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“DALE! WHAT THE FUCK?!” Deirdre’s scream pierces the silence following the report of Dale’s plasma blaster. Scorched rock and bubbling gibbets give off plumes of acrid smoke.
Dale calmly asks, “What?”
“You just murdered an old man for no reason at all, the fuck do you mean, what?!”
“I mean, what do you care? It’s just an NPC.”
“Dale, please take this seriously for one second, because you are really acting like a psycho right now.”
“Pfft, no,” Dale scoffs. “I’m not gonna show any remorse for ‘murdering’ someone who wasn’t even a real person anyway.”
“That’s what psychos say about the people they kill!”
“Fine, but look at you, Little Miss ‘Choose Your One Adventure’ - I saw what you did with that lame false choice. All three forks led to the same place! Why didn’t you write yourself a way out of it, if it’s such a big deal?”
Speaking of which, if you READ ALL THREE CHOICES, then you should FEEL BAD. This was a trust-building exercise. It was mostly the same information, anyway, so all you really did was waste your own time. Please stop doing that, and the choices will get better.
If you MADE YOUR CHOICE AND STUCK WITH IT, then give yourself a PAT ON THE BACK! Don’t worry, you didn’t really miss out on anything - and your self-control will be rewarded later on.
“Fine,” Deirdre says, rolling her eyes in exasperation and making a Leadership roll. “Tell you what: I promise that there will be no more false choices, if you promise to stop killing NPCs on a whim. Is that a deal?”
Dale pauses for a tic, and finally says, “Deal.” They shake on it, and turn to contemplate the pile of smoldering guts in front of them.
“Well,” Deirdre says after a beat, “I guess we’ll never know if he had anything important on his person.”
“His bag’s fine,” Dale says. “Let’s see what he had.” While Deirdre takes ten on Observation to see if anyone’s coming, Dale crouches down to rifle through the pack. “Canteen, sandwich, package - that’s all.” The package is wrapped in brown paper, bound with twine. A letter is tucked into a small pocket on the bag, its wax seal already broken. “Hey, this letter might be important... wanna read it while we eat?”
Deirdre sighs in resignation and says, “Sure. Nobody’s coming, and your blasters will probably be more than enough to deal with anyone who tries to jump us. Sounds like we’re a couple hours away from anywhere, by what Vincent said.”
They sit down on the ground and split the sandwich, as well as the canteen’s remaining water, and read the letter. It says:
Dad,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. Yes, I could use another care package this year, and thank you kindly for offering. However, I don’t think you need to bring it yourself - a decent courier’s fee would be no big deal, you could take it out of what you’re sending me. I’m getting better tips, now that people know my face. You were right! I’m much better at singing than painting, and I improve on the lute every day.
I hope your trading post is doing well, it sounded like things were picking up again when we last spoke at the equinox festival. I can’t wait to hear all about it at the solstice!
Love always,
Yvonne
PS - It’s OK that you still miss Mom. I do, too. We can take some flowers to go talk to her together, if you want.
“OK, I admit it,” Dale says, folding up the letter.
“What,” Deirdre asks.
“I shouldn’t have cast Transmute Into Smithereens on the guy. Sounds like he’ll be missed.”
“Yeah,” Deirdre agrees. She takes ten on Savvy to think about the situation, while Dale takes ten to shift his fucking paradigm, as well he should. After some silence, Deirdre speaks up again: “OK, so here’s what we know: this guy was an established businessman, supporting his struggling artist daughter, living far enough away to need a courier for letters but close enough to make the trip on his own in a day. We also can’t cover this up, we just don’t have the time before nightfall - we have to go to Noob Town to resupply, because this guy lived decently far from here, and we’ve only got a one in three chance of picking the right direction of his home.”
She points to the sign, which reads (counterclockwise from where Vincent indicated): Noob Town, Noob Valley, Fort Roguelike (the direction from whence they came), and Leetsburg. Dale nods his assent, the seriousness of the situation sinking in.
Deirdre says, “So here’s the decision we have to make: do we open the package, try to hide what we’ve done, and hope we don’t get found out? Or do we still deliver it, pretending we found the body like this, and act like we’re just trying to do the right thing?”
“I don’t know,” Dale says, staring off into the woods. “I mean, there’s probably lots of money in there, and I don’t know what else. But like a year’s worth of money, or at least close - we have, what, a hundred bucks each?” Deirdre nods. “And yeah, this is definitely going to be discovered and investigated, so… good faith gesture to deflect suspicion, or rob the guy and skip town ASAP? I dunno, man, I dunno. I gotta think.”
“Shit, we also can’t let anyone see you use those blasters,” Deirdre says. “I’m getting a kinda Medieval Fantasy vibe here, those might really stand out and make it super obvious who did it.”
“Damn, that’s a good point,” Dale agrees.
If you think Deirdre & Dale should DELIVER THE PACKAGE, then check “Pseudo Psamaritan” on the last page, and then click here.
If you think they should PILFER THE PACKAGE, then check “Package Pilferer” on the last page, and then click here.
[Note: I know there's no "last page" while I write this, so just make a note on a handy page, or start up a Google Sheet like this or something.]
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