Intermission 10 Page 6
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“Mac…”
“I know you’ve been trying to make me happier here, but it’s not working!”
“I miss MY kitchen! In MY house!”
“I miss my books, and my neighbours, and the cat that always came by to eat yesterday’s leftovers every morning…”
“And I miss Chester.”
“I’m tired of only talking to him through letters.”
“He keeps writing them, but Paws says last time he asked if he can come see me in person.”
“But I don’t want to let him because then he’ll be mixed up in all this, too!”
“Well… maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“You know, I even asked that your room be made big enough for two, just in case—”
“NO!”
“Don’t you understand, Ricki?!”
“I don’t WANT him here!”
“I want my old life back!”
“I want to go back to the Empire!”
The man does have a solid reason to be mad in this, as a random event turned his life upside down, and we have treated him as a side character. Its honestly surprising he toughed it out as long as he did.
I feel sorry for Mac but at the same time Mac did this to himself when he called the guards during the kolbold den dungeon which made everyone forced to escape as Kamui is pretty kill on sight also the kolbold’s tried to beat his face in for it. So I can’t picture that the family isn’t too happy with Mac. :<
I think Mac needs to go back, see how the events go, and then make a BennyHill-style GTFO. That might shut the “go back” door in his mind. One thing that’s problematic is that he’ll probably very happily trade in any information for any slight vague chance of re…(uhh word missing) himself in the eyes of the empire.. and that’s not a thing out team can risk.
Word is probably redemption, or redeeming?
Macadamia really didn’t do anything illegal, we just kidnapped him. The Kobold Warrens is one case where Guard involvement had a compelling reason – the dragon cult was making sacrifices to the salamander in hopes that dungeon magic would mutate it into a dragon. The family there was sheltering the cultists, not aware of what they were doing but not caring all that much about the safety of anyone involved as long as they got paid.
Plus, of course, the three separate gangs who were keeping Daisy in a cage, stealing Macadamia’s ring, and stealing toys from the children.
The issue is well the kolbolds were beating him down after the reveal, so unless we wanna leave him to do it. But the kolbold family sheltering cultists and ignoring the issue? I’m gonna be real, I don’t know where it is said in the story besides those cult worshiping Kolbolds and the hostile ones were negatively affecting by the influence of the dungeon. It’s alot to take in eitherway it’s a messy situation and at the time; Mac was one of many in danger in the dungeon and Rikki isn’t the type of goblin to ignore people in trouble with none of the foresight of the outcome.
Well not everyone has to be an adventurer. The world needs merchants and ringsmifs too. Maybe we can somehow get Mac’s licensing approved (succeeding the bond dungeon) and he can be the character whose upgrade is that he can be like Paws and give us cool enchanted items as an NPC. There are no rules that say we can’t retire a character.
Mac’s bond dungeon is probably one where the good outcome results in us clearing his name and the bad outcome is he gets sent to prison, never to be seen again. Having the option to turn him into an NPC merchant would be an unconventional but tasteful reward for getting his bond maxed out and successfully completing his dungeon. His stats aren’t really great dungeon-crawling stats, and as we do more and more dungeons that are harder and harder, he’s going to get left behind, even if he gets a solid boon at the end of his bond dungeon.
Like maybe you can mail him some rings or rare ingredients and he’ll give you some of the best items in the game. And sense he’s licensed now and has time to work and invest in learning his craft, that’s his form of leveling up.
I also like the idea of doing this because it really highlights Mac’s strengths as a support character and demonstrates how you can still be important to the outcome of the story without having to be in the foreground. It reminds me of this time my mom wanted to play online games with us, but she wasn’t very good at gaming, so we played online multiplayer Final Fantasy 14 with her because that game allows you to be a merchant/healer type without really fighting, and you can still have fun and be involved.
If he was licensed, then he wouldn’t be able to sell to us (well, Paws might make it possible, but Mac would need a major change of heart). He was marked for “questioning” for receiving a ring from us, black market ringsmiffing is the sort of risk he definitely wouldn’t take if there was a miracle of getting back in the system.
Would be an interesting character “upgrade”, yes. One of his major balancing factors is the need to take him into a dungeon to smif.
While Macadamia could go back to the Empire, he so would not get his old life back. (Which is hopefully the reason why he is still sticking around, that he’s smart enough to see that himself.)
Hell, I’d be surprised if they would even let him live, after a) how willing the appearing guards were to listen to his side of the story in the kobold warrens, and b) all we heard about how other races (like goblins) get treated so far.
But then again maybe it’s different with kobolds concerning b). Especially useful ones that can churn out magical equipment (rings) for the Empire…
Still, I see no way to resolve his conundrum. I hope Ricki has a feasible idea.
I could see them killing him, but I think more likely is a much tighter leash while he continues his work. Put him in protective custody (read: sweatshop prison) until he is safe from the rebels who kidnapped him (read: never).
Solution: Remove the Emperor, of course! How to do so … is a different question.
My main worry is that already the empire labels him as a criminal by even associating with us and the empire will hurt and use him as leverage to get to us. :<