Seekers of the Esoteric (Volume 8)

ReptoidQM

The Goblin Wastes. A forsaken land where the sun hangs low and oppressive, painting the sky in gradients of molten gold and fiery crimson. A parched and desolate region, with its earth a mosaic of cracked earth and shifting sands, punctuated by stubborn tufts of scrub-brush that cling to life with a tenacity born of defiance. Jagged outcroppings of rock jut skyward like the broken teeth of some long-dead colossus, casting slender shadows that offer scant refuge from the elements, by day or by night. A land where life is a constant battle, where the echoes of a thousand forgotten conflicts whisper through the arid air.

Including yours.

Your name is Ezreal Mious van Houtzmann. You are many things: a half-elf born of the Sylvan Realms, a Mage of the Hawksong Mages’ Tower and personal apprentice to Archmage Theresa Henzler. You are the founder and keeper of the royal land reserve at Old Maple Hill, in your capacity as a possibly-apostate Disciple of the True Fey. In service of your mother’s folk and your father’s, and for the sake of your own ideals of a peace between peoples, you found yourself embroiled in politics of gods and kings. You prevented a war, but at great cost: you became an enemy of your homeland, outcast, and incurred a debt to the dreadfully-unpleasant fey of the Unseelie Court.

To seek out knowledge which would allow you to make good upon this debt, you sought the sacred knowledge of your cousins, the Neme (or Ashurati) ‘sand-elves’. These genasi-folk keep a covenant with a court elemental fey ‘djinni’, and have shared that knowledge with you in the past. When you arrived, though, you found their sacred place forsaken, save for a band of goblinoid bandits and slavers…

And you destroyed them. Killed them with lightning. Sicced your demon-goblin creation—Carazzi—upon them, to rip and tear their flesh and feast upon their fear. You liberated their slaves, tore down their perverse and wicked ‘goblin market’, and took some of their number prisoner before banishing them into the wasteland when supplies grey scarce. All this carnage in turn attracted ravening trolls, who nearly brought ruin and death to you, your friends and freedmen.

You killed them, too.

With more lightning, with fire, with the horns of your new minotaur companion and your beloved chimera Muffins. Their blackish-red blood seeps into the cracked earth. The stench of their death permeates the air. Their greenish flesh is opened up to the circling vultures above, and their yellowish eyes stare, unseeing, at the horizons of this awful, awful place.

You did that.

>>6011108

You’ve seen death before, even been party to it, but nothing like what you did here. Not on this scale. Not so directly, casting lethal spells upon thinking, feeling people—albeit goblins, and especially awful ones at that—with the intent to kill. It’s different from sending an elemental or animal companion upon them and turning away, eyes squeezed shut.

How do you feel?
>Fine. Good, even.
[+Ego, -Empathy]
>Bad
[Courage roll will follow…]

RQM

[Welcome back! To anyone just joining us, or who needs/wants a refresher, this quest and its predecessors (which aren’t required reading) are at https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.<wbr>com/qstarchive.html?tags=reptoidqm.<wbr> The character sheet is attached. I do the dice-rolling, with 1d20 + an extra d20 for every pint in a selected relevant skill when applicable, and sometimes a bonus die for another related skill; DC is 15 by default, adjusted by circumstance. We update usually once a day, sometimes two or three times when I’m not working and have time and enough votes. On major, important votes only multipost IDs are accepted, to help reduce vote-rigging and arguments; a backlink or established tripcode is fine, too.]

[Also, be sure to check out the Queen of /QST/ tournament (or don’t, I’m not your real dad) at >>5997910, which I’m also running; the upcoming King of /QST/ tournament will include Tips as an entrant.]

[Special thanks to fellow QM Narrator for our thread header, and to Abismo for our character art]

Anonymous

>>6011109
>Bad
don't feel like making twisted tips, at least not now.

RQM

>>6011366
>>6011338
You feel terrible. At the time, gripped by moral outrage and engaged in pitched battle to defend yourself and others, you hadn’t had time to reflect on exactly what you were doing in any depth. The end had taken precedence over the means. Now, the means are all about you, and they are all you can think about. You can’t stand to look at the carnage you have wrought-charred bodies, shredded and burned, but nor can you look away. The trolls, who had seemed so much like animals as they loped about on all fours and spoke in their unintelligible and savage tongue, can now be seen clearly. Theirs are not the faces of animals (not that this would make you feel much better, being quite the animal lover) but of people—people not so different from Carazzi, or Zith-Zi, your dear friends.

“By the Gods, what have I done?” you quietly lament, gripping your knees as you sit on the hard ground, and watch the scavenger-birds settle.

“What you had to.”

It is Izirina Henzler who speaks: the Archmage’s daughter, your long-time magical rival, and more lately your lover. You look up to see her surveying the same charnel grounds as you, though her own expression is partly hidden by her shaded glasses. What you can see is calm untroubled, possessing the same certainty as her voice.

“Ez, look over here, huh?”

You feel a hand settle softly upon your shoulder, and look up at the smiling, green-freckled face of Costella Fanucci: you other lover, and Izirina’s as well. It’s… Complicated. Regardless, and in spite of the horror you have wrought, her expression remains brightly, her smile sweet. She guides you to your feet, and directs your attention away from those you helped to slay and towards those whom you helped to SAVE: the former slaves you liberated. You see women and girls—humans, halflings (or gnomes, maybe? you can never tell the difference…), and even goblins; elderly and crippled men, too, and a few young boys; and the bull-faced minotaur, who seems stalwart in his loyalty in spite of a difficult linguistic barrier. They are huddled close to the carriage of your half-orc driver, but no longer are they gripped by mortal terror, nor the hopelessness of bondage.

“You did that, Ez,” Costella says softly, squeezing your arm. “You took all these people and gave them a better life, and protected them from monsters who wanted to, like, eat them or sell them or whatever.”

“They weren’t monsters, though,” you whisper. “They were people, too.”

“Bad people,” Costella affirms.

“But—”

“Tips, this is just life, out here.”

>>6011412
It is Zith-Zi who interjects next—the pink-skinned little woman who, before your magical meddling, was once a goblin of these very wastelands. You all look over at her, as she chews upon a chunk of meat.

“This is how things are,” she says bluntly, as you recall her own admission to having been involved in banditry, slavery, and even prostitution, as both perpetrator and victim. “They wouldn’t be mourning you, and with the trolls ‘specially, they prob’ly wouldn’t even mourn each other. They’re cannibals, ya’ know.”

Your eyes settle on the meat she’s eating, and your stomach knots itself. Zith-Zi seems confused for a moment, then glares at you.

“It’s that horse-meat you cloned us with your magic!” she exclaims. “Whaddaya’ TAKE me for?!”

>20

You take the words of your loved ones to heart, though, rejoining those whom you freed and protected. You can’t stomach any food yourself—not here, not near this bloody battlefield—but you do not let despair drag you down. Rather, you take solace in the peace and security you can bring—HAVE brought—others. Not only solace: you take PRIDE. Some battles MUST be fought, you resolve, and if you can preserve the lives and innocence of others by your own actions… Well, so be it.

Carazzi, the demon-souled goblin girl, is sitting in your lap, humming happily as you stroke her hair and praise her own good work in saving the day. Her rather voluptuous form makes this a little awkward, but she assures you that physical contact is useful in providing the psychic sustenance which she needs to help abate her succubus’ appetite. It is in this innocent-yet-unseemly state that the Ashurati find you.

“What in the Heavens’ name is THIS?” balks Khankhe, the young man of the Neme-Ashurati who you freed, as with the other captives.

You stand up quickly, Carazzi yelping as she tumbles from your lap. And onto the ground. You start to stammer an explanation, but quickly realize that he is not asking about you and Carazzi, but rather is surveying last night’s grisly aftermath. He is not alone, either, but ahs rather returned with two older members of his race: an elfman and elfwoman of the Neme. Like him they are lithely muscular, taller than your mother’s Sylvan race, with eyes so pale that they are almost white, no hair on any of their brownish skin, their pointed ears close to their heads, and partly-webbed fingers for swimming through loose soil.

“Ah, well…” you begin.

“You did all this?” the female asks, regarding you with hairless brows raised.

“Well, the others helped,” you say, without shame, “but yes.”

“You really have grown stronger, then, Ezreal Mious.”

You blink a couple times in confusion, then squint, and finally you recognize her.

“Nemenmo?”

Nemenmo—the female Neme who taught you to summon <Daylight> even in dead of night, when last you visited the wastes—graces you with a small smile and a slight nod.

>>6011413
“It has been a while,” she acknowledges.

“It has!” you say. “I’m actually going by my father’s name as well, now. ‘Ezreal Mious Van Houtzmann’.”

She nods slowly, and then adds somewhat-critically: “It’s quite long.”

“He hasn’t even added the titles or nothin’ yet,” Carazzi notes, standing up and dusting herself off.

The Nemes’ attentions all turn to Carazzi—with short horns and hooked, deformed paw-feet resembling a goat’s cloven hooves, her green face more warty and yellow eyes brighter than even those of a regular goblin-girl. You see Nemenmo and her fellow stiffen, hand moving subtly towards the hooked ‘eagle claw’ dagger-sickles which they keep bound tightly to their bodies.

“Ezreal will do,” you say quickly, stepping between them, “and this is Carazzi. She’s a friend.”

“She was helpful in freeing me as well, brother and sister,” Khankhe adds, by way of lukewarm defence, though his own distaste and distrust for Carazzi is well-known to you.

There is a pause, and the Neme slowly relax when Carazzi—though fidgeting nervously—makes no hostile move.

“I see we have a great deal of catching up to do,” Nemeno says. “Come. We will regroup with the others.”

The Neme are capable of using <Sandswimming>, their secret magical art, to delve into those areas of the wasteland where the ground is deeply-packed with dust and fine gravel. Unfortunately, the rest of you are not; even your <Improved Aethereal Form> cannot penetrate the Earth, nor grant you sight to navigate with if you were to delve into the ground below. You must travel on foot, through the unpleasant heat of the day. The Neme do not seem to feel it, mind you, nor does elementally-attuned Izirina, but the rets of you do.

“Have you got the magic to <summon> an air elemental, to cool us off?” you ask Izirina.

She frowns and shakes her head, admitting: “I’m still quite drained from the battle.”

“Me too,” you admit, and Costella fans herself with her wide-brimmed straw sunhat.

“It is not far now,” Nemenmo assures you, and then adds: “You have grown powerful, but done no physical conditioning.”

“Less than maybe I should have,” you cringe. “I was, uh, on the moon for a while. Gravity’s lower there.”

“That is no excuse to neglect exercise,” she chastises you.

You pout, but she has already turned away, and doesn’t see it. You sigh, and carry on.

Eventually, you spy some small, humanoid silhouettes upon the ground. You approach cautiously, and find the remains of goblins, crushed and mangled, and in many cases partly devoured. Scattered around them are the remnants of familiar bundles of cloth—those which had been used to bundle the horse-meat rations for those slavers whom you banished from your overlarge party.

“The trolls must have found them, too,” you say.

>>6011415
“Bastards prob’ly squealed on us,” Zith-Zi notes, prodding one with the toe of her stompy black-leather boot. “Looks like the trolls were workin’ ‘em over, by the way their limbs are all pulled off. Prob’ly how they found us, and how the big boy rallied a bunch a’ smaller shits ta’ come after us, knowin’ we were a big score. Only reason ta’ ‘waste’ all this meat, too.”

You frown, and shake your head. No good deed seems to go unpunished…

“Hey, hey Tips!” Crazzi shouts to you, from where she has begun poking the bodies curiously with her clawed fingers. “This one’s alive!”

You hurry over to her side and see that, indeed, one of the goblin slavers is just barely clinging to live, breathing gurgling, bloody breaths through a pulped face. He is missing a leg, while his arms are so broken that they flops freely like tentacles when Carazzi lifts and drops one. He does not even seem to register your presence, so close to Death’s Domain that he is beyond pain.

“Can I—”

“No eating goblins,” you gently remind her. “Or people in general.”

Carazzi whines, and flops onto her back in protest, but obliges you.

You regard the nearly-dead goblin. By this point, you’ve managed to regain enough aura to cast a pair of healing spells <Cure Wounds> and <Monstrous Regeneration>--such that you could keep him alive and maybe even get him walking again. It would deplete your energies anew, but you’re also apparently quite close to the sanctuary of the Neme, and you’ve seen no trouble for some time now.

“Six male trolls’ll put th’ fear in pretty much any other fucker ‘round here,” Zith-Zi remarked earlier. “Bet they cleared th’ damn place out, for now at least. No wonder they wanted ta’ nab us so bad.”

Still, if this goblin (who is ALREADY a thief, murderer, and slaver, or at least kept the company of their like) really worth the effort? Especially if, as Zith-Zi suspects, eh repaid your kindness by telling the trolls where to find you?

>Save him and restore his leg
>Put him out of his misery
>Leave him to suffer
>Save his life, but leave his limbs maimed and missing
>Write-in

Anonymous

>>6011417
>Put him out of his misery.

The neme don't even like goblins in general, trying to convince them to provide sanctuary to a raiding slaver, would be an incredibly hard sell.

Since once reunited with his fellows he might try to help track them down and attack them.

 And he'll die in the wastes if sent out alone. Not dragging out his death is the biggest kindness we can give the bandit.

>>6011417
>Put him out of his misery
:'(

>>6011417
>Let Crazzi feed of his emotions
Might as well get something outta the suffering, if we’re not trying to save him

>>6011417
>You frown, and shake your head. No good deed seems to go unpunished…
>you could keep him alive and maybe even get him walking again. It would deplete your energies anew

Uh, no. We showed mercy once and that’s how we were repaid.

>Put him out of his misery

Confirm the kill. We can’t him talking again. Stab into the side of the throat and follow through with a cut.

>>6011417
>Put him out of his misery
thinking better, we don't wanna make Cazzy a psycho

ReptoidQM

>>6011637
>>6011491
>>6011463
>>6011444
>>6011425
You take a deep breath. You can see how and why the goblin bandit could have been induced to betray your kindness, but it doesn’t really make him any better, or more trustworthy. The Neme (understandably) do not much care for goblins to begin with; spending precious social capital for the sake of preserving this poor wretch just so eh can backstab you AGAIN doesn’t seem worth your while.

“Carazzi…”

Carazzi’s eyes light up as she jumps up and down, clapping her hands together giddily. It seems she has picked up on your intent already.

“Fuck yeah! You mean I can mow down??”

“Put him out of his misery,” you say slowly, enunciating to ensure she understands. “Quickly, and painlessly.”

Carazzi sighs melodramatically, but snaps a salute. You turn away wincing slight at a wet squelching sound behind you, and get ready to move once more.

By the time the sun has become TRULY terrible to endure, you and your companions are greeted by the convenient shadow of the more mountainous region where the Neme make their camp.

“Is this a holy site as well?” you ask.

“All mountains are holy,” says the older male Neme, speaking the first words since his brief introduction as ‘Nament’. “This one serves as best as a fortress, though, with its many caves to deep and cool places, some accessible only by those who can <Sandswim>.”

“Some, but not all,” Nemenmo is quick to assure you. “There will be a place to shelter those whom you have saved, while we attend to other matters.”

‘Other matters’, of course, meaning the liberation of those last prisoners of the goblins slavers whom you have not yet managed to free: the Elemental Fey who are kindred and holy guides to the Neme-Ashurati, and who remain trapped within the heavy chest of tiled stone which you brought with you from the goblin market. You also obtained the wand-like magical rod which apparently was used to bind them to this plane and then to the chest… But unfortunately, not even Skekz-Gab the hobgoblin (whom you have tied up and under minotaur supervision within your carriage) knows exactly how to use the one to open the other.

“Do you know how to free them?” you ask hopefully. “Are you familiar with these magical devices? I, ah, killed the hobgoblin who knew how to use them, and his partner-in-crime hasn’t been very useful.”

“I do not,” Nemenmo admits, “but the elders of the tribe may.”

“Well, I guess we should go see them,” you say cheerfully for, at long last, you will be in the company of elven civilization once more—if not the Sylvan culture in which you were raised.

“Hold, cousin.”

Nament raises a palm, and meets your eye.

>>6011657
“Those humans and little folk whom the goblins have terrorized are welcome on our mountain, for a time. But they…”

He looks quickly to the goblins, and then looks away just as quickly, as if even the sight of them offends him.

“They must wait at the base.”

“What’d he say?” Zith-Zi whispers harshly, furtive glance flicking between the Ashurati. “I don’t speak none a’ this lingo, but I recognize a ‘fuck you’ glare anywhere.”

“The demonic one, especially, cannot be allowed into a holy place,” Nament adds.

“Who, me?” Carazzi asks. “My elf-lingo ain’t so good either, Tips, but did he say I’m not inside?”

“There is still a cave to shelter them from the elements,” Nemenmo adds.

“And the greatest threat in the region has already been dispatched, thanks to you and your allies, cousin!” Khankhe adds, clearly still awed by the sight of your victory over the band of fearsome trolls.

You frown, looking to the unfortunate goblins who, for various reasons (age, infirmity, indebtedness, or simply because they seemed like they would be attractive enough to Southmen to fetch coin as sex-slaves) were betrayed and abandoned by their own kind… And, of course, at Carazzi.

(Though not Zith-Zi, since her pinkish skin and fey-adjacent artificial ‘soul’ seem to make her pass for a member of the fair folk to your wasteland ‘cousins’)

“Okay, so the trolls are dead. Fine. But what if some other predators come over here after they sniff out all that roll and gob meat layin’ in the sun?” Zith-Zi demands, when you translate to her. “Tips, Carazzi’s pretty good for soemoen who was practic’ly born yesterday, but not keep a half-dozen lame an’ weak gobs safe from dire jackals an’ giant scorpions good, ya’ get what I’m sayin’?”

Carazzi’s own argument is somewhat less rational, but no less impassioned: she simply clings tight to you, burying her face in your abdomen due to her short stature.

“Please don’t leave me alone again,” she whimpers.

You look helplessly at the stony face of Nament.

Will you accept these terms?
>Yes, you will leave the goblins at the base of the mountain
>No, either they come or you’re not going [Sociability check]
>You'll go up alone [or with a small cadre, specify who] while the others remain below for safety in numbers
>Write-in a counteroffer or alternative

Anonymous

>>6011660
>No, either they come or you’re not going [Sociability check]
After the night we just went through, surely they can make an exception?

>>6011660
>>You'll go up alone [or with a small cadre, specify who] while the others remain below for safety in numbers

>>6011749
Coming up : Izzy, Costella
Minotaur, and both Zi might manage it down with the other slaves.

>>6011660
>You'll go up alone [or with a small cadre, specify who] while the others remain below for safety in numbers
Izzy
Minotaur (incase we get jumped for some reason)

Everyone else, gobs, humans, whatever, they stay at the base of the mountain. ZithZi will act as our second in command. Carazzi will stay with her and Costella.

am >>6011491

>>6011660
>You'll go up alone while the others remain below for safety in numbers
Take Izzy for magical expertise, the rest stay.

>>6011660
>You'll go up alone [or with a small cadre, specify who] while the others remain below for safety in numbers.

>Coming up : Izzy, Costella

Izzy wanted to see the desert fey, and costella isn't a fighter so there is no reason for her to stay.

 Zith zith and the minotaur should be a to defend the pack.

ReptoidQM

>>6011667
>>6011749
>>6011750
>>6011885
>>6011931
>>6012293
>>6012414
You gently extricate yourself from Carazzi’s deceptively-strong grip, while ignoring (or trying to ignore, at least) her quivering lower lip.

“You’ll be fine,” you promise her. “You won’t be alone.”

You look to Zith-Zi, who hesitates for a moment, then sighs, rolls her eyes, shrugs, and finally nods.

“Come on, bully-boy,” she says gesturing to the minotaur—whose name you REALLY have to puzzle out, at some point. “If I’m stuck on makin’-sure-nobody-gets-killed duty, I’m at least keepin’ the muscle.”

“You can have Muffins, too, if you’re really that concerned,” you say.

Zith-Zi looks at you in alarm, and fleetingly at the chimera, whose head perks up at the sound of his name.

“You’re jokin’ me, right?” she asks.

You smirk a little, and Zith-Zi gives you a punch in the thigh which nearly knocks you over, and causes Hershy to squawk in annoyance at how it jostles him upon her shoulder. Then, she and the one-time captives depart towards the shallow cave—really more of an overhang—beneath this holy mountain, where the goblins will be permitted. All together, they will have safety in numbers, you hope. Carazzi stares back at you with wide eyes as Zith-Zi drags her doppelganger along for the journey.

“Are you ready?” you ask the two who—apart from your animal companions—will accompany you.

“Yes,” Izzy responds immediately.

She is calm at a glance, but to one who knows the human mage, she is vibrating with barely-contained excitement. She may be a bit more stoic about such things these days, but you grew up with her, as classmates and study-buddies; you, roe than anyone, know how much she loves exotic and foreign magic.

“I’m, like, not sure how much help I’ll be…” admits Costella sheepishly.

You take her hand in yours, and meet her eyes.

“You’ve already been a huge help,” you assure her, remembering the post-battle malaise which nearly seized you—may have drowned you in depression, were it not for her support. “Besides, this is a vacation for the three of us, right?”

Costella smiles, but then her smile turns a little crooked.

“What?” you ask.

“It’s, uh, not exactly my idea of a nice vacation,” she admits.

“All the more reason not to miss the best part, then,” Izirina adds, a touch impatiently. “Now come on!”

>>6012662
The ascent up the mountain appears a nearly insurmountable series of steep plateaus. Each plateau is fractured with crevices—natural labyrinths one might just barely squeeze through. The fabric of your tunic and trousers are rarely snagged upon the stones, though, for the light brown rock is as smooth as silk to the touch, as if sanded down across aeons. The mountain-maze is both imposing and strangely mesmerizing: its walls are at times painted with abstract tapestries of colour which catch the filtered rays of light to accentuate the colours with Holy Sol’s own beautiful radiance.

Nemenmo leads the way, her lithely muscular form displaying an easy grace as she slides effortlessly through the fissures. She presses her hands and feet into ancient holds with the confidence of one who has ascended this path countless times. Her demeanor is solemn but her demeanour welcoming; her voice, when she speaks, blends seamlessly with the whisper of the hot wind that sweeps through the canyons and overhangs they traverse.

“Take great care where you step,” she murmurs, turning her pale, penetrating eyes upon you. “The mountain’s face is as unpredictable as the sea.”

As Nemenmo leads the way, Khankhe stays close. When at last you alight upon one of the flattened ‘peaks’ of this multi-tiered mount, he bounds ahead slightly. Here, harsh rock softens to by billowing pools of sand which the Ashurati—the 'sand-elves'—must have brought here from elsewhere. Khakhe scoops up a handful of the fine, yellow-white grains, and turns with a grin to offer a hand to you.

“Behold, cousin,” he exclaims with enthusiasm, his pale violet eyes twinkling. “This is one of our sacred baths. It brings purity, in mind and body, when one bathes within it.”

You, Izzy, and Costella gaze into the basin filled with fine, shifting sand. Izzy scrutinizes it with her sixth sense, and even Costella—not trained, not exactly a mage—has the ritual-bequeathed fairy-sight to see something of the subtle dance of mystical motes across the surface, and within.

“Fascinating…” murmurs Izirina.

“Pretty!” enthuses Costella.

Before you can add your own impression, Khankhe dives headfirst into the sand pool, disappearing entirely for a moment, only for his head to pop out with a joyous laugh, sandy tufts clinging to his skin—which, you see, is now bare of even the thin fabrics which eh wore before. He beckons you.

“Come, cousin!”

>>6012664
Nament arrives at the rear, casting his gaze watchfully upon the party. His silence feels heavy, thoughtful, his presence a constant reminder of the mountain’s sanctity and the significance of the journey.

“It is not for outsiders, Khankhe,” he reminds the excited young elfman.

The young Neme frowns slightly, protesting: “But they have done us a great service, and Ezreal is kin. They all are: you can see it in their souls and bodies!”

“Not truly, or wholly,” Nament comments levelly, then regards the three of you. “No offence intended, of course.”

Costella is quick to nod along, agreeable individual that she is. Izirina frowns, and looks as if she wishes to protest.

You look automatically to Nemenmo, who says nothing, and seems to regard you with curiosity. She has shared her people’s secrets with you before, after all—even once offered to teach you the art of <Sand-Swimming>. Nament seems to be her elder, though, or at least feels more confident speaking with authority than his current company.

You…
>Will enter the sacred sand-bath with Izzy and Costella
[+Ego, gain esoteric magical knowledge, learn Sand-Swimming]

>Will cede to Nament’s will, and carry on to the elders
[+Reputation with Neme]

>Have a question for the Neme [write-in, can do in tandem with either but must pass a Sociability check if you choose to enter the bath and also ask Nament questions]

Anonymous

>>6012665
>Will cede to Nament’s will, and carry on to the elders
we can learn it later, no need to antagonize them now. btw we really need to get a basic exercise regimen after we return, it's really fucking us over specially after our trip to the moon.

>>6012665
>Will enter the sacred sand-bath with Izzy and Costella
Cannonball!
Can't turn down the esoteric magic knowledge
Plus we already left all our other companions outside for them

>>6012743
We're a great magician with a focus on biology, I'm sure we can magic ourselves into shape. Just need to develop the spell. Oh man if we did and recorded it for others to pass on that might no joke be our greatest contribution to the world.

>>6012665
>Will cede to Nament’s will, and carry on to the elders
Honestly better to just not do any disrespect right now.

By the way, the ingredients for star iirc is…

Unseelie queen’s blood
Neme elemental energy
Drow crystals
Sever old ties
Rite of attunement

Does Tips or Izzy have a way of containing / transporting the elemental energy currently? I guess she could open a dimensional door to hawksong to get her things but still, do we have the means?

>>6012665
>>Will cede to Nament’s will, and carry on to the elders

>Have a question for the Neme
We came for several things.
We want to learn more about the elemental energy of yours. Second, Sand swimming would be appreciated too. Last, the chest and the rod : they might trap some of our kin, we'd like to research with you how to safely get them out.

>>6012665
>Will cede to Nament’s will, and carry on to the elders
Priorities. Though it pains me.

>>6012665
>Will enter the sacred sand-bath with Izzy and Costella
I’m just too tempted, and Sand Swimming is awesome

>>6012665
>>Will enter the sacred sand-bath with Izzy and Costella

Izzy wants to enter the mystical sand pool, and considering she had a troll toss a bolder and muffins at her. She definitely earned herself some relaxation.

I also question how useful gaining +reputation with the neme is, they been forced to hide out inside of a mountain cave system out of fear. They are not exactly a mighty faction with far reaching power.

>>6013424
+1 This is another fey ancient art we are being offered, and as another anon pointed out we do need Neme magic for our pseudostar, while not exactly what were looking for its an opening into another elemental fey ritual and studying its fundamentals, lets hop in

RQM

>>6013497
>>6013424
>>6013290
>>6012909
>>6012887
>>6012844
>>6012831
>>6012743
[We seem to have a tie. I'll roll for it tonight or tomorrow, if no non-1post ID breaks it by the time I feel like writing.]

Anonymous

>>6013497
>and as another anon pointed out we do need Neme magic for our pseudostar
we do, but it's not the sand swimming one. we can learn more with them.

RQM

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>6013582
[Rolling and locking]
>1: Sand-Swim
>2: Don't do that

ReptoidQM

>>6013662
>>6013664
You frown. It’s tough NOT to take offence to Nament’s refusal. You’ve come here to seek esoteric magical knowledge, especially that of the so-called ‘elemental fey’—those True Fey who have attuned themselves to unliving aspects of the natural world rather than to flora or fauna. Aside from looking rather fun and relaxing—a bit of REAL vacationing amidst all this mission-focused martial marching between pitched battles crimes against dignity—this is also a prime opportunity. Yous ense no fairy intellect to the ‘sacred bath’, but its sands are rich in fairy energies. Energies of the fey clinging to crystalline structures of sand… Not unlike the structure of the ‘pseud-star’ you hope to craft for the Unseelie.

And so, after a moment’s hesitation and with rapidly redennning cheeks, you begin to strip.

“E-ez???” Costella squeaks, covering her eyes automatically despite having seen you just as naked and in FAR more intimate contexts many a time.

“Come on,” you say brightly, and without looking at Nament. “We’ve earned this, haven’t we?”

>+Ego
>-Neme Reputation

Neither Nemenmo nor Nament say anything as you slip down into the sandy basin of the bath. You see them exchange a brief look, before Nemnemo quickly looks away, thoughtfully. Nament’s silent displeasure is almost tangible, but as the war sand slides around you like warm water, you pay it little heed. The sensation is FACSINATING: the sand is so smooth, every grain so perfectly round, that it is almost without friction. A part of you had feared that the rough, coarse grains might get everywhere—including in crevices and orifices best unmentioned; you now find this fear unfounded. Opening your mind and your senses to the elemental energies here—not extraplanar, but native to this Erath, only ENRICHED somehow—you allow your own energies to subtly attune. In meditative mindset, you beint o <swim>.

>NEW SPELL: Sand-Swimming
>>By casting this spell, your naked, nearly naked, or appropriately elementally-charged/aethereal form can navigate sand, dirt, and ash as easily as water, and you can also see through that material as well

Your intellectual reverie is broken only by the less-elegant splashing of Izirina’s impact. To your surprise and amusement, stoic Izzy’s brownish cheeks are bright red at the moment, despite her scrunch-faced expression not to show her emabarssment. Her bare breast with their pinkish brown peaks are quickly covered as, eyeballing your arcane experimentation, she swiftly approximates it well enough to sink into the sands and hide her shame. She sinks down to her nose like a crocodile in a still lake, but once nudity lose sits novelty, you can see that she, too, is soothed by the energy-rich sands.

>MP restored to full
>+Izirina relationship

>>6013695
Costella Fanucci alone hover at ‘water’s edge’, she kicks off her shoes and buries her wiggling pink toes into the fine, satin-soft sand, sighing happily. Her eyes flit to where you and Izirina navigate the sands, you especially, and her expression is vexed by envy and insecurity for a moment.

“You should join us!” you encourage her.

Costella’s eyes flit to Nament, whose crossed arms and averted gaze speak of deepening discomfort.

“I, um, like… I don’t know. I burn a bit more easily than you too, you know?”

This is a weak excuse, for since her own transformation adjacent to these elemental planes, Costella’s paragon form has never shown any signs of sun-damage, never achieving more than a burnishing of her beauty or a glimmering of the green freckles which are the soul reminder of the ‘dragon-pox’ which once afflicted and deformed her. The real culprit is plainly embarrassment, or a fear to affront your hosts. You let the matter lie, though. You are too enamoured with this new form of Feycraft, and even once you have come to understand the art of <Sand-Swimming> fully with Khankhe’s aid, you are loathe to interrupt Izirina’s own more gradual exploration of the ability, and the beauteous glow of her own recharged elemental aura.

(Costella’s own eye wanders to Izirina, too, and you suspect this is part of why she does not speak up to convince you two to cease in this not-quite-sacrilege.)

“Shall we meet with the elders?” Nemenmo eventually asks, a little abruptly.

You look up, and realize she has been watching you for some time now as well. Khakhe arises in his youthful nakedness and quickly clothes himself, not in the last chagrined. With the thrill of discovery behind you, you find yourself more sheepish to expose yourself to this tan-skinned, bald-headed elfmaid, but she looks wryly amused at your sudden shyness.

“You are shamed now, Ezreal?” she asks. “It isn’t so long again I offered to share this same secret in the sands with you…”

Nament looks sharply towards her, as do both of your grilrfriends; the latter two then look back to you, and your warm face burns brighter.

“Much has changed since then,” Nemenmo adds, finally looking away to allow you privacy as you dress yourself once more. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Izirina says coldly, as Costella shoves clothes hastily to the both of you, watching Nemenmo warily as if she might peak.

>>6013696
When you ascend to the uppermost peak, you find a realm where the rough stone has been chipped or sanded away to reveal quartzite crystals, rich with veins of orange sunset and golden sunrise, wrapped about an almost air-transparent crystal. You fix your mage’s gaze upon them, but there is no Feycraft at work here, no elemental spirits or natural magic: just the hidden beauty beneath the craggly roughness of the Goblin Wastes, an oasis of beauty hidden amidst the mountains. Here, you finally understand (or perhaps remember, from those years before) why anyone would stay here, in this terrible, rid, and unrelentingly savage environment.

So, too, do you understand the entirety of Nemenmo’s earlier statement, that MANY things had changed.

Like your Sylvan elders, and unlike your human father and other elders of his race, the Neme-Ashurati do not visibly age. Even moreso than a sylvan elder, whose greying hair and dulling eyes give them away to the initiated, the small council of male and female elders are almost indistinguishable form those of hale and hardy young adulthood; after all, none of them HAS hair to go grey, and ALL their eyes are pale as opal. Only the speckles and stripes of healed battle-damage across exposed skin gives them away, and their air.

It is an UNHAPPY air.

“Vendui', malla ersda're d'l'ust fuma d'l'myar thac'zil,” you greet them.

“Vel'bol zhah myar bauth ol?” replies an old matriarch.

You blink in confusion, and then grimace. The Sylvan Elven word for this land is, more or less ‘the bad land’. Hence the response: ‘What is bad about it?’

“I meant no offence,” you continue. “It’s just a dialectical difference. I have no intent to be a rude guest, or ungrateful to my hosts, cousins.”

“As I understand it,” speaks another elder, “you are not so concerned with such things.”

“I… Do not understand,” you say, wary now at his guarded tone and mysterious words. “Is this about the sand-bath?”

“The SACRED bath, which you entered without permission?” asks an elder. “No, not exclusively.”

“There are whispers on the wind,” speaks another. “Zephyrs who travel from one mountain to another tell tales of a young half-blood who came home and caved a village, only to steal secrets from the gods from under their own roof… Who broke with his own people to aid their ancient enemy… Who wantonly gifts every learned lesson and treasure of the fair folk to the humans, and even to the likes of lizardfolk and goblinoids.”

You cringe. None of that is… Wholly inaccurate.

“Yet I come bearing good tidings,” you say, unconsciously adopting their more formal, antiquated dialect and speaking pattern as you defend yourself.

“We brought your ancestors!” Costella says.

>>6013698
Izirina holds out a hand, murmuring the incantation for <Dimension Door> and flourishing her wand to materialize a portal. With a twinned casting of <Summon Elemental>, she summons two small constructs of extraplanar, elemental earth to lift and carry the heavy crate through. Costella gestures to the hobgoblins’ magically-locked box with a flourish and a hopeful, winning smile… But the elders only flinch bad, clunking tongues and hissing.

“You bring the tainted and sacrilegious foreign soil upon our Holy Earth?!”

You grimace, recalling the Neme aversion to extraplanar elementalism too late to warn Izirina and Costella against this form of presentation.

“Still,” you say, “it DOES contain the True Fey we saved from servitude, or worse. And with your permission, and your knowledge, we would work together to free them from this trap.”

“Yes, our knowledge,” muses one of the elders suspiciously. “That is what you are truly here for, isn’t it? Why you came, before you knew we had need of you?”

“We are grateful to you,” one of the other elders—the first female to speak, now speak again—interjects. “Is this tiding a gift, given freely, though? Or is it the case that you have liberated our shared kin, our honoured ancestors, to offer up in TRADE, just as the goblin slavers would have?”

You take a step back at the accusation, aghast. And yet… These Neme are clearly not kindly-disposed to you. If they are not the sort to prevent you swimming in their sacred sands, they are clearly the type to begrudge you the act. If they will not detain you or attack you for your earlier trespasses against the Sylvanfolk and Lunar Eladrin, they know of them, and subsequently suspect you.

You DID come here for their knowledge, and the energy of their locked-away True Fey patrons. What if they… Just refuse to share it?

>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation
>The elemental fairies’ return is part of a bargain, for help in powering and producing the Unseelie Pseudo-Star
>Write-in [careful!]

Anonymous

>>6013705
>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation

We got "Esoteric Magical Knowledge" (not on the sheet) from low impulse control. If that is not enough, we'll have to research more by ourself.

well, anons voted for the bath because of the star-project, so we don't need to ask for anything more. also let's keep our decreasing good relations with them from falling even further.<br>will voot when I get home.

>>6013705
>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation
We saw the neme detained by goblin slayers. We immediately acted in defense of them. We are here to help them be free. That is all.

>Write-in [careful!]
Clarify rumors

>tales of a young half-blood who came home and caved a village, only to steal secrets from the gods from under their own roof… Who broke with his own people to aid their ancient enemy… Who wantonly gifts every learned lesson and treasure of the fair folk to the humans, and even to the likes of lizardfolk and goblinoids.”

(I presume you meant saved a village - I don’t remember doing that in dappulyet)

My duties are to my family. Both of my family. I defended dappulyet from their enemies - prevented them from taking the moonstone through a judicial duel.

For my efforts, I was granted audience with the gods. Joined them at the moon. Studied there. When I wished to return, to serve my human-side family, I was prevented from doing so.

I persisted and returned.

The knowledge, the gifts I learned I did not give freely. Only to my closest, most trusted allies who could aid me, and even then, a fraction of it. Let it be known I never shared a single spell I learned during my time on the moon to anyone.

(Technically we’re not lying with this one; we only learned improved aetherial form)

Princess Ekaterine of Hawksong asked for my aid. She wanted peace between the kingdoms, Sylvan realms included. I aided her in that regard.

The Unseelie wanted my friends and family dead for it. They wanted to use me as a tool; they wanted a sword to ally with the drows; the authority seize territory of their own. They wanted a country of their own and they will do anything to achieve it. I did not want to see a war. I never did. So that is why I propose to them a home. It will be a home far, far away from everything and everyone. I don’t wish to see them hurt any elf - but I don’t have the means to wipe them all out - this is the compromise to stop more bloodshed and backstabbing. For good. That is what I intend to do.

I ask for your aid.

>>6012844

>>6013705
>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation
This is why I voted against sandbathing. Good luck getting help with the star now. This whole trip was pointless.

RQMonaphone

>>6014018
>(I presume you meant saved a village - I don’t remember doing that in dappulyet)
[Kek, yes.]

Anonymous

>>6014166
I said the same damned thing >>6012844

Shit happens. >>6013662

>>6013705
>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation

>Who wantonly gifts every learned lesson and treasure of the fair folk to the humans, and even to the likes of lizardfolk and goblinoids.
What the hell, we've been careful with it, we made Izzy break off her tutelage with the Nothic, and iirc we never shared the full version of the Attunement Rite.

Also all of >>6014018

>>6014338
The moon gods and the elven council are spreading lies & falsehoods about us. After we refused imprisonment and rescued natvodsk to prevent a war. In order to save face or something.

>>6013705
>The crate, and your aid, is a gift, given freely, without expectation
we got what we wanted in that bath and we don't need to antagonize them anymore.
>>6014166
>This is why I voted against sandbathing.
same, I wanted to be more specific than a simple boost.
>>6014338
>What the hell, we've been careful with it,
I think that doing it a lot also counts as "giving it away" but it paints a false picture indeed.

>>6014363
Well when you put it like that I guess we have looked pretty reckless to anyone not closely involved.

>>6014363
>we got what we wanted in that bath
Did we? We wanted a way to help with the artificial sun IIRC.

>>6014357
>The moon gods and the elven council are spreading lies & falsehoods about us.
They're speaking the truth as they know it, actually. Unnuanced, but truth.

>>6014372
No they are definitely lying, the eladrin offered us a chance to study at moon freely without strings. For services rendered in protecting the moon stone. And mentioned nothing in terms of future repayment.

Then they unilaterally decided on imprisoning and conscripting us for their agenda. Because we weren't ideologically pure enough for their taste by the years end.

As for breaking with our people, they threatened our entire party with mass imprisonment due to prophecy. A severe violation of diplomatic norms if I ever heard of one.

>>6014372
>Did we?
no, but the anons who voted for the sunbath thought it was, so we can't do much now

>>6014372
eh. Partly truths. They omitted a few details and even made shit up.

“Who wantonly gifts every learned lesson and treasure of the fair folk to the humans, and even to the likes of lizardfolk and goblinoids.”

Uh, no. We did not do that.

“Who broke with his own people to aid their ancient enemy…”
Missing a lot of context. >>6014527

I also added a few details in my clarification of rumors to make it more favorable to us

>>6014527
>Then they unilaterally decided on imprisoning and conscripting us for their agenda. Because we weren't ideologically pure enough for their taste by the years end.
Uh, this is not true. It was anything but unilateral, and there was no conscription mentioned at any point.
>As for breaking with our people, they threatened our entire party with mass imprisonment due to prophecy.
To be fair, if anything is cause for violating diplomatic norms it would be the fate of the world
Plus we also violated some rules ourselves springing Nat out, so not like we're wholly innocent.

RQM

>>6014166
>>6014338
>>6014363
>>6013808
>>6014018
“I didn’t come here with any ulterior motive,” you insist, a little defensively. “This entire account is… it’s a total misrepresentation.”

“Is it?”

The Neme elder does not speak it like an accusation, yet still it burns like one. You adjust your hat and hold your tongue, taking a moment to cool your temper before you say something you’ll regret. Costella and Izirina look to you, the former in empathy for your plight, the latter in plain confusion as to how to proceed. You signal to Izirina to dismiss her elementals, and after a moment she does they crumble and scatter, the non-native earth fading away from whence it came without its animating extraplanar energies. The great, mosaic-tiled box which they hefted drops heavy upon the earth with a thump to make one jump; still, it remains intact.

“It doesn’t matter if you gift us anything in exchange,” you answer the assembled sand-elf elders, “ and if you choose to do so, it will not be because of blackmail, or coercion. We don’t take or trade in lives. I REMAIN a Disciple of the True Fey—of the Gods of Freedom.”

The elders regard the box warily and you with even greater care.

“We will help you, if you will have us… And ask nothing in return, but safe lodging and sustenance while we remain here, as your humble guests and servants.”

[Sociability check. DC would normally be 10 to win them over to a 'friendly disposition'; bringing Khankhe and the Elemental fey home is a -2 DC, the rumours flying about are a +5, the ignoring and disrespecting their culture is a +1, but gifting the box without preconditions is a -1. If you get a 14, they will be open to letting you stay; with a 17, they will be amenable to sharing their secrets.]

Anonymous

>>6014894
Wait, wouldn’t that be DC 13?

DC10 originally
Bring fey -2
Rumors +5
Sandbath +1
Give box -1

So DC10 + 3

RQM

>>6014906
[Ah, you're right. Well, you made it anyway!]

>>6014895
>>6014896
>>6014899
>>6014894
Trust does not come easy to the Neme-Ashurati. Perhaps is cannot, not even to a tribe of fair folk, in such a place as ‘the bad land’. Still, your earnest words and refusal to barter and bargain with the well-being of their sacred elders evidently moves them. When first you proffer the chest and rod, they say nothing in your favour, nor against you. As you set yourself to studying, however, they grow increasingly amenable to your presence, until finally theya re at ease.

The Neme are not like Sylvanfolk at a glance—not aesthetically, nor in demeanour. They do not laugh easily, and when they sing, it is a high and heady song—warbling, keening, almost sad. However, there is beauty there, and resilience. Their songs are often wordless , plaintive pleas of emotional resonance, often sung in harmony or in duets to one another; when there are words, they are words of welcome, and of solace against this world’s worst:

“Dalharuk, dalharen,
Lueth zhal'la pholor uns'aa,
Oloth vel'bolen,
Tsoss vel'bolen,
Udos xal xun wun,
Usstan xun wun draeval.
L'elghinn zhah udossa,
L'olath zhah ussta faer.
Nindyn morfeth 'zil nindyn vel'uss,
Udos belbau uns'aa l'thalack lueth lil alindorn'urn dal:
Aluve! Aluve!
Lueth ulu lil qual'dageb pholor nau esaph ulu ol:
Aluve! Aluve!
Lu'veldrin pha fluen uns'aa.”

“What does it mean?” Costella whispers, hodling your ahdn as you listen one evening.

It is Izirina who answers, for her own grasp of the Eleventongue is nearly as great as yours by now and, without her preconceptions tainted by the subtle-but-imrotant differences of a separately-evovled dialect, her own approach si more analytical.

“Let’s see…” she says. “‘Aluve’ is ‘farewell’ in the Sylvan dialect, but from the context they sue it, it is more like a general term of…, Acepptance, and grateful parting. ‘Farewell to torubles’?”

“A thanks,” you supply.

Izirina nods, and piece by piece, the two of you work it out:

“Come brother, come sister,
And shelter with me,
From fire and from ice,
From sand and from sea,
AMong stones we will hold,
In soft sand will we bed.
The earth is our mother,
The sky is our father.
The moon and the sun watch us,
We raise our hands to them and sing:
Thank you! Thank you!
And when hardships come we still say:
Thank you! Thank you!
Because even a desert can bloom.”

>17

There is magic in the song, of course, as in all ancient songs of your mother’s race, taught to you by the Bonum Chaoticum. This particular song is old, you learn from Nemenmo, intensely sacred and eminently relevant to the task at hand:

“They taught it to me as an elfling,” she explains, “and to my mother, and her mother, and to my father, and to his father also.”

“They?” asks Costella.

Nemenmo simply nods to the box, sealed shut, which forms the focus of each day’s study and each night’s song.

>>6014933
Sometimes, when the Neme sing of their acceptance of their lot—their grateful parting from hardship, and their readiness to face it anew, together as a people—you think wistfully of Dappulyet, and Iternagreyn. You remember your first home, and your first place of learning. You remember your mother’s face, when you parted as a child, and of seeing her sad-but-loving eyes again as a man… And of the letter you wrote her, bidding a farewell which might well be final.

You can’t help but turn your eye skyward at night, to Holy Luna, where you studied amongst the High Elves of the Moon, and learned so many of the deep and ancient secrets of your people… And paid so dearly for it.

What do you feel, reflecting on your relationship with the Council of Elders in Iternagreyn, and the Princesses of the Moon?

>Sadness
You regret the bad blood and misunderstanding which have come between you and your people, but you begrudge neither they nor your gods—it is an honest misunderstanding, which you hope to one day clear up.

>Anger
You feel hurt, betrayed, and bitter—you have only ever acted in service to the greater good, and peace between peoples, and they have KNOWINGLY slandered your name amongst all the fair folk! How DARE they?!

>Guilt
Could you have done something differently? Maybe. Probably you should have. You know you have been reckless at times, and failed to explain yourself as you should… To respect and venerate your elder kindred. This new difficulty which you must work to overcome is your own doing, in the end…

>Nothing
You are at peace with it. You remember those places and people fondly, bit will bid them grateful farewell, and move forward. You have no need to ever return, if they do not want you, and you will dwell on them no further.

While you work upon opening the crate, you find it remains infuriatingly stuck fast, those first few days. However, in your generous and empathetic dealings with your wasteland cousins, you find THEY at least are not so closed-off any longer. These distant relatives, normally so guarded with outsiders, begin to open their homes and hearts to you.

You…
>Go hunting with the Nament and Khankhe
>Practice Sand-Swimming with Nemenmo
>Learn more lore from the elders [specify if you have a specific question about their history, faith, culture, etcetera that you wish to learn]
>Petition on behalf of the goblins you freed, for a place to stay
>Attempt to correct the record and win the Neme over to your ‘side’ in the dispute with the gods
>Take green or pink shirin [specify which colour, and who you share it with if anyone]
>Write-in
>Focus only on the task at hand

[You can choose up to two activities, though if you have any simple write-ins to add I may allow a third.]

Anonymous

>>6014937
>Nothing
We did the best we could.
We did everything in our power to not harm the moon goddess, Nenaias, anyone in the sylvan realms. We risked our lives for the cause. Took the path of least bloodshed.

>Attempt to correct the record
I would not say to win them over. Just present the facts. We didn’t give the gifts to anyone. We want the unseelie gone just as much as they do.

>Practice Sand-Swimming with Nemenmo
Could come in handy some day.

>>6014937
>Attempt to correct the record and win the Neme over to your ‘side’ in the dispute with the gods
>Take green or pink shirin [specify which colour, and who you share it with if anyone]
I want to take the one that make esoteric visions magic-unlocking LSD. Sharing with our girls and a Neme powerful mage for "research" purpose

>>6014937
>Anger
I dont know what they hoped to accomplish by dragging our name through the mud. But those eladrin and elves of Iternagreyn better not show their faces top us.

>Attempt to correct the record and win the Neme over to your ‘side’ in the dispute with the gods

>Learn more lore from the elders [How was the sand pool enchanted without using extraplanar elemental energy. Why does aetherial form consider the ground to be a living thing.]

>>6015052
You forgot to vote for the

>What do you feel, reflecting on your relationship with the Council of Elders in Iternagreyn, and the Princesses of the Moon?
Option

>>6014937
>Sadness
It did not have to come to this, and it did as a a result of the player votes.

>Petition on behalf of the goblins you freed, for a place to stay
>Attempt to correct the record and win the Neme over to your ‘side’ in the dispute with the gods

>>6014937
>Sadness
>Anger
Sad our relationship deteriorated so far, rage against the injustice of it all

>Practice Sand-Swimming with Nemenmo
Spend time with friend
>Attempt to correct the record and win the Neme over to your ‘side’ in the dispute with the gods
Clear our name

>>6014937
>Sadness

>Practice Sand-Swimming with Nemenmo
>Petition on behalf of the goblins you freed, for a place to stay
I'd rather correct the record through actions than arguments

>>6014937
>Sadness
seems fitting

>Practice Sand-Swimming with Nemenmo

ReptoidQM

>>6015837
You wish you could just forget all those who would drag down your reputation—those whom you loved, and respected, and trusted, and who betrayed you. If you can’t be divorced from all that, then you wish you had the catharsis of righteous anger—fury at the injustice, at having slander heaped upon you for your simple pursuit of peace and freedom for all!

But you can’t.

The problem is that it’s not past-tense for you. You still love and respect those who have seemingly written you off as a heretic and a criminal. You still wish to go home, and even to visit Holy Luna again. You still dream of the silver city of the Sacrae Schoale Lunae, and miss Nym and Devi, you eladrin attendants-turned-friend. Most of all, you miss your motherland. You regret the bad blood which keeps you apart from the towering trees and sacred groves of your ancestral land, and the communities in Dappulyet and Iternagreyn which were once home-sweet-home to you, and which you still hold in your heart.

The worst part is that you know it could have been different. It was YOUR choices that caused things to end up this way. YORU decisions have ostracized you from those people and aplces whom you hold dear. This isn’t some gran conspiracy of spite. There is no ‘betrayer’ to shake your fist at in bucolic, cathartic outrage. It’s all just… People, doing what they think is best, speaking what they believe to be the truth.

No, you take it back. The WORST part, the very WORST…. Is that you feel not an ounce of guilt. As you stew on the regrets and recriminations, and come to this understanding of your self and your circumstances, a single truth crystallizes:

You would do it all over again.

…

>>6015930
“Ezreal, why do you sulk so?”

You look up from your melancholic reflections one evening. The study and song are over, and Izirina and Costella are asleep in one another’s embrace. You, though, cannot sleep. This is a rare thing for you, for the metabolism of the Sylvanfolk is attuned keenly to the movements of moon and sun—where your most noble and celestial ancestors and gods dwell. As such you went for a wander about the terraced planes of the sacred mountain, and it was there where Nemenmo finds you now.

“I’m not sulking,” you say.

Nemenmo regards you with a look of bemused consternation, and notes: “No, now you are pouting, instead.”

You pull in your inner lip, prompting a small smile from your intrusive observer.

“To share joy is to double it,” she says.

“To share sorrow is to halve it,” you finish the old parable. “You know, our peoples aren’t so different.”

“Ah, so that’s what this is,” Nemenmo says, crossing her arms and nodding her bald head.

“What WHAT is?”

“The sulk,” she reiterates, as if speaking to an elfling. “You are sulking because you feel separated from your people.”

“It just settled in,” you admit quietly. “But they aren’t my ONLY people.”

“The humans of the northwest,” she says. “it is different, though, isn’t it?”

“There’s not quite that same… Connection,” you admit. “It’s since, and I’d gotten used to it, but being among other elves, in a place full of feytouched life… Having experienced it, you notice it when it’s missing.”

Nemenmo shrugs, admitting: “I haven’t ever known that feeling. That isn’t how we live out here. We cannot afford to be so soft as your kind, in this place. We do not live in a garden, but in the wider world... In all its roughness, and cruelty, and want.”

“And yet you don’t feel the… The lack?” you inquire, curious now.

Nemenmo smiles again, opalescent eyes sparkling with secrets, and reaches out her subtly-webbed hand. You take her hand, stone-soldi in its strength despite its sculpted beauty, and she guides you down with alarming speed down the hills. Not expecting the leaps and bounds, you let out an embarrassingly high-pitched cry, which draws a single laugh from your companion.

“You slew a half-dozen bull-trolls and fought against Unseelie and Celestial Curts alike, and yet you cannot make a little jump without aid?”

“I did NOT fight the Celestial Court,” you protest. “It was just a little disagreement that spiraled out of control.”

You regard one particular leap, across a wide gulf and over a long, sheer drop, and gulp.

“…And I’m not used to, ah, quite so much running, and jumping and…”

“Physical fitness?”

You glare, but when you open your mouth to fire back a report… Nemenmo pushes you.

>>6015932
You pinwheel your arms as you tumble backwards from the firm blow to your chest. Your eyes go wide, and you feel the rush of air as your hat—your HAT!—leaves your head.

“AAAAAAH!” you manage to say, thoguh you can barely hear your own voice ove ryoru panic.

“Cast!”

You are stunned for a moment, and then remember that, yes, you have magic. Almost immediately, you default to Wildshape, but there is no time—you are falling too fast, the stone spires below approaching altogether too swiftly. The acsting tme and cocnentartion required.

“CAST, Ezreal!”

Suddenly, you spot it: amidst the stone, between the jagged and flattened rocks, a circle of lighter material, sparkling in your sixth sense with cultivated and refined fairy-magic: a sacred sand-bath. It clicks, and you adjust you posture as you might in a flight-capable form. You spread your arms like wings then, thinking better of it, push them forwards and bring your fingers together. You squeeze your eyes shut and shriek:

“<Sand-Swimming!>”

The somatic components for this spell are borderline non-existent, it seems—or, at least, in your fear and urgency you have bypassed the need. You push more of your aura into the casting to compensate, and to ensure success, and you are rewarded. You do not break upon the stone, nor crumble amidst the sands as you surely would regardless of their softness, but attune to the energized particles of silicate. Amongst bits of ancient bone, flecks of shattered crystals, and the secret biome of the dry earth, you find sanctuary.

The bath goes deep, deeper than you ever thought it would. You kick your legs and flail with your arms, never having been an especially strong swimmer even in water. Your robes drag upon your body, and so you DO assume as <Wildshape>, if only to absorb the enchanted attire into yourself form a moment. You imagine yourself a sand-rat, or some other desert denizen, as you push and wiggle through the sand in clumsy and unpracticed fashion, unsure whether you are digging deeper or rising t the surface. When you fear your held breath might give out, only then do strong, supple arms slip around your waist and those lightly-webbed bronze-brown fingers find your chest. Nemenmo guide you, and you allow her to do so, as she helps you to breach tehs urface.

“Whaaaaat… Haaah… WhatthefuckingHEEELL was that?” you wheeze, as Nemenmo laughs.

“Did you feel it?” she asks, when you have caught your breath.

You glower at in the direction of her voice, but cannot see her. Where are the moon, the stars?

>>6015933
You haven’t surfaced under the sky, but in one of the sacred caverns of the Neme, hidden from all who cannot <Sand-Swim>. Low-light vision fails you here, but Nemenmo and you are both in command of the spell <Daylight>, and it serves you well, illuminating a secret cave of wonders: small and intimate, but replete with natural, carved, polished, and raw gems of all sizes and colors, and the boens of strange animals, polished white and often painetd or pierced with holes as if to serve as instruments or jewelry.

“What IS this place?”

“It is a holy-of-holies,” Nemenmo replies, her voice a hushed whisper, as he kneels there, and pats the smooth sandstone beneath her knees. You, still in half-animal form, self-consciously ape her posture of prayer.

“Did you feel it?” she asks again.

You think on this question more deeply now, and eventually nod.

“The sand… You brought it from somewhere.”

“From our ancient home,” Nemenmo confirms. “From the fields where we fought, in the wars against darkness… The oases in the distant deserts of the south and east, which we cultivated. We carry it with us everywhere, in the forms of these bones, these crystals. When we reach a new place, we take some of the, or portions of them, and grind them fine, and scatter them to the winds. We ask the zephyrs to spread them far, so that the fairy-dust may settle upon our new land, and make it a hope to us, as our old one was.”

“You attune the Earth itself,” you say wonderingly, realizing the magnitude of this. “It’s a <Rite of Attunement>, for inanimate matter! THIS is how you draw upon elemental energy without involving the natively-enchanted, extraplanar energies and materials!”

Nemenmo smiles, and holds a finger to her lips, which curve in a small, subtle smile.

“The Earth is alive,” she tells you. “She is mother to us, also. But she does not think, does not aspire, does not dream. She is not like an animal, or even like a plant. Her children are her dreaming, but without the magic of the Outside… Of the Gods of Light or of Darkness… She slumbers in dreamless sleep, and the children who are born from her womb are barren, also. Without dream, without nightmare, without objective or purpose.”

You look upon this shrine of holy relics, each subtle radiating with the evidence of feycraft… Yet none burning so brightly as to serve as even a quasi-star. To charge any of these with the amount of elemental energy you’d need to keep your pledge to the Unseelie Queen would surely explode it like some dwarven mine.

But still… It is a hint, a clue, as to what you might achieve.

“Why share this with me?” you ask.

Nemenmo looks thoughtful, and finally answers:

“Because of love.”

Anonymous

>>6015936
Your cheeks flush hot, and you stammer to reply.

“You are a creature of love, and peace, and hope, Ezreal,” she elaborates. “You who makes peace with your enemies, who travels and bridges worlds. I am a warrior, a defender of the people. You… You aren’t.”

“Hey, I can fight,” you complain.

“But you do not LIKE to,” the Ashurati points out, tapping your forehead. “You don’t ENJOY battle. You REGRET killing, even a barren one like a troll, or an evil creature like a dragon.”

“it’s more complicated than that,” you huff. “it’s not so black-and-white.”

“See?” she says, smiling again. “You have always been like this, since I have known you. You do not hate, or fear. Your disgust and horror turn to fascination. You want to KNOW, to UNDERSTAND, and what you comet to understand, you love.”

Her hand slips from your forehead to entwine with your hair, undoing your ponytail.

“You spread this love, this joy, and it thus spreads, and redoubles, and covers the Earth. You bring love to our mother. It is… A noble thing.”

She cups your face, and stares into your eyes. You stare back, wordless.

Do you kiss her?
>Yes
>No

Choose a stat to boost [two, if you kiss Nemenmo]:
>Athleticism
>Elementalism
>Religion
>Natural Philosophy
>Linguistics

<s>Got a bit carried away and went long, sorry! Next update we'll tackle the rehabilitation of Tips' reputation</s>

>>6015936
>She slumbers in dreamless sleep, and the children who are born from her womb are barren, also. Without dream, without nightmare, without objective or purpose.”
Sounds like one of our soulless clones

>Yes
As long as it's just a kiss

>Athleticism
>Elementalism

>>6015966
>Yes

>Elementalism
>Religion

We'll need the stat boosts if we want to make a holy star.

>>6013705
Stat for ref
>>6015966
Yes
Just a kiss and nothing more

>Elementalism
>Religion

We’re 2/5 on ingredients right now

Queen blood (pretty much guaranteed)
Elemental energy (pending)
Drow Crystals (Theral has a way in)
Rite of Attunement (we already have that)
Sever old ties (greater disjunction might help but unknown as of now)

Drow Crystals and Elemental energy are our main concern right now. I think our social skills are okay at the moment. Athleticism might help but that is mainly for combat or if I recall correctly, stealth, neither of which don’t seem to be situations we would be in too often.

>>6014965

>>6015966
>No
I doubt it will be just a kiss, if RQM is enticing us by an extra boost.

>Elementalism

>>6015940
Neat
>>6015966
>Yes
She cute in her own way, what can I say

>Athleticism
>Elementalism
>>6016220
You make a good argument, but I’ll still get on it just being an energized kiss or she giving us something because of it.

>>6015966
>Yes
I mean, she did give us insight of the world and it’s nature, least we can do is this.
>Elementalism
>Natural Philosophy

>>6016220
I don’t think she wants to have sex with us right after saying

>You bring love to our mother [earth]. It is… A noble thing.

Also I can’t imagine having sex while there’s sand in every and all crevice. Striaghtup sandpaper grinding.

>>6016348
Tbf, I think the sand-swimming would make the sand not affect us that much. But your argument as to way it becoming xes is good, it’d be too soon and strange after what she said.

>>6015966
>No
We have things working with our two soulmates. Let's not uselessly make things more complex.

>Elementalism

RQM

>>6015993
>>6015994
>>6016001
>>6016220
>>6016291
>>6016333
>>6016348
>>6016364
>sandy-crack
[As you discovered in your initial dip in the sacred baths, the incredibly fine sand does not cling to you, most ESPECIALLY when using Sand-Swimming.]

>it was only a kiss, it was only a kiss!
[Full disclosure, as should be obvious IMO given that I included a bonus for choosing that option: the kiss will have consequences. Otherwise, it's literally just "do you want two stat boosts or one?", which is a silly thing to vote on. At the very least, you should probably consider how this will affect Tips' characterization and his relationships when voting. Anyone who's been playing my quests (including this one) knows that, for all the swinging and threesomes and polyamory I allow as options, I don't tend to just allow consequence-free porn-logic power fantasy harem silliness. At least, not without some damn good rolls to back it up, kek.]

[It isn't a trap option, but it also isn't a "do you want superpowers and new side-piece for free?" vote, either. The vote remains open if this changes anyone's decision-making process.]

Anonymous

>>6016541
Shit nvm
No kiss
Just Elementalism

>>6016541
hmm I see, I was expecting it to affect but the sex thing thrw me out. well while we could get lucky with a free boost without consequences with a good roll, let's not start it. changing vote >>6016291 to :
>no
>Athleticism

>>6015966
>Yes
I think with the recent ego rolls its only natural, but I think it would be kind of funny if Tips looked at this as a self study narcissist elf thing, he isnt in love with Nemenmo, but he does love elves and regardless he has 2 human fiancés, Idk if that makes sense
>Athleticism
>Elementalism
Naturally we gain some elemental affinity, and with Nem's jabs at our scrawn and raise in ego we care a little, plus might be nice for the girls too. I understand im asking for drama by saying yes, but I dont think Nem wants anything too too serious given their disregard for sacred spaces and the fact we brought the girls with us, might be a culture thing might just be a hoe thing but I wanna see where it goes

>>6013497
this is me, ik thats not helpful and I understand not taking my vote so my arguments are more for other players, I wont say change votes just saying why I did mine

>>6016975
>/qst/ anons refuse a delicious brown tomboy?

Breaking my heart here RQM

>>6016998
Quouple beats throuple ;)

Mainly influenced by the previous scene, it was quite heartwarming ngl

RQM

>>6016998
[Costella is practically a ginger, and thus categorically immune to being delicious or brown. Also not a tomboy: just a very physically-capable girly-girl who has been given a supernatural 'super-soldier serum'.]

[Izirina is sort of a brown tomboy, though more of a goth GF, realistically.]

>>6016998
>>6017003
>>6016994
[Anyway, back to writing!]

Anonymous

>>6017010
Even if we don't kiss her we can at least tell her "thanks sis you too"

>>6016975
>[/qst/ anons refuse a delicious brown tomboy? Never thought I'd see the day!]
tips is a loyal husbandu

ReptoidQM

>>6016975
>>6017010
>>6016975
Your heart hammers in your chest, as if it wishes to burst forth and blossom like a flower in bloom, unfurling feelings you didn’t realize you held. The atmosphere is as rich with tension as it is with aura. Your own hands reach out for Nemenmo’s hips without your conscious volition. She gasps softly, then smiles, eyes alight with delight at your decisive action—action in favour of, as she puts it, an all-encompassing ‘love’. For you, here and now, it is a much less vague and ephemeral feeling which seizes you: a very focused feeling, more lust than love. You are both breathing hard. Nemenmo steps forward, her body pressed against yours. It is lean, and muscular, yet so appreciably feminine. A moment which had started with religious abstraction quickly turns private, intimate. You lean in.

(Gods, she smells intoxicating.)

And yet… You linger there. On the precipice of something you want—you REALLY want—yet you know is wrong, or at least reckless. Your relationship with Izirina and with Costella… It is a beautiful thing, shared and deeply unconventional. Yet, it is not OPEN. It is not a carte blanche to do as you please. It is a commitment—an engagement, in public with one and in private with the other. It is also DELICATE. Izirina’s emotions are difficult to read, distant and confounding at times, but she is not COLD—not really, not like your master, who raised her, much as she might seek to emulate her at times. And Costella—insecure, contested, sensitive and soft—how would SHE feel about the sudden intrusion of a fourth party into your affairs?

“I can’t,” yous ay abruptly, removing your hands from Nemenmo, who looks confused.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Did I misunderstand? I thought there was a mutual…”

“There is,” you assure her breathlessly, face burning bright and mouth salivating in anticipation of an unrealized kiss. “There REALLY is. But… I’m taken. Engaged.”

“To humans?” she asks. “Ezreal… You are more of our kind, than of theirs.”

“Maybe I’m more elf than man,” you allow, “but every part of me is theirs. Izirina’s, and Costella’s.”

An awkward moment passes.

“Maybe if they said it was okay…” you begin. “or if it was only a kiss?”

“It would not be only a kiss,” Nemenmo replies softly. “I do not desire ONLY a kiss, Ezreal.”

You gulp.

Anonymous

>>6017013
Tbf, Izzy probably would be down for it for the esoteric knowledge alone, just gotta keep it on the up-and-up with her

ReptoidQM

Rolled 4, 5, 9, 19, 5, 19, 17, 7 = 85 (8d20)

>>6017019
“No,” Nemenmo says, with a small laugh, and then adds: “I’m sorry, you are right, Ezreal. I was lost in the moment. Your decision is the correct one, by the morality of Man, and the Gods of Law. Even if they are not my gods, not my people… I was wrong to try to assume what I did.”

She frowns, and looks away, expression thoughtful. You look away as well, using the excuse of retrieving and replacing your hat.

“But we’re still friends, aren’t we?” she asks.

“Of course,” you reply.

“Good,” she sighs in relief, then bites her lip and adds, to your deep consternation: “Had I only acted sooner, perhaps we could have been more.”

You do not reply, nor does Nemenmo press you for a response. In the days that follow, you do not meet—not in private, at least. It is for the best, though it limited your education on the sacred mysteries of the Ashurati somewhat. Still, neither that ‘almost’ moment nor the revelations which preceded it.

>Elementalism +1

Nemenmo is true to her word: she never again approaches you romantically or sexually, but nor does she renounce you as a friend. As you continue to aid the Neme in the freeing of their True Fey patrons, you also take every opportunity to put forward your virtues, your commitment to Feycraft and the values of the Bonum Chaoticum, and your earnest respect for their people and their culture; all the while, Nemenmo offers her support, vouching for your honesty. If anything, the respect you showed for your oaths to Izirina and Costella seem to lend her greater confidence in attesting to the truth of your words…

>+Neme reputation

…And gradually, her fellow genasi seem to absorb and accept the sentiment as well.

[Aracane/Feycraft, +1 for Elementalism, +1 circumstantial bonus for this one major event]

>>6017021

With Izirina’s assistance, and that of the Neme-Ashurati, you eventually find your way to the heart of the chest’s mystery. The secret lies in those same sacred sands—those which you shared with your fiancés, and with the one-who-got-away.

“So if we were to just break the break the enchantment on the chest then… What would happen?”

“We’ve been over this,” Izirina notes, without annoyance but with evident confusion. “Your <Disjunction> spell, however ‘great’ it is… It could kill or banish the fairies within.”

“And if we sink it into the sands, first?” you press. “If we attuned the chest itself to them… To the energies the sands have absorbed from millennia of Feycraft?”

“Love and reverence as a beacon…” Nemenmo murmurs.

“That could work,” one of the elders notes, though he sounds uncertain.

“That’s beautiful!” Costella swoons.

“It is,” Nemnmo agrees, and you exchange a brief, fleeting glance.

You form a ritual circle, together with your badlands-dwelling cousins. Nemenmo is there, across from you…. But to either side, holding your hands tight, are Izirina Henzler and Costella Fanucci. You join the Ashurati in song, in dance, in ritual magic, and so too do the two human women whom you hold dearest, of all peoples, in all the universe. You hear their voices rise in song. You see Iziirna’s exhilaration, to be part of a fairy court, to make a new and grand discovery about the cosmos’ nature. You witness Costella’s simpler, more altruistic enthusiasm, simply to help and to be a part of something good, for the good of others.

Your heart soars. You sing louder, matching their energy. You smile wide, beaming. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

>19

The chest opens, and a rainbow of elemental light—fire-red, sky-blue, earthen brown, and the green-blue of that rare, water-storing desert vegetation—explodes forth, until it swirls and coalesces into the form of a few, distinct spirits. The Elemental Fey join the dance, rejoicing in their freedom, and replete in gratitude and grandeur.

“What now?” is the next question, of course, and it is practical, results-oriented Izirna who voices it.

>>6017048
“Like, what do you mean?” Costella asks. “We saved the fairies! Now we go home… Right?”

“We still can’t make an artificial star for the Unseelie,” Izzy points out.

“We have an idea how to start,” you say, “and without… Outside interference or extraplanar elements.”

Costella looks between the two of you, confused, but izirina pales slightly, and nods. She knows, a you know, that part of this expedition was the pursuit fo a solution to the ‘Unseelie Star’ project which didn’t involve following the recipe of that dark spirit whom she had take tutelage from, which calls itself ‘The Nothic’.

“The secret is the chest, the rod, and the sands,” Izirina says, after some consideration. “The chest can store power. The rod can control it. The sands… They can disperse it and broadcast it, but not store it as effectively or completely as the chest, nor control it as precisely as the rod. But I need more time to study them.”

“WE need more time to study them,” you counter.

“Umm… You guys?” Costella chimes in, apologetically. “We’ve been gone a while.. A few weeks now, almost a month. What about, like, The Hill?”

Old Maple Hill, your land reserve turned neo-feycraft commune, has been without it three leaders for some time now. It is a contentious project in many quarters, and its ‘citizenry’ (such as they are) are still mostly-ignorant and uneducated humans, barely educated in the ways of the True Fey. There IS a fairy court there, upon the hill itself which gives the area its name, but the spriggan which presides from within the ancient maple upon that holy mound is no great god, nor overfond of humanity. There are many reasons to suspect they are ill-prepared to govern their own affair indefinitely, even before you account for whatever hostilities may still foment among the dark elves, the Sylvanfolk, or even some of the more conservative elements of Hawksong’s human society.

“And what about, like… The goblins?” Costella adds, ever considerate of those in need. “Aren’t we supposed to find them a home, or whatever?”

You HAD already decided that Old Maple Hill was a poor place for those greens-skinned slaves whom you liberated to make a permanent abode, after all; between their nature and reputation, and given the history of the region and the sentiment of the nearby human communities, a fairy-commune on the outskirts of Hawksong was simply no place for a goblin village to live in peace and freedom.

>Assign Izzy, Costella, Tips, Zith-Zi, and Carazzi to each of the following locations and projects:
>>Studying the chest and rod at the sacred mountain
>>Providing supervision and guidance at Old Maple Hill
>>Finding a permanent home for the goblin captives whom you freed

[Feel free to write in any tactics, approaches, or inquiries you have to help guide or direct your decisions]

Anonymous

>>6017055
>Tips and Izzy study the chest
>Costella manages the Hill
>Zi and Carazzi deal with the goblins

>>6017055
>>>Studying the chest and rod at the sacred mountain.
Izzy, Tips.

>>>Providing supervision and guidance at Old Maple Hill
Costella

>>>Finding a permanent home for the goblin captives whom you freed.
Zith-Ziand Carazzi.

I wonder if we can ask Theral for help and send the goblins to go live in bloodrise's territories amongst multiple the races there.

>>6017055
>>Studying the chest and rod at the sacred mountain
Izzy
>>Providing supervision and guidance at Old Maple Hill
Costella & Tips
>>Finding a permanent home for the goblin captives whom you freed
ZithZi & Carazzi

As for the goblins home, tell them Hawksong isn’t very welcoming of them. They might be able to stay there, but it will be difficult.

I want Tips to be with Costella in case we get jumped by Carlos again. Also to back up our claim of going on expeditions then getting married after our project is done.

>>6017055
>>6017065
Seems the ideal configuration

RQM

>>6017066
>I wonder if we can ask Theral for help
[It is an option, now that you mention it...]

Anonymous

>>6017065
>+1
>>6015476
>>6017066
>I wonder if we can ask Theral for help and send the goblins to go live in bloodrise's territories amongst multiple the races there.
maybe, but dunno if sending them there is the best

>>6017128
i recall bloodrise still having slavery but it became a bit more meritocratic under theral's & ancestor possessed theral's rule? Still feels pretty fucked to send them there though

>>6017164
>>6017128
I mean where else can the goblins go? Hawksong the most mutli ethnic place in the pax argentum. Has a goblin settlement ban, and the other human duchies in the boonies are more intolerant presumably.

They were going to be sold into slavery in the southern lands. And the orcs are going on a rampage further up north east in the waste. So we cant send them there.

These goblins live in a place called "the wastes" for a reason. Its the only area normally available to them. And Zith zi believed it was unlikely for them to assimilate into human society, even if we do mange to bribe or negotiate a place for them.

>>6017164
Meritocratic doesn't mean "no slavery". I just means you're getting enslaved based on the enslaver abilities, not ancestry.

>>6017055

Could we
>Ask for sacred sand for the chest, and attempt to create a Neme Sanctuary near our Grove?
Not like IN the sacred forest grove. But close. Either in our granted land reserve or negociate a bit more land, and work on our Newt Salamender Pokedex of fairies

>>6017396
Thus my formal Vote would be
>Izzy, Tips and Costella back at Old Maple Hill
Izzy on chest and rod
Costella on Supervision and guidance
Tips at expanding Fairy grounds to create a small Earth-attuned sand-oasis, home for Mino
>Carazzi, Zith-Zi and Theral on a bloodrise adventure.
More on Theral's business side of things. Open links for a Dark elf future adventure time if we don't find a crystal alternative; maybe the Chest can?

>>6017055
>Tips and Izzy study the chest
Have Nemenmo help us (and maybe leave a good impression on Izzy)
>Costella manages the Hill
>Zi and Carazzi deal with the goblins captives
We should revisit incorporating some of our charges into Maple Hill- it an obvious that doesn’t lead them back into chains.

>>6017055
>>6017421
Also, should probably spend some ‘alone’ time with Costella (and Izzy) before she leaves, and have Carazzi satiate her hunger on the residual feeling to top her off before her trial.

>>6017307
My friend, if ever the Sun Belt Crusaders gets resurrected, I’d be happy to call you my brother-in-arms in-quest.

>>6017401
I do like this idea. I like Izzy & Tips on chest while keeping Costella secure.
Switching from >>6017069 to supporting this

>>6017019
>five days into the thread and we’re almost risking pregnancy again.

… ain’t no way.

>>6017437
Tips got the rizz after all and you know how alluring tomboys are, specially one that’s hairless.

RQM

>>6017518
<s>Hairless everywhere, too, not that Tips will ever know that, kek</s>

>>6017434
>>6017421
>>6017401
>>6017128
>>6017066
>>6017065
[Writing! Right after I make some coffee.]

Anonymous

>>6017555
Can I get an answer to how feasible my plan was in update pretty please?

>>6017555
Expected it, since she even is bald

ReptoidQM

>>6017555
>>6017566
>>6017601
“You’re right,” you admit sadly, with a wistful gaze in the direction of the upper-most peak where the chest and rod await further researches.

“We’re not done here,” Izzy insists. “Tips, there’s still so much more to discover!”

“Maybe we could, like… Take them with us?” Costella asks hopefully.

Izirina shakes her head, and you quickly elaborate to clear the confusion: “We need all three aspects: the chest, the rod, AND the sands… As WELL as the Elemental Fey, to lend us their energies and help with our understanding of the underlying divine arcana.”

“Well there’s room at the hill, right?” Costella prods.

You reflect upon that private, midnight swim with Nemenmo, and on what she told you. So, too, do you recall these many days of meetings, of speaking and singing with the Neme elders who serve as mystics and historians for their race. You frown, and Costella’s face falls when she sees your expression.

“No?” she asks.

“No,” you agree. “The Ashurati, or Neme… They came here for a reason. These places—‘empty’ place, where life is hard and the soil barren—are their sacred duty to enliven. Nemenmo told me as such, though I only fully understood it later. They are guardians and creators of oases, not only of life but of MAGIC.”

You smile ruefully, and conclude: “Old Maple Hill is already rich in life, and magic—fairy magci, no less. It’s simply TOO NICE for them.”

“So… What do we do?” Costella asks, looking between you and Izirina.

“I’m staying,” Izirina asserts, planting her feet as if bracing for a fight. “I’m so close to understanding this… To cracking open this mystery and really GETTING how it all works… The fundamental alchemy of turning dead matter, mundane matter, into MAGICAL matter with the potential for arcane animation! That’s what this all is, don’t you SEE? This research is at the very threshold of CREATING A WORLD. Their oases are—”

“I know,” you interrupt. “I get it, Izzy.”

Izirina’s excitement, spilling forth, comes to a trickling stop. She nods, and smiles.

“Of course you do,” she acknowledges. “You’re Tips. So you’re staying, too?”

You are. You cannot do otherwise, you realize. As much as you wish to return home, to attend to your responsibilities there, you feel the same thing which Izirina Henzler feels: the pull of ancient, hidden knowledge, the need to understand it completely.

“I have a duty to the Unseelie, as unpleasant as they may be,” you justify it.

Izirina smiles knowingly, and says nothing. Costella, though, only grows more distraught.

>>6017605
“Wait, but… Does that mean I’m going back alone? M-maybe I should stay here, with you two?”

“No,” you say, taking her hands to reassure her. “Someone needs to keep peace and provide leadership on the Hill. The Sprit of the Old Maple likes you—he told me as much—and everyone else there likes you, too.”

“But I don’t know how to DO, like, anything!” she frets. “I can’t cast spells, I can barely speak elven, I don’t really know all that many rituals—”

“But you can farm,” you interrupt her. “You can mend clothing and furniture, care for animals…”

“You helped birth that sheep, a few months ago,” Izirina notes.

“…And you know how to run the market, how to sell the gods we produce and keep everyone organized an productive so the community can stay afloat,” you finish. “You know how to do LOTS of things… And honestly, a lot of those are things the people there need more than what Izirina and I do, day to day.”

“Ez,” Costella whispers, lip trembling slightly, and then looks to Izirina. “Iz!”

Costella throws herself upon you both, squeezing you tight. You each wrap your arms around her in turn, Izirina only a few seconds after you. You remain like that for a time, and then part, to make preparations for Costella’s departure.

In truth, Costella isn’t really leaving alone: those slaves whom you liberated are going with her, as are Zith-Zi and Carazzi.

“I understand what you said about the goblins being a poor fit for Old Maple Hill, or for Hawksong,” you tell Zith-Zi. “So I was thinking, what about The Bloodrise Mountains?”

Zith-Zi freezes, leaned over her pack, and then slowly turns to stare at you.

“Are you fuckin’ nuts?” she asks you. “Did all this heat go to yet head or somethin’? Or did you finally take some a’ that shirin shit?”

“I’m serious,” you say. “It’s already a… A kingdom of monsters, right? But also elves, and dwarves I’ve heard. Between that and the lizardmen and… Uh, bugs…”

“What, they got all the gross shit and black elves, so a few little green gobs’ll fit right in? ‘Zat it?!”

“Well…”

Zith-Zi glares, but then gradually her expression shifts as she really considers it.

“Well, shit,” she says. “That might actually work, if I’m givin’ it a fair shake. But what if they just, you know…”

Zith-Zi makes the motion of drawing a sword or dagger across her throat.

“Or what if they enslave them again?” she asks. “And US?”

“Well, the Dragon King owes me one,” you note. “He might not need to deliver that pass to Wevenore for the Drow’s crystals, so the least he can do is not kill or enslave my friends.”

“Oh, he’s got jokes now!” Zith-Zi mocks you, throwing her hands up in the air. “Easy for you ta’ say, all safe ‘n cozy with your magical elf orgies up on th’ mountain, or whatever ya’ fairies get up to up there!”

>>6017609
“Orgies?” Carazzi asks, popping up from wherever she had been making her own preparations.

“That’s not even CLOSE to accurate!” you protest. “We’re attending to seriously, legitimate research! It’s all… I mean, there’s some singing and dancing, but ritualistic sorts. It’s very technical, and magical, and—”

“Aww,” Carazzi sighs.

“Only total fuckin’ nerds like Izzy ‘n you would call a bunch a’ studying a ‘vacation’,” Zith-Zi teases you. “Ya’ ask me, Costella’s LUCKY she’s leavin’.”

You frown, and ZIth-Zi seems to realize she’s taken her teasing a little too far, clearing her throat and averting her eyes.

“Besides,” you add after the moment has passed, “the Dragon King is technically your half-brother, you know. Yours and, ah, Carazzi’s. Sort of.”

Zith-Zi snorts at that, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be just like comin’ home. ‘Hey, big bad lizard-bro, did you know your mom grew a demon dick an’ knocked up some gob almost thirty years ago? Anyway, can me an’ my evil twin crash on yer couch?”

You smile, noting: “You call her family a lot more easily these days.”

“Well, I guess it’s… Whatever,” Zith-Zi says, face abruptly crunching in discomfort, and then she gives you a knowing look. “You, too, huh?”

You both look to Carazzi, humming and hopping this way and that, helping the others to prepare for their journey. You do a double-take when you see her hauling—albeit with some strain—the larger form of the still-bound Skekz-Gab the Hobgoblin.

“Figure we’ll turn her inta’ the authorities or somethin’?” Carazzi asks.

Skekz-Gab glares.

“Or use her for emerhency rations,” Zith-Zi replies.

The hobgoblin shuts her mouth, and fumes silently. With Carazzi giggling at the idea and lciking her lips, she dare not protest the initial plan too loudly.

You laugh a little at the grim humour, and at the girlish delight with which Carazzi carries out her duties. Strange form and origins aside, she really HAS come to feel like… Well, practically like a daughter to you.

“Don’t worry, daddy,” ZIth-Zi cackles, smacking your backside. “I’ll take good care of the kid.”

“That would make you the mother, in that analogy,” you shoot back.

“Ha! That a come-on, Tips? What, like you ain’t got enough girl troubles?”

"You don't know the half of it," you mumble.

>>6017610
Costella and the Zis—and sundry others—do not leave all at once. They can’t. Even at full power, and well-rested, Izirina can only transport so many people across such a great distance with a single <Dimension Door>. This is doubly difficult for goblins, who by their very nature resist and disrupt magic. This does, at least, give you the added benefit of one more night with both of the women whom you love.

“Ezreal… We should take some shirin.”

You do a double-take, never having expected to hear such a suggestion from Izirina. In fact… How did she even learn of it? You’d never really discussed the shirin with her, had you?

“Shirin?” Costella asks. “Like… The drug? I heard that stuff is popular with some people… But won’t it just keep us up all night or whatever?”

“Tips has other kinds,” Izirina replies, regarding you with a subtly-seductive look over her shaded glasses. “Don’t you?”

It is true: you have two types, the psychoactive and hallucinogenic ‘mind-opening’ green shirin, and the allegedly-aphrodisiac pink shirin… And you have more than enough of either for each of you to have a full dose.

“Where’s this coming from?” you ask.

“It’s going to be our last night together for a while,” Izirina notes, provoking another frown from Costella. “I thought it might make it… Special.”

What will you do?
>Do pink shirin with the girls
>Do green shriin with the girls
>Do no shirin with the girls
>Mix the shirin up, and see what happens
>Write-in

Anonymous

>>6017613

I recall RQM mentioning Izzy bringing along contraceptive creams and what not with us on the trip. If that is so,

>Do pink shirin with the girls

Green shirin is too useful. We might be able to trade it elsewhere.

>>6017613
>Do pink shirin with the girls

>>6017635
Addendum: with contraception ONLY!

>>6017613
You know what, no. Changing >>6017635 to
>Don't do shirin and don't have sex
Because I'm paranoid.

>>6017613
>Do pink shirin with the girls. Remember to use the contraceptive creams as well.
green would be funny, but it's too useful for other things so for now only the pinkagra.
am >>6015476

>>6017677
party pooper

>>6017610
>“Orgies?” Carazzi asks, popping up from wherever she had been making her own preparations.
lel

>>6017613
>Do pink shirin with the girls
Woah Izzy getting adventurous

Yall realize Izzy is still talking to the Nothic right? Thats why she knew about the shirin, Nemenmos hypothetical kiss wouldve been immediately known as shes spying on us

>>6017762
I thought she just had her own divination magic that she uses

>>6017613
>Mix the shirin up, and see what happens
Have some fun and experiment a little!

>>6017762
>Thats why she knew about the shirin
she doesn't need the nothic to know about a regular drug, also divination dude.

>>6017677
Now that I think about it, sending Costella home right after a night of sex and shirin probably won’t be a good look if her parents were to come visit.

I’m still supporting the sex + pink shirin option as long as we have contraception but get her cleaned up afterwards.

>>6017762
Uh, no? She knew about the shirin because she was there when we went to the brothel and got the shirin

>>6017961
>Now that I think about it, sending Costella home right after a night of sex and shirin probably won’t be a good look if her parents were to come visit.
anon, she just needs to wash and if anything, she can just say she was doing stuff(s).

ReptoidQM

>>6018032
“Well, I do have some, uh… Variations upon the basic formula.”

Costella looks a little nervous, but Izirina is visibly excited—or, well, as excited as she ever visibly is, when magical secrets aren’t involved. You can forgive her usual muted reactions, since even SUGGESTING such a daring course of action is unusually adventurous for her. You’re even more astounded to see Izirina reach out and touch Costella’s lower back, rubbing her gently. Costella squeaks in surprise, but then immediately melts into the uncharacteristic physical affection.

“Well, uh, okay~…”

“How did you even know about the shirin?” you ask, as you rifle through your pack for the folded paper packages containing the finely-granulated, coloured powders.

(Has she been spying on you? Is The Nothic involved? You’d like to believe the answer is ‘no’, and yet…)

“Zith-Zi told me.”

(…Ah.)

“And you really want to do this?” you ask.

“Would I ask if I wasn’t?” Izzy asks, looking and sounding genuinely confused at the question.

“I guess not,” you utter. “Ah, here they are!”

You have nine pouches of shirin—tiny little brown envelopes, four sealed with a small dollop of pink wax and five with a dollop of minty green. You extract three of the pink, each containing a dose to last a single human—or half-elf—for an evening’s exploration. You have to admit to being a little excited yourself. You’d bought these with the intent to share in just such an experience, and just… never had the time, with everything else going on. Well, this IS a vacation, so why not?

“How does it, like, work?” asks Costella, as you pop open the first package.

“Well, it can be ingested in a variety of ways,” you say, recounting what you’ve been told and, on at least a couple occasions, experienced. “Any mucous membrane will do. Nasally is fastest, but is rough on the tissues. It’s easiest to take it orally. You simply lick a finger-like so—dip it inside, coat the digit thoroughly, and…”

You pause, and look over at the others—especially Costella.

“We have contraceptives left, right?”

“Chewable herbs and creams,” Izirina confirms.

“Good,” you say. “We should use both.”

“R-right,” says Costella, face flush.

“…Obviously?” Izirina replies, looking between the two of you. “Did something happen?”

“N-nothing!” Costella blurts out. “it’s fine!”

>>6018077
Izirina slowly nods. She removes her glasses, and then her hat, and with a quick motion and shake of her head her reddish hair is cast loose. It frizzes up briefly as if with electrical charge, and then the small wind which encircles her begins to lift and spread it, until it hovers about her face like an angelic halo. Smile smiles, and asks:

“What are we waiting for? You’re being strange.”

“I just want to ensure that we’re being safe and conscientious,” you say, a little miffed. “I don’t want any—Ah!”

Before you can say more, Izirina approaches. She grabs hold of your arm, her hands sliding up to squeeze your wrist, and slowly work their way up to your knuckles. Her eyes, flashing and bright, meet your own. She never breaks eye contact as she lowers her head to your powdered index finger and, parting her lips, takes it into her mouth, to clean it with a swirl of her tongue and a booing, sucking motion.

“Holy shit,” both you and Costella say at once.

After that, your fears and worries swiftly abate. Izirina sets the pace—another rarity. With dilated pupils and rapid breathing-not to mention a persist reddishness about her face and unusual ashy near-whiteness about her extremities, it is obvious she is being affected. If that weren’t enough, the way she sets upon Costella, stripping away clothes and setting about her with hands and mouth, would be enough.

“Hoooly… Oh, f-fuck, Iz, you’re… Oh wow!”

Your pants tent at visual feats set before you upon your shared bedspread: Costella on her back, hands gripping at the sheets and eyes rolled back, chewing her lip as Izirina busies her own mouth in other ways. You’re s captivated that it take you a moment to realize that Izzy is speaking to you, and to notice her hand is reaching back to you, fingers beckoning.

“Tips!”

“Wait, what?”

“Shirin!” Izirina repeats.

You blink in confusion, but hand the second pouch to her. You expect her to offer it to Costella, but instead, she pours it onto her own fingers—slick and sticky with fluids other than saliva. She works her fingers together, and then—

“W-woah! ThaAAAaaAAttt… That tiiIIiingles!”

Well, you did say ANY mucous membrane, but you are nevertheless startled—and EXCEEDINGLY aroused—to see (and hear, thanks to Costella’s excitement) Izirina’s creative means of dosing your shared paramour.

“Oh G-gods… Oh, I feel… I feel really warm. Oh… OH! Oh Izzy, oh, that’s… Oh, it’s so much more int-t0tense than—AAAH!”

Anonymous

>>6018086
>Give in
Damn it
Is Izzy ever not up to some shenanigans?

>>6018083
I’ll be honest, this shit is not readable even on an ipad. Zooming in to read a sentence on one side then having to move to the other isn’t particularly fun.

Working on it.

RQM

>>6018134
<s>That bit is literally just the porniest and least plot-relevant part, so don't sweat it</s>

>>6018083
<s>Alternative, for folks like >>6018134, is hosted at https://pastebin.com/9QGpZvSF</s>

Anonymous

>>6018086
>you cannot say for sure what time it is, how long you’ve been here, or…
>or how many of the contraceptives remain.

Wow, all that sex - with the drugs included - and still no on screen description of a creampie? We even had contraceptives this time.

>Resist the urge
Fine. I refuse to believe it didn’t happen off screen.

>>6018142
You know me.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/<wbr>1OJOz8HPveKAPKc3OlruXDFU5nuniBmciu7<wbr>LO-kZAM-U/edit

>>6018086
>Resist the urge
alright izzy, that was really strange. if it were both of them urging us to do it, I'd bite the bullet but Cossy is not going along with this trolge. btw we only fucked cossy ? we gotta make up for it and correct izzy along with it.
>>6018142
you know, posting the pastebin is way better than that image since you have to go along and then return due to the zoom.

>>6018086
>Pull out of Costella
"If you wish so much, I can give it to you instead."

>>6018477
kek, might be the combination of sex and cum in the phrase but kinda strange this was deleted when other quests got away with more.

ReptoidQM

>>6018083
<s>prompt hidden within, for posterity. Seems even with the other, pornier bit excised and cordoned off, we flew too close to the sun. </s><s>How oddly appropriate, for Izirina...</s>

>>6018132
>>6018157
>>6018204
>>6018254
>>6018279
[It seems we have a slim majority, though, and it's about time to lock the decision anyway!]

>>6018477
[Thanks, anon.]

Anonymous

This is disgusting. Why are you posting literal pornography on a blue board?

ReptoidQM

Rolled 3, 9, 6, 3, 19 = 40 (5d20)

>>6018487
You grit your teeth, grip tightening on Costella’s suppleness. Her body is a perfectly-balanced mxi of fat and muscle, ever since the same transformative journey which made you aethereal and Izirina elementally-attuned. Even now, you efforts to hold back—to be responsible, to evince control—are held back by just how exquisite she feels, inside and out.

And yet there’s something about that crazed look in Izzy’s luminous eyes… The intense focus writ across her face…

“If you want it so badly,” you say between gasps, “I can give it to you, instead?”

Izzy’s breathing hitches, her face flushing. She whines, a mix of pleasure and frustration, and almost looks as if she’s considering it. However…

“No!” she insists. “It has to be her!”

(Well, shit. That settles it.)

You’re not sure what Izirina Henzler is up to this time, or why, but she’s scheming at SOMETHING again. And that means, loathe as you are to do so, you must overcome your every natural instinct, retrieve those inhibitions which the pink shjrin stripped from you, and…

<s>Natural Philosophy Roll to control yourself, DC 15, +2 DC for two Ego-boosting choices, two extra die for Sense Motive</s>

>>6018495
In spite of all of it—Izzy’s insistence, Costella’s own wordless pleading, the potent stimulant-aphrodisiac burning through your system—you manage to free yourself from the honeyed trap set before you. Release still comes, but without the risk. You stumble back a step, catching your breath, heart pounding at both the recent physical exertion and at the narrowly-avoided act of irresponsibility. Your legs go weak and wobbly, knees nearly knocking, and you tumble onto your bare backside. Your head is swimming, vision wobbly and wavy in the afterglow.

“AAARGH!”

You almost mistake the shriek for a cry of pleasure in your half-delirious state. However, when you see Izzy’s face, there’s no mistaking her emotional state: she’s upset. Izirina stands up, still nude from the waist down with her trousers cast aside and dress hiked up. She stares down, between Costella’s legs and at the evidence of your err in aim—or rather, your ability to resist whatever strange and confounding machinations she set in place. She glares at you, bizarrely FURIOUS, for reasons you can’t quite fathom. Then, her expression breaks, anger shattering to make way for a despair and dismay which is equally incomprehensible to you.

She bolts out of the tent.

“W-wait,” you stammer. “What…?”

You start to struggle to your feet, scrambling for your trousers and underclothes, still tangled about one another in a heap on the floor. You manage to extricate one from the other and, hopping on one foot, push your leg through the bottom hole. Your hurried scramble to clothe yourself, to chase after Izirina is interrupted, though…

By Costella.

You look down, the rush of drug-addled confusion broken by her touch. You look down to where Costella is tugging upon the cuff of your pants, still lying upon the ground. Her hair is sex-mussed, green-speckled face shadowed and half hidden by her wavy brown locks, but she shakes her head subtly and you understand that she doesn’t want you to leave. Not yet.

What do you do?
>Go after Izirina to confront her about whatever the fuck THAT all was
>Stay here with Costella until Izzy returns, or until morning
>Write-in

>>6018496
<s>Don't feed the troll, he's just salty because people in the QTG called him out for being silly and a bad listener</s>

Anonymous

>>6018495
>3,9,6 on pulling out
>3,19 on sense motive
We still pulled out completely? Okay.

>>6018502
>Go after Izirina to confront her about whatever the fuck THAT all was
Gib head kiss to costella.

If we stay we probably fuck again and now we’re just repeating this.

Wow this sex scene is taking a while huh.

RQM

>>6018510
[Your sense motive roll roll was a bonus to your base roll, essentially tipping you off even while high and horny that something was up.]

>Wow this sex scene is taking a while huh.
[A couple posts, but mostly because <s>it's plot relevant</s>]

Anonymous

>>6018502
>Go after Izirina to confront her about whatever the fuck THAT all was