Tribulations of an Apprentice Witch

Safe for us, maybe. But if something bad happens to the cute girl because of this Mina is going to feel like shit.

And probably do something even worse to try to "fix" the situation if Ivy and Star can't talk her out of it.

How is "Ivy's your friend" a character flaw? How would that have changed the quest?
I might have missed character gen but I don't think having Ivy as our friend was ever painted as a character flaw. Especially since thus quest started with us going to visit her.
 
Safe for us, maybe. But if something bad happens to the cute girl because of this Mina is going to feel like shit.

And probably do something even worse to try to "fix" the situation if Ivy and Star can't talk her out of it.

How is "Ivy's your friend" a character flaw? How would that have changed the quest?
Coming out into the middle of nowhere to help Ivy with a dumb scheme you don't believe in... a pretty strong gesture that requires a motive that goes against your own interests. That one suggests a willingness to do things for people that we consider to be our friends that would make us very easy to manipulate. "Loyal to a fault" would be how I'd put it. Would have also meant that a lot of people would consider us extremely loyal and trustworthy. The pragmatic "I need Ivy's connections" persona would have probably been... pretty bad news for Star, all considered. Blackmail option would have involved you having done something relatively bad that Ivy is using against you, and was generally the 'evil witch' option (other early choices still shaped our personality a lot, though, so it's not like any of these were the final word on the matter).

Honestly they all also have upsides. Our current one, while so far being used mostly for comic relief, has the potential to open up certain options and also probably would make romantic subplot(s) easier. (although also more complicated, all considered.) I'm kind of looking at them similar to Fate aspects, if you're at all familiar with that tabletop system -- character traits that can all either help or hurt us. In that context, "can't resist a pretty face" is something that genuinely complicates our life, but it can still in some situations be used as a good thing -- think of it as your "Trouble" aspect in that analogy. Hopefully that still makes sense if you're not personally familiar with the game I'm alluding to.
 
[x] If Arietta will lend us a party member, offer to take one of her bodyguards along with us and introduce them to the Partsmonger.
- [x] Check that our temporary companion is on-board and will follow our lead.
- [x] If possible, try to finish our own business first before turning to Arietta's request.


Given that we must do something to help Arietta due to Mina's weakness for cute boys and girls compassionate character, I think it would be best if we didn't try to negotiate on behalf of someone we hardly know for something we know next to nothing about. Arietta's companions ought to know more, and bringing one of them along means lets us off the hook a bit since we're not stuck as the middleman for everything (as options 2-4 would entail) but we're still close enough to keep an eye on the exchange (as opposed to option 1).

The Partsmonger presumably won't object to the presence of a bodyguard. Plus if something bad does happen, whether it's the meeting going sour or whatever's behind the disappearances the cab driver mentioned, it can't hurt to have a competent fighter on hand. Star at least might appreciate that.

I assume it would be better to send Gunther since he seems more experienced and probably a better negotiator, but I would leave the decision to Arietta since it's her party. Arietta should be safe staying at the inn with the other bodyguard.

"... yes," Star admits, after a few seconds. "It felt… a lot more horrible than I thought it would. When everything went dark, I suddenly thought of…" she trails off, then, looking suddenly a little bit guilty. As if what she'd thought had not been at all flattering for you.
My first thought was Star's original loss of her body...
You can take a guess -- Anya the Eye Stealer has been a folk demon in Weissany and the surrounding kingdoms for centuries, and it's not hard to see why her mind might have drifted toward the vivid descriptions most storytellers devote to her victims screaming and clawing at their own smooth, eyeless faces. Now is probably not the best time to mention that at Blacktree, both you and Ivy studied alongside someone whose family claims her as their ancestor.
... but that sounds plausible, too.
 
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[x] If Arietta will lend us a party member, offer to take one of her bodyguards along with us and introduce them to the Partsmonger.
- [x] Check that our temporary companion is on-board and will follow our lead.
- [x] If possible, try to finish our own business first before turning to Arietta's request.
 
[x] You need a lot of strange things for your ritual anyway -- if you keep Arietta's name out of it, then he probably won't think twice.
Yeah, I suspect this guy knows the business he's in. No way he won't get curious.

[x] Just make the deal, be straightforward, don't be suspicious about it. He's a businessman, and he wants to make money -- it will be fine.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. We tried.
 
[x] Just make the deal, be straightforward, don't be suspicious about it. He's a businessman, and he wants to make money -- it will be fine.
 
[x] If Arietta will lend us a party member, offer to take one of her bodyguards along with us and introduce them to the Partsmonger.
- [x] Check that our temporary companion is on-board and will follow our lead.
- [x] If possible, try to finish our own business first before turning to Arietta's request.


I like this plan
 
Update 021
Vote tally:
##### 3.21

[x] Just make the deal, be straightforward, don't be suspicious about it. He's a businessman, and he wants to make money -- it will be fine.
No. of votes: 5
Echo 101, Hannz, Muer'ci, The Laurent, Broken25

"This is already a dumb idea, no reason to make it dumber."

[x] If Arietta will lend us a party member, offer to take one of her bodyguards along with us and introduce them to the Partsmonger.
No. of votes: 3
mistakenot, ChildishChimera, kinigget
-[x] Check that our temporary companion is on-board and will follow our lead.
No. of votes: 3
mistakenot, ChildishChimera, kinigget
-[x] If possible, try to finish our own business first before turning to Arietta's request.
No. of votes: 3
mistakenot, ChildishChimera, kinigget

^This is one of those times where the write-in is not actually mutually exclusive with the winning vote.

[x] Only commit to asking the Partsmonger about the sword, and telling him that he has a potential buyer, drawing his attention directly to Arietta.
No. of votes: 2
Ephemeral_Dreamer, veekie

[x] You need a lot of strange things for your ritual anyway -- if you keep Arietta's name out of it, then he probably won't think twice.
No. of votes: 1
pressea

"Well… what's the worst that could happen?" you ask, blithely.

"That he kills us," Star says.

"And enslaves our souls and harvests our bodies for parts," Ivy adds. Why is the one time they're in perfect agreement the time that they're both disagreeing with you?

"Well, I mean, he's not going to do that if we just ask to buy a sword, right?" you press, trying to look reassuring. "If he asks, we'll say that we're being paid to acquire it for someone who can't get an audience with him. He's a scary businessman, but he's still a businessman, right? He's got no reason to do anything to a customer just for wanting to buy something."

"Unless there's something we don't know about these three that's going to get us killed," Ivy counters.

"Does that girl look like someone who's going to be hiding a terrible secret?" you say. "I mean… you saw her, right?"

"We don't know that!" Star says. Despite not having heard Ivy's response, she can guess the gist of it.

"Okay," you say, "but how likely is that, really? It's just a sword. If he doesn't want to sell it, he'll say no. If he does, great, we just made more money we can use to pay the necromancer, or for anything else that comes up -- you should have enough, Ivy, but we can't be sure."

"This isn't because she's pretty, is it?" Ivy asks, as if the idea that you might be motivated by such a thing is news to her. Ivy's obliviousness to romantic and sexual interest is alternately endearing and frustrating. This is not really the way you would have preferred her to clue into it, though.

"No!" you say, doing your best to look and sound scandalised. "No! Of course not! She's, uh… just… in trouble." It comes out a little bit more sheepish than you thought, trailing off weakly at the end.

"What did she just say?" Star asks, suspiciously.

You fidget, and don't answer.

"Wait. Wait. It is just because she's pretty?" Ivy seems rather taken aback now. "Really, Mina?"

"It's not just because she's pretty!" you insist. "She needs help, is all."

Star stares at you. "Is that what this is--"

"It's not just because she's pretty!" you insist again. "I just don't see the harm in trying, and I already said yes, didn't I?"

"You're both going to die," Ivy says, mournfully. "You'll both die, and you're going to ruin my body in the process, and I'll end up sold to some… vulgar little necromancer and live out the rest of my days as an exotic talisman."

"You're both overreacting!" you say, glowering between Star, and the amulet around your neck.

Star puts her head in her hands. "I thought you were the sensible one," she says, sounding rather forlorn, before sighing, and muttering: "Fine. Fine. If you really think we should play fetch-my-sword for some aristo girl with pretty blue eyes, then we'll do that. I get to tell you I-told-you-so if anything goes wrong, though."

"Not before I do," Ivy says. "But she'll deserve to hear it twice."

You sigh.

A tentative knock comes from the other side of the door. "Are y-you finished t-t-talking?" a voice that is unmistakably Ansemla's asks.

Star casts you one last disbelieving glance, before she pulls the door open again. "Looks like it," she says, to Anselma's face. The two of you file out, and back into the room.

"We will do it, like Mina said," Star says before you can speak, apparently not trusting you to deal with Arietta at the moment. In light of this, you slide back into your seat, and take a sip of your tea. "But we need to know more than we do."

Arietta's shoulders go a little stiffer momentarily, and her smile stiffens, before she forces them to relax. "Well," she says, fiddling with her teacup on its saucer and not looking Star in the eye. "I suppose that's… understandable."

"This can't be just any sword you're after, miss von Arma," Star continues. Arietta's head snaps up at the mention of her family name, as if she's surprised Star has guessed it. "I can recognise common heraldry," Star adds, almost amused."Your family isn't precisely low profile." It occurs to you then that Star didn't actually hear Ivy when she made that observation, and your hushed conference in the other room was simply too consumed by your own questionable decisions for you to pass it on -- you wonder just how highly positioned Star was in the Regency's government.

Arietta flushes a little. "Most people here don't… seem to know much about the rest of the world," she murmurs. "I told you. The sword has… sentimental value."

"Sentimental enough that a trafficker in illegal magic has it?" Star asks. "We'll be handling this thing until we can hand it over to you, and we're going to be walking up to a dangerous man and asking to buy it from him. I need to know what it is before I can do that."

Arietta seems to shrink back a little from the intensity of the look Star is giving her, until Anselma, bristling with indignation, leans down to fix Star with a glare that holds little of her previous nerves or fidgeting. When she speaks, it is in a hot, and surprisingly clear voice: "You need to show more respect for your--"

"Enough!" Gunther's gravelly voice is enough of a shock to make everyone in the room to fall silent, and turn to stare at him. He runs one scarred, weathered hand down his face, and sighs, visibly exasperated. "Lady Arietta -- if you insist on trusting these people with this task, then you cannot simply expect them to go along with this with only your say-so that everything is fine and nothing is dangerous."

The look Arietta gave him is, briefly, more like a scolded schoolgirl than a lady being spoken down to by a servant. He has likely been working for her family for enough years that he remembers her as a child, if you recognise the dynamic correctly. "... yes, I suppose so," she agrees, mustering up her dignity.

Anselma has transferred her attention to Gunther, and while she's not quite glaring at him the way she had been glaring at Star, she's still clearly somewhat displeased. You're not sure how good she is with that sabre, but you make a mental note not to make any sort of move toward Arietta that could be construed as a threat.

"The sword has been in Lady Arietta's family for generations, and was lost during the collapse of Weissany," Gunther says. "It's valuable, but much less so to anyone outside of her family." He adds this part with a pointed look at the two of you, as if trying to tell you that you're unlikely to get a better price by trying to run off with the weapon.

You steal a glance at Star to check her reaction. For a moment, you swear you catch something like startled recognition flitting over her face. Then it's gone. You can't tell if the others have noticed it. "It's apparently valuable enough for a man like the Partsmonger to be interested in it," she says. Giving the impression that she actually knows the man by recognition, and had not in fact just learned his name that night.

Gunther grimaces, and Arietta takes a conspicuously long sip of her tea, as if using the motion to school her expression. "There are rumours," he begins, reluctantly, "that the sword may have become… haunted."

Star shoots you a look that seems to say 'see what you've gotten us into?' "Haunted?" she asks.

"By, um… a ghost," Arietta admits. She waves the hand not holding the teacup in a gesture that is possibly meant to represent a ghost somehow. She still manages to slop a little of the tea by doing so. "Living in the sword. Well, not living. It's a ghost."

Ivy laughs softly in your head, breaking her slightly disgusted silence. "Then they're wrong about no one being willing to pay more than her family," she notes. "A possessed murder weapon is useful for all sorts of rituals and spells."

Gunther pinches the bridge of his nose. "As far as we know," he says, "this is just a rumour. At least one owner died under mysterious circumstances, that's to be expected. It's just a sword, which the three of us have gone to entirely too much--"

"Yes, yes," Arietta says, impatiently. "I'm a fool to come out here chasing an heirloom, we should have turned back ages ago, we've all heard it before." She smiles at the two of you, confident again. "It's as he says, though. We'll simply give you the money for the weapon, you'll make the purchase, and everything will work out fine for everyone."

Gunther sets his jaw in annoyance, and falls silent.

"How do you know we won't just run off with your money instead of your sword?" Star asks, looking between the two of them. But Anselma is the one who answers.

"If… if you stole from Lady Arietta," she says, quietly, "you'd need to be punished." Her hand worries the hilt of the sabre again as she speaks, lending her words a strangely palpable aura of menace.

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Arietta says, as if her retainer has not just made a veiled threat against your lives. "I suppose I could always send someone with you. Not to get in the way, of course! Just to make sure everything goes well!" She tilts her head to look from one, to the other of her two companions. "Who, though?" she murmurs out loud.

[x] Speak up and push for Anselma to come along.

[x] Speak up and push for Gunther to come along.

[x] Speak up and push for no one to come with you.

[x] Stay silent.
 
[x] Speak up and push for Gunther to come along.

There may be more to Anselma than meets the eye, but Gunther seems like a steadier hand. Even if Anselma is good in a fight, I think with Gunther we'd be more likely to avoid a fight in a first place.

There's an argument to be made for staying silent and letting Arietta decide, since it's her party and she may know them better, but I guess we might as well voice our opinion based on our impressions so far.


"Wait. Wait. It is just because she's pretty?" Ivy seems rather taken aback now. "Really, Mina?"

"It's not just because she's pretty!" you insist. "She needs help, is all."

Star stares at you. "Is that what this is--"

"It's not just because she's pretty!" you insist again. "I just don't see the harm in trying, and I already said yes, didn't I?"
Looks like Star and Ivy have caught on, and for once they're on the same side. :D

"This can't be just any sword you're after, miss von Arma," Star continues. Arietta's head snaps up at the mention of her family name, as if she's surprised Star has guessed it. "I can recognise common heraldry," Star adds, almost amused."Your family isn't precisely low profile." It occurs to you then that Star didn't actually hear Ivy when she made that observation, and your hushed conference in the other room was simply too consumed by your own questionable decisions for you to pass it on -- you wonder just how highly positioned Star was in the Regency's government.
"The sword has been in Lady Arietta's family for generations, and was lost during the collapse of Weissany," Gunther says. "It's valuable, but much less so to anyone outside of her family." He adds this part with a pointed look at the two of you, as if trying to tell you that you're unlikely to get a better price by trying to run off with the weapon.

You steal a glance at Star to check her reaction. For a moment, you swear you catch something like startled recognition flitting over her face. Then it's gone. You can't tell if the others have noticed it.
Curious. We should ask Star what she knows about the sword after we part from Arietta's party and before we go meet the Partsmonger. Valerie still needs to arrange a meeting for us, so there should be plenty of time.
 
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[X] Speak up and push for no one to come with you.

If I remember it correctly, the deal with the Partsmonger was to meet him alone.
 
[] Speak up and push for no one to come with you.

No way. Fuck off cute noble girl. You're lucky we're doing this at all.
Looks like Star and Ivy have caught on, and for once they're on the same side. :D
Being weak to a pretty face isn't particularly endearing when there's little loyalty backing it up. I don't blame them.

e: On second thought, I would like the additional muscle. I would not be surprised if something is going to go wrong, somehow.
[x] Speak up and push for Anselma to come along.
 
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Being weak to a pretty face isn't particularly endearing when there's little loyalty backing it up. I don't blame them.
It is hilarious tho, holy shit I loved every second of that conversation. I can't wait for this to happen more. Direct us to the route where literally everybody we meet is gorgeous and my day will be made.

Star being like, I thought you were the sensible one, betrayal! oh my god lolol

To be honest, if we ever meet someone flirtatious, beautiful, and with hidden agendas we are doomed but that will still be amazing and I love this so much you guys don't even knowwwww

And I choose Gunther cause Anselma seems like a bad choice for a negotiation period. Too trigger happy

[x] Speak up and push for Gunther to come along.
 
No way. Fuck off cute noble girl. You're lucky we're doing this at all.
[x] Speak up and push for no one to come with you.
Given that we do have to do something, since Mina is compelled to help Arietta, I think it would be better to introduce a member of Arietta's party to the Partsmonger so that we're not stuck as the go-between.

Why would we want to be the middleman? We lack the authority to represent either side, limiting our negotiation options. Better to facilitate talks with someone who can negotiate than to shoulder the entire burden ourselves.

The reason I would pick Gunther over Anselma is that he seems calmer and more experienced, while Anselma seems more nervous and might behave unpredictably. He also seems more realistic about Arietta's objective, so he's probably less prone to act rashly if the negotiation doesn't bear fruit.

It is hilarious tho, holy shit I loved every second of that conversation. I can't wait for this to happen more. Direct us to the route where literally everybody we meet is gorgeous and my day will be made.

Star being like, I thought you were the sensible one, betrayal! oh my god lolol

To be honest, if we ever meet someone flirtatious, beautiful, and with hidden agendas we are doomed but that will still be amazing and I love this so much you guys don't even knowwwww
Yep, dooooomed. Have to hope Star and Ivy can talk us out of it, now that they know to watch out for our weakness.
 
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[x] Speak up and push for Gunther to come along.

Yeah, Anselm seems just a bit overly protective and just the right kind of nervous to do something dumb
 
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