Isabelle Morgenthau A Fisher
Isa (right) and her boyfriend Arren (left)
Hard
Keen
Calm
Daring
Wild
+4
-2
+4
+1
-1
Moves Creepy: When a comrade sees you perform a ritual, overhears your prayers, or sees signs of your alienness, they lose Trust in you. Once they learn one of your Moves, they are no longer affected, but they gain Creepy as well. Deep Ones: You can call on your patrons to Help you on a roll. On a 1, you Break after this mission. Blessing: When you dab fresh blood on a piece of working equipment, roll +Calm. On a 16+, take both. On an 11-15, choose 1.
Take +1 Ongoing with this item this Routine. (+1 Handling for a plane)
The item cannot break or be lost this Routine. (+1 Armour on 1 Section of the Plane.)
On a miss, you need a bigger sacrifice. Don't disappoint. Ideomotor Response: Your plane effectively has a programmable autopilot. It does not have to be switched on and off; it "knows" when you are behind the controls. Soul-Bound: When you paint a rune in blood on an aircraft, you are linked. While in flight, you can take incoming Structure damage as Stress, 1-1. You can take a hit that would strike a Component as Injury, or give incoming Injury to your Engine. Bond: (Witch move learned from Wulf) When you hold an object of significance and make an emotional connection to it, take 1 Stress. The object becomes a magical Focus, and you learn it's Nature (Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Iron, or Blood). Contemplation: When you draw a ritual circle and stay within it, roll +Calm. On a 16+, you come out of it about an hour later refreshed; strike 3 Stress or 2 Injury. On an 11-15, it takes the whole night, and you're unreachable in that time.
Mastery
The Bushwack Ambush Predator: When you strike an enemy who is unaware of your presence, roll with Advantage. Forced Evade: When you fire to scare an opponent off, spend 1 ammo and roll +Hard. On a hit, instead of dealing damage, choose one: Target dives 1, target climbs 1, target loses speed in a forced turn. On a 16+, roll attack dice on them anyway. Momentum: When you dive onto a target, add +1 AP. Scissors Snip: When you disengage, give an ally +3 towards dealing with your target.
Intimacy Move
When you are intimate with another, choose one of you to get a hold. They can spend that hold to give the other a command: if followed, then forward to their next +Stat move, they will always score at least a partial hit, regardless of what the dice say.
If you use this move in the air, there are two holds, and they can be distributed however you agree.
The Company People
Isabelle (Fisher): The PC. She's out to find her way in the world. 1 thaler per Routine.
Arren (NPC- Confidant/Observer): Your cute fish boyfriend. Artist and recently trained observer. 1 thaler per Routine.
Wulf (Witch): Former bandit leader. Actually half wolf. Hot as hell. Ex-Goth. 1 thaler per Routine.
Minna Hammerl (Soldier): Inexperienced but highly trained soldier and passionate duelist. Speaks all formal-like. The most beautiful woman in the world. 1 thaler per Routine.
Hard +4, Keen +1, Calm +2, Daring -2 (Professional)
Heinrich Engel (Student): Political science student working on his thesis-slash-manifesto.
Anny Meldgaard (NPC - Mechanic): A young half-Fischer, half-Himmilvolk woman from Piav, trained by the mechanics there. Looking for adventure and her origins. Blushes red?
Aircraft
Isa & Arren's Plane: A Teicher Möwen seaplane. Steel frame, liquid-cooled engine. Deeply possessed. 1 thaler per Routine.
Fang Howl: Wulf's helicopter. An experimental pre-war model. Liquid-cooled radial. Three wolf moon. 1 thaler per Routine.
Pup: Wulf's Kreuzer Skorpion prototype retrieved from a sealed hanger. Gets a lot out of an underpowered engine.
Minna's Kobra: An inline-engine powered, wood framed fighter. All around an excellent machine. 1 thaler per Routine.
Heinrich's Reconstruction: A canard plane with a 30mm cannon in the nose. Awkward and unstable but hits like a train. 1 thaller per Routine.
You pondered a moment. This was delicate, and needed a light touch.
"Look, I'm going to follow up on this. It's... this is my first time hearing about this stuff." You said. "I'm going to go talk to some other members of my team about how to deal with this."
"Whatever." Gail sneered.
That stung, for a second, trying to be honest with somebody and getting this back. You looked for a low blow, and you found one.
"This is important to me. Shooting up innocent villages for failing to pay up is an atrocity. People have to be held responsible."
Gail's eyes, which had been locked on you, shifted away a second. Direct hit.
"Yeah."
---
You headed to the telegram office, a little hut in the corner of town linked up to wires which looped off over the trees on vast steel posts. In the far distance, on the horizon, you could see the Fokker mountains, just make out the massive rocky walls that flanked Piav.
You sent a telegram to Heinrich, asking if he knew anything about Greifenburg and summarizing that you had worries about Minna's history. After about half an hour, you got a response.
HAVE SOME INFORMATION STOP WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO COME STOP
You reasoned Anny probably wanted to stay in town to work on the cargo plane, and Wulf might just be recovering from the bump to the head, so that seemed fair. About an hour and a half later, Heinrich's plane rolled to a halt on the field, and the two of you were having lunch at the donut shop, which also seemed to be the only place in town that sold any sort of food at all during the workweek.
"This. Is. Dreadful." Heinrich stated, staring at his ham sandwich with true disgust on his face. "I wouldn't stoop to feeding this to pigs, and... not just because it would be cannibalism. That part sort of snuck up on me in the sentence."
"Yeah. It's not great." You admitted, sinking your teeth in for more. He looked at you, puzzled.
"How do you chew, Isabelle? I can see you doing it, but my poor mind can't comprehend the mechanism."
"What do you mean?" You said, though with your mouth full it sounded more like "Mmas meimph du?"
"I mean, with the whole selachimorphic ensemble you have gracing your mouthbits." He said. "The teeth."
You pondered that a moment. How did you chew? Like, idly thinking about it, it was just your jaw moving up and down, wasn't it? Well, not quite, there was so sideways... back and forth? Urgh, now that you were thinking about it, it was actually hard to do it. You swallowed painfully and drank your coffee to wash it down.
"I dunno, like anyone else, I guess." You said.
"Most everyone else doesn't have a row of triangular teeth. Most animals that do don't really chew their food the way humans do. You need flat molars to..." Heinrich started. Wasn't this guy not going to be a doctor-doctor?
"Oh, I have those! Their just at the back." You said, and you gave what was probably a pretty gross smile. "Do inlanders chew with all their teeth?"
"No, the forward set are... oh. Right. Yeah, I understand now." Heinrich said. "If you'll excuse my being a total dick about it, you've got a tooth sorta... half there. Is it... new?"
"Yep. It got knocked out in a fight, I think like two weeks ago?" You said. "The night I met Wulf."
He looked at you oddly. "Oh, it wasn't a fight with her." You said.
"And it regenerated so quickly? That's fascinating. Do you just have a row under them ready to go or something? I can't imagine it only started growing when you lost it, so what was the mechanism to replace it? I have so many questions!"
"I have literally zero answers." You said. "You'd have to ask the barber back home."
"... right. Okay." Heinrich said. "So, business?"
"Right. So, I captured a Red Talon pilot. Before you joined up with us, she stabbed Minna." You said. "Just went right up to her in a bar and drove a knife in her chest."
"Cool. Very healthy behavior." Heinrich said, totally deadpan.
"Well, turns out that it wasn't just because she's a total psycho, which she still kind of is." You said. "She says that Minna's town would raid hers all the time. Said they killed her mum, burnt down the town's temple, and stole everything of value. Like, constantly. She sorta implied it was because of their religion?"
"She's Rishona, then?" He guessed.
"Is that how you say it?"
"Yeah, it's gendered. Rishona for women, Rishon for boys, collectively Rishonim." Heinrich explained.
"Okay, yeah. So, you seem to know a lot about a lot of places, so I was wondering if you knew more one way or another."
"Right on. Now, you have to understand, I've never been to the place and, personally, I was hoping my travels would take me north, not south." Heinrich said. "But I know of the place because we collect as much information as we can off traders, and studying places like it is a lot of what we do in my courses. So I'll say this. On the books, the fortress town was founded primarily by out of position Gotha troops from what was once a Fokker training center which was abandoned in the war. Population of around three thousand, they're lead by self-styled Oberst Einhard Neufeld, who took over the position after several years. Those soldiers and their children are the core of a multi-village militia and have formed one of the larger proto-states in southern Himmilgard. From what I've heard, traders generally refer to Greifenburg as an upstanding place. Safe for kilometers around, devoid of bandits, a good source of refurbished weapons and new ammunition, always willing to buy food and luxury goods. The towns around it sound productive, happy, and safe. "
"So... you think she's lying, then?" You surmised.
"No, I think merchants value places being safe and wealthy, select their landing zones based on it, and probably overlook places which aren't." Heinrich explained. "A lot of my professors put all their faith in their sources blindly and don't ever think about the biases inherent in their methodology, exactly like that. Honey, you tell me a minority community is being preyed on by a military junta, I'm not going to need a fucking book report on it to believe it."
Yeah, that sounded about right. "Okay, good, but like... that's not much to go on..."
"Well, if you do need a book report, I fortunately have one, in that I happen to have a copy of immigration records that I was using to figure out where to go next." Heinrich said. He lay a folder in front of you and flipped it open, running his finger down the page. "Because our school always needed labour, a lot of people ended up heading there, and everyone coming in had to fill out some forms. Turns out the reasons people give for fleeing a place often correspond to their method of governance, which was useful for me. If you look, this village here, this one, this one... these are all towns under Greifenburg's influence. These are all refugees, look."
You scanned over the page, reading the reasons that people uprooted their lives and fled to Heinrich's stupid school. Fleeing violence, persecution, poverty, war. You noticed the name of Gail's village a few times.
"But... okay, yeah, but I've heard Minna talk about like, keeping civilians safe, treating prisoners with respect, all this stuff. I don't really... it doesn't sound like the sort of thing they'd do, if that's what they were teaching her..."
"Isabelle, what a community believes they believe and what members of the community practice are two often very distinct things." Heinrich explained. "To bring things back around to what's important, my community has laws enshrining the absolute equality of all students before the eternal edifice of education, and most every professor says it without a drop of cynicism. They really believe they believe it. But funnily enough, that never seems to translate to practices, and even then, odds tend to be long. It's funny, how none of the Skyborn students ever make the entry exams for the higher classes, how the engineering department is still all male, and how the gay kids are always the ones being written up on unrelated ethics violations."
"Oh." You admitted. Heinrich sure loves the sound of his own voice, but unlike most people that prattled on, he seemed to have an idea of what he was talking about.
"Oh indeed." Heinrich admitted. "Sweetie, this is going to be really complicated. It's possible that Minna will not know about these events, be horrified by the revelation when you present them... and would have participated in them without hesitation were she back home. What she was taught, and what she thinks she was taught, could be very different."
You remembered, planning your first mission together, when she said she would do whatever you asked of her for the mission, like a natural and instant response.
"This is going to suck." You said.
"Sorry not sorry?" Heinrich offered. "Truth hurts. It's why the Goddesses gave us beer."
---
You elected not to drink anything before talking to Minna. For one thing, it was one in the afternoon.
That was it. That was pretty much the reason.
You found where she was staying and invited her out on a walk to the high gantry where you and Arren prayed before. It was a good spot to do it at, giving a beautiful and commanding view of the landscape for miles around, the criss-crossing telephone wires and power lines. You could even, though it was hazy, see the looming steel skeletons of the Sky-Line system, posts kilometers apart. The majority of the factory stacks were to your back and a nice breeze was blowing down the mountains, keeping the fumes out of your face.
Minna sat on a pillow with her legs dangling from the edge of the catwalk, her eyes down on her embroidery. She was stitching little feathery wings, like cartoon valkyrie ones, and they were sort of haphazard and crude. The needle and thread version of Arren's doodles, maybe. You sat down beside her and took in the crisp spring air. There was just a hint of burnt wood from the forests Heinrich had lit up yesterday, but the sky was blue and cloudless, the sun bright. A perfect day.
"Minna, we need to talk." You said.
"I'm listening." Minna said, still poking away with her needle.
"Seriously, I need you to pay attention. Look at me." You insisted.
"I'm paying attention." She said. Her eyes flashed up at you, then away.
You sighed and decided to press on.
"Minna, how do you feel about your hometown? Like, really, what do you think when you think about it?" You asked. Step one: find out how difficult this was going to be.
Minna was silent a very long time, stitching away. You were getting used to this. You guessed she tried to plan out as much of what she was going to say as she could.
"... I miss it. Considerably." Minna said finally. "I miss my friends and parents. I miss my bed and the view I had out the window. I miss the spot near the fireplace I used to listen to music. I miss my records." She said. "I miss knowing what I was supposed to do and what I was supposed, to be, for." She said, slowing near the end, her hand working furiously at the hoop.
You remembered this too. When things got hard, Minna slowed between words, like she had to try and remember each word in the sequence with great difficulty. There was a question to latch onto, though.
"What were you 'supposed to be for?'" You asked.
"I have... every..." Exasperated, she stopped, composed a new sentence in her head over a few seconds, and spoke it clearly. "Every person is born with a duty to protect their home. Their family, friends, and people. To be a soldier is to dedicate yourself to that duty."
You honestly couldn't tell if Minna was reciting something she'd been told, or had made it up. The way she spoke was so formal, so posh, you could imagine either, so you asked.
"It is similar, but not identical to the oath I swore in morning classes. That one went, 'I am a soldier. I was born with a duty to protect my people's way of life and to follow the orders of my superiors, and I pledge to do so until my dying day.' I believe it was derived from the oath of the Gotha Empire my parents fought for." She explained. You nodded, imagining a hall of children saying it in Minna's monotone. Creepy.
"... well, okay. I found out about..." You said. "I just need to know about something. Greifenburg has a lot of villages around it, right?"
"Yes. There are two dozen communities under our protection. Under their protection." She corrected quickly.
"Okay. Well, um... what does that protection look like?" You asked.
"They fly regular patrols over the area to keep it clear of hostile forces and wildlife." She began to explain. This was easy for her, like it was practiced. "If a village is attacked or threatened, they send guards and planes until the threat is driven off or defeated. In exchange, the members of those villages paid a tax, and are committed to providing some of their militia to assist. Sometimes, their children would join our military as well, which was always welcome, and if you did not want to be a soldier after you finished your obligation of service you could retire to one of them."
"What happens when people don't pay their tax?"
She was quiet for a while. "It depends on the circumstances. Usually, the members of those villages holding out would be arrested by members of their town militia and it would be handled internally. However, there were towns whose militia were corrupt, so soldiers were deployed to restore order. There was one town, Gelobtlande, whose leaders were so corrupt, the militia were acting as bandits themselves, as well as a host for narcotic smugglers. Can you believe it?"
That was it. That was Gail's village.
"I gotta be honest, that sounds too stupid to believe. That somebody would try to pull that under your noses." You said. "What do you know about them other than that?"
"I knew the layout and approaches, though I never went there. Quiet, mostly farmers, I believe they were mostly Rishonim. One of my classmates, Rachael, she was from there, and she painted one of their runes on her plane!" She smiled. "It is small, maybe six hundred people?"
"The fact they were Rishonim wasn't a problem?" You said.
She glanced up at you. "No. We were taught not to care about such things. Some of the officers said awful things about them, but... there is good and bad in all groups of people, right? Their leaders may have been corrupt, but Rachael is an upstanding soldier."
You swallowed nervously. "So what happened there?"
"While I was being trained, there was some dispute or another over the taxes, it exposed the smuggling, and then it was damaged badly in fighting there, but that all stopped a few years ago. Haven't heard much since, save that there are guards posted there to prevent it from reoccurring."
That sounded bad. You took a deep breath. This was going to be tough.
"Minna, I met somebody from that village." You said. "She was there, and her story doesn't sound like yours. She said there was looting, that soldiers burned their temple and raided their homes, and that she's out here because a Greifenburg soldier killed her mother. I don't think she was lying, and Heinrich has records. A lot of people have run away from Greifenburg's soldiers over the years."
Minna was quiet a while, her hands working busily at the hoop.
"I've never... I have never heard anything about that." She said finally.
"Do you think it could be true?" You asked.
"No." She said immediately.
"Maybe one of those officers ordered it? Could they have done that?"
You gave her a few minutes.
"Maybe." She admitted.
You didn't know how to continue, so you just sat quietly for a while and watched the wispy little clouds play around in the sky. You could have sworn you saw some little dots moving up there. Maybe whales, five or six kilometers up. Suddenly, Minna struck her thigh with her hand a few times, like she was working out the tension, then put a hand near her mouth. Wincing, you gently put a hand on it and guided it back down to her work. She nodded, less like acknowledgement and more like she was sobbing, and finally spoke.
"This was your prisoner. Who told you this." Minna said.
"Yeah, it was." You admitted.
"I guess I know why she did that." Minna said simply, her hand going to her sternum.
"You okay?" You asked. She ignored you, and instead broke open the hoop, retrieved her finished project, and laid it flat. Just dozens of little wings outlined in black on cheap, off-white fabric.
"It makes sense, really. For all the fighting, there was never more than some wounded." She said, staring at her work.
"I'm sorry." You replied. "Do you want me to leave you alone now?"
"No. I... I want to talk to you about this." She said, desperately. "Maybe... maybe there is another reason. Maybe it is something else. Maybe she is lying. Maybe..."
---
So you stayed a while. Maybe two hours, as Minna talked herself into loops, trying to deny it, bring up evidence and discarding it and bring it back, trying to make sense of her world. Sometimes she denied it completely and locked herself up. Other times she admitted it and fell to pieces. Sometimes she just seemed to be beyond words, just gestures and noises, trying desperately to force something past this barrier of communication neither she nor you understood.
You showed her Heinrich's notes. She looked away from them like they'd stop existing if she couldn't see them, she accused them of being forgeries, but eventually she read them.
This was a conversion. The High Priest taught you everything you needed to know for one of these. Don't argue. Let her cool down, then probe again.
She talked about her life, all of it, all the horrid details again. She wasn't bragging this time, she wasn't trying to make herself look tough and strong, she wasn't trying to fit in. She was saying it like she was realizing for the first time what it all meant, what had been done to her, the ways she'd been hurt. How she'd moved to a barracks when she was twelve and only saw her parents every other week, how they made her fire a rifle until the sound didn't make her cry, forced her to face her officers until she didn't shy away, how they made her bury everything that gave her comfort because they didn't understand it, and how they'd already gotten their hooks in her so deep they she let them do it and blamed herself for not being good enough.
You compared her life to your own. How similar the hurt leveled at her for not conforming was to the hurt leveled on you. How she was being groomed to pass that hurt on to others just the way you trained the youngest acolytes to obey him.
Her whole world was coming apart in her hands and she was staring at the pieces. When she tried to put it back together, she hated the shape of it, hated what it revealed, hated the evidence that was always before her eyes that she had refused to see. You barely had to do anything at this point, as she realized how for all the talk of protection the drills were all about taking and holding, bombing targets, breaking things and people. How they were making her a machine that would hear orders and carry them out and she'd never even think to reconsider. How if they hadn't sent her away, she'd be doing it right now. How all her friends had become a part of it.
You gave her new words to describe her situation. Not discipline, abuse. Not obedience, oppression. Not duty, coercion.
She repeated them, only now really grasping the meanings.
She told you that when she was exiled, when they gave her a plane and stripped her of the symbols she'd pledged herself to every day, they told her to fly up through the northern pass outside the territory of her home, over a valley whose villages opposed Greifenburg. She realized now it was a suicide mission. She was never supposed to make it past the flak. They were just using her to count the guns, with the exile as a way of ensuring she would have nowhere to retreat to, no choice but to press deeper and reveal more. She was supposed to die to help them plan an assault.
She still didn't know why it was her.
Eventually, she pushed you away, and you left her to figure out where she belonged now.
---
Minna came back down after maybe another hour, meeting you and Heinrich and Arren at the donut shop, her face streaked from tears that had been long wiped away. She sat and did her best to compose herself, and then she revealed her notebook, flipping it open.
"What's this?" Heinrich said.
"Minna takes notes." Arren said quietly.
"Observation eins." Minna began. "My hometown. It treated me and the people around me terribly. As things." She said. "As resources to be expended exercising their own power. When I became a problem, they attempted to discard me."
You nodded sympathetically.
"Observation zwei. I was not the primary victim of their actions. They victimized those under their protection. They were training me to do the same." She said. "I was blind to it."
She choked up a second, but pushed on.
"Observation drei. I no longer particularly care why I was exiled." She said. "I want to go home. I want to see my parents. But there is no place for me there while it is ruled as it is. When I do go home, it will be to do something about that."
She flipped the notebook closed.
Arren spoke up. "Can I add an observation vier to your list?" Minna nodded. "Okay. You don't need their uniform anymore. You should get something new to wear."
Heinrich nodded in approval. "I could have told you that when I met you. Keep the boots though, they look great."
"... that's a good idea." Minna said. "I am not a soldier anymore, after all. I am a minnow."
Write In: Figure out what's going on with Gail and get the last of stress relief done.
As for Minna's reaction... as mentioned, Minna deals with things through denial. It has been slipping: she's already been branching out a little, trying new clothes, painting new symbols on her plane, tiny experiments in trying to claim her own space. But the problem with denial that is that one day, the dam is might break. All the doubts she ever had, all the things she made herself ignore... when incontrovertible evidence, emotional pressure, or a friend finally gets through to you, there's a tendency for it to all fall apart at once. It can be heartbreaking and hurtful, it can be joyful and liberating, but its always a lot all at once. Minna isn't done processing this by a long shot. There's probably going to be a lot of regression to old habits for her to fight through. But she's done being Minna of Greifenburg.
I treated your talk with Minna as a Get Real to do a Move Exchange. Minna picked up Whispered Answers, but in the form of making a point of trying to decide her own path forward: her Whispers will be her conscience, not some freaky undersea creatures.
You can select any one of the Soldier moves from below.
Strategist: When you lay out a plan of action, take +1 forward to Engage and +1 ongoing to Battle rolls this routine as long as things keep going to plan.
Marching Boots: When you fight on the ground, take +1 ongoing. Any group you're in moves +1 Trek when you Explore the Wild.
Steelheart: Even if you are Burnt Out, you can still fly. You are unaffected by the Stressed penalty as long as you are fighting.
Trigger Discipline: When you draw a gun on somebody, take +3 forward to Press the Issue. If you miss, pull the trigger.
Commanding Presence: When you bark an order to a friend or foe in combat, it gives a +1 to PCs that follow. Against NPCs, Press the Issue with Hard. They still obey on a partial, though only for a few seconds until they can reconsider.
Advanced Recon: The group gets +1 to the Engage Roll (stacks with multiple holders of this Move).
Style Study: When you spar with a comrade, both of you roll +Hard. If you both hit, hold 2. If one of you hit and one missed, the winner holds 1 and the loser holds 3. If you both miss, somebody gets hurt. Spend these holds to use one of your opponent's Personal or Mastery Moves.
Last Mistake: When you're suspicious of somebody and you keep an eye on them, get 1 Stress and hold 1. If they try to hurt you or your friends, spend that hold to kill them on the spot.
Adhoc vote count started by open_sketch on Mar 21, 2019 at 12:05 AM, finished with 4185 posts and 10 votes.
[X] Plan: Yes, Another Stray
-[X] Get Minna some new clothes
-[X] Ask Gail if she'd feel comfortable talking to Minna?
-[X] Offer her work on our cargo plane, but make it clear that she has other options and we'll help her leave if she needs it.
-[X] Get the gang back together and vote on it.
[X] Tell Gail that Minna's dropping the uniform.
-[X] Ask if she'd feel comfortable talking to Minna?
-[X] Offer her work on our cargo plane, but make it clear that she has other options and we'll help her leave if she needs it.
Man, what an update! I liked how we dealt with this a Lot. While I don't expect Minna to be perfect about this conclusion and she'll likely make a bunch of mistakes in the process, I think she's made a lot of strides today!
I also love weird biology. I relate to Heinrich a lot lol. Tell me your secrets, strange wonderful fish-people!!
That was pretty intense. Amazing writing as always. Heinrich is really great to read and the conversation with Minna was exceptionally well done.
It also went about as well as I could have possibly hoped. I'm sorry Minna had to experience that, but she should be better off for it.
As for what to do next:
We need to check in with Gail at some point, but just going directly to her and telling her we did it like she's some kind of questgiver would cheapen this whole thing immensely. I'd rather handle it some other way, but I don't really know what it would be. It would be ideal if Minna approached her on her own, but I don't think we can count on that and it would be a lot to ask right now especially given the whole stabbing incident.
I don't want to continue our downtime in this town longer than we really need to. It's a pretty horrible place. It is probably worth doing some initial shopping in case of bargains, but aside from that it has little to offer us. Gail's presence and continued injury complicates leaving, if we want to try to recruit her in some capacity. Perhaps severely complicates it if and when Piav finds out who she is. That's a pretty serious concern for the future if we go down that path, since I like Piav and would prefer that we remain welcome there.
On moves: I really don't know. A lot of them are pretty good, but nothing is quite jumping out at me in particular. I mean, Isa could pretty clearly stand to learn some trigger discipline, as Gail can attest, but that move as written is not the right lesson for her to draw from that.
I treated your talk with Minna as a Get Real to do a Move Exchange. Minna picked up Whispered Answers, but in the form of making a point of trying to decide her own path forward: her Whispers will be her conscience, not some freaky undersea creatures.
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn this iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin!"
Also, I've been thinking, but doesn't it sound like Piav is in the beginning stages of forming an electricity based Hydraulic Empire (Voltaic Empire?) or something along those lines? It sounds like missions to force people to not renege on their deals with Piav will be coming up soon, like the current town we're in after it overthrows the current Mayor. Piav lacks the coercive arm it needs to enforce such, so they'll be hiring, and we'll probably want to take it to try and set a precedent of a reasonable way of doing things.
Things about Gail:
1) She promised she and Minna would be square if Minna dropped the uniform. I think a valid starting point for a conversation would be "looks like you're square," and elaborate how Minna is still working through things.
2) She is totally burnt out from being a combat pilot. The idea to let her fly the cargo plane is a good one, but we'll need to make sure to give her alternatives so it's not like we're trapping her into it (she doesn't have a lot of options right now. Broke, no plane, can't stay in Piav, etc).
3) The Red Talons are an issue. There seems to be two thrusts to it.
3a) At this point, there is a feud between the Minnows and the Red Talons. Gail thought she could work out a ceasefire.
3b) They likely still have a contract to retrieve the Zeppelin. Or rather, if they nab the Zepplin, it's not like the company wouldn't pay them, even if the original contract expired.
Part of the leverage for a ceasefire and flying away would be the opening it gives them to nab the Zeppelin back, most likely. So we'll need to approach that carefully.
Really good update. The Minna conversation went about as well as possible, I think.
Heinrich is growing on me. I thought he was kinda rude about the whole teeth thing, but I started to like him by the end of the conversation
Few other thoughts:
Isa's hometown accepted converts. If the High Priest bothered to teach Isa much about them, then there were probably a decent number. I'd assumed the religion didn't bother with conversions and just focused on raising people in the faith.
Huh, Minna had friends in Greifenburg. I don't think she's mentioned them before (although they'd obviously be a sore subject). For some reason, I had assumed she didn't have any.
I like the detail about how she rarely saw her parents. It explains why she rarely mentioned them. Even when she talked about what she learned at her hometown, she never mentioned learning things from her parents.
Raising kids in 'barracks' makes sense, really. It would foster loyalty towards the town and your barracks-mates, instead of the parents. Probably good for discipline too.
Sigh, and now that little voice in my head is asking if trying to eradicate your own humanity is really that bad. Isn't being a machine so much better? (Spoilers: No.)
... and they sent Minna on a suicide mission. Sigh. Far from the worst thing Greifenburg has done, but, still, ouch.
Aww, Arren stands up for Minna's note-taking. Way to be supportive. Okay, I officially platonically ship Arren/Minna.
Hm, I don't like Trigger Discipline, specifically because of what just happened. Strategist seems useful and fitting, since she's the de facto leader. Still, I prefer:
[X] Last Mistake
Minna spends a lot of time looking out for people. This move seems like a natural extension of that role.
I like this too, because paradoxically it makes it easier for us to extend trust and make friends in story. We can worry a bit less about protecting the squad, and a bit more about getting the people we want onside with us.
Minna platonically ships Arren/Minna, and thinks he looks fun to cuddle with. (I lay even odds of Gail wanting to boink Arren, on the grounds that apparently Minna is the only Minnow that isn't interested in Arren)
Isa's hometown accepted converts. If the High Priest bothered to teach Isa much about them, then there were probably a decent number. I'd assumed the religion didn't bother with conversions and just focused on raising people in the faith.
[X] Tell Gail that Minna's dropping the uniform.
-[X] Ask if she'd feel comfortable talking to Minna?
-[X] Offer her work on our cargo plane, but make it clear that she has other options and we'll help her leave if she needs it.
[X] Plan: Yes, Another Stray
-[X] Get Minna some new clothes
-[X] Ask Gail if she'd feel comfortable talking to Minna?
-[X] Offer her work on our cargo plane, but make it clear that she has other options and we'll help her leave if she needs it.
-[X] Get the gang back together and vote on it.
content warning: heinrich uses some misogynist slurs, says some hurtful stuff, and is generally an ass. underage drinking. transphobia. wulf steals a hat.
"They're okay." Heinrich said, sitting back down at the bar. He dropped the telegram in front of him and picked up his stein. "Isa and Minna are both injured, but nothing permanent. They want us to stick around here, they'll come to us."
Wulf sank back into her seat and exhaled slowly, the tension leaving her body all at once. She touched her forehead and shoulders and knitted her fingers in a mock exaggerated prayer. "Rhona, Elba, Doana, I know I get up to some shit, but thank you."
Heinrich laughed. "So that's one less thing to worry about." He threw back the rest of the stein and sent it crashing to the table. "Now we merely need to come up with a plan for the evening that doesn't involve panicking, worrying, and possibly mourning."
Wulf called the barmaid over with a hand signal to refill their glasses. "Heinrich, my dude, what do you do to kill stress, 'cuz whatever it is, I need it."
"I like to turn evenings like this into a race between finding a cute boy and blacking out in an alley." Heinrich replied, that amused smile still playing at his lips.
"How's your success rate on that?" Wulf asked.
"Honey, there's no losing in this race." He said smoothly. "You in?"
"I mean, look, the cute boy thing hasn't usually worked out for me, but I'm down with the rest of the plan." She said. Heinrich raised an exaggerated quizzical eyebrow, holding it just a bit too long, so Wulf continued. "Heinrich, you know I'm trans, right?"
"As incredibly rude as this is to say, I had you clocked." Heinrich admitted. "Like, girl, first off, you're what, a hundred seventy-five centimeters?"
"Hell yeah I am, and I'm tall too." Wulf grinned.
"Bitch, please. The math behind that joke does not follow, and if it did I'd take you back to my school for the biology students to dissect." Heinrich laughed, completely failing to pick up Wulf's discomfort. She wasn't a fan of that word for a variety of reasons, though she'd never let it show.
"It's that obvious, though?" Wulf asked, trying to keep the tone breezy enough to cover her hurt.
"Oh, no. It's not. Especially not to these people." He indicated roughly around the tavern. "I helped run the queer society back home, there were a surprising number of transsexuals. Sweetie, if you pass to everyone but me, you're doing pretty good."
Wulf looked starry-eyed a moment, and briefly wondered if she could pass the entry exams. Sure, she wasn't great at reading, or writing, or math... was there a major in street smarts?
"... Anyway, yeah, it makes the hookup scene a bit complicated for me, okay?" She explained, pushing the thought from her mind. "A lot of folks aren't super happy to find out, but, like, most girls will just throw their drink at you?"
"... yeah, ouch. Well, I respect your perseverance, and I'm glad you found a boy a little less... reactionary." Heinrich said. "I don't know him well, but Arren seems a nice enough fellow."
"They're both infuriatingly nice." Wulf said. "It's a good change of pace. Though I don't really know where I stand with him, I think he's still really uncomfortable? I mean... he is super straight, what am I think-"
"Wulf, step back a moment. Look, he's probably just going to need time on this, that's not some sort of condemnation of your identity. Like, surprise, you fall outside the expectations of a teenager from literally the edge of the earth. It hasn't stopped him from finding you hot as fuck. Trust me, I've seen how he looks at you. That boy has it bad."
"You think?"
"I've become somewhat an expert at gauging when men are interested in people. They usually aren't subtle." Heinrich said, almost dismissively. "His curiosity is going to overcome whatever misplaced homophobic impulse he posseses soon enough."
Wulf sighed. "Yeah. I... my last boyfriend... I think he was bi, but he took a bit too..."
"There was another boy? Do tell." Heinrich generally gave the impression of sort of not really caring what was being said to him, but suddenly he was enraptured. There wasn't much to tell though: Wulf dated a man for a month and a half last fall, her longest ever relationship, though they both knew going in it was temporary. He was part of a merchant group and they operated in the area a short while.
"I dunno. I guess I miss him." Wulf said. "Things were like... almost normal, for a bit. I love my thing with the fish kids but... normal it's not."
"Normality is deeply overrated." Heinrich said. "But I understand. Tell you what. In the entirely likely event that I attract the wrong sort of company, I'll send her over to you, okay?"
Wulf shrugged. "Whatever, man. I'm just along for the ride."
---
With night having fallen, most of the day crews at Piav were getting off-shift and heading to the tavern, and the tables and bar were rapidly filling up. Heinrich and Wulf took up position near the edge of the crowd, their drinks topped up.
"So what's the game plan?" Wulf asked.
"So, I've been here nearly a month recovering, which has given me time to scout the gay scene here." He pointed to one of the tables. "That's the gay scene."
"Wow. That's actually pretty good, town this size." Wulf said.
"Right? They're a pretty accepting town, more guys feel safe coming out, I guess. Anyway, Erik and Ronald there are inseparable so that's not happening, Karsten is just not my type, Oliver turned me down, and Dietrich there? That's a fucking fifteen year old."
"Wait, what the fuck?" Wulf did a double-take, squinting at the back of the boy's head. "Goddesses, why the fuck is he here?"
"Because this is still a rural shithole and these people are all going for the world record speed for alcohol poisoning." Heinrich said, downing most of his beer. "Anyway, don't you worry, he's dating a boy his age who isn't allowed to come drinking, and he's just trying to get cultured in the ways of our people, which I found out after I called the fucking guards because I'm a responsible adult."
"I want to find his mother." Wulf said.
"Right? Well, she's right over there getting shitfaced and hitting on a guy half her age, so, you know, this is hell. We exist in hell."
"So, slim pickings it looks like." Wulf said.
"My thoughts exactly, except..." Heinrich swept his gaze over to a fischer man in the corner of the room, drinking alone. "Turns out Erhardt over there likes boys on the side. Nobody tell his wife."
Erhardt was maybe in his late twenties and worked in the aluminium plant. He had a distinctive 'lifts heavy things for a living' physique and a pattern of (non-glowing) tattoos on one arm. A silver band gleaned on his finger.
"Heinrich, are you seriously going to try and get with a married man?" Wulf said.
"My options are staggeringly limited and it has been a month, honey. I'm going to actually die."
"... I can't argue with that." Wulf said. "So what now?"
"Well, first, I psych myself up. I've never been with a fischer dude, and I gotta say, the teeth scare me."
"Right? It's hot as fuck." Wulf said enthusiastically.
"... Wulf, you and I have very divergent preferences on this front." Heinrich said. "I'm mostly just worried if he wants to go down on me. Like, Goddesses, nuh-uh. That's a bad scene."
"Yeah, I hear you. I'm not even that attached to it and it still makes me wince just to think about." Wulf admitted.
"So, uh... how do you, like..." Heinrich made a complicated and surprisingly obscene gesture with his hands.
"I don't know, we haven't gotten there yet." Wulf said honestly. "I swear, Arren is the bravest man I know."
The two of them finished off another glass. Wulf had all the alcohol tolerance of a nearly six-foot tall half-magical creature who'd been drinking irresponsibility since she was fifteen (the hypocrite), and Heinrich was... well, Heinrich was a college student. Still, they were starting to feel it.
"Okay, here's my plan. You go hit on him. He'll probably be like, oh snap, I still got it, which... eh, debatable, but anyway, point is, you give him the confidence boost. Either he says no or you find a reason to escape, and then I roll up and sort of gay up his general vicinity. If that doesn't work, I crawl back to Oliver and beg him to reconsider. I figure it's the perfect scheme."
"... yeah see most of my plans basically involve having cleavage, throwing some finger-guns, and saying 'hey, wanna fuck?'." Wulf said.
"How's your success rate on that?" Heinrich asked, genuinely curious.
"There's no losing in that race." Wulf said, smiling. "... Except there super is, I was just going for the turnaround. Seriously, I usually strike out. You've got a good plan, let's do this."
---
As Heinrich and Erhardt smuggled themselves out the back of the establishment, Wulf realized the flaw with this plan was that she was now alone in a bar with no catty gay men to talk to. The worst place for Wulf to be was alone with her thoughts, and she quickly sank into an empty chair and tried desperately not to contemplate the crushing weight of The Everything.
Beer helped. Beer was good.
To her surprise, she wasn't alone long, because a few minutes later one of the locals walked up, indicating to a nearby empty seat. Dark hair, sort of angular face, dressed like one of the power workers, inlander... fuck, Wulf thought, when did she start thinking of people as inlanders? Hanging out with Isa was breaking her brain.
"That seat taken?" He asked.
"You see an ass in it?" Wulf responded.
He sat down. "I do now."
"Nice. Self-deprecating. Ten points." Wulf said. "What brings you to my neck of the bar?"
"Uh, you're one of the pilots, right? In that circus with the zeppelin?" He asked.
"Yeah, that's me. I'm in charge, actually, definitely." Wulf said.
"Wow, that's... that's awesome. Uh, I'm Joel, by the way."
"Cool. I'm Wulf."
"Cuz of the ears?" Joel asked.
"Nah." Wulf responded. "Anyway, get on with it."
"Right. Ahem." Joel unfolded a napkin like he had a prepared statement, cleared his throat, and presented his pitch. "You're cute, I'm lonely, wanna go make out?"
Wulf raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, that was direct. Fuck."
"We'll see how the makeouts go." Joel said.
---
The makeouts went poorly. Joel was, shall we say, not a gentleman, and let his hands wander a bit before the starting gun went off and Wulf could deliver any warnings. He did not like what he found, and liked it even less when his indignant rage was cut off by the tip of Wulf's knife against his stomach.
"Fucking hell, really Joel? You were almost cool. Fuck, you were so close to being cool." Wulf said. "Anyway, I'm leaving, your apartment is a shithole, and I'm taking your hat." She plunked the little grey brimmed cap off the rack with the end of her knife and deposited it on her head, where it rested unevenly on her ears. "Bye."
As she stalked back to the bar, she reflected on her life choices. Sure, nobody said anything about her thing with Isa and Arren being exclusive, but... might not hurt to treat it that way. Especially with Arren. The boy was sensitive, he probably wouldn't take it well.
As she walked, she absentmindedly put her knife through the top of the hat and cut some holes for her ears. There, that was better.
"Hey Wulf. Nice hat."
Heinrich was waiting in the now mostly-empty bar, sitting with a stein, his suit rather more disheveled than when he started.
"Thanks, I just saw it on the rack. How was your date?"
"It was completely terrible, I never want to see him again, I had a great time. How are you doing?"
"A swing and a miss." Wulf said cryptically.
"Well, as they say, any you walk away from." Heinrich responded, then signaled the barmaid. "Say, miss, any more beer?"
Well, that was a rollercoaster ride. We went from funny to sad and back so many times. Seriously, Wulf's backstory somehow becomes more tragic the more I learn about it. But, wow, there were some great lines in this update too.
Heinrich was less of an asshole than I feared. I think. Actually, wait, when Heinrich asked if Wulf was 'in', was he asking if she was willing to help him pick up a guy? Or was he asking if she would have sex with him?
Because the latter is substantially more asshole-ish.
