How Zoey feels now

There's been a lot going on with my Barbarian, Zoey, right now, so I thought it might be beneficial to examine that before tomorrow's session.

But first, some backstory. Yay! About a year ago in-game time, our party was on this entirely clerical island called Ayagod. Non-divine peoples (aka anyone who isn't a divine spellcaster) are only allowed on it at a very specific time - during this big fighting tournament they put on. Of course, our party went, partly because some of us wanted to participate but also because the plot was pushing us there. Up until this point, Zoey had been searching for her father, whom she knew nothing about. She had been getting the party cleric, Ambriel (played by my friend Mark) to help her out by casting Sendings to her mother, trying to get information about him. Somehow we also found out that the last place her father had been seen was Ayagod. This all happened before we actually arrived there, and after we did, things happened so that Zoey didn't need him to cast Sendings anymore.

Anyway, regardless of what went on with that, Zoey had been beginning to suspect that Ambriel was being less than truthful and had been so since they met, but didn't want to believe it because the Party is like her family. However, things happened that forced her to admit to herself that he had been lying, and the way it happened made her very angry at him. Apparently he had been working with one of our greatest enemies, a half-shadow dragon mage named Shade, who bid Ambriel to break into this vault of weapons on Ayagod and steal an axe named Stormbringer for him to prove his loyalty. Regardless of his motivations, Ambriel tried to get the whole party to help him do this, and kept changing his story when some of us refused. This made Zoey finally admit to herself that he may have been lying all along, and in his working with Shade she saw a betrayal, as both she and another party member had been kidnapped and tortured by Shade in the past. Somehow, I think with the help of other party members and NPCs, he got Zoey and Tharf (who is played by my lovely girlfriend and was also very angry about the situation) to go along, and let Zoey keep the axe for "safe keeping" after we got it. He said that he wanted to keep the axe away from Shade, but Zoey didn't really believe him, even though she's been "allowed" to hang on to it all this time.

For the entire year after this, both Zoey and Tharf have avoided Ambriel, wanting nothing to do with him whatsoever. Zoey even hired another cleric for the party. Now all of a sudden we are on a mission to help him rescue his siblings because Shino, our party leader (played by my friend Heather) whom both Zoey and Tharf are loyal to, thinks we can trust him and the task involved in helping him has been made a trial for her, which is the only reason that we agreed to help. However, even though we're going along with it, both Shino and her loverperson Jozan (an NPC played by the DM, Wayne) have been pushing both Zoey and Tharf to "make nice" and treating them like they've been sooooo cruel to Ambriel, even though they've just been avoiding him and not seeking him out for retribution or anything like that.

So anyway, on one of the airship journeys involved in this mission, Shino sought Zoey and Tharf out to get their advice on some relationship stuff. However, when they were done talking about that, she jumped right back on the Ambriel thing again. Only this time, it was worse. She basically claimed that she thought Zoey and Tharf would refuse to help his innocent siblings because of how they felt about him, and singled out Zoey, saying that she was being especially unfair to him because how how much he helped her out on Ayagod with the stuff with her parents, and that she wouldn't have Stormbringer if it weren't for him.

This is how Zoey responded:

Then, as soon as Shino singles out Zoey, her eyes flare deep red (though they started turning red as soon as she mentioned Ambriel). As she keeps talking, her face twists into an expression of rage and hurt. "Especially me? ESPECIALLY ME?!" she shouts, hopping quickly off of whatever she was sitting on. "This stupid axe" - she pulls Stormbringer out of its case and brandishes it before her - "is what made me realize what a lying sack of SHIT he is in the first place!!! Yeah, he's helped us, but it was always for something he wanted FROM us!!! He tried to TRICK us into going to get this because SHADE wanted it, and I only have it because he wants to keep it from him! I don't care if I got to fucking keep it! I'm sorry about his family, but I don't care what he needs from us now! He's been lying to us and using us all along, and how he treated us in regards to this axe is what made me realize it! And how DARE you try and guilt me into liking him by bringing up my parents!!! That was low. You know that was low. So fuck you!!!"

With that, she storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Immediately after this, Zoey stomped up on deck, went over to the banister, and hurled Stormbringer off the ship. It was impulsive, and she was shocked at herself and cursed afterward, but then just stomped around for a while and eventually settled down in an area where no one else was near, sitting on the floor with her back to the banister and her head in her hands.

This is a big deal for a lot of reasons. What happened with Zoey's mother and father, specifically her search for her father, was one of the most important things she ever did. So for Shino to use that against her like that hurt her more than I think she can express. She also feels like Shino is a sister to her, so for Shino to have made these accusations hurt more than if they had come from someone else. She hasn't even really processed that Shino also accused them of neglecting the needs of innocents because of Ambriel. The claims about Ambriel's help regarding her parents came before those accusations, so she probably didn't even really hear them. The anger and pain at Shino singling her out like that had started to consume her before Shino even got to that point. Also, no one she has really cared about has ever hurt her like this before. She did like Ambriel before she admitted that he was lying, but their friendship was never as strong as the friendship between her and Shino.

She's probably going to refuse to talk to Shino for a long time, even if Shino apologizes. After this mission, it looks like we're going back to Karth (the last city we went to) for a while, which is a place Zoey isn't exactly comfortable in. She also recently found out that her mother is on Wulan (an island of Minotaurs) helping to defend it, and she knows that Tharf's mentor, Blaine, is also there. So she's going to suggest to Tharf that they go there for a while, to get away. It won't be a permanent split from the party, I don't think, but now that this has happened she doesn't want to be anywhere near Shino either if she can help it. And she doesn't want to abandon the rest of the party, especially considering what else has been going on, but if it was clear that everyone would be staying in Karth for a while she would do it. She'd also take the cleric she hired, Dahlin, with her, as she's the only one who paid for his services.

Aaaand that's what's going on. Kind of a long explanation just to discuss why Zoey's feeling the way she is, but oh well. I'm glad I sat down and worked this out, especially since I had to go over past incidents and remind myself why certain things are happening.