Cursed

[Planet of the Japes]

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This adventure needs more love, it's a great concept.

Speak to the humans, but don't lower yourself to begging the humans for help. Fairies are, generally speaking, the hugest jackasses imaginable, and acting weak isn't going to convince them that "Hey, maybe this fairy isn't so bad," it will make them think, "Now's our chance to finish her before she changes her mind about being friendly."

Instead, tell them that these orcs are just the vanguard of an army of hundreds (it might even be true, who knows?), but that we (Esther) are feeling merciful and have decided to help them, but if they foolishly spurn our help, not only will the orcs descend on them, but the faerie realm will take vengeance on them as well.

[PriffyViole]

Speaking of Cirno:

> PE: Try to convince the humans that you are the strongest (She has the same wings as Cirno), then tell the orcs you're going to kill them in their own language.

> Human: Misenterpret the latter part and arrest this fairy.

[Brickman]

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Alright, I'm gonna admit right out that I have no idea how to reconcile or compromise between these suggestions. Do I just pick whichever one I like best? Do I wait for someone to second one of them? They're pretty much mutually exclusive by default.

[AvzinElkein]

Just flip a coin.

[Dragon Fogel]

It's your story. You pick whatever suggestion you'd rather write about.

Although if it makes it easier to decide, I'm seconding Planet of the Japes.

[Brickman]

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Alright, I'm going to go with a very minor variation on the suggestion that makes you most likely to be able to leave that cell without wiping somebody's mind.

>Speak to the humans, but don't lower yourself to begging the humans for help...



Ultimately, you want these humans to win, if only because Dat never got around to telling you the name of that guy you're going to be looking for. Or at least that's the reason you'd probably claim if another monster asked you later. But these humans aren't exactly willing to trust that a fairy wants to help them out of the bottom of her heart (you can't stop your mind from rubbing more salt in the wound by adding "Especially one who's not a Penitent"). No matter what, if you look weak they'll probably turn on you. And lord knows you don't want anyone connecting you to your old reputation. Better play this up right.

chatlog:

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Esther: Human, this is your lucky day. Out of the kindness of my heart, I have decided I will aid you in your fight against these smelly beasts. I would highly suggest you not spurn my aid.
Human: ... At what cost?
Esther: I can promise you that it is a cost you will find quite trivial compared to the services I am about to render. I will not be laying claim to your firstborn or years of servitude, if that is your concern.
Human: And if we refuse?
Esther: I will aid these orcs in ensuring that by this time tomorrow there will be nothing to remember this village by.

When you present your offer like that, it doesn't take him very long to make up his mind. The orc, intuiting which way this conversation is going, the orc draws his weapon and starts charging at you.



He only makes it a few steps before stumbling to the ground, clutching his head in confusion. In all honesty you just scrambled or hid his memory of everything from the past day and a half or so. It's easily the least elegant use of your power you have ever performed, but the less the humans know about what you actually do, the better. Admittedly it takes a toll on you as well, but you maintain the presence of mind to shout "Strike him now!" at the human, who obliges. You quickly undo the damage to both of you as the orc passes out, the human's sword in his chest.



Well, that was a good start. Presumably you should do more than incapacitate one orc while you're here, and since this human's the only one who heard your offer of service he should probably be included in whatever you do.

[Brickman]

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Side note, I made myself a signature image. Actually, I made two. Which is better, clouds or no clouds? I'm sticking the no clouds in my sig until I have an answer.

[BlueMagic]

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Side note, I made myself a signature image. Actually, I made two. Which is better, clouds or no clouds? I'm sticking the no clouds in my sig until I have an answer.

The clouds suggest it's a puppet show, which is what it is.

[BlueMagic]

Sorry for double post but

>Make all the dead orcs and fire go away

[Brickman]

>Make all the dead orcs and fire go away

Moving those orcs isn't a priority and that fire's not about to put itself out in the middle of a battle, but unless you plan on standing right here for the next ten minutes they're going to stop being right in front of you in very short order.

[BlueMagic]

>make his sword bigger

[Dragon Fogel]

>Look around and see if there's an orc who seems to be in charge of this impromptu raid. If there is, start messing with his memories.

[Brickman]

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I'm cutting it short on the images on this update since it'd basically be a whole lot of roughly the same thing to show every scene; you'll just have to imagine I slightly moved the existing puppets around for a few more pictures. Or that I was creative enough to come up with a way that my visuals wouldn't amount to that.

Side note, I replaced two of the earlier pictures; the first to make it look better and the second because it wasn't puppety enough.

> Look around and see if there's an orc who seems to be in charge of this impromptu raid. If there is, start messing with his memories.



You rush off towards where you last saw the leader of the orcs, hoping to end this quickly. The insignia on his armor made him easy to spot even from the air. The human runs to keep up with you. Finding the orc again provides little problem, but as you plan what you're going to do you realize that nothing will work. If you tricked him into calling off the raid you couldn't undo the changes without him seeing through it, and you'd rather not lose a whole bunch of memories over this when your current plan is working fine.



Instead, you settle for tricking him into shouting an order to retreat. The human promptly stabs him before he regains his senses. It probably even looked to the human like the orc was scared of you. You continue on to defeat three more orcs in the same way, distracting them by assaulting their memories of the last five minutes until the human subdued them, and are joined by a second human in the process. You mentally note that you've probably defeated half the orcs present by yourselves. As you begin taking care of the next pair...



Everything goes black. The memory ends. Thinking for a second (and a pain in the back of your head) you realize that that's all that you were conscious for. The battle had gone on for long enough that the reinforcements should have arrived about then, and they probably assumed you were an enemy. You're only lucky that the human who ran the fastest had a club rather than, say, a sword.

You're now back in the present, in your cell. You know how you got here now, and why two of the orcs here had scrambled memories. Your next course of action seems all too clear.

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> Ask the readers to come up with a good joke suggestion since the real answer's too obvious.
> Realize that's way too heavy-handed.
> Do it anyways.

[Varkarrus]

Tell one of the ogres that he looks a little sick.

Cuz he's green, get it!

[Brickman]

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Yeah, I sort of let this thing fizzle and was meaning to try to revive it. Problem is, right now my computer is getting fixed and I'm operating out of a computer lab. That means A: All my sprite sheets are out of reach and B: I'd be embarassed if someone looked over my shoulder and saw me shuffling around these hand-MS-Painted sprites anyways. I could just proceed without pictures for now and go back and slide them in later, though. Hell, the fact that this is about to go into flashback mode anyways makes that even more fitting.

Yeah, that's what I'll do. Joke suggestion followed by ==> coming later this afternoon, most likely. I'm not ready to let this die just yet!

[Brickman]

>Tell one of the ogres that he looks a little sick.


Yeah, you'd love to make fun of these stupid orcs, but they're all still asleep. Or maybe unconscious. Really, unless you wanted to yell for the jailer's attention there's only one thing to do:

==>

There's still one orc here whose memories you screwed up, and nothing better to do than set them straight. You hope you'll recover the rest of the knowledge you lost about what you've been doing the past few weeks, but no dice; as you undo the havok you wrought, a much older memory plays out before your eyes. A memory of a you from so long ago that you might as well have not been the same person...



You are now Plucky Hero. You and Loyal Sidekick just finished routing an orc infestation in an iron mine near the city of Lutia. It was a little weird actually--normally orcs are too lazy to actually do any real work and will just steal everything not nailed down before running off, but these ones had been working the mine themselves for over a week. They also had employed three ogres as bouncers, which marks the first time you've ever seen an orc and an ogre in the same place without one having the other's weapon in his head. Disturbing. You haven't had much time to wonder what they were working towards, though.

Right now you're taking a shortcut through the woods to get back to town quicker. It's still a good two day's hike. There's a clearing ahead and, to your shock, a little girl in this clearing.



There's something strange about this girl, you're sure of it, but you just can't quite put your finger on it. Well, something besides the fact that she's too young to be out here in the middle of the woods by herself. But again, you can't quite think of what it is. At the moment she's just sitting there, even though she seems to have noticed you.

[PriffyViole]

==>

[Brickman]

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This is one situation where ==> actually constitutes a decision in itself. And will continue to...

==>

You shake off the feeling. This is just a normal girl who got lost out here. Normal hair, normal face, normal wings, normal everything. Just like every other girl you've ever seen, right? Maybe her clothes are a bit nicer than most and are somehow not torn or dirtied at all despite being out in the woods, and she's more than a day's journey from anywhere she could possibly live, and her eyes are... what were you thinking about again?

You shake your head to clear it. This girl clearly needs help if nothing's going to eat her. You approach her and offer to lead her towards town.

chatlog:

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Plucky Hero: Are you lost? Do you need some help?
Girl: Y- Yes. I'm not really sure how I got out here, I was just playing with my brother and there was a flash and suddenly I was out here.
Plucky Hero: What's your name?
Girl: Esther. My name is Esther.
Plucky Hero: You're pretty far from town. How long ago did this strange event happen?
Esther: I don't know. Maybe... an hour? Two? I know it was today.

Loyal Sidekick is being unusually silent right now. If you weren't so busy with this child you'd ask him what was occupying his mind.

[Planet of the Japes]

Lead her to the town. Ask her where her parents are.

[Brickman]

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Computer's back, pictures already retroactively filled in. Yay.

>Lead her to the town. Ask her where her parents are.



chatlog:

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Plucky Hero: So, do you live in the village of Lutia? That's the closest one to here and where we were going.
Esther: Yes. I... yes.
Plucky Hero: Is that where your parents are?
Esther: Yes. No. Umm, my mother is. My father's been missing though.
Loyal Sidekick: Where should your father have been?
Esther: He works in the mine. I... have you heard any news from there?
Plucky Hero: I'm afraid the news is only bad. The mine...
Loyal Sidekick: Wait, news? We learned about the mine problem when we were in Lutia. And that was days ago.
Esther: Nobody tells me anything, because they think I'm not mature enough to take it.
Loyal Sidekick: No. Everybody was aware of it. There's no way the entire village could have kept it a secret from someone who wanted to know.
Esther: But, I...
Esther: Aw scrap it.
Esther: Crafty way's always more fun but I guess it's time for brute force.
Mind Eater: You screwed up our operation in that mine. We needed those resources. We need a lot of resources right now.
Mind Eater: And you seem to have figured out that it wasn't something the orcs came up with on your own.
Mind Eater: You two are going to get in the way.
Mind Eater: Were going to get in the way.
Mind Eater: I don't think you'll be doing much of anything now.

[Dragon Fogel]

>Eat those minds.

[Brickman]

For this flashback you are controlling Hero and/or Sidekick, not the fairy. I really hoped I had made that part clear. And the villain is monologueing.

[Dragon Fogel]

>Panic and attack it.

[Planet of the Japes]

Plucky Hero: This poor young girl is obviously just confused! Stop your well-meaning but impulsive sidekick from hurting her. Be absolutely convinced that you are not being mentally manipulated in any way, despite the strange buzzing sensation in your skull.

[Brickman]

>Panic and attack it.
> Plucky Hero: This poor young girl is obviously just confused! Stop your well-meaning but impulsive sidekick from hurting her. Be absolutely convinced that you are not being mentally manipulated in any way, despite the strange buzzing sensation in your skull.





chatlog:

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Mind Eater: Oh, now what ever gave you the idea that I was standing over *there*?
Mind Eater: I've been right here the whole time, he he!
Mind Eater: I just love this flash powder; I can do *anything* while your eyes are closed.
Loyal Sidekick: Enough bragging, fiend. Fight properly or not at all.
Mind Eater: How rude. All right. Draw your sword again and I will change your names, make you both grieving widowers and convince each one of you that the other burned down your home village.
Mind Eater: That last one's probably a good idea either way, in fact. Heck, if you forget ever visiting that mine I don't even need to kill the victor.
Mind Eater: I wonder who will win.
Mind Eater: Not like I have time to stick around and find out.
Mind Eater: Well, ta ta! In about thirty seconds this encounter will have never happened.

With surprising speed (or did she just take a head start and trick you into not noticing?) she's gone. You're not sure what she meant about the conversation... never...

Augh, your head. What just happ--It's him! That bastard's not getting away this time!

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Flashback's over, but I don't have time or energy to write any further tonight so the return to the present is gonna wait. If you want to start suggesting early, one of the orcs is gonna be awake when you return.