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You turn it around. Same thing on the other side. "Is this how it's always been?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen it. But I thought it was—" She frowns. "Daddy's supposed to take care of it."

But he's dead. "I see."

"You can still hit the burglar with it, though, right? Over the head?"

"I guess. But swords aren't actually that..." You should spare her the lecture. "It's fine. I'll— I'll deal with any burglar. Where were we going before this? Was it the coatroom? All the house-keys should be—"

"They're not there. I looked." Lottie brings the book to her chin. "I thought maybe the attic, since there's all the boxes I'm not allowed to see. I didn't want to go up before, 'cause the noises, but since you're here—"

The noises, plus the fact she's not tall enough to reach the pull-chain, you're sure. Maybe you will find keys in the attic. Maybe you'll find somebody else, too. You can ask him why he never told you. "Okay. Sounds good. Lead the way again?"

She doesn't need telling twice: she dashes ahead. Just as quickly, she yelps and dashes back, ducking behind you. "There's somebody—!"

Yeah. You don't need telling twice, either. Somebody is in the doorway to the stairs. As she steps into the room, you see her face: she's you again. Only she isn't. Her hair is braided and feathered, her clothes strange, her face solemn. You've never been whatever she is, but you saw it once, on a night that never happened. Lucky's photograph. Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins, wanted for mutation, desertion, murder.

"Hello," you say, your voice sounding hollow in the dark room with the high ceilings.

Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins does not respond. Instead, she steps forward. You see it now: The Sword in her right hand, clean and shiny; a key on a loop of string dangling from her left.

"Hey." You grip the rusty Sword. "I need those. I don't know what you want with them, but I— I definitely need them more, so unless you're here to give them to me—"

Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins raises The Sword and points it in the direction of your throat.

Lottie clutches your side. "Are you going to fight her?" she whispers.

If the Harrier-Leftenant isn't in a talking mood, do you have another choice?

>[1] Fight Harriet-Leftenant Fawkins as honorably as you can. It rings false coming from you, of course, and you're certainly outmatched. But Lottie's watching, and she doesn't know any different.
>[2] Fight Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins as dirtily as you can. It's who you are. You see that clearly now.
>[3] Fight Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins and kill her quickly. With her rap sheet, she'd understand. [-1 SV.]
>[4] Write-in.

>Announcements
Welcome back to Drowned Quest Redux! Sorry I'm late with the thread (not that sorry). I hope you're all excited for all the happy fun times ahead.

>Schedule
One a day, occasionally more if the first one was short. There may be sporadic half-updates (no options) if I start writing too late in the evening, sorry in advance. I am in the PST timezone.

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

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

>Mechanics
The (typical) MC has a pool of 15 Identity ("ID"), which may be considered both HP and the measure of her current sense of self. It may be lost through physical, metaphysical, or emotional damage. It may be regained through write-ins, designated options, and at reasonable narrative points, including sleep. It may be spent on a flat +10 bonus to rolls, as well as on more elaborate metaphysical effects. Dropping to 0 ID is bad.

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

>Fancy archive (PDF of 1-43)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XZ-wmLX4bVinqhK21dZImKKtfuhKcXvQ/view?usp=sharing

>Twitter
https://twitter.com/BathicQM

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

>Recaps
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VPJwXzTpv4lO_t6R3jA32NLbKjdIZjtJlRFsWQgBMnM/edit?usp=sharing

>Ask the characters (or the QM), get a drawn response eventually
https://curiouscat.live/BathicQM [ALMOST CERTAINLY DOWN, I'll make a new one eventually]

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

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

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>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
You're greeted by a crowd of people, headed up by Madrigal, who shoos away onlookers. She congratulates you on your successful Headspace expedition, and explains that Pat and she rounded up everybody they knew to help with all the Headspace aftermath-- namely, finding and explaining what happened to thousands of confused and mostly innocent employees. Seeing that you're in rough shape, though, she leaves you be with Gil.

Gil also congratulates you on the expedition, and the two of you hash out what happened the last time you saw each other: he was (and is) divinely enlightened, and you had enough red stuff in you to kill a horse, and it all reacted badly. You move past that quickly, and Gil also explains what happened with the brainwashing and his mini-siphons: he was only able to put up 7, less than half of what was planned. Also, he managed to steal a walkie-talkie from Casey, which he's happy about.

Gil helps walk you over to Anthea, who congratulates you so hard she nearly faints. Real Ellery, far less pleased to see you, is also there. You finally learn about the backstory of the two: several years into his exile, Anthea found a near-feral Ellery and nursed him back to sanity, which developed into an ethically questionable relationship. Oneitis-poisoned Ellery eventually broke things off, but they remained friends, and, more crucially, Headspace-sabotaging partners-in-crime.

Anthea and Gil get distracted with talk of Anthea's pocket-dimension generator, and Ellery pries you away for a 1:1. He informs you that he's not happy about being alive, but that he'll follow your orders, since clearly he has no choice in the matter. You attempt to explain that you tricked Management into kowtowing to you, but he doesn't buy it: he thinks you're Management's pet project, and that your power is growing exponentially. He makes you promise that you'll mercy-kill him if you ever do become godlike, and he bitterly asks you to "decree" something of him.

You initially refuse, still uncomfortable with his perception of you, then reluctantly "decree" him to go talk to his old friends with camp. Ellery, dissatisfied with this, goads you into looking at yourself in a mirror... which forces you to commune with, and tap into, what might be your future self. Swelled with unknown power, you order a very smug Ellery to go talk to his stupid friends. He agrees. You fall to your knees, drained.

Gil and Anthea rush to help you. Before Ellery leaves, you ask him about Casey, who last you checked was catatonic. Ellery tells you they pulled a "snake-like thing" out of him, and that he's been vacant since, but that you were welcome to take a look.

(1/3?)

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You do, attempting to commune with Casey, but it's no use: his mind really is hollowed-out, and you're not feeling well enough to do a deep search for remnants. You pull out, planning to come back later, and are confronted by Us-- well, a multi-faced, human-shaped fragment of it, the first of Pat's experimental project. The Us-person informs you that a metric ton of Headspace employees have been dumped into Us proper, and it wants you to sort this out. Also, it wants Claudia back. You admit you haven't made any progress in that department, but claim you'll give it back soon. As for Us proper, you tie a rope around your waist and dive in.

You find yourself in an auditorium, but rapidly realize it's one of Us's dream-constructs, especially when the whole audience starts talking at once. Us isn't aggressive, but it is deadly serious: over 5,000 people have been absorbed by the goo, enough that they've formed their own separate hivemind. This separate hivemind is apparently in agony, given the screaming. Us attempts to impress on you how horrible this is, but you resist, refusing to believe you've done something so terribly wrong. Instead, you promise to heroically fix it.

The other hivemind is a mountain of babbling, weeping, screaming bodies, apparently generated from their subjective self-perception. Nearly overcome with guilt, you break yourself, forcing yourself into a brittle, unflappable 'heroic' persona. Unfortunately, this persona is useless at helping the hivemind. Out of energy, you drop it: far from rescuing the hivemind, all you can do is paralyze it, hoping it'll calm down.

Gil rescues you with the rope, but you're too distraught to function. Richard appears, and you pass out in his arms.

You awaken in a facsimile of your tent (really your manse), feeling a little better, though trying to discuss the Headspace expedition with Richard makes you cry. You're conflicted about whether you did the right thing, and, worse, you fear that you've destroyed any goodwill the expedition could've generated. Richard interrogates you about how you link accomplishing things with being liked, but hits a wall when you're unable to acknowledge your previous snotty behavior. You ask him whether he's going to exposit like he promised.

Richard demurs, telling you that he'd rather not depress you before Game Night. He permits you one question, though, and you ask what his real relationship is with Management. Richard tells you that he strongly suspects Management was a project by the "snake"s' R&D department, which apparently develops new snake technologies. Richard knows of them, and vice-versa, but Richard isn't part of R&D-- he's a Correspondent, which you already knew.

Speaking of snake technologies, Richard installs the thingy ("microstick") you got from the BrainWyrm-- though you only tell him it has information on it, not your memories. After a painful install, you're ready for Game Night.

(2/3)

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At Game Night, you're greeted once again by Madrigal, who's surprised but pleased you've made it. Abruptly, you recall a memory of rudely rejecting a previous Game Night invite, but stuff it down: Madrigal wants you to give a speech commemorating the explosion of Headspace. First, though, she gives a speech of her own. You're deeply intimidated by how well-spoken she is, and as you look over the crowd, the rest of your memories flood back-- every single time you wronged everybody in the room. This would be bad enough, but the last memory is the worst. It's from before you drowned: you killing your father with a tortoiseshell-handled knife.

Already fragile, your entire self-image is shattered. You descend into catatonia.

Somewhere else, you find yourself back at your old house, now in disrepair. You're oddly fine with the father-murdering: you might be irredeemably evil, but at least you're no longer lying to yourself. Also, you assume you've died and gone to hell. Far from eternal suffering, though, you find inside the house your 12-year-old(ish) self, who's excited to see you. You question her, discovering that your father was also in the house, but he's taken the secret tunnels and locked a big door behind him. You promise your younger self, who's already found one key, that you'll help her find the rest and get the door open.


-------------


>TO-DO

Immediate goals:
- Help Lottie

Short-term goals:
- ???

Long-term goals:
- Suffer deservedly

Mysteries:
- What was the purpose of "Management"? What did they want with the clone of a snake? What did they want with a massive store of Law? Since they're "snakes"... what does that mean?
- What kind of company(?) does Richard work for? What is its endgame? What does it want with you?
- Who is Horse Face investigating, and why?
- Who wiped three years of your life from your memory? Why? Can Richard really not remember them either?
- What is the Herald? Why does it keep showing up? What does it want? Where is it supposed to be? What are you supposed to forgive yourself for, exactly? (There's too many options now.)
- When is the world going to end? How?
- Do you have a destiny? Is it God-related? Herald-related?
- If Richard isn't a snake, or anything else, what the hell is he?
- Why did you kill your father?


--------------

>Don't forget to scroll up and vote!

>>6180582
>[1] Fight Harriet-Leftenant Fawkins as honorably as you can. It rings false coming from you, of course, and you're certainly outmatched. But Lottie's watching, and she doesn't know any different.

>>6180582
>1
Can’t disappoint child us
Maybe we’ll even lose and be butchered like we deserve

>>6180582
>[3] Fight Harrier-Leftenant Fawkins and kill her quickly. With her rap sheet, she'd understand. [-1 SV.]

>>6180582
>[1] Fight Harriet-Leftenant Fawkins as honorably as you can. It rings false coming from you, of course, and you're certainly outmatched. But Lottie's watching, and she doesn't know any different.

>>6180692
>>6180689
>>6180899
>[1]

>>6180768
>[3]

We wouldn't want to be judged by a preteen, would we? Writing.