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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:68pcOfFW Wed 08 May 2024 10:30:53 No.5998037 View View Report

Quoted By:

>LAST TIME ON DROWNED QUEST REDUX
Having successfully bungled your way through saving Pat and negotiating with Us, you force Pat to give Gil another new goo body (since his first one got absorbed). She succeeds, and you drag Gil back to your manse to debrief. Gil is pretty out of it, so you decide to get drunk with him so he'll talk more. This succeeds faster than expected, and drunk Gil gets a little handsy and rambles about his self-loathing. You ask him whether he's picked up any mind interlopers, since you extracted a big chunk of Us along with him, but he denies it.

You don't believe him, and commune with him to find out for yourself-- only to run into a impenetrable imaginary alcohol-fog. You opt to inhale all of it, transforming into a giant imaginary reptile monster in the process, and freak out a newly sober Gil. Using your newfound reptile monster powers, you extract Gil's interloper from his body. It's Teddy, his fisherman ancestor.

Teddy is self-aware, but thinks he's been sent by the gods to serve as Gil's mentor/spirit guide-type thing. He tells you that he has perfect access to Gil's mind and vice-versa. You're unnerved by this, declining his offer to help you de-reptilefy yourself, but you refrain from exploding him.

You dereptilefy, have a weird dream, and wake up in your tent with an awful hangover. As you wait for your painkillers to kick in, you read the letter from Henry you got from Horse Face. Henry gives you a tip about resurrecting Annie (you want a physical representation of your memories of her) and has sent you some presents: a kind of seaweed that allows for telepathic communication, and a wooden doll, or "effigy." If you make the doll look like you, then bury it, Henry says it'll get you to cult HQ. Somehow. You spend a while using clay and your own blood to decorate the effigy, then head out to find Gil. You drag him off to go speak with Horse Face.

Horse Face tells you more about effigies and about weird mind guys, which he calls "eidolons." You convince him to let you borrow stuff from his warehouse dimension, per the terms of your contract, but graciously let Gil pick out what he wants. While Gil and Horse Face are gone, you experiment with your new Claudia persona: she is confused about being underwater, and decides she must be dreaming. When Horse Face returns, he briefly doesn't recognize you. Gil has picked out a pagan idol, a thingy that will let his beetles fly further distances, and a box that turns thing unreal. He takes you outside and interrogates you about your Claudia persona, which you admit to (but leave out the red stuff involvement).

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

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Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:vY9at4yG Tue 11 Apr 2023 00:35:46 No.5633618 View View Report

Quoted By:

>Well uh you see

You swore to yourself you wouldn't tell Gil anything. This is factual. But he's here now, looking you in the face, and it's just— it's different, okay? He wore himself out on a stupid, pointless rescue mission for you, his second in as many days, and his question sounds so innocuous. Like he cares how you detectivated, and he isn't just undermining your authority and/or casting hateful judgment upon you. Has he gotten the hateful judgment out of his system? No. That's too much to expect. Perhaps he's only improved at concealing it.

You'll take that, though. What other option do you have? Poisoning your sacred bond with doubt? You should be able to trust each other. And if your prior admission already destroyed that and poisoned it and now Gil in his heart of hearts despises you— will admitting one more thing make a difference? Positive thinking. Of course it won't.

Articulating a response is damn difficult, though. "Uhhh," you say. "Well, as you know, I commun...ed with the False Rudy shut up within this cave, which enabled a degree of... um..."

"I-I know that part," Gil says wearily. "Where did you go? We completely lost—"

In the corner of your eye, Richard is nodding at you. You hate him. "...Well, I then, you see, felt the need to pry deeper? So— so we could have maximal information for the explosion plan, and it will go super smoothly. Yes. So I pried deeper into his very mind..." Gil has drawn his legs up to his chest. "...and body..."

"What?" You're trying not to look directly at him. "Aw, shit. What? You don't mean—"

You suck your lips in.

"—you took him over? You're kidding! I-I-Is this some regular thing, too? You go around and—"

"No!" you say heatedly. "It was my first time, okay?! And I didn't go in there meaning to, it just happened, and it was weird, and I— I got a lot of useful information, and I didn't get caught, or hurt, or anything, so you can take your stupid look and shove it. Got it?! And this doesn't mean I'm weird, or—"

"Sorry," Gil mumbles.

"—a bad person, or— I didn't hurt him on purpose, and I didn't steal anything, and he's the one who banged himself into all the walls, and— you're the one with the beetles, and dumb goo body, and you possessed Ellery, and Madrigal, so you can't even say you weren't ever a girl, and—"

"Sorry!" He's risen shakily to his feet. "Lottie, I-I-I didn't mean— I just wanted to know what happened! I-I thought you might've gotten detained, or—"

"I had it under control," you hiss.

"She did," Richard says genially. "There's no way we could've known, though. I think that, given the circumstances, making an assumption was the appropriate thing to—"

(1/3)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO gil - @cal1us.png, 65KiB, 700x878

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:+0Q45oeL Fri 09 Dec 2022 13:11:28 No.5490756 View View Report

Quoted By:

>Go crazy go stupid
>102, 94, 62 vs. DC 74 — Success

Well, go on. Sit on the paint-peeling bench. Think about it systematically. What are your options? You could put up and shut up and try to stop them after you located Lottie. You could stand up and walk off right now and see if they even noticed. Or you could stand up and say something. Could make a convincing case for not murdering Lottie on sight— or skip the 'convincing' part and cow them into submission. Make them do what you—

Yeah, you can't even finish that one— shitty joke. You can barely make your own bodies do what you want them to. (They're inclined to meander off when you're not paying attention.) And it's not as if it's a new development, as much as you'd desperately like to believe that. Sure, you weren't this bad. (It would've been really hard to be this bad.) But you're not a new person, and outside of single shining moments a glib and fearless Gil has never existed. Admit it while you're still capable of doing so: you are at heart a pussy.

Not even in a mean way. Maybe a little in a mean way. But mainly it's just factual: your whole life, you've never met a a force of personality you couldn't bend to or a challenge you wouldn't flee from. Put it nicely— "you have a powerful self-preservation instinct." Cool. But you've never been inclined to put things nicely, or to gas yourself up about stuff. You're a pussy. And that's fine, you guess, that's how you are, you were informed you should be nice to yourself, the world needs pussies, too. Or whatever.

But it doesn't feel good, to sit on some bench ignored by some dickheads plotting to murder your lifeline, and to know objectively that there's nothing real you can do. Not directly. You can sneak around, and that's fine, that's fine, but it's a— a cop-out. Even if you get the same result or better, even if Lottie emerges unscathed, it's a cop-out. Which isn't logical. It's a good thing, to know and work around your own limitations. But...

But she wouldn't agree. If she were here right now she'd be kicking your ankle incessantly until you leaned over 5 degrees and then she'd stage-whisper some stupid plan where you punched both guys at the same time. Or where you stood up on the bench and chanelled ye... ye olde numinouseth... you can't do it. Channeled some made-up magic shit and blew the guys' socks off. And it'd be stupid and it'd get you both killed but you'd look directly into her insane cockeye and find there pure and complete sincerity.

That's what blows your socks off, the sincerity. You've met some people who say crazy shit. Crazier shit than she ever has. But when you looked into their eyes, you always saw... you don't know, some glimmer of motivation. They wanted attention. They wanted a reaction. They didn't actually buy what they were selling, and you and they and everybody knew it. And that was fine!

(1/4? 5?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO gil - @cal1us.png, 65KiB, 700x878

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:40Q0Ehom Fri 16 Sep 2022 06:17:28 No.5405676 View View Report

Quoted By:

Gil is indeed there, though you see his disembodied head before you see him and let out— not a shriek, but a bit of a ladylike yelp, which provokes him to come over and apologize profusely. "It's okay," you say upwards of four times, before he gets it into his... uh... well, not his head, clearly, but maybe he gets it into the transparent round pot-thing he has instead of a head. Which you do gain the courage to ask about, after the apologizing is done with.

"Oh, um..." Gil's body adjusts the pot-thing. The beetles inside it swirl. "I-I-It's— sorry, it's— it's weird, you probably don't want to, um... I-I was just trying to figure out how to have limbs, and stuff, without feeling so... um... I don't know. It's kind of dark inside, usually, and... which i-isn't your fault, but..."

You try and make sense of this. "So it's like a— a big window? For the beetles? So you don't have to ditch the body I made for you."

"Yeah." Gil sounds relieved. "Um, i-it's working pretty well, I think. I'm gonna add some airholes when I can, but, um... i-i-it screws into the neck... look." He demonstrates, flipping the pot(?) upside-down after unscrewing it so the beetles don't fall out. "Neat, right?"

"Ye- yes." You silently will him to screw it back on: a pot is one thing, but a walking talking wholly headless Gil is a bridge too far for your tastes. "So what's the rest of this?"

You mean the mess behind him: a couple of workbenches and a jumble of stuff you couldn't identify with a gun to your head. You'd probably just deem it "garbage." Gil clasps his hands, though, and his tone of voice makes you glad you didn't say that out loud. "Oh, I-I just— the body's modular, right? So I-I've been trying to make some... modules. You know, um, stuff I can screw on..."

"Like the flamethrower," you say.

"Yeah!"

"Good news," you say, and then tell him you may use for a flamethrower, or various other things, in short order. You explain the expedition plan.

"Oh shit," Gil says, when you finish. "And... you want me to come along?"

"No way. I just told you all that for no reason, stupid." You cross your arms. "You're my retainer. This is, like, your entire job."

"Oh. Okay, I-I-I'll do my best, if you think I..." He finishes screwing his proper head on and squints on eye. "Um, last time I got shot, though. I-I'm not sure I'll be of any..."

"You have a flamethrower," you say.

"Oh yeah." He rubs his mouth. "Um, okay. Will it just be us, then? And— and Richard, I-I guess..."

"No." You pause. "Monty's coming."

"Monty? He—" Gil looks sideways. "I-I don't know if that guy likes me very much. We've kind of had a... weird..."

"He likes you," you say. "Especially since you'll be in, you know, your own body. Also I'm bringing Eloise, so—"

"She seemed... fine. Lots of questions..."

"And Lucky."

Gil looks at you. "The— the Wind Court guy?"

(2/3?)

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO gil - @cal1us.png, 65KiB, 700x878

Bathic !!1oQZB1czRDh ID:NTdeDGU0 Sun 06 Feb 2022 05:17:14 No.5153920 View View Report

Quoted By:

What, indeed, is happening? It takes a split second for you to process the voice into Gil!, and several more for Richard to catch up: spot the pure bafflement on his face before it contorts into purpled rage. He releases your neck, dropping you to the ground like a broken doll, and whips around soundlessly.

Your vision swims as you sit up. Gil, God bless him, stands squarely in the middle distance. "You were all fucked up over losing her, a-and now she's back and you're strangling her? And you're saying you could replace her? What's wrong with you! She saved my goddamn life, you can't just..."

The sentence dies in his throat, not that you're casting blame: it's hard to maintain conviction when Richard's advancing like that. (He was all what over you?) You can't see his face, but you imagine it nasty and twisted. You can see his hand, which is reaching surreptitiously into his pocket. "I," Richard spits, "should have disposed of you when I had the chance."

No. No, he wouldn't— he's just saying that. He's always just saying things. He can't possibly seriously intend to...

...

But if he does?

>[1] If there's even the slightest chance Gil's in danger, it's your sworn duty to intervene— especially after all that *work.* Get in the way. Wave your arms around. Serve generally as a distraction.
>[2] Serve as a distraction by stabbing Richard with The Sword. You're positive it won't actually hurt him (if you can even hit him), and it's suitably heroic. Maybe Gil will be impressed.
>[3] God, why can't you have nice(ish) Richard back? Actually, can't you *make* him come back? Whatever he says, you do have power over him, and if you can just, er, want your father enough— [Roll.]
>[4] Richard needs a taste of his own medicine, is what he needs, and you're prepared to deliver one. (Advanced Gaslighting. What do you tell him or yourself?) [Roll.]
>[5] Write-in.

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