Not Quite Lovecraft

I figure what we would do is take manual control of our painting to guide the next self-iteration. Make sure it includes all the things we want and not the things we don't.
We are probably going to be pretty injured too unless Emily does something magic to help us rather then just mundanely patching up our wounds. So we make sure any lingering wounds are "left out" of our next iteration.
Ugh, and we need to fix our locket too. Hopefully it should be faster since we already have the experience of making it once.

If we leave our door-painting behind then Robert should take our stuff and maybe we can visit him once we are done fixing our self. Have the vacation we were supposed to have.

On the current vote, I don't thinking bringing the corpse is a good idea. Corpses are heavy, and moving it around would only draw much more suspicion. Isn't our portal painting back in our room too? Carrying a corpse through the halls is a bad idea.

Well unless we brought the portal with us to this confrontation. That would be fortuitous. I think the time we set it up was in a past loop, so perhaps we still have it on us.

[X] Use your door back home.
-[X] Drag yourself through, bring the gemstone if it looks like the ritual is stopped.
-[X] Call for Emily to help you.

[X] Use the portal you set up earlier to bring Emily over. Open it for yourself.
-[X] Drag yourself through, bring the gemstone if it looks like the ritual is stopped.
-[X] Try to claim the body for the gardens if you have enough strength, or abandon it otherwise.
-[X] Call for Emily to help you.

This went mostly how i expected. I really didn't think Oliver would have gotten out of this situation without begin injured.

Oliver trasformation is interesting. Its very Lovecraftian that the protagonist is slowly becoming more alien and inhuman the deeper he sinks into the occult.

[X] Jaytar
[X] Use the portal you set up earlier to bring Emily over. Open it for yourself.

Sensible, poor Robert dealing with the aftermath.. I had hoped the painting canvas was rolled up in his person, but if it isn't dragging a corpse through the hallway is a no no. I intended for Oliver would make sensible decision to abandon the corpse in scenarios like that.

I wonder if it's even recognisable at this point..

Wait.. Blacksheep how many hours have passed?

Maybe if there no ritual there won't be a
Hound waiting for us.. hopefully. We still have the water of forgiveness but the locket's busted.

Depending on how loud the gun was in the secret compartment guards could be swarming outside too.

If the portrait is not in his person we might need to change tactics.

Hmm, we might want to later research a locket that reflects spells and damage into the person attacking, perhaps using a picture of us holding a mirror that is able to show actual reflections. Each use might slowly crack the mirror, perhaps, and it'd heal slowly when not in use. And the mirror breaking might cause bad luck, a good reason to not rely solely on it.

_brightwing said:

Wait.. Blacksheep how many hours have passed?

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For the current loop or overall time?

The loop is broken, but it's nine thirty if you want to know

Blacksheep said:

For the current loop or overall time?

The loop is broken, but it's nine thirty if you want to know

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On one hand i am happy we suceeded.

On the other hand i am disapointed we didn't get to set the train on fire.

Omake time!

Okay, so it's not ten yet. Half an hour should be enough to make an escape if there's no additional complications.

It would be interesting to bind them though, if Oliver was hale. Nemo could do with a friend..

@Ternasta any ideas on how to do it in a hypothetical scenario? How do you beat something like the Hound?

[X] Use the portal you set up earlier to bring Emily over. Open it for yourself.
-[X] Drag yourself through, bring the gemstone if it looks like the ritual is stopped.
-[X] Call for Emily to help you

_brightwing said:

@Ternasta any ideas on how to do it in a hypothetical scenario? How do you beat something like the Hound?

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Glass using sand from the Red House, mixing our paint with water purified both normally and magically, and making it a sphere to limit the Hound's abilities which rely on angles.

[X] Use your door back home.
-[X] Drag yourself through, bring the gemstone if it looks like the ritual is stopped.
-[X] Call for Emily to help you.

[X]Reach out to Robert

I'd like him to know we survived.

Yay Emily is great. Think I'm going to disagree with her about answering that call however.
I don't suppose Robert has a phone number we could call? Cell phones aren't exactly a thing, but landlines are. We get in contact with him, reassure him we are alright and ask how things developed.

I would rather not just restore a superficial appearance of humanity however. Oliver is right, humanity has got us this far, lets stick with it. Or rather, a slow assent into being human+ on our own terms, not falling under the sway of some established power.
So there are two ways I could see for dealing with this. Either we go and use our self improvement painting to try to re-paint our deeper nature.
Or alternatively, we could try sacrificing our new connection to the ocean. Pour it into our magic and make some discrete item which contains and uses it. That way we could still benefit from it when we want, but the rest of the time it can be partitioned off. I kinda like that idea actually.

See painting has the thematic flaw of never deleting. You paint over, but the truth remains underneath. This is great for our self-improvement painting because it means we should stay true to ourself, but I expect trying to entirely revert our current changes would be difficult via that method.

On the other hand what if we approach things from a different angle. The artist pours themselves into their work. We have done this with magic before. So what if we intentional take advantage of this theme as a benefit not a drawback? Our current transformation is the result of too much of a good thing. So spend that good thing.

The ultimate intent would be to create a painted cloak that we could "wear" to gain all the benefits of the transformation, but which we could then take off whenever we want, and leaves our true self unchanged beneath. The best of both worlds. An opportunity to explore beneath the waves without the risk of losing our self would be quite interesting.
We might end up losing our tattoos if they get pulled into the cloak, but that would be an acceptable price.

[X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been
-[X] First contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. (If he is not available, leave a message for him to call you back) Take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you
-[X] Then work to re-establish your full human self, not just a superficial appearance.
-[X] Do this by painting a mask. The self who could have been. Sacrifice into it your supernatural connection to the ocean and new features, leaving only your prior self behind. Monitor and adjust using your Self Portrait to make sure your integrity of self is preserved.

Robert does have a landline. He also spends a HUGE amount of time out in the wilderness doing research trips, so the chance of him actually being at his house is slim. As is him receiving a letter in any kind of timely manner XD

As much as I like the novelty of the idea, I am not quite ready to give up the connection to Nemo just yet.. I was really enjoying the bond Oliver started to renew with them, its hard to get Nemo relevance to most of the adventures due to their appearance raising alarm.
We could go in the other direction perhaps?

Blacksheep said:

Robert does have a landline. He also spends a HUGE amount of time out in the wilderness doing research trips, so the chance of him actually being at his house is slim. As is him receiving a letter in any kind of timely manner XD

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I guess we could leave a message? Unless we plan on getting on another (hopefully much less eventful) train and going to visit him personally? If he is off in the wilderness it wouldn't exactly be easy to track him down in person either.
We missed a week, do we know enough about his planned travel itinerary to catch him at his next rest stop? Either in person or with some other method of communication. Ideally leave a message and tell him to call back or something.

Anyway if it isn't going to be easy then we might need to wait until we can go out in public again before seeking him out.

_brightwing said:

As much as I like the novelty of the idea, I am not quite ready to give up the connection to Nemo just yet.. I was really enjoying the bond Oliver started to renew with them, its hard to get Nemo relevance to most of the stories due to their appearance raising alarm.

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I mean, it's not like we lacked a connection to him before we got the tattoos. Plus when we wear the cloak I expect the connection would be all the deeper. We can go off on underwater adventures together next or something.

But we're sacrificing all the eldritch connection with Nemo to fuel going back to normlity? Including the gills. We cannot forgo the price in this setting, as we've learned time and time again.

JayTar said:

I guess we could leave a message? Unless we plan on getting on another (hopefully much less eventful) train and going to visit him personally? If he is off in the wilderness it wouldn't exactly be easy to track him down in person either.

We missed a week, do we know enough about his planned travel itinerary to catch him at his next rest stop? Either in person or with some other method of communication. Ideally leave a message and tell him to call back or something.

I mean, it's not like we lacked a connection to him before we got the tattoos. Plus when we wear the cloak I expect the connection would be all the deeper. We can go off on underwater adventures together next or something.

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_brightwing said:

But we're sacrificing all the eldritch connection with Nemo to fuel it? Including the gills. We cannot forgo the price.

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All the eldritch connection. But that doesn't stop us from having a perfectly normal emotional connection. Remember how we met Nemo?
The point of turning it into a cloak is so that we can keep the gills and other benefits, at least when we want to use them. Perhaps it is slightly less convenient then tattoos, but well it should be safer at least.
It's less a total sacrifice, and more of a partitioning and transfer.

[X] Plan The Me Who Will Be
-[X] Contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. Make sure to take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you.
-[X] Use the Self portrait to instead embrace the changes, the scars and imperfections. Meld the form over with your ideal self, someone not afraid. The mismatched features turning into something that was always to be - the best of eldritch and humanity. Tether the portrait with the broken locket, to steal away supernatural from mundane eyes. The Occult however sees your true self, when you deign it.
-[X] The Ocean beckons.



Based on what we have seen, I don't think we'll be allowed to go back to full humanity so easily while still keeping the supernatural. So here's my proposal instead.

Edited my plan to add leaving a message to call back if Robert isn't there:

JayTar said:

[X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been
-[X] First contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. (If he is not available, leave a message for him to call you back) Take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you
-[X] Then work to re-establish your full human self, not just a superficial appearance.
-[X] Do this by making a painting shaped like a cloak. The self who could have been. Sacrifice into it your supernatural connection to the ocean and new features, leaving only your prior self behind. Monitor and adjust using your Self Portrait to make sure your integrity of self is preserved.

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_brightwing said:

[X] Plan The Me Who Will Be
-[X] Contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. Make sure to take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you.
-[X] Use the Self portrait to instead embrace the changes, the scars and imperfections. Meld the form over with your ideal self, someone not afraid. The mismatched features turning into something functional - the best of eldritch and humanity. Tether the portrait with the broken locket, to steal away supernatural from mundane eyes.
-[X] The Ocean beckons.

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Uh, I'm going to disagree with this plan. A big part of what I like about Oliver is the retention of humanity. Even with all the eldritch he has faced, he has walked the careful line. Fully embracing something other goes against that.
All our painting magic is unique in that we are building supernatural power of our own on our own terms. Becoming something new. With the self portrait we could feed that flame. Become a powerful wizard while remaining connected to humanity. Perhaps eventually ascend in some form.

So I would be happy with exploring society beneath the waves. But I wouldn't want to join them permanently. Because supernatural creatures are a dime a dozen, but sane humans with powers are incredibly rare.

It would be really great if the cloak was possible as described, but it feels like we have to pay a steeper price to earn back true humanity. Sacrifice other things as well. The scales grew that way to help Oliver survive the bullets too if you recall. The way things work in this thing, we can't not have a drawback - no matter with which way we go. I suspect Oliver would take a hit on his magical connection, if he were to tear away the occult parts of himself.

[X] Plan The Me Who Could Have Been
-[X] First contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. (If he is not available, leave a message for him to call you back) Take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you
-[X] Then work to re-establish your full human self, not just a superficial appearance.
-[X] Do this by painting a mask. The self who could have been. Sacrifice into it your supernatural connection to the ocean and new features, leaving only your prior self behind. Monitor and adjust using your Self Portrait to make sure your integrity of self is preserved.

Personally, I consider a deeper connection to Nemo much less of a movement away from humanity then deepening our connection to Isis or other unworldly powers.

While the connection is crude from a consequence of failure driving it in a hurried way, I think humanity is much more than appearances. I'd still have preferred to not be forced into this, but that's just a consequence of unlucky dice. The past slew of rolls sucked, and that's life sometimes. In contrast to the king in yellow arc, I'm comfortable accepting this change in the current circumstances.

[X] Plan The Me Who Will Be
-[X] Contact Robert, via phone preferably, or letter. Reassure him you are alright, and are recovering. Inquire to his status, the waitress's, and the general situation. Make sure to take steps in anonymity if the authorities are looking for you.
-[X] Use the Self portrait to instead embrace the changes, the scars and imperfections. Meld the form over with your ideal self, someone not afraid. The mismatched features turning into something that was always to be - the best of eldritch and humanity. Tether the portrait with the broken locket, to steal away supernatural from mundane eyes. The Occult however sees your true self, when you deign it.
-[X] The Ocean beckons.

Oh, I should probably reveal:

The cultist absolutely cursed Oliver with bad luck while fighting. It's gone now, but that did influence what happened.