Healer Arc Outline Part 3

Morning Grind

• Evisse did not sneak out last night, so GM slept soundly for once.
• He goes through a normal morning routine, plays with the girls after waking up until it's time for afternoon quest time.
• Gwin is passed out drunk in the hall. She found access to one of GM's last beer kegs. Snow apologizes, says she needed it.
• Breakfast is had with Gwin in the background.
• Evisse has crashed and is looking moody. Everyone avoids her, but she's sorry about her moods.
• GM explains the day's mission. So far they've been hunting pinemen in the plains to the east of Dewhurst, but today, GM has something different in store.
• In the southern forest, there should be a boss monster type variant known as the Earthen Pineking which will be very, very, big. Probably worth 100 smaller pinemen.
• Sam is pumped, Evisse while emotionless somehow looks excited, too.
• Nikita asks if she thinks they're ready, GM says yes. It's not terribly strong, just big. He warns it will know earth magic and summon smaller pinemen most likely.
• Zuzu reminds GM that it's her date night tonight, and GM remembers. He promises to do whatever she wants.
• Evisse casts speed spell on the kittens.
• As the group gets ready to embark, Gwin awakens and heaves, somewhat spoiling the moment. GM tells them to wait at the forest entrance and he'll contact them.
• Snow offers to help him deal with Gwin, but he tells her to manage the kittens, and he'll handle it. Nikita heads out to fuck around.

Gwin Hangover

• Group leaves, GM approaches Gwin. He asks if she can stand, her response is incoherent so GM takes it on himself to carry her upstairs and lay her in his bed.
• She's a bit more awake now, and he asks if he can get her anything. Water. GM leaves to get it, sees a small tray on the floor with a glass of water, and assumes Snow thought ahead.
• She finishes it in one gulp and sighs. GM holds her hand and says he can leave her alone if she needs it, but she says she'd prefer if he stayed. GM says he only has about less than a half hour.
• Drunk as hell, she asks if he wants to finally have sex with her. GM feels bad for her and says he's not going to take advantage of her while drunk. Calls GM a pussy.
• He says maybe if she feels better later, but she doubts she will.
• GM is sorry that things came to this, but Gwin insists it was gonna happen anyway. She wishes she was born to a mountain dwarf clan.
• GM asks if she's ashamed of being a hill dwarf and she's just like maybe? before admitting that she wouldn't fucking care so much if they didn't force the lifestyle on her.
• She loves her family. They're all great, and she loves hanging out with them, but she cries asking what kind of fucking family would throw disown someone just because they're different.
• GM doesn't know much about dwarves, but he assures her this is fairly common for humans at least.
• She doesn't know how to deal with it, says this rarely happens among Dwarves. GM asks what even happens for the ceremony, Gwin reveals that her clan's rune will be magically tattooed to her face along with the rune for disgraced.
• GM is like shit, and she's like yeah.
• GM asks if it's possible she can just not accept it, and Gwin says not really.
• He promises that they'll find her a way out of this, she doubts it.
• GM has to go check on the girls now, and Gwin says she'll be up later.

Quest (Evisse POV)

• We switch to Evisse for some surprising narration. Her internal monologue sounds flat and lacking in emotion, serving as a big parallel to any of the other POV shifts.
• It highlights her struggle as she tries to keep herself vested in the conversation as they head out to the forest.
• Evisse is twitchy, she wants to hurt something bad. Her thoughts drift back home and we see she's starting to think of GM in a positive way, even in her state. He's helping her with her problem and he lines up things for her to kill, and as bad as that sounds it means there's a fondness developing.
• The girls sense Evisse not feeling the best and try to ask her if she'll be fine, and replies creepily. Evisse notices her sincerity bothered them, but she can't stop herself from saying weird and blunt things.
• They wait around the entrance of the forest for five mins until GM contacts them. Evisse is relieved, but wishes he could contact her like that too. GM also checks in on her condition but Evisse is more impatient now.
• GM leads them to the section of the forest where he thinks the monster should be, and the girls look around for it but can't find a thing. Zuzu ultimately finds it, pointing out the giant pinetree is suspicious.
• Evisse is unable to control herself and she lunges at the tree, slashing it. It comes to life and uproots itself, grabbing Evisse, who is elated. Her narration suddenly becomes happy and more normal sounding, if a little too enthusiastic.
• GM has Sam attack the hand. She blinks up there, forcing it to let Evisse go.

Boss Fight

• Evisse is told to hold back and cast her attack boost on her, Sam and Meri. Evisse is delighted to, and Meri jumps in front of Evisse while spellcasting to tank a big punch.
• Meri reflects the attack, but all that happens is the pine needles on the fist are all blown away. No damage to the wood. GM explains that the wood is too strong to be bothered by kinetic force and they can't rely on reflect.
• Evisse casts the spell, asks if this means their only choice is to cut it up. GM confirms, and Evisse rushes in again, happy. Evisse's narration is super ecstatic as she lands another few blows with her scythe.
• Sam charges up a biding blade while Zutiria creates cutting air missiles.
• After Sam and Zuzu hit it, the monster reels backwards. It starts regenerating and GM tells the girls to stop it, but the monster shoots out a big bunch of pinecones that rapidly grow into full sized Pinemen.
• GM orders Evisse to take them out with Meri as backup while Sam and Zuzu focus on the boss.
• Evisse happily dances around with her scythe, until the boss uses earth magic to send Meri flying in the air. She's taken by surprise so she raises her shield but it's too late. The boss slams Meri back to the ground with both fists, making a huge crater. Meri's health drops a ton.
• GM needs Evisse to heal her, and Evisse has an internal struggle between wanting to help and wanting to continue killing.
• Evisse pleads to wait a minute, she'll have them all killed, but GM angrily insists on doing it now. Evisse does actually want to help but her impulse control is awful.
• As she waits, the Boss extends its hand and shoots off thousands of pine needle projectiles at Zutiria. Zuzu creates a barrier of ice to defend herself, but a lot of the needles pierce it and skewer the mage.
• Sam is getting angry at this point and she runs away from the boss to help Evisse carve up the rest of the pinemen. Then, she punches Evisse in the face, shocking her.
• She yells at Evisse to do her job and Evisse snaps out of her violence trance, healing Meri and Zuzu. She apologizes and feels awful, but GM pressures her to remain focused and that they'll talk about it later.
• The boss tries to shoot out more pinecones, but Zutiria reacts faster and shoots a fireball at them this time. This enrages the boss and it runs forward.
• Sam asks GM if he thinks the penetrator would work on wood, he says to give it a shot.
• Meri gets on one knee and raises her shield, offering to boost Sam. Sam jumps on the shield and hits it, Meri sends Sam flying and Sam pulls off a shrapnel explosion on the boss, staggering it. She tells the girls pile on.
• Evisse asks for permission to attack this time, but GM just yells at her to go.
• She and Meri attack its limbs while Sam chops away at its torso, meanwhile Zuzu lifts the earth the boss created and drops it on him from above.
• After going to town on it, it finally stops moving and GM declares its dead.
• There's some celebration, but Sam is still mad at Evisse and Meri even admits that she keeps making things awkward. Zuzu isn't too thrilled about the skewers, either.
• Evisse's guilt starts to overpower her, and she wants to say something but she can't figure out what the right words are. She remarks on how getting to feel things isn't always a net positive, but is happy to experience regret and guilt all the same.
• GM says they can all talk about it later, but for now, they should get busy chopping up the wood.
• Meri notices an odd smell and everyone becomes aware of it, but before they can act, it's everywhere. Suddenly, tons of rogues are visible and they all carry cans of oil. Fleetfoot is sitting on a nearby tree branch holding a pipe and is like, shit, it wore off.
• Before anyone can react, the rogues all light a torch and throw it on the boss's corpse. It bursts into open flames, and mysteriously, the rogues all vanish into smoke. Fleetfoot taunts them that there's not gonna be any renovations.
• Zuzu flies into a rage, GM asks her to put the flames out but she's too obsessed with hurting Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot is sarcastic like what are you still mad at me?
• Sam runs to calm Zuzu and tries to get her to cast a water spell, but she's just throwing a flail fit.
• Meri fires a kite rail at the rogue, who narrowly dodges it.
• GM starts to despair as Fleetfoot says they're gonna escape now, but Evisse acts just in time by managing to pull off a perfect rending wave, cutting off the branch Fleetfoot was sitting on and sending them falling to their ass.
• Evisse rushes in, eager to attack.

Vs Fleetfoot (GM POV)

• GM narration cause seeing this scene through his eyes is important.
• Evisse goes all out, using her magic scythe even despite GM telling her they need Fleetfoot alive. GM sends Meri in to help, Sam is still dealing with Zuzu lashing out. Zuzu goes as far as biting Sam.
• GM warns Evisse and Meri about how thieves know all kinds of tricky Arts that deal more damage the sneakier they act, but Fleetfoot is constantly looking for a way to disengage. He guesses she's not very experienced with actual combat.
• He tells them to focus on their feet, since they can't look at face because of mask. GM CAN look at the mask, though, as he's not actually their in person.
• GM knows Fleetfoot is talkative, and asks where all her back up went. Evasive answer. Sets off a firecracker behind the girls, both are distracted, and GM watches as Fleetfoot slightly raises their mask to blow into a pipe. Rogues form out of the smoke and rush to attack, but GM advises them to move in. The smoke rogues are super weak and vanish instantly, leaving Fleetfoot at a loss
• GM asks if Fleetfoot even has any real minions, which gets an annoyed response out of the thief. He's right on the money, and he can't believe it.
• Fleetfoot tries to talk their way out of this, taunting Meri about her mom while readying another bomb of some sort. GM predicts its a smoke bomb and tells Meri to use her flash grenade, predicts correctly, so right when fleetfoot would be running away they're instead blinded and fall to the ground.
• Evisse switches off her scythe and hits Fleetfoot's face with the impact increase function, shattering the mask and sending the thief flying into a nearby tree, groaning.
• With the mask no longer filtering the voice, she speaks with a cutesy, stuck up voice. GM had already assumed she was a girl since he was able to look at her body without fearing the mask, but the face confirms it.
• Fleetfoot rambles about how bad this is getting, worried about losing her job, and so on. GM has a hunch, a hunch that he's terrified of. Nevertheless, he removes his glasses and feels the pull of destiny towards Fleetfoot now that he can see her face.
• He knows he shouldn't be shocked, but he is.
• Evisse and Meri move in to attack, but the ring on Fleetfoot's glove glows and they let out a sigh of relief. She pulls her hood over her face and runs away after activating it, turning her invisible.

Aftermath

• After Zuzu calmed down a bit, she used her wishing star to summon a flood of water to put out the forest fire. With her mana, there's no way she can magically repair so much wood, and tree magic is more of a druid thing anyway. They have no choice but to abandon the boss, as a lot of it is ash by now.
• They carve out its pinesap heart to serve as a proof of kill, GM estimates they'll get 50k for it at least.
• At least they can send back the 20 or so pinemen it summoned.
• They come home and GM comes to great them, and asks for a few moments alone after seeing to Zuzu.
• GM is in a frenzy pacing back and forth in his office, trying to deal with all the wrinkles this causes in things.
• He inevitably just asks Luxy how the hell he's supposed to make this work.
• Luxy is cryptic and answers that he has to find a way. She had to pull a lot of strings to set the halfling up for him, but won't clarify.
• GM is distraught, but Luxy kinda feels bad that he's worked himself up so much.
• She advises him to compartmentalize shit better. He's dealing with too much stuff at once.
• GM tries to calm himself and agrees. Current problem is getting wood and Dwarf stuff, and getting closer to Evisse. He reminds himself that next up is to find the butcher.
• He laments that if things turn out good with Fleetfoot they'll be out of 600k gold.
• He gets negative again as he can't imagine Fleetfoot just up and becoming a member of the Guild, considering how bad Zuzu wants to hurt her.
• Luxy reminds him one more to compartmentalize and he snaps out of it. He thanks her for keeping things interesting, sarcastically.
• Knock on the door, Zuzu comes in but is silent. GM moves to the couch and opens his arms, and she comes up and snuggles him.
• They talk about what just happened, Zuzu apologizes for not putting out the fire fast enough. GM consoles her, is more worried about her.
• She'll be ok, but because of what happened Zuzu associates Fleetfoot with the bad stuff in her past, and seeing the thief makes her want to kill her.
• GM nervously swallows, then hugs her closer to his chest. He promises they'll deal with Fleetfoot in due time but for now let's not think about it.
• Zuzu agrees, is able to bring herself to a stable state. Guesses they probably need to push her date off till tomorrow.
• GM sadly agrees but promises to make up for it.
• Sam, Evisse and Meri come in next and they're bickering over Evisse's performance.
• Zuzu is comically like oh yeah, I'm mad about that too I guess.
• GM sighs and puts Zuzu down, walks towards the girls. Evisse is nervous and averts her eyes, but he addresses her directly and makes it clear that in battle they can't afford to have her hesitate over a heal.
• Evisse tries to explain she knew it was wrong to wait so long, but she had trouble. She tried to fight back against her impulses.
• Sam is especially angry, but GM defuses it and reminds her that when she gets angry they have to deal with her, too. He stresses that while he is upset at Evisse, too, he says that as a team they need to understand her.
• Sam doesn't apologize, but Meri and Zuzu are a bit more understanding.
• Evisse starts crying softly, upset that when she can't feel anything she's an impulsive sociopath and when she CAN feel things its like she can only make mistakes.
• Sam is suddenly taken aback, and she vows to try and understand Evisse's problems a bit better.
• GM takes a deep breath and puts his hands on Evisse's shoulders. He tells her that he knows she's not used to having emotions and thus her sense of guilt and regret is probably going into overdrive, and she's missing years of emotional development. He tries to convince her it's only natural she's struggling with her impulses even when she's 'normal' and GM promises that she'll get better.
• She asks what if her parts are broken, but GM reminds her she's not a machine.
• Evisse blushes and wipes her tears, promising to do better.
• Sam blushes hard and apologizes, but is still upset. Meri tries to comfort her too, and Zuzu sighs, hoping that the next girl GM gets his hands on won't come with a mountain of baggage.
• He awkwardly laughs it off.

Mission Rush

• After the team talk, everyone is in a better mood.
• We get a runthrough of the rest of that day's activities.
• Gwin is feeling better and wants to be of use somehow, so he asks her if she brought an axe with her. She did.
• GM makes the executive decision to have Snow and Gwin join in hunting Pinemen, hoping to be done with it in the next two days. Despite the trouble earlier, everyone is still eager to get back out there.
• Snow is worried about the cleaning, but GM has a plan for that. Once the wood is squared away, Evisse will stay home so she can keep reapplying her speed spell on the kittens.
• Peri and Cherry are scared of the potential whiplash they'll receive, but volunteer nonetheless.
• Nikita will stay with him and put the wood away.
• Due to necessity, everyone comes back home at eleven at night. They had dinner on the field which Snow packed for them, and they managed to bring in another 200 or so pinemen. That's over half, so GM is relaxed a bit at the thought.
• No one took any stamina potions since it'd affect their sleep, so everyone is exhausted.

Night Fun

• Snow is the only one not exhausted, of course, and she helps everyone up to bed including the kittens. GM thanks Gwin, Evisse and Nikita for helping out.
• Gwin is happy to have something to keep her distracted, Evisse is happy to help, and Nikita plays it off.
• He bids them all goodnight, saying he has to go see it that the girls are all taken care of.
• Sam, Zuzu, Meri, Peri and Cherry are laid out on the giant bed with their butts hanging off the side in a lineup. They're all tired, sweaty and in need of some loving.
• Snow is there too, naked and eager to help.
• GM fucks them all one by one in a lineup formation and once he's done with one, Snow helps tuck them into bed.
• Once he's done and everyone is asleep, he cuddles with Snow. She teases him a little, but says she'll comfort him if he needs it. She can sense the mood and knows he doesn't want to be hardcore bullied.
• GM confides in her that he's having trouble dealing with everything going on, too much stuff at once. He misses when things were simpler, but Snow kisses him and reminds him that things will get simple again once everything is settled down. She asks if he'll let her service him, and he asks her please do.