She nods, smiling. "The Curious Oracle seems to be the local Goddess who signed off on my arrival."

Her eyes seem to unfocus briefly and then refocus, an illusory layer of pleurigloss lace visible over Ishaza's hands to her Sight. "And you're favored by the Corrupt Maid, it looks like?"

Ishaza ducks her head. 

"It's true, though something of a trade secret. She helps a little with my clients."

"Handy and smart. I'm not surprised She's helping there, from what I know of Her. Don't worry, I won't tell a soul," she replies with a knowing grin.

"Continuing my story," she says with a sigh, "my life was high-tech misery in a house I couldn't afford, isolated and hating my body. I worked an under-appreciated tech-support job, and had just finished my shift and was heading out to buy some groceries. And then a metal vehicle hit me, moving much faster than any carriage, in a residential neighborhood where such speeds were illegal."

"I died, and woke up as a foxgirl-shaped inkgirl in an empty storeroom. I spent a moment checking myself out, and Goddess how I love my new body," she says with a grin. "It's exquisitely sensitive, and I can shapeshift, and being physically a girl finally feels amazing."

She laughs. "The process of getting it was terrible, but the resulting upgrade is a serious win. Five stars, would recommend."

"But at the same time, you're figuring out a whole new world and dealing with all the surprises in it."

Ishaza nods thoughtfully and sets down her tea.

"Just so, and I got one of those surprised immediately."

She nods, takes a sip of her own tea. "I shortly found out that storeroom was in the back of a small complex carved into a wall of the Crack, the home of a small cult of the Avarice King," she continues with a frown. "I discovered this by accidentally stumbling into their ritual chamber when they were sacrificing people — travelers, by the looks of them — in His name."

"I took exception to this and put my shiny new instincts to work barreling in to fight them. Despite charging directly for the leader, though, I wasn't fast enough to stop the final sacrifice."

Ishaza nods somberly and taps her fingers against her cup.

"I quickly subdued them, and then the building energies reached their peak and coalesced onto me in the form of a consumptive boon from the Avarice King. Apparently He didn't like something about their attitude, and let me keep the boon, an ability to gain a measure of power from creatures I eat."

"I suspected that might be where this was going. And then... you ate them?"

"Some of them, yes. I got interrupted by someone blindly portalling in, and subsequently deciding to escape the Crack together. The remainder I dispatched quickly with an overdose of a paralytic venom my new body can produce."

Ishaza taps a finger against her cup. "How do you feel about that?" 

Sable hums thoughtfully. "Complicated," she says after a moment. "I'd never taken a life directly before that day, but I had no way to safely imprison them unless I chose to set up shop in the Crack, and it would've been quite a lot of work even then. And if I'd let them go free, not only would there be good odds they'd want revenge, but even if they didn't I'd be responsible for everyone they ritually sacrificed thereafter."

She takes another sip of tea, and another bite of food, briefly sighing delightedly before refocusing.

"And about the eating, well," she shakes her head and chuckles ruefully. "Despite being into vore, as I'm sure She told you, I refuse to let myself get carried away with that temptation. Other than clear and obvious abusers, I stick to volunteers — and I have been surprised to have gotten any, let alone as many as I have. I suppose being partially made of aphrodisiac goop could help, but I don't tell the volunteers that until after they've already agreed."

"The Avarice King doesn't seem thrilled that I'm not going rampant, but the most He ever manages to do to me is a mind-scrambling psychic shout and some illusory hunger, so He'll just have to cope."

Ishaza smiles. 

"I'm glad to hear you're managing it well. Though... you said you found volunteers?"

"Mmmhm!", she hums cheerfully while grabbing another bite, then sighs happily. "There are apparently people — most of them apparently blessed by the Charity Queen to my Sight — who kink enough on being prey that they wanted the last minutes of this life to be fingering themselves to orgasm after orgasm while I swallowed and digested them. One bunnygirl actually said she asked the Charity Queen for help finding someone like me. She walked right into my little camp when I was out on a solo contract."

She smiles fondly at the memory.

"Most of them?"

Ishaza's voice takes on a slight reproving tone.

"Of the non-villains, the volunteers... only one wasn't visibly touched by the Charity Queen when she found me. She argued that she backup plans if I said no, and that I couldn't convince her otherwise. I took a look at her mind, telepathically, and she'd memorized the location of a carnivorous plant three miles north, and a pack of wolves whose territory started five miles west."

She sighs softly. "That one I argued with, hard. Words weren't convincing her. Possibly I could've messed with her mind, convinced her not to, but... I restrict my telepathy to communication and surface emotions outside of rare circumstances, and have never yet used it to alter someone. That's a line for me, just as much as the volunteer thing itself is. I settled for praying to my Goddess and the Charity Queen, both."

She tuts a bit. "The most response I got was a sense of 'she wants what she wants', to paraphrase it slightly. I went with it, at that point, but kept my Sight open. Just as I was finishing swallowing her, there was a flash of marbled, fleshy-hued not-light — which is associated with the Charity Queen in my Sight — around her. She slipped the rest of the way down too quickly for me to see whether it stuck, but I hope so."

Ishaza is quiet for a long moment at that. 

"... A hard choice." 

She reaches out across the table and sets one hand on Sable's. 

"I can't make that decision for you, nor can I say it was the right one. But I can say... I hope she found some peace."

She squeezes Ishaza's hand and nods. "Thank you. I like to think she did. I certainly did my damnedest to make it the best damned exit I could. She thanked me, muffled though she was, before the end. That counts for something, I think."

"Perhaps it does. I still... wouldn't get in the habit, you know."

"Agreed. Much easier on my heart when they clearly already have the Charity Queen's mark."

She shakes her head and takes another bite of the food, sighing warmly.

Ishaza sips her tea softly, and nods.

She takes another bite and continues, "So other than that, I spent the past few months adventuring and playing courier, until eventually I took a job flying a girl down here to escape abuse and get her start as an alchemist, and I'm thinking about actually settling down properly here to work faster on my rune etching."