#i'm not entirely sure if that'll stick or if i'll go something more along the lines of axis horns

[kifu]

A little bit of character design. ;) For a comic! That may never leave the brain.

[blackjackkent]

Ran into an earthquake, proceeding south through Rivington.

Presumably this is the sort of quake we heard mentioned in that cutscene with Gortash - fallout from the elder brain straining against the Chosens' control. Feels like a bit of time pressure for sure.

But for right now Hector has no idea what it means, just that more trouble.

Shadowheart also commented, "If I was a Sharran lookout, this is the sort of place I'd wait around," which feels very ominous. Definitely feels like we're about to get jumped, but there's no one immediately obvious in the vicinity that is interactable, so possibly Shadowheart is just being paranoid.

Moving on, there's a fight going on between a dude and some squatters in his house.

"The place was empty! Keep those thugs away from my family."

"ZENOVIAAAAA! GET THESE SQUATTERS OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW."

This guy is comically upper-class - loud and dramatic and very upset with the situation. Hector does not have much familiarity with such people but he can sense that Karlach does; she lets out a soft snort behind him and rolls her eyes.

The merc at the man's side, on the other hand, is anything but humorous; she's carrying an extremely large and well-cared-for sword on her back and looks like she's fully ready to use it.

"Arfur, *sweetheart*, you paid me and my boys to be caravan guards, not cattle wrangles," she drawls, and gives the man in the house an unpleasant grin. "If you want us to get our hands dirty, it'd be our pleasure, but that'll be extra."

Hector doesn't fully understand what's happening here, but it's obvious there's the threat of violence, and so - almost without thinking about it, he steps in.

(One of the available options here is "Does no one we meet ever get along?" which is excellent. I don't think Hector would say it but he's definitely thinking it right now.)

"Calm down and tell me what's going on," he says, his tone automatically shifting into something placid and firm, a voice of authority - not the tadpole's sort, but that which the abbot would use to calm a disagreement of monks in the monastery.

"I just want to remove these unlawful interlopers from my property!" Arfur wails aggrievedly.

Hector raises an eyebrow at him. Given the state of things around here - and in particular, given the mass of bodies he just saw at the site of the battle outside the gates - he doesn't have particular interest in indulging this man's superiority complex, or being party to turning a family in need out on the street. But the mercenary with the sword is worrisome.

So he has to consider his approach. Something nonconfrontational but unambiguous. He summons the memory of the cleric who ran the services in the monastery's temple and puts on his most beatific smile. [CLERIC] "The gods study our deeds during crises," he points out. "Now is a bad time to be uncharitable."

"Excuse me?!" Arfur yelps. "I'm *exceedingly* charitable. Ask anyone in this wretched town! It's one thing to donate - extremely generously - to those less fortunate than oneself, and quite another to give away one's entire home!"

It seems to Hector there is likely a middle ground to be struck here - but something else sticks out to him as he listens to the man rant.

Narrator: [INSIGHT] This man's indignant demeanor barely masks a seething anxiety. There's more to this situation than he's letting on.

"I'm a very magnanimous individual, but this is my home," Arfur insists. "Either they leave or I'll make them."

"You seem to be a little on edge," Hector says carefully. "Are you all right?"

Arfur stiffens. "Well, wouldn't you be on edge if your beautiful home had been defiled by such brazen interlopers?"

(A/N: This conversation is fairly confusing/frustrating. Passing the above insight check and then following up on it gives us zero net new information to act on in the conversation, as shown above, and also cuts off an available [CLERIC][PERSUASION] check - which Hector would have been physically incapable of passing but was still more likely for him to say.

At this point in the conversation we have three options: a) completely back out of the situation, b) an option from Hector's rogue multiclass to do the job instead of the mercs for cheap (???), or c) intimidate - a check which Hector cannot pass either and leads to violence. Of these three options I guess we'll go C, and I don't mind it tremendously since (especially having seen some of Arfur's other dialogue) this guy seems like kind of an ass, but the conversational line feels weird.)

Hector sets his jaw. He has seen far too much suffering over the past few months to be able to easily stomach this man's dismissal of people in need. He can sense Karlach's agitation too; she wants to give the man a blow or two herself for how he's behaving. [INTIMIDATION] "How about you live and let live," he says coolly. "And I let *you* live in return."

It's an ill-advised comment, perhaps, given the merc with her sword standing directly nearby. And he regrets it almost as soon as he's said it; he doesn't want to encourage the threat of violence here. But damn it... this house has room for these people if Arfur would just open his ears, and Hector finds that he can't stay silent.

Arfur draws himself up to his full height and glares at Hector.

"Are you threatening me?" he snaps. "Zenovia - why are you just standing there? Do what I'm paying you for!"

The merc grins casually. "You paid us to protect you and your high-quality merchandise on the road - and we've since arrived at our destination. As I said - anything else is extra."

"Ughhh," Arfur groans. "This is the last time I hire someone from the Guild." Coin flashes across his palm as he tosses it towards Zenovia. "Fine. Here's the extra. Finish the job." He turns to look at Hector balefully. "Now please show this meddler some of that famous Rivington hospitality."

-----

"Nice one, Hec," Karlach says with a gleeful laugh as the mercs turn on them; she draws her sword and gives it a dramatic whirl. "Let's show 'em what we learned in the wilds!"

Shadowheart lets out a heavy sigh, already weaving a Shield of Faith between her fingers, ready to throw. "Are we to right every wrong in the city on our way to the gates?" she asks dryly. "Hector, I know you're compulsively charitable but this place has no shortage of wrongdoing."

"All the more reason to do what we can, where we can," Hector says firmly.

Jaheira just laughs softly. She remembers another man, much younger but with that same determination in his eyes - unwilling to see a wrong and look away from it if there was something he could do. "Like old times, indeed," she murmurs. "Do not worry, Shadowheart; we will find our way to where we need to be, one way or another."

[xx-vergil-xx]

okay so I'm finally reading Hounds and I have to yell at you here, too because

DESIRE

you write them SO GOOD, you write them SO FRIGHTENING, the enormity and deepness and awful ceaselessness of human want! humans want CONSTANTLY! they want sex and they want love and they want violence! this is why I think that Dream and Desire are SO similar because dreams and desires cover the entire breadth of human emotion, the good and the bad! except Dream responded by repressing so hard he turned into a black hole and Desire responded by going fucking insane!!!

(also, on a more serious note -- how far into Hounds did you get when plot hit you? and was it something like that you just kinda realized you were writing it and it was going somewhere, or did you have a concrete idea that came to you? always interested in other writing processes, because i tend to start writing something for the ~aesthetic~ and then I'll have a plot that'll smack me in the head and I have to go back and redo stuff lol)

hello hello!!! first off, as a devoted patron of ur absurdly good work it’s an honor and a delight hello comrade in arms <3 <3 <3

thank u so much!!! writing desire was just so unbelievably fun bc it’s characters like that that are so fuckin maxed out knobs-turned-to-11 insane where for myself, as primarily a poet with a fondness for Strange and Off-Putting Language, i can just go crazy go stupid ya know? i fully agree with your desire and dream similarity thesis i really think that they hate each other because they are so similar that it drives them both up the wall — dream reviles desires indulgence and desire thinks dream has a major stick up his ass but deep down they’re two sides of the same lunatic coin, they’re batshit when it comes to any and all emotions (and dream’s repression continually bites him in the ass because his emotions get so compressed he inevitably spills over and lashes out — my favorite example being nada getting cast into hell like he’s so overcome with embarrassment and almost shame at rejection and also grief at what he’s done to her that it makes him act like a Major Fucking Asshole because he loses control anyway sidebar sidebar). i love desire and if i can work their voice back into the fic at a later point god knows i will because it was a joy to write them (on par with the corinthian who has been my FAVORITE voice so far ugh my blonde bastard beloved <3)

i too started with a Vibe Only — it was about half a chapter in my notes that was hob in a nightclub in berlin seeing someone who looked like dream (i think that became ch 3) and a chunk abt dream where i was trying to conceptualize how imprisonment in a body would work for a very non-corporeal being who can’t die, mostly as an experiment in body horror — hounds emerged from these little scraps and the plot has come along in organic fits and starts. not sure where ur at in ur read (holy shit i never imagined it would be as long as it is now) but little arcs sorta developed for me one after the other — the rescue trope first bc i am a sucker, then corinthian arc, and now this current one, and it’s sort of a ridiculous stroke of luck that they’ve all escalated on each other enough to form a coherent and rising plot that actually is leading up to the moment i’ve been beating my head against the wall abt for the last two days (thanks to @aberfaeth for her infinite wisdom and feedback and also giving me a god tier concept that i’m stealing to use). that’s often my typical process, i tend to go very organic, but i’ve never done it with something this long and i’m shocked it’s still functioning. hopefully this gift from the muses and the spirit of hob gadling continues onward as i desperately attempt to figure out how this is gonna resolve!

thank you a thousand times over for reading! <3