You mean this quest was "supposed" to be about getting Ivy's body back from a terrible body-snatcher? At least that seems to be the major plot hook you're implying. Interesting that we've mostly dodged that.
Sorry! I missed this when you first commented. But, yeah. Most outcomes from that initial scene would have resulted in something like Star setting Brute on you and affecting an escape, with you trying to hunt her down because she has Ivy's body. That was the most likely outcome in my head, although I decided I'd allow for befriending her once I actually sat down and wrote out the scene, and in retrospect it's not really surprising that people voted the way they did. I don't really mind, just kind of funny.
... wait, what was that?
No, seriously, what?!
EDIT: wait, it's probably another misunderstanding on my part, is it? Tsk, somehow it seems to exclusively happen here.
As someone already mentioned above, what I was going for there was Star explaining that there are methods of killing someone with fire magic that are more humane/less painful than is typically assumed.
Can we kill the bandit woman in a way that preserves her body? Like, leave her brain dead?
I mean, empty bodies have to come from somewhere, unless we're lucky enough to find the living corpse of someone who's brain dead from natural causes.
Star did just talk about cooking someone's brain to kill them, so she can't be unfamiliar with the concept.
You could alter someone's brain to basically make them brain dead, yes, but it's tricky to do and would make the braindead bandit woman really hard to keep alive and health while on the road. Since Alteration is a physical change, putting Star's soul into that body would also not make it any less brain dead unless we made very sure to reverse the changes exactly afterward. It's also the sort of thing that... destroying someone's psyche to that degree is the sort of thing that's possible to do with either a powerful curse or powerful alteration, but the curse option is less complicated and easier to pull off without accidentally ruining the brain forever.
Do we know if they know where Ivy lives? If so, killing her keeps them underhanded.
I'm going with the curse option.
They probably know Ivy's been doing weird shit in the old manor house. Ivy would be annoyed if she couldn't go back there, but it's not like she couldn't just go back to Blacktree if push came to shove, or somewhere else for that matter.
@Gazetteer, what sort of curse could we conceivably cast with Ivy's help? For example, a curse that makes the bandit feel pain if she hurts others? (The curse wouldn't necessarily have to inflict equivalent physical harm but she should at least feel significant psychosomatic pain.)
Also, can alteration magic make someone brain dead?
That is a good example of a curse. I think at our level we'd manage better with something like... a sense of unpleasant disorientation or, like, a piercing/irritating ringing sound in her head if she hurts other. For brain dead question, see above.
, and Ivy's only objection is efficiency), but by offering a non-lethal alternative we can at least show that we're humane.
