Adorie bowed. "I apologize for relying so heavily upon you, Hunger. I'm usually a bit more useful than this!


Your whole life has been either as a small child or cooped up in a tower away from everyone else. When exactly did you have an opportunity to be useful? During the brief span of time when your kingdom was being taken over by an eight year old?
 
Grand Central
(Previous)
The deliveryman helps me lift the crate out the door, then I find the handle and trolley it along behind me. He's professional enough to wait until I get inside to drive off, at least - I wouldn't want to be walking this across town if this turns out to be the wrong address.

The big doors open with a beep, and it turns out this is the right place. It's sort of obvious from the fact that the whole station appears to have been converted into a workshop/factory/junglegym. Lots of tools-on-rails here, autojigs and other things, and it looks like they sort neatly onto the walls. It's all fairly clean, which is nice.
Oh, and some of those tools are actually guns tracking me. Okay then. Hands up, call out to check if anyone's home, see if I can start infusing my body with Devildoor without too many side effec- nope, even if it does work like that this is not the time to risk it. I'll just try and be ready if they go hostile, then.

...Through the other end of the building, I can see the train. Shiny and black, wide as a house, taller than a schoolbus. Which is actually shorter than the trains back home, but looks much more stable. Its' armor is covered by a web of golden triangles, and it looks like it... well, I'm not rightly sure how tough it is, but I guess it won't matter against the Siberian. It's beautiful.

I still haven't heard any alarms or warnings. I'm starting to think those guns just track people automatically. I lower my hands, and two of them follow. Yeah, probably. Regardless, I'm going back outside and buffing up.

Van's gone. There's a wall between me and the visible weapons. Try infusing my left arm only - oh wow that's awful. Like an oil burn and being kicked in the crotch. But it is blessedly brief, and when it's over my arm looks honestly pretty vicious. The hair on it looks like razorwire, and it moves really fast - I'm pretty sure it can pull Ashitaka-style arrowcatching stunts. Hopefully it can also block bullets. A quick stab at the ground suggests the claws aren't impractical either.

This is honestly really neat. But should I do more? Pretty sure mental contamination would be bad, but so would getting shot. Which am I more worried about?

[ ] Violaceous Devil Arm
Keep one arm buffed, and be ready to pull the Element out of it on short notice. This isn't super safe physically, but is the most reliable way to avoid friendly fire or craziness. Also, it's a pretty traditional aesthetic!
...This isn't going to cut it when I meet the Nine.

[ ] Knight of Rippers
Buff all the way up to the lower jaw. Between adrenaline glands and digestive tract, I'm going to have a pretty impressive blood-hungry battle instinct. But on the other hand, I'm probably also going to be MGR Raiden tier in terms of strength and speed. I could almost certainly survive that security system even if it does activate! Provided it doesn't manage an immediate headshot.
-[ ] The Ripper King - Infuse the rest of my head, trying to avoid my brain. Unknown effects. Probably less dangerous than trying this in a combat situation.

[ ] Hands Down

Defuse fully, in the hope that it's an advantage for negotiation. It's... probably not relevantly less safe than Devil Arm?

---

Last vote was unanimously in favor of Power Now, but only got three participants. I wonder what this one will look like?
 
[X] Glimpse

Yeah, not feeling Shelter. Best not give an uncontestable favor over to some Astral creature. Don't bargain away your future just cause there is a pressing concern in the present. And one day spent protecting our companions now might well result one day exploited to endanger our companions in the future.

Let's just not.
 
I'm not too concerned about the possibility of getting shot here, he does have an invitation.
...It's asking for any kind of assistance with hunting the Slaughterhouse Nine, who the sender is sure will attack him soon, and signed by Nonstop.
Maybe displaying it would be useful, thinking about it.

If anything, I'd be more worried about Nonstop going "he turned into a demon, so anyway, I started blasting." Even if it's just the arm, making Hands Down/Defuse Fully seem like the best plan... eh, Horatio needs the practice, so the risk is worth it. And the guns aren't my worry, but surprise Mannequin could be, so playing with magic a bit while waiting seems fair. Start slow with devil magic, though. And keep an eye on that arm, don't want it moving on its own.

[D] Violaceous Devil Arm
 
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I'm not too concerned about the possibility of getting shot here, he does have an invitation.

Maybe displaying it would be useful, thinking about it.

If anything, I'd be more worried about Nonstop going "he turned into a demon, so anyway, I started blasting." Even if it's just the arm, making Hands Down/Defuse Fully seem like the best plan... eh, Horatio needs the practice, so the risk is worth it. And the guns aren't my worry, but surprise Mannequin could be, so playing with magic a bit while waiting seems fair. Start slow with devil magic, though. And keep an eye on that arm, don't want it moving on its own.

[D] Violaceous Devil Arm
I agree we have to start somewhere, and full body morphing is probably not where we want to begin.

Fully powering down might be correct, but I think we need to get the experience. We can always just say 'powers are weird' and shrug if he asks why we are wearing satans arm.
[D] Violaceous Devil Arm
 
Tbf, Letrz's relationship +pluses are... Well, that advancement they unlock is literally best purchased as late as possible.
I'm not sure about that. I think it might be a scaling bonus, like Silver of Evening?
Anyways the only one who will be laughing in the end is me when I'm proved right about everything.
I would laugh with you...
Yeah, it's been hinted at ever since we discovered that the Foremost used findross that Gisena being offered as a companion wasn't a coincidence. The Accursed works in mysterious ways, and the Arcanist's apparent resemblance to her is another piece of the puzzle. It's pretty threadbare at this point, but the Foremost could be an AU future version of the Manifest Realm, where the three races came together to form a coalition.
I'm making a lot of connections all of a sudden, and I think you're right.
Okay, so. Here are some things we know:
*Foremost tech has a one-in-three chance to activate for humans.
*There's a Foremost type called the Builders, who the Arcanist appears to have been part of. In AST, the Humans were the Findross-positive race.
*Augustine is a 'shadow of a shadow'. Gisena was, while a Sorceress, 'under the Maiden's shadow'.
*As you also noted, She Who Was The Maiden follows the same naming scheme as She Who Was The Arcanist.
*Augustine is so powerful because she's resisting the existential diminishment that would be natural to her otherwise.
*Graces can be pretty complicated, going by Evoker's Panoply. Also, Findross infusion wasn't Grace-dependant.

I think Augustine is a Sorceress of The Arcanist.
 
I don't care what the fuck happened to her, every mass murdering imperialist tinpot dictator has a sob story, she's created stuff called reaving squads that have literally genocided billions. Fuck her, if people want her magic so bad, lets just take it from her corpse.
Good, good. Let the SALT flow through you. First comes the bloodlust, after that comes the pimping out our chosen one to evil teenagers and after that comes the 4Bear.
Y'know, now that your magic system fetish has become a topic yet again, I have to put you on blast.

I basically gave you 5 vote markers as a meme, but you've disappointed me extremely; doing nothing but gawk at "mage" options that fit your extremely arbitrary definition of "magical" and complain about how Hunger isn't "mage-y" enough and that's boring. It's a waste. I actually regret giving those votes out because they resulted in nothing, and the fact that was I able to vote against "mage-options" several times is proof of that enough.
Mister ImperatorV, how do you respond to the allegation that after Zampano took over the MAEG gang, he was way more succesful in 2 updates and managed to get additional magic system?
Way ahead of you Brain. ImperatorV has been a double agent of the SORD Gang for the whole time. Why do you think our only magic for a long time was a STAT boosting one? The articles in New AST Times was just to stop you from realizing it. The truth is, the quest was rigged from the start.

[X] Shelter

Edit: There will be a special VoyagingNews issue for the evil brat.
 
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Cheap?! Retaining the janissary costs enough to drain Nilfel's coffers! Though I suppose services are priced based on demand, and it's not like the party's paying for this directly. What it's going to do with all that platinum's another question. Is it a commodity in the Astral or something?
It might not be especially valuable in the Astral, but it is apparently valuable here, that's almost as good! Especially since the janissary probably gets around. That still leaves a question, though, What's the deal with platinum being used as a currency? You'd think some platinum-conjuring wizard would have crashed the market by now. Does it have special use as a spell reagent that keeps the value steady?
 
Way ahead of you Brain. ImperatorV has been a double agent of the SORD Gang for the whole time.

Oh, give it a rest. I admit I screwed up with not initially supporting Opalescent Tower, because somehow my brain failed to process how Signs were literally what I was looking for the entire time, but other then that I've consistently supported the more mage-like choices. And I don't need to prove the validity of my own gimmick to ya'll! Are we gatekeeping declared voting preferences in a quest now?

Also, while I'll be the first to admit other people, especially Zampano and Conjured Blade, have contributed more to the Maeg Gang overall, it kinda hurts for people to forget how I fought for Gardener's Hallow (and later Mage Lord), Inheritor:Librarian, and Silver of Evening (back when even getting Silver was uncertain), or how I went into deep vote dept for the sake of Supreme Enclosure. Or just the fact that my constant presence and pontification about magic has kept the idea of mage options in the center of the thread's consciousness, which may have contributed to such options appearing and being considered.

If my whole thing is getting old for people though, that's understandable. I've been kinda harping on the same points since... The friggen Winnowing Garden. Perhaps I should see about being more versatile in my posting...
 
[D] Violaceous Devil Arm

Better to acclimate now than in the middle of a fight. This isn't enough for the Nine, but in the event that Nonstop is trigger-happy it's best not to hulk out with no warning.
It might not be especially valuable in the Astral, but it is apparently valuable here, that's almost as good! Especially since the janissary probably gets around. That still leaves a question, though, What's the deal with platinum being used as a currency? You'd think some platinum-conjuring wizard would have crashed the market by now. Does it have special use as a spell reagent that keeps the value steady?
If an Astral entity's accepting meatspace currency that implies it's got regular access to reality, which is interesting in its own right. Sovereign class creatures can barely exist here without help, and the things we're calling up aren't much weaker. Maybe Nilfel's got enough magic for repeat customers? Anywhere else I'd dismiss the notion out of hand, but with Eruntael-tier archmages out there it could be possible. Still leaves the question of why platinum's valuable and how they're not one enterprising alchemist away from prices tanking.
 
It's awful that we lost a re-roll, but given how the Lord Protector operates I'm certain that summoning help is going to provide the least amount of pain in the long run.

 
[X] Arete
I don't mind Glimpse or Might, but I think the marginal added Arete from this is more useful than the marginal increase in probability of a good plan winning? I would, however, be willing to sell my vote here.
Cheap?! Retaining the janissary costs enough to drain Nilfel's coffers! Though I suppose services are priced based on demand, and it's not like the party's paying for this directly. What it's going to do with all that platinum's another question. Is it a commodity in the Astral or something?
I think it costs enough to temporarily impoverish Adorie, not Nilfel in general.
 
[X] Shelter

I would really rather prefer Verschlengorge doesn't die.

[D] Violaceous Devil Arm
 
Money is just a bunch of shiny metals in the end; I wouldn't worry overly much about not having it. My problem with Might is that it really doesn't do what we need since we have plenty of power on our own already. While certainly this vote so far is tinged with regret about the road not taken, it doesn't change the fact we ultimately did make a deal with Adorie to oppose the Lord Protector. While I'm sure Glimpse would give us plenty of family drama once we reveal what we learned to Adorie, there's something to be said about just taking the most effective route to victory, given we need to depose her anyway. I don't actually see the necessity of Hunger learning her backstory to win the conflict here, especially since the only thing that stops her from just directly attacking her has an available solution right on offer.

There's no need for complicated strategems or to make Hunger sympathize with Augustine's sob story. Let's just win this confrontation and move on. Worries about the Shard of the Arcanist can be valid, but given how quickly our power has scaled the best assurance we can have against her is just time, something a quick resolution here certainly gives plenty of. As the whole Ber anti-climax showed, postponing problems into the future is actually a perfectly valid strategy for a Progression-type Cursebearer. Time is in fact our greatest asset usually; so even if Shelter requires us to take a commitment into the future, in that future we will be exponentially more powerful and better able to handle the threats that are sent our way, or in this case any obligations we need to fulfill. The opportunity cost is actually in our favor here, since protecting Versch is very much not a trivial thing. In fact, one might say it's exactly what we need.

We were already forced to spend a re-roll to save Versch. Do we want to keep trying the odds? The quickest resolution possible is the best one for us simply in terms of resources expended. If we protect Versch, the Lord Protector loses the only leverage she has against us right now, giving us the perfect opportunity to win here. And as I said, we want to win as quickly as possible lest we keep bleeding resources.

For the most safety and effectiveness rolled into one, I seriously recommend choosing Shelter. It's what we need to win, so it should behoove us to take it. What other arguement is really necessary, in the end?
 
She would delay, distract, obfuscate, demoralize, play dead - do whatever it took to buy time, then develop a solution to this latest challenge.

Man, if only she wasn't so evil, she seems cool. Very Baenlixnaire, complete with inclination to commit atrocities in the pursuit of or upon achieving vengeance. I can certainly respect the cunning and will necessary to overthrow a government (wow, what a good apprentice she'd make! or maybe a teacher, sounds like Hunger could learn a lot on Tyranny from her) in pursuit of vengeance, even if hers is somewhat more direct than ours.
 
Man, if only she wasn't so evil, she seems cool. Very Baenlixnaire, complete with inclination to commit atrocities in the pursuit of or upon achieving vengeance. I can certainly respect the cunning and will necessary to overthrow a government (wow, what a good apprentice she'd make! or maybe a teacher, sounds like Hunger could learn a lot on Tyranny from her) in pursuit of vengeance, even if hers is somewhat more direct than ours.
Man, is there a more blatant attempt to sway voting than comparing her to Baenlixnaire?
 
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