Shyni

Shyni
The princess of Taodal, in her garden.
Gender:	Female
Species:	Unknown
Body type:	Furred humanoid
Location:	Taodal market, Shyni's house
Player romance:	Yes, both male and female players

Shyni is a young woman from Taodal where she mostly tends to her narb garden when not exploring the peninsula in her free time. She's the daughter of the village's blacksmith and leader, Tornoth, who futilely tries to keep his girl filled with wanderlust safe from the dangers of the world. Because of the calm atmosphere of the village and Tornoth's overprotectiveness, Shyni is almost desperate for different experiences to ease the monotonous boredom of her life.

She has a cheerful and friendly personality even towards complete strangers, and she tends to get excited easily. She is also slightly naive and unsuspecting and very trusting of the player almost immediately, as talking to a being from a different world might be the most unusual thing ever to happen to her, which is likely clouding her judgement.

Background

Warning! The following text contains spoilers affecting another character!
Another in-game character is affected and/or plays an important role in the text below. If you don't want to possibly have someone else's story arc spoiled, stop reading now!

SPOILER

Tornoth can reveal Shyni's unfortunate childhood to the female player character if she gets intimate with him.
The first secret about Shyni that the player learns from him is that she's not growing as her species should, since by her age she was meant to be taller than him. This doesn't seem to bother Shyni who is unaware of this and has had no contact with anyone else of her species.
In a later conversation, Tornoth explains that she was actually born small enough for her to likely die as an infant. She survived, but her mother Ettenea rejected her and was disgusted by her to the point of not feeding her and wanting to get rid of her. Tornoth killed Ettenea when she was directly threatening Shyni's life, and he then ran away from the species enclave with her, kidnapping and convincing a random young woman to keep Shyni from starving.
They arrived in Sejan, and Tornoth quickly built the basis for Taodal. The unknown woman feeding Shyni left after she grew up enough to eat solid food. Tornoth gave her some money and paid for her ticket home and never heard from her again.

Player interactions

The first meeting between Shyni and the player occurs at the town's market, where she recognises the interdimensional traveler and approaches them. Apparently Taulsol told her of the newcomer. She introduces herself and, after a brief talk, invites the player to her garden for some further conversation before leaving. Whenever the player stops by her garden, they may ask her about some questions regarding herself, Taodal, and Sejan. After the player has expressed some interest in her by asking some of these questions, if they're male, Shyni asks them if they want to accompany her on an adventure. If they're female, she first asks them if they want to have dinner with her and Tornoth. (The reason why this is implemented is to prevent the female player character from dating both Shyni and Tornoth.)

The cave adventure

Preparations

Shyni explains that she wanted to go explore a cave north of Taodal after finding a strange stone tablet with a map of the cave system carved on it. However, her dad took it from her and locked it in a storage room next to the sauna. She asks the player to get it so that they wouldn't go on the adventure completely blind. The player has several options how to acquire it:

• With Agility 6 and a box of nails (obtainable from Tornoth in his smithy), they're able to pick the massive padlock on the storage door.
• With Strength 6 and a crowbar (also from Tornoth), they're able to remove the lock's anchor piece from the door frame.
• With Strength 10, they can pull the lock's anchor piece off the door frame with their bare hands.
• They can also ask Shyni about the key to the lock of the storage room, and she tips them of its location. It is in Tornoth's smithy, and the player can sneak in and steal it during the night. There is no danger of being caught red-handed.

Once inside the storage room, the only option available to the player is to find the chest with the stone tablet inside of it, and grab the tablet. When returning to Shyni victorious, she asks for one more favour from the player before the adventure may begin – a rope. This can also be bought from Tornoth. It is recommended to not buy the rope before asking Shyni about it, as she chips in half the money needed to purchase it. If the player had already roped the cave by themselves, this step is skipped.

Once these preparations are done, the player and Shyni are all set for the adventure.

The cave

The player travels to the cave with Shyni, and, after entering it and navigating the maze of tunnels with the guidance of the tablet, they'll stumble into a chamber with a small pedestal at the end. On it is a simple wooden bowl. The bowl gets touched by either the player or Shyni, with multiple outcomes depending on who grabbed it and the stats of the player.

If the player takes it, they'll immediately see a vision of a sea of blood and a voice tempting them to murder or rape Shyni. They can attempt to fight against the influence, and they succeed with Will 6 or higher, waking up from the spell to Shyni slapping them on their face. After a short conversation where they can keep the vision secret, the player can make a decision about the bowl's fate. Then the two exit the cave mostly unscathed.

If they fail to resist the urges (or don't even attempt to endure them), their vision clears, but, possessed with whatever is in the bowl, they attempt to attack Shyni. Unless the player has Agility 8, they'll unsuccessfully attempt to lunge at her, and she'll be able to run away to hide until the mind control fades from the player.
If the player does catch her, they can either kill her or rape her. Interestingly, the rape option requires the player to have Will 6, the same as which is needed to resist the urges in the first place. No matter which option they choose, they eventually pass out, either waking up next to Shyni's headless corpse or with her traumatized, smashing the wooden bowl on the ground.

If Shyni grabs the bowl, the scenario is similar but with roles reversed. With Intelligence 8 or higher, the player can slap the bowl out of her hands immediately after seeing her acting weirdly. By doing so, the worst is averted, and she quickly calms down, unsettled but otherwise okay. If the player isn't quick-witted enough, she lunges at them, starting a battle sequence.

Winning the fight releases Shyni from her frenzy, shaken and bloodied from being possessed and beaten. If the player loses the fight against her, she tackles them and attempts to rape them (male character) or kill them (female character). They can attempt to push her off – either right away with a Strength 8 check, or a Charisma 6 followed by Strength 6, or lowering the cost further down to Strength 4 with Charisma 8, or using their superhuman Charisma 10 and nothing else. If the player is successful with one of these checks, Shyni snaps out of her possession. If they fail, she stabs and kills them, resulting in game over. The player, if male, can also choose to let Shyni rape him.
As long as the player doesn't get killed by her, the aftermath of Shyni's possession will be the same for all scenarios. Shyni is seemingly unconscious with the bowl lying on the ground nearby. If the player wants to inspect the bowl, she will run off into the tunnels, terrified that the player might get possessed as well. In any case, once she is calmed down, the two will limp back to Taodal with a bad memory or two about the adventure.

The aftermath

When the player visits her after returning from the adventure, Shyni is happy to see the player or, if raped, is shaken but tells the player that it wasn't his fault but rather the cursed bowl's doing. She then gives the player directions to Uum's house. Uum is supposedly an archeologist who should know more about the bowl and the tablet.

Romance continuation

If the player didn't do the unthinkable, Shyni also invites them to a sauna to relax where the two get closer together, engaging in a romance, unless the player rejects her.

In the afterglow of their pairing, a culture shock occurs as Shyni asks the player if they want to become her archlover or a solitude sister, when male or female respectively. The former is supposedly a step between a lover and a husband, while solitude sisters comfort each other when their husbands are away. She mentions a wife book and a husband book and is very surprised that the player doesn't have either of those, let alone has no clue about their existence. Excusing herself, she hastily leaves the sauna, leaving the player confused but satisfied.

When the player visits her again (and they haven't rejected her), she happily greets them and explains her wife book shenanigans. Since she had been taught since childhood that everyone has a wife or a husband book (Tornoth even got Bykaas to lie to Shyni about owning one), she had no idea what to do and ran out to gather her thoughts. After clearing the misunderstanding, she invites the player into her house where they sit down to read through her wife book. While the tome elaborates on many areas of the life of a woman, like growing up, children, men and chores, she and the player focus mostly on the chapter that's about sex and reenacting some of the positions shown in the book.

If the player rejected Shyni in the sauna or they reject her in the garden, she asks them to leave and doesn't talk to them much on subsequent visits.

The next time the player visits Shyni, she gives them a key to her house so that they can visit her at any time they want. From this point, the player can go to bed with her every night. After spending two nights together with the player, Shyni comes up with a plan for another adventure.

The Red Forest

Travelling to the Red Forest

For Shyni's second adventure, the plan is straightforward: There's an island west of Sejan where the two would row to, camp on for two nights, and then come back. She already has things set up at this point, like food, a tent, and a boat to travel on. The two leave the village early in the morning to avoid any questions. Later in the afternoon, they arrive at a stone formation at a beach on east of Sejan where Shyni has hidden her father's boat. She had claimed to him that she had forgotten to tie it, resulting in it supposedly drifting away by itself. They set off and arrive at the island in the evening and go to sleep after setting up the tent.

The following day, the player can suggest going for a swim before having breakfast. A strange fish appears, curiously circling around Shyni. With Agility 8, the player can catch it, and Shyni then kills it with her proboscis tongue. While effective, it results in quite a bit of fish gore flying around. The two then return to the beach where they set up a fire and roast the fish. If the fish has gotten away or the two didn't go for a swim at all, Shyni fries some chopped up braq meat as a breakfast. In case the player doesn't want to eat meat, she has narbs for them to nibble on.

Watching the approaching rainclouds with the player.

After breakfast, Shyni takes the player to a tour around the island. The first object of interest they stop at is the story stone, a rock with a symbol that reads an entire story about a fisherman, his wife, and the ocean goddess. Shyni takes the fact that a simple symbol allows anyone to understand a complex story as evidence for the Understanding, the invisible force that enables sapient creatures on Noih to understand each other.

The second landmark is the null stone, a damaged rock with an exposed glowing blue core. At first, it seems to be nothing but an unusual sight until the player tries to ask Shyni what it does. She replies with panicked growling as she and the player realise that curiosity had taken their ability to understand each other. Shyni runs away from the rock and when the player finds her, they can talk to each other again. Although the effect of the stone seems localised and temporary, Shyni suggests to never go near it again.

The third and final landmark of the island Shyni knows about is a large stone tablet filled with lewd carvings and decorated with gems. She wants to take it back to Taodal, but she can't carry or move it by herself. The player can attempt to lift it and, based on their strength, can lift it up above their head or fail to do so in multiple ways. Regardless, Shyni and the player figure that the easier way to move the tablet is to put it on a sled and pull it to the boat. Alternatively, the player can convince her to just take the gems if they are doubtful about their ability to move the slab.

In the middle of the trip back to the camp, they're surprised by a sudden and quickly moving storm that results in a flash flood. The torrent of water becomes such an obstacle that the player may be forced to either leave the tablet to be carried away by the unexpected water current, or they can try to save it, either with the stat checks for Strength 8, Agility 6 and Endurance 8, or for Strength 8 and then once again for Strength 10.

Regardless of what happens with the tablet, Shyni and the player return safe and sound to their camp and hide from the heavy rain in the tent, where they can have sex then go to sleep. The following day, they pack up and travel back to Sejan with or without the stone tablet, arriving in Taodal in the evening.

The Ritual of Tuhmun

Magic. It's real.

After advancing the relationship with Shyni to the point where she gives the player the key to her house, they can ask her about the tall wooden statue in the middle of her room that apparently depicts Tuhmun, a sort of a house spirit that lives in the sea and protects those whom she sees as friends. She routinely does a few minor rituals with the statue every now and then, like talking to it or petting it to stay friendly with the entity.

After spending four nights together with Shyni (the previous Red Forest adventure isn't required for this), there is a chance for male player characters to experience something different instead of just sleeping. Shyni wakes them up to ask them to participate in another kind of ritual: sex in front of the statue.

After getting things going with Shyni and being face to face with the statue, the player can choose to kiss it. Instead of hard wood, the idol appears to kiss him back, sharing Tuhmun's presence with them. Should the player open his eyes, the magic dispels, and the statue turns inanimate again. If the player tells Shyni about the unusual experience, she's surprised and isn't sure if it was a part of the ritual magic.

Trivia

• The causes for Shyni's dwarfism are several missing "spine parts" (presumably vertebrae), and her bone growth being stunted.
• Shyni has gotten smaller between v1 and v2, and her sprite now has shoes.
• She can eat and drink through her nose (in addition to breathing both through it and her mouth), implying that her species has a single cavity for both breathing and nutrition intake, unlike humans who have them separate at first.

Gallery

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  Eating dinner with her father.

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  Travelling with the player.

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  Lunging at you, frenzied.

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  Ready to fight you.

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  The worst possible outcome.

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  Shyni from profile.

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  In the sauna.

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  "I- I did say that... didn't I? I- I don't know how to explain my feelings. Maybe foolish, young girl love... but- but still love?"

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  Hugging the player.

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  Inviting the player to her home.

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  Reading through the wife book with the player in her home.

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  Drying herself off.

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  Cooking some Braq meat over a fire.

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  Comparison between v1 and v2 sprites, most notable is the inclusion of shoes and lowered height.

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  Shyni's face from the front. Painted by Meandraco as a part of a livestream.

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  Scars from her encounter with a large flying beast near the Sejan coast wall.