Remove ads

A Simple Transaction I

Reader mode
Elero said:
Have we ever actually been offered a vote option for downtime of more than a handful of days, tho? I've wanted to rest and work on graces for a while now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Nah. We're still on Letrizia's payroll, remember? While she's willing to deal with detours for necessary power and Decimator Mitigation, her patience isn't infinite and Hunger is already a sorta mediocre bodyguard for his level of strength.

That said, we'll likely get extended downtime or even outright timeskips either with Pillars or once we finally make it to the Human Sphere.
 
I wonder if we used the Silver of Evening effect before getting hit with the Soul Severing attack. Or maybe the Soul Severing attack was an AOE spell and therefore Silver of Evening wouldn't have qualified?

Either way, this seems like the exact kind of death-spell that the Defensive Empyrean Sign was intended to block. I wonder how quickly Adorie will be able to rustle up some new Signs

It seems likely that the thread will not be down for a side-trip to the Walls of Myth. (That's why I fought to take the detour at the start of the Nilfel arc). Adorie's research might be the only way to extract additional value from Nilfel.
 
Zampano said:
I wonder if we used the Silver of Evening effect before getting hit with the Soul Severing attack. Or maybe the Soul Severing attack was an AOE spell and therefore Silver of Evening wouldn't have qualified?

Either way, this seems like the exact kind of death-spell that the Defensive Empyrean Sign was intended to block. I wonder how quickly Adorie will be able to rustle up some new Signs
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Rihaku said:
Augustine marshaled such force as to reduce entire worlds to ash, a pantheon-slaying strike of truly foremost malice.

Hunger's cloak shivered, shining with the silver of evening, and dissipated the blow at the cost of its corpus.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I was wondering that too but then I noticed this. It seemed like Augustine's biggest move was going to be to hit us with a planetbuster+ shot with a shitload of esoteric power behind it. Presumably, that would have been her trump card if the Apocryphal hadn't intervened.
 
Alright, I'm somewhat of a fan of having clearly defined goals, so lets talk ISH. According to Rihaku, we were at 1.4-1.6 on ISH with our stats as we were back in Rotbeast arc. Lets assuming, for the sake of argument, that we are currently at exactly 1.6, 1.7 with Aobaru's buffs. Now, our goal should be to get our stats to 2.0 ISH - not only because this would give us qualitative difference in stats, but because Quickening and Cut Through would give us speed and damage at ISH 3.0 - a pretty gigantic leap of power. With 2.0 Con and Prot and 3.0 Agi and Str(when using blade), we should be more than capable of matching Armaments in close combat.

One thing to note, however, is that Quickening doesn't just stack with everything, as we saw with that Sign spell. So we need to find agi buffs that stack with Quickening.
 
Zampano said:
I wonder if we used the Silver of Evening effect before getting hit with the Soul Severing attack. Or maybe the Soul Severing attack was an AOE spell and therefore Silver of Evening wouldn't have qualified?

Either way, this seems like the exact kind of death-spell that the Defensive Empyrean Sign was intended to block. I wonder how quickly Adorie will be able to rustle up some new Signs

It seems likely that the thread will not be down for a side-trip to the Walls of Myth. (That's why I fought to take the detour at the start of the Nilfel arc). Adorie's research might be the only way to extract additional value from Nilfel.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It looked to me like it was used on the spell immediately preceding that attack.

Rihaku said:
She was maimed horribly, but now came her retaliation, a blast of transcendental magic from runes freshly - and brutally - carved into her own flesh, raggedly infused with blood and marrow. Augustine marshaled such force as to reduce entire worlds to ash, a pantheon-slaying strike of truly foremost malice.

Hunger's cloak shivered, shining with the silver of evening, and dissipated the blow at the cost of its corpus.

Again Hunger channeled the Praxis, but now was interrupted by feedback as Augustine unveiled the set of runes around her: sigils of truncation in a circle of cold iron that severed the Astral itself from the material plane.

Hunger fell to one knee, Ring-hand clutching his head as his soul fought to retain connection to his body
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

As far as visiting the walls of myth, I wouldn't vote for it if it was in contention with relaxing, but if it came down to that or just blasting off to the human sphere I'd be interested.
 
Hirorubie said:
I wouldn't vote for it if it was in contention with relaxing, but if it came down to that or just blasting off to the human sphere I'd be interested.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Would you chase the Shard of the Arcanist after relaxing? Given that we've already pointed our trajectory towards the HS, we will need to learn about Voyaging Realm infrastructure to pull off this Mage extraction...
 
Wolfy said:
Alright, I'm somewhat of a fan of having clearly defined goals, so lets talk ISH. According to Rihaku, we were at 1.4-1.6 on ISH with our stats as we were back in Rotbeast arc. Lets assuming, for the sake of argument, that we are currently at exactly 1.6, 1.7 with Aobaru's buffs. Now, our goal should be to get our stats to 2.0 ISH - not only because this would give us qualitative difference in stats, but because Quickening and Cut Through would give us speed and damage at ISH 3.0 - a pretty gigantic leap of power. With 2.0 Con and Prot and 3.0 Agi and Str(when using blade), we should be more than capable of matching Armaments in close combat.

One thing to note, however, is that Quickening doesn't just stack with everything, as we saw with that Sign spell. So we need to find agi buffs that stack with Quickening.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
As someone who doesn't exactly get the ISH, are stats only relevant until we hit 2.0~ then we begin to need ISH specific advancements? Or is the ISH a measurement of stats.
 
Hirorubie said:
As someone who doesn't exactly get the ISH, are stats only relevant until we hit 2.0~ then we begin to need ISH specific advancements? Or is the ISH a measurement of stats.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
ISH represents "level" at which you are playing. 1 is normal stats, 2 is conceptual stats, 3 is perfect stats etc.

ISH improvements act as hyperexponential modifier on our existing stats. Likewise, getting to the next level makes stats qualitatively better than they are. As such you want to a) have as much +ish as you can get and b) make sure that your stats are in higher level.
 
Zampano said:
Would you chase the Shard of the Arcanist after relaxing? Given that we've already pointed our trajectory towards the HS, we will need to learn about Voyaging Realm infrastructure to pull off this Mage extraction...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was pretty gung-ho about tackling the shard when we could have had Augustine on our team. I was about to say now that she's gone, I don't like our chances nearly as much... but we now have a Renaissance woman on instead which has to be equal or better, IMO.

Given how difficult Augustine ended up being I would again, at first, lean towards no... but she also had an Apo-chan boost which means we should have a window of operation here without interference. I also don't think the Apocryphal likes to proc on events already likely to kill us, which this may well be.

I would say in a world of Leave for the HS, rest and relax, investigate the shard, and investigate the Walls/research...

I'd rally around anything that wasn't leave immediately with a bias for rest, but investigating the shard would be my #2.
 
Elero said:
You sure? I expect us to be thrust right into whatever plot/events was implied is going on there in Lez' absence.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sure but I expect we'll have a lot more downtime anyway. Plot is one thing but given the sheer scale of the Human Sphere, I think it'll happen at a slower pace anyway since we'll still have to move between areas of serious combat and that'll be based on the technology involved and how the strategic situation is shaking out.
 
One idea that I just had: Nilfel is magic specialized, but with a Foremost plug in. They might have the capacity to further repair Versch. Leaving the Realm of Myth unambiguously more healthy as a group than when we arrived would be really neat.
 
Zampano said:
One idea that I just had: Nilfel is magic specialized, but with a Foremost plug in. They might have the capacity to further repair Versch. Leaving the Realm of Myth unambiguously more healthy as a group than when we arrived would be really neat.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If not repairing Versch in the normal sense, I wonder if we could give Versch a makeover in the vein of Myth and fantasy. Instead of armaments in the sphere of the mechanical and technological, advancement in the sense of a medieval knight of the round.

Is it too far to make our robot a sword user as well...?

Just think how much more likely Hunger would be to hop in the cockpit if he could keep his combat style similar, perhaps an advancement to make the Tyrants blade scale to his stature, making it weldable with Versch.
 
Last edited:
Maintenance is a major drawback. Versch can't make the trek back to Nilfel every time a fuse breaks. Whatever modifications we make (or allow) need to be compatible with the HS technological base.

I'm not convinced that Hunger will ever jump into the cockpit, tbh. Armament scale weapons need to operate at solar scales: why limit yourself to a pointy stick?
 
Zampano said:
Maintenance is a major drawback. Versch can't make the trek back to Nilfel every time a fuse breaks. Whatever modifications we make (or allow) need to be compatible with the HS technological base.

I'm not convinced that Hunger will ever jump into the cockpit, tbh. Armament scale weapons need to operate at solar scales: why limit yourself to a pointy stick?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's true, I was more meming than anything else. I do think the optics are fun though.
 
Wolfy said:
ISH represents "level" at which you are playing. 1 is normal stats, 2 is conceptual stats, 3 is perfect stats etc.

ISH improvements act as hyperexponential modifier on our existing stats. Likewise, getting to the next level makes stats qualitatively better than they are. As such you want to a) have as much +ish as you can get and b) make sure that your stats are in higher level.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
One more question if I may, do we have an explanation for how we are currently at a baseline of 1.6~? I'm assuming it's just the combination of all our advancements working together to push us up, as I don't think we have anything explicitly increasing our baseline ISH.
 
An open question to the thread: what kind of advancements do you hope to get from Augustine? Pillars or some other 25 Arete is an obvious contender, while Elixir seems like an interesting alternative. Maybe some shiny 7 Arete options? I'm sure everyone has something that could distract them. I'd really like another chance at Assault Halo*, for example, especially if it stacks multiplicatively with Whiteout.

*or perhaps even... a Destroyer Halo?
 
runeblue360 said:
An open question to the thread: what kind of advancements do you hope to get from Augustine? Pillars or some other 25 Arete is an obvious contender, while Elixir seems like an interesting alternative. Maybe some shiny 7 Arete options? I'm sure everyone has something that could distract them. I'd really like another chance at Assault Halo*, for example, especially if it stacks multiplicatively with Whiteout.

*or perhaps even... a Destroyer Halo?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We've gotten a lot of advancements related to our situation at hand, and the last strike against us was a hit to our soul. Given a 7 arete advancement to safeguard that vector from attack, i'd find that difficult to discount wholesale, especially if it offered interesting lore implications, +mental stability etc.
 
All the talk about ISH has made me realize that elevating STATS to higher conceptual planes is easier, so far, than elevating Rank. A soul advancement that brings our Rank closer to the material plane, or otherwise raises the ISH level of Rank would be tough to argue against.

That or Companions of the King / Tenfold Echo for saving Versch would get my vote over a pick that simply copies Augustine's magic system.
 
Fairly likely that Augustine would give us a second bit of second trinity set we started to gather back in Elixir city.

It is prolly going to compete with some wild advancements, though.
 
The Realm of Myth civil war is not won yet. There will be thousands of people who've become extremely rich and powerful as part of the Lord Protector's regime and hundreds of millions who bought into her bullshit and propaganda. Most of the trained killers in the country take orders from members of the first group. Dealing with them politically is Adorie's problem but breaking their ability to keep fighting, send assassins and carve out their own petty kingdoms is worth a few days of the party's time.
 
Hirorubie said:
One more question if I may, do we have an explanation for how we are currently at a baseline of 1.6~? I'm assuming it's just the combination of all our advancements working together to push us up, as I don't think we have anything explicitly increasing our baseline ISH.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm not 100% sure if we are actually, though I vaguely recall something about that. I'll have to do some digging to check.
 
Is this the wrong time to say that I've got zero interest for personal advancements for Hunger that require us going down another skill tree to make use of.

I'd much sooner throw that Gisena's way to give her connect the dots ability more dots to connect with.

It's going to need to be on the level of Cut Through for me to even give it a second read.

Just give me Pillars, let us have some comf after all this harrowing shit, and let Hunger slack off for once in this 2 month slog of his.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top