Goons | Exploration

[Julie_PiscesGirl]

[Join your new friend for the buffet!]

I'll name it Jin!

[Nyakuni]

After being nursed back into health after her unfortunate accident - and befriending a human named Neia - Mae was curious about the town she found herself in. Neia had explained the place as best she could, but being a newcomer herself, the flighty human couldn't answer many questions the ruddy Goon had. Which was why, one fairly cloudy day, this young Goon set about the town to look for somebody that might have the answers she was looking for. Despite the cast still fresh around her arm, Mae strode up to the first creature who seemed to know their way around, smiling brightly.



Hello! I'm a little lost...
[Can you answer some questions?]

[Possibly the best and worst person she could have chosen for the job, Mae had stumbled into the gruff old goon who ran the records office in town, Tiber. With a grunt at being disturbed in the middle of his own business, he looked the goon up and down before answering. "If you make them quick. I don't have all day anymore, with people coming and going all the time."]

[Nyakuni]

merit sighed.
'You all don't need to open up spaces in your home for me.. I'd love to join all of you, but I don't want to be a burden.' she began to think, but it only lasted for a second. merit decided to..
[Ask where you can find this home the guard spoke of.]

[With another warning glance in the direction of the interfering goons, the guard smiled and attended to their new guest. "Please excuse them. Many goons are eager to have human companions these days, and you, er... have the shape of one. You'll find the shared shelter to the east, among the new fields of crops just before the stream."

The purple goon huffed in subtle reproach, insulted by the denial, but this time the hero stepped forward, although less forcefully than any had before. "Well, I we could still show you the way, if you need a tour guide."

"I hardly think they need all three of us to join them for such a simple task." The offer obviously irritated the first goon, whether because they were not the one to offer it or it had been made for them, but either way their argument didn't last long.

"We just need to gather our week's food. We can still do that with just two of us, and the other can help out this visitor."

This time the guard didn't argue. He'd had this problem plenty already and had petitioned the town's default leader for some help with the matter, but the answer hadn't been given to him yet. For now, he'd had to rely on the generosity... or opportunism... of passing goons. With a sigh and a nod, he agreed it wasn't a terrible idea. It wasn't like the new person was likely to get all that lost, but better safe than sorry. They might need some help adjusting to town life.

"Well, would you like to take one of these three as a guide, or do you think you can handle yourself?"]

Choose One: [Take the brightly dressed goon as a guide.]|[Take the hero as your guide.]|[Let the cub guide you.]|[Make your own way.]

(Note that you may choose to go without a guide, but if you do not make note of which goon you'd like to keep somewhere you will forfeit your freebie. If you don't like the options before you, try trading a goon with someone else or ask for a custom one to be sure you get something you like!)

[Nyakuni]

💕 [Aw, that's so cute, I'll let it baby me a while.] 💕

[Without any resistance being made, the griffin continues to groom you until you meet their standard for satisfaction. Once they've looked you over again, they fluff up their feathers, search their surroundings again, and more tenderly than you would have imagined with that sharp mouth they scoop you up by the scruff of your neck and begin carrying you back toward what you are fairly certain by now is their nest. Where the other voices are still peeping away. The closer you get, the more certain you are that those voices are to small for more birds the size of the one carrying you.]

Choose One:[Fall asleep in the safety of mom's ar- er, beak.]|[Take a good look around inside to get the layout of the place.]|[Try to break free the moment the griffin is distracted! You've gotten in too deep.]|[See if there is anything worth taking that the griffin might not need.]|[Start peeping yourself to see if the griffin will feed you.]

[Nyakuni]

[Hang on! Breath means something living. I can try talking to it.]

[You decide that any living thing must have at least a chance, like you, of being intelligent enough to speak. Which means you have to at least try to communicate before doing anything else. You're not sure if the crack itself is somehow the thing making the noise, but since that would mean the earth under your feet was alive, you think you'd rather leave the answer to that unknown for now. You focus instead on making your voice heard. With any luck whatever is inside the crack will hear you and respond. You call out a loud greeting, and there is a hitch in the breath. For a moment you are hopeful.

Then a raspy, resonating breath much stronger than the one before it surprises you enough to knock you from your feet, and the tumble of dandelions behind you shoves you further onward. Before you know it, only your frantic grasping as the ground comes out from beneath you has allowed you to catch the edges of the crack with your fingers and toes! The wind is groaning now as it is pulled in at high speeds, and you cannot help but stare in wide-eyed horror below you into the abyss. The hole seems to go on forever, but wedged inside and scrabbling against its prison is a massive grey being with sharp features and hollow eyes. Its flesh is hairless and damp, wrinkled and sagging, torn open in places where its efforts to escape have brought it against rocks sharper than the teeth in its own yellowing maw. You can't tell from this distance, but honestly don't want to know what is stuck in its teeth, but there are a number of them.

Even as you strain your body to fight against the wind and the debris that batters against you with each new and more powerful breath, your mind is racing in circles over what to do. Out of the corner of your eye, you see something familiar. Pulled through the air just as you had been, but with even more ease due to an unfortunate size even smaller than your own, is another wisp of light. This one glows in a soft green hue.]

Choose One: [Let go and drop down into the crack. You'll need solid footing to fight or escape.]|[Let go of one side of the crack and try to cling on to and climb back up the other.]|[You have to get something out of this trip! Grab that wisp!]|[Shout at the creature until it listens to you, it clearly has some level of understanding. You just have to show dominance.]

[sylveonsweetie987]

-snip-

Choose One: [Let go and drop down into the crack. You'll need solid footing to fight or escape.]

[Nyakuni]

[Accept the offer to see Fritz' home before you leave.]

[Fritz grins widely when you take him up on his offer and excitedly jabbers away at you about his home to the point where you begin to wonder if you won't already know what is waiting for you before you even get there. Except that for all of Fritz's eagerness, what he describes is a cozy place full of little treasures and surrounded by friendly neighbours, while what you find is... not. You wound your way through increasingly cramped quarters between buildings that didn't look nearly as stable or permanent as the ones which had been closer to the market, until you reached one that had been made by very inexperienced hands with a low ceiling and small rooms. Goons closer to it inquired about Fritz' work, but you get the impression they are more interested in if he's brought home any extra berries to share. Fritz must have a very positive outlook or just be completely oblivious to these faults, though, because he is beaming with pride when he shows it to you. "I made it myself, when I was trying out carpentry! That didn't work out, but I got this out of it, so I could never complain!"]

Choose one: [Are you sure you don't want to come with me?]|[It's... very nice, Fritz.]|[You could probably do better than this, Fritz!]|[Thank you for showing it to me. Now I can find you if I need you.]|[Fritz, your life is a mess. Get your act together.]|[You are a sweetheart, and I'll be sure to drop by.]|[Make your excuses and get out of here, this is too pathetic.]

[Nyakuni]

[Maybe I'll look just a little further up...]
thank you for all the effort you put into the responses. <3

[It's nice and all, but you're not going to waste time bothering with this. You're sure there must be greater finds to be had elsewhere. Instead of wasting all the effort coming up here, you decide to try just a little higher. With a little more effort you manage to check the next few branches along, but at first the results aren't too promising. Nothing more than bark and leaves and one very mean bird narrowly avoided due to the sound of chirping from its babies. Before you give up, though, you find something worth a little bit of your interest, and investigate further. Seeping from the tree itself is an odd amber liquid. It's thick and sticky, but a careful taste tells you that it is sweet, and could probably sell just fine back home. That wasn't all you noticed, though. You saw something dangling from the branch further down and now that you are closer you can tell it is a cocoon! You don't know much about insects, but you know there is trade for those in town. You probably can't carry both at once without it becoming awkward though...]

Choose one: [Collect as much of the sweet liquid as you can.]|[Pull up the cocoon.]|[Get creative and try taking both.]|[Bugs and sticky sweetness? Yick. I'd prefer something cleaner. Better keep looking on the ground.]|[I just haven't gotten high enough yet. Clearly the best rewards are at the top!]



(My pleasure. ;))

[Nyakuni]

[Join your new friend for the buffet!]

[Choosing a particularly juicy looking fruit pastry, you are surprised when the result feels so fluffy in your mouth, but the sweetness does not disappoint. Seems like Jin knows how to pick out good food from the riffraff! They proceed to show you the best places for each type of food here in town, and you notice fairly quickly that most are fruit or fruit-based dishes like the pastry you tried out first. When you ask about this, you are informed that most creatures with meat are much larger than you and the goons, and so it can be hard to bring in. They usually eat insects instead, but have heard that most of their visiting humans are against the notion on principle. Since you're on the subject, though, Jin prompts you with a question of their own: "You can't live on these freebies or people will get mad. You've got to earn most of your food yourself. What will you do for yours?"]

Choose one: [Are there any jobs I can take in town?]|[You said on the way that most people get their food from adventures in the wild. That sounds fun.]|[There are crops in town, right? Maybe I'll start farming.]|[I could learn to fight and bring in some real meat!]|[There's a river running through town... aren't there any fish?]

[Nyakuni]

[Let go and drop down into the crack. You'll need solid footing to fight or escape.]

[You take a steadying breath to brace yourself for the next scary step and tuck in all your limbs at once, ducking your head under your arms to protect it until you reach some kind of landing. You land on something wet and squishy, and without taking the soft landing for granted you bolt to your feet so as not to be caught off guard. As it turns out, this may have been unnecessary. Though you have in fact landed on the fleshy grey mass beneath you, you managed to roll out of the way of its mouth, and since it was trying to pry its way upward out of the fissure, its arms are now too awkwardly positioned to drag themselves back down to you before you can take your sweet time moving out of the way. If the frustrated wails are anything to go by, you would say this creature is well aware of its mistake, but is still not speaking in any intelligible way.

Your paws are sinking into the coating of slime they settled into, and both now stink of the same sickly sweetness of rotting fruit. Your nose crinkles in an attempt to banish the stench, but it is all around you. So overwhelming is the presence of the monstrosity you've landed upon, which seems still to be far removed from whatever bottom the crack has, that you nearly lose your footing as you jump in shock as something touches your shoulder. Instead, you only end up sprawled on your butt as the gentle touch comes again and you look to find the source of the new sensation.

The wisp must have escaped the draw of the grey thing when it started complaining instead of pulling you in. Its body - if one could call it that - looks like a floating sheet, luminous but transparent. It tickles your cheek as it folds against your fur, and the sensation sends a shiver over you. Not like the cold did above, but in a wave that eases the tension that had built in you.]

Choose: [Thank the wisp.]|[Catch the wisp.]|[Poke the wisp. For science.]|[Go for the monster's eyes.]|[Try talking to the monster again. This time, use your claws to make it listen.]|[Climb back out, avoiding those creeping arms.]|[Climb further in, to see what else is down here.]|[May as well see if there is anything else of interest down here.]