A Simple Transaction I

Rihaku · May 20, 2020

Interesting distribution we've got here. Luna Conquerer has the most omake power, but the other options each have a decent amount of their own. It's going to be hard to eliminate options when the time comes unless some shifts occur! Muscle Wizard has fallen behind in the absolute vote count, I suppose.

Fumbles said:
As for the update itself, my first thought of the disappearing-not-reappearing dog monsters was RWBY, but seeing that they're probably associated with the bigger wyrm-y-er dog monster, EVA seems more likely. Judging from the fact that they found us out in the countryside, they could be all over the area. If that's the case, then our efforts will be sorely needed to save civilians in the city. Hopefully it's a proper geofront mess of bunkers and safety drills.

Considering their buildings are made of stone, it's not terribly likely! Rather underdeveloped countryside as well. Where are the roads?

Fumbles said:
Swapping votes around. I actually quite like Gisena, and ultimately I do prefer Accretion to Seals. Close thing, though.

Interesting to see people's varied opinions on this. Do you like Accretion a lot, or just dislike Seals?

Thomasfoolery said:
They actually might legitimately have had it worse thinking about it. In the scenario where the Accursed worked off the worst curses first and the ones we see are just meh tier bad.

Well, regardless he only offers Curses that you can bear!

Wolfy · May 20, 2020

Rihaku said:
Interesting to see people's varied opinions on this. Do you like Accretion a lot, or just dislike Seals?

I think that Seals are more practical(due to Curse mitigation and general utility) while Accretion is just plain cooler.

Unelemental · May 20, 2020

Aside from the coolness factor of swinging around our own legend, I quite like the synergy, bittersweet as it is. We live or we die, but we do so gloriously. And with Accretion glory is power.

Fumbles · May 20, 2020

What they said. Also, Accretion means we can accidentally meme ourselves into comedic flaws.

Thinking a bit of Mr. Extrusion from EFB, with the pointed criticism, but more of a forced character development/degeneration depending on our deeds.

I'm betting the first thing tied to our legend is the inability to say no to a pretty ~~foot~~ face.

DarkSideBard · May 20, 2020

[X] Humanitarian Efforts

I do not, in fact, trust intuitive affinities for strange beings.

[X] King of Sorcerers

I really, really like the non-accretion synergies here. Something about accretion just really hits me wrong. Plus I like that the choices are high in utility while maintaining extreme suitability towards curse mitigation.

Skelm · May 20, 2020

[X] Twice-Great

[X] Humanitarian Efforts

uri · May 20, 2020

[X] Cut Off The Head
[X] Twice-Great

Rihaku · May 20, 2020

Fumbles said:
What they said. Also, Accretion means we can accidentally meme ourselves into comedic flaws.

Thinking a bit of Mr. Extrusion from EFB, with the pointed criticism, but more of a forced character development/degeneration depending on our deeds.

I'm betting the first thing tied to our legend is the inability to say no to a pretty ~~foot~~ face.

Really? I don't think the hero is particularly susceptible to feminine wiles.

DarkSideBard said:
[X] Humanitarian Efforts

I do not, in fact, trust intuitive affinities for strange beings.

[X] King of Sorcerers

I really, really like the non-accretion synergies here. Something about accretion just really hits me wrong.

It's the vagueness, isn't it?! Vague magic systems are tricky...

Unelemental · May 20, 2020

Rihaku said:
Really? I don't think the hero is particularly susceptible to feminine wiles.

I think he means it's not the Hero that will be the problem...

Wolfy · May 20, 2020

Rihaku said:
Really? I don't think the hero is particularly susceptible to feminine wiles.

Gisena and Hunger are dangerous combination though..

Maragas · May 20, 2020

Wizard, Muscle Wizard! What can you do? (Fanwork: 1040 Words)

"You can't beat me! I already summoned the spirits of the long past Demon Gods, they will tear you to pieces!"

You always thought punching things would get stale and boring after a while. When you were first summoned to the world to become its hero you had imagined casting spells of immense power, the kind that brings the storm, summon fire and reduce the enemies to their atoms.

The Wise Old Master of the Arcane.

"Now you will feel the fires of Gargana, the one who burns in the center of the Sun! The Claws of Horalda that can tear apart spacetime! The dark presence of Gorgon that drains the souls of all who stands before it!

It was quite the disappointment when you found out that your talent lies in Martial Arts. You disagreed immensely with that verdict but you always had the inkling that it was true. You were always aware of your body, always handy with your hands and quite the looker if you say so yourself.

All of the disappointment disappeared when you parried a sword with your hands for the first time and didn't even feel the impact other than the slight pressure. It was quite the empowering feeling. Learning how to forge with your bare hands, arrows faster than bullets ignored like raindrops against your skin, the wounds that healed in frightening speed without a scar to show for. And that was before you become a Cursebearer! The feeling that makes you more alive than alive.

"You… why are you not dying! Why are you standing there still! Is this an illusion? A trick to get a surprise attack!"

Ah, you are monologuing again in your mind. It became a habit after… years of doing the same mission over and over again. Huh, maybe you can call yourself Old Master of Martial Arts. You certainly have the requirements. For Accursed sake you are older than these so called Demon Gods and you are certainly the Master of Martial Arts. Not wise though. Maybe Reckless Master of Martial Arts. Or God Master of Martial Arts? It sounds…chuuni. Yes chuuni.

Anyway, you should take care of this before you stand here all day. You have all the time in the world for it later.

"I will not wall for this tri-"

He stops speaking, seeing you moved next to Gargana, flames tickling you. It makes you look small, 20-meter Fire Spirit with a face what you expect from a demon.

You simply grabbed it from the ankle and started spinning it. By the time you are done it looks like a burned out match stick than the raging inferno it was. You just throw it to space afterward.

Next is so called Horalda. Its only a meter wide and long and looks like a black hole merged with a tentacle monster merged with all the animals you can think of. You just squished it by grabbing its sides. Neither the spacetime effect nor the claws manage to do anything to you, not even to your clothes. Nothing remains of it in the end, squeezed out of existence.

Only one remaining is the Gorgon, the summoner already fled 531 km to east from your estimates. Probably using this realms neat teleportation network. He was known to hijack it for his own purposes.
You just flick your fingers, his entire body and the surroundings explodes, kilometers away from you.

He is not the only one who can hijack the teleportation network, it was simple to just teleport the force of your flick into his body.

By the time you are done, Gorgon turned its entire chimeric body into a mist like form, surging towards you. Entering from your nose, ears and mouth you can feel it's powers trying to take possession of you, trying to steal your body and your soul.

Idiotic, that's the word ringing in your mind as Gorgon shrieks inside you and tries to get out. You just clench your body along with your soul, crushing it.

Perfection of the body begets perfection of the soul and mind.

In the end, punching things doesn't get boring. Because punching isn't the only thing you can do. Plus, it's always worth the look on your opponent face when you kill him through his highly intricate and powerful defenses with just one fist.

Looking around you let a smile to show in your face. No accidental destruction…other than the ones done by the Demon Gods but you are blameless! Especially compared to the last mission. You really didn't intent to destroy the moon and have it rain down on the planet, it just…the target was much weaker you expected and died to your random punch.

You even cleaned the raining debris of the moon afterward! So thoughtful of you.

At this moment you hear the ringing of your communication device. Looking at it, you can see it's your friend/contact from Terra Nova Adventuring Guild.

Hello! Calling to congratulate me for the successful mission?

"Would be if the city of Gold Falls didn't have a crater in its busiest district. Scrying spells show your target appearing and then exploding. Care to explain?'

Ah, you haven't closely look at where he teleported to. Bummer. Deflecting time.

I have no idea. Must be magic. Got to go though I have a…job to take off. See you next time.

"I will be docking the repairs from the bounty." Her sigh is audible

You can't do that! You have no proof!

"So you are saying you haven't killed the target and don't get the bounty?" she says. You can feel the smugness.

Ahm, I was saying I am taking the full responsibility and accept the compromise.

"Good, come here and get your pay. I have a small surprise to you as well. Bye"

Sighing, you look at the sky. Smokes from the fires started by Gargana drifts with the wind.

You really need to stop monologuing in the middle of the fights. Maybe it's a side effect of Accretion.

AN:
Here is an omake for guys and gals of Muscle Wizard path and everyone else if they enjoy this kind of stuff.
Dedicated to Muscle Wizard of course.

Thomasfoolery · May 20, 2020

I feel like trying to evacuate people is quite likely to hurt our ability to snowball if hunger wins, we've no idea how rare these monsters or mecha are and the lesser ones are basically a joke to us currently so wouldn't give much gains. This seems to leave us in a potentially awkward spot of trying not to alienate people to get what we want, which even with the charisma boost to the option I feel like we'll just inevitably do so to most people we talk to. Whereas if we go for the decapitation we can get the combat gains with the relative safety of having the mecha holding its attention and leaves us with a better chance of being able to take one ourselves after the battle, which gives us a lot more freedom of movement.

Rihaku said:
Well, regardless he only offers Curses that you can bear!

I wonder if the curses granted go back if the cursebearer dies. As is he comes across as actually quite a affable fellow (Motivational Speech to Seram, bonding moment with hero) but he might just be trying to get them to last as long as possible so he doesn't waste his investment of effort.

BrainInAJar · May 20, 2020

Shard said:
'Immediate term' is, like, right now (before Apocryphal can even proc against us). Without King's Scepter Protag might have already died. We still have to survive in the short, medium and long term, y'know?

Wolfy said:
It likely assumed gameplay where players put in enough effort to deal with it. Odds are not certainty, after all - If you deal badly with them it will fuck it up, if you deal well with it it can gain you a lot.

Our actions in the immediate can provide us with more safety without relying on Curse mitigation. We can also powerlevel in the immediate, allowing us to mitigate Curses ourselves. Since improvements to Seals also power up Catherine; there's no conflict. We have enough safety to invest in our options here. Strong as we are, I see little need to hedge further.

Wolfy said:
Accretion can provide findross, it's an explicit upside of Luna combination.

Never said it couldn't, I actually said we need to go out and figure out how.

Wolfy said:
I've never said that Cat has no value; you are the one focused on uniqueness as some sort of the most important attribute for value. My main argument is not that Gisena offers more value to us in terms of value, but in terms gameplay - with Gisena we get to do fun stuff while she does boring stuff, while with Cat she gets to murder Kaiju's while we deal with social and Curses.

Luna Conqueror is explicitly the most straightforward option that lacks proactive utility. Therefore, I don't think it will let us avoid the "boring stuff". Indeed, I think it would actually be good to excel at the "boring stuff" so we spend as little time on it as possible. Something difficult to do if we just focus on punching and have no utility.

Wolfy · May 20, 2020

BrainInAJar said:
Never said it couldn't, I actually said we need to go out and figure out how.

Do we? There is no indication that we do or do not need to do something.

Luna Conqueror is explicitly the most straightforward option that lacks proactive utility. Therefore, I don't think it will let us avoid the "boring stuff". Indeed, I think it would actually be good to excel at the "boring stuff" so we spend as little time on it as possible. Something difficult to do if we just focus on punching and have no utility.

Being "straightforward" merely means that we lack utility to do stuff such as teleportation or healing which would help us in certain scenarios; however, lack of access to more esoteric abilities generally does little to curtail one's enjoyment of a quest. In fact, being "a brick" or "a warrior" is generally vastly superior choice as it allows for far greater range of possible challenging scenarios that can be used to create tension which can't be resolved by character using an ability which can immediately resolve conflict.

What does harm one's fun with quest, and what Gisena prevents while Cat does not, is being forced to deal with shit you don't want to deal with. We don't want to suffer annoying social stuff and having to spend our time on Curse mitigation, or at lest not as much; we want to build our character and do fun character stuff. Explicitly, I'm referring to shit like this:

Dexterity

[ ] Steady Hands - Kinetic precision that exceeds the realm of the surgeon and enters the realm of the machine. Re-roll failed crafting or medicine actions where precise and stable movement are helpful.

[ ] One Shot - From many disciplines, the Cursebearer synthesizes one. The Cursebearer may compress all melee-range weapons skills into "Melee" and all ranged weaponry skills into "Ranged," but Perks from outside the base Skill do not apply.

For example, if the Cursebearer uses their unarmed Skill as the basis for "Melee," they would be able to take unarmed and Melee Perks but not Perks from other weapons schools.

[ ] One Kill - Death-dealing hands that naturally seek weakness. No penalty for called shots against any area larger than a human eye. Applies to ranged and melee attacks.

[ ] Twist Form I - Unnatural flexibility beyond the greatest of contortionists. Compress or expand body by up to 25% without any loss of functionality - increase or decrease height, reach, density, alter facial features.

[ ] Ambidexterity - Equally proficient with both hands to the degree that enemies feel as if they're fighting two enemies at once. This level of subconscious multithreading allows for one free offensive re-roll per battle. Does not stack with other re-rolls.

[ ] Blur of Speed - A Cursebearer can do more in an instant than an ordinary man could do with a small eternity of time. Overall physical speed increased 10%, but mental speed is unaffected.

[ ] A Shadow Over Water - If struck by a lethal attack, once per battle automatically generate a re-roll to avoid it.

[ ] Grace - A Perk that does not originate from the Accursed. 10% chance to avoid any non-damage external hostile effect, even ones that could not be avoided. No power in all creation can overcome the Grace; it is the most perfect defense that exists. Expend the Grace to mitigate a Curse permanently.

Unasked For: Brand of the Wretched, Moderate Mitigation - hostility permanently reduced 10%.

Undeserved: Geas of Indenture, Moderate Mitigation - Once during the term of your Geas, choose a consenting being. That character may permanently accompany you on your travels, but they too are bound to the task of your Geas.

Notice Grace all the way down? Instead of talking about how we want to improve our character, we need to consider Curse mitigation. We argue if we will take it now or latter. If we don't take it we will argue about same shit next choice too. All of it makes questing ever so slightly annoying.

Gisena not only mitigates our Curses, but she also mitigates things that would make us enjoy the quest less. Truly the best girl.

Prompt Critical · May 20, 2020

[X] Twice-Great

[X] Humanitarian Efforts

DkArthas · May 20, 2020

What are you talking about!?? I am excited about the MC having to deal with the authorities and people. That should be fun.

Unelemental · May 20, 2020

Man, that brings me back. Though looking at the Grace again... it's a Perk said to originate from the Maiden rather than the Accursed himself, and promises the most perfect defense that exists in all creation (not just the Manifest Realm), assuming it procs. Was the Perk so powerful because she only provided the frame and it was backed by the Accursed's power? Or were the Maiden and thus consequently her Sorceresses a bigger deal than I thought?

BrainInAJar · May 20, 2020

Wolfy said:
Do we? There is no indication that we do or do not need to do something.

Rihaku said:
if you can figure out the method.

It's on the option itself.

Wolfy said:
Being "straightforward" merely means that we lack utility to do stuff such as teleportation or healing which would help us in certain scenarios; however, lack of access to more esoteric abilities generally does little to curtail one's enjoyment of a quest. In fact, being "a brick" or "a warrior" is generally vastly superior choice as it allows for far greater range of possible challenging scenarios that can be used to create tension which can't be resolved by character using an ability which can immediately resolve conflict.

What does harm one's fun with quest, and what Gisena prevents while Cat does not, is being forced to deal with shit you don't want to deal with. We don't want to suffer annoying social stuff and having to spend our time on Curse mitigation, or at lest not as much; we want to build our character and do fun character stuff. Explicitly, I'm referring to shit like this:

Notice Grace all the way down? Instead of talking about how we want to improve our character, we need to consider Curse mitigation. We argue if we will take it now or latter. If we don't take it we will argue about same shit next choice too. All of it makes questing ever so slightly annoying.

Gisena not only mitigates our Curses, but she also mitigates things that would make us enjoy the quest less. Truly the best girl.

I don't think becoming one dimensional in the name of "fun" is actually all that fun. Especially because if we couldn't punch or dispel a problem, we'd be hard-pressed to deal with it. Seals offer much more versatility; and Catherine's prowess means we don't lose immediate power like King of Sorcerers. We can spend the initial effort on Curse mitigation. It won't actually be annoying if we cover all our bases with Seals plus Catherine.

Gisena's scientific ability will only come up after she has had time to analyze and understand this world's tech, a significant later game benefit. And Catherine, as the late game option, easily beats her value for that.

Rihaku · May 20, 2020

Wolfy said:
Gisena and Hunger are dangerous combination though..

In more ways than one!

Unelemental said:
Man, that brings me back. Though looking at the Grace again... it's a Perk said to originate from the Maiden rather than the Accursed himself, and promises the most perfect defense that exists in all creation (not just the Manifest Realm), assuming it procs. Was the Perk so powerful because she only provided the frame and it was backed by the Accursed's power? Or were the Maiden and thus consequently her Sorceresses a bigger deal than I thought?

It doesn't come from the Maiden?

Genesys · May 20, 2020

Hm. Maybe it's from whoever the Accursed's Geas of Lunacy target is. It's definitely weaker but broader in scope compared to the Accursed casual intervention perks.

formalAI · May 20, 2020

I somewhat dislike Retinue because I don't really trust the voters to choose the members of our Retinue strategically to maximize synergy, I would rather have some way of mitigating our curses so we don't have to scramble for one later, I really want Hunger for the acceleration it provide to our progression speed and I like the boost provided by Forebear's Blade.

So it's really between Twice-Great and Luna Conquerer for me. Of those two, I think my preference goes toward Twice-Great. I prefer the utility and flexibility of Seven Seal over Accretion, Catherine would be really useful in this world, the build is highly synergistic in a very straightforward way, allowing us to get another combatant that scale with us without having to pay the price of Retinue and finally, we've already seen Gisena, I'm interested in seeing a new character and what she's all about.

But honestly, I'd be completely okay with any of Twice-Great, Luna Conquerer or even King of Sorcerers winning. Muscle Wizard, I am somewhat less enthusiastic about.

Even though it's certainly really powerful in the early game, losing utility so as to focus entirely on casting fist is not really something I'm a big fan of. I've already stated why I dislike retinue and this plan also does not provide any way of mitigating our curses apart from Relinquishment, which doesn't do anything until at least 10 years have past and doesn't really help with the Decimator's Affliction. The fact that it explicitly have a weak midgame is also greatly concerning.

Ultimately though, it's almost certainly not as bad as I make it out to be, Rihaku did say that it was a viable build after all. But I'm still not a fan.

As for the action vote, charisma is extremely valuable if we are to conquer nine tenth of the human sphere and saving people's live is it's own reward, so I think I'm going to go for Humanitarian.

[X] Twice-Great
[X] Humanitarian Efforts

Unelemental · May 20, 2020

Rihaku said:
It doesn't come from the Maiden?

Huh, wrong assumption on my part then. Guess I saw "doesn't originate from the Accursed" and "Grace" and took it too far. Now I'm even more curious though!

OctarineShrike · May 20, 2020

I will probably be proven wrong on how seals work if a seals build wins but here's my guess on how the hero became the shadow of his former self with Seven Seals in the form of an Omake.

The Last Alchemy Montage(615 Words)

A roar shook the foundations of the glade the hero and his wife were hiding in, the glade the hero had only recently attained the 5th seal in after frantic weeks of training with very little sleep. The hero was not unprepared though.

With a snap of his fingers, the hero triggered the explosive seals in that region of the glade, linked to the imprisoned body of the prince of fire elementals as he drew his sword, running in the direction of the roar, breaking the sound barrier many times over. In the crater he saw the ink-covered dragon the tyrant had evidently gone to significant effort to enhance, quickly reconstituting itself out of the realm of forms from the ghostly existence his flames had briefly reduced it to. The Tyrant had made a conceptual dragon. This was going to be tricky. And was that a 5th seal? The Craftsmanship though…

The hero soon found himself drawn out of his critique of the tyrants skills from a fire blast, having to redirect it into the air. The tyrant's craftsmanship of the seal was terrible. He was better. He was genuinely better at it than the tyrant was right now. If only the costs of using it weren't so horrific.

It takes a concept to destroy a concept. The fifth seal stores the portion of the self a seal user places in the realm of forms. Enables it to be used for controlling others, as fuel for esoteric attacks, and perfect defense against attacks not fueled by power peering a 5th seal enhanced weapon. The glint of the Tyrant's eyes was recognizable in the dragon as it stared down the hero.

The stalemate persisted for three hours as the hero tried every tool in his accumulated arsenal, searching for an alternative to the fifth seal weaponry he would need to use against the tyrant. In the end though there was no recourse. The Tyrant's efficiency was terrible. If he won here, he would be able to track the Tyrant down from the fragment of his conceptual self used to enhance the dragon, make up for his loss by alchemizing the portion of the Tyrant's soul.

With a forboding sense of inevitability, the hero ignited his blade with the flames of his conceptual self, devouring all lesser things into an imprisoning coffin like a black hole. Searing through the defenses the Tyrant placed on the dragon, the hero quickly annhilated it's heart and extracted the Tyrant's soul shard from its brow. Now came what used to be the fun part all those years ago.

The hero extracted the Dragon's eye, alchemised it with a miniscule amount of his fifth seal reserves to turn it into an autonomous sensor/attack imprisonment system. Alchemizing the dragon's bones with his armor left him with armor resembling the Tyrant, armor so good you'd almost need a 5th sealed attack to get through it as it was without even enhancing its defenses with the 5th seal. The dragons tail was turned into an all-cutting whip that could strike at hypersonic speed from any of the hero's prepared storage seals without his active attention, and even function as a substitute for his missing arm. And on it went.

After his wife finished her alchemizations with her half of the dragon's body parts, the hero having used more of his 5th seal reserves to increase her returns, both of them with tears on their face as is happened but knowing there was no other option, there was only one thing left to do. Find the Tyrant. Find him, and use the rest of his 5th seal reserves to kill him beyond any hope of recovery.

Wolfy · May 20, 2020

BrainInAJar said:
It's on the option itself.

I meant "go out" part. We don't know if it needs any real effort or how much of it.

I don't think becoming one dimensional in the name of "fun" is actually all that fun. Especially because if we couldn't punch or dispel a problem, we'd be hard-pressed to deal with it.

That's what make it fun though, being hard pressed to do stuff. This is like writing 101 - why are warriors easier to write than wizards. Ultimately, the point of quest is to present interesting challenges for players to overcome, and having ability to do less stuff means higher possible variety of challenges. You can't have "need to find an antidote" arc if you have Purification or "who is the killer" arc if you have Postcognition; or at least without having to jump through additional hoops.

Note that we have two arguments here - my initial point about Gisena adding QoL to quest and thus making it more enjoyable experience and your argument about simplicity not being fun. They are not the same thing.

We can spend the initial effort on Curse mitigation.

That's not how it works. You can't just dismiss Curse mitigation as something we'll just casually do. It's annoying thing we constantly need to do. Stop pretending that Curses are not an issue, it's not doing your argument any favors.

Lealope · May 20, 2020

Rihaku said:
Taking Three Wishes in conjunction with the Champion's Brand? Bold!

I'm gonna put it one down as a case of my brain getting too big for my own skull because I was very excited about that Wish strategy.

Unelemental said:
Aside from the coolness factor of swinging around our own legend, I quite like the synergy, bittersweet as it is. We live or we die, but we do so gloriously. And with Accretion glory is power.

Also, fighting kaiju as a madlad with a sword is hilarious. It calls to mind a cyberpunk racing dystopia where we're the guy who competes in a fucking minivan or perhaps a mecha harem anime and in which we play as Saitama. The humour in these quests is pretty underrated and it would be a nice break from our grim desire for EDGE and VENGEANCE.

Wolfy said:
Gisena and Hunger are dangerous combination

No way, he's a married man! When you're a Cursebearer, death is more like a long distance relationship than a true parting.

The voters might be a different story though.

Unelemental said:
Man, that brings me back. Though looking at the Grace again... it's a Perk said to originate from the Maiden rather than the Accursed himself, and promises the most perfect defense that exists in all creation (not just the Manifest Realm), assuming it procs. Was the Perk so powerful because she only provided the frame and it was backed by the Accursed's power? Or were the Maiden and thus consequently her Sorceresses a bigger deal than I thought?

Rihaku said:
Findross was just inherent to the nature of this plane. The Maiden was a result of the first findross singularity, afterwards she splintered her power to decrease the risk if a crazy person manifested a singularity. Sylvie, descended in part from a very powerful elven lord, was the result of an elven program to create Sorceresses that they could influence, thereby splintering humanity's defenses and denying them access to key Graces in the event of war.

I don't think she relevant on the Accursed's scale. That said, he did also seem to implicitly refer to Champions as "the Maiden's simpering cousins". I have no idea how to interpret that, though I think that's more likely to have something to do with the Fairest than anything to do with the Manifest Realm. no wait I just misread it completely, nevermind.

-

Anyway, time for unasked for and probably unnecessary tactics. Gisena's three Graces are her tech affinity, bolts of energy and her nullification, right?

[ ] Humanitarian Efforts + [ ] King of Sorcerers

Depending on how quickly enhancement seals can apply (I'm assuming it can't be that long considering they'd be enough to "get Catherine online almost immediately"), especially with the Forebear's Blade. As soon as we encounter Gisena, apply Seal buffs to her if possible and then use our combined strength and charisma to shock and awe people into doing as we tell them. Buffing helpers and applying the Hero's tactical knowledge (whatever remains post diminishment) would give us a head start on insinuating our way into the top of the local power structure. With Gisena acting as an emissary to minimise the impact of our Doom, we'd be in a good position to capitalise on our popularity after the battle. That would mean drawing a fair bit of attention to ourselves though and giving away some intel on our powers.

Maybe Gisena can nullify the existence of these creatures? They're clearly not natural entities. If we test that and it proves true, we could send her (appropriately buffed) to weaken to giant wurm monstrosity so the mecha dude can kill it, assuming she can avoid hitting him too. Separating from her would be rough though. Ideally we add her to our Retinue immediately but its not like we know how long the short ceremony takes and she might not go for it when people are in immediate danger. Probably wouldn't hurt to ask.

Sealing the fires would probably be the most productive thing we could personally do with this option, at least when it comes to rescuing people. That would work to aleviate the damage dealt to the city and provide us with a weapon to unleash on whatever gets in out way. The smoke might be useful too, both because inhalation is dangerous and as a tool of obfuscation.

[ ] Humanitarian Efforts + [ ] Luna Conquerer

Put Hunger on, start the murderblender up and chuck some monsters in. Seram rocketed up in power fighting against the Orcs, someone whose actually familiar with their abilities and conflict could do even better. If we can think of a persona that won't chafe to wear for extended periods of time, that would be helpful to wear while rescuing people to accelerate the growth of our legend. A more distinctive and colourful outfit wouldn't be amiss either if our funeral clothes don't qualify, maybe take a cue from Lilea and strap an ornamental pauldron on one shoulder. Or maybe an intentionally shitty outfit, seeing a random vagabond mulch his way through an army of monsters would be even more distinctive than a hero doing so.

The other important thing is working to draw attention to ourselves and away from the monsters. Perhaps Gisena's energy bolts could aggro enemies and draw them to us? Whenever we reach the city, she could ask the local forces where the fighting is thickest and we could make a beeline for there. Having us act as a spearhead into any masses of enemies would probably multiply the effectiveness of their efforts and support would give us a place to rest if we get tired. Might risk proccing the Doom though if an officer tries to order us around. Hopefully Hunger will let our power growth outpace our fatigue since that would let us keep moving and avoid interaction.

-

553 words, if this counts.

A Simple Transaction I

The Internet

Flying, without moving on

The Internet

Nothing to see here.

CAPITAL IS TO BLAME

The Internet

(Discrete Mokona)

Avatar of Mandos

Not yet invincible