>>41374072
I may have missed a couple threads. Last I knew we were underwater.
Archive link?

>>41374072
>Talk to (Write-In) about (Write-In)
Baltas. He might know a way to help with Emma's seasickness.

Failing that, he's fun to read.

>>41374072
>Talk to Sylea about how to help emma
maybe she knows a cure for sea sickness
also you shouldn't do this because you feel like you owe it to us

>>41374072
>>Talk to (Write-In) about (Write-In)
Baltas and Sylea about turtles and seasickness.

>>41374169
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=RE%3A+Monster

There you go. Harpy's mixed in, but it's a great read too.

You remember how SnekQuest ended? Because OP no longer derived FUN from running the Quest.
Don't let Kobold die just because you feel some need to run in spite of your own problems.
Make sure running is fun for you as well or we're all fucked.

And I swear if you drop KoboldQuest I will drop KoboldSmut on every other RE:Monster Quest Threadly for as long as I live.

>>41374189
If I let myself slack, it'll just get worse, and I want to finish this story.

Besides, having obligations to one's fans is a perfectly valid reason to do something. To me, anyway.

>>41374209
Danka

>>41374072
Looks like we're talking to the adults about seasickness.

Writing.

>>41374072
"Hmm? The tiny girl is being seasick?" Baltas sets his hammer down, the plank he'd clumsily nailed onto the mast secured there by a handful of nails. "That is being too bad. She seem frail, but I did not think her of having the weak stomach. I saw her eat. Like a great pit, that one." He shudders, as if in fear, and you whine at him.

"C'mon, be serious... I'm worried about her. She's not going to be able to eat anything, and she can't heal like that." Your tail swishes in agitation, your hands clasped before your chest in pleading as you look up at your uncle. He sighs softly and reaches out, patting your head heavily.

"I am not knowing of many things that can be helping. I did not travel much by sea during my journeys. Perhaps you should be of asking the old lizard? Hold on." He turns and shouts toward the front of the ship. "Old woman! You are being needed!"

Sylea turns from her work, narrowing her eyes at Baltas but not dignifying him with a response. She drops the coil of rope she had been knotting and turns, striding confidently across the deck toward you. "What is it, Nadia? Something wrong?" You briefly explain and she touches her finger to her chin, her tail lashing about as she thinks. "Well, I never had seasickness, nor did anyone I travelled with... but I seem to remember an herb that could help. Spicy, used in treats and some drinks... damn. Baltas?"

The elder kobold shrugs.

>>41375623
"It had a long root, like a fat twisted tail? Pale, and when you peeled it, it was white..."

"Ginger?" Djanna steps beside you, looking between the three of you curiously. "What are we talking about?"

Sylea nods, snapping her fingers. "That's the one! Baltas, go see if Mal'ir has any, would you?" He nods and slips off as you explain to Djanna. She nods.

"One of Garush's books was herbalism. I didn't understand much of it, but most of the remedies were for sailors. They mentioned ginger as a cure for seasickness. I didn't realize she was still suffering, poor thing..." She frowns, bending her head and stroking her chin in a mirror of her mother.

Soon enough, Baltas returns with a couple small roots in his hand. Sylea nods, but it's Djanna who reaches out and takes the roots. "Come on, Nadia. I think I remember how to prepare this."

=========================

Emma takes the cup slowly, her pale skin and sunken eyes making her look like the very corpses you'd rescued her from. The drink steams in her hands, smelling strongly of the ginger used in its preparations. She looks between you and Djanna before squeaking quietly. "Are you sure this'll work?" She sniffs the drink carefully, wrinkling her nose.

"I haven't got a clue." Djanna shrugs honestly, and you whine softly.

>Make her drink it!
>Encourage her. It can't hurt!
>Maybe you should take it slow...
>We can think of something else if you don't like it...

>>41375660
>>Encourage her. It can't hurt!

>>41375660
>Maybe you should take it slow...
You always sip when you have an upset stomach. Going slow just is asking for trouble.

>>41375698
>going fast
goddamnit

>>41375660
>Encourage her. It can't hurt!
>Maybe you should take it slow...
Carefully. No chugging. Just small, steady sips.

>>41375660
>Encourage her. It can't hurt!

>>41375660
Feed the kitsune the mystery drink!
>Sugar
>Ginger
>Freshwater
>Some lime juice

Writing.

>>41375660
"C'mon, Emma. It's gonna help! Just drink it slow... little sips, all right?" You smile, sitting beside her, rubbing her upper back gently. She grumbles, looking up at Djanna before taking a slow sip of the steaming beverage. She swallows then coughs loudly.

"It burns!" She exclaims, looking at the dragon girl in betrayal.

"Maybe both roots was too much?" She looks to you curiously, and you shrug. Emma opens her mouth to complain, and you tip the glass up to her lips.

"Less talking, more drinking!" Surprised by the sudden flow of liquid into her mouth, she swallows obediently before narrowing her eyes at you and pulling away.

"I can do it..." Her tails thrash under the blanket and she continues sipping as you reposition, resuming rubbing her back. You feel her stomach's protestations begin to still slowly as Djanna leans against the opposite bunk, observing quietly. An hour later, Emma's laying with her head in your lap, breathing easily. "Oh thank goodness..." You stroke her hair with a smile, looking up at Djanna appreciatively.

"There's about a gallon left in case she needs more. The recipe didn't say how long it should last." Djanna joins you on Emma's bunk, reaching out and patting the younger girl's shoulder. "How you feeling, Emma?"

"Better. I don't feel like running around or anything, but I don't feel the world spinning any more." Emma nuzzles against your stomach, and you gently run your nails through her hair. "Where'd you learn about that drink again?"

>>41376412
Djanna tells you about her lessons with Garush, all the different books he showed her. You and Emma ask questions, and she agrees to show you what she learned about cooking from his books. "It might be better to learn from somebody else, though. I don't know much, I just remember it really well." She drums her claws on her knee, looking bashful.

"I don't mind learning from you. We could all learn together. It'd be fun!" Emma perks up, ears on end. Whatever was in the drink seems to have restored much of her enthusiasm, perhaps even given her some extra pep. You nod your agreement.

"Yeah! And I could teach you all to... um... well, maybe I could..." Your ears droop and Djanna leans over, giving you a hug.

"We haven't sparred in a while. You could teach us both a thing or two about defending ourselves." Djanna grins. "Seems we could both use that..."

>END DAY
>Talk to (Write-In) about (Write-In)
>Do (Write-In)
>Other

>>41375890
>>41376412
>>41376430
Trip Drop!
Take a shot!

>>41376430
>Do (Spar with your sister)

>>41376430
>Do (Train with Uncle)
Teach us of Kobold moves

>>41376430
>Do (Write-In)
sparring.

>>41376470
I WISH I could afford good liquor.

>>41376430
>Do (Write-In)
Feed Emma fresh kills. Jumpstart her regeneration.

>>41376470
>>41376485
Sparring wins it, but:

>Baltas
>Sisters

>>41376682
>>Sisters
Keep it friendly. Don't invoke the Gods.

>>41376682
>>Sisters

>>41376682
Sisters it is.

Breaking for supper, then writing.

>>41376833

Was pretty sure this was dead.

>>41377096
Nope, OP's simply hunting for his supper. Getting tempted to start posting bad-ends though. He might want to hurry up.

>>41377096
Naw, not dead. Just been feeling out of sorts lately.

Anyway, I'm back. Give me some d100 action!

>>41377372
I assume you just want one.

Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>41377372

Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>41377372

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>41377372

Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>41377372
Ok

>>41377420
Good.
>>41377438
Bad.

>>41376430
You get Emma and Djanna above deck, setting off against one-another near the fore of the vessel. Djanna looks confident, standing tall and ready. You remain crouched low, hands out, smiling and wagging. You look over at Emma to find her sitting cross-legged on the deck.

"If you think I'm getting in between the two of you, you're insane." You open your mouth to argue, and she gives you a sharp look. Brick wall. All right. You turn back to Djanna, ready to go. Sylea leans up against the railing to watch. Baltas pulls over a stool, grabbing a seat and tearing at a piece of jerky with his sharp teeth, watching in rapt attention.

"Fifteen gold on my niece."

"You're on."

The two adults shake hands, securing their bets on a children's sparring match. Djanna gives them a disbelieving look, and you launch forward, moving across the shifting wooden deck with ease, claws giving you some manner of purchase. Djanna shifts quickly to the side, dodging your punch with a spin as she brings her tail in against you, the tip whistling through the air. You catch it at the base with both arms, and she gives a shocked hiss. She tries to turn and get at you, but it's too late. You're in control of this grapple. You move with her, directing her motions as she tries desperately to pull away. She gives a particularly hard tug, and you release, sending her sprawling onto the deck as you bounce backward on the balls of your feet.

"C'mon, you're too slow! Faster, Djanna!" Your tail wags lightly, ears pricked upright in eager readiness. You're trying to go easy on her, but she's not accustomed to fighting like you are. She needs to get better. Maybe next time, some jackass of a dragon won't be able to just scoop her up and fly off with her. You're not sure why, but you feel a tightness in your chest at the thought. This is something really important to you... maybe the first thing you've actually taken really, really seriously.

Djanna is going to get stronger.

>d100

Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>41377767
SPIDER IS DISTRACTING

Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>41377767

>>41378068
It is the superior read. I do not malign you.

Rolled 38 (1d100)

>>41377767

>>41378130
It's more the Evo vote right now.

>>41378068
Writing.

>>41378130

Throttle back on the grim dark and child abuse, and you'll be fine.

>>41377767
She rises and wipes a bit of the crusted salt from the spray from her cheek, not taking her eyes off you. She clenches her fists, ready for you to move, and you oblige. You dash forward, throwing a feint at her gut, forcing her to bend forward into a quickly applied headlock.

"Hey! Stop it!" Djanna tries to pull out of your grip, pulling at your arm, but you have no intention of letting her go. She has to earn her escape. You tighten your grip, widening your stance and planting your feet. She growls and flails at you, finally landing a lucky blow on your stomach with her elbow. It doesn't hurt, but it's enough to make you loosen your grip, and enough for her to twist out, grabbing you by the arm and trying to get behind you, trying to shove you to the deck.

A good idea, but not quite enough. You twist in her grip, turning to face her. She looks at you in surprise as you stomp on the deck between her feet, causing her to recoil, and you give her a hard shove, sending her across the deck into the railing. Emma grabs hold of her, trying to steady her, but she seems in no danger of going overboard. Djanna glares at you, taking a moment to come to her feet.

"Nadia, you're being too rough! C'mon, go easy on me!"

You growl softly. You feel strange... you're not angry, far from it. You're intensely focused, and your primary goal is right in front of you. Your sister is slow. She's sturdy, but she hasn't taken a single swing at you. That's the problem. Does she just lack the will to fight?

Maybe you need to apply more pressure. Your breath is coming in short huffs, your nostrils wide open to catch the scent of sweat and salt in the air. Emma is watching you carefully, her tails still on the deck as if trying not to attract any attention. You don't understand why.

You look to Djanna, moving slowly toward the center of the ship, holding a defensive stance.

>Force her to defend herself!
>Wait for her to come to you.
>You're taking this too seriously.
>Other

>>41378849
>>Wait for her to come to you.
>Taunt her

>>41378849
>You're taking this too seriously.
Let's not traumatize the lizard too.

>>41378849
>Wait for her to come to you.

>>41378849
>You're taking this too seriously.
>Wait for her to come to you.

>>41378849
>You're taking this too seriously.

We need to goad her into attacking

>>41378849
>You're taking this too seriously.
>Other
Tell her she needs to attack; this is practice, and defending all the time won't work.

>>41378849
>You're taking this too seriously.

>>41378849
"What do you think is going to happen if you just defend all the time!?" you bark, taking a quick step toward Djanna, causing her to fall back. "You won't get anywhere being drawn up like a... whatever-we-just-killed in its shell!" You dash forward, feinting at her head and she leans away from it, leaving you to feint a kick at her knee - one she moves far too slow to have dodged.

"You need to finish the fight before it starts if you can! That means striking fast, and striking first!" You take another swing, your assault just causing her to raise her guard more. Damn it, this isn't working!

"Nadia, relax! You're starting to scare me!" Djanna peers at you between her dark-scaled arms, her eyes narrowed carefully. You whine and lower your arms, relaxing.

"I'm sorry, okay! I'm just scared!" You stomp your foot, tail thrashing. Emma raises her brow as she looks at you. Djanna maintains her guard. "You got taken, and I freaked out and attacked Emma, and neither one of you could do anything about it and I couldn't help either of you and if things had gone just a little bit off you could have both died! I can't do anything else for you but teach you the one thing I'm good at, and I just... I just..." You fall to your knees, sobbing and holding your face in your hands, hot tears flowing between your fingers and down through the thin fur on your arms. "I'm sorry!"

Sylea moves to cross to you, but Baltas lays a hand on her leg, shaking his head. Djanna moves to you, laying her hand on your head gently. Emma takes a moment before approaching.

>>41380124
"You think we weren't?" Djanna gently takes your hands and moves them from your face, crouching down to look at you. "I don't know about Emma's situation. I wasn't there... but I was terrified. That thing could have killed me, but I did what you asked anyway. And do you know why?"

You shake your head, sniffling loudly.

"Because I trust you. I know if something happened, you'd have saved me... and if I'd died, you'd have chased that dragon till there was nowhere it could have flown or hidden, and beaten it senseless."

Emma looks at you guiltily, turning her face and crossing her arm over her chest, gripping her opposite shoulder.

"We don't need to fight like you or be like you, Nadia. We just need you. Okay?" The dragon girl leans down and hugs you tightly.

Calling it for tonight. I think we're going to skip or gloss over the last few days of the journey, and start tomorrow back on the island. Objections?

>>41380163
Just make sure we get some fresh fish for Emma's regeneration to get started.

>>41380163
Just make sure Emmma gets some regen in, rest is good,.

>>41380163
Thanks for running, boss.

>>41380205
>>41380221
Yeah, with all the turtle meat you've got, everyone will be in top shape by the time you get back.

>>41380163

No more melodrama with littlest sister. Just drop it. She tried to burn us alive. We growled at her that one time because god told us to.

>>41380971
Okay, you clearly don't understand what "Berserker" means.

Educate yourself, then you can come back.

>>41380971
How about instead you drop the quest and stop inflicting yourself on everyone else?

>>41381079

You clearly don't understand the concept of equivalence. So yeah, I get it, berserker, magic-y berserker who hears her god of supposed goodness telling her to kill and eat her little sister (because clearly shit was getting just a little too happy about this time for Lotus tastes). On another day, she roasted the flesh off our fucking bones.

Listen, I get that he's trying to be all dramatic and shit, but it's being done poorly and doesn't fit well in the framing of shit she's done to us versus shit we've done to her.

>>41381220
>because clearly shit was getting just a little too happy about this time for Lotus tastes
We rolled a critfail and willingly gave into said critfail. She barely burned us in her freak out where as we tried to kill and eat her, and would have if not for Djanna.

>>41381298

You seem to be forgetting how bad the injuries actually were, and the fact that they would have been much worse if not lethal if it weren't for the fire proofing Nadia has. She could have and would have killed us if we hadn't been conveniently kitted to survive her. She should realize this.

And no, in PTSD that doesn't equate to automatic forgiveness, but I want books to start getting cleared so we can actually have an adventure rather than trying to tap out the same old melodrama.

Also, just as a note, we've kind of lost three-fifths of our audience now.

>>41381376
But we chose to cooldown hug her. So your argument loses weight.

>>41381449

Yes, because Nadia shows a certain boundless capacity for love that is frankly a bit beyond reason She, while still charred and mutilated, hugged Emma and promised her everything was going to be alright. That's emotional coinage pressed into the bank that I'd like to see a return on. Otherwise, there isn't much point to those interactions.

>>41381506
Relationships don't work like that, and there is a massive difference between willingly letting yourself come to harm to help another, and some nearly dying due to someone losing their mind. Keep in Mind we went as mad as the monster Emma has nightmares about.

>>41381545

Not really. Like, the sort of horrifying shit she dealt with was probably worse than, you punched some dick really hard because he was trying to murder your sister. Also, yeah, actual relationships don't work with that dynamic, but actual relationships don't survive this level of grade A bullshit on a regular basis.

Child abuse, lacerations, near death on a daily basis, almost being sold into slavery, supernatural possessions. The fact is, I don't advocate grim dark because it should, by all rights, take a massive amount of time to heal the emotional scars from even one of those incidents, let alone all of them within a couple of weeks. However, I don't want to spend all of the 'bold adventures putting band-aids on the NPCs booboos because Lotus can't practice restraint. If they have to be flexible and heal at an unnatural rate to facilitate that, I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff.

>>41381376
I'm pretty sure we forgave her for that. You don't get to keep holding something against someone after forgiving them, especially not family. There is no remotely healthy relationship that works by having emotional blackmail on each other.

This argument again? Jesus, this quest really does have a shit fanbase. I'm out.

>>41381804
Pretty sure it's the same guy starting the argument each time.

>>41381804

Somehow I doubt that.

>>41381934

I kind of intermittently give a shit,. I'm not the first or the only person who has had issues dealing with the grim. As I said, we've lost over half of the fan base since this started (a huge chunk right after Lotus' custom hunter almost killed the entire party and carted them off into slavery). All I'm saying is that I want an end to Chekov's Guilt Gun and a little more moderation with the grim so we can get back to adventuring with less complications.

Lotus has solid technical writing skill, is extremely swift to produce content when motivated, and tells a generally fine story when all of the elements are in good working order. I'm concerned that he's sawing down the bearings of the main cast too quickly, bleeding long term investment on the immediate heat of emotional turmoil, but that's kind of his call to make at the end of the day.

>>41382744
I know how he means to end it. Barring catastrophic rolls, it's happy.

>>41382769

You've said this multiple times now, so honestly how do you know that? More pointedly, how would even he know that? The quest is predicated on what we as players choose, isn't it? For all he knows, we could fuck off to a tropical island and pick up sea turtle wrangling.

Now, if you would kindly explain yourself, it would be appreciated.

>>41382834

You know, sea turtle wrangling is kind of tempting now that you mention it. All the delicious meat creatures you can eat. Lots of swimming. No evil death shrines to apparently dickish gods.

Anybody else cool with this idea?

>>41383001
I'm down.

Question is, can Lotus write it.

>>41383021
No. The action slows down, he clocks out.