#Ansur probably didn't try to use a dagger- maybe attempted decap with a sword....zappy-breathed sleepy squid

[jeeaark]

Dumb Choice V. 1

Greygold could totally take on their team 1-9. Totally. With 8+ summons and carrying a 10-year-supply of inventory items, Greygold IS the BBG babe's love fight don't count because Greyg didn't wanna fight shh

As much as I don't like where this fork-in-the-road went, boy did I have a lot of time to mull over why squid buddy called it quits. And I couldn't pick just one reason ✨

So let's kick it up a notch with the survival theory.

After hearing how certain mindflayers get the instinctual hankering to be a lil shit that sometimes they gotta roll a dice so as to NOT be a lil shit....

What if. Maybe squid buddy's mindset wasn't just being dead stubborn about surviving, but the exhausted-flayer's survival instincts kicked in. Maybe there was poor communication because Emps was in panic mode, wits at an end, fear on overddrive, every doubt collapsing in on itself, stuck-in-a-corner mode, eye-for-an-eye contemplation, fight-or-flight response overriding any other sensible dialogue options that were available for them.

Maybe Emps failed their don't-be-a-lil-shit roll

And since squid buddy didn't uh....want to repeat the fight response like with Ansur, for various reasons, reacted with flight instead

Funny story, I drew this a while back as a 'fun' theoretical possibility, but been realizing more recently ehhhhh-Emps really coulda just killed us all right then and there (not withstanding Halsin and Jaheira). If Emps had the ability to turn off the mind-protection after you stray too far from the mission, then they coulda done the same thing to everyone now. So if Emps really had a "no more use for us" mindset like a certain mindflayer book says they do, fleeing wasn't necessarily the only way for Emps to survive.

Maybe. Emps was about to react in a way they knew they were gonna regret again and eeehh- counter-reacted by noping the fuck out. For Greygold, I like that theory. Squid Buddy: jumping the gun like a dramatic tired mindless-flayer