/monster/ - The Last Bastion of Romance

My train of thought was interrupted by a dainty voice failing an attempt at intimidation. I turned around to see a blonde elven girl with green eyes, a bit short but well developed for an elf, and seemed to be about 17 in human years. She wore an oversized witch's hat that she periodically readjusted, an impractically short skirt, a blouse, and held a basic fire tome. A for effort, but a woman who isn't a stronger variety of monstergirl stepping on a battlefield is already laughable. Seeing a childish elven mage pupil attempting to intimidate a man who took out a few dozen of her superiors was pitiful.

"DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT I WILL LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS ATROCITY AGAINST ELVEN KIND?"

Up until that point, I was more preoccupied with getting to town on time and stopping Ibuki from spending all her pay on one of her oni drinking sprees, but hearing an elf talk about atrocities was hypocrisy I wasn't about to ignore. The only thing on my mind at the time was how to retort properly.

[What should our hero say/do in response?]

Next update will be around tomorrow night or a bit earlier. I'll go with the most popular decision by the time I come back, and if it's a tie I'll just pick the one I think fits better.

>>126276

>[What should our hero say/do in response?]

AY HOL' UP DA ELVEN PO-LEESE AIN'T FINNA CATCH DIS SHIT NIGGUH!

>>126276

fuckken laugh at her and say your piece

>>126357

This, but let her know that we are letting her live so that she can try to take her revenge when she gets good.

>>126276

Give her a hug and take her hat while she is distracted by the hug

>>126274

no damaging our future slave girl. What kind of slaver hits his first concubine in the face?

>>126284

Laughter part is good.

Demagoguing at first opportunity is just a shit habit though - that's how most villains end up beings skewered by wanna be adventurers.

Lets play the villain, making lot of off-hand, ambiguous references to his past and the lessons it taught him. Build up a bit of mystery while playing with her and than much later clue her in that all those lessons and practices MC has been subjecting her to were 'taught' by the mages of her village.

Right now, inform her that she gets the first shot at him for her bravery, but she was also recruited as his future concubine for her insolence. She better make that spell count, because if she fails, she will be spending a long time wearing nothing but ropes and a collar afterward (try to embarrass/outrage her while at it).

Than rush and trip her soon as she starts casting. Because first harsh lesson of the past - life's not fair, and neither is her future master.

>>126437

you know that the whole "adversity makes you more noble and a liberal thinker" is one of those tropes that is a trope because it runs quite counter to how that works out usually in reality.

In practice, adversity and harsh life tends to make people be bigger assholes with overwhelming frequency. So a character that has been put through slavery and abuse, jumping to slavery and abuse as the go-to-route is far more normal and likely than him turning out to be a progressive visionary who can look at it all with the 'enlightened eyes of modern society'

OP on mobile here. Great ideas going around. Got something written down that I need to expand on, and I got some great names filled with mythological references and symbolism I pray doesn't come off as pretentious (I at least made sure they made sense).

>>126437

>>126441

I ain't trying to make this story too political. For the record, though protag is sexist and homophobic (the latter being understandable), he's not all that racist to anyone but vanilla elves. His troupe is even filled with MGs and a lot of different species (expect great race bantz) and trades (ie vikings, mages, warriors, monks, etc.), albeit humans are the most common. It's not that he's super progressive, he just cares more about who they are as people and how well they fight.

As for his experiences, he started out quite bitter but he became a better person through the good things and people in his life, moreso when he started travelling. He wanted to stay an edgelord, but he matured and realized he couldn't. He's still cynical and a bit callous, but not a bad guy.

As for the slavery, it'll make sense. Just wait.

>>126422

Do this then slug the bitch in the face and walk off.

As I was about to respond, the sky let out a massive boom. From above I noticed pitch-black storm clouds forming, surrounding the full moon. Though a storm would make an already long trip even more cumbersome, I always found comfort in a summer thunderstorm for reasons I don't know. Maybe it was because back then a thunderstorm meant I didn't have to work the fields and could rest in solace with my friends and sister, but I couldn't help but feel there was something more to it. The pleasant thoughts evoked by the weather soothed what may have been a violent retort into into a sardonic snicker. "I imagine elves would know quite a bit about atrocities, hm?"

She seemed taken aback by my response, though still attempting to keep up her increasingly unconvincing smug visage "A-are you trying to imply something?"

I rested my my helmet on my gauntlet in disbelief and shook my head "I suppose for all your claims of superiority, you're not terribly apt when it comes to sarcasm, are you? No, of course they wouldn't, your kind will never know. Elves don't recognize the plight of anyone but theimselves"

"LIES, LIES AND SLANDER!" she retorted loudly. "And a man such as yourself has little position to claim callousness of others, you murderer!"

I took a moment to consider if she was just the retard of the group. "Did I kill your father or something along those lines? If so, allow me to be the first to say I either killed him so fast he didn't even feel it or fled like a scared wererabbit. Either way, he didn't suffer."

"I HAVE NO FAMILY HERE" she screamed, her futile anger distorting her voice into something akin to the shrieks of a harpy. "BUT ELVEN LIVES WERE STILL LOST BECAUSE OF YOU. YOU HAVE COMMITED A GRAVE CRIME AGAINST MY PEOPLE."

"Ah, you mean those slave drivers? Well, if you ask me, I did you a favor. The only thing they lack more than empathy is strength. You'd be best off serving under a wise hermit, preferably one that doesn't know much about your worthless species," I sneered. "Speaking of which, why didn't you leave with the others? I gave those uninvolved with my personal vendetta a chance to escape."

"And mark myself a coward?" She replied with more confidence then I expected.

"I can't quite tell whether you're an idiot or brave, likely both. But I was taught to see the best people, and while elves certainly aren't people, I'll give you a little credit. So I'd like to make you an offer."

"What do you mean, an offer?" her confidence was unwavering in spite of her confusion.

"I'm leagues above you, elf, so I'll let you have one free shot. I will not move from this spot, so you can recite a very long and powerful incantation if you wish. But you may want to hurry up, a storm is brewing and I imagine a fire spell won't do well under rain," I continued. "But, if I win our duel, assuming you survive of course, you become my concubine, the one thing female knife-ears are good for. And fair warning, I like it rough. Deal?"

"Y-yo-," she was confused and disgusted for a moment, only for her confidence to return, mixed with anger. "Ha! Your arrogance will be the death of you!"

I grinned. "But before you begin, may I know your name?"

"M-my name? Why would I give you that?"

"I would simply like to know the name of my adorable possible killer or concubine," I said, trying to contain my laughter. I had little interest in making a knife-ear my concubine, but flirtatious teasing is fun and works fairly well against female opponents.

"If you must know, I am Mari C. Ashera. Magical prodigy, pride of the elven village, and the slayer of demons like yourself."

I couldn't help but sneer. "Mari 'slayer of demons' Ashera?"

"I didn't choose it! Now let's hear yours!"

>>126808

I took my foot off of her, fairly certain she wouldn't try that again. She looked up to me like an abused animal, the rain doing nothing to hide her scared blubbering "P-please Mr. Indra, let me go! Elves make horrible concubines, just look at our birthrates! I-i'm a really good cleric, though! I'm good at healing poison and infection. You're a mercenary right? I be-

"I don't have any interest in you," my tone more frank than forgiving. "So enough with your blubbering."

"W-what?" Though still obviously scared, hopefulness grew on her face, picking herself up from the mud. "So, I'm free?"

"No. As far as you're concerned, you're my property now," I responded coldly. "I won't rape you, but you'd be a useful slave to have around. Especially after that incident the kikimoras got into with those shogoths."

The hope that was building on her expression a moment ago then came crashing down, with terror coming back to claim it's original place. "B-but why?"

I did think about it for a second. I couldn't imagine myself killing a young girl, even if she's a knife-ear, so that's out of the question. I could just let her go, but chances are she'd give my identity and I'd either be the target of bounty hunters or knights trying to get their king a diplomatic present for elf neighbours. In hindsight, giving her my identity as a show of confidence was almost as stupid as her challenging me. "You may not have noticed, but I don't exactly like you. That, and I want to give your kind a taste of your own medicine."

"But we didn't do anything wr-," Mari stopped herself mid-sentence, aware of how finishing it could go over poorly for her.

"…Anyways, don't think I'm as cruel as your kind is," I continued, mildly agitated. "So let's go over some rules. First off, unless I say otherwise, when you speak to me you will refer to me as master. Not Skoll, not Mr. Indra, just master. I will refer to you what I want to refer to you as. Second off, you'll help with whatever duties me and the my mercenaries ask you of, no questions. If you're concerned, I'll make sure they don't ask anything unreasonable. I expect you to work hard, but not to death. And that brings me to my third rule. While I expect you to take verbal abuse, if any of the others harm you physically or try to, let me know and I'll handle it. Keep in mind I don't take kindly to false accusations. Fourthly, I'm an understanding man, so how I treat you will depend on your behaviour. Diligent work will be met with a nice master who lets you sleep in a bed and eat well, and may even eventually let you go. Lazing around will be met with a wooden floor for a bed and stale bread for the rest of your extended life. And if you do anything to betray or hurt us, your life is forfeit," I took a pause to let her take in what I said.

Remember that feeling I told you about earlier? Now I felt just the opposite as before. I could barely contain the giddiness over giving one of those arrogant bastards a taste of their own medicine. And yet, something felt off, but I coudln't understand why. It was like that feeling you get when you're indulging in a guilty pleasure, but even more intense. I tried my best to ignore the latter feeling, focusing more on my smug satisfaction.

"Alright then slave, I'll tie your hands and get you on the horse. We're burning moonlight over here," saying the word slave seemed to amplify the feeling.

Though I turned around and started walking, Mari took a few steps only to stop right after. I turned around to see her meekly open her mouth slightly and raise her hand, as if she was a child asking a strict teacher a question she knows she'll get disciplined for.

"Well, what is it? You can speak, that wasn't against the rules."

"I-I want to get something and say goodbye to my home. I won't even be 5 minutes, I promise," she said quickly, as if she expected me to hit her for just suggesting I wait longer.

Say goodbye to her home? At this point, my patience was beginning to wane, but I took this oppurtunity to appease both my conflicting feelings by letting her go. It'd make her happier and also less likely to rebel, "Fine, but I'm following you and checking what you're bringing. Don't even think about sneaking a weapon with you."

She bowed, the rainwater that collected on her hat forming a small waterfall "I won't, thank you master. Follow me, please," she said in an oddly subservient tone. I didn't know it'd be this easy.

>>126809

I followed her down two grey, green, and (thanks to me) red streets of her village into a small house covered by a lush yard, smaller than the others and obviously built for one. As she went in, I couldn't help but notice there was more of a hop in her steps. I found it funny, a town that makes a frequent appearance in my nightmares was the same place some elf called home.

I followed her inside, noticing the doorknob was unusually low even for an elf as short as she was, and that the area around it looked damaged as if someone moved it downwards for convinience. I could also see faded writing but couldn't make it out. The home itself was quite humble, probably the most humble thing I've ever seen some from an elf. While the rest of their houses were large pseudo-greenhouses, this looked like a fairly large leprachaun's place. One bed, a drawer and closet which Mari was taking clothes out of and stuffing into a bag, and a small kitchen with a single chair and table. There was also a statue of a woman holding up a sun and moon, and judging by the fact that I've seen this same one on the window sill of every house here, I imagine this must be their god. Funny enough, it seemed to be lying on the floor instead of proudly displayed, having gathered a fair amount of dust. My observation was cut by Mari walking out the door with a cloak her belongings and waiting for me outside.

"I'm ready," she called from outside. I walked passed her as she took a deep breath, as if the air she would breath from now on would be stale and polluted.

I took her to my horse and tied her hands behind her back with some spare rope. I patted her down to check if she sneaked anything and got her onto the saddle when she was finished. I climbed on afterwards, Mari grabbing my waist. Looking at my side I saw her staring at my battleaxe, but her mannerisms expressed no interest in resistance. I looked forward and rode off, the rain starting to clear up. The muddy road would slow us down, but if I traveled overnight I can make up for the time I lost. I was tired, but I didn't feel like sleeping. Mari seemed to have the same idea, staring almost unblinkingly to the east, watching her village disappear into the horizon.

I was still in disbelief at how easy it was. If there was one thing I'd have expected from forcing an elf into subservience, it would've been arrogant defiance that'd make a hellhound look like a kikimora. But a simple defeat had Mari crying for mercy. Was that the reason for the odd feeling? Maybe it was so easy it was unsatisfying? But I said the same thing about the fight with the elves and I had the exact opposite feeling. Whatever it was, thinking about it made me feel worse, so I stuffed the thoughts to the back of my head and tried to think of the reasons I hated elves. Though it helped return my giddy feeling of superiority, I avoided looking back at Mari.

Though it was morning and the rain subsided, cloud cover was still heavy, with only a few dim rays breaking through. We took a few breaks before the second night to eat. Mari still didn't speak at all. Dusk came fairly early and I was feeling exhausted, so I detoured into a small town a couple of kilometres west of our main route. The local inn was known to house some rough characters, but they knew who I was so Mari didn't get mixed in with them. The innkeeper himself greeted me by name and made getting a room easy, but he still looked at Mari wierdly in spite of me making sure her ears were hidden behind her hair and hood of her cloak. I didn't notice until next morning that I gave him more than double our stay. Don't know whether that was an accident or me subconciously bribing him or whatever but it kept him quiet at least. I packed some food, but my normally voracious apetite dwindled to the point where I didn't have to order something from the inn like I normally do. Mari didn't do anything but stare at her plate, and when I asked about it she quickly apologized and started eating. I didn't stop her because it was just nice to see her do something other than looking miserable. I told her she can sleep whenever she liked but she has to get up at around 6 sharp tomorrow no matter what. She nodded nervously and crawled into bed, turning away from way to look at the window on the east wall, once again looking at the horizon as if she could still see her village from here.

It took me a while before I fell asleep, still trying to calm the hurricane of thoughts in my mind. I spent the night hoping Mari would say something make me angry. So I would feel a bit more comfortable in my decision. Say something about elves being superior to humans, being hypocritical over elf dickery like when we met, defy an order, fucking anything. I never got it, but she at least stopped being silent. I got to fall asleep to the ambience of a helpless and scared elf girl softly crying herself to sleep.

>>126815

Just made it in time. Jesus fuck I was writing at least half the day. That and I had to look up certain things that would work in the story and check for spelling/grammatical errors and plot holes. I know I made a couple of spelling mistakes, but let me know about any plot holes. It's probably a result of me changing something somewhere and forgetting I also referenced it elsewhere. I'll release a smaller pieces of work with a bigger time frame from now on. I'll finish and post here by Sunday or Monday depending on how the weekend plays out. My work is saved so no need to worry about it being lost due to site fuckups. Hope you liked the story (if not, feel free to criticize, I want you to) and have a good one anons.

>>126868

Agreed, not much of a CYOA if there are no choices to be done. If you are dead set on severe railroading then you might as well change the title to reflect it.

>>126811

>my battleaxe

Whatr is this bullshit man, you keep using Guts picture and he own a Batlleaxe?

Make him use a goddamn Dragonslayer, and make him slay gigantic monster with his monstergirls party will his elf slave look in aww as he lift the iron sledge.

>>126868

>>126876

Just wanted to get that part out of the way. More choices will come, don't worry. I'll answer the rest of your questions a bit later.

For now, ==DECIDE==

Back, gonna take a better look at posts.

>>126868

>>126876

Yeah, the stuff I just wrote is setting the stage until we get to meet the rest of the group, which is right now. Now I'm gonna start introducing more choices.

So on that note, anyone wanna suggest how Skoll explains this to the rest of his crew?

Yes, Skoll's mentality towards elf girl is supposed to be conflicting. He thought making a pretentious elf girl his slave (though making sure not to be quite as cruel as his own captures) would be giving her a taste of her own medicine and a way to not leave witnesses without having to kill her (i.e. a compromise between his knife-ear hatred and his reluctance to kill a girl much weaker than he is), but it turned out not quite being what he expected it to be. Probably helps that Mari strikes him as a bit odd. That is really what it comes down to, a crisis of morality and conflicting feelings between gut, heart, and mind. Was I being too vague on that? I was trying to avoid show don't tell but may have gone a bit too far in the other direction.

>>126903

The berserker armour helmet pic was just the closest thing I could get to a visualization of Skoll's helmet, and sweating guts was actually supposed to be for the next post but I fucked up. As for his weapon, I'll make it so that you can change it at various points if you want.

>>126947

How are we going to explain this in ways aside from a long awkward silence? I see where the conflict comes in, and know you know where you were going with it, when you hinted that he shouldn't have revealed his identity (because that would have been the only way to come out of this one in any way intact), but his choices and his "prior mentalities" are what have me at an inability to come to a decision, like a computer that's been given conflicting inputs.

I can see him rejoining with his party and they see her and he's like, "Ayy, so I smashed all those good-for-nothing knife-earred cunts and was amused by their blood on the ground, but this one challenged me to a duel and I didn't want to kill her or knock her out but I hate those damn elves, so I enslaved her, but not too much, because I kinda want to give her the D, but I'm not a meanie, but seriously fuck elves, but not really, lol."

I guess you could say it all kinda came straight out of left field.

Maybe he could hide her race from them like he did at the Inn? Or, since he's the leader, does it even matter? Do any of our other party members even hate elves enough for it to be a problem? And if it were, we could tell that guy to fuck off or something; We're LEADER, right?

>>126947

It is kind of unclear just how much the rest of the party hates elves. Are they just going to groan about having to drag one along on further adventures, or is there a risk of someone just trying to gut her on sight? I think Skoll should explain that he did his dirty deed, then enslaved this elf because he's not going to just kill a kid, even if she is a knife-ear, plus he thought it would be fun to turn the tables a bit.

>>126971

To be fair, I don't think a pre-existing party is entirely a huge problem. Sure, it's a little limiting, but it's been done before and worked out fine, and with flexible characters, the limits can be loosened somewhat. But, like a DM of sorts, the writer DOES have to be prepared to take the story in unintended directions if the majority of the people participating decide to go a certain route. Right now, the biggest threat we face is railroading for the sake of a plot that we were supposed to build in the first place.

That said, all the beforehand planning really does leave me to believe this story is best not reserved as a CYOA. Or rather, this is the kind of CYOA you'd expect to find in a stand-alone text, or a book, where there are some choices, but obviously there isn't room for absolute freedom, so some limiting is required. It could be that users here are too used to a board-format CYOA, as opposed to a classical novel-type CYOA, or OP hadn't considered how people would react to the difference.

Either way, it's still early; Not too late to fix things if OP deems there are things that need to be fixed.

>>126973

If he wants to go for a classic CYOA style then he should include static choices/options instead of giving freedom of action. And do that at random intervals instead of at the end of every update.

>>126975

Scratch out "thinking." I WILL make choices static after this.

>>126978

Jesus fuck, firetires, was 5 retries not enough? Posting is even more broken now.

>>126979

Why do you think the Infinity Next issue is such a big deal? The site is slowly crumbling to pieces more and more every passing day. I hope our friends at /tech/ can fix this.

I'm late as fuck, but some shit got in the way and this CYOA got shifted slightly from it's original direction and now I'm gonna put some more emphasis on the C, albeit this was hardly the only reason. Enjoy the de-railroading.

Being struck with indecision is never a good feeling. Having the feeling last for roughly 30 hours was just unnecessary torture. At that point, all the bickering raging in my ego was dwarfed by my mental screams for release, cumulating in a shout and a punch to my reflection. I took advantage of the break in my thoughts to take a deep breath, exhale, and make the most rational choice. So enslaving an elf girl wasn't as fun as I thought, but letting her go was out of the question unless I wanted her to rat me out to every knife-ear kingdom on the continent. I could just try to hide her ears somehow and say she's a human, but someone would eventually find out or I'd have to jump through hoops to keep it up. All sings seemed to point to telling the truth being the best option. Explaining Mari to a group with members who haven't had the best experiences with elves would be difficult, but so would keeping up a lie. Besides, I've earned my company's trust and loyalty, so I should be able to tell them the truth.

I walked back into the room with my newfound 'don't be a pussy' resolve to see Mari ready to leave, looking down and twaddling her thumbs, trying a bit too hard to act like she didn't hear anything. Looking at my breakfast evoked a grumble from my stomach, my returning appetite a sure sign my mood wasn't too far behind. I ate quickly and voraciously, put on my armor, gathered my things, and gestured Mari to get going. While walking out, I told the innkeeper that I broke his mirror and left a small sack of gold for him.

It was evening by the time we arrived in the city. On the way, I skipped lunch in favor of chewing on the remaining bread in my sac, preparing for the small lake of grog I was going to drown myself in with the others. I stopped outside a large and loud tavern in the central district, on a predictably busy Sunday night. Leaving my horse in a stable just south of the tavern, me and Mari entered.

Now to me, the view of the tavern was all too familiar. For anyone else, it'd look like the circus was in town. A circus armed to the teeth. Every table had it's fair share of oddities, even among the humans. 3 hooded figures were making bets over a salamander and a hellhound arm-wrestling on the table. An older-looking man clad in heavy paladin armor and even more facial scars than I am was telling war stories to a pair of very engaged lizardwoman twins. A frost giant with an impressive beard was struggling in a drinking contest against a cheery oni woman. A dragongirl and manticore were wrestling in a ring in the corner, a fight vicious enough to be attended by several healers. A skeleton in a thin longcoat was drinking milk and chatting with a stern-looking orc with an odd mark on the back of his neck. I could go on, but long story short, you meet some interesting folk when you travel the world.

A few moments later, the old, story-telling ex-paladin, a sort-of mentor of mine when I was a teenager, noticed me and called out in a loud, hammy voice "HEY, LOOK WHO'S BACK!"

At Rupert's call, everyone in the room turned to where he was looking. I took off my helmet and gave my best shit-easting grin "Come on, were you guys honestly doubting me?"

The roar from the crowd was a deafening yet pleasing response. As I walked across the bar, over a hundred people were either shouting from tables or rushed right next to me to talk. Calls of my name and vague questions was all I could discern from the noise. In an attempt to spare my eardrums, I made my way to the counter. The orc sitting next to the skeleton got up to bump fists and forearms with me, the greeting we've shared since we were kids. "Nice to see you back, Skoll. You okay? Any injuries? Did they inflict any curses on you? Any-"

"Yes mom, I'm fine," I yelled, the crowd laughing at Khamsin's needless worrying. "But hey, nice to see you too Khamsin, ya greenskin faggot," giving him a hug to match my endearing racial slur.

Naturally, Yomi had a snarky remark to interject with "Hey Skoll, hate to break the heartwarming and mildly homoerotic interspecies friendship moment, but I haven't seen you in a week. Come on, tell us what happened. Oh, and while you're at it," the skeleton pointed to Mari at the other end of the bar. "Who's the girl?"

To my chagrin, everyone turned towards Mari and went silent. Fuck it, I thought, let's get it overwith. I walked to the other side of the bar to Mari, turned to the crowd, and pulled off her hood, revealing a confused-looking girl with long, pointy ears. "This elf girl challenged me after I killed those elves I wanted revenge on and I beat her but then she saw my face and I couldn't leave witnesses but I also can't kill a girl so then I enslaved her and then I felt weird so I punched a mirror and now I'm here so now we have an elf slave that'll do stuff for us but you can't hit rape or overwork her and I'm the boss so you can't question it."

It would've been less awkward to chop of the girl's head and drink from it, judging by the look of the tavern. In spite of my last request, the questions slowly trickled in. The confused murmuring quickly built into a loud buzz with loud vocal protest. Questions about my actions, complaints about the no-abusing thing, and general confusion. I thought I'd never hear the end of it, until…

"QUIET," Inari screamed from the corner. My confusion as to what she was doing was answered by the telepathic reply 'saving your sorry ass'. The middle-aged kitsune witch walked to the center in her usual slow and seductive manner to speak. "Now, I know you're all wondering why Skoll would do such a thing," Inari's speech momentarily interrupted by Yomi suggesting the fight may have given me a 'Skoll' fracture, earning him an elbow in the ribs by Khamsin. "…Anyways, I think as weird as this is, given the situation, Skoll did the right thing. He can be a little rough around the edges, but he wouldn't harm a girl who couldn't hope to fight back against him. He's supposed to be BETTER than the elves, remember?" Hesitantly, the bar started murmuring in agreement. "And hasn't Skoll always looked out for our best interests? Some of us here right now because Skoll let us join his company when we hit a rough patch if life. Sure he's a bit young and a little arrogant, but Skoll pays well and never puts us in unnecessary danger. Am I wrong?” the agreement among the crowd started to become louder and less hesitant, and whatever uncertainty that they may have had was ended by her next two sentences. "So we'll tolerate his new 'slave' over there", she did that agitating quotation-mark gesture with her fingers "And in return," she turned to me, a devious grin stretched over her face "he's going to take us to Ragnarök."

The crowd instantly lit up, their cheers nearly drowning out the telepathic 'you can repay me by not fucking up' sent to me by Inari. I've heard plenty about Ragnarök from the bitching of my mercs who wanted to go, and it seemed like they weren't the only ones interested. Adventurers, mercenaries, kingdoms, bandits, everyone wanted a piece of it, elves especially. Hard to blame them, because from the reports, Ragnarök seemed like something ripped out of a fairy tale. Ancient cities filled with insanity-inducing knowledge, mines of endless gems, tribes of beautiful monsterwomen, mythical weapons, and plenty of secrets yet to be discovered. It'd be easier to appreciate had most of it not been the home of unfathomable horrors, demonic spirits, vicious wildlife, elder dragons, and distortions in reality not even the most brilliant scientists or wizards could make sense of. All that's known about Ragnarök right now is that there's about five distinct "countries" and that so far only some interesting but minor artifacts have been taken form there. Which meant the good stuff was still waiting to be taken.

Khamsin, naturally, took issue. "Do you any idea how many people have died trying to venture into that hellhole? The only people who are known to be active in that land are either insane or the absolute strongest their nations have to offer."

"Sounds like a job for us, then," I retorted. Make no mistake, Khamsin was right. We might have been big shots in this country, but so is a jinko among wererabbits. Ragnarök would push us to our absolute limit, and we'd be competing with plenty of other groups as infamous as we were. In return, any group that could survive there and even take something of value back would cement their names in legend. We'd also become stronger, as a group and individually. Maybe strong enough to prove a threat to the elven empire. I was reluctant to go for quite some time, but it's been a long time since I last felt challenged, and the possible upsides were too good to pass up. I quickly swatted away the thought that it'd also be a way of indirectly getting rid of Mari in such a way I could rationalize to my conscience. "You're underestimating us Khamsin, and more importantly me. Let me ask you," I turned to the rest of my tavern. "Who are the most feared mercenaries in the largest country in the continent? What group singlehandedly ended a dozen-year war? Tore down over a dozen knife-ear slave encampments?," every boast about our past feats was met with increasingly loud cheers of approval. I took out my sabre and raised it, cringing slightly at my own cliché gesture "And what group has a leader badass enough to get them through Ragnarök and back?!"

My braggart question was met with over a hundred raised glasses and thunderous cheering from my crew. With a few choice words, they were perfectly willing to forgive a member of the most hated race in the world join them if it meant being able to adventure into hell on earth. Veterans acting like kids who got a new toy for good behavior. Then again, this job is kinda like being the patriarch of a loving family. Of suicidally reckless supersoldiers.

Athena, a young salamander who was a bit too spirited even for her species, came up to the counter and rolled out a map, showing an incomplete sketch of a large continent west of ours, with several areas crudely circled. "Alright, so where do we go then, boss?! Oh, pick Uffern! PICK UFFERN!" she bounced up and down as she spoke, her tail ablaze with excitement.

I looked at the map and weighed my options. There were about 5 places we could go, each outlined in parchments made by research groups that Athena gleefully brought to me. The only thing they seemed to have in common was that you'd get some neat stuff if you could survive this horrible, mysterious thing, which sounded pretty fair to me. The choices were…

==Mictlan== - "Gaia's Torment" is a vibrant and deadly mountainous 'rainforest' with a 70 degree Celsius average temperature and unusual weather patterns, cycling between extreme drought and torrential downpour roughly every 24 hours. Forest water is mildly acidic, and may contain various pathogens (region-dependent). Switches between heavy precipitation and severe drought in such short intervals have created a forest floor that shifts between a surface of dessicated plants that will drain bodily liquids from nearby organisms and a drenched basin of bogs, sinkholes, and white-water rapids. The region has active volcanoes, their eruptions causing wildfires in drought periods and acid rain in wet periods. Flora and fauna often carry potent toxins and are in many cases aggressive, having adaptions that make them remarkably resistant to both the region's hostile conditions and foreign threats. There do seem to be "safe havens" of sorts, in the forms of the ruins scattered across the region. They often are found in high elevations and the milder parts of Mictlan, containing temples occupied by native lizardwomen. PLEASE NOTE: If the lizardwomen do not look similar to their classic counterparts, EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY, please see known intelligent species for details). The temples often contain vast amounts of valuables and artifacts hidden deep within their lower levels, with rumors of ancient, powerful arms hidden inside. However, these treasures are often surrounded by cleverly-placed and dangerous traps that not even the lizardwomen can get through reliably. It is also known that many of the ruins seem to have impossibly realistic sculptures of women carved into the walls. They come in a wide variety of morphologies, with a few seeming to have parts belonging to animals, but not in any way resembling any known species of monstergirl. Otherwise unremarkable sans one enigmatic event wherein an excavation team died (sans one member, now mute and exhibits strong hemophilia from traumatic brain injury) leaving only their completely dry skeletons .

KNOWN INTELLIGENT SPECIES

Standard rainforest monstergirl species make their home in Mictlan, but far deadlier than their equivalents in other regions and more specialized for the environment. There appears to be a newfound species, one similar to lizardwomen. Unlike them, however, they seem to have black scales with yellow lines and have far crueler dispositions. They seem to be far less selective of mates and are known to kill them frequently after using them for breeding purposes. Perpetual warfare exists between this new, vicious species of lizards and their classic counterparts, with the latter group offering male travelers (specifically powerful warriors) artifacts and useful items (i.e. antidotes) taken from the ruins in return for impregnating services. Such a strategy has produced male humans that are native to Mictlan, as strong as their lizardwoman "sisters" and fiercely sought after by both sides.

Tartaros

"The land that rains death" is a wasteland of scorched earth and ever-erupting volcanoes, which produce strange ivory-colored ash as well as gemstones from their eruptions. Shifting lava rivers, scorching meteor showers, pitch-black smoke clouds, and the toxic atmosphere caused by the volcanoes has made the surface devoid of autotrophs, with all known species residing in underground caverns. The only fauna capable of living on the surface of Tartaros are various wyvern species, with smaller species typically feeding on the aforementioned underground autotrophs and being prey for larger species. Most wyverns exhibit the ability to breath various kinds (species-dependent) of gases from their mouths that are flammable and/or explosive. Wyverns take advantage of this property via generating a spark by rubbing their teeth and igniting the gases when faced with a threat. This is on top of exceptional strength and resilience to physical trauma and fire magic, even in smaller species, makes them formidable foes. However, all wyverns despise ice magic and are the choice prey of elder dragons. While they have been seen across Ragnarök, Tartaros is the sole location where elder dragons sightings are common, as many make their homes in large underground gem mines. Though they do not usually actively seek out to harm people, elder dragons are highly intelligent (some showing capability of speech and literacy), viciously territorial, and tremendously powerful. Only VERY well-coordinated groups or well-prepared, legendarily powerful warriors/mages exceed single-digit survivorship rates. There have also been rumors of a silver, wingless, three-headed elder dragon with "scales of metal and claws of obsidian" that scours the underground labyrinths that wyverns and even other elder dragons seem to avoid at all costs. The only known survivors, a group that attempted to take jewels from the labyrinth, remark that though incapable of flight the dragon was exceptionally strong even for the standards of his species and nothing his company did seemed to phase the dragon (one composed of experienced magicians and warriors). The dragon displayed calm and polite yet exceptionally cruel and sadistic mannerisms as opposed to it's vicious but reserved cousins. They also mention that crying and wailing can be heard from deeper within in the labyrinth, correlating with occasional disappearances of dragonwomen known from interactions with concerned tribes.

KNOWN INTELLIGENT SPECIES

Other than the aforementioned elder dragons, dragonwomen and salamanders make their home in Tartaros, being even more powerful than their counterparts in other continents (though still not known to be able to challenge elder dragons by themselves). Dragonwomen and salamanders are typically not hostile to any group that does not pose a threat to their tribes, but may attempt to kidnap and rape male travelers in times of dwindling numbers, albeit this is rare and they typically try to negotiate with male travelers for their "services". Human males born to these tribes do not survive for more than a few days, lacking the tolerance to the atmosphere of Tartaros that their mothers and sisters have. However, there have been sightings of humans living in Tartaros whom on rare occasions come out of the surface, only to quickly tunnel back in.

Uffern

"The Warrior's Purgatory" is an odd place Ragnarök, in that it is a safe for the weak but a dangerous place for strong travellers. Zombies and Poltergeists surround the mountainous border of Uffern, weak by Ragnarök's standards but amass in large quantities that can overwhelm unprepared groups. Monstergirl equivalents of these entities do indeed exist here, but are much stronger than their normal counterparts. Past this mountainous region, a perfectly flat, 1000km diameter circle of stone known as Uffern is found. Those who enter state that it feels as if the temperature has dropped slightly and absolutely no life is to be found. There are, however, "spirits" of warriors from various periods of history from all across the world. The spirits are ethereal and never speak, and seem to fade in and out of existence at random intervals, with different spirits appearing at different times. When near a living warrior who is not so weak as to not be able to put up a fight or too strong for the spirit to be a threat to them approaches, however, the spirit challenges them to a duel to the death. While challenged, it is impossible to escape Uffern, with some claiming an invisible border surrounds the area for the person fighting the spirit. The same barrier appears around anyone interfering with a duel between a spirit and a living being and lasts until the duel is over. Any who die in combat to one of the spirits are seen to become a spirit themselves. While looking similar to their past selves and armed with the same armour and weaponry from when they die, exhibit the same behavioural patterns as the other spirits. Their corpses also seem to phase into the ground shortly after they have passed. Those who succeed, however, gain something that belonged to the spirit (be it a weapon, armour piece, combat experience, etc.) before it disappears, presumably permanently. Notably, injuries and exhaustion accumulated during the fight also seem to heal, though lost limbs and other body parts do not reattach. Hunger, thirst, and other bodily needs also do not absolve themselves after the duel.

The strongest known spirit is known as Chulain, a word that seems to run in the minds of those who first see him. He appears as a bearded, exceedingly muscular man with a disfigured face and mutilated shoulder, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a sword he never uses. Unlike the other spirits, he does not willingly fight any living being that does not attack him first or is a salamander. When challenged, however, Chulain will proceed to fight his opponent with his bare hands backed by seemingly boundless strength, which Chulain seems to limit to being only somewhat greater than his opponent. No attack, regardless of power, ever seems to do more than push Chulain back or daze him for a short period. Chulain will continue wearing down his challenger until they are either unable to fight or lose the will to continue. When not in combat, he simply seems to sit wherever his last battle took place and weep tears of what appears to be molten iron while carving a picture of three salamanders in the ground with his finger, two of which seem to be children. Please note, as due to the nature of the description of this region, the known intelligent species section is redundant and therefore not included.

Jahanamm

"The Horrid Revelator" is an ancient, enigmatic city in the treacherous Abaddon desert, filled with machinery and geometrically impossible architecture that neither contemporary magic or science can explain. All attempts at reverse engineering have been thwarted by a smokeless fire that "chases" would-be artifact thieves at improbably fast speeds and appears to evaporate even the most fire-resistant materials and species. This fire extends from and surrounds massive library in the center of the city, damaging anything that touches it and yet not having an effect on the building's interior or structure. Powerful water magic can only douse it somewhat, with the caster invariably consumed by the fire. However, the fire appears to occasionally split to let certain groups in, the only constant between the groups is that there seems to be at least one orc among them (though even an entirely orcish group is not guaranteed entry). Roughly two thirds of the groups that go in manage to come back, though only one in ten of that group manage to return with at best a handful of tomes and/or other artifacts. Oddly enough, those who take artifacts from the library are not targeted by the flames, though no archaeological foundation or government representative has been “allowed to enter”. At random intervals, this library lets out a single person who will invariably be afflicted with an odd and severe form of psychosis and have their eyes forced open, unable to blink except from assistance from a third party. Symptoms of the aforementioned psychosis include severe pyrophobia and vocal tics in an unrecognizable language that is known to give listeners anxiety and even panic attacks in some cases.

KNOWN INTELLIGENT SPECIES

Roughly 3 different exceptionally powerful orc bandit groups have made camp on the city's outskirts in the past, though only one remains after one group died out and the other left due to unlivable conditions. The remaining group has stayed there for nearly 5 years, but seems to be dwindling in number, with the remaining members exhibiting behaviors disturbing even by the standards of bandits, actively practicing cannibalism and ritual orgies and sacrifices.

The desert is populated by stronger subspecies of typical desert monstergirls, a natural result of the harsh natural selection typical of Ragnarök. However, only a single, newly discovered species of monstergirl inhabits the city exclusively. Little is known of them other than the names given by the orcs, "Djinn". They appear as attractive human women (with features similar to human tribes found in desert regions) dressed like belly dancers. They seem to be able to levitate and fly by turning the bottom half of their legs into the aforementioned smokeless fire. They do not seem to harm travelers directly without provocation, but seem to have access to a peculiar form of magic that seems to have no restraints other than having to be at the request of a non-Djinni third party. In most in not all cases, said third party ends up dead, injured, or insane as a result of said wishes. Those who reject their offers to use such magic seem to be well-liked by the Djinn and have higher rates of success in their journey through the city than those who do. They also seem to guard a strange building in the south part of the city, though they cannot seem to use their odd powers to do it, relying on powerful but recognizable schools of magic. For some reason, the Djinn are completely unwilling to enter the building nor will they attack those simply leaving it, though they seem to fervently seal any kind of entrance hole created by thieves. Some successful heists show that the building is an armory and treasury with precious gems and exceptionally powerful weaponry. However, successful thieves remark that though even higher quality weapons, armor, and tomes were available as they went deeper, they could feel an atmosphere of utter dread that even veteran soldiers felt uncomfortable with. Reports also indicate temperature increased steadily with depth.

Naraka

A massive, pitch-black sphere that seems to radiate darkness. This recently discovered oddity may be the most mysterious object in Ragnarök. From a distance, those who observe it claim they feel conflicting desires, exhibiting both a desire to and anxiety about entering the object. As one ventures closer to it, the environment appears to become darker and the desire to enter the sphere begins to overpower the anxiety, to the point where some run into it with reckless abandon when within 100 meters. Distant observations say that those that enter the sphere appear to "fade away" after a certain point, known as the "event horizon". All who cross this line never seem to come back, with the exception of one individual, who claims she was now "free", and seemed to be able to use an odd form of healing magic. She would not disclose what had happened in the sphere or the nature of her powers under any circumstances, even under threat of death. No lifeforms reside anywhere near Naraka, sapient or otherwise.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

http://poal.me/tfze5m

>>128931

>>128934

Fucking redtext.

>>128949

I said "if" it violates the rules. I'll let Aux decide. There actually is a story reason for elves, orcs, and giants having males for their species whereas other MGs don't, but it's kind of a story spoiler about the lore of the universe and why monstergirls are a thing. I'll let it be known if it's really that big an issue.

If I'm coming off as a pussy, it's because I wanted to try something a bit different here but also didn't want to risk breaking the rules and looking like a special snowflake newfag who can't read the board rules.

>>128942

>2. The sex is exclusively vanilla and F/M.

Uh, there's femdom and maledom and bondage and fuck knows what else as stories.

Vanilla is very much not a requirement.

Anyway, voting Mictlan, this should be fun.

>>128942

Aw come on man, it's great

>>128944

Love the setting so far, monsterbros and all. I didn't expect there to be more than a basic linear story. Keep going!

>>128937

Looks like we're headed to Mictlan, at this rate.

>70C average temp

We better pack a lot of Cold Drinks. :^)

Even if this weren't our specific destination, before we go anywhere, we need to make sure we SERIOUSLY prepare for the environmental conditions. Based on the character descriptions I can see so far, the vast majority of our crew is vulnerable to unfavorable terrain conditions, and they'll be fucked up before they even see their first enemy. That skeleton guy will probably be the best suited to this excursion, the salamanders might be able to take the heat, but things with fur are going to cook in their own sweat. That frost giant is probably fucked too, not to mention the risk of disease. We'll need lots of ways to counter heat, poison, disease and exhaustion.

Preemptively speaking, our best bet might be to secure a set of ruins and convert them into a temporary hideout, then operate from there. Odds are, some enemies have done the same thing, however. That'll be the most likely time to have to fight.

Choosing where to go first was a a difficult decision, though it ultimately came down to the certainty of a return on my investment. Tartaros literally rained money but I was already fairly well-off enough to put it a bit lower on the priority list. Uffern and Jahanamm certainly looked interesting but what they offered was a bit vague, to say nothing of Naraka. Mictlan, unlike the rest, I knew for a fact had some rewards if you were well-prepared for the climate and wildlife, clever enough to get through traps, and strong enough to survive against vicious animals and monstergirls, all of which weren't too huge a concern for me. I turned to the group to announce my decision.

“Alright men, listen up. You're all here right now because you're the best of the best. For about a decade I've scoured the continents, gathering the best fighters I could find from about every walk of life. And I couldn't think of a better team to take with me to the heart of Mictlan,” most of the group approved of my choice, with a couple of calls for other countries I ignored. “Now, Ragnarök might promise power and wealth, but it'll also be the most unforgiving, hellish nightmare you've ever witnessed. So before we go, anyone wanna back out?” Not a single hand was raised, to my approval. “Good, we leave by noon tomorrow!” The crowd cheered and glasses clinked together as I turned to a bartender pouring me a giant cup of ale. The night from there was a bit of a blur. I remember me describing the night I took revenge on the elves that held me captive years ago, me barely losing to Khamsin in arm wrestling and paying for the broken counter, Yomi doing his stand-up routine and trying to suck the teat of a holstaur tavern wench, and stopping Ibuki from drinking us out of all our money.

The next morning was probably the worst headache I've ever experienced. My head's been pounded by a centaur hoof, but even that felt like a massage compared to the pressure in my skull. I moaned in pain and turned over, barely making out a blurry image of Mari getting closer to me. She touched my abdomen with a gloved palm and snapped her fingers with another gloved hand near it, generating a spark. The spark caused her palm to glow, giving me a shock and a surge of heat which coursed through my body. The pain was intense, feeling like a simultaneous fever, migraine, and thundershock. I cried out meekly, the only reply being Mari asking me to hold still. As she released her hand from me, the pain starting fading. For a second, I was about to sock her in the teeth, but then I started feeling… better. My hangover was fading. I was confused and a bit dazed, but my headache was starting to disappear.

“Did you… cure my hangover?” I was still a bit dizzy, but I managed to sit up and think straight. “How?”

The door was opened by broad, 6-and-a-half foot mountain of a man with grayed hair and light brown eyes. He spoke with a smug yet warm smile on his face “So how's the hangover, lad? Are you going to take my lessons on over-indulgence to heart now?

“Actually, I had that taken care of,” I pointed to Mari, Rupert turning his attention to the elf.

“Ah, so you are elf girl whom Skoll brought with him to the tavern last night,” Rupert lowered himself to speak with Mari, not unlike myself when I was younger. “I don't know how you cured Skoll, but my thanks regardless. May I know your name, young lady?” Rupert asked as he stretched out his hand.

Mari hesitated slightly, but smiled a little bit and placed her dainty hand on Rupert's comparatively massive paw. “Mari C. Ashera, N-nice to meet you, Mr…”

“Rupert Lionheart, the pleasure is mine,” he replied with politeness that seemed to surprise Mari. A moment that was quickly ended by Inari walking into the doorframe, stumbling slightly.

“Ow,” the kitsune rubbed her nose and then turned toward us, yawned, and began speaking. “Morning. I sent a message to Nephenee and the others like you said and they should be there around evening.”

“Great. Now can you handle the breakfast table? I'll take care of the rest,” I said, trying to focus on preparations for the journey.

“Skoll, I taught you better than that,” Inari remarked slyly. “Is that how you speak to a lady?”

Inari picked the wrong opponent to have a snark-off with. “Oh, how could I forget? Set up the breakfast table, and take the elf girl with you. And that's an order. From your boss.”

“Whatever you say, 'Mr. Indra',” Inari sneered as she turned to Mari. “Hey sweetie, what's your name?

“Mari,” she responded, the chipper in her voice I heard a few days ago seeming to be slowly returning.

Inari smiled slightly, her fondness of cute kids apparently extending to adolescent elves “Inari, famous enchantress of the Fenrir mercenaries and surrogate older sister to a meanie little brother,” she blew a raspberry to me before turning back to Mari. “Can you help me with a few chores?”

“O-okay,” Mari stuttered as usual, but seemed to respond positively to Inari's request.

“Hey, just be careful around the others. Not everyone is as nice as these two,” giving Mari a warning before they left.

Rupert began as soon as the door closed. “So, was what I heard last night the whole truth? That you only 'enslaved' this girl as a compromise between not harming a girl and not leaving witnesses?”

I groaned, knowing I couldn't lie to Rupert. “Gonna be straight with you, part of the reason I kidnapped her is because I thought it'd make me feel good to give a knife-ear a taste of their own medicine. Started out alright, but then she went silent and started crying and I felt like shit.”

“The fact that you recognized the wrong you did means there's hope for you yet,” Rupert said, as usual always trying to see the best in people. “Don't think this old man has gone senile and forgotten the time when you were a boy,” Rupert began pacing, repeating another one of his stories. “When I was booted from the order at a time of seemingly insurmountable challenge, I lost my faith and even my boundless optimism. But seeing such bitterness and anger born from a life of misery from such a young lad saddened even me. But, strangely enough, that same boy was never cruel, never burdened others with his problems, and never lost the determined spark in his eyes. And with time, his love of what he gained surpassed his resentment over what he lost. I'd never seen anything quite like it,” He turned back to me with a look of fatherly pride on his face. “You've come a long way, Skoll, and you've grown into a strong young man I can say I'm proud to have guided, and to have been guided by. You still have some ways to go, but I'm confident you will pass this test from god.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” harsh as I tried to sound, I did smile a bit. “And 'test from god'? Look, this whole incident with Mari was just some dumb acci-”

“There are no accidents,” Rupert interrupted me with his mantra, confident that every coincidence was a sign from god himself. “Now, get ready. We are to leave at noon, by your orders no less.”

The morning was a hectic scramble of preparing for the trip to the southeast port town. By some miracle, I managed to get myself and the rest of the group ready and left by a little past noon. The trip would be about 6 hours on horseback, time filled by a rowdy skeleton trying to kill his boredom.

“So, what's the most painful thing for an elf woman using a needle as a dildo?” Yomi asked the troupe, barely able to contain his own laughter. “THE THICKNESS,” the mercs burst into laughter at the same time as Yomi. Mari looking down, trying to pretend she didn't her anything, but Yomi wouldn't have it. “Hey slave girl, did ya hear the joke?” Mari still didn't respond, much to Yomi's disappointment. “Ah, come on, grow a spine ya-”

“SIR, SIR!” A dragongirl called out from the sky. She dove down at blistering speeds to where I was, nearly crashing into me. “Sir, a skirmish is taking place a few kilometers to the east over those hills,” she pointed west, though I was used to the oddities of Ilia's reports by now. “Orc bandits are raiding a human village. They're being met with heavy resistance, but the village is losing ground.”

“Sand-dwelling brutes,” Khamsin scornfully remarked. “Giving Orcs a bad name in this country.”

“We should help them,” I heard Mari call out from the back. Everyone turned and looked at her with a mix of disdain and confusion, causing her to shrink back into her cloak along with her voice. “W-well, that is, if you want to, m-master.”

I had some mixed feelings about the prospect. On one hand, we had somewhere to be and people to meet up with, but it wouldn't feel right to leave a village on the losing end of a bandit raid. “Thanks Ilia, but I don't think we have the time. W-”

“I wasn't expecting you to let an elf display more empathy than you”, Rupert interrupted, cleverly exploiting my contempt for knife-ears. “Come now, Skoll. Such cowards would not stand a chance against even one of us, and surely the villagers would repay our kindness.”

Naturally, Yomi protested vocally “Oh come on, do us supersoldiers have to play hero every time we see someone in danger? They'll never learn to defend themselves like this. If we keep this up, the moment that we're not there to help them, they're not gonna stand a chance.”

Rupert sighed. “I will leave this to your judgment, Skoll. I will not begrudge you if you refuse, but I'd like you to at least consider for a second how you would feel if you were in those villagers' position.”

WHO SHOULD SKOLL LISTEN TO?

http://poal.me/cfeika

>>130685

Remove Orc

>>130685

HE LIVES

Participate in the time-honored mercenary tradition of Orc Removal

>3:2

Fuck, I don't want to write this shit only to find the numbers changed. Bumping for more votes.

>>130705

Remember to sage if you're a participant.

>>130685

Killing invading orcs is a time honored tradition. Passing it up would shame our forefathers and taint the legacy of our group.

Questions though, How many Dragons do we have in our group? They are a top tier monster and even one or two of them could easily change the tide of the battle. Orcs are outclassed by them in every department. I'd say we have them go give air support to the village guards. Have them set the orc lines ablaze and let the guards take advantage.

If thats not feasible then get the the whole group over there to slaughter everything

Question: Should I sage if not updating? And is namefagging recommended? Because other CYOAfags seem to do it. I don't think it's necessary though.

>>131090

In this verse, each race has it's own strengths and weaknesses, and most races can be stronk if they work towards it. For example, dragongirls have high strength, flight, and durability compared to humans, but humans have better endurance, dexterity, and throwing ability. There's also training you have to take into account. Even in a test of pure strength and/or durability, Skoll would obliterate an untrained dragongirl, just as Ilia would wreck an untrained human in tests of endurance or dexterity.

It's worth noting there are a few things that certain races can do or traits that they have not shared by any other, but that's unimportant for now.

>>131099 (checked)

I find namefagging helpful when I want to quickly discern if the person answering a question or posting an update is the OP or not. I can't remember ever seeing someone impersonate an OP to write part of a story, but I'm sure it's been done. I know I can just check the ID but the namefag is just more convenient.

As for saging, from the rules:

>If you are a participant and not the content creator of a CYOA then remember to sage.

Meaning, I assume, the OP is allowed to bump if he wants. Your call.

>>131004

my bad, i was on phone then sorry

>>130685

REMOVE ORC

As her gaze shifted to our banner, her pupils instantly dilated. She pointed to Khamsin and spoke.“You! Orc! Were you the one who killed Ahmed, great bandit of Hatimah?!” The name rang a bell for me, but Kahmsin remained silent. “I am Aisha, his sister, and I have heard his killer is an orc with a mark on his neck and a human master who works for mercenaries with a wolf banner! Do you not remember him?!”

“I can't be bothered to remember all the scum I've put to the sword. And the human leading us is my brother, not master.” Khamin replied.

“An orc that slaughters his own and considers a human his brother? Do you honestly think that humans would ever see you as anything other than a monster? Race traitor!” she sneered.

“Race traitor? The only race traitors I see here is a bunch of dune-dwelling barbarians whose atrocities make it so that humans think we're monsters. If anyone's betrayed our people, it's you and your group of savages.” Khamsin said, his usually vast patience clearly wearing thin.

The orc woman was taken aback for a moment, but her face soon contorted back to spite. She barked something in that orc language, one of her men coming out of the crowd in response. He was holding a tied-up wererabbit, his knife placed just under the terrified girl's throat. “Drop your weapons and surrender to us, or the girl's throat gets cut open!” she screamed, acting like I was going to humour her bullshit.

“Is that so? Well in that case, I've got the perfect solution,” I tilted my head skywards and brought my hand to my mouth. “ILIA! NOW!” The bandits all immediately looked up to see… an empty sky. The dipshits had fallen for my ruse, and after a few seconds of confusion, they looked back down to see their hostage gone and the hostage taker's throat split wide open. A human in his late teens with a thin but muscular build wearing assassin's gear appeared out of nowhere next to me, holding a bloodied dagger and a bound and gagged girl with bunny ears. He had droopy brown hair that covered deep red eyes, that contrasted his pale skin, the sign of a succubus mother. “Good work, Ardha” I said, to which he pulled his hood back on and murmured a thank you, as usual too modest and shy to receive any praise. At this point, any sane person would have realized that they were outmatched, but we were dealing with a vengeful idiot. She jumped on her boar and and drew her sword, her green skin now almost red with rage. She pointed her sword forward and screamed a command in that same language, charging with about 10 of her men following right behind her. I nodded to Khamsin, who got off his horse and walked slowly towards the charging boar, not bother to draw his mace or bow. As she charged with her blade barely upheld by her right hand, her face dawned a half-toothless grin, thoughts of vengeance and murderous glee written all over her face. With only a few meters separating them, Khamsin calmly shifted to her weaponless side and threw a hook punch to her boar's face. The impact from his fist shattered it's armour, crushed it's skull, and buckled it's knees. The boar collapsed, it's forward momentum and the force from the punch sent it crashing into a building to our side, tumbling over it's rider several times. The orcs travelling just behind her stopped in their tracks and gawked at Khamsin, looking like they just soiled themselves. Unexpectedly, Yomi then decided to jump off his horse and land in front of the bandits, turning to me to speak.

“So I know I wasn't supportive of this thing at first, but Khamsin looked like he was having fun,” Yomi said, turning back to the orcs. “So fellas, how we doing? Up for a bit of a scrap? Good, but just so you know, you guys don't look like you've got a lot of armor, and this baby here…” he gestured to the overly long nodachi strapped to his side. “Is pretty good at cutting down unarmoured folk.” They looked at each other, baffled for a moment, and then burst into laughter. They turned back to Yomi and charged at him, unaware that combat is the only context where he should be taken seriously. Yomi shrugged and sat on one knee, one bony hand gripping the hilt of his nodachi and the other grabbing the upper part of the sheath. Waiting until the bandits were half a foot from his face, Yomi drew his longsword at a speed even I could only barely see. Limbs, some still holding their weapons, flew in the air, with the now crippled orcs knocked on their backs by the force of the strike. They were still alive, but couldn't speak or get up from the shock of having their limbs sliced off faster than they could notice. Yomi spouted his usual tongue-in-cheek remark. “Whoa, you guys okay? You look like you could use a hand! Get it?” The muffled cries of traumatized orcs bleeding to death was the only response to his joke.

At that point, I'd thought I'd just let Yomi take care of the rest, but then I heard movement from where the bandit woman crashed. I turned to see her lifting the boar off of her and crawling out of the rubble. I got off my horse and walked towards her, wanting to finish her off myself. She looked scared at first, but started to grin smugly as I got close to her. “Oh, I see what you've done here. Very clever, human, hiring monsters to do your work for you while you reap the benefits. But you've made quite the error,” she coughed and lifted up her massive blade once again. “If you think a mere human man can challenge me!” she screamed as she swung her blade, her strike so slow my precognition felt like overkill. I casually caught her sword in my gauntlet, to the utter disbelief of the orc woman. I grinned as I grabbed the blade with my other hand and torqued it upwards, lifting her into the air. The face of that cruel and boisterous bandit leader was long gone, leaving only a terrified woman in full realization of the gravity of her mistake, her eyes wide with fear. Had that not been the look she gleefully spread across a village, I may have felt sympathy. Though to my surprise, she managed to speak “Don't… don't you dare…”

“Don't…. what? Please, say what you were going to say. By all means…,” I said, my tone brimming with sarcastic politeness. “Give me some ideas.”

“F-forgive me! Please! I'll never harm this village again!” she cried, still dangling on to the blade. Her cowardly attempt at pity failed miserably, only serving to make me more sickened.

“You should ask forgiveness from the people you've killed and the lives you've ruined,” I said, my voice losing it's smarmy tone in favour of contempt. “But seeing as how they can't come here, I'll gladly take you to them,” I moved the blade to my side and then swung it forwards, throwing her off of the hilt and into a wall. I flipped the blade over and grabbed the hilt, judging it's weight to be somewhere over 500 pounds. I walked to the orc woman, dazed from the impact and unable to move. I swung the blade, cutting her in half by the waist and destroying the wall behind her, her upper half flying for a bit before landing a few metres to my left. I turned away from the gory sight to look at the blade, ignoring the bits of entrails and blood it was covered in. The shape was weird, but otherwise the metalwork was superb, leaving me to wonder where these marauding dumbasses got it from. But even though I had the strength to wield it, a well-made lighter weapon would be a lot faster as a lot more useful in a fight. As far as I was concerned the blade was unless I needed to kill something incredibly tough but slow, but I kept it as a trophy of sorts. I looked back up to see the rest of the bandits, screaming and running from the village. Having little intention of letting them follow through with that, I turned to Inari. “Inari, g-”

“Way ahead of you,” she said, generating a small glowing sphere in her hand. With a flick of her wrist she launched the spell in an arc, hitting the centre of the escaping bandits and detonating a fiery explosion that engulfed them. The kitsune turned to me to speak, smiling smugly “Good enough for you, sir?” her question was met by a simple nod from me, to her displeasure and childish whining. “A nod is all I get?! Oh come on! I worked on that spell for ages!” I was preoccupied with other things.

“Scour the village for any bandits that might still be in here and get rid of them! Find any villagers who might need help! Fliers, get an aerial visual for any reinforcements or survivors!” I commanded. The group split across the village and into the air, leaving Mari siting on her horse bewildered before Rupert gestured her to come with him. I turned back to Ardha and the now free bunnygirl, walking up to her and lowering myself to her height to speak with her like Rupert did with me as a kid. Her dress was tattered and her face stained with tears, but to my relief she was unharmed. “Hey sweetheart, what's your name?” I said, a superhuman warrior who just split an bandit in half with over 500 pounds of forged steel trying his best to appear unthreatening to a small child.

To my surprise, she managed to speak. “Almi…”

I gave her a pat on the head and smiled. “I'm Skoll. Would you mind helping me tell the people inside the church what's going on?” I asked, Almi sniffling and nodding nervously in response. I walked to the front of the church and kicked the doors open, shattering the barricade. I was greeted by an overweight preacher rushing towards me, broadsword in hand, screaming for his daughter. I grabbed his weapon and ripped it from his hands, his momentary shock giving me enough time to get a word in. “Almi, right?” I asked, the man's eyes widening in response. I moved to the side to show Almi, who let out a scream and ran towards to the preacher at the sight of him, jumping into his arms. I walked into the church and called out to the villagers sheltered inside “Alright folks, bandits are gone. You can come out now.” A few hundred people came rushing out at once, among them a wererabbit holding an infant who came to join Almi and her father. I walked back out to see them working with the rest of troupe to help the injured and reuniting with their families. It took us the better part of an hour to get people out of hiding and heal injured survivors, only a few suffering permanent injury. Though for all those we did manage to save, the cries of families who found their loved ones among the dead a grim reminder of how late we were. While everyone else was recieving thanks from the villagers and having lunch, I walked inside the church to speak with the preacher. He sat in the first row, eyes closed and hands clasped in prayer. He finished after a minute, turning around to see me, a warm smile on his face.

“Skoll Indra, The Gray Thunder of Roma, I take it? I've heard some interesting stories about you from some friends in the order,” the preacher said, calling me by the nickname I earned in the war a few years ago. “They described a stubborn young mercenary leader, his eyes an eerie shade of blue and his strength inhuman, some claiming him to be a demon. But, to my surprise, this alleged demon turned out to be a guardian angel. I can't thank you enough for what you've done for us.”

“Not sure about angel, but I do what I can,” I said, gushing slightly. “Look, we have to leave pretty soon, but I imagine in a village as remote as this you don't have a lot of protection from the kingdom. A few of my men just got done with a mission in the Ottoma desert, so I can offer you my company's services. I can provide a few months free while you rebuild.”

“It feels wrong to take even more from you, Mr. Indra, but at this time I must accept your offer. Thank you again for your generosity. Oh, and my apologies for attacking you earlier,” the preacher said, smiling awkwardly. From there we had a quick conversation discussing the protection the people here would receive and how much he'd have to pay after the first few months. After striking a deal and saying out goodbyes I got up, ready to leave, but the sight of a strange book in a pile next to the preacher stopped me in my tracks. The tome was green and looked thick enough to crack a wurm's skull. The title read 'Alchemy: Exploring Applications in Medicine, Environmental Science, Physical Chemistry, Biochemistry, Magic, and Other Fields', and had weird drawings of spheres held together by sticks, circles covered by rings with dots in them, and transmutation circles.

“Say, what's that book with the circles on it? Can I have a look at it?” I said, pointing to the book.

“That? Oh, that's just an alchemy book I once bought for the school. Though it turned out to be a little too advanced for the kids, or me for that matter,” he said, handing me the book and scratching the back of his head. I opened it up to see paragraphs filled with words I've never seen before and a drawing of a blob made of other blobs made of even more blobs, the words underneath it reading 'Fig 16-65: Cells, the basic building block of all life'. I sat there for a minute, the most retarded I'd ever felt in my life, wondering just how the hell I could be made out of tiny blobs made out smaller blobs. I looked back up to the preacher, trying and failing to hide his amusement at my confounded expression as he spoke. “Keep it. It is a modest repayment for all you've done, but I hope it serves you well.”

“Thanks. Good luck with everything,” I said as I took the book, hoping the preacher would feel like he at least tried to reciprocate the kindness shown to him. I shook his hand and walked back out to the church to see Mari standing right outside, pulling down on her hood to hide her ears as usual.

“Um… everyone is ready to go, master. I had to help the healers for a bit but I got everything packed while everyone was eating,” Mari said, looking slightly distracted.

“Alright, let's get going then.” I responded, walking past Mari to meet with the others. As I walked, I sensed that there was somone was staring at me intently. I turned my head to see Mari staring at the tome I was holding. “What is it?”

“Is that an alchemy textbook?” Mari said, pointing to the tome I held in my hands.

“Do you want it?” I asked as I held up the book, Mari smiling hopefully and nodding in response. I didn't really know what to do at that point. On one hand, she'd been doing decent work, cured my hangover, and nobody else seemed to have a use for the book. On the other hand, giving to her could prove to be dangerous. If she could already manipulate body fluids with that alchemy of hers, who knows what the hell else she could do if she got more know-how? She was hardly a threat, but if she got close somehow she could destroy all those little blobs in my body with a snap of her finger. Granted if she wanted to kill I imagine she could have just done the reverse of what she did this morning and given me liver poisoning, but could I really trust a knife-ear?

SHOULD SKOLL GIVE MARI HER NERD MANUAL?

http://poal.me/jmy4v9

>trusting an elf with anything

THEIR EARS ARE LIKE KNIVES, TO CUT YOUR PURSE!

>>134276

>trusting an elf with anything

THEIR EARS ARE LIKE KNIVES, TO CUT YOUR PURSE!

>>134282

>>134283

fuckin' hotwheels

>>134276

She can have the book, but not without a bit of bullying about how big a nerd she is

Also should only let her study under supervision from someone in our troupe with knowledge of alchemy so we know she's not teaching herself anything dangerous.

Fuck, forgot to mention. If you're wondering what Skoll meant by precognition, it'll all make sense soon.

And it looks like we're going the bully route i.e. best route. Expect something a little over a week from now.

>>134275

Sure, why not.

We're going to need all the skill we can get in ragnarok.

Work out of the way now so an update should be coming fairly soon. Frequency will increase too.

>>139361

Appreciate your readership, but try to sage if you're not OP in CYOAs. Rules and whatnot.

>>139366

Yeah, I realised just too late. My bad.

After weeks of grating delay due to irl forces, we're back

I ultimately decided against my better judgement to let her have it. Mari didn't seem like the malicious type, and she might as well have something to keep her busy when she wasn't working. But I'd be damned if I wasn't gonna have some fun with it first.

“Alright, you can have the book, if you can take it from my hand,” I said, holding the book in the air.

Her response to my challenge was one of the funniest things I'd seen in my life. A delicate knife-ear girl standing at about 5 and a half feet tall, approaching midget territory by elf standards, trying to steal a book from a six foot, muscle-bound human man. Mari desperately dived for the book, only for it to be pulled out of her reach at the last moment.

“NERD!” I cried every time she fell, barely managing to form the word between my gut-busting laughter. For a second I thought it was cute, like a kitten playing with a string, but I quickly swatted thoughts of comparing an elf to something cute out of my head. After the better part of 10 minutes, I decided to move on.

“What, can't you grab the book? Don't you want it?,” I said, my laughter gone but a grin on my face so wide I could make out with a sharkwoman and not get my lips lacerated like last time. Mari shook her head up and down even harder than before, shaking off some of the dirt on her face.

“Well, if you want it so much…,” I said as I drew my axe, the finely whittled edge glistening in the sun. “Touch the blade of this axe. Just give yourself a little papercut.”

She looked scared, but she approached closer. To my surprise, she place her index finger on my axe and gave herself a small cut, whimpering from pain. Funny as it may have been, I was almost impressed. Magical beings hate iron, elves being semi-magical are a bit weak to it themselves, but Mari was willing to cut herself over damascus steel for a book. With that, I decided to put an end to my shenanigans, but not without testing something out.

“Okay, I've had my fun. I'll let you have it, but only if you say 'I'm a dork and I admit that…” I paused for a moment, saving the best words for last like the best part of a meal. “Humans are better than elves”

“I'm a dork and I admit that humans are better than elves,” Mari said, her voice free of hesitation.

I was stunned for a moment, unsure of what I just heard. I've held my axe to the throats of elves, telling them I'd spare them if they said elves were inferior to humans. All of them chose death. And yet here was this knife-ear girl who didn't even hesitate to say it for the sake of a book. It was so easy it was almost unsatisfying. I reluctantly held the book out, somehow feeling a little cheated. She took the book from my hand and opened it immediately, her eyes moving rapidly and ablaze with wonder and she looked at the pages. She shut it and turned her head up to me, a bright smile on her face.

“Thanks, master!” she said, acting as if I'd just given it to her as a present. I wondered for a moment whether she might have been used to this treatment.

“Let's get going then,” I said, turning my back to Mari and walking back to where the others were. As I walked, I heard her humming a happy tune behind me. Normally I would've just assumed she was the retard of the group, but the fact that she seemed have some idea what was in that book made me think there was something else not quite right with her.

Exiting the village, I made my way to where the others were, impatiently waiting for our departure . At the front of the pack, Khamsin and Inari were talking, Inari smiling smugly and Khamsin looking to be some mix of confused and disgusted. Khamsin eyes drifted from the conversation and towards me, his face lightening up a bit once he saw me.

“There he is,” Khamsin said, gesturing to the others my location. “What kept you, Skoll?”

“Just had to work some stuff out with preacher,” I said. “We're gonna offer this place a few months of free protection. Hopefully enough time to recover.”

“Tsk, that danukike isn't going to be too happy about that,” Khamsin said, talking about our company's financial manager, a clever young danuki I saved from being shipped off to an elven camp years ago.

“Come now, Khamsin. Anne may be a bit… frugal, but she's not without charity,” Rupert said, moving his horse next to Khamsin's. “We've done well here. Now let's not keep the others waiting any longer.”

“Right,” I said, climbing onto my horse. Behind me, Inari helped Mari on to her horse, proceeding to make light conversation with her that I didn't care enough to listen to. I gave the signal to move out, continuing our journey to the port town, some villagers waving us goodbye as we left.

After a few hours and Yomi getting up to his 206th skeleton joke, we arrived at the port town just before sundown. The town was thrice as large as the village, 5 times as populated, and infinitely less inviting. Entering from the front, we were greeted by a worn-down and unreadable sign hanging over a town that almost seemed to be painted a sickly yellow. It was a pretty lively place, in the same sense you'd call a rotting corpse covered in maggots, flies, mold, and disease lively. Poorly-made houses made of cracked stone lined cobblestone streets littered with garbage, horse dung, and dead fish. Tired looking fishermen dragged their undersized haul back to their homes, looking at least somewhat better than the streetcleaners, their tired indifference to their work being ruined by passers-by and carriages both hilarious and saddening. Sleazy-looking salesmen were fighting with hookers and beggars of various species over the best corners to swindle money from visitors. Shops selling less-than-appealing food and overpriced souvenirs were being eyed by wannabe thieves lurking in dark alleyways. I felt sorry for the unlucky schmuck that was born blind here, cause the only thing worse than the look of the city was the sound and smell. A revolting scent of shit, semen, decay, and blood fit in nicely with the ambiance of violent street brawls, the cries of hungry kids and desperate mothers, the moans of the sick and back-alley whores, and the wet squishing noise our horse's hooves made with the various piles of decaying fish and horse dung. At least I hoped it was horse's dung. A cesspit of misery, degeneracy, and filth festering in the corpse of what was probably once a better time. A place I wouldn't have bothered with had it not been the fastest way to get to Ragnarök.

“Bang-up job you've done with this country, Nero,” I muttered under my breath, my fists clenching at the thought of that spoiled, incompetent fuckwit of an Emperor.

It took us a few minutes to reach the town's center, which served as a dock for larger ships and ferries crossing the sea. The streets here were cleaner and the buildings better constructed, almost like this shithole town was trying to give it's best impression for seafaring visitors. Lipstick on a pig, but at least it smelled better. Turning to the left, a giant tent with our banner next to it's entrance was erected, surrounded by bored-looking soldiers who stood straight as I approached like I wouldn't notice. In front of the tent was a 12 foot ogre woman, saluting me and beginning to speak as I approached.

“Greetings Mr. Indra, how w-”

“Skip the formalities, soldier, I'm on a bit of a tight schedule here,” I said, the ogre quickly moving out of the way and opening the tent for me.

I turned back to the others “Khamsin, Rupert, Inari, Ardha, Athena, Leif, come with me. Ilia, watch the girl,” I ordered, Ilia nodding and turned to watch Mari, hey eyes glued to the tome. “The rest of you stay within the area and don't do anything stupid. That means no drinking until I come back, Ibuki.” The oni frowned, but lowered her head and gave me a weak nod.

I entered the tent with the others following behind me, the inside of the tent relatively empty save for a few people gathered around a but meticulously organized table. Among them was a tense anubis biting her nails and staring at a schedule, a teenaged danuki lost in a book, a young blonde centauress staring at her sabre, and an orc in a dark mage's cloak and turban locked in a trance. I cleared my throat loudly, the four of them snapping back to reality and sitting straight.

“Apologies for the lateness, there was a holdup on the way,” I said. “Let's get this overwith, then”

The next few hours comprised of the most boring parts of the job. Signing forms, listening to Anne's bookkeeping reports, organizing a few thousand troops, ordering new equipment, discussing political occurrences that may effect us. More importantly, however, was planning for out trip to Ragnarök. Mictlan wouldn't take more than a few months if we did well, but all of Ragnarök might take up to three years. I had to be able to maintain contact with the rest of the company and have an way out of there in case something went wrong here that these guys couldn't handle themselves.

“Alright, that's about everything, right?” I said, Anne smiling and giving me a thumbs up in response, prompting a sigh of relief from all of us. I turned my attention to the centaur and the orc. “Nephenee, Omar, I'm leaving this company in your hands while I'm gone. I trust you'll do well in my absence, but should something major break out in this country you know how to get in contact with me.” My gaze shifted to the anubis “Ibis, good work on getting the ship in this quickly on such short notice. When can we expect supplies for our trip?”

“Most general supplies have already been loaded on to the ship, Ibis said as she pushed up her glasses back up. “And I've heard some talk amongst the group and you about going to Ragnarök before, so I stockpiled supplies necessary for some of the harsh environments a while ago. They should be on the ship, arriving in the afternoon tomorrow.” I was stupefied by how quickly and handily she set this up.

“Impressive. Anne, give her a raise. Five percent,” I said, Anne rolled her eyes and muttered an oy vey under her breath while she opened one of her books and grabbed her pen to make an edit, much to Ibis' delight. I turned to Leif, the 12 foot giant's head scraping the roof. “So Leif, excited to sail again?”

“Aye, cap'n!” the giant said, his eyes glistening and grin spreading from ear to ear.

“Um… sir?” Ardha spoke up, looking worried. “It's a fair bit past dusk now, we should be heading out.”

“Right,” I said, getting up from my seat and turning back to the others. “So, good luck with everything. Oh, and by the way…” I paused, a small smile stretching across my face. “If this continent can give me half the power it promises, I'm planning something big for when I come back. Just a heads up.”

Leaving everyone confused by my ambiguous statement, I walked back out of the tent to see my troupe doing anything to kill their boredom. Ibuki was looking longingly at a tavern across town, Qinq and Bai were playing mahjong, and Ilia tried to keep herself awake while diligently watching Mari, who was lost in her alchemy tome. But before I could call out to them, I noticed another tent next to far from ours. A banner stood outside it, a white flag displaying a gold leviathan curled in a circle, eating it's tail. The banner of the Jormungundr mercenaries, a Hellena-based company and our biggest rivals. I sensed a strong presence to the side, turning to see a figure in the shadows walking towards me.

“Skoll, is that you?” said the figure, it's voice deep but nasally and smug. “Damn, I haven't seen you in a while. What are you doing in this shithole? Off to Ragnarök like us? Small world.”

The figure stepped into the light, revealing himself as a knife-ear. He stood 9 feet tall, his tattooed torso unnaturally muscular for an elf, a sure sign he wasn't pure-blooded. He had snake-like facial features, a small hooked nose, wild blond hair, and green eyes with serpentine pupils. He wore his usual demented smirk, stretching out his scars near his mouth. I recognized him as Zahak Jocasta, leader of the Jormungudr mercenaries, 'The Golden Tyrant' of Helena, and the biggest dickwad I've ever had the displeasure of knowing.

“Well if it isn't Psychobitch McBabyeater,” I said, my voice brimming with sardonic contempt. “Love to chat, but I'm a busy man. That, and I've think I've seen enough pieces of shit today.”

“Hey, is that any way of speaking to a friend? Or did you forget the last time you insulted me?” Zahak said, sounding reminiscent of that three-day fight years ago we nearly died from. “I admit you held out for a while, but let's not kid ourselves. If your friends here didn't bail you out, you'd be a dead man.” I wasn't dumb enough to fall for his taunting, but unfortunately, someone else was.

“Bullshit!” Athena shouted from behind me, pointing to the egomaniac knife-ear. “After I was done kicking the ass of that wurm girlfriend of yours, I found you and Skoll in a destroyed fortress,” Athena continued her taunting. “Skoll might've been roughed up, but you had a chakram lodged in your chest! You would've bled out if your crew didn't drag you out of there while you were crying like a bitch!”

Zahak's grin twisted into a frown as he started to shake with rage. “So, you were the one that killed her, hm?” he said as he walked closer, his hand reaching for his rapier.

“Hell yeah I did, and th, -” Athena was cut off by Khamsin covering her mouth and pulling her back, Athena struggling. I cut in front of Zahak, stopping his advance and refocusing his angry gaze on me.

“Look, as much as I hate to miss the opportunity to tear you a new asshole to match the one I gave you last time, I don't have the time for your shit today” I said, staring him down. “But since you're so eager to get your skull split in half, I'll cut you a deal. Since we're both going to Ragnarök, why don't we settle things there? Hopefully you can toughen up enough to last more than five minutes with me.”

“You're on, then. I'm off to Tartaros, so assuming you don't pussy out, I'll find a nice rock I can carve your tombstone on,” Zahak said, snickering as he turned around and started to walk away, only to stop a moment later. “Oh, and before I go, I thought I'd tell you something. Apparently, a few days ago, there was an attack on an elf village by some sort of humanoid beast. Too fast to see, strong enough to crush skulls barehanded, nothing seemed to faze him. Funny thing is though…” he turned his head around, smiling slyly. “He only really showed interest in killing slavers and soldiers. Sorry excuse for a monster, eh?” Zahak said, giggling to himself madly as his exit.

As relieved as I was that I managed to deescalate the situation, Zahak still managed to unnerve me. Not by his shit-talking, but by reminding me of his deranged cruelty during the human-elf wars. I hated knife-ears with the marrow of my bone, but even I was horrified by what his former soldiers once told about what he did to elf captives. Once his trouped got hold of a settlement, he usually ordered his men to leave for someplace else so he and some of his more twisted soldiers could have their fun. He started out by testing out slow-acting spells on the kids he hadn't already burned alive by torching their houses. He moved on to the women next, him and his troupe getting to have their way with them before they let join their kids. He'd save the for last, not torturing them physically but mocking them for being too weak to protect their wives and children. Why he reserved this for elves alone and why someone would follow such a revolting shitstain I don't know. His insanity alone made peace negotiations impossible until Hellena had to fire the Jormungundr mercenaries. At that point the war raged for 20 years, costing almost a million lives on both sides and damaging relations between Hellena and Roma so badly it led to a civil war years later. There are some rumors in the country calling me some sort of demon, but I've never heard the same thing about Zahak. I imagine the comparison would be unflattering to demons.

After Zahak left, I turned to Athena, still being held back by Khamsin. I gestured to Khamsin to put her down, releasing her from his grip at my order. Athena turned around to scold Khamsin, but I grabbed her shoulder and turned her to me, intending to knock some sense into her.

“Just what the hell did you think you were doing?!” I said, my voice seething with rage born of worry.

Athena shrank back, raising her hand to begin her retort. “B-but he wa-”

“I DON'T CARE WHAT HE DID!” I screamed, cutting Athena off mid-sentence. “Do you have any idea of what that fucking psycho is capable of?! Do you think I'd want you to get yourself killed over some dumb rivalry?!” The volume of my voice dying down but retaining an authoritative tone. “Now, unless I give you the order or someone's life is at stake, I don't want you starting or escalating any fights. Control your god damned temper. Understand?”

There was a short, awkward pause before Athena responded “Yes, boss. It won't happen again,” she said, head hanging low and the her tail burning weakly.

Part of me felt like I was too hard on her, but better I be too strict than be too lenient and let Athena's recklessness get her killed. It'd be failing as a leader and letting a member of my family die, one whose feelings for me I was aware extended beyond the familial comrade our group shared. Luckily, Ibis' lack of social awareness helped break the tense moment.

“Um… pardon the interruption sir” Ibis said, coming from the tent. “But I forgot to mention. At your request, we brought some of the more useful items from your armory here to take with you on your journey. Please, follow me,” the anubis said, gesturing me to follow her.

I walked with her through the crowd of bored-looking mercenaries to a small caravan carrying a heavily reinforced box with a locked door. Ibis took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, opening to revealing a plethora of weapons and armor. It'd still be a bit before we reached there, but it was good to plan ahead. I looked at my armory, deciding what I'd take when we reached Mictlan.

Author's note: Charms and curses are known forms as “mortal magic”, which unlike nature magic has does not have an aversion to man-made metal (magical beings hate iron/steel/refined metal, elves are weak to it themselves) and can be used for enchantment. Charms “add” things while curses “remove” things, and therefore have different applications. More exposition of magic and the like soon. Skoll by default has some survival equipment (a flint, first-aid kits etc.), a large hunting knife, flashbangs, and some whetstones.

Main Weapon – The go-to weapon for typical combat scenarios

Vajra – Skoll's favourite weapon, a well-forged, heavy, and almost meter-long axe with a 4 inch spike at the top. Strong, fast, and durable, but not the best in each category and has less utility and versatility than the other weapons. It has an lightning charm that electrocutes any opponent it makes contact with unless they are protected by or made of an electric insulator.

Skofnung – A large viking sword that can wielded with one hand or two, modified to be longer and have a larger hilt. The weakest in terms of sheer force, but also the fastest and capable of advanced techniques like half-swording. Though all iron/steel weapons are the weakness of all magical foes, iron extracted and forged in the north like this one are especially deadly to them. Fire curse (cold, basically) drains heat from targets and does bonus damage to ectotherm (mostly reptilian) enemies, and extended contact (i.e. stabbing your opponent and keeping the sword in place) can freeze opponents solid.

Murometz – A simple but deadly mace, offering the most power and durability at the cost of being the slowest weapon. Has a sol curse that drains some of the target's energy and willpower upon a strike and give it to the wielder, increasing their stamina.

Tonbogiri – A Yari, more defensive than the other weapons here, but nonetheless strong. Mostly used for stabbing from a distance, with slashing possible but noticeably weaker than the sword or axe unless the weapon is 2-handed. Can be thrown for a very powerful strike, but will damage the weapon at least slightly (keeping in mind repair items may not always be available). It's wind charm adds the force of a gale to your strikes and upon a strong stab can force the air from a target's lungs.

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/a93pop

Offhand – Pick from one of three shields, or go two-handed. Keep in mind that even with superhuman strength, heavier shields will still be less mobile, which is a problem if Skoll's opponent is at the very least appreciably close to his strength (i.e. most of Ragnarok).

Aspis – The strongest, largest, and heaviest shield here. Though the least mobile, it provides the best defense and delivers the strongest shield bash. Has a light curse that makes it harder for sight-dependent foes to target anything but the shield (the light of their eyes “focuses” onto the shield) and temporarily blinds opponents that Skoll bashes it with.

Targe – A smaller, round shield with a spike in the middle, the best option for charging. Weaker and smaller than the aspis, but more mobile due to it's lighter weight. Due to being made out of materials other than metal, it also doesn't conduct electricity like the other shields here. Has a water charm that causes metal that hits it to rust after a few strikes and/or extended contact and protects the shield from rust and rot.

Dhal – The smallest shield, but actually slightly more durable than the targe. Though it provides the least amount of cover, it's mobility makes it the best option for quick parrying. Dark curse makes it so that weapons that it parries (not blocks, parries) become lighter for the moment of contact. This both makes the strike easier to parry while still making the opponent suffer the full momentum of the knockback caused by the weapon's original weight.

Two handed – Forgo a defensive option for two-handing the primary weapon, with which Skoll's retard strength will wreck shit. It naturally offers a bit more flexibility that comes with a free hand including, but not limited to, drawing throwing and tertiary weapons faster. The obvious downside the lack of any protection, and trying to parry with a weapon is less effective than a shield and degrades it's sharpness.

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/gnmecp

Armor – Skoll's regular armor is unavailable due to the possibility of it being damaged by Mictlan's environment. Thankfully, Khamsin and a few other blacksmiths have made Skoll a few armor sets from various monstrosities he's slain and carved materials from monster hunter-style.

Wyvernscale – The heaviest armor available. Provides the best defense, but is the least flexible and makes the most noise (stealth is not an option). Most protection against impact but weak to slashing. Resists flame but conducts electricity. Sol charm along with the armor's poor heat conduction makes the wearer incredibly resistant to heat, so as long as it doesn't suffer significant damage or holes the wearer can safely walk through an inferno and even maintain contact with lava for a short period.

Exoskeleton – Armor made from the massive arthropod (i.e. spiders, insects, and crustaceans) monsters and materials sold by arthropod monstergirls, it has decent resilience and requires little upkeep. Resistant to slashing but provides little defense to puncturing (i.e. arrows and weapons capable of stabbing). Doesn't conduct electricity but weak to flame. Ter​ra curse makes the wearer resistant to poison/pathogens and prevents the armor from getting damaged by natural elements.

Tribal – The most freeform armor, made from refined beast pelts. Least overall physical defense, but good all around elemental resistance and is the most mobile. Resistant against puncturing but provides little protection against impact. This set makes for great camouflage, boots concealing the wearer's footsteps and not making much noise itself, as well as coming with dark war paint. Parts are easily removable/detachable, useful for things like cleaning and/or going shirtless so lizardgirls can gawk and think lewd thoughts at the sight of Skoll's /fit/ness (no homo). Luna curse gives the user the ability to see in the dark and invisible foes as well as improved swimming ability.

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/ysqsxm

Throwing weapons – Because humans deserve to be more than just the guys who are average at everything, Skoll has mastered the oft-unappreciated trait of humans by being the best in the group with throwing weapons.

Tomahawk – A throwing axe, the most powerful but requires the most precision. Comes with a wind curse, rendering it unaffected by air resistance and low-medium speed wind, the smooth flight ensuring the longest flight distance, fastest speed, and most powerful strike of the three.

Kpinga – An oddly-shaped but deadly throwing knife, it's size making it the slowest but the most forgiving accuracy-wise, and can even curve if thrown well. While not as powerful as the tomahawk or as precise as the chakram, the multitude of blades on this weapon (seriously, look it up, it is muh dick: the weapon, and it is glorious) can cause horrendous damage if all of them connect. It bears a Terra charm, accelerating the growth of life on anything it hits. Which basically means that wounds caused by this weapon are guaranteed to rot or get infected if not closed/treated immediately.

Chakram – A small, sharp, and aerodynamic ring that can easily rip through soft flesh and leather. Though it won't be hitting through armor anytime soon, the design let's it bounce off solid surfaces, allowing a skilled user to make an indirect but precise strike. Solid surfaces include armor and bone, meaning a single chakram can potentially bounce between and kill a small group if thrown well. It's water curse causes whatever it hits to lose moisture, increasing the severity of bleeding and making it difficult for tissues to heal under normal circumstances.

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/z9ybyy

Tertiary – An extra weapon that offers decent backup/utility

Scissor Katar – A punch dagger with blades on both sides of the main spade, not unlike a sai, which allow the user to parry strikes and disarm opponents (will not work on bludgeoning weapons). It eats through chainmail and light armor like a hot knife through butter and does a number on heavier armor, the only disadvantage being the short range. Has a light enchantment that does bonus damage to undead/spooky opponents and causes radiation poisoning with a strong enough strike.

Yumi – A strongly built bow taller than Skoll is, with large and heavy arrows. It has a much greater range than the throwing weapons, but Skoll is less accurate with it and is only stronger than them at long range. The main weakness is the time it takes to draw and put away as well as the bow being a bit on the fragile side. It's darkness charm causes whatever it hits to increase in weight, slowing down opponents, grounding fliers in 1-3 hits, and can cause particularly large opponents to collapse under their own weight. Pulling the arrow out removes the effect.

Atgeir – A glaive crossed with a quarterstaff and a hammer, a difficult-to-use but powerful weapon. A staff with a bladed end and a bludgeoning end, requiring the user to perform a complex “dance” to make use of both sides as well as the staff, the fluidity difficult to maintain but will provide agility as well as powerful offense. It has an lightning curse that can drag out any polar or magnetic substance from what it strikes and if possible can use it to repair itself. In combat this amount to draining iron from weapons/armor and draining iron, ions, and water from blood and flesh, making it by far the edgiest fucking weapon here. Though Skoll is fairly adept at the weapon, due to the weapon needing to be 2-handed as well as not being reliable enough to be a primary weapon, it is in the tertiary section.

Nothing – Two primary weapons: Skoll will not take any of these weapons in favor of taking the two most popular primary weapons

Nothing – Two throwing weapons: Skoll will not take any of these weapons in favor of taking the two most popular throwing weapons

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/z4lscg

Bump for a few more votes and to get the polls to be a little less close. Remember to vote in each of the polls.

Update coming Friday-Saturday.

COMING BACK NEARLY A WHOLE FUCKING WEEK LATE, HERE IT IS sorry guys, lost some work and did a little rewriting as well as some unexpected shit, but I hope you enjoy.

It was a touch choice, but it ultimately came down to being able to travel lightly. My exoskeleton armor wasn't light but it wasn't too heavy either, and the poison resistance could come in handy. My sword, Dhal, Katar, and Chakram were the easiest to carry around with me. I turned back to Ibis to speak.

“Good work, Ibis,” I said to the anubis. “How did you get this set up so quickly anyhow?”

“Yeah, how did you?” Khamsin said, approaching from behind us. “I thought we'd have to wait a day more at the very least, but you seem to have this worked out all pretty conveniently,” he said, his look discerning and tone suspicious.

“…Admittedly, it was a bit of a hassle, but I'd prepared ahead of time Always prepared for any event,” Ibis said, sounding a bit nervous at Khamsin's questioning.

Khamsin's brow furrowed, clearly unhappy with the answer, but after hours of travel and a meeting he was tired enough to be easily convinced. “Good enough, I guess…,” he said, turning to me. “Let's pack it in for today. It's already dark and everyone's bored out of their minds,” Khamsin said, gesturing to the soldiers who were either half-asleep or were distracted by something else.

I turned to the weary soldiers, clearing my throat before speaking. “LISTEN UP!” I shouted, the distracted soldiers. hastily scrambling back in to an attentive position at my command. “Those of you who came with Ibis and her group will stay with them and escort them to their next location. Nephenee and Omar are in charge until I get back, so you follow their orders while I'm gone. Those who came with me or requested to come with us to Ragnarök will stay here in the inn overnight. The ship will be here by noon tomorrow, so get your things ready before then. We're not going to delay the trip because somebody forgot something important,” I said while my eyes scanned the crowd, only to find a pair of Zhouan twins lost in a game of mahjong. A short, mellow man in a white robe and a tall, stern-looking white jinko in a black robe. “QING! BAI!” The twins directed their attention towards me at my scream, their squinted eyes widening from the realization of their fuck-up, and promptly sprang up to stand.

I decided to overlook it in favor of continuing. “For those staying, I have no doubt that you'll do me proud and I wish you the best of luck. For those coming with us to Ragnarök, well…” I paused for a moment, trying to find the right words in spite of my poor speech-making skills. “To put it lightly, luck isn't going to save you. I'd call it a hellhole, but from what I've heard of hell, it's still some ways from being as brutal as Ragnarök. There isn't a single thing in that continent that doesn't want you dead. Animals, plants, horrifying abominations we can barely comprehend, the land itself,” I said, not sure whether the lack of response from my soldier's was a sign of their courage or more proof that I had the formal speaking abilities of a retarded toddler. I decided to cut my speech short to save time and me from possible embarrassment. “Bottom line, it's a shitty place, but we'll get stronger and get cool shit if we succeed. Who wants in?!” I asked, my offer met with thunderous cheering and raised weapons from the crowd. “Good! You all have your orders, now move it! We're burning moonlight!”

At my command, a few hundred troops followed me into the central district. Despite everyone having to share the same room with several other people, we managed to get just about everyone lodging at a few of the better inns in town thanks to most of the innkeepers being scared shitless of me. I didn't like using my reputation for haggling, but I made an exception so my troupe wouldn't have to bunker with cockroaches. It was a little past midnight by the time I finished booking and paying for our lodging, the last innkeeper hesitantly putting several keys in my bag while avoiding eye contact. I rolled my eyes and muttered a thank you under my breath, turning around to see Khamsin walking towards me.

“You're looking a bit tired,” he said, walking up and taking the bag of keys from me.

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “Careful, your eyeballs might drop into those bags you got under 'em.”

My comment prompted a small chuckle from him before he continued. “Well, either way, how about you let me handle everything else?,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You should get some sleep. We can't do much if our leader is too tired to think straight.”

Normally I would've protested, but my lack of decent sleep for a few nights made persuading me a bit easier. “If you're feeling up to it, I guess. If you need me, I'll be in room 9. You and Leif are bunking with me,” I said, yawning as I turned to get to my room.

I walked down the hallway, taking the time to notice how much better it looked than the other buildings in the town. The walls were made from solid oak, small carvings of ships sailing across wooden tidal waves etched near the bottom. The hallway was draped with red carpeting on the floor, paintings of islands and explorers on the wall, and intricately forged metal numbers on the door. It seemed out of place in such a poor place, but it made sense when I remembered this was a port town. This place was probably getting money from the royal treasury to impress diplomats and other big shots coming in the country from here. They'd stay at a nice little inn and then have leave for the capital through the side exit, never allowing the view of this shithole of a town come into their view. Typical blue bloods, more concerned with how the country looks than it's actual state. And then they have the gall to pretend that they give a shit, going as far as to form some sort of republic that they claim represent the public. A collection of well-connected figureheads you could vote for so they could do jackshit about any actual governing decisions. As much as I wanted to continue my mental rant on the hopeless clusterfuck that was Roma's governing body, I'd already reached my room, my longing for a good night's sleep overpowering all my other thoughts. I reached into my pockets to find the key, finding nothing but a few coins and a small, stale piece of bread. I groaned, realizing I must've left the key with Khamsin took. Feeling like an idiot, I was about to go back to Khamsin before detecting a weak will behind me, turning around to see Mari holding a small key in one hand and gripping her alchemy tome in the other.

“Um…” she began, holding the key in front of me. “Khamsin told me to hand this to you.”

Without a word, I took the key from my hand and turned back around, putting it in the lock and turning it. I opened to the door to find a fairly large room, dimly lit by a lantern on a bedside-table and lights from the town pouring through the window, sealed tight as to make sure none of smells from the town could follow the lights. A large wooden closet, small kitchen, and a table filled the right side of the room, a mat leading up to a large bed in the middle, a bunk bed and a door leading to the washroom on the left. One of the nicer places we've stayed in overall, a bit of luxury before we head off to Ragnarök. I walked in and placed my bag onto the lower bunk, starting to remove my armour. When I got the last piece of armour off I let out a loud yawn and stretched my arms out before falling back on the bed, looking forward to a few extra hours of shuteye. I reached under my shirt to take my pendant off, only to feel a thin layer of hair on my otherwise bare chest. I got up, reaching into my pockets and looking inside my chest plate, only to find nothing. My heart began to race as I unzipped my bag, emptying the contents on the bed and frantically scrambling through my various belongings.

“Come on, where is it!?” I shouted, terrified at the prospect of losing the last memento of my sister.

“A-are you looking for this?” Mari said from behind me, her words stopping my frantic search cold.

I turned around to see her digging into the pocket of her cloak and pulling out a necklace. The chain was a bright silver and had a small sapphire hanging at the end, a tree of jagged pale-white lines etched along the blue gemstone like lightning. I ran up and grabbed the pendant from Mari, recognizing it as my sister's from the design and the slightly worn but solid texture. I sighed with relief as my heart rate began to fall, walking back and falling on to my bed. I gazed into my only keepsake of Hati in my hand for a few moments, reminiscing about the life we had together. I faintly recalled our lives as orphans, Hati committing petty thievery and working odd jobs to keep us fed and under a roof. At night I'd huddle with Hati in a blanket and fall asleep in her lap, Hati trying to make sure her hair didn't shock me. When the village was raided by knife-ears I was still her priority, surrendering so they wouldn't kill us. Even in slavery, she'd take punishments on behalf when I screwed up, somehow finding it in her accepting my tearfelt apology every time. She'd listen to my rants when we were off work, about how this orc boy I met was our new little brother, that we were going escape with her and be great warriors, that I'd keep her safe instead. I managed to piss off all the other slaves with my idealistic rambling, but she'd always listen, patting my head and saying she believed in me. But when the slave rebellion came and we made our escape, it ended like it always did, Hati having to save me at her expense. During the escape, me, Hati, and Khamsin and managed to find a hiding spot in a house in a village that was being searched by elf soldiers. In spite of all my talk, I sat quietly and clung to Hati's arm like a scared child, terrified of being taken back. In one last act of selflessness, Hati found a cellar, big enough for only two people, and told us to hide while she'd create a diversion. I cried and screamed at her not to risk her life for us, to not leave me alone. Her response to my protest was to crouch down to my level and give me a hug, telling me about how our parents did something like this for us that I was too young to remember, and that she was going to pass the favor to me. The only condition was that I'd listen to her and survive so I could follow my dream of being a great warrior that would end slavery under the elves. I nodded softly in response, whimpering a quiet promise to her that I'd listen. With that, she took off her necklace and handed it to me before embracing me one last time, giving me a small kiss on the forehead. She let go to whisper one last 'I love you Skoll', a bright smile on her face, before pushing me back into the cellar and locking it. Though I remembered the next morning perfectly visually, I could only remember one sound. My own harrowed screaming at upon seeing the corpse of a young raiju woman, stabbed to death just outside the village, the small smile on her face in stark contrast to her mutilated body.

Were there any doubt before, my hatred of elves was solidified that day. Their pride, their bladed ears, their indifference to the suffering of anyone but themselves, I hated everything about them. There was only one thing I hated more than them. Myself. A weak coward who couldn't do a thing for the woman who out of love dedicated her life to him, letting her give her life so he could live. A dumb boy left with three things with which he could redeem himself. A brother, the promise he made to the suffering of other species under elves, and the indomitable strength of will to keep that promise.

My trance was broken by the sound of Mari's voice “I found it in the village today,” she said, standing in the doorway with a small smile. “I wasn't sure who it belonged to, but I'm glad you found it.”

I sat up and stared at Mari dumbfounded for a few seconds, confused at the girl I held captive doing a favor for me. I suspected she was probably trying to sweet her way out to freedom, but I supposed I owed her a thank you. “Thanks,” I said, the first time in my life I'd given an elf a sarcasm-free thanks.

“No problem,” Mari said, her smile fading as she tilted her head downwards. She looked anxious about continuing, understandable as her conversation partner was supersoldier with the voice of a grizzly bear gargling molten gravel, but she managed to speak up. “Um, so… where do I sleep?”

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, realizing I forgot to account for Mari when I was booking rooms. I sighed, knowing there was only one quick solution. “You can stay here. Hope you brought a sleeping bag, otherwise you're sleeping on the floor,” I said, my attempt at harshness seeming a bit petty.

My response did nothing to alleviate her confusion. “Thank you but… why? Aren't you afraid I'll…”

“…kill me in my sleep?” I said, cutting Mari off mid-sentence. “Better men than you have tried,” I snarked dryly, fond memories of failed assassination attempts running through my mind.

“But, how?” Mari asked. “You catching that sword is one thing, but… in your sleep?”

“I trained a lot with the Samsara and using it for prediction,” I said, remembering that grueling regimen and weeks of meditation Rupert made me and Khamsin go through so we could detect willpower.

“What's… samsara? Is it magic?” Mari asked, her ears twitching as she scratched her head.

“You don't know what the Samara is? ” I asked, puzzled before remembering that different cultures had different names for it, and that elves might have another. “You know, realm of spirits? Wills? And no, it isn't magic, otherwise I probably couldn't do it,” I said, a man supernaturally bad at even basic spells. “Anyone can train to do it, but it requires a really well-trained body and mind. But once you got it, you get the ability to feel the presence of others, which is basically their willpower or soul or whatever. A neat little utility power, but it doesn't do too much on it's own unless you combine combat training with it. Then you can do shit like hitting ghosts or predicting your opponents movements. I've mastered to the point where I can use it subconsciously, so I don't need to worry about being attacked in my sleep.”

“Oh, I remember now,” Mari said, her confusion disappearing for only a second before returning. “But, isn't that… forbidden?”

“What? No,” I said, mildly amused at her ignorance. “What, are elves not allowed to use it? Why?”

“Well, yes. It's…. forbidden in elven religion,” Mari said, her tone almost a tad bitter. “When we are young, we are taught that the , what you call the Samsara, is a tool of humans and abhorrent in the eyes of our god ,” Mari said, reminding me of that statue of that woman holding the sun and the moon.

“What's wrong with using something made be humans?” I asked, holding back laughter over the fact that though just about every race used inventions made by humans, elves were the only ones that used them and then claimed them as their own. They might've thought they were smarter, but they weren't nearly as good as humans or even orcs at actually applying their research.

“Um, well…uh…” Mari stuttered, less out of fear and more out of being unable to find the right words judging by her open mouth and unfocused gaze. “You know how you said you said you committed no crime against the elvenkind despite being a slave?” she asked, getting a slow nod from me in response. Mari hesitated again for a second before continuing. “Well…” she said before taking a deep breath deciding to get her awkward explanation out of the way. “It is taught that elves are the chosen people of Armati, creator of earth. Humans are the traitor species that went against her will by creating Druj, what you refer to as Samsara, and creating corrupted demihumans from her creations referred to by some as monsterwomen. It is believed that all humans are inherently demonic and both they and the species they have either created or corrupted with their influence, like orcs, are demon spawn that will be purged on Avesta, the day Armati shall return.”

The room was a silent for a moment, Mari twiddling her thumbs, waiting anxiously for a response while I lay there, processing what she just said. Once I'd finished that, the silence was broken with a snicker, which developed into steadily-building laughter. I was expecting Mari to say something that would anger me, but it was downright hilarious. That this is what elves actually believed. I would've collapsed had I not already been lying down. I held one hand over my tear-stained face and the other over my aching gut, giggling like a lunatic. I wanted to describe to Mari the stupidity of what she just said sounded. I've never been a man of much faith, much to Rupert's disappointment, but I've never bothered people over religion if they didn't push it in my face. But this was too much.

“Y-you're joking!” I shouted, of my laughter making it difficult to find my voice, which had been raised several octaves. “D-do you actual-actually… believe… this shit?!”

I looked to Mari, expecting her to be offended, but to my surprise her reply was frank. “No, never did,” she said, yawning before continuing. “Well, we should be heading off to sleep now, master.”

Maybe it was me being tired, amused by the elven faith, or just sick of her calling me master, but I was never quite sure what possessed me to say what I did next. “Oh god… ju-just call me Skoll, damn it.”

“O-okay, m-Skoll,” Mari said, a single eyebrow raised with perplexity. “What kind of name is that?”

My laughter managed to die down so I could respond. “It's Varangian,” I said, referring to the cold, northern country inhabited by Vikings and giants. “It means 'he who punches those further prolongs his sleep',” I said, irritable due to my tiredness returning with my laughter done.

“Ha! I'm in for fight then!” my sarcastic threat was replied to be a booming voice with a thick Bulgaran accent, the earth-shaking footsteps that followed getting louder until it's source stood at the doorframe, crouching but still towering over Mari. A giant with pale, scared, and lightly wrinkled, skin, wearing an eyepatch over where one of his turquoise eyes used to be. The thick, copper locks of his hair and beard were both intricately braided. He wore worn-out jewelery and held a large piece of paper in his hand.

“Mr. Skoll's name is coming from story of big wolf,” he said, looking down at Mari, who was straining her neck to get a glimpse of his face. “Is of making sense. He always is looking scary, barking orders, fight and eat like hungry dog,” he laughed at his own joke, his grin revealing gold fillings and teeth that were gold-coloured for other reasons. “But is very good and caring leader, cannot deny.”

“Leif, did you come up for anything important? If not, shut up and go to sleep,” I groaned. I didn't like being brown-nosed or disrespected by my troupe, let alone both.

“Sorry, sorry, I get to point. Is important you see this,” Leif said as he held up the paper, unravelling it slowly as to not tear it apart with his massive fingers. The parchment was a map of Aegir ocean, several lines drawn from Roma to Ragnarök. “There is being three places in Mictlan we can dock, each have down and up. I ask Mr. Khamsin and he say beach, but I was of thinkings I should be asking you.”

I sighed, tired but supposing I should just get it out of the way, turning to look at the choices we had.

Beach – The usual entrance for most entering Mictlan, a white, sandy beach that makes Mictlan look more like tropical paradise rather than tropical hell. The flora and fauna here are less dangerous than their cousins deeper in this roided-out rainforest, though there isn't much of interest here either. Thanks to sea currents, the temperature is cooler is this area than the rest of Mictlan, hot but survivable for those built for colder climates. The inherent disadvantage is that as the most popular entrance for ships, it is not uncommon for more devious groups to sabotage other ships as to eliminate competition. And with such an open area, anyone can see you enter, including the Mictlan natives, who vary in hostility depending on the tribe.

Volcanic region – A short stretch of ash-covered land surrounded by smaller islands that comprise the region of Mictlan with the highest volcanic activity, not too far off from Tartaros. The humidity may be lower but the temperature here is even hotter than the rest of Mictlan, so cold-loving species have to be very careful. Finding a good area to dock is difficult due to the rockiness of the region and needing to find a place that is some distance away from the volcanoes (you know, those giant things that spout lava that can melt stuff?). Forest fires are fairly common here, especially in the dry period. The land is also filled with dangerous monsters, albeit ones that attack head-on rather than rainforest ones that can sneak up in silence, even wyverns and the occasional elder dragon from Tartaros. The payback is that it is a far more secluded region than the beach, lowering the risk of other groups getting in the way. The area also provides easier access to temples than the beach, as well as having far more areas of interest and cool shit to find than the beach.

Cloud Forest – A pathway that can only be taken during rain periods (remember rain and dry periods switch every 24 hours, so time is limited). A sea route that leads into a fairly wide canal within Mictlan that leads to a cloud forest, a forest at a very high altitude covered in incredibly thick, cloud-like fog. The route is the most dangerous out of the three, the sea route beforehand being smooth sailing but the canal being ridiculously brutal. The fog makes it difficult to see, the winds are harsh, and the currents of incredibly hot water travel at ludicrous speeds, filled with obstacles like the ruins of ships. The only forgiving aspects are the lack of dangerous fauna (in the water, at least) and the wideness of the canal. It is less harsh in the beginning and end of the rainy period, but keep in mind the canal dries up very quickly once the dry period hits, so Skoll and co. will have to careful about their timing. However, it provides the best reward should you make it. The later parts of the canal and the cloud forest itself is significantly cooler than any other part of Mictlan, great for species not built for such hot temperature. The cloud forest is the highest part of elevation in Mictlan, providing safety from some of the worse aspects of the rain and dry seasons, including many dangerous creatures that make their home on the rainforest floor. Using giant hang-gliding leaves and potentially the wind, it is quite easy to guide down to lower levels and even other mountains, including various temples (remember, some are inhabited by friendly lizardwomen and others by the psycho ones, so it's a gamble). Still potentially dangerous, but not nearly as hellish as other places, probably the best place to set up a base camp of sorts. Due to the lack of inhabitance, you may also discover something no one else has yet, but the likelihood of finding something is still lower than the volcanic area.

Random – Pick a random location along the coast in which to land. This provides the advantage of not having to stick a certain sea route, allowing for flexible seafaring. However, Skoll and co. are going in blind with this option, meaning the area they dock in could be anywhere from far less or far more dangerous than any other option here. Either way, you'll likely run into some surprises

VOTE HERE

http://poal.me/lusr5x

>>148799

HOLY SHIT OP'S BACK FROM THE DEAD

>>149953

*anons.

>>150186

Fuck, forgot sage.

>>148805

Lets go random. This should be fun.

>>149953

doin' great mango tango, I'm just watching from the bleachers a bit.