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a Lucy is born in Geb
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"Yes, I ate someone. I was lost in the maze when she found me, alone in the dark with no way out. She gave me a choice - I could die where I stood, or live, and gain the power to decide my own fate. You don't remember what it was like back then, do you? Those lean years, not enough hunters, not enough prey? Savamalekh brought me an aasimar priestess, and I was hungry enough that her flesh was the best thing I'd ever tasted. Then I felt the madness talk hold, and the rage, and I nearly lost myself. But I didn't, and I will never regret it."

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"Camellia, that was completely out of line," Luzai hisses quietly to her. 

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"Never regret it? How can you possibly not regret it?"

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"It's not like he had anything to say when you took a bite," she hisses back.

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"What, and I should have been happy to die instead? Unlike you, I'm not content to meekly accept my fate without doing anything to change it!"

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"You have no idea what you're talking about," Luzai snaps. "And be glad of it." 

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"Yes, you should have--" Lann begins angrily, 

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--At which point Luzai tears herself away from Camellia Being Wrong to stop him, instead. "Whoa whoa whoa!" she exclaims, stepping in between him and Wenduag, waving her hands. "Calm down. Please calm down before you say anything that can't be unsaid."

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"Like what? If--"

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"Look. This is upsetting. I get that this is upsetting! I viscerally understand that this is upsetting! But sometimes when people are upset is the time when you most need to think about what you're saying." 

She points to the four children, three unconscious and one dead. "Do you wish there were four dead children, here, instead of one?" 

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"That's different! They were forced to do it--" 

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"Why do you imagine Wenduag had any more of a choice than they did?" 

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He sets his jaw. "It's not--she said she doesn't regret it--" 

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"And I can see why that would bother you. But--look. Do you think, if all four of these children had refused unto death, that Hosilla and the demon would have let the priest live?" 

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"...No." 

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"What just happened was horrible. But--it wouldn't be better, if it had been five deaths instead of two. Sometimes, there aren't any good options. Sometimes, you have to do horrible things, because refusing wouldn't save anyone and things would be even worse if you didn't. And...not everyone ever comes to peace with that. But it's not--I've done things that I hated, but I can't say I regret them. I don't--accept them, exactly, but they don't haunt me like they used to. And--this is all new to you, but Wenduag has had to live with it every day since it happened." 

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Lann looks away. 

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Right, time to redirect this somewhere more productive. It sounds like Lann and Wenduag have some issues they need to work out, or ties they need to cut, but right now they're on a schedule.

"If we take the kids back to Neatholm, will your tribe be able to take care of them? Part of me really wants to make for the surface right now, but I don't want to leave kids somewhere unsafe in this condition."

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"Yeah. We look after our own." He looks at the three living kids with an intensely conflicted expression, but at least one of the expressions is relief. "...I don't know when they'll wake up, though, and I don't think Wenduag and I will be able to carry them all back by ourselves. Especially if there's anything in any of the corners we didn't clear out." 

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"I can carry one of them."

Saving kids is good and not at all complicated or likely to make her regret having used up all her powers on one opponent.

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Luzai bites her lip, looking between Seelah and Anevia. She wants to get back to the surface sooner rather than later too, but she also...doesn't want to split the party...

"--Do either of you know where on the surface the Shield Maze lets out to?" Nowhere in Kenabres is totally safe right now, she's sure, but there's got to be different levels of not safe, and maybe some of that could be predicted without knowing exactly what the demons are doing, like, anywhere well fortified is unusually high variance depending on who's fortifying it right now, the Temple of Iomedae is proobably okayish, stuff like that.

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"No." 

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"I've never been any further than here."

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"I...think that going back to the surface in split groups instead of together might not be a great idea," Luzai says to Anevia. "Like, I, also, really want to find out what happened to my brother, but." 

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"Right. So I guess that just leaves the question of if we want to sneak the kids back, and then count on being able to slip by the cultists a third time on the way back out without the bodies having been found, or if we put in the time now to proactively clear it. The latter probably means more fighting and more time spent, but is much less likely to result in us being ambushed by too many cultists to effectively fight."

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