Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
The tin-pot sorceress?
Letrizia was, by experience, an combatant first and a duchess second
Even bereft of Augustine's runes or Hunger's raw power, Nilfel was by its Legions alone the sole hegemon of the Realm of Myth - at least so long as Augustine's mother still slept.
At times like these, it was all he could do to channel the all-defeating stance of the Forebear and embody stillness, grateful that the energies which it harnessed fortified not only his body but his spirit and mind. It was the master of Ruin, so much so that Ruin could safely infuse his form, eradicating flaws and imperfections on a modest but comprehensive scale. It was a swifter and more concrete power than Rank, and the form of the stance itself implicitly conveyed to all who beheld him the sheer might embodied by its vessel.
The Blade was the Forebear's instrument, and perfected towards that purpose: with it physically present he needed only to align his internal energies, body free to take any action it pleased. The process was difficult but somewhat self-maintaining, Ruin itself destroying the pathways of causality by which carelessness or inattention could disrupt its alignment.
One more power in a litany of powers. He stared down at the Ring on his finger. In less than two months he'd grown far beyond the Tyrant's might, if not the Tyrant's prowess. There was little question in his mind that he would convincingly prevail against even that foe in the majority of circumstances. With a few days' spare effort he could wield the Ring of Blood with effect against the cursed wounds that troubled him, enacting with brute force what he lacked the skill to unweave. And yet like the Forebear his powers were unbalanced, focused almost-unceasingly on combat or wide-scale devastation, utility emergent but mostly incidental to the true purpose of war.
"Verschlengorge is as close to fully-healed as he has been. I think he really likes the new weapons and armor we've installed. I've been thinking of asking Miss Gisena to take a look at him as well. According to her, the Foremost used magics similar to the Graces of her Maiden. Maybe she could fix him with the Ring of Artifice!"
Rihaku said:"That's right," The presumptive queen said, slamming tome on to desk with a satisfying thud. "I spent all morning looking through my library and finally found these! If your Cloak of Sky does wield sorceries incipient to the Realm of Myth, you should be able to find reference materials in here."
...
"The Sigils of the Arcanist are an expression of Form, by which energies Arcane are bent to her purpose. Hers is magic as Science, the technical manipulation of symbols with control over underlying reality, expressed ideally through the medium of appropriate energies but imperfectly through runes of air, stone, ice, steel, or flame. It is nothing more or less than a Language of marvelous intricacy and surpassing access, and any with the Arcanist's Knowledge could in theory wield her Science, though comprehension of her runes is beyond the Logic of our plainer minds..."
Rihaku said:'...the Sorcery of the Well is an altogether different phenomenon, not science but Art: Will rather than Mind, Spirit rather than Reason directing the purpose of the magic, and it is the substance of the Well itself which is the essential component, that which responds to the workings of the Will and instantiates the sorcerer's implicit design. Our Art is not so precise, but of grandeur and spontaneity unmatched, not mere Iron to her Bronze but Water to her Stone, and it is not the tide that falters eventually in that contest..."
"Our modern techniques are nowhere near either the Arcanist's runes or the fabled Well Sorcery," Adorie said, "But just as Princess Gisena has theorized she may embody the former, though through a lens of her personalized design, I feel your Cloak of Sky may embody something like the latter. Perhaps something more ephemeral still, Air to its Water, but following the natural progression within! Or maybe the Waters of the Well came first from the rains which are contained within the full expanse of the Sky? Such wondrous possibilities!"
"The description of Well Sorcery does seem to match my own experience," Hunger replied. "I needed to travel to my Decimation target and developed teleportation. I needed information on the Lord Protector and summoned an Astral Entity that could provide it. But wells run dry, and the inherent potential of the Cloak to respond to my arbitrary demands has a while to go before it recharges. Nor does it have the power to do anything I desire, it's still constrained by its mysterious reserves. It could transport me across the Voyaging Realm, but only once a day. It could summon a being specialized in divination, but only one whose overall strength was much weaker than my own."
"Hm..." Adorie frowned. "By what means is the Cloak's potential recharged? Only the passing of time, or are there other ways? "
"I assume the Well of which this text speaks has already long run dry," Hunger said. "If not, that sounds like the first place to look."
Adorie nodded. "The times when we had a physical Well to call upon are mythical even to us. The power of House Mirellyian is merely to preserve the workings of that sorcery against future degradation, though it's not clear to us which are the results of Well Sorcery, versus the spells of the Arcanist. We've lost so much..."
"A well of myth, whose waters respond to the will, and do whatever you need..." Letrizia said thoughtfully. "A wishing well?"
"Good thinking," Hunger raised his head. "The Wishing Well, perhaps, since this is the Land of Myth. Maybe we need to look at the lore of old Earth for inspiration as well."
Adorie blinked, innocently tilting her had in confusion, while Letrizia preened.
"Let's try it!" The duchess said excitedly. "I know lots of Old Terran lore, like the archetypical cliche of cross-dressing swordswomen. How do you charge a wishing well? By throwing physical currency within, usually in the form of coins! Let's see if your Cloak can absorb any of the platinum we've got stored in Versch!"
Research continued apace.
The winner was [X] Consolidate Power, [X] Regency and [X] Intensive Research. You have unlocked the 4th-5th Signs of the Empyrean and gained 1 Cursebearer's Strain. The means by which these Signs were unlocked shall remain classified.
[ ] Liberation - Bring these benighted peoples the glorious freedom of Nilfellian citizenship by liberating them from their current unenlightened governments. Nilfel will only conquer the areas surrounding the mines, and will not make use of reaver-squads or forced conscription of subject populaces. Compared to Augustine's wars, this is downright beneficent, and the Nilfellians do enjoy a generally higher standard of living than the Mountain-Holds.
[ ] Territorial Commission - Sell back the lands Augustine conquered to their original nations in exchange for their platinum reserves. Will be deeply unpopular among many of the powerful Nilfellian constituencies, somewhat reversing the political effects of your previous Consolidate Power action.
[ ] Reformation - Abandon platinum-backed currency entirely (despite its magical protections against strong inflationary/deflationary shocks and concept-level maintenance of a prosperous economy) in favor of a state-issued fiat currency. With proper management, could in theory approach the pro-social efficiencies attained by the previous system, but this is unlikely.
[ ] Synthesis - Attempt to generate a solution via magical means. Very difficult.
*Consumes research time & priorities
*If successful, resolves the matter fairly easily
*Responsive to tactics
*Unlikely to work on the first few tries; myth-infused platinum could not be manufactured in any relevant quantities even by Augustine at the height of her power
[ ] Fourth Sign: Skywards Claim [Vast Empyrean] - To they who aimed always heavenwards, make right their claim.
Casting time: Fifteen minutes
Duration: Indefinite or until dispelled
Cooldown: Fifteen minutes after dispellation
The caster elevates the direct physical-combat related Attributes (Might, Agility and Wits) of one character to a level roughly appropriate for the caster's Rank.
Does not work on the caster himself. Does not benefit from the military Rank bonus of Once and Future, but does stack with Vigorflame or Ring of Blood augmentation.
The uses are varied and potent. Enhance Gisena or Aobaru to staggering heights, or make Aeira relevant again in direct combat... perhaps even augment Adorie to create a potent military force ex nihilo! Could also serve as a half-measure for keeping Aobaru in the Voyaging Realm - Skywards Claim + Undying Vanguard means that the space of opponents capable of slaying him becomes much narrower.
[ ] Fourth Sign: Deathly Star [Evening Sky] - 'Such force as to reduce entire worlds to ash, a pantheon-slaying strike of truly foremost malice.'
Casting time: Five heartbeats
Duration: Instant
Cooldown: Until Next Evening
The obverse reflection of Augustine's supreme offense, absorbed and now reflected by the Cloak of Sky. This is an onslaught of sheer destroying force that strikes across every level of the physical and conceptual gradient, targeting Health as well as the target's Attributes, both fundamental and emergent. Virtually no defense short of perfection absolute can shield against all the vectors by which this strikes. Cancel the apocalypse by marshaling power greater still.
Naturally, though imperfectly, scales with the caster's Rank. An attack that will almost never be irrelevant by virtue of its immense destructiveness, stellar precision and comprehensive scale. Theoretically useful even against Armaments in a direct contest.
[ ] Fourth Sign: Veil of Grandeur [Noonday Sky] - Like the sun swallowed by clouds, his light is no blinding glare but a simple radiance suffusing; revelation without anguish, illumination without searing heat.
Casting time: Five minutes
Duration: Indefinite or until dispelled
Cooldown: None
Knowledge of this spell grants +++++Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and Appearance.
The recipients of this spell may make full use of their superhuman power-type Attributes, even if unbalanced, without the negatives consequences typical of such (insufficient durability, collateral damage, addiction, values warping, sensory burnout, etc). Each casting affects one recipient, but this spell may be maintained on up to one billion recipients at once.
Frees up some of Gisena's research time. Also you can be smug at her for having discovered a flawless solution to one of her research topics well before she did.
We didn't get to the point where most of our power is combat-related because we did it for the lulz, we did it to survive. Ultimately, getting pure power and then branching out into utility seems to be vastly superior choice. Besides, we just saw power of Rank leveraged to non-combat tasks, and Hunger already has buffing/healing powers and teleport and summoning and social powers and Pillars etc. It's unfair to say that we are just a brick.Hunger: Complains that his power is all combat-related and hopes to receive utility from the Signs
Thread: Votes for the Sign with the least non-combat utility
Yeah, I'm comfortable leaving this stuff to future Hunger; it's gonna be something much easier to solve then.
Adorie's feelings about this decision point don't seem to be intense enough to generate a +/- relationship shift. I don't think that you can pitch this as "overriding" her decisions, because she hasn't made one yet.The more I think about it the more trivial solving the money problem becomes. So what if we lose out on an extra couple legions? Just research another couple signs or Praxis, we'll have utterly triviliazed the legions in a couple months anyways. So what if they're a tiny bit poorer? We'll probably pick up the Sword in the Stone power in a couple months and utterly transform their society. Or we'll turn them all into Fairbrights. Or maybe fixing the entire Voyaging realm with Aobaru will restore their Well, among other things, just as a trivial side effect.
We appointed Adorie to rule this place. So let her rule it, without us coming in and overriding all her decisions. Becoming a bigger and better Lord Protector doesn't just go against Hunger's characterization, it's pointless. We'd be subjugating a bunch of innocents and abandoning our morals for trivial levels of power and prestige. It's not worth it.
Reform also does not solve the problem of paying Aobaru and Aeira. They can't feed their families with fiat currency from a far away monarchy!
This seems like a pretty clear cut solution to the problem, with exception to some concerns about nepotism and perception. Alternatively, they're also probably the 2nd and 3rd most powerful Surgecrafters to exist, so maybe I'm overblowing things.I mean, Hunger is the absolute ruler of the place where their family lives. Can't we just make these two Agents of the Throne and include a stipend from our taxbase that involves giving their families a rather cushy lifestyle along with their pay?
Yes, good point. We absolutely can solve the problem of paying our teenagers. A solution exists, but is it a mythic solution?I mean, Hunger is the absolute ruler of the place where their family lives. Can't we just make these two Agents of the Throne and include a stipend from our taxbase that involves giving their families a rather cushy lifestyle along with their pay?
Que? Are we reading the same quest? Because in my version of AST last two fights were all about managing Thorn as our most relevant combat tool. Not Quickening, not Crimson Flare, not Outer Shadow, but Thorn, as it was the thing which allowed us to actually defeat our foes.