Bladebound Retainer Quest #3

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>Twitter: twitter.com/TaskForceKaz

[STATS]
>Combat: +++
>Social: +
>Knowledge: ++

[Traits/Perks]
>Indomitable, Rank 1: Ignore the penalties imposed by Blood Loss. Does not negate health loss.
>Atelier of Death: Craft your own Bombs and Poisons
>Nimble Fingers: +30 to non-attack actions involving your hands (lockpicking, pickpocketing, etc.).

While Ellana may have saved your life, the potion she had forced down your throat did nothing to heal your other injuries. Namely the ones inflicted by the Ingulan twins, as well as the bolt hole in your left hand. Goddess’ Tears allegedly only pull the drinker from the thin edge between life and death, and was rumored to even bring back men and women minutes dead.

But that is all it does. It leaves the healing process up to the one who imbibed the potion, and the skill of the caretakers surrounding him.

The cold days pass by slowly as you spend your time recovering in Karthmere Keep. From outside the window, the harsh winter gradually abates in its intensity. Even though it continues to fall, the amount of snow left from the nights prior continually decreases. As the month goes by, the grip of winter will eventually cede its hold on the realm to the warmer seasons.

A week has passed since your conversation with Ser Palme. Since then, the wound in your hand has completely healed, and the only remnants of your foray against the Red Snakes are the scars to run along your body. Those would quickly fade with time, but the memories that came with them would not be so easily forgotten.

“…cus. Marcus? Marcus, are you listening to what I’m asking you?”

(cont.)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=bmkxsQnNujI
youtube.com/watch?v=seKaU-qQuts
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Ellana, stretching in her seat, affixes you with a pointed look. Her lips are pursed in a frown that tries so hard to look stern, but more than anything else comes off as petulant glare. The old man adjacent to her only adds a wry look in your general direction before turning a page of his book, a veritable monster of a tome.

Grimacing, you pull yourself out of reminiscence and go over how it all came to this.

You know your letters and numbers well enough and a little more to be able to read ciphers and measure reagents and extracts to the ounce. But beyond the kill orders and formulae, your knowledge of the wider world is little better than a fishmonger’s, if not worse depending on the market place. From hearsay, it’s said that the fishermen of the Grey Islands are as learned as a magister.

That was the point, though. Most of it, if not all of, your knowledge is more grounded in hearsay and the talk of smallfolk more than anything else. Lucien never bothered to add history lessons to your ‘apprenticeship’, and most of what Serena read aloud to the rest of the Locusts went through one ear and out the other. Maybe he would have begun deeper instruction, and maybe you’d muster up the patience to listen to her go on and on about distant places far away from the Empire.

But those are ‘maybes’ that you’ll never know.

Save for the more unpleasant bits of your childhood, your dearth of formal instruction came up when Ellana firmly insisted that you tell her more about yourself. As soon as that information came out of your mouth, a funny look came across her face. Then, she marched out of the room without a second glance backwards. For a blessed five minutes, there was a tranquil silence that you observed with the absence of her eager questions and talking.

(cont.)

>As soon as that information came out of your mouth
I thought we were in agreement NOT to tell her about our past!

Then it all came crashing down when the princess returned, veritably dragging a bewildered older man in the grey-spun robes of a magister. You were able to put two and two together to get for, and no sooner did you do so when the she drove the metaphorical nail into the coffin. It was her desire that you would receive a formal instruction alongside her as your wounds would heal.

“Perhaps it is time to call for a break,” Magister Ansell said, with a smile that was not unkind.
He was old, the oldest man that you’ve ever seen. Ser Palme once wryly mentioned that all of the wrinkles were there when he entered into the Crowngard ten years ago, teaching long since when the royal family were still little and unborn. “I’m afraid that your new friend still may not be well enough to continue.”

You cough once to clear both the tense air and your throat as you sit up in your bed. Raising your hands in a recalcitrant gesture, you say, “…I’m afraid I had lost myself in thought…milady.” It still feels strange to have that word come off your tongue. But you can’t do anything about it, save to get used to addressing the nobility. “And for that, I apologize. But I do have a recollection of what we were talking about…”

>You will be able to take 50 on Knowledge Checks related to the subject.
>Choose a topic:
>Gods and Faiths [Religion]
>History of Kaithe [History]
>Nobles of Aderaveth [Nobility]

>Save for the more unpleasant bits of your childhood
'Twas watered down heavily. And filled in with Palme's backstory. Ran out of characters to add that in with, sorry for confusion.

I just realized that this quest is a grittier version of princess guard quest

>>Nobles of Aderaveth [Nobility]
Seems useful for the assassin

>History of Kaithe [History]
History and worldbuilding is more interesting.

>>Nobles of Aderaveth [Nobility]
I think this is the most useful for our job

>Nobles of Aderaveth [Nobility]

>Nobles of Aderaveth [Nobility]

We gonna know all them targets.

That's a quest that's been on my reading list for the longest time. Judging from the votes on suptg, it seems to be held in high regard by the anons here.

Writing...

Don't unless you want to take it as a lesson of how to not deal with shitposting.

>it seems to be held in high regard by the anons here
Held in regard, yes. Not exactly high regard. It's one of the best examples of quest shitstorma.

It's alright... It has shitpost galore though. Also, the waifuing oh lord the waifuing.

It was one hell of a ride, that's for sure.

He fucking railroaded the waifu, made the MC lose a fight after ridiculous rolls... That guy just took a shit on everything that he could shit on.

>made the MC lose a fight after ridiculous rolls
B-but legendary magic sword

B-b-buh creating situations were running is not an option and there's no chance of winning.

Not to mention the whole premise was flawed. MC was supposed to be a bodyguard for the princess but it turns out that everyone else, including children, was more capable than him and any attempt to try to alleviate that was powergaming and must be punished.

And making us roll for it too. Which was hillarious.

>Roll to automatically fail

I remember the

>MUH MINMAXERS

Fun times. We're the personal bodyguard to the heiress of the kingdom but we're the trashiest in the castle and there's no way we can try to improve to live up to the task given to us.

THE MEMES ARE OUTTA CONTROL

To be fair minmaxing in a game without character sheet is pretty stupid and QM railroaded hard the outcome of any battle.

Christ, the author sounds like a cunt. I can understand having an MC that's weak, and will never be in the top 10 strongest, but constantly pushing for "lol you fail" no matter what sounds right cunty. At that point, why not just write your own goddamn story and have it up on Wordpress?

We didnt know he was railroading hard until he took the massive shitblast in the duel. Before it was just rumours.

And minmax wasnt really minmaxing but trying to get some sort of skills to be able to do our supposed job. The waifufags called it minmaxing because buzzwords are cool or whatever.

I think he said something about doing a visual novel. Maybe I dreamed that in a delirious fit of rage after the massive railroading.

That's still shitty and no one will want to play a VN where you're shit no matter what and get punished for trying to be good.

Now that you think of it, is there a way for the MC to lose a battle and not cause a shitstorm?

At least they dont make you roll to fail in VN's

>Captcha: Select all images with noodles.

Yes captcha, it was exactly like that.

Yeah, if there's a real way to win there's no shitstorm. If they tell you "actually you were gonna lose no matter what because magic legendary sword" then you kinda go "then why the fuck would you make an encounter like that?". It's the equivalent to rock falls everybody dies.

Poor player decisions and bad rolls?

Jesus Christ, what the hell actually happened? This shit sounds like ass.

Maybe have a sort of a "Valiant Last Stand" that even your opponent has to acknowledge your intellect, skill, or resourcefulness?

MC is assigned to be the guard of the princess, he's actually the trashiest character in the whole castle. Anons try, obviously, to gain some sort of power, they get cockblocked to oblivion. There's slight waifuwars but nothing serious.

Something happens and we have to duel the antagonist of the story (not supervillain tier, but rather disgusting character). We duel, roll ridiculously well, QM pulls a "this isnt even my final form", we still roll super-high, in the end he breaks our sword, we get our shit pushed inwards and QM admits not even if we straight critted every single roll we wouldnt have won.

Then he shits the bed and decides that picking a waifu is a harsh choice for anons and takes the choice for them with the sluttiest waifu in the cast.

“…the nobles of Aderaveth, right? You were just going over the von Roies and the Goodyres a few minutes ago. And before them, the Mazurs, Pullmans and the other vassals sworn to the Crowmond banner.”

Ansell nods quietly. “Perhaps your mind is sharper than your injuries betray you for. You were able to recall their names with surprising cognition. But can you identify their sigils and words? Their territories and heirs?”

You frown, concentrating as hard as you could before exhaling in defeat. “Not the heirs, but a few of the banners, holdfasts and words. The von Roies are the rulers of the sole principality in the Empire, the Gomernt Vale, led by Alistair von Roie, the current Keeper of the Law. Their sigil is an inverted sword with a yellow-red sun backdrop, but the words escape me.”

“Acceptable. Do you think you can name one more before we move onto the other noble houses?”

“…the Belmores of Sellsmere. Horse on a purple banner, and their words are...‘Courage Calls Us Forward’. Makes sense since they field the best cavalry in the entire realm.” That you know as a fact when Lucien came back on a failed mission, cursing about the flight from their holdfast. “Oh, and their current leader is Lord Edmund Belmore, the heir and last surviving son of the late Robert Belmore, who suffered a stroke.”

Ellana seems impressed, but Ansell remains unmoved. “That will do for now, young Painel. You do not require my formal instruction as much as you need to read through the great libraries and commit this knowledge to heart. But I digress. It is almost noon, and it would be unwise to continue studying on an empty stomach.”

The old man gets up, with every bone in his body cracking as he stretches the kinks accumulated from three hours of tutoring. The princess winces, but you just take it in stride. You’ve heard worse from actual broken bones.

(cont.)

I want the old guy to be our dadfu, he can reads us stories and we can take care of him when he's too old and strive to impress him like the attention starved son that we are ;_;

No user. We don't need no dad. No women either. I'm waiting for the part where Serena gets revived and starts shit talking us about stuff and breaks our heart.

Fuck that's retarded

Dont you prefer to heal the heart first before crushing it into small pieces user?

You werent even there to see the shitstorm. It was glorious. The shit assploded so hard it became particles of shit that were shoved into every pore of your being and dragged you across shittown through turd avenue.

Time heals all wounds, yes. What's to say that the revival won't be after we've learned to forgive ourselves? Who am I kidding? We're never going to. We could have protected her user. We could've.

Weighing in here Kaz, if you do read PGQ take it as a lesson what NOT to do.

“When we return, we shall go over the other great houses of the Empire: Hastings, Lawcomb, Rosarn and Tarmond. For other noble families descended from those that bent the knee to the first Crowmond nearly four hundred years prior, and aided in his conquest of the continent…well, partial conquest at any rate. We shall go over those houses in great detail. And perhaps, if the day is still with us, we can broach the subject of our Empire’s history…”

Ansell continues to trail off on his own, lost in his thoughts, even though no one follows him out of the room. Ellana looks torn between following her tutor for lunch in the main hall, and staying with you for another ‘interrogation’. The sound of her stomach rumbling like a starving bear in winter eventually compels her to choose the former. With an embarrassed blush on her face as she makes her exit.

...finally, some peace and quiet-

The door bursts open with a loud noise, and Ser Orici Palme walks through as if he held ownership of the territory. Following him, a demure maidservant carries a basket of what looks like assorted foodstuffs. “Painel,” He greets you with a simple nod. “How was your tutoring session?”

You mutter something unintelligible as you sink back into the mattress that’s too fluffy for you to enjoy.

He grins. “I’ll take that as a good sign. Magister Ansell has a propensity for…long-winded and thoroughly detailed instructing, but he means well. You’ll get used to it as long as the princess wants you to stay with her.”

The maidservant sets down the food on the bedside table, keeping her face down as she arranges your meal. Bowing politely, she makes a quick retreat to the door behind Palme. You can’t stop your stomach from growling, but you have a little more self control in going after your food.

After swallowing two mouthfuls of bread, you return your attention to Palme. “So what brings you to this corner of the castle?"

(cont.)

Princess Guard Quest: Reloaded Revengeance of the Return of the Bladebound Retainer

I think nobody with more than 2 braincells can read that and thinks "THAT'S exactly what quests should be all about".

It's the dr.jekyll and mr hyde of quests.

NOW WITH MORE RAILROADING.

Nah that's: Train Simulator 2016: Princess Expansion Pack

Not really, we're not trash-cans and not everybody is a fucking magical mary-sue from beyond. Also we level up our skills.

Did you even bought the waifu dlc?

Nope, I pirated it

You fucking faggot, that's why we could only marry the slut.

I blame you for everything that went wrong.

...

What

He leans up against the wall, his armor scraping the stone as he finds a comfortable position for himself. “I finished talking with the healers. Your wounds seem to have healed for the most part, enough so that it won’t impede any extraneous physical activity. You did say you had some other pains though, just minor aches, am I right?”

You nod as you roll both shoulders in your socket. “Nothing that another three days of bedrest won’t fix on their own. Or a numbing tonic. It’ll hurt a bit, but it shouldn’t deter from my…” You pause, searching for the proper word to describe your talents. “…unique skills.”

“Good. Because the sooner we get you out of that bed and I see what you’re capable off, the quicker I can expedite your entry into the Crowngard. Prince Emeron is due to return with his Gryphon Knights within the week, and I want to make sure you’re in top condition before we present you to him.”

You look outside past the window, inspecting the snow-covered grounds of the keep itself. “I’ve trained in snow before, but this sounds a bit extreme, even for me…”

Snorting, Palme jerks a hand towards the door. “The Crownguard has their own private grounds to train. One that is protected from the outside elements. That way we can train as long as we want without worrying about freak rainstorms or the odd hail.

“So what do you say? Do you want to stay indoors and wait for a full recovery of your body? Or do you want to hop back onto the metaphorical horse right now, pain be damned?”

>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.
>Stay here and wait for the continuation of your lesson.

How are you such a sloot? Harems a shit.

>>Stay here and wait for the continuation of your lesson.

>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.

I HAVE TO IMPRESS BIG BRO.

>>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.
Pain is a reminder you're still living. The longer you stay bedridden, the more your skills deteriorate.

user, we are not Simon to Palme's Kamina.

>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.

gogogogo

>>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.

Some people really like trains. Some people really like specific trains.

>>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.

>>Go out and follow Palme to the training grounds.

>Stay here and wait for the continuation of your lesson.
Extra training won't really help us much, it's not like we are going to improve that fast from a little extra training or that we are rusty or anything. Improving our actual physical condition comes first.

We're gonna get pretty rusty if we keep bedridden so long. We're not gonna be doing flips and shit but doing something to not stay like a fucking vegetable sounds good.

>>Stay here and wait for the continuation of your lesson.
I'd rather get healed first
It's only 3 more days you can't get rusty that fast

>Stay here and wait for the continuation of your lesson.
It's only been three days. That sucks, but that's not going to cause any skill degradation.

What the actual fuck

Writing...

>not wanting to be a railroad master like your spiritual predecessor
Gotta make some sacrifices

user, PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT

NO POOSY

5.5k in dlc.

THIS IS THE FUTURE WE CHOSE.

...

>there are people who don't want to train with renewed purpose

Gonna go grab something to eat. Be back soon.

Your PC will break again

user I swear to fucking god I will force you to buy him a new pc if it happens.

>Join Palme

Might as well. It's just minor aches, right?

Come on Sylviefags, it ended a long time ago. Let it fucking go.

Are you the faggot that rolled three nat 1's in the first two threads of TF666?

>Sylviefags
Sword was the only true option

Always by our side, never bitched and moaned

Until it broke.

Kaz, can we get some sort of Fairy Sidekick in this quest?
I feel like we should have one, no we're meant to have one!

Who really cared about the waifu wars? They were all about the same, if it actually was a VN they would all have the same face too. Although we were railroaded into literally the worst one.

I hate you.

Why the fuck would you want something that glows as a sidekick for an assassin? The fuck?

The mark of a skilled assassin is not being able to sneak around in the dark, but being able to remain unseen in the light.
Also, Fairy Sidekicks are awesome and we should have one.

>all of Kaz' quests have fairy sidekick for MC

>when magic isn't real in the setting it's instead the hallucination of a fairy sidekick

It's like the Orb in Larro Quests.

>inb4 this:
youtube.com/watch?v=bmkxsQnNujI

No, that's retarded. You need to be molded by the darkness to be an assassin.

You think the darkness is your ally?

Eh both are important.

Being compared to Jack is pretty much guaranteed to give someone a raging erection.

I WAS BORN IN IT.

>he doesn't understand that a good assassin is never seen, whether hiding in shadows or plain sight

This is why you get caught.

>Ever assasinating out of the shadows

Stop playing buttcreed ya dumdums.

I just hope the new series is half as good as the original.

What if getting caught is part of our plan?

Then you must be crashing your carriage.

With no survivors.

It'll never be the same.

RIP, Mako.

I just love baneposting, never get sick of it.

something like this then?
youtube.com/watch?v=seKaU-qQuts