If you don't use it during the cutscene, you can use it in your bedroom later on (unless there is a bug). Maybe I should make the entire house available anyway, I just didn't want players to do it right in front of the slave.
Viewing post in Caliross, The Shapeshifter's Legacy comments
I felt like doing it in front of others, even your slave, would require some boring explanation or something, and I'd like to keep those to a minimum. I would also like to eventually add a scene to take the female slave to the farm, and I feel this would make her suspicious (while I think it makes more sense for the protagonist to hide it unless ordered otherwise).
The mutually exclusive paths are the cowgirl path and the vampire path. Then you have a few quests where your affiliation can change things (for example, if you are a cowgirl, you will lie when asked to investigate the farm), or offer different goals and "partners".
Another couple of examples: if you are a cowgirl, you can be tasked to deliver a letter to one of the invited nobles at the Kairos party, or later on during a quest in an ancient ruin, you get slightly different paths if you are with the vampires, the Zanti, if you have ties with the League of Merchant/Kira or if you are independent (and even then, if you are part of one or both guilds affect some content).
Wait… can you actually progress without being a member of one of the guilds…?
As for doing it in front of your slave requiring a boring explaination; instead of having a region in your bedroom, have a region in the rooms the slave can occupy, (aside from cutscenes where you can't use the menu, I've only seen them in the bedroom) and dissalow the milk machine use in that region. Also do this for other characters that may appear in the house. That way, if there isn't an NPC in the room, you'be able to use the milk machine.
The reason I ask about the merchant slave route is because I was expecting Zanti workers to show up, seeing that I wouldn't be sending them milk or money any more, and would have their glowy tracker tattoo… the whole thing would conflict with itself…
wouldn't it?
In theory, you can progress without ever being involved in the guilds, but you miss out on a lot of content, and you make things harder for yourself.
This is probably a good enough approach. I'll mark their room as unsuitable and leave the rest of the house available.
The tattoo doesn't let them know where you are (I don't think I ever say that in the game), but like all tattoos it can be use for identifying people (especially since these are magical). If you get sold as a slave, they'd probably count it as a loss and move on. After all, cows are replaceable... :^