A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Well, I know some people wanted to stay in the Voyaging Realm anyway. I'm ambivalent on the "Voyaging Realm vs Human Sphere" thing, but I do like Augustine's magic, and she's kinda fun OOC. I'd be up for ganking her and taking her magic system, or allying with her if we can get her to stop doing immoral things (that's a big "if" there).
Allying with her may also be a chance to get Foremost lore, from her and from fighting her mother (if she's the shard of the Arcanist as we're all assuming). And really, given her achievements, she's a very impressive girl. Perhaps our resident genius has become too complacent, and we should give her some real competition.
On the balance of it, I personally am OK with recruiting if she can stop with the immoral stuff, and I'm also OK with delaying the Human Sphere if that's what it takes. But I'm not going to be disappointed if we don't recruit Augustine.
Finally, I just want to note that forcing Augustine to be subject to the main party's banter could be hilarious.
Allying with her may also be a chance to get Foremost lore, from her and from fighting her mother (if she's the shard of the Arcanist as we're all assuming). And really, given her achievements, she's a very impressive girl. Perhaps our resident genius has become too complacent, and we should give her some real competition.
On the balance of it, I personally am OK with recruiting if she can stop with the immoral stuff, and I'm also OK with delaying the Human Sphere if that's what it takes. But I'm not going to be disappointed if we don't recruit Augustine.
Finally, I just want to note that forcing Augustine to be subject to the main party's banter could be hilarious.
Getting an add that's actually useful would be a nice change..
That being said, I'm all for imprisoning her for causing deaths of countless innocents over personal vendetta.
Silver's perfect defense could only be used one per month before we got Opalascent Tower so it would of been too scarce of a resource to use like that.
The description states that it can apply to any hostile effect.
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Every party needs an evil teammate! Wait, no, that's a lie. Augustine is cool, but she can be cool far away from us. Or dead.
Then again, I kinda want to do the Shard campaign even without her, so why not? No, I must stay strong.
Killing billions for a personal vendetta is hardly cool.
Except, at no point, did Rihaku mention that there's possibility of eking out additional Thorn or just flat out tanking Exhaustion using Silver.
And effect of Might's Respite stats that:
And yet we are not immune to those effects when caused by our own actions.
To conclude, there's absolutely no indication anywhere that Silver can work on stuff Hunger did himself, ton of implications that it can't and, beyond all of that, basic understanding of how shit works should make it rather obvious that Hunger can't randomly ignore shit just because he goes out of his way to be cute with semantics of defining something hostile.
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Oh, absolutely. She's a cool antagonist, I should've said. I wouldn't want to hang out with her lol.
Might's repose only costs 2 picks compared to the 25 arete of Silver and is not a perfect defense, so the effects would obviously be lesser.
Hunger, for sure. Battle xp is way too fucking good.
Depends on the task. As you say, the Forebear's Blade is hard to beat when it comes to direct combat. Though without the Ring training in anything besides the Praxis could become practical once again, so maybe we would get involved in less fights? If so, the varied abilities of the Empyrean Sky are hard to beat, though the idea of facing Apocryphal without the 10x multiplier to Progression is a bit scary. And as for Tears and Versch, we haven't seen any advancements for them - and haven't even bound the Armament yet, so we don't know what kind of options they'll allow except that they'll be really cool.
I think I'll choose the Ring if pressed for an answer. 10x Progression and Rank-based Blood magics are just too useful to refuse, and we can substitute other things for combat power and utility as long as we have Progression and survive.
I think I'll choose the Ring if pressed for an answer. 10x Progression and Rank-based Blood magics are just too useful to refuse, and we can substitute other things for combat power and utility as long as we have Progression and survive.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
Is this Hunger at present, being stripped of all but one Artifact, or Hunger hit with a Groundhog Day loop that sends him back to 'Compelled To Battle' with foreknowledge but less equipment?
Hunger at present would probably do best to restrict himself to the Ring of Blood. He is at the cusp of revealing a whole new suite of blood advancements, can parcel out boons to recruit & buff allies, and his very high Rank allows the Ring to be used both subtly and aggressively. It would make the Ruling Ring contest more fraught, but I think the fear-mongering about the contest of primacy is overblown.
Starting from scratch, knowing what we know now, I'd go immediately for the Cloak of Sky. The 25-Arete version would've made so much of the early game absolutely trivial. We could've justified taking False-Hand of the Maker 😭
Rihaku
The Internet
The Forebear's Blade offers nonlinear scaling through flat bonuses to hyper-exponential systems, though! And the Cloak of Sky has inter-magic synergies, too...
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
The Ring is precious. But the training debuff incentivizing recklessness without the Blade to see him through would be a problem. Hm. Without it, he'd be able to train normally, so shifting focus to Sky magic stuff would be possible.
But if we didn't have Hunger, he wouldn't be Hunger! The Ring is the best.
Perhaps. Still, I think that Hunger is the one I'd take; not only because it just works very well with Apo, but because I prefer the kind of playstyle it encourages.
- Location
- a place
Verschlengorge of course. Rank 10, A shroud, stats that far surpass Hunger, and a bunch of super cool Clarketech? Plus he seems like he's a fun guy to pal around with. Then i'll just use him to bully more artifacts and build alliances out of the rest of the voyaging realm.
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Gotta collect as many princesses as possible.
Hard to say, especially since I feel like we've only scratched the surface of what's available. I'd be curious about what each artifact would look like if we'd invested all 7 EFB's into it alone.
Once and Future 7
Ruling ring + crimson flare + ? + ? + ? + ? + ?
And so on.
Imagine not picking Verschlengorge - shame on you. Verschlengorge is looking at you disapprovingly like this:
- Location
- Pindorama
Get thee behind me, Satan. While memeing about Augustine is fun and all, in no way I'd like to have a former mass-murdering dictator has a party member. That's way too shounen!
The Gisena Gang Will Remember That.
Fanwork##3575 Words
Without the Interlude part of the update, will probably do that one later.
Reaction: "Vendetta"
From our very first meeting with Versch and Letrizia, who we're indelibly connected with through the Decimation Curse, to the pirate, who possessed a superficial resemblance to the Tyrant, to the Blue Swordsman Bearic, whose party composition practically mocked ours, to the whole Moon Temple adventure, which explored the connection to the Rings of Power and presented us with another person with memories of Earth, to this Mythic Realm, where we seemingly can't make a single step without stumbling over something related to Hunger like the Opalescent Tower, Foremost secrets and the Tyrant with a vengeance streak a mile wide at its head, to the Armament-Fish that appeared suspiciously quickly after our own arrival in this Realm...
Looking at things like that, the Rotbeast presents an interesting outlier. By all appearances, it was just a Kaiju that had been randomly empowered and set loose on the Elixir Sovereignty. I suppose we could stretch things and say that it was in some way linked to the source of Edeldross, but we acquired this magic here in the first place, so it doesn't seem to fit the pattern. Just a random disaster that he had to deal with if he didn't want to see people die on his watch. Is there perhaps a story behind Surgecraft that would have illuminated another connection to Hunger's Artifacts or history? Now more than ever I regret that we hadn't managed to preserve that Ruhuk Armored Prototype, as it might have given us some deep lore on the topic of High Elementalism.
Getting back to this chapter, the Lord Protector turned out to be more than just a stereotypical Tyrant. She is that as well, make no mistake about that, and her backstory doesn't suddenly invalidate all the misery and death caused by her conquests. But there are more layers of depth to her, the character we've been presented with a bizarre combination of the best and worst aspects of Hunger and the Tyrant he had fought once upon a time. She is capable and driven, with an impressive lineage that many would struggle to live up to, her thirst for vengeance uncomfortably close to our own determination to end the Hidden Ones.
We accuse her of causing much grief due to her military policies, but maybe we should take an honest look at ourselves and consider just what our own Geas task will involve. Our goal is the conquest of the Human Sphere, and much as I would like to believe otherwise, I somehow doubt we can accomplish a bloodless and painless takeover. Millions? Billions? Our body count might make hers look veritably modest when we're finished with the various polities. We have the power of Progression on our side, which has both given us significant personal power, social acumen, and magics suited to rulership, but that strength is balanced by the Curses that are going to do their best to fuck things up for us.
And maybe we could have taken the moral high ground if she was just a greedy expansionist, but it's clear that she is motivated by personal feelings and the desire for revenge, which isn't really all that different from what drives Hunger at the end of the day. We don't even need to talk about future casualties, just in the Temple alone we've killed a number of people for the sake of a single Ring. Is her motive of wanting to avenge herself and her siblings that much worse? He methods of fulfilling that Vendetta might be debatable and she hasn't really endeared herself to us with her capture of Versch, but the reasons for her actions are entirely understandable.
Which is not to say that we should suddenly forgive and forget, the wellbeing of our companions obviously comes before any other considerations, but our interests might not be as opposed as we previously thought. We might have no choice but to kill her if she's really bent on holding into power in Nilfel at all costs, but if she desires revenge on her mother most of all... perhaps there is a way for our interests to align.
Yet here we are, our decision-making crippled after a single strike. I'm not sure it's the best possible action she could have taken, as Letrizia or Aobaru would have made a somewhat more vulnerable hostage, but on the other hand, it did deprive us of a not-insignificant combat asset while giving her a potential sacrificial offering to enhance her power with. And the way she did it is highly impressive too, turning our own actions of stealing the Tower against us. Given that we later learn how she has trouble divining even our companions, never mind Hunger himself, it means that she had far less information on us that we assumed and might have even been flying blind. If so, I can see how she had taken over Nilfel at eight.
Right now I'm really, really glad she can't divine us, because if this is what she's like when suffering under such limitations, her capabilities when she has the chance to adjust her tactics and aim for specific weaknesses don't bear thinking about. Though I guess her greatest advantage is that in her mind she has her back against the wall and doesn't have anything holding her back, whereas we have to worry about the safety of our companions. Having people he cares about is good for his mental health and support, but it sure does make some things more annoying and complicated than they should have been.
The wording here and later on is curious too. Primordial sorcery, prototypical arcana (was there something to the Tarot Spread theory after all, or just arcana as in magic?), predecessor magics... I really want to know more about the Cloak's origins, that it would claim such mastery over all magics. The descriptions hint at its spells being original or older magics, and it being so close to the Royal Praxis in potency is also a sign (heh) of its importance. A creation of the Foremost themselves? They had created a number Realms, and Evening Sky would give us access to the Realm of Evening with Pillars of Creation too. Could it be an instrument for manipulating magics they had made?
Hopefully we'll solve this riddle like many others in time.
I'm often surprised how Hunger manages to develop new powers from previous feats where we don't see an immediate connection. He did summon the Evening Sky from the Astral itself once upon a time with the help of the Ring, so it seems this is a reiteration through a much stronger and more fitting medium, rather than a power made from whole cloth. I had sort of expected him to acquire some sort of mana pool, given Empyrean Sky's themes, but I guess it's still his Artifact at the end of the day, and as such an intricate application of Pressure more than anything else.
How does Adorie research new Signs anyway? I had already been somewhat doubtful of the possibility before learning just how potent its magics are, but she doesn't even have any Signs herself. Nor does she seem to be some kind of arcane prodigy, as that is more her sister's remit. I suppose she has being a bookworm and quite high Rank going for her, and perhaps some innate connection to the Tower from living her whole life there and her bloodline having possessed the Artifact for some time? Maybe some mundane skills like mathematics or knowledge of history that she has mastered would apply really well to developing new Signs? But I can't help thinking that Augustine would fill this role much better if we could trust her with such a task.
Adorie: Of course we won't, Hunger. You can entrust your safety to us-
Hunger: Let me express my meaning more clearly.
Hunger: Don't fuck this up. Again.
Adorie: ;-;
Not too much to ask, is it? One would think so, but their past conduct doesn't instill a lot of confidence... we're pretty lucky the Tyrant couldn't predict us well enough to interfere during this hour, or we would have wasted both the Enclosure casting slot and the preparation time. Hurray for Accursed-granted abilities hauling our ass out of the fire once again? If only our own powers could approach anything resembling such levels of reliability.
...that aside, just what kind of authority does Augustine command that her soldiers are so willing to die for her? And just how much magic was involved in ensuring this sort of loyalty? I would hope that the wide-spread mastery of Rank among the armies of Nilfel would have prevented blatant mass-brainwashing and she's just that charismatic, but her magics are just too varied and insidious to be sure. Even small indirect effects could pile up after a decade to produce what we see here. Suddenly I'm not so confident in our 100 Charisma anymore.
Jokes aside, I don't really expect Hunger or the voters to sacrifice Adorie if it comes to that. Maybe if it was an explicit choice between her and our companions, but we hadn't chosen Rescue Versch, so since we haven't separated, I think it's unlikely we'll have to pick between them. Which just means Rihaku will find some way to sucker-punch us despite that!
What laws of magic is she talking about though? The laws of equivalent exchange the Lord Protector twisted to her liking? Or was she generally in the habit of abusing magics in ways they weren't intended for? If so, I would really like to pick the brain of someone like that, too bad her sharing the experience with us is so unlikely.
Hmm, Augustine's salt at being deprived of her abilities by her mother-lookalike would have been a sight to see...
Speaking of relations, it might be a bit hard to maintain communication and trade between our various kingdoms. Well, the people of Nilfel with their unfairly high Rank might have less trouble finding their way across the weird space of the Voyaging Realm quickly, but that would mean the relationship between the nations is going to be pretty imbalanced. Should we move the various Voyaging Realm polities we govern closer to each other? Would have been much easier with the Heavenly Tomb, but it might still be possible if we give an order. Though we can't really move the Elixir Springs and the Nilfelians would be weakened beyond the Walls of Myth, so perhaps it's not such a good idea after all.
Additionally, this is going to grant us knowledge about the Shard of Arcanist, which I'm not sure we're going to get otherwise. Whether that's a good or bad thing is debatable, but I think just leaving her alone as we go off gallivanting in the Human Sphere isn't the best idea.
On the plus side, this most likely 'just wins' our current confrontation? If we don't have to worry about Verschlengorge for a full day, we can go back to Crushing Them and cease worrying about whatever plots the Tyrant is going to spin next. While it's still possible she would pull something else from her bag of tricks, I agree with Hunger's assessment that she is unlikely to succeed in a direct contest at this point in time.
Weird that the option was so comparatively unpopular, since it possesses none of the disadvantages of Shelter yet still gives pretty good chances of success when it comes to rescuing Versch. It's much more difficult for Augustine to activate a trap card when there's an Astral beast getting in her face! And while enough money to 'impoverish Adorie' sounds like a ridiculous amount, given that she is a Mythical Princess in charge of her own faction, at the end of the day it's just resources that we can always get more of later. Oh well, at least it's consistent with our decision not to spend the Territorial Waters and take on the risks ourselves.
Without the Interlude part of the update, will probably do that one later.
Reaction: "Vendetta"
Our adventures across the Voyaging Realm have led us on the strangest tangents. It's like walking through a funhouse and looking at all manner of distorted mirrors, reflecting aspects of Hunger's character and powers back at him as he struggles to overcome each and every obstacle. While I would like to blame the Apocryphal Curse for everything, and she's undoubtedly at least partially responsible for the encounters, it feels like there's a greater underlying theme. Perhaps such entertainment is simply to be expected from a Foremost-built amusement park?
From our very first meeting with Versch and Letrizia, who we're indelibly connected with through the Decimation Curse, to the pirate, who possessed a superficial resemblance to the Tyrant, to the Blue Swordsman Bearic, whose party composition practically mocked ours, to the whole Moon Temple adventure, which explored the connection to the Rings of Power and presented us with another person with memories of Earth, to this Mythic Realm, where we seemingly can't make a single step without stumbling over something related to Hunger like the Opalescent Tower, Foremost secrets and the Tyrant with a vengeance streak a mile wide at its head, to the Armament-Fish that appeared suspiciously quickly after our own arrival in this Realm...
Looking at things like that, the Rotbeast presents an interesting outlier. By all appearances, it was just a Kaiju that had been randomly empowered and set loose on the Elixir Sovereignty. I suppose we could stretch things and say that it was in some way linked to the source of Edeldross, but we acquired this magic here in the first place, so it doesn't seem to fit the pattern. Just a random disaster that he had to deal with if he didn't want to see people die on his watch. Is there perhaps a story behind Surgecraft that would have illuminated another connection to Hunger's Artifacts or history? Now more than ever I regret that we hadn't managed to preserve that Ruhuk Armored Prototype, as it might have given us some deep lore on the topic of High Elementalism.
Getting back to this chapter, the Lord Protector turned out to be more than just a stereotypical Tyrant. She is that as well, make no mistake about that, and her backstory doesn't suddenly invalidate all the misery and death caused by her conquests. But there are more layers of depth to her, the character we've been presented with a bizarre combination of the best and worst aspects of Hunger and the Tyrant he had fought once upon a time. She is capable and driven, with an impressive lineage that many would struggle to live up to, her thirst for vengeance uncomfortably close to our own determination to end the Hidden Ones.
We accuse her of causing much grief due to her military policies, but maybe we should take an honest look at ourselves and consider just what our own Geas task will involve. Our goal is the conquest of the Human Sphere, and much as I would like to believe otherwise, I somehow doubt we can accomplish a bloodless and painless takeover. Millions? Billions? Our body count might make hers look veritably modest when we're finished with the various polities. We have the power of Progression on our side, which has both given us significant personal power, social acumen, and magics suited to rulership, but that strength is balanced by the Curses that are going to do their best to fuck things up for us.
And maybe we could have taken the moral high ground if she was just a greedy expansionist, but it's clear that she is motivated by personal feelings and the desire for revenge, which isn't really all that different from what drives Hunger at the end of the day. We don't even need to talk about future casualties, just in the Temple alone we've killed a number of people for the sake of a single Ring. Is her motive of wanting to avenge herself and her siblings that much worse? He methods of fulfilling that Vendetta might be debatable and she hasn't really endeared herself to us with her capture of Versch, but the reasons for her actions are entirely understandable.
Which is not to say that we should suddenly forgive and forget, the wellbeing of our companions obviously comes before any other considerations, but our interests might not be as opposed as we previously thought. We might have no choice but to kill her if she's really bent on holding into power in Nilfel at all costs, but if she desires revenge on her mother most of all... perhaps there is a way for our interests to align.
While I resent what the Lord Protector's actions resulted in for us somewhat, I also can't help admiring their boldness and cunning. Unless given much more time to prepare, it's highly unlikely that she could have opposed us directly. And even then I would bet on Hunger's overwhelming Pressure and the slew of various advantages he has managed to gather until now. The difference in strength is just too great, his capability to brush a Legion that she would have struggled against nigh overwhelming.
Yet here we are, our decision-making crippled after a single strike. I'm not sure it's the best possible action she could have taken, as Letrizia or Aobaru would have made a somewhat more vulnerable hostage, but on the other hand, it did deprive us of a not-insignificant combat asset while giving her a potential sacrificial offering to enhance her power with. And the way she did it is highly impressive too, turning our own actions of stealing the Tower against us. Given that we later learn how she has trouble divining even our companions, never mind Hunger himself, it means that she had far less information on us that we assumed and might have even been flying blind. If so, I can see how she had taken over Nilfel at eight.
Right now I'm really, really glad she can't divine us, because if this is what she's like when suffering under such limitations, her capabilities when she has the chance to adjust her tactics and aim for specific weaknesses don't bear thinking about. Though I guess her greatest advantage is that in her mind she has her back against the wall and doesn't have anything holding her back, whereas we have to worry about the safety of our companions. Having people he cares about is good for his mental health and support, but it sure does make some things more annoying and complicated than they should have been.
Interesting, I thought after taking the Tower the spells were predetermined in-universe too, since that's how they were presented to us, but it seems to be written as if there was some unrealized potential that he had transformed into the Supreme Enclosure spell on the spot. Perhaps this is more realistic, since there is little reason why Hunger would choose a spell that he doesn't need at the moment. I suppose we could have had the choice presented to us OOC in this way too, but that would have drawn out an already painfully long build vote.
The wording here and later on is curious too. Primordial sorcery, prototypical arcana (was there something to the Tarot Spread theory after all, or just arcana as in magic?), predecessor magics... I really want to know more about the Cloak's origins, that it would claim such mastery over all magics. The descriptions hint at its spells being original or older magics, and it being so close to the Royal Praxis in potency is also a sign (heh) of its importance. A creation of the Foremost themselves? They had created a number Realms, and Evening Sky would give us access to the Realm of Evening with Pillars of Creation too. Could it be an instrument for manipulating magics they had made?
Hopefully we'll solve this riddle like many others in time.
Sounds like serious business! Reminds me of the descriptions from the Throne of Stars in the EFB quest, which had originally come from Hermeticism and Tarot (again?!), which in turn took it from the Bible? It's turtles all the way down, in more than one sense.
I'm often surprised how Hunger manages to develop new powers from previous feats where we don't see an immediate connection. He did summon the Evening Sky from the Astral itself once upon a time with the help of the Ring, so it seems this is a reiteration through a much stronger and more fitting medium, rather than a power made from whole cloth. I had sort of expected him to acquire some sort of mana pool, given Empyrean Sky's themes, but I guess it's still his Artifact at the end of the day, and as such an intricate application of Pressure more than anything else.
Hmm, stars, forgotten language of magic, ritual, runes, it's as if it draws from every meme we have about magic while actualizing its effects. Perhaps one would expect a 'primordial' magic to have less bells and whistles attached and enact its miracles directly, but it seems that for this Artifact's purposes the form of magic is no less important than the function. Hunger says here that it's to achieve exactly the effect that wants rather than just throw the power at the Astral and hope something useful comes by for a visit, but I wonder if there are deeper reasons for these patterns. The stars (and later constellations) part at least hints strongly at a connection to the Diagram to me, if the spells being called Signs wasn't enough.
Is this how we Hasten Signs, stealing potential from magically significant foes? Once again the Cloak proves why it's no less deserving of the moniker Hunger than the Ring and its bearer. The Blade might have felt left out if it wasn't too cool to succumb to peer pressure. The Forebear's powers are more than enough for it!
How does Adorie research new Signs anyway? I had already been somewhat doubtful of the possibility before learning just how potent its magics are, but she doesn't even have any Signs herself. Nor does she seem to be some kind of arcane prodigy, as that is more her sister's remit. I suppose she has being a bookworm and quite high Rank going for her, and perhaps some innate connection to the Tower from living her whole life there and her bloodline having possessed the Artifact for some time? Maybe some mundane skills like mathematics or knowledge of history that she has mastered would apply really well to developing new Signs? But I can't help thinking that Augustine would fill this role much better if we could trust her with such a task.
Well, it's not a bad use of a Sign slot, I would say. Perhaps Penitent could have solved our immediate problems (Decimation, Lord Protector) without further sacrifices, assuming we wouldn't have been interrupted during the casting, and Break of Storm could have made enacting her schemes more difficult for Augustine while providing us with a pretty good spell to support our future conquest. But Enclosure is a fairly flexible tool that can theoretically be applied to any kind of task, as the votes at the end of the chapter have shown, we just need to be careful about what we call up and what we agree to.
An hour or more? Just Hunger's unfamiliarity with the spell, or is it possible to improve the chances of summoning something useful by extending casting time? If the point of waiting for an hour is to filter out all the unsuitable callees, waiting longer might give us something better. Of course there are probably restrictions inherent to the spell itself and spending more time fishing in the Astral risks Apocryphal involvement, but for some matters we might be willing to risk the enhanced wait time, assuming it's actually possible.
Hunger: Don't fuck this up.
Adorie: Of course we won't, Hunger. You can entrust your safety to us-
Hunger: Let me express my meaning more clearly.
Hunger: Don't fuck this up. Again.
Adorie: ;-;
Not too much to ask, is it? One would think so, but their past conduct doesn't instill a lot of confidence... we're pretty lucky the Tyrant couldn't predict us well enough to interfere during this hour, or we would have wasted both the Enclosure casting slot and the preparation time. Hurray for Accursed-granted abilities hauling our ass out of the fire once again? If only our own powers could approach anything resembling such levels of reliability.
As if 'vicinity' means anything to a wizard of Augustine's caliber. But there's no need to douse our ninja's enthusiasm, especially since she has gotten much more useful after the Arete investment. Not useful enough to prevent this clusterfuck, but I won't blame her for failing against someone like the Lord Protector.
...that aside, just what kind of authority does Augustine command that her soldiers are so willing to die for her? And just how much magic was involved in ensuring this sort of loyalty? I would hope that the wide-spread mastery of Rank among the armies of Nilfel would have prevented blatant mass-brainwashing and she's just that charismatic, but her magics are just too varied and insidious to be sure. Even small indirect effects could pile up after a decade to produce what we see here. Suddenly I'm not so confident in our 100 Charisma anymore.
Why doesn't that sound convincing to me? While I don't want to disparage someone with around Rank 7.5, since that's not too different from how much Hunger had before the Tower Incident, If we hadn't been told about her potential, dragging Adorie along would have sounded like a disaster in the making. As is it's just a gamble, though with the new knowledge about her relation to Augustine maybe we can be less worried about her safety.
Maybe her death would even free up the Tears of Winter if we regret our choice of their carrier. It's still not too late to exchange the Praxis bonus for Gisena's time magic or Letrizia's EFB! I bet we wouldn't have lost Verschlengorge if Letrizia was piloting him while counting as a Praehihr. All it would take is the death of a single girl!
Jokes aside, I don't really expect Hunger or the voters to sacrifice Adorie if it comes to that. Maybe if it was an explicit choice between her and our companions, but we hadn't chosen Rescue Versch, so since we haven't separated, I think it's unlikely we'll have to pick between them. Which just means Rihaku will find some way to sucker-punch us despite that!
In light of Augustine's interlude, the idea of Royalists trying to infiltrate her cult is pretty hilarious. Did she have fun teaching them the secret handshake and the Evil Overlord list before she ganked or subverted them? It feels a bit pathetic that they couldn't get any info while Hunger all but got her whole biography after a single Summoning, but it's not exactly fair to compare their capabilities to what is essentially a demigod, so I'll give them a pass for that.
What laws of magic is she talking about though? The laws of equivalent exchange the Lord Protector twisted to her liking? Or was she generally in the habit of abusing magics in ways they weren't intended for? If so, I would really like to pick the brain of someone like that, too bad her sharing the experience with us is so unlikely.
I wish I had more faith in Gisena, but I don't think anything below her Ultimate is going to be very effective against this foe, even with the usual type weakness of wizards to anti-magic. Maybe if she had Renaissance Woman, but we don't have nearly enough Arete for that at this juncture, nor am I sure we would buy it before the Pillars even in such circumstances.
Hmm, Augustine's salt at being deprived of her abilities by her mother-lookalike would have been a sight to see...
My word, just how much more insufferable is she going to get when she becomes Empress Nullity? We should prepare in advance and dump even more work on her when the time comes.
That's just dragging out the inevitable, since we're going to conquer the whole universe anyway! Oh man, our ambition sounds so embarrassing when I write it out like that. The Geas of Indenture probably draws its power from concentrated eight-grader syndrome, seeing how it's all about isekai, killing heroes and taking over the world.
What a realistic girl! I knew there was a reason I liked her, now we aren't alone and have support when it comes to bantering against Gisena. The kids just aren't up to snuff and can't appreciate a proper back-and-forth, accusing us of silly things like flirting, as if we would ever stoop to that. Any accusations to the contrary and reminders that we already kissed and gave her a Ring will be summarily dismissed!
Speaking of relations, it might be a bit hard to maintain communication and trade between our various kingdoms. Well, the people of Nilfel with their unfairly high Rank might have less trouble finding their way across the weird space of the Voyaging Realm quickly, but that would mean the relationship between the nations is going to be pretty imbalanced. Should we move the various Voyaging Realm polities we govern closer to each other? Would have been much easier with the Heavenly Tomb, but it might still be possible if we give an order. Though we can't really move the Elixir Springs and the Nilfelians would be weakened beyond the Walls of Myth, so perhaps it's not such a good idea after all.
I had almost forgotten that Aobaru's enhancements only last for a single day. He should work on his endurance. And the magnitude of his enhancements. And that fractional elevation across the ISH we had been promised! We have taken some +s to Aobaru Power already, so I expect them to have an effect at some point. Especially with his new task as the Chosen One destined to bring the Voyaging amusement park back to its former glory!
I'm not gonna lie, knowing we lost a re-roll because we dragged things out for too long wasn't the best news. It means that without rerolls Verschlengorge would be just dead, no takebacksies. Well, not like the other options were without risks, so sometimes it just comes down to bad rolls. Hopefully our preparations will be worth the trouble!
Strangely enough, the 'cheapest' option, so to speak, though you wouldn't have caught me saying that at the start of the quest. As is, 2 Arete really isn't all that costly compared to what we would be getting in return. We have little information on the Lord Protector and thus have trouble making concrete plans against her, as Hunger had complained in the first few paragraphs of this chapter. Glimpse would neatly solve that problem, dumping a whole lot of info that Augustine doesn't want anyone to know in our head, though it doesn't resolve the question of what to do about Versch by itself. It puts us in a much better position to negotiate and allows us to strike at the Tyrant's weaknesses, both psychological and magical, but it's no guarantee of success.
Additionally, this is going to grant us knowledge about the Shard of Arcanist, which I'm not sure we're going to get otherwise. Whether that's a good or bad thing is debatable, but I think just leaving her alone as we go off gallivanting in the Human Sphere isn't the best idea.
This would have been hands down the best option if it hadn't been for the Cost. I think I already wrote more than enough about the potential downsides of that - Hunger takes his promises seriously, and Enclosure makes sure that he would fulfill them even if he didn't. With Apocrypha waiting in the wings to make our life interesting once again, I don't want to give her bait as obvious as this when we have little influence over the consequences.
On the plus side, this most likely 'just wins' our current confrontation? If we don't have to worry about Verschlengorge for a full day, we can go back to Crushing Them and cease worrying about whatever plots the Tyrant is going to spin next. While it's still possible she would pull something else from her bag of tricks, I agree with Hunger's assessment that she is unlikely to succeed in a direct contest at this point in time.
Are we Summoning a Cultivator?! So that's where they ended up...
Weird that the option was so comparatively unpopular, since it possesses none of the disadvantages of Shelter yet still gives pretty good chances of success when it comes to rescuing Versch. It's much more difficult for Augustine to activate a trap card when there's an Astral beast getting in her face! And while enough money to 'impoverish Adorie' sounds like a ridiculous amount, given that she is a Mythical Princess in charge of her own faction, at the end of the day it's just resources that we can always get more of later. Oh well, at least it's consistent with our decision not to spend the Territorial Waters and take on the risks ourselves.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Tough choice. The Forebear's Blade is great for survival and combat - a lot of our early game was carried by Second Stage, Echoes, and Fell-Handed Stroke. That 2x XP multiplier without the conditional nature of the Ring is also very useful.
The problem is, aside from hypothetically Praxis (which required Uttermost to unlock, and Uttermost was a 4-pick), Blade is... Not super great at thing besides combat and survival. Getting Rune King and unlocking a magic system from another source would be the best bet, but Surgecraft was only available through the Ring's blood powers and the rest of our magic access came from the Cloak of Sky. We'd have to go actively looking for a magic system that could be learned on its own - however, once we got that Rune King would be super great, and we could try getting magic systems that covered for Blade's deficiencies.
As such, Blade is actually a pretty good choice, because you get early survivability and combat power, and if you can pick up Rune King and track down a good magic system, the versatility problem is solved.
The Mantle is another great choice - it's got inbuilt protection, which would quickly rack up with a lack of other things to draw picks and Arete away. It's got social, allowing for that type of approach to conflicts. It's got access to tons of magic and utility. The one, glaring problem it has is a lack of offense. You can buy up a magic system and get some fireballs or soul-flaying words eventually, but until then you're in a little bit of trouble if you need to actually kill something. The Mantle doesn't really do offense by itself. Hunger would need some kind of weapon, or to quickly get a magic system that allowed for attacks. Rank-backed punches can only get you so far, and with solo Mantle that's all you have for a while.
I see a lot of people like Ring solo, but I'm not a fan of that. It suffers from similar problems as the Mantle, without the expansive versatility and protection the Mantle provides.
Tears we haven't seen any advancements for yet. I'd have to know what options I'd be getting before I picked that... We know the themes, but not how those themes translate into picks.