An accidental reference, I have a zone called the Furthest Reaches which even behaves somewhat similarly! I've been getting a lot of these, might just be apophenia on my part. Accretion reminds me of a broader and less quantifiable version of Practice; Soul Evocation seemed like Expression's pale shadow.
"Hm? Asking my opinion now? Consultations aren't free, you know," Gisena teased.
This sends chills down my spine. How can I be experiencing Brand of the Champion flashbacks without actually
playing someone who bore it? Feels like a bullet dodged, though I'm sure when Decimator's and the Apocryphal Curse compare notes to start throwing assassins at us sidequests might seem like a good deal. If we have to hit people up to grind Accretion anyway, why not ensure everyone's got quests for you? Champion
is a strong archetype. As ever, hindsight is 20-20.
He scoffed. "Riding on my back isn't free either."
"Are you saying you didn't enjoy that?" She giggled. "Well, I think it's a wonderful creation! I'd love to study it. But my realm didn't have anything like this. The technology's mostly a shell, isn't it? An accoutrement of the creature beneath."
Accoutrement sounds like Sorceress terminology, I think Mary-Elizabeth used it? Checking... yep, during a tangent about her attempts to do mad science to elves, though this isn't capitalized. AST 1.0 had loads of cool anecdotes like that, I miss the longer updates. In other news we're still racking up EVA parallels, humanity harnessing an alien biological horror, adding armor and controls. I did have a crackpot theory that Verschlengorge is a Cursebearer with the Geas of Lunacy, locked in monstrous form and
we're compatible with it, but not sure that holds water.
"There is power there. Far more than it's shown to us." Briefly he closed his eyes, reaching out with his instincts. It reminded him almost of the Tyrant, or of his own power at the very height, but much greater. Even the Tyrant was a mere tributary compared to the ocean that slept within this beast. Power of enormous scope, but of a tenor that was similar to his own. And yet like him it was diminished, wan shadow of its full potential. Not dammed, but run dry. And yet it would not take so terribly much for the deluge to come again.
"Think it was holding back?" Gisena snapped him from his thoughts.
Are we going to have to choose between the secrets of the Foremost and epic swordfights? I want to find out what's up with this thing, but not necessarily at the cost of building our character around piloting it. Still, the promise of power is seductive as ever. Moreso, since we now have a sense of the scale of the Geas' task.
"No." He shook his head. "It's injured. Lessened."
Lot of that going around, Hunger can sympathize. Perhaps together we can heal and grow, though the Devourer's already got a pilot. Two months is a long time, though, and if something should happen to the Duchess on the way back to civilization...
"Probably safest just to observe and see if it does something," the Sorceress sighed. "How boring."
Boring but practical! Who'd want to provoke the Devourer? Though given the name, she can always offer it some of her cooking if she's in a bind. I wonder if Gisena could've eventually become a good cook in our Retinue? Or would she just unlock Poisoning or Biowarfare upon approaching a stove?
She turned to him. "So... Got a name?"
"No." Who says we can't into deadpan humor?
He scowled.
Gisena pouted. "I did tell you mine, you know. Noble title and all! That's valuable tactical intelligence."
A name. He'd sacrificed his name, and claiming another at this juncture would just see it slip from his mind. But he needed something for others to call him, that was true enough. He looked down at his hand and the blade that it held. A pseudonym would hold, if it was memorable. Something practical. And yet even a pseudonym held power. Properly chosen, it could bind his objects more strongly to him, or establish that he was separate from them.
Hey, none of us have any room to throw stones in this particular glass house, we all voted to sacrifice Nameless' first chance we got. Compared to the other drawbacks it was practically a free lunch! The nuances of Accretion continue to be interesting, I'm definitely down to upgrade Hunger. Maybe we can even nullify its drawbacks in time? 'Impossible to remove' only means a Cursebearer hasn't put serious effort into it yet. Hopefully nobody tries to go Isildur on us, this may be the optimal name but conflating our self with the ring makes me instinctively wary. It worked when Nameless did it, though! Is this the beginning of a new tradition, akin to asymmetrically armed protagonists?
Something easy to recall. Something as familiar to him as the back of his hand.
"Hunger. Technically I'm a City Lord, but they've likely had me deposed."
Establishing himself as a figure of import, inserting the title into the conversation early while also reciprocating Gisena's introduction. Nice to see the competence at work. Also laughed at taking a title from the literal back of his hand.
As he spoke, he felt the essence of the ring shift, become his in full, interlacing its nature with his own. Now, like a ring of power, he would only grow mightier and more cunning with time. Age would have no purchase upon him, and even the Tyrant's curse that had stolen his youth would be reversed and superseded. He hoped that taking this name would also bind the Decimator's Affliction, allowing him to exert some measure of control over it. That would be a priority in the near future.
Oh good, we haven't locked ourselves out of Decimator mitigation by passing up Force Unto. Maybe with the equivalent of endurance perks we can reduce the number of hours necessary to get the Praetor's bonus? Exerting control over the Affliction sounds like some good shit too, telling it to preferentially target enemies or imbuing it into a Fell-Handed Strike would be cool. If Hunger is central to our legend, then the perhaps the Affliction's hunger for life can be brought to bay. Or maybe this is vain optimism; it is a Curse, even if it's among the easiest to mitigate.
"Hunger?" Gisena said brightly. "Hm... Lord Hunger. I like it. It's only a little pretentious."
She's going to try and get us to sample her cooking at some point, isn't she? So much for Hunger being the 'optimal' pseudonym!
"More than a little. Don't be polite."
"Arrogant and a liar too! Why do I put up with you?"
"I'm a noble. It's to be expected."
Hunger has a head start in becoming what he despises, eh?
"Well, at least he's self-aware."
"Keep talking to yourself. It's better that way."
"Oh? Already in love with the sound of my voice?"
"A-ahem!" A voice boomed from the direction of the giant. "If you two are done flirting, we have important matters to take care of!"
This is some top-tier Uly & Nilul energy, Gisena can banter with the best of them. Exposure to Jeanne must have inoculated her against abrasive personalities.
It was a girl's voice, clear and high, but somewhat stilted, as if forcing herself to sound authoritative.
"Sorry, we're not!" Gisena answered cheerfully.
"Huh?"
"We're not done flirting. Isn't that what you asked? So, mind waiting a bit longer?"
Time burns. Even if the wick is twenty-five hundred years long, it's best not to get in the habit of squandering it. Fun as this is, moments of hesitation and happiness can become a dangerous habit.
Caught a glimmer of her fiery personality earlier, but it takes more than that to trade barbs with these two.
"Speak for yourself," he grunted, turning to address the giant. "Are you the pilot of that creature? What's your business?"
"Thank you, my lord. Yes, I am. I'd like to come out and speak to you face-to-face. Will you give your word not to attack my person?"
"I won't attack unprovoked. Do as you please."
For someone with the Doom the definition of 'provocation' is a little more permissive, but Hunger was a hero and isn't just going to start shanking people for no reason. Even if the loot in this case is a compatible Armament and Letrizia has an instruction manual on her.
Steam hissed from countless apertures as the giant's head and chest moved forward, revealing its internals. A dizzying array of runes and glyphs coated every inch of its bio-mechanical interior, faintly emitting the pale, cold blue of a winter sky. Within was a capsule, which hissed open to reveal a young lady in a pale military jacket with accents of gold. Lean and long of limb, she had delicate, fine-boned features and eyes a shade lighter than Gisena's blue. A long shock of hair trailed nearly to her waist, white in color but with all the luster and texture of youth. She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. In the fingers of her right hand she held a small text, a manual of some kind.
Emerging from the capsule, she hopped up, landing neatly on the giant's shoulder, leaning forward on one heavy boot.
An Asuka intro and more anime hair! On the first pass I wondered if this was somehow Ceathlynn, since she's the right age for it and the personality seemed like a match. Not in the cards, unfortunately.
"Ah!!" Gisena clasped her hands together, eyes sparkling. She leaned over to whisper in his ear. "She's so cute! Can we keep her, hun? Please?"
"Do not call me that. And she's not your pet."
The obvious rejoinder to this is 'yet', but Gisena has some standards. It's impressive how deftly she's navigating the Doom, curious what we look like from her perspective. A Gisena interlude might be interesting? Letrizia's point of view is sure to have nice tidbits too, full of juicy lore for us to mull and panic over.
"Then, what should I call milord? 'Huney' has a certain ring to it... "
Please, for the favor of the Accursed, no.
Yeah, let's just nip that in the bud, shall we?
"What's this, a nobleman claiming to be just?"
Hey, with the Porcelain Faction's prominence in the Joanian Empire, nobody wants to rock the boat of Sorceress noninterference! I bet Gisena gets a lot of that.
Got a lot of that, rather. Has she reconciled herself to never going home again? Her fatalistic personality predisposes her to abandoning hope too easily, but she's good at going on and doing her Duty despite that. I wonder if we could help at some point, pop on over to the Manifest Realm and ice Jotarun for her after finishing matters here. How hard could one orc be, after conquering over nine-thousand inhabited star systems?
"As you said. I'm a liar."
"You said you had business," he called to the girl, before Gisena could interject again.
Getting the last word in, well done.
The girl nodded, stealing a glance at her manual before speaking. "You're outsiders, right? Come in through an Astral Rift? We're lucky we found each other. This place has certain properties making it difficult to navigate. Most outsiders who arrive here either die or are never seen from again, but my Armament," she gestured at the giant, "can bring us to civilization."
It's cute that Letrizia feels the need to reference the guidebook's protocols, but interesting that they exist at all. I wonder about the examples used. Most outsiders die, but not all. Are there particularly (in)famous people who emerged from the Voyager Realm? Also cute is Letrizia's attempt at asserting herself as their only possible lifeline, but she's just following orders and from her perspective it's probably true.
"Okay. I'm listening."
"Well..." the girl frowned. "It's a lot to explain. Since we all look human and are even speaking English, I'm going to assume you're from a world with similar ontological parameters..."
The implications of multiversal awareness are cool, looking forward to seeing their civilization.
"Hm." He had assumed the Accursed had given him a translation function.
Same here, but if distance between worlds is ontologically determined this isn't as weird as it seems.
Gisena perked up. "In my realm it's called Angletierre, but I've been speaking it because everyone else has. My native language is actually Joanian."
Joanian being analogous to French, I assume. These are welcome details, this update incidentally addresses some lingering worldbuilding questions about the Manifest Realm.
He raised an eyebrow. That wasn't easy. "You have no accent. Impressive."
"Of course! I am a genius, after all."
See, no need to feed her ego, it's healthy enough as-is.
"Anyway!" The pilot said, "The place we're currently trapped is named the Voyaging Realm. We believe it's an artificial universe created by an ancient species who called themselves the Foremost. It's contained by an outer ring the size of a gas giant, with the space inside heavily spun, folded, and distorted. It's constantly shifting and some parts are dangerous. A small portion of the Realm is unaffected and humans have built a city and spaceport there. That's where I'm trying to go." She showed them a picture from her manual, depicting a highly advanced metropolis with towers of steel and glass, over which loomed a small flotilla of angular ships. If this was accurate, these people were far beyond the Earth of his time.
Question number one: what killed the Foremost? The past tense is worrisome, I doubt a species possessed of such evident humility would go quietly into that good night. At least we (probably) don't have to worry about encountering them? Could be a rename for the Forebear's Blade in the works too, the Foremost Blade has a nice ring to it. Or is that transgressing on the First Sword's thematic territory?
"Since my Armament is so badly weakened, I'd like your help making it there. In return you'll reach civilization and my government will probably pay you a hefty sum as well. If you're interested, we could even arrange longer-term employment. Rift outsiders with unique skills are always welcome. Any questions?"
Many, but we'll have time to ask them on our trip. 'What weakened Verschlengorge?' is up there, though. And what was she doing in the Voyaging Realm in the first place?
"I don't work well with others," he said, "I'm happy to kill things for money, but I won't act under your chain of command. If that's fine, I've got a few more questions."
That's better than I feared, at least working as a mercenary isn't banned by the Doom.
She nodded.
But Gisena interrupted, practically vibrating with excitement. "What incredible technology! Flying ships! Cities that scrape the sky! This day has turned out far better than I thought. When I opened that Void I expected only death, not to be sent to another world out of my wildest dreams!"
Only a day, eh? Talk about landing on her feet. The enthusiasm's endearing too, an ironic mirror of Seram's escapism. Dreaming of technology when she's Graced with magic... perhaps the grass is always greener on the other side.
"Oh?" The girl cocked her head. "How did you two get here, if you don't mind my asking?"
Reading the manual is one thing, imagining what the process looks like from an outsider's point of view another. Letrizia's opening up a bit now that she's out of the conversational danger zone.
"I used my powers to tear a hole through reality," Gisena explained. "I didn't think it would work, and almost burned out that Grace. I was trying to assassinate the.... hero of my world for murdering my sisters. It didn't go so well, so I had to run."
Burning out a Grace sounds like the diegetic representation of an Ultimate's cooldown. It's promising that Nullity's capable of this at all. If she did it once, she can do it again. Perhaps the process can be reversed, letting her return home? But without severe time dilation, there might not be anything left by the time we're done with our task.
"You're quite brave, Miss Gisena!" said the pilot. "And you, milord?" She turned to him.
Dutiful might be a better adjective!
He frowned. "I was the hero of my world and assassinated after I slew the Tyrant."
Hunger has a scowl worth protecting, I hope to see some more of it in days to come.
Gisena beamed, wrapping her arms around his left. "We're a perfect pair!"
The symmetry's really something, it's true. At least Hunger didn't call himself something like The Hero Out of Earth!
He shrugged her off. "This is the third dimension I've stumbled into. My home was a planet called Earth. We had a technological civilization, planes and satellites, but nothing truly interstellar. Tell me about your society. What volume of space do you occupy? How many stars do you control?"
"Well, it's complicated," the pilot temporized. "The Human Sphere encompasses about ten thousand inhabited worlds, and includes another twenty thousand uninhabited systems used for resource extraction. The Realm we're standing in technically isn't a part of it, aside from our spaceport and city. The Sphere is divided into three polities, and the nation I'm from controls about twenty-seven hundred stars. But, I actually work for a jointly-funded agency supported by all three nations, so... like I said, it's complicated. It's not really relevant, none of the states has much power here!"
Ten thousand inhabited worlds. It's worth repeating. Just, wow. This is orders of magnitude beyond Seram's Geas task. But apparently not beyond Facebook relationship status terminology, now applied to interstellar politics! The Voyager Realm sounds like a gold mine of rare resources, kind of like the Terrascape's Megalith but for mech pilots rather than mages. My guess is that greed's the force driving these three nations to cooperate. Everybody wants a slice of the pie. The specifics are relevant to us because we're charged with conquering all of this in the long term, but bringing it up's the furthest thing from advisable.
"Fine. You mentioned a number of other hazards. Creatures like this dragon? Are they related to these Astral Rifts? Any strategic or tactical information we should be aware of?"
"Y-yes. How to explain this..." She mused, tapping her lip with a gloved finger. "So, your home world, you said you weren't interstellar. Were you bound by the speed of light?"
Letrizia seems slightly nonplussed by how readily he's taking this in, but Hunger has Seen Some Shit. In MfD terminology, he's sitting on a mountain of TYS points. It'll take more than a mere interstellar civilization to faze him!
"We knew about it. We didn't have ships nearly that fast."
I'm surprised Hunger remembers. But if commitment to the sciences was high enough on his priority list to be included in the post-sacrifice reforms, maybe he prioritized its retention alongside epic fights and the names of his comrades? Also, it occurs to me that Hunger has
literally forgotten the face of his father.
"Neither do we, really. Long-distance travel is mostly conducted with Astral technology, either supplementing our movements or tunneling directly into the Astral Realm. Doing this destabilizes the gradient between realities, sometimes creating rifts through which Astral denizens sometimes attack us. They're especially attracted to Armaments, which can forcibly re-stabilize that gradient in a large radius. Mine is so weakened that its beacon isn't strong, so we shouldn't have to deal with anything too serious, but the Voyager Realm also has a natural rate of rift incidence. That's where you guys came from."
Her confidence waxes while delivering exposition, which is a nice touch. If Astral creatures are attracted to Armaments, that could explain what happened to the Foremost. 'Presumed dead, eaten by daemons' is a depressingly likely hypothesis. The gradient stabilization function makes me think of Necrons cutting the material universe off from the Warp. An epoch of expansion and Astral travel, before everything changed when the daemons attacked, leading to the creation of Armaments, weapons which didn't suffice to save the Foremost but armed humanity against the monsters? Likely off-base, but there's ample fuel for speculation here.
She hesitated, then continued to speak. "Any Astral denizens that appear from those in our vicinity are going to attack my Armament. The... dragon you fought was one. Additionally, there are some unusual creatures and societies in this Realm that are hostile to humans. Most of the creatures we encounter shouldn't be too terribly stronger than the dragon you killed. So, it'd really be safest if we traveled together! Especially if we could restore my Armament, even a little bit."
The ellipsis before 'dragon' makes me wonder if Letrizia's concealing something about it. Former Armament that slipped its shackles? I wonder if Force Unto's lifesteal regeneration would've applied to Verschlengorge if we were piloting it mid-proc. That's always the way of it, the
road build not taken's appeal lingering long after the fact.
"So. We're trapped in a pocket universe that's immeasurably vast, within which space shifts so that locations don't correspond to each other. It's partially inhabited by monsters, and Astral Rifts occasionally deposit more monsters, which will automatically attack if you're in the vicinity."
Potentially exploitable, and explains some of the dragon's behavior in hindsight. With a tank that's constantly drawing aggro, we can flank and cut down attacking creatures.
She nodded. "That's right."
"So how can your 'Armament' navigate this place?"
She swallowed. "G-good question! Most Armaments are Foremost technology, mine included. There's an inbuilt navigational system for Foremost realms. I estimate it'll take us about t-two months to reach the city's staging grounds, give or take two weeks."
Assuming we're not waylaid by the Apocryphal Curse or the desire to chase sidequests. And what's waiting for us may be closer to a boss fight than a payday. At least the Forebear's Blade's broken appearance makes attempts at confiscation less likely? I'd refuse to give it up even without the Doom of the Tyrant, though, Hunger
just got his armor stolen. It's about as courteous as asking him to surrender a limb, and he can't afford to lose another of those!
As far as he could tell, she was mostly sincere, though her time estimate was likely more certain than she felt. And if she wasn't lying, it would be difficult to escape this Realm alone.
We could likely just grind Accretion until the place bent to our whims. 'The Voyager's Realm' would be an interesting locale to focus on, but it's not what we're charged with conquering. Better to go with her, though polishing off lingering hyena-beasts if they survived the dragon's death would be productive. What kind of madmen settle here, anyway? The city hasn't gotten much focus. Are they colonists, the descendants of outsiders stranded by Rifts? At a glance their quality of life's better than the peasantry of Hunger's last world, but that's damning them with faint praise and kaiju attacks are a hell of a tradeoff.
He glanced over at Gisena.
"Oh? Do I get a say in this, milord?"
"No. I'm just looking at you for no reason."
"I do have that effect on people. And I'd love to go. So much technology to explore, it'll be exciting!"
If I think of her as a bargain bin Nilul, Gisena's not so bad. The budding dynamic between her and Hunger is fun and'll likely remain so if we don't poison it with shipping. Spaceships over relationships, that's the way.
He turned to the pilot. "Then we're in."
"Great!" She curtseyed neatly before them. "Duchess Letrizia von Artriez, pilot of the Devouring Armament, Verschlengorge. We'll be in your care."
People being courteous to us: a nice change from Seram's experience. The use of 'we' is telling, Letrizia's referring to Verschlengorge as a person. The prefix seems to mean something like 'covered', which fits with the armor plating. A veneer of human technology layered atop something primal and hungry.
Gisena elegantly returned the curtsey with one of her own. "Pleased to meet you, Zea! We're going to be best friends. Now tell me... what's a 'planet?' By what principle are they organized into 'star systems?' And what's that to do with the speed of light?"
Aha, I knew there was something funky up with the Manifest Realm's cosmology, it's not actually a planet! Man, remember when Seram tried to affect 'the ground' with Amplitude? Those were the days.
"M-Miss Gisena, one at a time, please!"
Poor Letrizia, the stutter's just blood in the metaphorical water. At least she'll give Gisena somebody else to mess with? Your sacrifice will not go unhonored, Duchess.
2110 words.
