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A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Hopefully something more profound than 'Hunger was here'.
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Honestly, the adventurers who come across the corpse of a continent-fish deserve to be able to discover an appropriately dramatic story carved into the FIsh's bones, as a reward for their efforts. But there's no such story, Hunger needed to kill a fish and so he did. Reality is often disappointing.
I knooow, but anything much more profound would be a lie. :s
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
A great fish this was
Only one question I thought
Grill it or deep fry
Lord Hunger, Fisher King
Only one question I thought
Grill it or deep fry
Lord Hunger, Fisher King
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
It's probably very chewy... we'll have to find out.
Enohthree
Hypersane
We'll have to fry it first. Maybe contract that fish stall vendor guy.
Don't forget, Gisena was here too. Since she didn't contribute much to the fight, this genius might just decide to immortalize the story! All the better to tease Hunger with later...
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
me, in two weeks:
hey guys, Undying Vanguard has been buffed to provide +100PROT to every party member, activates Rank shrouds for every party member, and makes sure that they are fed with high quality soup every day
Undying in the sense that the option will never disappear, always on the verge of being taken!
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Gotta emphasize the race against the clock, the "no time to prepare, there are lives to save!" and, most importantly, Hunger's pecs.
Strange9
hdellaverson@gmail.com
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
But if we spill their soup can we get Arete while simultaneously breaking their hearts?
That would require more heartlessness than I'm comfortable with.
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
If we boil the Voyaging Sea with the Fish-Corpse inside, does it become a Voyaging Soup?
Enohthree
Hypersane
Only if we get quintuple Vershe laughter.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Man, where are going to find enough aromatics that much soup?!
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Vendor has a lot of secrets, we need to interrogate him for a supplier.
We ought to make sure Gisena doesn't come near the water. What if she contaminates the Armament SOUP?!
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Eh, just write Hunger's history. Or even: "This armament-fish was Praehihr Hunger's second sacrifice to his Affliction of the Decimator."
Projectile
Thinking of Rabbits
- Location
- USA
Oh shit, that's actually amazing. Even better than a cool story, it's also a quest hook!
Edit: whoops, wrong page gang
The Rage of War
Rihaku
The Internet
The Rage of War
Hunger went still as the beast lay dying around him, its floundering mass sinking slowly into the endless depths below. Out here in the deep ocean were the only waters vast enough to contain the "Armament" Fish, whose immense height from belly to topfin forced it to treat even ordinary seas as meagre shallows. It did not beach against the land; continental shelves beached against it. The grinding procession of its movement against such plates sent thunderous quakes through the earth, flesh mauling stone with world-turning force.
Blood, cerulean and red, coursed endlessly from its quietly steaming corpse, congealing into thickets of wobbling goop the size of lakes and swamps, pock-marks of color against the wide, pale, pallid blue horizon that was its unmoving corpse. This was no isle but a continent, spanning full into the distance as far as the eye could see; every ridge a mountain range, every declination a shore.
Would it rot away, Hunger wondered, leaving only calcified remnants, a land of barren bone too vast for the waves to engulf? Would some aspirant colonizer chance upon this land, a thousand years hence? Would they dredge the marrow out from its cavernous ribs, opening tunnels a kingdom's width in size, the white curve of bone overhead so huge and so high that it served an adequate substitute for the sky?
For all its tempestuous rage, the beast had been surprisingly easy to slay, Hunger's plan proceeding smoothly apace. Using the same technique he'd employed against the Rotbeast, he'd crippled the monster in a brief initial exchange, then slowly dismantled it over the course of hours.
Little else lived out here, all slain by the kinetic force of the Fish's thrashings, the apocalyptic storm of its death-throes. Hunger could sympathize with its desperation, the unflinching grasp on life which resolved to weather any eventuality, so long as it could survive. Without such a mindset he would have fallen to the Tyrant many times.
He blinked. It had been a while since he'd thought of the Tyrant, or that man's depredations. A consequence of his discarded memories, or was he himself moving past the shadow of that enemy, a year departed and a lifetime away? And if so, was that something he even desired?
Of course it was foolishness to allow oneself to be defined by one's foes, yet the campaign against the Tyrant had forged so much of who he was... in many ways it was the foundation upon which all his further developments had been made, and perhaps it ought not surprise him that a foundation steadily built-over would become more difficult to perceive.
Time enough later to dwell. He stepped forth and strode across the waves, speed of his forward progress crafting a carrier-pocket of pure velocity that skimmed the waters without plunging beneath. What sparse islands dotted this part of the Realm were long buried beneath the Armament-Fish's movements, and it was many long seconds before he finally reached the landmass where Gisena awaited him.
She had moved safely inland, reclining upon a mountain peak whose grasses were stippled with snow, above which a rainbow aurora fluxed and blazed as if in rivalry to the sun.
"Any interesting magics?" He asked as he slowed, arriving at a modest pace so as not to blast away the mountainside. He had still not fully exerted control over his portion of the Forebear's might.
"Nothing that would interest Lord Hunger, the great and powerful," Gisena said perkily, springing to her feet. "It's an interesting supernatural phenomenon, but nothing we can use."
"That's King Hunger to you," he said sternly, turning to survey the lands beneath. He'd done what he could to alleviate the collateral damage, but the devastation was still immense. Large swathes of former shoreline had been all-but erased, dragged beneath the waves with silt streaming like tears. Entire ecologies lay broken or transformed even in the receding wake of the tide. Rivers had ruptured their banks, become impromptu estuaries, while wide hills and mountains now served as tiny islets in a sea of debris. Entire forests had been ripped free of the soil, trees like spilled matchsticks strewn across the sea-poisoned earth.
"It's bad," Gisena said lightly, tugging on his arm, "But the Fish caused much worse than this every day! Don't go moping that you 'have to get stronger' after all your recent power-ups!"
"I do have to get stronger," Hunger replied unambiguously. "The Apocryphal Curse never truly relents. Besides, weren't you just saying that you'll have to work harder than ever to keep up?"
"It's hardly fair!" Gisena smiled. "You've got your power of Progression and all that. Cheating isn't something to be encouraged."
"So being a genius doesn't count as enough of a cheat. Has the mighty Princess Allria finally met her match?"
"Hmm, is that a challenge? You just might end up ruing the day, mister Hero." Affectionately she poked him in the cheek.
"Hmph. You couldn't even kill the Hero of your world, what makes you think you're qualified to take on mine?"
Gisena pouted. "How cruel! I'll just have to see that you get your just desserts."
Tapping the Forebear's reserves and assimilating the Opalescent Tower had finally left him mightier than even his prior self, and not just by a modest sum. He and the Tyrant had vied for the fate of just one world, a single planet warred-over for a decade. Now he had slain a living continent in the span of an afternoon. And the beast had been no unresisting slab, but a monstrosity whose force and speed served to propel its immensity at truly threatening speeds. Why it had housed the Blue Swordsman was something of an enigma, but Hunger had been too heavily occupied to investigate the matter before the man was slain.
Still, that was one thing fewer to worry about in the grand scheme.
He pondered the likely shape of the future. They ought depart for the Human Sphere soon - the ostensible purpose of their journey had been to gather strength in preparation for Ber, and now that the man had been (somewhat underwhelmingly) dealt with, there was no true reason to stay. As soon as the Lord Protector was destroyed and Nilfel stabilized, they would go.
They spent the remainder of the time performing what humanitarian rescues they could - few had survived in the tidal zone, but farther inland the damage was merely catastrophic, and there were a few opportunities to heal or extract the wounded. He could not yet turn the enormity of his full Rank towards such a purpose, but even the sliver he did release was more than sufficient for most purposes. In the end they could save only a meagre fraction of those the Fish had claimed, but he contended himself with the knowledge that its rampage had been halted indefinitely.
Night came, and they departed back to Nilfel. Again wielding the power of the Cloak, the trip was a simple one, swift and uncomplicated.
They arrived to a camp in chaos, soldiers routing in confusion as columns of spellfire hammered the Legion from the sky. Around them the land was scarred and despoiled, the corpse-ridden earth drenched with blood, soil a sickly green. Above wheeled horrid shrieking monsters, their feathered wings rippling the Astral currents, disgorging plumes of white-violet flame as they wheeled and strafed and dove. The air was thick with ash and the stink of viscera; the blood-wine sunset lent a murderous pallor to the battle. It was clear they were losing badly.
Hunger unfurled his Pressure immediately, repelling the brunt of that aggression, and Aeira rushed quickly to his side, accompanied by a contingent of shieldbearers surrounding Adorie. As his Rank was fully asserted the battle around them stilled, a rapidly-expanding bubble of quiet which smothered all opposition. The beasts above croaked and plummeted, blood boiling from their veins, as the barrage of spellfire struck his aura and was repulsed. What embers of resistance still remained soon guttered, flattened beneath the leaden wall of his Pressure.
"What's going on?" He shouted, as Gisena fired a lance of Nullity upwards to intercept an errant attack-spell.
"The Lord Protector has declared our actions to be high treason," Adorie said hurriedly, her face pale and pinched. "We had expected as much, but didn't think he would marshal his forces with such speed! Many of the lords who would have been our supporters have been cut down by assassins or forcibly detained. The others are besieged in their own estates. He's used some form of spatial rift to gate in the Expeditionary Legions from abroad, his most loyal core of support. And your friend-"
"Verschlengorge was kidnapped!" Aeira blurted. "Letrizia is all right, harmed but not terribly. Aobaru is with her. It was all my responsibility, my cloak was not good enough..."
"Nonsense," Hunger said. "You've been growing in skill at a superlative rate. No one could expect more. Now tell me what needs to die."
Adorie pointed outwards, to the west. "The Lord Protector has set up a forward base protected by the Fifth, Tenth and Thirteenth Legions... Um, it may be too much to ask, but could you spare the lives of the soldiers as much as possible? They are not truly corrupted, only misled, and they are my subjects still!"
"We'll see," Hunger said noncommittally. "What's the situation with Versch?"
"The Lord Protector stole him," Adorie said. "We believe it was sorcery operating off of a twisted principle of equivalent exchange, enhanced by the power of his Patron Spirit. Because you absorbed the Tower, he was able to somehow lay claim. Letrizia was left behind when his magics abducted it. She fell but her Pressure mostly protected her. She's recuperating in the field hospital now."
"To separate an Armament from its pilot through the defenses of totality, even if diminished..." Gisena mused. "That's very formidable magic."
"Are they using Versch against us?" Hunger could still feel his bond with the Armament, though it was stifled and weak.
Adorie shook her head. "Not that we can tell. But we don't know his location, either. If the Lord Protector attempts to use him as a hostage, we have little recourse."
An Armament, even injured, wasn't easy to kill, but if the Protector was capable of abducting one right out from under its pilot, Hunger couldn't rule out the possibility. He frowned. His power was superior, at least in a direct contest, but which target to prioritize first? Rescuing Verschlengorge was critical, but the Lord Protector had already demonstrated how dangerous he could be, if given time.
---
The winner was [X] Fisher King by a slim margin! Omake power very nearly carried the day, if not for a last minute surge in votes for King...
Man, the Lord Protector keeps rolling hot! And unfortunately Adorie's forces rolled very poorly indeed. One of the risks of concentrating so much power into a single vessel. Still, now that Hunger is here he can salvage the situation, right? I wonder what Hunger should do now...
If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider subscribing on Patreon! Subscribers receive lots of patron-exclusive content, including early updates, timed exclusives, Discord roles, and bonus chapters. A huge thanks to existing subscribers, the amount of support has been breathtaking! Even more content is coming to Patrons soon!
If you'd like to discuss the quest in real-time or just chat with the questers, you're welcome to join us on the AST Discord! We encourage substantive posts still to be made in the thread, and shitposting within the Discord.
Hunger went still as the beast lay dying around him, its floundering mass sinking slowly into the endless depths below. Out here in the deep ocean were the only waters vast enough to contain the "Armament" Fish, whose immense height from belly to topfin forced it to treat even ordinary seas as meagre shallows. It did not beach against the land; continental shelves beached against it. The grinding procession of its movement against such plates sent thunderous quakes through the earth, flesh mauling stone with world-turning force.
Blood, cerulean and red, coursed endlessly from its quietly steaming corpse, congealing into thickets of wobbling goop the size of lakes and swamps, pock-marks of color against the wide, pale, pallid blue horizon that was its unmoving corpse. This was no isle but a continent, spanning full into the distance as far as the eye could see; every ridge a mountain range, every declination a shore.
Would it rot away, Hunger wondered, leaving only calcified remnants, a land of barren bone too vast for the waves to engulf? Would some aspirant colonizer chance upon this land, a thousand years hence? Would they dredge the marrow out from its cavernous ribs, opening tunnels a kingdom's width in size, the white curve of bone overhead so huge and so high that it served an adequate substitute for the sky?
For all its tempestuous rage, the beast had been surprisingly easy to slay, Hunger's plan proceeding smoothly apace. Using the same technique he'd employed against the Rotbeast, he'd crippled the monster in a brief initial exchange, then slowly dismantled it over the course of hours.
Little else lived out here, all slain by the kinetic force of the Fish's thrashings, the apocalyptic storm of its death-throes. Hunger could sympathize with its desperation, the unflinching grasp on life which resolved to weather any eventuality, so long as it could survive. Without such a mindset he would have fallen to the Tyrant many times.
He blinked. It had been a while since he'd thought of the Tyrant, or that man's depredations. A consequence of his discarded memories, or was he himself moving past the shadow of that enemy, a year departed and a lifetime away? And if so, was that something he even desired?
Of course it was foolishness to allow oneself to be defined by one's foes, yet the campaign against the Tyrant had forged so much of who he was... in many ways it was the foundation upon which all his further developments had been made, and perhaps it ought not surprise him that a foundation steadily built-over would become more difficult to perceive.
Time enough later to dwell. He stepped forth and strode across the waves, speed of his forward progress crafting a carrier-pocket of pure velocity that skimmed the waters without plunging beneath. What sparse islands dotted this part of the Realm were long buried beneath the Armament-Fish's movements, and it was many long seconds before he finally reached the landmass where Gisena awaited him.
She had moved safely inland, reclining upon a mountain peak whose grasses were stippled with snow, above which a rainbow aurora fluxed and blazed as if in rivalry to the sun.
"Any interesting magics?" He asked as he slowed, arriving at a modest pace so as not to blast away the mountainside. He had still not fully exerted control over his portion of the Forebear's might.
"Nothing that would interest Lord Hunger, the great and powerful," Gisena said perkily, springing to her feet. "It's an interesting supernatural phenomenon, but nothing we can use."
"That's King Hunger to you," he said sternly, turning to survey the lands beneath. He'd done what he could to alleviate the collateral damage, but the devastation was still immense. Large swathes of former shoreline had been all-but erased, dragged beneath the waves with silt streaming like tears. Entire ecologies lay broken or transformed even in the receding wake of the tide. Rivers had ruptured their banks, become impromptu estuaries, while wide hills and mountains now served as tiny islets in a sea of debris. Entire forests had been ripped free of the soil, trees like spilled matchsticks strewn across the sea-poisoned earth.
"It's bad," Gisena said lightly, tugging on his arm, "But the Fish caused much worse than this every day! Don't go moping that you 'have to get stronger' after all your recent power-ups!"
"I do have to get stronger," Hunger replied unambiguously. "The Apocryphal Curse never truly relents. Besides, weren't you just saying that you'll have to work harder than ever to keep up?"
"It's hardly fair!" Gisena smiled. "You've got your power of Progression and all that. Cheating isn't something to be encouraged."
"So being a genius doesn't count as enough of a cheat. Has the mighty Princess Allria finally met her match?"
"Hmm, is that a challenge? You just might end up ruing the day, mister Hero." Affectionately she poked him in the cheek.
"Hmph. You couldn't even kill the Hero of your world, what makes you think you're qualified to take on mine?"
Gisena pouted. "How cruel! I'll just have to see that you get your just desserts."
Tapping the Forebear's reserves and assimilating the Opalescent Tower had finally left him mightier than even his prior self, and not just by a modest sum. He and the Tyrant had vied for the fate of just one world, a single planet warred-over for a decade. Now he had slain a living continent in the span of an afternoon. And the beast had been no unresisting slab, but a monstrosity whose force and speed served to propel its immensity at truly threatening speeds. Why it had housed the Blue Swordsman was something of an enigma, but Hunger had been too heavily occupied to investigate the matter before the man was slain.
Still, that was one thing fewer to worry about in the grand scheme.
He pondered the likely shape of the future. They ought depart for the Human Sphere soon - the ostensible purpose of their journey had been to gather strength in preparation for Ber, and now that the man had been (somewhat underwhelmingly) dealt with, there was no true reason to stay. As soon as the Lord Protector was destroyed and Nilfel stabilized, they would go.
They spent the remainder of the time performing what humanitarian rescues they could - few had survived in the tidal zone, but farther inland the damage was merely catastrophic, and there were a few opportunities to heal or extract the wounded. He could not yet turn the enormity of his full Rank towards such a purpose, but even the sliver he did release was more than sufficient for most purposes. In the end they could save only a meagre fraction of those the Fish had claimed, but he contended himself with the knowledge that its rampage had been halted indefinitely.
Night came, and they departed back to Nilfel. Again wielding the power of the Cloak, the trip was a simple one, swift and uncomplicated.
They arrived to a camp in chaos, soldiers routing in confusion as columns of spellfire hammered the Legion from the sky. Around them the land was scarred and despoiled, the corpse-ridden earth drenched with blood, soil a sickly green. Above wheeled horrid shrieking monsters, their feathered wings rippling the Astral currents, disgorging plumes of white-violet flame as they wheeled and strafed and dove. The air was thick with ash and the stink of viscera; the blood-wine sunset lent a murderous pallor to the battle. It was clear they were losing badly.
Hunger unfurled his Pressure immediately, repelling the brunt of that aggression, and Aeira rushed quickly to his side, accompanied by a contingent of shieldbearers surrounding Adorie. As his Rank was fully asserted the battle around them stilled, a rapidly-expanding bubble of quiet which smothered all opposition. The beasts above croaked and plummeted, blood boiling from their veins, as the barrage of spellfire struck his aura and was repulsed. What embers of resistance still remained soon guttered, flattened beneath the leaden wall of his Pressure.
"What's going on?" He shouted, as Gisena fired a lance of Nullity upwards to intercept an errant attack-spell.
"The Lord Protector has declared our actions to be high treason," Adorie said hurriedly, her face pale and pinched. "We had expected as much, but didn't think he would marshal his forces with such speed! Many of the lords who would have been our supporters have been cut down by assassins or forcibly detained. The others are besieged in their own estates. He's used some form of spatial rift to gate in the Expeditionary Legions from abroad, his most loyal core of support. And your friend-"
"Verschlengorge was kidnapped!" Aeira blurted. "Letrizia is all right, harmed but not terribly. Aobaru is with her. It was all my responsibility, my cloak was not good enough..."
"Nonsense," Hunger said. "You've been growing in skill at a superlative rate. No one could expect more. Now tell me what needs to die."
Adorie pointed outwards, to the west. "The Lord Protector has set up a forward base protected by the Fifth, Tenth and Thirteenth Legions... Um, it may be too much to ask, but could you spare the lives of the soldiers as much as possible? They are not truly corrupted, only misled, and they are my subjects still!"
"We'll see," Hunger said noncommittally. "What's the situation with Versch?"
"The Lord Protector stole him," Adorie said. "We believe it was sorcery operating off of a twisted principle of equivalent exchange, enhanced by the power of his Patron Spirit. Because you absorbed the Tower, he was able to somehow lay claim. Letrizia was left behind when his magics abducted it. She fell but her Pressure mostly protected her. She's recuperating in the field hospital now."
"To separate an Armament from its pilot through the defenses of totality, even if diminished..." Gisena mused. "That's very formidable magic."
"Are they using Versch against us?" Hunger could still feel his bond with the Armament, though it was stifled and weak.
Adorie shook her head. "Not that we can tell. But we don't know his location, either. If the Lord Protector attempts to use him as a hostage, we have little recourse."
An Armament, even injured, wasn't easy to kill, but if the Protector was capable of abducting one right out from under its pilot, Hunger couldn't rule out the possibility. He frowned. His power was superior, at least in a direct contest, but which target to prioritize first? Rescuing Verschlengorge was critical, but the Lord Protector had already demonstrated how dangerous he could be, if given time.
---
The winner was [X] Fisher King by a slim margin! Omake power very nearly carried the day, if not for a last minute surge in votes for King...
Man, the Lord Protector keeps rolling hot! And unfortunately Adorie's forces rolled very poorly indeed. One of the risks of concentrating so much power into a single vessel. Still, now that Hunger is here he can salvage the situation, right? I wonder what Hunger should do now...
If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider subscribing on Patreon! Subscribers receive lots of patron-exclusive content, including early updates, timed exclusives, Discord roles, and bonus chapters. A huge thanks to existing subscribers, the amount of support has been breathtaking! Even more content is coming to Patrons soon!
If you'd like to discuss the quest in real-time or just chat with the questers, you're welcome to join us on the AST Discord! We encourage substantive posts still to be made in the thread, and shitposting within the Discord.