|
Frankly I'd do the opposite. Nalaal leading Zekiye and Ziqiya to Zozo, and Jadate with Rekha looking for an airship. Minna to whichever party promises more excitement (meeting another esper versus grand theft airship is a tough call). Nalaal being party leader makes sense since she's gunning to repay a debt, and then it could be leveraged into party talk just as she did before, this time with the added weight of smoothing teamwork. It may even give her sister a new light to see her in, leading a group...which frankly could go either way emotionally.
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 05:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:31 |
|
|
Minna leading Jadate and Rekha. Sure, sure, sisterly drama, but mostly I'm curious to see how a certain backstabbing mercenary interacts with a party that she has no idea is affiliated with However, I'm also going to sabotage my own vote and say Rekha: Do everything in your power (short of violence I guess) to try and keep Jadate from going to Zozo. Jadate may be an easy mark, but Chayma clearly wasn't buying your act, and you certainly don't trust her to play along for your sake. The moment the three of you are in a room together is the moment your meal ticket expires. Best to put that off as long as possible. Break out your biggest sob story, tell Jadate you've always dreamed of riding an airship, whatever it takes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 06:39
|
|
|
Let's send Minna, Nalaal, and Zekiye to Zozo. Jadate wants to take Rekha to Jidoor, and Ziqiya will probably want to get right on saving her wife. And don't blame me when Ghost Kefka comes crawling out of a TV like Sadako.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 08:34
|
|
|
Mildly Interesting posted:Let's send Minna, Nalaal, and Zekiye to Zozo. Jadate wants to take Rekha to Jidoor, and Ziqiya will probably want to get right on saving her wife. We have established vengeful ghost precedent...
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 10:44
|
|
|
Felinoid posted:Frankly I'd do the opposite. Nalaal leading Zekiye and Ziqiya to Zozo, and Jadate with Rekha looking for an airship. Minna to whichever party promises more excitement (meeting another esper versus grand theft airship is a tough call). Nalaal being party leader makes sense since she's gunning to repay a debt, and then it could be leveraged into party talk just as she did before, this time with the added weight of smoothing teamwork. It may even give her sister a new light to see her in, leading a group...which frankly could go either way emotionally. Voting this
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 11:44
|
|
|
Mildly Interesting posted:Let's send Minna, Nalaal, and Zekiye to Zozo. Jadate wants to take Rekha to Jidoor, and Ziqiya will probably want to get right on saving her wife. This here, is the right idea
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 12:48
|
|
|
Mildly Interesting posted:Let's send Minna, Nalaal, and Zekiye to Zozo. Jadate wants to take Rekha to Jidoor, and Ziqiya will probably want to get right on saving her wife. Voting for this but Zekiye leads the first group and tries to make sure Nalaal makes a fool of herslef in the big slum and the OP has to find a narrative way to make Rekha the lead of the second group as she tries to swindle some gold or itens for her own benefit in the rich side of the city. Great thread by the way.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 15:45
|
|
|
I can't believe Kefka is loving dead
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 19:21
|
|
|
I am salivating at that on-demand Quasar. The rando'd commands I got were not nearly that cool or that reliable. Ask me about R-ALL.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 20:54
|
|
|
Seraphic Neoman posted:Ask me about R-ALL. How many times did you have an attempt end due to rolling Alexander or Merton? IIRC W.Wind isn't a guaranteed party wipe, it just sets everyone to critical HP?
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2022 21:23
|
|
|
Seraphic Neoman posted:I am salivating at that on-demand Quasar. The rando'd commands I got were not nearly that cool or that reliable. From a stakes perspective, it's a neat twist that you guys voted for Rekha - a human battering ram - to be recalcitrant about helping the party. She has plenty of weaknesses and completely lacks flexibility, but she ruins formations of enemies like nothing else. If she'd been in the Narshe defense, Chayma and Nalaal would not have been dragging their bruised and bloodied feet through the snow. GunnerJ posted:I can't believe Kefka is loving dead PALAZZOS KILLED: 1/1 (I also can't believe you lunatics did it. Very, very funny.) When writing this segment, I was initially going to do the standard "Kefka escapes" thing. After all, she's so important to the rest of the story, right? If Ziqiya hadn't been the party leader - if it had been, for instance, Jadate or Minna - I wouldn't have given you guys the option to kill her. But because Ziqiya has high Anger and a personal beef, I figured it made for a really exciting decision point that arose from the stakes of the story.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 03:50
|
|
|
If this is for real, I feel a little guilty about how much rewriting of the whole story my vote contributed to forcing you to do 
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 04:11
|
|
|
I love this absolutely batshit romhack/interactive fiction nightmare 
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 04:19
|
|
|
GunnerJ posted:If this is for real, I feel a little guilty about how much rewriting of the whole story my vote contributed to forcing you to do I am looking forward to the final battle, where we face Emperor Gestahl in the guise of an angel. (Unless we end up killing her too! )
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 04:26
|
|
|
GunnerJ posted:If this is for real, I feel a little guilty about how much rewriting of the whole story my vote contributed to forcing you to do WELL...there is THAT ONE SCENE in the base game where Kefka proves an accomplished illusion mage. Or we could just get Final Fantasy VI Episode II: Attack of the Kefclones. Either way, my bet's on Real Fake Deaths.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 12:24
|
|
|
Gonna be hilarious when Kefka's evil twin, Akfek, shows up, and Ziqiya loses her poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 8, 2022 23:55
|
|
|
Capfalcon posted:Kefka's evil twin
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2022 04:41
|
|
|
Dallbun posted:So in this hypothetical scenario Kefka is the GOOD twin? Dear god I assume the only difference is the goatee.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2022 05:36
|
|
|
Dallbun posted:So in this hypothetical scenario Kefka is the GOOD twin? Dear god The evil twin is, of course, Mateus. Because he's everyone's evil twin.
|
|
#
?
Apr 9, 2022 09:10
|
|
|
Holy poo poo I love this, your writing style is simply sublime I look forward to reading more
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2022 21:55
|
|
|
Dallbun posted:So in this hypothetical scenario Kefka is the GOOD twin? Dear god Everything's... relative.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 00:47
|
|
|
14. The Magnanimity of Lord Ramuh Party selected.  Party leader... Jadate [3] Nalaal [2] Minna [4] Zekiye [1] You are now Minna dar Holm. It's only natural that the Returners would turn to you for wayfinding across the mountains. Jadate, who wants to find her friend as quickly as possible, is sure she can hike to Zozo from Narshe - but she's just as sure it'll take a couple weeks. Having spent years of your life on Crescent Mountain in the south of the Veldt, hiking its through trails and ascending its jagged chain of summits, you assure her this is gonna be a cakewalk.  You set off that afternoon. You have an instinct about some of the terrain you saw fighting through the snowdrifts - it soon bears out, and you blaze a trail up into the mountains that only involves about twenty minutes of free climbing. You sling and piton ropes as you go, so that Jadate can follow you up the cliff face. Rekha insists you devise a pulley system for her. You take this as an enjoyable challenge, rather than the terminus to the journey she'd maybe hoped for. She's spent the morning complaining to Jadate that she'd rather go to Jidoor, giving her a bunch of soft soap about airships and singing. Jadate seems torn, but she's clearly dead set on making sure Chayma's okay. She's reassuring the kid as best she can. Cattail Prophet posted:However, I'm also going to sabotage my own vote and say Rekha: Do everything in your power (short of violence I guess) to try and keep Jadate from going to Zozo. Jadate may be an easy mark, but Chayma clearly wasn't buying your act, and you certainly don't trust her to play along for your sake. The moment the three of you are in a room together is the moment your meal ticket expires. Best to put that off as long as possible. Break out your biggest sob story, tell Jadate you've always dreamed of riding an airship, whatever it takes. The sun is still at its balmy height when Rekha, lagging behind, pipes up.   The girl looks at you, her pout turning a touch calculating.   You return with sorrel flowers, and fill the kettle with them and a splosh of springwater. A few minutes later, once the flower's sticky sweetness is coaxed out of its buds, you spoon Rekha out a bowlful of fragrant sorrel stew.   Rekha sips from the side of her spoon, then looks carefully between you and Jadate. She pauses a second before speaking.     You beam as Rekha's cheeks flush with the sorrel, and recognise serenely that, if you weren't urgently needed in the fields of monster slaying and heroism, you could probably raise about six kids at once and they'd all turn out great.  Now that Rekha's back in the party, let's do a little breakdown on her vital statistics.  Rekha's pugnacious, but she's short for her age and, even though she's not really suffering from cardiac slippage, she's frail. She can only equip light armour, and when it comes to weaponry, she can't equip anything at all. The cutpurse's knife is all very well when you're slitting satchels, but she's not so keen on fighting monsters with a dagger.     You've tangled with these bugs on the Veldt - magpie mantis. They grab shiny objects from human settlements, then use their segmented legs to pop open corks, drink contents, and divebomb prey with the sharp end of weapons.   These Weed Feeders are ludicrously dangerous. This is where the difficulty curve stops playing around - this normally pedestrian enemy has rerolled into heavy item use. Not only do they have Megalixirs, they use the Throw command, hurling all kinds of high value weaponry at the party. Jadate pipes a virtuosic solo on the vanishing flute, and keeps most of the party invisible, causing what would be instant KO Throws to automatically miss.   It's just after sunset when you stride past Zozo's town boundaries, and the rain is coming down. Lamplight shines down from the high windows of the tenements.  You don't much rate this way of living, at a glance. The soil's entombed in concrete slabs and, by the looks of it, so are the people. Plus, there's a familiar, sour smell on the air...     More importantly, there was one - or more likely a gaggle of them - strolling down this street within the last hour or so.  Jadate hustles you up to the shelter of one of the tenement blocks, beneath a swinging sign that depicts a jolly yellow flan. You note the artist hasn't drawn its teeth or its digestion sac.     The man looks at Jadate through glazed eyes, then goes back to cleaning a glass. The air in here smells stale. Rekha is ahead of you, climbing the stairs and peering at the dining area.    The cafe's tables and the kitschy art you might expect have been cleared out. Liquor bottles lie strewn on the floor: a sack of flour from the kitchen is lying atop them, slowly decanting itself into the flooarboards. Signs from other businesses have been hauled in here, hanging on blank walls.  You duck your head out into the street, and see the silhouettes of distant people in a different light. You look at them with the eye you'd use for judging the health of an animal, and that fixes it in your mind. If you were watching an antelope with that erratic, disoriented gait, you'd think it was so starved it was hallucinating. They're not out for an evening stroll: they're wandering, listless, erratic, like the proprietor of the Fried Flan.   Jadate's face is riven with an expression of dismay. Sometimes, when you see a particularly benighted person stumbling through the streets, it moves over to disgust.    Your instincts are abuzz. When this was a normal town, it was Jadate's time on point - but now that it's a wild place, it has to be yours.  Something very bad happened here. You've seen a Morbol herd leaving swampland in their squirming wake, and wyverns ripping stone from the mountainside, but you've never seen anything like this. Either it's some kind of natural disaster, or this problem has its root in something that moves and breathes and thinks. And if it moves and breathes and thinks, you can put it in a headlock.     The hazer whisker you found earlier soon makes sense. Monsters that once would have been fended off by Zozo's militia lurch through alleyways, drift through the windows of the tenements.   The mountain gigas moans, its huge face superficially human. You've tangled with these things before: just hit the knee, and -     - okay, so you haven't tangled with the local variation! How did that work? Are they full of phlegethon, like a steam wyvern? The Hades Gigas here have rerolled their normal complement of physical attacks into Blaze, Fire Wall and Exploder. Their bellies full of fire, these gigantic homunculi are drawn to places that long to be burned down.  You lope around the stacked stairwells inside the tenement block, almost unable to believe that people live here. From some doors people stare at you dim-eyed: others are closed, but you can hear shuffling footsteps behind the peepholes.          Rekha squinches her face in an expression of exaggerated determination.       To dip into mechanics for a second here, Rekha's kit is direct, but within that it has its advantages. FirePla deals its massive single target damage with a combination of two elements, Fire and Lightning - so it's more likely to hit weaknesses and less likely to be totally resisted or absorbed. Case in point: even though these Bombs absorb Fire, they're vulnerable to Lightning, so FirePla still oneshots them.  The door's blocked. You get a two step run-up and crack the planking with a roundhouse kick, but through the hole, you see the problem: the stairwell above is full of old furniture, tumbling down the stairs in some citizen's effort to form an utterly shambolic barricade.   You eyeball the broken window frame, set your pose, and spring forward, landing on your heels. Easy!    A corkboard is peppered with steel darts, not thrown but pressed in by their points. You pluck one free and heft it: solid steel, fletched with feathers. These belonged to a hunter.   The Darts are a modest weapon upgrade for Minna, and with them, her Battle Power breaks 200.   You haul aside tin lockers and chests of drawers, admitting Jadate and Rekha through. Rekha looks at you with mild wonder: you grin at her gamely. It's always great when someone realises you're a big deal. The stairwell opens into an apartment that's been hollowed out, and converted into a lobby. Through it dozens of people queue in a seemingly senseless line; you can see they're bearing bundles of old clothes, baskets of food, scraps of crumpled paper.      You make it to the front of the line, begin to ascend the clinking, creaking staircase, and -    This is Dadaluma, who can be a gruelling boss if your party relies on weapon swings or spellcasting. He counters repeated use of the Fight and Magic commands with punishing martial arts techniques - unfortunately for him, Minna dar Holm has ways of fighting he's not prepared for.     You piston your fist into your opponent's belly, feel his weight flip over your shoulder, and flip him upside down in a twenty foot vertical jump. His collarbone crunches. Amazingly, he's still standing.     Jadate douses him in an illusory tidal wave: he shrugs it off, blinking and laughing as the illusion fails to hold. Rekha's dancing flames coalesce on the martial artist's skin, then redouble themselves with lances of blinding plasma. He cries out with jubilant pain, stepping freely through the searing lights.    You stay at close quarters, moving through the slatted gaps in Rekha's lightshow. Despite yourself, you're grinning at the challenge of it: you throw the man again, whirling him over your back in a reverse piledriver, and he handsprings to his feet, yelling repetitions of his loyalty and devotion. You could do without that, but he fights well.     He whistles, and two more supplicants drop down from the exterior stairs. Rekha shows them her teeth; her arm outstretched, she rips open a dizzying path to the stars.    That's about all she wrote for this guy. He drops to the gridded metal, whimpering and wailing, covering his eyes. [CHECK: Compassion] Minna considers her fallen opponent... [Minna's Compassion is higher than her Anger.] Minna recalls the importance of mercy. You clink a bottle of Tonic down by his side as you step over him. He's clearly not in his right mind - and besides, he gave you a good fight. After seeing Ziqiya thrust the spear into Kefka's heart, you don't have a huge appetite for grinding the boot down on a guy you already beat. Honestly, that moment made you seriously consider your affinity with Nalaal's Returners. It's not like you think the Imperial sorcerer was a good guy - she was clearly the exact opposite. But that was cold, ugly, and not a good vibe at all.  Jadate's a good time, though. Nalaal, too. And that kid Zekiye has a one-two punch you need to talk to her about.  Oh, this guy sucks.  Behind you, Rekha snickers.  She speaks at the side of her mouth, in a low voice, to you.   You can hear that the deferential words are sour in Jadate's mouth, but she speaks them anyway. Part of a bard's job is buttering people up, you guess.    Your canine teeth touch together in your mouth. You're aware you're not meant to wrestle either old men or Espers, for very different reasons, but both those prohibitions are starting to feel eminently ignorable.   Rekha doesn't look too put out about Chayma's absence, but she crosses her arms anyway.     Jadate lifts the flute strapped to her belt. Its umber topaz glints, and the metal vibrates slightly. A single plaintive note blows through the instrument, unbidden.      Jadate draws in most of a gasp before swallowing it.    You can see Jadate is struggling to process this. She holds the vanishing flute in the crook of her palm, looking at it like it's suddenly grown a lit fuse. quote:A splash of mechanics... Jadate's too shaken up. You're gonna have to take the lead.        Rekha scrunches up her nose.          Jadate's eyes stay deferential while she's looking at Ramuh, but you watch her mouth tauten with outrage.   You are now Rekha Halfpenny. You conspicuously do not comment on Jadate and Minna holding each other back. You don't necessarily want to be involved, but it would be extremely cool to watch Minna do a piledriver on a lightning god. You are now Minna dar Holm.     Three glimmering jewels, a pulse of lively light at the centre of each, drift down from the ceiling.      When the sparks of hyper-exposure fade from your eyes, the magicite crystals are no longer a trio. A fourth has joined them, its umber surface nestled in the cushions of Ramuh's chair.     Guess you've gotta figure out where to go from here. Who should bond with which Esper? Mechanically, characters without the Magic command - Rekha and Jadate, in our case - can't use the spells taught by Espers or summon them in combat, but they do gain the attribute boosts on level up from junctioning them. This is a crucial part of character building, and will ensure that they don't fall behind later in the game! Pick from the whole party here! Our heroes will be meeting up with the Figaro sisters and Ziqiya soon, and when they do, everyone will have a chance to pore over the magicite.  Bismarck - Profundity, Oceans, Travel   Carbuncle - Concealment, Protection, Servitude   Shoat - Outrage, Envy, Stillness   Ramuh - Wisdom, Authority, Illumination 
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2022 20:28
|
|
|
Hm. I'd be a little uneasy about taking Ramuh up on this power, personally...but who knows how he'd react to being rejected? Accordingly, Jadate gets Ramuh, at least until we know how much influence he actually has in this state. Best to keep him happy. Zekiye gets Shoat, Rekha gets Carbuncle, and Minna gets Bismarck. They seem to be good fits for their respective personalities. That does leave two of our natural mages without an esper, but I feel like Nalaal and Ziqiya might be a little hesitant to go messing around with newly-found espers, for different reasons.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2022 23:43
|
|
|
Jadate - Ramuh Rekha - Carbuncle Zekiye - Shoat Nalaal - Bismarck
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2022 08:03
|
|
|
Wait, can Rekha not equip any weapons the party currently has, or can she seriously not equip any weapons? Is that a thing Beyond Chaos will do to characters? Anyway, I'm gonna be boring and give all the mages an Esper. Let's see. Shoat is outrage and envy? Zekiye is already full up on envy and Ziqiya is a little... stabby, so they're out. Between Minna and Nalaal, I say give Shoat to Nalaal, because she can probably handle the negative influence better, and also because an outraged Nalaal frightens me less than an outraged Minna. Zekiye is trying her best to be a good queen, so let's give her Ramuh for that wisdom and authority. That leaves either Carbuncle or Bismarck for Ziqiya, and she's already had a lifetime of servitude, so she deserves a break. Let Minna take Carbuncle and protect people smaller and weaker than her, it'll play to her ego. Bismarck - Ziqiya Carbuncle - Minna Shoat - Nalaal Ramuh - Zekiye
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2022 14:40
|
|
|
Mildly Interesting posted:Wait, can Rekha not equip any weapons the party currently has, or can she seriously not equip any weapons? Is that a thing Beyond Chaos will do to characters? She can't equip weapons at all. Beyond Chaos shuffles weapon proficiencies (and alters some of them), and there's one character in baseline FF6 who can't equip weapons, Gau. Rekha rolled his weapon proficiency. Her Fight command is pretty much never gonna be relevant barring some outside chance developments. She's still a strong character, though, as some of the battles in the update demonstrate! She's just severely lacking breadth. She has four excellent spells and casts them with very good action efficiency at no mana cost, but she really has no flex outside of that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2022 14:55
|
|
|
Incidentally, the way Minna handled Rekha was superb. Just completely brazenly turning all the bullshit around on her
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2022 20:15
|
|
|
Updated the dramatis personae! It's been a little bit, but Minna's now in our list of heroes. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Incidentally, the way Minna handled Rekha was superb. Just completely brazenly turning all the bullshit around on her Minna is the type of person who hears an excuse and takes it as a personal affront that any obstacle to the path of her will could ever exist, anywhere. I had fun writing that, and I'm glad it was fun to read! Open party selection is a great exercise in discovering new character dynamics. Like, I didn't plan for dialogue between Minna and Rekha, but because you guys voted for them to be grouped together, now they have a back and forth. Fun! clockwork chaos posted:Holy poo poo I love this, your writing style is simply sublime Thanks! Glad to have you reading along. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2022 14:21
|
|
|
Android Blues posted:
That's the great thing, though, sometimes characters have a surprisingly good dynamic! It's always just a little bit weird to think about having a group of four people who feel more like two pairs, and I'm similarly always happy to see when someone avoids writing that way, because it's a really easy trap to fall into.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2022 17:58
|
|
|
15. The Side Bet  You are now Nalaal Xandros Figaro. Jidoor's beautiful, but it hasn't been a great experience so far. Zekiye barely talks to you - and after Narshe, your easy camaraderie with Ziqiya seems a little bumpier.  Above a poster advertising THE ESPER'S THRONE, there is stapled a poster declaring that five women - surly but reasonable likenesses of you, Kiye, Jadate, Minna and Ziqiya - are wanted by Imperial authorities and that information leading to your arrest will be remunerated.  Ziqiya doesn't look buoyed by this at all. Instead, she sinks deeper into reticence.  You take the hint from the wanted poster. When you gather to assay the airship docks, you do so in the disguises Jadate prepped for you.  Baskets of pot pourri hang from the eaves of balconies. You grew up in a castle, and these people still look rich.   The ship canvassing for passengers at the moment is a leisure zeppelin, promising a cruise around the southern continent. The interior is luxurious, decorated so that the space punches above its actual size, and could almost trick you into thinking it's a real casino. Some day customers are piling up chips at the tables, making small bets while the felt's in town.  The captain greets you on the viewing deck. She rolls her arms through the curlicues of an elaborate bow.      You all exchange a look.           You are escorted off the Side Bet with a haste that threatens to upend its aura of genteel hospitality. The captain personally prods you in the back as you descend the boarding ramp, as if she's afraid you might take up and sleep here.     A knock at the door interrupts you. Jadate and Minna tumble in, road-beaten, with Rekha following in their wake.  You are now Zekiye Lexos Figaro.  You turn it over in your palm, careful to touch it with only the tips of your fingers. You can feel it reacting with the magic already in you - it's not a pleasant feeling. It feels like the emptiness of a caried tooth. You can work with that. Emptiness means space to build in.  [Zekiye bonds with Shoat.] You are now Jadate Jhaum. Rekha's holding the turquoise magicite, pearled through with ruby veins, close to her chest. Spotting you looking, she tucks it into the collar of her dress, then flashes you a look that seems involuntary - like an animal hiding food. If the Esper calls to her, you guess she can take care of it. You unfold a spare bag from your satchel, cross-body cotton with a brass button, and slip the strap over her head.  [Rekha bonds with Carbuncle.] A change purse is a start, but you need to get the kid some new clothes. The woolen smock she's wearing is apparently what the Imperial army valued her at. Your blood has a high boiling point, but that at least raises it to a gentle simmer. You guess you're stuck with Ramuh. What's changed, really? Apparently you've been playing a duet with the most odious supernatural being imaginable since you came into possession of "his" flute. That really scrapes the tin. You've played some wonderful tunes on this flute - many of them associated with memories of daring escapes or artful misdirections. Now every melody is smudged with the thumbprint of a hoary old patriarch from a thousand years ago. Not your ideal collaborator. [Jadate bonds with Lord Ramuh.] Only one magicite crystal is left - it's sapphire, whorled through with a layer of what looks like an ammonite fossil. You are now Nalaal Xandros Figaro. Something about the last crystal resonates with you. As you look at it, a sense of calm and distance settles over you, the stiff whorl of the ammonite promising answers to fundamental questions. Your hand settles on it at the same time as Minna's does.   [Minna bonds with Bismarck.] (Minna and Nalaal were tied for Bismarck, and since Minna's a touch more assertive, she gets the rock. Maybe not forever - we'll see!) Haar_Dragon posted:Nalaal: Keep trying to work things out with your sister. It'll be tough, for sure, but even if you have to start completely from scratch, it's something worth holding onto.    You rotate that image in your head. You didn't think it of Ziqiya. Your heart twinges a little. Maybe in the moment it was different - unavoidable. You notice your sister looking at you, her lips tight, and realise that this is a sore spot for her, too.   You wince at that, but don't break eye contact with Zekiye. She's trying hard, here - you have to recognise that.         Zekiye takes a deep breath. You catch yourself doing the same thing.        She shows you a fraction of a smile, tears in her eyes. It vanishes after a second.   You embrace. You didn't hug much as kids - when Zekiye was small she sometimes clung to you like a limpet, but your tutor in courtly etiquette soon put a stop to that. Fortunately, one of the good things you learned studying under Master Duncan was how to acknowledge your emotions.   Nalaal tries her hardest... Zekiye stops pushing her sister away. Zekiye's Friendship [0 > 1] Nalaal's Fear [2 > 1] You are now Rekha Halfpenny.   You spend a profitable afternoon in the auction house, pretending to be someone's daughter. The particular someone doesn't matter: so long as they've recently left the room and the crowd has shuffled around enough, you can keep on filching pocketwatches and paper money, plus a few worthless but interestingly patterned handkerchiefs, through the gaps in the seats with an impenetrable disguise. Anyone who turns around to look at you gets the full force doe eyes and an explanation that you're looking for your parents in a voice a whole octave higher than your natural register. People in Vector are wise to this, but in Jidoor they apparently sweep the homeless kids off the streets, presumably so they can send them to some kind of box home in Zozo. As such, you're discovering that this town is full of more suckers than a plunger warehouse.    Huh. You briefly dream of having ten thousand gil. You have a sketchy idea at best of the value of money, but you think that could probably buy you either a thousand jars of honey clusters, or a large house. Fun daydream, but it's not like you can sing. You're about to let the idea go - and then you see the portrait of the opera starlet on a poster down a street, and the sepia advertisement pasted over it.    You cough weakly.  You see Jadate think for a second.   Jadate has a choice. A) Reveal Nalaal and Zekiye's royal status to the captain, and bank on her wanting to show off celebrity passengers before she turns you all in for the bounty. B) Sneak on board the Side Bet. The vanishing flute isn't the most reliable source of invisibility, but maybe now you've literally got Ramuh in your pocket, you'll connect with its magic better. C) Bank on Rekha's opera career taking off. I mean, you can busk up money for cruise tickets in the meantime, but it might be good for the kid's self-esteem to support her dreams and give her a measure of responsibility. Android Blues fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Apr 24, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2022 23:58
|
|
|
C.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 00:38
|
|
|
Isn't Rekha still pretty young? Seems a bit hard to imagine her in opera. Particularly given her disposition, though that could be fun, too. That said, given you're all traveling with the real queen of Figaro, it's a risky proposition. B, unless there's a tie, in which case, C.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 01:08
|
|
|
Let's go with C, let her audition. Rekha's had a rough go of it, being an expendable artillery piece. She deserves a chance to really do something. It's not like she has any kind of underlying motives, right? I must confess that I'm a little tempted to vote for "steal the ship" to see how you handle that, but Rekha deserves a nice thing. Even if the nice thing she's chasing isn't the one she says she's chasing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 01:11
|
|
|
I'm gonna vote for C, but either way, if it's at all possible, please record video of the opera and share it with us. I know it won't have your custom dialog on it, but I wanna see it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 01:27
|
|
|
What if... C, but Zekiye is feeling out of sorts due to the magicite exposure and her emotional conversation and has seen the same poster and makes an impulsive decision to try for the same part. Jokes aside, C nonetheless for the sheer chaos of it all.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 02:31
|
|
|
C, but with B as a backup plan if Rekha fails the audition.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 03:39
|
|
|
I vote C because the moment Rekha was introduced all I could think was "I can't wait to find out how the gently caress this kid ends up in an opera"
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 03:51
|
|
|
C! Rekha needs a hobby other than pickpocketing... and if the Captain wants either money or fame to get on the Side Bet, surely having both the fare *and* a famous breakout opera star will get the party the nicest rooms. (Okay, so Rekha's a little young for casinos... but I bet she'd be darn good at hustling the rich folks on the airship.) Of course, not knowing how to sing might be a wee obstacle for our intrepid orphan... but hey! She's got a bardic tutor right here to put her through musical cram school. I'd agree that B is a good backup plan, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 06:29
|
|
|
C. Zikiye might be briefly offended that someone is putting on a play about her without consulting with her first, but she'll probably accept it if Rekha lets her study her. P.S. Zikiye, study Rekha. Think of how much you can learn about magitek infusion! Maybe even enough to become a calm, stable, emotionally centered living weapon instead of the other kind. The Kefka-y kind.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 08:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:31 |
|
|
Oh hell yeah, C, lfg
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2022 15:13
|
|