"So," a tired, subdued phantom of mirth teased the old lady's words as her dull red eyes finally met yours. "You're the little thing responsible for the uproar."

"Irue Valen." You offer a proper self-introduction. "Heir to House Valen. Currently the one in charge of the house, since my aunt and uncle have become incapacitated."

"Tanya Suriah. You'll forgive me if these old bones skip the curtsy." She glanced behind her, finding a chair to ease herself into as she spoke. "Valen... Irue Valen. Irue. Rue. Rue, Rue, Rue..." She rolled the name on her tongue, seemingly testing how it felt - eliciting the smallest of twinges in your chest at hearing that particular nickname again unexpectedly. "What can I help you with, little thing?"

"I have questions I'm hoping you can answer." Your Shade-clawed hands gestured towards her journal, left aside a pile of other medical journals you'd scoured. "Namely why you're here, and what you were doing in the northern wastes before this."

"I'm here because I felt like stopping by, and as for what I was doing up north... Well, I suppose I was getting lost more than anything else." She breathed a self-depreciating chuckle, "Foul tempered bastard of a storm up there, little thing. It's a wonder anyone gets anything done at all."

"...I'm going to need better answers than that."

Your brows knit, frowning slightly as the elderly woman lifted one side of her lips into a crooked smile. "Don't we all, little thing. Don't we all... Don't suppose you mind me taking a gander through that archive you Valens like to keep?" When your frown deepened, she folded her hand as if to wave off the expression altogether. "Bah, must be hereditary."

She acted familiar with your family, but you'd never met her. Never heard of her either. From her journal you'd hazarded a guess she was originally from East Heaven, which had prompted you to try and meet with her personally rather than let Ari interrogate her with the other healers... She seemed friendly enough, but she wasn't exactly cooperative.

...Your thoughts derailed briefly as you watched her fish out a little wrapped sweet from her thick, woolen sleeves and slip it in her mouth.

"What was that?"

"Candy, little thing. You want one?"

>Ask about Artemis. Dealing with them comes first.
>Pry for more about her. (what?)
>Discuss something else. (what?)
>Yes I want candy.

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:
Irue Things (up to 74) - https://pastebin.com/PchcdWpw
A List of Forgotten Things (up to 74) - http://pastebin.com/kPEscJ3h
Irue's Memoirs (Scares the QM to update) - http://pastebin.com/sWnicrK7

Arc I - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DMjxLjSbvr-xcxqX9M_ysKaBV1zkUmu5/view?usp=sharing
Arc II - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cXL1fIYb22IqQ51wWUp3-IMZa2nV5TY8/view?usp=sharing

"Really I'd say anybody catching up should read threads instead of this because of what goes on in them, so this is more for looking back I'd say." - Ebook anon

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
Merciless Compass - https://pastebin.com/8Hy0krxv
Better Strangers - https://pastebin.com/mvShXpCt

Misc notes:Holy shit these captcha are horrible. Anyway there's no forgetting here, but you may have forgotten something neat anyway.

Memo:
1. Work through dying before it causes issues with the Shade scar.
2. Return and investigate the Dryad Shrine
3.

Itinerary:
1. Discern knights with an affinity for Mana worth polishing.
2. Contact the Crown
3. Track down Asche, who left to find the descendant of the Ice Queen's bloodline.
4. Track down the Tier siblings, currently located in Resuri.
5. Expedition for resources to the north.
6. Unfinished business at the Ruined Shrine.
7. Meditate to Shade today with bracelet removed to try and deal with the claws

Current Goal:
What's On Your Mind:

I'll be spending some time off and on during the thread going through stuff in the ask.fm and clearing out backlog!

The goal is, as usual, one update a day... But, well, we'll see how it goes.

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>>5166128
>Ask about Artemis. Dealing with them comes first.
this is not a drill
valens back this is not a drill boys

Irue should be more assertive, we are the rightful boss of this Valen business now. Whos gonna replace us? Nobodys in shape to do that anymore.
>I am the house

It's nice to have you back writing again. Even if life has kept you from creative pursuits.

>>5166129
Chasing after Artemis is a given, though I think it might be worth building up some rapport by getting more familiar.
>Pry for more about her. (what?)
Suriah- that's Rinnier's middle name, and she's got that long red hair too. Exempting the possibility of common regional names and hair hues- it's a bit much to be a coincidence, isn't it? It's worth following up on, considering that this old bat is traipsing around on a holiday while Rinnier was sold into slavery. Also, the Teranford royal family was rather familiar with the Valens...
>Yes I want candy.
Depending on what kind it is. It probably has way too much lemon in it.

>>5166128
>You couldn't hazard to guess her age, simply because you were realizing you just hadn't met many people that were well into their twilight years. Seventies? Eighties? Late sixties?
I wonder if this is just because Irue is sheltered or if Dryad's imprisonment just means people don't live as long- after all, Irue doesn't have grandparents to speak of.

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>>5166128
You came back!

>>5166129
>Yes I want candy.
Pretend to be less mature than we are. Maybe she'll present an opening.

>Pry for more about her.
- When did she receive summons?
- Why did Byrne send for her specifically?
- How does she evaluate Auntie's condition?
- What does she know about how Clara found herself in this state?

First we need to gauge whether she's Artemis-affiliated.

>>5166174
>Suriah- that's Rinnier's middle name
Damn, I thought it's familiar! Good job anon.

As an aside, fuck ask.fm for requiring registration now.

It returns!

Still not caught up yet, but I'm glad to see this back.

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>>5166129
Oh geez it's been a while. I can barely remember what we were doing, evn with the reminder.

>Ask about Artemis. Dealing with them comes first.
>>5166168
Also this. We're not the heir, we *are* the Valen.
No on the candy; it undermines our ability to project any sort of authority whatsoever.

>>5166131
>Misc
Amusingly, I find the new captcha easier than the old google one, and miles easier than the old old text one.

>>5166158
Interesting image you got there, anon! It'd be a shame if it became relevant.

>>5166174
>Dryad's imprisonment just means people don't live as long
A bit of both, but this is a setting detail that hasn't gotten much direct light. Dryad's imprisonment means generally lower birth rates, lower and lower the further you get from its Throne! However, those born also don't live as long either. Your reward for avoiding apparitions, bandits, or other such horrible things is to die quietly of natural causes. Or spontaneous unlife, passing away while completely healthy and with a fully functional body. That said, the further you get from the Throne, just as birth rates decline, so does the average life expectancy, and just as with birth rates, that number is going down at a steady rate.

>>5166236
I toyed with the idea of just posting answers (and their corresponding ask) in threads for consolidation, but I remember some anons dislike reading supplemental stuff and figured people would prefer they just stay separate.

>>5166395
I hope you enjoy the story! Anons have worked hard and done their best to get where they are today.

Probably going to try and update later tonight.

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>>5166679
Here's an image that's relevant already! Welcome back Riz!

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>>5166129
>Ask about Artemis. Dealing with them comes first.
IIRC this was the least suspicious person, but we may as well activate supreme poker face mode and gauge her reaction to the subject before moving onto our Aunt's condition and her apparent royal blood.
>Father told me not accept candy from strangers
Also voting to temper the (admittedly true) "I am the head now" sentiment with Irue's typical tired and grounded affectation.
>>5166174
Is it? Good catch Anon, I caught the hair and eyes but that was all.

I read this quest a long, long time ago. I now ask myself if it's worth cringing over all the forgettings I missed to reread...

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Here is a picture I doodled. Its not very good but it was fun to draw.

>>5167319
You're always welcome back, anon! Your sacrifices are not forgotten.

>>5167367
The vines are a neat hair binding!

>>5166766
unsure if fanart or just lookalike of Irue, but saving it anyway!

I'll be tallying votes in a bit

>>5166158
>>5166603
>>5166766
Artemis is our priority! No distractions!

>>5166168
>>5166603
Old lady's not taking you seriously enough, maybe be more assertive?

>>5166174
>>5166227
Picking up on hints! There's lot to unpack here old lady, why don't we start there?

>>5166174
>>5166227
Candy plz.

>>5166603
>>5166766
Strict anti-candy diet.

The internal war over whether Irue is tempted by candy or not wages on... Let's see what we can do.

>>5167582
Do *you* want candy?

You hold your hand out, letting her drop the little wrapped thing into your palm. It barely had weight to it, and smelled vaguely of lemon even through its containment... But now wasn't the time for it, so you set it aside with a small sigh. "Currently I represent all of House Valen, I would appreciate being taken more seriously."

"Hmph!" Amusement tittered out of the old lady. "Won't get very far if you're letting some old biddy like me ruffle your feathers... Oh, very well. What can this Tanya do for you, little thing?"

More cooperative... Maybe not more respectful. You weren't about to get distracted from your priorities due to a little teasing, though. "When did you receive the summons to tend to my aunt?"

"Summons?" She blinked owlishly. "What summons? I never got anything like that."

"...You mean to tell me you just conveniently showed up?" Your brow arches, skepticism written clear across your face. "Along with all the other healers, just when my aunt was in such a dire state?"

"Better question is why you think I'd haul my old bones down here even if I did get something like that." Tanya scoffed, "No, little thing, I got turned around in the blizzards up north. Truthfully I'd hoped to pick up supplies and be on my way again."

"Supplies... From the Valen estate." You note with an acidic lilt.

"Why not?"

"..." You exchange stares, partially disbelieving on your end, but utterly honest on her own. A deadpan silence began to seep between you, before you leaned back into your aunt's chair. It wasn't you this woman had no particular regard for, it was your entire family. If you truly believed she'd not been involved in the summons at all, then this elderly woman had legitimately just accidentally crossed the country borders, gotten lost in a blizzard, and decided the nobility of the territory were a convenient pitstop.

It was an utterly ridiculous explanation, so much so that you couldn't begin to pick a place you wanted to begin rebutting it, but... Though it had dulled with age, the dark auburn of her hair matched her eyes, and if she really had come from East Heaven, then you might very well be talking to one of the few lineages who could and would brush your household off like that.

She didn't seem inclined to tell you what her business in the Northern Wastes were, but if she'd been up there then getting lost in the storms was believable... And if she was East Heaven royalty, then her coming here expecting supplies may also be believable - Your family, by necessity, had something of a strange relationship with them. But, if you were willing to believe all of that was true, then... Then, what?

She really was just here as a fluke?

"You have experience as a healer." It wasn't a question, you'd read through her journal. "You've looked over my aunt's condition. What are your thoughts?"

"I'm quite surprised that woman is alive at all. You couldn't find a hat trick like that even back home, much as I hate to say it."

Expected answers, even if she had tacitly confirmed your suspicions about where she hailed from. The bigger question here was... "What are your thoughts on Artemis?"

"Oh? Well bugger me, what do I care what those bookworms holed up in the west get up to?" She waved off your question disaffectedly. You could have let it go at that, but-

"What about the ones holed up closer to home?"

Tanya, to her credit, gave you queer look. "Come again?"

"Last I heard, East Heaven's borders were shut tight over a crisis of royal succession." You kept a close eye on the elder as you spoke, trying to gauge her reactions. "No one this side of the border has a clue what the state of your country is now, yourself potentially excluded."

"Don't see how that's any of your business either, little thing." amiability warmed her face, but you felt the line drawn with that response and closed your eyes. You'd opt for a more round-about path, then.

"The Teranford has been wiped out. A civil war broke out, eventually splintering the nation. What citizens didn't manage to flee were captured and sold into slavery."

"Didn't your piddly crown outlaw that?" Tanya seemed more amused at the opportunity to poke fun at La'Fiel than she was interested in the answer itself. "Guess you really can't expect much better from a backwater country."

"...Backwater?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Rural is the word I was looking for. Yes, yes, my mistake. A lovely, rural country. Very quaint." She held her hand over your aunt's desk, patting it fondly. "Shame about them, though. Barbarians the lot of them, not much better than the tribes up in the Northern Wastes most of the time, but I was a little fond of them."

She held her fingers up, cheekily showing you the thinnest of spaces between her thumb and forefinger. "Just a little."

"Must've been more than a little if your family name wound up down there." You muttered, internally marking down a rather pleased note when her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Had you been expecting her to take that bait however, she promptly, and sorely disappointed you. "As I was saying though, La'Fiel isn't far off from its own civil war. More and more of this country is beginning to resemble an explosive, ready to go off when the right spark is struck."

"Oh ho? Well, little thing, it sounds like you've got your hands full out here."

"You don't think it's a little odd?" You prompt, "That all three major countries descended into civil war, one after the other? That over the past few decades, every significant figure of power was compromised?"

Tanya held your stare for a long moment, leaving the question hanging... Before sighing heavily. "Oh, get to the point little thing, I'm old. I'll up and croak before you finish beating around the bush."

"I am ripping Artemis out of this territory, piece by piece." You leaned forward, laying your hand gently across Shade-clawed appendage. "If you're part of that, being royalty won't save you."

You laid your ultimatum at her behest, dropping further pretenses... Because at the end of the day, you were House Valen. She wasn't leaving this estate without your approval, and if you found out she was involved in Artemis' actions here... Well, dealing with Artemis was going to make you plenty of enemies - And you doubted East Heaven would be opening its borders anytime soon, least of all for retribution.

But these thoughts were interrupted violently when the elderly woman surged forward, slamming her palms across the desk surface with a thunderous clap that sent you leaping to your feet in kind. Sheer reflex drove your actions, wide-eyed as you tried to predict what she was going to do, even as your clawed appendage tore through empty air between you and left the gap shorn apart.

...And then she was laughing. Not a reserved titter, but an earnest and genuine laugh.

"Hahaha, Look at you, scared of an old lady. Ha!" She shook her head, settling herself as she straightened her posture after the impromptu lunge. "Ah, your name, little thing... Rue, Irue? Irue. Irue Valen." She chuckled to herself, "You're not Clara's kid, then that makes you... That one's spawn. Just my luck. Just my rotten luck..."

You held yourself still ready to react, only bothering to deepen your frown as she mumbled to herself. She may well be old, but if she were an adept it wouldn't matter... and as East Heaven royalty, she was more than likely a powerful one.

And, perhaps a little more personally, you were offended that she'd just done that and thought she could get away with it.

"Put your hands down, I'm not gonna throw my back out starting a fight in here." Tanya sat back in her chair, favoring you with a look that held, begrudgingly, more acknowledgement than she'd greeted you with... And no small amount of disdain. "I've got nothing to do with Artemis and their little games, Irue." The way she teased your name out made the hair on your neck stand up, "But good on you for not taking it lying down."

You relaxed, marginally, and tried to make sense of what just happened.

>?

>>5167734
I believe her! I do find Lily's lack of concern for potential danger to be a bit concerning though that's twice she's not responded to it, maybe address that through the bracelet?

Also the haughty noble act seems to be getting us nowhere so lets drop it, affect a more casual demeanour, maybe call her granny and -
>ask about her fellow healers
>tell her one of them put a fragment in our Aunt to keep the Wisp mana from healing her
>ask if she would be capable of removing the fragment and/or heal Clara once the fragment was removed
>ask for a sweet after all, is it lemon flavoured?

When all is said and done I don't believe we have to keep her confined to whatever cells the other healers are being kept in, but she can't leave the estate until this is resolved. When she leaves, discreetly send a message to Rinnier asking if she knows this person.

Incidentally, what did happen? How come Irue didn't claw her face off, was it just a complete wiff on Irue's part or did the old biddy dodge? What did we just sheer apart, the empty air?

>>5167521
It's a lookalike! From a fey themed vtuber.

>Curtly tell her that she can go when the matter is resolved and send her away. Be vague
I think we could learn a lot from her she already slipped up some interesting stuff. And that show was made with some purpose in mind, she wants Irue to know shes an adept.
sooo we can talk to her again later after we have considered.

Hey Riz, Dryad could pick up on Prias being a Salamander adept right? Could Lily identify another mana's favour?

Also if Granny refuses to help us with our Aunt we could dangle a supervised visit to the non forbidden part of the archives over her head. Only if it's necessary though and not while it's occupied.

>>5167734
>"Better question is why you think I'd haul my old bones down here even if I did get something like that." Tanya scoffed
Because it would have been an urgent summons from a powerful person, someone you apparently know well enough to have items at their estate?

>No, little thing, I got turned around in the blizzards up north.
So, your "old bones" wouldn't be willing to make the journey, but were willing to go into blizzard territory? This is #8 from last thread, right? The coat is what made her stick out so much, so this blizzard aspect needs to be dug into. Either she left her stuff here before setting out into the Wastes for unknown reasons (odd for a self-professed old lady to be going there intentionally), or she traveled through the wastes to come pick up her stuff (again, a non-trivial journey for an "old woman").

>Tanya seemed more amused at the opportunity to poke fun at La'Fiel than she was interested in the answer itself.
Completely unshaken about the destruction of her country? To the point that she tried to needle us into changing the topic when we brought it up? She's either trying to hide her discomfort, or is showing a serious lack of empathy that hints ever so slightly at possible Artemis corruption.

>"Oh, I'm sorry. Rural is the word I was looking for.
Big talk for someone from desert country.

>But these thoughts were interrupted violently when the elderly woman surged forward,
...considering our noodly-ness, if we run any more interviews we might should pick up a bodyguard.

>"You're not Clara's kid, then that makes you... That one's spawn. Just my luck. Just my rotten luck..."
Aunt isn't actually in the succession line, so that should have been obvious to someone that knows the family well enough to just "pick up supplies [at the Valen estate] and be on my way again."

With her semi-confirmed nature as royalty, we ought to ask Reiner about her after this conversation.

>?
Too many coincidences in her story, and she keeps stonewalling us anytime we try to pry anything confirming or any actual info out of her. Plus, she keeps trying to verbally spar with us, putting us off-balance enough to drop lines of questioning.

Unfortunately, I don't know what we can do about that, aside from imprisoning her. We already spent our one barb about her name to no effect, and we certainly have no means of forcing her to talk; as impressive as the Shade claws are, Rue has no prowess with them whatsoever.
Speaking of, we ought to practice at least a little with them, so that if nothing else we don't hurt ourselves.

>>5167776
for now, this works.

>>5167766
>Lily's lack of concern for potential danger
This one is my fault, I went back to double check now that you've brought it up but in the back of my mind I remembered Lily being with Ari. She absolutely should have reacted there!

I could provide an explanation for why she didn't, if you wanted to bring it up to her with the bracelet, but it would ultimately just be an in-lore excuse for me misremembering her location.

>what did happen?
That's a good question! Irue absolutely meant to hit her. You definitely cut something.

>>5167787
Dryad could, yes. Whether an apparition can or not is a bit iffy - They are inherently capable of noticing what is theirs, and what is not theirs, but not necessarily familiar with who else someone or something might belong to if the thing/person in question is not theirs.

Which isn't to say it is impossible for them to do so, just that it's not as straight forward. Even if Lily couldn't immediately, she can absolutely be taught to by exposing her to different kinds of adepts. Any apparition could, given time, as it's mostly just a life experience/matter of recognition thing.

>>5168244

>You wrote half your response under the presumption that Lily knew you weren't at risk.

Dammit Riz.

>>5167734

She's toying with us. I say we give her some slack and see how far she wants to go with it..

>Acknowledge her little play.

She took a risk there to get an idea of who we are under pressure. She's a woman after our own heart.

>Follow up on the slight about your parentage

It should not surprise her that she would someday find a mainline Valen brat as the holder. Probe that: Is it a personal grudge, or more historical? Alternatively, did she have reason to believe we would never take this seat?

>Negotiate

Now that we're thoroughly acquainted, we can temporarily drop the pretense of the brinkmanship. If she's not here for Clara, and she's (allegedly) not here for Artemis business, Where does she intend to go from here? Grant her some of the hospitality she expected while we sort this mess out, enough to see if she'll push it.

Even if she just takes just what we offer, we might learn more from her priorities: Is she in a rush? How far does she want to go? Will she accept escort if it means tipping her hand towards her destination?

Hell, we may even call a bluff: How awful would it be to be sent off from the house of Valen with nothing but provisions when you had far more important goals in mind.

>>5167766
>>5167734

Upon reflection I'm going to drop the vote to reveal the fragment in certain terms for now in favour of something more vague.
>If I could stop the mana interference could you save her?
>Analyse what she did to avoid our strike and figure out what we cut
If it's mana related then Irue might be able to figure it out, if it's atelier related then it could be anything. I wonder if that's what she was up to in the north? iirc that's a good place to find untouched ateliers.
>Poke Lily to get her head in the game, have her slowly wind ivy around the walls and ceiling, ready to defend us this time, if required.
If granny comments on the ivy we should just smile and tell her we don't see how that's any of her business.
>Pull the Lily mask down over our eyes for a second to view the life signature of the old lady, on the off chance that there's some kind of illusion bullshit going on then there might be some kind of observable discrepancy. This one is a long shot I'm aware but it might be worth trying?

Also I didn't realise she gave us the sweet after all. Maybe we should give it to Mim.

>Adepts of Jinn are traditionally prone to wanderlust and adaptation, becoming stir crazy when left to wait.

Relevant?

>>5167977
I apologise for the multiposting but I wanted to point something else out
>Big talk for someone from desert country.
The biggest reason Irue wanted to talk to this person was the clue revealed in the last part of the previous thread which indicated she might be from East Heaven, and the way she's been talking in this thread seems to confirm this. I believe Rinnier's family and the East Heaven royal family are of shared blood to some extent (as are we, by extension, albeit more distantly) which is why they share a name.

>>5168483
Rinnier's mother was from East Heaven. Said mother left Teranford not too long after Rinnier was born to return to East Heaven around the time the succession crisis began, which then closed the borders and not a peep has come out since.

>>5168496
No way. I guess we know who we're talking to next.

>>5167766
>>5168327
Little less posturing, more questions!

>>5167776
>>5167977
Begone, granny!

>>5168461
assorted lily things!

we tied between continuing the conversation more in depth, and sending her on her way, so we'll cover what was raised then banish her. Writing!

Damn this girl isnt our friend, dont bend for her

When finally you let your guard lower, it was more out of curiosity than anything else. "What kind of grudge do you have with my parents?"

"Me, personally?" Tanya snorted, "Nothing special. Sure wish they'd have left better documentation in their work, that'd made my life easier..." She looked you over, giving you a more considerate inspection with your lineage in mind, and something twinkled in her dull red eyes. "You take after your mother, don't you?"

...Do you? You hesitate to answer, finding yourself at a loss with the idea. You can barely remember the woman, you have no idea if you do or not. "I wouldn't know."

"No? ...Oh, yes. Yes." She nodded slowly, heaving a sigh. "Well, never you mind about that."

You minded it a lot. In fact, a lot of things this granny did kind of rankled you. Part of you wanted to pry further, learn more about them from a source you'd never expected, but you were too irritated to entertain the notion for long. "Then setting that aside, say I believe you and you aren't involved with Artemis. What kind of supplies were you hoping to acquire, and where are you going with them?"

"Better boots for one. Things to cook with, a compass... Oh, I have a list written down somewhere, it's common campingwear. I lost most of my own in the blizzards- And that's where I'd be taking them, too!" Tanya's harsh laughter came out like a bark. "Still got plenty of business up north."

"Assuming I let you leave." You frown, trying idly to figure out what business you could even have up in the wastes.

"After that last little display, I'm not so sure you could stop me, little thing."

Tanya chuckled to herself, rather self-satisfied with the barb as your fingers slid up to nudge Lily's mask from your crown. The little Dryad apparition fell into place comfortingly, the vines coiled about your hair beginning to slither curiously. You couldn't bring yourself to smile when her laughter stopped.

"You will find there are a great deal of woods between here and your destination."

"...Yes." The agreement came slowly, the elder visibly noting the implied threat, but still unsure just what to make of what she was seeing. "I do recall that." She coughed, letting her eyes follow the trailing vines as they started to absentmindedly explore their way down the armrest of your aunt's chair. "I'm in no hurry to freeze these old bones again, so I will be imposing on your hospitality in the meantime."

Hospitality. That was a word for it. Still, you felt like you could believe her when she said she wasn't involved, so maybe playing the gracious host of East Heaven royalty wasn't the worst idea? There was more you'd like to pursue with this old woman, and she was a healer.

"I may need to call on your services during your time here. If that happens, would you consider that a fair trade for the Valen household helping resupply you?"

"Oh. Well, that quite depends on what you want me to do. If this has to do with your aunt, then I'm afraid I'm no miracle worker."

"She's rejecting Wisp mana, yes." You'd read that conclusion time and time again in the various journals. "Theoretically speaking, if that problem were to be resolved, what do you think could be done for her?"

"Hmmm..." Tanya closed her eyes, folding her hands together as she considered the question. "Clinging to life as she is makes her a stubborn sort, I'd imagine her life could be saved. Can't promise much more than that- Never had to heal a nugget."

Not guaranteed, but the possibility to save her life was at least there... Even if it left her crippled. With time, skilled enough adepts, and enough resources, her limbs might be regenerated one day; even that was scratching a region of expertise you only had academic knowledge of, at best. It was an option, at least. One that didn't necessarily revolve around trying to force Dryad into the equation, or exposing your aunt to a Relic.

"I'll keep that in mind. You're free to wander the unrestricted portions of the estate, and are welcome to your things back."

"Well I'd hope so! They're mine, after all." She gathered up her journal, flipping through it briefly before hugging her heavy coat to her chest. "Pleasure meeting the next head of the Valens. New head?" She snickered softly. "Out of consideration for the circumstances, I hope you don't mind me staying a little longer. At least until things have been sorted out more conclusively."

"No, that..." You sighed. The most backhanded way she could have told you she wasn't going to cause trouble. "That's fine. Enjoy your stay."

Tanya took her leave, and you took the opportunity to get Lily's thoughts on her as she walked away. She was... Old. The spark of life in the elder was small, dim, but stubborn; she wasn't dying anytime soon, but she'd lived a life longer than countless others, and it showed.

'Loved~'

Lily's opinion murmured through your mind, needlessly confirming that she was, indeed, an adept. Her little outburst had told you as much, and in retrospect, she'd clearly done it on purpose. A sudden jump to see what you'd do, and to show a little of her hand in the process. The problem being, you weren't quite sure what she'd shown you.

You swished your Shade-clawed hand through the air experimentally, finding no repeat of the queer slicing sensation you'd felt earlier. She seemed the type to be a Jinn adept, so something to do with the air, maybe? ...But she was a healer, so you couldn't rule out Wisp, and you had first(Second?)-hand experience with their ability to externalize Wisp mana. You wiggle your fingers, watching them thoughtlessly for a moment longer, subconscious thoughts churning away somewhere.

...

>Try some experiments with the Nymph's Wood. (what?)
>Check on Rinnier, she'd kept holed up in the archives most of the time.
>Ari was still interrogating, but maybe she'd made some progress? Worth dropping by.
>Other? (write-in)

>>5168985
>Check on Rinnier, she'd kept holed up in the archives most of the time.
Maybe Rinnier would like to talk with Tanya herself? Ask for news about her mom?

>>5168985
>Try some experiments with the Nymph's Wood. (what?)
Attempt to exert control using bracelet.

>>5168980
>"I'm in no hurry to freeze these old bones again, so I will be imposing on your hospitality in the meantime."
Ha! Finally got something to stick on her.

>The problem being, you weren't quite sure what she'd shown you.
Maybe hell, can't remember the name Water? she's certainly secretive enough.

>>5168985
>Check on Rinnier, she'd kept holed up in the archives most of the time.
If nothing else, it's worth talking to her about the old lady; I'd wager that she'd have some degree of familiarity of other royalty.

>>5168985
>Check on Rinnier, she'd kept holed up in the archives most of the time.
today is tight schedule

>>5168985
I wonder if Rinnier would stay with us if she had a choice? Granny just straight up said she doesn't give a fuck if Rinnier's people live or die, so my guess would be that she'd probably stick with the person she knows to be committed. Then again, it's hard to deny the allure of living family if the old bat felt like trying to convince her. Hmm. I guess at the end of the day such selfish considerations would be no reason to keep this from her.

As much as I want to begin experiments with the NW straight away, we should-
>Check on Rinnier, she'd kept holed up in the archives most of the time.
Have we actually appraised Rinnier of our Aunt's condition? I think Irue was pretty vague when we last spoke with her, so if she's unaware we should bring her up to speed on that first to see if she has any useful input or suggestions. She won't be able to concentrate on the subject if we bring up the granny first.

>>5168990
>>5169151
>>5169263
>>5169585
Rinnier!

>>5168996
Experiments postponed.

Alright, will work on it shortly!

zamn we should gather the valen household for a public appearance soon. We can tell them there is a conspiracy against the house, and we are the new head. It would be a very leader thing to do

Where ever your mind had wandered to, you rose to your feet when it snapped back with its conclusion. After the conversation you just had, Rinnier needed to be brought up to speed; You don't know what relation they might have to each other, but any relation at all was too significant to not mention. You'd also be lying if you said you weren't a little curious what she had busied herself so thoroughly with since you arrived.

You spared a thought to Lily to coil herself back around you and set off. It was a fairly short trip to the archives, but the mansion felt... Alive, as you went. It was a difficult thing to put your feeling on, but the feeling in the air had changed? A smile from a guard here, a greeting from a servant there, the sound of footfalls quickly moving to and fro through the halls. It was energy, and Lily was all too eager to partake in it as you went - Having to be chided several times not to carelessly reach out with her vines to touch people along the way.

The last time you'd been here... Had they interacted with you like this? You were so focused on your problems, you can't remember much more than your rushed conversations with your aunt. Had the estate been so lively? So busy?

The faintest traces of a smile tugged at your consternated expression. You were too nervous to truly let it spread. Things were bad, worse than you could have expected, but you had a chance still. You just had to pull this off and stop Artemis here and now, then root them out.

But even still, it felt warm - Being able to rely on people around you for support.

Between those idle thoughts and keeping Lily in check, you only distantly noted your arrival in the archives. Candlelight gave way some time back, snuffed out by Rinnier's stigma, to give way to the pale luminescence of the Wisp cores you remember dotting the labyrinthine bookshelves. They provided perfect lighting for visitors to the archive to navigate and read by, and in Rinnier's case, served as a vital resource. One you had discussed trying to acquire for yourselves at an earlier date, but ultimately had to set aside as unfeasible.

Depending on how the Valen coffers were looking, that might not be so terribly unfeasible now.

"Rinnier?" Your voice rang out in the archives as you moved, finding little sign of Rinnier's presence. Tables were clean, no books seemed out of place... You glanced towards the restricted section's door, but it was shut tight - and trying its handle had proven it locked.

"I'm coming!" A response came slightly delayed, but at least you didn't have to look around for too long. Rinnier rounded the corner not long after, a book tucked under her arm as she flashed a grin at you in greeting. "I wasn't expecting you for a while longer, did something happen?"

Your brow arched. "You were expecting me?"

"I figured you would come when you made progress with Artemis." She nodded, "So, what are we looking at?"

"Nothing. At least, nothing yet." You shake your head, feeling mildly disappointed you hadn't brought the news she'd expected. "My aunt's condition is stable for the moment, but she can't be healed due Wisp mana rejection. My theory is that she's being kept stable by the Nymph's Wood in her body, but that's also what's causing the mana rejection in the first place."

"I see." Rinnier frowned, her grin giving way to the more familiar concentrated expression you were used to. "And if it's what's keeping her stable, then removing it to heal her might end up killing her anyway."

You grunted, vague agreements left unspoken. The only good thing about the problem is that it wasn't getting worse. "Ari is still interrogating the healers, I haven't stopped by to see if she's learned anything worthwhile from them yet."

"The guards have been looking for surgical tools." She glanced to you momentarily for an explanation, "There's a table nearby if you'll be here a while, we can talk more there if you'd like?"

A nod had her leading the way, leaving the two of you to get more comfortable in the cushioned seats of the archives. You remember spending years in seats like them back home, cooped up in your own library... It was oddly nostalgic. "I went through the healer's belongings trying to see if there anything worth finding. I didn't find much." You sighed, resting your chin on your palm. "It was suspicious that some of the healers supposedly called here to treat my aunt had surgical texts on them, but no tools to practice with, so I'm wondering what happened to them."

"That's... Unusual." Rinnier murmured. "I don't have any ideas, if that's what you're wondering. Unless the guards find something, or something else changes, we're relying on Ari for our next step. I've tightened security in the meantime, the staff here are very disciplined. I'm actually a bit envious, if the rest of our knights were like them..."

"They are being trained while we're here." You remind her. "I think they're decent enough, but maybe something will rub off?"

"We can only hope. It'll be a good start, at the very least. A nice foundation to try and work them from - I don't expect such a short training period to actually produce any proper armed force." The red haired princess' hand waved airily to dismiss the thought.

"They have some experience with that sort of thing already, I think?" It wasn't quite skirmishing, but they'd been through quite a lot - Even before you'd taken them under your name. "They might turn out better than you expect if this ends up polishing that experience with proper context."

"Ah...? Hmm." Rinnier's brows knit thoughtfully. "You might be right, actually. That's nice to think about."

"More importantly, I found something else interesting when I was going through the healer's possessions." You straightened up in your chair, finally getting to the point that'd brought you here. "One of them is from East Heaven."

"What?" Rinnier jerked upright in her chair, crimson eyes blinking owlishly at you. "How? That border's been closed almost as long as I've been alive."

"Apparently she came in from the Northern Wastes. By accident no less, if you'd believe her. I had her brought to me for a personal conversation and she's... Interesting. Agitating to deal with."

"Up north?" Rinnier's fingers glided over the cover of the book she'd been carrying, "What was she doing up there? Did she say?"

"No. In fact she was very guarded about it when I tried to find out. Seemed to know my parents though, and more importantly, I think she might know yours."

"Mine?" At first she seemed surprised at the idea, but it only took a few seconds before she shook her head. "I mean my father was the king, my mother was... Somehow related to East Heaven royalty. It wouldn't surprise me if someone from East Heaven did know them."

"What if she knew them personally? Your mother, specifically. Her name is Tanya Suriah."

"...Huh." Rinnier stilled, her eyes slipping towards the table's surface in silence as she mulled over the possibilities. "I'll meet with her when I get time. She's not leaving, is she?"

"I may have threatened her to stay put and not cause trouble." You admit after a time, nuzzling one of Lily's errant tendril vines with your fingertip. "...Don't look at me like that."

"I didn't say anything."

"You looked at me. I know that look. There was a whole thing, she's an adept, it- don't laugh! I handled it!"

Rinnier's soft snickering melted away leisurely, leaving the fleeting shadow of a smirk in its wake. "As long as you came to terms. Thank you for telling me, I'd have wanted to meet her even if she was just from East Heaven. There's so much going on over there that we just don't know... Do you think she's involved with Artemis?"

"First impression? ...No. She seemed to know Artemis was up to something in general, but held no love for them."

"Hmm. If that's true, there's a lot we could learn from her. Maybe even find something mutually beneficial to work out."

"I raised the possibility. She didn't seem against the idea, but wasn't enthusiastic about it either. She's got a grudge against my parents. My family? Maybe my whole bloodline." You shake your head, feeling irritated just remembering the conversation. "We don't get along."

"So you came to me to talk to her for you." Rinnier nodded understandingly. "I see how it is, I can do that."

"No, I came to tell you about her becau-"

Rinnier held a finger to her lips, shushing you with a teasing grin. "I know. Thank you."

"..." You shut your mouth. Then opened it again to retort, and then shut it again more grumpily and crossed your arms. "I won't do anything next time."

"Yes you will." She hummed, sliding the book in front of her.

"I thought you'd be more excited to talk to her. She shares your name, you might be related?" You held your Shade-clawed hand out in askance, realizing belatedly which hand you'd gestured with and swapping them a moment later. The less accidents that could happen, the better.

Rinnier, for her part, only nodded. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious, but Suriah is my middle name, not a family name. I know it was something my mother insisted on, but I don't know why. It's just one more thing I never knew about her. When I was younger..." She sighed, resting her elbows on the table and lacing her fingers together before her. "When I was younger, I wanted so badly to know more about her. Who she was, why she wasn't there, when she was coming back... But I grew out of it, for the most part. I was- am a princess. I had a nation to care about, and eventually that was all I had room for in my life."

"Even now, finding and saving my people take priority over anything else." She raised her face to you again, a smile more dispiriting than the half-present grins she'd shared just moments prior - like an uncomfortable weight just beneath your ribs. "You know that."

>Ask about her pet project
>Discuss Ari's role in this
>Talk about something else (what?)
>Take your leave, you have other business (what?)
>Other? (write-in)

>>5170183
>Take your leave, you have other business (what?)
go see how ari is doing we need to do that fast-quick

>>5170183
>Ask about her pet project
That book she's got is a good place to start.
>Talk about something else (what?)
Her mom went back to East Heaven- she didn't die or anything, and didn't get wrapped up in the Teranford contest to see who could kill the absolute hell out of each other harder before a bunch of nomads came through and elbow dropped what was left. Isn't she being a bit standoffish about learning about her mother, who very well could be quite important in East Heaven's politics and thus a very powerful ally in actually getting significant help in putting it back on its feet?
Is it because she's resentful that she didn't seem to try and come back and help before? Did she "grow out of it" because she's holding a grudge at her mom for her nation possibly having a hand in causing her kingdom to crumble? For the loss of her adept might, her family, her freedom?
Maybe tone that down a bit as to not deliberately provoke her considering we already pissed off one old lady today. Don't call Rinnier old either.
Anyways yes we really want her to come and talk to her and try and drag more out of her because, frankly, a Jinn Adept of East Heaven literally blowing in on the wind is probably good fortune we shouldn't pass up too readily.

This might have been discussed at some point in the past already, but since Mana do work against one another if they are the opposite, I wonder if Jinn adepts have any sort of synergy with Salamander adepts? After all, there's nothing quite like a good air flow to sustain a flame...on top of both the elements of Wind and Fire being relatively insubstantial.

There's probably more I could get at but I need to sleep more in case I've already talked out my ass as is. Going back and reviewing Rinnier's family history is a bit of a task.

>>5170176
>Alive, as you went. It was a difficult thing to put your feeling on, but the feeling in the air had changed? A smile from a guard here, a greeting from a servant there, the sound of footfalls quickly moving to and fro through the halls.
hmm. Good to see, but I wonder what prompted the change? Simply having someone actively working to resolve this mess, or something less direct?

>Candlelight gave way some time back, snuffed out by Rinnier's stigma
Well, that could have a lot worse; losing a *second* house to fire would have just been embarrassing.

>Depending on how the Valen coffers were looking, that might not be so terribly unfeasible now.
I've a suspicion they're looking rather poor at the moment, but we'll see.
But hey, if the coffers are ok, we might be able to finally fix our house! If there's anything left to fix at this point.

>a book tucked under her arm as she flashed a grin at you in greeting.
>"You looked at me. I know that look. There was a whole thing, she's an adept, it- don't laugh! I handled it!"
>Rinnier held a finger to her lips, shushing you with a teasing grin. "I know. Thank you."
Reiner is quite enjoyable to talk to when she's not being mercurial, even if Rue tends to end up as the butt of the jokes. Rue is theoretically good at people manipulation, but she's not too hot at actual conversations, nor is her wit what you'd call sharp.

>supposedly called here to treat my aunt had surgical texts on them, but no tools to practice with, so I'm wondering what happened to them."
I've just had a thought about that: it way well be that what we've found is not everything they brought. Some of it maybe have been discarded/broken/stolen, possibly by the Artemis plants as red herrings.
If there is anything to find on the grounds, you know who could find them? A Spider's Web.

>You held your Shade-clawed hand out in askance, realizing belatedly which hand you'd gestured with and swapping them a moment later. The less accidents that could happen, the better.
Good habits reduce accidents, yeah. Plus, that's our damaged arm, so we shouldn't be moving it around too much, even if it doesn't hurt.

>>5170183
>Ask about her pet project
I feel like there was something else, but nothing comes to mind.
I can feel the rust flaking off when I try to Remember what all needs doing.

>>5170245
Actually i change my vote to asking Rinnier for fashion advice. Now that we are head we gotta change up our style and she knows about this stuff

>>5170351
Rinnier's fashion is incompatible with ours, she has giganormous honker badonkers.

>>5170183
>Take your leave, you have other business (what?)
We need to pinpoint how exactly Nymphs Wood got inside Clara. Did we interrogate the staff about the condition she arrived in?
Also about Nymph's Wood in the mansion. How did it get there, why is it spread everywhere. Currently we only know the barest of details.

>>5170362
>Rinnier's fashion is incompatible with ours
...we could fix that.

>>5170362
WTF

>>5170258
Geez bro you could stand to condense ur posts. But you want to pry in on rins personal matter.. i dont see to what meaningfhm end voting a no on this silly thing chili dog

>>5170183
Hey if this old lady is loved by Dryad, and clearly she's in the know *of* Dryad, have we considered dropping the whole "end of the world" bomb on her? If she's loved by Dryad then she's probably pretty similar to Irue. Heck, that's probably why we don't like each other much.

Also did we take care of that Behemoth yet?

>>5170183
>Take your leave, you have other business (what?)
Attempt to exert control over the Nymph's Wood sample using the bracelet.

We need to figure out if this is possible or if we have to get physical with it

>>5170485
She knows about dryad?how? Must have missed it

>>5170522
I mean, she knows about Artemis so . . .

>>5170524
Artemis isn't a secret organization. Everybody knows about it.

>>5170522
Also she's an adept and we just showed her our apparition, she's also royalty from the nation that did the dryad experiments, and she's clearly involved with our family.

Honestly I want to know more about the "notes" she wished our mom had left and if she has our parents things, and in exchange we could tell her why she lived so long and that hey, trying to stop the end of the fucking world here.

We need help, and bitchy grandma seems worth sounding out. If Irue hated everyone who was a petty bitch, she would have to spend a lot of time hating herself.

>>5170531
>she would have to spend a lot of time hating herself.
I believe that is an ever present occurrence, even if it's mostly by the player-guided ego rather than something continuously expressed in character.

>>5170258
Voting against poking at Rinnier's past any more for now, this is probably the most amiable Rinnier has ever been with Irue and it'd be a shame to spoil it by prodding at the details. Rinnier said she'd talk with the old bitch so lets leave it at that.

>Ask about her pet project
I'm curious!

>Discuss Ari's role in this
I must admit to having no clear idea on what we want Ari's long term focus to be, does Rinnier have any ideas? At the very least I'd like Irue to get to know her better. Should set aside some time to chat with her, the problem is that there's never any time.

>Talk about something else (what?)
Mention that we tried to claw that old bitches face off with our cool claw hand but she blocked it somehow and made us cut thick air(?) instead, ask Rinnier what kind of adept could pull something like that off.
Also I don't know where she pulled this from but Irue brought up (unprompted?) that Rinnier's stigma could possibly stem from Dryad's love. Why Dryad would love Rinnier is beyond me but we can test that here and now in any case.
>Manifest Lily in humanoid form and ask her what she thinks of Rinnier
>Pat her head and correct her when she yells fuck you (but also sneer at Rinnier and brag about how smart Lily is)
>Hug Lily, teach her to hug with her arms instead of her ivy while in humanoid form.

>>5170485
Lily said the old lady was loved, not that she loved her. It was a confirmation that granny is definitely an adept. If she knew about Dryad she wouldn't have been so confused by the ivy.

>>5170531
This is all weak speculation from u, there should be no way that she knows about dryad
>>5170544
Voting against hugging. Lovey dovey shit is for the WEAK

>>5170555
:(

>>5170555
>Implying we're STRONK

>>5170567
Hell yeah we are. Irue flex those muscles show us the biceps. Yeaaaaaah thats it. The most shredded murderer this side of la'fiel. You absolutely KILLED it in corona

>>5170485
She's loved by one of the Mana, but that's all we know.

>>5170502
Anon, that's not how the bracelet works.

>>5170524
Artemis is a publicly-known org. Their corruption is the secret bit.

>>5170544
No head patting or hugs, please. Rue is not a touchy-feely person.

>>5170598
>You absolutely KILLED corona
FTFY

>>5170598
>>5170644

CARONA

Not to say it's not a plague on La'Fiel, but for Luna's sake.

>>5170644
>Rue is not a touchy-feely person.
Incorrect, Irue cracked in Dryad's atelier and is now cute.

>>5170644
Having the Nymph Wood removed from Clara is the least we need, we should be able to have her revived if it kills her as long as we can separate out the Wood from the body completely, assuming that the body remains, mostly intact since we should be able to fix any other issues with the Diary if we can get her to regain consciousness / lucidity once we visit the forest with the body in tow.

That's why we need to know which of the methods are able to be used, since we don't need to care about the "timeline" or anything else if we can do it ourselves, but it should be reserved until we run out of options since it may have a bunch of risks associated with it.

Seriously though where the fuck is Ashe? She has been gone for quite a while now, and having her on hand to run our plans past seems like it would have been a good idea to avoid the worst of things.

>>5170674
Ha, good catch. I didn't even notice when I quoted it.

>>5170721
I don't mind experimenting with the stuff later, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the bracelet doesn't work like that. Used correctly, the bracelet is a device for communicating with the Mana themselves; used incorrectly, it is a device for creating Apparitions based on the Mana we meditate on. We still have trouble meditating on Dryad, because we have so much less info on its temperament and domain; even if the Nymph's Wood is tied to a second secret Mana, we wouldn't be able to mediate to it because we know nothing about it.
>Spoiler
Time IRL and time in-game move at very different rates; it's hasn't been that long since she left, and she's likely to be gone for quite a while by Rue's measure.

I was also just thinking about Asche, irue and aschey are a power duo and not having her on hand is a mistake shiiit

>>5170747
We are alone, you and I. Everyone else hates Ashe for reasons unknown.

>>5170790
Because she won't tell us what is "up", and keeps cockblocking any sort of progression we make and won't explain why, because she isn't here.

>>5170742
>device for communicating with the Mana
Exactly all we would be attempting to do is contact "whatever" actually is on the far end, and seeing if they will do as we ask, it follows that since we are favored by Dryad, that whatever remains should hopefully "like" us too.

Though depending on what is up we might be burning a few bridges once we make the attempt.

>>5170805
She's not human and struggles to communicate even the most basic of concepts yet she has always tried her best to act in our interest and has remained steadfastly loyal to Irue at all times. I too have been frustrated by the extreme autism Ashe displays but I still don't understand the hate or distrust. Riz has repeatedly stated that Irue is the the only thing Ashe cares about in this world.

>>5170822
YEAH, say it louder for the people in back, fools need to hear the truth! Aschey Rue axis now, tomorrow!!

>>5170805
There was also the murder.

>>5170822
As far as we know, Asche knew the answers to several questions we spent a lot of time searching for, but absolutely refused to tell us when asked.
Hell, the only reason we finally got her to tell us the true use of the bracelet was because we effectively held ourselves hostage.
It's likely she knows even more that she refuses to tell us.

>She's not human
A reasonable guess, but only a guess.

>struggles to communicate even the most basic of concepts
It looks a lot less like 'difficulty' and more like 'unwillingness' from here.

I don't hate Asche. But I don't like her either.

>>5170859
The point you're referencing was a long time ago and followed a series of self destructive decisions where Irue was on what could have been her death bed after ripping chunks of her soul out to throw at people and getting caught up in the resulting tornado. We shot ourselves in the gut with a gun she gave to us and you're distrusting her because she resisting telling us how to reload it. (Before relenting and telling us after we held ourselves hostage!)

The point I'm referencing came afterwards in Carona where she was much more contrite but unfortunately confusing. You also have to factor in how little time with Irue Ashe has actually had in the quest, if she wasn't consistantly voted offscreen at every available opportunity it's very possible we'd have a better understanding of the forces at work.

>>5170855
Spoiler alert anon the Axis lost. I've been making these points for literally years now and have become very blackpilled at the prospect of actually convincing anyone, I don't even know why I'm responding now. I think we'll still be having this argument from our nursing homes at the beginning of the third arc.

And y'know, that isn't even counting all the bizarre and useful abilities that Ashe has. Among other things, if she was here right now we'd already have a solid answer on what kind of adept that old bitch is and probably a confusing explanation of what we cut with our claws too.

>>5170878
>where Irue was on what could have been her death bed after ripping chunks of her soul out to throw at people and getting caught up in the resulting tornado.
Irue was wounded from the damage she took in the fight and tornado, not due to bracelet misuse.

>We shot ourselves in the gut with a gun she gave to us and you're distrusting her because she resisting telling us how to reload it.
No, she gave us a thing, didn't tell us how to use it or even that it was useful (or dangerous), and then when we figured out how to make it do something, she wouldn't tell us how it worked, what it cost us, or how to use it properly (so we didn't hurt ourselves).


>I've been making these points for literally years now and have become very blackpilled at the prospect of actually convincing anyone
I feel the same way about several things in the quest. You get used to it.

>>5170895
Where did the tornado come from?

>>5170898
Absolutely based beyond all belief Asche supporter
>>5170895
Reading your antiasche posts, ir makes me sick. I am foing to die

>>5170895
What else do you think you can't convince people about?

>>5171072
They're old arguments now, ones we've rehashed too many times over the years. I've no desire to reopen them without new info or a status change or whatever.
I wonder how Oakenrue is coming along in killing the Behemoth. I wonder how it will change her.

>>5171130
Maybe it's done everything we wanted and actually flattened Carona, once and for all so we can finally fuck off into the woods, and actually get to deleting Artermis properly.

>>5170351
Fashion advice...?

>>5170258
>>5170339
>>5170544
Whatcha got there, Rinnier?

>>5170544
Discussing Ari!

>>5170544
Assorted Rinnier topics and Lily things!

>>5170258
Prodding Rinnier over possible parental resentment!

>>5170386
Asking the staff more about your aunt!

>>5170502
Nymph's Wood bracelet experiments!

---
>>5170485
> did we take care of that Behemoth yet?
You left it with Aegis! That was certainly a choice you made. And it is happening. It can no longer be unhappening.

>>5170644
>>5170680
>Physical contact and Irue
There has been a very consistent line drawn by Irue, and later you guys when it came time to put it to the test, regarding Irue's discomfort with people touching their hair. The verdict: There continues to be no one but Asche that Irue will trust to do that. And Lily, to some degree.

Beyond the hair however, there's no specific reaction. It can be argued that they are more accustomed to physical interaction now than they were in the beginning due to the amount of time spent on 'Hearts In Harmony' with Ari/Rinnier, and, to some extent, the space they share with Lily. All of which has, as one anon pointed out, come after a somewhat dramatic turning point in Dryad's Atelier.

As always it is largely left up to you guys what direction Irue's ongoing characterization and development takes, so conflicting votes on it will likely be portrayed as such.

What i will clarify however is that as stands (and this can and likely will change depending on you all!), Irue does not consider non-violent physical contact a casual thing. They've not had a great deal of it in their life, ergo most every time it has happened, it's been associated with some form of sentimental feeling or emotional support/link (See: 'Hearts in Harmony' or Dryad's Atelier with Tim). It is, thus, something similar to a form of intimacy - even when the contact itself isn't necessarily intimate in any particular manner.

I'm wary of clarifying things like this as the QM out of the concern it might affect your agency in how things progress, so I'll reiterate that this is mutable - It's the end result of the circumstances underwhich such things have occurred that ultimately led to this impression. You may opt to maintain said impression, try to normalize it further, or honestly, do whatever you wish with it!

However, if it is earnestly beyond Irue's characterization to do something in a way that it is written believably, you will not need to be concerned that it will occur just because it gets a vote. Though what you consider beyond believability is a question I have been forced to ask myself ever since some of you were deceived by the impostor some threads back....

>>5171189
There was an Imposter?

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>>5171233

"Did you grow out of it?" Rinnier looked at you a little tiredly, but she didn't seem averse to the question. You took a breath, opting to take that as permission to keep going. "Do you... resent your mother for not being there?"

The archives were empty save for the two of you, and the silence which weighed in when your conversation halted made that all too apparent. Had you pushed too far? Inadvertently screwed up a good moment again? If she asked why it mattered, or what you'd do if she did... You didn't have answers for any of that - And the longer the pause stretched, the more uncomfortable you grew.

"Yes."

But your Testament was the one to break that stalemate; her voice soft, almost contemplative. She shifted uncomfortably in her own chair, bitting gently at her lip. "It's unreasonable, I know. I don't know if she left on her own or... If father wasn't raving when he told me East Heaven had taken her back. Whatever it was, there were reasons she hadn't been there." Her fingers curled tightly, a flicker of aggravation bleeding through with a growl. "But those reasons didn't matter. I grew up never knowing her, and eventually, I hated her for it."

...You swallowed. Part of you actually kind of wished you hadn't gotten an answer, because now you were left to try and figure out what to say in return.

"If it's something you'd rather not pursue, you don't need to bring it up when you meet with the old lady."

Rinnier snorted, gesturing towards herself. "Hard to hide all this. Even if I don't say it, she'll know on sight... And if she does know my mother somehow? I'm willing to bet she'd know who I am as well." Disgust crept through her features, nose wrinkling as she flicked a lock of loose crimson hair behind her ear. "I guess I never really brought it up, but I have no love for East Heaven."

"Do you want me to handle negotiations with Tanya, then?" She'd volunteered so readily to do so prior, but hearing this... There was no way she was looking forward to it. You might not get along with the old bat, but at the very least you didn't have any long-held grudges against her or her nation.

"No." Rinnier cleared her throat, brushing her fingertips against her collarbone. The amiable tempo she'd had before this whole conversation began to slip back, bit by bit. "No, it's okay. Really. If leaning on my mother's heritage gets us an advantage prying information out of her, that'd be the first and only gift I could say she's ever given me. May as well get what I can out of it, right?"

You didn't like that, but nodded reluctantly all the same. "If you're fine with it."

"I am. It was my idea, anyway. It would help if we knew more about her business in the Northern Wastes, though. Something we could use as leverage without needing to rely on bloodlines..."

You shrugged, blowing out a breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding. You'd expected to be told off for prying, but it'd passed without so much as a warning. It was a subtle thing, looking back on your relationship with Rinnier - How you were now, compared to how you'd met. The boundaries were... Different. Things that would have driven the two of you into a shouting match in the past, now, just simmered.

Your thoughts creaked along, the cogs in the back of your mind churning slowly. A glimmer of something trying to manifest. A memory, not quite forgotten, but maybe one you hadn't immediately connected. "She didn't want to say anything about it, but... She said her life would have been easier if my parents had left better documentation? I don't know if-" Rinnier's thoughtful gaze sharpened, snapping onto you all but immediately. "...What?"

"Did she say what kind of documentation?" Rinnier pressed, far more eagerly than you were quite comfortable with.

"No?" What else had Tanya let slip...? "She asked for access to the archives though? I'm guessing she thought she might find something here."

"She was looking for this!" Rinnier thumped the cover of the book she'd brought with a pointed enthusiasm. "She had to have been. Irue, do you know what this means?"

"We have our leverage!" You beamed, a simple spring of joy welling up over the unexpected windfall- Only to be cut short. Your face screwed up in confusion. "Wait, what is it and why are you so sure she was looking for it?"

"Because I was looking for it, and if she's looking into something your parents did in the Northern Wastes-" She derailed, excitement not so much halting as redirecting as she switched tracks. "Do you remember the conversation we had back at your cousin Caylen's?"

Oh.

Oh no.

>Are you Forgetting somethi-

"No? Doesn't matter, listen-" Rinnier brushed aside your rising panic as she shuffled around the table to settle in next to you, placing the book down between you. "-This is an internal document of the Valen household's expeditions into the Northern Wastes from around two decades ago. There was one like it at Caylen's library, but its information was too vague and sparse to make much out of it. If I'm right, and I think I am- Can't be sure unless we go grab that book again to check- Caylen's copy was a public record. I bet you that's the scope of information she's been working off of!"

"Alright...?" You were a little self-conscious over the sudden proximity, but focused on the book to try and follow along. You got the feeling you'd just inadvertently set off down a much longer rabbit-hole than you had meant to. "And this being an internal version, it's much more detailed?"

"Right! It's basically a cross between a record and a personal journal regarding the expeditions. With this, and a little effort, you could probably retrace their steps. Weather allowing, anyway."

"So not only is this leverage, it's bait perfectly suited to her. There's no telling what we could pry out of her in exchange for this..." You muse, getting a better grasp on what had excited the scarlet haired Testament. The missing piece, however, was why Rinnier already had it in the first place. It wasn't exactly fascinating reading. "So why were you looking for it?"

"It's been on my mind since the talk we had after you came back." She confessed, causing your heart to skip a beat. "You mentioned 'fragments' of something being found in the Dead Zones. That they had some kind of language on them which resembled one the Luna Dominion had discovered in the Northern Wastes."

...You remember that conversation. Or, parts of it. The complete emotional drain that had left you utterly exhausted by the end of it all, and how Rinnier promised she would at least consider whatever you told her. She'd remained skeptical of much you had to say about Dryad, and the events you'd experienced in Dryad's Atelier, but she'd promised- Assured you- that she would at least consider what you were saying. Part of you had thought it had simply been to encourage you to keep confiding in her, but-

She had. It was hard to put how that felt into words, and before you could even think to, the moment for it had already passed.

"Listen," Rinnier breathed, flipping through the pages to some she had already taken the liberty of bookmarking. Her fingertip traced the characters, scanning rapidly down the page until she found what she was after. "This record says the Valen expeditions into the Northern Wastes were spurred on and funded by the East Heaven royal family."

"Why? What were they looking for up there?"

"I don't know yet, but whatever it was, they found it. And a lot of Ateliers in the process. But the important thing is that they received more funding after each expedition failed, and when one finally succeeded... That's it. It all stopped there. Whatever they wanted your family to find, they were desperate."

...Why not just go look for it themselves, then? And more immediately, "If they found what they were looking for, why is Tanya still looking?"

"This is as far as I got. I've been trying to find any other records in the archives I might be able to cross reference for more ideas, but..." Rinnier shook her head. "My instinct is that the dead zones, your family's expeditions, East Heaven's succession crisis, the forgotten Mana... All of it is connected somehow. I'm just missing a few more pieces to figure out how."

"The succession crisis?"

"Their borders shut due to it almost immediately after the expeditions ended." Rinnier offered absently. "My guess is that whatever was found contributed to it, if not served as the spark for the whole thing in the first place."

The two of you stared at the open book, and though you couldn't say whether the words upon the paper meant something to Rinnier, you found yourself staring almost uncomprehendingly at the text.

>?

Discussing Ari and fashion advice is still in queue for later. No need to revote for them.

>>5171462
We need to reread this book ourselves to see if we find anything Rinnier didn't think was important. Also where is all the shit they looted from the Ateliers?
Also I'm glad to see Rinnier enthisiastic and happy about something. it seems like she's been either dour or pissed off this whole time.
I wonder whether Tanya knows anything about the Prophet.

>>5171462
>We will find out and I will help you. Later lets talk with Tanya again, together.
Also tell her that she is an adept I think we missed that detail (mayb i wrong)

>>5171154
if only.

>>5171189
>You left it with Aegis! That was certainly a choice you made.
Yeah, that... that was what I was afraid of.

>>5171456
>Something we could use as leverage without needing to rely on bloodlines..."
Of course, we'll need leverage to get that out of her, which we lack.
Speaking of...
>"Better boots for one. Things to cook with, a compass... Oh, I have a list written down somewhere, it's common campingwear.
I don't remember seeing anything like this in her items. Were they not available, was she not telling the truth, or...?

>"We have our leverage!" You beamed,
Oh. Well that solved itself then.

>"Do you remember the conversation we had back at your cousin Caylen's?"
...no?

>>Are you Forgetting somethi-
Looks like Rinnier got her Forgetting. I bet she's gotten more than us.

>"Why? What were they looking for up there?"
It seems unlikely, but I wonder if they were looking for more lost Royalty? There were apparently lots of Ateliers in the area.

>"My instinct is that the dead zones, your family's expeditions, East Heaven's succession crisis, the forgotten Mana... All of it is connected somehow.
The major missing link is how the Goddess fits into this mess. My gut says East Haven was looking for links to another secret Mana that got sealed (that they used to be tied to), but that seems way too easy and is pure speculation.

>>5171462
>?
...I guess we can have her point out interesting bits for us to skim?
I dunno, I feel like we should know this, but I'm drawing a complete blank.

>>5171459
>Are you Forgetting somethi-
the only thing i could see that looked at all relevant were from Thread #8,#14,#14
"By the way, Rinnier?" You call back, "You said your goal was re-establish your royal family line, right?"

>"I just want to help my people for now." She answered soberly, "The people of Teranford are scattered. The royal bloodline is meaningless if their people aren't rallied..."


>she knew about the nomadic army in the first place. Where did they come from? What were there intentions? Did she know anything at all about them? "..." Rinnier fell silent, staring contemplatively at the table as she tried to come up with an answer. "I'm not sure where I could start, but..." She clears her throats, pushing forward as if resigned as she dredges up the memories needed. "They came from further south, I think. We weren't certain of their origin initially, but the longer the war went on, the more pagan influences that started to crop up." her brows knit, "They had to have come from across the waters. It's the conclusion my older brother had come to, but father was... unconvinced. He insisted they had crossed the East Heaven border, though I don't know that there was ever any evidence for that."

>I never really met her, she went back to East Heaven not long after I was born." Rinnier explained quietly, "Or she was taken back. I'm not sure about the details, but father... Father always seemed to have a grudge against them, though.

And a Missed "forgetting" that made no sense, but I don't think that it could count in and of itself.

>>5171693
Based on the 2nd hand description of the "Prophecy"
>A Goddess who stands above all, destined to fight seven great evils and bring the crippled world to light?

The thing is if we consider "Dryad" to be the "Goddess", or an already "vanquished" evil since the rest of the pantheon would consistently make up the "Seven evils".

reading it either way sort of makes sense, and that since Dryad has changed and moved away from "their" clarity, do they count as a separate entity, or not since we don't really have enough to go on to call it either way at this point. Though having Eight members would balance it with each member having a pair, so it's unlikely to have a hidden 9th.

I do have a feeling that "radical" action might be needed if we want to solve things quickly;
recall Tanya.
Get explanation of current situation in East Haven.
Get detail on who she supports decide if it's worth supporting them or not
What she is looking for in the wastes, and why, dangle proper records to help her. Counterbalance with threat of sending records to the entire East Haven court, making the more detailed document public directly, since we know that it could probably break whatever stalemate exists an bring lots of attention their way.
Cross-reference details with archive to further clues.

Where would anything actually recovered from one of these expeditions even end up if the Valens decided to keep it, the Estate doesn't appear to have a reliquary or other storage facility other than the archives, and that seems to just be for documents.

>>5171462
"Did you find anything else interesting while looking through those books?" You query after a few steps,
glancing back towards Rinnier as she hummed in thought. "Interesting..." She muttered in consideration,
"Well, there have been several military campaigns to the northern mountains." she snapped her fingers,
"All of them seem to have been failures, but the records never stated who or what they had been
against. From what I could gather, maybe it was the environment itself."
"Eh?" You blink, "Recently? I didn't think La'Fiel had any forces to spare."
"No, no time recently. They all seemed to come to a stop a while ago. Maybe two decades ago?
Somewhere around there." Rinnier shrugged, "Though that's actually what caught my interest. It wasn't
La'Fiel mounting the expeditions, it was House Valen."
"...What?" you brush back a strand of stubbornly long golden hair as you frown. "It didn't say anything
else about those expeditions? Who issued them? Where they were going?" Rinnier shook her head,
"Just that they happened, and some excerpts of their losses." Well that wasn't really helpful to you right
now, but you suppose it was fairly interesting.

I found it I suppose, but it doesn't seem very helpful.

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I'm impressed y'all went back to find it, but there wasn't actually a forgetting in this update. If there was one, it was Rinnier's, and she laid it out already.That's why she cut you off before the prompt ended.

>?
>All of it is connected somehow

Our parents were the ones conducting the search in the north, working from Mint's diaries to find...something,
>"We're running out of places to cross reference in Mint's Diary. What we're looking for has to be up here somewhere."
>the fur-laden woman was content to mundanely chip away at the frost obscuring the tablet. There were runes etched upon it, a written language she would leave to scholars to translate once she had managed to procure a copy

They were being funded by East Heaven,
>Expedition after expedition failed. Even with support from East Heaven, there was a limit to how long something like this could go on.
>With this ruin marking their final efforts, it was finally called a failure. All members were to pack up and make their way home. While for all records it was the last entry in a long series of unexplained campaigns, the truth behind both the outings, and whether or not they truly ended at that time, would remain obscured...
>At least, in La'Fiel.
>Not long after these expeditions concluded, East Heaven Kingdom's borders slammed shut, firmly locking away the only other party who had involved themselves in this fiasco.

They found a doll in a box that could maybe fit the description of bizzaro fragment bullshit, it also appears to be what the East Heaven royalty were searching for. They took it for themselves instead, not all that long before we were born,
>Just that. A box. The box itself was meaningless, aside from its curiosity in the modern age. Composed of unknown materials, created in ways that only Luna could possibly remain privy to
>"Without a single trace of Mana, this thing reacts to my every motion. You might call it a humanoid apparition, but I'm not sure if it even has thoughts of its own." She hummed in thought, twirling her finger casually as the doll tried to spin to her liking. "The musculature is humanoid... I suppose this is what you would call a homunculus?"
>"Maybe whoever made it had a purpose for it. There are directives inside of it that I can't access... Yet." The blonde woman shrugged, "More importantly, it seems malleable."

(1/2)

Mint calls the founder a doll in a moment of frustration and hints at his uncanny, inhuman (and malliable?) manner
>Even if it was a lie, say something! Fucking cry! Suffer! Act like a Shade-touched human for once, you worthless doll!
>He wasn't resisting. He never did. No matter how unreasonable you were, or what you demanded.

Rinnier saw a piece of Irue's past in a dream,
>"...Snow." It took her a minute to answer you, and when she did it was with no small degree of reticence. "A lot of snow. I'd only read about it before, but it was like a sandstorm of ice - A blizzard?"
>"I can't remember much more about it, though. Between that and the howling wind, I wasn't prepared to feel so lost again."
>"...You felt lost? Are you sure it was you?" You quirked a brow curiously. "The dreams Hearts in Harmony give are empathetic so it can be hard to differentiate what you're feeling from the memory's feelings."
>"Nn... Maybe it wasn't me, then." She shook her head, visibly working to try and re-examine her experience as you talked. "It wasn't like I was lost in the sense I didn't know where I was, I think. You seemed to know where you were going. It was more like... I was lost?" She raised a hand vaguely, trying to illustrate the difference. "I knew where I was, and I knew where I was going, but I didn't feel like-"

Mint's child has our sister's name
>...Raise her well.
>Our Ariel.

Irue gets semi frequent recollections of the founder's life,
>I͟ ͘͘d̡̧̡ó̕ņ͜'̛͘t̛͘͝ ŗea̵l̕͝ly w̵͠a͠͡n͘t͘͝-̨͟
>I̷͘͟'m̸̡̧ ̷n̵̨͞e̸ve̕͟r̵̕ ̶̵g̨o̴i̴͠nģ̛́ ͢͠t̴̸o̡ b̛é̢̛ ̨͢a̡͟rou̡͞͠n͜d́-
>"A home, you idiot. I'm making you one. And land to go with it- A lot of it. You're going to be a damn noble."

>"Mint, I don't really want-"

>"Shut up!" The quill snapped between your fingers as your fist clenched, "It's not about you, I'm making an investment for the country. East Heaven is too big for a centralized force to handle effectively, and the council's been dragging their feet since my mom was Queen. You're going to fix that."

>"I'm never going to be around, Min-"

(2/2)

I don't know! I don't know what I'm doing any more! Please tell me this means something, please give us something for this!

Aside from that lets just maintain course I guess? Let Rinnier handle the granny. I don't really have any input on this book that Rinnier has found unless she's willing to finish it and explain it to us like we're five. Also you didn't mention remembering the Lily part. That's the most important part.

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>>5170903
Thank you anon, I dedicate my schizoid 3am research to you, my first and only believer.

>>5172401
This all makes sense, but we're still missing motivations for why they would want it, let alone how it plays into whatever the fuck is going on with Dryad and Artermis.

I do have a feeling that the recovered / stolen "Doll", was one of the two Valen Sisters, since it was mentioned in one of Clara's excerpts that our mother didn't look like she could have had twins, yet did.


And if i could speculate on what the Valens could use it for is to produce a undying / resettable "Warden" for the Forest, and keep up their end of the deal without having to sacrifice main branch members every so often, though that may have fallen through, depending on which one died.

>>5172332
Hey Riz, could we add a memo to; check out the Valen Catacombs / visit graves of Main branch members.

I'd add exhuming the bodies, but that's probably a step to far at this point, without supporting evidence.

>>5172445
They wanted it because it was in Mint's diary, and they're all mad for Mint over there. They didn't even know what it was, they probably just saw it as proof of legitimacy like how the emperor of china needed a specific list of treasures in his possession to be chosen by heaven to rule.

>"Because things changed. You agreed to lend us your precious heirloom when you discovered the implications inside of it, of what was hidden away in the north, and you used us to go find it for you." Blonde hair swept out behind her, an elegant and thick braid that reached to her thighs, "A personal favour, and of course given what it was about, we had our own interest in working with you... "

>"And now you have." One interrupted her, "And you have the nerve to draw our country into a meeting like this just because you don't want to turn it over to its rightful owners? Look around you, you have no power here. You are only barely tolerated out of respect for our history. What do you think stops our patience from ending right here and simply seizing it from you?"

>"Because you don't know what it is." She shot back smugly. "You didn't know anything about it besides what was in Mint's Diary. You jumped to the conclusion that it was a treasure or relic of hers, and I'm willing to bet my life that not one of you even knows what it is, much less how to use it."

>"And you're saying you do?" The allegation brought the meeting's tension to a peak, as attention focused on the single egotistical narcissist that had laid claim to the center of the room.

>She breathed in once. Twice. Closing her eyes, a dismissal of the crowd of people who had gathered around her. Prince, Princess, Minister, Chancellor, Advisor, General, and Noble alike. "Would you like a demonstration...?" The smirk on her lips revealed the expression of a shark who had smelled blood wading into its waters. She held the gem in her hand, a soft rainbow of light refracting from its crystalline edges.

>That treasure, which you might have called Pandora's Box, was in truth... Just that. A box. The box itself was meaningless, aside from its curiosity in the modern age. Composed of unknown materials, created in ways that only Luna could possibly remain privy to, it was simply a container to store things within. A Box.

>>5172466
sorry i forgot the last part

>But in the end, it was a box. What was inside the box could be changed at a whim. This doll, the original occupant of that particular box, lay slumped in a chair across from the blonde woman as she toyed with the engagement ring adorning her finger. "We raided enough Ateliers in the north to fill that box to the brim with undiscovered relics and revelations." She answered distractedly, "I consider that a fair trade for this."

Wait a minute, this is bad. If that old bat reads this book and finds out our Mother pulled a fast one and switched out the doll with a shiny rock the EH royalty are going to punch our face.

Why would we ever let the old hag even catch a sniff of out archives or literature. Nooooo

>>5172364
>>5172369
Granted it's been quite a while, but I don't recognize most of these quotes. What threads did you pluck them from?

>>5172445
>spoiler

>warden
Would that work? The reason Mana don't differentiate between individuals in a bloodline is the common blood, right? Some thing that didn't have enough of the right blood flowing in it's veins shouldn't be recognized as Valen at all.

>>5172516
I tend to agree. If she offers us something sweet enough, we might let her request individual books or books of narrow topics, but that's it. I find her stalwart refusal to explain herself untrustworthy, on top of the other oddities.

>>5172527
I pulled most of them from the Mint omake and the dead parents omake.

It works because the doll is Ruen

>>5172527
>I tend to agree. If she offers us something sweet enough, we might let her request individual books or books of narrow topics, but that's it. I find her stalwart refusal to explain herself untrustworthy, on top of the other oddities.

Why don't we just offer her access to the archives... and remove the book?

How about we dont give her jack shit instead

>>5172563
Because I want something for nothing! Because tricking that ancient rat is funny!

She wants access to the archives to find this specific book and has no idea that we know what she's after. I want her to choke on her assumptions on how useless and retarded we are!

Thats a bad idea

I'm absolutely full of them, they even work sometimes.

>>5172527
The Faedka may work to simulate a connection to Dryad, and would probably work if they imprinted for long enough off an actual Valen.

Imagine what we could squeeze out from that royal raisin if we spoke to her together with Rinnier. Plz support this notion

>>5172611
But that would why would they send anyone who knows anything to actually search for it, I doubt that she has all of the answers to all of the questions we have, or that she would be bound to actually properly represent her cause and not just attempt to give us what we want to hear to get her way.

>>5172624
Wtf are you saying anon i just want to extract out of her whatwver she knows cuz clearly she knows a lot.
Against rue and rin what is that sussy fossil gonna do?

>>5172639
Lie to us about things we have no way to check.

>>5172463
>could we add a memo to...
Done!

Memo:
1. Work through dying before it causes issues with the Shade scar.
2. Return and investigate the Dryad Shrine
3. Investigate the Valen catacombs

>>5172491
The book does not contain records of what was found or kept, only the locations visited.

>>5172666
House Valen, doesn't have some sort of Reliquary / Vault to store stuff in, that isn't the Archives right?

>>5172671
Not that you know of! The archives contain most of the knicknacks and "treasures" they want to keep, and none of them are conventionally all that impressive. You certainly won't find any relics laying about.

>>5172664
Not scared of the imperial rusk and her liez that wont hurt us nuhuhh

>>5171495
checking the book out for yourself!

>>5171648
Meeting with Tanya together next time!

>>5171693
have Rinnier show us more book things!

There was a lot of conversation about what to do regarding Tanya and the archives, but none of them seemed like solidified votes so I'm leaving them unaddressed for the moment.

Other things left in queue: fashion, Ari, and Lily.

I'll see what i can get up to!

"You've already left bookmarks in this." Your mind refocuses on that idle little detail. "How long have you been reading through it?"

"Not long. Most of them are places I skimmed, trying to make sense of the structuring in its entries. Points of reference for later." Rinnier blew out a puff of air and leaned back against her chair next to you. "It took me a while to track it down, but the organization here is... Decent."

"I'd like to look it over when you're done with it, in case there's something interesting you wouldn't catch." You have no idea what that might be, or why you would catch it instead, but she seemed very convinced that it this was a key piece connecting a lot of other things you'd dealt with... So it couldn't hurt. "Would you mind walking me through the gist of it later?"

"Sure, I don't mind. Although... If we plan on using this as a bargaining chip, we won't have a lot of time."

"...Make a copy?" You muse, shaking your head a second later. No, you weren't going to make a copy to keep, these were the Valen family archives. "We could send the with her, if we do end up needing to."

"If she's satisfied with a copy over the original." Rinnier hazarded. "...But, she doesn't know for a fact we even have what she's looking for. We might be able to use that?"

"Offer to give her access to the archives as an exchange for services, but remove the journal ahead of time." Rinnier nodded along as you concluded her general line of thought. "Might work. She was cagey about what she was after, and seems to think I'm an easy mark. It wouldn't be hard to use that to our advantage."

"Well, that's assuming we're right. And that this is the only thing she'd try to find while given access." Rinnier looped an arm over the backrest of her chair, shifting in its cushioned seat to better face you. "There's a lot of ways we could try and go with this. What do you think?"

"I''ll get someone to make a copy." You scoot your chair slightly away from your Testament, "Regardless of what we end up doing, it'll be good to have a back up."

"Mm. Sounds good." Rinnier's ponytail bobbed slightly, up and down, when she dipped her head affirmatively. "Anything else on your mind?"

Admittedly, there were a few things swirling around in the back of your mind. One of which was Tanya, and Rinnier's professed distaste for East Heaven. You could insist still on handling it yourself, but between the two of you, Rinnier was arguably the one with more flexibility in her current responsibilities. Even then, if you did it together... The negotiation atmosphere would be affected significantly. It's one thing to go back and forth one on one, but when one side feels outnumbered, they can either become submissive and suggestible... Or defensive and reticent.

You had a fair idea which side the old bat would fall on, which ultimately held your tongue from suggesting you meet her together.

"I can handle negotiations with her if you're unsure about it." One more offer, "She'll underestimate me, but probably not you."

"I'm fine handling it." Rinnier assured, an amused smile tugging at the edge of her lips. "I won't fight you over it, but I think you have more important things to do. Let me handle this one, alright?"

>Trust Rinnier to handle negotiations
>Take care of it yourself

The matter ended there, one way or another. "Speaking of responsibilities..." Rinnier began wryly, "No word from Ari yet, was it?"

"Nothing yet. I haven't gotten around to checking in on her, either." The topic had been dropped when said Testament was present, but you knew Rinnier hadn't entirely approved of the idea. "Not sure if I should check on her later, or just keep handling other things until she comes to me to report."

As one of your two remaining Testament, Ari needed to start coming into her own. Now more than ever, given the kind of conflict you were heading into with Artemis and La'Fiel's impending civil war. The problem was... How? When you first met her months ago, she couldn't even walk on her own. She still needed support from time to time now! She was developing nicely as an adept, but with her patron Mana being Dryad, you can't exactly encourage her to blindly embrace it further.

Where did that leave the stringy haired little brunette? She lacked Rinnier's leadership and administrative experience, she wasn't charismatic, she certainly wasn't physically strong like... No. You sighed, banishing that train of thought quickly. "I don't know what to do with her. She's eager enough about it, but she's not like us."

"I would have suggested trying to train her as an aide. Like that maid you keep." Rinnier suggested, "Keeps her close and supervised. Let's you delegate as needed, and be there to handle complications or questions that come up."

Asche. You had no idea where Asche was now, either. It was a constant, simmering source of anxiety in the back of your mind; You didn't know if she was safe, where she'd gone, if she'd be back, or how to contact her. Asche didn't leave. But... To fret over it any longer than you inadvertently did already would risk too much falling from your current plate.

The idea of training Ari as an aide was a sound one, though. No downsides you could think of, maybe not any particular benefits either other than having an extra pair of hands to handle things now and again. Both of your other Testament had been already very capable in their given fields since the moment you met them, but Ari... Ari had always just been Ari. Kind of helpless, prone to crying and simple joys.

It was probably a little unfair to compare her to a former princess and a demihuman in their field of expertise. Dullem and your knights were a much more fair comparison - Normal people. They did their best, worked with the circumstances they found themselves in, and while they weren't highly skilled by any means, they were living well. Being surrounded by Rinnier, Kara and yourself all this time... You frowned. "Rinnier, do you think Ari has any complexes?"

"I'm sorry?" The red haired Testament paused, taken aback.

"An inferiority complex, for example." You gestured vaguely with your uninjured hand. "She's been with us since she arrived, through just about everything. Maybe the reason she was so defensive over keeping her task was because she's been worried about how she measured up against us?"

"Eh...?" Rinnier looked like she wanted to disagree, but seemed to roll the idea around in her head a little longer. "Now that you mention it, that may be true. I had to prod her to start being more active though, so if she does have some self-esteem issues, I don't think it's to the point of being a complex."

"What if she wasn't taking initiative because she was insecure?" You counter conversationally, "Maybe she was afraid of embarassing herself?"

"Or maybe she was content being spoiled." Rinnier shot back dryly. "And you would dote on her any time you had a moment to, at that."

"I did not!"

"You fed her your own food-" The Lamandran princess pantamimed grasping a utensil from the air and gently swished her fingers in a little scooping motion. Her fingertips dipped closer to you, approaching your lips as she arched a mocking brow at you. "With. A. Spoon."

....Don't bite her fingers. That would be childish. Don't bite her fingers. Do not. "One time. I did that one time."

"And you did it in front of me, yes." Rinnier's eyes rolled, her arm dropping back to cross under her chest. "Who knows how much you spoil her out of sight. Didn't she regularly sleep in the same room as you? With you?"

"I slept with you too, you know." And since 'Hearts in Harmony' had begun, you'd done your best to try and distance Ari from doing anything like that anyway.

"Oh yes, I remember. You're a clingy, boney little heater. The difference, however, is you slept with me to share one of your bizarre Atelier gifts so we could work together. You sleep with her, because...?" She waited a moment, supplying her own answer with a mild, exasperated laugh. "You treat her almost like she's a little sibling."

Alright. Maybe you did have a softspot for spoiling Ari.

"That said, your relationship with her is really none of my business. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been guilty of indulging her from time to time myself." Rinnier continued.

"She is rather fond of her Rinny." You deadpan, catching a dirty look from the nickname's owner.

You'd already prepared yourself to dodge the playful swat you knew you'd provoke, but Lily's unexpectedly timely intervention made moot of the effort - Lashing vines around Rinnier's wrist before it could reach you and tugging her clean out of her seat with a squeak near lost in the clattering of her overturned chair.

"Uh..." Your mouth opened, unsure exactly how to respond... Or who to respond to. "Rinnier, are you-" You made to stand up and try to help Rinnier up, only to belatedly notice the tight whirlwind motion she'd used to wrap the offending vines around her dusky skin and yank on.

Standing had been a mistake, you realized, as while you'd expected maybe the mask to just be ripped off when she pulled, Lily was rather contentedly coiled about you - And so down you went in the process, crashing unceremoniously to the floor as well.

Rather more determined than ever to stop the fighting, Lily's response was simply to ensnare you both in a tangled net of leafy vines until struggling ceased to be an option entirely... For anyone.

"Irue." You marveled at just how much sentiment could be fit into just saying your name. "I'm going to set it on fire."

It was a promise. Made very calmly, for your current circumstances. It probably didn't matter that she couldn't set anything on fire if she tried right now, and you opted not to bring that up.

"I'll-"

"Fuck you~"

You drew in a very slow breath and shut your mouth in the wake of Lily's triumphant trill. Rinnier wasn't responding. You took that as a good sign. "I've been prodding Lily to be more protective." You explain, belatedly and somewhat lamely, from your constricted entanglement on the floor. "Sorry."

"You know." Rinnier's tired voice lilted up from somewhere beside you. "For a moment, I was actually enjoying spending time with you."

"Really?"

"I have since changed my mind."

"Oh..." You went slack in the vines, pursing your lips into a thin line before sighing audibly. "I'll fix it."

"Fuck you~"

Disentanglment proved an easier affair with Lily's cooperation, leaving the both of you to crawl back to your feet. Your hair was mussed, clothes disheveled, and Rinnier certainly wasn't fairing much better as she went about readjusting herself. You righted your own toppled chair, easing yourself back into it and slipping Lily's mask off so you could set it on atop the table.

Whatever conversation you'd been having prior was probably dead and buried by this point. "Maybe... We should spend some time acclimating Lily to you?" You offered after the wordless shifting of fabric started getting on your nerves.

"I'm going to acclimate Lily to a fire." Rinnier returned crossly.

"Fuck you~"

You put your hand over Lily's mask reflexively when Rinnier finally turned to glower at it. After a few seconds, that glower shifted to you. "It's an apparition, so I doubt it knows what that means."

"I doubt it." You affirm with a grimace. "She picked it up when I was arguing with the Shade Representative on my way back to Carona. All of the Dryad apparitions I've met seem to inherently have some form of mimickry to them."

"And now that's all it says?" Irritation warred with resignation on your Testament's face.

"...I've been trying to teach her other words. She's listening to everything we say, so I don't know why the vocabulary isn't improving yet." There had been a couple instances where some other words came out, but Lily was pretty consistent otherwise.

"Fuck you~?" The voice, rather frustratingly, was not muffled by your hand being placed over the mask. You're not even sure how the voice was being generated, much less from where. You sent a quick and rather stern command for Lily to be quiet through the bracelet, feeling the child's blithely content response in turn.

Rinnier shook her head, righting her chair and retrieving the expedition records with deft movements. "Right. That's enough time spent on this, we have things to do. I'll keep in touch if I find anything new."

"Ah. Alright."

Whatever response you had was interrupted when the sound of armored footsteps echoed distinctly through the archive halls, leading both you and Rinnier's attention down the corridor towards the entrance. A guard arrived in sight shortly, slightly breathless having jogged to you from Luna only knows where. He offered a salute, glancing between your unkempt state and Rinnier's. "Apologies, I came to report that we've found the missing surgical tools you asked us to look for. Am I interrupting?"

""No."" You echoed in stereo. You exchange a look with Rinnier.

>Ask Rinnier to check on Ari, you need to oversee this yourself.
>You should look in on Ari, Rinnier was already in command of the house guards.
>Other? (write-in)

>>5173049
>Trust Rinnier to handle negotiations
>You should look in on Ari, Rinnier was already in command of the house guards.

>>5173049
>Trust Rinnier to handle negotiations
>You should look in on Ari, Rinnier was already in command of the house guards.

The surgical tools are directly connected to what Ari is doing and it shouldn't take long to grab them and debrief whoever found them, so lets do that first. That way we can show up to Ari with something useful, since the hidden tools implicate the first healer as well as the other two he attended a meeting with. This is also potentially another step in the Clara solution.

Granny has already promised to help once the NW has been removed, and we now have leverage on the one person we know to be capable of removing it (by virtue of being capable of implanting it in the first place). This is assuming we're capable of threatening him to remove it in the first place however (or trusting him to make the attempt), so we should still experiment ourselves later so as to be able to act as a fail safe or alterative NW remover.

Also
>Tell the guard we were fighting
I don't want anyone to think we were shacking up with Rinnier in the library. What an awful thought.

>>5173045
>Trust Rinnier to handle negotiations
She's got this.

>"What if she wasn't taking initiative because she was insecure?" You counter conversationally, "Maybe she was afraid of embarrassing herself?"
>"Or maybe she was content being spoiled." Rinnier shot back dryly. "And you would dote on her any time you had a moment to, at that."
A touch of A and a ton of B, I wager.

>"Irue." You marveled at just how much sentiment could be fit into just saying your name. "I'm going to set it on fire."
Whoops.

>"Maybe... We should spend some time acclimating Lily to you?"
I am entire game purely for the amusement it will bring, so long as it's only for a day or so. I'm not losing a second apparition to a testament.

>You're not even sure how the voice was being generated, much less from where.
hmm. I wonder if this could be abused to create a ventriloquist effect.

>You sent a quick and rather stern command for Lily to be quiet through the bracelet, feeling the child's blithely content response in turn.
We should probably spend some time with her, deliberately trying to get her to be more expressive verbally. Something else to add to the never-ending todo list.

>>5173049
>You should look in on Ari, Rinnier was already in command of the house guards.
If it won't take too long, we can have her send them along to Ari once they're fully recovered.

This is confirmation that everything on the initial list was not everything they brought. We're going to need to widen the search to see if anything else is hidden away.

>>5173074
>the one person we know to be capable of removing it (by virtue of being capable of implanting it in the first place)
This doesn't necessarily follow: knowing how to irritate someone doesn't necessarily mean you know how to cure the resulting cancer.

>>5173074
>What an awful thought.
It's more likely he though we had a minor scuffle. Again

>>5173140
>This doesn't necessarily follow
Ah, yeah you're right. I stand by this being a string we should pull on though.

>>5173049
>Trust Rinnier to handle negotiations
>You should look in on Ari, Rinnier was already in command of the house guards.

>>5173074
>Tell the guard we were fighting
That will just make him more suspicious. dumbass
and who even says that? "Hey we uhh totally just fought actually." So undignified

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>>5173156

>>5173049
Oh! This'll be a good learning opportunity for Lily on combat.
>Take a minute to ask/discuss how she could immobilise the assailant better next time.
Maybe she could have bound Rinnier's whole arm to her torso instead of just the wrist? Both arms? Maybe a few other vines around the room to brace herself properly? Make a note to physically brace ourselves next time as well.
>Also tell her not to bind us next time unless we're about to fall out a window or something

>>5173049
>Other? (write-in)
Go talk to Byrn.

We really do need to figure out where he stood, in order to set the wider priories to combating Artermis.

Probably no update tonight due to some other things going on!

So while we wait for the next update, does anyone else have anything to contribute towards what level of the conspiracy Byrn is actually on.

So far we have the following;
Allowing Artermis unfettered access to Valen lands, and enabling them to install / convert people sympathetic to their "cause" within the local power structure.
Acquiring the Behemoth for "reasons" (prophecy related, and also potential implications on Main branch murder case)
Infecting Clara and assorted changes. (likely to keep her out of the way so he doesn't have to kill her, for a variety of reasons).
Caylen's deciding to fuck off (and fuck us over) right when he actually could have been useful.

I don't think I'm missing much of anything, but if anyone feels like helping me expand the list or refine points I would be grateful.

>>5174006
I'm not sure how many of those are related to him. we will find out when we interrogate him

hello riz you wanna tell us anything how are u doing?

>>5174006
If he is working with Artemis, then he's certainly Infected himself, which means he's fully involved in any local plans.

>Allowing Artemis unfettered access to Valen lands
We don't exactly have a hard border; it would be trivial for people to sneak across if they wanted to. And it's not like they stick out once they get here.

>Acquiring the Behemoth for "reasons"
The beastmaster family were the ones that went out of their way to acquire it, weren't they? It was prestigious for them to attempt something so dangerous.

>Infecting Clara and assorted changes.
Even if he didn't do it directly, he would have been the facilitator, yeah.

>Caylen's deciding to fuck off
That is most likely due to him being a moron and being suckered by Maren or whatever her name was. She's almost certainly Infected herself, but that's a different issue. Though she might be the source of much of the Infection in these parts, including potentially Byrn.

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More delays, but this should be the last. I've got a vet appointment early in the morning which requires a drop-off and then pick-up later the same day, so the time I usually spend writing is going to be re-dedicated to trying to sleep.

>>5174357
>You wanna tell us anything
A lot! I'd love to talk shop about a bunch of random threads and overarching plotlines going on, but I can't, because then it'd be spoilers.

>how are you doing?
Better than I was, but I am rarely doing well by any means. Threads really aren't the place to blog about how shitty life is though, and none of y'all come here for that stuff anyway! Suffice to say, I am at the very least not so desperate that I've forsaken my entirely arbitrary definition of dignity and made a patreon or something.

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>>5175260
>More delays, but this should be the last.

aaaooojjsgnswwwww rinnyahs delicious lemon tea (for you and me)

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>>5173054
>>5173074
>>5173140
>>5173151
Rinnier can negotiate just fine!

>>5173054
>>5173074
>>5173140
>>5173151
We need to go check on Ari, Rinnier can take over here.

>>5173521
Byrn interrogation needs to occur.

Very belated, but writing will occur now!
---

>>5178194
...Are you okay, anon?

"Rinnier, can you-"

"Yes." Her answer came quickly, seemingly already in sync with what you wanted from her. "What about you?"

"I'm going to pay Ari a visit and see what she's managed to get from her interrogations. If moving the tools doesn't seem too difficult, I'd like them brought back up to where she's at." It was a little too late to remove Ari from the task, but if she was having issues then providing her some leverage wouldn't go amiss; You imagine she'd be more amenable to getting indirect help than active assistance, at any rate. "I'll talk to you later."

"I'll see you two soon, hopefully." Rinnier murmured an agreement as you took your leave, staying behind to extract a report from the guard.

Much of your time following the open halls of the Valen estate towards the interior wing that had been commandeered for interrogations was spent split between idle thoughts directed inward, and idle thoughts directed towards Lily. The protective reaction had been more effective than you'd expected... Though, its target hadn't actually meant to hurt you. A good application at a horrible time left you trying to figure out how to simultaneously praise and chastize the young apparition who, at the best of times, couldn't understand complicated concepts very well. Sometimes she couldn't even get fairly simple ones, so alien was her perception compared to a normal person's.

It was more trouble than it was worth, probably, but you did at least get her to understand that restraining you along with the target was an unwanted outcome.

Otherwise, the trip was quiet. You'd passed a pair of guards chatting amongst themselves some halls back, but none since. In fact, you hadn't even run into any of the serving staff; The place was empty. After the activity you'd just felt on your way to the archives, the dissonance was a little unsettling. A faint frown tugged at the corner of your mouth, your pace picked up subconsciously, swiftly navigating the empty rooms with a chill along your spine until you'd found Ari's room-

-The doors opened easily, swinging open with a touch more force than you meant, only to reveal nothing amiss. Ari herself sat in an a chair that looked far too cushy for its own good, her frail form comically sinking into it as she bit into an apple. A little to her side, seated behind one of the desk's in the repurposed study, was one of the healers with quill in hand - He jumped as you entered, sunken eyes rapidly twitching between Ari and yourself. His lips parts, mouth creaking open slowly, only to close again before a word could escape. He swallowed thickly, the quill in his hand almost slipping from his trembling fingers as he looked you over.

Noticing your fascination, Ari tilted her head to the side, looking back at the man... And the writing resumed. Besides the two of them, there were no others in the room. A clock ticking every so often was all that broke the silence, save for the soft scratching of quill across parchment and the faintly audible crunch of Ari biting off another small mouthful of apple.

"Master?" Ari's greeting shook you from your reverie.

"Where are-" The guards? The healers? "Where is everyone?"

"The other healers are in that room." She gestured towards a set of double doors leading to, best you could guess, an adjacent study of sorts. There were no other points of entry or exit.

"And the guards? I didn't pass anyone on the way here." The burgeoning frown from before gained ground as you thought about it. "Did they just leave you here? Alone? During interrogation?" That didn't make sense... They wouldn't have deliberately left her in danger like that. These were your family's guards; they were well trained at their job, not just acting the part. Were they compromised too...?

"Oh, they'll be back soon!" Ari brightened, then seemed to second-guess herself. "Probably."

"Probably?"

She nodded happily. "Probably!" she chirped, "I asked them to go find some stuff for me."

"...And they just left you here? Alone?" You were beginning to repeat yourself, almost out of incredulity.

"I'm your Testament." She reminded plainly, "I said I didn't need them, so they left to get my stuff."

...You didn't like that. She was right, her position gave her absolute authority over them. If she told the guards to do something, they couldn't exactly disobey her. Then the problem here wasn't the guards, but- "Ari, do you have any idea how much danger you could have put yourself in?"

She blinked, her chewing slowing to a halt as she peered up at you quizzically. "No? They've all been very cooperative. Here, look!" She leaned over, retrieving a few unsealed folders stacked on a hand-desk beside her. You had a suspicion the cup on that desk had some sort of wine in it, if the faint alcoholic scent curling in your nose was any indication.

Whatever else you had in mind was put on hold as she held the folders out to you however, and you took them with no small amount of bewildered curiosity. Searching through the contents of one revealed more sheets, scrawled out in ink dried not so long ago that the scent wasn't still clinging to its surface: An introduction, you realized as you scanned the scrawl, and in handwriting you recognized from one of the journals.

My name is Ian, I have no family name. I live in Murla. I received a summons from Byrn Valen to come as swiftly as possible for a matter of extreme importance and left as soon as I could. I arrived later than others, and when I tried to treat Clara Valen, but her body rejected the Mana from my cores. I have no prior dealings with the Valens. I have never lived anywhere but Murla. I was born there. I want to go home. I have a dog that I love dearly. My neighbour is taking care of him while I am gone. I miss him. I want to go home. Mana, please, I swear by my life, this is all I know.

Your brow raised, a laugh almost gurgling free. "You asked them to give you their stories?"

"No, one guy volunteered to write it all down." She admitted happily, "That was pretty convenient! So since I liked it, the others also did it!"

You glance over to the man writing at the desk. "Is that what he's doing?" Ari nodded, humming a cheerful affirmative. The man in question said nothing. "Alright..." This was, admittedly, more progress than you'd expected her to make. Whether it was luck or a good idea, she seemed like she'd made decent headway in preliminary information gathering. The next question would be... "So, what do you plan to do after they've done that?"

"Give it to you?" Her answer was almost adorably more of a question than an intent.

"And see if I'd help you with the interrogations from there?" You surmised, faintly starting to smile. She'd been defensive with Rinnier, but seems like it wouldn't be too hard to get her to accept help after all.

"No, I'm done." She shook her head, "They all wrote their business down for me."

"...Ari," You want to sigh, part of you wants to laugh, but she'd made decent headway. It wouldn't due to discourage her. "We're interrogating them because we can't trust them. Just because they wrote down their testimonies doesn't mean they're not lying."

She stared at you a few moments longer, face conspicuously blank, as if she weren't sure how to feel about what you were telling her. "So you want me to interrogate them more?" She finally asked, her stringy brown hair straying to one side as she tilted her head curiously.

"We'll probably have to." You laughed, shifting through the folders to see the other testimonies.

My name is Kerner, I am an acolyte of Artemis. I received the injured Valen head with my companions Alan and Moll. when she arrived. As planned, we dismembered her, and implanted seeds of Nymph's Wood into the limbs to prevent healing. The tools we used to do so were buried with her steed, as per Ser Byrn's orders-

...What in Shade's name? No, no that- This had to be a lie. It didn't make any sense- Almost none of that made sense. Were they taunting you? "Ari, who wrote this?" You thrust he folder back to her, and she looked at the paper curiously. Dull brown eyes scanned along the lines.

"Uh... Kerner?" She looked up at you. "He's in the other room."

"What about these other two? Do their stories line up?" You press, feeling your stomach start to roil.

"I guess? I know Alan's said they knew each other."

"And Moll? What about him?" Of course. You knew it had been too easy, you could feel in your bones that somehow, this had been a set up, knowing you were coming. What were they trying to achieve with this?

"He's still writing." Ari gestured with her apple, and you both turned your attention to the sunken man at the desk. His head hung low over the paper, hand trembling with an almost agonizing slowness as words were written with the same trepidation as if he was carving them into his own skin. A thick, wet drop fell from his cheek and stained the paper below him.

You stormed towards the desk, forcing the man back into his chair only to realize you recognized this one. Lily had near strangled him when you'd shoved him aside, forcing your way into your aunt's room... And even upside down, you could parse bits and pieces of his missive:

My name is Moll. I am a follower of Artemis. I lead my cell in coordinating with Byrn Valen and the Prophet to remove Clara Valen. My subordinates are Ian and Alan. My role as an adept of Luna was to circumvent as many problems as possible and support the nurturing of Caylen Valen until he would move on his own towards the prince. I was born in Ephlesia. I have lived for over a decade in Carona, aiding the Lishp family secure support for our rebellion. I worked with one other Luna adept and a Gnome adept, introducing the prince's bodyguard as a mercenary force, as directed by the Prophet. I believe in monsters. I have seen them. I believe in monsters. I have seen them. I believe in monsters. I have seen them. I believe in monsters. I have seen them. I have seen them. I have seen them. I have seen them. I-

Your face jerks upward, grabbing the man by his shoulder and shaking his unresistant body roughly. His eyes found you, dull and unfocused, mouth opening... only to hang ajar wordlessly. Your hand ripped away from him as if he burned to touch, staring in equal parts unease and confused fury as he stared at you. His eyes twitched. Rapidly, furious and desperate, they searched every angle of the room, rolling uncontrollably in their sockets before his hand clambered numbly around the desk's surface to find the quill and resume writing.

-have seen them.

Lily twisted around you irritably. You felt a seething sort of disdain from her... And perhaps the cruelest form of joy you could still ascribe to the idea.

"Fuck you~"

You... You needed to do... Something. You felt like you had to do something, but you had no idea what. Was it a set up? Was it a red herring? Was it true? What- What in Shade's name...?

>write-in!

>>5178281
>Order the guy to write the answers to the following:
>-Why did Byrne assist artemis and for how long?
>-Who is the Prophet?
>-Who are the monsters?
>-What is the Prophet's plan?
>If he doesn't obey, ask Ari to have him write it.

As an aside, today Putin has invaded my country. My city is being shelled periodically. I will continue to follow Valen to take my mind off things, but in case I cannot post anymore, I'd like to thank you, Riz, for making this quest. It brought me a lot of joy over the years and is my favorite quest on the board.

>>5178300
That's incredibly distressing, anon. Do you have any escape options to elsewhere? Or plans? Please prioritize your safety over anything else.

>>5178310
My workplace promised to evacuate us "if necessary". That's my only option, since I can't drive.

>>5178315
As an american, the concept of relying on any workplace to accurately determine what is and isn't "necessary" at the potential cost of your life is absolutely terrifying.

At the risk of potentially ruining basically the rest of Valen for you, if you feel it necessary I don't mind doing some unrestricted Q/A with you on discord. It is basically meaningless, but the only thing I can think to offer is to at least let you know the little secrets of the thing you've spent so much time on.

>>5178318
Thanks, but no need. If I live, I'll come back, so no spoilers please.

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>>5178319

>>5178280
>write-in!
Send for Mim, we literally have "proof" of Artermis's misdeeds, we need someone to help confirm things and ensure that things aren't being tampered with, or if they are what was.

Also since we know that Luna can alter memories, it seems really suspicious that everything written here is either superfluous, or things that we already know or could intuit.

Feed them all Faedka to cleanse them of other mana to help reduce possible interference from Luna and the others, and set off any seeds that they may have implanted within themselves.

Focus on getting info that pertains to Clara's direct situation, the rest does not matter if we can remove the Nymph wood from the body even if she dies, since revival with the diary or Dryad fragment should be possible like the location of the implanted seeds, so we can prep a second team for removal, or do it ourselves with the now recovered surgical tools.

We know that the "Prince" is likely Rinner's brother that fled to Ephlesia for "safety", after things went bad.

And believing in Monsters could be being influenced by Lilly being present or something.

The only new things are the mentions of the "Lishp" family and an unknown Mercenary force, both of which we might want to follow up up since it might provide further clues.

Here we go with that bs again... mim isnt here she is far aeay and she isnt at our back and call. We got this to do here and right now
>vote against mimfoolery

>>5178272
>but you did at least get her to understand that restraining you along with the target was an unwanted outcome.
Baby steps.

>...What in Shade's name?
I was feeling a slight sense of dread every since we opened the door. Wasn't expecting this though.

>aiding the Lishp family secure support for our rebellion.
Remember this name. They need to be purged when we finish here.

>?
>Ari, what did you do to these people?

I'm pretty sure she didn't intentionally torture them, but I'm at a loss as to how she pulled of putting the fear of Mana in them. We do know the personality she shows us is an act because we've seen her true face in other POVs. Maybe she let the mask slip a little too much? She must be an absolute monster to manage to break an Infected though. She doesn't have a guard or anyone else to make threat with.

Thinking on it, I suspect the guards took the scant excuse she gave them and fled from whatever the hell she did. They might be good people to talk to if Ari is... less than helpful.


>>5178300
Christ. I know it doesn't count for much, but good luck out here.

>>5178281
Isn't this how people acted when they returned from the Dead Zones?

First thing we need to do though is get Lily away from the Luna adept, before she tears him to pieces. We'll probably end up executing the Artemis agents in the end anyway but lets keep them alive for a while longer. Anyway,
>Leave the room before Lily kills him, ask Ari to join us
>Debrief Ari,
We need to know how she did this, ask her to explain it simply to begin with and ask clarifying questions. Find out what she did, how she did it and if she's ever done it before.
Are the innocent healers as broken as the Luna adept? If so she has done a great injustice to people who came to our family's aid in good faith. Kindness is sparse enough in this world without us smothering it further.
>Offer hesitant praise for technically getting all the information we asked for and then some
She was actually very successful and got exactly what we needed, and if we're being honest whatever Ari did is probably something a younger Irue would have done if she had the capability in the early quest. That said it's probably something our current self would have come to regret.

>But move on to explain that the way we go about accomplishing our goals are often just as important as seeing them accomplished.
I'm well aware how hypocritical this may seem coming from Irue of all people but she's had some wisdom beaten into her in the Atelier and has been making efforts to be a better person. It's not something we've had the luxury of seeing a great deal of success in, truth be told but if you don't even see the value in trying then something irreplaceable is lost. Something important.

I'm not sure exactly what point would be the best time to ask this but,
>Ask Ari if she's okay.

I wonder if the Prince is the descendent of the previous royal liniege. It's just a gut feeling but if it was true then he'd be the person that Ashe is currently pursuing.

Also,
>Voting against summoning Mim or asking for her help
As a part of the shrine Mim is duty bound NOT to take orders from us, or even to assist us in any political matters. We have an obligation to Mim to keep her hands clean with regards to stuff like this. We also have an obligation to Ari not to betray her to the shrine, we made a promise to that effect and involving Mim in matters directly related to Ari basically amounts to a betrayal of that promise, considering Luna powers.

That said I do believe we should give Mim and the Shrine SOME level of explanation. We turned Carona upside-down and left without explaining ourselves. We don't owe them shit but we've involved ourselves quite heavily with them and secured promises of further assistance from the fat bitch Gnome adept and the Shade adept. Some small explanation would be a show of good faith I hope. Also Mim is probably worried since we never said goodbye before we left and if she's still holding to her promise then she hasn't used her powers to divine what the fuck is going on.

>>5178319
I wish you luck anon, for whatever that's worth. Let us know if your situation improves.

>>5178881
I guess the general throughline of my votes is
>Make a geniune effort to try to connect with and understand Ari on a personal level

Also,
>Ask what she wanted the guards to search for.

>>5178881
The thing is though that this is effectively conformation that Artermis "is" doing political things(killing nobles and assisting a rebellion at very least), which would be against the Shrine's Charter and fly in the face of being a mana associated organization under the Shrine's purview and should be corrected, which is the opening that the Shrine has been looking for to take Artermis to task.

>>5178907
I can't rightly remember our interactions with the shrine but I don't disbelieve you. I'm not against letting them in on the Artemis stuff, in fact I think it's a very good explanation to give them regarding our recent behaviour. My concerns are keeping the Dryad topic to ourselves, keeping Ari in particular away from them and not betraying Mim's trust by treating her like a political tool or a lackey.

>>5178907
>being a mana associated organization under the Shrine's purview

Artemis is explicitly not a Shrine org, iirc. They used to be a section of Luna's, but went rogue a long time ago. While they claim to still be faithful to Luna, they do not answer the Shrine. While Luna's followers aren't happy about it, the other seem to be fairly neutral.
In fact, one of my longstanding questions about Artemis still being Luna's is why they haven't Infected Luna yet, intentionally or otherwise. The whole reason Dryad was locked away was because it was contaminated by its followers.

Plus, while you're not wrong about giving them ammo, unless we can haul these people back and have them testify to the Shrine itself, a few written testimonies won't go far.

Further, this all is deeply tied into the secrets that "the shrine will wipe our mind and/or kill us if they discover we know about them". We do not want to give them an excuse to start sniffing around our affairs anymore than they already do.

>>5178928
Since we're literally the only thing that keeps the Seal functional they wouldn't kill us, we get a pass on knowing since we need to in order to uphold the "covenant" with the Fae.

>>5178925
They need to be brought back into this, we won't be able to prevent the civil war, keep things a secret and keep Dryad asleep simultaneously by ourselves, with Bryn compromised and not being Valen by blood, Clara not an option for now, and may not be even if she recovers and Caylen having fled, we literally don't have the bodies or experience we would need to navigate things, or provide the attention that each of the issues would need.

Even if we don't hand over all of the details to the Shrine, we simply need help to contain things before they get further out of hand and worsens our ability to cope.

A lot of people died to create a functional seal, but more will die when it fails, so some compromise on the agreement is going to be necessary to not having the wheels fall off on us.

>>5178945
Why even let Dryad become a topic with the shrine? Artemis is making a concerted attack on our family and holdings, and we had to return to our family manor to rectify their infiltration after we rooted out the Artemis forces in Carona. That's all we need to say, it explains what we've been doing and seems to align pretty well with what we know about their concerns.

If Dryad comes up then y'know, fuck it we'll have to deal with that. I don't see why you assume it's just going to be something we're obliged to come clean with. They killed Dryad as best they were able and left her to suffer in a ditch forever, the Valen family were the ones that made and kept the compact, it has nothing to do with the shrine and it's in our best interest we keep it that way because if they find out we're actively using Dryad apparitions and let a Dryad adept loose on the world then the best we can expect is for them to force us to choose between Ari and them and the worst we can expect is to be purged outright.

>>5178950
We absolutely could I just don't think that we're going to be able to do it ourselves, without something somewhere going badly since we have other pressing issues.

That they were capable of coming up with the seal, on pretty short notice in the first place should indicate what they could do with some forewarning of events, so having options in the future might be what eventually saves the day for whatever is left, in the future.

Also based on what we know Ari should be pretty safe, since Dryad no longer has their clarity, and so wouldn't be vulnerable to a repeated seal deployment attempt, and could prove valuable as a source of info to them on the current state or Dryad so would be worth far more alive, and cooperative.

>>5178965
We have absolutely no reason to believe they'd be fine with letting the corruption out of the Atelier. What we do know is that they were willing to kill every single Dryad adept on the planet simultaneously in order to seal it forever, and subsequently suicide the forces they used to do so in order to stop exactly that from happening. What does that tell you?

You're essentially gambling everything in order to tell them something they don't need to know for no real reason when we can just give them information on Artemis that doesn't implicate us in knowingly releasing corruption. Even if they decided to study Ari to see how Dryad is right now what conclusions do you think they'd draw when they discover how she just casually mindbroke half a dozen people on our orders? That they can let their precepts about disallowing adept intervention in politics slide just this once? That we can be trusted with our self appointed jurisdiction?

This suggestion is absolutely bonkers anon. No one knows what we did, no one has to know.

Above all that, the most important part is that we promised Ari we'd keep this Dryad stuff between us. I am convinced breaking that promise will lock us into an Ari Bad End.

>>5178974
My issue is mainly that if no one else knows, we're the single point of failure in a system that will have likely world ending consequences when we fail, so even at some expense having a second chance may be preferable since I don't like our chances of not screwing up.


On to other things, should we bring Ari along with us when we go talk to Byrn again?

I think we should, but we're probably going to need to guide the conversation if we hope to get anything more than the current situation out of him.

>>5178938

We have living proof in the estate that with Mana involve, it's amazing how little you can be left with and still be "living".

>>5179022

The reason we are playing this so close to the chest is that we're a fulcrum point for two or more catastrophic scenarios: Whatever Artemis is doing (which we are one, if not the only local entity actively resisting), releasing Dryad and whatever else we've got going on the backburner.

At this point, we need to maintain obscurity specifically because of being that much of a pivot point. Any exposure we offer for the purpose of collecting support is a surface for attack. The cult of personality schtick we've been running with has been effective at presenting our activities as local and self-centered power consolidation, whereas more vocal or obvious responses could tip off attacks.

Consider if we weren't shuffled off to Carona and were present for Caylen's defection? If we presented a similar and obvious threat to Artemis as Clara did, it's very possible we would have been sidelined permanently, even if we somehow were in a position to know what kind of betrayal Byrn presented.

We have, unfortunately, literally just gained any modicum of control over our family's holdings outside of Carona (which, need I remind you, we literally needed to purge at significant cost to hold with any confidence)

I'm not against calling in help; In the end there are powers at stake that we cannot hope to resist or control short of a miracle, but we need to be VERY deliberate about when and how we do so.

The shrine as an institution is out. It's too large and stubborn to be a safe asset. We are better maintaining our current contact with individual adepts, balancing need to know with power necessary.

Which is why keeping Mim at minimum safe distance is very, very wise. Friendly, fine, but we need the support of two natural enemies, who we are ostensibly trying to be close friends with.

I do, however, think there is a grain of truth in what you said: We need to invest the bare minimum thought into "What if we fail?". A dead drop of some form, since we don't really have a trusted individual to send the material to.

On topic:

>>5178281

>Ask Ari to explain how she got these people to be so "cooperative"
>Get Ari's thoughts on the condition of the healers, both the clearly distressed Moll and the remainder.


I don't say we blame Ari just yet, It's as possible that Ari cowed them into answering and Moll is fighting infected "programming" as it is that Ari did something drastic in the line of "interrogation".

>>5179213
We're not off their radar though since we've already survived an (almost guaranteed) Atermis sponsored murder attempt already(Main Branch vs Behemoth, which killed everyone else), so I'm not sure why they wouldn't have followed up, considering they have had ample opportunity to make a 2nd attempt, unless we were needed for something in the future; So it's not as if we're an unknown quantity.

Also since we're not in Carona at the moment, there's a strong chance that it has been burnt to the ground (or similar) thanks to the Behemoth / Aegis having it out in our absence.

>>5178300
Pointed questions for the Luna adept!

>>5178336
Sending for Mim! She'll know what to do!

>>5178460
>>5178881
Mim should stay safely away from this mess.

>>5178524
>>5178881
>>5179213
Ari, what the fuck

writing!

>wanting to reveal dryad to anybody
Howabout fuckinn no

Update dragging out a bit, skyfire rises. Will have to finish it up after I rest.

>>5179213
Vey well put.
While I'm not against trying to get help in theory, in practice our options for help are all horrible choices for various reasons.

>bla bla
bro lets just tour our new lands and kill the artemis as we go. Nice relaxing trip. And all problems gone forever. Irue you sly bastard, u did it again

>>5180322

You laugh, but that's plan B.

If we can't figure out how to handle Artemis with tact and strategy, we need to move fast and break things

I miss Kara.

>>5180323
B is the second letter of the alphabet anon
thank fuck we got rid of thosr useless shits, shame about kara though

>>5180323
Irue has never been one for things like "tact" or "the easy way" anyway. She might find she's better at Plan B than Plan A.

You felt well out of water standing here, looking at what had become of this healer. You're unsure if recovery was an option from the state he was in. "Ari, what happened." Your eyes couldn't stray from the broken shell of a man, obsessively writing away his mad confessions. "What did you do to make them like this?"

"Most of them aren't like that guy." She bit into her apple, the crisp crack of its flesh breaking from its body briefly drowning out the healer's scribbles. "He went weird."

"Weird!" You spit the word back out incredulously, finally managing to tear your gaze off him. "What about the others? These reports-" You wave the folders of them towards her, "-sound terrified."

"Yeah?" Ari's dull brown eyes blink up at you innocently. "They're okay, master. Want to see them?"

You stopped yourself, realizing with a strange unease that Ari didn't seem to understand why you were alarmed. "...Yes." You were going to need to have a more indepth talk with Ari afterwards, but for now it was more important to verify the safety of the other healers... And, after that- You don't know. Her job had been to interrogate them, and she'd gotten you everything you could have asked for. More than you could have asked for. Putting anyone through interrogation would obviously lead to some kind of harm or injury, but you had expected... What?

Something physical? Something temporary? You had no idea how she'd managed this kind of success, and it was as impressive as it was horrifying.

Cheerfully unaware of your thoughts, Ari climbed out of her chair and began soaking a handkerchief in whatever wine had been left in the bottle. She slowly wandered her way towards the closed doors she'd mentioned earlier, holding the now wine-soaked handkerchief to her mouth and nose before clicking the latch with a soft touch and letting the door open just a crack. A nauseating stench invaded your nostrils moments before her voice reached you. "It kinda smells in here, master."

The warning came much too late, your nose curling back so strongly you found yourself almost physically repelled by it. "Why?" You gasp out, coughing harshly after opening your mouth let the foul smell filter from the air onto the surface of your tongue. You covered your mouth with your sleeve but it was too late, you were almost certain you could feel some sort of film settling over your teeth.

"Well." Ari seemed unperturbed, and... Rather than answer, she just opened the door a little wider and slipped inside.

You spared a glance at the maddened Luna adept, who had yet to cease his fevered written mantra, before going after her.

You understood, with a dawning and utter horror, what caused the smell no sooner than you had stepped beyond the threshold. The hard wood flooring was soiled... No, smeared? Layered? in waste and excrement. A frankly bewildering amount of human feces built small nests around its occupants, serving as the excremental claywork of sickening browns, oranges and dark greens upon which puddles of piss either stood in shallow puddles; Or, more horribly, ran free through less than solid walls.

Here were the other healers, tied and bound by the wrists and ankles, left to lay or kneel in the filth. You stepped forward, reluctantly shutting the door behind you, and caught the attention of each and every one of them in the process. Their gazes rose as one when Ari had entered, glued to her with trepidation as she moved... But when they turned to you, there was only confusion. Confusion, at first, and then in some, hope. Desperate, panicked hope. They wiggled in the piles they had been left in, and you belatedly realized that they were - the lot of them - naked, save for the caking of feces smeared over their skin.

"Ser Valen-"
"Please-"
"-me, save me, please-"
"I told you everything!"
"We don't know anything!"

The voices assailed you all at once, too jumbled to parse. Were it not for Lily masking your eyes, and your sleeve valiantly attempting to mask your nose and face, the deepening sense of bewilderment you were experiencing would have been staggeringly obvious.

Ari stepped between you and the vainly approaching captives, the action stifling their cries for mercy almost immediately until only silent sobbing and whimpered murmuring could be made out. She turned back to you, her muffled voice now easily heard over the rest. "See, master? No one else went crazy."

"Where..." Mana preserve, your sleeve was not keeping the rancid odor out. "Where are their clothes?"

"Where we were." Ari's eyes shifted past you, towards the door you'd just entered through. "I let them dress when they leave the room, but they have to strip before coming back in."

Oh.

The single syllable vacantly echoed in your mind. The sole reaction you could muster to having the explanation to a question you needed to ask but neither wanted the answer to, nor really understood what you would do with it. "Why was the other one clean?"

"They also get cleaned when they leave." Ari supplied with a helpful sort of cheer. "They're guests in that room! Not this one."

You found yourself staring into the eyes of one of the downtrodden healers; Understanding beginning to piece itself together as you realized just how Ari had extracted such cooperation and compliance from her charges. "When do you let them leave?"

"If they have something new they want to tell me." She gave a banal answer. "Is this all you wanted to see?"

You had more questions, but here, and now, standing in this room... Was not the time to ask them. You nodded stiffly, allowing Ari to lead you out of the room once more. The door clicked shut behind you, sealing off the horrid smell once more- Though you were suspicious it had somehow sunken into your own clothes in the short time you spent inside. Ari finally lowered her wine soaked handerkchief, wrinkling her nose like a small cat while a shiver visibly ran down her spine.

You understood the principle of what she was doing. The juxtaposition of treatment between their cooperation and lack there-of. The physical separation between that pit and this room. Offering respect and amiability only so long as they would contribute something of value... She was treating their humanity like a treat to be earned, and ensuring they fell into that same line of thought.

And at a glance, it was just as she'd said: The other healers were desperate, yes. Panicked. Pitiful. But none of them had gone mad like the self-professed Luna adept had. You didn't even think they'd been physically harmed any.

Mentally... You weren't capable of quantifying that. All you could say with confidence is that they weren't broken. They still reacted, still had hope and enthusiasm. Such things were, ironically, very necessary to keep alive as leverage to continue coercing them.

"I did good?" Ari's question pulled you out of your revery, catching sight of the smaller girl as she shyly sidled closer and tilted her head up for praise. "I got them to tell me all sorts of stuff, all by myself. I helped a lot, right?"

"You..."

How to respond? She exceeded all of your expectations, in nearly every sense. But praising her for this... You couldn't condemn her for it. You'd broken Kara's whole pack, broken a man's will to live and left him to die buried alone beneath Carona... Stolen a man's face and led his comrads to certain death out of convenience, where they went onto die in front of him. Compared to things you've done, Ari's methods almost seemed tame.

Were you in any position to chastize her, after having done much worse? Could you honestly say you wouldn't go on to do even worse in the future?

Ari closed her eyes, waiting for affection.

"You did well getting this information." You finally settle on a course of action. "...But House Valen still has a reputation to maintain, Ari. Any innocent healer that came here at our call is going to go home and tell people what happened to them."

Her eyes opened again, a small frown tugging at her lips when the affection was not immediately forthcoming. "So I should have them killed when I'm done?"

That would solve the problem. It would be child's play to frame them all as Artemis associates. It would potentially raise other problems, but sufficient PR control could... Considering this conclusion, you realize that she had completely misinterpreted your attempt to imply her methods needed to more careful consideration.

>Frame and dispose of them. Their deaths protects your reputation and serves as a springboard for declaring war on Artemis.
>Release and try to make amends with the innocent. Rumours are almost guaranteed to spread, but nobility meant responsibility.
>Provide her a new list of things you want to know and leave her to her own devices a while longer.
>other? (write-in)

>>5178300
is still noted for resolution, but as a bit of a spoiler: the answers won't be coming immediately (if at all), so it's not something that could be addressed in this update.

>>5180894
>Provide her a new list of things you want to know and leave her to her own devices a while longer.
>Dispose of all healers implicated in the confessions, send the others to us later. We'll coerce them to serve us or something.
Holy shit this is diabolical. I love it. ari you're a loose cannon but you sure get results!!

>>5180894
>Provide her a new list of things you want to know and leave her to her own devices a while longer.

Focus on getting info that pertains to Clara's direct situation( the location of the implanted seeds, being the most important so we can get a head start on their removal).

We probably shouldn't deal with them or release them just yet since we may need their medical expertise to assist with Clara since we're not going to go get outside assistance in this, when we probably should.

we can leverage assistance for not killing them, and potential rewards for keeping their mouths shut (I would be against killing them all since they do perform an important role in their communities, though with Artermis having coopted the power structure it might be a decisive blow, that they would struggle to recover from), if we need to prove our reasoning we can use Kerner's confession, bar the last sentence.

Though I do note that there is an inconsistency;
Ian swears he knows nothing.
Kerner mentions, Alan and Moll.
Moll mentions Ian and Alan
The Guards mentions that there were three Healers already there when Clara came back, so either
They have someone hanging around, outside the estate watching whatever is happening to report back.
They didn't send their entire cell.
"Alan" is yet to be interviewed, or we didn't read theirs.
Someone(s) is lying.
Kerner goes by Alan to his friends, and refers to themselves in the 3rd person for whatever reason.
OR
Riz made a mistake.

>>5180893
>"I did good?"
...Absolutely not.
What the hell is wrong with her?

>Release and try to make amends with the innocent. Rumours are almost guaranteed to spread, but nobility meant responsibility.
Christ, what a mess. What a monster.
We've done some questionable things, but we never treated people like *animals*.


>>5180928
>>5180898
What the fuck is wrong with you? There are innocents in there!

>>5181086
There was a lot of innocents in corona lolz

>>5181086
Btw I didnt even vote to kill innos I voting to kill anyone who could be with Artemis

>>5180894
Christ, this is stupid.
>Release and try to make amends with the innocent. Rumours are almost guaranteed to spread, but nobility meant responsibility.
But not before investigating the inconsistency another anon pointed out.
>>5180928

>Inquire further
This would make sense if she'd had a few days or a week to break their spirit but she's been here for a few hours max, am I missing something? How come the effects have been so extreme and immediate on the agents? Surely they could hold out longer than this considering what we've seen of their resolve previously? Where did she get 100 litres of piss and shit? What did she send the guards to get? What did she do to the Luna adept specifically? Also this is going to rot out the house. I hope this took place in the cells at least. Ari got the job done but she's really fucked us with this in a variety of ways.

And-
>Meditate on Shade
Irue has been overly emotional for like two posts now. Time to calm down.

I feel like I very much don't get this update, Ari was quite ominous before this post but now the whole thing just seems bizarre and cartoony with how fast she set this up and broke everyone with it.

Are these valid concerns or am I just not resonating with how this update is supposed to make me feel?

>>5180894

It would not be child's play to kill them all. Our new "Friend" Tanya is not so trivial a loose end.

>Release and try to make amends with the innocent. Rumours are almost guaranteed to spread, but nobility meant responsibility.

These rumors are not necessarily negative. The idea that we will treat anyone with association with Artemis this way (regardless if we continue to do so) is a compelling reason to shun them.

Remember, physical wounds heal.

As for Ari, we aren't disappointed in her results, but she needs to be more open with her methods (and herself). This isn't healthy, and should be a wakeup call to Irue that it's not just the Mana that's messing with Ari.

You know, if the day drinking wasn't already a concern.

>>5181107
I'm seconding the second part of this

>wake the fuck up

>>5181107
>As for Ari, we aren't disappointed in her results, but she needs to be more open with her methods (and herself).
I know how to fix this issue right quick: Pull the healers out, throw her in, and demand she give us information about something she knows nothing about. See how she likes it.
After all, turnabout is fair play.

>>5181115
No. Whatever else she is Ari is our testament and Irue is hugely emotionally invested in her.

>>5181116
>Irue is hugely emotionally invested in her
She needs to seriously reconsider that investment. This is a horrific thing she's done. If we could remove her as a Testament, I would in a heartbeat. We don't need or want a torturer, nor a reputation for having one.

>>5181119
You just suggested torturing her.

>>5181098

Your timeline is off; this has been going on for days or more. We delegated the task and moved to get up to speed with the estate.

Being unpersoned and treated like an animal is a very effective method of torture, especially if a strict contrast is maintained. The hardest part is finding someone who's got the mental strength (or psychopathy) to treat humans this way.

>>5181115

She will learn nothing. She's mentally and magically equipped to ignore that sort of treatment.

The tools we have to chastise Ari are emotional. If you want to punish her, all you need to do is tell her you are disappointed in her.

>>5181121
I suggest merely doing to her what she did to others.

>>5181122
>She will learn nothing. She's mentally and magically equipped to ignore that sort of treatment.
If we're the ones to throw her in there, she'll get the message just as well. I want this lesson to really sink in, so she doesn't attempt anything in the same ballpark again.

Plus, if we tell the rescued healers what happened to their tormentor, they may be less likely to spread horrible rumors.

>>5181098
Not sure why you think this update is bad. Probably just you
>the goody two shoes freaking out and wanting to torture ari of all things
WEAK

>>5181122
>Your timeline is off
Is it? For real, I'm confused. We arrested our uncle and then we discussed it with Ari and Rinnier and delegated tasks. After that we went to investigate the magic horse, then the belongings before immediately interviewing the old woman, then we proceeded to talk to Rinnier for maybe an hour, now we're here. Putting all this together it should be like 3 to 6 hours max since we delegated tasks. When did we sleep, did I miss it? Multiple times? I'm being sincere right now, I don't get it.

>Being unpersoned and treated like an animal is a very effective method of torture
Yeah, I get that. It's just the timeline that's throwing me off, it doesn't make sense unless you're right about multiple days passing but that's exactly the part I don't get. Help me out here anon, I really do feel like something is off here, whether it be my understanding of fuzzy time or a legitimate discrepancy we're supposed to notice.

>>5181127
I can understand your moral injunction against torture, but paired with the desire to torture someone to spitefully prove a point, it fills me with disgust. Either torture is unforgiveable or it isn't. Pick one.

>>5181139
It's not spite, it is an object lesson on why you treat people humanely.

But if anons are really against it, I can understand.
I will see her taken to task for this though, and not just a strong talking to. This shit is not ok to be doing to innocents (which she no longer is by dint of doing this), and she needs to deeply understand that one way or another.

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239 KB JPG

>>5181144
>an object lesson on why you treat people humanely
>through torture

You have to actually have principles if you want to start preaching morality to others. Ari appears to legitimately see no problem in what she's done but you have no such excuse. You see it as evil and want to do it anyway.

>>5181148
That's not what I...
Sure, whatever, give her a slap on the wrist and we'll forget all about it.
I wish I didn't suck at articulating myself so bad.

>>5181098
>she's been here for a few hours max
It has been a few days since the delegation. Which isn't to say the progress she made isn't still uncannily fast, but there has been a minor timeskip so that everyone actually had time to accomplish things (IE: Rinnier finding things in the archive, the guards having time to get results searching for tools, etc.).

I did not communicate this well, so it's definitely my fault you're a bit confused here.

Tanya was completely excluded from this and remains ignorant of it due to your request to interview her personally after looking through the healers' things.

>Irue has been overly emotional for like two posts now.
Though the distinction may not specifically matter in this case, I will clarify that Irue is more baffled and confused than emotionally disheveled. This has not upset Irue any further than being a bit mentally torn over whether they should chastise Ari or not due to, as some of you have mentioned, Irue having done arguably much worse - multiple times - but never quite crossing this specific line.

You can still meditate on Shade, but it'll largely just be time Irue spends thinking and processing rather than needing to be calmed. You could also spend that time weaving! It's been a while since you used 'A Spider's Web' anon! Think of how soothing it would be!

Whats this talk over Ari still being our testament anyway, wasnt that just for the rite? I dont remember signing no contract where it says "these people are an extension of you for the rest of your life"

>>5181186
They are explicitly an extension of you for the rest of your life and theirs.

damb I should have read the contract

>>5181188

This is the part where I helpfully point out there's a demihuman out there that maintains all the privileges and liabilities of being Irue's figurative right hand.

This certainly cannot come back in the future to twist the knife at all I assure you.

>>5181228
Thankfully not many people know that so lets keep it that way

>>5181179
I guess that clears that up, but at the risk of being dour it raises more concerns. Irue told Rinnier that she doesn't have anything to report, as if she hasn't done anything of note in the past several days. I understand skipping forward so characters actually have something to report but Irue has been consistently playing catch up and reacting to things that other people have done for the majority of the quest and what's more, there's never enough to time to react to everything we need to before some fresh disaster is revealed.

Maybe I'm alone here but I'll admit I can't help but feel a bit let down if Irue's been spinning her wheels for a few days following one of the rare occasions she actually manages to pre-empt something.

>>5180894
I just had a thought
>Quietly ask Ari how she knows about this technique of dehumanisation and humiliation

>>5181245
This is fair. There are a few things Irue could have been looking into in the interceding days, in lieu of specifically stated goals. I wouldn't call it wheel spinning exactly, since learning to delegate things has been a task Irue has struggled with coming to terms with, but just because large tasks of the situation were delegated appropriately this time doesn't mean Irue themself would have sat idly by either.

So to that end, pick one of the following for Irue to have spent the last few days tinkering with and we'll get to what was learned from it after Ari's business is resolved:

>Nymph's Wood
>Ser Stomperson Jr.
>House Valen's financial records
>House Valen's recent political movements
>'A Spider's Web'

>>5181261
>House Valen's financial records

>>5181261
>Nymph's Wood
We can figure out the rest once we fix Clara.