Regardless, Jill was involved now and you'd just have to work around that. At the very least it meant that someone else was helping you... But you're not sure if that's going to help or hinder, compared to having just done it yourself. You really worked better alone-

You froze in place, realizing whose sentiments you had begun to echo.

What?

No, having help was always preferable. You were just uneasy about the source of the help, that's all. You shake your head to dislodge the curious feeling trickling out from the back of your mind and crack your neck as you go over your options for today. The sun wasn't quite up yet, but you had too much to do to just waste time until the last second.

You had a meeting with the Shrine today to finalize the trading of the Atelier's information in exchange for their favour and assistance. You weren't sure when that would happen exactly, but you could probably show up at any time during the day and have the meeting get started.

Beyond that, there was also smuggling your knights into town somehow. That seemed like it would take more effort and knowledge about Carona than you currently had in order to get it done. Unlike yourself, your knights weren't particularly infamous in Carona, so it wasn't as if they needed to be incognito... They just needed to get past the lockdown, somehow. One way was as good as any other, if you could just get them inside the town.

And then finally there was the appointment between Roderick and the Mayor that you had inadvertently made. You had less and less time to find a way to intercept that invitation or include yourself in that activity, and if you went through all the trouble to set it up only to potentially lose your way in...

Never a dull moment in this Shade forsaken town.

>Visit the pub
>Get the Shrine meeting over with
>Talk to Taggart
>Work on getting your knights inside
>Other (write-in)

Previous Threads:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=valen+quest

Where things are said:
https://twitter.com/Riz_QM

Where things are asked:
http://ask.fm/RizQM

Assorted Supplemental:
Current Abilities - http://pastebin.com/PchcdWpw
Basics of Mana - http://pastebin.com/V9b1DMrS
A List of Forgotten Things - http://pastebin.com/kPEscJ3h

Write-ups:
Kara's Day Out - http://pastebin.com/8ZbiSKLs
Adventures with Asche - http://pastebin.com/RNviCBJu
The Reclaimed Doll - http://pastebin.com/n6miP1qT
In Your Shadow - http://pastebin.com/EfeeHFAE

Misc notes:You actually have two ways of getting your knights into town today, already.

>>44533016
>>Get the Shrine meeting over with

>>44533055
This.

Writing!
It's gonna be a quiet night, I can feel it.

You crack open the frosted covers and watch a familiar rippling distortion through the aquatic pages within. You blink a few times, revelling once more in how disappointingly little you actually changed. Even down to the shade of hair, it simply looked as if you had gotten a little older and decided to put your hair in a braid. Of course, there was the tell-tale lack of crimson eyes that would have marked you as Irue Valen, but you can't help but feel that this was a half-assed change for a Relic capable of completely altering your identity.

You put these thoughts behind you for the moment, stepping out into the sparsely populated morning streets of Carona and begin to make your way towards the Shrine. The sooner you got that meeting finalized, the sooner you'd know exactly what resources you had to work with, and the sooner you could dedicate time to your other goals.

By the time you reach the Shrine, the sun has managed to fix itself firmly in the sky, doing its level best to begin to warm away the morning chill with its rays. This was an effort that was, unfortunately, completely lost on you due to the ambient radiance of cool air coming from the Diary of Reflections... Though, you're glad that it's still early enough that no one seemed like they would be questioning why it was oddly cold.

"Ah, you're here early." An attendant - One whose name you don't know, but vaguely recognize from yesterday - Greets you as you step inside the Shrine. Despite their comment, it seems they had already been prepared for you to arrive if someone was already waiting. "Some of the others are still tied up in their morning duties, but I can show you to the meeting room if you're interested in waiting?"

True to form, though there are a select few people visiting, it is mostly deserted in the Shrine. Even the notoriously early risers of Wisp are barely there. You could follow them to the waiting room, but it wasn't as if you didn't have your own interests to tide you over in the meantime, right?

>Be taken to the meeting room
>Spend time in a section of the Shrine (which?)
>Check on a specific attendant (who?)
>Other? (Write-in)

>>44534191
>Spend time in a section of the Shrine (which?)
Undine

>>44534274
Writing.

You shake your head, "No, it's fine. I've got some things I can do in the meantime." You wave off the attendant amiably as you look out across the Shrine. A cool breeze ruffles the leaves of the grand tree in the center, casting shadows across the interior. You could check on Priat, you had just barely caught a glance of him in Salamander's section of the Shrine, but you're not sure what you would actually say. A familiar face wasn't at all what you were looking for, so you let your eyes and thoughts roam instead.

You had little in mind between Gnome, Jinn and Salamander. Wisp was alien to you, and you don't really feel comfortable trying to meander through that kind of meditation this early in the morning. You had nothing left that you were willing to trade Luna, which left you with...

Undine.

You might say Undine was one of the heavier things on your mind this morning, as the meeting with the Shrine revolved entirely around you selling the location of an Atelier of an Undine Aeon. That revelation would probably leave everyone in that particular section of the Shrine buzzing with activity for the next few months at least.

A part of you wonders how Undine itself thinks of having information like that just... Sold. You can't imagine it particularly approves of that kind of mercantile method of handling secrets, but would it disapprove?

It was thoughts like these that occupied your mind as you made your way over towards the soothing trickles of water and still basins which composed Undine's section of the Shrine.

Every section held mediums and elements which revealed its theme, and Undine was no exception; Simply stepping foot from the central area and into it was like dunking yourself into a metaphorical pool. It was... Calmer, here. People moved around each other fluidly, and what little conversation could be heard in this early morning hour was still kept politely subdued.

Only three people shared your company in Undine's Shrine. Two of which maintained the previously noted conversation as they sat across from each other, a wide and sparingly shallow saucer of water situated between the two of them as they took turns drawing their hands across the surface. From Irue's memories, you identified it as a form of meditation for divination, but as it required the favour of Undine to attempt in the first place, there was little more you knew about it.

The last of the three was a man in the vestments of an attendant. He was slender, and slightly on the small side, as he went about his duties... though the apparent lack of size didn't seem to impede the smooth transitions in which he poured jugful after jugful of water into each empty container.

>Include yourself in the divination
>Talk to the attendant (about what?)
>Meditate on your own (about what?)
>Other? (write-in)

Honestly I have no fucking clue what the other anon wanted.

Well, I guess this is as good a sign as any to stop.

I might try another thread later this week and see how that goes, maybe. I don't intend to archive this, since nothing really happened to justify taking up space, or recording.

This has happened a few times now, so I guess I should start taking the hint.

>>44535971
I think the issue is anons are lost. You get a lot more participation when anons "know" what they need to do.

>>44536023
I've heard this a couple times, and I suppose that's true. I'm not sure how I could streamline it, partially because I'm wary of railroading, and partially because a lot of Valen Quest was designed with the idea that the players could take a variety of approaches to solve things.

I guess it's kind of a fatal flaw in the inherent design, but it makes 'fixing' it a little awkward. Not that it can't be done, but that I'm not sure where I'd start tinkering with it.

It might be best to just write it off as experience gained and try to be less amateur with my next quest.

>>44536156
You've read what Ouro and Auri write yes? Sometimes you just need to give people a done to earth choice. Also /tg/ doing anything with politics is a crap shoot at best. Sometimes having Irue instincts giving us a hint helps.

>>44536211
Thanks for the advice, I'll try to keep it in mind, or work in a way for the players to access 'hints' occasionally.

Usually I tried to leave politics a bit open ended on purpose, since there was a lot you could get out of an encounter. IE: allies, manipulating them, extorting resources, selling/buying favours, etc., but I suppose giving too many options is worse (or as bad?) as giving none.

If I run anything after Valen, I doubt it'll be so 'open ended', for lack of a better word.

>>44536329
Yeah you've got a great world. Most players are just overwhelmed by what CAN happen. It Doesn't help Irue has no base whatsoever to draw from. It's too big and she knows so very very little, which translates to players.

>>44536384
>Irue has no base to draw from, and knows very little, which translates to the players.

This was actually by design! I felt like the PC knowing rather little would make it easier on the players, and allow for an easy excuse to learn things, as well as tie into the Forgetting options to reward both Irue/The Players applying what they learned.

If I had to explain it, my initial hopes was that the players would be excited to move through the world, rather than hesitant and wary. It's kind of saddening to see new and old players alike afraid to participate in a game because they're scared of what might happen.

Sometimes it felt like everyone was waiting for someone else to make the decision, and occasionally no one would. At that point, I kind of wondered what the point in playing was in the first place.

And, empirically speaking, it seems the players did as well.

Lessons learned though, I guess.

If I end up dropping Valen, I'll be sure to post up a summary of some of the major events and background/plot I had in mind somewhere, though. I'd hate to leave the few who stuck with it this far hanging.

>>44536562
The problem is us learning only weakened us or made thing worse. Ergo everything was out to fuck us why bother?

If Irue was a kid with people to look out for her, learning would be what you said. However she is expected to know these things, and showing her ignorance hurts her and her relationships. For a long while it seems like we were making faux pas after faux pas, and nothing was ever going to go right.


You effectively beat the curiosity out of them.

>>44536731
This is true. While the reactions in-setting were pretty much normal considering the circumstances you found yourself in, I can understand being demoralized by that. Ultimately it was my fault for putting the players in that particular situation, so I understand that I handled that badly.

Though I disagree that it only ever weakened or made things worse. You all managed quite a bit, and while you weren't in the best shape most of the time, were clawing your way into independence and handling the developing relations promisingly.

On the note of relations, it was probably discouraging that you rarely got a straight and easily understandable approval from anyone (Again, a deliberate choice since no one except perhaps Ari was particularly happy with their circumstances, and I wanted the relationships to feel more organic as they changed), but I feel like anon often believed themselves to be in a worse situation than they were with other people. Again, though, ultimately that's my fault for not presenting it effectively enough, or trying to make things too... Slow? Subtle? Something like that.

More lessons learned.

>>44536934
Too slow and too subtle means that it's hard to understand over a text narrative. Certain Qms are hated because of how vague they are. It felt like all we ever did was piss off people or burn bridges. That and the massive loss of face and respect we got hammered with 24/7 wore on us.

>>44537086
I'll definitely try to keep this experience in mind if I run a new quest one day. It's probably too late to salvage Valen, since it seems like the things I considered integral to the quest are also what keeps it teetering on the edge of being dead most of the time.

I'll give Valen a few more tries, just on the off chance it's a bad night, but it's seeming increasingly likely that's not the case.

At any rate, thank you for the critique and honest advice. Also, thanks for playing! I hope you enjoyed it until now.

>>44537249
I have I just have no fucking idea what to do whatsoever.

>>44537249
for what it's worth, the moment we solved the atelier was one of my best experiences in any quest ever.

I've definitely enjoyed playing and seeing puzzles get solved but a lot of times I feel completely lost from how open-ended everything is, so I end up being unable to make a decision on what to do.

>>44537249
This is sounding really depressing. I hope you don't drop this over just one bad night.