>>1132805
One last thing, if Ratislav manages to escape to look for illgotten, he should sniff him out. Rats sense of smell is really good, and he should still smell like the tea he splashed on him. Follow his scent!

A)

A

C) bwoah shit! Move away from the bird mouth full of teeth!
A) nice smile though

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/10(Sat)18:01 No. 1132842 ID: 4d139a
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A) Humorous

B) Romantic

C) Suspenseful

D) Optimistic

E) Pessimistic

F) Serious

E, D) Pessimistic optimism. Perhaps we can convince him.

Tell him you'll accept it, but only if cruelty of death will also accept that with you gone, Iron dredge will just continue to cheat death and pass on his death onto others if you are not around to steal his artifact and destroy it. Ironic seeing as he's punishing you for killing one bird while Iron Dredge gets to get off Scott free killing many of his followers without them knowing through his artifact.

Unless of course he wants to take your place in doing the job and risk taking the artifact himself?

D
It's fine, rats have nine lives... right?

plus A, I suppose

>>1132842
D) Hey here’s a thought! Kys, An hero, to yourself Mr. Reaper, with strange aeons even death may die.

>>1132843
that's a good point

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/11(Sun)17:21 No. 1132873 ID: 4d139a
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A) Humorous

B) Romantic

C) Suspenseful

D) Optimistic

E) Pessimistic

F) Serious

I can see why Cruelty of Death harassed Shadow Taker so much then, probably wanted to get her to kill more.

F Can Ratislav communicate with Abdle and let him know the situation?

Or otherwise interrupt asking why doesn't he get a say in this?

A) trick question, if he was a bird he would be the one on the wall

I’m also starting to consider this: what if this is all a hallucination, like something was in that tea Robert and Ratislav drank? I mean, Robert doesn’t look like he is feeling pain, otherwise he’d be screaming, and cruelty of death and the Kenku taxidermy is the only things that is colored besides the background

European or African swallow? So before fangs or after fangs? Seriously though you've greatly reduced my effectiveness at killing by removing a hand. Do you cripple all your killers before recruiting?

A) if you want an effective killer can you give the hand back pls and thank you

>>1132878
On top of that, isn't bringing the kenku head back to a form of undeath kind of the antithesis of what death stands for? Death isn't cruel, it's fair. It happens to everyone regardless of status or power. I would think death wants things to STAY dead.

>>1132905
Accuse him about this contradiction.

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/13(Tue)01:49 No. 1132934 ID: 4d139a
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A) Romantic

B) Suspenseful

C) Optimistic

D) Pessimistic

E) Serious

D) you talk a lot

I notice The humorous option is dead and can no longer be chosen

Speaking meta, I think I get it, if we use an option too much, they die and we can’t use it anymore. I suggest choosing the negative options like the pessimistic option and saving things like optimistic for when we really need it, probably towards the end

For now, D. Ratislav is panicking too much to answer his question as he is worried about how his spies worked so hard to get that information to Robert, only for him to die before his mission even started. Now their kingdom is doomed!

D) Like you're wasteful and will kill me anyway for short-term gains.

D). does it matter? you'll clearly do as you please.

>>1132934
D) Well damn...

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/13(Tue)20:35 No. 1132967 ID: 4d139a
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A) Romantic

B) Suspenseful

C) Optimistic

D) Pessimistic

E) Serious

D. Tell him nothing he can do can make up for what he did. You value life’s sanctity too much to want anyone dead, taking his offer makes you no different than someone like Dredge.

>>1132968
This.

D) you, or dredge. but of course you won't actually do that. because you're useless, a mere nuisance. Do whatever pointless thing you're doing and get out already

I also want to consider that it's odd how he doesn't want Bobbie to get the wrong impression and think Iron Dredge killed Robert, and that it was him to direct all the blame on him and not dredge. This feels like something an assassin would say to protect their client. I'm wondering if Iron Dredge somehow hired Cruelty of Death to kill Robert, and now that the job is done, he's offering his own assassination services to Ratislav to continue the killing.

I also think it's pointless to ask for Iron Dredge's death, if he's killed, his artifact will simply kill one of his own followers instead.

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/14(Wed)07:22 No. 1132990 ID: 4d139a
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A) Romantic

B) Suspenseful

C) Optimistic

D) Pessimistic

E) Serious

D. tell him it sucks that she did that, and you hated that she ordered Kenku's death.
You would feel totally disgusted, but while you are mad at her for ordering that, you know that even Bobbie also really hated ordering Kenku's death after she cried in despair about it all night.

E). shouldn't you like bobbie? she takes you seriously. there is no death she would order without gravity and the despair she experienced afterwards should show that she's a ruler that cares. also, you aren't special because you can kill easily. any guy with a knife can do that

E

>>1132990
E)One, how does this guy even know Bobbie ordered it dead? Two, can we bite this guy's finger? Once we do, we should go for his eyes.

Go for the eyes Ratislav, GO FOR THE EYES!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8lLruVR2zQ

C) she had her reasons, she can do better

not like you

[Serious] Oh sure, ending a heroes guild leader would possibly help. Here's the problem though. We have no assurance you won't go to enemies of ours and offer them the chance to off one of us. Perhaps if you showed pragmatism we could have made a deal but you HAD to set up a sadistic choice where either way an ally of Bobbie dies. Deals with you now seem like a poison pill. Destructive to any foolish enough to be on your side. Good luck proving your "good intentions" now.

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/15(Thu)22:50 No. 1133041 ID: 4d139a
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A) Melancholy

B) Impending

C) Wishful thinking

D) Depressive realism

E) Satirical

Well it'd be more than you would have.

Yes

B) Bobbie would. She did hold a moment of silence for one of our rat comrades who was killed by Shadow Taker, someone who works under Ratislav. No other person in royalty would do that for a rat.

And despite Shadow taker being our enemy, Bobbie did set up a funeral for Shadow Taker instead of making her a scarecrow or subjecting her body to necromancy


Also, she was sad over Mr. yakbeet, (a talking toy) getting destroyed by shadow taker that one time. If she got sad over that to the point of being really relieved when he was revived, why wouldn’t she miss Ratislav if he died?

And I think I’m understanding Cruelty of deaths deal, he gets power or strength, or at least recognition fueled by how cruel someone kills another, that’s probably why he got really pissed at Ratislav refusing his offer, and why he had Kenku’s corpse reanimate to take revenge on Robert instead of killing Robert himself.

Might be why he also wants Ratislav to send Bobbie a message that Cruelty of death killed Ratislav instead of Iron Dredge and have Ill-gotten feel the pain of losing Robert, to get fuel from that cruelty, and possibly instigate Bobbie and Ill-gotten into doing something more cruel.

Perhaps when Ratislav speaks to Bobbie about what happened, he should not give Cruelty of Death the recognition and credit he craves, and just say to her (and Ill-gotten) that it was an unknown assassin of Iron Dredge’s in a purple hooded robe (technically, cruelty did enter wearing that before the reveal

I dare say, maybe even his existence is fueled by how cruel a person’s death is by the hands of another

Finally, we should tell Cruelty “his name isn’t Cantku, it’s Kenku. At least we honorably remember his name after his death

>>1133041
E) Speak for yourself

B)

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/18(Sun)00:33 No. 1133149 ID: 4d139a
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A) It feels like the bad guys won.

B) The story was scary.

C) The story was bad.

D) The story was unsettling.

E) Other suggestions.

Well after the story is nothing, so I guess it was pointless.

unless CoD is just dumb. If that was the moral of the story then its a very good story

A.
but I notice there's still more pages on the book you have there. Is there more to the story?

>>1133156
Yeah, I agree. I don't even think Cruelty of Death is a Reaper, they're a necromancer-assassin exercising their nihilistic worldview.

On one hand Cruelty was stupid. However he had enough power that he could still manifest his will. So the lesson is... avoid tough fights? Get enough power to handle enemies? Enemies should be known so we can avoid things like this?

A
I don't feel competent to comment much beside agreeing with general sentiments on Cruelty of Death.

>>1133171
This

Absurdity DeVoid 2026/10/18(Sun)22:45 No. 1133185 ID: 4d139a
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And with this update, the short story is finished. This was just one small piece of a bigger world.