Debating retribution and a puzzle

Heather walked up to Samson and decided to ask, “So what would you recommend if you wanted to ‘prank’Aimé?”

The goblin looked her over. “You are a wreck after he has just given you hard words; you can’t handle the clapback he will give you. This is my warning: don’t start pranking people if you can’t handle their response. Otherwise, I would not have pushed the big button that turns on a room effect for arguably one of the most volatile people on a different season.”

“So you wouldn’t prank him in my position? And should I be worried about the clapback you will get?” The heiress seemed actually worried for a moment during that second question.

“I am sturdier than I look. From my understanding, actual explosives are off the table. My wife texted me that new episodes came out and… There was a prayer for relief. I told her to answer on my behalf that she should fucking blame someone other than Shar. I also added that if she wanted me to ask for it to be removed, she should try to have a frank and open conversation with someone on a date that isn’t the woman of her obsession. She probably reworded it slightly… less hostile and blunt. She is a writer after all. As for pranking Aimé, he has forgotten more pranks than I have experienced in my life. On top of that, he knows how to work the budget we have to the limit. Staying under 10BP worth of actions and consequences is hard.” The person who had not, but moments ago suggested in case you want stuff before Aimé gets here, refuted himself.

“Actual explosives were on the table at some point?” The confused woman said.

“Yep, she tried to bathe a vampire in the sun, Capri Sun. Shar liked the smell; didn’t like the clean-up as much, if I remember correctly.” Samson said with glee. “Good prank, messy but good. I hope it is something fun.”

“You wouldn’t mind it if I prank you back?” Heather dared to ask.

“Nahh, I pulled a nasty one with the transformation. You are fully in your rights to retaliate. I hope you don’t escalate, and if you do, we can talk first.” The green man slicked back his green hair with a smile as he spoke.

“Why?” Heather didn’t expect this. Why would she? He had been adversarial since the start.

“Simple: you look like you need a break. I am not the one who pushed you to your breaking point, but what I did didn’t help. A better suggestion from me to you is: invest in yourself; don’t start fights. Do you want to get the full coverage clothing pack?” He looked her in the eyes as he spoke with a worry she hadn’t seen from the goblin before.

“Yeah, how much was it again?” Heather asked.

“10 BP, and if you make a deal with me, I will refund it after you complete it.” The prankster proposed.

“You will just prank me with that deal again, won’t you?” The woman was sceptical for good reason.

“My budget for random spending is 10 BP. I have to cover my pranks with that too. So I wouldn’t be able to, even if I wanted to.” Samson looked at her.

“Fine. What is your proposal? I can always say no afterwards, right?” The heiress caved; she had too little to spend as it was.

“Help someone with something of your own volition. All I ask is that you do that; in return, I will give you the 10 BP.” The goblin noted. A piece of paper appeared before them.

{letter signed "Samson Phonopimpedjan"}

Heather will receive the following if she completes the following: Help someone with something of her own volition.

In return, she will receive 10BP from,

{endletter}

“What is this supposed to be?” Heather asked.

“To ensure fair dealing between crew and cast, whenever the crew decides to make a deal with a cast member, it will be formalised as a quest. If there are no failure conditions, it is considered auto-accepted since there is no downside. This is one of those situations, and the prize is held in esquire until the end of the round or until it is completed. You have most of the week left, so it shouldn’t be an issue to complete a simple thing like that.” Samson explained.

“So it will also be automatically added if it is completed?” The goblin nodded. “That is too simple a quest for how much BP it is.” Heather was still confused.

“I have not checked with writing or game balance. I don’t need to; that is my prerogative as one of the people who interacts with you. If you want to effectively sponsor you by giving you an easy quest, I can do so. Not that I think it is as easy as you think it is. The people in accounting and editing are the judges, not me. So, they need to be convinced you helped someone of your own will. With how selfish you have acted, that is a bar… I have no idea where it is, but it does exist above the floor. I can ask my wife how she would rate it in terms of difficulty for you?” The person actively trying to make it right asked. Heather nodded in response. A moment later, the goblin showed his text.

“Wait, you are a softy?” There was whiplash as she read the last word.

“Oh, I have a soft spot for girls in trouble. As well as people to stuborn to adapt to their new situation.” He said with a genuine smile. “Sometimes people need a push in the right direction. I thought that transformation would be more proactive and try to adapt. It was too much too soon… Sorry about that. It took you coming in with puffy eyes complaining about Aimé to make me realise that.” The goblin looked to the floor as he spoke the last sentence.

“So it is pity? I don’t need your damn pity!” The proud woman said. Samson looked at her and rolled his eyes. “So what now?”

“Nothing, unless you ask to see any catalogue or have an idea of what you want so I can help steer you in the right direction.” The goblin said calmly. Heather stomped off, feeling as if she still ended up with the short end of the stick in the exchange.

Ember had hovered closer to the entire situation during the exchange and wondered aloud. [Why even make it a point that it was the last moment to get stuff before Aimé got here if you were going to talk whoever out of it anyway?]

“The reason is simpler than you might think. I needed her to move and decide to do stuff, to get her out of the pseudo paralysis she was stuck in. And Alexolyanna asked me to get her to get the wardrobe expansion in a non-intrusive way. I couldn’t exactly do that whilst manning the bar now, could I?” The goblin looked at the ball of fire as he spoke. The exchange hadn’t gone unnoticed by Chris. He hadn’t heard the conversation but was glad the ball of fire had someone else to interact with besides him.

William and Chris grabbed dinner in the canteen with the rest. It was once again a buffet style like this morning. There was a large amount of fish, stuff that looked like chicken or duck, and the rarer pieces of red meat, a whole salad bar with whatever you could want, steamed vegetables, baked potatoes, as well as several pastas and a bunch of other dishes. William started to do calculations as to what he could have contrasted with Chris, who grabbed a seafood pasta and said this should do as an appetiser. Becky was paralysed by choice as she saw the whole smattering in front of her yet again; yesterday she hadn’t paid it any mind, but now she needed to do something with it. She decided to copy William instead of Chris and grab a large salad with some chicken breast and grilled mushrooms. Ryan made himself a salad filled with a significant amount of beans and considered that a decent meal. Missy grabbed one of her usual meals Chris had become familiar with: steamed veg, with fish and not much more to it. The Jessies were the only ones who joined him in eating pasta, albeit a smaller portion of the ragout bolognese. Looking over it, Chris thought about why there wasn’t a stew or another more traditional slow-cooked dish, but didn’t actually question it. After finishing his plate, the master went back for seconds and thirds, each time different dishes, only stopping when he felt properly full.

“Where do you put it?” William asked. “Do you always eat like that?”

“Yep. I need to eat at least 3000 calories, and I didn’t bring my usual horde of snacks along today. When I go out for surveys, I usually have a snack between each location I check. I didn’t want to bring a huge amount of stuff and didn’t see any snacks here, so I didn’t bring them this morning. I am planning on packing my bag for whatever the Jessies and I are doing tomorrow. As for where I put it… No clue. It just evaporates when I eat it. If I eat more than 3000, there is a marginal chance of me gaining weight, but I have never seen much of it unless I ate a lot more than that.” The black hole of a man said with a shrug.

“You know that isn’t healthy, right?” The coach looked mildly concerned.

“Yep, but the medication to solve it seems to be even less, if I believe the doctors. I have to pick: bad hormone balance resulting in ‘bad’ metabolic results, and other than that we haven’t seen much in the way of side effects yet, or I pick medication that can lead to decalcification of my bones and might lead to injury with how strong and active I am. I picked the former. I usually have a checkup each half year to make sure there aren’t any other side effects that pop up. We have suspicions of others, but during my time with Missy I wasn’t interested in kids, so I never checked it out.” Chris explained. William looked at him in confusion; he had never considered refusing medication over side effects, but these seemed particularly bad.

“Chris, would you want kids now, though?” Jessica inserted herself into the situation.

“That is a kettle of fish I will not get into… I do think I would like the option if I could have it, but I also realise that with how high my testosterone is, there is a decent chance I am infertile.” Chris said in a kind of defeated tone.

[You know there are likely transformations that can fix it. If there weren’t before, the writers’ team now know of it at least.] The ball of fire tried to cheer him up.

“Fair assessment. Is it a common thing? People getting fertility-type transformations?” Chris asked out loud to Ember.

[Yeah, they are common. It is as common as the breeding kink or people with fertility issues, I suppose. Sometimes it is on the master/mistress side, but most of the time it is on the contestant side.] Ember explained.

“So, decent chance I get one available eventually?” Chris thought it over in his mind. “I am not going to refuse it if it comes to the table.”

[Even if it would be a compulsory thing?] The person doing the hostess's job asked.

“Probably. I am not sure about that. I would need to think about it some more. No wait, I am quite sure I shouldn’t. I wouldn’t want all of the girls pregnant all the time.” The master said, to the shock of the girls in the room.

“Okay, I know, I tell you this all the time, but what did you and Ember discuss?” Jessica asked, and Chris explained the entire dilemma and what the fireball had said. “So, to keep it simple, the show will likely try to allow you to get people pregnant if and when they deem it interesting, and there is a chance it is going to be compulsory?” Chris nodded. “Cool, just save the upgrade for that in case it is compulsory. If you think that is the biggest issue with the transformation, that is just the practical use of the upgrade.” The female-presenting half of the Jessies made a point Chris couldn’t refuse.

“So the transformations can help with things like bad health as well?” Will asked.

“You know Becky literally got one, right? She has one, which makes my touch a medication that fixes her hormonal issues. From what Syl said, with the right upgrade, she would be medicated for longer, and in theory it could be permanent. Ergo, yes, transformations can fix your medical issues. Tale of two Jessies could have also been one if we didn’t say both, I guess, allowing you to transition without surgery or other issues.” The master said, looking over to Jessica and Jesse. “So 2 helpfull medically transformations… Cool, positive. If it weren’t for yours and Missy’s, I would say we are in a friendly towards it cast season.”

“You are forgetting that Missy’s transformations are worse because she didn’t want to do something to get to zero before the transformations and didn’t want to get eliminated. So it could just be that hers are particularly bad because of it. Even Will’s aren’t that bad; they just put a lot of requirements on him.” Jesse decided to speak up. “I wonder how they were made worse? Were they upgraded negatively, as in the show looked at what was originally there and said, ‘let’s make it worse,’ or did they do something else?”

“Wait, you make a good point. Let’s ask Samson.” Chris said, looking at the desk where Samson sat up until dinner; it was now filled with Aimé. “Aimé should also be able to tell us what is what.” He added with a shrug as he headed over.

The master stood in front of the desk and squatted to face the gnome. “So, Aimé, could you please tell me how Missy’s transformations are worse?”

“No, sir. That is information you have to figure out yourself or get from the hostess of the season or her assistant.” The gnome adjusted his vest.

“Who is her assistant?” Chris said in surprise; he had never seen or spoken to someone claiming to be Syl’s assistant. Who are the possible options… Ember, no; she is video crew, couldn’t appear before me or the others before yesterday. Samson, not likely, but more likely than Ember; with how often he calls for things, it isn’t likely he has a lot of permission. That might be a good thread to pull on; well, the only one who fits that is Alex.

Chris went back to the table and showed the messages to the table. “How dense are you?” Jesse said.

William asked, “I don’t see it either.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “She is telling us two ways to remove options for how it is worse in those transformation categories. If it falls in either, that is possible; another is what I suggested earlier with the bad upgrade. Do you know Missy’s transformations?”

With surprise, Chris jumps up. “No, but Ryan and Becky do.” He walked over to Becky and Missy. “So, to figure out how Missy’s original transformations got upgraded, I wanted to see the list you have with Missy’s transformations in the shop. I won’t share it if you aren’t comfortable with it.” Becky held out her phone and scrolled up to a message from Ryan.

“I think Cheater’s payment might be an upgrade…” Chris said out loud.

“No, if it was, Ryan would have known upgrades; even predetermined were 150 for him.” Becky refuted.

“Then why didn’t Alex say that?” The man looked confused by the conflicting information. “But she can’t say more than she has; otherwise she wouldn’t have done it so obtusely.”

“If anything sounds like an upgrade to me, it is ‘you are my owner’; I think it might remove the dumb anyone can be the owner thing from my leash.” Missy thought out loud.

“What you think is more important than what we think.” Chris pointed out. “Upgrades have to work for the one with the transformation, so if it does have an upgrade, that isn’t a curse or elimination transformation. Cool. I think they might have just had negative upgrades or downgrades for you. Would leash have been the distance limit or something else… What would cheaters have been…” Chris looked at the time and realised he and William needed to leave. Both of them wandered over to the cabin, neither with a firm plan for the evening.