Board 8 > The Notes of Cain [CYOA/Forum Game]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Maria places Mysterious Books at Smithy
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Zephyr places the Mysterious Card at the Clinic
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Aaron places treasure chest at Old inn
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Dismas: ACTIVATE MY SHOVEL
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(Dismas proceeds to inexplicably dig up a bike)
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...I question the Card, but that's what I get for waiting to decide. >_<'
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Quick Update

1. Treasure Sack (Few Items of Medium Impact)
2. Treasure Trove (Many Items of Low Impact)

1. Smithy (Mysterious Books)
2. Old Inn (Treasure Chest)
3. Farmlands (None Assigned)
4. Woodcutter (None Assigned)(+Bonus Shovel Item)
5. Clinic (Mysterious Card)
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Dismas also Places the Treasure Sack at Woodcutter
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Punch places the Treasure Trove at the Farmlands
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IhatethisCPU posted...

...I question the Card, but that's what I get for waiting to decide. >_<'

It'll be alright. I have faith in the card!
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Xeybozn posted...

Punch places the Treasure Trove at the Farmlands

bold choice
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I figured Trove would end up being last but I find it amusing that the buffed Trove ended up being sent to one of the two areas with the smallest teams hah
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A

Gimme the moth powers. Damn the consequences.
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Alright now that the items have all been (very quickly) placed, I will reveal some information that might be useful for the next treasure phase... assuming we have one.

1. "Mysterious" items gain a Bonus Property if they are chosen last. That didn't happen this time.
2. Placed "Treasure" items may have an impact on the current situation if there is a conflict ongoing. So for example, the Treasure Chest was placed in the Old Inn. The party members there may have access to the items inside of the Treasure Chest to help them with their ongoing fight.

For that reason it's basically best to give Treasure items with higher 'Impact' to characters that are currently in danger, while it's best to save the 'Mysterious' choices for whichever group picks last.

Final Placements

1. Smithy (Mysterious Books)
2. Old Inn (Treasure Chest)
3. Farmlands (Enhanced Treasure Trove)
4. Woodcutter (Treasure Sack)(+Bonus Shovel Item)
5. Clinic (Mysterious Card)
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See it was a good idea since we aren't currently in danger!
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Thinking of the team!
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yeah I was thinking the more useless things should go to the groups who were doing well but it literally wasn't an option by the time I got here
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This seemed a little bit rushed, haha. Here I thought the last item bonus would slow things down a bit.
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I sort of wanted to wait to discuss things but I'm leaving for Mexico in the morning and figured someone else would have just chosen something pretty quickly anyways. Wanted to at least have a say in "something" in case I don't get another chance to.
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I think the treasures ended up in pretty good spots overall (particularly the chest and books)
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I do still like that we ended up boosting the trove yeah
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Cool! I wonder what the mystery card will do?!
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I'm also interested (which is why I chose it for us). Mystery Surprises are the best!
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Yeah, made sure the Old Inn was gonna get something helpful.
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Im just glad the Mystery Card is going to the location with, er-hem, a gambler
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Thats a really good idea.
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I was honestly leaning towards the Books, made the most sense to be in a clinic, but I getcha, dun worry. ^_^
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I was actually gonna take the books first but it was taken right away D:
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MariaTaylor posted...

Maria: Probably the best at making optimal decisions when she has all of the information available

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Yeah that didn't escape my notice, I assumed that was the reasoning.
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3. Psychic Bug Powers...
(11111111) A. Share it.
(11111111) B. Keep it for myself.
(1) C. Get rid of it!

special votal update for lefty

uhhh... hope he breaks this tie otherwise I'm gonna have to go back and check to make sure I counted everything correctly. though in this case if there's a tie I'll probably give the powers to Owen at least since Stan expressed interest in getting them.
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I'll change my vote from A to B then. I don't want the split vote, and I can see value in containing a possible parasite.
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A

let there be a split
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I'll vote A then if Jeff is changing his vote to B
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Changing your vote is dangerous. You gotta go with your gut!
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Entry 4: Cainas and Avel

As the spore clusters within the Smithy began to die down, the fires inside burned a bit more softly. The forge was blazing bright, still, giving a sense of illumination. Aside from that, however... it almost felt safe to go back inside. Goetic subdued his own instincts of curiosity and decided to focus on his surroundings. If those explosions had woken up any monsters or drew them here, they would want to be ready.

His rifle had been fairly useless thus far.

"Shall we take a look inside, then?" Maria inquired, rising back to her feet and stepping forward cautiously.

Surprisingly, it was Ignael who took her side almost immediately. Before that it seemed like the two didn't quite get along. Like there was some kind of odd tension between them. Goetic hadn't let that escape his notice, and he was waiting to see where that kind of relationship would lead.

The pyromancer nodded and then took up a point position as he went back into the building. "The rest of you stay behind me."

Goetic didn't need to be told twice. As they entered the room he put his back against the wall and kept a wide view of his environment. He hadn't put away his gun yet, nor did he turn off the safety. He was watching quietly from this vantage point while the others spread out.

Torin seemed to be interested in investigating the opening they had made in the floor.
Maria was checking to see if anything could be salvaged before it all burned down.
Ignael went to the forge and almost became lost, entranced by the fire burning between his eyes.

Goetic turned his head to the side and watched casually as a giant fish monster suddenly slid through the gap in the wall beside him. As before, this kind of monster didn't make any noise. However, as unsettling as that was, this type of stealth didn't mean anything if you had already spotted it.

Purging his fear and his natural response to yell out a warning, or to throw up, he closed his mouth and opened his eyes widely as he watched it go past him. The monster hadn't noticed him on the way in. It was slowly creeping forward, trying to reach Torin before it was noticed. But this meant that... Goetic was actually the one who was sneaking here.

He raised his gun and fired a shot into the back of its head, dropping it in an instant.

Torin turned at the sound of the gunfire, then let out a hoot as the monster's corpse collapsed at his feet. To the old man's credit, he avoided tripping over the hole in the floor or shattering his hip due to falling. Instead, he steadied his balance and looked back toward Goetic.

"Th-Thanks..." Torin told him. "That was a nice shot, young man."

Goetic simply waited to see if anything else was coming. Then he turned back toward Torin. "Eh, don't worry about it. We're here to kill monsters, right?" He was just doing his duty. Even though he knew, on some level, Torin probably didn't care that much about him. It was all because of his eyes. It had always been like this.

Neither Ignael nor Maria were the type to show that they were impressed, so Goetic would have to settle for imagining their appreciation over having their damn lives saved. Once the group was ready to go upstairs he followed them quietly from behind. And, based on his previous experiences, he decided to glance back over his shoulder every so often.

If some silent killer was following them, he intended to get a good look at it. Hopefully.

Unfortunately for the group, Maria revealed that most of the valuables downstairs had been destroyed when the trap went off. On a somewhat more fortunate note, the upstairs area of the smithy was still almost completely intact. The stairs had been in rough condition, but that only meant they needed to watch their step as they climbed up.
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As they were examining the upper rooms, which seemed to be more like living quarters, Goetic came across some bound books. There was a mixture of study guides relating to various subjects, reference manuals which cited historical data on the court, kingdom, and local academies, as well as some personal books that had been written by the owner. It seemed an odd collection for a smith to own. They tended to be more of the hands on type, rather than being focused on higher education and academic book smarts.

"What do you think all of this means?" Goetic inquired. He was curiously turning over each book, examining front and back. It was to the point where he hadn't even been able to open a single one yet because he was so overwhelmed with the amount of information.

Maria took the reference manuals from him and began to quickly thumb through them to notice any signs of tampering or use. The obvious thing in this case, as far as she was concerned, was to see if she could figure out what they were trying to learn. That was the first step.

As Maria was doing this, Torin came in and took a seat on the edge of the bed. "Do you think we'll learn anything useful from this, or...?"

Goetic just gave him a nasty look. There was always value in learning new information. Maybe he put too much emphasis on that glare, but it shut the old man up quickly. What was the point of leaving some perfectly good books behind just to run off and get killed by monsters? The thought of it annoyed him.

Ignael smiled to himself but watched quietly from the doorway. He was leaning against the inside of the frame.

"Well, here's something," Maria announced. "You can see here the reader was marking specific relationships between Avel de Contelard over the last six years. That's what all of these references manuals were for. He seemed to be interested in where Contelard was working during the last five or ten years."

"And following this..." Maria picked up one of the other books, a study guide on human anatomy. "Is actually a book writen by Contelard." Maria turned it over and then handed it to Goetic. "What do you think about that?"

"I... Don't know." But he wanted to know more. He put the book down without looking at it. Maria had already answered that question for him. Goetic had other questions he needed answered. He grabbed one of the other study guides and opened it, scanning it from cover to cover. Then, in the back pages, he found something of note. "Well, we might not have discovered this easily, but this one also has a credit to Contelard in it."

"So he didn't write that one, but the book collector who lived here was interested enough to find even a book that Avel helped to write," Maria surmised. "Meaning this goes well beyond the point of obsession. We should assume there is something very special about Avel de Contelard. And I have a few guesses of my own."

"Oh really, detective?" Ignael remarked from the doorframe. He almost looked like he was laughing at the two, or looking down at them. "Why don't you tell us what brilliant deduction you've come up with, based on all the evidence gathered here?"

Torin shifted uncomfortably in his seated position. "Er, yes. Why don't you tell us? I'd be interested to know what you think."

"Anatomy, biology, environmental science..." Maria flipped the books one at a time as she ran her hands over them. "Then you start to see more strange things. Cryptozoology. Theoretical metaphysics. He was examining the nature of the world, itself, and the strange and unexplainable things which reside beyond the realm of human vision."

"Unexplainable isn't a word," Ignael said simply.
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"You seem like you have a pretty good idea of Avel's way of thinking," Torin observed.

"Well, I did study under him for a time," Maria replied. She took the reference book and turned it to a specific page, pointing to one of the entries. It was a roster for staff at a specific academy. "He was an instructor on physical and life science at Raniel Academy while I was there."

"By the way," Maria went on, not waiting for a reaction to that comment, "if you examine the date of publication for the books that Contelard wrote, you're going to find that the more normal ones came early on... and he started to get more obsessed with weird and unnatural things over time. He actually wrote some of those later books while at Raniel. It was-"

"Hold on, hold on," Ignael uncrossed his arms and stepped out of the doorframe. His red eyes were fixed on Maria curiously now. "Are you telling me you went to the Raven School?"

"Sure," she responded, flatly.

"I thought you were some kind of noble lady, to be honest," Ignael told her. "But that school is definitely a school for people who don't mind getting their hands dirty. Or, to put it another way, nobody would go there if they could afford better options. It's a place where poor people go to school and spend their time wringing their hands around in the guts of corpses, just because they think it'll give them a way to move up by receiving a strong education."

Goetic, who had been reading through one of the journals, glanced over at the two. That remark seemed to draw his attention. "You studied corpses?"

"Contelard's lessons on anatomy were particularly enlightening," she admitted. "He had a deep interest in the human brain... although it's something we weren't really supposed to be looking at. I suppose he thought that since the Censor and the Lord weren't there in the classroom, nobody would ever find out."

"I suppose this is why he eventually had to leave the academy?" Torin guessed.

"You might think so, but.... no." Maria's expression darkened somewhat. "He developed an intense mania, and an obsession with Devils... or things from what he called the 'Outer Side' of reality. I wasn't taking any of his classes that semester, but supposedly he stopped showing up to give lectures. They found his office covered in blood and strange writings, often, no matter how many times they cleaned the place up or asked him to stop."

"Of course," Maria elaborated, "these could all just be rumors that I heard second hand. Either way he was dismissed at some point. Oddly enough... That means this person would have been studying Avel de Contelard at a point after he left Raniel."

"The Raven School," Ignael corrected her. As far as he was concerned, that was a place for trash birds that picked at corpses. It was important to remind her of that.

Since Maria was well educated she was often mistaken for someone of noble birth, and had an easy time fitting in with those types of people. Generally, she wouldn't make it a point to correct anyone who made that kind of assumption. But, at the end of the day, Ignael was not too far off from the truth. She was someone who had spent years studying corpses and helping with disgusting research, because that was the only way someone like her could afford an education. That being said, there was no part of this messy life that she was ashamed of. "If you must."
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"Well, based on what I've been reading here, I think something should become pretty clear," Goetic went on, trying to gloss over the weird tension between the two. "These journals are written by the wife of the smith here. Apparently Avel de Contelard... actually came to Cain's Estate at some point. He became friends with Cain's second son, a man named Cainas."

"So Contelard was HERE," Torin exclaimed. "And that woman had become suspicious of the manic bastard, and was investigating him?"

"I suppose with her husband working the forge all day she must have gotten bored, and was looking for something to do," Ignael joked.

"Mm... Well, she sounds more concerned than bored," Goetic replied, completely missing Ignael's tone. He was almost obsessed with these readings. "Why don't we go meet back up with the others? In the meantime I'll keep these journals and continue to read through them."

"Let me share some of that with you," Maria offered him, helping to carry the books and also reading through them. "For the sake of nostalgia, I'd like to see what old Avel was up to here."

However, there was a small sense of something that Goetic really couldn't let go. The simplest question in the entire universe which fundamentally changed the way he could view the world... or even take stock of this situation.

"What if it wasn't mania?" Goetic muttered out loud. What if Avel wasn't just some crazy old scholar? What if the smith's wife hadn't been paranoid and bored... what if she caught him and he was really up to something nefarious?

Ignael turned away, putting his back to them, and looked out to the hallway. "I suppose we should keep our eyes open for Devils, then."

//###//

Matsuda was laying on his stomach in the clinic, on a roll out bed which had been prepared for him. His shirt had been stripped off in order to fully expose the gouges and wounds across his back.

Seth had helped him get here safely and comfortably, though that guy was still concerned about the fact that Dismas had somehow slipped away during all of the scrambling of different groups.

Zephyr had been the one to lead the way and keep them safe from danger. The weasel was able to climb up into the window and check the building before they were forced to go inside, and he was small enough that he didn't get spotted in return. Once they knew the monster was there, it was fairly easy to dispatch it.

An arrow had been used to get the attention of the monster, distracting it for just an instant. But that moment of hesitation had given Seth the time needed to roll his steel ball into the room and intentionally trigger a trap. The ensuing explosion of spores was enough to swallow up the monster and vanquish it safely.

"These things aren't so bad when we're the ones who take them by surprise," Seth had taken note.

Zephyr couldn't help but agree with that. "Yes, but it still makes my fur stand on end. They can show up without a sound, masking their scent. And those eyes had..." He thought deeply about the profound effect those hypnotic eyes had on him before. They had forced his body to move when he didn't want it to. Made him flee in fear, when he had always stood his ground before.

He didn't like it. He was glad they had killed this one quickly.

Leone, meanwhile, had been brought along for one purpose. The cat-hooded figure was now cleaning Matsuda's wound as he lay there on his back. It hurt his neck a little bit, but Matsuda turned his head up as much as possible so he could watch the others as they rifled through the room for medical supplies and other things.

"Human medicine makes no sense to me," Zephyr admitted, having picked up a syringe and began studying it. "Why would you want to impale yourself?"
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Seth just laughed at that. He wasn't sure how to reply. As he was examining the nearby desk, he found something interested laying under a stack of papers. "Hey, what do you suppose this is?"

Leone glanced over. With an assertive and confident tone, somewhat annoyingly not focusing on the wounded person they were supposed to be treating; "It looks like a transfer of medical records."

"No, I meant-.... Wait, you can read that from over there?" Seth said in wonder, picking up the papers.

"My eyesight is pretty good," Leone bragged.

Seth examined the other person carefully. With that hooded jacket and hair covering their eyes, it was hard to imagine that Leone could see anything. Much less read a paper from halfway across the room. "Well, I was talking about..." then he lowered the paper he was holding. "Actually... hm. This has taken my curiosity now." He took the papers with him and went over to Leone.

Zephyr bounded after the two and ended up climbing onto the bed with Matsuda. It was the only way he could follow the conversation easily, and he didn't want to be left out.

Matsuda was forced to turn his head to the side, since he was still laying on his stomach. "Interesting? How could that be interesting?" Matsuda asked seriously. He couldn't imagine such a thing would be.

"Well, a small hamlet like this shouldn't have more than one doctor," Seth replied. "But there wouldn't be a need to transfer medical records unless another doctor showed up. Or maybe if someone important came here for treatment, but... I don't know why they'd do that."

"Maybe the doctor who lived here was really good at treating people?" Matsuda guessed. "That would have brought the sick from neighboring villages."

"If he was that good I doubt he'd have been working here," Leone observed. "Besides, it looks like this record was shared between the clinic's doctor and some guy named Avel de Contelard."

"Now that is truly bizarre." Seth turned over the forms, going over them a second time. "I don't see anything here that indicates Avel was actually a medical doctor. Why were they releasing medical records to him?"

Zephyr had started to become bored of this conversation, since it was discussing human affairs that he had little interest in. People needed to fill out forms for this, and get a license for that, and sign the proper paperwork to do the final thing. But for Zephyr, if he thought a conversation was boring, he could simply walk away without signing any forms.

He ended up going to the space where Seth was originally examining things, and found the mysterious card which had first caught Seth's attention. Zephyr picked the card up in his paws, holding it forward in front of his body. Due to his small size, it was comically large compared to him. He tried biting it, chewing on the edge to see if he'd get some kind of reaction.

It tasted like stiff paper. So, it was gross.

"Meh.." Zephyr put the card back down, turned it over, and tried to read it.

The text on the card was in some weird language that made it impossible to read, but Zephyr did like the designs drawn on it. Settling for the next best thing, he checked the envelope that the card had come from. It was from a man named Cainas, and it was addressed to the doctor who had run the clinic. "Mm. Hey, over here," Zephyr said.

He showed the others what he had found; the card and the envelope.

"Ah, yes. Thanks, Zeph," Seth said with a light smile. "I had almost lost track of that."

"What do you think it is?" Zephyr inquired. He held the card up with his tiny arms again, turning it back and forth in a weird, questioning gesture. It wasn't like anyone here could read the card anyway.
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Leone's head tilted left, and then right, following the motion of the card as Zephyr was shifting about. Reading at this distance was no trouble, and apparently even reading things in some weird language wasn't impossible, but trying to read text that was moving back and forth added an extra layer of challenge. It took a few moments. "It's a contract. But I don't know how you'd enforce it. Or what it's really for."

"You... can read THAT?" Seth said, this time in disbelief. He almost wanted to accuse Leone of bullshitting, but the truth was that the medical records had matched what Leone was saying before. It was entirely possible that Leone had some kind of super reading skills.

"Only parts of it," Leone admitted. "The inner rim is written in Trinspeak. We use it in-... um... I learned it somewhere before." Leone hesitated for a moment, growing uncomfortable.

That uncomfortable silence wasn't missed by Seth, who knew a bit about it himself. Trinspeak was generally used as a method of communication by the Thieves Guild. Their line of thinking was that if they had their own language for writing in code, they'd be able to share intelligence without worrying about it falling into the hands of the authority.

"Relax," was all Seth had to say about that. "I work for the Golden Group, not the Fisher Knights or the Censor." It wasn't like he was going to arrest Leone. Especially not at random in a place like this, when they were working together as part of a private expedition.

Those remarks totally flew over Matsuda's head, since he was clueless about the Thieves Guild, and so he simply looked to Leone. "So what else does it say?"

"Well, I can't read what is written on the outer side," Leone admitted. "That is written in some kind of language I don't understand. I've actually never even seen anything like it before." That was more than a bit odd, honestly. Leone had studied a lot of different languages. To find letters that were totally unfamiliar was... bizarre.

Leone went on to explain what the card did say; It was some kind of contract in exchange for services rendered. The one who received the card simply needed to make their imprint upon the space provided, in the middle of the design on the card, and they would receive their benefits. "Though I have no idea what these benefits are, how you'd receive the reward or... honestly.... there's just so many questions I have."

"We'll have to spend some time giving it consideration," Seth replied. "For now, I'd like to see Matsuda rest up. And we'll have to meet with the others and share what we've learned with them."

That was something they could all agree on, at least.

[End.]

4. Will you activate the Contract?
A. Seth will activate it now.
B. Leone will activate it now.
C. Save it for later.
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B
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C
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C.
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A
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B. Never let resources convalesce
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C
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I wonder why Goetic is so convinced Torin dislikes him and if this might be a problem...

Anyway I think C. Theres no telling what this contract is for sure yet and if it has something to do with Contelard its probably the old sell your soul contract. Id at least run it past the others first.
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Souls are overrated.

I'm voting C because I want Punchy to have all the powers. Maybe the bad stuff will somehow cancel each other out or he becomes an unstoppable God of Hyperdeath and forces a total party kill.
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Also, too bad the card wasnt edible. Would have made a nice snack
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