SelkieMyth
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Chapter 628 - After Action Report II
🕑 Added 2025-02-03 03:00:07 +0000 UTC“My turn, unless there are any objections?” Iona stood up. I simply levitated myself as she did, sitting cross-legged in the air with my head still on my wife’s shoulder. I was a little tipsy, happily buzzed. This was nice. I was going to have a mango after her story, as a treat.
Wait.
WAIT.
Why wait? I could totally do TWO mangos. One for now, one for later.
A tiny part of me was screaming about poor impulse control and ‘this is why we never have any spares when we want it’, but that was future-Elaine’s problem. I was lovingly nuzzling the most beautiful, most perfect of fruits, savoring the anticipation. Soon, my lovely, you’ll be in my mouth, then in my stomach, a perfect cycle of deliciousness.
Maybe I’d drunk a little more than I thought. I was a super lightweight after my biomancy, and I’d been stealing Artemis’s drinks for a few hours now.
“I spent a few months wandering around, finding small communities. The basic cycle went something like this. I came in, I said hello, I asked if there was anything I could do to help. They’d feed and shelter me for a night, then I moved on. I made a lot of new friends, and there’s a chance some of them might drop by or even move in. I do think the small is just as interesting as the large, and in many ways, could be more impactful. What matters more, a large action rippling in a small way across hundreds or thousands, or a small action rippling in a gigantic way across a family of eight? At first I tried to walk from Orthus, like Nina did, but the distinct lack of roads and civilization made me quit, and just fly around. The first place I found, it was getting late, and…”
My wife continued to talk about her adventures. Slaying a therizinosaurus that realized he could ‘farm’ cattle just as well as the farmers did, then handing over its claws to be made into spears. Cutting down acres of a forest for a family expansion. Mediating a dispute, with the resolution ending up involving a three-way marriage.
Eyebrows had gone up everywhere over that, but everyone seemed happy with the arrangement. The lucky throuple was over the moon, and nobody was digging 8 foot deep holes.
Only Iona.
For many mortals, strangers showing up to their village were met with suspicion and hostility. There was no reputation they needed to worry about, there was no history with the people, they didn’t need to live with them in the future. There was no trust, and rarely a good reason to extend it. A traveling group would likely get more consideration than a lone individual, and nobody wanted to risk that a mere [Peddler] was something more. In another sense, a [Peddler’s] vast wagon of goods was its own type of insurance against mischief.
A lone individual walking into town? Likely to be an exile from another village, a person so abhorrent that friends, family, and neighbors all agreed they needed to leave, as it was the last kindness they could extend. Not a person to be trusted at all.
Iona managed to walk up to these small places hidden around the world, and Valkyrie reputation or not, was fast friends within an hour. I felt a faint possessive twinge deep inside my heart as she casually mentioned the fourth marriage proposal she received. I noticed my lips were curled back slightly, and I tamped down the response.
The System helped, for sure. Iona’s level shattered most barriers. If a knight with over a thousand levels on the highest-level Classer in a village wanted something, they got it. It got her foot and the rest of her body in the door, at which point she could work her fantastical charms.
After the eighth story or so, Iona poked me in the side.
“Any feedback?” She asked me. I started.
I’d been enjoying the flow of things, listening to my wife’s wonderful voice, and hadn’t been contributing much. Well, anything.
“You were there, on the ground, and are an expert on this. I don’t want to say the challenges were too small, but when you utterly outclass the problem, putting on a blindfold and cutting the monster to pieces with a sheet of paper is a quick and valid response. I’m just enjoying the vibe and you being here.” I nuzzled in closer, thanking Ciriel profusely that I’d caught some of my words before they came out.
Saying we don’t need an after action report for killing a mouse was all sorts of offensive and mood-killing, plus it was mean! I wanted to hear Iona’s stories, I wanted to know her adventures! This was pretty close to my idea of bliss, I didn’t want to ruin it. I just didn’t have good feedback, because there was no strong feedback.
Iona got the idea, and moved on with her story. Boo. I guess I’d just need to get the rest of it some winter evening. With hot chocolate, a fire, blankets, and the rest of the family, Sara included, obviously, she was family.
“Skipping over acquiring a tome of spells in a lost runic language, I found myself at the gates of Sahel.” I squawked in protest at Iona skipping over finding a lost magic language. I wanted that!
Wait. She hadn’t come back with a spellbook. Had she lost it, or was she just fucking with me? She couldn’t lie at all, her [Vow] prohibited it, but she could be entirely, technically correct… I HAD TO KNOW. Iona’s revenge was swift and thorough, but I banished part of my mind and focused on her story.
“I’ve been thinking more and more about the consequences of my actions.” Iona said. Nina was beaming at her mentor, and Skye looked up, mouthing a prayer of thanks to the gods.
Hey! We weren’t that bad!
“A beast menacing a village? Easy. A small consideration should be made to the local wildlife population, but broadly, stopping a monster from snacking on a villager every week is an easy decision. When it’s people causing the problem, when there are potential hidden causes and reasons, when ripples go through dozens of people, it’s a little trickier. Why are things being done that way? Is it cruelty, are people being assholes, or is it simply the best of a bad lot? Is there cultural context I’m missing? What happens after? It’s tricky, and Sahel was one of the first places I had to stare the problem in the face.”
Nina shuffled over to sit closer to Iona, a knowing look on her face. Artemis was looking doubtful, but then again, she’d always been in a position where she didn’t need to think of it. As a Ranger, she was the law and order, working in a culture she intimately knew and understood. As much as she tended to color outside the lines, so to speak, Artemis had known exactly where the lines were. What repercussions her actions would have. What legal and cultural protection she was entitled to, what the reaction people would have. She had tools to remove almost all levels of problems. When we came to the modern era, Julius and her had started working as monster hunters, which required no delicate ripple analysis, then teaching at the School which wasn’t exactly prime grounds to bump off nobility.
Raccoon looked like she wanted to strangle Iona, because yeah. Powerful Classer waltzing in, deciding they didn’t like things, changing them around to - OH NO.
NO.
It was IMPOSSIBLE.
It couldn’t be!
I married an adventurer!?
Wait, hang on, I was drunk. I’m sure sober-Elaine had very good reasons. Iona wasn’t actually an [Adventurer], she was a [Knight-Errant], and that was completely different. They had standards, for one. And… other reasons. That I’m sure were very good.
“I watched, I observed, I took notes. It was a city of contrasts. They took a hand off a boy for being a thief, yet had education available for all. Slavery was practiced, yet water was free in great quantities. I drew the line at semi-openly drugging the entire population into compliance.”
There were winces around the fireplace, although Skye looked far too interested. I pointed at her.
“No, bad.” I said.
“Well, forgive me for being curious about novel city governance methods.” She huffed and crossed her arms. Varuna tried to glare at me, but he wasn’t too stable. Ha!
“Brrrpt?” Auri asked.
“I’d gotten drugged myself without noticing. Didn’t expect the main city water to be laced.” Iona said dryly.
Huh. Okay, wait, that was fascinating.
“How on Pallos did they manage to dose the water to work on you and not murder every kid who took a sip?” I asked. One of the core tenets of medicine was ‘the dose made the medicine’, which twisted just a hair to be ‘the dose made the poison’. Anything that worked on Iona’s absurd vitality would flat-out murder everyone else, it was why herbalism remedies could be so difficult at times.
All hail Celestial healing!
“We’re not going into the technicalities of poisoning people, please.” Raccoon said.
Elaine, are you drunk-praying to me right now? Ciriel asked. Because it really sounds like it. It’s obviously a [Poisoner] skill to properly dose people.
Whoops! Sorry! I prayed back, donating a hefty chunk of mana to the goddess. I purged the alcohol running through my veins. I was a little too drunk.
“Sunrise!” Nina said.
“I hate to admit it, but poisoning the main water supply would’ve absolutely worked on me.” Artemis said. “Who expects the water to be poisoned by the ruler? External sabotage, yes, but there are usually Classers protecting against that.”
“Moving on!” Iona declared. “Elaine’s moonstones helped out. Even after knowing I’d been poisoned, I had no motivation to do anything about it. Nasty stuff. I used her gem to purge the influence, and I got a little ticked off. Promptly overthrew the local government. Nina was right, I can’t just fix the problem then walk away and let everything sort itself out. Sahel has unique ideas about succession, and it all went downhill from there.”
Nina’s face was a sight to behold. The kitsune was clearly torn between pride, and an emotion I could only describe as ‘you idiot, you did WHAT.’
“All hail Queen Iona, first of her name.” Skye dryly hailed.
“Brrpt.” Auri denied, shaking her head.
“Yeah, it only works when it’s you.” Raccoon added.
Skye looked disgusted with all of us, and threw her hands up in the air.
“Why do I bother!?”
“Because you love us.” Artemis said.
Nina moaned and put her head in her hands.
“I’m never going to get a turn.”
Iona clapped her hands, instantly commanding all our attention.
“The fundamental lesson we can all learn from my misadventure boils down to the seven P’s. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I hadn’t planned on taking over several cities, even though I only held one. I wasn’t prepared to rule. My performance, as expected, was piss poor, although I’ve hopefully left the place in slightly better shape than I found it. Mostly thanks to Arachne, who’d clearly had an idea of what I was doing, and what I needed to do to fix it. I can’t take the credit.”
She took a deep breath, and I was glad I was sober for this. Iona looked vaguely haunted, and I slipped my hand into hers. She squeezed it.
“Omospondia follows a truism. Steel sharpens steel. Fighting and conflict amongst each other is deeply ingrained into their culture. Allies are temporary, friendships are considered weaknesses. Lies and assassination are part and parcel to their nature, and I survived three assassination attempts the first night alone. It was only later I discovered that there’d been more than a dozen attempts sent my way, but most of them ended up fighting each other to have the ‘honor’ of killing me, thus giving them the advantage. I was not amused.”
Nina looked like she was going to bust a stitch, and Raccoon looked on in utter disbelief.
“You’re shitting me.” The goblin said.
Iona spun the story of her stay in Omospondia, and I experimentally poked her to make sure she wasn’t a changeling or shapeshifter. Iona couldn’t lie, after all. The first, trickiest step had been getting people to actually listen to her. People kept telling her one thing to her face, then completely ignoring her reforms, instead reporting that everything was alright. After several surprise inspections and liberal use of her glaive, reforms started to lurch into motion.
Just in time for city wide riots to erupt as the last lingering effects of the calming poison wore off. Slowly weaning the population off hadn’t worked, and Iona suspected it was a deliberate design choice. If Iya couldn’t hold the city, then she’d make sure nobody else could.
That had been the start of the nasty surprises left for my wife. She’d lurched from one disaster to the next with her head held high, always trying to do the right thing, never compromising her integrity.
Which had put her in a number of no-win situations. One of her most helpful advisors, one of the people helping keep the lives of tens of thousands of people together, had a few nasty vices. A rival found out and happily reported it directly to Iona, who’d been faced with an impossible choice.
The punishment for his crimes was public execution, for the seven lives he’d utterly destroyed. And yet, his death would ripple, causing dozens more to die.
“I chose integrity, and tone at the top.” Iona declared. “It is impossible to reform and fix a society where that type of behavior is commonplace. It is impractical in the short term. It hurts people in the short term. It arguably makes things worse in the medium term as well. It’s only potentially helpful on the longest horizons, and even that, only if I succeeded. I’m fairly certain I failed in the end, even with Arachne’s mild intervention.”
I squeezed my wife’s hand reassuringly.
“It’s not like you’re working on a long timeline either.” Nina mused. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, hopefully we’d get more during her after action report.
Iona continued on. The impossible decisions. The conflicts as Iona needed to decide which principle was worth more. The practical, evil choice, or the poor, high minded decision. What could she sleep with? What could she do?
Honestly, we didn’t have huge amounts of feedback in the moment, although Skye was oddly quiet. Fenrir did occasionally rumble at the fights, threats to Iona, and investigations needed. Okay fine. He was basically going like an oversized purring cat behind us. Otherwise, we listened. Iona had already spent countless hours meditating over her decisions, and had a short reasoning why she made the choices she had. This part was becoming less of us dissecting her methods, and more Iona bringing her wisdom back to us.
“… I didn’t want to be blind to the consequences of my actions.” Iona said at the end. “But the path to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s seductively easy to justify a small break in ethics for the greater good. Weighing one life on the scales against the dozens saved. It’s nearly impossible to continue taking the high road when everyone around me insisted on taking the low. Nina. I think you should spend a good number of years in Omospondia. I know you do weigh lives and work for the greater good with admirable restraint. I think the various city-states are an excellent example of where the ideology can go, when done to excess. Any questions?”
We all politely paused for someone else to talk, then all jumped in at the same time.
“How the fuck are you still alive?” Artemis asked.
“Want to come with me?” Nina asked.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Brrrpt?”
“Do you reckon any of the mess is going to come back here?” Raccoon asked.
“When can we talk more?” Skye asked.
“Home.” Fenrir rumbled.
Iona held up a hand, then rotated in a circle, pointing to each of us in term.
“Excessive self defense with a sprinkling of paranoia; yes, but not for a few years; I will be, my head’s in an awkward spot; absolutely NOT; unlikely, they don’t care enough combined with the difficulty; in two weeks; and yes, I am. I can see I’ll need to moderate this a bit more. Ennie, meeny, miny, Auri, next question.” Iona pointed wildly around the fireplace until she landed on the phoenix.
“Brrrpt!?!??”
“You had to ask. Well…”
Iona spent the next two hours answering questions, the nine of us settling into a pleasant routine. Question after question, with excellent food, amazing drink, and better friends. The Valkyrie glanced up at the night sky. She clapped her hands together, finishing up one last question.
“... out a window.” She answered on a massive cliffhanger. “On that note, we need to get moving, or else we’ll need to extend this another night. Elaine, your turn!”
Iona hopped back down onto the log, stretching her legs with a relieved sigh.
I got up with a twirling flourish, bowing dramatically before my audience.
“You’re not going to believe this.” I grinned at them, then launched into my story.
Comments
Trevor Mergen
Thanks!
FaMa_Tarapax
because she had to redo her healing image multiple times since then and probably hadnt wasted a thought on factoring in an alcohol treshold again.
bcdp
Maybe I misremember, but when she did the above-mentioned biomancy, didn't she calibrate her healing to allow for that "little tipsy, happily buzzed" she mentioned? So why is she repeatedly (this is not the first time) more drunk than she expected? And the amount she drinks should be irrelevant if she calibrated a maximum amount of (alcohol) poisening she'd allow for herself.
Mad Dessert
Thanks!
Tiffany Miller
Can I make one point since married couples are treated as one by law their reports should be one chapter just for extra content... jk
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Inv7ctus
I feel your both right. The thicker blood makes it take significantly longer for the alcohol to diffuse, and thus get drunk, but once she is drunk it would gut her HARD and take a long time to sober up. She could take one glass be fine for a hour then go straight to drunk, and stay there while her poor liver tries to filter whatever alcohol gets to it ever so sloooooowly.
tr13ze
Thanks for the chapter 😁
Kevin Brown
She skimped on biological poison resistance because she can just heal any poison that it would work for.
Thomas Heaton
Entirely likely. Tho some acknowledgment of that might be nice to see in the text
Rainer
Her thick blood should make her harder to inebriate, not make her a lightweight. Unless there are other changes that counteract the blood?
Rainer
Or, the letter never arrived. Corrupt courier, bandits, monsters, etc.
SwitchBlaze
Good Chappie. Thank you.
Thomas Heaton
Maybe I missed something, but in chapter 614 it ends with Iona sending a letter to Skye, bit this makes it sounds like this is first Skye is hearing about things. Maybe its a matter of the extent to which Skye is in the loop, but that’s my read …
John Berryhill
Tftc
Andrew
Thank you!
TheHornedOne
Im sure Nina will take the cake for craziest, but I wonder if Elaine will outdo Iona here. We don’t no much other than the office work and the sacking of the city
Sébastien Kingsbury
Not an adventurer!
Tilen Praprotnik
Thanks for the chapter
Drendude
Auri just HAD to go there smh
Kuurth
Thanks for the chapter! Appreciate you Selkie!
