"So, what did you want to talk about?" As astoundingly bitter as the refreshments were, you couldn't deny how effective it was at shocking you awake. Whatever distractions had been on your mind were all but destroyed in favor of trying to cope with this god awful drink. "I'm assuming this is going to be either bad news, a status report, or both."

"..." In the end, that emergency you had been half-heartedly hoping for never came. Where do you even start with this? If you didn't come clean with something now, when you finally had the chance, there would be no one to blame but yourself.

Yet even still, the silence stretched on.

"There's a lot that I need to tell you." You weren't expecting to struggle to open up, even after you had committed yourself to it. Intellectually, you knew you needed to do this. Shade bless, part of you desperately wanted to do this... But your throat constricted, like a mental barrier had slammed shut the moment you tried. "And I don't know where, or how, to start."

"Is it about Teranford?"

"Some of it." You could have simply nodded, but there was more to your answer than simple acknowledgement.

"Does any of it have to do with those weird wooden golems of you?"

"Yes." You had to keep talking, because the moment you stopped, it would be harder than ever to start again.

"Were you planning on telling me about the Behemoth?" You flinched at the still smoldering embers of accusation in her tone.

"That's part of it as well." A piece of you screamed with every admission. Railed at how easily you had just shared your hand. It felt like every time you confirmed her suspicions, something else was being physically dragged out of you to be put on an embarassing display. "There's more, too. A lot more." There was a certain irony to making yourself feel so vulnerable infront of the person who had stabbed you in the gut. "I'm going to tell you everything... But it might take a while."

"Alright." Rinnier set her tea on the desk, leaning back as she crossed one leg over the other. "Take your time."

"...You're not going to get angry at me?"

"I'm probably going to be furious with you before this is over." The former princess disagreed placidly. "But I owe you this much."

You suppose it was too much to hope that she'd just be okay with having been kept in the dark regarding most of what you were about to say, but... Shed given you an implicit approval to go on, at least. It was more than you had expected, considering you had already been bracing yourself for the worst case scenario of having to deal with her lambasting for every new topic. Unfortunately, this still left you at a loss as to where to begin. There was just... so much. All of it tied into each other somehow, forming an impossible knot that you couldn't even begin to start unravelling.

>About the Atelier.
>About your secrets, and your family.
>About Artemis, and Maran.

Previous Threads:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Valen+Quest

Where things are said: https://twitter.com/Riz_QM
Where things are asked: http://ask.fm/RizQM

Assorted Supplemental:
Current Abilities - http://pastebin.com/PchcdWpw
A List of Forgotten Things - http://pastebin.com/kPEscJ3h
Irue's Memoires - http://pastebin.com/sWnicrK7

Write-ups:
Kara's Day Out - http://pastebin.com/8ZbiSKLs
Adventures with Asche - http://pastebin.com/RNviCBJu
The Reclaimed Doll - http://pastebin.com/n6miP1qT
In Your Shadow - http://pastebin.com/EfeeHFAE
Friends Forever - http://pastebin.com/Yn0QaTVB
The Woman Beneath Steel - http://pastebin.com/pMGgiHC3
Paper Flowers - https://pastebin.com/Pk0W7rEm

Misc notes:This will be mostly a recap thread. Besides airing your laundry, consider it a chance to get refreshed on the things in your plate going forward.

You may choose one. This choice will be repeated three times total, until all options have been exhausted. The ORDER you choose to go through them has a meaning.

Yes, I'll make a write-up for Rinnier's PoV once this thread ends.

Memo:
1. Get gifts for all our companions. Miniature Oakenrue for Ari, Tellenford Diary for Mim, Choker for Kara, mini-Vacation for Rinnier we can make Priat take her out on a social date. Maybe set up something where the people of Carona can thank her for her work and help remind her WHY she does it.
2. Invite Marchovic on adventures next time there's a chance.
3. Mim said "When are you going to tell her?" Tell what to whom?

File: Dull quest.png (203 KB, 572x648)

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>>2022730
Hi Riz!
I read the twitter, and decided to make a new OP pic for you, one that will take anon feedback into account.

Now please give me half an hour to think on a vote.

>>2022761
Ironically, I remember the anons in Ryukuza always getting really into it anytime clothes came up. Talking about dresses might unexpectedly by really exciting?

Saved immediately though. I'm tempted to actually use this as an OP image one day, just to see if we get some poor, confused anon lured in.

>>2022731
Time for Talking Quest! Glad to see you.
>About the Atelier.
I figure the Atelier is the beginning, the foundation upon which the other two options make sense.
Second, when it comes up, ought to be
>About Artemis, and Maran.
As Artemis ties into the infection, then finish up with
>About your secrets, and your family.
for that personal touch.

>>2022731
>About the Atelier.

Lead with the biggest concern first.

>>2022825
>>2022731
Also if she has concerns about Ari point out we won't give up ANY of our Testaments. We fought for Kara against the town, we fought for Ari against a Mana and possibly the world. We'll do the same for Rinnier. It's not even a question.

>>2022731
>Begin with the good news that wooden abominations won't haubnt Rinnier any more
>(Except that one we brought with us, but that's the good one. It's also adorable, once you get used to it being covered in human flesh and having no face.)

Then
>About the Atelier.
>About your secrets, and your family.
>About Artemis, and Maran.
Seems like a most logical order. Leaving Artemis for last will also give Rinnier a more immediate issue to think on that wasn't our fault, so we might limit her bitching.

>>2022731
>>About the Atelier.

>>2022842
We can only pick one right now, but you make a good argument.

>>2022796
>>2022825
>>2022842
>>2022844
Atelier first!

Gonna call the vote early here, since all four of my anons have unanimously agreed. Writing!
---
If any of ya'll are the anon that follow Panzer Commander, I'll have a surprise or two for you guys a bit later.

>>2022912
Did you catch up to the current thread?

>>2022920
I've got one thread to go, but I'll be caught up before the weekend is over. In more ways than one.

>>2022912
Well looks like there's two of us.

Is that screenshot on Twitter from qtg? Where the heck did that guy get that impression from.

>About the Atelier.
She won't be haunted anymore and won't have to tag team oakenbears with us again. Maybe nightgaunts age gone too... But let's not try to find out.

There were plenty of places you could start this, but... "First thing's first. You'll want to know what happened while I was gone." The Atelier had changed too many things that you had simply taken for granted, and considering the choice you had made in the end, you'd resigned yourself to the fact that you wouldn't be able to just leave the consequences of those events behind. They were going to follow you eventually, and when they did, you needed to be ready.

Also... It was quite possibly the furthest thing away from being your fault as you could get. Even if it was arguably the most important news, it was simultaneously the least personal.

"The good news is that you won't be stalked by those things, anymore. I dealt with them at the source." You proffered a hopeful smile at your Testament; One which gained legitimacy as you caught her shoulder's slackening in relief. "...For the most part."

"There's a catch." She acknowledged with a sigh.

"At least one is still active, but it's... Different. Remember the one that attacked the knights during our trip to Caylen's?" You paused, getting a nod for affirmation before continuing. "Well, it's still around. Although, it's more of a monster, or abomination, than a wooden golem now."

"Is that supposed to be good, or bad?" Rinnier edged warily.

"...Good?" This was probably the only time you'd consider the transformation of something into a monster as a positive outcome. "It's as obedient as ever, and has been serving as Ari's guardian since before Carona... Well." You trailed off, clearing your throat to bypass that. "It's unnerving, but it shouldn't look anything like the ones that you saw back at the house. I think they ripped its face off at some point, so-" You sensed that Rinnier's doubt was only going to grow at this rate. "-I thought it might help you rest easier if it just looked like a normal nightmare, instead of a personal one."

"..." She sipped her tea wordlessly.

"...Right. It will be showing up near the burned out Tier estate in a couple of days, the plan is to go collect it before it causes a scare in town."

"I'll make pass on an alert to Dullem in the meantime to keep people away." She acknowledged levelly, "Does it still turn into that disgusting skin-rod?"

"It should." You affirm, "It's still Ari's protector, so I had planned to leave it to her in that form, as usual."

"I don't envy how you plan to explain away a five foot pole of human flesh and bone." Rinnier sighed, "What was their 'source' anyway? What are they?"

"Apparitions." That had been an unsettling realization for you, even before entering the Atelier. "You wouldn't recognize their Mana, because it's been sealed behind my house for several hundreds of years."

You stared at each silently for some time, before Rinnier leaned forward and laced her fingers in front of her mouth.

"Explain."

"The golems you were seeing were apparitions of an eighth Mana: Dryad." You needed to establish this before you could get to the Atelier. "I'll explain more about it in a moment, but... Well first, I didn't know this either until I left to retrieve Ari. They aren't the only apparition either. The Oakenbear problem that's been increasing lately? Those were also apparitions born of Dryad."

"So this Mana is... Trees? Plants?" She seemed to be taking the existence of a forgotten Mana much easier than you had. It was simultaneously relieving, and a little disappointing. "Are there any other apparitions like those two I should know about?"

"No? Yes." Her crimson eyes staring into your own patiently. "Maybe. I don't know of any other apparitions outside of the Fae Forest, but... Inside, the Fae might count as well. They're definitely related to Dryad, somehow."

"The Fae." She answered flatly. "Like Faedka?"

"Yes. I'm getting to that." You sigh, debating over whether or not to take another sip of the sour draught. "Apparently, the Faedka isn't alcohol. It's... I guess you might call it Dryad's blood? Or some diluted form of it. It's a watered down, or refined, form of the sap excreted from the apparitions."

"...And the symptoms of the resulting Mana Purge were mistaken as a hang over." Rinnier breathed, blinking in alarm as her spine straightened. "So the reason it just kept showing up was because it was being filled straight from the tap?"

"That's my theory." You agreed. "It was diluted though, so it shouldn't have had any lasting effects beyond the Mana Purge."

"Now that you've handled it, that's not going to happen again, right?"

"It shouldn't." You shake your head briefly, "There were reasons behind their increasing activity, and I've resolved most of that. The only remaining active apparition should be Ari's protector, as I mentioned." You tilted your head at the heavy sigh your Testament released. "Is something wrong?"

"Plenty. We had another outbreak of that Faedka while you were gone, and now I know why... Though I wish I didn't." She ran one hand tiredly through her hair. "Though I guess it stopping was also your doing."

...Was it? You had no idea how time worked while you had been lost in the Atelier. It was certainly true you'd prevented any future resurgences, but you have no way of knowing if you had any effect on that one. You offered a shrug in response, deciding not to get too sidetracked on that matter.

"As for the reasons... That's related to how I dealt with it. I told you I handled it at the source, and that means exactly what you probably think it does."

"You've been an Adept all this time?" She quirked a brow accusingly.

"...No." Admittedly this had also been your first thought as well! But no, even Dryad loved you, you struggled to hear it at all. "I mentioned Dryad had been sealed behind my house, and the location of that seal is the Fae Forest." You paused, then corrected yourself. "It is the Fae Forest. Probably all of it."

"Probably?"

"I don't understand how it works." You admitted shamelessly. "Once you're inside, it's not a forest anymore. It's just... Dark. And memories." You cleared your throat, "It's... an Atelier. Dryad's Atelier, to be specific."

"That's why you've been gone for almost a month, and Priat came back without you." Her voice was calm, but something about the way Rinnier's lips thinned out encouraged you to reach for the ill-brewed lemon tea concentrate. "You entered an Atelier on your own, of... Can Mana even have Ateliers?"

"It was a good idea at the time?" You supplied hopefully. "Ari was trapped inside, after being kidnapped by the apparitions, so I had to go in to get her back. As for the nature of the Atelier... That's complicated, and I'll get to it. I told you, there's... A lot that I need to tell you."

Rinnier's fingers drummed along the desk patiently, which was sign enough for you to continue. You didn't see yourself recounting everything you experienced in the Imprisoned Child's Atelier, partly due to time constraints, and partly because... Those memories weren't yours to share in the first place. You weren't keen to talk about them any more than you were the Ice Queen's Atelier. "It's not a natural Atelier. It was constructed artificially to house Dryad, specifically... And even then, it's not meant to keep Dryad inside, but to isolate it from the outside as much as possible. It's effectively a tomb."

"So this forgotten Mana is dead behind your house, and still making apparitions?"

"No, it's alive. Sort of. Tomb and Seal are interchangeable in this case. Dryad is the Mana of Life. As far as I can theorize, its counterpart was meant to be Luna. Since it's the manifestation of life itself, I'm not entirely certain it can die... But right now, at least, it's sleeping. That's what the Atelier is for, ultimately: To keep it asleep."

"And these apparitions it creates are..."

"Feelers." You answer the aimless question. "They're formed by the subconscious, and their experiences feedback to the sleeping Mana, altering its dreams, which... Probably feedback to the apparitions, changing their temperament."

"And you learned this... How?"

"I spent at least two weeks lost in the Atelier trying to find Ari and get out." Even if it was the truth, it sounded like an excuse. "Before I could Solve it-"

"You Solved the Atelier?" She interrupted sharply, eliciting a single blink of confusion from you.

"...Yes? Did you expect me to try and Conquer the Guardian of Dryad's Atelier?" Rinnier opened her mouth wordlessly, but floundered for a response for several trying moments. "We've fought before, I have no intention of trying to punch a Guardian. I'm not stupid." It wasn't even the first time you'd Solved an Atelier. No one fussed at you for it last time.

...You hadn't told anyone about that either, had you.

"Needless to say, I learned more about Dryad, and the events leading up to it being sealed than I expected." You decided to move on. "Dryad inadvertently creates more apparitions as it gets closer to waking up, and by Solving its Atelier, I think I managed to lull it back to sleep... Or at least, to happier dreams." You cleared your throat, raising your hands in a satisfied manner. "And that's how I solved our apparition problem, all of the oakenbear attacks, reclaimed my house, and took Ari back!"

Ari took this opportunity to take a sip of the tea, spitting it back into the cup as she struggled to suppresses a desperate, wheezing gag. Her tongue hung out of her mouth helplessly, curling in a vain attempt to shake the taste off.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Rinnier's pointed question made you flinch. It hadn't been intentional, you were trying... Just... There was an opportunity to stop talking and you hadn't thought twice about taking it.

"A lot... Some of it, I don't really know how it ties into what I've told you, but I know it's related. And other parts... They're related to this, and something else." You took another sip of the bitterly sour tea, trying to bring yourself back to the subject. "The tree we bought from that traveling merchant, Yuri... It's related to Dryad, somehow. The apparitions refuses to touch it, and the cuttings that Priat and I took with us for protection were also what kept us from entering the Atelier in the first place."

It was also possible that rather than the Nymph's Wood keeping you out of the Atelier, Dryad had refused to let you enter with it.

"Also... There's history behind the Atelier itself, and the events which led up to its creation. I think I may have found something related to Salamander's abandonment of Teranford inside."

"Is it related to Dryad?" Your flame haired Testament came alive immediately. "Did you find out how it can be fixed? What happened?"

>What do you think happened?

>>2023020
>just tell her about the dead zone. let her draw her own conclusions

rinnier is smart, she'll get it

>>2023018
>"The Fae." She answered flatly. "Like Faedka?"
She got it in 1 second.

Time to hang ourselves in shame

>>2023020
It got contaminated

>>2023018
Damn, I got Rinnier's eye color wrong.

>>2023020
>Salamander abandoned Teranford fearing the contamination being spread by the nomadic army.
>Maybe. More data is needed before coming to a definite conclusion.

>>2023025
Yeah this.

We still don't have facts, only conjecture and presumptions

Writing! Moving right along with the conversation.

I slept through two updates! Is the staggered update block experiment over?

You guys forgot to mention that Dryad suspected betrayal as well as the Luna deligation's hand in traumatising Dryad enough to force her from her throne.

Also, regarding the plant in our house : it protected our books instinctively. Isn't that something an aspect of Luna would do?

>>2023071
I think it's more that its pot was located in the library.

"If I had to guess, Salamander may have abandoned Teranford in fear of a spreading contamination." You put an emphasis on your uncertainty, but saw an opportunity to turn the conversation back to your previous topic as Rinnier's bewilderment made itself apparent. Unfortunately, that line of thought would inevitably lead you to another delicate subject. "There's a reason Dryad's been sealed to sleep, and it's due to... Some kind of mental contamination."

"What does it do?" You shrugged. "...What do you mean you don't know?"

"It's not for lack of trying, alright? No one would tell me what it was, or what it's supposed to do!" You threw your hands up frustratedly, "You would not believe how much time I spent tracking down the bastard who knew about it and asking him questions. All I know is that it was apparently some kind of song, or compulsion for 'reunion'."

"I thought you were in an Atelier this whole time?" She asked archly, "You went adventuring too?"

"What- No, I tracked him down in the Atelier. Well, Not him... There wasn't anyone else in there with me, besides Ari. It was a memory of him stored in the Atelier. There were a lot of memories in there." You didn't feel like it was really necessary to justify where you spent your time to your Testament... But by the same token, you felt it was very necessary to justify where you had spent your time to Rinnier.

Where the power was held in this relationship was a muddy distinction, at the best of times.

"Alright..." Her fingers were drumming a rhythm along the desk again, but your Testament seemed more thoughtful than irritated for now. "What did you manage to learn from him, then? Where this contamination came from? Why it was so bad?" Her fingers came to a rest on the desktop as she looked up abruptly. "Were they a Luna Adept?"

"I... Yes?" You gave an unbalanced answer. "How did you know?"

"The Shrine wouldn't tolerate one of the Mana being forgotten." She answered distractedly, brows furrowed in thought. "You said the Atelier had been artificially created; The only group of people I could think of who would have been able to hide something as large as that from history, and make something weird like that, would have to have been the Shrine. I just assumed the Luna Dominion would have known more about it than anyone else."

"They were central to the events which led up to its creation, and responsible for the Atelier's creation as well." You confirmed eventually, unsure of how to feel about the direction this conversation was taking. "Their goal was to contain Dryad's contamination before it could spread to the other Mana, somehow."

"And a job important enough to drive them to sealing one of the World Pillars away isn't something they would just forget." Rinnier murmured darkly. "So some of Luna's Dominion must still know... And they'd probably have someone who knew remain in proximity to the Atelier, to keep an eye on it."

You... Hadn't... Thought that far, yet. You absent mindedly took another sip of the soul-shrivellingly sour 'tea' as Rinnier dug out a map and began to scowl. "This is the closest town to the Fae Forest in the Valen lands." She announced matter-of-factly, "If they were aiming to keep surveillance on their Atelier's status for any long period of time, they'd either need an excuse for unstationed Adepts to travel in the area, or an official reason to linger."

"Like the Shrine in Carona." You resist the urge to claw at your own tongue as the drink slide downs your throat. "There used to be a Shrine for Dryad's Dominion in the woods, somewhere, but it's been... Abandoned." It was something you wanted to track back down eventually. If for no other reason than to get a sense of closure over the whole ordeal. "It was where Ari was kidnapped, remember?"

"It's difficult to forget." Rinnier agreed solemnly, "And since it was abandoned, they built a new Shrine in Carona, giving them an excuse to hang around and watch their handiwork. How do the Valens fit into this, though?"

"...I'll get to that." You sigh, feeling your shoulders sag as you leaned back into your chair. You weren't going to bother asking how she came to that conclusion, either. Or pretend she was wrong, for that matter. "It's another one of those things that's related to this, but also other things."

"...Alright." Thankfully, she seemed willing to trust you at your word and let the matter drop for now. "Admittedly, I'm more curious about how this relates to Teranford anyway. If their aim was to seal this Mana and it's contamination, why would Salamander have abandoned its Throne to flee it?"

"It was only a theory." You admitted readily, "It's something I've been thinking about, and I feel like Teranford's immigrants may have been to blame."

"...What?" Rinnier gave you a queer look.

"Originally I sent that travelling merchant your way because he claimed to have news about Teranford." You had almost forgotten about Yuri with everything else going on, but you had been rather proud of the way you had handled that situation. "The deal was to trade the remaining Faedka to him, and in exchange he'd tell you what he knew."

"And?"

"While we were talking, he mentioned the Nymph's Wood he sold were something like good luck charms from back home." You held up a hand in explanation, "Before that though, he let slip that it wasn't native to La'Fiel. I don't know how it's related to Dryad, but that sapling you left in my estate has been growing uncontrollably ever since."

"Not native... So they would have had to come from a neighbouring country." She frowned, "You can't keep much on a wagon for long, so they probably came from his last stop, which would have been Teranford. Nothing like that grows in Teranford, though."

"Not according to Priat." You correct pointedly, "The immigrants brought agriculture with them, and the land down there is being changed from deserts into something more fertile. He told me those trees were like a trigger for what came next; They were the first things planted in Teranford's sands."

"...Which means those trees were originally with the nomads. The merchant was one of them." She hissed, fingers curling tightly into a fist upon the desk. "If your forgotten Mana refused to touch it, then Salamander may have been the same... Then it didn't abandon Teranford, it was forced to leave?"

"I don't know." You didn't know a lot of things, you were coming to find. It wasn't nearly as frustrating as not knowing things you had every reason to know, but hadn't figured out. "It's just a suspicion. I also found out there have been precedents for Mana abandoning areas... And not just one, but all of them. They're called 'dead zones', and apparently they were a result of some sort of disaster that took place in East Heaven."

"I've never heard of something like that." Rinnier replied, deliberately relaxing her body as she let out a breath. "How long ago did it happen? Did you find out what they were like? What caused them?"

"They predate Dryad's sealing, at least." You shift in your chair, starting to feel the effects of having sat and talked for so long. "I can't say for certain what caused them, but apparently they became completely unlivable. The ground, water and trees all turned to ash. From the reports I gathered, even just staying in the areas would slowly drain you of the will to live. The Shrine made an effort to try and recover them, but I don't know how that turned out."

Considering East Heaven's borders had been shut tight for almost two decades now, it wasn't as if you could just walk over there and find out... At least, not easily. The Fae Forest technically crossed their border, but you weren't terribly confident about using the sealed Atelier of a sleeping Mana as a shortcut for a fieldtrip.

"Then... They probably succeeded, wouldn't you think?" Rinnier seemed to find something hope-worthy in your retelling. "If they still existed, then we'd know about them. That means there's still a chance for Teranford to recover. It might even be easier, since we'd only need to entice Salamander back, instead of all of them." A smile was beginning to bloom across your flame haired Testament's face in the wake of wonder.

Which made what you were about to do so much worse.

"It may not be that simple. Those Dead Zones predated Dryad's sealing because they were the origin of the contamination. The Adepts that tried to recover the area were exposed to its effects, and became carriers for the contamination themselves. Eventually, they spread that contamination back to their Mana." You hedged your explanation tentatively, frowning in a futile apology as the former princess' smile faded back to the more familiar business-like attentiveness. "I'm not saying they're exactly the same, but it's something to keep in mind. They're... Similar."

"No, you're right." She sighed softly, one finger gradually tracing the circumference of her teacup before sliding down to curl around it's handle. "I got too excited. There's still too much I- We don't know, and a lot of things still need to be done before any of that matters."

It was a minor correction, but that one changed word was enough to make you feel like you had finally done something right.

"We'll figure it out, but there's still more I need to tell you."

"Hold on." She held up a hand, fishing out some paper from her desk. "If this is just the beginning, I'll start writing it down. I don't want to forget any of this later."

>About your secrets, and your family.
>About Artemis, and Maran.

>Say something unrelated to your secret spilling?

>>2023090
>>About Artemis, and Maran.

>>2023089
>flame haired
So I messed up Rinnier's hair color as well. Sadness.

>>2023090
>Ask about Rinnier's mental state. Salamander abandoned people, not just the land, so Rinnier might be contaminated.

>About your secrets, and your family.

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>>2023071
> Is the staggered update block experiment over?
This reminds me that I never did officially ask you guys whether you preferred the update blocks over more rushed sessions. Tentatively I was just going to keep them since it seemed like people preferred them, but feedback is always appreciated.

As for things going faster, I'm writing a bit faster, and calling votes a little faster. One because I'm no longer having to weave in constant hints as to the esoteric forgotten mysteries of the world, and the other because this thread conversation is mostly a recap.

>>2023093
You got her hair right. I say flame in reference to red - Not the orange sort of red.

>>2022989
>Is that screenshot on Twitter from qtg?
Yep! From a really long time ago. I think we were still on /tg/ back then! Valen's gotten lots of funny descriptions over its lifetime.

>>2023095
I like the update blocks. It means I won't sleep through more than a few crtitical votes.

>>2023090
>>Say something unrelated to your secret spilling?
We might get a few more answers in the ruined shrine, you can come with us if you want! It should be during the day time though.
Tell her we'd like to hear everything she knows about events leading up to Salamanders flight from her country. It won't be pleasant and we don't need to hear it right this second but Irue is going to need to have as close as she can get to the full picture going forward.

>About your secrets, and your family.
Including the other atelier, the fact that the royal family has changed and the current royal family might be complicit in Terranford's refugee problem. Also origin and duty of the Valen house, doppelrue, behemoth... Am I forgetting anything...?

She's going to be mad and that's fair but we're trying to change!

>>2023090
Oh! Also confide that the atelier is fucking with our head. Two weeks is a long time to spend trying to solve one of those things.

>>2023095
Update block >>>>>>>>>> rushed sessions.

>>2023090
>>About Artemis, and Maran.
Talk of the infection dovetails nicely into Artemis.

So far Reiner is taking this all suspiciously well.
While the update blocks are kinda a pain, I greatly prefer the ability to sleep without fear of missing an important vote they provide.

>>2023091
>>2023156
Artemis!

>>2023093
>>2023124
Secrets and family!

....The order does matter. Which shall it be?

>>2023175
Why does the order matter?

>>2023175
If no one else chimes in, just flip for it. It can't be that important, right? right?[\spoiler]
>>2023188
I assume something to the effect that it changes the emphasis on our retelling, which sequentially changes what Reiner gets out of it. Which changes how mad she is at us at the end.

On second though, the cloud cover I was using to delay skyfire has been routed. Looks like I'm going to be retreating until later tonight. I'll leave the vote open.

>>2023188
>Why does the order matter?
Lots of reasons! Don't think too hard, and choose what you think is best.

If it bothers you, imagine you're in a position where you've decided to tell someone a lot of things you consider deeply personal. Some of them really are personal. Others are just secrets you felt needed to be kept. Others may not directly relate to you, but to people near you and the things they do. You don't want to tell any of them, but before you're done, you're going to share them all.

So what's the hardest for you to say? Why?

As I mentioned, there's more to it. Several other reasons the order matters. But think about it from that perspective, and choose what you feel fits.

>>2023224
Ah, that clears things up, thanks. If it's still tied by the time you get back then you can consider my vote flipped and we'll go with artemis.

>>2023124

Seconding telling about the ice Queens atelier, and how it messes with our head.

Also tell about the stuff we gained from it, spiders web and why we keep calling from the sky. Maybe mention that we kind of made a bit of a mess with our soul and what makes us human by misusing an aeons gift.

Falling*

>>2023095
Blocks are better because I'm in the wrong timezone and can't play otherwise.

>>2023090
>ask her why she's accepting this eighth mana thing so easily

I never imagined she'd believe us when we told her we have a God in our back yard.

>>2023090
>Say something unrelated to your secret spilling?

Ask about her relationships with your other testaments

>>2023175
> Secrets and family

Oh and the Ice Queen atelier.

>>2023224
So what's the hardest for you to say? Why?

Definitely secrets and family. We're shit at both trust and context.

That's why I want it in the middle.

>>2023091
>>2023156
>>2023433
Artemis!

>>2023093
>>2024210
Secrets!

>>2023093
>>2023124
>>2023548
>>2023929
>>2024206
Assorted offtopic/supplemental

Gonna start writing after I find breakfast.

>>2024651
Lucky I got here too late to tie it up with

> Secrets!

You sat back and let out a heavy breath, feeling your body sag into the chair tiredly. This conversation was already going to take a while, but it was exhausting you far more than you had anticipated. Just talking about the Atelier's events had left you drained, and there were still at least two more topics to go through.

Encroaching lethargy aside however, this was going well? Better than you had expected, at any rate. It was starting to make you uncomfortable. These weren't just petty revelations, and Rinnier's reaction to being told you had a forgotten Mana literally in your backyard had been... Lacking.

"There might be more answers in the ruins of Dryad's Shrine." You theorized aimlessly. "It's something I want to look into later. During the day, preferrably. If you wanted to come with me-"

"As opposed to letting you go on your own?" Rinnier posed rhetorically, not bothering to look up from her rapidly filling paper. "I remember what happened the last time we were there. As much as I'd like to go, I doubt I'd be a good choice for that place."

"Why?" After all the time you had spent trekking through the woods with Rinnier, it seemed almost a given that she'd have come with you.

Her writing ceased with a sigh. "Because I'd be a liability. My stigma doesn't discriminate between a brigand's bonfire, and our own torches."

"That's why we'd be going during the day. I don't want to rely on torches to keep those things at bay, when we could just not deal with them at all."

"And you think sunlight is going to reach inside the ruins?" She quirked a brow at you doubtfully. "Unless you have an alternative source of light, I'm still going to be more of a hindrance than anything else. And-" She continued, cutting you off as your mouth opened "-We have no access to Wisp Adepts who aren't affiliated with the Shrine."

"There's other ways of lighting our way. We could replace torches with Wisp Apparition cores, and use them for lights instead."

"Except then there's the matter of finding spare cores, and the money to purchase them." She riposted, "If it were any other time, we might have been able to find a few for a reasonable price. With Carona as it stands, what few they had around are already spoken for in order to aid the healers here. I can't justify depriving them of even one, much less find room in the budget to afford the price we'd have to pay."

"Do you just not want to go?" Your arms crossed testily.

"I'm saying it's not practical." Rinnier slowly explained, as if speaking to a child. "Why is it so important I go? It's not like what you'll find will change."

It wasn't important that she went. Realistically speaking, she was right; There was no real advantage to her coming, and if you found anything interesting, you could bring it back or tell her about it later. You could keep arguing about alternative methods of sourcing illumination, but ultimately you would just be reaching further to procure budgets and inconvenient alternatives in order to justify her coming.

...It wasn't important, so you'd drop it.

"It doesn't have to be right now, but I'd like to hear about what happened in Teranford."

"Why?" She resumed writing, feigning a dismissive tone which did little to mask the venom. "Didn't you hear it from Priat already?"

"I'd prefer to hear it from you." You decided not to touch the obvious landmine of whatever bad blood had built up between the two Teranford natives. "I heard a bit from him, but he left half way into it, didn't he? You were there until the end. If I'm going to be able to help you, I need as close to a full picture as I can get."

"..." Your spitfire of a Testament tucked a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, eyes still trained on the paper before her. The characters she was scratching out came slower as she grimaced, but never fully stopped. Whatever warred through her mind wasn't something she was willing to give her full attention. "You're right, I'll tell you whatever I can. But later, alright?"

"Later." You came to a communion lightly, "Is it that sensitive a topic for you?"

She shook her head, finally letting the pen come to a rest. "Thinking about it dredges up a lot of feelings. Most of them bitter. I don't mind talking to you about it, though. If I were to tell anyone, it would be you."

"You got angry the last time I brought this up." You observed precariously.

"When... Oh. That was not long after we met, wasn't it?" Rinnier rested a cheek in the palm of her hand, index finder tapping idly against her temple. You waited for further explanation... But it never came. "I've finished my notes for now. I'm ready to keep going, if you are?"

"You actually believe what I've told you so far?" It may have been delaying, but it was still bothering you just how easily she was taking this. "About Dryad, the Fae Forest, all of it?"

"Should I not?" She asked calmly.

"I expected more resistance." You gave a weak reply. There really wasn't any point in trying to hide your thoughts on the matter, but saying that was the same as admitting that you had anticipated having to argue your point. If you were to be entirely honest, you somewhat expected to have had this entire conversation derailed into a screaming match by now. "It took me longer to accept it than this, and I was face-to-face with it."

"I haven't accepted it." Your Testament answered plainly, tapping her pen upon notepaper. "Nothing you've said has made any sense, and relies extensively on the notion that the Shrine has somehow manipulated history to expunge the existence of an entire Mana because of an ill-defined disaster that there's no public record of, in a country no one can access."

"...So you don't believe me, after all." The fact she wasn't even bothering to argue with you wasn't a sign of acceptance, but having considered it too outlandish to dignify debating.

You were rapidly losing the resolve to keep trying to talk about this. You had been better off just keeping it to yourself and dealing with it, like you'd been doing. This was a mistake.

"I believe-" She corrected flatly, interrupting the internal retreat you had begun to regress towards. "-That I can trust you. It may not make sense, but I'll listen, and I'll think it over." She tapped the notepaper once more for emphasis, drawing your attention to the paper with a sharp sound. "That's what the notes are for."

"..." You licked your lips hesitantly, finding a handle on the cup of concentrated sourness that passed for Rinnier's tea. It wasn't getting any easier to swallow it, but the bitter shock it gave helped loosen your throat. "How do you feel?"

"A little hungry, but it can wait." She answered offhandedly, "This is more important."

"No, I mean..." You had mostly told her about the Atelier, and if she was going to give you a chance... Then she may as well hear the rest of it. You just had to figure out how to get yourself to talk about it. You'd spent so long just internalizing things and trying to fit memory to application, that it was difficult to express it in words to someone else. "Salamander abandoned more than just Teranford. It abandoned the people as well. I said it wasn't the same, but if we assume that the reason it abandoned its Throne was to escape the contamination..."

"..."

"I don't know if it's possible or not, but I wanted to know how you felt since Teranford fell." Broaching this topic would have been unthinkable before the Rite had concluded, unless you just wanted to get your head bitten off... Even now you felt like you were walking on eggshells, encouraged to pursue it only by virtue of her tentative acceptance earlier. "Any songs? Strange feelings about reunions? I don't really know what to look for."

"You already know that I plan to bring my people back together. I suppose that's a sort of reunion." She answered after a moment's thought, "Though there are other meetings I'd be plenty happy to have never happen again, so I doubt that has anything to do with this 'contamination'. I aim to take responsibility for my people, and find a way to give them a life in place of the one they lost. That's my obligation as their princess."

Was it possible her drive to do that was a result of some nascent mental influence? In the time you'd known her, there was little doubt that Rinnier took her position as royalty extremely seriously... So if she was contaminated, could you even tell where her inherent dedication ended, and the compulsions began? Or maybe you were looking at it the wrong way? She would have been contaminated long before you met her. Had she always been this dedicated to her people?

The only one who could answer that would be someone who had known her before Teranford had fallen. Putting aside that he had already left for destinations unknown, you weren't looking forward to the idea of trying to pry information about Rinnier out of Priat. Shade forbid the temperamental princess later discover you went to him to ask about her. That seemed a quick way to find yourself on the receiving end of an untold level of scorn. Not that questioning the devotion of your regal Testament to her face would serve you any better.

"I don't know if it's possible or not, but it's something to consider." It wasn't worth pushing the issue right now. Both because you had no way of knowing for sure, and because it wouldn't do you any favors to steer this conversation towards an argument. "Earlier you asked if a Mana can have an Atelier... And the answer is no. It can't. In order for the Shrine to seal Dryad, it needed to shake it from its foundation, so it couldn't command its full power."

"They depowered one of the Mana?" She asked skeptically. "With some kind of Relic, I'm guessing? A secret weapon?"

"The Shrine organized a continent wide genocide against every one of Dryad's Adepts." In the end they still needed your late sister's bracelet to lure Dryad to sleep, but it was only the final nail. "Their goal was to cut off the vectors to the Mana, and in doing so, cause a deep enough mental scar in Dryad that it would lose sight of its purpose." Clarity, to be specific, but you didn't want to get lost lecturing on the implications of Clarity in regards to Mana, and your revelations as to how the sliding scale of Aeons worked. "The reason I'm asking you to consider if Salamander abandoned its people due to being contaminated, is because I have no doubt in my mind that the Shrine will kill anyone who is."

"...So if that's true." Rinnier started darkly, "My people could be getting hunted down for this."

"Maybe. I don't know enough about the contamination to really say, but that's my theory. For now, I only know of one person that's definitely contaminated, but I haven't noticed any particular signs yet."

"Who?" Rinnier blinked at you, her eyes tracing instinctually across your outstretched arm until she noticed you patting Ari's head. "...Ari?" Said Testament perked up at her name, half-lidded amber eyes opening quickly to focus on Rinnier. "How..."

"She was force fed the apparition's blood for a little over a month, while trapped inside the Atelier." You reply lowly, "Unlike Faedka, it wasn't diluted. Rather than a Mana Purge, it's more like she was forcefully repainted from the inside out."

"That's..." The flame haired Testament's face fell as she looked over her timid peer. "Ari, do you feel okay? Are you alright?"

"Mm. Irue came for me." Ari's reply all but brimmed in confidence. "I'm fine now."

"She also might be a Dryad Adept now." You continue speculatively, "I learned some basic Dryad meditation inside the Atelier... We're working on seeing if it's possible for her to make use of it. It'll probably be a while before we see any kind of results, though."

"You really plan to fight the Shrine over Ari, once they find out?"

"I fought Carona over less, with Kara." You shrug, caught somewhere between resolve and resignation. "And now I apparently own the place?" you weren't entirely clear as to what level of ownership you actually had over Carona. It was technically in Valen lands, and thus your family's responsibility, but it had existed before these lands belonged to your family at all. It should have been something closer to an independent settlement that owed its taxes to the land's owners, but now that the previous Mayor had been disposed and accused of potential treason...

...Wait, did you own Carona now? The position of Mayor in Carona only necessarily answered to its landlords, which would be House Valen. Even if you had only been appointed acting Mayor by necessity due to disaster recovery efforts, that meant the distinction between accountability and governance had been dissolved, didn't it? No one had ever said anything about a stature of limitations to your authority, or time in office, either.

Did your aunt and uncle just politically reallocate ownership of an independent township using your hijinx as a pretense?

"Irue?"

"Yes... Yes, I own Carona now." You confirm your own wandering thoughts, equal parts bitter and impressed at that realization. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't intend to back down, even if the Shrine comes for Ari. And, if you are contaminated... My answer won't change."

"Nice to know I wouldn't be sold out." Rinnier deadpanned. "I'd be more careful about who you pick fights with over the demihumans, though. As 'good' as it turned out for you this time, you may not be so lucky the next."

"Kara's my Testament as well." You shootdown her reluctance steadfastly, "I'll do for her the same as I would the rest of you."

"That's what I'm worried about..." Rinnier frowned. "I don't fully understand what this 'Testament' is supposed to mean, but it's a position that's meant to imply trust, isn't it? Trust, and some measure of power. Neither of those are things any sane person should be giving to a demihuman."

"Has she done anything wrong yet?" While you didn't want to start an argument, this wasn't ground you were willing to give. "From what I've heard, there's been no misuse of authority, and nothing she's done has betrayed any of the trust I put in her. Why won't you get to know her?"

"Demihumans use people, Irue. If you think you can trust one, it's because they've made you believe that. Even if she hasn't done something yet, it just means she's biding her time until there'll be something to gain." Rinnier groused a reminder of words you'd already been told. "You shouldn't tell her what we're talking about now, either. The last thing you need is for the demihumans to have leverage over us they could sell out to people we don't want to know."

>How should you reply?

>>2025997
Kara herself is trustworthy, but she... isn't going to keep secrets well, especially from her brother. And she does appear to be the exception to the demihuman mold. Maybe we ought not tell her about this until it's relevant to her. I doubt she'd even care that much, honestly.

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>>2025997
Pretty much this >>2026017

But we have to point out that it's not because she is a bad person or doesn't care about us. Just that she has flaws.

Like us beong a dorce of natural destructuon and Rinnier being and unlikable bitch at time, and Ari being too pure for this world.

But also

> If they will not love me, then they will fear me.

We've pretty much broken THESE Demi-Humans. We'd be willing to entertain ideas about building them into something better than what they were before.

After all, Demi-Humans also aren't supposed to commit suicide out of guilt or become alcoholic wrecks because of it.

Us and Rinnier could be an awesome team. We break everything about the world that's wrong. She helps us fix it.

Because we aren't very good at that part.

> How Rinnier destroyed the world.

>>2026017
>>2025997
Backing this

Also the thing I just thought about, is the local Shrine really involved in overseeing Dryad's tomb? As far as I understood, the plan was to hide the existence of Dryad from everyone except the group that became Artemis. So if there's an observer here, it's probably Maran.

>>2025997
>Kara is a/retard/, rinnier. She's a low functioning moron.

>>2026024
Yeah, but we haven't told her about Artemis yet so we're getting to that.

>>2025997
>agree not to involve Kara in a celestial conspiracy

I get the feeling that she's going to bring up Kara's betrayal, but I wonder if she's thought about what she'd do in Kara's position? If it was a choice between Irue and her family, she's not going to choose us.

>give Ari and Rinnier a full explanation on what it means to be a testament
We might want to skip giving Kara this information too, she'd be liable to do something irresponsible with the authority and she has her hands full leading her pack besides.

>apologise to Ari for breaking our promise immediately after making it.

>>2026023
>broke these demi humans
I wonder if Elly's stupid idea could work? Ply them with sap to make them understand love. It sounds ridiculous but shade could make them understand regret, so why not Dryad?

>>2026049
>apologise to Ari for breaking our promise immediately after making it.
"I was wondering when someone was going to notice that. Who voted for that, anywa-"
...
..
.

I fucked up.

I was trying to include >>2022831 and it slipped my mind that Irue could just completely omit Ari's secret.

We'll redact everything from:
>"Maybe. I don't know enough about the contamination to really say, but that's my theory. For now, I only know of one person that's definitely contaminated, but I haven't noticed any particular signs yet."
to
>"You really plan to fight the Shrine over Ari, once they find out?"

The conversation is modular, so it doesn't actually change anything. Sorry!

>>2026051
Hisssss

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>>2026017
>>2026023
>>2026024
>>2026033
>>2026049
Survey says Kara will remain blissfully ignorant and excluded!

>>2026053
Are you hissing because I did a bad, or because I redacted the bad?

>>2026056
Don't do bad things

>>2026056
Kara was there when we crippled her pack right? Does the fact that she was unaffected mean that that wasn't her first time feeling regret?

>>2026086
This was touched on briefly back then (or maybe in an Ask?) but Kara was affected as well, just nowhere near what her pack felt. The reason for it being that, yes, she's felt regret before - Enough that she had developed minor methods of coping with it.

Regrets are much like a chain, or a weight. They can slow people down, hold them back, and in the worst case, even crush someone. When a Revenant becomes involved, these descriptions become quite literal. How you deal with regret determines how heavily you are affected by its aura.

Her pack was crushed. As for her...

You'd like to have reflexively denied that course of action. Kara deserved your trust just as much as Ari or Rinnier did, there was no doubt in your mind about that, and it was frustrating how deadlocked you were with Rinnier regarding that decisions... But while that's what you would have liked to do, you found it difficult to disagree entirely.

However, the very reasons you felt you could trust Kara were also the ones which made her uniquely unsuited to handling delicate information. Namely, that she was an airhead.

"While I won't be telling her about any of this, it's not because I don't trust her. She's just terrible at keeping secrets."

"Alright." Rinnier's lowered her eye lids dismissively, refilling her cup.

"...That's it?" You had been gearing up to explain yourself and argue a point and everything.

"I do not approve of your trust in the demihuman." She locked eyes with you from over her raised cup. "But we've been over this at least twice now. I can't convince you not to, and arguing about it would waste both of our time. Fortunately, even if our reasons differ, we both agree that she cannot be trusted with secrets... And that's enough. For now."

"She's a good person, Rinnier." You leave that out there weakly. "I'm not trusting her blindly, she's earned it."

"Yes. Your maid told me exactly how she earned your trust, by betraying you while we were at your cousin's." She took a sip, easily draining the sour concoction, before her tone shifted to a faux curiosity. "Where are the Tiers now?"

"I'm working on it." Your jaw set stubbornly. "That wasn't her fault, though. She wasn't the Alpha back then, so it was a choice between us, or her family. You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same, in her position."

"Oh?" One crimson brow arched challengingly. She set her cup down, eyes never leaving your own as she spoke up. "Ari, choose: Irue, or your parents."

"Irue."

The words had barely left the former Princess' mouth before your timid Testament's answer was forthcoming. No hesitation, no second thoughts. Perhaps even more damningly, you hadn't so much as felt a glimmer of indecision across 'Hearts In Harmony' before, or after, the answer... And even without that supernatural link, Rinnier had deduced much the same.

"That's different, and you know it." Ari had been a slave for the majority of her life. You don't even know if she knew her parents, much less what her relationship with them may have been. "And you aren't Ari."

"Think what you want. The demihuman has betrayed you once already, she will do it again. You may have forgiven her for it, and you may be willing to still trust her, but I am not."

"While we're on the topic." You avert your eyes, silently conceding the point to your flame-tressed Testament, "I've been thinking about what do with her pack." You paused for a response, finding little save for Rinnier's bemusedly tilted head. "You'll be pleased to know my trust in Kara does not extend to them." You proceed with a deadpan, "But as it stands, I have vague command over a small pack of demihumans to do whatever I want."

"Your definition of 'command' must be loose."

"I'd prefer to think of it as hopeful." You weathered her acerbic comment, "You can't deny that demihumans are an unusual resource. The Mayor was using them as mercenaries before, so I know they can be worked with. We don't necessarily need to trust them to make use of that."

"So what did you have in mind? Your knights will work with them, but the townsfolk would rather live in shelters than accept their aid in reconstruction." Rinnier spread her hands out as she reported the situation. "I've dealt with enough of their complaints to know that putting them in the public eye is just asking for trouble."

There'd been a hope that by teaming them up with your knights, you could include them in the town's reconstruction and earn some good will for them that way... It was irritating to realize just how far Carona's people would go to reject them. Perhaps not wholly unexpected, but frustrating none the less.

At this point, you were at a crossroads.

One option was to take the signs for what they were, and try to reallocate Kara's pack to something else. Doing so would basically be accepting your initial efforts as a failure, and subsequently, giving the people of Carona the notion that their rejection had 'succeeded' in some manner. It would definitely make any future attempts to integrate them into society be met with an even stronger sense of segregation.

On the other hand, it had only been a month. The resistance to their presence was still strong, but you were the Mayor, and more over, the heir to the only authority that position answered to. Your decisions were tantamount to law in Carona, and you were well within your capabilities to simply force the matter until the dissenters either left, or their wills corroded. Due to the circumstances surrounding your appointment, they didn't even have the luxury of rebelling. You held the resources they needed to recover, and you commanded a large chunk of the manpower doing the work.

The remnants of Kara's broken pack weren't such a large number that you could split them effectively between the two roles.

>What are your plans for Kara's pack?

>>2026112
Can we delay this decision? I'd like to get Dullam's opinion on this, as well as feedback from Kara and Raid before making any sweeping decisions.

>>2026117
No, anon, you have to make it right now. Voting closes in 15 minutes, and the default vote is to make them drink kool-aid.

If there's a strong preference towards putting it off, we can do that.

>>2026120
Alright, as for my vote...

>spitball ideas with Rinnier
What if were seen doing labour with Kara? Would that impact public opinion?

Also that was a nice dodge from Rinnier, we were talking about what she would have done. Ari's all consuming loyalty should not be the benchmark for how a normal person behaves.

>>2026112
The problem is that no amount of being nice and friendly and behaving well on the demihumans' part will shake the popular perception of them because they can fake that perfectly. I think we should just relocate them to different tasks.

>>2026112
We gave the demihumans this task for two reasons: they were strong, and thus could speed reconstruction; and to generate goodwill by having the townsfolk see them helping, hopefully setting the stage for eventual integration.

While the strength is a help, there is likely a net loss in reconstruction speed due to the townfolk's resistance.

Instead of generating goodwill, this measure is generating negative public option for us. Apparently, most folk would prefer to live in a tent without a demi's help than in a house built with a demi's assistance.
I can't entirely blame them. As best we can tell, Kara is unique. I wouldn't be surprised if the demis were abusing their authority, looting during clearing rubble, and trying to use their help to coerce people.

Until/if we change the demihumans, I don't think integration is going to work; so working towards it, especially with so many problems generated in the pursuit of it, isn't worth the trouble.

TL;DR: We should assign them to other tasks, it isn't worth all the trouble generated in pursuit of a dubious goal.

Dunno what else there is for them to do, though.

>>2026159
>Dunno what else there is for them to do, though.
They can build us a landing tower.

>>2026112
> Delay confirmation until we can speak with Dullem and Karl

But I lean towards

> Have them work on specific government related projects.

Have them be seen around town working but not interacted with. Maybe we can even sell the idea as a penance? Atonement also helps with guilt.

> Get everyone drunk on Faedeka together.

> Have everyone see you exert your command over the Demi-Humans and make them cower in fear and regret

May kill some of them if we drive them to suicide

> pump them full of Dryad thick sticky love juice

> Turn them into secret police bogeyman

I mean if they're going to be hated anyways . . .

>>2026112
They're useless if no one wants to work with or near them. They can clear the rubble of the tier estate, sort out useful material for construction that the knights can bring into town.

They'll do something useful and not bother anyone more than absolutely necessary.

>>2026882
We can leave them to handle the behemoth too

>>2026128
Toss around some ideas about improving public image!

>>2026153
>>2026159
>>2026195
>>2026882
Overwhelming decision to give up integration!

I'll get to work on this!

>>2027623
I mean. To give up this path of integration.

Honestly they aren't really ready for it anyways.

>>2027777
I figure we can maybe try again a lot later when we've actually dedicated some time confirming demihumans are, in fact, sociopathic after we've spent some time making them suitable for integration, and when we don't have so many things to do.

Fantasy racism is interesting when the different races are more than superficial differences. Sometimes, a population's attitude towards a particular race is well founded.

>>2027805
It's a religion not a race!

We're talking about Luna being cunts right?

RIP

“Well?”
Rinnier interrupts you from your reverie, her fingers drawing up into a steeple as she regards you with her cool and uncompromising gaze. You shake yourself awake and avert your eyes with a shiver, an alternating flush of hot and cold running down your chest. You hate how it makes you feel but at times like these, you find it hard to meet her hard eyes. Not that it does you any good to look elsewhere. Rinnier has always been entirely lacking in softness, well, save for one blessed and endlessly distracting place. How you loathe her.

“I beg your pardon?”

When next you look up she is looking down at you scornfully. She knows. She has to know. Is that why she looks upon you so?
“What are you planning to do in regards to the demihuman and her little ‘pack’. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Oh, you’ve been paying attention alright. You’ve always been what some might call a detail-oriented sort. The only problem was WHAT details…
“Worry not Rinnier, for I have plans in mind.”

“May I ask what plans exactly?”

You let your eyes drift upward again but only enough to reach her chin before they are drawn back down by her inexorable charms.The current topic of the conversation has well and truly eluded you.
“I make very good plans. I am the best planner in Carona. Asche and Ari both say so. They wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I suspect your attention isn’t on me,” Rinnier says acerbically. “Not on my face at any rate.”

That snaps you out of it. “I’m not sure what you’re implying,” you tell her. “Would you care to elaborate?”

A tense silence descends, the atmosphere of a battle between masters. Rinnier might be...Rinnier but you’re all theoretically peers here. She wouldn’t dar-

“I’d say that you were staring at my chest like some sort of merchant girl at their first royal ball,” she snaps. “Please feel free to correct me.”

Your throat seizes up and it’s all you can do to stay seated for just a moment. And then comes the anger, never far from your head whenever Rinnier was concerned. Now if only you could say the same about your heart…

You rise from your seat, barely aware that you are doing so. “You know, I think that’s quite far enough. We are peers, might I remind you and yet you seem to have forgotten this! Must I sit back and let you belittle me even in my own city?”

“Yes,” Rinnier says calmly.

“All you ever do is mock me and the worst thing is that I don’t even know if you even know you’re doing it. What did you mean, making that guess about Faedka so quickly? Do you know how long that took me?”

Rinnier raises an eyebrow.
“That...that look you a long time?”

The final straw.

>>2028065
The chair clatters against the floor behind you as you round the table, grabbing one of Rinnier’s wrists. She yelps in pain at your grip as you pull her close. This close...she smells of pungent tree sap and oak. You’re probably not in your right mind but standing here with your heart beating in your chest like a drum, you find it hard to care.
“Do you have any idea?” you pant softly. “How long I’ve waited for this? And for you?”
The desires in your heart will no longer be mocked by this woman.

Rinnier’s look of fear and disgust slowly melts away, replaced by a gentle smile. She then grabs hold of your neck with her other hand and slams you down into the table, freeing her wrist and trapping you.
“Always the amateur. Do I have to show you how it’s done?”

Your mind racing, you weigh up the possibilities of this incredible new outcome and compare it to your reflexive loathing of this woman, she who dares to be so rude and smart and beautiful and ample-chested and beautiful.
“Yes? Really?”

“Really,” she confirms, letting you go. You get to your feet in front of her and look straight ahead in a sort of daze. Her luscious lips are directly in line with your eyes. You forgot how tall this bitch is.

“So! Where do we start?”
You will happily admit to being woefully untested in the ways of love. It had never been in your mind with the exception of the girl before you. And really, who else could it be? Ari was a child and now also maybe a walking apocalypse, Kara would literally crush your skull between her thighs and while it could have been Asche, that has all the dignity of trying to fornicate with a sofa or a bookshelf or some other piece of furniture. It had to be Rinnier. It was always Rinnier.

She bites back a smile, clearly enjoying herself at your expense regarding your inexperience.
“What a question. Is this really your first time?”

“I accidentally got to second base with Kara once but other than that, yes. I really don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“Surely someone has taught you how to court a lady?”

“Yes. Tell me if one shows up.”

“A kiss is customary. You can start with that.”

You stare at her lips again, now twisted in a wry little look that makes you think of suppressed laughter. But she wouldn’t, surely not here or now. And then without warning her arm snakes around your waist and pulls you close. You can feel a cold sweat prickling up and your hands are shaking. This is it. This is your moment.
You pucker your lips and lean in…

And then you stop. There is a logistical error here you didn’t think about.
“Rinnier?”

“Yes?”

“Can you lean down a bit? Maybe just a little? Please?”
You’ve angled your head up as best you can but there’s at least six inches between the two of you and she isn’t moving.

“Have you considered trying harder?”

“I am!”

“I’m sure you can figure something out.”

>>2028067
“All you have to do is lean down or something. Can’t you do that?”

“You’re not a very quick student in this field, are you?”

“Fine. This won’t take long.”

You take a few cautious little steps forward, crowding in as close as you can. And then, as you’ve seen referred to in so many of Asche’s terrible romances that you definitely don’t read, you stand on her feet and embrace her, leaning up and kissing her at that very moment. Her lips meet yours for just a tender second but it feels as if it could last an eternity.

And then she pushes you away and you fall over, nearly hitting your head on the table. You hit the floor with a thud and with your eyes unfocused.

“What?”

“I can’t believe you just jumped onto my feet! That really hurts! What is wrong with you?”

“I read it in a book!”

You get back up and you can’t stop your face from reddening. What have you done? Have you ruined everything yet again? Why is that so easy for you?

And then Rinnier takes your hands in hers and you stare up at her uncomprehendingly. She just shakes her head and sighs.
“Has anyone told you how cute you look when you’re angry?”

“I don’t look cute. I have never looked cute in my life.”

“You look cute. It’s like the world’s angriest and smallest puppy.”

“I don’t have to put up with this.”

She whispers in your ear, sending shivers down your spine and electrifying you as if that previous mishap had never happened.
“But you will.”

“Will I?”
You had meant to ask that in some arch-sounding way or a sort of a challenge. Instead, quite against you will, you pant it out as an earnest plea. You can feel her up against you and everything else has stopped mattering. You don’t even care that Ashe and Ari have been here the whole time watching with open mouths.

“Once again it falls me to get anything done in a timely fashion here.”

And with those words Rinner sweeps you up into her arms and kisses you again. You run your tongue up against her teeth in what is probably the least erotic way to describe a kiss. But you don’t know what else to think about, your tongue’s the only muscle left in your body that seems to remember how to move! All you can do is to give yourself over to her, utterly and completely.

You’re light-headed long before Rinnier finally breaks away. It could be love, it could simply be lack of air. There is spittle up against your cheek and you can’t tell which of you it belongs to. And that ignorance is a transcendent feeling the likes of which you have never known before.

>>2028071
And just like that you will no longer be denied! You loose yourself from her grip and run your hands up along her side, feeling her skin beneath your touch with only the thin fabric of her shirt to separate you. Your quivering hands find her shirt buttons with a touch half of lust and half of desperate worship. It’s been so long!
And just as you are ready to claw your prizes free, Rinnier places a hand atop your head. That’s all she needs to do to stop you. She gently caresses your hair as you stand there frozen. How can she do this to you with just a touch?

“Irue...are you forgetting something?”

The room around you snaps into focus as all lust drains from your body. You stare at Rinnier and then at Asche and at Ari before looking past all of them entirely at the door to the room. What’s going on? What have you forgotten? Is there anything? Is it important?
The door doesn’t move but it seems to grow larger and unless you mind deceives you, a faint shadow passes by the crack beneath it. You stare at it and nothing else as your breaths run hard and ragged and swiftly into the realm of hyperventilation.

What have you forgotten? You rest your hand upon Rinnier’s bare breast, currently unable to think of it as anything more than mere support. The scent of sap is sweet and overpowering in the air. You can hear the rustle of trees beyond the little white door.

Are you forgetting something? Are you? Are you? Are you? What’s gone wrong now? You can hear howls in the forest below. A breeze flutters past the curtains beside you. Rinnier says something. All you can think about is what you have forgotten this time. How can you always get this wrong?

You were a fool for thinking someone like you could ever love or be loved.

>Wait for the real Riz to finally finish their update.

happy halloween

I'm sorry Riz.

>>2028065
I'm staring at you disappointedly, anon.

>>2028076
You did a good job imitating his style; Fooled me.

>>2028076
Nice try Riz, but this is canon now.

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>>2028076
>>/u/

>>2028076
I want more, do Kara and Ari next!

>>2028076
The hell man, had me fooled for the whole first post

Good job this is canon now

>>2028073
>are you forgetting something
>marry Rinnier!

>>2028322
See >>2028502

And >>2028502, this is punishment /u/. For God's sake he even made Irulen submissive instead of having her get fed up and burn the house down to hide her embarrassment or something.

But yeah >>2028076 spot on imitation if Riz wrote smut. Congrats.

>>2028513
I will never accept /u/ Halloween smut as canon.

>>2028861
>punishment /u/
What the fuck is that?
The only thing more awful than /u/fags are the anti-/u/fags that manages to match their autism and try even harder to go further beyond that.

>>2028920
Ironically you take this more seriously than I do. It's not Canon, so don't worry. It's just a quick and dirty joke smut post.

>>2029742
Did you reply to the wrong comment or something?

>>2028508
What's this, a commission? I wasn't planning on doing anything else but since the real Riz hasn't returned to this thread yet, I STILL RULE.


Ari ran out onto the street, tears streaming down her cheeks as she held her face between her hands. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen! What did Irue think she was doing? And what was Rinnier doing humouring her? Ari felt like everything she knew about the world was draining away. The world was a sharp uncomfortable place now.

She could still remember the feel of Irue sleeping beside her, the warmth and the weight of the only love she’ll ever have. The spiritual connection the two of them had shared. It had been special! And now Irue had just thrown all of that away.

And what made it worse was the link! She was doing her best to drown it out but every little thing she can feel right carried with it the undertone of Rinnier’s skin, her hair, the shiver of her flesh. She couldn’t close it out!

She jammed her eyes shut and as a result, ran straight into someone’s midsection, a wall of dense muscle that felt like it might as well have been made of iron. She stumbled back and looked up and then further up at Kara, the enormous demihuman practically obscuring the sun as she stood over her. It made what was almost a halo around her in the way it framed her lupine ears.

“Hey!,” she said loudly. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Irue and Rinnier are-....are...are!”
She couldn’t force it out.

“About time. What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s WRONG is that I’m a pathetic little parasite girl who belongs in the trash and I can’t deal with the idea that Irue could ever love or adore anyone who is not myself!”

‘Right. Well I can’t contribute anything to this discussion because I’m a retard with the emotional depth of a small child. Want to make out and maybe have sex instead?”

“Yeah sure why not.”

And then Ari fucking died.

>>2030666
Okay now this is enraging.

"I had hoped that by giving them a hand in Carona's reconstruction, we could acclimate people to their presence."

"They would rather live in tents than accept help from the demihumans, Irue." Rinnier sighed. "No amount of good behaviour on their part is going to endear them any."

"Because it would just be taken as a deliberate front to win their trust... Still, I didn't think their prejudice would run this deeply." You shook your head disparagingly. "You think it would be possible to improve their image if I made an appearance to work with them?"

"I think it would hurt yours, more than help theirs." Rinnier's honest answer was followed by an abrupt change in tone. "Can we take a step back from this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I get that you want to find a use for them, but all your plans so far have involved putting them alongside normal people." She left a particular emphasis on 'normal' as she spoke. "Why? There's plenty you could use them for that doesn't require them being accepted by the public. I don't understand what you're trying to achieve with this."

"Obviously I'm trying to get them accepted by the public." You return snarkily, winning a cheeky smirk for yourself at the expense of Rinnier's exasperation. "That is my goal, though. I've been considering this in the long term, and so long as Kara is my Testament, her pack are going to be a factor I need to consider. I'll have less problems in the long run if I can get people used to them sooner, rather than later."

"For a moment, I was worried you were going to try and tell me you wanted to socialize them until they could live in harmony." Rinnier snorted, "I don't think that's going to be possible, though. If your primary concern is smoothing things out in the long run, then I'd suggest thinking of a way to keep them closer."

"close...er." You repeat slowly, casting a doubtful look at your Testament. "Weren't you against that?"

"I'm against your bizarre trust in them." She corrected, "You were right however; I won't deny that the demihumans do make for a peculiar resource. I imagine you had hoped their raw physical strength would be a boon in Carona's reconstruction, and if the people weren't so obstinant, it may very well have been... In practice, it's only slowing us down, and building tensions."

"Ran into some people on the way here who mentioned as much." You grumbled, thinking back to the two men who had found Ari and you just after arriving.

"Yes, imagine complaints like those filling your desk several times a week." She mused wryly, "Did they tell you about the reports of theft, as well? Harassment and intimidation? Injuries?"

"...No. The knights outside told me they had been ornery about working, but none of that."

"I doubt most of it actually happened." Rinnier gestured towards a rather large stack of papers that had been strung together by twine and dropped on the floor. "While I don't share your faith in them to behave themselves, the sheer number of reports we've received would have me believe that your demihumans have found a purpose in life in petty thuggery, which replaces even their need to sleep." The problem is that some of these reports might be legitimate, and if they aren't all investigated, the real incidents will go unaddressed."

"Which is tying up manpower and slowing us down further." You sigh, catching her drift quickly. "I had hoped Kara would do a better job of keeping them in line."

"Even assuming she was trying," You could almost taste the doubt in her voice, "The demihumans have been split up to better distribute their talents among the knights. One person can't be everywhere."

"So by keeping them closer, you mean for them to be kept as a single group?" Having Kara directly overseeing them would probably help curb any laziness in her pack, and if they were always accounted for then those reports would diminish in credibility significantly.

"That's one option." Rinnier allowed, "But putting them into a single group would also increase suspicion of their activities, where ever you decide to use them. Not to mention remove any non-demihuman oversight to keep them honest."

"The other option, then?"

"Change their visibility." The former princess answered simply. "You've been trying to force people to get used to them by making them seem friendly. People expect that from a demihuman, and it's what they're suspicious of. As long as you keep them around, you're not going to be able to escape that suspicion, so rather than fight it, plan for it. If you know people are uncomfortable around the demihumans, then use that."

Making use of their reputation... Doing that would certainly be effective, but if you put your weight behind playing up their intimidation factor, you could effectively give up on ever easing them into society. You could imagine employing them as bodyguards, or escorts. Maybe elite guards? Make them part of your knights?

Whatever you did with them, the first step would obviously be getting them further away from the public.

"I may be able to work with that." You mutter thoughtfully, "I'll get Kara and Dullem's thoughts on it, later."

"Consulting with Dullem would be worthwhile." She remarked in vague agreement. "But somehow I don't think your plans for the demihumans were part of what you wanted to talk about earlier."

It had been a brief break, but she was right. In the small lapse of time it had taken Rinnier to collect her notes, you'd already found yourself indulging in a topic that had nothing to do with your original goal. It was too easy to try and write it off as done, when you had only barely just begun.

"Lunch first?" You suggested halfheartedly.

She only sighed.

While the attempt at been more a token of reluctance than anything else, Rinnier had unexpectedly taken you quite seriously. A pity, then, that she had just called a knight - Fen. The fact you recognized him was a unique experience for you. - to take requests from the room. There would be some time before he would return, and from what you had gathered, it wasn't unusual for Rinnier to take her lunches here anyway... Which meant you'd likely just be eating here as well.

"So, where were we?" Rinnier tapped her pen against the desk patiently. The question was harder than it sounded, because you still had a lot of ground to cover. Where were you going to go from here? "Dead zones, wasn't it?"

...You still weren't ready to talk about yourself. Maybe... Maybe she didn't need to know about that? Nobody else needed to know. You'd move on to something more relevant.

"About the contamination, I think I know where we can go to learn more about it." It didn't take you long to reiterate the Dominion of Luna's involvement in the creation of the Atelier, and filter through some of the many questions you had torn answers for out of Elly's brother. "The Luna Dominion didn't want to leave Dryad sealed like it is. There was supposed to have been a special section within Luna's Dominion dedicated towards finding a more permanent solution to it."

"But to find them, we would need to show our hand to the Shrine." She didn't need to point out why that was a chilling possibility. You had no idea how much of this they were fine with being known. As Heir to House Valen, and effectively serving as Dryad's Warden, you suspected you held at least some sway in the matter, but... You couldn't be certain where that influence ended. Worse, you had no way of effectively resisting if they somehow deduced Ari's contamination, or suspected Rinnier of it.

That was assuming you asked the Shrine. There was an alternative... But it had it's own share of problems. "The sect of Luna's Dominion responsible for studying the contamination was supposed to have travelled to the far west, to isolate themselves as much as possible. I couldn't get him to tell me where, exactly, but there's only so far west you can go before you hit sea."

"...Ephlesia, then." Rinnier's brows knit in thought. "That's a long way to go for answers."

"In more ways than one. La'Fiel's Crown..." You trailed off, receiving an understanding nod in turn. "We're already on the verge of a civil war, and our relations with Ephlesia have been strained for a while. Even if we did navigate cross-country, crossing the border would be a trial all on its own."

"Too many risks. There's no guarantee they'd even be willing to share their findings, either."

"Maybe." This was an area where you actually had more political information than Rinnier did. "But they may also be our safest option. Ephlesia is officially under control of a coalition of Luna Adepts and Scholars now. They broke away from the Shrine proper, naming themselves Artemis, and seizing control of Ephlesia, its borders, and everything inside." It was one of the reasons Luna's Dominion was treated watchfully by the Shrine to this day.

"You think they're the ones we should be talking to?"

You weren't sure on the exact developments, but you had a strong feeling that the schism between the Shrine and Artemis was rooted in the study of the fragments and contamination. There were too many coincidences gathered in one place for it to have merely been a difference in leadership ideals.

If you were right, then Artemis' shift in paradigm would have come from something they discovered researching fragments. The likelihood that they ahd become contaminated themselves was too high for you to just ignore... Which cast new doubt on the benevolence of their philosophy of freeing, and sharing, knowledge.

"Artemis and the Shrine aren't exactly on friendly terms. On the surface they're still one and the same, but the reality is more complicated... It's probably more accurate to call them enemies, at this point."

"So we have two options." Rinnier summarized, "Risk making an enemy of the Shrine, or risk being the spark to a civil war."

"There's more."
"Problems, or options?"
"...Problems."

Rinnier clicked her tongue discontentedly. "Let me guess, you expect Artemis has been compromised?"

"How..." That wasn't fair at all! "Yes. That's the root of my concerns, but the implications of that are more pressing. From what I learned, the contamination is purportedly closer to an idea. On the surface it makes sense that an organization dedicated to Luna would support the cultivation of knowledge in society, but if they've become vectors..."

"Then the easiest way to spread an idea is to educate people." She concluded, a shadow darkening her face. "...Is the La'Fiel crown in on this?"

"Not that I'm aware of?" Though it would make their actions more justifiable if they were... Or, some of them, at least. Their efforts to eliminate the holdings of nobility in an attempt to increase their own land wasn't something you could just blame on some ages old theological conspiracy. "I don't know much about local politics, or what the crown is doing."

"...Yet you speak confidently about the state of unrest between a foreign country and a borderless organization." Rinnier mused flatly.

"You've seen my library."

...Why wasn't she retorting. Don't just accept that.

"Then you're probably also not aware that a lot of Teranford's people were forced to flee through the mountains due to La'Fiel's closed borders. I imagine we'll find a fair portion of my people taking refuge beyond Ephlesia's borders."

"I think we've talked about that before." You remember thinking about that in the past, at any rate. "So I take it you're in favor of contacting Artemis?" It'd be a convenient way to kill two birds with a single stone; You'd get your answers, and Rinnier would be able to contact some of her former subj-

"No."

You blinked, processing her blunt refusal slowly. "What?"

"Consider the consequences if the meeting fails. If a member of House Valen is discovered crossing the border to a country with established opposition to the Crown, I suspect it would start a fire in La'Fiel. A fire which we are in no position to participate in, whose damage would spread uncontrollably and likely burn out what little holdings we have right out from under us."

Your cousin Caylen was inadvertently being led along by that conniving bitch towards that exact outcome, last you heard.

"If we're not going to contact them, our only other source of answers are the Shrine." The two of you had just stressed the dangers of that particular option. "Is that really a better alternative?"

"No, it isn't." Rinnier's red hair shifted from side to side as her steadfast rejection continued. "Do I need to spell this out for you, Irue?"

Your teeth grit under her condescension. "Evidently."

"You are a noble. The scion of House Valen. You have an obligation to people, many of whom are suffering around us as we speak." Rinnier stood up, gesturing irritably towards her paper covered desk. "Your knights are barely better than common village militia, the only serious income we've been working off of came in the form of literal buried treasure, and the only thing you've been considering is how to get involved in a larger game!"

"Then what do you think I should do about it, then?!"

"Nothing!" She snapped, "You're not in a position to do anything!"

>How should you respond?

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>>2028065
>>2028067
>>2028071
>>2028073
>>2030666

>tfw Rinnier just wants you to stay and rule so that she can have you all to herself

>>2031072
I mean, she's not wrong; we've been more or less broke since we started this quest. Where does the Valen's money usually come from? Taxes? Shouldn't we be using tax money from our other holdings for disaster relief and reconstruction? I don't know where else we'd get funds.
...Auntie is withholding funds again, isn't she? I long for the day we can finally be rid of her.

>Game
Does she think we do this stuff for fun? Did we mention the part where if the contamination becomes widespread, the apocalypse happens?

>>2031072
>>2031068
Hey! Isn't the Crown also actively suppressing information and especially literacy? Remember that?

We are also in a position to *support our Aunt*. But we need Rinnier to help us with that. Because we're bad at it.

Rinnier seems to have forgotten as well who we are. That the town of Carona isn't the extent of our domain, nor is the literal "buried treasure" the extent of our funds. Merely what we have been limited to it for the time being.

The issue we're talking about? Kind of starting to take precedence.

Not to say that Carona isn't important.

> Tell her about how we didn't own Carona before, but it appears our Aunt maneuvered things so we do now.

With as frustrating as Carona is, it has to be relevant in some way. Not to mention its location.

Finally. What IS close by is the Shrine. Which is where the night ghasts came out of. Which means we should investigate it.

FFS. If she really needs income we can summon a shade elemental and chop down a shit ton of trees with a razor web.

Why is Carona so important to her, more so than finding even her own people, anyways.

>>2031171
We chose to dress like our Mom, right?

> HEY! I need money and the world is ending also I'm going to re-start my engagement that Prince you almost married me off to, but it's as a cover for hopefully saving the world kthanxbyeeeeeeee Oh and here's my eldritch Testament please keep her safe and don`t let her destroy the world.

>>2031076
Do we love Ari enough to let her play with our hair yet?

>>2031210
No.

>>2031072
>All we've been doing
All we've been doing was solve one atelier to SAVE RINNIER and another to SAVE ARI.
We were stuck in a life and death puzzle without the pieces what the fuck kind of idiot concerns themselves with the administration of a remote town we have no access to?

Clara foisted Carona on us with the means to support it and we haven't had a single second to sit down to even attempt to find a solution for it. We're simply telling her what has happened and she goes apeshit. Could we get a fucking minute to work on it before she accuses us of fucking around?

We need to hit up Uncle and secure a cash flow from the house first thing after we are done with this.

Then tell her that Caylen is already involving the house thanks to Maran and Clara is trying to stop it. We don't need to lift a finger to fuck this up ourselves, he is doing it for us.

>>2031224
Without*

>>2031224
>>2031072

> Backhandedly mention that we solved the Ice Queen atelier earlier to save Rinnier and that we hate this stupid town.

>>2031171
>Where does the Valen's money usually come from?
While Irue has never personally had a hand in any of the finances, or indeed, ever needed to care about money whatsoever...

As landholders in La'Fiel, House Valen should receive taxes from settlements within its borders. This isn't free money however, as a portion of it is paid as taxes, in turn, to the La'Fielan Crown. The remaining pool is also tapped for things like road maintenance, trade agreements, and other aspects of general land ownership and civil management.

You aren't aware just how much of that remains for personal banking, but it's also worth noting that the Crown has been squeezing rather tightly on resources in order to propagate unacceptable conditions in the holdings of the nobility in order to justify declaring them unsuitable for privilege and repossessing their lands under the name of royalty. As such, there is something of an artificial depression going on, where most of the higher tiered movers and shakers of the economy are torn between judiciously tightening their purse strings, and paying out unexpected expenses to stave off deterioration of local living standard. In regards to this, Irue is aware - I believe it was mentioned early on in the quest - That House Valen has been aiding their fellow nobles somewhat discretely in the form of additional financial aid.

So in summary, you are aware House Valen is wealthy. You are aware it should have an income. You are not aware what that income is, nor how much of it is actually unaccounted for; Ergo, you have little notion how it could be reallocated or stretched. There is a general atmosphere of needing to be careful with your funds, as the environment is tentatively hostile.

>>2031200
>Why is Carona so important to her, more so than finding even her own people, anyways.
Noblesse oblige
She's not autistic like us and actually care about people suffering around her and wants to help. Why is this even a question? She's mad because it is our responsibility, not hers and she thinks we are faffing around

>>2031227
On top of that, we sold it to the shrine for a fucking pittance for her sake. Probably will make her have an aneurysm if she figures we squandered it, I don't think she's really overly concerned about herself. Survivors guilt probably still lingers in her head.

Also, we put her in charge while we left because we considered her competent enough to manage. Everything she had accomplished with the reconstruction is in fact due to us taking this seriously and appointing her, not dull-man or whoever the hell else.

Does she just see this whole situation as being a babysitter for the incompetent noble?

>>2031251
>>2031233
>>2031230

We aren't incompetent. We just have different values.

>>2031229
Kind of leaning towards sparking a civil war here. The nobility is being dicks.

>>2031224
Please look forward to the third Atelier required to save Kara.

I'm reading through replies, will probably close the window soon.

>>2031259
I was serious about the backhanded mention about the atelier, that we traded it to save her, and that we should tell her about the gifts we gained from the two Ateliers we conquered.

Also that we aren't looking forward to having to do a third one for Kara. They're EXHAUSTING. But we probably will because the universe is dicks to us like that.

Also is it unusual that there two Ateliers so close to Carona? And so many Demi-humans? Is there a fucking Demi-human Atelier nearby?

What does she think about Demi-humans being ignore by Mana?

>>2030666
Pedos rekt.

>>2031072
>Our cousin is being manipulated into something really shady, and the nomadic army is already sending spies in La'Fiel. Not doing anything will see us amidst a war.

>>2031171
>>2031200
You're not wrong, but also the apocalypse is important! And why do you care about Carona, anyway?

>>2031224
>>2031227
>>2031268
Irue is busy saving lives! Your lives!

>>2031256
>>2031276
Civil war is coming!

>>2031210
I'm just going to say No to this again, for good measure.

There are a couple topics I'm not sure I can smoothly integrate, but we'll see how it goes. Writing!
---
>>2031268
>so many Demi-humans?
It's just Kara's pack. They're there because they were on the Mayor's payroll before you broke them. Now it's still just Kara's pack, but the pack is incredibly smaller and more prone to suicide.

>two Ateliers so close to Carona?
Yes and no. Ateliers are rare in general, so finding two so close together is bizarre, but as their locations are chosen primarily by the Aeon as places of meaning, it's not abundant enough to be considered suspicious. Ephlesia, on the other hand...

>>2031276
>Pedos rekt
Ari's probably around Irue's age, anon!

>>2031292
So.

Can we tell Rinnier that we pretty much broke Kara's pack and we could use some advice on whether or not pumping them full of Dryad would be . . . good? Like say sap from the Golem?

Or maybe Wisp?

Or get the Shade adept to teach them to come to terms with their regrets?

>>2031292
feeeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeeeee rizzzzz

>>2031292
There's even 700 year old lolis, your argument is invalid.

She wasn't wrong, but that didn't make you any happier to hear it. You had been focused on this sleeping plot ever since stumbling through the Atelier, but the fact remained that you weren't in a strong position to make a difference in it. You were lucky that the mayor's chests had contained enough cash to handle as much of your problems in Carona as it had.

...Not that you should have needed it. House Valen were the patrons of these lands, and wealthy on top of that. You'd never needed to care about where your money was coming from before, so why now? Where were the purse strings when you needed them? Didn't you collect taxes specifically to cover expenses like this?

Maybe not specifically this, considering the sudden loss of an entire town to a raging Jinn apparition wasn't something typically planned for, but still. You hadn't thought too much about it until now, but you really did need to go knock down your aunt and uncle's door and find out why you didn't have any help with this.

"First off." You discarded your own seat heatedly, standing... Unfortunately still not as tall as Rinnier, as you glowered up at her across the desk. "Carona isn't the extent of my holdings. Lest you forget who I am, I am the heir to all of House Valen's possessions, influence and authority. If anyone is in a position to make a difference in this, it's me."

"Oh really?" She shot back challengingly. "Then care to explain where all of that authority was when I got kidnapped? When we had to walk through the forest to ask your cousin for help?"

"Those were during my Rite! I was still considered a child back then!"

"And so much has changed, hasn't it? You spent a month sulking over being told to clean up the mess you made, and the first thing you did after that was leave it to me to go try and Solve a damn Atelier!" She slammed her palm against the desk, a small stream of perilously placed papers cascading to the floor unheeded. "Now you're ignoring it again!"

"I wasn't sulking, I was drugged!" You were more than a little indignant about that as it was. "We all were!"

"I'm sorry, I seem to recall being sober and taking care of all of Carona's responses that month. I guess it's hard to be drugged if you don't drink all day!"

You might have had a small drinking problem, but you weren't going to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging that right now. "And excuse me for trying to save Ari! Luna knows I did the same for you, but I don't hear you complaining about that!"

"You didn't Solve an Atelier to save me!"

"How do you think I even got inside!?" One hand swept aside; A vague gesture towards Carona in its entirety. "You think I teleport back to this town because I like it? Shade take it, I hate this place, it's just where the Atelier sends me!"

"You...!" Rinnier's heated shout sputtered out, washed away in favor of bewilderment. "Wait what?"

"I. Solved. An Atelier. For. You." You repeated it emphatically, "Only Testament I haven't had to go spelunking through some Mana Forsaken Aeon's trauma for yet is Kara, but at this point I won't even be surprised!"

"You... You've solved two Ateliers?"

"Yes! What did you expect me to do? Conquer them? You get stuck in one and there's only two ways out. I don't know about you, but I don't like dying!"

"Then stop doing stupid things!" Rinnier threw her hands up in exasperation. "And what do you mean the Atelier sends you here?!"

"I can teleport to Carona and make... Webs..." How do you explain 'A Spider's Web'? It does a lot of things, and it's hard to describe if you don't actually... "It's not important right now! I did all of that and sold everything I knew about the Ice Queen's Atelier to the Shrine so they'd help me save you! If that's so stupid, maybe I should just leave you captured next time!"

"I was captured because you wanted me to go down there!" She snapped back, the spark of conflict quickly reigniting between you. "How about next time you go talk to the hostile town and get yourself captured?!"

"Obviously I did, or I wouldn't have been gone for a month trying to save Ari!" You weren't really sure whose side that was supposed to support. The important thing right now wasn't who was right or wrong, but that she didn't get the last word. "Excuse me for not putting much thought towards this blasted cesspit of a town while I was trying to stay alive and protect you!"

"This 'cesspit' is every bit your responsibility as we are! Why not put some of that vaunted effort into helping them!?"

"It's doing fine isn't it? I put you in charge of it for a reason!"

"You what?" Her eyes narrowed dangerously, "You didn't put me in charge of anything, I picked it up on my own because you weren't taking care of it. This isn't my responsibility, it's yours!" You distinctly remember leaving her in charge of this... After she was already handling it. You had effectively just seen her taking care of it and decided that it was fine if she kept doing that. "You need to start accepting that!"

"I am damn well aware what my responsibilities are!" Ari flinched out of the corner of your eye as you roared, fists slamming down on the desk at the expense of yet more papers. "I'm doing the best I can! Everyone's fucking safe for the first time in Luna only knows how long, and I finally caught a break! I'm asking for help, and it's not easy!"

Heat stung your eyes, pools of salty water like scalding rivulets rising with your temper. "You think I'm doing all of this because it's fun? Do you know what Ateliers do to people?! Do you know what that contamination is going to do if I don't stop it?!"

You glared at your Testament, breath heaving angrily in dead silence that ensued. For a moment the space between your faces could have been crossed in an instant, and it was all you could to not just reach across and try to physically strangle her in your wrath. Not that it would have helped any... And in truth, there likely would have been a repeat of the library incident had you made good on your seething.

But your blood still pumped painfully with every throbbing beat of your heart, burning impotently through your veins like a torrent saturated in desperate emotions that couldn't find their way to words.

"Civil war is already coming. My cousin left to go meet with Artemis before I went to save Ari, and even if Aunt Clara stops him, it's only a matter of time before something else gives."

"Irue..."

"I need help." You choked out, feeling your stomach bottom out hollowly as the adrenaline started to fade. "I've been doing the best I can, and things keep piling up. I'm trying to ask for help, but you're not listening! I'm not trying to ignore Carona, but this is more important!"

"I am listening, Irue." Rinnier answered softly, a fatigued sigh escaping her lips as she looked you over. "You're being an idiot."

"How?" Desperation leaked from your throat. "How is what I'm doing wrong? Why is dealing with Carona so important to you?!"

"Which do you want me to answer first? Clean yourself up, Fen should be back soon."

She withdrew a handkerchief from... Somewhere, handing the soft cloth over like a peace offering. You accepted it petulantly, taking your seat once more as you wiped your eyes. "How am I being an idiot?"

"You're overreaching." She settled herself back across the desk, scooting forward to start reorganizing the scattered papers as she spoke. "I haven't forgotten that you're the Heir, but in the months I've been with you, that title hasn't benefitted us once. Even now, we've been financing Carona's recovery off things you've salvaged, with a work force you literally found in the woods." A single, sad, hiccup of a laugh gurgled out of you. "Right now, all that we have is this town. It's a pile of rubble, the citizens are belligerent, and you may hate it... But it's yours. Ours."

"What does that have to do with me overreaching?"

"I'm getting to that. Just listen to me, alright?" She replied calmly, pausing to see if you would object before continuing.

"One day you're going to be the head of House Valen, instead of the heir. When that happens, you'll have everything House Valen has to offer at your fingertips. Until then, if you haven't gotten anything more by now, I think it's safe to say that this is all you have access to."

"I deserve more." You protest bitterly, "I passed the Rite, I'm an adult now. I should be the Head already."

"Legally you're an adult. Right now, you're a spoiled child." She glanced at your resentful expression and grinned faintly in return. "You lack experience, Irue. Isn't that why you've been content with me doing all of this? You keep referring to House Valen's authority, but do you know what that entails? How to govern land? Deal with its people? How to use that influence?"

"I..."

"La'Fiel is heading for a civil war. Like you said, there's nothing we can do to prevent it coming... And while news of your cousin barreling face first into expediting it was unexpected-" You empathized inadvertently with the deeply seated undertones of irritation that colored her reference to your marauding kin. "-That doesn't mean you should follow suit, and treat this calm before the storm as something to waste."

"I'm not wasting it," You insist frustratedly, "This contamination is bigger than a single country's squabbles."

"I'm not saying it isn't." Rinnier's eyes flickered up from the desk, meeting yours entreatingly. "Anything on the scale of the Mana is absolutely beyond any one country. It is beyond one territory in that country. It is most certainly beyond one town in that territory. If what you told me is true, then this contamination problem is something that was going long before we were born, and is a war being fought by people and organizations far more powerful, and resourceful, than anything we could bring to the table."

"So you're saying I can't make a difference?" One hand drifts towards your bracelet, the familiar feeling of spiteful resolve coming to the front.

"I'm sure someone could find a use for the heir to House Valen." She disagreed with a frown, "And if you barrel into that stage now, that's what will happen. You'll be used. You may not even realize it's happening, or who is doing it. Wars aren't won by single individuals, battles are; You can't expect to win a battle if you don't know what's happening."

"Can't you help with that?"

"To an extent, maybe. What I'm telling you is that I don't want to get involved in that kind of strife. We're not prepared for what it's going to demand... And even if we were? I wouldn't get involved with a civil war in my lap."

"This is more important-"

"No." She cut you off forcefully, and for once, desperately. "You don't understand, Irue. I've been through a civil war once already. I've seen first hand what it does, and the fact that I'm here, right now, should tell you what happens when you try to juggle one of those with another threat."

"If you had the full support of your House behind you, I would still tell you not to do this. There are too many enemies, in too many places, and it doesn't matter how strong you think your side is. Resources will run out. People will die. Don't underestimate what's coming, Irue. You're asking for help, and I am begging you. please, listen to me."

"..." A knock on the door interrupted your conversation briefly, as Fen brought in the requested lunches. Perhaps sensing the environment, he wasted little time in turning them over to Asche's waiting hands and excusing himself quietly from the room once more.

Whatever heat had built in your veins felt cold and sluggish now, with only the persistent pangs of ignored hunger there to gnaw at your gut. "Why is Carona important?" You find yourself trying to change the topic, offering a fragile smile to Asche in thanks as she handed you something to busy yourself with. Anything as an excuse to look away from the disquieting sight of the fear and anxiety unguardedly reflected in Rinnier's eyes.

"It's a chance to gain what you lack." She replied eventually, a subdued acceptance of your refusal to answer. "Experience dealing with people, and learning how to use your influence. Right now it isn't much, but there's still time before the status quo in La'Fiel breaks. The longer that can be drawn out, the more time we have to prepare."

"What would we need to prepare?"

"Besides the basics of a town? We'll need food stockpiled. Stronger defenses. The knights need training, walls need building and reinforcing. I don't know where we would find them, but the more allies we have, the better." Rinnier ticked off her predictions thoughtfully.

"And you would have us just ignore the contamination until then?" You couldn't keep the displeasure from your voice, and in truth you made little effort to try. "What if you're wrong, and not getting involved blindsides us later because we've put it off for so long?"

"After the dust settles, either we'll be able to turn our attention elsewhere, or... We would have been doomed from the start." She responded with resignation. "If the struggle between the Shrine and Artemis has lasted this long, then we have to hope it will last a little longer."

>Thoughts?

>>2031386
>You were lucky that the mayor's chests had contained enough cash to handle as much of your problems in Carona as it had.
Perhaps we should look deeper into the mayor's chest. Provided Rinnier lets us, of course.

>>2031390
I'd be glad for some downtime. Nothing but paperwork and political games with shrine representatives.
Been hoping for us to be able to have a calm week or two since last year

We need a powerbase and income and we will never be rid of this town. Not even a calamity managed to set us free

>>2031390
>The struggle between the Shrine and Artemis seems to be coming to a point, what with Maran and the prophecy.
>We'll need to visit Uncle and find out what resources we actually have at our disposal as the House Head.
>We have a sleeping Behemot. If we manage to find someone who can handle it, probably the missing Tiers, we get a mighty asset.
>Also we still haven't told Rinnier about our house's role and secrets.

>>2031390
>so this is what Ari meant when she said you were patient
It's a pity we can't see this side of Rinnier more often.
>thank her for managing Carona and for de-escalating that conversation.
>ask Ashe to show Ari and Rinnier the mirror diary

>>2031390
Is it 4X time?

>>2031428
4...X...?

>>2031434
eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate

>>2031434
What did we forget to ask about the Fae back at our cousins? I don't think anyone ever figured it out.

>>2031441
A quick glance at the Forgetting list, and I want to say that the Fae were related to Faedka. This was another option later on, which was also failed.

>>2031439
Do your best, anon.

>>2031390
> Who CAN we reach out to?

> Our Aunt needs to be brought up to speed on several things and God knows she's good at all this stuff.

> What about the Royal House? She might know who we could approach there.

> The Mayors mercenaries. The ones in hiding. Could we approach and turn them? If they're mercenaries they should be able to be used.

> The slave trader. Our Aunt should know how to contact him. We can find out where your people went, and maybe get them here somehow to build a core of trustworthy people.

> If this town is mine, how do I make myself THEIRS? Your people loved you. How did you do it?

> Thank you for helping me. I know I'm not easy to deal with.

> Hug Ari.

that's all I got so far.

>>2031390
> What's Marchovic up to

> I need to talk with Mim the Luna Adept at some point. Can you help me prepare for that?

> Why are you so surprised I solved two Ateliers? It's tedious but I mean doable.

>>2031449
Hey are there mana cores in that ice atelier from those spider things in the tunnels? Could we gank those?

>>2031454
You sold knowledge of the Atelier and its jurisdiction to the Shrine, anon.

>>2031459
No we didn't, Rue did! We don't know anything about it, it's not our fault if we get lost and accidentally make friends with an ice spider.

>>2031466
While this is technically true, and a valid excuse, it's been over 2 months since it was sold. They have the entrances staffed to ward away people so they don't accidentally get eaten by a nest of water spiders.

Which doesn't make it impossible to get to, but it's something Irue would be aware of and you may need to take into consideration. Irue will not willingly go back into the Atelier itself, though.

>>2031468
So we sell out services to the shrine and charge them for clearing out the tunnels - and taking the mana cores. We can bring Marchovic.

Then they can put the manpower spent guarding it towards reconstruction.

If they refuse us, we make it known that they did to the Townspeople.

>>2031468
We have the mana controlling bracelet yo.

>>2031390
>explain to Rinnier that we've never had any coaching on how to execute our duties and we've been trying to figure it out ourselves
Not trying to make excuses, just to explain what our malfunction is.
>ask her to teach us

>>2031485
We have found Rinniers greatest weakness.

Being asked for help.

>>2031489
We inch of ever closer to marrying Rinnier. Soon.
>>2031468
A job for the mirror if there ever was one.

>>2031390
I don't like it, but if nothing else, she's right about
>"It's a chance to gain what you lack." ... "Experience dealing with people, and learning how to use your influence.

More proof of Auntie's ill intent toward us; If she'd actually intended for us to lead the house, she would have taught us how to lead it properly.

This is decidedly callus, but what is the benefit when the town is rebuilt? A dependable source of income? A strong backup holding? One town isn't going to be enough to fight a war from.

> I don't know where we would find them, but the more allies we have, the better.
Maybe we could try going to a different town, one that we don't hate. We know we have more holdings, they can't be that far away, right?

>>2031505
You forget that there are basically no villages, towns or cities in this setting because Riz made a clerical error early on and instead of correcting it, he baked it into the story.

Carona is important because it's one out out of a baker's dozen.

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>>2031511
I was aiming low initially, because the reasoning for it being low was already in place! I just... aimed too low. Because I am bad at this. Population is meant to be low, and dwindling. It is not necessarily meant to be Precipice of Extinction tier though it being that low isn't actually impossible, given the setting

I really do need to make a more local map for this part of the quest, but much like my initial map woes, I am moderately terrified anything I make will give the wrong impression, and just generally be ugly and/or unusable.

Life is hard.

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>>2031386
>>2031387
>>2031388
>>2031389
>>2031390

I knew this edit would be in demand.

>>2031530
I'm an amateur/hobbyist cartographer. I can polish up a rough sketch into looking like a decent Ye Olde Mappe if you want

>>2031530
Could you start giving rough estimations on voting windows please?

>>2032177
They're usually somewhere around 12-18 hours from the last post, because Riz is a vampire. I think it's mostly controlled by "is Riz awake?" and "is the sun still in the sky"?

>>2031642
Are Rinner's eyes red? I though the Valen family had the monopoly on red eyes.

>>2032226
They're stated to be crimson in this very thread.
Also it seems the Valen line got their distinctive eyes from the East Heaven royal line, and Rinnier's mother was an East Heaven princess.

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>>2032216

>>2032216
Yeah, but I'm a eurofag so an
>I'm sleeping now
would be handy

>>2032352
But that would require deliberate choice to go to sleep, instead of simply falling asleep at the keyboard.

More seriously, in lieu of such a post, you can make 4chan show the server time (US eastern) instead of local time. Riz seems to be somewhere in the US, so that should be al least somewhat useful.

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>>2031642
Nigga we solved 2 Ateliers.

We're not incompetent.

We're enragingly ignorant. It's like finding out Superman doesn't know how to pump gas.

>>2031390
>Apologize for our outburst
>Mention that it's becoming difficult to control our emotions

This entire conversation is just Irue acting like a lunatic while Rinnier drops wisdom

>>2033714
I mean how many Ateliers has she solved?

But you aren't wrong. I feel like we should arrange for Rinnier to hang with our Aunt so they can comisserate over dealing with batshit crazy red eyed women that are frustratingly good at making their craziness work out but are incapable of taking care of mundane things like feeding themselves or acting polite.

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>>2031411
>>2031422
>>2031505
Tentative agreement?

>>2031413
>>2031450
>>2031452
Plans for the future!

>>2031485
>>2033354
We are having issues.

It looks like people are itching to move on to telling Rinnier about personal/family issues? I'll work on it, but I'll probably be a bit busy tonight.
---

>>2032163
If/when I get some free time, I'll have to put one together and maybe bother you to take mercy on me. We'll probably need one for what's to come.

>>2032177
>>2032216
I'll do better! Normally I try to mention it, but recently it seemed like people had internalized when I disappear, so I didn't think about it.
...So is it normal for my players to have memorized my sleep schedule, or isn't it? Does not knowing imply someone is new? The fact I even need to ask these questions is concerning me.

>>2033714
Please look forward to Rinnier Quest, where in you play a one-shot as the former princess of a fallen land who was sold into slavery and gets bought up by a strange young noble. It will revolve around you doing your level best to keep them from killing themselves, while struggling to keep their ADD attention focused long enough to make progress helping you.

Occasionally you wake up and find your life has been made objectively more stressful due to the noble making unnecessary additions to the household, such as:

A congregation of hobos!
A dog that you're fairly certain is a sociopath, but can apparently do no wrong in the eyes of the noble!
A cute, useless thing!

Also the noble may be going bankrupt. You need to find a way to keep them afloat or you'll be sold back into slavery and have to start over!

>>2033815
>but are incapable of taking care of mundane things like feeding themselves
The kitchenmancy failure wasn't our fault! Salamander's issues with Riener caused the first fire, not us!

>>2033892
>concerning questions
You run at weird times; having a sense of when you'll be active is useful if anons want to participate, or at least it used to be when you used shorter voting times.

>Rinner Quest
That sounds like a tweaked version of your proposed Witch Knight Quest.

>>2033892
I just accept you're going to post sooner or later and compulsively check the thread every half an hour.

>>2033892
But seriously. Would Rinnier and our Aunt be instant friends in misery?

>>2033926
Why would they be miserable, anon? You're a charming, charismatic individual and your mother was a kind-natured saint.

Their relationship would be amusing, but you'd need a write-up from Clara's PoV to understand why.

>>2033963
> you'd need a write-up from Clara's PoV to understand why.

I know what to vote for next it seems.

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Update: Bad things happened and I was forced to endure the skyfire's gaze. I'm going to go die now; Apologies for the delays.

>>2034779
>Riz's vampire adventures

>>2034779
Whomp whomp. That's cool. My office managerlost my continuing education credits and I have to re-take a board exam now for $600.

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>>2034779

RIP

>>2036794
I can't believe Riz is dead.
At least we have smutanon, who's effectively Riz2.0

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>>2034779

"Does it have to be Carona?" You pick through the delivered lunch without any real fervor. Fitting for a town in the process of recovery, it wasn't anything that could be called grand fair. Bread and soup, mainly stocked with dried vegetables and thin strips of meat you can't immediately recognize. "If time is precious, wouldn't it be quicker to try and make use of a town that isn't ruined?"

"And where would the people of Carona go?" Rinnier posed in return, sparing little time in cleaning space on the desk for the food to be laid out. "Would they go at all? From the time I've spent getting to know the people here, I've learned they're of independent stock. For many, the home that they see in Carona has nothing to do with the houses they lost."

"I don't share even a token of that affection." You were under no delusions as to how callous that sounded. There was no love lost between you and this town, though; Certainly no lingering affection for the place, and as for the people... They were numbers to you, at best. Mild annoyances, at worst. "What's the benefit to rebuilding Carona? One town won't be enough to weather a war with."

The heavily set-upon sigh issued by your royal Testament was a discouraging indication you'd said something lecture-worthy again. You took the opportunity to stir your lukewarm soup once you realized this would take a while.

"If you're speaking purely from the perspective of tangible assets, then there's... Merit to that. Were this a typical war, that kind of thinking might even be praise worthy." She began slowly. You blinked in surprise, until she shook her head to disabuse you of the notion you had earned any such praise just now. "This is to be a civil war. We're standing in the midst of a vital resource in what's to come: Loyalty."

Ari tugged at your shirt discretely while Rinnier's lecture went on, hints of curiosity and a vague sense of desire trickling through 'Hearts in Harmony'. It didn't take you long to figure out her attention was flickering between you and the soup in your hands.

"Civil wars are, more than any other, fought by the people. There's no national pride to unite them, or sense of obligation to give them resolve. You can't just look at your holdings and treat them as numbers, because whether they fight for, or against, you is a matter they'll decide for themselves."

You spared a furtive look around the room in search of Ari's own food, until your eyes finally came to rest questioningly on Asche.

The stoic maid stared back impassively, her nearly imperceptible shrug silently adding another layer of conversation to Rinnier's background lecture. Sea green eyes traced to the side with a subtle nod towards the now empty woven basket the food was brought in, informing you that everything had been distributed.

"It's a trapping of nobility and royalty to discount the temerity of waging war. Our stations are the ones least affected by the chaos they spread, so it is all too easy to view the loss of land and people as chips out of a whole. To the ones who fight, and die, by your command... They have wagered everything they have on the defense of the things they hold important. A single soldier's death is barely blip to our casualties, but it's a scar left to that soldier's family. A memory lost to their friends. They understand this, but they will still fight, because doing so is in their best interests."

This was reminding you exhaustingly of the instructors your aunt had sent to your house to ensure you were properly educated. War and History had always been Caylen's interest, and your respective libraries reflected that quite extensively. At least to Rinnier's credit, your instructors had primarily droned on about war with a focus on the larger picture... But it wasn't as if you were unaware that the dangers to those who fought were drastically different from the commander's.

"In a civil war, the matter driving the conflict is almost invariably 'Who will serve my best interests?'. People will only fight for what they believe in. If they feel disgruntled, betrayed, ignored or slighted by their lord - If they see a better future under another's flag - Then they will act to tear you down without regret. That is why Carona is- What are you doing?"

"..." Ari swallowed the spoonful of soup you had just stuck in her mouth, shrinking back into her chair meekly to chew on it after noticing the shift in attention to the two of you.

"Did you just... Feed her?"

"Her portion wasn't delivered." You defended yourself weakly, "But I understand what you're saying. Carona's recovery is a chance to make, or break, their faith in me?"

"Correct." She drawled flatly, pushing her own untouched bowl of soup across the desk. "She can have mine."

"I don't mind sharing with her."

"You spoil her too much." Rinnier sighed tiredly, one hand forcefully massaging her forehead. "I would appreciate it if I had your full attention for this?"

"Fine, fine." You surrender easily, not having any real reason to resist now that Ari's food situation was solved. "Do you think it will make that big of a difference, though? Carona is deep inside Valen land, I can't imagine them having an opportunity to revolt and join up with the royals."

"The heart of your territory is paramount." Rinnier explained patiently, now satisfied that you were focusing on the topic at hand. "If they're loyal, then it makes your core strong. If they have reason to resent you, then they're already in the perfect position to hurt you from the inside. Remember this, Irue: There is no victory in fighting a war on multiple fronts."

Patience, though... Was this what Ari had meant? It wasn't the first quality that came to mind when you thought of the fallen princess. In the past you had spent most of your time being fussed at, or bickering. That hadn't exactly changed, considering this lecture came on the heels of the two of you toeing the line for an outright brawl over her desk, but it was bizarre seeing this side of her. You didn't particularly dislike it; Truth be told, you found yourself wishing she'd have shown it earlier.

Maybe she had, and you were only noticing it now.

"That's why Carona is important." Her lecture was wrapping up, snapping you out of those aimlessly wandering thoughts. "Prove yourself to the people here, and their loyalty will stand as a measure of your character to others."

You couldn't help but feel cheated at the familiar concept behind her explanation. At times you considered it nothing short of a miracle that you had passed the Rite at all. Caylen's unexpected condemnation of you during the judgement had seemed the end of the road... And your Aunt's approval, an unexpected ray of hope. The events of that day still left you confused.

"I thought I'd be done having to prove myself after the Rite ended."

"You'll never be done proving yourself." The fallen princess wore a grim smile, letting the weight behind those miserable words sink in. "The more you put yourself out there, the more people will challenge you. Even when they aren't malicious, they'll want to see who you are for themselves. Especially so for those of royal, or noble, blood."

The implication that you'd be spending the rest of your life having to suffer through the same hell you did in the Rite was disheartening. That, more than anything else, made a sense of fatigue you couldn't quite place begin to creep inexorably through you.

"The price of rulership is to bear the weight of your people's scrutiny." Rinnier continued comfortingly, "That doesn't mean you should do it alone."

"I think we've established I'm not getting help from my family." You observed dryly. "Who else do you suggest I reach out to?"

"Aren't we partners?" She asked crossly, "Rely on me. If you won't, then what was the point of naming me your Testament?"

You realized, at that moment, that Rinnier must never know your motivation for choosing all three of them had been to spite your aunt and uncle's coffers. It was a strange thought to have in the face of her earnest offer, but it never the less solidified in your mind as a matter of utmost, solemn importance. She must never know.

"Rinnier, I'm sorry." You started, bridging the ensuing silence of her offer with an awkward apology. "For earlier. I didn't expect it to be this hard when I took the Rite. I've made... A lot of mistakes, and I doubt it's been easy to deal with me while I was making them. Nothing prepared me for having to make decisions like these."

"You've proven lacking in unexpected places, yes." She agreed neutrally, "As the heir to a family as notable as yours, I'll admit that I expected... More."

"If you're willing to help me, then..." You trailed off, uncertain as to how to proceed.

"You'll listen to what I have to say?" She spared you the embarassment of hanging for long, and you nodded in acquiescence. "Then for your first lesson, take back your apology."

"...What?"

"We don't know how long we have left to prepare, Irue. There's no time for you to feel sorry. It's meaningless to me, and does nothing for you."

"Then what do you want me to do?" You asked irritably, "I thought you deserved it for putting up with me this long."

"What I want-" She retorted assertively, "-Is for you to stop pitying yourself. It may have been hard, and I may not have agreed with many of the ways you handled things, but you came this far on your own. You've earned at least a fraction of the pointless pride you had when we met." You recoiled reflexively, straightening your posture as if the words had physically slapped you. "If you'll listen to me this time, then we can go even further together."

"I-"

"-And what I deserve-" She interrupted your hesitant answer, voice rising just enough to overrule your own. "Is a 'Thank You'. Don't tell someone you're sorry; Tell them you appreciate them."

Somehow, that was more difficult to stomach. You took a bite of bread to buy yourself time, but found little had resolved itself once those precious few seconds elapsed. "I'll keep that in mind." A self-satisfied smirk began to form smugly upon her lips, and you glanced away petulantly in turn.

"Carona is mine for now, but I doubt the people have any particularly strong feelings about me." Thinking back, the two you met seemed to have a decent impression of you. It was possible they thought of you favorably, but you had no particular synergy with them as a leader. "Your people were loyal, weren't they? How should I go about endearing myself?"

"I'd say 'be yourself', but in my experience..." She trailed off smugly as you glowered at her.

"I've been laying the ground work, but there's only so much I can do for you. There's a limit to what people will respect when it comes to someone they've never seen, so public presence is an essential factor." Her amusement was short lived, and readily replaced with the familiar voice of business. "The longer people go without seeing you, the further away you'll seem; The further away you seem, the less priority you have in their mind. Royalty routinely schedules speeches and small parties specifically to show their faces among their subjects, and the principle behind it is the same here."

"That's what the parties were for? I thought they were just for networking."

"You're not wrong, but your perspective is. A gathering of peers is typically a social battleground for getting to know each other, exchanging favours, and jockeying for status. The royalty, however-" Her voice flattened dangerously. "-Are not your peers. It does not matter how influential you are, La'Fiel is a monarchy, as Teranford and East Heaven. The top of the social ladder will always be the Crown, and to them, you nobles are subjects."

Fallen or not, Rinnier had been born and raised a princess. It was easy to forget that she was legitimately royalty... And in other circumstances, had her country not fallen, her status really would have been indisputably above your own.

"Direct invitations to a royal ball are matters of pride and position. The appearance of your regent at these events are meant, above all, to refresh their presence in the minds of their attendants. Remind you all that they are there, that they are watching, and listening." Her ruby eyes gleamed imperiously. "Any announcements made in such events demand the attention of everyone, and regardless of what is said, they serve as undisguised reminders that they can, will, and perhaps are, flexing their muscle."

"Appearance, huh..." You knew the general theory behind this. While you weren't nearly as practiced with the dynamics of addressing crowds as you were dealing with individuals, or smaller groups, it wasn't unfamiliar ground to tread. It's how you had gotten your knights, after all. "Spending a day or two helping rebuild would probably do it."

It was an idea you'd pitched to try and help the image of the demihumans, but it could just as easily be recycled to help yourself.

The former princess nodded lightly in approval. "That's one option. I trust you have the general idea, so it will depend mostly on how you want to spend your time, and what sort of message you want your appearance to send. For example, I never learned the construction methods of La'Fiel, so I would be more likely to make a fool of myself trying to help. I've focused on making rounds to gather feedback, instead."

...Maybe helping rebuild wouldn't be the best use of your time. At least not until you had some kind of idea what you were doing.

"Whatever you're going to do, I'd suggest doing it soon."

"I'll put some thought into it." You try to make a mental memo, but find your list of notes-to-self to be frustratingly full. "People aside, what is the status of Carona? It's already been two months, but..." You expected it to have been done by now. Granted you had little notion of the average construction rate, but two months for this little progress seemed excessive.

"It's..." Rinnier looked around her office pointedly, directing you towards the piles of assorted papers. "Progressing slowly. Most of these are just notes on things I've tried to implement, and reports from around town. Receipts, requests, formally lodged complaints..." She eventually settled on gazing balefully at the little pile of objections to the demihuman presence. "Carona has problems, and we need to solve them before any real progress can take place."

"Alright, what are we dealing with?"

"Money and resources, most of all." Rinnier laid out, "Your buried treasure helped, I've only been able to stretch it so far. I've erred towards spending most of it on medicine and food, which is why the reconstruction itself is taking so long. We didn't have the money to fund raw materials and basic necessities for any length of time."

"I'll get in touch with my aunt and uncle to see what we have on hand." You wanted to find out what happened with Caylen this last month anyway, so that's two things you could take care of. "Resources, though? There's a forest literally down the road, there should be plenty of raw materials."

Rinnier snorted, "I said the same thing, but Dullem assures me that La'Fiel's buildings are not just elaborate log cabins. In Teranford we used certain types of alchemically altered soil mixtures to form the basis of our buildings, and I imagine we could do something similar here in La'Fiel."

"Sounds useful. How does it work? What would we need?"

Rinnier shrugged.

"You don't know?"

"Do you know how to build a house?" She riposted, "My father was a king, not a carpenter."

"...Fair enough." You suspected the Mayor had bought some of her people as slaves to be involved in the Tier fire, but they had been long gone by the time you arrived. Assuming he sold them back into circulation, you could probably get a lead on them by having your aunt and uncle direct you towards the channels they used to purchase Rinnier in the first place. "So what does Dullem need to start rebuilding?"

"Says he'll need iron and stonework, at the very least. He suspects there may be some in the mountains, but..."

"There's a catch?"

"Getting it won't be quick. Extracting it in bulk from the source is a mining operation if I ever heard one, and Alouette cautioned me to be wary of the gryphons inhabiting the nearest mountain range. We would need miners, and manpower to guard them, not to mention protect against predators of the forest during transport."

"We have plenty of manpower for that."

"We have finite manpower." Rinnier corrected, "It's been an unexpected blessing to find your knights so multitalented, but while you can typically find a few in the roster that are skilled at something, they're a mixed bag, and more to the point, already being stretched thin. We can't expect them to mine materials, defend themselves, transport it all, and reconstruct Carona by themselves." She snorted, a thin smile worn humourlessly along her lips. "Not if we want this done any time this year, at least."

"...What about the behemoth?" You'd only gotten a glance at the thing in person, but the sheer size of it when you had spun a web had been staggeringly large. "If we put it to work, we'd alleviate some of our problems."

"IF you put it to work." Rinnier agreed skeptically, "Behemoth aren't known for their agreeable temperaments. They're a Teranford native, and it wasn't unusual for us to be forced to write off entire villages to their rampaging. It would be impressive if one could be tamed, even remotely, but how do you propose we do that?"

"Asche mentioned Kara didn't seem to mind it." You looked to the maid in askance, receiving a certain nod in confirmation. "We could assign her to keeping it under control, and take care of it whenever it acts up."

"...Irue, you don't tame an animal by brawling with it. It would need to be trained, and I'm not even sure that's possible."

You knew some people who could have helped with that. Unfortunately, you had no idea where they were now.

"The materials aside, there are other problems as well." She sighed, "Subversive elements from the previous Mayor's camp are undoubtedly still seeded through Carona. There's been no real time to try and root them out, and the destruction of most of Carona has given them ample time to go to ground. I get the feeling not a few of these demihuman complaints may have been incited by them, but I can hardly prove it... One thing's for certain, your appointment as Mayor was the worst case scenario for them."

Rather than win any sort of independence, your aunt had instead taken the opportunity to put Carona firmly under thumb. You couldn't help but wonder if she had already known about the grassroots rebellion that Mayor had been organizing, and planned for something like this ahead of time.

"Then there's defenses. It isn't a particularly dire matter, but we have no walls and no properly trained force. Even your knights are barely more than a militia." Rinnier clicked her tongue unhappily, "La'Fiel has proven mild compared to the deserts I'm used to, so it may not be necessary, but this lack of defense unnerves me."

"We're deep in the heart of Valen lands, and the Shrine is still standing regardless. I can't imagine we'd see any overt banditry this far out." You offer skeptically.

"How did you recruit your knights, again?" She retorted unenthusiastically.

"...Maybe we'll get lucky and I'll recruit more?" You weren't terribly confident in betting on raw charisma to shield Carona. In the past you wouldn't have thought twice about it, but experience had been a merciless teacher in that regard. "I still think it's unlikely."

"I'm inclined to agree." She acceded reluctantly, "But on the off chance we're wrong, the blow to everything we'd worked for until now would be severe."

You'd inadvertently gone over most of your own problems with Rinnier just by reviewing the state of Carona... Which served as beleaguering reminder that most of your problems could be traced back to Carona in one way or another. Even a conjured natural disaster hadn't been enough to set you free of this miserable place.

However, there were still problems that had little to do with Carona itself. You inevitable meeting with Mim came to mind, and your stomach tied itself in knots out of anxiety for that alone. Not to mention the role your family played in regards to Dryad's Atelier, or Maran's involvement with Artemis and your vague understandings of whatever prophecy she was pursuing. Probably other things as well...

You didn't necessarily need to tell Rinnier any of that, though.

>You have a lot of problems. What do you think?

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>>2038188
I'll cry, anon. Don't think you won't make me cry.

>>2036794
>>2028002
Stop RIPing me!

>>2039275
>Regarding the buildings, we can construct temporary wooden lodgings to buy us time to rebuild properly.
>Demihumans could be effective mining or punching griffons
>Oakenrue could probably make a mean griffon puncher as well
>Marchovich would likely see it as an adventure
>Rinnier should know at least about the prophecy, Maran and Artemis
>We need to fricking find the Tier girls already
>Let's talk to Mim, maybe that offer of help in rebuilding Carona is still valid. I wonder whether Gnome Adepts can just conjure whole stone buildings.
>After that, a public speech, and feedback collecting round
>Then we go to our uncle's and get as much money out of him as possible

>>2039282
This is fine, I guess, especially:
>Rinnier should know at least about the prophecy, Maran and Artemis
>We need to fricking find the Tier girls already
>Let's talk to Mim, maybe that offer of help in rebuilding Carona is still valid. I wonder whether Gnome Adepts can just conjure whole stone buildings.

>>2039275
>delete the gifts memo and replace it with Rinnier's suggestion

>explain our misunderstanding with Mim and her offer
>explain the Valen house's origin and role as warden
>in the first atelier we learned the Royal family was replaced at some point, also the current Royal family may have been complicit with Terranford's refugee problem
>Marchovich wouldn't need to be sold very hard on "we need someone to punch Griffins"
>go over what we know of Maren and the prophesy, fragments existing in this world despite not being of the mana, mother will slay seven great evils or whatever. is this reunion? kill/consume/change the mana in some way to affect change on the world as a whole?
We don't really have any answers for that last one, only questions really, but we need to share whatever clues we have on what's going on with the mana.

I'd like to tell her about doppelrue but that's much more personal than anything else we've talked about...
>tell her there's a little bit more we want to tell her but not right now
>ask her to remind us about it next time we have some time together

>>2039333
>delete the gifts memo and replace it with Rinnier's suggestion

1. Rinnier wants you to decide soon on how you'll make a public appearance to capture the hearts of the people. (11/4/2017)
2. Invite Marchovic on adventures next time there's a chance.
3. Mim said "When are you going to tell her?" Tell what to whom?

>>2039333
I don't think there's a point to telling anyone about Dopplerue. It won't change anything, and it's painful for Irue to remember.

Going to leave the window open through the day, and give people time to wander back in.

...Think I should make a tweet saying thread isn't dead yet?

>>2039351
I recall you promising some surprise for the readers of Panzer Command earlier.

>>2039342
I dunno, Irue is a fucking mess, I think talking about our biggest regret with someone would help us not be such a crazy bitch.

>>2039351
Yeah, probably a good idea.

>>2039353
Irue is a crazy bitch because of us, anon.

>>2039352
I haven't really had time to put together my thoughts yet, anon. Sob story in spoiler 1, addendum in spoiler 2.

1 - Between keeping the conversation running, keeping up assignments, and scraping sunburned skin off my hands so I can type without wincing, I'm not sure I'll make it in time for this thread.

2 - Also I gave you guys an ebook already. I haven't really internalized the last 7 threads or so because I was busy trying to get it formatted in time for the most recent thread. Still need to find time to read it properly.

>>2039356
Aight, here I go!

>>2039358
So that was you!

>>2039358
>Aight, here I go!
It's not working, no one believes you!

>>2039342
Seconding. I want to see her reaction, but telling her will only cause problems.

>>2039275
>>You have a lot of problems. What do you think?
Yes, yes we do.

There should be no shortage of free labor in Carona; mining isn't skilled work, and if we can get volunteers to work in the mines and move the produce, we can have the knights guard them. That should give us good progress toward the long-term construction work. Maybe the knights can show who they're guarding what little they know of combat, and get us the beginnings of a militia. Demihumans could help with mine defense, but then they they'd be working with the townsfolk again.

Money is a major issue as always, but as always, we can't actually do anything about it besides beg for money from Aunt and Uncle, so I guess that's what we'll do again.

Finding the Tier remnants would be nice, assuming any are still alive, but any trail we could have used went cold months ago; I don't see any way to pick up the trail again. And without them, the Behemoth is too unstable to use, except maybe as a 'open cage toward enemy' sort of defense.

Isn't Marchovich galavanting around using that letter of 'do-whatever-you-want' at the moment to nominally assist in reconstruction? The Shrine will thank us for assigning him elsewhere, but if he's doing good as he is, we may not want to pull him away from his work.

I believe the Shrine is helping with reconstruction already; they are generally helpful, and more importantly, an Apparition caused all this damage in the first place.

We still haven't gotten to the third 'block' of the conversation. I figure the prophecy will come up somewhere in there, no need to force it here.

I guess we can squeeze a speech in somewhere, but honestly, it seems pretty low priority. It's been way too long since the disaster to have one out of the blue, so if we must, let's try to link it to a reconstruction milestone or a holiday.

>>2039733
>the prophecy will come up somewhere in there
It should come up in this block, but I had already failed to update for a couple days, and the update itself was approaching novella lengths.

It can follow whenever, or not at all.

>>2039275
>ask Rinnier where we can find the man who owned this place, we do legitimately owe his daughter an apology.

>>2039333
I'm surprised I wasn't the one to bring up doppelrue this time. To hell with you all, I say go for it

>>2039733
The issue isn't mining, it's ore refinery and smelting. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.I presume Carona has a smith or two but they have their hands full just making nails.

Riz, what IS Carona's level of industry? Where do they receive their processed metals from? Ingots don't make themselves and I haven't seen any indication that Carona is anything but a collection of homes

>>2040847
I think we mostly need rock, not iron, so processing shouldn't be a concern.

>>2040896
Rinnier was talking about iron and stone

Telling Rinner about Doppelrue would be the second dumbest decision of the entirety of this quest, only topped the vote to kill her.
And what's wrong with building houses out of wood? Hell, is there clay nearby?

>>2039279
Making QMs cry is my favorite pastime.

>>2040847
Mining /is/ an issue, as Riener just stated. However, you're right that raw ore isn't terribly useful. I assume we'd be mining iron? IRL iron is actually much more plentiful than copper and tin, but requires much, much higher temps to smelt. Which in turn needs serious smelters and forges vs simpler ones for copper and tin. It will take awhile to get the smelters and smiths to run them built and trained.

However, part of what we need is pure stone, which shouldn't be nearly as difficult to mine and use.

In any case, if we can get the raw materials now, we can work on converting them into useful products later, away from the griffons.

>>2040907
For building.
How much iron do you need for building?

>>2040922
Wood and clay will are less durable and will require more maintenance over time vs stone. And buildings need something stone-like for the foundation and ground floor so the moisture from the ground doesn't rot your floor and walls out from under you. Second floor plus can be wood, but the lower floors need to resist rot.

>>2040956
We can save a ton of work by using stone only for foundation and making the rest out of bricks, or watte-and-daub.
Houses made completely our of stone were basically noble-only in the Middle Ages.

>>2040981
Fuck this, we should've just used the buried gold to construct a giant skyscraper in the shape of a humongous middle finger so that it rises in the middle of Carona like a huge fuck you to everything in the vicinity.

>>2040938
I asked about our town's production capacity and by extension if metal is an imported resource.
You don't need an exorbitant amount of iron for construction but it has to come from somewhere. You need nails and tools at the very least, these things actually take time to create at this level of industry and more so if we only have a town smith to work with. But once the buildings have been replaced people are going to need the things that were lost and destroyed such as stoves, pots and pans. You want hinges for doors and windows. It adds up.

>>2040938
More than you think. For a long time, in places where minted currency was rare, nails by the pound were often used as currency. If you're building anything with lumber, you need nails to hold it together (joints require more precision than was practical most of the time)

>>2039337
I'm not going to forget about the gifts.

>>2040981
>>2040956
>>2039733

Great ideas guys. But I'm afraid the issue is that Rue doesn't know shit about construction or stone working or metal smith/smelting etc.

What ever happened to the Gnome priest? He's dead right? Well if we have other Gnome priests around they probably would know both what resources are in the area and how to best utilize what we have. Even if they don't low anything about construction, they will know the properties of the materials and can tell the builders if an option is feasible or not. Get the craftsmen to brainstorm ideas and have the Gnome representative review them.

> You knew some people who could have helped with that. Unfortunately, you had no idea where they were now.

Dude we're the Mayor. Tell the guards and knights to inform the population that we wish to make amends for their suffering under the previous Mayor, and that we also request they take an official position in the City so that they can help us with the Behemoth and rebuilding Carona. Why are we making amends when it wasn't our fault and really we already in a round about way saved them?

Because it's not us that's responsible, it's the government and thereby the City of Carona that has to make restitution. And those are our responsibility.

But yeah. Offering them aid, and a job, and the option publicly to refuse us if they wish so we can't force them into anything. And as a bonus, we DID save them. Some of them. We should apologize for our family shirking our responsibility to keep the Mayor in line when he started all this. Tell them that while our Rite of Passage may have made us into an adult, now we have to decide what kind of adult we are going to be. It's not enough for us to merely own or rule Carona and House Valen. We're greedy, which shouldn't surprise anyone since we ARE a Noble Lord after all. We want it to be truly ours, to take everything into ourselves. And so that means we have to be willing to give everything for it. We are House Valen. But we want to make this House a Home for all the people we are responsible for.

>>2039275
> First step: find the animal tamers. Put the word out that we have returned to Carona and wish to start repairing the damage the previous mayor did, and they were one of the people most hurt by him. House burned down, family killed, and they were imprisoned. It will let people know we're back, and taking the responsibility of making restitution for the old mayors crimes will reinforce our authority as the new Mayor, while being a positive sign that we aren't going to ignore the people, and it's a low cost way of letting people see we're getting involved.

> Second find a Gnome adept if there is one around and hook him up with the craftsmen to find out what we actually need for construction. We can talk to the craftsmen directly and ideally appoint a Foreman to be our liason with them as a group. This will make them feel like their voices will be heard by us, while buffering us from having to deal with them individually so they don't find out we're a huge cunt. It will also reinforce our position as Mayor making us the gatekeeper of authority. Presumably as well, whoever we appoint will also support us to give legitimacy to their own position. I think the best plan is to have the Craftsmen decide among themselves who the best choice to be their representative is, as they know their craft better than us and as such they would know who is capable of both representing them, but also advising us on how to best support all the crafts and not just their own. If they can't come to a unanimous decision then they will present the candidates to us and we will decide who to appoint.

By making them have to reach a unanimous decision it pretty much forces them to let us appoint the Foreman. Or if it unanimous then we would be an idiot to pick anyone else.

>>2039275
> After appointing the Foreman, have him take you around the City to observe the damage done and the current state of repairs. This solves the problem of "how to visibly help with the reconstruction" without us doing bullshit heavy labour which is all we are capable of if we try to just pitch in. Going around, being seen, and listening to people will make them feel better than lifting stuff. We can take notes and decide what to do after.

So at this point, we'll know what material we have from the Gnome guy meeting the Craftsmen. Heck we can even give them homework, tell them after the meeting that now the Gnome adept has laid out what we have for resources, we want them to go back to their work sites and come up with suggestions on what can be done with it. Ideally multiple solutions because we might not have enough of something to go around and we want to have options to help us decide where to best utilize our supplies.

Alternatively, we want to know early if there's something we just can't do without and we have to get more somehow.

> If there is no Gnome Adept, then we can just skip right to appointing a Foreman. We can then tell him to have the Craftsmen to arrange lists of what supplies they want and what supplies they NEED and then collect it when we tour the damage for assessment.

At this point we can make a plan on how to proceed. What resources can be harvested. As well, we can discuss the Behemoth's use with the Foreman and hopefully get him to spread the word among the Craftsmen so that they are motivated to find and support getting the Tiers to work with us.

Ideally we can find them fairly soon so that we have an excuse to hold an audience and present ourselves to the City at large, through presenting the Tiers. Either as our new Behemoth wranglers, or to make a public apology and give them restitution for their suffering. Of course, since Carona is in desperate need right now, I doubt them refusing to help would be seen kindly. We can even play up being bound by noble obligation to make restitution as soon as possible despite the scarce resources that are causing suffering among the citizens. Duty is a harsh burden, and we will bear as much of it ourselves as possible and all that. Not sure what we could offer them really. But if we try to personally repay them to save the cities coffers, then there's the added knife twist that they're beggaring the person that saved them. But I have a plan for that.

>>2039275
> Dealing with the Tiers

Guys. They're beast tamer without beasts. The Behemoth is rightfully theirs so they have to take care of it regardless. But everyone is talking about punching Griffins when we should be capturing them.

Between Karas strength and our ability to control Mana with the bracelet, we should be able to handle capturing some Griffins.

So if the Tiers agree to take an official position in the city we can say that our first priority is the Behemoth, but we're going to get them some Griffins as well to help around the city. It is dangerous, but we don't intend to have their position be a formality. We're going to do the best we can to support utilizing their skills to the fullest.

If they refuse, we can plead poverty and AT GREAT RISK TO OURSELVES go and capture some Griffins for them to tame instead of risking beggar ing the city.

Either way we return as someone who just went off and captured some Griffins and secured resources needed by the City.

Also we can give a speech about making House Valen a home for the people of Carona or some such.

Ooh. We can even say that I've don't intend to have House Valen replace Carona. Carona already is their home. The buildings might be damaged, but the city still stands proud because much as we are House Valen, the people are the City. Their love for it, their strength that makes them refuse to give up in the face of tragedy and say No. This is where we made our home. This is where we make our stand, today and every day after. No matter what.

A House is built, but a Home is lived in. A House no matter how Noble can never replace a Home because a Home can never be destroyed.

So to make my House of Valen become a home for us all, I too wish to make Carona my Home. I will be moving from the Manor that I grew up in, the only home I've ever known, to join you in Carona. I will not distance myself from your struggles, or your suffering. I will not have your strength and perseverance in protecting your home go unrecognized. We will rebuild the city. We will stand firm. We will show our pride to be stronger than any storm by our proof that the people of Carona can be bloodied but not broken. And when the last brick is layed and the last field tilled we will know the truth of our strength, in this home we build together.

That's the future of Carona that I see. That I want to be with. If you will have me in your home, I would love to build it beside you.

>>2041808
Gnome would have a good sense of the Earth, but I duno how well that'd translate to construction work. No harm in the asking though.

>Dude we're the Mayor.
The line you're responding to is a reference to the Tiers.

>Make amends
>apologize
> Don't tell someone you're sorry; Tell them you appreciate them."

>>2041934
> First step: find the animal tamers.
I'd be in full support of that if we had any leads. Unfortunately, there's been several months ingame time for what few trails that survived the fire to go cold. "Putting out the word" Isn't going to bring them back. They are likely hiding in the boonies, captured, enslaved, or dead.

>Second
I'd say to have the craftsmen talk to gnome, as the shrine isn't actually under our jurisdiction, but really that's semantics. Otherwise, good idea.
Sidenote: large blocks of greentext are a pain to read. Try making the TL;DR greentext and the rest regular.

>>2042086
>Beast taming
There are likely 2 Tiers remaining: A pair of teenage sisters. They need to be found before they can train, tame, or otherwise use any animals, if they even learned those skills before everything burned.
Speaking of, even if they weren't missing with no trace, they'd have nowhere to live, nor the facilities to contain or train a mouse, much less a bunch of griffons.
And even if we had trainers and the facilities for them, what good are griffons anyway? I can't imagine they'd be much help in construction or farming.

The speech stuff sounds good, if a bit... elegant for Rue.

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Window closed! Now I just need to... sort through... Everything.

The vote tally/reference will show up after I've done that.

I agree with those long posts but you're forgetting our position. We can't show up as the personification of the concept of social democracy, we are a noble of The noble house.

Cut that feelgood bullshit about a happy family and what not. All they need to hear and all we need to do is to take responsibility and do our best at our new job

>>2039282
>>2039291
>>2039333
>>2042086
Locate surviving Tiers somehow

>>2039282
>>2039733
>>2042086
Public speechification + feedback collection

>>2039282
>Temporary wood lodgings

>>2039282
>>2041934
>>2042169
Get a foreman set up from crafters and see if a Gnome attendant can serve as a consultant.

>>2039282
>>2039733
Money from family!

>>2039949
Ask about the guy who owned this place, so we can find Jill and apologize.

How to assign demihumans
>>2039282
Mining

>>2039282
>>2039733
>>2042086
Griffon Punching and/or capturing. Griffons are basically pokemon, right?
>Note: Assign Oakenrue to punching griffons(?)
>Note: Invite Marchovic on griffon punching adventures(?)
>Note: Actual decision partially pending based on talking to Dullem and Kara(?)

Talk about Dopplerue
>>2039333
>>2039353
>>2040829
Maybe later?

>>2039342
>>2039662
Those memories are personal!
---

A lot of the things voted for are more long-term goals than anything that can be accomplished in this update, other than being touched on and acknowledged in the conversation. There's also several more not-actual-update posts coming as I address some other things.

We're reaching a kind of awkward split where we still have some of the second block to finish (Maran/prophecies), but also want to talk about bits of the third block (Family issues, meaning of a Testament), while simultaneously trying to engage in government planning.

I'll see what I can do with it. More time is being spent on trying to figure out how to hammer all of this into a semi-coherent and fluid conversation that actually writing the content.