A Simple Transaction I

Rihaku said:

What was the art of the realm into which the hero first stumbled? Though he had mastered it to a prodigious degree, the exertion of his final onslaught degraded his power in this field as it did others. Now in his pre-Cursebearer state he was barely more notable than an average soldier, given the many ills and maiming wounds that plagued him. As a Cursebearer, that may no longer be the case.

By default, options that grant you immediate power will take the most efficient route of restoring, upgrading, or expanding on your chosen magic. You may gain access to other sources of supernatural power as well, such as the Praxis if a certain Remittance is chosen, or simply the magics and technologies of other worlds. Each would possess varying levels of synergy with the options below. Especially as a Progression-type Cursebearer, no field is truly barred to you save that which your Curses preclude. And, of course, it's easier to tread a path already taken.

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Nice, so we get to decide what kind of magic system our erstwhile Hero starts off with. A good change of pace from Seram who didn't have anything 'sides the clothes on his back and the power of Progression. Gives us a bit of leeway in developing our personal safety if we pick Vengeance and cross magic system synergies are the reason we won EFB, so I'm all for more powers. It's just great to see more magic systems from Rihaku though, they're easily my favorite part of his quests.

The Praxis worshiper in me wonders why we would need other systems though. It's the best magical style in the omniverse offensively and defensively so just mainlining training montages and grinding that power could be more efficient than training multiple different styles and trying for S Y N E R G Y (that most dreaded effect). Of course, the Geas of Indenture does force us into combat situations relatively quickly so it's probably the reason the Hero has to get a power to justify his survival. Anyway, onto the options of magics!

Rihaku said:

[ ] Battle Mastery - At first glance a simplistic art, yet few are more sophisticated at their core. The power of battle magic appears almost shockingly literal: techniques of sword and fist sporting superhuman might, orbs and shields channeling stupendous energies, summoned beasts who charge fearlessly into battle. All the mainstays of a hero's arsenal are present, but their implementation cleaves conceptual lines with a precision that bewilders and frustrates. How can a torrent of lightning that vaporizes a giant leave the surrounding greenery unmarred, save for a cosmetically significant singe mark?

How can a technique of bodily resilience grant superior resistance to harm without affecting one's health or the texture of one's flesh? How can a technique sufficient to propel the hero in a sixty-meter leaping charge fail to generate enough force to break down a wooden door? How can a spell of healing restore one from the brink of death yet have no effect on maiming wounds? The values of the system seem orthogonal to physical reality or common sense, and yet prioritized over both.

Mastery comes not only from cultivating its spells and techniques, but from clever exploitation of their confounding results. Lateral thinking is key. You need to scale a wall, but only wield a spell which summons a horde of skeletons that mindlessly attack a single target? Target the wall and use the skeletons as a makeshift ramp. Need to carve a statue? Animate a pile of marble into the weakest tier of golem so that it counts as a foe, allowing you to shape it with offensive spells. Polymorph passengers into helpless frogs so that your ferry can fit more, lowering the fares for all!

*Leaps, charges, strikes, sweeps, stances, orbs, bolts, cones, blasts, shields, fields, auras, lances, and other active effects distinguished by their kinetic and spatial parameters
*Extremely efficient at what it does; no extraneous power is wasted on combat-irrelevant effects, and even the most destructive effects unleashed at point-blank range will leave allies and bystanders untouched. Does eventually cap out, though many effects retain their utility; reducing damage taken by 99.8% is frequently relevant.
*Recombination of techniques allows for surprising versatility for the quick-witted and sharp of mind.
*Forbidden Art: Spirit Mastery. The hero learned to burn his own fundamental essence in order to magnify the power of his techniques, but he burned so much during the final confrontation that he has lost even the knowledge to attempt this.

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Very... DnD-esque? Or at least classically fantasy-ish - whimsical yet eminently practical at the same time. I really like that Battlemagic is so laser-focused on combat, destruction magic is really my bag and being able to defend against 99.8% of all damage sounds super useful. The Lance Ordinal was the apex combat spell for most Ordinalists due to its versatility and applicability to nearly all combat situations, a swiss army knife in terms of combat ability. Battlemagic sounds like we're pretty much just carrying an entire arsenal of weaponry, packing as many knives, hammers and shields as necessary to solve possible problems. Throw everything at the enemy, including the kitchensink! Then, pour oil on the fire by casting Baleful Polymorph to turn them into a toad!

The illogical nature of the spell-system seems like it would get frustrating though. Classical magic often seems to have nonsensical rules but my preference when it comes to magics is more broadly-encompassing arts like the Signs of the Diagram. The Force Sign contained multiple energy effects and was even able to enhance our internal power, and while having dozens of spells with specific rules seems good for diversity, it feels like it would become a total pain to plan around. Also, is there really a meaningful difference between magical blasts, bolts or lances? Sure, there's the triangle of Blunt, Piercing and Slashing damage to consider but all of these kinetic energy effects fall under the same branch in the end. Feels a little too limited in the end, though supreme efficiency might be a favorable trade in exchange for that.

That the magical power of its effects don't scale with time and mastery is also a little disappointing. Yeah, it emphasizes having more Wits and applying lateral thinking to solve issues but it probably wouldn't be as flashy or potent at higher levels since so much of its power is concentrated on versatility and efficiency. Battlemagic automatically affecting only the intended targets is pretty sweet though, that's a benefit we picked up Edeldross for so it would be nice to have Battlemagic if you had the Doom of Lunacy alongside. Blast out at your enemies with Battlemagic then when they think you're cornered, scream 'THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!' and wildout with amplified power once you transform - with your effects not causing collateral damage, affecting only your enemies and avoiding needless ally casualties. They'd still be pretty badly affected from the mental harm caused by the transformation though, so that's an issue that'll remain no matter what.

Battlemagic is a nice, compact set of useful spells but I'm not sure how relevant at higher power levels it'll remain. Maybe it'd be good for street to army levels of conflict but I think nation-razing, sea-boiling levels of combat power may be out of its reach. If it comes with classic spells like continent-spanning teleportation and time-stop, it might remain useful but I doubt that such broken effects would be encapsulated by Battlemagic.

I wonder what kind of spells result from Spirit Mastery though. Maybe burning away selfhood and life-force results in a qualitative ascension in the essence of a spell, similar to how Mordant Flame would have been elevated from mere bolts of necromantic energy to searing charms of blue Truth if we Truespelled it. That'd be a pretty cool ability, though I'm leery of any abilities that require us to cast from life-force unless we have an insane regeneration factor capable of negating those costs. Since Rihaku clarified that the choice of magicset doesn't meaningfully impact the Hero's chances of survival in the immediate aftermath of being transported to a new world, I think I will turn my attention to the other available magics.

Rihaku said:

[ ] Seven Seals - The magic of the world was evocation of the self, the light of the soul made manifest. Each who had awakened to the light could offer their own unique capabilities, but few were as versatile and encompassing as this. The power to Seal can broadly be thought of as the inverse of reification: a flame becomes the character for 'Fire'; an onrushing torrent locked into a picture of itself. But this is an ability whose applications well exceed mere storage and containment. Not only can attacks from one foe be captured to be released against another, the nature of things sealed can be intensified through addition or fundamentally altered via combination. One may lack the equipment to meld fire with stone, but far easier to combine the character 'Fire' with the character 'Stone.'

And stranger effects than this are possible for a true master of the art: drawing upon sealed reserves without unsealing them; sealing and combining concepts; safely converting one's self into a seal, thereby to reside halfway into the Realm of Forms!

*An extremely versatile ability that allows for countless permutations
*Seal and redirect enemy attacks or convert any convenient form of quickly moving mass-energy into attacks; contain and constrict the abilities of foes; channel intensified sealed strength for superhuman attributes, seal one's own tiredness, or even become a being of pattern more than form and sear yourself across the span of reality!
*The first two Seals are easy to learn. Each subsequent level represents a rapidly escalating leap in difficulty. Progress will be relatively slow compared to other disciplines.
*Forbidden Art: Fifth Seal. The hero can no longer recall any details of the Fifth or higher Seals.

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Soul Evocations, huh. 'Light of the Soul made manifest' makes me immediately think of RWBY and Semblances though, not gonna lie. Personality-based superpowers are a strong staple of both battle manga and older comic books, so this could be said to be a pretty classical type of magic and power. I actually think the kind-of world which Evocations would develop is an interesting concept; if these magics are derived from the shape and expression of the soul, what would happen if you specifically cultivate certain characteristics and personality traits of a person? Could their Soul Evocation be altered after birth? Did changing the nature of one's Evocation cause a cascading change in the person's soul? Soul-based eugenics might even be a common practice amongst the nobles of such a society, crossing bloodlines and deliberately developing a particular lineage in such a way that their Soul Evocations become bent towards greater and greater manifestations of a desired concept.

Superpower enhancements via escalation over a long line of descent are not uncommon in fiction (see Worm and Shards apparently growing more powerful and easier to trigger with each new generation of parahumans, as well as the Quirk 'Singularity' and eugenics in My Hero Academia) so I could definitely see clans trying to create the perfect exemplar of their desired concept through experimentation and cultivation of their family's Soul Evocations throughout the centuries. After all, the Amarlt family seems to have done the same with Vanreir's father living his life as an embodiment of a blade, so if you repeat that long enough, with enough bodies, you'd probably develop a pretty kickass Soul Evocation chain though you'd have to wreck a lot of lives to get there. Might be a tad to difficult to implement and manage though. You'd need someone capable of perceiving the soul itself and ascertain as to whether the soul is developing according to desired paths and you'd effectively have to create countless mental clones of the same person to really maximize the efficiency of an Evocation before trying to elevate its powers further.

The body and purity of the bloodlines seem to play a strong role in enhancing a Soul Evocation's power though. Even though Vanreir's father was the perfect embodiment of a Blade, it took him seventy years to master his soul and then Vanreir had to master his own nature as the 'Unerring' before they could intertwine their beings in such a way as to resurrect the Unerring Blade, which seems to be a legendary Soul Evocation of the Amarlts in the past. Ceathlynn would have been genetically optimized in comparison to the current Amarlt bloodline and I think her Soul Evocation would naturally manifest as the Unerring Blade? Something to consider.

Anyway, in relation to the Hero's own personal Evocation, Seven Seals is rather cool. Sealing is almost always a high-level conceptual art so having it as one's personal magic system bodes well for battle at conceptual power levels. I presume that each level of Sealing allows manipulation of increasingly esoteric concepts and being able to fuse characters together sounds like an innovative combat style, highly flexible and kinetic in nature since we could freely seal and unseal things as necessary in battle. The art's speed of execution is concerning though, cause drawing a sigil may take a second or two and in fast-paced melee combat, such a delay could be easily fatal. Manipulation of 'characters' representing concepts kind of reminds me of Word Magic from Konjiki no Word Master though I didn't really that light novel.

I think that the first two Seals deal with substance and the material world, maybe the first Seal is something like Elements, letting you control the basic forces of Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Seems plausible since the described effect concerns manipulation of Fire and Stone. The second and third Seals are probably a little more esoteric, like physical energy and magical energy. I think Space and Time are probably higher Seals though - those seem to fit that level of power. Seven Seals is pretty cool and the fact that it is more focused, being an art directed towards the restriction and control of forces, makes it a solid powerset to visualize and tracing runes out into existence with it has a compelling appeal to me. I'd vote for Seven Seals as our magic, not only because of its power but because it being the magic of the Hero's world seems like it would develop an interesting society around its existence.

Rihaku said:

[ ] Accretion - A farmer's boy. A sword of fable. A perilous quest. Death or glory.

A form of symbiosis between wielder and object, integrating shared experiences, mythic archetypes, accumulated legendry and personal craftsmanship. The result is a being greater than the sum of its parts, not a man wielding a sword but Arthur with Excalibur, the blade closer to his being than his own sword-arm. That deep conceptual weight, wearing a groove in reality's current, permits the slow unfurling of impossible feats as a product of the partnership.

The power of Accretion is rarely replicable and never easily defined. Its greatest masters turn the tides of battle simply by taking the field, their presence an inexpressible radiance, sharp light beyond sense or reason, that erodes the existential basis of those who would oppose them. You will find them at the crux of fate, the critical point of inflection; there does that power reach its apex, starshine become a blazing sun, light and fire and fury as to bring the world to its knees.

*A power that is somewhat agnostic to the strength of one's foes. Battle Magic will never deflect a supernova; a master of this art might, though they'd have near equal difficulty deflecting a tank shell.
*Operates on a level beyond physical causality. With few exceptions, does not enhance physical parameters at all.
*With time and many shared tribulations, some of a union's powers may become relatively consistent and explicable. For example, the hero wears a suit of dark grey plate, and nothing may slay him short of annihilating the armor entire.
*Forbidden Art: Abduction. The forceful seizing of another's armament, inconsistent in applicable and terribly risky, as aspects of the prior wielder may impose themselves upon you. The hero stole into the Tyrant's Catacomb and emerged bearing the sword of the Tyrant's progenitor. That blade now lies broken, and with it its wielder.

The arts not picked will never have been present in the hero's initial realm.

Please remember to copy your vote for the previous choice when you vote here, so as not to override your previous vote.

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Just as the other powers have a classic kind of appeal in their magical nature, Accretion hearkens back to the mythic qualities of the heroic story. More intangible than the other magics, but thus attaining a deeper conceptual strength as a result. It's a compelling theme - great deeds naturally result in the accumulation of great power, great power facilitates the performance of great deeds, feeding back on itself in a recursive loop, an ouroboros of magical power. And while the nature of this magic is subtle initially, it encourages a practitioner to boldly brave danger and walk away from the aftermath directly empowered by their travails. A legendary magic meant to cultivate the legend of its wielder. Though, practicing Accretion seems simple enough in theory - perform mythic deed, establish mythic fame and thus accrue mythic power - actually implementing this practice is probably a balancing act of extreme difficulty. One probably needs to coldly calculate the probability of danger and harm against the potential gain from such feats in order to grow their power over the long-term, though with time and experience, masters of Accretion might acquire a natural intuition as to how to fully leverage powers from circumstance.

This ability seems very interesting to me in a narrative sense, since it would literally transform the Hero's story and manifest it in physical form, binding his experiences to his Artifacts and serving as a material representation of his legend. That's just a super fascinating A E S T H E T I C to rock and might give us an in to our protagonist's back-story and lore. Each Artifact would be an extension of his self, a sword being the embodiment of the destructive nature of the Hero made manifest in the physical realm, the truest expression of the part of his being that simply kills. Artifacts are always a cool part of a character's themes and aesthetic and I've always greatly enjoyed the various powers imbued in the weaponry and armors that Rihaku has conjured up for his protagonists in the past.

Ambition, of course, remains King of all possible weapons and its incredible concept of 'overwhelming power that surpasses even Solar Excellence' is super memorable. Away was also a striking idea, a sword made supernal through the conclusion of an immense number of murders as to be exalted beyond other weapons. In that regard, Accretion paves a strong path to the creation of a similar Artifact, encouraging us to develop our personal legend by causing the realization of powers compatible with our nature and deeds within our Artifacts. However, Abduction is an intriguing element, taking up the Artifacts of others to artificially strengthen ourselves by allowing the story of another Accretion master to become one with our own legend. It allows us to introduce new factors into the Hero's characterization, perhaps shaping his personality to be more dangerous or more charismatic and either elevating him or reducing him as a result.

It's a dangerous game but it can allow us the opportunity to strengthen the Hero's fundamental nature even further; emphasizing his heroic will despite the 'corrupting' influence of other Artifacts, and the Hero already seems to show a talent for suborning the weapons of others, taking advantage of preceding legends to enhance the scale of his own mythic journey. That's more interesting to me in a narrative sense though the ambiguous nature of Accretion-derived powers seems like it would be a possible downside, being much more malleable than Seven Seal's relative simplicity of restriction. That Accretion's magical power can overcome even supernovas is a pretty big plus in my books though, as a strong worry of mine when investing in magic systems is how well they scale into the lategame of a story, so Accretion being so conceptually dense yet magically powerful definitely pushes it over Battlemagic in my opinion.

It's a tiny bit of a shame that Soul Evocations and Accretion would be mutually exclusive from each other though, I think the two systems existing in the same world would make a supremely interesting setting. What if you could invest your Soul Evocation into your Artifacts, making your soul and its inherent powers a discrete existence in another object? Or perhaps, you could harness the magic derived from Accretion's conversion of mythic legend and fame into pure power to directly feed into your own Evocation and thus soul? It would allow one to become greater than others in spiritual import in truth, again facilitating the cultivation of Accretion power in a synergistic loop. A society with these mythic heroes, wielding a panoply of Artifacts and casting out the light of their soul in combat sounds super rad though highly destructive in nature. Accretion is my favorite in terms of aesthetic appeal and access to Lore but I feel Seven Seals might be well-suited to the early parts of the Hero's journey. It's tough to choose between the two honestly, especially when picking one of these magics would result in the nonavailability of the other (well, at the time, this story post was made).