Great chapter. I'm really invested in the end result of all this. Hopefully they find some way to pull off a win. I think if all that is left are the Giants that they probably can survive. The casualties will no doubt be enormous, but since it seems like the rest of the enemy troops broke, if the Giants are all that are left then they may be able to pull off a miracle.
'Legends' your father had once said, 'are created only when facing peril, a mortal cannot possibly combat.' You remembered him and his strong hand on your head, as he taught you and Valentino a lesson, that would become very dear to your brothers' heart. 'Once you face such a peril, rejoice, my children. For you are about to become a Myth of old.'
Nice lesson. Basically, in order to become a legend you need to walk and survive a dangerous path. Our ancestor sounded like a pretty awesome guy too, based on what his sons/daughter remember of him and what he achieved in his life.
All sound disappeared. Her movement stopped as well, as everything around you came to a halt. An arrow was shooting by, a foot from your face, frozen in space. You didn't mind it. There, to your front; one of the smaller creatures of the enemy, an ugly little beast, had thrown itself on a boy, no older than fifteen winters and was sinking its claws into that boy's neck as he tried to crawl back away from the monster.
You ignored the boy and focused on the Goblin instead. There was no question as to what its name was, as the glyph's magic spoke to you. Suddenly, a thousand chattering voices surrounded you. Some were Goblin, others Human, others Troll. The names came to you naturally as you gazed deeper into the glyphs. The connection between the tens of thousands of creatures was open to you and you followed it.
First thought was someone was performing Necromancy and that these were a bunch of Inferi. The pale it made me think they were corpses that were animated to move. But later on it seems that whatever was controlling the horde were also transforming into different types of creatures using the glyphs that were carved into their skin. Now we learn that these seem to be the origins of the first Goblins and Trolls. That they used to be Human but were twisted into something else by some sort of dark magic. I'm betting that this may also be how we got House Elves as well. That Glyph is pretty scary in what it is capable of, not gonna lie.
You were not on the Hill of Isaac anymore; both your body and the horse you were sitting one vanished as you appeared in the mind of the centerpiece.
He, who was called the Centerpiece, was a tall man, going by the feeling of his body and muscles, he had never felt hunger in his life before. Frozen in time, he was looking down at a woman. She was thin, her skin pale and dirty. Her mouth was open in the midst of a scream as she was being forced to kneel by two Goblins pushing her down. The man, whose eyes you were looking through, held a long knife in his hand. There was blood on the blade and all around the ground the woman was kneeling on. She was going to be sacrificed next as a corps was already being carried away to the left. To the right other captives were being dragged into the large circle you were currently in; a circle of repeating death.
While you did not know the magic, you understood the intent. Here, the Glyphs were holding the construct together. They were influencing body and mind of the enemy troops, thousands and thousands of minds connected and controlled by this. And this man - the Centerpiece - was giving the commands. You felt the surge of power running through his veins. His mind was far gone, no resemblance of anything human was left.
You felt another connection behind his, as if even he, who held the sword at the very center of this intricate structure, was captive to someone higher – but the connection was faint and far.
Instead of following the connection, you simply destroyed his mind.
So, some enemy Wizard was sort of holding the whole thing together and coordinating them as a sort of hive-mind. But even that guy was a puppet to some other being. I'm thinking the real enemy is some sort of creature or Fae of some sort. Whatever it is, I doubt it is friendly.
Also, the Mind Arts prove their use and in the end save the day. I know it hasn't really been something we have invested much time in them, but if there is one thing that this Journal has proven it is that the Mind Arts can be a serious weakness if you ignore the area entirely. I don't think we are in the stage where we have to worry about it too much at the moment. But we should probably try to give it a bit more priority next year or even this year if we can.
Something is stirring your soul, making it see things that weren't there before.
[ ] Magic Sense I – You remember feeling the magic of your brothers. There was warmth and familiarity. Underneath your senses there had been something else, waiting to wake. It would allow you to feel that, what is always around and inside you. You have felt Sally-Ann's magic once before, because it was so vibrant and powerful. Now, you will start your journey to develop your ability to sense all magic.
[ ] Voice of things I – This is something that you can not explain, nor control. At times, you hear [sense] [feel] [taste] something that lays underneath the fabrics of reality. There is meaning hidden in it, but you do not know what it entails. Objects and beings alike can at times start this ability of yours and gift you insights that you would otherwise never have.
So, both of these seem to be "good" choices, it just depends on what direction you want it to take. Magic Sense seems to be an all around utility option with probably a good amount of uses, so I guess you can call it the utility option. The Voice of Things on the other hand is the option that you would want to take if you wanted insight into something that would have never been possible normally, so you can probably call it the unique option.
Based on what they both say, I'm probably going to go for the Voice of Things option, mainly because it seems to be unique. It also seems like the best option that works well for finding hidden things or figuring out things that would otherwise be almost impossible. If you want to explore or try to figure out esoteric magic or explore branches of magic that few touch upon, then I think this would be the more useful option. Magic Sense sounds good too, but it seems a bit more conventional where as Voice of Things might lead to more esoteric or eldritch stuff.
But yeah, both look like good options and will probably provide interesting plot lines no matter what wins.
Okay who gives a hoot about the perks, they both look good. What about that memory/battle! That was some cool shit.
I'm getting the feeling that the giants are differently from the rest of the army somehow? The giants were not hooked up to the centrepiece, since they maintained order for several hours after the centrepiece was destroyed. But does that mean the giants are the ones who carved the glyphs on the centrepiece or is there just a second system running on the giants? Or do whoever set up the glyph system just not value the human, goblins, and trolls that much and only ordered the giants to attack after they all died? Maybe once the centrepiece was destroyed they wanted all of their former slaves to be killed. And if they had sent in the giants early maybe some of them would have gotten away.
Good point. If I had to guess, the giants may have been on board with the whole idea from the beginning. The Humans in their army seemed to still be undergoing a transformation into either Goblins or Trolls and look to be some sort of forced conscript. I don't think they were the ones who carved the glyphs because Giants don't seem to have the sort of precision required for that. My thinking is that the one behind all this probably made a deal with the Giants and they are willingly serving them while the others are just fodder to bulk up the army.
If whatever the enemy did, transformed their people into these creatures, then those you saw before you had to be almost near the completion of what they were trying to create. They were short and pale, so thin that their bones popped out of their white skins. Most were carrying short blades, some used their immensely long fingers and claws to cut the men down. They had dome-shaped heads with long, crooked noses, pointed ears and completely hairless bodies. Whatever these creatures had been before, the glyphs on their skins had turned them into monsters.
Anyways, the reading I got from all this is that the Glyphs were turning the Humans into Goblins and Trolls. Unless I got that wrong? Because it look like they applied the Glyphs and used them to turn Humans into other kinds of shock troops. And the specific passage above seems to imply that Goblins were one of the results of the forced transformation. Or did anyone else have a different read on what happened here?
