>>5164411>>5164403>>5164399>>5163937You instruct Felman to gather up what he has secured, and to bring it to the farmhouse where Head Chimercist Henzler waits. He hesitates to reply, clearly thrown by your frank revelation of the Head Chimericist’s involvement in your schemes and her current location… But the ectoplasm does its job, and he complies readily enough. That isn’t all you command of him, though: you also order the Inquisitor to watch and to report back on any discoveries which the Inquisition makes, and to pay special attention to the Archmage.
Your strategy to address The Pretty Kitty’s woes is similarly decisive. While you know you ought to be focusing more energy upon matters Reptilian, you cannot bring yourself to let this place fail—not after the comfort it, and its denizens, have given you. As such, you approach the Goldenrod threat with a tripartite solution:
>Step 1: Teaching the art of seductionYou take time between dances this evening to coach the girls—especially the shier ones—on how to approach a male human, how to hold his attention, and how to convince him of one’s special attachment to him.
“Sstart sslow—make him think he isss gradually earning your admiration, attraction, and ressspect. But! By the end, you musst make him feel as if hiss every word iss wissdom and wit—that your eyess hardly leave him, and that your mind never doess,” you say. “Do not laugh at everything, or he will think you think he iss a joke. Do not fail to have a responsse, even one of ssimple-minded wonderment, when he lookss to you expectantly.”
“Ugh, can’t I just spread ‘em and tell him he’s the biggest I’ve ever had?” complains Manuela LaPert with a performative groan.
You smirk, and say “Only if you want him heading sstraight to the budoir every time… And not buying food and drink all night firssst.”
“So that’s how those Goldenrod girls are doing it,” Helga Warchest says, running fingers thoughtfully through her fake beard. “They hook them with the wetwork, but they make it part of a full service package that INCLUDES a bunch of other purchases…”
Leave it to the dwarf to connect the financial dots faster.
“And remember,” you tell them all, “if you get gigglier and more pliable as he buyss you more ale, he’ll BUY more ale—for both of you!”
To your delight, you find that Robin—motivated by free alcohol and with a certain roughshod ingenue charm, has a particularly fine accounting with this new strategy, while The Twins play doting and demure double-servants to the wealthiest man in the audience as well. The latter two still shy away from much wetwork, but they go somewhere private with him afterwards, dropping sizeable bags of collected coin with Felia and Mina.
“Impressive,” Madam Mina admits, expression and voice both neutral.
“And that’ss only sstep one!” you say cheerfully.
“What’s step two, then, hun?” Felia asks.
