- Location
- Earth
okay I'm convinced, switching vote (for now, maybe?)
[X] Spill
[X] Substantially
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
okay I'm convinced, switching vote (for now, maybe?)
[X] Spill
[X] Substantially
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
Well we did get to nearly 6 arete before the update so really we only have to get 2 more to get a 7 point buy and Fisher King.
- Location
- USA
How bad would a 19 Arete debt be? I think convincing people to go for Dead not Dreaming might be doable! Is it compound interest or....
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I think we would just drop dead.
Rihaku
The Internet
More than 1 Arete debt = instant death.
But you can't take it on without my permission anyway! So no need to worry.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
Probably just by traveling to other worlds and stealing their moves. Seram basically did that when he turned into a sorcerer lord.
Worse than Sword, eh? That is pretty bad. I wonder if we'd have survived with the rolls we've had so far applied to that timeline's challenges, assuming conservative decisions were made.
It's like a train wreck, but I can't look away. Is this really the future we chose? Indexed under 'the Allrian Affliction' unless you have a different name for it.
Does that road end with us preparing and consuming GOD? Just like one of my Japanese
- Location
- USA
Sorcerer Lord was a straight trade in though right? And if I remember our Remittance was actually much higher potential, it was just unfortunately sealed at the time.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I feel that a focused look at Dead but Dreaming will invariably result in disappointment as multiple 25 Arete options appear just as we are on the cusp of selecting it.
Plus, Undying Echo was hinted as being a pre-req to higher Arete options. That's before considering the option of Conclusion.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
I'm for that if we can manage it. Though I would really rather have 8. Arete debt is sounding painful.
[X] Spill
[X] Substantially
[X] Substantially
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
It is immortality in a can. Not surprising people are after it even if it is way outside of our current price range.
Working even in his sleep? The only one being better suited is Odyssial, but I'm not sure he knows what sleep is.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
It's part of the human condition.. one of the fraipties of mortality that he has surpassed with peerless skill.
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I think there's a lot of us who want a way to advance not tied to being Conan the Excaliburian.
I don't know that we are, necessarily? I just think it's a great aesthetic; Dread but Dreaming got a lot of traction despite it being a vote to give the protagonist PTSD. This gives us better returns on To Shatter Heaven, lets us further our goals and thus probably engage in 'conflict' while asleep and/or dead, coming back from the dead would be a nice narrative arc and alleviate some of the 'we are constantly one bad roll/decision away from game over' feeling, Outer Sorcery is a mystery box and those are like catnip to questers... There are plenty of reasons to choose from.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I think that was in large part to explore the Praxis. Without attaching it to Progression on the Geas which was suicide.
True, no Praxis access is the second most painful thing in the quest so far, falling just short of Hunger's backstory.
Hm... Dead but Dreaming 'twisting reality toward one's purposes' sounds like indirect Apocryphal mitigation, a problem that so far we've only been able to throw Rank and Gisena at. And speaking of sleep, does Slumber of Aeons mean our growth outpaces Verschlengorge's version of Decimator? Rune's right: you awake, you a fake.
DarkSideBard
Flying, without moving on
Omake: You (Isekai) Get What You (Isekai) Pay For (~1275 Words)
The wind was blowing. The sun was shining. The trees and bushes and ferns and flowers and leaves and grass were rustling. On an otherwise unremarkable day (for the Voyaging Realm), in an otherwise unremarkable place (in the Voyaging Realm), something that vaguely qualifies as remarkable (for the Voyaging Realm) was about to happen.
Underneath a squat fir, laid out at the clashing edge of a pine forest and long stretch of plains, space began to warp. A dark violet pallor grew and swept across the ground, bending the dappling light of the midday sun all around itself and scattering the tree-shadow as though it was reflected through a glass trinket. Slowly, slowly, the color intensified and bent in on itself, revealing the tip of a finger. A left hand seemed to materialize, covered in dried blood and bearing a ring that gleamed with a Vespertine light. Reaching out to grab the sparse grass, it grew backwards into an arm, a shoulder, a head-!
"Ughhhhhh."
The skinny figure dragged itself, one handed, out of the fractured space, leaving a slight ruddy smear across the grass as flakes of half-dried blood broke from their crusted clothing. Once their battered form was clear, they lay still, the violet power being sucked down into the shadow of their body. A weary pair of eyes flickered, scanning the area. One moment, two… and their neck relaxed, depositing their head onto the ground with a lightly audible thump. A soft huff of breath scattered dirt.
"Why do they always whip out a third form? It's ugly as sin and never helps. Shit, I think I cracked a rib."
Detecting a hint of agreement in the air, they rolled the angle of their neck to be able to look across, to the side, spying the sparkle of copper resting on one finger. Its brightness told them all they needed to know.
"...motherfucker. Another? How much more Isekai nonsense am I going to have to live through to get control?!"
The ring continued to gleam in the sunlight, but somehow more smugly than before. They rolled over, groaning, onto their back, and began to get off the ground, wincing and mumbling angrily under their breath all the while.
"-with Demon Lord, Fantasy Kingdom with High Schoolers, Fantasy Kingdom Time Loop, Fantasy Kingdom Structural Racism, Fantasy Kingdom Economic Planner, Fantasy Kingdom Otome Youth Academy, Personal Growth Dimension Fantasy Kingdom, Fantasy Kingdom Time Loop AGAIN, Fantasy Kingdom Video Game, Fantasy Kingdom with Evil God....I'm beginning to suspect that you have a preference."
As they went to crack their back, the ring's smugness seemed to only increase. However, a hidden light of glee shone through their eyes in response.
"In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think that it was a fetish."
The ring's smugness abruptly vanished, to be replaced with a low, smoldering discontentment. The figure's mouth twisted into a smirk.
"Yeah, well fuck you too. If I'm stuck with you on me, you're stuck ON me. Ha!"
They stood there, staring at the ring. Gradually, the leer faded into a neutral mask.
"I'm talking out loud to a piece of jewelry. This is my life forever now, isn't it?"
A moment passed. Wind stirred and swirled the stalks of plains grass in a slow tempo.
"Eh. Well, can't just wait here. Wish I could just cross the open land, but..."
They glanced down again at their hand.
"East it is, I guess. Forest should probably be fine; there's more cover, anyways. And hey, something interesting will happen eventually. Hopefully something that gets me a bath."
They glared at the ring.
"Preferably without the harem tropes, thanks."
The ring, despite the harshness of their words, gleefully released a touch of amusement.
Before the person and the inanimate object they were wearing could really get into it, a loud thunderclap sounded out from far into the plains, drawing their attention. A towering pillar of black mist became visible over the horizon, expanding upwards with every breath. A low grumbling roar reached them moments later, startling a flock of birds out of the trees and into the air about a half mile away. The figure rapidly turned and started walking.
Away. Into the forest.
"Yep, fuck that."
----------
The going was about as well as one could hope, given that they were struggling through an untamed mishmash of plant life. However, forests tend to be mostly alike, and there's only so many cross-country journeys one can take with elves before one picks up a hint of woodcraft. Or a better way of doing things.
A thin line of utterly withered vegetation stretched from the edge of the forest to the base of a hill, tracking up across it sideways and then over the top and down, through a valley and up another, and down and up, and sideways and straightways, and down and a little up again, finding its end barely short of the rise. The figure dutifully dragged themselves up yet another hill, a thin gaseous wave of ruddy power sweeping over the underbrush in front of them and setting it to wilt.
"It's already late afternoon, and I've not really gotten anywhere. If something doesn't happen soon I'm going to have to sleep alone on the ground, which-"
Suddenly they spun to face behind them, catching the sight of a group of squat, bipedal lizards, and a moment later the sound of bowstrings snapping. They motioned, and a wave of wine-dark light spread from their hand, catching the arrows in place and dropping them to the ground. A wrist flick shot thin lines of burgundy through the air, which coiled like rope around the offenders' necks, stilling them and forcing them to fall down where they were.
"Kobolds, huh? Fell for the oldest trick in the book, following the clear-cut. Do any of you speak English?"
No sound greeted them.
"Right, breathing."
The bands of noose-light loosened a bit, and the air filled with wheezing and hissing. A few seconds passed, but the sounds didn't resolve any further into coherency.
"That's a no, then."
The sound abruptly cut off, leaving the forest mostly quiet once more. The ring hummed appreciatively.
"Guess I'll have to backtrack a bit and see where you broke through."
They turned and began bounding downhill, catching the bottom of each jumping stride with a flare of red. After a minute along the path, a trodden patch of grass caught their eye off to the left, nearby a thin brook which looked to circle around the hill. Red mist fountained out in front of them and rapidly shriveled a circular swath of the underbrush, checking for any sentries. Nothing.
They silently picked their way through the vegetation alongside the water, soft pulses of rusty light catching their feet just above the ground. As they progressed, the stream's soft burbling was overshadowed by a mixture of splashing, swishing, and chattering, a small lake in the shadow of the hillside beginning to reflect light through the trees.
They reached a large pine a slight ways in from the shore, hiding the majority of their body behind it. Peeking out, their gaze tracked to the water, to the side, to the series of small dens and nattering bunches of kobolds, and further, to the rock hillside riddled with small holes, and further, before suddenly freezing. On the far end of the lake, little glimmers of white metal shone through algae gaps in the water, and following the curve of the piece into the depths, one could see a larger shape start to emerge, an ovular boulder festooned with strange pieces of jutting metal….
"...is...is that...a fucking Megazord?"
----------
Poor dude. His first summoning was a typical "kill the demon lord" shtick, but he got desperate for a way home afterwards, and ended up looking for and beating a Hidden Boss. The prize was a limited wish, so he (very cleverly) wished for something that he could use to travel dimensionally instead of just wishing to go home. Dumb bastard; there's no escaping this genre. It's Isekai forever now. (Or maybe…?)
Anyways, there have got to be an enormous number of these idiots wandering around an entertainment-rich volume of easy-access adventuring space. And most of them never, ever leave! Best bet is to stumble into some Armament goodness, but that presumably brings its own problems. Maybe I diluted the punchline a little bit too much...
Finally, she gives voice to what we were all thinking. And hitting NGE with the punny epithet of being literally "big-brained", huh? Can't say I disagree on that one.
[X] Keep Your Own Counsel
[X] None
*Chanting* Arete! Arete! Arete!
I see no need for fishing. And we can always loop Izzy in on our shared Affliction with her Armament later, if it becomes more appropriate. It's not like we need our social link with her for anything important, like actually getting out of this enormous adventure realm towards the star systems we need to conquer....
Arete! Arete! Arete!
The wind was blowing. The sun was shining. The trees and bushes and ferns and flowers and leaves and grass were rustling. On an otherwise unremarkable day (for the Voyaging Realm), in an otherwise unremarkable place (in the Voyaging Realm), something that vaguely qualifies as remarkable (for the Voyaging Realm) was about to happen.
Underneath a squat fir, laid out at the clashing edge of a pine forest and long stretch of plains, space began to warp. A dark violet pallor grew and swept across the ground, bending the dappling light of the midday sun all around itself and scattering the tree-shadow as though it was reflected through a glass trinket. Slowly, slowly, the color intensified and bent in on itself, revealing the tip of a finger. A left hand seemed to materialize, covered in dried blood and bearing a ring that gleamed with a Vespertine light. Reaching out to grab the sparse grass, it grew backwards into an arm, a shoulder, a head-!
"Ughhhhhh."
The skinny figure dragged itself, one handed, out of the fractured space, leaving a slight ruddy smear across the grass as flakes of half-dried blood broke from their crusted clothing. Once their battered form was clear, they lay still, the violet power being sucked down into the shadow of their body. A weary pair of eyes flickered, scanning the area. One moment, two… and their neck relaxed, depositing their head onto the ground with a lightly audible thump. A soft huff of breath scattered dirt.
"Why do they always whip out a third form? It's ugly as sin and never helps. Shit, I think I cracked a rib."
Detecting a hint of agreement in the air, they rolled the angle of their neck to be able to look across, to the side, spying the sparkle of copper resting on one finger. Its brightness told them all they needed to know.
"...motherfucker. Another? How much more Isekai nonsense am I going to have to live through to get control?!"
The ring continued to gleam in the sunlight, but somehow more smugly than before. They rolled over, groaning, onto their back, and began to get off the ground, wincing and mumbling angrily under their breath all the while.
"-with Demon Lord, Fantasy Kingdom with High Schoolers, Fantasy Kingdom Time Loop, Fantasy Kingdom Structural Racism, Fantasy Kingdom Economic Planner, Fantasy Kingdom Otome Youth Academy, Personal Growth Dimension Fantasy Kingdom, Fantasy Kingdom Time Loop AGAIN, Fantasy Kingdom Video Game, Fantasy Kingdom with Evil God....I'm beginning to suspect that you have a preference."
As they went to crack their back, the ring's smugness seemed to only increase. However, a hidden light of glee shone through their eyes in response.
"In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think that it was a fetish."
The ring's smugness abruptly vanished, to be replaced with a low, smoldering discontentment. The figure's mouth twisted into a smirk.
"Yeah, well fuck you too. If I'm stuck with you on me, you're stuck ON me. Ha!"
They stood there, staring at the ring. Gradually, the leer faded into a neutral mask.
"I'm talking out loud to a piece of jewelry. This is my life forever now, isn't it?"
A moment passed. Wind stirred and swirled the stalks of plains grass in a slow tempo.
"Eh. Well, can't just wait here. Wish I could just cross the open land, but..."
They glanced down again at their hand.
"East it is, I guess. Forest should probably be fine; there's more cover, anyways. And hey, something interesting will happen eventually. Hopefully something that gets me a bath."
They glared at the ring.
"Preferably without the harem tropes, thanks."
The ring, despite the harshness of their words, gleefully released a touch of amusement.
Before the person and the inanimate object they were wearing could really get into it, a loud thunderclap sounded out from far into the plains, drawing their attention. A towering pillar of black mist became visible over the horizon, expanding upwards with every breath. A low grumbling roar reached them moments later, startling a flock of birds out of the trees and into the air about a half mile away. The figure rapidly turned and started walking.
Away. Into the forest.
"Yep, fuck that."
----------
The going was about as well as one could hope, given that they were struggling through an untamed mishmash of plant life. However, forests tend to be mostly alike, and there's only so many cross-country journeys one can take with elves before one picks up a hint of woodcraft. Or a better way of doing things.
A thin line of utterly withered vegetation stretched from the edge of the forest to the base of a hill, tracking up across it sideways and then over the top and down, through a valley and up another, and down and up, and sideways and straightways, and down and a little up again, finding its end barely short of the rise. The figure dutifully dragged themselves up yet another hill, a thin gaseous wave of ruddy power sweeping over the underbrush in front of them and setting it to wilt.
"It's already late afternoon, and I've not really gotten anywhere. If something doesn't happen soon I'm going to have to sleep alone on the ground, which-"
Suddenly they spun to face behind them, catching the sight of a group of squat, bipedal lizards, and a moment later the sound of bowstrings snapping. They motioned, and a wave of wine-dark light spread from their hand, catching the arrows in place and dropping them to the ground. A wrist flick shot thin lines of burgundy through the air, which coiled like rope around the offenders' necks, stilling them and forcing them to fall down where they were.
"Kobolds, huh? Fell for the oldest trick in the book, following the clear-cut. Do any of you speak English?"
No sound greeted them.
"Right, breathing."
The bands of noose-light loosened a bit, and the air filled with wheezing and hissing. A few seconds passed, but the sounds didn't resolve any further into coherency.
"That's a no, then."
The sound abruptly cut off, leaving the forest mostly quiet once more. The ring hummed appreciatively.
"Guess I'll have to backtrack a bit and see where you broke through."
They turned and began bounding downhill, catching the bottom of each jumping stride with a flare of red. After a minute along the path, a trodden patch of grass caught their eye off to the left, nearby a thin brook which looked to circle around the hill. Red mist fountained out in front of them and rapidly shriveled a circular swath of the underbrush, checking for any sentries. Nothing.
They silently picked their way through the vegetation alongside the water, soft pulses of rusty light catching their feet just above the ground. As they progressed, the stream's soft burbling was overshadowed by a mixture of splashing, swishing, and chattering, a small lake in the shadow of the hillside beginning to reflect light through the trees.
They reached a large pine a slight ways in from the shore, hiding the majority of their body behind it. Peeking out, their gaze tracked to the water, to the side, to the series of small dens and nattering bunches of kobolds, and further, to the rock hillside riddled with small holes, and further, before suddenly freezing. On the far end of the lake, little glimmers of white metal shone through algae gaps in the water, and following the curve of the piece into the depths, one could see a larger shape start to emerge, an ovular boulder festooned with strange pieces of jutting metal….
"...is...is that...a fucking Megazord?"
----------
Poor dude. His first summoning was a typical "kill the demon lord" shtick, but he got desperate for a way home afterwards, and ended up looking for and beating a Hidden Boss. The prize was a limited wish, so he (very cleverly) wished for something that he could use to travel dimensionally instead of just wishing to go home. Dumb bastard; there's no escaping this genre. It's Isekai forever now. (Or maybe…?)
Anyways, there have got to be an enormous number of these idiots wandering around an entertainment-rich volume of easy-access adventuring space. And most of them never, ever leave! Best bet is to stumble into some Armament goodness, but that presumably brings its own problems. Maybe I diluted the punchline a little bit too much...
Finally, she gives voice to what we were all thinking. And hitting NGE with the punny epithet of being literally "big-brained", huh? Can't say I disagree on that one.
[X] Keep Your Own Counsel
[X] None
*Chanting* Arete! Arete! Arete!
I see no need for fishing. And we can always loop Izzy in on our shared Affliction with her Armament later, if it becomes more appropriate. It's not like we need our social link with her for anything important, like actually getting out of this enormous adventure realm towards the star systems we need to conquer....
Arete! Arete! Arete!
Rihaku
The Internet
You guys could always take safer options! Like taking the win when he offered parley or not spilling and not angling for a Legendary Fish!
- Location
- USA
Is Spill that dangerous? Who is she gonna tell? Even her mom ignores her in favor of a doll!