#cyoa

Response: Sorting out Hafiza's records.

You look at the sun, well on its way down the horizon, and decide against going back to the garden right now. Soon it'll be too dark to properly look at the paths.

You sweep the pebbles back into the bucket so as to not bother Deema, prop the bucket against a post, and head inside.

Deema's by the fire on the far side of the room, facing away from you.

'Did I bother you?' you ask.

She turns the question over in her mind before saying, 'Yes.'

'Sorry.'

'Don't be. It's the job.' She pauses. 'They felt strange.'

'Yeah, look at this...' You walk over and show her your sketches of unbalanced sigils, with lines of inconsistent thickness and spokes of different lengths, and say, 'I made them unbalanced to compensate for the stones not making perfect circles.'

She concedes, 'It's a good idea,' and turns around again.'

You take this as your cue to leave her alone, and go back to your makeshift desk. The note you'd left to yourself to work on Hafiza's records jumps out at you.

Even though condensing the notes further will take you much less time, you split the task over the evening and the next morning to give your eyes a break. The final list of notes barely comes out to be three pages of text, and you fold them up and head into town to send them off to the address Hafiza gave you.

While in the area, you look over the town noticeboard, hoping for some clues about where the next witch meet will be, but there's nothing available - either because it hasn't been announced, or there's so few people it affects it doesn't compete with the offered odd jobs and workshops. Probably the latter.

'Deema,' you ask when you return, thinking of your conversation with Lex, 'when do we find out when the next meet is?'

'Not long... the next week or so. I'll let you know when we receive notice.'

'A while ago Lex said it would be somewhere down south. But not that far down, because we don't really do witches there. They seemed upset about it.'

'Why would you speculate or worry? It won't change where it will be.'

'Maybe,' you say, 'but still. Might help us plan for the... the next step.'

Deema purses her lips.

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(Mod's Notes Are in Italics)

Good day! This is your mod speaking. Welcome to another installment of Let's Play Consider the Consequences where your votes determine the outcome of the story!

In last week's post, Jed has decided ditch Carol in favor of another woman, Helen Rogers ('member her from the previous installments?). Speaking of Jed, he's a notorious lover-hopper, skipping from one partner to the next.

But anyway, about this Helen lady, she's not exactly as filthy damn rich as Carol is, but comes from a respectable family nonetheless. This causes Jed to fall in love with her, no matter what.

Unfortunately, for Mrs. Harringdale, she doesn't want her son to hook up with Helen that it causes her blood to boil. The doctors warn her should her blood boil even more, it would at least kill her off. On the other hand, Helen wants Jed to marry her, giving him two choices: either marriage or taking care of his mother.

Since you decided that Jed must be a dutiful son to his mother, and at least give the poor lady some sympathy and TLC, let's see what happens next. If Jed chose to marry Helen, his mother would've died... maybe from hypertension.

Unfortunately, Jed's story must come to an end, so enjoy the conclusion that you had made based on your votes. Next week, it's Saunders we'll be covering.

Jed's decision to give up Helen and stand by his mother was from one viewpoint admirable, while from another it was simply the result of his inability to make a decision. While he was saying to himself, "I'll wait and see what breaks," hoping against hope that in some miraculous way his mother would be reconciled to his marriage, Helen was up and off to take a job in the city.

Jed was both broken-hearted and relieved, for the break with Helen certainly did improve his mother's disposition. His three love-affairs had gone wrong, but this did not discourage him from trying others, each briefer than the last. The older generation spoke disparagingly of him as a Don Juan, looking upon him with disapproval, while the younger generation were bored by him. No one understood the tragedy of his eternal quest for a perfect woman who would satisfy both his mother and himself.

Jed never asked himself if there existed a perfect woman—and if so, why he deserved her. The consequence of his being a docile slave to a dominating, selfish old woman, was that he was a perfect son but no good at all as a husband.

Another thing before we end it all: We'll be posting a summary of Jed's story while we wait for Saunders's story based on your votes!

~ 💦 Bathhouse 💦 ~

content: making out, fondling, sex talk, various foreplay stuff before the big stuff

You are very excited about indulging with your suitors in private. The seven of you enter the humid and warm underground spring. It is lavish and quiet, belonging only to you for this evening.

Ram and Sen remain as they are, with their privates hidden by their armour and fluid form, while the others strip their clothes. This wasn't the first time to see them naked, but the initial inspection was done far more privately. Ves is particularly embarrassed to disrobe, while Shar, Rion, and Boro have no issues with it.

The seven of you dived into the warm mineral water and immediately started drinking and chatting.

Response: Right now.

'I'm going to do some experimenting now,' you say. 'Um - do we need permits for this?'

Allan waves off your concern. 'Absolutely not.'

'And... do you have extra rocks?'

He laughs. 'Do we?'

It turns out they have a lot. He disappears into a shed and returns with a bucket of small rocks. 'Come back if you need more - you'd be doing us a favour.'

You eye the bucket warily. 'Should be plenty. Thanks so much.' You wait until Allan turns his back, then lift the bucket with a grunt - a career in street magic and bookkeeping has done nothing for your arm strength - and every step you take swings it into your shins.

Lex winces. 'Do you want me to -' Without waiting for an answer, they take the bucket. 'I thought this would be heavier.'

'I don't use my arms a lot,' you say defensively. 'My legs are fine, though. Because of the stairs.'

'Mine are better,' they say with a snort. 'Come on, let's go.'

--

Lex ignores your offer to take turns with the bucket, and swings it at their side with ease all the way to your front yard.

You beat them to the gate and swing it open. Lex walks up to the porch and sets the bucket down by the door. 'It's still not that heavy.'

'Not where my skills are.' You pluck a stone from the top and make it disappear behind your hands with a flourish. 'Still got this, though.'

They cheer.

--

You open the front door and let Deema know what happened at the garden and that you'll be playing with sigils on the porch. She grumbles a thanks for the warning, and for making sure she would also be able to manage the sigils once they're installed.

'But you'll need a way to clearly distinguish which stones are part of the sigil and which aren't. At the very least, a distinguishing stone to switch out.' She brings Reginald out to watch you, then retreats back indoors. You wave at him, and he falls to his right.

You scratch your chin and mutter to yourself, 'If I were a kid, I'd want to keep the stone that looks very different from all the other ones. Might have to make them all the same colour or something.'

You lay the stones out in a larger sigil on the front porch to keep it on the weaker side, and after holding your hands on top of it at different points, settle on two rows of rocks to make the lines more consistent.

The inconsistencies in sizes still sets you back, until you figure out you can re-balance the sigils by changing the lengths of the spokes around them. Having the spokes set to different lengths goes against everything you've learned about sigils, but you guess this is just part of breaking the rules once you know them.

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(Mod's notes are in Italics)

We're now back with your regular schedule after a round of short, yet sweet polls.

Just a brief recap of our previous post before we can proceed:

Jed's decided to go back to school and give away his baby with Gwen for adoption to the Joralemons, a couple in desperate need of a child, but he's turned to drinking, so he's been given the boot away from school but it doesn't matter much to his mother, she'll accept him anyway, college or not.

One day, Mrs. Harringdale hosts a party where Jed meets a beautiful young girl named Carol Lane, who hails from New York but vacations in Franklin. The two suddenly are infatuated with each other and engaged to marry one another. They then give out a heart-to-heart talk where they spill the beans about their romantic lives. This is when he realizes that men's lives are different from those of women's and Carol must forgive him.

Since you've decided that he shouldn't marry Carol, maybe it's time for him to seek out another love interest... and be happy.

Options are highlighted in orange.

Jed's natural tendency was toward women of force of character, and his next love-affair, a year after he had decided not to marry Carol, was with Helen Rogers, a handsome blond girl whose grave beauty was more restful to him than Carol's vivacious prettiness. Mrs. Harringdale opposed this marriage because although Helen came of a respected family, she had neither the money nor social prominence of Carol, and Mrs. Harringdale still hoped Jed would renew his inexplicably broken engagement. At one time Jed wanted Helen to elope with him, but she insisted that their marriage must be open and aboveboard.

The two years that followed were distressing to everybody. Mrs. Harringdale would not recognize her son's engagement to Helen, except by fulminating against it. She developed high blood-pressure under the strain, and the doctors warned Jed that any undue excitement would bring on a stroke and possibly be fatal to his mother. At the end of two years Helen insisted that they must separate or marry. If he was to hold her, Jed had to choose between his mother's health and marriage with Helen. He felt deeply the truth of the old saying that a man may have many sweethearts but he has only one mother.