MERC XIX: Toss a Coin to your Goblin

[Ironsmith]

[Astrana's Office]

Siana leans against the mop she's holding, since Olvisin had yet to return her cane, and just sort of stares awkwardly at Astrana. Yeah, she did wrong by her. Yeah, she should apologize. But... how exactly was she going to go about doing that? Should she just blurt it out? That... didn't seem quite right. This was kind of a private thing; with the exception of Olvisin, nobody else in the room even knew there'd been any kind of bad blood between them.

After checking the clock to confirm that enough time had passed and it was safe to leave the circle, Siana limps over to Astrana, still leaning on the mop, the plastic clothes she'd been given crinkling noisily. "Miss Ty-Amer... can we talk for a moment in private?" She asks, looking meaningfully back at the other occupants of the room.

[Lord Magtok]

A Shockingly Ghastly Idea

Magtok raises an eyebrow. Sounds like he might be better off seeking help with that elsewhere, then, or just leaving a note asking MERC to help with that if they find anyone later. Actually, hold on, Invincibelle Reina The Slightly Less Intolerable Cat mentioned that she'd built up a resistance over time, maybe she has some idea how to combat psychics. Probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to ask, right? It's not like it'd do any kind of lasting harm to speak to the cat.

"Noon tomorrow, sure. I'm sure I can make the lair look halfway presentable by then," the cyborg nods, before rising from his seat. He'd have to make sure there's snacks on hand, make sure nobody drifts too close to the deadtimed PCs, seal off the unhinged wilderness of the lower floors, have a few drones vacuum the carpet, and try not to stay up so late playing videogames that he wakes up just as Astrana shows up and knocks at the door. Easy, no problem, we can handle that without any trouble! The work practically takes care of itself, and how hard could sleeping at a normal time be? There's no way even a screw-up like Magtok could bungle something so simple and straightforward!

[Shadowcaller]

A Shockingly Ghastly Idea

Astrana smiles and nods. "Great, then-" She stops herself as if suddenly remembering something. "Ah, I just recalled. Reina herself have had experience with psychics lately. Don't tell her I mentioned it though. If she didn't tell you right away I have a feeling she considers it private though, so try to be... subtle." She hadn't expected to tell Magtok to be subtle today, what a time to be alive. "But before you go, could you just sign an autograph for me? As I said, I'm a fan." The triefling grins and presents and empty page out of her notebook and a pen for him to sign it with.

That can be handwaved though.

[Astrana's Office]

"Yes, I have it right here Sam." Apparently she's been holding it by her tail. Someone should really teach her to at least not harm herself with firearms one day.

Once she handed over the shotgun she gives him a pat on the shoulder. "You might have saved my life back there, I can't thank you enough." Then her gaze shift to the offered food. "I'm going to have to decline the food offer but if you ever need my help don't hesitate to ask, alright? We share a building for about eight hours a day so you know where I am."

The warlock smiles at him one last time before she turns to adress Olvisin. "It might be a mess but at least we got something out of it. Now I can focus on Reina while-" Astrana glances at Siana, who suddenly comes up to talk to her, giving the girl a skeptical look. "Wouldn't you prefer to shower first, miss Siana? Since I'm still going to be here once you're done." She forces herself to still be polite to the person who nearly just killed her.

The hobgoblins continue their cleaning endeavors and it looks like the office will come out cleaner than before the possession.

[Lord Magtok]

A Shockingly Ghastly Idea

No need to skip over it, it'll only take a second. Mag sets the extremely poisonous frog on the table, freeing up his hands to take the journal and pen. He furrows his brow in thought for a moment or so, unsure what to write. I mean, aside from the signature part, that's easy. 'With Best Wishes, For My Horniest Fan' would be funny, but maybe we should save jokes like that for after she's ghost-proofed the MagCave. I don't know if horn jokes are considered racist, but we're probably better off not taking the chance. After tapping the pen against his chin, eventually he decides to write out 'To Astrana, Best Wishes From The Cooler, Not Undead Magtok' above his signature, which is executed with one quick, practiced flourish of the pen.

"There you go. Now don't let any fae near that notebook or we'll have a serious problem on our hands," he warns, handing back the pen and paper, scooping up his bright yellow amphibian, and turning towards the office door. Okay, now the way back from here is...up the stairs, hang a right, and then just keep going straight until you see the front entrance...right? Just do the same thing as before, but reversed.

[Morty]

[Astrana's Office]

"We know what didn't happen, so yeah. It wasn't a total loss," Olvisin admits.

[Gullara]

[Demands of Snakes]

Kirk better not meet hers, I'm sure he recalls what happened last time he did.
"All of this is messed up, but I'm fine." Dena claims as Kirk right now has all of her attention.

Then after what seems to be a moment of consideration she goes on. "...but it's not just messed, it's also that it goes against everything that I've been taught. It's like I'm letting fey mess around with my body and we both know how well that works out. I just feel that I don't have any control over this situation and that makes me freak out." She's talking quietly now as if she's afraid that even Astrana would overhear her.

[Demands of Snakes]

He meets her eye... though her lenses.

"Think of it this way. We're not giving this fey something it wants. We're pushing it to submit to our terms. If anything goes too far just say the word. I doubt we're out of alternatives to explore." Kirk replies. He reaches to give her arm a squeeze.

[Reinholdt]

[A Regrettably Catastrophic Idea]

As Magtok peaks the stairs, Reina suddenly looks away and attempts to make herself appear as casual as possible. It's important to not reveal the frequent furtive glances she's been giving to the stairwell. It was a shorter consultation than she thought it would be admittedly, but she's kinda glad it was over quickly. Being on a constant lookout for Magtok was tiring. And, uh, you have to always watch out for that guy, he's got a finger in his gun-- A gun in his finger! Yeah. Super dangerous.

Reina brushes some hair out of her eyes and pretends to just notice Magtok as he gets closer, her ears twitching as her head turns to face him. "Oh hey. Went well I hope? I got some good news on the psychic front. I was reviewing our members and we recently had one join that's actually a psychic herself. I don't know if she can help you or by how much, but it's a start. Her name's Pania. And no, she's not a psychic panda. I know, I know. I'm disappointed too."

A psychic panda would have been really cool.

[Lord Magtok]

A Regrettably Catastrophic Idea

"But she's either not here right now or you don't know where she is," Magtok adds expectantly, already anticipating some sort of catch. There's always a catch. His relationship with Death itself must've made some fate goddess or fortune deity jealous, or several lifetimes of bad karma are haunting his every move, or he broke too many mirrors or walked under a ladder or something, I don't know. The point is, Murphy's Law might as well be renamed Maggy's Law, because it's always in full effect and so predictably omnipresent that our cyborg just accepts it as routine. Pania's going to be missing, Astrana or the friend she's bringing with her is going to be dangerously unhinged, and everything is going to be chaos.

"I do have a really stupid idea that might work with a trained psychic, though," he admits, a smug little smirk spreading across his face. "Just came up with it a minute ago, while things were getting sorted out with Astrana. Dangerous, reckless, and very likely to get someone killed," he admits with a sprint in his step and his most diabolical grin, sounding strangely proud of how bad this idea. Bragging about it, gloating about its disastrous potential, practically begging someone to give him an opportunity to reveal his magnificent evil plan.

[Reinholdt]

[A Regrettably Catastrophic Idea]

"Uhh... no, she's actually here now if you want to talk to her immediately. Or I could send her to you later. And if she doesn't have what you're looking for, there's another psychic by the name of Cantata. Sorry I had to look all this up. I'm really still very new here. Haven't met everyone yet." Didn't even know that Pania wasn't a panda until she researched it. Truly appalling.

Reina stands up, carefully smoothing out her curve hugging secretarian outfit as she gives Magtok one of those skeptical looks. The kind where she knows she's going to have to argue someone down from doing something stupid. She's got a surprising amount of practice with that over the years. "Why don't you fill me in on the details while I lead you to her? See if it's not something we need two psychics for," Reina offers moving around to lead the way, her hips swaying just a little more than usual.

[Lord Magtok]

A Regrettably Catastrophic Idea

The cyborg raises an eyebrow when it turns out Pania isn't kidnapped by fae. or on the opposite end of a long sidequest starring himself and Reina butting heads, yelling at each other, and relitigating their checkered history like some kind of will-they-or-won't-they action couple, as a secret army of fascist werewolf robots try to use the psychic panda to power an occult ritual to bring back Roboto Furssolini, culminating in an action-packed finale where they resolve their differences and kill the zombie dictator and rescue the panda mere seconds before the invincibility ritual is complete. You know, typical Tuesday night Nexus nonsense. No, instead, things are going much better than expected. Must be a real doozy of a mess waiting for them in Pania's room, then. Or maybe just talking to Reina again is the big mistake? Obviously we're too smart to fall for her wiles and do anything that would have us ostracized by the other MagClones, but all it takes is one camera noticing our eyes momentarily drifting to her swaying hips, or one bit of recorded conversation taken out of context. Every minute in her presence is a minefield, one we must navigate with the utmost caution.

"I think I remember Cantata. She was at one of the Halloween parties, talking to Malice. Or well, he was doing the talking, and she just nodded along. She's mute or something, right?" Mag asks. What he doesn't know is Cantata was also involved in a plot to assassinate him at a different party, thankfully foiled by MERC before things could get out of hand. Turning to her for protection now would be strangely poetic, wouldn't it? Almost as bizarre and comical as sharing his thoughts out loud with Reina, who is still technically one of the cat's clones, meaning she's marked for immediate termination as soon as we have sufficient resources and narrative justification.

"Whatever. Anyway, so this might qualify as an apocalypse level crisis and a threat to free will across the entire Nexus, but the original Magtok, my very own 'Magtok Prime' has returned from whatever filthy techno-masoleum he's been rotting in for almost fifteen years. He's a ghost, and also psychic, so he has to possess his own custom-made cyborg nightmarescape bodies to interact with the world. I don't know where he got them from, I don't know how many he has, I don't know...honestly, basically anything about him. The big thing is that he's a strong enough psychic that he can force people to do what he wants just by yelling loudly. He made an entire tavern full of people, with a few exceptions, drop everything they were doing just by saying KNEEL!" Magtok explains excitedly, using a recording of Prime's voice at the end there for what he thought would merely be dramatic effect. Somehow, even as a digital recording, a mere echo of the psionic force that wormed into every unguarded mind in the room, the word still has overwhelming power, like someone tried to dilute an Olympic swimming pool full of vodka by pouring a single teaspoon of water into it.

"...oh ****," he whispers, standing back up again a moment later, once the echo pressing down between his ears with all the oppressive might of a god has passed. He thought the recording might prove useful, but only after hours of serious data analysis, psychic decoding, and maybe an exploding brain or two. For a mere recording of Prime's voice to do that...gods, if only they had a safe way to trick him into saying more stuff. If Magtok had an entire soundboard of Prime commands, jeez, he could take over the entire Nexus in a single week. In a week!

[Morty]

[Hope for Babies]

Sophie and Trick arrive at the main MERC office, hand in hand. The therapist is in the middle of finishing explaining to her wife who they're meeting here.

"-I've seen her kids around at the GLoG daycare, too. Four tiefling girls, absolutely adorable. When I saw her there recently, she said she knows of some methods that might help us."

[Halae]

[Hope for Babies]

"Well, the worst thing she can do is tell us that she can't help, so I suppose we've got nothing to lose," Trick is a little apprehensive for some reason, but she's not complaining; this is someone Sophie knows, so any misgivings she might have can be left alone.

[Deathkeeper]

Astrana's Office

Sam waves with a few of his hands, one taking the gun and sticking it back in its holster.
"Okay well, you folks have a good day. I'll be upstairs." and then he trots out as if nothing of particular significance happened.

[Morty]

[Hope for Babies]

Sophie looks up at Trick. Always annoyingly perceptive, she's been worse ever since Exalting. Normally she knows how to keep a lid on it, but right now she doesn't want Trick to be distracted or unsure.

"Are you okay? You sound like you're not sure about it for some reason."

[Halae]

[Hope for Babies]

Trick scratches the back of her head, "I just don't like working with mercenaries, that's all. If you go to them, they set the contract," and given Trick's experiences with binding devils, she knows you never let the other party write the contract. On the upside for Sophie, she's being honest with why she has misgivings.

[Ironsmith]

[Astrana's Office]

Siana sighs. Yeah, Astrana was right. She probably should get cleaned up the rest of the way before having a proper conversation with her. That was just... polite, right? She didn't really know the etiquette for this sort of thing. So, without any further ado, she'll grab her cane and make her way upstairs to the showers.

Even with as quick as she'll be, this will take a moment. Long enough for the slower effects of her previous metamorphosis to start kicking in.

If there's anyone else there, they're going to see Siana go into the shower, covered in blood, but coming out... clean, but different. Namely, there'll be a pair of tiny red horns growing out of her forehead; difficult to spot, but similarly difficult not to look at once they've been noticed. Siana doesn't seem to realize she has them when she gets back to Astrana's office.

[Reinholdt]

[A Regrettably Catastrophic Idea]

"Oh. I don't know," Reina did just say she had to look Cantata up and is new to the place. The catgirl is unfamiliar with any previous assassination plots, Spooktober parties, or whether or not Cantata is mute. She suspects they'd both find out that last part really quickly if it were true though. Well, maybe instead of scrolling through sniper rifle reddit while sitting at the front desk, Reina could learn sign language. Were there multiple kinds of sign language? Might have to look that up too.

The catgirl's glad she's in front of Magtok as they travel. It spares her from having to hold back her eye roll. Apocalyptic level, yeah sure. There hadn't been any real apocalyptic level thing in how long? Five years? Ten? Didn't he claim something about 'Libby' or something was apocalyptic to one of the Reins? It didn't even register a blip! And now it's Magtok Prime? Of course it was. Magtok was excessively exaggerating his own personal problems to inflate his sense of self to anyone who he could con into listening as he always do-

Huh. That's exceedingly strange. Reina... doesn't kneel... exactly. Mostly. Kinda. What does happen is she loses all control of her legs for several moments as she attempts to kneel and attempts to walk at the same time, clashing wills only partially succeeding because the psychic command was blanket and not directed directly towards her. She has no doubt in her mind what would have happened if Magtok Prime had stared at her with his handsome, smouldering eye and told her what to do. Granted this doesn't turn out much better than a kneel as it turns into a full on trip. The reflexive catgirl catches herself before her head hits the ground again. She doesn't another concussion on top of the nonsense she's been dealing with.

This does leave her on her hands and knees for a moment though. Even if she didn't kneel, Magtok may find this a blessed position of a different sort. She does stay like that for a bit purely out of shock before she straightens up, too pallor to display embarrassment as she looks back at Magtok. It's a quiet, awkward moment as all sorts of thoughts run through her head. How can a recording have that much power? Would she some day find herself in Magtok's position should Rein Prime ever return? Should she tell Magtok about the other psychic nonsense she's been dealing with? Was it perhaps related to Magtok Prime in some way?

In the end she settles for readjusting her outfit and trying to professionally resume their walk. "I meant fill me in on the details of the idea you said you just came up with," Reina says very quietly.

[Lord Magtok]

A Regrettably CatAsstrophic Idea

"I'd like to figure out how he does that, and steal it," Magtok answers simply, dusting himself off and trying to shunt this little mishap into the pit of inconvenient memories he'd rather not acknowledge. The way Reina's uniform clings to her figure is completely irrelevant and useless data and of no benefit to us at the current time, thank you.

"Usurp it. Take his ability to bend the will of the masses, and turn it back against him. Or at least turn it off when he tries to use it on others. If he were to say 'Hey everyone in the city of Inside, go murder the entirety of Intersection on behalf of your new lord and master,' it'd be nice to be able to swoop in with a megaphone and shout 'No don't do that it's stupid.' Actually, just neutralizing the power would probably be better, because if I have that kind of mind control, the next big threat to the Nexus will have to scale itself up to keep things exciting. And Vigil will be even more paranoid about me if they find out I'm sitting on that kind of potential to cause problems for everyone else," Magtok thinks aloud, wondering if Wenomir would be rattled enough to launch a preemptive strike against the MagCave if he found out your friendly neighborhood supervillain had a hypnotic voice that could entrance an entire crowd into waging war against anyone he wanted gone.

"Oh, and just so we're clear, I didn't actually think anything would happen when I played that recording. The fact that it did is weird, and I don't even know where to begin with how to explain that," he admits, coming dangerously close to apologizing with that confession. He considers trying to splice some sounds together and make Prime's voice say something else, but thinks better of it. After all, it wasn't a constant, passive effect of Prime's voice. It was only when Magtok Classic decided to put extra psychic oomph behind his words that they did anything. We only have access to the word Kneel right now, and trying to assemble a new hypnotic command without understanding anything at all about how it works sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[Morty]

[Hope for Babies]

Trick scratches the back of her head, "I just don't like working with mercenaries, that's all. If you go to them, they set the contract," and given Trick's experiences with binding devils, she knows you never let the other party write the contract. On the upside for Sophie, she's being honest with why she has misgivings.

Sophie squeezes Trick's hand reassuringly.

"I understand what you mean. I don't trust them very much either. But Astrana seemed professional when I met her. And you know I'm a people person. Just treat it like any visit to a specialist."

[Halae]

[Hope for Babies]

"I'll be reading any paperwork put in front of us thoroughly though," Trick says, adamant about that at least. Still, she concedes for Sophie to take the lead on this.

[Reinholdt]

[A Welcome CatAsstrophic Idea]

Hmm... the idea had merits, but mostly as a thought experiment. Haha, puns! But yeah, it probably wasn't the wisest thing in the world to have powers when you're an easily corruptible megalomaniac. "If you wish to hire me to steal them for you, I'm sure I'll be capable of coming up with something. My price is high though. You know. Good help doesn't come cheap."

Reina is an accomplished stealer of things.

"Sounds to me like figuring out why a recording would continue to carry that power would be your best first step to figuring out how to neutralize it. Especially since you wouldn't have to directly face Magtok Prime in order to test your theories." It was bothersome, perhaps, but Magtok could still turn that recording around into something useful.

She stops before a door and loudly knocks on it. "Anyways, we're here." Pania should open the door in three... two... four... three... two... ok some time soon. Reina's glad she didn't count that out loud.

[Meowmai]

[A Welcome CatAsstrophic Psidea]

After a few moments, a tall, muscled, dark-skinned woman would open the door. Her hand not on the door handle was clutching the back of her head, and she was visibly grimacing in some kind of discomfort or pain. If Reina or Magtok would peer past her into her room, they would see that it was in disarray- as if someone had recently tossed the lighter objects around in random directions and shifted the furniture in odd ways.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" she snapped, clearly in a sour mood. She had no idea who these two people were, and she had just developed a splitting headache out of nowhere. It was almost certainly caused by that accursed implant. But why did the pain suddenly get so bad? One moment she was resting just fine, the next she felt... some kind of ripple, and all of a sudden her head ached like hell and half her stuff had flung around her room. She was used to this sort of thing by now, but it had never happened so suddenly before.

While she was waiting for a response, she took the time to get a proper look at the two strangers. Magtok was the one she found most curious. She had caught glimpses of various mercenaries here with robotic prosthetics by now, but they were usually just a limb. Not a whole half of their body.

[Morty]

[Hope for Babies]

"And I'll be doing the same. You're a warlock, beloved, but I used to be a government worker. I know how to get through legalese." Sophie leads Trick downstairs to Astrana's office and knocks on the door.

[Lord Magtok]

A Pseriously Pshoddy Psidea

Our cyborg looks back at the cat skeptically. Pay money for someone to take even more stuff from him? I mean, plausible deniability is nice, and there's no way Wenomir would ever believe he was conspiring with the cat to have himself robbed, but surely there has to be a better way. "Has anyone ever taken you up on that offer before? How does it work, do you roleplay a cat-burglar and then split the insurance money after, or-" Shut up, never mind that, Pania's here! And she's not a talking panda girl, or a psychic loaf of bread! Someone owes me five bucks

Magtok grins. Nice work, Reina, a psychic with a headache! A grumpy psychic with a headache! Those are the very best kind! I mean honestly, how are you supposed to trust any kind of telepath whose mind doesn't bear a great pain? That's how you know you've got the real deal; a lesser telepath wouldn't have to worry about the throbbing of their superpowered brain meat. They'd be capable of having pleasant moods instead of existing in a perpetual state of frustration and belligerence brought on by their crippling migraines. If Pania wasn't in a state of perpetual agony, or if her headache was subdued enough that she could grin and bear it with grace and decorum, then we'd have something to worry about.

"Hi, I'm Magtok, and this is Reina. We-" and by that Magtok means 'I,' but is letting the cat feel included for some reason. "-need to figure out how to completely block off a certain psychic's mind control powers, neutralize them, reverse them once they've been used on someone, any or all of the above. He's strong enough to hypnotize people just by telling them to do stuff, strong enough that a recording of his voice can still bend someone's mind into doing stuff. I'd like to stop him before he breaks into a news studio and tells everyone in the city of Inside to eat their own babies or something equally terrible."

[Shadowcaller]

[Astrana's Office]

"Indeed, Olvisin. Let's just try to learn things from this disaster. I'm going to change how much circle works to prevent this from happening again. But first I'm going to have another look at Reina of course..."

If Olvisin stays around or not after that is up to her but eventually Siana swings by again and Astrana opens the door. She might note that the hobgoblins are still around despite the fact that the office is now completely clean.

Reina is now in the middle of the circle, still unconscious unless her player decides otherwise.

"Ah... so how may I help you then, miss Siana?" Astrana asks as she quickly steps back once she opened the door. She doesn't seem to want to be too close to Siana right now which is probably why she didn't spot those horns. At least not right away.

[Demands of Snakes]

"Have a fey ever submitted to anything?" Dena inquires with a shrug but takes a deep breath and nods as Kirk squeezes her hand. "But yeah, alternatives. We've done way harder things haven't we? After breaking into Tellytubbus manor this should be a walk in the park, shouldn't it?" She manages a smile when Astrana interrupts them.

"Miss Xifhara, I should have mentioned this earlier but I believe the poison has to be fresh for this to work so if you don't mind we have to do this all over again..." She holds up a gobblet which she's put a plastic sheet over.

Dena lets out sigh. "'kay. Let's just get it over with."

The gorgon scoots herself and the chair away from Kirk and positions herself in front of Astrana who carefully grabs the head of one of her hair-serpents and proceeds to milk it of venom.

Spoiler: Venom Milking

Show

Dena doesn't seem notably affected by this at least despite that some of her serpents are starting to act increasingly agitated. But the warlock is soon done and proceeds to put the gobblet in the summoning circle. "I'm almost done now, just a couple of more minutes."

[Hope for Babies]

The door to Astrana's office is open so they can just step inside. Astrana herself is sitting behind her desk, smiling at them as they enter. She seems to have been expecting them. "You're here, excellent." She remarks with a smile as she gets up from her seat to give them both a handshake.

"Astrana Tyramera, occult specialist." She eyes Trick. "With a focus on animal yokai. What's your focus, miss? Since I heard from your wife that you're a warlock too."

[Ironsmith]

[Astrana's Office]

"Indeed, Olvisin. Let's just try to learn things from this disaster. I'm going to change how much circle works to prevent this from happening again. But first I'm going to have another look at Reina of course..."

If Olvisin stays around or not after that is up to her but eventually Siana swings by again and Astrana opens the door. She might note that the hobgoblins are still around despite the fact that the office is now completely clean.

Reina is now in the middle of the circle, still unconscious unless her player decides otherwise.

"Ah... so how may I help you then, miss Siana?" Astrana asks as she quickly steps back once she opened the door. She doesn't seem to want to be too close to Siana right now which is probably why she didn't spot those horns. At least not right away.

[Astrana's Office]

Siana gives a tiny sigh when Astrana backs away from her. Yeah, that was understandable. She hadn't exactly been a good guest. As a show of good faith, she produces a hairband and wraps it around the hilt of her cane-sword, in such a way that would make it difficult for her to draw, which she demonstrates by bouncing the blade in its sheath for a moment.

"I... I actually came by to apologize." Siana begins nervously. "I made some... uncouth assumptions about you when I first came in. Fiendlings- as opposed to whatever you are- have made a bit of a nuisance of themselves back home. There are some who even go so far as to say they're the reason we don't have a home anymore. But..." She makes a vague gesture toward Astrana's tail. "Clearly that's not you. And I shouldn't have treated you like it was. I'm sorry."

[Shadowcaller]

[Astrana's Office]

Yes, clearly that wasn't her. Yet Astrana had heard very similar stories of tiefling's from her own homeworld so she couldn't really tell how much difference there was between them and these fiendlings. Besides that they might lack a tail?

"How can you tell they're not like me?" Astrana inquires as she sits down behind her desk. "Just what are these 'fiendlings'? Describe them."

[Ironsmith]

[Astrana's Office]

Siana shuffles nervously.

"Well... I'm not as up on our legends as I'd like to be, but by my understanding, they're a kind of..." She weighs out the words with her hands. "...Demons-to-be. They're people, marked with horns and teeth as being guilty of one of the worst sins imaginable: heart-eating. They build a bond with a person, and when their victim loves and trusts them enough, they undergo a mystic ritual to tear out that person's heart and devour their essence, becoming more powerful in the process." Siana shakes her head slowly. "Any who would do it once, would do it again. And the longer they are allowed to live, the more dangerous they become. Which is why every mother, father, and guardian warns their children never to trust a fiendling, and if at all possible, kill them on sight, or direct them to someone who can. Our survival depends on it."

"So... yeah. Sorry for mixing you up with one of them." Siana finishes a little awkwardly.

[Shadowcaller]

[Astrana's Office]

So fiendlings were basically radical warlocks then. Sacrificing people always gave you a bad reputation no matter the circumstances.

"Right, sounds like it'd be difficult to build up a bond with anyone else once you're marked." Which meant that the best way to go about it would be sacrificing a whole lot of people at once. So most fiendlings would likely be cult leaders that practiced pologamy. Or basically had an entire harem that they could all sacrifice at once. "But no, I was marked to become like this from birth. It has nothing to do with my moral character despite what anyone back home might tell you. I'm essentially just a human that's been modified by spirits. We're easier influenced by spirits too which is why I'm practiced to deal with them. It's nothing really special at all honestly despite all this." She gestures up at her horns. "So far I've yet to attempt to eat a single heart, or person for that matter,so I'm probably completely harmless." Unlike some other people.

[Ironsmith]

[Astrana's Office]

"Exactly." Siana nods. "That would make you, in the closest analogue I understand, a witch... that'll be a mortal who dedicates his or her life to the study of the Lunar Arts, or as people around here call it, magic. They tend to be a bit... eccentric, and not necessarily the most stable of individuals, but not really all that bad, either. In any case, my sister would count as one, and she's just amazing, so... it's not exactly a mark against against you, is it?" Siana smiles and extends a hand. "So... let's try this again, from the top. Friends?"