From Out of a Dream [Quest]

[L'het'esh]

If we have used all of our iron implements, Get Nuo’s iron knife. Assuming she still has it, it’s your best hope to defeat Joy’s magic.
And stop restraining the Blessing, going to need the power.
Can always move to a new city with the wealth from looting Himetsu's place.

[The MG]

Get Nuo's iron knife. And don't drop the Stone.

And stop restraining the Blessing, going to need the power.

That, too. Nuo already knows, anyway.

[Ferryman]

Get Nuo's iron knife. Joy has apparently shaped herself from our essence, which means she'll be very dangerous indeed. Cold iron will undo her magic. And it is time to stop holding back the Mark - we're tired, and after all of this we will need to leave anyway. It's been a long time since we cut loose, so let's just dispense with the charade and be done with this.

[Erinys]

Use Nuo's iron knife, and stop holding back. We're leaving this worthless town once this is over, and taking whatever we can carry with us.

The Stone is a thing from Joy's alien place, and it probably can't really harm her. But don't drop it.

Don't hold back on account of those mortals, either. They serve a xian monster. They don't deserve to live.

[L'het'esh]

It's not that the mortals don't deserve to live, a wise dealer in violence one said, "Deservings got nothing to do with it."

The guards were hired by the (hopefully) late Himetsu. They are doing their jobs. How loyal! Let me quote an even greater monster (than us), "I admire loyalty. But only when it is directed towards me."

If the guards are in the way, get rid of them. The Fae is the real enemy left. The part about looting the mansion and leaving? Maybe, if their are too many witnesses, but various powerful factions will hear that we told off the crowds and finished Himetsu. Jobs should be plentiful.

Oooooh! I got post 500! Yay me!

[semicasual]

Joy is slowly swaggering towards you one easy step at a time, not even bothering to adopt a martial stance. You are backing up, defensively holding the Stone behind you, periodically risking a glance at Nuo. “Nuo! Your knife! Now!” you bark at the slumping fish-woman.

“Can’t. I dropped it!” Nuo barks back. She grimaces and pushes herself off the wall, raising her spiny forearms in a weak-looking guard. Joy trills with laughter.

You indiscriminately curse Nuo, Joy, the gods, and your life while you scan the parlor floor. You spot the knife almost right away… next to Joy’s feet.

Instinct and tactical choice come together at once. You hunch up your shoulders and stop backing away. Joy, reacting with the speed you’d expect from a trained fighter, stops her advance and raises her buckler. You charge at her with a roar, as if you meant to take her with nothing but the Stone under your arm, but veer to the side at the last second. Joy’s sword sweeps over you as you dive and roll past her, snatching the knife from the floor as you go. At the end of your tumble, you get on your feet and spin around – one foot and the Stone held behind you, the other foot and the knife in front of you in a hammer grip, almost like a fencer.

“Oh, well done,” says Joy, appreciatively. “Violence is so much better, done competently.” She raps her sword against her shield, perhaps to mimic a clap, or as a challenge, or both.

You meet Joy’s banter with silence. The hilt of the knife is slick in your hand, and the blade is wet with blood. Your eyes flick to Nuo, who has neither moved nor lowered her guard.

Joy lunges, and you barely pull your eyes back to her in time to catch her blade with yours. The sawed edge of her sword grinds on your iron, casting off sparks as you turn and pull away from her. You follow up with a stab of your own, but she turns too and catches your knife neatly with her buckler. She is not strong, but she is able to redirect your arm so the force behind your own strike throws you off balance.

She keeps stabbing and slicing at you, pushing you to the wall while you try to recover. Iron clashes on warped steel once, twice, thrice. When you’re busy watching her sword-hand for the next strike, her shield-hand swings around, smashing into your face. You reel back, dazed, and her next jab catches you in the chest just below your right shoulder.

The pain is incredible, even for a stab wound. You hear a sizzling noise coming from where the sword has pierced your skin. You lose feeling in your right arm and nearly drop your knife. Joy leans in close with an evil smile, pushing the blade in deeper as she goes. “It burns, does it not? It burns with the hate I have just for you, ‘hero.’” She abruptly pulls her sword out, barbs tearing more of your flesh as it comes loose. Your vision swims as the shock hits you.

By choice or by impulse, you stop holding back.

A howl escapes your lips as the Mark burns through your headband, outshining every other light in the room with gold. It feels as if liquid metal runs through your veins and fire erupts from your mouth. At once, your vision clears and the pain loses prominence in your mind. You raise up your knife, more than ready to fight again.

You rush at Joy, flipping the knife into a reverse grip as you go, and slice at her sword-arm. She turns her knife to meet yours, but you have already adjusted your blade’s path, anticipating her block. Instead of iron meeting steel, iron meets bone as your knife cuts into the fingers gripping her sword. Joy lets out a startled cry and pulls back, spilling oddly viscous black blood onto the floor. When you lunge again, she blocks with her shield instead, but this time you thrust past her guard entirely and slice down her shield-arm. Her leather armor parts easily, spilling much more black blood, and the shield falls from her senseless hand as you pull your knife free.

One more strike, again at her sword hand. Rather than risk blocking again, she tries to jerk out of the way entirely – not quickly enough. The knife chops into her grip, shearing free part of a thumb. Then her sword, too, falls from her grasp.

You pull back, flipping the knife around again into a saber grip. Joy stands there, futilely trying to staunch her bleeding arm with her bleeding hand, her expression a mix of awe and terror.

Time to finish this.

• Be quick. No theatrics – just cut her throat and be done with it.
• Be cruel. A little further down, and you’d have a sucking wound now. She needs to pay for that.
• Be sadistic. Tear her apart.
• Something else?

[wonderandawe]

Be quick. We are a mercenary not a murderer.

[Zelbinnean]

Tear her apart. In her last moments, show her that you would win all along, and that your lack of success was attributable to your desire to not be so obvious about it. As that is no longer a concern, you may as well make the most of glowing with the Blessing. Have her last cognizant thought be about how she never stood a chance at all, not with you like this.

[Caladon]

Be quick. Nuo may need our help asap

[L'het'esh]

Be quick. No theatrics – just cut her throat and be done with it.

Don't give her a chance to recover or pull a reverse. Of course, now Nameless must burn down the hut, er, mansion, to cover the glow of the Blessing. Any guard who sees the Blessing must die, same as the miners. Nuo can live, with an appropriate vow, but if she is as annoying as usual...

[The MG]

Be artful. Lop her head clean off.

[Zelbinnean]

So THIS is the moment y'all aren't bloodthirsty monsters who are pushing hypergore solutions?

Man am I ever confused.

[The MG]

Joy in Killing seems dangerous. We have to kill her first, then desecrate the body.

[wonderandawe]

So THIS is the moment y'all aren't bloodthirsty monsters who are pushing hypergore solutions?

Man am I ever confused.

I'm been voting for Nergui as an efficient ruthless mercenary that has no problem killing someone in their bed if it gets the job done. He does not glory in blood and violence. It is just a necessary evil. He pretends to be an dick and deep down he doesn't believe he is a hero. Last time he tried that, he FAILED and his whole family paid the price. He has to have some sort of feelings to drink away.

[Erinys]

Joy in Killing is very dangerous. Be quick as necessary, but don't hold back cruelty that's also quick. Get out our anger. We aren't sadistic, but we are angry.
It's not like she's human.

As for Nuo.... well she probably needs help but we're no shaman, and now that she's seen our Blessing she'll turn on us just like everyone else.