Alas, the lure of SAVEGANG was too much for me in the end. We get >2 Arete of value, while putting 5 Arete in the bank for an EFB! We even out the glaring lopsidedness of our build. We buff all future magic options!
Ultimately, I was planning on getting Pearlescence anyway, even with the Uttermost downgrade - +Protection that scales with our power is an enormous boost to survivability, and a huge amount of effective extra XP. This doubles the effectiveness of that option, and a whole bunch of others besides!
All that, and it gives us telekinetic control over our cloak on a potentially interplanetary scale? Remember, this option effectively only costs 2 Arete! Sure, it's weaker in the immediate term than the other options, but that's only to be expected with the massive disparity in costs!
We're not getting nothing, but we're getting appreciatively less at the moment when we're trying to prepare for difficult and even deadly fights. The stats difference had been illustrated, and while Inksky has other advantages, they require further investments, which would generate no less power if put elsewhere. Its main advantage only reveals itself far in the future, long after the Temple debacle is over.
We will always, always be trying to prepare for difficult and even deadly fights; the very nature of Hunger (and Decimation and the Apocryphal Curse) is that we will never be able to just sit back, chillax, and mediate on a mountaintop for ten years to enhance our powers.
Inksky generates major synergies for one of our three major artifacts- it makes upgrades to that artifact more attractive both in the short and long run. It means we're better positioned to benefit from surprise synergy options (like the "give Gisena an Evening Sky dress" option we passed up). And it ensures that the Evening Sky will be able to benefit from Accretion and "unlocks a number of highly efficient advancements."
As in, advancements that confer power, of the kind that we need. There are going to be short-term as well as long-term opportunities to accrue more power from using this.
The investment in Pillars is over and above all of this.
...
If your argument is "we won't buy Pillars until we get Ruling Ring," and you were planning to do nothing but save up for Ruling Ring, then right there that invalidates arguments of the form "we need to maximize our power in the short term," because saving up Arete for multiple fights' worth of updates is not maximizing short-term power.
It's still "accept maybe less short term power for hopefully more long term power," just on a slightly different time scale.
Since Quicksilver is getting absolutely burried, I am switching to
[X] The Kaguya
[X] Edeldross
[X] 7 Arete Version
Edeldross at least comes with its own stat boosts, though less focused. It is a million times better than discounting an EFB that's like 30 arete away from becoming relevant. Immediate power and long-term potential in one choice, with additional relationship boosts, it's definitely an option I can live with.
Recap: As a side-effect of defining our build by a literal 100 Arete total long-term goal, we now have no idea what to do in the short or medium term except not die.
I vote not worrying about super long-term goals and focusing on doing well. It pays off, unsurprisingly!
Edeldross at least comes with its own stat boosts, though less focused. It is a million times better than discounting an EFB that's like 30 arete away from becoming relevant. Immediate power and long-term potential in one choice, with additional relationship boosts, it's definitely an option I can live with.
Inksky offers us some immediate power and lets us rapidly buy more- as in, it makes future upgrades more effective to the point where they may well become twice as impactful (or more!) as they would otherwise be.
...
Also, being locked into a "glass cannon" build for another 40 Arete or so may well be untenable. We may encounter an enemy that kills us with area effect attacks or esoteric effects before we can lock on and make good use of Cut Through.
Maybe we are already badly overdue for some defensive upgrades, and singleminded pursuit of EFBs is putting us in more danger than we realize.
It's an investment rather than a purchase, but then most good options for growing our abilities will be, in the long run.
From my read, Inksky has a major lead over Eledross in omake terms, something like 100~200% times power, so it should be pretty safe even with major defections.
Talk about strategic omake firepower voting efficacy for Schools.
It doubles Charisma and Protection from Evening Sky. We have a pitiful amount of those. We are spending 7 Arete here, getting a +~2 to two stats is technically power but on such a miniscule scale it doesn't really deserve the name.
What's more, Rihaku has explicitly said that most of its power is in giving Pillars a 5 Arete discount. That's not debatable. If we discount making Pillars cheaper it is explicitly the least amount of bang for our buck, so claiming it offers immediate power comparable with the other options is simply incorrect.
And finally, we have access to the Imperial Sword Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, if you recall, excels at inflicting and preventing harm. Channeling it through swordplay lets us do all the things swordplay can be applied to, which includes preventing harm to yourself. In other words, if you are worried about our defensive options, we have access to the defensive properties of the most powerful magic system in existence.
And finally, we have access to the Imperial Sword Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, if you recall, excels at inflicting and preventing harm. Channeling it through swordplay lets us do all the things swordplay can be applied to, which includes preventing harm to yourself. In other words, if you are worried about our defensive options, we have access to the defensive properties of the most powerful magic system in existence.
Not having The King Stands Alone saddens me for this reason. "Can cut mental and spiritual attacks" and "Cap Rank disadvantage at Overwhelming" are both insanely good defensive upgrades that actually did have synergy with our otherwise pure-offense build.
And finally, we have access to the Imperial Sword Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, if you recall, excels at inflicting and preventing harm. Channeling it through swordplay lets us do all the things swordplay can be applied to, which includes preventing harm to yourself. In other words, if you are worried about our defensive options, we have access to the defensive properties of the most powerful magic system in existence.
We have unlocked the Royal Praxis alternative. Thing is, that EFB is potential based and we need to train and unlock these techniques(King Stands Alone is such technique).
Also the power of Inksky is that we can fix our protection and charisma malus. We want high charisma to somewhat mitigate Doom of Tyrant(we cannot mitigate it).
We will always, always be trying to prepare for difficult and even deadly fights; the very nature of Hunger (and Decimation and the Apocryphal Curse) is that we will never be able to just sit back, chillax, and mediate on a mountaintop for ten years to enhance our powers.
Inksky generates major synergies for one of our three major artifacts- it makes upgrades to that artifact more attractive both in the short and long run. It means we're better positioned to benefit from surprise synergy options (like the "give Gisena an Evening Sky dress" option we passed up). And it ensures that the Evening Sky will be able to benefit from Accretion and "unlocks a number of highly efficient advancements."
As in, advancements that confer power, of the kind that we need. There are going to be short-term as well as long-term opportunities to accrue more power from using this.
The investment in Pillars is over and above all of this.
...
If your argument is "we won't buy Pillars until we get Ruling Ring," and you were planning to do nothing but save up for Ruling Ring, then right there that invalidates arguments of the form "we need to maximize our power in the short term," because saving up Arete for multiple fights' worth of updates is not maximizing short-term power.
It's still "accept maybe less short term power for hopefully more long term power," just on a slightly different time scale.
This argument falls a bit flat when we know we're ahead of the Apocryphal curve. And still getting ahead. It is possible to do that and gain a window of relative safety, apparently. But our problem right now isn't Apocrypha, it's the Temple that we've taken on without an idea of what that entailed.
We've been lucky and somewhat successful so far, but that's not a reason to become complacent and think we can afford to make long-term choices. Not for me at least, given all of the warnings and Hunger's thoughts. Remember how Rihaku said we'll be best served with a pure-power EFB? Cut Through was a step in the right direction, but it's still a Power/Progression mix, so we aren't out of the hot water.
I don't have a plan for the Ruling Ring, nor do I have a plan for Pillars. The only thing I'm sure of is that such plans are best made after we've finished this deadly gauntlet.
It doubles Charisma and Protection from Evening Sky. We have a pitiful amount of those. We are spending 7 Arete here, getting a +~2 to two stats is technically power but on such a miniscule scale it doesn't really deserve the name.
What's more, Rihaku has explicitly said that most of its power is in giving Pillars a 5 Arete discount. That's not debatable.
I'm a bit skeptical of this, simply because he explicitly said in the update, which I almost have to regard as more 'canonical' than the argumentation he's been doing since:
"Unlocks a number of highly efficient advancements."
Now, assuming that wasn't a flat lie, then you really do have to count the benefits of those advancements being 'highly efficient' as part of the advantage of Inksky. It's like, suppose it links to a 2-Arete advancement that is "highly efficient" and produces 50% more benefits than the average for such advancements. That's effectively like getting +1 Arete. If there are 7-Arete "highly efficient" advancements the benefits are even more significant.
...
The only way that "discount to Pillars" is the greatest benefit of Inksky on top of that is if Pillars is really, really transformational... which is possible! Even likely! But if true, it's a significant payoff. It also argues that the EFB we just purchased, Cut Through, is more significant than we may believe, and that our offensive power may have grown more than we believe, buying us more security!
If we discount making Pillars cheaper it is explicitly the least amount of bang for our buck, so claiming it offers immediate power comparable with the other options is simply incorrect.
I'm not saying 'equal' or even 'comparable,' but it offers a LOT of opportunity to invest very soon in significant upgrades, and that's relevant.
And finally, we have access to the Imperial Sword Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, if you recall, excels at inflicting and preventing harm. Channeling it through swordplay lets us do all the things swordplay can be applied to, which includes preventing harm to yourself. In other words, if you are worried about our defensive options, we have access to the defensive properties of the most powerful magic system in existence.
I'm worried about our defensive capabilities, but not only our defensive capabilities, and I'm not sure we will be able to use the Imperial Sword Praxis as a substitute for all other defensive capabilities in the short to medium term.
Furthermore, the Evening Sky does things, or can do things, that it's hard to imagine the Sword Praxis ever doing, things like literally cloaking Lord Hunger in majesty and supernatural charisma, things like enhancing his intellect so that he is more capable of seeing ways to use his abilities to solve his problems, and even things like keeping up in banter with our banter-riffic party members!
I am sure that all votes will do just fine in the medium-to-long term! I want Evening Sky to be good, for the reason that I feel like it would be cool (plus some ancilliary mechanical benefits), and match my preferred aesthetic for the quest! I find Edeldross to be interesting, I find Inksky to be more interesting. I believe that we're at a sufficient point in the quest where I don't have to fight for my life by buying STATS every build, and thus I defer to my subjective enjoyment of the quest. While in terms of convincing others, this argument is supremely terrible, this is the truest expression of how I feel about this vote! Give me the gigantic cloak made of the sky. Give me a fist made of stars! I want to punch the horizon with the horizon.
That is all!
edit: additional musings, it turns out that was not all-- if we spent the 7 Arete on King Stands Alone, and we never received the phrasing of a 2 Arete option being worse, I think I would be content with this vote, for some reason.
*shrug*
That's fine. The arguments have been laid out, interpreting them is up to everyone. Besides, we've made choices for the sake of aesthetic more than once. If you like some option's visual appeal more than another's that much, then that's that.
A treat for you folks who have been deprived of Fish Simulator content. Been working on the idea for this one bit by bit for a while, figured I would save the effort of finishing it off for the burst of motivation I get from a vote that I care a lot about.
The two main sticking points were structure (which got pretty convoluted, I'll admit) and Gisena dialogue. I am not clever enough for this, Rihaku. Banter is too hard.
Yet another one in the DSB omake cinematic universe, where I reuse locations because it's easier. See if you can catch my sneaky fish-relevant references
On this one I tried for a bit more Elder Scrolls in-game book vibe. Think something like The Black Arrow, or Breathing Water.
I think that this idea easily has a bunch of better executions. I still suck at fiction, especially characters and dialogue, and staying up so long to finish this has not helped. But oh well. Arete for the Arete gods, participation for the participation throne.
----
Excerpt from Niklas Brent's Travels; A Collection of Folklore
----
Foreword:
One day, while walking through the distant foreign port of Omer-Tsum, I was surprised to encounter one of my countrymen in a seaside bar. I approached him and introduced myself as an amateur anthropologist from Stone. He was delighted to make of me a friendly acquaintance, and we quickly decamped to a booth. Drinking late into the night, we spoke to each other in our original tongue, relating our adventures and victories and generally celebrating in the way one does when a touch of the familiar appears in a very unfamiliar place. It is strange how one can feel so different from another countryman simply due to the territory of their birth, but how close both can become once far removed from the country itself.
At one point in the night, I brought up my project, and asked if he had anything he would be willing to contribute, being almost as well traveled as I. Much of the contents of this book were only made possible through investigation of his subsequent recollections. This specific tale, however, is from the home country, and captured my interest just as much.
The apocryphal figure of Lord Hunger is hard to come to terms with. If we accept the theory that folklore exists to teach an important lesson or pass on cultural knowledge, then we are inundated by questions about his role. Is he a hero? A wise man? An outsider? Was he real, "Hunger" being merely a suitable alias, or mythic, "Hunger" being his mantle? Surely his deeds here are exaggerated; the kingdom has no history of such a person otherwise, and his appearance is fairly distinctive. His foe likewise, by description an Astral Beast of some puissance. Though...the edge of Whitemark is far removed from the capital, a frontier area, and many of it's official records were destroyed in the failed series of succession wars that it waged on the Kingdom in Stone, now 30 years past.
Perhaps Lord Hunger was a real person, his presence in the tale merely the passing across history of another great hero, now mostly unremembered. I must admit that I myself am not sure, and so will leave further speculation as an exercise for the reader.
I have done my best to preserve the cadence of my friend's voice and the ordering of his words. I hope you enjoy this tale as much I did, all those years ago, sitting with a new friend in a foreign pub at midnight, listening to the tide come in.
----
When I was a lad, still living in that small fishing village in Whitemark, there was a certain story I heard that, when I think back on it, caused all of the adventures on the high seas of mine that would follow. Before I can tell you that story, though, I'll have to tell you my story.
My father was a dockworker. Every night he came home stinking of brine and dead meat and alcohol. He would pull up a stool and sit by my bed, telling me of what he had seen at the pier that day. Most of it was talk about ships, nobility, foreign imports we couldn't afford, and strange and colorful sailors. But the part that would always capture my attention was the fish.
Not the everyday torsk or hyse, but special fish. Shining things caught just off the coast, near the Glow-reef, bursting with flavor and wonder. A normal fisherman from the village would sometimes turn one up, if he was lucky; tales flew around town of a man with a lame foot eating a thin golden fish raw and magically healing, of an old man fighting to catch a giant spearfish for days on end and recovering the vigor of his youth in the process, of an starving beggar catching and frying a fat laks that gave him valuable knowledge of metalworking.
Many of these were old fables in the area. Not that they were false, but catching one of these fish was like finding a florin on the street. Still, my father would pass them along to me with glee, peppering them in amongst more ordinary stories. I think that, underneath it all, he did it to excite me for the world, to save me from the shadow that had cast itself over our lives with the loss of my mother. But he always said that he did it because of the Rainbow Festival.
Once each spring, a day would come where all the fish that built up in the Glow-reef would burst out. Slowly, slowly, as winter began to creep into early spring, the Glow-reef would begin to...well, begin to glow. Little bits of rainbow light, floating up to the waves and staining the seafoam. As the days got closer and closer to mid-spring, the glow would intensify, until it was a shining beacon that lit the beach even under a cloudy moonless night. Then it would happen.
A wriggling chaotic mass of fish would rise into the shallow waters near the village and begin swimming out to sea. Fishermen would sail out and catch as many as possible before the school fled into the dangerous waters outside, where a bunch of great sea beasts would be waiting for them. In fact, the village elders always said that the first settlers here chose this spot because they arrived in the midst of a rainbow swarm.
The festival was usually the result of catching a huge quantity of high quality fish and not being able to preserve all of it. We would have a large amount of fresh food, and large stores of communal spare food, allowing us to be much safer and richer than a typical town of our size. Perfect for a holiday, and like any holiday, it ended up having a number of smaller traditions attached to it.
The most exciting of which was when the fisherman would come back and measure their catches against one another. The fishing competition. And there was one story about the fishing competition that every single villager knew.
In the week before the festival, my father would always tell the same story: Hunger and the Tyrant. Here is what I remember:
----
One year, as the flowers began to bloom, a man and two women came to town.
He stood like a tall ash palm, scarred and grey. A cloak like the night sky enshrouded him, a ring of lordship burning brightly on his hand. Worse, a fearsome blade of utmost blue lay across his back. His sword arm was steady. His lone eye was clear. His presence was the surety of violence, just like the tide.
The elders feared the worst.
So they sent the alderman to fetch the carpenter, the strongest and craftiest man in the town. He came before the elders and they begged him to intercede. He would gauge the threat this new arrival posed. They could hardly do otherwise, so close to the Festival.
So the carpenter went to meet with them, finding them sitting on the beach and admiring the ocean. The younger woman ran in and out with the waves, giggling, her red hair fluttering in the breeze. At his approach, the adult woman turned, piercing green eyes studying him.
"Why, hello," she purred, "What is it that we can do for you?"
"Wanted to know your reason for stopping near the village," he grunted in return. "Bandits been about recently."
"Oh, you don't say." She said, softly smiling in amusement. "We happened to take care of some bandits and pirates just up the coast. A green flag with a white fish; would those be the men?"
The carpenter squinted at her. "About how many?"
She turned her head and placed the tip of her index finger on the crease of her chin. "I'm not sure, it was quite a lot and over very fast." She turned to face the man, still staring out at the brightly glowing reef, "Honey, how many would you say that it was?"
The man spoke without turning around. "More than three hundred, less than five. It was hard to tell from a distance."
The carpenter felt a bead of sweat drip down his neck.
The woman turned back to him, her eyes now blue. "We heard about your fishing festival and decided to participate. Lord Hunger is quite the fan of fishing. I trust that it should not be too hard to grant us a temporary boat in return for solving your little problem?"
He offered them his boat.
-
The next day dawned, and bleary-eyed fishermen and their families gathered at the docks. The newcomers were there as well, the younger girl blinking the sleep from her eyes while the other two lazily scanned the area.
A grizzled and gnarled old sailor made his way to the head of the crowd and began to shout.
"Now lads!" he yelled, voice hoarse. "I trust y' all know the rules."
The blue-eyed woman put her hand on Lord Hunger's arm, as though she was preventing a horse from startling.
"First rule," he said, "No roughhousing! I know it's the festival, but a prank can still sink a boat, and now's not the time to be in the water. Second rule: catch as many fish as you can! You bring 'em, we'll judge 'em. Third rule: don't sail too far out, or the Tyrant will get you. That's a burial at sea for sure."
They all began to disperse to their vessels. Lord Hunger strode up to the sailor, eyes dark.
"What do you mean by "the Tyrant"?" he said, the last few words coming out as a growl.
The old sailor curled his fingers and scratched at his chin. "Well, used to be that we caught the fish until they got too far out...larger sea monsters took the rest. Last fifty years there only been one monster. Guess he killed the rest. Scary fella. We call him the Tyrant of the Sea, or "Black Scale" if you're dramatic."
Lord Hunger waved his arm at the old man, who suddenly flushed head to toe.
"Oh! What's this?"
"Nothing. Just a thanks. For the information." He stalked away grimly.
-
The fleet of boats followed the bubbling waters, trawling huge nets between them and pulling up tremendous catches. Little boats darted around the edges, men with rods trying to pull up individual catches with their personal bait. A flurry of colors filled the water, offset clouds of billowing purples and reds and blues, some like thin sheens of dye and others like colored milk. On the far, far outer edge, the carpenter's little sloop bobbled over the waves.
Lord Hunger sat at the bow, holding his blade and facing the horizon. The young lady confidently held the rudder, her hair fluttering in the seabreeze. The other watched the water with green eyes. None of them were catching fish.
She pointed. "It's out there."
On the horizon, a large black fin broke the water.
She turned to look at him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
He glanced at her. "This is where the other source of Decimation is."
She sighed. "I know."
He raised an eyebrow. "Killing that fish will offer me the power I need against him."
She grimaced. "I know. Hunger, are you sure? From what I can see, that thing is extremely strong."
He sighed. "It's a Tyrant."
She looked away. "I know."
-
From a distance, all one could see was the immense pillar of water, rising into the air. The sound arrived a second later, a cacophonous roar only interrupted by the searing arc of blue that smeared across the wine-dark waves. A second cut followed, a light like the sky was cracked and leaking into the ocean. It outlined a huge shape in the water. Black and wickedly barbed, slavering teeth and hungry tongue, dense sinew, movements that imprinted an Echo of their immense danger even at this distance.
But for all that, the tiny floating scrap of night drew more attention. Another flash of that terrible blue came, rolling out of the purple night like a sudden dawn, and from even deeper the purest glint of a white sword, like the a crescent moon, swung and struck. White to white, bone to bone. A telling blow that blew the sea away in great waves, pushing all the fisherman and the fish onto the shore, rattling the beach stones, and tolling the great cliffs of the nearby coves against each other, a man playing the song of earthquakes.
All was quiet for a moment.
Then, with a discontinuity, a great motion turned and flung the corpse of the Tyrant onto the cleanest patch of beach with a great crack and bang. It arrived so suddenly that it had seemed to shift in size. It's terrible scales, darker than black, went from indiscint to larger than a man's head in a moment. A Tyrant, felled.
From the air, Lord Hunger softly alighted on the water, newly missing arm bound tightly with his cloak, simply walking onto the shore without fanfare. He turned to face the old sailor. The man stood slack-jawed in a long, stretched silence.
"So. Do you think I won?"
In the far distance, his older companion threw back her head and laughed.
----
Hail, Cursebearer! Your fishing tribulation has come to an end in a stunning victory. Your legend shall echo throughout the ages!
Hunger can butcher the great beast, drawing on the ravenous power of his Ring to concentrate its essence into one mouthful to keep for himself. Where in the Ocean Tyrant's body was this piece located?
Choose One:
[ ] The Cheek
Feat:The Color Black- +.4 Astral Rank - After the maw closes, what remains?
Title: Kingfisher:Treat any "Hunting" or "Fishing" action as though Hunger is +.1 Astral Ranks. This title advances with sufficient use.
Revolutionary'sJewel: The fatty sweetness of a slain tyrant's jowl. Grants a copy of Vigor Itself [++Might, +Charisma] and A Hunger, Sated.
[ ] The Heart - 5 Arete
Title: Ocean Lord: That the water parts before your sovereignty is but the right of a conqueror. No longer take any sort of environmental or movement penalties related to water or aqueous solutions. +.1 Rank for water-related uses of Ring of Power.
Wavesplitter: Conjunctional [Hunger, Blade of the Forebear].
The heart of a true predator is vicious purpose. It will sunder even the depths of the ocean in search of prey.
Echo of the Forebear now gives an extra +Might, +Con. Gain two copies of Echo of The Forebear, granting ++++Might, ++Con, ++Agi. Gain +++++++Might, +++++++Con from the improvement of Echos you already had.
[ ] The Eye - 7 Arete
Harvester'sMoon: Conjunctional [Hunger, Evening Sky]. Defining Advancement. You may only have three Defining Advancements.
To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot.…
The Decimator's Affliction now absorbs threefold the life force.
Regrows your missing eye.
Predatory instinct allows the clear and complete perception of living things in the surrounding area regardless of conditions.
Lesser enemies are now easier to gather XP from, so long as they are living things.
All life now instinctively acknowledges Hunger's domination of the food chain: +Cha when intimidating living things, and gain +Cha to this effect each time you gain A Hunger, Sated. A Hunger, Sated can now be achieved by the killing and consumption of a sufficient quantity of lesser targets, so long as they are living things. This completely consumes their essence, preventing the gathering of any XP or items.
Increase the value of all +s by 40%, so long as one is under natural moonlight.
Choose either Beast or Reaper:
-[ ] Beast: Increase by 20% the value of all +Mental Contamination. All +Mental Contamination are now +Mental Contamination (Beast). Whenever you take a +Mental Contamination, also gain ++Str. Increase by 20% the value of all Strength +s.
-[ ] Reaper: increase by 20% the value of all +Mental Contamination. All +Mental Contamination are now +Mental Contamination (Reaper). Whenever you take a +Mental Contamination, also gain +Wits, +Int. Increase by 10% the value of all Wits and Int +s.
What does Hunger decide to do with the remainder of the corpse?
[ ] Keep It - Process the rest of the leviathan. +5 Astral Materials, ++Food, +Letrizia. [ ] Trade It - (Have Gisena) engage in trade with the villagers. +Gisena, +Food, +??. [ ] Give It Away - Magnanimously prepare a feast to feed the whole village, allowing them to massively increase their store of preserves. +A Hunger, Sated, +.1 Rank.
After resolving their business in the village, Hunger and the gang must make decisions about where to go next:
[ ] Further Down the Coast - Continue to follow the coastline, seeing where it takes you. Maps tell you that this will lead to a series of rocky and dangerous bays, followed by a large inhabited river delta.
[ ] Inland - Trace your way inland, towards greater civilization. The village elders advise you that there has been some recent disruption near the largest city of Whitemark Territory, as well as some regular banditry along the forested roads.
[ ] Out to Sea- Book a voyage across the Darkest Ocean on a Stone Ship. The nearest ports are all small island communities, where all those who travel this Ocean naturally find themselves making their first port there. You will be traveling over deep water about a quarter of the time.
[ ] Sideways - 2 Arete - The Voyaging Realm is unstable, but Rank can somewhat clear the water. Hunger senses that there is a "Weak Spot" in the realm's fabric nearby, one that might be interesting to investigate....
Furthermore, the Evening Sky does things, or can do things, that it's hard to imagine the Sword Praxis ever doing, things like literally cloaking Lord Hunger in majesty and supernatural charisma, things like enhancing his intellect so that he is more capable of seeing ways to use his abilities to solve his problems, and even things like keeping up in banter with our banter-riffic party members!
The times this time has implications of solitary confinement. Well, we do know about imprisoned ring and known about it for awhile now. The only thing(s) we don't know is how that bottle got to hunger, purposes of confinement, and what are the ring's powers? We got hits for lunacy, space manipulation, perhaps some moonlight. Later musings hint at something more broadly mental, possibly +int inducing.
"Just what is its purpose?" Hunger murmured, staring at the impossible edifice before them.
We have been wondering for a long time now. We now know about the confined ring, but for what purpose it was hidden here, we have very little idea. There have been theories that it fuels the forges of the inner Temple, there have been words about perhaps repairing or building something
From this vantage point his eye pierced shadow and cloud, perceiving a small encampment in the valley below that seemed half bazaar, half staging grounds.
And we never visited! Seriously, aside from getting food from merchants, we asked them to get on our return, we should once again, consider getting more party members. Perhaps we can get Oracle Magus here. This is a potential update worth of lore and fun character interactions and we have been stubbornly avoiding it. There was even a fishing contest we missed, which memes aside, hints at a somewhat rich local culture and somewhat positive mood amongst populace despite the presence of murderdeathkill temple right nearby.
And an additional update worth of arete generation would be real good, too.
It was perched atop the only path that lead to or from the Temple at this angle, though the map indicated that the Temple's primary entrance was far around to the valley's other side. Though he couldn't make out details, the outpost seemed fairly teeming with adventurers and magi, tamed or summoned monsters touted openly in the streets.
Normally, the peasants are supposed to enter through specially prepared peasant entrance. The ringbearers tho. Feeling very WIP here. I suppose normal peasant adventurers simply couldn't stumble into someone like The Librarian, we probably were wandering through the bits that are less trod by outsiders... But Librarian did mention annoyance about having to put down a lot of adventurers, so maybe not so much.
Still, we did get repeated confirmation that ring turned off traps and magic fields for us, which was frankly invaluable, considering that would've slowed us down and dealt major damage without getting us any picks or arete in exchange. We were and still are fairly close to the bad status death spiral, that could have tipped us over.
...I wonder if the moon temple actually expected another ringbearer to ever come here. Considering how weakened is Mooncall debuff for us, I wouldn't be surprised if this all was set up by yet another Ringbearer trying to contain a rival ring. We know so little about Primacy... Hopefully, we'll get some of that lore in the inner temple. Hopefully, they would actually offer to talk before shooting us.
"Having second thoughts?" Gisena asked teasingly, nudging him in the arm.
"Always," he replied flatly. "But if you have doubts, there's no need to fish for agreement with me. Speak plainly."
"So direct," she gasped. "How could I possibly match you in fishing? In that field I can only curtsy in appreciation of the Lord Hunger, who so expertly sates his namesake condition!"
More banter. Gisena mockery of our fishing habit hurts deeply. To insult Hunger's habit of overdoing things like that... If only we went to that fishing contest! We could have caught some fishie and then used it to secure a rare social victory over her. Alas, we were not cunning enough.
This is the point after we had undergone some tribulations together with her, but not yet the point when she almost died saving our ass. The tone of the banter reflects it slightly, I think.
"Very droll," he scoffed, but smiled slightly. "If you've nothing to add, we'll circle around to the main entrance and attack the problem in the morning. I feel there's great danger in this place, but great potential too... if we can see it through without substantial losses, I'm confident we'll overmatch the blue swordsman when we meet next."
Hungering warming up to Gisena. What else to add? That is pretty nice. Hunger's danger estimations were all just about right, too. He got almost killed multiple times.
...Oh, Ber, ber, ber. How you annoy me. The only reason why we got inside of this temple in the first place, I hope we outscaled you and I hope we are actually going to try to fight us rather than just run away to grind yet again. I do think we are pretty close to outmatching Ber as is, though.
Gisena nodded. "As I'm hopelessly out-Ranked, I'll defer to your supernal judgement!"
With her supernatural attributes I do not think her own rank is anywhere lower 3.5 tbh. Gisena is a third coalescence sorceress, and very significantly superhuman even back then, before she achieved her breakthrough. Her advancement also game her +int, IIRC so we should listen to her suggestions a lot more from now on. We are now the meatheaded dumb muscle in this party.
"Actually," Letrizia chimed in, eager to contribute on matters related to her hobby, "While Miss Gisena may not be able to use her Rank proactively, as a magically potent being it's likely she still has one! A sort of 'defensive Rank' that protects her to an extent from hostile actions by those with Pressure. Most magical beings have some form of astral shadow, and great magicians will have a stronger one, though not to the extent of one who actively develops their Rank."
Or more like, her work considering she pilots an armament, a weapon primary dealing with Rank and Rank-based effects. It would be real surprising if she didn't know a lot about such things.
Gisena's third coalescence is actually pretty respectable amount of strength, IIRC. Her Grace is somewhat potential-oriented in comparison to some graces of "wrek yo face nao" that we saw in the Seram's transaction. We saw some of that potential in the Event Nullification and reality denial-suicide nuke she has.
"That matches my own theorizing!" Gisena exclaimed. "I am pretty great, after all."
"Only pretty great?" He raised an eyebrow. "That's positively self-effacing coming from you."
"I'm glad you noticed! Humility is one of my greatest traits."
You'd think her Grace was smugness, not nullity. Well, I suppose nullity has a lot of smug potential, too. You are a mage, she is a sorceress, she cast null, you are nobody, she has a gun. Bam bam bam.
"Anyway," he indicated the valley ahead. "There's an encampment of adventurers in the upcoming terrain. Letrizia, we'll circle around to the main entrance of the Temple.
You'd think that main entrance is more threatening, but all things hint that we might have actually entered through the easier entrance. I wonder for whom it is meant, if not for adventurers. Is Moon Temple Civ planning to venture somewhere outside in future? Or does it regularly visit someplace?
With a bounty on Verschlengorge's head and my own Curse-related limits, any sort of confrontation could go poorly, especially if they turn out to be stronger than us. Perhaps I'll meet a smaller contingent in the Temple itself and we can gather information that way."
Quite sure a lot of these people don't even know what Versch is, but that is not certain to be all of them. More likely though, that only people directly connected to the Astral Lord and Versch's failure and damage are aware of the bounty. Being paranoid sometimes pays off tho. At this point, someone like Fairbright would've fucked us up.
He'd reaped a formidable bounty of strength from the monsters they'd slaughtered on the way here, and acquired a few new tricks as well. Still, he preferred to hold them in reserve for now. Physically he was the mightiest he'd been since arriving in this world, but something told him the Temple was deadlier. Anyone who could survive a prolonged venture inside would more than pose a threat to him, let alone his companions.
Sweet summer days when those small gains we got back then were a "formiddable bounty of strength." Well, gotta get used to it, such is the power of progression. Power compounded power in EFB too, the stronger we got back then, the faster we progressed thanks to stupidly good synergies and actually pretty reasonable spell picks.
"Okay," Letrizia said, "Going by the map that'll take half a day more, but we've made good time so far. Verschlengorge has been a bit more responsive, I think your ghostfire actually is healing him a little bit!"
I do hope that our ghostfire continues healing it, but it sounds like we don't have much of an effect at this point. A stronger healing effect would probably be a waste at this point, but I can't help but want it..
...Well, Pillars qualifies as a stronger healing effect, I suppose.
The Temple was situated in an enormous plain, its porcelain claws towering to mountainous heights, but around that central expanse the terrain varied mightily. There was thick, mist-suffused woodland more jungle than forest, rocky outcroppings and unadorned grasslands, even stretches of arid waste bare of vegetation or fauna. On Verschlengorge's shoulders they traveled comfortably above it all, and could enjoy the meandering scope of their far-ranging voyage in relative ease.
Nice terrain. Tellingly, inside of the temple is nothing like this at all. Moon Temple Civ or whoever created the temple really went all out for some purpose. The very type of soil is different inside, the ecosystem is completely separate and rigorously maintained by actual terraforming monsters, the air filtration, and despite description of dome-structures, there is light and sky inside... Man. I kind of hope that we can make this place (one of) our citadel, it's actually pretty cool.
Would that I'd had a giant robot when running from the Tyrant. And some means of hiding it...
Brooded productively. I wonder how exactly. Did he somehow generate arete? But tbh from following passages, it sounds rather more like he just got some sleep.
Gisena came to sit beside him, luxuriantly stretching slender legs and toes in the cool air of evening. In the pale glow of the moon she seemed ethereal, languid and inescapable, and his peaceful reverie was thoroughly interrupted. He eyed her blearily, resentful of the distraction.
Enjoying the good life, and wants others to enjoy it. Gisena is like that. Hunger with his broody moods is probably a good target, too. She was like this with Seram, too, even when Seram was fucked by brand of "everyone absolutely hates me."
"Cheer up! It's a pleasant evening. Your cloak thinks so too."
Our cloak is pretty cute, yes. The semi-sentient thing that makes it comfy to sleep everywhere, even when it rains. We should upgrade it some.
That said, I do wonder if it is possible to gain some circumstantial bonuses for the cloak while fighting during the evening or something like that.
And I kind of wonder how it shows its like or dislike. Does it wiggle somehow, or something? It did lock Seralize in place, one of the reason why I'd like to get Inksky upgrade, which would expand on that functionality.
"...Are we really going to talk about the weather?"
She pointed upwards. "It's a clear, cloudless night! You can perfectly see the moon."
He followed the direction of her hand to witness the bright orb of the moon clutched precisely within the Temple's spires, mantis-thin fingertips grasping and ready to pluck.
More wasteful luxories... Unless that serves some of a purpose. I do not think it really does, but who knows? Moon temple civ is mysterious, and we have a lot of theories and analysis but not a whole lot of certainties.
He grunted. "Either we're viewing it at the perfect time and angle for things to align, or..."
"The temple is manipulating space and time," Gisena finished cheerfully. "The moon, poor thing, always appears to be in its clutches! It can't be that the spires are moving, or it'd look different from other angles."
He shook his head. "The more I look at this place, the less happy I am about entering it."
Nobody is happy about entering it! If only you were happy about leaving it! Damn fishing minigame, characterizing Hunger like eternally megafocused guy really bit us. Now we are committed to the thing I suspect half of the thread would have happily bailed, given that we actually outscaled the Apocryphal curse and possibly outscaled Ber.
But menacing as the Temple was, he'd seen nothing disqualifying yet. This was the path they'd chosen, and they would see it through unless circumstances changed substantially.
Aside from the implied strength of those who constructed it, sure. Or strength of the enhancements we saw. Or fears that the camp at the entrance contained people stronger than us. Nothing certain, but a whole lot of uncertainty is an argument in its own way.
Gisena hummed. "I agree! But there's something comforting about it as well. It reminds me of a girl I used to know. So sharp and clear and cold! A dear friend. Probably gone now, and the rest of my home as well. Or will be, soon."
Sharp, clear, cold. Interesting. Does not feel like it works all that well with themes of the Lunacy... But perhaps I should not be reading too deeply into Gisena's words here. If do overanalyse, this does mean that ring has a lot of mental attributes to it.
"How fatalistic. Your society isn't set up to resist the 'hero' of your world?"
She shook her head, her smile wan and soft. "Nope. They're pretty much doomed. Even if I were there to warn them, it wouldn't help."
Cursebearer could have helped, but alas. Not in that particular version of that particular dimension, it appears. There were some factors that she was unaware of, and if they really united and went at it together, maybe they could have done something... But Gisena's land is politically split, and for the longest time, nobody believed that orcs could be of any real danger. Very sad.
"I'm sorry. My... friends sacrificed themselves so we could overcome the Tyrant. It was a close thing. Far too close."
We now know about Catherine. How many more? I hope that Hunger had a good close-knit of highly interesting companions so that their sacrifice would hit stronger if they ever get touched upon.
She laid her head against his shoulder, the feather-touch of her hair trailing against his bare arm. "There are some things we just have to accept, hm? Maybe it won't always be so."
...Right. Strictly speaking, we just need 25 EFB Pillars for resurrection, and a way to travel the multiverse. Than we could go back home during the weekend and do our ressurect'y deeds. We'll have to fight transfinite Hidden Masters while at that probably, but considering the implied scale of this verse... We'll probably manage. Possibly even right after this world.
Bring them all back, and keep them safe once more. But he dared not give voice to that uncertain hope. Even in his heart there was a fragility to it, thin-sketched delicate whisper of a dream, as if exposing it to the real would see it dispersed by a passing breeze.
Well, if anything, chances of Hunger dying when we just arrived back then were really pretty good. But Progression allowed good scaling, we now got an efb, and going to grab a couple more things besides. We have some solid assurances, and as Arete generation is going strong, we'll get some more.
Gisena said nothing more, simply squeezing his arm in affirmation, and they carried through the rest of their journey in silence.
Gisena is good at social, and is good at emotional support.
As the moon began to descend, the soft blue glow of morning limned the horizon. The Temple's claws ceased their transposition, as if allowing moon and stars to slip free its grasp and slowly tumble into the dawn. The light of the sun was austere and heavy, heat without warmth, illuminating the stark wasteland sea that surrounded the Temple's frontal facing.
I am surprised they did not set up an eternal night outside. You'd think that with display of blatant and wasteful arcane might, they would just go all out and make sure their little moontrap would be always seen everywhere at all times.
A single avenue of shining tile cut through that bare expanse, the Temple's central promenade which featured heavily on the quicksilver map, broad enough to invite a marching army - or to deploy one. Surprisingly there was no activity, human or beast, upon the promenade. It was as thoroughly deserted as the earlier outpost had been bustling.
The towering gates were shut, dark blue steel upon which countless distorted moons were carefully engraved. Here was a sharp ellipsoid, gleaming with purest silver; there an orb covered in diamondoid patterns of blue slate and dusted with cobalt.
Distorted moons and silver, huh. Some sort of a hint...
They stared down the entrance from a distance. Gisena's emerald eyes observed it piercingly. Immense as the gates were, they were almost tiny against the titanic mass of the Temple. The curve of its central dome was like the skull of the world itself jutting free; a hundred cities could shelter under that ivory sky with abundant space for all.
Just throw a giant robot at it. I like Hunger's way of thinking. If only it was actually powerful, instead of a hollowed out rankless husk. Poor Versch, we'll fix you eventually.
"Or I could cut it open," he continued. The Forebear's Blade could tear through defenses that would stop a lesser artifact.
We weren't able to make particularly big windcuts back then, that would've taken a while. Also, it could have been potentially hilarious. We could have sold precious materials we sheared off at the camp. Loot everything, even the Walls?
"No need!" Gisena finally said. "I think it'll let you through. Perhaps only you, but I could carve a path with my Nullity as well. There's an aura around the temple gates. The closest thing it resembles is that of your ring."
It basically is like our ring. Does this Temple plays some sort of an important role in the cosmic order of things? Accursed did set it up so it would be massively easier for us to penetrate deeper. Perhaps success here means lessened threat to the Human Sphere, or somehow has global implications for this verse?
He glanced at the red-black band on his finger. Either this was spectacular coincidence or something strange was afoot. The ring of power had come from the Tyrant's finger, from a world and a universe entirely separate from this one. What did it mean for magic of its nature to be present here?
Dimensional clusters are thing, and Findross somehow found a way in plenty of places.
Then again, the residents of this world had quantified the magic of Rank which he'd wielded in the previous realm. Perhaps it was not so large a coincidence as it seemed.
Also they apparently heard of the Forebear. That is something, too. We know that time-space accidents happen periodically; perhaps moon-temple civ are also victims of displacement?
He shook his head. There was trepidation, fear of the unknown, fear that for all his preparations and newly bolstered strength he would still be inadequate to the conquest of this place. But there was no room for doubt or hesitation in his mind.
Honestly, with thoughts like this, it is only fitting that we actually got uttermost. Such boneheaded determination, much wow.
The Accursed had granted him the power of Progression, growth unrivaled in this world or any other. He would trust to that power, and to his long years of experience, to see this task through.
...Man, it is a miracle that our build did eventually coagulated into something coherent. Although maybe not. In EFB we also kind of waffed for a little, and picked up a couple of rather strange things before everything just clicked together and became that sort of build you can't remove even one thing without fucking everything up.
This task and every other, until that whisper of a dream became reality.
"Letrizia," he said, "Remember what we talked about. And find a good location to hide and secure Verschlengorge. If I can leave after venturing inside, I'll return every day to check on you if feasible."
As he walked forward the gates shuddered and began to open, groaning clench of steel like a monster's exhalation. They moved only briefly, leaving the tiniest hairline crack in that wall of colossal blue, just enough for one human to fit through without touching the steel of the doors.
kind of really want to visit the encampment at least once. On other hand, it is going to be pretty funny if the Moon Temple Civ just loses the ring and control over the temple without any involvement of the folks from the camp. A lot of "What happened?" on all sides.
On the charisma side of things, I highly doubt that Edeldross won't be of help down the line. We'll see about that I guess but honestly, forgoing all the mechanical benefits (which Edeldross certainly has) for a minute, I just think that Edeldross would be the Imaginary Element that fits Hunger the most. I mean, for all his pragmatism or his supernatural abilities Hunger in my opinion gives tremendous value to the relationship he forges. It would be sweet to have something that really reflects that, for the personal power that comes out of our soul being born of the people we care (and still care even after losing them) about. We even just got a glimpse of Hunger's wife last update, and how much she still means to him (plus, that + to her relationship just fills me with hope, y'know).
Look, I'm not saying to vote Edeldross for the waifus, I'm saying to do it for Hunger and for the fuzzy feeling of him using what, as sappy as that sounds, is a physical manifestation of his love for the people he wants to keep close and never let go.
Huh. I like the idea of making mental contamination desirable, both game perspective wise, and aesthetic wise. Not sure if regrowing the eye is worth losing Rune King forever, though. Maybe stacking R A N K and going for S A V E would be optimal?
We've got other paths that are great for physical enhancement, though, whereas for mental enhancement the Evening Sky is far more focused and effective, and enhancing it so that its buffs can "burn through" the penalty created by our choice of Uttermost will do even more along those lines.
On the charisma side of things, I highly doubt that Edeldross won't be of help down the line. We'll see about that I guess but honestly, forgoing all the mechanical benefits (which Edeldross certainly has) for a minute, I just think that Edeldross would be the Imaginary Element that fits Hunger the most. I mean, for all his pragmatism or his supernatural abilities Hunger in my opinion gives tremendous value to the relationship he forges. It would be sweet to have something that really reflects that, for the personal power that comes out of our soul being born of the people we care (and still care even after losing them) about. We even just got a glimpse of Hunger's wife last update, and how much she still means to him (plus, that + to her relationship just fills me with hope, y'know).
Look, I'm not saying to vote Edeldross for the waifus, I'm saying to do it for Hunger and for the fuzzy feeling of him using what, as sappy as that sounds, is a physical manifestation of his love for the people he wants to keep close and never let go.
The Kindred Discipline of preternatural charisma and charm. Its applications allow the practitioner to impose willing submission, to elicit the confessions of dark secrets and more. Majesty is the signature Discipline of clan Daeva. The powers of Majesty are Awe, Revelation, Entracement...
A quick point, while evening sky doe have a large range of non protection utility, those options do tend to cost Arete. Opalescence does not and while it's advancements do, who know if Inksky or some other option will unlock an equivalent to blood advancements. Something to keep in mind.
