Interlude: The Star-Forge
Half-way into the Inner Temple, where we go now to end the civilization that made of a Ring a tortured wretch, or else die trying.
Solid black so you know it's serious. Sick name it has though; was that one of Plerion's gifts or are his successors the ones with the high fantasy naming skills?
Does it forge stars, or forge using stars? With the Azure Ring in Stenallon's grip, the difference may be academic. Indeed, there may be none at all if the Heavenly Tomb's description were to prove accurate. The power of a Ring seems to be far more than the sum of any conceptual parts, realized only when they're arranged together with proper shape and technique. The runic casting we've seen across the Realm is weak compared to the tricks showcased by the Temple civilization, but perhaps that's more to do with the different between forging pure magic and cobbling together leftover energies.
last-minute edit: page code, page code. More like pain code, amirite? 
It's the same color blue as the next two. These days we use it to refer to Might, which is crazy. In what kind of absurdist time spiral is the Red Option defensive, the Blue Option aggressive, and the Green Option contemplative?
The Encampment of the False Moon. A riotous whirl of sandstone facings and colored tends, teeming with moon-mad adventurers whose desperation and fearsome need for distraction have birthed one of the foulest dens of sin and iniquity to mar the Voyaging Realm. Among the vaudeville festivities and direst-hour purveyors of food and lodging lie those few mighty peddlers whose business is neither fare nor fortune but power itself.
Damn, it sounds almost as bad as the average Isekai fantasy world in here. Somebody with a cheat skill to offer could make like Pinocchio and be a star overnight – only to end up collared and put to work by the next morning. I wonder how often powerful people are called to here, or if it's just any adventurer worth his ten-foot pole? Such individuals tend to be at least competent enough to supply order to their environment. Then again, the Call would drag most strongly upon them.
The concept that the Call is likely empowered as much by the Azure's horrible pain and misery as any segment of its nature is as disturbing as it is intriguing. The Dominion trees of our own Ring may carry similar far-reaching effects, like a means of speaking that wakens ancient animalistic furor in our peoples, or a mien whose presence inspires drive and confidence in those who stand amongst us. Ennobling was a game-changer in terms of our public appeal and empire building, but our buffing could be a lot better and more relevant to us besides.
Sigil and secret, objects of power or sentimental value to the Residents Within - these are their stock in trade, among them a cache of papers distributed by the Ministry of Information For the Inner Ring. Secured by supernatural locks and surrounded by guardian spirits, the contents of these bloodstained pages are known to few within the Encampment itself. Do the peddlers fear the loss of their prey, should the true sophistication of Inner Temple society be made known to them? Or are they merely content to hoard and bask in their hidden knowledge, lording it over the ignorant?
Not mutually exclusive, those. But how much of a waste it must have been, to take those precious secrets at whatever cost the Civilization would exact, only to find them useless or counterproductive. The perils of using thieves in place of proper spies, who lack the insight to transform worthless text into inroads to the Temple's heart. A less-deprived army of adventurers could have united around the data within, a conspiracy waiting to recruit R-types to form a task force sufficient in skill to infiltrate and conquer. But if our own experience with the subject is anything to go by, trained killers are notoriously poor at infiltration. Planning, charisma, delegation... but real intelligence work requires patience, and no one gets good at fighting by waiting and watching.
Maybe we need to work on mitigating the Crimson's mental effects... I'm wondering if it and the Blade aren't having some kind of vampiric feedback loop. I guess we'll know if our fifth Panoply item turns out to be a red horse.
...which is and isn't a joke, with all this talk of runes and spirits and soul evocations. We're going to need someone to replace Aobaru and Aeira when we flee the Voyaging Realm, won't we? Fish be damned, humanoids aren't the only bros in the cosmos you can recruit! And we shouldn't let the Vanguard's numeric limits become ours – after all, limits are just excuses!
But the party was ignorant no more, for Aeira was able to secure these on a brief excursion to the Encampment. She made no attempts on the greater, more heavily guarded treasures within, noting that Lord Hunger seemed content with the current state of his panoply, and having no wish to call down mightier contingencies than she'd already provoked. Still, the lithe assassin made little secret of her satisfaction at having given her pursuers the slip, though she was shocked to find Hunger dissatisfied at the lack of enemies to subdue. The information within is neither complete nor entirely decipherable, but its contents are illuminating nonetheless, especially should Hunger wish to infiltrate the Temple in person. Though he will never be bound to obey their customs, still it is better to be aware of them, so that evasion is possible.
It seems Letrizia's Luck score is a lot higher than ours. Aeira's so good at what she does, having our young Duchess just randomly contact her after a short time in high school was a major coup. You could blame Aobaru on Chosen One benefits, but not Roilweft or Shadowcord. Perhaps this is one of the social skills cultivated by aristocrats, the Forbidden Art of Networking?
That she was yet unaware of our Hunger for the blood and terror of worthy opponents speaks not only to her recent recruitment, but to her inexperience as an operator. Everyone knows you have to learn the predilections of your employers and co-workers ASAP, because learning on the job is generally too late. With her dedication I expect she's simply an uncultured woman, too inexperienced with Anime to expect the a man who brings a sword to a kaiju fight to also be a war demon.
That she didn't stop to steal an item, even for herself or Gisena, is disappointing though. Of all the sneaks in the Voyaging Realm, we had to pick up the one without kleptomania? We could've have at least fed it to the Ring for more power! It can do that, right? Probably not. But maybe we could hand out magical enhancements to enemies to get ourselves more picks when we wreck them. That sounds like a hilarious racket to run, and one we should look into with Gisena once (if) we have down-time.
- The Star-Forges of Plerion -
...nani? A header within a header? It's like Christmas for a reactor, but with more color variety! I'm loving this shade of blue, I think it was used for Yong Lie-Feng's mastermind teacher option? The comparison is not immediately obvious, but Artifice and the Stacked Deck are both tools iterated upon tools, true geniuses bending the world of man and god to their will. The level of spiritual strength required to push back against the delusory chaos of fate is nothing to scoff at. Though the sheen of blue on display isn't Endless or True, I wonder what it's missing? Maybe the consumptive impulse, or the shameless self-certainty? Maybe it's just not emotionally detached enough, more akin to life-giving rain or rushing rapids than the savage indigo of ocean depths, or the hollow wroth of naked sky.
If the parallels hold true, that Plerion suffered annihilation at the hands of a ruthless invincible bruiser and a beautiful noblewoman blessed with sight beyond sight... Yong Lie-Feng's rebellion may not have been as destined for victory as he had expected. Were his pawns truly snared without limit? Was the affliction that took root in his father destined to ruin him as well? His symbol and sign were the Scales, and there was perhaps no one in all of Northern Yong who was more deserving of Primeva's divine justice.
CONFIDENTIAL - GRADE O-5 AND ABOVE ONLY
FOR DISSEMINATION TO OUTRIDERS PROMOTED TO MARSHALL-CLASS AND ABOVE
From the Sayings of Plerion:
Ignorance is no excuse for disobedience; nor liberty, for disorder.
The first of many names for our Inner Temple-dwelling foes. We saw with Vanreir that they were tight-lipped and ruthless, but to skip straight from loyal soldiers and outriders to platitudes straight out of Stalin's wet dreams? These guys are already leaking autocracy, which in hindsight makes their brutal efficiency in cutting down outsiders and potential aggressors more reasonable. They don't want more people – they've got enough trouble keeping their own in line!
The use of multiple grades of O (presumably Outriders) speaks to quite a degree of gradation there. O-1 for probation, O-2 and O-3 for outer operators and their commanding officers, followed by their middle equivalents at O-4 and O-5? But the use of Craven Knights and Tiller Wurms implies technical knowledge of some kind to be more important to maintaining the border than pure politics or power, so perhaps they're more flexible? Perhaps they relate directly to the strength of one's Soul Evocation, which sounds mildly too magocratic for a society that supposedly controls its Ring and not the other way around.
Or the other way around, where using non-magical methods for things is primitive or something. Git gud to these losers probably means git wizard. Must suck being spiritually weaker than
Bearic, of all people! I wonder what his Evocation would have been, come to think of it...
Named for their long-deceased inventor, the Star Forges are crucial to the stability and prosperity of our regimented Inner Ring. The dome of blue that surrounds the Ring appears impenetrable to outsiders, but within you shall find it is near-wholly transparent, reflecting both daytime and evening sky in mirrored harmony, with night on the outside become day within.
So it's a giant half-and-half snow globe, with day on one end and night on the other? I thought our Cloak of Sky was silly, but apparently that's chic for imperialist radicals in the Voyaging Realm! I personally wonder why everyone wants to be Atlas, shoulders locked endlessly for fear of being the first to die sating Ouranos's slavering pate, but then I'm not a Cursebearer or a Ringbearer or a Forebear(er)... damn, so many bears. We should go conquer Ursa Major and Ursa Minor at some point, I'm sure there's a meme title in it for us to go with our Game of Thrones meme title.
But rambling aside, it's good to know that P-leery is dead. Sad to say he's probably been replaced with a million douchey soul-wizards, but hey! At least the guy who knows how to... crap, we could have recruited him if he was still alive, couldn't we? I mean the odds of Ringbearers working together is low, but they're not inherently enemies at all times, are they? Nameless and Aurelia got along together just fine. But we never saw how that worked a hundred generations down the line, either...
Also, his name reminds me of both the gnostic Pleroma and greek Orion. An interesting combination – completion and totality of existence plus a legendary hunter whose arrogance got him murdered by two arachnids whose courage and ruthlessness were in far excess of his own power. Cruelly appropriate, with knowledge of how Evangelline and Stenallon did him in the end. Was he predestined to be a Truth-seeker, like our Gisena's extended variant of Jason marks her to be?
The Fates seem to hold special power – and purpose – for names. We know to abandon one's name is a powerful thing, that it holds some metaphysical weight beyond even control over its associated object. Perhaps the study of the Praxis,
("Do not put too much stock in names. Each practitioner names as he wills.") which both interacts deeply with the Realm of Forms and supposedly rejects the deeper narrative of all worlds it enters, might offer some insight there. Cutting names to sunder destinies without slaying foes would be pretty fuckin' dope, I have to say. Especially if we could abduct the remains afterwards...
You have likely long wondered at the purpose of the Star Forges whose auditory emissions are deflected into the Middle Ring. Crystallized possibility can be extracted from the stars of the False Heavens, tearing them from the nighttime sky to forge into numinous energy, which can then be repurposed for any number of applications. Empirical observation has long confirmed that extraction via star-forge is the most efficient and least unpleasant means of exploiting the priceless Treasure at the Heart of the Temple, though many have raised the obvious question: what happens when the stars run out?
That's an obvious question, sure. The answer's pretty obvious too: you mine something else. I mean shit, if you're living inside of a giant starlit snowglobe, you can probably just pick it up and leave if you want. Not sure how leaving the Voyaging Realm would affect the Temple itself, but apocalypse is probably not strong enough to strike them down if they're willing to let Sten loose for the duration.
That they refuse to even call it a Ring in their notes is notable, though only because they likely fear the greed of outsiders even more than their own. As if knowing what the Treasure is would somehow ensure an enemy Ringbearer would hear tell of it, and come to claim another. Or perhaps there are legends in distant lands, which might with time and opportunity be stirred into a more unified invasion? I suppose a proper Voyaging Realm nation like the Sovereignty or wherever Bearic worked at would be a serious danger to the Temple, if given a chance to form a beachhead and become consumed by lunacy.
Beyond that, what energy are we talking about here? It doesn't sound like any kind of
dross we've seen yet. Perhaps this is the Bleak Light, a colorless and patient energy that refuses to qualify itself for hate of limitation. We saw something like that with the Lioness (I think we've been calling her Turn E of late?) but to see a Ring used to harness it sounds like the power of Artifice rather than the Azure's own. Very Urza's Legacy; lets hope we don't run into Phyrexia any time soon.
To which the Council notes that the number of stars in the night sky is very nearly innumerable, and the current rate of extraction will see our civilization through for many millennia to follow, far beyond the circumscribed lifetime of any Inner Resident save the Immortals themselves. While the visible eye may not be able to perceive every star, our mighty astronomical arrays have indeed confirmed that the blanket of seeming darkness above is home to countless stars below the range of human perception.
So wait, they can tell the stars are very nearly innumerable but the current rate of extraction can only be certified to last many millennia? For a mortal lifespan that would just be truncation, but for people who live a thousand years naturally and also have Immortals, that's a rather short estimate. Is this the propaganda grinding its gears, or else some specific quality of their arrays not mentioned?
I can say that with how much noise they make and how low that estimate is compared to the power described, the Star-Forges must in actuality be
incredibly inefficient. The effect of not having your master artificer around anymore, I expect. What was it the spy said in Nilfel...
"...only the ceaseless churning-out of watered-down product, substitution of diligence for inspiration." – not that I agree, for the ability to copy a thing is only a single facet of diligence – but the premise remains the same. Industrialization expands the reach of a man by leagues, but not his grasp itself. The illusive idea of mass-produced mastery goes unrealized, instead becoming an imitation of mastery which flounders in the chaos of unconstrained circumstance. In response the market must be contained, investments in skilled labor validated by carefully-crafted expectations which are aggressively harvested at every available opportunity. Potential exchanged for power, victory redefined to hide the fear of losing control.
Wizard shit be damned, Yong Shen would be proud.
Fewer, more heretical minds have proposed a different question - what if the Forges were turned to the harvest of the moon itself? The Council, as befits its dignity, has not seen fit to answer so ludicrous a query. Star-stuff suffices to power all but the most esoteric applications of Inner Ring society, from power and lighting to the time-twisting Calendar Engine and even the carefully regimented Dimensional Vortex upon which the Inner Ring sits.
"The Council, as befits its dignity, ain't got time for none of that Pearlescence shit.''
-Council Spokesperson
Did we ever learn what the Calendar Engine does, anyway? I figured it filtered the Azure's light into Soul-Evoking power, but it could really be anything from over here. Perhaps Gisena could correspond with a few Ring-slavers before their inevitable decline and ruination steals little things like 'how the lights stayed on for so long' fade from memory.
Maybe it's how they live so long? I had assumed Soul Evocations handle that, but they do literally schedule when people die here. The word regimented is appearing again here, but this time in reference to the Dimensional Vortex. Not bound or harnessed, but regimented. Do they make it do things for them too? I expect the Astral beings have a complicated relationship with this place, if they can warp space-time so casually and so efficiently. The walls of Nilfel were also vast and powerful... perhaps they were more than an affectation or a military implement. The vortex and the Temple walls might then be a way to keep the Voyaging Realm from throwing giant monsters at them? I remember that the Sovereignty didn't have anything like those, and neither did that city at the beginning...
Might be useful for when we plan to leave, averting Apocalypse like so. Come to think of it, we've heard tell of the Apocryphal Onslaught that occurs when we allow Aobaru's assailant to steal center-stage from us. Though the comparison is perhaps baseless, the possibility exists that the Realm we're in is tied to Curses the same way the robots are. This place being so volatile because it's been seeded with the Apocryphal Curse would be distinctive – especially if that Armament Fish was able to be born because of it.
Actually, is that what Spare the Innocent entails? Is she going to throw up giant Apocryphal-blocking sigils all over the place? The Mirellyian bloodlike is explicitly well-suited to resisting Praxis penalties, so it's not like there's no connection between her and Cursebearers. Probably not the literal bloodline of one, but then... they're pulled from heroic stock, underdogs one and all. A girl trapped within a tower, her parents slain and her noble lineage and empire kept from her by royal and divine edict? And the old blood sings loudest when brought to its lowest...
Marshall, imbibe dutifully the information contained above, and take heed as to the tenor of questions that the Council will and will not countenance. Such is crucial to your harmonious existence within our Inner Ring.
They get stupid questions often, then? And from people they can't ignore, if only because field recruitment is always a tenuous affair. Indoctrination is quite a time-consuming process: easier if incorporated into other things, but fundamentally constructing false context and holding it for long enough to sink in is a lot of work.
But I don't need to explain that to a writer, do I... anyway. The concept they see their existence as harmonious is pretty amusing, seeing as we saw how easy it was to raise insurrection once we broke in later. I think Larissa might have tried it anyway, if her thirst wasn't a sign of mental illness but actual ambition.
There it is again! Blue like Suizhen's Dao, which cleaved sky in twain and put steel to the heaven above heaven! It really must be the color of hubris, if it grows more overt the closer one gets to the den of moon and stars.
Again I am drawn to comparison. The act of enslaving the Ring was undoubtedly wrong, but could there not have been a less-ruthless method? The Ring had to be contained, I believe the Immortals when they spoke of such. But exploiting it for wealth and glory was obviously not a wise or intelligent choice. Couldn't take the hit to lifespan or the loss of technology, I expect? I guess it's better than an age of imperialism, but surely the Voyaging Realm had tools they could harness not tied to the Azure's light. It's not like they lacked for power in objective terms.
Reminds me of another wizard we once directed, a nameless soul who verged Immortality, only to disregard it at the last minute. But his friends saved him from the gods' wrath, and the sky itself as well. Plerion obviously did not share this fate. The power of a Ring and wizard is not sufficient to turn the wheel of fate? Perhaps he glimpsed too much, and had to be put down. It's not all that hard to turn the insouciant faith of a cult of personality to the fury of betrayed saints.
That a Ringbearer could be subverted so should scare us, though. The incentives we offer to our allies are, at the end of the day, mere logical provisions to ease their decision to stay. In terms of investment, power is extremely appealing to the powerless, but less so when an individual develops whatever fraction of impunity enables the question of what to do and not merely how. At that point trust is more easily represented with protections and personal sacrifice. The Forebear knew this: Tenfold Echoes and Companions of the King made that clear, I feel.
But that's only one of the legends we're wearing like an MMO freak of nature. We fall into a groove, we have to ride it out whether we like it or not. Mayhap the Sky's signs and the Tears' pristinity can snare our friends' souls from the Rings' eternal war. If where meets witching hour and winter eternal are not enough, I dare not yet ask what should be.
CONFIDENTIAL - GRADE O-7 AND ABOVE ONLY
FOR DISSEMINATION TO NATIVE-BORN RESIDENTS WITH AWAKENED SOUL EVOCATIONS OF MILITARY GRADE
From the Sayings of Plerion:
No False Moon is this, but the anchor of the world itself! Come now into mine grasp, that my descedents may flourish evermore.
I see Plerion was also a man of culture. It should be no surprise that we are not the first to Inherit The World. Perhaps he was as meek as Quiet Sten was as well, once? The phrase puts our Contaminated hatred of cowardice and torturers into perspective – a hard-won lesson, a measure of the life of one who stood by and did nothing as others suffered. Perhaps that is the origin of the Penitent, and why its benefits are 'non-magical'. They're no more mystical than an echo, save that it's narrative causality repeating and not sound waves.
That he considers the Moon to be the anchor of everything's kind of cuckoo though. Was he already crazy by this point? The Penitent may convince one that the world will just bend over forever, but surely he didn't believe himself without limit just because he could build cool stuff. Then again... maybe it's a good thing we haven't delved too deeply into the mass-scale biokinetic dominion of the Crimson Ring. The human nature to adapt actively to conflict doesn't always work so well in tandem with the ability to alter your environment. Too many variables, too many conceptual trap doors. Dr. Apocalypse knew better than to play the brain-drain game.
I wonder how nasty things would have gotten in They Called Me Mad! if we had chosen one of the other two options. I don't expect 'not becoming a cyborg until you've done this experiment a hundred times on lab rats' to have been a major voting bloc. Not when escalating at a self-destuctive rate constitutes most of our good and bad ideas at the same time! I can almost imagine us accidentally turning ourselves into Joker goons or throwing ourselves backwards in time to before Theia got reset, or just losing the same limb over and over again because our main character was too smart to actually kill himself for power, but too greedy not to try and hope for the best.
...maybe we should look into that biokinetic dominion after all...
It is well known that the Treasure at Temple's Heart is the source and guiding light of all magics practiced by its attendant civilization. As the vast majority of practitioners are Soul Evokers, an understandable confusion arises: will the Light of one's Soul itself be extinguished should the Treasure ever be depleted?
I do love that they just utterly refuse to give themselves a name. Though I'm also impressed they apparently do have more magic on hand than Soul Evocation. Was the Gardener's Hallow an actual thing they were using? I expect they include the Fairbright Legacy among their count, as well as some other genetic chicanery like that. How many legacies are running around in this Realm, or even this part of it? I recall miss Esterarc had a destiny of some sort, as does the young Aobaru and princess Adorie.
I'll speak in the Council's defense here:
obviously, yes. That's why it's a priceless treasure. They can neither replace nor do without it. That term was last used for minor magical items back in Even Further Beyond, most notably for one of Kong Zang's self-laced Pearls of Fathomless Blue. But here it would seem to be actually true, rather than a platitudinous phrase relating to the lack of money's value compared to power. In retrospect we should have appreciated more the fact that the Necromancer was willing to work for money rather than arbitrary goals or absolute lateral costs – we were actually being quite spoiled ourselves, being so used to destiny and position that we'd begun to expect others to sacrifice for our cause with just a little cajoling.
These guys seem to have a similar disposition. When you're the magitech super-civ sitting pretty among the peasants of lay Voyaging society, it's hard to see yourself as fundamentally a bunch of parasites built upon the stolen hand of a dead wizard and its attached magical artifacts. It does say something that they either never cared to hunt down and incorporate any major secondary power sources – or simply lacked the ability to do so, in between keeping the Azure locked down and their nation's finest under psychological dominion.
The answer is more complicated than a simple affirmation or negation would reveal. Rather, without the Treasure's empowering light, most Soul Evokers would be incapable of directly manifesting their own Light in so concrete a manner as they do nowadays, with all but the mightiest relegated to effective mundanity.
'kay, so it could work but they wouldn't have the crutch. That's better than I had expected, both at the time and right now looking back. They're not total parasites, just chumps. Might Ennobling's higher stats and native longer lives aid with them regaining some shred of their Evocations? The loss of a majority of powers would reduce the effects to 'effective mundanity' – but does this mean they could be twisted into hereditary traits via Blood magic? The Amarlt family legacy leads one to assume it's a worthwhile field of inquiry.
The study of engendering mystical powers in others is both a noble and profitable field, but one that requires patience in the extreme... as usual,
findross could probably be turned to that end. But at present I'd rather consider using the powerful Arete-boosted Surges we've courted instead, since by all counts they're just a form of natural Voyaging Realm energy. No small possibility exists it's literally the Realm's lifeblood, with how easy it was to incubate through the Ring of Power. Could this power be transplanted? Our Sky could have stolen our dear Aeira's powers to become Shadowlord before, so it's not absolutely tied to its maker's physical body. The ease of moving True imaginary elements can be expected worse than Grand and lower stages by orders of magnitude, but between Artifice and Signs ours odds are looking good.
Using Signs to awaken Soul Evocations with implanted Surge-generators to feed them sounds time-consuming, but also like a dependable way to convert our rulership into resources we can use in the field. Who knows, we might need that second trickle of Elite magical operators to cover for our strategic dithering while we quest about like a drunken lout with the world's coolest fish-kebab.
This would be only one of the many catastrophic consequences to follow if the Treasure were ever to depart its hallowed perch, but rest assured that its longevity as a power source is effectively infinite! That is why the treasure must be impenetrably defended, not only by the citizenry of the Temple, but by the Immortals of the Council themselves, whose imperishable might is the sole and necessary justification for their continuance beyond the prescribed lifespan of one thousand years.
Not going to lie, a thousand years sounds like a pretty insane time-frame by any rational person's standards. Remembering that the Forebear's power source was being disgustingly old and experienced, the Temple folk must have a similarly intense degree of repression to not have self-manifested something akin to Binary Magic by this point. Spending their soul's light to permanently enhance a component of their environment sounds like a respectable career path for those whose lifespans are breaking 700. Is this another face of imperial decadence? Or are their attentions merely elsewhere...
Probably just that Rule 0 DM thing kicking up again. Anything drawn directly from the soul can't be trusted, since that thing eats decadent rule and spits our heroic legacies all the time. Spiteful too, since people who mess with them tend to end up chuuni and crazy as hell. Maybe that's what the Calendar does, keeps their Evocations growing and expanding at a controlled rate instead of mutating or collapsing based on being a badass, as it presumably does on its own every once in a blue moon. (heh)
...or is it just luck? Luck is a thing most protagonists actually don't have that much of, a single moment of superlative opportunity or a constant tide of above-average events, but rarely does a true deluge of approbate empowerment take place in fiction. In my experience, anyway. In those works I've partaken of, the power of a protagonist tended to derive not from an absolute narrative favoritism but rather a perceived density of potential pulled from divergent surface and underlying personality traits. A farm boy with a noble heart, a princess with an iron will, and so on.
I guess they too have been imitated, pure warm blanket of Fate's industriousness replacing the once-hallowed science of heroic ascent. And if the soul has a half-life, why can't destiny have a blueprint? The difference can be indistinct from a distance, but like the blue of Truth, once spoken aloud it's as apparent as naked day. The imitation breaks limits: the original doesn't have them.
Do not envy them their eternal vigilance, and mourn not your finite hours, for it is by their tireless regard that the Treasure which shelters us all is kept secure for the generations to come. Theirs is not a privilege but a duty, no reward but an onerous and ceaseless burden, which is why any Councilor elevated to the Rank of Immortal is stripped of all commissions and departmental roles, and their voting power further cut by half.
They make it sound like becoming an Immortal involves being brainwashed and set up as a living statue. If that had been true, perhaps the Lunarians would still exist as more than a puppet state under the Ring-Lord Hunger and his ever-growing squad of Realm-vampires. They certainly would have been easier to subvert and overcome.
That we keep having to kill or pass up people with top-tier information gathering ability is becoming uncomfortable to me on a personal level. Was Cerebration not useful enough in the previous quest, or Quantification before it? I get it, our time is valuable and it's better to plan to succeed than to prepare for failure. But our companions are also basically HM slaves at this point, and I believe they could be of more use to us if we didn't keep murder-hoboing to feed our Ring more juicy, juicy truncated plotlines.
That they describe the Ring as sheltering them is distinctive. They fear the Realm, in the way that only a populace who remember life before the walls can. I'll take this as tentative affirmation that having the Ring manifest the Temple around their civilization was more about avoiding VR-pocryphal procs than worry over adventuring guilds or the desire to harvest their number. They really were just making like good like Gamers this whole time, holing up in a big cave and hammering that TRAIN button until they either reach max level or break their keyboard trying.
Plerion must have had such beautiful plans. They always do, before the sleep of reason takes them.
While Inner Ring residents benefit from regular exposure to the Treasure's directly refracted glow, Middle Temple outriders must make do with the second-hand light that emerges from their Sigils. The worthy are elevated to join us, but do not concern yourself with pity for the other residents of the Middle Temple. Existence itself is a boon to them who live beyond the prescribed ten million. They are defended in large part by our largesse, with a not-insignificant fraction of our star-stuff re-directed to power the Ritual Grounds.
So the Sigils connect to the Star-Forges, which are probably e-mailing like <2% power to sustain the Evocations of their forward military forces. Who would probably rebel if they received any less support or encouragement than they currently do, because getting murdered by adventurers is tacitly their job. Which they should be thankful for, because one in hundreds will be picked to go live in a plutocratic paradise realm powered by star-eating machines and the blood of the dissenting.
What is this Calvinist nightmare, and what hellscape was the alternative that people with this much time and talent for divination decided it was better? That Ring now suddenly scares me a lot more again; are we sure its suitability relates to its bearer's intelligence and not their duplicity? All of our options when we picked it up were spies or noblewomen...
Ah, whatever. It's not like we gained its favor while openly proclaiming ourselves steed and Lord to a Ring of Power, whose reign over mankind would be both eternal and unquestioned by powerless mortal minds. That would be a sign we've merely transferred it from an old, broken-hearted host and his coterie to a direct subordinate of the most powerful entity (in theory) in the local cosmology since [REDACTED]. Why, what could a Ring of Time do if given access to the heart and mind of a traumatized woman with more potential than any other human to ever live and then left to its own devices?
It's not like we've seen any other pertinent examples of a brilliant young woman corrupted irreversibly by wisdom beyond reason and power beyond madness, or anything like that...
- Ritual Grounds: Maintenance Report e79#CXXXXVI -
Huh? Roman numeral's just 146, but the former could be either a designated location or some kind of way of counting time by way of advanced formula. But why would you measure time using euler's number? I know it describes a curve, but are they using it to make an artificial year cycle to go with their silly lava lamp skybox?
The black color is back, we're at flat halves now. It's kind of rare around these parts, isn't it? White too, but that's more because Winter laughs at stuff that doesn't crack continents during warm-up. Was it used during the Awl-Blade? ...nope, that was deep red. Outer Darkness? Wrong again, dark grey and sedate blue. Damn, I'm kind of stumped here. Should we go murder an evil calligrapher or something to see what kind of magic's gated behind the inkwell shade?
My page code got fucked at some point, this is actually green! I'm loving the teal, is it the same shade as Limit Break? ...no, the Scythe. Good to know that color is explicitly the shade of soul-devouring power. And taking out loans, but really I'm just repeating myself now.
CONFIDENTIAL - GRADE C-3 AND ABOVE
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, HONORED COUNCILOR
MEMETIC CENSORSING ACTIVE (The third line is burned off and barely readable, replaced by a series of runes which glow like dull embers)
Councilor, singular. Is this only for the top dog to see? Must be some scary news to be so bad only Evangelline gets to see the details. The line about memetic censoring always confused me, do the glowing runes mean the runes were disarmed or was there something in line #3 that was so important it was set to self-destruct but not the rest of the document? I would assume the former, because the latter would be kind of silly, but this place is over-the-top enough at times to justify second thoughts.
That they could do memetic censoring at all is very amusing, at the time compared to the SCP foundation. In hindsight, a completely accurate comparison. If anything the Rings are far more intimidating in their full potential – to know of their scope and ability in full shattered the mind of old Stenallon, and probably so many more as to leave the Fates of Even Further Beyond impressed. Perhaps the fruit of Artifice has never truly been able to escape the lure of destiny, beautiful and tragic as its aligned stars may ascribe. That the ring of Time is also the ring of Artifice, whose lack of place within a perceived natural order denies it stable procreation and thus any chance of indefinite existence, is cruel enough as it is. Before pale moonlight all the world is but hazy probability, a quantum potential field whose actual result only appears to hold a pattern for the sky-scraping mind to cling to. Perhaps it is the most merciful Ring, to allow its carriers the shelter of a watchmaker's dream come true.
If our own Ring has domains as self-negating on the surface as the Azure's, then we'll have to be careful plumbing its depths. At the point two apparent contradictions meet, sometimes a deeper reality becomes apparent instead. The protections of a Cursebearer cannot save him forever from his own curiosity – and let's be real, if we find out about it we're going to jump down that well and never even think about checking if our rope out's stable first.
Groundskeeper Prelairn is missing in action, assumed slain at the nexus of a high-valence anomaly in Sector X. Forensics indicate magic-negating power of up to Class S was deployed at the epicenter, roughly five meters from the last recorded transmission of his Sigil. Tiller Wurm activity is substantially reduced in his absence; the Wurms are agitated for lack of their 'father.'
Prelairn, the guy who threw a golem at us. As bait goes he failed to rope us into meeting a Fairbright, but then the Dreadbeast would have beaten us into putty so I guess it's a fair trade. He had some sick dagger skills too, whatever his story was it sounds like he was a real hardcore fellow. Also, now that we're in Sector X I'm going to spend the next twenty minutes listening to Disgaea's OST, so thanks for that.
The use of magical forensics is something I hadn't quite considered. Since they couldn't recover the body or his equipment, what are they scrying for? Was it something tied to his soul itself, so they could guarantee the matter? The user could be implied to be the Oracle, but investigating Prelairn's death would have to be a big deal to pull her away from her other duties if that were true. He wasn't that strong, was he? Perhaps he had some backdoor to escape from unwinnable engagements that Gisena negated. Would explain how pissed he seemed towards the end.
Sigils being just hologram phones is as usual funny to me. Do Inner Temple residents have smart-sigils that they key to their evocations? And if so, who's the Lich Steve Jobs? Are there older, low-maintenance landline sigils they use when the Star-Forges have to be redirected for a little while? Seram would have loved this place, Lord of the Memes and all. That the Tiller Wurms quieted down after their groundskeeper died is another oddity; wouldn't most animals grow more active and aggressive if agitated? If they coiled their way over to a secondary holding location I could understand it, but unless they're all eating each other or searching for another 'father' to guide them...
Knight formations have been disrupted in Sector X, presumably by the same Incursion which slew Prelairn. Preliminary divinations reveal cognitohazard status - Marshalls Farseer and Oracle were burned out, and Marshall Vicissitude slain, by the (assumed) entity's ontological perimeter. Further divinations are not recommended at this time. Speculated typing: S-type 35%, O-type 41%, X-type 11% (!), R-type 14%. NOTE: The irony that Sector X should produce the first potential X-type is not lost upon us. Given the defenses in place we can only speculate as to the apparent coincidental nature of this Incursion, but more deliberate machinations cannot be ruled out. Caution is recommended until further information becomes available.
Why they thought an X-type – confirmed by comment to be a true OCP – to be more ironic than in name only, we will likely never know. At least I don't recall anything special about the area. Who knows, maybe the Brutes could have told us, their Primordial Runes still sound really friggen' cool to me, even if we've out-scaled them utterly.
Come to think of it, we weren't willing to take their deal then because of the possibility of having to do a favor for them if we lost. In the present tense, we're seriously considering summoning an Astral denizen to shelter Verschlengorge for a nigh-guaranteed inconvenient 24-hour vacation to the Astral Plane. Doesn't really line up, but then we also feel a whole lot more powerful now than we did then. The tenor of our conflicts are not so personal anymore.
Back on subject, there are apparently muliple diviners among the Marshalls of the False Moon. Not Grand Marshalls, though that could be shorthand. That one is Oracle – That is Eva, right? - I have to ask how bad being burned out is. Does this mean our protections aren't quite as strong as an irritated glare from the Accursed, perhaps merely a bored eye-twitch or casual eye-rolling? He doesn't really need a rationalization for how his effects manifest, but to imagine him garbing his agents in his sheer, overwhelming disinterest for petty magic cold war bullshit is worth acknowledging.
Marshall Farseer sounds like a Warcraft 3 hero unit, but s/he probably wasn't cool enough to ride around on the back of a warg like an old man Kiba. Similarly, Mr./Ms. Vicissitude's name is horribly unfortunate for them. Which I think constitutes the rare and painful
double irony in this case, as its definition stacks upon itself and verges a living essence. This is a rare and beautiful thing, the first steps towards that other kind of ultimate power, the Infinite Suicide Husk.
UPDATE: Patrol activity in Sector X-M has revealed four Incursions of notable strength in this period, including two R-types and Fairbright. We now believe the chance of X-type incursion to be <.1%. For details, please reference patrol log c43#MMXI. Further information is beyond the scope of this report.
Okay, so that's a locational designation. The first time I read this, I could almost feel the relief in the writer's perspective when he concluded the incursion wasn't an X-type. With our recent insights into the existence of the Shard of the Arcanist, I can't really say I disagree. The kind of stuff that sits under the surface of the Voyaging Realm are more reminiscent of creation myths than any kind of modern fiction, forces of nature crudely implied to share human-adjacent values. Let's face it: if Aether or Erebus shows up to devour your civilization, you'll need more than a Ring to argue the point.
Actually, what was their plan for if an X-type showed up? Unconditional surrender is a rather blanket premise, generally when you're that far out-Ranked you have to put in work to not end up ground underfoot while surrendering. The excerpt from a day in the life of the Forebear is a good example here: he took out the Ur-Mother at massive cost to literally everything in her extended metaphysical orbit. This is probably not uncommon when overdeities make war. A plan for how to slip the noose by trading one host for another is probably in the interest of a civilization as ontologicall advanced as the Temple dwellers claim to be.
And before I forget: mad props to the Star Fox reference.
Given these and many lesser disruptions in Ritual activity, containment efficacy has fallen calamitously, down 8% in the last 72 hours. Recommend re-commissioning of Star Forge #27 to begin extraction of sub-quadrant F5 to compensate. We have informed the Chief Coordinator that incursion activity may spike as uncontained Power is released into the greater Outside. In light of this limited containment breach, termination or subversion of all major Incursions is the utmost priority. Recommend that High Marshalls Administrator, Capacitor and Wyvernford be elevated to Alert status. We again petition the Council to review the Immortal Deployment Act.
Have I stated before that Wyvernford's name is
so cool? Because compared to Capacitor and Administrator, his name game is pretty much in a league of its own. Larissa's house must be the one that comes up with all the cool names for things, everyone else's is just kind of utilitarian.
The enigmatic Ritual Grounds now have their purpose revealed. To harvest invaders (blood sacrifice?) for some form of power to push into Sten and make keeping the Ring locked down viable. Speaks to how much power they expend already if they're pulling from such sketchy sources, the payoff can't be that much but I suppose if it validates the Outriders and their middle civilization families in the eyes of the most hidebound councilors, it's worth the trouble. For "them who live beyond the prescribed ten million" any good PR is a major coup.
Also, though it's not as statistically meaningful as I wish it was, something can be said about how the random number the writer picked was in the low two digits. The number of Star-Forges in existence is high enough that the odds of getting a random number above 20 was noticeable, while not so high it would have ended up in the triple digits. Knowing they probably had somewhere between dozens and scores of them tells me – tentatively – that they were harvesting very aggressively, but still in a controlled manner. They were worried about something, which could be anything from the Dimensional Rift reacting to over-consumption all the way down to too much energy damaging their artificial (also: Artificial) perfect economy. Though circumstantial, the instability on display's thundering on by like a waterfall in a rainstorm.
As always, time burns.
Your faithful servant,
Crowelenarch
Yet another fine potential cultist of personality who's probably long-dead and scattered to the wind. Were there any liches we didn't see in the Temple's capitol, or did the new Immortals screw that up when they killed the OG Plerion? I don't expect... wait. Were the Immortals all pseudo-liches like Nameless was? It would validate the narrative delivered earlier about their eternal vigil being a heartless duty, devoid of earthly joys and dignity.
I have to ask if there are any significant benefits to being an actual zombie man rather than a fake person with a
soul jar. The Ring of Truth sits comfortably in their grasp, so perhaps they have some manner of True Death mechanisms at their disposal? The discussion of an alt-EFB where Yong Shen was the heterodox supervillain brought me to dig deeper into the concept of Death and the Scythe some months ago, but now is as good a time as ever to recall.
Plerion grows much scarier if he had managed to invent – or even re-invent – an equivalent to the Awl-Blade, with which a soul's deepest expression could be brought to heel. Or a Nebula Battlesuit, which could turn even the weakest warrior into a god-slayer. Stenallon's internal monologue on the subject makes it seem his associates were quite loyal and trusted by him. How far down the rabbit hole goes, if the king cannot be challenged in the strength of his own court?
---
The winner was [X] Crimson Flare by a hair. This was a hotly contested vote and could easily have gone to any of the three options given the early turnout and high quantity of arguments made.
What was the focus of Aeira's training?
[ ] Stealth - The classic. The power to go undetected opens up enormous avenues of possibility for the enterprising operative. Improves survival rate during reconaissance, extraction, combat and many other missions. Improves the effectiveness of Vershlengorge's stealth cloak, and that of stealth cloaks given by Aeira to others. Does not substantially improve the resistance of Stealth cloaks to high-density blasts of Nullity. Grants +++Element Magnitude, ++Element Control, +++Agility, ++Wits.
Bonus: None. Stealth is the default arrangement for Aeira.
Heated votes over 25-Arete options? Some things never change...
I don't feel we've properly respected stealth as a concept, here or ever. Would Aeira have been on the hook for Dearly Departed back a few 25-Arete picks ago, had we boosted her stealth skills here? While her increased stats wouldn't likely have been relevant, higher stats do over time translate into greater competence in the field and thus reduced dependence on the gracious Lord Hunger's assistance during deadly conflict.
Sure, this pick's the 'boring' one. There's no bonus for it, it just does something we tacitly accept doesn't concern us anyway. Information is something we've come to accept we have very little of, choosing instead of Cut Through whenever our half-baked designs do not quite equate the masterstroke which overturns empires with a flick of the wrist.
But Accretion draws power from people as well as items and events. We literally get better at concealing ourselves by being near Aeira – it's entirely possible that Sky Veil was only available because we'd recruited her dozens of updates ago. To say nothing in particular of the benefit of just blood-hammering everyone from behind a veil of concealment. I'd place some odds there's a chance we could with a bit of research develop the Shadowcord Shogunate for ourselves despite not having True Shadowcord, simply by using Blood to engender similar reactions in control groups. It deals in emotion after all, and Crimson is the color of emotion.
Maybe we could even set it up so they're at risk while we do it... gambling again, perhaps? Pretend it's a game of poker with our friends, but we're punching buttons the whole time? That sounds suitably gimmicky and anime to work...
[ ] Combat - The assassin. This involves not only direct martial expertise but all aspects of the killing arts, including a poisoner's expertise and the logistical peculiarities of infiltration and murder. With this specialty, her control over the raw physical component of her Element improves to the point where it's safe and relevant for her to contribute in combat as an ambush / buffing asset. Also improves her rate of growth overall, making it feasible for Aeira to keep up with Hunger if properly supported and invested in. Grants effective +Progression (Combat), +++Element Control, +++Agility, ++Might.
Bonus: Antitoxin - Aeira's comprehensive understanding of Voyaging Realm-native plant life allows her to produce the cure to Hunger's damaged liver. Healing is slow, but even a first-stage treatment reduces all penalities (and amplified damage) by half.
Here we go, that beautiful shade of 'almost Cursebearer' – which implies a lot about what the Accursed expects his scions to spend their time doing, come to think of it... For once the force option isn't brute force, but very precise instead. Catherine would approve.
I do appreciate the fact she had to study and carefully practice all the odd little details no one tells you about killing people for a living. That must have been a long talk to have with your parents. Or were they already loaning out killing on demand? Them being the Sovereignty's troubleshooters would be a rather dark subtext to their fall from economic grace. Unlikely, but not impossible.
The antitoxin option is what draws my eye, as I'm sure it did so many others. Conditions were just humiliating, weren't they? I should probably be more considerate, seeing as Seram or Nameless would have just gotten themselves killed rather than skillfully ensuring they survived and won at cost. The kind of callous lesson that Fate taught our hero so long ago, its deceased skeins pulled by Hidden puppet-Masters to ensure whatever invisible schematics they obey came to pass. While it's obviously beneath the power of the Heavenly Signs, perhaps her knowledge of Voyaging Realm foliage could yet supply us with a handful of mystical reagents (read: poisons) for our Cloak of Sky to feast upon.
Failing our ability to locate high-grade Spirit Cocaine with which to inebriate the sky into submission, I suppose her being able to operate effectively against high-end enemies like Nilfellian Legions was helpful too. But really, we saw with the Lord of Stalks that we're unwilling to engage with the grueling reality of assassination. Those we're mighty enough to slay, we do. Those we can't, she likely can't either. Our concerns of political fallout turn on moral implication and personal compensation, not risk of blowback – so stealth isn't all that important.
All that's left are those foes she can kill, which we both want to and don't want to do personally... with what we said to Larissa, taking hostages isn't popular here either... I'm just not seeing it. She can handle secondary jobs, the strategic and logistical equivalent of opening doors and cleaning shelves for us, but most of an Assassin's utility is just lost here.
[ ] Business - The support. Instead of focusing solely on her skills as a mercenary alone, Aeira studied the dismal science in an attempt to better understand and possibly extricate her family from its dismal situation. While this isn't immediately relevant, it would substantially improve her value to Letrizia as a magus-advisor in the Human Sphere, providing a form of long term income that isn't as vulnerable to abrupt termination as her current line of work. Grants +++Wisdom, ++Intelligence, ++Charisma.
Bonus: Apocalypse Later - Vastly reduces the risks of taking Aeira out of the Voyaging Realm. Without this, complications will almost certainly ensue.
Is that quote 'dismal science' a reference to something? It's a pretty memeworthy phrase, but whether spun whole-cloth or prefab, I'm liking it. There's something heartless about reducing human life and liberty to a number on a sheet of paper, like a kind of dark magic that leaves the world dull and colorless as its price for passage. I guess this answers my earlier question about what Black magic does, too.
A rather distinct description considering Business is colored solid Green, the shade of Primordium and Lore, of New Game Plus and the Geas of Indenture. It's vibrant, yes, but it demands commitment for that bounty. Moving forward, the straight and narrow path pulls no punches. While I'm sure Businesswoman Aeira would have ended up only mildly more deceptive and bloodthirsty than the average boardroom member, it's clear this is the path she considers most secure towards securing her family's future.
Later comments on the subject reveal this choice had farther-reaching consequences on her character than her skills, which we probably expected but it's different to see it play out. Assassin Aeira sees the dismal science as a labyrinth never meant to be escaped, where spirit and letter of a thousand overlapping layers of dictation combine to create a half-forgotten cobweb that people like her are born stuck to. What would Pure Stealth Aeira have thought of it, or of assassination? Its brilliant shade was I think the same as Gisena's...
In the name of evading further Gisena paranoia, I also appreciate the hint that Apocalypse power can be abated simply by not training your powers that much. The VR-den of Eden doesn't mind you taking seeds all that much, but its fully-realized specimens bother it more. A side-effect of automatic Curse-based scaling functions, or intentional copy protection?
The greatest loss here is that we'll never get to hear Aeira shout "Capitalism, Ho!"
---
You guys are at 7.4 Arete! Would you like to buy a Stance? Your chances against Avecarn are quite good without one, but not guaranteed.
[ ] No - S A V E.
This meme shows up so much I'm wondering if one of the Hidden Masters isn't just a sentient pile of Arete that gets bigger every time someone spends significant personal effort on a thing and then regrets it later. But with the All-Defeating Stance having so recently been adopted, and to so much
less fanfare than we'd expected it would, I have to notice how only one update after its debut it's already getting no respect.
My memory of the lead-up to Avecarn is pretty trash, I don't think I was in for that vote. Why did we choose the guy with insane Rank again? The alternatives were Selune vi Tries and a friend of Vanreir's. Remembering back when spending a few Arete to protect allies was considered a deal-breaker, slowing our pace and wrecking our chances of crushing the Temple before its reprieve wore off...
It's quite a story. More impressive still that we survived at all. The journey of the Temple so far has been one of resurrection, a man entering as the butchered vessel for a vengeful ghost and leaving among the ranks of the living, scarred within and without, but heart pounding and blade forged anew. Like an hourglass upturned, he's begun to walk back the prices exacted upon him by the Tyrant's War.
We keep throwing Hunger into mad life-or-death chases, like a pack of hunting hounds craving the next kill. Perhaps we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves if there wasn't another grand war over the horizon? There's a certain grim appeal in the Charge of the Light Brigade, and in loyal steel besides. But it's an appeal only beheld often by the Reaper; as a witness, it's too ghastly to stomach for us ordinary men. And as a purveyor, it comes once and never again.
Where does the luck end? It might not ever, and the little piggy gets to live forever. Or maybe all our schemes are nothing more than a spider scrambling for relevance in her dying days, a little ball of cunning and viciousness whose last wish is to prove herself able to do something noble. It's beyond the scope of my insight by far, but a man with some Octillion years of campaigning ahead of him should consider it anyway. The lives of men are as mayflies, and their feelings more fleeting besides. What does one who may live forever crave?
Besides fish. Obviously.
[ ] Hero-Defeating Stance - Does not build towards All-Defeating Stance, but the best for your current situations. Improves both diplomatic and combat outcomes, all but guarantees survival in combat. Improves Rank, physical stats, effective Defensive Rank and odds against multiple opponents, all great qualities to look for in an Advancement!
[ ] Magic-Defeating Stance - Somewhat improves combat outcomes in most scenarios. Lowers Apocryphal risk in the long run. Grants superior defense against most esoteric attacks, useful in potential future engagements, and improves synergy with Gisena in battle.
[ ] Guile-Defeating Stance - Strongly improves odds of diplomatic victory. Somewhat relevant in combat against intelligent opponents.
BRB, laughing at the Guile-Defeating Stance's description. Man, that was a bad call. At the time we hadn't even considered it, but how could a Tyrant through-and-through attempt diplomacy with anyone but another ruler? Their loyalty to another regime can't even be acknowledged, how the hell is that discussion even supposed to work out? The art of subverting enemy agents is a time-honored field, but one that requires a
lot more than cunning and might to play out right.
Sad to say, we might have had better odds recruiting Gondar (that was his name, I think?) with that Stance. His ambush tactics would have fallen before it just as much as any social ploy, and our higher Rank would have given us a social edge. Especially if we could force him into submission with Gisena's powers from surprise. I recall something about swearing on one's soul? To bring him low, give him the spiel about how we don't really know much about how the Temple works, but after getting treatment for our Call of the False Moon and dredging up some stolen documents to get a bigger picture of how things are going down, we now see that every Outrider we've been fighting's been protecting something way better than squatting in the woods and nearly getting eaten by Tiller Wurms. Maybe even throw in how we're cursed to the gills and figure the Temple civilization has better odds of helping us than the pile of murderous adventurers we're currently on the run from.
The other two are pretty top-tier, and it's a shame we took so long to get the Magic-Defeating Stance. We really could have used that edge against the Apocryphal event that gave the Rotbeast legs, but nah. Praxis is so OP even the Forebear's stuff isn't as good. It helps we've been able to avoid foes with esoteric implications so far, but that kind of thing ends when you reach the big leagues. Like, say, an eight-year-old wizard whose mother is probably literally the ghost of Jeanne or Sylvie.
...damn it, I would hate to have to kill her too. That Chrono Cross shit is just obnoxious.
Thanks to all my
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