#i wasnt even using my highest checks for the fight asdfghj like i coulda tried to break free using logic and reason

[honeyboyfelix]

i am having a lot of thoughts rn so i need to write them you can look away if you want this is super fucking long asdfghjkl

imagine you are a tiefling. your mom is an elf and will surely outlive you and your entire family. you dad is also a tielfing. you are the oldest of 4 children. you live a happy 14 years as a relatively poor tinkerers child who has an affinity for magic your parents support with their whole hearts. but you are *poor* still so sending their child to magic school is not really in the cards. you are 14 when your dad disappears and is presumed dead. your mother falls apart in her grief understandably but unfortunately, your dad was the only one in the family with a job (your mother helped with that job but without him there is nothing to help). you are the oldest so you decide to use what little magic you know to help you make money performing street magic to provide for your family, your siblings who are like 7 and a year old (twin babies) obviously cant do that for themselves. you love your family and you would do anything for them but its hard to grow your skills when all youre doing is staying alive and thats how you live for the next 6 years. youre still struggling for money so you plan on going to this festival out of town to try and get your name out. on the way there you stop at a city that asks you (why you??????) and a group of people to find one of their people whove gone missing. on the way you all realize youre headed the same way so you might as well all travel together. you participate in the festival with these friendly weirdos, you get attached to people very quickly since you have abandonment issues and all of them are really really nice and one of them is even from your hometown!!!! you make it to the finals of the competition and the group youre up against is maybe not the nicest but your group is soooooo friendly that both groups decide to be good sports in the competition and not be sore losers if they lose. during said final round you guys pick up an artifact that gives the entire party a vision of a man trapped and desperate asking you to help him. you win the competition and your name will be forever remembered in that way but now you have bigger issues like wtf was up with that vision and the artifact????? your wizardly curiosity pulls you in. you find out the artifact is one of the most powerful artifact in the world blessed by not just one but three separate gods and the man from your vision must be their champion. this is a lot bigger than you,,,, you just wanted money,,,, but your new friends want to help this man and something pulls you along. you go to the cursed city (the city where demons come out of the walls every day in a never ending onslaught since the greatest war in the history of the world ended and reshaped history at you know it)

before you get to the city the cursed moon gives the entire party horrible warped memory nightmares that make you remember the last time you saw your father, the argument he and your mother had before he disappeared. you dont really wanna think about it. your mentor who taught you magic gives you her sword which is the last thing your father made before he disappeared. it feels very personal.

the inside of this city is awful and horrible and your entire party of lovable weirdos gets slammed again and again with darkness and despair but somehow you manage to come out of it relatively unscathed, you even gain a new friend!!! one you pulled from a deck of many things in a test to prove your worth!!!! (the themes of friendship triumphing never end btw) this new friend is a tinkerer JUST like your dad and even now your brother is a tinkerer too so he feels a little bit like home but also weird cause youre not used to people taking care of you its usually the other way around so you dont really know what to do with this new guy. the leader of this town who's trying to keep the demons at bay rewards you all by giving you his vacation home for free in the city you need to go to next in your journey.

when you get to the city the head curator of the library youre working with recognizes you immediately even though youre on a whole different continent and something in your stomach drops. he asks you what your parent's names are and a cold and ugly feeling settles in your stomach before telling him. he says nothing as he takes the group to the medical research facility and you see your father for the first time in years, passed out cold covered in angry red glowing crystals. the disease is uncurable and will kill him very soon, you found your dad again just to have him ripped away and warped beyond recognition and you are unable to do anything about it really. the other party members are shocked and upset by this but none more that the parties cleric who, unbeknownst to the rest of the group, instantly recognizes the exact scenario you are going through. you do what you do best and try to bury your feelings about the situation and tell no one about how youre feeling :) it worked at home why wouldnt it work here. the cleric tells you that no matter what they are going to do whatever it takes to find a cure so you dont go through their same fate and you trust your friends so much you believe him, youre determined now to get rid of this curse. in the process of investigating you get into a fight with some cursed statues (the big bad red curse,,,, you know the one) and you fuck up your attack so bad it hurts deep in your soul,,,, suddenly your hands have a red rash across them and you feel so so so tired. see the thing about the curse... it comes from this red crystal.... the same crystal your father had been working on tinkering with before he died.... the same crystal the hilt of your sword is made of :)

the only people who see that youre cursed are the party cleric and your knight (the new friend from the deck of many things you have complicated feelings about) so you decide the rest of them dont need to know :) you dont tell them about the sword either, you just start using a new one,,,, no one asks either thankfully! anyway the library finally gives you the next location so you can hopefully end these peoples (who you are now one of) suffering but there is one problem: an aboleth who believes he is the man from the vision that set this quest off is guarding the entrance to the place youre supposed to go. oh and also!! the rival party from the beginning of the quest? theyve been helping you guys out to and they went to check it out before you could warn them almost dying in the process so thats,,,, this mission is doomed from the start you swear.

despite all warnings, you go in the place where the entrance is trying to find a way in the entire party enters a fight with these cursed eels that intensely swallow you already at half health and you already think "oh god oh god were all gonna die and my family is gonna think i abandoned them just like my dad i cant die here not like this not so close" and somehow the entire party makes it out by the skin of their teeth and more than a little doubt in their hearts. this party doesnt know when to quit so you go in again to finally fight befriend the aboleth, this party is all about hope and kindness despite all the absolute hopelessness theyve been surrounded by for the past like 5 months you see, theyre first instinct is to reach out with both hands to their worst enemies and no matter how hard the world beats them down,,,, its worked every time. so of course it works this time almost instantly (with the help of the entire group and shit ton of magical buffs on one man, its called group effort sweetie uwu)

finally you get to go into the area this entire trip has been building up, what is essentially the magical prison of a cursed man forgot completely by the world. you are obviously not having a great time, the secrets youre keeping weigh heavy on you, you feel responsible for all of the mistakes youre party has made you also feel responsible for dragging an innocent man into this (the knight who is just like you, lonely and stubborn and intelligent and awkward) and the horrors TM are kinda setting in on you every minute since you saw your dad again but couldnt even talk to him,,,,, you are running out of time and now the cleric is also cursed which is just,,,,,, too poetic really. this was already personal for you both and now its you in their shoes and the cards stacked up in such a horrible way. but youre still alive, theres still a chance, we have to make it not just for your dad or all those other strangers or for yourself but your kind friends who have done nothing but help you,,,, they deserve to make it through this. so you power through

the dungeon is,,,, awful. every room is a memory from the cursed mans life where he watched the world beat down anyone who cared for him, his parents almost killed for simply having him, the civilians he tried to protect dying because he is one man who makes mistakes, the army he commands falling in a never-ending war no matter how many battles he one the next would just bring more loss, he was cursed,,,, because everyone believed he was cursed but all you see is someone who is like you and your friends who should have been givin a chance at a better life.

his memories crush you under their weight -literally- they pin you to the floor and wont let you up and your magic is failing you. worst of all its getting your friends too and you can do nothing to help while youre still trapped like this. the knight (who the entire party agrees is somewho the best of all of you) is the first one to break free from the spell, you dont know what did it specifically but he turns to you first urging you to get up and fight the voices in your head trying to bring you down. the cursed man speaks in your head, your loved ones speak in there too, telling you to just give up to let go and surrender that the fight isnt worth it but you are so close you cant end up like your dad where the last conversation you had was a yelling match about why youd left you have to make it back,,,, so you do, you get up and you get your friends up too. because this group doesnt let people fqall into nihilism and obviously all of you still have your problems, no one is perfect, but its worth trying. its always worth the fight