We failed our contracted task -- locating and apprehending an escaped criminal, Elsie Rumknuckle -- and were therefore rightly unpaid by the contractee.
What follows is provided simply as context for the above statement.
During our visit to Honeypuddle, we were caught in the crossfire of two smallfolk gods feuding over the Pudding Faire that was occurring that same day, and as such what seems to you to have been a one-day failed contract on 14 Alturiak was, to myself and my coworkers, two weeks of increasing inanity as we relived the same day over and over until we finally succeeded in creating a specific series of circumstances. I will not belabor you with the details. Suffice it to say that I had to shove my hand down an idiot halfling's throat and save him from choking on a live eel every day for 12 days. While also expending an inordinate amount of energy failing to convince Sylthas to stop being a liability.
Let the record show that the only reason we were trapped in this time loop is because Sylthas deliberately exposed the group to the arguing gods when we were, up to that point, successfully hidden and out of harm's way. Let the record also show that the specific circumstances we had to create were "the perfect day", ergo the Faire going off without a hitch, ergo everyone being safely able to enjoy the festivities without mishap. We were all of us made perfectly and explicitly aware of this stipulation on the "second" day (the first repeated day) by the goddess Cyrollalee. It stands to reason that even knowing the bounds of our release, we needed 1-2 days to gather information and discover what it was that needed doing, where, and when. THAT BEING STATED, let the record also show that we were trapped in that hellish loop for an additional TEN DAYS longer than we should have been due to Sylthas's blatant disregard for the collective "good". While the rest of us were doing our damnedest to gather intel, save lives before they were lost, prevent injuries before they could happen, and otherwise correct the course of events before they could run afoul, fucking SYLTHAS:
- Deliberately started a forest fire. You know, right outside the village that was surrounded by forest. That second day, every single person in that village was burned alive, unable to escape, because of the conflagration that so rapidly consumed the fair while they were all in the big top tent for the main event.
- Murdered potential allies after they had made him aware that they were also aware of the time loop. (And would therefore remember every injury in detail... like, say, being burned alive. Which they were.) This was, by the way, not something we learned from Sylthas. He actively tried to conceal it from us, his teammates, but he failed.
- Willfully disregarded repeated criticisms and pleas from us, his teammates, for him to -- for the love gods -- try and embody, even temporarily, a persona that wasn't selfish and malicious. Or at the very least respected our requests. (Do you think I wanted to play hero and save the life of an idiot man who doesn't even know how to swallow, every day for twelve days, for free?! NO, but I did it because the team needed me to.)
- Failed to even temporarily embody a persona that wasn't malicious or selfish, not even for one day, so I had to take over the task we had previously been entrusting to him and which he had been failing for five days straight. (All he had to do was confirm if a man had cheated or not. Literally take two steps to the left and look down, and see that a machine had broken due to wildlife interference, not manual. EVEN I, WITH TWO FALSE EYES, WAS ABLE TO SEE THAT, AND I, WITH A SKULL FOR A FACE, WAS ABLE TO CALM THE CROWD. WHY COULDN'T HE?! I ASK YOU.)
- And even when we were about to be freed, when we were making our final stand against the twisted "ghosts" of the smallfolk who had burned to death that second day (and some allies of Uldren/Urdlen/whatever), I watched (while myself surrounded by 3 enemies) as Sylthas magicked himself out of harm's way and left Jax to be surrounded by enemies.
I feel no guilt nor personal failing for not having managed to apprehend Elsie amidst all that chaos. In summation and to be very clear, I hold the entirety of our failure of our contract up to the fault of Sylthas being such an enormous impediment to our success. Truly, we are only here today, back at the Syndicate, experiencing the 15th and et cetera, no longer trapped, in spite of Sylthas's worst efforts.
End of fucking report.
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((OOC, I just want to clarify again - as I did in game - that I, Zee, have nothing against Cratom the person. But unfortunately Gyaba, in-character, will carry this beef against Sylthas for the rest of their days.))
