Less of an RPG and more of a dating sim with stabbing in it: Let's Play Loren the Amazon Princess!

...why is it that people don't like Mesphit, again? Because I find him kind of sexy here...

I think it's because it takes a while for the sexy to show up.

Whoa.

That and for every instance of sexy there's two instances that make you wanna facedesk.

I... Like Mesphit a lot. And the fact that they don't jump each other the very first second they meet kinda makes me like this path more.

Seconded but didn't Elenor jump Mesphit when they first met? For non-romantic purposes?

I thought she slapped him.

Wait, then when did she tackle him? Or was that some other hot blue guy?

I believe he's grabbed both her and Draco and been grabbed by Rei and Amukiki, all with fairly low bodice-rippy overtones.

Vampires won the vote, but if I see so much of a hint of a one-eyed teddy bear or a dapper little hat I am out of here.



The party discusses this strange change. Namely, it's really weird since the people who used to own it are all dead. As is everyone who's tried to move in since. Or even, like… go near it. Animals avoid it, crops don't grow there, place is cursed to the max and also prone to vampire infestation. They're like a seasonal pest or something. I'm not sure whether they're the cause or the effect of the curse. So we gotta kill some vampires.

May peace finally come to those who lost their lives here.
They're already at peace. You're just being a party crasher now.

A corpse party crasher, if you will. Now let's go save some Amazons.



We are swiftly dogpiled by various castle guardians. After some vigorous murdering, only one hound still stands. Logically, it should be dead several times over by now, but it's giving Loren quite some trouble.

I know those eyes. That beast is fighting for someone besides itself.

Karen actually closes her eyes as Loren makes the final blow and the hellbeast collapses with an eerie sound effect. Some of the more tenderhearted members of the party look down at the corpse with regret.

The silence is broken by the scariest damn whimpering noise I have ever heard. One of the other, smaller hounds in the pack turns out not to be as dead as we thought. It drags itself over to the one Loren just put her sword through and uh



And then the LP was delayed while I found a puppy to hug

I cannot handle this sort of thing

and then it howls and the thing where it has three heads to howl with makes it EVEN SADDER

party banter confirms that yeah, that's a mother dog we just killed

good going

Karen steels herself and prepares to put the poor thing out of its misery so nobody else has to.

Kill it!? After we come in here and kill its mommy, our apology is to kill it!?

Draco storms past the Amazons in highest indignation. He has genuine backbone, if like zero common sense. Everyone is kind of worried about how this is going to end, especially when the hellhound goes on the defensive and starts growling.

Dummy! Come back here!
I can snipe it from here, no worries.

Rei no stop helping D:

Good doggie… I won't hurt you.
Let's not be crazy, Draco…

Draco continues to ignore all this silly advice in his best interest and tosses the beast some jerky from his pockets. It sniffs it cautiously before it begins to feed; a fascinating and moderately disgusting affair.

Then it pounces. Fortunately, it becomes clear that it is only after more food before any violent acts are committed. Also we learn that Draco is ticklish; valuable info for the fanfic thread I am sure. Loren wants to know what all this is about.



The rest of the party offers their feelings on the matter, but these two have bonded and are now too busy being adorable buddies to care about any of that.

I cannot find it in me to kill this hound's child. We should let it live.
Fine, but we're not keeping it. It is no one's pet. Entertaining an inferno hound is only asking for trouble.
You're my little Trouble, aren't you, aren't you?

Loren turns to Elenor as the one person who has half a hope of making Draco listen to her. I'm not even going to ask for votes on this one.

No, I like it. It's cute with its three waggly tongues.
What?
Wonderful! Another creature saved from darkness!

And then Myrth starts fussing over the murderbeast too. It likes her. The heads all start pushing each other around for prime petting position. It is like being swarmed by a litter of puppies who have just met you except they are all the same puppy. Loren protests that they can't afford to drag dead weight around, but Ramas knows a thing or two about inferno hounds and assures her that it'll fight for Draco's sake.

I'll kill it if it gets out of line - the same as you, Draco.

Draco does not stop smiling for one second. As soon as Loren's out of earshot, he bends down to whisper to his new firey buddy.

Don't worry, Trouble. She's all bark.

I'm not entirely sure that Draco's tsundere radar is as good as he thinks it is. But fuck it, PUPPY.

That is unbearably cute. And sad. But cute! But sad.

*quietly takes a moment to hug her own doggy*

Draco cannot possibly get any cuter unless he lets his ears out, just saying.

Dawwwing so hard right now. Draco could definitely use the unconditionnal love of a pet, the poor darling.

OMG SO CUTE SO CUTE SO CUTE

...The puppy, too, but MEOW MESPHIT

Puppy~~~~<3

This is awesome.

I could never let Loren kill Trouble. I AM EVIL, NOT HEARTLESS.

Same. I did it once for science. Never again ;_;

Bakfhhfks cuteness overload help

For the sake of SCIENCE, I can affirm that saying no is not fatal to the puppy. You just lose out on an awesome new party member is all. That thing's stats are clean through the roof.

Onto storming the castle.



Or… not storming the castle as it turns out. Karen points out that the residents will be expecting us, Amukiki and Rei are of the option that we're too badass to care, half of our wizards start calling Rei a dumbass because VAMPIRES

And Loren is electing to ask Elenor's advice because Elenor generally has good ideas.



I should have just kept going last night because boy howdy this was a short one.

...ladies.

VOTING TIME

It will continue until I get bored; in the event of a tie I will probably just flip a coin.

Rei's face associated with the whole "do you want to use the backdoor ?" thing makes me incredibly uneasy.

I'll pass D:

I say we CHARGE!

Charging is very Amazon, at least as Amazons have been characterized so far.

However, as we're actually leading a party of one Amazon, one Amazon slave, one adorable woobie half-elf, two weird elves, a bad-touch sorceress, a human meatshield, a human racist, two dwarves, and an adorable woobie hellhound puppy, I vote that we go for the completely non-Amazon approach of finding another way in.

Strictly speaking we have two Amazons, even if Karen isn't quite as loud as her daughter.

...This party has gotten fairly huge.

I...I had completely forgot Karen. I am filled with SHAME, because she's my favorite Amazon and everything! But I'm still not used to the mysteriously missing mentor figure joining the party, as opposed to dying while uttering cryptic advice or the like.

let's go ninjamazons and find another entrance.

(sugar-junkie, thanks, you said it before I did, thank heavens, I'm not the only terrible punster here)

No! As proud Amazons and other people we charge through the front gate!

And goddammit, I love Draco and trouble so much. I'd been waiting for this scene for ages just to see how everyone would react =D

Leave it to us french ones to have our mind forever down the gutter.

CHARGE!

I'm sure nothing will go wrong.

While I'm tempted to vote for "charge" just because it would be hilarious to see how badly it will go wrong (Though we'll probably come out of it okay anyway), I'm going to vote for finding another way in. Just barreling in could result in the hostages being killed if they aren't dead already.

Also, Trouble's introduction scene was both heart-wrenching and heartwarming at the same time. About time someone besides us loved Draco.

ABANDON REASON! KNOW ONLY WAR!

(yes, that means charge)

LISTEN TO MITT ROMNEY

And the Republican party pushes over to CHARGE

Just as well; I did both during the wait and the sneaky option has a super fun minigame that does not LP very well - it's a bunch of low-impact choices set very close together that determine enemies, treasure, and various entertaining banter options. Also this one has slightly less fluff content and slightly more plot.

Let's teach those vampires some manners.
It's settled: to the gates!

We crash on through, whereupon we are locked in and confronted with one Valery N'Mar.



Loren demands that she release the captive Amazons. Valery claims that they don't take captives, Karen presents Breza's testimony, and then she gets mad about being called a liar and sets the zombies on them. This, in turn, sets Mesphit off into one of his defensive hissy fits, upon which Valery perks up.

Is that… a dark elf…?
I don't like the way she said that.

Yyyyeah I think you got a rival for your man there, Elenor. Valery is looking kind of besotted. That doesn't mean she stops her minions from ripping into us.

I told you this wasn't going to be easy!

It is still pretty easy.

You have been very rude to my guests… I must ask you to leave now. Farewell.

Wait, are we the guests in this metaphor or are the dead people the guests this lady cannot make up her mind

She makes the ground collapse under us and drops everyone into an acid pit THIS IS NOT BEING A GOOD HOST. Fortunately we have wizards and Apolimesho is apparently used to this sort of thing. I want an Apolimesho prequel now.

That lady totally just tried to kill us!
Well. That wouldn't have been pleasant.

We start looking for some sort of way out. Presumably there exists such a thing.

There has to be. This is a well-maintained acid pit, from the looks of it.
Know much about this, do you?

For someone who doesn't like dark magic being thought of as evil, Chambara is surprisingly sinister.

Dora finds us a secret passageway. Or rather, four of them. One path has an excellent item, two have monsters, and one has a legit way through. Onward!

To be fair, if Elenor ran as the Republican candidate, I would move to the US to become a citizen just to vote for her.

Imgr is still down but I wanna get this update out before bed so fuck it, SUPER SUMMARY SAIYAN GO.

At the end of the tunnel is a room full of bones and creepy dark ritual paraphernalia and more bones. It is creepy.

We should have been very near an entrance into the castle.
Or very far…

A voice comes out of nowhere. A raven swoops around and caws at us, leading to a very one-sided conversation until it is revealed that the raven was not, in fact, the person talking to us.

It's a very old lady dressed in dark robes, leaning heavily upon a staff with something's spine at the top, and holding a human skull. She requests that we not murder her only friend in a fit of shapeshifter paranoia. Fair enough. We don't want another Trouble's mom on our hands.

Further interrogation reveals that she goes by Mother Morte and that no, she does not have any Amazons in her collection… Yeah all the bones and creepy witch paraphernalia are hers.

So. You're one of those types of reclusive old ladies.

By which he means the necromantic sort. Sauzer knows his creepy undead fanatics. She doesn't seem to take offense at the ensuing criticism.

I am proud of my work. Listen to me long enough and you will see its beauty, too.

Polimo is having none of this and suggests that we kill her because DARK MAGIC BAD. This kicks off another rambling discussion. Morte seems to be pretty reclusive; it takes her a while to remember that oh hey yeah some people call that kind of thing dark magic.

She has gone senile. Can we kill her now?
Your respect for your elders is staggering.
She's a bone witch. She's not worth any respect.

Outside the romance arc, Rei's personality is basically 50% murder and 50% bitterness.

You may regret slaying me. I predict you'll regret it... very much.

Wow that's a creepy face there Morte. We… don't have any specific quarrel with you yes? Loren asks her for directions to wherever the Amazons are being held so they can be on their way. Morte, in a roundabout fashion, tells us that we should be worried more about the Death Knights on the rise.

Yes. Death Knights. Plural.

Okay there's just one more besides Fost and he's pretty new at this deathknight thing but he's still just as capable of fucking over everything.

Also it is Sauzer's fault, she's all like "GOOD JOB THERE KIDDO :D" Apparently the cultists we met at the tomb of twilight were responsible for this, stupid flesh people, this is why you can only trust folks to not screw up once they're dead have you ever seen a dead guy try to end the world as you know it? 'Course not you can't do that if you're dead.

Anyway kings are bad news so she's willing to help us take this guy down. We won't need an army for this because he doesn't have an army either. He's been moseying the Orcish Wastes for allies but the joke is on him because everyone willing to sign on with a sinister genocidal lunatic has already done so with the big man up in Everburn.

How can we trust you? What do you gain from all this?
Yeah, aren't all you undead folk buddies?

Draco no what did we learn about racism last chapter.

We're kindred… But the kings must always be feared. They're blind and will attack all.
But it is good for me that some still can tell friend… from foe.

She's of the opinion that we won't be able to do it without her as backup. After some pressing, she admits that okay, there's a bit of a catch. She wants some sort of gift that the king will give us once he's dead. Dead again, whatever. It's pretty powerful and tricky to obtain but she'll give us a bit of a walkthrough so we can get our hands on it.

And in return, she'll sweeten the deal by giving us some undead friends for our anti-Fost army because fuck Death Knights yes?

So, now that you have your frivolous terms, do you accept them?

Do we? It is VOTIN TIME AGAIN

>ACCEPT THEM

>KILL HER

>LEAVE

ACCEPT THE ZOMBIES

Accept them.

Given that I've already played this part, I'll abstain from voting. I'm interested to see what everyone else will vote for.

I...uh...hm.

In a lot of D&D-esque settings, the undead are inherently evil, and using them is an inherently evil act. But in a world without an alignment system as such, I'm not as certain. Does the production of the undead necessarily require evil acts? Does it affect the ability of the former body-owners' souls in reaching the afterlife or anything like that? Is it generally traumatizing to their friends and kin? There are a lot of reasons why using the undead--or creating them--could be horribly unethical, but depending on the setting, it's not necessarily so.

But I don't know which it is in this case; we've only run into undead controlled by evil folks so far, but I don't recall any definitive explanation from a trustworthy source (NOT YOU, REI!) that makes it clear that this is necessarily so. And since we're protagonists, I'm pretty sure we're not going to get a game-over just because we don't take some dead dudes with us. The big bad was taken down by folks without undead help before, after all.

Bah. I've reasoned myself back into uncertainty. I'll vote for LEAVE, even though accepting them might be more interesting, as the third option for a confusing ethical dilemma.

We should accept her terms just to further piss of Rei. I mean, his misery is pretty much the only thing that keeps us going, right?

A desire for justice and saving the world keeps us going! Pissing off Rei is sort of like dessert. The delightful chocolate mousse with frothy espresso-powder-topped whipped cream to go with the tasty filling ham-and-noodle casserole of heroic world-saving.

(Huh. I think it's lunch time, isn't it?)

Ham and noodle casserole sounds pretty great... Shit, I even have ham in the fridge for once. Not sure if I want to go through all the trouble of making bechamel sauce when I'm this hungry. Maybe I'll have a light snack for now and make it for late lunch/early dinner.

You got a recipe?



As for the voting, the ayes seem to have it. Deals with the devil all up ins, let's do this.

The living may not be such bad company after all.
Now that you're our friend, the undead won't attack us anymore, right?

The ones under her command won't, but there's plenty that aren't. We'll have to take care of those ourselves.

Though you have more than enough travelers with you… You should let a zombie win a fight or two. They're usually quite hungry and it's only polite.

I'm all for good manners but that's taking it a little too far. Even if Rei has it coming. Anyway there's an orcish city (just one…?) out there and they'll show us where he is. I guess they don't want a death knight on their hands either.

When you are near to the king, call upon me and I will guide you. Act quickly and move to kill. He'll know in your eyes what you plan to do.
You have a Master of Truth with you. He will be perfect in sending this king home.

Well this isn't ominous.

Will I now?
You are friends with many on the other side. You know that realm intimately.
Let's say that I do. What are you getting at?
You know what the king is and what must be done.

Not ominous at all oh god what are we getting into. I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that neither one of them is going to tell us what they're talking about 'til the last minute, to boot.

I'm not volunteering.
You'll find you won't have a choice - but do not fear. You will be pleased. Very pleased. I will give the king's gift to you.

So uh… what if we don't like the sound of this and decide to take out the Death Knight without calling her down?

I would enjoy watching you try. I'm sure it would be very amusing indeed…

Well, enough of this creepy pact business. Let's get those directions. The doorway is covered in cobwebs and shit; clearly nobody uses it much. Same for the interior of the castle; despite the outside appearance it's looking pretty abandoned.

We sneak around for a while, apparently searching literally everywhere except for that ominous bigass tower.



It is very swanky up here. Now who's that?