sheep_game | Winding down

Ughhh, fine~. If you're that interested! I just figured someone as de~fense~less as you doesn't want to hold the sensitive information people might get stabby about ALL the time...

If someone's gonna get stabby, I'd rather know who to look out for rather than be blindsided.

...Thistle. By a roll of the bones.
"Blossom," for round two, which didn't take.
The third round was interrupted mid-way, so I consider it moot~.

Interupted? By what?

An entire other demon suddenly entering the scene, along with the missing Shepherd Bluebell.

[Christ. Things really dont stop happening]

But it... prevented anyone from taking damage that round?

Ah-huh. Said it lost a bet. Mr. High Roller Minuet got shifty as a tree in the wind about the details, so who knows how that happened.

Isn't that just how he normally is?

[Man's so gay not even his answers are straight]

Yes. It's annoying.

It's so annoying.

And it's not even like he's any better than anyone else about wanting to know things about people. You know, when the bulk of the pasture was reduced to little sprogs, he beguiled my days-old self with sugary food and then immediately started asking probing questions? Shifty, and a perpetual meddler.

He won't even answer the same questions he asks me. I mean, it's not like he owes me anything, I just like understanding things.

Well, whatever. Glad whatever he did managed to interrupt the ritual.

How are you feeling after all that?

Between you, and I, we came out good this time. The reaction to this ritual has been... different, from what you all told me of the past. Perhaps because of the opaque nature of who struck who. There's also little material loss to us in performing acts of first aid after the fact, only gain, in terms of our perceived value. Maybe a little blood lost, but that's far less than the sheer volume of what of ours COULD be spilled.

Playing docile, has, material benefits.

... [ it's after he says those words, something strange happens in his eyes, and he puts on a frown. ]

...ah, and I didn't even get to hurt that wolf to my satisfaction before he turned it around on everyone... I feel so jilted! And like I'm eventually gonna have my brain melt to ooze from all this togetherness and community-wide cooperation ad nauseam. We all worked together to save the day and killed some of those naughty wolves~~! Never mind that we hardly understand the stakes of the puppet war we're officially now blooded soldiers in. Honestly, now it's like I never even LEFT--

[ drags a hand slowly down his face ]

But! I could care less about the torture, if that's what you mean. Oh, no, oh my, I was hurt physically. Whatever shall I do in the aftermath. I am beset by woe and incapable of carrying on with my tasks.

Edited 2024-01-23 04:20 (UTC)

Yeah yeah, physically you seem fine. And I guess that explains why you were in the clinic... Ulterior motive or not, your magic really came on handy; otherwise I'da had to whack him over the head with a frying pan.

I'm surprised to hear nobody came after us though, all things considered. I would've expected we'd have been the easy choice.

Could always ask them, if you're feeling brave.

Maybe later. Feels like there are more important things to wonder fruitlessly about, like why the wolves were competent enough to wrench the eye open and steal exactly one person from each team with surgical precision, but didn't manage to kill eveb a single one of us who went in after them.

To be fair, you can do a LOT with the element of surprise. ...And a lot more with the element of expectation...

[ thinks about. himself. aloft on a vine. waiting for azdaja to try everything BUT what she actually did next. ]

You know... do you think they didn't know we'd have people willing to help us ford the mist's disorientation effect? The whole thing tasted of us jumping them before they'd had the time to let the pot properly boil, so to speak. Sort of like waiting for someone to climb a whole mountain to get to you, and they just hop up to the summit...

Edited 2024-01-23 04:46 (UTC)

You think they didn't expect the flocks and weeds to work together?

Damn, their recon must be really bad.

And the flavor of the ritual that just concluded had a distinct sense of being targeted to address that cooperation. Flare and the Warden were there with us, Edgelord... took the fall with Thistle... Your Name was with Clover...

"This is what you get if you help them like that!" ...though it doesn't feel like 'message received,' looking at how things shook out. I wonder if he'll attempt to perseverate on the concept...? Doubt it'll work on all of them, at least as long as there's a scant wisp left of Edgelord.

And as long as half of them are human, and as long as Blossom continues keeping us so completely cut off from any kind of help or information that we only have each other to rely on.

Blossom and the wolves may as well be on the same side.

This experience has taught me that if you're going to summon minions from another world, it really is amateur hour if you don't make their continued survival directly dependent upon your own.

That's exactly right. If you want someone to do something for you, you've gotta persuade them that they want the same thing and that your interests are aligned. Maybe that's making their lives dependent on yours, but it could also be as simple as dispersing the right propaganda. So she can't tell us the truth about the situation due to Demon NDAs? She could just lie. Feed us the answers we want so we'd stop looking for the truth. Give us a cause to fight for and blah blah blah.

[ titter, titter. ]

Don't outline too many of those steps in front of her. She could always summon a memory demon and give it all a second shot.

How do you know she hasn't already?

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