ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)16:42 No. 392816 ID: 885ee8
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Adventurous. Mysterious. Alluring. You wish these words described you, but you've been shuffled quietly away from all the excitement into this stupid job in this stupid library. Now, you lose yourself in books while you quietly wait for your shift to end. Your name is Padma and your certain, shall we say, "proclivities" were deemed too distracting by the overly studious male population of your homeland in the elemental plane of water, so you were sent here to "study abroad". You had heard that this place was the height of debauchery, but you're not sure what kind of misconceptions caused that rumor. There is certainly a large collection of volumes about music, sex, drugs, and poetry here, but you're not sure where they came from. Day in and day out, if anyone comes in at all, they're looking for some stuffy tome on history or magical theory. And always bugs, or birds, or scaly things. Not an attractive pseudopod in sight.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)16:43 No. 392817 ID: 885ee8
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You hear a loud crash, and look up just in time to see a few stray shards of glass drop from a broken skylight.

hide under your desk and peek over it

Out of sight sounds like a great place to be at the moment.

Investigate

This can't possibly go wrong

Maybe it's a stud with some sexy pseudopods.

Peek around something to see what it is. CAREFULLY. And quietly.

>>392817
Call out "Hey! Quiet in the library!"
Then hide under your desk.

Discover a tree man. Be inexplicably attracted to him, despite lack of manly pseudopods.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)20:49 No. 392882 ID: 885ee8
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The first thing you think is that your boss is going to kill you for the window, before you remember that you prepare basically nothing but mending spells every day anyway.
You sneak over between the shelves and peek around the corner, and are stunned to see some sort of tentacled being rising from the pile of broken glass, totally unfazed like a complete badass. He seems to be fusing his tentacles together to hide his shape. Your mind instantly ventures into a fantasy about a swarthy, shapeshifting swashbuckler, who swoops in through the ceiling and takes you away to be part of his sexy adventures. With your mind elsewhere, you don't react quickly enough as he looks up and spots you. His eyes widen.

Um, smile and wave! Say that he looks cool.

>>392882
Hot as he may be, he is a shapeshifter and YOU JUST SAW HIM SHAPESHIFT. SCUTTLE AWAY!

>>392882
OH MT GAWD! He's a tentacle guy and a shapeshifter. That's just SOOOO hawt!

>>392882
Quickly, ask him to take you with him! This is your chance for ADVENTURE and ROMANCE.

If you miss this opportunity, you'll just end up stuck here, in a dusty stupid library, doing your stupid job.

wiggle your pseudopods and ask if he is looking for something

>>392882
"Can I help you, sir? Perhaps you would like to get out of here and go some place... quieter~"
Then mend the window. No need to leave things a mess, after all.

judging from the fact he just plowed through the window he's probably on the run, and he's probably considering whether or not leaving a witness is a good idea. pointing out that even if you did tell someone they'd just think you were crazy, and you disappearing would probably give whoever is chasing him a clue to how he escaped, namely it would when combined with the broken window more or less prove that he entered the library.

Tell him you'll mend the window to cover his tracks if he takes you away from this place.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)22:57 No. 392915 ID: 885ee8
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"Oh, hi!" You exclaim, sheepishly. "You look cool. I mean, you looked cool, a second ago. Dragonborns, though... they have these big ugly nostrils in front. You uh...forgot them." Stupid, stupid, stupid. The first thing you say to this guy is a critique of his appearance? You feel your face flush. "I mean, let me start over. Hi, I'm Padma."
He looks like he is carefully considering how to respond before he speaks. "I am sorry about the skylight," he says in a very deep voice that makes you swoon, though you note he did not offer a name. A pair of nostrils appear on his face.
"I have a first aid kit at my desk," you say. "Cure light wounds wands, you know, and, uh, cure hangover, and suppress fertility haha." You shrink back behind the shelf and knock yourself in the head for not shutting up, but your mouth keeps moving. "And uh, dragonborns have names with a lot of consonants, like Grath or something."

ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)22:57 No. 392917 ID: 885ee8
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He looks concerned for a moment, then slowly begins to smile. "What a coincidence," he replies, "Grath is my name. And yes, that would be great."
You make the minimal gestures to cast the mending cantrip, and you see "Grath" tense up for a second. He quickly regains his composure, though, and follows you to the desk. "If I may ask," he begins, "what are you?"
"An undine," you reply, "from the elemental plane of water. What about you?"
"I'm not sure," he answers. "I seem to have lost my memory. I have been meaning to come out here to the library, though. Also, I hear there's a museum? But, I need to find my way back into the outer city." he continues, seemingly unsure about what to do next.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/14(Wed)22:58 No. 392918 ID: 885ee8
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Your eyes widen. "Woooow. You lost your memory? That sounds...bracing!" You finally manage to extract a cure light wounds wand from the first aid box and burn a few charges on him. You're a little annoyed, though, because he doesn't seem to be paying much mind to all the invasion of personal space and lascivious hip-wiggle you're throwing his way.
He rotates his shoulders and flexes his clawed hands. "Thank you for the healing. I fell quite a long way."
The thought that the only thing above you is the executive bloc, levitating high above in the energy stream, makes you giddy. This guy must be a fugitive! "Well, don't worry, Grath. I didn't see anyone unusual come through here." You wink at him slyly.
He blinks, then widens his eyes. "Oh! Thank you for your discretion," he says. You get a little more frustrated. It doesn't seem like he's blowing you off, it seems like he's genuinely clueless. But, maybe that's just his game. What do you do? You've never been to the outer city, but you know the way. But you also think you could keep him here with some books on...physiology. Purely to help him discover what he is and okay totally to turn him on. Or, you might want to ask him to someplace private after your shift.

both, bring him books on various... subjects, and then invite him to your house to stay for the night.

>>392918
Offer to show him books about various species. Maybe we can find something?

Tell him you can guide him out, you just need a few of your things if you can do so quickly. take the chance to grab the books on physiology, and leave with him.

The obliviousness is kind of to be expected from the amnesia. Like those amnesiac spies you read about who can cast greater invisibility from memory but can't tie their own bootlaces. Maybe something in the books on ... unusual anatomies can remind him~

>>392918
Ask him if maybe... He needs somewhere to hide overnight?..

>>392918
He's obviously a shape-shifter. If he's not ignoring your advances but simply oblivious to them then he might be from an asexual species and not really understand genders and flirting and such.
...which means you might be able to convince him to let you teach him anatomy and sex ed. Obviously you can't do that here.
Grab some encyclopedias on the anatomies of sapient species, and a few on gender identity and the related social mores.
Take those books and skip out on the rest of your shift. Beyond this being a once-in-a-lifetime chance with a full-on freeform polymorphic sapient, you don't want to be here when they come looking for him.
Lock up and ask him if he'd be willing to help you carry the books home - or anyplace else he'd like to go.

You're gonna have to be a bit more obvious. Or a lot more obvious.

Is "suppress fertility" birth control? Or, since a first aid kit is for emergencies, I'd expect it's more like a morning after pill. Weird that they'd have it in a library?

I have a great idea! Ask this guy out to dinner. He looks like a fellow who enjoys a good meal.

>>392928
Agreed.

>>392928
Double Agreed. Oh, and be aware that he may in fact be genderless, like Doppelgangers.

Ignore this and continue with the above plan.

>>392928
This is good.

Also, if all else fails, this is pretty much your ticket to adventure. Which, while perhaps not the debauchery you seek, is still better than being stuck in a library for the rest of life.

Also don't forget to mend the entrance hole.

So you like the bad boy-things. Just how hard up are you? Cuz this is gonna be dangerous, and this dude is pretty slow.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/15(Thu)13:31 No. 393045 ID: 885ee8
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You start to consider maybe ditching the rest of your shift or something, but that's crazy. You're flirting with this guy at work, sure, but you're not gonna run off and lose your job over it. But, there's only a couple more hours in your shift, and then the library closes. You don't see any problem with letting him stick around while you close and then taking him someplace. "Hey, why don't you stick around," you offer, "we've got a bunch of books about different species, maybe you can figure out what you are? And, y'know, if you wanna check out some books we can go somewhere after I close up..." Man, what has gotten into you? You're not usually this assertive. Maybe it's because you think he won't understand anyway.
He nods, and thinks for a moment. "That sounds agreeable. But, do you have any books that discuss the gods, as well? Currently worshipped, or past?"
"Uh, sure. Why?"
"Just a hunch," he replies, cryptically.
You wander through the aisles and pick out a few good books, getting a good mix of books about anatomy, plus a couple books on historical religion. You put the religious ones on the bottom of the stack and the infamous "Xenophile: Madam Drayvan's Exhaustive Manual" on top, and haul the stack back to a table near your desk.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/15(Thu)13:31 No. 393046 ID: 885ee8
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Grath sits down and cracks open the top book, which is divided by chapter into several types. He skims the decriptions of each, either unfazed by or not completely understanding he subject material, before flipping to the chapter "Aberrations". He flips past the opening text of the chapter and begins thumbing through the entries. "Aboleth" (magical and psionic), "Athach", "Avolakia", "Balhannoth"...He stops when he sees the picture: a large, looming creature with six tentacle legs and a large, gaping mouth. He starts to read the entry, and his eyes quicky widen and his face darkens.
"Oh!" he exclaims in his rumbling voice. "I didn't...hmm." He tenses up and flips a little further, stopping on "Choker", a humanoid creature with tentacled arms that split into four at the end. He pulls the book a little closer and the hues in his entire body, even his mock clothes, shift a little redder. "So, when I... ah..." he mutters, as he reads feverishly. He flips back to the beginning of the chapter and reads the introductory text. "Wow."
You are now Viktor.

so does that mean? or.. hmmm.. maybe you should... keep reading? or go to the next book and try to figure out what you are before thinking about what you can do?

>>393046
If you need anything explained feel free to ask the librarian. She'd love to help. Plus, it's her job.

Does that mean someone fucked an Aboleth and lived to write about it? Wait, no, there's entries for two varieties. Does that mean someone fucked TWO Aboleths and lived to write about it??

Look up the entry on myconads while the undine is still hovering over your shoulder.

>>393055
oh yes. some info about ivet could be useful.

Notice how she's touching you as you read?

Yeah. She wants some. Just thought you should know.

Uh, before we continue, ask Padma if this is really what people study about dangerous monsters. And we should maybe ask for another book on the social/cultural expectations of this subject.

...the entry on myconads might indeed be enlightening. Perhaps it'd give us some indication of what Ivet would expect from us in the... act itself. Other than that, maybe we should uh, look at a different book about species. One that's less sexual.

After skimming that for possible matches, check out a book on old gods.

Look up myconads and then Undine.

>>393046
Read the entry on Undine, then very carefully study the entries on Myconids and Dryads, then put the book in the check-out stack. Look for a book on gender roles and sexuality in cultures, and study the entries on Myconids, Dryads, and Humans. Put that in the check-out stack as well. Stick the books on physiology and anatomy straight in the check-out pile - worry about them later.

Basically? Your disguises aren't going be believable if you don't react properly to situations. Sex and gender are core aspects of almost all living beings, so you absolutely need to be able to recognize and respond to those kinds of situations. You can make serious errors in you physical appearance without it being a problem, but people will notice even minor behavioral mistakes. Since you're in a mixed area you have a lot of leeway with most things, but sexuality isn't really one of them.

Then read the books on gods.

dude, she has tits AND tentacles. you should keep her.

>>393218
Well duh, she's a keeper.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/16(Fri)14:19 No. 393290 ID: d09277
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A lot of things are starting to click into place in your head while you read. You suddenly understand things about your urges and desires you hadn't before. But, flipping through this chapter and a couple others that might be relevant, you don't see anything resembling you. "I had no idea how this worked," you say, absentmindedly, "it answers a lot of questions, but not the ones I was asking in the first place."
Padma recoils slightly. "Wait, wait, answers questions? You actually didn't know how sex works, y'know, physically? I was just trying to turn you on, I didn't think..." She suddenly turns red and shakes her head as if mentally berating herself. "I mean, sorry, that's cool and all. You're like this hardcore badass who just jumped out of a flying building and crashed through a skylight, and you're a shapeshifter with amnesia, and you don't know how sex works. Or, didn't, until just now. That's... pretty incredible, honestly."
"Did this author actually do this with all of these creatures?" you ask, gesturing to a particularly grotesque depiction of a gibbering orb.
Padma laughs. "She talks about her methods in the last chapter. Madam Drayvan was a pretty powerful wizard, she used a lot of astral projections and constructs with magic to link her sensations to them and stuff. Something like that anyway."
"Is this really what people study about dangerous creatures?" you ask, feeling like you've been missing a big part of the picture this whole time.
"Haha, noooot usually, no. Madam Drayvan was...well, a lot of people called her a lot of bad names. I'd call her eccentric. There's a great biography on her over at my desk, I can bring it if you'd like."
"I don't think that would be particularly relevant," you reply. Something occurs to you and you flip to the chapter on Fey until you find a picture of something that looks like Ivet. The entry is short, and refers to "standard rules" and trust issues mentioned in the "dryad" entry.
"What are you looking that up for?" asks Padma.
"I just wanted to read about someone I know," you reply, as you keep your finger on the page and refer back to "standard rules" in Chapter 1.
"O..oh." Padma says, looking a little downtrodden. She seems to think for a moment, and perks back up. "But, this person's not your girlfriend or something, right? I mean, amnesia, and not knowing how sex works..."
"I guess not," you answer, trying not to think about that too much.
"Hmm," she sighs, and rests her head on your shoulder again. She spends a minute or two reading along with you before speaking up again. "So uh, this is a little forward of me buuuuut...well, the library closes in a couple hours. Would you maybe...wanna come up to my place after I close up?"

well, you do need a place to hang low until things cool down a bit.

I don't see why not. If we get her emotionally involved with us, she may be a fairly useful resource. At the very least she'll be a person worth more outside our stomach than in it, which is pretty rare.

>>393290
Flip to the Undine page. Ask her for clarification on a few things.

that would bea good place to lay low for a bit. take that stack of books with you.

Yes, definitely. She can teach you some stuff that will help you with Ivet, and she may prove to be a valuable resource in other regards as well.

Also, be adult about this whole "sex" thing, no need to turn all embarrassed or whatever.

>>393290
Keep looking up the references for Ivet, then look up Undine and read over the entry carefully. "Certainly, if I am still here by then. It would be prudent of me to avoid notice for a while... and I suspect that you will prove unexpectedly educational."

>>393290
Trust issues? Better look at that carefully before deciding if Ivet would be angry with us for doing this.

I think the next book we read would be the one on old gods. Then after that, maybe something about social interaction and/or dating.

>>393343
this

Viktor, in case you're just that clueless, by "come up to my place", she means for sex. Just want to make sure that's clear.

I'm not sure if this will cause problems with Ivet. She obviously has feelings for Viktor, but as he said we aren't officially romantically involved (yet). It might cause problems, though, if Padma sticks around when we go find Ivet. So, maybe make this a one-time thing. If Ivet has problems with that, it's her problem.

I am a little uncomfortable that we're doing this instead of going to find Ivet right now, though. The circumstances of her disappearance make me uneasy.

But of course my suggestion is hell yeah, hit that like the fist of an angry god. That might actually be a literal description of what we do in the bedroom, anyway.

wait, do you even have a pecker?

>>393290
"I should be more clear. I have a partner. We are not involved like this, but it explains much of her behavior. She and I are going to need to talk, as I have apparently been neglecting her.

When the library closes I shall search for her.
You should meet her. I promise it would be worth your time. At the very least she could introduce you to people you would find of interest."

>>393377
indeed

Hey I just had an idea. How about... we go find Ivet and then come back to the library for the sex date and/or more reading? That way we can talk to Ivet about it without missing out.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/16(Fri)18:53 No. 393417 ID: d09277
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"Certainly, if I am still here by then. It would be prudent of me to avoid notice for a while... and I suspect that you will prove unexpectedly educational," you reply, feeling a little rush.
Padma's cheeks flush a deeper shade of red and she repeats you, "Educational...?" and giggles a little. "Awesome. Hey, I'm gonna grab one of my books and we can read together. And uh... Undines are in 'Outsiders'. You know, for educational purposes." She smiles and wiggles back to her desk, looking over her shoulder and making an excited half-giggle as she catches you absentmindedly looking at her backside.
When she reaches her desk, you hear the front door open and smell something vaguely reptilian. You don't see anyone come in at first, but you see Padma talking down at someone very short over her desk. "Oh, hello sir. What can I do for you?"
You see Padma's gaze tracking someone walking in as you hear a high-pitched, scratchy voice on the other side of the desk. "Oh nothing much, just going around to all the businesses in the area to ask a couple questions. How long have you been here today?" You finally see the short form of a crocodile-like creature waddle into view on the other side of the front desk. He's decked out in the blue and brown of the workers you saw in prison, and is covered in golden jewelery. His giant eyes twitch in your direction and widen further.
"Oh, since about four," Padma replies, but the kobold excitedly sprints over to your table, hops up on one of the chairs, and plants his hands on the desk.
"Ohmygosh, a dragonborn I don't know! Black dragon, by the looks! Oh man, when did you get to town? Which lineage are you from? Do you know anyone in town?" He fires off his string of questions excitedly and without taking a breath, punctuated by his tail wagging and smacking the back of the chair loudly.

What do you do?

>>393417
"Ohmygosh, a dragonborn I don't know! Black dragon, by the looks! Oh man, when did you get to town?"
>Just got here, in fact. This is my first stop.

"Which lineage are you from?"
>That's the thing, I was recently struck by some rather troublesome amnesia - most of the mages and the like around where I used to live couldn't do a damn thing. I'm mostly here to relax and figure out what to do next.

"Do you know anyone in town?"
>Can't say I do, but I wouldn't mind making a few friends. Just recently met the librarian here. Name's Grath. I think. What's yours?

>>393417
What a bother. Say that you came into town just today, but you're not willing to discuss your personal life. Suggest he continue speaking with the Undine over there and cease bothering you in the middle of your studies.

(please tell me we're reading a less raunchy book)

>>393417
The other night, orphan so you don't know, you're staying with a friend.

tell him the truth: you know nothing about your lineage and you're not from around here.

unless this is the kind of setting where dragonborns are people who willingly transform into dragons via a ritual and dedicate themselves to a draconic god. because in that case you would probably fail to make anything sensible up and it would be easier to just eat him here and now.

>>393421
Ahhh, don't tell him we have amnesia. That's too suspicious. Saying we're an orphan works though.

And we don't want to be his friend. We're a man-eating monster. Let's keep our friends limited to those we can trust to know all our secrets. For the record I don't consider Padma to be a friend. Our relationship is merely mutually beneficial in a temporary manner. She doesn't even know we eat people.

this guy is probably looking for us. if he goes missing it would help them find us.

>>393417
Because he's talking so quickly, we don't actually need to answer all his questions. Instead, answer just the ones we can actually answer, speaking deliberately and carefully sticking to things that are true. "I arrived here just a few days ago, in the company of a friend who spoke quite highly of the place. We will be moving on soon, although I am not certain when the necessary business will be concluded. I have not yet had the chance to make many acquaintances here; my more well-traveled friend is occupied elsewhere and I have been enjoying your fine libraries."

>>393417
"Shut it, runt.
Second generation dragonborn. I got two lineages, and since I'd have to say one of 'em second I ain't saying either.
Got here a few hours ago. I don' know anybody an' I don't wanna.
Satisfied?"

ChildOfAB 2012/03/16(Fri)23:20 No. 393495 ID: d09277
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"I just came into town today," you reply, "with a friend of mine who spoke highly of the place. We will be moving on soon--too soon to make many acquaintances, unfortunately."
"Ah, but you didn't say what lineage you're from. Y'see, there's a reason I asked, and it has to do with the reason I'm here... nasty bit of business I heard about from up top. Not s'posta talk about it, see, don't wanna cause a panic, but there was this other black dragonborn guard an'... well this crazy tree fella grabbed her up, her and a bunch other guards, impaled 'em-"
"I don't need to hear this," you say, cutting him off, "keep your state secrets."
"Nah, yer cool, just keep it quiet. Impaled 'em on 'is branches, tore off a chunk'a the outer wall, straight THREW it at t'other guards, and, get this, jumped off the side. What a story, right? Can't find his body. Damn huge tree folk, branches fulla dead guys, can't find him, nobody seen him, 'cept to say they saw him fall in this neighborhood."
You're not sure how much of that Padma heard. Your recently-acquired acute senses detect a bit of erratic breathing, but that's par for the course with her so far. "Yes, sounds serious. I will keep an eye out. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to complete my studies before I have to leave."
"Aw, don' be like that. Say, whatcha studying anyway?" He leaps up onto the table and leans over your arm in a flash. "Say, isn't that Madam Drayvan's..." He stops as he sees the page you had flicked to prior to his entry, and looks back at Padma. "Aaahh," he croons perversely, "you dog, you. 'Leaving too soon to make any acquaintances', right, I getcha, I getcha." He elbows you in the arm and widens his eyes. "Say, give her the ol' twister, yeah? All six of her socks, knock 'em right off. Eh? Eh? I'll be on my way then, leave you two alone." He hops off the table and waddles back to the door, turning to Padma on the way out. "Hey, y'seen any big walkin' trees around?"
"Nope," she replies, without looking up from her book.
"All right then. Well, you see anything suspicious about, you cozy up to that guy right there," he says, pointing to you. "Stand up fella, and ruddy tough, look at those muscles."
She smiles at you. "I'll do that, thanks." The kobold winks and salutes, then exits.
Padma laughs as soon as the door closes, takes her book and sits in the chair next to you. She leans into you and snickers, prodding your mock bicep. "I'm not sure what it is, but please don't give me the twister tonight. Sounds uncomfortable."
You can't help but chuckle, and the tense atmosphere feels diffused. "Don't worry, I don't know what it is, either." She scoots back into her chair and settles back to read her book, when you realize something. "So, did you hear all of that?"
"Most of it. They always make it sound way worse than it was, huh?"
You think there's enough time before closing to finish getting the important information out of this book and one more, and you'll have to check the rest out to read later. You can also get Padma to fill in any information about the city or find more books for you. What do you do?

>>393495
Read the books on gods. The ones the singer mentioned should be in there somewhere, and those should mention you. You need to find out more about what you and what that means. From there you can look up the information on the details of your species sexual aspects - it would be absolutely horrible if you had sex with Ivet only to discover your penis spews acid or eats souls or something.
No, that doesn't mean you should test it on Padma; she's too useful a source of information to risk. Read about yourself first.

yeah look up gods the other guy mentioned. oh, you still have a coin? show it to padma she may have seen a picture of it somehow or something.

>>393495
Read the Old Gods book. Ask Padma more about the mages in charge.

>>393497
>it would be absolutely horrible if you had sex with Ivet only to discover your penis spews acid or eats souls or something.

He could always... Stimulate himself in private and see what's going on... Yup.

>>393495
I think we need to think on something important before deciding how to move here: Does Padma smell like food? What is she made of? She looks pretty fleshy, but on the other hand, elemental. Might not be edible. These are vital considerations.

Anyway, finish reading up on whatever this book can tell us about Ivet and Padma's habits, and then look through the books for something on the old gods if you can find them. Skim a bunch of books rather than reading one- we can take all the ones with relevant information with us; I doubt Padma will stop us and I'm sure we'll manage to have at least some free time to read them in detail once we're safely laying low at her place.

While that's ongoing, ask Padma for some more information about the people in charge here. It seems like they're more than willing to casually execute people who have done nothing to them, they're extremely elitist, and they don't know a threat when it's busily eating them. But surely they have at least a few redeeming qualities. Learning about what they do when some of their own get killed would be nice, too.

Hey, we should ask her for some... exotic cookbooks.

>>393500
Lets... not do that.

I'd rather know more about the genasi in charge. The way our luck is going, we're going to run into her at some point. And then - again working on pattern recognition here - she will either want to bed us or murder us.

Hmm... wait a minute, if they're looking for us like this, they must be looking around for Ivet. Maybe we should get a move on.

stop fucking around with Necronomisutra books and pick out a book that might actually have something about your origins. something that deals with the old gods, or obscure monsters, or something.

I don't think we need to worry too much about whether or not we have a lethal penis. Quite frankly, if we kill her by accident it's not that big of a deal. Whacking one out here in the library has significant potential to cause us greater disadvantage.

We already knew they were looking for Ivet and it's obvious in retrospect that they would be looking for us too. Good thing they don't know we're a shape shifter. Ivet's probably holed up in her house. We should check up on her as soon as possible, but we now have gotten ourselves an obligation to fuck an undine, which we should fulfill in order to secure this library as a resource that we can covertly access. Being on the run is a pretty good excuse for leaving in the morning, though.

>>393509
He should at least finish reading the relevant sections of that book before moving on--namely, the parts which concern Ivet and our new friend here.

After that, I'd say old gods.

Consider checking if there's something like a book of legends regarding the Ungolan empire. That's where Ivet recognized your coins as coming from.

Your best bet for finding Ivet might actually be taking a discrete walk with Padma past Ivets house (if you know how to find it) to see if it is being watched or has been broken into or whatever. Then try to track down that 'Jen' wizard friend that Ivet mentioned. Other than that spending the night with Padma to show her what a strong, flexible shapeshifter can do sounds like a pretty good idea.

we should try and make friends with the undine, but i'm against sleeping with her. Ivet is known to be big on monogamy, and while we are not officially dating her or anything there is something there. we should at the very least hold off one sleeping around until we know exactly where we stand with ivet. Ivet has been kind to us, and a one night stand is not worth possibly hurting her.

>>393743
Nah. We should sleep with both.

>>393743
I'm in the same camp. We've only picked up heresay from the avian woman but I'd rather not Viktor damage his relationship with Ivet to get in Padma's pants. Remember; this is only a stop over. Viktor's objectives are to learn about his past, find Ivet and get out of dodge.

Ivet is not Viktor's waifu. He owes her no sexual loyalty.
Currently the city is at threat level red. Looking for Ivet will be dangerous for her never mind escaping with her.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/18(Sun)13:43 No. 393893 ID: d09277
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You finish reading the Undine section in "Xenophile", making idle small talk of an increasingly lascivious nature with Padma as you do. In addition to the physiological stuff, it includes a little blurb about general disposition and things to be wary of. The notes make it seem like most undines aren't all that interested in sex, compared to some other races. Most apparently dedicate their lives to a cause, hobby, or area of research, and just get lost in the minutiae. You ask Padma what hers is.
"It says 'most', and it's right. Most of us are like that. I don't think I am." She smiles and sets her book down. "Did you read the thing," she begins, and points to a diagram of her unusually-curved branching vaginal canal in the book. She traces it and makes a "werk" sound.
You chuckle a little. "Don't worry," you reply, "duly noted."
She giggles, scoots up against you, and continues reading and chatting idly.
Then, you go back and finish off the cross-references in the entry for Ivet's race, "Myconads". The "standard rules" refer to the physiological configuration of the sex organs of the majority of humanoids, fey, and many others, and goes pretty in-depth into how to satisfy them on a physical level. Beyond that, it says the particulars are in each creature's entry, so you refer back to the "dryad" page like it said to do.
It talks about how dryads form bonds based on trust; they are loving towards those they deem trustworthy, and practically murderous towards those they do not. This mostly takes the form of a strong tendency towards honesty. The book says this stems from their sworn duty to protect their forest and, more specifically, one particular tree to which they and they alone are bonded. It goes on to say that a small minority of full dryads and a majority of half-breeds are not born with a tree, but many mix up this nurturing element with their sex lives, and try to substitute their tree for a lover. You think this was probably what Jen was talking about. The book also mentions "adopting an attitude of general disinterest" towards any other paramours "as if you were a tree and they are but animals in your branches" to get around this. Since you're not actually romantically involved with Ivet (though you would like to be) and you don't know that you'd want to be with anyone else if you were, this seems mostly irrelevant. It seems like there is more to learn there, and you ask Padma for another book. "Do you have a book that just goes over... I'm not sure how to say it, social expectations of sex and romance?"
She gives you a funny look. "Social...do you mean, dating and stuff?"
"Yes, I guess so."
She smiles a little. "Do you want to go on a date?"
"No," you reply flatly. She suddenly looks very hurt, so you quickly elaborate, "Let me read the book first so I'll know what one is."
"Oh," she replies. She stops looking hurt and giggles instead. "Well, I dunno if there's really a book that would talk about that. There's so many different cultures and they all do things differently. But dating is really only something kids do. Adults just hang out, go to parties and stuff, if they're romantically interested in each other. Or, y'know, spend a while at the library with each other." She laughs and starts to talk about some of her past dating experiences in the elemental plane of water, as you try to push the party you went to with Ivet out of your head.
Considering that you've probably taken as much from "Xenophile" as you can take with a limited-time reading, you set it aside and dig through the rest of the stack. "Religious History of the Ungolan Empire: a Treatise" catches your eye, and you recall Ivet said the coins in your small room in the ruin were Ungolan.
You open up the book and start to skim through it. The language is academic and you're having a hard time making heads or tails of it. A lot of it seems to be cross-referencing ancient deific tradition with the current pantheon of gods, and indicating that they maybe changed something about themselves? But then it goes on to say that there were once only seven gods worshiped at all, whereas now there are "potentially as many as twenty-three, with some fading in and out of prominence as time passes." It seems to assume foreknowledge of the gods as they are currently known, so you're having trouble. You start to skim through here and there, trying to make heads or tails of it all when you find mention of a god not represented in the modern pantheon. Teyu, The Abyss. You flip through his chapter and your eyes widen as you find two images.
A tentacled, horned face carved in stone, with three eyes of inset black onyx. An altar with attached manacles, overlooked by a three-eyed statue. You start to study the images closely, and are only vaguely aware as Padma says something.
You shake your head. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"I said 'I'm gonna start closing up.' Man, you got quiet for a few minutes there. Those are the books on religion, right? How'd your mysterious hunch pan out?"
"I think I might be a god," you reply.
Padma laughs. "Yeah, I have that fantasy too." She grabs your sleeve and tugs. "C'mon, I'll check those books out and then we can go."

ChildOfAB 2012/03/18(Sun)13:44 No. 393894 ID: d09277
File 133210347490.png - (713.56KB , 720x2000 , 14.png )

"Hang on," you reply, "have you got one on the history of the Ungolan Empire?"
She sighs. "You're really gonna make me wait, aren't you?" You consider how to respond, but she says "No, hang on, I know exactly where one is," and quickly shuffles away and back, with another book. She marks some things in a list at her desk and then takes your hand and pulls you through the door.
As you walk through the city, you notice that the ubiquitous fog hovering overhead has turned black, as the sun beyond it has presumably set. Still, through the black cloud, you can see the blue glow of the branches of the energy stream maintaining the cloud as they arc lazily through the air. You notice that you can hear the conversations of people in the buildings as you pass, smell what they had for dinner, and feel their footsteps walking around, and you suddenly realize why. When you were in the jail building, you couldn't eat anybody except the first three interrogators without being seen, so you had stashed the rest of the dead or dying in your branches. When you jumped off the side, you ate them after you had fallen far enough to disappear into the cloud. You were then too busy trying to rearrange your body to catch the air and still look like a tree at high-speed, and immediately afterwards you were too busy hitting the ground to direct your growth. You figure that your senses must have increased on their own, and you wonder what else changed about you. With a little introspection, you put two and two together and realize why you didn't break the floor of the library upon landing, and why your footsteps aren't making the ground shake like they were in the prison. Your mass seems to have decreased to fit your current form. You start to panic when you realize this, hoping it's not lost for good. No sooner do you think this than your knees suddenly buckle and you have to catch yourself from falling over, and your moving foot gouges a scar in the cobblestone walkway.
"Are you okay?" Padma asks, looking concerned.
You let the excess mass drain away and stand back up, making sure nobody else is in sight or hearing range. "Yes, I am fine. Shapeshifter stuff."
"Fair enough," she replies.
You and Padma chat a little and appreciate the blue glow in the sky as you walk, and you can hear her heart rate increase and feel her body temperature rise. You practice altering your mass as you do, being more careful to hold up your bulk when it increases, and you think you gett the hang of it. You can't seem to make yourself weigh any less than about what a dragonborn of your size would weigh, though.
Padma approaches a small but ostentatious building, opens a door and pulls you inside eagerly, face flush. You get just a moment to take in the comfortably-decorated tile room dominated by a pool on one half, before Padma takes your hand and pulls you close "So, I just gotta know what you look like for real. I only got a glimpse of you in the library."
"Are you sure?" you ask, a little hesitant. You aren't even sure what your normal form looks like now. "I'm fairly large, and most things seem pretty scared-"
"Yesiamsure," Padma says, impatiently. You nod and start to relax your form. The mock clothing loses its color and melds into your body, tentacles begin to sprout from all over, and your mind is flooded with new sights as several eyes pop open. Padma seems to make an involuntary squeaking sound and leaps on you at once, pressing her lips to yours.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/18(Sun)13:45 No. 393895 ID: d09277
File 133210350111.png - (397.38KB , 720x1200 , 15.png )

Your transformation is not over, however. Your body continues to swell and you feel armored plates form on your arms and back. More and more tentacles spill from you, and your legs grow thicker and taller. It soon becomes clear that you will not fit in the room. You want to focus on the kiss, but are forced to break it and stop your transformation. Padma opens her eyes and looks shocked. "Holy- you weren't kidding, you are huge. You look like you could wrestle a dragon."
"Would it be okay for me to take a smaller form?" you ask, and she nods. You quickly compress yourself into a crudely humanoid shape and adopt her kind's webbed ears, and the two of you embrace and kiss again.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/18(Sun)13:45 No. 393896 ID: d09277
File 133210354347.png - (652.84KB , 720x1500 , 16.png )

An embarrassingly short time later, the two of you stare at the ceiling in awkward silence. You feel like you should be doing anything else, and like that could have gone better, but you're not sure what to say. You start with "Sorry," and proceed to state the obvious "I haven't done that before."
"Nah," she replies, "that's... about what I should have been expecting, I think. It wasn't...bad. I mean, most of the time in the water plane, the guys were just trying to get it over with so I would stop bugging them and they could get back to their research."
You realize you were just contemplating grabbing a book and continuing your reading when she said that. "Why haven't you had sex with anyone here before?" you ask.
She laughs and rolls over, resting her arm on your chest. "Oh, I have, a few times." she grabs one of your tentacles and wiggles it around, "Doesn't do much for me, though. The guys around here, they only have one dick. It's less than a foot long, and not prehensile."
You can't help but start to feel a little excited as she toys with the sensitive tentacle, and Padma quickly notices and smiles slyly. "You're rounding out again," she says, and starts to play with it with her mouth. "Wanna try for round two?"

ChildOfAB 2012/03/18(Sun)13:46 No. 393897 ID: d09277
File 133210360057.png - (514.80KB , 720x1444 , 17.png )

A longer time later, the two of you stare at the ceiling in breathless silence. "Better?" you ask.
"Better," Padma responds.
You feel a lot less high-strung than you felt previously, less tense. You start to wonder how long you should wait before asking Padma to get the books, when you realize you can just stretch and grab her bag from by the door. You fish out the book on modern religions. Padma, upon hearing the pages turn, sits up and sees what you're doing. She sighs a little sadly and curls up against your chest. "Just like back home," she mutters, under her breath.
You focus on the six modern gods and goddesses which you found overlapping functions in the Ungolan religion book, and take that book out as a cross-reference. You recognize Lunaras and Utia from Ivet's talk earlier. Lunaras was the one whose church was recently built in the city, which upset the Utia-worshiping fey.
Lunaras, as Ivet said, is currently worshiped as a god of death, and is represented as pure white serpent, coiled into a circle that is the first moon. You hadn't seen a white moon, only a cracking, ringed black one, and you assume it simply wasn't out during the night you and Ivet crossed the desert. When you refer back to the early Ungolan deities, however, he is called Diaban, and, while still a serpent, he has a head at both ends: one skeletal and one living. While still having to do with death, he seems to have been more like an arbiter between darkness and light, and opposed necromancy, called out as "in direct opposition to Lunaras's modern practice of creating shadepriests."
Utia, or At'ya, is stated to be something of an exception in the Ungolan religions book, not having significantly changed more than she already was doing repeatedly. She represents fertility, lust, and nature. The Ungolan book says she joins the mortal world and only ascends to godhood when her mortal form dies, and is given a day to make the changes she deemed appropriate while mortal before reincarnating and starting again. The modern religions book doesn't mention this fact, however, just that she is deferred to in matters of love or harvest as well as predators and decay, and was responsible for allowing all the intelligent races of the world to interbreed.
The other four have all changed, but overall they are about law and judgment (Harak), creation and chaos (Kestephon), physical might (Chragath), and will and the mind (Gharliz). The modern religions book only covers fourteen more, representing twenty of the other book's listed twenty-three, but you recall that some must have drifted out of prominence like the other book said. Skimming through those entries, they seem to be deities attuned to a specific race or discipline.
You go back to try and extrapolate more information about Teyu from the Ungolan religions book. He was recognized as the keeper of secrets and patron of the ocean and the night, but seldom worshiped by anyone but necromancers. He faded from prominence during the reign of the Ungolan empire, and the book states that his closest modern analogue would be Vels Nimith, god of Dragons, but that's not a particularly good fit. Beyond that, you're having a hard time gleaning anything useful.
Finally, you withdraw some of the other books about various races and anatomies. You spend a while looking through "Xenophile" again, mostly looking at the images. Occasionally when you see something you recognize or that looks particularly unusual, you'll stop and read over it a little.
You also check out the other books on anatomy that Padma brought out. One seems to be a rather dry manual listing various characteristics of different races. You start reading through it, but it quickly bores you. You do think it gives you lots of ideas for new forms to take, though. The last "anatomy" book just turns out to be a strongly sexual narrative about forbidden love between two undines, and you set it aside in favor of the book about Ungolan history.
This book is easier to understand, and seems to be chiefly educational in nature. It talks about the Ungolan architecture and social structure, their divinely mandated rulers and the extent of their conquest. You read all about their holy order of paladins, dressed in gold and riding horned birds which they revered, and make the obvious connections with the Ash crow, the birds in your vision, and the ones on the coin and cursed sword. It also covers the schism in the church and the eventual civil war that tore the empire apart, some 700 years ago.
You note with a bit of annoyance that Padma has been asleep in your lap for several hours. You feel like you've spent enough time here and you'd like to go out and find Ivet. What do you do?

>>393897
>You fish out the book on modern religions. Padma, upon hearing the pages turn, sits up and sees what you're doing. She sighs a little sadly and curls up against your chest. "Just like back home," she mutters, under her breath.
That was bad bedside manner. You should have cuddled longer without distractions.

you can probably move her without shifting her body by shifting yours. would let you set her down easily.
should leave a note or something.

>>393909
Seriously? how about you put down the book, pay her some attention, and be there when she wakes up?

So... that happened.

I take it we're basically done with the rampage thing?

>>393897
Shapeshift so that she sinks slowly to the couch. Bed. Thing. We'd like to leave without a fuss.

Then first, we go check on Ivet's house. Take on a form that can travel quickly and wouldn't be out of place. Perhaps even something very small.

>>393919
Like a small bird, perhaps. Though whether you know how to fly is in question.

Oh but DO leave a note saying that we still had that business to attend to that we mentioned already, and if we had the time we probably would've stayed.

Rude. Wake her up with some manual stimulation, she did us a huge favor, we're not going to sneak out on her.

>>393928
This. I dun wanna dissapoint the cute octogirl.

Morning after quicky!

>>393928
This works.

Viktor, you seem to have quite an appetite for knowledge, as well. Do you need to sleep? I bet you don't.

>>393928
Leave a note. "I apologize for the lack of aftercare and for parting before you woke, but as of yet time is precious.
You have helped me more than you know, and gratitude is such a troublesome thing to express. I can make no promises, but I will certainly try to meet with you again soon."

Try to slip out before she wakes up, and memorize where she lives.
Our first stop is getting our loot appraised so we can convert them into things which are more useful, such as a bag of holding and some sort of long-range communication device. Padma is certainly fun, but that pales compared to the value of having a line to a librarian and her library. Not to mention what other useful people we may encounter.

After that we're going to search for Ivet. We need to find her and make sure she's safe, then find a way to keep her safe while we're in the city and surrounding areas.
There are a few ways of doing this, but since you're a highly skilled shapeshifter you should be able to cover her with a tendril in the form of an outer shell so she appears to be something else entirely. This would require constant physical contact, which limits your options.
As an alternative, you could become such an outer shell yourself. Ivet would be impossible for hostiles to find without powerful scrying magic, and if they were going to use such it would have already happened.
Either of these would be rather uncomfortable and disconcerting, but I'm at a loss for better options.

>>393962
Alright go with this.

You aren't a god but you are probably a fragment of one; hence-force we shall refer to our kind as "fragments". Recall your body rebuilt itself from some blood, probably that of a god. You met two other fragments thus far, both wanted to eat to be whole and their dialog fits perfectly with the theory. The first you ate which gave you a huge boost, the second you had to escape from and claimed to have eaten others (which explain his relative power). And he had to escape from a group of mages, so don't go think that being a god fragment makes you all powerful; you probably have to eat all of the other fragments to become a full god; and even then he along with the other old gods were killed and eaten by the new gods.

The bardic fragment did control the talpids though which most likely makes him their new leader (which fits with their leader claiming the old gods were murdered by new gods and that one's power is yet unclaimed). We need to find a way to uncurse that paladin sword as I imagine that it could be useful in fighting a being of our type; so this is something to look for in the city before departing. Ivet could be captured by the cloaks (which mean they lied, I kinda doubt it). Or captured by the talpids (hopefully as a hostage to weaken you in your eventual rematch and not for killing outright) or she could be hiding, contacting the bartender and jan would be a good starting point in finding her then; as well as checking the apartment.

The vulnerability of the bard to the cloaks, as well as your own capture suggests that perhaps we should pursue magic. Perhaps get a book on learning it to work on as well as acquiring a full suit of powerful magic items for personal use.

Wow, giant infodump.
Okay, so the trust thing isn't a big deal. It means we'd probably be better off telling Ivet about Padma so she doesn't find out another way and it all blows up in our face. Then we can show her what we learned.
Viktor's new form looks like it'll be pretty terrifying.
These other gods are probably going to start paying attention to us soon if we really are one of them. Be prepared for that.
So if I'm interpreting right, the equivalent of a tentacle boner is where the pointed tips become fat and round. But, Viktor's a shapeshifter. I'm all for waking her up with some manual stimulation, with the added benefit that we can make it feel just like the real thing.
Then we have her for breakfast tell her we had fun but that we have to jet, and we'll call later after telephones are invented.
>>393962
>Our first stop is getting our loot appraised
Our loot is in Ivet's house, which only she can open. We might just be able to tear through the tree, but we probably shouldn't. Should be the first place we check for her, though.

>>393972
we may be able to emulate the magic needed somehow.

>>393972
Actually now that I think about it maybe having her for breakfast isn't such a bad idea. She knows a lot about us, and will probably figure out the kobold wasn't exaggerating at some point. She doesn't yet know "Grath" is a killer but I expect she won't react pleasantly when she finds out.

>>393976
She found the fugitive part to be adventurous. I think she would only have a negative reaction if someone tells her the story of our escape in great detail, which is fairly unlikely as the guards seem fairly secretive about such things.

>>393972
Just to be absolutely clear, knock on her door and say "its victor" but do not tear it down if she isn't home.

>>393976
Jesus fuck no we are not eating her. What is wrong with you people.

>>393980
WE could tell anyone the story and they would probably take our side. We were at the club when it was attacked earlier, did not fall to madness and were trying to save our friends, complied with the cloaks when they arrived and turned ourselves in, and when they found out we truly did not know anything and were totally innocent declared that it was a "pity" we really were that innocent as all we are good for now is being executed to be raised via necromancy. At which point we killed our way to freedom.
Oh, and when we raised protecting the city they said that they are protecting the true citizens and that all the squatters at the lower levels can die for all they care.

Yeah, we'd better leave without waking her. Leave a note, vaguely citing our status as being on the run from the law, and suggesting that we'll return for her. No specifics and ideally nothing that could disadvantage either us or her against the fuzz, although of course any note will potentially be evidence. For that reason we should probably recommend she destroy the note after reading it.

The place Ivet is most likely to be holed up is her home, since it's basically the perfect hideout in every way.

Oh, and if there's more reading we want to do, take some books with us.

don't be an ass and eat the nice lady who offered you free sex, a place to hang low and most importantly critical information on your heritage.

make a mental note to seek more information the next time you're around a church of Vels Nimith, as their high-ranking priests may know somethings.

slip out quietly. you don't owe her any explanations. go to Ivet's house, maybe.

>>393972
Don't play with your food and don't eat your playthings. This is a good policy, Viktor. Don't forget it.

>ignore her for books and knowledge
>she falls asleep because you neglected after-sex cuddling
You are not allowed to be annoyed.

>>394031
Agreed.

Oh, and go ahead and sign the note "Viktor".

>>394035
Sign it viktor.

Sign the note as Viktor. Don't want to make her feel cheap.

Don't tell her our real name. She was perfectly willing to SUPPPLY us a fake name.

Simple proposed note text:

"Dear Padma,
As you can no doubt surmise, it is unwise for me to remain here for too long. Additionally, it's quite possible that a friend of mine may be in danger. I've dallied enough already, so though it pains me I must disappear for now. Assuming no trouble prevents it, you will see me again before too long.

Signed, Grath"

>>394040
That's about right.

I don't even see how it matters, since there's like three or so people who actually know our name. which, by the way, isn't anywhere near uncommon.

>>394040
Yeah, but sign it "Viktor." Nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's a name we arbitrarily chose for ourselves after this most recent bout of amnesia. I'm sure there's some more significant, deeper name we'll find later.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/19(Mon)02:14 No. 394062 ID: d09277
File 133214848349.png - (750.02KB , 720x1781 , 18.png )

You very carefully slip off of the couch, shifting subtly to place Padma on the couch without waking her. You start towards the door, but decide to leave a note for her before you go. Nothing that would incriminate either of you in case it was found, but just enough to let her know why you left.
You find a loose piece of parchment that doesn't seem important and a charcoal stick and write out a note for her.
"Padma, as you can no doubt surmise, it is unwise for me to remain here for too long. Additionally, it's quite possible that a friend of mine may be in danger. I've dallied enough already, so though it pains me I must disappear for now. Assuming no trouble prevents it, you will see me again before too long."
You consider carefully which name to put at the bottom, but you ultimately decide to write "Viktor".
You settle on a raven as your next form. Your new ability to decrease your density should allow you to fly even while small, and some ravens are known to speak, which should help if you are called on to do that. It takes a little clever shapeshifting once you get outside to get the door closed behind you, and then you take off into the fog, now glowing dull orange with the rising sun.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/19(Mon)02:15 No. 394063 ID: d09277
File 133214851275.png - (398.10KB , 720x1200 , 19.png )

As you fly over the walls separating the inner city from the outer city, you see very few passages through. Those that you do see are flanked by guards, but only on the outside.
You get your bearings and veer towards Ivet's house, picking up snippets of conversations from the people you pass far below. The trees and other plants quickly grow thick as you gain distance from the inner city, and you hear and smell many of the fey in them. You spot with some small surprise someone with a brown and blue hooded robe gliding silently through the forest, flanked by three Cloaks. He happens to be going the way you are, and as you pass over them you keep an eye out for whatever he might be pursuing.
It doesn't take long to spot the large crowd gathered at the base of one of the gargantuan trees. Atop one of the roots stands a man and some sort of large ape, and pinned to the side of the root by his hands is another blue/brown dressed man. The one standing on the root is addressing the crowd, and you pick up some of what he's yelling.
"...our brothers and sisters, our lovers and children, in cages. They are the animals, not us. What are we?"
"HUNTERS!" the crowd shouts in unison.
You hurry on to the tree with Ivet's home in it, and are disappointed to sense no signs of life inside. Remembering that it is magically empowered to be less detectable, you check for witnesses and morph a heavy pseudopod and knock at the door. "It's Viktor," you say, loud enough that she should be able to hear through the wood.
There is no reply. You think you might be able to tear the door open, or you could go check some of the other locations she might be. The birch tree where the party was and the nymph pond spring to mind, or you could check out that crowd. What do you do?

the pond. if she is laying low the that would be the best place.

>>394066
We are in agreement.

Keep tabs on the cloaks. They might be able to detect things. Things such as myconids who are also female. It would be very bad if they met Ivet first, since then you'd have to break back INTO prison to save her.

When you get to the throng of people return to your human or tree form and move towards the front so Ivet would see you.

Wait a moment longer, then check out the pond or crowd, whichever is close.
At the nymph pond, do a quick sweep of the nymph pond just to check it. Flying overhead in bird form should be enough that you'll see her if she's there.
At the crowd, stay above, don't get involved, just scope out if she's one of the people there. Your improved senses should make that perfectly doable.
If she's at neither place, check the go to the party location to search for potential clues.

The pond could be where she is, but personally... I would like to assist the crowd. They are about to be attacked by the enforcer with three Cloaks, and we have made an enemy of those they are fighting. We could assist at range by using our tremendous strength to throw heavy objects at high speed. The Cloak constructs surely cannot defend against such immense physical impacts. Maybe we could do something with stretchy tentacles and large amounts of torsion or tension, for small-mass high-velocity impacts.

Aiding them in such a manner could open up their resources for our disposal. Out of all those people there, surely someone knows where Ivet might go to bunker down.

>>394076
This is reasonable, but how we present ourselves is important.
First, lets scan the crowd to see if Ivet is there. Get her out of there first, if you can.
Second, lets shadow the Cloaks until they make their move. They're moving slowly, so they person they're flanking is probably going to make some sort of announcement. Once they've sufficiently pissed off and/or frightened the crowd, pull out your tree form and destroy the Cloaks.

I doubt we will find her just going places. And if she was taken by either the bard fragment or the cloaks then her time is running out. Cloaks makes more sense considering she was on us when captured and they had already segmented the battlefield and were arresting EVERYONE.

I think we have several options:

1. Enhance our smell sense and track her (will require eating a bunch of people).
2. Interrogate people who were in the area where she was last seen (unfortunately they were all mad and taken by the cloaks, or the cloaks themselves so... interrogate cloaks). But maybe we could locate jan and the bartender (maybe they were released) and ask. We could eat cloaks and focus on improving our ability to read the memories of those we eat.
3. Hire professional tracker (which probably uses some creature with amazing sense of smell) to lead us to her.

I am most inclined to focus on 2 at first but already start on the others. We should bore a SMALL hole in a discreet location, and curve it so it doesn't allow seeing through it into her apartment, to get a piece of her bed sheets or even better a used pair of undies for smell sample; and since we are already there a few coins (not all) to fund hiring a tracker. Based on tracker / our own tracking we would either locate her hiding place, on determine if she was taken by cloaks or the bard fragment.

Oh, we SHOULD try eating an animal to find out its effectiveness compared to sentients.

>>394063
Hrm. Our senses are extremely keen- can we recognize Ivet's scent? If so, can we tell how recently she's been here? It's possible that she hasn't been back here at all.

I'm not inclined to help out the fey- it would tip our hand. Nor am I inclined to break into Ivet's, even if we know she's in there; that would be exceedingly rude and ruin her sanctuary. Scan through the crowd to try and find her by whatever senses we can, then if that fails check the pond as that was an isolated location she might think that we'd look to find her but those who can point to her house might not know of.

If Ivet is keeping a low profile then she is likely to have shapeshifted herself as well.

Maybe you could take a new shape to display a sign only Ivet would recognize... Like a picture of a small square room containing a large hunched male and a small female with a sword lying on the ground. That's something only she would recognize. If you put that on a tabard or flag then it might draw her attention.

She would probably recognize either the treant, normal, or barbarian forms. The Treant form is what our enemies are hunting, so we can use that while fighting them. Normal form is right out. Barbarian form would be good for being inconspicuous, but if we get in a fight while using that form, it loses its usefulness.

>>394108
We DO have awesome senses. We could go back to the party site and try picking up her scent. But, it also looks like we're about witness the start of a full-blown civil war.
Tough choice. Plot density dictates we'll probably find her with the rebels. Logic dictates we should go see if we can pick up her scent at the party site.
Actually, that guy leading the crowd looks like a ranger. I say we go and singlehandedly take down these cloaks and see if we can't get him and his gorilla to track Ivet for us out of gratitude.

>>394127
Its not plot density, where else would she lie low at?
She is either lying low (or actively joining the rebellion), was taken by the bard fragment (unlikely considering he had already retreated and we were cordoned by the cloaks) or was taken by the cloaks. If her scent goes into the tunnels then we go after the Bard Fragment. If she wasn't then joining or even leading the rebels would be ideal for us. We use it to locate her, take out the rulers, and we get to nom on powerful mages and potentially the lady herself. And we then have our own army to use against bard fragment so we could kill him with our army and then eat him.

Check out the crowd, but stay as a raven and listen from a branch that's out of reach (and sight, if possible, while still being able to see). You have no obligation to any of these beings, so may as well figure out exactly what's happening before engaging.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/19(Mon)18:21 No. 394201 ID: d09277
File 133220649981.png - (386.74KB , 720x735 , 20.png )

You check around and wait a moment just to make sure, then you take off towards the gathered crowd you saw earlier, thinking that Ivet might have joined the group.
By the time to return to the scene, it's clear that the skirmish between the Cloaks and the crowd has already started. You swoop overhead and scan the masses, but don't think you see Ivet. It's hard to tell though, there are a whole lot of creatures and a whole lot of unique smells. You also see a fire elemental diving into the crowd and setting fire to several people; you think the other cloaked figure must have summoned it. You perch on a branch and survey the scene more closely. One of the remaining cloaks dives into a thick crowd and disappears with several of them, only to reappear moments later.
The man who was addressing the crowd earlier leaps through the air and cuts one of the cloak's tendrils off. Upon landing, he yells to the crowd. "Look for the caster! He is probably invisible!" No sooner does he say that than you see the figure gliding silently along between the trees below you. His appearance seems fuzzy and semitranslucent, and no one else seems to notice him.
A pixie in the trees near you spins around and eyes you suspiciously. "I think I found his familiar!" she calls out.
What do you do?

"craw, not familiar to him, friend of druid. see him running through trees below, craw. follow me" and then start flying around his head and move out the way if he points finger at you, would probably be a spell.

oh and if you get a shot. fly right at him and before you hit put yourself to full weight.

Act indignant, something like "Who are you calling a familiar? Besides, the caster is right down there [gesture]. No respect from the humanoids these days. Don't have thumbs and they think you are some kind of critter..."

Pixies aren't known for loud voices. Did anyone hear and acknowledge her? If not, eat her before she gets someone's attention, then drop down and eat the caster before departing in search of Ivet.

If everyone sees you, just bugger off and avoid trouble.

Alterrnately you could tell them you're just a bystander and alert them to the location of the caster, with the intent to let the groups and caster weaken each other and then eat everybody as soon as the fight starts winding down.

>>394232
why? it's rather obvious the upper city is mostly assholes. want the upper city to lose this civil war.

unceremoniously land on the invisible guy's shoulder.

>>394201
"Cute. Wait here."
Then do this: >>394205

Eat the corpse quickly, then repeat the process on the three Cloaks. Minus the eating.

>>394276
Nonono. Shapeshifters are NOT going to be popular right now. At ALL. Remember the party? Just divebomb the dude and fly off.

>>394276
Oh, and when you're done use the Tree disguise, then demand to know where Ivet is.

>>394201
Say "I'm not. Watch me."

Then divebomb him, raising density briefly to basically pierce right through the fucker.

Poo on mr. invisible.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/20(Tue)00:49 No. 394338 ID: d09277
File 133222978256.png - (417.53KB , 720x815 , 21.png )

You try to make your voice match a raven's caw as best you can before answering, and correct the mistake your sense of smell is telling you that you made when assigning a pronoun to the cloaked figure. "Not familiar to her, friend of druid. See her running through trees, look." You caw again and spread your wings to dive at the cloaked figure, but the fairy quickly starts to make some arcane gestures.
"Then let's see if your druid friend steps forward," she responds. Streams of white light burst from every surface nearby, quickly connecting into a vast web.
You manage to dodge all the streams of light, but they quickly solidify into an actual physical web that blocks you in every direction. The cloaked figure below, however, gets caught in the strands. You see a clawed hand protrude from under the cloak and start trying to tear the webs off.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/20(Tue)00:50 No. 394339 ID: d09277
File 133222980890.png - (452.82KB , 720x900 , 22.png )

You quickly decide you would rather alert the fey to the cloaked figure's presence than attack the pixie, and weave through the webs as best you can as you start to dive. The dodging and few stray webs you still encounter slow you down significantly, and you don't build up the momentum you had hoped to before increasing your density. You catch the top of the mage's face mask and she topples over backwards, and you land in the dirt with a heavy thud.
You suddenly recognize the scent, albeit without the heavy smell of alcohol you associated it with yesterday.

>>394339
Jen, you been a bad giiiiirrrlll. Eat her eyes. Or steal her mask, it's covered in juju.

>>394339
Remember how they wanted to kill you and raise you because you were immune to mind-effects?

She's not. See the thousand-yard stare in her eyes? She's not in control here.

Turn into a tree and hold her captive while you start smashing the Cloaks.
We need to reveal this to them - the upper city isn't just capturing their loved ones, they're turning them into meat puppets.

Once you have the attention of the people you can ask where Ivet is.

>>394342
Oh, and take her cloak, mask, and anything that could be enchanted. We want her visible.

>>394344
Turn into something low profile, heavy, and camoflague colored, grab mask and cloak, and slither away.

oshit

good thing we didn't kill her that would have been stupid

fly off somewhere away from their eyes, but keep watching. if she looks like she's gonna be in trouble transform into your human form behind a tree or something and rush in to help her.

>>394339
There's a bunch of runes on the inside of the mask. It was controlling her.

Recover yourself and turn into something that should actually be shapeshifty. Surely we know some race that qualifies. Then grab Jen and remove the cloak as well. See if you can locate the source of her invisibility and/or mind control. Then announce our discovery.

>>394347
She was hit by a Symbol of Insanity. They are not kind enough to spend a level 5 spell to help her.

When their control breaks she's going to be insane. We need to restrain her before anything else. We can strip her afterwards because shapeshifter.

>>394351

uhh. strip?

>>394352
Anything can be enchanted. That's the best way to ensure all enchanted objects will be removed.

While we're holding her the restraints will preserve her modesty, and somebody here will have a blanket or a spare shirt she can use once the fight is over.

>>394354
God damn you and your logic. Fine.

>>394346
If it comes to this, we may want to appear as our human form with the raven on our shoulder. It might lend us some credibility if we arrive as the "druid" whose raven took her down, rather than some random bystander leaping in to protect one of the cloaks. It may also help us explain why we know that she's being mind controlled.

On the other hand, if we're asked to demonstrate any druidic powers that could cause problems of its own. It's an option to consider, though, and if we want to do anything to protect her as an (ex-?)friend of Ivet it might be the best way to do it without unnecessary violence. Drawing attention to ourselves again would be problematic.

So I say let the other folks do the fighting, but do what we can to elucidate the situation; not all the cloaks they see fight willingly, and the mob may be surprised to see some friends behind the masks.

An added bonus of the "druid with crow" form is that we could argue with ourselves. If you're voicing both sides of an argument, it's easy to make the opposing side seem less credible.

>>394354

heh. fine by me.

Isn't there a pixie right there? I'm gonna vote against shapeshifting. Especially since I'm not sure we can change between two forms without a tentacle form in the middle.

If those are fake cloaks under mind control then maybe you shouldn't smash them all up. Ivet may also be one of them.

I say take up your giant form (we need a recognizable one if we are gonna get some followers), grab the pixie and jen both. Tell the pixie "I am not going to hurt you, just listen. I know this person and she isn't with the cloaks, they cloaks kidnapped her last night, and look at her eyes and you can see she is enchanted. The cloaks are having you fight your own people who are under mind control. Can you use your magic to dispel it?"

>>394393
there are two kinds of cloaks, the long cloaks with the tendrils are constructs.

>>394394
Ok, break the constructs. But for those who aren't constructs try to remove the clothes of and check their eyes to see if enchanted. In fact, after assuming our giant form we should boost our voice a lot and yell "they are using kidnapped civilians under mind control to augment their numbers! Rip off their masks and check their eyes to save their victims".
This should rile up people even more and also potentially save ivet or some of her/our other friends from being killed while under cloak mind control. And seeing us rescuing the mind controlled would help solidify our leader position.

Keeping our ability to shape-shift an absolute secret is of limited use. First, many creatures can shape shift, second we are on the ground level of a serious rebellion. I say we do expose ourselves and rile up people and become the leader of this rebellion, by sheer dint of being the best at killing their enemies. We could save our friends as we conquer the town and it will give us an army. We need an army if we are going to face the bard fragment who is individually more powerful then us AND has his OWN army. And he is probably not the only fragment to do so. Not only that, but the bard fragment might be angling to conquer this place too. We must preempt him.

>>394399
indeed. shapeshifting is not a thing people are scared of around here. lots of things do it.

>>394351
It could be TEMPORARY screaming insanity.

Anyway. If we do become large enough, like that tree form, we could probably just stick her inside us like the coins and kangaroo away. If we don't want to reveal we're a shapeshifter, we could make it seem like the treeform is coming up from the ground with the raven now in its branches, maybe? There should be a druid spell for that.

>>394404
A shapeshifter just ate dozens of people. Plant-morphs can attest to that. This is a very special circumstance and people are going to HATE shapeshifters for a while.

>>394476
There were no witnesses. Everyone who saw that was hit by insanity spell and started killing each other, then cloaks arrested EVERYONE in the area and nobody knows what happened to them (except us; we found out they were mind controlled and sent to quell the crowd or killed and raised if immune to mind control).
As far as the people know the cloaks randomly attacked a party and kidnapped all the civilians inside.

>>394443
there is such a spell, Ivet used it in thread 1. Can you clarify though what YOUR position is (rather then just "if we vote for this do that")?

>>394507
There's not really much more for me to add to this idea beyond 'pretending to be our own (treefolk) druid/familiar team'. Alternatively, Viktor may simply have had enough of this bullshit, resume a large form and forcibly restrain all contenders. "EVERYONE WILL NOW STOP BEING STUPID THANK YOU." /tentacles everywhere.

Given we no longer have any idea where Ivet may be, staying to quell the riot one way or another would probably be wise.

For all we know, Ivet's under one of those cloaks, too.

>>394507
No, any plant-types were immune. Ivet was not the only one. Some of them must have escaped. Even if they didn't, people know SOMETHING happened.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/21(Wed)02:13 No. 394688 ID: d09277
File 133232123761.png - (605.99KB , 720x1200 , 23.png )

You reduce your mass again and hop over to make sure it's really Jen. Sure enough, it looks like her, but her eyes seem wrong somehow. They're out of focus, staring into the distance. She starts to stand, and you hear the pixie speak up. "Huh, guess you were telling the truth, I heard SOMETHING hit the ground. So, the caster's right there, yeah?" You turn just as you hear her start to speak some arcane words, and lightning starts to form at her fingertips.
You flap your wings urgently. "Wait, wait! I recognize this one! She was one of the ones taken by the cloaks yesterday! She must be under mind control!"
The pixie stops casting and looks confused. "Then, um...Wait. I don't know what to believe anymore. I can't see anyone. I can dispel her, though, maybe."
The sounds of fighting in the clearing seem to have died down, and Jen is starting to get back up. Not wanting her to get away, you take a chance on your shapeshifting powers and try to change directly from a raven into a treant without showing any tentacles in between. It works, but you think if the form you're changing into were more difficult to assume, you'd have trouble. You quickly snatch Jen up in your claws and hold her up to the pixie.
She just looks even more confused. "Davin, get over here!" she calls out to the crowd behind you. "You're gonna want to see this."

ChildOfAB 2012/03/21(Wed)02:14 No. 394689 ID: d09277
File 133232125899.png - (495.66KB , 720x1090 , 24.png )

The man who was speaking on the tree root earlier approaches, blades drawn and accompanied by the ape. A good bit of the crowd cautiously files in behind him. He eyes you suspiciously. "I've never seen you before, treant," he says, simply.
"He says he caught the caster," the pixie chimes in. "He says she was at the party, and got mind controlled. Oh, and he was a raven a second ago."
"Hm," Davin says, "You were at the party?"
You're starting to get frustrated. This isn't bringing you any closer to finding Ivet. You hold Jen up. "Look, she's right here, but she's got a blank look in her eyes. She had a mask on, and it has runes inside."
"I don't see anything," he replies, still fixing you with a steely glare.
"She's invisible," you respond, "you said so yourself."
"I did hear her hit the ground," says the pixie. "And saw her tearing up my webs."
"It might be an item," you say, "should I strip her?"
"Dispel her," he responds, pointing to the pixie and ignoring you. He turns and quickly scans the crowd before pointing to a nearby nymph. "Lily, break any enchantments." The nymph steps forward gracefully, and she and the pixie cast their spells.
Jen loses her translucency and her eyes snap back into focus. She surveys your claws on her with increasing ire and you start to set her down.
Davin's expression turned briefly to shock, before quickly turning furious. "Jen? Put her down. NOW."
"I am," you reply, already releasing your hold on her.
"Davin?" Jen asks, "What's going on?"
He doesn't say anything, he's just staring at you intently. You speak up to break the silence. "Look, I'm just trying to find my friend-"
"Don't make me waste words on the questions you know I'm going to ask," he replies, interrupting you. You can see the crowd starting to murmur and move in behind him. What do you do?

quick summary. went to party, singer got on stage, cast mass insanity, he started eating everyone he could. plant like people immune to insanity spell. cloaks appear during fight and grab everyone they can. you broke out of jail, they may hear story of you about that from guards. just ask about "the big tree dude that broke out" they will assume rumor got around and tell you.

now, if you can answer my question, have you seen ivet.

if they interrupt you again when you are asking about ivet, just leave.

>>394689
"Then I shall tell what I know.
I know Jen because Ivet mentioned her several times, and Jen identified herself when she drunkenly attempted to warn me off of romancing Ivet when Jen saw me at the party with her.
The Singer and his bugs showed off a bunch of these symbols, then almost everybody but Ivet and myself went crazy. I scooped up Ivet and tried to get retrieve Jen and Teak while escaping - Ivet may hate you at the moment, Jen, but time heals all wounds save for regret.
An earth elemental blocked our path so I engaged it in combat. I ripped off its arm before a Cloak grabbed me. Ivet was not with me when I arrived in the prison. I demanded the guard put us in the same cell.
After a time they called me in for questioning and presented me with an incompetent illusion of Ivet. They demanded to know about Ivet's mission and what happened to Avara. I refused to cooperate without Ivet. When I said I did not know where Ivet was the interrogator ordered that I be executed and prepared for raising.
With negotiation no longer an option I forced my way out of the prison killing all who stood in my way. I understand there is a fairly incompetent coverup of my prison break taking place in the upper city at the moment.
I hid for the rest of the night, then returned to this area to find Ivet. She did not appear to be home, and this seemed like a good place to start a search party.
I was looking for the source of the chaos here when the fairy accosted me. It was then I attacked the wizard, at which point I knocked off her mask and discovered it was Jen.

Are your questions answered, then?"

Say that you are a friend of Ivet's, and were at the party, but weren't affected by the insanity. On your way away from the party a Cloak teleported you to prison. You escaped afterwards and are now looking for her, and she apparently did not get captured, for you made sure that she wasn't at the prison before leaving.

Let's not give them our name or tell them the details of what we were doing at the party. We do NOT want them to know we're a major shapeshifter. If pressed, say that we have been called Garth.

Ask why they are so hostile. You just aided them in their fight. It doesn't matter who you are, does it? All you want to do is find Ivet, and you thought someone here would know where she went.

Begin by saying you are looking for your friend, but will tel him what you can think of first.

Add that you came here hoping that Ivet might have joined this group. When you saw they were having trouble with an invisible mage, you helped. You recovered this girl without causing any real harm to her. When you recognized her, you realized she was being mind controlled, and stopped the pixie from killing Jen.

If he says he needs more, tell that must wait until he answers your question. If he wanted to know something else, he should have asked it. Tell him you are looking for your friend, Ivet. Do not let him interrupt this. He has already done so once, and you answered his vague demand out of courtesy. If he refuses to answer, or to let you speak, leave. You have important business elsewhere.

If he answers, even if it's that he doesn't know, answer any additional questions of his before leaving.

>>394694
just point out if you didn't stop and restrain jen then when the invisibility ran out you would of all attacked and probably killed her before realizing who i was.

You know, there is a reason I suggested taking on our giant form, that way Jen will recognize us. We still can shift into it.

also, don't forget to grab the mask and have the casters dispel it too so they can see it and study the runes. They might identify them as runes of control

Did the fighting completely die down? I would say "I will tell you what you want but first lets make sure the other cloaks are not killed by the mob, they might also be mind controlled victims like Jen was"

>>394710
Since the druid didn't bother to ask any questions, I'm not sure he deserves any answers. "I, too, would prefer not to waste words while people are fighting and dying."

Ignore him and wade in. Tackle the cloaks yourself.

if they ask about the shape shifting say its an ability granted by an item, it lets you shift between a few preset forms. if they press about what your true form is, or what other forms you can take apologize but explain that you keep that information private as a matter of course. if they can't detect magic on you point out such an item would be a poor means of disguise if it did not hide its own magic aura. they will probably want to ask how you got that, but if you make a point of not wanting to discuss it they may not press the point.

>>394720
I'm getting more of a "ranger" rather than "druid" vibe from this guy.

We may support the idea of this rebellion, but its leader is kind of a jerk. For a guy who seems to feel so strongly about not wasting words he sure doesn't mind interrupting you. I get the feeling he's trying to start a fight with us, but I'm not sure why.

Just give him something along the lines of "I was just passing through, looking for my friend Ivet. I saw you guys fighting and decided to help out. Have you seen my friend?" Maybe even try to come off as a bit of a simpleton. He might let up a little.

he's being an arrogant fuck. I hate arrogant fucks. he does not have the right or the might to order you around. if I were you, I'd make that very clear to him. besides, a question not worth being asked is not one worth being answered.

also? the leafy design on his blades make him look like a fag.

>>394740
If our roles were switched and it was our confused friend in his hand I seriously doubt we would be as kind and understanding. No, we would have started the conversation by pinning him to the ground and half of us would want him eaten.
He cares about his friends. I respect that.
He's pretty level-headed. I respect that, too.

Being combative isn't going to help, but cooperating will get them to help find Ivet.

>>394746

speak for yourself. maybe you would have, but I wouldn't ever threaten a guy who just saved my friend from my enemy's mind control majikks.

I resent that, and I sure as hell am not inclined cooperate with people who act in a way that pisses me off.

Maybe instead of addressing him we should address jen... like "Jen, its me victor, do you know what happened to Ivet?"

>>394749
Except he doesn't know that. The upper city does a lot of teleporting magic. As far as he can tell we are the wizard and we teleported Jen in as a ploy to ingratiate ourselves with the rebels.

All he has supporting our version of events is our word, and lying is a thing that happens. We need to tell them things in order for them to believe anything we say. Things they can verify.

>>394750
I don't think we told her our name last night, did we? And we looked like a human then, too.

Didn't they crucify someone on the tree? Maybe we should make sure that's not someone we know, too.

>>394757
"you said ivet wanted a tree, well look at me now"

>>394756
>>394757
>>394759
Then, taking the same form Jen saw us in last night might help us get recognized.

>>394756
So we: 1) subdued Jen 2) stuck her in a suit full of mind control magics 3) made someone invisible 4) turned into a bird and defeated our invisible pawn 5) teleported Jen into our grasp wearing the mind-control suit

All this in order to ... what, trick Ranger McLeafyblades and get in on the ground floor of his murderous mob aimed vaguely in the direction of law and order (who are also dicks; we cannot win)?

Presumably if Davin's mates have dispel and break enchantment and stuff, they have a detect magic/identify spell somewhere. If our working theory about the mind control suit is right, then they should be able to tell that.

>>394694
This. Just this.

I think at this point it's going to be easier and safer to tell the truth than to weave a lie. We should still be careful how much information we give up though.

"I am acquainted with Jen because she moves in similar circles to Ivet, who I would consider a friend and for whom I am currently searching. I met Jen at the party. An entity caused insanity in most of the partygoers using symbols, but I remained lucid and opposed him. Unfortunately he was my better in combat, and while opposing him I was captured by a Cloak. I initially cooperated with the authorities, but they were unhelpful to me and attempted to kill me, so I left them, and am now trying to reunite with Ivet. I saw the cloaked figure running away invisible, so I stopped her at the request of the fairy. If you have nothing further you would ask of me, nor information that would benefit my current task, then I will leave you now."

Note that this makes our current priorities clear as well as indicating we care little for the current fracas but are still essentially friendly to their cause.

If they ask why we can see the invisible and resist insanity, say that we are not so fickle of essence as to be subject to such things. If he asks for more information say that we don't know more ourselves (which is true, even though we could make educated guesses).

Don't use the "Grath" name, Grath is the name of a dragonborn who briefly met a kobold and banged an Undine, we don't want to associate that with a shape shifting treant who caught a mind controlled mage and bloodily escaped from jail. It's not ideal to let them know that we're the same guy as the human. We may feel it wise to use another name, but I don't think there's any huge reason not to call ourselves Viktor in this case. It's too likely to come to light that we are in fact Viktor. Let's not mention our human form, and hope that Jen doesn't remember it. If she does, not a huge deal since they already know we can change shapes anyway.

>>394710
The Cloaks are constructs. Jen was a mage who happened to be wearing a cloak, as in the article of clothing. The Cloaks are almost certainly not mind controlled.

>>394845
It may not be a good idea to call ourselves Viktor because Ivet likely introduced us to other people at the party. It would be another way to expose us as a shapeshifter beyond the power of anything these guys are aware of. Highly suspicious.

>>394874
they know we are a shapeshifter, they saw us turn from a crow into a tree. they also know enough about druids that we could not fake being one to them.

>>394796
1: Who was captured at the party.
2: Supplied by the upper city government, for whom these things are cheap and readily available.
3: Was the caster ourselves.
4: Was caught by a rebel and forced to crash
5: Had Jen teleported into our grasp as a cover story.

Starting to see the problem?

>>394892

I... call me daft, but I honestly don't.

"Okay, look, fine. I'm still new in town after arriving with Ivet, whom I met underground a while outside of town while things were trying to kill her. The first place she takes me to in town was a party and while I'm there some bard suddenly turns into a monster, casts insanity on the place and starts eating everybody.
"After discovering that the local guard here seems to be kind of rude, twice, I kept my head down for a while pretending to be other people and trying to dodge official attention. You folks agree that someone trying to kill you is rude, right? That seems to be happening to me alarmingly often since I got here.
"Beyond that, you folks probably know more than I do except for a small detail: I saw those guards take Jen and a bunch of other people away the first time I was learning how rude they were, and here she is now, wearing strange clothes and magic items.
"Now you please tell me, did I just walk into the middle of a civil war?"

>>394689
Alternate option:
"They're after Ivet. She escaped them at the party, and I need to find her before they do. She's not at home, I already checked."

ChildOfAB 2012/03/24(Sat)00:25 No. 395387 ID: d09277
File 133257391335.png - (554.44KB , 720x900 , 25.png )

You go with your gut instinct and don't reveal anything about what you are. "I am new in town after arriving with a Myconad named Ivet, whom I met outside of town while things were trying to kill her. Last night, we went to a party, from which I recognized Jen. A creature disguised as a musician made everybody start attacking each other with magic, and then started eating them. Ivet and I were unaffected, but I was taken by the cloaks. They said they did not have Ivet, and they tried to kill me. I broke out, and have been searching for her. I saw your fight, decided to intervene on your behalf, and saw Jen here. If I had not brought attention to her you likely would have killed her without realizing who it was. Now, I would like to continue my search for Ivet. Do you know where she is?"
The whole time you spoke, Davin stood there, completely still, like a statue. When you finish, he turns to Jen and ignores your question. "Do you recognize him from last night?"
She squints in thought and looks apologetic. "I don't know. I drank more than I should have. I remember seeing someone with Ivet, but it was a human, or maybe a half-giant or something."
Davin looks back to you and takes a deep breath. "I'm not inclined to trust you. You're the second person today to ask me where Ivet is. The first is nailed to the tree behind me. We call that monster you met last night 'The Singer'. He's attacked us a few times over the last three years. We have reason to suspect he was created by the false mother or the snake-church as a tool to wipe us out. He never attacks the inner city. Today, we will. I have no reason to help you, and you have no reason to help me. However, if you prove yourself loyal to us in battle, I will help you track Ivet. We march now, regardless." With that, he motions to the crowd and walks into the trees.
You're not sure how many people you could feasibly eat in a large battle, but this man might be able to find Ivet where you couldn't. On the other hand, there are only a limited number of locations she could be, so his help may prove unnecessary and time-wasting. What do you do?

>>395387
Hmm.

"If I go with you, I direct myself - no orders. I would be happy to help you, if that is the case. Those guys are assholes. Mostly."

When we head out, BEELINE FOR PADMA. We must find her before the army reaches her, make her our 'captive', and extract her.

How long will it take him to get there? How fast can you fly? I doubt she'll be there but if it's possible to sweep the springs and rendezvous with him before the attack begins, do so. Otherwise, we'll march with these folks. We've already checked the place she's most likely to be. If she's in trouble we have no way of finding her, and if she's not then it won't matter too much if we waste time.

I think getting caught up in a rebellion would be a mistake. lets look for ivet on our own.

"like a siege engine i work best breaking things open, not being swarmed by hundreds of soldiers. keep them off me and any wall in the way will fall"

don't pick a side before knowing the full deal with each. besides, this dude is a complete and utter asswad.

>>395387
If you don't there's a good chance they'll attack you, and that would be inconvenient. It would also be wise to keep them from destroying the library, and nudge them away from Padma's home.
"Very well. I will tear down their walls, but you will leave the civilians unharmed. Sinking to their level would be unforgivable.
Oh, and bring all the corpses here. They will attempt to retrieve them for resurrection before retaliating, and that makes for an ideal trap."

Turn to Jen.
"Jen, I need you to find Ivet. Tell her to stay hidden, that I am fine, and that I will meet her at home. My name is Viktor."

>>395394
Don't say this. We can't eat walls. He can see by looking that we're big and strong and thus good against walls, but we want to be inundated in meat, not stone. So don't emphasize wall interactions at all.

>>395398
Don't mention corpses yet.

>>395387
Ask yourself something: Would Ivet want you to do this?

Hmm. Suggest a compromise. Say that you have a few other places to check (and list them), and that if they can direct you to which one would be most likely to be where Ivet is, then we will return with her and assist them in their fight as soon as we find her. Also note to them that you probably don't need their help to find her, this is just a matter of convenience for you.

For the record I am against just going along with them.

This could really take an awful lot of time, and we can fairly quickly check the other locations we had in mind.

>>395398
Alternatively:
"I must find Ivet first, and I will help you if that is her wish. Do as you like, but Jen is in no fit state to help fight."
Turn to Jen:
"Jen. You told me what Ivet really needs is someone to be her tree. I am now a tree. Please, help me find her."

I would recommend going with Jen. Keep her safe and try to get her to help with your search. If that brings you into battle then so be it.

There is a possibility that The Singer actually works with the inner city somehow so your true nature might be known by a few people.

This is a mob folks, one does not reason with a mob, whether it is being lead by someone or not. And are we really stupid enough to join a civil war on the side that has fewer (as in without us zero) gods? We're pretty sure they have at least one, probably two if the one that attacked the bar isn't the ruler herself.
At the moment Jen knows less than we do about Ivet's current location but may know more about where to look, she won't recognize us unless we resume brawny-dude's shape.

>>395454
You are absolutely correct that you cannot reason with a mob. However you misunderstand the politics and divinities involved.

>The Sides
The Bard is not a server of Mother nor a god, he is a fragment who leads the talpids. Ivet and Avera went to negotiate with him on behalf of Mother and he attacked them instead of negotiation so he is her enemy.
Mother is a ridiculously powerful Fae, she is most likely not a fragment due to her association with the churce of a new god (who ate the old gods and will probably eat up fragments; note to self, avoid churches). Just because she is associated with the church though doesn't mean the god will literally come here to fight on her behalf.

>Our Goals
I think we are losing sight of our goals here. Yes, Ivet is important to protect and so is Padme... but we also need to finish our divine ascension. This means to seize military might in order to take down the Bard Fragment who is individually stronger then us AND has his own army. If we lead this city we could reveal him as the leader of Talpids and the one praying on the cityfolk and lead an army against them. The problem is that this is an unruly mob and they have no strategy beyond charging in and possibly attacking the civilians too.

We can't side with Mother, she is with the new gods. The rebels, as much as they suck, are our only option... but we are not siding with them so much as using them. (and it CAN be for their own good and the greater good if we treat them right since their leadership and organization sucks).

>Our Strategy
Confront him about strategy. "Wait, do you even have a strategy or is this just a mob? I think its best to attack the cloaks prison first. This will remove the cloaks from play, and release the innocent prisoners who might help us. We also capture their magic weapons and rearm with them, then we can take out the Mother with no interruptions. All this of course while leaving the civilians and town itself unharmed.".
If need be here, work more on Jen to vouch for us as per some of the other posts.

>Our Actions
Follow him regardless of his answer.
If the rebels are winning then demonstrate your worth and try to get as high up as possible in order to later usurp power from the new unstable government; if you are really lucky the Mother will kill him in the last confrontation and you will take her. Or at worse he takes command and you are among the inner circle inform him of your conclusions about The Bard and get his assistance there (maybe he can fall to the bard and you seize power then, when already known as a hero). If he questions why you followed without going all out on his behalf at first say it was because you wanted to see how he treated the civilians, you would not allow the replacing of one tyrant with another.

If the rebels are losing, based on whether he attacked civilians or not (a measure of his mental stability and how safe to manipulate he is), either kill him discreetly and then try to reorganize the rebels yourself or save him to espouse trust and cement your position as his right hand man.

Either way, you should avoid consuming corpses in public. Delayed gratification and all that.

I think the fey worship the nature goddess Utia. Ivet said last thread:
>Most of the fey worshipped Utia and this was sort of her unofficial central church, but then Mother Oasis agreed to relocate Lunaras's main church here. A lot of the more religious fey considered it kind of a slap in the face.
This is sort of shaping up into a conflict between the two gods.

Viktor's priority 1 right now seems to be finding Ivet. This antler guy seems like a major doucher, and so much can go wrong with this plan. He could ask us to do something unconscionable like attack civs, he could die in battle, he could get mind-controlled, or he could just decide to be more of a dick. In any of those cases, he's not gonna help us find Ivet, and then we're right back where we are now.

Ivet's either at the nymph pond or at the party site, or else kidnapped by the bard. I say we fly to those places real quick and see if anything jumps out at us. If so, pursue that. If no, then fly back up to the battle, or else go underground to rescue her, but we can make that choice when we get there. I think we are powerful enough to equal anyone else's contribution to the fight in a fraction of the time, so it should be easy enough to earn this guy's favor if we decide to join the party late.

>>395471
Yeah, probably this.

>>395387
>He never attacks the inner city.
This is odd. Ivet and Avara were on a diplomatic mission from Mother Oasis. Either she has a vested interested in the welfare of the outer city and not just the inner city, which would imply the shenanigans by the Cloaks against the inhabitants of the outer city are unauthorised, or the attacks on the inner city are being covered up for some reason (Maybe Avara's mission was to forge an outright alliance? That would be very bad news), or that Davin is either lying or greatly stretching the truth, or is very misinformed and possibly being manipulated.

>>395505
I think you are over-thinking this and finding a conspiracy where none exists.

The "inner" city is flying on top of a magically solid cloud and protected by a very powerful being and her army.
The "outer" city is on the ground underneath this cloud and unprotected (considered squatters by the army / law enforcement).
And the bard escaped from the cloaks who tried to arrest him in the club by using talpid/earth elemental dug tunnels under the city; he could not do so if he was attacking the upper city, where he would have been captured and killed.

There is also the conflict of religion (the Bard openly defies the new Gods and declares his loyalty to old gods)

>>395490
>Ivet's either at the nymph pond or at the party site, or else kidnapped by the bard
We already checked the nymph pond and her home. You also assume the cloaks told the truth and they don't have her.
I doubt she is back at party site but if people insist we could take a quick look there... Although if she IS there she would be safe until after this is over and we cannot miss this opportunity.

>He could ask us to do something unconscionable like attack civs, he could die in battle, he could get mind-controlled, or he could just decide to be more of a dick.
Every single one of those I accounted for in my plan, did you stop reading after the political situation correction?

>Most of the fey worshipped Utia
An important distinction. so this means we can side with either of them... this revolt is not lead by gods. MOST fae is not ALL fae.
However I doubt we will get a chance to usurp power if we side with mother.

>Viktor's priority 1 right now seems to be finding Ivet.
>or else kidnapped by the bard
So you don't care what happens to Padme, all of Ivet's other friends, or our ascension to divinity?
Fine, then what about the fact that leaving now and FINDING ivet at the hands of the bard is disasterous because then the bard's advantages on us are:
1. He is individually stronger
2. He has an army
3. We are at his home base
4. He has a hostage.

Finding =! Rescuing. If he did take her hostage he will keep her unharmed until we get there to blackmail us... And with an army we are at a better position to rescue her.

We really need a questdis

>>395503
>Every single one of those I accounted for in my plan, did you stop reading after the political situation correction?
World keeps on turning without you, man. Not every post that disagrees with you is a response to your post. But sure, this one will be.

First off, *Avara, *Padma, *Fey. We have not checked the nymph pond, we went straight to Ivet's house, and then straight here. I don't know where you got the idea that the new gods ate the old ones, or that they'd have any interest in eating us, but okay whatever. And siding with MO was never on the table here, the options are "get involved in a civil war that doesn't actually involve us" or "stop wasting time and find Ivet."

As I stated, this guy is a major doucher, and he's already started walking away. If we run after him and start shouting military strategy at him, he is probably not going to do anything but get even more annoyed with us. It is not our job to protect every civilian. It is not our place to take over this city. Viktor is not a general or a leader, he is a terrifying man-eating monster just like the other terrifying man-eating monster that these guys already hate, and thanks to the shapeshifting, they likely won't understand/care about the difference. I don't know that any of Ivet's friends are in there, but if they are, they chose to join this rebellion like adults and in no way is it our place to make sure nothing happens to them. I hope you don't mean Jen, because we know Ivet hates her. And all the other plans involving Jen vouching for us that you mentioned also involve revealing that we're a shapeshifter, and that seems like a Bad Idea.

And yes, you are right, The Singer has an army and we do not. His army already knows what he is and is stupid enough to follow him anyway. They're more like a cult than an army. If it's even possible that we make this angry mob our army somehow, we are stuck pretending to be a tree forever. We're using a fraction of our power, bringing food to the enemy, and forgoing eating any of The Singer's army because treants don't eat meat. It's probably more advantageous for us to wade in and devour his army alone, because he made the mistake of making them edible.

And I'm not forgoing getting involved in the first place. I'm saying, fly off and see if anything jumps out at us at the nymph pond or party site, and then fly back and join in if not. I'm not so sure the nymph pond is less likely than the party place, though. She could be hiding still, or thinks you'll come look for her at the last place you saw her, or she could be knocked unconscious in a corner somewhere, or something. I'm just saying, check.

>>395513
I wrote my response to your previous post, but I guess you deleted and rewrote it. most of what I said still stands though. And we do have a questdis, it's on the first page of questdis right now and also linked right there in the first post of this thread.

Singer: we don't know specifically that he leads the Talpids, although since there were a few with him, it does seem likely.

There is the fact that the Singer is rather unlikely to be on the side of either the snake church or this 'false mother' (does he mean the new god, or the genasi leader, or...?), since he's some kind of malformed Old One like us trying to go all Highlander on us. This is a fact that you would think Davin maybe should know (claim you are old enemies or something if he asks how you know this)?

Unless he knows more than we don't, 'They're not dead' is a shitty reason to think the Singer is their attack dog. It's just... poor logic. Tautology, I think it's called. It sounds like he's just trying to make the facts fit his dislike of the church.

The rebels are just going to be killing lots of potentially innocent people and inviting more reprisals from the cloaks.

Try to repurpose his rebellion for your own purposes, or at least aim it at the actual Singer, not the church that's been bugging them to convert or whatever.

Go with him.

Regardless of this guy being a dick or not, you need to find Ivet, and he seems to only be willing to help if you help him first. Do your own thing, find her by yourself.

This argument is going nowhere.
People seem to want to go with this mob so they can manipulate it, but we lack the tools to do so.
Ivet has clout. Find her, get her to support you, and you can cause a schism to pull some of them under your command, assuming that usurping control entirely isn't an option.

Also, you can travel far faster than an army. Take Jen to find Ivet, then fill Ivet in on the way back.

join the rebellion

>>395517
>World keeps on turning without you, man. Not every post that disagrees with you is a response to your post. But sure, this one will be.
Except you started your post by correcting me on the political situation.

>Attacking the bard with an army gives him people to eat and prevents us from going all out
He could sense us at a distance so he will not let us just feed on his minions. It will be us vs him and them together. And some of them are casters.
Recall also that last time the cloaks beat back both us and The Bard with their spells.
I am not saying throw warm bodies at him I am saying bring a strike-force of casters (can harm him) & elementals (can't eat).
We need some advantage to beat him and current we are outclassed in every single manner.

>Jen issue and don't run after him shouting strategy
Those arguments actually make sense.

>Not our job to rule
But it is our job to obsess over a girl we knew for 2 days and make bad strategic decisions just to find her faster while unable to save her?

We are intelligent, powerful, and ambitious. Of course we will rule. Join the rebellion and usurp leadership when the moment is right.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/25(Sun)02:17 No. 395747 ID: d09277
File 133266702708.png - (456.10KB , 720x1200 , 26.png )

You turn towards Jen and hesitate as you consider perhaps asking her to find Ivet for you, but before you can make up your mind she takes off in the opposite direction of the moving crowd. You resolutely turn back and try to catch up with Davin.
"What is the plan?" you ask, your heavy footfalls finally catching up with him. "Are we attacking civilians?"
Davin continues to face forward as he responds. "The plan is to move in along the east side. We strike at a public location. We show them that they have made a mistake, and that there are people here willing to make them pay for it. We move in teams, and try to hit the central plaza. If it goes south before we get there, we disperse," he responds, as if he's rehearsed this. He still failed to answer your second question. You feel your eye twitch a bit, and you wave away the ape, who seems to be sniffing you curiously.
"You told me you don't like to waste words, and then make me ask a second time. Are we attacking civilians?"
Davin's brow drops almost imperceptibly lower."We are all civilians. You're asking me to make a distinction that our enemies do not. How would you have reacted if they had killed Ivet? Or did to her what they did to Jen?" In your mind's eye you see a trail of demolished buildings soaked in blood, and hear screams of terror from faceless smears of blue and brown as you bite into them with a sickening crunch. You quickly shake your head are silent. Davin continues. "Our targets are not civilians, but we will not distinguish if they get in our way. You should be in a strike group."
A pale, horned man steps forward and looks up at you with a sly expression you can't quite place. "I'll take him, boss," he says, and nods to you. "Name's Lothar."
"Viktor," you reply.
"Hopefully it's a prophetic name," he replies, and grins eerily. He gestures to one of the groups nearby. "C'mon, let's chat. Bossman's too tightly wound to be fun to talk to. You, however, look like you've gotten laid more recently than he has." You see Davin turn and give him a look, to which Lothar just replies, "See?"

ChildOfAB 2012/03/25(Sun)02:17 No. 395748 ID: d09277
File 133266706482.png - (346.98KB , 720x900 , 27.png )

Lothar waits until you're out of earshot from Davin before speaking up again. "So, uh, D-man's being kinda..." he trails off and makes a motion with his hand, as if he were shaking a stick, "but what else is new?"
It takes you a moment to discern the meaning of the gesture. "He's manually stimulating his male genitals?" you ask.
Lothar makes a sound like he's stifling a laugh inside his nose. "Yeah bud, manually stimulating the fuck out of his male genitals. And then you showed up and asked him to track down his ex. Ballsy."
Your eyes widen. "Wait, what?"
He starts to laugh. "Yep. Oh man, that face you just made. Worth it, just for that."
"Is that going to cause problems?" you ask.
"Ehhh, I dunno, overdramatic bullshit plus fey? Don't get me wrong, I love it here, but these guys got a knack for it. You know how it goes. Guy gets girl, wants everyone else. Guy gets everyone else, loses girl, gets all broke-dick about it. Tale as old as fucking. But hey, that's only the second reason I wanted to get you over here. The first is to score that badass transformation move you did. Who's your patron or matron or whatever?"
"My what?" you ask.
"C'mon, you seriously playing that coy bullshit with me? Look at me. I am literally half-demon. Who'd you get your power from? I can feel that shit radiating off of you just by standing over here. Druids don't get that."
"I'm not playing coy, I really don't understand," you reply.
Lothar looks confused for a second. "Huh. You actually don't know? Well, I almost hate to break this to you, but people like me, we get our powers from something bigger than us. Something lower than us, usually. Some of us have to barter for it, or there's the lucky ones like me who are born with it." He grins and holds up his hand, and green sparks arc between his fingers. "And you, my friend, are a 'people like me'. At least, you feel like one."

ChildOfAB 2012/03/25(Sun)02:29 No. 395752 ID: d09277
File 133266778986.png - (455.76KB , 720x900 , 28.png )

You think this might have something to do with your hypothesis about Teyu, but you don't want to reveal that yet. "So, how would I know for sure?"
"Well, the easiest way is to just try and, I dunno, force some magic out. We don't do the rituals or the praying or the preparing spells of everyone else, we just point and make shit happen. So just...do that."
You think you could use a little more instruction, but you comply anyway. Cupping your hands, you try and focus anything magical through your fingers. You feel your arm grow lighter. You're excited at first, until you realize you're only using your mass-altering magic. You try again, hoping you don't have to come up with an explanation for Lothar's apparent failure of his senses.
Suddenly, you feel something well up from deep inside of you and pass through your arm.
There is a bright blue flash and a dull pain all over.
Lothar busts out laughing hysterically. When it seems like his laughter is dying down, you ask him, "What happened?"
"Well Viktor buddy, you gotta point that outwards next time." He gestures to the same nymph you saw earlier. "Lily, baby, come lay your pretty hands all over my buddy Viktor here. I think he hurt himself." She giggles and heals your self-inflicted wounds.
You can see the outer wall of the city growing closer through the branches. Anything else you want to do before you arrive?

>>395749
I like Lothar. Let's keep him.

>>395755
Agreed.

This guy seems alright. I don't think there's anything else we need to do. We're as prepared as we're gonna get, I think.

>>395752
"There is a person who hid me after I broke out of prison. I learned much from them.
The civilians are kept ignorant of what their leaders are doing. This attack will appear unprovoked, and the leaders will use that to start an open war of extermination. This is what they have wanted. Davin's 'plan' plays right into this with very a public attack that advances no goals, will kill their civilians, and does not include escape.
Unfortunately, without Ivet I have no credibility. Saying he's either a fool or a traitor would have turned the angry mob against me.

I ask your assistance in keeping the mob away from the one who aided me. This entire plan is terrible, but I can at least return their protection."

Or you could tell them you'll be right back and fly over to check the nymph pond and the party site before they even get to the city's walls. That's also a thing you can totally do.

That is way cool. We should let him know that we aren't an ent. He gets bro points.

>>395752
Chat him up about the people below, sources of power. Specifically Teyu.

>>395755

yes. yes, we should.

I'm not sure how I feel about working with insurgents, however. sacrifice innocents just to get back at the one you have a trouble with... it's petty and dickish.

Experiment with that magic of yours again, and direct it somewhere.

Also don't rock the boat. We made a deal, and going back on it will call attention to us that we can't really afford.

>>395763
They WERE going to kill us just because we didn't have the information they wanted. I don't entirely object to attacking these people.

Don't tell him shit he doesn't need to know. He's a cool guy but information is kind of important, don't go spilling all our secrets to him just because he's nice to us.

>>395755
Definitely agreed. He is a cool guy and with having a down below patron we could probably even get another person we trust with knowledge of what we do (eat people for power)

If we play it right, we could wrangle from him tutoring in using our type of magic and information about the politics of hell. And if we are a fragment as we suspect we might be able to become a patron. I suggest we start by asking him to tell us about the various major players to see if any of them ring a bell as being our patron.

While walking & talking, try focusing your energy in a smallish amount into a thin beam pointing at the ground further ahead (not close enough to get yourself in the explosion, but where if it cuts right through we don't accidentally kill someone we don't intend to). Ask him if he can feel a noticeable difference in your energy, aka, whether you are expending it in a noticeable rate (gotta know how much juice we have)

>>395768
That was the cloaks not the civilians. The civilians include Padme.

Speaking of, maybe mention we have a girl who lives in the upper city and frequents the library and if he has ideas on how to keep the fighting away from that area.

not "a girl" say you literally landed on the library and the librarian there hid you. you owe them big time.

Are we getting warlock powers?

I still think this rebellion was a terrible idea and D-man's little strategy talk there did nothing to increase my confidence. It sounds like he lost somebody last night. He's all emotional about it and trying to hide behind a tough guy facade. I think we should talk to lothar about maybe taking this strike team in a different direction. The opposite one, if possible. Towards the prison, if not.

>>395805
I might be wrong, but I don't think we have a patron. Warlocks bargain for their power from demons or other magical entities. I think we are getting it from ourselves somehow, or from the remains of Teyu.

>>395838
yea, we are probaby the source of power. but asking is to know some things to look out for.

So, this guy is a pretty cool guy. And he's on board with the 'start attacking and hope to score a significant hit somewhere' strategy?

Whatever, then. Looks like we're tagging along for justice and free snacks.

On the upside, just think how glad Ivet will be when we show up with her douchebag ex boyfriend? Maybe we'll get the ability to grow leafblades shortly after.

>>395838
Obviously. The whole "maybe I will recognize my patron" is a misdirection (technically not a lie) to get info from him.
As I said, if we are what we think we are we can possibly become a patron ourselves (once strong enough).

>>395748
>"Huh. You said you lost your memory, right?"
We never said anything about our memories to these people or our current amnesia.
Lothar is potentially a spy or a psychic. Or this is could be a simple typing error.
The first two possiblities do not look good for Lothar as potential Bro-material.

>>396322
uhh... hmmm...

ChildOfAB 2012/03/28(Wed)01:25 No. 396584 ID: d09277
File 133292312669.png - (511.66KB , 720x900 , 29.png )

You raise your arm and direct it towards a nearby rock, trying to draw upon the same feeling you had earlier. A thin blue beam jets forth from your outstretched hand and the rock shatters. Lothar crows and punches you on the other arm. "Now you're getting it," he says. You grin, feeling a little giddy with the power.
"How often can I do this?" you ask, remembering how Ivet said she could only cast a certain number of spells before resting again.
"As often as you want," he replies. "How much do you not know, man?"
You look momentarily puzzled. "I'm not sure that is a question anyone can answer. But, I don't have much memory from before a couple of days ago."
"Wait, no shit? So, uh, you've probably got a couple of other powers...you might have been using them already and not known it, I guess. I dunno, man, I'm not a teacher. Just do what comes natural."
The wall is growing closer and your sense of urgency begins to increase. "Listen, after I escaped jail last night, someone in the city helped hide me overnight."
"Yeah? It would suck if he got hurt, huh? So, you're down for making sure Davin doesn't do something stupid out there too, right?" Lothar asks eagerly.
"Wait, you also have misgivings about this plan of his?"
"Listen Viktor, I don't want to be misunderstood here. People in power suck. Universally. If it's not a prerequisite, it's an unavoidable consequence. If you put a man above another man, he will learn to abuse that power eventually. Mother Oasis and all her little piglets are terrible, for sure, and I would love to see them go down. That said, D-man here's riled up a couple hundred people with his own grief, figured out how to point them vaguely in the direction we're headed now, and now he's learning how sweet that authority tastes, too. I dunno if you were here for the whole speech and cheering and camaraderie bullshit he was shilling up on that tree, but make no mistake. This is nothing but personal to him."
"So why are you still participating, if you feel that way?" You ask.
"Because Davin is my bro." He replies, simply. "He hasn't pissed me off quite enough yet with this bullshit for that to stop being the case. So this strike team here, with you and me and these other sons of bitches stupid enough to be following us," he said the last part with increased volume, drawing laughter from some of the people behind, "we are the official badass motherfucker squad, here to make sure not Davin or nobody else is gonna be crying into their breakfast tomorrow about how bad they fucked up. Sound like a plan?"

ChildOfAB 2012/03/28(Wed)01:26 No. 396585 ID: d09277
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"I agree with the sentiment," you reply, "but that's not really a plan."
Lothar turns to the nymph Lily and jabs his thumb towards you. "Look at this guy thinkin'," he says, and turns back to you. "The plan is to keep everyone alive, keep us all away from civilians, and to make sure we've always got an escape route, and to generally try to make sure this giant angry mob doesn't do anything stupid. Let me introduce you to the heavy hitters here. I believe you've already met Lily. Ugliest goddamn nymph you'll ever meet. Luckily Utia doesn't mind, 'cause she's a damn good cleric."
Lily exaggeratedly rolls her eyes and waves coyly to you. "A pleasure," she says, her voice carrying a fair, lilting quality.
Lothar next points to a strange, lanky, shirtless man with feathery wings and pale blue skin. His eyes are milky white and something resembling a golden flame dances atop his head. "I don't even know what this asshole thinks he is, but he goes by Thoth and he does all that finger-wiggling chanty magic."
Thoth grins far too widely, showing off a row of needle-like teeth, and salutes to you jokingly. "Lothar seems like he's being mean, but he only does that to his friends," he says.
"Thoth's one of those guys that makes you wonder how someone so smart can be so dumb," Lothar explains, before moving on. He points to a bald, tired-looking humanoid woman. "This lovely lady is Elize. I'm going to try not to explain what she does or I'm going to get another lecture."
"Psychoportation, mostly," Elize says. Lothar widens his eyes at her with exaggerated expectation, and she laughs. "Psychic stuff. I move things around."
"Shortest explanation I've ever gotten out of her. Viktor, I gotta keep you around."
You've been too engrossed in introductions to pay much attention, but it quickly becomes clear that the tree line ends ahead and the leading edge of the crowd is beginning to breach it. You see two jackal-like sentries and a handful of insectoid ones assembled around. Oddly, you also faintly detect the life signatures of six more beings inside of the wall, three to a side, just standing there.
"Weird," Lothar says. "They knew we were coming. Seems like they would have posted more guards here."
You hang back at the tree line and search the sky, noting that you see no signs of the cloaks.
What do you do?

they could have more civvies in there magicked up into play guards.

>>396585
Tell them about the life signs, duh. Probably an ambush. You and Lothar should be able to break a hole in the wall if you hit together, judging by your last performance, so that takes care of the element of surprise.

>>396587
This.

>>396585
Oh, and one one side we see Some sort of stocky thing with a thing tail, stick thin dude, and another thin guy with big tail. Other side we can't make out.

>>396585
"Six more just inside, waiting to attack, I imagine. A clear and simple ambush. Aren't these people supposed to be the smart ones in this?"

>>396585
"Six people inside the wall. Three on each side. All could be like Jen. I can not tell if there are constructs.
Give me a moment."
The expectation is that the rebels will storm the gates, so this is probably a meat grinder.
Camouflage and sneak up on the guards. Grab them, then fall back. The ones in the walls don't know you know they're there, so this will let you see how they prepare for hit-and-run tactics.
Following that, fly over the wall and flank them.

Maybe turn this into a double ambush. Can Elize teleport others?

If Lily, Lothar and Thoth strike the front and Elize teleports Viktor in behind the wall then the ambushers can be flanked and eaten while they're distracted by the frontal attack.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/28(Wed)23:05 No. 396819 ID: d09277
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You peer towards the wall, trying to make out more about the figures, but you only get a vague shape. "Hang on, there's people inside the wall. Three on each side," you say.
"How do you...nevermind. Do you think it's an ambush?" Lothar asks.
You shrug. "I'm not sure, but what else would they be doing?"
Elize looks around concernedly. "No cloaks showing up, only minimal gate guards, only one person with three cloaks sent to our meeting...this is too easy."
Lothar nods. "Yeah. I dunno if they want us to get in or if they think they're gonna ambush us somehow. But hey, who cares." He leans casually against your arm. "Ely baby, get us in there. Let's start on the left."
Elize grabs your other arm as Lily and Thoth form a chain on her other side. "You got it," she replies, and you see a bolt of energy arc between the five of you.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/28(Wed)23:05 No. 396820 ID: d09277
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You appear suddenly inside a small stone room. Three figures in similar black garb whirl around as you appear. They smell like death and seem to be wrapped in bandages. You recognize the birdlike one from in the prison - she stayed out of your way then, just seeming to watch your rampage disinterestedly, so you left her alone. She didn't smell edible, at any rate - in fact, none of these three figures do.

You have a moment of surprise. What do you do?

>>396820
Take out the one closest to the two casters on your left. You're the tank in this situation; protect the squishies. Then see if you can remove the enemy mage from the equation.

squish the one with the sickles then the mage.
it seems they have no qualms with using undead soldiers for their ranks.

>"No cloaks showing up, only minimal gate guards, only one person with three cloaks sent to our meeting...this is too easy."
It occurs to me that they might be allowing Davin's mob make it into the inner city so they can justify launching a large-scale counterattack against the outer city.

>>396835
indeed, f something seems too easy, it may... hold the phone, you said 3 LIFE signs. these are undead!!! quick look for invisible things and hit them!!

look at the shape of the insects jaws under the wrapping, I think these guys might be undead. its possible the plan was to let you inside before ambushing you so they could reanimate your remains out of sight.

The current positioning has the two enemies on the flanks as easy targets for your companions. Gator Face is about to eat Warlock power, and Sickle Kid is about to be ganged up on by Flower Hair and Fire Hair. It's not clear if No Hair is going to attack with them or go for the Vulture. But we should go for the Vulture. We're in the best position to get at that one anyway, and it's the one most likely to be left unengaged by one of our combatants. We want them all engaged to avoid moving around and getting our people flanked. You might have that issue anyways depending on how good Lothar is at keeping Gator Face tied up, but you're most able to take it and we're still greatly reducing enemy mobility. Additionally, these beings look to be magic users for a couple reasons. Firstly, they're not built like warriors, nor armored. Secondly, they're wearing robes, two have inquisitor's hats, and one has a cowl, both articles of headgear associated with religion and cults. Thirdly and most conclusively, they're wearing moon pendants, and we've learned that the god of the moon is the god of undeath, and they seem to be wholly or partly undead. That means we want to tie them up to impede spellcasting.

>>396820
Grab the one with the polearm and smash the other ones with him.

grab 'em all with your tentacles. I don't even care about keeping up appearences anymore.

>>396835
That's kinda sorta EXACTLY what I said.

Grab the bird and one of the others. Address the bird.
"I remember you from my breakout. You remember me, I expect. You will do nothing, because nothing you can do will stop me, and I do not waste effort on those who do nothing."
Then let the bird go
"You understand."

Turn to your new crew.
"This is a giant trap. It is obvious. Davin must be stopped, or friendly casualties could be enormous. Talk him down, dispel whatever control they could have on him, whatever it takes. If you cannot, I will kill him; Ivet would mourn his death far less."

>>396852
Oh shit, good eye. Seconding this course of action too.
So these aren't just MO's minions, these are the church's. It looks like they were just chilling in here scrying on the battlefield before we arrived. I'm usually a fan of diplomacy but they're clearly undead and clearly hostile so smashing them up seems like the way to go. I guess if we have the time, then snatching up the vulture one and shouting a bunch of crap at him might yield something useful, just be prepared to crush him.

Go for the one in the back. Quickly dash in, grab its head, mold your hand around said skull and shake the body around a bit. Should prevent verbal and somatic spellcasting hopefully. Once you have one grabbed reach for another.

Keep an eye open for anything they might try to do, like raise an alarm or activating any magical items or traps. If they try anything then it is limb breaking time.

I guess these guys might be killed prisoners that were raised to serve as guards?

Hang on, weren't the inner-city folks (Utia-worshipping Fey) rather pissed at the Lunaran Church for moving in? There may be three factions at play here, not just two. The Lunarans may even be intending to back Davin's rebels, but probably only as far as is deniable.

>>396922
Why would the Lunarans be doing that, though? Do they have anything to gain from it? I thought they liked MO for letting them in her city.

ChildOfAB 2012/03/30(Fri)01:21 No. 397085 ID: d09277
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You do a quick check to make sure that these are the life signs you detected through the walls, as Lothar takes a quick leap to the side and raises his hand. "Heads up, far wall," he shouts, and blasts the undead thing nearest him. It flies across the room and smacks against the wall with a crunch.
You take advantage of your long reach and crush the one you recognize into the wall as well, smashing her through a wooden crate and impacting heavily against the wall. You stop, trying to think of what to do with her. As you do do, you see Lily conjure some sort of bright white light, and the one with the sickles makes a terrifying shrieking sound and starts to smoke and crack.
Thoth starts to chant and then cackle gleefully, his massive toothy jaw splitting his head from ear to ear. He doesn't stop laughing as he fires off three red beams from his hand, one completely piercing the sickle-bearing creature. It collapses to the ground, and the vulture-like creature hisses in your hand.
"Thoth!" Lothar yells, "Dial back the crazy by half."
Thoth closes his mouth and nods. "You got it, boss."
You turn to address your captive. "You recognize me, don't you?"

ChildOfAB 2012/03/30(Fri)01:34 No. 397088 ID: d09277
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"Yhess," she hisses. "Yhou are making a misstake." Before you can react, you feel her body slip out of your grasp like a handful of sand, as she and everything she was wearing shift into something resembling a free-floating shadow. You swing your other arm around with all your might, but it passes through her and knocks a hole in the wall. She looks to her fallen comrade, narrows her eyes menacingly at you, and then drops through the ground below your feet. You see the other one also shift into a shadowy shape and follow suit, leaving the five of you alone in the room. You can't seem to detect her any longer.
Lothar inspects the hole you made in the wall. "Goddamn, dude," he says, breaking the momentary silence.
You're really considering the fact that the vulture might have had a point. This seems like at the very least a conspiracy to justify mass attacks against the outer city, but you're not sure if you should bring it up, or how to do so.
You feel the vibrations of the gate opening.

What do you do?

"i'm starting to think this whole thing is a trap. they let the rebel group in and then some general uses it as an excuse to take out the entire lower city. it's too late to stop the attack but if we can, say, break the cloak controller they would have to fight instead of teleporting people and killing them in a cell."

The ambush is dealt with. For now, Lothar's the boss. It's probably ideal to touch bases with the main column then proceed ahead.
"You are making a mistake" was probably just general evil-person stuff, talking down to us. Even if it was legit advice we don't know what mistake we're making (besides opposing her, which was actually kind of on purpose) so we can't rectify it.
Next time you see her, use your warlock beam instead of your fists.

"Undead. Lunarans? Might be stepping into something heavy. Easiest way to protect the mob would be to break the gate from this side. Your call."

>>397092
"We could figure out what's happening alone, just the people who know what we're doing."

next time, consider using your own warlock powers against a such incorporeal creature.

>>397088
Gently put a hand on Lothar's shoulder and turn him to face you. Look him in the eye while you talk.
"Lothar, this has been a secret war. The civilians bear no ill will, but to them this attack will seem unprovoked. They will support open war. This was planned. The upper city has doubtless prepared for it.
We must stop this now. Elize, take us to Davin."

>>397092
Also this. Get those gates closed, and jam them shut.

"They were waiting for us. They expected us. They were Lunaran, not cloaks. Somebody has changed sides".

>>397146
I really don't think they were expecting us. They were watching the fight and seemed completely unprepared for our arrival inside the wall. Unless you mean the rebellion in general, but of course they were expecting that. MO sent out mind-controlled Jen and three cloaks to deal with that, it should be common knowledge among the powers that be by now. That fact that they knew about it and there were still only about a dozen guards at the gate (counting the six people inside the wall, which might not even count) to stop the mob of several hundred is what's suspicious. I do feel like we're missing part of the picture here, but I don't think a Lunaran rebellion is it.

Lothar said Davin is his "bro", maybe we need to convince Lothar to talk Davin down. Davin's not going to listen to us--he doesn't trust us, nor should he under the circumstances. This might be the best option here:
>>397094
but we'd probably have to get Davin to tag along, too.

Unfortunately that also entails figuring out how to get Davin to talk down the murderous mob while still saving face. I spent about 20 minutes sitting here writing and rewriting ways to tell him to do this but couldn't come up with anything that sounds reasonable. Maybe someone else has an idea.

Conspiracies are hard to do anything about without evidence.

How about we just keep punching/blasting things until we find more information?

The gate's opening. Doesn't it need to be open to let everyone through? There's a winch over there, maybe we can assist it in opening. Also we should probably like, make sure the gate can't go back down.

>>397171
Something like "Davin, we got the drop on some mages inside. Undead lunaran ones. This is all a set-up. They have been keeping their attacks on the outer city secret so when they are attacked their people will think it unprovoked.
The leaders want an excuse to exterminate the outer city, and this would give them one.

If that was a fight the outer city could win then the singer would have long since been slain. The fight must be one of public opinion.
Gather the wounded. We shall send refugees into the city. The people will grow concerned over such inflictions right outside their walls, and word of the Singer will spread. The people will force their leaders to stop him to protect themselves. Do this for every attack, and the snake will feast upon its own tail."

>>397174
Is the fact that we ran into Lunaran clerics really a piece of information that supports the idea that the rebellion is a setup, though? Davin already thought they were working together. That actually seems to support his paranoia.

in the future, if an enemy turns incorporeal you should shoot magic beams at it rather then trying to physically grasp them.

You might be able to magically imbue your hands to grab them without killing with some practice though.