>>32329928

Not the twins though; they're colorblind. Gods only know how helpless they were before you and Matti straightened them out; back when you met them, they always wore the brightest orange they could find, in a plaid with green and purple. It didn't bloody work. So you won't be bringing them along...

Something in the back of your mind niggles at the fact that perhaps this is not the best time to be planning out a trip to the tailors that won't be happening for another couple of months. You're tired, you're winded, and you're more than a bit panicked, but that's no reason to fall into bloody hysterics. If you keep that up, you'll be charred like the rest of your things.

You bite down on your tongue to force yourself to stop laughing.

"Okay, breath girl, breath," you demand of yourself. The coppery taste of blood fills your mouth - perhaps you bit down a bit too hard. You push yourself up onto your legs; you have to lean on the door, they want to give out, but you won't let them. "Alright. So. Dad was a paranoid nutter. That... that'll help. Paranoid nutters... jumping at shadows... they always try to get a place where the shadows can't get to them. So, brain, think - where would that be?"

>Check the basement; that's the traditional spot, right?
>Check the closets; maybe there's a secret room, somewhere.
>Check his office, if he had one. Perhaps it's more well warded than the rest of the place.

File: Heilyn Character Sheet.png (22 KB, 516x479)

22 KB PNG

Current Inventory

Tricorn Hat (Worn)
Frilly Black Vest (Worn)
White Silken Blouse (Worn)
Black Britches (Worn)
Frilly Undergarments (Worn)

EXTRADIMENSIONAL PURSE containing
78 Standard Gold
Feminine Products
First Aid Kit (2 Rolls of Bandages, 5 Potions of Accelerated Healing, 1 Potion of Regeneration)
4 Pistols, Loaded
Box of 100 Bullets and Powder
One Cutlass, Mithral-Steel Alloy
One Set of Leather and Chain Armor

>>32329945
>Check the basement; that's the traditional spot, right?
I thought you were running on Monday OP. No wonder things are slow.

>>32329945
>Check his office, if he had one. Perhaps it's more well warded than the rest of the place.
Who knows, maybe we'll find something

>>32329945
>Check the closets; maybe there's a secret room, somewhere.
>>32330094
>stats
>character sheet
this is my fetish

>>32330094
What's with the black and blue dots?

>>32329945
>>Check his office, if he had one. Perhaps it's more well warded than the rest of the place.

>>32329945
>>Check the basement; that's the traditional spot, right?

>>32330258
Black is presumably stats with lower max. Blue, who knows.

>>32329945
>Check the closets; maybe there's a secret room, somewhere.

>>32330301
Blue is probably temp stat boosts from equipment maybe?

>>32330340
Charisma bonus from our frilly undergarments?

>>32330340
I suppose, weird stats to have boosted though. Charisma/Affability from nice clothing, okay, but Dexterity/Stealth seems weird. And Throwing is unexplainable unless we're wearing enchanted items or something.

>>32330361

Didn't we get enchanted items from the Old Man's vault last thread?

>>32330258
The black dots are limitations. Her maximum strength is four dots (and thus, four dice), due to having a racial penalty to Strength. You can only get a 6 in an attribute if you have a racial bonus to it. Six is "Peak human" though humans only get a bonus to one stat and no penalties.

The blue dots are racial bonuses to an attribute or skill, for being a Halfling. (Humans get a trait instead of a skill bonus - traits are more powerful for one thing, but also more limited in scope.)

>>32330379
We don't appear to be wearing them.

>>32330383
Ah, alright.

>>32329928
>>32330314

Fuck it, breaking the tie by switching my vote to basement

>>32330383
Also, we're at 2, 2, and 2, so the first one to break the tie will be what's written.

>>32330414
>>32330419

I switched my vote to basement

>>32330439
Yep, saw that right after I posted. Writing now - basement won.

>>32330094
We're shit at philosophy, religion and politics huh. Guess people won't come to us for social discussions. Leaves more time for ADVENTURE!

>>32330470
Philosophy, in the sense that you're thinking, falls under Culture (much like knowledge of art and music). Natural Philosophy is the sciences - Galileo more than Descartes.

>>32330513
Ah.
If music is culture, what's performance

>>32330530
Performance is how well you can play said music.

Someone with high culture will know their Beethoven. Someone with high performance will be able to play their Beethoven.

>>32329945
>>Check the closets; maybe there's a secret room, somewhere.

File: Like this, but with food (...).jpg (113 KB, 600x450)

113 KB JPG

You decide that the basement's your safest bet; if the numerous bodice rippers you've read over the years have not led you astray, that's the place where all the mad alchemists and paranoid conspiracy theorists keep their hidey holes. Well, if they haven't already built their inevitable fortress over the lava pits of the Craneseye, at least. Your dad... probably didn't get around to doing that before he up and croaked, but at this point you wouldn't be all that surprised.

You stumble through the foyer to the back of the house, searching for a doorway with stairs leading downwards. It's big, everything in the house is all human sized, except the stove and the pantry, which are at heights more suited to a halfling or a dwarf. Despite that though, despite how much space the old man carved out for his guests, it's all very spartan and sparse. No color, no decorations, simple oak furniture and white plaster facades, no portraits, not patterns in sight.

Except, of course, on the door knobs an the kitchen ware, and a spot hanging ovr the mantle - that same flower pattern stamped into the wax of his seals. You pay it little mind, though, your thoughts are elseware, trying to calm yourself even as your instincts scream out in fear.

You aren't sure how long it takes, but you find the stairs to the basement soon enough. Place hasn't gone up in flames around you just yet, so that has to count for something.

The basement is, of all things, ordinary. A larder in the back, with dried meats, cheeses and flatbreads laid out in small burlap packs, each marked with the number of days their meant for. Nearly a dozen cutlasses mounted on a racks, each with a slightly different make than the one before it; the same mithral-steel alloy though, if your eye doesn't deceive you. A desk, and some furniture, with a few journals and logs.

>>32330924

And near the back, a draft seeps through, very slightly from behind the walls. Walls that should just have bedrock and dirt behind them.

You take a look for a switch, a place on the wall that has a bit more give than the rest. Again, time passes without you noticing as you try near a dozen different spots, but the door - and you've knocked, it has a hollow behind it - won't give.

>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?
>Head back upstairs, get a look outside and check the time.
>Don the armor and arms your father left you. Might have been for a good reason.
>[WRITE IN]

>>32330941
>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?

>>32330941
>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?

>>32330941
>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?
A hidden room can't run away, might as well look for an easier solution first of all.

>>32330941
>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?
Was dad the paranoid type who DEFINITELY left 'cryptic' aka obvious clues in his writings, or the type that would never leave even the smallest hint somewhere his enemies could find it? Guess we'll find out.

>>32330941
>Check the journals and logs, maybe they have a clue hidden inside them?
We have but one purpose: to discover this room's hidden secrets!

>>32330941
Out of interest, do Ciphers and Perception together cover just about all kinds of riddle-solving, clue-hunting, puzzle-beating shenanigans?

>>32330941
Yank on cutlasses, maybe in a certain order. Do we recognize any designs?

>>32330258
They're racial bonuses/penalties. Black are limits and blue are bonuses.

File: Gibberish.png (68 KB, 220x218)

68 KB PNG

Fed up with how inneffectual your efforts with the door have gone thus far, you go over to the desk. The logs and journals are piled neatly atop the desk in alphabetical order by the words written on their spines. It's all names, women's names, starting with Adrianne and ending with Zairichi. You open the first, hoping beyond hope that there is some hidden clue, some message for you buried within them for you to find. Instructions on how to open the door, for example.

"The hell?" you ask yourself, staring at the pages. You flip through them, from front to back, cover to cover, just to make sure that he didn't hide a message on a random page for you to find. "So what, dad, your ranting and ravings weren't enough? You had to write down random gibberish as well, just to be on the safe side?"

The pages are, of course, covered with random letters in the common alphabet. You'd figure it was the transliteration of some strange language of the far east, if it weren't for the fact that half the time letters appear next to one another in ways that are, in fact, impossible to pronounce with a humanoid mouth.

You rummage through the other journals, just to be safe - might be that someone pressed for time might think they're all that way. But there's no smoke to be smelled wafting down from the upstairs being on fire, so you feel like you've got a bit more time than you had. To no avail, each and every one of them is filled with the same garbled gibberish, from Adrianne all the way to the one in your hands right now.

Reilyn.

>>32331643

You pay a bit more attention to this one, wondering why your old man would name one of his logs after you. Your mom's name was in there too, but by then you figured it was just a list of dames he shagged and threw out with the trash. And yeah he threw you away with your mom, but while he was good at playing house with your mother, a good father while he lasted. That made the abandonment sting worse than if he had been a bastard from the get go.

About halfway through, a letter falls out of the book. Gibberish, like the others, but looking at it closer puts a pattern to the gibberish. Letters popping up with a bit more frequency - you remember him showing you something like this when you were a child. What was it, a cipher. You weren't very good with them, but the one he showed you back then was simple. More importantly, you remember the... what was the word for it, key?

Yeah, you remember that.

It was GARDEN.

>Attempt to break the cipher. [Roll 2d10]
>Check on upstairs. It's been quiet - too bloody quiet for your comfort.
>Don your arms and armor before you do anything else. Just in case.
>[WRITE IN]

Rolled 5, 2 = 7

>>32331668
>Attempt to break the cipher. [Roll 2d10]

>>32331668
>Attempt to break the cipher. [Roll 2d10]
We can do it!

Rolled 3, 3 = 6

>>32331695
Ooops, nice spelling me.

>>32330094
What?
Our chivalry is zero?
What is this. Come on, man.

Rolled 4, 5 = 9

>>32331739
This isn't Paladin quest yo

Rolled 20 + 1

>>32331668
>>Don your arms and armor before you do anything else. Just in case.
>>Attempt to break the cipher. [Roll 2d10]

Rolled 5, 2 = 7

>>32331768
goofed the dice there I did.

>>32331739
Your chivalry isn't zero, you just aren't trained in chivalry because you are neither a paladin nor a noble. When Chivalry checks come a knocking, you roll a number of dice equal to you Charisma score, which is 3. Much the same way that Moon Knight's intuition rolls are just wisdom checks.

Also, cipher breaking wins out, writin'

Man, we suck at ciphers.

Rolled 7, 5 = 12

>>32331811
We're only rolling our intelligence after all

>>32331820
Still, average of 2d10 is 11, not a single roll in double digits...not even a high+low pair.

OP. You're quest has been archived as Dwarven Cocksucker Quest.

>>32331749
Pfffff, everything should be chivalrous.
That spider on my window?
Gentlemanly as fuck.

>>32331866
Misarchivist strikes again!

>>32331926
*stinger chord, faint cackling in the distance*

Fuck, bluescreened, lost the update. Gonna take a bit to get back to where I was. Anyone know who to yell at on suptg to get that changed?

>>32332011
Pretty sure you just have to live with it
Might want to start archiving your own threads to prevent that from happening from now on

>>32332011
Uh, the guy has a mail address on the site I think. Might be months until he gets around to it though.

>>32332011
If it does happen it'll be so far into the future everyone has forgot by then. Wan us to upvote the thread or downvote it?

>>32332106
I would like to say "make it golden", but I don't think there's enough of you.

>>32332106
I'd say up vote it.
Op, just link it on the start of the next thread.

>>32332011
You should just get a pastebin of the link to this quest for your archive. You'll eventually slip up again and get another misarchive.

>>32332145
Eventually perhaps.

>>32332160

Foolz link is another alternative

File: Letter to a Daughter in Need.jpg (50 KB, 629x286)

50 KB JPG

(Known Key: Reduces Cipher Successes Needed to 1)
(Rolled 5, 2)
(Difficulty 5[1])
(1 Success: Success)

The cipher takes you a while to crack, but since you have the key already it's just a matter of remembering what you have to do. You grab a notebook and stick of charcoal from your purse and get to work breaking it. The first step is to write down the letters of the enciphered message, without spaces or punctuation - you do that, and then convert them into numbers based on their position within the common alphabet. You then convert the key into its own series of numbers based on the same rule, and repeat it until the end of the document.

The final step is to subtract the numbers from one another; and when you get a negative, add it to the total numbers in the common alphabet. From there, it's a simple matter of converting the new numbers into the letters the correspond to, and cut the letters into the words of the message.

"My beloved daughter," you start reading the message to yourself. You don't drawl, you're too tired to be angry, too tired to care much that these are the words of your bastard father. "If you are reading this, it means that I have passed. You've probably read those words half a dozen times now, so I shall skip to the meat of things. First, know that in these few lucid moments my mind affords me, I am sorry. I dishonored the vows I made to your mother, dishonored the meaning of the word father. I will make no excuse and ask no forgiveness.

Second, if you seek to open the door in my basement, the blade I left you is the key. Do not try to force it, if the adamantine is cut or the door jammed, it is rigged with enough explosive magic to turn this room into dust. Place the flat of the pommel upon the center, and your way will be clear. Trust no one with this secret - even my closest friends did not know the way in, and I would prefer to keep it this way.

>>32332774

Third, do not stay here too long. My enemies - and I cannot write their name, for fear of them seeing - will be swift on the heels on my death. Something in my heart tells me that the only reason you are here is because they've already struck. I can only pray that your mother, and whatever brothers and sisters her new husband gave your family are safe. Flee Cébaile if you can; or lie low if you cannot.

Better still, bring yourself into the light. The shadows cannot strike you if people's eyes are watching; they hate being seen, detest leaving evidence of their passing. Accidents are their tricks, accidents and disappearance that none will question. Yes... become a pillar of Cébaile, a new pirate queen, the likes of which have never been seen since Ruari Cúailnge danced upon orcish corpses with her consort and seized the throne at Lietens!

But the choice is yours my daughter. In my room you'll find my tools, tools to break and shake the very FOUNDATIONS of the World!

With love,

Your father."

You note that nearer towards the end, his handwriting changed, slowly, subtly becoming less fluid and more jagged until the word that would be FOUNDATIONS was less a script and more a series of knife cuts.

>Open the door, and see what's inside. Burn the letter, while you're at it.
>Check upstairs for intruders; the door will still be there when you come down.
>Don your arms and armor and take inventory of the weapons here with you.
>[Write In]

>>32332796
>>Don your arms and armor and take inventory of the weapons here with you.
>>Open the door, and see what's inside. Burn the letter, while you're at it.

>>32332796
>Open the door, and see what's inside. Burn the letter, while you're at it.
No dilly-dallying.

>>32332796
>>32332824

This

>>32332796
>Don your arms and armor and take inventory of the weapons here with you.
>Open the door, and see what's inside. Burn the letter, while you're at it.
Let's do this

>>32332796
>Check upstairs for intruders; the door will still be there when you come down.

This is the perfect time for a shadowrun level of paranoia.

>>32332796
>Check upstairs for intruders; the door will still be there when you come down.
Dun dun dun dun dun dun
Hope we don't end up ambushing a friend around to see us

Writing for Donning your armor and taking inventory before opening the door.

Please ignore these rolls. They're not important at all!

Rolled 7, 1, 4 = 12

>>32332987
Okay, I did that wrong. Kinda takes the punch out of that.

>Captcha: Every Pectoral

DAMN STRAIGHT

http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/search/username/HalflingQM/type/op/order/asc/

Someone showed me this archive last night, might serve you well. I like it better than suptg and Foolz.

>>32333278
How's it different from foolz?

>>32333343
I find it to be significantly faster. Less traffic due to the board choices I suppose?

>>32333343

Foolz has a nasty habit of going down semi-frequently, it's good to have another alternative for archival binging I suppose

File: A WILD SARASHI APPEARS.jpg (12 KB, 400x500)

12 KB JPG

You clear the desk off of your father's logs and journals, being sure not to hit the candle you lit to give you a bit of light while you worked. Reaching into your purse, you lay out the arms and armor your father left for you at the Bank. Four silvered flintlock pistols, the cutlass, and set of leather and chain. It's got its own undersmock and britches that are probably cut a bit better for moving than the ones you've got on right now. It's all probably cut for your dad, though, but you figure a mediocre fit is better than no protection whatsoever.

You strip down to your undergarments - and contemplate taking those off too, given they're cut more for emphasis than movement. Before you come to a decision to take them off or keep them on, you're interrupted by a catcall in the darkness. Like lightning you turn toward it, and are only moderately surprised to find that somewhere along the way one of your father's guns found its way into your pointing hand.

"Woohoo! You go, girl!" The voice in the darkness is bright, cheerful, and feminine, thick with the country bumpkin accent characteristic of the peoples of the Talan Swamplands. You swear you've heard it somewhere before "Take it all off~!"

"Oh I'm terribly sorry," you drawl, cocking back the action of the flintlock. "But ya see, ah've got a bit of a problem; if try to undo the clasp, I'll wind up setting off me gun. And well, given that you're sittin' right in its path, I don' think you'd like that much. Maybe if you'd come outta the shadows, and gave me a little hand? I'd be mighty appreciative, and you'd get your eyeful."

"Aw now," the voice replies to you from a completely different side of the room. You turn around, pointing the gun at the shadows, hoping she's still in your sights. It's frustrating you, where the blazes did you here that voice before? "Dun think so lowly of me there, missy; I might tease, but I ain't here for an eyeful. Yer cute as button an' all, but I like my ladies a lil' bit taller'n you - though, I gotta say, daa~amn yer mighty well stacked for a shortpack."

"Thanks," you deadpan, not at all sincerely. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, shadows, stepping out of them, proving you're not here ta kill me?"

"Lil' missy, I ain' here ta kill ya," she chirps back at you. "Ifn I were, you'd be dead already an' we wouldn' be havin' this conversation. Now, I gotta package that yer Pa fergot to put in with that there armor; glad I caught you before ya put it on. You made one hell of a scene out there today, lil' missy, with the running and the parkour an all that jazz. Took me forever to figure out where ya up an' disappeared to."

Something silky hits you in the back of your head.

"Trust a man ta forget that we ladies need a bit a support there, yeah?" You can feel the smile in her voice. "I'll... well... heh, not supposed ta tell ya where I got them numbers, now am I, lil' hourglass? I imagine we'll be seeing eachother pretty soon, though, won' we?"

You see a shadowy figure leaping up the stairs. You have a split second - you're just barely quick enough to train the pistol on her. But... she seems friendly, and that voice is familiar, you just don't know from where.

>Take the shot [Roll 4d10]
>Don't take the shot.
>Aim for the knees [Roll 4d10 twice]
>Write in

>>32333736

>Throw something heavy (maybe the gun) at her head

What could go wrong?

>>32333736
If she were here ta kill us, then we'd be dead already.

Don't take the shot.

>>32333736
>>Don't take the shot.

>>32333736
>Dodge
Fuck, I'm too soft.

>>32333736
>Don't take the shot.
Doubt we'd hit anyway.

Rolled 8, 1, 4, 4 = 17

>>32333736

>Take the shot

Because I know I'm not going to win and I want to roll

I vote throw something heavy also.

>>32333736
>>32333761
>>32333935
I'll go with this

>>32333736
>Don't take the shot.

We're not Dad levels of paranoid yet.

>>32333790
>>32333838
>>32333852
>>32333891

Provided that "Dodge" meant don't take the shot (which I think it did? Cause there was nothing to dodge), I'm closing the vote and writing for Don't take the shot.

>>32333985
>Cause there was nothing to dodge
We can barely see her, how do we know!?

>>32333736

>yer mighty well stacked for a shortpack

I am going to need an image. For scientific reasons, of course.

So, who all is up for making Queen of the Pirates our night job?

>>32333985
Sounds good.

>>32334068

I would be okay with this. I would be okayer with becoming shortstack tomb raider, though.

>>32334131
Hmm. Well, we'll probably find plenty of tombs to raid sailing the seas.

>>32333714
>>32333736
I like this lady, hopefully I won't have to un-like her later. We'll just have to find out!

>>32334057
What, you don't trust the clearly trustworthy shadow-woman?

>>32334463

No.

File: YOU HAVE THIS MANY BOOBS.(...).jpg (94 KB, 600x600)

94 KB JPG

You don't take the shot. You contemplate throwing the gun at the mystery woman - and damnit, you know her voice! But whose is it? - but you figure that you'd probably miss her. Plus the whole fact that it's loaded, and the action's ready; if you threw it, you might set the gun off and have a wild bullet ricochet gods know where. You gingerly reset the action on the pistol, careful to not set it off, and set it back down next to the others. The shadowy figure vanishes just as quickly as she came.

"What the devil did she throw at me?" you mutter to yourself as you grope around the floor for the fallen silky thing, somewhat dreading that it's what you think it is. You pick it up and hold it to the light, your face falling as your suspicions are confirmed. It's underwear - the run-times type rather than the fun-times type. "And of course it's in the right cut; because my numbers aren't extremely hard to find at all in a halfling's size, no siree. What, did she break into my place and take my measurements for a custom job? Pervert woman."

After a few more minutes of grumbling, and slipping out of the old and into the new, you give yourself a good once over. The undergarments are, of course, a perfect fit. Perhaps a bit snug around the twins, but you bet that that's intentional, to keep them from bouncing all over the place while you do whatever people who wear armor for a living do. It certainly isn't unpleasant, and probably a hell of a lot more pleasant than having them jiggle underneath a set of chainmail.

>>32334810

The armor goes on in layers, and you're pleasantly surprised to find out that the undersmock is enchanted to keep things from getting too hot and sweat beneath it all. First the smock and britches, then the leather on top of that then the chainmail - far lighter than it should be, probably the same mithral-steel alloy as your sword. Over that, something that's almost the cross between a monk's gi and a hooded tunic; and over that, the sash, the guns, and the weapons.

The fact that you can move around in all these layers amazes you. The fact that the armor is in your size and your cut somewhat less so. Somehow your old man got your numbers - or had it made by someone who did; you're betting it was the pervert woman.

You take inventory of the other weapons. It's a veritable armory down here - a few barrels of gunpowder kept in a corner, a dozen muskets of varying bores and lengths, and a case of a hundred shots for each. More swords in more varieties than you could name - the slight differences between each of them escapes you, but you imagine they all have their various advantages. Two bookshelfs, each packed with what you can only guess are either more logs, or spellbooks; either way, they're as enciphered as the texts, and you know not their keys.

You go up to the door, and you press the pommel to the center. Light ripples out from where the wood and leather touched the stone, shaking off the dust from the wall and highlighting a rather large version of one of those stylized flowers. The door slides open, revealing a stone wall, with a golden ink writing a glowing message in common.

"My dearest daughter," you say, reading the message aloud. "I shall teach you all that I have learned in my time, even if it must be posthumously. Your lessons begin here and now. Maxim the fifty seventh, never read a message written on a wall to the end. Get an illiterate to draw it for you, then read it."

>Roll 3d10.

Rolled 5, 5, 1 = 11

>>32334828
We're gonna do great.

>>32334828
>"I shall teach you all that I have learned in my time, even if it must be posthumously. Your lessons begin here and now. Maxim the fifty seventh, never read a message written on a wall to the end. Get an illiterate to draw it for you, then read it."
Huh, that's interesting

Rolled 1, 4, 1 = 6

>>32334828

Rolled 1, 10, 10 = 21

>>32334828
>pervert woman
Feels a little hypocritical coming from us, heh.

>>32334890
Rolling gods are divided on the issue of perversion I see.

Yeah this is going to end terribly

>>32334828
Fuck, dad is a real asshole huh. I thought he was looking better lately, but nope, back to asshole-town.

>>32334828
Good old Exploding Runes. Gotta love that spell.

>>32334857
>>32334885
>>32334890
Though not these rolls.

Rolled 5, 10, 8 = 23

>>32334940

I also forgot to dice

So, we roll to dodge the Exploding Runes and /tg/ throws 7 crits in 12 rolls. The hell?

>>32335321
/tg/ dice.

File: Your Dad sure sounds like(...).jpg (154 KB, 385x570)

154 KB JPG

(Rolled 5, 5, 1)
(Difficulty: 5[2])
(2 Successes: Success)

You see the wall begin to glow with a yellow light, and if the bodice rippers have taught you anything, things that start to glow are probably going to explode. Sometimes the fun kind of explosion, but given that this is a wall rather than a hunky angel that fell from the grace of Atalanta... well, you somewhat doubt this will be the fun sort of explosion. You immediately dive as far away from the building explosion as you can.

Fortunately, it explodes inwards, and not outwards, tearing down the wall hidden behind the door and "merely" sending a shockwave that would have knocked you down had you not been fast enough on your feet. Unfortunately, the floor of the basement springs up like a diving board and knocks you through the newly formed hole. The door slams shut with the sound of thunder, not that it really matters. It seems your father saw fit to put a long, smooth pit beneath the basement, that you're currently falling down.

You land on a pile of feathers, the chute of the pit near twnety feet above your head. As you get up, you hear your father's voice ringing out throughout the... where ever the hell you are.

"-on. Ah, it is. Now, love, I know you're probably angry with me, but you must understand that this is for the best." You can only presume that it's a recording; he's talking down to you as if you were a child still. "Also, maxim the forty eighth: never assume that the walls and floors of a ruin plan to stay that way. Now, back to this, er... crash course. Plenty of food and fresh water down here, there's an underground stream, though hell if I know where it goes or comes from."

You feel a pinch on your arm. You turn to it, and a small mechanism of springs and clockwork scurrying into the darkness.

>>32335444

"Now, if he's still working, Octavius just took a blood sample. Don't worry about that; just an old alchemical trick I've set up for you to help fake your death," he explains. Yes. Because faking your death is exactly what you want to do. "They'll be coming around soon, and they'll probably be torching that old safehouse they way they probably torched your place. And maybe Ruari's and that Dwarven fellow she's seeing these days. Maybe not though - she didn't get anything important from the will."

"Screw you dad," you mutter, getting up from the pile of feathers. Your purse made it down with you, as did your othe clothes, so you've got that going for you. "Screw. You."

"Soooo.... with that taken care of, onto your first lesson! Survival!" In the distance, you hear the clanking sound of metal striking metal. "That sound right there is the sound of the door to the next session locking. Provided the mechanism still works, you should have about three days until it unlocks and grants you access to the next part of the course. Hopefully, by the end of the month, you'll be in tip top shape to not die when they inevitably come for you."

"GO TO HELL OLD MAN!" you shout to the ceiling. "I'VE GOT A JOB! AND A LIFE!"

"Have fun, sweetheart!" the recording chirps. "And, uh, do your best at not dying! I believe in you!"

>Go over to where the door is. Maybe you can figure a way to get at the mechanism, and open it early.
>Get a lay of whatever the hell you just got dropped on. If you're going to be spending three days here...
>Fume angrily over your situation before seeing what you can do to hunt.
>[WRITE IN]

Rolled 1, 10, 10 = 21

>>32335456
>Fume angrily over your situation before seeing what you can do to hunt.
>Get a lay of whatever the hell you just got dropped on. If you're going to be spending three days here...

>>32335456
>Fume angrily over your situation before seeing what you can do to hunt.
I hope your rotting in what ever version of hell exist in the setting

>>32335456
>Go over to where the door is. Maybe you can figure a way to get at the mechanism, and open it early.
FFFFffffff

>>32335456
>>Fume angrily over your situation before seeing what you can do to hunt.

>>32335456
>Go over to where the door is. Maybe you can figure a way to get at the mechanism, and open it early.
>Get a lay of whatever the hell you just got dropped on. If you're going to be spending three days here.
Fuck you dad!

>>32335456
>Go over to where the door is. Maybe you can figure a way to get at the mechanism, and open it early.

Huh. The exploding runes weren't too bad, but locking your daughter underground for a month with no warning, is a really dick move.

>>32335652
Riiight. That, and the part where it sounds like he might also have already set up that system to fake her death, so that'll probably happen while this is going on. That'll be fun if that's the case, both family and friends thinking you're dead.

>>32335762

Now we'll never get the chance to open our own bakery, fuck you dad

>>32335762
How are we gonna get that sweet twin tail (literally) ever again!?

File: Like this but less light (...).jpg (108 KB, 1260x633)

108 KB JPG

You fume. You don't quite throw a temper tantrum - you're too damned old for that now, but you let your voice out with several choice words for your father, none of them very kind. It's very satisfying to finally have an excuse to curse his name to high heaven; there was always that understanding that the reason he abandoned you was important. And then he died, and polite and proper decorum dictates that you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, especially if they were relatives.

But you think an exception can be made, for making your life miserable from beyond the grave.

You get the lay of the land pretty quickly - the door sounded further away than it was, just barely a hundred yards of stone up one direction. A few words and some twidling of your fingers is all it takes to make it so you can at least see more than a few feet in front of your face. The now lit-up feathers get placed all around the island, giving you a clue of how much space you've to to work with. Not much, it turns out - it's very small, and self contained, less and island and more a high ceilinged room with a river running through one side.

"God damn it dad," you swear again. "Can't even tell the south from the fucking north down here. Fucking sonuvabitch mother loving..."

You head to the door; there's a panel with a large mess of clockwork behind it that you can hardly make heads or tail of. You could try studying it, but you if you do, you might not have much time for fishing - the only tools you've got for that are your hands, and that'll take some practice.

>Study the door and it's mechanisms, see if you can't get it opened. [Roll 3d10]
>Work on your fishing skills; see if you can't get something before you wear yourself out.
>[Write In]

Rolled 10, 6, 4 = 20

>>32335929
>>Study the door and it's mechanisms, see if you can't get it opened. [Roll 3d10]

Fuck
You
Dad

>>32335929
>>Work on your fishing skills; see if you can't get something before you wear yourself out.
Throw feathers at the fish.
I'm sure that'll work.

>>32335929
>Work on your fishing skills; see if you can't get something before you wear yourself out.
Fuck it.

>>32335929
>>Study the door and it's mechanisms, see if you can't get it opened. [Roll 3d10]

>>32335963
That's a hell of a roll there, sonny.

Rolled 8, 4, 5 = 17

>>32335929
>>Study the door and it's mechanisms, see if you can't get it opened. [Roll 3d10]
Go for it!

Rolled 5, 6, 7 = 18

>>32335929
>>Study the door and it's mechanisms, see if you can't get it opened. [Roll 3d10]

>>32336009
I aim to please.

>>32336063
I could make a joke off of that.
I'm sure our shortstack MC would.

>>32336099
And yet she calls a regular helpful shadow-courier pervert. For shame, Heilyn, for shame.

>>32336118
Well, what else do you call someone who knows your underwear sizes without you knowing?

>>32336161
...ambitious?
...magical tailor?
...waifu material?

>>32336191
...I don't disapprove.

though, for some reason I have a hunch that it's our mom.

>>32336191
>...magical tailor?
Well, we do know her voice from somewhere. And our character knows some magic, despite our profession as a baker...

>>32336217
...would our mom really cat-call us though? Or be party to dad's insanity?

>>32336244
Well, we did spring from her loins.
But the more I think about it, the less it makes sense...

>>32336324
Shadow lady's origins remain mysterious.

File: Your face when doors open.jpg (62 KB, 240x421)

62 KB JPG

(Traps and Tricks Check)
(Rolled 10, 6, 4)
(Difficulty: 6[3])
(1 Dramatic Success, 1 Success: Success!)

"Now you be careful, sweety," your father's voice comes back with that infuriatingly patronizing sing song tone. "Playing around with those gears is a good way to get the door jammed on you; and if the door gets jammed, I won't be able to open it when your time's up here on the island. You'll be stuck here forever, or at least until some miners break into this tunnel and find you here. But you might be as dead as I am by then, and I don't want that for you."

"Well, you can go fuck yourself dad," you tell the recording off. You stare at the clockwork for a short while, seeing what connects to what, jamming your hand in and looking for where things go. It's not too much unlike the clockwork of the bakery's rotary oven, you figure, and you've fixed that gods only know how many times. "I'm not playing your games, dad. Not by your rules, at any rate."

Some time passes, you don't know how much. You've familiarized yourself with which gears turn which mechanisms; now you've just got to figure out how they connect to the door.

"Sweetheart..." your dad's voice pops back in. "I've noticed that you haven't put that panel back yet - if you've jammed it, that's your own fault, and you can't run crying to me or your mother for help. You've gotta live with the consequences. But if you're giving it the old college try, you shouldn't be so hasty! You've only got..."

His voice cuts out to something closer to that of a cheerful, bound fairy. "Two days, Twenty Two hours, and Twenty Two minutes!"

"Left, alright?" Your father's voice cuts back in. "That's not so long, is it? Trust me, it's for your own good."

>>32336600

"Yeah, well, where the hell do you get off dictating what's for my good or not old man?" You mutter back at the recording, your eyes focused on a certain set of springs, a trail of gears. You think you've found the weakspot. "You don't even know me, dammit. You left and I grew up without you, and you know what? I was fine on my fucking own. I had friends. Family. A promising career, free of insanity and wander lust. And I might not be the acrobatic archaeologist you so desperately want you to be."

You take a leap of faith in your abilities. You rip out the gear that connects that spring to the rest of the clockwork, pulling your hand out of the machinery fast as a bolt of lightning. Everything starts to spin, the smaller ones more quickly than the faster ones as the machinery returns to equilibrium. The doors slowly, surely open with the grind of steel upon stone.

You grin with satisfaction.

"But I don't need your crash course on it to survive, either, you arrogant sonuvabitch."

(+1 Skill to Traps and Tricks)
>Proceed to the next part of the crash course.
>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.
>[Write In]

>>32336611
>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.

No guarantee our old man left food on ahead.

>>32336611
>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.
Celebratory fish.

>>32336611
>>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved

>>32336611
>>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.

>>32336611
>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.
This fish tastes of victory.

>>32336611
>Get yourself something to eat from the stream. You're starved.
Well I'm glad to see we all agree. Maybe have a bath too, it's not often you find natural streams with perfect defense against peeking.

>>32336611
If we're getting something to eat, let's make sure we jam the door open.
Don't want it closing back up on us.

>>32336815
Probably a good idea.

It's pretty quiet...

File: HUNKY FISH MEN OF THE DEEP.png (166 KB, 307x444)

166 KB PNG

Your stomach rumbles, painfully reminding you that the only thing you've had to eat today was that blueberry crumpet on the way to the reading of your father's will. You had meant to grab something more substantial back at your place, but your father's enemies would have no part in that - thanks again, dad! The largest rock you can manage to move takes its place between the doorways, just in case there was a backup spring meant to close it if you got that far with the gears.

You frown at the stream that goes around the little inlet-island thing your dad's cocamamie scheme dropped you on. If you go in in your armor, with all the layers you're wearing, it'd probably wind up weighing a ton and a half. You weigh your options in your mind - and come to a quick decision. You shuck off the armor like you'd remove a husk from an ear of corn, and leave it folded up on the stony shore.

"Think of it this way, Heilyn," you mutter to yourself as you step naked into the water. "Only one person whose eyes you don't want on you can see you down here, and he's already dead. Unless there's fishpeople down here, then there might be a bunch..."

You mind goes back to another bodice ripper you'd been halfway through about a female detective sniffing out a few disappearances in a small port town on the Beak. The detective had just found discovered that these were ritual sacrifices made by a cult to some squid god lurking deep within the waves. Maidens being sent down to do their part to boost the population of his chosen people - a race of hunky fishmen whose sonar was so good at getting the detective hot and bothered when she tried chasing them in the waters of the bay.

>>32337647
Yeah, the quest does go quiet a lot while QM is writing.

>>32337651

"Then again," you purr, imagining the possibilities, "maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Though... food before pleasure; hell, escape before pleasure." You take a deep breath, and shout at an apology the darkness. "Sorry for eating your cousins there, fish hunks, but when a girl's gotta eat, a girl's gotta eat."

Your hand dart's down into the waters, and comes up completely empty. You try and repeat, try and repeat for about half an hour until you finally come up with a trophy of your efforts in your hand. More dumb luck than actual improvement, you suppose, but you'll take what the world will give you. Right now, that smells like some sort of salmon, which a pair of cantrips and you trusty tanto help turn into a bland, if satisfying meal.

The doors are still open when you get back; it seems your old man didn't have nearly as much faith in you as he claimed. As you pass through the threshold, a smell wafts up from down the hall that would have had you salivating a couple of minutes ago. As it is, it's still quite pleasant. When you go down the hallway, your father's voice comes back on.

"Smell's good, doesn't it?" he says just as you reach the source of the delicious smell. It's a spread of meats and cheeses and breads. "Go ahead and eat it - it's alchemically grown and construct cooked, so it's not the tastiest in the world, but I imagine a warm meal would do you some good right now. Dig in - you deserve it."

You notice that there aren't any doors on the left or right, and the hallway ends with the spread. After three days relying on dumb luck for food, you might not have paid attention, but right now, that seems awfully suspicious.

>Ignore the spread entirely, and try to figure out where you're meant to go from hear. [Roll 3d10]
>Test the food - don't eat too much though, just in case.
>Dig in, it's not like your father was insan- Just kidding! Scavange the tables, see if you can't jury rig something to get yourself up through the pit. [Roll 4d10]

Rolled 10, 10, 7 = 27

>>32337682
>Ignore the spread entirely, and try to figure out where you're meant to go from hear. [Roll 3d10]
Fuck you dad!

Rolled 8, 10, 5 = 23

>>32337682
>>Ignore the spread entirely, and try to figure out where you're meant to go from hear. [Roll 3d10]

>>32337704
WIth a roll like that, how can I refuse

>>32337704
Huh. Looks like dad-abuse is my lucky dice token.

>>32337682
Huh, there should have been a
>[Write In]
there. Just clarifying.

>>32337704
Well, okay then. I do believe the dice gods have spoken.

Rolled 7, 5, 10 = 22

>>32337682
>Ignore the spread entirely, and try to figure out where you're meant to go from hear. [Roll 3d10]
Of course we're not gonna get lured by the food, we just ate!

Rolled 10, 8, 10 = 28

>>32337704
>>32337730
>>32337792

FUCK YOU DAD pleases the dice gods

>>32337682
The food is probably the next test anyway, like don't blindly accept food laid out for you because it might be poisoned.

>>32337802
These are some good rolls, damn. Dad is getting told.

>>32337647
I don't know why.
But whenever I say something like that, the respective QM almost IMMEDIATELY puts something up.

>>32337863
You have subconscious mind-reading powers, anon.

>>32337863

You are a Wizard, Harry

Combination of confirmation bias with the fact that you'd only post "It's quiet" after some time, which gives the QM time to write and put something up

>>32337802
That it does, anon.

>>32337901
That's fair enough.
But a lot of the time it's within seconds.
For example: 7 seconds right there.

>>32337938
Its quiet.

>>32337974
Nice try.
If only that worked.

>>32337994
Alas, QMs are not robotic writing.machines.

>>32338032
Note to self: create robotic QM that can solve captcha.

>>32332774
Shit is that the Voynich Manuscript?

File: You just flipped this over.jpg (68 KB, 300x450)

68 KB JPG

(Perception to find the hidden path)
(Rolled 10, 10, 7)
(Difficulty: 6[2])
(2 Dramatic Successes, 1 Success)

"Dad, you really should have a bit more faith in your daughter," you tell the recording, knowing full well that he won't respond. "See, there's this thing where I sort of hate you, and I will go through truly heroic lengths to see whatever little plan or trial you're putting me through smashed into tiny little pieces. You think that I would accept this, as it is laid before me without questioning it?"

In a flash of anger and rage, you flip the table on it's head, crushing the spread beneath it.

"Even if I was starving, I wouldn't accept this from you!" you spit. "Not a god-damned scrap."

You turn to the left. It's almost painfully obvious now, the solution to this little riddle - you knock on the plaster walls twice, and just like the drafty room in the basement, it rings hollow. You draw the sword your father left you and place it pommel first, and the same thing happens. That cutesy little stylized flower shines through the paint, and the wall slides open. Unlike the last time, there's no second wall with an explosive message written on it.

Unlike last time, there's a large, inactive construct standing behind it, no doubt waiting for orders from your father's recording. You tip-toe past it gingerly, not knowing what might set it off, and praying to all the gods above you're father's voice doesn't order it to squish you like a bug.

There's a hall behind it that goes on for some ways, lined with oaken doors the opening of which would probably give you a behind the scenes tour of your father's little deathtrap. A large set lies at the other end of the hallway, and on the draft you can smell potions and chemicals. You just passed one of the smaller doors about halfway to the big one when your father's voice returns.

>>32338452

"Alright, big guy!" His voice is cheerful and manic. "Heilyn should be done eating by now, and those drugs are pretty fast acting there soooo... Get her to the big room - what'd the script call it, 607? Yeah. There. Big-ass double doors. Bring her there - gently, or I'll have you melted to scrap - and strap her to the chair nice and comfortable. She'll be out for about a week; had to make sure we gave the right atmosphere, right?"

You frown as your father schemes, but refrain from making any sarcastic remarks. The big guy was probably that huge thing, and you'd prefer not to attract it's attention.

"The rest of yous!" he shouts, nowhere near as affable as earlier. "If you're not part of the prop team, put some soups on. I won't have my daughter dying of dehydration and malnourishment because my clockwork minions are fucking incompetent, capiche? Prop team - get down to her knickers and get the props ready - no touchy though, or you'll be melted for scrap. We want her to think that's she's breaking free after god knows how many "sessions" happened while she was unconscious, got it?"

>Dive into the doorway you just passed and close it behind you, regroup from there.
>Run down to the double doors - get the guns out for the big guy, and hope that "no touchy" means the smaller ones aren't allowed to do anything.
>Sneak up behind the big guy, and try to ambush him before he notices you. [Roll 5d10]
>[Write In]

>>32338473
>Shiver because that was really fucking creepy
>Dive into the doorway you just passed and cose it behind you

>>32338473
>Dive into the doorway you just passed and close it behind you, regroup from there.
Jesus dad, you're a creep too?

>>32338473
>Dive into the doorway you just passed and close it behind you, regroup from there.
Hopefully we can unravel this whole bullshit.

>>32338473
>Run down to the double doors - get the guns out for the big guy, and hope that "no touchy" means the smaller ones aren't allowed to do anything
Jesus.
Does he want us to think the robot's have been fucking us?

>>32338473
>>Dive into the doorway you just passed and close it behind you, regroup from there.

Rolled 10, 9, 3, 5, 6 = 33

>>32338473
>Sneak up behind the big guy, and try to ambush him before he notices you. [Roll 5d10]
I wanna roll.

>>32336217
I'm more suspicious that it's our half-sister. Dad admitted he was a shitty husband, it's definitely on the table.

>>32338840
Hmmmm, we'd have to have met her before though to recognize the voice.

>>32338766
Nice.

>>32338473
I gotta sleep, so thanks for running!

I think we just went from having a low opinion of our father to actively hating him.

>>32339106
Well.
More from inactively hating him to actively hating him.

>>32339106
Doesn't seem disproportionate given all the bullshit in this thread.

File: Kind of like this.jpg (101 KB, 539x773)

101 KB JPG

A shiver runs down your spine. That was not the same man that abandoned you and your mother those many years ago; your father was a right bastard but that... that was beyond insane. You can almost hear his voice in your head now, about how that's what happens when you trust people and take things at face value. A lesson in god-damned paranoia - a lesson as to why you don't fucking go to the Isle of Dawn unless you're ready to eat a bullet when your brain starts to rot.

Quietly, quickly, lightly as you can in all these layer's you'r unused to, you step back a few paces and turn towards the door the just passed. It opens with the slightest touch, and you don't wait for it to be fully ajar before slipping in silently as the wind, and closing it right behind you. You're going to break this place in a thousand god damned pieces, even if you have to escape first before coming back.

"What the hell was he thinking..." you whisper to yourself as you take in the room. "What... what the fuck..."

That last bit wasn't at whatever addled train of thought took over your father's mind when he built this little deathtrap of him. That was at the contents of the room. Namely, how it's filled with jars of foetuses of every humanoid and orcine race and mixture in the known world. Well, at least that's what they are by their labels. Beyond them, eyes, hearts, lungs, all manner of organs preserved in jars of enbalming fluid.

On the desk, a jar that seems a bit of place. A fairy no bigger than you hand, suspended in a glowing blue liquid, staring at an hour glass with a goofy, lidded expression. Your father, of course, didn't afford her the dignity of a stitch to cover her shame, but she doesn't seem to care. Really, she seems quite content to just mouth out mindless babbles without vocalizing.

>>32339167

Her eyes catch you staring, and it's then that she decides to speak up.

"Hello pretty lady!" She greets you, her words a slow legato. "You have two days, twenty one hours, and eight-teen minutes until the doors open. You also have Six days, twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes until you wake up from your sleepy time in the scary place."

She tilts her head, much like a confused puppy.

"Wait... that doesn't make sense," she goes on. "If the doors aren't open, you can't have eaten yet. But if you haven't eaten yet, you can't be in your sleepy time. And if you're in your sleepy time, you can't be here? But here you are, so very near."

>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]
>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?
>The scary place? You mean father's nutty rape room. Or fake rape room. (You shudder as you speak). Why the hell would he do that?
>[Write In]

Rolled 4, 9, 2, 2, 3 = 20

>>32339182
>>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]

>>32339220

Welp, never mind

>>32339182
>>The scary place? You mean father's nutty rape room. Or fake rape room. (You shudder as you speak). Why the hell would he do that?

>>32339182
>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?

Then, if she's ok with that, try asking her
>The scary place? You mean father's nutty rape room. Or fake rape room. (You shudder as you speak). Why the hell would he do that?

Also, yeah our father went completely batshit. I though it was only minor paranoia or something, but this is ridiculous.

>>32339182
>The scary place? You mean father's nutty rape room. Or fake rape room. (You shudder as you speak). Why the hell would he do that?

Rolled 4, 8, 9, 3, 10 = 34

>>32339182
>>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]
This whole place is creepy as hell.

>>32339182
>>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?

>>32339220
>>32339242

Much as I'd like to just escape, I want to know everything Dad tried to teach us first. Also, we'll want to be sure we can burn the place down thoroughly.

>>32339182
>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?
Fairy companion get.

Hey, QM, is there any chance of a speak with dead spell or something? I'd really like to rub it in his face that we bypassed however many tests we manage to break.

Hell, at this point I'd be willing to cough up the diamonds for a Resurrection spell so we could punch him in the face.

>>32339182
>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?
I'm in favor of freeing the fairy
Man FUCK dad

>>32339394
I'm kinda hoping he's still alive and faked his dearth so when he reveals himself we can beat the ever loving shit out of him

>>32339703
Huh. He does plan on faking our death via alchemy. Could be he did the same.

He'll wish he was dead when we find him.

>>32339674
>>32339703
>>32339772

Nothing unites a quest thread more than the desire to kill your own dad.

I support it wholeheartedly

File: No don't bad wrong out of(...).jpg (183 KB, 850x710)

183 KB JPG

"The scary place?" You ask. You have a few ideas of what that could be, provided your father didn't have anything even more bug-fuck insane down the road. "You mean my father's nutty rape room. Or, well, fake rape room, given that his toy soldiers have all been order not to touch me. Yeesh... thinking about that just makes me shiver inside - why in the seven hells would he build something like that? THINK of something like that?"

As you speak, the look on the fairy's face becomes more and more scandalized, and she starts to shiver within the fluid. First just a little bit, then more and more violently until finally her words burst out from her mouth.

"NO!" She all but yells, most emphatically, her eyes shut and her shaking body making ripples in the fluid. "NO! Never, never, never, wrong. No. Not that, not his baby girl, no. Nothing nothing, misinterpretted out of context wrongness that you heard. He knew what he knew what he had to do and he knew what needed to be done to do it, to show you the depths of depravity to which the enemies at your door would sink."

She looks at you with pleading, tearful eyes.

"Experiments, fake mutagens made of sugar water and saline colored and given the odor of alchemy," she pleads, begging of you, apologizing for your father's madness. "Vials of unknown, inert substances placed upon a table with wicked tools, bandages and hollowed scorpion tails, the implication of injection but never breaking the skin. Down to your undergarments, vulnerable but dignity intact, calculated and precise - strapped to a chair with faulty locks and frayed straps, the opportunity and instinct to escape and flee from the room as fast as you can. Talk, an ambience of a program, natural philosophers seeking truth and power without the light of conscience to keep them from the dark."

She breathes heavily of the fluid. In and out, in and out; panicked like a prey animal losing its mind at the sight of the predator.

>>32339823

"And then you'd flee to the safe and warm place another lesson learned, knowing what's coming, what your up against. He didn't want he didn't know he didn't think of words without the context of his mind... and and and and and please don't hate him don't hate him don't hate he doesn't need you to love or like him but don't hate him don't no never never never never..."

The fairy babbles on now, the shaking slowing and ceasing as her voice quiets, her eyes straying back to the clock as her mouth opens and closes in a similar pattern to before. You wave your hand in front of the clock, and her eyes catch you, and she looks at you with that same stoned smile as before.

"Hello pretty lady!" She greets you, her words once more a slow legato. "You have two days, twenty one hours, and six minutes until the doors open. You also have Six days, twenty three hours and forty seven minutes until you wake up from your sleepy time in the scary place."

She tilts her head, much like a confused puppy.

"Wait... that doesn't make sense," she goes on. "If the doors aren't open, you can't have eaten yet. But if you haven't eaten yet, you can't be in your sleepy time. And if you're in your sleepy time, you can't be here? But here you are, so very near."

You blink. "What the hell was that?"

She blinks right back. "Pardon, pretty lady?"

>I just... you explained the scary place and then... do you remember that?
>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]
>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?
>[Write In]

>>32339823
Did ... did our dad mind-break this fairy?
Credit where its due, he went all out to protect his daughter.

>>32339843
>I just... you explained the scary place and then... do you remember that?

Rolled 10, 5, 10, 5, 9 = 39

>>32339843
>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]
>mind broken fairy
Fuck you dad, like holy shit

Rolled 2, 2, 6, 8, 9 = 27

>>32339843
>>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]

>>32339843
>>So I am. But don't tell anyone, I cheated to get here. Broke the game, and maybe I'll break you free?

Rolled 1, 10, 3, 10, 10 = 34

>>32339843
>>The door's are open, it's the clocks that are wrong. I've already passed through every test; could you show me the way out? [Roll 5d10]

I'll shiv you good, dad

>>32339905
On the one hand, that's a really good roll.

On the other, I still want more information from this fairy, soooo
>>32339843
>Write In: I already escaped the scary place. Is there a way to move one?

>>32339843
Whatever we do, let's free the poor thing, she doesn't deserve this shit.

>>32339843
Poor fairy. We should keep her as a love slave.

>>32340032
She even comes with a vibrate setting!

...

I think I may have just gone too far. Apologies.

Rolled 8, 10, 5, 4, 6 = 33

>>32340088
Nah don't worry about it, quest had been great so far

File: 1384996224885s.jpg (7 KB, 250x176)

7 KB JPG

>>32340088
muh fetish

>>32340032
...
I didn't even Need to mouse over that.
I knew what it said.
But I did anyways.

>>32340088
Is that when she flaps her wings, or...

Ya know what.
I think that this is a discussion that should be had on /d/.
Meetcha there?

>>32339924
>>32339905
These rolls, holy shit.

>>32340212
If you choose the best of those rolls, we could get tends across the board

We need to take the fairy with us and heal the damage "dear old dad" did to her mind.

>>32340359
Or we could use her as a PA.

I came into this quest expecting nympho halfling shennanigans, and what we've got is basically got is Call of Cthulhu.
Seriously, what the hell happened to Dad that made his brain take a walk off the map like this?

I'm fucking loving this op. Keep doing what you're doing

>>32340479
>and what we've got is basically got is Call of Cthulhu.
And I can't fucking keyboard.
Goddammit.

>>32340479
The Isle of Dawn happened.

That was the testing ground for some of the Hungering King's stranger experiments, you see.

>>32340592
Let's never go there. Ever. In either quest. I don't care that dad left us a map. I don't care that the other guy is a vampire paladin who doesn't afraid of anything. Never.

>>32340637
We might not have much choice in the matter.

File: Little B.png (446 KB, 650x650)

446 KB PNG

(Affability Check)
(Rolled Rolled 10, 5, 10, 5, 9)
(Difficulty 6[4])
(2 Dramatic Successes, 1 Success: Success!)

You aren't quite sure you want to know what the hell it was your dad did to this poor fairy to make her the way she is. You're fairly sure it involves torture and sensory deprivation and all sorts of nasty things that no person should have to go through. But whatever it was he did it clearly knocked a screw or seven loose. Poor thing's like a lost shivering puppy that flinches back from your hand when you try to feed it.

You wanna take her home with you and care for her and nurture her and see a non drug induced smile when you bring a pastry thrice her size home from the bakery on her birthday. And maybe get her a cute little flower girl dress for Matti's wedding and have her spread petals and fairy dust down the aisle for the bride to walk down and sweet Atalanta she's adorable.

But before you can take the fairy home - where ever the hell that's going to be, because you're fairly sure you're going to sell your dad's place and everything in it to the highest bidder - you need to find out how to get home.

You throw the hood of the armor back and lean down on the desk, crossing your arms right infront of the fairy's jar and resting your chin upon them. You give the fairy the warmest and most genuine smile you can muster; suprising fairly warm, and fairly genuine, given the amount of vitriol and anger you've got running through you right now. The fair smiles back, her eyes droopy and stoned, but some real happiness shining through there.

"Sooo.... Little B." You put on your warm voice, the one you reserve for cute kids and cute things in general. "The doors are open, but the clocks say they're not. I'm awake and chipper, but the clocks say I'm not. What's the truth, what the clocks say or what you see?"

>>32340831
"I'm not a bee..." she mutters, puffing out her cheeks and twisting her hands behind her back. "And my minds plays tricks on me. Mister told me, before he left, and didn't come back. Mister said what they did broke something in my head, and that the best way to get back at them for breaking it is to trust him, and keep my eyes on the clock. The clocks don't lie, they don't trick. They're numbers. Numbers speak only truth."

"Oh, I know you're not a bee, Little B," you tell her, purposefully not addressing her more rigid concerns. "You're a beautiful little butterfly, is what you are, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, they - who are they? They's a pronoun, and you need context for that, right?"

"They?" She asks, more to herself than to you. She starts shaking in the jar, not violently but quietly, shivering with fear and uncertainty. "They... they. They they they. THEY are the enemy at our door. THEY are the ones who suffer not in the darkness but the light. THEY are a cabal of arcanists and natural philosophers and I remember THEM when they drilled into my head and... and..."

She starts crying. Tears that float to the top of the liquid in the jar.

"And now I can't trust it," her voice is small and meek. "Mister saved me, he brought a light into that dark and scary place. But I still can't trust it. It lies. It lies in everything but the numbers - six men drilling into my mind and six women holding me there and one halfling with thirteen bullets and seven slashes of a sword struck nine of them down in six and a half seconds. The others fled screaming and... and he helped. Did what he could. Put me here. To heal."

She looks at you with hopeful eyes.

"Ha-have you seen Mister?" she asks, her voice trembling. "He-he said that if his baby girl came down to learn his ways and lessons that'd he'd be far far away but that the pretty lady and the baby girl would help me. Are... are you the pretty lady? Or the baby girl?

>>32340850

>Mister... my father is a long ways away, Little B. But I can help you, if you help me.
>Well, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty lady, but I imagine that I'm the baby girl.
>Mister was my father, yes. He's... gone now.
>[Write In]

>>32340876
>Well, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty lady, but I imagine that I'm the baby girl.

Well, on the plus side, Dad didn't mind-crush the fairy.

>>32340876
>Well, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty lady, but I imagine that I'm the baby girl.
You get this one dad, but just this one

>>32340876
>Well, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty lady, but I imagine that I'm the baby girl.

>>32340876
>Well, I'd like to think that I'm a pretty lady, but I imagine that I'm the baby girl.
I'm actually kind of sad now.

>>32340592
The Hungering King? Well, shit, that doesn't ominous at all. Like, not even a little bit.

Fucking hell. It sounds to me that the best case scenario is that our heroine ends up in a lunatic asylum, screaming about the rats in the walls I love it.

I must say, OP. This is pretty fucking brilliant!

Hey OP, mind sharing the setting?

>>32340963
>The Hungering King?
According to his other quest, Hungering Kings are some sort of super vampires

>>32340963
Sorry, the apostrophe should have been on the other side of the s there.

The Hungering Kings (and Queens) once ruled over an empire in the far east of the world called Henan. They were the first vampires, and the first of them was a dwarf who sought immortality by taking a mountain's stillness into himself. The Hungering part comes from their Hunger for the blood of sentients, and while for the first few centuries they resisted, they slowly fell to temptation and madness one by one.

The only living one right now is Cheng'e, the Hungering Queen, who has sated her thirst with the blood of non-sentients. She recently turned the Paladin Quest protag into a Hungering Prince to save his "life" after he nearly died to totesnot!Dio Brando. Hungering Princes(ses) being one step down in power.

>>32341080
>totesnot!Dio Brando
The coolest vampire

>>32341080
Are you saying the Moon Paladin is the Roa to Cheng'e's Arcueid?

>>32341258
What are these words?

File: KANE INTENSIFIES.jpg (82 KB, 504x577)

82 KB JPG

>>32341258

>>32341258
No, he's the Seras to Cheng'e's Alucard.

Rolled 2, 5, 5 = 12

Oh, and I need these.

Just some passive stuff, no need to worry about anything.

>>32341436
>Just some passive stuff, no need to worry about anything.
PANIC!

>>32341379
Yes.

>>32341436
>passive stuff
NOPE.
NO IT'S NOT.
DON'T LIE.
THE GIANT GOLEM IS ABOUT TO KILL IS.

>>32341512
Well.
It would be, at least.
But, dem rolls.

>>32341379
>>32341315
I wonder about that

File: Woman in the Red Nothing.jpg (66 KB, 650x1000)

66 KB JPG

Rolled 1, 4, 1 = 6

You would pat her on the head reassuringly and give a great big hug, but the jar she's floating in is in the way, and somehow you don't think it would be good for her to leave it. Well, at least... you don't know what to think of your father anymore - did he think that something like "the scary place" would do anything but scar you? Or was that the point, to put the scars there so that when the real threats come up the flesh of the mind is more resilient. It goes against every principle you know.

The good guys are supposed to be better than the bad guys, not just in their end goals, but in their methodologies as well. Yeah, he saved Little B and helped her healing along, gave her a way, of sorts, to fight back against the ones who hurt her, even if it was just helping him prepare you. But you don't think you want that fight - not in the way he wanted. It's just like the bodice rippers always said: if the way the good guys do something is rotten, odds are the heart of the good guys is rotten, too.

So, if it's a warrior your father wanted, a new pirate queen to take up the mantle Empress Ruari I Cúailnge put down when she took the throne, then aye. It's a warrior he'll get.

But you don't think he'd like the consequences, if he were alive.

"Well," you give the fairy a cute giggle, which makes her relax and smile, and stop shaking. "I'd certainly like to think that I'm a pretty lady, little bee, but... hmmm... I'm afraid to say that to mister, I'm probably the baby girl. I'd be willing to bet that pretty lady is probably my mother."

"Your bet's would be wrong, unfortunately."

Rolled 9, 6, 4 = 19

>>32341902

A thick, sultry contalto doesn't quite pur the words from behind you. You turn around and your eyes widen in disbelief and anger, immediately pulling one of the guns from it's holster. The woman in the red nothing smiles a bit, like a mother smiling at the playful antics of her child. Her rather ample chest heaves with every breath, calm, collected, and self assured even as you cock the action of the pistol.

"Human, female, black hair, three point six meters out north by northwest, insufficient tools for degree approximation," the fairy intones with a dull montone, her eyes flat and staring at the newcomer. "Measurements 106:61:98 centimeters. Height of 177 centimeters - approximate weight unknown."

The fair looks to you, even as you glare at the woman. "Is she an enemy?"

"Aye, little bee," you snarl plainly at the woman. "This bitch is the one what burnt my house down, and clearly pursued me halfway accross the city. She might be a pretty fucking lady with those heads stapled to her chest, but there's a snowball's chance in hell that she's the pretty lady me da' told you about. Glared at me all through the reading of my father's will she did."

"Listen you vapid little girl," the woman snaps at you, "I did not come all this way to-"

>Enough apologia. Take the shot. [Roll 4d10]
>Let her speak her lies. Pretend to believe her, and when her guard's down, take the shot. [Roll 5d10, then 4d10]
>Let her speak. You've little patients for a woman dressed like that calling you vapid, though.
>[Write In]

Rolled 2, 5, 10, 2 = 19

>>32341921
>>Enough apologia. Take the shot. [Roll 4d10]

No one calls me vapid

>>32341921
>Let her speak. You've little patients for a woman dressed like that calling you vapid, though.

This should be interesting.

Rolled 7, 8, 7, 3 = 25

>>32341921
>Enough apologia. Take the shot. [Roll 4d10]
No regrets

>>32341921
Level gun, and listen to her voice, methinks we recognize it.

Rolled 4, 3, 9, 5 = 21

>>32341921
>>Enough apologia. Take the shot. [Roll 4d10]

Rolled 1, 9, 6, 5, 1, 4, 8, 5, 7 = 46

>>32341921
>Let her speak her lies. Pretend to believe her, and when her guard's down, take the shot. [Roll 5d10, then 4d10]
Why not?

I really hope we're aiming to cripple here. I want answers out of her at least.

>>32341921
>Let her speak. You've little patients for a woman dressed like that calling you vapid, though.

Rolled 3, 6, 3, 8, 9, 2, 6, 7, 3 = 47

>>32341921
>Let her speak her lies. Pretend to believe her, and when her guard's down, take the shot. [Roll 5d10, then 4d10]

>>32341921
>Let her speak. You've little patients for a woman dressed like that calling you vapid, though.
Keep gun out

>>32342036
I will explicitly tell you that you are not aiming to cripple here. Heilyn has had enough of people talking down at her, and this bitch fucking burnt her home down. She had memories there, and stuff to remember people by.

So the bitch is gonna die.

File: thrillville-off-rails.jpg (112 KB, 460x407)

112 KB JPG

Well, as long as we have the same effect on 'Their' plans as we have on our fathers...

Rolled 4, 7, 8, 5 = 24

>>32342116
I've no problem with that
Let's shoot the bitch
>Enough apologia. Take the shot. [Roll 4d10]

>>32342116
I had a feeling that was the case, which is why I voted to let her talk. Too many questions here.

>>32341921
>Let her speak. You've little patients for a woman dressed like that calling you vapid, though.

Dad's a douche, but there's at least SOME truth to what he's saying.

>>32342178
>Dad's a douche, but there's at least SOME truth to what he's saying.
Everything since his death has been to fuck up the life we had so far. He didn't need to get us involved, especially not without finding out if we wanted to beforehand.

Our dad is Dale Gribble and Burt Gummer combined.

>>32342178
4 to shoot, 4 to speak, 2 to speak then shoot. Is anyone opposed to a combining to the speak then shoot, or can someone do a tie breaker?

Rolled 5, 4, 9, 4 = 22

>>32342226

Not opposed

Rolled 8, 7, 9, 8 = 32

>>32342226
I don't mind changing my shoot to speak then shoot

>>32342226

Sounds fine. Need any more rolls, or...?

>>32342226
I'd prefer a combination then shooting her outright.

>>32342226
I'll add my vote to the 'Shoot' pile.

>>32342279
Okay, so it looks like we're at 4, 4, 4 for all three options, so I'm going to bang my head against the wall in exasperation and write the combination that sits in the happy medium. I guess.

>>32342226
(combination of speak then shoot)
If she doesn't want to be shot by a angry halfling, then she better be really fucking convincing
or at least a little more polite

>>32342352
Agreed.
I say we hear what she has to say, and THEN decide wether to murder her or not.

>>32342334

Uh, I voted for the Shoot after talking. >>32342255

So it's not a tie.

>>32342470
It is because on of the shoot guys changed his vote to shoot then talk. And someone else voted S then T.

>>32342470
And that's what we're doing, don'tchu worry.

>>32342535
Ah, the waiting game. So, who wants to guess what other crazy 'lessons' dad had planned for us?

>>32342984
Month-long course:
3 Days: survival - skipped
7 Days: experience the worst - skipped
20 days worth of shit left.

>>32343078
>20 days worth of shit left.
Absolutely fuck you dad
Like you better hope you're actually dead and not just faking

>>32343078
Hallway full of traps/deadly neurotoxin?

>>32343078
I really hope he was sane enough to include actual fighting in there at some point.

>>32343112
Huh.
Spoiler didn't work, but it didn't show up.
Now I'm confused.

>>32343078
Actually, the last 20 days were pretty mundane. He got the heavy stuff done first; the other twenty days would be him encouraging you as you sparred stronger and stronger automatons, until your body was a weapon.

I just want to say I'm really liking what we've seen of the background fluff for this setting so far. Dwarf vampires and "Hungering Kings" and, apparently, halfling "privateers". I didn't know I had a need for halfling pirates and seafarers in general, but apparently I do. OP is a pretty cool guy.

>>32343141
Well, if we stay in town, we could certainly use that training, I'm sure.

File: M-m-m-mister's dead....jpg (54 KB, 480x700)

54 KB JPG

(Stealth Roll to Conceal Intent)
(Rolled 2, 5, 10, 2, 7)
(Difficulty 5[3])
(1 Dramatic Success, 2 Successes: Success!)

You keep the gun level at the woman. Your eye's are flat, your face is flat and expressionless. Scales cannot properly measure just how fed up you are with people talking down to you today. The judge. Your dad. This bitch, that burned your home down to the ground; and she has the gods damned nerve to call you vapid while wearing maybe three pieces of sheer silk stitched together in the shape of a twelve year old boy's wet dream.

"I did not come all this way to see you disrespect the memory of your father," the woman rants, chest heaving and not a care in the world for the gun you've pointed in her face. "To skip out on his funeral, to ignore his warnings, and when you finally look like you have the sense to do what you're supposed to do, you go and do this. Break the course meant to make you better suited for what's to come than a vapid baker who spends her weekends drinking until she blacks out and slutting her way through half the men and women in the city."

"F-funeral?" The fairy asks, tears welling up in her eyes. She begins shaking again, violently, twitching about as her wings stir up the fluid in the jar. "Mister... funeral? No. No. I refuse... I cannot believe... no please no why impossible he's the hero and he's supposed to always be okay and come back and fill me with smiles and talk to me like I'm normal and not broken in the head and..."

The woman snaps her fingers, and a silence falls on the little fairy. You can still see the way that the little bee is babbling, screaming now with tears in her eyes that float to the surface of her jar. Those bright little eyes filled with sorrow and pain as she twitches and spasm, the jar shaking now, rattling in place before she finally collapses. And slowly, surely, wakes up once more, her eyes again locked to the clock.

>>32343186
"Yeah, you're really inspiring me with confidence there, madame," you spit the honorific like it's the foulest curse. "Way to convince this poor, vapid baker to whatever dark and dank corner you plan to lead me to to devour my soul or whatever bullshit you're planning."

"There is little time for you to be convinced, and less time for me to convince you. When the clock fed me contradictions, I knew that something here was compromised," She glares at you. "And now, since I came here, the enemy at our door may know about this place. It's unsafe for you to train here; you must come with me. There is a monastery not far from here, upon the Island of Thunderbolts. Grab the battery, and we shall be off."

She looks at you expectantly. You roll your eyes and raise your gun, moving to holster it.

"Fine, whatever," you tell her. She nods, and turns around, and starts packing away the various jars of organs and foetuses into an extradimensional bag. "I think I learned the lesson that dad would've wanted me to learn more than anything, anyways."

"Oh, really," the woman asks, reaching for a eyeball, "And what's tha-"

You cut her off with a bullet. Straight to her back, somewhere to the right of the heart. Damned serious though, not the sort of thing you'd be able to recover from without a potion of regeneration. From the way she's scrambling through her bag as she collapses, she clearly has one. You stalk over to her, and rip it from her weakening hand. She coughs up some blood.

"You..." she croaks, blood running down her chin. "You... shouldn't... you... were a b-baker... you couldn't... the nerve."

"Yeah," you say. You're not sure what expression you're wearing right now. You think it's hatred. "And five hours ago, I wouldn't have. But that's the lesson I learned, you see. That fire's the only light in the darkness, and that it washes away the rot."

You pull her dying head from the ground.