Option Analysis:
this post will try and examine how effective we would be against each task
[ ] Wait and Hope - The Apocryphal Curse shall merely bide its time, waiting and hoping for a perfect opportunity to introduce delicious complication! A perfectly cute and prudent decision. Patience is a virtue for a reason, you know! Fighting, Apocryphal~ !
*Dramatically increases the power of the next Apocryphal Curse-induced Event!
*Biding your time results in extra power, but an anticlimactic return, how boring...
*Let the Hero stew in fear of your dreadful contingencies, mwa ha ha!
*The Hero has advanced beyond many of the simpler challenges you can muster right now. Best to strike during a better opportunity! Delightful pandemonium may only be a star in your eye, but properly nurtured it can spawn unending havoc.
*That said, the ones below still present some opportunities of not-insignificant promise!
*A dramatic increase to any of these options below would be scary, especially since the options right now are already quite strong. Dramatic buffs to a 3/4 pick fight is not desirable, buffs to a 5 pick even more untenable.
*The worst part is that we're not guaranteed control over how the power is distributed, so Apocryphal might come at us with the most effective combination to blam us into the wall.
*Reduces comfy for quest, may make the experience tense and panicky. Might have ancilliary benefits to Arete generation, I suppos.
*Could be effective, when mixed with [ ] Two, trading off the potency of another option for "free" and offloading that onto a future Hunger. Given that our power scales exponentially, and we have several big ticket options on the horizon (Praxis, Trinity, Rank picks, Silver, ADS, RR), this might not be a bad idea.
*The Apocryphal Curse scales with us, however...
[ ] Republic Kill-Joys - The Elixir Sovereignty attracts all manner of wandering adventurer and aspirant petitioner seeking relief and regeneration at its famously potent healing springs. Among them, this Republic Kill-Team, armed to the teeth with devastating battle-augs and equipped with top-of-the-line Republic military Armor Prototypes! Embrace the power of L.U.L. and show these imperial bootlickers traitors that only the Free(tm) know truly how to party!
*Itchy trigger finger. Wouldn't the Sovereignty love to get their hands on the equipment these boys & girls are packing?
*Thus, righteous paranoia and relaxation are the order of the day! And there's that mage they're trying to smuggle out...
*Add a Tyrannical hero with no inclination to obey Republic authority into the mix and ka-blam! A sure-fire recipe!
*It'll be interesting to see how they fare against the Surges of the itinerant band, even more so when the high schoolers join the fray!
*A marvelous free-for-all of rollicking Free(tm)-spirited destruction!
*Our hero might be able to claim one of those top-grade Armor Prototypes with the help of his Sorceress friend! Artifice, how gross!!
*Doesn't put us into immediate combat, which gives us some level of agency...
*From the last option, the Diplomatic Difficulty was Medium, but had a 10-20% chance of Tyrant procs. This might get worse given the recontextualization of the option (itchy trigger finger, we seem like more of a threat, they're in enemy territory). Inheritor and our increased Charisma might change the likelihood of Tyrant procs in a positive way, however.
*Combat Difficulty was Extreme. They had a Combat Rank of 6.5 and were "outfitted with bleeding-edge Astraltech augs and the finest armor-portable weaponry that modern science can produce." Since then, however, we've leapfrogged in strength with several advancements and 2 EFBs. It's unclear if the Elixir's healing will increase their combat capacity enough to offset our gains.
*Free-for-all will probably get highschoolers killed.
*Might reduce Rank gain, given we kill them. Might increase it, too, depending on how well we do.
*A bounty of Armor Prototypes! Mix and match with the Foremost armors we'll get from yeeting Mizuku.
[ ] Prestige Classing - Looks like poor Bearic has fallen behind! Still two weeks 'till he hits level cap and our hero is almost stronger than even that! Well, that simply won't do, looks like our friend Bearic needs an extra leg up. Something to really fire up his mettle and make him an opponent worthy of our dastardly Ring-Lord! You call it cheating, he calls it haxx; bust out you best Santa cosplay, 'cause Christmas is comin' early and Apocryphal Claus is going to be very, very nice to one particularly undeserving gamer. Cheer up Ber, your System may not be up to the task, but you've a far greater friend in your corner and she's coming through in the clutch! Avenge Seralize and all the others, and take back the title of Blue Swordsman from that one-eyed brooding hack!
*Conservation of antagonists, an important skill to learn for any budding Curse!
*Wouldn't you like to see Ber reach massively exceed his full potential? No matter who's defeated, the winner's going to get an absolute truckload of Experience...
*He still won't attack until he hits level cap. What a fruitfully assiduous boy! Could take a bit.
*Oooh, we just can't wait to see his disgustingly overpowered new capabilities brought to light! Make it a showdown worthy of the ages!
*With how fast 'Lord Hunger' grows, it might be possible for him to still outscale Ber after all this, if he steers his build optimally...
*Pfhaha. Like that's going to happen.
*Personally not a fan of this option, given that Ber showed himself to be a potent and intelligent opponent (and a skilled minmaxer too, if Rihaku is to be believed).
*We don't know what his new capabilities will look like.
*It is still possible for us to outscale him given optimal build picks. This would probably entail optimization for short-term gain (expending Praxis picks, rushing Triniity, getting ADS) and definitely getting blood advancements.
*Without this option, Ber remains capped by a low-potential system. He will reach level cap and attack us with or without this option, so perhaps there is value in offloading all the power of the curse into a threat that we will have to face regardless. However, the blurb makes it sounds like we'd trivialize him regardless, so I suppose the only threat he poses without this pick is to our allies.
*Ber is a prick, fuck him.
[ ] Keepin' it Simple - Yyyuup, we're just going to dump the perfect buffing-type Surgecrafter into the Rotbeast's clutches and have it roll on out! With its Rank and general parameters substantially increased, its mountain-range sized bulk will finally achieve full mobility and rain destruction as a walking charnal tide upon the poor Sovereignty! Let's show this Hero who's boss (hint: it's not him!!).
*KAIJU. GUD.
*Another boring Kaiju event... surely you can do better than this, Apocryphal... ! But even if you can't, we all still love you!
*Work down that ablative population, baby!
*This'll totally screw up his Rank-gaining ways...
*...As long as he doesn't save them.
*But if he does, maybe you can spin him as an enemy of the Empire!
*You're a genius! There's no way to lose.
*Will probably offer him a lot of "picks" if he does win. Like, three or four. Yuck.
*Likely to kill an assload of Sovereignty citizens.
*Also a swing vote in terms of Rank-- can improve or worsen Rank gain either way.
*Slow, moving Kaiju that spawns adds and exudes Rank. Given how strong the Rank of he Prime Rotspawn was, this would be a serious problem to deal with. We would need to take Silver of Evening as soon as possible, I reckon.
*Might have reputational consequences with the Empire, which is scary. This might imply them sending more people to kill Letrizia, or a "warm welcome" when we return to the Human Sphere.
*Isn't just a Kaiju option, don't let Rihaku fool you.
*Picks are good, would probably offer Stranglethorn. They indicate the strength of the opponent, however, and tactics would be welcome.
[ ] Lucent Thorn - The deadly A-class blade which hunts Ring and wielder alike has set its eyes on Miss Gisena Allria, wielder of the Azure! Lest the horrors of unbound Artifice be loosed upon the universe again, Justice Blade Lucent Thorn is here to punish you in the name of the True Moonlight! Will the evil Sorceress-Queen Gisena finally be felled? Or will her comtract with the devastating handsome and also evil Ring-Lord Hunger allow her to cling to unseemly life!? Find out next time in several dozen more episodes!
*Lucent Thorn has its own agenda and sees fit to chart its own course, defying recommendations despite your nigh-omniscience and sound judgement! Hmph!!
*It's also slow af. Gotta work its way from wielder to wielder alllllll the way across the Voyaging Realm...
*But once this good boy finds a Fairbright worthy champion, ohhh boy. You won't be ready. The world won't be ready. And Hunger's body certainly won't be ready! Unless he works on the Praxis a lot...
*Strength matters not! The nigh-limitless power of Hope, Love, and Determination shall strike down the cruel Rings, implements of naked Power made manifest, right where they stand! This time, a two-for-one special...
*In Realm Voyaging, 5-pick fight runs at you! Let's hope our hero doesn't just outpace this one, though it can tangle in the Human Sphere if it has to!
*A five pick fight. Good god.
*Lucent Thorn can resist and even disobey the Apocryphal Curse. This is good, but it also implies that it is literally that strong.
*Takes awhile to find a good holder, probably will take awhile to find us. Longer than two weeks, given the timespan in Ber's option.
*"Strength maters not..." can be taken as either an indicator of extreme confidence, High Rank, or esoteric capability.
*True Moonlight, huh...? Probably connected to the Azure.
*Fights against Rings. Might be good or terrible combined with Ring War... too bad we can't combine the two.
*Will chase us anywhere, just rather slowly.
*Praxis will give us an avenue to stop this. (Probably Imperial Praxis and then getting an option from the set that gives us.)
*Spreading our reputation will make us easier to find.
[ ] Ring War - That's a nice Ring you got there. Would be a shame if someone... ruled it.
*Have Asterios experience a truly massive and unjustifiable breakthrough, starting the contest of Primacy!
*Our Hero must war, lest he bow to the new king among Rings!
*Force him into the Human Sphere where all manner of complication awaits!!
*Especially the thing with Letrizia's - oops, can't think about that.
*Requires [ ] One. There can only be one Ruling Ring.
*Probably the scariest option. A truly massive and unjustifiable breakthrough, christ. More superlative adjectives than any previous option.
*Forces us into the Human Sphere, takes away basically all our Agency.
*Messes with the Ruling Ring in unpredictable ways.
*Letrizia Mystery Box? What the hell?
*The reddest option, the one that has a vote restriction.
*Indicates to us that Asterios might be easy to deal with if we don't take this option. This could justify taking RR with less regrets, perhaps even before taking ADS (probably not, though.)
At the end of these options, the easiest ones to deal with are the Rotbeast and the Killteam. This is because we already have ways to deal with them, aren't forced to warp our builds or sacrifice long-term potential to get to them, and because a clear path to victory is available. Ring, Ber, Blade, and Waiting are all mystery boxes in terms of the danger they present, not something I want to deal with.
Thus, my vote is:
[X] Two
[X] Republic Kill-Joys
[X] Keepin' it Simple
in that order. 10% reduction in power might make a 4 pick fight manageable, and a 20% reduction is tremendous in reducing Tyrant proc chance.
