>>5593009>>5593013>>5593025>>5593026>>5593102>>5593109>>5593148>>5593195>>5593248>>5593303>Convince yourself you’re a pure maiden at heart (This won’t actually do anything).>Reasoning! A cult leader is nothing if not a master of rhetoric. Maybe you talk good enough for her like you?No. You can cram yourself into a tight black dress and prance around in clown makeup as much as you’d like, but you are a thirty five year old with chronic upper back pain and a star chart of stretch marks across your belly. You are going to die like this.
You quell the thoughts festering in your mind and get to turning your attention back to the matter at hand.
You’ve a short refractory period before the magic in your heart returns and you can cast again, and as much as you believe in the wolf’s strength, he’s hurt bad after that last encounter. You don’t think you can afford another fight right now. You can only hope to RHETORIC your way out of this situation. Yes, you’ve always been good at giving speeches to yourself in the mirror.
The maiden’s form takes shape again–armor rolling down along the garden, scuttling up into a tower, taking shape–but different this time. The bishop’s new body is smaller than the massive hunk of black iron she took on before–small, threaded with ropes, layers of lacquered metal. You’ve seen something like this in books before.. something from the orient?
“Again, Morne.” The IRON MAIDEN places a disembodied gauntlet on a long, sheathed blade.
“Wait–wait, wait.” You raise your hands in a signal for her to stop. “Surely, we can work something out? You two are brother and sister, after all. Let’s talk this out–negotiate. We don’t have to spill any more undue blood. Not Morne’s, and ESPECIALLY not mine.”
“You want to negotiate? Then leave.” The knight ironwalls you yet again. “This little quest you’re on, for my brother here–do you want to know how it ends? Because I don’t think you’ll like how it does. He’s said he’s here to save our sister, hasn’t he? That I’ve betrayed them, imprisoned her?”
“Yes..?” You raise a brow.
“It’s a lie–one that he believes in himself.” She draws a blade out, slowly. “AVA is not here, as I’ve told him a hundred times before. I am the chief warden of our dungeon–know well enough who’s been captured, imprisoned here–and she does not number among them. If she even <span class="mu-i">is</span> here, then she is no prisoner. But, if you ask me, after the last we saw of her.. then she’s dead, and probably by her own han–“
“Enough.” Morne rips a length of black steel from the ground, a tall and impressive sword.
>No, you need to FLEE. He is not going to defeat her like this.>Ask her if that’s really true. Use your wiles to convince her to tell the truth.>Let him fight.>Prepare for round two.>Write-In. 