Monster Marriage Quest

Back when considering how to handle the girl wanting to stay

Yeah, you're not leaving the girl here. Even though it feels weird to take her from her family- actually.

"Miss?" you say toward the woman who you think is the girl's mother. She glances away from the girl for just a moment, meeting your eyes, flinching, and then resuming wringing her hands and staring at the girl. "You can come with, if you like, I'm... reasonably certain we can keep the both of you safe." So far these things seem quite reluctant to get close to the Breeds, and given how cleanly your forces won when one made the mistake of being in reach, this seems a pretty reasonable reluctance on these things' part that's unlikely to change. (Unless there are other kinds better-suited to fighting on the ground, but so far they're all alike as best as you can tell)

A few seconds pass without acknowledgement, followed by her attention jerking to you, staring at you for several more seconds in silence, eyes wide and expression uncertain. A man lingering at the cellar entrance looks uncertainly between you and the woman (Or perhaps between the child and the woman), and the girl herself remains quiet, not expressing a preference that you can tell.

Into the silence you say, "I'll leave a Breed behind to stand watch. The kidnappers seem very reluctant to even approach them, so it should keep you safe, at least so long as no soldiers attack it."

The man's eyes widen and he hurries into the cellar, closing the doors behind him; them slamming shut seems to break the woman out of her indecision, or perhaps it's how the most injured Roller makes its way to stand guard in front of the cellar door. (You give it instructions to retreat and either try to join up with you or with the Breeds in the woods, in the event that soldiers show up with clear intent to attack it) Either way, she skirts around the Roller, looking very concerned, and edges her way awkwardly toward you, glancing between you and the girl repeatedly even as she cautiously reaches out to the girl's hand.

Once their hands meet, the woman looks supremely tense for around five seconds, and then finally relaxes. Not... to true calm, mind, but to mere anxiety, rather than seeming ready to bolt in response to anything.

"We're going back to the soldiers," you say, tugging gently in that direction on the girl's hand (She's really not wanting to let go of you), which seems to lower the woman's tension still further, and you all begin the walk.

----------------------------------------------------

And now with the soldiers again

Well, actually, before you head out to try to rescue more people, you turn to the soldiers. "Perhaps some of you should join the family in the cellar, ready to defend them if a kidnapper gets past my guard?"

You notice most of the soldiers glance toward a specific soldier briefly, before their collective attention falls upon the girl and her mother (?) with very dubious looks upon their faces. The one soldier who was glanced at by the rest firmly declares, "We'll not cower in the dark when people who need us await!" while his fellows all nod firmly with Heroically Determined expressions upon their faces.

You consider pointing out that they've been cowering in the dark of the night behind your troops, doing nothing of use for the past several minutes, but after a moment's consideration decline to point it out. You similarly decide to act as if you don't notice how they're really staring at the woman and the girl more than looking for other people, not looking away even when another scream fades away in the sky. You sort of expected this response, given how the Commoners have been behaving around you and the Breeds.

You settle for shrugging (With one arm, to avoid jostling the girl) and casually remarking, "Suit yourself," before pointedly focusing on walking the girl and woman through how to climb up a Roller to ride with you. (You end up getting the woman up first and simply heaving the girl up to her; climbing up the Roller proves too much for a child her height) In the process it comes out that they are not mother and daughter, but two sisters who were simply born years apart. (Their names don't come up. You're starting to wonder if the Commoners are avoiding sharing their names with you for some reason) Finally, you settle in front, the girl just behind you, her sister behind her and clinging to you, minimizing the odds of the girl falling off.

One soldier starts to ask something, you catch, "Hey, what about-" before he is shushed by his fellows, which you decide to just ignore.

And then you finally resume the search for people to help.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Having two Commoners riding with you, one young woman and one younger girl, seems to have a pronounced impact on how most people respond to you. You find yourself wondering how much of this has to do with them riding behind you, clinging to you, but if that matters, no one alludes to it directly. Maybe it has more to do with the soldiers accompanying you, looking uneasy but still huddling for safety among your troops.

Whatever the case, later Commoner families are not happy to see 'monsters' coming to their rescue, but they're less consistent about trying to flee on sight. Sometimes the girl even calls out that it's safe, or that 'these monsters are fighting those monsters' (You fight the urge to complain that Breeds aren't monsters at all; she's just a child), or in one case calls out to a boy by name to stop being 'such a wimp', and while there's still mutterings about Teufel and lies, it seems to help to have more than one person trying to convince them to come out and get protection from the kidnapper-creatures. Perhaps because Teufel, though supposedly able to look like anyone, can only look like any one person? You still don't really get this 'Teufel' business, but you can sort of see how it might be harder to dismiss everything as 'Teufel lies' if one thinks a group of three people can't all be Teufel.

Families are led to cellars and Rollers set to guard those too, or in one case they're led to a place where the fog thins and everyone agrees there's a temple nearby. (You fight the urge to go find the temple and ruin it) At one point another squad of soldiers is encountered, a 'blessed' soldier in charge of a dozen armored troops and backed by twenty women with bows (There might be men in the archers, but they all look pretty alike to you: no facial hair, for one), and while the 'blessed' soldier grits her teeth and clearly wants to order everyone to attack, she restrains herself. (Possibly because you have a couple of families in tow at the time, in addition to the soldiers, all mixed in among your troops, not to mention the sisters riding with you) You stay away from where you encountered them, though, pursuing other locations where you see the kidnapper-creatures flocking.

You never quite manage to capture or kill another kidnapper-creature, possibly in part because families are quicker to flee to the safety of your troops; over these two or so hours, you become fairly certain the kidnappers only actually enter a building if they've spotted someone with their neck-mounted eye. You're not sure if they're poor of hearing, or mistrust their hearing, or what, but even someone screaming in a panic doesn't seem to result in one of these things going into a room that's the source of the noise. Possibly in looking into the room, you're unsure of that part, but certainly not of diving in sight-unseen. As such, the kidnappers tend to either not enter a building in the first place, or grab someone and lurch back out a window and fly off. (You see this happen three times, feeling a stab of guilt anew every time)

Eventually, the fog starts thinning -a fact you only notice when one of the soldiers still with you cheers enthusiastically about how, "It's almost over!" before being shushed by her fellows- and all you can see and hear in the sky is the kidnapper-creatures flying off to the east. Most of them seem to not have anyone in their grip, too.

Huh. That was earlier than you'd expected. It's still, what, at least three hours until dawn? You'd thought these creatures would persist much closer to daylight-

"What is the meaning of this!?" thunders an older man's voice, drawing your attention back to the ground.

You'd been leading another pair of families (19 people between the two) to a nearby temple, and this was perhaps a mistake, as before you stands a bit of a worrying contingent. Four armored soldiers in the distinctive outfit of 'blessed' troops, ten regular armored soldiers, ten exhausted-looking archers (You're not sure their quivers have arrows left; none of them is nocking an arrow, anyway), four men and a woman you're not sure how to classify (They all carry rapiers, but otherwise do not look like warriors to you: no armor, no other weapons, and their clothes suggest wealth to you), plus three people that look... kind of like priests to you, but rather wealthier-looking than any priest you've seen before. (Is that gold embedded in the old man's fancy hat?)

You, meanwhile, are down to 6 Rollers on hand, 6 Boulders on hand, 6 Suncrawlers on hand, and the Gatekeeper. (You wanted to keep enough Rollers to get the Boulders moving swiftly on a moment's notice, and the Suncrawlers have been hauling around the wounded kidnapper-creature: you'd have sent them out of the city with it if you'd been confident Commoners wouldn't attack them and mess up the 'capture one of these smelly things alive' plan) You send out an order to the guards stationed about to come to you (In the process learning one Roller fled from soldiers earlier and is most of the way to you, and one guard Suncrawler took some damage before it managed to duck through a low crawlspace of some kind) in hopes of correcting this imbalance, but for the moment you are distinctly outnumbered and particularly concerned by the 'blessed' troops. And the priests to a somewhat lesser extent: none of the lower quarter priests ever set themselves on fire, but these priests are a lot older than any of the lower quarter priests you've encountered so far, and so you suspect they have better... control, or whatever goes into the self-immolation thing.

The eight soldiers that have been walking with you this entire time are pretty clearly strongly considering drawing their swords, which contributes to the whole 'outnumbered' thing, while the two families mostly look pretty stricken by this man's clear disapproval: you have this worrying suspicion they'll be swiftly pretending like you tricked them or ambushed them or something.

A quick check of the four Suncrawlers you sent to the top of the hill shows... one is actually kind of close, a bit beyond the priests and everyone else. The other three are much further away and report killing someone who... was probably a priest, going by the bits of images you're getting from them?

"We would be dead if not for them!" shouts back the older sister, voice trembling. (And arms trembling around you, for that matter)

Which, you notice, changes very noticeably the attitude of the soldiers behind you and the families you were escorting: the soldiers are abruptly uncertain-looking, the families trend toward downright defiant. (Especially three specific men: a kidnapper-creature had gotten a grip on one of them, the three trying to prevent it from pulling him out the window, and it had only broken off when the Gatekeeper had bounded into the room and bitten it)

"Better dead than corrupted by evil!" the man booms back, which you frown at. You feel like you've just heard something important for understanding this situation, particularly how suicidal several Commoners have been.

Okay, how to handle this...

[]You'll metaphorically lie low and wait for the rest of your troops to arrive. Already the focus seems to be on these two arguing, much more than on you or your Breeds.
-[]And strike as soon as you feel you have the advantage. Now that the kidnappers are gone, you want these priests dead.
-[]And try to leverage the force advantage into retreating from the city without a fight.

[]You'll direct the one Suncrawler in back to sneak up on and try to kill the priest with gold in his hat. He's probably the leader, right?
-[]Once things start, going on offense is the goal.
-[]Once things start, getting out of the city is the goal.
(This will involve a die roll if it wins the vote)

[]You'll direct your forces to attack, and simply flee with yourself on the Roller plus the Gatekeeper and one Boulder pushed by the Roller, writing off the rest of your forces. It will be costly to lose all these troops, but this seems... probably the safest way to escape with your life.

[]You'll ignore all this drama and direct the families and soldiers who are with you to go join their comrades, saying your job here is done, and try to disengage entirely.
-[]Ready to attack on a moment's notice if they do anything.
-[]Prioritizing getting yourself out of the city if they try anything.

[]Smile time. "I'm so glad to see so many of you got through this night unscathed! It's truly sad how many victims were taken from the middle tier by these creatures, defenseless in their homes. How successful were you in rescuing innocents from danger?" You're pretty sure the answer is 'they weren't trying to do that at all'.

[]Sadface time. "Do you truly intend to kill this child-" Bring the younger sister behind you into view. "-for the crime of having been saved by the wrong type of person?" Admittedly she was only in danger because of your attack, but still.

[]Oh? "Is that why you're fine with Freelanders burning to death from 'blessings'?" How revolting.

[]Engage him in debate yourself.
(I'm not giving example topics. You can submit three topics as sub-votes. You can give an angle or tone beyond the exact topic, but don't give me three-paragraph detailed plans for an entire Debate Team event)

[]Write-in.

(Got it out today after all! In part by realizing my original assumption of continuing to cover the night in a lot of detail really made no sense)