Even Further Beyond [Complete]

Wolfy said:

Yes?

Are we playing the same quest? Because my version has Nameless choosing between figuring out Grand Diagram of Essence, getting Truth Diagram, working to improve the Empire or getting better at Necromancer. You know, all the things that have us massively improve our chance of winning against the Fates.

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It's pretty clear in the update that those are merely things that Nameless will be able to motivate himself to do. I have no doubt that he can do far more in a year if he wasn't fighting spoiled every step of the way.

It's very far from his full effort.

DkArthas said:

It's pretty clear in the update that those are merely things that Nameless will be able to motivate himself to do. I have no doubt that he can do far more in a year if he wasn't fighting spoiled every second.

It's very far from his full effort.

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This is in fact true. See the following quote:

Rihaku said:

However, there is still much to do this timeskip. Nameless can motivate himself to do two of the following:

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Emphasis mine. Nameless can't do more than two for lack of motivation, so presumably not for lack of time.

I am starting to see spoiled as a poison and chain binding Nameless from ever achieving his full potential. He has come so far with a heroic passion slowly him down. What can he achieve without it?

Hell, with spoiled can we even achieve Incarnation? As the Extrusion said, Nameless won't be able to motivate himself to do so. The Heroic passion : Spoiled will probably start becoming worse the closer we come to victory, as Nameless becomes ever more complacent.

As for those who are worried about Nameless changing too much. The therapy will probably only remove the heroic passion, Nameless will likely still enjoy Luxury and shit, the only difference will be that he will have it under complete control. It won't be his Achilles heel anymore.

There's fated love. Can there be other fated emotions? Fated sloth for example? Aurelia and searching for true incarnation sounds prudent.

If Extra Diligent wins, which aspect of Necromancy should Nameless focus on first? Essence extraction, resurrection, defense/offense, summoning and binding of shades, something else? Since he himself is a psuedo-undead, the possibilities are nigh-limitless! With enough research, even self-bodily modification (though of a different species than the Palimpsest) could be on the table!

Or we could try reading the update

He'd slaved over the Truth, gambled ferociously with All Paths, and the risks he'd taken had paid off. Was it not correct to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, at least for a time?

And yet there was a part of him that was deeply unsatisfied with this Cultivation equivalent of giving up at the finish line. He'd sought Immortal Awakening, the Daoless Path that had briefly been glimpsed during his time in the Unshattered Glade. There were glories beyond even this his present strength, and to fail in seizing them seemed an abject abandonment of this life's entire trajectory.

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He wants to get there. Shit, let's resume reading

"To be changed is different from changing one's self, is that what you're saying?" He asked.

"Even if it's your own will, if it wasn't possible of your own volition, will you have cause to doubt it later?"

"At this point I'm nearly past caring," Nameless admitted. "I just want it to get its comeuppance. Even if that means self-reform."

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What would you know, is our old friend Vengeance speaking! Maybe Spoiled is not the only Heroic Passion we should be mindful of? Maybe we shouldn't try to change ourselves to that extent just because we want to see someone else feel bad because of it?

Rihaku said:

If Extra Diligent wins, which aspect of Necromancy should Nameless focus on first? Essence extraction, resurrection, defense/offense, summoning and binding of shades, something else? Since he himself is a psuedo-undead, the possibilities are nigh-limitless! With enough research, even self-bodily modification (though of a different species than the Palimpsest) could be on the table!

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It depends entirely on what we want to do, I'd say.

So far essence consuming and resurrection seem most useful, so either of the two depending on if we want to farm Overgrowth or ress a Lich or five. Strategy favors later while Truth favors the former, I'd say.

I would recommend prioritizing essence extraction and/or shade binding. Essence extraction is needed to eat the Overgrowth, and shades have the potential to give valuable Diagram research. (Note that I'm not voting for Diligence, so this may not count.)

Note: this is on the assumption it's easier to learn from a bound shade than to find someone, resurrect them, and then learn. If that's false, I would prefer Resurrection instead.

Essence extraction and offense, if it helps us in perma killing heroine.

Those are things we truly need right now.

Start farming the overgrowth and preparing to kill the Heroine.

[X] Pursuit of the Truth
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Amplification

Looks like removing spoiled isn't going to win.

I don't actually think a version of Nameless that is a complete layabout is actually consistent with the actions we have chosen so far, especially when it comes to something like Titanomachy; even the lich would reasonably cooperate given payment, instead of acting in bad faith. The laziness of Nameless is more about return on investment than pure indolence; the lich even says as much! Removing Spoiled would result in more than just removing his episodes, but alter the very way he approaches decision-making. Letting Aurelia remove it, while effective, gives up the capacity for we, the questers, decide upon the alterations that his actual cognition goes through; it may be a small sacrifice to some, but I don't want to give up setting Nameless's characterization so heavily.

I also urge voters to move away from Pursuit of Truth, as I feel it does little to advance our current situation. True Incarnation would certainly be viable, but it's value is mitigated by already having an Oath, the same goes for Azure Flare and the Necromancer. As the most vulnerable of our weaknesses, I think taking the time to prop up the Empire to be extremely valuable and it may save us even more time and effort in the future. Truth Diagrams, therapy, Extrusion training, etc. all have relatively fixed investments of time and effort, while waiting for a further deterioration of the Empire may tax our time and exertion exponentially. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

And even if you don't agree with me as to where to put Nameless's time into, you could vote way from Balance. I still have now idea why picking this would be so important or even synergize well with our objectives; the Cultivation boost would be the same as the normal version and worse than if we just Truespelled Amplification besides, we are doing basically nothing that would necessitate the bonus to bodily action, and we already are very handsome. Why vote for this?

Rihaku said:

If Extra Diligent wins, which aspect of Necromancy should Nameless focus on first?

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Probably essence draining, since it's key to our future progression; after that, either shades or offense.

I think I favor learning to summon, bind and (sometimes) kill shades.

Rihaku said:

Since he himself is a psuedo-undead, the possibilities are nigh-limitless!

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I find myself equal parts intrigued and fearful. Given the high likelihood of the Balance form winning and how attractive the essence drain option is, we might become a supernaturally beautiful undead predator that feeds on the lifeblood of others. We even have a vegetarian wife! The temptation to make ourselves sparkle in the sunlight might become too great to resist.

True Incarnation will not only protect us from Fated love but completely neutralize one vector of attack. Once achieved, we would no longer need to worry about fate somehow influencing us or any other sort of supernatural influence that effects the mind.

DkArthas said:

True Incarnation will not only protect us from Fated love but completely neutralize one vector of attack. Once achieved, we would no longer need to worry about fate somehow influencing us or any other sort of supernatural influence that effects the mind.

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Also gives 0.25 stages and boosts our Truespell capacity, not the most exciting benefits but they're still there.

Well, our biggest issue right now is--and always will be--the Essence Tax, so something to manipulate that seems practical.

Summoning shades might (Nameless isn't sure) be a way to get access to dead people (and thus the ingredients for their resurrection) without having their remains on hand! Quite useful if you're going to look for non-Baenlixnaire liches to resurrect.

Rihaku said:

Summoning shades might (Nameless isn't sure) be a way to get access to dead people (and thus the ingredients for their resurrection) without having their remains on hand! Quite useful if you're going to look for non-Baenlixnaire liches to resurrect.

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With that alongside the possibility of more permanently killing the Heroine and potentially accessing neat stuff like Dragon advisors, I'm definitely in favor.

Is there an actual afterlife in this world as a place we can travel to? Unless it is the Heavens that we were already planning to invade...

Mhm. The liches might be able to provide us spells useful against the Heroine. Even the extrusion may work hard on this particular power!

In the long-term essence extraction seems as though it will be more important (especially for looting the Overgrowth), but the liches sound much more useful for learning Diagram spells with which to put down the Heroine.
To that end I'm all for focusing on summoning shades.

My priorities are estoric offence of any kind, then essence manipulation.

I assume summoning shades is offered as an alternative to full resurrection?
No body needed, less essence spent, not permanent?

One would be a fantastic information gathering tool, the other a significant effort that can change the gameboard.

I lean towards resurrection over shades

I kind of want Nameless spending some time having fun playing with his powers, perhaps developing a bunch of minor tricks and cantrips. Really delve into the enjoyable side of discovery, and kick that positive emotional feedback loop into action.

We consumed the flower which means we're likely properly married, but we didn't get a wedding update and that makes me sad. Have some wedding invitations in lieu of that.

BrainInAJar said:

I don't actually think a version of Nameless that is a complete layabout is actually consistent with the actions we have chosen so far, especially when it comes to something like Titanomachy

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Yeah, I figure his recent behavior is a result of losing meaningful environmental feedback. Nothing to hone his plans against, since his power is too great to not 'just work'.

I think Lie Fang was rather clear on the subject.

"And never go into a scheme whose consequences you can't recover from, but work as close to that line as you can, or one day you'll find you've stopped learning."

Remember people we have a yearish long timeskip and a skill that has a year long cooldown. We really should be spending our free Cerebration on something, anything, so its recharge for its free use comes back around the point of the Heroine's resurrection.

Binding shades/resurrection is my priority for Diligence. Comboing Cerebration with raising Liches is a very strong synergy. Find Avolen, raise Avolen, vastly increase our time. Or really any other combination of liches and spell use, but the point is that this is time slips away and if we wait too long to use Cerebration we're bumping up against the clock here. If we wait too long to use it, we won't be able to even though we have months remaining because we'd want to save it for locating the Heroine.