SESSION 3D: Rich people scare me!

Why hello there, Journal! Fancy seeing you here!
 
Since my last journaling session, I picked a new therapist! I picked Denry Birchcress. There were three core reasons for this. First, Denry is a centaur with chill vibes. Second, Vyzzyg recommended Denry! Third, "Birchcress" makes me think of watercress, which is my absolute favorite ancient green for salads! Love that stuff! That's how therapists are chosen, and my methodology is perfect and remarkably robust. Nobody has ever criticized it nor will anyone, ever. This is a fact. (Also, I got overwhelmed by the decision and didn't know how to pick the right person. Yet another classic and traditional outlook on therapy.)
 
Anyway. Today, we did some intelligence gathering for Brynn! To start out, we let Ulo and 3Chainz go to a local nightclub. (3Chainz is Latrans, but it's 3Chainz now, Latrans is a name representing an incorrect life he no longer maintains.) Neither Zinyra or I went there, as we are way too old for this shit, unlike our several thousand year old counterparts, Ulo and 3Chainz. Once they came back, they said they hung really well with the cool people, especially Ulo. According to Ulo, she did such a good job that she left early to go talk to some dockworkers, which is incredible! I could never have done this. 3Chainz said that Asher is a self-proclaimed terrible artist who engages in romantic relationships with wealthy patrons to earn bucks. Apparently Nisalisse was a business owner in Sutton who owned a pie shop (NICE) and a tavern (fine) that became involved in local politics, and didn't do affairs and bribes and stuff. So I guess that means Nisalisse is probably kinda no-nonsense, and (maybe) honest in her aggressive jingoistic signs and shit? Not great! Don't love it!
 
At the docks, Ulo has made a pie friend. Ulo talks about pie for the whole time; Gluri was a piemaker in Sutton. Nisalisse was a terrible boss! Tried to be "the cool boss", which is something that apparently never works and just makes you lame as shit. Who knew! Not me, I've never had gainful employment and NEVER WILL.
 
Anyway. The next day 3Chainz and I went to the apocathary. We talked to Barty Graves. He's real chill! Seems like a real nice guy. After a short conversation about Politics, Barty told us that Nisalisse lived in some sort of Elven community with only Elves and no humans or dwarves or centaurs or anything else. Just a community of high Elves. When Nisalisse actually came to Sutton, people in town thought she was really hard to talk to. She was really big on the virtues of hard work (GROSS) and labor (BLAUGH) and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps [there is a stain on the page that looks like Marco vomited directly after writing this phrase]. Eugh. Ooof. Plugh. Anyway, uh. Yeah. The only other thing from Barty was a story about how Nisalisse was volunteering at a soup kitchen and twitched and retracted when a homeless person touched her, which is, like, not great? Like, dude, come on, we're all just people. Fuck off with that shit. Jeez.
 
Aaaaaaaaanyway. Then Zinyra went to the jewelry store. She reported back. And like, gross, lotta rich bullshit, yikes! The rich people want Nisalisse elected really badly. She's planning to institute formal currency (FUCK THAT) and completely destroy the inherent smuggling economy to bolster the profits of rich enterprise. MAN, GEEZ, YIKES. Generally it seems like the rich people are looking at Nisalisse as a means to an end to get the town into their hands and cancel most of Brilles' reforms.
 
So we talked to Brynn. Brynn was excited about our information gathering -- the fact that she doesn't like homeless people is big. The fact that she doesn't like theft is big. There are a lot of reasons to think Brilles has this in the bag. I'm still a little nervous though -- for one thing, rich people are rotten for stealing elections. Like, Leon! [There is a stick figure drawing of an old man in the margins going "aye whatup marco" in the margins] Leon is the only political person I know in any way, and I remember a long time back in Tabahel, he lost an election because some of the town bigwig merchants wanted to get him (and by extension, the homeless shelters he tried to establish) out of the town and stuffed the ballot box against him and for this slimy asshole. He ended up having to have Elysia and Holly come in and do a little investigation and find the paper trail to get him back on the town council and roll back their austerity measures. But, like -- this happens all the time! Maybe I'm being paranoid, IDK. My therapist says I need to stop looking at worst case scenarios and start giving myself some more slack, but like. UGH. UGHHH.
 
Anyway. That's a-me, Marco!
 
<3 Marco
 
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[ ------ 16 downtime actions ------ ]
1. THERAPY #1: Felt super bad, bounced around to a whole bunch of things, didn't focus on anything. I did very badly! Real horrible times for me, Marco, your friend.
2. CRAFTING #1: I wanted to upgrade the classroom for the emancipated children and also myself. I had to craft a wooden button & a child's hat; I used our smithy so these things would be pretty dope IMO. I made the wooden button successfully!
3. CRAFTING #2: And I -also- made the child's hat successfully! Marco just keeps winning!
4. COMMERCE: This is how I got the ink. I was able to trade for the ink and upgrade our classroom to be, uhhhhhh, slightly less bad.
5. TRAINING: Practicing my arcana in an effort to understand my new chimera-based subclass. I didn't do it! But I felt like I got really close. [DC goes down for trying for Arcana again; now 16 instead of 18]
6. TRAINING: Tried again, failed. I definitely did worse this time. [DC down to 14]
7. TRAINING: Tried again, failed. Like, a lot. Geez. What the heck. Oooooooooooooooof. [DC down to 13, and Marco gets frustrated and gives up]
7a. outsource several research exercises to Vyzzyg & Elysia to try and solve my horrible wild shape problems.
8. GATHERING #1: Went for the head of an Earth Elemental to try and set up a dungeon in the house, because I feel like it is something we may need in the future. (Went with Zinyra, it worked! We had a successful hunt. We have built a dungeon. Oh god. I built a dungeon. What is my life now. Why have I done this.)
9. GATHERING #2: Went for the heart of an invisible stalker, to try and set up a glamour-dispelling fence. (Went with Zinyra again, it worked! We have a fence! No, not that kind of fence. Like, a gate. But a gate that goes all the way around. You know what I mean gosh.)
10. THERAPY #2: I talked about my survivor's guilt and the overwhelming feeling of sadness that I died before Tiamat came back and couldn't save Steve or stop Tiamat in any way. I wish I had Steve back. I wish I had Baz back. I could've done so much more than I did. Denry talked about how it is not my fault and I need to think about how I would talk to someone else who was there like Zinyra or Prince Smells and talk about why I am saying these things to myself rather than to others.
11. SOCIALIZING: Working with Gluri to see if we can make pie together and start to build a Friendship as piecrafts. Ulo comes along and we make some incredible pies. INCREDIBLE pies. Barty Graves apparently is great on baking drugs into pies, and gave us some advice on it. So we became friends with Barty and made a lot of pies! And Ulo knows how to make pies now. Amazing! This is what I wanted!!!
12. SOURCING INGREDIENT SUPPLIERS: Marco turns into a vulture and finds a ton of ingredient suppliers for Ulo's new co-op pie shop, "Ride or Pie"; there's an orchard in Phandolin and a ton of slightly spooky groves hidden deep in the woods that people keep ignoring. Turns out one of them is run by ghosts that grow peaches and blackberries! Amazing!
13. STEAL DAT KIDSAVER: WE STOLE THE HELL OUT OF GARRON CHAO'S KIDSAVER. I did some impeccable investigating, Ulo snuck the hell out of the garage and the guards, and Zinyra created the perfect getaway route to get it to our garage. I turned into an elephant and carried it on my back. We lived our life a quarter mile at a time. We put "Rockport Cable Company" on it to indicate that it is a rope dealer car now. We're so cool, you guys.
14. RESEARCH SUMMARY: I had a little collective jam session with Elysia and Vyzzyg to talk about what they researched into my horrible Wild Shape issues. Vyzzyg has found the baseline theory behind what happened to me and my Wild Shape. So now I need to just kind of Wild Shape more. [Once I get the normal shape down, I can do the modified ones.]
15. CRAFTING #1: Cooking; making a new bunch of jerky and snacks for distribution around the town. The jerky turned out really really good this time, and I can tell that it is going to be helpful in persuading people where my natural social anxiety is not.
16. CRAFTING #2: Cooking; this time, instead of just a bunch of jerky, I made a 4 course meal to try and get us, Brynn, and Brilles prepped and ready to go for the road ahead. Also, I just want everyone to feel a little better and be a bit happier, because I sense that people are sad. [Internally, Marco wants to use his cooking to try and both bolster the party's mood and make folks think he is a Valuable Member of the Team, because he still is kinda depressed from therapy.] Everyone had a great time! Everyone is rested and relaxed! Everyone is ready for the next stuff.