I’d say this choice is where it felt a little off for my character.
Quote
Come on, it’s gonna be fine," you shake your head at your sister. “It’s just a poor neighborhood.”
“Yes,” she says slowly. “And I really don’t want to wander around a poor neighborhood, Seti. I’ve been robbed once today. That was more than enough, you know.”
You just wave at her. “It’s gonna be fine, Pihu. Come on, the guardhouse is that way!”
You confidently continue on the road, heedless of the obvious signs of poverty around you, and lead an increasingly nervous Petepihu deeper into the line of dirt huts.
Behind the half-broken wall of a hurriedly patched up clay house, you see a colorful piece of fabric and the edge of a fur cape.
Now this wouldn’t be so surprising if you were in the royal palace, but alas, you clearly aren’t. The average worker cannot afford dyed fabric, and the privilege of wearing animal hides is usually reserved for priests. Hell, the average worker sometimes cannot even afford to wear clothes at all. Or maybe they choose not to. You aren’t quite familiar with the thought process of the working classes.
Before you can make sure that your eyes aren’t deceiving you, the thing vanishes behind the corner, out of sight.
“Seti? What are we waiting for? Are you taking me to the guardhouse or not?” you hear your sister’s impatient voice next to you.
Well, you did promise her that you would take her there, although if you wanted, you could try to convince her to first help you investigate this strange appearance.
#You want to investigate that fabric. Seeing a high ranking priest is strange in this part of town and you want to know what’s going on.
#Nope! You are so out of here!
Your self-awereness still works enough to know that this turn wasn’t among your brightest ideas. You have no idea what a high priest might be doing in these parts of town, but honestly, you don’t give a single fuck. Your philosophy is, first and foremost, better be ignorant than dead, so you turn tail and go in the exact opposite direction, because you are not a fool looking for trouble.
“Come on, we’re leaving,” you declare as you grab Pihu’s arm and start pulling her with you.
“But you said this was a shortcut to the-” she starts, utterly confused by your sudden change of heart, but you interrupt:
“Yes, I just remembered that I know an even shorter cut.”
My thoughts
Based on previous choices/text it seemed like my char knew where he was going, saying he was going to take her through “the back alleys” and preparing for a “stroll through the slums”, and I chose “Come on, this is just a poor neighborhood! There’s nothing to be afraid of.”. He felt confident enough to take this shortcut, but not necessarily confident enough to stick his nose in whatever business is going on. But also the priest hasn’t really done anything threatening, so I thought when choosing “You are so out of here” it just meant I would turn a blind eye and continue on past the alley. The follow-up felt like a bit of an escalation (for how I was playing my char specifically. I could see it working for other chars) thinking I would end up dead cause I saw someone wearing nice clothes (also, I just noticed the typo in self-awareness there). Plus the last sentence I quoted definitely reads as insincere to me, which is what made me think it was for the ‘try to lose her’ path, but I can also see it working for an MC who got spooked and changed their mind and is trying to save face.
BUT, on review I could also see this being a case of you giving the MC some set personality where even if they were confident they got spooked and decided to leave. It just seemed a little inconsistent of the MC on my first read.
Sorry that got kinda long, hopefully I conveyed my thoughts well enough and you found it useful. If there was a 3rd choice at this passage that was basically “None of my business, I’m on my way” I think the story could end up in the same place as the “Nope!” option since we could still get separated from our sister immediately after, while avoiding the character inconsistency I felt.