>>1073258
[ ] Sight! Find the glowiest places!

>Sound! Bushy things doing stuff!
Also love these thread Mitts

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>>1073280

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Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>1073273
>>1073280

(K, I'll decide via DICE)

>>1073258
>[x] Scent! Tasty things to be had!

>>1073384
Damn, just as I was about to create a three-way tie.

>>1073258
>[ ] Sound! Bushy things doing stuff!

If that roll hasn't gone through yet...

Lulette has an interesting thought process.

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Dropping closer to ground (branch-?) level and vanishing from sight, you fly through the village. You see bushes gather next to the lake, the varied fluty whistles building up to their equivalent of a rowdy, energetic ambiance. There’s still a lot of them in some of the bigger huts, but you decide to go elsewhere.

There’s a spot further away where some smaller bushes have gathered, the source of playful noise. Children, definitely. Because they’re smaller than you. Shrubs!

A bunch of them run about on a small open field. They use little leafy legs to kick a ball of brambles up through the air in high arcs, their colours swirling energetically.

They’re split into two groups of four so it’s probably a team game. You think that ball is going to break apart soon though, with how each hit makes shreds of it disappear into the wind.

There’s three of them on the bark and timber ground off to the side talking to each other as well.


>

[ ] Join the game! Cheat! Very hard!
[ ] Join the game! But play fair, because that’s the right thi- pffthaha-
[ ] Listen to the shrubs talking!
[ ] Drop onto one of the three shrubs!

>>1073506
>[ ] Listen to the shrubs talking!

Tell us secrets!

>>1073506
>[ ] Join the game! But play fair, because that’s the right thi- pffthaha-
>Cheat! Very hard!

>>1073506
>>[ ] Join the game! But play fair, because that’s the right thi- pffthaha-
>>Cheat! Very hard!

>>1073506
>Join the game! But play fair, because that’s the right thi- pffthaha-
> Join the game! Cheat! Very hard!

>>1073506
>[x] Listen to the shrubs talking!

>>1073506
>[ ] Listen to the shrubs talking!
Tie breaker!

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>>1073590

>Tie breaker!
> 3 to 3


(I can... kinda write for both. Maybe.)

You float closer to the shrubs talking, hovering in the air invisible next to them.

“Hyuuuuu hooo.”

“Fuu uu fuuuu.”

Ohh, hmm. You’d be worried too, you think.

“Huu oo huuuuu huuu.”

“Uuuu-uu wuuuu, uuu?”

Hmm, hmm.

Yes, but if the bigger ones can take care of things then it’s okay, right?

“Fuuu fyuuuu uu fuuu.”

“Uuuu.”

Hmm, hmm, yes.

You stop pretending to understand their conversation and instead fly over to where the ball game is happening. One of the shrubs is now sitting by the side of the field, though after watching for a moment you have no idea what the rules of the game are.

Which doesn’t matter. Obviously.

You watch where the ball is flying. Holding up your pot, you then pick a shrub and flip his vision upside down, appearing in his place to punt the bramble-ball into the air!

“Kneel! Behold! The Fae Lord Of The West graces you with her presence!”

Lots of high pitched hoots and rustling meet your grand entrance, but one of the shrubs manages to gather his wits to meet the ball with a kick!

But that ball is fake. The real one falls out of the air and onto his leaf-framed probably-his-face.

It’s mostly just twigs and weeds, but the impact elicits a wailing “uuuuuuuu” anyway. You jump and catch the wind with your gossamer wings, cackling while invisibility takes your form from sight.

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>>1073782

You fly through the village, satisfied with meeting your hourly mischief quota.

The light dims by the minute, and soon the little shrub bushes you just visited are hopping along towards the center of the village by the bowl-lake. The crowd grows louder still with their higher-pitched hooting joining the noise.

The bush creatures take ground (branch) space haphazardly. It looks like they make their food mostly out of leaves, fruits, and seeds.

Bush things eat plants, apparently.

You flit down and take a browned rolled-up leaf filled with a flowery mush, biting off from one end. The outside is crisp and spicy, and the inside is smooth and sweet. You fly up and find a branch to sit on, chewing your food held in one hand while using the other to balance Bob’s clay pot.

Bob eats insects. You think. Actually you’re pretty sure Bob eats everything, or at least tries to.

...

You blink, and notice something’s wrong. A feeling like a chilling breeze.

The crowd below is a quieter as well. Scanning the village from your position lets you spot a few bush creatures afar, closer to where the main branch gets thicker and joins up with the super big tree.

One of those bushes has a strong glow, but he’s moving towards something that takes the colour from the air around it.


>

[ ] Go investigate yourself.
[ ] Fly over to those bush creatures.
[ ] Is there a crow up here? Ask it things.

>>1073794
>[ ] Go investigate yourself.

>>1073794
>[ ] Fly over to those bush creatures.

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Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>1073798
>>1073823

(Save me DICE)

>>1073794
>[ ] Is there a crow up here? Ask it things.
Then
>[ ] Go investigate yourself.

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A splash of black. A crow perched on a branch above; not one you’ve met. He looks down at you and caws.

Corruption?

The stuff from before. The stuff that shouldn’t be here, or anywhere.

You hop off your own branch and fly towards the... disturbance. The thing that steals colour and makes the air wrong. Getting closer makes you start to feel off, shivering in your skin from something unpleasant and unseen. Bob shrinks, trying to dig himself into the dirt of the clay pot.

The wood of the main branch starts to look softer and weakened as it joins up with the giant tree’s trunk. Close to that point there are two figures - two bush creatures, but not in a state you could call healthy or well.

Their leaves are dark and brown, withering and decayed, falling off the twig-like branches that make up their body. They shriek and whistle, piercing and broken unlike the low, smooth, airy sound you’ve grown to expect.

They’re also reaching into themselves with their thin arms and tearing things out with crackling snaps.

That’s clearly not right.

The bushes you saw earlier are approaching. One looks gray and moves with a hobble, supporting himself with a long staff as a walking stick, but is wreathed in a strong, pale green glow.


>

[ ] Stop the two withering bushes!
[ ] Help the gray bush!
[ ] Retrieve your goat!

>>1074080
>Help the gray bush!

Goat can sense these things. She'll be along...hopefully.

>>1074080
>[ ] Help the gray bush!

>>1074080
>Help the gray bush!

>>1074080
>[ ] Stop the two withering bushes!

>>1074080
So the corruption is inside them and they are trying to get it out?
> help the gray bush.
He looks like he knows what he is doing. He might appreciate a song to lift his spirits though.

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If you strain yourself, you can hear bleating from somewhere in the distance.

The gray bush is being lead by two other bush creatures. They move close to the withering bushes, their colours straining against the dark nothingness that seeps through the space.

The darkened, decaying ones seem to notice, reaching out with spindly hands, wailing, their fallen and falling leaves crackling against the ground.

Thick club-like branches appear from the bush creatures’ leafy bodies, swinging through the air roughly and pushing back the withered bushes. Confused mayhem, one side desperate and scrabbling and the other holding back for fear of the safety of their brethren.

There’s a low, ethereal drone, and energy flows through the Veil around the gray bush. Verdant green picks at otherworldly black, and the sickened bushes’ shrieking grows louder.

This is a little bit dangerous. Whatever the gray bush is doing is slow, and the bush thingies look like they could hurt each other. You should help!

But how?

Well, when a fairy doesn’t know what to do or just wants something to happen, they will always default to one action:

Throw dust everywhere.

You float down over the fighting and pull out from nowhere a leaf bundled up with its own stem. The gray bush notices you, possibly alarmed but you don’t understand bush expressions anyway- so you untie your bundle and tip out over four bushes about two big handfuls of shimmering powder.

Helping!

Your dust lands on the bushes. A small pillar of wood erupts from under one, tripping him over and knocking him out on the ground. One of the withered bushes turns a brilliant neon blue and faints. The remaining two keel over, open what you presume passes for their mouths, and proceed to spew multi-coloured liquid over the branch-ground below them.

... Helping?

>>1074453

The low rumbling sound stops abruptly and energy pulses through the air, flooding towards the withered bushes and tearing out from each of them slimey, horrible things that shouldn’t be. Wooden limbs fly from around the gray bush and surround the corruption in a spherical cage that pulls together and crushes them, leaking a black goo that fragments and dissipates into the air.

At that, the feeling in the air, the unpleasantness mixed with the electrifying sense of power, starts to die down, and things grow quiet enough so that you can hear the lively hoots coming from the center of the village again.

The aftermath looks like a total mess.

Which might be partially your fault.

You vanish from sight again and start to take off, but then yelp as a spindly twiggy arm reaches out and snaps you out of the sky by the foot.

You’re about the same size, but the gray bush manages to hold you up in front of him from under your arms. You still don’t read bush expressions, but you’re pretty sure he’s a bit peeved.

... Eheh?

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That's all for this session! Hope you all found Lulette's perspective to be a fun little jaunt!

A certain goat will be back next time, continuing in somewhere between 43-44 hours.

>>1074496
Thanks for running! That bush should be grateful, he would have taken forever without our help.

>>1074453
>If you strain yourself, you can hear bleating from somewhere in the distance.
NOOO! Don't hurt Baphy! She's too pure!

>>1074473
>you’re pretty sure he’s a bit peeved.
Say "You're Welcome" and disappear with a POOF!, taking advantage of his shock to escape.

>>1074496
Oooh, that's the same girl that you normally have in the OP, right? Is there more art of her?

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Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgW1EKWWcO4


Morning birdsong is a little different here, filled with sharp squawks and cries you don't recognise. You're in a big pointed hut, curled up on the floor next to your brown wolf and little fairy and teethy plant friends.

The bush thing that lead you up here got dragged off, maybe to get scolded, and you ended up in this hut getting acquainted with the natives. That is, you got surrounded by a few dozen curious bush creatures that insisted on poking you and touching your horns

It was okay.

You know something bad happened that night too, but the bushes didn't let you leave. Things turned out fine anyway, and then a bush with graying leaves came to the hut and handed you a giggling fairy.

Lulette regaled a bunch of small bushes with how she saved the village from certain ickiness, and though you’re pretty sure they couldn’t understand a word, from their bristling and rustling it seemed like they were having fun anyway.

Apparently the bush things go to sleep, and do so wherever they happen to be. The hut now has a carpet of twigs and leaves covering it that sways gently without wind.

Ashtia is for some reason covered in them. The wolf is awake, and not amused.

You sit up and stretch, flopping around the floor of the hut for your shovel and bucket. There’s things you want to do, but you have a feeling the villagers are a little cautious of you. You might be the only goat here, after all.


>

[ ] Stay for a while, find someone to talk to. Maybe you shouldn’t run around just yet.
[ ] Go outside, explore. Find interesting things, and wonder what happened last night.
[ ] You don’t want to stay long. You should go look for the witch.

>>1081421
>[ x] Go outside, explore. Find interesting things, and wonder what happened last night.
Let's go do goat things.

>>1079390
(Same girl, but sadly I think that's all the art there is of her.)

>>1081421
> go explore
> ignore the sounds of twigs snapping underfoot

>>1081421
>[ ] Go outside, explore. Find interesting things, and wonder what happened last night.

>>1081421
>Go outside, explore. Find interesting things, and wonder what happened last night.

>>1081456
*underhoof

>>1081510
But we have feet, right? We're not a faun or anything, we're a goat girl.

>>1081521
Pretty sure we are a goat

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>>1081510
>>1081521
>>1081527
(>>1081421 Those socks are pretty hoofy. Heh.

I'm writing. I literally never call votes.)

>>1081533
.... So wait, are we some sorta goat-taur, a faun, or just a girl with goat horns and a tail?

>>1081538

(I've always used >>1081421 and >>1074496 as Baphy's appearance. So the latter-most?)

>>1081542
Thanks, clears that up.

>>1081527
GET FUCKED

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You drag your shovel and bucket to a clearer spot along the wall of the hut, then walk over to Ashtia and gently move the sleeping bushes off her and onto the floor one by one. Underneath the pile you uncover Lulette. The fairy rubs her eyes and floats into the air lazily, reaching out for her clay pot.

The wolf stands and shakes the leaf scraps off of her. You carefully tiptoe over the now-floor-pile of bushes back to your shovel and bucket.

By the open entrance of the hut is a small bush thing with leaves tinged yellow, holding a looped branch or twig with offshoot leaves growing out of it haphazardly. She’s slowly rotating the loop, and watches you with mild disinterest.

You vaguely remember being introduced to this bush yesterday night, before becoming swarmed by the other villagers. You think she is your guide, or guard, or caretaker, or something.

Anyway. You leave the hut with Ashtia and Lulette, and the yellow bush follows along.

It’s before sunrise, the cold air misty and humid. There’s some bush things around, but the village is fairly quiet as you walk along the main branch that gives it shape.

Your shoes are still wet and muddy from yesterday’s travel. You hope the bush things don’t mind.

One of the bigger huts you come across feels lively with several bush creatures shuffling about, so you take a look inside. Strung up from the marsh wood and bark that forms its walls are a bunch of hammocks, and in many of them rest weak-looking bushes. One of them is a very bright blue for some reason.

Other villagers move around the space attending to the ill, holding erratically-shaped bowls or plates and carrying leaves and fruits from various containers around the place. Like the entire village, everything looks more grown than made.

Lulette has disappeared. You notice the yellow bush is looking at you.


>

[ ] You wonder if you can help.
[ ] Look at some of those leaves and fruits.
[ ] Examine one of the weak-looking bushes.

>>1081588
>You wonder if you can help.
>Examine one of the weak-looking bushes.

Sing to it! It might make it feel better.

>>1081588
>You wonder if you can help.

>>1081588
Examine one of the weak-looking bushes.

>>1081588
>>You wonder if you can help.
>>Examine one of the weak-looking bushes.

The yellow bush stops rotating her loop and points to you.

You tilt your head. Then you remember you still have a vine of two phirin fruits around your neck. You pull the bumpy fruits off one at a time, and wonder if they’re supposed to work on small bush creatures.

The yellow bush reaches out with a twiggy hand, so you give her the two fruits. She takes them and stuffs them into her torso. There’s a... whirring sound, short and jarring, then she takes out little triangular pieces of cut up phirin fruits and heads towards one of the other bush creatures moving around the hut.

Okay then.

You walk up to one of the hammocks, the one whose inhabitant is almost painfully bright blue. That’s probably not the original colour of his leaves. For a moment there’s a soft, bell-like giggling in the air.

The bush’s leaves are wilted, some of them having already fallen to the floor below. He seems peaceful though, sleeping.

This would be one of the bush creatures that Lulette talked about. One who had something bad torn out of his inside. The leafy thing will be fine with rest, but for now his swirling glow remains thin and slow.

Glow?


> See The Veil: Roll 1d100, DC 70

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>1081708

Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>1081708

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>>1081719
Damn, why do I bother rolling on thse sometimes.

>>1081729
RIP

I can only hope a bonus of ours can beat the DC

>>1081734
They could still make a roll to save this. Or another anon hopefully shows up to do it.
>>1081637

Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>1081708
Saved?

Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>1081708
Let's try.

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(Trying was had.)

Rolled 40 (1d100)

>>1081708

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There’s something, a quiet, whispy something that moves sedately about the bush creature. A tie, a mark, a ripple on the surface of water. Something not physical.

It’s small for this one, but larger for others. More energetic, alive. Both under and over there’s a beat, a regular, pulsing wave of some spectral colour.

You shake your head and blink, and it’s gone save for a dizziness.

Why did it feel so familiar?

Lulette appears out of the air and drops onto your shoulders, resting her clay pot on its spot atop your head. Ashtia picks herself up; apparently one of the bush creatures gave her a long, rough-looking leaf, and the wolf is chewing it leisurely.

You leave the hut feeling a little disconcerted.


>

[ ] Lulette told you where stuff happened yesterday night. Go there and look around.
[ ] There should be a crow around here. You did want to pester the witch.
[ ] That gray bush seemed important. Maybe you should meet him properly.

>>1081854
> go find some seeds to pester the crow with
Do crow's eat seeds? Maybe in thinking of parrots.

>>1081854
>[ ] That gray bush seemed important. Maybe you should meet him properly.

>>1081854
>[ ] That gray bush seemed important. Maybe you should meet him properly.

>>1081862
They'll eat pretty much anything edible, though they prefer meat.

>>1081866
>>1081872
But we can't even talk to the bushes! What are we going to do, wave at him then stand there expectantly while everyone else just glances around awkwardly?

>>1081898
sing to him of course.
music is the universal language.

>>1081854
>That gray bush seemed important. Maybe you should meet him properly.

You let the strangeness disappear into the light of sunrise, light orange rays illuminating the morning mist. There’s more bushes out now and your group draws looks from those nearby. Some of them make low whistles you think directed at the yellow-leafed bush following you, but she just continues turning the twig loop in her hands.

Lulette did talk about the gray bush that appeared with her yesterday, and he sounded important so you decide to look for him. Not that you have any familiarity with little walking bush creature culture, but still.

Important stuff is probably in or near the bigger huts. That makes sense.

Whether that thought lends your meandering any direction you can’t tell, but you do run into the gray-leafed bush eventually.

You might have lost Ashtia and Lulette somewhere along the way. No, they’re somewhere behind you. The former is being covered by the latter plus a pile of little shrubs that woke up with too much energy.

The gray-leafed bush is at one edge of the village’s main branch, leaning against his walking staff. There’s a crow up above, ruffling its feathers on its perch. You don’t understand their exchange, though the crow looks at you before flying off.

>>1082150

You walk up to the gray-leafed bush and he turns to you.

“Hi.”

...

“I’m Baphy.”

He makes a low hoot.

Introduction successful.

Standing here, you can sense whatever’s happening to the swamp again. It feels a bit distant, a nearly silent ringing in your ears. You shift to the side and look past the gray-leafed bush.

The wood and bark that makes up your footing seems to get softer, darker with distance, but it’s difficult to see with the fog. Far further is the gigantic tree trunk that the branch grows out of, which is definitely out of sight right now.

The gray-leafed bush looks past you as well, at the wolf being converted into a shrub-and-fairy carriage. He then turns to follow your gaze, and makes another hoot.

Quiet, quivering, but strong.


>

[ ] You wanna help. Convince him you’re a useful goat.
[ ] You’re gonna do stuff. Go past him and check out the branch closer to the trunk.
[ ] Other?

>>1082159
>You wanna help. Convince him you’re a useful goat.

>>1082159
>You wanna help. Convince him you’re a useful goat.

>>1082159
>You’re gonna do stuff. Go past him and check out the branch closer to the trunk.
Let's show this scrub how it is done. And I don't mean falling through the weakened wood.

>>1082170
>>1082235
>>1082252

(Hmm... I think I need some dice.)

??? 1
> Return To Earth: Roll 1d100 + 5, DC 70

Rolled 50 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>1082330

Rolled 46 (1d100)

>>1082330

>>1082330

Rolled 35 (1d100)

>>1082343

Rolled 93 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>1082330
laterolling

Rolled 40 + 5 (1d100 + 5)

>>1082330

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>>1082337
>>1082338
>>1082350
>>1082354
>>1082366

(Ahah. I take best of 3, unfortunately.

Well, I guess it can count for something.)

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>1082330

You wanted to come to the swamp to help, and to find out what’s wrong; you only really know that there’s something at the heart of it that’s hurting the land.

There are others that know more, and that might have the same goal, want the same thing. You think about why they don’t want you here.

Your yellow-leafed guide stops when you place your bucket on the floor and walk onward. Perhaps if you kept going the gray-leafed bush would do something, but you stop just a few steps past him. The thick bark is soft, decayed, some of it breaking under the weight of you and your shovel.

What did you do, again? When you met that serpent whelp.

You lift your shovel off your shoulder and hold it vertical, pointing it down at your feet. The gray-leafed bush behind you shifts, but doesn’t do anything.

What was it, that feeling?

>>1082633

Fire builds at the end of the shovelhead until it engulfs the rusting metal in dancing, ghostly light. You drive the tool into the branch below, sending almost half its length into the blackening wood, and then push forward to lever it out.

It doesn’t budge. You try again.

...

Umm...

You take a breath, loosening your grip before tensing again and pushing as hard as you can. Then, separate from your own efforts, a wave of energy surges through the thick branch at your feet and suddenly the weight disappears. You fall on your butt and your shovel tears out of the branch, trailing fire and throwing up a bunch of dark, terrible muck. The squirming mass is as fragmented as thrown water, and by itself it seems to disappear like dust in wind.

You blink.

That was more tiring and difficult than you thought it would be.

The gray-leafed bush hobbles up to your side and examines you closely, curiously.

A sigh from somewhere behind. “Of course it’s you. Who else would it be.”

You crane your head up until you’re looking towards that familiar, exasperated voice. Standing on the branch upside-down is a black-robed woman with wavy red-orange hair, an old tome at her side and a crow perched on her shoulder.

The Witch Of Crows walks closer and you turn your vision upright again. Her tired eyes are fixed on the spot in front of you.

The branch is untouched despite having had your shovel driven through it. Something has clearly changed; the bark is still flimsy, the wood still looks weak, but the strange blackness is gone. The strange wrongness is gone.

The witch kneels down, muttering. “Clean, just like the Bakunawa.” She glances at you, though seems to be talking to herself. “Not from the tool or something else, either.”

You tilt your head, not bothering to stand up.

She looks across you to the gray-leafed bush, the smaller yellow-leafed one leaning out from behind him. “How about a little experiment?”

Both bush things rustle. You still don’t know how to interpret that.

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That's all for today!

Not totally sure when next session will be, but as always I'll make sure to announce on twitter.

Of course, feel free to tell me what you think. Comments help quite a lot with figuring out what direction the quest should take and how I write.

May your dreams be filled with goats!

>>1082679
horray! we helped again.
thanks for running the comfiest quest on qst.

>>1082679
It was fun, thanks for running! We've got ourselves a swamp to save. Everybody loves swamps!

these bush creatures are whimsically adorable. Adorably whimsical? Whimdorable?

>>1082679
Baphy is the cutest.