Finally, the time to confront the Rotbeast. It's strange to think that we could've killed it without much difficulty back when we first visited the Sovereignty, not even a single EFB for our name. And now, after two EFBs, Praxis and a bunch of other powers, it is still a dangerous opponent. The power of Apocryphal is something to behold.
The sky was mouldering dark, charcoal-grey and studded with cloud, stark grim horizon all but swallowed up by the world-subsuming mass of the monster before them, the titanic Rotbeast whose tread sent thundering quakes into the feeble earth underfoot.
Hunger stopped at a rooftop outpost, leaving Mizuku in the care of Sovereignty militia as he observed the oncoming enemy. It was one thing to see the Rotbeast pointed out as geography on a map, and quite another to witness that uprooted landscape literally marching upon you, mottled grey flesh high, high, high like an apocalypse wave, towering so high it was vertiginous even to contemplate. Around it milled countless millions of its pestilent spawn; teeming legions dwarfed by their forebear whose sheer mass and bulk literally boggled the human mind, its uppermost ridges ringed with cloud, glacier-plates like armor shining in the dusk.
I remember reading Accursed Implement update and being surprised when Sovereignty people mentioned that this area on the map is the Rotbeast - I wondered whether they meant that it was the territory under Rotbeast's control or did they really mean that this particular geographic feature is the Rotbeast itself. Well, this clearly clarifies that they meant the latter, and the size truly amazing - a literal moving mountain range, and not even a slow one. I have a hard time even imagining it, to be honest - I've seen mountain ranges and picturing them moving towards you with malicious intent is almost beyond me.
Of course, he thought numbly. Snow and cloud were not some intrinsic property in mountains made of stone. A mountain made of flesh and just as immobile would attract the same, until it began to move.
Though he'd gained a considerable portion of strength from 'defeating' the Foremost armor, Hunger could not help but feel a touch of apprehension at the magnitude of the foe opposing. It moved slowly to his perceptions, muscles the size of city-blocks steadily undulating across its form, but this was an enemy which demanded a terraformer's tools, not a hunter's. Ahead he could see Verschlengorge anchoring the Sovereignty's lines, a thin vertical speck of grey-and-red against the paler grey of the advancing flesh wall.
Even Hunger, resident ultra hardcore warrior, is amazed and apprehensive. On one hand, I am almost surprised he can still think like that after all his adventures, but on the other, it's understandable - it doesn't seem like he ever had to fight enemies large enough to count as geography and as such is at a loss when he thinks about the way to kill them. Even just Cutting Through might not, he-he, cut it when your cuts barely register as scratches compared to the bulk of your opponent.
Half a heartbeat and he was there. Gisena waved from Verschlengorge's shoulder as the Armament bellowed, issuing challenge which no Rotspawn dared meet. Letrizia and Verschlengorge worked in vigorous harmony to stem the flow of spawn, a steadily-growing radius of smashed corpses the growing proof of her handiwork. Around them Sovereignty forces fired endlessly into the streaming horde, Aeira alongside her classmates, shadow-ensconced Elementalists dispensing enormous gouts of flesh-scorning steel and contagious flame, their few beleaguered Armor Prototypes working furiously to stem the holes in that rapidly-faltering defense.
Driven forth by their master and creator the Rotspawn only multiplied as their progenitor took another step forward, the world roiling under that colossal impact as an ever-denser tide of monstrosities bore down on the lines. An Elementalist groaned in exertion and Space itself shifted before the monster, giving the Sovereignty half-a-mile of distance more before the Rotbeast was atop of its fearfully-evacuating populace.
Good to see that our companions manage to defend themselves and contribute to the battle well. But Sovereignty forces couldn't even defeat normal Rotspawn, the entire Rotbeast with all his armies is just completely beyond them. Elementalists are nevertheless pretty powerful - even if that space manipulator boy was one of the strongest, stretching space by half a mile is no mean feat.
Hunger fired a few spheres of Edeldross into the stronger Elementalists, earning a chipper nod from Aobaru as he passed. Then he was in among the ranks of the enemy, and swept his sword in a broad, brutal arc, the strength of Stenallon Worldkeeper infusing this opening salvo, a single crescent of wind that scythed outwards depopulating every Rotspawn in its path. Like a freshly-cut field the plain before him flattened, and he wasted no time sprinting forward, arc of his blade carving a furrow more trench than divot as he harnessed the terrible weight of the Forebear's technique, swinging now upwards and outwards at the Rotbeast itself, impossible blue cleaving everything betwixt in twain.
Apocryphal buff seemingly didn't affect the Rotspawn - and, since Hunger could easily murder even Primaries with just Cut Through, they are completely unable to do anything but die in droves to a single cut. Which is quite good - if Hunger had to fight his way through enemies that were even a bit on his level before delving into Rotbeast, the whole battle would be much more dangerous. Also, Sovereignty lines would probably collapse before he arrived.
The ponderous beast showed no reaction to his attack, even as a mile-high wound flashed across its side, the Power of Ruin splintering and crumbling its flesh as the cut deepened. Hunger leapt atop its surface and began to scale the face, sword held behind him to part its flesh as he ran. The beast shuddered, trembling musculature in waves ten feet high hurtling towards him, and then inhaled, the 'ground' beneath hollowing downwards as it sucked in. He attacked savagely, carving wide ruinous strokes into that retreating flesh, scooping out a tunnel into the beast's interior. Before he could finish it finally exhaled, a nacreous mist of silver-green expelling from every pore, poison in clouds so massive and so virulent that the Rotspawn surrounding it writhed briefly and went still. The Evening Sky wrapped around his face, its tatters boiling away around him, nonetheless he continued his excavating advance, the power of his Ring holding back the immensity of the Rotbeast's toxin for the moment. This was the Tiller Wurm writ large and he sought a similar means of bringing it low.
Damn, that is a lot of Rotbeast to kill. I feel like Titan-Felling would be very helpful here, even if possibly not enough - with fivefold strength, Ruin would be doing much more damage than simply deepening the cuts. I wonder, was releasing clouds of poison a conscious reaction on the part of Rotbeast, or was it more like automatic defence? It's also notable that boosted poison is potent enough to kill even Rotspawn and boil away Evening Sky - the Sovereignty got really lucky we decided to go with Frontal Assault instead of letting a source of such poison inside their lands. I get a feeling that it poisoned the earth for pretty much forever, not to mention all the evacuation efforts that would've been hit.
Delving inside the beast is a venerable tactic for killing monsters much bigger than you, though traditionally, you enter through its mouth. But does Rotbeast even have one? He probably just absorbs what he needs to through his skin. Cutting inside it is, then. Though, it doesn't work quite as well when the monster less eats you and more throws you into a cavern system inside of its body.
He plunged forward into the poison and dark, burrowed until he was entombed within a semi-solid sea of dull grey flesh, a great tremulous ocean bereft of blood or vigor which receded endlessly before Ruin's might only to reveal more and more of its seemingly-infinite depths. There were no nodes of power or neural clusters to target, nothing but an undifferentiated mass all of which was equally vital and equally useless to the organism comprising. For long minutes he cut and cut, each fall of his blade conjuring wounds the length of high towers, yet finding no respite from this vastness unending.
Wow, the fact that Rotbeast has no differentiated organs really puts a damper on usual ways of killing it. If there are no brains or other weak points, the only way through is to annihilate the flesh until there's too little of it to maintain life, but considering that Rotbeast is so big that you can describe him in geographical rather than biological terms, destroying enough flesh with just sword would quite an undertaking. Maybe more viable with Titan-Felling, but as it is, much too hard. I wonder if he was that hard to kill before Apocryphal as well? It's hard to imagine Hunger succeeding at such a task with less power even if the Rotbeast was much less capable.
The power of his regeneration began to fail, Blood faltering before such profundity of poison, tips of his fingers grown numb and slowly necrotizing as he worked his way through the beast. Madly he circulated Edeldross, seeking to refine and purge all impurity from his body, but even those toxins expelled seeped into his pores a moment later, for there was nothing here that was not poison. The air was poison, the sky was poison, the walls were poison, the slick-molded impressions of his footsteps pooling poison; his whole world was poison, rot encroaching steadily and without cessation, not unlike the advance of its eponymous Beast.
I remember being quite worried when I started reading that paragraph the first time. Hunger really is in a bad position here - poison strong enough to overpower his protections and regeneration, enemy huge enough that you can't kill him just by swinging the sword around and crippled senses that make finding any weak spots harder, if there are any weak spots to be found. An enemy really adept at countering his strengths - something that makes me suspect Apo-chan again.
He could still escape via the tunnel he'd cut; even weakened the Refinement of Quickness would easily allow him to dart out and back behind Sovereignty lines. But what then? Would he achieve anything by withdrawing now and allowing the Rotbeast to roll over the Sovereignty lines? Was there some secret, some technique or methodology that would allow him to actually fell this monster? Or was there truly no viable alternative to simply cutting through?
If that was so, then so be it. Hunger was no stranger to simple resolve. He had endured far worse against foes more torturous than this. But even if he reached the far side, what would that accomplish? Would putting a hole in the creature have been worth all this effort and time? Every minute wasted was a thousand, ten thousand lives spent, implicitly on the altar of his strategy. Such was the burden of all who presumed to call themselves heroes.
Well, I guess that was the time to put Hunger's increased wisdom to work - just how is one supposed to destroy an enemy when one's tools are so ineffective? Should you change your strategy, or should you just put in more effort to substitute the lack of compatibility? A hard question to answer, in practically any situation.
The plans at hand:
[ ] Get Gisena - It's regrettable to call upon the Nullity Sorceress' Ultimate once more, especially as that will preclude its use for several further months, but Hunger doesn't see an easy way out of this. Answer the Sea of Rot with the Sea of Nullity; perhaps a detonation of nulldross deep within its center will hollow out the beast. Subject to mere physics it would certainly collapse, unable to withstand its own tremendous weight. The main difficulty is evaluating whether even Gisena's ultimate attack would reach far enough to affect the greater portion of the beast.
*Death Chance: Almost none
*Condition Chance: Very High
*Gisena Condition Chance: Very High
*Estimated Odds: Great
*Collateral Damage: Medium
If you can't do it, just get someone who can! Not a bad option with a great chance of success, but its main benefit is the very low chance of death. To achieve that, it expends Gisena's ultimate which locks it for a few months, makes it very likely for both her and Hunger to get a damaging condition and lets the Sovereignty suffer collateral damage. Considering how loath are questers to risk (or even inconvenience, really) their companions, it is not surprising that we ended up choosing differently. Poor Not Dying Gang.
[ ] Thousandfold Shears - The answer is to Cut Through; merely adjust the angle of your cut. Shear away the portion of the Rotbeast closest to the Sovereignty at any one time by cutting in great horizontal strokes across its anterior. For every step forward it takes, carve off enough flesh at the border that it will be as if it had never advanced at all!
*Death Chance: Very low
*Condition Chance: Guaranteed Exhaustion, Low of other wounds
*Estimated Odds: Good, with near-guaranteed chances of at least partial victory.
*Collateral Damage: Minimized. By literally shearing away those parts of the Rotbeast closest to the Sovereignty, it can't actually advance at all!
*Hunger will be unable to use his Rank for several days afterwards; the exertion of this task will be crippling even for him.
*A small price to pay in order to retain the utility of Gisena's Ultimate for a more difficult foe.
Work smarter, not harder! Or, more accurately, work very hard until you exhaust yourself, but do so in a smart way. One of the two competing options, which only makes sense since it also answers our challenge with Cutting Through. However, I feel like this was a very mediocre option due to its focus on not spending anything - we save Arete, Gisena's ult and don't roll the dice as much, but it comes at the cost of guaranteed condition, higher chances of death and lower chances of success. Understandable why it was popular, but also understandable why did it lose. It would work much better if we got Titan-Felling, but then would we even get this option at all? This kind of lateral thinking feels like something more combat Wis contributed to.
[ ] Delve Deeper - Surely there must be an opening somewhere in this gargantuan mass. It has muscles near the exterior which implies other organs further in. But without any means of discerning such, and with his senses crippled by the poison, is there any way for Hunger to actually find them?
*Death Chance: Low
*Condition Chance: Very High
*Estimated Odds: Decent
*Collateral Damage: Variable
*A luck-reliant strategy that could slay the Rotbeast quickly, or squander precious minutes with no substantive results.
Lol just get lucky bro. Well, we do know that there is at least one weak point inside of the Rotbeast - namely, the Surgecrafter buffing it (The guy probably died, didn't he? A shame). But finding it, or any other possible weak points really does come entirely to luck. And, well, no one likes plans that rely entirely on things we can't control, so it's not a surprise that almost no one picked this. Would work out great if did get lucky, though.
[ ] Cut Through - The answer is to Cut Through; further your mastery in a single transcendental moment of supreme effort and acquire the power needed to end this monstrosity once and for all.
*Acquire one of the following: Monster-Defeating Stance or Artful Thorn for 7 Arete (+1 pick debt for Artful Thorn) or Refinement of Battle for 25 Arete (+1 pick debt)
*Improves Rank from this encounter a further 30% as Hunger achieves a dramatic and narratively fitting victory against this immense monstrosity, this shadow of dire fear that has blanketed the Sovereignty in this thrall for well-near a decade.
*Death Chance Minimal, No Major+ Condition Chance, Minimal Collateral Damage, Great Odds.
*Expends your Arete in greater or smaller portion without granting Trinity.
*You may only choose Refinement of Battle if you have at least 24 Arete. You currently have somewhat over 11.
"This is Forebear Technical Support, SORD/Praxis division, how we may help you? Your Cutting Through doesn't work so good? Well, have you tried Cutting Through even harder?"
A great option however you look at it, except for one small problem - we need to pay in hard-earned Arete and future picks to get it. Nevertheless, the thread was never shy to spend Arete and there are not a lot of better ways to spend it then on cool Praxis techniques that allow us to damage any opponent we encounter. Well, Monster-Defeating Stance was also there, but since we are going for the entirely different stance and it competed against Praxis, it's not surprising it was completely blown out. It's a shame that due to spending one pick here we were locked out of a better version of the Feat, but I think it was an acceptable sacrifice. Artful Thorn will see a lot of use in the future, in my opinion, and this ending was indeed appropriately dramatic, so I am glad this option won.
Should Letrizia use Verschlegorge's Grand Decimation Attack? At his current relatively meager Rank, this will affect the combat on the ground against the Rotspawn, but not the outcome of the battle with the Rotbeast itself.
[ ] Unleash the Devourer - Will clear away the Rotspawn in enormous numbers, but inflict considerable collateral damage upon the military (and outlying civilian) elements of the Sovereignty. Could breed resentment even if it saves more lives overall. Some Elementalists will die; however Aeira and Aobaru, having been enhanced by both Edeldross and Vigorflame, are guaranteed to survive.
Well, going out to save lives and then murdering a ton of people seems really counterproductive. I guess there were soma auxiliary benefits in increasing Letrizia's image in the Empire, if Apocryphal does use this whole event to paint us in a bad light there, but I think that was decidedly not worth losing opinions here.
[ ] Hold Back - There is something to be said for not attacking one's allies even if vastly greater numbers of the enemy would fall. Still, this means the Rotspawn will almost certainly breach Sovereignty lines and rampage amongst the civilian populace. They are likely to be surrounded and destroyed given time but thousands of civilians will surely die. A small fraction of the casualties projected should the Rotbeast itself break through, but it seems Lord Hunger has that matter well in hand!
[ ] Sea of Nullity - Have Miss Gisena use her Sea of Nullity attack instead. Achieve the same as Unleash the Devourer with much lower loss of friendly life, but cannot be used in conjunction with Get Gisena and may seal Gisena's Ultimate for several months. Knocks Gisena unconscious for a number of days.
There was some expected competition between the options, but Holding Back won, in the end. I am fairly agnostic on this choice and can see the benefits of either option, so I am okay with that - just doing nothing can be the best choice, sometimes. It was somewhat heartless of the players OOC and characters IC to preserve the party's resources at the cost of thousands of lives, but I would not call it a bad decision. We may well need Gisena's ultimate in the future of the Tower adventure and if Hunger really becomes the king of Sovereignty, one could argue that option increasing the power and safety of his personal party was actually the better use of state resources than saving lives if one were to view the Sovereignty in its entirety.
