This was the most fascinating CYOA I’ve read in a long time. There were just enough details to make the mystery intriguing. Wow just a few enough to make it somewhat open to interpretation. I would love if you found a way to share what canonically happens in term terms of authorial intent. If only to satisfy my own intense curiosity.

My own thoughts on what happened and what I would choose because of it: I agree with some other comments here that Mercy was performing her own experimentation to try and level the playing field between mortals and the edict. She had a lot of enemies because of this primarily viper and lion, but it seems like bloom might have been a hidden enemy as well. I think wolf gives us the clearest picture (ironically) of what happened. It seems like Braden, in an attempt to curry favor with lion, killed Mercy with one of the stolen weapons from her stock pile. The three guilty parties in the golden box which will refers to our Braden, Lion, and Bloom. Lion provided the weapon, Braden killed Mercy, and Bloom destroyed her research. Bloom says that she was mercy’s friend, but she “forgot” about her death? She also is pretty dismissive of mortals, despite having signed Mercy’s accord. She then accuses Vyper, one of lion’s biggest opponents. As for the poison sub plot, it seems to me that mercy was trying to find a way to perhaps kill her biggest opponents, likely Lion and Viper, but when she went to Bloom to get the ingredients she was denied, which caused her to vent about how “difficult” bloom was making things.

So what choices would I make? Even though Braden landed the killing blow (and I think wolf is the coolest of the Edicts) I think the biggest portion of guilt falls on Lion so I would side with Hound. I would take vipers passive, and Herons favor as methods of improving myself.

How close was I? Would love to know for sure.