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>>6139675
The not-so-identical twins coerced and cozied-up with an amateur band of wayward human teens and their eerie, talking dog—the so-called ‘Maladoo Gang—to secure their specimen of the strange salamander. Large though it was, the captive creature was not nearly big enough to be responsible for all the shredded nets and missing fish all on its own, and so they’d temporarily teamed up with the newt-nabbers and the stout, dwarven captain of one of the lake’s many vessels and hatched a plan: to transport the drake of the centre of the lake, to dose it with a trackable potion, and to let it loose so they could chase it home.

Cara-Zi had delivered the drake, but after a difficult night and an unspoken incident which had upset the boat’s captain, she had been curiously absent on the day of the hunt.

Pressing on nevertheless, Zith-Zi and company—including a Maladoo Gang oddly ALSO missing an eponymous, canine member—had stuck to the plan, and achieved some measure of success: they tracked down the TRUE Monster of Sunset lake to its subterranean, lakeside lair, uncovered a nest of nasty monsters-in-the-making, which they had promptly pounded into pulp to spare the Lake and its people dozens more of the mutant monsters being born and growing into ravenous, toxic beasts…

And then their mama had come crawling home.

After nearly losing a few members of their expedition, and suffering putrid indignity on top of injury, Zith-Zi and her party had beaten the beast and driven it back.. Which is to say, sadly, the Monster of Sunset Lake remains at large. Her nest is n more, though, and evidence of the good deed is even now making its way back to the Baron’s men, to exchange for award and/or aid.

But before we return to Zith-Zi and the reward for her hard work, another question remains as-yet unanswered: Maladoo, where are you? And where oh where, is Cara-Zi?

...


[Welcome, or welcome back! If you’re just joining us, the last thread can be read at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2024/6114062/, and it strongly-recommended reading. Much less vital, but occasionally enlightening, are the previous quests in the same setting, found at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=ReptoidQM]

…

>>6139676

You are Cara-Zi, and you are a CAMBION, apparently. This is a new term to you, honestly—you heard it for the first time this morning, from the mishappen maw of the demon-dog (or dog-looking demon? Hell-harrowed hound?) Maladoo. You’ve spent most of your short life and an independent entity—ever since being magically split-off from your ‘sister’ ZIth-Zi, thinking of yourself as a ‘demogoblin’. You know, because you’re sort of a goblin, but you’re also the product of magical (and sexual) shenanigans by a demon-possessed occultist? Anyway, Maladoo seems to be a much more knowledgeable kind of weird-demon-thing, and HE says a hybrid of your ilk is called a ‘cambion’. Who are you to argue?

The big, gangly black-and-brown hound currently leading you into the woods is called Maladoo. Earlier today, he found you sulking under a bridge, soggy with mud and tears after a night spent in the elements. You’d been beating yourself up over the savaging you’d just given Svanhilda—this really cute, thicc dwarf chick who you really like. She seemed to like you, too—enough to invite you back to her boat to fool around—but you’d predictably lost control the moment you tasted her lips, and her lust… And her pain and panic had, you’re a little ashamed to admit, been even sweeter.

(You’re, uh, not sure fi she still likes you anymore…)

“It is a rommon ralacy to rhink that a ruccubus is a resire remon,” Maladoo explains, as you settle in for a lecture by a copse of conifers.

(Maladoo has trouble talking, with his mouth being all canine and whatnow. Youv’e gotten good at translating his ‘accent’, though:,a nd you mentally do so now: “It is a common fallacy to think that a succubus is a desire demon”)

“Uhh… Aren’t they? Or, um, aren’t WE?”

Maladoo snorts as if in stifled laughter at our question, and answers (adjusted for that speech impediment): “Yes, but so are we ALL, little cambion.”

Maladoo holds up paw which, with upsetting popping sounds warps and twists that her might hold one ‘toe’ out like a finger to enumerate each point, and he continues:

“The desire for sex, for physical connection, for emotional control… These are associated most with succubi.”

Crack-POP

“But there is also the desire for realized dreams, recognition, and status, associated with incubi.”

Crack-POP

“The desire for food, drink, and fullness of sensory experience which is most associated with the slaad…”

Crack-POP

“And hellhounds are known for their desire for violence, for destruction, for the HUNT.”

>>6139681
There’s something skincrawling about the way Maladoo has to suck and gulp back saliva as he says those last words, and the dark twinkle n his doggy eyes. YOUR skin doesn’t crawl, though, and rather than shrinking back you elan forward, legs crossed as you listen attentively. You’ve long rejected what you are—your Hellish nature, and the warped, twisted form and uncontrollable urges with which this noxious nature has cursed you. Last night, though, you saw the limits of avoidance and denial, and the danger such half-measures pose to those you care for. Maladoo made you understand that, to be more than a monster, you need to understand yourself—to tame and direct the hellfire in your heart.

“Is that what YOU do, Maladoo?” you ask.

The demon-dog tilts his head, and waits for you to elaborate.

“Like, is that why you hang out with those humies—uh, the ‘Maladoo Gang’, I mean? Hunting down ghosts and ghoulies and evil people or whatever? ‘Cause you’re a hellhound, and ya like ta hunt?”

“None of us can escape our nature,” he answers indirectly,, as is his custom “but we can transform it, transcend it, master and direct it. Make ourselves its master. Become more than an embodiment of an urge… Tame the beast, like a wolf becoming a dog.”

You nod, not entirely understanding, but STARTINg to.

“Right, ‘cause dogs are useful, and friendly, an’ people like ‘em!”

Maladoo laughs at that, and your skin DOES crawl. You don’t really like his laugh. You laugh along anyway, though, so he doesn’t feel self-conscious and call off the lesson he promised to teach you—the lesson you skipped today’s hunt to learn.

“One thing’s buggin’ me , though,” you admit. “Dogs have masters, right? An’ I guess, like… So do I, kinda’, ‘cause ZZ’s the boss… But who’s YOURS? It’s not that Norville guy, is it?”

“No,” Maladoo chuckles. “I am, if anything, HIS master.”

“And it’s not that Freddie guy, or Cyrene, or Vel… So is it that eye-guy you were telling me about? The one you’re gonna introduce me to?”

Maladoo had invited you here, after all, on the premise of teaching you how to commune with some dark entity who he’d described as a source of ancient arcane secrets: the so-called ‘Master of the Insightful Eye’.

“Absolutely rot.”

(Rot? What’s rotting stuff have to do with…)

“Absolutely… Oh! ‘Absolutely NOT’,” you parse out.

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>>6139682
Maladoo nods, clarifying: “The Beholder of All is wise in any things, and powerful, but I do not serve him. He cannot be trusted, and he disdains demons even more than he disdains mortal beings.”

“Uhh… Then why am I s’psoed ta learn from this guy again?” you ask, puzzled anew.

“Because who knows more about becoming something greater than Demon, than a so-called Dark God?”

You wince a little at hearing the words, ‘Dark God’, aloud. You sort of figured that’s who this mysterious beholding-eye-master-guy was—you’re not STUPID, after all—but you were still clinging to the plausible deniability. Tips—the mage who made you, and who you love most dearly in the whole wide world besides your sis—told you those guys were bad news. But, well… What else are you supposed to do? Keep fucking up, losing control of yourself, and letting people down every time you catch a whiff of sex or violence? You’d been trying to sate that aching <WANT> within you with stolen snippets of rumours—whispers half-formed thoughts and urges, collected and catalogued like others might collect spoons, or pretty stones—but it wasn’t enough. If Maladoo and his not-master can help you ‘tame’ what’s inside you, or transcend it, or whatever…

“Alright,” you say firmly, with a decisive nod. “Then, like… Let’s get greatening, huh?”

Maladoo laughs again, and takes the lead, instructing you in the ways by which one can reach beyond the Prime Material Plane and into places Below and Beyond, to reach out and contact unholy forces and hidden wisdom kept secret from mortal minds.

Your first lesson is…
>to cover your tracks
[You learn the spell <Amnesia>, which can wipe out a recent memory in a target, and gain a rank in Mentalism]

>to blend in
[You learn the spell <Disguise Self>, but which you can change your physical form more dramatically and convincingly, and gain a point of Shapeshifting]

>to direct your urges
[You learn the spell <Claws of Darkness>, transforming your hands into truly wicked talons which count as magic weapons, increasing your damage and skill with Natural Weapons]

>to suppress your desires
[You learn the spell <Bind Spirit>, which lets you reduce your <WANT> roll DCs by 10 for an hour, as well as attempt to control other spiritual entities such as fellow demons, and increases your Occultism by one rank]

>>6139683
>to cover your tracks
I like Mentalism, though the others are tempting.

>>6139683
>to suppress your desires
Palademon

>>6139683
>to suppress your desires

>>6139683
>to blend in.

This one sounds like its the most practical. Being able to change our form like the infiltrator did, sounds like a major boon. Also we wont have to walk around wearing baggy funeral wear to hide our face & body.

>>6139683
>to blend in
while I'd prefer the memeory wipe, this sounds better since we have to use an oversized monk garb that draws attention anyway

>to blend in
She's a creep, she's a wierdo. She wants to belong.

>>6139683
>to cover your tracks
This seems pretty useful

>>6140172
>>6140083
>>6140074
>>6139805
>>6139790
>>6139768
>>6139760
[Locked and writing!]

>>6140182

You’re tired of being a creep and a weirdo. You’re tired of having to cower inside your new hoodie—especially now that it’s all muddy and gross. A part of you still remembers what it was like to look like Zith-Zi-not the pinkish ZZ of today, but the OLD ZZ, when the two of you were one. You were green, and some might have thought you gross, but you got plenty of attention all the same—from gobs, from humies, from a certain half-elf…

“I wanna be normal,” you declare. “I wanna be able to blend in.”

“Normalcy is not on the menu, little cambion,” Maladoo replies, his tone bemused. “But blending in… I’m good at that, ree hee hee hee.”

In the end, though, it isn’t MALADOO who teaches you this new trick. Rather—and rather frustratingly—he teaches you something not unlike the ‘meditation’ you’ve seen Tips and his fellow mages playing at in the past. Sitting still without fidgeting has never been your strong-suit, for the same reason you’re here today trying to get engreatened: your <WANT>. Though luckily for you, if less so for Svanhilda…

<WANT: 9>

…It’s pretty manageable for now. Maybe that’s why you find yourself more focused on your physical form, on hiding your bodily disfigurements rather than your moral or spiritual ones.

“So WHY can’t ya jus’ teach me how ta be like you?” you ask, peeking through one eye at Maladoo.

Your ‘teacher’ is once more contorted into un-doggy dimensions and a posture no true pooch could assume, cross-legged like an Easterling, back straight, arms held semi-limp at his sides with paw-palms up.

“I ron’t row row.”

( ‘I… Don’t Know… Oh!’)

Wait, he can’t properly shapeshift?? Well… That kind of makes sense, the more you scrutinize him. Maladoo isn’t ‘humanoid’ in the way of a beastman’s body, not built for bipedalism or proportioned properly for his position. He’s simply forced his body into a shape it shouldn’t hold, for demonstration purposes.

“Then, like… What are ya teachin’ me, Teach?”

After some effort to ‘translate’ Maladoo’s talk, you get your answer:

“I told you that all demons are demons of desire, and that specific types of demon are associated with specific desires. That’s all true… To a point. Becoming more than you are means understanding something that mortals never have, though: that all demons are THE SAME.”

“H-huh?” Your head spins. “I ain’t no demonologist or nothin’, but you JUST said about, like, succubussies and inkies and salads and hellhounds!”

“…How did you only get one of those names right?”

You laugh nervously, and answer: “Dogs’re cute.”

Maladoo rolls his eyes.

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>>6140198
“The summoning shapes a demon, as they appear on the Prime Material Plane—on Earth. In the Realms of Hell, the distinctions are less precise. Demons are shaped by their time on Earth, if their egos are not broken before their return. But a demon with UNDERSTANDING can summon and shape themselves.”

“…So, like, that’s what we’re doin’?”

Maladoo nods, and explains: “We are teaching you to desire one thing above all others.. At least, for a moment.”

“…Acceptance?” you ask quietly.

Maladoo grins that sharp-toothed grin, the yellow-white canines barely peeking out from under his floppy lips and jowls.

“Wisdom.”

You’re a little confused by that, at first. Wisdom? It’s not like nerds aren’t cute sometimes, but it’s not really what you were thinking. Still, the demon-dog seems to know what he’s talking about, so you do what Maladoo do—hehe~—and meditate your ass off. It’s not easy, or intuitive, but you DO desire this—to understand and master your nature, to be beautiful again—or at least not ugly and gross and wrong.

You WANT to know how to change what you’ve become.

You <WANT> that knowledge!

“Oh!”

You open your eyes at the sudden realization—the crystallization of will and of <WANT>, the realignment of purposes, and the sense that this new, deeper desire has summoned something.

You know it’s worked, too, because when you open your eyes you’re no longer in the forest… or, well, you ARE, but the forest isn’t as it once was. Maladoo isn’t there, for one, and the trees are all different—wreathed in mist, faded and see-through like ghosts of their former selves. The sunlight was already a dying light the east few hours, but when you open your eyes it’s gone altogether, and no moon has replaced it. There ARE, however, twinkling glimemrs of distance stars, and one single, great sphere in the sky between you and them…

“That ain’t no moon,” you murmur to yourself, as the great white orb rolls over and reveals an iris, and pupil.

The big eye in the sky comes tumbling towards you, finally locking on. It is red as hellfire, focused as a ray-attack. The sinuous smoke around it coils and uncoils like tentacles, like snake-tails, until it twists and knots itself together into great, malformed wings—not quite like a bat’s, almost like those of the cave-drake that you bargained away from Maladoo and his gang. Wobbly, boneless black limbs support a body like a big egg with a craning neck; there’s no other face, though, only the eye, framed by horns.

“Ah, one of the twins…”

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>>6140200
The voice doesn’t enter through your ear-holes, but through your chest, through the base of your skull, through your groin, through your gut. It fills your body and crawls across your skin, seeping in through your pores. It feels kind of nice, but also deeply violating; you’re not sure what it says about you that those two sensations and reactions can so easily coexist.

“Uh, h-hey!” you greet the ghoulie. “Are you like, the ‘Master of the Inner Eyes’? or, uh… Somethin’ like that?”

“I am but a humble servant, sent to welcome you, and guide you, along the Dark path which my Master has long ago laid out,” comes the answer, from everywhere and nowhere and from deep inside yourself, as that expressionless eye remains fixed upon your face. “You may call me ‘The Nothic’, for it is what my creator called me.”

“Oh, cool!” you say, forcing some cheer. “I’m called—”

“A demon should shield its name,” the Nothic interrupts, “until it outgrows it.”

“That’s good ta know.” You frown. “I’ve been tellin’ everyone mine, though, so…”

“Carazzi is not your name, nor Cara-Zi, nor CZ.”

(H-huh?)

“Then, like… What is it?”

You see no smile, and the tone of the voice reverberating through your being does not change in tenor, yet you sense something almost—ALMOST—like a smile.

“That remains to be seen,” says the Nothic. “Let us begin your growth, and learn it together.”

And so, in the twilight of the Earth and in those dark places that exist just outside it, between Heavens and hells, Beyond the material and in the dark between the stars, you learn your first lesson on the Path of Darkness.

NEW SPELL: Disguise Self
You cannot change your size category or height, but you can hide your horns and tusks, reduce your claws to long nails, and change your skin, hair, and eye-colour, and texture. This requires you to have some MP remaining to maintain, and each change in form costs 1 MP and adds 1 point of <WANT>. You cannot remove your ‘hooves’, but you can shift their shape enough to fit into shoes.

…

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>>6140202
…

You are Zith-Zi. While your ‘soul-sister’ or ‘shadows-elf’ or ‘twin’ or ‘whatever-the-fuck’ has been farting around something doing who-knows-what, YOU have been hard at work. Today, that’s meant spending the better part of the day on a boat—The Pearl, named for its fat, greedy, dwarf-bitch helmswoman, who is at least willing to let goblin and women and goblin-women ride along and seems to know what she’s doing. What time you haven’t spent bemusedly watching Khorine the goat-girl try not to hurl has been spend under the lake, creeping through tunnels of wet earth and sodden stone to underground areas of Sunset Lake, seeking a monster.

Well, you found it. You came, you saw, you kicked its ASS! But then it, uh, kind of got away from you while you were all soaked in poisonous puke.

Now, you and your crew—and the Maladoo Gang—are all on your way back to port—to the Sunset Lake docks on the other side of the eponymous body of water, to turn in evidence of aforementioned ass-kicking and monster-culling to the Baron’s men.

But to what end?
>You want a meeting with the Baron, to discuss getting some formal aid from the nobleman as the OFFICIAL hunters in charge of this operation—cutting out competitors like Green Leif Company
>You’re seeking a payday, simple as that—you’re low on coin, you want to stock up before you run out, and you figure preventing an infestation of giant fuck-off salamander monsters deserves recompense
>You plan to bluff the bastard, claiming you slew the Lake Monster proper—it’s hiding out somewhere, so you figure you could spin this into the BIG score, then get out of dodge before it rears its ugly head again, if you play your cards right
>You want to warn them about the dark magic at play, and discuss possible causes of this unholy occult interference in the local ecology
>Write-in

>>6140204
Wait, isn't the throw knife Carazzi's? Didn't she hunted with those?


>You’re seeking a payday, simple as that—you’re low on coin, you want to stock up before you run out, and you figure preventing an infestation of giant fuck-off salamander monsters deserves recompense
For us and the Mala-gang, giving us titles as propper Newtslayers.

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>>6140235
>Wait, isn't the throw knife Carazzi's? Didn't she hunted with those?
[Nope, they've been on ZZ's sheet since day 1. CZ started without a weapon besides her spells and claws, and voters bought her a dagger. She can throw it, too, admittedly. She and Yeb-Uit did some bow-hunting for a snipe, but failed.]

>>6140204
>You plan to bluff the bastard, claiming you slew the Lake Monster proper—it’s hiding out somewhere, so you figure you could spin this into the BIG score.
+
>You’re seeking a payday, simple as that

I figure the best idea is to claim we slew the lake drake mother, and once we have the money go back and finish the job in secret.

And if anyone questions why were going back to the lake, we can just claim that we making sure we thoroughly wiped out her eggs.

>>6140204
>You’re seeking a payday, simple as that—you’re low on coin, you want to stock up before you run out, and you figure preventing an infestation of giant fuck-off salamander monsters deserves recompense
Good morale buffer as well

>>6140204
>You want a meeting with the Baron, to discuss getting some formal aid from the nobleman as the OFFICIAL hunters in charge of this operation—cutting out competitors like Green Leif Company

>>6140204
>You want a meeting with the Baron, to discuss getting some formal aid from the nobleman as the OFFICIAL hunters in charge of this operation—cutting out competitors like Green Leif Company
>You’re seeking a payday, simple as that—you’re low on coin, you want to stock up before you run out, and you figure preventing an infestation of giant fuck-off salamander monsters deserves recompense
Do both- the synergy maaaan!

>>6140310
>>6140262
>>6140257
>>6140235
>>6140343

Your priority is getting paid. Always has been, always will. Guys like that (handsome) asshole Leif might get their rocks off on reputation. Marks like the Maladoos might ride a moral high horse. You, though? You might be a ‘nilbog’ now, but you didn’t just forget the lessons Mama Zi taught you out eat, or the far harsher ones of the Wastes where you first made your name and got your gold: money CAN buy happiness, or at least stave off suffering.

Besides, what are you going to do, live out in these backwater baronies forever? Fuck THAT.

“Right,” agrees Yeb-Uit when you share this sentiment, “but what about the humans?

You shrug your shoulders, jostling an already-irate Hershy. The little feathered chimera-drake has been rather jumpy ever since you encountered his distant kindred in that cavern. You suppose you can relate, the more you think about it—the last time YOU encountered ‘country cousin’ a dozen times your size was when you and the crew ran into a pack of bull-trolls out in the Wastes, and almost got your asses ate—and NOT in the fun way. You pat the little guy’s head until, with a squawk you interpret as a ‘yeah yeah, okay, I’ll chill’, he calms down and settles in on his pauldron-perch. Only then do you turn your attention to the haggard-looking Maladoo Gang, and to Yeb’s question.

“We’ll put in a word, get ‘em some accolades.”

“…Accolades?”

“Credit,” you clarify.

“Credit? Or credit and coin?”

You give Yeb-Uit a look. The old male has a good face for cards, never giving too much away, but he doesn’t need to. A gob is a gob is a gob, after all, and no ex-slave adventurer of greenish complexion is going to be eager to split his payday with some namby-pamby humie kids like Frederich Johannes, Cyrene Blake, Norville Rogers the Third (yes, that’s the kid’s real fucking name, you asked) or Vel Dinh.

“We’ll leave that up ta the Baron,” you say carefully, with an air of ‘don’t fucking start’. “We’ll jus’ make sure it don’t eat inta ours, ey?”

Yeb-Uit nods slowly, and looks back out the water, scratching his ass idly. You snort, and do likewise—the water-watching, not the ass-scratching. Maybe you SHOULD have taken the grey-bearded bastard up on that post-battle fuck he was angling for—might have put the codger in a better mood to get his rocks off.

(Shit, mighta’ done You some good, too…)

You shake off the passing fancy. This last year’s been a bit of a ‘cold spell’ for you, sure, but again: you’re here to get paid, not to get fucked. A Goblin Boss—or Nilbog Professional Adventure—has to get her priorities straight!

(Besides, there’s still James Efron, your not-so-old flame, to hash shit out with… Maybe…)

>>6140353
You shake THAT thought off, too. That nobleborn son-of-a-bitch is down South dealing with raiders and border disputes for the Crown, with ENID. Whereas you’re stuck here. Just another reason to hurry the fuck up, right?

When you get to the docks, you do exactly that: you hop over the bulwark and onto the dock before the gangplank’s even down, and the others have to hustle after you to catch up. You shoot them a look and wave them off, though; Khorine and the Maladoos are a bunch of brats, and there’s no way on this or any other plane that bringing GOBLINS to a negotiation with human authorities gets you taken MORE seriously.

(Yes, it’s good to be a nilbog, and that is a fuckin’ fact.)

The guards around Sunset lake are a good sight shittier—or, well, more ‘provincial’ if you’re being diplomatic—than those in the royal capital of Hawksong. There are fewer of them, wearing less and worse armour from a variety of eras and obviously self-maintained. They’re older, or younger, but far fewer of them are in what you’d call ‘prime fighting years’, and their physical conditioning and general bearing are far from what you’ve gotten used to during your time in the big city. Still, each wears the tabard of Sunset Lake: three white fish stacked on a field of blue, separated by a wavy line from the yellow field above representing the golden sunsets. That means authority—including, you hope, authority to pay up.

“Hey boys!” you greet them, abandoning your natural inflection and raising your voice an octave automatically as you wave them down. “Got time to talk? We’ve got big news about your little ‘monster problem’!”

This gets their attention, but also that of a few others on the docks. Sunset lake ahs been gripped in a monster MANIA, after all. You get it, really: this is a bustling mountain trading port, but a bustling port in these mountains is still KIDN OF a small town, without a lot going on. Those few things that HAVE been going on these last few years have all been monster-related, from rumours of kobold raids and black-skinned elves to dragonfire in the plains and Dragon Kings in the mountains. Now, their principle source of local food is being threatened by huge newts? Yeah, you’d be a bit of a maniac, too… And eager to see the problem solved. That, of course, is what you’re counting on.

“Are you with the Delvers?” they ask, mistaking you for one of the little-folk—gnomes, halflings, and dwarves—with a certain technologically-savvy rival adventuring party.

“Me?” you ask. “Uh, no. I’m… Independent. But I’ve got something THEY don’t…”

>>6140354
You take the guards aside, trying to ignore or block the lookie-loos who gather ‘round to murmur and mutter, as you show off your vials of scooped-up drake-spawn, and explain what you found, and what you did about it.

“…So, long story short, your monster problem’s pretty much handled! And I was thinking, well, a bit of a reward’s in store, right? Isn’t that what all the posters around the area have been advertising?”

You grin, hands on hips, as they survey the evidence. The two guards you’d flagged down have gathered several more who were milling about to inspect your evidence and to discuss what to do about it. Even now, they seem unsure—a problem only exacerbated when all the attention you’ve acquired draws in an unfortunately-familiar voice attached to a certain square-jawed mug.

“Doesn’t seem too handled to me!”

You groan and look over your shoulder to cast a dour glower at Leif Last-Name-Never-Asked, of Green Leif Company. Technically, it was him and HIS party (now gathered behind him in all their ‘glory’) who first identified the monster, lured out one of the ‘small’ specimens, and hauled it out of the water. They promptly lost it to the Maladoos, which is where you came in.

(You also maybe, sort of, kind of seduced him for info and almost boned down…)

“I didn’t ask for opinions from the peanut gallery,” you growl, “especially not the especially SALTY nuts. Just because You lost the thing…”

“Lost -A- thing,” Leif interjects, striding closer with a (sort of sexy) swagger of (utterly unearned) self-assuredness. “A thing that I remember YOU, Zena, saying very LOUDLY and PUBLICLY was NOT the actual Monster, because it was too small.”

>>6140356
You manage to avoid saying ‘who the fuck is Zena?’, remembering at the last moment that this was the less-goblinoid pseudonym you’d offered up in lieu of the name your mother gave you. Besides, that’s hardly the point, is it?

“The point,” you say instead, stepping right up to Leif and jabbing a finger into his washboard abs, “is we wrecked up the whole gods-damned nest of the ‘actual Monster’, so the lake and its fish—and fisherMEN--are safe again!”

A cheer and some scattered applause greets this from the less salty nuts in aforementioned audience, though it is subdued and brief as Leif raises his own voice again to undermine you:

“Says who? What, the monster can’t lay anymore eggs? The other ones can’t grow bigger?”

You frown mightily at that, but Leif’s beautiful blue-green eyes just sparkle with self-assuredness as he smirks down at you. Your pointed pink ears twitch a little as you pick of some whispers of worried agreement from the crowd. The guards might have tiny, round little humie ears, but you can see that THEY’RE hearing it, too, or else coming to the same conclusion all on their own.

What will you do?
>Angle for a smaller reward for your work so far—get your bag while you can
>Pledge to eliminate the threat entirely—though you’ll need a reward AND an advance to get it done
>Lie and say you mortally wounded the main monster—after all, you very NEARLY did!
>Write-in

[A 1d20 social role will be required regardless, though the DC will be lower the humbler you are. I’d also like to take this opportunity to ask…]

What is you plan moving forward?
>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]
>As soon as CZ comes back and you have your money, you’re out of here [Move onto a new arc, leave Sunset Lake’s monster for someone else]

[This may seem a tad redundant, but the last vote seemed to include a few who waned to score a payday but still handle the matter privately before leaving, so I wanted to verify what your actual long-term plans are. You can also consider it a 'meta' vote on whether to continue the adventures here or change locales. Just keep in mind that especially if you lie and leave, you might not be welcome back.]

>>6140358
>Lie and say you mortally wounded the main monster—after all, you very NEARLY did!

>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]

If we kill the mother drake first before anyone else whose gonna catch the white lie?

>>6140358
>Pledge to eliminate the threat entirely—though you’ll need a reward AND an advance to get it done

>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]
would the 2nd option be getting payed and ditching the monster problem ?

>>6140488
>would the 2nd option be getting payed and ditching the monster problem ?
[Yes. if you opt to take a full reward, claim the problem is solved, and leave, then even if you succeed the Lake Monster will eventually breed again and produce more monsters, and Sunset lake will know you lied and cheated them. But you'll be, one assumes long gone. Neither ZZ nor CZ have been established yet as too moral to pull such a trick for money.]

>>6140358
>Pledge to eliminate the threat entirely—though you’ll need a reward AND an advance to get it done
We've gotten actual results, unlike the other groups. It's only fitting we get some investment to finish the job.

>>6140358
>Pledge to eliminate the threat entirely—though you’ll need a reward AND an advance to get it done
I think we probably are the only grouo equipped for cave fighting so I think this can turn out well for us

>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]

>>6140358
>Lie and say you mortally wounded the main monster—after all, you very NEARLY did!
Fuck you Leif, we jumped her bones first!

>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]

>>6140358
>>Angle for a smaller reward for your work so far—get your bag while you can
Without us, our legwork and our information, the boyzband and the delver would still try to catch a slighty bigger than usual Newt and call it a day after saying the Maladoo gang got only one of two siblings.

>>6140658
>>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]

>>6140358
>Pledge to eliminate the threat entirely—though you’ll need a reward AND an advance to get it done
>You still plan to finish this monster hunt before you go [Continue the Sunset Lake arc]
It’s useful to have some renown. Also we might never know when we need to come back here.

>>6140172

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>6140488
>>6140556
>>6140581
>>6140626
>>6140658
>>6140660
>>6140799
“LISTEN,” you say raising your voice above the murmurs of the crowd and preempting Leif’s next asshole objection, “This is a BATTLE, in a larger WAR. Wasn’t I just sayin’ that, Pearl?”

Svanhilda Pearl’s eyes widen as many more eyes turn towards her. The dwarf had only just arrived at the edges of the crowd, but suddenly she’s centre-stage.

“Ach… I’d rather ye leave me out of this… But aye, ye did.”

“Exactly right!” you continue, smirking smarmily at Leif. “A war WE’RE winning. US. WE’RE the ones getting results—”

“It was us who lured and captured the first lake monster,” objects the male half-elf from Leif’s party, ‘Tri’ or something if you remember right.

“Only counts if you keep it,” you quick quip. “Every fisherman worth his fuckin’ BOAT knows that, isn’t that right boys?”

There is a chorus of agreement on general principle, which drives the half-elf’s head down and turns his face flush with embarrassment.

“It was the MALADOO GANG here that actually CAUGHT the damn thing, and it was US who, with a few coins and some gobli—Uh, some good, old fashioned GRIT got down and dirty to eliminate the threat. I don’t see anyone else here sending seasoned fighters down into the caves to root around and save the local fishing industry. Do YOU?”

There are a few whispers, but the docks are mostly quiet now. You have everyone’s attention, and enough respectful recognition o keep them from interrupting. Sure, calling your crew ‘seasoned’ is a bit of a fib, but you’ve at least got goblin It’s just like you were saying, though: you need to land the ‘fish’ before it counts.

“Without us, OUR legwork, OUR info, OUR cave-fighters, OUR plan, you all’d have caught yourself one or two of those monsters and totally missed out on their mama, AND a whole nest more of ‘em that would have eaten their way through the whole lake next season!”

You turn to the guards, mustering up for the final blow. You resist the urge to stand on tip-toe to get closer to eye-level, since (you’ve long since learned) that only make you look LESS imposing to human males. Instead, you spread your stance wider, square your shoulders, tilt your head back and puff out your chest—a surefire way to snag some eyes, without makes you look like a little girl.

“And that’s all on a shoestring budget, mind you, from the goodness of our hearts. Now imagine—IMAGINE, will ya’—what we can do with a bit more moolah. Give us our proper reward, advance us a bit more capital, and we’ll have this whole lake crystal clear and monster free. That’s a promise!”

[Base DC was a graduated 10/15/20. Thanks to the quality on the write-in arguments, that's reduced to 7/12/17.]

>>6141001
“Alright, alright!”

13: Two degrees of success!

The guards can’t argue with that, especially with the cheer of the crowd at your back. You allow yourself a quiet breath of relief. You’re not used to a mob of humies being your back-up like this, as opposed to more of an ANGRY kind of mob situation.

It’s… Actually kind of nice.

You throw a look and a gesture to the gang—the Maladoos AND your own gob-and-goat-gang, that is—to take off and leave the rest to you. They seem eager enough to oblige, exhausted by your efforts and warier around the locals than you in the case of your own crew. Only Cyrene Black insists on tagging along a you tail the local constabulary to their HQ, presumably to see that you don’t screw she and her friends out of their slice of the pie. You can respect that, you suppose.

No, you save your shade and your mocking hip-shimmy for those Green Leif pricks—and one prick in particular, natch. You give a little to the Delvers on your way by their tech-heavy set-up, which seems to have secured one of the middling ‘manders, but considerably less respect and little reward in light of your own announcement. Hey, that’s just business!

The guardhouse isn’t exactly the best you’ve ever seen, honestly resembling an upside boat of unusual size more than anything else. It’s old and patchwork, clearly retrofitted with fresh wood from many a mismatched tree over the long years, and slathered with a thick coat of blue-grey paint to protect (poorly) against the vagaries of harsh northwestern winters. Still, shit, it’s a nicer building than anything in New Goblintown, so what the fuck are YOU going to say about it?

Best of all, it’s good money inside—YOUR money, once the guards have dipped into their kitty and doled it out.

The coin and support on offer is the equivalent of 60 points, with 40 of it an advance. You are promised an additional 40 if you can produce proof of the monster threat being definitively eliminated.

>>6141014
You try to keep your cool at the profit proffered to you and your party, but the truth is that this might be the most money you’ve ever handled at once, as a Boss rather than a minion or a hireling. Even when you were running a gang of bandits out in the Goblin Wastes, you rarely saw so much coin, as opposed to barterable goods—rich merchants usually don’t get that way by being stupid, and only stupid merchants or especially desperate sorts passed through known goblin raider territory. You see Cyrene sizing up her share with considerably less reverence, but then again that makes sense—she has a bearing that screams ‘rich bitch’, even if she and the Malamutts don’t exactly seem to be rolling in dough these days.

Though speaking of the Maladoos…
>You’ll share the credit—and reward—with the Maladoo gang, offering them up a half-share to keep them around and on retained
[Reduces your own party’s morale, but scores you two inexperienced fighters (Cyrene and Fred, who have 2 ranks in melee combat and 2 ranks each in trapmaking and in negotiation respectively) two hirelings (Norville and Vel, who have no combat aptitudes but 2 ranks in athleticism and in scholaticism), and Maladoo (demonic beast of unknown stats, at least knows the spell <Power Word: Stun>), plus use of their equipment until the end of the arc.]

>Take the lion’s share of loot and emphasize your own team’s importance, then go your separate ways
[Reduces relations with the Maladoo gain, bolsters your own party’s morale, gives you more points to work with to secure equipment and outside hires, possibly longer-term, as well as to pay for Svanhilda Pearl’s services.]

Now is also a good time to start specifying what strategies you have in mind, if any and brainstorming equipment or allies you might want to seek out before your next hunt. One thing to determine in particular...

Do you plan to retain Svanhilda Pearl's services?
>Yes, you'll keep using the Pearl
[Current rate is 4 points a day, though there will be chance to try and lower that, NOT guaranteed]
>No, you don't need her or her boat anymore
[Specify you're getting another captain to take you out or don't think you need a boat anymore.]
>Actually, she's been pretty useful... You might see about hiring her onto your crew full time
[Costs 15 points, but comes with a boa and related equipment. Has ranks in piloting, navigation, mercantilism, and [REDACTED]]

>>6141015
>Take the lion’s share of loot and emphasize your own team’s importance, then go your separate ways
Later virgins
Norville almost died, shouldn't they be staying out of this on their own initiative?

>Yes, you'll keep using the Pearl
Open to replacing her, but I'm holding off until we figure out how the heck we're gonna get this thing.

>>6141015
>You’ll share the credit—and reward—with the Maladoo gang, offering them up a half-share to keep them around and on retained

I really really like having Mystery Inc here, it's a fun element of the adventure

>Yes, you'll keep using the Pearl
It doesn't seem like a huge sum of money anymore, especially if we work quick

>>6141068
+1

I like having Maladoo around. As for the ship, sure. For now. We don’t know if a ship will be useful in the future, but right now, yeah

>>6141076

Am>>6140799

>>6141015
>You’ll share the credit—and reward—with the Maladoo gang, offering them up a half-share to keep them around and on retained

>Yes, you'll keep using the Pearl

The plan is simple : Get Norville to level up.
He can turn decently into a Rogue(Scout) with skills in Stealth, Survival, Acrobatics, Deception, Perception. Heck, He should also get the "Mobile" feat to bait and run the monsters around without losing a leg.

>>6141001
>Sure, calling your crew ‘seasoned’ is a bit of a fib, but you’ve at least got goblin
*at least got goblin night-eyes.

>a surefire way to snag some eyes, without makes you look like a little girl.
*without making you look like

>>6141015
>Take the lion’s share of loot and emphasize your own team’s importance, then go your separate ways
you snooze you lose

>Yes, you'll keep using the Pearl

>>6141436
>>6141137
>>6141126
>>6141077
>>6141076
>>6141068
>>6141033
[This is a close one, so I'm using a judgement call and treating >>6141077 as valid, since SfBWiEu4 is a multipost ID. Remember, backlink 1post votes to ensure they are counted.]

Rolled 11, 14 = 25 (2d20)

>>6141548
“…Really?”

“Really,” you answer.

“…And this isn’t a trick?”

“Wh—Look, Black, if you don’t want it…”

“No, no, I’m not saying THAT, ti’s just…”

“Just WHAT?”

“I sort of got the impression that you didn’t really much care for us.”

“Yeah, well, maybe beggars can’t be choosers,” you snap, and then sigh and soften your tone as you continue: “And maybe you all proved yourselves better than I gave you credit for.”

“Wow, really?” Cyrene Black asks, violet eyes wide and a smile starting to form on her face. “Because actually, I really respect your whole ‘take no guff’ attitude, and your—”

“Easy there,” you chuckle. “Ass-kissin’ won’t get you extra, and I’d prefer it from Joens if it comes down to it.”

You can’t keep a straight face at the deathly pall that falls across Cyrene Black’s pretty little mug at that one.

“I’m messin’ with ya’, Black. Thanks for the help and, hey, if Norville’s not too freaked out for you lot to help us out…”

“Oh, him? Norville’s ALWAYS freaked out. We’ll just buy him some snacks and he’ll be right as rain.”

“Good,” you conclude, glancing over at the guards to make sure they’re listening as well. “‘Cause we couldn’t have done it without you.”

You retain 36 points, and the services of the Maladoo Gang for the remainder of the arc, plus improved relations with them moving forward.

Honestly, you see a lot of potential in that bunch of brats—even that Norville, who DID after all return to chase down the drake which nearly ate him. It took some time, but you hoenstly feel better with them at your back…

“You gave up HALF our reward??”

An-Yii, evidently, feels otherwise.

“And to a bunch of children, no less,” Khorine sniffs, without a hint of irony despite being (you guesstimate) like half the age of the youngest Maladoo.

“Look, they earned it,” you say reasonably. “Do YOU wanna’ go toe-ta-toe with Mama Monster with only the six of us?”

“…Six?” Yeb-Uit asks, confused.

“She’s counting my blight,” Khorine says with unsubstantiated confidence.

“I’m COUNTIN’ CZ and Hershy,” you correct her. “Hey, is she back yet? Anyone seen CZ?"

“If this is half the reward, we coulda’ just taken off already, and fuck the rest of it,” An-Yii grouses, clearly sick of Sunset lake and its little lake-drake problem.

“Come on, Yeb, back me up?” you petition the old Wasteland warrior.

He remains silent. You guess he really didn’t like being covered in monster-barf. Well, shit, who DOES? But that’s just life in this line of work, right?

[Leadership roll, DC 12 because you achieved a notable success with no casualties and have more reward to offer.]

>>6141555

You’re not sure if it’s a testament to the reliance of your party, to your leadership, or simply to how much a goblin will put up with for material reward, but nobody defects or objects too vociferously. It takes a bit of Bossing, carrot-and-stick style, but all three of your lackies lay down and accept their lot…

Yeb-Uit’s Morale: Stable
Khorine’s Morale: Stable
An-Yii’s Morale: Low

…Which, come on, ain’t half bad? 36 points ain’t nothing—and that’s just SO FAR!

“Now we just need ta’ figure out how to score the rest.”

“Wait,” An-Yii asks, startled and outraged anew, “you eman you don’t got no PLAN?”

Before you can lose your patience with your nurse—or yourself for letting that little tidbit slip out of your gob-hole out-loud—the door to your room slams open. You all jump, scrambling for weapons. You needn’t have bothered, though, because…

“Guys! You guys! I met, like, the COOLEST dog and… Uhh…”

>>6141563
You breath a sigh of relief at seeing it’s just Cara-Zi, back and apparent safe-and-sound, though a little dirty and dishevelled. And… Wait, no, she actually looks a little different, now that you squint. Her face is smoothed over, her teeth less fucked-up, and… Are her hands actually kind of normal-looking, without those long-ass knives on the end of them?

“Do I even wanna’ know?” you ask.

CZ titters nervously, fidgeting in place and flushed-of-face, yet clearly quite pleased with her changed appearance. Ultimately, seeing her so happy makes it tough to stay mad at your ‘other half’, and so you spare her the lecture—for now—and instead tell her the good-and-neutral news.

“You mean I get to keep hangin’ out with Maladoo??” she asks.

“Uh… I guess?”

(Why is she so excited about that? Wait, were her and that weird, evil fuckin’ dog-thing ‘hanging out’ all day? Is THAT where she learned how to—)

“A-and the Maladoo Gang, too, I mean,” CZ quickly, and unconvincingly, amends her exclamation.

“…Uh huh.” One thing at a time, ZZ, one thing at a time. “Yeah, we do. At elast ‘tilw e sort out the ‘big fish’.”

“An’ since we’re back on THAT subject,” An-Yii interjects, “how exactly we gonna’ do that, Boss?”

All eyes are back on you again, which is to be expected but still presents a problem. After all, your plan to find, fish out, and filet the Monster of Sunset Lake is still a bit of a work-in-progress.

You gotta say SOMETHING though, right?
>Green Leif Company had some trick they used to lure out a smaller monster… You just need to finesse some of his lackeys into sharing the special sauce
>You figure if you can get all the fishermen to pool their catches and lay it out, you can maybe lure out a hungry Mama Monster for a bite to eat
>You have to spend money to make money—and that means looking into options for diving deep and breathing underwater for you and the crew
>Actually, now that your resident shapeshifter’s back, maybe CZ can be bait, swimming down and finding the Lake Monster herself?
>Write-in

>>6141564
>>Actually, now that your resident shapeshifter’s back, maybe CZ can be bait, swimming down and finding the Lake Monster herself?

If Norville's fine, send him walking somewhere unrelated to the bottom of the lake, like the shore where the cave were and the monster, like, possibly can't be anymore, right?

>>6141564
>Actually, now that your resident shapeshifter’s back, maybe CZ can be bait, swimming down and finding the Lake Monster herself?

>>6141564
>Actually, now that your resident shapeshifter’s back, maybe CZ can be bait, swimming down and finding the Lake Monster herself?
Time to make up for missing the first encounter
We might have been able to finish it if she had been there

>>6141564
>Actually, now that your resident shapeshifter’s back, maybe CZ can be bait, swimming down and finding the Lake Monster herself?
Can we spend money on stuff that could help her on that? Like traps? Am willing to support this if so

Am >>6141076

>>6141694
>>6141812
>>6141827
>>6141854
“Well come on,” you say, “why do ya think we were waiting for Cara-Zi ta come back.

“H-huh?” stammers the demogoblin in question.

“AND she’s more shifty than ever, ain’t that right?”

You give CZ a look, which she quickly clocks. She responds with an (over)eager nod, and a goofy little twirl and flex.

“Right! Yeah, I, uh, I actually spent all day workin’ on it,f or out… Plan… Which is to, uh…”

“Ta send CZ down inta the lake after that cowardly Monster!

“…Wait, what?”

Undaunted, you press on, hitting your stride as the ideas came fast and hard.

“Yeah! She can grow, like, fins ‘n stuff—”

“Well, yeah, I can—”

“Shit, she can prob’ly grow GILLS!”

“H-hey, waittaminute, no, ZZ—”

“Or, well, hold her breath a while, or maybe we can get her all kitted out with some magci shit, now that we’re flush with gold.”

“You mean our REWARD?” An-Yii points out skeptically. “We gonna spend all our money before we even make it?”

“There’s more comin’,” you say dismissively. “Lots more, if we play our cards right. And THIS card?”

You slap CZ on the back so hard she yelps, then sling an arm around her with a wide grin.

“We’re goin’ ALL IN on this one. this is the winnin’ hand, mark my word!”

“You need more than one card for a hand,” An points out. “Yeb-Uit, you buyin’ this?”

Yeb-Uit sizes the two of you up. You don’t so much as sweat, though, even under his steely scrutiny. When he shrugs and half-nods, you keep your fist-pump of triumph imaginary, saving the sentiment for later.

“Well, -I- think it sounds like goblin madness,” Khorine announces, “and I’m going to bed.”

In truth, and as lame and old as it makes you feel, the same is true for you: you’re bagged after a hard day’s hustle, and eager to hit the hay. Of course, CZ being back means you sharing a bed again… And damn, she kind of smells like stagnant water and wet dog. Where WAS she?

“Strip,” you order.

>>6142260
CZ laughs nervously, and turns around, but she does so, down her skinnies. Nobody here is squeamish enough to make an issue of it, yet she keeps on her underwear down below, and crosses her legs just so. You frown a little, knowing what’s down there ad still not sure how you feel knowing that THAT was a part of you, too. Not that you weren’t always a bit of tomboy or whatever, but even so…

“Hey, why didn’t ya get rid of the schlong while you were shiftin’ yourself all over?”

Cara-Zi laughs a strange, brittle laugh and shrugs. “Uh, still workin’ on it? This is kinda’ new.”

You frown, because you can tell when your ‘soul-sister’ is lying to you, but you don’t push. Partly, it’s because you don’t care—at least, not enough to make a whole thing of it here and now. Partly, you worry the answer will perturb you further, and make you question your own self. It’s a bit of old goblin wisdom, that: never start an argument right before a fight. And if CZ isn’t down to argue, well, shit—she might CRY, and that’s even worse. You’re never sure whether to smack her own and tell her to stop sniveling—proper goblin discipline—or whether you try to do like Tips would’ve done, and pat her and tell her she’s pretty or whatever.

“Whatever,” you say. “As long as you’re good ta’ do swimmin’ tomorrow.”

Cara-Zi frowns, but nods, and you think you can just about ‘sense’ her determination, in that weird way you sometimes pick up on her feelings. That there’s uncertainty beneath it is fine: bravado’s an old goblin tradition, too.

…

…

You lay awake long after ZZ has fallen asleep—and all the others, as well, as far as you can tell. Maybe it’s the excitement of all you learned today, and all you might still learn now that you pretty much have official permission from your sis to learn more Maladoo magic. Maybe it’s nerves about tomorrow—after all, you’re not even sure exactly what you’re up against, but it’s clearly a big deal by the way everyone else is talking about this monster.

Maybe it’s Zith-Zi’s question, right before bed.

…

Yeah, okay, it’s definitely at least mostly that last one.

>>6142261

You shrunk down your horns to nothing, made your claws into nails, squashed your toe-claws together into proper, dainty little hooves to just about fit in a shoe. You crowded all your hair together to where it’s supposed to be, and turned your legs the right way ‘round so you don’t walk around all weird and goat-y like Khorine.

And yet you still have a big swinging dick. WHY? Why didn’t you get rid of it? Why can’t you now, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and wish really super duper fucking HARD?

Because of the first vote of the quest, CZ cannot shift her sexual characteristics entirely male or female yet. She is inherently intersex/hermaphroditic/androgynous. Because she didn’t follow the knight’s path of chivalry and repression or learn to suppress your urges and desires, she also cannot abolish those characteristics entirely.

In the end you give up trying. Wasn’t that Maladoo’s lesson, and that of that ‘Nothic’ guy, too? You can’t help or change what you are and, shit, maybe you don’t NEED t. You just need to understand it, and work with it, and change what you CAN.

You smile a little at that thought, banishing your lingering aesthetic angst. You shut your eyes again, but this time you don’t try to picture yourself like the Zith-Zi you were, or that your ‘other half’ now is. No, you picture you—yourself, fully CZ, but the CZ that you want to be.

File: the full team.png (13 KB, 1733x174)

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>>6142264
When you wake up, you are…
>Essentially a dwarf—peachy-skinned, with some hair on your hands and feet and a ‘demihuman’ nose and mouth and whatnot, and a bit of a fuller body, like Svanhilda
>Like a little mini-elf—an elf kid, even!—with pointy ears and fine features, and shiny-bright eyes and full lips, like Tips
>A goblin—a proper goblin, though, not exactly like you or ZZ used to be, but still a little green ‘girl’ like An-Yii (and, admittedly, a bit like Yeb-Uit, too
>A beastie-folk! Now that you can make them less freakish, you kind of like your hooves—or Khorine’s hooves, rather, which you can emulate—and having hair everywhere, and maybe now you can have a little doggy snout a bit like Maladoo…
>Essentially unchanged apart from being more proportional and less ‘scaly’
>Write-in

You also wake up with some ideas about how to properly realize Zith-Zi’s big plan. You figure that what you need is…
>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater
[Specify if you want a one-off solution (5 points) or something more permanent (15 points)]
>A better weapon for underwater fighting—maybe something like a fishing spear?
[Due to Monkey Grip, CZ can wield a medium-sized 1d8 fishing-spear with reach, but it would cost 4 points]
>A bit more back-up
[Specify who you want to bring down with you; if you plan to equip them with anything special; if you want to recruit anyone else, specify that as well,a nd what you’re looking for]
>Write-in
>Nothing; you got this as-is, and you don’t want to make more trouble by asking your sister to spend the reward

>>6142266
>Essentially unchanged apart from being more proportional and less ‘scaly’

>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater
One off

>A better weapon for underwater fighting—maybe something like a fishing spear?
Tie a rope to the end with plenty of slack so we can reel in the body

>>6142266
>A goblin—a proper goblin, though, not exactly like you or ZZ used to be, but still a little green ‘girl’ like An-Yii (and, admittedly, a bit like Yeb-Uit, too

>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater

>>6142266
>A goblin—a proper goblin, though, not exactly like you or ZZ used to be, but still a little green ‘girl’ like An-Yii (and, admittedly, a bit like Yeb-Uit, too
let's test drive more forms
>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater (1 off)
>A better weapon for underwater fighting—maybe something like a fishing spear?

>>6142266
Does transformation affect our hands? If so, I want elf hands
If not,
>write in
Add or take away anything that interferes with how hydrodynamic we are

>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater
>A better weapon for underwater fighting—maybe something like a fishing spear?

One off solution

Am >>6141076

>>6142266
>Essentially a dwarf—peachy-skinned, with some hair on your hands and feet and a ‘demihuman’ nose and mouth and whatnot, and a bit of a fuller body, like Svanhilda
or
>Like a little mini-elf—an elf kid, even!—with pointy ears and fine features, and shiny-bright eyes and full lips, like Tips
A fuller body would be great- just the thing to pump and dump Leif for intel for a second time. Just imagine the look on his face when he realizes he could’ve had twin sisters(ish)!
>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater (Permanent)
Long term investment- I want our Sloggoth-sword back bros

>>6142266
>>Essentially unchanged apart from being more proportional and less ‘scaly’
For basic appeareance, But supportin' >>6142382

>Something magical to make up for not being able to breath underwater
One-off
>A better weapon for underwater fighting—maybe something like a fishing spear?
Harpoon time

>>6142382
>Does transformation affect our hands? If so, I want elf hands
[Yes, though if you're looking to take advantage of Monkey Grip, they'll need to be big when you're swimming with that spear.]

>>6142479
I’d rather the dexterity of five normal fingers, then. Elf + one off item + weapon

>>6142492
[I have company tonight, so orobably won't update until tomorrow.]

>>6142408
I'll support this.

>>6142781
alright, take care OP

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>>6142786
>>6142492
>>6142413
>>6142408
>>6142382
>>6142375
>>6142365
>>6142346
[Locked and writing! Though the update may be tonight depending how the morning goes. My company stayed later than expected.]

>>6143152
You can’t quiet get over the transformation. The totality of it is so striking, and how it makes you feel… Well, it’s a game-changer. Well into your morning routine, long after a respectable gobbo would have been done with their simple and utilitarian washing-up, you’re still staring into the basin at your finely-formed features: your little, upturned elfin nose your rosy pink cheeks, your dark brown hair no longer so haphazard, your cat-yeellow eeys now confining their colour to smaller, humanoid-style irises. You’re still small and all, enough that nobody’s going to be mistaking you for a full-grown elf, but between your skinny limbs and long, pointed ears—and a notable shift towards a thinner, more androgynous shape, with subtler curves—you might just about pass for a wee elfling.

“I’m glad YOU’RE pleased,” Zith-Zi grumbles as she yanks on her spats. “I’m glad SOMEONE’S havin’ a good morning…”

Your sis is still sour, you suspect, because of the start you gave her at dawn’s first light. You suppose you can’t blame her for that—it’s not every day, after all, that one wakes up with a stranger in their bed. You feel a mix of guilt and, admittedly, amusement at the especially girlish shriek your ‘other half’ had emitted at first seeing you. At the time, you’d been confused, for the transformation was not a wholly conscious one, and you’d LITERALLY been unconscious when it took hold. Now, though…

“I’m jus’ like Tips…”

You run your fine fingers over your full lips, and flutter your eyelashed. You trace nails—still sharp, still a little greenish beneath the cuticles, but otherwise quite elegant and shapely—across your jawline. Can this really be you?

It feels… Wrong. It Feel RIGHT, GOOD, yet… Who is this stranger in the reflection.

“Hey, CZ, hurry your fancy new ass up!”

You splash the water and shatter your frowning face’s wet reflection. Turning about, you shake off the doubt like a dog drying off. Yes, this is you! Of course it is! Why shouldn’t it be? You are whatever you want to be! That’s the point!

>>6143174
With your party mustered—well, your core group, you’re meeting the Maladoos later—you head out to the market. Following ZZ’s lead, you trail her to a little emporium on the edges of town. Its widow-shutters pulled up, and in lieu of any sort of glass-encased window displays you might see in the nicer districts of the big city, you instead find hanging charms and dangling doodads that your supernatural senses recognize, with a squint, as magical. A sign above the door depicts curly-cues of calligraphy, spelling out ‘Willow & Water: Charms & Tonique Shoppe’.

“This where ya’ got the tracking charm?” asks An-Yii as your group enters.

“That’s right,” Zith-Zi answers, with a boastful voice as if she made it herself.

“Crude work… HUMAN work,” pronounces Khorine as she in runs her blunt-tipped, grey-nailed fingers over them.

“Yeah, well who asked you?!”

You all look over and see a (human) woman with flaxen hair, somewhat disheveled and mid-length for a girl, peeking out from beneath a wide-brimmed, pointy-topped ‘wizard chat’. It has a belt, as is the style in the city among graduates of Hawksong’s Mages Tower, but even you can instantly identify it as literally a regular, around-the-waist belt repurposed to keep the floppy hat atop its owner. In lieu of academic robes, the apparent owner of Willow & Water wears a heavy, striped jacket over a simple knee-length dress, and very practical (but unfashionable) boots. It’s not a BAD look, necessarily, but its very mismatched and not especially arcane; you strongly suspect Tips wouldn’t be caught dead looking like this, fi he could help it.

“No pets an’ no summons in the shoppe!” the mage/shopkeep says, reaching out to slap a nearby sign that says much the same thing with the back of her knuckles.

“My twig blight is not a ‘summon’,” Khorine protests.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Wait outside, kid.”

ZZ waves it off, and pats down Hershy’s hackles before handing him off to you. The feathered chimera-drake settles immediately, recognizing you—as few others do, ESPECIALLY now—as the same Zith-Zi whom he watched grow up. You smile, stroking his golden-turning-grey feathers and staying just outside the door so you can listen in.

>>6143175
“What do you need now? A re-enchantment of your divining rod, and a potion to dose a drake?”

“Oh? You heard about that?” ZZ asks.

“Everyone’s heard about THAT,” the proprietress answers plainly, “but it will cost you dearly. The ingredients for such a spell don’t grow on trees! Well… Some do, but realigning the orichalcum in the alloy takes time, and effort, and the alchemical ingredients for THAT—”

“Forget it,” your sister interrupts, “what we need’s something for swimming… And breathing underwater.”

“Ha! Right, and where am I going to get mermaid gill this time of year, at this altitude.”

“Some on, you’ve gotta’ have SOMETHIN’…”

“Well… What if you could do without breathing altogether, for an hour or so? Would that serve your purposes?”

“Shit, an hour? It’s a big lake…”

“You could buy MULTIPLE, if you’d like, but it will—"

“—cost me dearly, yeah yeah, I get it. Fuck. Alright, an hour’ll do. Say, you know where I can get, I dunno’, a harpoon or spear o soemthin’?”

“…For a gnome?”

“Human-size is fine.”

“Hmm…”

As the two are bartering and bantering, your own eye wanders until it settles across the broad, flat corridor of stamped-down mud and hither-tither cobblestones that denotes a street in Sunset Lake. There, another shop is opening up, and the finely-attired individuals—well, ‘fine’ by the standards hereabouts—are unspooling colourful fabric across odd wooden racks and setting up displays of dangling tunics and jackets, coats and dresses, and pleated trousers in imitation of the modern city styles. You look down at your own more-oversized-than-ever attire, a funerary cloak that looks more dead and done than ever after sleeping under that bridge.

New you, new outfit… Hey, that’s an idea!

Do you go buy new attire?
>Yes [costs 1 point]
>Yes, and… [costs 2 points, and you can specify something fancy or request specific (nonmagical) features]
>No, you’ll keep wearing what you’ve got.
[If you opt for a new clothes, specify if you have a style or anything in mind. Pictures are appreciated. This will inform an art commission sometime soonish, after all.]

>>6143152
>My company stayed later than expected.
Looks like one of my fav QM got some booty.
Congrats sports.

>>6143176
>>No, you’ll keep wearing what you’ve got.
We're a responsible tips-demon. We'll buy some fancy clothes AFTER defeating the drake and getting a proper reward

>>6143176
>No, you’ll keep wearing what you’ve got.

>>6143176
>Yes [costs 1 point]
since we want colorful stuff, let's go for a Landsknecht style
>>6143181
silly anons, qms don't fuck

>>6143176
>No, you’ll keep wearing what you’ve got.
Do we really need to? I guess we could find garters to tighten the sleeves or pants so it doesn’t bunch up in water but other than that? Not really.

Am >>6142382

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>>6143184
>>6143236
>>6143368
>>6143482
You shake your head at your own silyl notion. You’re a RESPONSIBLE demogoblin-cambion-elf-whateverthefuck, after all! You’ll buy some fancy clothes AFTER defeating the Monster of Sunset lake and earning your reward. Then, and only THEN, will you get yourself all dolled-up… Maybe something with some garters? Ooo, maybe something all colourful and frilly with a big hat, like Tips’ dad, Rudolfo?

“Come on, we’re going!”

That’s ZZ, issuing marching orders, and so you march. As you and the others follow her to your next destination, you catch your pinker-half looking at your hands a few times. Resisting the urge to pull them up into your oversized sleeves, you instead ask her what’s up.

“You can still make those all big ‘n grabby, right?”

“H-huh?”

By that point, you’re at a shop that seems to specialize in marine—uh, or whatever the freshwater lake equivalent is—equipment, mostly fishing and boating stuff. What Zith-Zi is eyeing up, however, is a pronged, pitchfork-looking thing, about eight feet long and ending in three wickedly-barbed spikes. You eye it up, and laugh a little.

“Isn’t a demon with a pitchfork a little, ya’ know…”

“Shh!” ZZ hisses.

You shut your gob-hole as she glances round nervously, checking to see that nobody heard you.

“Can you do it, or what?” she demands.

You squeeze your eyes shut thinking hard about your big gross hairy, jagged-nailed demogoblin hands-the hands you’ve had since ‘partition’ from your ‘sister’, every day until yesterday. Just thinking about those meathooks makes you feel all weird and sad and gross, and so you stop—even though you know it’s what ZZ wants, and instead just start picturing hands more like Svanhilda’s—strong, and thick-fingered, and capable, but still sort of femme and pretty in spite of the callouses. No, their beautiful BECAUSE of the callouses. You remember how those hands felt on your face, on your body…

<WANT: 10>

When you open your eyes, ZZ’s face is contorted, and her eyes are staring down—not at your hands, but lower.

“Hey, uh, yer packin’ half-chub.”

You gulp and cross your legs, tucking the embarrassing implement of your incomplete and spoiled femininity away. Zith-Zi grimaces and provides some cover while you do so. When she looks back, you hold up bigger, more spear-ready hands.

“Good,” ZZ says, though she still looks faintly disturbed. “That’s great. Good shit.”

You have 25 unspent points left.

>>6143514
Clutching your new spear awkwardly—but with an adequate grip to wrap ‘round the full, human-sized haft—you join the others in Zith-Zi’s explanation of the small, white stone which she holds up like some miraculous marvel of modern magic. You’re gathered upon the docks, with the rather-tired Maladoos—including THE Maladoo—all in attendance, also. You wave to the hellhound, who graces you with a glance but doesn’t rear up on his hind feet to wave back. Well, he IS in public, after all; you get it.

(Still hurts, though…)

“This,” ZZ explains, “is not just some rock. This is a…. Well, I didn’t get the name or nothin’, but it’s a rock that’s got enchantments on it, made outta’ coral from the sea or some shit, an’ all enchanted. It holds enough air in it that if you keep it under yer tongue an’ suck on it, it’ll keep ya’ breathin’ underwater for a full hour. Jus’ don’t swallow it, or you’ll be swallowin’ water, next.”

“What about the pressure?” asks Vel, narrowing her already-narrow eyes. “Anyone diving down there would be crushed by—”

“Listen, nerd,” ZZ sighs, “you see that bad bitch there?”

All eyes turn to the ‘bad bitch’ in question: you. You jolt at the realization, flushing, and attempt a nervous smile as you recoil into your soiled monk hoodie, kind of wishing you could disappear. Which, like, you KIND of can, actually, almost, in a way… But you can tell that wouldn’t be a good idea right now.

“That’s Cara. You ‘member her, right? She’s the oen who asked for the drake we ‘borrowed’.”

There’s a chorus of gasps and murmurs from the humans. Everyone in your own crew had got it out of their systems this morning, but to the Maladoo Gang, it’s a whole new revelation. You squirm under their scrutiny; can they see the ‘real’ you, in the imperfections beneath the shifted shape?

“She’s got magic comin’ out her ass,” ZZ asserts on your behalf. “She can handle a little water, aight, Dinh?”

“y-yeah,” you mumble. “I can handle a little pressure.”

“It’s not just about water, and it’s not just a little—”

“All aboooaaard!”

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>>6143515
Vel Dinh’s attempted explanation is abruptly interrupted by a familiar, feminine boom: that of Svanhilda’ Pearl’s voice, her dwarven constitution carrying her powerful voice and charming brogue far further than even your sister’s confident cadence can. ZZ seems to take this as the end of he argument, heading straight towards The Pearl—Svanhilda’s fishing vessel—and the others follow. Vel sighs, mumbling to herself about ‘atmospheres’ or some other nerd stuff that you’re sure Tips would understand; unfortunately, you only LOOK like him, and even then just barely.

Looking so much more like an elf must be why Svanhilda doesn’t immediately recognize you, as she greets the others—some cheerily, some brusquely. They pile onto the Pearl, and you…

>Hide among them and keep your hood up and your head down—maybe she wont’ recognize you?
>Approach her and apologize for the ‘incident’ the other night, explaining that…
>>You were afflicted with a terrible curse that has since been lifted [lie]
>>You are a ‘cambion’, but that you’re working on controlling it [truth]
>Write-in

She’s still beautiful as ever, of course—full-figured, big-breasted, suntanned and sultry, with a full, heart-shaped face and strong, muscly arms, and a gleaming hold tooth that only adds to her nautically-naughty charm, and with her brown tucked under a bandana and braided. There are still-healing scratches on her face and arms, though, telltale toothmarks on her throat, and bruises on her bosom—all your handiwork. You swallow your shame and, still more shamefully, your arousal.

Will you attempt to pursue further romance or ‘romance’ with Svanhilda Pearl?
>Yes
>No

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>>6143181
>>6143368
>RQM's personal life
I do alright for a middle-aged, divorced businessman who spends all his leisure-time on 4chan. Make of that what you will.

>>6143516
>Hide among them and keep your hood up and your head down—maybe she wont’ recognize you?
Haha how embarrassing

>No

>>6143516
>Approach her and apologize for the ‘incident’ the other night, explaining that…
>>You are a ‘cambion’, but that you’re working on controlling it [truth]

>>6143518
dat's my mean go-getter.

>>6143562
[You missed the second part of the vote]

>>6143563
Nice catch, thx
>>No

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>>6143184
Yeah and after we're going to buy a LEISURE SUIT

>>6143516
>Approach her and apologize for the ‘incident’ the other night, explaining that…
>>You are a ‘cambion’, but that you’re working on controlling it [truth]
>No

Rolled 16 (1d20)

>>6143696
>>6143562
>>6143542
You hover at the bottom of the gangplank, tapping your ‘hooves’ anxiously against the sodden timber until everyone else is aboard and willing yourself to be beneath notice. Only when everyone else is aboard, and Svanhilda is preparing to pull up the plank, does she truly see you. Her expression is questioning—as if trying to work out who you are wand why you’re lingering there at the same time. Only when you offer her a nervous wave and greet her does she recognize you.

“Hi. It’s me, Cara. Permission ta come aboard?”

And boy does she fucking recognize you, and remember your last ‘encounter’. Her eyes widen and she takes a step back. You cringe, and scamper up the walkway before she can pull it up and abandon you at the dock. The dwarf takes another step in retreat, eyes scanning around as if to scramble for a weapon. Your heart aches to see it, even as the whiff of fear on the lakeside breeze stirs your baser instincts up a little.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” you hasten to assure her. “I’m, like… Under control now.”

“…Aye?” the Pearl’s captain asks, sounding completely unconvinced.

(At least she’s not running and screaming…)

“Aye aye!” you say, snapping a salute and giggling.

(She doesn’t laugh…)

“Uh, s-so,” you stutter out as swiftly as you an, “I bet yer, like… Wonderingw hat happened, uh, that night?”

“Aye,” Svanhilda agrees hestitantly, “and how ye came to be as ye are now…”

She gestures to the ‘new you’. A part of you had hoped, childishly, that she would see your new form and all would be forgiven: that your clean, fresh features and elfin aesthetic would be so beauteous as to wipe away that little misunderstanding (or, uh, almost-rape) and renew the easy, casual closeness which you and she had earlier captured in your last voyage aboard her vessel. Now, with heavy heart, you recognize just how impossible that is. You really, really fucked this up.

“Yeah, about that…” You gulp. “I’m, uh, not really a beastwoman. Or… Like, a goblin. Not EXACTLY, anyway. See, thing is…”

Svanhilda listens as you explain your ‘condition’. You don’t get into every nitty-gritty detail of your genesis or history, but you tell her more than you’ve told almost anyone else, who didn’t already know what you are: that you’re a demogoblin—

“Or ‘cambion’, I guess?”

—and that you are heir to instincts and urges beyond your control, but that you’re working to change that.

“I mean, just look at me, right??”

You hold your arms out and do a little twirl. When you spin back around, though, Svanhilda’s eyes are hard, dark, and unmoving, like a still lake’s surface by dead of moonless night.

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>>6143719
16: successful diplomacy! CZ is allowed aboard, and for no extra expense.
You have 21 points left unspent

“Ye can come aboard me Pearl,” Svanhilda says, voice calm but stern, “but I want ye to keep your distance, ye ken? I dinnae know much about demons, or half-demons, but I ken enough to know they’re nae to be trusted.”

You shrink down in your robe—maybe literally? probably not, though, right?—and nod. You wonder why she’s even giving you this level of benefit-of-the-doubt, if she dislikes demons so much, but you’re too grateful (and too fearful of her changing her mind) to question it out loud.

“Y-yeah, I ken,” you mumble. “Thanks, Svanhilda…”

Like a beaten dog, you skirt around her and slink over to your friends and allies. ZZ raises her eyebrows at your approach, but you shake your head and she doesn’t ask anything else. From a distance, you watch Svanhilda pull up her anchor and grip the boat’s spoked steering-wheel, masterfully steering the Pearl away from the port and out onto the lake. The memory of those same hands on you now fills you with a queasy feeling that almost matches Khorine’s seasick-green countenance. You’ll never feel those hands’ supple strength in calloused caress again.

(Will you ever know tenderness like that, without what you are and where you come from getting in the way?)

You can’t help but dwell on those dour thoughts, spiralling into a silent sadness as the others chatter about their plans. You force yourself to look away from Svanhilda after a while, mostly because of the looks she’s giving you, and how much more tense she seems to be whenever your eyes meet. You pull up your hood and stare down at the lake, instead.

“Hey, you good?”

You feel your other half’s presence before her hand claps down upon your shoulder. You look over into ZZ’s face, and force a smile that you both know she sees right through.

“Yeah,” you lie, “I’m good.”

“Aight, glad ta hear it,” she says, playing along. “‘Cause we need you at yer best. The plan is…”

>CZ will dive down to the deepest areas of the lake and poke around with her spear, stirring up and slaying any cave-drakes she finds
>CZ and the others will creep around in the cave-system which ZZ and the gang visited yesterday, and CZ should be ready to chase down the mother-monster if she emerges
>The people on the Pearl are going to just go about fishing, keeping an eye on the competing parties and hoping the monster gets hungry enough to emerge of its own volition
>Write-in

>>6143722
>CZ will dive down to the deepest areas of the lake and poke around with her spear, stirring up and slaying any cave-drakes she finds

>>6143722
>>CZ will dive down to the deepest areas of the lake and poke around with her spear, stirring up and slaying any cave-drakes she finds

>>6143722
>CZ and the others will creep around in the cave-system which ZZ and the gang visited yesterday, and CZ should be ready to chase down the mother-monster if she emerges

Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>6143780
>>6143815
>>6143845
“…So I just, like… Dive?”

“Well, yeah,” ZZ replies, then frowns. “What?”

“Uh, well… Idon’t even know hat I’m lookin’ for, ya know? I didn’t see it before.”

“You saw the five-footer, right?”

You nod.

“Well, picture that, but about ten times bigger.”

You gulp.

“Hey, don’t freak out on me,” ZZ chastises you. “You don’t gotta kill it solo. Just spear any smaller ones you find, poke around on the floor of the lake, an’ if Big mama shows up, you come right back. Lure it to the Pearl!”

“Uhh… Okay,” you say, still not entirely convinced.

Nevertheless, you are determined not to let your sister or your new friends down. You exchange a brief look with Maladoo, whose solemn face remains set in canine impassivity, though the swivel of his ears reveals that your fellow creature-of-darkness has his eye on your performance as well. He’s not exactly your boss, but since he HAS become something of a mentor, this only increases the pressure.

(Though stripping down in front of so many witnesses has a certain psycho-sexual thrill…)

“Don’t wanna ruin my outfit,” you explain, “an, you know… All that weight and drag an whatever, so…”

“We get it, we get it!” ZZ says. Waving you on. “Just go already!”

You nod. Tucking the enchanted stone under your tongue, you take one last deep breath—you know just in case it doesn’t work so well—take up your pronged spear, and dive.

1: You're ambushed.
2-10: You have no success.
20-50: You find some smaller monsters...
50-90: You find the true monster, but...
90-99: You find the true monster, and...
100: !!!

Rolled 2 (1d10)

>>6143895
Despite your goblin night-eyes. It take you some time to adjust to peering around in the murky-dark waters of Sunset Lake. You’re able to shapeshift some webbing between your fingers and toes, and a thin membrane over your eyes, and that makes it a bit easier. Actually, it comes to you pretty instinctively, which is a pleasant surprise! Still, there’s debris from the bottom, flotsam floating around, silver-green fishies to distract you, and you’re never really gone swimming so deeply (let alone with a spear clutched close to your naked body), so it’s still and adjustment.

Once you’re adjusted, you’re pleasantly surprised by how quickly results come. Oh, it’s not immediate, but a part of you had feared that, in all this subaquatic vastness, there’s be too much empty space to find even a truly monstrous cave-drake. Honestly, that might even be true… Except, of course, that you’re a demon, and these things are full of Dark juju. In addition to darkvision, you’re packing DARKvision, and by peering about for the characteristic ‘glimmer’ of unholy arcana and following that unplaceable sensation, you are able to spot several salamander-thingies not unlike the one you saw bubbled-and-caged two days prior.

The magic pebble proves worth the gold coins spent to acquire it: with a pleasantly fizzy sensation like the champagne you snuck at Tips’ wedding a few years back, it fills your mouth with slightly-stale but life-sustaining air. Thus freed to dive deep and stay beneath the surface, you pursue your prey. Every time you approach, their whiskers twitch and their ‘wings’ beat water. The first couple times you nearly cry out in protest, but after that you remember to keep your mouth shut, lest you take in water and waste the air from the stone—the sensation of the two combined nearly makes you choke and gag as it rushes out of your nose.

67: You find the true monster, but…

You chase after your fleeing foes, considering whether it is worth the risk to hurl your fishing-spear at such small-fry. Before you can decide, though, a sudden pressure upon your sense alerts you of much bigger fish—err, amphibians—to fry. You stop short, turning you attention way from the departing drake to instead address a veritable underwater storm: dirt, debris, and torn-up underwater foliage spreading out in a great, misty cloud that obscures your dark-adapted eyes utterly, but cannot block your supernatural senses so easily.

(Well HELLO there, Big Mama…)

You grip your spear one-handed and paddle your feet and free hand to push into the cloud, not stopping to consider the risk until you’re already embedded in the murky miasma. Only then, squinting against the grey-blue-and-green haze, do you realize WHY such a mess of muck is being shaken up from the lakebed: you’re not the first one to find it.

“What the—hurk!”

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>>6143905
You shut your mouth again and squeeze your eyes shut against the familiarly-unfun sensation of magical fizz shooting our your nose. When you open them again, you properly perceive what had flummoxed you a moment prior: there, at the bottom of Sunset Lake, stands a strange, squat knight in odd-but-shining armour. Or, well, you ASSUME it would shine, under other circumstances: were they not so deep, or made so dirty by their duel.

The armour is unlike any you’ve seen before: a full-body suit, thick-limbed and with a domed helmet that seems to have a circular window on the face, meshed with metal an to protect a glass viewing-port for whatever little adventurer is wearing it. A huge tank is strapped to its back, and a spear not unlike your own is clutched in the figure’s grip, though it seems to be connected up by still more harnesses and uncanny apparatuses to the suit itself. Your eyes trail a longer, thciker cable or rope, stretching from the waist of the ‘knight’ and up towards the refracted light f the world above, broken by the shadowy silhouette of a boat. It’s a weird set-up for a weirder get-up, and you might not have even made the comparison to a knight if they weren’t pretty much fighting a dragon.

The Monster of Sunset Lake has 23 HP and will require a minimum of 2 hits to slay.

Oh, you sort of know the difference between a reptile and an amphibian, kind of, mostly. One’s rough and one’s smooth, mostly, right? Still, given the sheer SIZE of the Monster of Sunset Lake, and its general body-plan and all, it’s hard not to draw the comparison. ZZ wasn’t wrong: the ‘Big mama’ of all these other newt-thingies must be at least a good thirty-feet long, though a lot of it is tail. Its body is still marked by many a wound, especially around the head and neck, wreathed in a wide-cast net of thrashing, lashing tentacle-like whiskers, as if a whole plate of calamari was live and wriggling around its eyeless face and wide mouth, round and lamprey-like with its many rows of teeth.

It’s… Pretty fearsome-looking, all told. You’re sort of impressed the little guy fighting it isn’t running, since suit aside, whoever it is doesn’t look much bigger than you, and you’re bite-sized to this big beastie.

(Makes you wish you could’ve worn armour down here, but good luck swimming with any agility in THAT. Maybe if you’d had a suit of whatever-the-fuck that other shortie’s wearing, so you could just walk…)

>>6143909
You watch the lumbering, clumsy motions of the pint-sized subaquatic spearman going toe-to-toe with the creature that YOU’RE down here to catch, and decide what to do. There are a few options, after all, with the situation being so changed from what you might have originally envisioned. In the end, you…

>Join the ‘knight’ in flanking the ‘dragon’, hoping to take it down with the power of teamwork
>Sneakily swim over to cut the cable, if you can, to strand and disadvantage this obvious competition
>Attempt to bait the big beast away from the blighter in the battle-suit, so you don’t need to share the credit… Though even if it works, it’ll be chasing you and you alone…
>Write-in

>>6143910
>Attempt to bait the big beast away from the blighter in the battle-suit, so you don’t need to share the credit… Though even if it works, it’ll be chasing you and you alone…
well, that was the plan

>>6143910
>Attempt to bait the big beast away from the blighter in the battle-suit, so you don’t need to share the credit… Though even if it works, it’ll be chasing you and you alone…
Damn, Delvers got to it first

>>6143905
>with a pleasantly fizzy sensation like the champagne you snuck at Tips’ wedding a few years back
So. It’s been that long.

>>6143910
>Join the ‘knight’ in flanking the ‘dragon’, hoping to take it down with the power of teamwork
Honestly, might as well. The last thing we want is being alone, far from the ship, and injured. After the thing’s dead, take a chunk from it if possible. We need proof.

>>6143910
>Attempt to bait the big beast away from the blighter in the battle-suit, so you don’t need to share the credit… Though even if it works, it’ll be chasing you and you alone…

>>6143910
>>Attempt to bait the big beast away from the blighter in the battle-suit, so you don’t need to share the credit… Though even if it works, it’ll be chasing you and you alone…

[Power's out in town tonight. Sorry, no update!]

>>6144487
no problem, man

Rolled 4, 3, 2 = 9 (3d20)

Alrigth, we're back!

>>6143933
>>6143937
>>6143972
>>6144081
>>6143946
While you won’t pretend you’re not a little afraid of fighting such a titan, alone and in its element, you’re even MORE afraid of how angry and disappointed ZZ and the others will be if, after missing their first hunt, you come back empty-handed from THIS one… And with the Delivers (well, you THINK it’s the Delvers) seizing the day (and the reward money) in your stead! Those little guys must have used their weird gizmos to track it down somehow before you could...

But you have something that they don’t: mobility!

While the clunky-and-clumsy armoured adventurer on the lakebed is tussling with the overgrown caved-rake, you circle around and attempt to catch its eye. Upon remembering—duh!—that it doesn’t HAVE any eyes, and once more reminding yourself with a sizzling sting why you can’t open your mouth and shout to draw its attention, you go for broke and bust out the magic.

(Luckily, <Charm> is innate enough to not require somatic or verbal components. You just hope it will be enough…)

Rolling Mentalism and Survival (3d20, DC 15) to see if you draw it off...

Rolled 12 + 1 (1d15 + 1)

>>6144832

You squint your eyes and furrow your now-harness brown, forcing a pulse of power through your temples and out into the surrounding water—a pulse that says “Hey, lookit me, I’m a pretty little fishy or, like, whatever! Come chase me!” It even works, too…

4, 3 ,2: FAILURE

…Sort of. The big beast thrashing tendrils stop for a moment as it registers your energies and turns its head towards you, jaws hanging open as if in confusion or surprise. Thing is, that’s when—

ZZ-ZZ-ZZAP!

—the Delver-or-whoever strikes with their weirdo spear. You get a sense of what the cable’s for, as it pulses with a binding-bright light that makes you turn your head and immediately seizes the Lake Monster’s attention anew.

(Which is putting it mildly. Ooo, that bitch is MAAAD!)

Rolling the Delver's damage on the free shot...

Rolled 16 (1d20)

>>6144835

She's not only angry, either: the Lake Monster is hurt, and afraid. The water boils and bubbles around the Lake Monster, such that you can't quite see how badly she's hurt, but you can feel it with your empathic sense. You feel a pang of sympathy for a fellow spawn-of-darkness, being stabbed and filled full of burning light… But hey, that’s what you’re here for, too, sorta’.

(Suddenly, you’re not entirely sure how to feel about that…)

Though you can’t make out the particulars through the underwater steam-shroud, you can tell the Monster is spasming something fierce, and that her many mouth-mounted manipulators are lashing out blindly to find the source of her suffering.

Rolling the Lake Monster’s auto-grapple…

>>6144837
16: SUCCESS!
Suddenly, one lashing length of rubbery meat strikes true, slapping into the chestplate of the underwater knight. The Delver is staggered by the blow, but worse is what happens next: where one whisker finds its mark, a dozen more quickly follow, grappling each and every limb of the Delver in question and prising his limbs in every which way. No scream of terror escapes the steel-plated sub-marine spearman, but you can feel that fella’s fear just as sharply as you earlier tasted the Lake Monster’s.

So, too, do you scent the sensation of predatory satisfaction—of having its prey at its mercy, ready for consumption.

The Delver’s spear hangs from a cable at his (or her, you guess?) side. Gauntlets fingers grope and grab at empty water , straining and failing to take up the deadly electrical weapon once more… But to no avail.

The Monster of Sunset Lake has 10 HP left, and will take at least one more hit to incapacitate.
The Delver is uninjured, but helpless in a grapple
You have 30 HP, 2/3 MP, a fishing spear, a dagger, and no armour right now

What will you do?
>Go for the shock-spear and try to stab it! That’ll risk getting grappled yourself, but that thing look like it really stings!
>Go in with your own spear, from the back, where you’re safer!
>Since <Charm> failed… Maybe try <Fear> instead, to scare it off and save the Delver with less risk to you?
>Fuck this—sorry, Delver-or-whoever, but you’re going to swim up to the surface and signal the Pearl to come over this way, so you can tackle this monster with back-up!
>Write-in

>>6144845
>>Go for the shock-spear and try to stab it! That’ll risk getting grappled yourself, but that thing look like it really stings!

>>6144845
>Go in with your own spear, from the back, where you’re safer!
If we save them we can claim a bigger share
Lifewise for using our own weapon instead of theirs

>>6144845
>Go in with your own spear, from the back, where you’re safer!
it's only 10hp, we can do with our own.

>>6144845
Go in with your own spear, from the back, where you’re safer!

>>6144845
>Go in with your own spear, from the back, where you’re safer!
He’s in the limelight right now. We don’t need to join him.

>>6145026
am >>6143946

Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>6145026
>>6145023
>>6144979
>>6144919
>>6144886
A few thoughts occur to you, as you circle around behind the ongoing underwater melee. There is the thought that being amidst a writhing forest of meaty feelers sounds pretty fun, but also not like a worktime-activity, and also potentially pretty lethal. There are also the two related thoughts that if you team up with the Delver Knight or use his-or-her weird weapon, you might be indebting your own party to theirs in some way, forcing you to split the take. Zith-Zi would hate that, and so you—a former Zith-Zi yourself once upon a time—do, too.

(This oughtta do it…)

You swim upwards and angle your spear down, clutching it between your legs and gripping it with hands and with knees both for a moment as you take aim at the back of the beast’s head. You have to shift your equipment a bit for that, being naked and all. A thought occurs, belatedly: when you stripped down to avoid being dragged down by robes or armour, did Svanhilda see?? Or the night before? No… No, that never could have worked.

(Focus, focus!)

You shake your head, hard, to jar loose the intrusive musings. You finish aiming the spear, hoping the little Delver Diver can hold on just a little longer, and then you plunge downwards, kicking hard and clutching your spear to your slimmed-down bosom, throwing all your force and wait into the plunge…

You sadly lack any direct combat bonuses besides your Natural Weapons, not applicable here. However, you are flanking, and the enemy is occupied. You’re attacking from behind, and you’re using a specialized weapon. As such, you roll 1d20, DC 12.

Rolled 4 (1d8)

>>6145033
A hit! Rolling damage...

Rolled 1, 8, 8 = 17 (3d20)

>>6145034
>>6145033

You struck true! You felt, rather than heard, the monstrous-retort: a water-trebling boom from the Lake Monster’s always-gaping maw. It released the Delver in its startlement, which almost made you whoop with joy for though his/her fear was a fine and piquant thing, it wasn’t what you were here for and you didn’t wish the small-sized adventurer ill, really. And anyway, the Lake Monster’s fear was fresher, finer…

And tinged with rage.

“Oh,” you said aloud, wincing as the water sizzles against the stone.

(Oh, she’s REAL terrified, now.)

A mortal terror had taken her, this monstrous and Dark mother of monstrous lake-critters, stabbed in the back and burnt all up her front, hunted and harried and now—here and now, against the two of you—making a desperate last stand.

Also, you’d forgotten about that BIG fucking tail, now threshing through the water like a tumbling log, too fast to easily avoid—let alone while still pulling free your spear.

The Monster of Sunset Lake has 6 HP, but is making its attack. It has multiattack, so each successful roll is its own hit

>>6145038
Unable to dodge the tail, you instead pulled your legs up to your chest, as if to curl up into a ball. When the tail came hurtling towards you to smack you to shit, you instead grabbed hold of the spear still embedded in the back of the bitch’s gill-slit, twisted it hard, and kicked off the paddle-thick rear limb of the monster. It—she—screamed again, that scream that vibrated the lake around you, and pulled away, lurching forward in agony. You checked your spearhead to ensure the pronged points were all still there and, sure enough, there they were!

So, too, was Mama Monster.

Critical Failure! The Lake Monster has stunned itself with pain, giving you a free success on your next move! To-hit dice will be rolled but just to see if you crit.

Now is your chance to strike, to finish this!

You…
>Cast <Fear>, to drive the monster away for now, that you might finish it off with your friends in safer circumstances
>Shapeshift some claws to tear it apart [4d20 to hit, but 1d2 damage without a crit]
>Stab again with the spear [1d20 to hit, 1d8 damage without a crit]
>Take up that shock-spear [1d20 to hit, 1d15+1 damage without a crit]
>Write-in

If you choose to engage rather than driving off the Lake Monster, and don’t finish it, it will make its auto-grapple attempt. if that fails, it has a morale check coming up as to whether to attack again or retreat. If you use fear, it’s guaranteed not to attack again. Consider this little tactical blurb a bit of tutorial, or a result of some latent mentalism by CZ

>>6145043
>Stab again with the spear [1d20 to hit, 1d8 damage without a crit]
it have 6HP.
So with our auto-success, I'm taking that 1-chance-over-4 to finish it with 0 Delver contribution.

>>6145043
>Shapeshift some claws to tear it apart [4d20 to hit, but 1d2 damage without a crit]
Honestly, a guaranteed 4 dmg is pretty good. The spear options hinges around a single big hit. I’ll take my chances with this one.

Am >>6145026

>>6145210
This is a guaranteed 1 damage, not 4.
This choice is critfish-maxxing but low reward else.

>>6145043
>Take up that shock-spear [1d20 to hit, 1d15+1 damage without a crit]
We do less damage than I thought with our spear
If we don’t kill it now either it gets away or the Delver lands the killing blow, which would be even worse than using their weapon

>>6145263
Oh in that case
>Take up that shock-spear [1d20 to hit, 1d15+1 damage without a crit]
High chances of doing => 6 dmg

>>6145363

Am >>6145210

>>6145043
>Stab again with the spear [1d20 to hit, 1d8 damage without a crit]
fuck it, I trust our weapon.

>>6145049
>>6145379
[Two for fishing spear.]

>>6145276
>>6145363
[Two for shock spear.]

[As such, and in keeping with my stated methodology, those votes without a history will be weighted less. 9837IZSc is 1 post, and s we're going for the fishing spear, so I can get an update out. locked and writing!]

Rolled 10 (1d20)

>>6145447
You know the risk—the risk of grapple, of counter-assault, of the possible ESCAPE which could be even worse. However, you still have to go for it. You have to trust your gut and thrust your spear—YOUR spear, the one that doesn’t potentially entitle the Delvers to a cut of the proceeds—and you have to do it fast, while the Lake Monster is still staggered.

You draw it back, take a deep breath of the weirdly-tangy air produced by the magic pebble under your tongue, and plunge your pitchfork’ forwards with all the strength in your wiry, shapeshifted form...

Rolled 3 (1d8)

>>6145450
Auto-hit, but no crit. Rolling damage...

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>6145451
The prongs sink deep into the side of the monster’s throat. You really lean your weight and kick your hooves as hard as you can, grunting in exertion as you try to force it deeper…

The Monster of Sunset lake has 3 HP left.

…but before you can force it more than a few more inches, you get your idly-imagined wishes granted, and DECIDEDLY not in a fun way. The Monster turns its full attention upon you, the pain startling her back to her senses, and you finally get to know what it’s like to have a dozen slimy tentacles wrapping around your torso and limbs, scrawling over your flesh and pulling you towards a faintly-yonic opening.

(Shame about the, like, dentata, right? hahaha, haaa... Fuck.)

The Monster rolls its automatic grapple attempt...

Rolled 16, 19, 8 = 43 (3d20)

>>6145459
You struggle—of course you do! you’re not THAT big a masochist!—but the boneless lengths of muscle are stronger than you by orders of magnitude, and their slipperiness is strangely unhelpful is squirming free. Belatedly, you take note of the way the sensory pores almost seep to suction to your vulnerable, bear flesh. It’s a testament to your terror that you don’t get hard, and a credit to your willpower that you don’t take on more water by screaming. Instead, you simply watch with wide eyes as the hungering, one suspects even HANGRY, maw draws nearer and nearer. You grip your spear in a death-grip (okay, bad choice of words) in the hopes you can survive what comes next and retaliate in kind.

Because you are grappled, the Monster of Sunset Lake gets to employ it's bite on you with a DC 10 to hit, and every success of its multiattack on you as a target.

Rolled 11, 1 = 12 (2d12)

>>6145474
Two hits! Rolling damage...

Rolled 16, 14 = 30 (2d20)

>>6145481
A thousand tiny shards of keratin sink into your flesh from every angle, translucent little daggers encircling you and shredding your flesh. You can’t help crying out then, unfortunately, but the fizzing in your sinuses is rather far from the top of your list of concerns right now. You reflexively try to wrench yourself free, but that only makes it worse. Your vision goes hazy and red as the water fills with your wine-dark lifeblood.

You have 18/30 HP left.

It’s not the worst pain you’ve ever felt. It’s a small consolation, but it’s what you’ve got. You remember the pain of ‘creation’, of being ripped apart and remade. Worse even than that, you remember the pain of being alone and unsheltered, bodiless. It’s a vague memory, but it’s one that’s stuck with you, with it’s attendant, existential dread of ego-death, an end to you. You remember the numb, creeping agony of loneliness, deprivation of emotions deep beneath the Tower in your ‘infancy’ as a separate being, as ‘Carazzi’ rather than ‘Zith-Zi’. This isn’t as bad as that.

But it’ close. it’s damn close. And you’re cold, like your were back then. And scared, like you were back then. And…

Wait…

You’re not alone, though, are you?

Rolled 7 + 1 (1d15 + 1)

>>6145484
>>6145484
The Delver hits! Rolling damage…

>>6145487
Your senses, going cold and dark, suddenly flash white and hot. It is another lance of pain, but distinct—a new, electrifying agony. This would normally be cause only for more alarm, of course, but it ony takes you a second to register that the pain is not wholly your own… It’s HERS! That of The Monster!

7 damage to The Monster of Sunset Lake! It is incapacitated!
7 damage to you. You have 11/30 HP…

The chewing and swallowing of everything you are stops, and the tentacles, deprived of their will and with their muscles spasming, release their iron grip and drift away from you. Groaning through lips closed against the lake’s water—you have that much presence of mind, at least—you pull yourself out of the mouth like yet another birth. What would that be, number three? Your dull, dissociated amusement at that notion fades a little when you see your saviour, and truly understand what you’ve allowed to happen…

The Delver Diver, Knight-in-Underwater-Armour, has saved your life… By slaying, or at least utterly incapacitating, the Monster of Sunset Lake… The one that was supposed to be the big break for you, and ZZ, and all the others. The one that was going to pay for medicine and doctor-training and whatever back at New Goblintown, and (more immediately) was supposed to get you and ZZ out of there, and on the road to being bigshots or whatever! The money that meant your future!

(Oh shit… And ZZ already took an advance on some of that. Are you gonna have to pay that back??)

You peer over the edge of the unconscious-or-worse organism who’d nearly eaten you up, to see the being who bested it. You can’t see the face of the little monster-slayer, but you can sense their fading fear, their waves of relief, and their dawning glow of triumph. Heavy gauntlets rest on their knees as they elan forward, clearly catching their breath and getting their bearings. That stabby, shocky superweapon of theirs is still clasped in their hand, but its payload of power is not currently issuing forth; the only evidence of its sizzling secret is the bubbling ozone around the prone body of the great cave-drake who terrorized Sunset Lake.

You can also sense that they haven’t seen you yet.

What will you do?

>Hurl yourself at them in a hug of gratitude, for saving their life
>Cast <Fear> to scare them off the kill, so you can try to claim the credit
>Draw your knife and cut their cable, then hold them down here until they drown
>Slink away in shame, back to the boat, to own up to your failure
>Write-in

I give up if the formatting remains fucky after this. I genuinely don't see any error in how I formatted the green code...

>>6145492
>Hurl yourself at them in a hug of gratitude, for saving their life
We saved each other, really
Hopefully that gives us a 50/50 reward split

>spoiler
I haven't noticed any formatting weirdness

>>6145504
>formatting weirdness
[It took posting that last update three times to figure it out. Closing the green brackets, but failing to close the bold one, led the green to continue but the bold to stop, and fixing them somehow caused the italics to spread, until FINALLY... I got it.]

>>6145492
>Write-in
>Approach the other delver. Slowly.
Acknowledge. Just so he can’t fein ignorance as easily when our stories come up.

>Take a part of the monster back

We need some kind of proof.

I don’t think money is such a big issue; we were contracted to kill the problem — it has been killed. We never said only we alone can kill it, just we’ve proven ourselves.

Am >>6145363

>>6145492
>Cast <Fear> to scare them off the kill, so you can try to claim the credit

Seems like the (non-sociopathic) way to get the Delver away

>>6145583
I'll support this.

>>6145506
4chan miss a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text box previsualiser.

>>6145604
I'd settle for an edit function to fix it afterwards without deleting and reposting.

>>6145604
I wished they had a button for it. And honestly give everyone formatting powers. Right to remove a reply should still be tied to QM’s ID, though.

>>6145583
>+1
I'd go for the hug if we weren't naked, which is a thing we learned in the middle of the battle

>>6145492
>Cast <Fear> to scare them off the kill, so you can try to claim the credit

Or

>Draw your knife and cut their cable, then hold them down here until they drown

if fear doesn't work. If these delvers want to Kill steal they better be prepared for the cutthroat nature of adventuring.

I'm curious at how the delver ungrappled itself, and if the teeth punctured or not the suit

>>6145735
[Technically, I mentioned CZ stripping down before diving into the water. Underwear would have been an option... If CZ owned any]

>>6145775
[When you stabbed the Monster with your fishing spear, and its counterattack critfailed and stunned it, it lost its grip as a consequence of the stun.]

>>6145780
>Underwear would have been an option... If CZ owned any]
are we really that broke ? zam

>>6145760
Did they kill steal though? We were getting munched on, that kill was legit theirs

File: analyzing results.png (4 KB, 546x105)

4 KB PNG

>>6145760
>>6145735
>>6145603
>>6145592
>>6145583
>>6145504
[Locked and writing!]

>>6145853
It would be easy—so very easy—to cut the cord of the kill-stealing ‘knight’ who came to your rescue. Perhaps a darker demon might have done so. You, though? Impulsive creature though you be, that is not the impulse which presently seizes you. Rather, when you leapfrog over the fallen amphibian, it is not for a sudden assault, but to express your gratitude.

It’s only when you see the Delver stumble back that you remember you’re still start-naked, and hover back a bit, fidgeting under the sudden scrutiny of a half-dozen black portholes in the unconventional helm of your hero. You offer a sheepish wave, and quickly tuck ‘tail’ again.

(It’s not that you’ve NEVER had underwear… it’s just that with the shapeshifting, and certain unfortunate incidents, you sort of tend to, ya know… Ruin ‘em real quick, and since most gobs don’t really go in for that ‘prude humie bullshit’, you’ve never had the opportunity to buy more…)

You have no way of knowing whether the Delver, in their suit of strange overlapped plates and tubes, notice your own ‘unusual equipment’. You don’t SENSE any horror or disgust, at least. Rather, you sense a curiosity, which you suppose is fair enough; even without being an obvious hermaphrodite, you DO appear to be a little elf chickie, floating around fancy-free and naked as the day Tips' magic made you, deep underwater without any equipment, holding a spear that you just used to help whoever-this-is fight a fairly fearsome foe.

You flash a thumbs up and gesture back and forth, hoping to communicate ‘I save you, you save me… We’re even, right?’ You receive a halting thumbs up in turn, which you hope translates to something like ‘Oh yeah, totally, and you can keep your advance!’ Maybe that’s wishful thinking on your part, but the Delver doesn’t move to stop you when you take out your knife and approach the carcass(?) of the Lake Monster. Confirming that it is dead—or at least dying, its life seeping out of it and out of this material world—you take a moment to alight upon it as you had An-Yii, and to savour the passing of the soul.

(That starts to get you all tingly in the loins, though, so you hurry up and saw off a tentacle, swimming away with it before you embarrass yourself)

…

>>6145864
…

“Is this supposed to take this long?” complains Khorine.

“It’s a poor fisherman who cannae wait patiently, ye ken,” comments Svanhilda Pearl.

“Yeah, what that broad said!” you agree, earning a sharp look from Svanhilda which you ignore.

It’s only been ten or fifteen minutes, anyway… Twenty, twenty-five, tops. Cara-Zi has plenty of time to make it back You watch the water, squinting against the glitter of the reflected sun, and wait patiently… Or, well, as patiently as you can managed. Your foot taps, you shift your stance repeatedly, and eventually Hershy’s ribbit alerts you to how much moving you’re really doing.

“Come on, CZ…”

splish

You practically jump up onto the bulwark when the familiar-unfamiliar head of your shapeshifted ‘twin’ pokes out of the water. You and the others shout and wave, and when she waves back…

“Jinkies!”

“Zoinks!”

“Jeepers!”

“Where do they come UP with this stuff?” sighs An-Yii at your human companions’ explanations, to Yeb-Uit’s indifferent shrug.

Frankly, you don’t blame them, though upon seeing the huge tentacle being waved about like a banner of victory, your own grin is accompanied by a much more conventionl and dignified:

“Well holy fuckin’ troll shit, she really did it!”

Once Svanhilda has thrown down the rope by which you and Frederich might haul your sister and her prize aboard the Pearl, you offer the hero of the hour a round of atta-girls that set her to glowing—almost literally. You know her well enough to know that all this attention and praise is going to get to her in more ways that one, though, and so you hasten to return her robes and armour, receiving a grateful smile and silently-mouthed ‘thank you’ in return.

It’s only then that CZ breaks the bad news.

“The fuckin’ DELVERS?” you groan. “Those nerds?! They ain’t done shit this whole time! Ehere’s THEY come from??”

“Actually, I’d been observing them fro a while, when they allowed me near enough,” Vel chimes in, to your annoyance. “They were understandably protective of their methods, but I believe they were using some variation of the dwarven seismograph technology first pioneered by the Bleakspire Mining Operation’s engineer to seek out underground ruins and dungeons to follow large shifts in the lake-bed. That must be how they finally tracked the Monster, once we’d run it out of its cave.”

“And then they used a galvanic weapon of some sort to take advantage of the conductive properties of mineral-rich lakewater to do extra damage!” Frederich grins despite the loss, slamming his fist into his open palm. “Perfect trap!”

“Yeah,” you grumble, “fuckin’ perfect.”

“It sure stings, I’ll tell ya THAT much,” Cara-Zi adds with a nervous laugh, avoiding your eyes in light of her admission.

>>6145865
Only Cyrene seems to share your frustration at being beaten to the punch, among the humans. An-Yii and Yeb-Uit’s expressions have darkened, too, of course, and they’ve taken to sharing their own council, which makes you EXTRA worried; gobs plotting behind a Boss’ back is never good, as you know from being on BOTH sides of that deadly equation.

“There are still countless corrupted drakes in Sunset Lake,” Khorine adds, frowning for entirely different and much more metaphysical reasons. “They may not grow as large or dangerous, but their presence is a blight.”

“Like, you don’t think they’ll get as big as their mom?” Norville asks.

“They carry less of the fell taint of Dark Magic,” Khorine replies, as if that explains everything.

“The hybrid of two animals is often intermediate in size to the parents,” Vel notes thoughtfully. “Though there are exceptions, such as the liger, which can outgrow both.”

All eyes turn to her, and the Eastern girl waves her hands and rapidly assures you of how rare that is.

“They’re usually even infertile, so the problem might really solve itself” she concludes.

“A-and, like… I DID help kill it, an’ kinda saved that Delver diver-knight-person, so… Like… Maybe they’ll cut us in?”

Your frown lessens ever-so-sightly at that thought. On the one hand, your natural goblin-reared skepticism assures you that this is impossible, an utter fantasy of interracial cooperation and honour-among-adventurers that simply doesn’t exist in the real world. On the other hand… Shit, even YOU cut in the Maladoos, for all the good their presence did you.

One way or another, you’ve got a call to make.

>Go meet the Delvers out on the lake, to negotiate shared credit and a split reward
>Hurry back to shore to cash in your trophy as evidence and collect your reward—before the Delvers can!
>Cut your losses and cut out the Malado Gang—they didn’t help in the end, so you want their cut of the reward-so-far back!
>Stay out of the lake and try to collect as many of the smaller monsters as you can, to collect the bounty on them and prove your utility
>Gracefully accept your loss, and pull on in to port to see how much of that advance the guards want to claw back…
>Write-in

>>6145866
>Go meet the Delvers out on the lake, to negotiate shared credit and a split reward

Rather than collect the smaller ones for free, we can bring them up to the guard and see if they're offering payment to exterminate them

>>6145866
>Go meet the Delvers out on the lake, to negotiate shared credit and a split reward

>>6145865
>explanations
*exclamations

>>6145866
>Go meet the Delvers out on the lake, to negotiate shared credit and a split reward

>>6145866
>>Hurry back to shore to cash in your trophy as evidence and collect your reward—before the Delvers can!

File: wik1t8yd9e3a1.jpg (134 KB, 1062x1600)

134 KB JPG

>>6146167
>>6145936
>>6145916
>>6145876
You haven’t gone soft. No, seriously, you haven’t! it’s just a matter of practicality hat carries you—and everyone else aboard the Pearl—towards the Delvers’ dire dinghy. After all, though the rival adventuring party isn’t human, their members are safely within the realm of the humanoid, or DEMIhuman—not a bunch of goblins and beastfolk. Sure, you’re hot as hell by human standards these days (well, MOST human standards), but you don’t trust it: if it comes down to he-said-she-said shit, you know that the halflings and dwarves of the world have that shit on lock. Better to get in good with them and to negotiate from a place of camaraderie, than to get into a whole pissing match in front of the guards and everyone else.

As you approach, Svanhilda slows down to pull up gracefully alongside the Delvers’ vessel. You glower down, appraising the adversary. Their boat is borrowed, surely as yours is, but it has seen some heavy modifications. Strange buoys bob about it, inflated leather sacks studded with metal sensors and strange barbels that remind you of the Lake Monster’s whiskers You’re no expert artificer, but you assume this to be the sensory array that pinpointed YOUR prey, and enabled them to beat CZ to the punch. On the deck, you see the same motley assortment of dweebs you recognize from the ports on the two days prior, though you’d never paid them especially close attention: a gaggle of little men (and a couple ladies, too, you suppose), gathered around a starnegly-armoured individual all strapped with tubes and shit, and holding a spear that seems to be affixed to his arm.

“That one!” Cara-Zi whispers excitedly, pointing at the walking tin can. “That’s the knight!”

“No shit,” you whisper back, and then more loudly, you shout: “Hello there! Permission to come aboard?”

The Delvers look your way, a sea (well, pond) of big eyes and bearded faces. Well, except the gnomes—they go in for well-waxed, weirdly-shaped mustaches, as a general rule. All at once, you feel their eyes on you, and your realization is renewed: these are NERDS, and they have only a single, rather dumpy-looking halfling woman in their entire assembly. You smirk a little, and strike a pose, for you can work with THIS. Needless to say, it’s only a moment before you’re invited aboard. You bring Cara-Zi along as well, of course—she DID save the life of the ‘knight’ as she tells it.

>>6146419

“Welcome! Welcome!”

The apparent leader of the Delvers is a bespectacled, black-haired dwarven male with a youthful face that stands in stark contrast to his receding hairline. You appraise him quickly, and find you can’t exactly disapprove of his physical conditioning, even if he’s no beefcake—the nerd works out, enough to be a proper adventurer at least. Still, even with his dwarven fortitude, you’re confident you could take him and come out on top—in a fight or otherwise, if it came down to it.

Of more interest to Cara-Zi, and no small interest to yourself for that matter, is that so-called knight. The knight’s spooky, many-eyed helmet comes off with great difficulty, and much assistance from the drake-killer’s friends, and finally you see the face of the bastard who beat you and your sister both, and stole your kill…

(…Ah fuck, he’s hot.)

Though barely taller than you, and therefore shorter than your usual type, the ‘knight’ is a rather strapping halfling. Sodden with sweat and practically steaming, he nevertheless cuts quite the figure, with his long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and his jaw narrow but sharp, with his grey-blue eyes piercing in their intensity and focus.

That focus, incidentally, is on Cara-Zi.

“You!” He lumbers awkwardly in his metal fat-suit towards your shadow-self. “You’re the one I saw down there! The… The mermaid!”

Cara-Zi makes a sound like a bark and a choke at once, which you—and you alone, among the startled Delvers—recognize as a confused laugh. She looks to you, but you can only shrug. Shit, in his shoes, ‘mermaid’ is as good a guess as any, right? Though you’re PRETTY sure they usually have a fish-tail and gills…

While those two are making small-talk, you take the Delvers’ bigwig aside, nodding your head to indicate you should step aside.

How do you approach this?
>Flirt and make personal appeal, and maybe personal promises—nerds are easy that way
>Angle for a bit of quid-pro-quo—they help you her,e you'll help them later
>Try to appeal to their honour, or guilt them—your sister saved his boy, right? And you DID do a lot of the dirty-work...
>Threaten them—your crew outnumber theirs, and you have friends in HIGH places, actually...
>Let CZ handle it—she has a 'rapport' with the 'knight'
>Write-in

Do you bring Cyrene Black aboard to assist, with her superior negotiation skills?
>Yes
>No

>>6146422
>Try to appeal to their honour, or guilt them—your sister saved his boy, right? And you DID do a lot of the dirty-work...
>Yes

>>6146422
>Angle for a bit of quid-pro-quo—they help you here you'll help them later
>Try to appeal to their honour
Carazzi helped him take down the thing. Help us now (a share of the reward) and we’ll continue to help you in the future

>Yes

>>6146422
>Angle for a bit of quid-pro-quo—they help you her,e you'll help them later
>Try to appeal to their honour, or guilt them—your sister saved his boy, right? And you DID do a lot of the dirty-work...

Maybe we can get more than half

>Yes

>>6146422
>>Try to appeal to their honour, or guilt them—your sister saved his boy, right? And you DID do a lot of the dirty-work...

Rolled 8, 3, 13 = 24 (3d20)

>>6146465
>>6146476
>>6146488
>>6146523
You nod to Cyrene—and she follows you and the prematurely-bald bigshot with a determined look in her violet eyes. Your fellow redheaded beauty is you secret weapon here: she has a similar effect on the undersexed nerd set as you, and moreover has more experience with politesse and diplomacy as a (as you understand it) minor provincial noblewoman of some sort.

“The name’s Zi—Zeena. Zena Youngtree,” you introduce yourself, again adopting your pseudonym. “And this is Cyrene Black. I take it you know who we are”

“We could hardly miss you, preening about and boasting on the docks the other day,” the leader allows, though without any real malice in his tone. “Seems we had the last laugh though, no? My name, incidentally, is Iorund Copperbelt.”

You force a grin, and shrug your shoulders, affecting a casual air.

“Well, yeah, I guess you’re laughing. But, hey, we softened it up for ya, didn’t we? An’ my girl there, she tell me she might’ve saved your boy’s life.”

“Martyn would have been fine,” Copperbelt asserts. “He has the finest equipment one can conceive of… Patent-pending, but already filed, for the record!”

“Yer patent, then?”

“Naturally,” Copperbelt puffs up, only to pause. “Well, among the many useful mechanical accoutrements which he employed, the majority are my own. The galvanic spear, admittedly, is of his own invention.”

You cast a quick glance at ‘Martyn’, still chatting up your sister, and arch an eyebrow. Cyrene quickly pulls you back to the task at hand, though, as she addresses Copperbelt:

“We understand,” she says smoothly “It was a real team effort! Both you and her contributed, not to mention you team… And our teams, too.”

Copperbelt doesn’t miss her meaning of course. No dwarf gets far in their weird-ass ‘corporate’ society without a mercantile sense. You can practically sense his sphincter tightening as Cyrene continues:

“Of course, the main thing is that we helped the good people of Sunset Lake. Isn’t it?”

“…I suppose so,” Copperbelt allows, running rough, fingers, dirty with grease through his somewhat-matted beard. “But as I’m sure you can imagine, Miss Black, the equipment we used to help doesn’t come cheaply. Alchemical and mechanical advances require time-consuming research, and costly materials…”

“Of course!” Cyrene smiles brightly, raising her voice in delight and clasping her hands together. “Everyone should get a share of the proceeds. Maybe we could even collaborate on rounding up the smaller monsters, for an additional reward? You know, as a team.”

2d20 for Cyrene, +1d20 for your aid. DC 15, -3 for your approach...

>>6146689
“And why should we cut you in on that?” Copperbelt counter, gesturing to his assistants and their odd assembly of machines and materials, which you can hardly make heads or tails of. “We have all we need, and now we’ll have Baronial support!”

“None a’ which you’d have if yer boy Martyn had been crunched up in his fancy suita a’ armour down at the bottom of the Lake,” you point out, stepping up again to play you role—agreed upon with Cyrene—as the hardline negotiator. “That’s not even just a matter of credit where credit’s due, Copperbelt. It’s a life-debt. You folks take that’s hit seriously, doncha’?”

The dwarf’s massaging of his facial-hair stops, and he gives you a hard look. He doesn’t speak up to object, though you can tell he’s trying to find a way out of it. You smirk a little and cross your arms, satisfied that you’ve got him there. Dwarves, even if you haven’t always had great experiences with them, are somewhere between Paladins and demons when it comes to matters like honour and contracts: they might try to spin them in their favour, and hold you to your with merciless fervor and rock-headed rigidity, but they also are loathe to break their word or to fail to uphold their oaths. One IMPLICIT oath, which all dwarves hold close to their hearts, is the debt of a life (or enterprise) rescued from catastrophe or death.

“You have your skills and abilities,” Cyrene says, smoothing down the ruffled feathers with soothing intonation, “and you have yours. What we’re proposing is a mutually-beneficial partnership, so we—and Sunset lake-‘s people—can ALL win.”

“An’ who knows?” you say with a shrug and a suggestive arch of your eyebrow. “Could be the start of a beautiful business partnership, right?”

“So, Mister Copperbelt? Or can I call you ‘Iorund’?” Cyrene asks eagerly. “What do you say?”

13 vs. DC 12: SUCCESS!

“Fair is fair,” he admits, lowering his voice and head slightly and shutting his eyes. “I’ll not have it said that The Delvers are the sort of party to do bad business, or to ignore their debts.”

You and Cyrene exchange a glance and a grin: got ‘im!

“As I understand it, you got an advance already, and there’s more to come,” he says. “I propose that we split the pot two ways: fifty percent each.”

“Now hold on, Iorund,” Cyrene speaks up, “it ought to be THREE ways, don’t you think? The Maladoo Gang was integral to the success of this whole, um, operation!”

>>6146703
You shoot a another, more appraising, look at black. Shrewd shrew, ain’t she? Honestly, the Maladoos didn’t do much since you hired them on, negotiations aside, though granted there was no knowing CZ would find the Lake Monster first thing, or that she (and ‘Martyn’) would sweep in and skewer-and-shock the thing to death in one go. And she IS helping with negotiations, at least, you suppose. Even so…

“Fine, fine,” Copperbelt growls, clearly not pleased with the idea yet unable to argue against it. “But as for future partnerships… I would request your parties’ help in not just cleaning up the Lake—with similar splitting of proceeds from THAT—but also in settling another, ahem, debt, owed to our financiers and benefactors.”

“…An’ what kinda ‘benefactors’ are those?” you ask, for your bullshit detector easily as acute as the Delevr’s apparatuses behind Copperbelt’s back. “What kinda debt?”

“It is a matter of contractual non-disclosure,” he says firmly, “to all but those involved. However, I have been given considerable leeway as to whom I might recruit, and what resources I may sue… And it would, I promise, be a lucrative opportunity. Treasuretrove Incorporated pays handsomely.”

You furrow your brows at the conspicuous name-drop of the dwarven corporation. Treasuretrove isn’t your typical dwarven mining-and-extraction outfit, so much as a glorified union of dwarf-led adventuring parties and mercenaries—practically a guild. You’ve dealt with those pricks before, though always as competitors. They’re a pain-in-the-ass to deal with, but also seemingly a clusterfuck of painful paperwork to work UNDER… Though they DO get a shit-ton of jobs, as far as you can tell, thanks to their connections across the continent with dwarves and other ‘little folk’.

This would also, of course, keep you stuck in Sunset Lake for another few days (maybe weeks?), and commit you to some other adventure for who-knows-how-long, who-knows-WHERE, after that….

Cyrene looks to you, the younger woman ceding to your wisdom and experience. You suck air through your teeth as you consider you options, and ultimately conclude:

>It’s a deal—you’ll help clean the lake, and then join up with Copperbelt and his boys for their mystery-job
>You’ll help with the lake, but you’re NOT taking a gig with Treasuretrove Inc.; you’ve got other plans after this
>No deal; you’ll split the proceeds for the Lake Monster matter, but after that you’re leaving town at first light
>Actually, you want to haggle… [write in your counter-proposal]

>>6146704
>>It’s a deal—you’ll help clean the lake, and then join up with Copperbelt and his boys for their mystery-job
What were we gonna do else, mop on the thought of Jimmy seeing Whats-Her-Name ankles?

>>6146719
[If you don't take the deal, you will have several options as to where you go and what you do next, potentially taking you further from the mountains and/or the surface world.]

>>6146704
>It’s a deal—you’ll help clean the lake, and then join up with Copperbelt and his boys for their mystery-job
Gets us cash and lines up more to keep the crew happy.

>>6146704
>It’s a deal—you’ll help clean the lake, and then join up with Copperbelt and his boys for their mystery-job
surething

File: rqm is bad at formatting (...).png (5 KB, 452x54)

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>>6146719
>>6146748
>>6146768

You don’t deliberate long.

“Deal!” you exclaim, extending your hand to Copperbelt, who clasps it tentatively in his own, as if surprised at your enthusiasm.

You had some other notions of where to go and what to do, but they were just that—notions. If one of them was to charter a ticket south, in some vague notion of reasserting your infuriatingly-insubstantial claim on James Efron… Well, a part of you dreads the thought catching him and Enid in whatever acts they might be perpetrating behind your back and far away, on the dusky and dusty Southland border. No, no thank you. You’re better than that, and far too smart to turn down a sure thing for a maybe-so.

Now, to make your crew see the value of your decision.

“…which means 33 points each, plus whatever we score for clearin’ out the remainin’ drakes.”

“That’s only 3 points for the Maladoo gang and 3 points for us after the advance,” An-Yi tabulates with a frown. “That’s bullshit!”

“Well, like… They DID get the big bad,” CZ chimes in.

“An’ whose fault is THAT?” An-Yii snipes back.

“Hey!” you shout, stepping between the medic and your shrinking, sputtering ‘sister’. “I didn’t see YOU divin’ down ta fight a fifty-foot freakazoid in yer birthday suit, did I?”

That shuts An-Yii up at least, and the Maladoo Gang takes the relatively modest gains with easy aplomb. They even gather around to pat Cyrene on her back and shoulders and to celebrate her successful bargaining. Imagine, that level of camaraderie! Humans really are built different, huh?

(You kind of envy them...)

“Well, I think it’s a noble thing, actually.” Khorine sounds almost pained to say it. “Staying here to help restore the natural order, and to remove the Darkness.”

“An’ it’s extra coin, too,” Yeb-Uit points out, nudging sullen An-Yii.

“PLUS,” you say remind them, “there’s another job after this, already lined up.”

An-Yii sighs and nods, acknowledging the point. Though with her sour attitude… Well, you’ll decide who you’re bringing with you, closer to the time. And after this Treasuretrove Inc gig, well, let’s just say that when you see Jimmy again, it’ll be as a well-monied woman he’ll be BEGINNING to take him back. You smirk to yourself, imagining the moment of triumph. Will you give him that forgiveness? Well… That remains to be seen.

A more immediate moment of triumph arrives when you two vessels arrive at port, steered by Svanhilda Pearl and by whatever local fisherman the Delvers kitted out with their gear. While the mechanically-inclined munchkins go about reclaiming their boat’s upgrades, you, Cyrene Black, and Copperbelt silently assemble and stride up towards the guards to present the pilfered tendril, dredged up as evidence of your successful enterprise by Cara-Zi.

…

>>6146897

…

You have mixed feelings about the whole ‘Lake Monster’ affair. You’re still worried that you really let ZZ down, even though she’s said otherwise, and even though can feel a sense of optimism fizzing about her as surely as when you’d swigged lakewater while sucking on that pale magic stone—a stone long-since disenchanted, but still stowed safely in a pocket of your monk hoodie, as a memento. You’re also still troubled about Svanhilda, who seemed all-too eager to see the back of you despite your apologies for the other night.

But speaking of ‘the other knight’…. There’s Martyn.

Martyn Feurmeadhoin—or ‘Martyn Meadowgrass’, as he helpfully translated it from his family’s regional dialect—is what you’d call a ‘halfling’, or a ‘hobbit’ if there’s none of 'em in earshot to get offended. You know, like a dwarf, but skinnier and fuzzy around the hands and feet instead of the face? Or like a gnome, but a little taller? He’s a bit taller than you, though, which makes it tough to imagine him as HALF of anything. And something about his sharp features and dark hair in a ponytail and all reminds you a lot of ~Tips~. He’s more muscly, though, under all that armour, at least for a hobbit. That’s why they let him go down there to fight the Lake Monster. Well, that and because apparently he BUILT that zappy spear thing—the ‘galvanic prod’, as he calls it. So he’s handsome, strong, AND smart....

And he called you [greena mermaid!

ZZ says you’re gonna be working with him and his crew in the future, too—even after you leave Sunset Lake! Though your departure’s been delayed to mop up some more monsters—little guys this time, the Big Mama’s babies. You feel a little mixed-up about that, too, to be truthful. Work’s work, though, right? You just wish Khorine would stop going on about ‘cleansing the taint of evil from the beauty of nature’ or whatever the fuck. Hearing that, being who and what you are… It makes you a little mad, and a lot sad. The newts didn’t ask to be born freaks, right?

(You wonder if regular drakes call them giants or dragons, the way Martyn called you ‘mermaid’? Maybe that’s why the late Lake Monster had so many kids to kill…)

“Hey, CZ! You there? Wakey wakey!”

File: ai martyn.png (319 KB, 503x404)

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>>6146899
You blink a few times as Zith-Zi snaps her pink fingers in front of your eyes a few times. Snapped out of your reverie, you regard her apologetically. She sighs, and repeats herself.

“I SAID, how you feelin’? You okay?”

“O-oh, yeah, An patched me up alright,” you say.

You healed 4 HP thanks to An-Yii’s medical kit and expertise, and will heal 1d6 HP naturally each day. An-Yii can attempt another heal check tomorrow as well, healing you another 1d8+2

ZZ regards you with a mix of skepticism and worry—you can feel both, despite her face betraying only the former.

“You good ta help us out on the hunt tomorrow?” she finally asks.

>Yes, you want to go back out on the water to hunt down mini-monsters!
>No, you think you should take a day off to rest [heal an additional 1d6, spend tomorrow around town]

[If you choose ‘no’, specify if you have anything in particular you want to do. I have a few ideas, but I am happy to accommodate others for a downtime update, too.]

>>6146905
>No, you think you should take a day off to rest [heal an additional 1d6, spend tomorrow around town]

22/30 HP isn’t much. We got hit once and our health was nearly halved. And we’re not going after just one.

Am >>6146476

>>6145492
Actually its 11/30.

11+4 = 15
So we’ve only at half HP

>>6146905
>Yes, you want to go back out on the water to hunt down mini-monsters!
even if we got the low ball on healing, half health is okay for the little ones.

>>6146905
>Yes, you want to go back out on the water to hunt down mini-monsters!

>>6146905
>>Yes, you want to go back out on the water to hunt down mini-monsters!


I hope this should be OK;

>>6146905
>1d8+2
[Sorry, quick correction: An-Yii heals 1d10+2 HP with her kit.]

>>6146971
>>6147017
>>6147023
>>6147096
[Anyway, locked and writing!]

>>6147233
“Yeah!” you say with eager enthusiasm. “Of course!”

ZZ looks unsure, so you stand up tall and straight, at attention, like some sort of soldier. That gets a snort of laughter, possibly because you still look like some sort of elven ingenue.

“Aight,” she concludes. “Hey, you gonna change outta that form anytime soon?”

“H-huh?” you stammer. “Why? Wasn’t plannin’ on it…”

ZZ frowns a little, and opens her mouth to say something. A complex panoply of emotions flashes across her aura, dimly-lit to your passive senses: discomfort, confusion, concern, sympathy, guilt, suspicion, even a little blossom of gut-deep disgust. You wince, and the guilt and resignation override the others.

“Well, can’t say I don’t get it,” she mutters. “Let’s settle in an’ get some rest.”

…

As usual, the two of you—the two YOUS, heh—share one bed, naked and nestled close. Tonight, unlike last night, physical exhaustion and an emotional comedown like a caffeine crash couple to bring you swiftly to that black realm between last light and dawnbreak, called Sleep.

And there, freed from your body’s weariness, you sit upright once more.

You aren’t refreshed, as upon true waking. There is a light, but it is not dawn’s light: it’s a red-purple hue, tinged with the invisible-to-the-eye spectrum of the sorcerous and sinister. You blink a couple times, adjusting, and look over at ZZ: asleep, unaware. You look down below yourself and see, also, CZ—that is to say, YOU—also sleeping and unaware.

“Ooooh,” you say. “This is, like… A dream, then!”

“Yes,” a familiar voice bounces around inside your somnolent spirit’s skull. “Very much like a dream.”

You turn this way and that, looking for the source of the sound. An-Yii and Yeb-Uit are both asleep in their beds, just as ZZ and, technically, you are. In one corner, Khorine is propped up in a little pillow-fort by the door, something she took to doing after the first night for some inscrutable reason; sure, there’s only three beds, but if YOU could share a bed with An-Yii or Yeb-Uit, you wouldn’t complain! Though, well, with your pedigree…

There’s a good reason ZZ keeps you close on you while you sleep, let’s just say that much. Stops you getting up to any trouble.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>6147243
Despite your brighter and pinker half’s sisterly diligence, you creep on silent feet, rising without motion from your slumbering body, stretching taut the tether between your soul-form to your physical frame. You follow the strange vibrations of Mind across Aether, towards the horizontal slats of the window’s blinds, through which the uncanny illumination dimly streams. Once there, you reach out with see-through fingers and, with great exertion, manage to grasp the physical form of the blinds. With a gentle tug, you open them just enough to peek through, letting more of the eerie light spill into the room from its source: not a sun, nor a moon, but a single great eye.

“Oh!” you chirp. “Hey, it’s you! Eye-guy!”

“I am called The Nothic,” the voice-without-sound reminds without malice.

“Oh, right, I remember,” you lie. “But, uh… Hey! What’s up?”

“You and your companions have slain a Child of Darkness.”

“Ya’ mean, like… The Lake Monster, right?” you cringe a little. “Oh fuck, uh… Are you mad about that?”

“It is of no great consequence,” the Nothic answers.

“That’s good,” you sigh with open relief, though that feeling is replaced immediately with confusion. “Then why’re you, ya’ know, HERE? Creepin’ around outside our windows ‘n minds ‘n shit?”

“Your mortal companions would see the remainder of the child’s lineage eliminated from this world.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess?” you scratch your head. “The Baron’s men’ll pay good coin for it an’, like, Khorine says they’re a ‘vile corruption of nature and of life’.”

“Is that how you feel about yourself, Child of Darkness?”

“H-huh?” you blurt, face flushed. “No! I’m not… Child of… Uh… I mean…”

You stop, and squint at the blob of darkness with its single, enormous eye glowing at its core, staring into your mind and soul.

“You, uh, you WANT somethin’ from me, Nothy?”

“<WANT> is your purview, not mine,” answers the Nothic neutrally, though it FEELS like a jibe. “Mine is not to wonder, or to want. I am without desire, or direction. I am an instrument of my father’s will, a collector of knowledge and enabler of its pursuit.”

“Uh huh,” you say, not really buying it. “So you’re here just ta make conversation?”

“I am here to tell you that there is a nature deeper and more ancient which your feytouched companion can understand.”

The Nothic gestures one great, bloated appendage towards the pillow fort with its twig blight sentry, gesturing with an assembly of boneless fingers to Khorine. You follow the gesture, and bite your lip, remembering your own earlier angsts on that subject.

“There is a future where those Children—and you—can have a place in nature, rather than be treated like a pox upon it.”

Rolled 8 + 2 (1d10 + 2)

>>6147244

You look back to the Nothic, and meet its unblinking eye. You sense no kindness there, but also no cruelty. There is no malevolence, but no love there, either. Whatever emotions drive this creature, if indeed it IS driven by emotion, they are veiled to you by a force your paltry magic cannot penetrate.

“There is a knowledge there… A knowledge of yourself, and your place in this world, locked within them.” The Nothic pauses a moment. “If they die, that knowledge dies with them. That future grows further from grasp.”

“So, like, whaddaya’ want me to DO about that?” you demand, suddenly fearful of this all-seeing eye’s expectations. “Yer askin’ me not ta kill ‘em, right?”

“Do as thou wilt,” says the Nothic. “I give THIS knowledge freely… But if that knowledge is preserved, it may be shared with you, when next we meet.”

The Nothic’s tendril-like fingers creep through the window, between the slats, and with a click they slide them shut. You exclaim in surprise and annoyance, turning them open again, but the light that shines forth is not the red-purple spectral glow, but the bright light of—

“The Sun,” you groan, eyes fluttering open.

You’re back in bed, next to a still-snoring ZZ. You take a moment to observe her face—a smoothed out, sanctified version of her old features, YOUR old features. You fondle your own face, even further removed from the Zith-ZI which you both once were, Your hands trace down your neck, your bosom made more modest, your hips, your legs, down to those feet which—among other things—you cannot yet change. Why not? Could there be a way to better understand yourself—to shape yourself—into something still more perfect?

(Maybe it’s not YOU that needs to change. Maybe it’s the WORLD. Could this knowledge do THAT?)

>>6147245
You shake away the esoteric, existential doldrums of your dark dreams, and tuck yourself back in, snuggling close to ZZ’s warmth. You don’t sleep, exactly—rather, you shut your eyes and try to remember what it was like to be just a part of a goblin-girl, deep inside that other-you, without all these complicated questions with their tantalizing, terrifying answers just out of reach.

<WANT: 11>

Eventually, the others awake as well, including ZZ, and you rise with her. While An-Yii undoes your dressings from the day before to review your injuries from tooth and tentacle, ZZ pays the innkeeper for another night, and tops up your depleted food stores—save your picnic treats, still held in reserve—with some breakfast from the inn below.

Having gained 4 points for completing the main quest, you now must spend 2 points for each week of room and board for the remainder of your time in Sunset Lake. That leaves you with 22 points
Between natural healing of 5 HP and An-Yii’s healing attempt restoring 10 HP, CZ is once more at 30/30 HP!

Rebandaged and full of buttered bread and fried fish (a local specialty, for obvious reasons), you strap on your armour, tuck in your dagger, and you and the crew head out to meet up with the Maladoos and Delvers.

>>6147249
“So, what’s the plan, gang?” Frederich Johannes of the Maladoo Gang asks, obviously already wide-awake and raring to go.

“Maybe the Delvers seismographic array can help us track down the hybridized drakes?” suggests Vel, with an eagerness of her own.

“Sadly, no,” sighs the lone female Delver, a halfling or gnome (you think), gesturing to her pile of machines still sitting idle since the day before. “We found the water shifted and moved too much to detect solid objects with any accuracy unless they were REALLY big.”

“I can kinda’ sense ‘em,” you volunteer without thinking, and immediately all eyes are on you. “I mean, sorta’.”

“Amazing,” you hear Martyn say, and you feel your face flush at the praise.

“I, uh…” You fidget. “I don’t have any more magic for breathing underwater, though, so…”

“You can travel with us,” the balding dwarf—Copperbelly or whatever—immediately offers.

You look anxiously to your other-half. ZZ is frowning a little, but when she sees you look at her, she affects a grin and shrugs.

“Hey, less money spent on our end? Sounds good ta me.” She eyes the Delvers’ vessel critically. “Bit small for all’ve us, though, ain’t it?”

“Aye,” agrees the Delvers’ Boss, making you giggle as the slip reminds you of Svanhilda. “But in addition to my team, who we MUST bring to operate and maintain our equipment, we could bring a few of yours.”

“I can sense disturbances in the natural order, too,” Khorine points out, then seems to think better of it as she eyes the tiny, rocking boat which the Delvers have in their service. “…But Yeb-Uit’s nearly as good a tracker, so if I MUST stay behind, well…”

Who will you take on this excursion? Choose up to three teammates besides Cara-Zi; CZ is mandatory.
>Zith-Zi (Hershy comes free)
>Yeb-Uit
>An-Yii
>Khorine
>Norville
>Vel
>Cyrene
>Frederich
>Maladoo [requires you also bring Norville]

>>6147250
>Zith-Zi (Hershy comes free)
>Yeb-Uit
>Cyrene
a good tracker and enough fire power if we find them

>>6147250
>Zith-Zi (Hershy comes free)
>Yeb-Uit
>Norville
How will we XP the boy else?

>>6147250
>Zith-Zi (Hershy comes free)
>Yeb-Uit
>Frederich

I will, however, support bring any member of the Maladoo gang. Fred seems like he'd most like the mechanical doohickies, tho

>>6147250
>Khorine
>Norville
>Maladoo [requires you also bring Norville]
The what could possibly go wrong crew

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>>6147419
>>6147393
>>6147361
>>6147285
[Locked and writing!]

>>6147422

Zith-Zi picks the team formally, of course; ZZ is the BOSS. Since she isn’t inclined to trust anyone else to do the job as much as herself, she also picks herself first and foremost, with little Hershy riding along since he doesn’t exactly take up much space. Since you’re vital to the mission, though, she lets you consult on the other two party-memebrs to bring along.

“Uhh, Yeb-Uit?”

“Obviously,” ZZ agrees with a nod. “Gotta bring the archer if we’re gonna take pot-shots at any of those fuckers down in the drink.”

“R-right,” you laugh, pretending you’d put that kind of thought into it, and didn’t just pick him because he was nice to you on that snipe hunt and such. “And, uh… We should bring a Maladoo, too, right?”

“…The creepy dog?”

Right—ZZ doesn’t actually LIKE Maladoo! Which you sort of get, you guess, and you really don’t like arguing with or undermining your ‘better half’.

“Then how about Norville?”

Norville looks up abruptly from wolfing down a mid-day snack, as do all his companions. He looks between you and ZZ, and then points to himself, and through a mouthful of some sort of sandwich, says:

“Roo, ree?”

You laugh out loud at how much he sounds like his canine companion in that moment, and nod. Zith-ZI is a bit more skeptical at first, but to your surprise she quickly talks HERSELF around to it.

“We got enough wizkids that we don’t really need a trap specialist or a braniac,” she reasons, “an’ I got melee covered, so Black’s a little extra. An’ we SHOULD bring a Maladoo… Aight, the shaggy-haired kid’ll do. ‘Sides, there’s something’ about him… I think he’s got potential.”

It takes the combined effort of you, ZZ, AND the rest of the Maladoo gang to haul Norville aboard, with him clutching to his dog, the docks, and even sinking his fingernails into the gangplank so that hauling him aboard pulls it up all at once.

“How is he so STRONG?” a bespectacled Delver wonders aloud.

“Self-preservation gives me strength,” Norville whines weakly.

“Like I said, potential!”

Norville yipes as ZZ slaps his ass appreciatively. And you giggle again. Without further ado, the ship’s captain is a human, and while he grumbles a bit at having so many women aboard, he’s clearly been paid well-enough to look the other way. You consider telling him that you’re only SORT of a woman, but aside from ZZ’s aura going all wibbly-wobbly whenever you bring that up, Martyn is in earshot, too. He still thinks you’re a mermaid, after all!

As with all fishing trips or so you’ve been told), the first couple hours are a lot of nothing much, with lines being laid and nets splayed out to snag any curious cave-drakes that swim on up to entangle themselves.

>>6147433

“We’ll head towards where we slew the big one,” announces Copperbelt—not ‘belly’, it turns out, but ‘belt’. “Even if we don’t catch any of the wee ones, we can dredge it up and haul it to shore. It could provide precious research materials. If anyone sees, or SENSES, one of the creatures, alert us immediately and we'll adjust course accordingly."

ZZ grunts at that, clearly not liking the idea of not snagging any of the Lake Monster’s children—which makes sense, since as you hear it, she was promised something like 3 points per newt. She thumbs her scimitar’s hilt and squints at the shining sun bouncing off the rippling water, as if willing the ‘wee ones’ to enter stab-and-slash range.

You frown a little, recalling the dream—and the Nothic’s implications of a reward for sparing some of the 'Children of Darkness'—anew.

Do you talk to Zith-Zi about it?
>Yes—ask that she take the little lake monsters alive
>No—just let the hunt proceed as planned
>You don’t really know how to bring it up, but maybe you can just, like… Sneakily sabotage the hunt?
>Write-in

Do you talk to anyone else?
>Ask Norville about Maladoo—how did they meet? How’d they get so close? Does he, uh, ‘know’?
>Talk to Martyn—you know, ‘cause he’s all dreamy, and has a shock-spear, and seems to be the Delvers’ frontliner
>Get to know the other Delvers—you’ve always wondered what the difference if between halflings, gnomes, and dwarves, and they’ve got all of ‘em!
>Chat with Yeb-Uit—he doesn’t talk much, but he’s pretty kind of old gob-guys go, and since Khorine stayed behind he’s sort of working with you to sniff out these salamanders
>No—keep to yourself, and focus on the task at hand
>Write-in

>>6147434
>Yes—ask that she take the little lake monsters alive

>Talk to Martyn—you know, ‘cause he’s all dreamy, and has a shock-spear, and seems to be the Delvers’ frontliner

>>6147434
>Yes—ask that she take the little lake monsters alive

>Ask Norville about Maladoo—how did they meet? How’d they get so close? Does he, uh, ‘know’?

>>6147434
>Yes—ask that she take the little lake monsters alive
Some. If possible. The Nothic says we can extract knowledge from them.
>Talk to Martyn—you know, ‘cause he’s all dreamy, and has a shock-spear, and seems to be the Delvers’ frontliner
Talk to him about keeping them alive if possible as well. They’re useful to us.

>>6147434
>No—just let the hunt proceed as planned

>Ask Norville about Maladoo—how did they meet? How’d they get so close? Does he, uh, ‘know’?

>>6147434
>No—just let the hunt proceed as planned
>Ask Norville about Maladoo—how did they meet? How’d they get so close? Does he, uh, ‘know’?

Can't believe my Troll-vote for Norville won. We'll raise that guy into a Ciaphas-Cain tier hero.

>>6147482
>>6147489
>>6147535
>>6147554
>>6147639
[Locked & Writing!]

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Rolled 5, 2 = 7 (2d20)

>>6148072
“Hey, uh, ZZ?”

Zith-Zi turns her gaze from the scintillation of the sun upon the water’s surface, fixing you with a quizzical look. You suppose it must be because of how much your fidgeting, but you can’t help it. Before you even ask the question you know it will lead to questions in turn.

“Do you think, uh, we could take some of ‘em alive?”

“Huh? Some of who?” ZZ pauses, and her eyes widen. “What, the fuckin’ drakes?”

You nod, and—

“WHY?”

—there it is. Justw hat you were dreading: a question you can’t answer. After all, you made a Remon Ract—uh, that is, a Demon Pact—not to reveal Maladoo’s identity. Now, grated, you COULD still say ‘a weird dog you don’t trust asked me to spare the newts’, but that’ll just lead to Zith-Zi asking ‘why?’ and then… Well, you don’t WHAT to say, THEN.

“I just, I dunno’, feel kinda’ bad for the,?” you say instead, in what is only SORT of a lie, because you kind of DO. “I mean, they’re… Ya know, a little like me, right?”

In your close proximity, with your voices low, and the lapping of the water and conversation and commotion of the Delvers at work, there is little chance of being overheard. Even so, ZZ casts a nervous eye towards the rest of the boat’s occupants, and scoots closer. She places a rosy arm around your newly narrowed shoulders, and brings her face close to yours Her voice is a low, slow one, as if explaining something simple—and a little embarrassing—to a slow kid.

“Cara-Zi, you’re NOT like those things, aight?” she says. “You can talk, for one thing.”

“Yeah, okay,” you say, a little annoyed at both ZZ and at your own inability to say what you really mean to say. “But we can still, like… I dunno’, learn stuff from ‘em, right? Isn’t hat what Tips would say?”

“Tips ain’t here!” she blurts out, then grimaces and lowers her voice again. “Are You a Life Mage? ‘Cause I fuckin’ ain’t. Who’s gonna’ learn shit from ‘em? Who, huh?”

“Well, if they’ve got dark magic whatsit in ‘em, or whatever, an’ so do I…”

ZZ glares, hard, as if trying to peer into your head and see what led to this sudden interest in exploring the occult. You don’t know if your expression gives anything away, but since you couldn’t tell her even if you wanted to—and you DO sort of want to—you stay clammed up right quiet. Eventually, seeing you won’t (can’t) break, Zith-Zi trhwos up her hands in defeat and says:

“Fine, we’ll try! But don’t blame me when you get a face fulla’ muck ‘cause you’re half-assing it! Or when there’s nothin’ worth learnin’, for that matter.”

Art courtesy of StoryQM

>>6148088
That bothers you a little, too, because you CAN learn. You’re plenty smart, just as smart as she is—you’re HER, sort of! You have your ‘difficulties’, but you’re not, like, RETARDED… You’re just DIFFERENT. Sometimes, you’re not so sure ZZ gets that. She’s in no mood to talk, though, and you don’t’ want to make her reconsider her decision, so you let her go talk about the new plan with the eggheads, while you take a moment to cool off before you say or do anything gstu—regrettable, due to your emotional state.

<WANT: 12>

As you’re simmering down, you scent a familiar smell upon the air: not lake-water, not Dark magic, but something else… fear! It’s potent, too, a spicy, slippery, smoky smell that winds its way in and out of your noise and mouth, so that before you know it you’re tip-tapping on your newly cutified little hooves, nose in the air a you follow it to the source: Norville Rogers the Third.

“O-oh, uh, hey there Cara,” he squeaks.

The gangly human male with the shaggy brown hair and the green tunic has crammed himself half into a barrel that, by the not-so-metaphysical smell of it, once contained fish. Yous crunch up your nose a little at that smell, much less pleasant than that of mortal terror, and laugh as he tries to look casual while half-wedged, at an awkard angle.

“Are ya’ stuck?”

“Like, is it that obvious?” he laments. “I was trying to find somewhere to wait this out, until we got back to the shore…”

“Scared of the monsters, or the water?” you ask.

“Um,” Norville answers, “YES. And now I’m scareed I’m going to be stuck in this thing forever. Oh man, everyone’s going to be saying ‘tehre goes Barrel-Boy.’ That’ll me me!”

“Here,” you offer kindly, “Lemme’ help…”

Working together, though as much at cross-purposes at anything else because neither of you are especially coordinated, you manage to tip over the barrel and prise the lanky man out of it. He collapses upon you, reeking now of embarrassment and shame and, fuck, that smell’s nice…

Rolled 5 and 2 for occultism against a DC 12 <WANT>: Failure to control your urges

SNRRRRT

“Z-zoinks! Cara?!”

“Shhh….” snrrrrt “Oh fuck, that’s good, that’s, like, RICH…”

“W-woah! Cara, like, I’m flattered but—”

“I said SHUT IT, SHAGGY!”

>>6148109
As Norville struggles to escape your grasp, you tighten it, and tighten and tighten. Your fingernails extend once more into talons, sinking into his back, as you go from inhaling deep wafts of his scent to lapping at his face and throat, nipping and biting at his skin. Your auras radiate for you in a tingling intermingling of <Fear> and <Charm>, and he goes to scream, only for you to silence him in the most obvious way you can: you clamp your mouth over his, and suck, and suck, until—

(Wait, no!)

You pull back with a gas and stare at the sheet-white face of Norville Rogers the Third, his breathing shallow and eyes rolled back in his head. Your heartbeat is still thundering—from excitement, from panic—and you think you have some idea how he must feel. Though for your part, to your deep shame…

<WANT: 10>

…You’re feeling much better. Still, you know that won’t last if he tells everyone what just happened, and so before he can come to his senses, you cram him back in the barrel, slam the lid back on it, and roll him below-deck. You nod and grin as innocently as you can as you pass some Delvers and the captain, but they don’t question you—thank all the Gods and Demons who’ll hear you!—seemingly believing it to be part of your ‘process’ as their monster-tracker.

Only when you’re sure you’re alone under the deck to you pull the lid off of the barrel and pour the limp, dazed lad out. A couple quick slaps across his kisser help rouse him, and this time you manage to silence his girlish shriek in a less provocative and dangerous fashion.

“Sorry, sorry!” you say. “Shit, I’m sorry, alright?! I just… I… Uh…”

“Y-y-you’re a demon!” Norville queaks, scrambling back to press his butt against the opposite wall.

“N-noooo,” you say. “I mean, uh… Not, like, EXACTLY… More of a… Do you know what a cambion is?”

“A what?!”

“Nevermind,” you mumble.

“But I don’t g-get it,” Norville whispers. “If you’re a demon, like, why didn’t Maladoo warn me?”

You blink a couple times, in confusion.

“Wait,” you say, “what?”

“Maladoo can smell other demons from, like, a mile away!” Norville exclaims, then claps his hands over his mouth.

You feel your spirits rise, in jubiliants urprise, and you scramble sloser to Norville even as he shrinks back, whimpering.

“You KNOW??” you blurt out, and grab his tunic.

“Know what?” Norville retorts, utterly unconvincing in his efforts to backpedal, avoiding your eyes.

“And you’re… You’re okay with that?”

Norville’s gaze slowly drifts back to your face, and his expression softens a little bit.

“Well, like… Yeah,” he says. “He’s my friend.”

>>6148110
You fall back, astounded into silence for a moment. You’ve rarely met a mortal—like, a non-demonic mortal, not like you or your sister or Tips and his wizard-GF or whatever—who was just OKAY with demons, let alone would call one a friend. Norville, for his part still seems scared of YOU, regardless of his camaraderie with Maladoo, but he seems les so now that it’s starting to settle in that you don’t plan on eating him.

“…How long have you known?” you ask.

Norville sighs, and removes his knitted cap for a moment to run his fingers through his overlong hair.

“It’s a long story, man…”

You smile a small smile that says ‘we have time,’ and so Norville nods, and tells the tale. It’s a story of a hound that turned up when local merchants and farmers in Norville’s farming town began to turn against one another in the wake of the various calamities which have lately befallen Hawksong and the northern realms under their aegis, each of them fearful of losing all that they have, and increasingly suspicious of everyone else. In their desperation, they began to prey upon outsiders, stealing from them or worse; Norville won’t say what ‘worse means, but you can taste the scent of death on their air.

“Before long, they started to turn on each other, too,” Norville says quietly, eyes haunted. “After all, like, they knew what the others were capable of, you know? This was when most of the Gang’s folks left town, to escape, but every time they tried to. And it wasn’t just them: EVERYONE wanted out, with whatever they could carry, before someone killed them for it. But whenever they tried… Something stopped them.”

“Something?” you ask, voice hushed, but you already know before Norville looks at you and answers:

“Like, this bug, HUGE scaaary dog, creeping around in the woods, attacking any coach that tried to leave and chasing it back! And the people who tried to leave on foot…”

He gulps.

“They didn’t come back,” you realize. “Maladoo got ‘em.”

Norville nods a tiny nod.

“He smelled the sin on them… The evil that had gotten al up in everyone’s hearts,” Norville explains. “It was like an all-you-can eat buffet of bad news, man! I guess... I guess souls that have sinned taste better to him. He would have eaten everyone up, if it weren’t for…. For the deal we made.”

“‘We’? So the rest of the Maladoo Gang—”

“Zoinks, no!” Norville exclaims. “No, you can’t… Don’t tell the, okay. It was just me, and Maladoo. I promised him, you know… More bad people to eat, in exchange for letting our folks go.”

“So your adventures…”

Norville nods grimly.

>>6148111
“Not just people, either: other demons, sometimes, and ghost and stuff. The others… They don’t remember, when we find the really bad or scary stuff. Maladoo makes them forget.”

“But you remember.”

“Mostly,” he whispers. “When it’s REALLY gruesome… He lets me forget, too... Because we’re friends.”

Things are quiet below deck, then, except for the footfalls above, and the muffled sound of footsteps, and the creaking of the ship’s timbers. Neither of you says anything. Both of you are just thinking your own separate thoughts, though you'd bet money you've both converged on one thought in particular:

'What now?'

Do you have anything else to ask Norville?
>Yes [write-in]
>No

How does this make you feel about Maladoo?
>You think he’s SUPER COOL, and kind of want to be more like him
>You’re a little scared of him, and scared FOR Norville and the Maladoo Gang
>Write-in

What will you do about Norville?
>Trust him to keep your secret as he does Maladoo’s
>Kill him, and dump him overboard, to keep your secrets
>Attempt to <Charm> him into compliance, as a precaution, and ask Maladoo nicely to wipe his mind later
>Write-in

>>6148113
>Yes [write-in]
If he forgets the really gruesome stuff, how does he know it happened?
What kind of actual serious business has his gang handled?

>You’re a little scared of him, and scared FOR Norville and the Maladoo Gang

>Trust him to keep your secret as he does Maladoo’s
Ugh
Curse our poor self control
At least everyone already thinks we're a freak
Our reputation is so low our demonhood getting out wouldn't even hurt it that bad because it doesn't have much lower to go.

>>6148113
>>Yes [write-in]
Tell him it was very brave to get in a pact for the sake of his people.
Ask him to reflect on how much he survived regarding the usual dude and how that makes him someone outstanding.

I want our Rincewind to get that sweet XP

>You think he’s SUPER COOL, and kind of want to be more like him
>Trust him to keep your secret as he does Maladoo’s

>>6148113
>You think he’s SUPER COOL, and kind of want to be more like him
>Trust him to keep your secret as he does Maladoo’s

>>6148113
>You’re a little scared of him, and scared FOR Norville and the Maladoo Gang

>Trust him to keep your secret as he does Maladoo’s
I'm surprised killing norville is even an option when I'm pretty sure Maladoo would evicerate us for that
>>6148308
support first option write-in

>>6148225
>>6148308
>>6148496
>>6148325
[Locked and writing.] Given the tie between SUPER COOL and SORTA SCARY, we're splitting the difference with a lean towards scary, since nw0hMT+r is a 1post ID.

>>6148701
“Well, good news: since Maladoo's so scary, it means I can’t jut, like, kill you and hide your body!” you say brightly.

Norville stares at you, eyes like saucers, mouth slightly agape.

“Ya’ know, ‘cause he’d eviscerate me ‘n all?” you say, smiling. “Uh, it’s a joke.”

“Heh heheheh… ulp.”

(Okay, maybe you should have known better than to joke about that with this scaredy-cat… But his fear just feels so GOOD!)

“Sorry,” you say aloud. “Seriously, if yer keepin’ his secret… I figure you can keep mine too, huh?”

“R-right!” he blurts out, nodding so hard you fear his twiggy neck will snap under the force of it. “Lie, you don’t have to worry about me! Nuh-uh!”

You scrutinize Norville’s aura, hoping to spot any sign of a lie… But all you can sense is the vibration for terror, underlayed with a subtle swell of relief now that he feels he’s ‘in the clear’. You relent, and decide to truly trust him. After all, Maladoo has your back, and that guy is SUPER COOL.

…But also, uh, kinda’ scary, now that you know what he’s been up to, and how he and Norville met.

“You know, Norville, it was really brave of you.” You wrap your arms around you knees, properly appreciating him for the first time.

“Who?” Norville asks, craning his head around before pointing at himself. “Me. BRAVE?”

“Yeah,” you say with a smile. “You risked yer lifw an’ shit—yer SOUL, even!—all ta save your folks an’ your friends. That takes, like, SERIOUS balls!”

Norville pales a little, clutching at his chest, and whispers: “Wait, my soul?”

“And, like, if you remember MOST of the ‘grueosme’ shit, imagine what stuff Maladoo must a’ made you FORGET! How did you even know ‘bout that, what with you forgettin’ an’ all?”

“Well, like, when you have a gap in your memory and you know you’re travelling with a demon who makes people forget things—”

“Wooow,” you wonder aloud, “it musta’ been some serious, like, TRAUMA bullshit. You must a’ survived all KINDS a’ crazy bullshit, huh? Stuff that’d, like, break your mind if you ‘membered it!”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Norville whimpers, his white face starting to go green.

You reassess your approach to praising Norville, instead hopping up to your feet and reaching out—ignoring the way he recoils and presses flat against the wall—to gently pat his capped head a couple times. He yelps at the first soft impact, but then just seems to become confused as you continue.