910832
Izzy’s face scrunches up as if in physical discomfort at being so swiftly seen-through, but before she can deflect or deny (or worse, lie), Costella reaches out and places a hand upon hers. She squeezes it in turn, and then both look back to you.

“I told you what I’m making isn’t an army,” Izzy says, “and that’s TRUE. It's more like... A task-force. My new teacher tells me that there’s a way to resolve this without bloodshed... or at least without much. That there's something in the Silver—Sylvan, rather—The Sylvan Relam, that the Prince Consort wants. SomeONE. That they’ve captured some sort of powerful living weapon... Something that can turn the tide of the coming age.”

“An Era of High Magic,” you whisper, before you can stop yourself... But it doesn’t matter. You can see it in Izzy’s face: she already knows.

“The ‘army’... it’s just an idea right now,” Izzy continues. “More of an elite task force, like Mother's. We haven't... Well, we haven’t really done much with it yet. But the principle is sound: we take people to the Plane of Water and they become fluid, capable of subaquatic infiltration and extraction activities.”

(Or assassins, you realize without her saying so.)

“And those attuned to Earth make for perfect shock troops, or defenders,” she continues.

“Not Air or Fire?” you ask.

Izzy’s eyes widen a little, and she looks away. And is she... yes, she’s blushing.

“I know it’s silly,” she mutters, sounding disgusted with herself even as her voice raises an octave, turning somehow more girlish. “I just... Kind of liked the idea that those could be OURS, somehow.”

(...Oh.)

“But they’re not exactly ideal for this sort of operation anyway,” she concludes.

“And what sort of ‘operation’ IS it that you’re planning?” you ask.

The two girls exchange a meaningful look.

“We weren’t really sure,” Costella says sheepishly.

“It seems plain to me,” Izzy contests this. “Either the Prince Consort is our friend, or our enemy. The latter seems more likely, so we kill him or we destroy or capture whatever this living weapon of his is.”

“That’s an invasion of the elven lands,” you point out, stating the obvious issue. “Or an attempt on the life of some sort of... Dangerous secret dragon-monster with the power of an ‘evil paladin’ and the backing of THE PALADIN KING.”

“The Paladin king is dead,” Izzy retorts, “and the Queen is weak.”

“But, like she’s NICE,’ Izzy interjects. “We’ve met her, Tips, both of us. You remember, right? I seriously don’t buy that she’s, like, an ‘agent of the forces of darkness’ or whatever. We could just TALK to her!”

Izzy frowns deeply at this idea, and shakes her head.

“If we do that, then we should have an escape plan ready,” she asserts.

“Escape plan?” you ask, alarms blaring in your head. “What kind of... Escape?”

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>>5910834
Izirina brightens at that, a dangerously-excited smile spreading across her face. This reminds you again of old times... And not necessarily in a GOOD way.

“The land reserve,” she says. “We’ve been attuning it, and the people we’ve been helping there... Building a sort of community, as I was saying. I’m getting close... With just a bit more work, we could make it self-sufficient, protected... Hidden. Whatever else happens, the people we pick—useful people, GOOD people, people who deserve it—they can be safe from...”

...From whatever terrible fate befalls everyone else. Suddenly, your romantic troubles seem rather secondary. And yet, while your mind races your heart is still standing still waiting.

“We’ll figure this out,” you promise them. “together. But... Well, speaking of that...”

“I won’t get in your way,” Costella is quick to say, though she is obviously pained to say so, “you two... You’re, like, star-crossed! Meant to be! I’m just...”

Izzy reaches out to her this time, as Costella has done for her, and seizes Costella’s hand in hers.

“I couldn’t have done all this without you, Costella,” she says. “You’re not ‘just’ anything.”

Costella’s eyes are wracked with something you can’t quite place. Guilt, but also... Uncertainty? And longing? You wonder if, like your friend Logan Pearce, she perhaps feels something more than merely platonic affection for her own sex. She kissed you, it’s true, but as you discovered among the hermaphroditic elves of Holy Luna, things are not always as simple as one or the other... And honestly, if your suspicions WERE accurate, it would rather simplify the whole affair in many ways.

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>>5910841
“I think,” Costella concludes, “that we should all... Um, you know... Like, take a moment, to really think about... Everything.”

“Right,” you and Izzy say at once.

And it IS sensible. Your heart is set upon both of them, but your stomach is also churning and your mind turning with everything ELSE you just discovered and discussed. THAT is the main priority, clearly. For your part, you think...
>The Prince Consort is too dangerous to let live... And aetehrial as you are, you are well-suited to help take him out, in a rare example of necessary and justified violence
>Before you do anything rash, it behooves you to speak with Queen Ekaterine of Hawksong about the sinister activities of her monstrous paramour
>You need to uncover what exactly is driving the Prince Consort’s ambition—what this ‘living weapon’ is. That means returning to the Sylvan Realm, despite your ‘falling out’ with the Moon Goddesses
>This is all getting out of hand... You have the means to help protect and defend the Old Maple Hill land reserve, and that is where you would be most useful
>Write-in

In addition, how do you feel about ‘Izzy’s Army’, or ‘elite force’, or ‘inner court’, or whatever you want to call it?
>It’s an inappropriate use of the Rite of Attunement, and dangerous; you cannot approve it, and will ask her to cease any further exploration of this magic
>It’s daring, audacious, faintly sacrilegious... But necessary, and so you will help her
>Write-in

Sorry for the long one, but there was a lot to cover!

>>5910842
>Before you do anything rash, it behooves you to speak with Queen Ekaterine of Hawksong about the sinister activities of her monstrous paramour
As much as I want to go fuck up Theral for funsies, this is more IC.

>It’s daring, audacious, faintly sacrilegious... But necessary, and so you will help her
We were told that overuse could upset some balance or disturb some pact, but I forget what the consequences of doing so would be so it can't be too important

>>5910842
>You need to uncover what exactly is driving the Prince Consort’s ambition—what this ‘living weapon’ is. That means returning to the Sylvan Realm, despite your ‘falling out’ with the Moon Goddesses
>It’s an inappropriate use of the Rite of Attunement, and dangerous; you cannot approve it, and will ask her to cease any further exploration of this magic
But explain to Izzy why. This balance stuff.

>>5910901
+1

Sounds good. I’d rather not return to the sylvan realm if possible - we’d just get locked up there again and we’ve got no escape plan this time.

Am>>5909516

Sheesh, and I thought a war wasn’t gonna happen this soon since we went with the human disguise option.

>>5911052
If Theral had gone 'loud', then rather than trying to leverage his connections in Hawksong, he would have spent the last year already staging direct attacks and the Sylvan Realms with the aid of the vengeful Drow of Wevenore and the Unseelie Fey, and the borderlands would already be on fire or occupied thanks to his True Dragonborn, with the 'upside' being that he would have left humanity and Hawksong out of it.

>>5910842
>Before you do anything rash, it behooves you to speak with Queen Ekaterine of Hawksong about the sinister activities of her monstrous paramour

>It’s an inappropriate use of the Rite of Attunement, and dangerous; you cannot approve it, and will ask her to cease any further exploration of this magic
explain to her the balance shenanigans

>>5911110
alright then, guess this is still the better option

>>5910842
>You need to uncover what exactly is driving the Prince Consort’s ambition—what this ‘living weapon’ is. That means returning to the Sylvan Realm, despite your ‘falling out’ with the Moon Goddesses

>I wanna see this ‘Tips’ Army’ before I make up my mind on it
We should at least see what’s happening with our own eyes

[Looks like we're waiting for a tie-breaker, eh?]

>>5910842
>Before you do anything rash, it behooves you to speak with Queen Ekaterine of Hawksong about the sinister activities of her monstrous paramour.

Our goal should be to make war impossible, going to the sylvan realm wouldn't do this.

>Tell Izzy that moon eldrin and similar factions closely watch and investigate spiritual changes in populations. And that expansion of the ritual could risk their intervention.
>I wanna see this ‘Tips’ Army’ before I make up my mind on it

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>>5912130
>ties it up further
Anon, porque?
>>5911423
>>5911113
>>5910934
>>5910916
>>5910901
[Ah well, I can work with this. Writing!]

>>5912241
Rash action will lead to catastrophe—that much, you’re sure of. With things as tense as they are, and the GODS THEMSELVES already mistrustful of you, an attempted infiltration of the Sylvan Realms could escalate things into outright war if you are detected. Preventing that outcome—a war between your mother’s race and your father’s—is the GREATEST priority right now.

(Which means leaving Muffins, your pet chimera in your mother’s care for a while longer… Poor little guy. Gods, you miss him…)

Before you do ANYTHING, anything at ALL, you need all the facts. You’ve been away a while, busying yourself with cosmic enlightenment and the novelties of a Heavenly Realm. It’s time you came back down to Earth in a more-than-literal fashion, as it were. First things first, you want to see this totally-not-an-army Izirina has been forming.

“It’s really not an army,” Izzy reiterates, face scrunched up in distaste as the two of you prepare to travel to the Old Maple Hill land reserve. “Costella is... She’s a very good woman, very sweet and helpful, but she’s not… She just SAYS things, without thinking! We’ve HAD this conversation! She just wants everything to be SIMPLE all the time!”

“Or maybe you’re overcomplicating things to try to obscure the fact that you’ve used the sacred secrets of my people to form your own personal strike-force.”

Izzy looks at you, as if shocked at the suggestion, btu you simply look her up and down—at her black hat with its silver buckle, at her black robes and rather practical, mannish leathers and trousers underneath. It’s rather militaristic even by the standards of her adoptive Archmage mother’s secretive, pseudo-inquisitorial personal agents.

“They’re not,” Izzy protests weakly, pouting a little and looking, honestly, rather cute.

“Then show me,” you say.

Long gone are the days when you would have needed to travel three or fur days there-and-back by foot to the hill where you first became initiated into the divine mysteries of the True Fey. Now, with Izirina Henzler’s mastery of advanced intraplanar and extraplanar conjuration, it is as simple as a swish of her wand and a few words of power, those being:

“<Dimension Door!>”

>>5912295
A few seconds later, the two of you are there: at the foot of Old Maple Hill. In truth, the space which ahd been so sacred to you through childhood and into your early adulthood (well, you’re STILL only an ‘early adult’, technically, but ANYWAY) was never especially impressive to those without a mage’s second-sight. When you had come here in your youth, it was simply a small hump of land a half-hour’s walk off of one of Hawksong’s main trade-roads, a barely-higher-than-average point among the farmlands and attendant villages which bore a single old, misshapen maple tree barely tall enough to impress even a child like you. But now… Well, things have changed.

“What IS all this?” you ask.

“Community,” Izzzy says, proudly if a little smugly. “I TOLD you, Tips. We aren’t making an army. Not JUST an army, at least. And not REALLY an army. That’s just… Secondary.”

Primarily, it seems what Izirina and Costella are building is indeed a community—a village, specifically. It isn’t like Dappulyet, of course, but neither does it resemble Sparrowtown or Crowhurst or any of those other hamlets of the human lands. Rather, it is somewhere between a nomadic tent-encampment and a proper township, with many a bonfire and signs of familial living (that is to say, scampering, screaming human children) and commerce (well, some people have animals, or are making and hawking trinkets and foodstuffs). The standard of living seems rather basic, and you doubt it could be called self-sufficient by ANY stretch of the imagination—It is currently little more than a pet project by a certain magically-adept and well-connected young mage-woman—but the people all seem hearty and hale enough. A quick squint shows the reason: each and every inhabitant of this place, though outwardly fully human, is the recipient of the gifts of <the Rite of Attunement>, imbued with some of the health and youth which Costella and Izirina derived from YOU, and the blessings of the fairy court of the spriggan who presides over it from within the Old Maple on the eponymous hill.

“You know,” you warn Izzy, “the gods and eladrin up on the moon… They know what you’re doing.”

“Oh?” Izzy asks, curious but not concerned.

“Yes,” you say pointedly. “They’re WORRIED about it. There are… Arrangements of GREAT COSMIC IMPORTANCE which these sorts of things have the potential to disrupt.”

“What sorts of things?” she shoots back. “Helping people? Making them see the world as it is? Making them stronger, and smarter? Healthier? BETTER?”

You sense the rising tide of Izzy’s old mania in her tone—that half-deranged drive to escape her flesh and blood, this world of flawed and fallible people and failing bodies. Only now…

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>>5912297
“You’re the one who inspired all this, you know,” she says gently.

“ME?”

She takes your hand in hers, and squeezes, staring into your eyes.

“You showed me I didn’t have to be alone, Ezreal,” she says. “You taught me I was being selfish… Not thinking about how magic could benefit anyone besides myself, thinking only about my OWN freedom.”

You stare at her, unsure how to reply.

“Thank you,” she says. “I mean it. Now, thanks to you… Look how many people we’re helping! Don’t you see how many people we’re freeing? How can the Gods of Freedom be AGAINST this?”

“Show me the army,” you sigh.

“It’s NOT an—”

“I know, I know,” you groan.

And show you she does. Izzy takes you into a great construction of stone—well, ‘great’ by the standards of this place. As you travel there, you note the efforts which the people of this… Place… Have already put into making it more like the sacred groves of the Sylvan Realms: they have planted many a tree, though most are still but saplings. They tend to them with reverence and care, if with a somewhat unpracticed hand, and amongst them they have also begun the amateurishly cultivate small plots of wild and domesticated food-plants, such as berries and herbs and squashes. It’s not MUCH, but then again these are mostly city-folk, from the world’s LARGEST city, and this land is not so fertile or fecund as the blessed and feytouch wilderness of the elven lands.

(And you could make it better… So much better… With what you’ve learned, with what you could yet discover and refine...)

You set aside the thought for a moment, an echo of both Izirina’s ambitions and the teachings and ideology of the Wild Gods of the elves. Inside the stone construction, you find a small cadre of men and women—some familiar others less so. Each of them is young, but not too young: adult, strong, and standing almost at attention. You look questioningly to Izzy, who looks a little embarrassed.

“I sent word ahead,” she says.

“Magic letter?” you ask.

She nods.

You do not recognize most of the people here, or half-recognize them at best. Each is clad in black, though none wear wizard-hats as Izzy does, and so you doubt they are affiliated directly with Archmage Theresa Henzler in spite of their sartorial affectation. A few of them you recognize as former research subjects and patients of your own efforts to cure the lizardman-engineered ‘dragon-pox’, now cured and made strong. Others are total strangers. One… One is technically family, and a rather odd individual to see in such company.

“ADOLF?” you balk, recognizing your father’s sister’s… Well, a cousin-by-marriage, essentially, on the human side of your family.

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>>59122You meet her gaze, her intensity amplified by the fiery, electrifying light which shines forth from within her… And yet you cannot share that enthusiasm which has so infected these men and women.

“We should still try talking first,” you say.

Izzy doesn’t glare or glower, doesn’t stomp or shout, but you can sense the shift nevertheless: a stiffening of neck and back, a subtle change of posture, a tightening of the face and a quick sharp inhale through the nose. It’s a lot like the Archmage—your one time master. You never realized that before, but you see it now.

“I’m not saying that you’re WRONG, or that I don’t think your way will WORK,” you quickly appease her. “I’m not… I’m not necessarily AGAISNT what you’re doing here.”

“You aren’t necessarily FOR ‘what I’m doing here’ either, though,” she surmises.

“I just think that… There might be other approaches we can try first. Approaches where nobody here maybe gets chopped up or run through by the swordsman who—from what I hear—once dueled the PALADIN KING’S ELDEST SON and won.”

“And your alternative approach is to talk to his probably-brainwashed wife, and hope she changes her mind and divorces him? Or changes HIS mind?” Izzy asks. “Tips, even if he was a PERSON that wouldn’t work, but he’s a MONSTER… And she’s MARRIED to him.”

“Costella is right,” you assert. “She’s a good person. And she’s your QUEEN, Izzy.”

“Not yours,” Izirina Henzler says, “and not…”

She stops herself short of outright voicing rebellion against her own monarch, but you can see the defiance flashing beneath the surface. You reach out, and with a single soft palm upon her cheek you calm the roiling storm.

“You have callouses,” she notes, voice softening as she closes her eyes and savours the sensation, leaning into your hand.

“I’ve been fighting,” you say, grimly. “I’ve… I’ve seen enough death. I won’t shy away from doing what needs to be done, but PLEASE Izzy… I don’t want to see more, not if it’s not one hundred percent necessary.”

“Alright,” Izzy sighs. “But… Do you really just plan to ask of a meeting with her? With DARK QUEEN Ekaterine?”

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>>5912307
You frown at the name, which you’re not really sure is fair or accurate to slap upon Hawksong’s twenty-five year old monarch. IT IS a fair question, though. What IS your plan for dealing with the woman upon the Silver Throne of Hawksong, and wife of the enigmatic and sinister dragon-man threatening both your peoples?

>A formal diplomatic entreaty—maybe Izirina’s mother, your former master, can help facilitate that?
>You can switch between physical and aethereal forms at will… Perhaps, in the latter form, you can slip into the royal palace and have a private meeting?
>Maybe magic letters ware the answer—Izzy can probably send messages back and forth to communicate your concerns, without being face-to-face
>Write-in

Whom will you approach and address?
>Queen Ekaterine
>The Queen AND her Prince Consort

>>5912299
>>5912307
I think we missed something boss

>>5912321
this, there's some missing info between those 2 posts you forgot to add, I assume, from the deleted one

>>5912321
>>5912336
[Dagnabbit.]

>>5912299
>then:

“Welcome home, Ezreal,” he greets you, with a stiff salute to your companion.

“Not an army?” you whisper to Izzy.

“I don’t ASK him to do that,” she protests. “He just… Does.”

“What are you DOING here?” you ask Adolf, who was never overly fond of magic or trusting of the Archmage, or the Queen, or elves, or fairies, or really ANYONE.

“Well we can’t just let the bastards get away with it, can we?” he demands. “Taking over our government… Replacing our people… Destroying our society?!”

Ah. Yeah, you think you see what happened here, to lead to Cousin Adolf joining a task-force formed to stop the Dragonborn Prince Consort.

“And these people… These are the ones you’ve imbued with elemental magic?” you ask Izzy. “They don’t LOOK any different.”

“I told you,” she sighs, “I haven’t DONE it yet. I just… Discussed it with them. And worked on the theory. I CAN do it… When the time is right.”

She glances at them, and then looks to you, and you see that unfamiliar expression again: guilt.

“I know I was… I rushed it last tie. I was just so… I hated myself, Tips. My body. My… Everything. I felt so awful, all the time, just… Trapped. I was afraid that you didn’t understand, COULDN’T understand, and that you wouldn’t ever…”

She trails off.

“I’ve been making sure to plan properly this time,” she asserts. “it’s safe. It’s tested. They’ll be okay. They’re ready, and I’M ready. With you here, too… We can do this, Tips. We can stop the war before it starts, end the threat.”

>then...
>>5912307
[Pardon the disruption. I hope that clarifies the flow.]

>>5912310
>You can switch between physical and aethereal forms at will… Perhaps, in the latter form, you can slip into the royal palace and have a private meeting?

>Queen Ekaterine
let's meet her first
>>5911113

>>5912310
>A formal diplomatic entreaty—maybe Izirina’s mother, your former master, can help facilitate that?
We should have plenty of our own cred, having made the cure for the plague and all.

>The Queen AND her Prince Consort
Hey I know you're an overgrown lizard, come at me bro

>>5912300
>It's primitive, but has promise — I’d like to see their logistics and supplies
What weapons? What training do they have? What specialities do they possess?

>>5912310
>You can switch between physical and aethereal forms at will… Perhaps, in the latter form, you can slip into the royal palace and have a private meeting?

>Queen Ekaterine AND her prince consort
I’ve got a plan.
If she’s there, he’ll be reined in. We do this, we’re not just some random person Theral could assassinate, Ekaterine is our safety net.

>>5912416
>the vote on the deleted post
[That question will be back, never fear. I just realized I was dragging out the scene without addressing the previous vote about talking to Eka, hence why I deleted it. Keep that in your back pocket for now.]
Second-guessing the decision and undoing it was how I fucked up my formatting

>>5912310
>You can switch between physical and aethereal forms at will… Perhaps, in the latter form, you can slip into the royal palace and have a private meeting?

>Queen Ekaterine AND her prince consort

>>5912310
>Maybe magic letters ware the answer—Izzy can probably send messages back and forth to communicate your concerns, without being face-to-face
>Queen Ekaterine
I would also like to immediately explain to Izzy WHY the gods are against using the rite. Don't leave any space for misunderstanding, like Tips did in this update for some reason.

>>5912631
>for some reason.
[Previous votes were to share only the basics of what happened and what Tips learned on the moon, so I've been writing him as cagey about details.]

>>5912631
>>5912508
>>5912416
>>5912408
>>5912353
"Not JUST with her," you reply. "And not a FORMAL meeting."

Izzy looks at you strangely, but you simply raise a finger to your lips, eyes flitting meaningfully to the others in the stony dome. Rather than speak with her immediately, you take a moment to catch up with everyone here first—acquainting yourself with some, reacquainting yourself with others. Adolf in particular, you spend a while chatting with, gratified to hear that his little boy Addison—technically unrelated to you by blood, but who had come to feel like something of a nephew to you during your time living with your father’s family, and who had been afflicted by the chimeric plague—was doing much better.

"Thanks to Costella and Izirina," Adolf says, saluting an exasperated Izzy again. "Oh, and you, of course."

"Right," you say wryly, "thanks, Addy."

"Adolf," he insists. "'Addy' is a child’s name. WAR calls for men."

"Right," you mutter again, and beckon Izirina outside to speak about matters of war. It's none too soon, for just as Adolf is itching for a fight, Izrina Henzler is practically vibrating with impatience by now.

"You have a plan." The words burst forth from her mouth as soon as you're outside. "What is it??"

You have to stifle a laugh. In some ways, so many ways, she is still that same over-excitable girl, easily caught up in big ideas and untenable dreams. This time, it’s YOUR turn to share a big idea with HER: your scheme to avert catastrophe, so that Adolf might live as ‘Addy’ (or not; you’re not really that bothered) and war avoided altogether without a single life lost.

She laughs.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes quickly. “It’s just... Tips, you always seem so skeptical of my plans, but... You really mean to sneak into the Royal palace of Hawksong?”

“And why not?” you demand, a little huffily.

"They have magical defenses," she points out. "Mother and her predecessors put them in place, and have maintained them over the centuries, to guard against demonic attacks."

"Good thing I'm not a demon, then," you retort.

"That doesn't mean they have nothing to guard against elves."

"I'm not going there to fight," you reiterate. "It's a diplomatic mission. Me, the Queen, and... Him. This dragon-man. Face-to-face-to-face. To figure out what's going on, to sort it out without any of this bloody business."

"And if 'what's going on' is just that the Prince Consort wants to start a war?" Izirina presses. "What if HE wants to fight?"

"You said yourself that it's just a means to an end," you say, a little uncertain now. "If he can get what he wants without a war..."

"He wants to acquire a living WEAPON," Izzy reminds you. “If he wants something like that, I don’t imagine it’s for peaceful purposes.”

“Then maybe we can figure out WHY he wants it, and... Stop him from needing it. Address what it is he wants the weapon FOR. WHY he wants a war."

“Tips...”

>>5913026
"I know!" you shout, getting a little frustrated at this. "But... Well, there have been times when I would have thought that you or your... or the Archmage, that you might have been on the wrong side of things. Or Zith-Zi. I’m not naive, Izzy... I know that sometimes violence is necessary. But Queen Ekaterine didn’t seem like some ruthless murderer. She didn’t seem brainwashed, either."

"It can be subtle," Izzy says darkly, and you sense the shadow of her adoptive mother's stories - those which she only hinted at, of how she had been demonically puppeteered by an agent of the same Reptilian race from which the Prince Consort hails.

"I'll be careful," you promise her.

Izirina sighs and nods, but she isn't done yet.

"You shouldn't go alone," she says. "Tips... Let's perform the ritual. It isn't the new Moon, I know... But the extraplanar version, the one I've been working on... It shouldn't matter, right? There's no moon there, anyway. We can transform some of the..."

"The army?" you ask, quirking an eyebrow and making her cringe.

"We can send SOMEONE with you, in case... Well, just as a contingency."

You frown, glancing back at the stone shelter which, in your absence, the 'special task force' has filed out of. They now mill about, chatting with one another amiably—even Adolf, though he's still a little stiff, affecting a military posture. But, well, he's not a soldier. NONE of them are. This place... These people... they're all playing at elves, or at warriors, or both, but they're just a bunch of regular, peaceful human beings. You might be 'soft', but you're seasoned. None of these, but you have seen battle. You don't get the feeling any of these people has...

Though you know others who have. Others like your father, absent from proceedings but almost certainly in Hawksong. Others like Zith-Zi the goblin, the wasteland raider turned professional 'adventurer', and your old friend (and her partner, seemingly in both senses of the word) James Efron. Or even Nicolette Testa... She was always rather skilled at illusion, after all!

Do you recruit anyone to accompany you on your unannounced ‘meeting’ with Queen Ekaterine and ‘Prince Long Wang’?
>Yes, someone from the 'task force'; you will help transform them with the Rite of Attunement
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned [who? Specify]
>No, you’ll go it alone

How do you feel about the community and army more broadly, having seen them in person?
>You actually much better than you expected, and you think you're beginning to see what Izzy's doing here... And you approve
>It's primitive, but has promise... You'd like to help these people along, but it's not for you
>It's misguided and foolish, the product of Izzy's least-healthy impulses, and you think it's time to talk

CAPCHA says: "JKYS". Jesus, what a write-in, kek. I'm not THAT upset about the formatting issue...

>>5913031
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned
Zi and James
>It's primitive, but has promise... You'd like to help these people along, but it's not for you
I wonder if that living weapon is our werewolf pal. Would you give him up, anons?
>>5912675
We can at least tell Izzy the gods' reason isn't ideological.

>>5913031
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned [who? Specify]
Nicolette
moar screentime for her

>It's primitive, but has promise... You'd like to help these people along, but it's not for you
I'd be ok with explaining the full consequences of doing this to Izzy

>>5913031
>Pierce and Testa
in addition to
>Yes, someone from the 'task force'
Let's take the three most level-headed ones and turn them into water-genasi.
GodSpiteMaxxing.

>You actually much better than you expected, and you think you're beginning to see what Izzy's doing here... And you approve

>>5913031
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned
Zi and Testa
>You actually much better than you expected, and you think you're beginning to see what Izzy's doing here... And you approve

>>5913216
I’ll also support the GodSpiteMaxxing ;)

>>5913031
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned [Nicolette]

>It's primitive, but has promise... You'd like to help these people along, but it's not for you

>>5913031
>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned [who? Specify]
Dad

It’s been a year, we really need to talk and set things right. Who knows what those elves have been telling him?

>It's primitive, but has promise... You'd like to help these people along, but it's not for you
We gotta have some improvements, though. What are their specialities? What can they do? If they don’t have one, train in one. Medicine. Traps. Explosives. Food production. Construction.

Am >>5912416

>>5913031
>>Yes, but someone trained and seasoned
Zi and Pierce

>It's misguided and foolish, the product of Izzy's least-healthy impulses, and you think it's time to talk.

Even if it didn't bring the gods attention down on our head, it's a good way to get a bunch of people who would otherwise be civilians killed in battle.

>>5913887
Do you want a newsflash about what happen to civilian when important battle are lost against a ruthless ennemy?

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[I have some friends over this weekend, so please pardon a small delay in updates. In the meantime, might I recommend...
>Disappearing Hogwarts
>Path of the Exorcist
>Jail Quest
>Greenhorn Quest
>Slice Quest
>Kobolt Klan Adoption

>>5913980
Have fun RQM

>>5913980
>Slice Quest
what's this one about ?

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>>5914065
[Thanks!]

>>5914110
[A party on an island gone very, very wrong.]

>>5913887
>>5913510
>>5913306
>>5913283
>>5913216
>>5913096
>>5913054
[Locked and writing!]

>>5915820
“I’m not taking anyone from the ‘task-force’.”

“Tips, please,” Izzy insists, “if they’re not needed now, they WILL be needed, and soon. We both know—”

“That’s your business,” you say, “not mine.”

Izirina flinches as if slapped.

“You really hate it that much?” Izzy asks, softly. “I… I did this because of you. All this… It’s in your image, too, Ezreal. Not just mine, or Costella’s. It’s… I wanted it to be OURS.”

This community which Izzy and Costella have created… It has potential. You can see that, even if something about it still feels somehow WRONG on an emotional level. You can’t bring yourself to condemn something which has given so many people—people who in many cases were once isolated, ostracized, on death’s door through no fault of their save a susceptibility to a mutagenic plague—their hope back. You see smiling faces, humans struggling sometime and failing more often than not… But you also see in them a sense of determination. They’re failing upwards, learning and growing. There is community, and of connection to nature and to spirituality. Even if the gods themselves shun it, you cannot.

“I don’t hate it,” you say. “I don’t hate it at all. “It’s actually much better than I expected. I thin I’m beginning to understand what you’ve been working towards, Izzy.”

You smile, and take her hand in yours. She stares down at it, and then looks back up at you, and she understands as well.

“…But it’s not for you.”

You shake your head sadly.

“I don’t think I belong here. If we started using this place to create soldiers, or assassins or whatever else… I don’t think it ever would be.”

Izzy frowns again, and for a moment almost looks like she might cry… But she doesn’t. You can count on one hand the number of times you’ve ever seen her shed tears, and this isn’t one of those moments. Instead, she forces a smile… No, she doesn’t force it, it is forceFUL. She ahs some of that same oh-so-human grit and determination in her.

“I see,” she says. “Alright. I understand. And you know, they’re probably not really TRAINED enough to offer as much assistance as they could, later, if we keep them in reserve now.”

“I guess that, too,” you admit.

“But… What now, then?” she asks. “You don’t SERIOUSLY intend to confront the Prince Consort ALONE, do you?”

“Not for a second,” you answer quickly. “I’m not an idiot. And actually… I was thinking maybe you could help me with that.”

Izzy raises an eyebrow, and you explain your plan. A short while later, she has opened a <Dimension Door> to where you long-time friend and one-time schoolmate, Nicolette Testa, has been undergoing her apprenticeship.

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>>5915890
While you were becoming Mage Apprentice to Archmage Henzler in the Tower which taught you, training under a master chimericist and perhaps humanity’s greatest living mage, Testa’s mystical career had followed a different trajectory. Always adept at aesthetic enchantments and the School of Illusion, it would have been ideal for her to study under a practitioner of Feycraft; unfortunately, as a human alive during the apparent nadir of human-elf relations, that was quite impossible. Instead, she had sought out a certain Mistress Margot Gartner: a renowned enchanter of clothes and cosmetics, and a rather successful merchant besides. It was in Mistress Gartner’s much smaller (yet gaudier) tower where you found your friend.

Gartner’s’s stronghold of fashion and finery sat in the southernmost territories of Hawksong’s allied territories, in a border-fiefdom known as Turtledove. Turtledove itself rests below the foothills of the jagged, brownish south-central mountain-range which formed the unofficial boundaries of the Southlands, holding back the heat and sand of the adjacent desert and trapping the rain’s bounty on this side, of field lush fields of green grass despite poor soil quality. This humble fiefdom was once a bustling trade-port not so long ago, a gateway for exotic furs and ivory, gold and gemstones, and fine fabrics from the south of the continent, and processing them by means of craftsmanship mundane and magical into goods sold to Northmen and Southmen alike.

Well, before the trade-wars and rumblings of border-violence between the different races of Man.

Now, despite the ornateness of the buildings, the facades are less-than-fine. The plaster crumbles and paint chips. The population has plummeted as merchants here to make their living are forced to find their money elsewhere, or else to take up less glamorous professions. And yet, Margot Gartner’s tower still stands, brilliant purple and pink banners fluttering gaily and gallantly in defiance of trade-winds. Its magically-applied and augmented paint is as brilliant as ever, unblemished by sun’s rays or sandstorms or stormy weather, untouched by time or poverty. Without the lasting, deep enchantments of the dwarves of the touch of the divine, it must take frequent reapplications of magic to maintain this beauty amidst the collapsing community of Turtledove, the stark opposite of the growing, newborn one at Old Maple Hill. You find Nicolette Testa engaged in just such a task.

>>5915893
Nicolette is, as ever, a beauty. Slender of frame, fine of face and features, sparkling of eyes, she has some advantages in this regard. Even toiling beneath the unseasonable sun in full, bespokely-tailored robes and skirt she shines rather than sweats. Or, at least, that’s how she APPEARS... But you have seen her without make-up. Increasingly girlish and appearance-conscious as she became, she long ago learned how to use her magic and keen sartorial sense to deemphasize her slightly-weak chin and longish face, to hide away her knobbly knees and elbows. Her blue eyes are brought out to full brightness by copper-orange makeup which fades to pink. Her robes are subtly enchanted with magic to both keep her cool and wick sweat, you would deduce, as well as to shed dirt and grime acquired as she waves her fine ivory-and-gold wand like a conductor, telekinetically directing paint and magically spreading it across the surfaces, only to further enrich it and lend it a subtle ombre. The gold and purple-pink accents of her own robes are thus maintained, the ribbons and bows tastefully tied upon the rich blue-black of the heavily-modified Tower uniform a match to the brilliant banners of her master’s keep, and complementary to her impeccable magical make-up which hides the weariness which her posture attest to. She's developed quite the mid-continental tan, though, including on her slim, elegant legs, decked out with sporty boots and a daringly-short skirt

“Testa!” you greet her, causing her to yelp in surprise and nearly drop her paint can.

She splatters some on her shoes, and groans in deep grief. She sets the can down and quickly flicks her wand this way and that, metering: “<Prestigidation>! <Prestidigit>—aaaah, this isn’t going to come out properly!”

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“Well, you had better be, you…” she trails off mid- insult, looking at you properly and recognizing you instantly despite the years apart, communicating only by the occasional letter. “TIPS!”

Testa throws herself upon you in a bearhug, or what WOULD be such a huge if she weren’t both shorter and weaker than you—finally! You outgrew ONE of your human friends!

“Look at you!” she giggles. “Interesting style. What is this material …”

“I don’t know” you admit, yanking your robe free from her finger with their perfectly-painted nails. “It’s from the moon.”

“The WHAAAAT?” she balks. “Come in! Come IN, you big dummy! Tell me EVERYTHING! I’ll have one of the servants make us some tea.”

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>>5915898
The two of you eat strange little nutty shortbread confections (‘ghraybeh’, apparently) and sip a fragrant tea as you catch her up on the summarized, sanitized version of your adventures, scrubbed of any fairy-secrets. She in-turn tells you of her own Apprenticeship—of how she has managed to become the Mistress Gartner’s prime pupil.

“Which is like a glorified housekeeper and seamstress, honestly,” she pouts. “I expected it to be MUCH more glamorous, but with the downturn in trade, we mostly just fill these boooring, repetitive orders for the local noblewomen, fixing up their dresses or doing their make-up and hair for long journeys up north. We never even get any fun galas HERE! Nobody wants to come to a place like this from all the way up North, and it’s not like we get anyone from the SOUTH, obviously.”

“Right,” you agree. “I mean… Sorry to hear it.”

“Well, you know…” Testa trails off, with a sigh, and then shrugs. “Still, I’m learning a lot! All kinds of magic, and design philosophies, and colour theory, and how to enchant different materials…”

“Actually,” you smoothly segue, “that’s what I’m here to discuss, kind of. What you’ve been learning. I bet you’re even better at illusion magic than you sued to be, aren’t you?”

“Uh, duh,” she boasts, then sips her tea and squints at you. “What do you want EXACTLY, though?”

You want…
>Testa to accompany you on a mission to slip inside the Royal Palace of Hawksong, concealing your entry with illusion magic and helping you escape if need be
>For Testa to help expose the truth of the Pricne Consort’s nature and intentions, helping break any illusions or mind-clouding magics he has in place
>Some accessories or garments for yourself (and for Zith-Zi) to help disguise your true idnetities and cloak your approach
>Write-in

What are you offering her in turn?
>Your remaining gold
>Magical assistance with her own projects
>To get her a date with Logan Pearce
>Your sincere appreciation as a friend
>Write-in

Zith-Zi's recruitment and catch-up will come after this, as well as addressing whatever aid you want to lend the community at Old Maple Hill

>>5915901
>For Testa to help expose the truth of the Pricne Consort’s nature and intentions, helping break any illusions or mind-clouding magics he has in place

>Magical assistance with her own projects
>Your sincere appreciation as a friend
>An audience with royalty

and the gold if the above isn't enough

>>5915901
>For Testa to help expose the truth of the Pricne Consort’s nature and intentions, helping break any illusions or mind-clouding magics he has in place

>Magical assistance with her own projects
and if need be, some gold as well
>>5915955
what royalty would we present her to ?

>>5916106
>what royalty would we present her to ?
.....
who do you think we're bringing her to see?

>>5915901
>Testa to accompany you on a mission to slip inside the Royal Palace of Hawksong, —— helping you escape if need be with illusion magic
Incase things don’t work out, but the meeting will be done in earnest.

In return

>Magical assistance with her own projects
>An upturn of Turtledove
Visiting hawksong will give us opportunities to advertise. And if that doesn’t pan out, we’ll go to other cities.

Am >>5913510

>>5916212
>who do you think we're bringing her to see?
but does it even count that way ?

>>5915901
>Testa to accompany you on a mission to slip inside the Royal Palace of Hawksong, concealing your entry with illusion magic and helping you escape if need be.

>Magical assistance with her own projects.

>>5916250
I don't see why it wouldn't.

>>5915901
>>For Testa to help expose the truth of the Pricne Consort’s nature and intentions, helping break any illusions or mind-clouding magics he has in place
>Magical assistance with her own projects

>>5916258
>>5907140
This is me don't know why my ip changed.

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>>5915955
>>5916106
>>5916243
>>5916258
>>5916317

In truth, you don’t exactly need Testa to accompany you. Rather, what you need is her skill: a means to remove a glamour and undo an illusory transformation. What you require is the ability to reveal the truth of the Prince Consort’s abhorrent and inhuman nature to those from whom he has kept it hidden—either as a means to stop him or a threat to hold over him in the event negotiations fail.

“So you want ... What, Lenses of True-Sight?” Testa laughs. “Tips, that’s like THE goal of Illusion and Divination as disciplines. It’s pretty much High Magic. I’m good, but I can’t make something like that on my own!”

“Well... What if I could help fill in your gaps?” you ask.

Testa quirks an eyebrow.

“Not like that!’ you protest, flushing.

“Good,” she says in a sing-song voice, “because you’re not my type anyway~”

You well know her type: tall, blond, handsome, and built like a dresser. In other words: Logan Pearce, your mutual childhood friend... And a fellow of, ah, more masculine tastes himself. It's been over a year since you've seen your best and oldest friend, but the last you’d seen him, his ‘type’ seemed to be, well, YOU. Upon reflection, it’s rather ironic that someone as skilled in illusory arts as Nicolette Testa can’t see as much... But now’s not the time to break the bad news to her. There are more important and urgent matters to discuss. Namely:

"I know a spell, an elven one, called <Free Senses>. It allow someone to see through illusions. It’s potent.”

“Well, seems like you have it sorted out already, then, don’t you?” Testa says, with a cheeky half-smile.

“...But...”

“Oh, there's a ‘but’!” Testa interrupts again, all too pelased with herself.

“BUT,” you continue pointedly. “It’s not foolproof or long-lasting, let alone widespread. It works for me, and someone else close enough to cast it on. AND it’s a one-off; all it would take is for my spell to wear off for the opponent to cast their own spell again, and it would be for nothing. There’s noeway I could expose him to everyone, to make it stick.”

“Well then, it sounds to ME,” says Testa after some musing, a finger brought cutely to her mouth and eyes tlted upwards in imitation of deep thought, “that what you need isn’t something to make other people see this mysterious ‘opponent’ as he is, but o stop him hiding himself. It’s more efficient anyway: a single lasting item or spell on him, rather than SEPARATE castings or items for everyone else.”

“Testa, you’re brilliant,” you say. “And you can do that?”

“Yuh-huh! Just don’t let it get around,” she says sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “Human guys prefer a girl who’s a little stupid, you know?~”

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>>5917319
You roll your eyes, but whatever her silly affectations, you’re confident in her ability—this is the girl who aced every exam in this particular subject, practical and theoretical, to earn her current apprenticeship.

“Thanks,” you tell her, “I owe you one!”

“Mmmhm!” she agrees, and you realize what you just said. Well, too late to take it back.

“What do you want in return?” you ask warily.

“Hmm...” she muses, though you know she’s already thought of something, and you just pray to whatever Wild Gods are still listening that it will be something you can actually do.

“I don’t suppose you could lend little old me some of your elfy beauty secrets? Tips’ tips, you could call them?”

“Uh, well I don’t really have any...”

“Like the ones you shared with Izirina Henzler?”

You shut your mouth, and stare at the shrewd-yet-unassuming mage before you, who is affecting total innocence.

“You heard about... That?”

“it’s sort of hard to miss a weird little cult starting on the outskirts of the biggest city in the world, you know? Word gets around, even all the way out here!”

“The <Rite>... I mean, that spell, it isn’t for frivolous cosmetic purposes, Testa,” you chastise her.

“Frivolous cosmetic purposes? You mean like... The magic you came to me to get help with?”

You scowl deeply, which Testa politely and demurely ignores until it devolves into a pout. Just sharing the <Rite of Attunement> with two people was enough to set an entire chain of events in motion with such potential for transformation—or disaster—that it put you in the crosshairs of the gods themselves. Do you really want to share it with another?

>Yes, you’ll share knowledge of the Rite with Nicolette
>Yes, but you’re only transforming Testa—you're not teaching her how to do it herself
>No, it’s too dangerous, but you have something else to offer... [what?]
>No, and if she’s going to be like that you don’t need her help [Sociability check to see if she still helps]

“Hey,” Testa interrupts your thought, “what’s this all ABOUT, anyway? You never said who this ‘opponent even is.”

>Tell Testa the truth of your target: the Prince Consort of Hawksong, who is secretly a shapeshiftingl lizard-monster
>Keep the secret for now, allowing her the bliss (and safety) which comes with ignorance
>Write-ins

>>5917324
>Yes, but you’re only transforming Testa—you're not teaching her how to do it herself
With the army Izzy is building, I can't imagine one transformation for Testa will be the breaking point.

>Tell Testa the truth of your target: the Prince Consort of Hawksong, who is secretly a shapeshiftingl lizard-monster
She's smart enough to be safe with the knowledge

>>5917324

>Yes, but you’re only transforming Testa—you're not teaching her how to do it herself (yet)
>you’ll share knowledge of the Rite with Nicolette AFTER we are done

A reward now and a bigger one later.

>Tell Testa the truth of your target: the Prince Consort of Hawksong, who is secretly a shapeshifting lizard-monster

am >>5916243

>>5917324
>Yes, but you’re only transforming Testa—you're not teaching her how to do it herself
anon brought a good point, with Izirina making an army it's not like Testa will be the straw that breaks the camel's back
>Tell Testa the truth of your target: the Prince Consort of Hawksong, who is secretly a shapeshiftingl lizard-monster
she's a smart girl, she can handle it

>>5917324
>>Yes, but you’re only transforming Testa—you're not teaching her how to do it herself
>Tell Testa the truth of your target: the Prince Consort of Hawksong, who is secretly a shapeshiftingl lizard-monster

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>>5917375
>>5917383
>>5917600
>>5917654
“Fine,” you say with a sigh. “But this is a one-time thing, alright? It’s… One of those moon-secrets. Fairy cousins only.”

“Well THAT’S racist,” Testa complains.

“I can’t be racist,” you say. “Some of my best friends are human, and about half my ancestors.”

That gets a laugh, and a shrug.

“Your loss,” Testa says. “You could make a LOOOT of money with spells like that, you know?”

You glower.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” she says, slapping you on the shoulder softly. “You still pout like a girl when you’re mad, you know.”

“You still snort hen you laugh.”

Testa sets down her tea-cup with a cloud clack, and glares daggers, but a moment later she sighs, and laughs—quietly, so as not to snort.

“It’s good to see you again, Tips,” she says. “Alright, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

It takes you the better part of the afternoon and evening to prepare the material components and to trace the arcane geometry needed for enchantment. This was always Testa’s secondary school, the one which allowed her to imbue powders, creams, fabrics and bangles with her aesthetic enchantments, though it was the wearer’s own mystic power which helped to replenish and maintain them. It seems she really ahs learned a lot, to be able to imbue an object with another’s spell as she now proposed to do—something akin to your <elemental Infusion> but for inanimate objects and with even greater versatility.

“Don’t you ever kind of feel like you’re wasting your potential, doing this sort of thing with your magic?”

“You’re being catty again, Tips,” she snaps.

“No, I… I’m just saying, Nicolette. If you know rituals like THIS, you could be making magic weapons and armour, or wands and staffs even!”

“But I don’t WANT to make dumb magic weapons and wands,” she retorts. “I want to make beautiful dresses and skin creams.”

You roll your eyes.

“Anyway, you’re one to talk,” she says. “You could be making all kinds of battle-ready chimeras and familiars, and instead you’re—”

“Teaming up with you to help stop a secret, shapeshifting lizard-monster from plunging Hawksong into war against the entire elven race to seize a mysterious living weapon, with which he could kill hundreds or thousands more and usher in an era of unending horror?”

“…Well, okay, when you put it like THAT, if sounds half-way heroic.”

You allow yourself a smirk.

“But I’m helping, so it stands to reason we’re BOTH living up to our full potential,” Testa concludes, lighting the last of the candles around your magic circle.

Well, you can’t really argue with that, you suppose.

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>>5917701
You still protest and swat at her when she grabs your hat, though.

“Hey!”

“First of all, I MADE you this hat,” Testa reminds you. “And second, relax, would you? I just need something to enchant for the binding spell.”

You watch as she unbuckles the belt around your hat, which—in the wizardly tradition of Hawksong—serves as your hatband. She places it in the centre of the circle, carefully and on tiptoe, so as not to scuff any of the chalk lines or topple the candles. You snatch your hat back, placing it upon your head with a huff, and take your position.

“You could have used your own, you know,” you say.

“No,” she says with a smile and wink. “Mine’s cuter.”

You roll your eyes, and together begin the spell. It is no simple spell, woven immediately and instantly, but something almost like a rite or ritual in and of itself.

“<Create Magic Item>,” Testa intones, and then: “<Bound Item>!”

“<Free Senses>!” you add hurriedly, which the mystic matrices of flowing aura from the swirling candle-smoke are in alignment, flowing from point to point and following the artificial leylines of the circle.

Together, your energies and intent intermingle, and settle like a haze upon the one-time hatband. The belt absorbs the magic, turning from mid-brown to a darker as the smoke sticks to it, flecks of ash settling upon it in a speckled pattern of grey and black, until the ash is gone and the candles extinguished. So, too, the small, polished gems set between them-material components necessary to make the spell function and the enchantment last, and likely the source of the curious, sparkling shine which your mage-senses pick up when you lift the belt and turn it this way and that in your hands.

“There,” Testa exhales, releasing a held breath, and very nearly wiping her sweat from her forehead before she catches herself, to avoids smearing her foundation. “Now, your turn. Make me elfy.”

“Can’t,” you reply.

“Wh-what?!”

You maintain your stern visage for a moment, before cracking up into a smile.

“We’re both low on energy, and it’s not a New Moon,” you reply.

“W-well, then you better not get yourself killed fighting this Lizard King guy, alright?!” she says. “You owe me!”

“Thanks, Testa,” you say. “Seriously.”

Testa’s annoyance dies out like one more sputtering candle at your gratitude, and she waves it away.

“Yeah yeah,” she says. “Just get going before—”

“TESTA!”

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>>5917704
Nicolette’s eyes go wide, and she flinches at the sound of a woman’s voice from the floor below.

“Oh shi—crap!”

“WHY ARE MY WALLS ONLY HALF-PAINTED, APPRENTICE?!”

“Go, go!” Nicolette Testa says, waving her wand to sweep away the candles and chalk as quickly as she can. “I’m not allowed any boys up here, and I need to make an excuse AND hope Mistress Gartner doesn’t figure out where her deep-opals and sun-topaz went before I can replace them!”

Testa shoves you into a nearby closet before you can protest—better than out the tower window, you suppose, though our <Free Movement> can serve as well as <Slowfall> in a pinch. If you’d needed to cast THAT, though, you wouldn’t have had the mana necessary to activate your envelope, though—a new one, enchanted like the last, and good for one quick return-trip to Old Maple Hill.

“Oh, and take this,” she says, shoving something into your hand. “Now hurry! She always checks the closet first.”

(So she’s done this… or something like it… Before, huh? Hm. Mayeb she’s NOT still holding out hope for Pearce…)

You just about hear the beginning of your old friend exclaiming “I can expl—” when you activate the envelope. Your business here is conclude and, until you need to make good on your bargain, you suppose the least you can do is avoid getting her in trouble with her master.

When you reappear at old Maple Hill, you find the sun a little lower in the sky than on the Southland’s mountainous border. Veloz, your lunar hummingbird companion, is quickly upon you, humming an thrumming about in excitement at your return. Izzy is there, too, though her own excitement and relief are more subdued… But still present in her eyes.

“What have you got there?” she asks.

You look down and see in your hand a new band—velvet rather than leather, and thinner than your old hatband, with a small, stylized owl’s face in place of the classic, simple buckle of your old one. You squint at it, considering your opinion of it, but ultimately you place it upon your hat. As Nicolette Testa must have recognized, a wizard’s cap looks naked without its band…

And the old belt which served as your band these last few years now serves a new purpose, as the tool by which you will bind the illusory and shapeshifting abilities of your reptilian adversary, if it comes to it.

>Magic item acquired: Belt of Binding, capable of being attached to an opponent and restricting their ability to hide or shift their shape or form; removing it, too, requires an Arcana check or a keyword.

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>>5917705
“Do you have what you need?” Izzy asks.

“I do,” you say. “The only problem will be getting close enough to get this ON him.”

And that, of course is where Zith-Zi comes in. The goblin adventuress is in Hawksong—Izzy confirms that much. No more cross-country jaunts for you just-yet, thank goodness! The trip to Turtledove and back wasn’t nearly as unsettling as the one from the Moon to Earth, but you still feel disoriented, and that’s AFTER being wiped from your spellcasting with Testa. You’re exhausted, in a way that you haven’t been in over a year; the last two days away from Holy Luna’s invigorating energies have been tiring ones by comparison, but TODAY has been especially taxing. You take a step, only to wobble and nearly fall over before Izzy rushes to catch you, nearly taking HER out as well.

“You’ll be alright,” Izzy promises you, helping you up. “You just need rest.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “You’re probably right.”

“Let’s go to bed,” she suggests.

Weary as you are, the implication passes right by you. You don’t pick up on the subtext until Izzy guide you to one of the makeshift domiciles of the tent-city, where a simple bedroll is laid out… And only the one. You suppose you just assume she’ll be leaving once you’re settled down, but then you turn around and—

“Woah!” you say.

Izirina Henzler’s jacket has been shucked with surprising speed, and her black leathers popped open and half-shed from her shoulders and she begins unbuttoning her blouse.

“What?” she asks, looking genuinely confused.

“Uh…”

It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, of course. This is the girl you gave your virginity to—and vice-versa. And you love her, of course. But… It’s been almost a year and a half since you last shared her bed. And there’s still matters with Costella—the OTHER woman you love—to sort out.

What do you do?
>Bed down with Izzy
>Request some privacy for tonight
>Write-in

>>5917707
>Bed down with Izzy
hello nurse. in a more serious note, we've kept it clear we still like her even though we're still confused about the source and our session with the elf made it clear we're not shying away from it.

>>5917707
>Ask Izzy if we shouldn't get Costella here

>>5917707
>Bed down with Izzy
>>5917744 is also decent

>>5917707
>Bed down with Izzy
Let's not invite Costella right now. Our relationship needs a good discussion and agreement first.

>>5917701
>“I can’t be racist,” you say. “Some of my best friends are human, and about half my ancestors.”
Least racist knife ears

>>5917707
>Bed down with Izzy

Kino. Handholding + cowgirl seggs + headpats please

>>5917383

>>5917707
>Bed down with Izzy

>>5917796
Don’t forget the feet licking

>>5917739
>>5917744
>>5917776
>>5917778
>>5917796
>>5918219

A small part of you hesitates, but another part of you—growing larger by the moment—resents even this infinitesimal delay. You at least have the good sense not to try to invite Costella—exhausted as you are, the idea of emotionally (let alone PHSYICALLY) juggling the two objects of yoru affection is unthinkable. Your relationship with Izzy, complicated as it is, is at least ESTBALISHED; your relationship with Costella needs a good discussion and agreement first, if it’s to go anywhere at all.

(And anyway, it’s been over a year at this point, and Izzy’s improved health and attitude has... Well, she’s obviously been taking quite good care of herself.)

You struggle out of your own robes and the crisp, seemingly-unstainable white shirt and trousers beneath, your overeagerness and tiredness combining to turn even simple acts into an arduous endeavour. Luckily, the same physical and emotional transformation that ahs lent Izirina Henzler an unearthly glow and a surge of confidence has also seemingly made her a bit more ‘take-charge’... or perhaps ‘hands-on’ is a better descriptor.

“here,” she says, “let me help.”

There is something unspeakably intimate about the feel of Izzy’s warm, tingling fingers removing your clothes for you. She does so not with an alchemist’s efficiency but with an almost reverential, worshipful quality. Her hands, her eyes, even her breath linger upon you as she strips you naked and bare before her. It isn’t at all like the quick-and-dirty thrill of your liaison with that the elfmaid Sylmare—your only other frame of reference for this activity—but something altogether more measured. You appreciate her as she appreciates you, admiring the ways she has changed; she must, you realize, be doing the same.

When you lay down upon the mattress, it isn’t an immediate release of pressure. Rather, you simply hold her close for a time, spooning with her. She curls up against you, taller than you still--even a little heavier thanks to her fully-human bone structure and penchant for sweets—but still delicate in a peculiar way you can’t place. Neither of you says anything for a time—you simply listen to one another's breathing, feel each other’s skin, refamiliarize yourself with this closeness. Eventually, she rolls over, and buries her face in your neck, taking a deep inhale of your scent—something she was always fond of.

“You smell different,” she says, “but still good.”

She, for her part, smells faintly of ozone—like the crisp, sizzling air after a lightning strike, and like a clean burn of alchemical fire, and like a summer breeze. And she’s warm, and soft, and her passion is infectious... Especially when her hand slides down your slim torso, and between your legs.

When she finally climbs atop you, the slow build makes the long-awaited physical reunion absolute perfection.

>>5918367
The rest that follows is the deepest and most complete you’ve had in a long, long time, held in the embrace of an electric sun, her hair faintly blowing across your face in an unearthly air-current like a hundred softly-stroking fingers.

When you awaken again, it is with renewed vigor and purpose. You rise and dress only grudgingly, wide wake at dawn as usual and yet all too happy to remain in bed—even a relatively-uncomfortable one like this bedroll. You force yourself out of the tend, giving Izzy’s sleeping hand a final squeeze before stepping out and surveying her camp. You watch as people begin to rise and shine and start their day. Little Veloz zips between them, not as speedy or as buoyant as on the moon, and thus requiring frequent stops between flowers to rest and recuperate; this, however, just gives you more opportunity to appreciate the pearlescence of his silvery plumage, adding to the beauty of the moment. It's still not 'home', not by any means... But you can't help but feel even more fondly disposed towards it before.

(It's funny what some lovey-dovey sex with an old flame will do to a fellow, like a peculiar sort of <Rite of Attunement> all its own...)

Whether motivated by altruism or post-coital emotionality, you’re inclined to help Izzy and her strange collective. The question is: how?
>You still have those mystically-fulfilled berries from Holy Luna... Maybe you could get them to take seed and grow here?
>You haven’t caught up with the local fairy court and the old spriggan who presides over it in quite some time... Maybe you could petition them to formally induct and tutor those humans they find worthy?
>Teaching the locals some of your spellcraft could go a long way to making them self-sufficient, and TECHNCIALLY anyone who has undergone the ritual should have some capacity for magecraft...
>Write-in

>>5918369
>>You still have those mystically-fulfilled berries from Holy Luna... Maybe you could get them to take seed and grow here?

>>5918369
>You still have those mystically-fulfilled berries from Holy Luna... Maybe you could get them to take seed and grow here?

>>5918369
>You still have those mystically-fulfilled berries from Holy Luna... Maybe you could get them to take seed and grow here?

>>5918369
>You haven’t caught up with the local fairy court and the old spriggan who presides over it in quite some time... Maybe you could petition them to formally induct and tutor those humans they find worthy?

>>5918369
>You haven’t caught up with the local fairy court and the old spriggan who presides over it in quite some time... Maybe you could petition them to formally induct and tutor those humans they find worthy?

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>>5918369
>You still have those mystically-fulfilled berries from Holy Luna... Maybe you could get them to take seed and grow here?

>>5918367
>When she finally climbs atop you, the slow build makes the long-awaited physical reunion absolute perfection.

Kino.

>>5917796

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Rolled 1, 4, 10, 20 = 35 (4d20)

>>5918382
>>5918398
>>5918436
>>5918758
>>5918717
>>5918501

You fish around in a pocket of your lunar robes, extracting a small pouch. You haven't thought much of the <Goodberries> which you plucked in the Moonwoods of Holy Luna since you first acquired the delicious, magically-fulfilling fruit. A single one of them is enough to energize a human (or a half-elf, at least) for a whole day, carrying the caloric intake and mystically-charged life-energy sufficient to equal three full meals (if not necessarily the full vitamin and mineral content). Even if it can't be a perfect substitute for ALL foodstuffs in a balanced diet, these berries could do worlds of good... If, indeed, you can get them to take root and flourish in Earthly soil. The moon is a highly energetic environment, and the Moonwood a cultivated paradise garden; can this land reserve, barely in its infancy and on comparatively non-magical earth, provide the conditions needed for them to grow?

Can you MAKE it so, using your Feycraft to 'attune' the berries to the local milieu?

A further complication, of course, is that you are not actually very adept with plants. For all your mastery of chimericism and the shifting and molding of body and soul, your focus has been on a different kingdom of life: on animals. Do plants HAVE souls? These berries contain more intrinsic magical energy than a goblin, but certainly less of the activity and awareness that you would associate with 'life' as you know it. Then again, an inclination to grow... An ability to seek and acquire resources... The capacity to mature, and to 'breed'... Plants have all of that, right? Theoretically, it should be POSSIBLE.

You find a seemingly-suitable plot in a probable location, clear of other rivalrous plants and as loamy as you can find. The berry itself is curiously fresh and thankfully unsquished, and seeds pepper it between the globules of delectable juices—ready to take root, one hopes. It glimmers with potential in your mage-senses. You plant it, pat the soil, and –together with Veloz—you begin the song and dance of a little <Ritual of Attunement>, as best as you can manage without a New Moon in the sky.

[Life Magic roll, +1 die for Feycraft given its origins; DC 17]

>>5919250
what a heart attack of a roll
almost poisoned Izzy's army to death

>>5919250
>>5919297
A small crowd gathers to watch you work. You try not to let them distract you, though you're not used to doing this sort of thing with an audience, and you feel your face warm. You nearly trip over the sacred words a few times, though with your multiply-augmented elven grace, you don't trip over your feet at least; this is no small thing, as you're still reacclimating to Earth gravity... But you are also no longer a mere novice. You are a Mage Apprentice and a Disciple of the True Fey, and you are privy to secrets beyond mortal ken.

>1

When you finish, breathing hard, you look expectantly to the plot in question... But there is no change. You frown and glare at the dirt in faint outrage, CERTAIN that you did everything right...

>20

...And you see it: a sprout! Small and dainty, and oh-so-delicate, but it grows with preternatural speed visible to the naked eye. To your vague disappointment, no cheer goes up from the confused crowd, ignorant of the true nature of what you have accomplished this day, and so you turn to them and explain:

“This sprout—see it? You must guard and protect this sprout with your LIFE because it might as well be. This is the beginnings of Earth's first <Goodberry> cultivation, understand?”

(They don’t, of course.)

“They’re magical moon-berries,” you explain a bit more slowly and methodically. “Each one is a meal. One of these bushes, fully grown, could feed everyone here, pretty much on its own!”

That gets a reaction, at least, with excited and confused murmurs. A few more horticulturally inclined individuals (or maybe enthusiasts, who can understand the economics of such a wonder-food) begin eyeing the sprout with a hunger which goes deeper than the stomach.

As the crowd thins out, you recognize one face amidst the many unfamiliar and half-recognized ones, unmistakable in its inimitable beauty: Costella Fanucci. She doesn’t seem to be looking at you, though, at least not until you approach; rather, her full lips are pursed in thought as she watches a few of the audience members depart.

"Ez!" she greets you, waving when she sees you and bouncing (there is, you can never help but notice, a bit more 'bounce' than with Izirina, especially in her loose and flowy spring-and-summer attire) over towards you.

"Costella," you greet her in turn, accepting her embrace with a lot less self-consciousness than you would have before your year abroad.

Even after the lingering hug, Costella looks past you and after those departing strangers again. You sense something amiss, and so you ask:

"What’s going on? Do you know those people?"

"No," Costella says. "Weird! But I guess not, like, THAT weird. People get curious about what we’re up to out here, sometimes, you know?

You suppose that makes sense.

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>>5919321
"Anyway, I figured you and Izzy must still be out here when neither of you came back to the Tower last night," Costella continued. "I just wanted to..."

She pauses, looking past you, and you follow her somewhat troubled gaze. There, you see Izirina emerging from the tent the two of you shared, tying off her constantly-billowing air-elemental hair and jamming it under her black, pointed wizard’s cap.

"O-Oh," Costella says. "Yeah, I guess, like... NEITHER of you came back, huh? I... Uh..."

She trails off, looking conflicted and even GUILTY.

“I was... I don’t want to intrude, but I was thinking about what you aid and... Uhh... Maybe we could go, like, get lunch and t-talk a bit about... You know... Like... The THING?”

(That’s one way to refer to a tremendously-unconventional three-party relationship, you suppose. You can’t blame her—you PROPOSED it, and even to you it’s a bit weird still.)

"Well," Costella continues, nervousness dissipating as she puzzles out the mealtime technicality, "I mean, it's early for lunch, I guess. Breakfast? Or... Brrr-unch? Yeah, let's call it, like, a 'brunch'!"

How do you respond?
>That’s a really good idea, actually; you will go to brunch with your girlfriend(s)(?)
>You can’t right now—every day you spend in preparation is a day when the Prince Consort could be advancing his own villainous agenda; you need to go meet with Zith-Zi and ready to make your move with haste
>Actually... You’re kind of suspicious about these strangers, foreign even to this fledgling community, who apparently took great interest in your fairy-rituals and now seem to be beelining for Hawksong
>Write-in

>>5919327
>That’s a really good idea, actually; you will go to brunch with your girlfriend(s)(?)
let's get it out of our system

>>5919327
>That’s a really good idea, actually; you will go to brunch with your girlfriend(s)(?)
quick threesome before we go kick theral's ass

>>5919327
>Actually... You’re kind of suspicious about these strangers, foreign even to this fledgling community, who apparently took great interest in your fairy-rituals and now seem to be beelining for Hawksong.

Those strangers might not even be people, they might be reptilian spies going to report back to theral.

Or they could be thives who plan to uproot and steal the moonberry bush.

>>5919327
>Actually... You’re kind of suspicious about these strangers, foreign even to this fledgling community, who apparently took great interest in your fairy-rituals and now seem to be beelining for Hawksong

>>5919327
oh shit I totally glossed over that part
swapping to
>Actually... You’re kind of suspicious about these strangers, foreign even to this fledgling community, who apparently took great interest in your fairy-rituals and now seem to be beelining for Hawksong

>>5919327
>That’s a really good idea, actually; you will go to brunch with your girlfriend(s)(?)

Most important matter first.

>>5919327
>That’s a really good idea, actually; you will go to brunch with your girlfriend(s)(?)

>>5919434
>>5919449
We still have two moonberries left. Even if they take everything - assuming that’s even possible with that many people here - they still won’t be able to monopolize it, let alone grow it like us.

Am >>5918758

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>>5919726
>>5919465
>>5919449
>>5919441
>>5919434
>>5919413
>>5919372
[Close, such that the tie-breaking factor is (as has long been the case in this quest) the negation of the non-backlinked 1post ID. Writing!]

>>5919750
Your mind lingers on the matter of your mysterious visitors. How much did they see, and hear? Were you perhaps too profligate with your magic, and with telling the people at Old Maple Hill the full potential of the newly-planted goodberry bush? What if those strangers are something nefarious—spies for the Prince Consort, or simple (but no less terrible in a practical sense) profiteers?

Then Izzy joins Costella and yourself. Seeing those two beautiful young women side by side, you can think of naught else.

Costella tells Izirina of your ‘new project as the world’s greatest gardener’, somehow not making that sound condescending with how genuinely enthused she is. Izirina, her make-up still subtly sex-smeared, looks doubly satisfied.

“Of course,” she said. “Tips is talented at a lot of stuff.”

Costella giggles and flushes, mirroring the redness you can feel rising in your own cheeks.

“So,” you say, “would you like to hear about this new concept Costella has come up with, while I was doing that? She calls it ‘brunch’.”

(After all, you still have two lunar berries to repeat this initial experiment. Even if you’re not just being paranoid, and they WERE to uproot the bush or destroy it, they cannot hope to prevent you from replicating the experiment now that you know the secret of it. Really, what’s the worst that could happen?)

“You two are going to love this place,” Costella gushes. “It’s this little inn, like, one of the roadside ones the travellers and adventurers and, like, merchants and stuff use… But it’s SOOOO good! It’s cozy, and they make these amazing, like… Pancake-y things, but they use a weird dwarf-y looking press to shape them and poke all these dents half-way through. They call them ‘waffles’.”

“Dented pancakes?” you ask. “Sounds weird. I don’t get it.”

“It’s a surface-to-volume equation,” Izzy supplies. “It’s for retention of the fluid or spread. It would produce pockets to hold syrups or butters in greater quantity. They’re most likely more unform in crispness and texture, as well.”

“Izzy! You’ve had waffles before??” Costella asks.

“No,” Izirina answers simply, looking puzzled. “It just seems intuitive.”

You and Costella exchange a glance, and both burst out laughing.

“I really don’t get what’s so funny,” Izzy mumbles.

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>>5919803
The three of you travel a ways down the road—by foot, to conserve magic and for the joy of one another’s company. That it takes longer than a <Dimension Door> just gives you more time to talk… And yet, you don’t not really. Not about what, ultimately, you have gathered together to discuss. Somehow, it seems to awkward to talk about it here, out on the roadside—exposed, though to whom you cannot say. Instead, you continue to catch up on one another’s adventures and endeavors. You tell them of Dappulyet, and the Unseelie, and of the werewolf Oncyth and the Moon Priestess Clanirae, and of Holy Luna, the Moonwoods, and your attendants-turned-friends Neremyn and Devidan.

(You don’t tell them about the cuddling with Nym and Devi, or the… Other matter, with Sylmare of Dappulyet.)

Eventually you reach the inn in question, the Heart’s Own Inn, a place that had obviously stood for ages on this well-traveled road. It's a sturdy structure of old honeyed stone and weathered, darkened timbers. The roof is thatch, thick and uneven, a patchwork of fresh straw next to older layers. The wooden door, thick and sturdy, is propped open, and its singular central window is carved in shape of a stylized heart.

“Isn’t it, like, SUPER cute?” Costella asks, presumably rhetorically.

Upon entering, warmth wraps around you like a familiar blanket. A cozy array of mismatched wooden tables and chairs filled the space, set upon worn but immaculate cobblestone flooring. The bar kept to one side of the room, a half-timbered affair, heavy with time-polished barrels and gleaming with an array of dusty, jewel-tone bottles. An enormous hearth took up most of the adjacent wall, glowing with red-orange embers as if a matter of principle even at midday and at this time of year. The scent of wood-smoke dances with the tantalizing aroma of caramelizing batter.

In the back corner, a robust (ie. portly) halfling works a peculiar contraption at a steady pace. His eyes crinkled in a permanent grin, his hands sure and seasoned as they poured, pressed, and flipped over the iron device. Enthusiastic sizzles and generous wafts of the batter cooking alerted the senses of his expertise. A scant few customers anticipating their waffles idled around the dwarf, watching his expertise with a hawk's eye, exchanging jolly exchanges about matters salient to simple farmers or merchantile travelers.

“It’s a halfling inn?” Izzy asks.

“Gnome,” Costella corrects her, whispering.

“What’s the difference?” Izzy asks, innocently confused. “Aren’t those largely synonymous?”

“Gnomes get MAD if you call them halflings,” Costella clarifies, “but not as mad as dwarves do.”

File: waffles.png (1.4 MB, 989x713)

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>>5919808
The three of you line up for your own waffles, with Izzy insisting upon covering the bill.

“Neither of you have been properly working for a year,” she points out, “while I’ve still been drawing a salary. Tips, you really should consider speaking with Mother about your Apprenticeship…”

You wave the notion away noncommittally. It’s something to consider when the current crisis is dealt with, perhaps… Or perhaps not. Perhaps never. You honestly haven’t given much thought to your ‘career’ as a Tower-taught Mage Apprentice in some time. And right now, sitting down with Izirina Henzler and Costella Fanucci, there’s only one thing on your mind.

“By the Gods Above and Hells Below,” your murmur through a mouthful, “these ‘waffles’ ARE bloody good, aren’t they?”

“Mmmhmm!” Costella agrees.

Even Izirina seems astonished at them, almost standing up to charge the gnome at the waffle-iron and to ask him his secrets before Costella gently grasps her wrist and shakes her head, pulling her back down. When you’ve all devoured much of your meal, and the morning-afternoon rush has thinned out enough to afford you some privacy, you finally broach the subject that brought you here.

“So,” you say, since nobody else seems to be starting, “Costella, you wanted to talk about… Us? The three of us?”

Costella gulps, swigging some farm-fresh milk for a moment and averting her eyes.

“Oh?” Izzy asks. “We’re talking about Tips’ proposal.”

“THAT,” you butt in, “is NOT the word I would sue.”

Costella is bright red, while Izzy simply seems perplexed, looking between the two of you.

“A proposal implies, like, an ENGAGEMENT and MARRIAGE, Izzy,” Costella clarifies.

Izzy looks annoyed at that, just for a moment, before saying: “I KNOW that, Costella. But isn’t that what’s on offer, essentially?”

“I—” You blurt out, before stopping short. “WHAT?!"

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>>5919809
“The three of us are spiritually and spatially intermixed, entwined, bound in body, mind, and soul.”

Izzy sets her cutlery down on her plate gently, and meets your eyes, and Costella’s, each in turn and with a strange intensity.

“Tips—Ezreal—is right,” she says, as if stating textbook fact. “It makes no sense to exclude any of the three of us from any union, or to pretend that such a thing is temporary or experimental. We all surely see that this is inevitable.”

“Polygamy isn’t even legal,” you say weakly.

“And I… My parents would FLIP,” Costella whispers, looking shaken. “M-marriage… I mean, I… That would…”

“And I’m not attracted to other women,” Izzy says simply, “but much like legal matters, or outside parties, that’s immaterial.”

“IS it?” you ask, incredulous at this abrupt outburst.

“I think I proved adept enough,” Izzy says simply, “right, Costella?”

You both turn to Costella who is, by now, as red as the jam-and-jelly upon her waffles’ remnants. Slowly, realization dawns.

“You two…?”

“If it’s Costella,” izzy says simply, “it’s fine.”

You feel a stirring below the table at the unbidden mental images that summons up.

“W-we just… Kissed a little!” Costella protests. “Nothing else!”

“Anyway,” Izirina says, “what is the alternative? I want both of you in my life, and that’s what Ezreal wants, too, right?”

“Uh,” you say, “right.”

“And isn’t that what you want, Costella?”

Again, you two mages fix your attention upon the fidgeting, freckled brunette before you.

“It’s just,” she says, “how would it even… I mean, I… I want a wedding someday. So even if you say it doesn’t matter legally… It will matter to my folks. And they wouldn’t want me to be… I mean, a ‘second wife’ or anything. It just sounds so, like… Degrading, you know? I’m not sure -I- want that for me.”

“Who says there is a ‘first’ or ‘second’?” Izzy asks.

“The two of you have known each other FOREVER,” Costella points out. “You know Izzy’s mom, Ez!”

“And you know Ezreal’s father,” Izzy counters. “I’ve scarcely interacted with the man.”

“You’re both WIZARDS!”

“Mages,” you both correct her as one, then exchange an embarrassed glance.

"A-and you've both, you know... DONE it."

The embrassment deepens, and you find yourself looking over your shoulder to make sure nobody is listening in.

“You have way more in common with each other, and you’re smart, and you’re magic, and I’m…” Costella struggles for a moment, and then concludes: “Just ME. But I’m also… I don’t want to NOT be me. I… I want to be a part of things, too, and to belong, and to feel…”

>>5919812
Costella trails off, unable to put her obviously-complex feelings about this arrangement’ into words. Izirina’s forehead creases as if faced with an especially inscrutable foreign text to decipher, and she turns to you expectantly for the solution. You suppose that makes sense—it’s always been you with more grounding in human social affairs, ironically enough.

How will you untangle this mess?
>Write-ins only, but the more of Costella’s concerns you can address, the lower the DC of the coming Sociability roll; bad enough failure could jeopardize the relationship's future and the emotional well-being of at least one of you

>>5919815
>"You don't need to become a mage as well. You can learn magic now but you don't need to make it take the place of what you really want to do. About our compatibility, sure me and Izirina have known each other for longer and we're more intimate as well but what drove me to spill my mind to both of you is that I had developed feelings for you as well and from my time away from Hawksong I have a pretty good idea that those feelings are more than just lust for someone else and I will treat you as an equal partner in a relationship, not a second fiddle, and Izirina herself just told you there's not gonna be a 1st or 2nd girlfriend nor wife if we decide to tie our bonds together."
Anons may fill any gaps I left unatended or just improve on it.

>>5919872
[A good start that addresses or touches on 2 of 5 main issues which are troubling Costella. The DC of the upcoming check will go down from a starting value of 15 for each one that is addressed, but will be increased by 1 for every approach that actively worsens her insecurities and uncertainties.]

seems like anons are sleeping rn
>>5919932
what are the other 3 issues specifically ? the legality of the marriage is one of them I assume.

>>5919812
>I'm Just Me
And that's why we love you Costella. You're beautiful, with a fresh, and innocent viewpoint on matters that's frankly helping, and supporting.
You're an inspiration not only to Irizina and me, but also to all the people you helped.
>A-and you've both, you know... DONE it
Maybe we can work out something? As painful as it is, no more of it for her and me while we work things out to include you in the equation, going at your pace?
>Wedding legality
With the path we're taking, we can probably have enough influence to MAKE it legal. Also, we'll behave around your folk - maybe Rudolfo can help for that?

>>5919872
I like this. Here are my additions to it.

“I understand your feelings about marriage — while it might not be - legally - possible in Hawksong, we could have it take place somewhere else. If that does not pan out, we could do it quietly; just us, our families and a few friends. As far as the world’s concerned, we’re colleagues.”

(address legal issues about marriage)

“And take your time! We are not in a hurry. Izzy and I… we go way back, that’s right, but it’s not always sunshine; we fight, we argue, and we hurt each other at times, but we made it work. Hell, look at my parents! They… they’ve been together for a while but that too wasn’t always so clean. I’ve seen it in person. Seen it with my very own eyes; my father being stuck in an alehouse - I had to bail him out on my own. He’s come a long way since then, but yes, no doubt, it is a tough thing, marriage.”

“If you’re not feeling it, if you’re still unsure, it is quite all right — I won’t push you towards marriage or anything of sort.”

“As for sex and virginity. Yeah, that matters a lot less than you think. I am serious. Take a good look at.. anyone, really, and estimate the amount of times they have sex. It’s probably a lot less than you think. And among the people that actually - do - have them, how many do it perfectly? How many finish before they intend to? How many still feel frustrated, at themselves, or at their partners? Libido is one hell of a thing. A fickle thing that differs from person to person. And what of comfort? The positions the person enjoys, the types of acts each person enjoys, that too, varies, heavily.”
“It takes a lot of time. And dedication. And understanding. And trust. And a whole lot of things to do it perfectly.”
“If you want to.. belong, to feel this, to.. be a part of this, that is fine by me. I’d gladly help you, Costella. If not, that’s quite all right, too. I was quite nervy during my earlier days - we all have our own boundaries.”
“But none of this “I’m so much worse than us” horseshit — we’re here to help. To understand things together. To learn. None of us is infallible. And right now I wish to make you understand things from my eyes.”

(address her feelings towards sex and self-esteem issues)

am >>5919726

>>5919815
>"We want todo it with you too"
Take her hands. Channel dad.
>Wedding legality
Tips can legally marry her to mollify her parents - I doubt the Archmage will have the sane concerns for Izzy.

>>5919994
[Now that would be telling, anon! I included hints about all of them in the discussion.]

>>5920004
>>5920005
>>5920033
[These have touched on at least 2 others, so you're on a good roll for the bonus auto-success for specifically addressing all five]

>>5919812
DO we have to get married in Hawksong? Izzy makes travel easy and polygamy's gotta be legal somewhere.

>>5919994
I think the last issue is the parents' approval. Their issues could be:
>wanting a high status and well-to-do husband for Costella
>disliking a non-traditional arrangement
>banal racism
>distrust for mages
>approval of Izzy (I think they more or less like Tips)
I don't have solutions for this right now, but personal relationship with Tips and Izzy's status in the Tower are good starting points.

>>5919872
>>5919994
>>5920004
>>5920005
>>5920033
>>5920444
You might be a bit more tactful and a GREAT deal more sociable than Izzy, but you’re every bit the problem-solver. This, then, is right up your alley: a social puzzle! At least, that’s what you tell yourself, so that you might better project an air of comforting confidence.

“Costella…”

The girl begins shoveling jam-covered waffle into her mouth, or tries to, before your hand finds hers, fingers tracing gently along her knuckles. She looks up again, almost frightened.

“You don’t have to do this, if it doesn’t work for you,” you assure her. “Your boundaries, your feelings, they matter just as much as mine or Izirina’s. But… I’m with Izzy. I think we’re better together than separate, and… Well, you know how I feel about you.”

Costella’s forehead creases. You can see the question forming in her mind, if not yet on her lips: ‘why?’

>1. What do you like about Costella, specifically: SUCCESS, -1 difficukty

“None of that,” you quickly interject-rather sternly, to cut the line of thinking off right then and there. “Just because you’re not a mage doesn’t make you useless. Far from it! None of us is infallible, and we’re all learning, but look at things through our eyes…”

You hold up a finger.

“You’re beautiful, for one,” you say. “Not to sound shallow or anything, but you’re gorgeous.”

Izzy nods a little, looking at her with appraising eyes—not lustfully, but almost scientifically.

“I never saw you before your infection with the chimera-plague, but your symmetry and proportions are essentially perfect, anatomically-speaking.”

If your comment flattered Costella, Izzy’s bizarre-yet-frank addendum leaves her flustered, stammering and speechless.

“Thanks?” she hazards.

“That’s not all, though, obviously,” you continue, raising a second finger. “You’re… Innocent. I mean, just… GOOD. Genuinely a good person, and always optimistic, and helpful, and supportive. Not just of me, or of Izzy, but of everyone—this whole community you’ve started, Hawksong as a whole, EVERYBODY.”

“I… I’m just doing my part,” Costella attempts to deflect, tugging at her hair as memories of her past flit across her freckled features. “I know what it’s like to be, like, oh the other side of that stuff… Sick, feeling ugly and… And gross, and like nobody is there for you. And you, Tips.. And YOU, Izzy… You helped me get, like, through that.”

“And you paid it forwards to so many other people,” you say. “That matters, Costella.”

Izzy nods again, though she doesn’t say anything to that, and her own brow furrows slightly.

>2. What interests do you have in common… Neutral

“You can learn magic now, you know,” you point out. “If being the only non-magic user in our… Uh, trio?”

“Triumverate,” Izzy suggests.

“Throuple,” Costella supplies.

>>5920992
“Anyway,” you push on, “you CAN, but you shouldn’t let trying to be like US take the place of what you really want to do.”

“What I want to do…?” Costella repeats, sounding rather lost. “I’m… I want to help you two. You’re both doing great things, and I’m just—”

“Also doing great things,” you assert firmly. “If you have OTHER great things you want to do… Or just things in general, like this date, that’s fine. Like Izzy just told you there's, not going to be a first or second girlfriend…”

>3. How would you handle a wedding and marriage: MIXED RESULTS, -1 DC to Costella, +1 DC to Izirina

“N-nor wife,” you mumble, feeling you face warm. “When and if it comes to that. Eventually. When we’re all, you know… When the time is right.”

“But—” Costella begins

“With the amount of stuff we’re doing for the city, and especially after we get this whole ‘Pricne Consort’ business settled, they’ll damn well MAKE it legal for us!” you say, a bit more intensely than you intended. “And… If not, Izzy can find us somewhere where it IS legal.”

“Multiple wives are the norm towards the tropical regions of the Southeast,” Izirina supplies quickly, “as well as many areas of the South, though they ma be less favourably-inclined to officiate the marriage of Northmen.”

“And take your time!” you hasten to add. “We are NOT in a hurry here. Izzy and I… we go way back, that’s right, but it’s not always sunshine an light.”

You look to Izzy for support, but her face is almost as much of a mask in that moment as her adoptive mother’s is, giving you nothing, merely looking expectantly at you and awaiting an explanation.

“I’m just saying, we fight, we argue, and we… We’ve hurt each other at times, but we made it work.”

Both girls are looking at you now. You clear your throat, and scramble for something to say.

“Hell, look at my parents! They… they were together forever, until they… You know…”

You trail off, not so confident in using the example of an unmarried couple who spent about three decades living apart and, to your knowledge, never really reconciled as more than tolerant friends.

“I mean, it IS a tough thing, marriage,” you say. “But I think… We could make it work, someday, if that’s what you want.”

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>>5920994
4. Physical intimacy – PARTIAL SUCCESS, +1 DC Costella, +1 DC Izzy

“As for… You know, sex, and virginity, that matters a lot less than you think.”

Costella looks a little nervous, admitting: “I’m… Not ENTIRELY, you know…”

“Neither are we,” Izzy notes.

“I know,” Costella says quietly. “But with you two, it was with EACH OTHER, and I still haven’t…”

“Maybe we can compromise?” you say, as painful as it is to suggest it after how wonderful last night was. “No more of it for Izzy and me, while we work things out to… You know, include you in the equation? At your own pace?”

The subtle tension in Izzy’s body increases, her fingers gripping the table’s edge. You grit your teeth between your lips, and feel as if you’re walking a tightrope between the two.

“O-oh, no, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of what you already have… Both of you!” Costella is quick to protest.

“It’s fine,” Izzy says a touch tersely. “There is no first or second wife.”

“Right,” you say, suddenly less certain of yourself.

>5. How would you break it to her family: acknowledge, but with no real solution proposed… NEUTRAL

“Marriage…” Costella murmurs again, waffling between a giddy, giggly excitement and obvious excitement. “But… My parents would never… I mean, even if we went to another country, o-or got the Queen to say it was okay, they’d still be upset. I just know it.”

“Because Tips is half-elven?”

“What?” you exclaim. “No! Mister and Missus Fanucci love me!... Right?”

File: 1707380908831753.gif (2.82 MB, 576x336)

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Rolled 19, 6, 3, 20, 16 = 64 (5d20)

>>5920996
Costella nods a few times, and says: “My family is VERY progressive. I mean… You’re not a GOBLIN or an ORC or even a…”

She leans in and whisper: “A halfling or gnome or dwarf, or anything like that. Elves are… Like, you know, people are just sort of fine with that, right?”

“Right,” you say blandly, feeling as if you should be somehow offended, or flattered, or both.

“But it’s still a whole THING, you know? Like… A throuple, a triple marriage, a-and to a, well…”

“A mage?” Izzy guesses.

“Well, a kind of adventurer, really,” Costella says sheepishly.

“WHAT?” you demand. “I am NOT an…”

You trail off. To you, ‘adventurer’ conjures up images of your father in that alehouse, in tattered traveler’s garb and a silly hat, singing for his supper while telling tales of bygone days before he was past his prime: gormless, rootless, a wanderer and mercenary, devoid of responsibility. He’s improved, of course, but you…

You HAVE gone from a promising Tower Mage, apprentice to Archmage Henzler, to a sort of wandering seeker of esoteric ephemera. The only reason you even have any gold left is that you’ve been dwelling in a Heavenly Realm and before that in a mystical woodland, neither of which really have traditional commerce or ‘living expenses’.

“it’s not just, like THAT, though!” Costella adds quickly. “It’s just… It’s weird, right? Like, whatever we say, however we feel, whatever the ALW is, it’s not NORMAL to marry a… To marry two people, or whatever.”

One option occurs to you, of course: IF and WHEN it comes to it, you could legally marry Costella to mollify her parents, for you sincerely doubt the icy-hearted Archmage will have the same sort concerns for Izzy’s own marriage prospects. However, Izzy…

Izzy is looking a little on-edge after the last few concessions made for Costella’s sake. You’re not sure how she’d take such a proposal. No, rather, you KNOW it wouldn’t sit well with her, even if she doesn’t actually complain out loud. Wisely, you hold your tongue, instead simply saying:

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Together. If that’s what you want.”

You look to Izzy, who nods (a bit curtly) once more, and then you both look to Costella.

“What do you say?”

[3d20 Sociability, DC 12 for Costella (physical Intimacy should read -1 DC for her, woops!), DC 12 for Izzy (she started at 10 but a couple choices increased it)]
2d20 Sense Motive, may or may not become relevant

Tips bros… we won.

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>>5920998
>>5921013
>19 for Sociability
There is a long, pregnant pause between the three of you. Nobody east, nobody speaks, and nobody dares look away. The awkwardness grows, until finally, Costella breaks it, laughing out loud, a wonderful and full-bodied, yet still quite feminine laugh.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… I pictured all of us at the, like, altar… And Tips… Haaa,… Tips looked the best in the dress!”

“H-hey,” you say.

Izzy’s mouth quirks up on the corner slightly at that, and she nods in approval, obviously picturing it herself...

“HEY!” you hiss, actually getting annoyed now…

>20 for Sense Motive

There's something else, too. As the tension leaves Izzy's body, there's something else in her eye: the gleam of some secret victory, which you recognize as alarmingly-similar to that which you caught in passing as she prepared, over a year ago, to subvert the <Rite> and transform all three of you...

You'd be more concerned, except that Costella’s hand grasps your own and squeezes it tight. And… yes, you see her squeezing Izzy’s with her other one, and unsociable Izirina Henzler returning the gesture.

“Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out,” Costella says firmly. “I mean, like, we totally WOULD, right? I’m m-marrying the two biggest brainiacs I know!”

“Brainiac…?” you frown.

“The three of us,” Izzy agrees eagerly, “against the world.”

“The world?” you balk. “I mean…”

You stop short.

“Did you just PROPOSE to us?” you ask dumbly.

“Izzy started it!” Costella protests, pulling her hands back. “B-but… Well, sort of, kind of, like… Maybe?”

You can’t help it: you smile two. At that moment, it does sincerely feel like the three of you could take on anything and anyone—even the whole world.

(But for now, perhaps, a ‘dragonborn antipaladin’ would be a good start…)

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>>5921019
“I can’t fuckin’ believe it,” Zith-Zi says, slamming her flagon down and wiping the foam from her upper lip, looking you up and down. “You landed BOTH of those broads? What kind of sword are you SWINGING down there, ya’ twinky little twerp?!”

“Zi!” you hiss. “Keep your voice down! And anyway, I’m taller than YOU.”

“Uh, doi,” Zith-Zi replies, jabbing you in the stomach. “I’m a goblin. A TALL goblin. You’re a fuckin’ half-elf.”

“A tall half-elf,” you protest.

“How many other half-elves ya’ know, Tips?”

You glare at her for a while, eventually dropping the subject. The answer, after all, if probably ‘one or two, in passing, vaguely, and I don’t know their names’.

“Well, I guess congratulations are on order, to your ‘engagement’, and ta’ nightly fuckin’ threesomes for my old roomie that late-but-great bloomer!” Zith-Zi says with a grin and a slap of her sharp-nailed hand on the table. “Next round’s on you!”

“We aren’t… We haven’t decided on…”

You stop mid-sputter, and narrow yoru eyes.

“On ME?”

“Well, yeah,” Zith-Zi says. “I’m not the one getting’ my gob slobbed by two chicks at once, am I? What, you want all that AND free booze? Come the fuck on, kid.”

“I’m older than you, too,” you grumble, but place a gold coin on the table. “Anyway, what about you and Afron?”

“I don’t wanna’ talk about it,” the little green woman mutters, demeanor immediately shifting.

(Ah. Rough patch, huh? Hm.)

“You didn’t call me out here ta’ brag about your sex-life, though, right?” Zith-Zi unsubtly segues. “What’s the deal? Yous aid something about a job?”

“Well, kind of,” you reply. “You see…”

You have the Belt of Binding. You have a whole suit of spells at your disposal. You have Veloz—though, sadly, not Muffins. But you know very little of the security measures of Hawksong’s Royal Palace, save that they are meant to prevent immaterial and invisible demons to have the run of the place—and the same may hold true for True fey, such as your <Improved Aetherial Form> resembles. You also don’t know if the Prince Consort has brought any sort of spies with him, or perhaps a whole monstrous REGIMENT, though they’d have to be in disguise and you’ve not heard tell of any foreign armies or mercenary bands in Hawksong right now.

What is your plan?
>You wish to sneakily scout the palace together, to get an understanding of what the Dragonborn Antipaladin is up to, and the confront him
>You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken
>You want to approach the Palace directly, while Zith-Zi lays in wait to provide back-up—to attack or extract—as required
>Write-in

>>5921020
>You wish to sneakily scout the palace together, to get an understanding of what the Dragonborn Antipaladin is up to, and the confront him
Glad to have you back Zi- I missed you

>>5921020
>You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken
yes we do want 2 wives AND free booze
A HALF ELF CAN DREAM

>>5920996
alright, I didn't see the suggestion to stop sexing while we sort things out before. I'd suggest something else but things worked so whatever. Got a little surprised when I saw the +1dc for easy for the 1st time.
>>5921020
>a whole monstrous REGIMENT
Captain_America.gif

>You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken

>>5921020
>You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken

I’d rather not stumble across his regiment

>>5921144

Am>>5920005

>>5921020
>You wish to sneakily scout the palace together, to get an understanding of what the Dragonborn Antipaladin is up to, and the confront him.

We can use aethrial form to walk through walls. And we need to figure out what our foe's plan is.

>>5921020
>>You wish to sneakily scout the palace together, to get an understanding of what the Dragonborn Antipaladin is up to, and the confront him

Tips three-way relationship GETS

Now, we find Theral. We get friends over fucking the god in the arse and having several wives. We even help him with his Princess Ekaterine issues. And we team up : the not-so-good fairy twink and not-so-bad dictator dragon. We'll be unstoppable.

But that's heavily metagaming.

>>5921228
If anything the
> >You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken

is more metagamey
because he wont be able to use the voice of metatron then if he has it on

>>5921020
>You want to get close enough to get the Belt of Binding on him, and then negotiate from a place of power once any mind-affecting spells he might have on him (or the Queen) are broken
Wew Tips is based as fuck, and this is a decent apology for throwing us in between 2 elemental dimensions and intermingling our souls
Now lets go metagame our way into being besties with our boy, Tips will cream his khakis over Endymion, and the pure craftsmanship that Ssezty has provided in Therals careful and esoteric construction, might make him sick at first from the dark magic but his morbid curiosity will ultimately win out, plus Tips is a little bit faggy and will think he picked a handsome human face
>>5921239
Hoping somehow (Idk why) he still actually can, we made Theral grossly OP at the end with what resources we had, I really hope we dont end up beefing, as much as I love Tips I have a genuine love for Theral and his rise to power and will back the dragons reign over the astroelf and his bitches he got with his wizardtism

Dragonfags in bodybags, I'm backing the elf ayys.

>>5921020
>You wish to sneakily scout the palace together, to get an understanding of what the Dragonborn Antipaladin is up to, and the confront him

>>5921292
based and alienpilled

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>>5921294
>>5921253
>>5921239
>>5921228
>>5921197
>>5921144
>>5921080
>>5921069
>>5921033
[Alright, another close one. Breaking the tie by the traditional method!]

>>5922082
You and Zith-Zi have met in a tavern—the so-called Tumblin’ Lark—where you first met with your father several years prior. This was done with some difficulty, given the tavern’s ‘no monsters’ policy, which the half-orc bartender seemingly applies even to the goblinoid races, but it was worthwhile. It’s on the edges of the city, for one thing, in an area that FORMERLY was adjacent to the long-defunct Goblintown. That mean it’s far from respectable society—form Queens and their Prince Consorts, for instance. You hope )even pray, maybe) that it’s beneath notice.

Somewhere like THIS place, secluded in a corner of a dingy and down-on-its-luck tavern, you can maybe tell Zi about the ‘job’.

“So it doesn’t pay, is what I’m hearing?” Zith-Zi says sipping her drink and quirking an eyebrow.

“THAT’S your takeaway?” you blurt out, louder than you meant to.

“Well,” she asks levelly, “does it?”

You sip your own drink trying to formulate an answer that will satisfy her.

“Tips,” she says, “you’re asking me—a goblin, in a city that hates goblins, and I’m not even a proper subject or nothin’—to sneak into the QUEEN’S palace, to spy on her fuckin’ HUSBAND, so you can maybe blackmail or assassinate him.”

“ZI!” you gasp, looking around, for this is a daring thing to say aloud even in hushed whispers in the dusty corners of such an establishment as this.

“Well?” she demands. “AREN’T you?”

“I am NOT,” you object. “I… I’m not a killer, Zi. I can be—I know I can kill, if it comes down to it. I’ve… I’ve seen death, and been party to it.”

Zith-Zi’s face registers surprise, buts he doesn’t interrupt—not to praise, or mock, or condemn. If anyone in your social circle understands the brutal necessities of the real world, it’s this woman—an adventurer, gobliness, a former bandit and present ‘adventurer’, clad in her rough leathers and with her scimitar on her side.

“I don’t revel in it, through,” you say. “I don’t know this… ‘, Logn Wang. I don’t know if he NEEDS to die. And I’ve met the Queen, and she’s not… She’s a good person, Zi. I believe it, I really do. I just want intelligence.”

“What, books didn’t give ya’ none?” she quips.

“ACTIONABLE intelligence,” you growl. “Something I can use… To understand what’s happening, to stop it from getting worse!”

Zith-Zi leans back—a posture that emphasizes her chestiness, but also her strong, well-hewn arms, deceptively strong for her minuscules stature. She surveys you with shrewd, keen eyes—the eyes of a killer, of a sellsword, of a GOBLIN.

…And little Hershy, her feathered chimera-drake, regards you also, and burps a small smoke-ring. And both of you look when he does so, and melt a little at his yawn and stretch.

>>5922126
“Fuck’s sake,” Zith-Zi hisses through her sharp little goblinoid teeth. “You know I owe you one. You KNOW I can’t say know. And then you go and do me dirty like this, ya’ fuckin’ knife-eared son-of-a-bitch.”

“It’s not polite to talk like that about a woman you’ve never met,” you say.

“I meant Rudulfo,” Zith-Zi rerorts with a crooked grin and a snigger, referring to your father.

“Oh,” you say, and then “aren’t you TRAINING under him?”

“Shiiiit,” she says glancing sidelong. “He’s a good swordsman. Whaddaya’ want from me? Still the only human I know with a bigger body-count than me. And I DON’T mean kills.”

You flush fluorescently.

“ZI!” you shout.

“What,” she leans forwards, smirking. “Still plyin’ innocent? Seems like father like son, from where I’m sittin’. But yeah, alright—your daddy’s taught me some shit, and not UNDER-under him, for the record.”

(Ugh... YOu did NOT need that mental image.)

“An’ YEAH,” she powers through your grousing, “I’ll use it ta’ make this stupid fuckin’ scheme of yours work. So, what, we’re sneakin’ and scouting and… Just gathering intel? And THEN what?”

“And then we bring it to them,” you say, serious again as your goblin friend similarly enters ‘business-mode’. “Both of them. We make Queen Ekaterine see sense, and together, we force ‘Long Wang’ to do what’s right… To stop this madness, this senseless war, before it truly begins.”

“If it were me,” Zith-Zi counetrs, “I’d just up and leave Hawksong. Let it sort out its own fuckin’ mess.”

“But it’s me,” you reply, “and I won’t. I can’t.”

Th goblin-girl—no, too old now to be called ‘girl’, already and at less than forty, but by her race’s standards past ‘middle-age’—sighs.

“And I love that about you, you stupid little shit,” she says. “I’m in.”

You don’t even have the heart to argue about relative heights or ages again.

“Thanks, Zi,” you say, and mean it.

She tuts, and the two of you stand up and depart.

Zith-Zi’s tolerance is, thankfully quite high. Your own libations were limited. By the time the two of you reach the outskirts of Hawksong’s most ennobled areas, it is dark out. The presents no issue to you, with your low-light vision tied to the magical second-sight of your mother’s race, nor to Zith-Zi—intrinsically unmagical, but with reflective membranes behind her irises which make her eyes flash unnervingly with every flicker of torchlight. In this quarter, skulking like brigands in the black, you find the oldest and highest nobility, and the mountains into which are built the expansive palatial estate of the royal family and the temple-castle of the Holy Order of Hawksong—AKA ‘The Paladins’, the backbones of Hawksong’s increasingly-fragile hegemony over the north-and-west of the continent.

>>5922129
“You said they got magical defences?” Zi whispers.

“Yes,” you acknowledge. “But… primarily for demons. And my <Improved Aetherial Form> can walk through walks. In theory… I can enter quite easily?”

“Yeah?” she shoots back harshly. “How about in practice, Tips? With paladin patrols, and royal guards, and all kinds a' known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns?"

"U-uh..."

"You ever actually done anything like this?”

“Well…” you say, suddenly feeling substantially less certain of your classification as an 'adventurer' now than you had when Costella had leveled it like an accusation.

“’Cause I have,” she interrupts. “Me ‘n Zach ‘n the gang have snuck into all kindsa’ crypts and dungeons, and let me tell you from INTIMATELY personal experience: magic-resistant does NOT mean magic-PROOF. You done ANY research at all on this place?”

“I visited once,” you hazard, and then admit: “as a guest, during the day.”

“Great,” the goblin replies sarcastically. “Well, fuck it. You’re smart, and I know my way around traps. And if it all goes tits up, I guess I’ll just cut and run.”

(You’re not sure if she’s kidding… But she came this far. And for free, apart from making you buy her a few shots of hard liquor before leaving the bar. That counts for something, right?)

“What’s our play?” Zith-Zi demands.

>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences
>Zith-Zi should go in first, being resistant to magic and experiences with matters of practical stealth and physical countermeasures, and disable whatever she can
>Maybe you could send in an animal companion [Hershy? Veloz? Please specify] to do the initial scouting for you
>Write-in

>>5922131
>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences

>>5922131
>Zith-Zi should go in first, being resistant to magic and experiences with matters of practical stealth and physical countermeasures, and disable whatever she can
considering she's more experienced on this thing, she can spot it better
am>>5921080

>>5922131
I forgot what Improved Aetherial Form does again. I recall we could fly and phase through things but what else?

>>5922171
[The Improved Aetherial Form is an upgrade of Free Movement. It makes you: able to pass through non-magical obstacles and barriers; immune to mundane physical weapons; able to grasp and grapple with ghosts, spirits, and demons as well as True Fey; able to render yourself undetectable to those without supernatural senses, and harder-to-detect by even mages that aren't versed in Feycraft. It gives you a limited flight capacity, and 'swim-speed', and makes it so you don't need to breathe as long as you have access to magical energy fields.It DOES offer less 'true flight' than fast low-to-ground hovering, on Earth as opposed to the moon, where gravity is reduced. Wildshape still can offer true flight, though...

>>5922187
>able to render yourself undetectable to those without supernatural senses, and harder-to-detect by even mages that aren't versed in Feycraft.

Hm. Alright. That sounds like a decent gamble.

>>5922131
>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences

>>5921144

>>5922131
>Zith goes in first and paves us a route
She’s the expert between us

>>5922131
>>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences

>>5922131
>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences
How about using our ground swim and going under the walls?

>>5922131
>You’ll go in first, in your transformed state, and attempt to navigate a route which bypasses magical defences
Least we can do is take a hit for ya, Zi

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>>5922145
>>5922169
>>5922202
>>5922238
>>5922274
>>5922292
>>5922446
[Locked and writing!]

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>>5922543
“I’ll go first,” you answer. “Inexperienced or not, this is my ‘job’, so it’s the least I can do.”

“What, take a hit for me?” Zith-Zi asks. “Come off it.”

“I’m more mobile than I used to be,” you complain.

“Just as fragile, though,” she shoots back.

“You’d be surprised,” you say darkly, remembering the pain of a lance in your shoulder, the sounds of a wailing, then shrieking, Unseelie Champion as a certain dire werewolf ate her alive.

Zi raises an eyebrow, looking you up and down.

“Alright, I think I get it.”

“What?” you ask, confused out of your morose memories.

“What Henzler and Fanucci see in ya’.”

You blush a little as she slaps you on the rear through your robe.

“Get in there!” she says cheerfully. “Scream twice if you need help! Girliest ones you can, so I know it’s you.”

“You suck,” you mutter.

“You WISH,” she replies with a grin that, with its predatory sharpness, makes the flitting mental image less arousing than alarming.

You leave such fleeting thoughts (and resulting shivers) behind, and cast <Improved Aetherial Form>.

>3/4 MP
>3/3 HP

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Rolled 4, 6 = 10 (2d20)

>>5922559
Here on Earth, and in an area you have not been long enough to meditate and align your energies with, you are notably less energized than on Holy Luna. Your magical regeneration rate is not as great as it could be, and while this form allows <Free Movement> to an extent, it isn’t the same swift, soaring low-gravity travel possible on the moon. You can ‘fly’, but it’s really more like leaping and falling with style. The <Wildshape> could afford you true flight, of course but a hummingbird-elf-man—or even just a large hummingbird, if you were to push the spells shapesifting to its limits—is rather more conspicuous than what are now: a spectral apparition, half-visible in half-light cast by torches and oil lamps around the grounds and castle.

Hawksong’s royal palace is famed for its vast, maze-like topiary garden full of statues, fountains and hidden alcoves where one might sit and read or socialize, pr listen to court musicians play beautiful music on special occasions. There are fields and arenas, too, for various ceremonies and sporting events; these have been increasingly opened up to the common folk of the kingdom since Queen Ekaterine took the throne, or WOULD have been, had not the dragon-pox seen such venues shut down for even the nobility during its most dangerous phases. They have reopened since, but at this time of night there are no wandering art-appreciators, no athletes, no children playing: just scurrying servants wearing the attire of royal maids or butlers… And the occasional knightly protector, a paladin or high-ranking guardsman. Of the lot, only the Paladisn of the Holy order stand any chance of seeing you—they are generally not born or trained mages, but rather gifted the ability to protect the people, expose evil, and smite the wicked by the Gods Above—especially their patrons, Moroth and Marese, whoa re principle deities of Man in the Northwest and the Royal Family in particular.

[Stealth check; no relevant skills, but in your Aetehrial Form, we'll add a bonus die for Feycraft, and the DC is only 10 to avoid the Paladins' attentions; nobody else can see you.]

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>>5922562
You need only avoid the eyes of the Paladins, since no butler or maid here is equipped with the arcane sight to see a True fey, which you presently resemble in most regards. You hop and flit across the tops of the hedges, dip and duck around statuary, and use cover only occasionally—such as when a young, dark-haired man in the unmistakable shining silver of a Paladin guard comes around a corner. You dive behind a lamp-post just in case, thankful for your slim half-elven propiortions…

>4, 6

…Only for your errant touch upon the lamp to set it aglow with a sudden surge of light. You draw your hand back, realizing that these lanterns must be lit with some sort of magical charm which senses touch or motion and responds. You realize this mistake too late, however, as the Paladin ahs obviously noticed the light as well, and responds with a concerned:

“Hello? Who goes?”

You say nothing, of course, ducking behind the pedestal and bench adjacent to the lantern and flattening yourself on the ground. You calm yourself, steadying your rbetahing. You ahven’t been spotted, nor identified. You’ll just need to wait for him to leave.

…


…Why isn’t he leaving? The sacred sentinel of Hawksong’s highest knightly order instead ahs the gall to do his due diligence, slowly walking up and down the grounds around you, peering this way and that. He has drawn his sword, and you hear him murmuring holy words of power—magic words, words to reveal the hidden and protect the paladin against evil. Well, you’re not EVIL, but you REALLY don’t know how he’ll react if you are revealed. After all, what adequate explanation could you offer for your presence?

The palace itself is within your sight

What do you do?
>Attempt to knock out the Paladin with a summoned <Earth Elemental>
>Send Veloz out as a distraction, and hope this assuages his concerns
>Make a ‘run’ for the palace and hope you aren’t spotted or otherwise detected before you slip inside
>Come out and attempt to negotiate
>Scream twice for Zith-Zi
>Write-in

>>5922567
Could we sink into the ground and sneak in that way? He can’t see though solid rock right?

>>5922632
[Sinking into the ground isn't an ability you have, really. Through a floor to a lower floor, sure, but not into solid rock or earth. You also wouldn't really be able to see or navigate down there if you could. THAT sort of art would have followed if you'd spent more time tutoring in the Wastes with the Neme/Ashurati.]

>>5922637
Could we go back to the waste to learn it? Because that would compliment our mobility spellset.

>>5922567
>Send Veloz out as a distraction, and hope this assuages his concerns
Cute innocent animal should do the trick. Now, if only we could talk to animals…

>>5922567
>Throw something at another lamp and run away while the paladin is distracted

>>5922662
>+1
good thinking, snake

>>5922567
>Make a ‘run’ for the palace and hope you aren’t spotted or otherwise detected before you slip inside

Can we sink down just enough that only our eyes are above ground level and move that way? Much less of us visible and we can still see.

>>5922662
>>5922672
Supporting Snake.
Faerie Fire can be the best spell to fuck up with the lamps and turn Paladin detection spell against him as some flashbang?

>>5922682
>Can we sink down just enough that only our eyes are above ground level and move that way? Much less of us visible and we can still see
[You can't sink down into the earth, only through thinner things like floors, and generally not into ''living objects' for any length of time without risk. the natural terrain of Earth counts as 'alive'; make of that tidbit what you will]

>>5922652
>Could we go back to the waste to learn it?
[Sure! Someday! And if you can find and reunite with them again, and convince them to do so. You haven't seen them in many years.]

>>5922567
>Write-in:Summon an air elemental and have it lead the paladin on a wild goose chase in the opposite direction.

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>>5922762
>>5922719
>>5922682
>>5922672
>>5922662
>>5922652
[Alright, writing!]