You misunderstand me. It's not about making a better version of Branulhune, it's about creating a giant illusory sword, or multiple smaller illusory swords, that hang over the heads of our enemies
Ah, I misunderstood. I don't think that requires a new spell though. Reflavoring existing spells could probably be done naturally. Mathilde already makes her Shadow Knives look kinda swordy. Mathilde's conception of a "blade" is a Greatsword.
Well, I actually think Pendulum looks cooler in the regular version. It's a swinging pendulum that swings back and forth swiping enemies like a broomstick. How do you even make that cooler.
Ah, I misunderstood. I don't think that requires a new spell though. Reflavoring existing spells could probably be done naturally. Mathilde already makes her Shadow Knives look kinda swordy. Mathilde's conception of a "blade" is a Greatsword.
Well, I actually think Pendulum looks cooler in the regular version. It's a swinging pendulum that swings back and forth swiping enemies like a broomstick. How do you even make that cooler.
Ah, I misunderstood. I don't think that requires a new spell though. Reflavoring existing spells could probably be done naturally. Mathilde already makes her Shadow Knives look kinda swordy. Mathilde's conception of a "blade" is a Greatsword.
Well, I actually think Pendulum looks cooler in the regular version. It's a swinging pendulum that swings back and forth swiping enemies like a broomstick. How do you even make that cooler.
It would definitely require a new spell. Mass-targeted summoning of hyperkilly murder blades over the heads of your enemies is battle-magic grade, and not low level battle magic either. It's at least the same level as Pendulum or Mindrazor, and in effect is actually a blending of the two.
It would definitely require a new spell. Mass-targeted summoning of hyperkilly murder blades over the heads of your enemies is battle-magic grade, and not low level battle magic either. It's at least the same level as Pendulum or Mindrazor, and in effect is actually a blending of the two.
Apparently I misunderstood you twice. I thought you were talking about two different spells, Penumbral Pendulum but sword, and Okkam's Mindrazor but sword. Your proposed idea is astonishingly difficult. Okkam's Mindrazor alone is about four times as hard as Melkoth's, and Penumbral is about three times as hard.
I do think we should get either the Pit or the Pendulum.
Sure they're not perfectly safe to use but we have had quite a few moments that we've barely escaped from which could have been avoided with an offensive BM spell.
I do think we should get either the Pit or the Pendulum.
Sure they're not perfectly safe to use but we have had quite a few moments that we've barely escaped from which could have been avoided with an offensive BM spell.
I should say that Pendulum is not for single combat and not a wise idea to pop out in close combat. It's a giant indiscriminate line of swinging shadow Pendulum that rips through entire hordes, provided you line it up right. It's a horde clearer, although it hits pretty hard it's not guaranteed to one hit kill large monsters. I also think it's hard to dodge for units in military formations, but a person like Alkharad can just... dodge.
I do think we should get either the Pit or the Pendulum.
Sure they're not perfectly safe to use but we have had quite a few moments that we've barely escaped from which could have been avoided with an offensive BM spell.
I'm not sure I can agree. If she doesn't have room to cast defensive escape spells, then she doesn't have room to cast offensive spells. If your concern is a high yield wide area of effect alpha strike, that's what we got the flask for.
[*] Kill: Branulhune Attack here and now, bisecting both sedan and Magus with a single swing. The crowds will complicate matters, but at least they are a known variable.
For all the glory of taking him alive, for all the potential conspirators he might be able to lead you to, your main purpose here and now is simple: to ensure that the last Haupt-Anderssen does not cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the Empress. He stands mere feet away, completely unaware of you, and a thought away is a sword superior to all but twelve within the Empire. You match the pace of the sedan chair and recall the techniques of the Fellowship of the Shroud, to move from apparent repose to sudden violence as efficiently as possible. You wait until a relative ebb in the surrounding crowd, a pool of relative illumination in the darkness, and for the pace of the footmen to grow familiar to you, and then you act.
By the time the concealment of the Night Prowler falls away from you, Branulhune is already in your hand and descending. The first sign visible to Alberich that his night's plans may be about to go awry is the shattering of the wood of the sedan chair's flimsy roof mere feet above his head, and he has the barest fraction of a second to react before that blade will do the same to his chest. No human could meaningfully react in the time available to him.
But his humanity is just one of the things that Alberich has sacrificed to his unholy patron. Instead of ribs and organs Branulhune slices through bone and bicep, unnatural mutation proving no obstacle to Dwarven artifice as Alberich propels himself through the wall of the disintegrating sedan chair, leaving his most visible mutation behind as he dives into the screaming crowd.
[Pursuing Alberich: Intrigue, 22+27+5(Windsage)+5(trail)=59 vs 31+32+10(patron)-15(badly injured)=58.]
It takes no concentration at all from you for an eerily convincing wolf's howl to rip its way from your throat, as in Tor Lithanel the other half of your soul jolts several other Wizards awake as he leads you through example. Your concentration is focused on your quarry, and you dive through the wreckage of the sedan chair and into the part in the crowd left by the fleeing Magus as he pushes his way through, and you're almost distracted from keeping up with his flight as you realize he's continuing on the sedan chair's original course. Either he's arrogant enough to think that he can lose you and continue with his original plan - which from what you know of him, is definitely possible - or there are accomplices waiting for him that he's trying to lead you to.
[Pursuing Alberich, round two: Intrigue, 44+27+5(Windsage)+5(trail)+6(???)=85 vs 89+32+15(patron)-15(badly injured)=121.]
Time seems to slow as you push your way through the crowd, your senses growing sharper as you take in every dot of blood, every yell of fear or anger, every spike of emotion in the crowd ahead, but no matter how fit you are, you are bound by human limitations and Alberich is not. The blood you're following grows drier and the crowd around you calmer with every passing moment, and you growl with frustration as you shroud yourself in Ulgu and disappear from the streets, appearing on a nearby rooftop. If you were a lone wolf you would have failed on this hunt, but here and now you are not, and other hunters are converging in response to your howl. All you need to do...
[Regimand interception: 33]
[Longshank interception: 94]
[Alberich vs Longshanks: Martial, 33+26+20(patron)-15(badly injured)=64 vs 68+20+2(???)=90.]
...is be ready.
You're already running as the much poorer attempt at a howl rises above the noise of the crowd, thankful that Talabheim architecture favours terraces over the smooth and often loose tiles of Altdorf rooftops. Where Sigmarite Templars would be a din of metal on metal and demands to bow down to their patron, the only sound of the Longshanks pack as they close on Alberich is the faint whistle of their arrows splitting the air and the soft, wet thunk as one finds purchase in him. Where a Wizard causes surprise and alarm, the sight of the Longshanks on the hunt is one much more familiar to the citizens of Talabheim, and while most of the crowd parts for them, some of them draw knives of their own and fix their eyes on he who has made an enemy of the protectors of Taal's holy sites.
[Alberich vs Longshanks: Martial, 61+26+25(patron)-20(heavily injured)=92 vs 31+20+5(crowd assist)+4(???)=60.]
[Mathilde interrupt: Martial, 86+23+12(???)=121.]
Seemingly heedless of his injuries, Alberich draws a bone dagger from his tunic with his remaining hand and throws himself forward, moving with sinuous and unnatural grace around the arrows loosed at him and closing on the lead Longshank, who has only his own knife to raise in defence of himself. The next few seconds might have gone very badly for the Longshanks and any in the crowd with the bravery to assist them, but Alberich's focus on the foe in front of him is all the opportunity you need. With a moment of concentration and a few muttered syllables you appear behind him, and Branulhune passes in a neat and perfect arc through Alberich's neck, sending a spray of blood over the Longshank who was heartbeats away from having his own spilled, and a head rolling across the cobblestones.
"Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen," you say to the Longshanks as you allow Branulhune to disappear once more.
---
Where thrilling adventure ends, hard work begins. The three chief fragments of the former Elector Count are gathered to be kept under close observation until they can be burned at dawn with the remains of his sedan chair, and Priests of Taal carefully wash his tainted blood from the cobblestones of Taal's city with holy water. The footmen are rounded up and interrogated and prove to know very little, and through close examination of them you confirm the lingering presence of a minor confoundment that would have prevented them from recognizing the mutated nature of their passenger. They are found innocent of knowingly consorting with Chaos, though their future will feature a fair bit of cleansing penance performed within the Taalgrunhaar Forest. Alberich's knife is examined and found to be mundane, except for the relative rarity of finding a knife made entirely of fish bone this far inland.
There are still unanswered questions, of course. Though a number of groups that happened to be in the direction Alberich was headed are rounded up, they all prove to have innocent explanations for their presence, so if he had accomplices they've managed to escape and will now be laying very low indeed. You don't know where he was hiding out, and though it could have been simply a rented and flea-infested room at a tavern somewhere in the Ratholds, it could also have been something more elaborate, and if so is now one more hidden mystery among many to be found in the city's slums. And to the Longshanks, Alberich's identity remains a mystery.
There's also the question of Alberich's empowerment. Despite his severe injuries, Alberich only grew faster in the few minutes between the beginning of your encounter and its climax, and for a man to move with the sinuous grace of a lesser Daemon of the Tempter implies more attention than you'd expect the Dark Gods to pay to matters like this. You are also very aware that you had more company than that of Ranald on this night's work, and you don't mean your colleagues among the Longshanks. Perhaps you should not have given a wolf's howl with sword in hand while pursuing a Slaaneshi Magus through the streets of a holy city. That is an uncomfortable density of resonances, and you feel uncomfortably watched from multiple angles right now.
Still, Chaos thwarted, Empress safe, Alric upstaged. All in all, a good night's work. But when dawn does creep over the city of Talabheim, there's going to be a great deal of rumour about the dramatic events that unfolded on the city streets, and some sort of official story is going to be distributed by the city's bellmen to reassure the alarmed and intrigued populace. They won't get the full story, of course, but those with influence will get something closer to the truth. The question is what, exactly, that version is going to be. It is not at all unknown for the involvement of Grey Wizards to be left out of even the unofficial version of events, and that the worst a Longshank experienced through all this was being rather badly in need of a bath means you have more than enough goodwill with them to shape the story that will be distributed, and decide who will get the credit and attention for the culmination of this matter, for good and ill.
Who will get the credit for the death of this unknown but powerful Magus?
[ ] Yourself And why not? Nobody could possibly fault you for simply doing your duty to the Empire. Accept the accolades and the attention you have earned.
[ ] The Order of Light Magister Matriarch- oops, you mean Lady Magister Mira of the Order of Light directed your attention here. Her getting the credit will shore up her position in the Light Order even more, and neatly extricate yourself from the matter.
[ ] The Longshanks Allow the Longshanks to take sole credit for the killing of a dangerous Magus and the thwarting of a Chaos plot. This would provide a very solid foundation to working with them again in the future.
[ ] The Templars of Sigmar The information they provided demonstrated the value of a good relationship with the Holy Order of the Templars of Sigmar, and them getting the credit means that any attempts by others to investigate the matter further will run into an unyielding wall.
It would definitely require a new spell. Mass-targeted summoning of hyperkilly murder blades over the heads of your enemies is battle-magic grade, and not low level battle magic either. It's at least the same level as Pendulum or Mindrazor, and in effect is actually a blending of the two.
Hmm not sure what to go for with this, long shanks could be good. But I'm also a fan of Mathildes tendency to do things out in the open so taking the credit herself isn't something I'm opposed to.
Apparently I misunderstood you twice. I thought you were talking about two different spells, Penumbral Pendulum but sword, and Okkam's Mindrazor but sword. Your proposed idea is astonishingly difficult. Okkam's Mindrazor alone is about four times as hard as Melkoth's, and Penumbral is about three times as hard.
The reason why I like the idea so much is that it takes the metaphorical nature of the Grey College, as the sword that hangs over the heads of the wicked and the corrupt and makes it very, very literal. And the banner is a sword too, can't forget that.
As the premier greatsword-wielding wizard in the upper echelons of the college, none are better suited for the task than us
Alberich's knife is examined and found to be entirely mundane, except for the relative rarity of finding a knife made entirely of fish bone this far inland.
You are also uncomfortably aware that you had more company than that of Ranald on this night's work, and you don't mean your colleagues among the Longshanks. Perhaps you should not have given a wolf's howl with sword in hand while pursuing a Slaaneshi Magus through the streets of a holy city. That is an uncomfortable density of resonances, you feel uncomfortably watched from multiple angles right now.
I'm completely fine with Mathilde not taking the credit, if only because it will draw far less attention. Chaos is in play and hunting their minions require a lot of subtlety.
A very cool fight scene. I enjoyed reading it.
I sort of want to vote for the Order of Light, because it sounds like we'll be specifically naming LM Mira (which stops Alric from taking any credit and owns him even harder).
And Boney said we had a plan that would go off without a hitch
I gotta say though, I really do love the little details that've come from drawing the attention of gods to Mathilde. First Gork (or, er, Mork), now this, with the sudden mental focus on pack dynamics and wolves, the improvement of the senses, all that good stuff. Mental influences written into a character's internal monologue can be weird, but I've loved the times they've come up.
Perhaps you should not have given a wolf's howl with sword in hand while pursuing a Slaaneshi Magus through the streets of a holy city. That is an uncomfortable density of resonances, you feel uncomfortably watched from multiple angles right now.
[ ] The Order of Light
Magister Matriarch- oops, you mean Lady Magister Mira of the Order of Light directed your attention here. Her getting the credit will shore up her position in the Light Order even more, and neatly extricate yourself from the matter.
The pragmatic option. It would endear us to her, and definitely fuck Alric over.
[ ] The Longshanks
Allow the Longshanks to take sole credit for the killing of a dangerous Magus and the thwarting of a Chaos plot. This would provide a very solid foundation to working with them again in the future.
The moral one. They were the one helping us, they should get the credit.
I don't think we should claim the credit. We're already famous enough, and don't really need more headpats. Also, it would put less of a target on our back.
I'm sort of sad that this was divine influence though. At first I thought this was a local code phrase + the side-effects of having a familiar, and that felt neat to me.
