[X] Plan One Way to Skin a Dragon: Death of 101 Cuts
Ok, no, the superlaser plan has an unfortunate possibility of destroying the planet just like Gabriel did. Save that for something that is actually worth collateralling a planet, in case it does.
For one thing, Gabriel managed to cut the planet apart simply because her sword's doom swing managed to grow to that point. Heidi's laser doesn't have that potential... like. At all.
Ok, no, the superlaser plan has an unfortunate possibility of destroying the planet just like Gabriel did. Save that for something that is actually worth collateralling a planet, in case it does.
See, it takes two things to break a planet in one go. The reach and the damage.
Gabriel got both because at the end, her sword was literally longer than Sheol's width, so it was little more than a misplaced strike.
Heidi, on the other hand, has neither in the beginning. Great damage does lead to an attack gaining in reach, but even at the absolute maximum of charges, Heidi would not have enough 'brute force' reach to hit the entire planet, and even if she had, the damage is not nearly enough to break it.
And no, she will not wreck the entire ecosystem either. She lacks the reach for that, too.
And I feel the need to reiterate my previous statement.
Literal step one of the plan Crys gave is to Voyage away. This will reset Foldropha's magic modifier from 0 to equal its current health, because Heidi will no longer be there for her Overwhelming Presence to nullify it. And the dragon's Mana Typhoon will instantly proc because it does count as a change of their stats. Hitting Gabriel with all the power of 1.21 gigawatt (well 1.2 million damage but Back to the Future memes are more than appropriate for more than one reason), killing her in the very same moment.
And I feel the need to reiterate my previous statement.
Literal step one of the plan Crys gave is to Voyage away. This will reset Foldropha's magic modifier from 0 to equal its current health, because Heidi will no longer be there for her Overwhelming Presence to nullify it. And the dragon's Mana Typhoon will instantly proc because it does count as a change of their stats. Hitting Gabriel with all the power of 1.21 gigawatt (well 1.2 million damage but Back to the Future memes are more than appropriate for more than one reason), killing her in the very same moment.
I think you are overthinking it, I doubt Gabriel will die THAT fast and from their point of view, Heidi will be mostly gone for 1 or 2 seconds. I dont think that the "attack" is fast enough to build up and kill her.
I think you are overthinking it, I doubt Gabriel will die THAT fast and from their point of view, Heidi will be mostly gone for 1 or 2 seconds. I dont think that the "attack" is fast enough to build up and kill her.
It's not an attack. There's no build up, just an automatic response to stat changes. The ability as designed would be proc-ing with each individual attack if OP weren't interfering, so hell yes it would be fast enough to hit Gabriel if we're gone for a few seconds.
I just went to check and realised that someone might try to make a weird case based on exact wording. Mana Typhoon says it hits every opponent, but it is still limited in range. Think a dome-shaped shockwave rushing out from the Dragon and fizzling out after some distance. No targeted mini-nuke against everyone no matter where they are.
I just went to check and realised that someone might try to make a weird case based on exact wording. Mana Typhoon says it hits every opponent, but it is still limited in range. Think a dome-shaped shockwave rushing out from the Dragon and fizzling out after some distance. No targeted mini-nuke against everyone no matter where they are.
And I feel the need to reiterate my previous statement.
Literal step one of the plan Crys gave is to Voyage away. This will reset Foldropha's magic modifier from 0 to equal its current health, because Heidi will no longer be there for her Overwhelming Presence to nullify it. And the dragon's Mana Typhoon will instantly proc because it does count as a change of their stats. Hitting Gabriel with all the power of 1.21 gigawatt (well 1.2 million damage but Back to the Future memes are more than appropriate for more than one reason), killing her in the very same moment.
-[] Tell Gabriel you're going to nuke it but need time to charge, once she confirms, Voyage away.
Literally all of your worries are covered here. In my step one. Namely, the fact Heidi confirms with Gabriel before poofing away. Naron has already explained during my tantrum about my previous plan, but Heidi is smart enough to at least try and cover anything that isn't specifically stated, and it's pretty obvious a high charge attack is going to have a blast radius.
So I trust Naron to have Heidi use the chance to tell Gabriel what she should keep an eye out for, so she can know when to get out of dodge. And maybe even tell her that whacking it makes it explode into a death zone.
So I trust Naron to have Heidi use the chance to tell Gabriel what she should keep an eye out for, so she can know when to get out of dodge. And maybe even tell her that whacking it makes it explode into a death zone.
I still hope for crys plan to succeed, because it would be pretty epic and makes the kill 100% sure. It is less risky, not that fancy and still gives us most likely a pretty big amount of exp. Especially because we didnt level up Reapers Will anymore and I am honestly not sure if abrade can reduce the defense of this dragon fast enough to zero before we or Gabriel die. That fight would take so much time, that some sort of mistake or the dragon just running away would be possible and I doubt we can follow him (because Gabriel would need to carry us) to prevent him from escaping.
I still hope for crys plan to succeed, because it would be pretty epic and makes the kill 100% sure. It is less risky, not that fancy and still gives us most likely a pretty big amount of exp. Especially because we didnt level up Reapers Will anymore and I am honestly not sure if abrade can reduce the defense of this dragon fast enough to zero before we or Gabriel die. That fight would take so much time, that some sort of mistake or the dragon just running away would be possible and I doubt we can follow him (because Gabriel would need to carry us) to prevent him from escaping.
I don't believe this is an encounter that would or should have a "silver bullet" option to shortcut it, especially not after how... incredibly anticlimactic the last boss encounter we had was. However, if you feel like you'd rather put your faith in that, then go for it.
We are unlikely to die, I think. Unless the dragon has some really crazy stuff with its reality marble that it can pull out to circumvent our Unmatched Skill despite having to focus on two different opponents, we can shut down all its actions and still have enough left over to hit it.
That fight would take so much time, that some sort of mistake or the dragon just running away would be possible and I doubt we can follow him (because Gabriel would need to carry us) to prevent him from escaping.
Strictly speaking, the dragon fleeing would still be a win condition, since we're here to get rid of it, not necessarily to murder it. 'Course, Heidi's pissed at it right now and wants to fuck it up, but that's not actually necessary to our original and primary goal.
Alright. You have to know, I will be really busy starting Monday for a few days, and so I would prefer to have the next chapter written before then because I do not know how long exactly I will be busy.
Which is why I close it here; kind of short for a battle vote cycle, but... well, we almost doubled the record number of votes anyway, so I doubt I will get more.
And, seeing that you tied the vote again, I am going to break that. Plan TheNameIsTooLong a.k.a. "Laser it dead" wins. I did say I would vote for that, after all. Both plans are great, but I just like this one more somehow.
Adhoc vote count started by Naron on May 22, 2020 at 12:50 AM, finished with 45 posts and 22 votes.
[X] Image of Gaia's Ultimate Weapon: Origin of Stardust Mountain Sect
-[x] Tell Gabriel you're going to nuke it but need time to charge, once she confirms, Voyage away.
--[x] Go full xixania, land yourself at the peak of a mountain somewhere a few thousand years distant. Maybe start a religion with this shit.
---[x] Whip out Stardust Striker, and start charging.
----[x] think you've charged it enough to one shot the dragon? That's nice, now keep charging.
-----[x] While charging maybe sing the German National Anthem or something. Totally up to you. Just keep charging.
------[x] Alright, whats your state? Almost out of transformation time? Or has your charging reached the point you can feel the power slipping from your ability to control it? Has either of these been met? No? Keep charging, come back when you've met one of these. Maybe both if you're lucky. Just make sure you don't blow yourself up or something equally stupid.
-------[x] Once the above has been satisfied, take a deep breath and voyage your happy ass back to the fight. Preferably shortly after you left or something, doesn't really matter so long as you haven't been gone too long relatively. --------[X] SHOW THE DRAGON WHY THE LDC IS WHERE THEY COME TO DIE.
---------[x] Optional: shout a cheesy oneliner while you're firing your laser ("Witness me!")
[X] Plan One Way to Skin a Dragon: Death of 101 Cuts
-[X] Equip Reaper's Will, go in and start whittling the dragon down with Abrade. Superslayer should get you through the defenses and help make each cut sting.
--[X] Be careful to manage your actions so you have enough to parry the attacks it throws out.
---[X] If you need to seal a weapon, priorities should be: Aetheric Tide > Stygian Tempest > Stardust Striker.
-[X] Use Arcane Slash liberally. With how this thing has been throwing its weight around you doubt Trans-smasher can kill it, but the corrosive properties should be unpleasant and honestly? Fuck this guy. Also the increased range will likely be handy.
-[X] Ask Gabriel to cut off its wings from below, so any deflected attacks go into the sky and not into the ground. You need the ground to walk on, thanks.
-[X] Harry it, run interference for each-other. Never give it the opportunity to fully focus on one opponent and pull out any hidden tricks it might have.
-[X] Once the dragon is flightless and you've shredded away its sick gains all of its Resilience, both of you can go to town.
[X] Image of Gaia's Ultimate Weapon: Origin of Stardust Mountain Sect
-[x] Tell Gabriel you're going to nuke it but need time to charge, once she confirms, Voyage away.
--[x] Go full xixania, land yourself at the peak of a mountain somewhere a few thousand years distant. Maybe start a religion with this shit.
---[x] Whip out Stardust Striker, and start charging.
----[x] think you've charged it enough to one shot the dragon? That's nice, now keep charging.
-----[x] While charging maybe sing the German National Anthem or something. Totally up to you. Just keep charging.
------[x] Alright, whats your state? Almost out of transformation time? Or has your charging reached the point you can feel the power slipping from your ability to control it? Has either of these been met? No? Keep charging, come back when you've met one of these. Maybe both if you're lucky. Just make sure you don't blow yourself up or something equally stupid.
-------[x] Once the above has been satisfied, take a deep breath and voyage your happy ass back to the fight. Preferably shortly after you left or something, doesn't really matter so long as you haven't been gone too long relatively.
--------[X] SHOW THE DRAGON WHY THE LDC IS WHERE THEY COME TO DIE.
---------[x] Optional: shout a cheesy oneliner while you're firing your laser ("Witness me!")
The plan you first thought of evaporates under an idea. A way to get this thing deader than dead for sure, with minimum risk. Crushing it like a bug. You like that, it deserves this.
In the moment you take to think and grin, Gabriel's light burns the Dragon all over. Its scales flash, gathering mana and brimming with power in response. Not good. You can not have that. "Gabriel! I'm going to hit the entire area, take some distance and stop your auras, they make it stronger!"
She was already a bit away to get around the creature, but hears you and turns back with a light frown. There is no talking back, though; she redirects her thrust and retreats, her light receding from the area while your opponent snapped out of its funk.
Then your sense pings and you leap to the side as it darts through the space between you in an instant, almost crushing you under its paw. The entire area lights up as mana sparks from the Dragon, shifting and twisting. A haze comes from the creature itself, almost like an armour of steam where it stands. And then it strikes again, batting at you with one paw that you redirect over your head with a push of your hand and your own mana.
The air screams as it tears and a hindleg stomps onto the ground that shatters, It roils like the sea from the impact and explodeds outward where you stand, propelling you far into the air. A quick glance to the side tells you Gabriel is still too close.
Looking back down, you find the monster's jaw opening and mana flowing into its throat, ready to unleash a rainbow of light. You arrest Aetheric Tide's momentum, then hold it steady while swinging yourself around it. Upon letting go of its position, you throw yourself out of the debilitating stream's way; it screeches and howls at you even from a distance. You shiver and glance down, finding the very earth coil into streams under your opponent's will. They snake into the air slowly, wind around the Dragon's side, and then snap outward to strike at you, chock-full of mana and accompanied by grinding noises part physical part magical.
You push yourself aside again to dodge the first and then place a foot on it, only for the stream to lose coherence and crumble away before you can push off properly, but the others go wide either way, not accounting for your movements.
The Dragon rears back on all fours and screams a challenge at you as you fall, its power amplifying the sound and making it echo all around you in an eardrum-shattering cacophony. Only your magical enhancement saved you from that, for now. You have no time.
Another glance to Gabriel, she is almost far enough.
Now that you have a moment, you realise that everything this Dragon does right now is... odd. Too fast. The scream was higher-pitched than its initial noises, its movements are so fast in a different way to others you saw. Wait, if they can dictate rules of reality, does that include time? You hope not. It already treats solid ground like water and has it act at its will, though.
The Dragon snarls and makes a giant leap the moment you are deep enough to be caught in its jaws; you see it coming but it still happens so fast you have almost no time to react. One moment it is fifty metres distant, a blur later it is right in front of you opening up wide. Your grip on Aetheric Tide tightens and you use it to push down a little, plant your heel on one of its teeth, and brace yourself to push back the moment its jaws start to snap shut.
You fall to the ground and roll off while the creature draws a metres-long crater where it lands, turning around with the grace of a cat despite its bulky form. It growls and folds its wings more tightly, then surges forward again but rears up right in front of you to swish you away with another sweep. You can barely redirect over your head the same way as before... only for the other paw to come down on top of you. Good idea, bad execution.
Using the momentary burst of speed from the previous parry to your advantage, you dart forward at the Dragon's hindlegs. It tries to adjust but has to push against its own frontleg to do so, conveniently in the way from the attempted sweep. A hammer blow hits the ground and you feel a ping from something coming up below. Eyes widening, you jump off the crumbly earth a moment before a sharp spike of ebony penetrates the space where you just were.
One last glance to Gabriel, she is far enough. That will have to do, so you aim quickly, your first thoughts going from Gabriel to Reluxus. "Voyage!" And off you are, through a moment of eternity.
The place you land is rather nondescript, far up a mountain that is surrounded by lush forests and plains. It is cold and a little difficult to breathe, but you make do, dropping to the ground and taking slow, steady breaths. "Whew."
Now that you are out of its zone of influence, you realise that this Dragon is a difficult one. Just fighting for a few seconds already put you on the backfoot, you could not even land a hit with how fast it came after you. Tag-teaming it with Gabriel might have worked, but it would have taken a long time to get anywhere.
Deep breaths. In. And out.
You open your eyes to look around, finding a somewhat even space a few dozen metres wide. It will do, though you are close to the summit. Not that it matters too much if anyone sees you... you hope. But there should be no Angels on Reluxus at this point in time, and you doubt any Elf could scale this mountain on foot in less than a day.
Off to plan, then. You will need to spend a long time charging up Stardust Striker, hunger and thirst you can deal with but you might get sleepy and have your grasp slip. Perhaps a nap first? No, you can do it without. How do you measure the time? You have a rough estimate for your maximum transformation time, so you can draw up an array to serve as a stopwatch.
Doing that takes an entire hour, though. Once you are done, you feel some weariness set in from the fact you only got less than half a night of sleep. So instead of getting to it immediately, you hunt yourself something to eat and as rations for the charging process, find some water, and have that nap after all. Your new stopwatch wakes you after five hours, just like you gave it as input in the specific field.
Even now, it feels weird to have time to spend, all the time, but you have to get used to it. There is no rush, and doing this less than as best as you can might get you killed.
With everything ready, you take a deep breath, all the while grateful for the fact that magic helps make up for the lower level of oxygen this far up the mountain. Then you detransform and rewrite the five hours into fifteen. If you can hold it that long, you will charge up your strike for that much time. You could take longer, but you do not know the exact maximum you have and it is always good to have some left just in case.
Shuddering in the cold breeze, you quickly transform again and bring out Stardust Striker, then tap the activation glyph while also pumping mana into the blade. It immediately starts to shine gently.
What follows is... a really boring time, filled with sitting, standing, walking around a little, passing the hours with nothing to do. The gentle light from the start is already an intensive gleam after the first few minutes and you can see mana roiling steadily along your blade. It continues flowing in like a river from your core, birthed by an endless spring.
After the first hour, your blade can no longer hold all the mana within and it starts to trickle around it, forming hair-like tendrils that grasp at the surroundings before falling back into the main mass.
You have to stop doing much of anything else without a lot of strain around the second hour, where keeping all the mana held becomes actually difficult. The grasp of your mind is firm thanks to Lu's instructions, though. An ethereal muscle trained through rigorous practice with other powers over the months.
Around the fifth hour, you have to turn off your magic sight so it does not blind you. Even without, an almost emerald glow turns the night to day where you are, a beacon for all in the land to see.
At the eighth hour, some time before sunrise, you can no longer see the moon with how bright everything is around you. Mana rolls over your arm in waves of agitation and calm respectively, first one and then the other in endless repetition as the blade's calming property works. You have to grit your teeth or bite your tongue sometimes to stay focussed.
At the twelfth hour, you no longer need to push yourself to focus. It strains against your control in a way that is very clear to your senses and keeps you alert. The sky is covered by clouds as if it wished to tell you something, but thankfully no rain falls.
Close before the fifteenth hour completes, you step toward the edge of your little plateau and, thanks to your enhanced eyes, notice small figures in the distance. Many of them, at that. Elves. They are all looking your way, which you guess makes sense. A glance at the blade in your hands shows that it shines like an emerald sun now, not truly pulsing but humming with held back power. It has the form of a somewhat bloated blade, giving Stardust Striker twice its original size for the moment.
If you were closer, you feel you might be able to see their awed faces. It makes you snicker as you lower the blade slowly. No hasty movements now.
Holding your weapon in front of you, you turn away from focussing as best as you can, pick a time and place of arrival that takes you an entire minute to set properly with how distracted you are. Then you cast Voyage and the portal comes at you almost hesitantly, as if scared of the power in your hand.
Yet you are swallowed as always, and for a moment, a manmade sun illuminates eternity. It may be just your imagination from the last hours, but you think you spy something gigantic peering at you from eons and universes away... in both directions. The light you cast makes it visible for but a moment, then you are through.
Your presence reasserts itself where it left off for a moment, a wave of mana far below just petering out where it ravaged the area around the Dragon for at least two hundred metres in all directions. The vortex that picked up around it is plugged shut once more. It was looking between its paws, but now its head snaps up while you begin to fall and brace yourself. Your blade's shine blots out the morning sun and the monster below hesitates for the slightest moment at your sight.
You just grin and scream, unable to articulate any kind of insult, just scream while swinging your sword down and letting go.
Unleashed, light pours down from your blade and spreads as the mana is now free, expanding in the direction of your swing arc and beyond.
(Note: 54,120 charges (15 hours, 2 minutes)
Stardust Striker: +1500 Base Damage 81180000 Laser, +1828 Auto Max Charge, -32472000 Great Coverage, No Aim = 48,709,828 Total Damage
Foldropha: +1500000 Base Damage, no dice, -750000 holyshitwtf, +45678900 Bends Time And Space To Escape, +1206602 The Scales Hold Even Now, -100000 Unmatched Assault = 47,535,502 Total Damage Reduction
1,174,326 Total End Damage Draconic Vitality Excess: Damage is past threshold of 723,961! Lowering damage! Supremacy
1,174,326 Final End Damage
Foldropha Health: 1,203,602 - 1,174,326 = 29,276)
. . .
IDENTIFIED BREAK LINE . . .
You are Archangel Gabriel, and before you plays out an epic of a kind you never saw before. Your friend falls from the sky and brings with her a stream of power so great it makes you shy away on instinct.
You watch the Dragon below scramble to get away, dart forward at a speed nothing that big should have, and almost make it out of the blast range. Almost.
The gleaming wave crashes into the planet unguided, spilling in every direction and rending the face of the earth asunder. The world shakes violently and great currents pull at you as you behold the sight, see bright turquoise dig into Sheol.
But then you glimpse something small flying your way, and race forward to meet it. Her. Heidi comes barreling your way like a cannonball, her weapon lost somewhere and limbs following after her from the force; you fly backward to start matching her pace, catch her as gently as you can, and slow down so she does not break anything from a sudden impact and deceleration.
A faint giggle is all you hear while the momentary storm quiets down and the earth settles, a wave of dust still covering the area. Heidi's head lolls against your chest, eyes unfocussed. She opens her mouth to speak but only gibberish comes out. You shush her, she probably exhausted her mana reserves or something of the like.
Then you behold what is before you, and feel yourself grow cold in the pit of your stomach.
The dust has begun to settle. And right before you, reaching almost all the way to the horizon, is a crater. No, not that. A canyon, hundreds of metres deep and at least as wide. From where you are, you can see the very vague shape of a slash wave like your own Judgement creates, almost completely bloated out of proportion. The canyon is many times longer than it is wide, which is your only indication for how it looked like.
Its rough center is almost circular, though. A ravine lready filling with water in places from beneath and the walls, roughly pushed to the new surface where there was once solid ground.
You held back against her last time. Apparently, she did too.
Suddenly, you are very glad she is your friend.
You are torn from your horrified reverie when a small hand weakly bats your shoulder, and turn back to Heidi; she is more focussed now, peering down. "It's not over yet," she mutters quietly.
. . .
IDENTIFIED BREAK LINE . . .
You are Defiance, Adelheidi, um, whatever. Your head is still whoozy from the rush and you are not sure you can stand, you feel weak like never before. But Gabriel holds you and that is enough.
That giant crater is a bit of an oopsie, but Elisabeth will understand why it had to be. You are more concerned about the zone of intense light right at the edge of it; residue mana colours most of the area in your turquoise, but this part is still carrying all colours of the rainbow. That beast survived, it is down there in a smaller crater.
"I'm not going to bring you anywhere near it in your condition," Gabriel immediately refuses the silent assumption. She does not sound happy. "We are going to have words about straining yourself like that, and destroying so much land for no reason."
You glance at her again and focus, force your arms and legs to obey, then poke her belly with your elbow. "Come on, no time." You pause to gather yourself, voice still weak. Your tongue feels weird, almost like under anaesthetics. It will come back in time. "Fly me closer, I wanna hit it wish my shord!" Well, good enough.
Gabriel narrows her eyes down at you and you narrow yours in turn, then poke her cheek. "Come on, do it. I'm, wa-walking if you don't." And you will. Even with everything, this beast is still alive and you want to put it down.
She sighs and shakes her head weakly, but speaks before you can argue: "Very well, but we retreat immediately if it is not on the verge of death." You nod, but think you will not retreat either way. It can not have that much fight left in it.
So Gabriel flies you over the area quietly, gaze going to various places of what you just did while you recall your weapon from wherever it fell. Now you have more reasons not to use that outside of absolute emergencies. Like a Dragon. But even still, this is not safe near any of your allies or their things. If the base had been intact before you did this, it would be erased from the map now anyway.
You land a minute later and peer into the crater... at a sorry sight.
The Dragon lies flat on its belly, panting heavily. It is a lot wider than before, scales unbroken still. Purple blood flows out its nose and mouth and even eyes, the entire body having been pressed flat. Its wings are cracked in various directions, beating feebly against the ground while sparks of mana rush into the space under its control without affecting anything.
Your presence makes the creature still, then slowly turns its blood-covered face your way.
Looking at it...
-------------
[] You put it out of its misery. This fight is over, time to end it.
[] You leave it be. It lost and knows that, too.
No write-ins, no EXP votes
=====
Current Status:
-Gabriel: 360,000 / 360,000, worried
-Defiance: 900 / 900, whoozy but capable to keep going
-Foldropha: 29,276 / 1,206,602
--unable to do fine World Sphere manipulations due to overstraining her control, major internal bleeding and deformations; effectively loses as much Health as she regenerates each turn until the bleedings are healed away
=====
+10xp Survived A Turn Against A Dragon
+25xp Served As The Inspiration For A Sect
+5xp Nearly Gave Chronos a Stroke
+250xp Rearranged the Landscape
+1500xp Ended The Fight in One Strike
