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…

Welcome back to CAMBION QUEST, for our FINAL final (yes, actually this time!) thread. It’s been a wild ride, and a lot longer than the three to nine months I originally expected to spend on this, but it’s also been a very rewarding one to write. Thank you for joining us to send off this story and its cast, and to wrap up a few loose ends. This tale and the others in the same series can be seen at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm
, if you’re just joining us or just want to check back on earlier adventures of CZ, ZZ, and their extended network of friends and less-than-friendly family!

And now, without further ado, we pick up with our last vote and enter our epilogue…

…

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You are spoiling for revenge.

“We have everyone out who we can safely save,” Enid Carstene, effortlessly-elegant and allegedly part-elven rogue insists. “They aren’t pursuing yet, but they might.”

“Agreed,” adds Ayla.

“Them and what army?” you counter.

“Their ACTUAL army,” Enid says, like you’re stupid. “You really think that was all of them? A couple dozen?”

“Actually, I ain’t great at math or nothin’,” CZ chimes in, “but I’m pretty sure, like, I personally killed more’n that, and I see YOU guys did a number on ‘em too, so…”

“So what?!” Enid throws up her hands. “That’s only HALF the garrison, IF that… And these are just the forces committed to this one outpost. It isn’t the whole army!”

(…Army? Yeah, you guess there must be more than one company of these lizard-aligned, black-skinned Southron sellswords, to be fending off the Paladins of the Holy Order of Hawksong and their—eurgh—gryphons.)

“So what?” you say, addressing your own thoughts as much as Enid. “We can’t just let ‘em get away with this shit! With what they did to us… To YOU, too, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t,” says Enid, icily, and then turns to James Efron—YOUR James Efron. “James, talk some sense into your… Into Zith-Zi, will you?”

James—your JIMMY—looks down at you. You glare back, jaw set, eyes still stinging from shedding first tears of happiness and then of grief, more than you’ve cried in the whole year and a half since you last saw him.

He meets your glare with a slightly-smarmy smirk, which under other circumstances would annoy you, but right now just reminds you how much you missed it. Doubly so when he says:

“Get me somewhere to rest and recover my magic, and I’m right there with you… Wherever that takes us.”

(By the damnable gods above and below, you love this overconfident caster!)

…

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…

As Zith-Zi is browbeating Enid Carstene into submission, you watch, half-listening. In your arms, you cradle a still-living womb, disembodied and unattached to anything save for a couple rudimentary organs barely supporting the membrane-sealed magical mass and the growing life inside: your child with the now-deceased Naked Emperor, whose dissolving dumpling carcass you extracted the embryonic entity.

All around you, you sense the others—the prisoners, and those who came to save them, if only by circumstantial association with Jimmy Efron and his crew. The dwarf that you used to adventure with, Brorfor, is down a leg; Chang Lanseoul, your Regiment’s newest permanent member, is as mangled as if he’d taken a trip through the Hellish Realms. Even those wholly intact are far from fresh…

“Hey, ZZ?”

…and you’re right there with them.

“I think we should, like… Go home, ya know?”

You flinch a little as Zith-Zi whirls on you, wild-eyed with outrage at the insubordination—and just as she was winning the argument by her leaderly charisma and roused passion.

“Seriously, CZ?!” She stomps towards you, but you don’t step back even as she gets right up in your face. “You SAW what this sand-skinned shithead did up close ‘n personal. YOU, of ALL fuckin’ people, oughtta be on my side!”

“I am, ZZ. It’s just—”

“Just WHAT?” Zith-Zi growls. “Was it ‘just’ Hershy?! Izzat why you’re here with that lump of hundun instead of savin’ HIM?”

You feel like you’ve been slapped—no, gut-punched, as is more your soul-sister’s style. You push out the urge to cry and apologize, and the urge to lash out and retaliate, and especially to try to win back her favour. Everyone else might see your sis on the warpath, a vindictive and vengeful merc with a mad-on, set on a course that can’t be corrected. Some might even follow her down that road, all the way to wherever it ends…

…but you have a bad feeling that you KNOW how it ends: in Death’s Domain.

…and you, more than anyone else on Earth or anywhere else across the planes and demiplanes of the cosmos, know what’s really in your sister’s heart. After all, you once shared it.

You reach out, and hug her.

ZZ struggles for only a second, then stops and stays still for a while longer, and then finally—heavily—sinks into your embrace. For years, she was the strength. Now, with your mind and sight clear and your own emotions under control, you can finally return the favour. You don’t wield pheromone-aided mentalism like your sensei might have done to pry open her mind and numb her anger; you take it in. You absorb not her life-force as the succubus who spawned you might have done—as YOU might have done to someone, not so very long ago, under other circumstances—but just the stress, and tension, and outrage, and loss.

You take in the sense of relief of the prisoners, and triumph of those who fought and lived, and even the love of James Efron, and channel it into ZZ until, finally, she softly says:

“…sorry…”

You just give her another squeeze. Then let her go, to turn around and survey the saved and saviours, and the sorceress whose <Dimension Door> can finally free them from this place.

“Aight. We’re goin’ home.”

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After that, it’s all just a matter of logistics, since Ayla didn’t get involved in the fighting much; the energy she had left in her own body—plus those of the vajra you brought from a certain lich’s emporium you robbed out east—are all available to call her signature teleportation-gateway. The nearly two-dozen people who need to be transported is still a whole hell of a lot, though… But luckily you devise a trick!

“<Energy Drain>, again and again,” you half-hum a sing-song spell to yourself as you cast the spell—just a little!—on those with qi to spare, to channel into Ayla and to empower her spell. It only needs to get you all as far as the Plain of Crumbling Remains—the formerly gnoll-owned quicksand quagmire where the rest of your party is parked. There, you both reunited with the rest of your Regiment and other allies. Ayla embraces a visibly-relieved Veigar; Khorine drops her <Sanctuary> spell and, though trembling from the exertion, clumps over to Zith-Zi for a debrief; ZZ ruffles the goat-girl’s hair and thumps her shoulder in appreciation for a job well done.

You? First and foremost, you…
You? First and foremost, you…
>Go break the news of The Naked Emperor’s death to the Unseelie
>Ask advice from the Dark Gods about this unborn baby
>Sleep, and rest… And dream of what awaits you back home, at Patmo-Shoka
>Write-in

>>6356802
>Go break the news of The Naked Emperor’s death to the Unseelie
The Dark Gods don’t answer the summons and questions without something in return. I don’t think we have much to trade.

And secondly he’s not really… gone. The hundun we know of is dead but this womb is… still operational. It can bring forth the new hundun. Soon.

>>6356817
I mean they would be different hunduns though. Unless they have some type of generic memory going on. This new hundun part demon and our old plain hundun are different people.

>Write-in: Have Cara-zi ask Veigar for an medical check up, to make sure we didn’t take any lasting internal injuries when we got ripped apart by the imps.

>>6356831
[While the write-in is viable, I will clarify that they stopped short of tearing CZ apart. Alhazred left her unconscious, not expecting her to be able to recover from the injuries and Enervation spell so fast, because a spell that should have kept her weakened for hours and hours wore off in less than 30 minutes due to her Pure Self/Void Vessel path.]

>>6356802
>Go break the news of The Naked Emperor’s death to the Unseelie

>>6356802
>Go break the news of The Naked Emperor’s death to the Unseelie
We made a new one though! Just needs an undetermined amount of time to grow up.

>>6356836
Is that also why Enervation shrank us? Even though our form is immutable by outside influence, if our energy is drained there's literally less of us and we can occupy less space?

>>6356836
Was Cara zi breathing during these ~30 minutes?

>>6356802
>Go break the news of The Naked Emperor’s death to the Unseelie

>>6357000
>Is that also why Enervation shrank us?
[Technically not drained, so much as suppressed, which is a key distinction: CZ got temporarily compacted and blocked, without losing soul-stuff or having it fundamentally changed.]

>>6357024
[Yes. Alhzared took her pregnancy as possibly being an actual divine edict, and meant to keep her alive but imprisoned. If you'd stayed in the Southlands voluntarily or due to capture, a subsequent quest would have seen CZ's successor(s) as Southron, Serpent Priest-affiliated characters.]

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>>6357042
>>6357000
>>6356973
>>6356831
>>6356817
Much of the party requires rest before you can go any further than the Boneyard. Ayla needs to recuperate and accumulate enough energies to transport you all across the continent, while Many others are still ailing from an earlier assault by a certain monstrous and malevolent mosquito. For your part, you are surprisingly fresh for someone who just took such a physical, magical, and emotional beating, but you appreciate the chance to decompress from the day’s events—even if you all must do so while keeping a rotating guard in case of another attack by the still-seated sovereign of occupied Al-Duarah.

You’ll just have to hope you give his black army a black bad enough to take some time before he can strike a second time.

While you wait, though, you are not idle. You take some time to check on poor Nermal, you tentacle-faced cave-drake, who is still suffering from supernatural poison. Full of bittersweet emotion, you stroke the mutant’s slimy side; it isn’t as pleasant nor as warm as Hershy’s feathery exterior, but Nermal’s quiet crackles of appreciation are similar enough to bring you some comfort.

You pay a visit to Testa—the reincarnated one, clad in her <Clone> body with her hyena-spotted hair, not the corpse deep in the bog. She can’t spare magic to <Mend> your dress right now, for all the casters must conserve their qi for the ritual which will carry you all from the Southlands and back to Patmo-Shoka… But you do have a request, nevertheless, and it’s one nobody can really bring themselves you refuse you, nor even sharp-tongued Sensei Ayla.

And then, having borrowed this bravery from your familiar and some material magic from Testa to bundle up a certain pulsating remnant of the Naked Emperor, you pay a visit to the hundun’s court.

Most of the dearly departed’s falcon-fairy friends are back at your hidden base, but a few—John, Jason, and Sally, or something like that?—are all gathered to together, chattering in their sing-song dialect of the ancestral True Fey tongue. They stop when they see you, turning head and rotating their floating bodies in the air to regard you with their big, black eyes in their hawkish grey faces. The one you THINK was named something like Jason still looks green around the gills, for even the unaging and aethereal form of a fairy can be poisoned by the noxious essence of an infernal being…

…Which brings you to why you’re standing there before them, holding a swaddled oblong organ.

“Uh, so… Hey.” You start a little lamely. “Y’all can, like… Understand me, right? Sorta kinda?”

The gyrfalcon fairies of the deceased hundun’s ‘imperial court’ have only even spoken their own language, but you HAVE managed to communicate with them, from time to time, and after a fashion. Now, they nod, which you take at face value, even as their replies register to you as so much musical nonsense.

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>>6357272

“I jus’ wanted ta tell ya that… Well, you can see that, like… Empy, or the Emperor, I mean… Didn’t make it back.”

The gyrfairies might not understand your every word, but they can’t have failed to notice the absence of a certain big old blob. They bow their head and sing a sad-sounding song, a keening cry that draws the eye of others in the Regiment to your little aside. Khorine in particular looks over with concern, but you wave to the faun reassuringly, and she returns to her discussion with Ayla and Veigar.

“But look!” You force a smile and hold aloft your bundled-up baby... thing, wrapped in fabric and in the living tissue which is all that now remains of The Naked Emperor. “Empy’s not REALLY gone! Or, well, not entirely? Maybe?”

It’s a question you’ve been dwelling on, and one you are hoping that these, the closest associates of the hundun, can answer: is Empy really dead? Or just recovering? Is this thing you’re holding your child, or your friend and former lover, regenerating in its own odd way? How much guilt should you feel, and how much responsibility?

What, EXACTLY, have you brought about?

The gyrfalcon fairies peer down with their queer eyes, big and black as the night sky, with their fine fingers with their too-many joints, they gently pry back the cloth and touch at the somewhat-sticky external membrane around the womb and its attendant organelles. They whisper and chirp to each other, sometimes softly and sometimes sharply. Eventually, the one whose named was John—or Jhaan, or something like that—folds back the fabric and pats it down, then looks to you… And shakes his head.

No, this is not their Emperor.

You sigh, and nod. It’s what you expected, really, even if you’d hoped to hear something other than this. Aside from wanting Empy to still be alive, you’d sort of been holding out hope that… Well, it sounds awful even in your head, but you’d sort of hopes that this thing was NOT your child.

>>6357273
In truth, you’ve given only fleeting thought to the prospect of being a parent. The life growing inside your OWN womb was implanted there by magical means, and is not truly your own responsibility, nor exactly your direct descendant: you’re just playing surrogate for Ayla and Veigar, as a favour for the help they gave you in shedding your old and imperfect self. Some day, MAYBE, you might want to be a mom… But you haven’t found the right person yet, and you’re only just discovering who exactly you want to be, as Carazzi Yosef!

And this? This big old lump of living tissue, and the growing life housed within? Well, it’s like a remnant of that which you left behind you: your old infernal ectoplasm and its attendant urges, delivered via your demon dick, impregnating an entity characterized by chaos so profound that good old Empy could hardly hold a single shape or coherent conversation for any length of time. You LIKED The Naked Emperor—it’s not that you didn’t LIKE Empy, obviously!—but of all the rebound fucks that could have resulted in the creation of a brand new cambion…

Well, you can’t help but remember your conversation with Ayla, before the attack on Al-Duarah. About your origins, and the source of your shared suffering… The passing on of an ancestral pain. The mage who made you a separate being once cautioned you not to have sex at ALL, for fear that you could harm someone and spread your demonic taint… And here you are, holding the truly monstrous admixture of your own impulsive act with the product of a Dark God’s failed experiment.

What have you done? What will become of it? This child… Whatever it is, will it ever be happy? And can you truly do as you wished, and join polite society, while caring for a helltouched hundun?

>You will leave your hundun child in the care of the gyrfalcon fairies of the Emperor’s Unseelie Court
>You will forgo your plans to live among humanity, to care for this child—your own wants can wait
>You will use the forge to try to change the child’s nature—to stabilize it, as you did yourself
>You will pray to the Dark Goddess, whose descendant this also is, for a solution
>You think it would be best, sad as it is to say, to terminate this unborn hundun-demon and end the cambion cycle here
>Write-in

>>6357275
>Write-in
Live among humanity and also care for the child. It'll work out!

>>6357275
We did offer up our potential second child to the forces of darkness in a deal with the Nothic. https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6297401/#p6310228

And the beholder had spells capable of stabilizating a beings mind (He healed the greendragonborn's metal disability.)

So perhaps we can clear two objectives by summoning the Nothic. We clear our second child debt and we hopefully make so this Demon/Fey/dark isn't insane like his pops was.

>Write-in: Call the Nothic to discuss your second half hundun child.

>>6357355
Oh!

+1

Don't wanna round things out breaking deals.

>>6357355
I don’t know if that could count as our secondborn child. And even if it does I’m not sure offering it to the nothic is a good idea.

In that thread we gave him free rein on he could do with the child.

>>6357355
Fuck that, the Nothic only betrays. If we call it here it should be for ambush and kill purposes.

>>6357457
Maybe we could argue with the Nothic that the Hundun's kid isn't our second child. But dark gods don't really care about minor technicality's and wording loop holes.

Furthermore if you fail to pay them, or cut a deal with them and displease them later. They will unilaterally alter the deal and stack additional prices onto you.

(like when theral went into debt with death for asking him questions.)

And if anyone can fix a hunduns mind it likely is only qthe beholder, and we presumably want our kid to be able to live alongside us and zith zi. Without going into a frenzy, transforming a mauling someone face off.

>>6357275
>You will pray to the Dark Goddess, whose descendant this also is, for a solution

>>6357457
>>6357473
>>6357489
Definitely a bad guy but I am erring on the side of not violating our word..

>>6357275
>You will use the forge to try to change the child’s nature—to stabilize it, as you did yourself

>>6357355
>>6357365
>>6357491
>>6357607
>>6357306
[I'm sick today, whcih means an earlier update! I think it is fair to interpret the current votes as leaning 3/5 towards divine intervention, and of those with a lean towards The Nothic and its master and away from The Dark Goddess.]

[I'll begin writing soon, if nothing changes before then.]

>>6357634
You want to live your life. There’s no questioning that. You love ZZ, and you’ve appreciated your time with the Monstrous Regiment in the buried Patmo-Shoka pyramid complex… But that isn’t how you want to spend the rest of your days, living on the fringe like the monster you’ve been ever since the split with your sister.

You also find, to your surprise, that you aren’t willing to leave this strange unborn entity behind to achieve that goal.

A lifetime or two as a monster have made you sympathetic to the creature—your child, heir to your darkness and the hundun’s madness. You don’t want it to suffer as you did, hating its very essence and unable to coexist in safety and satisfaction with other beings. There must, you reason, be another way.

Lucky for you and the kiddo, you know a guy. An EYE-guy.

Bidding the gyrefairies farewell and offering your consolations again, you leave them to search for a suitable site to perform a Dark ritual. The bone-built temple of the deceased Hyena Queen who once ruled this fetid territory would be ideal, but for the fact that everyone else is already hanging out around it. Some members of the Regiment would have a pretty big problem with your invoking of ‘evil’ entities. More so even than demons, the Dark Gods are regarded as fundamentally opposed to the principles of altruism, freedom, and all things ‘good’. It’s not undeserved, either: Empy was only so nuts because of how the first hundun was conceived, in violent violation; even in your own dealings with them, you have had your fair share of disappointments and bad bargains.

…But among those bargains WAS the matter of your secondborn child, and this just might solve THAT matter, too.

As night comes, you locate a suitably isolated patch of earth, out of sight of the others and in the shade of a desiccated tree. There, you gently set down the pulsating bundle. With a finger, you sketch a sigil; as you sketch, you mumble syllables of sinister speech. You invoke the Dark God of Knowledge, called Master of the Insightful Eye, Keeper of Secrets, Librarian-King of the Akashic Record—to his enemies, the Baleful Beholder. In the centre of the symbol which you draw, you place the tooth-shaped talisman of the Boneyard monarch; it is inert now, but it remains a rare and potent component and (you hope and pray) a worthy offering.

You close your eyes. You open them again, and the Amulet of the Hyena Queen is gone. The God of Knowledge accepts your offering… And, as ever, he sends his servant.

“Cambion Transcendent,” greets the familiar—but still uncomfortable—tingle in your being.

“Uh, heya, Nothic,” you reply, looking up to meet the great, burning eye in the centre of an especially deep patch of darkness—an almost-humanoid blob, with boneless and rubbery limbs, and great dark wings.

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>>6357669
The Nothic regards you: unblinking, unspeaking, expectant. You intuit that the entity already knows why you’ve summoned it here, but there is a formal order to these things. You scramble for the bundle; on bent knees, you hold aloft your unborn young.

“Fascinating,” compliments the oily patch of black, its burning red star of an eye looming larger in your vision as tendril-like extremities on the end of thick limbs split apart to peel away the layers which shield the flesh of the Naked Emperor’s sole surviving organ and heir.

“I promised the Dark Gods my second kid,” you say, though surely the Nothic must recall this. “I wanna make good on that… But I got an ask, too, if that’s alright?”

The Nothic’s great pupil narrows, no longer taking in your offspring but focusing, intense, upon you.

“Nothin’ big,” you say, hoping this is true. “Just, like… This kid’s gonna be a cambion, right? And a hundun, too?”

“This child has all the makings of great things,” answers the cryptic creature.

“…Right.” You hold in a sigh, and practice patience. “But it’d be GREATER as, like… A servant of Darkness or whatever… If it wasn’t all crazy, right? If it could control itself?”

“You wish to stabilize its chaotic spirit, then?”

“Yeah!” Realizing yourself, you pull back on the enthusiasm. “Uh, I mean, yes, please.”

“It can be done,” the Nothic says, “though it will require something of you, also.”

(Of course… There’s always a price with these guys!)

“Aight, lay it on me.”

“You must complete your other oath, as yet unrealized.”

(Another oath? What other oath?? You don’t remember any other oaths!)

As if sensing your uncertainty—which, realistically, it probably DOES—the Nothic reaches out with its other limb, and points to the sole companion who accompanied you to this lonesome place: Nermal.

ker-oak?

(…Oh.)

“When you were gifted your familiar—male and female, as you were male and female, sole survivor of your companions’ campaign—it was with an understanding. You were to see to it that their bloodline would continue… That they would reproduce and spread, a new form of fauna for the world to come.”

“Okay, yeah, I… Kinda remember that. I think.”

(You’ve given it next to no thought, admittedly…)

>>6357670

“Cut open the drake,” instructs the Nothic. “Place the womb of the hùndùn within it, and seal it anew. Let it grow to completion within this vessel, and burst forth on the next New Moon.”

(B-burst?!)

“It will solidify a form for your spawn—a form informed by the host, complete and contained, more Dark than Light, more Order than Chaos… A suitable servant. A child whose nature will be malleable, without madness.”

You stare at the Nothic. It says nothing else, nor looks away, nor blinks. Discomfited, you look down at your hundun-cambion baby-to-be, and then over at Nermal—big and floppy and selectively useful, eyeless but always there to help… And a drake, like Hershy was.

“…Will Nermal… Can they, like…”

“This is its purpose,” the Nothic states flatly. “From death, new life… A lasting legacy. It is the way of this world. The Master gave you this thing, and now—for what you want—the Master will reclaim it.”

Do you accept?
>Yes
>No
No write-ins, but if people vote ‘no’, there will be options for what to do about Empy’s child on return to Patmo-Shoka.

…

>>6357671
…

Everyone in your extended party is excited to be back, and in one piece. You get it, too, and you can’t exactly begrudge them. This has been a difficult mission, dangerous and largely without material reward…

…Well, for now. You’re sure An-Yii will be on you about that the moment you’re back to base.

For you, it’s bittersweet: you lost Hershy, but got back James Efron. Looking at his face—his gorgeous eyes, his high cheekbones honestly a little accentuated by how thin he’s gotten, and even in spite of his scruffy captivity-beard, you can’t say you regret coming to Chiffchaff.

Ayla and Veigar have retired to an erected tent, to bed down or bone down or just recoup their magic for the next leg of your journey. Khorine is chatting with that old cat-man, Bhislani, about chaotic-good-gods know what. Everyone else is on watch or busying themselves packing up, or just enjoying their fresh (honestly, more stagnant and swampy) air of freedom.

And you? You have your boyfriend’s head in your lap, and your hands in his hair, and you’re just… Enjoying it.

For now.

Nothing can be simple, naturally. Not for you. You wrote this man a letter, many months ago now and on the road to Patmo-Shoka. It had been full of feelings, and fears: apologies for the way you left things—stuff you said, others you left unsaid—and your hopes and dreams for the future.

Jimmy—or his parents, at least—want you to be something you’re not. They want a pretty and proper little lady, not just in appearance but in action. They want a woman who will settle down, make babies, have high tea. And you… Well, when you wrote that letter, you weren’t ready for that. And since then… Well, you’re a little less pretty on the outside with the necromantic scars across your face and chest, and with Patmo-Shoka’s forge soon to be functional again, your Monstrous Regiment has a lot of opportunity ahead.

“Zi?” Jimmy opens an eye when you stop petting his hair.

You cheek your cheek, and his expression turns worried, but he manages to resist the urge to press you. Maybe he’s just too tired still, from imprisonment and his impulsive <Fireball> earlier.

Do you still feel the same way as you did back then?
>Yes—despite all you’ve been through, or because of it, you aren’t yet ready for children and domesticity
>No—now that you have him back, and after all you’ve been through, you think you might want to step back from adventuring

Is there anyone else you mean to talk to, or ask anything of?
>Write-in if so

Don’t forget to vote in both CZ and ZZ’s portions!

>>6357671
>Yes
>>6357672
>Yes—despite all you’ve been through, or because of it, you aren’t yet ready for children and domesticity
while zz doesn't wanna keep the same pace as before, I don't think she wants to fully stop yet

>>6357671
>Yes
This seems like a pretty alright deal to me. Also it's like giving the little guy a third parent... Seems to confirm we will be able to have the familial relationship we want and not just have our kid Claimed and taken away for some dark fate.
>>6357672
>Yes—despite all you’ve been through, or because of it, you aren’t yet ready for children and domesticity
I think Zi's best days are ahead of her, honestly. Glad to have been here for a part of the struggles that define her, glad to a future where she does what she loves.

>>6357671
>No
We just lost Hershy, fuck you. I hope your surroundings are forever filled with freshly chopped onions.

>No—now that you have him back, and after all you’ve been through, you think you might want to step back from adventuring
We had a LOT of close calls in that jail, I think that's a good motivator to give another lifestyle a try.

>Talk to Chang
We won't need a retainer in retirement, he got any life plans?

>>6357671
Yes
>>6357672
Can't there be a middle-ground?

Like badass-mom-boss-adventurer that take care of little ones but still keen on her feet and a radsaber at the belt in case of troubles?

>>6357989
>Can't there be a middle-ground?
[It's mostly whether she wants to step back from fieldwork. Unless players insist, I'd be assuming by default she isn't going to be doing a full Eliza from Pygmalion turn.]

>>6358014
So it's a
>No—now that you have him back, and after all you’ve been through, you think you might want to step back from adventuring
let's give happiness to our girl

>>6358026
>>6357989
>>6357887
>>6357875
>>6357867
[It's a tie on the second one, then! I'll leave this open a little longer, as it feels odd to roll on such a major decision if I don't have to.]

>>6357671
>Yes
Shit. This is hard. With Hershy gone, Nermal’s the only one left. Even if he grows up, that’s that. He’s the only one left of his kind. Unless we bargain for more which I don’t think that’s a possibility. Not without more debts.

We could try to risk it with the forge but that has its risks. And we didn’t get paid for the chiffchaff invasion either.

I want the hundun back. And our debt cleared.

>>6357672
>No—now that you have him back, and after all you’ve been through, you think you might want to step back from adventuring
Eh. Taking a backseat is probably better than quitting altogether. Given that Hawksong and the southlands are nearing war the “stable” life is likely prone to be destabilized. There’s always a need for sellswords.

>>6357457

>>6358076
>>6358026
>>6357989
>>6357887
>>6357875
>>6357867
You shake your head.

"It's nothin'," you say. "Just thinkin' about the future."

"The future, huh?"

You glare down at Jimmy, who is utterly unfrazzled by your look. Again, he doesn't press, but he doesn't need to: his own expectant expression would be nearly enough, even if you WEREN'T struggling to keep your thoughts quiet already.

"It's just… Ya know I mentioned that letter I wrote ya?"

Your beau gets a bit bashful at that, swallowing and replying with a quiet "Yes?"

"Well, when I wrote it, I was thinkin' about… You know, how you 'n me left things off. Last time we saw each other, before I headed up the mountain and you…"

"Headed here," Jimmy finishes wryly, an ironic smile upon his lips before it abruptly turns down at the edges. "Zith-Zi, I—"

You hold up your hand, signaling for him to let you finish. He sighs, but nods.

"I wrote the letter 'cause I didn't wanna… Because I DON'T wanna play housewife for your parents' sake, or yours. It's not for me, Jim. I'm… I may not be a goblin anymore, but I'm not a noblewoman either."

"TECHNICALLY, you ARE of noble blood."

"TECHNICALLY, I'm a bastard of a bastard, an' a non-human, an' ain't gonna inherit SHIT, Jim."

The Young Lord James Efron sighs and nods his acquiescence again. You can tell he wants to argue the point—in your favor, no less, which is mighty white of him—but he doesn't. Which is good, because this conversation isn't going where he thinks it is… Or even where, a few short weeks ago, YOU would have expected it to go.

"Even accountin' for that, though," you say slowly, "this whole rescue mission… It's been bad. I ain't gonna lie."

Jimmy reaches out to gently squeeze your hand. "Hershy was a good boy."

You squeeze your eyes shut for a second, because you've done enough crying to last you a few years already, and you'll be damned if you do any more of that today.

"It's not just that," you say. "There's Denise, too. An' I nearly died. Chang nearly died. Testa, too! And the hundun is… Well, I ain't even sure what's goin' on with THAT thing, but it ain't good."

(Where is CZ, anyway? She's always wandering off these days…)

While you're briefly distracted, Jimmy's scruffy mug screws up in confusion. "Wait, what are you saying, Zi?"

"I'm not really sure," you admit. "I don't think I can be what it is you want me to be… or what yer parents do, or whatever. But all these close calls… I can't keep this up, either, ya know?"

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't take my advice entirely to heart," Jimmy admits.

"You'd've been totally fucked if I did, huh?" you tease.

He can only sigh and nod. You squeeze his hand back.

>>6358109
"This is only the beginning of the trouble, too, I fear." Jimmy's frown deepens. "No matter what I, or you, or Mother and Father or anyone else wishes… Hawksong and the Southlands are at war now. I'm not so sure that 'stability' is even achievable."

"That don't mean we gotta be on the front of it all, though, huh?"

Jimmy looks up at you.

"That's what I'm thinkin'." This time it's your turn to confess. "I think you were right. Maybe it's time that we both took a step back… Not completely out of the game, but not all in, either, ya know? Boss from the back for a while, maybe?"

"What, like… Managerial consultants?"

You grin mischievously. "I was thinkin' more like 'Mercenary Warlords'."

James Efron sighs and shakes his head, though he doesn't stop smiling. "Of course you were, Zith-Zi."

The two of you rest there for a time. Neither of you says much after that. The restructuring of the Regiment can wait, as can a great many other things of equal importance—talk of children, of Jimmy's imprisonment, of your own adventures since you've been apart. Right now, all that matters is that you have each other, and that for the first time in a long time that really feels like enough.

The peace is broken by CZ's return. There is a murmuration from the others, and a sharp gasp from Khorine which in particular alarms you. You wriggle free from under your human lover's head to stand up and see what all the fuss is about, and find a rather tearful ex-demogoblin cradling her big old lake-drake in lieu of the now-absent bundle of hundun reproductive tract. Nermal looks lethargic, and the mutant amphibian's upturned abdomen is bloated and bears the half-healed scar of a knife-wound that wasn't there before.

"CZ, what the fuck—?!"

Your shadow-self shakes her head, unwilling to answer any questions right now. Instead she passes by you and the others, in favour of Ayla and Veigar's tent. The hedge-mages have already begun to emerge, but CZ pushes inside; a moment later, the two esotericists follow her back inside, and the flap flops shut.

"I fuckin' hate khoblis shit," you sigh.

...

>>6358110
…

On the northmost friends of the Steelwood, those forested battleground turn to hills and ditches. None of the hills could be called true mountains, yet some of their shadows hide secrets deeper than any of the scrabbling settlers thereabouts would ever guess. It was from those dark places that emerged the Ettercap, the spider-like fairy who kidnapped children to reforge them into a twisted family of ‘foundlings’. The people of the Steelwood were never aware of exactly what was stealing their young, or what their ultimate fate was, nor were they ever made aware of who they should thank for the cessation of the tragic disappearances…

Nor were they aware of what became of the long-lost magical machinery which enabled the defeated Unseelie to perform her sinister surgeries.

They did not know of the buried pyramid called Patmo-Shoka, once an important facility of the ancient race of goblinoids who served the High King Yakh-Yubh. They did not know that, for all that Elf and Man and Orc squabble over their claims to the land in ancient days, it once belonged to the ignoble ancestors of Dwarf, Halfling, and Gnome. They did not know that the facility was once more operational, co-opted by a Monstrous Regiment of mercenaries to make themselves into something still greater and more terrible, in pursuit of personal profit and a place to call their own.

Not until a few days ago, anyway.

Now, it is the those who toil beneath the soil, housed in that ancient arcane architecture, who are ignorant of what it to come… Though perhaps less-so all the time.

…

>>6358114
“Hey, Frederich?”

Frederich Johannes, broadly-built blonde Northwestern human and nominal leader of the Maladoo Gang adventuring company, looks up from his work upon Patmo-Shoka’s forge. It is still a work in progress. While Zith-Zi, Carazzi, and the bulk of their company have been away on some far-flung Southland expedition—a trip back the way from whence Johannes came and his companion came—he and she have been working to replace or repair the glass displays and metal plumbing of the mechanical-magical marvel.

“What’s up, Vel?”

Vel Dinh, the bookish and bespectacled daughter of Eastering immigrants and always the Gang’s foremost mind, was as fascinated as Frederich by the miraculous magical device… At first. Now, though, her expression belies a deep concern—deep as the subterranean megastructure in which they work and live, among monsters and mysteries.

“Doesn’t this seem… Wrong, to you?”

In truth, Frederich ahs never been one to second-guess a fun construction project. Making and modifying devices—traps, weapons, vehicles—has always been his passion. Still, he’s learned to take his team’s scholar seriously, and so he asks:

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing… Why did we come here?”

Frederich blinks, confused by the question. “Uh… We were hired to?”

“By who?” Vel presses. “HOW? We were in the Southlands… In Castle al-Ghul, with Norville and Cyrene.”

“And Maladoo, too!”

“Yeah… And Maladoo.” Vel’s beady brown eyes narrow behind her shiny spectacles. “The more I think about it… I just don’t understand how we were even aware that they needed help, or why we’d leave them all behind, after that gnoll attack no less, just to travel all the way up here.”

Frederich’s demeanour droops with depression. “I don’t think Cyrene and Norville much need our help… And they probably wanted their privacy.”

Vel winces, sorry to bring up the sore subject. The two other members of their party had been growing closer, and Frederich in particular felt the squeeze. He and Cyrene had been sweethearts, after all. Still, her curiosity won’t allow her to let the matter lie and so she asks:

“But it still doesn’t explain how and why we traveled all this way… Or why we’re just, you know… Working with monsters.”

“Aw, come on, Vel! The Monstrous Regiment isn’t so bad. Sure, they’ve got goblins and that orc, but she’s… You know, kind of cute for an orc.”

Vel pouts, and crosses her arms.

“What?” Frederich asks nervously. “She’s even all pink and stuff. That’s way cuter than a regular orc.”

Vel takes off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose. “'Cute' orc aside, what about the giant shapeshifting slime? The spooky fairies? The weird blue zombie-goblins? That one goblin with the DEMON HORNS?”

>>6358117
“…Huh.” Frederich’s narrows her eyes and he rubs his chin. “That is all a little weird, isn’t it? Normally, that would have probably been a bit of a ‘wait, whaaaat?’ kind of thing, wouldn’t it?”

“It would,” Vel confirms. “And the more I think about it, the more I feel like… Like things have been weird for a while.”

“Sicne when?”

Vel meets his eyes. “Since we left home, Freddie. Since… Since we met Maladoo, and formed the gang. And the longer we’re apart from the others… The more I think that there’s a mystery we’ve been blind to, all this time.”

Frederich laughs at first, but seeing his friend’s serious expression, the sound dies down to a nervous chuckle.

“What do you think it means?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” Vel Dinh confesses, “but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that when there’s a mystery, it’s always worth investigating.”

…

>>6358119
…

Unbeknownst to the two humans, though, they are not wholly alone. A certain ‘cute orc’, named Dura, is lurking nearby. Only she, the ‘boglin’ warriors, and one of the hundun’s fairies, had been left behind to protect this place, and to supervise the human labourers. At first, Dura had been hurt, though her cultural conditioning ensured she’d never voice such a grievance. She has come to deeply appreciate Carazzi’s companionship, and felt left out, being left behind. Now, though, Carazzi’s patient late-night language-lessons pay off: while Dura doesn’t get EVERY word, she understands that something ahs gone awry with the workers—those whom she, as an orc, takes for slaves.

Being an occultist, she recognizes that their psychic conditioning is cracking… But being a neophyte, Dura is in no way able to restore it.

Dura’s understanding of the ancient tongue of the boglins is far from fluent. She cannot reliably communicate with them at all, except by crude and improvised sign-language. She can by now just about hold a simple conversation with the Unseelie fairy, when it deigns to appear to her, and when it is even about the base rather than topside, doing whatever such accursed things do.

Dura is a female—woman and witch, not warrior. She is alone, effectively, isolated from aid. And there is no one else, and no certainty on when the rest of the Regiment will return.

…What should she do?
>Poison the humans’ tea, impeding progress on the forge but preventing their mutiny
>Attempt to get the boglins to intervene, by means of charades
>Flag down the fairy, and ask it to send word to her folk—the Steelwood Orcs
>Do nothing—Carazzi and the Regiment will be back soon, surely?
>Write-in

>>6358122
>Poison the humans’ tea, impeding progress on the forge but preventing their mutiny
Whoops I didn't know humans couldn't digest that. Silly me!

>>6358122
>>Poison the humans’ tea, impeding progress on the forge but preventing their mutiny

>>6358122
>Attempt to get the boglins to intervene, by means of charades

>>6358122
>Poison the humans’ tea, impeding progress on the forge but preventing their mutiny
Tummy ache time

>>6358220
>>6358218
>>6358137
>>6358129

It has been a long time since the races of Man and of Orc last fought in a great war—the conflict called the Orc and Eastman War by those Hawksong aristocracy. In that time, a great many myths and stereotypes have sprung up about the nature of orckind. Some believe them rampaging brutes, incapable of cunning or finesse. Others—especially those who have only encountered their human-blooded and over-civilized ‘half-orc’ kin—have taken to painting them as noble savages, merciless but ultimately honourable warriors.

None of that is true, however.

Ask their neighbours—eastmen, steppe-bound beastmen, goblins on the edges of their Wastes—and they will tell you about orcs.

Orcs are no less intelligent than are humans. They simply do not value or respect the sorts of things humans do, often to the orcs’ own detriment. The written word, the invocation of the arcane, the machinery (literally and allegorical) which makes a great society’s gears turn is all, to the orc, an embarrassment. To till the earth or tend to simple beasts diminishes the farmer and the farmed alike. To use a tool you do not understand how to make and maintain is acceptable only if it is seized by force; a gift is a burden, a debt, and a crutch. To rely on entities and energies from other planes is shameful.

But orcs are cunning. An orc loves an ambush. The strength of numbers—numbers of one’s clan and kin, and of the conquered and impressed, not of fairweather friends bound by paper and pinkie-promises—is to be respected. And if an male orc would never stoop so low as to employ the arts of curse-spell or poison-herb, well, that is not because the orc does not know how to use such weapons, or even because he rejects them outright.

No, it is because such forms of war belong to their ziran—their wise women.

And Dura of Steelwood, though recently made pink and (apparently) cute to the Race of Man, is no less wise for it… And no less an orc.

…

>>6358122
>Attempt to get the boglins to intervene, by means of charades
I have a feeling if we poison the tea they’ll be even more likely to start a mutiny.

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fuck my stupid chud life

>>6358248
>>6358260
…

Morning comes to the Boneyard, and with it a sense of relief. You awaken astride your mount… Which is to say, James Efron. Thin tent walls and the highborn human’s intolerance for extended imprisonment meant you had to take it easier than you’d have liked last night, but you’d take a gunshot to the head like Testa before you’d wait another night for a proper reunion. You pull yourself off of him with a quiet, wet pop, and give the poor bastard a peck on the cheek. He’s still sleeping, but he registers the kiss with a quiet grunt and turns his face. Those damned whisker sof his chafe your cheek, and you tut.

“I wonder if I could shave ‘im with the rad-saber…”

Deciding not to risk his aristocratic good looks, you leave Jimmy to get some more sleep. Slipping into your armour—or as much of it as you can be assed with right now, and enough to maintain your dignity as resident Boss Bitch—you exit you tent to check in on the night’s events.

Luckily, those events prove few and far between.

“We had to scare off some HORRID birds,” Testa tells you. “And once, we think we saw a glimpse of an imp.”

“WHAT?!”

“Relax, Zith-Zi.” Testa giggles at your reaction. “We blasted it, and either it was banished or flew away. We doubled the guard and woke up Miss Khorine in case we needed her to protect us, just like you said, and nobody else came calling.”

You force yourself to calm down, and move your hand away from your inactive energy-blade. You suppose that isn’t the biggest deal, then… It’s not as if this ‘Abdul the Armourer’ guy doesn’t already know where you’ve been based, having earlier sent some venomous bug-demon to attack you here. You just had to count on your defences and much-inflated ranks being enough to put him off, or the losses he suffered at your hands being too much to rally without leaving his own base undefended.

(Looks like the gamble paid off!)

“Well… Alright then. Good work.”

Testa smirks a little and nudges you, with a knowing look in her eyes. “SOMEONE is in a better mood this morning. But I guess getting your boyfriend back will do that, hmmm~?”

“That new beast-brain got ya actin’ shameless, huh?” you shoot back.

“Oh PLEASE, Zith-Zi,” Testa says with mock offence. “I was ALWAYS boy-crazy. I just prefer mine big, and strong, and good with their hands…”

You follow the other nilbog’s eye to Chang Lanseoul, already awake and—for wont of his ruined robes—doing his sword-exercises shirtless in the dawn’s early light.

“Testa. He’s married. Or, well, somethin’ like that. To a literal fuckin’ ANGEL.”

Testa groans in melodramatic dismay. “It's always ONE thing or another with the really good ones, isn’t it?!”

>>6358269
The others who aren’t already awake rouse, one by one. CZ appears from somewhere, though by all indications, your shadow got precious-little sleep. Nermal, somehow, looks even worse for wear, without even eyes to have bags under them like the tentacle-faced drake’s master. Your sis again declines to discuss the subject, though, and you have enough n your plate… Like relocating all these refugees.

“We could drop them off at Turtledove,” Ayla suggests. “It’s the most economical, in terms of energy.”

CZ pales a little at that, and you have a good idea why: she’d used her ‘Yosef’ credentials and a forged scroll to get past the Paladins there, and to borrow their gryphon… A gryphon now gone, lost along with Hershy and The Naked Emperor in your assault on Al-Duarah.

“Most of these people come from Hawksong and the surrounding villages and baronies,” Jimmy points out. “Taking them directly there would be better.”

“It will use up more energy,” Ayla notes sourly, though you can see on hers and Veigar’s faces the real reason they’d rather avoid that city: memories of their pre-<Clone> pasts, and the presence of those originals’ still living their lost lives.

“Well, like… There’s no rush, right?” points out CZ hopefully. “Now that I can enter cities without pinging on a <Detect Evil>… it might be nice ta take a l’il break?”

The one thing you can’t do, obviously, is bring all these straight-laced, Good God-worshiping humie shmucks ‘home’ with you to your hidden base. THAT would be a disaster… But luckily, CZ is right about that. You have no reason to believe there is any rush to get back.

What will you do?
>Drop them off at Turtledove, get your gear repaired there by Testa, and check in with the defenders to let them know about your success down South
>Head straight for Hawksong—you’d like to pay some friends and visit, and enjoy the big-city amenities for an evening

>>6358270
>Drop them off at Turtledove, get your gear repaired there by Testa, and check in with the defenders to let them know about your success down South
How hard can it be to avoid a couple paladins? CZ can even shapeshift.

>>6358270
>Drop them off at Turtledove, get your gear repaired there by Testa, and check in with the defenders to let them know about your success down South
>>6358262
it happens

>>6358270
>Drop them off at Turtledove, get your gear repaired there by Testa, and check in with the defenders to let them know about your success down South
Actually we should give the paladins an update on the matter. And having proof of our success with us would make it more believable that we succeeded.

>>6358270
>Drop them off at Turtledove, get your gear repaired there by Testa, and check in with the defenders to let them know about your success down South
The most tactically sound.
With how many snakepriest killed, it's a great time for a counterofffensive

>>6358280
>>6358285
>>6358308
>>6358347
“Turtledove will do,” you say.

After all, how hard can it be to avoid a pair of Pallies? CZ can shapeshift, after all.

“The outskirts of Turtledove then, like before,” asserts Ayla.

“They won’t take kindly to some of us,” agrees Veigar.

Bhislani—the old cat-man trader—clambers up onto his hind-paws at this, protesting in a panic: “I have done what I was paid to do, and then again some more. I would return to my people! Please… This has been more than what I was prepared for the doing of, and I…”

“Aww, don’t worry,” Testa reassures him, evidently sympathetic to the furball’s fluffy face. “You can hole up in my Master’s tower for the time being… I know how to get you back to your friends.”

“If there ain’t any other objections—an’ there BETTER not be—let’s hurry it up. There might not be any huge rush ta get home, but that don’t mean I wanna sit my ass here until that Alhazred freak figures out how to get us back.”

One <Dimension Door> later, and your back on the other side of the Shieldwall Mountains. It’s still night-time here, too. Either the Sun is set beneath the edge of the Earth entirely, or it’s already risen back up in the Far East—in Chang’s ‘Dawnlands’, you guess. More’s the better for smuggling in the others unseen, with a bit of help from Testa’s illusion magic.

“Speaking of yer Master, ain’t you gonna be in for it when she finds out where you’ve been the last few days?” asks CZ.

“How’s she going to know?” Testa counters. “I’ll just say I went to visit some family.”

Your fellow nilbog flashes you a smile and a wink. “My cousin Zena, specifically.”

You roll your eyes, but smirk.

“Uh, whaddabout the hair? An’ bein’, like, four inches taller?”

At CZ’s second question, Testa balks, but she quickly rallies. “I’ll blame it on Tips, like when I went all pink the first time.”

“Gee, thanks,” groans Veigar.

“The OTHER Tips,” Testa reminds him.

“We were the same person when you blamed me the first time!”

“Well, then it WAS you, and you DID turn me into a nilbog, so—”

“You volunteered!”

“Begging your pardon,” interrupts a confused-looking human, who plainly can make neither heads nor tails of the ongoing argument., “but… what should we tell the guard… The Paladins? Or… Anyone else who asks?”

The banter is put on hold, as again all eyes are on you.

>They should tell people Testa saved them—keep you and yours out of it
>They should tell them Carazzi Yosef saved them—then soared off heroically into the distance
>You’ll tell them yourself—it was Zena Youngtree and his Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!
>Write-in

>>6358632
>You’ll tell them yourself—it was Zena Youngtree and his Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!

>>6358632
>You’ll tell them yourself—it was Zena Youngtree and his Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!
Party face.

>>6358632
>You’ll tell them yourself—it was Zena Youngtree and his Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!
The more I think about this the less we should be public about CZ being a yosef. It’s likely this will reach Ekaterine’s ears soon and she’ll summon us for details about the house and whatnot.

Either way, in a couple months the pregnancy would be obvious to most people. That’s not a question we want to answer. It’s a bit inconvenient.

>>6358076

>You’ll tell them yourself—it was Zena Youngtree and his Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!

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>>6358757
>>6358755
>>6358678
>>6358668
[Looks like ZZ's pivot to being a Big Business Boss is going to kick off... Soon.]
Gotta catch up on some other quests, first.

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>>6358995
“You don’t gotta tell ‘em jack or shit,” you say, puffing out your scarred chest and stabbing a thumb straight back at your heart. “I’ll tell ‘em myself—tell ‘em that it was Zena Youngtree and her Monstrous Regiment who did the deed!”

“The deed THEY failed ta do,” CZ chimes in, for your enthusiasm is evidently infectious.

The others offer no objections, obviously. How could they? You’re right, and it’s thanks to your righteous rightness that they’re all breathing free. As you and your refugees march towards Turtledove’s over-swollen outskirts, though, a mental message does crawl into your nilbog noggins from one of those not making the trek down to town:

“Zith-Zi… A word of caution.”

(Ayla? What the fu—)

The mentally-adept mage ignores your own thoughts to impose her own:

“Carazzi being a ‘Yosef’ was a useful shortcut earlier, but don’t repeat the claim. Ezreal and the others went to great pains to suppress knowledge that the house persists. Considering how she tells me that the Paladins reacted, chances are that word has already reached the Queen, or will shortly… And that Hawksong is interested. I will NOT have them interfering with my student, or my child.”

You bristle as much at the telepathic tone as at the intrusion itself. You may not hate Ayla anymore, or not as MUCH, but a Henzler uninvited in your head is not something you ever relish. At least she’s only ordering you around—HA! as if she could—rather than trying to boss you by means of mind-control. If the bitch tried THAT, you’d have turned back around to teach her some manners, one ‘sen-say’ to another!

As you mull over the message, you close in on Turtledove, with the night-eyed among you guiding the helpless humies. When torchlight splits the difference, you start to draw attention from the mercs, merchants, camp-followers and passers-through. You can hardly avoid it, with your numbers and peculiar appearances, and so you embrace it: you bask in the attention, letting anyone and everyone know what you did, and who they can thank for the heroism at hand.

“That’s right!” you bellow, with a brazen grin and a bld laugh. “We clapped their godsdamned cheeks! Beat ‘em black ‘n blue—blacker, I should say! Sent their demons back ta the Nine Realms of Hell, and a couple dozen of their gnolls right after ‘em! The Monstrous Regiment frees prisoners, see—but we sure as FUCK don’t take ‘em! Am I RIGHT, Regiment?!”

“YES, BOSS!” comes the chorus, albeit with varying enthusiasm, and Chang substitutes ‘milady’.

(Bah. You’ll learn that courtly femboy how to act like a proper mercenary-man yet.)

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>>6359013
However, as you break through the camp and into Turtledove proper—no guards are going to stop you, with an entourage like you’ve accumulated, all exclaiming their praise—you slow. You give a bit more thought to what Ayla ‘said’.

CZ was at the forefront of your first appearance here. Sure, she lost the gryphon, but you’d be willing to bet the Paladins will forgive that for all the lives saved, and the blow dealt to their foes. You’re angling for a reward—obviously—and also for acclaim for you and your crew. Like you told Jimmy, you plan to take a step back from the front, but not from the adventuring business as a whole: this could be your springboard to bigger and better things, with you Bossing from the back for a bit!

But should ‘Carazzi Yosef’ be a part of that?

Back in the day, you would have made that decision for your emotionally-unstable shadow-splinter ‘sister’. But now… Now, when you meet her uncertain eyes, you see she’s thinking about it, too. Thinking about whether you adopt a disguise and fade into the miscellaneous milieu surrounding you, or stand tall and proud as the ‘human’ Carazzi Yosef, exceptionally public member of Zena Youngtree’s Monstrous Regiment.

You leave the decision to her.

…

>>6359014

…

What will you do?

>Take the name of Carazzi Yosef, openly and publicly… And share the name with Zena ‘Yosef’, too

>Bow out, and remain anonymous—let ‘Zena Youngtree’ lead the regiment, and the return of House Yosef fade into frontier legend

This is a big vote for a number of reasons, btw, in case it wasn’t clear. It will affect ZZ and CZ’s immediate future and long-term trajectory.

>>6359015
>Bow out, and remain anonymous—let ‘Zena Youngtree’ lead the regiment, and the return of House Yosef fade into frontier legend

Like she said. It’s not convenient.

>>6359013
>At least she’s only ordering you around—HA! as if she could—rather than trying to boss you by means of mind-control. If the bitch tried THAT, you’d have turned back around to teach her some manners, one ‘sen-say’ to another!
Lol

>Take the name of Carazzi Yosef, openly and publicly… And share the name with Zena ‘Yosef’, too
Fuck Ayla

>>6359015
>Bow out, and remain anonymous—let ‘Zena Youngtree’ lead the regiment, and the return of House Yosef fade into frontier legend
We've already opted out of being a paladin, so I don't see why try to revive the house

>>6358995
Go play King of the hill!

>>6359015
>Take the name of Carazzi Yosef, openly and publicly… And share the name with Zena ‘Yosef’, too

>>6359111
[One involves following a path of personal commitment and heroism. The other doesn't, bur allows you to cash in on the name... Among other effects.]

>>6359015
>Take the name of Carazzi Yosef, openly and publicly… And share the name with Zena ‘Yosef’, too
Damn right

>>6359155
>>6359128
>>6359111
>>6359028
>>6359021
[Locking! Though I may have a rest before I write... Still getting over this damn cold/flu/covid/whatever.]

>>6359127
[I don't tend to play many more "gamey" quests, as opposed to narrative-driven ones, but I'll take a peek!]

Rolled 15, 15, 4 = 34 (3d20)

>>6359321
It takes only a moment to decide, and a brief moment at that:

“That’s right,” you chime in, projecting your own voice almost as adeptly as your other half. “It was ZENA YOSEF and her MONSTROUS REGIMENT!”

You see the shock explode across Zith-Zi’s aura and fill her bright green eyes. By the time the crowd begins to react, though, she’s slipped back into her comfortable cloak of bravado with a belly laugh. “Well, no point in hidin’ it, I s’pose, huh? Yep, that’s me—Zena YOSEF!”

“Another Yosef?” interjects a faintly-familiar voice. “What happened to Carazzi Yosef?”

The crowd parts before the speaker, like a sea parting before the silver prow of some heavenly vessel. There stands that sprightly young blonde boy—the Paladin from before! A ways behind him, his greying mentor waits, regarding the show you and your sis have put on with quiet interest. ZZ freezes, emitting a truncated choking sound at the sight of the fully-grown, male gryphon whom the senior Paladin is patting—probably just as much a factor in the sudden space around you as the Order’s status.

“Uh,” you squeak, “that’s me. I’m here!”

In keeping with your decision to adopt your grandfather’s ancestral surname in earnest, you’d also adopted something like his human stature again. Shapeshifting is easy when you can just conceal yourself from mundane sight, dip behind a building, and emerge a changed woman… But now, fixed by two Champions of Lawful Good, you feel a sense of being trapped. You’re locked in now! There’s no going back! And you can see it in their faces, sense it in their spirits: they see through you. You don’t know how, but they must KNOW that you’re not what you appear.

“Welcome back, Lady Yosef,” greets the blonde.

You blink. “Wait, what?”

Your brief pang of paranoia passes, dismissed as easily as was the crowd by the blonde’s easy smile. Another cheer goes up, seemingly at random, as you take the young human knight’s armour-clad hand in yours. You flush a little as he brings it to his lips and kisses the back of your knuckles, though you don’t SENSE any special intention behind the gesture; nor, as you withdraw it, do you really get what the big fuss is, to elicit another round of applause. Maybe, even out here in the boondocks… Or perhaps ESPECIALLY out of the frontier… The House of Yosef still has some sway in the hearts of the Northmen?

Maybe even if you don’t want to adopt any do-gooding , hoity-toity Green Knight’s responsibilities, being a Yosef in truth could still be fun?

“One thing, though?” the younger Paladin looks over and past you, scanning your entourage, and then fixes his blue eyes back on you. “Where’s Matilda?”

(Fuck!)

…

Fuck !

>>6359367
>>6359370
…

In the halls of hidden Patmo-Shoka, two troubled young humans tossed and turned in uneasy sleep. Their suspicions, emergent, remain unacted-upon…. Thanks to a bit of local nightshade, collected surreptitiously from the hills and mixed in just the right amounts into their heart-fruit tea.

Funny how the self-appointed investigators weren’t properly suspicious when it counted.

Rolled a 15 on Potioncraft + Herbalism: success!

Being softly and seldom spoken perhaps helped: Dura might be of the Steelwood Wolfpack, but she was better suited to the background, than to the fore, and easily filled the role of the humble servant… Until it was time to strike.

As the humans convalesced, she dabbed their sweating brows with a rag wet by water piped in from the deeper earth, by boglin mechanisms beyond the ziran’s ken. Dura listened to the gurglings and whistlings of the air and water this day as she did every day; this time, she compared it to the troubled sounds of the poisoned pair to whom she tended. There was so much she didn’t yet understand about this place, and the powers it held. To her, it seemed a great, sleeping beast—the sort that, once awoken, could do great damage. This was not, to Dura of the Wolfpack Horde, a BAD thing—every orc loves to deal damage, after all. It did trouble her that it still sounded sickly, though… Defenceless, as with Frederich Johannes and Vel Dinh.

Should she bash in their skulls while they slept? She wasn’t sure. They might still be needed—slave-doctors, for the great and terrible creature whose belly they all inhabited.

Ayla would know… And Carazzi. She would ask Carazzi, first, before killing anyone.

This resolution would soon be tested, though, for Dura’s attentive ear caught next an unfamiliar sound, which was not a part of the usual chorus of unseen machinery but something new. It came from above. She set down her rag, took up her ribbon-tied ziran staff for spiritual and physical protection, and braved the unsettling hall of the empty-eyed samund dyr slaves to go see what was on the other side…

And there, she found trouble.

…

>>6359375
…

After ‘coming out’ as a long-lost Yosef, there was a lot of explaining to do. You let CZ take point on the matter of the gone-forever gryphon, since she was there when it happened and—ugh—was the ‘big sister’ in your newly-confabulated life story. The god-botherers took it pretty well, all said and done—you suppose it really WAS a small price to pay, for the devastation you wrought and the lives your rescued, in plus of the intel you brought back with them.

“I mean, shit—uh, SHOOT, that is—you two could probably round up a posse of Pallies and cruise on in there now, huh?”

You propose this while elbowing the elder Paladin—a Sir Pietro, apparently—in his metal-plated midsection from where you all sit at a fancy-for-the-frontier feasting table. You have half a mind that you could lend them some muscle, maybe, and collect a fine finder’s fee in the process—in excess of what you already got, and the implied promise that there’s more waiting for you from a grateful Crown Council in Hawksong.

(Things really are looking up for Big Business Boss, Zena MOTHERFUCKIN’ Yosef!)

“Alas, no.”

You scowl, the serious old man’s serious old refusal interrupting your rising tide of good feelings. Jimmy, seated on your other side, solemnly agrees with the elder of his race:

“Zi—Zena, the garrison you defeated was only one part of a much larger force… Towns like Chiffchaff, local Southron villages, oases and trade-cities and beastman settlements… All of them are falling to this… This…”

“Blackrock Army?” proposes Carazzi, peeking out from the other side of the knights, where she’s seated beside the blonde Sir Di Lissio.

“It’s as good a name as any,” agrees Sir Pietro grimly. “And it isn’t just this ‘Abdul’ demonist whom you fought. The Sultans who ally under that banner employ and reinforce him, and those who don’t swiftly capitulate once they come calling. When we strike back within their own borders, they hold this up as evidence of our intent to invade.”

“As if it wasn’t the bloody Southies who started this whole mess, stealing OUR settlements and kidnapping OUR people, and after what their strays did to our city,” seethes Sir Di Lissio.

File: images.jpg (13 KB, 225x225)

13 KB JPG

>>6359390
None of this much matters to you, of course, but you can’t let that show. “That’s awful,” you say instead, and promise that you and The Monstrous Regiment will be happy to help… Later, when you’ve had a chance to recover and enjoy the fruits of your first foray, and OBVIOUSLY for a price.

“A price for peace?” Di Lissio asks, tone full of judgement. “For freedom? For the safety of our families?”

Pietro is more generous than his younger partner, and comes to your defence: “The Yosefs were a wealthy family, not merely a noble one. That wealth was what enabled the second and third Paladin King to fend off the Oriental Hordes in the Eastman and Orc Wars, though. It served the Crown, and the Gods Above.”

“Yeah, Di Lissio,” you say with a smirk and a wink. “That’s HOLY gold we’re rollin’ in.”

And right now, you ARE well and truly rolling in it. Your eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets when you saw that these shiny shmucks had a literal CHEST OF GOLD AND SILVER, plus copper and some sundry gems, seized from enemies within and without. A great deal of this was presented to you and the Regiment, seemingly at the Paladins’ sole discretion.

(How much leeway does Queen Ekaterine GIVE these guys?!)

Your wealth increases from 82 points to 162 points!

You spend the night in Turtledove free-of-charge, too. Nobody is inclined to charge the Heroes of Chiffchaff, evidently. Though you have to get back to Patmo-Shoka at some point, you reckon the dungeon can wait one more night—and Testa can put up Ayla and Veigar and the gobs, probably, or they can suffer one more evening of camping with the comfy gear you got them on your last trip into town.

(After all, with food in his belly, a shaving razor and a basin to work with, and a comfy raised bed to bounce on, you can REALLY appreciate having James Efron back, now!)

As for Carazzi…
>She spends the evening with Sir Di Lissio, who is a bit zealous but also pretty cute and can teach her a lot about Yosefs and other nobles and knights
>She returns to camp—Turtledove’s fun, but she wants to be where Nermal and the other ‘monsters’ are
>She spends the evening alone, mingling with the common folk under another identity, and sets out to spend some of that coin!
>Write-in

>>6359391
>She spends the evening with Sir Di Lissio, who is a bit zealous but also pretty cute and can teach her a lot about Yosefs and other nobles and knights
Back to knighthood, full circle.

>>6359391
>She spends the evening with Sir Di Lissio, who is a bit zealous but also pretty cute and can teach her a lot about Yosefs and other nobles and knights
Some history would be nice.

>>6359021

>>6359391
>She spends the evening with Sir Di Lissio, who is a bit zealous but also pretty cute and can teach her a lot about Yosefs and other nobles and knights
since anons wanted the name, might as well learn more about it

>>6359391
>>She spends the evening with Sir Di Lissio, who is a bit zealous but also pretty cute and can teach her a lot about Yosefs and other nobles and knights

>>6359589
>>6359394
>>6359432
>>6359499
…

“Wait, so yer tellin’ me ANYONE with a ‘van’ or ‘di’ or whatever in their name’s a noble?? No way! I know a couple a’ these Van Houtzmann guys…”

“I can’t say that I have ever heard of their House.”

“Well, like, it ain’t a HUGE house or nothin’… An’ it’s not in the best part’ve town…”

“I… See. I’m not so sure these Van Houtzmanns are actual nobility, Lady Yosef.”

You and Sir Di Lissio strike up such a conversation that—were you not always attentive to ZZ’s aura, you might not have even noticed her get up to leave. She’s pounded back a fair few drinks at this celebratory soiree, as has James Efron, so you can hardly begrudge them. She pauses to give you a questioning look before she goes, though; you smile and nod.

“I think I will retire for the evening as well,” says old Sir Pietro solemnly. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

The poor old humie MUST be feeling his years—he hardly drank! Di Lissio seems to be ‘drinking responsibly’ or whatever, too, so at least there’s still someone here matching your energy. You’re stone-cold sober, after all—Ayla may not be her, but for all you know she’s scrying on you and the baby in your belly, and it wouldn’t do to have her lecturing you again on proper pre-natal care.

Despite this, though, Sir Di Lissio’s air changes the moment he’s seen his senior off, leaning closer. You flush, but quickly scan his energies to ascertain he doesn’t mean anything amorous by it—something confirmed when he asks:

“Shouldn’t a scion of the House of Yosef know as much?”

“Well, uh… Heh, ya know, Dear Ol’ Dad wasn’t around much, growin’ up…”

(That’s technically not a lie, either, even if you’ve created the impression that ‘Dear Old Dad’ was Lord Heinrich ‘The Green Knight’ Yosef rather than a Dark God-worshipping half-lizard occultist!)

“Where was it that you were raised, again?” asks Di Lissio.

(Gah! When did he get so close?! And how does a guy out on the outskirts of a warzone still smell so good??)

You scoot back a bit, tittering nervously and praying to the Dark Gods that your horns haven’t started poking up out of your forehead… And then, that this Paladin of the Holy order can’t tell which way your prayers are headed!

“Uh, nowhere really.” (What was it you said last time? AAAAAAH!) “Jus’, you know, some rinky-dink l’il farmin’ town… The kinda place a guy just passes through, I s’pose. But we didn’t have, like… No nobles or nothin’.”

File: A Lord and Lady Yosef.png (574 KB, 532x774)

574 KB PNG

>>6359590
Di Lissio seems to accept this, or at least his heavy sigh and nod is accompanied by a shift in subject: “Yes, that’s often the case for the farmlands around Hawksong. They once had kings, princes, and barons of their own, but as the need for local forces faded away at the end of the Great Wars, the Crown and Council saw fit to purchase those lands and to administer them directly. Many of the nobles preferred to live closer to the Paladin Court, too… More chance of their children becoming members of the Council, I suppose, or Tower Magi… Or Paladins, for that matter.”

“Izzat how you got the gig?” you prod, suddenly interested. “Are all Paladins nobles?”

“Not all of us, no,” Di Lissio answers, smirking slightly. “Sir Pietro is from farming stock, as you no doubt recall. But yes, those of us with ‘di’ or ‘van’ or other derivations of the same prefix in our names, the Old Tongues, once owned swathes of farmland as Equites Viciniae, meaning—”

“Neighbourhood Knights?”

Di Lissio’s eyebrows lift, and he regards you with newfound respect… And scrutiny.

“Heh, my sis is good with languages,” you say.

(And some of the Old Tongues of the Northwest come up in occult studies with Ayla… But you ain’t about to spill THAT source!)

“Either way, you are absolutely correct,” the handsome young Paladin commends you. “‘Knights of the Area’, more accurately, but… Neighbourhood Knights, yes.”

He smiles wistfully, a romantic sort of expression, and you sense his mind turn from you and your history and to something far away, in time and place. Aloud, Di Lissio reflects:

“My family protected a patch of flat land right along where the north-south trade-roads are, now. It was called ‘Lissio’ then, hence ‘Di Lissio’… It’s called Luscinia now. Just one more market town, with family farms all around… But still, beautiful, especially in the height of summer when the fields are lush and full, as far as the eye can see…”

The knight’s eye fixes you in place again, as he adds: “But of course, it was long ago we lost them. The fifteenth Lord Yosef drove a hard bargain, and insisted that the Paladin King and the capitol needed direct stewardship of the farms and to expand the trade roads and strengthen their security, and it does not do to upset the Crown, the Council… Or, when it still stood, to upset The House of Yosef. After that, the road was protected by the Pax Argentum of the Paladins… And all else, by ‘adventurer’ sorts.”

You swallow, unsure whether to say ‘sorry’ or not for your land-gabbing ancestor, or your current company. I mean, shit, it ain’t like YOU have any land, and it sounds like they got paid!

>>6359591
“Begging your pardon, but all the inquiries about knights and nobility?” asks Di Lissio, before you can decide, with a narrowing of his eyes and a subtle twitch of the lips. “The subject seems to be of some interest to you.”

“Wh—huh?? No! I mean, uh, not like that. I ain’t lookin’ ta be a Paladin or nothin’…”

Di Lissio laughs, and then apologizes when he sees your expression. “Sorry, I meant no offence, Lady Yosef… Carazzi, rather. What you’ve already done is amazing, and attests to your martial skills… But the Holy Order is only for human men.”

“Oh, right,” you say, as if you knew that.

“And speaking of race, if I may… Your ‘sister’, is she some sort of—”

“H-hey,” you interject, “Can I ask YOU another question?”

Sir Di Lissio nods, and takes a sip of his wine, awaiting your inquiry.

“I’ve bin wonderin’….”
>What was the House of Yosef even like? Did he ever meet any of them?
>He’s a Paladin… What’s the whole deal with the Lawful Good Gods, anyway?
>This whole war… Is there any way to avoid it? Like, it seems like the Southrons are being manipulated!
>He’s kind of cute… Do Paladins have, like, vows of chastity, or…? [romance option]
>...Isn't it kind of late? You should really get some sleep. [escape and end the conversation]
>Write-in

>>6359592
>This whole war… Is there any way to avoid it? Like, it seems like the Southrons are being manipulated!
By shadowy, underground, reptilian forces...
Who got really good at demon summoning...

>>6359592
>This whole war… Is there any way to avoid it? Like, it seems like the Southrons are being manipulated!
Romance… isn’t going to pan out too well. Our connection to the nothic means he’ll likely figure it out eventually.

>>6359432

>>6359592
>He’s a Paladin… What’s the whole deal with the Lawful Good Gods, anyway?
"What's their problem?"

>>6359592
>He’s a Paladin… What’s the whole deal with the Lawful Good Gods, anyway?

>>6359682
>>6359784
>>6359799
>>6359822
“…like, say there was, uh, some kinda shadowy, underground type’ve… FORCE… manipulatin’ the Southies?”

Di Lissio lowers his cup. “You mean the lizardmen?”

You breathe a sigh of relief. “You know about ‘em! That saves a ton a’ time explainin’!”

“Of course,” the paladin agrees. “It was your father, the last Lord Yosef, who revealed their conspiracy to us, and began their purge from the Northwest.”

“So, like… Ya figure may war can be avoided, then?”

You’re a little surprised at yourself, for caring so much. The truth is, though, that while war may be good for business for an adventurer, you’re not looking to live in a state of constant combat. You haven’t decided exactly WHAT you want to do, but ever since your talk with An-Yii outside Turtledove, you’ve felt your place in the world was to be somewhere peaceful. Now, with a kid on the way who you’ll ACTUALY have to look after—unlike Ayla and Veigar’s sprog, who they’re taking point on—well, you aren’t sure you want Empy’s offspring drafted into some eternal civilizational conflict, either.

All this to say: the silver knight’s answer doesn’t thrill you.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not!”

“H-huh?” You blink, then feeling faintly outraged, nearly shout: “Why not?! If they’re bein’ tricked inta it, can’t ya jus’ reveal that to the, like, sultans r whatever, an’… I dunno, boot out the scaley suckers ‘n make up?”

Sir Di Lissio looks at you dubiously, with something like pity. “Carazzi, these people have been thoroughly, generationally corrupted by the Dark Gods, and their reptilian instruments. They have struck repeatedly at the heart of Hawksong… Poisoned our people with poxes, planted bombs, attacked the Mages’ Tower, killed the Queen’s eldest brother. Now they have taken our settlements, and sacrificed our hostages to summon demons in our own defiled temples!”

“Well, okay, but like…” You struggle against this onslaught of accusations—some of which, admittedly, you think your ACTUAL ‘father’ might have had a hand in based upon what you’ve glimpsed in the Dark Gods’ own Akashic Record, and none of which you can deny. “That’s not ALL Southrons, right? It’s just, like, the ones workin’ with the lizards? Don’t the, like, Gods Above want us ta get along, all peaceful and orderly ‘n shi—stuff?”

“Marese shields those who keep the faith, and do good works,” explains the paladin.

He extracts a beaded pendant from beneath his gorget—one bearing a symbol of a woman, cradling a human baby in one arm and holding a shield aloft.

“But Moroth does the same, with the sword.”

Flipping the religious token, Di Lissio shows off the stern, bearded face of a man-at-arms, clasping a small sceptre in one hand and a sword in the other, held parallel.

>>6359930
“Those of the South who keep the faith of the Bonum Legale will not work with demonists, occultists, and other evil forces. I believe they will welcome us as liberators!”

“…Oh yeah?”

Di Lissio smiles, a hard line, and nods. “How many Men of the South DO keep the faith, I do not know. But Marese will shield them while we serve Moroth, and save them from their wicked kings and false priests. We will carry on the Green Knight, Lord Yosef’s, own good work in freeing them from the lizards’ influence, and from the taint of foul darkness which has tainted their lands.”

“Is THAT really what the lawful good gods are all about?” you ask aloud, almost more to yourself.

(What the fuck is their PROBLEM??)

The holy warrior seated beside you regards you strangely, and you moderate your town: “I’m just, uh, ya know… It’s not what I ‘member from church, is all.”

(You don’t remember a damn THING from church, of course, never having attended one.)

Di Lissio’s expression turns sympathetic, and he gently takes your hand between his two gauntlets. You flush slightly, but don’t immediately pull away, rather meeting his eyes.

“The Gods Above provide us so much more than war, of course. Our laws, our bounty, our safety, our traditions… Blessings of health and fertility for crops and young families, charity to our neighbours and even to demihumans, mercy and justice… All these things spring forth from their teachings. It’s these teachings and blessings which enable Paladins the power to protect the lands.”

“The lands yer family USED ta own?”

>>6359931
The blonde-haired human flinches at that call-back, and nods. “You are right, of course. That loss of land, too… I complained about it, but I that was greedy of me. Prideful. I guess... In a way, that was probably part of the Gods’ path to making the Holy Order stronger. It makes the safety of the Northwest from monsters, demons, and darkness possible… And it’s that same strength, and organization, that will allow us to save those poor mislead sinners in the Southlands from the same evil, by annihilating whose who have denied them the blessings of the Light.”

He pats your hand, and then loosens his grip. You pull back your hand as if burned. After all, the various forms of that evil could also, in a very real sense, include YOU. You were born demonic, product of a Reptilian Infiltrator and a ‘monster’, and as recently as last night you were communing with a certain Dark God of Knowledge and his little Nothic buddy.

“Perhaps I should be thanking the gods for your ancestor in my prayers tonight, as well,” says the paladin with the vibrant eyes and the bright smile, with the air of a proffered peace.

Do you have anything to say to the paladin Sir Di Lissio?
>Yes [what?]
>No, GTFO!

Is there anything else you want to do tonight?
>Yes, actually… [what?]
>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning

How do you feel about the Lawful Good Gods?
>You get it—and you’re not so close to the Dark ones—even if they’re a little scary given your history
>They sound like hypocritical psychos to you, way worse than the ‘worse’ ones you worship
>Goblins are right: gods in generally are no good, and you’ll be glad when you don’t need to deal with any of them anymore
>Write-in

>>6359932
>No, GTFO!
And
>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning
And
>Write-in: "Seems Gods are more like mortals than they let on - sometimes bad when they're good, sometimes good when they're bad, seems to be their worshippers that ultimately decide what end of the stick is getting swung around. You have all these ties to the Dark Gods, after all, and here you are vouching for peace while a holy paladin resigns himself to a bloody crusade. Ain't that just the way? Even so, means the 'Lawful Good' Gods are as worth your time as the rest. Maybe one day you'll explore a personal relationship with one of them. They might even learn something."

>>6359932
>Yes [what?]
I guess it depends on the level of manipulation, right? Like if these are just orders from the infiltrated top brass that are being willingly followed, then we can't really forgive all the human sacrifices for sure. If it's the same situation as the gnolls though, they might not have any choice in the matter.

>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning

>You get it—and you’re not so close to the Dark ones—even if they’re a little scary given your history

>>6359932
>Yes [what?]
Sorry about Tildy. She was brave.

Is there anything else you want to do tonight?
>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning

How do you feel about the Lawful Good Gods?
>Write-in
Could be useful one day.

>>6360232

>>6359784

>>6359932
>No, GTFO!

>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning

>Goblins are right: gods in generally are no good, and you’ll be glad when you don’t need to deal with any of them anymore

>>6359932
>No, GTFO!
>Head straight to bed, and leave this place behind in the morning
>Goblins are right: gods in generally are no good, and you’ll be glad when you don’t need to deal with any of them anymore
Although the write in of >>6359981 is cool

>>6360315
>>6360264
>>6359981
>>6360009
>>6360232
There are a lot of things you could say, because this conversation has given you a whole lot to think about. For instance, you can’t help but notice the irony that the guy championing peace and justice is arguing in FAVOUR of a bloody crusade. Meanwhile, you are here, a dealer in darkness, proposing mercy to the utterly unreceptive ‘good guy’.

(Ain’t that just the way? Goblins are right: there really is no such thing as a ‘good god’—just a useful one.)

You could bring up the gnolls, those hyena-headed victims of mind-controlling magical armour… But there’s no point. You can see it in Di Lissio’s eyes: they’re bright, but hard, lit by the vigor of soul-deep faith. If it’s for what he sees as the greater good, you have no doubt he’d cut them down… Just like you did, when push came to shove. That’s the worst part: you can’t even judge him.

(Sometimes, it really do be like that…)

The only thing you can do is get out of here before the pugnacious Pally clocks you for one of his hated foes.

“Ah, Carazzi… Lady Yosef… I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t offend?” Sir Di Lissio’s expression softens, tinted with regret, as you slip away from the table and stand. “I understand that it’s an… Unpleasant business, war. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Nah, don’t worry ‘bout that,” you assure him with a half-hearted smile. “It’s just bin a looong few days, ya know? I think I’d better, like, get some rest before we head out tomorrow, ‘s all.”

Di Lissio nods in acknowledgement, and bids you a good night. You do likewise—despite your misgivings about the man, you don’t necessarily wish this human any particular ill. Before you go, you even pause a moment and stop to tell him:

“Oh, and… Sorry ‘bout Tildy. She was brave… Really did yer Order proud.”

You detect a complex cocktail of emotions in your wake, after that. Before long, though, they fade into the background, and soon are supplanted by a marginally more familiar set of similarly-chivalrous sentiment.

“Oh, heya Chang.”

>>6360536
Chang Lanseoul, Blue Flower Knight of some-place-or-other, bows low as you acknowledge him. He’s been calmly waiting by the entrance, suppressing his presence the whole time by your reckoning. Even now, you only sense him because he lets you.

“Were you there, uh, the whole time, or…?”

“I remained out of earshot, milady,” he promises you. “A lady’s privacy is of the utmost importance… As is her safety.”

“Heh, well, that’s nice of ya. What about ZZ, though?”

Chang bows again, and says: “I believe Lord Efron has that covered.”

As you approach the inn where the Paladins have but you both up, you cast your psychic net upwards and outwards, and detect pulses of pleasure—emotionally but also VERY physical, cresting one of many rolling waves of longing, lust, and long-awaited reunion.

“Well, ya ain’t wrong,” you murmur.

You feel a pang of envy, and an emptiness that hurts more than heals… But hey, that’s what meditation’s for, right? And you weren’t lying to Di Lissio: after the last few days, you could use some ‘you-time’.

…

>>6360538
...
“Ha… Ha… Zith-Zi, that was… Wow.”

“Heh, ‘course it was. Who do you think yer dealin’ with, Jim-Jim?”

“Ugh, you KNOW I hate that nickname.”

“Pfft. No fuckin’ way, babe. You LOVE when I call ya shit like that—that’s WHY ya hate it when I use ‘em in public.”

“And yet, you still do…”

“‘Cause it’s cute as fuck when ya blush about it.”

“Zi…”

“Hehehe, yep, JUST like that~”

The two of you are tangle up in what sheets remain upon your bed—you beneath your boyfriend, fingernails still tracing fresh red lines along his back, comparatively-little legs tight around his narrow waist, enjoying that full feeling as he goes soft inside you. You’re both sweaty as sin, though the dry-ass Turtledove air is wicking that away rather quickly. Just like back in the Goblin Wastes, heat turns to cold quite quickly, and so you yank James Efron still closer before he can roll over, using his big human body like a weighted blanket as you nuzzle into his neck.

>>6360539
“Still,” he murmurs, “even by YOUR high standards, that was really something. You must have really missed me.”

“Pfft, more like I missed that DICK,” you joke, giving him a nip that draws out a startled yelp. “I mean, shit, that’s prob’ly the longest I’ve ever GONE without a good lay, ya know that?”

“Hm?” the by-now drowsy Efron mumbles. “How long was it?”

You blink. “Whaddaya mean? It’s been, like, two years nearly now, ain’t it?”

“Two years?” Jimmy repeats, yawning. “Gods, that IS a long stretch… No wonder you were such a wildcat.”

“Well, you oughtta know,” you point out.

“Huh?”

“…‘Cause we’ve been apart for the same time, Jimmy. That’s how that works.”

“Oh! Yes, that’s… That makes sense. Sorry, Zi, you just took a LOT out of me.”

Jimmy shifts atop you, slipping his arms underneath you and rolling sideways. You go with him, half his height and a third of his weight, but your body stiffens and resists. You DID do more than your fair share to tucker your pet city-boy out, of course, but something about his earlier confusion rubs you the wrong way… Made especially galling by all the rubbing he just did the RIGHT way.

And ESPECIALLY because he’s a Tower Mage, who ought to be quicker on the draw with his math than that…

And ESPECIALLY especially because Enid Carstene is a couple doors down… And spent several months alone with your boy, after your last big blow-up, before they were taken prisoner in their sex-segregated cells.

“Jimmy…”

“Mm… Yes, Zi?”

Do you probe him about it?
>Yes, you need to know
[Sense Motive roll; if this is chosen, and the roll is failed or it turns out Efron was unfaithful, Zith-Zi WILL blow up on him]
>No, let sleeping humans lie
[Zith-Zi will never know for sure]

If you choose 'no', do you have anything else you want to ask Efron about?
>Yes [what?]
>No [skips to next day]

>>6360540
>No, let sleeping humans lie
I don't like the looks of that blow up if the roll is failed note.

>Yes [what?]
How was the group without us? What did they get up to before the big capture?

>>6360540
>No, let sleeping humans lie
[Zith-Zi will never know for sure]
It’s hard to say. Maybe he did. Maybe he did not. Maybe it’s the brain damage from being locked up for so long.

Is it that important? Probably not. We’ll judge his character again if he decides to get with Enid after this.


>Yes [what?]
Enid and the rest of his party. Is there a possibility they could join the regiment in the future?

>>6360232

>>6360540
>No, let sleeping humans lie
And
>Yes [What?]
I wanna ask more about his captivity and how he is feeling after that, let him know we will support him bc it's surely a lot to come back from

>>6360540
>Yes, you need to know
Ain’t a coward, and besides, I’d prefer we clear the air so as to move on, instead of being in a constant state of uncertainty. Fuckin’ hate mind games like that.

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>>6360540
>>Yes, you need to know

>>6360540
>Yes, you need to know
I'm surprised that a failed roll also gets the same result as him being confirmed as unfaithful

>>6360599
>>6360602
1 post anons pls backlink as well

>>6360540
>>Yes, you need to know

>>6360626
I’m that tapped out oldfag from last thread, this is my first time posting in this one as this vote peaked my interest, since I’d rather not have ZZ’s relationship forever plagued by her main hangup with Effron since this quest began.

>>6356673, if you think it’s relevant. Been around since Izzy, so I do understand where this is coming from.

Also, as an aside, the new Captcha system sucks balls.

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>>6360667
[With this in mind, and giving you the benefit of the doubt...]

>>6360582
>>6360584
>>6360585
>>6360599
>>6360602
>>6360624
>>6360666
[...We still have a tie except for >>6360602. I will leave this open a little longer, in case that anon wants to backlink. Otherwise, I think I'm going to have to roll for it.]

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6360909

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>6360909
>>6360955
Everything is great right now. Everything is wonderful! Well, okay, not everything—you lost your best friend. But this? You, and him? It’s great! It’s what you’ve been wanting for well over a year part! And no, not JUST the sex—OBVIOUSLY, because a gal like you can get laid whenever she damn well pleases, and you opted not to. It’s HIM you wanted—James Efrom, Jim-Jim, your Jimmy!

Do you really want to spoil all that? FUCK no.

…

But you need to know.

“Jimmy,” you say softly, “did you… Ya waited for me, right?”

“Hm?”

James Efron props himself an and elbow, drawing himself backwards and up a little so that he can see your face by the dim light of the beside candles. He fixes you with a quirked eyebrow and a quizzical smirk.

“I was in JAIL, Zi. I… I won’t pretend that I knew you were going to be the one to come to my rescue, but I didn’t have much to do BUT wait.”

“That ain’t what I mean, Jim.” You draw yourself up as well, face serious, meeting his violet eyes with your own steel stare. “Before ya got caught… Before Chiffchaff… Did ya wait?”

You waited. YOU did. Even in spite of everything else, opportunities, and frustrations, and stresses, and lonely nights, and a hundred other factors, YOU stayed loyal to this guy—to YOUR guy. Don’t you deserve the same? Don’t you deserve to at least KNOW?

Rolling Sense Motive. Bonus for holding out for ten threads: DC reduced by 5 points, to 10!
...But ZZ still only has one rank.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6360961
There is a pregnant pause. In the low light, you can see Jimmy’s eyes searching your face—scarred by battle even after the cure of your khoblis curse. To his daylight-adapted human eyes, it must seem a fearsome thing. You feel a pang of self-consciousness, but your inner Boss overpowers that: good! You’re Zith-MOTHERFUCKIN’-Zi, and you can see HIM just fine.

“Is this about Enid?” he finally asks.

“I dunno,” you retort immediately, “IS it, Jim?”

“…”

>>6360963
“It’s not,” he replies with a scoff, running his hand through his still-overgrown hair as he looks away from you. “It’s about YOU. It always is.”

“What’s THAT supposed ta mean?!”

Jimmy’s eyes turn back to you, and you flinch a little from the anger and pain you see there. “YOU start all these… These FUCKING fights, Zi. Every time! Because YOU’RE insecure. Because YOU can’t just… Just TRUST me!”

“Yeah?” The words rush out before you can stop them. “Well… You didn’t even answer the goddamn question!”

“The question of whether I—after YOU left ME, ran out on ME, after everything I’VE done for YOU, fighting with ME family, risking MY inheritance, not even knowing if you were coming back, if we were even still TOGETHER, what YOU were doing with all those goblins and god knows who else—whether I had sex with Enid? THAT question?”

“Yeah!”

You shout, raising your voice over and above your lover’s, only to find the fire abruptly abandon you… Because you already know the answer. You can see it in James Efron’s eyes, and in his posture, and hear it in his voice.

“Yeah… That one,” you mumble, suddenly ashamed.

James Efron gets up, still a little weak from your earlier activities and from his months of prior imprisonment. He grabs for his robes, and starts to stuff himself into them.

“Jimmy—”

“No, Zith-Zi.”

“Jimmy, I—”

“No,” her interrupts you again, angrier this time, and then sighs. “Despite everything, no. I did not.”

You hop down off the bed, and start to approach him, heart beating hard. Your anger, turned to embarrassment, has now given way to fear. “H-hey, Jimmy, I just… I didn’t mean ta… You know how that’s just, you know… How it’s always gotten to me. ‘Cause she’s so… An’, an’ I’M so…”

“So FUCKING stupid sometimes, Zi,” Jimmy snaps.

You wince. “Okay, so, maybe I deserved that, but—”

“I swear to the GODS ABOVE, Zith-Zi… After everything else, after all of it… THAT’S what you want to talk about? Not what I’ve BEEN through not our FUTURE—”

“I do!” you practically plead, despite how much you HATE begging. “I DO wanna talk about all that, too, it’s just—”

Efron draws himself up to his full human height, and glares down at you. “Well what if I don’t?”

Your stomach falls. He can’t… He can’t mean that, surely? You saved his ass! Saved him from some terrible fate at the hands of Southron sorcerers! And you’re… You’re Zith-motherfuckin’-Zi….

…

And maybe that’s the problem?

“Zi?”

>>6360969
Efron’s face, previously imperious, turns worried. After all, it’s the third time in two days that he’s seen you cry, and this time it’s ugly. It’s not a furious female fighter crying bitter, angry tears for her animal companion. It’s not the happy tears of a lover reunited with the objection of her affection, either—Hells, how could you end up like this again, when you were so happy to see him just yesterday? How could you just let jealousy and suspicion overwhelm all that so quickly?

“I’m… I’m sorry,” you say, rubbing your eyes with the back of your arm, to clear them and to shield your sobbing face. “I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t know why I can’t just… Just settle down, and sort my shit out, and just accept that you’re good for me. I don’t know why I can’t ever just be FUCKIN’ happy with what I have for once, instead of always wonderin’ when I’m gonna lose it.”

But you do, even if you can’t say it. It all sounds like so many excuses, but deep down you DO know exactly how you ended up this way. It’s because you grew up a goblin, surrounded by poverty and purse-swiping, throat-slicing hardscrabble hostility. It’s because you know that James Efron—the young lord James Efron, not the ELDEST son of his noble house, but still a man who stands to inherit no small amount of money and prestige, and is magically-gifted, and brave, and confident, and handsome—can do better than a goblin, no matter how pretty and/or pink she might now be, and even if she goes by the name ‘Yosef’.

And it’s because you, too, are a cambion. You might not have that ectoplasm in you anymore, but you grew up with it inside you… And you can’t just erase all that influence, no matter how bossy a bitch you might become, or whatever other front you might put up.

“Come on, Zi,” Jimmy sighs, crouching down and holding out his arms.

Normally, you’d resent that—being scooped up like some little kid, or a pet. Right now, you reach out your own arms, wrap thema round him, and left him lift you to his chest, where you bury your face.

“Just so we’re clear,” Jimmy says, tone lightly scolding, “just because you start crying, doesn’t mean alls' instantly forgiven.”

You sniffle a little, and nod.

Jimmy runs his hands through your hair, soothing you, and sits upon the bed again. Neither of you says anything for a while, and after a time you realize that if anyone’s going to break the silence it will have to be you.

“So… What’d ya get up to, before the Southrons got ya?”

“Besides marathon sex-sessions with Enid, you mean?”

You glare up at James Efron, and then cluck your tongue and turn your face back down. You guess you’ll let him get in that little dig, given the situation.

“Yeah, ‘sides disappointing Enid.”

>>6360971
“Hey now,” he growls. “I’ll have you know that we actually were making QUITE the name for ourselves in the Southlands, before that black legion appeared!”

“Well… Why doncha tell me a bit about that?” you ask. “Ya know, if you impress me, the Regiment might jus’ be recruiting… You could even bring yer girlfriend, as long as she stops pretendin’ ta be an elf. It’s fuckin’ cringe.”

“Ha! Well, okay, let’s see… Oh! It actually first started before we even hit the border. See, there were already some raiders attacking supply lines on our side of the Shieldwall, though nobody had yet captured one alive OR dead, so the Southrons could still plead ignorance. Yous ee, they have these damned fast birds they ride on—not FLYING birds, but ones which run, and stand taller than a man!”

“Ugh, I fuckin’ HATE that.”

“What is it with you and birds, anyway?”

“Don’t get me started, Jim. Jus’… Jus’ keep talkin’. I wanna hear everything.”

…

>>6360972
The next morning both of the Sisters Zi—or Sisters Yosef, as the case may be by light of day and in mixed company—awaken reasonably refreshed. One has mastered methods f meditation, transcended herself and tamed her torment. The other has found a way to fill that hole in her heart that neither gold nor glory alone can close, with an honest man who can keep HER honest, too.

Do either of you have anything else to attend to before reuniting with your more 'monstrous' party-members and returning to Patmo-Shoka tomorrow?
>Yes, you'd like to buy some stuff [like what?]
>Yes, you want to talk to someone about something [who? about what?]
>No, it’s time to leave

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Level Up! Zena "Zith-Zi" Yosef gains a rank in Sense Motive!

>>6360975
>Yes, you'd like to buy some stuff [like what?]
A bunch of wine for the celebration party when we come back and the forge is fully operational.

Thanks anons for putting us in the god damn DOGHOUSE. He didn't ask us, why'd we have to ask him?

>>6360969
This is what I was afraid of; Zithzi having a w*man moment.

>>6360979
+1
Some token of appreciation would be nice.

>>6360584

>>6360975
>Yes, you'd like to buy some stuff [like what?]
Shirin, and something… something Hershey would’ve liked.

>>6360979
Now ZZ can move on… or pull an Izzy.

Either way, good on her for clearing the air instead of stewing and malding over the uncertainty of every look and innuendo between Efron and Enid.

>>6360979
+1 to buying

We need to get a gift for Jimbo, something he will really like. Maybe a fancy embroidered handkerchief, as like, a 'token' of affection? He's bougie like that, right? Other anons that know they guy better than me, feel free to make suggestions.

>>6360975
>>Yes, you'd like to buy some stuff [like what?]
Christmas time for An Yi : medical supplies, and something nice like a plushee.
Khorine too despite her acting too old for plushees.
Some nice clothes for Yeb. And maybe cookware for Dura?

>>6360979
>+1
>Thanks anons for putting us in the god damn DOGHOUSE. He didn't ask us, why'd we have to ask him?
Because we waited, that's the whole point of doing it

>>6361007
>pull an Izzy
[Have a kid an then leave them with a snake cult? Leave on a mission and get killed by your cousin? Or join a throuple with two more stable people in a hippie commune? There have been a few Izzies now, kek!]

>>6360979
>>6360998
>>6361047
>>6361072
>>6361073
[Locked and writing!]

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>>6361328
eeyAAAaaaAWn~… Oh! Mornin’, ZZ!

Nnn… Mornin’.

“So, like… You okay?”

“…Huh?”

“It’s just… Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean ta, like, listen in or whatever—”

“….HUH?!”

“W-well, like, I DIDN’T. Not exactly. Just, ya know… There was a lotta emotions rollin’ outta that room last night.”

“…CZ.”

“Sorry, sorry! We don’t gotta talk about it, if ya don’t wanna.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Oh, okay…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…But things’re aight?”

“…Hhh. Yeah. Ya know… I thing they are.”

“Well… Good!”

“…”

“…Wanna go shoppin’?”

“FUCK yes.”

>>6361335
The two of you slip out of the inn bright and early. After all, between the fairy-flavoured soul you’re packing and the perfected self’s ability to achieve a perfect rest, you’re both up earlier than almost anyone else in the Regiment!

“First things first: we gotta get some booze.”

“I thought you said everything was all good??”

“To CELEBRATE, CZ.”

“Ooooh. Gotcha!”

The local market in Turtledove is under the aegis of Hawksong’s Pax Argentum, and under southern embargo. In spite of all that, you find that the local alcoholic options are a lot more like what you used to see on Southron carts bound for North and East, back in your bandit days. There’s little beer, save for barrels of hyperbolically hoppy stuff that can survive the long trek down to the border without sorcery to preserve it or risk of spoilage. What’s made locally is mainly wine—though not always grape-based, either. Figs, dates, and anything other hardy fruit-bearing plants are the main source of spirits. They’re thick, sweet, and often spiced, but not terribly high-proof.

“Pfft. Pussy-ass girly drinks.”

“Uh, but we’re girls.”

“Listen, ‘Carazzi’, just ‘cause you HAVE a pussy now, doesn’t mean ya gotta BE one.”

“But look at this one! It looks like MILK or somethin’… ‘Raki?’ Ooo, it’s made with anise, ZZ!”

“Hmm…”

Over and above alcohol, you pick up sundry other supplies. Some are practical—cookware for the porc back at base, a restock for your medic’s kit—and some are… Less so.

“Ooo, we should get An-Yii a plushie!”

“CZ, she’s, like… Twenty-two or some shit.”

“Well YEAH, but we’re pushin’ thirty, an’…”

“…And you wanna plushie?”

“Heh. Maybe a li’l?”

“You’re takin’ this damn ‘real girl’ thing too fuckin’ far, ya know that?”

“ZZ, holy shit! This goat doll looks JUST like Khorine, don’t it?”

“…Okay, fuck it, we GOTTA get that one. Her reaction’s gonna be PRICELESS!”

“Speakin’ of soft stuff, should we get new clothes, too?”

“Why bother? We can just swing by Testa’s and have her cast <Mending> on what we got.”

“Yeah but… Like, it might be nice ta buy everyone somethin’ nice ta wear.”

“CZ, Testa’s stuff is expensive as SHIT.”

“We GOT money though! An’ it might be nice to ta send some of it Testa’s way, since she helped us? Could make her Master less mad, too? Since she ain’t really part a’ the Regiment, this could be all she really gets outta it?”

“Nnn… Maybe.”

>>6361348
There is a pause in your procession, then, as one of you falls behind a few steps. Laden down with goods as the other is—no way you’d demean yourself by dumping everything on the other just because ‘Carazzi Yosef’ is the ‘big sister’ now—you both slow down.

“What now?”

“…An-Yii’s prob’ly gonna leave the Monstrous Regiment when we get back, right?”

“…Maybe, I guess. Maybe not right away. Dunno’.”

Your sardonic sawbones has been hankering to return to New Goblintown for quite some time now. Having stayed through one winter and several quests already—and having been instrumental in saving your lives and prepping you for a return to battle just recently—she’s earned her keep and then some. It is, indeed, entirely possible that the oddly-altruistic goblin-girl will want to go back to her fellow Wasteland rats, in the shadow of the Bloodrise Mountains, and bring her improved medical knowledge with her…

Which, on top of everything else, means you have a choice to make THERE, too.

On top of all that, you have one everpresent thought gnawing on the edges of your every thought: last night. You love Jimmy and—after everything, anxieties and insecurities aside—you feel pretty confident he loves you too. You feel like shit for how you nearly blew up on him, and while you did still save his ass and all… Well, you want to make it up to him, and show him that you’re good for more than JUST adventures, arguments, and admittedly-amazing intercourse.

(You KNOW you have him by the balls THERE, heh!)

Still, it would be nice to get back out of the doghouse and in his good graces… But how?

You have 162 points of generalized and abstracted wealth.

What will you buy for alcohol? The more expensive, the greater the morale boost!
>Local low-proof spiced fruit-wine [5 points]
>Hops-heavy Northwestern export-ale [7 points]
>‘Raki’ grape-anise spirits [10 points]

What do you get for plushies? This will only cost 1 point per plush.
>Just that goat plush that looks like Khorine
>A little gryphon one, for CZ
>A little dragon one, for ZZ
>Something for An-Yii [like what?]

Do you upgrade everyone’s wardrobe?
>A quick <Mending> will be fine [free]
>Yeah, you’ll get everyone fitted at Testa’s Master’s Tower [10 points, good for morale AND relationship with Testa]

What will you get for James Efron?
>Nothing… Not right now. [free]
>Maybe, like… A silk handkerchief or something? Humie nobles like that shit, right? [5 points]
>They have, uh, rings here…. [20 points, <!!!>]
>Something, but neither of those [write-in]

An-Yii’s matter will be handled in the next update or two.

>>6361351
>‘Raki’ grape-anise spirits [10 points]
>That goat plush that looks like Khorine
>Something for An-Yii [like what?]
A nurse, if they have one

>Yeah, you’ll get everyone fitted at Testa’s Master’s Tower [10 points, good for morale AND relationship with Testa]

>Maybe, like… A silk handkerchief or something? Humie nobles like that shit, right? [5 points]
>They have, uh, rings here…. [20 points, <!!!>]
The handkerchief for right away, and the ring at an appropriate later date maybe. Seems kinda rushing it to give it now.

>>6361351
>‘Raki’ grape-anise spirits [10 points]

What do you get for plushies? This will only cost 1 point per plush.
>goat plush that looks like Khorine
>Something for An-Yii [like what?]
Two dolls. One that looks like her and Yeb.

Do you upgrade everyone’s wardrobe?
>Yeah, you’ll get everyone fitted at Testa’s Master’s Tower [10 points, good for morale AND relationship with Testa]

What will you get for James Efron?
>Maybe, like… A silk handkerchief or something? Humie nobles like that shit, right? [5 points]

>>6360998

>>6361351
>‘Raki’ grape-anise spirits [10 points]
And
>Just that goat plush that looks like Khorine
>Something for An-Yii [like what?]
One that looks like Yeb
And
>Yeah, you’ll get everyone fitted at Testa’s Master’s Tower [10 points, good for morale AND relationship with Testa]
And for Jimbo
>Something, but neither of those [write-in]
For James we should get a really nice, well-made pair of boots, with a note that says "The next time I'm a shithead, use these to kick my ass"
I feel like that's about as close to an apology as he might expect outright, and for a City Girl like him, a fancy pair of boots is a perfect gift. Good for hiking around on adventures, good for lookin' posh on the town.

>>6361351
>‘Raki’ grape-anise spirits [10 points]

>Just that goat plush that looks like Khorine
>A little gryphon one, for CZ
>A little dragon one, for ZZ
>Something for An-Yii [a cat]

>Yeah, you’ll get everyone fitted at Testa’s Master’s Tower [10 points, good for morale AND relationship with Testa]

>They have, uh, rings here…. [20 points, <!!!>]

>>6361351
>Raki
>Goat + Gryphon + Dragon + Bear for An Yii
>Testa fitting
>Rings

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>>6361435
>>6361396
>>6361377
>>6361368
>>6361357
You spend 42 points, and have 120 points left!

>>6361703
In the end the raki is the easiest item to agree on: it’s high-proof AND smells delicious, and being exotic and expensive it ALSO seems like the best reward for everyone’s death-defying hard work.

If only everything else were so easy.

“Well, like, the goat, for sure.”

“Yeah, obviously we gotta get the goat… But if we’re gettin’ somethin’ for you and An… Which one?”

“Uhh…”

Your eye falls upon a gryphon plushie. It reminds you of your brief time with Tildy, made more memorable by the mental link and the bonds of battle… Before she died.

You own eyes find a dragon plush at the same time—in miniature, almost drake-like, in a way that makes you understand how people came to assume they were close relations. They aren’t, to hear Tips tell it… But it’s still too much like Hershy, too soon.

“…Let’s focus on An.”

“Y-yeah…”

Unfortunately, that proves problematic as well. Not knowing of any animals that the medic actually cares for—goblins rarely keep pets, after all—you’re at a loss for which one she’d want. Your next instinct is to seek out something suitably goblinoid, since she obvious likes her own kind plenty, but when you find one…

“Huh… Why’s it look all… Fucky?”

“Yeah, all the others are soft an’ cute. This ones got this long-ass nose and janky-ass teeth.”

The beige-skinned halfling shopkeeper is eager to explain, luckily, and leaps to your aid:

“Oh, good ladies, please allow me to demonstrate! It’s less of a plush—a goblin doll would be a little scary for a child, after all, imagine sleeping next to THAT—and more of a toy! You see, this string here just gets tied up on your eaves, or the beam of the roof above, or a branch… Outside is probably better, actually, because it’s full of little treats and can get rather messy! Then, you just take any old stick and… Oh, my. Is something wrong?”

(You buy a little wooden doll done up in tiny clothes to look like a human cleric, instead. It’s close enough.)

>>6361717
On your way to Testa’s rather more upscale establishment, you find yourself scanning about for something special to get for Jimmy... And coming up short. You think about buying him some boots, but you’re already planning to get the whole Regiment—and him—kitted out with some new duds, and you want the gift to stand out as really SPECIAL, just for him. You’ve heard that nobles like ‘favours’ from pretty ladies, but you have no idea what SORT of favours those are—aside from the sexual kind, which guys like irrespective of race or station, and which you’ve already got covered.

“What about, like, a hanker-cheef?”

“…A handkerchief? Like a napkin? What the fuck FOR?”

“I dunno, I think I jus’ hard about that somewhere. Chicks buy that sorta thing for guys who go on adventures.”

“So when he blows his nose or wipes his ass or whatever, he can think of me? Might as well get him that lynchable gob full’ve candy and paint it pink!”

“Huh… I think it might be a fancy kinda napkin, ya know?”

“An EXPENSIVE snot-rag? That makes even LESS sense. Fuckin’ humies, I swear…”

The debate clarified little, but is cut short when—less than a block from the local Mages’ Tower—you catch sight of a shop. It’s a small place, but even the building is of a higher quality construction than almost anything else around her, and in the window is a sign…

Bearing a necklace and a ring.

“ZZ?”

“Hey, uh… You go ahead. Send a spooky khoblis signal to Ayla. Tell her to get the others’ asses over here, but don’t tell ‘em ‘bout the new clothes ‘til they get here—make it a surprise, aight?”

As for you… You have another matter to attend to, first, but it’s a rather more personal one.

…

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>>6361719
…

It’s a little awkward, at first, when you arrive at Testa’s tower with the crew in tow, only to find that Testa’s master—the mage whose tower it ACTUALLY is—has returned.

The woman who runs the joint is apparently named ‘Mistress Margot Gartner’. Decked out in a form-fitting an father-lined magenta robe that seems utterly impractical for the local climate, you’d take her for more of an especially-fancy doxy than a magical graduate… If it weren’t for the pointy hat. Even THAT is pink, though, with a fuzzy hatband on top of it all.

Unsurprisingly, she isn’t jazzed to see you roll up with two goblinoids in tow.

“No, n, I’m sorry,” she says, with a sneering expression and cut, clipped tone that implies anything BUT sorrow to say so. “This simply WILL not do. I CANnot have my sartorial creations—or those of any apprentice of mine—dressing GOBLINS.”

“But Master—” Testa whines on your behalf.

“But NOTHING!”

The tower’s mistress waves her arm in a wide arc and speaks an arcane syllable, and the air chills and coalesces into a pair of swirling, semi-humanoid dervishes—air elementals, <summoned> forth. She sicks them on your party, serving as guards to the portal, and turns to her apprentice.

“First you ABANDON your post while I am away, leaving the staff to their own device—Gods Above know how many knickknacks they pocketed, or how many errors we’ll be correcting pro bono over the coming weeks! THEN you come back with that TACKY magical dye-job, and now THIS?”

“Tch, forget THIS,” An-Yii says, sneering right back. “I ain’t need this crap. C’mon, Yeb-Uit.”

Yeb nods, nonplussed, and turns to go. You wince, wondering how ZZ will react when she hears about this debacle. Luckily, though, they don’t get far.

“If I may?”

Veigar steps forward, his skin having been shifted several shades back towards his original hue. His ragged ears are smoothed out, elfin as the original Tips’ signature tips way back when. In his star-spangled Lunar robe, he cuts quite the pretty figure, eerily similar to the Ezreal he once was. On his arm, of course, is Ayla; she is mostly unchanged outwardly, but wearing a pair of red-tinted spectacles to hide her fiery eyes, while the eye-like symbols upon her elegant oriental dress have been blotted out by means of magic.

“Who are—Oh!”

Magus Gartner gasps, and takes a step back. Belatedly, she snaps her fingers a few times, and sputters more sorcery until her Elementals return to the Plane of Air. You blink, looking between the two.

“I didn’t realize you were… That these, ahem, people were… Well, if I’d known that the Archmage’s own apprentice and her DAUGHTER were coming, and that these were friends of THEIRS, I never would have… Well, do come in, DO come in, Magus Van Houtzmann, Magus Henzler!”

>>6361732
Ayla grinds her jaw a little, though if you couldn’t sense her emotions you might never have noticed. Veigar winces, but mumbles some thanks and half-guides half-drags his partner inside. Neither seems too enthused to be mistaken for their other halves, and you know from personal experience that NEITHER version of the pair likes to be directly connected to Ayla’s mom; having spent some time in the demon-despising Archmage’s ‘care’, you understand why. After that semi-deception, though, things go a lot more smoothly.

Ayla has little interest in clothing, but with some effort by Veiagr—who, true to his own ‘original’, seems to enjoy trying on outfits—she gets into the swing of things. Both of them opt for something a bit more courtly than you would have expected, with frilled little capelets atop subtly-embossed dark robs that fall just so, as to hang without dragging and to frame their fairly-thin forms.

Yeb-Uit and An-Yii both struggle with the concept a little, especially at first: neither has ever purchased or worn anything for the sake of fashion, let alone ‘high fashion’. Yeb keeps trying to communicate to the mages and their assistants his desire for various pieces of practical armour, growing quietly frustrated with their unwillingness and inability to comply—they make clothing here, not defensive gear. A subtle enchantment intended to help his new tunic and trousers blend in better, though, both accentuates his stealth skills and soothes his concerns.

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>>6361733
An, for her part, just gets a nice new set of clean, white scrubs. At her insistence, they are durable and easy-to-clean, with an enchantment meant to make bodily fluids and other filth come out easily with some water and a good wringing.

“Yer sure that’s all you want?” you press. “It’s on ZZ!”

“It had better be,” snarks An-Yii, “since we ain’t got paid for this job yet, otherwise.”

“Heh, yeah…”

“Say,” say An, narrowing her eyes an lowering her voice, “has Zith-Zi said what she has planned next? Because I been thinkin’, an’ I figure that after we get back, I might—”

“O-oh! And we, uh, got you this!” You interrupt, hastily shoving the wooden dress-up doll of the cleric into An-Yii’s hands.

“…What is THIS ‘sposed to be?”

“It’s, like… You! Well, a medic, or a nurse. Or, uh, a cleric. It’s what they ahd. As, like… Thanks for patchin’ us all up?”

An-Yi stares, gingerly adjusting the little figure’s arms and legs.

“Ooo!” Testa gushes. “That is SO cute! An, let me see that! I’ll do up the outfit to loo JUST like your new one! Maybe make it green, too, hmmm?”

“Oh, uh…” An-Yii blinks a few times, looking between the two of you, her cheeks browned by red blood beneath her greenish cheeks. “Th-thanks?”

Testa gives you a wink, and bustles off to work her magic upon the gift.

You steal a glance at Efron and Enid. The blonde rogue is absolutely loving this, eagerly getting glammed and gussied up in the sort of revealing-yet-functional leather-and-lace armour that urbane adventurers love—something snug and plunging in a way that would be utterly impractical if it weren’t for a few periodically renewed enchantments. You know that these require a refresh, and so do Testa and her Master, who are obviously excited about the prospect of charging for continued service. Jimmy, though, seems distracted—he keeps looking towards the door, for a sign of your soul-sister.

(Where IS ZZ, anyway?)

As for you…
>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you
>Actually… Could they size up your boglin-made ‘Yakh-Yubh’ armour for your human size, maybe?
>You have been thinking about a new outfit, for the new you… [describe it]

>>6361732
>Magus Van Houtzmann
Uh that's Magus Mious Van Houtzmann to you, tailor.

>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you
It is time for peace.

>>6361734
>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you

>>6361734
>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you

>>6361734
>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you

I think that’s good enough. We>>6361703 already spent like 20% of the money we got.


>>6361368

>>6361734
>>Getting your green River’s Mouth dress fixed up is good enough for you
>>6361734

>>6361747
>>6361780
>>6361786
>>6361790
>>6361839
“Huuuuh?” Nicolette Testa, hands on hips, is having none of it. “SERIOUSLY? My FIRST chance to tailor an ensemble for a member of a noble bloodline, and you just want that one repaired?”

“Hey, what about me?” demands Jimmy.

Testa wave her hand dismissively, having obviously picked up more than magic from Mistress Gartner. “Oh please, the Efron are BARELY nobles.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. How can one be more or less noble?!”

“Easy,” Testa teases with a smug smirk. “If YOU showed up at the border, the Paladins wouldn’t loan you a gryphon.”

Seeing your expression, Testa’s own face dips a little. “Oh, I’m sorry Carazzi! I didn’t mean to—”

“Nah, it’s aight,” you say with a self-conscious giggle. “But also, it’s aight about, like, the outfit. I like this one. River’s Mouth is where I first got ta experience proper… You know, city-livin’, and to be ‘me’ the first time, the way I wanna be.”

(Plus, with the way the dress is cut, you can expand and shrink a little without it ripping, which is nice! Sometimes you just fill it out a little more, and the skirt ends up a little shorter on your human-sized proportions. It’s handy!)

“Well, you MUST allow me to at least add some iridescence. I mean it, Carazzi—you MUST. I shan’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”

“Oh, uh… Then, ‘yes’?”

“Good girl!” Testa pushes you behind a screen and strips you down with surprising expediency, before rushing off with your only change of clothing. Nervous and naked, you sit upon a proffered stool, awaiting her return with your attire.

…

…

Your Regiment is already garrisoned in the Turtledove Mages’ Tower by the time you step out of the hop with your parcel packaged in amongst your other purchases. In the end, you negotiated a decent deal, because you provided the stones themselves, from the haul you got between the Paladins and the King of Crane Lake out east. Your cheeks warm and your heart hammers with uncharacteristically-girlish glee whenever you think about the pair of prizes tucked into—yes, CZ—a little silken napkin, tied off with a bow by the skillful fingers of the hobbit who set the rocks in the rings.

But so, too, does your heart fill with fear when you imagine Jams Efron’s reaction as anything other than absolute positivity.

Are you rushing? Is this dumb-as-fuck? You JUST fought last night, and even if you made up quite quickly, he’s probably still sore. Aside from that, Jimmy’s fresh out of prison, hasn’t seen his family for a year—which, you know, FUCK Lord and Lady Efron, but those WOULD be your…

…Your ‘in-laws’…

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>>6361979
“UUUUUGH!”

You slam your scarred forehead into the door of the tower n sheer frustration with yourself. You’re normally so confident in every other avenue, or at least able to fake it until such time as you make it. Why is it that romance has to be your weakness? It’s the dumbest thing in the whole world. Is it Tips’ magic, and your feycrafted soul that did it? You never had this sort of problem when you were getting laid out in the Wastes, or out on your early adventures!

…Only since Jimmy. Which, you guess, is why you got him a ring, and not any of those other shmucks, when you think about it.

Your head hitting the door must sound enough like a knock for one of the mages’ servants to open the door. It’s another local, sandy-skinned and brown-haired halfling. Given your resemblance to the twice-transformed Testa, the servant-girl immediately clocks you for a member of the Regiment—or so you assume, because she lets you right in.

You drag your feet a little.

You’re not an idiot, obviously. Rings are nothing but another type of jewelry among goblins. ‘Marriage’ isn’t even a THING. But you know about the significance of both to humans from Hawksong. You attended Tips’ weird blended elf-human wedding ceremony. Hells, even your scaly scumbag half-brother in Bloodrise wears a wedding band that—you assume—he got from Hawksong’s queen. The idea that THAT bug-diddling dickhead might be better at relationships than YOU is utterly humiliating, especially since you THINK you might actually be older than him…

Older than Jimmy, too, by six or seven years. Fucking Hells… If you were still a gob, you’d be practically menopausal by now!

>>6361980
The nagging doubts eating at you redouble when you catch sight of James Efron again. Your Jimmy is all dolled up, and if he’s still a little scruffy without a proper barber-job, you have to admit that his new pointy khoblis cap suits the new ‘do. His robes, too, are a damn sight better than the ratty and adventure-worn ones you found him in: a quilted blue and white number, more like an open jacket than a wizard’s usual dress, with a pair of deep blue pants and a crisp white riffled shirt underneath.

“This is really in fashion in Hawksong now?” he asks Testa doubtfully, plucking at the front. “It wasn’t when I left.”

“It was,” Nicolette Testa replies, in sing-song mockery, “you just have no fashion sense~”

“Personally, I like it,” says Veigar, who is wearing some ruffled-collar-ass number.

“Yes, well, YOU look like your father in that collar,” Jimmy shoots back.

“…That was uncalled for,” Veigar mutters.

Jimmy’s grumbling in interrupted when he spots you, standing there and staring at him. “Zith—Ah, Zena!”

That’s you. Zena Yosef, formerly Zena Youngtree, formerly Zith-Zi of the Goblin Wastes…

(…Soon to be Zena Efron?)

Jimmy’s expression turns confused, then self-conscious, a you fail to respond. “Oh, come on now, I know it’s a bit ‘modern’, but it isn’t THAT bad… Is it?”

“Huh? Oh, the outfit. Uh…”

>Compliment him
>Tease him
>Fuck it, get down on one knee and pop the question
>Write-in

>>6361983
>“Yes, well, YOU look like your father in that collar,” Jimmy shoots back.
I'm not sure that was even an insult

>Tease him
Very obvious and lighthearted teasing though

>>6361983
>>Compliment him
>>Tease him
Let's move carefully, ladies...

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>>6361980
>six or seven
Le funny
>If you were still a gob, you’d be practically menopausal by now!
hag love

>Tease him
Let’s not go too fast yet

>>6361790

>>6361983
>Tease him

>>6362128
>>6362115
>>6362111
>>6362108
You open your mouth…

“Well, you’re lucky yer cute, but not as lucky as yer boyfriend.”

…but you can’t do it. The time isn’t right. You just can’t bring yourself to risk rejection right now, or even the awkwardness of uncertainty. You need a better moment—a PERFECT moment, if possible.

Jimmy’s face flushes, and Enid burst out laughing. You feel a little bad for the boy, but you make up for it when you use that ruffled shirt to climb him like a tree and land a kiss—one which makes Enid, to your amusement, groan and turn away.

“But you ARE cute,” you reassure him, “outfita side.”

“Hey now,” Testa says with a pout and a hand on her hip, “I worked hard on that!”

“Yeah, and it shows,” you say, dropping back down. “It’s overdesigned! Jimmy’s an ADVENTURER. See how I just grabbed him and hauled my ass up there? Right to throat-slittin’ level?”

“Well it’s not FOR wearing in the field,” Testa huffs.

“And we’re thinking about taking a step back, anyway,” James Efron volunteers.

“You are” asks Enid.

There is a bang, a clatter, and CZ explodes out from behind a screen, covered only by her hands and some hastily-nabbed rolls of textile.

“YOU ARE?!”

You give you lover a look, which he returns with an apologetic one.

“Not retirement or nothin’ crazy,” you assure everyone assembled. “Just… Maybe a break from frontline stuff, ya know? MAYBE. Ain’t decided nothin’ yet.”

This kicks off a flurry of murmured discourse, much of it mumbled in some muffled a manner that you r pointy ears can’t parse it. In particular, you can’t help but notice a one-sided but worrisome exchange between An-Yii and Yeb-Uit. You’re busy making some modifications to Jimmy’s attire with Testa and her puffed-up mentor, but you overhear enough to get the gist.

>>6362146

“…been gone long enough already! Don’t you think?”

“Mmm, well…”

“Oh come on! You’re not young, yeb!”

“Not so old now, no more.”

“Well -I- intend to keep my promises.”

“Tch.”

“…‘Tch’? What’s ‘tch’ huh?”

“Aw, c’mon, I didn’t mean nothin’…”

“Well maybe ya OUGHTTA mean somethin’, huh? Ya gonna be a road dog all yer life?”

“…”

“Ugh, I can’t believe you, Yeb-Uit!”

You frown a little at that, seeing An-Yii store out of the tower. Yeb-Uit doesn’t go after her, though he does watch her go, before kicking the floor and turning away to stare at nothing in particular, arms crossed over his forge-broadened chest. The old archer is like you, in a way: a one-time goblin, older than average—older than YOU by a decade or two, even—remade in a younger and hardier form. He and An-Yii hooked up after the three of you got caught in a Steelwood snowstorm, fighting the winter wolves who furnished your wardrobe with your stylish white cloak—newly <mended>, by Testa!

Before that, though, Yeb-Uit had a family. Maybe more than one. Marriage doesn’t mean much to goblins, after all, and you know he’s knocked up and left behind at least a few gob-girls out in the Wastes, prior to losing some sort of wager or falling short on a debt. That was when he got sold into the same slavery that you and Tips found An-Yii in, owned by a small pack of hobbos—hobgoblins, that is, tall and sallow and about as elitist as goblinoids can get.

Now, though, it’s plain to see the source of the conflict. New doll and new duds aside, An-Yii clearly wants to go back to tend to the goblins she left behind, when she set out on your quest to Sunset lake, which led to Patmo-Shoka, which led to the far north-eastern steppe and eventually to the Southlands…

And Yeb-Uit, salt-and-pepper soldier-of-fortune who has only known the life of a raider, rogue, ranger, and renegade and who is now taller, stronger, and healthier than he’s probably ever been before, isn’t so sure.

What will you do?
>Stay out of it—it isn’t your place to intervene
>You want them both with the Regiment… Go talk to An-Yii, and see if she can’t be convinced to stay
>You like the two of them… But you see the value in stepping back, and you’ll share that with Yeb-Uit, encouraging him to go back to New Goblintown with An-Yii when this is done
>Whatever they do, you want to set them up right after everything they’ve done for you… A third of your remaining treasure ought to do it
>Write-in

>>6362147
>Whatever they do, you want to set them up right after everything they’ve done for you… A third of your remaining treasure ought to do it
Can't take it with us! We can and will make more dosh.
>Write-in
I think I would advise them to use the wealth we are imparting to help create structure and care for the family that would allow them to continue to work with us at least.... Seasonally? I think a compromise should be proposed, I believe in parents being able to kick ass and rear kids at the same time, and I suspect goblins have been doing so since the dawn of time!!! "You can't go off and have a family somewhere else, you're already part of this one, ours." Something like that? I want Jimbo to be an uncle.

>>6362147
>Whatever they do, you want to set them up right after everything they’ve done for you… A third of your remaining treasure ought to do it

>>6362147
>Whatever they do, you want to set them up right after everything they’ve done for you… A third of your remaining treasure ought to do it
They've been with us since the beginning of our grand adventure, and An-Yii has brought up a couple times that we haven't paid them.

>>6362147
>Stay out of it—it isn’t your place to intervene
Shame I missed out on voting for the plushies, even if it was a bit sad.

>>6362147
>Whatever they do, you want to set them up right after everything they’ve done for you… A third of your remaining treasure ought to do it
That’s tough. Those are two different directions. I think letting them decide for themselves would be best. They’re adults.

>>6362115

>>6362147
>>You want them both with the Regiment… Go talk to An-Yii, and see if she can’t be convinced to stay
If we have to get goblinton to Padmo-shoka we can.

>>6362151
>>6362152
>>6362155
>>6362186
>>6362167
>>6362234
[Locked and writing!]

>>6362273
The two gobs have been with you since you started out… Since before then, before even New Goblintown if you want to get technical about it! But they aren’t slaves—not anymore. You don’t own them. You want them around, sure… But not enough to intervene in their affairs either way.

All you can do is set them up for success.

“Hey, Yeb?”

Yeb-Uit snaps out of his trance, looking at you in quiet question. You approach, laden with a heavy pouch cradled in both hands—it’s heavy enough that ne arm would hurt to hold it with. He must recognize the heft, or pick up the jingle with his twitching ears, because has question turns to surprise.

“Half for you,” you say, with an edge of warning. “Half for An-Yii.”

Yeb-Uit takes the bag and units the thin string holding it closed, to peer inside. The skylights and <Mage Torches> of the Tower reflect off of the contents casting a glittery pallor across his chartreuse complexion, as his sharp eyes dash this way and that, from one treasure to the next. He looks back up at you, and the question is still there: why?

“Well, An’s always bitchin’ that I ain’t paid ya yet,” you say with a shrug. “Debt’s settled.”

“…‘N now we go?” he asks, sounding worried—maybe hurt.

“I didn’t say that,” you snap. “But you two can make up yer minds yourselves… Together or apart.”

Yeb-Uit looks thoughtful again, verging on uncomfortable. Their situation reminds you a little of your own, with Jimmy, which makes you instinctively a little angry at him as the male in the mated pair… Until, with a start, you realize it’s really in reverse. HE’S more like YOU, not just in biology but in his role within the romance: an ex-bandit adventurer, arguing in favour of staying in the game against a partner who wants something a mite more domestic and sedentary. Suddenly, it’s YOU who’s uncomfortable.

“You think on it,” you tell him, slapping him hard on the back. “I’m gonna go find An-Yii.”

“…Aight.”

>>6362291
Find her you do—crouched outside, arms around her knees, staring daggers at the dirt. She’s brely even outside the building.

“Huh. Kinda figured you’d’ve stormed half-way ‘cross Turtledove by now.”

You gives you a side-eye and snorts. “A lone goblin wanderin’ around a warzone fulla humies ‘n hobbits?”

You laugh, and nod. “Fair. Considered bein’ a nilbog?”

“Fuck off,” she snaps back quickly, though with a small smirk.

You nod again, and lean against the side of the obnoxiously-adorned pink palace behind you, in silence.

“Yeb’s got yer reward inside,” you say. “Payment, for services rendered.”

“Why’s Yeb-Uit got MY reward?!”

“Easy, girl!” You hold up your hands and take a step back as she stands up and wheels on you. “If you split, you split the spoils. Don’t worry, I counted… ‘N Yeb’s not stupid or sneaky enough to cheat ya out from under Zith-Zi.”

“Ya mean ‘Zena Yosef’?”

You don’t rise to the bait. There’s nothing productive in starting a fight over your racial credentials… And you’re not really all that interested in insisting about your gobbiness, anyway. You haven’t been for a long time. You’re not even sure why it matters so much to HER, to be honest.

“Look, if you really wanna go back to New Goblintown… There are options, is all I’m sayin’.”

“Options?” AN-Yii raises an eyebrow.

“Ya know, ta stay on with the Regiment. Seasonally? Part-time? I dunno’.” You start to feel a little self-conscious, and kick a nearby rock clear across the courtyard with you steel-toed boot.”It’ like I was tellin’ Jimmy, or implyin’… Ain’t no reason ya can’t go start a family an’ still…”

(…Still be part of yours.)

>>6362293
An-Yii bursts out laughing, louder than you think you’ve ever heard her cackle. You startle, then glower, as she wieps her eyes.

“Zith-Zi, you’ve got soft as hog-shit.”

“Bitch,” you retort, though without much malice—after all, she’s right.

There is a brief pause, and when An-Yii speaks up again, she says: “I ain’t startin’ no family with that ol’ tramp, anyhow. Too many other goblings ta look after without having to pop a squat ‘n push out my own, then look after ‘em. An’ if I WAS gonna? I can do better.”

You grunt, noncommittal. You’re wise enough to not stick yourself in the middle of THAT mess—it’s their choice.

“It’s just…” An-Yii sighs, and shakes her head. “We got different priroitis, but I thought that me, ‘n the others, ‘n our PEOPLE would be one’ve his.”

“An,” you say blandly, “he’s a GOBLIN.”

“Yeah, what about it?! So’m I! So are you ‘n Cara-Zi, even if you pretend not ta be, ‘n you look out for other people ‘n not just yourselves!”

“So does Yeb-Uit,” you remind her. “He saved my ass out here a few times. Yours too, before.”

She frowns, and looks away. You stand back up straight and start back towards the door, but call over your shoulder:

“Do what ya gotta do… But think on it, aight? You got a place here.”

…

>>6362295
Once everyone is dressed in the spoils of the Monstrous Regiment’s success—including Khorine, whose digitigrade legs and horns prove both a puzzle and an opportunity for excitable Nicolette Testa, who decorates her up top with a lattice of twinkling beads and settles on a flowy linen dress with a floral pattern—you find you’ve used up most of the available daylight. The shopping excursions and sartorial explorations have taken more time than one might imagine.

In stark contrast to your initial reception, Magus Gartner seems altogether too eager to please now, offering you all a four-course dinner-and-dessert on-the-house, and a place to rest before you teleport out tomorrow. You take it—why not, after all?

In the morning…
>You go straight to Patmo-Shoka, to check in on the forge and the folks
>You swing by somewhere else first [where?]

>>6362296
>You go straight to Patmo-Shoka, to check in on the forge and the folks
Before our expensive booze goes bad

>>6362296
>You go straight to Patmo-Shoka, to check in on the forge and the folks

>>6362296
>You go straight to Patmo-Shoka, to check in on the forge and the folks

I think we got everything. Gifts. New clothes.

>>6362186

>>6362295
>priroitis
*priorities

>>6362474
I actually figured out that one.

>>6362296
>You go straight to Patmo-Shoka, to check in on the forge and the folks

>>6362296
>>You swing by somewhere else first [where?]
Goblinton to relocate the to Patmo-Shoka?

>>6362677
>>6362661
>>6362418
>>6362329
>>6362327
[Locked and writing!]

>>6362755
It’s time to get back to base—back ‘home’, if you can yet call it that. It isn’t necessarily where either of you want to live long-term, and it seems like some of your crew might have other plans such as going back to New Goblintown… But those can wait. Better to give them a chance to think on it, and those of you who remain with the Monstrous Regiment have a forge to make use of… Assuming, hopefully, that those Maladoo Gang members have finished repairs.

“<Dimension Door>”

Ayla materializes the gateway between places—much to Mistress Gartner’s amazement, having heard tell of ‘Izirina Henzler’ and her signature spell but never seemingly never having seen it in action.

“Don’t forget to return if any of your attire requires a recharge!” say says.

“And don’t be strangers!” Testa adds with a grin. “It was good to see you again, girls. And especially you, Mister Chang~”

‘Mister Chang’, in his own new Western-style attire with a crisp blue doublet and beeches made seemingly from the same patterned textile as James Efron’s new jacket, looks visibly nervous at the added attention from the oy-crazy nilbog. Ever the courteous and courtly sort, though, he bows low and murmurs his thanks, before being the first through the portal back to Yeong-baek.

The rest of you say your farewells, and follow…

…

>>6362761
…

You emerge into what you at first take for a Steelwood sunrise. This surprises you, because you left at approximately dawn from Turtledove, and the sun isn’t big enough to be in both places at once. It’s only after a second to adjust from the teleportation that you realize that the source of the red-orange light isn’t cresting OVER the hill, but coming from below and between them…

From flames.

Nestled in the hidden divot that hosts the Ettercap’s secret Unseelie garden, where one of Patmo-Shoka’s two entrances exists, thee blazes the light of what must be dozens of torches, held in hands of tall-folk down below. The garden itself blazes with them. The twisted, fleshy trees which grow the heart-shaped fruits are topples and torn down in a row, and many others have been simply set ablaze. The winged denizens who feed upon the fruits and guard the buried megastructure, those bat-bird-bugs with their elongate needle-noses for sucking out juice or blood—flap frantically above the fire. Occasionally, one dives; a cry geos up, in the North-Common, and crossbow bolts are let fly to drive the bizarre beast back up, or take it down.

“No!” cries Khorine, in grief and outrage. “What are they doing?!”

“Destroying what is ‘unnatural’,” growls Veigar grimly, with the tone of one who recognizes what he sees.

Peering down with your darkvision, you find the fire still obstructs your eyes. You psychic senses pick up righteous fury, fear, and the triumph of a mob excising its urge for punishment to purge a deep fear. You can’t tell how many humans are down there, even, for their emotions all blend together into a melange of menace.

“Where is Yeong-baek?” you faintly hear Chang Lanseoul ask, over the thunder of a what may just be a hundred hearts in your metaphysical ear.

(Where’s Dura?)

>>6362775
The Monstrous Regiment begins to erupt into argument, until ZZ silences the cacophony with a shout, assertion her dominion, and begins to plan:

“If we head down the hill, we’re going right into the heart of… Whatever this is. With how many are still outside, we can probably wager they ain’t inside yet… Or most of ‘em ain’t. There aren’t THAT many humeis in the area. No way a whole damn village is here… No chicks ‘n kids, for one thing. Could be safer to go around the back… or maybe teleport directly inside.”

“Right into who-knows-what, though,” Yeb-Uit points out. “Might be good that we’re up here.”

“Right? That’s a bit of good luck! We can sneak in a scout, this way, without riskin’ everyone… If that’s the way we wanna go.”

“As opposed to what?” demands An-Yii.

“Making them pay for what they’ve done,” says Khorine, her young voice low with surprising violence from the tree-hugging goat-girl.

“OR,” your other-half interjects pointedly, “talkin’ this out… Sorting out whatever-the-fuck is happenin’ here, without riskin’ any of our lives if we don’t gotta’... Or makin’ enemies of all the neighbours.”

“It’s a little late for that,” Ayla counters.

Everyone mulls over those options or, realistically, waits for ZZ to decide. Not you, though, and not Chang or Khorine. The three of you each have something down there you care about deeply—a friend, a lover, a secret garden you’ve come to love.

What do you want?
>Bloody revenge for this assault—to charge in and inflict pain and terror, until these intruders flee
>Peace—to figure out what’s going on, and set it right by dialogue if you can
>To save the people in Patmo-Shoka—first and foremost, you need to get Dura, Yeong-baek, the boglins, and the Maladoos out of this mess
>To secure the forge’s power—Patmo-Shoka’s transformative technologies mean so much to you, and you won’t lose them
>To get to safety—to leave this place, this pyre, behind and avoid being seen here
Writing in a plan of how to go about your objective is also very much allowed.

>>6362777
>Peace—to figure out what’s going on, and set it right by dialogue if you can
ZZ is right, even if we slaughter through them now it's not sustainable to live surrounded by hostiles. Also if Copperbelt's employers are behind this it's kinda not that unreasonable for them to react harshly to the news that his crew were wiped out/driven away/brainwashed into servitude. Not that ZZ knows that last one but still.

>>6362795
Copperbelts employers are dwarfs and gnomes.

In the fact I would be willing to bet the whole reason copperbelt hired zith zi's group and instead of locals. Was likly to avoid humans from gaining information about potential dwarf artifacts in the area. (Since a human group would be prone to steal them and bring them back north.)

This is some random human rabble from the local villages.

>>6362802
Seeing how things turned out, maybe they considered a different approach. Need to talk to them to find out.

>>6362777
>To save the people in Patmo-Shoka—first and foremost, you need to get Dura, Yeong-baek, the boglins, and the Maladoos out of this mess

>>6362777
>To save the people in Patmo-Shoka—first and foremost, you need to get Dura, Yeong-baek, the boglins, and the Maladoos out of this mess
Oh man, feeling exceptionally torn on this one, but I think this is the highest priority

>>6362777
>To save the people in Patmo-Shoka
Writing in a plan of how to go about your objective is also very much allowed.

>Write in: Have Cara zi cast an upcasted fear on the mob and have Ayla help her with the mentalism, and then follow it up with a thunder clap to hopefully frighten this mob into fleeing from the entrance.

>>6357024
>>6357355
Me

>>6362795
>>6362872
>>6362873
>>6362917
“We gotta save the others.”

The focus of the Regiment members turns from ZZ to you, and you realize that you’ve spoken aloud. You look to Veigar—holding Nermal in his arms, with yours and Empy’s offspring incubating within, while his and Ayla’s child grows inside you. You take in the others here: fauns, fairies, nilbogs, cambions, demogoblins, clones, and a pair of humans besides all that. What you don’t see matters just as much: the missing faces of Hershy and Empy—well, insofar as the hundun ever really HAD a face—and Murbal and Xoldur too, even Copperbelt and Marty. You can’t bring back those who have died or gone away, but there are still some you can: Dura, Yeongb-baek, the Blueberry Brigade… Even Vel Dinh and that Johannes guy.

“Right,” begins ZZ. “We gotta secure those guys ‘n the forge, before they—”

“The rest don’t matter,” you interrupts, insistent. “Look, things keep changin’, fer all of us. Me especially, maybe… But we got places we can go, if it comes down to it. Places we can stay, or make. But we can’t live here, surrounded by… By…”

You gesticulate wildly, unsure if ‘enemies’ is the right word yet, but distress by the waves of fear and loathing which tingle your nose and ring in your ears whenever you focus your supernatural senses.

“I dunno’ how these guys found our dungeon, but they mean business, and they ain’t here ta talk shop. We gotta’ get the others out, no matter what! None of the rest of that—the forge or whatever—matters like THAT matters.”

>>6362932
Zith-Zi looks at you with narrows eyes and pursed lips. She chews her cheek, saying nothing for a moment, then nods. Her face stays serious but you feel, to your surprise, RELIEF from your soul-sister. It’s like you’ve spoken something she couldn’t bring herself to say, or couldn’t put into words.

“That’s right,” she says. “We can figure out the rest later, but nobody else is dyin’ today. No one. Y’all hear me?!”

“Yes, Boss!” comes the unified response, with only startled Enid Carstene failing to chime in and in fact jumping in surprise.

“It’s a lovely sentiment,” the human rogue says, “but we still need a plan.”

“I imagine Zith-Zi has that covered, too,” says Jimmy, turning his approving smile from you to ZZ. “Isn’t that right, ‘Boss’.”

“Heh,” ZZ says, rubbing her nose and grinning. “Save that sweet-talk for the sack. But, yeah. ‘Course I do.”

What’s the plan?
>Teleport someone in with Ayla and the vajra (since she’s already used up a lot of power) and hope none of the mob have made it inside yet; see what’s going on within [who do you send?]
>Conserve magical energies for now—Enid, CZ, Yeb-Uit, and the gyrfairies are the stealthiest so some of them will sneak in the back entrance where the forge’s waste-energy is pumped out [all of them? Some? Specify; may affect success chances]
>It’ll take a lot of juice to affect so many people, but by draining down the vajra, CZ and Ayla can probably project a fear aura to disperse the crowd at least long enough to get everyone out through the front
>Write-in

>>6362933
>Conserve magical energies for now—Enid, CZ, Yeb-Uit, and the gyrfairies are the stealthiest so some of them will sneak in the back entrance where the forge’s waste-energy is pumped out [all of them? Some? Specify; may affect success chances]
All of them - the rest can try scoping out the mob in the meantime.

>>6362933
>Conserve magical energies for now—Enid, CZ, Yeb-Uit, and the gyrfairies are the stealthiest so some of them will sneak in the back entrance where the forge’s waste-energy is pumped out [all of them? Some? Specify; may affect success chances]
All of them.

Now, the rest is going to attack directly. It’s a distraction so the back entrance guys and get in and get people out. Funnel them into the entrance so Ayla and Veigar can hit them with their spells.

>>6362418

>>6362958
>so Ayla and Veigar can hit them with their spells
[Do you have specific spells in mind? A level of lethality?]

>>6362933
>It’ll take a lot of juice to affect so many people, but by draining down the vajra, CZ and Ayla can probably project a fear aura to disperse the crowd at least long enough to get everyone out through the front

We have veigar, jimmy and khorine as back up casters, as long as we stay as a group we'll always have mystical superiority due to sheer numbers as that greater Lord of Flies demon found out. Its only when we split the party do things get truly dangerous.
'
And ayla and Cara zi can regain mana by eating people's life-force or casting energy drain in if it comes down to it.

>>6362958
>>6362961
[So again, just to be clear, are these both votes to go for lethal force (if necessary) and the open devouring of Northman souls?]

>>6362959
I think summoning the fire elementals could be good. Or lightning strike.

>>6362968
Lethal. When a mob of grown men are marching in with torches, there is no “less lethal”.

>>6362973
[Alright, no problem. I feel I should clarify, thoguh, as ZZ and CZ would know this: the prospect of killing dozens of local villagers from their own people without attempting negotiations would deeply trouble Enid, James, AND possibly Veigar depending how much he is like Tips. Also: if you kill some of them but not all, word will get out to the outside world, and some of you are quite recognizable... Though I suppose you do have magic to dramatically change how you all look, though it would introduce other complications. You can still pursue this, but it won't be without social consequences.]

>>6362968
Of course these stinking band of maunders aint got no right to be here. If they had a they could have sent a delegation waving the white flag or just camped outside and im certain Yeong would have been able to peacefully discus things with them.

Instead they came here with murderous Intentions to kill whomever they found here. And as for them being northerners, not a single member of our party except jimmy is a northern human.

>>6362933
>Conserve magical energies for now—Enid, CZ, Yeb-Uit, and the gyrfairies are the stealthiest so some of them will sneak in the back entrance where the forge’s waste-energy is pumped out [all of them? Some? Specify; may affect success chances]
I think we go as an entire group, and I think we wait to go full lethal - if we link up with casters on the inside we can probably resort to upcasting fear to dispel the crowd with more ease, or at least have an easier time fighting our way out to save our people. I will say, if a mob of men with torches is marching on the town, I don't trust them to be negotiated with. Even if I felt the main instigators could be de-escalated, they have already become a mob. A mob is a dangerous organism because it is somehow less intelligent than any individual member that helps make it up. If Jimbo gives us lip, I think we ought to put /him/ in the doghouse for wanting us to give violent invaders the benefit of the doubt because of a racial sympathy he has for his people over ours.

>>6362980
We gotta kill everyone then.

>>6362996
I suppose causing ourselves future problems that are entirely preventable is just too enticing for some.

>>6362999
The problem is the mob invading a place we hold dear. They picked their fight.

Of the men no doubt some are husbands and fathers. There’s no way tens of them could disappear. Their families explicitly or not gave their consent to be here.

When we’re done with the mob, we’re going to track down their women and children.

>>6363006
Ok so you're just trolling, got it.

>>6363009
I’m not joking.

>>6362996
>>6363006
>>6363011
It's good that you are only one anon holy hell lmfao

>>6362933
>Teleport someone in with Ayla and the vajra (since she’s already used up a lot of power) and hope none of the mob have made it inside yet; see what’s going on within [Chang]
He's the best option to send there (mostly) alone

>>6363012
Yeah, I got surprised there was so many posts about killing the mob before checking the id

>>6363011
I didn't say you were joking, I said you were trolling. You're the same guy who voted to not only massacre the elven task force in Seekers, but also the entire community they came from. We spent a good amount of time and effort making up for that blunder and working the punishment down to just an exile, and I hope everyone else has learned just how retarded your votes are.