[X] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.
Clean-up has to happen sometime. Once the place is no longer obviously a disaster, it'll be much easier to tell Mommy Dearest that we got rid of most of the gold deliberately. You know, since Jun-ho's not really a fan of the stuff.
See, Mom? I can be considerate when I want to be![/Blatant Lies]
You stare at him blankly for a bit. "... I actually know shockingly little about what she does in her spare time," you say at last. "Probably something horrible. Like eat babies. Or poison wells. Or forget my birthday."
Aaaand that was a hell of a lot of catch up I had to do from stalling mid chapter two.
[X] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.
Hmm yeah maybe it's the lack of facial hair but the added beef just makes him look like a twink who ate too much ( no offense artist, you hard working amazing person)
Usually when you think of bara or beefy you think "DADDY ,ZADDY OOOF" at least in my head . So maybe the long hair is also ruining the image .
Here's some sfw templates in a spoiler if you need examples (warning although sfw these images may make you swoon or reconsider your sexuality. Do not click if you have a heart condition or may be pregnant )
[X] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.
[X] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.
Well, cleanup needs to happen sooner or later. And it will help us clear our head, so we can (hopefully) make some better decisions.
[X] Stay inside and get to work cleaning up the goldsplosion in earnest. Seeing it all strewn about like this hurts your heart. The least you can do is make it look slightly less awful, and the gold-counting should be soothing.
Hmm yeah maybe it's the lack of facial hair but the added beef just makes him look like a twink who ate too much ( no offense artist, you hard working amazing person)
Usually when you think of bara or beefy you think "DADDY ,ZADDY OOOF" at least in my head . So maybe the long hair is also ruining the image .
Here's some sfw templates in a spoiler if you need examples (warning although sfw these images may make you swoon or reconsider your sexuality. Do not click if you have a heart condition or may be pregnant )
I'd say he doesn't have to be full bear mode but his description shows he Has muscles so make him thicker or the muscles much more prominent.
Possibly cut hair shorter maybe to shoulder length (I'd say go with short hair all together unless the GM described him as having long long hair - like the devil in one of the photos. Give him scruff and or facial hair to show him being a bit older. Maybe some eye wrinkles idk daddy generally means older or sexy mid 30s-40+ guy.
You don't have to go cartoonishly large like some bara art, just look at some male actors at that age for ideas , or game characters . ( Witcher Mc is Daddy AF )
Usually a daddy would be on the more masculine side compared to the jihns more twinkish/ adrogenous side. He doesn't want to be here but is kind of "forced" to seduce us so maybe a more aggrevated or frustrated look on his face.
Usually a daddy would be on the more masculine side compared to the jihns more twinkish/ adrogenous side. He doesn't want to be here but is kind of "forced" to seduce us so maybe a more aggrevated or frustrated look on his face
In times of trouble and hardship, there's only one thing to do that really makes you happy.
Count money.
You sit up with a soft groan of effort and discomfort, grinding the heel of your palm against your eyes as the lingering icky-feeling echoes of your hangover keep throbbing somewhere in your forebrain region. Then you just slowly slump over on all fours and begin to crawl around on the floor of your cave, plucking the fallen coins off the bare stone between your forefinger and thumb talons one by one by one. It's slow going, would be agonising to any dumb mortal, but you're a dragon and money makes the world go round for you. The repetition is just soothing, like stropping your claws or crunching down on an entire deer carcass, the gentle tink of metal on metal music to your ears as you drop each fresh coin into the protective cage of your other hand. Once it's so full it's dripping gold you rise, shuffle over to another spot in the cave where you'll build your next pile, and dump it all straight on the floor again. Then it's back across the cave to repeat the process. Tink, tink, tink, rattlerattlerattle. Tink, tink, tink, rattlerattlerattle.
Stupid mother. Stupid ifrit. Stupid incubus. Jun-ho's okay, wasn't his choice to barge in on your life. Mother probably just Has Something on him. He's a bit weird and he's not from around here but he's still a dragon so that's close enough. But still, why's it got to be like this? Why everything, why now, why all at once and why happening to you? You're a good boy and you've done nothing wrong and now here you are with a blown-up hoard picking up loose change - though loose change is still gold and therefore still valid. You can't believe that in your younger days you dreamed up scenarios just like this, suddenly surrounded by flocks of hunky men of various stripes all clamouring for your time. But the reality is that they're mostly annoying and intrusive and really you'd just prefer some more lazy days of lying on a big pile of treasure watching the world go by. Is that such a crime? Nobody complaining at you or getting under your scales with snide comments then. Tink, tink, tink, rattlerattlerattle. Tink, tink, tink, rattlerattlerattle.
Maybe you should wish for the ifrit to reverse all this. Just take you back to- no then Mother would show up and be herself and saddle you with Jun-ho anyway, time travel's always tricky like that in the stories. But then again you'd have your gold back. But no wine. And the incubus would still show up mrgh. Maybe wish for everyone to leave you alone? That's got some legs to it but then what happens to the ifrit? That leaves you with a third wish but him compelled by the wish you just made to leave you alone. That's probably a paradox or something, those are bad. You could wish for your hoard back? Or like... even more than you started with. More-more than you started with! Yeah, that's an idea. Just imagine, so much gold it could properly cover the floor of your cave rather than this scattered chaff business you've got going on right now. Just wall-to-wall gold pieces and jewels and magic items in these rolling semi-solid waves, so thick on the ground you could swim through it... you catch yourself salivating again and prod your tongue back into your mouth. You let yourself think like that when you first found the ifrit's lamp and look where that got you. Tink, tink, tink, rattlerattlerattle.
"Can I help y-"
"HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" You whip your head right around like a serpent poised to strike and hiss through your fangs so violently you startle the speaker almost clear off his feet. His hands pop straight up, shoulder-height, palms out. Your eyes rapidly dart up and down, scanning him for some sign of whatever ulterior motive it is he came here with while you have him at your mercy. He's human as far as you can tell, many shades darker than the ifrit with short, curly hair to match. His eyes -black but peppered with tiny flecks of gold- are wide and guileless. He wears no armour and you smell no hidden magic items on him. The only thing he has with him are his clothes, simple trousers and shoes with a dark tunic cut like a long-tailed jacket -or maybe the reverse- on top, trimmed and embroidered with simple yellow thread. Looks Tanin Sultanate adjacent maybe, you're not very good at fashion and it looks handmade, maybe even his own work.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you," he says a little sheepishly.
"You didn't frighten me," you grumble, letting your lips cover your fangs once more. "You startled me. Because people keep bothering me."
"Then I'm sorry I startled you." He pauses, no doubt considering his next words carefully in fear and awe of your draconic majesty. "I-"
"What're you doing here?" you snap, still annoyed he got the drop on you and irritable in general.
"-came here to offer my help," he goes on, undeterred. "My name is Issachar. I run and live on one of the smaller independent lightning farms near here, so I've seen you come and go in your travels. I heard that you were having difficulties and I came to offer you whatever assistance I could."
"... in exchange for?" you ask suspiciously, mind already racing with the various possibilities. After an incubus popped up out of the blue you're ready for anything.
"Nothing. I just want to help you, one neighbour to another."
Your eyes narrow to thin blue slits. Charity as a concept to a dragon is like helping someone who's been stabbed by stabbing yourself and trying to bleed into their wound, just complete madness. Either he's hiding something extra-double-deep down beneath the surface or this 'Issachar' fellow is a complete fool and you'll gain nothing by allowing him a moment more of your time.
"How did you 'hear' that I was having difficulties?" you press him, jealously clutching your fistfuls of gold close to your chest. "Are you one of Mother's spies, is that it? An adventurer ahead of the pack? Do you work for one of the merchant houses? Are you a tax official!?"
"N-no," he replies, having clearly underestimated how this conversation would go. "I'm- may I put my hands down?"
"No."
He doesn't. "I received a vision. I'm not... exactly some kind of full-time prophet but I know what I saw is real, and what I saw is that you have a very interesting destiny laid out before you. One with a great many possible futures, some separated by only a razor-thin margin of choices. I came to offer-"
"Aha!" you exclaim, startling him as you thrust an accusing talon towards his chest. "So you're not here for charity! You're here to be nice to me and butter me up so I'll listen to you when you give me advice so I'll do things that get me going down the 'destiny path' you want me to!"
He blinks. "I... I suppose that is more accurate, yes."
"Good, at least I know you're not weird now," you say. "You can put your hands down."
Issachar slowly, jerkily lowers his hands to his sides as you straighten up and ferry your current load of gold over to the slowly-growing pile. He watches you go to and fro, clearly trying to work out where to pick up the thread because you rather ruined his well-rehearsed spiel. You happily ignore him until he's good and ready. The money is much more important than some stupid destiny.
"So... so, yes, the destiny," he says, stumbling over his words as he works up the momentum to keep going. "I came here to offer-"
"Will you do anything I want?" you ask.
"B-beg pardon?"
"The 'charity' thing. If you're helping me does that mean you do whatever I ask whenever I ask it?"
He takes a single half-second to imagine the vast breadth of things you could potentially ask him to do. "No," he replies firmly.
"Okay." You let another two dripping fistfuls of gold fall on the slowly growing Pile 2 with a glorious metallic rattlerattlerattle. You think you've knocked him all off-balance again. Good. He deserves it for showing up out of the blue and also it's pretty fun to be on the other side of it, you're starting to understand why the ifrit does it all the time. You turn around to look at him, hands on your scaly hips, and glance at the vast swathes of cave floor still covered in coins and other bits. "... hrm. Swear to me on your life that you won't steal so much as a tin penny of my treasure," you say.
"I swear on my life never to steal or so much as covet your gold," he repeats solemnly. He probably doesn't feel it but you do, a little tingle runs through your horns and the back of your skull as the contract is sealed. The magic can't stop him from going back on his word if he decides to be a dick about it but it'll curse him with a cruel and ignoble end as well as cursing whatever he steals itself so it keeps on causing misery for however long it takes to make its way back to your hoard. Pretty simple magic but it's good for a cathartic giggle to oneself in the night.
"Okay, then help me get all these coins and smaller jewels over here in the pile," you order him, indicating all the parts where the treasure scattered furthest. "Not the bigger pieces, only I get to touch those. Everything gets put right on the apex of the pile so it trickles down naturally, no landscaping it because only dragons know the right way to do that, only carry them in cupped hands and slowly sprinkle them down so they don't bounce away and you're not moving why aren't you doing what I tell you yet?"
Issachar remains right where you left him, arms loosely folded, and just looks at you. "I'll do it on one condition."
"Uuuuuuugh." You lean back, letting your shoulders go slack, arch your neck and groan straight up at the ceiling. You swing forward into an upright posture again. "What?"
"Say 'please'," he says.
"... I don't follow."
"Say 'please'."
"I think I must be mishearing you."
"Say 'please' and I'll help you for as long as you want."
"Is this 'puh-leese' a foreign word?"
"Oh come off it you have the gift of tongues you understand every language spoken by any group in any part of the world like a native!" he snaps.
"Wow there's no need to get hostile, you come into my cave uninvited to help me because of 'destiny' then start trying to lay down rules before you'll help me?" you retort. Wow this really is fun. You can't help but grin as Issachar's lips twist into an S-shaped grimace of annoyance. You can practically hear all the things he actually wants to say bouncing against the inside of that tight seal.
"It's such a small thing, it costs you nothing, and it means a lot to other people," he eventually manages to explain, as patiently as he can. "I don't know if you've noticed this yet on your own, but oftentimes the difference between someone giving you what you want just comes down to whether you ask rudely or politely. See?"
"Hmmm..." you scritch at the scales under your chin thoughtfully. "So it makes people do what I want more often... and it's free..."
"Theeeeennn..." he delicately urges you on.
"Theeeeeen..." you slowly pull your hand away and gesture towards him. "Pppplllllleeeeeeeeeease help me pick up all my gold and put it in a pile."
"Yes, Eldingar, I would love to!" Issachar replies. "See, was that so hard?"
"Don't push it. I said the thing, now we pile."
Thankfully Issachar really does leave it at that, helping you gather and pile up the gold in silence. He's pretty good at it for an amateur, working just as fast as you if not faster, and all the needless hullabaloo about this 'please' nonsense aside you really are quite pleased to see your cave slowly grow more and more presentable. The hours just seem to fly by, until at last you carry the last handful of gold to the pile and pour it down with a grin. The damage wasn't quite so bad as you feared at first - it's noticeably smaller, true, but there are plenty of coins that just got a bit singed, once you shuffle them around to the lower layers and core of the pile it looks quite presentable. It's the bigger items you'll have to work out a replacement for, or just get shitloads more coins and jewels to balance it out, but hey that's for Future Eldingar. Present Eldingar is happy, relatively speaking. The hangover's even gone!
"There," you say, hands on your hips again. "Much better."
"Indeed it is!" Issachar agrees. And then just kind of hovers beside you, his silence very much pointed, like he's waiting for you to say something else.
"... what?" you ask, arching a brow-ridge at him. He just sighs, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
"Nevermind, it's nothing. Thank you for letting me help you, Eldingar." He pats you on the shoulder. "I think that in time-"
"I will bite that arm off."
"-okay enough of that for one day then." He retrieves his hand before you make good on your promise and clasps it with the other behind his back. He's silent for a time, perhaps basking in the glow of a job well done too. "If you fly southwest from here and aim for the highest mountain, my farm should be directly below your flight path. If you ever have questions, or need help, or just want you to talk, I'd like you to know that my door is always open to you."
"Yeah yeah," you say disinterestedly, waving a claw in his general direction. Entertaining company is exhausting, you don't know how mortals find the time or energy. "See you around if I need a gold-mover again I guess."
He makes no more comments, leaving you to your satisfaction as you crouch by your gold and carefully arrange it just so. Run a talon down here, shore it up a bit there, shape a nice little sleeping divot at the top theeeere. It'll take many nights before it's proper again but you've made a start at least. And once you get going into treasure-hunting properly maybe it'll be even better than-
"Wait how'd you get in here?" you realise all at once. "There's no-"
You turn. Issachar is gone. You didn't even hear him leave. And the only way out is the natural opening about sixty feet up you've been too lazy to widen, let alone make accessible for adventurers.
"-door."
The final word seems to echo and echo and echo again in the vast, empty cavern.
"(myeah, well, fuck you, be all mysterious and elusive and shit)," you grumble to yourself, "(see if i care. in fact i won't even ask you about it next time i see you. just gonna pretend nothing happened and let you sweat on it. 'maybe he knows!' 'maybe he's just guessing!' 'i should admit everything before eldingar eats me for being a lying liar who lies!')"
Silence descends once more.
"... and I never told him my name either fffffuck everything," you add, petulantly slapping the gold for lack of any better vent for your frustrations. You immediately regret it and snatch up every single glittering coin that jingles to the floor, pressing them back into their proper places like a tailor sewing sequins to a rich lady's dress. Once it's all done you give a sigh of relief, carefully stepping away with your palms up as if to soothe the pile not to destroy itself.
You glance up at the cave mouth high above again. By the look of the light you used up half the day cleaning up the cave. Probably would've been all of it if Issachar hadn't (begrudgingly) helped out. You've still got a little time.
[ ] Go find Jun-ho.
[ ] Go find the ifrit.
[ ] Go find the incubus.
Adhoc vote count started by ZerbanDaGreat on May 8, 2018 at 12:40 AM, finished with 810 posts and 44 votes.
@ZerbanDaGreat , what you actually need to do is make this into a visual novel so we can have each of the separate paths, and then a 'polyamory end.' Or three.
Totally not way too much work to randomly ask of someone, nosiree.
E: (This is a joke even though it'd be amazing if it existed.)
:origin()/pre00/7ab4/th/pre/f/2017/193/d/c/dream_daddy__robert__by_caiitkat-dbg47tb.png)
